The Writer’s OTP Challenge (in which there is romance, death, and some rather embarrassing information about old stories)

Okay. So.

I saw Arielle had made this blog tag for, if you’re a writer, romances you’ve written, and so then I wondered, have I even written fourteen whole romantic relationships? Ever?

And that turned into quite a fun jaunt down memory lane, and then I just had to write this post because it was too fun not to. Even though half my answers aren’t even valid.

And even though it’s probably confusing, because I am just now realizing that I have multiple characters named Jennifer, Lucy, and Anna. Why on earth did I do that? How did I not notice?

But anyway, it doesn’t matter.  I discovered I have actually written a couple relationships I like, and it was fun.

So. I hope it’s fun to someone else too.

 one: first otp you wrote

……I’m trying to remember if the princess from The Fairy White Girl and the Princess had a love interest. Since I don’t think she did, I guess this would be…Sean and Anne? I’m pretty sure I wrote that they liked each other…

Sean and Anne hail from the thrilling epic Escape From the Castle, wherein ponies and kittens facilitate magnificent rescues, people with names like Ahpienboltec (no, I am not kidding) kidnap children for no reason whatsoever, and people randomly speak French for also no reason whatsoever. That story was…something. And I loved it very much.

The main characters were actually Sean and Lucy, but I didn’t couple them up because…well, I was an unromantic ten-year-old, and I wanted them to be best friends forever and ever. I don’t think coupling them up crossed my mind.

But Anne, the side character who could randomly speak French, was pretty. Ergo, Sean liked her.

two: cliché otp from an early work you still love

I don’t know about still loving them, but Jib (from my first Real Novel, a story that centers on the terrible crime of strawberry thievery) totally had unrequited feelings for Jennifer, who, like the most cliché of heroines, thought boys were all the worst and Jib especially the worst because of all those stupid, contrived misunderstandings I threw in their path and who then, after Jib heroically saved her life, realized that maybe he wasn’t so bad after all.

This relationship cracks me up whenever I think about it, actually. I daren’t reread this story for fear I’ll die of mortification, but I remember how hard Jib tried to impress her. And how his brother and all his friends would tease him about it. And how he saved her life and Jennifer was like, “oh! He sAVeD my lIFE! And HURT HIS FEET ON THE ROCKS!! FOR MY SAKE!!! I HAVE MISJUDGED HIM!!!!”

It was very romantic.

three: hate-to-love otp

Once upon a time, in a moderately frequented lane in Victorian London, there stood a wax museum. Within this wax museum stood a young lady named Edith, impersonating a waxwork of a housewife about to box a sleepy, cake-burning King Alfred’s ears, and a young man named Julian impersonating the waxwork of the aforementioned unfortunately circumstanced king.

They were the chief players in a ridiculous story involving houses full of clocks, eventful afternoons at Ascot Races, a trip to India, and far too many Bleak House references.  They were also the chief reason I have written so many random scenes of this silly story, almost all of which feature their scathing verbal fencing matches.

There is also, however, another scene that has been written, in which their clever dialogue is not quite so scathing. It even borders on the lovey-dovey, I am afraid.

four: otp with the craziest relationship

The relationship of Jon and Anna (by the way, this Anna is from a fairy tale I wrote for my little sister once and is a completely different character from the Anna in ANNA-the-novel) isn’t itself all that crazy – picnics on the edge of cliffs and griffin-riding are pretty normal ways for couples to spend quality time together, right?

But the preservation of this perfectly nice relationship certainly requires some unusual feats. Bargains with fay-folk and the like. Fights with goblins. Brief stints in lion form. Close encounters with the sun.

And marriage is a whole other problem for my fairy-tale couple, for Anna has, Atalanta-like, sworn to wed none but the man who can beat her in a race. Which is most inconvenient, considering she’s the daughter of the North Wind and no one can beat her in a race unless he’s wearing a certain pair of magical sandals.

How, you ask, shall they ever overcome this insurmountable obstacle?

Easy! Jon wistfully asks if he’d better take off the magical sandals he just so happens to own, Anna says don’t be silly, and everyone lives happily ever after.

five: best dressed otp

Ooh, Melia has beautiful clothes. Think toned-down Georgian styles bought by someone who has all the money in the world and whose primary hobby is fashion.

And think hair fixed by Raen, who is an artist, but a magical one who can create shining nets of flower and raindrop and evening light illusion over it. (I want to hire Raen to do my hair for me.)

You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned Matthew, because it doesn’t really matter what he’s wearing.  Melia is the sum of this relationship. (Which, on account of its exceeding one-sidedness, probably doesn’t deserve to be called a relationship at all. But then, most of the relationships in this post don’t.)

six: star-crossed (forbidden love otp)

Aunt Louisa and Marty (was his name Marty? I think his name was Marty) are in love. Alas, Aunt Louisa’s guardians are rich and snooty and will not allow her to marry a poor nobody who cannot support her.

Marty, nothing daunted, goes west to make his fortune.

Marty, some years later and slightly daunted, discovers that making his fortune is, well, difficult.  So he turns to a business that, while of dubious legality, at least yields high profits. And in the process makes Elizabeth, the heroine of the tale, very mad.

Aunt Louisa then comes west to tell him he can leave off making his fortune, as her snooty rich guardians have died and she has all the money they need.

