Have navel, will gaze
Overnight, in my sleep, it seems thete1's meme about last five stories met bettyp's post about pairings, and I woke up thinking what do the pairings you write/have written have in common/say about your preferences?
Actually, that's not quite true. I woke up thinking, argh, I overslept, I'm going to be late! It took at least five minutes before I started thinking about pairings.
Some people have a very clear idea of what kind of pairing they prefer. A buddy dynamic, or a best enemies set-up, outgoing/introverted, younger/older, big guy/little guy, mentor/student, equals, opposites. I have fond memories of discussions with slimslash about the Paris/Kim relationship versus the Chakotay/Paris relationship and what we liked about them. Sometimes it feels as though every (type of) pairing has a standard story type, or maybe not type but tone and flavor. It's clearest when you contrast a buddy pairing with an antagonist pairing--the ways of getting them together, the ways they interact. Although a lot of the time people map a buddy-type story pattern onto an antagonist pairing, removing the you killed my father, prepare to die vibe before the story even starts, and sometimes buddies are cast as antagonists through misunderstandings and brainwashing and what-not. It's difficult when the story-type one prefers doesn't match the pairing one is currently in love with, I expect.
I'm going to muse a bit on Pairings I've Written, but I'll do it behind a cutaway, since I sometimes feel I've matched up more couples than Barbara Cartland.
Way back when, there were vampires. I think I've paired up every single Anne Rice vampire with every other Anne Rice vampire. There are some pairings that are more or less canonical--more or less meaning that it's so Different for vampires and also, they don't have sex, except, obviously, in fanfic. But Louis/Lestat, Armand/Daniel, they're, like, the classics. What was interesting in that fandom was the way other pairings were constructed and became popular and developed fanon and all that stuff. Marius/David, for instance, I think just grew out of someone's theory that they ought to get along well, and hey presto. I wrote a bunch of Louis/Lestat and Armand/Daniel, because I liked the relationships in canon, and I liked being able to make them do what I wanted (first flush of fanfic-discovery, and all that. Wow, if I write that they kiss, they kiss! How cool is that?). Then I put Marius and Santino together because they'd been sort of enemies and had drama in their past and then Santino was suddenly digging Marius out of the snow, and what was up with that? Sort of antagonist dynamic, in a way, I think. Plus Marius was seriously repressed, the way I wrote him, and Santino was very determined to do something about that. Heh.
Moving on, there's Voyager, which is where I first grasped the difference between a buddy dynamic and a (very mild, yeah) antagonist dynamic; a lot of people clicked with either Chakotay/Paris or Paris/Kim, depending on what kind of interaction they liked. I was a Paris/Kim girl, because they were friends and they cared about each other and wasn't that nice? Except that they were really at their slashiest in The Chute, where they balanced between friendship and antagonism. And cuddling. The cuddling was great. (I have a huge kink for friendly cuddling; I'm not sure why I'm not constantly writing smarm.) And Paris gave off hurt me some more vibes that the whole fandom picked up on. And Chakotay/Paris weren't really antagonists in a big serious way, only by comparison, as it were. A bit of snarling and posturing and stuff.
And then there was X-Files. Mulder. Krycek. The intense emotions, the up close and personal violence, the sparks, the kiss! They were enemies. They wanted each other. They were doomed. Life was grand.
Also, Mulder had this smart, neurotic, torture me thing going for a while there, and Krycek was pretty (and) mysterious, so a writer had some freedom to improvise.
Mulder and Skinner weren't really a buddy pairing; they were closer to early Chakotay/Paris, really, but often got pushed towards the buddy end of the pairing spectrum because Mulder/Krycek pretty much had the antagonist market cornered. (Not that people didn't write very edgy Mulder/Skinner, and very sappy Mulder/Krycek.)
