Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2020: Week 24
Shipping in fandom is the act of supporting or wishing for a particular romantic relationship — that is, a het (different-sex), slash (male/male), femslash (female/female), or poly (three or more partners) ship — by discussing it, writing meta about it, or creating other types of fanworks exploring it. Fans who have and promote favorite ships are called shippers. They might assert that the relationship does exist or will exist in canon, that they would like it to exist, or simply that they enjoy imagining it. Shippers who support multiple ships within a single canon are often referred to as multishippers, especially if they support those ships equally.
The term was first used in 1993 in The X-Files fandom.
Some shippers support relationships that are portrayed or acknowledged as established in canon, some shippers like relationships that exist only as subtext (whether intentional or accidental -- itself a topic of debate), and some prefer relationships where the characters have no subtext discernible to non-shippers. Some fans ship characters who never even appear in canon together! It is important to note that some percentage of fans actively do not want their ship to become canon, especially wrongshippers and fans who don't trust the show's writers and producers to "do it right". Shippers have been known to regret it when their wish came true.
Shippy is the adjectival form of ship. Shippy can be used to describe canon interactions between characters, as well as fanworks that are not gen. Like slashy, shippy can be applied to subtext, as well as to acknowledged romance.