pairings meme answers
Mar. 6th, 2010 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitHere are my responses to the meme I posted yesterday. (You can still ask about other pairings if you like; the original post is here.)
I've avoided major spoilers for recent or difficult-to-obtain canon (or in a couple of cases made them highlight-to-read) but there are minor spoilers galore.
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biichan asked about Second Doctor/Jamie (Doctor Who).
1. When I started shipping them
I was sort of shipping them before I'd even seen them, having heard that they were Gay Married In Space. And my reaction to the first Second Doctor episode (in fact the first Classic Who episode I ever saw) was "you gotta love a guy whose response to a crisis is to hold hands with Jamie."
2. What I think their challenge is
Their challenges are external, I think; in themselves they mesh pretty well, and increasingly so as the show goes on. But there's That Thing The Time Lords Did, and if that hadn't happened, there might've been some difficulty about how fast humans age compared to Time Lords.
3. What makes me happy about them
They're so grabby and snuggly, and their bickering is so cute.
4. What makes me sad about them
The lost episodes. And, from an in-universe perspective, That Thing The Time Lords Did.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Spoilers for That Thing The Time Lords Did, highlight to read: Jamie being memory-wiped and sent back to Culloden, where he most likely either died on the field or survived only to be later executed or transported.
Or, if I were to pick something just between them rather than caused by an external factor, their fight during "Evil of the Daleks." Jamie tells the Doctor it's over! I was traumatized.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
This is a tough one, because I'm very OTP-ish about them. For Jamie . . . well, I did joke once about how much better it would've been if he'd been the Jamie that Lord John Grey fell in love with. And in all seriousness, that would happier than what either of them ends up with in his own canon.
For the Doctor, I really don't know. There's the War Chief, who has a remarkable similarity to the Master, but I can't say I'm comfortable with the thought of the Doctor actually agreeing to co-rule the universe. And there's no one else the Second Doctor has sexual tension with. So my alternative choice for the Doctor is him bopping cheerfully around the universe with a friend or two.
7. My happily ever after for them
Season 6B, baby. It wouldn't be perfect--the Doctor would miss the freedom to travel as he wished--but I think he could put up with taking orders for fifty years or so, for Jamie's sake.
st_aurafina asked about Xavier/Magneto (X-Men moviverse).
1. When I started shipping them
The first movie I saw was X-3, which at least has the virtue of being the shippiest. The scene where they go together to see Jean Grey and her family piqued my interest (their dynamic is very Long-Married Couple), and the way Erik reacts during the death scene later--his desperate attempts to help, his broken little cry of "Charles"--won me completely.
2. What I think their challenge is
My head-canon is that they had a long and basically happy relationship until anti-mutant discrimination started becoming a major political issue. That caused their basic differences in worldview and ethics, difference they'd always been able to work around before, to become insurmountable. If there were somehow to be a political solution that they could both see as just, I think they'd find their way back to each other.
3. What makes me happy about them
The depth of the love that's still present no matter what, and the way neither of them tries to deny or hide it.
4. What makes me sad about them
The way their mutual love doesn't change a thing, because they're both idealists who believe that the cause is more important than personal feelings.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
The bit towards the end of X2 where Erik causes Charles to psychically attack non-mutants and then leaves him to burn his brain out and die. I'm perfectly willing to believe Mags would kill every non-mutant on earth if he thought that was the only way for mutants to be safe, but I don't think he would so casually sacrifice Charles in order to do it.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
Charles with Logan, believe it or not. Logan is the only person in the school who doesn't think of Charles as a teacher/father figure, and I think that Logan sticking around is due as much to Charles as it is to Jean (and eventually Scott).
Magneto/Mystique is suggested in canon, but I don't like it all that much. My Erik is gay (because there's no definite movieverse canon saying he isn't, which is not a chance I'm going to waste), and while Mystique can adopt a male body, there's no way I think she'd be willing to do that all the time. I've read some convincing Magneto/Pyro stories, but that's a relationship I think is deeply fucked up. I guess I don't see Erik having, or even wanting, love with anyone but Charles--not because they're OMG DESTINED, but because Erik has exactly the sort of trust issues you'd expect, and Charles is the only person who's ever managed to get past those barriers.
