Finding out that in flower language, orange roses are used to symbolize passion/desire/the want to move from a friendship to a romance because they are literally a cross between yellow roses (friendship) and red roses (love).
Struck with the realization that the roses that Artemis' spirit grew at the end of TLG are ORANGE. After feeling a "tremendous affection" for Holly. Thinking of her as beautiful and magical. Noticing her scent. Kissing her forehead. Calling her his dearest friend. Thanking her for fixing a broken boy. WERE BEING CALLED FAIRY ROSES.
Its been like ten years and I've fallen back into my classic otp of holly short and Artemis fowl they are my emotionally constipated in love idiots fight me
You know... I've realized the things I ship the hardest share some interesting traits. And I decided to sum them up right here! :D
That may sound... odd xD but see, what I mean is that there's nobody who could take their place in the world. It's not like in real life, where you meet someone, and it might work out, but if it doesn't you just move on and wait for someone else to show up. You look for common interests and the sort while looking for a new mate (haha, I sound as if I were narrating a documentary on human behavior...), and... I guess that's pretty much the way it is. I speak mostly from what I've seen, of course, I really haven't experienced any of this directly xD
The thing with my ships is that neither of the characters could even imagine replacing the other with a random anyone.
Let's illustrate each trait with our exemplary ships... and the first one of them is Jisbon! Jane has already showed us he's completely unwilling to replace Lisbon with anyone else. He has had other bosses forced on him... and he just won't work with them. He spent an entire episode getting rid of a group he was assigned to so that he could get his old crew back. To Jane, Lisbon is Lisbon, and nobody else could ever replace her in his life.
As for her... well, seriously, who could ever even dream of finding another person to fill in Jane's shoes? Jane is Jane! There is NOBODY like Jane, no matter how you look at it xD as much as he ticks her off and keeps getting on her bad side, Lisbon knows just as well as we do that he's one of a kind, and even if he drives her crazy, she really wouldn't have anyone else in his place.
Another trait I found in my ships... is the forbidden edge of the relationship. If it's easy, if the hardships are common and typical (like a romantic triangle or something), the ship won't be in my top ships, simple as that. Forbidden love, something that simply goes against the forces of logic, nature, culture, common sense, you name it, provides with a crazily interesting dynamic you just have to love!
The obvious example here... my current OTP, Sokkla! Sokka and Azula, in love... it screams forbidden, it screams wrong, and it also screams PERFECT! Be it in canon (weeeell, given how little I care for canon settings lately, you don't need to take this into account...) or in my alternate version of canon, Gladiator, a great deal of their relationship's quality relies on this very factor. He's everything she should despise, she is everything he should hate... but oh, why is it so hard to hate the other and so easy to love them instead?
In canon settings it's a little simpler than it is in Gladiator. Set post-finale, it still screams forbidden and wrong. She's Fire Nation, his former enemy, and he's Water Tribe, her former enemy. His sister helped to bring her down, her brother is one of his best friends... these circumstances make it seem like it's completely banned, like it can't happen. But yes, because of those circumsntances I can assure you, you drop those two in an uninhabited island together and soon enough there will be three instead of two.
In Gladiator... oh, god, where should we start? They're both from opposite nations, they ought to hate each other to the utmost... and in a way, they do. Everything about him irks her, everything about her displeases him. She's a Princess, has had an easy not really life, and he's a slave/gladiator who has known anything but easy. Their ways of thought conflict at all times, they don't understand how the other can be so blind to the ways of the world... yet the fun thing is, they've found a way around those things that should tear them apart. And once they've learned to live with their differences, when they accept and respect the other for who he/she is... oh, boy, that's when all the feelings come into play and those feelings are simply unstoppable.
Because yes, it's forbidden, and yes, they shouldn't like each other in the slightest. They're so different... but they're also so alike! Ah, I could ramble on about Sokkla forever, but let's carry on!
Another trait! There's something a bit curious about the way I ship things... this topic is, borrowing Lady Gaga's phrase, "I don't wannna be friends". I've come to realize that I root for the ship like crazy... but when they're not actually friends. Once they're friends, I end up thinking they ought to stay friends.
Artemis and Holly from Artemis Fowl were the ones who led me to this conclusion. They're something really special xD the dynamics between the characters are priceless, and they keep true to the two factors I mentioned above... but from Book 4 onwards, they see each other as friends. I still thought I wanted them together after that... until Book 6, A.K.A. the Kiss book, happened... and when it did I entered a crazy phase of denial, and I had absolutely no idea why. For some reason I was sure it would be best if they didn't give in to the feelings they were experiencing... and then, years later, I realized why I started thinking like this: their friendship was so beautiful and brilliant as it was that they really didn't need more than that. Even if Artemis ended up marrying another woman, if Holly found herself a nice elf down in Haven, the bond between them would ALWAYS be stronger than that. They're best friends, the bestest of best friends! Their friendship is so precious, so wonderful that I really wouldn't have had it any other way
(now, of course, any other AxH fan might think otherwise and you're perfectly entitled to think I'm crazy, I just ended up appreciating it this way)
So yeah, once they accept being friends, I find a friendship to be good enough because that bond will last forever. Same goes for Jisbon, I like them as a couple but if they don't hook up, I won't lose my mind over the matter. It's fine by me if they stay good friends, well, best friends, always.
Yet we have the opposite case with another ship! Kalulu, my former OTP... that beautiful and hellish OTP... I don't think Kallen and Lelouch ever reached the stage of being comfortable by considering the other a friend. Perhaps back when they both were at Ashford they would act the part... but back then that wasn't the real Kallen, and it wasn't the real Lelouch either. As Q-1 and Zero, they're partners, they work together, she protects him and he protects the japanese and the rebels. Later, when the cat's out of the bag, they're still not really friends. She's not sure if she can trust him, but he trusts her. Yet the quality of that trust isn't that of friends... it's of something else I just don't have a name for xD (and that something is a recurrent phase ALL my ships have, the "more-than-friends-but-still-not-lovers" stage).
I don't recall any instances in which Lelouch regarded Kallen as his friend... and I'm sure Kallen never regarded him as one either. Her sights were obviously set beyond that. And so I shipped these two crazily and I was heartbroken beyond repair with that cruel scene in which she kissed him and my feels went HIIIIIGH and then she said goodbye and my feels fell to the ground, crashed and burned...
Another shared trait is that the characters in these ships work together, one way or another. Sokka and Azula are gladiator and sponsor (speaking exclusively of Gladiator here), Artemis and Holly are the tag team everyone goes to whenever things get nasty between the humans and the fairies, Lelouch and Kallen are Mr. Head Terrorist and his loyal bodyguard, and Jane and Lisbon are in the same unit in the CBI. Yet even though they work together, meaning they get to see each other at all times (well, we shouldn't consider AxH in that bit because they don't get to see each other that often), they still wish they could spend more time together! Isn't it amazing? :D
Those four ships are probably the ones I ship the hardest, the ones I love the most... and curiously, they share all these traits :D and who knows if more! I hadn't really noticed they all had these same characteristics, and it's funny to think they do xD it wasn't until I looked at them carefully that I realized they were similar like this, because I used to think they were quite different... and they are, but they're also quite alike! ^^
Thanks for reading my rambling if you bothered with it! :D
