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Sonic shippy (+ my rant)


Rey Skywalker-Ren

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Its overdue alot but I wanna say something on this. Sonic shipping is suppose to be a fun fan thing to do. We pair them up as we write the story about them. We want to have good clean fun. But now I see more and its become a war to me. People get shat on for their shipping for no reason other then the other doesnt like it. Its become serious buiness rather then fictinal fun. Also there are many type of shippers out there who fit that script and I explain them all.

"One Hit Wonder" Shippers:
One problem with serious shippers is that people see two character say a sentense to each other and they think they are in love. like Shadamy (sorry shadamy fans). They speak to each other twice and people think they are in love. And then Sonouge (sorry sonuge fans). They only say a few words to each other and Rouge flirt with him but she does that with every guy. Then we got Silvaze (sorry silvaze fans) from Sonic Colors DS. They only say a few sentense to each other and they just offcially met! People still use it as canon. Last there is Tailsream (sorry tailsream fans). They hardly speak to each other…. really.

"Why Cant We Be Friends" Shippers
Then we got the shippers who wont let 2 characters be friends without thinking they are in love. Like Shadouge (sorry shadouge fans) they are FRIENDS! In the comics Shadow warms up to her as a FRIEND. in the games, hes to himself and doesnt act friendly to Rouge. Shadow doesnt seem to love anyone from what I feel. Even though they never meet, Silvaze is another example (sorry silvaze fans again). In Sonic 2006 they were FRIENDS! There no dications that they love each other. They were FRIENDS. But they never met becuse Sonic 2006 erase it self but still even if it didnt. Last we got Sonaze (sorry sonaze fans). Blaze did blush at Sonic in Sonic and the Black Knight but thats it! Other then that they are FRIENDS! They never show they are in love. Blaze didnt want Sonics help. And they shake hands! It doesnt mean they are in love. (it reminds me so much of the Satoshi/Hikari shippers in Pokemon. High 5 = they love each other!!!) This one makes me upset the most because people think a boy and a girl cant be just friends without being in love.

"If I love You You Must Love Me" Shippers
These are people who give the reason to support a ship because one character loves them offcially while the other doesnt give any sign that they love them back or we know well they dont love them. Sonamy (sorry sonamy fans) is the biggest one. Most ship them because AMY loves Sonic so they think Sonic loves her. He doesnt LOVE her. He LIKES her as a FRIEND. He okay around her when shes not trying to kiss or hug him or gross him out. But when she does he trys to get far away from her. Amy is to Sonic as Tails and Knuckles are to Sonic… a friend. Amy loves Sonic as more but Sonic never showed it back. Then we got Knuxouge (sorry knuxouge shippers). Rouge offcially loves Knuckles according to her profiles but Knuckles never show any intrest to her. Him being flustered doesnt mean he loves her. If you look on Knuckles profile it says that his weakness is girls. Hes fluster by girls because he dont get attentions from them so he doesnt know how to react. Even his song for Wild Canyon says “I dont love you”. If anythnig they are friends and rivals.

"That Friendship/Rivary Is a Bromance" Shippers aka the shounen-ai… I mean YAOI shippers
Oh… I have alot to say about this one. Look I dont mind shounen-ai shippings. I just hate when people only ship them because they are friends or rivals. This happens in Hetalia Its like America and Japan cant be friends without being shipped. Or in Pokemon, Satoshi and Shigeru cant be rivals without people thinking they are in love. But enough about other fandoms Im talking about Sonic. In Sonic this happens to. Sonails (sorry sonails fans) for example. Sonic and Tails are close friends. They hang together every single game. But people think because of that Tails is gay and hes in love with Sonic. NO! They are just really close friends! You know 2 guys CAN be friends … close friends without being gay! Tails once rely on Sonic but now hes his own person who adventures with Sonic. Or Sonadow (sorry sonadow fans). I mean man people these guys are or were RIVALS. They are not rivals any more but still they were at one point. These guys beat up each other and thats why people think they are in love. And lets not forget how they protray in fanarts and fanfictions. Ugg…. I have no words other then THEY ARE NOT IN LOVE! ITS 2 GUYS FIGHTING!

