What do you mean by "I ship it"?
Mar. 29th, 2012 04:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI've been thinking about the wildly different and sometimes contradictory things that I mean in different contexts by "I ship X/Y" (Or X/Y/Z/W...), and how this can cause miscommunication when people fail to be psychic and realise which meaning I'm using. I think this is a cause of a lot of fannish miscommunication, but would be curious to hear other people's thoughts.
So, when I say "I ship it", I usually mean one or more of the following:
But I don't always think all of these things. For example, with a lot of canon relationships (or even ships with lots of UST) even if I don't think they're perfect for each other I have trouble imagining them with anyone else. Fanworks have to have them together or at least take their relationship seriously and then break it up, otherwise I lose my suspension of disbelief. Thus a believable "happy ending" is more likely to involve making a flawed relationship work than setting the characters up with other people who suit them better, though I may also "ship" these alternate pairings in that I enjoy those fanworks that manage not to set off my suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately I also get jarred by happy endings that simply gloss over the flaws in a relationship, so am generally doomed to writing my own fic and feeling hard done by.
I also ship a lot of relationships because I enjoy the dynamic, not because I necessarily think they should or will actually get together. (see for example my deep love of hateshipping)
Both of these mean that I look at essays explaining why a rival ship is "better" because the characters would be happier, or people saying "I can't believe anyone ships X/Y, they'd be so miserable" and go "Sure, maybe, but how is that relevant?". Then again I don't see the point in "X/Y is better than A/B" shipping arguments in general, you can argue about specific character interpretations being contrary to canon, and try and explain why certain dynamics appeal to you, but I think it's all largely a matter of taste.
EDIT: Since I'm not sure it's clear: I am an inveterate multishipper. Even for canon ships which I really enjoy and have huge trouble imagining not together, I can enjoy works which have them with other people, the creator just has to try harder to convince me. And for many of my favourite ships, there is no canon romance, and as long as the canon friendship is acknowledged I can happily ship all sorts of combinations, eg for Homestuck I am a fan of pretty much any combination of Dave, Rose, Terezi and Aradia into romances and/or friendships(*), and they all have vague but not overwhelming canon support.
So! What do you mean by "I ship it"?
(*)This being Homestuck, there's the question of what kind of romance I'm talking about, but let's not overcomplicate things here :D
So, when I say "I ship it", I usually mean one or more of the following:
- I hope they get together in canon
- I think they are, or will be, together in canon
- I have trouble imagining them with anyone else, and want to see their relationship explored
- I have trouble enjoying fanworks where they are not together
- I think their relationship would be happy and healthy
- I enjoy imagining them together
- I like their shippy dynamic
- I enjoy fanworks about their relationship
- I am able to enjoy fanworks about their relationship
But I don't always think all of these things. For example, with a lot of canon relationships (or even ships with lots of UST) even if I don't think they're perfect for each other I have trouble imagining them with anyone else. Fanworks have to have them together or at least take their relationship seriously and then break it up, otherwise I lose my suspension of disbelief. Thus a believable "happy ending" is more likely to involve making a flawed relationship work than setting the characters up with other people who suit them better, though I may also "ship" these alternate pairings in that I enjoy those fanworks that manage not to set off my suspension of disbelief. Unfortunately I also get jarred by happy endings that simply gloss over the flaws in a relationship, so am generally doomed to writing my own fic and feeling hard done by.
I also ship a lot of relationships because I enjoy the dynamic, not because I necessarily think they should or will actually get together. (see for example my deep love of hateshipping)
Both of these mean that I look at essays explaining why a rival ship is "better" because the characters would be happier, or people saying "I can't believe anyone ships X/Y, they'd be so miserable" and go "Sure, maybe, but how is that relevant?". Then again I don't see the point in "X/Y is better than A/B" shipping arguments in general, you can argue about specific character interpretations being contrary to canon, and try and explain why certain dynamics appeal to you, but I think it's all largely a matter of taste.
EDIT: Since I'm not sure it's clear: I am an inveterate multishipper. Even for canon ships which I really enjoy and have huge trouble imagining not together, I can enjoy works which have them with other people, the creator just has to try harder to convince me. And for many of my favourite ships, there is no canon romance, and as long as the canon friendship is acknowledged I can happily ship all sorts of combinations, eg for Homestuck I am a fan of pretty much any combination of Dave, Rose, Terezi and Aradia into romances and/or friendships(*), and they all have vague but not overwhelming canon support.
