![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Answers to that pairing meme!
I thought you'd be interested in reading each other's requests, so here are the answers. Anyone else?
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vervassal - Christine/no one ("Think she could do it?")
The first thing I think about when you say "Christine/No One" is the ending of the 1943 Rains!POTO, which I've always loved. However watered-down the story is, that ending (as flippant as it is) has what I believe to be an unintended truth.
That Christine is, at heart, ambitious.
It's sidelined a lot by her characterization in Leroux, and even more in adaptations. She's listless in her studies; didn't distinguish herself at the conservatory. But at the same time, the Phantom's tutelage of her reawakens not only her talent but her desire for it--the desire that died when her father did. And as interesting as the love triangle is (including its Elektra overtones), it's also possible for me to see her as not thinking about romance until Raoul comes along and forces Erik's hand, too. The faceless, bodiless Phantom doesn't represent love but ambition; she "gives her soul" not to a man but to an ideal.
Heaven knows what might have happened had Raoul not shown up. Where would Erik have gone from there? And how much of Erik's regard was caught up in her artistic potential? If Christine had become reigning diva, how would the approbation and financial security have changed her?
I think, had Raoul not arrived, Erik would have stayed his hand for a bit; and things might have been very different. If Christine's confidence had been suitably built up, her decisions when it came to romantic matters (inasmuch as they conflict with career) may have been very different.
Now there is a fic waiting to happen. Thanks for asking me and making me think about this.
inlaterdays - Mulder/Krycek
You may be disappointed, though not surprised, to know that my love for Scully caused the M/K ship to exist as a sort of unrealized possibility in my mind. I am not immune to their sexual tension, and enjoy the little cues in the text (speedo, gun/kiss). But I never explored it heavily, because soon after falling in love with XF, I realized that my love was mostly for Scully.
That said, they definitely work. They art a dark mirror of Mulder/Scully, in the sense that while Scully was meant to be a mole of sorts and turned out to be Mulder's perfect partner, Krycek was the one who turned against him. At the same time, you can draw parallels between the M/S and M/K dynamic to envision an exciting tension between those two potentialities. And I think that's mostly how I enjoy the ship--as a companion to M/S, a foil.
For sheer hotness factor? Oh yes.
dangerousdame - Sherlock Holmes/Irene Adler ("outside the verse")
I don't have the (old school) Sherlockian knee-jerk reaction against Holmes finding some sexual self in pastiche fiction. But as yet, I'm not sure I've been satisfied with any treatments of Holmes/Irene I've seen. This may be due in part to Irene inhabiting such a huge corner of the fandom, despite being a character in one story. She seems to be the only (female) possibility for Holmes, and that rigidity--and the relentlessly literal interpretation of Watson's waxing romantic about "the Woman"--kind of turns me off. It's as if we've all decided she's the only possibility, so we must bring them together. And that perversely makes me dislike it for its obviousness.
That said, I don't see much of the sexual about his feelings for her in the canon. I don't mean to say they're absolutely not there, but that I don't believe the canonical Holmes would ever admit it, let alone act upon it. I see him as having made a choice against sensuality (aside from the pleasures of tobacco, among other things) for any number of reasons and I see his mind as fully capable of partitioning off that aspect. So I don't see it as a possibility.
I could, however, enjoy a well-written and psychologically complex treatment of Holmes and Irene in some sort of sexual relationship. It would not offend me unless it was simplistic and too defined by Watson's babbling about her.
vampire_cookies - Buffy/Faith ("I personally find them kind of hot, but in
the grand scale of "plausibility," does it make sense to you?")
I wish I found B/F more hot than I do. I don't know why I feel lukewarm towards them--I suspect that part of it is my overwhelming lust for Spike might cause any ship without him to pale. So I've never read much of it, aside from what crops up sometimes in primarily Spike/Buffy fic.
I do, however, think that the possibility of it would rely on Buffy being a different person than she is when she meets Faith. The Buffy of S6 is a lot more receptive (for whatever reason) to that which she would once have termed Faith's gig. I can't see them hooking up in high school unless things went very differently; she's on the road to admiring Faith's looseness with the "rules," but nothing has happened to her yet to make her actively want to break them. And I'd expect her to think a relationship with Faith was wrong, in some sense of the word. Or at least inappropriate.
