Shipping poll

[salinea]

[Poll #1266990]

Also, what exactly would you put behind "unhealthy"? Is there some kinds of unhealthy which you are willing to ship and others which you draw the lines at (which ones, and why)? Don't hesitate to give some examples!

ETA: this is mostly due to the fact that some of the comments on this post by meganbmoore made me wonder if I was the only one.

Comments

[purple-chalk.livejournal.com]

(Just accidentally voted with an RP journal, if you're wondering why Teddy Lupin has ships, sorry...)

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Teddy Lupin has ships!! I wonder who he ships, though XD

[cygna-hime.livejournal.com]

Since the surefire way to my 'shipper's heart is through best-friend-forever pairings, I mostly 'ship "healthy" pairings (=makes them both happy, has a pretty much equal dynamic, and I can see living happily ever after just because they've been living happily ever up to now), but I think a predilection for "healthy" pairings is more a result of that preference than a cause of it.

Also, while I certainly write stories in which couples don't get a happy ending, I *want*, deep down, to make characters happy, so my serious 'ships tend toward the healthy (=making happy in a way that doesn't squick me).

It's a personal preference; it doesn't bother me in the least that other people 'ship heavy-messed-up pairings, as long as they don't do that horrible badfic thing where they *insist* that this relationship has no flaws and is *perfect*. Because that's creepy.

[cygna-hime.livejournal.com]

I also want to note that it's not that I don't *understand* why people 'ship unhealthy 'ships, any more than I don't understand why people like chocolate ice cream better than vanilla. I just don't myself.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

as long as they don't do that horrible badfic thing where they *insist* that this relationship has no flaws and is *perfect*. Because that's creepy.
Oh, God, yes! I'm with you there. I'll read any kind of darkfic with screwed up relationship dynamics as long as the writer doesn't appear to think they're, like, so cute together and so made to be together. This is one of the thing I frequently didn't like in Snarry fics.

[tiamatschild.livejournal.com]

I have absolutely no problem with people shipping unhealthy pairings (and have quite a few myself!), but it does kind of squick me when people view the dysfunctionality as romantic. Or... gloss over it, try to make it into something generically happy. It makes me uncomfortable.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

I'm with you there, functionality as romantic is very bothering, even though I tend to adore the most wrong, antagonistic and melodramatic pairing myself.

[redcandle17.livejournal.com]

I've been meaning to make a post about this topic myself. Lately I've seen people at my favorite romance author's message board saying how unhealthy some recent pairings are, which puzzles me because they're supposed to be the hardcore, long-time fans and they should have realized that her couples tended to be "unhealthy" from the start of the series. I like pairings that are inappropriate in various ways. "Healthy" couples tend to be rather boring*.

*In real life as well as fiction, I've found. I know too many people who cheat on or leave their "healthy" partners for more questionable ones.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

It's a frequent criticism, isn't it? and it always feel like it's missing the point.

I wouldn't go as far as say the same in real life, though >_>;;

[puella-nerdii.livejournal.com]

Pff, I write Kara/Leoben and Sei/Sub. What are these "healthy relationships" of which you speak?

To elaborate: I (not-so-)jokingly refer to myself as "wrongsexual," and as a general rule of thumb, the more twisted a particular pairing is, the more I find it appealing. See, the big thread running through almost everything I write is perversion -- not necessarily sexual, but I love taking the normal and making it, well, ab-. Unhealthy relationships, I think, are ones where characters are unable or unwilling to articulate their desires and solve their differences, and that's the stuff of which conflict is made. And I can't write fic without conflict.

