“Ship means something you want to see happen.” Bitch, no it don’t. This weird-ass modern culture of lobbying show-runners to make your ship canon didn’t emerge until the advent of social media. (And recent social media like twitter, not shit-you-forgot-existed like MySpace.) Shipping and fandom in general have been around much longer, so you can stop acting like “this is the way it has always been uwu” right the fuck now.
Until relatively recently, most fans I’ve known have been perfectly okay with their ships never being canon. I, personally, would be actively offended if certain ships of mine became canon. That is not why I ship them. What I want from canon and what I want from fandom are often entirely different things that only intersect on the margins.That is why fanworks are called “transformative” ffs.
This exactly.
I’m so glad someone said this. A lot of my fav ships I specifically have no desire to see become canon, especially since they’re often in shows that don’t really do much with romance and I PREFER them that way. Shipping and fan fiction are separate things for me.
“What I want from canon and what I want from fandom are often entirely different things”
shipping isn’t always romantic idealization either which is an annoying recent mindset in fandoms, mainly its liking the dynamic of two characters and wanting to explore it in fanwork whether it be for sappy cute reasons or horrible awful unhealthy reasons, whatever is appealing/interesting to you about the pair.