In terms of PWP, it doesn't work well for me because I'm not coming at it from a sexually-charged opinion of their relationship. I can however envision a well-plotted and
psychologically viable story which would be hot--but there's just something I'm missing that makes me unable to find Faith alluring enough.
metalmyersjason - Erik/Nadir
By Erik/Nadir I assume you mean Kay. The reason I differentiate is that I think there would be a different dynamic, depending on which author's characters you were trying to get together. The sensuality so apparent in Kay's Erik is very helpful in establishing the possibility; and the thought it even brought up, which Erik rejects for the reason that he had seen women leaving Nadir's apartment.
It hardly follows, as far as I'm concerned, that that proves Nadir's tastes lie only towards women. For it is also clear that Nadir has never known a man like Erik. Aside from his dead wife and child, and perhaps even surpassing them, Erik is the most interesting, compelling, and life-changing person he has ever known. Something drives him to follow behind, to make minute study of Erik's life, to defend him to others. This of course doesn't always lead men to sex. But it seems to me that the foundation is well established.
In my personal view of things, or at least the way I tend to think about them, it is Nadir who realizes (to his shame) his feelings for Erik--and not until well after he's moved to Paris. Sometime during the events of Christine and Raoul, Nadir begins to suspect ulterior motives in his own interest. I like to think of him struggling with this. And I like to think of it as an attraction to the lawlessness Nadir wishes he could claim for himself. As a goody-goody myself, I recognize the useless desire to be "bad," even when it is impossible for one's temperament. This is what I see behind Nadir's desire; a desire for the dark within himself. If he is Erik's conscience, Erik is his heart. And Nadir, furthermore, will always know that Erik has already given his away.
girlflesh - Erik/V
My, this is an interesting one. Now, I confess that my love for V is almost wholly based on his (and the movie's) superficial similarities to Phantom. So shipping them together is sort of like shipping Juliet and Maria. Only way hotter, obviously. Or uglier. Whichever. Much more screwed up, for sure.
Getting them together would, I think, be somewhat difficult. They might sympathize with each other; and if V could sufficiently radicalize Erik (beyond Erik's own petty revenge) they could work together. But they are so driven, so obsessed about attaining their own ends, that any sort of mutual relationship seems extraneous. A stopgap to ease the pain of their respective tragedies; but not a solution for them. I don't see it "working out," even if it happened. They are far too serious about their own ends to be distracted. And that's assuming that creatures so convinced of their own ugliness could stomach loving one who looked just as bad.
vervassal - Christine/no one ("Think she could do it?")The first thing I think about when you say "Christine/No One" is the ending of the 1943 Rains!POTO, which I've always loved. However watered-down the story is, that ending (as flippant as it is) has what I believe to be an unintended truth.
That Christine is, at heart, ambitious.
It's sidelined a lot by her characterization in Leroux, and even more in adaptations. She's listless in her studies; didn't distinguish herself at the conservatory. But at the same time, the Phantom's tutelage of her reawakens not only her talent but her desire for it--the desire that died when her father did. And as interesting as the love triangle is (including its Elektra overtones), it's also possible for me to see her as not thinking about romance until Raoul comes along and forces Erik's hand, too. The faceless, bodiless Phantom doesn't represent love but ambition; she "gives her soul" not to a man but to an ideal.
Heaven knows what might have happened had Raoul not shown up. Where would Erik have gone from there? And how much of Erik's regard was caught up in her artistic potential? If Christine had become reigning diva, how would the approbation and financial security have changed her?
I think, had Raoul not arrived, Erik would have stayed his hand for a bit; and things might have been very different. If Christine's confidence had been suitably built up, her decisions when it came to romantic matters (inasmuch as they conflict with career) may have been very different.
Now there is a fic waiting to happen. Thanks for asking me and making me think about this.
inlaterdays - Mulder/KrycekYou may be disappointed, though not surprised, to know that my love for Scully caused the M/K ship to exist as a sort of unrealized possibility in my mind. I am not immune to their sexual tension, and enjoy the little cues in the text (speedo, gun/kiss). But I never explored it heavily, because soon after falling in love with XF, I realized that my love was mostly for Scully.
That said, they definitely work. They art a dark mirror of Mulder/Scully, in the sense that while Scully was meant to be a mole of sorts and turned out to be Mulder's perfect partner, Krycek was the one who turned against him. At the same time, you can draw parallels between the M/S and M/K dynamic to envision an exciting tension between those two potentialities. And I think that's mostly how I enjoy the ship--as a companion to M/S, a foil.
