From my years of lurking in fandoms, I’ve witnessed my fair share of shipping wars. I watched as fans tore each other apart over the relationship status of fictional characters. Now I can’t help but wonder why. Why is there such disharmony among the fandom? After pondering for some time, I believe I have come to understand what types of behaviors drive people to ship and fight over it.
Romance Outside the Genre
Before I get into the different kinds of shippers, I want to take a quick look at the romance genre. Romance is probably the most widespread genre out there. A person can spend their entire lives never touching anything in the genre but still be bombarded with romantic plot lines. But that doesn’t mean that they are well-written plots.
It’s always weird to me when someone will write a half-assed romance and say things like, “I’m not good at writing romance” or “This isn’t a romance series” as an excuse. This type of thing doesn’t happen in other genres. No one can add superhero elements to a horror movie and gets to use that excuse when things go badly. Just own up that you dropped the ball.
But these poorly performing romances are one of the reasons people have been conditioned to see potential romances at every turn regardless of the series. If the characters have great chemistry, ship them. If they barely interact with each other, ship them. It’s only natural for people to go looking for romance even if it’s not there, kind of like mystery novel fans trying to find out who done it.
Self-Inserts
This first type of shipper is probably the least confrontational that I have seen. It’s more about wish fulfillment then theorizing, and I think most other shippers recognize this fact. Any shipping war that involves them tends to be the result of hardcore shippers reacting poorly to their ships.
The term “Self-Insert” is not a new one in fan communities. Say you have a series with a relatable main character who is a blank slate waiting for the audience to latch onto, and there is a super attractive side-character that is introduced at some point. A Self-Insert fanfiction will use that protagonist as an avatar and pursue their fictional crush. A lot of ‘self-insert’ fics mostly make original characters, but we’re talking about shipping existing characters in this post, so moving on.
I’ve noticed about that Self-Insert shippings is found in media targeted towards a younger audience, teens mostly. This makes sense since young adult media commonly uses an everyman protagonist to connect with the fans.
It is important to note that a lot of ships are technically Self-Inserts. It shouldn’t be a surprise since people tend to connect with characters they either like or relate with. For example, I’m more likely to ship characters that remind me of myself with the characters that have a canon crush on.
Inuyasha’s Kagome is a character who is subject to a lot of Self-Insert shipping. Kagome was such a standard character that plenty of the fans use her so that they can imagine being in a relationship with Sesshomaru, a popular handsome character that Kagome barely spends any time with. Thus resulting in Sesshomaru x Kagome being one of the top ships for the show.
Fortune Teller
In a series where the endgame couple isn’t entirely clear, you will often find shippers who are trying to predict who will end up together. Like romance detectives, they will try to follow the narrative clues to find the canon couple.
If two characters have a nice dynamic and seem to like each other well enough, they are bound to have shippers claiming that they are in love. Although for some shipper meaningful looks are all that’s needed to hop aboard. What shippers are looking for is the couple that they feel will make for the best story (or just the one they feel the writer is telegraphing more).
Fortune Teller shippers tend to be at the center of most shipping wars because they usually take shipping more seriously than others. For them, sometimes rivalships aren’t just alternate pairings, but also someone saying they are wrong and most people don’t respond kindly to that. However, Fortune Teller shippers will often attack other shippers by doing exactly that. The biggest shipping wars are usually between two factions of Fortune Teller shippers, each rallying their pairing to victory.
I think it’s important to note that not all Fortune Teller shippers are confrontational. There are plenty who recognize shipping for what it is: a bunch of fans speculating about a work of fiction. They’re respectful and content to see other fans enjoying their own ships.
A good example of Fortune Teller shipping is the Bleach and it massive shipping war. The protagonist Ichigo seems to have two potential love interests throughout the series: Rukia, the close friend and secondary lead for the first couple of arcs (this is a topic I may touch on for a later date), and Orihime, the girl next door with a crush character. It didn’t help matters that Rukia was a fan favorite because of her role in at the start of the series, and a lot of fans felt that Orihime was a weak character because of she’s a pacifist in an action series. After years of mixed messages and manga vs. anime differences (manga scenes for Orihime were cut from the anime, while scenes for Rukia were added), the series abruptly ended and revealed Ichigo x Orihime was canonized. The situation surrounding the series’ cancellation kept the shipping war going strong.
