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delphiRespiratory viruses are having a moment here, and I managed to pick one up and take it home with me this weekend. If I'm not around as much this week, it's because I'm drinking a lot of herbal tea and sleeping fourteen hours a day.
But—I've had this meme (borrowed fromrionaleonhart) almost filled out for a few days now, so I thought I'd pop in and post it before rolling back into bed.
1. List three shipping tropes you love
Balanced Imbalances
That thing where there’s power imbalances between the characters, but they run both ways. Age, romantic/sexual experience, social status, social skills, physical strength, emotional intelligence, academic ability–I like gaps here, but portioned out so that each character has a distinct advantage over the other in different areas, resulting in a situation where things either balance out surprisingly peacefully or balance out because everything remains in constant tension.
Unexpected Compatibility
Not so much the type of opposites attracting where the sparks of conflict are the focus, but more a matter of characters who don’t seem to have a lot in common on the surface but who share some deeper character trait, value, interest, or temperament that lets them enjoy each other’s company in an easy and fulfilling way that other people might not have expected. I’m also really here for this when it involves connecting unexpectedly on a shared kink, or gets cranked up to eleven and goes full folie à deux.
Daddy Issues Indulged
Pretty much what it says on the tin. Just old school Daddy/boy (of any genders) where it’s not about overt ageplay roleplaying but about the subtler eroticization of an age gap and the healing, comfort, growth or catharsis of inhabiting those roles.
2. List three shipping tropes you don't love
I’m using “don’t love” literally here, because I definitely have my exceptions and have enjoyed a lot of fic built on these—they just aren’t the tropes that inherently make my heart go pitter-patter.
Childhood Friends to Lovers
When it comes to getting-together romance, I’m drawn more strongly to stories that feature characters getting to know each other for the first time or making room in settled lives for new relationships. I also gravitate to characters who don’t open themselves up easily, so I’m often less interested in starting from a place of existing intimacy or with relationships that began in those phases of life where attachments often form more easily.
Enemies or Rivals to Lovers
I have my exceptions here that mostly come down to how you define enemies and rivals. I think the main thing is just that the “enmity = repressed attraction” or “love and hate are two sides of the same coin” elements aren’t big draws for me. If I end up shipping characters who’ve been in major conflict, it’s almost always because the division between them was temporary and saw a reversal in canon.
Second Time Around
That thing where a couple was previously properly together, broke up, and are getting together again. I think it doesn’t attract me strongly in fiction for much the same reason Childhood Friends to Lovers doesn’t—too much of the groundwork is already laid, too much of the space inside already cleared—and also because I’m really picky about stories of reconciliation after one-way or mutual harm. I’m usually happy to see messy exes become friends, but if they’re going to learn from their failed relationship, I’m more into stories where they move on with other people.
3. One emotional aspect of a ship that always gets you
Characters admiring or delighting in each other. In live action, nothing will make me stop and think about the relationship between two characters like seeing one of them legitimately laugh at the other’s jokes, for instance. I love it when characters go heart-eyes over each other’s skills, talents, or hobbies rather than giving them a hard time about them or just tolerating them.
4. One physical aspect of a ship that always gets you
Practical gestures of care or comfort. A coat draped over someone’s shoulders (or over them as a blanket while they sleep!), a cup of tea at a trying time, an unshowy home-cooked meal. I am weak for these things.
It’s only after I wrote this, however, that I realized the question might have meant physical characteristics of the characters. I don’t have bulletproof tastes on that front, but some contrast in terms of age and/or size never hurts.
5. Multiship or monoship?
Definitely multiship. If I ever monoship a character I like, it’s usually because there just aren’t many options on the table.
6. Rare pairs or mainstream?
It’s rare for the stuff that really speaks to me to make it big, but I’m happy when it does. I’ve written before about the reasons why main characters are rarely the ones I get fannish about, and while there are definitely supporting character ships that get huge, protagonists and ensemble characters who are protagonist material tend to understandably have a leg up.
