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ninety6tearsSo, I sorta got tagged, forever ago, to do that Top 7 OTPs meme. I figured, now that I'm finally doing it, that this would be a good post in which to address a question that many a fandom member must ask themselves from time to time:
Just what, exactly, does it mean when I say I "ship"?
Some dictionary of fandom terminology, or as Wikipedia says, would explain, "People involved in shipping (or shippers) assert that the relationship does exist, will exist, or simply that they would like it to exist." This doesn't encompass, though, the popularity of unrequited ships, or ships that we not only accept as absurdly unlikely but sort of prefer that way. My boyfriend, on one of the rare occasions that I went into fangirl-talk around him, described two BSG characters as already having, without acting on, the kind of relationship we would like them to have, and that they were therefore "unshippable."
And I said, "NO," because my little shipping heart hardly prioritizes the actual sexual together-ness of the ship. So maybe I'm not a very good shipper in the conventional sense, because most of the time I enjoy the angst and the agony more than I could ever enjoy A and B being married-with-children without the loose ends. When I say that I ship somebody, I don't think it means I want A and B to be in a relationship as much as it means that I want to be convinced and reminded of A and B's love for one another in continuously interesting, captivating and touching ways.
Considering this, it's not surprising that if I look at my top seven OTPs I find a trend of difficulty, taboo, or impossibility. Only a couple of these are arguably a successful pairing. (WaRnInG: spoilers ahead for lots of stuff.)
abra 7 cal
EAST OF EDEN
It's rare for a pairing done in the restrained and sentimental style of classic cinema to actually capture my attention to the point that I could say I "ship" them. Having not read the book, the first time I saw Kazan's version of East of Eden, I seriously did, from the first scene in which James Dean's Caleb Trask walks a shy distance alongside his brother and his young fiancée. Cal and Abra's relationship is a bit romantically inflated from how it is in Steinbeck's novel, but because of how Dean conveyed Cal's pained envy of Aron in all aspects of their lives, the understated but obvious fact when he's around Abra that he simply wants what his brother's got sort of makes her into the one thing that could ever go right with him -- if only Aron could deserve being betrayed by the two. Abra's character challenges the old-fashioned assumption that a woman like her is automatically good and pure; she is drawn to Cal because she's the first to realize how he's misunderstood and insists that she is equally sinful, and it becomes tantalizingly apparent that what she's really ashamed of is her attraction to him.
schroeder 6 lucy van pelt
PEANUTS
I took piano lessons for years from a teacher who collected Peanuts strips with Schroeder in them and taped them on the door of her office. After glancing at them in the waiting area week after week, I started to develop an elaborate personal canon about one of the many unrequited loves in the Peanuts universe, the unyielding affection Lucy has for the introverted pianist. I'll be the first to say that Lucy is a bit annoying and very much about herself, but I think she'll grow to be smarter than she lets on, a development perhaps foretold by the kind of person she chooses to love.
jacob black 5 bella swan
TWILIGHT
It's pretty much impossible to talk about my love for this ship without simply praising its potential rather than its manifestation. Had Edward never returned to Forks in New Moon -- and I don't believe anyone who says otherwise -- Jacob could have helped her gradually heal with a force as normal and simple as a staggeringly powerful friendship. The fact that their romantic love even exists on top of Bella's irreversible feelings for Edward is the ultimate triumph of the ordinary; it tells its readership that you can be happy without being "destined" to be with someone, with an everyday passion that is less loud, less consuming, less destructive. Too bad hardly anybody listened.
lee adama 4 kara thrace
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
The way Lee and Kara's bizarre and indecisive relationship develops, from those blink-and-you-missed-them hints of romantic chemistry at the very beginning, is something I could watch over and over again. They've always kept me guessing, and every time something huge (like the "Home Pt. 1" kiss) happens, half of me is yelling, "What the FRAK?!" while the other half is pleasantly unsurprised. Starbuck and Apollo, unlike this description would suggest, is not one of those on-again-off-again TV pairings; they've never really been on, but then again they've never been off either.
