#also disagree with their claim that self shippers don't see themselves as actually in a relationship with the fictional character

[newl0ndonfire]

I think the difference between self-shippers and mary sues is that self shippers are the people who use y/n or "[character] x reader" ie they want to portray themself in a relationship with a particular character. as the paper says, self-shipping is more self-involved. yeah a mary sue can be anybody and there might be enough leeway where the author can go "ha that's TOTALLY not me" but there's only one you. for example, "I tied up my hair into a messy bun" is more of a mary sue action compared to "I pulled my hair back". many people (though not all) can tie their hair in a bun, while pulling your hair back implies much less about the person being described, so it's easier to imagine oneself in the story rather than just the author.

the paper explains the various facets of character appeal. I'm guessing the idea they're getting at for why self-shipping is a subset of shipping is "I like this character" -> "I also like this character" -> "I like the idea of these characters together" -> "if part of why I like a character is because I relate to some part of them, I may (also) like the idea of being in a relationship with them". the paper is somewhat of an overview of what parts of a character's appeal may make someone form a parasocial relationship with a character, so it's mostly talking about the last arrow.

snape wives are an example of self-shipping to an extreme. they believed they were in romantic relationships with him (self-shipping), and could channel him and he was a spiritual leader in their daily lives (the extremes). I don't think most people these days know about snape wives plus people aren't always as private as they could be (don't post your real name online kids), so people aren't afraid of potentially acting in some ways like a snape wife would. believing cringe is dead might also stop someone from caring if they might be acting like a snape wife.

regardless, both shipping and self-shipping involve the desire for a romantic or sexual relationship. shipping is between different characters and self-shipping is with a character and you. they can feel distinct at times, but self-shipping is still very much a subset of shipping.

Trisha M Nguyen, Mohammed Kadadeh, and David C Jeong. 2023. Shippers and Kinnies: Re-conceptualizing Parasocial Relationships with Fictional Characters in Contemporary Fandom. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 32, 1–12.

Submitter comment: Actually an extremely interesting open-access article that I would recommend reading.

[nightswithkookmin]

A quick lesson on ships

Because why not??😌

No but seriously, bare with me, I'm trying to answer your questions. Sit if you have to. Hehe

Uban Dictionary defines shipping as this:

A term used to describe fan fictions that take previously created characters and put them as a pair. It usually refers to romantic relationships, but it can refer platonic [sic] ones as well. (Just think of “shipping” as short for “relationSHIP”.) 9 Apr 2015

Ships can be platonic or romantic or both.

There's fictional ships and non fictional ships too. You ship two people you want to be in a relationship or who already are in a relationship or who you suspect to be in a relationship- perhaps due to queer baiting, ship baiting, romance baiting etc.

In the shipping fandom, there are two sects of people. Those who are Proships those who are Antiships- antis are ironically considered part of the shipping community because for some reason they are always in shippers business💀

Antishippers are those who oppose a particular ship or shipping in general (more on that later.)

Proshippers are well- Pro ships.

Pro-Ship

A term mostly used in fandoms, but can stretch outside of this to include original characters. The core belief is that shipping two fictional characters, no matter if they are family, share ages gaps, considered to be unhealthy, or show blatant signs of being abusive or other generally unsavory behaviours, are valid in a fictional setting.

Pro-Shippers or "anti-antis" are also known as "rainbow meaties" and will use 🌈 + 🍖 emojis together often in their bio on twitter or other social media platforms- usually within fictional settings.

These shippers reinforce the idea fiction is separate from reality and shouldn't be confused with the other.

‘Anti’ is short for ‘anti-shipper’ or ‘anti-[ship]’.

Kindly read through this thread to get the gist of it.

III

IV

Shipping non-fictional individuals is a subset of Proshipping, in my opinion, known also as alternative shipping- as far as my knowledge on it goes.

As with fictional shipping, alt ships have their antis too. People who disagree with shipping real couples in a romantic way for whatever arbitrary moral reasons they have and who feel entitled to go out of their way to correct, stop, police and punish such shippers.

Then there are those who although may be pro real people shipping think they have the right to tell others how they should ship and to what extent they can ship.

Others too prefer to ship real people platonically because they view romantic shipping of real people as problematic.

So to answer your question on Anon's post- there is no such thing as a Proshipper who is also Anti shipping. Thats oxymoronic. Perhaps they might be platonic shippers who are anti romantic ships but not necessarily romantic shippers themselves.

I don't think there's anything wrong with preferring to ship platonically. It is when they assume by virtue of their false sense of moderacy that they are better than others that shit starts to get funny.

Those shippers are delusionally confused beings with a supremacist imperialist complex rooted in ignorance and absurdities.

