Inspired by this board, and my own obesession with Buffy, I’ve decided to write an article about the shipper phenomenon. I’ve googled and came up with a few but wouldn’t mind some more suggestions if any of you, my fellow dopers, know of some without having to do the research yourself. I have a fairly clear view of the Buffy-sites, so I’m looking for others.
The wackier, the better. I’ve often read about shippers and things like: “There are even shippers for Spock and Kirk”, but I haven’t found a site with Spirk fanfiction.
Anyone who wants to share some thoughts about shippers are of course welcome.
Try http://www.fanfiction.net/ for fanfiction about pretty much anyone you care to name, though no NC17 stuff nowadays. I’m not especially into Trek myself, but there are surely more specific sites out there, here’s a general Trek hubsite: http://www.treksearch.com/
I’d guess that Trek (the newer series), Buffy\Angel and Harry Potter have the most people writing about them, though more people are doing X-men with the movies, and Star Wars is pretty common. Now I think about it it does seem to be the sci-fi\fantasy shows and movies that get the most attention, I’ll let someone else suggest why (of course as as SF fan myself I might just be more exposed to such).
“Shipper” comes from the word relationship and in general simply refers to someone who is very interested in the relationship between two characters in a series/movie/novel/whatever; sometimes to the exclusion of all else in the story. (For example, a Buffy/Angel shipper is more involved in the relationship between Buffy and Angel than they are in any other aspect of the show, to the point of being almost uninterested in any episode that doesn’t involve those two characters.) It doesn’t neccessarily have to involve fan fiction; there are shippers who have never written anything. I first heard the term used in relation to X-Files and the Mulder/Scully interaction but I don’t know if the term originated there or was around earlier.
Not all fan fiction is “shippy”. There are many fanfics that do not involve romance and even some that do are not neccessarily shippers.
“Slash” fiction is usually erotic in nature. While it can in theory involve any two characters it usually involves same-sex pairings. (Kirk and Spock are extremely popular.) The term comes from the way the stories are usually described, which is with the two character names separated by a slash “/”. (For example, “Kirk/Spock”.)
Not all slash is shippy and not all shippy stores are slash.
I would suspect that most shippy fiction is written by science fiction/fantasy fans as that field seems to have the most fan fiction written using established characters from TV, movies or books. OTOH, I have seen Holmes/Watson slash and shippy fanfics from such series as Friends and ER. (Heck, I even came across a CSI slash story once.) Of course, like Shortie it may be that I am just the most familiar with the SF/F field.