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I will not go down with all of these ships but I will wave from the shore wistfully
I started drafting this post when I had an annoying headache and was feeling a little restless. browsing ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
paradisediner's member posts got me to this post so I decided you know what? yeah I do wanna talk about ships. especifically romantic ships. why not.
I've talked at length about my favorite rpf ships but not as much about fictional ones. in all fairness, I'm a very chill shipper, so I'm not craaaazy about any of them... at least I don't think so? am I? am I forgetting something? I'm not entirely sure. anyway, these are some ships I've enjoyed over the years but haven't talked much about:
• widomauk
ah, the emotional hurt/comfort trope in ship form... they had very little time to flourish in canon due to, well. obvious spoilery reasons. but I was SO into them at the start of the campaign. give me a traumatized, guilt-ridden character and pair him up with the memory loss character who had to build a life for himself from scratch and decided to be his most fun, egregious, flamboyant self while at it, and I'll eat it up.
imo mollymauk is an incredible character, and he left such a strong impression on me. he was judged by his looks, people had preconceived notions about him even before he opened his mouth, and he decided to just roll with it and be LOUD. and ridiculous. and enjoy life to its fullest, a life he started living already as a grown adult who couldn't remember his past at all. his choice was always kindness behind all the razzle dazzle, and he wanted to leave his mark my making people and places better with his presence.
now TELL ME if that's not exactly the person to show caleb i hate myself widogast that his past doesn't define him. TELL ME molly couldn't show him how to build his future on kindness instead of self-hatred. tell me the adventurous party guy isn't the perfect counterbalance to caleb's retracted nerdy guy? molly would love him SO tenderly. he would see caleb's defensive mechanisms and work with them, not against them. god, they would've been SO good... had I any aptitude for cr fic, I would've written 50k of widomauk by now.
in a way, they're the heavy enotional trauma version of fjorester: the chaotic one and the one holding back, the open book character and the secretive character. and it would work just as much as fjorester did. (I like widofjolly too or whatever the ot3 is called!)
• johnlockary
we all like to eat from the dumpster sometimes, and I used to be a regular at this fine dining dumpster. I was very, very into bbc sherlock between s3 and s4! needless to say, my stint in the fandom was short-lived because only about 3 people saw the light i.e. understood this was always supposed to be an ot3. I don't care what moffat or whoever else say - these three were MEANT to be in a very complex relationship that would be awkward to explain at a family dinner.
it's about the codependency, and the thrill, and the constant looking over the shoulder for all three. both sherlock and mary quench john's thirst for danger while also caring for him in a way he accepts. they're that reddit screenshot that says "you're perfect for each other, just don't ever involve anyone else in your bullshit". they're ALL fucked in the head, and they love each other for it. love is beautiful. kinda deranged sometimes, but beautiful.
and I think it's also a fun ot3 in the sense that there's literally endless scenarios and situations to put them in while still keeping it canon. yes, all pairings can be transported to any universe, that's what fanfic is known for etc but I see johnlockary as very... elastic? in a sense. even in canonverse you have a million things to explore. so many different dynamics, scenarios, fix-it and future fic... it's a fun ship that I kinda forget about because the fandom and the people involved in the show just make it hard to care about it, but I do like it. in theory.
• stucky
speaking of eating trash!!! I've never been super into marvel but I had a very brief weeks-long stucky phase. this is just such a GOOD ship... childhood(?) friends in a very intolerant context who are torn apart by the horrors of war only for one of them to be brainwashed and return decades later as a killing machine intent on killing his friend except his friend refuses to harm him and keeps trying to wake him by calling him by his nickname? that's TOP TIER shipping dynamic. come on. that's catnip for me. that captain america: winter soldier movie is incredible, the script is so tight and builds their relationship so well, it's literally a love story! regardless of what marvel directors think lol
of course that means I disliked civil war, a no homo retcon if I've ever seen one, but that doesn't matter because #stucky4ever. it's the kind of ship I'd read more fic of, but every time I looked it up on ao3, I couldn't find exactly the kind of fic I wanted to read :( maybe I should've looked up rec lists first?
