When did you realize you were a shipper?

[Prime_Hunter_H01]

FIRE
EMBLEM
AWAKENING

I had played Fire Emblem Genealogy before and knew some of the story so I did a mix of Optimal and Canon with a guide when pairing up people there so I didn't really experiment. In Awakening with supports being unrestricted and having the romances from Genealogy I decided to see who went best with who according to the Support Conversations. And because of the amount of characters I could get really creative. And after playing that I realized I was doing it for other media as well.

Now I don't go too crazy as to cross media or anything but, If it makes sense I try ship characters.

 

[Terratina.]

RPs, man, RPs. I would ship people's characters together for teh lulz - crack ships basically. Now Fire Emblem: Awakening has awoken something terrible in me.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Well this is completely new to me. At least the term is. I guess there's a name for every slight behaviour nowdays.
I shall attempt this "shipping" you speak of for the very first time here;

Hannibal - Dr Eggman

Thanos - War from darksider. It will be brutal in the bedroom in a morbidly hypnotic way.

Cruella Deville - Mr Burns

Rocket - Tails

Lex Luthor - Legolas

Black widow - Lucy from lucy

Bowser - Ghengas Khan

God - Satan - Vishnu (Yup)

There. That was easy! Probably wouldn't do it again though.

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

When the myth, the legend, the solemn outcast Yahtzee came into close, tempting contact with our Sterling Lord.

"Shipping" as I understand it means nothing more than romantically pairing off characters (or more than a pair. Giggity). For that reason, I'm a shipper of Hicks and Ripley from Aliens with Newt as their adopted daughter. So many were that the opening of Alien 3 was enough to kill the franchise for them.

Fuck Alien3!

I actually liked Alien cubed.

*sad brofist*

 

[sextus the crazy]

FIRE
EMBLEM
AWAKENING

I had played Fire Emblem Genealogy before and knew some of the story so I did a mix of Optimal and Canon with a guide when pairing up people there so I didn't really experiment. In Awakening with supports being unrestricted and having the romances from Genealogy I decided to see who went best with who according to the Support Conversations. And because of the amount of characters I could get really creative. And after playing that I realized I was doing it for other media as well.

Now I don't go too crazy as to cross media or anything but, If it makes sense I try ship characters.

RPs, man, RPs. I would ship people's characters together for teh lulz - crack ships basically. Now Fire Emblem: Awakening has awoken something terrible in me.

Shipping as a gameplay mechanic was an excellent idea for getting lots of people to buy the game, which was the point of FE:A in the first place.

OT: I ship so hard, they call me fleet admiral (or is it rear admiral ;P).

But seriously, I don't spend that much time in the shipping arena. I don't care about what the ship is so much as if something interesting is done with it.

 

[FPLOON]

I didn't realized that I was a shipper until I worked for FedEx that one time... because when they tell you to ship it hard, you do it so hard even the non-fragile packages get a bit broken in the long run... (FedEx 1... UPS 0... HA!)

But seriously, I rarely ship anything outside of potential canon and/or just for platonic reasons... which, either way, leads to me looking up Rule 34 and/or 63 versions of said ships more "explicitly"... because why the fuck not, right?

With that said, the moment I finally saw Korrasami[footnote]It took longer than that you may think on this one...[/footnote] was the same moment I was shipping Mako with Prince Wu in the hopes of seeing Wu in an elegant summer dress when the two of them get married... *sighs* Well, back to [REDACTED "Rule 34/63" website], I guess...

Also, I ship FedEx with UPS after I watched Stupid Mario Brothers... Just saying...

 

[crazygameguy4ever]

not sure.. guess a long time ago.. probably when i watched some cartoon or anime and wanted two main characters who had/have chemistry to get together.. like Ichigo and Rukia from Bleach, Kenji and Takao from D-Frag or Naruto and Sakura (which doesn't matter anymore since Naruto suddenly got feelings for Hinata, forgot about being in love with Sakura and hooked up with Hinata during the 15 gap between the final 2 chapters of the manga)..

Recently I've heard people try to put Korra and Asami(from the Legend of Korra) in some fake lesbian relationship that doesn't really exist.. i know people are entitled to make up "ships" of characters all they want but the Korra and Asami thing is kind of ridiculous.. it's pretty clear Asami is still in love with Mako but doesn't want to date him knowing it would ruin the friendship she has with Korra, making things awkward for them all, since it was pretty awkward before when Mako was kind of with both Korra and Asami unofficially at the same time and that didn't go well obviously.

 

[Jesterscup]

ooooh kinda right now.....

