(no subject)
Okay, so I should be sleeping, but instead I did the ship meme. I'd call them drabbles, but they're really really not. Heh.
Nadia/Vaughn (429 words)
This is one of those ships that can never be happy. Any relationship they would have would probably involve a lot of sneaking around, since if Vaughn hasn’t left Syd yet, I doubt he’s coming to his senses any time soon. And even if they did end up getting together officially somehow, Syd would always be between them, haunting them. Not to mention that her mother killed Vaughn’s dad, and she was born as a result of an affair between her evil, husband-betraying mother and that rat bastard Sloane. Vaughn might have a hard time getting past the whole family affiliation thing, especially seeing how Nadia’s all gung-ho about her parents.
I can sort of see where the attraction might come from, though. Nadia is young and pretty, and very much like Syd was before she went all crazy and boring with the take-it-slowness. She’s also forbidden, being his girlfriend’s sister, which might be a draw for him, since his passion toward Syd always seemed to be more intense when he couldn’t have her, especially at some points in season three. Also, Nadia would be able to understand Vaughn’s crazy rage, since she’s obviously experienced a similar emotion (at the end of The Awful Truth she’s SCARY), and be able to understand his sense of loss over his father. Not that Syd didn’t, but Syd seemed to be used to Laura being gone, and didn’t have that wrenching loneliness that seems to characterize both Vaughn and Nadia. Another attraction of Nadia’s is that she’s very much Not Lauren in appearance, and she knows next to nothing about what happened with her, so there’s not that baggage that he and Syd have on that particular subject.
Vaughn, on the other hand, is older and exciting. He’s been a field agent and had all these adventures. Also, he’s very pretty, and he’d be nice to Nadia, since she’s Syd’s sister. Having been alone for most of her life, I think Nadia still yearns for approval and acceptance from others. She would befriend Vaughn quickly, if only for that reason. It would be easy for her to develop a crush on him, working with him and being around him all the time off work because of their connection with Sydney. She really looks up to Syd, and being wanted by the person who wants someone as great as Sydney would be a big thrill.
Of course, if anything did come of it, they’d both eventually die of guilt, because she feels such loyalty to Syd, and Vaughn sucks at this cheating business.
Ross/Rachel (108 words)
Okay. I really hate this ship. A lot. It’s not simply that Ross is a self-centered ass of the first degree, or that Rachel is a spoiled brat who is really incapable of thinking of anyone but herself; but the combination is deadly. All through the years of their off-again-on-again relationship, they never managed to see the other’s point of view, or come to respect one another. It seemed in the end like they got married just because they had a baby, which is a really stupid reason. The odds of Ross not having a fourth (or is it fifth?) divorce on the horizon are looking pretty grim.
Laughn (954 words)
Everyone knows by now how endlessly I loved this ship back before JJ took some of the bad Nocturne and killed it. I mean, Lauren saved Vaughn from the depths of his despair over Syd’s death, and made him into something human again. Yeah, Vaughn would always remember the love he had for Syd, but he had this new person who could make him happy, and who he finally did let himself love. They weren’t all fire and grand epic romance like SV was, but they trusted and depended on one another, and they did show affection. She was always afraid that he would leave her for Sydney, and he kept on reassuring her, not, I think, just out of a sense of duty because she was his wife, but because he cared for her as a person and didn’t want to see her hurt. And she was totally sweet about the whole thing, and despite her reservations, she came to respect Syd a lot, and tried to at least be civil with her.
I think the big thing about Laughn pre-Full Disclosure was that they really did trust one another so completely, and they both wanted to be honest with one another. It was killing them when they had to lie to one another before Lauren went to Russia to talk to that weird guy about her accent. It also doesn’t seem to have occurred to Lauren to lie to Vaughn about turning Sydney in, even knowing that he would be so angry with her. In many ways, this early Lauren was such an idealist, and that was something new to Vaughn. When Vaughn met Syd, she’d been jaded by so many awful things in such a short time. Danny’s death, and the revelation that SD-6 was actually a terrorist organization had made Syd in many ways a less trusting person, and for good reason. However, Vaughn was really hurt in season two when Syd thought that he was evil. It would have been comforting to have someone like Lauren, who would trust him completely, and who he felt he could trust in the same way.
