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Let's Talk About Shipping
Oct. 15th, 2014 02:02 pm'Cause hell, it's not like I have actual work to do. I'm moving into Chapter 12 of "Death To Everyone," in which the downward plunge officially begins, with an explicit eye towards being able to finish the whole series up ASAP, and also trying like hell to get a bunch of other shit jump-started so I can spend November teaching but also doing a NaNoWriMo-style push on (amongst other things) Experimental Film. Also: Sorry for my generalized absence in terms of online presence, at least here; I just switched to Chrome from safari, finally, and it's made everything ten thousand times faster on Tumblr, which is--great, but also an amazing lure/time-sink. Six of one.
Okay, let's get to it:
1. Talk about the first ship you ever had.
Possibly Caius Cassius Longinus/Marcus Junius Brutus, from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, But I remember being absolutely obsessed with foe-yay from a really early age, to the extent that I would fantasize about Darth Vader weeping over Luke Skywalker's corpse and singing Carole King's "It's Too Late." (That got jossed/creepy pretty fast, once The Empire Strikes Back came out.)
2. Talk about three of the most important ships throughout your life.
Well...Ben Wade/Charlie Prince from James Mangold's 3:10 to Yuma prompted me to write an entire trilogy, so I'd say they're pretty important to me.;) And Vern Schillinger/Tobias Beecher from OZ made me start writing fanfiction/write my very first "novel," so that's really important, too. Third slot I would think is probably reserved for whatever I'm obsessed with RFN, which at this moment would be The Governor/Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead, my AU ship of not-exactly-shame.
3. What’s your current OTP?
As above, so below. Philip Blake (or maybe Brian Blake, occasionally known as Brian Heriot) is a figure of literally outsized, epic oddness, and like most David Morrissey characters, he seems super-normal/-solid on top, only to turn out to be neurotic all the way down. I love his propensity to lie his way into situations and then change himself to fit them; yeah, he's a narcissistic sociopath, but he's still pretty amazing, in terms of sheer willpower. Better yet, he and Rick Grimes have so much in common it's scary: berserkerness when crossed, tendency to define themselves by family, tendency to melt down and (in Rick's case) hallucinate wildly when overloaded, ruthless rock-bottom practicality. But Rick actually cares about people, and so long as he's useful--so long as he's keeping Philip even--a version of Philip who's known him from the beginning would find that adorable. This is the premise of "This Old Death" and "Death To Everyone," in a nut-shell.
4. What’s your current NOTP?
I tend not to police other people's obsessions, because who has the fucking time? That said, I in theory disapprove of ships which erase people's established canon identities when said identities aren't strictly heteronormative, because representation is hard enough to come by, in mainstream culture. No problem at all bending things the other way, obviously, and if you can persuade me, I'll go along with almost any thesis. (I also very much approve of the term "homoflexible," which I recently learned, 'cause I like it when stuff gets slippy-slidey, when people form attachments and change, etc. Situational bisexuality for all!)
5. Do you have any poly ships?
At the moment, I'm reading an ass-load of Walking Dead stuff, a lot of which is pretty rough, but the found family aspect of the show makes for an amazing amount of poly ship potential. Rick is definitely my little black dress, though, so anything where he's involved is fair game: Rick/Daryl/Carol, Rick/Daryl/Michonne, Rick/Daryl/Beth, even, and I still think Rick/Shane/Lori had potential to work, though it might only have put the eventual drama off for a while. One way or the other, it's the zombpocalypse, so I think standard prejudices are all ripe to fly out the window. Hell, I could even see Tara/Rosita/Abraham or Tara/Maggie/Glenn, eventually.
6. How do you feel about love triangles?
They're fairly boring when it's a fight between two points of the triangle over the third point, especially when it's the classic man-woman-man model. And the longer you extend them, the more boring they tend to get, so don't do that--kiss and make up, already, or kill each other! Essentially, the nature of real love is caring more about the other person than about yourself, so let go or make enough of an adjustment to be able to stay; either way, just get the hell on with it.
7. How do you feel about RPF?
My parents are both actors and I grew up in the industry, so I suppose I should find it gross, but I don't. Doesn't really interest me that much either, though. Chacun a son gout.
8. Have you ever shipped yourself with a character?
Not unless I was pretending to be another character, so...all the time, I guess?
9. Do you have many ships that never got together at all?
I mainly write slash, so that's a given.;)
10. Do you ship any characters that have never met?
Not really, though I once wrote something where Krycek from The X-Files hooked up with Todd Manning from One Life to Live. It was kind of on a dare.
