It’s not American slang; it’s internet slang, I guess? (The following is an explanation for anyone who both reads MoR and these discussion threads but isn’t familiar with fanfiction in general.)
“Ship” is a term of art in fan communities deriving from “relationship” that indicates you think two fictional characters in some fictional universe should be together, e.g. “I ship Harry and Hermione” means “I think Harry and Hermione should be together.” A substantial amount of fanfiction is centered on shipping, e.g. you might write fanfiction where Harry and Hermione get together explicitly because you are dissatisfied with the fact that it didn’t happen in canon.
“Shipping wars” are a kind of conflict that can occur in fan communities between people who ship different couples involving the same fictional characters, e.g. Harry/Hermione vs. Ron/Hermione.
“OT3” is short for “One True Threesome”; it derives from “OTP,” which is short for “One True Pairing” and refers to a couple that you ship very strongly, and I guess it means a threesome that you ship very strongly, e.g. Harry/Hermione/Ron. I suppose an OT3 is one way to resolve a shipping war…
It’s not American slang; it’s internet slang, I guess? (The following is an explanation for anyone who both reads MoR and these discussion threads but isn’t familiar with fanfiction in general.)
“Ship” is a term of art in fan communities deriving from “relationship” that indicates you think two fictional characters in some fictional universe should be together, e.g. “I ship Harry and Hermione” means “I think Harry and Hermione should be together.” A substantial amount of fanfiction is centered on shipping, e.g. you might write fanfiction where Harry and Hermione get together explicitly because you are dissatisfied with the fact that it didn’t happen in canon.
“Shipping wars” are a kind of conflict that can occur in fan communities between people who ship different couples involving the same fictional characters, e.g. Harry/Hermione vs. Ron/Hermione.
“OT3” is short for “One True Threesome”; it derives from “OTP,” which is short for “One True Pairing” and refers to a couple that you ship very strongly, and I guess it means a threesome that you ship very strongly, e.g. Harry/Hermione/Ron. I suppose an OT3 is one way to resolve a shipping war…
Which is especially appropriate, given the other things that happen in this chapter.