#my unpopular ship!

[ryllen]

I was just THINKING OF HOW ANNOYING Sebek is, H O N E S T .

[acertifiedmoron]

the magnus archives is a romcom—no what the hell it's not. it is, however, a gothic horror romance between jon and elias. because you see, the thing about jonelias is that their canonical dynamic is built around an absurd number of gothic genre tropes. jon sims obviously fits the mold of the tortured gothic protagonist quite nicely who's facing both external (the other avatars targeting him) and internal horrors (his progress as the Archivist weighing on his conscience). but he's also trapped in the gothic manor which is the magnus institute. there are secrets (the place being a temple to the eye), locked doors, forbidden chambers, and bodies in the attic which serve as evidence of past misdeeds (the panopticon; gertrude and jonah's bodies in the tunnels), the institute/archives is ultimately destroyed by fire - purging the gothic manor i.e. the symbolic destruction of the previous order with fire is a common motif in the genre. and jon's work in the archives is haunted by the figurative ghost of gertrude who remains a curious mystery he must unravel and will serve as a constant reminder to jon of his own inadequacies (just like du maurier's rebecca fr)

elias is then —

1) his personal bluebeard figure who murdered his predecessor, a comparison which only gets stronger with the jonah magnus reveal since he's been cycling through archivists for two hundred years, all having met gruesome ends in service to him and jon being his final and most notable choice. are you seeing the maxim de winter rochester imagery. are you.

2) his gothic double. doubles as a literary trope are your hidden self made manifest, the horror lies in the double (elias) revealing the gothic protagonist's (jon) hidden, true self to them. elias as an avatar of the eye is entirely unrepentant for his nature, he revels in it. which is a mirror to jon's own self-flagellation because despite how much he feels torn about his own metaphorical vampirism, he likes it. he admits as much to gerry as early as s3 when asked about his feelings on his ability to compel truths. and why wouldn't he! after being kept in the dark so long, why wouldn't he like it? and jon and jonah had in common their natural curiosity even before they found the beholding. elias is a mirror and jon looks in it and sees someone who is him, but not quite. someone who is what jon would be if he could simply let go, but jon can't. like most gothic protagonists he will kill his double because it is a reminder of a self-truth he can never escape.

and watcher's call. like what even is that. what do you mean that's a thing. what. literally wuthering heights. "why did you heed the call?" // "because this is the place i know i should be" <- normal dialogue to write for two guys definitely not starring in a gothic romance.

^ same genre of images. so the spider, the mother of puppets, the web which is the symbolic representation of narrative thread in the magnus archives universe WEAVED them together? red string fated, that's what they are? so they're soulmates. that's what you're saying. they're literally soulmates. soulmates as existential horror? just enough of an illusion of narrative agency for jonah/elias to claim, "the Chosen One is simply that – someone I chose" but paradoxically joined by fate, which isn't a good thing! because no god-like powers of hope, or love, or indigestion, or whatever, only fear. because even though both help the other achieve narrative self-actualisation (elias making jon the archive and jon making elias the king of a ruined world), their union also irrevocably destroys their lives as they hurt each other in deeply personal ways which signify their greatest fears. elias manipulating jon, whose biggest fear is mr spider, i.e. loss of control and jon repaying by being the very thing that kills jonah, who has spent multiple lifetimes trying to escape the end. and that's romance <3

[failyaoi]

GUYS PLEASE THEY'RE SO UNDERRATED PLEEAAAAASE

[fowlblue]

If you want to be as famous as me- you gotta work, gotta work, gotta work-

I don’t know if Reverse Falls is still a thing on here but man, was I obsessed with it back in the early days.

