For The Love Of Shipping: How Fan Fiction Cultivates Community And Creativity

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Steve Rogers doesn't drink coffee, however he's come to learn that there's nothing he wouldn't do — or drink — to prepare the beautiful barista at his neighborhood cafe smile. If Bucky, the barista, notices how Steve routinely sips his Americano with an obvious grimace, he never says anything.


you might be guessing what Steve Rogers, First Avenger and America's Ass, is doing at a cafe once he should be out saving the world from aliens or Hydra; or why Bucky Barnes, with his not-so-affable disposition, is steaming milk and making lattes beyond the counter. Nevertheless for those who frequent the "coffee shop" or "Stucky" tags online, this is just your average fanfic prompt.

"Stucky" is the fan-appointed ship name for childhood friends-turned-Avengers Steve and Bucky, one of the most popular pairings in the Marvel Cinematic Universe on Twitter eats and Tumblr dashboards alike. "Shipping," obtained from the word "relationship," is the desire for two or more people, real or fictional, to be in a romantic relationship. Some days, one of these people is even you (thanks to the rise of the "Y/N" genre on platforms like Wattpad in which writers insert the reader directly into the story), or an original character ("OC," "Mary Sue").


there really are tens of thousands of "Stucky" stories online — one-shots, multi-chapter epics, and social media odysseys that unfold over hundreds of tweets. On Archive of Our Own (AO3), the internet's most beloved fan fiction archive that houses more than 5 million fan works, the "Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes" tag has more than 45,000 pieces, and the Avengers coupling was the No. 10 ship on Tumblr in 2018. (They're still the No. 10 ship on the platform, which updates its "Fandometrics" statistics weekly, at the time of publication; Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak from IT: Chapter Two are No. 1.) Although there's nothing canon about Stucky. In other words, you didn't sleep through a key confession in Avengers: Endgame. In the MCU, Steve and Bucky are just companions — best companions, even — and superhero colleagues, nevertheless in the world of shipping, canon doesn't matter.


Fan fiction is a lawless land unbound by space and time, where anyone or anything can get with each other across franchises, fictional universes and platforms. There's an entire fandom serious about "Jelsa," the pairing of Frozen's ice princess Elsa and Rise of the Guardians's Jack Frost. Fans created the universe Rise of the Frozen Guardians to support the crossover pairing; some also signed petitions to Disney and Dreamworks to get an actual movie made. Meanwhile, if you're looking for an angsty enemies-to-lovers saga, then look no further than Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, or "Drarry." Without consideration of the setting — a coffee shop, a college classroom, an apartment, or the corridors of Hogwarts — Drarry fics all have one thing in common: simmering tension. Equally, there's "SquidBob TentaclePants," the romantic pairing of SpongeBob SquarePants and his cantankerous neighbor, Squidward Tentacles.


Whether they're OTP ("one true pairing") material, or a midnight curiosity piqued, the quota does not exist once it comes to ships. And while there's nothing like the feeling of diving into a good fic, penning one is another level of emotional investment. For fan fiction writers, writing fic is a creative outlet for their shipping, a way to hone their storytelling skills while analyzing the media they're consuming.


"I think shipping gets a bad rap as something that younger — or, let’s be truthful, female — fans do because they just hope to fantasize over hot characters. And, I mean, more power to them if they do. We’ve all been there," 26-year-old writer Cate (her online pseudonym) tells MTV News. Cate's first ship was Will and Elizabeth from Pirates of the Caribbean in 2005, nevertheless it wasn't up until 2012 that she began consuming fan fiction consistently on Tumblr. The opening story she published herself was a Newsies fic that examined the "future as soon as the main characters were coming back from fighting in WWI," before penning stories for the significantly larger Doctor Who and Torchwood fandoms. ("Ten/Rose and Jack/Ianto ships, for the record.")

It's segment of the in general method of consuming media in a more mobile way.

"Shipping doesn’t have to mean an obsession with a romance or a fixation on the romantic storylines to the exclusion of all else. It’s piece of the in general method of consuming media in a more mobile way," she says. While @we could think of shipping as a contemporary phenomenon, it's actually a way we’ve engaged with stories and people for centuries. "It’s routinely been around,” Cate says. “Fan mags in the 1970s, furious letters about Jo/Laurie to Louisa May Alcott in the 1800s, ancient Greek philosophers like Plato having lengthy debates about whether Achilles or Patroclus were a thing — and if they were, who topped."