7. My happily ever after for them
I want there to be one, but I don't see how without some kind of extraordinary political change: either a serious commitment to mutant rights on the part of the US, the UN, etc. or Charles deciding the working within the system will never succeed.
hafren asked about Hornblower/Pellew (Hornblower TV-verse)
1. When I started shipping them
On rewatching the series, as I've been doing over the last few days, I was struck by the UST, a lot of which is admittedly coming from Robert Lindsay's performance. Pellew looks at Hornblower like he wants to rip off all his clothes (and who wouldn't?) and talks to him (when not in Commandery Bellowing Mode) like he wants to whisk him away to a rose-covered cottage and cherish him forever. The dialogue tries to make this out to be a father-son relationship, but that's not what I see onscreen. I think there's actually more Hornblower/Pellew subtext than Hornblower/Kennedy, possibly even more than Hornblower/Bush.
It's primarily a TV-verse pairing for me, but I did stumble across this little gem last night while reading Hornblower and the Hotspur. It's part of a letter from Pellew to Hornblower, talking about how Pellew's promotion will mean Hornblower gets a new commanding officer, which might affect his chances for promotion:
2. What I think their challenge is
Naval discipline. Not just the prohibition of sodomy in the Articles of War, but the whole issue of rank.
Also, I think it's possible that Hornblower's feelings are mostly filial even if Pellew's aren't.
3. What makes me happy about them
However one interprets it, Pellew's love is one of the main factors that keeps TV-verse Hornblower from becoming bookverse Hornblower--isolated, self-loathing, bad-tempered, occasionally paranoid and cruel.
4. What makes me sad about them
Nothing, really, apart from the structural difficulties in their way.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
A couple of times (as I recall, it happens once in "The Frogs and the Lobsters" and again in "Duty"), Pellew tells Hornblower that duty is more important than conscience or feelings or anything else. Which is really not a good thing for Hornblower to hear, I think, because even in TV canon he tends to go for self-sacrifice to the point of self-punishment. That attitude leads him into a disastrous marriage, among other problems.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
Hornblower with Bush; they're my bookverse OTP and they're awesome together in TV-verse too, plus Bush is played by the delectable Paul McGann.
Pellew with a whole string of protégés whom he trains, protects, enjoys a certain tenderness for, and sees off into their careers with a lot of happy pride and a little bit of wistfulness. (This is pretty much my head-canon for Pellew anyway; it's just that his relationship with Hornblower is exceptionally strong.)
7. My happily ever after for them
I don't think they could have one in the conventional sense. But I think an arrangement where they're together when they can be, and the rest of the time they send each other fond letters, would work fairly well. Hornblower's a huge commitment-phobe anyway.
flo_nelja asked about Tenth Doctor/Simm!Master (Doctor Who)
1. When I started shipping them
Round about the phonesex call scene in "The Sound of Drums," I think.
2. What I think their challenge is
Utterly opposed philosophies and goals. The Master's craziness. And, you know, the whole genocide thing.
3. What makes me happy about them
The way the Doctor can sometimes reach the part of the Master that's not evil.
4. What makes me sad about them
Everything else.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Quite a few, but especially the bit in "The End of Time 2" when (spoiler, highlight to read) after the Master gets sucked into the time lock thingy with the others, the Doctor doesn't look for him or even mention that he's gone. Way to fail at emotional continuity, Russell T. Davies.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
The Doctor with Jack Harkness, maybe. I'm not OTP-ish about them but I think they could be good for each other. The Master with a very good therapist.
7. My happily ever after for them
Oh, dear, yet another pairing where I don't see a happily ever after. Certainly there was a hopeful moment during EoT2, beforestupid bad stuff happened, but one has to wonder how long it would have lasted. And I'm not sure I want a happy ending for the Master after his slow, brutal genocide of the human species. How much should anyone be forgiven for? And what right does the Doctor have to grant forgiveness for crimes committed against others?
vilakins asked about Henderson/York (Hyperdrive).
1. When I started shipping them
Probably the episode, whose title I can't remember, where we first see them playing music together. It was a lovely moment that gave new depth to York's character in particular, plus it was a fun Master and Commander parody.
2. What I think their challenge is
York's aversion to being touched isn't terribly helpful. Nor is the fact that York is basically crazycakes anyway.
3. What makes me happy about them
The way they enact things they can't express in words (e.g. the Shoegiving Day scene), and the way sometimes they find the words (e.g. York's speech to the despairing Henderson in the last episode).
4. What makes me sad about them
It's a comedy show (although it has some decidedly melancholy moments) so I think I get to just be happy about them.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
The very end of the series finale, which isn't specifically Henderson/York related.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
York canonically fancies Sandstrom, but it would never, ever work. Henderson/Teal might work if Henderson wasn't such a jerk to her.
