On Pairing Names
I was just talking to random people about pairing names. told me about how she always gets a twitch when she sees M/L or Michael/Lincoln because she's used to the anime fandom where you always put the character who is topping first. So Michael/Lincoln gives her a fundamentally different mental image than Lincoln/Michael.
( Musing on pairing names in the Prison Break fandom + a poll. )
( Musing on pairing names in the Prison Break fandom + a poll. )
Shocking I know!
I'm more of a 'if the story is done well' and it makes sense for the character to bottom then so be it.
For instance...
PB - Lincoln/Michael
I usually see Lincoln as a top if we must use these terms and I agree its a crappy way to describe a relationship. However it is what it is for now. I can see Michael topping but usually not. The only person I see Michael topping is LJ. That's it really. I think its more about power and age than about anything else in this pairing.
I usually lean first toward age. I usually expect the older or the more experienced person to top. Especially in first times. If it's a first time for both, I expect the more confident/aggressive/more sociable one to top.
Let me quantify my answer on the last one - more sociable - I usually associate the person who most wants to be accepted in all areas of life to be the more submissive person in bed. Wanting the ultimate acceptance of their partner. Being taken and owned by them. I know you would think 'well if acceptance is what your looking for shouldn't that person top?' Maybe but not in my eyes.
In my eyes as a woman If I let you into my body I am accepting you and I assume you are accepting me. You saw something in me that wanted you to gain entrance and in turn I see that as acceptance. (The exception is when your impaired then I don't think it matters.) I think unconsciously I write this way.
I can see Michael as a top with Lincoln only if circumstances were presented in a way where Lincoln knew that was what Michael needed or he needed to show Michael what Michael means to him. It would be the ultimate show of commitment that Lincoln could do. Sort of a promise in ways. 'I may sleep around but your the only one who would ever have me this way' kind of thing.
I have more to say especially in SPN but a lack alas, I must return to work.
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The only person I see Michael topping is LJ.
Oh totally. Maybe that is the appeal of the pairing for some. Especially if they see Michael as bottoming usually.
I can see Michael as a top with Lincoln only if circumstances were presented in a way where Lincoln knew that was what Michael needed or he needed to show Michael what Michael means to him. It would be the ultimate show of commitment that Lincoln could do. Sort of a promise in ways. 'I may sleep around but your the only one who would ever have me this way' kind of thing.
*whipers* I've been trying forever to talk halfshell into writing just that and I *know* it is coming. *looks around shifty eyed*
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Bottoming or being the submissive(so to speak) one in a relationship is the ultimate form of control. You give up control in the bedroom so to speak or at anyone looking at the relationship from the outside in but in the other aspects of the relationship you pretty much determine the course of the rest of the relationship. i.e. What some men would do for a great piece of ass. (In the most crude of ways possible to say but yet clearly illustrate my point.)
*whipers* I've been trying forever to talk halfshell into writing just that and I *know* it is coming. *looks around shifty eyed*
If we keep asking you know she might bend.
In another thought about this....
When characters are written in a way where the person who tops is asserting their dominance in the relationship, using sex as a form a control, (T-bag/anybody)it's not about sex, love, want or need. This changes the story and my relationship to the sexual act. In this case who ever bottoms and why ceases to be important.
However the more powerful play is when the character in this case Michael is bottom to lets say Abruzzi/T-bag/Sucre/and on and on. In these cases Michael usually needs something from each of these persons. Being bottom to these characters is more of an exchange of goods. Michael is also a master at playing the odds, he knows what people want and how to manipulate that situation to gain his own needs.
Yet he doesn't look the part. Usually in any fan-dom the bottom/submissive unknowingly/or in some cases knowingly has the power to direct the course of the relationship.
In this instance Michael is well aware of that dynamic and uses it appropriately.
Yet in Lincoln/Michael the dynamics are completely different and so the sexual situations between them would be different. I see Lincoln topping because that is who he is. He is a born top.
If Lincoln/Michael were not brothers in the story then I would expect different things. I could see a more equal relationship between them, no real established roles. Even in that situation I would expect Lincoln to top more often though.
With them as brothers the situations changes. The viewpoints in which you see Michael changes. I usually fall on the side of a man who is willing to give up everything for a chance to see his brother live. Slash him up and I see a man who fell deeply in love with his brother and who knows its never, ever, going to be a happy ending and the chance to feel of his brother inside him in that way would be everything. Hence Michael bottoms.
Although when its all said and done its really all a matter of good writing. With that any combination is possible in my eyes.
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Wordy McWord.
If Lincoln/Michael were not brothers in the story then I would expect different things. I could see a more equal relationship between them, no real established roles. Even in that situation I would expect Lincoln to top more often though.
Again word. Their relationship dynamic would be rather different in a lot of way. Both because they wouldn't have grown up as much with the older brother=protector role and because it wouldn't have the "forbidden" aspect.
However the more powerful play is when the character in this case Michael is bottom to lets say Abruzzi/T-bag/Sucre/and on and on. In these cases Michael usually needs something from each of these persons. Being bottom to these characters is more of an exchange of goods. Michael is also a master at playing the odds, he knows what people want and how to manipulate that situation to gain his own needs.
I can totally see Michael being very pragmatic about it. Like regardless of personal preference, I would see him not being too bothered by entering it in an exchange of goods kind of way. Precisely because he knows what people need, like he knows that maybe the other person sees it as a humiliation of the bottom or as an exercise of power, but Michael himself thinks that that is bullshit and so he doesn't mind bottoming because he doesn't see it as something bothersome/humiliating. More in "Well, if you want to be crazy/strange about it, that's your problem/weakness, not mine.".
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