the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ has only been actually typed once by a single person, everyone else who has ever used it has just googled “shrug emoji” and copy-pasted it
This one time I was at a street festival hosted by my Uni and there was a guy doing card tricks. I was watching him when I noticed he dropped a card. (7 of spades) I quickly pu my shoe in it and then bent down to act like I was tying my shoe. He then asks for a volunteer so I raise my hand. He asks me to say the name of a card at random so I say “7 of spades” he does his trick that I guess was supposed to make it come on top. He holds up the Ace of Hearts and says “is this your card?” And I hold up the card and said “no but this is” and the crowd LOST IT. I handed the card back to the magician and walked away. Later he comes up to me and asks me how I did it. I looked him in the eye, smiled and said “magicians never reveal their secrets” and walked away.
You can ship characters for happily ever afters, sure, you can ship them for tragically-then-happily, you can ship two or three or four or more, you can ship endless combinations of personality types and relationship dynamics
but you can also ship characters under very specific circumstances, or for a certain period of their life but not for all of it, or only in a certain universe. You might say “I ship these characters” and what you mean is you think they are fascinating together and could have a story together. That story could be any kind of story.
Sometimes it means you want them together for the rest of their lives. Sometimes it means something different than that.
I don’t know about you, but for me, “I ship it” means “There is a story in this ship and I am interested in that story.”
for me, “I ship it” means “There is a story in this ship and I am interested in that story.”