lex 3 marina
WASTELAND
I had to put this relationship on this list. To this day I'm blown away by how Francesca Lia Block's rather short young adult novel managed to tackle one of the most finite of taboos in her sparse prose. Lex and Marina are depicted as not so much possessing but being made of their love for each other that inescapably propels them toward ultimate tragedy.
jack twist 2 ennis del mar
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
BBM was the first thing that got me hooked on internet fandoms and writing fic and all, so as weird as it is to call J/E a "ship," they deserve a pretty high spot. The first time I saw the film, the sudden intensity of the reunion kiss pretty much left my mouth hanging open, and I'd be hard-pressed to find any other romantic scene in a movie that ever left the same impression on me.
rose tyler 1 the doctor
DOCTOR WHO
It was always my firm assumption that the doctor became more warm and well-humored after the Series 1 regeneration because of how happy Rose had made him, so I was ecstatic to have the Doctor himself tell her how she changed him in "Journey's End." I'm far happier than most shippers with how they wrapped up the doctor/rose issue because it basically makes their entire story tailored to my shippage weaknesses: They start out adorably and obviously in love, unable to really be together but with a strong enough companionship (complete with squee-worthy hand-holding) that it doesn't matter; they have a tragic and painful separation that only strengthens our certainty of Rose's staggering importance to the Doctor; they are reunited, and on one side, they confess and embrace and consummate their love, but on the other side that is the continuously tragic life of the Doctor, he inevitably has to abandon the woman he loves without ever getting to even tell her the words. It hurts so good.
Just what, exactly, does it mean when I say I "ship"?
Some dictionary of fandom terminology, or as Wikipedia says, would explain, "People involved in shipping (or shippers) assert that the relationship does exist, will exist, or simply that they would like it to exist." This doesn't encompass, though, the popularity of unrequited ships, or ships that we not only accept as absurdly unlikely but sort of prefer that way. My boyfriend, on one of the rare occasions that I went into fangirl-talk around him, described two BSG characters as already having, without acting on, the kind of relationship we would like them to have, and that they were therefore "unshippable."
And I said, "NO," because my little shipping heart hardly prioritizes the actual sexual together-ness of the ship. So maybe I'm not a very good shipper in the conventional sense, because most of the time I enjoy the angst and the agony more than I could ever enjoy A and B being married-with-children without the loose ends. When I say that I ship somebody, I don't think it means I want A and B to be in a relationship as much as it means that I want to be convinced and reminded of A and B's love for one another in continuously interesting, captivating and touching ways.
Considering this, it's not surprising that if I look at my top seven OTPs I find a trend of difficulty, taboo, or impossibility. Only a couple of these are arguably a successful pairing. (WaRnInG: spoilers ahead for lots of stuff.)
abra 7 cal
EAST OF EDEN
It's rare for a pairing done in the restrained and sentimental style of classic cinema to actually capture my attention to the point that I could say I "ship" them. Having not read the book, the first time I saw Kazan's version of East of Eden, I seriously did, from the first scene in which James Dean's Caleb Trask walks a shy distance alongside his brother and his young fiancée. Cal and Abra's relationship is a bit romantically inflated from how it is in Steinbeck's novel, but because of how Dean conveyed Cal's pained envy of Aron in all aspects of their lives, the understated but obvious fact when he's around Abra that he simply wants what his brother's got sort of makes her into the one thing that could ever go right with him -- if only Aron could deserve being betrayed by the two. Abra's character challenges the old-fashioned assumption that a woman like her is automatically good and pure; she is drawn to Cal because she's the first to realize how he's misunderstood and insists that she is equally sinful, and it becomes tantalizingly apparent that what she's really ashamed of is her attraction to him.