7. My happily ever after for them
I think they're a lot closer, emotionally, by the end of S2 than at the start of S1, so things could just keep going in that direction. And in about 20 years York might be ready for a kiss.
thevera asked about Giles/Ethan (Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
1. When I started shipping them
I think "A New Man" was the first Ethan episode I saw, and I began shipping them round about the moment Ethan said "the night is still our time." My first ever fanfic was a tag for that episode (written some years after the episode aired, because I didn't start watching BtVS until S7).
2. What I think their challenge is
Ethan loves chaos and despises order; Giles believes in order and fears chaos.
3. What makes me happy about them
The way amoral, tricksterish Ethan is the one who knows Giles best.
4. What makes me sad about them
Their joint refusal to really listen to each other and see past the stereotypes they've created of each other.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Giles turning Ethan over to the Initiative. Giles already had reasons to distrust the Initiative, and it's shocking that he would give a human being, even a not very nice one, to a shady covert organization for "rehabilitation."
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
Giles/Oz is my other Buffyverse OTP. As for Ethan, I just don't think there's anyone for him but Giles. Which I know is basically what I said about Magneto/Xavier; it's no coincidence I ship both, because the relationships are parallel in a lot of ways. And one of the things that attracts me to a pairing is obsessive love.
7. My happily ever after for them
I wrote it a few years ago: they manage to find some common ground (Giles grows less dogmatic and more skeptical of the Watchers' Council dogmas he's accepted for so long; Ethan stops making trouble for trouble's sake), and although there are tensions between them, sometimes serious, they muddle through.
entropy_house asked about Avon/Blake (Blake's 7).
1. When I started shipping them
Probably the "oops, I accidentally saved your life and also fell on top of you" moment in "The Web."
2. What I think their challenge is
Blake's increasing obsession with the cause and Avon's pathological fear of admitting, even to himself, that he gives a damn about anyone.
3. What makes me happy about them
Those occasional moments when Blake listens or Avon unbends a little and you can see how good they could be together.
4. What makes me sad about them
Too many things to list.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Do I even need to say it?
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
I quite like Blake/Deva. With Avon, again, we run into the whole crazy devoted love thing. Plus Avon doesn't want to love anyone; there seem to have been only two exceptions in his lifetime, and I think he'd do damn near anything to avoid there being a third.
7. My happily ever after for them
They get together sometime earlyish in S2, before too many bad decisions have been made; Avon stops pretending he's untrustworthy and Blake starts listening to Avon's opinions. As a consequence, the tactics they devise actually work; there's a slow build-up of anti-Federation resistance, starting in the colonies, and eventually a revolution with popular support. Blake serves a couple of terms as a democratically elected president, with Avon as one of his advisors, then they retire somewhere quiet and reasonably luxurious (because that was the bargain they made before Avon agreed to let Blake run for president, and Avon had the sense to make him put it in writing).
lullabee_lj asked about Eighth Doctor/Fitz Kreiner (Doctor Who)
1. When I started shipping them
Before I ever read any of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels; I was lured into the fandom by people's posts about the awesomeness of Eight/Fitz.
2. What I think their challenge is
Mostly the Doctor's skittishness. It's canonical that they love each other in a way that goes beyond "just friends," but the Doctor (Eight even more than some other iterations, I think) isn't exactly built for romance. Part of that's his alienness, part of it's his amnesia problem, part of it is because his first instinct when bored, irritated, or just out of his depth is to run away.
3. What makes me happy about them
Unexpected kisses! Banter! Tea! Music! Fitz's declarations of eternal devotion, usually made about the Doctor, in his absence, to third parties! Bonding via multiple identities and memory loss!
4. What makes me sad about them
Thinking about what awful thing must have happened during the Time War to separate them.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Fitz apparently deciding to leave during The Gallifrey Chronicles. *kicks Lance Parkin* But I haven't actually read that book yet, so I will continue to believe that it didn't really happen. (I know that Fitz didn't end up leaving, but him even wanting to leave the Doctor after so long seems wrong to me.)
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
I ship Eight/Karl Sadeghi about as hard as it's possible to ship them considering the pairing also makes me whimper "but what about Fitz?". (And no, I don't think a threesome is the answer in this case.) So that'd be a good fallback plan for the Doctor.
Fitz is more complicated, partly because I don't find a single one of his canonical love interests very convincing. My sense of Fitz is that he's sexually attracted to women but not very able to form emotional bonds with them; he's ordinarily indifferent to men, but when does feel any kind of connection with a man, it tends to be pretty overwhelming and intense (we see it not just with the Doctor, but with George Williamson and to some extent with Sasha). So for a Fitz without the Doctor, I think the most likely outcome is that he's either a serial monogamist who never finds the right woman, or he gets married and feels a vague, permanent discontent. Much less likely, but happier for Fitz, is that he meets a man who's enough like the Doctor (surprising, brilliant, difficult to know, vulnerable, someone Fitz can both hero-worship and protect) that Fitz falls in love. (But then, Fitz might always feel, just a little, that the man was a not-entirely-adequate Doctor substitute.)