Ghostshippers
This kind of shipping is when a shipper knows their ship is doomed but they still ship them anyway.
Sometimes writers will make it clear what pairing will not be pursued, either through lack of interaction between the characters or showing there is no sign of romantic interest when they do interact. Some even write couples into the story temporarily only to demonstrate why they shouldn’t be together.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that end result for some unlucky Fortune Teller shippers is to turn into Ghostshippers. Even after the canon sank their ship, these shippers refuse to jump overboard, always ready to set sail to the next piece of fanart or fanfic.
Ghostships can keep shipping wars going long after a series ends. Sometimes, it’s bitter Ghostshippers who want to tear down the canon couple. Giving whatever reason they can think of to make the canon ship problematic. Other times, it’s victorious shippers rubbing their win it the faces of the losers. Not all Ghostshipping wars have winners vs. losers on opposite sides.
Sometimes the series just ends with characters as bachelor(ette)s and fans continue to speculate about pairings. This can spawn some of the most annoying shipping war because there isn’t really an answer that can end it.
Gravity Fall has a lot of Ghostships on account of no major characters gets together by the end. Not surprising since Dipper and Mable, the two main characters who are shipped with the most people, just turned 13 in the last episode. That didn’t stop the fans from fighting over who these kids should be with.
Just-for-fun
Plenty of people aren’t really in the shipping game to win it. Canon is nice to have and all, but these shippers just wanna have fun. It would be cute, compelling, intriguing, crazy, or whatever to ship these characters.
The reason for shipping can be as frivolous as characters looking nice together or as meaningful as the characters seeming to have a special connection. The characters don’t even need to interact before they get shipped. My sister shipped a couple that had never spoken to each other in the canon, but she just felt that their personalities would mesh.
Pairings featuring side characters are popular among Just-for-fun shippers. On the one hand, side characters with less depth than the main cast are easier to match with anyone. On the other, there’s less of a chance for them to have canon relationships to conflict with their ship. Just-for-fun shippers are also more likely to make hero/villain couples out of simply enjoying their interactions.
When more serious shippers see these kinds of ships, they can react poorly. For example, hero/villain pairings can get called “unhealthy,” or a straight pairing can be called “homophobic” if the rivalship is a same-sex pairing (this can be regardless of whether or not the characters actually have been confirmed as not straight, but this is a whole nother can of worms I’m not opening).
A great example of a Just-for-fun ship is Mycroft x Lestrade from BBC’s Sherlock. I don’t think either of them had a single scene together for the first three seasons of the four seasons-long show. Their first onscreen moment together is a short exchange in the Christmas special(though were indications of offscreen communications). None of that stopped them from being one of the top pairings for the series. Fans saw the possibilities, so they didn’t let their lack of canon interaction get in the way of their fun.
Celebration of Greatness
Sometimes the creators give the audience a couple that people love. Not a will-they-or-won’t-they relationship where the characters never commit, but an honest-to-goodness couple. Canonized. Together. Stable. That is when you get Celebration of Greatness shippers.
These shippers are usually connected to a series that didn’t give the romance very much attention. The couple’s relationship is either a background thing or only canonized at the end of the series. Thus resulting in Celebration shippers hungry for more material for their pairing.
This is another type of shipper that Fortune Teller shippers can turn into. After a ship becomes canon leads to a boom in fan art and fanfiction from their supporters as they, well, celebrate. At times, Celebration shippers can be too smug about their win, rubbing it in the faces of new Ghostshippers, fanning the flames of war.