7. Polyamory or monogamy?
Either’s equally fine by me. If characters have a canonical preference, I generally stick with that (and if I’m going to diverge from there, I am more on board with seeing a previously monogamous character explore polyamory than a poly character go strictly monogamous). But without any canon indication of preferences, and without any overlapping ships to spin into threesomes or moresomes, I think I tend to default to imagining two-person ships as being “save the last dance for me” types. Which is to say, open to having a threesome or going out to blow off steam together if that’s the kind of social life they have, but being primarily committed to each other.
8. If the ship is physical, reversible or not?
I’m not 100% on what this one means. My first thought was whether my ships stand up to reversing genders, ages, physical types, etc. The answer to that is “sometimes but often not.” This goes back to my whole Balanced Imbalances thing, where further swapping some physical elements and the associated strengths or privileges there can throw off the delicate ship ecosystem for me.
I’ve seen other people interpret this one to mean topping. In which case, topping or bottoming preferences are like most character elements for me: I usually know what they are when I’m writing a story, but they’re also subject to change between different stories.
9. Do you always have romantic ships for fandoms?
Not always, but usually. There always has to be the thought of some kind of relationship to get me fannish about something, but that can be a family relationship, a friendship, or casual sexual arrangements. Being grabbed hard by one or more characters and needing to see how they interact with other people and in other personal situations is usually what separates me being fannishly interested in something from just loving a canon.
10. How important is the sexual part (if any) of your ship?
Exploring a character’s sexual life, whatever that looks like, is a big part of transformative fandom for me. What a character desires or doesn’t desire, their fantasies or lack thereof that deviate from the normative social narrative, their insecurities or vulnerabilities, what makes them feel alienated or accepted, their ways of relating to other people and themselves—sexuality can be a doorway into a whole lot to explore, much of which isn’t explored in canon, especially for the characters I tend to fall for.
Also, I’m just straight up always here for some sexual titillation.
11. Opinion on platonic ships?
This mostly comes down to how we’re defining “platonic.” In terms of non-sexual (my best guess, given the order of these questions), I’m a fan. I’m interested in ace romances, although I have a really hard time finding ones written the way I want, and also in romantic friendships. If we’re talking both non-sexual and non-romantic, I’m never sure quite where to draw that distinction, because I’ve got a pretty broad personal definition of “romance” that can be applied to pretty much any kind of love. At its broadest definition of no sex and no romance of any kind, I’m not sure I think of those relationships as “ships.” But I am old and have only relatively recently trained my brain to think of “shipper” broadly instead of in its specific X-Files original meaning, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
12. List 3 ships you currently love
I’ve got way too many to easily bring it down to three, but since my shipping organ is still so firmly grafted onto Our Flag Means Death, I’m narrowing it down from that narrowing-down.
Fang/Izzy
I’m so here for the way their relationship flips from this functional but strained thing punctuated by betrayal to something so trusting and physically close as they survive an awful trauma together. The hugging, the holding, the way Fang looks positively enraptured when Izzy sings. The size difference, the leather, the beards. It’s all so good for me.
Frenchie/Izzy
Before season 2, I wrote something where Frenchie and Izzy connected through music, and I was well fed by seeing them as chanteuse and accompanist at Calypso’s Birthday. But before that, we got the two of them fighting side by side, the hand-holding, Frenchie trying to save Izzy’s life more than once and then sitting at Izzy’s feet in the brig and keeping close to him on the Red Flag, and that wonderful shot of Izzy standing watch while Frenchie joyously raises a new flag behind him. Protectiveness, a shared interest, the ability to each do their own thing together—it’s perfect.