If I have to pick a specific second choice for Fitz, I'd say he and George Williamson get back safely from Siberia and live as a Victorian bachelor pair. Sometimes they have sex together, sometimes they share a woman, sometimes Fitz becomes briefly enamored of a woman and George laughs quietly to himself and waits for it to run its course.
I nearly said Jack Harkness would be a good match for Fitz, because Jack is Doctor-ish in some ways. But Jack is too emotionally closed off for Fitz, I think.
7. My happily ever after for them
They get together after The Year of Intelligent Tigers, because Fitz realizes he's jealous of Karl and that must mean he really does seriously want the Doctor. Somehow the Time War is averted, and so they stay together FOREVER AND EVER because Fitz's biodata got a bit Time Lord-y during the whole "let's rebuild Fitz" thing (meaning he either regenerates or ages extremely slowly, or both).
lullabee_lj also asked about Harry/Snape (Harry Potter).
1. When I started shipping them
It's really something that developed from reading fanfic, not from anything I saw in canon. (I have a thing for older man/young man pairings, okay? And sometimes it leads me to read fic that makes no damn sense canonically.) But Harry's weird crush on the Half-Blood Prince opens up a slight canonical possibility, which is then given a nice sick twist by Snape's love for Lily.
2. What I think their challenge is
Snape's personality. Also, to an extent, Harry's personality.
3. What makes me happy about them
Canonically, just a few moments of potential connection.
4. What makes me sad about them
That the potential's never realized. One of the things I find interesting about Snape is that his story implies a more complex morality than the books really make room for (which isn't to say I think Snape is some kind of misunderstood woobie). I think a Harry/Snape relationship could open the door for a hard look at the many things that are screwed up about wizarding society. That would be a lot more satisfying than how the series really ends with a ferocious reinforcement of the status quo, socially in the way all the characters end up in heterosexual marriages with lots of kids, politically with the way nothing changes except for the defeat of Voldemort.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Harry should never have seen Snape's worst memory, especially since it doesn't really change Harry or complicate his worldview significantly. After that moment, Snape is so humiliated that it's basically impossible for him and Harry to have any kind of connection.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
I like Harry/Ginny, actually, although I like it about ten million times better in the main part of the books than in the epilogue.
Snape is damn near unpairable for obvious reasons. There's an interesting AU to be written in which Lily survives the attack (why shouldn't James's love and self-sacrifice be what protects Harry? why is it always dead mothers?) and she goes to Snape for help. Among other things, I'd like to see Snape atone for his betrayal in a more direct way than becoming a double agent and bullying Lily's son.
Alternatively, were it not for Snape's partial responsibility for Sirius's death, Snape/Lupin has possibilities. Their history, ugly as it is, might bring them together, and canonically Lupin seems to like Snape at least a tiny bit, which is more than anyone else does.
7. My happily ever after for them
It would have to be totally AU. Snape doesn't cling so hard to the trauma of his school days (perhaps he's able to get away from Hogwarts for a while and grow up), so he doesn't make Harry pay for being James's son. He becomes a mentor to Harry and eventually, when Harry's old enough, something more. Thanks to Snape's guidance, Harry is better prepared to face Voldemort, who is defeated sooner and with fewer deaths. Maybe Sirius even gets to live!
queenbookwench asked about Fraser/Kowalski (due South).
1. When I started shipping them
This is another pairing I'd heard about before I started watching the show. But I became a hopeless shipper during the second Ray K. episode, "Eclipse." (That's the one where Ray asks if Fraser thinks he's attractive.)
2. What I think their challenge is
Fraser has been burned by love, seriously, making him even more emotionally inept than he is by nature. Fortunately, Ray is good at devotion (sometimes too good, but it wouldn't be a problem with Fraser) and at making the other person feel safe.
3. What makes me happy about them
Partnership.
4. What makes me sad about them
Their geography/citizenship/career issues worry me a bit, but there's nothing insurmountable.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Ray's thing for the woman who turns out to be Fraser's sister. Although, since she's basically Fraser in a female body, it can easily be fanwanked as an epiphany for Ray.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
Nobody in their own canon, I'm afraid. I don't see Fraser/Vecchio, I really don't see Ray/Ray, Fraser/Thatcher would last two weeks, and there's no way Ray K. and Stella are ever getting back together.
7. My happily ever after for them
I wrote it.
