#shipping discourse

[lordnot]

I'm just mystified that anyone ever saw either character as straight.

“Eww don’t ship them ! They’re just friends/ they hate each other/ they barely have any interaction/they never even met/they’re not from the same series !”

Pussy. Back in my days, we shipped Elsa and Jack Frost to hell and back because they were both ice themed.

[mordenandmerry]

Broke: devaluing the female love interest because she “gets in the way” of a gay ship

Woke: shipping a gay ship so that the female love interest can be gay with me

[theswankifedtwink]

Sometimes I think about that person who is a proud wizard x fiyero shipper and I'm genuinely baffled because holy pedophila and power imbalance what the fuck. The wizard is likely around half a CENTURY older than fiyero, why on earth would you ship them??? I swear this fandom is a fucking prison, fiyero is AT MOST 20(more likely 19 or 18, because that's his CANONICAL AGE) when he meets the wizard, and the wizard is well into his late 60s or 70s. The wizard is old enough to be his GRANDFATHER who in their right mind would ship them?? Not to mention that the wizard is a DICTATOR, he has so much power over fiyero in literally every single way, there's no way that this "ship" wouldn't be grooming in every sense of the word if you actually shipped it.

Not to mention the person shipping it is a fully grown adult.

[dragons-teardrops]

reminder that shipping is all about having fun and taking your favorite characters and forcing them to kiss like dolls :3

Even if it's out of character, even if its a rare pair, even if you think you'll be hated for it, it doesn't matter as long as you're having fun!

People ARE going to hate you for certain ships

That's just how fandom is

But you can ignore them

Asong as you aren't hurting anyone and you're having fun, you're fine :D

(this is not condoning proshipping. I do not support the shipping of minor x adult or incest. Kindly keep that stuff within the proship community and away from those who do not wish to see it.)

[vsettacrescellie]

Imagine how much unnecessary shipping discourse could be cut down by people just knowing the difference between “I NEED them to canonically be together” shipping and “the personalities & histories of these characters would create a fascinating dynamic to explore, but please don’t touch each other that way with a 6ft. pole in canon” shipping.

[yuutuu]

When nail polish isn’t just nail polish

A lot has been said on the subject already, and I know that I’m coming a little late to the party, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a little while and figured what the hell. Let’s write a post about it.

So, a few days ago, Yoongi, Jimin, and Jungkook showed up at Incheon for their flight to the US. Yoongi and Jimin drove in together, Jungkook came in a different car. Jimin decided to wait for Jungkook, though, and what started as a handshake ended up as a hand hold with some really, really enthusiastic swinging before the three of them disappeared inside to catch their flight.

What made things ✨ spicy ✨ on the internet, was that Jungkook showed up with painted nails. Not just any manicure, but a messy looking job with mixed black and blue nails. Jikookers exploded because oh my god it matches the color of Jimin’s sweater! And then, of course, Jinkookers were like “UM he’s matching the concept pics from Echo, where Jin had blue and black nails, actually.” And Jungkook/Winter shippers (which, what????) were like “UM ACTUALLY he is matching WINTER, who had a blue nail to support the polished man campaign a while ago.”

And I just… like, confirmation bias is such a thing, isn’t it?

The nails in question.

There’s stuff to be said about the hat, too, but we’ll leave that aside for now and focus on the nails, except to mention that the color directly matches the embroidery on his hat.

That, my dear friends, is not “blue”. It’s blurple. It’s periwinkle. Have we forgotten the whole Meryl Streep speech in The Devil Wears Prada about periwinkle cerulean?

Miranda Priestly would be turning over in her grave.

Okay, so, maybe Jungkook doesn’t know the difference between blurple and blue, and he wore this color on his nail for the polished man campaign. Cool. It is absolutely possible that he is doing more than one thing with the nail color (in fact I contend that he is), and that he has the blurple nail to match the hat, and also as part of his support for polished man.

If so, though, why the black nails? That makes things a little confusing, because then the “blue” nail isn’t CLEARLY symbolic of the campaign. That would be like wearing a safety pin, which is a symbol of allyship for the lgbtq community, but also wearing it with studs, chains, and other punk embellishments. Is it just punk fashion, or is it a declaration of allyship? The message gets muddled. The point of things like the single polished blue nail is that it draws attention and makes people curious. Why one blue nail? So they look it up and ta-da now more people know about the campaign.

So, no. I don’t think he was doing it for the campaign.

And even if he DID do it for the campaign (I am looking at the winter shippers here), there’s a huge logical leap between “they both did a thing to support a campaign that many idols and public figures are supporting and doing” and “they’re dating”.

