FanPreferredCouple Cleanup

Good rewrite.

Okay so I cut all but the second (which I hid) Durarara!! example from both the YMMV page and Anime & Manga. I also swapped in the Cagney & Lacey rewrite.

From YMMV.Saw III:

• Fan-Preferred Couple: Despite Lynn being married to Jeff, many prefer to ship her with Amanda instead.

This is true but could really use a rewrite. You guys mind if I give it a try.

Go ahead.

From Stargate SG-1:

• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • There is a segment of fandom who believe that Major Carter would have wound up with just about any of the male leads, but her and Jack O'Neill is as close to an "official" pairing as there ever got to be.Creator preferred.
  • Daniel and Sam in the 2-parter "Moebius", due to them both being real nerdy in the alternate timeline.No creator preferred.
  • Carmen Argenziano, who played Jacob Carter, stated that he thought Daniel would make a better match for his daughter than Jack.Not relevant one person's opinion and the wider one.
  • Daniel & Janet formed a popular pairing that also had the benefit of being Ship Mates to the 'core' Jack/Sam pairing.Both them with Jack and Sam is way bigger.
  • Daniel and Jack form the largest slash pairing, with over 5000 stories featuring them on Archive of Our Own.Maybe, but needs a rewrite.
  • Vala and Cameron are shipped by some as an alternative to Vala and Daniel, presumably both because of the Ship Tease between them in season 10 and because their actors' characters formed the main pairing of the sci-fi show they were in before they joined the cast, Farscape.Vala/Daniel is way more popular.

I am leaning towards cutting the whole thing. Thoughts?

Skimming it all, yeah. None of these overcome the basic problems to avoid.

Can I please get some more feedback on the Stargate stuff.

I hid this entry I found on V (2009):

• Fan-Preferred Couple: Joshua/Lisa.

Anyone here familiar with this show at all?

Edited by Bullman on Jun 12th 2022 at 1:26:12 PM

From YMMV.Lost:

• Fan-Preferred Couple: Some fans prefer Sawyer/Juliet just because they're so damn sick of the Jack/Kate/Sawyer love triangle. And then it becomes the official pairing in the series finale.

I am not super familiar with the fandom but this seems to be the biggest ship in the fandom but I am a bit concerned that it might be a bit to creator preferred. Like how prevalent was the love triangle at the time Juliet was introduced?

Also there's these entries from FanPreferredCouple.Live Action TV:

• While Jack/Kate did have its fair share of shippers in Lost, a majority of fans preferred Kate/Sawyer.
  • A lot of people were also upset that Sayid ended up with Shannon (who he dated for only a few weeks before her untimely death), when many felt that Nadia (his love interest since childhood who he spent 8 years searching for, married and then went on a murder spree to avenge after she was killed) was his true soul mate.

Anyone else here more familiar with the fandom able to shine some light on these and rather all or any of them count?

Okay, so this is a bit complicated...

The Jack/Kate/Sawyer love triangle lasted for years - seasons 1-4 in their entirety, while Juliet was introduced in season 3 - but it disappears pretty much immediately in season 5 when Sawyer ends up with Juliet, and they're each other's Official Couple for the last two seasons (the finale confirms them to be soulmates). Personally, I say cut the Juliet/Sawyer example for being creator preferred as well.

Kate/Sawyer is a legitimate example from what I know - they date in the show, but Jack is her official soulmate, and the ship does still have its fair share of fans.

I can't speak on the Sayid/Shannon example, but if I had to spitball I'd say the fandom is pretty split in half on that - on the one hand, their relationship was adorable and them being in the finale together was cute, but Sayid did marry Nadia and go on a rampage after she died, so there was more emotion there.

Basically, cut the Sawyer/Juliet example, but keep the Kate/Sawyer and Sayid examples is where I personally land.

Cool thanks. I figured that Sawyer/Juliet would be too creator preferred.

Okay so I've been cleaning up the Tales of Xillia 2 pages and the franchise's FanPreferredCouple.Tales Series page is raising several questions for me (in addition to almost all of the valid entries being ZCE).

Note: The numbers I'm citing are not absolute. I collected Pixiv counts by turning off content filters + including fanfic and variant ship names (ex. YuriFure and FureYuri for Yuri/Flynn), but there is the issue of some names being used in other fandoms (Alvin/Jude seems overrepresented due to overlapping with some other character name but I'm still certain they are in fact more popular than Jude/Milla). Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction Net are also not particularly reliable measures of anything older than 2013, since they predate Ao3 entering the mainstream, and FFn's ship tagging function, but it's the quickest way for me to gauge Western fandom.

1.) This franchise is known for having a lot of Chastity Couples who never have an explicit Love Confession or a Big Damn Kiss. It doesn't actually pose that much of a problem since a lot of the entries listed here aren't actually valid ones, but couples like Luke/Tear and Jude/Milla have mutual feelings that are never acted upon due to their own personal choices or external circumstances keeping them apart. Does that still count as creator preferred?

2.) What's the margin needed to be "fandom preferred"? Luke/Tear from Tales of the Abyss and its competing ship Luke/Guy are pretty close in numbers. Western fandom metrics favour Luke/Tear just slightly over Luke/Guy, and the inverse is true in Japanese fandom, but they're both fairly equal. Can I count them as a valid entry, or does there need to be a bigger difference?^stats Luke/Tear (992 works on Pixiv, 109 on Ao 3, 20 using FFN's pairing function) vs Luke/Guy (1174 works on Pixiv, 75 on Ao 3, 4 using FFN's pairing function).

