Shipping

Shipping, short for relationshipping (although that term has become somewhat archaic), also known as pairing or pair-bonding, is the process of either wanting two (or more in the case of a polyamory) characters who are not in a romantic relationship to be in one, or writing a fanfiction in which two (or more if it's a polyamory) characters are in a romantic relationship even though canonically, they are not. A fanfiction can also be said to ship if characters who are not in a romantic relationship are in one in the fanfiction.
== Terminology ==
Someone who ships is known as a shipper or rarely a relationshipper or, when referring to a particular pairing, a "[Character X] and [Character Y] shipper" or a "[Ship name] shipper" or "[Ship name] fan". On the other hand, one who does not ship is sometimes called a noromo (particularly in The X-Files fandom where that term started, although all it really takes to be a noromo in the X-Files fandom is not to ship Mulder and Scully; an X-Phile could still call themselves a noromo if they shipped, for instance, Mulder and Agent Fowley) or, especially if they're opposed to shipping or to a certain pair, an anti-shipper.
A particular non-canon couple might be referred to as a ship or a pairing and some pairings have "ship names" which is often a portmanteau of the characters' names (for instance, the pairing of Spike and Rarity from My Little Pony is known as "Sparity") or the two characters names with an x or a slash between them.
Shipping two characters of the same sex is known as slash or yaoi for males and femslash, femmeslash or yuri for females.
If a person has one pairing who they ship to the exclusion of all else, they might call that pairing their One True Pairing or OTP for short.
== Shipping and canon ==
Some shippers might want the characters they ship to actually become a couple, which could lead to them interpreting friendly actions between them as romantic, getting excited when another character mistakes them for a couple, getting peeved when one side of the ship hooks up with a different character (and possibly disliking said character) or a combination.
Sometimes, a fanfiction which ships breaks canon, usually by pairing two characters who canonically aren't interested or sometimes their orientation doesn't even add up (shipping two straight characters of the same sex is common) or they're already in a relationship. Some authors might try to avoid this problem by either making it an alternate universe fanfiction or (in the case of a character being already "spoken for") having them break up or (in the case of slash shipping) have the characters be secretly gay or bisexual. Sometimes, characters are shipped together even if, canonically, they hate each other!
Category:Terms
Category:Terminology
Category:Romance