I've avoided major spoilers for recent or difficult-to-obtain canon (or in a couple of cases made them highlight-to-read) but there are minor spoilers galore.
biichan asked about Second Doctor/Jamie (Doctor Who).1. When I started shipping them
I was sort of shipping them before I'd even seen them, having heard that they were Gay Married In Space. And my reaction to the first Second Doctor episode (in fact the first Classic Who episode I ever saw) was "you gotta love a guy whose response to a crisis is to hold hands with Jamie."
2. What I think their challenge is
Their challenges are external, I think; in themselves they mesh pretty well, and increasingly so as the show goes on. But there's That Thing The Time Lords Did, and if that hadn't happened, there might've been some difficulty about how fast humans age compared to Time Lords.
3. What makes me happy about them
They're so grabby and snuggly, and their bickering is so cute.
4. What makes me sad about them
The lost episodes. And, from an in-universe perspective, That Thing The Time Lords Did.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Spoilers for That Thing The Time Lords Did, highlight to read: Jamie being memory-wiped and sent back to Culloden, where he most likely either died on the field or survived only to be later executed or transported.
Or, if I were to pick something just between them rather than caused by an external factor, their fight during "Evil of the Daleks." Jamie tells the Doctor it's over! I was traumatized.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
This is a tough one, because I'm very OTP-ish about them. For Jamie . . . well, I did joke once about how much better it would've been if he'd been the Jamie that Lord John Grey fell in love with. And in all seriousness, that would happier than what either of them ends up with in his own canon.
For the Doctor, I really don't know. There's the War Chief, who has a remarkable similarity to the Master, but I can't say I'm comfortable with the thought of the Doctor actually agreeing to co-rule the universe. And there's no one else the Second Doctor has sexual tension with. So my alternative choice for the Doctor is him bopping cheerfully around the universe with a friend or two.
7. My happily ever after for them
Season 6B, baby. It wouldn't be perfect--the Doctor would miss the freedom to travel as he wished--but I think he could put up with taking orders for fifty years or so, for Jamie's sake.
st_aurafina asked about Xavier/Magneto (X-Men moviverse).1. When I started shipping them
The first movie I saw was X-3, which at least has the virtue of being the shippiest. The scene where they go together to see Jean Grey and her family piqued my interest (their dynamic is very Long-Married Couple), and the way Erik reacts during the death scene later--his desperate attempts to help, his broken little cry of "Charles"--won me completely.
2. What I think their challenge is
My head-canon is that they had a long and basically happy relationship until anti-mutant discrimination started becoming a major political issue. That caused their basic differences in worldview and ethics, difference they'd always been able to work around before, to become insurmountable. If there were somehow to be a political solution that they could both see as just, I think they'd find their way back to each other.
3. What makes me happy about them
The depth of the love that's still present no matter what, and the way neither of them tries to deny or hide it.
4. What makes me sad about them
The way their mutual love doesn't change a thing, because they're both idealists who believe that the cause is more important than personal feelings.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
The bit towards the end of X2 where Erik causes Charles to psychically attack non-mutants and then leaves him to burn his brain out and die. I'm perfectly willing to believe Mags would kill every non-mutant on earth if he thought that was the only way for mutants to be safe, but I don't think he would so casually sacrifice Charles in order to do it.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
Charles with Logan, believe it or not. Logan is the only person in the school who doesn't think of Charles as a teacher/father figure, and I think that Logan sticking around is due as much to Charles as it is to Jean (and eventually Scott).
Magneto/Mystique is suggested in canon, but I don't like it all that much. My Erik is gay (because there's no definite movieverse canon saying he isn't, which is not a chance I'm going to waste), and while Mystique can adopt a male body, there's no way I think she'd be willing to do that all the time. I've read some convincing Magneto/Pyro stories, but that's a relationship I think is deeply fucked up. I guess I don't see Erik having, or even wanting, love with anyone but Charles--not because they're OMG DESTINED, but because Erik has exactly the sort of trust issues you'd expect, and Charles is the only person who's ever managed to get past those barriers.
7. My happily ever after for them
I want there to be one, but I don't see how without some kind of extraordinary political change: either a serious commitment to mutant rights on the part of the US, the UN, etc. or Charles deciding the working within the system will never succeed.
hafren asked about Hornblower/Pellew (Hornblower TV-verse)1. When I started shipping them
On rewatching the series, as I've been doing over the last few days, I was struck by the UST, a lot of which is admittedly coming from Robert Lindsay's performance. Pellew looks at Hornblower like he wants to rip off all his clothes (and who wouldn't?) and talks to him (when not in Commandery Bellowing Mode) like he wants to whisk him away to a rose-covered cottage and cherish him forever. The dialogue tries to make this out to be a father-son relationship, but that's not what I see onscreen. I think there's actually more Hornblower/Pellew subtext than Hornblower/Kennedy, possibly even more than Hornblower/Bush.
