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

[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.