11. Talk about your favourite first kiss.
In canon? Um...there've been some good first kisses in various movies I like, but I do tend to still slide to the antagonistic, so the fact that the first one which comes to mind is Amsterdam/Jenny Everdeane from gangs of New York ("Try it, and I'll bite ya!") is probably a tip-off of some sort. I enjoyed Andrea and the Governor making out in the garden, but even at the time, I was like: "Man, this is going nowhere good."
12. Have you ever been disappointed when your ship finally got together?
I get this a lot with mainstream canon het ships, but mainly because progressing to Yes We Are Doin' It status often cues the drama/pregnancy/potential fridging shuffle. That said, my husband is a huge fan of Castle, and I like how they've handled Castle/Beckett overall. They make them behave like adults.
13. Has a ship ever broken your heart?
Sure. Tragic ones. One of my first fannish memories is of crying over the end of Cyrano de Bergerac.
14. How do you feel about will they/won’t they?
You can only extend that so long, but people often end up extending it longer. I blame the exigencies of production.
15. Have you ever “shipped at first sight”?
Ha, yes.
16. Talk about a ship you initially disliked.
I don't think I've ever had that reaction other fans describe of feeling as though something's being "pushed down [their] throat[s]", so (shrugs).
17. Talk about a pairing you’ve stopped shipping romantically.
I wrote a fair deal of Chris Keller/Tobias Beecher when I was in OZ, because it became the juggernaut and people reacted so well to it, but I was never as enamoured of it as other people seemed to be. You raelly have to play it as though it's intensely fucked-up and perverse, and most people seemed to be seeing a romantic angle in it that I just wasn't seeing. So...maybe that.
18. Talk about a moment which made you question an entire ship.
Not so much when Chris Keller broke Beecher's arms and legs, but definitely when he lost him his parole.
19. Have you ever shipped something despite yourself?
I can see the inherent lure in most things. I guess it's a skill, or maybe a personality flaw.:))
20. Talk about a ship you feel alone in shipping.
There are seven fics on the AO3 labelled Philip Blake/Rick Grimes, and I wrote two of them. If you search under Mordecai Heller/Viktor Vasko, meanwhile, I wrote every piece of fic tagged that way. I am also the first person who ever wrote fic shipping Charlie Prince with Jackson, though the ship itself was launched by baggyeyes. In other words, I am the queen of shipping things other people don't.
21. Is there a ship you just don’t get, but have nothing against?
There's a lot of things I don't read, but don't resent existing.
22. Which of your ships have the best chemistry?
Even Roger Ebert wrote that Charlie Prince was either half in love with Ben Wade or wholly in love with him, but only half aware of it.
23. Which of your ships deserve better writing?
Just about everything in The Walking Dead deserves better fic writing, overall, but there are some amazing people writing fic for it, nonetheless. Or do you mean canon? Because when I disagree with canon, I don't tend to do so one the basis of thinking the writing is "bad," so much, as inconsistent and/or illogical.
24. Do you mostly ship canon pairings?
Almost never.;)
25. Have you ever shipped a pairing before you even started watching the show/movie simply because of gifs and graphics or similar?
I'm going to buy Penny Dreadful on DVD soon, because I've only watched the pilot and half of the second episode, yet the main reason I did even that is because of Tumblr. Like I said, convince me, and I'll get on board.
26. Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping? Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to?
Beautiful monsters. People whose wounds fit together. Size disparity. Power-play. Unlikely partnerships.
27. Is there a ship you’ve shipped for most of your life?
I've been on board the Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser ship since I tripped over a copy of Diana Gabaldon's Voyager in a drawer while working security, and seeing it blow up now because of the TV show (which I really like, BTW) is extraordinarily amusing/fulfilling to me, especially when I watch people tie themselves into knots about whether or not they're allowed to like it.
28. Does shipping come easily to you?
I guess it does. The mere presence of chemistry certainly doesn't annoy or repulse me.
29. Do you need to ship something to really enjoy a movie/book/TV show/comic?
I watched the entirety of the original Law & Order, so nope.
30. Name a couple of fandoms in which you have no ships.
Why?
