![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Ship Song
Earlier today, I came across an entry by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
misscam (here) via ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
metafandom about why - not who - people ship. It's not, I'm sure, a new topic of discussion, but it did get me thinking - about what I ship, and more curiously, about what I don't.
There are a few fandoms I'm active in, for a given value of "active." Buffy/Angel, Firefly, Roswell, and Harry Potter, mainly. Others I may participate in, via fanfiction or roleplaying, but don't consider myself really involved in; and one I'm quite heavily involved in, but care relatively little about the canon itself (I know, right?). Quite a few I could talk about, but won't, because I have a feeling this is going to get long enough.
I'll start with Buffy (or BtVS, I suppose, to distinguish it from the character), since it was my first love. A lot of what I ship on BtVS has to do with the way I approach the series - via Buffy. I'm completely, unashamedly, Buffy-centric. I ship her with a lot of people; mostly, simply because I love her character. Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Spike, Buffy/Xander, Buffy/Riley, Buffy/Faith. And my Buffy-ships influence what else I ship - but only to a certain extent.
I don't, for example, ship Angel with anyone else. In the eight years he was on BtVS and AtS, Buffy, for me, is all he gets. His interactions with Darla, Drusilla, and Spike are very interesting, but I'm simply not interested in them in a shipping sort of way. In AtS, I love Nina as a character, but not her relationship with Angel.
Spike, on the other hand, I'll freely ship with Dru, with the Buffybot (for what it's worth), and even with Faith. Xander is somewhat of a mixed bag; I like Xander/Faith, adore Xander/Cordelia, but am lukewarm about Xander/Anya. And I want to like Xander/Anya, just as I want to like Anya as a character. I think the main reason I can't entirely get on board with her is that I feel her characterisation is, occasionally, shallow and inconsistent, which is a pity.
Cordelia, in contrast, I love as a character. But no matter how much I adore her, I will never ship Angel/Cordelia; whether that's because I feel that Angel is "reserved" for Buffy, or because of the way her characterisation changed throughout AtS, I'm not sure. I am, however, completely on board with Cordelia/Wesley and Cordelia/Doyle.
Faith, much like Buffy, I'll ship with just about anyone - even Angel, to some extent (mostly crack, like in Enemies). Mostly, I like her with Buffy, Spike, and Xander - are my favourite characters emerging yet?
I ship Willow/Oz and Willow/Tara just about equally. I aggressively do not ship Willow/Kennedy or Willow/Xander. Why? With Willow/Kennedy, it was entirely too rushed; it felt too much like "Willow's gay, Kennedy's gay, therefore they are in a relationship." With Willow/Xander, I suppose I'm unwilling to relinquish my Buffy-possession of him lightly, and I never identified with Willow (another reason, I suppose, I don't ship Willow/Kennedy - I adore Kennedy, and want her for someone I identify with more). Also, I'm a huge fan of unresolved sexual tension, and Willow and Xander, to me, never felt like they had any sexual tension. Put plainly, it bores me. On the flip side, I think both Willow/Oz and Willow/Tara were well-developed in canon, and so I ship them without reservation.
In AtS, I ship Fred/Gunn, Wesley/Fred, and Wesley/Lilah, all for the same reason - I enjoyed those relationships in the series. Conversely, I don't ship Connor/Cordelia; the entire story arc surrounding the pairing was, I think, unnecessary and unrealistic, and that's enough to taint it. (Also, it squicks me, and not in the good way.) Whereas Illyria's storyline in season five was perfectly bittersweet, if a little pointless in the face of the show's cancellation at the end of that season, and so Wesley/Illyria = good.
Most of my BtVS/AtS ships are explicitly canonical, and the rest are heavily (and deliberately) subtextual. There are subtextual pairings I don't ship, because they just don't interest me, and canonical ones I don't, usually because of the way they played out in canon. Those I do ship, I generally ship for two reasons; firstly, because I love the individual characters, and secondly, because I love the canonical representation of those pairings.
(In Roswell, I find myself able to ship just about any [het] pairing, based mostly on the former reasoning and partly on the latter. In Firefly, ditto - excluding Book, and including femmeslash and crazy space incest.)
In Harry Potter, what I ship is entirely different, and unlike my other fandoms, it's very easily divided into canon and fandom. What I ship in canon is, for the most part, not what I'm interested in reading or writing about, and vice-versa. Excluded from both categories - or perhaps included in both - are adult pairings so firmly entrenched in canon I don't feel they need justification, but enjoy reading about (in the same way, I suspect, that I enjoy reading and writing gen stories). And Remus/Sirius.
