A suggestion from a 'shipper'

[Kogiopsis]

(I swear, after this I will vanish once more into my crystal cave and sleep for another century.)

So, here's the thing:  I am not really a Sharder, but I have made observations thereof intermittently for several years, and that combined with a tangential discussion in this thread about shipping vs character discussion and how people react to each has... led me to a theory.  

You can take this with a grain of salt or a heap; heck, you're welcome to collectively ignore this post if you would like.  As a member of the more transformative-works-centric part of the fandom, I offer this mostly from the suggestion of making the Shard more friendly to similarly minded people, who will probably find you all before they stumble across the Tumblr rabbit hole.

I think some of the problem in the ASK thread, and in other discussions of potential relationships, is a lack of clarity in the purpose of the discussion at all.

Let me elaborate.

The way I see it, there are... basically three major categories of conversation that come into play:  just-for-fun shipping, predicting future relationships, and analysis of relationships as part of characterization.  (Obviously, these exist on a spectrum, not sharply delineated groups.)  Conflict happens when someone mistakes which type of conversation they are entering.

For example:  in a ship thread which is focused on predicting future relationships, some things probably won't ever be brought up, because they're just not plausible based on canon so far.  But if a just-for-fun shipper sticks their head in and mentions their ship and gets shot down, they may well feel defensive and snap back, and... voila, conflict.  Similarly, someone who's not interested in the romantic ~drama of it all but genuinely enjoys character analysis may be annoyed that their contributions get derailed into who might sleep with whom.

The solution, it seems to me, would be to clearly outline the intended nature of the discussion in the OP.  This sets the intended tone for the rest of the conversation, and gives participants shared expectations/norms from the very beginning, and allows people to engage in different threads with whichever or as many types of discussion as they wish.

(I also think 17S as a whole would benefit greatly from some just-for-fun ship positivity threads - let the people who feel strongly about a given pairing talk about it in a positive, sometimes silly way with others.  Plus, generating content like headcanons, fic, etc is the best way to get other people invested, in my experience.)

....anyway.  Like I said, take it or leave it, but I wanted to throw this out in case it could help.

(p.s. for those of you not familiar with fandom shipping subculture, please note that adding a / between character names conventionally connotes a romantic/sexual relationship - hence the slang term 'slash'.  so unless you actually want to talk about Adolin/Renarin in that regard... maybe use a + instead?)

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

3 hours ago, Kogiopsis said:

(I swear, after this I will vanish once more into my crystal cave and sleep for another century.)

I really like this lead in, and your member title is awesome. But I do have one question based on this:

3 hours ago, Kogiopsis said:

(p.s. for those of you not familiar with fandom shipping subculture, please note that adding a / between character names conventionally connotes a romantic/sexual relationship - hence the slang term 'slash'.  so unless you actually want to talk about Adolin/Renarin in that regard... maybe use a + instead?)

Shouldn't your member title be lightning/death's unholy offspring? Totally kidding, I think your points are really good, why people participate in a debate is central to why they might feel marginalized/attacked, and I think your breakdown is really insightful.

I really just wanted to reply because I liked the bits I quoted a lot. Funny stuff.

[Kogiopsis]

17 hours ago, hoiditthroughthegrapevine said:

I really like this lead in, and your member title is awesome. But I do have one question based on this:

Shouldn't your member title be lightning/death's unholy offspring? Totally kidding, I think your points are really good, why people participate in a debate is central to why they might feel marginalized/attacked, and I think your breakdown is really insightful.

I really just wanted to reply because I liked the bits I quoted a lot. Funny stuff.

Well, it's a quote from How To Train Your Dragon, so no.  But a broader answer in terms of how you would use / nomenclature in a sentence - the slash construction essentially functions in place of a singular proper noun, referring to the relationship itself*.  It's the precursor to the portmanteau ship names we have now - so Kirk/Spock became Spirk (to my great sadness, as they could have called it Spork).  

Technically, you could say 'lightning/death's unholy offspring'; syntactically it's not as pleasing to read, but it works.  I wouldn't do it, because that's not... an actual ship?  But you could apply the same thing to actual ships - if you wanted some silly speculation, you could start a thread titled "What might Wayne/Steris kids be like?".

(*a side note - I think some people less familiar with shipping lingo see things like portmanteau names as mashing the characters together, when really it's just... a proper name for the relationship between them.  For instance, I ship Kalarin - but calling it 'Kalarin' when I talk about it allows me to distinguish between talking about the ship, and just talking about Kaladin and Renarin as characters.  It also makes it possible to talk about Kaladin and Renarin's interactions without talking about the ship, because the ship has its own name.  Hopefully that makes sense?)

[AllomancerSam]

21 hours ago, Kogiopsis said:

(I also think 17S as a whole would benefit greatly from some just-for-fun ship positivity threads - let the people who feel strongly about a given pairing talk about it in a positive, sometimes silly way with others.  Plus, generating content like headcanons, fic, etc is the best way to get other people invested, in my experience.)

I would definitely agree with this. Just throwing in my two cents here, but my general experience with other forums is that having character and shipping threads split up so that there are two for any given subject works really well. ie;

1. [Ship/Character Name] Discussion Thread. For analysis, debate, pros/cons, etc.

2. [Ship/Character Name] Appreciation Thread. For the fans. A more lighthearted sharing of favorite moments, headcanons, fic, fanart, etc.

This allows for both in depth (hopefully balanced) discussion and a place for people to just enjoy their favorite things without having to worry about being "right," or having to defend their enjoyment.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

3 hours ago, Kogiopsis said:

It's the precursor to the portmanteau ship names we have now - so Kirk/Spock became Spirk (to my great sadness, as they could have called it Spork). 

And to the great sadness of mankind in general.

The rest of your post, while not as titillating, is nonetheless edifying.