Why Do You Choose The Ships You Do?

[cuddyclothes]

We've all had the experience of reading fic and coming across ships that are your NOPT, or ships you simply don't understand. And the OTPs you will die for.

My first and always OTP is House and Wilson from "House MD". They were written as opposing characters who have a deep emotional bond. In the days before cable much had to be suggested indirectly. One of the series writers, Doris Egan, actively promoted Hilson. Wilson was a handsome, seemingly empathetic doctor who had an inner darkness and unhappiness that only House knew about. Wilson was the only person who could pierce House's emotional defenses. Even though House didn't always let Wilson know he'd done so.

And in the series end, Wilson became sick with cancer. In the finale, House faked his own death so that he could spend Wilson's last months with him.  What more do you want?

ETA: Hank and Manny in "Swiss Army Man"--I ship them so hard! Hank is emotionally stunted and wants love. To help Manny (the revived corpse) learn about life, Hank dresses as "Sarah", whom Manny think he's in love with. They fall in love, but it's hopelessly complicated and incredibly romantic. Pretty much no one wrote fic about them but me, but there were a lot of fans when the movie came out in 2016.

Nowadays I ship Bertie Wooster and Jeeves. They are both malleable characters, since actual canon and descriptions are a bit thin on the ground, I can shape them the way I want. The power imbalance--employer/employee, idiot/genius, younger/older hits so many of my kinks it's simply ridiculous.

What makes you choose a ship?

Comments

[alias_sqbr]

Well, I once wrote a (satirical) post about how the only valid kind of OTP is enemies to lovers human/robot femslash...

But in general, I am often drawn to couples with complicated, shifting power relationships and dynamics, but who have some deep (if not always comfortable) connection and understanding. Some element of gender non-comformity is also a major draw, especially if I can read one or more of them as non-binary. Speculative elements, attempted murder, and xeno are also a plus.

If I'm going to write fic, it helps if there's space for intense, repressed, conflicted, mutual pining. This also applies to OT3s, which afaict is a bit rarer as a preference: mutual pining couple fic is common but I haven't encountered as much three-way pining shipfic.

Oh also if I think they're hot. That helps too ;)

[melannen]

But enemies to lovers human/robot femslash *is* the only valid kind of OTP, isn't it? :D

[alias_sqbr]

Naturally. The satirical part was that I came up with all these complex reasons for why they're the only valid sort of OTP, when the real reason is just that I like them best.

[pict]

This is such a cool idea for a post!


One of my big OTPs, even as the canon interested me less and less as time went on, was and is Yoruichi and Urahara from Bleach.

One thing that helps it along is both characters appealing to me on an individual level. I think if I had been less partial to one of them then I might have been less interested in the implied pairing - but they're both super enjoyable characters in their own right.

It's also largely left up to the reader to decide whether they are romantic or not, since neither of them are main characters and romance wasn't originally the point of the franchise. My imagination had room to play! My imagination loves that.

In terms of their dynamic, it's delightfully simple. They're best friends and it's easy to see why: they've known each other forever, they share a similar sense of humour, and they are different enough to contrast without clashing. They get along. They accept one another as they are without wanting to change the other person. When Urahara is exiled from I honestly don't remember the name of the place but I don't care to check Deadplaceland, Yoruichi gives up her command and her status to go with him. There is no good reason to do so other than he's her friend and she wants to. To me, that easy level of loyalty and devotion is delightful.

Their relationship isn't messy, over-complicated, or filled with needless drama. It's a simple story that's already been told and not to the audience and what we get is the aftermath: two people who feel like they will be together forever simply because they want to be. So that's what I like! Comfortable, strong BFFships - a harbour, not a storm.

Aside from that, I'm pretty attached to a few tropes: May/December, size differences, the honey trap becoming true affection, chilhood friends-turn-enemies-turned friends again-- but some of these are more about the storyline a ship takes vs the ship itself.

[naath]

The have to have an actual canon connection (not that I mind "we picked two names from the hat" smut, no, not at all, but for OTP); but whilst I'm all about certain pairings, I am not myself of a monogamous inclination, and I don't think characters are either (we all project...) and I'm not that kind of 'this or nothing' OTP fan.

I guess my longest standing OTP is Aziraphale/Crowley...