Sonic and Jet… Jet is Sonics only rival but people dont ship them… only Sonadow… I wonder why. I mean people know Sonic and Jet are RIVALS without thinking they are in love but they cant do the same with Sonic and Shadow?? Maybe Jet isnt as "seme baity" as Shadow *rollseyes*. I dont see this with shoujo-ai parings. Only in Pokemon with Hikari and Nozomi shippers

So thats the end of my rant. and NO Im not trying to hate on any ships or shippers. Im dont even hate shipping. I want shipping to be fun not a battlefeild. Love isnt a battle feild especially with fictinal characters. Im trying to point out the flaws in the shippers reasons for supporting couples at people think take it to seriously. I mean there fictinal animals. There are no canon ships! thats all. Im not a hater.      

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There are some REALLY weird shippings out there (Shadow+Shrek anyone?), but I don't really mind them or follow them all that much. Fans can have the freedom to create pairings like Sonadow, etc as much as they want: it's just a fan thing, and it doesn't affect the games, so there's no reason to really get offended by any shipping.

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Considering the fact that there are no official romantic pairings in the games, every ship is ultimately frivolous to some degree in that you need your own speculation to put the two characters together for a long-term relationship in the first place. As such, I see Sonamy about as likely as Sonadow, and either can be pulled off in an interesting way or a disastrous way. It's silly fantasy at the end of the day, so it further boggles the mind to get pent up about any couple's existence as if your preferences actually matter more than someone else's. The bigger problem- as with anything pertaining to this fandom- comes when people take it too seriously, whether that's deluding one's self that your pairing is OTP or whatever, or by stereotyping fans of specific pairings and being an asshole towards them as a result.

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I ship Wily and Eggman. Together.

 

Whatcha gonna do?

 

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.

 

 

 

(oh Eggy, jealous of Thomas. You darned fool.)

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I don't follow all of this shipping nonsense and with good reason. One can not simply make a relationship without actually making logical sense and shipping gay couples in a kids game does not fit well, in my opinion. I just don't see why people hold all of this shipping with such a passion despite them knowing they might never happen but I digress.

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The only shipping that bugs me is when people ship incest or characters who clearly hate each other. It doesn't work and it annoys me that so many people have to sexualize a series in such a way. I'm not dissing any particular ships nor am I trying to tell anyone how to ship. I just think the ships themselves are odd imho. Two characters that are enemies just don't make sense to me. How can someone want to fight someone and then fall in love?

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I dislike shipping in childrens series in general, honestly.

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I dislike shipping in childrens series in general, honestly.

 

On the one hand, I understand it with the kids, because it's some of their first romantic material, y'know? It can blossom into something nice, like becoming an adulthood fan of deeper romances (I'm gonna be the horrible nerd and say "something like Up" or whatever).

 

On the other hand, I don't think I want to understand it with the adults, or the more invested ones anyways. There's a certain point in your life where you just gotta accept that Ash and Misty aren't ever going to be a thing, and that point hopefully happens before you reach the age of eighteen.

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Honestly, I find shipping to be the most silly yet most flame war-inducing subject on the planet when done to such serious extremes.  You take something that is ultimately non-canon and, for all intents and purposes, will always be non-canon and fight over it as though an opposing headcanon will destroy the preexisting foundations that these pairings were made of.  This is exactly why Twilight fans get such a bad reputation; because a significant portion of their fanbase is devoted to heated and often times vocal arguments over shipping.  To me, shipping is always something that, while I'm not too much into it, is just cute and nothing more.

 

To paraphrase something I said to someone in PM a long time ago, this is my ideal conversation about shipping:

me: lolol sonamy is SOOO cute~

 

other person: lol u see dis sonic x cosmo work of art?

 

me: no link plz

 

other person: something.deviantart.com/shady-picture-of-a-noncanon-ship.html

 

me: oooh so uber kawaii uguuuuu~

 

other person: i no

 

 

This is not how I like to talk about shipping:

me: lolol sonamy is SOOOO cute~

 

other person: You dumb bitch.  Are you really so blind that you can't see that Shadow was made for Sonic?  Almost literally, in fact!  Remember that scene in SA2 when he was watching as Sonic supposedly exploded in that capsule?!  He was clearly mourning his loss and coping with the heartbreak of the partner he was dying to meet.  Then, when he says "This is the ultimate--" before getting cut off, he's really saying "This is the ultimate love!"  And you must be five years old if you can't see the blatant reveal in Sonic Heroes, when he says "What's with that hedgehog that looks like my twin?"  Despite his amnesia, Shadow was clearly attempting to judge Sonic as an intimate partner!  Whereas with Amy, you can tell by the way she vaguely looked at him episode 55 of Sonic X that she's just toying with his heart!  You know nothing about love!  Grow up, you cretin!

