Rarepair

Synonyms:	rare pairing, uncommon pairing, ibara
See also:	crossover pairing, side pairing, unconventional pairing
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Not to be confused with Rareshipping (Yu-Gi-Oh).

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. 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.

Examples of rarepairs

• Scully/Krycek in The X-Files
• Rodney/Ronon in Stargate Atlantis
• Inui/Ryouma in Prince of Tennis
• Starsky/Huggy Bear or Hutch/Huggy Bear in Starsky & Hutch
• Darcy Lewis/Fandral in the Thor Movieverse
• Diana Prince/Harleen Quinzel in the DCU
• Barbara Holland/Nancy Wheeler in Stranger Things
• Pyrrha Nikos/Ruby Rose in RWBY
• Gabrielle/Joxer in Xena: Warrior Princess
• Takami Keigo/Shigaraki Tomura in Boku no Hero Academia

Rarepair-focused ...things

Multi-Fandom

• Works tagged Rare Pairing on Archive of Our Own
• Small fandom and rare pairing drabblethon
• Small Fandom and Rare Pairing/Rarely-Written Character Promote-a-thon
• Rare Pair Fest (link) exchange onLiveJournal and AO3
• Minority Pairings Community

Fandom-Specific

• HP Rarities Exchange - Harry Potter rarepairs fic exchange.
• Transformers Rare Pairing community on Livejournal
• Spice Up Your Life: A Teen Wolf Ficathon, a Teen Wolf ficathon for any pairing but Sterek
• Marvel Rarepair - rarepairs of the Marvel Universe tumblr.
• The Flash RarePair - a rarepair Arrowverse tumblr.
• The 100 Rare Pairs Challenge - The 100, any paring except Bellarke or Clexa
• The 100 Rare Pairs Event - The 100, also any pairing except Bellarke or Clexa
• Untold Legends - a community exploring and celebrating the rarepairs of BBC Merlin
• Merlinity - a community "for lovers of Colin/Richard and Merlin/Gaius", BBC Merlin and Merlin RPF

• 

  prompts banner for Untold Legends by emjayelle

• 

  banner for Merlinity by glaringcandle

Additional Reading

• Slash is where you find it., by The Divine Adoratrice ("Why not go off the beaten path once in a while?") (July 14, 1998)
• Rarepairs, ^{Archived version} (So if you are a rarepairs writer, does the lack of feedback influence your writing them? ) (Jan 2005)
• Fandom Evolution & Rarepairs, ^{Archived version} (In order to understand the dynamic process of fandom, we have to look at its history. on fandom evolution.) (Jan 2005)
• "no one reads rare pairs", ^{Archived version} anon ask answered by sleepy-skittles (February 17, 2016)
• A short comic about shipping and why I need to stop doing it, ^{Archived version} by w1zrad-art (January 29, 2016)