[dickinsons]

This is something I keep asking myself but I don't think I've fully figured out my answer just yet. First of all, I need canon material to ship something, and I don't mean romantic/sexual interactions necessarily, but at least scenes that show the relationship between the characters, their dynamic and chemistry. By this I mean I don't really ship crack, but I do ship non canon couples. Besides that, I love a good slow burn/will they won't they. I've also realised that I love it when a ship has a bond incredibly strong for canon reasons, like Xena and Gabrielle being soulmates or Gaius and Caprica Six having a special bond connected to the divine. I love it when two characters are very different but fall in love not in spite of those differences, but because of them, and when they help each other change and grow as people. Honestly, I think I could go on and on because there's so much I love about fictional relationships. Thinking about this is very interesting, but I find it so hard to explain that I usually go with the "I don't choose ships, they choose me" explanation!

[comet_scout]

what makes me like a type ship seen to vary, but I think I'm particularly drawn to protagonist/antagonist, Hero's-sidekick(other)/villain or human/non-human ships, with sides of power imbalances; You know, the opposites attract, Beauty and the Beast, Romeo & Juliet, prohibited and so on.

I like the flood of possible complicated feelings like "I should not be feeling like this.", "How would this even work?", "no one can know." "I have to save this unsavable/naive person.", "The closer we get the better we understand each other's point, even if we don't want to." etc etc.. that can all build up to either positive feelings and growth or negative feelings and tragic ends.

Oh, I also like more chill and fluff ships that fall around the area, where their opposites is just goofy to see.

[rionaleonhart]

I often find myself shipping cynics with the idealists who make them a little less cynical. Jeff/Annie (Community) and JD/Dr Cox (Scrubs) are a couple of examples that come to mind immediately.

I'm also intrigued by relationships between characters where there's a level of dislike or mistrust, but in a strange way they find themselves drawn together or intrigued by each other: Hinata/Komaeda (Danganronpa 2) or Keiji/Sara (Your Turn to Die), say.

I'll almost always end up shipping two characters who find themselves isolated together in a high-pressure situation, having lost contact with everyone else they care about: Mike/Sam (Until Dawn), Celes/Sabin (Final Fantasy VI).

And sometimes I'll just take my favourite character and ship them with everyone they come into contact with.

A lot of the pairings I like are on the stifling or unhealthy side, but there's the occasional cute one in the mix.

[minoanmiss]

I am a sucker for fast strong connections and meet-cutes (see: Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Finn/Poe Dameron, Finn/Rey) but just as much for "we've known and loved each other our whole lives" (Frodo/Sam, Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes, Dick Grayson/Tim Drake, which is a one-sided case of that). I think more than anything else I love strong connections (David/Colby from NUMB3RS, Steve Rogers/Peggy Carter). A strong connection can even be antagonistic, or partially antagonistic (Charles Xavier/Erik Lehnsherr).

I also tend to be a multi shipper, and have an unfortunate tendency to be put off a pairing when enough of its adherents are obnoxious enough about it (Frodo/Sam, Kirk/Spock). And sometimes I pick a favorite character and ship them with, if not quite everyone available, several people (Kirk/McCoy, Kirk/Gaila, Kirk/Pike, Kirk/Spock/Uhura...)

But there's always a spot in my heart for crossovers and crack. :D

[wendelah1]

A great topic. I'm a doomed ship shipper. I'd say more but my arthritis (hands) is terrible right now and I can't.

[yourlibrarian]

I guess the biggest reasons for me are personal chemistry and the writing. However, for me there's also a difference in ships I want to see vs ships I want to read about. For example, I ship Eve and Villanelle, though there's no personal attraction on my part there. But to me this is the major reason for even watching the show, although the writing is quite good. And I have shipped other couples who I also have no particular interest in reading about, but who I find compelling or enjoyable onscreen.

There's some canon (and non-canon ships that are practically text) that I enjoy just because they're there rather than because these are people I'd really want to have get together otherwise. But the ones I want to read about are generally ones where I either find one or both partners particularly attractive or else the potential relationship between them is really intriguing and there are well done works for them out there.

For the most part I would rather read gen in virtually every fandom than shipfic, especially in fandoms where a major pairing dominates just about all fic. That's because I prefer stories that are equal parts plot and character development and a lot of ship fic is mostly about getting the people together with often no development of anyone else and not much else to the plot.

I think enemies to lovers tend to make up many of the ships I particularly like, probably because it takes more work to get them together and there are a lot of paths to follow in accomplishing that. Whereas many others are often very artificial in how the pair is kept apart because there's not much reason why they wouldn't be dating. This has also, interestingly, become increasingly true for slash couples whereas, say, 30 years ago, their being an LGBT couple alone would have been the hurdle.