 

me: okay i just um okay i... :'c

 

So yeah, mindless fluff pandering is really all shipping is to me.  That's not to say it can't be more, and I applaud anyone who can get me invested in something that is clearly non-canon with well-developed character interaction, but on a conceptual level, I find it just to be cutesy and fun.  Nothing to get worked up over, and certainly nothing to argue over.

 

On that note, I know this is a probably a very unfair double standard, but I should clarify that I'm talking specifically about fan-shippings here, and as such, I don't hold it to the same standards as canon ships (if they exist; in Sonic's case, they don't).  If Sega were to make any ship canon, I'd like it to be developed and have well-rounded interactions that lead up to it, taken slowly as opposed to the Disney movie "fall in love at the drop of a hat" trope.  I'd like there to be trials and tribulations leading to the reveal of their feelings, as well as trials and tribulations in maintaining that relationship.  But since that's not likely to happen in Sonic anytime soon, that's not something I have to worry about.  But anyway, in fan content, I really don't care.  Write Buzz BomberXBiolizard fanfics for all I care.  It's just cutesy fun, and there's nothing wrong with that as long as it doesn't get out of control.

 

With that said, I don't much like the mindset that shipping is bad based on the target audience being for children.  Granted, I do have my problems with the way the media attempts to paint the picture of romance for children, as it leads to some very unhealthy expectations and aids in the delusion that having a partner is the only thing that matters or that it should sidestep all other important relationships in your life, among other problematic concerns.  Still, I think romance is well within the bounds of children's media, fan-created or otherwise.  The execution that is generally pulled, on the other hand, is not.

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Shipping wars and the less savory aspects of shipping annoy the fuck out of me even though I consider shipping a largely harmless and fun aspect of fandom. The irony of shipping wars in Sonic fandom in particular is the fact that romance isn't even a prominent theme in the series to any large degree and when there are no official pairings in the games.

 

I hate how Sonally and SonAmy fans are frequently at each others throats and take issue with the others pairing when there's little sense to do so as these two pairings don't even exist in the same continuities i.e Archie and SatAM rolleyes.gif

 

I hate how certain characters are hated by certain fans mostly because of how they factor into said certain fans ship.

 

I hate how many a Sonadow fan in particular label anyone who dislikes this pairing automatically as homophobes.

 

I strongly dislike couple-assigning.

 

I despise SonEgg (You likely know what this entails by the coupling name. If not, be thankful for not knowing)

 

I really dislike characters being morphed into what they aren't for the 'sake' of a ship i.e Bastardization of Sonic himself in ShadAmy stuff.

 

This said, I see nothing wrong with shipping really and it's a shame that it's as controversial a subject that it is.

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I really don't care for shipping. If someone wants to pair character X with character Y, that's cool, but I hate it when they force that shit on me. But it's not like it ruins my childhood or anything.

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I think the shipping wave that has escalated drastically the last decade is the result of a more LGBT accepting society.

Not really?  I think it just has to do with increased communication as a result of the internet.  Shipping has always been a thing.  As far back as first grade I can remember discussing which characters were more likely to end up together and how they would communicate with each other on such a deeper level, but aside from those select friends, I had very little in the way of people to actually discuss it with.  Artistic platforms such as DeviantArt as well as fan sites such as this have given us a place for this sort of thing.  It has no bearing on society's perfection of LGBT+ individuals.

 

With that in mind, LGBT+ ships are still particularly subject to scorn, under the pretense of "wut my fave char isnt gay! how dar u sujest dat!"  You can learn a lot about someone's personality by how they react to a homosexual shipping and why.  The notion that we should assume all characters are straight until otherwise proven is a particularly vexing but nevertheless extremely common argument against it.

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With that in mind, LGBT+ ships are still particularly subject to scorn, under the pretense of "wut my fave char isnt gay! how dar u sujest dat!"  You can learn a lot about someone's personality by how they react to a homosexual shipping and why.  The notion that we should assume all characters are straight until otherwise proven is a particularly vexing but nevertheless extremely common argument against it.

