Let's Talk January: My OTP History!
Jan. 22nd, 2014 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mithenmekare asked about the history of my OTPs through time. Fun fun!My first OTP was Amanda King/Lee Stetson from Scarecrow and Mrs. King, a 1980s show about a housewife who ends up working for the CIA. It was goofy and fun and Amanda and Lee were such lovely opposites who worked great together. The show introduced me to some of my favorite tropes (oh, pretending to be married, I wish I could quit you. No I don't, not actually).
My first slash OTP was Kirk/Spock from the original Star Trek. I actually saw very little of the show, it wasn't in syndication on any station where I lived. But I saw an episode or two, and then saw the movies--and, well, Wrath of Khan hit all my buttons HARD. My local library had the novelizations of all the episodes by James Blish, and I read them obsessively--to the point where I thought I had seen the episodes sometimes and was surprised when I saw them and things looked differently. My library also had very nice selection of the early profic novels--the very very very slashy ones. I didn't know what slash was, and I had only the vaguest understanding of why I found certain scenes so absolutely compelling (my early shipping impulses were entirely sex-free, and to be honest that's kind of my default), but I checked them out over and over and read them until they nearly were falling apart. K/S is my Forever OTP, there is no sinking that ship for me.
My next serious OTP (keep in mind this is only at the very infancy of the Internet, I still didn't know what slash or fanfic were or even that fandom was a thing) was Picard/Q from Star Trek: the Next Generation. They were snarky and funny and flirty, and in the long run my adoration of them was perfectly cemented by the fact that TNG is basically the story of their relationship, that's what bookends the whole series. Picard/Q was the first pairing I ever went looking for fic for (on USENET!) when I learned what slash was--I found a long story where Q lost his powers and there was a lot of BDSM and slavery, and it startled me quite a bit (I was a sweet young naïf).
After that I continued the Star Trek theme with Garak and Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space 9. More snark, lots of identity porn (both Garak and Bashir were more than they seemed to be, and that made for fun times). Unfortunately, I shipped them and Odo/Kira, and here is where I learned the anguish of shipping within a still-open canon. Because both pairings end up basically split up and fragmented at the end of the show, and it FREAKING BROKE MY HEART. I've been extremely wary of shipping anyone I don't know for sure is endgame (or close to it, in the case of slash) since then, it's just too much pain. *shakes fist at DS9*
Roughly about the same time I lost my heart to Babylon 5, and specifically to Londo Mollari and G'Kar, two alien diplomats who frankly started off the show as comic relief. Their races had been at war for ages, and they hated each other bitterly: in fact, Londo has a prescient dream (all his race has dreams of their death) that he and G'Kar would die with their hands locked around each others' throats. These two LOATHE each other with all the passion that two groups at war for a generation can despise each other. And then there's an episode where a character travels into the future and we see an aged Londo, now Emperor of his people. At the end of the scene G'Kar emerges from the shadows...and Londo greets him as his "old friend" and asks him to kill him. They die with their hands around each others' throats as in Londo's dream, but the context is entirely different than we had thought. Of course this was catnip to me: I had to find out how they got where they were going and why (suffice to say it was incredibly tragic and wonderful and the best thing about that show).
So that's a bunch of OTPs, but so far none of them had ever kindled the urge to write fic for them. That came about with Blakes 7 and Blake/Avon, the amazingly fantastically flawed rebels and their utterly screwed up and doomed relationship, which is how I got into fic writing!
After Blake/Avon (who never really went away, they're just a bit dormant) I came across Superman/Batman, and...well, I will probably never match the output for that pairing with any other. Because they're not one pairing, they're dozens, depending on which universe you're writing in (you've got continuity comics, various movies, the animated series, different tv shows, oh and Elseworlds). And then it's a different dynamic depending on whether you're writing Superman/Bruce or Batman/Clark or Batman/Kal or Superman/Batman or Clark/Brucie...so many facets to their personalities, so much to play with. A combination of pretty much having written myself into oblivion and some not-very-inspiring canon have cooled me a bit on them, which is probably why AUs and Elseworlds have been getting a lot of my love lately, but there's still so much to write!
