#like this isn't even my usual rarepair brainrot speaking.

[notmoreflippingelves]

EoA for ask meme

otp: *coughs* Elena/Esteban. sorry not sorry.Look if they didn't want me to be unhinged about them, they shouldn't have spent an entire season soulmate-coding them and then capping it off with a BATB homage.

favourite canon pairing: ymmv on how canon it is, but considering it was pretty strongly teased in the series finale, Julio/Doña Paloma. I do find Carla/Mateo pretty cute as well.

worst pairing ever: I wouldn't say any of the pairings for the show are bad. It's just a lot of them don't particularly interest me. I could say Elena/Mateo, because personally I find it overrrated and I'm already gonna talk about it later. But I am going to go with Esteban/Doña Paloma.

I did actually kind of ship it the first time I watched the show...right up until the episode where their AU selves got married. And even though the whole point of "to Queen or Not to Queen" is that everything is absurd and everyone is wildly out-of-character (especially the two of them), they just seemed so miserable together and I couldn't unsee it. I also find it kind of annoying that Paloma is treated as sort of the default "acceptable" Esteban shipping option for people who don't want to pair him with OCs. And just...it's fine and I understand why many people would feel uncomfortable shipping him with certain characters (even if I don't)...but like...Victor is also right there. And honestly, I'm able to get a lot of the same vibes that I initially liked about esteoma out of estevictor, esteban/naomi, gaberico, and Julio/ Paloma---plus just I find those dynamics are more interesting in general.

guilty pleasure pairing: It used to be estebalena, but now, I have much less shame over it. It helps that I really only see it happening in S3 or later and that I hc that Elena would be the much more dominant/instigating partner in the relationship. I mean I guess Shuriki/Esteban is the obvious answer. But it is worth noting that I don't like it when it's genuine/mutual/romantic. I only like esteriki in the noncon/dubcon "Shuriki abusing her power" sense. So my guilty pleasure ship is less Shuriki/Esteban and more "Esteban/severe Shuriki-related trauma that leads to extreme woobification." I want him sad and pretty and haunted by the Dark Times™ so that he can have allll the angst, whump and hurt/comfort.

a pairing you want to see more: Literally every ship that isn't just some permutation of the Four Amigos. There are so many great characters in this ship that can be paired in so many interesting ways, but they rarely get acknowledged. I think I am particularly baffled by the lack of m/m in this fandom, since it's like the complete opposite of every other fandom ever. There's a bit of Mateo/Gabe, but honestly, it's positively dwarfed by other pairings for the amigos. (Also I don't care about Mateo, lol). There's also a criminally small bit of Gabe/Rico, but there could be so much more.

But honestly, the ship that I am genuinely baffled isn't more popular and really really want to see more of is Victor/Esteban. Like it just seems like a no-brainer to me. It has so many tropes that people normally go feral over. Childhood friends to lovers? Enemies to Lovers? Foe yay? Mutual redemption arcs? There isn't even an age difference and Victor's marriage is all-but-over. So, what is stopping people? I've seen at most a handful of ambiguously romantic ship art and not a single fic. Where is it? Where is the estevictor? Give me the estevictor!

that pairing everyone likes but you’re like “lol no” : Elena/Mateo. I mean I get why it's so popular given the popularity and attractiveness of both characters. But personally, I just don't find them interesting. I feel they both have better chemistry and interesting potential with other characters than they do with each other. And its popularity within the fandom certainly doesn't help, as my little contrarian hipster brain turns its nose up about 90% of fandom juggernaut pairings. Plus, I just don't care enough about Mateo to care about a ship with him. He's casually cute with Carla and I can see him with Gabe as well. But otherwise, nope. Don't like him enough to care who he's shipped with.

favorite non-romantic pair: There are a bunch of dynamics that I do ship sometimes (or more than sometimes) but I also love platonically. (Esteban & Elena, Elena & Naomi, Esteban & Naomi, Naomi & Gabe, Elena & Gabe, Elena & Valentina, Elena & Marisa, Chloe & Maliga, Cacahuate & Bobo, various permutations of "Team Isa"). But in terms of pairings that I only view platonically, either Victor & Carla or Isabel & Elena.