But What Do I CALL Them? (Pairings and Naming Conventions)
Note: The links in this ramble go to Dreamwidth posts.
Further Note: Bloody hell, I've been metafandom'd! Welcome all and I'm on vacation so responses might be delayed. Sorry 'bout that.
I'm wandering around LJ this morning reading about pairings and power dynamics and het&slash, etc. I asked ruuger once why B5 pairings were written the way they were. Why John/Delenn rather than Delenn/John? Not alphabetical obviously. And it's usually Susan/Marcus, but I've seen Marcus/Ivanova, Cole/Ivanova, and Marcus/Susan. It's not male names first, or even first names only. Then there's slash/femslash/canon slash. Is there a difference between Talia/Susan and Susan/Talia? And what about threesomes?
It took me a while to realize that '&' (usually) means just friends and '/' (usually) means a romantic pairing. If not all-out sex. Some apparently use ',' for friends, '&' for romance, and '/' for sex. 'Tis confusing. But it's clear my early forays into Susan/Delenn are not what you think. (Though I won't say I haven't gone there...but not in public.) I've re-tagged most of them, but I'm sure there are some references lingering. Sorry for any confusion!
Reading threewalls today on vanilla relationships, I saw that some use the order in a '/' as indicating a power relationship. So John/Delenn means John's the dominant person in the relationship and Delenn is submissive? (I haven't quite stopped laughing at that concept.)
There doesn't seem to be a consensus on the point, although it's an intriguing idea. It makes me wonder whether we need a '-' symbol for pairings with partners rather than a top/bottom, dominant/submissive, husband/wife dynamic. Not that a husband and wife can't share power equally, but it has conventional overtones of dom/sub in our society, more's the pity. vector 's original essay on pairings went into this too.
That post had complaints about conventional power dynamics in fic, and the lack of awesome women, and lots of other intriguing points. No relationship is that simple in real life, and I don't want to read about it in fic either. The 'traditional' relationships I know of in RL often involve the seemingly submissive person employing power through manipulation or subversion.And in fic my 'kink' is power-sharing and power-shifting. Even in light fluffy early romance stories, I want to see/write the delicate dance between equals. And if it's a mature relationship, give me two strong personalities clashing and compromising and never losing sight of their passion for each other. Every single time.