Musings on pairings across fandoms and Doctor Who thoughts

[selenay]

Some recent debates on ship versus slash and so on have started me thinking about why and how I get interested in a pairing. Over the years I have read and/or written het and slash pairings. I've been a Buffy/Willow, Buffy/Faith, Buffy/Giles, Buffy/Spike (before it became canon), Willow/Angel, Willow/Cordelia and Buffy/Cordelia gal in the Buffy fandom.

Random aside: Wow, that's a long list!

I've been a Jack/Daniel and Sam/Janet fan in SG. It's Sheppard/McKay and Teyla/Elizabeth in SGA. I've quite happily seen the ship between The Doctor/Rose and even read odds bits of fic. I'm equally happy with Doctor/Jack as well and it's one fandom where I thoroughly enjoy gen stories. There are a lot of fandoms where I have no dedicated pairing and will read anything provided I know who the characters are.

The thing that got me thinking is that the lists above don't include any canon pairings. One could argue that Doctor/Rose is supported by TPTB to an extend on DW, but it's not something we see explicitly stated on-screen (although you don't have to read between the lines much to get there). Half the DW fandom exploded when Jack kissed the Doctor, but otherwise there is no canon evidence of a sexual relationship between them.

I've been cheerfully thinking for years that one of the reasons I latch onto a pairing is that it's not a canon one. Witness my Buffy list - not a canon pairing on the list and Buffy/Angel is the pairing that I'm least interested in for fanfic and so on. Even in fandoms where I'm pretty indescriminate in the fanfic I read, it's not the canon pairings that I read: I almost anything but Harry/Ginny and Ron/Hermione goes in Harry Potter.

It's an easy conclusion to draw. I'm just not interested in what I'm already getting in the text. In fandoms with no canon pairings, I shy away from pairings that are endorsed in some way by TPTB because, half the time, they just make no sense to me and the rest of the time it's too easy and over-hyped.

Except lately there have been some noticable variations from that. Doctor/Rose, while not explicitly stated on screen, is the apparent choice of TPTB yet I have no problems reading the text that way and I will quite happily read Doctor/Rose fic.

The biggest exception to the rule has to be Torchwood. I was making Jack/Ianto comments at around episode 3 of season 1, long before we had anything canon on screen, but even now that it's canon I'm still devouring fic, discussion and art.

Thinking about it a bit more, the reason why I'm loving Jack/Ianto is that there is still so much to explore in their relationship. This isn't a relationship where we get to see everything and the characters are endlessly discussing it. It keeps the relationship interesting, leaves room for endless discussion and speculation and a ton of material for fanficcers to play with. Pairings like Buffy/Angel are there as explicit text, every inch of their relationship explored and discussed on the screen in front of us, which doesn't make leave much for us to or speculate about. There are writers who get mileage out of fanfic about Buffy/Angel, but I'm not interested in reading it because (for me) there isn't a huge amount to add.

I always used to think that my preferences were connected to the popularity (or lack thereof) of the pairing. I'm not usually into the hyped, most popular pairings even if they aren't canon. Again, that theory falls down when I hit Torchwood because Jack/Ianto is far and away the most popular pairing. One could also argue that Sheppard/McKay on Atlantis is pretty much the most popular pairing in that fandom and Jack/Daniel is certainly the second most popular. Somehow I never really think of either of those pairings in that light, though, possibly because until recently slash was the less visible side of fandom. It seems to have come out of the woodwork and acquired a more obvious presence over the last two or three years, which is an interesting topic for discussion all on its own.

So the relative popularity of a pairing seems to have no bearing on my interest in the pairing. Some pairings that have tiny, tiny audiences don't interest me at all and there are some hugely popular pairings that I love to bits.

I know that it's not always about which pairing I can "see" in the text because I read (and thoroughly enjoy) fanfic for pairings that I wouldn't even consider when watching or reading the source material. Why do I read those fics? The writers of the fics manage to convince me that the pairing works within their fic, which means that it's the quality of the writing in the fics that work on me and not the chemistry in the source. However, these aren't pairings that I actively seek out: they're usually fics and pairings that have been recced to me. I feel like I should dismiss this outlyer data from my analysis, but I think it betrays a trend in my pairing history and fic reading habits.

Throughout the eight (or nine? I lose track) years that I have been involved in fandom or fic, I have been attracted to the pairings and characters that I find most interesting or that someone can make interesting for me. My reasons for not being a Sam/Jack shipper are as much that there isn't anything new for me because the ground has been trodden so many times as it is because I can't "see" the pairing. I am a fannish butterfly, playing in one playground for a while and then moving on when I everything seems to have been said. I've still got a fondness for the pairings I read and discussed in my early fannish days, but I don't actively seek stuff out anymore because I feel that I've explored it as far as I can.

The pairings that I enjoy most are the ones that I find interesting and have a lot unexplored in canon. A good fanfic writer can get me to read and enjoy even pairings that I cannot see in the source text, but what I seek out are the pairings that I can see in the source with a bit of a squint and have aspects that I want to see explored and discussed further.

So, that's me in an extremely long essay. I'd be interesting to know where my f-lists stands on any of this if you're still reading. Folks?


In shallower thoughts...

Less than twelve hours now until episode 2 of Torchwood. Yay!

