Donna the Shipper

[meddow]

I was thinking about the Donna ships Ten/Rose that is making the rounds in Doctor Who fandom. Some people are prescribing to it and others deriding it. I do hate the idea of Donna's sole existence as being a plot device for Ten/Rose (or any other ship, but Ten/Rose tends to be the main culprit) with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. Because I love Donna far too much to ever wish to see her as merely a plot device.

But in a way, the Donna ships Ten/Rose thing is kind of correct. Of course, canon evidence does clearly show that Donna is incredibly happy that Ten and Rose are back together. Why wouldn't she be? She's his friend. Whatever makes him happy would make her happy (within reason and I'll get to that). But then, it is also canon that if Donna had her way, it'd be her, the Doctor, Rose, Martha, Jenny and Jack travelling around time and space (and probably Sarah, Luke, Mickey et al if she was to meet them). She did, remember, invite Martha aboard twice, and Jenny once (not to mention, she was the driving force behind the Doctor and Jenny bonding), and the "And who's he?" speaks volumes about Jack's potential to get luckyinvited.

You also do have to account for the fact Donna has never seen Ten and Rose in action together, because that Tooth and Claw immature joviality in the face of a slaughter would not be tolerated. We saw what happens when Rose acts like a juvenile in Turn Left with the whole 'in flux' bit. Rose made light of Donna's situation, and Rose was quite rightly yelled at. Those two would have to grow up in her presence.

And do people expect Donna to stand aside and leave if Rose came back, giving the one true pairing alone time? Hell no she would not do that. Donna loves travelling with the Doctor. She's not getting out that TARDIS for nobody. Also, along those lines, the Doctor giving up the travelling life and settling down would not impress her either. Donna would want to hold onto her travelling lifestyle. So really, Donna does ship Ten/Rose, but only in theory and not in the way that many Ten/Rose fanfic writers do.

I would actually really love to see is well done fic, without a particular shipper agenda, about what a Ten/Rose/Donna TARDIS would be like. You've got Rose, who is rather possessive about her position as the Doctor's number one girl suddenly finding the Doctor's got a female friend he's more willing to confide in than her. It's the old girlfriend and the best friend scenario, the three of them would have to reassess their positions in relation to each other and in the right hands, it could be really interesting. Particularly if there are also monsters and an actual plot.

Comments

[meddow.livejournal.com]

Although, I tend to naturally side with the Donna is reduced to Yenta argument, really both sides are misrepresenting what actually happened in canon to an extent. It's really just another example of fandom taking something and polarising to the extremes of interpretations. And the inclusiveness is another reason why I adore those two.

And I have no idea why Rose ships Doctor/Donna is not a bigger thing, because it is actually far more of Rose trying to reunited the Doctor and Donna than there is Donna trying to reunite Rose and the Doctor. One is a character's explicit motivation. The other is a series of reaction shots.

I think you're right about Rose and her time line. I'm expecting that at some point early in Journey's End Donna is going to start talking about the events of Turn Left and Rose is going to reveal she's never met Donna before and has no idea what she's talking about.