So the Paris/Kim pairing was mostly about the sweet affection and teen angst, and the Mulder/Krycek pairing was mostly about the splendidly passionate misery, for me. Then, there was the Fandom Menace, essentially a single-pairing fandom, especially at the beginning. That was a great fandom for people who were into older/younger, mentor/student, big guy/little guy, or all of the above. I was warped from the start, because Te told me before I even saw the movie that she thought Qui-Gon was a bit creepy in it, so I saw both closeness and affection and the creepy vibe at the same time, and ended up writing both. Although not at the same time.
I really loved the world and the characters, but I'm not really that fascinated by the mentor/student dynamic, and it was kind of hard to get away from it unless one went all AU. Nor by the older/younger or bigger/smaller tropes, although those were considerably more easy to elide. For me, it was definitely mostly about the affection.
Gundam Wing was a big smorgasbord of potential pairings. I was intrigued at first by Heero and Duo, simply through the impressions I got through fanfic before I'd even seen the show; it seemed like a cool dynamic that I thought I could see glimpses of from stories that didn't always strike me as that well-characterized. Loudmouth with a heart of gold meets repressed, reserved soldier boy. Once I'd seen the show, I had a rather different view of them, but I still liked the dynamic that I did see, fake extrovert who hides his feelings by acting out and intense maniac who wears his heart on his non-existent sleeve and has no idea that's what he's doing. I ended up equally interested in pairing Heero with Trowa: intense, driven soldier boy and quiet, nihilistic soldier boy. Not much in the way of conversation, though.
Yes, I know everyone says Heero is unemotional and cold. But seriously. He's so not.
Eroica really is a one-pairing fandom for me. Klaus + Dorian 4eva! Klaus is one of the most beautifully repressed characters it has ever been my pleasure to encounter, and Dorian is splendidly uninhibited; they're made for each other, or at least made to drive each other crazy. They're antagonists who are often on the same side, with a freaky little buddy undercurrent that you just know gets under Klaus's skin.
In Harry Potter, I've only really ever almost paired up Harry and Snape only not really, which goes back to the mentor/student thing, maybe. I'm really much more interested in the dynamics between Snape, Black, and Lupin. All kinds of interesting tensions there, affection and annoyance, old love and old grudges, and the implication of having to try to get along for the greater good. Mmm.
I've written a lot of one-offs, one or two stories in a fandom that captured my attention momentarily. Fraser/Kowalski, a buddy relationship. Fraser/Vecchio, a different buddy relationship. Aziraphale/Crowley, theoretical antagonists, not-so-theoretical buddies. Mitsuru and Shinobu, buddies, and there's the reserved one and the outgoing one, again. And the repressed/oblivious theme. Gideon and Gilly are definitely buddies. Jeeves and Wooster, sorta kinda. Vic and Mac are two for the price of one, friendly antagonists working together--I wonder why I never really got into those two? Curt and Brian were just lovely and doomed.
And now there's the popslash, and an amazing amount of possible pairings. I like Nick and Justin, who are often written as antagonist-lite, though that's not the way I see them. Not the close friendship thing either, though. (But my Justin is frequently kinda repressed. *g*) I want to write JC and Justin the way they are in my head, but I never seem to get around to it. I want to write Nick with Howie, except where there should be a Howie-voice, there's nothing, just radio silence.
Looking at the pairings I actually have written, as opposed to the ones I theoretically want to write... hmm. JC/Nick: well, it made sense in my head. Nick/Justin: there's that interesting parallel thing going, similar but way different, whatever. JC/Lance: damned if I know. I'm not sure this one really clicks with me, although the vignette itself came easily enough. Chris/Lance: I blame Merry, but the snarking was fun. JC/Justin: less with the snark and more with the affection. I want to do so much more interesting things with them, though. I can see all kinds of interesting hooks sticking out. It's like velcro. A velcro pairing. Plus, on the happily shallow side: wow, the pretty.
On the whole, I like repressed characters, and I like pairing repressed characters up with characters who are determined to un-repress them. I like close friendship, and guys who aren't afraid to express their affection physically. (But also, of course, guys who are afraid to express their affection physically.) I like the tension of enemies who are unwillingly attracted, and better yet, have to work together I like snark, and I like prettiness..
