If you mischaracterize two characters to ship them, then are you really shipping them or just cardboard cutouts of them without the essence of the actual character?
Yall, just a minute ago my sister asked me wistfully, "where did Ketchup come from?" I told her I made it and she goes "WHAT! YOU MADE IT?? But I've told my friends about Ketchup the dog! I searched Ketchup the dog on the internet and nothing came up!" She thought it existed in some capacity out there and I was just a particularly dedicated fan lmao.