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alt title(s): OTP
I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love, and always will be

— Dido, "White Flag"

The One True Pairing (usually abbreviated as OTP) is the couple that a fan or group of fans prefers over all other 'ships. Canon and logic do not necessarily apply, and crossover OTPs are not uncommon.

The degrees to which this is taken varies wildly. It can mean anything from "I just like Drakken/Shego best" to "I won't read Fan Fic that pairs Anya and Xander with anyone but each other" to "Cloud always and still loves Aerith and they made love to each other in the flower field at the end of the movie" to "All the canon evidence that Harry and Hermione are not going to get together is a lie spread by the Harry/Ginny 'shippers, who must be stopped before their evil destroys the universe."

All examples chosen at random, but the last group really are that scary sometimes. (Which made it all the funnier when it turned out that one of the Harry/Ginny shippers was the author.)

OTP Shipping Wars are second only to Subbing Versus Dubbing for heat and violence. The degree of fanaticism displayed for a particular OTP is usually proportional to their distance from the Official Couple and/or the Word Of God for the work in question.

In general, holding their preferred characters to completely different standards than the official pairing is an excellent mark of OTP shippers. If someone argues that you need to show that X and Y got married to prove they're in love, and the rings on their fingers don't count, but they know that X and Z love each other because of 'chemistry', they're definitely defending their OTP.

It is technically possible for a person to have multiple OTPs.

Some people refer to their favourite threesome ship by OT 3 (One True Threesome). Or perhaps OT + if they're even more ambitious with the number of people involved.

Often the term "OTP" is used in a more joking manner, a parody of shipping, or in sarcasm. Especially if it involves an unconventional pairing, or a character and their favorite food ("Hiro/Waffles OTP"), etc etc.

Official CoupleShipping TropesOne True Threesome
Fan Preferred CoupleFan-SpeakPortmanteau Couple Name

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