I usually walk by those quietly. keep it pushing. Gotta mind my business somehow even though most times I just want to pull their hair and bite them and shit😭

I try to keep it classy.

Lord knows I try.

You are either pro ship or anti ship. There's no in between. Those shippers who are shippers but claim they are not are nothing but fraudulent, fake us, simps trying to bamboozle their way through life- pardon my Swahili.

There are a lot of anti shippers moonlighting as shippers in this fandom. It's fascinating.

Personally I think those people are either confused or their desires to appeal to other Anti shippers must have morphed their brains into ass dick hybrids.

Anti shippers in general are notorious gatekeepers, gaslighters, bigots, high key sanctimonious and often have a cis white westernized sense of morality and ethics through which they fliter others and expect everyone and everything to conform to.

They impose their values on others, their ethics on others, resort to manipulation, policing, intimidation and bullying to impose their will etc.

Within shipping, there are those who are Proshipping yet anti certain ships. Most Tuktukkers are anti Jikook. And assume anyone who isn't a tuktukker is equally anti Tae Kook and so go ahead and exhibit anti behaviours towards them.

Think of such groups of shippers as Proshippers with a preference for particular ships if you will.

There are Pro shippers who also feel some kind of way about Shipping real life people or alt shipping.

Here's further resource to help you understand what proshipping is

If you are intolerant with other shippers choice of ships or style of shipping and you traumatize them for it that's Anti shipping. Especially if you feel entitled and justified to traumatize others because you take a higher moral status over them.

You can be proship and not like how certain people, how they go about

Simply walk away, click off, mind your business. You are not the only adult in these streets and leave people to do what interests them.

I think for as long as I can remember, I've always been a proshipper and I ship both platonically and romantically, fictionally and alternatively💀

Some themes in fiction are a hard limit for me such as the R word, pedophilia, incest, child abuse- I just can never find the entertainment in those topics and will struggle through such themes.

But others believe it's just FICTION and those fictional characters aren't really dealing with the imaginary struggles we read about.

Yall do you sis.

I don't really know why people make a big deal of it or try to demonize the concept of shipping as if it were something strange or mysterious- just keep your moral values to yourself. I am not your mother's daughter. we were not raised in the same households.

Then again I think it all depends on the different cultures and social backgrounds we all come from and how entitled, supremacist or imperialist they are.

For Yoonmin, I shipped them romantically but didn't think they were a real couple at all. I just romanticized their interactions and found humor in it. At the back of my head I was expecting them each to one day find husbands or wives and go their merry ways and even harbored the thought they each could very much be in serious romantic relationships with others.

In similar ways, I shipped Minimoni and Vmin.

You can ship a pair romantically and not think at all that they are actually REAL.

A lot of jokers ship Jikook romantically and don't assume they are real. Just as a lot of people shipped say Elena and Stefan romantically even though Paul was married.

Some shipped Elena and Damon too due to their unscreen chemistry and even felt they could be a thing- that was before later it was revealed they had started dating in real life. Even that I was holding on to my Bonnie x Damon fantasies because Bonnie was my bias and I shipped her with everyone romantically- of course I didn't expect any of those ships to manifest into something because it was the character I was shipping not Kat herself. To this day I still love her onscreen chemistry and friendship with Damon and don't see how people could wish for it to be more than that😭

It was beautiful as is. Not everything should climax into sexual intercourse.

But if I felt at some point any of her ships had crossed into alternative ships I would have jumped on those and supported it whole heartedly.

If you assume a pair are a real couple and dating in real life that's alt shipping- a lot of alt shippers suspect a ship is real and that's why they ship them.

There is no such thing as platonic alt shipping.

And for me personally, because I believe Jikook are a real couple and have made that cross over I don't ship any of that pair romantically with other members anymore.

It's bizzare to me to ship someone I know has a partner romantically with anybody else- I make exceptions for Vmin of course💀

I know JK is side eyeing me but I don't care.

I want Tae to be happy too😭😭😭

Tae just wants his bestfriend and soulmate😭

It's too much😭😭😭😭😭😭

He stays shooting his shots🤣

Jimin Harem is real🤭

I must admit, I catch myself slipping on Vmin and Minimoni every now and then- old habits die hard and they don't make it easy 😫

But that don't mean I think Vmin is dating. THAT WOULD BE WILD.

Summary

Proshippers can be Platonic or Romantic shippers and you can ship a pair romantically and not assume they are real at all.

Anti shippers are just assholes trying to beat their values down people's throats.

Alt shippers don't ship their OTP with other players romantically.

I don't know what you mean by Jinkooker...

Do you ship Jinkook romantically or think they are real?? Sis...

