NCIS
Fandom | |
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Name: | NCIS |
Abbreviation(s): | NCIS |
Creator: | Don McGill and Donald Bellisario |
Date(s): | September 23, 2003 – present |
Medium: | television |
Country of Origin: | United States |
External Links: | IMDb Official website |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
NCIS is a procedural crime drama following a fictional team of special agents in the (real) Naval Criminal Investigative Service, dealing with US Navy and Marines personnel. It is a spin-off of JAG.
It has two spin-offs:
Canon
The original team consisted of field agents Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Anthony "Tony" DiNozzo, Caitlin "Kate" Todd, and Timothy McGee, as well as medical examiner Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard, and forensic scientist Abby Sciuto. After the death of Caitlin Todd, Ziva David joined the team. Seasons 3-5 featured NCIS Director Jenny Shepard, who was replaced by Director Leon Vance in season 6. Eleanor "Ellie" Bishop, a NSA Analyst, joined the cast in Season 11, replacing Ziva when she left and Ellie became a Probationary Special Agent. One of the strengths of the show is that its popularity appears to be able to weather major changes in the makeup of the team and their associates, although it is widely believed that it would not survive the departure of Gibbs; DiNozzo was expected to take his place eventually but is no longer part of the team, and there is currently (2018) no obviously strong contender for the leading role.

Fandom
- See also: Timeline of NCIS Fandom
The fandom is small and fairly quiet (somewhat like how the show has great ratings, yet rarely gets press or Emmy nominations). The most common slash pairing is Gibbs/DiNozzo, followed by DiNozzo/McGee and Ducky/Gibbs, but there are f/f, het and gen stories as well. While the show has implied attraction between Tony and Ziva, much of the fanfic does not play on this subtext, and some fans are actively opposed to it.[1]
The single biggest canon plot point, or (strange attractor) to inspire fiction is the death of Kate Todd in the last moments of the season two finale (episode 2.23 "Twilight). Another common story type are prequels, showing how individual characters met before the beginning of the show.[2] Hurt/comfort is a common theme, especially in gen fic, with Tony vying with McGee for status as most-whumped character.
For non-canon plot points, BDSM and other kinks have a significant following in the fandom, possibly due to the fact that Gibbs whacks his team in the back of the head a lot, asserting a strong corrective appearance, and Abby canonically wears a dog collar and fetish gear to work. In addition, Kate, Abby, and Ziva make comments in canon implying at least occasional interest in other women.[3]
Crossovers
Fandom crosses over all of the different procedurals shows, and while crossovers within the CSIs are more common, NCIS does get crossed with them, as well as with such shows as Criminal Minds and Bones, more often than it does with other shows with larger fandoms. Maybe because there are Marines in SG1 and SGA, crossovers with the Stargate universe are fairly common; Supernatural/NCIS fic is also fairly popular.[4] West Wing crossovers often draw on Mark Harmon's role as Agent Simon Donovan and that character's death. The canon pre-series murder of Gibbs' first wife Shannon and daughter Kelly is sometimes used as a springboard for fix-it plots (especially adoption fics), in which one or both escaped death and became characters in another fandom.
Because Ducky is played by David McCallum, once upon a time known as the original fangirl bait Illya Kuryakin on The Man from U.N.C.L.E., NCIS is often crossed over or melded with MUNCLE. Ducky is also on occasion slashed with Albert Stroller from Hustle (a character played by Robert Vaughn, who was Illya's partner on MUNCLE), and some crossovers blend the characters from all three series.[5]
Controversies
Ziva Bashing
Ziva is frequently the object of character bashing[6], and sometimes called a Mary Sue[7] [8]. Ziva bashing came about at first because fans resented her taking Kate's place, but increased due to the exaggerated violent and arrogant nature of the character. The Ziva Bashing trend has grown even wider and stronger in recent years do to the character being written as having betrayed and lied to the team, and assaulting Tony.
