random fandom and shipping thoughts. [a journal entry.]

[lovebalance]

opening note (feel free to just click the entire entry): i love shipping. who else could love shipping as much as i do? i sit here in my dark campus room, lofi playing on repeat, and scroll my phone constantly. i look at tumblr, twitter, ao3, rinse, repeat. 

okay, let’s get real. speaking honestly, i have always shipped things. i shipped naruto and sasuke, i shipped misty and ash from pokemon, but also ash and gary. i shipped judai and johan (or by the grace of 4kidz, jaden and jesse) from yu-gi-oh: gx. i only got into kingdom hearts because i liked how the characters sora and roxas looked together. yep. i found out about fanfiction dot net because i looked up two vocaloids on a google search. so yeah, you could say i’ve seen it all.

while this probably sounds like, a serious analysis or something about shipping, fandom, etc, it is very much not. i don’t care about that stuff, i’ve seen every possible take about fandom and shipping during quarantine, twice over. i am here because i want to talk about rps/rps, ships i fall for (recently as well), maybe even ficdom?

[quick info before heading on: before learning what the term rps stood for, i associated that term with roleplay blogs on tumblr, like in kingdom hearts. just consider that random trivia.]

but first, an adventure: 

1. let’s set the scene. you are user lovebalance, age 12 (stay with me, i know it’s a nightmare already), and you’ve just discovered a group named shinee. you are 12, you were once called the most gifted reader in elementary school, you inhale everything with big breaths, you read every sentence of a fictional story like it’s a life-changing event. 

wiki pages, lore dumps, youtube videos of some dudes named chuggaconroy (who’s real name might be emile? you don’t know, you’re crying over the end of mother 3 as the said emile lets the music right now too hard to read anything about.) and also andrew arcade for hours after school without doing your homework? that’s just routine at this point. 

(side note: this andrew guy swears alot, but he’s also playing a game called persona 4. you’ve never heard of it before, but you came home everyday and watched him play. there’s a character named yosuke hanamura, and you like him a lot. not romantically, but something about the way he says things to the protagonist is making you excited and happy. what’s that about? 

surely this won’t turn into anything!)

you live off of stories. everyone else is mean, and they don’t understand you, but the stories aren’t these people. the excitement you get when you leave a comment (a review…?) that the author replies to in their notes, about how your passionate crying made them laugh or smile before the chapter starts is unforgettable.

you also write. but not as good as them. you don’t know if anyone would leave comments for you like that.

you read, you watch anime, you watch shinee hello baby, you grow, you watch some dude play a game called danganronpa 1 after you’ve just turned 13. life is hard, but fiction is fun.

okay, enough. y’all get it right? i planted roots and i grew into fandoms, fanfiction, etc. it’s sort of a core part of who i am. i used to worry that when i was 18, i had to give everything up. since i wrote a post similar to that point, i will leave that link.

i don’t want to talk about my growth or stats or articles. i want to talk about how much fun shipping is. 

1. to start off, rps/rps. honestly, as i look around places like twitter and tiktok, i’m starting to figure out that rps is just something you either understand or you don’t. like i said to someone, i feel as though it all depends on what boundaries a person is able to set for themselves. 

like, i know when i read a fic, that the renjun in that fic who is smoking weed, is not the renjun running around the sm entertainment right now. but on the other hand, i can say the statement, “i think donghyuck and renjun are dating right now” and i could be completely serious about it. and not in an rpf way.

honestly, it might be like this:

1. saying you think people are dating based on gossip and speculation is not rps/rpf in practice. to me, statements like that are more on the wavelength of celebrity magazines, online gossip sites, and blogs (not tumblr), along with interviewers and celebrity hosts trying to figure out who is an item with who? in this case, i am the pop culture podcast host, and i’m currently reading blind items or something abot the two celebrities in question: donghyuck and renjun.

2. on the other hand, rps/rpf to me has a feeling of fiction to it. i’ve noticed in idol fandoms, that when there’s a ship in the group, people tend to like them but not. it’s almost like they love writing fic, aus,posting cute edits with love songs, etc, about two idols who also serve as a face claim? what i mean by this is, these accounts will engage in everything stated above, but also tweet some things that could be read as it’s all for fun, don’t take them seriously. honestly, it’s almost like escapism.

like how people escape into a world of a fictional book. like, falling for a character you really like. this could honestly go into another conversation about idol personas, what we as fans see versus what we don’t, debates like that. i don’t have a single thought on that. 

i do however think that concepts of genuine speculation, rps on social media, and where they agree and don’t agree can confuse people. if i said the statement, ‘[idol name here] is a fictional character to me,” someone else could reply with “they’re a real person.” to me, i know this. i’m not saying the real person is fictional, i’m saying they are: the idol. the persona. 

[there could also be a conversation about stage names and how idols use them, mainly thinking about karina vs. jimin (which she has made a reference in her bubble about), or someone like hoshi vs soonyoung from seventeen.]

boys vs girls; what does it say?

