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Guest Post by Amy (aka MuttPeeta on Tumblr)
It’s normally considered pretty pedestrian to begin an essay with a dictionary definition, but in the world of fandom, the word shipping has gotten quite a boost in credibility thanks to its recent induction into reputable sources like the Oxford English Dictionary. (Which, incidentally, now defines ship as to “support or have a particular interest in a romantic pairing between two characters in a fictional series”—sorry, couldn’t resist.)
Of course, shipping these days isn’t limited to fictional characters, and it also encompasses relationships between two people that aren’t even canon (for the uninitiated, canon is what’s deemed official according to the original source material.) And there’s probably no more prevalent exploration of ships than in fanfiction.
Fanfiction and shipping go hand-in-hand. It’s kind of impossible to talk about one without the other. While fanfiction is a sort of homage to a work–a book or TV show or movie–and a way to explore that fictional universes you’ve fallen in love with, it’s also a way to delve into the fictional relationships you cherish from that fandom. More often than not, you’re writing about your OTP, or One True Pair, which is, simply put, the ship to end all ships.
I will go down with this ship
In Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games series, there’s no more important ship than Everlark (or, if you’re a heathen, Peeniss), which denotes the pairing of Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. (Sorry, Galeniss shippers.) The majority of fics, and a good chunk of fanart, center on Everlark. They’re endgame, as our blessed queen Suzanne Collins has decreed in Mockingjay.
As an Everlark shipper and peddler of Everlark fics, I’m probably a wee bit biased, but I can’t think of a more perfect ship than these two. Suzanne Collins wrote two wonderfully complex characters who complement each other beautifully, in their convictions and beliefs, in their humor and compassion, and in their vulnerabilities and flaws.
Galeniss, or Everthorne, (Katniss Everdeen and Gale Hawthorne) is a less popular ship, but it’s the second most talked about ship of the series’ love triangle, at least if you buy into what the media is selling. Then there’s Odesta (Finnick Odair and Annie Cresta), Hayffie (Haymitch Abernathy and Effie Trinket), Hayhanna (Johanna Mason and Haymitch), Jonnick (Johanna and Finnick)–and I think anything beyond that is slipping into the territory of crack ships, or a pairing that is highly unlikely to occur–no insult intended to these other shippers, of course.
All’s fair in love and war
Fandom is generally a fun, welcoming space for fans, but you can always count on a level of discord between the ship factions. It’s inevitable. In The Hunger Games fandom, it’s usually, always, the Everlark shippers and the Galeniss shippers waging war on each other.
What’s canon doesn’t necessarily have any bearing on who someone ships in a fandom, and likewise, it’s often irrelevant and ineffective in diffusing fandom tensions when shippers are defending their OTPs. And shippers can getheated when it comes to their OTPs. You’ll probably never find a more passionate discussion than when fans are defending their favorite characters and ships.
Fanfiction 101
Fanfiction has never been more widely accepted than it is today. The general population probably still regards fanfiction with a certain level of derision–as even some authors and creators of fandoms do–but many writers are now using their fanfics as launching pads for their own professional writing careers (as reviled as “Fifty Shades of Grey” is, I suppose we owe a begrudging tip of the hat to E.L. James for that one).
So, what goes into writing fanfiction, aside from our probably literal blood, sweat and tears? How do we categorize it? On a basic level, we divide fanfiction into canon and AU (alternate universe): fics that fall into the canon timeline, or fics that reject that timeline and set themselves in different universes entirely. These can be modern (a very popular favorite of fic writers), crossovers (where you take the characters of one fandom and set them in the universe of another work), and even canon-divergent (which walks the line between AU and canon, where your story takes place in canon but explores something that hasn’t actually happened).
There’s a world of AUs to explore, the sky’s the limit, really, but we’ll stop there before going too far down that rabbit hole. That doesn’t even touch on the plethora of fanfiction genres: angst, fluff (which are stories with light, cutesy situations or moments, sometimes without any real plot, usually between your ship of choice), dark (fics where the story or characters are “darker” or more evil than canon), slash (contains, often non-canonical, homosexual pairings) and, the holy grail of fics–if you ask me–smut, stories with graphic sex scenes. Regrettably, The Powers That Be often deny us fans sex between our OTPs, so turning to fanfiction to either read or write about your OTP doing it is often our only recourse.
Somewhere only we know
Honestly, I don’t think there’s a bigger cornerstone of fandom than fanfiction. Before social media, fanfiction forums like Fanfiction.net were the meeting places for fans of a series or work. It’s where you found common ground with other fans, who wanted to see more from their OTPs or who couldn’t let the universe and the characters go, who dreamed up headcanons (personal beliefs not necessarily stated in canon but in some way supported by the original work) and needed to share them with like-minded fans.
Fanfiction creates community, a place you can belong. Today, it continues to do that on places like tumblr, where we not only share stories, but fanart, fan edits and gifsets (images and gifs taken from movies or TV shows), and even our personal lives.
Fandom isn’t always enjoyable. The anonymity of the internet combined with the intensity of our passion for our favorite characters and ships, can create a rather inhospitable environment sometimes. (A lot of times, if you’ve been around long enough.)
But despite that, fanfiction brings an immeasurable enjoyment to readers and writers alike, inspires valuable works of art, bonds us together, and ties binds that, if we’re lucky, will endure long after our place in fandom has faded.
Be sure to visit Amy on tumblr where she goes by MuttPeeta and check out her incredible fan fic on A03 where she goes by atetheredmind.
Enter this week's giveaway for a Mockingjay graffiti hoodie and black mockingjay pin HERE.
Read "A Celebration of Everlark Fan Fiction" HERE.