Why Do You Ship What You Ship?

[pennswoods]

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.

Comments

[emmagrant01.livejournal.com]

First, massive hugs to you, Shannon, for your bravery in opening up about something so very personal. I'm so, so glad you're still here, and that fandom has been such a source of comfort and inspiration for you!

Let's see... My OTPs over the years, let me show you them.

Star Wars: Obi-Wan/Siri Tachi: I loved the character of Siri so much. The Star Wars universe is severely lacking in female characters, but Siri was a strong, badass Jedi who was a contemporary of Obi-Wan's. I started shipping them early in my fannish experience, and I think I was really looking for strong female characters at that time. I'd just finished grad school and started a new job, and I was so full of hope for the future. I ran a mailing list and an archive for the character, and cheered like crazy when that pairing became canon... for like two minutes, and then she got killed. ARGH.

Harry Potter: Harry/Draco: I went into the HP fandom expecting to ship either Remus/Sirius or Harry/Hermione, but then I read a few H/D fics and WOW. That dynamic of two people who hate each other so much finally breaking through that wall and fallign for each other was something I found I really, really liked. H/D got me through six years of infertility hell, and for that I will always be grateful. And maybe that was part of it: I needed to immerse myself in something incredibly unlikely in order to deal with the despair I was experiencing in my real life.

BtVS: Buffy/Angel: I came late to the Buffy fandom, and fell head over heels for Buffy/Angel. It broke my heart and made me sob massive tears. I usually don't go for doomed pairings at all, but that one, man. I'm not sure why it hit me so hard, but it did.

Star Trek: Jim/Bones: I came out of the STXI film ready to ship me some Kirk/Spock. And then something happened. I have no idea now how it was that I stumbled on Jim/Bones first, but OH HOLY HELL. The snark! The Academy years! The drunken escapades in San Francisco before they became Starfleet officers! Oh, it was amazing. Sadly, there was not enough Bones in STID. Maybe the third movie will bring me back to this pairing.

Sherlock: John/Sherlock: I think I ended up shipping this by default, TBH. It seemed so obvious, and it seemed to be what everyone else was doing, so I went there too. That and there is just so much chemistry between them on the show, my God. I seem to be a bit unique in that I don't identify strongly with either character. I'm not sure I even like Sherlock all that much. But I do love the idea that these two people might find each other in their 30s/40s, and that it could be something that takes them both by surprise. That's really beautiful!

[pennswoods.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I'm still here too. I think about all that's happened since 2011 and there have been some definite rich points in my life that I will always cherish and a lot of that stems from opportunities I've had as a result of fandom. And one of the reasons I continue to go on about #setlock is because that's one of those experiences. If I had ceased to exist in 2011, I would have never seen the filming of this show. I would have never met the people I have met. I would have never been a part of this amazing podcast. I would have never had a chance to try and be a better partner.

and cheered like crazy when that pairing became canon... for like two minutes, and then she got killed. ARGH. Oh my god. This is horrible. Ack!

You are truly one of my gateway people into Johnlock. When I started reading your WIP Cure (aptly named) and got a hold of S2 was when I was struggling to pull myself out of this whatever I found myself in during 2011. And all the post Reichenbach fic and big AU fic at that time - (TTOBB, PiLR, etc.). That beautiful fic gave me life.