'Nother Tumblr Meme

[mark_asphodel]

Stolen from damoselcastel on tumblr and a bunch of other people besides.

Send me a 'ship and I will tell you:

• When or if I started shipping it.
• My thoughts:
• What makes me happy about them:
• What makes me sad about them:
• Things done in art/fic that annoys me:
• Things I look for in art/fic:
• Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not…

[The art/fic part is the draw of this one, as I don't think I've seen that asked before.]

Comments

[thenicochan]

Cain/Marth, yo.

[mark_asphodel]

Cool.

Cain/Marth:

When I started shipping it: don't rightly recall. Sometime in 2010?

My thoughts: It's a pairing that crept "out of the margins" of the text and just wouldn't go away once it occurred to me. You have Cain, with his apparently single-minded devotion to Marth that pointedly excludes het romance and maybe even friendship outside of the weird ambiguous stuff with Abel... and you have Marth, who already has some queer vibes swirling around him thanks to Merric and who isn't so much younger than Cain that the whole thing resolves comfortably into some avuncular/paternal deal and doesn't quite hit the big bro/little bro sort of relationship either.

What makes me happy about them: Cain's hot. Marth's hot when he's not drawn like a squish. The above is justification enough. GO.

What makes me sad about them: Cain's so underdeveloped in FE12 he makes me sad in general. There's that delicious tease of characterization in FE11 and then whyyyyyyy. Also, I guess you could say a celibate Cain spending the rest of his life laboring in Marth's shadow and sublimating his desires through "training" is pretty sad. IS seems to like that set-up, though. (Hello, Frederick, if you aren't into Chrom then I'm the Empress of China.)

Things done in art/fic that annoys me: There's not much of anything. Some trollfic on FFNet and an M-rated piece on A03 that just didn't work for me because Marth was, like fourteen? I dunno. It's generally a case of "if you want this, better write it yo' self."

Things I look for in art/fic: Can the writer spell? Are these actually recognizable as the characters from the game? Is the physical interaction turning me on or grossing me out? Damn, back to the drawing board. :(

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not…:

Marth/Caeda, obviously. Marth/Merric. Hell, I ship Marth with all kinds of options. Cain, not so much... I can kind of buy him with Catria as a knowing "We Can't Have Marth, So..." deal, but not as a legit romance. Do NOT mention MyUnit, do NOT pass Go, do NOT collect $200...

Also Cain doesn't end up with Abel for obvious reasons.