Do you Pre-ship?

[jadbaz 30]

I will hold my hands up and say I am guilty once of shipping because of a faceclaim- it was because the face claim was the same as my characters long time dead love of her life and even though the characters were different I felt it would be a fun dynamic if she actually acknowledged how alike they looked and certainly there was a lot of fun had because of it. 

 

I also tend to pre-ship with my RP partners and friends! Or we do a longer-term possibility of ending up together, so we kinda know that they may end up together but its not always steadfast, which I discuss with my partners that nothing can be set 100% in stone because what if they just randomly click with another person's character and organically its really fun (this has happend!). 

[Atypicalzero 12]

The only "pre-shipping" I tend to do is with a couple of partners I have that I know won't bail (or if one does we all three do since generally we are just moving from small project to small project). In any case, we all have this habit of reincarnating characters, sort of molding them to a new genre. So if Character X goes, his wife, Character Y will also show up, and so on.  Rarely are the PB's we use any sort of couple in known media. Just sort of characters we had that landed together for one reason or another.

In fairness, I do not exclusively ship with these two players when we have a larger community at our disposal, I just know I play well off them and they won't leave me hanging. It does also help me get away from a lot of the random "want sum nookie?" DMs and people trying to force plots on characters that are actually pretty dang important to me. 

[August. 1]

I don't often pre-ship anymore. I wait and see if there is chemistry with the characters and always look forward to a great story instead of insta-couple. However, if I know the typist well and we mesh writing wise, I'm definitely not against it. 

[Stars 0]

I don't have any set rules really, but normally I don't pre-ship. I do find, the more invested I am in a character, or a canon couple, that my writing turns out better, but I don't like to push or assume another person's shipping preferences. Not long ago, me and a friend of mine were actually playing Beth Greene from TWD and Peter Parker from MCU, and we decided to do a fun thread of them meeting, and somehow things just WORKED between them, and they became a crackship of ours. xD I NEVER would have anticipated it, but things just clicked between us and the characters. I find letting things develop organically is always the best way, rather than pushing for something that might not work. ❤️

[Eleutherian 17]

It depends on the plot.... I do like ships with all my characters, but I usually like to keep how they evolve pretty open 

[Squirrelly Merriweather 13]

I have a particular partner with whom I like to pre-ship. But not based on the FCs either of us use. It's all about the characters and their chemistry. We've played together for many many years. So we know what we are and aren't capable of.

 

However, with new RP friends, I try not to pre-ship so much. Or if I do, I make sure to get as MUCH information up front as possible. It's nice to bring a new character on board with some pre-existing plot connections. 

[Royal_Poet 13]

I must be completely ignorant here. I had no idea this was even a thing and certainly never had the dilemma of people wanting a ship with my characters based on what avatar or signature I am using. 

 

I guess I mostly get around that by no planning this stuff in general. When I play a new character I just watch what happens IC and if there is any chemistry for a relationship of not. I don't like committing to ships unless I've written with that character and know that posts flow and make sense to my headcanon. 

 

 

[Tetris 7]

I for one do not pre-ship. It is different if say I chose the faces with a partner intent on having a ship with them. But I do not like when someone tells me that the face I am using is tied with another. Now I do not mind if you want to offer me a ship, I will see if I like it and then we can go from there. But being forced or pressured for one just cause of the face. Nah. Not my cup of tea.

[Minx 29]

I tend to let things happen naturally through chemistry between characters but that is not to say I haven't pre-shipped in the past. There is one pairing that my former writing partner and I put together if it was a group that those particular characters were written into. They had a long history and sort of a love hate relationship which we built off of. We played them in different eras, such as medieval, Victorian and modern settings and the relationship seemed to stand up well in all of them. But that's all of the pre-shipping I can recall doing.

[rogue_kiss 3]

Generally, I am not interested in pre-shipping; however, when there are canon ships that I am interested in writing in a RP setting (like Rogue and Gambit, for example), I will look to "pre-ship".  Though, does that count if they're already an established couple in their original canon?

 

I'm good with aiming for a ship, or plotting one - but I want the ship to come together on its own and not feel forced. I prefer to let the characters' chemistry naturally bring them into a relationship in-game.

[Morrigan 1,826]

On 2/4/2021 at 3:36 PM, Tetris said:

It is different if say I chose the faces with a partner intent on having a ship with them.

This is actually exactly what I call "pre-shipping" you have decided your characters are shipped. They are shipped prior to playing the characters and therefore pre-shipped.

 

8 hours ago, rogue_kiss said:

Generally, I am not interested in pre-shipping; however, when there are canon ships that I am interested in writing in a RP setting (like Rogue and Gambit, for example), I will look to "pre-ship".  Though, does that count if they're already an established couple in their original canon?

Technically because there is no OOC thing holding you to that relationship. In the case I'm talking about though, this is an established relationship that needs no further plotting. This is something already there. Established marriage, established bf/gf or gf/gf or bf/bf etc. When you enter the RP you're entering it not looking for the romance just looking for the RP.

 

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Edit:

To be clear. I don't join an RP without predefined relationship (pre-shipped) character information anymore. I refuse. I refuse to have people pic-ship me. I refuse to have people like my Playby and send me the ship information. My character comes predetermined with a relationship unless I want to reach out and find a new one. I'll be honest. This rare in my old age as an RPer but it does happen.

[Flahme 44]

I don't actively pre-ship if I can help it, mainly because I prefer things to work out organically. I've had some ships eventually occur that neither I or my writing partner expected to work out, we just let them loose and soaked up what happened.

 

The last time I did pre-ship it didn't work out at all.

 

 

[Agatha Harkness 59]

I usually have specific characters who work nicely with a buddy's romantically. No matter the genre, they just fit nicely, so we always try to play them. Otherwise, I tend to wing it, although will jump a wanted ad for someone i know for romantic ideas because i know how we both love drama and angst levels. It just helps write ship type relationships when i know the other person is on the same wavelength as me.  

[Elena 546]

Sometimes I do, then we might choose for the wanted ads characters with faceclaims who have photos together. Or if I have a NPC partner for my character (sometimes it happens too) I might choose a face claim who had been in a movie with my character's. For someone who doesn't do photoshop, it is way easier...

[Belle 53]

I only pre-ship doomed ships, which is more about playing out a specific plot than the ship itself since I know it's going to end in fiery ruins. I also don't take or post wanted ads for romance because trying to force chemistry between two characters is the quickest way to kill my interest in writing.

 

In the past, I've tried all sorts of tactics to avoid my characters being used as e-peen, including giving them NPC love interests, having them hideously disfigured in an accident, and straight up killing them. Nowadays I don't bother. No matter how much the other player wants a ship, it's not going to happen for me unless there's genuine chemistry. If so, great! Who cares if it started out as pic-shipping if it works? If it doesn't, they'll just have to take no for an answer. If they can't do that, I'm not going to play anything with them, let alone romance.