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

Well, ok. Might have read to much into Sand Josieph post.

So, the two options I see are:
* Merge Ghost Shipping into Boy Meets Ghoul.
* Keep Boy Meets Ghoul as relationship with a 'ghoul' in a work(including fanfics) and make Ghost Shipping the Audience Reaction.

Strike that, it pretty much the same thing then. Boy Meets Ghoul = relationship with 'ghoul' in any work.

edited 16th May '14 2:28:03 PM by m8e

Oh, I never knew Sand Josieph was a troper. I'm such a huge fan! Anyway, we should make this more in line with the original definition. I don't think this trope will survive if we make it about "shipping." It seems that Boy Meets Ghoul is supposed to be a creepy thing about sexual romance with the undead. Ghost Shipping is about loving someone who has dead, but still possesses some sort of sentience, usually in the form of a ghost of some sort. There's a huge difference here. Ghost Shipping does not involve rotting corpses or "necrophilia," while Boy Meets Ghoul, um, does. The very first sentence of the description is misleading, as it mentions being in a relationship with a member of the undead.

♪ My love is lonely, idle without a spark… ♪

edited 16th May '14 8:20:09 PM by Rethkir

I don't think those two are sufficiently distinct, for one thing, as the usage of Ghost Shipping makes clear. Second, the 'shipping' part of that trope is going to inevitably cause it to become confused for, well, Shipping.

We also have the trope Necromantic for a character who loves someone so much that they try to bring them back from the dead.

edited 16th May '14 8:03:46 PM by Fighteer

I still think the problem with the proposed description for Ghost Shipping is the "(or undead)" part. That turns it from a potential subtrope into just another meaningless Shipping But More Specific page.

I cannot tell where you're getting this distinction from, because it's certainly not in the page descriptions (or at least the description of Boy Meets Ghoul; Ghost Shipping's description is kind of unclear).

edited 17th May '14 12:34:29 AM by nrjxll

I guess one way of describing how I originally saw was that a fanfic writer is shipping two characters from a show but at some point the writers of the show kills one of the characters off. This means that the fanfic writer will have to either continue their ship with one half of it dead or create circumstances where both characters are still alive. I would suggest a rewrite of the trope description as a type of audience reaction and pruning the examples.

edited 17th May '14 12:22:58 AM by SandJosieph

That does seem completely different from how the trope is currently being used, which provides enough separation from Boy Meets Ghoul, but would also require having about 99% of these examples cut, and likely a wick cleanup as well. I personally don't know any examples of this. I presume this trope will probably need to go back to YKTTW to gather examples.

That's just one of the ways the trope can come about. The main essence of the trope is that one of the characters is killed off on the show yet the fans continue to ship them regardless.

Also that particular excuse is the result of Schrödinger's Cast. See also Spared by the Adaptation.

So, start a YKTTW for the trope Sand Josieph intended (under a different name), and move the Ghost Shipping examples to Boy Meets Ghoul and the YKTTW?

edited 18th May '14 9:24:48 AM by m8e

I think that there's a potential for a trope between Necroromantic and Boy Meets Ghoul where a character falls in love with a Posthumous Character that they don't try to bring back from the dead.

Isn't that Loving a Shadow?

I think you meant The Lost Lenore. Loving a Shadow is unrelated to the living/dead status of a Love Interest.

Are we ready for an action crowner here? I agree that The Lost Lenore ought to be covering the case where someone is, In-Universe, pining for a lost love after their death. Boy Meets Ghoul can be kept for actual romance between a living and dead/undead person — that is, reciprocated romance. The dead person in question might be a ghost or something. That leaves Ghost Shipping as the audience reaction where fans ship live characters with dead ones.

I'm not sure that shipping live characters with undead characters is meaningfully distinct from other forms of shipping.

edited 19th May '14 2:00:02 PM by Fighteer

I meant if a character never even met a character, but falls in love with a Posthumous Character through stories and hearing about them. But yeah, now that I think of it that's probably not what he meant.

I'mn good with that organization.

Crowner hooked.

As of 6:57 AM wiki time on May 21, redefine Ghost Shipping to be a Shipping subtrope is winning 9:0, with no other positive options.

I sort of feel like the leading option isn't specific enough. As both you and I have said, shipping living characters with canonically dead characters might be tropable, but shipping living characters with undead characters isn't really a distinct subtrope. The wording of the option sounds like it could cover either one.

Considering that was the original definition of this trope, I'd agree to specify the leading option to clarify that aspect.

I'm all for making the trope about shipping. It's in the name, after all.

I agree. I don't think "Boy Meets Ghoul, but in a fanwork" is distinct. But "shipping a living character with a Posthumous Character" is worth noting, though I don't know if there are any actual examples of that.

Agreed.

It's been a week, and redefine is holding steady at 20:3. I think this can be called

edited 28th May '14 9:08:31 PM by tryrar

Agreed; calling for the winning option: Redefine Ghost Shipping as a Shipping trope. Merge all In-Universe examples into Boy Meets Ghoul. Flag Ghost Shipping YMMV.

Proposal

We do make some exceptions, of course. If the shipping is set before the character dies, it isn't an example. If the shipping is set after the character is raised in canon, it isn't an example. This trope only has examples for when fans have a character currently dead by canon shipped with an active character.

When this Audience Reaction gets put into fan works, a number of tropes can develop:

• The Lost Lenore, as the living character does not accept the loss of their love as reason sufficient to end their relationship.
• Schrödinger's Cast, as the fanfic began before the original work killed the character, and continues with an active (but dead in canon) character.
• Resurrected Romance, as the dead character loves too much to leave, and finds a way back.
• Necromantic, as the living character cannot allow their love to remain dead, and found a way to bring them back.

Similar to Boy Meets Ghoul, which covers canonically undead characters in a relationship with canonically living characters. Not to be confused with Ghost Ship; those are mysteriously abandoned vessels.

edited 29th May '14 10:53:21 AM by crazysamaritan