tree_and_leaf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tree_and_leaf) wrote2009-06-04 12:21 pm
tree_and_leaf) wrote2009-06-04 12:21 pm
The 15 OTPs meme
I'm awfully behind the curve on this, but you were supposed to list 15 OTPs amd draw conclusions from them. Or were you supposed to let your flist do so? IDK.
Anyway, my conclusions are (i) I have a great tendency just to follow canon (though the fact that a pairing is canonical doesn't mean I'll necessarily be interested in it)
(ii) I like my romantic heroes, by and large, to be intellectual, but also to know one end of a sword from each other (metaphorically speaking)
(iii) I may also have a thing about older men and younger women (though this is not reflected in my own romantic history, such as it is). Although to an extent this may just reflect that in older fiction the men are always older than the women.
(iv) there are friendships which I find fascinating but that I don't see as sexual, so I made a separate heading for them.
OTP-ships as such, in no particular order (except for number 1, which is my OTP of OTPs)
1. Peter Wimsey/ Harriet Vane. (The original and best, accept no substitutes. Now if only I could write them in a non-sucidally-depressing-AU sort of way...)
2. Eowyn/ Faramir. (Can I just mention my annoyance with Peter Jackson at the total downplaying of this? It's not like Tolkien gave us much romance, and I have so much love for Eowyn, Faramir, and their choice of life and love out of despair and death) I've never written Tolkien fic, because I have massive inhibitions about it. (Yes, I know this is weird given that I've written Biblical fic, but that was really meta-theology, and I wasn't trying to match the tone there. Also, I had plot-bunnies and they wouldn't leave me alone).
3. Spock/ Uhura. She's a linguist! He's caught between two cultures and has massive religious and vocation (see: The Motionless Picture) issues! They're both intellectual, sarcastic, and very private (or, in Spock's case, repressed)! ... I really can't imagine why I find them interesting, can you?
4. I know they're real, but: S.S. Elisabeth and Ludwig of Thuringia. Who manage the difficult trick of being both genuinely saintly and crazy about each other, to the point that even the hagiography (written by people deeply suspicious of the erotic) doesn't obscure it. It's just a pity (a) he dies on crusade and (b) her confessor was a sociopath.
5. Maj. Kira Nerys/ Odo. Although this is mostly about the fact that Kira is my favourite DS9 character (and my second favourite Star Trek character all together; she just loses out to Spock, but only just). I do like Odo too.
6. Ron/ Hermione. I know I don't write them, but nevertheless, there it is. Ron doesn't really fit the pattern, but I think they supplement each other really well (random thought: I wonder if there's an overlap between Harry/ Hermione and Kirk/ Spock shippers? Hermione/ Ron is more Spock/ McCoy)
7. Catherine Morland/ Henry Tilney (my favourite Austen couple)
8. Elizabeth Bennet/ Fitwilliam Darcy (who run them close)
9. I nearly didn't put them down, because I can also see Caspian/ Lucy in a one-sided, unrequited sort of way, but Caspian/ Ramandru's unfortunately nameless daughter (That sounds like a Mills and Boon, doesn't it? The King of Narnia and the Star's Unfortunately Nameless Virgin Daughter).
10. Jo March/ Professor Bhaer. I am very fond of Teddy, but even as fourteen year old, I could see why Jo didn't want to marry him.
I have more ships than I thought, I think, but that's all that spring to mind.
Ergo, Five Fascinating Friendships
1. Kirk, Spock and McCoy, though to be honest I find the Spock and McCoy bits most interesting. They need Kirk to stay stable, though - otherwise they'd probably just irritate themselves to death. The friendship between those three is my favourite thing in any Star Trek.
2. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Which is actually rather like Kirk and Spock, only with more debauched sloths and drug addiction.
3. Speaking of which... Holmes and Watson. Pls do not be turning Watson into a bumbling idiot. He isn't one, except by contrast with Holmes, and Holmes is a single-minded, ruthless, genius (who knows a lot less than Watson about everything which doesn't directly relate to detection, incidentally; c.f. his total ignorance of, and indifference to, fairly basic points of astronomy).
4. Peter Wimsey and Charles Parker.
5. Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole. I don't ship them, but they're great fun together.
Anyway, my conclusions are (i) I have a great tendency just to follow canon (though the fact that a pairing is canonical doesn't mean I'll necessarily be interested in it)
(ii) I like my romantic heroes, by and large, to be intellectual, but also to know one end of a sword from each other (metaphorically speaking)
(iii) I may also have a thing about older men and younger women (though this is not reflected in my own romantic history, such as it is). Although to an extent this may just reflect that in older fiction the men are always older than the women.
(iv) there are friendships which I find fascinating but that I don't see as sexual, so I made a separate heading for them.