Another issue that drew Vaughn to Lauren was that she was someone that he could protect. It was his job to protect Syd, but a part of him always knew that she didn’t really need it. From the episodes that I’ve seen, Vaughn has always had faith that Syd would make it out of any situation that she managed to get herself into. They always had each other’s backs. But he wasn’t there to save Syd when he lost her, so his penance was a relationship where he WOULD always be there. He went completely batshit on Jack’s ass for having thugs threaten he and Lauren in Mexico, because he hadn’t been able to protect her, and he pitched a spaz attack when she suggested that Syd hit her to keep their cover. So Lauren’s helplessness was an attraction of sorts for Vaughn, because of his white knight complex. She wanted to feel safe in this new scary spy world, and he wanted to protect someone.
So, Vaughn and Lauren were married and totally cute and I adored them. Then things went to hell.
Now, a lot of stuff from the end of season three doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I’m going to try. Vaughn was having a harder time denying his feelings for Syd, and Lauren’s true affiliation suddenly started showing in her makeup choices. During this time, Vaughn set up shop in Egypt and tried desperately to make it seem like he and his wife didn’t need marriage counseling. Vaughn was completely absorbed in whatever conflict he was having over Syd - did he love her? Did he not? What was he going to do? - and Lauren was kind of left out in the cold. However, she still seemed to show some genuine affection for Vaughn. This is probably because, even when he was ignoring her, Vaughn was one of the kindest people that she had in her life. He was someone that she’d always been good enough for, which didn’t happen often to her. She was very distraught over the thought of him dying in North Korea. I think it’s interesting that she became so much more cold and distant (and started sleeping with Sark, heh) only AFTER Cole showed her evidence that Vaughn was cheating. He’d betrayed her, and she was going to make him pay. It was more than the annoyance of a professional who has been thwarted one too many times. She really did look heartbroken, and I think seeing whatever Cole showed her helped her to do the horrible things she did near the end of the season.
Interestingly, even when Vaughn found out that Lauren was evil, he still maintained that old trust that they had shared earlier in their relationship. After he’d been tortured, she told him a story about how she still loved him and he accepted it without question. He put up a token resistance to her help, but he allowed it. So Lauren’s betrayal after that was what destroyed the small amount of shippiness left between them. She had betrayed him, and used his love for her against him, and for that he would destroy her.
Then, of course, there is that absolutely lovely speech of Lauren’s about how she fell in love with him and wanted to tell him the truth, which turned out to be a lie that Vaughn didn’t even try to believe. And then he killed her, and she haunted him, and the beautiful ship is now nothing more than some algae-covered ruins on the ocean floor. Damn you, JJ!
Kyp/Tahiri (61 words)
So. I love Kyp. It’s probably because he’s angsty. I know next to nothing about Tahiri, since I couldn’t make it through the NJO, but I remember Tahiri being a fairly happy person. Maybe Tahiri’s sunny outlook would be able to help Kyp to finally forgive himself for Carida, if she could forgive him, and love him despite what he’d done.
Neiss (332 words)
I really wanted to hate this ship before the season started, because they’d never really met and it was a badfic ship, and SWeiss is my OTP, so it kind of made me do the meh dance. But then they met on the show, and they are just SO CUTE that it is impossible for me to hate them. I’ve given up resisting, because they will be glorious until my shipping them makes something bad happen.
There’s not really much question as to what first attracted Weiss to Nadia, as she is easily the most beautiful girl for miles and she lives in his building. But it’s obviously more than that, since they seem to be taking it slow and succeeding much better than their main character counterparts. Nadia’s smart, and she laughs at his jokes, and she thinks the Houdini thing is cool (she likes magic, after all). She goes along with his crazy idea of the moment with a smile.
