yakalskovich | Yakkie is clueless again

Current Mood: embarrassed
Current Music: something on CR which is about to make way for "Velvet Goldmine"

Entry tags:

geekery,
tla

Yakkie is clueless again

Sometimes, I miss out on major pieces of culture. Like the thing about "The Sound Of Music"? Everyone knows it except clueless Yakkie.

So, I am deeply red with embarrassment, but there's no help, I have to ask, or things will continue whizzing over my head:

What does "OTP" mean in a fannish/fanfic-writing context?

There. Asked. I can now shamefacedly hide in a hole hoping for a definition.

Ahm, actually, not a hole but on my sofa, and I will be watching "Velvet Goldmine" if I may.

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OTP - One True Pairing. This refers to the belief that a show supports only one pairing of characters that works within canon. Good examples would be Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan and Duncan/Methos. Usually, fans have a preferred OTP in their primary fandom, and can cite examples why they feel the particular pairing is the one they believe in strongly.

OTP: One True Pairing. This term is used by and for people who have a single ship and can't bear to stray too far from it. They believe that their pairing is the best and nothing else comes close. They believe that true, great love can come from this pairing, and that it is worth exploring over and over and over. ("I can't read Draco/Ron fics. Harry/Draco is my OTP!")

OTP - One True Pairing. (1) Die nach Meinung eines Fans einzig wahre Paarkombination in einem Fandom. Steht nicht zur Diskussion.
(2) Bevorzugte Paarkombination eines Fan Fiction-Lesers oder -Autors in einem bestimmten Fandom.

--

Hmmm, so I guess this would be like somebody who was ONLY interested in Cal and Pell and screw anybody else, they hate Panthera, etc.? And forget original characters, they'd hate it... :)

Ah. Thanks, Wiebke. Where does one look up such questions? I asked Google, but Goolge was obviously the wrong large, benevolent demon to ask. So, which is the one I need to ask with my next similar question?

Well, Cal/Panthera is canon, too, so... Having OTPs in Wraeththu must be quite a challenge, as hara are supposed to ~~screw~~ have aruna all over the place.

And I guess the most obvious and blatant, closest-to-canon and best-defended OTP in any fandom wheresoever must be Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, then? Does this example support my belief that I have understood the concept?

So, which is the one I need to ask with my next similar question?

I found a whole bunch of fanfic glossaries online:

Destina's Fan Fiction FAQ
http://www.lyricalmagic.com/fanficFAQ.html

Doros Fanfic FAQ
http://www.dykesvision.com/de/fanfic/ressourcen/fanfic-faq.html

Harry Potter Slash FanFiction Glossary
http://veela-inc.net/glossary.html

FanFic Glossary
http://www.thekeep.org/~tls/glossary.htm

Find more by googling for "fanfic glossary" or similar.

And I guess the most obvious and blatant, closest-to-canon and best-defended OTP in any fandom wheresoever must be Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, then? Does this example support my belief that I have understood the concept?

I'm not sure, since I don't do HP at all, don't have a clue about characters.

Personally, I'm positive that OTP is NOT something I'm interested in, since I tend to avoid the COMMON pairings and do either weird ones or ones I've invented. For example, for all the Vamp Chron fanfic I wrote, very few of them were Louis/Lestat. And I've never done anything with Cal or Pell really either, except as more minor characters. (And I had Vaysh fall for Thiede's son... that was twisted.) I prefer to take not-so-central characters and pair them with characters I make up.

Thanks for the generous linkage!! Will get through the sites and bookmark them under slash.-

And as for the OC apporach, that's what I tend to do myself, if I do anything at all. Take "Ai-cara 1515" - I brought the whole effin world forward 1500 years. (Ugh. Thinking of that abandoned WIP makes me feel all guilty.) Or the almost-novel-langth-ST:DS9 thing I wrote ten years ago while trying to escape from the inescapable fact I was supposed to write a magisterial thesis - I had an OC pairing as my main characters, and the canon as backdrop.

The fact that I like OC so much is what has led me into writing original stuff, he he. Though I tell you, Lisia is a fun guy... er, girl... whatever.

And I guess the most obvious and blatant, closest-to-canon and best-defended OTP in any fandom wheresoever must be Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, then? Does this example support my belief that I have understood the concept?

This is an OTP according to concept #1. Many SB/RL shippers are 100% convinced this pairing is supported by the text, and personally, I'm convinced that if there is one canonical m/m HP pairing, it's this one. So yes, I'd say you understand the concept.

Having said this, my OTPs are typical cases of concept #2:
Snape/Lupin for HP - much more interesting than Remus/Sirius if done well, but not really fitting into Rowlings Potterverse; and
Maedhros/Fingon for The Silmarillion - an obvious choice for slashers, but incompatible with the doctrines of Tolkien's religion.

Incompatible with the doctrines, perhaps; but if we consider all that stuff about Arda Marred, and Finwe's two wives, and the fact that others are known to bahave incompatably with the doctrines, Maedhros/Fingon is the only slash pairing in Tolkien supported by the text even a little bit at all. (Except perhaps for a tiny little spot of Legolas/Gimli in a narrowed-down LOTR context.) I believe that qualifies Maedhros/Fingon as a type 1 OTP all right. As for type 2 - the sky's the limit, if one is prepared to argue, I suppose. For example, would anyone like to slash Feanor with Morgoth?

would anyone like to slash Feanor with Morgoth?

Apparently, for this has been done! (But I can't give you the link, as ff.net still isn't functioning properly.)

Ooooh! One suspects great weirdness...

ff.net is on the fritz. What else is new? Ah, yes, LJ doesn't return "document contains no data" at every second request any more, which is actually a Good Thing.

Feanor and Morgoth. Huh. I must look that up on ff.net as soon as it deigns to talk to the rest of the world again (can be only days...), because that's so odd it might be interesting again.

As I understand it, and I'm still trying to figure this out myself, someone's OTP does not necessarily need to be a canonical pairing. I will happily admit to OTPing Sirius and Remus, and much of that is because I believe they are at least semi-canonical. However, someone else might have Sirius and Remus as an OTP and not give a damn whether they even said hello when they were students together.

I think an OTP is where you have such an obsession with two (or more?) characters in a hypothetical fanficked relationship that you can't even bear to think of one or the other or both with anyone else. This is why I have to nudge myself a bit to read Sirius/Snape fic or Snape/Lupin. I'll read it, but there usually has to be a reason stated within the fic itself why Sirius and Remus aren't together as God intended.

And then my other HP OTP, Snape/Harry, is *totally* uncanonical, I stumbled into it with raised eyebrows and a fair amount of disbelief, but I'm completely in love with it. It's not the OTP I chose, it's the OTP that chose me. : )

I believe it was

switchknife who had a lengthy post discussing this topic and soliciting responses for a poll of "What does OTP mean to you?"

I didn't see that poll; it was just that

ponderstibbons on

discworld_rpg mentioned the term OTP, and I couldn't for he life of me understand what he meant. And then suddenly everyone seemed to be going on about OTPs, and I was getting seriously worried that I had missed out on something...

Well, let it be said that at the moment my OTP is Teppic/Chidder, because I need it to be...

Teppic/Chidder? Oh, you so KNOW they were. *grin*

From my point of view, they are going to be, and I will have to work a bit to bring it about. By playing

pteppicymon on

discworld_rpg, to be precise. A clueless-at-the-moment Teppic who will at some stage wise up and realise etc. etc.

Hey, my biggest OTP only came about from the RPage - once you get into the interesting bits you'll love it.

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Yakkie is clueless again

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