me + Richard Armitage + Lee Pace, or: The ship that dare not speak its name [introduction]

I’ve thought about this topic for a long time. I regularly link to RPF and ‘ship fanfic in Legenda, but I’ve never thought it was necessary to say more about it than that I enjoy it.

This is a post about why I like shipping and how it became a useful, indeed redeeming, pleasure that improves  my life better. It’s an affirmative defense of shipping based on how it makes me feel. I’m not saying you should like it. Just that I like it. A lot.

I want to make clear that I’m writing this for me. These sentiments are mine alone. At the same time I want to apologize to friends who told me they felt marginalized by my failure to state this more openly, and who thought my previous defenses (that it’s harmless, that it’s a free speech issue, that all fans act exploitatively) were not positive enough in the face of criticism that the vehement opposition to a few particular ships looks an awful lot like homophobia. I offer as an explanation but not an excuse: I needed time to figure out how to address my shame over liking this stuff. To those friends, this post is for only for me. But I hope it cheers you to know that there’s at least one reader who enjoys what you do.

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Please be aware of the comments policy stated at the end of the post.

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Source.

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Shipping? A preface

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, shipping is the fandom practice, especially in fanfics or graphics, of putting two persons (characters or real people or both) in a romantic relationship of some kind that is counter-factual to reality, not manifested explicitly in the canon of a story, or based on indeterminate assertions or evidence.  (‘Ship is short for relationship.) Shipping can present a close relationship, UST (unresolved sexual tension), or actual sexual encounters.

Fans often tag ships with a mashup of the involved names in order to make their discussions easier to find (for example, “Aidean” for a ship involving Dean O’Gorman and Aidan Turner). The two most common tags for a ship involving Richard Armitage and Lee Pace are “Richlee” or “Armipace.” In this post, I’ll be discussing “Richlee.”

I’ve wanted to write about this for a long time but have feared the possible resulting controversy. However, I’ve felt lately like I don’t write about things I want to discuss and then get pushed into responding in a way that makes me angry. Change requires conflict, I guess, but I see the practice of fandom as a joyful moment of growth, and so by grasping the initiative here I hope I can communicate some joy. Moreover, I started out writing here wanting just to come clean about a bunch of stuff and figure it out, and if I am not doing that, I’m wasting my writing time and just participating in the support of a marketing machine that annoys me whenever I succumb to it.

As dooce said recently:

So.

Crimes are crimes. They do not require denunciation from me. Shipping, even RPF shipping, does not break the law. It is not libel or slander. I ship quietly and intensely in my fantasies, where I also ship me + Richard Armitage, which should have been clear for some time. I enjoy shipping the way I do it. I also enjoy observing the shipping of people who write or draw or make manips. I don’t happen to enjoy blatantly counterfactual gossip, but in fact, all gossip involves spreading rumors, and to me, shipping gossip is more or less the same thing as shipping fantasy; it differs primarily by genre and perhaps by tone or intent of the speaker (which is not an argument against it — an argument is valid or invalid on its terms, regardless of the one who makes it) but not substantially.

If you ship, too, or enjoy it, I hope you enjoy this post. However.

First, if you are absolutely opposed to shipping of any kind, please simply click this window shut. You are not in my intended audience today. It will only make you angry.

Second, I do not believe that people who disagree with me are dumb (something I’ve heard lately) or uncool (something I used to hear). Like / don’t like; read / don’t read. One could say that liking an actor and his work so much that one writes over 2,000 blogposts about him over a timespan approaching four years is both dumb and uncool. I live in a glass house on both of those scores, and, I would argue — so do all of us.

Third, this post was not intended as an invitation to a referendum on the legitimacy of shipping as a practice in our or any other fandom — although to be fair, I’ll have to allow discussion on that point. I’ve already decided my own stance. I’ll limit myself to stating that thinking or writing something or believing something is not the same it being real; and that I do not believe “slippery slope” arguments in which obsessive counterfactual fantasy is made responsible for stalking (to me, stalking is a manifestation of mental illness which may also manifest itself in fantasy; at any rate, it’s a crime on its own). Below, I draw on my personal reactions to shipping; yours may differ. In case there was any doubt: your feelings are still yours! Feel free to discuss your disagreements in the comments, but I probably won’t respond to those comments unless I see an argument that I haven’t already considered.

