Disclaimer: The following is my personal (not leader) opinion and does not necessarily show the opinion of all of Team BLDA. This is just based on my own experience having been in the fandom for cough way too long.
Shipping…
Definitely one of the best and one of the worst things about BL. While it’s tons of fun letting your imagination run wild, there can also be ship wars and tons and tons more really dark things. It gets especially tricky when we come to real person shipping, because suddenly all our deep and sometimes slightly disturbing fantasies are now not just projected onto a fictional character but onto a real person, one made out of flesh and blood.
So is real person shipping even something we should still entertain these days? Well, I say, definitely yes. And with these following three simple rules you can ship like a pro without ever having to worry about it.
ALWAYS BE RESPECTFUL
These are real humans. With real feelings and these real feelings can very definitely be hurt. I always ask myself if I would be okay to say what I write in these stories to the people in question. Or would I be embarrassed if for example Tul could read one of my fanfics about him. If the answer to the last question is yes, then you should maybe take a very serious look at your own behaviour and your own words.
I am a very blunt person and it takes a while before I get embarrassed by my own choice of words, but even I can see when I make someone uncomfortable with my words. And I love all our guys way too much to want to make them feel uncomfortable. I seriously wouldn’t want them to think of me as some kind of strange freak so I keep my deepest and darkest fantasies where they are supposed to stay: my brain.
And don’t be fooled by our boys. Most of them are very active on the internet and they READ our stuff. They do and we know that as well. So don’t think that you can just write whatever because they won’t see it anyway. Don’t be so sure. I have heard of BL communities with an actor or two in them, just to keep tabs on us.
ALWAYS ACCEPT IF PEOPLE DON’T WANT FICTION ABOUT THEMSELVES
This is where I really and honestly LOVE my old school slasher upbringing. In case someone doesn’t understand this sentence: I am one of these old girls from another BL generation where fanfiction was really THE medium for almost everything. We would put whoever together. Because we really didn’t have enough canon couples around. So it was not that we were spoilt for choice. Shipping, or slashing as we said back then, was really the only option to keep the fandom a little bit fresh and diverse.
So we slashers back then had a very simple rule for real person fanfics. Everything goes UNLESS the person in question has stated clearly that they feel uncomfortable about these things and they don’t want to be put into any fanfics at all. We had lists on our starting pages for fanfic archives and if someone wrote something about that person anyway, it would just be taken down again. Oh, these were definitely simpler times back then.
But I still go with this. If I know that a person doesn’t like shipping then I won’t do it. And this goes for fan service the same as for fanfics. If i can see that an actor is clearly uncomfortable being in that situation I won’t put more oil on the fire and just let him be. That doesn’t mean I won’t ship the heck out of his character and also still support him as an actor, but I won’t ship someone who doesn’t want to be shipped. It’s really that simple.
I think shipping is all about the fun. About us and our boys having some fun together and we can just have fun if everyone is comfortable. And you can’t tell me that you won’t be able to see who is comfortable or not. You can see with both eyes closed how much fun Max and Tul for example have, being shipped together. They love it, they find it incredibly funny and they do it for shits and giggles and to make us, their fans, happy.
But if you look at Bas and God together as another example. God was so uncomfortable with being shipped and I understand why. It is a strange concept and just because you are acting in a BL show doesn’t mean you have to give up your right to your own person. They are still humans and they don’t have to do this if it makes them feel uncomfortable. And that also has nothing to do with being homophobic (yes, maybe in a few cases that might also be the case, but that’s another topic) for me either. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with people yelling and screaming my name everytime my husband stands next to me. And we ARE couple compared to our actors.
So yeah, shipping can be very much fun and games. But just if it’s fun and games for everyone, our boys included. And if they don’t want to be part of this particular game: That’s fine. As long as they give us awesome shows to watch, they can hate fanservice and real person shipping for as long as they want and I would be cool with it.
ALWAYS BE AWARE THAT IT’S A FANTASY
This one should be so obvious that I shouldn’t even have to state it but I guess this is really something people forget. But whatever we do shipping wise, whatever we write in our stories… It’s not reality. It’s all a fantasy based on our wishes and emotions. It’s not what happens for real.
I mean, yes. We know our boys very, very well I think. But in the end we just know their outside personality. Some actors are kind enough to allow us to get incredibly close and personal. But even then it’s still just one piece of them. We will never see the whole picture and we will never know what’s really happening.
Our thoughts and imaginations might sometimes come close to the truth. But I am sure as hell that we are so often soooo far off that we are not even on the same continent anymore. So yes, it’s fun to imagine how the lives of our boys could be in reality but we always need to remember that this is NOT reality. These are just our thoughts, our feelings and wishes and they are completely apart from reality and how our boys might feel.
And if you really start to think about it. Is it really so important to know reality? I don’t think it actually would make much of a difference. For example, look at Mew and Gulf. Are they a real couple? Some people say yes, some people say no. But if they were, what difference for you as a fan would it make? Like seriously and also very practically? What difference would it make? Do you think you would get invited to their real life wedding? Or that they would share pictures and a storytime with us? Would their kisses on screen look different because of it?
I honestly don’t think so. In a way it would almost make me feel uncomfortable if I knew I would watch them kiss and invade a very personal and private moment. I would feel like a peeping Tom. In a way this whole fandom just works if it is fantasy. As soon as this fantasy turns into reality I fear it would almost destroy it as well. I mean, we are watching BL and not real life couples on Youtube for a reason.
Conclusion
I know our fandom has some very tricky passages we have to sail when shipping people. But I honestly believe that we can have fun together with our boys as long as we use our normal judgement about these situations. The actors in our community are nothing else then us. They are just humans who chose to do a job that makes us happy. So instead of treating them like a piece of meat that is interchangeable we should see them as the really awesome humans that they are. They bring us so much joy and fun and they work so hard for us. Yes, we give them an incredible amount of things back, but that never justifies us overstepping the mark and to treat them like they are not human.
For us our boys are precious. And that’s how we should always treat them. With respect and understanding. This is a partnership. The community on one side and the actors on the other. We can’t exist without each other and I don’t think we would want to either.
So give our boys the love and respect they deserve and we shall forever sail on smooth waters with a huge armada of wonderful and never ending ships.
*Repost from BLDA
Your Heart's Content 