Ships you changed your opinion on over time

[Catz]

Since I used to watch the anime a bunch, especially XYZ, I shipped Serena and Ash, as you probably would. Eventually though, as I began to stop watching the anime, and began to get into the fanfiction community... it all went downhill from there and eventually just turned me off from the pairing to the point where I just see it as bland and overrated imo

 

[DigitalGen6]

When I was younger, I shipped it also, but then I got out of the anime (somewhat) and I stopped focusing on Ash ships, then I started shipping Pearlshipping (I still do)

 

[guzmania]

hmm...

• ferriswheelshipping. was obsessed with it when i was younger, i thought hilda and n were so cute together (and before you asked, it's not like i have any kind of opposition to n being with a guy either, i just happened to play as hilda.), then i learned how much older n is. so... yeah, scratch that one. my knowledge about the manga is kind of limited, i very much want to read it someday (and watch the anime, something i have yet to do as well), but i heard n is a creep in there. which is a total shame because i actually just finished my black replay and i didn't get those vibes from him at all in the game... i'm not the author, so i disgress. i prefer hilda x bianca now.
• skullshipping. i used to like it, now i don't. it's cool in concept but i don't think guzma is ready for a romantic relationship, i feel like his entire worldview of how interpersonal relationships work is warped. (i can relate.) it's not like i don't think he can ever find love or even that he could never be with plumeria, he just needs therapy before anything else.
• whatever the protagonist x nemona is called. i liked it initially, looking back at it i see nemona more as the player's big-sister figure. i still totally respect the ship though!
• whatever hop x the protagonist is called... i adored it at first, do not care one way or the other now. (also gothgfshippingsweep, if we're talking about gloria)
• originshipping. used to read them as platonic mostly because i knew wallace is dating/had dated winona (and for some reason i guess i forgot bisexual people exist despite being bisexual myself?? plus i didn't like the idea that feminine men HAD to be attracted to other men just because they were feminine... i think it was me trying to justify not wanting wallace to be gay because i'm not a man and i had a serious crush on him a while back lol)... i think torchic w. pip's daimikunagi fics (which i found OUTSIDE of bulbagarden far before i joined here actually!) are what got me hooked on originshipping (or rather... daimikunagi). they're all really cute together. 'tis all i can say.
• nnngh... whatever selene x gladion is! i suck at remembering ship names, sorry! i used to ship them but now i prefer moonflowershipping. they're closer in age and i can't help but read gladion as not interested in romance nowadays.
• i thought caitlin x cynthia was baseless and weird (i used to be very anti-crackship, nowadays most of mine are characters that do know each other but i can appreciate some good hypothetical rarepairs!) and preferred steven x cynthia... because that made sooooo much more sense... i have since learned why it is people ship them lol, and i think they are really cute together. (i mean the villa thing... that's so not straight to me)
• jasmine x whitney. i still ship them, but i've been getting into plainhiveshipping lately... maybe it's time i change the lesbian whitney hc to a homoflexible one. oh fuck it, i guess she can just date them both, she aint hurting anyone
• i went from shipping eri with mela to shipping eri with carmen so fast it gave me whiplash.

there are probably more, but those are the ones that stick out to me

 

[DigitalGen6]

hmm...

• ferriswheelshipping. was obsessed with it when i was younger, i thought hilda and n were so cute together (and before you asked, it's not like i have any kind of opposition to n being with a guy either, i just happened to play as hilda.), then i learned how much older n is. so... yeah, scratch that one. my knowledge about the manga is kind of limited, i very much want to read it someday (and watch the anime, something i have yet to do as well), but i heard n is a creep in there. which is a total shame because i actually just finished my black replay and i didn't get those vibes from him at all in the game...

1. And this is why I age N down to 16-17
2. See, the manga’s not a very good idea for that ship (for that I prefer Black X White)

• i'm not the author, so i disgress. i prefer hilda x bianca now.

You’re probably not the first person to ship them because I’ve seen fanart of them

• whatever the protagonist x nemona is called. i liked it initially, looking back at it i see nemona more as the player's big-sister figure. i still totally respect the ship though!

