OTPs

[brigdh]

ranalore tagged me for the six OTPs meme (In no particular order, list six of your OTPs and your favorite moment between them. Then select six victims and tag them) a while ago. I am just getting around to it now. Heh. #^^#



Hisoka=Tsuzuki: I'm sure you're all shocked.

My ultimate OTP. Ah, yes. I've wondered about it, because there's nothing quite as endlessly intriguing as navel-gazing, but I can't decide why exactly I like them so much. It could just be that, as teenager-angst as it is, I'm terribly fond of couples that need each other, rather than the snarky-friends or rivals or any of the other archetypes. It could also be that I'm capable of identifying with both characters; in any given day I'll switch multiple times between silent misanthropic bookworm and puppyish extroverted attention-whore, from arrogant rage to angsty martydom. I consistently get high scores on codependence and social avoidance on that stupid mental health quiz that goes around every so often.

Anyway, favorite moment. There's a thousand I could mention, because Matsushito is not exactly miserly with the subtext, but the one that I first thought of is after Tsuzuki has his breakdown in the Kyoto arc (well, one of his breakdowns. I mean the one in the bar, with the snowy alley and gouging of eyes/beating of head). After that's over, you get this little scene of Tsuzuki and Hisoka sitting underneath some kind of jungle gym in a playground while the snow falls. The scene lasts for only a few lines in both the anime and manga version, but the impression that's given is that they've been there much longer. There's no sexual feeling to the scene, and it comes off to me as nearly platonic, which makes it a strange choice for an OTP scene. But right then they seem so calm and peaceful and right that it seems a perfect moment.

Spike/Drusilla: Now this ship was my very first ship after I found fandom. In truth, for the Buffyverse I had much more of an OTC than an OTP- I'd read anything with Spike in it- but this was my first pairing, and it was through it that I learned how to use archives and maillists and message boards and search engines. And also that there even was such a thing as fanfiction. Spike/Drusilla is all about the wrong, kinky sex. Very wrong. One of the more widely rec'd stories, and one of the ones I remember best, involved deliberate blinding. Given that vampires continually heal injuries, I think you can imagine how fluffy that story was.

I was 15 at the time, and I'm certainly not seriously warped in any way. It's a big part of the reason why I find the annual wank over minors reading NC-17 stories so silly (aside from the legal issues). If I could take that, and plenty more, in stride, a little buttsex isn't going to hurt anyone.

Favorite moment: It's a bit strange, because we almost never saw Drusilla and Spike at the top of their game at the same time, which is where I liked them. Drusilla spent the first half of Season 2 sick; Spike spent the second half in a wheelchair; after that they'd broken up. So I'll say the scene in the Bronze from Crush- I think that's the name of the episode, the one is Season Five where Drusilla comes back and doesn't know Spike is chipped- where they're sexy, confidant predators. Mmmmmyes.

Frodo=Sam: And this one, in some ways, is my very first chip. I read the Lord of the Rings books for the first time in sixth grade, and many times after that, though I'd nearly forgotten them by the time the movies came out. I remember reading them and thinking to myself curiously, "The Aragorn plotline has all the action: the fighting, the sieges, the talking trees, the insane kings. The Frodo plotline is just two guys walking across a desert. So why do I like the second one so much more?"

Years later, after having discovered fanfiction and slash, I looked back on that moment and suddenly understood. When the first movie came out, I dipped into the fandom for a while. Somewhere out there is a horrible, angsty Frodo/Sam fanfic I wrote during that time. Unfortunately, I have no idea where, because I don't remember the title of it and I've long since misplaced the floppy disk I kept my copy on. If any of you ever come across that story it, um... was another Brigdh. Really.

Favorite moment: It's been too long since I last read the books for me to remember many specific moments, but what I loved the most was Sam's loyalty. I wanted to be that dedicated to one person.

Fitz=the Fool: I adore this couple. Perhaps not a good moment to mention it, as their author (Robin Hobb), has just gone crazy ala Anne Rice over fanfic, and is this week's favorite wank. Not that this was news to me: I've been searching for Farseer fanfic for years, and haven't been able to find any because of her personal objections. The only piece of it I've ever seen was a short Patience/Lacy by jennyo. Where is the good Fitz/the Fool, people? Theirs is a love that should be written of!

If you haven't read Hobb's books, they're high fantasy, complete with Kings and assassins and wars and dragons and political intrigue. I adore political intrigue. Fitz is the bastard son of the oldest of the three princes of a rocky, northern kingdom; his father dies before they ever meet. Fitz is taken in by his grandfather the King with the intention of raising him up to be a diplomat or spy or some such- there's a lovely line in the books along the thought of: "A royal bastard has enough family blood in him to be useful, but not enough to be indispensable. If we make a tool of him, no one else can use him against us." The Fool is the King's jester. And then there turns out to be a plot to take the throne during the confusion of war with a neighboring country, and everything goes to hell. Except that it's not that simple, of course, because the Fool also turns out to be the White Prophet, the latest in a long line who are destined to modify the fate of the world and keep it from getting as bad as it could, and Fitz is his Catalyst, the tool he uses to create change. Despite the fact that they save the world, they're not famous. The changes they make are little ones, behind the scenes, and no one ever realizes all that they did. Wonderful story, though I was disappointed by the sequel trilogy and hated its resolution.

