ideal 1 x 0 case studies: the hostageshipping print

[rhodochrosite]

i mentioned in my <t/b criteria post> that my ideal 1 x 0 dynamic is "hostageshipping aka proud/tsundere/resentful bottom is reluctant and embarrassed to admit to what they want and has to be forcibly unrepressed by magnanimous but fully in control top who knows exactly what the bottom wants. and there are power struggles in vain or for plausible deniability reasons" and i wanted to elaborate on that by providing some case studies. this is specifically about 1s and 0s (ie dynamics that i think are sexy) not my favourite ships necessarily. but anyway here is some further elaboration on my ultimate 1 x 0 ship HOSTAGESHIPPING aka zerofalcon aka reiji/shun from yugioh arc v:

the contextual gist of hostageshipping is like... what if you were the son of the guy who sent an army to invade my home dimension / massacre everyone / kidnap my sister so i hunted you down across dimensions intending to take you hostage to trade for my sister but you offered to strike a deal where i work for you while you assemble your own army to strike back at your dad and essentially i became the hostage instead. cue absolutely insane power dynamics. the only problem is that not even hostageshipping fully lives up to the hostageshipping print for reasons i will outline shortly so the perfect 1 x 0 dynamic doesn't actually exist in my knowledge (YET...?)

also obligatory link to my all-time magnum opus from 2017 <compromiseshipping manifesto> which explains everything in more detail (so so much detail)

HOSTAGESHIPPING BLUEPRINT

IDEAL 0 TRAITS

• wants to kill the 1
  • importantly, is unable to kill the 1, though not for lack of trying
• strong sense of pride and independence, very stubborn
• repressed
• prickly, tsundere, probably a bitch (at least to the 1, may be nice to other people)
  • actually it's really funny if they ARE nice to other people but just like extremely a bitch towards the 1 specifically
• super competitive and petty about it
• competent and proud of their skill
  • which is why it's even more frustrating that the 1 is stronger than them
• a lot of pent-up anger that doesn't get expressed either because they're repressed or there's some situational factors that prevent them from doing so (eg sense of professionalism, agreement to cooperate)
• picky / fussy / otherwise particular or detail oriented
• regularly gets injured / beaten up / bloody
• desperate but trying not to look like it or otherwise good at hiding it
• generally has like massively intense emotions but sublimated to varying degrees of success

IDEAL 1 TRAITS

• cool, levelheaded, difficult to faze
• confident and self-assured
• control issues manifest in the form of magnanimity
  • they are so secure in having the upper hand that they can afford to give gifts/concessions/leeway to others (on their terms ofc)
  • indulgent but like controllingly
• patient and slow to anger, able to handle the 0's moods
• stronger, higher ranked, more powerful, older, taller than the 0
• megalomaniac asshole (may still be nice)
• possessive but exhibitionist streak
• generous in manipulative and dubcon way
  • i saw a tweet from a jfan joking that the S in SM stands for service and suddenly i understood everything... the energy is "i want to give you what you want, even if you don't know or want to admit that you want it, AND/OR what you want is for me to be the one who wants it instead of you"
  • if that makes sense
• like just really generous overall. like virgo venus leo mars style
• probably the killer / subtype thereof

IDEAL DYNAMIC

• no reverse, obviously
• extremely fixed power dynamic despite constant and futile attempts from the 0 to subvert it
  • but they don't ACTUALLY want to subvert it they just think they do
• 0 has strong haterism towards 1, 1 finds this cute and charming and will probably tease 0 about it
  • like this: 1-❤-><-💢-0
  • the haterism should have both ideological elements and personal elements. and also have parts that are justifiable and parts that are just super petty
  • one-sided rivalry is so good and funny to me i love the 0 going all out trying to defeat/kill/etc the 1 but the 1 barely registering them as a threat because they are objectively stronger
• unnegotiated bdsm and especially d/s elements
• it's about the 0 maintaining plausible deniability that they Don't Want This by semi-performatively semi-genuinely struggling or fighting back in a situation they know they can't win so they can be "forced" into submission without having to endure the damage to their pride caused by willingly giving in or the humiliation of admitting to wanting anything. all of which the 1 is fully aware of but happy to indulge (with some teasing)
  • this is a big part of why i like strength/power/ability to determine top/bottom positioning because like... if the 0 can easily overpower the 1 there's no more plausible deniability??
  • forcible unrepression is so good. intricate rituals...

