Monday DE: The Shipping Forecast

[splash_of_blue]

Let's start the week - and my first permanent DE slot - with OTPs (one true pairings).

Tell me about your OTPs - both fandoms you play in bar, and fandoms you don't. Is there a particular type of relationship dynamic or setting that appeals to you? Do your pups have any OTPs in bar or in canon (i.e. are they a Shipper On Deck)? Or do you/your pups have no interest in romantic relationships at all?


Alternatively: I booked today off to enjoy having the house to myself. Twenty minutes after everyone left, just as I'm starting to get everything set up the way I want, my delightful little brother let himself in to wash his clothes... I had to take myself off to another room to scream. I have been looking forward to this for weeks!

So - tell me about times your/your pups' plans have gone disastrously wrong, and how you/they dealt with it.

Comments

[inlovewithwords]

First, the shipper question!

Hands down my OTP in fandoms I play and possibly even just, like, in general is Lois Lane/Clark Kent. Also feel free to rank Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy there. So I think I may have a thing about highly opinionated women and guys who love that they are independent. That said, I usually pick an OTP out of any fandom I encounter because I am All About Romance Plots (i love them so much).

I do also have a soft spot for the dynamic of traditionally-feminine-woman with a spine of steel, opinionated in her way but maybe not the like the brassy unafraid loud Lois, just... sweet and soft and working within the boundaries of gender oppression and also not giving an inch, and the kind of man who appreciates her for her strength and mind and likes that she calls him an asshole in private when needed and is poised and graceful always in public. I loves me my action girls and my bold girls and my obviously broken girls, but I also really love finding feminist ways to write women in relationships that fit more traditional molds. (PS: Eomer/Lothiriel is starting to really climb up there in my OTPs thanks to the AO3 tag.)

OTPs in what I play in Bar:
Lois/Clark
Tavi/Kitai
Evelyn/[currently a spoiler, I'll get back to that]
and
okay fine i guess technically Anakin is permanently in love with Padme, but... it's a really messed up relationship in some ways and I hesitate to call it that.

As for my characters and shipping:
Evelyn will absolutely end up a shipper for her family (i.e., the party and important NPCs). SUCH SHIPPING. If the person has indicated interest in being shipped.

Eriond is ace but definitely considers the relationships of the humans to be a Professional Interest, as does the Prophecy. Because that world is creepy.

Lois is really inept at other people's relationships but is all there to support her friends in whatever they need from her, and sometimes ships some couples, but only in her head because she is baaaad at this. She is, however, deeply interested in her own romantic relationship she will develop within the next two weeks (not that she will know for a couple years it's romantic, but ahahahahaha the otp is unkillable, DC tried and failed).

Tavi has some amount of interest in Max and Veradis's complicated relationship (especially since finding out Veradis is distant family and he vaguely wants to katamari Max up into his family more officially than just Derius calling him "Uncle Max") but other than that he keeps his nose well out of other people's relationships. He is bad at this stuff and knows it, ask his soulbonded wife.

Anakin has a deep interest in Obi-wan and Satine's past and present relationship. Partly, though, this is because he's desperately searching for justification for his own relationship, because sometimes Anakin doesn't know how to be selfless in a healthy or non-selfish way.

R2 frankly is a shipper. He considers his humans his responsibility to look after, and if they express romantic interests in people, he will facilitate things.

Second question:
Eriond really only has that time the "sliding down bannisters on pillows" plan resulted in too many feathers. Mostly he and his friend just giggled and cleaned up. Oh, and the time with the sled and the mud. No biggie, just sledded off a hill into a river and got all muddy.

Evelyn: ........... this is the subject of a noodle incident I do not yet know the details of but it comes up in a game of Wicked Grace and it's insane. Also, arguably, "I'll just be a quiet observer at the summit trying to make peace between the mages and everyone else, I won't have to get involved and then maybe I can go finally find my friends and family in peace."

Lois: Like, when doesn't it go disastrously wrong, though. Most recently, "she wanted to get a closer look at a thing and then nearly died and saw someone fly" and she's going to deal with it by deciding one day she will find out what and who she saw. OH ALSO. She will one day be settling into a permanent school finally, in Metropolis, and have a whole four-step plan to fit in, not make waves, make friends, and not piss anyone off. Yeah twenty minutes in she'd failed at almost all of it and come out with an internship at the Daily Planet, so...

Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader and R2-D2: . . . i cannot answer this question because it's, like, at least half the episodes of clone wars and basically all the prequel trilogy, to say nothing of the original trilogy. like seriously. basically everything in existence for both of them is "how the plan went disastrously wrong and we then pulled victory from the jaws of blatant stupidity."

[ceitfianna]

My favorite OTPs are ones where they're both competent and no one's perfect but that phrase that their broken parts fit together. Also while they help each other become better. I ship both canon and in Bar, I love Milliways' relationships and all the complicated and unexpected variations that they come in. Relationships are part of why I love roleplaying, those interactions that are hard to predict. I think of mine Demeter and Moist have been involved with the most other characters while Will S. and Sameth have had the longest running relationships.

The OTP that has been consuming and fueling my creativity has been Jyn and Cassian from Rogue One. I've written a lot of fics set in everyone lives AUs, I've written little missing canon moments from them and so many AUs. I never was really an AU person before but I love thinking about who they would be and how they would still find ways to connect no matter the world. In terms of Bar relationships, Cassian's mainly had ones that are fairly casual but since its him, there's always a deeper connection going on especially with Emcee. Those two are always surprising me and making me sad and happy at the same time. A big part of this is because Cassian has dedicated his life to the Rebellion so relationships aren't something he seeks out.

Quentin has a canon partner that I like, he and Dean are adorable but I also really enjoy his relationship with Yamato. Though that's been going quietly due to me moving Quentin so slowly through his canon.

Sameth and Kait are one of my favorite Milliways' relationships and would have stayed by OTP for Sameth if canon hadn't introduced Ferin. She's wonderful and actually reminds me a lot of Kait, it makes me happy that the canon author also thinks that Sameth has a thing for highly competent brunettes.

Of my other characters, I enjoy their canon pairings but its not really OTP level. Ivan and Tej are lovely. Moist and Spike are interesting but always read more as a happy for now than long term thing. Tumnus I can't imagine in any kind of romantic relationship. Demeter's relationship with her daughter always comes first but I loved her and Malcolm. William and Thalia were completely surprising and fun.

Milliways actually helped to further a canon relationship for a past character; Jane from Becoming Jane since Tom came to Bar. I loved how having more time in Bar made them make more sense. That was also true for Charles and Erik when we had an Erik in Bar. I love that messed up pair of mutants and enjoyed having a chance to thread their story out.

I just realized that I missed the part of the question of them being shippers in canon, which is really interesting. Demeter basically ships everyone she meets and sometimes even helps things happen. Quentin ships Toby and Tybalt and wishes that they would get themselves together. Will S. very much ships Robin and Marian and is happy that they're together as they should. A lot of my others want their friends to be happy but there isn't that shipping thing. I actually love writing the even their friends ship them trope because its a great way to show supportive friends around a couple.

[bjornwilde]

My basis for a good romance is both characters being pretty awesome on their own and just getting better when together. I love independent peeps that lower their guard to that special someone. Sometimes these peeps are broken in some way and the other person just helps the broken pieces fit better, without being co-dependent.

Some of my top OTPs are Ben Grimm and Alicia Masters. Those two have been through so much and still were always there to support the other, even when they weren’t together.

Tybalt/Tody Daye. Just these two and their squishy, slow burn romance.

Andrea Nash and Raphael Medrono, from the Kate Daniels series. I love that they accept each others flaws and become better people together.

I love the idea of Viv Vision and Riri Williams/Iron Heart, though I don’t ship them at this point as Riri doesn’t seem comfortable with the idea. If she comes around to being comfortable, I’m there man.

Hank McCoy and Raven Darkholme. These two are very cute and have a lot of chemistry, but Hank has a lot of work to do before he is good for her.

[student_of_impossibility]

and tavi gets his own tag to answer that second question, because this comes best from him:

"*awkwardly clears throat* Well. I was fifteen years old and an orphaned apprentice shepherd, trying to save up enough money to pay for a semester at the Academy in hopes my high performance would convince someone to pay for the rest of it. Uncle Bernard had given me a flock of sheep and if I took care of them properly for a year, he'd buy them back from me and I'd be able to use that money to go to the capital and go to school.