In canon, I suppose I ship Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione - though not necessarily in the way they occurred in canon, and mostly simply because that's what I was expecting to happen. Really, though, when it comes to the books, I don't care overmuch about the students' romantic relationships, or if any exist.
In fandom - that is, fanfic, mostly - it's a completely different story. Most of my fanfic pairings are Hermione-centric; not necessarily because I love her as a character, but because I love the way she can be written, and the relationships which can be created using her character. At first, I briefly flirted with Snape/Hermione (not my thing) before settling on Draco/Hermione, which is where I thought I'd stay. (It bears mentioning here that non-con is a huge kink of mine, and I possess an unhealthy love for the "worst" tropes and cliches of the pairing, Head Boy/Head Girl and forced marriage included.) Lucius/Hermione is definitely fun, if not my main thing.
The place I never thought I'd end up? Harry/Hermione. And yet, here I am. Not, it should be said, in a "harmonious" way; I like my Harry dark, and my Harry/Hermione anything but fluffy. It interests me in the same way Draco/Hermione does, but somehow more so - because the taboo is greater by far when subverting a close friendship than when escalating a mutual hatred.
Also, I ship Viktor/Hermione, in a completely fluffy and canon sort of way, possibly just to be contrary.
... and that, I think, is it. For the most part, what I ship is borne out of a love of the individual characters, and of the pairing as portrayed in canon. What I don't ship is spurred by dissatisfaction with the relationship's portrayal in canon, or very occasionally with the characters involved. Where fanfic is involved, I may also ship the relationship more than the characters - usually, in cases where I use (writing) fanfic as an exercise in creating those sorts of relationships in original fiction, or (reading) purely for porn. Because that's what the internet is for.
misscam (here) via metafandom about why - not who - people ship. It's not, I'm sure, a new topic of discussion, but it did get me thinking - about what I ship, and more curiously, about what I don't.There are a few fandoms I'm active in, for a given value of "active." Buffy/Angel, Firefly, Roswell, and Harry Potter, mainly. Others I may participate in, via fanfiction or roleplaying, but don't consider myself really involved in; and one I'm quite heavily involved in, but care relatively little about the canon itself (I know, right?). Quite a few I could talk about, but won't, because I have a feeling this is going to get long enough.
I'll start with Buffy (or BtVS, I suppose, to distinguish it from the character), since it was my first love. A lot of what I ship on BtVS has to do with the way I approach the series - via Buffy. I'm completely, unashamedly, Buffy-centric. I ship her with a lot of people; mostly, simply because I love her character. Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Spike, Buffy/Xander, Buffy/Riley, Buffy/Faith. And my Buffy-ships influence what else I ship - but only to a certain extent.
I don't, for example, ship Angel with anyone else. In the eight years he was on BtVS and AtS, Buffy, for me, is all he gets. His interactions with Darla, Drusilla, and Spike are very interesting, but I'm simply not interested in them in a shipping sort of way. In AtS, I love Nina as a character, but not her relationship with Angel.
Spike, on the other hand, I'll freely ship with Dru, with the Buffybot (for what it's worth), and even with Faith. Xander is somewhat of a mixed bag; I like Xander/Faith, adore Xander/Cordelia, but am lukewarm about Xander/Anya. And I want to like Xander/Anya, just as I want to like Anya as a character. I think the main reason I can't entirely get on board with her is that I feel her characterisation is, occasionally, shallow and inconsistent, which is a pity.
Cordelia, in contrast, I love as a character. But no matter how much I adore her, I will never ship Angel/Cordelia; whether that's because I feel that Angel is "reserved" for Buffy, or because of the way her characterisation changed throughout AtS, I'm not sure. I am, however, completely on board with Cordelia/Wesley and Cordelia/Doyle.
Faith, much like Buffy, I'll ship with just about anyone - even Angel, to some extent (mostly crack, like in Enemies). Mostly, I like her with Buffy, Spike, and Xander - are my favourite characters emerging yet?
I ship Willow/Oz and Willow/Tara just about equally. I aggressively do not ship Willow/Kennedy or Willow/Xander. Why? With Willow/Kennedy, it was entirely too rushed; it felt too much like "Willow's gay, Kennedy's gay, therefore they are in a relationship." With Willow/Xander, I suppose I'm unwilling to relinquish my Buffy-possession of him lightly, and I never identified with Willow (another reason, I suppose, I don't ship Willow/Kennedy - I adore Kennedy, and want her for someone I identify with more). Also, I'm a huge fan of unresolved sexual tension, and Willow and Xander, to me, never felt like they had any sexual tension. Put plainly, it bores me. On the flip side, I think both Willow/Oz and Willow/Tara were well-developed in canon, and so I ship them without reservation.
