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annavereSo I made a list of the twelve least popular pairings I've ever taken an interest in, partly to see what patterns emerge from the task, partly to pay homage. Mostly, because it was fun and I've had writer's block (or whatever it is when you flit between several different drafts writing a mere paragraph for each one, unable to settle).
As I assembled these, I checked AO3 and ran the numbers within each individual fandom. Nothing got tossed on grounds of being more popular than I expected. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I tend not to find romance very interesting by itself and enjoy it most when woven into a plot (or at least some heavy character development) - and since there's nothing more fascinating for me than to spin what ifs and play connect the dots with worldbuilding, all of these pairings turned out to be from speculative shows of one kind or another.
Arranged in declining order of fanfics created. The list therefore happens to conclude with my nonexistent OTP from my beloved dead fandom of choice, but aside from that, these are not in any preferential order.
Andrea/Michonne (The Walking Dead)
Number of fics: 185
- Samurai and sniper, aka a post-apocalyptic dream team... for all of two episodes.
A three digit number looks quite high to my eyes but since there's well over 25,000 fics for the show I decided this one statistically earned its place. After a crescendo of badassery to finish season two, Andrea was out of weapons when Michonne rescued her in a scene that played exactly like a post-apocalyptic valkyrie welcoming a new warrior into Valhalla - and in retrospect that would have been better all around than what actually happened. Michonne (at the height of her anti-social PTSD, no less) cared for Andrea when she was sick, Andrea selflessly argued in favor of being left behind and they survived together all winter in the zombie apocalypse. This relationship was barely sketched before they were separated by soap opera style poor communication skills. The resulting Governor plotline was workable, since it set up a golden opportunity for Andrea to make hard choices to seek redemption, but the writers decided it was actually a much better idea to make Andrea roleplay the dumb blonde in a slasher flick. She died, Michonne got shoehorned into being the heart of the group after they killed off all the actual hearts (can you tell I had a love-hate relationship with this show?) and I still miss my valkyries.
Wesley Wyndham-Pryce/Illyria (Angel)
Number of fics: 113
- A dark fairytale, summing up my love for this whole show.
This is slightly cheating, since I view Illyria as the next chapter in the Fred/Wesley saga, and the two characters as inextricably entwined. According to canon, Fred's soul was destroyed, and her liquified brain was responsible for Illyria's perfect mimickry of her dead host and immediate attachment to Fred's loved ones. I prefer to believe in dramatic irony - Fred's soul had nowhere to go except inside the hell-god, infecting Illyria as permanently as she had already infected Fred. This unwilling synthesis could have made for some fascinating identity-driven plotlines, far more complex than a simple Jekyll-Hyde scenario. And Wesley, who had been on a multi-episode spiral of violent despair, finally made his first step back into the land of the living on his last day of life, which he chose to spend tending Illyria's wounds. Their saga remains one of my favorite parts of the entire show, and even Wesley's death could have been worked around since he was likely headed for a purgatory dimension. Illyria could have done some amazing Orpheic questing for his sake. My headcanon says this is exactly what happened sometime after the finale and nothing will convince me otherwise.
Duncan MacLeod/Tessa Noel (Highlander)
Number of fics: 82
- My platonic ideal of a romantic relationship.
I almost didn't even bother running the numbers for this one, only to discover Highlander fanfiction on AO3 has gone over the 6,000 marker and almost no one ever did the "What if Tessa survived?" scenario. Duncan/Tessa is my favorite canon couple to watch because there was no manufactured angst in sight - they were together from start to end, they made sacrifices but were entirely committed to one another and they had such a happy, genuine relationship that it was lovely to watch them even do trivial things like pay parking tickets. That's the warm fuzzies out of the way, and I understand how this would always end in tragedy but there was still so much Tessa could have contributed to the plot because she had a fascinating and wholly intuitive ability to get inside the heads of the Immortals she met, a skill that could have gone places. You couldn't find two more different evil Immortals in season one than Grayson and Alfred Cahill, and she was able to talk down both of them when they came for her - plus that time she threatened to give Felicia Martin a blowtorch facial. Yeah, Tessa was awesome and I would read the hell out of a good butterfly-effect AU where she lived.
Random note: I should have run the numbers on Amanda while I was at it. All those decades of history and future possibilities, and she's only one better at 83. You'll make my next list, Amanda!
Andrea/Shane Walsh (The Walking Dead)
Number of fics: 63
- The badass training wheels just came off and it was awesome.
Apparently I just like shipping Andrea. Her and Shane were my favorite couple during my favorite season of The Walking Dead. Both were disliked by the group at large, and came around to supporting each other in a very enjoyable way. Shane taught Andrea to conquer her fear and become a crack shot while Andrea encouraged Shane to become more politically savvy and presentable (in the long run, both attempts failed, but hey, at least they tried). I would have happily watched the pair follow through on their plan to hit the road and work out their issues together - possibly having to reintegrate with the group at a later date for mutual survival, creating a wealth of interesting and organic character dramas as their perceptions shifted and they took on new roles among people who weren't entirely ready to trust them. None of that happened. Shane thankfully got to go out like a Shakespearean villain, but Andrea was not afforded the same treatment, dying pointlessly after losing all her character strengths as already described. Even so, it was fun while it lasted.
