actually the most romantic thing in the universe

[rhodochrosite]

lately i have found myself typing '[objectively unromantic thing] is the most romantic thing in the universe' way too much so as guy who loves categorisation i am going to try to sort my favourite ship dynamics into types but since i have such incomprehensible taste i don't know how successful this will be. let's find out!

first of all, i will never not pickship and that is a promise everything else is subsidiary to the fact that i love to smash my faves together more than anything. actual canon interaction is 100% optional i will invent the dynamic myself if i have to but truly the vast majority of my otps are my favourite x my second favourite... i'm already so invested in them individually of course i will be invested in them together. also a lot of these categories cross over because everything i like is kind of the same. broadly i have sorted these dynamics into four groups: <power dynamics>, <haterism>, <narrativeshipping>, and <not knowing each other>


POWER DYNAMICS
unbalanced power dynamics are the best that's all i have to say. preferably via formal rank differences but unequally reciprocated feelings are also fine

mentorshipping

• eg any troika member/kirihara (prince of tennis), riku/sena (eyeshield 21), v/kaito (yugioh zexal), haruna/mihashi (oofuri)

MY FAVOURITEST DYNAMIC IN THE WORLDD there is nothing more heart touching to me than imparting skill and knowledge to someone else. this isn't really reflected in the examples i put but i particularly love it when the mentee reminds the mentor of the person they used to be so in that vein i really enjoy cynical mentor x idealistic mentee. i also love when they end up as enemies

sparring mentorships

• eg *****/**** (***), androssi/baam (tower of god), squalo/yamamoto (katekyo hitman reborn), ...bucky/natasha (marvel)

the best kind of mentorships are when the thing that's being taught is how to fight!!! the additional element of physicality and violence is so chef's kiss

leader x second-in-command

• eg sanada/yukimura (prince of tennis), milner/assistant (utopia), xanxus/squalo (katekyo hitman reborn), iwaizumi/oikawa (haikyuu)

I <3 HIERARCHIES AND FORMAL COMMAND STRUCTURES!!! and i love HENCHMEN... my preferred flavour is total loyalty from the 2ic rather than a treacherous 2ic looking to supplant the leader (more interested in that kind of antagonism coming from the leader's protege/future successor... as an aside loyal 2ic x ambitious protege is also delicious), but i love so much when ideological conflicts threaten the 2ic's absolute devotion. it's good if they compromise their ethics to carry out their leader's will but also really good if they finally draw the line at some point

leader x protege

• eg any current captain x future captain ship, oikawa/kageyama (haikyuu), altan/rin (the poppy war)

i'm legacyfucker9000... person currently in the prime of their power and their protege primed to take over once they're gone is so good, i really like the feeling of passing down something greater than yourself. for the most anguish inducing take i especially love when the protege both admires the leader and wants to defeat them for an extra rivalry element with the inheritance feelings. from the leader's side i optionally also enjoy the complicated emotion of like, directly contributing to your own downfall by training the person who will one day overthrow or succeed you

leader x lancer

• eg yukimura/niou (prince of tennis), atobe/shishido (prince of tennis), kite/rin (prince of tennis), hanamaki/oikawa (haikyuu)

i love guys who come off hostile, disrespectful or uncaring of the leader's authority, but are unwaveringly loyal when it comes down to it and the leader knows it :') best version is when the lancer is high up in the chain of command because the leader trusts their judgement and abilities despite apparent inconstancy or antagonism

self-sacrifice

• eg yukimura/marui (prince of tennis), kiryu/yusei (yugioh 5ds), daniel/roen (tower of god)

as a person who buys wholeheartedly into sunk cost fallacy it is so so heart touching to me when someone selflessly and without prompting gives up something very important for someone else with no expectation of or perhaps even desire for reciprocation... straight up dying for the other person being the extreme example but very welcome too


HATERISM
i like it when people don't like each other <3 especially if there's bitter history between them!!