[mommy]

My OTPs tend to fall in a specific pattern. There's the emotional character who is Committed To The Job, and then there is the other half of the pairing who is comparatively stoic and so very proud of their partner. This has been a relationship dynamic I've loved for as long as I can remember. Examples:

Kirk/Spock (Star Trek)
Elisa/Goliath (Gargoyles)
Wright/Edgeworth (Ace Attorney)
Darcy/Bucky (MCU fanfic: Run 'Verse)

[fullupwithfire]

I don't choose the ships, the ships choose me. And they all choose me.

Okay, but in a less silly manner: I generally don't have an outstanding OTP in a fandom; I sometimes have favorite ships, but even then, I'll probably read anything that comes my way, and the NOTPs are few and far between. I gravitate more towards writing ships where, one, I can get a decent handle on at least one of the characters, and two, I know somebody else interested that I can bounce ideas off of, but I will generally read most things. So it's more to me about what doesn't appeal to me in a ship, because while there are some patterns that crop up, the list of types I go for is very, very broad.

I think my one consistent pass is on enemies-to-lover ships where there are no other feelings to temper that. Enemies with a history of having been friends or some other complicated non-antagonistic feelings towards each other I am here for; but just straight-up enemies doesn't usually work for me.

(Normally I don't go for ships that are technically on the same side but are antagonistic towards each other on a personal level, either, but then I started a new fandom and zero'd straight in on the ship that hit that description, so I may have to rethink that one. XD)

[writedragon]

Much as the wand chooses the wizard, I find that my ships choose me. Sometimes they sneak up and bash me over the head. That said, I do have a penchant for being attracted to hopeless train-wreck characters (often those who were traumatized in some way), who by becoming a couple, make each other better.

Fraser/Kowalski (due South); River Song/The Doctor (Doctor Who); Aeryn Sun/John Crichton (Farscape); Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh (The Magicians), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), and so forth. Disasters, all of them, but so much better together.

[gibbles]

"Disasters, all of them, but so much better together" is such a delightful and concise way of describing that dynamic

[writedragon]

Thank you kindly! I like it too. :)

[caramarie]

My favourite ships are often based on antagonism rather than the characters liking each other. I enjoy things like 'I hate you but you're the only one who understands me' pr 'I hate you but I know I can rely on you for this'. Maybe things were they used to or could have been friends but for *something*. Mutual or one-sided obsession is also good.

Another ship type I like is mean one + upbeat one (where they like each other but maybe it's hard for people to tell from one side). Sometimes this comes out when I am writing a longer ensemble story and I surprise myself by shipping it even though it is entirely predictable of me ...

[melannen]

In terms of ships, I will ship literally anything!

If it involves an actual ship (= method of transport) I am much more likely to get really into it, though.

There have also been a few memes going around asking you to summarize all your ships in two archetypes, and mine do still usually tend to reduce down to "The grumpy one/the obnoxious one", although sometimes they swap roles.

But for OTPs, the main thing is that I have to believe they are each other's Most Important Person, and always will be.

(I was going to make an exception here for kids being more important, except I think my OTPs + kids fall into two categories: a) the kid is the most important, but my love for you is inextricably mixed up with your love for the kid, it is all a unit; or b) the kid is most important now, but you were here before the kid was and you'll be here after they move on.)

[beatrice_otter]

I don't really choose ships. Some I like more than others (though that often has more to do with what tropes fanfic writers tend to use with them than with the characters themselves and their canon dynamic), but I've never had an OTP and probably never will.

[beradan]

I don't usually get very involved in non-canon ships; I'm more likely to have a collection of NOTPs for whatever reasons, and then a small armada of "will probably read if I like your writing, but not super invested in outside the world of this fic." I do actively seek out fics where characters are or become friends, both within fandom and crossovers, and that's usually because I like the characters involved and think they have the potential for camaraderie, teamwork, and light banter.

My canon OTPs are pretty much always "intimidating women and the (often but probably not always) men who admire them," regardless of fandom, I just can't explain why.

