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Post by Kypriotha on Jul 12, 2021 9:48:11 GMT 10
Who are your Tortall NOTPs?
(For anyone unfamiliar with the fandom lingo, OTP stands for "one true pairing" and NOTP is the opposite of that - the pairing that you absolutely can't stand.)
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Post by Tamari on Jul 12, 2021 22:30:07 GMT 10
Great question! Honestly, I think a great story could make me ship (almost) anything.
I am not a huge fan of Alanna/Liam, even in canon. It's all wrong for her, he's condescending, the power dynamic... I get why he is there and I do like that Alanna gets to explore several romances before finding the One, a revolutionary concept in romance sometimes! But I definitely don't ship them.
What else... I have read Kel/Joren in the past, but that's one that would be very difficult to make into a happy ending/a healthy relationship for obvious reasons. Wyldon/Kel has enjoyed past popularity, but I prefer a platonic relationship there.😂
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NOTP
Jul 13, 2021 0:17:35 GMT 10
Post by devilinthedetails on Jul 13, 2021 0:17:35 GMT 10
I think my NOTPs are largely about canon pairings rather than fanfiction pairings, since with fanfiction, I'm more of a "you do you; whatever floats your boat" kind of gal, but with canon I can be a bit more picky about what pairings do or don't work for me.
My biggest canon NOTP is probably Daine/Numair in the Immortals just because student/teacher pairings are one of my squicks, and in the Immortals, I very much get the student/teacher vibe from Daine/Numair. Daine/Numair works fine for me in Protector of the Small when I can sort of mentally age Daine so that in my mind she becomes more compatible with Numair.
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Post by mistrali on Jul 13, 2021 8:12:44 GMT 10
Hmmm... good question. Alanna shipped with a father figure would probably be a NOTP for me.
Apart from that... in canon, it’s Kel/Cleon. Mostly because I don’t care for how romance is handled in POTS, in general.
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NOTP
Jul 22, 2021 10:21:05 GMT 10
via mobile
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Post by devilinthedetails on Jul 22, 2021 10:21:05 GMT 10
Forgot to mention this in my other post but another NOTP for me is Aly/Nawat. My mind just can’t get past the weirdness of Nawat being a crow and thinking like a crow rather than a human in a lot of ways when he and Aly are together. So, yeah, Aly/Nawat is not my cup of tea.
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purplepotatoblob
Message Runner
'From now on I'm Alan of Trebond, the younger twin. I'll be a knight.' - Alanna
Posts: 45
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NOTP
Jul 22, 2021 19:25:12 GMT 10
Post by purplepotatoblob on Jul 22, 2021 19:25:12 GMT 10
I don't know why anymore but my NOTP is Neal and Yuki because they are just so adorable and perfect for each other my eyes...
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oskarshai
Message Runner
Justice for Mammoth
Posts: 47
Gender: Other
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Post by oskarshai on Jul 23, 2021 17:13:39 GMT 10
Late to the party but I'm gonna pipe up anyways!
I have a number of small-to-large bones to pick with a lot of the canon ships, although it would be a stretch to call most of them NOTPs, since (similar to what devilinthedetails said about Daine/Numair in POTS vs Immortals) a lot of my issues with them are context-dependent and can be salvaged with the right angle. My only real one is a ship I have some trouble justifying why I dislike, but it's Jon/Thayet.
If I had to try to explain it, I think it's mostly a combination of having been a big shipper of Jon/Alanna when I read the books as a kid (I still do prefer them to George/Alanna, even though they're a lot more dysfunctional) and having felt a little betrayed when their relationship suddenly and permanently derailed, and feeling like Thayet as a character is kind of restricted by her relationship with Jon – like, she shows up in Lioness Rampant, has this very compelling backstory and a really sweet relationship with Buri and a developing friendship with Alanna, and then whomp, turns out she was basically only introduced in order to be Jon's most perfect love interest possible who takes to being queen like a duck to water and makes it okay that Alanna ended up with George.
I know it's probably a bit uncharitable of me, and I do like her character a lot outside of that context, but I've always felt like the pressure to make her "perfect" in order to measure up to being a convincing love interest for Jon in such a short span of time sort of limited the directions her character could go and how flawed or interesting she was allowed to be in her own right (she definitely has a personality, and she is charming and funny, but still feels kind of one-dimensional to me unless I do some blank-filling in my brain to meet the text halfway). Plus the turnaround from Jon/Alanna -> Liam/Alanna -> Jon/Thayet and George/Alanna always just felt very quick and kind of jarring to me, so that didn't really help.