OTP-ships as such, in no particular order (except for number 1, which is my OTP of OTPs)
1. Peter Wimsey/ Harriet Vane. (The original and best, accept no substitutes. Now if only I could write them in a non-sucidally-depressing-AU sort of way...)
2. Eowyn/ Faramir. (Can I just mention my annoyance with Peter Jackson at the total downplaying of this? It's not like Tolkien gave us much romance, and I have so much love for Eowyn, Faramir, and their choice of life and love out of despair and death) I've never written Tolkien fic, because I have massive inhibitions about it. (Yes, I know this is weird given that I've written Biblical fic, but that was really meta-theology, and I wasn't trying to match the tone there. Also, I had plot-bunnies and they wouldn't leave me alone).
3. Spock/ Uhura. She's a linguist! He's caught between two cultures and has massive religious and vocation (see: The Motion
4. I know they're real, but: S.S. Elisabeth and Ludwig of Thuringia. Who manage the difficult trick of being both genuinely saintly and crazy about each other, to the point that even the hagiography (written by people deeply suspicious of the erotic) doesn't obscure it. It's just a pity (a) he dies on crusade and (b) her confessor was a sociopath.
5. Maj. Kira Nerys/ Odo. Although this is mostly about the fact that Kira is my favourite DS9 character (and my second favourite Star Trek character all together; she just loses out to Spock, but only just). I do like Odo too.
6. Ron/ Hermione. I know I don't write them, but nevertheless, there it is. Ron doesn't really fit the pattern, but I think they supplement each other really well (random thought: I wonder if there's an overlap between Harry/ Hermione and Kirk/ Spock shippers? Hermione/ Ron is more Spock/ McCoy)
7. Catherine Morland/ Henry Tilney (my favourite Austen couple)
8. Elizabeth Bennet/ Fitwilliam Darcy (who run them close)
9. I nearly didn't put them down, because I can also see Caspian/ Lucy in a one-sided, unrequited sort of way, but Caspian/ Ramandru's unfortunately nameless daughter (That sounds like a Mills and Boon, doesn't it? The King of Narnia and the Star's Unfortunately Nameless Virgin Daughter).
10. Jo March/ Professor Bhaer. I am very fond of Teddy, but even as fourteen year old, I could see why Jo didn't want to marry him.
I have more ships than I thought, I think, but that's all that spring to mind.
Ergo, Five Fascinating Friendships
1. Kirk, Spock and McCoy, though to be honest I find the Spock and McCoy bits most interesting. They need Kirk to stay stable, though - otherwise they'd probably just irritate themselves to death. The friendship between those three is my favourite thing in any Star Trek.
2. Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin. Which is actually rather like Kirk and Spock, only with more debauched sloths and drug addiction.
3. Speaking of which... Holmes and Watson. Pls do not be turning Watson into a bumbling idiot. He isn't one, except by contrast with Holmes, and Holmes is a single-minded, ruthless, genius (who knows a lot less than Watson about everything which doesn't directly relate to detection, incidentally; c.f. his total ignorance of, and indifference to, fairly basic points of astronomy).
4. Peter Wimsey and Charles Parker.
5. Eustace Scrubb and Jill Pole. I don't ship them, but they're great fun together.
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When you mentioned Holmes and Watson I immediately thought of their dark dopplegangers. I'm not sure if Raffles and Bunny is a great friendship or a OTP or, in some respects, an Awful Warning (including along the lines of "And the people who you think are so cool in school - they probably aren't"). But I'd put them on my list as soon as I could find a suitable category.
I'm glad you mentioned Scrubb and Pole - looking at Narnia I've always liked Aravis and Lasaraleen as a friendship - mainly because although Lewis clearly wants to portray Lasaraleen as a feather-witted chump she so clearly is better than that.
I think part of the problem with Eowyn/Faramir, for me, is that it comes over with a fatal hint that each of them has been awarded the other for services rendered. It's the too-convenient ending which Wimsey/Vane so triumphantly avoids.
Marcus/Esca makes it in on the fascinating friendships, for me, and Alexander/Bagoas is my OTP from Renault.
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I like Aravis and Lasaraleen too, even though we only got one chapter of them.
I think part of the problem with Eowyn/Faramir, for me, is that it comes over with a fatal hint that each of them has been awarded the other for services rendered. It's the too-convenient ending which Wimsey/Vane so triumphantly avoids.
I can see why you feel that way, but I do think they work together; I think it's because they've got a surprising amount in common - both having been overshadowed by older brothers, and having to cope with the mental and emotional problems of Theoden and Denethor, and both not quite fitting into the role that their society expects of them. And I don't think the story is too perfunctory in the context of the "Lord of the Rings" - it gets more development and exploration than either Aragorn/ Arwen or Sam/ Rosie.
I've never read any Renault; I ought to remedy this!