31. Talk about one of your favourite headcanons for a ship you love.
My entire current OTP is one big headcanon, but the thing that jumps out at me is my bedrock assumption that Rick Grimes is not necessarily as straight as most people seem to think, and that Philip Blake is as completely amoral in matters of sex as he is in most other matters: likes to be on top but doesn't care about being on bottom, has probably accepted sex from almost anybody who offered it through his life even before the zombpocalypse and particularly when it was some sort of sex-for-favours swap, with him giving out the favours. I'm not sure if we're ever going to get into this, but I think he knew Milton Mamet was in love with him and might have let him blow him a couple of times yet not have gone any further, because he was well aware he would've broken him in half--figuratively and possibly literally. No point in doing THAT, not when the man was still useful.
32. Share five must-read fics.
"Harvest Moon" and "sick and tired of legends untold" by The_Readers_Muse; "Short Change Hero," "Lions" and "i followed fires" by zihna.
33. Name your favorite fanartist(s).
I love the stuff ladyspirits and mcaether have done for the Hexslinger series. It makes me so amazingly happy.
34. Share your favorite fanmix for your OTP.
The songs I'm listening to most often right now are "Fifth of Whisky" by Verse and Bishop, "Once" by Caleb Kane, "Burning Bone" by Lynx, "Laugh, I Nearly Died" by the Rolling Stones and "Born to Rise" by Redlight King.
35. Recommend 1-5 shipper blogs.
There's a lot of good stuff in my Tumblr queue.
36. Do you create fanmixes/gif sets/fanart/fic/fanvids and so on for your ships?
I always have playlists of songs that remind me of whatever/whoever I'm writing at any given time. I'm not very good with photoshopping, though, so I'm mainly dependent on other fans for art. Love me some fanvids.
37. Do you have a favourite trope and/or AU for your OTP?
Given it's all an AU, I think the central trope is probably: "Forgiveness is hard, and kind of has to be, but it's just possible you might actually be able to fuck a crazy person sane after all."
38. Do you like and use ship names?
Some of them are cute ("Ichabbie"), but no.
39. Is there a fictional relationship you’d really want for yourself?
None of my OTPs have very admirable relationships, functional or not, so not really. Maybe Mordecai/Viktor, if they weren't doing crime for money anymore.
40. If you could change one thing about your OTP, what would that be?
Be nice if it'd actually happened, though that would be very hard to pull off, in canon. Some people have said: "Well, if Philip had been persuaded by Rick's speech in 'Too Far Gone'...but I really can't see that happening. Like he said himself: 'Not after Woodbury, after Andrea.' As long as Michonne was in the same area he would've always had to sleep with one eye open, which would've been functionally impossible. Maybe if they'd encountered a far worse bunch of people and been forced to all stand together, but...I also sort of think he was looking to win or die, that day. He certainly made it hard for anything else to happen.
Okay, let's get to it:
1. Talk about the first ship you ever had.
Possibly Caius Cassius Longinus/Marcus Junius Brutus, from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, But I remember being absolutely obsessed with foe-yay from a really early age, to the extent that I would fantasize about Darth Vader weeping over Luke Skywalker's corpse and singing Carole King's "It's Too Late." (That got jossed/creepy pretty fast, once The Empire Strikes Back came out.)
2. Talk about three of the most important ships throughout your life.
Well...Ben Wade/Charlie Prince from James Mangold's 3:10 to Yuma prompted me to write an entire trilogy, so I'd say they're pretty important to me.;) And Vern Schillinger/Tobias Beecher from OZ made me start writing fanfiction/write my very first "novel," so that's really important, too. Third slot I would think is probably reserved for whatever I'm obsessed with RFN, which at this moment would be The Governor/Rick Grimes from The Walking Dead, my AU ship of not-exactly-shame.
3. What’s your current OTP?
As above, so below. Philip Blake (or maybe Brian Blake, occasionally known as Brian Heriot) is a figure of literally outsized, epic oddness, and like most David Morrissey characters, he seems super-normal/-solid on top, only to turn out to be neurotic all the way down. I love his propensity to lie his way into situations and then change himself to fit them; yeah, he's a narcissistic sociopath, but he's still pretty amazing, in terms of sheer willpower. Better yet, he and Rick Grimes have so much in common it's scary: berserkerness when crossed, tendency to define themselves by family, tendency to melt down and (in Rick's case) hallucinate wildly when overloaded, ruthless rock-bottom practicality. But Rick actually cares about people, and so long as he's useful--so long as he's keeping Philip even--a version of Philip who's known him from the beginning would find that adorable. This is the premise of "This Old Death" and "Death To Everyone," in a nut-shell.
