Problematic ships: are we having a semantics issue here?

More and more I’m beginning to think that a lot of wank about problematic “ships” comes from the fact that we’re collapsing an entire spectrum of how people approach fandom pairings into a single word. (To keep the language simpler here I’ve only talked about “pairings”, but this also applies to poly ships.)

At one extreme, I’m personally reluctant to use the word “shipping” at all about pairings I read and write, because I don’t think “shipping” really describes how I approach fandom. I don’t have strong feelings about who characters should be paired with. When I read or write a pairing it’s because that pairing has a dynamic I’m interested in, not because I think it would be good for the characters.

At the other end of the spectrum, I know people for whom “shipping” really is believing that two characters should be together, because they have such a great relationship dynamic in canon. Who believe that being together would be better for both characters.

When people say that nobody should ever “ship” or create fanworks about a pairing because they have an unhealthy relationship in canon, those people seem to be assuming that literally everyone who creates fanworks about a pairing “ships” them in that second sense. That the only reason to create fanworks about a pairing is because you believe the characters have a great relationship dynamic in canon, and would be better off together.

Fandom is about so, so much more than that.

Sometimes we want to read or write about unhealthy relationships. Sometimes we want to explore what circumstances might make a relationship healthier, or unhealthier, than what’s depicted in canon.

We “ship” characters with unhealthy canon dynamics because we believe these are interesting and important stories to tell.

Not all relationships are healthy. It’s absurd to insist that we should only ever tell stories about completely healthy relationships.

….

Crap, that makes a *lot* of sense.

I mean, this is an actual quote from an anti post I saw today: “If you ship an abusive ship, you condone that ship automatically. There’s no way around it.”

This person clearly understands the word “ship” to entail some sort of moral endorsement – they’ve said so outright!

But that isn’t the only kind of “shipping”, and that kind of “shipping” certainly isn’t the only reason people create or enjoy fanworks about a pairing.

I got so much hate the last time I was on Tumblr for ‘shipping an abusive ship.’ I wish folks would realize that people write fic for many, many reasons. And shipping is only one of them. Nothing is black or white.

This is a great​ discussion! I think it gets even more complicated when some relationships are being teased or foreshadowed by the text, and others aren't. I try to keep a separation in my mind between shipping in general, as a "what if" kind of thought, which can encompass any pairing, regardless of shared screen time, and story structure analysis that looks at what happens between characters during shared screen time and analyzes that, from a relationship angle. Those are really two different activities or mental exercises, but they get confused with each other very easily. Then there is the whole area of what variations on the character are "acceptable" to incorporate into fanworks (and why should one fan get to tell another what is or isn't ok?) I've seen fics that make characters into vampires, werewolves, merfolk, cats, dogs, horses, that explore the darkest aspects or the lightest, or genderswap them. Different pairings are just another variation, that may or may not be to your taste, but they are to someone's.