To Ship or Not to Ship

[joannekwan]

I've always found it fascinating how hard-core some people can get with their character pairings, like how two characters are their OTP or how some fans will die by their ship.

Personally I'm not much of a shipper for other IP's. Canon is always my holy book so I never really feel comfortable drawing two characters doing too much outside of it (porn for example). When it comes to my own series though, for sure yeah I'll ship the hell out of my characters. I'll even draw stuff outside of my own established canon.

Do you guys like shipping characters from IP's not your own? What's the personal appeal for you and what are some of your favorite ships and why?

[ISNEKO]

Shipping has never crossed my thoughts when watching a show or reading a comic.

But I'm just not that into relationships in general.

collosal shrug

[Michelle]

Like you, I just kinda go along with the canon (unless there's something off-putting about the pairing, like glorifying an abusive relationship.) I'm not a very romantic person so I typically don't get that inclination to pair people off. :u It's surprising to me just how big shipping is with some people. Like, to the point that if two characters even look at each other, they're getting shipped.

That said, I don't mind my readers shipping characters, I think it's fun to see them get invested like that. But it does irk me a tiiiny bit when any interaction between a male and female character is instantly read as "they wanna smooch". Boys and girls can be friends too (and some of those boys and girls aren't hetero)! :'>

[spadesart]

i ship the absolute hell outta my characters (within moral reason :^| ) but ips? doesnt do much for me tbh. im even pretty ambivalent to canon ships.

[SpavVy]

Eh, I ship characters a lot but I'm not super crazy about pairings to the point I get wicked upset and harass the author when it doesn't happen...I'm looking at you Tokyo Ghoul and Naruto fandoms...
Seriously, who gets that butthurt over fictional characters? ¬_¬

As for my own characters? Nah not really...though some of my readers ship the two characters that really shouldn't be shipped because character A tortured character B in chapter one. That ship to me makes no sense but eh...

[KoreanTacos]

I have my own relationship to struggle with what do I Care about imaginary characters hooking up?

All joking aside I think audience just get attached to characters and only want to imagine them in the best possible circumstance in the vision and ideals that suit them.

[KoreanTacos]

Sasuke x pocohantos fo life yo

[feardeer]

I'll casually ship here and there if I'm not buying the canon pairings or it crosses my mind that Character A and Character B would be cute together (not necessarily romantically). It's just for fun, and not something I actively set out to do. It just occurs to me sometimes, usually fleetingly.

As for my own characters: No. That just feels strange to me? I mean, I know who's in a canon relationship and with whom and why, and it all makes sense. Shuffling that up would feel silly. So I guess I would only do it as a gag, or for characters that do not have any canon relationships but could/would conceivably if the plot allowed. Maybe.

[punkarsenic]

tapas forums asking the real important questions today

i really love shipping and headcanons and more or less developing your own personal version of a story - its (usually) harmless fun. that said, i like... need permission? before i start doing that, in the form of seeing other fans shipping and headcanoning.

that said, my attitude towards it varies vastly depending on the behaviour and prominence of the creator. like, when it comes to harry potter, its easy to be like 'fuck jkr im writing my own damn harry potter lore and theyre all gay' - but for something smaller, less prone to racism, like friends at the table, my headcanoning is a lot chiller. part of that is theres less need for headcanons and shipping when the media actually represents people like me, so i dont need to project quite so hard. and as for webcomics, i honestly dont even think of it. i think its the scale, and the lack of separation between creator and creation. just feels weird.

the personal appeal for me, i think, is closely tied to me being gay - i counteract lesbian loneliness through projecting onto people in pop culture, reimagining them to be like me. im also a soppy ass bitch. one of my favourite ships are aziraphale and crowley from good omens - i love all that demon angel shit, and i love the dynamic between their personalities.

that all said, this

Canon is always my holy book so I never really feel comfortable drawing two characters doing too much outside of it

is so relatable. when im really into something, it takes me a long time to wander away from canon. i basically never read fanfiction because characterisation or headcanons that arent canon compliant make me soooo anxious sometimes. over time tho, this relaxes. puts on sunglasses its all remix culture, dude.

[Mr_B]

I think my experience with Naruto will sum up my stance towards shipping pretty well. While reading the manga, I was constantly boggled by the author constantly showing Sakura's infatuation with Sasuke (supported by legions of fans shipping them). At times, it made me want to facepalm: here, we had a girl with such intense, far reaching devotion for a guy who, at best, showed only a general interest in her well-being. It felt so downgrading to her character and it kept her from ever being truly badass. I will never forgive Kishimoto for giving her the opportunity to kill, or at least badly would Sasuke, but then reduce her to a shivering mess unable to go through with it because she, even at that point, still had affection for him. And then she had to be rescued, like her character development never happened. Pairings like that, where the author expects us to believe that there is some deep connection between characters that really don't even interact enough for that to become a possibility, really detract from the quality of the story.

On the other hand, I wanted to see Naruto and Hinata end up together and was invested in it, so I sometimes indulge in pairing. But I never ship characters just for the hell of it. Like, seeing two people in a show who have no pre-established bond and wanting them to bone each other? Yeah, no. It does nothing for me, but to each their own!