I think it’s CaboPocoShipping, but that’s both protags and Nemona- (don’t know what the ship you meant is called)

• whatever hop x the protagonist is called... i adored it at first, do not care one way or the other now. (also gothgfshippingsweep, if we're talking about gloria)

Idk about that one either, the one with Gloria and Hop is PostWickShipping

• nnngh... whatever selene x gladion is! i suck at remembering ship names, sorry! i used to ship them but now i prefer moonflowershipping. they're closer in age and i can't help but read gladion as not interested in romance nowadays.

LonaShipping (I guess I got that one right)
And I think Moonflower is Max and Liza?

 

[sleepwick]

You’re probably not the first person to ship them because I’ve seen fanart of them

can vouch for this hehe....hilda x bianca was the first pokemon ship i was ever rly into like before i even knew what the term shipping meant as a kid i was just like "aww these two r cute together :>"

 

[Insanish Danish]

Oh FerrisWheelshipping (and Isshushipping by extension) is another one! I liked it back when the games first came out and was less picky about what I shipped, but now that I'm like, an actual adult and am really grossed out by adult/minor ships and realize how wide their age gap is...yeah. I also just feel like ships with inappropriate age gaps are a lot more frowned upon than they were back then, so you don't see ships like FerrisWheelshipping getting as popular as they used to.

Why is everyone here so young what do you mean you were kids when Black and White came out........sobbing

 

[DigitalGen6]

can vouch for this hehe....hilda x bianca was the first pokemon ship i was ever rly into like before i even knew what the term shipping meant as a kid i was just like "aww these two r cute together :>"

I was gonna mention you but wasn’t sure if I should ^^

Why is everyone here so young what do you mean you were kids when Black and White came out........sobbing

Me when BW first dropped: Three years old.

 

[guzmania]

Me when BW first dropped: Three years old.

oh my god, we're the same age

 

[Catz]

oh my god, we're the same age

Me in the corner being one

 

[guzmania]

Me in the corner being one

omg so you tie with toastghost for being the youngest person here that i know of

 

[sleepwick]

Me when BW first dropped: Three years old.

even if theres not that big of a gap this makes me comparatively feel old LOL (i was 6)

 

[asiryn]

(.....I was 19 when BW came out, so.....I'm def also in the corner, feeling very old )

I guess I'll start by talking about ones that I used to ship, but don't anymore:

