A Personal Experience: One reason I view shipping the way that I do. · 2:57am Oct 14th, 2013
I tend to have very specific views on shipping. I totally recognize that anyone can ship what they want, but my personal views of romance contain some assumptions that I find it hard to break (and which I tend to argue like a crazy person.) So I’m going to tell you guys a weird story which explains why I hold some different views on romance, and therefore on shipping.
When my mother was a teenager, she went to college and fell in love with this guy. They were together for a few years, but both dropped out of college. He decided to go into the military, and looked for a path that was almost guaranteed to get him stationed at the local military base…
He got stationed across the country, of course. The relationship didn’t survive and they broke up.
A little while later, mom started singing in a cover band that her friend had put together. She ended up hooking up with the lead guitarist, and they got married. He’s my dad, and they had four kids and were married for almost twenty years. During that time they both went to college and got post-grad degrees (Mom has a PhD in psych, Dad has a Masters in sociology.)
When I was 16 (and my siblings were 15, 6, and 3) my parents kind of took stock of their lives. Mom wanted to build a house someplace cool, that would be big enough for our family as my siblings and I got married and had kids. Dad had taken up surfing, and wanted to be able to take trips to places like Costa Rica and Aruba. They still cared about each other, but they realized that these were very different kinds of lives, so they divorced.
At around that time, Mom was talking to someone on the internet, and it turned out that he lived near Mom’s college boyfriend (who was back in the area, retired from the military.) Mom got her ex-boyfriend’s email, they started dating, and in a few years he was my stepfather.
But that didn’t mean my dad was out of the picture, Mom and Dad got condos at the local beach that were next door to each other. My brothers grew up running back and forth between those. Dad’s condo didn’t have a washing machine, so he did his laundry at mom’s; mom’s condo had a smaller living room, so family stuff happened at dad’s. I don’t think a day has gone by when they haven’t spoken, whether to arrange something with my brothers or just to chat. When mom built her dream house an hour away from there, my dad helped with building it, and when we’re having a family gathering there my dad stays over.
So, watching this play out has influenced my views on love. They’re on the cynical side of romantic, but not out of any sort of pessimism. I believe that love can conquer all, but why should it? Mom could have made things work the first time with her then boyfriend, but then she wouldn’t have met my dad. My mom and dad could have made things work, but then Mom never would have married my stepdad, my dad would be stuck with a big house he doesn’t want, and my mom would have no one around when he goes surfing. They could have compromised, but by not compromising they’re happier with their lives. The ends of those relationships weren’t failures, they were changes.
That’s the biggest thing I believe. Love changes. People change, so their relationships change, and there’s nothing wrong with admitting that. You don’t need to hate or resent a person for changing, you get more choices than love or anger. If you were both honest with each other, and neither of you did anything to hurt each other, there’s always friendship.
Finally, this little love story taught me that there are unlimited possibilities. Maybe two people aren’t right for each other at one point in time, but they will be later. Maybe the life you think you want right now is totally different from the one you’ll want in ten years, and maybe you can have both of them. Changing is scary, but it’s often not bad. Burning bridges is for people with too little imagination.
Oh yeah, one more thing… if I had to compare my mom’s relationships to pony ships, mom/stepdad would be TwiJack, and mom/dad would be AppleDash.
Huh.
Personal experience coloring how you do your fics.
Makes sense. Also, nice to see it was a clean break. If it has to happen...
~Skeeter The Lurker
That is surprisingly amicable. The world needs more people of that quality.
That... actually explains a lot.
And thank you for being so open. I'm a wee bit impressed.
All of my this. Well put, Bookplayer.
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I honestly think that came from them being honest with each other and deciding not to compromise. I think if they'd tried to give up things for each other, and the relationship had ended after that, it would have been far less amicable because they would have resented the things they missed out on. Deciding that they each had to do what was right for them saved their friendship even if it ended their marriage.
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Probably true. But the fact that they did recognize the need for a change, and didn't try to shoehorn themselves into a situation with no good outcome is commendable.