enemies
obviously i'm a huge fan... the very definition of haterism. ideological tension is the best basis for enmity imo none of this simple misunderstanding stuff i want deeply and tragically incompatible worldviews!! here are my favourite subtypes:

childhood friends to enemies

• eg luke/thalia (percy jackson), takasugi/katsura (gintama), dimitri/felix (fe3h)

love the contrast between the current enmity and the painfulness of remembering that they used to be close :')

childhood friendly rivals to enemies

• eg yusei/jack (yugioh 5ds), gintoki/takasugi (gintama), tenka/sousei (donten ni warau)

best of all worlds... friendly mutually beneficial haterism to unfriendly mutually destructive haterism is so ideal... i don't think i've ever seen this in an actual canon but friendly rivals who veer very close towards lovers before swerving hard in the opposite direction and ending up as enemies is the most perfect trajectory to me *__*

exes

• eg inui/yanagi (prince of tennis), bortz/diamond (houseki no kuni)

i think falling out of love is so good. getting back together is nice but realising that the people you've become are no longer compatible and you'll never be able to return to the relationship you had before is also nice

enemies to reluctant allies

• eg reiji/shun (yugioh arc v), takeru/ryoken (yugioh vrains)

gritted-teeth enemy of my enemy teamwork for the sake of a temporarily aligned common goal despite haterism otherwise is so fun every time, i love the group project energy. especially if the antipathy is only one-sided and the other person is fine or even happy to be working together. really funny if it shades into leader x lancer dynamic

rivals

• eg yugi/kaiba (yugioh dm (the original rivalshipping)), chihaya/shinobu (chihayafuru), kirihara/ryoma (prince of tennis), crow/jack (yugioh 5ds)

separate from enemies! rivals is more focused on competitiveness and pushing yourself to become better so you can beat the other person rather than necessarily trying to kill the other person (though that might also be an element of the dynamic depending on the canon but like your rival is your balance you don't truly want to get rid of them)... fun and flirty tension <3 or anguished tension <3

you saved me, you should remember me

• eg reiji/serena (yugioh arc v), yusaku/ryoken (yugioh vrains), *******/******** (****)

this is so specific but basically when A saved B's life when they were children, and then they grow into ideologically opposed enemies on different sides of a war who don't recognise/remember each other at first, and by the time they realise who they had once been to each other it's too late to reconcile... OR IS IT!!


NARRATIVESHIPPING
as a 2pickshipper i often have to rely on metatextual connections rather than actual canon interactions to form my theses and i literally do think that it's it's more important for a ship to have parallels than to like be in love or anything. it's actually really hard for me to ship any dynamic where i can't Connect Dots between the characters... this is less important in rpf obviously but it's everything to me in fpf

narrative parallels

• eg yukimura/kirihara (prince of tennis), shun/serena (yugioh arc v), finnick/johanna (hunger games)

NOTHING IS MORE TRUELOVE THAN BEING NARRATIVE PARALLELS!!! "you and i are the same" is simply the most romantic dialogue ever i loveeee acknowledgements of similarity or recognition of the self in the other, that's a confession in my eyes. i do appreciate a good set of narrative foils too but i prefer sameness over contrasts >__> if i had to pick ONE type of ship out of all of these it would be narrative parallels because even most of what i enjoy about mentorships stems from some kind of parallel between the mentor and mentee

selfcest

• eg yugi/atem (yugioh dm), bakura/ryou (yugioh dm), yuma/astral (yugioh zexal)

metaphorically being the same person is extremely romantic to me and so is literally being the same person. i'm including bodysharing, clonefucking and alternate dimension versions of the same person under the general selfcest umbrella they are all good

identity theft as a love language

• eg yuzu/serena (yugioh arc v), yagyuu/niou (prince of tennis), shinichi/haibara (detective conan), shinichi/kaito/ran (detective conan)

pretending to be someone else is the height of romance!! especially if the other person doesn't know about the identity jacking

highrankershipping

• eg cxk/zzt (idol producer), any zahard princess ship (tower of god (the original highrankershipping)), most interteam sportsani ships

i love people who win. and i love when people who win interact with other people who win. i love elite cliques!! i also love when they don't interact and/or aren't cliquey it is simply enough for highrankers to rank highly in the general vicinity of one another it's great when they don't know each other too, i find this so compelling. basically this is synonymous with pickshipping because being a highranker is a prerequisite to being one of my picks lol

tinhetting

• eg reiji/serena (yugioh arc v), seungcheol/nayoung (pledis), cato/clove (hunger games), noi/shin (dorohedoro)

special subcategory for tinhets because i love hetshipping so much it's unreal. explicitly canon hets can be a little hit or miss for me but if that shit is narratively implied or if i can like delusionally draw connections between a guy and a girl it just makes me uniquely unhinged i can't really explain why. these days i use tinhet to describe any noncanon het i like but originally the meaning was supposed to be narrowly construed ie legitimate belief that the interactions were intended to be read romantically / that the people in question had a crush on e/o

protagonist x final boss villain

• eg yukimura/ryoma (prince of tennis), ai/yusaku (yugioh vrains), yamato/sena (eyeshield 21), hinata/oikawa (haikyuu)

wasn't sure whether to put this under haterism but imo it's more about the structure of the story bringing them together, any enmity/rivalry is secondary to the inevitability of narrative forces because there SHOULD be some kind of history or thematic paralleling that builds up to the big boss battle... i especially love a formerly invincible final boss who suffers their first defeat at the hands of the protag, Unkillable Guy x Guy Who Kills Them Anyway is a very special relationship dynamic. extra epic if it overlaps with leader x protege


