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Alright, shipping. The quintessential experience of fandom.
But the problem with shipping is not everyone is onboard the same ship or the flotilla you want to read about only has one destroyer in it when you would rather have only destroyers, thank you very much.
Or a lot of people like your ship, quite a lot, actually, but no one is taking a multi-year cruise around the world with frequent stops for star-gazing or rock collecting (or a 30-minute trip across the river because honest to god, you have to finish reading it before your lunch break is over). Or there are a lot of ships available with the color of sail and number of rooms you like - but they are all half finished. (In fact, the best one you ever read is literally only the scaffold.)
Or sometimes there a lot of ships, but no one is writing your ship and you go - god damn it, what do you mean I have to build the ship. From scratch. Without instruction. I just wanted to take a nice trip to the Carribean for once in antqiue canoe without having to handcarve the paddles myself. (And of course there are those who cackle evilly. Yes. I am the first on to build this ship and I have won. Mwa-ha-ha. Or something like that.)
Sometimes you open the cruise line yourself; sometimes you go to a well-establish cruise line and think - I like the beach but these people aren’t beaching the way I would like to - with a nice chair and a big fat statistics book; sometimes you read through the cruise line brochure and go huh, I don’t really like sky-diving into volcanoes, but I’ve done every other cruise, so I will give it a try and it’s the best damn thing you’ve ever read (and sometimes you realize as your parachute is burning off of your that the refund policy (i.e. the back button) was a great invention.) Sometimes the wonky shack with the Sharpie sign made of wooden boards that you found wandering drunk on the beach at 2 am is the most profound boat ride you ever have had; (and sometimes is one of the worst mistakes you ever made. (Re: enter the back button)).
Sometimes a ship is not your ship until your favorite ship builder builds it. Sometimes a ship is not your ship except for that one fic. Sometimes a ship is not your ship; that’s ok. There are lots of other ships in the harbor. (Though it would be nice if they stopped calling a canoe a kayak; yes they are self paddled but they are two different boats.)
Some people only have one ship. Some people have more ships than a navy. Some people only travel on one ship at a time. Some people try out all types of ships. (A lot of ships include bicycles for some reason.) Some people shift from one ship to another. (But everyone learns how their own personal ship operates, how it best turns, and when to adjust the scene, I mean the sails, to get where you want to go - and it isn’t going to look like anyone else’s because it is your version of your ship and it sails just fine, thank you very much.)(Just don’t look at the overcapsized drafts in the past.)
A ship is a ship is a ship. As long as we let people ship and build ships and travel on ships, even if their ships aren’t our ships and our ship ideas have different names, even if they are in the same class, well, we can all go on a lovely journey.
As for me and my ships, I prefer genfic with a good side of whump.