[doranwen]

My ships vary considerably, and I can't say that I *choose* any of them myself. Most of the time what I ship just happens from the canon, but which fics I read and whether they match what I see in canon really has a lot to do with it. Which is not very clear for anyone reading, so let me give some examples:

OTPs:
Sam/Andy from Rookie Blue: they have the strongest chemistry and everyone could see it in the pilot episode. But I also ship Dov/Gail and Luke/Gail, and while I like the former better than the latter, I'm not terribly picky as both are fairly rare. I definitely don't ship Gail with anyone else but one of those two (though I've read some good Chris/Gail/Dov fics where Gail is the vee and I liked them).
Jarod/Miss Parker from The Pretender: in this case it's because they're the only two who really understand each other, I feel like - they're both so terribly messed up and yet they could be the source of each other's greatest strength.
Clark/Chloe from Smallville: here it's because they *fit* - and I could go into all the reasons why, but it's very much the "stronger together" feeling and the concept that Chloe is the person Clark needs to accept him, challenge him, and work with him to save the world, and she's loved him from the beginning, so… (I just ignore S4 onwards and imagine they got together at some point)
Clark/Lois from Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman: hey, they're soulmates *in canon*, seriously, how can I do anything else? Besides the whole personality fitting so well, and the h/c potential.
Beth/Jody from Gold Diggers: It's the "together against the world" feels that get me here. I saw their relationship as romantic friendship long before I had the words for that. (I was 13 at the time! I knew they were meant to be together the rest of their lives, even then.)
Neo/Trinity from The Matrix: Their relationship is what makes him the One, I think. Without her… One fic I read puts it so so well: "I may be the One, Morpheus," he said, quite casually, "and that may be my purpose. But Trinity is the reason. My reason. I don't need any other." Need I say more? They just *belong* together.
Nick/Cassie from Push: Age differences aside, they're just meant to be together. The movie showed it over and over, and Cassie's mother making sure Nick's dad would tell him about the flower… I sort of feel like she set them up in the first place. He finds his purpose in her, and she finds the companionship she's needed in him.
Jack/Sue and Myles/Tara from Sue Thomas F.B.Eye: with the caveat that I've read a really amazing Myles/Sue fic that I love, but on the whole Jack/Sue is very canon-driven. There's a lot of hinting at the interest in the show. Myles/Tara I fell for from reading *one* set of fanfics that really ship it well (I think I've only seen one other Myles/Tara fic out there!): "Why on earth would you want to date someone as cynical, and admittedly arrogant and overbearing at times, as me?"
"Because," she replied softly, reaching out to touch his shoulder, "—and I don't know how I figured it out before this assignment— beneath that arrogant, cynical, downright obnoxious at times, persona of yours, beats the heart of a knight and the soul of a poet." *swoon* After reading that (well, the fics in their entirety) I just had to ship them. I could see the ways their personalities would complement each other in a very private but satisfying way, if that makes sense.
Jane/Maura from Rizzoli & Isles: But here I ship them in a nonsexual way, unlike 99% of the fandom. It's taken me awhile to figure out what it is that I see, but I've finally decided that I'm pretty sure Jane is actually ace, and that the two of them essentially have a romantic friendship. (Maura is bi or pansexual, otoh, but she'd rather have a nonsexual relationship with Jane than a sexual one with anyone else, because honestly, sex is not the be-all-end-all!) Someday I might write more fics that deal with that, but eh, too many fandoms, too little time.

Fandoms *without* OTPs:
X-Men (original timeline, first 3 films only): my rare ship is Scott/Ororo (because I think they complement each other far better than Scott and Jean, personality-wise - and I only saw it that way from reading the few fics for the ship that exist, lol), but I have read and enjoyed Scott/Jean, Scott/Rogue, Scott/Kitty (can you tell I love Scott?) as well as Logan/Rogue and even some Logan/Jean - and then there's Piotr/Kitty which I like too… There are only a few ships I *don't* ship, and in some cases I'm very much a minority, but a lot of that has to do with very strong impressions I formed before I ever saw fanfic, and ships that clashed with those just don't work for me. (E.g. I see Prof X as aro-ace, and don't ship him with anybody. His formerly strong friendship with Erik is his deepest relationship but doesn't reach romantic friendship. Erik, otoh, is possibly bi; I haven't really thought about him as much, other than figuring he probably had at least a relationship with Mystique at some point. I've also never seen Bobby/John as a romantic ship. Deep bond, quite possibly, but on a platonic level. But I'm obviously a minority there.) I also once made an icon that showed a decagon and had the text "X-Men: The Love Polygon". Which is quite true. I think my thoughts went something like: Ororo - Scott - Jean - Logan - Rogue - Bobby - Kitty - Piotr - Jubilee… Just need one more character (possibly Remy, he'd fit best between Ororo and Jubilee, though I seriously Do Not Like his character, lol) and you really do have a decagon there, lol. (And I'm pretty sure I've read a fic for just about every pairing of characters next to each other in that, and a few that aren't next to each other.)
Alphas: I'm not sure I romantically ship anyone, really, though I've read some good Nina/Rachel fics, and at least one Lee/Rachel that I liked. This canon's all about team dynamics and personal struggles, and the romantic ships that do happen go sour either through a breakup or one of the chars dying, so… I have written some somewhat shippy fics, because I see the bond between Nina and Rachel very close, but I'm not sure if *they* would see it romantic or not? It's one of those "there for each other" things that's more about the emotional bond than a particularly romantic or sexual element.

