You can't stop shipping, nor can you ever truly predict who fans will pair together. As the creator of the source material for Cyberpunk 2077 and a longtime tabletop RPG maker, Mike Pondsmith understands these things more than most, and though he loves the passion, it’s not his favorite aspect of fandom.
During a talk at Digital Dragons 2025, he dipped into the subject in a section dedicated to fans becoming part of the fabric of a franchise. "I am driven insane by shipping," he says. "In almost any case, there are people who want to see a good romance, and if you don't provide one, they're going to invent one, and it's going to be a weird one too."