Misogyny
NCIS is notorious for "fridging," killing off strong female protagonists,[9] especially if they have had any relationship with the male leads. Gibbs has been in relationships with at least six murdered women (beginning with his first wife and daughter pre-series), other examples include Caitlin "Kate" Todd, Jenny Shepard (NCIS Director and one of Gibbs' former lovers), Michelle Lee, Jackie Vance, and many others. By comparison the only recurring male characters to have been murdered are Mike Franks, Eli David and Ned Dorneget, all secondary characters appearing infrequently. The show also featured an implausible number of female serial killers in early series, though this is now less common.
Fanzines
- See the category of NCIS Zines for more.
Gen & Het
- Bellisario's Boys multimedia
- Bolo
- Ducky's Pain (xover with MUNCLE)
- Gear Up
- Honor Code
- Past and Present (crossover zine) (xover with MUNCLE)
- Tourist Trap (xover with Torchwood)
Slash
- Boat, Bourbon, Basement
- Building the Future (xover with Smallville)
- Damage
- Ever After
- Friends and Lovers (NCIS zine)
- The Gibbs/DiNozzo Pimping Package
- Hiding in Plain Sight (xover with SGA, part of the Coming Home (SGA fic) universe)
- History
- In Too Deep (AU)
- Longing to Belong - Angelise and Juli
- My Son's Boyfriend
- Sensing Evil
- Tears
- To Those Who Wait
- Two Masters
Archives & Fannish links
- NCIS works at AO3
- NCIS category on FF.Net
- NAVY: CIS Slash Fiction (indexed by author)
- NCIS fanfiction archive
- MTAC, a NCIS fanfiction archive
- NCIS Fan Fiction Archive
Recs/Lists
- The NCIS Fanfiction Addiction Community -- An archive and forum for discussing (mostly gen) stories. Games and challenges.
- Masterlist of Kate/Abby stories
- kew121's NCIS Fic Recs List, variety of pairings such as Gen, McGee/Abby, Ziva/Gibbs, Tony/Ziva, Gibbs/Jenny, Tony/Gibbs, Gibbs/Abby, Tony/McGee, Ziva/Jenny, and Threesomes
- Penumbria's NCIS Fanfiction Recommendations
Livejournal Communities
- NCIS Tinsel festive fic community for NCIS fanfiction
- ncis_flashfic
- ncis_slash
- ncisfanfic
- ncis_newsletter
- nciscrossovers
- ncis noticeboard
- ncis_awards
- ncisficfind
- ncis1000words
- ncis-bunnies
- ncis-gen
- nciskink
- ncis-bigbang
- navy-ncis
Pairings:
See the newbieguide has a list of all NCIS livejournal communities as of 11/25/08
Resources
References
- ^ The livejournal community no_tiva is self-described as "A place where members would rather see NCIS without the pairing of Tony and Ziva – better known as TIVA." (Accessed 12 Nov 2009) They have recently moved to create the more generalized community ncisnorom (Accessed 5 May, 2012), advocating no canon relationships, period, not just 'Tiva'.
- ^ The best-known of these is probably Sequitur's Rictus[1], an angsty gen case-fic recounting how Tony met Gibbs. (Accessed 12 Nov 2009)
- ^ In 3x04 "Silver War", Ziva owns her own copy of G.S.M., a Playboy-style men's magazine, and comments to Tony, "I especially like the article on page fifty-seven. In my experience, it works every time."
- ^ Fanfiction.net NCIS crossovers show 20 Supernatural crossovers, and 27 SG-1 or SGA crossovers, as of 12 Nov 2009.
- ^ Such as in Evan Nicholas's Gibbs/Ducky story "Contrapositive". (Accessed 12 Nov 2009)
- ^ A little consideration on 6x08 "Cloak"
- ^ You Made Me Hate You (I Didn’t Want To Do It) Accessed November 19, 2008
- ^ Kate vs. Ziva Accessed November 19, 2008
- ^ [http://theoutfitcollective.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/women-of-ncis.html Women of NCIS by Sara Paretsky (2009, accessed 16th June 2016)