pennswoods | Why Do You Ship What You Ship?

I posted the following question to my Tumblr a little while back in responses to some of the arguing over shipping and assumptions being made about why people ship. I'm often frustrated by the simplistic and reductive assumptions that emerge in this kind of wank and wonder where other people are coming from. I expect we all ship for a number of reasons. The prompt elicited a number of really interesting responses which can be read in the notes to the post, but I'd love to hear more. Behind the cut are my own.

Have you ever thought about why you ship what you ship? And I don’t mean just what you like about a particular pairing but also what purpose it serves in your life.

Is it due to something you are dealing with personally? Is it a way to blow off steam and have fun (and if so - why this ship and not others)? Does it feel safe for you for some reason? Is it more about community than about you? Does it reflect past experiences, regret, hopes and wishes or even examined/unexamined prejudices? Does it get at something you cannot get at in any other way?

I love the different and detailed responses this post is generating, and it makes me want to share my own response to the question. The more that discussions of shipping come up, the more I think about why I ship what I do, and the more I realize just how much my shipping is in direct response to what is going on in my real life. I started out shipping in the HP fandom and was open to reading just about everything but settled on several OTPs.

Neville/Luna because it was cute and a little bit silly and had the best ship name (The Government Stole my Toad) and I was so new to fandom and fanfic and shipping and this seemed like a fun place to start. I feel I was in a more optimistic space in my life. This was when I was in my early 30s, relatively newly in love and still a doctoral student with so much potential ahead.

Snape/Harry when I was overwhelmed with life and teetering into a depressed state and need the pain and angst to cry over something other than myself. I was drawn to the inherent tragedy in their lives and their relationship. In pre-Deathly Hallows fandom, I would actively seek out fic of this pairing (only) where one of them died.

Snape/Hermione when I wanted hope or when I was struggling to function as an adult in an adult relationship. There was also some degree of wishful thinking for Snape too since he had paid the ultimate price for his mistakes in canon. But I could also relate to Hermione in many ways due to her desire to tackle the difficult and to push herself to grown and mature. So many post Deathly Hallows SS/HG fic dealt with the successful maturation of love and of a relationship and it gave me a kind of hope and guidance in the form of tales written by these wise fanfiction writers (some of whom I got to know rather well on LJ).

And then in 2011 I hit a rough patch, and I’m still not sure what went on. (Cut for personal reasons and description of suicidal ideation.)

I think it was a confluence of factors like work stress and the tenure process that eroded my self-esteem, deep loneliness (it had been years since I’d had friends I could open up to) and insecurity in my marriage. But I found myself crying every day as I rode the bus to and from work, battling thoughts in my head that constantly devolved into vicious self-loathing and a desire to obliterate myself. Every thought ended in my death and I used to fantasize about different ways I could choose not to avoid death. I wouldn’t seek it out, but if there was a bus coming and I was already in the road, why bother getting out the way. It would hurt a lot. But then it would stop and I wouldn’t have to be this waste of skin and blood and bullshit. This led to a vicious circle of further self-loathing because I knew this would just hurt people around me (especially my husband), but my reasoning was unreliable and I couldn’t see myself as anything but a waste of life.

I didn’t step in front of a bus, but in January 2012, a lonely man who didn’t really have friends jumped off the roof of St. Barts, leaving his roommate and best friend to witness to his ‘death’ and to suffer the repercussions alone.

And many of my HP friends, who had gradually been drifting away erupted into squee and pointed me to places where I could download the episodes to hear Molly’s observation that Sherlock looked sad when he thought John couldn’t see him and to experience the wealth of emotion that Benedict and Martin infused into their characters in that rooftop scene. And there was fic, so much fic trying to explore and heal John’s grief, trying to reunify them after this huge mistake and betrayal, trying to understand how these two difficult personalities could repair their relationship and grow together.

I fell in love with the hope and the relationship work that went in to so many Johnlock stories. I was at a stage of my life where fluff couldn’t really engage my mind and where I could no longer imagine myself in Hermione’s shoes, but I started to relate to a 30-something loner, who clearly wasn’t a hero, who was difficult to live with and who was often an asshole. And then my husband and I moved to Sweden (a country whose language I still don’t speak and where I still don’t have any friends outside work colleagues), which only amplified the tension in our marriage and led to even more communication breakdown and loneliness.

Johnlock fanfiction that dealt with similar themes (heart-breaking angst with a happy ending) became a source of consolation and hope but also distraction and escape that I used to steady myself to get through each day and to fight despair so I didn’t feel like I did in 2011.