What’s a little more complex is what drew Nadia to Weiss. I think the main thing here is that he’s genuine. He blushes, and sometimes he says stupid things, but they’re always sincere stupid things. Nadia’s grown up with so many lies, and people trying to hurt her, and now there’s this person who has no ulterior motive. She can let her guard down and not worry about being hurt. Also, for Nadia, Weiss is probably the only person in the office who looks at her and doesn’t see Irina. Sloane and Jack obviously see Irina first, and I think even Syd does, though not intentionally. So Nadia has all this extra stuff to live up to, and other pressures from these people to be certain things because she looks like Laura did in some thirty year old photograph. Weiss has no emotional investment in Irina, so with him she can just be Nadia. Also, Weiss totally loves her endlessly, and poor little orphan Nadia is starved for that affection.
Angstleech/Stella (210 words)
This ship is one of my few slash ships. Of course, fangirls don’t seem to see that it has a definite timeframe where it works, and everywhere else, it doesn’t. Sasame obsessed after Takako, but she never noticed him, because she was too busy having a crush on Hayate, who didn’t return her affection. Because of this, Takako became Princess of Disaster and ended up frozen in a scary giant tree to keep her from killing the worlds.
Now, at this point, Hayate is an angsty leech, because he blames himself for what happened. Sasame is an angsty and slightly snarky radio show host. He also blames Hayate for what happened, judging from a few comments he made in the anime. Now Sasame is lonely and Hayate blames himself for the deaths of the knights who fell against Takako, which is the perfect time for the two of them to start an angsty and slightly angry/violent relationship. By the time Hayate meets and falls for Himeno, their little hypothetical affair or whatever is in the past, but they still are very close because of it, as all the millions of slashy pictures Yubs sent me show.
So, to sum it up, their love is so subtexty that it’s practically canon.
SWeiss (319 words)
Okay, so this is like, my Alias OTP. It’s all Hannah’s fault. Hannah and her badfic that made me all shippy. So, there are so many reasons that this ship is great. Not so much now that he’s dating her sister, but back in season three, especially.
In season three, Syd was scared and alone and had no place to live or anything, and Weiss really took her under his wing. He sat with her and listened to her drunken sob stories about how much she missed Vaughn, and made her laugh when she was miserable. He really did listen to what she had to say, and he remembered it, buying her thoughtful presents like that Alice book she mentioned missing. She always seemed at ease with him, since he had no expectations of her. He was just happy with her being Syd. They also had some great banter near the beginning of the third season, especially that time they went to Mexico together for the mission. She was just so playful around him, grousing about her costume and taking silly pictures of him with her glasses.
Of course, the problem was that Weiss really did want to help her, which meant not saying anything about the fairly obvious crush he had on her. Sure, he dropped hints from time to time, but they were always silly so that if she freaked out he could say that it was just a joke. (For example, the ‘maybe she likes you’ thing from Nemesis) And, although Syd was happier around Weiss than anyone else, he became her best friend. A sort of a replacement Francie.
And then she got Vaughn back, and obsessed, and my ship died. However, the great thing is that they managed to stay close and keep being friends. Syd really needs to laugh more, and no matter how stupid she gets, he’ll always be there for her.
GSR (162 words)
This ship bothers me, mainly because it hits my biggest squick, which is the authority figure/subordinate thing. Also, Sara pines, and pining really really annoys me. It’s not even like Grissom is that great. Unless Sara WANTS an emotionally distant jerk as a boyfriend, which I doubt she does. She’s not Catherine.
I think that Sara has built up this image of Grissom in her head, and she’s always disappointed when the real Grissom deviates from this image in the slightest. Sara needs approval and acceptance, which she does get from Grissom on occasion, because she is good at her job, and understands him when he blabbers on about science.
