What Is Juicy? A shipping zine
Text version
Image: Messy ballpoint drawing of an apple and an orange, each cut in half, and a title messily written underneath: What is juicy?
A zine about shipping fictional characters
What is shipping?
Image: A simplified drawing of an apple and orange, each given cute cartoon eyes and looking at each other, with an x in between them.
I see a lot of denials
“Shipping doesn’t mean I want them to be together in canon”
“Shipping doesn’t mean it should be a healthy romance”
“Shipping doesn’t have to be romantic”
It is harder to define it in a positive sense...
I like to say shipping is the urge to lock two characters in a room and then watch what happens on CCTV.
Image: The apple and orange now have tiny blob bodies and are trapped in a cube with a CCTV camera watching from the ceiling. The apple is laying in the corner while the orange bangs on the wall trying to get out.
Personally I am not a big fan of conventional signifiers of romance: typical gender roles, courtship, dating, etc.* One reason I like shipping is I can avoid or de-emphasise these!
*Maybe I’m just 12 years old at heart...
If it’s not seeing romance played out then what part of shipping do I derive enjoyment from? I believe it’s the bit in the middle here:
Image: Venn diagram with the two categories being 'feelings' and 'consequences'. Inside 'Feelings' is a picture of the apple and orange kissing in the sunset, captioned 'Feelings with no consequences: Signifiers only.“I love you”'. Inside 'Consequences' is the apple shocked and crying while discovering the top half of the orange still on a lemon juicer-type device, captioned 'Consequences not of feelings: The plot'. The intersection is highlighted but has no text inside.
That’s right it’s feelings with consequences! How are the characters’ choices, lives, worlds unavoidably different as a result of their bonds? Consequences could be practical or emotional (yes other feelings can count as consequences of the original feelings), big or small...
Random Examples
Emotional consequences
- feeling good around them
- having your perspective on life changed by them
- missing them so much you dream of them
- being unable to move on from your grudge against them
Practical consequences
- cooking food for them
- continuing to play a sport with them
- letting them take advantage of you
- taking revenge on their killer
Annotation: Painful consequences are my favourite!
It’s not like I evaluate ships according to this metric, but e.g. when I make fanworks I am unconsciously drawn to exploring these consequences. If they don’t exist in canon, I will invent them.
Image: The apple is watching the sunset alone while thinking 'Orange...'
Maybe this idea is totally self-evident, maybe it misses the point. Idk. What is YOUR definition of shipping?
bonus: mini playlist about feelings with consequences
- Keane - Your Love
- The Knocks - R U HIGH
- Alex Winston - Need Ur Luv
- Elmiene - Useless
- Tennis - Matrimony II
- Ave Mujica - Imprisoned XII
Most of these songs are about yearning in love. I do think yearning is the most iconic form of my ‘consequences’ but ‘consequences’ includes more (a happy and requited love will also have consequences!).