I was also-- well, as mentioned, I was fifteen. There was a very pretty girl on my uncle's Steadholt, who never paid me even the slightest attention--never mind that my uncle was the Steadholder and I was smarter than everyone else, and Mother always said I was a very cute kid, but I had absolutely no furycrafting and I was much too small for my age, which left me pretty much at the bottom of the pecking order. But that day she was being very affectionate and promised she'd be very grateful to me if I picked her some flowers. Highly illegal flowers to pick except under carefully controlled circumstances, I will add: they're the basis of an aphrodisiac as well as being a very pretty bloom.

But I had my flock of sheep in the fields grazing, and I needed to bring them in. If I got the flowers, I wouldn't have time that night. So I decided to get the flowers that night, wake up before everyone else, sneak out, and bring in the sheep then before anyone noticed. It was a great plan, no way to fail.

...

*awkwardly clears throat again*

Uh.

Well, I did eventually bring the sheep in. A few days and far too many near-death experiences later. And I did get to go to school--though not, ah, because of my uncle.

. . .

There was also that time I tried to negotiate a peace treaty a treasonous commanding officer of mine had specifically forbidden me from attempting to facilitate and I ended up having to break into and out of a prison I'd designed the defenses for, not to mention--a lot of other things. And the time that-- anyway.

And now I'm married to a non-Aleran--first time in history that's happened, her people killed my father's Legion the day I was born so that's pretty big really--who tried to kill me when we met in those first two days after I tried to bring in the sheep, and I may have helped trigger an apocalypse with her in those two days, which we recently stopped, and now I'm First Lord.

Look, I only wanted to bring in the sheep.

It just got... complicated."

no seriously

furies of calderon especially but the series in general is one long "what could possibly go wrong" on both in-world and meta levels

[cottoncandypink]

I sail the canon ship with this one, and will go down with it. Wilford is so disgustingly in love with Celine it hurts. I was a pretty strong no-shipper in this fandom until that one came around.

For bad days, well. There's no such thing as a mild inconvenience in Los Santos. Either your day is business as usual, or the world is ending.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Yamato has the canon ship of him and Sora, in what seems to be an on-and-off again relationship (they're dating in 02, but then they've broken up in Tri, but then they're together in 02's future-epilogue) and Iiii'm fairly neutral-positive on it! I'm not a spirited shipper of it, but I like it well enough -- Sora's unequivocal clarity on her feelings about people is good for dealing with Yamato's crippling self-worth issues; and Yamato's perceptive enough to see through her attempts to hide her problems and proactive enough to offer help with them. Also, they're both ridiculously competitive people, so it's a guarantee that every time one of them gets into a stupid competition with someone else, the other one will be there to act as a cheerleader.

Tri also leans in very heavily to the idea of Taichi/Yamato, with Yamato going so far as describing Taichi as the most precious thing in the world to him, and the two indulging in the well-worn Japanese romance fiction trope of "We're going to go into careers of roughly equal stature specifically so that we can keep up with each other." It's a less ... healthy pairing than Sora and Yamato, because both Taichi and Yamato are garbage with their feelings, and because their competitive natures tend to make them compete with each other, but it's also a very adorable pairing.

(The novels, audio dramas, and video game variously imply that Mimi, Koushiro, and Jyou have also variously had crushes on Yamato at different times, to say nothing of Jun and her obsession with him, and that one nameless girl who fainted because he smiled at her. I don't ship him with any of them, but the kid's popular, I'll give him that.)

In-bar, I really enjoy his relationship with Quentin, even if Yamato has so far struggled to actually admit that it's a relationship, and seizes up any time he tries to describe it as one.

As far as who he ships: In canon, he seems to ship Mimi and Koushiro with each other, at least insofar as we get shots of him smiling fondly at them when nobody else is looking. In-bar (well, bar and other people's worlds), he ships Barry and Iris.

[splash_of_blue]

It is now 18:30, I rearranged all my work commitments to take today off, and my brother still won't leave. I turned the air absolutely blue (out of earshot) when he first turned up, but now I wish to scream.

