*shakes fist*

[meganbmoore]

 EBAY PEOPLE!

Stop outbidding me on full runs of Cardcaptor Sakura!

It makes Sakura all upset and disappointed!  Do you know what happens when Sakura is upset and disappointed?  It makes her have a Kurogane moment, and then everything descends into gothic shoujo crack!  Too much of that is bad for the brain!

(Seriously, it's the third or so set I've been outbid on.  I WILL ONLY GO SO HIGH!)

ALSO!!!

(non-fist-shakey)

While I was at work, prozacparkasked me my opinion about #148 of today's Fandom Secrets.  Since she is now logged off and at least one other person here might be interested in it (redbrunja, there aren't any Avatar spoilers in the post) I shall just post it.  The secret was along the lines of "I slash m/m because I think the female characters deserve a lot better than what canon gave them."  I've seen that a few times before, and just ignoring any other opinions I have on fanon shipping,  while I often agree that yes, the girls in fiction could do better and it seems they're just told "Here is the main guy!  You must accept him even though he doesn't appreciate you or treat you well!" my reaction to that response to it is always "But, if you object on her behalf, why are you having her twiddle her thumbs while you send him off to have fun?"

(No, really, if you think canon gave her the short end of the stick and you want her to get better and you're going to do a fanon ship, why doesn't she get to go have fun while the guy who doesn't treat her good enough sits there and sulks?  Why does he get to have all the fun?) 

ETA:  I probably don't have to say this, but just in case:  no bashing the secret maker.  Whoever s/he may be.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

See, I do not remotely get the assumption so many seem to have that there has to be a ship, that there should be an OTP with your favorite character, etc. Outside of romance novels and straight shoujo romances(where the pairing is the whole point) it seems there should be more that makes yo happy than whether or not the pairing is a couple you want to see playing tonsil hockey. I have a severe cognitive dissonance with the entire concept of fanon shipping, partly because it is built around the idea that that a character can't be complete, having fun, etc. without liplock. Het for the sake of het is as bad as slash for the sake of slash.

I don't play PE, but it sounds like you simply favor one fanon ship over another. Saying you like the m/m fanon ship over the m/f one and the m/f one doesn't make sense isn't the same as as saying you dislike the m/f canon(implied or explicit) because you don't think he's good enough for her, and shipping him with someone else is your response. As fanon shipping seems to be built around the idea that canon didn't treat a character well enough, and wanting them to be "happy" with someone. So saying the canon didn't treat the female good enough, but then shipping the male with someone else doesn't really make a logical sense. It's almost like "what canon gave her wasn't good enough, so she has to be happy alone, but he can still find someone else."

[musouka-manga.livejournal.com]

But a LOT of the female characters she listed aren't in "canon" couples either--and, in the case of Akari from HikaGo, really do deserve a guy that will actually like them back, but that's something else entirely. I like to jokingly say that Maya doesn't deserve Phoenix, because he can be a grade-A jerk to her sometimes. Doesn't mean he doesn't absolutely adore her, and that he wouldn't run over a burning bridge for her--literally.

What I'm trying to say is that liking a couple is seperate from liking a character. Romance isn't a "reward" for being a well-written, interesting character--being written about in general is. And, well, I know slash can be frustrating, but, again, I really think the secret is offensive only if you assume that the female character is being ignored in favor of the males, something that as implicit as one might think. In addition, it also assumes that the female couples can't be shipped with anyone else. I know in HikaGo I really, really liked Akari and Mitani. Hikaru is a JERK to her--seriously, he is possibly one of the rudest shounen leads I've ever seen to his main (at the beginning at least) heroine--but that doesn't stop me from loving the relationship of mutual respect and tension he and his rival have...

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Well, what I (and the others commenting in this post) are responding to is that the secret is presented (and how I usually hear the argument) as "I slash m/m because I think the girl deserves better than what she was given."

braking it down, you have:

1) I object to this het pairing.

(Us: OK)

2) I think she deserves better.

(Us: OK)

3) My response is to find an alternative pairing.

(Us: OK)

4) Therefore, I will ship the one who I think isn't appreciative enough/good enough/etc. with someone else.

(Us: Wait! What?)

The way it comes across as presented is that there has to be a pairing, and it's the male who gets to have the pairing. (And yes, most seem to approach shipping as the romance/sex being their character's "reward"..."I like you so you should get to have sex with the hot one/lead"...it's part of why I don't like fanon shipping in the first place.)

[musouka-manga.livejournal.com]

I don't think Character A is good enough for Character B. That has nothing to do with whether I like Character A on his own merits or with someone else.

I can think Hikaru isn't good [enough] for Akari and still love him as a character. As a matter of fact, he was my favorite character in that series, and a large chunk of that was because of his selfish, incredibly human behavior. I can also just as easily think he goes well with a character like Akira, who will fight right back when Hikaru is being selfish, than with Akari, who tended to get more hurt when Hikaru treated her that way.

So it's not a fallacy to think a character isn't "good enough" for another. "Not good enough" doesn't mean "not good at all".