Canon Ships and Me
If a ship is canon, I generally tend to ignore it. This means that a lot of het ships get little attention from me, because in my fandoms, most canon ships are het ships. This doesn't meant that I don't like them, I just don't really read or want to write fic about them. Why? Here's where things get a little complicated. You see, I usually, for lack of a better term, get what I want from those ships from the source. Take Spike/Buffy, for instance. I really like them as a couple, and I think the show does a good job at exploring the various parts of their relationship. I don't feel the need to read fic about them, because I'm satisfied with what the show gives me. The same can be said for gay and lesbian canon ships, as well, like Brian/Justin from QaF, or Haruka/Michiru from Sailormoon (even though the latter was censored in the US dub, making them cousins instead of a couple >_<).
Then there are ships that are almost canon, or soon to be canon. For instance, I loved the Bulma/Vegeta pairing from DBZ in my early years in fandom. The first fic I ever wrote was about them. This was before the episodes with them being married aired in the US, so though I knew that they were going to end up together, I didn't know the details of how that was going to happen. There were a few instances of them becoming "friendlier" (Bulma sleeping by Vegeta's beside after he was injured; Vegeta wearing a garish outfit that Bulma left out for him, even though he hated it and the rest of the DBZ gang teased him about it; etc.), but there was nothing overt. And after they became an established couple, I still stuck to first-time fic and pre-relationship fic when reading about them.
One of the almost canon ships I'm interested in is Flak/Shrapnel from Fallout 3. They're rumored to be a gay couple (at least, I don't think the game's developers confirmed their relationship, but many fans accept them as a couple), but there's nothing really obvious about them being together, other than that they live together in Rivet City, own a weapons shop, and are coded to sleep at the same time near each other. (Interesting tidbit: it's possible for the player to enslave Flak and send him to a slaver camp called Paradise Falls; if this happens, a glitch occurs where Shrapnel will leave Rivet City and wander around the Wastelands in order to "find" Flak, apparently due to the aforementioned coding. I know it's a glitch-thingy, and technically not a story element where Shrapnel's trying to rescue his man, but awwwww :'C ). They're both in their 50s, I believe, so there is a huge unexamined backstory as to how they met and got together and why they stayed together.
The canon ships that do get my attention are the ones that aren't developed beyond a few scenes or stories, like Amanda/Sarek or T'Pring/Stonn. Pretty much all we know is that they're together, and the sources (both Reboot and TOS) don't give us anything about how or why they got together, only that they want to be. That's what makes them interesting to me, the unexplored potential of their relationships (and it really makes me sad and rage-y when any K/S fic that mentions T'Pring/Stonn brushes them off by portraying them as an evil bitch and a conniving asshole boyfriend, but that's a whole other issue).
That's also why I'm mostly drawn to non-canon ships, where there are developed relationships (friendships, rivalries, whatever) and enough subtext between the characters to make romantic relationships believable, but enough unanswered questions to make reading fic feel like I'm discovering new things about them. Once in awhile I'll read something like Spock/Chekov, but the relationship they have in canon isn't very developed, so I'm not completely interested in it. However, I'm currently working my way through a supernatural/fantasy McCoy/Chekov AU, and loving it, so I guess it depends on how much work an author puts into developing the relationship that determines how much I want to read about it. I'm generally not a multi-shipper, either, because if I like a certain relationship dynamic I don't really want to see it broken up (which makes my occasional interest in Spock/Chekov somewhat anomalous).
Maybe I'm also drawn to non-canon ships because, for the most part, they're going to remain non-canon. I mean, there's probably never going to be a textually romantic scene between Kirk and Spock (if we disregard the Sickbay Scene, because that baby is like one word away from becoming textually romantic fluff). We'll never get to see what those romances will look like on screen. I can't just write a letter to Paramount, kindly asking them to include some steamy K/S wall!sex (or wall!grinding, or wall!anything, really) in the subsequent Trek films (but seriously, they need to include canonically LGBTQ characters in that franchise, like, yesterday). Well, I could, but I doubt they'd listen to me.
And in conclusion, here's an awkward analogy! It's like reaching the secret garden in the game Shadow of the Colossus. You see it at the end, but only in a cutscene, and the only way to get up there is by exploiting a diagonal-jumping glitch. It takes a lot of preparation (like building up the grip meter, that big pink circle thing in the video) and quite a bit of effort to maneuver the character up the temple wall, but once you reach it, you can explore the garden and the long path the main character traveled down at the very beginning of the game (also only in a cutscene). You can also get a great view of the landscape from up there. You aren't required to go there, but it adds another layer of challenge and discovery to the game. I love the rest of the game, it's one of my favorites and I highly recommend it, but climbing that tower and reaching the garden is a really fun and rewarding experience. If that makes any sense at all ^.^;;
Peace, y'all.
