Board Thread:Spoilers!/@comment-26225812-20150625072936/@comment-4975807-20150708172512

WhatTheEvenBelle wrote:

Eskaver wrote: Though I can't direct your life, shipping real life people is incredibly creepy.

There are those who literally ship Jen and Colin, but that's crazy talk because they aren't in a relationship and won't ever be.

People need to separate fantasy from the reality in which they live in.

Nevertheless it's creepy and odd.

Back to LGBT characters and not beliefs and weird fantasies. Well you act as if I ship it hardcore and that it's what my life revolves around. They've done a few interviews together and seemed like good friends so I "ship" it for fun, is all. It's not like it was anything serious. :|

But to stay on topic, I wouldn't mind more LGBT characters if done right. I would love to see the Mulan story explored since they set it up and never got back to it since the actress' busy schedule. I also like SwanQueen, but really more because it's not canon. Sorry to go back to the shipping topic, but just wanted to give my two cents. My view is that whenever there's talk about LGBT characters on Once Upon a Time, discussion about shipping appears to intertwined into it as well. I think it's because some of the fanbase is heavily invested in shipping some same sex couples, so it's deeply connected to the LGBT aspect. Then again, shipping can be a very confusing term because the intention behind may not always be to support two characters in a romantic light, but to ship them as friends or a team of two people working together. Kind of like the ship for CaptainCharming. When I first saw that term, I immediately thought, "Oh, people ship them because on the show they are now becoming friends and finally understanding each other as allies and family." At the same time, at the back of my head, there's the connotation that any ship has a hidden romantic implication because that's what I think about whenever I hear the word "shipping".

With shipping, a lot of it is fantasy and just for fun. I used to have a more hardened view on shipping couples that aren't canon in either the friendship-y or romantic light, but it's part of the fandom whether I like it or not. For shipping real life people together, well... I have to admit, I do think it's crossing a point because it's involving real life people along with the added fantasy aspect. However, I do not see the harm in it since you say you ship Rebecca and Emily for fun since they seem like good friends during interviews. Like, that seems really sweet and not creepy to me at all. One extreme in real life shipping I can't accept, though, is when there's fanfiction about the real life people. That, to me, is a little odd since the people involved are real people. Then again, I try to be open minded about the topic because I can remember all the times I've read historical fiction novels that involve real people from history, and that is kinda fanfiction-y too because it's a fictional depiction of dialogue and situations in that person's life, with some based off of history and others made up by the author.