Shipping Wars: What Are They Good For?

Anyone who's been reading and/or writing fanfiction long enough knows about the phenomenon of the shipping war. But for those who don't, here's a crash course. "Shipping" refers, essentially, to supporting a certain pairing. Someone who thinks Ron Weasly and Hermoine Granger should be together is said to "ship" Ron and Hermoine. From there you can probably guess what shipping wars are. The often intense and heated arguments or flame wars where fans go head to head to decide which characters should be together. Personally, I think it's a rather silly thing to argue about. That is not to say I think it's silly to support certain pairings or read/write fanfics about them. I just think the extent to which people take it is a bit drastic, and I'll tell you why.

Cannon/Non-Cannon

Often part of the shipping argument refers to what is cannon or non-cannon. I'll again go to Harry Potter examples, as I'm sure most people are at least a little familiar with them. Enough to follow what I'm saying, anyway. Ron and Hermoine end up together in the books, thus, they are considered a cannon pairing. Harry and Hermoine, for instance, would be a non-cannon pairing. With these, there is very little room to argue, but on rare occasions, the cannon pairings can be left up to debate.

I do not see the point in this argument, and not just because cannon pairings are usually pretty obvious. Okay, so your favorite pairing is cannon. What does that get you? The moral high ground of fanfiction? If people like the pairing, they will read it regardless of cannon. It isn't as if cannon is difficult to work around, with a little effort on the writer's part. Let's say you're shipping two characters (We'll make it a straight couple for now, to keep it simple.) and the woman goes and marries a guy other than who you're shipping her with. Oh noes! Your fanfic is ruined! Right? Hardly. Off the top of my head, the husband could die, they could be divorced, or she could spend most of her marriage secretly lusting after the guy you wanted her to end up with and then have an affair. Or you could deviate from the original story entirely. Either make a complete alternate universe, or just do your own rewrite of the last episode/chapter/book/whatever. Again, if people like the pairing, they will at least skim your fanfic no matter how flimsy your pretext is. Especially if it's well written. I'm sure I'm not alone in saying I'd rather read a well-written non-cannon fic than a badly written one that follows cannon to a T.

Slash

Slash (male/male) or fem-slash (female/female) pairings also generate a lot of controversy. And yet again I say, "Who cares?" They almost always have warnings, so it is pretty easy to skip over a fanfic has a pairing you don't like. The thing that bugs me about this argument is that people seem to get hung-up on whether or not a character is gay or straight. As if that really has any bearing. I think people who use this argument either don't get out much or just want to have some kind of moral high ground regarding who they choose to ship.

Maybe it's because of my personal life experiences, but I don't see sexual orientation as a big deal in this area. Why? One of my ex-boyfriends is now gay and my ex-girlfriend is now straight. I kid you not folks, it can indeed happen. Incidentally, my girlfriend and I dated in high school and now have a perfectly normal close friendship. So all you people shipping Remus and Sirius during their Hogwarts years? Have hope, such things can indeed happen. So really, arguing about sexual orientation is about as pointless as arguing cannon, because it can be easily worked around in fanfics.

Authors/Creators

Some authors do express their preferences as far as fanfiction go. Some hate slash, some hate romance all together. The creator of Invader Zim falls under both these categories, for instance. But in reality, there is little they can do about it. Except attempting to disallow all fanfiction, which some authors have done. But even that is usually ineffective, because even if major fanfiction sites do not allow you to post these fanfics, smaller, private sites or things like LiveJournal communities usually will anyway.

So, the writers are ultimately left with two choices. Know and respect the author's preferences, or don't. Myself? I would write what makes me happy, regardless of what the author thinks about it. This may seem cruel, but I do write original fiction too, and I know that fans will do what they want regardless of what I say. I do not think there is anything wrong with this. I would be happy that my work inspired someone, even if it was in a way I had not intended. Fans will make a series into whatever they want it to be. It is a risk you take when you reveal your creations to the general public. I'm not saying they can't have opinions; they just can't choose how people react to their work.

There is, however, a point where I draw the line. And that is when the fans decide that the creator is "wrong" about who they paired up. I have seen fans go as far as to insult the creator, implying they don't know the first thing about romance, just because their pairing did not end up together. Like I said before, cannon should not matter. But I guess some people need that validation for their fanfiction.

So, in short, read what you want to read and write what you want to write. Do what makes you happy. If you enjoy what you're writing, you'll usually write better. And more importantly, you'll write MORE. More practice means even better writing. So don't try to limit yourself because of what other people say, and certainly don't try to limit others in what they should write.