Post by Lady Ten on Oct 27, 2012 17:02:24 GMT -6
I'm hardly qualified to be saying anything about any Warriors ships (besides FirestarxSpottedleerleaf; that one I know all about because there's not much to know) but there's not a topic up for this yet, and I'm interested in having this discussion.
As for the ship itself, there's not much to say. It's a crackship. I'm not aware of any canon evidence that these two ever met each other (not that that's ever stopped the shippers). There's also no reason to suggest these two would have begun a relationship if they had met.
However, this fandom being the way it is -- all fandoms being the way they are -- there's probably a few shippers out there who support the union of poor little Ashfur andCluny the Scourge. There must be a reason for this phenomenon, and I've got a few theories as to its appeal.
As mentioned elsewhere, there are some people who believe that Ashfur got the short end of the stick in life and that Squirrelflight shouldn't have treated him like a backup plan, or however that went down. So for them, Ashfur has these things going for him: he's passionate, when he falls in love he falls hard, and he's willing to kill as a result. These aren't good things objectively, but from a shipper perspective they add up to intensity, which is good because the alternative is "boring old vanilla" (poor vanilla, so underrated; legit actual vanilla scores a 180 in the rocking of socks).
Scourge, too, has some sort of tragic backstory (?) and unlike Firefail, he's callous and bloodthirsty and willing to kill anyone who gets in his way (which, to a certain brand of preteen, comes off as cool and totally awesome!!1). In this fandom and in others, there seems to be a certain pattern whereby characters with a higher body count, or who are more unfazed by pain and death, get an automatic reputation boost, regardless of the depth or personality traits of the character in question, because "being evil" is their personality. This also leads us toward the curious phenomenon of the appeal of "dark", a rather nebulous concept which is not always hard-hitting but which strives to be "gritty" and "edgy" and other such pretentious adjectives thrown around for sport.
I'm not sure, but I think the idea might be that Scourge would help heal Ashfur's broken heart, and/or they'd have some sort of unhealthy obsessive relationship and would gladly kill for each other, giving an excuse for beginner fanfic writers to practice their gore-writing skills. Also, my guess is this is supposed to be for the "mature" crowd (more on that word another time) who like this one because it's more "interesting" than other ships.
So here's how I'd break it down:
As for the ship itself, there's not much to say. It's a crackship. I'm not aware of any canon evidence that these two ever met each other (not that that's ever stopped the shippers). There's also no reason to suggest these two would have begun a relationship if they had met.
However, this fandom being the way it is -- all fandoms being the way they are -- there's probably a few shippers out there who support the union of poor little Ashfur and
As mentioned elsewhere, there are some people who believe that Ashfur got the short end of the stick in life and that Squirrelflight shouldn't have treated him like a backup plan, or however that went down. So for them, Ashfur has these things going for him: he's passionate, when he falls in love he falls hard, and he's willing to kill as a result. These aren't good things objectively, but from a shipper perspective they add up to intensity, which is good because the alternative is "boring old vanilla" (poor vanilla, so underrated; legit actual vanilla scores a 180 in the rocking of socks).
Scourge, too, has some sort of tragic backstory (?) and unlike Firefail, he's callous and bloodthirsty and willing to kill anyone who gets in his way (which, to a certain brand of preteen, comes off as cool and totally awesome!!1). In this fandom and in others, there seems to be a certain pattern whereby characters with a higher body count, or who are more unfazed by pain and death, get an automatic reputation boost, regardless of the depth or personality traits of the character in question, because "being evil" is their personality. This also leads us toward the curious phenomenon of the appeal of "dark", a rather nebulous concept which is not always hard-hitting but which strives to be "gritty" and "edgy" and other such pretentious adjectives thrown around for sport.
I'm not sure, but I think the idea might be that Scourge would help heal Ashfur's broken heart, and/or they'd have some sort of unhealthy obsessive relationship and would gladly kill for each other, giving an excuse for beginner fanfic writers to practice their gore-writing skills. Also, my guess is this is supposed to be for the "mature" crowd (more on that word another time) who like this one because it's more "interesting" than other ships.
So here's how I'd break it down:
- unique/special/interesting
- dark/twisted/violent
- take that, Squirrelslut
- rainbow non-homophobic progressive tolerance support bonus points (except technically not, if you care at all about how this portrays homosexuals as depraved criminals who are too unhinged to function in stable society)