• FerrisWheelShipping: since we're on the topic...while I had seen some of the anime during the initial Pokemon craze of the late 90s/early 2000s, White was actually the first game of the franchise that I ever played; and like with a lot of ppl, I felt that the game naturally lends itself to shipping the MC w/ N (I played as Hilda, so that's why I've listed FerrisWheel, but of course Isshu counts equally), and so I shipped it. I found out much later (like...idk, I think it was around when Sun & Moon came out, and that 'official timeline' thing from someone at Gamefreak started circling around (again? idk if it came out earlier than that), which stated how long the gaps are between all the games? and bc of it, I was inspired to look at more Bulbapedia entries for characters and things, which...) exactly how extreme the age gap was (in my defense, pretty much every other rival has been around the same age as the protags!! how was I or anyone supposed to know that N was in his 20s?! I genuinely thought he was much, much younger!). And like many ppl, upon this discovery I immediately dropped the ship like a hot coal. XD I still have a bit of a soft spot for it, so I can still ship it in other circumstances (like if the age gap is vastly reduced >_>), but these days I've mostly moved on to Shiro & Kuro (my N ships vary, depending on the medium; for the games, I've landed on UltraHero (N/Dulse))
• AmourShipping: I was never a huge shipper for this, but I'm very much a multishipper, and I'd liked a lot of the previous Ash/PokeGirl ships (I've never really gotten into Advance personally, but I do understand its appeal and respect it, and I do still really love Pearl & Negai; I'll discuss PokeShipping in a min XP), so I was willing to roll with Amour. At first, I found it a bit cute, and I do really like the XY gang friendship as a whole (there was just such a huge vibe of positivity and supportiveness in XY, that I really appreciated), but from the start I had some concerns about it; namely, that in the beginning, there...really wasn't much to Serena as a character outside of her crush on Ash, imo. While that got somewhat better over time as Serena found a goal to work towards, I started getting new concerns in the way the relationship was developing, as I felt that Serena (and a lot of ppl in XY, really) was putting Ash onto an unhealthy pedestal. The Snowbelle Gym eps is where it really lost me, as I didn't much care for the way Serena handled Ash's initial loss, and it was a great showcase in why putting ppl on pedestals is not a good idea, bc ppl can't always be perfect, and can't always live up to your expectations of them (and Ash had every right to be upset!! Companions like Dawn, Iris, and Cilan handled Ash's dark moods much better, imo). That coupled with a few other things (maybe it's just me, but...I'd find it creepy, if someone stole my clothes and impersonated me while I was sick; plus I found the reasons for why Serena felt that was her only course of action to be...a bit flimsy and contrived) turned me all the way off from the ship. And while I'm overall happy with the way Serena's character was concluded at the end of XY, with her deciding to focus on building her self-confidence and independence on her own terms (as I've always ultimately felt that Serena deserved better than to be left heartbroken and/or pining futilely after Ash, as he'd never be allowed to fully reciprocate her feelings), I'm not particularly a fan of her kissing him like that (consent is sexy ppl!!). Plus, I suppose matters were never helped by the fact that the ship that truly blew me away during XY was DiodeShipping, so.....I was perhaps doomed to never being Amour's biggest fan, when I couldn't help but feel that the better Ash ship was right there. XD (In fact, I loved Diode so much that it actually knocked Pallet off its throne of being my otp Ash ship, tho I do still love Pallet dearly! XDD) I do have other Serena ships that I've always loved far better (Boutique (Serena/Shauna) & ChampsElysee (Misty/Serena) being the main ones), so it's not like she's been left in the cold. XD But I will admit that I do still enjoy the fanart for them, as Amour's always been a very aesthetically pleasing couple to me. XP
• PokeShipping: ahh....the big one. First, I'll start by saying that I've always LOVED Misty; she's forever been one of my very favorite characters in all the anime. So there is a nostalgia factor for me, as while I was never a huge shipper, I'd still say that I shipped them a decent amount, and I was a bit protective of them and insistent on maintaining the importance of their bond (tho my otp for Ash at the time was Pallet, and always had been). However, as the years have gone on, I've definitely experienced some pretty intense burnout and fatigue with PokeShipping. It's just......everywhere, and inescapable, and quite frankly, it gets so boring for me. Listen---part of the reason why I love going into shipping threads is to see others talk about ships that I've either never heard of or never thought of in that way before. I love forming my own ships and conclusions, but I also really love getting introduced to new ships or new perspectives, and taking in all these other opinions and thoughts into consideration, deciding whether I agree or not....to me, that's one of the best parts about participating in a fandom---getting exposed to new ideas. So to me, it gets downright exhausting, seeing this one ship get done to absolute death, and hearing ppl endlessly repeat things that I've heard a million times over. I've reached a point w/ PokeShipping where there's just...never any variety to it, nothing new that can be said about it. And sure, it's not alone in being over-hyped for me; there's a group of what I call the "Big Het 5" (Poke, Contest, Ikari, Wishful, and GeekChic) that just kinda make me sigh deeply whenever I see them. But imo, there's no ship that's as over-hyped as PokeShipping; you know how a lot of ppl get about Frozen/"Let it Go"? That's kinda how I feel about PokeShipping these days. I don't hate it, by any means. And I will forever advocate for the importance of Ash and Misty's friendship. I can even be generous enough to allow room in my headcanon for them to have had crushes on each other in the past. But at this point, I am very over PokeShipping as a romantic relationship, and I think it'll be a very long time before I'll ever be able to entertain the notion of truly shipping them again, and I'm certainly not going to be holding my breath for it. XP

Now for some that are a bit more positive, that I went from disliking to shipping:

• Juliana/Arven (I have yet to hear what, if any, name this ship has, but I'd be very happy to learn it!): idk if this truly counts, as this occurred just over the time that it took me to finish the game. But my feelings did vary wildly from the start to the end of the game, and it's the most recent change of heart I've had regarding ships, so I'm going to include it anyway. (Also, I played as the female MC, so that's why I'm specifically referring to Juliana.) So, my big thing is that I REALLY was not impressed by Arven at all in the beginning; he irritated me to the point that it was almost borderline hatred. I was strongly against his attitude towards Miraidon, and the fact that he never apologized for being such a jerk when you first met him meant that I had absolutely zero patience for him getting possessive over Juliana and trying to monopolize my time right as you're starting the Treasure Hunt. Especially since I was immediately aboard shipping Nemona/Juliana and Juliana/Penny, I was like, "you have another thing coming if you think that I'm gonna prioritize you over my girls, bucko". Really, Arven is very lucky that the HMs were tied to his quest line, as I otherwise might have put off completing his route for last. XP I won't go too much into spoilers, but I will say that finding out his Reason for why he was pursuing his goal did soften my heart a bit towards him, but I was still mostly just like, "fine, I'll help you, but I'm not doing it for your sake". It wasn't until the very end of his route, when more of his Tragic Backstory got revealed (and it was actually explained why Arven was the way he was) that I finally let go of most of my animosity towards him, and I started feeling more sympathetic towards him. (Let's just say...his whole deal with his dad/mom? Yeah, I unfortunately Feel those Feelings, tho thankfully never to this extreme.) During the course of the events in Area Zero was really when I started to appreciate the dynamic between Juliana and Arven, and got to develop an appreciation for the entire main squad's dynamic as well. And by the time the credits rolled, I had fully embraced shipping both Juliana/Arven as an individual ship, and also srsly shipping the full polycule of Penny/Nemona/Juliana/Arven, and now the ot4 is my top SV ship! (And when I want to give Florian some love, my variant configuration is Florian/Arven and Nemona/Juliana/Penny XP) So...yeah, it's quite a rollercoaster that I've been on with Arven. XD
• FondantShipping: well....I never disliked this ship, but I had no interest in it for the longest time. And in hindsight, I really can't quite figure out why, as I'm usually all over gay rival ships. Idk, maybe I was just too preoccupied with shipping Boutique and ChampsElysee, and too caught up in my headcanons for SweetAndSourShipping and SeamaidShipping (Miette w/ Paul and Ursula, respectively), as I consider those to be my "endgame" ships for Miette (to briefly explain: aroace Paul x aro poly bi Miette x aro lesbian Ursula; Paul and Miette date to buck off family pressure to finally settle down, and Paul doesn't care about being in an open relationship, so he's indifferent to Miette getting her rocks off with Ursula on the side; everyone else is left baffled as to how the relationship works XP). But someone else mentioned shipping Fondant, and I was kinda like...oh yeah, that's a ship that exists. XD And upon a second viewing of their interactions, I've decided that I rather like their dynamic, and so I've come around on shipping them. Really, what I like best is how Fondant just adds even more fuel to my headcanon that Serena is bi (and leans quite heavily towards girls, as imo all her interactions in XY w/ various girls have far more chemistry than she ever had with Ash; just look at her interactions with Shauna, Miette, Aria, heck even Diantha (the way Serena fangirls over her is very reminiscent to me of Misty fawning over Lorelei/Prima, which was also sapphic as all get out to me) and Mairin (who totally had a crush on Serena, and you can't change my mind XP) to a degree....like damn). Given how heavily I headcanon Miette as aro, and how I ship Boutique & ChampsElysee far more strongly, I don't think I can envision a long-lasting relationship between the two of them. But I definitely headcanon Miette as being a part of Serena's bi awakening, and perhaps even being the first girl that Serena ever gets with (I've yet to see Journeys, but I know Serena makes an appearance, apparently alongside Lisia and Chloe, so when I eventually see that, perhaps I'll be swayed a certain way and decide definitively what Serena's road of self-discovery looks like (and, seeing as Serena decided to go to Hoenn, that also gives me the possibility of throwing FancyFashion (Dawn/Serena) and CrimsonVelvet (May/Serena) into the mix as well XP)); maybe Miette is even the rebound/fling that helps Serena to move on from Ash. XP Whatever I decide the case may be, Fondant has nevertheless definitely joined my multishipping armada. XD

That's all that I can think of for now, and this is probably obnoxiously long as it is, so I'll leave it there for now. XP

 

[sleepwick]

originally i didn't really like carmine/nemona when i was first seeing it circulate, i didn't really dislike it so to say, but i wasn't huge on it because i was far more into nemona/juliana and carmine/lacey, but now that part 1 of the dlc is out and we've seen carmine i kind of understand it now..? i still wouldn't say i really ship it but i've grown to appreciate the idea of it a lot more now.

