On Shipping

[flurblewig]

There's a very interesting post here about the lenses that we view shows through, particularly in pairing terms. As a multishipper I come in at the opposite end of the spectrum to gabrielleabelle, but the concept still explains me very well

Comments

[doyle_sb4]

I agree with pretty much every word in this post.

[flurblewig]

Hee! Coming from the creator of Buffyverse1000 and the author of Dawn/Cheeseman, aka The Greatest UC Pairing Ever Written, this doesn't surprise me one bit :-)

[doyle_sb4]

:D lasultrix asked me at connotations if there was any Buffyverse pairing I couldn't imagine writing or reading. I couldn't come up with anything. Some people are just built to multiship.

[flurblewig]

Some might be *trickier* than others -- say Maggie Walsh/Harmony, to pick a random example -- but honestly, I think there's always a way.

And yes, I would totally click on a Maggie Walsh/Harmony fic if I saw one :-)

[lynnenne]

Buffy never met Gunn, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't want him if she did.

Oh, she so totally would. *g*

[flurblewig]

She would! She very definitely would :-)

[rahirah]

The vast majority of the time I don't ship anyone at all, so while I'm perfectly willing to accept that in theory any X could be attracted to any Y, in practice, I want the writer to show me the money, whether it's in the original text or in fanfic. If someone wants to write Angelus/Snyder, fine and dandy, but unless they show me how the naughty vampire and the strict principal hit it off and what makes them work, I'm probably not going to buy it.

And I think that's in large part because the thing that interests me about relationships is how the people involved interact and fit together on a day to day basis (or don't.) "They're pretty" or "They're hot" aren't sufficient conditions for me to ship something.

[flurblewig]

Hee! I have actually written Angel/Snyder, which was certainly one of the more challenging pairings. I went with fever-induced hallucination :-)

I *can* be shallow enough to enjoy 'they're hot, what else do you need?' as a premise, but I will always prefer fics that give me background circumstances as well as pairing action. My main interest tends to be the ways in which people get together - what made it happen? What influenced or drove it, what obstacles and difficulties had to be resolved, how did they discover, or stop resisting, their attraction? How do other people react?

This is a large part of why I have trouble with longfic. I'm the opposite of you -- it's once they've got together that I start to lose interest. I find I'd rather write another one-shot getting them together in a different way (or write a different pairing altogether) than develop the relationship I've set up.

I think I'm just a relationship butterfly! (that's my story, anyway -- it's a more flattering metaphor than the one about the goldfish *g* )

[kalypso_v]

I'm not sure that Greg/Tom is jumping off the screen at me, but yes, I can see it working in a Blake/Avon sort of way. Not quite the same, because it's clear that Greg's resistance to Tom has a lot to do with trying to cut out his own violent streak, so it's partly about coming to terms with himself... Anyway, all that stuff about whether they'd come back for each other or not last week - and in the end it was made explicit that it was Greg that Tom came back for, because he didn't know the others had been captured too - feeds nicely into the slash. I was surprised they didn't use the line I was expecting, though. When Tom questioned whether Greg would return, I thought Greg would say "Of course. What would Abby say if I didn't?" And of course, Tom would use the same line at the end, so they'd be off the hook of having to admit they did it for each other.

[flurblewig]

I'd given the Greg/Tom some passing thought before, because I do so love the antagonistic 'people on opposite sides forced to work together' vibe, and they have a lot of that (if Greg had been an ex-copper, it would have been perfect *g*) but last week really brought it front & centre for me. I was totally prepared to believe that Tom was just going to get in Billy's lorry & drive off, so when he did go back, specifically and exclusively for Greg, my little heart was thrilled :-)

You're right about the Abby-as-conscience idea -- that would have worked. Clearly, we were *meant* to see the slash *g*

[riskofruin]

(Seriously, Alex/Linc/Sara? I would be ALL OVER THAT)

Alex/Lincoln/Sara! I don't think I've ever seen that done, but if anyone could pull it off it's you.

I really think writing those three together believably is beyond my capabilities but I would love to read it. I do however have some unfinished Alex/Linc on my laptop and now I am inclined to go and finish that :-)

This is, I think, why I love first times and Aliens Made Them Do It, but not established relationship stories or pure PWP -- because in those, the 'how/why/when it happened' is irrelevant, and that's my favourite bit.

WORD. After 17 years of reading slash, I still want the first times and skip over most of the established relationship stories.

[flurblewig]

I do however have some unfinished Alex/Linc on my laptop and now I am inclined to go and finish that

I approve this resolution greatly *g*

I do think there's maybe a way to make Alex/Linc/Sara work, if you can find the right moment to kill off Michael. Hmmm *ponders some more*