No, you’re not the only one being not a shipper.
But maybe we have to talk a bit about defining shipper? And I might say some things some people are not going to like. To quote Wikipedia:
“Shipping … is the belief of (or desire for) two people, often fictional, to be in a romantic relationship. It is considered a general term for fans’ emotional involvement with the ongoing development of romance in a work of fiction. “
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shipping_%28fandom%29
Or in other words, shipping means to want two people to be together or belief they will be together at any point of their fictional lives (keeping it to fiction here). I would add: It involves frequently the belief, that there is only one true love, one true pairing possible, that any other relationships one or the other in that pairing has are wrong, meaning at best only transitional or shouldn’t be at all, it is often exclusive. Shipping usually has the tendency to wish for a particular romantic relationship to be the endgame. The romantic relationship becomes the defining moment for the (story of the) two people envolved, whatever else is happening becomes minor matter or is even only perceived as something there to support the development towards the ship or/and a happy ending, and practically blanks out other aspects of story telling and character development. In the extrem version anything questioning the possibility of the wished for pairing (including non-canon ships) or on the show happening pairing (canon ships, sailed ships) is declared to destroy the show, claimed to significantly reduce the quality of writing on the show and means ignoring what THE audience wishes for, assuming that ratings will have to majorly suffer because of it.
Risking a bit of a stir here. Dear shippers, semi and fulltime, you are nice and great people – when you’re not talking about your ships, which though is a rather tough and nearly impossible task for you. Even more of a challenge on this show, as it is so much about love. It’s okay, you are emotionally involved in your ships, emotions are easy to stir and by definition irrational. But for some people, things are different, and we have not an easy time understanding each other.
The past couple of days I thought about starting a general show discussion topic with strict non-shipper policy, becauce I keep my opinion out of the shipper threads, though I do read in them occasionally, as much as I can bear to do so at the moment, but feel a growing urge to be able to talk a bit even against some ships without any shippers throwing in their opinions as well. I don’t expect shippers to explicitly stay out of any other topics besides their shipper ones, though I am thankful when they tune down things a bit for example in character discussion or episode threads. But occasionally I get the urge to have one topic to go to, where I could feel free to question any ship without worrying I might cause personal mayhem (and that goes for Swanfire, CaptainSwan, SwanQueen, Outlawqueen, Rumbelle alike – to name the most active and prevalent ships in the fandom). I am coming close to turn from non-shipper to anti-shipper in some degree at the moment, and yes, there is a difference.
Right, I am discussing at the moment in one topic possibilities for a queer representation and that means showing a queer relationship on the show and not just hinting at the possibility (Mulan is out as queer, lesbian or bisexual woman, pointing out for a reason that Mulan could as well be even a transgender person, but her love to Aurora is unanswered and even still unnamed, only strongly hinted at, but not right away outspoken), so one could say I am shipping queer ship, whichever couple it will be, but usually ship means championing two particular people in relationship, which I don’t do.
I like this community, this forum, but it is one with strong shipping, no offense, an observation. Not the only forum where I am discussing OUaT though, and that is what has been practically keeping me from venting out loud here so far, it is a tad less shippy on another forum. There is not just a rift between shippers in the fandom, there are people being put off the fandom (not necessarily the show) because of all the shipping and shipping wars going on.
It’s not easy to find a place without it, or one with at least a niche for non-shippers, or where one can find in the big loud concert of shipping voice those non-shipping voices. Though TWoP sadly closed it’s forum doors a few days ago, looks like there still is another place to go to, so refraining for the time being from a strict-non-shipper thread here. But it means I will still hold back with some stuff on here.
@sauronbaggins. (Late) Welcome to this community! By the way, thanks for the apple turnovers, delicious! Nice try, but I’m immune against sleeping curses and potions 😛
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