It's primarily a TV-verse pairing for me, but I did stumble across this little gem last night while reading Hornblower and the Hotspur. It's part of a letter from Pellew to Hornblower, talking about how Pellew's promotion will mean Hornblower gets a new commanding officer, which might affect his chances for promotion:
I have recommended you to him in the strongest terms although your actions speak even more strongly for you. But commanding officers are likely to have their favourites, men with whom they are personally acquainted. We can hardly quarrel on this score, seeing that I have indulged myself in a favourite whose initials are H. H.!That coy little thing with the initials doesn't make Captain Sir Edward Pellew sound like a fourteen-year-old with a crush AT ALL. *snerk*
2. What I think their challenge is
Naval discipline. Not just the prohibition of sodomy in the Articles of War, but the whole issue of rank.
Also, I think it's possible that Hornblower's feelings are mostly filial even if Pellew's aren't.
3. What makes me happy about them
However one interprets it, Pellew's love is one of the main factors that keeps TV-verse Hornblower from becoming bookverse Hornblower--isolated, self-loathing, bad-tempered, occasionally paranoid and cruel.
4. What makes me sad about them
Nothing, really, apart from the structural difficulties in their way.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
A couple of times (as I recall, it happens once in "The Frogs and the Lobsters" and again in "Duty"), Pellew tells Hornblower that duty is more important than conscience or feelings or anything else. Which is really not a good thing for Hornblower to hear, I think, because even in TV canon he tends to go for self-sacrifice to the point of self-punishment. That attitude leads him into a disastrous marriage, among other problems.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
Hornblower with Bush; they're my bookverse OTP and they're awesome together in TV-verse too, plus Bush is played by the delectable Paul McGann.
Pellew with a whole string of protégés whom he trains, protects, enjoys a certain tenderness for, and sees off into their careers with a lot of happy pride and a little bit of wistfulness. (This is pretty much my head-canon for Pellew anyway; it's just that his relationship with Hornblower is exceptionally strong.)
7. My happily ever after for them
I don't think they could have one in the conventional sense. But I think an arrangement where they're together when they can be, and the rest of the time they send each other fond letters, would work fairly well. Hornblower's a huge commitment-phobe anyway.
flo_nelja asked about Tenth Doctor/Simm!Master (Doctor Who)1. When I started shipping them
Round about the phone
2. What I think their challenge is
Utterly opposed philosophies and goals. The Master's craziness. And, you know, the whole genocide thing.
3. What makes me happy about them
The way the Doctor can sometimes reach the part of the Master that's not evil.
4. What makes me sad about them
Everything else.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Quite a few, but especially the bit in "The End of Time 2" when (spoiler, highlight to read) after the Master gets sucked into the time lock thingy with the others, the Doctor doesn't look for him or even mention that he's gone. Way to fail at emotional continuity, Russell T. Davies.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
The Doctor with Jack Harkness, maybe. I'm not OTP-ish about them but I think they could be good for each other. The Master with a very good therapist.
7. My happily ever after for them
Oh, dear, yet another pairing where I don't see a happily ever after. Certainly there was a hopeful moment during EoT2, before
vilakins asked about Henderson/York (Hyperdrive). 1. When I started shipping them
Probably the episode, whose title I can't remember, where we first see them playing music together. It was a lovely moment that gave new depth to York's character in particular, plus it was a fun Master and Commander parody.
2. What I think their challenge is
York's aversion to being touched isn't terribly helpful. Nor is the fact that York is basically crazycakes anyway.
3. What makes me happy about them
The way they enact things they can't express in words (e.g. the Shoegiving Day scene), and the way sometimes they find the words (e.g. York's speech to the despairing Henderson in the last episode).
4. What makes me sad about them
It's a comedy show (although it has some decidedly melancholy moments) so I think I get to just be happy about them.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
The very end of the series finale, which isn't specifically Henderson/York related.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
York canonically fancies Sandstrom, but it would never, ever work. Henderson/Teal might work if Henderson wasn't such a jerk to her.
7. My happily ever after for them
I think they're a lot closer, emotionally, by the end of S2 than at the start of S1, so things could just keep going in that direction. And in about 20 years York might be ready for a kiss.
thevera asked about Giles/Ethan (Buffy the Vampire Slayer).1. When I started shipping them
I think "A New Man" was the first Ethan episode I saw, and I began shipping them round about the moment Ethan said "the night is still our time." My first ever fanfic was a tag for that episode (written some years after the episode aired, because I didn't start watching BtVS until S7).
