rarepairs or, like... medium-rare pair?

[sword_logic]

i subscribe to the rec center, which is a weekly email that gathers up articles on recent fandom goings-on, older things that might have been missed or are just cool, some fanart, and (of course) a handful of recs from a huge spread of fandoms; occasionally the rec lists are themed, and/or they do a fandom or ship explainer with recs to go with it (i did an overwatch explainer for them... wow, that was over 2 years ago now).

anyways, they put out a call for rarepair recs and of course, now i'm thinking about what exactly constitutes a rarepair.

their "we're gonna use this definition" definition was pretty good, imo:

This one’s a little tricky because “rarepair” (can be more than just a pair btw!) is fairly subjective, so we’re proposing “ships with fewer than 100 fics on AO3 (or wherever)” as a general rule of thumb. That might mean a relatively unpopular ship in a juggernaut fandom, or it might be the main pairing in a very small fandom.

it was interesting that they included "main pairing in a small fandom" because in my experience... the "main pairing" still gets a lot of flak for being The Big One, even in a small fandom. example: i saw this as a "prompt" in a destiny kinkmeme, and a) i'm still laughing about the level of salt here and b) buddy that ain't a prompt.

Seriously, there are more characters in the Destiny universe than just Shin Malphur and Drifter. Can we mix it up a bit? Maybe people would fill more prompts if there was more diversity.

to add some numbers for perspective, there are currently 2,817 works in for destiny on AO3; in the relationship tags, which i believe show in the sidebar ranked by amount? the pairing with the most works is an NPC/OC tag with 100 works, followed by shin/drifter (two NPCs) with 95, and one of several OC/OC tags with 89. the only other two NPC/NPC ships have 58 and 54 works. i highly suspect the bulk of the tags is either no relationships, fic based about OCs/player characters (with or without NPCs), or other combinations of OC/NPC, reader inserts, etc. that means that the "juggernaut" NPC ship is... 95 whole works out of almost 3,000. and it's getting ire on the kinkmeme.

my true rarepair of rarepairs, also from destiny, is one that has 19 works (though some of those involve one of the characters with others). i'd rec that ship to the rec center, but, uh, the only work in the tag that i've enjoyed enough to rec is... my own. and that's a little weird? not that i'm not proud of it, but it feels a little weird to be like, "I WROTE FOR THIS SHIP, HERE'S MY THING!"

(i was first, though. literally the first! and i predicted something that happened about three months down the road. so there.)

also funny to note, when i wrote this Hell Post, i'm pretty sure wash/maine had <30 works on AO3. not to say there weren't other fics on other archives – i know there is definitely some stuff on shotgun's lap, rvbfics, etc. that isn't on AO3 – but i'd definitely not call it a rarepair now. not a juggernaut, sure, but not a rarepair either. maybe in the sense that no one seems to write anything post-freelancer for them but i digress

anyways, Sodium Content brought on by me finally being motivated by new game content to write some shin/drifter myself (ironically, the first release in a year that has not featured anything about shin or the drifter, lmao. go figure). i'm determined to not feel guilty about Writing But It's Not S11 AU and thankfully it's been working; i've also wanted to write some shin/drifter for ages but could never figure out the right kind of scenario. it's a really wonderfully multilayered ship that has a lot of tension potential (potension?) between layers of identity porn and characters who are both hypercompetent and absolute buffoons, and, like... i could go on. maybe i'll make a separate post about The Phenomenon i watched unfold in the shin/drifter tag on AO3. i should do that. once i'm done with this fic.

Comments

[anneapocalypse]

Ah yes, the old "what constitutes a rare pair?" question! It's tricky enough to decide for one fandom, let alone across the board. I would be more inclined to quantify it by "percentage of total works for its fandom" than by a flat number.

I have been The First to write a fic for a ship (more than once even, heh) and there's definitely something fun, and worth being proud of, about being the pioneer. :)

[sword_logic]

yeah, percentage is a lot more sensible than a flat number, imo. the "main pairing in a small fandom" metric was pretty interesting, though; i'd never thought of that situation being analogous to the usual "small pairing in a huge fandom" definition(s) of a rarepair.

it's fun to be first! except for the part where afterwards all you can do is sit and refresh the tag and hope that number ticks up.