Characters ♡ The OTP & Pairing Thread ♡ | Challenge #34 Posted: Sonnets Roulette! (4/17, p. 92, #2282)

Do you mean the title on your posted story, or do you mean in a link to your story?
You can edit both, since fanfic has unlimited editing, rather than repost something. If you change the title of your story, it won't mess up the link to your story. PM me and I can help talk you through it.


Discussion: Do you write obscure or rare pairings? Do you know anybody else who writes any of those you like? Do you find this challenging in comparison with writing popular pairings such as, say, Luke Skywalker/Mara Jade, Han Solo/Leia Organa, Revan/Bastila Shan? Do you get more or less readers when writing your obscure pairings? This does not apply to OC pairings.
I wrote up a post the other day and then didn't hit post for some reason.

My ships usually come out of my favorite character. Luke was always my favorite movie SW character, Mara was my favorite in the books, long before I knew she and Luke would be together. So when they got together, it was perfect for me! I've never chosen a pairing because they were popular, I choose them because at least one of them is a character I'm quite invested in. I like to write and read about characters I love, that's the point of fanfic to me. But they do have/had a bigger following than some other pairings, that's for sure, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't like having more readers. Of course we'd all like more readers!

But I'm currently writing something that has only one reader and I'm having more fun writing than I have in a long time. So while I love having more readers, and I probably wouldn't have gotten this far without having that one reader, I've found I can write for the fun of it. That's something I didn't truly know about myself, but I completely understand how disheartening it can be when you don't get as much feedback.

(I hope this makes sense, there's so many loud family members in this room, I can't hear myself think. )

 

The "muse" is a funny thing. For the longest time, I only wrote Trek stuff and thought I would never be inspired to write SW again. But I have and it's fun -- but I will confess to mostly staying with Legends. So connected to this current topic, and also getting input from other readers/writers, I was wondering does the NEU stir your OTP feelings at all? Do you feel there's a potential for fascinating 'ships? Of course, the EU lasted longer and had may storylines so there was the opportunity to get couples you could get excited about LOL What I'm hoping as a reader especially is there will be a backlash/resurgence of Legends stuff in ff.

 

NEU? New EU?

That Resistance medic who treated Chewie, and understood Shyriiwook, gives her shipping potential for me. With Chewie primarily, but I did start an OTP fic with her and a New Republic Jawa veteran, but I had too much on and abandoned the story.

 

Mav, that totally makes sense (possibly because I'm in the exact same situation with you ).

But, yeah, I think we can all agree that "what the muse wants, the muse wants" regardless of readers or how popular a ship is. Forcing yourself to write something you don't want to write or that your creative juices aren't flowing over just takes all the fun out of it. But certainly having more feedback/readers helps a lot more in terms of generating new ideas or even getting confidence to write more, and not having that can shut the creative juices down.

We kinda had this conversation over in the scribble pad a few weeks ago (kinda more in general and not in terms of ships, but the same points really apply). The answer for me is no, and for a number of reasons (besides the fact that I'm having way to much fun playing with Mav's dolls in Mira's sandbox ). First, like Mav, I am a very character-driven writer and shipper, and there just isn't enough material to really get into any of the new characters that well (and given the completely new circumstances, all the OT characters kinda feel like new characters). And secondly is the rate of "progress" in the new EU - so much is being added at such a fast rate that I really can't get into it. My muse likes stability.

 

Same problem here. Then again, Legends is a problem to me as well - I have two watermelons to swallow, while you folks were swallowing, like, mulberries.

 

I totally get that. I really entered "Legends" around ~2009. It was a fair sized pineapple then that I never really got all the way down before Disney nixed it and all motivation to ever try to finish it.

 

Then you were pretty fast to cover as much as you did for those five years!

This is what I read/saw/played of Legends:
- Legacy Vol. I and Legacy: War
- The Thrawn Trilogy comic
- Corellian Trilogy books
- Droids cartoon (saw in '89, need to finish my rewatch)
- Ewoks cartoon (first seen in '90, rewatched many, many times)
- Ewoks comics (first read in '90, re-read many times)
- KOTOR up to mid-Dantooine
- Non-canon Ewoks comics and books from Spain
- Shadows of Endor graphic novel
- Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars cartoon (also need to rewatch)
- The first couple of issues of Dawn of the Jedi comics...will need to start from the beginning, I think. :/

...LOL, I suck bigtime.

