I meme, therefore I am
A 'ships meme, nabbed from elyssadc. I've done it before, but not for a while, and I've acquired lots of new fandoms since then.
"One true foursome" ship:
I virtually never ship characters except in pairs. Frankly, I think that for most people, most of the time, a four-way romantic relationship would mean three times the problems of a two-way one (since each person would have three partners to cope with).
The closest thing I have to a "one true foursome" is the single fannish threesome I've ever thought might work, which is Scott/Jean/Logan from X-Men. Every side of that triangle is strong enough to last. Hopefully. Because if they tried it and it didn't work, it would be an emotional atom bomb.
"Canon" ship:
I'm hard pressed to think of a canon ship I love in one of my major fandoms. I'm tempted to say Jack/Doctor, but only Jack's feelings are canonically established. And while I used to like Jack/Ianto enormously, it was handled so badly in S2 of Torchwood (and even worse in fanfic) that I've mostly lost interest.
To find a canonical ship I can wholeheartedly endorse, I have to reach into one of my tiny little fandoms and say: Nicholas Rathe/Philip Eslingen from the novels Point of Hopes and Point of Dreams by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett. One's a cop (sort of) with a dangerous reputation for honesty. The other's an ex-soldier with a gift for leadership and a taste for fancy clothes. Together, they fight crime! And you should all go out and read the books so that I'd have more people to talk about them with.
"Not quite canon but should be" ship:
Now, here we have an embarrassment of riches. Giles/Ethan, Fraser/Kowalski, Xavier/Magneto, Second Doctor/Jamie, Hamlet/Horatio, Philip Marlowe/Terry Lennox, Holmes/Watson, and the list could go on but I'll stop.
I have two top ships here and I can't choose between them. (vandonovan, if you're reading this, you might want to skip ahead to the next question now.)
Doctor/Master, which was brought achingly close to canon last season and then dropped like a hot potato. (My only major complaint about this season of Who, so far anyway, is that there's been no acknowlegement at all of the Doctor's shattering grief over the Master's death. What, are we supposed to believe he had one good cry and then forgot all about it?)
Blake/Avon. There is, er, some difference of opinion about how close to canonical these two are, but series writer Chris Boucher, in an interview, compared them to David and Jonathan. This analogy, while spectacularly inappropriate in many ways, implies a lot about how Boucher meant us to read them. Namely, that their love to each other was wonderful, passing the love of women. And that, combined with what we see on screen, is near-canon enough for me..
"If this happens I'll stab my eyes out with a spork" ship:
Doctor/Rose. 'Nuff said.
"You are one sick bastard" ship:
I'm not active in this fandom, but the sickest pairing anywhere that I ship is probably Felix/Mildmay from Sarah Monette's Melusine and its sequels. The fact that they're brothers is perhaps the least of the ways the relationship is fucked up. And yet I ship them so hard that, despite being seriously disappointed by the most recent book, I plan to keep on reading.
"I dabble a little" ship:
That's true of a lot of ships for me, but I'll say Third Doctor/Jo Grant, which is the only het pairing I feel at all fannish about. (And how telling is it that at first I typed her name as "Joe Grant"?)
"It's like a car crash" ship:
I will interpret this as meaning "even the thought of it freaks me out" rather than "I can't look away," and so: Martha/Master. HE TORTURED HER FAMILY, FOR FUCK'S SAKE! SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE, WHY?
"Tickles my fancy but not quite sold yet" ship:
Owen/Jack. That was by far the most interesting relationship in S2 of Torchwood. But I'm not seeking out fic, mostly because of my general disgruntlement with the show.
"Makes no canon sense but why the hell not?" ship:
Remus/Sirius no longer makes much canon sense (damn you, J. K. Rowling!), but it's still the pairing nearest my heart in that fandom.
"Everyone else loves it but I just don't feel it" ship:
There's no such thing as "everybody else loves it" in fandom. Not even in due South, which was as dominated by one pairing as any fandom I've ever been in.
Having said that, there are many popular-ish pairings I don't feel: Doctor/Rose, Doctor/Martha, Doctor/Donna, Doctor/Reinette, Theta/Koschei (as opposed to Doctor/Master); Jack/Gwen; Avon/Cally, Blake/Jenna; Mohinder/Sylar from Heroes (ewwwwwww); Starbuck/Apollo (new BSG); Pyro/Iceman (X-Men movieverse); Ray/Ray (due South); Spike/Xander (Buffyverse). And so on.