I suppose this does explain Sonic's aversion to Amy.

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I don't mind shipping in general. And I don't even think it's all too far-fetched if people 'ship characters that have canonically only met once. They might take the personalities of those two and just explore what could've been.

However, if "shipping" means to bend the character's personalities until they meet the shipper's ideas, I don't really see what the point is.

I'm not interested in stories that depict Sonic as the infatuated stalker, or Amy as the annoyed Sonic-hater. And I don't understand what people like about the Sonic/Shadow couple when most fanfiction tends to show at least one of the two as severely out of character.

If people manage to put reasonable character development into their stories (or they're clearly just meant to be funny), then all's fine. It should be a conceivable derivative of the canon ideas - however you pull it off.

 

About the attitude of certain shippers... I suppose there are always people who take things way too seriously. The Sonic series is not entirely devoid of romantic subtext, and at some point everyone gets into that age where they want to explore their 'romantic needs' or something. In this case, instead of going crazy about a movie star or band member, they happen to become overly enthusiastic about two specific characters of the Sonicverse and try to find justification for their (seemingly) curious choice.

At some point, those shippers either grow out of it, or they continue their shipping 'quietly' (and maybe feel a little embarassed about their previous endeavors). In either case I think it's a relatively harmless thing.

 

You could argue that kids might come across inappropriate pictures or fiction, but I'd be really interested to know whether anyone here has actually had a sustainable bad experience from something like that? When I was younger (admittedly in a time without internet) I generally just found everything (like, people kissing on TV) kinda "ew", but that was it. Not exactly a jarring experience. I also didn't need to hit puberty first to think about how curious it is that the characters in most Disney cartoons either aren't directly related to each other or only have one parent left.

 

When I happen to stumble upon one of the many, really bizarre kinks on the net, I'm usually put off for a moment, then utterly fascinated about the many ways the human mind works, and then I close the tab and let those people have it their way, without me :b.

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I really just kind of ignore shipping, shippers do annoy me sometimes but your account (Sonikku-Kiah) does seem a little biased.

I'm more with Nepenthe and Verte on this one, usually it's just kind of silly and fun and people shouldn't be so bothered about it.

 

I was under the impression that shonen-ai and and yaoi mean two completely different things, the former just being boyXboy and the latter being a romantic genre focusing on the seme and uke archetypes, but correct me if I'm wrong.

 

One thing I've really learned to hate, partly because of same-sex shipping in the Sonic fandom,though watching actual yaoi just cemented it; is the ukeXseme dynamic (ie. Twilight-level creepy-ass relationships), frankly it shows the objectification of those characters and of same sex partnerships rather than any acceptance or respect of them, of course, it ties into making characters OOC as well.

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Shipping isn't bad in, and of itself. Many of the shippers, on the other hand...yeesh, I can come up with several colorful words to describe them, but I'd rather not do that. Let's just say they can be a little...insane. Sans hippers do exist, though, and I feel more comfortable around them.

 

As for shipping of my own, I prefer to keep most serious ships of mine to myself, really. The ships I come up with on the spot without any seriousness, on the other hand, are fair game for mentions, even if I'm not the first to bring up the idea.

 

This doesn't just apply to Sonic. It applies to all fandoms.

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I really don't care for yaoi at all, and I'm gay (Bara is so much better)

It does irritate me to no end when people assume yaoi and shounen-ai are the same thing (which happens everywhere).

You know how when you get romantic couples in kids media, all you'd see is the couple in question cuddling and maybe kissing a little, ya know, just generally looking cute together? That's what shounen-ai is, only it's with two boys.

Yaoi is when when the the two men are fucking, like how hentai is a man and a woman fucking.

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Alright, let me weigh on this little thing called shipping moreso than messing around with you lot and joking about it. *cracks knuckles*

 

Shipping is a huge deal to me because I will relate to you on a personal level. When I was 15 I grew up in a backwards society we like to call the Bible Belt in these here United States (some of you Brits may have heard of these stalwart colonies and I think they might have signed something in 1776.) In High School, these kids in said Bible Belt liked to push the brunt of their problems on homosexuals - to be seen as homosexual was seen as something unnatural, weak and one who had no exposure to the LGBT community you tend to believe these peers and start to groupthink about their ways (hey there was a kid that made a LGBT bumper sticker in print class, so let's harass him! That type of deal. It was horrible. Nobody knew much about LGBTs and nobody wanted to care.)

