Duplicate Trope (Page Action Crowner 2014-05-19): Ghost Shipping

Ghost Shipping, as written, seems to be identical to Boy Meets Ghoul. They're both about "the undead gets into a romantic relationship with someone alive." The only difference I can spot in their descriptions is that Ghost Shipping mentions that it can be canon or fanon.

From the names, I'd think Ghost Shipping is a YMMV thing about the fandom pairing a living character with one who's canonically dead, either by ignoring that they're dead, or bringing them back/making them undead.

As written, they are quite identical. The examples on the page are split on the matter, the vast majority being plain Boy Meets Ghoul and a fair number of "Boy Meets Ghoul is a common ship in the fandom."

First ten wicks:

• Darth Wiki/Abe: Boy Meets Ghoul
• Akai Ito: Boy Meets Ghoul
• American Horror Story: Murder House: Boy Meets Ghoul
• Anna Dressed in Blood: Boy Meets Ghoul
• Western Animation/Beetlejuice: No context, but I'm pretty sure they never actually were presented as a couple so it's a fanon thing.
• Bleach: Karakura Town Residents: Boy Meets Ghoul
• Boy Meets Ghoul: Pothole... but from the context it's just describing itself.
• Brain Bleach: Boy Meets Ghoul
• Choice of Games: Boy Meets Ghoul, and that's also listed on the page.
• Dark Parables: No context.

So... yeah. Pretty redundant. And it's not as though Ghost Shipping is limited to ghosts, as there are plenty of vampire examples.

I support the idea of either merging these tropes or making Ghost Shipping into a Shipping trope whereas Boy Meets Ghoul would remain objective.

Some of Ghost Shipping's links look YMMV to me, but while I don't like using "boy" for men in general rather than under-18ers specifically, folding Ghost Shipping into Boy Meets Ghoul seems best.

Merge!

I think any trope with shipping in its name should be YMMV, since shipping is fundamentally a fan reaction. Or at least that's how the word is most often used.

Don't have a problem with the other using the word "boy". It's perhaps more specific than it needs to be, but I don't think it's causing trouble, and it sounds better like that.

If Ghost Shipping was made distinct and YMMV, what would remain on it? I'm not opposed to either that or a merge.

I lean that way too.

Seems we're drawing close to a crowner to decide between those two options, as no others have been proposed and there is uniform agreement that the tropes are identical as currently used.

Would Ghost Shipping as a YMMV be tropeable, though? The definition that I thought it was when I read the name (fans ship a character who is canonically dead with a live one) seems like it would be, but it isn't used anywhere. The actually YMMV definition that sees some use on the page and elsewhere (fans ship an undead character with a live one) doesn't seem tropeworthy, to me.

Why don't we sort the existing uses by category, then?

I'm inclined to agree. That's just shipping but more specific, and we already have enough of that.

When I first created the trope page it was originally intended to be about fans shipping characters with dead characters but it seems to have gained a "life" of its own. It seems to have gained two different meanings: one is the one I originally wrote and the other has to do with when a living character's love is of the ethereal ghost variety. Like a ghost story where one lover turns out to be dead all along.

edited 15th May '14 1:47:54 AM by SandJosieph

That latter is covered by Boy Meets Ghoul, which is why people are getting confused.

I'm pretty sure that shipping live and dead (or undead) characters is a phenomenon that can be documented. It's at least as valid as any other shipping subtrope, anyway. I think the whole business can die in a fire, personally, but that doesn't mean I get the final say in the matter.

edited 15th May '14 6:43:59 AM by Fighteer

Seems to me like the best thing to do is move all canonical examples to Boy Meets Ghoul and make this one fanfiction-only. And if there are no non-canonical examples left, then burn it to the ground.

Any reason not to put up a crowner now?

None that I can think of.

I can see shipping a character with another character who is canonically dead as a distinct subtrope, because it represents a similar type of "impossible" shipping to something like Crossover Ship. But "Boy Meets Ghoul in fanfic" doesn't sound tropeworthy.

I have to agree with that, Boy Meets Ghoul in fanfic is just Boy Meets Ghoul. Ghost Shipping is for characters that have died in canon, but somehow is still alive and shipped after that in the fanfic.

So, what options do we have?

• Merge Ghost Shipping into Boy Meets Ghoul.
• Turn Ghost Shipping into a fanfic/fan-reaction trope.
• Turn Ghost Shipping into a trope about shipping canonically dead characters (i.e. characters who canonically would be unable to have a relationship due to one or both of them being dead).

I think that the latter two are basically the same thing, right? What is shipping if not a fan reaction?

Fanfics are works too. If Boy Meets Ghoul happens in a work it's simply Boy Meets Ghoul. Being a fanwork or not makes no difference there.

• Making a canonically dead character come back as a vampire/ghost/whatever and shipping that character is both Boy Meets Ghoul and Ghost Shipping.
• Having that character instead coming back as a normal person is only Ghost Shipping.
• If the character is canonically a vampire/ghost/whatever and get shipped it's Boy Meets Ghoul and normal shipping, as the shipping isn't 'impossible' due too death.

edited 16th May '14 12:58:07 PM by m8e

Let's be clear here. Shipping is an Audience Reaction — it's fans making up relationships based on their feelings and/or personal preferences. If they write it in a fanfic, it's still shipping with respect to the parent work, although it is not shipping within the fic itself.

Boy Meets Ghoul, as written, is a relationship trope. It's objective. If, in a work, a character has a romantic relationship with someone who's dead or undead, it's this trope. If the relationship exists only in fans' minds, it's not this trope.

A trope cannot be about both things. It has to make up its mind. That's why Ho Yay, Les Yay, etc., were such a mess for so long.

edited 16th May '14 1:10:02 PM by Fighteer

I'm talking about fanfic examples. so yes, if it only exists in fans' minds it's not that trope, if it exist in a fanfic it's an example of the trope in that fanfic.

Agreed, although we really have to be clear about the relationship between the fic and the parent when it comes to tropes.

Alice is alive, Bob is dead (or undead).

• In the parent work, Alice dates Bob: Boy Meets Ghoul.
• Fans of the parent work think that Alice should be dating Bob: Ghost Shipping.
• Someone writes a fanfic in which Alice dates Bob. This is Boy Meets Ghoul within the fic, and Ghost Shipping from the fic to the parent work.

Quite not agreeing with 2 and 3. It's Boy Meets Ghoul and normal Shipping.

I think the confusion(maybe just mine...) comes from Ghost Shipping (as Sand Josieph intended it) and Boy Meets Ghoul uses two different definitions of dead.

In Ghost Shipping the character must be dead For Real in the parent work. The character simply doesn't exist anymore. Not as a ghost, zombie or anything. To ship this character in any way the fanfic writer have to change the characters living status(pun?) by bringing them back from the dead, having the death never happen or some such. Basically, the core of Ghost Shipping is that the character's death have been changed to make the ship possible.

In Boy Meets Ghoul 'dead' means being a ghost, angel, spirit and so on (and undead is vampires, zombies et.c. as always.)

edited 16th May '14 2:02:28 PM by m8e

I think that, while whether they are dead-dead or undead-dead may be a valid distinction, it's not the distinction we're making here. We're talking about In-Universe relationships versus Audience Reactions. Otherwise it's four separate tropes, not two separate ones.

edited 16th May '14 2:04:57 PM by Fighteer