anyway, I just really like how angsty stucky is, and just how beautiful it can be too. the hurt/comfort, the "I thought I had lost you" feels, the doubting your own mind... it's truly the ship of all time in terms of canon-compliant/adjacent angst. the YEARNING, bro. the intricate rituals. the ideal fic for me would also include some strong anti-military feelings because fuck the military!
bonus: forgotten ships from ages ago
- alice/tasha (tlw) and sam/lexy (lip service)
these are the f/f ships I remember liking the most back when I was desperately watching/reading any wlw content I could find, but do I remember exactly what made me love them? nope lol I'd have to watch it again, and honestly, that's not such a bad idea. all I'm sure is that both shows were messy, and maybe that's perfect right now.
tlw was a strange case because I was into many ships but also very NOT into others. alice/dana was fucked up, bro. shane/jenny was the weirdest thing I've seen a tv show do but it also birthed the funniest scene of bette bursting out laughing reading an sms, so I'm grateful for that. speaking of bette, her and tina were... something. I liked them for the domesticity of it all but man, that most likely did not age well. (which reminds me I haven't finished the revival? now I'm missing bette.) I know a lot of people were into shane/carmen but I got over it pretty quickly after what happened to them.
with lip service, all I remember is DISLIKING cat LOL so I don't remember what got me into sam/lexy, only that I much preferred them together instead of sam/cat. now if I rewatch it, I wonder if I'll even like sam... but at the very least I know I liked tess? I kinda forgot about her until now, but she was a fun character.
- sookie/eric and sookie/whoever the pantherman was in the books
my #truebie ship was always sookie/eric, and I disliked bill quite a lot lol as I recall, because it's been years and I have very poor memory, sookie and eric's relationship was even more interesting in the books. I think they were closer! but in the end I really liked the panther? tiger? guy sookie saw for a while. I could swear they actually ended up together in the books but a quick google search tells me I hallucinated that, I guess I liked them together enough that I decided they had a happy ending.
the ending I thought was the show's ending was actually the book ending, so not terrible, but I still would've preferred one of my ships. forever a sookie/eric fan!!!
paradisediner's member posts got me to this post so I decided you know what? yeah I do wanna talk about ships. especifically romantic ships. why not.I've talked at length about my favorite rpf ships but not as much about fictional ones. in all fairness, I'm a very chill shipper, so I'm not craaaazy about any of them... at least I don't think so? am I? am I forgetting something? I'm not entirely sure. anyway, these are some ships I've enjoyed over the years but haven't talked much about:
• widomauk
ah, the emotional hurt/comfort trope in ship form... they had very little time to flourish in canon due to, well. obvious spoilery reasons. but I was SO into them at the start of the campaign. give me a traumatized, guilt-ridden character and pair him up with the memory loss character who had to build a life for himself from scratch and decided to be his most fun, egregious, flamboyant self while at it, and I'll eat it up.
imo mollymauk is an incredible character, and he left such a strong impression on me. he was judged by his looks, people had preconceived notions about him even before he opened his mouth, and he decided to just roll with it and be LOUD. and ridiculous. and enjoy life to its fullest, a life he started living already as a grown adult who couldn't remember his past at all. his choice was always kindness behind all the razzle dazzle, and he wanted to leave his mark my making people and places better with his presence.
now TELL ME if that's not exactly the person to show caleb i hate myself widogast that his past doesn't define him. TELL ME molly couldn't show him how to build his future on kindness instead of self-hatred. tell me the adventurous party guy isn't the perfect counterbalance to caleb's retracted nerdy guy? molly would love him SO tenderly. he would see caleb's defensive mechanisms and work with them, not against them. god, they would've been SO good... had I any aptitude for cr fic, I would've written 50k of widomauk by now.
in a way, they're the heavy enotional trauma version of fjorester: the chaotic one and the one holding back, the open book character and the secretive character. and it would work just as much as fjorester did. (I like widofjolly too or whatever the ot3 is called!)
