some firefly shipping in fanfic thoughts

[tommygirl]

I love how so much of my friends list has started writing tons of Firefly fic. It makes me incredibly happy for I've loved this show for so damn long, and I love finding like-minded folk out there. Suddenly, I don't seem so strange in the long haul.

It did get me to thinking quite a bit though about ships and such within the firefly fandom. Because I don't really have a ship for the show, aside from the canon of Wash/Zoe, and even then, if there is some pre-show Mal/Zoe fic that's good and really gets that tricky element to their relationship, then I'll read it.

So yeah, no real ship. I do have a fondness for Kaylee and Jayne, not necessarily together, but fics that center on them. I love the idea of Mal and Kaylee together, but I just as much love fic that focuses on the almost-siblingesque bond between the two of them.

Basically, I will read anything aside from Simon/River (and I'll admit that you might even get me on that if it's really dark and fucked up and amazingly well-written) and does anyone actually care about Book in fanon?

And this got me to thinking even more, because that's so unlike me to be such a multi-shipper within one fandom. In canon, I might like more than one pairing and watch/read it, but in fandom with my fanfiction, I tend to find a niche and stick with it. Don't know why that is necessarily, but that's how has always worked in the past (i.e. - For Roswell, it was and always will be about Michael/Maria. No other pairing interests me at all, really.) And that's not so much the case with this show. I might read a Jayne/River fic and then follow it up with a Jayne/Kaylee fic.

The only thing I can conclude is that this is one of those shows where I love all the characters so much and I love the interaction amongst all of them. It doesn't seem unbelievable to me that Jayne, in his own brute fashion, could care about any member of the crew on that ship because there is canon to support it.

And maybe that's what makes this show mean so damn much to me and so many other people...because there isn't just love for each character, but the characters as a group and the care every character seems to have for the other.

So, I turn this over to you, my wonderful friends list. Do you find the same is true of you - that you can ship almost anyone on this show? Why do you think that is? I'm honestly curious.

Comments

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I think you're right on about how important it is that the characters as a group are what most people love about the show. I have fun writing bits of pairing stuff (mostly Wash and Zoe, at the moment), and I love reading Jayne and River (yes, weird, I know) and Simon and Kaylee, but on the whole? I just love the whole crew. Every last one of them, in all their fun permutations of friendship/sibling stuff/love/rivalry.

[jadekitten01.livejournal.com]

Yep, it's the same for me. Except this is one (of only a handful) show where I don't see or feel any slashiness. Except for a vibe every now and then from Inara/Kaylee. But other than that, I'll read Zoe/Wash, Kaylee/Anyone, River/Jayne, Mal/Inara, and just about anything else as long as it is well-written.

...this is one of those shows where I love all the characters so much and I love the interaction amongst all of them.

I think it's that exactly. I feel the same for NCIS, House, and BSG (occasionally Veronica Mars). The characters are so good, you can read just about anything from the fandom that's written well.

[foxxcub.livejournal.com]

I'm still waiting to get my hands on the whole season before I start writing anything (which I desperately want to do), but I am infinitely fascinated by this fandom in that you can virtually ship ANYONE and it'll work.

[skylarstone.livejournal.com]

I am obsessed with Wash/Zoe - their relationship fascinates me. I could read just about any pairing except Kaylee/River and Simon/River, I think. Just because of the way their relationships work in my head. I'm pondering a fic at the moment and it explores quite a few different pairings, really.

I was talking to Liam about this the other day - what's great about this show is that I can't pick a favourite character. I love them all. Even Book! (And there will be some book fanning in my fic, hehe)

<3

[tinylegacies.livejournal.com]

Aside from Simon/River which just squicks me and Wash/Zoe with anyone else - yes, I can ship any combination of Jayne, Kaylee, Mal, Inara, Simon & River. And no, I haven't read much Book fic.

[purple-smurf.livejournal.com]

I'm a total 'ship whore on this show -- and I'll read, yep, pretty much anything. Usually I'm just like that with one individual character (Buffy Summers? Yeah, I'll read anything apart from Buffy/Joyce, Buffy/Dawn, Buffy/Giles and Buffy/Xander), but not with the entire show.

As far as Firefly goes, I think it's partly because the series was so short-lived. The real canon 'ships never got to the point where they involved me on an OTP level, and probably just annoyed me. Plus, it's Joss and I just don't trust his canon 'ships any more. I'm an old school B/A shipper, dammit!

So just from his history of breaking my heart, I don't think I was ever going to invest in a canon 'ship -- and a group of people stuck in a small confined space just makes for a flying orgy. There was just a chemistry between the actors and the characters and they fit in so well together that it just screamed out "BIG DAMN ORGY" to me.

And this is me. Rambling. Sorry.

[lunarknightz.livejournal.com]

I tend to find a character that I fall in love with, and then I can't let go of them (see Kyle Valenti from Roswell; Chloe Sullivan from Smallville, and now Simon Tam from Firefly.)

With FF, I do have an OTP in Simon and Kaylee- but yet, I have a deep and resounding love for all the characters- which is weird for me, because there's usally at least one character who I will *loathe*. And on FF, there's not that. I enjoy reading all different pairings, except for Simon/River romance, because incest is one of my squicks. A well written non romantic story that's centered around the sibling relationship of Simon and River, though? I love that kind of stuff.

Book, to me, is a little tricky to write still, and that's why he has only appeared in one of my fics (that, and I seem to be addicted to writing post-movie fic at the moment.)