Post by kooties on Jun 24, 2007 7:20:35 GMT -5
Shipping, derived from the word relationship, is a term for pairing up two fictional characters or believing that they have romantic feelings for each other. That pairing is called a ship, while a shipper refers to the fan preferring that certain ship.
Various naming conventions have developed throughout the internet, as to not confuse people because just writing A and B is too ambiguous. Does the reader have to interpret that as a ship, or just as a mere mention of both characters? Hence the conception of different ways to refer to a ship. Including methods are just typing the slash character between the names, like A/B, or using the letter X, like AxB, or simply write both names next to each other, like AB.
In the Avatar fandom, however, shippers invent a portmanteau from the names of the participants. Which means that they assemble one part of A’s name and one part of B’s name to form one name, like Zuko and Katara become known as Zutara.
Despite shipping being a fan’s preference, there are different stage of probability in shipping. Those stages acquired the terms canon, fanon and crack-ships.
Canon-ships are the established ones in the Avatar universe. It basically means that it’s official on the show, like explicitly stating their love or acting out on those emotions, or even heavily implied that there are feelings between the two characters, like a blush or a longing look, could be considered canon. Note that the love doesn’t have to be requited to be canon, if only one has feelings for the other then it’s one-sided canon.
Examples of canon ships are Kataang (Aang/Katara), Sukka (Sokka/Suki), Tokka (Sokka/Toph), etc.
Fanon-ships are not expressed in the original work like canon-ships are, but they are nonetheless still probable. The characters do have some kind of evidence on the show and interact with each other, like two best friends, so the conception isn’t completely implausible.
Examples include Zutara (Zuko/Katara), Taang (Aang/Toph), Toko (Zuko/Toph), etc.
Lastly, crack-ships are the highly unlikely, and even blatantly impossible, pairings. They are called crack-ships because people might think that the shipper is on crack to prefer such an unusual pairing. There are various reasons why a pairing could be unusual. Either the characters have absolutely zero interaction on the show and aren’t even aware of each other’s existence, or the pairings might gross people out, because they defy social standards and thus break ethical/moral codes.
Examples include Katokka (Sokka/Katara), Appaang (Aang/Appa), Foamzula (Foaming Guy/Azula), etc.
Shipping isn’t necessarily limited to heterosexual pairings. A boy/boy ship is called slash or yaoi (the Japanese term), while girl/girl is femslash or yuri. People can also like the pairing in a platonic way, like friendship or siblings, and that kind of shipping is called gen-shipping, derived from the word general. Lastly, when a fan likes a character in multiple pairings he’s a multi-shipper, f.e. liking both Zutara and Kataang, but does he only like one ship then that one ship is his OTP, which stands for One True Pairing, or he could like a pairing with more than two people, and then it’s referred to as OT3, OT4, and so on.
Hopefully this guide was helpful and have fun shipping!
Various naming conventions have developed throughout the internet, as to not confuse people because just writing A and B is too ambiguous. Does the reader have to interpret that as a ship, or just as a mere mention of both characters? Hence the conception of different ways to refer to a ship. Including methods are just typing the slash character between the names, like A/B, or using the letter X, like AxB, or simply write both names next to each other, like AB.
In the Avatar fandom, however, shippers invent a portmanteau from the names of the participants. Which means that they assemble one part of A’s name and one part of B’s name to form one name, like Zuko and Katara become known as Zutara.
Despite shipping being a fan’s preference, there are different stage of probability in shipping. Those stages acquired the terms canon, fanon and crack-ships.
Canon-ships are the established ones in the Avatar universe. It basically means that it’s official on the show, like explicitly stating their love or acting out on those emotions, or even heavily implied that there are feelings between the two characters, like a blush or a longing look, could be considered canon. Note that the love doesn’t have to be requited to be canon, if only one has feelings for the other then it’s one-sided canon.
Examples of canon ships are Kataang (Aang/Katara), Sukka (Sokka/Suki), Tokka (Sokka/Toph), etc.
Fanon-ships are not expressed in the original work like canon-ships are, but they are nonetheless still probable. The characters do have some kind of evidence on the show and interact with each other, like two best friends, so the conception isn’t completely implausible.
Examples include Zutara (Zuko/Katara), Taang (Aang/Toph), Toko (Zuko/Toph), etc.
Lastly, crack-ships are the highly unlikely, and even blatantly impossible, pairings. They are called crack-ships because people might think that the shipper is on crack to prefer such an unusual pairing. There are various reasons why a pairing could be unusual. Either the characters have absolutely zero interaction on the show and aren’t even aware of each other’s existence, or the pairings might gross people out, because they defy social standards and thus break ethical/moral codes.
Examples include Katokka (Sokka/Katara), Appaang (Aang/Appa), Foamzula (Foaming Guy/Azula), etc.
Shipping isn’t necessarily limited to heterosexual pairings. A boy/boy ship is called slash or yaoi (the Japanese term), while girl/girl is femslash or yuri. People can also like the pairing in a platonic way, like friendship or siblings, and that kind of shipping is called gen-shipping, derived from the word general. Lastly, when a fan likes a character in multiple pairings he’s a multi-shipper, f.e. liking both Zutara and Kataang, but does he only like one ship then that one ship is his OTP, which stands for One True Pairing, or he could like a pairing with more than two people, and then it’s referred to as OT3, OT4, and so on.
Hopefully this guide was helpful and have fun shipping!