Idk, it just always kind of left a bad taste in my mouth, despite the fact that the ship in and of itself is pretty inoffensive.
Edit: Forgot I also really didn't like Farmer/Beka. Not that, again, there's anything really wrong with the relationship as such, but I was thrown off by their romance developing so suddenly and out of the blue, plus I already shipped Rosto/Beka and never really stopped.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Jul 25, 2021 1:53:25 GMT 10
Even though Jon/Thayet is an OTP of mine, I can understand why you would dislike it, oskarshai. I do think that the fact that Thayet is only introduced in the fourth volume of the SOTL books does somewhat hamper our ability to get to know her, and she doesn't get to meet Jon at all until fairly far into the novel. Even then, the Jon and Thayet romance occurs largely off page. So the reader does have to fill in a lot of details in their own minds about how this relationship progresses. Then, after the SOTL books, Thayet is more of a minor character in Daine and Kel's stories than a main one and we only get more glimpses and hints into what her marriage with Jon is like. So, I totally get how the Jon/Thayet pairing can be a case of "your mileage may vary." I also should say that I understand criticisms of Thayet as too perfect and not having enough developed flaws. When I do write her in my fanfic, I try to flesh out some of her insecurities and doubts to emphasize her humanity as a character, and I try to write her relationship with Jon so she isn't always one-hundred percent right and him always one-hundred percent wrong. I try to make it more like sometimes he is right, and sometimes she is, and sometimes there is a good argument for both sides being right in their own way. But I acknowledge that a lot of that fleshing out occurs in my own headcanon and isn't in the text itself, so I get how Thayet could come across as one-dimensional or too perfect. Basically, I think there is a lot in canon to support that Jon is a complicated character with flaws (I think he is one of the most three-dimensional characters in the Tortall books) but with Thayet I don't think the books ever really highlight her flaws so it can definitely feel like she is being treated as perfect, and maybe that was because Tammy wanted to create the perfect partner for Jon. When really I don't think the perfect partner for Jon needs to be perfect. She can just be human and flawed. Like Jon himself is. Jon isn't perfect so he can't fairly ask for or expect perfection in a wife or partner so I probably would've liked to see canon show Thayet as a bit more flawed and human. Really I think part of Jon's romantic development should be realizing he can't expect perfection in a wife and partner.
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Post by mistrali on Jul 25, 2021 2:03:34 GMT 10
That’s a great point, devil. I don’t think we are ever meant to read Thayet as perfect - not in hindsight, anyway. I think when Tammy wrote it, she was a newer writer. But as fans, as readers and as fanfic writers, we are able to expand the world and extrapolate that just because the books show Thayet as perfect, doesn’t mean she is.
I absolutely think Jon realised that between SOTL and POTS. Even if it was offscreen. He learnt not to idealise his romantic partner.
Not saying people can’t dislike the treatment of Jon/Thayet in the books. They definitely need more fleshing out! And I agree - I love SOTL dearly and I think J/T are perfect for one another, but it all happens a bit quickly. Thayet could have been completely unfit to be queen. I can see people having difficulty suspending disbelief there. Her being a great queen and compatible with Jon to boot is an awful coincidence. It wraps things up in a nice bow.
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NOTP
Jul 25, 2021 2:30:47 GMT 10
Post by devilinthedetails on Jul 25, 2021 2:30:47 GMT 10
Yeah, I think a lot of it is Tammy being a newer writer when the SOTL books came out, and also a lot of it might be that we only see Thayet in limited interactions with Daine and Kel in the later books. If we were spending more time with her, we would see more of her flaws, no doubt, and, while Jon was a major character in all of Alanna's books, Thayet only appears in the fourth book. So there is less narrative time and space to flesh her out and give her flaws. In fairness, we could also say Daine's perspective likewise puts Jon on a bit of a pedestal too (especially in Wild Magic) while Kel would have a reason to distrust Jon (agreeing to her probation as a compromise with Wyldon) but not to blame Thayet for that. So a lot of it is a matter of perspective.
And one of my favorite things about being a fanfic writer is being able to extrapolate and expand beyond the canon and the books.
