And I can't decide if I'm envious of not being involved in the shipping or frustrated that it seems harder to make plot happen.

Probs a bit of both.

Okay but what if I want to ship with friends AND plot

what then

I know this feeling well

I like to ship, but sometimes I just see a character and am like THIS WOULD BE A GREAT INTERACTION

this is a pet peeve of mine.

failaga: Then that's what you should do, same as if you only want to ship or only want to do plot. Nothing's wrong with any option.

It's just unfortunate when players' desires don't align.

I'm OK with shipping. but when that's the only thing ppl want to play they should musebox it instead of ignoring everyone else. I exist and I'm part of the game tyvm you know?

AthenaZ: Agreed. I think most peeps are pretty good about not ignoring others, but it's so frustrating when you can tell the shipping is a clear priority and your attempts to develop alternative CR fail.

I could "this" this all day

it's especially bad when it's ooc for your character to ignore theirs.

Or ooc for their character to ignore yours.

yes exactly.

I had someone once tell me. 'You should just assume he's with her most of the time.' I didn't sign up to play your character as well as mine buddy.

Yeah. Assumed CR has a place but I don't like too much of it.

I've found, personally, that the best sort of ships in RP come from random places.It's why I don't aim for ships when I RP and while I'm not against shipping at all, don't really look for it anymore.

(basically: I agree. having others want to do nothing more than ship characters makes finding general cr tricky at best)

^ agreed

Hell yeah, organic stuff is awesome. And unexpected!

It also tends to last the longest game-wise, I've found. the one or two times I was willing to attempt a ship on purpose, it tended to either feel forced or fall flat

when it's organic, it's like the muses take over or something haha

This is so true. All my favorite relationships in games both romantic and otherwise ended up growing organically I had one character gain what amounted to a father figure this way and it was amazing.

I had my Claire Bennet muse married to a Dean Winchester (Claire was way older due to game mechanics so the skeeviness factor wasn't present) and NONE of their ship - from dating, married, kids - was planned

it just happened bc of things in game that kept having them interacting until it just took on a life of its own. and it was amazing.