Bill Robinson/Clarissa Carter
| Pairing | |
|---|---|
| Pairing: | Bill Robinson/Clarissa Carter |
| Alternative name(s): | |
| Gender category: | F/F, femslash |
| Fandom: | Malory Towers |
| Canonical?: | No |
| Prevalence: | Moderate |
| Archives: | |
| Other: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
This article or section needs expansion. |
Bill Robinson/Clarissa Carter is a femslash pairing in the Malory Towers fandom.
Canon
Bill is introduced in the third book in the Malory Towers series, Clarissa in the fourth. They strike up a friendship after Clarissa grows tired of the way Gwendoline Mary Lacey talks about other members of the form, and the pair discover that they share a love for horses and horse-riding.
After this, the pair are inseparable for the remainder of their time at the school and plan to live together and run a horse riding school near Malory Towers after leaving school.
In the continuation by Pamela Cox, they appear as recurring characters at the planned horse-riding school and the story-lines of 'Summer Time at Malory Towers' are centred around them and their business.
Fandom
Within the original canon, a lot is made in-text of each girl having a particularly close friend and them pairing off, which underpins a lot of the fanworks in the fandom. Bill and Clarissa pair off in book four and this and their planned future together fueled a fair amount of the fanworks around the pairing.
The pairing are also frequently interpreted by the fandom as an example of a butch/femme couple, and there are a few works which explore Bill’s identity as a butch lesbian within the time-frame of the 1940s and 50s when the books were set.
Bill/Clarissa is arguably the most popular or widely accepted fanon pairing in the Malory Towers fandom; even in fanworks focused on other pairings, their relationship is either a background pairing or mentioned, sometimes as the catalyst for other characters understanding their own feelings. It is also the pairing which sometimes appears in other fanspaces, such as older Blyton forums and discussion boards, as part of discussions about whether they were intended to be read as sapphic.
Fan Commentary
(overview of fans' reactions to the ship, including relevant quotes from both within and outside the fandom)
But, like many Girls’ Own fans, I see Bill as being gay, and imagine her ending up in a relationship with Clarissa Carter. There’s a lot of fanfic “shipping” the two of them – and quite a bit of it is by authors who are themselves gay and say that they identify with the characters and find it helpful that characters like them do exist in older books for children.
Reading the Malory Towers sequels. They're not canon - Bill and Clarissa with separate bedrooms? Please.
obviously the best thing about malory towers was bill and clarissa being married lesbian stable owners
Common Tropes and Fanon
- Butch/Femme
- Post-canon - As many Malory Towers fanworks tend to be based in the original time-period of the 40s-50s, a number of fanworks focus on Bill and Clarissa during the time they own the stables at Malory Towers.
Controversies
As with most sapphic or queer interpretations of Enid Blyton works, some parts of the fandom pushed back about the possibility of Bill and Clarissa being in a relationship and derogatory comments about sapphic shippers sometimes occurred alongside this[4].
Example Fanworks
Fanfic
- Though Years May Go by Deepdarkwaters. Near the end of their last term at Malory Towers, Clarissa & Bill talk about the future (and also kiss a lot in a heap of stable hay).
- Disengagement by KannaOphelia. Careers for girls are, after all, just a way of filling time until you get married.
- Heart by paranoid kitten. Clarissa has a theory.
- Where the Lovelight Gleams by KannaOphelia. A post-canon fic with angst and supernatural elements.
- Billy Budd by mathilidia. Some things are fine at school. Obsession for one thing. You can be as obsessed with your horse or your best friend as you please. But then the world arrives for you and have to put these things aside. Have to move on. To the future.
Fanart
Other Fanworks
Meta
Archives and Communities
- Clarissa Carter/Wilhelmina "Bill" Robinson tag at AO3
- Bill and Clarissa searched works at Fanfiction.net
Other Fannish Resources
References
- ^ Set in the Past post, Malory Towers. 25 September 2019. (14 December 2023) (Archived-14 December 2023)
- ^ _lizbarr tweet, Twitter.15 August 2015. (14 December 2023) (Archived-14 December 2023)
- ^ foligno tweet, Twitter. 18 January 2015. (14 December 2023) ([https://archive.is/BvmkN Archived-14 December 2023)
- ^ Bill and Clarissa - Discussion on Enid Blyton Society forums