 

[Kanjouhi]

Nyot a Pokemon ship (I wasn't too serious into shipping outside of Conquest when I was younger, and I'm currently firmly into my "find a rarepair and get really ride or die about it" phase of fandomness with Pokemon) but Nene Kusanagi x Tsukasa Tenma... I used to say I like it since a bunch of my mutuals loved it and would constantly retweet fanart of it, but those mutuals have mostly left Twitter nyow and I just kind of realised I don't care about it much at all outside of them just being characters I don't ship with anyone else and Emurui being my ride or die ship for Sekai.

 

[sleepwick]

Nene Kusanagi x Tsukasa Tenma... I used to say I like it since a bunch of my mutuals loved it and would constantly retweet fanart of it, but those mutuals have mostly left Twitter nyow and I just kind of realised I don't care about it much at all

hahgh i was kinda surprised to see a prsk post here but the opposite happened to me...i went from not caring much about nenekasa to it being my OTP from the game. (op u have fantastic taste for liking emurui btw)

 

[Kanjouhi]

hahgh i was kinda surprised to see a prsk post here but the opposite happened to me...i went from not caring much about nenekasa to it being my OTP from the game. (op u have fantastic taste for liking emurui btw)

OMG YOURE A PROSEKA FAN... whats your fav song if you dont mind asking!!! (you can say it as a profile message if its too off topic)
alsyo ty about the emurui thing lol

 

[sleepwick]

originally i didn't care too much for it just because i didn't remember the whole xtransceiver storyline very well from when i was a kid (and lightpinkshipping was more popular in my general circle online anyway), but recently i've REALLY fallen in love with livecastershipping and it's been eating away at me because i have genuinely not seen even a single active livecastershipping fan in the past year (to be fair though, i haven't really checked their tag on many social media sites bc i didnt know the ship name until recently lol)

 

[carpology]

i think for me the big one i can think of is reguri... i wasn't very up to date on pokémon lore at first so i thought it was just a case of just green (or blue i guess) bullying red and that was it, and i really dislike shipping that sort of stuff, but after reading a really good fic about them and also just knowing about what they're actually like in canon now i love them a lot.

 

[sleepwick]

coming back with another fun super niche one that's on brand for me that'll probably be really surprising given how fondly i speak of this ship now: for a good while i kinda disliked shielbert x sonia in favor of her with sordward, i think in part due to me and my friends kinda just coming to the general consensus that it was just "sordward x sonia but less interesting" (for context, i've always been a firm believer in sword being the more "canon" game, so) it always just inherently had a lot less appeal to me

but at some point when i actually sat down and thought about the ship in concern as well with the differences in the twins personalities as we see them in the star tournament i actually started to really like it..? they seem a lot more likely that they would actually make up and maybe hang out occasionally, and i think it's kinda interesting to explore now even if it's not my favorite option for either of them.

also recently, for some reason when i was looking through names that had been coined in relation to ships with the twins, part of me never fully understood the concept of shielbert and leon, but then i thought about it more and it's really, really quickly climbing up there for me. i don't think i'll ever like it half as much as i like shielbert with piers or sonia, but it's definitely got some backing to it with leon seemingly being on good terms with the brothers, given their role in contributing to and participating in the star tournament. and also i think a lot of the reason i've grown kinda attached to this ship is because i've been talking about it with my girlfriend occasionally

 

[ekatheparas]

I used to dislike wishfulshipping (pairing between iris and cilan) mostly because of the strange, awfully inappropriate fanart i kept on getting when i searched them, but now i just feel neutral about it, and I do enjoy some of their fanart.

Lillie x Moon, although i personally used to like it, they just give me a purely platonic feeling