Fangirl 101: An Idiot’s Guide to Talking About Shipping

I get a lot of questions from all kinds of people outside fandom. They ask a variety of different things but more often than not they want to know about shipping. I’ve already written a basic guide to shipping, slash and fan fiction but that doesn’t seem to be enough because while they understand the general concepts, they still don’t know how to talk about them. In an effort to stop myself from having to have the same conversation over and over again I’m going to give you a simple set of rules to help outsiders navigate the tempestuous waters of the shipping fandom.

Fangirl 101: Shipping, sexuality and canon

This topic of conversation comes to us from the Supernatural fandom (but it is by no means exclusive to it). For those of you that don’t know in last week’s episode Dean had a gay thing. I would love to spend the next 4 paragraphs discussing the shippie implications of this moment but unfortunately it stirred up another round of the age-old slash fandom argument about sexual orientation and shipping so we’re going to talk about that instead.

My Top Ten femSlash Ships

If you are new to fandom (or this website in particular), then you might not know that AfterEllen and AfterElton are currently holding tournaments in order to determine the best femslash and slash ship in the whole of the Internets. This excites me to no end because it encompasses my two favourite things - polls and slash. I love a good argument more than anything, and the fact that we’re arguing about slash just makes it that much better.

So anyway, to show my enthusiasm and perhaps even convert some of you to the wonderful world of shipping slash I decided to compile a list (everyone loves a top 10 list). I have already posted my top ten male/male slash ships but that’s just the warm up for this one... It’s the ladies turn, that’s right I am about to tell you my all time favourite female/female femslash ships.

My Top Ten Slash Ships

You might remember that in the last Shipping News, I talked about the fact that AfterElton is currently holding the Ultimate Slash Madness Tournament - in which 32 of our favourite slash couples are battling it out for the title of Ultimate Slash Champion. Now it’s pretty easy to guess that I am a tad excited about this poll, I mean I love me some slash and I can never say no to good poll but I have discovered recently that I might be in minority in this (at least outside fandom circles). So in order to drum up some excitement from my family and friends I have compiled a list of my top 10 slash ships (not all of them are in the poll but I still love them so they are here).

Shipping News: Hell hath no fury like a (Sterek) shipper scorned.

The plan with this post was to begin a weekly segment that outlines all the biggest news from the world of “shipping” - I’ve mentioned “shipping” before, so if you have no idea what I'm talking about then please head here first (if you have stumbled across this because you are interested in actual nautical adventures then please exit the page now). I meant for it to encompass, all ships and all shows but when I sat down to write it there is really only one thing that is worthy of discussion and that’s a little ship by the name of “Sterek”.

Fangirl 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Shipping.

If you have ever ventured onto any kind of fan related site – or you have a tumblr – then you might have heard the term ‘Shipping’. If you’re unfortunate enough to know me then I have probably dropped this term into a conversation more often than is healthy. But chances are you had no idea what I am talking about and no, it does not have anything to do with sending products overseas which is why I decided to write this blog because I am sick of having to explain the term to people who don’t spend their time obsessing over fictional characters.