P.S. And in other news, I love this vid ^.^
Then there are ships that are almost canon, or soon to be canon. For instance, I loved the Bulma/Vegeta pairing from DBZ in my early years in fandom. The first fic I ever wrote was about them. This was before the episodes with them being married aired in the US, so though I knew that they were going to end up together, I didn't know the details of how that was going to happen. There were a few instances of them becoming "friendlier" (Bulma sleeping by Vegeta's beside after he was injured; Vegeta wearing a garish outfit that Bulma left out for him, even though he hated it and the rest of the DBZ gang teased him about it; etc.), but there was nothing overt. And after they became an established couple, I still stuck to first-time fic and pre-relationship fic when reading about them.
One of the almost canon ships I'm interested in is Flak/Shrapnel from Fallout 3. They're rumored to be a gay couple (at least, I don't think the game's developers confirmed their relationship, but many fans accept them as a couple), but there's nothing really obvious about them being together, other than that they live together in Rivet City, own a weapons shop, and are coded to sleep at the same time near each other. (Interesting tidbit: it's possible for the player to enslave Flak and send him to a slaver camp called Paradise Falls; if this happens, a glitch occurs where Shrapnel will leave Rivet City and wander around the Wastelands in order to "find" Flak, apparently due to the aforementioned coding. I know it's a glitch-thingy, and technically not a story element where Shrapnel's trying to rescue his man, but awwwww :'C ). They're both in their 50s, I believe, so there is a huge unexamined backstory as to how they met and got together and why they stayed together.
The canon ships that do get my attention are the ones that aren't developed beyond a few scenes or stories, like Amanda/Sarek or T'Pring/Stonn. Pretty much all we know is that they're together, and the sources (both Reboot and TOS) don't give us anything about how or why they got together, only that they want to be. That's what makes them interesting to me, the unexplored potential of their relationships (and it really makes me sad and rage-y when any K/S fic that mentions T'Pring/Stonn brushes them off by portraying them as an evil bitch and a conniving asshole boyfriend, but that's a whole other issue).
That's also why I'm mostly drawn to non-canon ships, where there are developed relationships (friendships, rivalries, whatever) and enough subtext between the characters to make romantic relationships believable, but enough unanswered questions to make reading fic feel like I'm discovering new things about them. Once in awhile I'll read something like Spock/Chekov, but the relationship they have in canon isn't very developed, so I'm not completely interested in it. However, I'm currently working my way through a supernatural/fantasy McCoy/Chekov AU, and loving it, so I guess it depends on how much work an author puts into developing the relationship that determines how much I want to read about it. I'm generally not a multi-shipper, either, because if I like a certain relationship dynamic I don't really want to see it broken up (which makes my occasional interest in Spock/Chekov somewhat anomalous).
Maybe I'm also drawn to non-canon ships because, for the most part, they're going to remain non-canon. I mean, there's probably never going to be a textually romantic scene between Kirk and Spock (if we disregard the Sickbay Scene, because that baby is like one word away from becoming textually romantic fluff). We'll never get to see what those romances will look like on screen. I can't just write a letter to Paramount, kindly asking them to include some steamy K/S wall!sex (or wall!grinding, or wall!anything, really) in the subsequent Trek films (but seriously, they need to include canonically LGBTQ characters in that franchise, like, yesterday). Well, I could, but I doubt they'd listen to me.
And in conclusion, here's an awkward analogy! It's like reaching the secret garden in the game Shadow of the Colossus. You see it at the end, but only in a cutscene, and the only way to get up there is by exploiting a diagonal-jumping glitch. It takes a lot of preparation (like building up the grip meter, that big pink circle thing in the video) and quite a bit of effort to maneuver the character up the temple wall, but once you reach it, you can explore the garden and the long path the main character traveled down at the very beginning of the game (also only in a cutscene). You can also get a great view of the landscape from up there. You aren't required to go there, but it adds another layer of challenge and discovery to the game. I love the rest of the game, it's one of my favorites and I highly recommend it, but climbing that tower and reaching the garden is a really fun and rewarding experience. If that makes any sense at all ^.^;;
Peace, y'all.
P.S. And in other news, I love this vid ^.^
Click to view