[ SECRET POST #7017 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #7017 ⌋

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


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[The Muppets 2011]



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[Monarch: Legacy of Monsters]



















Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 25 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1001.
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]

05. https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/1984a5082359.png

Transcript by OP

[fscom]

Most of the time the rivals ship dynamic does absolutely nothing for me. I just don’t read romance off of two people who clearly don’t like one another and would rather drink acid than interact for more than 5 mins outside of fights/main plot.

Unfortunately for me these tend to be the most popular ship in any given fandom.

[philstar22]

I agree. Not a dynamic I like. Well, weirdly, I like hero/villain ships, but not as a rival dynamic. And not canon rivals from the same side.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm IME rivalships are more like "fuck that person I can't stand them because they're so annoyingly good at something that I'M supposed to be the best at" vs. "I dislike this person in a personal sense, have no respect for them, and wouldn't save them if they were on fire"

The latter is more like enemy or antagonist ships to me since characters kind of need a level acknowledgement of another's worthiness in order to see them as a rival even

Do fanfic writers get that respect across or established believably... haha that's a different question

[(Anonymous)]

Anon right below you and yes, you said exactly what I wanted to say. There's a foundational basis of respect there.

[(Anonymous)]

lol glad I'm not the only one!

The line is very clear to me between rival vs enemyships, idk. Like "I hate this guy, I don't respect him because he cheats and doesn't deserve the respect others give him, he's a dick and I hope he dies and yet he's sexy" is enemyshipping dynamics, even if they're seen as rivals by people in canon

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe. But I also feel like a lot of time fandom reads that "rival" dynamic into something that isn't in canon. For example Draco and Harry in Harry Potter. Not characters on equal footing, not much respect there at all.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh yeah I agree, which is why I was like... does fanfic always do it right? Well...... no

Shipping someone with their bully is not rivalshipping if they don't actually consider each other rivals.

[(Anonymous)]

I would consider some iterations of Drarry an enemies ship, but not a rivals ship. I do think Malfoy probably sees Harry as his rival during Hogwarts, but that's not what their dynamic is from Harry's POV at all.

[(Anonymous)]

... huh? Do... do you not understand what "rivals" means? The whole distinction between rivals and enemies is that rivals actually DO respect/like each other on some fundamental level. That's why they're rivals and not just plain enemies...

[(Anonymous)]

Also its worth mentioning that one of the pillars of rivalshipping is how the rival stirs feelings of competitiveness or needing/wanting to better themselves in the POV character. A lot of what expresses itself as "I can't stand being around that person" is actually "I can't stand being reminded that I'm not decisively better than them and I'm mad at myself"

[(Anonymous)]

I wouldn’t consider two people on the same side who don’t like each other much enemies, that’s really not the correct word usage there. Antagonistic perhaps if rivals doesn’t work for you?

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Just because two people, for example, work for the same company doesn't mean they can't be enemies trying to stab each other in the back for promotions though. Their coworkers might see them as rivals but if they really have no respect for each other, they're enemies

Nope.

[(Anonymous)]

Rivals has absolutely nothing to do with respecting or liking each other.

"The word rival most commonly refers to a person or group that tries to defeat or be more successful than another person or group, which means that rivals tend to come in pairs. Candidates running for the same political office are political rivals, and two people trying to earn the exclusive affection of a third are romantic rivals. Teams, schools, or companies might be longtime rivals if they try over many years to outdo each other."

From Meriam Webster dictionary. Nothing about respecting or liking. Honestly not sire where you are coming from with that idea.

Re: Nope.

[iff_and_xor]

Yeah, I think people are projecting a bit of their preferences onto the terms.

“Rival” and “enemy” definitely have overlap, though they emphasize different aspects of a relationship (i.e. whether it’s two people competitively striving for the same thing or whether it’s two people with strong hostility or hatred).

[iff_and_xor]

Wait, do you consider having mutual respect enough to make two people not enemies?

Or do you consider rivals a subtype of enemies, requiring mutual respect?

To put it another way, can people be both enemies and rivals?

[(Anonymous)]

Same.

That kind of antagonistic dynamic doesn’t do anything for me shipping wise, I’ve always preferred ships where they actually like one another, as friends if its fanon, than ships that are constantly butting heads. It can be fun to watch on screen but trying to imagine those ships as a romance just baffles me because the foundation of genuine respect isn’t there.

People can do what they want but I’ll be in my corner doing my own thing as well.

[(Anonymous)]

It’s overdone to death for me in fandoms as well. I have on occasion enjoyed one or two antagonistic ships, but not much beyond that because the dynamics are the exact same no matter which fandom you go in.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh bro I fucking hate any romance TV shows where the dude is some negging asshole who won’t let the FL breathe without bugging her, no way in hell am I shipping two dudes who can’t stand one another.

[(Anonymous)]

+100

[(Anonymous)]

What you're describing sounds much more like enemies ships than rivalry ships.

Personally I like rivalry ships because the attraction tends to stem, at least in part, from the fact that the other person is equally as good or better than them at something that they care a lot about, and they know it, and it's eating them up a little. And the better their rival is, the more frustrated/mad the character gets about it, but also the more respect and raging attraction respect they feel for their rival.

I like enemies ships too, but in that case it's because the enemy is the person the other character is most obsessed with, and I like my ships to be obsessed with each other. If they're obsessed with each other in a loving way, that's cool, but if they're obsessed with each other in a burning-hatred kind of way, that works too. That said, I'm not much into enemies ships where there's no explanation for the attraction they feel for each other. I prefer if the enemies are also rivals in some way. Even if they each loathe what the other stands for, I need there to be something significant they respect about each other or their attraction for each other just makes them seem stupid.

[(Anonymous)]

It heavily depends on the rivals-- and whether they're *actually* rivals or something else. One of my big ships from back in the day was the whole enemies-to-rivals-to-friends-to-lovers gamut (canonically, you can definitely make the argument for enemies-to-rivals, as I wrote them, 'friends' was a vital step between rivals and lovers because hate sex with a guy you really respect doesn't do it for me. BUT, the key thing with that ship was that they had a very similar sense of professionalism and made each other better at doing the jobs they took so much pride in, and they GOT each other in a way that other characters didn't-- other characters might have gotten along better right off the bat, initially preferred the company of, but this was the guy who Got It, and so once they could get past those early differences they could really form a genuine friendship on top of pushing each other to be their best).

A lot of rival ships just... leave me flat, either because I DON'T see that respect and that mutual betterment aspect that I would expect out of a real rivalry, or because the characters never take the time to *like* each other, and I need them to like each other.

[(Anonymous)]

"Hate is a very exciting emotion. Haven't you noticed? Very exciting".

Rival ships are my jam and have been at least since I was a teenager watching Northern Exposure, probably longer.

I especially enjoy the sex pollen trope for rival ships. But I haven't searched any out recently.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes! Enemy ships, rival ships, and forbidden ships absolutely thrive on tropes like sex pollen. "They're so attracted, but they'll never act on it!" *cue sex pollen accident*

Or I suppose, "They haven't realized that attraction underlies a lot of the other things they feel for each other...but they will." *cue sex pollen accident*

[(Anonymous)]

Like everyone else in the thread has said, rivalships aren't always enemies. Friendly rivals are just as common, especially in anime and video games (people have been complaining about Pokemon rivals being too nice for a long time but only a couple of them hated your guts at the start and Blue was never one of them. They also all end up respecting the player by the end. Poke rivals are usually just a friend who is competing for the same goal.)

I'm usually only into more antagonistic rivals myself but I like hate sex, so.