I seem to be completely blocked on writing fic - believe me, I've been trying - which I put down to all my uni assessments in first semester being comprised entirely of "writing", as opposed to "essays". You might think they'd be much the same thing, but no. I write essays pretty much the same way I do mathematics - all logic, no emotion. Whereas even "literary reportage" requires a certain amount of colour and style, which I apparently stash in a completely separate, and relatively underdeveloped, area of my brain. It's clearly exhausted from all the effort. Hence, I suspect, the recent desire to write meta *g*
Anyway, so
frozen_delight posted some
interesting thoughts on the widespread use of the pairing name "Johnlock". If I interpret correctly, she sees this term as implicitly diminishing Sherlock's character - in that it combines half his name with all of John's - but further feels its increasing popularity has gone hand in hand with the actual diminishment of Sherlock's character in fic. I don't read much fic in this pairing, and I don't know whether it's a reasonable assertion to make, but it was interesting. I have Intense Feelings about pairing names in general, and threatened her with a long ramble, so here it is.
Names, in general, are something very important to me, both in fic and life. When I got married, I didn't change my name, but not out of any particularly feminist stance. (I did, however, roll my eyes at the only marginally older co-worker who declared reprovingly, "if you really loved him, you'd change your name". This was in the 1990s!). The idea brought up a combination of interlinked issues, all related to identity. Not to mention that for other complicated reasons, my husband's last name isn't even the "family name" he was born with, and always needs to be spelled out over the phone. Quite frankly, I didn't want his name. I wanted my own. Now, if I had always hated my last name, as some people do, or desperately wanted my husband's surname, I'd have done it like a shot. It wasn't out of any high moral principle. I just wasn't prepared to give up that part of my identity.
I could go into an entire further diatribe about names and power, but you know all of that stuff. Historically, it's been one of the ways people have asserted power over others, and one of the ways people have attempted to reclaim power for themselves. What you call yourself helps to define the way you see yourself, and what you feel entitled to call other people and what they feel entitled to call you reflects a complicated set of power and identity relationships. "Sweetheart." "Janie darling." "Jane." "Slut." "Bitch." "Girlie!" "You!" "Miss." "Ms Smith." "Mrs Jones." "Mum!" "Aunty." "Ma'am." "Dr. Smith." "Professor." "Occupant." And so on. All names potentially applicable to the same person at different ages, and under different circumstances.
Not only do names establish and reflect identity in individuals, they serve a similar function in relationships. It was always a bone of contention in House fandom, for example, as to whether the characters in a relationship would continue to call each other House and Wilson as they do on the show, or whether it would become Greg and James. In my current OTP, I am quite fond of Sherlock calling Mycroft "My", but dislike "Myc", because if it's pronounced "Mick" or "Mike", it should be written that way. But then it makes Mycroft seem so juvenile and/or ordinary. I also dislike "Sher" or "Sherly" (coming from Mycroft, anyway), or any variation on the theme, unless it's genderswap. I can actually believe Mycroft and Sherlock have pet names for each other, but more likely related to some other incident or reference entirely, and not necessarily based on their given names. When I wrote my crossover fic with The League of Gentlemen, I put an inordinate amount of thought into how everyone would address everyone else. For example, at the Dentons' house I wanted Mycroft to use the more formal "Valerie" in contrast to her husband's "Val", even though it's not been canonically established that it's her full name. Mycroft uses the honorific "Mr/Mrs" for the proprietors of the Local Shop, but addresses the butcher Hilary Briss as "Briss", in the manner of a public school boy. However, Sherlock makes a point of threatening the same man using the faux-familiar, "Hilary". It might not have mattered to anyone else, but it mattered to me. Names have significance.
So then we come to shipnames, which are essentially shorthand references for an entire relationship. When I started in fandom, it was always with the slash. Mulder/Skinner. Kirk/Spock. Jed/Leo. This came with its own, sometimes debated, naming conventions. I've never been in fandoms subject to the whole seme/uke thing - I know that that convention exists, but I've never seen pairing order as a top/bottom thing. To me the ordering of the slash pairing summarises a complex set of criteria to do with power and dominance. Such criteria include the importance of the character in the context of the show, the working relationship between the characters, if any, and the emotional dynamic between them. It doesn't reflect the dynamics of any individual story, which could be a completely AU power reversal thing, but the larger environment of both the characters and the fandom.
Therefore Kirk/Spock, always, because Kirk is arguably the most central to the show, being the captain of the ship. He's the most powerful person in the show, being Spock's immediate superior, and again, arguably, is the more emotionally dominant of the two. The first and third points are debatable, depending on how you see the characters, but I think Kirk/Spock is a clear-cut ordering, much like Jed/Leo (it's hard to top being the President of the United States, even if he turns out to be a bottom). Pairings like Mulder/Skinner, however, are more complex. Here Skinner outranks Mulder, being his boss, but Mulder is clearly more central to the show - Skinner doesn't even appear in every episode. Skinner has a naturally dominant personality, but most of the time gives in to whatever mad scheme Mulder is proposing. Mulder essentially "runs" the relationship. Therefore, Mulder/Skinner. This is essentially the same reasoning behind Monk/Stottlemeyer and Sherlock/Lestrade. Lister/Rimmer is even closer to call - the characters are given fairly equal time, and imo Rimmer's character may even be given a touch more emphasis. Rimmer is also highly woobiefied by the fandom (I'm as guilty as anyone else), higher ranking, and given Lister's easygoing nature, might even be considered emotionally dominant. However, Lister's character is absolutely central to the basic premise of the show, not to mention being, well... alive. That gives him the edge. So, Lister/Rimmer, by a Cat's whisker. YMMV. But as far as Sherlock goes, in traditional naming terms I feel it should always be Sherlock/John and Mycroft/Sherlock (and Mycroft/Sherlock/John), and indeed this is the convention found at AO3. It's always been slightly disconcerting to me that the main Sherlock lj comm uses pairing: sherlock/mycroft as a tag (not to mention humor, but that's a different rant *g*).