For several writers — and readers — of fan fiction, it's also a healthy way to explore and express their own feelings, emotions, and, for some, kinks. The perplexing categorization on AO3 makes it easy to scan the tags for hundreds of sexual fantasies, from "bondage" to "voyeurism."


On the opposite end of the spectrum is the fluffier “coffee shop” tag, which currently exceeds 21,000 stories on AO3. Here, a story might center a florist around the corner or the tattoo artist who works in the parlor next door. The setup is straightforward: The tattooist saunters into the cafe, inked up in all-black, and orders the sweetest drink on the menu additional whip) — a handsome contradiction — making eyes with our sweet, awkward protagonist across the counter. Like the drink, the intention of a coffee shop AU (or option universe, a fic set outdoors of a customary canon) is sweet and simple, void of the angst you'd find in the "hurt/comfort" genre or the primal sexuality of the "omega verse." In several ways, it's a wholesome retreat.


Shipping “is a way for the imagination to run in ways that real life can’t, a way to build relationships and lives that are fascinating, that some days wish you can would be piece of says 23-year-old Ryan (their online pseudonym). "It’s honestly soothing, like an astounding escape from day-to-day life." Ryan began consuming fan fiction at 15; a Directioner with a soft spot for the friends-to-lovers genre, their starter ship was Harry and Louis from One Direction.


"I like writing wholesome, mostly happy stories with a dose of realism sprinkled in," they mention. "I really like writing characters who react in healthy ways to hard situations or in places where, in real life, most folks are likely to react in far less accommodating ways. It feels awesome to be able to see characters just having a good time, loving each other, [and] being successful."


And while shipping real-life celebrities will ignite the occasional heated debate within fandom — though, the popularity of "Larry Stylinson" quelled much of the stigma around RPF (real-person fiction) —  for Ryan and for others, it's about the fantasy of what if. "It’s a way for us queer folk to imagine what it could be like if some of the people we look up to were also queer," Ryan says. "It’s a thought representation in industries where there often is none, also it feels good."


Fanfic has long been a location to symbolize the underrepresented and explore characteristic of one’s identity and sexuality. In the 1970s, fans of Star Trek: The Original Series — several of whom were females — wrote stories in the pages of fanzines that envisioned a romantic, some days sexual, connection between Kirk and Spock. This was the birth of slash (or same-sex) fiction, named immediately following the way fans would label these stories in zines and among one another as "K/S." Though the term is seen as rather archaic today — in part because ships are right now sorted as portmanteaus (thanks, Brangelina), yet also because shipping, like sexuality, is more fluid than ever — slash fulfilled a required for diverse stories. Right now, LGBTQ+ narratives, or works that reimagine characters or people as such, are commonplace online.

A lot of fandoms are safe spaces, or have safe spaces within them for people like myself, who are members of the LGBTQ+ community, to express themselves.

"In fan fiction, the LGBTQ+ community has a location to express itself," 18-year-old Robin tells MTV News. "A lot of people write off fan fiction as being the product of teenage ladies projecting their gay fantasies onto various celebrities and characters, nevertheless that overlooks the hundreds of male fanfic writers and the several members of the LGBTQ+ community that set out to write their own representation, since mainstream media has failed them. A lot of fandoms are safe spaces, or have safe spaces within them for people like myself, who are members of the LGBTQ+ community, to express themselves."


Robin began writing short stories about their preference characters in eighth grade before being introduced to Wattpad. Right now they write and share RPF on AO3, where they consistently connect with readers and fellow writers from around the world. "My online companions have been a large motivation for me once I'm stuck on a scene or any time If I feel down or uncreative. With their help, I've recently written my best work to date."


That connection is what shipping is all about. Place on Earth from a wish to interact with one’s preference characters or people on a personalized level, shipping — whether actively writing fic or simply consuming it — ultimately cooperates with the you connect with others and, more importantly, yourself.

Nothing says love like staying until 3 a.M., Churning out a fic for a public of much less than 300 people.

"The mobile participation of writing a fanfic is an intimate venture, exploring the internal conflicts and motivations of characters you only know from an outdoor perspective," says 28-year-old Erica, a longtime writer and consumer of fanfic with a keen interest in AUs and RarePair stories ("lately, it's been regency and Pacific Rim AUs"). Her interest in writing fic all boils down to one thing: love. Love for the source material, and love for the community it inspires.


"Nothing says love like staying until 3 a.M., Churning out a fic,” she says, “for a population of far less than 300 people."

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