Slash, ship and Doctor Who

[prepare4trouble]

Random thoughts on slash and ship in fanfic

I've been trawling ff.net and decided to have a look in the Doctor Who section. Ooops, I so shouldn't have done. Doctor/Rose? Wtf? Oh no. No no no! That's just not right!

I've read a few fics before that looked vaguely shippy, but really it was just friendship, but some of this stuff... ugh. (no offence to the writers, they are actually mostly well written, not like in some fandoms!) Okay, I freely admit it - I hate shippy stuff in any fandom. Except Farscape where there is entirely not enough Zhann/Stark fic (After everything that happened, I'm still not into John/Aeryn). Slash I like. I don't know why that is, maybe because I know it has very little chance of happening in the actual program. Obviously when I'm talking about ship here I'm talking only about m/f pairings, m/m and f/f are slash.

So yeah, slash is good. Ship is...not so good. I don't like it. If anyone can suggest any other reasons why this is, tell me! But I think that I just don't want to see a show overrun by a relationship between two characters. Most shows have a certain degree of chemistry between the characters, that is what makes them enjoyable to watch. And sometimes there is chemistry between a male and female character, sometimes between two males. Fanfic (ship and slash) writers pick up on this and take it further. But in the show itself, the writers would never dare suddenly have two male characters start shagging. A male and a female though, they will. They often do. And I don't want to see that! It often ruins the show for me. (Oddly, I’m fairly convinced that if any of may favourite slash pairings were written into the show, it would improve it immensely!)

Now, Doctor Who is different. I don't want to see any slash in that show either. I don't want to see anything even close to romance stuff. It just doesn't belong there. One of the main reasons I hated the Paul McGann film (along with the whole half human thing!) was the ridiculous thing between the Doctor and that woman (Grace?). I don't want to see the Doctor kissing people. I don't want to see the Doctor getting involved romantically with anyone (male or female). I guess I think of the Doctor as kind of asexual. He has other things on his mind, and falling in love and getting all gross and romantic is really not a high priority.

In the case of Doctor Who, I'm not worried about ship being written into the show, I think Russel T. Davies knows better than that! But all this fanfic... I dunno, it just makes me cringe. Doctor/anyone is just too weird to even contemplate. But I don't think a lot of the new fans realise that!

By the way, I don't mean any offence to anyone, and I really hope I didn't cause any!

Comments

[lil-banik-slave.livejournal.com]

Doctor / Rose. NOOOO!!!! I see it as a sort of sister big brother relationship, I think she looks up to him but finds him odd and annoying in a strange way as well.

I'm the complete opposite. If I don't see a pairing having any chance in a show I tend to avoid it. For example I don't see any sexual chemistry between say D'Argo and Aeryn, so if anyone was to write THAT I might just have to hit the back key in record time. Tends to be why I avoid slash as well. I'm very finicky with what I read and write (ANGST!!!...I think I have a problem).

Did you know that a C2 Stark/Zhaan community has just gotten off the ground over at fanfic.net :-D

[prepare4trouble.livejournal.com]

Not sure about it being a brother-sister relationship, maybe more like friends. But that's only because he's so much older than her, so I guess forgetting that, sure. That's probably a good analogy.
I could even stretch to accepting she might eventually be slightly attracted to him, but the Doctor would never be interested in her. It'd just be wrong!

D'Argo and Aeryn? OMG that would be terrible! But see, that's one where there isn't any chemistry between them. but I think that often there *is* chemistry between two male characters. Sometimes more than between a male and a female. But the writers of the show will always pair up the male and the female rather than the two men. Or two women. So even though there is unfortunately no chance of it happening within the show, it still seems plausible.
Atlantis, for example. I don't see *any* sexual chemistry between Sheppard and Teyla (which seems to be a lot of shippers' ship of choice). To me they seem more like friends or brother and sister. But between, say Sheppard and McKay (the most popular slash paring) I think there's a lot more. Although I prefer a different pairing.

No, didn't know about the C2 community. I'll have a looksee! Ta :)