It's time for another new blog post! For today's blog post, I will be talking about the problem with shipping characters. For those of you who don't know, shipping is when you take two characters from anything and put them in a relationship together. They aren't official in the slightest, and some of the pairings can get pretty messed up. Shipping isn't exclusive to the anime/manga community, but it happens so often within the community. Some ships cause major arguments, and some of them are really toxic. For example, Naruto x Sakura was an extremely popular ship in the Naruto fandom, and Lucy x Natsu took over the Fairy Tale fandom. These are examples of really toxic relationships. The girls in both ships were immensely physically and mentally abusive, but no one cared because they're just characters and it was the boys being abused. But if an abusive boy is paired with an innocent girl instead, somehow it's horrible and unacceptable. Things like this are why shipping gets such a bad reputation. Not only this, but some fan ships completely erase canon ships. This happens most often with male x female pairings. If straight relationships are erased in favor of other male x male or female x female pairings, it's considered representation. But if it's reversed, it's erasure. It isn't fair, and many kids base their thoughts and views on what other people are doing. Even if kids aren't supposed to be in some of these fandoms, they still are. Teenagers are especially impressionable, and we shouldn't be influencing them one way or another. It's fine to like a ship or dynamic, but it's important to remember that these fictional characters reflect on real life too. But, those are mostly just my thoughts on this topic. I don't mind any shipping, but only when it's safe and healthy for everyone involved. I know shipping can be a controversial subject, but it really shouldn't be. Nonetheless, I hope you all still enjoyed this blog post.