This is something I'm gonna have to be okay if it does happen, though I don't know if it will. Nothing stops shippers these days but fortunately I don't think I have to worry about them for a long while. Nothing against shipping characters you like to together, but sometimes it can get obsessive.

Honestly I've more than made my peace with it especially as someone who casually plays the shipping game and truth be told a part of me kinda looks forward to it (plus all my characters are over 18 so no concerns about weird sh!t)

I mean I do still want folks to focus on the plot so I hope my writing will be strong enough to keep a level of focus on that but of course you can't control the audience, hell i'm over 10 years into the sonic fandom so i know i'd know

I will say the more I think about it I'm really interested to see which characters people would pair coz I know what the cannon couples are but even I've got a few pairs (or trios) that I'd consider for a number of reasons so I anticipate seeing things play out

I like it My story is not a romance and I don't think I can write romance, but there are two characters that are an obvoius (though non-canon) pairing. My friends ship them and then reactions to every 'ship moment!' scene keeps me motivated to draw they even use two ship names, one for cute interaction (Jerzanka) and one for not-so-cute ones (Blerzy).
It kinda makes me want to try my strenght in writing romance

I honestly do not care who people want to ship with who as long as it's not adult/child or incest.

Heck, you can ship the gay man with a woman or make the straight characters gay. I don't care, as long as no one is using my series to bully each other. I hate the whole shipping wars. If some one's ship bugs you that much, ignore them and block them and move on with your life.

People can ship whomever they want, but it always makes me cringe when people ignore the rules of "propriety" with their ships, ex. huge age gap pairings, teacher x student pairings, and step/adopted sibling pairings. For me, it becomes FAR less swoon worthy when one member of your pairing is committing a crime while being with the other member of the pairing.

From what I learned, you have to make the two characters have feelings for one another, interact with one another, have full interest in one another, and make it clear that these two will end up with each other in the end so that at least the majority of the shippers will tolerate it even though it is not their preferred ship but it makes sense and it's obvious to them.

If we don't make it clear, they will explode in the media, sending death threats, shipping wars, and pulling out all kinds of nonsense on why should they end up with each other. Pure chaos.

Also a shipping of incest, and age gap is a big no no.

Yeah I’m fine with it rule 34 is inevitable and you can’t control what your fans do so I just roll with it. Personally, I used to ship but that ship has sailed. I’ve already had my readers simping over Wellington and Randy and Eric I mean I can’t blame them look at them!

543B934B-B2D7-4985-9141-9532F27AE006.png800x1280 144 KB

EEF886E8-3859-4663-ABA2-3FC7D3ADEF1C.jpeg800x1280 170 KB

2893AE81-E421-40A7-B984-7CDC9B277D60.png800x1280 357 KB

Anyways I’m fine with it. Unless if it’s incest or a weird age gap (ie a child with an adult) no no no no no.

Those are my thoughts. Honestly I’m flattered if my readers find a pairing I’d never thought of or if they see them in a simping light.

Ahahha, great conversation starter for the creators on here. xD
Love your honesty! lol

Yeah... I'm fine with it. Shipping is just that sort of thing that happens when you get fanatic over stuff that includes personalities you find fun and/or attractive. So it seems harmless to me! (it usually is. fanfic and ships are just people having fun with characters they like that you made... sounds fun to get to that point with readers, as a creator! )
....
Now I'll be very honest here, rule 34 makes me morbidly curious to see what people come up with. But I do know I'll need to separate myself from it if I come across stuff I find totally appalling. LOL
Maybe if my readers are cool with me, I can make silly little jokes about that stuff and do funny drawings about it....
.... as an outlet for the trauma. /s
lol

I think that it’s absurd to think you have that much ownership over ideas you put out into the world. Once its out there it isn't fully yours anymore. If the author wanted that much ownership over their concepts they shouldn't have published it in the first place.

Personally, I find some of the “ships” people have for my characters both IRL and on the internet to be quite humorous and occasionally insightful. No harm no fowl. Except rule 34. That might just be inevitable depending on how big your stories become in the future 🤷‍♂️.

Honestly I'm genuinely curious to see - if that ever happens - who will be shipped with whom and why. There are canon pairings and there are more of them planned, but, like. Non-canon ships are often fun. I actually have my bets on some non-canon pairings that might occur, provided my comic is ever popular enough for that. In short, I think that'd be fun.

The only thing I'd want people to maintain a boundary on is my character's identities. No shipping lesbians with men, no nsfw stuff for the sex-repulsed asexual, etc etc. That's where I draw the line.

