OTP and Shipping

So, just to clarify, does OTP have a proper definition beyond "the most popular ship in a fandom"? Because that description doesn't sound exactly tropeworthy.

Most shipping-related things are Audience Reactions, Not a Trope, but OTP seems to be more of a personal reaction since everyone has their own. It's more of a Fan Speak page than anything, and probably shouldn't be actually used as an entry on a work's YMMV page.

Yeah, it's a Fan Speak term, and the way it's used outside the wiki is specifically about a person's personal preference, so I don't think there should be any examples at all, whether on this page or on work YMMV pages.

I also think Fan Speak should still be an index.

Edited by AnotherDuck on Nov 24th 2018 at 4:34:35 PM

So we can just purge any instance they appear on work pages, including its YMMV subpage? Because I've seen it being used as a substitute to Fan-Preferred Couple.

Yes, that should be deleted or replaced.

I have a question about this. On a personal level, I've always understood Fan-Preferred Couple to boil down to "there is an Official Couple but the fandom really likes pairing one or both halves with someone else than their canon partner". Meanwhile, I've seen the fandom-wide definition of One True Pairing as "the fandom likes that pairing more than any other".

My current pet work is one in which the author, from what I've read, doesn't intend to romantically pair anyone who isn't already married at the beginning of the story. It's still in big part a story about a handful of single people befriending each other to various degrees, so shipping happens and the two guys canonically budding into Heterosexual Life-Partners seem to be the most popular romantic pairing. Their mention on the work's YMMV page is currently filed under One True Pairing, but seeing this, I'm wondering if I should switch this to Fan-Preferred Couple (on a Tropes Are Flexible ground).

Edited by Nazetrime on Dec 25th 2018 at 8:59:26 PM

I would say that since Fan-Preferred Couple is about a pairing that's more popular than the main canon one, the trope doesn't work if there isn't a main canon couple. At that point, it just is the most popular fan pairing, which lacks half of the trope.

Under the rule that Fan-Preferred Couple is about "couples that are more popular than the canon couple", I'm doubting that some examples on the pages count. For example, Naruto/Hinata. Narusaku wasn't anymore canon than Naruhina because they were both onesided. From what I've heard, Kishimoto always intended on Naruhina to be endgame, so is it really an example if that was the writer's intention?

That example needs updating anyway.

I see a lot of people use Fan-Preferred Couple as "the biggest ship in the fandom", even if there's no competing Official Couple. I've seen it used for couples that became canon after becoming popular, and for the most popular romance option in video games. Should these be cut?

We should also change the header on the OTP page to fan speak instead of YMMV

Edited by TheMountainKing on Dec 26th 2018 at 6:23:30 AM

Then again, the very title leads to its misuse...

I just remembered Fan-Preferred Couple has an entry on Square Peg Round Trope. Reading it, it looks like it may be a factor in the frequent misuse:

• Fan-Preferred Couple does not mean "liked more than the Official Couple by upwards of fully THREE people and also we have a forum." It means a pairing that, judging by its apparent degree of canon validation, is more popular than it should be. It's also important to note the trope applies to non-canon couples only. An Official Couple that happens to be popular with fans doesn't count as an example. This is also not a trope to list a bunch of popular pairings in the fandom as this trope is looking for the MOST popular non-canon pairing.

The part about "the most popular in the fandom" is too limiting for me. If there are many official couples, there might also be couples that fans like more than them.

The rest are okay, though.

It's the most popular pairing of those characters compared to their canon pairings. For instance, in Ranma ½ Ryoga and Ukyo would still count even if Ranma has more popular pairings with Akane or Shampoo. However, if Ranma and Ukyo is more popular, it would not be an example.

What about cases where a no-canon pairing is extremely popular, but there is no competing canonically pairing for either character?

This is exactly what's going on in my current pet work. And the current description for One True Pairing/OTP describes it as "the couple that a fan or group of fans prefers over all other 'ships", right there, in the first sentence. This makes it look like it's the trope you want when it's the most popular ship overall, whether there is a "rival" Official Couple or not.