By contrast my perspectives on relationships were colored by a mother who was a force of personality to be reckoned with, and a horndog father who cheated on her with her best friend and ended with a divorce when I was two. Coupled with his depressive tendencies (which I share, but am better at fighting) gives me a pretty shitty relationship with the old man, and added to my mother's aggressive-yet-fixated-on-me parenting style gives me a really, really laser focused view on how someone is supposed to treat their kids... despite the fact that I personally loathe children.
Which explains a lot about the story I'm writing right now, actually...
This actually does explain a lot of how some of your stories have gone, namely how they always seem to center more around what Applejack does. Also a very interesting romantic scenario. It reminds me of how my family influences how I write, not so much in romance, but how I view family life.
My mom grew up in a pretty well-off middle class family as the only sister of four brothers, who only ever lived in one house. Her upbringing seemed to be somewhat strict, as evidenced by her mother's disposition. She got good grades in high school and went to college to become a nurse. She's worked at four different places of work in my lifetime.
My Dad grew up in what I could best classify as the upper slice of the lower-class. His father was in the military, and the family constantly moved from base to base, never staying in the same place for very long. During High School, he was good at sports, playing on almost all of the Varsity sports, but didn't get amazing grades other than in math, which he ended up teaching me more so than my teachers. At the age of 16, he got a job at the local Supermarket, a job that he still holds more than 30 years later.
In my childhood, my parents were both equally loving, and their different upbringings really didn't seem to show. I didn't really understand it until recently, but I because abundantly clear to me this weekend when I had family dinners with both sides, which is why this is on my mind. My Mom's side is made up of people who live clean lives, who are nice, but not exceptional. On his side, my Dad is the only one who seems well off. They have incredibly varied personalities, from hyperactive to egotistic to reserved like my father.
It had become clear to me that my father's care for me and my younger brother was fueled by the fact that he wanted to rise above what the rest of his family has had and continues to. He's the only one of them who ended up in a happy committed marriage, while the whole of my Mom's side did that. This leaves me with a bleak view of what society can do to good people, but more to the topic, it also affects how I think of romance. It works better for the well-off. That's just how it is. We can revel in our poor man gets the rich girl scenarios, but in the end, they just don't work most of the time.
...
so yeah, wall of text.
That's really interesting, because I've never read a story about a romance like that. I don't think you could publish a story like that, not now, not at any time in the past. An editor would call it unromantic. It contradicts the ideal of romance that you are "supposed" to write about. Yet it sounds like a healthy attitude towards romance.
If you could get that across in a story, that would be a novel contribution to literature. You know that anthology of non-pony stories I keep talking about? I'd love to have something like that in there.
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The world would be a better place if would-be romantics remembered to be friends first, lovers second. This community is one of the only places where that gets respected.
1418469 1418490 1418492 Fascinating, I don't often think of relationships that end on anything but a low note if they don't work out.
My mother ended up marrying a man quite young, and while he paid for her education, and my half-brother was eventually born out of this relationship, the husband ended up fooling around with other women and abusing my mother, so she left him.
My father ended up marrying a woman who had no self-restraint when it came to buying things, and out of this my half-sister was born. The woman was abusive, particularly after my dad had quit his job in music sales (he had worked on selling Celine Dion records when she originally sang in French), in order to take care of my half-sister.
My parents met each other, and three years later had me. My brother lived with us until I was five, at which point he moved back with his father.
My sister on the other hand was entrusted to the custody of my father's ex-wife's husband, who subsequently re-married, and gave preferential treatment to the children of the new wife.
My parents have, on occasion, been tempted to divorce, and if we're talking about how our parents have impressed our views on romance, I suppose that for me it's this:
It must be somewhat damaging to a child to think, or learn at a young age that their parents, the ones who brought them into the world, weren't able to stay together. Being the product of the coupling of two people who no longer care for each other. When the threat (and I know I'm using loaded terminology, but it is for lack of a more accurate term) of my parents separation loomed, I couldn't help but question my own worth when I wasn't the product of a loving and dedicated relationship, or at least one that was strong enough to stand the test of time.
1418620 Well, to be fair, most people don't want to read about a realistic relationship. They want the lie. The comfy thing that has neverending passion or neverending fun, maybe an argument here and there but in the end they live happily ever after.