The only unhealthy relationships I don't like are ones that are not textually acknowledged as such and are instead presented as Twoo Wub or something equally nauseating. This is my problem with the Twilight series, in a nutshell. (Well, my main problem.) Codependent behavior and stalking and warped/imbalanced power dynamics? There's a lot of potential for dark and sexy fun there, but not when it's presented as the ideal model of a loving relationship and any creepiness is handwaved away on the grounds that "they loooooooove each other." Maybe, but love in and of itself isn't enough to make a relationship work. Plus, love =/= codependency. This is also why I can't read a lot of romances -- or a lot of older ones, at least. And why I give lots of yaoi manga a wide berth. And why I'm so nitpicky about any work of fiction where relationships are the central focus.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

yes, yes, yes, me too to everything you said :D

Love as conflict is one of my biggest narrative drive, in what I like to read and what I like to write (when I was writing, that is), whether it's done in the bickering comedy style or the dark melodramatic one. The role and negotiation for power is another of the thing I love to explore.

[a-white-rain.livejournal.com]

The second:

Dude. Why the fuck would I care what anyone else ships? It's a personal thing. It's not even about my understanding it - it's just like a MYOB kinda thing. And like... who cares? It's just shipping.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Truer words!

[schemingreader.livejournal.com]

Why would it be a problem to ship an unhealthy pairing? The characters are fictional. Any pairing with Snape in it has to be unhealthy. If the characters have matching neuroses, they can be unhealthy and happy.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Best in both world! XD

As I said, it's because I saw several people criticising a ship (in this case Jayne/River from Firefly) on account that it couldn't be healthy and good for her.

[hamsterwoman]

Unhealthy doesn't bother me (and, often does, in fact, make the relationship more interesting -- I had to debate whether to click on the option I did or the "Love is always unhealthy" one).

I think the line between unhealthy pairings that interest me and unhealthy pairings that don't has to do with equality of the participants. Two profoundly fucked up people mutually exploting each other? Sure, sounds fun! But if it's unhealthy *and* there's a consistent power imbalance, then it's probably not going to be my thing.

Now, the funny thing is, I wrote the above before I clicked on the link to the post you mentioned, and I was thinking of the different unhealthy relationships and whether they work for me or not. House/Wilson -- sure; any kind of Amber hatesex type pairing -- yep; Dumbledore/Grindelwald -- definitely! And the example of an unhealthy ship I couldn't go for that I came up with was River/Jayne. (And the funny thing about that one is that the power imbalance actually goes both ways -- River is young and non compos mentis, but also she can kill him with her brain -- for some reason, the two kinds of power imbalance don't cancel out, they add, for me.) And then I clicked on the link and, ahaha, they were actually talking about Rayne.

On the other hand... while I won't say that I ship Littlefinger/Sansa... I do seek out and read stories with that pairing, and it doesn't *bother* me the way Rayne does, and I don't know why, because by my own criteria, it should. (Except that, possibly, it's because Littlefinger/Sansa is not the real ship -- the real ship is still Littlefiger/Catelyn, he just happens to be acting it out through Cat's daughter. Hmm... I don't know why that makes it "better", but it does.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Jayne/Bunk? OMG, Jayne belongs with Vera, OTP!!

I see what you mean. I'm actually interested in power imbalance, but only if there's well done enough.

For Jayne/River, I guess they do cancel out, in a way, a least for me. Of course I don't exactly hunt for firefly fanfics so it's a bit moot :)

Littlefinger/Sansa for me is one of those fics which I find fascinating to read about, but feel at least slightly ashamed about it. In this case though, nobody (I hope) is going to pretend it's any kind of "right", which makes it okay.

[flo-nelja.livejournal.com]

Hum, j'ai de tout, moi... des couples "unhealthy" (ça se traduit comment, ça ? "malsain" me semble un peu fort) en pagaille, des couples qui avaient du potentiel pour être sains mais où la tragédie vient d'une source extérieure, et même parfois quelques couples sains et heureux. Si, si, ça arrive.