Favorite moment: The Fool, you see, is utterly in love with Fitz, and has been for years. He tells Fitz on multiple occasions, but Fitz is too stupid/homophobic to realize it though, and convinces himself that the Fool only means he loves him in a brotherly way, or that he's trying to shock Fitz, or that it's some kind of obscure joke. The Fool realizes that he's never going to get what he wants, but he can't quite give up on Fitz.

There's a scene in the beginning of Golden Fool, when the two have just re-met after a separation of twenty or so years. Fitz asks the Fool to tell him his real name, and the Fool is playing a game with him to keep his secret, asking "what is a real name?" and "what's wrong with what you've always called me?" Finally Fitz puts it this way: "What did your mother call you?"

The Fool pauses, grins, and answers, "Beloved."

Fitz of course refuses to call him that, and if I remember right, the Fool spends the rest of the night getting drunk. It's terribly sad, but seems to capture their whole relationship: the Fool can never stop himself from pushing Fitz just a little too hard.

Jim=Blair: From the Sentinel. I feel like I should include this ship because I spent over a year in the fandom, but in truth, the characters don't appeal to me for themselves. They're not my archetype. It's just that the fandom had so very, very many incredibly talented authors and was wonderfully organized. Prospect-L was the best maillist ever.

I was into them around the same time I was applying for college and having to pick a major. Mine is anthropology mainly because my university doesn't offer archeology separately, but at the time I was horrified that I was somehow subconsciously forcing myself to copy fictional characters.

Favorite moment: One of the few I remember is the time when Blair ate drugged pizza and started hallucinating that he saw aliens or monsters, and was shooting at people. Jim talked him down, and Blair collapsed in his arms.

Man, the Sentinel was on crack. That sounds like the plot of something from the dredges of fanfiction.net.

And I can't think of a sixth. I truly am very OTP-ish: I tend to have just one favorite pairing at a time, which is why I can think of so few. I suspect I'll have one for Saiyuki sooner or later, but at the moment I continue to just read anything with Sanzo in it.

Tag: mistressrenet, b_hallward, yasminm, kohakutenshi, animadri, and rubyd.

Also, I made a Saiyuki wallpaper for lyricaldesktops here.

Comments

[quixotic-sense.livejournal.com]

Just six? :O

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I know. I average two parings a series!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I had the opposite problem: I couldn't come up with six. Hey, at leats it'll be easier for you to think of things that way. *grins*

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Oh, GOD, yes. Golden. Best. Scene. Ever. And yeah, totally on crack.

And that jungle gym scene is perfect-- Hisoka has the patience to deal with Tsuzuki, which no one else does.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Golden, yes! That's what it was called!

The Sentinel was so on crack. I didn't even mention the Spirit Guides or Panthers or the CPR.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I don't even want to know how they explained the wolf spirit jumping into the panther spirit to the network people. I just do not want to know.

Don't forget the episode where Jim wants to go on a fishing trip. Alone. By himself. And Simon decides he HAS to go along. And the one where they let Blair's MOM go undercover with them.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, man! Or the one where terrorists took over the police station and had Simon's kid and Blair as hostages. Or no: the one where Blair was stuck on an elevator with a bomb on it!

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

Dude, the hostage one was like the SECOND EPISODE. And Jim hung off a helicopter. ♥ And the one where Blair ends up on the roadtrip with the girl who stole Jimi Hendrix's guitar....

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee. I'm so amused that I'm being pimped out; I must be far more interesting than I realized.

But! Guess what? I know you! You wrote that drabble set where Hakkai gets Tsuzuki to kill him. I loooooooove that fic. I was thinking about it just yesterday, trying to remember where I'd seen it so I could go read it again. So obviously I have friended you in return. I can't let such goodness slip by me again. *grins*

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Hey, I remember that story too! As long as there's friending going on here, I think I should join in the festivities, before I too miss something I would regret missing.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Okay, this is nothing but a plaintive whine. But, how come everybody but me can deal with Sentinal??

You're right: there are all these fabulous writers who've written for it. But I can't go there. I saw, like, a quarter of one episode, once, and it was -- I couldn't. I just couldn't. Is there some secret code I'm missing? Or is it written into the genes, do you suppose?

On the other hand, Spike and Dru made me utterly happy, through all of second season. Even though I did occasionally want to slap Dru upside the head during her Angelus phase.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Well, I didn't watch the show while it was actually running, and only managed to catch reruns on the SciFi channel after I'd already read a good portion of the fanfic written for it. By that point I was pretty much immune to the bad writing and crack plot; I knew to expect them.

I understand your confusion though. I still don't understand why it appealed to so many excellent authors. I assummed that it just happened to hit the buddy-cop kink that a huge number of people- though not me- share. I don't quite get Spike/Xander either, and that's become one of the main pairings in Buffy fandom.

[weirdquark]

I don't get Spike/Xander either -- although there is a beautiful moment very late when lots of people have been sleeping with lots of other people and everyone is upset and who has been sleeping with who is revealed and someone yells in utter frustration, "is there anyone here that HASN'T slept with Spike?" and Spike and Xander exchange this LOOK.

I still don't get the pairing, but the look was just priceless and gave me the giggles.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee, yes, I remember that bit. It's so much fun to watch a show where the writers are aware of their fans: you get fun little comments tossed out like that.