Like, yes, people who are in love and dating have been known to support the same campaigns. But so have people who like each other just fine, or people who get along, or people who hate each oither, or people who have never met each other, or who don’t care two licks about each other. The only thing we can assume about people supporting the same campaign is that they agree that it’s a good cause.

Also—if he did it to match with Winter, he could’ve done a better job of color matching. Look at this obviously not true to color image of Winter with her blue nail. That’s not the same Blurple, my friends.

So, if you ship him with Winter, you’re doing so without any actual supporting evidence. Just confirmation bias. “I think they’re dating, so this one near-coincidence must be proof that they’re dating.”

Then we get to the Jinkookers.

Still not the same Blurple—Jin has sky blue—but he has black nails too!

God, look at him. Ugh. So handsome it hurts.

Anyway. Clearly a different blue. Also, he has all his nails painted; Jungkook just had some painted. So, again, if he was going out of his way to match Jin, there’s some discrepancies there. One could say that the differences are the for plausible deniability, that he isn’t matching completely as a cover, to protect their relationship since they’re lovers undercover.

Which, okay, fine, but that’s a heck of an assumption powered almost entirely by confirmation bias. “I think they’re dating, so this near-coincidence must be proof that they’re dating”.

Also—he wore this look AGES ago. Seokjin has not been waltzing around with painted nails like this outside of his photoshoots. This is a Performer Photo. This isn’t “Jin showed up recently looking like this and OOP here’s Jungkook doing the same thing”. This isn’t a “couple look”.

And now here is where I show my ass, but hopefully only partially.

There IS someone with whom the shade of blurple matches. Someone, coincidentally, who wore a matching blurple sweater on the same day that Jungkook showed up with his fun manicure. There is absolutely zero interpretation involved in observing that the colors match on the same day, but point it out and you get called a shipper (derogatory).

I am a shipper (positive), but that’s beside the point.

Without drawing any conclusions, without confirmation bias, without reading conspiracies or secret messages into things, one can objectively observe that Jimin and Jungkook are wearing coordinating colors on the same day. Jungkook’s nails and hat, Jimin’s sweater. Like, if you deny it, you need your vision checked because that’s just an objective fact.

Cuties.

And that is an UNUSUAL ASS COLOR. Like it’s not common at all. It’s not even a color either of them wear regularly. So for two people who don’t usually wear this UNUSUAL ASS COLOR to wear it on the same day…? Coincidence feels like a stretch. It could be a coincidence, yes. Sure it could be. But—

Here’s the partial-ass-showing part:

I would like to point out that this is just one instance in a long line of coordinated looks between the two of them over the years. That’s also an objective observation, but the implication I am making—that this is more than coincidence, that they’re planning to coordinate—is not. It means I’m reading into their actions and assigning motivations to those actions. It means I am assuming something for which I have no DIRECT CLEAR evidence (such as them actually saying “we coordinated our fits on purpose!” Every time, or most of the times, or even many of the times that they have).

I feel like the body of evidence, the number of times that they’ve coordinated this way, is so extensive that this assumption doesn’t feel like a stretch, but I also acknowledge that I don’t know them, so really I’m just making an educated guess.

My contention is that he is both wearing the color to match with Jimin, and to match his hat. Maybe a CK promotional thing. Or whatever.

The absolute delulu in me is all “BUT HE WORE THE MATCHING BLURPLE ON THE SAME FINGER AS THE ‘JM’ ON THAT HAND!!!!” But I completely acknowledge that making this claim involves a high amount of confirmation bias. I think they’re dating, and I think the JM stands for “jimin”, so I think that him having the color that matches Jimin’s sweater on the same finger that has the JM for Jimin is PROOF that they’re DATING.

Look, I contain multitudes.

Anyway, all that to say:

Maybe the nail is for polished man. Doesn’t mean he’s dating Winter. Or any other idol that did the blue nail for that matter.

Maybe he’s wearing that nail color to coordinate with someone specific. If so, are we really going to say he’s coordinating with someone else’s look from ages ago (Winter or Jin), despite the color mismatches, and ignore the person standing next to him that very day, wearing the same shade of blurple? Someone who he has (possibly (but not likely) coincidentally) coordinated or matched fits with a bajillion times before? Someone who he told, on camera, to buy the same clothes as him during AYS?

You can disagree with the implication of Jimin and Jungkook matching (ie. they’re in love and dating!!), but to ignore their matching and pretend Jungkook was trying to match someone else, that requires a lot of confirmation bias, willful ignorance, and denial of reality.

I said what I said

[fefevanilla]

!!!!!!!