Jeremiah/Kurdy Malloy (Jeremiah)
Number of fics: 9 (and filtering out the fanvids and manifestos leaves only 4 - either way, that plummeted fast)
- A rare moment when Jeremiah's death wish and devotion to Kurdy were in sync.
I could probably have made a full list just of Jeremiah pairings, but decided to pare it down to my top four choices to keep things varied. I was convinced of these two as a couple gradually, through various works bykillabeez (it's also the first slash pairing I've ever gone for, so thank you, Killa). The bond they forged in the first episode was so strong that even during their epic falling out they continued to be concerned for and supportive of each other (albeit from a large distance). They both had full character arcs that left them in very different emotional spaces than they'd started in and yet despite all the awful things that happened to them both, and despite their diverging morality (Kurdy longing for peace while Jeremiah got more and more comfortable with killing) they never turned on each other - a precious rarity in this genre. By the end of the show, they were working together again but there was a lot of baggage they never had the chance to unload, from guilt and heartbreak to obsession and obligation, all of which would need to be processed with suitable storylines before they could finally end up where they were supposed to be - full circle, on the road, looking out for each other.
Lucas Buck/Gail Emory (American Gothic)
Number of fics: 9
- Hey, it's a successful ship! My one and only! And it was the stuff of nightmares!
Almost no one writes for this creepy as hell show from 1995, and that's understandable - but despite Lucas' drawn-out seduction of Gail being a major plotline, it translates to a tiny percent of over 70 fics on AO3, which did surprise me (compare this to Brimstone, where fully half of the fics cheerfully pair Ezekiel Stone and the Devil - although compared to Lucas Buck, the Devil is a harmless comedian). This is an odd case for me in that I ship this couple even while acknowledging that no good can possibly come of it - exactly the sort of paradoxical reaction this show excelled at crafting. Consequently, the stories I want to read would be followups on the darker philosophical and ethical questions raised by their dynamic (I'm weird, I know). The battle of good and evil doesn't stop for sex, after all, and Gail's awareness is what actually cinched the appeal for me - she wasn't an idiot, she knew what Lucas was and though compromised she wasn't truly corrupted when the show ended. Also, Lucas never tried to make her do evil unto others, breaking his modus operandi in an odd fashion that seems indicative of something going on with them that demands unpacking. It's not romantic and it can't be redemptive; it's unhealthy and uncanny and it fascinates me.
Norma Jennings/Shelly Johnson (Twin Peaks)
Number of fics: 5
- They deserved so much better.
Norma and Shelly had four men between them, and they ALL sucked. Yes, even Big Ed. Meanwhile they had their jobs at the RR Diner as a respite from their terrible (in Shelly's case nightmarish) home lives. The diner was freedom, security and strength for both of them and there was never a cross word between the two (on a show that was way too fond of soap opera backbiting for me to really love it wholeheartedly). The diner was where Norma set boundaries with her criminal husband and stood up for herself against her awful mother, and it was where Shelly was appreciated as a human being. The obvious choice for future happiness was right in front of them, once they cut loose all the dead and/or dangerous weight. Making a stand and supporting each other through the inevitable rough patch would have made a better season two story than what they were actually given (getting jerked around by their various menfolk until those problems resolved without their input). Yeah. Oh well.
Alpha/Whiskey (Dollhouse)
Number of fics: 4
- I'm weirdly distracted by the fact that this is the only blond guy on my list...
This is also unhealthy as hell, sorry. Dollhouse had a host of good actors but for me no one brought such intensity to their roles as Alan Tudyk and Amy Acker. This is one of those thankless cases where I became an active shipper, craving more scenes between the two of them before I'd even finished the episode in question. They didn't get any more scenes together, and then Whiskey got paired with the most boring character on the show (who must have secretly programmed her to love him because there was no other explanation for her devotion) while Alpha kept chasing a girl who beat the crap out of him like a discount Spike and I was disappointed. Echo was the special superhero, while Alpha and Whiskey were the broken dolls whose greatest character developments took place offscreen. Their journeys were long, twisted and full of gaps that beg for further exploration. He was a homicidal maniac with some legitimate anger issues toward his creators (including himself; it's a complicated show) and she was a multilayered Manchurian agent whose psyche was breaking down and if they'd only gone rogue together just think of the possibilities. Sigh.
Theo Coleridge/Erin (Jeremiah)
Number of fics: 1
- These two blowing town together would be hugely cathartic, let's face it.
It wasn't until I wrote 14,000 words from Theo's viewpoint that Erin became my favorite pairing for Theo. They only interacted in one episode of the show, and spent much of that time arguing vociferously - Theo tried like hell to get a rise out of Erin, Erin never let her, and by the time the credits rolled they'd pushed past each other's defenses to have an honest conversation. It looked like the start of a strong friendship, but Theo never appeared again. As a show, Jeremiah had a host of nuanced male friendships taking center stage, but women were never afforded the same treatment. No matter how skilled they were, Theo and Erin felt like outsiders - not ill-treated so much as taken for granted. Each needed someone willing to both confront and support them, roles they were perfect for. Meanwhile, they came at life from extremely different philosophical perspectives, Erin was pining over an unrequited love and Theo had lost her place in the world. It was high time for them to move forward with their lives, and had they left Thunder Mountain's safety net, the possibilities were endless.