Canon-only ships:
Lord of the Rings: If the chars were together in canon, then I ship them. If not, generally not, though I make an exception for Boromir/OC ships because Boromir never got a canon ship and I'm a sucker for Boromir Lives fics. But how it tends to shake out is I read a decent amount of Éomer/Lothíriel and most of the rest of what I read is gen, lol.


…I wrote an essay. Oops, lol.

[sathari]

Ooh, I like this--- I was thinking about posting a similar question!

There is a very definite pattern/dynamic to most or all of my OTPs, going clear back to Heroes fandom: Dominant Female Hero/Submissive Male Villain, in which on the one hand he starts making better life choices because of wanting to please her, but on the other hand she starts growing into her own awesomeness as the result of holding his leash and also often because she can tap into his connections or knowledge--- think Ekaterin Vorsoisson's line toward the end of A Civil Campaign where she says, "He comes with a house where I don't hit the walls when I stretch out. Even if I stretched out forever". Bonus dynamic is that the canonical pairings or at least implied ships for most of the ladies feature a dude whom I tend to think of as being likely to hold the lady back if she got with him. Oh, and for most of them I have at least one Black Jewels fusion fic in my metaphorical drawer where the lady is the Queen the guy (who's a Warlord Prince) serves. Examples include:

Claire Bennett/Gabriel "Sylar" Gray (Heroes)
Tifa Lockhart/Sephiroth (FFVII)
Penelo/Vayne Carudas Solidor (FFXII)
Rey/Kylo Ren|Ben Solo (Star Wars)
Marta Cabrera/Ransom Drysdale (Knives Out)

[starshipfox]

I really like House/Wilson, but when I became interested in the pairing and show, around when the second last season was airing, the fandom seemed curiously dead. I remember scouring Tumblr and Livejournal for shipping content, but everything seemed to be a few years old, which was weird because the show was still giving us so much good H/W content. I know this is secondary to your post, but I wondered if you'd had a similar experience?

House/Wilson isn't a typical pairing for me, because I tend to go for pairings, whether slash or femslash, which I can write as a D/s relationship, or have a hurt/comfort vibe. I tend not to be a very strong shipper -- it's rare that I find a NOTP, and I'm willing to try out a lot of pairings. For the last five or six years I've only been interested in femslash, which meant my favourite pairings were generally a bit niche, but in the last year and a half I got very into Quentin/Eliot from The Magicians, and having a lot of fandom content to read through is a novel experience.

[cuddyclothes]

I got into House during Season 5. There was a very robust fandom, although people kept bitching about how great it was during the previous seasons. Yes, by the time it got to Season 7, many of us were unhappy with the show and a lot of fans jumped ship. I'm one of those bitter end types.

Most of the fic is several years old or more. The fandom was going great guns, and afterwards a number of writers wrote after-series fics. But it died out without the show to keep it going. I'm very sad about that. It was a fun fandom. It skewed older and more literate than other fandoms I've been in.

[starshipfox]

It's a shame that so many people jumped ship. I definitely felt some unhappiness with the later seasons of the show, too, and they are the ones I'm least likely to watch, but there was still a lot of House/Wilson content, and some other good elements. I always struggled to find after-series fics, even thought the ending was left so open to fannish exploration.

[cuddyclothes]

Check out sassyjumper's live journal. She wrote an excellent series (maybe two). At least some of it involved House and Wilson bought a tiny house.

Also check the House/Wilson LJ community, Grabbing His Cane. There should be a lot of stories or links to stories.

[starshipfox]

Thank you! :)