Grissom, on the other hand, is tougher to understand. Why does he want Sara? Is it because she’s vulnerable, or because she’s forbidden, or for some other reason that I can’t even fathom? It seems to me that TPTB only made him pseudo-reciprocate her feelings to make more angst, which is annoying.
Narcissa/Lucius (133 words)
The fanon portrayal of this ship bugs me, because I really don’t see Narcissa as the battered wife cowering in fear at all. After all, knowing how Rowling likes names, Narcissa is probably rather self-absorbed. Also, assuming that she was a Slytherin, she does have ambition to get something for herself. Being married to someone rich like Lucius would give her the resources that she needed to further those ambitions, and exercise her power over House Elves and such. I think their marriage was more political than anything else, but I also think that they do at least like each other, as Draco seems very close to both his parents. I think that if they’d hated each other, they would have tried to turn their son on one another as he got older.
Sam/Martin (228 words)
This is another ship that I am totally ashamed to like. I really wanted to hate it, because I know that Sam is going to drop Martin’s poor heart on the floor and shatter it into a million tiny pieces, but they are just SO CUTE. Martin’s always had a bit of a crush on Sam, even when she was super mean to him. Sam is a tough FBI agent, but on the other hand she’s very emotionally vulnerable and she needs him. I think right now, Martin’s still reeling from the fact that Sam even wants to be with him. He always seems so surprised. Sam and Martin both share that trauma from their respective shootings, but I think their relationship has moved beyond that. Martin wants to make Sam happy, and Sam really WANTS to be happy, but it’s almost like she can’t let herself because something bad might happen. An interesting thing is that Sam always picked relationships that were sort of ‘dangerous’ or wrong in some way, like her affairs with Keller, Jack, and possibly Dr Fred, and her very short marriage when she was young. In contrast, Martin is very ‘safe’. There’s not that rush of doing something forbidden that Sam seems to almost crave. Maybe she’s finally settling down a bit. Or my ship is dying. I wonder which is more likely.
Nadia/Vaughn (429 words)
This is one of those ships that can never be happy. Any relationship they would have would probably involve a lot of sneaking around, since if Vaughn hasn’t left Syd yet, I doubt he’s coming to his senses any time soon. And even if they did end up getting together officially somehow, Syd would always be between them, haunting them. Not to mention that her mother killed Vaughn’s dad, and she was born as a result of an affair between her evil, husband-betraying mother and that rat bastard Sloane. Vaughn might have a hard time getting past the whole family affiliation thing, especially seeing how Nadia’s all gung-ho about her parents.
I can sort of see where the attraction might come from, though. Nadia is young and pretty, and very much like Syd was before she went all crazy and boring with the take-it-slowness. She’s also forbidden, being his girlfriend’s sister, which might be a draw for him, since his passion toward Syd always seemed to be more intense when he couldn’t have her, especially at some points in season three. Also, Nadia would be able to understand Vaughn’s crazy rage, since she’s obviously experienced a similar emotion (at the end of The Awful Truth she’s SCARY), and be able to understand his sense of loss over his father. Not that Syd didn’t, but Syd seemed to be used to Laura being gone, and didn’t have that wrenching loneliness that seems to characterize both Vaughn and Nadia. Another attraction of Nadia’s is that she’s very much Not Lauren in appearance, and she knows next to nothing about what happened with her, so there’s not that baggage that he and Syd have on that particular subject.
Vaughn, on the other hand, is older and exciting. He’s been a field agent and had all these adventures. Also, he’s very pretty, and he’d be nice to Nadia, since she’s Syd’s sister. Having been alone for most of her life, I think Nadia still yearns for approval and acceptance from others. She would befriend Vaughn quickly, if only for that reason. It would be easy for her to develop a crush on him, working with him and being around him all the time off work because of their connection with Sydney. She really looks up to Syd, and being wanted by the person who wants someone as great as Sydney would be a big thrill.