Je préfère le malsain quand c'est canon. Pas quand le couple est canon, bien sûr. Mais quand l'aspect malsain est déjà là à la base, plutôt que de faire du glauque avec des choupis qui n'ont rien demandé. Ceci dit, j'ai de la chance, mes fandoms n'en manquent pas. :-)
Le malsain sur des persos sur lesquels je trouve ça OOC m'horrifie assez. Mais quand j'y réfléchis, le fluff sur des couples que je trouve fondamentalement dysfonctionnels m'horrifie tout autant, même et surtout quand je shippe le couple ; il y a donc une certaine symétrie dans ma façon de voir les choses.

En fait, j'ai souvent plus de facilité à pouiller les relations malsaines. Prenons l'inceste, par exemple. En général, je ne shippe pas les relations fraternelles positives pour les deux personnages ; par contre, dès qu'il commence à y avoir de la jalousie, de l'obsession, je me dis qu'il y a peut-être bien quelque chose...

Bon, le fait que j'ai quelques hard kinks du genre humiliation, manipulation ou power issues en général entraîne que j'ai tendance à shipper une certaine partie des relations qui nous montrent ça dans le canon. Ce qui me donne plein de couples pas sains du tout.
D'ailleurs, pour continuer dans cette voie, j'ai un mal infini à écrire des ratings élevés avec des relations saines. J'ai toujours l'impression que c'est d'un ennui mortel si je n'arrive pas à y ajouter de l'angst et des perversions.

Par contre, contrairement à un autre des commentateurs ici, dans la vraie vie, je soutiens les relations saines à 100%. Je suppose que nous avons tous nos contradictions comme ça. (ce qui n'empêche pas, au lit, de parfois bien s'amuser à faire du roleplay des situations malsaines susmentionnées, mais c'est juste pour le fun et ça ne change rien au fond)

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Bon, le fait que j'ai quelques hard kinks du genre humiliation, manipulation ou power issues en général entraîne que j'ai tendance à shipper une certaine partie des relations qui nous montrent ça dans le canon. Ce qui me donne plein de couples pas sains du tout.
Moi itou :D

[busaikko]

I would have checked more boxes if I could have....

I like to take all pairings, healthy and unhealthy, apart like watches, and rebuild them in different ways. This occasionally makes the healthy ones sick... or the sick ones well.

Er. But you know that!

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

I love your metaphore! It is very pretty.

I also like when a fic is about putting a character apart. And putting them together, or not.

:D

[indigestible.livejournal.com]

A couple others have said this, but it drives me crazy when either the creator or the fans want to portray the relationship as wonderful and I perceive it at as completely dysfunctional. Relatedly, it bothers me most when this happens and the dysfunction is completely banal, that is, if it makes me think "I know women who have these kinds of relationships, I think they are damaging, and I wish you'd all stop romanticizing them." If people want to write Snape/Harry all fluffy, that weirds me out, but it doesn't make me want to claw my eyes out, because "magical boy screws his teacher who has unresolved issues with his parents" doesn't tie in to my actual life in any way.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Relatedly, it bothers me most when this happens and the dysfunction is completely banal
I can see how that could be a factor.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Hmm...I don't think anyone in the post was thinking anything about whether a pairing was healthy or unhealthy, just fandom interpretations of text, and approaching texts through shipping and/or "I could do better."

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

I must have misinterpreted the Jayne/River sub thread then.

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

I tend to ship mostly healthy couples (defining healthy the way cygna_hime does), but it's not because I specifically look for that; I just feel more easily drawn to that kind of couples, just like I feel more easily drawn to healthy, happy characters. They tend to go hand in hand. Some people find this boring, but that's something I've never understood; I don't see how being happy makes you less interesting. *shrugs* But there are some decidedly unhealthy couples (or characters) that have sparked my interest, too.

One thing I've noticed is that when I like unhealthy couples, it's never cases where one is a "good" or "nice" character and the other one is a bad influence for him/her (which is why I never got into so many popular CLAMP pairings). The ones that I find interesting are the couples were both are equally screwed up, or even villains: Aramis/Madame de Chevreuse, Davy Jones/Calypso, Valmont/Merteuil...

