I'd Ship it...

[MJN SEIFER]

Largely because "shipping" is already an actual word with an actual unrelated meaning, and also because you're taking the least linguistically relevant part of the word the presumed longform (relationshipping) and using that as the new word rather than the actual important part.

Other words have more than one meaning, but I guess I see your point.

I still love the term myself though, but I respect your opinion.

[Shiny]

It should be called relationing but that would terrible. Coupling makes more sense even.

[Hannibal_Khan]

I'M CONFUSED BY ALL OF THIS!!

[MJN SEIFER]

It should be called relationing but that would terrible. Coupling makes more sense even.

Coupling would only work with romantic shipping at the end of the day. I get that "two characters" are "a couple of characters", but when I hear couple in that context, I think romantic couple.

Relationing kind of works, but it may make people think of when you pair characters together as "fake family", which is a type of shipping (basically when the characters are so close, they're practically family - father/mother figures, or brother/sister figures).

[Spooniest]

We have derailed.