Basically, I'm easy.
Anyone else?
Actually, that's not quite true. I woke up thinking, argh, I overslept, I'm going to be late! It took at least five minutes before I started thinking about pairings.
Some people have a very clear idea of what kind of pairing they prefer. A buddy dynamic, or a best enemies set-up, outgoing/introverted, younger/older, big guy/little guy, mentor/student, equals, opposites. I have fond memories of discussions with slimslash about the Paris/Kim relationship versus the Chakotay/Paris relationship and what we liked about them. Sometimes it feels as though every (type of) pairing has a standard story type, or maybe not type but tone and flavor. It's clearest when you contrast a buddy pairing with an antagonist pairing--the ways of getting them together, the ways they interact. Although a lot of the time people map a buddy-type story pattern onto an antagonist pairing, removing the you killed my father, prepare to die vibe before the story even starts, and sometimes buddies are cast as antagonists through misunderstandings and brainwashing and what-not. It's difficult when the story-type one prefers doesn't match the pairing one is currently in love with, I expect.
I'm going to muse a bit on Pairings I've Written, but I'll do it behind a cutaway, since I sometimes feel I've matched up more couples than Barbara Cartland.
Way back when, there were vampires. I think I've paired up every single Anne Rice vampire with every other Anne Rice vampire. There are some pairings that are more or less canonical--more or less meaning that it's so Different for vampires and also, they don't have sex, except, obviously, in fanfic. But Louis/Lestat, Armand/Daniel, they're, like, the classics. What was interesting in that fandom was the way other pairings were constructed and became popular and developed fanon and all that stuff. Marius/David, for instance, I think just grew out of someone's theory that they ought to get along well, and hey presto. I wrote a bunch of Louis/Lestat and Armand/Daniel, because I liked the relationships in canon, and I liked being able to make them do what I wanted (first flush of fanfic-discovery, and all that. Wow, if I write that they kiss, they kiss! How cool is that?). Then I put Marius and Santino together because they'd been sort of enemies and had drama in their past and then Santino was suddenly digging Marius out of the snow, and what was up with that? Sort of antagonist dynamic, in a way, I think. Plus Marius was seriously repressed, the way I wrote him, and Santino was very determined to do something about that. Heh.
Moving on, there's Voyager, which is where I first grasped the difference between a buddy dynamic and a (very mild, yeah) antagonist dynamic; a lot of people clicked with either Chakotay/Paris or Paris/Kim, depending on what kind of interaction they liked. I was a Paris/Kim girl, because they were friends and they cared about each other and wasn't that nice? Except that they were really at their slashiest in The Chute, where they balanced between friendship and antagonism. And cuddling. The cuddling was great. (I have a huge kink for friendly cuddling; I'm not sure why I'm not constantly writing smarm.) And Paris gave off hurt me some more vibes that the whole fandom picked up on. And Chakotay/Paris weren't really antagonists in a big serious way, only by comparison, as it were. A bit of snarling and posturing and stuff.
And then there was X-Files. Mulder. Krycek. The intense emotions, the up close and personal violence, the sparks, the kiss! They were enemies. They wanted each other. They were doomed. Life was grand.
Also, Mulder had this smart, neurotic, torture me thing going for a while there, and Krycek was pretty (and) mysterious, so a writer had some freedom to improvise.
Mulder and Skinner weren't really a buddy pairing; they were closer to early Chakotay/Paris, really, but often got pushed towards the buddy end of the pairing spectrum because Mulder/Krycek pretty much had the antagonist market cornered. (Not that people didn't write very edgy Mulder/Skinner, and very sappy Mulder/Krycek.)
So the Paris/Kim pairing was mostly about the sweet affection and teen angst, and the Mulder/Krycek pairing was mostly about the splendidly passionate misery, for me. Then, there was the Fandom Menace, essentially a single-pairing fandom, especially at the beginning. That was a great fandom for people who were into older/younger, mentor/student, big guy/little guy, or all of the above. I was warped from the start, because Te told me before I even saw the movie that she thought Qui-Gon was a bit creepy in it, so I saw both closeness and affection and the creepy vibe at the same time, and ended up writing both. Although not at the same time.