As for the second question, what does upset me is when people ship an unhealthy couple and act as if it's all sunshine and daisies. Especially when I get the feeling that it's not so much OOC writing as actually thinking it's healthy, which is... kind of scary, really.

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

Also, after reading other comments: what I was trying to say in the second paragraph is what hamsterwoman said about power imbalance. I've always been squicked by Clow/Yue, for example, even though it's not screwed up in the sense that Seishirou/Subaru is.

[sasha-davidovna.livejournal.com]

I ship a mix of healthy and unhealthy couples, and a lot that could go either way, depending on interpretation. Remus/Sirius comes to mind.

The unhealthy pairings that bother me are mostly what puella_nerdii said: unhealthy relationships that are presented as twoo luv forever. Give me some good, twisted Edward/Bella and I'd probably love it, but the books make me gag. I also get a little weirded out by people who write unhealthy relationships as healthy in fanfiction if there's no problem solving involved (unless it's crack to begin with.) I don't get schmoopy Harry/Draco fic at all, for example.

But, to each her own. ~shrugs~

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I probably should have voted "Something else" in the last one because even if I didn't ever do it myself I still wouldn't have a problem with other people doing it. I would get that some people have that attraction. It's about the particular characters for me, not whether or not it's a good idea for them to be together.

[rebbe]

I SHIP EVERYTHING

(no, srsly)

So like -- it doesn't matter? I'm shipping it for the characters and the dynamic, not because it's healthy or unhealthy. Healthiness is just a natural reaction in regards to keeping the people IC; sometimes it happens, and others it doesn't.

d-does that make sense?

[shiinabambi.livejournal.com]

I also had difficult deciding between the "trainwreck" and "love is always unhealthy" options. I strongly agree with both! The checkboxes you can pick more than one of would have been nice. *g*

I admit that I'm occasionally squicked by things. For example, in TRC, Yuui/Fai (not sure if you're up to that, so I won't say what about it bothered me unless you are) can squick me a bit, but due to the nature of their relationship, I'm actually MORE bothered if it's portrayed as happy, fluffy, and otherwise healthy. Because it's, well....fucked up. (I'm okay with other pairings that have similarities in their relationship, it's just some of the specifics of it...) If you're going to write trainwreck, write it straight. Don't write happy shower secks for it.

Another example, I ship Ozai/Azula, and that's parent/child. About as badwrong as you can get. But if someone tried to portray it as a "healthy" relationship, I think I'd crap my pants. That's sicker than the ship itself.

Conversely, I do think that any "healthy" pairing can be written trainwreck-style, and usually enjoy it more when it is.

Mostly, my problem with "healthy" pairings is....there's nothing more to say about them. Even a "Romeo and Juliet" style thing where they might be good for each other, but there are external obstacles is more interesting than people who have everything they want in each other. Of course, it depends on the writing. There are few people that can make "healthy" love profound, but when they do, it's quite excellent. Mostly it just feels preachy to me, though. "This is what love is. This is perfect. This is what your relationship should be." Or wish-fulfillment, which is what fanfic is FOR, but it's also not my wish, so it doesn't interest me personally.

[solesakuma]

I'll assume you're using 'healthy' as in not 'Hollywood diabetes-like healthy'.
Let's see. I'm very multifannish and I tend to pick ships, even if I don't read fic or even state that preference out loud. Most of them are canon/strongly hinted (or not openly contradicted... heck, even my RPS pairings can be 'canon'), with a few very weird pairings.

Most of the couples I ship are healthy and the ones I most rabidly ship are healthy. Or the healthy choice, the one not very romantic and not exactly epic but the one that's guaranteed to last. That attracts me a lot. Probably Tolkien's fault.

I want the conflict inside the couple (because I don't like perfect saccharine relationships, I like bickering) to make them grow or to keep the ugly sides of each one in check. That's why Zuko/Katara is not for me yet Zuko/Sokka is.
This is not to say I don't have unhealthy or epic pairings: my favourite movie ever is Moulin Rouge and well, Christian/Satine is not healthy at all.