NOT KNOWING EACH OTHER
this is sort of a subset of narrativeshipping because narrativeshipping is about what's in my head rather than what's in canon but also it's kinda distinct enough to have its own category. this type is about the lack of closeness, even if (especially if) it seems that they should know each other. just like... existing separately but having vaguely overlapping spheres. this is romance to me. not the same as haterism because haterism is about intense feelings, not knowing e/o is about no feelings or like really vague or lukewarm feelings, but somehow ending up physically proximate anyway

2 people who are both closer to the same 3rd person

• eg takeru/aoi (yugioh vrains), joshua/seungcheol (seventeen), oshitari/jirou (prince of tennis)

especially if they have some kind of external circumstance that draws them together like being in the same age line, but they're still weirdly distant or at least not as close as they could be. it doesn't have to be jealousy just like... ambiguous tension. or not even tension maybe they just have no reason to interact

replacement goldfish

• eg yuto/yuzu (yugioh arc v), yugo/yuzu (yugioh arc v), yagyuu/niou (prince of tennis) except that they're both replacement goldfishing themselves

a "you remind me a lot of someone very important to me" type dynamic. can grow out of the replacement feelings and into a dynamic premised on their own terms, or stay as one person using the other as a substitute for someone else forever. again not reflected in the examples but i think it's extra tasty if the replacement goldfish in question knows they're just a substitute but is willing to stay anyway because even a shadow of the real thing is better than nothing

classmates / coworkers

• eg niou/marui (prince of tennis), sousei/kiiko (donten ni warau), shinichi/haibara (detective conan), literally any kpop ship but especially haechan/renjun (nct) for classmates energy though they do know each other

varying degrees of knowingness allowed here but the key is situational closeness and context-specific understanding of someone else. special shoutout to company approved propaganda cps i love deliberate fanservice and transactional relationships. i've folded classmates and coworkers into the same subset but i think classmates veers closer towards knowing and coworkers veers closer towards not knowing.

both are relationships that may not have eventuated if not for situational necessity but classmates is like... gossiping, passing notes in class, bitching about stuff together, always sitting next to each other, linking arms in the hallway, Those Two Girls. coworkers is less cliqueish and more professional, something along the lines of commiseration rather than bitching, joint accountability, helping e/o out with difficult clients, emotional support during deadline crunching... it's very slightly different vibes

last survivors

• eg gale/johanna (hunger games), felix/ingrid (fe3h crimson flower route), chaghan/rin (the poppy war), mayu/ryo (7 seeds)

often overlaps with <2 people who are both closer to the same 3rd person> if that 3rd person is dead or out of the picture lol. this is about situational closeness again, forcing two people who wouldn't otherwise talk to each other or would prefer the company of others to interact due to the sheer lack of anyone else to interact with LOL i want the 'we have nothing left but each other and if i could choose i wouldn't have chosen you but it's not up to me' vibes

to conclude, here is a visualisation filled out with yugioh ships:

and here is a visualisation filled out with tennis ships:

i don't necessarily like a ship more just because it fits into more categories but my #1 agendas for both series being in the overlap of all 4 is creating an image that really makes me think...

Comments

[rhodochrosite]

NICO!! thank u so much for weighing in i always love to hear u speak and i am very happy to see my shipping frameworks applied in any context... as usual YOU GET ME!!! highly competitive ambitious people who struggle between wanting to stay at the top vs the fact that knowing your own skill can be reflected in what you pass onto others soooooo acutely worded this really truly is the crux of what i love about leader x protege like the tension between creating your own legacy in your own right and realising that one part of making a lasting impact is shaping others who will be there even after you are gone, im always thinking of a quote from this fic: "Not everyone can chose who they prefer to lose to." ATSUKITA... its free captain complex also kita passing on this carefully preserved beautifully taken-care-of philosophy and legacy down to the twins theyre literally never going to recover from having kita shinsuke as a high school sports captain

