I've always been rather given to "this amuses me" shipping. Crackships, as we said, back in the day. But when I seriously "ship" a thing it's usually a mixture of "I enjoy thinking about how these characters relate to each other/might in contexts we haven't seen them in" and "I am interested in exploring how these characters might interact in [context we have not seen them in in canon]." Whether the characters are or will be together in canon doesn't necessarily matter, because what I want to see might still be fanfic-only or just in my brain (like, maybe I really want to see them on a normal date night and canon ends with the first kiss, or maybe I want to see how they got together and they're established at the beginning of the canon story.)
Sometimes I actively don't actually want them to be canon, either because the author wouldn't be able to pull it off — horrible example, but when I was a teenager I was into Harry Potter and "shipped" Snape/Harry's mom and JKR managed to make that "canon" in a way I absolutely hated — or because in the actual context of the story/medium/genre it would cause Problems. Some ships would change the message or tone of the story too much, some would have to be forced in ways that would make other parts of the story less enjoyable, etc. But if I find them compelling in fanfic or speculation I might still say I ship them.
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Date: 2023-01-27 06:58 am (UTC)I've always been rather given to "this amuses me" shipping. Crackships, as we said, back in the day. But when I seriously "ship" a thing it's usually a mixture of "I enjoy thinking about how these characters relate to each other/might in contexts we haven't seen them in" and "I am interested in exploring how these characters might interact in [context we have not seen them in in canon]." Whether the characters are or will be together in canon doesn't necessarily matter, because what I want to see might still be fanfic-only or just in my brain (like, maybe I really want to see them on a normal date night and canon ends with the first kiss, or maybe I want to see how they got together and they're established at the beginning of the canon story.)
Sometimes I actively don't actually want them to be canon, either because the author wouldn't be able to pull it off — horrible example, but when I was a teenager I was into Harry Potter and "shipped" Snape/Harry's mom and JKR managed to make that "canon" in a way I absolutely hated — or because in the actual context of the story/medium/genre it would cause Problems. Some ships would change the message or tone of the story too much, some would have to be forced in ways that would make other parts of the story less enjoyable, etc. But if I find them compelling in fanfic or speculation I might still say I ship them.