I was trundling around FanLore today feeling nostalgic for the good old days of Fandom Wank, where anonymity meant something and there were still people doing things besides porn RPs on the Livejournal-clone forums, and found this:
Westallen vs. Snowbarry is a Ship War that originated in the Twitter and Tumblr parts of the CW’s The Flash series, between fans of two Barry Allen pairings: Barry/Iris (Westallen) and Barry/Caitlin (Snowbarry).
Since the Arrow spin-off was announced, the implied (comicsverse canon) Barry Allen/Iris West pairing was popular since it was revealed in one of the episodes Barry Allen appeared in on Arrow was that he had secretly loved someone. It was again hinted at exactly who it was - Iris - to Felicity Smoak who was worried about him because of his coma (see Barry/Felicity for more). However with the release of the official trailer for the television series in May 2014, the pairing Barry Allen/Caitlin Snow started to take off.
This started creating tensions with some of Iris/Barry fans who felt it was wrong that people started shipping Caitlin with Barry since she was going to become Killer Frost (a villain in the comics) or ridiculous for fans to start shipping them just because she asked him to urinate in a cup.
After the premiere of the first episode, Snowbarry fans had started being accused of racist for not shipping/liking Iris/Barry - which would be an interracial couple - and Iris West who is a POC on Tumblr and Twitter, despite the fact that many of the Snowbarry fans actually do like Iris or like the gen relationship between Barry & Iris or even a potential romantic relationship between them. This goes the same for Iris and Barry/Iris fans, some actually do like Caitlin Snow and the gen relationship between Barry & Caitlin.
There were many comments on Tumblr that people liked both ships and couldn’t decide between them; this often led to them being accused of being indecisive or copping out.
Which led me to this amazing image:
I just…I realize this was early in the show before many of the recurring characters were even cast, before we knew how a certain sinnamon flavored ice cream cone would incorporate himself into every possible ship in not just one but two fandoms, but…oh honey.
