Two things of interest to me lately consist of just that: shipping (or projected relationships between characters) and creating political factions based on teen subcultures.

Why? Because it's cool. On both counts.

To wit, I'm not quite sure just why I'm driven to ship characters together. Often, I'm quite satisfied with canon 'ships, such as Ash/Misty from Pokemon or Katara/Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I'm a steady supporter of both. And then there's ones that good fanfiction has influenced me, like Latias/Rayquaza (Dracoshipping) or Wobbuffet/Cacnea (from Latias' Journey and, I hope, Brave New World, both brilliant Pokemon stories). Fanfiction has also made me a strong supportor of Toko, or Toph/Zuko, again from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

As a consequence, I'm somewhat prone to making up my own 'ships. I used to think about Toph/Calvin for a while, until I decided I like Toph/Zuko better. I even wrote a very short story about it that was really random. It also held hints of GaaHina (Gaara/Hinata from Naruto) and the stranger ship of Abel/Ginormica (from Trinity Blood/Monsters Vs. Aliens respectively) just for pure randomness. Kenai and Koda were also werebears in that story, shown beating the crap out of each other for giggles, but that's irrelevant.

One that's been preying on my mind lately is a totally fan-based one that I made up. It's Zim and Haruko, from Invader Zim and Fooly Cooly.

If you're familiar with both characters and the thought of the two of them like that didn't make your head explode, I'm honestly surprised.

Seriously, I have NO idea where it came from, or for that matter, whether to bring it into my story. What might you think?

Additionally, in my story, I've concluded that Traverse Town is heavily influenced (NOT ruled) by a number of factions, similar to the ones that dominate Sigil in Planescape. Originally, they were to be based on those very factions, until just last night, when I realized it would be cooler to do it my way. To that end, I'm making a list of teen subcultures I'm aware of and create actual factions based on them, though in a more positive light.

So far, I've only cemented the Crossguard, based on Christian Punk and amounting to Badass Christianity without any real political biases or stuff like that. Picture Abel Nightroad from Trinity Blood, apply his views on life to a WHOLE FACTION, and you pretty much got them down.

Any opinions/suggestions would be much appreciated.