But alas! Helped along by Elizabeth, guilt has now blossomed in Marty’s heart. He is a horrible man and can never marry a wonderful woman like Aunt Louisa.  Even if she is willing to forgive him.  She deserves better than a rotten snake like him.

So he leaves her life forever. She is very sad. Elizabeth is very sad to have made her beloved aunt so sad.  It is all very sad, and the narrative positively weeps with the overwhelming knowledge of its own pathos.

(Ah, doomed, forbidden love – what melodramatic small writer has not heard and hearkened to your siren song?)

seven: funniest OTP

Probably Edith and Julian, but for the sake of an original answer I shall say Jennifer and Fred.

This Jennifer is not the same one Jib was trying to impress earlier.  This Jennifer is from a short Christmas story that I’ve always wanted to expand.  And while daydreaming of expanding it, I thought of Fred.

The original purpose of Fred was, to be frank, mostly to get Simon and Garfunkel into the story. Because it takes place in the late 1960’s, and to have lived in the late 1960’s and never gone to a Simon and Garfunkel concert is a tragedy on a scale almost too great for comprehension.

But Jennifer and her cousins and her great-aunt are all so very sheltered and old-fashioned. They cook and draw and paint and sew and read authors like Dickens and Swift and listen to classical music. What would Jennifer know of the likes of Simon and Garfunkel?

Enter Fred, that most moody, worldly, and handsome of young men. With whom Jennifer might, possibly, reluctantly, be rather smitten.

He makes her listen to Simon and Garfunkel. She makes him listen to Mendelssohn.

He takes her dancing, and she shows him how to really have a good time (nothing beats a couple hours spent in a field sketching butterflies).

He pointedly quotes “She Walks in Beauty.”  She says, “Lord Byron didn’t think such a girl actually existed, you know.”  He says, “No, poor Lord Byron, deprived of your acquaintance,” and they’re just very ridiculous, and I have only written a few snippets of them; but I find them so fun, somehow.

eight: otp with the healthiest relationship

Mr. and Mrs. Longstein, despite being in the same story as Aunt Louisa and Marty, have exactly zero drama in their relationship.  This is because they are The Parents.

(I mean, Mr. Longstein did die and all.  But besides that, no drama.)

nine: sweetest, most adorable otp

Eden is a foster kid with a gift for words and for finding hidden doors, who accidentally finds Faërie.

“The boy,” who I think has a name although I’ve forgotten what it is, is a cheerful soul who accidentally finds our world.  When he finds his way back to Faërie, he is sad because the friend who helped him find it didn’t come with him.  Eden is sad because she too left a friend behind.

Understanding each other’s sadnesses is a good way to begin being friends, I think. And, over years and journeys, more than friends.

ten: otp who snuck up on you, the one you didn’t expect to love

I didn’t expect Uncle Wilbur and Aunt Gertrude to be as major characters as they have ended up being in The Fairy Ring. So I have only recently come to realize how nice they are.

Uncle Wilbur lacks the skills that make for easy intercourse with people.  This is why he and Peter get along so well.

Aunt Gertrude doesn’t have any such lack, but she understands people who do. This is why she stops always going, “What your uncle means, Peter, is…” and talks about chickens instead.

With Uncle Wilbur it is not chickens, but things like cows and hay-bales and daughters.

They actually remind me of that poem where Wordsworth is complaining that instead of a merry stream, his girlfriend’s love has now become (horror of horrors) a well. Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Wilbur have that well kind of relationship. Their love is quiet but lasting, which in my opinion beats some noisy stream (that’s forever in danger of drying up) hollow.

Silly Wordsworth.

 

eleven: moodiest otp

Once upon a time, in a novel that shall not be named, two characters called Brian and Caisida were lifelong best friends. My little sister insisted they were on the verge of becoming lifelong something more.

Too bad I killed Brian in the first chapter.

twelve: class-crossed otp

The fact that Princess Ethel Bagwater was, as her title implies, a princess, while Rupert was but a simple farmer’s son, might have presented a problem if not for Albert’s ingenuity.  But in the service of getting his cave all to himself again, Albert is a dragon of inexhaustible ingenuity.

thirteen: otp most people don’t ship

My sister ships Anna with Dan.

My other sister ships her with Etan.

My friend ships her with Dom.

They’re all wrong, because if Anna is going to end up with anyone (which is doubtful), it should be Aidi.

fourteen: very favorite otp you’ll love for the rest of your days

The one romance I’ve ever written that I actually, actually ship, in which I am invested and about which I occasionally experience small emotions, is one that I have not, in fact, written.

This is because the characters are, once again, The Parents. And in this particular story (because I’m original), The Parents are gone/dead.

(We are not at liberty to disclose which, because that is a spoiler.  I may have spoiled a bunch of my other stories in this post, but I am not going to spoil this one.)

These characters only show up in the main character’s memories.

Despite that, they have a long and detailed backstory, of which I have devotedly crafted every detail.  It’s most affecting.  There are brothers sworn to protect their sister, conspiracy theorists who take their theories a little too far, and sheep that unwittingly save people’s lives. And at the heart of the story there is Dugo, a sheep-farmer’s son who one day fell unexpectedly in love with the blue-eyed genius girl from the woods.

The girl was Arenedha, and she fell in love back.

They were Anna’s parents.

And I love them very, very much.