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Those types of situations are convoluted and usually negative. oddly, my only interaction with that kind of situation in my family was a possitive one. It gave me a half-cousin I never would have had. He's by far my favorite cousin and one of the most fun, happy, and generally best people I can think of.
So, your mom is Rainbow Dash?
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Applejack. (And I've been accused by all of my siblings of being an exact copy of my mom.)
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But both the relationships that she was in were Dash ships.
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Despite what Tchernobog might try to tell you, TwiJack can exist without Dash.
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DerpDerpDerp...
What was I thinking?
Which is your relationship?
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AppleDash is closest to mine. They do say that you look for people to marry who are like your parents...
Wow, no wonder you give such valuable advice, that's experience and reflection. You're pretty great. Thanks!
A very interesting story.
So, it's like real life relationship drama, only without the actual drama, and everything turned out great and happy?
What is this witchcraft
Wow, that sounds like the best-case scenario for a divorce. All the ones I've ever heard about have been predicated on emotional turmoil for all involved.
I think shipping and romance writing do definitely base themselves on an author or reader's personal views on romance. I got into an argument recently about a story, I forget which, but halfway through I realized that the reason there was any sort of conflict at all was that we were all coming to the table with entirely different views on what was, for lack of a better word, permissible in romance. And those views were irreconcilable.
Me, I just wanna see horses kissing. :V But not too much. I lately discovered there are upper limits on kissing in stories, as far as I'm concerned.
Huh. That whole amicable divorce thing is pretty similar to what my parents did. Granted, there was a bit more emotional angst and arguing involved in the initial lead up, but still. Now they live eight minutes away from each other, visit each other all the time for family events or just to play cards (this summer the five of us actually all joined the same horseshoe league) and are definitely better off now as friends and with their new matches than they were before. Most of my friends thought it was totally weird how well they got along at first:
"Hey, Ame, aren't you parents divorced?"
"Yep."
"So, why are they laughing and drinking coffee together?"
"Cuz they're friends, duh."
"Uh...OK, then."
I totally agree with the "people change, love changes" thing, even if the whole soul-mates/true love/destiny-mc-whatsit concept is a nice fantasy to entertain at times. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't - the best thing is to recognize when things are starting to go stale and head them off before the mice invade the cracker box and all hell breaks loose.
*claps* That's a nice way of putting it! And thank you for sharing!
I've always gotten the notion that about 70 to 80 percent of the time, people don't stay in love with just one person even after marriage. The things with me though is that I'm the type of person who relies on security. I'm not going to commit to someone unless I know for a fact that I'm 120 percent in love with him, and he loves me back just as much. Kind of like the whole true love/ soul mate deal. Otherwise, I feel like there isn't much of a point in being in a serious relationship much less a marriage with someone, especially if it's just going to end in major heartbreak, which unlike you, is something I've seen go down in some of the worst possible ways, my parents divorce included.
With that idea in mind, it's been really hard for me to trust even being in a simple relationship. I wouldn't emotionally be able to accept the fact that I might ever have to sit there and say, "Hey, so if/when we do get married, I know that most likely we might go down certain roads that'll lead us falling out of love and getting a divorce, but that's supposed to be okay."
I just don't want that. I want to fall in love but not if things are going to ultimately lead up to ...well, all of this.
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Man, that sucks. I can totally see how that would cause issues like that, since my view has had the opposite effect-- it's been very easy for me to stay with my husband knowing that if I ever don't want to stay with him, that's perfectly fine. I don't think we would have lasted 11 years if I thought he had to be the person I was with forever. It's a lot easier to forgive someone for small stuff when you're not worried that you have to live with it for-ev-er, whether you want to or not.
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Haha, just the word "forever" makes my point of view sound even worse. I'm not going to deny that I'm probably wrong about it. I guess it's just that after every time I witness or see more stories about couples who were supposedly destined for one another just suddenly fall out of love, I can't help but feel like it takes away a piece of the tiny bit of hope I have left that maybe it's possible to obtain some sort of miracle or fairy-tail like ending with someone else for the rest of your life.
I might just be too childlike for my own good. Reality sucks.
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Aww, reality is actually pretty awesome. It's just more awesome if you enjoy it for what it is, rather than focus on what you wish it was, or what it isn't.