Mostly, I don't think I ship unhealthy couples. That is: I find Seishirou/Subaru interesting, but not particularly romantic or shipping-worthy. [Maybe that's why I like your S/S fics but not too many others. Yours have a less shippy quality to them, if I'm making any sense.]

And regarding the last question, I don't care if people ship deeply fucked-up relationships (I'm attracted to Ozai/Hakkoda, even! XP), but I do care if they don't realize it'd be fucked-up. So, if you like S/S, more power to you. If you can honestly tell me they're role-models, yeah, I'll hit you with a clue bat.

[rainmage.livejournal.com]

I ticked the "I ship some unhealthy couple..." but it's not that I feel guilty about it. It feels odd when I do, since I'm more for conventional (as in behavior and interactions, I mean) relationships, but my most "unhealthy" pairings are still sort of vanilla compared to some kinky/squicktastic others, or I go for platonic love more than sex in occasions. The worst I can do is people who hate each other, CLAMP weirdness (and yet, stuff like Eriol/Kaho isn't that bad compared to others to be fair), and huge species differences. I guess that's not even that unhealthy? And sometimes it's not something serious but a bit in joke.

I think I tend to be more like Laurus and ship happy(ier) stuff. My fondness for snark is still more on the healthy road, most times.

And I'm now more open-minded to other people's kinks right now. I used to be quite squicked in my younger days, but not anymore unless it's something too extreme I just can't bear or the OOC/lack of logic they pull to work it out is cringe-worthy.

(Another thing that's literally my thoughts on yaoi: I can't understand how some fans see the stereotypical seme-uke dynamics as something "cute" when several times it's pretty much abusive. It's fine if that IS their thing and they like the wrongness of it, but the ones who see it as fluffy are kind of oddballs to me. *hides under a rock*)

[curtana.livejournal.com]

I think part of my problem in understanding any of this is that I very rarely ship characters in what seems to be the traditional sense of the word - I can probably count on one hand the number of pairings I'm interested in where I actually expect/want said characters to end up together in canon, or where I can't see either character in the pairing with anyone else. Like, in ASOIAf - sure, I think it would be really interesting if Sansa and Sandor's relationship developed in a more 'coupley' direction, and I enjoy writing about them together (speaking of unhealthy relationships...) but it doesn't stop me writing Sansa/LF or Sansa/Theon or whatever. I get ideas for (what I think are) interesting stories, I just write them.

And I've written Jayne/River, ftr, since that was what sparked the question ;) I think the reason it works for me is that a) Jayne is immoral enough to not resist her if she approaches him, while, say, a character like Mal would most likely turn her down due to her, ah, ISSUES (the main reason I have a hard time picturing a scenario where Mal/River works for me, though I'm sure a good writer could make it compelling) and b) I like the idea that she can manipulate him even though she's crazy, and c) though this is only semi-developed in one of my fics about them, I like the idea that gradually he might become more protective of her, and that that would bring him into conflict with Simon, because I think the River/Simon relationship is way more unhealthy in many respects, and I'm interested in exploring that dynamic.

[c-mantix.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Pretty much no hiding my very vanilla, canon shipping. LOL.

[sakanagi.livejournal.com]

I said on the poll the 'A little bit, it depends of how unhealthy the pairing is, and if it push one of my squick buttons' option, but I could also have picked the 'No, since I do it myself' one. It just happens to be that there are some pairings which squick me like no others. Muraki/Hisoka springs to mind.

...I read an essay-thing the other day about why someone didn't ship a pairing, and it was saying how due to certain things those characters weren't a good match for each other and would cause each other some angst if they were a couple. And I thought: that's a reason not to ship them? Heh, it actually made me ship them more. ^^; I think a bit of conflict often makes a fictional pairing that much more interesting. (Fiction almost always = conflict! Of some sort.) Though fluffiness is great too. Opinions really do differ so much.