I LOVE THAT WE CAME TO THE SAME NARRATIVESHIPPING CONCLUSIONS INDEPENDENTLY sag moon to sag moon connection hehe <3 omg its SO TRUE that kita reached that place of like self aware balance and understanding way before oikawa and didnt even need to speedrun oikawas various inferiority complex and overwork struggles bc KITA has always known that doing something well is about meticulous application of effort to precisely the right degree neither over nor under which oikawa took like 2 decades to finally learn i 100% agree that it is something oikawa would admire in kita and be surprised at his own capacity for admiration of others w/o the like desperate envy and terror he feels about the obvious suspects. 2pickshipping is so good tho!! wahh ive never thought about oikawa/semi parallels but you are so huge brained semi really did also live out the supplanted by younger better setter storyline😢

if u would like to share ur atsukagehina vision I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR IT i 100% support imdifferentthoisms because its TRUE that your visions are better and smarter than everyone else <3

also ty for the post idea!! i would actually love to write about my fave team dynamics i have so much to say and so much totally unwarranted notlikeothergirls found family haterism to exorcise ksdjfgkdjfkjgsd i will have a think about it!! 😚

[azureblue]

THAT LINE SUMS UP EVERYTHING ABOUT MENTOR/PROTEGE EXACTLY... and also i was thinking more like. ushijima and goshiki yesterday and i think the dynamic of the protege being the insanely competitive one is also hilarious like that internal struggle of I Have So Much Respect For Him But I Have To Beat Him vs ushijima not caring about anything like that even a little bit because he knows he's secure in his own abilities but trusts in goshiki anyway.

sag moon 4 sag moon always im glad you get it about oikita i think i almost made myself insane with it in november. narrativeshipping is also about seeing the narrative you want for yourself in someone else sometimes <3 and RIGHTT oikawa/semi came to me in a moment of revisiting semi's pinch serving moments when he goes 'i understand exactly what it is about shirabu that makes him a better setter than me, but with serves im free' like wow... theres potential there i think especially like. imagine the first shiratorizawa vs seijou game where shirabu starts instead of semi. CHILLS

OK I WILL TRY TO BE BRIEF (1/428) but i think this mostly goes back to narrativeshipping too and is maybe kind of a departure from your original premise of them not knowing each other.... sorry in advance, but basically i just think that

1) atsukage opposite narrativeshipping: i mostly think that atsumu's relationship with trust as a ~tyrannical setter~ is almost the exact opposite of kageyama. the reason atsumu never had a moment of kageyama-like abandonment with his attitude is that aran quote like No matter how fast one twin runs, the other one will always be there to catch up with him. if atsumu was rude to his teammates, he still never had that total loneliness, even with all their antipathy, because osamu would just be rude right back instead of abandoning him. so where kageyama had to learn to trust that karasuno trusted him enough to always be there and he'd be able to evolve in a place where he finally didn't have to keep dumbing himself down like at kitadai, atsumu has always HAD that trust in osamu, and his ~learning journey~ happens instead when osamu says he's not going to be continuing with volleyball and atsumu's forced to grapple with actually having to Earn that trust from other people (which is the real value of trust and not the brotherly bond he has with osamu, which i think is reflected when osamu goes 'why tf would i need to trust him? i know the balls gonna be there'). and i think the fact that they have the Osamu Quitting conversation at the end of 2nd year instead of 3rd year means that this wake-up call happens around the same time that atsumu has to learn (from watching kita <3 captain x next captain dynamix) how to actually be a good captain and apply the considerate setter he is to his interpersonal relationships.

2) replacement narrative: basically i think atsuhina is hilarious because 50% of it is during the inarizaki match when atsumu only pays attention to hinata at first because he inexplicably became obsessed w kageyama at youth camp + when he recognizes that hunger in hinata and goes im gonna set for you in a way that actually sees him as an individual spiker and not 1/2 Of The Karasuno Duo, and the other 50% is him in msby trying to grapple with the concept of living up to kageyama as a Replacement Setter Of Hinata (the panel where hes like tobio try not to pick a fight w MY spiker please :) makes me cryyyy every time like the gall). like imagine thinking that you might simply be a pawn used by your crush so that he can defeat HIS ex-crush in the vleague. simply hysterical to me that that's also obviously not how hinata feels about it at all, but its like 90% of atsumu's mental turmoil that he's somehow just a replacement. to quote ur post extra tasty if the replacement goldfish in question knows they're just a substitute but is willing to stay anyway because even a shadow of the real thing is better than nothing. i also think this is good bc especially combined w his trust revelations ^^ and his "cheer if i score, boo if i dont" mentality he can get very like... transactional with how much he thinks he deserves from others. which is why my atsuhina wip was called #ATSUMUNEVERWINS: atsumus accept the wins they think they deserve