Of course, if anything did come of it, they’d both eventually die of guilt, because she feels such loyalty to Syd, and Vaughn sucks at this cheating business.
Ross/Rachel (108 words)
Okay. I really hate this ship. A lot. It’s not simply that Ross is a self-centered ass of the first degree, or that Rachel is a spoiled brat who is really incapable of thinking of anyone but herself; but the combination is deadly. All through the years of their off-again-on-again relationship, they never managed to see the other’s point of view, or come to respect one another. It seemed in the end like they got married just because they had a baby, which is a really stupid reason. The odds of Ross not having a fourth (or is it fifth?) divorce on the horizon are looking pretty grim.
Laughn (954 words)
Everyone knows by now how endlessly I loved this ship back before JJ took some of the bad Nocturne and killed it. I mean, Lauren saved Vaughn from the depths of his despair over Syd’s death, and made him into something human again. Yeah, Vaughn would always remember the love he had for Syd, but he had this new person who could make him happy, and who he finally did let himself love. They weren’t all fire and grand epic romance like SV was, but they trusted and depended on one another, and they did show affection. She was always afraid that he would leave her for Sydney, and he kept on reassuring her, not, I think, just out of a sense of duty because she was his wife, but because he cared for her as a person and didn’t want to see her hurt. And she was totally sweet about the whole thing, and despite her reservations, she came to respect Syd a lot, and tried to at least be civil with her.
I think the big thing about Laughn pre-Full Disclosure was that they really did trust one another so completely, and they both wanted to be honest with one another. It was killing them when they had to lie to one another before Lauren went to Russia to talk to that weird guy about her accent. It also doesn’t seem to have occurred to Lauren to lie to Vaughn about turning Sydney in, even knowing that he would be so angry with her. In many ways, this early Lauren was such an idealist, and that was something new to Vaughn. When Vaughn met Syd, she’d been jaded by so many awful things in such a short time. Danny’s death, and the revelation that SD-6 was actually a terrorist organization had made Syd in many ways a less trusting person, and for good reason. However, Vaughn was really hurt in season two when Syd thought that he was evil. It would have been comforting to have someone like Lauren, who would trust him completely, and who he felt he could trust in the same way.
Another issue that drew Vaughn to Lauren was that she was someone that he could protect. It was his job to protect Syd, but a part of him always knew that she didn’t really need it. From the episodes that I’ve seen, Vaughn has always had faith that Syd would make it out of any situation that she managed to get herself into. They always had each other’s backs. But he wasn’t there to save Syd when he lost her, so his penance was a relationship where he WOULD always be there. He went completely batshit on Jack’s ass for having thugs threaten he and Lauren in Mexico, because he hadn’t been able to protect her, and he pitched a spaz attack when she suggested that Syd hit her to keep their cover. So Lauren’s helplessness was an attraction of sorts for Vaughn, because of his white knight complex. She wanted to feel safe in this new scary spy world, and he wanted to protect someone.
So, Vaughn and Lauren were married and totally cute and I adored them. Then things went to hell.
Now, a lot of stuff from the end of season three doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I’m going to try. Vaughn was having a harder time denying his feelings for Syd, and Lauren’s true affiliation suddenly started showing in her makeup choices. During this time, Vaughn set up shop in Egypt and tried desperately to make it seem like he and his wife didn’t need marriage counseling. Vaughn was completely absorbed in whatever conflict he was having over Syd - did he love her? Did he not? What was he going to do? - and Lauren was kind of left out in the cold. However, she still seemed to show some genuine affection for Vaughn. This is probably because, even when he was ignoring her, Vaughn was one of the kindest people that she had in her life. He was someone that she’d always been good enough for, which didn’t happen often to her. She was very distraught over the thought of him dying in North Korea. I think it’s interesting that she became so much more cold and distant (and started sleeping with Sark, heh) only AFTER Cole showed her evidence that Vaughn was cheating. He’d betrayed her, and she was going to make him pay. It was more than the annoyance of a professional who has been thwarted one too many times. She really did look heartbroken, and I think seeing whatever Cole showed her helped her to do the horrible things she did near the end of the season.
