13. A ship that you like but people always mischaracterise the characters when they make fanworks of it so you can rarely find quality stuff of it.OH SO MANY.It’s kind of hard to pick out an example without seeming cruel though. Especially for a fandom as small as PL, because no matter what ship I say it’ll seem like I’m attacking specific writers for those ships and I definitely don’t want to do that.Trying to think of one from a large fandom, I guess probably Sonic/Sally. Whether people like or hate the ship they always write it so that Sally one day tries to tie Sonic down and he becomes miserable being trapped like that. But I’ve never thought that was going to be the case? I guess maybe because I don’t personally see Sally as taking the throne, I just like the two of them carrying on adventuring and saving people forever. But there’s like no fanwork along those lines and that makes me feel a bit sad.27. A poly ship.Waaaay too many, but I don’t talk about them enough.The obvious PL answer for this is Ranhengela. Like, whether they intended it or not there are a lot of heavy implications that these three stayed together in a loving household and I like that a lot. I also LOVE how this is one of those rare times where a polyship is the most popular option for these characters. It makes me happy to see so many fans embrace the idea of these three being together, because it’s pretty rare that polyships get the amount of love that Ranhengela does.Also, over in the Free! fandom I’ve been pretty heavily into the OT5 (SouKisuRinMakoHaru) and the other polyships it breaks down into. There’s just a lot to keep me occupied with these ships.30. The ship. The one that makes you melt into a puddle of messy feelings and emotions. You know, the OTP.Scandalous answer - I don’t actually have one at this moment in time. And that’s rare for me, because usually I latch onto an OTP and it can be the object of my brain space for anything from two-five years, but right now I’m in that occasional lull between OTPs. What will the next OTP be? I can’t wait to find out!But because this is kind of a boring answer let’s have a bit of a history lesson of OTPs with Sam.
My very first OTP of any extreme intensity was Yami/Seto from Yu-Gi-Oh DM. I was a young kid when I was into this ship and heck I was into ALL the embarrassing tropes it was possible to be into with these two. I even still proudly own certain doujinshi about them that any self-respect YGO fan would scorn. And honestly, these two were the gateway for everything else. All the terrible fanfic concepts that I’ve done over the years probably began with these two. But heck, even if I behaved like a typical young teenager about Yami/Seto, I still think the ship itself is very valid and I’ll always dearly love it. I’m not gonna post DSOD spoilers because I’m not that much of a twat, but let’s just say the ending of DSOD was the perfect ending for these two that I never, ever would have dared to dream was possible.After Yu-Gi-Oh DM finished I begrudgingly started watching GX and through that found my next main OTP, Ryo/Fubuki. Now, FuRyo got me through university and I’ll always thank them for that. I love them dearly, even if things couldn’t have worked out for them. But I’ll be the first to say that my obsession with FuRyo was easily the most unhealthy relationship with a ship I’ve ever had and unfortunately a lot of other drama also happened around that time, which I can’t stop myself from associating with the GX fandom and this ship. So that’s why even though I still love FuRyo, I just don’t talk about it that much any more. Though part of me does suspect they might drag me back one day.I don’t talk about my time in the Ace Attorney fandom. Moving onto Layton! You of all people definitely know that my first OTP for this series was Layton/Clive. And what can I say about these two that I haven’t already talked about at length? They just hit so many of my YES buttons for a ship and definitely gave me a lot to work with. It’s just kind of a shame that when the PL fandom got more hostile a while back I became a bit more nervous about sharing my LayClive love and I don’t think I ever quite got back out of my shell about them. Even so, I’m always happy to privately gush about these two with like-minded fans of the ship.And my last OTP was also from PL, which is Crow/Badger. I’ve said this before, but the majority of my love for this ship comes from fanwork, particularly RPing and writing them, because there isn’t much between them in the context of the game. But I do love that they give me an excuse to play about in familiar working-class England territory, because I so rarely get to write about something that’s so close to home for me. So yes, I love these two and am glad that I get to work with them.Which brings us up to today and my wondering what the next OTP will be. Stay tuned and all that.
