Hi,
1.I though that you were using Akeeba Susbcriptions in order to have subscriptions and in that case, you can attach the subscription plan to the variant/product so that the recurring can apply to the variant/product or not.
But now, read your older posts, I see that you're just using the PayPal recurring plugin. In that case, what I proposed won't help.
Instead, it will be more complex.
You would have to create two warehouses one for each type of variant. Then, assign each variant to a different warehouse.
Duplicate your shipping methods, one set for each warehouse (with the warehouse restriction option of the shipping methods). And finally restrict your payment methods based on the shippin methods. That way, you'll see the payment methods corresponding to the warehouse of the product in the cart.
2. Characteristics selection is not possible on listings or in the HTML output of the product content plugin.