"You want to make everything LGBT" "They are married and with children" "They're enemies/rivals, wth?" "They don't see each other like that" "They are just friends" "They are like brothers/sisters" "They are in love with another person" "X character is straight" "Why can't two girls/two boys be friends?"

Those are only a few examples of comments people has done about shipping two girls/two boys together. And I'm so tired of reading again and again and again the same things. I'm not gonna lie, I tried to hold back my anger towards this topic, but I need to talk about this to feel better.

First, about the "You want to make everything LGBT". No, no. That's not true. We don't want to make everything LGBT. You are the one who wants to make everything straight. In every single show/movie I've watched there is at least one straight couple (most of the times there is more than one). And you know how many LGBT ships are in the same show? Yes? Exactly. Zero. One or two if the show is good enough to be inclusive. So please, stop with the "You want to make everything LGBT" argument because it's stupid and it makes no sense.

Secondly, about the "They are married and with children". So? What does that mean to you? Why does that matter? Last time I checked, divorce existed. And there are straight couples that divorced in real life, so I don't see a problem if the straight couples divorces in the show/movie. Is it a big deal in reality? No. Or you just don't like the "breaking up because falling in love with someone of the same sex" thing? Huh?

In third place, the "They're enemies/rivals". Ever heard about the enemies/rivals to lovers trope? And about the redemption/corruption arc? Because those are ways a ship like that can happen. And last time I checked, people don't care about the "enemy/rival" thing if the ship is straight. No one cared about the "enemies to lovers" in books like Shadow and Bone, Folk of the Air, Shatter Me or others. So that only matters if the ship is LGBT or what?

"They don't see each other like that". Well. You always saw your lover as your lover? Or first it was your rival, your friend, or someone who wasn't even in your inner circle? You saw them and you inmediatly became lovers or what? Because two characters can be rivals, friends, or people who don't know each other at first and then learn to love each other. Just. Exactly. Like. A. Straight. Couple. So, again, this is a dumb argument.

"They are just friends". Just like I said in the previous point, a boy/boy or girl/girl friendship can turn into love just like a boy/girl friendship can.

"They are like brothers/sisters". Let me ask you a question. They canonically said "I see you as a sister/as a brother"? Because if they didn't, you're just asuming things. You're just assuming they see each other as sisters/brothers because you don't bear them seeing each other romantically.

"They are in love with another person". Agaaaain. Were you always in love with one person? Did you marry the first person you loved or what? Or you liked/loved people until you found the person you actually wanted to be by your side forever? And just as you can fall in love with someone, you can stop loving them. So once again, this argument makes no sense.

"X character is straight". Well. I myself thought I was straight. My best female friend thought she was straight herself. My two best male friends thought they were straight themselves. And I ended up being pansexual, my best female friend turned out to be bisexual, and my two best male friends turned out to be bisexual/gay. Being married to a woman being a man or being married to a man being a woman doesn't mean they're straight. They could realize they are not straight but bisexual. Or pansexual. Or ace. Or whatever you want. But it's not something that cannot change. It's not something written in stone.

"Why can't two girls/two boys be friends?". And why a girl and a boy can't be just friends? Because almost every show has a main straight canon couple. Westallen, Olicity (The Flash, Arrow), Charles/Moira, Peter/MJ (Marvel), Darklina (Shadow and Bone), Stydia, Scallison (Teen Wolf), Deckerstar (Lucifer TV), Hinny (Harry Potter), Mileven (Stranger Things), Anidala, Obitine (Star Wars), Leorai, Apriltello (TMNT 2012)... And I could continue. And it is always the main couple. The main couple is always a girl and a boy. So I don't understand why can't you see that the ones that can't be just friends aren't two boys or two girls. The ones that always have to be romantically involved are a boy and a girl.

If you read this to the end, thank you. I hope you think the same as me. And if you don't, read it again and see some of the shows I mentioned. And please, think about what I said instead of being a close-minded person.

[hannah08]

I understand being passionate about a ship, as so many are for Wednesday and Enid. However, the behaviour as of late from some fans is disturbing to me. Throwing tantrums on social media on both the official account and on Emma’s all because of one photo with her with a guy?

Look, for me I don’t ship them simply because I’ve always seen Wednesday as Aro/asexual. I can understand why so many enjoy the ship. They have quite a lovely friendship dynamic and they are truly opposites (which do attract).

I’m not hating if you enjoy a ship but so often in fandom shippers become somewhat…entitled. They feel they deserve this ship and if the producers don’t do it they are bad people. Overall, just crazy shipper behaviour.