2. What I think their challenge is
Ethan loves chaos and despises order; Giles believes in order and fears chaos.
3. What makes me happy about them
The way amoral, tricksterish Ethan is the one who knows Giles best.
4. What makes me sad about them
Their joint refusal to really listen to each other and see past the stereotypes they've created of each other.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Giles turning Ethan over to the Initiative. Giles already had reasons to distrust the Initiative, and it's shocking that he would give a human being, even a not very nice one, to a shady covert organization for "rehabilitation."
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
Giles/Oz is my other Buffyverse OTP. As for Ethan, I just don't think there's anyone for him but Giles. Which I know is basically what I said about Magneto/Xavier; it's no coincidence I ship both, because the relationships are parallel in a lot of ways. And one of the things that attracts me to a pairing is obsessive love.
7. My happily ever after for them
I wrote it a few years ago: they manage to find some common ground (Giles grows less dogmatic and more skeptical of the Watchers' Council dogmas he's accepted for so long; Ethan stops making trouble for trouble's sake), and although there are tensions between them, sometimes serious, they muddle through.
entropy_house asked about Avon/Blake (Blake's 7). 1. When I started shipping them
Probably the "oops, I accidentally saved your life and also fell on top of you" moment in "The Web."
2. What I think their challenge is
Blake's increasing obsession with the cause and Avon's pathological fear of admitting, even to himself, that he gives a damn about anyone.
3. What makes me happy about them
Those occasional moments when Blake listens or Avon unbends a little and you can see how good they could be together.
4. What makes me sad about them
Too many things to list.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Do I even need to say it?
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
I quite like Blake/Deva. With Avon, again, we run into the whole crazy devoted love thing. Plus Avon doesn't want to love anyone; there seem to have been only two exceptions in his lifetime, and I think he'd do damn near anything to avoid there being a third.
7. My happily ever after for them
They get together sometime earlyish in S2, before too many bad decisions have been made; Avon stops pretending he's untrustworthy and Blake starts listening to Avon's opinions. As a consequence, the tactics they devise actually work; there's a slow build-up of anti-Federation resistance, starting in the colonies, and eventually a revolution with popular support. Blake serves a couple of terms as a democratically elected president, with Avon as one of his advisors, then they retire somewhere quiet and reasonably luxurious (because that was the bargain they made before Avon agreed to let Blake run for president, and Avon had the sense to make him put it in writing).
lullabee_lj asked about Eighth Doctor/Fitz Kreiner (Doctor Who)1. When I started shipping them
Before I ever read any of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels; I was lured into the fandom by people's posts about the awesomeness of Eight/Fitz.
2. What I think their challenge is
Mostly the Doctor's skittishness. It's canonical that they love each other in a way that goes beyond "just friends," but the Doctor (Eight even more than some other iterations, I think) isn't exactly built for romance. Part of that's his alienness, part of it's his amnesia problem, part of it is because his first instinct when bored, irritated, or just out of his depth is to run away.
3. What makes me happy about them
Unexpected kisses! Banter! Tea! Music! Fitz's declarations of eternal devotion, usually made about the Doctor, in his absence, to third parties! Bonding via multiple identities and memory loss!
4. What makes me sad about them
Thinking about what awful thing must have happened during the Time War to separate them.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Fitz apparently deciding to leave during The Gallifrey Chronicles. *kicks Lance Parkin* But I haven't actually read that book yet, so I will continue to believe that it didn't really happen. (I know that Fitz didn't end up leaving, but him even wanting to leave the Doctor after so long seems wrong to me.)
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
I ship Eight/Karl Sadeghi about as hard as it's possible to ship them considering the pairing also makes me whimper "but what about Fitz?". (And no, I don't think a threesome is the answer in this case.) So that'd be a good fallback plan for the Doctor.
Fitz is more complicated, partly because I don't find a single one of his canonical love interests very convincing. My sense of Fitz is that he's sexually attracted to women but not very able to form emotional bonds with them; he's ordinarily indifferent to men, but when does feel any kind of connection with a man, it tends to be pretty overwhelming and intense (we see it not just with the Doctor, but with George Williamson and to some extent with Sasha). So for a Fitz without the Doctor, I think the most likely outcome is that he's either a serial monogamist who never finds the right woman, or he gets married and feels a vague, permanent discontent. Much less likely, but happier for Fitz, is that he meets a man who's enough like the Doctor (surprising, brilliant, difficult to know, vulnerable, someone Fitz can both hero-worship and protect) that Fitz falls in love. (But then, Fitz might always feel, just a little, that the man was a not-entirely-adequate Doctor substitute.)