Fourth, although I also can’t forbid it, this post is not an invitation to assert or refute the alleged real existence of any ship discussed in this post or elsewhere.  Presumably every reader who has come this far knows where to go to participate in vigorous debates about the reality of these ships. The main ship I talk about here seems to me to be an unlikely possibility; arguments that Armitage + Pace must necessarily be real rely, in my opinion, on errors of cognition and/or reasoning. While human thought patterns are fascinating to observe, my point here is not to trace and substantiate or undermine every relevant datapoint. I’m sure I’m not even aware of all of them! Rather, I want to discuss what I noticed as I saw it, and describe how a particular notion makes me feel, not refute a picture based on isolated data and the treatment of rumors that give them a disproportionate meaning. Those rumors are often set in motion by people with no tangible identities, who have never offered any proof that they are in any position to know what they assert to be true. What they say is neither deductively valid (the available data do not lead to a necessary/inevitable conclusion) nor yet inductively falsifiable (available data cannot absolutely refute the conclusion — although some critics of shippers might say that the belief in the existence of the ship is so firm that its adherents would not accept data that did falsify it).

Finally, I don’t really want to have a discussion about the real-life sexual orientations of any actor discussed in this post. Again, I suppose we can go there, but that’s not the point. This isn’t a post about reality. It’s a post about how I feel about a fantasy and why I like it.

Finally, please be aware that the usual rule about avoiding ad hominem attack is in force — let’s talk about the topic, not about each other. NOT OK: “those crazy people who believe this ship is real” or “people who refuse to accept reality and deny the ship is real …”

As always, first time commentators are subject to moderation. No homophobic remarks!

I hope we have the boundaries for an interesting and honest discussion that makes space for the people who usually get marginalized to speak in favor of their pleasures.

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Dworin, my Hobbit OTP. Source.

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Admittedly, Armitage + Pace is not my favorite ship or OTP — “one true pairing” — the relationship I prefer to all others in a particular context. My OTP is any combination of Armitage + Graham McTavish or any of their characters. Even in contradiction to McTavish’s attitude toward shipping, which seems to be to either pretend that he doesn’t know what it is (I find this implausible, especially since seeing the TH:AUJ extended edition extras, but as a rhetorical strategy, it’s fine — it’s one I’ve often used if someone asks me something unreasonable) or make jokes about it. After months of witnessing the fantasy in my mind, I can explain why Armitage + McTavish is my OTP, and before this blog is over, I’ll describe how I got there, and why. Meanwhile I’ll continuing enjoying that one in private, for now.

Fans have presented it this way:

My Hobbit OTP, extending into other universes. Source.

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Or in some fanfics I’ve enjoyed. (Some but not all have previously been linked in Legenda.) Read all disclaimers before continuing. And, in the spirit of understanding displayed in this post, don’t use their comment sections for an anti-RPF or anti-slash or anti-ship moral crusade. Some fics I like have already been disappeared for this reason. A03 is supposed to be a safe place for all kinds of fantasy.

• “Keep Night from Coming,” by coloursflyaway. Richard Armitage has a secret admirer. Roses.
• “Rewriting the Rules,” by St_Germaine. A wealthy Graham McTavish buys Armitage’s services at a charity auction. Romantic. Sequel: “Delayed Gratification.”
• Also by St_Germaine, “Sword of Damocles.” Graham McTavish tracks down a dying Richard Armitage. Incredibly romantic.
• “A Study in Contrasts,” by foreverdistracted. Dominant Graham McTavish teaches Richard Armitage something about submission. Fascinating power dynamic and almost entirely porn.
• “What is Essential,” by St_Germaine. Graham McTavish and Richard Armitage meet again on the set of The Hobbit after a friendship cut off for three decades.
• “Distrust Everything, If You Have To,” by redandglenda. Graham McTavish discovers a painful moment in Richard Armitage’s past.
• “One, Two, Three,” by St_Germaine. It’s Richard Armitage’s first time, and Graham McTavish has to learn to be patient.
• “Gently, wordlessly,” by noalinnea. Graham McTavish takes care of an injured Richard Armitage.

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Source: Thorin Oakenshield Confessions

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Rereading the fics I linked above was sheer pleasure; I reinvigorated my crush on St_Germaine. Leaving that by the side for the moment, I hope that my slight distance from Armitage + Pace as a ship makes it easier for me to write about it and also makes it easier for this post to be understood.

Onward.

[to next part.]

~ by Servetus on November 21, 2013.