(no subject)
Apr. 20th, 2007 10:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
emony"I don't think my ship is better than yours. I don't think my ship is worse than yours. I just have a preference for that particular porn ship flavour. If you agree, repost this in your journal."
I just spotted this on my flist and, while I understand and respect the sentiment, I don't agree.
I do think my ship is better than yours. Otherwise I wouldn't ship it. I respect your right to have a different opinion, and I respect your right to ship whomever you please. I respect your right to write whatever flavour of porn butters your muffin, and I respect your right to squee wildly when your ship of choice appears on screen.
As it happens, I ship different characters to you, and therefore I clearly disagree with your feeling that the characters you ship are MFEO. I think the characters I ship are MFEO - that's why they're my OTP. But that's cool, you know? My opinions are just that - my opinions - and you're just as entitled to disagree with me as I am to disagree with you.
In the end, the opinions that are going to shape the show are those of the show's creators, producers and writers. We fans have very little input into the creative life of the show, whatever we might like to think. To borrow from the fandom that spawned the above, my Tenth Doctor/Rose fanfic o' luv is not going to persuade Russell T Davies to abandon his plans for a Tenth Doctor/Martha snogfest in episode eight of season 3, and your Tenth Doctor/Martha porno fest is not going to convince Uncle Rusty not to bring Rose back for a tragedy-tinged reunion of epic proportions in season 4.
It's our own self-importance that causes these fanwars, and our own insecurity over how our pairings are portrayed. It's not that we think we're better, it's that we think we're worse and we're scared that someone might hear us and realise it.
No one's listening.
Get over yourselves.
I just spotted this on my flist and, while I understand and respect the sentiment, I don't agree.
I do think my ship is better than yours. Otherwise I wouldn't ship it. I respect your right to have a different opinion, and I respect your right to ship whomever you please. I respect your right to write whatever flavour of porn butters your muffin, and I respect your right to squee wildly when your ship of choice appears on screen.
As it happens, I ship different characters to you, and therefore I clearly disagree with your feeling that the characters you ship are MFEO. I think the characters I ship are MFEO - that's why they're my OTP. But that's cool, you know? My opinions are just that - my opinions - and you're just as entitled to disagree with me as I am to disagree with you.
In the end, the opinions that are going to shape the show are those of the show's creators, producers and writers. We fans have very little input into the creative life of the show, whatever we might like to think. To borrow from the fandom that spawned the above, my Tenth Doctor/Rose fanfic o' luv is not going to persuade Russell T Davies to abandon his plans for a Tenth Doctor/Martha snogfest in episode eight of season 3, and your Tenth Doctor/Martha porno fest is not going to convince Uncle Rusty not to bring Rose back for a tragedy-tinged reunion of epic proportions in season 4.
It's our own self-importance that causes these fanwars, and our own insecurity over how our pairings are portrayed. It's not that we think we're better, it's that we think we're worse and we're scared that someone might hear us and realise it.
No one's listening.
Get over yourselves.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-21 11:41 am (UTC)Perhaps, along with changes in societal norms that allow producers greater freedom with slashy subtext, the massive change in the mode of fan production and its new visibility can also be credited with the changing producer/consumer relationship and, as a corollory, the changing relationship of canon to fan production.
Maybe so, but my initial point was meant to be that regardless of who I, as an individual, ship and regardless of who you, as an individual, ship in a show, TPTB are going to do what they want with the show - my shipping a different couple to you is not going to cause the producers to decide not to go witih your ship as canon. I think perhaps we got a bit sidetracked by slash, but this wasn't meant to be about recognition of slash. The initial post I made was about Doctor Who fandom and the Martha/Tenth Doctor fans vs the Rose/Tenth Doctor fans, as I understand there was a mini ship war over there.
The point I wanted to make is that, even though the producers might be aware that there are still lots of Rose/10th Doctor (god that takes so long to type out) fans still out there, my individual position as part of the online Rose/10th Doctor shipper fan presence is not going to make them change their mind about putting in some Martha/10th Doctor things to the new season, because they have much wider considerations when planning their show than just answering the calls of the online fandom. They can put those nods and those shoutouts in, but at the end of the day our impact is not as great as we sometimes think.
When I said "no one's listening", I didn't mean overall in general - they are hearing and watching the movements of the fanbase in general, I'm sure. But they're not sitting here on my LJ watching my every comment on Doctor Who, or any other show, to see exactly what I think. If they do watch us, they have an overview of where, in general, the fandom feeling lies. They're not taking an individual view of us as people. So my individual comments are not going to change the world.
Does that make any more sense? I'm not sure. It's a bit early in the .. afternoon for this sort of thinking, especially for those of us who are out of practice at it ;)
With the wedding, I'll have to take your word for it, as I still haven't seen any of season 7, 8 or 9. I quite enjoyed 10 though, so I might pick up copies at some point and get caught up.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-21 01:01 pm (UTC)And yes, sorry, I realise I went a bit OT. Blame it on the fact that my brain is stuck in that place. And now I have to make up some sort of PhD proposal! Sometimes life is so stressful. Cannot cope, of to Mordor. ;)
I see exactly what you mean and yes, of course I have to agree because you're right. I didn't realise there was a ship war. Ship wars don't make sense to me for the very reasons you have stated. Also because they just don't make sense to me. I always feel fandom should be a live and let live kind of space, but so often it's not.