[ SECRET POST #4005 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4005 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Rhys Ifans and Richard Armitage in Berlin Station]


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 07 secrets from Secret Submission Post #573.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

06. https://i.imgur.com/Yk9J3vA.png

[(Anonymous)]

But what about characters with no romantic relationships possible but with deep familial bonds or camaraderie? Dyou still would say they're flat characters?

I don't go looking around for romance (will avoid them if possible) so I don't get this way of thinking.

[(Anonymous)]

How would you have deep familial bonds or camaraderie and have no romantic relationships possible? Camaraderie is easy to develop into romance and plenty of incest fic or AU fic where characters that aren't family exist. There's also cross-canon ships, or OC ships. Or ships that would be possible if a canon character that fit certain criteria existed.

I'm having a hard time imagining a situation in which deep emotions are displayed in canon but no romantic relationships at all are possible. The secret is about possible ships, not "ships that could be canon."

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Well, it could be argued that the OP is (likely accidentally) implying that ace characters can't have depth, which is a pretty huge reason why their go-to standard for character quality is flawed.

I mean, I am a shipper, but I still can't see how a character being easy to ship makes them better written? Characters should be able to be interesting without needing to factor in how well they'd interact romantically with others.

Especially since, generally, it doesn't take much to ship something. It usually goes something like, two characters having the right combination of personality traits = identifiable chemistry = automatically shippable.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

I really don't think it's that weird. To me, one glaring red flag that a character is poorly written is that their platonic relationships with other characters seem odd and poorly defined. Their characterization will change from conversation to conversation, or other characters' personalities will warp so that they can get along with or fight with them as the plot demands, etc. A character whose relationships with others are written consistently enough to be shippable (or as OP says, "to provide the characters' motives, drives, issues, and emotional touchpoints that are necessary to see how a serious relationship would work") has a heightened probability of being a decently written character. In that sense, I don't think it's odd for a picky shipper to use "can I see this ship working?" as a quick way to identify these characterization issues.

Sure, many people ship at the drop of a hat, but OP specifically states that they want the potential ships to be "semi-meaningful" and they don't want to just smash characters together because they're pretty and/or stood next to each other one time at band camp.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree that meaningful relationships are a sign that a character is well-written (whether they're antagonistic, familial, friendly or romantic), but the OP specifying only one type of relationship is the part that strikes me as strange.

If a character isn't interested in romance, but has strong & realistic relationships with their friends, they can definitely be well-written. I'd also argue that, if a character hates social interaction and avoids people as much as they can, I don't see why they should be counted out from having depth! As long as their characterization maintains an internal consistency (and like you said, they aren't altered to suit the plot's demands), that's far more important than being able to ship them with people.

[(Anonymous)]

Ehhh. Fandom in general is preoccupied with shipping, and many of the biggest ships are, in canon, between characters who just have a strong, realistic friendship and express no canonical interest in becoming more than friends.

[(Anonymous)]

As an ace person in a relationship, why are you assuming we can't have relationships?

Romance isn't sex.

[(Anonymous)]

I meant aromantic, sorry.

[(Anonymous)]

DA:

I read the secret the other way? If deep emotions and character consistency are present, they make a solid ship (romantic or platonic or familial.) There are stories to be spun about the characters that aren't just 'pretty people fucking'

If the deep emotions don't exist: not a good ship; not a well-written character...

[(Anonymous)]

Weird.

You sound like a shipper tbh.

[(Anonymous)]

Wouldn't being a shipper require that the person ships things?

[(Anonymous)]

I guess.

I meant the general focus on romance.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmm, looking for characters with depth-of-personality enough for potential romances to occur is different from looking for romances themselves to me.

It makes sense to me in the same way that if a fandom has 10 different popular ships between all members of the cast, the characters in that series probably interact a lot more with each other than a fandom that has one ship and it's the canon ship.

[(Anonymous)]

That's a pretty decent way to look at character depth, even if you don't actually ship the characters in question; you're evaluating them in terms of all the things that actually make characters characters, and basically using a romantic relationship as shorthand for what you want to see in a series' characters. Perfectly reasonable, if you ask me.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't really understand why you exclusively use the lens of romantic relationships, but if it works for you, OK.

[(Anonymous)]

you've elucidated in one secret what I failed to explain in several rambling lines in the thread yesterday about why you ship what you ship. this is apparently why I ship what I ship. WHO KNEW.

[(Anonymous)]

You ship things based on emotional depth?

[(Anonymous)]

Adding my interpretation, I think what OP is trying to say is using the ability to imagine them in a relationship as a litmus test for character depth.

Are they like Phasma and Hux from Star Wars, basically just one note? If everyone's just kind of flat and it's impossible to figure out from their canon personality how they might behave in a relationship, they don't enjoy it.

Like the cast of Criminal Minds, even those not explicitly in a relationship, have enough depth that I could easily imagine how they'd act in a relationship with another character without having to invent or borrow a personality for them.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

That is what I meant. It's a quick and easy and non-exclusive test of whether I'll like the series or find the fandom worth looking into.

I usually end up shipping nothing. If I were a shipper looking for ships, that would make explaining this a lot easier!