Shipping (derived from relationship) is the act of imagining, desiring, or expressing interest in a romantic involvement between two or more real or fictional people, usually by a fandom. It often takes the form of unofficial creative works, including fan fiction and fan art.
Shipping may depict pairings that are opposite-sex, same-sex, polyamorous, or love-hate relationships. Interspecies pairings and pairings with large age differences between characters can give rise to shipping discourse related to the ethics of such ships. Shipping can also create conflict within fandoms and between a work's creator(s) and its fans. Notable cases of shipping exist within the fandoms of Harry Potter, Xena: Warrior Princess, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and Star Wars.
Etymology The usage of the term "ship" in its relationship sense appears to have been originated around 1995 by Internet fans of the TV show The X-Files, who believed that the two main characters, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, should be engaged in a romantic relationship. They called themselves "relationshippers" at first; then "R'shipper", and finally just "shipper".
The oldest recorded uses of the noun ship and the noun shipper, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, date back to 1996 postings on the Usenet group alt.tv.x-files; shipping is first attested slightly later, in 1997 and the verb to ship in 1998.
Notation and terminology "Ship" and its derivatives in this context have since come to be in widespread usage. "Shipping" refers to the phenomenon; a "ship" is the concept of a fictional couple; to "ship" a couple means to have an affinity for it in one way or another; a "shipper" or a "fangirl/boy" is somebody significantly involved with such an affinity; and a "shipping war" is a dispute between the proponents of different ships. A ship that a particular fan prefers over all others is called an OTP, which stands for one true pairing.
When discussing shipping, a ship that has been confirmed by its series is called a canon ship or sailed ship, whereas a sunk ship is a ship that has been proven unable to exist in canon, or in other words, will never be real nor confirmed.
Naming conventions Various naming conventions have developed in different online communities to refer to shipped couples, likely due to the ambiguity and cumbersomeness of the "Character 1 and Character 2" format.
The first method was using a slash, first used for Kirk/Spock, which was described by Merriam-Webster as one of the most-known early ships in media. Today, slash is mainly used to describe same-sex ships with fanfiction with these pairings known as slash fiction.
Name blending is often used to refer to a couple, like "Reylo" for Kylo Ren and Rey in Star Wars franchise, "Destiel" for Dean Winchester and Castiel in the Supernatural TV series, "AppleDash" for Applejack and Rainbow Dash in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, and "Bubbline" referring to Princess Bubblegum and Marceline the Vampire Queen in Adventure Time. Portmanteaus and clipped compounds are used not only to abbreviate character pairings but also to create a name for the ship itself. For example, "Klance" forms a clipped compound, and an abbreviated form of the complete names Keith and Lance in Voltron: Legendary Defender. "Sculder" in this case Dana Scully and Fox Mulder in The X-Files, is an example of surnames being blended, although most X-Files fans use the term "MSR" (Mulder-Scully Relationship), as is "MoonBoon" to stand for Zarya Moonwolf and Kitty Boon in Mysticons. In other cases, first names of characters are merged, like the ships for Marcy Wu and Anne Boonchuy ("Marcanne"), Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu ("Sasharcy"), and Sasha Waybright and Anne Boonchuy (Sashanne) in Amphibia or between Violet "Vi" and Caitlyn "Cait" Kiramman ("Caitvi" or "CaitVi") in Arcane.
These combinations of names often follow systematic phonological principles, in which the first character in the ship's name is seen as the 'dominant' partner. Japanese ship naming conventions often attach names together without slashing or blending by using an XY name-name format. This format is ruled by boy-girl ordering, or seme-uke (top-bottom) in yaoi. In many East Asian countries there is a distinct difference between the pairing of XY and YX. Such as the pairing names of 'MomoYuki' (where Momo is dominant) vs. "YukiMomo" (where Yuki is dominant) from the series Idolish7. Note: only the abstract is in English. The article is written in traditional Chinese characters.
Many fandom-specific variants exist and often use fandom-specific terminology. These often employ words that describe the relationship between characters in the context of the fictional universe and simply add the word "Shipping" to the end (For example, AmourShipping, LuckyShipping, SpecialShipping, PokeShipping, RocketShipping, and ContestShipping in Pokémon). Other terminology include using a combination of the characters' names and codes as a ship name. For instance, ship names for characters in RWBY include "Bumbleby" (Blake Belladonna and Yang Xiao Long) and "White Rose" (Weiss Schnee and Ruby Rose).
Types of ships Same-sex
Within shipping, same-sex pairings are popular; they are sometimes known as "slash" and "femslash". Within the anime/manga fandom, borrowed Japanese terms such as yaoi and yuri may be used. In the context of Chinese TV series, related same-sex pairings are also referred to as "Tanbi CP". A person who supports same-sex pairings and reads or writes slash fiction may be referred to as a "slasher", although the Japanese term "fujoshi" for women who like same-sex stories, and "fudanshi" as the male equivalent of that, are also commonly used within the community, especially by fans of yaoi (boy on boy) and fans of yuri (girl on girl). In May 2020, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power showrunner ND Stevenson said that while shipping has been a great tool for fans, he does not want films or shows with just occasional glances between characters, or with same-sex relationships, to be portrayed as shipping.