Interestingly, even when Vaughn found out that Lauren was evil, he still maintained that old trust that they had shared earlier in their relationship. After he’d been tortured, she told him a story about how she still loved him and he accepted it without question. He put up a token resistance to her help, but he allowed it. So Lauren’s betrayal after that was what destroyed the small amount of shippiness left between them. She had betrayed him, and used his love for her against him, and for that he would destroy her.
Then, of course, there is that absolutely lovely speech of Lauren’s about how she fell in love with him and wanted to tell him the truth, which turned out to be a lie that Vaughn didn’t even try to believe. And then he killed her, and she haunted him, and the beautiful ship is now nothing more than some algae-covered ruins on the ocean floor. Damn you, JJ!
Kyp/Tahiri (61 words)
So. I love Kyp. It’s probably because he’s angsty. I know next to nothing about Tahiri, since I couldn’t make it through the NJO, but I remember Tahiri being a fairly happy person. Maybe Tahiri’s sunny outlook would be able to help Kyp to finally forgive himself for Carida, if she could forgive him, and love him despite what he’d done.
Neiss (332 words)
I really wanted to hate this ship before the season started, because they’d never really met and it was a badfic ship, and SWeiss is my OTP, so it kind of made me do the meh dance. But then they met on the show, and they are just SO CUTE that it is impossible for me to hate them. I’ve given up resisting, because they will be glorious until my shipping them makes something bad happen.
There’s not really much question as to what first attracted Weiss to Nadia, as she is easily the most beautiful girl for miles and she lives in his building. But it’s obviously more than that, since they seem to be taking it slow and succeeding much better than their main character counterparts. Nadia’s smart, and she laughs at his jokes, and she thinks the Houdini thing is cool (she likes magic, after all). She goes along with his crazy idea of the moment with a smile.
What’s a little more complex is what drew Nadia to Weiss. I think the main thing here is that he’s genuine. He blushes, and sometimes he says stupid things, but they’re always sincere stupid things. Nadia’s grown up with so many lies, and people trying to hurt her, and now there’s this person who has no ulterior motive. She can let her guard down and not worry about being hurt. Also, for Nadia, Weiss is probably the only person in the office who looks at her and doesn’t see Irina. Sloane and Jack obviously see Irina first, and I think even Syd does, though not intentionally. So Nadia has all this extra stuff to live up to, and other pressures from these people to be certain things because she looks like Laura did in some thirty year old photograph. Weiss has no emotional investment in Irina, so with him she can just be Nadia. Also, Weiss totally loves her endlessly, and poor little orphan Nadia is starved for that affection.
Angstleech/Stella (210 words)
This ship is one of my few slash ships. Of course, fangirls don’t seem to see that it has a definite timeframe where it works, and everywhere else, it doesn’t. Sasame obsessed after Takako, but she never noticed him, because she was too busy having a crush on Hayate, who didn’t return her affection. Because of this, Takako became Princess of Disaster and ended up frozen in a scary giant tree to keep her from killing the worlds.
Now, at this point, Hayate is an angsty leech, because he blames himself for what happened. Sasame is an angsty and slightly snarky radio show host. He also blames Hayate for what happened, judging from a few comments he made in the anime. Now Sasame is lonely and Hayate blames himself for the deaths of the knights who fell against Takako, which is the perfect time for the two of them to start an angsty and slightly angry/violent relationship. By the time Hayate meets and falls for Himeno, their little hypothetical affair or whatever is in the past, but they still are very close because of it, as all the millions of slashy pictures Yubs sent me show.
So, to sum it up, their love is so subtexty that it’s practically canon.
