9. Pairings – For each of the fandoms from day two, what are your three favorite pairings to write?
I've actually spent quite a while searching the web trying to nail down exactly what the word "pairing" means, as far as its use in the phrase "writing a pairing." It seems to pretty much mean "a romantic relationship," and "writing a pairing" means "creating a story in which you're dealing specifically with the romance between two characters." For example, I don't consider Rory and Amy a "pairing" in The Actor, because the story was not about their relationship and only briefly touched on it.
Given that definition, I can't actually answer this question, because I don't write pairings. Stories about romantic relationships hold little interest for me, and while in a story, I might include a scene in which a couple develop their relationship, it would stem from having included those two characters in the story in the first place, rather than choosing the pair so that they could have such a scene. I hope that makes sense. I included Amy and Rory in The Actor because I needed David to have a normal person to befriend, and Rory was the only candidate. (Not to belittle Rory: I absolutely love him, and at the moment in time the story is set in, Rory was the perfect friend for David. And, by the way, Amy is in no way a normal person! ;) That a couple appeared at all in the story was only forced by having Rory meant that Amy had to be there, too.
Why am I not interested in romance? I don't know. Character-wise, the most interesting character in the show is the Doctor, and I'm far more interested in the complex relationships the Doctor has with non-romantic companions, that combination of father, brother, best friend, teacher, and partner in crime that he is to them, coupled with his inner child that still has so much to learn from them. And this is a revelation that just occurred to me as I was writing this, but maybe this is why I dislike the Doctor-Rose relationship in series 2. In series 1, Rose and the Doctor were learning from each other and their relationship was developing, and that was great, but in series 2, that was all gone, and they were reduced to two lovebirds flitting around the galaxy with little character or relationship growth.
In a way, I felt the same way with River. She was far more interesting to me when the relationship between her and the Doctor was a mystery, when the details were slowly coming out and the Doctor was getting to know her. But by the middle of series 6, when we find out she's Amy's daughter and see how obsessed she is with the Doctor, to the exclusion of all else, the character completely lost my interest.
*shrug* I'm just not a romantic, I guess.
The other problem is that I'm an in-canon writer, and most of the pairings that I could choose to write about have already been developed by the show itself. Amy and Rory have a complex but well-defined history, and they don't need me to throw my two cents into the mix. Perhaps I might write something set in their time after "The Angels Take Manhattan," but I probably never will (not to mention, there's this one really fantastic fic about that time, that I'm too lazy to go look up right now, but I could never measure up to it).
So there you have it. Five long paragraphs that basically just say, "Um, no."