That's kind of what does it for me too. The specific combination of factors that tends to get me going in a fandom context is having 1 or at the most 2 individual character relationships that I really latch onto, that exist within a found-family-type framework in which the other characters all kind of have their own things going on too, and their own individual relationships with each other.
Usually the specific kind of character relationships I latch onto are antagonistic but ultimately friendly - characters who start out hating each other and learn to like each other, characters who are fundamentally divided by some basic worldview issue but still like each other across the barrier, that sort of thing. But it doesn't tend to work for me, at least not nearly as well, if they're essentially the only characters in each other's emotional universe. I want them both to have a support network to lean on so they don't have to be everything to each other.
The other aspect to it (tl;dr'ing merrily away XD) is that I really, really like it if ... okay, so once a long time ago I remember someone on LJ saying that slash pairings are usually characters who are "weird" about each other, and I think that's what I like too, except that going ahead and moving it to "sex and a relationship" stamps out a lot of the weirdness and makes it flatter and less fun for me. Not that I can't ship it, or enjoy shippy fic about it, but mostly I just want that relationship I'm into, whatever it is, to keep being weird and hard to pin down to any specific kind of thing. I think this is one reason why I tend to gravitate towards poly pairings, or want fic/vids about the whole group even if I want my particular faves centered in it, or pretty much anything else that keeps a little bit of the "weird" even if there's a traditional relationship aspect to it as well.
And I think this is one of the reasons why I'm enjoying Cherryh's books so much right now, because writing those "weird-about-each-other" groups is something she really seems to enjoy.
no subject
Usually the specific kind of character relationships I latch onto are antagonistic but ultimately friendly - characters who start out hating each other and learn to like each other, characters who are fundamentally divided by some basic worldview issue but still like each other across the barrier, that sort of thing. But it doesn't tend to work for me, at least not nearly as well, if they're essentially the only characters in each other's emotional universe. I want them both to have a support network to lean on so they don't have to be everything to each other.
The other aspect to it (tl;dr'ing merrily away XD) is that I really, really like it if ... okay, so once a long time ago I remember someone on LJ saying that slash pairings are usually characters who are "weird" about each other, and I think that's what I like too, except that going ahead and moving it to "sex and a relationship" stamps out a lot of the weirdness and makes it flatter and less fun for me. Not that I can't ship it, or enjoy shippy fic about it, but mostly I just want that relationship I'm into, whatever it is, to keep being weird and hard to pin down to any specific kind of thing. I think this is one reason why I tend to gravitate towards poly pairings, or want fic/vids about the whole group even if I want my particular faves centered in it, or pretty much anything else that keeps a little bit of the "weird" even if there's a traditional relationship aspect to it as well.
And I think this is one of the reasons why I'm enjoying Cherryh's books so much right now, because writing those "weird-about-each-other" groups is something she really seems to enjoy.