Maybe you just ship them platonically or casually.

I ship all the ships platonically.

Especially all Jimin"s Tae's ships. I'd let my self flirt with the idea of romance every now and then.

JK's ships don't make sense to me as ships.

As nonplatonic ships I mean.

I'm fascinated each time I see a hardcore JK x any member ship besides Jikook swearing up and down JK is screwing Namjoon🤣🤣

I hope this helps??

GOLDY

[lazy-cat-corner]

i’m sorry cause i feel like i’m dumping this shit on you but i just saw something in the s*lki tag and i’m just……..i don’t even know. Baffled? Horrified? Kinda amused at what some people have the nerve to say online? Some l0ki stans have literally built this moral armor around themselves to the point where they accuse real people of actual serious shit instead of just accepting that people have different opinions. They have this completely all or nothing view in which s*lki shipper=terf. And there is literally no way around it. Try to explain why you ship it? Terf. Block people who accuse you of being a terf? Even bigger terf. Enjoy the show and s*lvie as a character? Terf. The actress that plays s*lvie blocks people who are harassing her? Terf. And there is also this completely reasonable logic that “true” l0ki fans=good people victimized by everyone else. Bc obviously l0ki stans know that every time he ever did something bad was either thanos’ fault or not important bc th0r and od1n did worse so therefor disagreeing with them means you’re ableist and a abuser. There is nothing on canon that corroborates with their claims. Their accusations of transphobia have yet to be supported by the community it concerns. And trans and genderfluid folks who don’t agree are reactionaries who are knowingly or unknowingly endorsing terf rhetoric. Literally no win with them. I’m not in the star wars fandom but I suppose this is what was like with reylo? People are not happy just disagreeing so they have to come for the morality of anyone who enjoys the ship. They don’t even try and find actual bad people to waste their energy on. The thing is I know this stuff happens in many fandoms -the result of the rise of online activism and misappropriation of identity politics- but i’m pretty much only in the l0ki fandom so this is kinda blowing my mind. It’s a fascinating phenomenon tbh. There is this whole set of psychological patterns shared by this group of people that continuously feed off of each other until all self-criticism is lost. They become completely isolated from everyone else and don’t see how that could possibly result in a distorted worldview. Not to "psychoanalyze” them ofc. Bc how dare we say anything that could allude to the mental health of these people calling us every possible bad thing while believing to be mere victims. Maybe this is too harsh but oh well. Anyway, sorry for the rant lmao. Also, i’m censoring things cause i don’t want to attract these people to ur blog lmao

Hello Anon,

You are always welcome to come here and vent out your feelings. I deal with this sort of discourse EVERY DAY! Just yesterday someone told me the ship is a mental illness. They said it in a manner like it's a joke but put an unsettling feeling in my stomach knowing antis abuse serious terms and turn it into the punchline of a joke further enforcing the negative stigma on mental illness *gag*.

Anyway, this absolutely was a big thing that happened in the reylo era. One thing that keeps me motivated is knowing just like with reylo, these losers will find someone else to bother and get bored of the discourse. I also remember that these people are people I wouldn't want in my space in the first place.

I could go on and on about why these arguments are wrong but being that I am cis, I don't want to overstep any boundaries so I won't go into detail. But I will say that a person's opinion on someone's morality holds no weight when the accused in question is surrounded by people that know them for the kind and compassionate person they are. These people who want to label you based on something that holds no weight or value in actual trans issues are not what's important. Furthermore, their hatred and selective ignorance is harming the trans community more than any piece of fiction could. Many antis have been exposed to deliberately misgender and deadname shippers for the sake of their activism.

With all that said, they may think you're the worst person on this planet. They may rationalize in their heads that their abuse and harassment is on the grounds of some moral high ground, but that doesn't mean it's true. How you see yourself and the people around you that matter, that's what you should focus on as a person. Don't let a TV show tell you how good you are and how much you care for trans issues. Look at the people you surround yourself with, the resources and materials you use to educate and further open spaces to discuss real trans issues. Maybe there are local trans organizations that could use donations/volunteer work that you want to support. THAT! Those choices you make are what will matter in the end. Not what naxatshasbewbs6969 on twitter thinks of you.

