Shipping seems to be a core part of how a lot of people engage with fandom and i think i straight-up don't understand it and never have
Like it's very rare for me to get the sense of "ah these characters would be cute together" in the first place, much less to dedicate my engagement with the entire work of fiction around that sense, broadcast it to everyone else in the fandom, do art about it consistently…
But for other people, this is a matter of war. This level of dramatic escalation has been a staple of shipping culture for at least multiple decades if not Always, and like. why. i'm so used to hotswapping headcanons and AUs based on the situation, how is this any different
Maybe it's just that i'm primed to expect romance subplots to be shallow, and have as much depth and chemistry as the "Sk8er Boi" intro, purely comphet propaganda, and be all will-they-won't-they right up until the finale so we never actually see them together (which has given me such unhelpful and unhealthy standards for how relationships play out after the start), and at worst ruin the entire show. Maybe all of that just gets in the way of putting much value on imagining fictional characters getting together.
——but like, even all that aside, say they do become an item. then what. Is the canonicity of the relationship That important. Was it worth it. What is the fighting actually for
So why is shipping . a thing . Please help me understandddd
I think i like the idea of romance. I think it's just the fiction that bugs me. Or am i being some stripe of a-spec egg, here? (I've been having confusing, conflicting feelings about that too)