More Fairy Tale Fun Featuring OTPs Galore

Fairy Tale Central is doing some daily challenges on Instagram featuring OTPs (One True Pairings) as part of their celebration of all things fairy tale this month. For those of us who wind up doing these things in blog form, Arielle had kindly shared the full listing on her own blog here.

Fairy Tale OTP Challenge:

1. The first fairy tale OTP you shipped

     Probably Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin and Jasmine. These are the earliest fairy tales I can remember getting deeply involved in.

2. The cliché fairy tale OTP that everyone ships but you still love

     I think I'll probably go with Snow and Charming from Once Upon a Time. Do I sometimes feel like they get too much of the spotlight in later seasons? Yes, but their relationship is wonderful in the first few seasons as we see them fight for each other.

3. Your favorite hate-to-love fairy tale OTP

     I'm assuming this is an enemies to lovers trope rather than an example of "I don't want to love this, but I do." In which case, probably Elphaba and Fiyero from the musical Wicked (it's still a fairy tale, right?).

4. The fairy tale OTP with the craziest relationship

     Let's talk about Philip and Aurora, shall we? They're promised to each other when she's a baby and he's . . . definitely older than that. Then she's whisked away for sixteen years and everyone still expects them to get married without any time to interact. They happen to meet in the woods and fall in fascination with each other, and somehow everything works out in the end. (See also: Derek and Odette from The Swan Princess)

5. The best-dressed fairy tale OTP

     Going to bring Beauty and the Beast back into this. That blue tux is about the only way I'd ever get back into a tux and who doesn't love Belle's golden dress? Runner-up: Westley and Buttercup from The Princess Bride.

6. Star-crossed love: the forbidden love fairy tale OTP

     I'm going to step outside of Disney's canon for this one: Thumbelina and Cornelius from Don Bluth's Thumbelina. Cornelius has the audacity to fall in love with a girl who isn't also a fairy, and then gets himself trapped in ice while searching for her. There's a lot of devotion in this relationship, and Thumbelina's succumbing to doubt and grief before the happy ending is such a heart-wrenching moment.

7. The funniest fairy tale OTP

     Definitely Naveen and Tiana; they have such an odd couple story and watching his charm fail in the face of her down-to-earth work ethic is such a good time.

8. The fairy tale OTP with the most growth in their relationship

     Rumple and Belle from Once Upon a Time. At least, they have a lot of growth at any given point in the story before the writers decide to retcon it.

9. The sweetest, most adorable fairy tale OTP

     Eugene Fitzherbert/Flynn Rider and Rapunzel; pure fluff, I tell you.

10. The OTP who snuck up on you, the one you didn't expect to love

     Cress and Thorne in the Lunar Chronicles; even though they're very obviously supposed to be Rapunzel and her prince, I just didn't expect to be as deeply invested in them as I was.

11. The moodiest fairy tale OTP

     I'm going to say Scarlet and Wolf from the Lunar Chronicles. So much angst. 

12. The class-crossed fairy tale OTP

     Dmitri and Anastasia! If you don't love them by the end of the movie, you aren't paying attention.

13. The obscure fairy tale OTP who isn't shipped by many people (or anyone)

     Probably not that obscure but Navarre and Isabeau from Ladyhawke (because I have to give a shoutout to Ladyhawke)

14. Your very favorite fairy tale OTP you'll love for the rest of your days

     At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Beauty and the Beast.

Writer's OTP Challenge:

1. The first OTP you wrote

     This is probably Josiah and Magdiel from The Elves of Non de Velai (which is deep in the depths of my to-be-revised vault). They were my first real attempt at writing a romance (along with another couple) but they're still one of my mental touchstones when it comes to fictional romance.

2. Your cliché OTP from an early work that you still love

     Yontos and Coran (the other couple from The Elves of Non de Velai); really, these two answers kind of go hand in hand. They're my first OTPs and probably my least nuanced (at least from my view now).

3. A hate-to-love OTP you’ve written. (Or your favorite, if you’ve written several)

     Josiah and Magdiel count here, but the ones I'm most happy about/pleased with are a spoiler from the Albion series (book three, folks; it's going to be such fun!) and the main characters from Ashes and Dust (who aren't quite a romantic couple, but are definitely a dynamic duo with an enemies-to-allies arc).

4. Your OTP with the craziest relationship

     That same spoiler from the Albion series. Let's just say complicated doesn't scratch the surface of this pairing.

5. Your best dressed OTP

     Oddly enough (ha!), clothing doesn't really find an emphasis in my writing so there's not a couple I can point to and say, "Yes! My best-dressed characters." But for the sake of argument, let's go with Molly and the Beast from  Paper and Thorns, simply because she's the daughter of a stage magician and he is (or was) a well-to-do society member.

6. Star-crossed love: your forbidden love OTP

     Merlin Ambrosius and Vivienne; their romance is one I'm really looking forward to writing down someday. They have such a wonderful meeting and finding love in spite of "fate" story.

7. Your funniest OTP

     Mortimer and Spork, hands down. They have the best banter.

8. Your OTP with the healthiest relationship

     Molly and the Beast from Paper and Thorns; they respect each other and put the good of others ahead of themselves. I just love them.

9. Your sweetest, most adorable OTP

     Though it's not even close to being written, I have a story that combines elements of Treasure Island, Peter Pan, and "The Little Mermaid" and my merman character and the Jane Hawkins character are going to have a very sweet romance to counter all the danger and disaster they meet along the way.

10. The OTP who snuck up on you, the one you didn't expect to love

     You could say this about almost all of my pairings; most of them didn't let me know ahead of time that they were getting together so I got plenty of "Huh, so it's like that, is it?" moments as they developed.

11. Your moodiest OTP

     I hate to keep saying it, but that spoilery couple from the Albion books? Yeah, them. They get all the angst and crankiness and put it together to make happy little storm clouds of romance.

12. A class-crossed OTP you’ve written

     Although it's not written yet, I'm going to put Marie-Clare and Alex from my Midwinter Night's Dream here because even though they don't realize it at first, they are definitely crossing some class boundaries. He's a prince of the Fae and she's a plain-Jane human. Talk about bridging the gap!

13. An OTP you wrote that most people don’t ship

     I actually don't know who among my characters people do ship at this point, but there are a number of potential pairings in the Albion books that won't be coming to fruition, so I'm sure there are OTPs that will make this list some day.

14. Your very favorite OTP you'll love for the rest of your days

     At the moment, this is Molly and the Beast from  Paper and Thorns, partly because it's a Beauty and the Beast tale and partly because I'm working through the final rounds of edits on this story. We're getting closer to having this book out in the world and I can't wait to share it with you all.