Male slash The term "slash" predates the use of shipping by at least some 20 years. It was originally coined as a term to describe a pairing of Kirk and Spock of Star Trek, Kirk/Spock (or "K/S"; sometimes spoken "Kirk-slash-Spock", whence "slash") homosexual fan fiction.Woledge, Elizabeth (August 2005) "Decoding Desire: From Kirk and Spock to K/S1" Social Semiotics, Volume 15, Issue 2 August 2005, pages 235–250 According to Joan Marie Verba, the Kirk/Spock ship became a "very popular theme in Star Trek fanzines" beginning in 1975, with some writers saying that if someone didn't enjoy the story, they didn't "properly understand it." In contrast, Lucasfilm actively discouraged stories "showing same-sex relationships between the major characters," with such stories remaining "underground" as a result.
Other early slash pairings came from characters in Starsky & Hutch and Dirty Harry." For a time in the late 1970s and early 1980s, "K/S" was used to describe such fan fiction, regardless of whether or not they were related to Star Trek, and eventually "slash" became a universal term to describe all homosexual-themed fan works. It now refers to a genre of fan fiction that focuses on romantic or sexual relationships between fictional characters of the same sex.Bacon-Smith, Camille. "Spock Among the Women." New York Times Sunday Book Review, November 16, 1986. Even so, the slash mark itself is a shorthand label for a romantic relationship, regardless of whether the pairing is heterosexual or homosexual, romantic, or erotic.
The first K/S stories were not immediately accepted by all Star Trek fans. Early slash fans in England feared that they would be arrested, because slash violated the obscenity laws there at the time. Many early slash stories were based on a pairing of two close friends, a "hero dyad", or "One True Pairing", such as Kirk/Spock or Starsky/Hutch; conversely, a classic pairing between foils was that of Blake/Avon from Blake's 7. With the advent of the Internet, slash fiction writers created mailing lists (which gradually took the place of amateur press associations), and websites such as FanFiction.Net (which gradually started taking the place of zines). With the Internet, the number of fandoms represented increased dramatically, especially those devoted to science fiction, fantasy, and police dramas. The Internet also increased the level of reader interaction, making it easier for fans to comment on stories, give episode reviews, and discuss comment on trends in slash fandom itself. Websites and fanzines dedicated to fans of The X-Files, Stargate, Harry Potter, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer became common, with tens of thousands of slash stories available.
Some fans of the original Star Wars trilogy shipped Han and Lando Calrissian ("HanLando" or "Han/Lando"), Han and Chewbacca, or Han and Luke ("Skysolo"). The prequel trilogy spawned additional ships, including between Obi-Wan/Anakin, known as "Obikin." Some fans described the pairing of Obi-Wan and Anakin as a "star-crossed bromance," a "love story", or a "deeply broken relationship" between a master and padawan. In a GQ interview, Ewan McGregor who plays Obi-Wan in the prequel trilogy, and in the stand-alone Obi-Wan series, said that a "lot of homoerotic" Obikin art was sent to him, calling it "a bit of an eye-opener" and expressed surprise at how it is sent his way. Others paired Obi-Wan and his clone commander, Cody, as "Codywan," becoming more relevant with the franchise focus on "The Clone Wars", Obi-Wan and Padme ("Obidala"), and Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn ("Qui-Gonbi").
The sequel trilogy spurned additional ships, such as Din Djarin and Luke Skywalker ("Dinluke"). Later, the Stormpilot ship, also known as "FinnPoe", "Star Husbands," "General Husbands", or "Pinn", of Finn and Poe Dameron, also remained popular, especially among fans "eager for queer representation" in the franchise and others who saw them as a good pair. There was disappointment among these fans that the ship did not become canon.
Femslash Due to the lack of canonical homosexual relationships in source media at the time that slash fiction began to emerge, some came to see slash fiction stories as being exclusively outside their respective canons and held that the term "slash fiction" applies only when the characters' same-sex romantic or erotic relationship about which an author writes is not part of the source's canon and that fan fiction about canonical same-sex relationships is therefore not slash. Femslash, a subgenre of slash fiction which focuses on romantic or sexual relationships between female fictional characters, on the other hand, centers upon characters who are typically heterosexual (or of unclear or ambiguous sexual orientation) in the canon universe, but when fiction focuses on lesbian characters, the stories are often labeled as femslash for convenience. Original slash stories are those that contain male/male content, based on perceived homoerotic subtext between fictitious characters. This can be sourced from a variety of media content, such as manga, TV shows, movies and books amongst others. These works are now generally published online and use the same forms of rating, warnings and terminology that is commonly used by slash writers.