Why Do You Ship What You Ship?:
penns-woods:
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 -…
I think for the most part I shipped ships because I was told to ship them. The TV shows, movies, radio dramas, books, etc said this person wants that person and so I shipped it based on the writing of the thing. Did you make me feel the yearning? Did you make the tension so taught with the desire that I wanted it too? Then you earned my shipping.
I think the first time I questioned that was when I was watching a Soap Opera in high school and they started a storyline in which person A was secretly desiring Person B. This was rather quickly after person A had JUST finished a romance storyline that had all the makings of a great will they/won’t they.
So I was a bit put out thinking "Well he just wanted that chick. How the fuck does he turn around and now want this one? It makes me question if he really wanted the first girl in the first place. How can I want him to have this new person if he’s just going to throw away this new love?" And THAT moment actually broke me for the rest of my life. I stopped shipping what I was told to ship and shipped what I felt was true love….well true love in whatever universe that was. This is all to say I ship what I ship based on what I see , feel, and read. What reads to me as accurate emotion. So if I had to name my TV ships they’d be
Mulder/Scully. I shipped them from the first episode. They fit. They made each other laugh. They exhausted each other but they always had each other’s back even if Dana wanted to slap Fox a few times …a day.
Buffy/Spike/Angel I shipped Bangel because Buffy loved him and he seemed to really love her. They both seemed to want to protect each other and they both were this amazing exception to rules. A vampire slayer loving a vampire? A vampire loving someone who could kill him and someone who is vastly different from what he’d previously “loved”? I think I will always love ships when each part is the exception. It became my OT3 when Buffy went to comics and Buffy dreamed about it because it made sense. I ship Buffy and Spike because it’s passionate and crazy. I ship Angel and Spike because they need each other to exist. So in the end it became my only Ot3
Destiel. I ship Destiel for really weird reasons. 1) I think it has a shot of actually coming to pass and whatever your reasons are for/against canon developed queer ships…I just want one to exist. Other than Ellen, I can’t think of a coming out on TV. That’s just……fucked up. 2) The art from that fandom is just spectacular and makes me want things I never thought I would 3) Because once again we have the exception to the rule. An angel who breaks the rules for his love of this man. A man who once didn’t believe in love or angels praying to this Angel. Always, always will love couples who are the exception.
James Novak and Cyrus Beene. Because they hurt each other but at the end of the day , they loved each other. Because Cyrus was cold and cruel and James loved him in spite of it and sometimes because of it and they were lovely even when they were awful to each other.
And finally….
Johnlock. I had read Sherlock Holmes stories when I was younger and didn’t ship it. Then my boyfriend in HS/College made me read them and ding ding ding. I’ll be honest that it wasn’t like how it is now. In the books/stories they just seemed to really love each other and it seemed like they were each others companion and exception and it was lovely. On TV they are once again the exception. No one excites John Watson like Sherlock Holmes does. No one balances Sherlock Holmes like John Watson does. They are soul-mates and there is no one else out there for them. I probably wouldn’t ship it so hard on the TV show if it wasn’t for how they look each other though. The way John and Sherlock look at each other is how you look at someone you are in love with. Also the words they say are not platonic.
"Moving on" from a best friend?
"I don’t mind" because you accidentally touched someones knee
Just….it’s there. So I ship it because every bit of evidence I see from them is love. Mostly the looks, also the words. Acting/Writing.
Sooo those are my ships and my reasons.