R.I.P. It or Ship It

It’s time to ship some characters.

I love stupid ships. When writing with friends, my go-to prompt is always, “Write the most unlikely couple you can think of.” I find this exercise fascinating even if they hate doing it. Some of my favorite ships have started as a joke; the more I laugh, the more sense the pairing makes.

So I played “R.I.P. It or Ship It” and the results were intense.

I picked 30 characters from 15 of my favorite franchises. To make things interesting, I picked a character I love from each franchise alongside a character I have more complicated feelings for.

Then I made some arbitrary rules:

1. I tried to pick only 2 characters per franchise. (I may have cheated with “Star Wars.”)
2. Any underage characters were aged up for the purposes of this game.
3. Because I was more interested in dynamics than in canon potential, incompatible orientation was not a dealbreaker.

Here were the players:

The Lunar Chronicles
Jacin Clay (love) and Cress Darnell (loathe)

Harry Potter
Harry Potter (love) and Remus Lupin (loathe)

Fruits Basket
Kyo Sohma (love) and Shigure Sohma (dislike)

Avatar: The Last Airbender
Prince Zuko (love) and Princess Azula (despise)

Star Wars: New Trilogy
Kylo Ren (LOVE) and Admiral Hux (dislike)

Star Wars: Prequel Trilogy
Queen Amidala (like) and Anakin Skywalker (despise)

The Raven Cycle
Ronan Lynch (LOVE) and Adam Parrish (long story)

Northanger Abbey
Henry Tilney (LOVE) and Catherine Morland (resent)

Jane Austen’s Emma
Emma Woodhouse (like) and Harriet Smith (LOATHE)

You Know Me Well
Kate (like) and Ryan (DESPISE)

BBC’s The Musketeers
Porthos (LOVE) and Athos (LOATHE)

The Princess Diaries
Mia Thermopolis (like) and Lilly Moscovitz (loathe)

Tamora Pierce’s Tortall Universe
Alanna of Trebond (like) and Daine Sarrasri (despise)

Hamilton
Aaron Burr (love) and Alexander Hamilton (hate)

RENT
Mark Cohen (like) and Roger Davis (long story)

Thus occurred 15 rounds of romances so impossible they each deserve their own post.