1. i was talking to a few people about so many different things regarding media and fandom. here is a general take, short and simple;

the layers of misogyny, along with the problem of fictional women never being able to pass the bechdel test most times, probably really show in fandom spaces. that’s why i think girl group ao3 tags will always have less buzz than boy group ones. not that the girl groups are not interesting, but more so that, one, people tend to center on men anyway. two, straight women are usually more willing to stan and invest in boy groups over girl groups, which tells you basically the rest. 

TL;DR: 

1. rps/rpf is harmless. it’s fun. enjoy your fics. 

2. everyone approaches shipping culture differently. sometimes you just need to think about how you alone perceive something.

3. there is definitely homosexual activity happening in sm group nct dream.

[one last thing: sorry to promote this book again. if you are gay in any form, you could be wondering how it works in terms of speculating couples versus speculating sexualities. i think girls can kiss now by miss jill answers that question better than i currently could. check it out. it’s a fun time.]

 

ships i currently think about a lot. (fictional and nonfictional): 

this section is more fun. hopefully. 

maybe just for me.

current ships on my mind as of april, not ranked:

1. donghyuck and renjun - nct dream (boy group)

2. naruto and sasuke - naruto (series)

3. draco and harry - harry potter (series)

4. sana and nayeon - twice (girl group)

5. mina and jihyo - twice (girl group)

do you sense any themes from the above list? no? it makes sense to me. for example, i think mina and jihyo could for sure serve a 8th year, draco and harry, slow burn, second chances vibe really well. and donghyuck and renjun could do a 698 slow burn naruto and sasuke storyline no problem. either you see it, or not honestly.

ships that are asking to dock:

1. yujin and gauel - ive (girl group)

2. soobin and beomgyu - tomorrow x together (boy group)

there is something about a duo where one of them makes the other one completely pathetic that slays to me. (also txt announced a world tour as i was writing this….thanks @ my fbi agent.)

ships that are permanent and not a joke: 

1. taehyung and jungkook.

something is up.

ok, sorry. hope someone had fun reading this, or don’t. i had fun though <3

(drop a random fic rec if you want to as well. hehe)

Comments

[rhodochrosite]

really interesting post!! i definitely agree that there's a difference, however hazy, between like actual tinhatting about real people vs rpf which i sometimes jokingly call tinhatting but is really just about the idols as fictional characters. personally i'm only interested in idols as fictional characters because they literally are To Me but i love to undertake the same kind of genuine speculation analysis work for fun so i think we kind of end up in the same arena despite different approaches. also as an aside i highly rec ao3 user englishsummerrain for dongren fic if you haven't already seen their work around!!

[hellofuturistic]

omg hi I love this. I used to say “im not a rpshipper im an observer” but that’s totally not true. well it kind of used to be true but nct dream is literally the most compelling and insane group of dudes so I naturally have expanded into voracious consumption of fic.

but this part: “saying you think people are dating based on gossip and speculation is not rps/rpf in practice. to me, statements like that are more on the wavelength of celebrity magazines, online gossip sites, and blogs (not tumblr), along with interviewers and celebrity hosts trying to figure out who is an item with who? in this case, i am the pop culture podcast host, and i’m currently reading blind items or something abot the two celebrities in question: donghyuck and renjun.”

like, that’s me. I’d never actively shipped real people before but I was UP on my celebrity gossip and once I got into kpop I completely dropped off. Kpop literally stepped into that shoe with EASE. Renjun and Donghyuck actually so addictive to watch because Um who doesn’t enjoy watching two people Fall in Love before your very eyes/ also there’s no effect on your daily personal life (except for my pavlovian response I’ve developed to waking up at 4 and 8 am PST) and there isn’t really on theirs either as long as…like you said, you enforce your own boundaries/expectations. It’s totally possible to maintain as a fun interest. I’ve definitely become much more involved in RPS/RPF especially with Dream because their “characters” (how we, the public, perceive them for the purpose of writing and headcanoning fiction I guess? discussing meta too?) are so rich. Curious though, where does canon compliant sit in all of this? To me canon comp is the perfect marriage of the rps/irl speculation spheres, but I’m wondering what you think!

“for example, i think mina and jihyo could for sure serve a 8th year, draco and harry, slow burn, second chances vibe really well. and donghyuck and renjun could do a 698 slow burn naruto and sasuke storyline no problem. either you see it, or not honestly”

I love this because I do it too. There is absolutely a through line to the ships I love and I really like exploring their dynamics in different settings. Like I love thinking about a Kuroko no Basuke idol au, or what classes Dream would be in a final fantasy game. Anyway a lot of people do this obviously…I really like talking about aus but I’m soooo picky when it comes to actually reading them. This is one of my all time fave dongren fics though- it’s perfect it makes me actually sob.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32051371/chapters/79396300

neptunes lips taste like fermented wine is also an amazing fic by them!

“there is definitely homosexual activity happening in sm group nct dream.”
This made me spit. It’s the only logical conclusion. That or Haechan’s bank account is BURSTING from all his business gay transactions with Renjun.

Great postttt <3