Does a shipfic mean, "I ship these characters!" or is a shipfic just about "What if these characters had a relationship?" (I think there's room for different points of view on this.) · 7:12pm Mar 21st, 2023
I mean...in THEORY, a shipfic could be...
(1) Positive. Some people write shipfics because (1) they fervently believe a set of characters (say, Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash) should be in a serious romantic relationship, or at least that the relationship would be a good thing.
(2) Neutral? Some people might write a shipfic because (2) they think a relationship between the characters would be ENTERTAINING, but maybe not an entirely GOOD thing for the characters in it.
(3) Negative? Some writers might even show you an absolute train wreck of a relationship, because they hope to tell you an interesting story about it.
I think any of those positions is valid. In many fandoms, take #1 is usually the most popular and uncontroversial. If there's one fimfiction.net group devoted to a ship, it's usually more about #1 than about anything else.
On the other hand, I've seen A FEW fimfic contests that were explicitly open to #3, or even ALL ABOUT #3. Last year, I chose a #3 theme for a round of Sunset Shimmer x Villains: "Bad Romance": Sunset and any MLP/EqG villain have a seriously flawed or terrible relationship. (August 14th to September 21st [2022])
Another interesting dimension of shipfic is, "romance only? or is 'just friendship' ok too?"
I think in general, though, most shipping groups, shipping contests, and shipping contest judges lean towards "#1 / Positive," and "romance is better." And that's probably fine? Just because I can have a lot of fun with #3 doesn't mean everyone has to be like me. :-)
By the way, if you're eager to write a shipfic, I know of an Equestria Girls Movie 1 contest that is looking for some.
Shipfics are also an option in Arboreal Yearnings Contest I: "I'd LIKE to be a tree..."
I prefer stories that explore a friendship as opposed to romance. There are a bunch of obligatory cliches in romance stories that I don't care about at all.
If you can make two characters get along by how well their personalities work together though, then you have a much more interesting story then "love at first blush".
5719257
Well, love at first blush is normally only at the start of romance. It can continue to the friendship stage from there. After all relationships are mostly friendships with a lot more physical aspects to it.
5719258
Except it's always so cliche and trite. And love at first blush is less about love at first sight and more about them magically falling in love because of x.
And of course, it's always mutual and apart from some mild relationship drama, they always get together, because of course they do. Romantic fanfiction is one of the most predictable and boring of all the fanfics.
5719259
I used to annoy ponies on this site with how often I wrote romance-tagged stories that turned out unrequited .. hey at least it avoids "magically end up together"
5719260
I mean, at least you subverted the more cliche endings. Although frankly I think friendship-based stories just allow you to explore more dynamics. Like why do they stay together?
Do they have a supplier consumer-based relationship? Are they like therapist and patient? Acquaintances? Frenemies? Rivals? Jokesters?
There's always a pressure in romantic stories to get the people involved to act a specific way, and by and large I just don't care enough about that kind of relationship, to sit through a longwinded story focused mainly on people's personal romance.
5719273
Since you seem to like complaining about cliche stories with mysteriously undermotivated characters, maybe you will enjoy reading some of these complainy blog posts.
Seriously, I've seen much worse advice, and they are funny. https://www.fimfiction.net/search/blog-posts?q=romance+author%3Aaragon
porque no los tres? :B
5719293
I know you can write in English.
Edited to add: I've seen someone say, 'well, I'll just write a story that has a #1 AND a #3, and that will give more going on, when ~Sunset~ someone sees that she should leave the bad one for the good one.' I mean, I guess it can work, but it requires a bit more skill to make it truly good imho
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5719259
I believe the term for this is "alien brainworms", because the author never bothers to give a real reason the two ponies like each other so some internet comedian posited cordyceps shenanigans and it stuck. (We are the cordyceps)
5719293 is referencing a meme, originally from an Old El Paso commercial for their new-at-the-time "mixed" kit containing both hard and soft tacos. Said commercial was in Spanish with English subtitles because, again, taco commercial. (This is where I'd put Sonata Dusk if the site's emojis weren't firmly stuck in Season 1)
5719371
Ok, now my new headcanon is that Sonata is the one Dazzling who's fluent in Spanish. Because tacos!
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5719371
And here is the link:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/why-not-both-why-dont-we-have-both
5719258
In Jane Austen novels, the main characters don't fall in love until the end.
I was going to say, "I don't write shipfics", but I counted, & I wrote 13. One and one-third of them weren't tragic.
5730785
That's a hell of a 'body count.'