Shipping characters in fiction in ways the original author didn’t intend — picturing them in new non-canon relationships — goes back at least as far as so-called slash fiction or slashfic, a type of fan fiction involving same-sex romantic or sexual relationships between fictional characters. In the 1990s and possibly earlier, for example, Star Trek fanzines featured K/S slash fiction imagining Mr. Spock and Captain Kirk as a couple. Discussion of shipping, shippers, and ships — short for relationshipping, relationshipper, and relationships — started in the 1990s with The X-Files, the TV series featuring Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, an attractive pair fans fervently hoped would explore each other’s Area 51. This is part of a complete episode.
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