Frannie: the little black dress of due South femslash?

[luzula]

So I was thinking about due South femslash, and it struck me that basically all the femslash pairings are with Frannie. Here are the statistics for the sum total of the (really quite few) due South femslash fics posted at the AO3 and the DSA, split up by pairing (and not including crossovers):

Frannie/Elaine - 25
Frannie/Thatcher - 10
Frannie/Maggie - 8 (half of which were written by me *g*)
Frannie/Stella - 7
Frannie/Victoria - 1 (not actually posted, but I know someone had a long WIP with that pairing, so I'm including it)
Frannie/Irene Zuko - 1 (let me link to that, because it is very very good and I just discovered it)
Frannie/OFC - 1 (I wrote that one!)
Maggie/Victoria - 1 (hey, I wrote that one, too!)
Stella/Mackenzie King - 1

So basically Frannie is in all of them except two. What is the deal with that? Not that I'm complaining--I love Frannie! But why is no one writing, say, Thatcher/Stella?

Is it because Frannie seems more likely to be lesbian/bisexual? Or because she's people's favorite female character? Or because she's hot? Or because people feel she deserves some loving? Or because she has more onscreen time with other female characters? Hmmm. ETA: I just thought of this: maybe people dislike the canonical one-sided Frannie/Fraser and write femslash as a reaction?

ETA2: Also, the image of Frannie actually in a small black dress is a very nice one. : )

Comments

I'm hesitant!

[(Anonymous)]

I'm specifically NOT reading all the comments on this thread, because I'm in the middle of working on a Frannie/Stella story, and I don't want to get analysis paralysis from reading too much about Meta Frannie.

But! and with! the warning that I haven't read all the comments (although I will), I'll say:

1) Frannie is really, really hot.

2) Frannie was underserved by the writers; when watching some of the episodes, I cringe on Ramona Milano's behalf for some of the dialogue/business she had to force out of her mouth/perform in other ways, solely in service to some very sexist jokes.

3) I'm not sure, but it seems like we viewers/textual poachers have the most information about Frannie, as compared to the other canon female characters. So, as I writer, I feel about Frannie/Whomever kind of the same way as I do about Kowalski/Vecchio. We have a lot of information about Kowalski and Vecchio as individuals, and very little information about their interpersonal dynamic from the show. So there's a window of opportunity that was opened briefly and allowed writers to make up their own dynamic: sweet, funny, antogonistic, violent, jealous, or whatever.

In conclusion: I have no idea what I'm talking about and once I wrestle my Frannnie/Stella story to the ground, I will dedicate it to you for opening this dialogue.

Sock Marionette

I'm guessing that really doesn't help, but I'm okay with being the

Re: I'm hesitant!

[luzula]

1) Yes, she is!

2) Oh, I agree. That bit with the German Fraser-look-alike always makes me wince so hard, for example.

3) Good point! I guess that's also how it works when people write crossovers--they take characters they know a lot about individually, and put them together.

And thanks again for the story! \o/