So often in fandoms shippers ruin celebrity friendships over this and I really hope Emma and Jenna remain friends despite it all. I wish people would appreciate the show also as a whole instead of just for one ship.

[4thelovabob]

Go ahead and ship characters platonically, you do you! But then turning around and saying "you romantic shippers are just greedy because friendship isn't enough for you"? When the argument is "you don't understand how important friendship is and how it could possibly be more important and therefore superior to romantic relationships"? I just have to put down whatever I'm drinking and have a long sigh. Because you're trying to position one over the other, and relationships aren't hierarchies.

Like if you want to tout the virtues of a deep friendship but not the potential falling out, I don't know how to also explain that friends can break your heart too. Even those deep ones, they can stop talking to you or cut you off out of the blue. Was it important? Sure could have been, but also just as fragile. A friendship isn't stronger than a romantic relationship because it's platonic, that's bizarre logic. And it's binary thinking, since a loving romantic relationship, at its core, is friendship. So I don't even know what the point of this argument is.

A whole relationship type isn't better than another one. They can be just as important, but not better. And if you don't like kissing in a ship, it's not others' responsibilities to censor their interests or expressions for you.

[indelible-light]

Im actually upset with this issue.

why is it illegal to ship anything now. All I see is comment on ship post that are like,”Omg, such a cute edit.( I don’t ship it though.) Or,” I see them as siblings/ sibling coded.

I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it’s like we cant ship for shit anymore without it getting rejected or wiped out by purity culture.

My key examples: Jax and Pomni or Bakugo and Deku. and theres also the issue where characters like Bakugo and Jax suddenly don’t get redeemed by fans or their mistakes get taken right out of line.

Sorry if this is stupid , I typed this out of frustration but I hope someone relates.

Make it stop.

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

oh my god, someone wrote and/or read incest fanfiction on the fanfiction site specifically founded by a writer who wrote incest fanfiction? should we call the news???? SHOULD WE TELL THE POPE???!??!???

i bet the fics with those icky tropes were even clearly warned for so that people who get squicked out by them could easily avoid them instead of dying on the stupidest hill possible.....really makes you think......

roach-works was a notorious underage + incest + rape fanfic writer and all of those are still up for everyone to read on their ao3

[regaliasonata]

Ngl, I appreciate people having headcanons and enjoying their tropes…but weaponizing found family as a way to put down other people’s ships is such a weird thing to do. Especially when these characters are grown ass adults.

Like let’s all interpret things differently and leave it at that, nobody likes policing the fandom.

[questions-about-blorbos]

people who ship a ship that's unhealthy, toxic and fucked up and do not shy away from the fact their ship is unhealthy, toxic and fucked up by making them act all "lovey dovey" toward each other, or watering down the severity of the things that canonically make their ship a fucked up ship, in fanfics — and so they embrace the fact that their ship is fucked up, but that's the thing that makes their ship so hot, sexy, complex and fascinating — I am declaring my undying love and loyalty to you

[deyisacherry]

solarnexus isn't incest and one declaration of them being "brothers" (they never were cause solar never saw nexus that way) over 2 that one of the VA's made saying that they're NOT BROTHERS aint gonna stop me from shipping them xD

really dumb to first clarify that a ship isn't wrong, is not illegal, basically defend those shippers from being harassed and called """proshippers""" to then forget and go "ew no, that's gross" and make everything go back to how it started

dumb as heck

SO i'm gonna still ship whatever i want, how's that.

here the proof that boi said it wasn't wrong

changing his mind suddenly just makes me shake my head and keep doing what i want cause we're not hurting people by shipping two robots, have a greaaat day

[the-chemist-1138]

I have seen way too often that people don't want to explore the nuances of Aspec identities.

You know what? Forget the discourse. This is no longer my hill to die on.

You wanna ship canonically aspec characters because “aro/ace people can still date/have sex”? Okay, then. LET’S DO IT.  I wanna see an aromantic character with an alloromantic love interest. I wanna see that confession of undying love and the moment when the aro character says they will never feel the same way—not romantically.

I wanna see the asexual character with their allosexual partner. I wanna see that moment when the ace characters tries sex with their partner for the first time because they want to make them happy only to realize that they are 100% sex repulsed.

I wanna see the two demiromantics who don’t even know if what they feel is romantic attraction, but they adore each other and just want to make healthy snacks together and destroy each other at Mario Kart.

I wanna see the two aces who love sensual affection and are figuring out what they define as sexual or not.

I wanna see the romance + sex neutral aroace who happily and consensually does whatever makes their partner happy…but their partner still struggles with feeling undesired. 

Oh, babe. You thought shipping an aspec character would be just like shipping an allo character?