Fandom News
- If you ever doubted the power and dedication (and insanity?) of the Supernatural fandom and their love for Misha Collins, it’s time to reconsider. April 1st was the first "Mishapocalypse" of umblr. Basically this means that you couldn’t scroll through two posts without seeing something with this incredibly discomfiting photo of Misha’s head plastered somewhere. People were changing their user pictures, post limits were being hit. No Misha-punches were pulled. It was a sight to behold.
It’s entirely possible that you’re now unable to stop seeing Misha when you close your eyes. Hang in there; you will eventually recover. If you’re one of those people still cackling gleefully at the memory of that day, then I’m sorry to say that the cure for Misha is still, as of yet, unknown.
(source)
- The Host’s Jake Abel seems to know a thing or two about slash fiction. With words like “shippers” and “slash” becoming more and more mainstream, it’s no wonder that some actors are getting wise to the hidden world…
- The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones full trailer is out. There’s a whole two seconds of Magnus Bane, whoopee! Alec says a line! It’s woefully little for any Malec shippers, though I suppose only time will tell what’s to become of the Malec pairing on the movieverse.
- Sterek fans can’t be stopped! The Sterek Campaign (and consequently, slash shipping) have been gaining notoriety everywhere lately. Zap2it recently posted an article lauding the efforts of Sterek fans who have raised a record amount for Wolf Haven International.
- John Barrowman and Colton Haynes appear to be having a ridiculous amount of fun filming Arrow, making the rest of us extremely envious.
(source)
- Destiel has made it to the final four of another shipping poll! (Sterek lost to Barney & Robin from HIMYM, but it's kind of hard to compete with Neil Patrick Harris.) This one closes at the end of the day on Monday, April 8th, so head over to Zimbio's March Madness Challenge to help Dean and Cas through this semi-final round!
Fandom Dictionary: Slash Goggles
Many people find that once they start thinking about the possibility of slash and various slash couples, it becomes easier to read into the subtext of future series and see the potential of other slash pairings. Once this starts, some of your friends might accuse you of seeing slash “everywhere” and have to repeatedly tell you to calm down after a dramatic homoerotic scene (e.g. he touched his shoulder, HE TOUCHED HIS SHOULDER). If you notice this happening, it may mean that you have put on your slash goggles.
(source)
When viewing movies or television shows while wearing your slash goggles, it become incredibly easy to see the potential for slash romances everywhere. Gender is no longer an obstacle. You envision a world where couples get together based on their sterling chemistry, character-building interactions… and possibly their relative attractiveness. Despite what outsiders may think, this doesn’t mean you’re blind to all het or lesbian couples out there – they’re goggles, okay, not blindfolds, and everyone gets their own custom-made pair. Shipping becomes easy, and fun, and so what if you see it everywhere? People see heterosexual pairings everywhere, and they don’t even have to squint. So go forth, slash goggles in place, and ship whatever you like, for even the tiniest reason! Interesting things can happen when you re-watch old favorites with your slash goggles on…
Pairing of the Week: Crowley/Aziraphale (Good Omens)
(Artist: zelu)
Good Omens, a joint novel by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, has been on my reading list for ages, and has recently been conquered by Hannah’s Great Book Binge of March 2013. I’ve recognized the names Crowley and Aziraphale for years due to friends in the fandom and things I’ve picked up around the internet, but the characters were even more delightful on the page.
Crowley is, as described in the book, “an Angel who did not Fall so much a Saunter Vaguely Downwards.” He enjoys driving his Bentley, wearing sunglasses at all times, and mostly letting humans proceed with their own unintentionally devilish lives, plus orchestrating a few ingenious demonic plots too subtle for his old-fashioned demon superiors.
Aziraphale, on the other hand, is a book-loving and somewhat fussy Angel that gives off three distinct first impressions: “that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide.” (Only two of these are true.) He seems to enjoymanicures, tartan clothes that are decades out of vogue, and rare first editions.
(Artist: mick347)
The two have become quite fond of human luxuries, vices and virtues, and aren’t so keen on the idea of the imminent apocalypse. It’s also very clear that they’ve become quite fond of each other during their many, many years spent on Earth, being each other’s only enduring pleasant company. They spend time together regularly, tease each other, and even conspire together to stop the apocalypse. They may be technically on opposite sides, but since they talk rarely to their respective higher-ups and frequently get dinner at the Ritz with each other, a strange but undeniably deep friendship has emerged. Crowley acts surprisingly selfless when Aziraphale is involved, and for his part Aziraphale seems to loosen up under the influence of his demonic counterpart. They stand with each other, rather than their intended sides, even in what could be their last moments.
