[walks into this ask serenely, like I stepped through the curtain of a waterfall]

... I've always been bad at describing succinctly my favorite ship dynamics... But, my best efforts, I shall give... hummm!

I think oneeshota is in my core... So nutritious for me. I like varying personalities, dynamics, within it! A classic for me is moody, aloof older girl... Troubled, isolated, difficult — someone who often fails in their relationships, or just lacks charm, this or that... Paired with bright, earnest, naive boy. But I like a genki girl, and more mature shotas, the precocious sort... I'm pickier about boys being aloof (because it can easily become aggravating!) buuut it can appeal to me when done right. Just has to balance enough traits... You can have a dumb excitable girl x dumb excitable boy, too. Hard to picture aloof girl x aloof boy tho, unless they were very loving with one another distinctly. That's key of course...!

It's important that they be special to one another, in some manner... The cute thing about the age difference is, I often like it to be a product of the older one being immature, putting them on the playing level of the kid. The ability to 'play' together is so key... I'm always thinking about my ships playing with toys, playing games of pretend, play play play. It has to be innate and fluid, something they can sink into one another, magnetized... A desire to be playful! Deep down I like anyone of any maturity level being ~brought down~ into childishness, so even a more modest or mature shota must succumb to wanting to be sillay...

Alongside play, I like caretaking...!! I feel like it's another part of ships that's always present. I like to think of it as mutual, even if there's a particular lean for one doing it more for the other. Taking turns and providing each other care and comfort in some crucial way... Babysitter is a cute role for oneesan, she can cook and clean after shota, but it's also sweet if the shota can do things for her... caretake her emotionally or, help her when she is sick, as competently or feebly as it must be.

He likes same-age dynamics too though. And in those I see play/caretaking happening readily as well. Lately been really enchanted by twins... but the fun of that is every second of life spent together. In sync, sharing experiences and milestones. That's so much time to be together, to become obsessed with one another... it feels like you can have such a legacy of intimacy at such a young age. An entire world between just the two of you... so cozy, so magical to think of. ❤

I always think, as long as my ship is obsessed with one another, that's what really matters. There needs to be a degree of passion, as well, intensity...? As much as I love romance, the more mild, 'wholesome' sort does make me quite bored... Fine but not very relatable haha. I think love needs to be... all sorts of painful, scary, all-consuming... So that's an essential 'tooth' that I crave. Age gap and incest and interspecies dynamics helps bake in that struggle... but the struggle to be together is worth it! It means you have to really, REALLY want it, also... you have to want it more than anything.

So on the other end of childhood friends are extreme... 'love at first sight' or... kidnapping scenarios, something where someone is entrapped by the other, put through great extremes. Stalked for a while and then snatched. Afraid! Disoriented! Confused! Not... expecting romance at all...! But falling into it! I like that too... I liiiike delusional draw, something that compels someone to do things that seem... awful, yet are entirely necessary to express their need. Harming, being harmed, this being a crucial part of the process. It is genuinely overwhelming... but in this upheaval, strangeness, then someone has to realize that they don't feel the way they 'should' about it... The victim isn't quite right either, the perpetrator is more innocent than you think... Balance. The end game is learning this is how it is ultimately Supposed to be... ..............

~like I said... it's hard to summarize...~ In some ways it's easier to describe individual character types, like umm generally liking hermits, outcasts, very unwell and ill types, underdogs... Two lonely hearts finding one another. Maybe they gave up on love or, maybe they never even conceptualized it for themselves, never thought it Could happen, or never wanted it for themselves...

This is more generalized and maybe less ? sensical sounding, but I do like ships with a knight/princess vibe... in the way that HomuMado has this, but also ZeLink literally Is It. Believe it or not this is a facet of AmaTsuka (as Amane evokes samurai and Tsukasa is some sort of kami/emperor...) He is allured by it repeatedly, yet unintentionally. It kisses with my simp, loyal, anything for you💕 mind. Worship princess... goddess... heurrr.... Wait but I thought about it and why is Kris a knight and Asriel a prince. IT JUST HAPPENS...

Cough cough... Ah, I always feel like I can't make it sound cohesive or elegant~ (*/ω＼)💦 'My favorite ships that are deeply madly in love and best friends'... lol.