That Shipping Meme

[thisbluespirit]

Ganked from hamsterwoman a week ago, but it's been going around:

1. List three shipping tropes you love

In fic, presumably? I do like Forced Proximity, Fake Relationship, and Hurt/Comfort, but honestly, whatever suits the ship in question, or the author can pull off.


2. List three shipping tropes you don't love

Omegaverse, pregnancy/kidfic, fluffy/mundane-type AUs (I can enjoy a bit of fluff; I can enjoy even a mundane other setting AU if it's cleverly translating canon, but not if it's been used to remove what was interesting to me about the fandom and ship in the first place, and there do seem to be a great wash of shipfic like this about. It makes it harder to like a super-popular pairing than a small one, because how do you weed all that out? Some of it might be good!)

(Also philomytha pointed out that this kind of thing is prone to make your brain unwisely try to work out how to do the thing in a way you would like. Although I can't see that happening for Omegaverse, because it's generally pretty explicit by nature, but let's move swiftly on just in case...)


3. One emotional aspect of a ship that always gets you

Loyalty? I think, gen or romantic, I like an intense indefinable connection that goes beyond sex? (I'm rubbish at tropes. lol) There should be some sort of idk neither obstacle nor difference nor inequality sounds quite right, but there should be something in the way?

It's one of the things I love about Doctor Who - the central relationship(s) of this series are the Doctor & the companion, who (romantically or platonically) go from strangers to developing an intense bond through adventures, risking their lives for each other, placing great faith in each other - we see on screen both instances of the companion having faith in the Doctor but also that if the Doctor has faith in anything, it's their companions, both individually, over and over, but also literally, when the Seventh Doctor repels vampires by faith, he's reciting the names of every companion under his breath, and this is something that's only continued since.

The more intense and indefinable and strong and fragile and romantic and platonic all at the same time, the btter, with bonus points if with a side of deeply screwed up - I love Seven & Ace, Eight/Charley, Six&/Evelyn, Doctor&/Clara, Five/Tegan especially.


4. One physical aspect of a ship that always gets you

I don't know. Hand-holding/things involving hands are nice? Undressing, maybe? idk, can you tell I cannot do smut much, really?


5. Multiship or monoship?

Multiship. Sometimes I'm OTPish about something, but mostly even where I am, I can spend a night out with a different ship for the characters, right?

I used to deliberately write randomly generated pairings all the time, although increasingly, it feel as rather as if fandom has forgotten too much of the 'what if' and 'have fun' bits of fanficcing. ("You ship that?" "No, I just wanted to see how it would go if it did go!")

/runs 100ships

But simultaneously, I am so OT3ish and indeed Elements/Elements for Sapphire & Steel that I often can't read Sapphire/Steel unless I know who the author is because, even though that is obviously a reasonable and beautiful and canonical ship I write myself, I get sad because why so exclusive, WHY NO SILVER??????????????

So, yep. I am as unreasonable, hypocritical and inconsistent as the next person.


6. Rare pairs or mainstream?

Given that I do ship Swan Queen from OUaT, and some other things, technically both. But, really I'm rare everything when it comes to fandom most of the time. I say I didn't mean to be, but the only Swan Queen fic I wrote was terrifying. The AO3 hit count went up visibly and then people told me I had ruined their life. I think crickets are better.

But also, if there are 1000s of works in a ship already, I don't feel like there's any point in me adding to the pile, especially if no one else I know is into it. That gets very lonely fast in particular, because everybody else's fic for the pairing gets comments from apparently twenty people in a Discord whereas you might get kudos but no interaction. (SW was like this, although months and months later, some commenting did start after I was recced on tumblr, but it was weird for me, not being used to being in a megafandom, or any knowledge of how that worked in the current day.)

That obscure ship for a canon that has no fandom and nobody has ever written or will ever want? Well. Somebody has to do it, it would be wrong for me to have watched/read, and yet not have written the thing! So I did. tbh, I do usually still feel Accomplished for it.


7. Polyamory or monogamy?

Both, dependent on characters. Or what I felt like that day.

I don't have many OT3s or moresomes, but one of my most OTPish of OTPs is the Silver/Sapphire/Steel OT3 because what else do you do with them? ;-p

But it's not like that stops Sapphire/Steel being the two who are the two, or Silver having a thing with Copper, and Steel needing to get hugged on a regular basis by Lead, or having something with Jet apparently. Or all three of them flirting with humans and any other elements when it gets the job done.