Izzy/Jim
This is fuelled by all the thematic potential, that little glimpse of Jim wearing Izzy’s glove, and the actors’ chemistry and behind-the-scenes comments—particularly that Jim is totally Izzy’s type, and that Jim sees things they connect to and want to emulate in Izzy. Plus the way Jim looks at Izzy during his drag performance! Them in their painted moustache, him in his eyeshadow, so much momentary softness and fondness from two characters who are otherwise so quick to pull a knife. And the sex would be so hot.
13. List 5 OTPs from past fandoms
I'm not sure I could easily count how many ships I've written, let alone how many I've actively shipped. So, kind of arbitrarily, I'm dividing up my fannish life into five-year periods and grabbing the ship I wrote the most of in that period, provided it doesn't belong to a fandom I've actively written in during the last year (to try to maintain that "past fandom" part). Ties were broken by word count.
1999-2003: Josiah Sanchez/Ezra Standish from The Magnificent Seven (TV)
2004-2008: John Allerdyce/Erik Lensherr from the X-Men movies (original timeline)
2009-2013: Jee/Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon)
2014-2018: Kraglin Obfonteri/Yondu Udonta from Guardians of the Galaxy (first movie)
2019-2023: João/Calvin Wright from Arkham Horror Files (board and card games)
14. Opinion on the importance of marriage?
Outside of settings/situations where the protections of a legally recognized marriage are important for the characters, I'm ambivalent. I’m more into the romantic angle of characters choosing the relationship every day in small ways over the bigger formal commitment.
15. Opinion on OC kids?
I’m a lot more interested in OC kids when it’s a story about the adoption, fostering, or guardianship of an older child. I enjoy stories about parenting the most when it involves a parent and child both figuring out the relationship together, and less so when it’s about a relationship formed in infancy. I’m not put off by OC babies or OC children the main characters have raised from babies (although I’m not always into how pregnancy or reproductive decisions play out in a lot of fic), but they’re not inherently a draw.
But—I've had this meme (borrowed from
rionaleonhart) almost filled out for a few days now, so I thought I'd pop in and post it before rolling back into bed.1. List three shipping tropes you love
Balanced Imbalances
That thing where there’s power imbalances between the characters, but they run both ways. Age, romantic/sexual experience, social status, social skills, physical strength, emotional intelligence, academic ability–I like gaps here, but portioned out so that each character has a distinct advantage over the other in different areas, resulting in a situation where things either balance out surprisingly peacefully or balance out because everything remains in constant tension.
Unexpected Compatibility
Not so much the type of opposites attracting where the sparks of conflict are the focus, but more a matter of characters who don’t seem to have a lot in common on the surface but who share some deeper character trait, value, interest, or temperament that lets them enjoy each other’s company in an easy and fulfilling way that other people might not have expected. I’m also really here for this when it involves connecting unexpectedly on a shared kink, or gets cranked up to eleven and goes full folie à deux.
Daddy Issues Indulged
Pretty much what it says on the tin. Just old school Daddy/boy (of any genders) where it’s not about overt ageplay roleplaying but about the subtler eroticization of an age gap and the healing, comfort, growth or catharsis of inhabiting those roles.
2. List three shipping tropes you don't love
I’m using “don’t love” literally here, because I definitely have my exceptions and have enjoyed a lot of fic built on these—they just aren’t the tropes that inherently make my heart go pitter-patter.
Childhood Friends to Lovers
When it comes to getting-together romance, I’m drawn more strongly to stories that feature characters getting to know each other for the first time or making room in settled lives for new relationships. I also gravitate to characters who don’t open themselves up easily, so I’m often less interested in starting from a place of existing intimacy or with relationships that began in those phases of life where attachments often form more easily.
Enemies or Rivals to Lovers
I have my exceptions here that mostly come down to how you define enemies and rivals. I think the main thing is just that the “enmity = repressed attraction” or “love and hate are two sides of the same coin” elements aren’t big draws for me. If I end up shipping characters who’ve been in major conflict, it’s almost always because the division between them was temporary and saw a reversal in canon.