(if anyone owns that url/handle please know this was chosen at random and not a personal criticism on you as a person. Ive never met them and mean no harm 😅)

[cosmicjoke]

Right @jayteacups, I agree that Levi is a naturally reserved and quiet person. I've said that before as well. I think his natural reservedness and quietness was undoubtedly exacerbated by the trauma of his childhood. As I've said, Levi's total lack of expression isn't normal. The fact he only smiles once in the entire series, the fact he never laughs, or shows any, truly positive emotion, etc... that's not normal, even for someone who's typically very reserved and quiet. That's why I say Levi's stoic demeanor is affected by his trauma. What I'm specifically referring to in regards to Levi's stoicism is the fact that, when faced with horrific sights and situations, like seeing his entire squad slaughtered, Levi shows no outward emotion. His expression is completely flat. But we know he isn't feeling nothing. We know, in fact, that he's completely horrified by it, the same way he is whenever any of his comrades or even people he doesn't know die. I called it a coping mechanism because it's Levi's way of processing his negative emotions while remaining able to continue operating himself. It's obvious to me that he cuts himself off from indulging in his emotions because he feels he can't afford to, either for himself, or for anyone else. And we know he keeps himself from that because of, as I said in another response, the multiple times we do see him actually lose control and get extremely, outwardly emotional. Sometimes his emotion overrides his stoicism, and that's exactly how we know that, underneath his expressionless reactions, he's actually feeling deep, overwhelming emotion about the things happening around him. That isn't, like you said, "degrading" or "woobifying" to Levi to point out, lol. And that's what pissed me off so much about this asshole. They're over on their blog claiming I got so angry because they "disagreed" with me, which is a completely disingenuous thing to claim. I got mad because they accused me of degrading Levi's character.

And yes, @7m7n7 is a complete hypocrite, for all the reasons you stated. I didn't even realize they were a self-shipper, but now their vitriolic, even pathological hatred for Erwin and eruri's makes so much more sense. Some self-shippers seems to actually struggle with some demented jealousy over Levi being paired with anyone other than themselves, and I have to think that's what this is rooted in. All that blow back after "Bad Boy" came out, against people discussing Levi's trauma in that story, largely seemed to come from self-shippers. I know most self-shippers aren't like this, but just like in other shipping communities, you seem to always have a batch of bad apples that make the entire community look bad through their unhinged behavior.

And yeah, that's why I made this post, just to spare anyone else from having to deal with this jerkwad. If indeed they're behind all those other accounts on twitter and a03 that just blatantly use homophobic, sexist and prejudiced language to harass eruri shippers, then that just proves my point about what their real issue is, which is that they think Levi being impacted by his trauma and people discussing that impact equates to Levi being weak or pathetic or somehow lesser. I've seen them use language on their account here which also supports that they have that specific attitude and bias against emotion in men. They view it as a feminine quality, and apparently any man having feminine qualities like being emotional makes that man pitiful. That they don't realize that's what their accusations against me imply about their attitude shows how intellectually dense they really are.

Okay, this person @7m7n7, whom I've now blocked, decided to start some major shit with me on one of my own posts https://www.tumblr.com/cosmicjoke/752860317563895808/for-a-character-like-that-supposed-to-be-stoic-and?source=share answering an anon ask. I no longer want to engage with this person, so I've blocked them. But I still want everyone to see their bullshit, and so no one can accuse me of being afraid of others seeing their replies, like they tried to do. I'm posting the whole conversation here.

They accuse me of taking issue with them because they "disagreed" with me, but another poster disagreed with me on the same post and I took no issue with them whatsoever. My issue wasn't the disagreement. I never have an issue with anyone who disagrees with me. I have multiple mutuals who disagree with me all the time, and we're still friends. It's the WAY people disagree that bothers me. If they're going to be insulting about it, then I'm going to have a problem.

Their accusation against me that I was "woobifying" Levi and saying his stoicism is "fake" by saying that it's a coping mechanism to deal with his grief and trauma, that it isn't at all indicative of his true feelings, something about Levi that is commonly understood among the AoT fanbase in general, is what pissed me off.

I was simply saying that Levi has developed an in the moment, emotional distance between himself and the events of his life as a way of dealing with the pain those events cause him, and that that emotional distance, that "stoicism" isn't any kind of indicator of him lacking emotion or of him being unaffected by said events. And for that, I'm apparently "woobifying" Levi and saying his stoicism is "fake".

The language they use here is the same type of language that so many of those anon haters were sending to Levi blogs in the wake of "Bad Boy", accusing anyone who wanted to discuss Levi's trauma and the trauma of him being exposed to or even possibly experiencing sexual assault of "femininizing" him or trying to make him seem weak. It's the same sort of homophobic, sexist attitude, and is plainly indicative of this person's biased, even vitriolic disdain of any man who's impacted by their trauma. This kneejerk hostility toward anyone daring to acknowledge that Levi is an emotional man who indeed IS impacted by the events of his life. It says everything about what kind of person they are, and nothing about Levi himself. They just hate men who possess any qualities that could be seen as feminine in any way, including having actual feelings, apparently.