I was so far ahead of the curve on this meme that I've ended up falling behind. *g*
I offered to talk about ships
in this post, and these are the last ones people asked for.
Taran/Eilonwy for
pearl_o I can’t find my copy of The Chronicles of Prydain to refresh my memory, but what I remember about Eilonwy was that she was a redhead with a sharp tongue and she made Taran want to be a better man, and he in turn made her a better woman. That’s the kind of relationship that never fails to get me. It’s not that Taran wants to impress her, though that’s part of it, but that he grows into a good man because he wants to be the best man he can be, because he loves her enough to want to give her the best, because she deserves it. Their strengths, and flaws, are complementary, so they fit, and are stronger together.
~*~
Danny/Rusty for
dancinguniverse Well, the essay is
here, and that’s a lot more than 100 words. So have a not-quite-double-drabble:
On Guard
Rusty will never forget the look on Danny’s face when Tess left him the first time. It was a kind of devastation he’d only seen previously on the faces of rich, overconfident marks who realized they’d been taken, and it hurt far more than that ever would, because what Tess had taken from Danny wasn’t money, wasn’t even pride. No, what Tess had taken was Danny’s capacity to believe in the best of people, even though he’s spent his life playing on the worst. Danny was a romantic deep down -- he needed to believe, and Tess had broken that, made the dreamer wake to reality, and Rusty would never forgive her for it, not even when he saw the old spark in Danny’s eyes when he proposed the Benedict job. Not even when she came back, and acted like Danny was what she’d wanted all along.
Rusty’s been in the game long enough to spot a fake, and Tess is a very, very good fake. But he’s on to her now, and he’s not going to let her break Danny’s heart again.
~*~
Mal/Inara for
annavtree I don’t ship them and I don’t like them together. I think it would never work out. Mal’s too judgmental of her career - her entire way of life, every choice she’s made that’s made her who she is, distills down to "whore" for Mal, and that is no way to have a relationship, despite the attraction and the grudging yet mutual respect between them. As for Inara, once they have the hot sex, what’s left? Can Mal give her the emotional support she needs? Can he even *understand* what she needs? I don’t think so. I love Mal, but he is never going to be a giver in the sense of being open about what he wants and needs and being supportive of what she wants and needs. They’re both too closed off to make anything work long term. No, either of them would be better off with Kaylee, who could draw out their softer sides without making them feel as if they’d been defeated when they showed those softer emotions.
~*~
Dumbledore/McGonagall for
istalksnape I like this ship. I realize Dumbledore is like twice her age, but it doesn’t seem to stop people with other ships, and really, I don’t see the big deal. I think he likes her wit and her acerbity, and she is fond of his eccentricities, and willing to indulge them because they make her laugh. I think they have huge amounts of respect for each other, though there are differences of opinion on this whole ‘using children in the war’ thing - I think Minerva is much more soft-hearted than she appears, and Albus is much less interested in the individual well-being of the ‘soldiers’ under his command. The way he treats Snape and Sirius and Harry all point to that - he’s been around long enough that the end probably does justify many of the means, but Minerva is like the pricking of his conscience (though she follows him, perhaps knowing he’s their best shot against Voldemort). So they fit together, strengths and weaknesses, and they know each other really well, and even though he’s technically her boss, I don’t see any power imbalance between them (unlike, say Dumbledore/Snape).
~*~
Sirius/Remus for
superrenOh, what can I say that I haven’t said a million times or more?
penknife and
yahtzee63 both do a great job of talking about why they work together and why I love them - the shared history, the close friends-become-lovers, the tragedy and the hope, the way sex would complicate rather than simplify everything, and add an extra dimension to the tragedy rather than making it more mundane. There’s just so much to work with - their flaws reinforce each other’s, the way their strengths do, and all the broken parts fit together. I can’t imagine Remus ever letting anyone in as close as he let Sirius, James and Peter - Sirius knows - and keeps - parts of Remus that no one else will know or see. And Remus does the same for Sirius.
And a Remus/Sirius ficlet:
No One Knows
Remus has grown used to Molly eyeing him askance at breakfast, and it amuses him now. In the old days, he used to be miserable whenever people gave him that considering look, the one that said, What could a fit, rich, popular bloke like Sirius Black be doing with you? because it was a look he saw in the mirror every morning.
Since Sirius has come back to him, he has stopped questioning his good fortune, and is willing to live it as long as it lasts.
What he doesn’t expect, what surprises him, is the morning Molly finally bursts, and says, “What do you see in him, Remus? I understand you feel some obligation, but--"
“Obligation?” he asks, baffled. Yes, there are obligations between them -- a whole web of broken promises and vows unfulfilled that can only be patched over now, but stronger at the breaks because of them. He has to believe that. “It’s not because of that,” he says, and he realizes she doesn’t -- can't -- know Sirius the way he does. No one can. “It’s because he’s Sirius,” he says, and what he means is, because he’s mine.
No one knows the scent and feel of Padfoot’s fur against their skin on the mornings after the full moon, the taste of Sirius’s mouth in love and fear and anger, the sweat from his upper lip, the scars on his chest and the soft skin behind his knees, the heat of his breath and the thrust of his cock, not the way Remus does.
No one knows that Sirius is the chocolate-lover, not Remus, and the only reason Remus carries it around is because he loves the taste of it on Sirius’s tongue. They don’t know that Sirius only drinks tea because he thinks it makes Remus like to kiss him -- he is endearingly daft on the subject and still hasn’t realized that Remus would kiss him anyway, kiss him breathless and be glad, even with the stale taste of sleep in his mouth.
No one knows that red is Sirius’s favorite color, and Puddlemere United is his favorite team. No one knows that Sirius loves flying because he’s never been afraid to fall but that he’s actually not very good at Quidditch because he’s never been a team player.
He realizes he could tell all this to Molly, but doesn’t feel the need. Remus is the only one who knows these things, and he prefers to keep it that way.
~*~
Woo! I think I'm done with that meme now. *G*
My Lily/James fic is off for beta, so I should be able to sneak in before the deadline tomorrow, and I'm currently in a really good mood, because
devildoll has succumbed to the lure of Alexander and we're squeeing over The Persian Boy together. Every time I get an email from her, it puts a huge smile on my face even if she is shipping him with the wrong person. *cough*
Plus, it's a beautiful spring day here, there's new Alias and Lost tonight, and the week is almost over. What's not to love? except the phone ringing off the hook today, but that seems ot have slowed a bit.
*