schroeder 6 lucy van pelt
PEANUTS
I took piano lessons for years from a teacher who collected Peanuts strips with Schroeder in them and taped them on the door of her office. After glancing at them in the waiting area week after week, I started to develop an elaborate personal canon about one of the many unrequited loves in the Peanuts universe, the unyielding affection Lucy has for the introverted pianist. I'll be the first to say that Lucy is a bit annoying and very much about herself, but I think she'll grow to be smarter than she lets on, a development perhaps foretold by the kind of person she chooses to love.
jacob black 5 bella swan
TWILIGHT
It's pretty much impossible to talk about my love for this ship without simply praising its potential rather than its manifestation. Had Edward never returned to Forks in New Moon -- and I don't believe anyone who says otherwise -- Jacob could have helped her gradually heal with a force as normal and simple as a staggeringly powerful friendship. The fact that their romantic love even exists on top of Bella's irreversible feelings for Edward is the ultimate triumph of the ordinary; it tells its readership that you can be happy without being "destined" to be with someone, with an everyday passion that is less loud, less consuming, less destructive. Too bad hardly anybody listened.
lee adama 4 kara thrace
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA
The way Lee and Kara's bizarre and indecisive relationship develops, from those blink-and-you-missed-them hints of romantic chemistry at the very beginning, is something I could watch over and over again. They've always kept me guessing, and every time something huge (like the "Home Pt. 1" kiss) happens, half of me is yelling, "What the FRAK?!" while the other half is pleasantly unsurprised. Starbuck and Apollo, unlike this description would suggest, is not one of those on-again-off-again TV pairings; they've never really been on, but then again they've never been off either.
lex 3 marina
WASTELAND
I had to put this relationship on this list. To this day I'm blown away by how Francesca Lia Block's rather short young adult novel managed to tackle one of the most finite of taboos in her sparse prose. Lex and Marina are depicted as not so much possessing but being made of their love for each other that inescapably propels them toward ultimate tragedy.
jack twist 2 ennis del mar
BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
BBM was the first thing that got me hooked on internet fandoms and writing fic and all, so as weird as it is to call J/E a "ship," they deserve a pretty high spot. The first time I saw the film, the sudden intensity of the reunion kiss pretty much left my mouth hanging open, and I'd be hard-pressed to find any other romantic scene in a movie that ever left the same impression on me.
rose tyler 1 the doctor
DOCTOR WHO
It was always my firm assumption that the doctor became more warm and well-humored after the Series 1 regeneration because of how happy Rose had made him, so I was ecstatic to have the Doctor himself tell her how she changed him in "Journey's End." I'm far happier than most shippers with how they wrapped up the doctor/rose issue because it basically makes their entire story tailored to my shippage weaknesses: They start out adorably and obviously in love, unable to really be together but with a strong enough companionship (complete with squee-worthy hand-holding) that it doesn't matter; they have a tragic and painful separation that only strengthens our certainty of Rose's staggering importance to the Doctor; they are reunited, and on one side, they confess and embrace and consummate their love, but on the other side that is the continuously tragic life of the Doctor, he inevitably has to abandon the woman he loves without ever getting to even tell her the words. It hurts so good.
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Date: 2008-12-17 05:28 am (UTC)Starbuck and Apollo, unlike this description would suggest, is not one of those on-again-off-again TV pairings; they've never really been on, but then again they've never been off either.
YES YES YES. Their relationship/friendship will always be a central part of the show and isn't really going anywhere even if they won't get some happy ending together. I wish haters would stop acting shocked and pissed the longer it doesn't go away. I think there's something so beautifully HUMAN about the huge flaws of their fucked up relationship, and that's exactly why it's an important developing part of the show, which is about HUMANITY. They represent platonic, familial, and romantic love all at once, and it's often damaged and flawed but they still make a perfect example of the way human beings can still stick together and remain loyal to each other through lots of times of trouble and distrust, and that's why they deserve to be saved.
I'm pretty surprised Rose/10 are your #1, but than again, they are pretty much perfect and 100% win.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-17 07:28 am (UTC)