Gabriel Sims/Liberty Kaufman (Jeremiah)
Number of fics: 1 (and I wrote it)
- If I ever do a Jeremiah/Highlander crossover, these two are gonna raise glorious hell.
When Sims was introduced to the show, my heart sank. I was still traumatized by Caleb the Evil Southern Preacher on Buffy and spent the entirety of Crossing Jordan waiting for the inevitable Xander moment to occur. Then dull sweet Libby, whose death had been telegraphed all episode, was brought to him in the church and I was ready to cover my eyes from the sadistic misogyny about to unfold - when he started talking shop like they were long-term associates. They kissed, the sun came out, the plot thickened and all was right with the world. Libby died about two minutes after he left, kicking the season into magnificent overdrive. I then spent the entire rest of the show waiting for the backstory on this pivotal relationship and it was literally never brought up again. So I went back to the church scene, which I rewatched until I could piece together all the explanations and nuance I was craving. Two highly intelligent, broken individuals seeking validation they could never quite get from one another. Ice cold, isolated and each got the other killed without meaning to. They got under my skin and much like Lucas/Gail, shipping them is a strange pastime (their visual similarity is not lost on me either).
Duncan MacLeod/Lucas Desiree (Highlander)
Number of fics: 0
- Duncan didn't even do this for Darius, and that was in the same season.
The second slash pairing I've ever taken an interest in (I'm really terrible at this, aren't I?). I know it was just early installment weirdness, but MacLeod falling to his knees when Lucas Desiree lost his head a mile away made this relationship seem a lot more important to him than subsequent continuity ever did (yeah, Lucas was never mentioned again). There was a lot of unexplained psychic stuff that only affected certain Immortals on this show and this was the first episode to toss that into the pot, which piqued my interest. Meanwhile, the sheer amount of held gaze in the hanging and unburial flashback was hypnotizing, like Pride and Prejudice at Owl Creek Bridge or something. Aside from the present day scenes with Tessa and Richie, it was the only redeemable portion of an objectively bad episode, so I'm not at all surprised no one ever did anything with it, but it jumped out at me on my latest rewatch and made the list because I swear there was a good story here.
Erin/Gabriel Sims (Jeremiah)
Number of fics: 0
- Listening to his voice on the radio is as close as Erin ever got to Sims, and it resulted in this gorgeously ambiguous expression.
They shared no screentime, they never had a conversation, they were on opposite sides of a war and by the time the credits rolled, one of them was most unconvincingly dead. Nevertheless, they are my OTP and for purely thematic reasons I'm convinced they were absolutely perfect for each other. Both devoted themselves to an idealized leader, on the eve of war both finally sought the truth about their futures with said leaders and were fobbed off with false reassurances - but Erin literally clung to her illusion while Sims walked away from his a free man. Sadly, instead of meeting the white queen off his chessboard and developing some much needed empathy, he decided to go on a violent bender and die pointlessly, but that's a minor detail because there's nothing like lying at the bottom of a ravine with a knife in one's gut to make a man rethink his life choices. Meanwhile, all evidence points to physical attraction being subordinate to mental attraction where Erin is concerned and with Sims being Markus' chief intellectual opponent it's pretty much game, set and match for me and this nonexistent pairing. There was a full season's worth of story here, and someday I hope to actually finish writing it.
Conclusions: So there are a few shifts in the dynamics I favor depending on whether a ship is het or slash, although the pool of characters I draw from remains quite similar in both instances.
For het, I'm really drawn to the "enemies to lovers" dynamic and "dark screwed up power couples" with significant overlap between the two (Duncan/Tessa is the exception to prove the rule, I guess). There's a grueling honesty to these relationships which I find oddly comforting. Illyria offered a lie Wesley wouldn't accept; Alpha put Whiskey onto the truth of her existence; Lucas revealed Gail's repressed childhood traumas to her; and Sims was the only one who knew the real Libby.
Slash and femslash is a much nicer, though also smaller/newer, group of couples, and these stories only get to me if it's "friends to lovers" and preferably a feet-first rescue introduction (or the potential for such rescuing down the road apiece). Michonne saved Andrea in their first scene, Kurdy saved Jeremiah during their first episode, Lucas Desiree made sure to dig up Duncan's grave and provide him with fresh clothes (quite the courtesy among Immortals) and Norma gave Shelly her job back when the insurance scam didn't pan out. These couples do not destroy one another. The world is hostile, not them. When they screw up royally, they are forgiven and taken back. The honesty is still dished out (Erin even told Theo "sorry, truth hurts") but in ways that repair rather than demolish.
