Pairing memes!

[sister_dear]

Give me a character and I will give you my:

+ OTP for them.
+ Runner-up pairing.
+ Honorable mention(s).
+ Crack pairing(s). (Which, to quote eerian_sadow, I am interpreting as "non-standard pairing which sometimes turns humorous.")
+ Ship everyone else seems to like, but I don't. (alternately: ship I like that everyone else seems to hate)

Alternatively, here's one

Comments

[sister_dear]

Here there be minor spoilers for Bayverse IDW Arcee. Nothing you won't see in her wiki pages.

Bayverse Arcee/herself or Arcee/Chromia/Elita intrigues the heck out of me. Probably because there started out being so little canon info about her, and what we do have now is all conflicting. All of that catches my interest, because it means there are so many ways you can approach her.

You can treat her as one mind occupying three separate bodies. This fits the fact that in the movies they only ever call her Arcee. In a romantic story following that scenario, she can almost be treated as aromantic, not interested in a relationship with anyone else but still with the physical benefits of having three separate bodies. That would be interesting on a purely physical, sexual level, but it’s also interesting because what would that be like? To all of them be equally one person, but able to have herself in three completely different places, or to have your bodies work in perfect synchronization in battle, using six arms as easily as two. She’s also originally one person in one body, if you want to bring in some comic canon, forced into three separate bodies against her will. There’s all kinds of self exploration and angst and personal growth you can get into with that.

Her toy bios and pre-war IDW comics, on the other hand, seem to treat her as three completely separate characters. In that case, it’s femmeslash OT3 heaven. Now comic!Arcee’s tendency to second guess her abilities can be balanced by the more headstrong, gun-toting Chromia, with Elita’s experience and leadership to round them out, to pull Chromia back when she needs to be and encourage Arcee when she needs a kick forward. You’ve also now got a scientist/soldier/leader triangle that is not dissimilar to Ratchet/Ironhide/Optimus or Starscream/Soundwave/Megatron. IDW has them refer to each other as sisters, and I like to do with that what fandom does with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker; not necessarily related in the biological sense, but in the “we’ve stuck by each other for eons and nothing is going to break us apart” sense.

And then there’s the middle ground, where they’re distinguishable personalities but still the same person, kind of a symbiosis. This is the IDW post-movie comic Arcee. She’s intriguing to me for the same reason as the first scenario; it’s just so different from anything I as a human have experienced. According to that same part of canon they’ve got the same emotional link people like to portray bonded couples - or twins - as having in fanfic. Only this seems to be carried one step further, because they’re almost the same person. So where does one stop and the other end? Do they even know? Again, in this scenario they’ve been forced into their separate bodies, so do they take comfort in having each other always there or is it terrifying, feeling constantly like they might meld completely into one person? Or maybe that individualness is something they wouldn’t mind losing; maybe it would be easier to be all the same person instead of constantly teetering on the brink of it.

And if you start tossing other people into the pairing mix it gets all the more complicated. XD

[mmouse15]

That is fascinating. Thank you, I really enjoyed reading this!