This year is better than last year on the home front and I have found an English-speaking therapist who is working well with me. We have sometimes talked about fandom and fanfiction and through these conversations it’s become clearer to me that I ship Johnlock right now because it brings me joy and that it’s a positive and valuable thing to nurture that joy while dealing with the parts of my life that continue to challenge and overwhelm me.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ooooh, interesting! I read some of the responses to your Tumblr post but ack Tumblr makes it not easy to read them...

I would guess that shipping something because it brings you joy is probably something that everyone would agree on and the differences lie in what exactly is causing that joy?

I've had a look at who I ship and why and there's a clear pattern in my three OTPs: I always start out with admiring and loving a character who is
a) doing something idealistic/not for personal gain/for the good of others (often at great cost to himself)
b) who's a bit of a loner/standing out for being different and facing negative consequences for it and
c) not receiving much or any recognition for the good he is doing.

(And visually, it just so happens that this character always is on the pale side, is slender and has dark hair, ideally curls. Expressive eyes don't hurt either).

I fell for my first ever OTP because in his story fate had treated my favourite character very poorly (especially in the film version of his story) and I wanted a happy end for him - which came in the shape of the unconditional love of a strong, supportive partner who saw and appreciated all that my fav character did and had done and that was overlooked or not understood by everyone else around them.

The same is true for my other OTPs - my favourite character is rewarded for the (selfless) good that he does by finding love and happiness in a relationship. This is probably why I enjoy the matchmaking kind of fics the most - the fic that show us how these characters fall in love and become a couple and get their happy ending. Of course I read all kinds of fics about my OTPs but first-time or first-kiss fics are my favourite. :)

So, why do I ship a pairing? Because I fall in love with one of the characters and want a happy ending for him that I don't see in canon. This goes as far as me shipping a pairing where I never really liked the other half all that much - but he was just perfect for my favourite character and who was I to argue. - Oh, and another thing - my OTPs all have a very strong bond of friendship in their canons, I don't think it would work for me if they hadn't. I like that it just takes a little nudge to get my character from having a good friend to having a loving partner/boyfriend/husband.

As for the link to my life - I'm a fairly idealistic person and admire people who sacrifice a lot (their life, in fic) for the greater good - and I know that life doesn't always provide happy endings, but slash fic can (and not just of the sexy kind). Also, being in a stable relationship means that I don't get to fall in love and get together with someone over and over again - the way I can do via my favourite characters... :D

Thank you - this was most interesting! Looking forward to any other comments you might get here!

I fell for my first ever OTP because in his story fate had treated my favourite character very poorly (especially in the film version of his story) and I wanted a happy end for him - which came in the shape of the unconditional love of a strong, supportive partner who saw and appreciated all that my fav character did and had done and that was overlooked or not understood by everyone else around them.

This. It's simply the reason I ship. And the reason I'm so protective of the ship, and want to keep its integrity strong by encouraging writers and artist to contribute to it. I can get horribly gung-ho about it at times, but when you love something, you want to take care of it and see that it thrives.

A big heaping, helping of yes to this.

I love this enthusiasm and love.

Yes!!!!! :)

If he were slender, Benton Fraser would be right in your sweet spot. Have you seen any Due South?

Are you friends with Clevermanka? She loves Due South and adores that fandom.

No, I'm afraid I haven't seen Due South but I know of it. For some reason it didn't click, even though it has been recommended to me by friends. - Apart from Sherlock, I love both Frodo Baggins and Merlin from the BBC series. And, to a lesser degree, Ben Whishaw as Q.

Oh so interesting. I need to examine whether the same might not also be true for me (find one character in an OTP that I admire and love). I know I have been unable to really ship certain characters because I find them unrelatable, but what I tend to relate to is the messy stuff. But I have never been drawn to an all-out villain, so there is no doubt a degree of admiration for the character(s) that I need to have.

I also wonder if I also have a physical type as well. I know I am more drawn to Sherlock physically and I really like reading fic where his slenderness and hair are explicitly emphasized.

When you say messy stuff, what exactly do you refer to? Emotionally messy stuff for the character?

I definitely have a physical type - shallow me. Just look at these three pics:

http://frodosweetstuff.livejournal.com/714377.html

*whimpers* Especially when John is running his fingers through Sherlock's hair... *whimpers more*

Why Do You Ship What You Ship?

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