i see there's shipping discussion occurring in your ask box so i figure i'll throw in my two cents as well!
i used to be a REALLY heavy shipper, in exactly that shallow "reduce their personalities to the concept of kissing each other" way that tons of people are complaining about. i wouldn't get into ship wars or harass people or anything, but i was totally the kind of person who you couldn't just have a level character discussion with— because i would be pretty intent on just going through the motions with whatever best friend or acquaintance I'd decided they had a huge crush on.
by contrast now my biggest most important "ships" end up all being somewhere between 3-5 people with a lot of care put into the nuances of each connection on the relationship chart— i still refer to them as poly ships (as a shorthand mostly), but of the 3 to 10 different relationships between the characters, i usually only see a few of them as romantic or sexual, with the majority a lot closer to a found family or queerplatonic sort of vibe
honestly i think the biggest reason for the reductive style of shipping was that 1) i wasn't as skilled a writer then as i am now, so i wasn't really sure how to really retain all of the features of a character that i liked, and 2) i wanted the biggest feelings IMMEDIATELY and there's some kind of instant gratification to shipping where the end goal is for them to kiss and you can just draw/write/think about them kissing and you're done.
it's kind of like the instant ramen of fictional relationships to me. it's kind of "one size fits all", low writing skill requirement, low effort, really really fast and easy, and ultimately not really that rewarding at the end of it. and just like how real actual ramen exists separately from instant noodle cups, it IS possible to write a really amazing and beautiful and deep romantic ship fic that successfully plays off of the kinds of people these characters are, but ramen still isn't the end-all be-all of relationships! there are so many different hypothetical dishes that could be made with the same characters!
and my personal favorite is polyqueerplatonic ships for this very reason, because with just a few characters you can get a whole diverse array of interactions and dynamics!!
anyway tldr; i think romantic shipping is fun, and even "cheap" reductive romantic shipping can be fun, but (to return to my instant noodles metaphor) it would be reasonably upsetting to attend an awesome community potluck only to find like 90% cup noodles. and the people serving the cup noodles frown at you whenever you ask if anyone's serving like, gourmet spaghetti or dumplings or something.
so just know that if you're bringing your silly "ouhhh they should kiss" fan works to the fandom, you're appreciated and I'm glad you're having fun, and if you're bringing the super precisely thought-out nuanced relationship fan works to the fandom, you are ALSO so appreciated and additionally i really wish there were more of you in my own fandoms.
flashbacks to the time i looked up a ship that i THOUGHT was pretty popular but it only had like 230 works on AO3 at the time and basically all of them were romantic instead of my hyper-specific one-sided queerplatonic one-sided fully platonic thing i had pictured in my mind....
Okay, as someone who has tried their hand at writing slow burn in the past, I totally get the instant gratification thing. "You know when would be a good time for them to kiss? NOW"
I'd get frustrated at my own characters for not just making out already and I was the one writing them not making out lmao
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OCs pride event
Send me an ask with a couple of characters and I'll draw them together uvu <3 Will it be shippy or will they bicker and groan about the idea of kissing? Who knows, only one way to find out.
Some notes!
I'll decide the outcome depending on what's more in character.
Don't ask for Alphonse, Benjamin and ginger together, they're related.
This event's purpose is to, besides drawing my usual ships, to draw characters together that I usually don't! So just ask about what'd be fun to see. If you suggest a ship that'd never work in a romantic or sexual way I'll just draw something fun about them screaming at the possibility.
Will draw the requests slowly through June <3
You can check more info about the characters either looking through my blog or in my toyhouse
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