 

Well I was in a Real Person fandom at the time - I'm not going to say what or who I was into at the time, as I think RPS (real person slash) is just distasteful on so many levels due to privacy and the fans - but my first exposure to homosexuals was through yaoi and yuri.

 

And, I am not alone on this. Yaoi and yuri happens to be a lot of teenagers first exposure to this kind of orientation, granted what environment they happened to be brought up in.

 

At first I found revile and disgust about slash, but then after a while, I liked it. I liked reading about it. So, wanting to write my own I started doing research on homosexuals and the gay community. My bias was slaughtered because of slash - through research I found out that they are just exactly like us, these people ARE us. To all of you naysayers who think that teenagers shouldn't be exposed to this type of material, you may be harming them in the long run (there is another, but far darker side of slash where people go by stereotypes and believe that LGBTs act and look like the Uke and Seme branch and by correlation, people as young as I once was start to believe that's how relationships do work in LGBT communities.)

 

Children which have been proven again and again, don't really care at all if the relationship is same-sex or hetero. Most think any type of romance is icky, hell, I know I did. Romance was the last thing I wanted to see as a kid when I read Mario and Sonic books.

 

Jumping out of RPS community and into just normal Yaoi communities (BTW, if you want something that is far truer to a homosexual relationship in fiction, check out some bara and machi guchi comics since they are usually written by men aimed to gay men.) I just rolled with it. Granted there has been so many ships launched out to war over a pairing that doesn't make sense at all (Sonadow anyone?) and faces that can launch ships in wars that would make Helen of Troy furious over why her lovers weren't crazy enough (Sephiroth. Trunks. Sam and Dean form Supernatural.)

 

No, the best we can do about shipping is a couple of things: Teach people. Make them do their research on the characters and provide help for them - they probably started out as I did, a lone teenager who is curious about what it is all about and is trying to find a footing understanding LGBTs. Never EVER tell them that the idea of shipping people of the same sex is wrong, EVER - you could be scarring someone for life if you do this. You can tell them that the character in X relationship may not be canonical (and give good reasons,) or it could never happen (again, give good reasons stated in canon,) but never tell them that same-sex love is wrong as many teenagers starting out can be very impressionable and even LGBT themselves (a lot can see this scrutiny as reflecting on their own sexual preference.)

 

Also remember that not liking a paring does not make you homophobic (there are myriads of pairings I loathe, but I wholeheartedly support equality) Hating pairings because of it being solely on the fact that it is gay, lesbian, bi or pan does, however (to clarify this point I am talking about people who hate gay relationships because of "morality" and because it is "icky." Those people.)

 

If they do ship, lead them to articles about how real couples work - they one day might be a great romance/erotica writer or blossom out into other genres - a lot of people usually start out in slash/fluff before expanding their horizons.

 

Crack pairing? Funny, but if taken serious, yesh, I really can't elaborate any further. I have seen madness from the fans that stem from this. Stuff like Sonegg I wish to never see again for many multiple reasons - biggest are canonical and OoC.

 

Again, if someone needs help about slashing and romance just give them a few articles about writing said romances. If you do, seek out some good articles about courtship, romance, shipping and other topics (I believe there is currently a masterlist of good articles of how to write a GOOD shipping couple going around on Tumblr.)

 

And if anyone does do the uke/seme thing please correct them - I may have never fell into this pitfall when I was that age, but others have and, well it did ruin their understanding of same-sex relationships (oh, he's the bottom so therefore he's the female of the relationship! No...just, no.)

 

When people get better at shipping, then they will start making pairings over the basis of characters and the content instead of the "fuckability" of the characters in the content (hopefully they do reach that stage, some do get stuck in that rut and the results are pretty nasty.)

 

Yeah, I have a couple of OTPs myself, but I do a HUGE HUGE amount of research before I do anything on the couple. Research is the golden rule about shipping anything.

 

I think I might have covered all of the bases except the crazy fan theory.

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I've always liked Sonic/Blaze, and judging from the way Sonic Rush and Black Knight were written, I suspect someone on the old writing staff did as well.