Second Time Around
That thing where a couple was previously properly together, broke up, and are getting together again. I think it doesn’t attract me strongly in fiction for much the same reason Childhood Friends to Lovers doesn’t—too much of the groundwork is already laid, too much of the space inside already cleared—and also because I’m really picky about stories of reconciliation after one-way or mutual harm. I’m usually happy to see messy exes become friends, but if they’re going to learn from their failed relationship, I’m more into stories where they move on with other people.
3. One emotional aspect of a ship that always gets you
Characters admiring or delighting in each other. In live action, nothing will make me stop and think about the relationship between two characters like seeing one of them legitimately laugh at the other’s jokes, for instance. I love it when characters go heart-eyes over each other’s skills, talents, or hobbies rather than giving them a hard time about them or just tolerating them.
4. One physical aspect of a ship that always gets you
Practical gestures of care or comfort. A coat draped over someone’s shoulders (or over them as a blanket while they sleep!), a cup of tea at a trying time, an unshowy home-cooked meal. I am weak for these things.
It’s only after I wrote this, however, that I realized the question might have meant physical characteristics of the characters. I don’t have bulletproof tastes on that front, but some contrast in terms of age and/or size never hurts.
5. Multiship or monoship?
Definitely multiship. If I ever monoship a character I like, it’s usually because there just aren’t many options on the table.
6. Rare pairs or mainstream?
It’s rare for the stuff that really speaks to me to make it big, but I’m happy when it does. I’ve written before about the reasons why main characters are rarely the ones I get fannish about, and while there are definitely supporting character ships that get huge, protagonists and ensemble characters who are protagonist material tend to understandably have a leg up.
7. Polyamory or monogamy?
Either’s equally fine by me. If characters have a canonical preference, I generally stick with that (and if I’m going to diverge from there, I am more on board with seeing a previously monogamous character explore polyamory than a poly character go strictly monogamous). But without any canon indication of preferences, and without any overlapping ships to spin into threesomes or moresomes, I think I tend to default to imagining two-person ships as being “save the last dance for me” types. Which is to say, open to having a threesome or going out to blow off steam together if that’s the kind of social life they have, but being primarily committed to each other.
8. If the ship is physical, reversible or not?
I’m not 100% on what this one means. My first thought was whether my ships stand up to reversing genders, ages, physical types, etc. The answer to that is “sometimes but often not.” This goes back to my whole Balanced Imbalances thing, where further swapping some physical elements and the associated strengths or privileges there can throw off the delicate ship ecosystem for me.
I’ve seen other people interpret this one to mean topping. In which case, topping or bottoming preferences are like most character elements for me: I usually know what they are when I’m writing a story, but they’re also subject to change between different stories.
9. Do you always have romantic ships for fandoms?
Not always, but usually. There always has to be the thought of some kind of relationship to get me fannish about something, but that can be a family relationship, a friendship, or casual sexual arrangements. Being grabbed hard by one or more characters and needing to see how they interact with other people and in other personal situations is usually what separates me being fannishly interested in something from just loving a canon.
10. How important is the sexual part (if any) of your ship?
Exploring a character’s sexual life, whatever that looks like, is a big part of transformative fandom for me. What a character desires or doesn’t desire, their fantasies or lack thereof that deviate from the normative social narrative, their insecurities or vulnerabilities, what makes them feel alienated or accepted, their ways of relating to other people and themselves—sexuality can be a doorway into a whole lot to explore, much of which isn’t explored in canon, especially for the characters I tend to fall for.
Also, I’m just straight up always here for some sexual titillation.
