One Dimensions Are So Flat

[dreiser]

I'm still in my throes of Voyager femslash fanfic reading and I've exhausted most of the good Seven and Janeway fic and have moved onto the Torres and Seven fic even though it's not my preferred pairing for the series. Don't get me wrong, it's not because I don't like B'Elanna Torres as a character or that I can't see the thin line between love and hate vibe she has with Seven plus the hotness factor but ehhh... I prefer Janeway. I think it has to do with my weird fixation with Kate Mulgrew's sexy voice and how she has this awesome command presence as Captain Janeway which is adorably hilarious considering her petite stature.

Enough of my Janeway fangirling. If that's even a word. The one trend I've noticed in reading Torres and Seven fanfic is that Janeway is painted in a less than favorable light. The easiest way to describe how she's written is to say she's an egomaniacal, sexually aggressive, and emotionally manipulative old lady pervert obsessed with Seven.

A lot of shippers in fandoms do this sort of thing but it's really blatant with a lot of the Torres and Seven writers. In fact, the only fics where Janeway is written favorably, for the most part, are when she hardly plays any role. Or she's written as Seven's mother figure.

I just have to wonder about this strange need shippers have to abuse and write the characters they view as disrupting their OTP's as creatures as absolute evil. In writing my Hermione and Luna fanfic I've had quite a bit of demands from people wanting me to write Ron as an asshole and I'm lost as to why they want it. Isn't it enough you have the couple you want to see together? Why must I write someone else as a flat one dimensional shitty character to make you feel satisfaction with reading my fic?

It's all so odd to me.

I don't think I'll ever understand hardcore shippers in fandom just because I'm so damn fickle. I mean, I get a bit of pleasure out of the idea of being able to put any random characters together with a good enough plot and a bit of show material to work with. It's fun to me. And while I prefer Janeway and Seven I'm perfectly happy to read Janeway and Torres or Janeway and Kes or the aforementioned Torres and Seven. Although I do admit I'm often turned off by ships that have insane shippers, hence my dislike of Tibette for The L Word and Buffy and Willow for BTVS. I also don't like BAM from All My Children because of weird campaign of hate against Bianca's maintext love interest Lena when she first appeared before Maggie's sexual confusion led her to desexed lesbianism.

Mostly I think I just ship the pretty. Which is why I can't fucking wait for Dollhouse to see Eliza Dushku and Amy Acker on the screen together. Ahhhh, so great.

Comments

[sulkygeek.livejournal.com]

I think the anti-Lena stuff is weird, because even though I am not a Lianca person (you know what? I think I just want to bang Elizabeth Hendrickson), the way Lena is depicted in some fics is SO bizarre. You know? Like, it really is weird when a mostly upright character gets totally bashed.

Sometimes though, character bashing is fun.

I think I remember an old Buffy fic where Oz was a rapist to ship Willow/Spike. Oz would never!!

It's so weird!

[dreiser.livejournal.com]

Oz as a rapist to ship Willow and Spike is extremely weird. Especially since Spike in canon had that notorious near rape of Buffy. Then again I always considered Spike fangirls to be the most insane people in the Buffy fandom.

[occamsnailfile.livejournal.com]

Some shippers get really really invested in their pairing and I think they view the 'rival' character as threatening that which they desire, so they demonize. Like someone hating their ex maybe? It's probably not entirely healthy but at least they're just fictional characters with no actual feelings to be hurt.

[dreiser.livejournal.com]

Hardcore shippers are yet another subset of fandom insanity, I'm afraid. I'm kind of glad I'm too fickle with my love of the pretty to indulge in such things.