 

Maybe it was more like 2008? But abridged audiobooks and ~3 hour bus rides to and from high school was key. I could knock those suckers back in like 2 days if I was in the mood. I got through pretty much all of the post-ROTJ stuff with the (big) exception of most of the Vong war. And a good chunk of the pre-PT stuff, Kotor and Darth Bane, and some of the Clone Wars books.

Anyways, minorly off topic...

 

Discussion: Do you write obscure or rare pairings? Do you know anybody else who writes any of those you like? Do you find this challenging in comparison with writing popular pairings such as, say, Luke Skywalker/Mara Jade, Han Solo/Leia Organa, Revan/Bastila Shan? Do you get more or less readers when writing your obscure pairings? This does not apply to OC pairings.

Not really. Although I did once ship Ghent/Guri. There's an obscure pairing. I also shipped Mara/Aves for the sake of a storyline. Are we distinguishing between obscure pairings (which to me are logical but not obvious) and crack!ships (which to me are pairings pretty much for humor or shock value)? I haven't noticed any difference in readership with the obscure pairing. I don't think I've shipped any other background characters.

By NEU I assume you mean the Disney SW. As far as TFA goes, I got nuthin. I don't ship Reylo, and I don't see any other pairings. In fact, the Disney SW is surprisingly lean on romantic subplots. That can be good or bad, I guess; you had so much romance in the PT and OT. The only pairing is H/L and we know how that one goes. It's great that Finn, Poe, and Rey are friends and there isn't this truth universally acknowledged that since the main character is female she must be in want of a husband (to paraphrase Jane Austen). But there aren't many places where romance can bloom around here.
As for Rogue One, I will ship Cassian/Jyn forever (and again, we know how that one goes).

I think one of the problems is that we really don't know these characters that well yet. We've only had them for a couple of years, We had so much more time to get to know the EU characters and consider them.

 

OMG, thank you for this! I thought I was the only one.

 

I for one am grateful for it. I hated the “who will she choose!!!???111!!” Silliness that plagued other stories with a female lead. You don’t see that with stories with a male lead. (Heck, if it’s the Bond franchise, the answer is “why not both?”). If they had Team!Finn vs Team!Poe nonsense going on with Rey I’d be so disappointed. Let her develop as a person first. And this coming from me, the one who writes nothing but romance (IN SPAAAAACE).

 

Agreed. I think there is potential, but we haven't seen enough of the characters, and there's only really 1 female lead (two, if you count Leia), and frankly, I think Rey's got enough going on with dealing with her newly-awakened Force abilities and the quest for her family & the truth about her past to be bothered about finding wuv...twue wuv... Someday, sure, she can find her one and only, but she's got too much to deal with right now.

I think Finn has potential for romantic relationships...stuck in the strictness of the First Order, and now free to look around for an interested partner.

Of course, @gizkaspice's wacky Millicent stories has Phasma with a secret crush on Hux, which I could totally get behind.

 

You can see that it means a lot to Rey, that Finn led the rescue attempt, but she has not had the sort of upbringing and background where that will immediately lead to romantic feels.

And Poe has not had the exposure to either, for same.

 

My Fairy Tale Challenge story is as polished as it will ever be and posted: Fermu Soldatu Tin.

 

Chyntuck - Glad you made it!

Sith-I-5 - I don't think you posted the link here and since I'll probably be caffeinated, sleep-deprived or both tomorrow, I could use having it in this thread.

Nehru_Amidala - You mentioned writing a story for the challenge, but I don't see one linked...am I getting something wrong (err, again )?

And remember - the deadline to post your story is November 28th, 2017 at 15:30 Central European Time (check the world clock) - that's roughly one day and eight hours from the timestamp of this reply.

 

I did post my story, link is on post # 694.

 

I posted the link to my story, in post #745, on the previous screen.