3) where that leaves them: it IS narrativeshipping thing because atsumu also goads on kageyama's and hinata's individual developments in a way. it's funnier because neither case was intentional. in kageyama's case it was atsumu calling him a goody-two-shoes and basically kickstarting King Of The Court 2.0 (which is also extra funny when atsumu tells hinata during the jackadlers game Wow u guys at karasuno took kageyama and u told him he could do whatever tf he wanted. LIKE U DID THIS TOO THIS WAS UR FAULT). and in hinata's case it was the fact that atsumu copied the quick + promising to set for him (which is arguably one of the first times someone directly expresses to him his individual value, especially when washijo Tells him during the training camp that he has no value without kageyama) Really showed him that there are other setters out there who can also get him the ball too. and atsumu going the exact opposite way in learning trust as kageyama, which he then carries on to his relationship w hinata thinking that he HASN'T earned that trust bc he IS just a replacement.

basically atsukagehina is just you, the dude you like who you think likes the other dude you like who you think is just using you as a replacement for him. like i individually think kagehina is whatever but when u add all of these together its so chefs kiss to me... wow i genuinely did not expect this to be this long i am so sorry

[rhodochrosite]

omg yes i really love the ushijima/goshiki current and future captainace dynamic ia its so funny bc the rivalry is so onesided... goshikis competitiveness-admiration struggles are so good and ushijima reassuring him midmatch was SO GOOD bc goshiki really did have to hear it from ushijima his goal his role model his rival his captain <3

YOUR ATSUKAGEHINA VISION SO INTERESTING AND MIND EXPANDING TO READ thank you for this mini manifesto!! u have really pinned down a lot of the vague half formed impressions i had wrt these three and i agree soooo much... also ctfu i feel exactly the same way about kagehina idc much for them on their own but they are SO interesting when u throw someone else in the mix (guy whose first big agenda was oikagehina)

ATSUKAGE! omg yes i fully agree (not to keep just saying that i agree with you but like,.. i do), my #setter_narratives thoughts kinda stop at visualising atsumu and oikawa as a scale with kageyamas whole arc being about like trying for one end and then the other and then the other again before figuring out the shape of his own philosophy so this really created an image that made me think. miya twins is so powerful damn.. atsumu shortcutting kageyamas tyrant king struggles as a setter who demands the maximum out of his spikers (as opposed to oikawa thee generous's approach) bc he has a free other half / rival / responder in osamu, only to like crash back into it just in time to also have to deal with the inarizaki legacy in kitas wake lol. atsumu learning the meaning of absence vs kageyama learning the meaning of presence haha

ive been kinda like ambivalent about atsuhina but this take on them is so good the premise of 2 guys with a 3rd guy in common and then circumstances mesh them together way more closely <3 atsumu thinking that hinata must view him as replacement goldfish while hinata is not thinking about that at all (its about hinatas skillset being applicable and useful even outside a closed binary system!!) is so funnydfshkgsdgjkfsgh atsumu is such a sad little guy (positive sentiment). transactional is such a good way to describe his worldview lmfaooooo his own worst enemy

unintentionally catalysing incredible character growth in other people seriously is so hilarious atsumu the generous but he doesnt even realise it and therefore doesnt count it in his column when hes weighing up what he does/doesnt deserve CTFU. i tend to think of narrativeshipping in melodramatically anguished terms but I LOVE WHEN THINGS ARE FOR JOKES but actually not really but also really Its about the ability of a dynamic to slingshot from comedy to terror to comedy to terror!

[azureblue]

exactlyyy.... i think im mostly ambivalent about pretty much all big haikyuu ships (except iwaoi, who is real true love) bc like u said. canon interax is completely optional and does not exactly mean i will be invested. kagehina has more potential if u stick someone else in there to mess with (oikawa maybe ? i haven't thought too much about oikagehina but if u are interested in elaborating i would love to think about it) or struggle with (atsumu) their dynamic.

i love the way u said atsumu learning the meaning of absence vs kageyama learning the meaning of presence... SO TRUE... To be a set of twins so deeply engaged in ideological warfare that you dont know how to exist without that specific subset of constant challenge is something so special...

hinatas skillset being applicable and useful even outside a closed binary system T____T yeah... i have nothing to add to this i just have to go britney_yeah.gif at this. also so true that atsumu is just a sad little guy and its so compelling. if you arent characters who wins and you still want to catch my attention you just have to be guy who struggles

sag moon moment once again EVERYTHING IS JOKES except only jokes are serious except nothing is ever serious. but also im completely serious