SWeiss (319 words)
Okay, so this is like, my Alias OTP. It’s all Hannah’s fault. Hannah and her badfic that made me all shippy. So, there are so many reasons that this ship is great. Not so much now that he’s dating her sister, but back in season three, especially.
In season three, Syd was scared and alone and had no place to live or anything, and Weiss really took her under his wing. He sat with her and listened to her drunken sob stories about how much she missed Vaughn, and made her laugh when she was miserable. He really did listen to what she had to say, and he remembered it, buying her thoughtful presents like that Alice book she mentioned missing. She always seemed at ease with him, since he had no expectations of her. He was just happy with her being Syd. They also had some great banter near the beginning of the third season, especially that time they went to Mexico together for the mission. She was just so playful around him, grousing about her costume and taking silly pictures of him with her glasses.
Of course, the problem was that Weiss really did want to help her, which meant not saying anything about the fairly obvious crush he had on her. Sure, he dropped hints from time to time, but they were always silly so that if she freaked out he could say that it was just a joke. (For example, the ‘maybe she likes you’ thing from Nemesis) And, although Syd was happier around Weiss than anyone else, he became her best friend. A sort of a replacement Francie.
And then she got Vaughn back, and obsessed, and my ship died. However, the great thing is that they managed to stay close and keep being friends. Syd really needs to laugh more, and no matter how stupid she gets, he’ll always be there for her.
GSR (162 words)
This ship bothers me, mainly because it hits my biggest squick, which is the authority figure/subordinate thing. Also, Sara pines, and pining really really annoys me. It’s not even like Grissom is that great. Unless Sara WANTS an emotionally distant jerk as a boyfriend, which I doubt she does. She’s not Catherine.
I think that Sara has built up this image of Grissom in her head, and she’s always disappointed when the real Grissom deviates from this image in the slightest. Sara needs approval and acceptance, which she does get from Grissom on occasion, because she is good at her job, and understands him when he blabbers on about science.
Grissom, on the other hand, is tougher to understand. Why does he want Sara? Is it because she’s vulnerable, or because she’s forbidden, or for some other reason that I can’t even fathom? It seems to me that TPTB only made him pseudo-reciprocate her feelings to make more angst, which is annoying.
Narcissa/Lucius (133 words)
The fanon portrayal of this ship bugs me, because I really don’t see Narcissa as the battered wife cowering in fear at all. After all, knowing how Rowling likes names, Narcissa is probably rather self-absorbed. Also, assuming that she was a Slytherin, she does have ambition to get something for herself. Being married to someone rich like Lucius would give her the resources that she needed to further those ambitions, and exercise her power over House Elves and such. I think their marriage was more political than anything else, but I also think that they do at least like each other, as Draco seems very close to both his parents. I think that if they’d hated each other, they would have tried to turn their son on one another as he got older.
Sam/Martin (228 words)
This is another ship that I am totally ashamed to like. I really wanted to hate it, because I know that Sam is going to drop Martin’s poor heart on the floor and shatter it into a million tiny pieces, but they are just SO CUTE. Martin’s always had a bit of a crush on Sam, even when she was super mean to him. Sam is a tough FBI agent, but on the other hand she’s very emotionally vulnerable and she needs him. I think right now, Martin’s still reeling from the fact that Sam even wants to be with him. He always seems so surprised. Sam and Martin both share that trauma from their respective shootings, but I think their relationship has moved beyond that. Martin wants to make Sam happy, and Sam really WANTS to be happy, but it’s almost like she can’t let herself because something bad might happen. An interesting thing is that Sam always picked relationships that were sort of ‘dangerous’ or wrong in some way, like her affairs with Keller, Jack, and possibly Dr Fred, and her very short marriage when she was young. In contrast, Martin is very ‘safe’. There’s not that rush of doing something forbidden that Sam seems to almost crave. Maybe she’s finally settling down a bit. Or my ship is dying. I wonder which is more likely.