"When all is said and done" ship:
This is at least the second time I've done this meme, and I'm still not sure what this question means. I will interpret it to mean, "The ship I think would be most successful in the long run." I'll say Second Doctor/Jamie, because they love each other in a way that's sweet and (despite the bickering) kind, whereas many of my other pairings love each other operatically and cruelly.
"Guilty pleasure" ship:
Holmes/Watson, not because I feel guilt over the pairing itself, but because most of the fanfic is SO BAD and yet I read it anyway.
"I can't believe I read it and liked it" ship:
Martha/Victoria.
Favourite older/younger ship:
Giles/Oz, always. No matter how much my fannish interests change, this is a pairing I've explored so deeply that it's a part of me.
My first, "I could never abandon you" ship:
Giles/Ethan. (And yes, I know that I have two completely incompatible Giles OTPs.) They were my first pairing in any fandom and the subjects of the first fic I ever wrote.
Favourite devotion ship:
Eighth Doctor/Fitz. In the EDA Vanishing Point, Fitz tells a woman he's about to have sex with that he used to be lonely, but then he met "someone special." By which he means the Doctor. In another book, he explains to another girlfriend that while he was programmed to love her (long story), "with the Doctor, it's the real thing."
Oh, Fitz. You silly boy, you make me wibble with your love for the Doctor.
The Doctor, for his part, will kiss Fitz at the slightest provocation. And puts up with his smoking in the TARDIS. There is no devotion greater than that.
Favourite never-met ship:
Watson/Bunter. They could commiserate! And have comfort!sex.
Favourite "Awwww!" ship:
Eight/Fitz again, for reasons shown above.
Favourite perverted ship:
Maybe Edgar Wield/Peter Pascoe (from Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe novels). It's perverted because it's exceedingly clear canonically that Peter is straight, and yet I want to ship them anyway (and without having Peter conveniently discover a long-suppressed bisexuality). Basically, I want to write about a gay man and a straight man in love with each other, and all their awkwardness and emotional pain, and Wield using every bit of his sexual knowledge to make it good for Peter, and . . . yeah, kinda perverted.
Favourite dominance!battle ship:
Xavier/Magneto, because (especially in the X-Men movies), Magneto is often at least partially in the right. That's more interesting, to me, than power struggles between an obvious hero and an obvious villain (e.g. Doctor/Master).
*****
"One true foursome" ship:
I virtually never ship characters except in pairs. Frankly, I think that for most people, most of the time, a four-way romantic relationship would mean three times the problems of a two-way one (since each person would have three partners to cope with).
The closest thing I have to a "one true foursome" is the single fannish threesome I've ever thought might work, which is Scott/Jean/Logan from X-Men. Every side of that triangle is strong enough to last. Hopefully. Because if they tried it and it didn't work, it would be an emotional atom bomb.
"Canon" ship:
I'm hard pressed to think of a canon ship I love in one of my major fandoms. I'm tempted to say Jack/Doctor, but only Jack's feelings are canonically established. And while I used to like Jack/Ianto enormously, it was handled so badly in S2 of Torchwood (and even worse in fanfic) that I've mostly lost interest.
To find a canonical ship I can wholeheartedly endorse, I have to reach into one of my tiny little fandoms and say: Nicholas Rathe/Philip Eslingen from the novels Point of Hopes and Point of Dreams by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett. One's a cop (sort of) with a dangerous reputation for honesty. The other's an ex-soldier with a gift for leadership and a taste for fancy clothes. Together, they fight crime! And you should all go out and read the books so that I'd have more people to talk about them with.
"Not quite canon but should be" ship:
Now, here we have an embarrassment of riches. Giles/Ethan, Fraser/Kowalski, Xavier/Magneto, Second Doctor/Jamie, Hamlet/Horatio, Philip Marlowe/Terry Lennox, Holmes/Watson, and the list could go on but I'll stop.
I have two top ships here and I can't choose between them. (vandonovan, if you're reading this, you might want to skip ahead to the next question now.)
Doctor/Master, which was brought achingly close to canon last season and then dropped like a hot potato. (My only major complaint about this season of Who, so far anyway, is that there's been no acknowlegement at all of the Doctor's shattering grief over the Master's death. What, are we supposed to believe he had one good cry and then forgot all about it?)
Blake/Avon. There is, er, some difference of opinion about how close to canonical these two are, but series writer Chris Boucher, in an interview, compared them to David and Jonathan. This analogy, while spectacularly inappropriate in many ways, implies a lot about how Boucher meant us to read them. Namely, that their love to each other was wonderful, passing the love of women. And that, combined with what we see on screen, is near-canon enough for me..
