Plus Destiel triumphs again, the Doctor loves himself and everyone’s talking about slash, but it’s not necessarily a good thing.

Fandom News Round-up:

(Source)

Supernatural’s Dean and Castiel (Jensen Ackles and Misha Collins) have clawed their way to victory in Zimbo’s 2013 TV Couples March Madness Challenge. The competition began with 64 pairings – including slash power couples Klaine and Sterek – but there was just no beating the profound bond that is Destiel and the legion of fans that support them.

Speaking of Misha Collins and Jensen Ackles (also known as Cockles) the Supernatural stars both made it to the final of EOnline’s Alpha Male Madness tournament. When the website reached out to the actors for their thoughts on the poll the always interesting Misha Collins sent a hilarious reply. It’s best just to let Misha speak for himself, read what he said here.

Max and Charlie Carver get pumped for Teen Wolf season three

Teen Wolf may have missed out on the title of Ultimate Beefcake Champion but it’s not from lack of trying, at least if the video they released last week is any indication. If you’ve ever wondered how those beautiful wolves stay in shape then wonder no more. It’s not exactly slash news but it has sweaty, flexing Max and Charlie Carver so you should probably just watch it here. (Also can someone please get Tyler Hoechlin a slice of pizza he just looks so sad).

The Spartacus final happened and we’re just going to point you all in the direction of the first few paragraphs of Michael Cornelius’s great recap for an accurate representation of our thoughts on the matter.

Accidentally Shipped: The Doctor and The Doctor

(Source)

If you’ve been online at all in the past month you’ve probably heard that David Tennant will be reprising his role as the Tenth Doctor in this year's 50th anniversary special. Naturally the Doctor Who fandom went crazy, but that was nothing to compare to how we felt when the Official BBC Doctor Who twitter posted the above photo of David Tennant (Tenth Doctor) and Matt Smith (Eleventh Doctor) at the read through.

Yes that’s right, I am shipping the Doctor with himself… it was completely accidental I swear. I just want to remind all of you that last year I accidentally shipped Jacob Black with Charlie Swan so this section has a sliding scale of creepiness. Besides, can’t you imagine the Tenth Doctor’s flirty demeanor making the Eleventh Doctor awkwardly flustered? I can, and it’s amazing.

M/M Pairing of the Week: Gwaine/Percival (BBC Merlin)

Because Merlin managed such an amazing win in the Ultimate Beefcake Tournament I thought I’d feature a couple of Merlin beefcakes in this week’s Shipping News. While Arthur/Merlin is the fan preferred pairing, that well-muscled portmanteau Perwaine still has a pretty strong following of its own, especially after the heartbreaking series finale. Besides we’ve already featured the epic love story of Arthur and Merlin, and while I do love Merthur they wouldn’t really be my pic for “beefcake” couple of the series. That honor falls to the knights Gwaine and Percival.

There is something about Gwaine’s carefree nature that just works so well with Percival’s strength. It’s not just the fans that can see the love between these two handsome (and incredibly buff) men, the official Merlin twitter posted this during the UK airing of Merlin’s final episode:

(Source)

Seriously, it’s pretty hard to watch the final scene between Gwaine and Percival and not come out shipping them like a crazy person. SPOILERS: the sound of Gwaine’s tortured screams gave Percival the strength to break the ropes that bound him (please tell me I’m not the only one still crying over this). Then there’s the blooper in which Tom Hopper (Percival) actually kissed Eoin Macken (Gwaine) during their final goodbye…

(Source)

Unfortunately Perwaine is often relegated to role of beta couple in Merthur fics, but there are still quite a few stories with Gwaine and Percival at the center. There’s even a fake boyfriends fic (we love a fake boyfriends fic). So let’s try to forget the heartbreak for a moment and remember just how adorable these two were.

AO3 | Tumblr

Trope Appreciation: Firefighter AU

(Artist: an-odd-ducky)

Last week Hannah took on the subject of Genderswaps (seriously go read it). It was so brilliant and well thought-out that it almost makes me feel bad for bringing down the tone of this column by being entirely gratuitous. Firefighters are hot, they wear cool uniforms and they save people from burning buildings. What more could you want? It’s pretty simple really, one half of a slash pairing is firefighter and the other half is in need of rescue… I think you can guess where this is going.