I'm with you, too, in that I think Jon realized that he can't expect perfection in a romantic partner. I think there is even some evidence that he might have learned that lesson by the time Lioness Rampant rolls around since he was still willing to honor his proposal to Alanna if she'd decided that she wanted to accept and by then he definitely knew that she wasn't perfect given how they parted in Woman Who Rides Like a Man.
I'm probably expressing myself badly, but I do think Jon learned a lot from his romance with Alanna and how it ended (same as I think Alanna learned a lot from their romance and how it ended), and that made him better prepared to be a good partner and husband to someone else. Alanna, I think, was the first person he loved romantically and he had to learn how to handle that. And learning that made him better prepared to be a good husband and partner for Thayet.
Because I don't think the Jon of Woman Who Rides Like a Man would've been a good husband for Thayet. But the Jon of Lioness Rampant? Well, I was convinced that he could be a good husband for Thayet because he had matured so much. The Jon of Woman Who Rides Like a Man still reads like a teenage boy to me in many ways, but the Jon of Lioness Rampant reads like someone who has had the mantle of manhood thrust upon him and is managing not to crack under the pressure. And I buy that transformation because both his parents have died in such rapid succession and he is being expected to rule the country sooner than he ever imagined he would be. He is going through the crucible that I think defines him as a man and character, and Thayet gets to see how he doesn't give up in this difficult time. How he rises to the challenge of ruling despite his grief. Which in many ways is the essence of Jon at his best, I think, and could be part of why Thayet falls in love with him. She is seeing him in the tough times and having proof that he can weather those sort of storms just like she can.
So, anyhow, I do love that Jon was not a static character, and I think that is part of why I was able to be sold on the Jon/Thayet pairing. If Jon had remained the Jon of the Woman Who Rides Like a Man, I would not have wanted to see him marry Thayet.
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oskarshai
Message Runner
Justice for Mammoth
Posts: 47
Gender: Other
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Post by oskarshai on Jul 25, 2021 12:04:18 GMT 10
Yeah, I think the real crux of the issue for me is just that I never had that love connection with J/T in a way that would make me more willing to accept things like the quickness/contrivance of the relationship, Thayet's flatness on the page, and the amount of development that would have to happen offscreen. I'm definitely willing to take those kinds of leaps for a lot of other ships that are similarly underdeveloped within their text, but I do feel like you kind of have to be charmed by the ship first in order to start to mentally develop it into something more substantive, and that just didn't really happen for me with J/T.
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Post by mistrali on Jul 25, 2021 12:39:23 GMT 10
Yeah, I think the real crux of the issue for me is just that I never had that love connection with J/T in a way that would make me more willing to accept things like the quickness/contrivance of the relationship, Thayet's flatness on the page, and the amount of development that would have to happen offscreen. I'm definitely willing to take those kinds of leaps for a lot of other ships that are similarly underdeveloped within their text, but I do feel like you kind of have to be charmed by the ship first in order to start to mentally develop it into something more substantive, and that just didn't really happen for me with J/T. Yes, exactly! I laugh every time I read Jon’s initial reaction to Thayet. I can see how someone would take it as flat, and I wish their relationship had developed more, but that only makes me want more J/T fanfic to fill in the gaps, where I can see the inner workings of their relationship. We have Point A (end of LR) and Point B (co-rulers). How did we get to that point? Clearly something worked out, but what and how? I tend to take the books’ gaps as a mystery rather than a shortcoming. I mean, y’know, when I’m not wondering about how Jon/Thayet and Thayet/Buri might look in practice
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Post by devilinthedetails on Jul 27, 2021 4:45:03 GMT 10
Yeah, I think the real crux of the issue for me is just that I never had that love connection with J/T in a way that would make me more willing to accept things like the quickness/contrivance of the relationship, Thayet's flatness on the page, and the amount of development that would have to happen offscreen. I'm definitely willing to take those kinds of leaps for a lot of other ships that are similarly underdeveloped within their text, but I do feel like you kind of have to be charmed by the ship first in order to start to mentally develop it into something more substantive, and that just didn't really happen for me with J/T. Well-said. I think there is a natural tendency at least with me to sort of give the benefit of the doubt and develop backstory and expansion for ships (and other stuff) in books that I like. While for the ships and other stuff in books that I don't like, I tend to more focus on all the reasons why it doesn't work for me.
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