Anyway, OTPs...

I have a known weakness for slash pairings set pre-legalisation or pre-acceptance of homosexuality. My first ever OTP, and still probably my all-time-favourite, is original canon Sherlock Holmes/John Watson. I also love Raffles/Bunny (of The Amateur Cracksman), Max DeBryn/Morse (Endeavour) and Dr Mac/whoever the hell she likes (Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries). I'm not sure why the preference for pre-legalisation stories; maybe it's because they resonate with me as a partially-closeted queer woman myself, maybe it's the history geek in me, maybe it's just that I enjoy the sneaking around and the angst potential in fics. (I am also amused that in my two favourite historical crime shows, my favourite characters are Dr Mac and Dr Max!)

I ship both het, femmeslash and slash, in different proportions and different fandoms. Some fandoms, like The West Wing, I like both the canon ships and the fandom ones; sometimes it's fandom pairings all the way (Neville/Luna OTP forever), and sometimes I like getting round conflicting OTPs with an OT3 instead! [cough] Moist/Otto/Sacharissa [coughcough] Jyn/Cassian/Bodhi [coughcoughcough]

Dynamics I don't like: daddy issues/parental issues. About the only kind of ship fic I won't at least give a go is for pairings of mentors/mentees. Noooooo no no no. I'm also not keen on major age-gap (or perceived age-gap) romances; I always find the power dynamics involved are just kind of... ick. It's the only reason why I don't currently ship Finn/Poe in Star Wars - although the Poe Dameron I play in bar is bi/pan, Finn just reads as too much of a kid to me for the pairing to work. I'm interested to see where he'll be by the end of Episode IX, and if my feelings on the ship will change.

In the bar: Sam/Medusa will always be my OTP. They were so adorable! I miss them rather.

[splash_of_blue]

19:00 update: HE'S GONE HE'S GONE HE'S GONE HE'S FINALLY LEFT THANK GOD

[i_am_your_host]

I just started watching Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries and am automatically a fan of Dr. Mac. (And ugggghh the aesthetics of this show is my crack.)

[splash_of_blue]

(Uggggh I know right!? SO beautiful.)

Dr Mac is my favouritest and my best. (Also I fancy her, because 1920s butch/tomboy aesthetics are my absolute jam.)

I couldn't quite find my way into her head enough to play Mac, but I've tested out a Phryne account in panfandomsandbox occasionally. Phryne/Jack's 'blatantly in love/lust but can't be together because Society' is absolute catnip for me. But omg guys, someone find Mac a nice girlfriend!

[splash_of_blue]

Oops. I tripped and fell on this lovely Dr Mac photo I am so sorry I can't think how this happened. ;)

[i_am_your_host]

Yesssss.

Riding this wild tangent, I'm sure you've seen Tipping the Velvet? Because Nan and Kitty.

[splash_of_blue]

OH GOD YEAH. Way, way too long ago, but... yes. Very yes. Extremely yes.

[death_gone_mad]

I am dense when it comes to relationships, especially when it is the romantic or sexual variety, so I just go for what is super obvious in canon. And sometimes super cute fandom.

Amascut herself is manipulative of 'ships, so she does indeed watch them closely. But it is usually antagonistic relationships that she promotes. Well, except for Enahkra x Zamorak because that is such a disaster. There are fanworks that show a saner Amascut shipping her brother Icthlarin and the personification of Death, Harold, in canon but it is in canon too, it's just usually other gods that are shipping the old dog and his bones. Well, not shipping; more taunting.

If Fairy Fixit ships anyone she's silent about it.

[skyhigh_seance]

All of my ships for Umbrella Academy are canon ships - Diego/Patch, Five/Dolores, Hazel/*spoilers*, and hardcore for Klaus/Dave, fight me. Allison/Luther is cute, but shades of incest make it weird.

As for things that went wrong: Klaus was looking forward to getting his powers, something cool and helpful like Luther or Diego... aaaaaand then the ghosts showed up. Eff. That. Noise.

[amiable_horror]

But you do get to talk with your other brother...

[ooc: I'm not sure if I'll get to tag back today or not, but I shall try.]