From what I can tell, many people, including me, have decided that "group of fans" can encompass "the work's visible shipper community as a whole", resulting in the presence of One True Pairing on many YMMV pages. However, outside of TV Tropes, "OTP" is mostly understood under its "a fan" variation, resulting its very presence on YMMV being brought into question. Meanwhile, thanks in part to its name, Fan-Preferred Couple has been understood to mean "fandom-wide OTP, competing Official Couple or not" by many. This resulted in One True Pairing and Fan-Preferred Couple both being used for the most popular ship in a fandom by different people.

I personally feel there are a couple of questions that need to aswered here:

• Does the most popular pairing of a fandom (regardless of the existence of canon pairings in the work) have its place on a work's YMMV page?
• If the answer to the above is yes, under what name should it appear? Should it be a new trope entirely or can a re-tooled version of One True Pairing or Fan-Preferred Couple do the job?

Edited by Nazetrime on Dec 29th 2018 at 1:31:32 PM

I actually see a lot of the "popular non-canon pairing with no canon competition" on the Fan-Preferred Couple page. Should these be cut?

OTP is, to my knowledge, a more personal reaction. That was the reason it doesn't allow examples.

"Does the most popular pairing of a fandom (regardless of the existence of canon pairings in the work) have its place on a work's YMMV page?"

Determining which is the most popular is too hard and would become controversial, so I have to say no. If you meant "the most popular for this particular character", though, it's fine... I guess?

Imo, there are 2 options:

• Expand Fan-Preferred Couple to count popular couples without any competing Official Couple.
• Cut examples of the above and give them a new page, and rename FPC.

I prefer the first one, but I'd like other people's comments.

IMO, yes.

This is not a TRS thread.

Yeah, OTP is a personal reaction. Every fan that engages in shipping is bound to have an OTP, however this OTP might not be the Fan-Preferred Couple. Case in point, when I was active in the House of Anubis fandom, my OTP was a pairing that in pretty much every way was a very minor, very easily-sunk pairing, which was not at all the FPC.

@ 4tell0life4

The overall favorite is relatively obvious in my current pet work partly due to the cast being fairly small. I do however see how this could become problematic in works with bigger casts, so I could get onboard with a "favorite involving a specific character" solution.

I spelled out the two questions in part because I noticed that if there ended up being both a purge of the uses of OTP in YMMV pages and a purge of Fan-Preferred Couple examples that don't have a counterpart Official Couple, we would be getting rid of all mentions of the phenomenon. I also noticed that the latter being a problem depended entirely on whether "fandom favorite ship (enventually for a specific character)" was something that should be on the YMMV page or not, so I wanted to get an idea of what people thought of that as well.

This leads to a question I should have probably asked earlier:

• Anyone know if this can or should be a TRS thread? I'm not on the forums that often, but enough to know new threads there need moderator approval.

Edited by Nazetrime on Dec 30th 2018 at 9:33:38 PM

"we would be getting rid of all mentions of the phenomenon."

What phenomenon, exactly? "People in fandom liking a certain pairing the best for a certain character"?

Yes, that is what I meant, sorry for the ambiguous phrasing. Again, I'm aware it's not a problem if people think that mentions of "favorite pairing for a given character at fandom level" that don't qualify for Fan-Preferred Couple (which requires to be breaking up an Official Couple) should go anyway.

But if people think mentions of "favorite pairing for a given character at fandom level, even if there is no 'rival' Official Couple" should stay, I think it could be a good idea to decide what to do about Fan-Preferred Couple before there is a general purge of the presence of OTP on YMMV pages. Because if a new trope ends up being made for "favorite pairing for a given character at fandom level that doesn't break any Official Couple" or Fan-Preferred Couple is expanded to include it, some OTP entries on YMMV pages may qualify for it.

Edited by Nazetrime on Dec 31st 2018 at 11:34:54 AM

But is that something even worth keeping track of? At least Fan-Preferred Couple has the justification (in theory, though not the way it's currently widely used) of noting a conflict between the creator and audience. I also worry that it would be seen as a "badge of honor" and have tropers shoehorning it on their favorite ships.

We seem to have a consensus that ships that don't compete with an Official Couple are not examples under the current definition. There is disagreement whether these should be cut of the definition changed to include them. Should we have a vote?

Edited by TheMountainKing on Dec 31st 2018 at 1:09:58 PM

We'd need a TRS thread before we can make such a vote.