I think shipping happens when not enough is going on in a comic to keep readers busy enough with the plot. Unless coming out of left field, your plot should be giving the reader enough to have fun with. Long, dragged out storylines are fertile ground for the readers to insert stuff they wish was there.

Honestly, I'm not the biggest fan of shipping when it leads to fights and harassing the creators over not making the fans' ships canon like what happened with Voltron.

To be honest, I'd be a little annoyed if it overshadows any talk about other character dynamics. But if either of my series do get popular enough for people to start shipping, I'd keep my mouth shut because I don't want to seem like a curmudgeon about it.

I have a few ships myself (some are canon, some are not) and on average I am fine with people shipping, especially when the couple is obvious.
But because I also know that shipping can get really obsessive, we make as few remarks on the couples/their relationships in the actual story as possible when the romance is nowhere to be found near the main story's plot. I just don't want people to get crazy over possible love story, because there won't be one.
(Sometimes I actually find myself suffering over it, because I can't share my ship thoughts/artworks with the readers xD)

If the story has a more pronounced romance subplot, I won't have a problem with it and I will still hope people will stick with the series not only for that one ship idea.
I guess in the end there's not much we can do anyways, just hope it all won't come down to craziness

I ignore it and let my fans do what they want. If the ship is popular I may create a side story with said ship just as a fan service. But it will not be canon (unless planned).

P.S. People ship @Kelheor's horses. I mean have you seen those horses? I don't blame them.

I'm super cool with it. It means the readers are engaged and invested enough in the story and the characters to ship. Some pairings just come across with chemistry even if the story doesn't lead to a relationship between them. I love this kind of reader feedback.

I'm not a usually a serious shipper myself, but I have one exception: FinnPoe 4eva! 🤣

I like it! Canon or non-Canon!
Sometimes people nitpick from random interactions and make their own ship which I think they're a genius, lmao!
If someone made a non-canon ship from my story, to me that means they're actually reading.
They have to make a legal ship, though. No pedophile or incest stuff.....

well tbh I don´t mind them actually I would be curious about what ships would come up in my story unless its a weird ship or wrong ship
In the end I can´t control what people likes and ships even I had shipped characters from shows that aren´t canon
the only thing I don´t like about this is when people fight over pairings people make up
I mean they´re not even canon, like just be glad that person´s weird ship isn´t official

In terms of my own webcomic I also like predicting which characters will get shipped
Even I have ended up shipping some of my characters but I can tell if they´re gonna be canon or not or if their relationship gonna be relevant or not

In the end it´s kinda fun to say: "these two look cute together"
or "these two have alot of chemistry" but it´s just that

I will make absolutely no attempts to control shipping; even supremely messed up ships, as long as they're tagged properly as stuff that is never okay IRL and they're not casually discussed in general conversations so that people who don't wanna see that shit/would be hurt by it don't stumble across it.

Even if it makes my character OOC or terrible people, or if it's something I'd never want to read about myself, I want the world to have full freedom to do whatever they want with my work as long as they're not using it to hurt others.

I'm actually AT the point where the shipping has started ...Honestly, I'm fine with it. I knew my story would have romance subplots, and I've engaged in shipping myself on occasion (mostly the Rosemary Homestuck ship). Shipping is fun!

The only ship I outright object to would be stuff like biological siblings like Rekki x Rocket (bleh) or Urien x Jules (THE WORST SHIP IMAGINABLE. EW EW EW abort!!! Please do not ship the siblings with a 12 year age gap where one of them is clearly abusive to the other!). Or shipping adults with minors (it's not meant to be romantic when 22 year old Urien in the prologue acts seductive with 14 year old Rekki to manipulate her. It's meant to be creepy, and thankfully the audience seem to all read that correctly).
Though I'm not a massive fan of people shipping characters with a sibling-like dynamic like Rekki and Jules. I can kind of get it... I guess, they're very comfortable around each other, they banter a lot and stuff, but it is funny to me when people see Urien leering over his former squire and go "ew ew creepy, red flag!", but then will ship Rekki with her old squire... though at least the age gap is a lot smaller between those two, and Rekki has never been abusive towards Jules in the way Urien clearly has been to Rekki.

Anything else though? Yeah, go for it. I can't promise it'll make it canon though! I've already decided who ends up with who! My partner loves coming up with weird ships to troll me, like Rekki x Lacey, or Sarin x Sylvia. Like if somebody wants to explore the different scenario from the one I go with, or just possibilities, I'm just happy they're so invested in my characters to want to do that.

My comic only exists because my partner ships so many of my characters, lol. He pushed me to making a romance story and I figured it'd be a really interesting and new experience that I could also learn from.