I have been watching The Hand of Fear (Classic Doctor Who) and I have one very important question: who thought that wardrobe would be good for Sarah Jane?? Loving the adventure so far (one and a half episodes in) and Elizabeth Sladen is doing a great job with it, but she's fighting a costume that makes her look around ten years old or possibly auditioning for clown school. Why?

This morning I thought of something that I wanted to say that would cause my f-list to explode. Now I cannot remember it. Woe.

I haven't seen any LJ commentary yet on Heath Ledger, but I can imagine what I will find. For some reason, hearing that news on the radio this morning felt like a big shock. He's not an actor that I thought about much except for "yup, very good" when watching him in films yet there is a little part of me that can't quite express itself except to say shocked.

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Hi, here via soniclipstick...

Have to say I'm with you 110% on SJ's costume in "Hand of Fear" - it really is quite ludicrous that a grown woman is walking around in an outfit suited to a small child !!

Thank goodness they're dressing Lis better in SJA !

[selenay]

The wardrobe choices in SJA have been excellent, for Lis at least. I've had my doubts about one or two of Maria's costumes, but Lis has been gorgeous.

Of course, she's always gorgeous even dressed in ugly pink dungarees!

When you compare Hand of Fear's costume to, well, pretty much all the other costumes that I've seen for her it really is terrible. I've seen clips of the end and always wondered what terrible thing had happened to make her leave the Doctor in *that* costume. Now I know :-)

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Very true - Lis and Freema are both alike in that respect - totally breathtakingly gorgeous women - damn, why does the Doctor get all the lovely women??

[selenay]

I think it's that whole adventurer, saving the world, flying box thing that he's got going ;-) Terribly unfair, but people seem to go for that kind of thing.

At least we'll get Freema again in Torchwood :-)

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Very true - if he was to come around my way, I'd be off like a shot ! *giggles*

Yay for Freema - just four weeks to wait ! OMG ! OMG !!

[paranoidangel]

It was interesting, listening to the commentary on Hand of Fear, what Lis Sladen had to say about that outfit. Which was pretty much the same as everyone else, really. What they were thinking, I do not know.

I found the shipping thing interesting, but wrote something really long so put it in a post. The conclusion is that I like angst :)

[amilyn.livejournal.com]

I've always wanked it to be that Sarah didn't CARE and wore what amused her in the Wardrobe Room at that moment. And it's not like many of her choices were fashion plate worth to begin with...

And I LOVE that everyone STILL takes her seriously--tiny though she is, even with the "Eldrad must live," with the Andy Pandy--because she's HER and has such presence.

[selenay]

She has so much presence that you can't ignore her, despite the costume. That's what makes her Sarah Jane and able to get away with things like that :-)

She's not the only companion to wear a seriously dodgy outfit (witness Romana II in City of Death) but not many can carry off those kinds of costumes and still be watchable in them.

[yubsie]

My favourite part of that outfit was that they bought it OFF THE RACK. :p

[amilyn.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's FANTASTIC! Little ties at the ankles and all, huh? I do like Lis' comment about being quite pleased that she was brave/game enough to go ahead and wear the thing.

And, as bad as it is, I have a deep fondness for the Andy Pandy...it's just so outrageous and at that point Sarah's been away from any kind of "real world" for so long at that point and I LOVE that she just DOESN'T CARE what people might think of her for wearing it and I always figured that, again, by that time, Sarah was just pulling anything she found out of the Wardrobe Room because, well, why not?

Also, I have amazing icon love.

[yubsie]

All they added was the little stars!

I actually kinda love the outfit. It's SO awful that it's wonderful. (My Sarah Jane Sim totally wears it, incidently :p)

And we know from THe Pyramids of Mars that she HAS been known to pull out random outfits. :p

Hee, thanks!

[selenay]

Hmm, I must now re-watch Pyramids of Mars to check this :-)

You're right about the so awful that it's wonderful. This is the kind of costume that is either distracting in the extreme (which it was initially, but it's growing on me) or something you learn to love because who else would actually get away with wearing it? I'm starting to lean towards the latter.

[yubsie]

She definitely wears one of Victoria's old dresses. Because, well, "Doctor, look what I found in the wardrobe!" :p

If nothing else, it's definitely DISTINCTIVE. :p

[selenay]

Hmm, well, distinctive now has me intrigued. I will be digging out my video this weekend :-)

[nic]

Hmmm. You made me realise that I, too, only like/read non-canon pairings. If a pairing becomes canon, I lose interest in the fannish side of it. A great example of that is Buffy/Spike: I read and wrote it before it became canon. When it was onscreen, I loved it but suddenly had no desire to read or write it any more.

[selenay]

I loved reading Buffy/Spike before it became canon and now I have no interest. The problem is that I still love Jack/Ianto despite it being canon.

For me, I think it's the difference between a canon relationship that's entirely acted out in the text and a canon relationship that doesn't show everything. We saw all the key stuff between Buffy and Spike so it's no longer particularly interesting to speculate or imagine. That's true of most canon relationships except for the odd few that are there, but only in moments and a lot of the key elements to the relationship are off-screen.

My ships need to have unspoken and unseen elements to keep my interest, which usually means non-canon.

I do wonder what people following canon relationships (Buffy/Angel type relationships as opposed to Jack/Ianto relationships) get out of the fic and discussion side of fandom.

[paranoidangel]

I think there isn't any point in fanfic generally if you already get everything you need from the source. The same can be said of ships.