(no subject)

[arcanetrivia]

I have been splashing about in the shallow end of Doctor Who fandom lately, and came across this Simm!Master/Ten hatesex fic (rating: adult, duh; author's warnings: violence, dubcon, Dom/sub, and general fucked-upedness). Now, being a Severus/Sirius shipper and reading the occasional Severus/James fic runs one into a lot of hatesex, and while it's not my favoritest thing ever, it's okay, I can sometimes enjoy it. I used to have more of a taste for it in my early infatuation with SS/SB, I guess, and kind of grew away from it somewhat. But what was a little weird about this fic for me, as I mention in the comment I left, was that I sort of expected to like it more than I did, and it wasn't the writing itself that was the problem, nor was it just "meh, hatesex is not doing it for me right now / any more / something." It was just... a queer flavor (npi)... like it's fine with one set of ingredients (Severus/Sirius) but came off oddly with another (Doctor/Master), even though on the surface I think there are some similar things going on in the canon relationships between the characters.

I dunno where I'm going with this. Navel-gazing...

This entry was crossposted from http://shyfoxling.dreamwidth.org/347583.html, where there are comments.

Comments

[akatnamedeaster.livejournal.com]

It could be the dynamic between the characters is just different enough in canon that the hate!sex trope feels off. Or maybe it was just the way the writer handled it, not bad writing or anything, but the set up or whatever just didn't work for you.

Like you, I've sort of grown away from the hate!sex thing with Snack, well, not really hate!sex but rather non-con. I can read and enjoy a good tussle, some fight sex, or angry sex, or even dub-con between them but I can't view either character as a rapist so non-con just doesn't work for me. I think once I got over the woobie!Snape thing, non-con fic went with it.

[arcanetrivia]

Yeah, I have never had a taste for non-con at all. I can love a good dub-con though. Perhaps the dynamic between Master and Doctor is different in classic Who (we've been watching some, but the selection on Netflix is small and none of them have been Master episodes yet), but at least with the Simm!Master in the new series, my conception of the Doctor is always more that he wants to fix or help the Master and even in the depths of his hatred and rage and incandescent fury (which he definitely has great capacity for - compare how in that fic the Master taunts him about the Time War saying "you're so good at killing Time Lords; let's see if you can do it with your bare hands" - it hits home because it's 100% true), somehow he is more essentially a gentle being at heart (hearts?), and I really have trouble picturing him giving in to taking it out sexually like that. The bit at the end where he makes the mistake of releasing the Master from the collar-thing is more in character I thought.

I guess it reads easier for me with Severus/Sirius because I don't have the same feeling either of them is essentially gentle? I mean, my experience of Severus is that he does have this kind of beautiful purity down in there somewhere, but it's more fierce than it is gentle? (Although the Doctor can certainly be fierce too, I dunno.) Certainly he has capacity for delicacy and tenderness and can be a quite refined, elegant (??) sort of character when he wants, but... *blahflail* I dunno what I am getting at here.

*goes back to the Tencest pr0n*

[akatnamedeaster.livejournal.com]

I don't have any comment on Dr. Who since I've never gotten into it although the feeling I got is the Doctor is a pretty cold character in a lot of respects don't know anything about the Master since I don't watch.

But yes, there isn't an underlying gentleness to either character in Potter which is I suppose is one part of the reason I ship them, neither is easily designated by writers as "the girl" of the pair.

*sigh* I'm still waiting for my next fandom. Hopefully soon.

[arcanetrivia]

the feeling I got is the Doctor is a pretty cold character in a lot of respects

He can be, and also a control freak, having a very high opinion of himself, and other lovely traits, but he can also be a pretty hot character (an emotion/passion/righteousness kind of thing, I mean, though I haven't seen any of Doctors Five through Eight yet and David Tennant notwithstanding). Some of that is different aesthetic in how to write this kind of TV in the 60s-80s vs. the 21st century, I think, and partly what actors were being written for. But one of the essential things about him is that he is an ancient alien and sometimes just does not get all the weird ways human emotions can work, for all they are his pet favorite species, and he can be incredibly insensitive. Having to make terrible choices many times in his life has both hardened him and, paradoxically, sometimes over-softened him, almost to the point of bleeding heart(s), gaping wounds it's all too easy for someone with the inclination to do so to exploit.

Sorry for all the edits. Apparently I am having thinky thoughts. I am also nervous about treading into a fandom that has such a natural split in it - I get the feeling that the female-dominated, often porny approach to fandom I am familiar with in HP was virtually absent in DW before the new series. It's sort of a "oh you only like Snape because of Alan Rickman" type of accusation. So that's part of the reason (besides general nerdiness) we've been watching what we can of the older shows, so I can get a broader look at the character beyond the new series (and the tiny glimpses I remember from PBS as a kid, heh).