[wool-string]

Based off this post

[dekusleftsock]

Mha fandom when you say that Izuku’s biggest fic mischaracterization isn’t making him twinky:

WHEN DID BEING A TWINK BECOME A BAD THING CAN I JUST ASK THAT

Like yes, twinkifying one male character in a ship can be annoying—it can perpetuate heterosexual roles onto same sex relationships (“who’s the woman in the relationship/who wears the pants in the relationship?”), BUT LET US BE CLEAR:

TWINKS ARE A PART OF THE QUEER COMMUNITY. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH BEING A TWINK, MAKING A CHARACTER A TWINK, OR SEEING A CHARACTER AS A TWINK.

WHEN in the ever loving FUCK did that somehow translate into “the twink has to be the stereotypically aggressive one so it doesn’t abide by queer stereotypes”. HOW DID WE GET HERE.

[necrotic-nephilim]

what are your favourite batcest ships and why?

AAA i love this question so much. i'm going to limit myself to a top five, because otherwise, i'd just end up listing all of them. the true joy of batcest is they're all so good for such different reasons and there are so many unique dynamics you can explore.

JayTim - it's funny bc, before i started this blog, i don't know if i would've put these two losers as my number one. but because i've done so much deep diving into their dynamic and i write them the most, i think it'd be a disservice for them to be anything *but* number one. their canon dynamic is just. so fun to play with. i truly love all of their interactions, particularly pre-Flashpoint. the concepts of Tim holding such contempt for Jason while Jason is weirdly obsessed with Tim. i'm a fan of Hannibal and Killing Eve and well. if this isn't a Hannigram-coded ship idk *what* is. i like ships where love and hate co-exist and there's no real "happily ever after", just fucked up co-existing, where they crawl back to each other like a bad habit and really, this ship is that so perfectly. the themes of jealousy in the Robin mantle. Tim wearing Jason's Red Robin suit to punish himself. i will likely never shut up about them. even in the New-52, there's such a substance to them, though the dynamic is wildly different. they will always be so weirdly dependent on each other's existence. i love them.

BruDick - you can't outdo the doer, i fear. i think i like BruDick mostly for the history of it, yk. there's genuinely *so much* queer history seeped into the homoeroticism of Batman and Robin, these two have been a symbol for queer people for decades. but the ship itself has so many dynamics i love. problematic age gap, "are we family or lovers", "i can't be in a room alone with you without getting into a screaming match but if you called i drop everything for you". all of it. i especially favor 80s/90s BruDick when they were in their divorce era just because it's so messy. Dick has canonically said he would die for Bruce, even during their arguments. no matter what, these two will always be single-mindedly devoted to each other. there will be other Robins, but none of them will compare to Dick Grayson, for Bruce. it's a unique and complicated bond that has endless layers to peel back. they always crawl back to each other bc no one else will match their level of intensity.

DamiTim - years and years ago, when i was a teen trying to people-please with how i existed in fandom, i used to insist i didn't like batcest and found it icky and gross. but there was one DamiTim fic that was my exception. that fic was my fucking roman empire. i reread it like once a year even though it's not completed and likely never will be i do not care. so now that i've killed the morality police in my head and i let myself ship what i actually want to ship, this ship holds a top place in my heart just bc of that fic alone. but in general i do fucking love their dynamic. similar to JayTim there's just so much mutual hatred in these two that has endless potential. Damian's insistence to not see Tim as a Wayne and as a legitimate brother/heir to Bruce is something you can play a lot if you give Damian an angry, fucked up crush on Tim he doesn't want to admit to. they have so many reasons to dislike each other, so to try to get them to slowly fall in love is a fun challenge. they either have a long complicated forgiveness arc and end up a happy married couple or they are the couple that tries to kill each other once a week. no in-between.

