I have a couple of questions: have you got any OTP(s) in the WK fandom? And if you have, has it always been the same or did you pass through different pairings before you decided this was your favourite? And what is that makes this pairing so special to you? And, again, do you read stories outside your OTP or are you very strict about it? I mean, if your OTP is, for example, Crawford/Schuldig, can you read also Crawford/Ran or Schuldig/Farfarello or whatever passes under your eyes, or does the mere thought make you cringe?

loll_3000 in wk_fic_finds

Hi, my name is laila and I ship Youji/Ken.

I've liked Youji/Ken for a long time, far longer than I've been serious about the fandom. In the days before I'd seen the show I'd read just about anything as long as the sex was good, but I always had a particular soft spot for that particular pairing never mind that, at the time, I didn't even like Ken that much. I just felt their personalities clicked. Acquaintance with the canon changed several of my pairing preferences - I no longer read Youji/Aya, for example - but all it did for Youji and Ken was leave me more convinced than ever that they were fucking like weasels strengthen my pairing preferences courtesy of the not-so-shocking revelation that they actually liked each other, too.

Personally, I have extreme difficulty seeing Youji paired with anyone but Ken. This isn't so much shipper bias as it is a personal take on characterization which went on to shape my pairing preferences. I write Youji as 99.5% straight when I write him myself (and 0.5% over there is named Ken Hidaka) and consequently I find it very, very hard to imagine him in a relationship with a male character he hadn't already developed a strong and obvious bond with, and which hadn't developed as a consequence of that bond. Canonically, Ken is the only male character he relates to in such a clearly affectionate manner, and it doesn't hurt that they bicker like they've been married twenty years.

If this makes me unimaginative, unimaginative is what I'll have to be.

Still, I don't see how anyone could deny the awesomeness of their arguments.

My one complaint with the pairing is how often Youji/Ken is used as a sideshow before the main event that is falling for Aya. In fics like this it's treated as a second best for either or both partners, something Youji and Ken grudgingly take because Aya is unattainable - or, worse, as a disastrous misstep used only to contrast with how wonderful and considerate a lover Aya makes. At best, it's a mistake either Youji or Ken has to rectify before finding True Love with Aya. At worst, it relies on one partner metamorphosing into an inconsiderate jerk or even an abusive rapist. All to make Aya look better.

I've seen my OTP used in this manner far too often for my liking, and it always annoys me. It is perfectly possible for Youji and Ken to fall for one another because the're in love, not because they can't have Aya or think he's unattainable.

Ken I will quite contentedly read about paired with just about anybody - just as long as he's in character. I've managed to enjoy reading about him paired with everyone from Omi to Farfarello (consensually or otherwise) provided the prose style is good enough and he's still recognizably Ken. I'm such a sucker for Ken as a character I'll gladly read almost anything just as long as he's being himself as hard as he can. If the pairing does it for me as well that's so much the better, but I don't tend to let pairings alone guide my reading where it comes to him.

Though I've read and enjoyed any number of Ran/Ken fics, I have difficulty taking them seriously. I simply can't imagine Aya and Ken settling into a romantic relationship, or even deciding to be friends with benefits, any time prior to Weiss Side B. Ran/Ken, as a pairing. has more canon basis than many of the most popular pairings - most of which I'm not that into either: the obscene popularity of Youji/Aya, for instance, just baffles the everliving Hell out of me considering there is no canon basis for it whatsoever - but it doesn't really appeal to me that much. I've always seen it as more of a rival ship and, while I find rival pairings appealing, I don't consider them OTP material.

That said, however, I'm not averse to the occasional crack pairing where Ken is concerned. I'm an unapologetic Schuldig/Ken fan - I'm not sure if it's just for the look of the thing or if fanfiction corrupted me: certainly Schuldig and Ken seldom even share frames, still less do they actually interact - and I've paired the poor boy with General Powell before now...

Not, I suspect, that he would exactly thank me for either of them.

The stipulation that Ken has to be in character restricts the number of fics out there I enjoy quite considerably even before pairing preferences become an issue. I'm not fond of what I consider to be the 'traditional' take on Ran/Ken, because a lot of the stuff I've seen out there hooks Ken up with Aya at the expense of everything that makes him Ken rather than the prototypical limp, co-dependant uberuke. It's a pity, because I think this has the potential to be an awesome pairing in the hands of ficcers who aren't filtering their perception of the characters through rose-tinted yaoi spectacles. Their canon dynamic is actually pretty good for shipping as it is: it just doesn't lend itself to True Romance as readily, which I guess is what puts some people off.

I don't tend to like Aya-centric fics, not because I dislike Aya or shipping him (though I think it's hard to do the latter convincingly) but because a sizeable proportion of people who choose to write about Aya seem to want to turn him into a perfect demi-god who can do no wrong and is lusted after by all comers. It's such a distressingly common mischaracterization and it annoys me so much I tend to steer away from Aya fics in general as a result.

I wouldn't mind Aya-centric shipfic as much as I do if such a large proportion of it didn't run away with the idea that Aya is going to be Sex Personified to absolutely everybody he meets. He's not that hot and wonderful: I personally think Youji runs rings around him in the physical attractiveness stakes... and is actually a halfway pleasant human being, too.

Aya just doesn't do it for me. I feel quite alone in this fandom sometimes.

(And he's not perfect--but that's a rant for another day.)

To stray back on topic, another pairing I've grown fond of recently is Omi/Ken, in that order (even if Omi isn't always physically on top). This pairing, in this order, started out breaking my brain, but the longer I thought about it - the idea, once there, refusing to die - the more attached to it I became. I think Omi tops and I think Ken likes it. It's a matter of personality for me as mentally, Omi has years on Ken; I find it kind of difficult to get my head round the idea that Ken would somehow be the more assertive partner in any resulting relationship. Sadly, it's near-impossible to find fics which put this kind of spin on these two.

Of course, if anyone knew of any Ken/Omi fics featuring a rather more dominant Omi, where it wasn't just mentioned in passing...?


This post started out as a comment. I just felt I had rather more to say about My Thoughts on Yaoi Weiss Kreuz OTPs than actually fitted in the comment box, and I didn't want to be overly inflammatory in someone else's post. So I came over here to my journal, where I could be as ranty and opinionated as I liked.

Incidentally, this is an interesting comment, but I don't think it's entirely correct. Some pairings do make more sense than others. I used to like Youji x Aya until I watched the series and realized it had precisely no canon basis whatsoever, for example...