Clark/Bruce were my one and only writing OTP for...probably six years or so. Then about a year ago I managed to pick up two other OTPs I really wanted to write for simultaneously. I saw Hobbit and fell in love with Thorin and Bilbo and Thorin/Bilbo, and curiosity about Martin Freeman's acting led me (very belatedly) to Sherlock and then to Holmes/Watson in general, because I am insatiable about characters and must inhale every bit of canon I can about them, which is very dangerous when you run into things like Clark/Bruce or Lancelot/Arthur or Holmes/Watson! I'm now in the middle of watching the 1980s Granada series with Jeremy Brett (lovely, lovely, Jeremy Brett), with plans to watch the 1980s Soviet version as well as Ghibli's Sherlock Hound. So they should keep me busy for a while, I think... Thorin/Bilbo has less meat to it than the other two, but on the other hand I have plans for continuing my current AU decades into the future of Middle Earth for them, so that well is unlikely to run dry anything very soon either. So much still to write...this makes me terribly happy!
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Date: 2014-01-23 05:32 am (UTC)(then there was Knightrider/his car, but we won't go there :-)
Before that was The Captain and Mrs Muir - ooh such lovely angst, it was wonderful... aaahhhhh :D
I never really shipped anything in Star Trek, except Odo/Kira, which was canon. But I didn't like DS9 towards the end. They got all End of the World and Apocalyptic and shark-jumpy. I live in the happy place before the last couple seasons :D
Wrath of Khan was basically fanfic. ALL teh tropes. I grew up on STOS in syndication. Every night. The whole family. When it was just ST because there wasn't any movies or TNG or reboots or anything :D
JEREMY BRETT IS SHERLOCK HOLMES
The rest are... whatev. Deleriums or something.
:D
...but anyway... WHERE IS AUBREY/MATURIN? ...tho I think maybe I'm building too much upon too little - you write in everything....
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Date: 2014-01-27 02:44 am (UTC)They got all End of the World and Apocalyptic and shark-jumpy. I live in the happy place before the last couple seasons :D
YES. I loved it until it got really obsessed with the Long View and the Big Plot and I just wanted to see more of the little machinations and challenges. I guess that was perhaps inevitable when you can't jet off to a new planet with the ease a ship-oriented show does?
Jeremy Brett is a goddamned miracle. So amazing. I want to watch it all and I want to slow down because I don't ever want to run out!
...but anyway... WHERE IS AUBREY/MATURIN? ...tho I think maybe I'm building too much upon too little - you write in everything....
I got asked that over on LJ too, and I blush that they didn't cross my mind to put in specifically! I think some of it was that I can't date my beginning with them as clearly as the others...I don't even know how I started reading the books, exactly! I think I was doing research for the Clark/Bruce Age of Sail AU I want to write someday, so I suspect they end up filed as an odd subcategory of Clark/Bruce...
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Date: 2014-01-24 12:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-01-24 10:38 pm (UTC)Oh, Star Trek. My Mum had watched that first time around in the 60s, and then made me watch all the re-runs whenever they were on. And we went to all the movies and the death of Spock arc was just -- Kirk is grieving for his husband, and. Oh. That friendship scene? Oh.
I loved Tasha Yar, Deanna Troi, Lwxana Troi, Kira Nerys, and Jadzia Dax. (Which is why I was so disappointed in the Reboot. In terms of actresses and thier screen time, the Reboot managed to be more sexist than ST:TOS, DS9, and VOY; that's something I will never forgive the creative team for. It's a betrayal of Gene and Majel Roddenberry, their groundbreaking vision of the future, and the fans. (see icon)
♥ Jeremy ♥ Brett ♥ He is my Holmes; I'm old enough to have watched that series when it was new, and all other Holmeses are but pale imitations. (Though oddly, Jude Law is now my Watson. I felt that Brett's Watsons were sometimes too old and cuddly and not quite dangerous or clever enough. So, using comics as inspiration, I mix and match. As you do.)
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Date: 2014-01-27 05:04 am (UTC)The movies! They really clinched it for me. The first one has some horrible flaws, but the moment where Spock grabs Jim's hand--"This simple feeling," oh my God--was worth it all. And the reboot is...it's shiny and new and feels very hollow to me, alas, much as the rebooted DC comics do.
(Though oddly, Jude Law is now my Watson. I felt that Brett's Watsons were sometimes too old and cuddly and not quite dangerous or clever enough. So, using comics as inspiration, I mix and match. As you do.)
I adore Hardwicke but I agree, he is a bit on the elderly and cuddly side to be My Watson. Law's Watson is so cocky and confident and dangerous and resourceful--he doesn't have Holmes's gift of deduction, but he more than makes up for it with his bravery and ingenuity. They really feel like two friends and equals in that version--sometimes I like Watson as more of the "faithful hound," but sometimes the buddy-film feeling strikes me just right.