In AtS, I ship Fred/Gunn, Wesley/Fred, and Wesley/Lilah, all for the same reason - I enjoyed those relationships in the series. Conversely, I don't ship Connor/Cordelia; the entire story arc surrounding the pairing was, I think, unnecessary and unrealistic, and that's enough to taint it. (Also, it squicks me, and not in the good way.) Whereas Illyria's storyline in season five was perfectly bittersweet, if a little pointless in the face of the show's cancellation at the end of that season, and so Wesley/Illyria = good.
Most of my BtVS/AtS ships are explicitly canonical, and the rest are heavily (and deliberately) subtextual. There are subtextual pairings I don't ship, because they just don't interest me, and canonical ones I don't, usually because of the way they played out in canon. Those I do ship, I generally ship for two reasons; firstly, because I love the individual characters, and secondly, because I love the canonical representation of those pairings.
(In Roswell, I find myself able to ship just about any [het] pairing, based mostly on the former reasoning and partly on the latter. In Firefly, ditto - excluding Book, and including femmeslash and crazy space incest.)
In Harry Potter, what I ship is entirely different, and unlike my other fandoms, it's very easily divided into canon and fandom. What I ship in canon is, for the most part, not what I'm interested in reading or writing about, and vice-versa. Excluded from both categories - or perhaps included in both - are adult pairings so firmly entrenched in canon I don't feel they need justification, but enjoy reading about (in the same way, I suspect, that I enjoy reading and writing gen stories). And Remus/Sirius.
In canon, I suppose I ship Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione - though not necessarily in the way they occurred in canon, and mostly simply because that's what I was expecting to happen. Really, though, when it comes to the books, I don't care overmuch about the students' romantic relationships, or if any exist.
In fandom - that is, fanfic, mostly - it's a completely different story. Most of my fanfic pairings are Hermione-centric; not necessarily because I love her as a character, but because I love the way she can be written, and the relationships which can be created using her character. At first, I briefly flirted with Snape/Hermione (not my thing) before settling on Draco/Hermione, which is where I thought I'd stay. (It bears mentioning here that non-con is a huge kink of mine, and I possess an unhealthy love for the "worst" tropes and cliches of the pairing, Head Boy/Head Girl and forced marriage included.) Lucius/Hermione is definitely fun, if not my main thing.
The place I never thought I'd end up? Harry/Hermione. And yet, here I am. Not, it should be said, in a "harmonious" way; I like my Harry dark, and my Harry/Hermione anything but fluffy. It interests me in the same way Draco/Hermione does, but somehow more so - because the taboo is greater by far when subverting a close friendship than when escalating a mutual hatred.
Also, I ship Viktor/Hermione, in a completely fluffy and canon sort of way, possibly just to be contrary.
... and that, I think, is it. For the most part, what I ship is borne out of a love of the individual characters, and of the pairing as portrayed in canon. What I don't ship is spurred by dissatisfaction with the relationship's portrayal in canon, or very occasionally with the characters involved. Where fanfic is involved, I may also ship the relationship more than the characters - usually, in cases where I use (writing) fanfic as an exercise in creating those sorts of relationships in original fiction, or (reading) purely for porn. Because that's what the internet is for.
no subject
Now, a bit of unasked for sharing because I can't stop myself after reading that.
Buffy: Angel should never be shiped with anyone but Buffy. Buffy however is free to be shipped with Spike because they're so lovely, kinky and angsty together. I like Kennedy, but agree that the Willow/Kennedy thing being strange. By the end of the series, I positively adored Weasley. I like him with a lot of people, but not strictly in a canon way. I love him angsty and tortured after the slitting of the throat thing.
Harry Potter: I like a lot of your ships. I started with Hermione/Snape, and it is my thing. lol. I love Hermione/Draco too. Also, Draco/Harry. (See a pattern here?) I'm an interhouse whore, probably because I love the angstiness of it all.
And okay, that's all the sharing I'll subject you to. I just came to check you out and I wandered on this and couldn't help but comment.
Laters,
Michelle
no subject
And yay for dark!Wesley love. Watching the later seasons of Angel and then going back and watching Buffy season 3 is way more fun than it should be.
no subject
Then again, I equally love the line, "I'll take away your bucket." I think I got a little Weasley crush the instant those words left his mouth.