FemShep and aeryn sun

 

[Lieju]

I shipped Xena and Gabrielle when I didn't yet know what shipping was.

For non-heterosexual people, we don't usually see those kinds of relationships in the mainstream media so we have to interpret those kinds of things ourselves and write/draw fiction about it...

Similarly there is a lack of heterosexual friendships, so I also write stuff to elaborate on those. Or in general on experiences that are not represented in media.

I tend to write stories where I find the character-dynamic interesting, so it's not like I necessarily want the characters to really end up together even if I write stories about them being a couple. Or it can be just stupid crack...
That can be very relaxing to write amongst more 'serious' writing with original characters for example. I tend to write fanfiction to relax after writing academic stuff.

And I tend to gravitate towards smaller fandoms, so at the moment I mainly write Gaston/Prunelle, who are characters from a Belgian gag comic from the 70's.
And I 'ship' it more than I usually do things, didn't really mean to either. I just wanted to write a story about Prunelle having a nervous breakdown over realizing he's gay and paired him with Gaston Lagaffe as a joke more than anything.

And now I'm just totally shipping it and writing stories about them being married and having a daughter and sometimes vampires are involved.
Send help.

 

[mecegirl]

I was one before the term existed. And then boom...now there is a word for the thing that I do whenever I watch shows.

 

[MiskWisk]

I was a NaruHina shipper back in the day (TFW your OTP is canon) and just generally keep my eye out. I am fairly calm and restrained when I ship characters and I outright refuse to ship characters outside of their series...

Spoiler: in other words, nothing like this horror

so I consider myself fairly mild. I also tend to avoid crack ships. Really, I just say "this person and that persoon are good together and now I will continue watching the show so leave me out of any shipping wars."

I will admit to occasionally looking at shipping discussions for fun though. The Avatar ones are pretty good, especially one guy who summed it up by going, "In The Last Airbender, everyone was shipped with everyone else. In Korra, we have apparently decided to make a lesbian harem." What can I say, it got a chuckle out of me.

 

[sanquin]

I never understood the shipping thing. It always gave me a fibe of 'this is so unrealistic...would never happen'. And I like my fictional relationships to have some basic realism in them. Like being from the same universe, or actually being bi/gay before being paired up with another guy/girl. I usually just go with what the author gives us. It's their world, they're their characters. They know how they act and how things would turn out because it's their story. I see anything others create that vastly diverts from the canon as taking a piss on that author's work. Even fiction is a form of art, and I see it as wrong to change someone else's art so much it would become unrealistic in the setting.

Well, that was a mess of thoughts... Short version:
Changing someone else's art so much it becomes unrealistic in it's own setting is wrong, though pairings that could technically happen are fine by me. Since Naruto ended recently, as an example: Fiction of Sakura and Naruto together, I could understand.

 

[Idsertian]

When did I realise? About the time I started reading MLP fanfiction. Then writing it. What? There are some really interesting pairings in there, if you look. Don't fucking judge me, yo.

I regret nothing.

 

[Doctor Teatime]

I dunno, I've been one for ages basically. It's an old and honorable tradition. [http://miscteatime.tumblr.com/post/103822421126/glitteringgoldie-if-u-ever-get-disheartened]

 

[Kinitawowi]

Roughly 11:15pm, August 5th 2009, when this happened.

Previously I thought shipping was just deranged fantasists projecting themselves into stories so they could vicariously live out relationships with their favourite characters ("oh Draco, he's so dreamy, I wish him and Hermione could get together because I see so much of myself in her and..."). It wasn't until Naomi and Emily that I got it.

 

[Denamic]

For my next trick, I'll hook up Korra and Asami. I may have become too invested in fictional lesbians. Send help.

Welp. I now ship this. Hard. Fuck Mako. Toss away that cheater in some gutter.

 

[trollnystan]

Always. ALWAYS. No shame! [sub][sup][sub][sup][sub]OK, a little shame...[/sub][/sup][/sub][/sup][/sub]

I've shipped canon relationships:
Ranma/Akane
Jonny Quest/Jessie Bannon
Buffy/Spike (shutupitisSOcanon)
Claire/Marten (from Questionable Content)
Kenshin/Kaoru
Odo/Kira
Trip/T'Pol (so... ANGRY!)

and non-canon relationships:
Dr Quest/Race Bannon (shut up, to my 11 y/o mind they were made for each other)
Ryouga/Ukyou
Draco/Ron (SHUT UUUUUP)
Megumi/Sanosuke
Hoshi/Reed

Too late at night to think of any more of them. But just from reading this thread I am now also a Korra/Asami shipper. THANKS.

Spoiler: Stand for the Shipper National Anthem