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stardust_rifle) wrote2023-08-16 02:17 pm
stardust_rifle) wrote2023-08-16 02:17 pm
Entry tags:
A Preliminary Analysis Of Subtypes Of “Bruce Banner Syndrome” As It Relates To Ships
“Bruce Banner Syndrome” is a term invented to describe a phenomenon whereby the Ao3 tag of a character is overrun with fic that does not feature them as a major character or even present in a meaningful way, in a form of widespread overtagging.
While this term was originally coined to refer to character tagging, I think that a similar phenomenon could be applied to ships, wherein a specific pairing is overtagged so much that it is difficult for fans of the pairing to find fanfiction where they play a major role. I also think that there are some distinct subtypes of Bruce Banner Syndrome But For Ships that I would like to introduce here, and maybe open the discussion to other fandom people if they have something interesting to say.
Subtype 1: Everyone’s Gay Dads Syndrome
This is a subvariant on Bruce Banner Syndrome But For Ships where the secondary/minor role that the overtagged ship is consistently placed into in fanfiction is that of a parental role. In effect, the role they play in fanfiction is that of Everyone’s Gay Dads.
This commonly happens when the role that the characters play in canon is that of a mentor or predecessor to the main characters, in my experience. A lot of times in my experience, the ship put in this position is a m/m ship, but that could just be because I mainly read m/m pairings. I would be interested to learn if there are f/f ships that get put into the position of Everyone’s Gay Moms.
Examples of sufferers of Everyone’s Gay Dads Syndrome are Erasermic from BNHA (heavy sufferers), Satosugu from JJK (medium-heavy sufferers), and Bruabba from JJBA (medium sufferers). I’ve also heard that Wolfstar in a lot of HP fic suffers from this.
Subtype 2: You’re Not The Real Relationship But I’m Still Going To Tag You Anyways Syndrome
This is a subvariant where the role the overtagged relationship lays is that of a romantic false lead or a pairing that needs to be broken up before the real relationship is put in place, yet the author usually still insists on tagging them anyway, leading to a situation where the majority of fics in the pairing’s tag don’t actually feature them as the endgame couple. Canon or heavily implied M/F relationships in fandoms where the majority of the fic is M/M or F/F focused are the primary sufferers.
Subtype 3: Background Lesbians Syndrome
This isn’t really as much of a subtype as EGD but I can’t help but noticing that Bruce Banner Syndrome But For Ships seems to disproportionately impact F/F ships, especially in fandoms where the primary type of shipping is not F/F shipping. It’s not really as defined of a subtype as the others but I’m still pissed at people who insist on putting their Zhongchi or Albedo/Kaeya or whatever Genshin fic into the tag of a F/F rarepair that gets like three lines in the fic. Begone with you.
While this term was originally coined to refer to character tagging, I think that a similar phenomenon could be applied to ships, wherein a specific pairing is overtagged so much that it is difficult for fans of the pairing to find fanfiction where they play a major role. I also think that there are some distinct subtypes of Bruce Banner Syndrome But For Ships that I would like to introduce here, and maybe open the discussion to other fandom people if they have something interesting to say.
Subtype 1: Everyone’s Gay Dads Syndrome
This is a subvariant on Bruce Banner Syndrome But For Ships where the secondary/minor role that the overtagged ship is consistently placed into in fanfiction is that of a parental role. In effect, the role they play in fanfiction is that of Everyone’s Gay Dads.
This commonly happens when the role that the characters play in canon is that of a mentor or predecessor to the main characters, in my experience. A lot of times in my experience, the ship put in this position is a m/m ship, but that could just be because I mainly read m/m pairings. I would be interested to learn if there are f/f ships that get put into the position of Everyone’s Gay Moms.
Examples of sufferers of Everyone’s Gay Dads Syndrome are Erasermic from BNHA (heavy sufferers), Satosugu from JJK (medium-heavy sufferers), and Bruabba from JJBA (medium sufferers). I’ve also heard that Wolfstar in a lot of HP fic suffers from this.
Subtype 2: You’re Not The Real Relationship But I’m Still Going To Tag You Anyways Syndrome
This is a subvariant where the role the overtagged relationship lays is that of a romantic false lead or a pairing that needs to be broken up before the real relationship is put in place, yet the author usually still insists on tagging them anyway, leading to a situation where the majority of fics in the pairing’s tag don’t actually feature them as the endgame couple. Canon or heavily implied M/F relationships in fandoms where the majority of the fic is M/M or F/F focused are the primary sufferers.
Subtype 3: Background Lesbians Syndrome
This isn’t really as much of a subtype as EGD but I can’t help but noticing that Bruce Banner Syndrome But For Ships seems to disproportionately impact F/F ships, especially in fandoms where the primary type of shipping is not F/F shipping. It’s not really as defined of a subtype as the others but I’m still pissed at people who insist on putting their Zhongchi or Albedo/Kaeya or whatever Genshin fic into the tag of a F/F rarepair that gets like three lines in the fic. Begone with you.
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For example, a lot of Macy/Harry fics will be crosstagged with Maggie/either Jordan or Parker and Mel/one of her girlfriends, even though those relationships only show up for like. A paragraph.
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There's a decently sized cast, but most of them are either love interests or not common targets for shipping; only the three sisters get this treatment.
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10/10 no notes.
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