I think this is a pretty good breakdown of shipping and does a decent job of pointing to how it can lead to conflict with other fans and even creators.

Though it is a distinctly white perspective on the topic. I would love to see a BIPOC expansion on the topic of shipping. https://twitter.com/ThisIsTheTake/status/1336370214833811457

As @ThisIsTheTake so astutely points out, shipping can be a way for a fan to explore very personal ideas about romantic, sexual, and emotional relationships. Thus even the objective discussions of a fictional characters' relationships can quickly devolve into a chaotic mess.

TBF Part of what makes it difficult to have honest discussions about why we like certain characters and feel drawn toward certain types of relationships is because implicit bias can be very personal. It's uncomfortable to realize how much bigotry impacts our personal desires.

Bigotry aside, for many people characters and even certain relationships mean a great deal more than what's on the page or screen. They may have emotions and even personal history tied up in a character/movie/ship that makes them more personally valuable and significant.

While I think many of us are becoming more aware of how our emotions can impact our perspective on media, it's far from common practice for fans or even critics to stop to really examine how their personal feelings/bais much less call them out in order to be more subjective.

For example, I have a lot of personal feelings wrapped up on Captain America as a character. I know it can color my perspective on the character's actions and make me more sensitive to criticism of that character. So I don't seek it out, but I don't outright reject it either.

Personally, I think Captain America: Civil War was a decent exploration of why both Cap and Tony were wrong because they were two VERY powerful people prioritizing their own personal feelings, and MANY much less powerful paid the price for it.

I think that a big part of T'Challa's role in CV was to show an exterior perspective on all their actions, especially in that it's T'Challa who confronts the root of the conflict, Zemo, and employs a non-violent resolution. While Steve and Tony fight each other.

T'Challa was dealing with his own deeply personal loss as a result of Zemo's actions, and yet he is able to be compassionate and not kill the man who killed his father. While Tony and Steve tore apart an airport and the Avengers, and almost got Rhodey killed as a result.

Damn, if all that's not relevant to just about every ship war, and complete meltdown of a discussion of a character/ship on social media I've seen over the years.

*tired sigh*