So! What do you mean by "I ship it"?
(*)This being Homestuck, there's the question of what kind of romance I'm talking about, but let's not overcomplicate things here :D
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Date: 2012-03-28 08:13 pm (UTC)Or, "It's hilarious to think of those two as a couple. THEY SHOULD TOTALLY BE A COUPLE."
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Date: 2012-03-28 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-28 08:19 pm (UTC)For me, "I ship it" means "I enjoy the idea of these characters together" or "I think these characters have a dynamic I'd like to see explored in canon/fanworks/both". I share most of your meanings, apart from the "I have trouble enjoying fanworks where they are not together". That's a meaning that hadn't really occurred to me before.
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Date: 2012-03-28 11:25 pm (UTC)One of the motivations for writing this post was seeing people baffled by canon shippers of otherwise fairly unappealing ships and thinking about the different approaches people have to shipping.
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Date: 2012-03-29 11:18 am (UTC)I have a reverse thing - there are some ships that I have a irrational dislike of and will avoid reading. Doesn't seem to be a common factor in what makes a ship I have this reaction to (Note, not an irrational dislike it exists, just an irrational dislike that means I do NOT want to read it, seems silly of me). Is there such a thing as antiship?
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Date: 2012-03-30 07:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-28 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-28 11:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 07:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-28 10:49 pm (UTC)Most of the time I don't particularly care, because I'm not in it for the shipping. I'm in it for the friendshipping. And friendshipping can happen whether there is romance or not. So I guess the thing I'm not that interested in is lust-at-first-sight. Sorry, boring. Sexual intimacy is not a substitute for emotional intimacy, and it's the emotional intimacy I want. Or even unrequited love, sometimes. (See Snape/Lily).
So... what do I mean when I say "I ship it"? I don't actually say that very often. I ship Snape/Hermione. Meaning, I love that ship and I want to read more and more of it, but that doesn't mean I have trouble reading stories where they aren't together. I ship Snape/Anya. Meaning, I invented that ship and I think it is delightful (and obviously, I'm going to be reading stories where they aren't a couple, because nobody but me has written any!). Do I ship Samantha/Jack? No, I don't particularly care if they're a couple or not (even though canon supports it). I ship Avon/Cally. Meaning, I like the idea of them together, and I enjoy stories where they get together.
Hmmm, so I guess what I mean by "I ship it" is "I think their relationship would be happy and healthy", "I enjoy imagining them together", and "I enjoy fanworks about their relationship". I don't particularly care if they get together in canon or not, probably because my two major ships (Snape/Hermione and Snape/Anya) are definitely not canonical and couldn't ever be canonical. I guess I'm just not that invested in romance; not enough that I'm desperately hoping that X and Y get together in canon. Probably because if any given pair of characters is close enough in canon for me to think of them as possible ship material, they're close enough in a friendship sense that I've already got what I want: a close friendship between them.
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Date: 2012-03-28 11:37 pm (UTC)I enjoy friendship gen, and vastly prefer it to emotionless porn, but for me there is a definite distinction between close friendship and romance between characters, and if I want one then the other won't do. I can see how, for you, there'd be less need to ship almost-canon couples.
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Date: 2012-03-29 12:39 am (UTC)Oh, I don't mean I'm one for ignoring canon completely; but I'm quite happy for AUs to branch off at any moment in time, provided they take account of what was known about canon at the time they were written. So a lot of the post Deathly-Hallows stuff I read ignores the epilogue, because the story takes place immediately following the last chapter, in which case it's often "and then Ron and Hermione broke up", or sometimes "and then Ron and Hermione got divorced" or even "and then Ron got killed".
But if the story goes AU at an earlier point in time, I don't feel it necessary to explicitly break Ron and Hermione up, because it's less clear that they were a couple before then.
And, IMHO, the further from canon a particular ship is, the more I feel that the author needs to explain how the ship happened, even if I feel that it's a ship that would work... depending on the particular ship, I guess. I mean Ron/Lavender is supported by canon, but say, Ron/Luna needs at least a sentence to explain how they got together, rather than the author just assuming that it's obvious to everyone that they were Meant To Be. (Disconcerting example for me: a couple of Snape/Hermione stories I've read that had Harry/Draco as a supporting couple, and the author doesn't bother explaining it other than decreeing that they'd always been secretly attracted to each other. Whut?)