Isolation features across the board. Sometimes physical, such as being on the road alone in the post-apocalypse, but often where the characters in question are just not understood by those around them (often for being basket cases of crazy). Aside from Norma/Shelly, all of these pairings also feature some degree of blood on hands, which isn't that surprising, given my preferred genres and selection process. Theo, Illyria and Alpha are all introduced as major threats to the good guys; Shane slow-drifts and Libby sucker-punches into villainy; and meanwhile Sims and Lucas have implicitly infernal qualities from the start. Then there are tarnished heroes like Jeremiah and Wesley, faced with monsters and apocalyptic events and the inherent dark side to their practical skillset slowly dragging them under. Even Duncan MacLeod went down that path a time or two (just 'cause Methos called him a boy scout doesn't mean he is one).
With the main differences and similarities established, that just leaves the shipping itself to analyze, and in every single case I prefer slow burns, where a mammoth amount of groundwork has to be done to get the characters in the same room on the same page, let alone the same bed. The more difficult that is to accomplish, the more interesting the effort, and the greater the moral gap in the couple, the greater the dialogue that can result. This gap doesn't imply hatred, however - Gail and Whiskey certainly felt it, for very good reasons that would be an immeasurable challenge to overcome. The rest are simply... complicated. Illyria murdered the love of Wesley's life and then looked to him for assistance. Jeremiah walked away from Kurdy so many times, Kurdy finally just let him go. Sims threatened to destroy everything Erin loved without even meeting her. Even MacLeod/Desiree met on opposite sides of a war and spent their minute of screentime engaged in an ethical debate (plus all the intense eye contact). Yes to all of that forever.
As I assembled these, I checked AO3 and ran the numbers within each individual fandom. Nothing got tossed on grounds of being more popular than I expected. Quite the opposite, in fact.
I tend not to find romance very interesting by itself and enjoy it most when woven into a plot (or at least some heavy character development) - and since there's nothing more fascinating for me than to spin what ifs and play connect the dots with worldbuilding, all of these pairings turned out to be from speculative shows of one kind or another.
Arranged in declining order of fanfics created. The list therefore happens to conclude with my nonexistent OTP from my beloved dead fandom of choice, but aside from that, these are not in any preferential order.
Andrea/Michonne (The Walking Dead)
Number of fics: 185
- Samurai and sniper, aka a post-apocalyptic dream team... for all of two episodes.
A three digit number looks quite high to my eyes but since there's well over 25,000 fics for the show I decided this one statistically earned its place. After a crescendo of badassery to finish season two, Andrea was out of weapons when Michonne rescued her in a scene that played exactly like a post-apocalyptic valkyrie welcoming a new warrior into Valhalla - and in retrospect that would have been better all around than what actually happened. Michonne (at the height of her anti-social PTSD, no less) cared for Andrea when she was sick, Andrea selflessly argued in favor of being left behind and they survived together all winter in the zombie apocalypse. This relationship was barely sketched before they were separated by soap opera style poor communication skills. The resulting Governor plotline was workable, since it set up a golden opportunity for Andrea to make hard choices to seek redemption, but the writers decided it was actually a much better idea to make Andrea roleplay the dumb blonde in a slasher flick. She died, Michonne got shoehorned into being the heart of the group after they killed off all the actual hearts (can you tell I had a love-hate relationship with this show?) and I still miss my valkyries.
Wesley Wyndham-Pryce/Illyria (Angel)
Number of fics: 113
- A dark fairytale, summing up my love for this whole show.
This is slightly cheating, since I view Illyria as the next chapter in the Fred/Wesley saga, and the two characters as inextricably entwined. According to canon, Fred's soul was destroyed, and her liquified brain was responsible for Illyria's perfect mimickry of her dead host and immediate attachment to Fred's loved ones. I prefer to believe in dramatic irony - Fred's soul had nowhere to go except inside the hell-god, infecting Illyria as permanently as she had already infected Fred. This unwilling synthesis could have made for some fascinating identity-driven plotlines, far more complex than a simple Jekyll-Hyde scenario. And Wesley, who had been on a multi-episode spiral of violent despair, finally made his first step back into the land of the living on his last day of life, which he chose to spend tending Illyria's wounds. Their saga remains one of my favorite parts of the entire show, and even Wesley's death could have been worked around since he was likely headed for a purgatory dimension. Illyria could have done some amazing Orpheic questing for his sake. My headcanon says this is exactly what happened sometime after the finale and nothing will convince me otherwise.
Duncan MacLeod/Tessa Noel (Highlander)
Number of fics: 82
- My platonic ideal of a romantic relationship.
I almost didn't even bother running the numbers for this one, only to discover Highlander fanfiction on AO3 has gone over the 6,000 marker and almost no one ever did the "What if Tessa survived?" scenario. Duncan/Tessa is my favorite canon couple to watch because there was no manufactured angst in sight - they were together from start to end, they made sacrifices but were entirely committed to one another and they had such a happy, genuine relationship that it was lovely to watch them even do trivial things like pay parking tickets. That's the warm fuzzies out of the way, and I understand how this would always end in tragedy but there was still so much Tessa could have contributed to the plot because she had a fascinating and wholly intuitive ability to get inside the heads of the Immortals she met, a skill that could have gone places. You couldn't find two more different evil Immortals in season one than Grayson and Alfred Cahill, and she was able to talk down both of them when they came for her - plus that time she threatened to give Felicia Martin a blowtorch facial. Yeah, Tessa was awesome and I would read the hell out of a good butterfly-effect AU where she lived.