11. Opinion on platonic ships?
This mostly comes down to how we’re defining “platonic.” In terms of non-sexual (my best guess, given the order of these questions), I’m a fan. I’m interested in ace romances, although I have a really hard time finding ones written the way I want, and also in romantic friendships. If we’re talking both non-sexual and non-romantic, I’m never sure quite where to draw that distinction, because I’ve got a pretty broad personal definition of “romance” that can be applied to pretty much any kind of love. At its broadest definition of no sex and no romance of any kind, I’m not sure I think of those relationships as “ships.” But I am old and have only relatively recently trained my brain to think of “shipper” broadly instead of in its specific X-Files original meaning, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
12. List 3 ships you currently love
I’ve got way too many to easily bring it down to three, but since my shipping organ is still so firmly grafted onto Our Flag Means Death, I’m narrowing it down from that narrowing-down.
Fang/Izzy
I’m so here for the way their relationship flips from this functional but strained thing punctuated by betrayal to something so trusting and physically close as they survive an awful trauma together. The hugging, the holding, the way Fang looks positively enraptured when Izzy sings. The size difference, the leather, the beards. It’s all so good for me.
Frenchie/Izzy
Before season 2, I wrote something where Frenchie and Izzy connected through music, and I was well fed by seeing them as chanteuse and accompanist at Calypso’s Birthday. But before that, we got the two of them fighting side by side, the hand-holding, Frenchie trying to save Izzy’s life more than once and then sitting at Izzy’s feet in the brig and keeping close to him on the Red Flag, and that wonderful shot of Izzy standing watch while Frenchie joyously raises a new flag behind him. Protectiveness, a shared interest, the ability to each do their own thing together—it’s perfect.
Izzy/Jim
This is fuelled by all the thematic potential, that little glimpse of Jim wearing Izzy’s glove, and the actors’ chemistry and behind-the-scenes comments—particularly that Jim is totally Izzy’s type, and that Jim sees things they connect to and want to emulate in Izzy. Plus the way Jim looks at Izzy during his drag performance! Them in their painted moustache, him in his eyeshadow, so much momentary softness and fondness from two characters who are otherwise so quick to pull a knife. And the sex would be so hot.
13. List 5 OTPs from past fandoms
I'm not sure I could easily count how many ships I've written, let alone how many I've actively shipped. So, kind of arbitrarily, I'm dividing up my fannish life into five-year periods and grabbing the ship I wrote the most of in that period, provided it doesn't belong to a fandom I've actively written in during the last year (to try to maintain that "past fandom" part). Ties were broken by word count.
1999-2003: Josiah Sanchez/Ezra Standish from The Magnificent Seven (TV)
2004-2008: John Allerdyce/Erik Lensherr from the X-Men movies (original timeline)
2009-2013: Jee/Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender (cartoon)
2014-2018: Kraglin Obfonteri/Yondu Udonta from Guardians of the Galaxy (first movie)
2019-2023: João/Calvin Wright from Arkham Horror Files (board and card games)
14. Opinion on the importance of marriage?
Outside of settings/situations where the protections of a legally recognized marriage are important for the characters, I'm ambivalent. I’m more into the romantic angle of characters choosing the relationship every day in small ways over the bigger formal commitment.
15. Opinion on OC kids?
I’m a lot more interested in OC kids when it’s a story about the adoption, fostering, or guardianship of an older child. I enjoy stories about parenting the most when it involves a parent and child both figuring out the relationship together, and less so when it’s about a relationship formed in infancy. I’m not put off by OC babies or OC children the main characters have raised from babies (although I’m not always into how pregnancy or reproductive decisions play out in a lot of fic), but they’re not inherently a draw.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-15 10:19 am (UTC)Unexpected Compatibility is a great trope. I'm always writing fics about that. e.g. two people are forced to spend time together/ having sex just for something to do/ have to help each other with something, then they discover that they like each other. there is a fantastic Blake’s 7 fic called Puzzlebox about Vila and Tarrant in this situation 🔥
I love Enemies to Lovers though. Probably because my racing drivers spend their lives hating and loving each other at different times of their careers, and there are some great E to L stories in that fandom.
