Headachy now.

[honorh]

Regarding the latest Who-wank: one of the things that truly annoys me about this kind of thing (if you really want to know, go to fandom_wank for the details) is the protestations on both sides that the wankery all belongs to one side, and certainly not theirs. "Rose is the Doctor's One Twu Wuv 4EVA, and if you 'ship the Doctor with anyone else,

Comments

[grimorie]

Amen. Everything you said. And yes, Xander/Martha sounds so appealing now.

[honorh]

Doesn't it, though? They'd have so much to talk about with their mutual Messianic figures.

[scarlettgirl]

I agree and am bored with the wank. As I commented to Nos, I think most of the wank is caused by failure to comprehend the concept of "YMMV".

[honorh]

YMMV is a concept that tends to escape a lot of wankers, yes. Heavens, a good many people would be much better at getting their points across if only they stopped trying to *prove* them.

[ladypeyton]

Just a general comment about yesterday's wank...I didn't see an argument between Rose and Martha fen. I saw a post that interpreted an entire season through a Rose filter and a whole lot of generic* Who fans objecting to the show being seen through Rose colored glasses. (See what I did there? grin.)

Sure there were some Martha fans who objected, but they were few and far between.

*Classic? I don't know the terms because I generally avoid Who wank unless it appears on fandom_wank.

[honorh]

Yeah, I know, but unfortunately, it all tends to devolve into a general 'shipping war and "I'm right, they're wankers." Then everybody retreats to their corners and licks their wounds while commiserating with their friends about how oppressed they are.

[ladypeyton]

Does it make me a sad individual if I can't see the word "oppressed" without quoting Monty Python and giggling hysterically?

The whole thing just leaves me confuddled. If you had told me 5 years ago that there would be Dr Who shipping wars on par with Ducks vs Spuffy I would have never in a million years beleived you.

Funny how the world turns.

[platypus]

I don't think any level of wank can kill my happiness that there is a show to wank about. I would never have believed it five years ago. I thought it was dead and buried, at least as a TV entity, after the movie failed to spawn a series.

[izhilzha]

Word to pretty much all of that. As a genficcer, to whom (despite my newbie status) this show is All About The Doctor, this particular divide alone has been mainly responsible for me avoiding the generalized Who fandom. Were I to participate in wankery, it would be something like "no matter how much in love with the Doctor Rose or Martha were, he doesn't/didn't return their love in exactly the same fashion," because I can't imagine a companion, any companion, in a true exclusive relationship with the Doctor. Rose may have come closest, but I just can't 'ship the Doctor. *shrug* I realize this is an unpopular theory! :-)

Anyway.

now I've got a Xander/Martha plot poodle yapping at me!

Huh. I have no idea why that seems to plausible to me. You should write that! I would totally read it.

[izhilzha]

so plausible. Grrrr. Typing too fast.

[honorh]

To me, one of the keystones of the Doctor is that he's a wanderer in every way. Even his heart never settles for long. While he and Rose might have been happy for a time, in the context of his life, even that would've been momentary. So I'm more on your side than not.

[izhilzha]

What a LOVELY way to put it. Yes, the eternal wanderer. *glee*

[wendymr]

You and me both. Why can't people accept the approach of 'you have your ships and I'll have mine and let's respect each other's preferences'? Admittedly, it's harder when you get the occasional person (and there really are only a few who do it, but they have a high volume) visiting personal journals to jump in on discussions and tell people they're wrong for seeing the series, or relationships, the way they do. And then people retaliate by producing offensive or character-bashing icons

[honorh]

Yeah, I see some people's interpretations of various scenes and truly wonder how they got from here to there. Sometimes I'm able to tilt my head and squint just right and say, "Huh. Well, they do have a point there." Other times, I'm just baffled. And then if I come in and say, "Okay, here's what *I* saw there," I'll often get a "Huh. I never considered that before." And then they'll explain their pov further, and I'll start getting where they're coming from. Give-and-take like that is good

[wendymr]

I saw it as an *explanation* of that--he has to live in the now, because if he looks back at what he's lost or forward at what he will lose, he'll go mad.

That, as an explanation for his 'here and now' philosophy, is very plausible. The other aspect which gets fanwanked to different extremes is the 'You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of mine with you' line. Some see it as more of the explanation, showing Rose a perspective she's never seen before, and I think that's where I am. Some see it as an invitation for her to stay with him for the rest of her life. Others see it as him telling her why she can't stay with him - why she should leave, or he should let her go back to her own life. Is one interpretation more 'true' than the others? Not as I see it

[honorh]

Waaaay back in my Highlander days, I got in the middle of some knock-down, drag-out flamewars that would leave people fuming for days until Big John made everybody kiss and make up. Since then, I've been more than a little leery of jumping in when somebody starts something. If it looks like it's devolving into wank, I walk away. Seems better that way, because after a certain point, nobody's going to be changing their mind.