Random note: I should have run the numbers on Amanda while I was at it. All those decades of history and future possibilities, and she's only one better at 83. You'll make my next list, Amanda!
Andrea/Shane Walsh (The Walking Dead)
Number of fics: 63
- The badass training wheels just came off and it was awesome.
Apparently I just like shipping Andrea. Her and Shane were my favorite couple during my favorite season of The Walking Dead. Both were disliked by the group at large, and came around to supporting each other in a very enjoyable way. Shane taught Andrea to conquer her fear and become a crack shot while Andrea encouraged Shane to become more politically savvy and presentable (in the long run, both attempts failed, but hey, at least they tried). I would have happily watched the pair follow through on their plan to hit the road and work out their issues together - possibly having to reintegrate with the group at a later date for mutual survival, creating a wealth of interesting and organic character dramas as their perceptions shifted and they took on new roles among people who weren't entirely ready to trust them. None of that happened. Shane thankfully got to go out like a Shakespearean villain, but Andrea was not afforded the same treatment, dying pointlessly after losing all her character strengths as already described. Even so, it was fun while it lasted.
Jeremiah/Kurdy Malloy (Jeremiah)
Number of fics: 9 (and filtering out the fanvids and manifestos leaves only 4 - either way, that plummeted fast)
- A rare moment when Jeremiah's death wish and devotion to Kurdy were in sync.
I could probably have made a full list just of Jeremiah pairings, but decided to pare it down to my top four choices to keep things varied. I was convinced of these two as a couple gradually, through various works by
killabeez (it's also the first slash pairing I've ever gone for, so thank you, Killa). The bond they forged in the first episode was so strong that even during their epic falling out they continued to be concerned for and supportive of each other (albeit from a large distance). They both had full character arcs that left them in very different emotional spaces than they'd started in and yet despite all the awful things that happened to them both, and despite their diverging morality (Kurdy longing for peace while Jeremiah got more and more comfortable with killing) they never turned on each other - a precious rarity in this genre. By the end of the show, they were working together again but there was a lot of baggage they never had the chance to unload, from guilt and heartbreak to obsession and obligation, all of which would need to be processed with suitable storylines before they could finally end up where they were supposed to be - full circle, on the road, looking out for each other.Lucas Buck/Gail Emory (American Gothic)
Number of fics: 9
- Hey, it's a successful ship! My one and only! And it was the stuff of nightmares!
Almost no one writes for this creepy as hell show from 1995, and that's understandable - but despite Lucas' drawn-out seduction of Gail being a major plotline, it translates to a tiny percent of over 70 fics on AO3, which did surprise me (compare this to Brimstone, where fully half of the fics cheerfully pair Ezekiel Stone and the Devil - although compared to Lucas Buck, the Devil is a harmless comedian). This is an odd case for me in that I ship this couple even while acknowledging that no good can possibly come of it - exactly the sort of paradoxical reaction this show excelled at crafting. Consequently, the stories I want to read would be followups on the darker philosophical and ethical questions raised by their dynamic (I'm weird, I know). The battle of good and evil doesn't stop for sex, after all, and Gail's awareness is what actually cinched the appeal for me - she wasn't an idiot, she knew what Lucas was and though compromised she wasn't truly corrupted when the show ended. Also, Lucas never tried to make her do evil unto others, breaking his modus operandi in an odd fashion that seems indicative of something going on with them that demands unpacking. It's not romantic and it can't be redemptive; it's unhealthy and uncanny and it fascinates me.
Norma Jennings/Shelly Johnson (Twin Peaks)
Number of fics: 5
- They deserved so much better.
Norma and Shelly had four men between them, and they ALL sucked. Yes, even Big Ed. Meanwhile they had their jobs at the RR Diner as a respite from their terrible (in Shelly's case nightmarish) home lives. The diner was freedom, security and strength for both of them and there was never a cross word between the two (on a show that was way too fond of soap opera backbiting for me to really love it wholeheartedly). The diner was where Norma set boundaries with her criminal husband and stood up for herself against her awful mother, and it was where Shelly was appreciated as a human being. The obvious choice for future happiness was right in front of them, once they cut loose all the dead and/or dangerous weight. Making a stand and supporting each other through the inevitable rough patch would have made a better season two story than what they were actually given (getting jerked around by their various menfolk until those problems resolved without their input). Yeah. Oh well.
Alpha/Whiskey (Dollhouse)
Number of fics: 4
- I'm weirdly distracted by the fact that this is the only blond guy on my list...