 

Nehru_Amidala, #694 is a permission o the OTP swap, not a story for the "main" challenge. Looks like I misread something.

Sith-I-5, my bad.

 

I was giving permission for the OTP swap, but nobody has taken up my offer.

 

Nobody has taken up anyone's offer yet, I believe. I guess people are waiting for the deadline for the main challenge.

Oh, boy...15 and half hours to go and I'm still not done.

 

Given my current problem of only being able to write at home on the weekends, it will probably take two or three weekends to finish my entry.

I have enough material typed, for another one or two instalments to be posted this week.

 

It's OK.

I have only 30 minutes to finish mine, so I'll go out of competition. Mine switches OTP near the end, so it's an experiment, anyway.

To sum it up...there are three stories competing and there will be three out of competition, right?

 

CHALLENGE #6 - FAIRY TALE...IN SPACE! :: VOTING​

We have a total of six entries this time, but only three of them are in competition - the other three were the two where the authors swapped their assigned fairy tales and, well, mine because I broke the deadline. One of those three is already there, the other two will be done in a bit.

If there are more of you who didn't make it on time, yet want to showcase your fairy tales - you can post a link your entry and I will add it to the list of the ineligible stories.

Guidelines

You have two weeks to vote. Voting closes at 17.30 (that's 5.30 PM) Central European Time on December 12th, 2017 (check the world clock). The votes will be counted and announced later that day or the next day.

- You may not vote for yourself.

- You may not post your vote in public.

- You can vote whether you took part in this challenge or not.

- Votes of challenge participants and readers count the same.

- Please, take the time to read all the stories, leave a review if possible, and vote for the story that, in your opinion, fits the spirit of this challenge most.

Once you know whom you're voting for, send a message to @Captain Rakkaus with the subject Fairy Tale Challenge - Voting and the name of the author and the link to their story in the post body. PLEASE, INCLUDE THE EXACT NAME OF THE AUTHOR, THE STORY NAME AND THE LINK. I mean it.

***

Entries​

The entries are listed in alphabetical order, by author's username. For non-Star Wars stories, a link to the Wikipedia entry on the fandom has been provided for your convenience. For all stories, links to characters have been provided, too, unless they're characters from the SW films, or OCs.

The sock has gone through everything posted so far and left a little supportive "Like" on all stories, or story chapters/parts, if there was more than one.

● Fermu Soldatu Tin by Chyntuck
featuring OCs, Fermu Soldatu Tin and Vasla Nijinskaya
based on The Steadfast Tin Soldier

● The Princess of Renatasia by Sith-I-5
featuring [pairing not yet clear]
based on Sleeping Beauty

● The Fruitful Quest by WarmNyota_SweetAyesha
featuring Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade
based on The Princess and the Pea

OUT OF COMPETITION (YOU CAN'T VOTE FOR THESE):

● TBA by Ewok Poet
featuring TBA
based on The Princess Who Never Smiled

● Three Strands by Findswoman
featuring various original pairings
based on Rapunzel

● A Diamond in the Rough by @Raissa Baiard
featuring Mara Jade and Ezra Bridger
based on Aladdin

● More Than Just for Laughs by WarmNyota_SweetAyesha
featuring Wes Janson and OC Dashara Longstar
based on The Frog Prince

(ETA 3/11/2019)
● Water Flowing Underground by @Pandora
featuring Anakin Skywalker and OC Jonna Eyre

Please let me know if there are any errors in the above listing!

***

Good luck, everybody ​

 

We got only one vote so far...come on, make it more. We have three awesome, yet completely different stories in the running!

 

There was a story in the New York Times about 'shipping the other day and I thought it might interest people in this thread. It uses Tumblr's top ships of the year list as a backdrop, and we know that's not the be all end all to fandom, but it makes for an interesting data point. And also, it's a discussion on shipping in the New York Times(!)

Who Do You Ship? What Tumblr Tells us about Fan Culture
Note/Warning- It does talk about some real person 'ships.


On a personal note, I totally 'ship SuperCorp (Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor from Supergirl), and I had no idea that was the fandom name. I love it!