3.) Can I cut the page and move the entries back to their respective YMMV pages? After trying to flesh out the ZCE and removing the examples that don't qualify, there are only six entries. It really doesn't feel like it needs a page to itself.

So, all of those stats out of the way, here are the remaining examples that I think fit the requirements. I took to Google to give some basic reasons for why they're more popular, but I'll admit I just looked at the Ho Yay page and the Tales wikis and tried my best. The only game on this list that I played was Xillia 2 and it shows. If it's all right to add "ships that are equally as popular as the Official Couple" then I'll add an entry about Luke/Guy under Abyss.

(I still don't know what to say about Jude/Alvin besides "Ho Yay"... I'll comment it out.)

Edited by lapistier on Jun 13th 2022 at 6:16:36 AM

Your entries seem good to me.

For Luke/Guy, I'm a bit unsure. I think if the difference in works is relatively small, like under 100, I would say the difference isn't big enough, but they do still have almost 200 works more than Luke/Tear. I feel like there might be an argument for it counting for the Japanese fandom only because of that, but I myself have often been confused for how much is considered enough, so I might need a second opinions on that one.

Thank you! I'll hold off on adding the Luke/Guy entry until someone else can chime in then, but I wouldn't mind either just specifying Japanese fandom or otherwise leaving it out entirely unless the difference ever becomes greater.

I don't know much about the Franchise so I will trust your judgement and I agree with cutting the page.

Anymore opinions on the Stargate entries?

Thank you! I'll resort the examples to their respective YMMV pages then.

As for the Stargate entries, the Daniel/Jack entry seems valid, Daniel apparently has a canon relationship with Sha're (307 fics on Ao 3) versus Daniel/Jack (4255 fics). I'd say cut everything except Daniel/Jack and leave the trope commented out for someone who knows the show to add context as to why fans prefer it?

Just deleted this from Total Drama, just checking to see if it was the right call:

• Despite rarely interacting in canon, many fans prefer to ship Izzy with Ezekiel rather than Owen, claiming that Izzy/Ezekiel are a better fit than Izzy/Owen. Not helped with Izzy/Owen being a Beta Couple and their eventual breakup in "World Tour".

I cut it cuz they only have, like, 5 AO 3 fics compared to 46 Owen/Izzy fics, and looking into it, there's not a massive slew of fanart and fanfic like there are for other fandom ships. Owen/Izzy is one of the less popular canon TD ships but it's still probably much more popular than that one Crack Ship.

Yeah. You 100 percent made the right call cutting that entry.

From FanPreferredCouple.Live Action TV:

• House:
  • House/Wilson has always been popular, and House/Cuddy was more popular than official couples House/Stacy and Lucas/Cuddy in Seasons 2 and 6, respectively.

Okay so I am of two minds. House/Cuddy is indeed more popular than those two ships. But is a major case of Will They or Won't They? It's just a case that they won't. However, House/Wilson is indeed more popular than everything else but is so chock full of Homoerotic Subtext and is technically the endgame even if only subtext. Overall I think you could make a case for and against both.

Well in a romantic sense, what fits and what doesn't?

It's complicated. Like I say in the work House/Cuddy is the main romantic relationship. However, the creators and the actors have abmitted that they purposely hinted at House/Wilson and the last scene is the two riding off into the night together. Again it's complicated. If I had to pick which one is creator preferred it would depend on how much subtext is it until the subtext becomes creator preferred.

If I had to give an answer right now. It would be House/Cuddy is creator preferred but House/Wilson are fan preferred.

Edited by Bullman on Jun 19th 2022 at 10:21:07 AM

Then a House/Wilson entry would make sense then, wouldn't it?

Probably.

From YMMV.Mad Men:

• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Joan and Roger.
  • From Season 4, Don and Faye.
  • Peggy and Stan who later become the Official Couple in the series finale.
  • Michael Ginsberg and Dawn Chambers, likely due to being polar opposite in personality and that they were the tokens of the agency and hired at the same time. The premiere of Season 7A even threw in a Ship Tease with Dawn acting slightly flirtatious with Ginsberg, though nothing came of it.
  • Peggy and Don or Don and Joan. Sometimes there is a threesome involved in fan fiction.

Peggy/Stan seem creator preferred and by most accounts the most popular ship. Can someone more familiar with the work give insight on if any of these fit?

From The Bold Type:

• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Adena and Kat.
  • A lot of fans would have preferred to see Jane get together with Alex than with her actual love interests.

Okay the first one is 100% creator preferred and the second is zero Context. So I removed the first one and hid the second. I did some research and found out that Jane's end game love interest is called Scott and she also had one named Ryan. The bigger problem is looking at fanfiction sites and place like Tumblr Twitter or Reddit I can't found little fans shipping her with Alex. I have actually found evidence that more fans ship her with her Jacqueline or her canon Ryan. So I am suggesting cutting it. Thoughts.

From what I know of the show, Ryan/Pinstripe was definitely Jane's love interest for the majority of the show. Are Kat and Adena fan-preferred too? If so, they don't need to be there clearly.