the original hostageshipping: reiji/shun (yugioh arc v)

ways in which hostageshipping is perfect

• absolutely no reverse!!!!
• extremely extremely skewed power dynamic where reiji completely has the upper hand in skill, rank hierarchy, bargaining power, resources available, duelling strength, ability......
• shun wants to kill reiji so bad first in a war enemy way and then in a personal haterism way but he can't because he agreed to play by reiji's rules in order to save his sister so all he can do is seethe with rage while reluctantly obeying reiji's commands
  • every time shun wants to go off on his own to do something (like HELP HIS DYING BEST FRIEND) reiji coolly shuts him down and shun is soooo pissed about having to roll over but he does anyway
• shun literally put himself in this position lmfao like due to picking the lesser of two evils since reiji is ostensibly on the same side of the war as him but it's still really funny that he actively chose to give reiji this insane amount of power over him no matter how much he hates it
• reiji memorywiped some other LDS students who duelled shun before his recruitment, so shun knows that there's always the threat that he will be memorywiped into compliance if he steps out of line
  • memory is especially important to shun because he's lost everything (best friend, sister, hometown) and memory is literally all he has left so this is a very effective implied threat
• reiji is very generous in condescending ways seemingly calculated to rub salt into the wound re: reiji's control of him:
  • he gifts shun brand new raidraptor pendulum cards he's designed to perfectly synergise with shun's existing deck in order to let him access the powerful new pendulum summoning technique... to highlight that his control of shun can extend even over his duelling
  • he sets the duel field during shun's tournament duels to a replica of shun's now-destroyed hometown... to push him to the brink of a grief/rage-fuelled breakdown and make him duel more intensely
  • he installs shun as his functional second-in-command... to put him in situations where shun will be forced to acquiesce to reiji's orders in front of other people

ways in which hostageshipping is not perfect

• reiji is shorter and younger than shun... height and age isn't that important to me compared to other things but IDEALLY i like my 1s to be larger and older than 0s
• hostageshipping is not my favourite ship for either of them, which is peregrineshipping (shun/serena) for shun and prodigyshipping (reiji/serena) for reiji. because SERENA is my onepick and actually i care most about her dynamics with shun and reiji so hostageshipping is really just one arm of compromiseshipping to me. because serena should be there
• shun is not really a 0 anyway because peregrineshipping is shun/serena in that order. even if reiji/shun no reverse serenaright no reverse is even more non-negotiable in my heart
• and shun barely fits any of my ideal 0 criteria anyway, it's just that his desperation + fury + suffering stats are SO off the charts that the rest of it doesn't matter that much
• admittedly i haven't thought much about pendulumshipping but if i apply my default criteria of shounen protags top and shounen rivals bottom then reiji, being the arc v rival, is not really a 1 either
• hostageshipping is actually like umm 0.7 x 0.1
• serena is not there

OTHER EXAMPLES

jaemin/renjun (nct dream)

PROS

• actually 1 x 0 shipping. TO ME
• my favourite agenda for both of them and my 2pickshipping
• size difference in the right direction
• beautiful visual couple of perfectface x perfectface i love to look at them
• i really like renjun and i really like jaemin
• this exists
• i wish i could explain why jmrn has such a grip on me that i needed two extra ao3 accounts to contain the overflow but i literally don't know why. except that i really like both of them
• WILD CARD: renjun's paper dollisms add a fun extra angle which is that at some point he might flip from mock violence into total docility

CONS

• they literally don't know each other like that. they are coworkers (neutral positive) which as you guys know i am extremely enthusiastic about but it is not conducive to the topic at hand
• i made up this version of their dynamic in my head it doesn't exist. or if it did that was back in like 2019
• also there's no actual killing intent, understandably, since they are real people, but it does put them at a disadvantage compared to the other ships on this list where the 0 for real is trying to murder the 1
• everyone on ao3 (except for my sexy friends) is wrong about them, including me (my views do not represent my views)
• i'm allergic to thinking about them for reasons beyond my comprehension i'm literally like WE CAN'T LET THEM KNOW WE L*KE JMRN also i sometimes get seriously haterised for no reason. well for reasons but the reasons might just be seeing the word r3nm1n. Yes i am jaemin renjun otp all time #1 rpf agenda shipper yes i have r3nm1n muted i exist. anyway that makes it hard for me to have up-to-date thoughts because i don't see them on my tl, which narratively mirrors the way that they do not have up-to-date thoughts about each other

atobe/shishido (prince of tennis)