I really loved the world and the characters, but I'm not really that fascinated by the mentor/student dynamic, and it was kind of hard to get away from it unless one went all AU. Nor by the older/younger or bigger/smaller tropes, although those were considerably more easy to elide. For me, it was definitely mostly about the affection.
Gundam Wing was a big smorgasbord of potential pairings. I was intrigued at first by Heero and Duo, simply through the impressions I got through fanfic before I'd even seen the show; it seemed like a cool dynamic that I thought I could see glimpses of from stories that didn't always strike me as that well-characterized. Loudmouth with a heart of gold meets repressed, reserved soldier boy. Once I'd seen the show, I had a rather different view of them, but I still liked the dynamic that I did see, fake extrovert who hides his feelings by acting out and intense maniac who wears his heart on his non-existent sleeve and has no idea that's what he's doing. I ended up equally interested in pairing Heero with Trowa: intense, driven soldier boy and quiet, nihilistic soldier boy. Not much in the way of conversation, though.
Yes, I know everyone says Heero is unemotional and cold. But seriously. He's so not.
Eroica really is a one-pairing fandom for me. Klaus + Dorian 4eva! Klaus is one of the most beautifully repressed characters it has ever been my pleasure to encounter, and Dorian is splendidly uninhibited; they're made for each other, or at least made to drive each other crazy. They're antagonists who are often on the same side, with a freaky little buddy undercurrent that you just know gets under Klaus's skin.
In Harry Potter, I've only really ever almost paired up Harry and Snape only not really, which goes back to the mentor/student thing, maybe. I'm really much more interested in the dynamics between Snape, Black, and Lupin. All kinds of interesting tensions there, affection and annoyance, old love and old grudges, and the implication of having to try to get along for the greater good. Mmm.
I've written a lot of one-offs, one or two stories in a fandom that captured my attention momentarily. Fraser/Kowalski, a buddy relationship. Fraser/Vecchio, a different buddy relationship. Aziraphale/Crowley, theoretical antagonists, not-so-theoretical buddies. Mitsuru and Shinobu, buddies, and there's the reserved one and the outgoing one, again. And the repressed/oblivious theme. Gideon and Gilly are definitely buddies. Jeeves and Wooster, sorta kinda. Vic and Mac are two for the price of one, friendly antagonists working together--I wonder why I never really got into those two? Curt and Brian were just lovely and doomed.
And now there's the popslash, and an amazing amount of possible pairings. I like Nick and Justin, who are often written as antagonist-lite, though that's not the way I see them. Not the close friendship thing either, though. (But my Justin is frequently kinda repressed. *g*) I want to write JC and Justin the way they are in my head, but I never seem to get around to it. I want to write Nick with Howie, except where there should be a Howie-voice, there's nothing, just radio silence.
Looking at the pairings I actually have written, as opposed to the ones I theoretically want to write... hmm. JC/Nick: well, it made sense in my head. Nick/Justin: there's that interesting parallel thing going, similar but way different, whatever. JC/Lance: damned if I know. I'm not sure this one really clicks with me, although the vignette itself came easily enough. Chris/Lance: I blame Merry, but the snarking was fun. JC/Justin: less with the snark and more with the affection. I want to do so much more interesting things with them, though. I can see all kinds of interesting hooks sticking out. It's like velcro. A velcro pairing. Plus, on the happily shallow side: wow, the pretty.
On the whole, I like repressed characters, and I like pairing repressed characters up with characters who are determined to un-repress them. I like close friendship, and guys who aren't afraid to express their affection physically. (But also, of course, guys who are afraid to express their affection physically.) I like the tension of enemies who are unwillingly attracted, and better yet, have to work together I like snark, and I like prettiness..
Basically, I'm easy.
Anyone else?