4. What’s your current NOTP?
I tend not to police other people's obsessions, because who has the fucking time? That said, I in theory disapprove of ships which erase people's established canon identities when said identities aren't strictly heteronormative, because representation is hard enough to come by, in mainstream culture. No problem at all bending things the other way, obviously, and if you can persuade me, I'll go along with almost any thesis. (I also very much approve of the term "homoflexible," which I recently learned, 'cause I like it when stuff gets slippy-slidey, when people form attachments and change, etc. Situational bisexuality for all!)
5. Do you have any poly ships?
At the moment, I'm reading an ass-load of Walking Dead stuff, a lot of which is pretty rough, but the found family aspect of the show makes for an amazing amount of poly ship potential. Rick is definitely my little black dress, though, so anything where he's involved is fair game: Rick/Daryl/Carol, Rick/Daryl/Michonne, Rick/Daryl/Beth, even, and I still think Rick/Shane/Lori had potential to work, though it might only have put the eventual drama off for a while. One way or the other, it's the zombpocalypse, so I think standard prejudices are all ripe to fly out the window. Hell, I could even see Tara/Rosita/Abraham or Tara/Maggie/Glenn, eventually.
6. How do you feel about love triangles?
They're fairly boring when it's a fight between two points of the triangle over the third point, especially when it's the classic man-woman-man model. And the longer you extend them, the more boring they tend to get, so don't do that--kiss and make up, already, or kill each other! Essentially, the nature of real love is caring more about the other person than about yourself, so let go or make enough of an adjustment to be able to stay; either way, just get the hell on with it.
7. How do you feel about RPF?
My parents are both actors and I grew up in the industry, so I suppose I should find it gross, but I don't. Doesn't really interest me that much either, though. Chacun a son gout.
8. Have you ever shipped yourself with a character?
Not unless I was pretending to be another character, so...all the time, I guess?
9. Do you have many ships that never got together at all?
I mainly write slash, so that's a given.;)
10. Do you ship any characters that have never met?
Not really, though I once wrote something where Krycek from The X-Files hooked up with Todd Manning from One Life to Live. It was kind of on a dare.
11. Talk about your favourite first kiss.
In canon? Um...there've been some good first kisses in various movies I like, but I do tend to still slide to the antagonistic, so the fact that the first one which comes to mind is Amsterdam/Jenny Everdeane from gangs of New York ("Try it, and I'll bite ya!") is probably a tip-off of some sort. I enjoyed Andrea and the Governor making out in the garden, but even at the time, I was like: "Man, this is going nowhere good."
12. Have you ever been disappointed when your ship finally got together?
I get this a lot with mainstream canon het ships, but mainly because progressing to Yes We Are Doin' It status often cues the drama/pregnancy/potential fridging shuffle. That said, my husband is a huge fan of Castle, and I like how they've handled Castle/Beckett overall. They make them behave like adults.
13. Has a ship ever broken your heart?
Sure. Tragic ones. One of my first fannish memories is of crying over the end of Cyrano de Bergerac.
14. How do you feel about will they/won’t they?
You can only extend that so long, but people often end up extending it longer. I blame the exigencies of production.
15. Have you ever “shipped at first sight”?
Ha, yes.
16. Talk about a ship you initially disliked.
I don't think I've ever had that reaction other fans describe of feeling as though something's being "pushed down [their] throat[s]", so (shrugs).
17. Talk about a pairing you’ve stopped shipping romantically.
I wrote a fair deal of Chris Keller/Tobias Beecher when I was in OZ, because it became the juggernaut and people reacted so well to it, but I was never as enamoured of it as other people seemed to be. You raelly have to play it as though it's intensely fucked-up and perverse, and most people seemed to be seeing a romantic angle in it that I just wasn't seeing. So...maybe that.
18. Talk about a moment which made you question an entire ship.
Not so much when Chris Keller broke Beecher's arms and legs, but definitely when he lost him his parole.
19. Have you ever shipped something despite yourself?
I can see the inherent lure in most things. I guess it's a skill, or maybe a personality flaw.:))
20. Talk about a ship you feel alone in shipping.
There are seven fics on the AO3 labelled Philip Blake/Rick Grimes, and I wrote two of them. If you search under Mordecai Heller/Viktor Vasko, meanwhile, I wrote every piece of fic tagged that way. I am also the first person who ever wrote fic shipping Charlie Prince with Jackson, though the ship itself was launched by baggyeyes. In other words, I am the queen of shipping things other people don't.
21. Is there a ship you just don’t get, but have nothing against?
There's a lot of things I don't read, but don't resent existing.