This is also unhealthy as hell, sorry. Dollhouse had a host of good actors but for me no one brought such intensity to their roles as Alan Tudyk and Amy Acker. This is one of those thankless cases where I became an active shipper, craving more scenes between the two of them before I'd even finished the episode in question. They didn't get any more scenes together, and then Whiskey got paired with the most boring character on the show (who must have secretly programmed her to love him because there was no other explanation for her devotion) while Alpha kept chasing a girl who beat the crap out of him like a discount Spike and I was disappointed. Echo was the special superhero, while Alpha and Whiskey were the broken dolls whose greatest character developments took place offscreen. Their journeys were long, twisted and full of gaps that beg for further exploration. He was a homicidal maniac with some legitimate anger issues toward his creators (including himself; it's a complicated show) and she was a multilayered Manchurian agent whose psyche was breaking down and if they'd only gone rogue together just think of the possibilities. Sigh.
Theo Coleridge/Erin (Jeremiah)
Number of fics: 1
- These two blowing town together would be hugely cathartic, let's face it.
It wasn't until I wrote 14,000 words from Theo's viewpoint that Erin became my favorite pairing for Theo. They only interacted in one episode of the show, and spent much of that time arguing vociferously - Theo tried like hell to get a rise out of Erin, Erin never let her, and by the time the credits rolled they'd pushed past each other's defenses to have an honest conversation. It looked like the start of a strong friendship, but Theo never appeared again. As a show, Jeremiah had a host of nuanced male friendships taking center stage, but women were never afforded the same treatment. No matter how skilled they were, Theo and Erin felt like outsiders - not ill-treated so much as taken for granted. Each needed someone willing to both confront and support them, roles they were perfect for. Meanwhile, they came at life from extremely different philosophical perspectives, Erin was pining over an unrequited love and Theo had lost her place in the world. It was high time for them to move forward with their lives, and had they left Thunder Mountain's safety net, the possibilities were endless.
Gabriel Sims/Liberty Kaufman (Jeremiah)
Number of fics: 1 (and I wrote it)
- If I ever do a Jeremiah/Highlander crossover, these two are gonna raise glorious hell.
When Sims was introduced to the show, my heart sank. I was still traumatized by Caleb the Evil Southern Preacher on Buffy and spent the entirety of Crossing Jordan waiting for the inevitable Xander moment to occur. Then dull sweet Libby, whose death had been telegraphed all episode, was brought to him in the church and I was ready to cover my eyes from the sadistic misogyny about to unfold - when he started talking shop like they were long-term associates. They kissed, the sun came out, the plot thickened and all was right with the world. Libby died about two minutes after he left, kicking the season into magnificent overdrive. I then spent the entire rest of the show waiting for the backstory on this pivotal relationship and it was literally never brought up again. So I went back to the church scene, which I rewatched until I could piece together all the explanations and nuance I was craving. Two highly intelligent, broken individuals seeking validation they could never quite get from one another. Ice cold, isolated and each got the other killed without meaning to. They got under my skin and much like Lucas/Gail, shipping them is a strange pastime (their visual similarity is not lost on me either).
Duncan MacLeod/Lucas Desiree (Highlander)
Number of fics: 0
- Duncan didn't even do this for Darius, and that was in the same season.
The second slash pairing I've ever taken an interest in (I'm really terrible at this, aren't I?). I know it was just early installment weirdness, but MacLeod falling to his knees when Lucas Desiree lost his head a mile away made this relationship seem a lot more important to him than subsequent continuity ever did (yeah, Lucas was never mentioned again). There was a lot of unexplained psychic stuff that only affected certain Immortals on this show and this was the first episode to toss that into the pot, which piqued my interest. Meanwhile, the sheer amount of held gaze in the hanging and unburial flashback was hypnotizing, like Pride and Prejudice at Owl Creek Bridge or something. Aside from the present day scenes with Tessa and Richie, it was the only redeemable portion of an objectively bad episode, so I'm not at all surprised no one ever did anything with it, but it jumped out at me on my latest rewatch and made the list because I swear there was a good story here.
Erin/Gabriel Sims (Jeremiah)
Number of fics: 0
- Listening to his voice on the radio is as close as Erin ever got to Sims, and it resulted in this gorgeously ambiguous expression.
They shared no screentime, they never had a conversation, they were on opposite sides of a war and by the time the credits rolled, one of them was most unconvincingly dead. Nevertheless, they are my OTP and for purely thematic reasons I'm convinced they were absolutely perfect for each other. Both devoted themselves to an idealized leader, on the eve of war both finally sought the truth about their futures with said leaders and were fobbed off with false reassurances - but Erin literally clung to her illusion while Sims walked away from his a free man. Sadly, instead of meeting the white queen off his chessboard and developing some much needed empathy, he decided to go on a violent bender and die pointlessly, but that's a minor detail because there's nothing like lying at the bottom of a ravine with a knife in one's gut to make a man rethink his life choices. Meanwhile, all evidence points to physical attraction being subordinate to mental attraction where Erin is concerned and with Sims being Markus' chief intellectual opponent it's pretty much game, set and match for me and this nonexistent pairing. There was a full season's worth of story here, and someday I hope to actually finish writing it.
Conclusions: So there are a few shifts in the dynamics I favor depending on whether a ship is het or slash, although the pool of characters I draw from remains quite similar in both instances.
