Does the writer sell it? I remember someone once complaining about a Lucy Pevensie/Sea Girl fic, but when almost everyone read it, they (myself included) thought it was extraordinarily well done. Personally, I'd rather read a non-canonical shipfic that's well done than a flat, lifeless canon ship any day. In fact, though I know this is heresy, I prefer almost anything* to the official canon ships for Harry Potter. IMO, JK Rowling didn't really sell the pairings. They were all believable for high school sweethearts, but to jump from that to "babies ever after" seemed a bit much, to me.

So - yeah, I'm all for it, as a fic type. As with just about any genre, my first and foremost qualification is Is It Well Written. Everything else is semantics.


*yes, really, anything. Even the canon pairings, which I have seen done well from time to time.

I'm the boring kind of fan who ships mostly canon and strongly-implied-to-be-canon ships. (Except Finn/Poe, because we need more interracial gay relationships between two complete dorks.) I also firmly believe that friendships are just as adorable and worthy of protection as regular ships. Not sure how I feel about crossover ships just yet.

Basically, as long as it's not creepy or stupidly out of character and you write or draw it well, I'll support your decision/right to ship it even if I don't ship it myself. Does that make sense?

When it has a monopoly over all fics and the fandom's culture. Which it does the majority of the time.

However, sometimes there are ships that simply occur just because. A pretty good example is the Plants vs. Zombies continua, as the characters have really bare bones personality, to the point that you could replace them without having to kill them. A pretty good example is Peashooter x Sunflower. While cute in the hands of talented artists and writers, there's no reason that the two would ever want to get together, since they lack any characteristics to do so, because those parts are blank slates. At this rate, Sunflower x Blover would be a more realistic ship, since they worked with each other in the Chinese version.

Speaking of which, I'm considering labeling said continuum as a damaged one with its own rules for badfic (charge-worthy material shouldn't be charged unless it's actually bad/uncreative/Suvian, and unless it's bad psychology) (don't worry, I thought it through), and I'm currently trying to write an agent who comes from it. But I digress.

Shipping doesn't really hurt anyone after all. Certain ships I may not agree with, but honestly I will protect your right to ship whatever you want as long as it's clear you understand what the implications of certain relationships are.

If it's canon compliant, great! This can include anything from canon ships, to ships the creator(s) have said could work even if they aren't canon, to ships that have been blatantly teased. If the characters are in a platonic relationship, that's where things get a little trickier. Are they the kinds of characters who would go "Ew, no, X is like a brother/sister to me/We're friends and that's it", or would they be possibly open to a relationship with them? If it's the latter, then sure, go for it.

If it's not canon compliant, be it that the creator(s) have said "Nope, no way, not in a million years", the characters actively hate each other and would have to be massively OOC for it to work, et cetera.

Of course, like all things, there are always exceptions. I have seen very well-written Leah Clearwater/Castiel before, and they're from two completely different canons. Do I ship it? Not really. (okay, maybe a little after seeing how well it can be done...) But good writing is good writing, and I enjoyed it immensely. I have seen well-written Dramione. I still don't ship that because there's just no way it would ever happen in canon. But the fic made it work, and work amazingly well.

So I would say: For the most part, keep things canon, because that's the easiest way to make it work. But if you can somehow pull off a noncanon ship, then write it, too!

I think that canon ships are obviously fine. I'm also cool with IC, canon-friendly ships. Breaking canon ships, OOC ships and the like are verboten, in my opinion.

Specifically the shipping of people in a platonic relationship.
Romantic 'I want to nob you and make a mini-me burst out of your stomach in blood and poop and screams' love is pretty overdosed, from what I've seen.
There are very few cases where there will be two nice-looking lead characters of opposing gender who don't end up doing the romantic thing. And even when they don't, it's usually implied, or used for tension, or teased.

It's a bit of a breath of fresh air, then, seeing such a cliche not being used, and it then seems short-sighted when a fan comes in and immediately decides that the cliche is desperately needed in this work, too, and omg their so purfect 2gether they both lik massaging sheep omg ^-^!!!1!two!11!!
Seems to imply a bit of an odd, slightly outdated attitude with all that gender relations stuff, but that's really probably just my horrific paranoia. Don't go quoting me.

I mean, I don't doubt it's been done well. I don't have anything against shipping, or romance in general.
Just a bit annoying, to me.

I'm fine with canon ships, and ships that are left ambiguously defined, but my experience with shipping is that it gets wildly out of hand. When people start plotting out romantic/erotic fantasies with characters who have a relationship that's been firmly established as platonic, or adversarial, it causes me pain. That's not even mentioning the OOC of the characters involved, or the sudden sexuality switch when this happens. It's just as ridiculous when the characters that have never interacted, and have no good reason to are shipped.

That being said unnecessary romance has always been among my greatest pet peeves so I'm writing this with a chip on my shoulder.

If you can write a convincing Susan Pevensie/Maglor Feanorion story (for example ^_^), then that's great! Write it! I love it when people write stuff.

If, on the other hand, you can't make Han/Leia convincing... then don't write it. Write something you can do justice to.

For me, the important thing in fiction has always been canon-friendliness, not necessarily canonicity. (Unless you're claiming it's canon, of course.)

hS