I’ve often wondered why, in the realm of shipping, one ship is particularly popular or even more popular than another. I understand that taste is subjective and we all have our reasons for liking some characters (or combinations of characters), but to my eyes, there’s not much difference between them.

But recently, it clicked: Sometimes, it’s simply about imagining what sex between these characters would be like.

“Well, obviously,” you might be saying, but I feel like my approach to pairings is such that this didn’t occur to me for a long time. The way I grow to like a particular relationship in fiction comes from thinking about how characters complement each other, and how they’d be for each other if they were together. While physical attraction is a factor, it’s the emotional and interpersonal dynamic that I mainly think about, and in a way that doesn’t automatically translate to me as behavior in bed.

But now that I realize this, I can sometimes see a ship and have a better sense as to what makes it and its fandom tick. And I think this has given me a bit more empathy for fans I don’t understand right away.