Forum: Author Hangout

Ship Teases

FairWeatheredFriend 🚫

Here is a quote from tvtropes

"Many fans 'ship. These fans often do it all the time (context or no) especially in certain demographics. Producers, especially those who keep their finger on the pulse of the audience, not to mention their eye on the fan fora, know this. So, they decide to tease the fans with hints about possible romantic entanglements, and thereby build that emotional attachment between the show and the audience as much as they can. If the writers are particularly impish, they'll tease a relationship that either never comes up or takes a hard right just as it gets going. Like a sudden death. Sometimes, however, ship teases evolve out of the teasing stage."

Now this is the phrase i want to focus on"

If the writers are particularly impish, they'll tease a relationship that either never comes up or takes a hard right just as it gets going. Like a sudden death."

I know i have constantly dropped novels and/or movies that had ships fail on me and i would lose interest in it but usually a ship doesn't bother me unless its built up for a long period of time and then ceases to exist. An example of this would be The Originals tv show which is the freshes thing on my mind, i spent over 20 hours getting invested into a certain couples romance just to have it fall flat and suffice to say i stopped watching it. I'm o'k with a ship tease but i am not ok with a prolonged ship tease that gets you emotionally invested just to sink.

How do you guys generally feel about this trope in novels or movies? Do you have any experience with ship teases, do you like them, do you hate them? or am i the only who is constantly angered by the wrong use of it.

Sorry about the grammer, english is not my native language.

Replies: Vincent Berg tendertouch

Vincent Berg 🚫

@FairWeatheredFriend

This is an example of making characters in a story more 'relatable'. Even if the character spends most of his time hunting terrorists and shooting them in the face, you want readers to be able to relate to him, so the fastest way is to show him romancing someone.

A 'ship tease', though, it like spitting in the viewers eyes, saying 'I know you're only watching because of this budding relationship, but we have zero desire to ever capitalize on it, and we'd rather dump the character father than cater to public demand'.

On the other hand, many shows have had a long romantic buildup between characters, only to have the show tank once the characters finally get together, though this rarely happens in literature, where a book ends where it needs to, rather than when the ratings finally drop so low no company wants to advertise with it anymore.

Ernest Bywater 🚫

I've never heard the term 'ship tease' used in this context before, so I thought he was talking about someone teasing the crew of another ship prior to a boat race of some sort - kind of like a pub argument between the crews of two ships prior to the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.

Replies: Vincent Berg awnlee jawking

Vincent Berg 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

I've never heard the term 'ship tease' used in this context before, so I thought he was talking about someone teasing the crew of another ship prior to a boat race of some sort - kind of like a pub argument between the crews of two ships prior to the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race.

The ship is merely an abbreviation for 'relationship', for those too busy tweeting to bother with the additional eight letters. Like most new terms, it's intended to be 'so cool' that most older people can't understand it, making the younger generation feel like they've suddenly discovered something for the very first time.

Replies: Ernest Bywater Uther_Pendragon

Ernest Bywater 🚫

@Vincent Berg

The ship is merely an abbreviation for 'relationship', for those too busy tweeting to bother with the additional eight letters.

In short, a process of justification for being lazy.

Uther_Pendragon 🚫

@Vincent Berg

. Like most new terms, it's intended to be 'so cool' that most older people can't understand it,

In this case, it worked for me.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Ernest Bywater

Nah, it's a tease in the sense of eg the USS Enterprise. No sooner do you think it's been destroyed or decommissioned than it's back in action, as good as or better than before ;)

AJ

tendertouch 🚫

@FairWeatheredFriend

"Many fans 'ship.

For the OP, note the apostrophe in front of 'ship? That's important when being lazy. 'ship is obviously short for something and we might guess it's relationship. ship isn't short for anything, it's a perfectly ordinary and valid word, that has almost no connection to the word 'tease' Horribly confusing. Just go ahead and spell it out.

As for the question, I don't appreciate when this is done.

red61544 🚫

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/words-that-end-in-ship

How many of these could fit into the original post? Spell the word. It avoids confusion.

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫

@red61544

https://www.thefreedictionary.com/words-that-end-in-ship

That's divided into several different lists by over-all word length. I was particularly amused by the "list" of 4 letter words ending in "ship". :)

imnotwrong 🚫

For me, it all comes down to characters and characterization. If the reason/ reasons for the characters never becoming a fully realized romance makes sense for both the individual characters and how they interact with each other, I would find it irksome but acceptable. But I agree that there comes a point where writers should look at the characters involved, stop being cute, and just go with it.

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Ship Teases

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