If I have to pick a specific second choice for Fitz, I'd say he and George Williamson get back safely from Siberia and live as a Victorian bachelor pair. Sometimes they have sex together, sometimes they share a woman, sometimes Fitz becomes briefly enamored of a woman and George laughs quietly to himself and waits for it to run its course.
I nearly said Jack Harkness would be a good match for Fitz, because Jack is Doctor-ish in some ways. But Jack is too emotionally closed off for Fitz, I think.
7. My happily ever after for them
They get together after The Year of Intelligent Tigers, because Fitz realizes he's jealous of Karl and that must mean he really does seriously want the Doctor. Somehow the Time War is averted, and so they stay together FOREVER AND EVER because Fitz's biodata got a bit Time Lord-y during the whole "let's rebuild Fitz" thing (meaning he either regenerates or ages extremely slowly, or both).
lullabee_lj also asked about Harry/Snape (Harry Potter).1. When I started shipping them
It's really something that developed from reading fanfic, not from anything I saw in canon. (I have a thing for older man/young man pairings, okay? And sometimes it leads me to read fic that makes no damn sense canonically.) But Harry's weird crush on the Half-Blood Prince opens up a slight canonical possibility, which is then given a nice sick twist by Snape's love for Lily.
2. What I think their challenge is
Snape's personality. Also, to an extent, Harry's personality.
3. What makes me happy about them
Canonically, just a few moments of potential connection.
4. What makes me sad about them
That the potential's never realized. One of the things I find interesting about Snape is that his story implies a more complex morality than the books really make room for (which isn't to say I think Snape is some kind of misunderstood woobie). I think a Harry/Snape relationship could open the door for a hard look at the many things that are screwed up about wizarding society. That would be a lot more satisfying than how the series really ends with a ferocious reinforcement of the status quo, socially in the way all the characters end up in heterosexual marriages with lots of kids, politically with the way nothing changes except for the defeat of Voldemort.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Harry should never have seen Snape's worst memory, especially since it doesn't really change Harry or complicate his worldview significantly. After that moment, Snape is so humiliated that it's basically impossible for him and Harry to have any kind of connection.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
I like Harry/Ginny, actually, although I like it about ten million times better in the main part of the books than in the epilogue.
Snape is damn near unpairable for obvious reasons. There's an interesting AU to be written in which Lily survives the attack (why shouldn't James's love and self-sacrifice be what protects Harry? why is it always dead mothers?) and she goes to Snape for help. Among other things, I'd like to see Snape atone for his betrayal in a more direct way than becoming a double agent and bullying Lily's son.
Alternatively, were it not for Snape's partial responsibility for Sirius's death, Snape/Lupin has possibilities. Their history, ugly as it is, might bring them together, and canonically Lupin seems to like Snape at least a tiny bit, which is more than anyone else does.
7. My happily ever after for them
It would have to be totally AU. Snape doesn't cling so hard to the trauma of his school days (perhaps he's able to get away from Hogwarts for a while and grow up), so he doesn't make Harry pay for being James's son. He becomes a mentor to Harry and eventually, when Harry's old enough, something more. Thanks to Snape's guidance, Harry is better prepared to face Voldemort, who is defeated sooner and with fewer deaths. Maybe Sirius even gets to live!
queenbookwench asked about Fraser/Kowalski (due South).1. When I started shipping them
This is another pairing I'd heard about before I started watching the show. But I became a hopeless shipper during the second Ray K. episode, "Eclipse." (That's the one where Ray asks if Fraser thinks he's attractive.)
2. What I think their challenge is
Fraser has been burned by love, seriously, making him even more emotionally inept than he is by nature. Fortunately, Ray is good at devotion (sometimes too good, but it wouldn't be a problem with Fraser) and at making the other person feel safe.
3. What makes me happy about them
Partnership.
4. What makes me sad about them
Their geography/citizenship/career issues worry me a bit, but there's nothing insurmountable.
5. What moment I wish had never happened
Ray's thing for the woman who turns out to be Fraser's sister. Although, since she's basically Fraser in a female body, it can easily be fanwanked as an epiphany for Ray.
6. Who I'd be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other
Nobody in their own canon, I'm afraid. I don't see Fraser/Vecchio, I really don't see Ray/Ray, Fraser/Thatcher would last two weeks, and there's no way Ray K. and Stella are ever getting back together.
7. My happily ever after for them
I wrote it.