(I'm very elements/elements. They're so wonderfully non-human and yet they clearly feel things for each other and they combine in endlessly different and useful ways because of course they do.)


Do I have many others? There's definitely also Annabelle/Jason/Stewart from Department S, who are all human. I mean, if they're not sleeping in each other's hotel rooms together forever, what is the point? They might be a bit more of V formation around Stewart, but idk, Jason's not one to be left out of anything, and Annabelle will want to know what the fuss is about Jason sooner or later. (I'm not sure that will go well for Jason. She may give him notes, or suggestions for what Mark Caine should do better in his next novel. Or rate each try on the computer. Certainly, something that would outrage Jason anyway. Stewart usually goes in the middle for good reasons.)


Oh, yes, and Lucy/Mina/John and John/Mina/Jonathan for Dracula (1968), because it's a very multishippy adaptation. It isn't faithful but it absolutely understands about that.


8. If the ship is physical, reversible or not?

hamsterwoman pointed out this is probably about topping/bottoming. Otherwise I'd have been here for ages going, do they mean one-sided? Both pining by turns?? Why is that only physical?

Which tells you everything you need to know about my feelings re. topping/bottoming.


9. Do you always have romantic ships for fandoms?

No, not necessarily! But I am a curious writer. In one sense I'm not very shippy, even my attempts wind up as gen, but I love exploring almost any what if scenario, including, how would this unlikely pair get together if somehow they inadvisably did? Also random generators, as I've said.

But I'm not only fannish if I have an OTP. It's very nice and can definitely add impetus, especially when shared, but not necessary.



10. How important is the sexual part (if any) of your ship?

It depends. If they are a time and space machine and a mysterious Time Lord, or three shiny elemental mysterious whatsits who would look amused at the idea, then it's not important at all. It's not necessarily important to some humans, either, or to me.

But sometimes it obviously matters to the ship, or I do really want them to. I am not a smut writer, but I can fade decently to black all right if I try, and sometimes that needs to happen, at least in fic.



11. Opinion on platonic ships?

I'm interested in characters interacting, and I do have some platonic ships that I can be intense about, and some where I don't mind which way round it is, because canon platonic relationship is already quite intense.

Also maybe my trope up the top should be "intense, indefinable ships" so that does tend to lead to instances like that. (Oh, wait: I did say that! <-- I answered the first bit of this meme a week before the second)

And, as I mentioned, DW is great for having platonic ships I feel intensely about (who among us does not have Two & Jamie & Zoe feels? And I've already mentioned Seven & Ace, bu there's One & Vicki, Eight & Lucie & Twelve & Bill, and so many others).

And I do have other ships where honestly I don't care which way round it is as long as they're together and Like That (see list above, probably missing some), including Swan Queen, even though I do also have strong shippy feels there.

I like ensemble shows, too, which are often great for all kinds of dynamics that can be fun to pull out and play with - OUaT has loads of fun 'ships of all kinds.

Plus, Indigo & Grimya from the Indigo Saga are amazing platonic endgame ship of immortal telepathic wolf & human bffs and they are the main thing I care about in that series, and I don't think they could be really romantic. (I suppose they could be sexual if Indigo was wolf Indigo at the time, but idk.)


12. List 3 ships you currently love

Sir Robert Morton/Catherine Winslow apparently.
Five/Tegan ;-p
I'm still having entirely isolated Colin/Matty from Wish Me Luck feels, because that's what happens after writing Yule-letters for fandoms that go unwritten.

That is random, but they were the first that came to mind right now, which, I suppose, is therefore as good an answer as any.


13. List 5 OTPs from past fandoms

What do you mean 'past fandoms?' I don't understand this concept! ;-p


Okay, some ships I have written a lot in the past, but not so much in the last two or three years:

Mina/Lucy/John from Dracula 1968
Brig/Liz Shaw
Adam Adamant/Georgina Jones
Harry Sullivan/Sarah Jane Smith

If you want my absolute oldest, then the only one I'm sure of, even if I never had a fandom to interact with, I was writing Hank/Sheila from Dungeons & Dragons (Cartoon) in my diary when I was about 14. Anything else stayed in my head. (I'm really very thankful I did not have any sort of proper access to the internet and fandom until I was 18. It would have been immensely embarrassing to look back on, because everything else in my head was much less sensible than Hank/Sheila, which would have been fine. I think I did maybe write it once for Yuletide, even.)


14. Opinion on the importance of marriage?

For fictional characters? For fiction of fictional characters? My opinion currently is that I feel alarmed about the writer of these questions more than anything else.

