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dolorosa_12Today is day one of the fandom meme that I mentioned a few posts back. I'm going to try to stick to one a day for the first 26 days of April. Let's see how I go. Today's prompt is:
A: Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.
As you are all probably well aware, I mostly only feel fannish about old, old book fandoms which I've loved since I was a child with a fannish devotion that has not dimmed in twenty years. So 'currently' is possibly a bit redundant here — I can't think of any recent canon which made me feel this way.
My answer for this question is comparably new — Sophia McDougall's Romanitas trilogy, the first book of which I read in 2007 (but which only got a US publication/edition last year). The ship in question is Noviana Una (the woman in my icon) and Marcus Novius. They are two of the three main point-of-view characters of the books, whose narratives are told in alternating chapters (the third character is Una's brother Sulien). The series is an alternate history which takes place in a world where the Roman Empire never ended, but there are also fantasy elements — Una and Sulien have supernatural abilities, hers being telepathy and his being the ability to heal the sick by touch. Una is a fugitive slave, suffering terrible trauma which is alluded to but never fleshed out in full, and Marcus is the heir to the Emperor. Sophia writes her modern Roman imperial family somewhat like the real-world British royal family, with that uncomfortable mix of glamour and tabloid journalistic scrutiny brushing up against extreme, obscene wealth and privilege. (The first book opens with the public, televised funeral of Marcus's parents, and it has always evoked to my mind the funeral of Princess Diana.)
I remember reading Romanitas for the first time. The first chapter is from Marcus's perspective, the second from Una's, and I remember having this unbelievably intense, spontaneous reaction to meeting both their characters: I love you both so much. Now kiss. They hadn't even met at that point! But I loved them intensely — both of them were characters from opposite ends of the social spectrum, and for different reasons they were introverted, shy, awkward, and with a horror of being touched, and a horror of being open and emotionally intimate with other people. They were also fiercely principled, brave, and hypersensitive to other people's thoughts, moods, and behaviour, moving through the world with a kind of intense awareness. I still ship them as much as I did in 2007.
Other contenders here include Presh and Allyman from Galax-Arena, Babylonne Kidrouk and Isidore Orbus from the Pagan Chronicles (and, from a friendship rather than romantic perspective, Isidore and Pagan Kidrouk, and Pagan and Lord Roland), and Warden and Paige from The Bone Season series.
B: A pairing – platonic, romantic or sexual – that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.
C: A ship you have never liked and probably never will.
D: What was the first thing you ever contributed to a fandom?
E: Have you added anything stupid/cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what?
F: What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? What fandom was it?
G: What was your first fandom?
H: Do you prefer live action TV shows or animated TV shows?
I: Has online caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?
J: Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over the internet.
K: What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?
L: Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves.
M: Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.
N: Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).
O: Choose a song at random, what ship does it remind you of?
P: Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).
Q: A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.
R: Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?
S: Show us an example of your personal headcanon.
T: Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?
U: Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.
V: Which character do you relate to most?
W: A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.
X: A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.
Y: What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?
Z: Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go!
If anyone missed it yesterday, I'm interested in writing letters to people. If you'd like a letter from me, here's how to get one.
A: Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.
As you are all probably well aware, I mostly only feel fannish about old, old book fandoms which I've loved since I was a child with a fannish devotion that has not dimmed in twenty years. So 'currently' is possibly a bit redundant here — I can't think of any recent canon which made me feel this way.
My answer for this question is comparably new — Sophia McDougall's Romanitas trilogy, the first book of which I read in 2007 (but which only got a US publication/edition last year). The ship in question is Noviana Una (the woman in my icon) and Marcus Novius. They are two of the three main point-of-view characters of the books, whose narratives are told in alternating chapters (the third character is Una's brother Sulien). The series is an alternate history which takes place in a world where the Roman Empire never ended, but there are also fantasy elements — Una and Sulien have supernatural abilities, hers being telepathy and his being the ability to heal the sick by touch. Una is a fugitive slave, suffering terrible trauma which is alluded to but never fleshed out in full, and Marcus is the heir to the Emperor. Sophia writes her modern Roman imperial family somewhat like the real-world British royal family, with that uncomfortable mix of glamour and tabloid journalistic scrutiny brushing up against extreme, obscene wealth and privilege. (The first book opens with the public, televised funeral of Marcus's parents, and it has always evoked to my mind the funeral of Princess Diana.)
I remember reading Romanitas for the first time. The first chapter is from Marcus's perspective, the second from Una's, and I remember having this unbelievably intense, spontaneous reaction to meeting both their characters: I love you both so much. Now kiss. They hadn't even met at that point! But I loved them intensely — both of them were characters from opposite ends of the social spectrum, and for different reasons they were introverted, shy, awkward, and with a horror of being touched, and a horror of being open and emotionally intimate with other people. They were also fiercely principled, brave, and hypersensitive to other people's thoughts, moods, and behaviour, moving through the world with a kind of intense awareness. I still ship them as much as I did in 2007.
Other contenders here include Presh and Allyman from Galax-Arena, Babylonne Kidrouk and Isidore Orbus from the Pagan Chronicles (and, from a friendship rather than romantic perspective, Isidore and Pagan Kidrouk, and Pagan and Lord Roland), and Warden and Paige from The Bone Season series.
B: A pairing – platonic, romantic or sexual – that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.
C: A ship you have never liked and probably never will.
D: What was the first thing you ever contributed to a fandom?
E: Have you added anything stupid/cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what?
F: What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom? What fandom was it?
G: What was your first fandom?
H: Do you prefer live action TV shows or animated TV shows?
I: Has online caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?
J: Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over the internet.
K: What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?
L: Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves.
M: Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.
N: Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).
O: Choose a song at random, what ship does it remind you of?
P: Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).
Q: A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.
R: Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?
S: Show us an example of your personal headcanon.
T: Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?
U: Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.
V: Which character do you relate to most?
W: A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.
X: A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.
Y: What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?
Z: Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go!
If anyone missed it yesterday, I'm interested in writing letters to people. If you'd like a letter from me, here's how to get one.
no subject
Date: 2020-04-01 06:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-02 07:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-07 06:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-04-10 08:58 am (UTC)I never like to push my favourite books on other people, because reactions to stories are so personal, and there's so much pressure if you constantly recommend a favourite story to a friend for that friend to love it as much as you do. (Pressure on the friend, I mean.)
I've really enjoyed all your comments to my posts for this meme — it's so nice to spend time just discussing fannish things rather than the state of the world, for a change!