Every canon ship from the Dragon Ball franchise has its a fair share of Celebration shippers. The creator is one of the people who says their bad at writing romances, so wisely, he keeps it to a minimum, relegating most of the romance offscreen during time skips. This leaving the fans to use their imaginations to figure out how the characters got together and how they make their relationships work when we don’t see them.
Crackshipping
Crackshipping is like a subset of Just-for-fun shipping for me. Crackshipping is another familiar term for the fandom savvy. Crackshippers will take random characters and throw them together for no reason. Unlike a Just-for-fun shipper who will have some connection that can link their pairings, Crackshippers seem to just be throwing darts at a board (the ship doesn’t even need to be made up of characters from the same series).
To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what Crack shippers are doing or why. The best I can come up with is that they seem like the nihilist of shipping. Nothing really matters, so let’s do whatever we want.
Once I found a crackfic that featured Bellatrix Lestrange x Sorting Hat and read it out of morbid curiosity. It was as weird as you would think. I don’t think I can say more about Crack shipper other than, you do you.
Headcanon shipping
In case you don’t know, a headcanon is a thing that a fan likes to think is true, but there isn’t anything in the text that really supports it as canon.
Headcanon shippers are convinced their ship is canon even though they have as much reason backing their ship as their rivals do. It’s like they’re competing in a race and claimed the trophy before they’re even close to the finish line.
To me, this is the most annoying type of shipper because they try to take the power of canon from the creator. They tend to be the type of fan that will throw a fit if the creator does something other than what they expect.
Headcanon shippers can be found anywhere. All of the fandoms and ships I have mentioned here have these kinds of shippers running around. All you have to do to summon one is talk about a rivalship and wait.
The Nonshipping Fans
Remember how I said romance appears in plenty of other genres? Well, there are plenty of fans for a series that want nothing to do with shippers.
While romantic subplots are a given in any story, there are plenty of people don’t like them. Most people don’t pick up horror novels for the romance. The subplot is just an element they have to deal with. But when the fandom gets flooded with shippers and wars, it’s easy to understand that they will become hostile towards shipping.
The degree nonshippers will go to avoid shipping varies from person to person. Some will simply insist there’s no point in talking about it and we’ll see what couple the writers decided on if any. Others will outright deny that there is any romance in the first place, claiming that all potential couples are platonic unless otherwise proven by the creator.
Most nonshippers keep to themselves. I’ve only really ever heard them speak up if the fandom is being overrun with shipping to the point where no one is really talking about the main media. They’re mostly trying to keep the piece in fandoms.
Why Can’t We Be Friends
I think the reason there are some many shipping wars is that it is more than just theorizing for them. There is an unspoken belief that creators will bend to the whims of the audience if enough fans show that their couple is the most popular. Thus fighting ensues so that each person’s chosen ship can have the spotlight. However, this isn’t how writers decide couples most of the time.
Most writers have an idea of where their characters and stories are going, and on the off chance that they don’t, they know the characters better than the audience(after all they made them). The few times I have heard of writers changing the stories for fans afterward the writer expresses frustration over the fact that they felt they were forced to change their story(leading to other creators not wanting to do so either).
In all honesty, my experiences with shippers haven’t been the most enjoyable. At first, I was ashamed to admit to shipping because I didn’t want nonshippers to judge me. Then I noticed a shift where more and more people were openly shipping, but with that came the backlash against rivalships. I experienced the intense hate of the Naruto and Bleach shipping wars when they were in full swing. Soon all fandoms became places of conflict. One step into the fic could land you in the middle of a skirmish.
However, recently I’ve noticed a change among shippers. They are friendlier, kinder and less eager to attack each other. Nonshippers are even more likely to let people have their fun as long as it doesn’t take over the community. I wonder if past shipping wars have to lead to people to change or if the fandoms I seeing now are just more openminded to differences in shipping opinion. Either way, I hope this trend spreads.
Fandoms, in general, have an array of problems. I know that if shipping wars disappear, there will still be many more to deal with, but at least it will be one less think on that list. Maybe one day fans can be more inviting to each other and everyone can feel more welcome in their communities.
I Think Thinks 