sarcasticsciencefictionwriter asked:

For the ship classification game:

James/John from Sanctuary and Regina/Robin from OUAT, please.

James/John – makes sense, compels me

I mean I ship them hard lol. They aren’t explicitly canon but the subtext is definitely there. It can’t be proven that they aren’t canon.

So why do I ship them? Well they were friends first. We didn’t see them interact much sadly so a lot builds off the “battle of wits” line. I have written what I think was probably canon in that they met at Oxford, and I also wrote an AU where they went to the same boarding school so met at 11. But meeting at Oxford they had shared classes, so a common intellectual interest. I’m not very good at how people are friends (as I have no friends) but I think shared interest/time together is a good start.

For a romance they would need to find each other attractive. Then the part that compels me is the unfortunate society homophobia – it was literally illegal and they had to hide. For them to have been brave enough to admit their attraction, knowing if it wasn’t returned the scandal could ruin their life.

In ‘canon’ (well headcanon 😛) I feel like John would have made the first move with the sort of “I want to piss off my abusive prejudiced bastard of a father”. There was also probably whiskey involved. I feel like James (in canon) would have been more hesitant but leapt on John’s move the second his quick mind noticed. I wrote the opposite in my soulmark fic because of reasons I tried to make clear in the fic.

——

Regina/Robin – doesn’t make sense, doesn’t compel me

That is probably harsh. I didn’t hate it but I couldn’t see a deeper connection. They did the whole “soulmate” thing but that didn’t land with me. It felt shallow in how it started like it was just “attractive man” and the gorgeous lady is like “oh yes please”. It did develop I suppose as they encountered challenges. Him being a single dad was a reason (beyond handsome) for attraction because Regina is such a mom but they didn’t really show her with Robin’s little boy.

I think honestly a good part of it is that Once did relationships so badly. There was very little build-up. It’s like they skipped what they considered the boring part and – so had the meet cute and then just “oh we are together now” without really then making it make sense. I guess they were very focused on the plot and nothing else really got developed consistently. It was like that for a lot of the shows relationships – especially those that came into the show later on in the seasons. They did a much better job establishing stuff in season 1.

Once really did suffer with a “tell rather than show” problem. With some ships I filled in the blanks with headcanons. I didn’t care enough with Regina and Robin to bother. When I wrote close to canon fics I tended to keep their relationship if it was set during that time, as I didn’t hate it, I just didn’t see the point of it.

It’s not that I really shipped Regina with anyone else either. I never went in for SwanQueen. Sometimes things just don’t click you know? I didn’t hate that either, I could see all the points people made in meta posts but a ship grabs me or it doesn’t and it didn’t.

Actually I suppose at the end of the day all the trauma Regina went through. All I wanted for her was happiness and I didn’t want that to come from a partner, I wanted her to find that in herself first. I said before that Regina was such a mom and basically yeah. It’s like for some characters romance is their most important relationship, and for Regina she found contentment in being a mother. Not to say obviously that she couldn’t also have a romance – it is only right and proper to have many different types of relationships. I just never saw her with anyone and thought “yeah that’s happiness”.