My thoughts on shipping. Hm.

First off, I trust my community of readers. I trust them to sort of manage themselves and keep each other in line, and I've seen this in action already. I'm not worried about weird bad ships happening because, well, if they do happen those people just have issues anyway and that's beyond my comic.

I think shipping is a big deal. It means those people are invested enough in your characters that they want to see them in all sorts of situations, and imagine how they'd be in certain relationship dynamics. I believe it is a totally normal, healthy, and positive thing. It's a genuine sign of interest in the characters.

I think it's also a bit weird to have any problems with it. I mean, if you don't want people to ship your characters, then don't put them out in the public for people to do that with. It's not like it's harmful or degrading or somehow an insult to the characters. If anything, it's a kind of appreciation toward them.

I don’t mind shipping. It just means people are reading my story and are getting invested in it. So I’m totally fine with people creating their own ships, and it’s interesting to see what the readers think of the characters and who they pair up

Yeah, I agree with this. People ship characters because they really like those characters and want to explore that dynamic, or because they relate to them strongly and want to explore their own feelings through those characters.

Once your characters are out there in the world, they're not just your precious OCs any more, they're fictional characters that can exist in other people's minds, and if somebody thinks your character is so well fleshed-out that they want to imagine them in other scenarios, that's a huge compliment to you as a writer!

I'll be fine with it, as long as people are respecful about it lol.

I have a few that to me seems like potentials, I don't write a romance and there wont be too much romantic things in the comic, tho a friend of mine already ships two of the main characters together haha, but that is partially on me xD

My general thoughts about shipping is that its a sign that readers are invested in your characters! Unless of course its crack ships but even then, just the notion that people would wanna play with my "dolls" too is fun to me.

Nah man, shipping has been a thing since pretty much forever. It was also huge in the early 2000s.

Hope you are cool with all the characters in 'Life and Death' being shipped?? Just asking for a friend like

lol, yes. I'm fine with it. They're all adults after all.

I'm all in favor of shipping, I think its a great way to transport goods a long distance.

When it comes to shipping characters, I'd probably be okay with it. I just ask that shippers have the humility to accept that their ships are not canon and I'm still gonna do the story my way. Some shippers act like they own the characters and can tell everyone else, including the author, how to pair up the characters. I can do without that sort of behavior.

Shipping has been around, but "proship vs antiship" is pretty new.... but it's less about whether you're in favour of shipping or not, and more about policing what kinds of ships are allowed, and the extremes on both sides can get ridiculous. I definitely lean more "pro" BUT some of the pro side are literally like "shipping minors in sexual situations is fine, shipping siblings is fine, I shouldn't be responsible for keeping my explicit fics and fanart out of reach of children." but then the anti side are awful too and are like "You can't ship characters who are adults but who were depicted as children at any point on the story, any story in which there's any conflict between characters means it's an abusive relationship, you're not allowed to have ships with age gaps even if both characters are consenting adults" etc. etc.

...Meaning I can't call myself "proship" because I'm not sure the extreme of "you can publish anything anywhere and should never face consequences," is something I agree with... But I also don't really like antis, because they're so outrageously puritan and often just power-tripping or projecting their weird insecurities because they're very inexperienced or have a lot of trauma they ought to talk through with a professional, not take out on fic writers.

It was around back then, but it was more of a tumblr thing I think.

Personally, as long as it isn't someone or something that cannot consent, I could give a crap. People wanna ship twins? Go ahead. Old lady and young guy? Don't care. Threesome? Do you, man.

Predatory people might use shipping wars as an excuse for their trash, but that's different IMO and it's just a cover up for the real issue. Pedos will use all kinds of shit to make excuses for their grossness. I remember well when they tried to jump on the 'born that way' train back in the day with LGBT+ folk. As I'm sure you are also aware, we weren't having any of that nonsense.

But I don't feel those are genuine aspects of pro/anti shipping arguments. They're just creeps trying to jump on whatever narrative they can possibly think might benefit 'em.

As long as it doesn't get creepy or illegal, whatever man. Don't fight other people over their OTP (though I don't mean ignoring stuff that pushes bigotry either, because boy that happens a lot), but aside from that, sure, have fun!

Actually... I wanted to reply to this topic earlier but then I lost the thought, haha. I think shipping does come kinda naturally as people do enjoy to couple up everyone with anyone. I mean it's really fun, also for the artist I think it must be interesting in my opinion. I wouldn't be really bothered if anybody would pair up any characters in their imagination.

Actually made an extra touching on this subject.