22. Which of your ships have the best chemistry?
Even Roger Ebert wrote that Charlie Prince was either half in love with Ben Wade or wholly in love with him, but only half aware of it.
23. Which of your ships deserve better writing?
Just about everything in The Walking Dead deserves better fic writing, overall, but there are some amazing people writing fic for it, nonetheless. Or do you mean canon? Because when I disagree with canon, I don't tend to do so one the basis of thinking the writing is "bad," so much, as inconsistent and/or illogical.
24. Do you mostly ship canon pairings?
Almost never.;)
25. Have you ever shipped a pairing before you even started watching the show/movie simply because of gifs and graphics or similar?
I'm going to buy Penny Dreadful on DVD soon, because I've only watched the pilot and half of the second episode, yet the main reason I did even that is because of Tumblr. Like I said, convince me, and I'll get on board.
26. Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping? Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to?
Beautiful monsters. People whose wounds fit together. Size disparity. Power-play. Unlikely partnerships.
27. Is there a ship you’ve shipped for most of your life?
I've been on board the Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser ship since I tripped over a copy of Diana Gabaldon's Voyager in a drawer while working security, and seeing it blow up now because of the TV show (which I really like, BTW) is extraordinarily amusing/fulfilling to me, especially when I watch people tie themselves into knots about whether or not they're allowed to like it.
28. Does shipping come easily to you?
I guess it does. The mere presence of chemistry certainly doesn't annoy or repulse me.
29. Do you need to ship something to really enjoy a movie/book/TV show/comic?
I watched the entirety of the original Law & Order, so nope.
30. Name a couple of fandoms in which you have no ships.
Why?
31. Talk about one of your favourite headcanons for a ship you love.
My entire current OTP is one big headcanon, but the thing that jumps out at me is my bedrock assumption that Rick Grimes is not necessarily as straight as most people seem to think, and that Philip Blake is as completely amoral in matters of sex as he is in most other matters: likes to be on top but doesn't care about being on bottom, has probably accepted sex from almost anybody who offered it through his life even before the zombpocalypse and particularly when it was some sort of sex-for-favours swap, with him giving out the favours. I'm not sure if we're ever going to get into this, but I think he knew Milton Mamet was in love with him and might have let him blow him a couple of times yet not have gone any further, because he was well aware he would've broken him in half--figuratively and possibly literally. No point in doing THAT, not when the man was still useful.
32. Share five must-read fics.
"Harvest Moon" and "sick and tired of legends untold" by The_Readers_Muse; "Short Change Hero," "Lions" and "i followed fires" by zihna.
33. Name your favorite fanartist(s).
I love the stuff ladyspirits and mcaether have done for the Hexslinger series. It makes me so amazingly happy.
34. Share your favorite fanmix for your OTP.
The songs I'm listening to most often right now are "Fifth of Whisky" by Verse and Bishop, "Once" by Caleb Kane, "Burning Bone" by Lynx, "Laugh, I Nearly Died" by the Rolling Stones and "Born to Rise" by Redlight King.
35. Recommend 1-5 shipper blogs.
There's a lot of good stuff in my Tumblr queue.
36. Do you create fanmixes/gif sets/fanart/fic/fanvids and so on for your ships?
I always have playlists of songs that remind me of whatever/whoever I'm writing at any given time. I'm not very good with photoshopping, though, so I'm mainly dependent on other fans for art. Love me some fanvids.
37. Do you have a favourite trope and/or AU for your OTP?
Given it's all an AU, I think the central trope is probably: "Forgiveness is hard, and kind of has to be, but it's just possible you might actually be able to fuck a crazy person sane after all."
38. Do you like and use ship names?
Some of them are cute ("Ichabbie"), but no.
39. Is there a fictional relationship you’d really want for yourself?
None of my OTPs have very admirable relationships, functional or not, so not really. Maybe Mordecai/Viktor, if they weren't doing crime for money anymore.
40. If you could change one thing about your OTP, what would that be?
Be nice if it'd actually happened, though that would be very hard to pull off, in canon. Some people have said: "Well, if Philip had been persuaded by Rick's speech in 'Too Far Gone'...but I really can't see that happening. Like he said himself: 'Not after Woodbury, after Andrea.' As long as Michonne was in the same area he would've always had to sleep with one eye open, which would've been functionally impossible. Maybe if they'd encountered a far worse bunch of people and been forced to all stand together, but...I also sort of think he was looking to win or die, that day. He certainly made it hard for anything else to happen.
