Random bit of meta?
21 Dec 2008 20:26![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shichahnThis is purely rhetorical, since it's something I'd never really put any thought into before and it doesn't really matter anyway. Just a point of curiosity, I suppose. And yes, it may have been inspired by a recent post on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
sonicstuff. :p
So, I don't really know why this is. But in every fandom I've considered myself an active part of (which isn't that many, admittedly, so maybe this isn't a very good sample), there is a huge variety of pairings I can enjoy. Most of those pairings involve the same couple of people over and over again with a bunch of other people. There is always one favorite pairing of the set, but it's not as though any other pairing involving those two is immediately disliked by me - in fact, entirely the opposite. Then there are a bunch of other pairings I don't really care about one way or another - I don't hate them, hardly, I just don't particularly care and don't go seeking out fic or anything.
But there's always one pairing I absolutely hate. For no apparent reason that I can discover. It always involves one character I like strongly - and of course it does, because otherwise why would I even care? And the other character, I might like them or I might dislike them, it doesn't seem to matter. I'm just... trying to figure out why there's always this one pairing in any fandom that I just can't handle, for no reason that I can tell.
Since I don't know how clear that all was, I will illustrate with examples from Sonic fandom, since it is current and I think most of the people on my flist are at least familiar with most of the characters.
My major OTP in this fandom is, as we all know, Sonic/Shadow. I also pair up these two with just about everyone else in the series and enjoy all of that greatly. I am not the sort of person who can't handle ships that "break up" my OTP. I think that would be irritating and limiting. But I simply cannot stand Sonic/Amy. No matter of awesome Clandon writing will convince me to like it. And I do not know why that is. It's not like I hate Amy. She's hilarious. Just, argh. I wish I had an answer for myself.
Maybe it's because it's the obvious potential canon ship and I can't stand the typical boy-gets-girl scenario? That's the reason I don't particularly care for, say, Ed/Winry. But I don't hate Ed/Winry the way I hate Roy/Ed. Now, I think I dislike Roy/Ed because of the severe power imbalance in that relationship. But that doesn't really help in drawing parallels with Sonic fandom, or with previous fandoms of mine, or fandoms that are more tangential and not ones I fully participate in but do have some opinions of (say, Avatar).
.... Hmm. And this post sounded a lot more interesting in my head before it came out. Now it's just me rambling about shipping, which is something that is so very trivial that I can't expect any of you to actually care. I guess I can't help but want to analyze my pairing preferences, though, to see if there's an ongoing pattern throughout time or not. Maybe if I get bored later I'll chart it all out or something. Maybe. Probably not.
sonicstuff. :pSo, I don't really know why this is. But in every fandom I've considered myself an active part of (which isn't that many, admittedly, so maybe this isn't a very good sample), there is a huge variety of pairings I can enjoy. Most of those pairings involve the same couple of people over and over again with a bunch of other people. There is always one favorite pairing of the set, but it's not as though any other pairing involving those two is immediately disliked by me - in fact, entirely the opposite. Then there are a bunch of other pairings I don't really care about one way or another - I don't hate them, hardly, I just don't particularly care and don't go seeking out fic or anything.
But there's always one pairing I absolutely hate. For no apparent reason that I can discover. It always involves one character I like strongly - and of course it does, because otherwise why would I even care? And the other character, I might like them or I might dislike them, it doesn't seem to matter. I'm just... trying to figure out why there's always this one pairing in any fandom that I just can't handle, for no reason that I can tell.
Since I don't know how clear that all was, I will illustrate with examples from Sonic fandom, since it is current and I think most of the people on my flist are at least familiar with most of the characters.
My major OTP in this fandom is, as we all know, Sonic/Shadow. I also pair up these two with just about everyone else in the series and enjoy all of that greatly. I am not the sort of person who can't handle ships that "break up" my OTP. I think that would be irritating and limiting. But I simply cannot stand Sonic/Amy. No matter of awesome Clandon writing will convince me to like it. And I do not know why that is. It's not like I hate Amy. She's hilarious. Just, argh. I wish I had an answer for myself.
Maybe it's because it's the obvious potential canon ship and I can't stand the typical boy-gets-girl scenario? That's the reason I don't particularly care for, say, Ed/Winry. But I don't hate Ed/Winry the way I hate Roy/Ed. Now, I think I dislike Roy/Ed because of the severe power imbalance in that relationship. But that doesn't really help in drawing parallels with Sonic fandom, or with previous fandoms of mine, or fandoms that are more tangential and not ones I fully participate in but do have some opinions of (say, Avatar).
.... Hmm. And this post sounded a lot more interesting in my head before it came out. Now it's just me rambling about shipping, which is something that is so very trivial that I can't expect any of you to actually care. I guess I can't help but want to analyze my pairing preferences, though, to see if there's an ongoing pattern throughout time or not. Maybe if I get bored later I'll chart it all out or something. Maybe. Probably not.