[IdiotWithPencil]

Eh, I'm pretty X about shipping, I usually do like to pair up certain characters together but only when it actually makes sense for them to be together, IE I don't ship two guys if it's already established that one is into girls, or a guy and a girl when they act like friends more than a would be couple,EI any of the frigging Voultron parings(except hunk and the alien monster girl those two actually do seem to have a bit of a linking between each other)

also I really don't like the shipping culture in general since some of them can get a bit too... obsessive let's say with their ships (looking at you tokyo ghoul re fans )

edit: I do ship my own characters though I do it more for drama purposes then fun or boredom, I also try to make the pairings make sense and not come out of a left field, at least establish the pairing can exist then poof these two are now a couple cause reasons

[insomniascrawl]

So I'm not huge on shipping things, I'm sure thats in part because I'm so busy thinking about what to do with my stuff that I don't think about potential plot lines for stuff I can't control. Also, people hardcore into shipping scare the crap outta me.

That said, I also do kinda play around with the idea of some of my characters being together as a side plot to sort of show their characters in different lights... You know, for the sake of story and to make the characters feel more human and relatable, but at the end of the day, romance isn't my focus on my stories really. I'd rather hint at relationships than make a big thing of it. I think the Appel to sipping really is just exploiting a new side to a character so if someone really likes a character, I see why they would want to ship things. Makes sense. Just not my up of poison.

[blackopsracing321]

It's funny how quick some people are to pair up characters. I recently introduced my first humanoid female and before she even meets my MC people were shipping the two lol.

I ship but only when the characters have chemistry. For instance, right now I'm (and most of the internet) shipping Deku and Uraraka pretty hard because they obviously have a thing for each other. As for why, for me it's like a mini game within the story. Like I pick up on some cues and guess where the pairings relationship is going. It's also a great feeling when your OTP becomes canon. I was super happy when Edward and Winry got together at the end of Brotherhood.

[joannekwan]

@Mr_B Ahahaha, sometimes canon ships are the worst xD. I agree with the how Sasuke x Sakura deal. But it's what Kishimoto wanted so I'll respect that, doesn't mean I like it though. (same with a lot of how Harry Potter ended) LOL.

I'm not much of a romantic person either so I get what a lot of you guys are saying about how that aspect isn't appealing. For my own ships I like exploring the relationship dynamics between characters even if it's not technically romantic but borderline sexual? I dunno, the pairing I'm into now, one is aro/ace(maybe graysexual) and the other one is anything but. The two aren't necessarily bad nor good for each other, but they challenge each other.

[IdiotWithPencil]

I ship but only when the characters have chemistry

god wished most shippers did this XD most ships I've seen usually make absolutely no sense

[nikaalexandra]

as classic tumblr trash, shipping runs in my blood. i'm a hopeless romantic, love me a trashy love story. and in my experience, shipping is an important part for fan involvement in the work. it drives a lot of discourse, fanart, and fanfiction that can really knit an audience together.

in it's purest and most popular form it's also routinely a call against the nonstop heteronormative love stories in popular shows. i'm a woman who loves other women and goddamn if it doesn't get old seeing Stock White Male Protagonist declare their undying love for Stock White Female Character, both of whom have zero chemistry with eachother past the fact that they both have the most screentime. shipping is a way for fans to have the best of both worlds- people who want to root for the canon couple can do what they want, people who want to explore the protagonists relationships with other characters can turn to fanfiction and art.

in writing 64, i've been counting on that standard shipping trope to red herring my readers, having them root for the two male and female protagonists to get together while i pull strings in the background of the comic to take them on a journey of messy relationships with unexpected side-characters, devastating heartbreak and everlasting platonic friendship with eachother. it's as fun for me as it is for them!

[J.Lovelace]

Shipper at heart here, I'm pretty much the admiral of a ship fleet, lol.
But mainly with my own characters (people over at DA are probably sick and tired of Jun and Juto by now, all the AUs :''D), my artist friends characters or collab ships between me and said artists. In any other cases I don't really give a damn, maybe a few series made me ship outside the canon, or I went with the fandom flow (Archie and Maxie from ORAS or Anduin and Wrathion from WoW anyone???), but usually I go with what the creator serves us even if I don't particularly like it.

What I find interesting is the dynamics and interactions between characters, and my absolute fav is when they're from two different backgrounds and take their time to understand and learn from each other.

[indagold]

Maybe if I was 12 again sure now I don't give two damns because half of the time i'm more critical of the plot and overanalyzing story lines than giving a rats ass about fanfics. While other people squee and headcanon dumb shit i'm complaining about plot holes and writing inconsistencies that could be improved on.

[Pandastrophic]

I've personally never been too much of a shipper even when I first started getting into anime/manga/etc, I usually just went with the canon ships and liked the relationships in the story. I feel like I ship even LESS than before because of all the horrible shipping wars I dislike in fandoms...

I do ship my own comic characters tho! Especially my side characters because I know a lot of their relatioships won't be clearly shown in this comic (since it's so focused on the main couple).

[lunaartemisasama]

I like to ship, lol. I mean with Harry Potter I really liked the idea of Bellatrix x Hermione I knew there was no freaking way that was gonna happen but people wrote good fanfics about it and both characters caught my attention coff coff. (I am talking about more than 10 years ago probably and I was underage).
I think for me it depends a lot of the character, and as a person that likes GL and BL...well...

But most of the pairings I ship I know they are not going to happen, but I see some good fanarts and I am like, that sounds interesting lol. Now I am not so much into that but it was fun.