For het, I'm really drawn to the "enemies to lovers" dynamic and "dark screwed up power couples" with significant overlap between the two (Duncan/Tessa is the exception to prove the rule, I guess). There's a grueling honesty to these relationships which I find oddly comforting. Illyria offered a lie Wesley wouldn't accept; Alpha put Whiskey onto the truth of her existence; Lucas revealed Gail's repressed childhood traumas to her; and Sims was the only one who knew the real Libby.
Slash and femslash is a much nicer, though also smaller/newer, group of couples, and these stories only get to me if it's "friends to lovers" and preferably a feet-first rescue introduction (or the potential for such rescuing down the road apiece). Michonne saved Andrea in their first scene, Kurdy saved Jeremiah during their first episode, Lucas Desiree made sure to dig up Duncan's grave and provide him with fresh clothes (quite the courtesy among Immortals) and Norma gave Shelly her job back when the insurance scam didn't pan out. These couples do not destroy one another. The world is hostile, not them. When they screw up royally, they are forgiven and taken back. The honesty is still dished out (Erin even told Theo "sorry, truth hurts") but in ways that repair rather than demolish.
Isolation features across the board. Sometimes physical, such as being on the road alone in the post-apocalypse, but often where the characters in question are just not understood by those around them (often for being basket cases of crazy). Aside from Norma/Shelly, all of these pairings also feature some degree of blood on hands, which isn't that surprising, given my preferred genres and selection process. Theo, Illyria and Alpha are all introduced as major threats to the good guys; Shane slow-drifts and Libby sucker-punches into villainy; and meanwhile Sims and Lucas have implicitly infernal qualities from the start. Then there are tarnished heroes like Jeremiah and Wesley, faced with monsters and apocalyptic events and the inherent dark side to their practical skillset slowly dragging them under. Even Duncan MacLeod went down that path a time or two (just 'cause Methos called him a boy scout doesn't mean he is one).
With the main differences and similarities established, that just leaves the shipping itself to analyze, and in every single case I prefer slow burns, where a mammoth amount of groundwork has to be done to get the characters in the same room on the same page, let alone the same bed. The more difficult that is to accomplish, the more interesting the effort, and the greater the moral gap in the couple, the greater the dialogue that can result. This gap doesn't imply hatred, however - Gail and Whiskey certainly felt it, for very good reasons that would be an immeasurable challenge to overcome. The rest are simply... complicated. Illyria murdered the love of Wesley's life and then looked to him for assistance. Jeremiah walked away from Kurdy so many times, Kurdy finally just let him go. Sims threatened to destroy everything Erin loved without even meeting her. Even MacLeod/Desiree met on opposite sides of a war and spent their minute of screentime engaged in an ethical debate (plus all the intense eye contact). Yes to all of that forever.
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Date: 2022-12-10 03:16 pm (UTC)Speaking of Sims and John Pyper Ferguson, how about Duncan/Brian Cullen? That's one of my favorite episodes of the show, and wow, Duncan was a mess crying over his death. (Adrian cries so pretty!)
Your conclusion rings so true to me. Yes, to all of that! I had a huge thing for Illyria/Wesley, and I don't know if you read the fandom virtual season 6, but Wesley lived in the AU, and it was really excellent.
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Date: 2022-12-11 05:21 am (UTC)You wrote Tessa lives? Okay, I know what I'm reading tomorrow.
Also, you gave Tessa cancer?! That's cold. :)
Re: Duncan/Brian Cullen. Given my idée fix and the prettiness of Adrian Paul, it's probably inevitable that I'll succumb to this, but I'd probably need an AU to really commit to it, otherwise it's an extra layer of tragedy on an episode that's already pretty brutal (and it's a favorite of mine, too).
I have not heard of the virtual season 6 you speak of, but I'm always on the lookout for good Wesley stories. And now I'm sad that Duncan/Lucas is lost to time.
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Date: 2022-12-13 02:04 am (UTC)I'M SO SORRY. Sometimes the morbid side of me comes out.
I tried to find a valid link to the Angel S6 I was talking about, but so far I only found the reference to it on Fanlore: https://fanlore.org/wiki/Three_Deep
I'm going to see if I can find any valid links to the actual episodes.
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Date: 2022-12-14 10:31 pm (UTC)I followed a few of the definition links on Fanlore, and wow. There is a lot of criticism over there. I had no idea fanfiction is such a well of controversies and dissatisfaction. All the stuff I've ever read, people in the comment sections are really nice. Should I conclude it's a good thing my preferred fandoms are so small?
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Date: 2022-12-15 03:48 pm (UTC)I do think the culture has changed in media fandom over the years. I used to see a lot more public critical discussion about zines and such, and also,I think the majority of fans in Buffy and Angel were active on the Television Without Pity boards, which...aptly named. I was never really in either of those fandoms, though, despite being fannish about both shows. Too big for me!
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Date: 2025-02-12 09:05 pm (UTC)But! Twin Peaks! I love Norma and Shelley! Though I never thought to ship them, but I do have one Twin Peaks story that's Audrey/Donna and so I'm going to link it here: The Twin Peaks Knitting Club and [Mystic] Sewing Circle. If it were going to be longer, it'd have more Shelley. (And have you seen The Witches of East End? Madchen Amick is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING in it. I would watch her read the phone book. It's only two short seasons, and it has some issues, but I love it.)