I'm fascinated by your opinion on OC kids. That explains why you enjoyed The Family Factor/Professionals long fic of mine. That is the perfect fic for someone who enjoys reading about a parent and an older child figuring out their relationship. Doyle and Sara fit that trope exactly, and although he keeps being mistaken for her boyfriend, I skirted round that issue and made it clear that Bodie is the one he wants.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-15 06:53 pm (UTC)And great point, I can absolutely see how much Enemies to Lovers would be baked into competitive sports RPF! I definitely see the appeal of it intellectually, it's just not what personally gets my motor running (pun semi-intended 😄).
I do enjoy a lot of OC kids who are still younger children—and ones where characters are unexpectedly saddled with a baby or toddler is always fun—but yeah, I'll probably be quicker to click on something like The Family Factor or something where the ship I care about have a child old enough to fully understand the situation joining their family than I will be to click on something where they're expecting a baby or have been raising a few kids from infancy. Unless it's a rare ship with few fics, in which case I'll click on absolutely everything as it comes.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-16 08:54 am (UTC)I'm pleased that I unknowingly wrote a fic that fitted in with your interests!😊 And I appreciate your support as I don't know anyone in The Professionals fandom.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-15 11:23 am (UTC)Also, for romantic tropes that you love/don't ove, do you see it like a canon list or a fanfic list? Hmmm now I wonder, are they really that different?
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-15 06:56 pm (UTC)I found myself wondering the same thing when I was approaching those questions, and I tried to pick ones where the fic would be drawing off elements in canon, rather than tropes like "There Was Only One Bed," which you could write for almost any ship. But I think there's room to go either way.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-17 07:41 pm (UTC)Also, I hope you're less sick now.
Ha ha we get very different tastes in a lot of directions.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-17 07:44 pm (UTC)And I'm on the mend, thanks so much for the good wishes. ❤️
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-15 03:38 pm (UTC)I think that's a big draw for me as well. Romantic or platonic.
in its specific X-Files original meaning, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
I am very curious what you mean by that!
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-15 07:29 pm (UTC)From there, there was a lot of discourse about whether Mulder/Scully counted as slash, from fans who felt that the pairing's dynamic was closer to the m/m law enforcement partner template in fandom than the usual designated love interest or "will they/won't they" of other contemporary western TV het. That led to a split in some corners for a while of people considering "shipping/shipper/ship" the f/m equivalent of "slashing/slasher/slash" for non-canon het. Because of course slash was assumed to be inherently non-canon and transformative itself, and we were still a couple of years off from fandom-popular shows like Queer as Folk or ships like Tara/Willow amplifying the conversation about whether canon gay relationships were also considered (fem)slash.
(This being the '90s when it was a norm for gen and non-X-rated het to be on the mainstream lists and archives together and X-rated het and any kind of slash shunted off to a hidden secondary location, there was even a period where people floated "slipper" for non-sexually-explicit slash.)
But anyway, I went on associating "ship" with non-canon het for a long while and just using "pairing" to talk about romantic/sexual character relationships regardless of genders involved or canon status. Meanwhile, since the word "relationship" is broad, shipping/shipper/ship understandably took off as the default term. I eventually gave up "pairing" for "ship," largely because it's less inherently numbered and seems to fit OT3s and moresomes more easily, but part of my brain still vaguely associates "shipper" as a distinct category from "slasher."
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-15 03:44 pm (UTC)I feel weirdly proud that everyone I've seen doing this meme has had a moment of uncertainty about what "reversible" means, because I do think it comes from a place of the creator of the meme being accustomed to top/bottom discourse, and We Don't Do That Here.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-15 07:57 pm (UTC)And ha, there was more than one question on here that made me feel like I'd missed some contextual conversations somewhere, but I definitely wouldn't have connected "reversible" to top/bottom preferences if I hadn't seen someone else warrant that guess. I've definitely been in fandoms where that's become a hot topic, unfortunately, but I've only heard secondhand about ones where A/B is considered substantially different from B/A. (I have been asked before why I've tagged names in the order that I have when it doesn't match the reader's expectation of what that should mean, and my answer is always: "It's alphabetical.")
