Alicornutopia

I haven't read much of any other Alicornfic, and I actually don't have that many ships in Effulgence! I tend to get shippy when two characters are in a situation fraught with tension or rivalry or angst or thwarted love. I have a big habit of shipping the protagonist or primary love interest with the antagonist. Given that there isn't really much antagonism in Effulgence at all, there's not much for my shippy feelings to latch on to.

To give you some idea of what I mean, big ships of mine in other fandoms have been: the Joker/Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy, Phedre/Melisande, Jaenelle/Daemon, Princess Bubblegum/Marceline, Katara/Zuko, Chuck/Blair, Aeris/Sephiroth, Matoi Ryuko/Kiryuin Satsuki.

In Homestuck terms, I tend to be really into blackrom and blackrom/redrom vacillation. I also rarely have paleships but those tend to be cases where they are not only totally adorable but also each clearly fill a role for the other that is direly needed, not just ones when people are cute friends. The most paleshippy I got was Zeus and Harley because Zeus is the cutest and Harley is sweet and the two of them need each other so bad.

In kink terms, I get shippy about D/s themes. Things like power struggle, dysfunctional ways of dealing with loving someone, simultaneous love and hate, and plain just mutual respectful love with a clear, acknowledged, and mutually pleasing power dynamic to it. While Effulgence has plenty of masochists, and plenty of people in positions of ridiculous power, there don't seem to be that many actual subs or doms. And so the relationships have never fallen out to even hint at the sort of dynamics that would spark shippy feelings in me. The closest I've gotten there has been the way various Jokers have felt/behaved towards people who don't love them - Joker/Bat, Winter/Jadis, Trouble/Butterfly. But in those cases, what ultimately stops me from really feeling shippy is precisely that those people don't love their respective Jokers. If they had similar relationships of enmity or indifference or casual use, mixed with the other person actually genuinely loving the Joker, then I'd probably get super shippy about it.

The Joker/Bat "we two are alike in a way different from everyone else, but also diametrically opposed in a certain way, and we handle this completely differently, and your way of handling it is alien to me and makes it so we cannot peaceably coexist" dynamic would have me sold if the Bat actually acknowledged that dynamic. Jadis's "you are my favorite, most useful, most amusing servant, and I will train you to serve me in ever more pleasing ways, and we shall complement each other nicely" would work great if she also loved him. Butterfly's "you are useful and vital and dangerous and if I could trust you I would treat you as an extension of myself but I can't trust you and even if I did you wouldn't want to be anyone but yourself" would work very well, except that Butterfly doesn't also love Trouble.

I guess, in general, I don't tend to ship people by adding in feelings they don't already have. If two characters already care strongly about each other, then there's a chance I will ship them. In Effulgence, characters who have strong mutual "I love you" feelings tend to just get together in a straightforward fashion. Characters who have strong "I love you but" feelings rarely have mutual ones (Jokers tend to have them but not many others do?), so while I get feels for the involved Joker they're not shippy feels because I don't actually want Jokers to be with people who don't love them. Basically, I get strong shippy feels when two characters love each other, or are poignantly aware that they might have if things had happened differently, but can't or shouldn't actually be together, whether due to incompatible goals or dysfunctional ways of expressing love or what have you, or when they're in a situation that to a naive outsider would appear to be dysfunctional, but which actually works very well for the involved parties.

Wow, that is a lot of words and I still don't really feel like I've made myself understandable, and I'm not even really sure there's a point in saying it at all since it's all just a very long way of saying "I don't really have any". Hrmph. I guess I will submit this all anyways because otherwise it will all feel like a great waste of effort, and maybe someone will find it relevant nevertheless.

I'm really curious how the above shipping mechanisms interact with Chelseas.

Hmmm. Chelseas have potential? Like, especially in a case where a Chelsea makes someone love her who otherwise would have genuinely loved her but now never knows if they can trust the feeling. Chelsa and Corona in particular, if it had been delved into at all, I might have had some shippy feels about. Heck, I might even have had feels for Chelsa and Harley, except that Harley never really evinced much actual love or care for her despite having been kindled. Like, if while he was in the sun keeping damn well the hell away from her he was also miserable for being apart from her and for hurting her. Her being miserable and confused that he didn't like being made to love her was in the right direction, but I didn't get enough other substance to her as a character than "love is good so obviously more love is better" and a complete lack of consideration for the idea that anyone might not want to love someone, or that they might want to love someone but not want to be made to love someone. If there were a Chelsea who had a bit more depth and struggled a bit more with the way she felt about people and actually seemed to genuinely love someone and to genuinely be distressed that she had hurt them and permanently fucked things up by forcing the issue, then I could see it happening. In the other direction, a coldly manipulative Chelsea who is contemptuous of someone who she makes to love her, while nevertheless being insecure and relying desperately on that love, and who is loved by that someone in a really wholehearted, giving sort of way - like an "I know what you did but I know why and I love you anyway" sort of love - could also work. Like, a situation where an outsider would expect that severing the Chelsea-bond would make the person go "oh god what get me away from her" but in fact makes them go "oh god what why would you do that put it back".

As for ships where the Chelsea is not one of the participating parties, but is involved in the establishment of the feelings of love, I'm not sure that it works so well. I don't think it could be used solely as the basis for "this won't work for X, Y, and Z reason, but I love you anyway" that a lot of my ships seem to have, but... maybe something could grow out of it?

Incidentally, the Chelsea template has a template accessory, Aftons (Aurum Chelsea had Afton, Chelsa has Amdon, Chelise didn't have one) who would do the "put that back!" thing. (But Chelseas are not contemptuous of their Aftons, just possessive and I'd-call-it-controlling-but-the-Aftons-don't-put-up-enough-resistance-for-it-to-qualify.)

Aftons could work except they are too boring :P

I am really interested in your shipping feels, Tamien! :D

Haha, I wonder if an upcoming ship in the Dread 'verse will get you... they'll end up together, but it'll be super fucked up on the way. XD

Not sure if counts as shiping, but I've been musing the notion of Charlie Swan and Rupert Giles together (well one of their alts anyway), possibly even going as far the two married and raising Bella, with Renée acting as more of a "aunt" type. Overall I think that seeing the two dealing Bell-related shenanigans together would be absolutely hilarious.

Don't ask me why, my own mind won't tell me why xD

Charlies are reporting that they do not seem to come in not-straight. And Renées are the usual primary caregiver when there's a divorce.

The last two posts make me wonder if the older variety of Giles alts come in female.

I'd have to find another PB. Which isn't a no.

But I can't imagine the circumstances that could cause a Giles to want to date a Charlie. XD