For more: AO3 | ship manifesto
Trope of the Week: Genderswap/Genderbend
(Artist: Yasmin Liang)
A genderswap (also known as genderbending) is exactly what it sounds like; you take a character that was originally male and make him female, and vice versa. This trope occurs in fanfiction, fanart, cosplay, image edits, gifsets – any medium you can think of. It’s even Rule 63 of the internet.
"FemSterek!"
(Artist: BraveKate)
Genderswapping a character gives creators a chance to craft their own interpretation of a character, even beyond what normal fanart or fic can do. It’s a chance to explore a side of a character or series safely outside of the canonical realm, or to sift through your favorite actors and actresses and pick the perfect other gender counterpart. The drawing, writing, and casting possibilities are endless, and everyone has their own taste and headcanon. If you’re especially talented you can even photoshop your favorites convincingly into costume. Maybe you’d like to see Jennifer Lawrence as lady!Thor? Or Kristen Stewart as Loki? Can we just talk for a minute about how badass Gina Torres would be as a female Nick Fury?
(source)
Not only is it fun to play around with, it also opens our minds to some curious and interesting questions. How much does gender dictate how a character behaves? What would be different about how they look, act, talk if their gender was swapped? I find that the most interesting and authentic genderswaps show little change in the characters’ persona, beyond adding a new dimension to them, studying them in a new way. Their gender doesn’t define their personality, their ambitions, or their actions. Because of this, it seems to me that some explorations of genderswapped characters can actually be a fascinating feminist practice, granted (especially in the case of women) one doesn’t lose sight of the character in favor of amping up the sexy and baring 500% more skin (or adding, god forbid, boob socks). See: how to do this wrong. And when I say feminist, I do mean it even when the swap is female to male – after all, the point is that gender doesn’t have to rule the character.
Now to get a little more theoretical (and maybe even a bit political). Just from browsing the web briefly you can see that the majority of the most visible genderswaps go from male to female, which opens up a whole new plethora of questions and serves to highlight the uneven gender ratios in many forms of mainstream media. Part of the reason there’s so many men-to-women swaps is that there are just so many recognizable male characters. In the real world, it’s hard to picture a successful Avengers team franchise made up of 90% women, but when it’s all dudes, it’s normal. Or if not normal, then lucrative. Even if some fans want all-gender-targeted movies featuring female main characters or heroines, Hollywood must think they’re not worth the investment (or else where’s my Wonder Woman movie?!).
(Artist: kreugan)
Even Harry Potter, which isn’t targeted toward any particular gender at all, has more male main characters than female, so much so that amount of women in the genderswapped versions seems conspicuous – when in the regular version the unequal ratio is unremarkable. (Another product of straight white male as the default, i.e. the lowest difficulty setting in the game of life? Told you I was getting political.)
("Harriet Potter", Artist Maaria)
There are more questions out there, too, and I don’t meant to make it sound like there aren’t plenty of examples of female-to-male genderswap art, fic, etc., but I’m going to go ahead and say that they’re less common and less prominent.
"Disney Princes", Artist WortCat)
Examining this trope in relation to slash and shipping is interesting. The genderbending phenomenon presents a unique perspective on the issue of the fetishization of gay men in media. If it was all about the gay sex, why would people even want to write or read or draw a work in which one character’s gender is swapped, thus making the couple heterosexual? What about when the slash couple suddenly becomes a femslash couple? Granted, not all slash fans are interested in reading those fics, but it must prove that to some portion of slash fans, it truly is about the characters’ personality, dynamics and chemistry, rather than their gender.
What do you think of the whole genderswapping business? Why do you think people do it, and what does it mean for slash? I find it pretty fun, so I’m interested to hear everyone else’s thoughts!
Art Corner
(Artist: blue)
It’s a fanart-heavy column this week, but the featured artist is blue! I stumbled upon their art blog while looking around for pictures to use in this week’s column, and I ended up spending a solid hour browsing through all of the art, especially the crossovers tag (since I am, as previously stated, obsessed with crossovers). This artist covers lots of fandoms and has a totally charming style.
Aziraphale (Good Omens) and Castiel (Supernatural)
(Artist: blue)
Some of my favorites include: Sam, Dean, and Crowley with Pokemon; Community cosplay as the Avengers; Disneylock a la Rapunzel… oh the list goes on and on, there’s basically oodles of doodles of everything you could ever want.
Parting Note and Gif
So I know you guys know that we at The Shipping News have a slash column tumblr where we reblog pertinent slash information and gifs and even sometimes talk about our slash thoughts. But what you may not know is that this tumblr is also where (if you don’t want to do so in the comment section here) you can ask us any and all questions you may have, give us suggestions, etc. etc.
So either here or there please tell us what you like about The Shipping News, what you don’t like, what you want to see more of and what you think could serve your weekly slash needs even better. Thank you, fine readers, and until next time – farewell!