Why spend time worrying that a romance won't have a fairy tale ending, rather than enjoying what you love about it as it happens? For all you know, the lack of fairy tale ending in one romance is just the beginning of the next fairy tale.
I guess that sums it up. Life isn't a novel, it's an anthology. That doesn't mean that each story can't be happier and more beautiful than the last. And you especially can't skip out on starting the story because you might not like how it ends... if you do that you not only miss that one, but the ones that come after it.
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I'm actually a lot more down-to-earth than what I am making myself seem like. It's just that certain topics like this tend to throw me for a loop, and I'm not entirely sure how to express what I'm completely thinking without looking like I wish I was in a literal fairy tale. My definition of a fairy tale doesn't include a Cinderella-esque storyline. I even find the notion of love-at-first-sight to be almost ridiculous. I'd dismiss it entirely if I hadn't met certain people where this was somehow successfully just about the case for them.
Anyway, I can't say for sure on what it is about romance that I do like for myself other than certain ideals I get based off of what I read. My experience in relationships and dating is next to none, and I'm slightly picky about who I would like or be in a serious relationship with because I know what kind of people I'm more compatible with and who I can tolerate more than others.
I understand what you are saying for the most part. I try to follow the philosophy that everything happens for a reason, whether it is usually in my favor or not. Like I said though, romance is a really difficult topic for me to grasp, and I know I'll probably never be able to unless I experience it for myself. If and when that'll happen though, I have absolutely no clue.
Veeeeery late to say this, but when I saw this I felt obliged to comment, because this is downright inspirational. I've always felt that it's better to do what makes you happy - and if staying in a relationship is going to make you unhappy, then why do it? And from the other side, why would you want to forcibly keep someone in one if you truly care about them? Love is a powerful thing, and sometimes a messy breakup is inevitable, but surely it is better to end on good terms and find love again than to drive a relationship into the ground trying to keep it afloat. If you care about someone enough to enter a relationship with them, then why can't you care enough to reason things out like adults? While this isn't always possible, it tends to be presented as impossible by pretty much every form of media I've ever seen. After all, drama sells - a sensible, happy ending doesn't. But it's really nice to know that something like this can work.
Sorry about the rant. Really, what I was trying to convey is exactly what you said far more eloquently in the last 3 paragraphs of this blog post. But again, thank you for this bookplayer. It's good to know that hatred/awkwardness doesn't have to be the outcome of the end of relationship.
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I'm nothing resembling an expert -- I don't even read romance-type stories, in general -- but I think it could work if you opened in media res as it were with the amicable breakup, and then introduced the new or "new" interest.
You know, I've still got a tab open to this post in one of my background windows, and come back to it once in a while to gnaw lightly at its edges.
I don't think I ever properly thanked you for it.
About a year and a half ago — when my wife and I acknowledged our estrangement despite our mutual affection, and started seeing a counselor, and ultimately mutually decided on an amicable divorce — I stumbled across this post, and shared it with her. It provided a real balm for some raw emotions, certainly on my part and AFAICT also on hers. Not only did it help frame the separation in a way that didn't have to be about things going wrong, it also offered a crucial dose of hope that we could renegotiate our lives in a way that kept us in contact. (It remains to be seen whether that's ultimately the path we choose, but at the time, the thought of it was huge, offering some shallows alongside the infinite depths of a clean break.)
Pony in general helped me out a lot last year. It was kind of the center of the whirlwind, as my job and relationship both crumbled. But this post in specific had a major impact on my life, and I remain grateful for it, and for you.
In somewhat related news, you might have noticed you just hit a new Patreon milestone.
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I'm sorry your relationship didn't work out the way you'd hoped, but I'm glad this helped you a little during that time. I've spent about half of my life explaining the situation to people and hearing back "that's so weird," but it really shouldn't be. Thank you for making it less weird, it speaks highly of both you and your ex. Not that you needed to be spoken of any better in my view, but this just confirms it.
At first I read this and I'm like, "Well, yeah, of course!" but then I realized I am about to turn 40 and such things were perhaps not so obvious to me when I was just a filly.
I can definitely see the specific influence in your stories, though.