I want to love Jeremiah, but I don't know that I could do it. And The Walking Dead might be too grimdark for me. And Dollhouse was violating the Frank Miller Law too much for me, despite my love of the actors. I don't think that blog is googleable anymore, but basically it was "anytime a show has more women working as prostitutes than women who are not working as prostitutes, you are violating the Frank Miller law," and no, sex work is not inherently bad, I just...I was still smarting too much from Firefly and The Sarah Connor Chronicles' sudden cancellations. It was a bad combination.
I didn't comment much on Tessa/Duncan (or Amanda/Duncan on your other post) because you know (I assume) that I love those pairings.
But I love hearing about what you love about these parings. I should make some kind of a post on "what I love about pairings" sometime soon. I'm not sure I have it in me to look up the rarest of pairings, but maybe!
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Date: 2025-02-13 02:11 pm (UTC)I love the Wesley/Lilah ship. And the Wesley/Faith ship, for that matter. However, him and FredIllyria is my favorite. I can also totally get why the writing would drive other people up the wall! Lots of questionable stuff, indeed.
And OMG, I read The Twin Peaks Knitting Club and [Mystic] Sewing Circle years ago! That was you! I found it while rewatching the show and checking the Audrey/Donna tag, amazed at how little there was. I was actually super keen on those two until the late reveal of their half-sisterhood. And I still want someone to craft a story dealing with that development, because that feels like a dramatic plot all ready to go.
I see I left a comment, but I was still really timid about bothering authors with my existence at that early stage, so it was like a sentence. I'll have to fix that. :)
I totally understand people not liking Dollhouse. It's, uh... Well. I think I admire it more than I actually like it, if that makes sense. And I absolutely do not recommend The Walking Dead. The whole point of that show, near as I can tell, has always been to punish the audience for giving a damn.
Witches of East End was on my Hulu queue. Lucky for me, buying used DVDs of supernatural television is generally an inexpensive hobby, because I have a long list.
Really glad you enjoyed these posts. I am overdue for a third collection, but these take a bit of work to make and there are some shows I wanted to rewatch in the meantime.
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Date: 2025-02-14 04:53 am (UTC)I think Wes/Illyria had some fascinating possibilities, especially should the show have continued (and I never read the comics, so that canon doesn't exist for me), I just...can't really get too into it after all the mental headcanon stretching I've had to do with all the other BtVS/AtS ladies. But for the right fic? Yeah, I'd read the shit out of it, I admit it.
Oh hey! There you are, in the early comments, with the icon that I have only in the past few days, reading these pots, realized was not Anise from SG1. Not, um. Erin? From Jeremiah. (They look almost the same! They're not. They're so completely and utterly not. But in 100x100 form, it's really hard to tell!)
I don't hate the concept of Dollhouse? I just-- I have a hard time describing what my life was like in those postpartum years. I wasn't a total mess, but I was just trying to keep it all together so, so hard. A lot of tv was just beyond me for a really long time. So I wasn't at a point where I could watch a show and not trust the PTB of the show, which would've been the case with Dollhouse. I did that with Dark Matter - watched it, loved it, but didn't trust the showrunners an inch because it was Joseph fucking Mallozi and Paul Mullie of SGA infamy (you know, the ones who decided they didn't have anything else for Elizabeth Weir to do so they just-- did all that to Torri Higginson, to put it mildly) and it was thankfully canceled before they could live down to my worst expectations. (Don't ask me about Jim Parriott of Forever Knight infamy, that fucker.)
The Walking Dead was mildly of interest to me until I learned that the term "Walking Dead" in the title wasn't intended to refer to the zombies. It was intended to refer to the people. That told me everything I needed to know about how it was a show I should avoid.
Witches of East End is just. A delight and frustrating at the same time. But Madchen Amick makes all of it worth it. And if you can ever get your hands on the Eastwick tv series, that's also an absolute delight. It's hard to find, though, and I don't think it ever came out on DVD, you have to have sources.)
Definitely enjoyed them! I'm not sure how I'm going to handle my posts. But I'll figure something out.
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Date: 2025-02-14 03:04 pm (UTC)So I looked up Anise, and yeah, I can see the 100x100 confusion. :)
If I ever do commit to an Angel fic, it would be to get my Fred's soul
headcanon out into the world. Maybe a rewatch would make it happen. I wrote a rough outline once.
Huge fan of outlines here. I write slow. Outlines are my only chance to keep an idea preserved until its time is at hand.
Been a long time since I thought of Dark Matter. Saw the first season when it landed on Netflix (that was the last year we had Netflix, I think). I found it entertaining but not especially memorable. It was highly focused on twists and rug pulls, which were fun, but kept me from getting attached to the characters, I think. It's been a long time, though.
I checked eBay and Witches of East End did come out on DVD. I was a little surprised, myself.
I totally look forward to any post you choose to make on the shipping and/or rarepair topic! Glad I could inspire.