I enjoy friendship gen, and vastly prefer it to emotionless porn, but for me there is a definite distinction between close friendship and romance between characters, and if I want one then the other won't do. I can see how, for you, there'd be less need to ship almost-canon couples.
Oh, I'm not saying there isn't a difference... but most of the time, if I'm happy to see a couple in a romantic pairing, I'm also happy to see them in a friendship pairing - though not necessarily the other way around. For one thing, I don't do slash. But even with het friendships, there are some pairs of characters whom I love their friendship, but it would break my brain if they were romantically involved. Such as the Doctor and Ace. Indeed, the Doctor with most of his companions I just find brain-breaky. Romana/Doctor is good. I can just see Doctor/Rose or maybe Doctor/Martha or Doctor/Tegan, but anyone else? No. Just no.
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Date: 2012-03-29 02:31 am (UTC)Yes, some pairings are more supported by canon than others, and this is not necessarily correlated to how much I like them.
Hmm...yes, I think we're similar here. I definitely have pairs I ship JUST as friends, and if I ship two people romantically and their relationship hasn't had much attention in canon I really enjoy gen fic exploring and building upon their relationship, even if part of me wishes it was shipper :)
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Date: 2012-03-28 11:44 pm (UTC)I actually...don't know where the boundaries between "romantic relationship" and "friendship" are, so when I write shippy fic I always worry about not being romantic enough. I love the idea of romantic friendships, though, but it's hard for me to write fic with all the cuddly/handholdy/sleeping-together-without-sleeping-together stuff I'd like, because ID.
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Date: 2012-03-29 02:25 am (UTC)I have taken a really, really long time to be able to write anything very romantic or sexy, and am still really self conscious and uncomfortable about it. Which is annoying, because I write a lot of femslash pairings that could easily be read as just friends when I don't want them to be (I write female friendship too, but for me they are different. I like the lack of ambiguity and so do my characters :))
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Date: 2012-03-29 12:03 am (UTC)I enjoy imagining them together
I like their shippy dynamic
I enjoy fanworks about their relationship
My pairings are mostly slash and femslash, so I don't expect them to come together in canon.
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Date: 2012-03-29 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 12:51 am (UTC)For my OTP (my icon), it definitely goes a little deeper - I've scoured the canon and examined the subtext/context of their interactions (it's a kid's show from the 80s, when romance was verboten for the under-12 set). I love sitting back and imagining them together. I love reading shippy fic about them, no matter how horrible it is :P I've built this very rich, detailed head!canon around them, and to me, that's the *only* way the course of their relationship makes sense. It's interesting to see others' interpretations of them, but it doesn't really ring true.
Only now, two years into exclusively shipping them together, am I beginning to open up to see the potential of other relationships for them. I've never written those stories (or read them, not that there's many to read), but I've also never bashed anybody else for liking ships other than my own. What's the point? I consider it a celebration of the characters, their chemistry, and the investment I've made in them as a couple.
I have other, casual ships from other fandoms, and mostly I enjoy exploring the characters' interactions. The one reason I've never understood for shipping is simply "they look pretty together". That one boggles my mind, I guess because I care more about their personalities and backgrounds than how attractive they are :P
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Date: 2012-03-29 02:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 09:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-31 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 07:51 am (UTC)I think that's the problem with terms like "ship" and "OTP", they mean different things to different people. I just use "OTP" to mean "pairing I really like, and like the most for these two characters", but I know other people use it in the narrower sense of "If I see fic involving rival pairings it CRUSHES MY SOUL" etc. I will happily read fic for "rival" pairings (as long as it doesn't bash my OTP) it can be fun to see the characters from a different perspective.
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Date: 2012-03-31 03:18 am (UTC)I think we're pretty much on the same page.
I hate ship and character bashing, and I'm one of those people who can buy pretty much any pairing if it is sold well to me in fic, but there are those pairings that seem more likely to me given what we see in canon. I do enjoy those rare fics that can make me believe the unbelieveable, though. :)
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Date: 2012-03-29 04:34 am (UTC)I don't participate in "I can't believe anyone ships..." conversations.
I think "X is better than Y" is fine as a conversation generator, but not as something to get wrought up about.
