I’m not sure I can accurately name this post since it’s not an attempt to comprehensively go over every ship I’ve ever shipped. I just wanna share some things. And this won’t exactly be chronological either. Some of this reminiscing is about Fan Fiction I did read, but plenty is also more about stuff I imagined, that I would have written myself if I wasn’t so lazy.
It may surprise my followers (if any exist) to learn that my earliest ships were all Het, I’ve been a Yuri shipper for a long time now, but not quite from the start. And to a certain extent I’ve never abandoned my Het shipping, I am still ultimately a Cis-Het Male after all.
Early on I did a lot of imagining myself into shows having storylines with the female characters I was attracted to.
My first real ship was shipping Dawn and Spike from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. It’s weird looking back on that now since it’s not the kind of thing I’m likely to ship today at all. But I have fond memories of exploring now long dead Dawn themed fan fiction sites, where I mostly got into stories about this ship but did read others. And for context you should know I’m exactly the same age as Michelle Trachtenberg, so I wasn’t seeing Dawn as the little girl of the show, she was rather the only character I could come close to seeing myself in. But I shipped her with Spike not because I had any attraction to James Marsters but because she canonically had a crush on Spike and so I wanted her to get what she wanted, and they did have chemistry.
The early Het Ships I shipped that I still care about are the Zelda ones interestingly enough. I was a big Link and Malon shipper, which included Link/Marin and Link/Romani and also Link/Cremia. I read an old Zelda Universe article called The Girl with the Red Hair: Malon + Link, which I really liked, and it still exists.
https://zeldauniverse.net/2010/11/28/the-girl-with-the-red-hair/
I think that’s a reposting however, because it’s dated to 2010 and I’m confident I’d read this before Twilight Princess came out. Because as we were learning more about it I felt like it was confirming the theory of that article, TP Link must descend from the Hero of Time and Malon. YouTube videos about Malon theorizing seem to be when on her as a love interest mostly just indirectly repeating that article but then adding the TP element.
The Fan Fiction I was into back then, on both the Dawn subject and the Zelda subject, included a lot of angst. I was into scenarios about triangles and jealousy and unrequited love. Some of them even got pretty Dark. I think I would have become a Non-Monogamous shipper sooner if I’d simply learned of that being an option sooner. But make no mistake, my current desire for everyone being happy in the end stories doesn’t mean I don’t see the appeal of angsty triangle melodrama. A number of Dawn fics were between seasons 5 and 6 or between episodes of season 6. I was also interested in the idea of stories about a post Majora’s Mask Link having his dark side drawn out by the Fierce Deity Mask.
It’s hard to say where my Femslash interest truly began. When I was into Dawn fics I read some Femslash ones about her, some with Buffy, some with Faith, possibly one with Tara. But they weren’t what I actively shipped.
Noir was my introduction to Yuri. I first stumbled upon that show by surfing my family's On Demand service and seeing it on Anime Network On Demand, where episode 9, the second part of a two parter, was the earliest episode currently up. Watching that episode was the first time I ever saw 2D Girls Kiss. And as I continued the show I got really into Chloe and her unrequited feelings for Kirika. However it took awhile strangely for me to realize Kirika and Mireille were also canon, I still had some heteronormativity to get over. I remember that the first time I saw the word Yuri was on Noir’s IMDB forum, someone had posted a thread called “Noir Yuri Pics” or something and I originally assumed it must mean something more specific then just lesbian.
Around then was also when I started actually reading DC Comics, and Stephanie Brown became my favorite Comic Book character, and it didn’t take long for me to start shipping her with Cassandra Cain. But another niche Het Ship I supported was Tim Drake and Darla Aquista. I also like Linkara supported the controversial Donna Troy and Terry Long relationship. There was an old fansite I really liked that is now gone called Donna Troy Woman and Hero.
I’ve also engaged in some Pokemon shipping over the years. More so game characters though, filling in the blank slate that is Leaf. Anime wise that I like May and Dawn way more than Misty makes me pretty controversial. My imagination always treated Lass as a single character rather than a class, a Fille Fatale who flirts with both Red and Leaf. Basically there were little if any existing fanfics I found to serve my tastes there. I did enjoy a series on FanFiction.Net about Leaf and Dawn.
I was also someone who’s interest in the Twilight ignited Vampire craze lead me to research the Pre-Dracula stuff, which lead to me reading and really liking Carmilla. Because of Paul Feval that Vampire interest lead into and overlapped with my French Pulp Fiction interest which allowed me to learn about Eugenie Danglars and Louise d’Armilly.
The Vampire craze also lead me to The Vampire Diaries, where I found another of my top Het Ships, Jeremy and Anna, played by Stephen R McQueen and Malese Jow. That ship was prominent in my early Tumblr activity.
Then came the era of Pretty Little Liars being my favorite TV show, I became a strong Sparia shipper and looked into other ships as well.
Back to Zelda. Prior to Skyward Sword I quite liked how Nintendo was mostly avoiding making Link and Zelda a couple. But then Hyrule Warriors comes along implying they’re always destined to fall in love and I was quite annoyed. So I’ve always had hostility towards Link/Zelda shipping. However the Skyward Sword Prequel Manga included in the Hyrule Historia (which I saw glimpses of before I properly got to read it) kinda won me over on it. Though that’s technically Link and Hylia.
Zelda is one franchise where my Het Shipping is still strong. But I have became a supporter of Zelda Femslash. For both Skyward Sword and Hyrule Warriors I like to ship Zelda with Impa, and for Twilight Princess I like Zelda/Midna, and I see Ashe as a Lesbian on principle. I also now support the theory that Cremia actually had feelings for Anju in Majora’s Mask.
I developed an interest in various Tolkien and Silmarillion related Femslash ships. Like Nienor Niniel and Nellas, as well as viewing Nessa, Haleth and Tar-Telperien as Lesbians.
I started a Final Fantasy Femslash tumblr that I’ve mostly let die since my interests there are limited. I ultimately view Terra Branford as Asexual and yet I still crave material about her and Celes. I also strongly support Agrias and Ovelia from Final Fantasy Tactics.
Since getting much more actively into Anime starting in 2014 there are a lot of ships I’ve become supporters of, from Magical Girls to Cute Girls Doing Cute Things to the better Harems, and the occasional specifically Yuri show/OVA. But I’ve supported some Het stuff too and even learned to appreciate Yaoi and Otokonoko. But strangely nothing I’ve found in the last year and a half has really compelled me the way my old ships did. Though perhaps they just need time, again I haven’t been rewatching stuff as much as I used to.
However recently learning about SaGa Frontier thanks to Yahweasel has made me a supporter of the Femslash potential it provides.
No comments:
Post a Comment