Thoughts on OTP-ness

[jedi_of_urth]

After everything blew up on mrv3000’s post yesterday, I’m going to temp fate with my own talk about OTP shipping. But I’m pretty sure a lot fewer people in fandom know who I am so we’ll if the wankers find me.


Okay, I use the terms OTP fairly loosely, but it still first it has to mean two things:
-That I feel invested in the relationship.
-That I decidedly prefer the two characters together over any other pairing involving them.

There are plenty of ships I enjoy but don’t feel invested in. They work out or they don’t but I don’t really spend much time away from the show caring about that relationship.

The second qualification does not mean I don’t respect, and sometimes even like, other options for shipping the characters, but it does mean that I can clearly tell that one of them is a favorite.

Neither of these mean that I don’t respect that other people have different opinions. Neither of these mean that I don’t sometimes dabble in other ships from the show, sometimes even involving my OTP. It just means that *to me* there is a pairing that I enjoy a lot and prefer over other options.

I’m not even going into any specific fandom examples. Ask away about them, but for the main post I’m keeping it fandom-neutral.

But to get back to mrv3000’s original point, why does fandom see to think it’s “wrong” to have a favorite? And to have a strong opinion about why they are your favorite? And to have opinions about others ships (though not the shippers mind you) that may or may not be influenced by they ship you like best? Or just to not ship anyone/everyone?

Go ahead and approach fandom and shipping however *you* want. But seriously, be respectful to people with other opinions and approaches, especially when you enter their space.

Comments

Re: cont.

[clockwork-sky.livejournal.com]

And then going forward, all those issues that impacted even his relationship with her (no matter all he let himself feel, the issues cropped up) are still there. He hasn't grown past them (Moffat's just taken over the writing), he's just added new ones on top of those old ones. Plus his feelings for *her* specifically are still there, making it really hard for me top see him romantically interested in someone else for a long time. I'm not denying that one day he could, just he needs time.

This is actually something I know I have different thoughts on than a lot of fandom, even Doctor/Rose shippers, but when people use that he's a Time Lord and eventually he'll have to move on I...don't agree exactly. I think he could given time yeah, but I think being a Time Lord is the reason I have a hard time seeing him doing it. All of his issues about relationships and the length of time they might last are there because of the Time Lord factor, humans might have some level of it but not to the level he does, especially now.

I agree, but really the only other ship I see being viable for the Doctor, given all the reasons that you have stated, is more along the lines of a What-Could-Have-Been with the Master. I know this isn't your cuppa, but I'm just saying that my Doctor/Master shipping is something much more along the lines of Daniel/Rose than you'd think, in that I consider it a sort of AU way to reconcile a lot of the feelings I have about all of that.

Not only that, but the Master was a part of his life long before Rose was, and while a very large part of it for the last several centuries in his time line, at least, has been a negative relationship, there are many, many things in Old Who canon that would tend toward supporting chemistry between them, even beyond the chemistry that RTD himself inserted as a result of his being a fan of the idea. RTD has said both at different points in time that Rose was the Doctor's soulmate and that the Master was "so very close to being" his soulmate. And I have to admit that I'm very much on that wavelength at this point.

While I also continue to hold a bunch of ideas about a negating Ten II and giving Rose her happy-for-her-ever-after ending with the Doctor, and having Ten not repeatedly shoot himself in the foot, I also for a bunch of Old Series reasons and based upon EoT kind of want to also have an AU where the Master doesn't die and he and the Doctor get to go and live in peace and have what the Doctor briefly offered in EoT2, whether it ever actually took on its slashy subtext in true form or not. Although, this comes as much from my feelings about the Master as a character as about the Doctor, though I like to think I'm being fair to both of them in my fanon/assessment.

In fact, something like this used to be canon.

Also, it is to be said that you may have a point on the nature of his relationship with Rose being very different and unique and special, because while Time Lords are capable of sexuality (and indeed the Master and the Rani both seem to exhibit a kind of hypersexuality that's related to their respective mental problems), it's sort of my personal fanon that intimate relationships between Time Lords were unnecessary as a result of their means of reproduction and with the kind of society we see the Time Lords to have had, I actually imagine that being too intimate, even with a spouse-like-partner/mate/whatever, would have been frowned upon, since the Time Lords were kind of like an entire race of even odder Jedi, except for renegades like the Doctor and his rivals and enemy-Time Lords. Therefore, even if two Time Lords were arguably what we'd call in love with each other, such a relationship probably wouldn't entirely resemble what we think of when we think of relationships, at least not at very first, due to a long line of strict tradition and the things you were saying about their lifespans and emotional issues.

I digress again.

Hope I'm not annoying you. <3 If I am just tell me to shush.

Re: cont.

[jedi_of_urth]

I'm sure there's some good Doctor/Master stuff out there that actually deals with their different outlooks on life and the universe and the way their relationship has existed for the past few centuries (hell even I have no problem with some kind of "special" relationship back before things went to shit between them, oh academy days romping across the fields of Galifrey). I'd kind of love to see some that deal with everything reasonably (reasonably also meaning 'the Doctor also totally loved Rose, he's just dealing with it now and focusing on the Master'). It doesn't push my ship buttons but handled well I think I could enjoy it. Just the few things I've read in the past seemed comical, naive, underdeveloped, or just for the sex (or, of course, a combination of any or all of the above).

Because there's tons of stuff to play with there, just...in my mind it has to get pretty dark before it can come around to some kind of good situation. And I'm not sure a lot of people are willing to write that. And hell, you know how much I prefer my relationships shmoopy and happy myself.

Your theory on Time Lord relationships very much resembles mine.

Re: cont.

[clockwork-sky.livejournal.com]

Shmoopy and happy is good!

...but for some reason my ships never turn out that way in the end, so I kind of gave up to the morbid, lol.

Just the few things I've read in the past seemed comical, naive, underdeveloped, or just for the sex (or, of course, a combination of any or all of the above).

...oh my, yes, and this is the painful part of that little niche of the fandom. There are the people who have been Doctor/Master shippers (and usually Kirk/Spock shippers coincide, haha) since the dawn of the Master's existence who are appalled by the fact that there are people under 30 in their fandom. And then there are fourteen-year-old slashers who write IKEA porn about them with a few idioms they've learned, obviously, only through reading other slash porn that doesn't even take into consideration the several thousand metric tons of baggage that both of them would have about each other and the lives they've led at this point.

That said, I think my RP partner and I might make it a bit easier than it actually would be when we RP them, just for the sake of the amount of time we cover in our RPs to actually get to RP anything except angst, but that aside, I'd like to think we try to deal with that sort of thing and we also have them addressing Rose and the way that's affected everything (and even Lucy from time to time).

I really don't understand people who ship the Doctor and the Master just because they think David Tennant/John Simm RPS would be hot, or something... Like I said: baggage. And really, with a ship like that, that's actually the fun bit... but not happy shmoopy fun, to be very much attested to.

...and yeah, that Academy days stuff is what's got me with all these Teenage Time Lords bunnies frolicking around in my head. It's... very hard to resist, but I'm terrified of them. I think they grow fangs at night. Although, to be said, a long time ago before many shows had even thought of spin-offs, there was talked about a spin-off that was actually about the Time Lord Academy and the younger!Doctor but they decided against it because it would have taken away from some of the Doctor's mystique.

...but that would have been right hilarious.