I'm glad you brought up Sonic/Rouge. That ship is hilarious. There's only like a dozen or so people in the world who are legitimately fans of it, but it's fun because not even its fans take it seriously, but they also don't treat it like an absolute joke either (like Sonic/Eggman or something usually is).

Rouge offcially loves Knuckles according to her profiles

...Eh? Source, please?

(Sonic Chronicles is officially non-canon, and doesn't count. Even then, I don't think anything like that was mentioned in her profile.)

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This whole topic brings me back to circa-2006/7 wih the SonicxBlaze shippers vs the SilverxBlaze shippers. I was always a Sonaze kid, because after playing Rush and '06, I always felt that there was more, I guess "sexual tension" quote-unquote between Sonic and Blaze rather than Silver and Blaze. But this was a good 7 or so years ago.

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I'm not too fond of shipping, in a way that I don't take it seriously. 

But I know a ship-tease when I see one, even when I am not particularly fond of the couple. And I have no problems admitting it.

 

...Eh? Source, please?

(Sonic Chronicles is officially non-canon, and doesn't count. Even then, I don't think anything like that was mentioned in her profile.)

 

I am not fond of it at all, but Knuxouge is an official, canon couple there's no doubt about it.

Infact I kind of dislike Knuxouge because I find it annoying.

 

There used to be an official website called Sonic Central. Somewhere at the end of her biography, it said that she has a crush on him. It also said that she is secretly impressed with his devoted personality but will never admit it.

Her Sonic (2006) biography mentions that she has a liking for both Knuckles and Shadow and calls it a 'love triangle'.

 

Thus, there is some pretty obvious, undeniable ship-teasing particularly in games like Sonic Adventure 2 and Sonic Rivals 2.

 

SEGA did intentionally put in those Knuxouge and Shadouge moments. Shadouge is very strong in Sonic Battle. The Sonic (2006) biography proves that they meant to portray Rouge's liking for Shadow romantically.

 

Therefore, the fans of these pairings make sense. Especially, Knuxouge which is by all means official. There's no denying it.

 

(btw I have noticed that there are alot of Sonaze supporters on SSMB)

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Alright, let me weigh on this little thing called shipping moreso than messing around with you lot and joking about it. *cracks knuckles*

 

Shipping is a huge deal to me because I will relate to you on a personal level. When I was 15 I grew up in a backwards society we like to call the Bible Belt in these here United States (some of you Brits may have heard of these stalwart colonies and I think they might have signed something in 1776.) In High School, these kids in said Bible Belt liked to push the brunt of their problems on homosexuals - to be seen as homosexual was seen as something unnatural, weak and one who had no exposure to the LGBT community you tend to believe these peers and start to groupthink about their ways (hey there was a kid that made a LGBT bumper sticker in print class, so let's harass him! That type of deal. It was horrible. Nobody knew much about LGBTs and nobody wanted to care.)

 

Well I was in a Real Person fandom at the time - I'm not going to say what or who I was into at the time, as I think RPS (real person slash) is just distasteful on so many levels due to privacy and the fans - but my first exposure to homosexuals was through yaoi and yuri.

 

And, I am not alone on this. Yaoi and yuri happens to be a lot of teenagers first exposure to this kind of orientation, granted what environment they happened to be brought up in.

 

At first I found revile and disgust about slash, but then after a while, I liked it. I liked reading about it. So, wanting to write my own I started doing research on homosexuals and the gay community. My bias was slaughtered because of slash - through research I found out that they are just exactly like us, these people ARE us. To all of you naysayers who think that teenagers shouldn't be exposed to this type of material, you may be harming them in the long run (there is another, but far darker side of slash where people go by stereotypes and believe that LGBTs act and look like the Uke and Seme branch and by correlation, people as young as I once was start to believe that's how relationships do work in LGBT communities.)

 

Children which have been proven again and again, don't really care at all if the relationship is same-sex or hetero. Most think any type of romance is icky, hell, I know I did. Romance was the last thing I wanted to see as a kid when I read Mario and Sonic books.

 

Jumping out of RPS community and into just normal Yaoi communities (BTW, if you want something that is far truer to a homosexual relationship in fiction, check out some bara and machi guchi comics since they are usually written by men aimed to gay men.) I just rolled with it. Granted there has been so many ships launched out to war over a pairing that doesn't make sense at all (Sonadow anyone?) and faces that can launch ships in wars that would make Helen of Troy furious over why her lovers weren't crazy enough (Sephiroth. Trunks. Sam and Dean form Supernatural.)

