the shipping spheres of fandom
i originally thought that this was going to be a singular essay, but it turns out i have a lot of thoughts on the subject (who could have guessed lol), so now it's a series lol.
but anyway, as an introduction, this is pretty obviously a subject i have a lot of thoughts on. the pure heart of this series/collection is that when i first entered Fandom, i was aaaaaaaaaaaaaabsoluuuuuteeeelyyyyyyyy one of those shippers i now complain about the most: only ever considered Straight pairings, paired the spares, gave everyone at least 2.5 fankids without ever questioning Why that felt like a necessary part of a happily-ever-after, disliked (or at the very least felt pretty uncomfortable) with rival queer ships on principle… you name it!! truly, it takes one to know one with these sorts of things lol.
but, as a result of spending my fannish infancy deep in what i now consider to be the Het™ shipping sphere, it's easy for me to sympathize with their complaints about fandom. for all their drivel about shit like "heterophobia", i want to take their frustrations seriously, even if i don't always agree with them and have multiple critiques of them, because they were once my own.
anyway, introductions are difficult, so let's just jump into listing out the essays.
the shipper's triangle
i made a triangle that roughly speciates shippers by the categories of ships they get into
includes example of how to use the chart!
shipping history
i have a bit of an unusual pedigree for someone as deranged about xv as i am. considering the fact that this colors the, like, Everything about how i view and engage with fandom and shipping discourse, a discussion kind of becomes an inevitable prerequisite lol.
an overview of "any two guys" and "migratory slash fandom"
i originally thought this was going to be its own, separate essay, as my original intent with this essay collection was to focus on criticizing Het™ shippers and their habits from the perspective of someone who had once been one of them, but more recently, it has been occurring to me that there is more to this everything than meets the eye, and that to complain about the Hets™ without acknowledging that they have also observed some absolutely valid issues existing w/in m/m fandom would be a disservice.
as such, this has more or less been turned into a basic primer on one of the key concepts of these discussions: the habit of some m/m shippers to migrate between fandoms to ship their any two guys.
defining yuri
a conversation offshot from my time working on my submission to the yurizine by tshirt.