Inspired by a fandomsecrets post yesterday or the day before: What is canon shipping really, and why is it appealing?

In my Harry Potter fandom days I called myself a "canon shipper," although technically my canon ships weren't necessarily completely canon yet. Still, I considered them as good as canon, so I shipped them. As I spilled into new things, I still clung to canon ships almost exclusively. Almost.

I've begun to think that I prefer referring to it along the lines of "canon compatible", i.e. ships that might not ever happen in canon, but work within context of the series and don't necessarily go against anything previously established. (So for example, no hero/villain pairings if the villain killed the hero's parents or something, no father figure/child figure pairings, etc.) But even that's a bit trickier because there are universes - and creators - where there's really no limit as to who could possibly get together. If I hadn't been completely spoiled for every Buffy pairing on earth before I even touched the series, and you'd asked me during season two if I thought Buffy and Spike could ever get together romantically, I'd call you nuts. "The only vampire Buffy would ever date is Angel." But then, suppose Angel hadn't been a vampire, or hadn't been a love interest, and we were introduced to our first Buffy/Vampire pairing later on in the series. Would that go against the rules? After all, Buffy's supposed to slay vampires, being a Slayer and everything. And Spike doesn't have a soul. So even though you could argue certain pairings go against Joss Whedon's universe, he himself breaks the "rules," so to speak.

Something else I wonder is why some people cling to canon, whereas others prefer things that aren't remotely close to canon, and I wonder how much
of it comes from the purpose of fandom/fanfiction itself. Going back to Harry Potter, when I got into it, the fifth book wasn't out yet, and wouldn't be for another three years. Fanfic was part of the speculation; what happened behind the scenes, and how might it affect what happens next? That isn't to say I never read AUs or alternative interpretations I knew would never make the series, and obviously fics with OCs were a definite stretch (although there were some creepy parallels in the books), but mostly I read fanfic as an addition to the series. So because I thought Ron and Hermione would probably end up together, that's the pairing I preferred. I also didn't read smut, so it wasn't about anger sex or PWP for me, it was about PG-13 snogging. (During these tender teen years I read a book series that was basically NC-17 prehistoric smut, but my fanfic interests themselves were pretty green. Weird.) So even if I didn't necessarily ship something myself, if I could sort of see it happening in the universe, it often still worked for me. And it's still like that for me with the other fandoms I've delved into. Half the time I don't even want something that focuses on romance to begin with, even if it's a pairing I do ship.

This isn't to say people who do like pairings that might seem removed from canon or ARE most definitely removed are only doing it for the porn, of course! Rather, what I'm saying is that it really comes down to why people are writing and reading fanfic in the first place. Is it about interpretation? Is it about playing with established characters, putting a different spin on them? Is it just about the smut after all?

I'd really like your thoughts. (Though let's not break into any shipping wars, mmkay?)