Holdouttrout

 I have shipped both. I enjoy both, but shipping canon pairings is infinitely more fun than non-canon shipping. There is almost nothing better than sitting on the edge of the couch with your hands over your mouth in anticipation as your pairing–the people you KNOW should be together–are drawn to each other, about to kiss. And maybe they do and maybe they don’t, but you have that moment.

And it’s beautiful. You might argue with the show’s interpretation of the characters both in and out of the pairing, but you still get kisses and declarations and longing looks and interaction.

Shipping a non-canon pairing isn’t nearly as fun. Depending on the show, you might get an occasional off-hand line or a look or even a deep, meaningful friendship between your characters–but you have to make your own frisson. You have to do a lot more work for anything you get. Some of that is fun, but the high of the payoff from the show isn’t there. Also, you usually have to deal with smug canon-shippers (I know, I’ve been a smug canon shipper) who DO get those moments of euphoria.

I’ve seen excellent fic, meta, and art based on non-canon pairings and excellent fic, meta, and art based on canon pairings and excellent genfic that explores the characters in deep and meaningful ways. I hate that we box ourselves in to being righteous canon-followers or righteous devotees of non-canon shipping. I hate that fandoms divide into camps and we entrench ourselves as “us vs them” instead of engaging with each other’s viewpoints and allowing that we all have our own biases and ways of selecting the things from canon we do and do not hold as sacred.

I’ve made many friends in fandom who share different viewpoints about characters. I think some of their interpretations or theories are downright WRONG. I might even be inspired by how wrong they are to write a post explaining my own interpretation. Or I might tilt my head a little, think “I never saw it that way,” and file it away to mull over on rainy days.

I was tagged by @shinewithalltheuntold​ for this quite some time ago. She didn’t include any instructions, but I gathered the idea was to name my top five ships of all time. I was going to try to do this in chronological order, but my very first entry on the list made me realize it belongs in two spots chronologically. So in no particular order:


1. Han/Leia. I hadn’t seen Star Wars until the re-releases in theaters. (I know!) I immediately fell in total and complete love with the movies and with Han and Leia in particular. That being said, I didn’t write fanfic for them until college when @knightedrogue​ dragged me back into fandom.


2. Jarod/Miss Parker. Oh man. The Pretender was my first real fandom (my attempt to join Sliders fandom fizzled rather spectacularly and was doomed by dial-up). I shipped them SO HARD guys and I wrote really bad self-insert fic that I never posted and I was so young!


3. John/Aeryn. @knightedrogue​ and I watched through Farscape and we loved it but we also loved talking to each other so sometimes we missed whole scenes and had to rewind… but John/Aeryn scenes were sacred.


4. Sam/Jack. Forbidden love! Honor and duty! Lots of Aliens Made Them Do It! Stargate fandom when I was involved was a mild land, recovering nicely (for the most part) from the violent shipper wars of earlier seasons. The friends I made led me into the wide green valleys of the multishipping fen, where I found so many lovely secondary pairings that I knew I’d never go back–but Sam/Jack was my first love.


5. Emma/Regina (Swan Queen). When I fell for them (it took me a while–it usually does) I fell HARD. It’s also, if you note my previous four selections, my only non-canon pairing. GUYS NON-CANON OTP SHIPPING SUCKS. Just sayin’. I’d say I’m never doing it again but it appears that I might be a lot slightly more inclined to femslash pairings than previously thought, so… yeah.


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Shipping a canon ship before they kiss: THIS IS TORTURE. They haven’t even kissed yet! I love it so much!

Shipping a canon ship after they kiss: ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD. EVERYONE IS BEAUTIFUL. KISS MOAR!

Shipping a non-canon ship before they kiss: THIS IS TORTURE. Maybe they will kiss. Once? In a dream? Blooper reel? MAYBE I AM MISTAKEN AND IT WILL BE CANON?!?!

Shipping a non-canon ship after the canon ship kisses: ALL IS TERRIBLE. DESPAIR SURROUNDS ME. ALL DAY LONG THE CANON SHIPPERS PURSUE ME. THEIR JOY MOCKS MY PAIN.

#I want to apologize to any non-canon shippers I did not properly empathize with in the past

… I can’t take it anymore, you guys. I have to admit it. I SHIP EVERYONE ON THIS SHOW AND I LOVE THEIR RIDICULOUS SHIP NAMES. BRING THEM ON.