Many of my favorite ships are crossovers, and I consider friendship/romance/sex to be constantly mutating and highly overlapping sets, so conversations that hinge on whether something is canon or that draw fine distinctions among those things lose me.
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Date: 2012-03-30 08:55 am (UTC)I think that "X is better than Y" WOULD be fine as a conversation generator if people didn't get so wrought up about it, but since they do am inclined to express it more tactfully :)
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Date: 2012-03-29 05:49 am (UTC)When I say "I ship it", on the other hand, I don't really get into the exclusivity parts of the ship. I'm mostly about the "their dynamic seems interesting/for the lols/this feels satisfying" parts of shipping. Also, I participate in closed canons a lot, so "I hope they get together in canon" is usually... unimportant for me! If I wanted some of my Babylon 5 ships to be canon I'd have to go pester JMS to make some kind of announcement.
The only ship where I've felt the "I hope this happens in canon" is honestly for Girl Genius. I'd really like the OT3 to happen. And given that it's Phil and Kaja Foglio... it's actually a possibility!
Since I'm such a multishipper, "I have trouble enjoying fanworks where they aren't together" is rarely the case for me. I'm really trying to think of a fandom where the absence of a certain pairing would actually make me upset or hugely less likely to read a story, and I honestly can't think of one. I guess sometimes I have trouble reading stories where people blow off what I consider canon close relationships, but I think that's a characterization issue, and "close relationships" that I feel can be shippy can also be friendshippy (or antagonistically important.)
I guess I'm just too laid back for shipping wars. ;)
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Date: 2012-03-30 08:57 am (UTC)Very wise :)
I'd really like the OT3 to happen.
You and me both! It's definitely one of the few canons I'm interested in where an OT3 seems even remotely possible.
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Date: 2012-03-29 05:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 08:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 09:47 pm (UTC)Since I'm not sure it's clear: I am an inveterate multishipper. Even for canon ships which I really enjoy and have huge trouble imagining not together, I can enjoy works which have them with other people, the creator just has to try harder to convince me. And for many of my favourite ships, there is no canon romance, and as long as the canon friendship is acknowledged I can happily ship all sorts of combinations...
This accurately describes me as well! I've actually shipped quite a few pairings that really have no canon basis at all - they were explicitly a result of me putting two characters in situations that never quite happened or were shown in canon, and then realizing that I liked their dynamic and wanted to explore it more thoroughly. I do at least want to justify things in canon, or else by creating some kind of alternate universe (see also: my attempts at crazy Homestuck shipping.) But just because I enjoy one pairing doesn't mean I can't appreciate them in stories with other people, as long as the story is well-written and believably characterized.
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Date: 2012-03-30 08:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 10:32 pm (UTC)I don't think I've ever had an OTP, at least not in any of my recent fandoms. For me it's all about the OTC. As long as that person is part of the pairing I don't really care who the partner is. There are of course pairings I like more than others and pairings I consider more or less viable, but a good writer can convince me that pretty much any pairing might work in the right circumstances.
If it's canon or not have absolutely zero impact on my interest in a pairing. In fact I would go so far as to say that I find most canon ships uninteresting. When I read fanfic (I'm not a writer) I want to explore possibilites not get more of canon.
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Date: 2012-03-30 08:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-30 11:26 pm (UTC)It was almost nonexistent in popslash too. Which makes sense when you realise that both the first and second wave of bandom fans (in 2005 and 2007 respectively), were heavily populated by old popslash fans.
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Date: 2012-04-01 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-31 10:06 am (UTC)Which just goes to show that I'm fickle, or distractible by the shiny, or just want *everyone to love everyone else*. Or something.
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Date: 2012-04-01 04:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-04-14 12:39 am (UTC)The more I think about it, the more I don't recall using the word 'ship'. Similarly, I shy away from using the term OTP - there is probably one couple I can think of where I would struggle to read anything that involved one of them with someone else, unless it was a specific threesome, and thus would use the term, but even in my early days of reading slash, when I was only reading fics if they were written or recommended by a specific McKay/Sheppard OTP writer, I believe that I was uncomfortable with the term. I think it comes from the really strong internal codes about making sexual choices for other people that made reading erotica very difficult to do, at least in the beginning (and the more plotty a story, the more likely I am to skip the sex scenes, for related reasons. And yet, PWP - no worries there at all)