PROS

• actually 1 x 0 shipping
• size difference in the right direction
• atobe is fully aware that shishido has been haterised about him since first sight and it doesn't bother him at all because atobe is indisputably stronger than shishido
• shishido is literally functioning as atobe's unofficial third-in-command like atobe has installed him in his executive cabinet despite shishido wanting to kill him because atobe the generous trusts shishido's objective ability and is willing to overlook shishido's murderous intent in the interests of achieving their shared goal of hyotei victory
• and when it comes down to it, shishido IS completely loyal to atobe too he just doesn't like to admit it
• WILD CARD: libraman4libramanshipping is inherently hysterically funny

CONS

• far from my favourite agenda for either of them (oshitari or ryoma for atobe, ootori for shishido)
• necessarily precluded after ootori/shishido doubles formation due to their overwhelmingly truelove monogamous marriage and atobe being a generous king who is graciously permitting his subjects to honeymoon outside his kingdom
• atobe is kind of more interested in tezuka like that but tezuka is Go Girl Give Us Nothing-ing him. and also in germany

akai/amuro (detective conan)

feels like cheating to put them on here when i haven't even met one half of this ship yet BUT i have it on good authority that they are perfectly positioned to laser snipe me from the international space station so i want to mention them in advance. i'll probably come back at fill out this section in uhhh 3 months when i unlock them for real. actually i'm going to do a preliminary pros and cons, i keep telling myself that fanart of akai fucking amuro is not lore but well it kind of is. TO ME

PROS

• actually 1 x 0 shipping. NOMINATIVELY DETERMINISTIC 1 X 0 SHIPPING!!
• size and age difference (i think?) in the right direction
• beautiful visual couple who i love to see
• amuro wants to kill akai so bad he refuses to believe akai can even be physically killed by anyone else (this is the extent of my canon knowledge at this point)
• gonna assume they hit most of the criteria on my list because mich and hwa keep 2828'ing at me every time i say anything about it 🧐
• WILD CARD: identity theft is the most romantic thing in the world!!!

CONS

• i might straight up die when i finally fully understand what is going on here like are they more hostageshipping than hostageshipping??

misc

• i would loveeeee to see this dynamic with a het ship (boy 1 x girl 0 to be clear) but despite my pretty extensive knowledge of ya supernatural het romance fiction i can't think of any examples
  • this is my vision of alec/renesmee from twilight but they literally do not exist in canon...
• vermouth is perfectly positioned to be the 1 in question but the only person with that kind of haterism towards her is jodie?? who i don't think is a 0 they would be more like 1 x 0.4-0.6... and ran is not this type of 0. and bourbon is not this type of 0 for vermouth specifically*

* i don't think vermouth and bourbon are fucking anyway, i think it is platonic workplace power dynamics 1 + 0 mutually beneficial mentorship... bourbon is like vermouth's fancy handbag or poisoned ring, vermouth just loves to antagonise people and flirt with people and flirt with people to antagonise them or to antagonise other people... not to go off on huge tangent but i think the idea of vermouth leveraging bourbon against rye by making it seem like she and bourbon are fucking because bourbon is sweet with vermouth but viciously hateristic towards rye is really funny. she doesn't even dislike rye like that (he's not HER silver bullet) she just likes to stir up drama for fun

** if r63 bourbon i think she and vermouth WOULD be fucking though

*** this is all completely baseless speculation since i haven't met the bourbon in question but fanart of bourbon and vermouth looking blonde and beautiful and expensive and killeristic together can be lore too

**** i think vermouth is less interested in brat taming and more interested in 1. Submission anyway

• also this isn't the only type of 1 x 0 dynamic i enjoy it's just my favourite, i am also open to this type of 1 x 0s who don't need to be railroaded into submission (jeno, ran, mori, carly, etc)