For sheer hotness factor? Oh yes.
dangerousdame - Sherlock Holmes/Irene Adler ("outside the verse")I don't have the (old school) Sherlockian knee-jerk reaction against Holmes finding some sexual self in pastiche fiction. But as yet, I'm not sure I've been satisfied with any treatments of Holmes/Irene I've seen. This may be due in part to Irene inhabiting such a huge corner of the fandom, despite being a character in one story. She seems to be the only (female) possibility for Holmes, and that rigidity--and the relentlessly literal interpretation of Watson's waxing romantic about "the Woman"--kind of turns me off. It's as if we've all decided she's the only possibility, so we must bring them together. And that perversely makes me dislike it for its obviousness.
That said, I don't see much of the sexual about his feelings for her in the canon. I don't mean to say they're absolutely not there, but that I don't believe the canonical Holmes would ever admit it, let alone act upon it. I see him as having made a choice against sensuality (aside from the pleasures of tobacco, among other things) for any number of reasons and I see his mind as fully capable of partitioning off that aspect. So I don't see it as a possibility.
I could, however, enjoy a well-written and psychologically complex treatment of Holmes and Irene in some sort of sexual relationship. It would not offend me unless it was simplistic and too defined by Watson's babbling about her.
vampire_cookies - Buffy/Faith ("I personally find them kind of hot, but inthe grand scale of "plausibility," does it make sense to you?")
I wish I found B/F more hot than I do. I don't know why I feel lukewarm towards them--I suspect that part of it is my overwhelming lust for Spike might cause any ship without him to pale. So I've never read much of it, aside from what crops up sometimes in primarily Spike/Buffy fic.
I do, however, think that the possibility of it would rely on Buffy being a different person than she is when she meets Faith. The Buffy of S6 is a lot more receptive (for whatever reason) to that which she would once have termed Faith's gig. I can't see them hooking up in high school unless things went very differently; she's on the road to admiring Faith's looseness with the "rules," but nothing has happened to her yet to make her actively want to break them. And I'd expect her to think a relationship with Faith was wrong, in some sense of the word. Or at least inappropriate.
In terms of PWP, it doesn't work well for me because I'm not coming at it from a sexually-charged opinion of their relationship. I can however envision a well-plotted and
psychologically viable story which would be hot--but there's just something I'm missing that makes me unable to find Faith alluring enough.
metalmyersjason - Erik/NadirBy Erik/Nadir I assume you mean Kay. The reason I differentiate is that I think there would be a different dynamic, depending on which author's characters you were trying to get together. The sensuality so apparent in Kay's Erik is very helpful in establishing the possibility; and the thought it even brought up, which Erik rejects for the reason that he had seen women leaving Nadir's apartment.
It hardly follows, as far as I'm concerned, that that proves Nadir's tastes lie only towards women. For it is also clear that Nadir has never known a man like Erik. Aside from his dead wife and child, and perhaps even surpassing them, Erik is the most interesting, compelling, and life-changing person he has ever known. Something drives him to follow behind, to make minute study of Erik's life, to defend him to others. This of course doesn't always lead men to sex. But it seems to me that the foundation is well established.
In my personal view of things, or at least the way I tend to think about them, it is Nadir who realizes (to his shame) his feelings for Erik--and not until well after he's moved to Paris. Sometime during the events of Christine and Raoul, Nadir begins to suspect ulterior motives in his own interest. I like to think of him struggling with this. And I like to think of it as an attraction to the lawlessness Nadir wishes he could claim for himself. As a goody-goody myself, I recognize the useless desire to be "bad," even when it is impossible for one's temperament. This is what I see behind Nadir's desire; a desire for the dark within himself. If he is Erik's conscience, Erik is his heart. And Nadir, furthermore, will always know that Erik has already given his away.
girlflesh - Erik/VMy, this is an interesting one. Now, I confess that my love for V is almost wholly based on his (and the movie's) superficial similarities to Phantom. So shipping them together is sort of like shipping Juliet and Maria. Only way hotter, obviously. Or uglier. Whichever. Much more screwed up, for sure.
Getting them together would, I think, be somewhat difficult. They might sympathize with each other; and if V could sufficiently radicalize Erik (beyond Erik's own petty revenge) they could work together. But they are so driven, so obsessed about attaining their own ends, that any sort of mutual relationship seems extraneous. A stopgap to ease the pain of their respective tragedies; but not a solution for them. I don't see it "working out," even if it happened. They are far too serious about their own ends to be distracted. And that's assuming that creatures so convinced of their own ugliness could stomach loving one who looked just as bad.
no subject
(I am here via
no subject