DISCLAIMER: As per usual, this post does NOT target anyone, this is simply my opinion on a topic that has been discussed across multiple places for years on end.

So as a romance fan, I'm quite the shipper when it comes to works I enjoy. I usually try to see the appeal in what the creator intends in terms of canon endgame ships, but a lot of times either the writing of the characters and/or their development cause me to go astray. If I'm being real, I always thought Romeo would have been better off with Mercutio (had no one died).

Said all that to say, while it would put quite the crack in my heart to see the Romeo and Juliet of my creation (Seraphia and Cocytus) split or shipped with other people in fanwork, I choose not to put boundaries on fan interpretation of them as that would be hypocritical. I'm not gonna hunt down fan ships and get mad, I will let them come forth and try to understand them while the canon I establish affirms itself.

I also want to point out while it doesn't take much for me as a creator to canonize my ship, the real battle is making it as believeable as possible in the face of stigmas associated with outdated tropes and dissonance of values. I am a fan of the cliche "star-crossed lovers" and "interspecies romances" tropes and I use them regularly, but they are considered outdated from overuse and lack of variety (any case of falling outside the archetypal "straight couple between two groups of people that fall in love after a few meetings and a common cry" thing is still considered noteworthy in media). I will have to make peace with the fact that some people will not like Seraphia and Cocytus being together because of this, and will often ship them in any other way with anyone else.

Just to be clear, this is why I have ZERO issue with non-canon ships among my characters. Romance, like any other genre, has a whole spectrum of what is considered good writing because of the nuances of speaking from experience and the vastly different opinions on how it should work in real life. Who TF am I to tell you which characters YOU should ship, what to do with YOUR imagination?

Unfortunately, I have known creators to take issue with any ships outside of their canon by other people, and as restricting as that is, it is their right, because it's their work. I just wish they could see fan interpretation for what it is - interpretation, not a takeover of the canon. As long as the creator doesn't feel compelled to adjust their canon to suit any one fan ship/headcanon, it's REALLY NOT the problem they think it is. Fan ships are ultimately harmless if they don't change the canon.

So if you are struggling with coming to accept that if your work finds success, people who are otherwise dissatified with the canon may take it into their own hands with their art/writing/etc....remember that they can't overwrite what you have done unless you let them. I'm happy to know my EF project exists and won't delete what all Simona Ferri has done, that's for sure!

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