"If this happens I'll stab my eyes out with a spork" ship:
Doctor/Rose. 'Nuff said.
"You are one sick bastard" ship:
I'm not active in this fandom, but the sickest pairing anywhere that I ship is probably Felix/Mildmay from Sarah Monette's Melusine and its sequels. The fact that they're brothers is perhaps the least of the ways the relationship is fucked up. And yet I ship them so hard that, despite being seriously disappointed by the most recent book, I plan to keep on reading.
"I dabble a little" ship:
That's true of a lot of ships for me, but I'll say Third Doctor/Jo Grant, which is the only het pairing I feel at all fannish about. (And how telling is it that at first I typed her name as "Joe Grant"?)
"It's like a car crash" ship:
I will interpret this as meaning "even the thought of it freaks me out" rather than "I can't look away," and so: Martha/Master. HE TORTURED HER FAMILY, FOR FUCK'S SAKE! SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE, WHY?
"Tickles my fancy but not quite sold yet" ship:
Owen/Jack. That was by far the most interesting relationship in S2 of Torchwood. But I'm not seeking out fic, mostly because of my general disgruntlement with the show.
"Makes no canon sense but why the hell not?" ship:
Remus/Sirius no longer makes much canon sense (damn you, J. K. Rowling!), but it's still the pairing nearest my heart in that fandom.
"Everyone else loves it but I just don't feel it" ship:
There's no such thing as "everybody else loves it" in fandom. Not even in due South, which was as dominated by one pairing as any fandom I've ever been in.
Having said that, there are many popular-ish pairings I don't feel: Doctor/Rose, Doctor/Martha, Doctor/Donna, Doctor/Reinette, Theta/Koschei (as opposed to Doctor/Master); Jack/Gwen; Avon/Cally, Blake/Jenna; Mohinder/Sylar from Heroes (ewwwwwww); Starbuck/Apollo (new BSG); Pyro/Iceman (X-Men movieverse); Ray/Ray (due South); Spike/Xander (Buffyverse). And so on.
"When all is said and done" ship:
This is at least the second time I've done this meme, and I'm still not sure what this question means. I will interpret it to mean, "The ship I think would be most successful in the long run." I'll say Second Doctor/Jamie, because they love each other in a way that's sweet and (despite the bickering) kind, whereas many of my other pairings love each other operatically and cruelly.
"Guilty pleasure" ship:
Holmes/Watson, not because I feel guilt over the pairing itself, but because most of the fanfic is SO BAD and yet I read it anyway.
"I can't believe I read it and liked it" ship:
Martha/Victoria.
Favourite older/younger ship:
Giles/Oz, always. No matter how much my fannish interests change, this is a pairing I've explored so deeply that it's a part of me.
My first, "I could never abandon you" ship:
Giles/Ethan. (And yes, I know that I have two completely incompatible Giles OTPs.) They were my first pairing in any fandom and the subjects of the first fic I ever wrote.
Favourite devotion ship:
Eighth Doctor/Fitz. In the EDA Vanishing Point, Fitz tells a woman he's about to have sex with that he used to be lonely, but then he met "someone special." By which he means the Doctor. In another book, he explains to another girlfriend that while he was programmed to love her (long story), "with the Doctor, it's the real thing."
Oh, Fitz. You silly boy, you make me wibble with your love for the Doctor.
The Doctor, for his part, will kiss Fitz at the slightest provocation. And puts up with his smoking in the TARDIS. There is no devotion greater than that.
Favourite never-met ship:
Watson/Bunter. They could commiserate! And have comfort!sex.
Favourite "Awwww!" ship:
Eight/Fitz again, for reasons shown above.
Favourite perverted ship:
Maybe Edgar Wield/Peter Pascoe (from Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe novels). It's perverted because it's exceedingly clear canonically that Peter is straight, and yet I want to ship them anyway (and without having Peter conveniently discover a long-suppressed bisexuality). Basically, I want to write about a gay man and a straight man in love with each other, and all their awkwardness and emotional pain, and Wield using every bit of his sexual knowledge to make it good for Peter, and . . . yeah, kinda perverted.
Favourite dominance!battle ship:
Xavier/Magneto, because (especially in the X-Men movies), Magneto is often at least partially in the right. That's more interesting, to me, than power struggles between an obvious hero and an obvious villain (e.g. Doctor/Master).
*****