Rarepair

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Synonyms: rare pairing, uncommon pairing, ibara
See also: crossover pairing, side pairing, unconventional pairing, crackship
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A rarepair is a term for a pairing or ship that is rare in a fandom. It is not featured in many fanworks and makes up a only small proportion of the overall total. A rare pair may be canon, but is often not. Some pairings may be shipped by a lot of fans, but be uncommon in fanworks. Often, a rarepair may be also a crackship, but not necessarily if said crackship is popular. While both terms refer to non-traditional pairings, rarepair is more focused on low popularity ships between characters, while crackship focuses on exploring the interactions between characters that have no interaction in the source material for whatever reason. A rarepair may be a fan's OTP, or just shipped on the side.

Reasons for a pairing being uncommon include a lack of screentime or interaction in canon, one or both characters being unpopular in fandom, being a crossover ship, featuring an unpopular relationship dynamic (for example, age difference or incest), or the fandom base itself may be made up of people who prefer a different kind of ship – for example, a rare het pairing in a m/m slash-heavy fandom.

Poly ships are often considered rarepairs. The Leverage OT3 is an outlier and should not be counted.

Rarepair meme

Examples of rarepairs

Rarepair-focused ...things

Multi-Fandom

Fandom-Specific

Additional Reading

References