 

No, the best we can do about shipping is a couple of things: Teach people. Make them do their research on the characters and provide help for them - they probably started out as I did, a lone teenager who is curious about what it is all about and is trying to find a footing understanding LGBTs. Never EVER tell them that the idea of shipping people of the same sex is wrong, EVER - you could be scarring someone for life if you do this. You can tell them that the character in X relationship may not be canonical (and give good reasons,) or it could never happen (again, give good reasons stated in canon,) but never tell them that same-sex love is wrong as many teenagers starting out can be very impressionable and even LGBT themselves (a lot can see this scrutiny as reflecting on their own sexual preference.)

 

Also remember that not liking a paring does not make you homophobic (there are myriads of pairings I loathe, but I wholeheartedly support equality) Hating pairings because of it being solely on the fact that it is gay, lesbian, bi or pan does, however (to clarify this point I am talking about people who hate gay relationships because of "morality" and because it is "icky." Those people.)

 

If they do ship, lead them to articles about how real couples work - they one day might be a great romance/erotica writer or blossom out into other genres - a lot of people usually start out in slash/fluff before expanding their horizons.

 

Crack pairing? Funny, but if taken serious, yesh, I really can't elaborate any further. I have seen madness from the fans that stem from this. Stuff like Sonegg I wish to never see again for many multiple reasons - biggest are canonical and OoC.

 

Again, if someone needs help about slashing and romance just give them a few articles about writing said romances. If you do, seek out some good articles about courtship, romance, shipping and other topics (I believe there is currently a masterlist of good articles of how to write a GOOD shipping couple going around on Tumblr.)

 

And if anyone does do the uke/seme thing please correct them - I may have never fell into this pitfall when I was that age, but others have and, well it did ruin their understanding of same-sex relationships (oh, he's the bottom so therefore he's the female of the relationship! No...just, no.)

 

When people get better at shipping, then they will start making pairings over the basis of characters and the content instead of the "fuckability" of the characters in the content (hopefully they do reach that stage, some do get stuck in that rut and the results are pretty nasty.)

 

Yeah, I have a couple of OTPs myself, but I do a HUGE HUGE amount of research before I do anything on the couple. Research is the golden rule about shipping anything.

 

I think I might have covered all of the bases except the crazy fan theory.

As someone who also grew up in the Bible Belt, I can relate and empathize with your experience and I'm quite happy to see shipping has helped you in that regard.  I admire the dedication you put into it, but I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with just shipping for fun with little research or that those that do are just doing it based on which two are most "fuckable," but rather based on which two (or sometimes three... or four... or five... maybe six... seven might be pushing it, but it's not without its merits) have the most interesting interactions.

 

When I think about pony ships, for example, I don't do a huge amount of research on the long-term relationship as much as I do the relationship in its current form and how the characters compare and contrast.  How would this character react if someone did this?  How would their reaction change as an intimate partner as opposed to a platonic friend?  Those are things I think of, but the amount of thought I put into it depends largely on how much I want to focus on the actual relationship compared to when I just want a quick fix of cute.

 

I'm leaving open the possibility that I misunderstood your post, because it's 4 in the morning and agh.

 

I am not fond of it at all, but Knuxouge is an official, canon couple there's no doubt about it.

Knuxouge is no more canon than SonAmy.  One or more characters expressing romantic interests (stated or implied) has no bearing on rather or not they will actually get into a relationship, which is the only sure-fire way a ship can become genuinely canon.

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Knuxouge is no more canon than SonAmy.  One or more characters expressing romantic interests (stated or implied) has no bearing on rather or not they will actually get into a relationship, which is the only sure-fire way a ship can become genuinely canon.

Okay, so they're not actually dating but their mutual attraction is pretty much canon.

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Can I please actually get a source for this rather than just calling it "pretty much canon"?

I believe they're referring to the scene where they look at each other amorously after their fight in SA2 as well as what may been a shiptease after the fight with the Final Hazard with her line "it'll all work out, you'll see" as well as in Heroes when she teases Knuckles with the false threat of stealing the Master Emerald.  The attraction is definitely there, but the actual pairing isn't canon unless they actually decide to take it further, which isn't likely at this point.

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