Fandom has always been a (three people = five opinions) place, so obviously not everyone uses or prefers the above orderings, and I've seen almost all of them written the other way round. But those are the general guiding principles I feel are involved in constructing the most commonly used pairing names. There are probably some notable exceptions I know nothing about, and rarepairs and crossovers where an assessment of "dominance" is made on a case-by-case basis. But I do think there's a fundamental tendency to place greater weight or emphasis on the first name in the pairing, whichever order you might choose. If you strongly prefer one character, he or she is likely to be the one you want to see first, regardless of convention.
However, the advent of smushnames (or as
frozen_delight more classily terms them, "portmanteaus") once again changed all the rules, such as they were. And these seem to have become the standard form of nomenclature, rather than the novelties they once were. I feel the turning point was somewhere around the time "Brangelina" and "TomKat" began gaining traction in the mainstream media, and it's been all aboard the smushname ship ever since. I still dislike them on general principles, but this is probably a generational thing. When I started in House fandom, around 2006, it was still very much House/Wilson, but references to Hilson became increasingly common towards the end of the show's run. I still can't get behind that one. It makes me think of hotels. Thankfully, I don't think anyone's ever tried to combine Lister/Rimmer (Rister? Limmer? Davold? Arnave? godpleaseno) or Monk/Stottlemeyer (I'm cracking up at the thought of Mottlemeyer, which sounds like a bruising citrus disease). And would anyone really have shipped Kirk/Spock if it had been called "Kock"? Although there is an element of truth in advertising there.
Anyway, in smush-pairing names, the crucial points seem to be that a) it sounds good, and b) it vaguely reflects the names of the pairing involved. And I admit to finding some of them strangely appealing. There were Blake and Chris from American Idol, for example, who even shipped themselves as "Cake". (I still say in dominance terms, it should have been "Bris", but yes, I know *g*). Then there's Hiddlebatch, which is a hundred times cuter written as "Cuddles", although a good deal less recognisable. So I suspect Hiddlebatch still holds sway. I never quite got over Quinto/Cumberbatch, or QCumber - I didn't even need to read anything in the pairing; the name alone justifies its entire existence. And in Sherlock, we have dozens of shipnames, some of which are more in flux than others. Johnlock and Mystrade are quite well established, I think. Holmescest is also known as Mylock and Shercroft, but I think consensus on Holmescest is emerging (or maybe that's just wishful thinking). And I'm still not sure whether it's MyJohnLock (which is cute and has Mycroft out front, as he should be, but makes me think inappropriately of children's toys) or Johnlockcroft (which reminds me of an H. P. Lovecraft creature for some reason - beware the Johnlockcroft!). I guess there's too little of it for it to have become an issue. Sigh.
I seem to have adjusted to it for the most part, at least in Sherlock. I use Johnlock quite comfortably nowadays, mainly because typing Sherlock/John is unwieldy in comparison, and Sherlock comes out as Shelrock half the time. YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE. I've even grown actively fond of Holmescest, because it sums up the pairing beautifully, and I don't need to argue with anyone that MYCROFT COMES FIRST, DAMMIT. And despite my avowed commitment to Mycroft's primacy in slash-ship names, I do love submissive Mycroft, and therefore also perversely approve of Johncroft. I guess the whole smushname thing has its attractions after all.
But it appears that with the rise of smushnames, the old jostling for pairing "dominance" has disappeared, or at least the rules have changed. Perhaps relative dominance is now established by how much of each character's name is used, or by how recognisable each component is, as well as by which comes first. Or perhaps it's become mostly about aesthetics. By the rule of "sounding good", Johnlock has the clear advantage. It has a nicer ring to it than Sherjohn (which makes me think of Robin Hood), or JoLock (which is more balanced, but sounds like either a proprietory dance step or a South African security device). Pleasant-sounding as Johnlock is, surely there exist theoretical alternatives - if the Marvel fandom can come up with the equal-opportunity "Science Bros" for Stark and Banner (notice how I instinctively position Stark before Banner), a fandom capable of tuna!lock ought to be able to see them and raise. I suspect, however, that most people concerned are perfectly happy with Johnlock. But does the general support for that term imply anything about the pairing itself?
frozen_delight contends that it does - that the most widely adopted pairing names reflect, or even shape, the dynamics of the relationship as seen by the fandom. By this measure, she notes that Johnlock appears to give John greater prominence in the relationship overall. It also implies that John is "complete" within himself, and Sherlock somehow "lacking". But in the greater context I still feel strongly that Sherlock remains the strongest, most central character to the show. He IS the show - that's why the suffix "-lock" is widely used to denote that something belongs to the Sherlock fandom in the first place. So does shortening Sherlock's name somehow diminish the strength of his individual character, like Samson and his hair? I'm not convinced that it does, but I'll concede that the possibility is there. Because names carry significance and power, however "obvious" they seem, or how you might claim to have derived them.