I've never ranted about OTPs for a good reason. It's controversial and can have many different views depending on which pairings people support and how popular that pairing is. I'm doing this because it is an issue for me and these are my rants. 

This is good for definitions of types of OTP.
More about Gen (general) fics here. 

These websites refer to fandoms like Star Trek, not K-Pop, though.

I’m going to start by saying I don’t ship any SHINee pairings just like I don’t like to read SHINee fics. I don’t ship JongKey, I don’t ship OnKey, and I definitely don’t ship 2Min. I don’t care if you like it, I just don’t want to know about it. Now that I have gotten that out of the way, I can freely talk about the pairings as if I read them.

Let’s get down to business. OTP= One True Pairing. It’s the couple you think looks good together or could be real. The support of a couple is called “shipping.” Example: I ship Xiah Junsu and coconuts, that’s a y pairing. Couples that most fans accept are, for the purpose of OTPs, Canon, like 2Min and JongKey as opposed to JongTae. Gen OTP fics are fics that have OTPs but they don’t have romantic or ual implications, like general band fics. Gen fics usually have less views and comments for these reasons. Frustraiting, isn’t it?

A large proportion of fanfics on AFF are OTP fics with various standard pairings like Daragon, JongKey/2Min, KhunToria EunHae, YulSic, YunJae, and some other straight couples. This is wonderful, the root of idol fanfiction, the idea that an idol will not fall in love with someone on the other side of the globe but someone they work with. OTPs are perfectly reasonable and if someone doesn’t ship it, they don’t have to read it.

Right?

If I was, for some absurd reason, a huge 2Min shipper, I wouldn’t have to worry about reading some random JongKey? Right? Because there is never a side pairing, especially not in canon fics. No, never.

My point is obvious. There are three very large problems with OTP fics.

1)      OTP fics are usually the main couples like 2Min and Jongkey or YunJae and YooSu (for example)

For someone who does not ship the Canon couples, finding an OTP fic is very difficult. The fics you do find tend to just have your OTP as a side couple instead of a main. There is a really big disadvantage to those that ship the less popular pairings. Sorry guys, this will never change. In the newer fandoms this OTP stuff isn’t so set in stone, the exception being Exo. They definitely had at least six different pairings before they even debuted. Exo fans, you’re more obsessed than SHINee fans, just saying.

If you don’t write the main couple then you won’t get as many subs, views, or comments. If you do write the main couple/couples then a lot of people (like me) feel like you only got those subs/view/comments not because of your skill but because of strategic choice in popular pairings. There are a lot of fics and authors on AFF that aren’t good but get attention for who they are about and who they are by.

2)      The main couple is usually accompanied by another couple.

This isn’t an issue for most people, but it is for me and it is for my Maria. I see this with a lot of fans. They ship one couple and then they automatically ship the other couple because they are there. You ship JongKey only because you ship 2Min and for some reason you think it is just fun play for a man to fall in love with chicken. The same with shipping KyuMin just because of EunHae or vise versa. Oh, and YunJae and YooSu ones are crazy. These two pairings are so set in stone that if you diss either of them, at least a hundred fans will be on your back. Thank science for livejournal!

Then again, this might not bother the majority of the brainwashed fans. Many just go with it. Some really support both. That’s perfectly fine. That is what is expected of you so conform to your fandom.

But seriously, it is really hard to find one pairing without the other. It might seem like you are appealing to more, but it just results with the same situation as non OTP couples, no interest and a scroll through. There are times when I skip entire chapters because the couple I was reading the fic for was not mentioned at all. A single time. Some people can handle it, some people care, I am not one of them. You see, originally OTPs used to stem from an author having a ship and only one ship, no others were accepted or used in a fanwork, and I fit into this category of liking one pairing in a fandom or enjoying pairings with one person in a fandom.  

Currently there is only one author that writes well enough for me to actually read the other couples.

Think about what your story is about. This couple or that couple, choose! Don’t pretend to be one but then throw in a whole bunch of another.

3)      There are many overused plots and characterizations.

While probably true for all fanfics, I strongly believe that OTP fics can be generalized by plot and characterization. I realized this as I was reviewing a series of unrelated Oneshots with a canon and noncanon pairings. What occurred to me was that while the members might be the same in each fanfic, the storyline and the characters are very different depending on the main pairing. What worked for one pairing generally did not work for another. There is barrier that keeps certain OTP fics from straying too far from their standards.

It’s the same as the characterization, they use the same principles. There are traits that are common among all of the fics.

I’m not saying this is true for all of them, and I’m not saying it is really obvious, but you know it’s true.

I had a fourth point, but I forgot it after I wrote the first one.

Moving away from fics, let’s talk about the readers. You can ship whatever you want. You can read whatever you want. You can choose to accept the canon pairings either because you are a conformist or because you believe the couple is realistic. You can also choose to ship a couple that isn’t canon.

If you are crazy and ship Onchicken, fine, just don’t talk to me about it. There are some people out there that ship the same thing as you. It’s crazy, but it is true. Don’t assume that someone has the same OTP as you, it can piss people off. The other day someone thought I shipped 2Min and Jongkey. Instead of replying to them, I just wrote this rant.

Going back to this idea that AFF is a market, because I think it fits perfectly. The analogy is that each author is a company, the fics are products, comments and subs are profits, there is competition between us through advertisement and product updates, nichi is our leader and the Mods are his law enforcers allowing this laissez faire, and the featured authors are the monopolizing companies with products that sell hot.

If you as a reader, or consumer of a product, make it seem that people who support a certain OTP are obsessive and close minded, new fans will be wary of shipping it. This happened to me. Fans are constantly flaunting 2Min and JongKey in my face, so much so that they now repulse me.

If we look at advertisements, if something is done too much it becomes annoying. Likewise, if the fans or consumers of a “product” look annoying, then the product is less desirable. Look at Twilight. Many people see fans of Twilight as immature and unintelligent, making it undesirable. I’m sure the same can be said about Harry Potter. I know there are people who look down on all those nerds that really believe magic is real and one day they will receive their letter to Hogwarts, even if it is fifty years late.

Can you understand how obnoxious this is? “Junsu/Coconuts is the best OTP ever! I ship this forever! Nothing can beat this! ASDFGHJKL! Junsu/Coconuts! Jaejoong/Elephants! ♥♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥!” Woah there fans of every fandom; you can enjoy your cake, but please don’t moan about the wonderful taste of cake in a flavor some of us don’t like.

On the topics of desserts, it’s a common belief that women prefer chocolate sweets; however, I prefer vanilla or white chocolate. It’s common for fans to ship canon, but there are many who don’t. It’s very important to me specifically that people don’t jump onto an OTP (or fandom) bandwagon just because it seems like the one to like. I’m going to use Exo as my example. Many people are instantaneously loving and obsessing over Exo because they see others doing the same like loving exotic chocolate because it seems like that’s what women do. I, on the other hand, really do like Exo, but will never obsess over them. This is the same as liking chocolate but preferring vanilla, the original flavor.

The promotion of a pairing does not mean you have to like it. Seeing numerous 2Min fics getting featured does not mean 2Min is the best OTP and that everyone should them.

TL;DR: Popular OTPs win out over the others. OTPs have common themes because they are limited to certain standards. Crazy fans ruin fandoms. Don’t follow the crowd, choose your OTPs based off of your own observations. Eating cake and loving chocolate now means shipping an OTP and loving Exo respectively.