Fannish Friday: Do I even have OTPs??????????

[lirazel]

I was reading ruuger's thoughts about OTPs over on Mastodon, and I had a sudden, shocking thought: I don't know that I have any OTPs in the truest sense of the word?

For every single ship that I absolutely adore (faves: Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji, Gen/Irene, Kamet/Costis, Youngshin/Junghoo, Buffy/Spike, Winter/Alex, Lord Peter/Harriet, Julie/Maddie, Evie/Rick, etc.), I don't think I really have OTP feelings? Because even with the ones I would have been DEVASTATED if they weren't together in canon (see: all of the listed above except Spuffy), I'll still happily ship at least one of them with other people in fanfiction.

Now, I won't always ship both halves of the pairing with others even in fanfiction. I love Wei Wuxian/Jiang Cheng and I can even get into Wei Wuxian/Wen Qing under the right circumstances. But I just cannot accept Lan Wangji/anyone else. I just don't believe he'd ever love anyone else. My brain totally rejects it. In modern AUs, I'm fine with him having dated other people, but even there, I don't believe he's really loved any of them. Like, sorry! But that's entirely about who LWJ is as a person, not about the ship itself.

I have wracked my brain and literally the only pairing I can think of where I'm like, "No. Not even in fanfic. If I even think of them with anyone else, I will start frothing at the mouth with anger" is...

Nick and Nora Charles.

Make of that what you will.



How about y'all? Do you have any pairings you will only accept together?

Comments

[skygiants]

it's less 'do I believe that they would date other people' and more 'do I care ....' Like, realistically, I think most people could probably find their way into a relationship with a variety of other people under the right conditions and circumstances, but I'm likely not going to be interested in that enough to want to read about it! And there are some relationships that I specifically do not want to read about because it goes contrary to the point it feels like the canon was making about their relationship.

Healer is a great example here because I do think it's quite funny that the show wants me to believe that Youngshin has never dated anyone. I am sure she went on dates in college and had a perfectly fine time. But I've got no reason to read Youngshin/any of her colleagues or Youngshin/random college classmate because the show hasn't done any work to make that interesting to me, and I actively would never read Youngshin/Moon-shik because it is important to me that that relationship is not actually romantic but is in fact the specific dynamic between an older cousin who got very parentified and the kid they used to babysit. (I would however read Youngshin/Yeon-hee because their three episodes together were very compelling.)

[lirazel]

Like, realistically, I think most people could probably find their way into a relationship with a variety of other people under the right conditions and circumstances, but I'm likely not going to be interested in that enough to want to read about it!

Oh, yes, definitely!!!

I am sure she went on dates in college and had a perfectly fine time.

Absolutely.

But I've got no reason to read Youngshin/any of her colleagues or Youngshin/random college classmate because the show hasn't done any work to make that interesting to me

Very very true.

I actively would never read Youngshin/Moon-shik because it is important to me that that relationship is not actually romantic but is in fact the specific dynamic between an older cousin who got very parentified and the kid they used to babysit.

YES!!! Making that relationship romantic/sexual in any way would make it less interesting than it is (and also squick me some).

(I would however read Youngshin/Yeon-hee because their three episodes together were very compelling.)

I think I would read this too!