Snowflake Challenge 2025 #3

[bedes]

Challenge #3

In your own space, talk about a fannish opinion you hold that has changed over time.

Despite describing myself as a fanfic author partially specializing in genfic, I didn't understand the appeal of gen fanworks for a very long time! For me, a self-defined hopeless romantic aromantic, romantic shipping was one of the main appeals of fandom, and I fell into the amatonormative belief that platonic relationships couldn't be as deep as romantic ones.

I believe what really changed this was being super into the Professor Layton fandom. At the time, I was sorting out how I felt about my parents, largely using Luke Triton (the young apprentice to the main character) as a method for that. While doing so, though, it always felt natural for it to conclude with him finding solace in Hershel Layton, who acts as a father-like figure to him throughout the game.

I also later began to unpack my amatonormativity specifically in the LEGO Monkie Kid fandom, thanks to the friendship between the main characters Mei and MK. I discovered I was arospec around this time, and I headcanoned Mei as aromantic too. Viewing Mei and MK as a queerplatonic partnership was a big catalyst to exploring the idea that platonic relationships could be equally as deep and meaningful as romantic ones.

Which, of course, leads me to today! A huge enjoyer of gen works, to the point of purposefully subverting typically-romantic AUs (such as hanahaki) in my fic, for platonic uses. I've basically done a total 180, in other words!

Comments

[silveradept]

The shipping origins of many fandoms, at least as best as I can tell, is because so many things were refusing to give romantic relationships to people who definitely could have had them. Now that it's not quite so stigmatized, in some places, for both caring and/or romantic relationships to be present without being either the focus or a distraction from the story, there's additional space for having platonic relationships and not having everything have to end up in shipping. I like it, because it widens the amount of stories that we can tell.