Who comes first?

[flambeau]

Yay, lame sex joke! I meant to post about this back when I read this thread in the speak-up-anonymously-about-fandom thread in nostalgia_lj's lj, but then I forgot until a comment from hampden today reminded me

Comments

[resonant8]

Outside Trek (where I break them down by rank, just as you do), I really can't identify a pattern in which name I put first.

Harry/Snape is always Harry/Snape to me -- Snape/Harry would look odd to me -- but Snape/Lupin is always Snape/Lupin.

What's more, it's Snape/Lupin, and it's Snape/Black, but it's Remus/Sirius rather than Lupin/Black.

In Due South, I always seem to put Fraser first, regardless of who he's paired with.

Sentinel was always Jim/Blair, wasn't it? Did anybody ever see a listing that said Blair/Jim?

I gather the rule that says "the person who inserts a dick gets listed first" comes out of yaoi, where there seems to be a tradition of indicating who's pitching (so that there are Gundam Wing fans who will read 1x2 but wouldn't touch 2x1). I find this odd and fetishistic.

[flambeau]

Thanks for reminding me - first names and last names!

Putting Fraser first seems to go with what a couple of other people have suggested, that the main character in the source text goes first. Or something like that - I'm sure there are people who would argue the case wrt Sentinel in particular, but no, I've never ever seen Blair/Jim, that I can recall.

I wonder what it is that affects whether a pairing is known as first name/first name rather than last name/last name.

Also, I'd had no idea that the Rule o' Penetration existed for some people in the context of het pairings.

[cmshaw]

Also, I'd had no idea that the Rule o' Penetration existed for some people in the context of het pairings.

now i really want to know how this rule manages "bend over, boyfriend" het pairings with strap-ons. ;)

[pearl_o]

I wonder what it is that affects whether a pairing is known as first name/first name rather than last name/last name.

It seems like it's mostly a matter of what they're known by *most* in the source text. Fraser is a Fraser and Snape is a Snape, and so on, while referring to Clark and Lex as Kent and Luthor would look somewhat bizarre.

And last name seems to trump first name (like blood types! Um) so that the appearance of one of those last name ones turns the other guy into last name, too, rather than the other way around.

Although you *do* sometimes hear first name/last name combinations. I mean, Fraser/RayK or Fraser/RayV sounds bizarre to me, but people do say it.

[flambeau]

what they're known by *most* in the source text

Oh, good point. Fraser really is a Fraser. And since Fraser pairings usually involve differentiating the Rays, last names seem natural. Except, as you also point out,

Fraser/RayK or Fraser/RayV sounds bizarre to me, but people do say it

Yeah. And it's one of those things that sound interesting in the text as well, from time to time, when people start to mess around with the significance/level of intimacy implied in using first or last names.

[ekaterinn]

*pops in* In due South, I tend to use either Fraser/RayK and Fraser/RayV or RayK/Fraser and RayV/Fraser (depending on POV) because Fraser doesn't call either of the Rays Vecchio or Kowalski. He calls them Ray. Whereas they both call him Fraser most of the time. So for me it's matter of character name usage in the source text. *g*

[flambeau]

And that's probably behind that usage, yes, I think you're right. (I'm trying to imagine anyone listing the Mulder/Scully pairing as Fox/Dana and failing spectacularly. *g*)