I think there's a misconception certain people have that most people (in regards to shipping) take into account the canonical or perceived age/age range of characters before they ship them
When the thing is that quite a lot of people ship things based on the perceived ship dynamic, so there are plenty of people who never factor in "canon ages"
#i just be ramblin#fandom wank#And that's not to say that age is never a factor in shipping or that it's strange to factor it in#It's just that like. With me for instance (especially with properties where ages are unclear or highly ambiguous) I tend to ship based upon#dynamics first and then find out ages (if there are any) later#I knew how fandom treated Tails and how he was in the 90s tv shows‚ but I didn't even know there 'canon ages' at one point before I watched#Sonic Prime and went down the Sontails/Sonine path#I didn't play Zelda botw and immediately do character age research. I just like shipping Link and Zelda with characters I like their#dynamics with.#I remember I watched Promare for the first time and to me Galo and Lio were in their 20s minimum#So I couldn't believe when I heard that people online harassed the creators/staff so much that they gave them official ages marking them#as teenagers#But really it just drives me crazy seeing so many people online complain about people liking certain ships that are ''age gap''#(Whether the age gap is 3 years or 30 years or 100000 doesn't matter)#Because I want to take them by the shoulders and remind them of some of the most popular ship dynamics out there#People are going to ship childhood friends/best friends#People are going to ship fated enemies#People are going to ship fated rivals#People are going to ship characters who are canonical soulmates/are soulbound#People are going to ship a character with a supernatural creature that's 100 or more years older#People are going to ship character dynamics they like regardless of ages#And often if the age itself is the focus‚ then it's just another type of ship dynamic#Person x older person they admire. Student x teacher. Two same age teenagers. Milf/Dilf x young person/young adukt#*adult#etc etc#None of it's new. It's just personal fictional preference#Not everyone is out there checking fictional character canon ages so they can either ship an '' ''unproblematic'' '' or a#'' ''problematic'' '' ship knowingly#For a lot of people it's not that deep. The ship dynamic or visual aesthetic is hot to them so they ship it#And then if the ages matter for any reason they make it clear in aus/fic/fanart