It depends what the characters would feel about it. Some of them wouldn't be able to get together without it because of period/character, to some it could never even apply to them, and some definitely shouldn't or wouldn't want to, or couldn't.

But, in another sense - I do like some Marriage fanfic tropes - forced marriage, accidental marriage, arranged marriage, marriage of convenience. I have done the Just Married fic exchange a couple of times and pined when I can't.


15. Opinion on OC kids?

Nooooo.

I mean, if I wrote it myself, for Reasons, obviously that would be fine. But in general unless I know and have faith in the author, it is merely a useful indication that now is the time for pressing that back button.

Comments

[romanajo123]

Oh, I keep forgetting about 100ships! I do have ideas, it's just... doing it?


Yeah, I looked up what Omegaverse was when I saw it on one of those " AU month" prompt lists on Tumblr. It's a hard pass from me too. I'm still not clear what makes an AU "mundane?" I feel like I'd need an example?


"No, I just want to see how it would go!" ... Awww, I feel like you just described my current descent into the Anyelle/ Anyem rabbit hole. :P


Huh, I actually hadn't given much thought to the Brig and Liz.

[liadt]

everybody else's fic for the pairing gets comments I've noticed in Instagram people will only comment to their "friends" while ignoring other comments, so I think commenting is out of fashion(!).

The importance of marriage question does come across more what your personal world view is!

[theseatheseatheopensea]

Hand holding and intense, indefinable ships are the best, always! <3

(I'm very elements/elements. They're so wonderfully non-human and yet they clearly feel things for each other and they combine in endlessly different and useful ways because of course they do.)

Yessssssssssss! <3

[kerk_hiraeth]

I must be getting old; most of those terms are alien to ne :-)

Judging by your descriptions I may also be lucky I don't understand them.

I do remember being quite shocked when someone said I wrote femslash but, apparently, the term had evolved and I had indeed been writing femslash.

Some of what those ladies who invented K/S, and thus Slash-fiction wrote stories that would scare pr0nstars back to their mammas!

I read some B7 slash-fic at a who/B7 con once and it beat some of the gay pr0n fic I used to buy. :-)

kerk

[astrogirl]

That obscure ship for a canon that has no fandom and nobody has ever written or will ever want? Well. Somebody has to do it

Honestly, this is my attitude about niche fic stuff in general. Yeah, it's probably not going to get you showers of kudos and catapult you into BNF-hood (although I have sometimes been surprised at there being more of an audience for certain things than I expected). But, the way I see it, a) fanfic writing is (or should be) mostly about having fun, having a creative outlet, and externalizing whatever it is that's currently taking over your brain before you burst from it, not about achieving internet celebrity, and b) no matter how weird and obscure the thing you're writing is, some day, someone is going to come along who is craving that exact thing, and when they find it, you will make their freaking day and both of you will know, if only for a moment, the warm feeling of encountering a kindred soul. Which, IMO, makes it entirely worthwhile. (Mind you, as someone who's mostly written at least somewhat more popular stuff, maybe that's hypocritical of me. But, then again, I did, at least once in my life, write the very first fic on AO3 for a particular thing, so maybe not. :))

Very much looking forward to being the meme-sheep on this one when I have time. Just reading over the questions, I find I have some surprisingly rambly opinions forming in my head.

[hamsterwoman]

but let's move swiftly on just in case...)

Hahaha! (Yeah, I do also start thinking about counterexamples and how would this work for me, which usually ends up being some kind of subversion, or else a POV that feels the same about the not-my-favorite trope that I do.)

although increasingly, it feel as rather as if fandom has forgotten too much of the 'what if' and 'have fun' bits of fanficcing.

Now that you mention it, it does feel like those aspects linger sort of only in nostalgia settings, and the newer stuff tends to be more towards "imagine your OTP" [in flower crowns / described by this newspaper headline / etc.] I hadn't thought of that before, but I think you're right that there's a trend away from the random what-if, which was always something I really enjoyed about fandom...

(I'm really very thankful I did not have any sort of proper access to the internet and fandom until I was 18.

Hehe, very much SAME.

[sovay]

8. If the ship is physical, reversible or not?

This question has been feeling like some kind of generational shibboleth, because everyone I know who has done this meme has blinked in incomprehension at this question, as I would have done myself. (Did "switch" just fall out of fashion?)

I'm still having entirely isolated Colin/Matty from Wish Me Luck feels, because that's what happens after writing Yule-letters for fandoms that go unwritten.

I hope someone takes you up on them regardless of season.

[ragnarok_08]

Neat answers!!