Did Enterprise fandom dissipate exceptionally thoroughly?

"Minefield" is exactly the right word. I remember once waxing on about how damn great "Twilight" was as an episode, and then having to declare myself neutral in the shipping wars because someone took it as being pro-Archer/T'Pol and came out at me guns blazing.

 

Honestly, Lower Decks fandom outside of TBBS tends to be fairly shippy and even for some of the stupid takes I've seen on Reddit, it's not even close to the crap that flew here in its heyday. Most of the Marinler shippers were fairly sympathetic to the rather lackluster development of Mariner and Jennifer's split at the end S3. That was not the case for a few of the A/T'Pers after TATV, one of whom thought it was great to start a thread called "Dead As A Doorknob" about Tucker. The same person insinuated Trip and T'Pol deserved to lose Elizabeth because they were a disaster together and a number of people on both sides of the aisle, many of whom had suffered pregnancy loss, schooled her that day.

But I will say I do credit this place and that ship war for the reason I didn't be one an sufferable twit in my subsequent fandom. I was definitely on the path to that, but I remember the time when I reached out to a poster named @Hoshi's sis for spoilers about the shower scene in "Damage" and she told me in no way was she sharing anything with someone who was just gonna bash the pairing. And in retrospect, I realize 90% of my issue with T/T'P was less the idea of the shop but the poor execution in canon but as a snotty kid I did have the words to sort that out.

But I did realize that day that I rather get along with more fans than fewer of them,and I changed my behavior accordingly. Unfortunately, she was one who dropped this fandom hard after the finale and it's not likely she'll ever read this but I credit her specifically for being the reason I stopped being a shit.

 

Just in case I have not already revealed myself to be ever so slightly neurotic, I went through every page of the fanfiction channel thread titles looking for a fic named Destroyer of Worlds or a fic referencing Enterprise. Found a well-written fic or two, found the beginnings of even more interesting sounding fics but did not find the fic you described. This was, of course, after using the search function on here (that seems to limit itself to only the past year? Is there some trick to it?) and Google as well. I am not giving up entirely just yet but I think I’m moving this quest to the back burner.

Disappointing research mission aside, I am feeling that my M.O. of getting into fandoms after the fact may not have steered me too wrong after all. I do regret not being able to chat with authors I admire. I did take your advice @HopefulRomantic and have commented on a number of fics on FFN. I’m spoiled by AO3 and was hoping at least one person would respond back but time rolls on and life brings change so who even knows if they still have access to their FFN accounts at this point? I do wish the Enterprise fandom hadn’t gone supernova and there was a larger, more mellow but still engaged fandom in existence. And yet… can’t be too torn up when I missed stuff like that "Dead As A Doorknob" thread you recalled @Anna Yolei. I literally wept every time I watched a particular (beautiful!) fan edit or read a number of the fanfics I encountered dealing with Trip’s death. This was a pretty consistent pattern for a couple of weeks. (I cried at the end of the Little Mermaid because she was giving up being a mermaid and leaving her home, I cry easily, it’s a thing.) That type of callousness would definitely have left me quite saddened. So, perhaps it’s all for the best I arrived as late to the party as I did.

 

Hey, at least this board is still here. I watched Farscape for the first time last summer, and I started googling questions I had after the show ended, and kept being directed to the biggest Farscape fan-forum on the internet... which had shut down about a week before I finished the show. Google was still showing me results of threads talking about my questions, but there was nothing at the link.

 

Sumire thanks for trying to find the story I tried to find it a few years ago with the wayback machine website .But I'm afraid it's gone for good.

 

Oh no! That would be so disappointing! I hope you’ve been able to dig up some of the answers you wanted. Have you tried the Wayback Machine @Reanok mentioned?

 

There were a few threads there, but I didn't look that hard. I don't even remember what I was wondering about. I think I was trying to find some details on behind-the-scenes stories I'd heard on other websites, and maybe a couple of unanswerable tech-questions because things were intentionally kept ambiguous.

 

Its definitely an interesting idea, to give ENT the Kelvinverse treatment. Not sure if JJ Abrams would be interested, but at least the idea is out there.

