Shipping Meme

[dragoness_e]

Ganked from half my flist:

Ask me why I 'ship something. Why I'm into any particular 'ship or even why I'm *not* into another ship? Ex: What is it you like about so-and-so or why don't you like so-and-so? (Basically just ask me to explain m'self about why I like something about a ship, or how I feel about anything in particular about a couple, etc.)

Alternately ask me the same thing about liking/disliking specific characters or general series.

Comments

[beckyh2112.livejournal.com]

Talk Dead End/Breakdown to me.

[dragoness-e.livejournal.com]

Intra-Stunticon pairing, for one. Breakdown likes Dead End because Dead End is (a) civil, and (b) quite non-threatening, since he's usually sunk in an apathetic, depressive funk. Also, Dead End seems to care about him, trying to talk him out of the fits of screaming paranoia when all Breakdown wants to do is hide in a closet somewhere where no one can look at him!

Dead End likes Breakdown because he's not a loud, noisy, obnoxious jerk. Breakdown is vulnerable, and comforting Breakdown out of his fits gives Dead End something less meaningless to do than the usual. Breakdown is not alone among the Stunticons in worrying about Dead End when the Deadster goes off the deep end in one of his funks, but he's the mostly likely to tease Dead End out of it by seducing him.

[ravenclaw-devi.livejournal.com]

Why Starscream/Skyfire?

[dragoness-e.livejournal.com]

Because it was a canonical pairing with a really great back-story (not to mention a canonical tragic break-up), more than you usually got in the cartoon. It pairs up the second-most-dangerous Decepticon with the second-most-dangerous Autobot. What's not to love here?

I can't make S1-2 Starscream work with S1-2 Skyfire, though. He's too unrepentantly mean, too much the treacherous, evil Decepticon, and very unlikely to forgive Skyfire for "betraying" him by deserting the Decepticons, not to mention embarrassing him in front of Megatron. And S2 Skyfire very obviously got over any inhibitions he had against blowing Decepticon Seekers into widdle-bitty bits.

However... S3 Starscream is a 'whole 'nother kettle of fish'. We only see him for two episodes, but he's definitely mellowed out compared to the old Starscream. Less vicious, a bit more fun-loving--though his ideas of "fun" are major headaches to everyone else. He actually tries to help out an old friend. (Save me from his idea of "help", but he tried). He seems indifferent to Autobot vs. Decepticon, now--all he cares about is Starscream vs. Galvatron.

I also see the hypothetical S3 Skyfire as very lonely and emotionally vulnerable--most of his old friends are 9 million years gone, the Cybertron he knew is 9 million years dead, and thanks to the events of TF:TM, most of his new friends and his one surviving old friend/lover (Starscream), are dead.

Thus the possibility of reviving an old friendship into a new friendship/romance.

[wrongly-amused.livejournal.com]

I was gonna force you to be nostalgic for a moment and ask why you like Raditz, but then it hit me that the answer was clearly "pretty hair."

SO NOW I SHALL ASK - what made you decide to include Prowl/Jazz in your canon? :-)

[dragoness-e.livejournal.com]

*grins* Yes, it was the hair that seduced me.

I just liked the Prowl/Jazz stories I'd read and it just seemed to work. Of course, the only Prowl/Jazz I've written is just as valid as "good friends" as anything else.