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-16 04:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-16 04:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-15 09:27 pm (UTC)Enemies or Rivals to Lovers (...)If I end up shipping characters who’ve been in major conflict, it’s almost always because the division between them was temporary and saw a reversal in canon.
I agree with your sentiment here...and it's actually why that trope is one of my favourites. ;) Because no, if the hero has a nemesis who only exists in canon as the hero's opponent, then they aren't suddenly riding off into the sunset hand in hand.
But it can be fun to explore what happens when/if rivals meet each other outside of the source of their rivalry...
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-16 01:08 am (UTC)And that makes total sense regarding that approach to Enemies to Lovers! There's a lot going on there, and I completely get why it works for folks - especially in a fandom that's innately about rivalry and competition.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-15 11:50 pm (UTC)Your trope choices are so good. <3 And I, too, am puzzled by that 'reversible ship' question. That's not a piece of lingo I've heard before...
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-16 01:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-16 04:47 am (UTC)I am amused to read your answers to the above and find myself thinking that if I saw them, say, on a piece of paper rolled up in a bottle, I would still think, Oh, this sounds like Delphi.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-16 05:03 am (UTC)And I will take your advice and take myself to bed, because I've definitely pushed it tonight, staying up until 9 p.m.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-18 10:54 pm (UTC)My mind instantly went to 'top/bottom' for the 'reversible' question - it's something a lot of Japanese fandoms see as really important, so I'm used to writing out my ships with the character tag doubled - like MobReiMob (Mob/Reigen from MP 100) is just 'I have no objections to them switching'. I've come across a bunch of people in East Asian fandoms and outside them who are extremely bothered about such things.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-18 11:11 pm (UTC)And ah, yeah, that makes sense regarding the 'reversible' question. I've read casually in some manga and anime fandoms, and I remember seeing those semantics around pairing order - and grievance about it when AO3 came along and didn't want to joint canonize both versions of a pairing tag. I've picked up that a preference there can range from just "there is anal sex in this fic and I'm describing who's in what position" to "A/B is a fully separate ship from B/A because the characterization and dynamic is completely different," but I hadn't run into the term 'reversible' before. In retrospect, I totally see what it's getting at.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-20 10:33 pm (UTC)Great questions; fascinating answers. I want to stitch several of your comments on to samplers (or would if I were able to sew):
That thing where there’s power imbalances between the characters, but they run both ways.
Oh, yes, great set-up. The only power imbalance that I can't easily read (or write) is teacher/student (or, I guess, adult/child in general). I spent so many years as an educator that this one cuts too close to the bone.
Exploring a character’s sexual life, whatever that looks like, is a big part of transformative fandom for me.
Me, too, and for reasons similar to yours.
Also, I’m just straight up always here for some sexual titillation.
Indeed!
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-20 11:37 pm (UTC)The only power imbalance that I can't easily read (or write) is teacher/student (or, I guess, adult/child in general). I spent so many years as an educator that this one cuts too close to the bone.
That makes perfect sense. While adult/teen dynamics are something I explore a lot (I think because I'm particularly fascinated by that phase of life where the practical needs of youth overlap with the more complex desires of adulthood and the line begins to blur in terms of what's appealing about an authority figure), it's definitely not something that works for me in every fandom. Harry Potter was kind of the perfect sandbox because not only was it a book canon (i.e. not live action) set in a fantasy world with a lot of cartoon bounce to it, but it's one where the school staff are very distant from the students in terms of standing in loco parentis or even having particularly strong pedagogical relationships, if that makes sense.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-01-21 05:17 pm (UTC)Yes, completely, especially in terms of what you perceptively call the "cartoon bounce" of the HP world.