[skyhigh_seance]

That's, like, the one benefit. And no one seems to believe he talks with his brother, so...

(Ooc: no worries, looking forward to it when it comes!)

[i_am_your_host]

Klaus/Dave 4ever

[skyhigh_seance]

It's like, that's fine, I don't need that heart, you can break it...

[i_am_your_host]

Deeply flawed (sometimes terribly so) people trying to fill the gaping holes in one another's lives while never putting into words that they love each other.

I mean, I like a lot of different types of relationship dynamics! some of them mentioned above! but that one seems to be the one I end up gravitating toward the most, reading/watching and playing and getting emotionally invested in.

While Emcee isn't part of any OTP in canon, I can't help but think that he is a shipper. He observes the romance of Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz (even "helps" during the pineapple dance), and Sally Bowles and Cliff Bradshaw. "Who knows where the heart truly leads us?" He just wants people to be happy. And it's the same for anyone he comes across in Milliways who find themselves in relationships of their own. He thinks it's great for other people, just not him.

So when I say that Emcee isn't part of any OTP, that's slightly a lie, because I did ship him pretty hard with Eric Northman in Milliways, ahahah. I purposefully throw him with people who are bad for him. Emcee doesn't want any romantic relationships anyway because he is the love-them-leave-them sort, and he wouldn't want to end up hurting anyone who cared about him, or who he actually grew to care about.

[thewidewideworld]

Which is not to say there aren't people in Emcee's life who do and will love him anyway! (fume both Sinric and Jay in my head.)

[i_am_your_host]

This is true! And it's sort of like on the edge of Emcee's peripheral vision, he knows there are people who love him In That Way and for whom he does care about deeply. But there is a part of him that either can't, won't, or doesn't know how to fully reciprocate in a way they deserve (or at least, in a way he thinks they deserve). Which is why it was easy with Eric because in Emcee's head it was only obsession and infatuation and not real love.

[aberration]

I can't really say that I usually have strong OTP feelings anymore. In most fandoms I feel like I just tend to like canon pairings because I like the canon (if I like a canon, it's usually going to have characterization that I like, and so I'll generally agree with/enjoy how it portrays relationships). But it's usually less about being invested in the shipping specifically than in the canon. I generally don't read a lot of shipping fic, even for pairings I like, because I like romance as a part of something broader. I don't generally have strong one pair vs. another shipping preferences, I just like a good story. But I guess some recent exceptions have been:

Korra/Asami – Yeah, I wanted this loooong before canon had barely hinted at going that way. And I was deeply skeptical of ever seeing it happen, though only for real world reasons. And yes okay, I love my girlfriends, but these two also hit a lot of good spots for me – I like that they have complementing personalities, with different strengths and weaknesses that overlap well. I like that they each have different qualities that might be traditionally considered "masculine"/"feminine." I like that they're both foremost concerned with supporting each other. So this was a situation where I felt, as characters, they'd be so great together, but that there was zero chance of canon exploring that because they're a queer pairing. So that wasn't purely "I like the canon" until, um, it was.



Poe/Finn/Rey – idk after TFA I was obsessed with these three making out with each other. I even sought out fic for it, which again, that's something I basically never do. I still like this, though now I'd also want to include Rose somehow.



Hera/Kanan – okay

Look.

You know that scene in the first Lord of the Rings movie, where Boromir's dying in Aragorn's arms and tells him with his dying breath that he would have followed him? All I want is something like that, but a man saying it to a woman.

And that is what Kanan feels for Hera. He's not just protective of her, he doesn't just love her. He admires her. She inspires him, she broke through his hardened cynicism and gave him a purpose like really no one else had. He would, absolutely, follow her to the end. And for Hera, who chose to leave her family, who isolated herself because she had to put her entire heart into this fight – he doesn't ask her to be anything but what she is. That was something that happened over time, but it happened. He believes in her, and believed in her in a time and in a way no one else did, and even while being one of very few people with whom she feels she can share her fears, vulnerabilities, and weaknesses. He believes in her even with all of that.

(And yeah, I guess as a note about our writing, I was glad that we wrote a way for Hera to tell Kanan she loved him in her own time, by her own volition, and in her own words.)