Shippers and LANDLUBBERS (reassuring Elkins)

[Tabouli]

No: HPFGUIDX 35267

Elkins:
> > (Tabouli, suspecting that most listmembers are by now well and 
> >truly tired of her voluminous defences of her favorite ship,
> >flourishes her last two LOLLIPOPS)

<concerned look>

>Oh, dear.  I hope that my teasing wasn't part of what gave you that 
impression.  Teasing, like prank-pulling, is all too easy to "get 
wrong," especially in a forum that allows for no observation of body 
language or facial expression.  If I came across genuinely 
exasperated -- or worse, as hostile -- then I do apologize.  And just 
for the record, I always really enjoy reading your LOLLIPOPS defenses.<

Fear not (said she, for mighty dread had seized poor Elkins' mind?).  I wasn't referring to you in the least... it's pretty clear from your posts that you revel in a bit of playful speculation.  I always put your teasing in the context of watching the Ships in headshaking amusement from the shoreline, throwing in the odd playful seashell and insightful observation.  Which you're welcome to do, though I reserve the right to smugness when LOLLIPOPS sails on to victory!

I was referring to the discontented L.A.N.D.L.U.B.B.E.R.S. (Love And Nookie Detesters: Let Us Ban Boring, Endless Romantic Speculations) in our midst, who find all shipping irritating and ongoing whimsical wrangling about speculative (!) ships like LOLLIPOPS and FLIRTIAC and the like positively offensive, and deserving of at least a quashing sledgehammer from the Moderators and preferably a complete ban or eviction to a separate list where they will never darken the waters of the HPFGU main list again.

Now, as no-one will have guessed, I gain great entertainment from my strident stance on LOLLIPOPS and other mildly offbeat Ships (Ships involving the Trio are too centre stage to be much fun - where's the room for concocting elaborate canon-based backstories in that?).  I do base my theories on fill-in-the-jigsaw interpretations of canon, and I'd argue more so than proponents of Harry/Ginny, for example.  Not that there's anything wrong with H/G shipping  - I just think it's more speculation than canon-based at this point, as I think evidence for Harry returning Ginny's feelings is meagre to nil, and therefore supporters of this ship have to do a lot of *forward" speculation, that is, projecting a future in which Harry will notice Ginny and inventing a reason for this.  LOLLIPOPS and FLIRTIAC are *backwards* speculations, where one looks at the present and what we know of the past and tries to develop a backstory about what *did* happen, incorporating everything we currently know from canon.

I've read enough muttering on both the main list and OT to know that there are many people who are heartily sick of shipping posts.  While I know there's no rule against canon-based Shipping, and that such people can delete shipping posts unread (with heavy sighs), I occasionally feel a little conscious of their presence when scooping what feels like my 50th truckload of LOLLIPOPS onto the list.  Much as I like Shipping, there are topics which irritate me as well (I keep quiet and just skim them in my Digests).  I don't like being irritated any more than other people, and can appreciate what it must be like for LANDLUBBERS receiving mailbox after mailbox of an irritant.  It doesn't stop me Shipping, mind you, it just gives me an uneasy twinge now and then (almost an awareness of potentially hostile creatures patrolling the waters...)

Tabouli.


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