• johnlockary
we all like to eat from the dumpster sometimes, and I used to be a regular at this fine dining dumpster. I was very, very into bbc sherlock between s3 and s4! needless to say, my stint in the fandom was short-lived because only about 3 people saw the light i.e. understood this was always supposed to be an ot3. I don't care what moffat or whoever else say - these three were MEANT to be in a very complex relationship that would be awkward to explain at a family dinner.
it's about the codependency, and the thrill, and the constant looking over the shoulder for all three. both sherlock and mary quench john's thirst for danger while also caring for him in a way he accepts. they're that reddit screenshot that says "you're perfect for each other, just don't ever involve anyone else in your bullshit". they're ALL fucked in the head, and they love each other for it. love is beautiful. kinda deranged sometimes, but beautiful.
and I think it's also a fun ot3 in the sense that there's literally endless scenarios and situations to put them in while still keeping it canon. yes, all pairings can be transported to any universe, that's what fanfic is known for etc but I see johnlockary as very... elastic? in a sense. even in canonverse you have a million things to explore. so many different dynamics, scenarios, fix-it and future fic... it's a fun ship that I kinda forget about because the fandom and the people involved in the show just make it hard to care about it, but I do like it. in theory.
• stucky
speaking of eating trash!!! I've never been super into marvel but I had a very brief weeks-long stucky phase. this is just such a GOOD ship... childhood(?) friends in a very intolerant context who are torn apart by the horrors of war only for one of them to be brainwashed and return decades later as a killing machine intent on killing his friend except his friend refuses to harm him and keeps trying to wake him by calling him by his nickname? that's TOP TIER shipping dynamic. come on. that's catnip for me. that captain america: winter soldier movie is incredible, the script is so tight and builds their relationship so well, it's literally a love story! regardless of what marvel directors think lol
of course that means I disliked civil war, a no homo retcon if I've ever seen one, but that doesn't matter because #stucky4ever. it's the kind of ship I'd read more fic of, but every time I looked it up on ao3, I couldn't find exactly the kind of fic I wanted to read :( maybe I should've looked up rec lists first?
anyway, I just really like how angsty stucky is, and just how beautiful it can be too. the hurt/comfort, the "I thought I had lost you" feels, the doubting your own mind... it's truly the ship of all time in terms of canon-compliant/adjacent angst. the YEARNING, bro. the intricate rituals. the ideal fic for me would also include some strong anti-military feelings because fuck the military!
bonus: forgotten ships from ages ago
- alice/tasha (tlw) and sam/lexy (lip service)
these are the f/f ships I remember liking the most back when I was desperately watching/reading any wlw content I could find, but do I remember exactly what made me love them? nope lol I'd have to watch it again, and honestly, that's not such a bad idea. all I'm sure is that both shows were messy, and maybe that's perfect right now.
tlw was a strange case because I was into many ships but also very NOT into others. alice/dana was fucked up, bro. shane/jenny was the weirdest thing I've seen a tv show do but it also birthed the funniest scene of bette bursting out laughing reading an sms, so I'm grateful for that. speaking of bette, her and tina were... something. I liked them for the domesticity of it all but man, that most likely did not age well. (which reminds me I haven't finished the revival? now I'm missing bette.) I know a lot of people were into shane/carmen but I got over it pretty quickly after what happened to them.
with lip service, all I remember is DISLIKING cat LOL so I don't remember what got me into sam/lexy, only that I much preferred them together instead of sam/cat. now if I rewatch it, I wonder if I'll even like sam... but at the very least I know I liked tess? I kinda forgot about her until now, but she was a fun character.
- sookie/eric and sookie/whoever the pantherman was in the books
my #truebie ship was always sookie/eric, and I disliked bill quite a lot lol as I recall, because it's been years and I have very poor memory, sookie and eric's relationship was even more interesting in the books. I think they were closer! but in the end I really liked the panther? tiger? guy sookie saw for a while. I could swear they actually ended up together in the books but a quick google search tells me I hallucinated that, I guess I liked them together enough that I decided they had a happy ending.
the ending I thought was the show's ending was actually the book ending, so not terrible, but I still would've preferred one of my ships. forever a sookie/eric fan!!!