Let's Talk January: What Attracts Me to a Pairing?

[mithen]

rijsg asked what attracts me to a pairing, which is...a dangerous thing to ask, because oh boy, do I like to talk about stuff like that. I've actually turned this over a lot in my head, because there's a difference between "I like this pairing, they're good together" and "OH I CLUTCH MY HEART WHEN THEY SPEAK TOGETHER I MUST WRITE THEM FIC THIS INSTANT." I ended up with three things that tend to show up a lot together--any one or two and I ship them, but put all three together and DAMN, it's my Kryptonite.

0. Oh, first, a baseline: I generally need a LOT of canon interactions between the two--or at the very least, their relationship needs to be very central to the story. I have a hard time shipping anyone who doesn't have a nice rich canon together, I'm not someone who can enjoy making up my own head canon for relationships, sometimes to my chagrin. Part of why the reboot has been hard for my Clark/Bruce muses is that at a certain level, these two (new) characters have had almost no interaction we've seen together. Yes, there's still lots of other canons out there and I can graft the pre-reboot history onto them, but at some level it feels hollow. Same for rebooted Kirk/Spock, although they're making progress there.

1. Complementary opposites. I don't tend to ship canon enemies (Batman/Joker and Sherlock/Moriarty leave me cold) but on the other hand I don't tend to ship buddies either (Ron/Harry, Pippin/Merry, Booster/Beetle, Armin/Eren from Attack on Titan are all very nice but lack the spark I need for a true OTP). What draws me in are pairs where the backgrounds, the motivations, or the personalities lead to friction, but the emotional connection transcends that friction. I love Batman/Catwoman, for example, because the playful/serious personality and selfish/altruistic motivation clash creates sparks for me. Holmes and Watson are often called "the heart and the mind" and I tend to adore pairings with an extremely intellectual person and a more gut-level (but still intelligent) person (hello there Kirk/Spock, Blake/Avon, Bruce/Clark, Illya/Napoleon, Stephen Maturin/Jack Aubrey). It especially helps if the two are complementary opposite types working together in service of a cause bigger than themselves--a ship or starship or country or organization or cause. Give me lots of passionate arguments about means and ends and goals and I'm a happy shipper.

2. Loners. I tend to love pairs in which both members are isolated and have a hard time making meaningful human connections, in part because it's such a thrill that they have each other. Everyone I've listed above fits that pretty well (Aubrey/Maturin maybe the least) and I'll just add Alan/Denny from Boston Legal while I'm at it.

I'm going to take a moment and mention that very often the "warmer" person in my OTP tends to be taken as more emotionally accessible and open and expressive than the "cooler" one--and that it's often not so at all, it's just a different way of keeping people at a distance. Jim Kirk, Clark Kent, John Watson, Bilbo Baggins are all people who seem more able to make human connections than Spock, Bruce Wayne, Sherlock Holmes, Thorin--but canonically they tend to be just as lonely and isolated, just in a different way. Kirk has plenty of flirtations, but almost never anything deep and meaningful (when it is, she dies, of course--an unfortunate theme with all these characters). Command isolates him. For all his vaunted love and affection for all, Clark Kent is shockingly low on people he lets get close to him. If I'm keeping track correctly, in the reboot only four people alive seem to know his secret identity: Diana, Lois (she just found out and I think the knowledge is temporary, but we'll see), Lana Lang--and Bruce. His alien background always lends an element of loneliness to his character--I'm not a big fan of the storylines where he mopes and broods about it, but I like it as a melancholy thread that runs under his interactions. It's the Fortress of Solitude, not the Fortress of Hanging Out With My Buddies. Bilbo Baggins lives alone of his own choice, never seems to regret it, and is something of a misanthropist in general it seems--he likes people, but on his own terms. And I'm sure theses have been written about the fact that John Watson is maybe even more unable than Sherlock Holmes to easily express emotions and connection. Everyone thinks of him as the warm and affectionate one, but nearly all of his connections (everyone at that Christmas party) are in his life because of Sherlock. Even Sholto, his commanding officer who he admires greatly, he pretty much never actually interacts with. Mary Morstan is a distinct exception (a little oddly, considering in canon he only met her because of Holmes), and she does complicate things a bit, but that's a topic for a few days from now.

Even my few het OTPs (I ship lots of het and femslash, but not many reach the passion of the m/m pairings for me) have isolation as a theme--for example, Jarod/Miss Parker from The Pretender, two very isolated and lonely individuals who, even though they're technically enemies, end up having more in common than anyone else. The femslash pairing that comes closest to an OTP for me is Huntress/Power Girl in the new continuity, and in part that's because they have that same "two outsiders against the rest of the world" dynamic (they're very like Kirk and Spock in that Karen has a lot of casual relationships and Helena stays aloof, but they're the most important thing in each others' lives beyond a doubt). "You and Me Against the World" is probably my OTP philosophy theme song.

3. Teleology. This is maybe a strange one, and one I hadn't really teased out until answering this question! Teleology is the study of endings and destinations...I've always been struck by how, considering how much I love fluffy stories, I end up so very often drawn to pairings where one member dies next to the other, and often where one member kills the other. Qui-gon's death scene with Obi-wan impressed me enough that it overcame my teacher/student squick, and that is saying something. Thorin/Bilbo, Kunzite/Zoicite from Sailor Moon, Picard/Q...all the same. Kirk/Spock and Holmes/Watson (lots more about this in the coming Sherlock post) have their own weird takes on it (and how much does it kill me that Spock wasn't there when Kirk died? SO MUCH). Denny Crane and Alan Shore in Boston Legal don't get there in canon, but they're on their way.

And then there are the OTPs where one member actually kills the other...Londo/G'Kar, Blake/Avon, Ian/Hamish, to be honest if I had a Harry Potter OTP it would probably be Dumbledore/Snape (again, overcoming my teacher/student squick). And of course Clark and Bruce manage, in alternate continuities and Elseworlds and dystopian futures, to die together AND/OR kill each other over and over again.

I think in part this is because, in some ways, I am a hardcore endgame shipper. A clinch or a wedding isn't enough for me--"till death do us part? I require proof." When characters die together or kill each other, it means that at the ultimate end, they were there for each other. They were, in the final moments, the most important things in each others' lives.

It also gives me something to save them from, through the power of my imagination. I don't usually even go for full-on AUs that rescue them from death, it's enough to write (on the screen or in my mind) the brief happy moments of connection snatched from the inevitable ending. Thorin and Bilbo are one of the few OTPs that I have ended up giving a complete pocket-universe AU, and I suspect that's because there just isn't enough time for a lot of stolen happy moments before the end. Generally it adds pleasure to the creation for me, knowing the bitter awaits and thus writing the sweet.

So give me any one of these and I'll probably find a pairing interesting. Give me any two and I'll ship it. But give me three, and watch me fall head-over-heels for it!

Comments

[mithen]

Yeah, a lot of this post ended up having an undertone of "Hey, why don't I have more women in my OTPs?" And female characters usually are not given chances to be like all the things I like--their personalities and motivations are generally defined by the men in their life (Uhura is such a good example of that). They often aren't "allowed" to be loners because a lone wolf guy is cool, but a woman with no social ties is dangerous and unstable. And two women especially are very unlikely to end their character arc together, there's so often an implication that once they get their men, they'll be friends and all, but drifting apart is inevitable as they make their life more and more about their man, in a way that male characters never have to do. It's really frustrating!

Also, the next chapter of "Heroes" is written and ready to post when I get caught up on things--no later than Saturday, though! *crosses fingers*