This is a take I haven’t heard before regarding TATV, that the negative fallout was based around ships for Trip/T’Pol and Archer/T’Pol and Archer stans were okay with the ending. Considering all the issues with the episode, shipping was the furthest thing from my mind.

 

Reading more fic from long-forgotten sites and wow, @Anna Yolei! You were not kidding about the ship wars! The number of Trip/T’Pol fics that have Archer throwing a tantrum of some sort over not being “chosen,” is giving me pause.

The first dozen or so authors I read sometimes addressed the awkwardness inherent in finding romance in a small pool of candidates. That’s believable. Trip and Archer are close friends, even putting aside command structure, if one of them was to enter a serious relationship with anyone, it would change the structure of their days and thus their relationship. My friends entering committed relationships certainly changed how we hung out. And I imagine if that change involved a person both friends found attractive? That would add to the tension. I buy that. (I was worried something like that would happen in my life because it happens so much in media but surprise! People have different tastes and no one in my friend group stepped on anyone else’s toes.)

Now I’m branching out beyond the recommendations I’ve stumbled upon and… Trip and Archer getting into fisticuffs? Not something I want to read. Or Archer behaving like an entitled jerk? Also not enjoyable. I don’t vibe with that dynamic. Friendship is just as necessary to the human (or humanoid) heart as romance and one shouldn’t be sacrificed to the other. Friendship in the face of the vast vacuum of space? I would think one would hold on to such a precious thing with both hands so I expect any awkwardness to be resolved. Is life always like that? No, of course not, but I turn to narrative for a cut above everyday life!

 

Sumire If your feeling burned out reading the fanfiction stories from the shipper wars take a break step away from it if your not happy with the stories .Read something else you like that's what I do .

 

I have been doing a look back at 2022 fanfics I loved and I’m up to about August (height of the Hellcheer obsession). It’s made for some really enjoyable reading. I bookmarked some great stuff!

Just read a truly amazing Tom/B'Elanna fic last night. I do still carry that lingering sadness though… There’s a good number of really fine writers out there, fixing inconsistencies and shallow characterizations and making all these assorted characters truly shine. And then there’s Enterprise. It desperately needs the polish gifted by dedicated fanfic authors, the soft-focus nostalgia grants to gild the poor choices TPTB made for it and… well, see the title of the thread.

 

I've read some of the new stories at Archive our own a few weeks ago they have some good Enterprise Trip & T'Pol stories.

 

There are some amazing T’Pol/Trip fics on AO3! Some, like Rigil_Kent, are uploading older fics from other sites. Others, like avocadomoon, seem to be publishing new fics directly to AO3. Both are bringing their A game and I have deeply appreciated delving into the worlds they create.

I’m just being greedy. I want more! Chakotay/Janeway (my primary Trek ship) has 5,648 fics on AO3 versus 740 fics for T'Pol/Trip. For the most popular ship I read (Adrien/Marinette), there are 33,024 fics to read on AO3! Even Hellcheer has more than T’Pol/Trip! In the span of about half a year they wrote 2,213 fics and Chrissy dies in the first episode!

 

I'm glad Rigil Kent is posting his stories there at A03 I've read his stories several times. A friend of mine has told me about Avacado Moon's Trip&T'Pol stories being good. I just haven't had alot of time to read new stories lately.I really like some of the Ds9 and Picard stories have been quite good too.

 

To be entirely fair, most people still weren't particularly excited about the finale regardless of which side of the ship war they were on, but the A/T'P fans who largely weren't Trip fans weren't especially broken up that he died. I only remember one person being obnoxious in their gloating, though.

Re: Rigil Kent, they left this board some yrs ago but I'm glad they're still around!

 

I'm glad Rigile Kent is still around he used to post some of his Stories At the Delphic Expanse they used to have some really good Enterprise stories before the site shut down a few years ago.I don't know if the Way back Machine saved some of the stories from that site or not.

 

Delphic Expanse!

I knew I was forgetting an archive!

*Sigh* Any chance the mods at the other places may still have working emails so we can at least put the big in their ear about moving to AO3 in the future?

 

Oh, isn’t that the dream? I would be thrilled if all those great archives were transferred to AO3. #goals as the kids say.