Do you notice a pattern in the ships you like? Like a certain trope you keep feeling drawn to or something? :)
Oh, I love this question!! There are a few tropes and dynamics I really like, I will try and list some with examples.
I tend to really like super devoted and romantic male characters, especially paired up with more “independant” women. This is the dynamic most of the Capps have, for example, and it’s most obvious there, but you can also see traces of it in almost all the hetro couples I like, haha. I think I like the trope because it’s a basic gender flip of the whole trad “submissive woman/strong man” thing. just a standard female power fantasy lol
An extension of this, I also really like “selfish” power couples who are like, super devoted to each other exclusively but don’t really give a crap about anything else, Circe and Loki are defintely this for me, sometimes Consort and Contessa slide into this trope too
I like class differences between characters! The whole “rich girl/poor boy” thing is always one of my favourite tropes lol, I always liked Aladdin and Lady & The Tramp as a kid. Angela/Dustin and Ashley/Lilith are both different shades of this, and it’s also part of what attracts me to Chloe/Erin.
Another dynamic I like is characters who are very repressed and tight-laced paired up with characters who are the exact opposite and help them relax and let loose, lol. Usually the more reckless one actually benefits from having someone more level-headed keeping them in check. Sometimes this overlaps with the class thing, although not always. Tybalt/Tiave is this and so is Cleo/Patricia, early Angela/Dustin too, Elizabeth Aspir going for Sharon Wirth is probably a bit of this too
Oh - another super similar one is really liking ships with different moral compasses, like a really “virtuous” character paired up with someone more “dangerous”. Some of the ones I mentioned above fall into this category but Marla/Orion scratches this itch for me, too
Orion and Marla are also version of the popular/nerd archetype which is another I like a lot - Meadow/Alexander and Heather/Martin are other ones I like. Or maybe Orion and Marla are more like “rebel/nerd”? I guess these are just aesthetic/clique representations of tropes I already talked about lol, I like clear visual signifier that two characters are from slightly different worlds almost
I really like “argumentative” type couples - they don’t necessarily need to have ever been enemies though! I prefer them as friends who are quite rude to each other and have a lot of playful banter, but are deep down too scared to be vunrable? There are so many couples in my uberhood that fit this trope haha, especially anything to do with Ripp Grunt or Lilith Pleasant, Hal Capp and Benedick Monty are another example
Couples that end badly! I dunno, there’s just something romantic about tragic couples where one of them dies or they break up, just anything where it doesn’t end happily ever after or even when they never get together because the timing is never quite right? I’m attracted to that bittersweet feeling where you wonder about what “could have been” (Romeo & Juliette are this, also Tybalt/Puck, Ripp/Ophelia, Stella/Tank, I’m sure there are others.)
right, that’s probably enoguh for now, there are probably more variations on these and other tropes I like but the post is long enough as it is, lol! I probably should have just boiled it down to “i like opposites attract and I like simps” lol