There’s not really much else to say about the Firefighter AU (it speaks for itself) so here are a bunch of fics featuring some of your favorite slash pairings:

Larry | Nargon | Jared/Jensen | Aomine/Kagami | Edward/Jasper | Arthur/Eames | Kirk/McCoy | Johnlock | Fraser/RayK | Fraser/RayK 2 | Klaine | Klaine 2 | Destiel | Wincest | Wincest 2 | Sterek | Sterek 2 | Nick/Monroe

Featured Fan Fic: Reflash by leviathans_moon

(Artist: itzcoatl)

It’s a two for one this week because this fic comes with artwork as well… and it’s a Firefighter AU of course. Arthur is a widower, Merlin is a firefighter, they meet and love happens. Emotion warning: I cried (considering I’m a heartless bitch that’s a big deal).

Excerpt:

[…] He messed up his hair with his right hand before grabbing his helmet and making to go towards his truck.

Arthur, however, held him back. “Well, maybe the fire wouldn’t have been so bad if you’d arrived here earlier. You took way too long to get here,” he said angrily. “What if our children had been trapped inside that room?”

Gwen subtly put a hand on Arthur’s arm. 52’s eyes darted from her over to the children and back to Arthur. “With all due respect sir,” sounding a lot as if he didn’t think of Arthur as a ‘sir’. ”In a situation of panic and fear, the feeling of time is always distorted. I can assure you we arrived within five minutes, which is the standard dispatch time for the first pump on scene. Everything went according to protocol.” His eyes were dark. He was challenging Arthur, as he’d done so many times before with prats who believed they knew better how firefighting was done.

Gwen stepped in before Arthur could say anything else. “Thank you so much, Mr….”

“Emrys, Merlin Emrys.” He shook her hand and managed to smile at her as well as scowl at Arthur at the same time. […]

Read the rest on AO3 or livejournal.

Slash Soap Box

Slash is talked about more and more everyday and not just in fan circles (as this column is testament to). The last year alone has seen a number of high profile polls, the mainstream use of fandom-specific terms and the meteoric rise of Sterek. There’s no denying it, slash is out there. The question is, how do fans feel about it?

Some might yearn for the good old days when slash fandom was a somewhat hidden community. Others might be really excited people are talking about it even if what they’re saying is not exactly positive. Then there are those that might be happy to see slash getting mainstream attention but are still disappointed by the assumptions and stereotypes that are constantly perpetuated.

As someone that writes about slash for a non-fandom audience, it would be pretty hypocritical of me to be against open discussion of the topic. But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand the pain and disappointment of being continuously misinterpreted. The thing is, whether fans want them to or not, people are talking about slash and I want to know what you guys think about that.

How do you feel about the increasing visibility of slash (and shipping in general)? Have you been in fandom long enough to witness the changes, or are these mainstream discussions your first foray into the phenomenon?

Let us know here in the comments or at The Shipping News Tumblr.

(If you post about these questions or anything else discussed in the column on Tumblr remember to tag your posts with “slashcolumn” and we’ll reblog our favorites).

A few words on Destiel

In the comments of Hannah’s column last week Jon requested we talk about a certain scene in the most recent episode of Supernatural: “Taxi Driver” (see, we do notice you). The moment Jon referred to was the one in which the mysterious Naomi tried to convince Dean that she is on his side and that Cas was the one that has gone off the rails.

(Source)

The thing is, for me, this scene was overshadowed by the massive plot holes (one does not simply walk into hell… oh wait maybe they do) and the buckets of tears I was sheding after Dean and Benny’s bittersweet goodbye (let’s not talk about Kevin). So I kind of missed a lot of the fandom’s analysis of the Destiel implications in the interaction between Dean and Naomi. Rather than waffling on about something I’m not entirely sure of, I thought I would put the call out to any Supernatural fans that read this column.

What do you guys think about the conversation between Dean and Naomi? Help me out guys – tell me how I should feel about this.

Parting Gif

This one goes out to the Destiel fandom – congratulations on the Zimbo Challenge win guys! We here at The Shipping News think you’re awesome…

(Source)

Just so you know I had two different versions of this week’s column depending on which fandom won the Ultimate Beefcake Tourney. A reminder that it’s important to vote: we want you on top form when the Ultimate Slash Madness Tourney kicks off later in the year!