Shipping

For those among my hordes of readers who are unfamiliar with the terminology:  Fandom = the group of people who are fans of something (IE Trekkies/Trekkers are the Star Trek fandom)  Shipping = wanting/hoping/wishing a couple are or will be a couple.  (IE Some folks ship Spock and Kirk)

Now to my rant.  I shipped Hermione and Viktor.  I really didn't want her to end up with Ron or Harry.  I liked the platonic three-way they had going on.  Rowling, however, had other plans (obviously).  She arranged for them to end up family.  I'm bummed, but I get it, both as a fan (the canon relationships suit them) and as a writer (sometimes them characters just do what they want).  I can imagine an alternate Harry Potter universe wherein my vision came to pass, but I should also accept that in the "real" world, Hermione married Ron.

I saw a comment tonight on Facebook that - well, I'll paraphrase and use my own example.  "I loathe Ron with Hermione.  They make no sense as a couple.  Hermione belongs with Viktor."  Except this person didn't even name a canon character - "Hermione belongs with" a character...  from the comment writer's fan fiction...  

This goes way beyond playing "what if" and completely leaves the fandom in my opinion.  I did not ship Mulder and Scully.  I did not ship Xena and Gabrielle.  I did not ship Kaylee and Simon.  But guess what?  The creators of the universes in which those characters live put a lot of thought and work into making those relationships real to fans.

I imagine, if my own stories were ever part of pop culture, how I would feel in this situation. Did I fail to make it real to my readers?  Of course, I'd have to laugh at the idea of my using someone else's fan fiction character - not even sure how that's supposed to happen. How can you even call yourself a fan of mine if you hate what I've done?