As I’ve said before, I’m not a big shipper, but when I latch onto a pairing, I really love it. And surprise, surprise, most of the ships that really win my heart feature ND-coded characters in Big Neurodivergent Energy stories. I especially love a good Autistic4AuDHD pairing, or else two AuDHD-coded characters where one presents as more autistic and the other more ADHD. Besides just liking them because I like the characters involved, I love these ships because of the commonalities I often see in them.
Why I Like You
As an aroace who doesn’t really place a premium on fictional romances, this one is huge for me. I have little patience for ships that boil down to “I’m hot, you’re hot, let’s go!” Many a ship has left me wondering, “What do you two even talk about when you’re alone together?” My favorite ships, on the other hand, demonstrate why the characters are into each other beyond just attraction or chemistry, and most of them come from BNE stories. I am more than happy to squee over Ariel and Eric bonding over his collection from his travels (The Little Mermaid,) Stede and Ed playing whimsical games together (Our Flag Means Death,) or Elizabeth and Calvin falling in love over chemical formulas (Lessons in Chemistry.) Even if there’s some level of attraction from the beginning, these characters aren’t just love interests. They’re friends. I can see onscreen how they make each other happy, what they talk about together, and how they appreciate each other.
We Fit Together
Many of these ships are Odd Couple/Opposites Attract-type pairings, with characters who are very different in temperament. (This is where we tend to see the dynamic I mentioned at the top of the post, where one character is coded more autistic and another is coded more ADHD.) Aziraphale and Crowley from Good Omens, Janine and Gregory from Abbott Elementary, Ned and Chuck from Pushing Daisies. At first glance, all these might seem like “huh?” pairings, because they are very different from each other, but there’s so much within those differences that are either complementary or simpatico. Most of the time, these pairings don’t really go the love/hate route like a number of Opposites Attract ships do. And even when they do, it’s often short-lived, quickly giving way to how much they just make sense as a couple, even if they don’t seem to make sense on the surface. They just click, and it really works.
Let’s Talk It Out
This is another instant green flag for me. While it’s not universal, because nothing is, I feel like BNE ships talk through their issues/conflicts more often than most. In a media landscape where many a couple is undone by their refusal to just talk, we see these couples addressing things and figuring them out together. When Ben and Leslie fall for each other on Parks and Recreation, even though they’re not allowed to date as co-workers, they discuss what they’re going to do. When Roy and Keeley get together on Ted Lasso, they have a private “press conference” where Keeley questions Roy and confirms that he won’t continue to get hung up on her past relationship with Jamie. And while I wouldn’t necessarily call them ND4ND, Mr. Darcy writing Elizabeth a multiple-page letter to explain himself and provide context after his failed first proposal in Pride and Prejudice is the most autistic shit ever. It’s often thought that couples in stories shouldn’t be so communicative, because it cuts down on manufactured drama, but BNE ships regularly demonstrate that a couple can talk things through and still be interesting.
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