JeanTim - there's like. one person here on tumblr who goes as hard for this ship as i do and truly god bless them bc they feed me. Jean-Paul is too underrated in the batcest scene. once i reread Knightfall, i will have to help popular this tag on ao3. i enjoy both a very fucked up version of this ship during the peak of the Knightfall arc, where Jean-Paul is deep in his murder Batman era and Tim is trying to stop him to no real avail, but i *also* think there's so much you can do with the ship afterwards, where Jean-Paul is trying to make up for what he's done and be a better person and better hero. they're the peak Batman/Robin ship, to me. they truly care about each other, but have a very complicated/bloody history and i just. man i love it so dearly. i've been meaning to write a fic where Jean-Paul goes to Tim post the Sword of Azrael (2022) arc to properly discuss and apologize for all his actions in Knightfall for his personal healing and they end up fucking. it could be sweet and cute or kinky fun bc what is the joy of a character with that much Catholic guilt if you don't give them a weird religious kink.

BruCarrie - The Dark Knight Returns got me into comics and i will defend it till the day i die. Carrie Kelley can be pried from my cold dead hands. i just really love these two? Carrie took one look at that cranky old bastard and decided she was his problem. and Bruce is at a stage where he should be very averse to the idea of having a Robin, he knows it's a bad idea. but he just. accepts her anyway. idk how to explain their dynamic other than she plunks herself in his lap and stitches up his wounds while telling him he's an idiot and he lets her even if he's grumbling about it. they have the biggest age gap of any Batman/Robin ship and for that, they should get like. a dead dove gold star no matter how rare the pair is.

also honorable mention goes to BruTim, because *god* do i love the concept of Tim offering himself up to Bruce as Robin in every way, knowing that there are likely sexual/romantic implications to being Robin. it's one of my favorite flavors of batcest to exist. i don't view them as a "happily ever after" ship, because Bruce will always go back home to Dick, but it's a fun lil dead dove moment.

[someponyholdme]

is this a hot take? the ATLA fandom hyper focuses on zuko and his potential love interests so much that it discredits his character development, his journey of realizing his destiny, his struggles with his mental health and his struggles with non romantic relationships.

i understand he's a fan favorite, and as someone who was a little kid when the show came out i had such a crush on him. i love zuko as much as the next gal but i don't see him for this edgy emo boy with pretty hair and a sick scar appeal. he's an extremely traumatized and mentally unwell child. he's a physically and emotionally wounded person who's made a lot of mistakes while trying to do the right thing, and unlearning everything he's ever known so he can change.

resorting zuko to just being this heartthrob is really dehumanizing. the relationships that are so much more important than any ship are his relationships with his family, his relationship with aang and his relationship with himself. he is farrr too romanticized and glorified by the fandom. the favoritism towards him actually tarnishes all of his progress rather than highlighting it.

[anthonysdemo]

little quick regulily sketch because it’s always “do you ship jily, jegulus or jegulily?” justice for regulily REAL

[ubtendo]

Nah fam, the joke is on YOU bc I LOVE when people share interests. Gimme the bug lore and the Briggsbek content. I'm shaking the bars of my cage.

Not really bugs, but imagine Torbek having a higher resistance to spider venom and/or scorpions. He had a "'"pet"'" scorpion named Bobby.

He's like a Disney Princess but Specifically For Bugs/insectoid things.

Also visually impaired Briggsy AAAAAA. Tie in neurodivergent Torbek with a wide vocabulary and I bet you dollars to donuts that this bugbear absolutely describes the colors and looks of different bugs, but between guiding gentle touches and stating colors, he follows it up with like. The sensory experience of the colors. Similar in a vague sense to synesthesia, but all the colors and shades are independent to each other.

As for nicknames, Briggsy would call Torbek fitting things like Atlas (big) and such, but also stuff like Bugaboo, lovebug ((not literal ones bc Torbek may have OPINIONS on those, but the term is still cute)), honeybee, buzzy, and tying in some self indulgent stuff, when Torbek is overstimulated, it's burrito bugbear hours and Briggsy calls him some variant of caterpillar.

Torbek personally isn't big on pet names, but he does have special bugs that he holds up apropos nothing and goes "this one reminds me of you" and then he goes on a total in depth explanation as to why and how and what features contribute to that explanation.

((P.S. don't imagine Torbek being near illiterate but able to read Sylvan near fluently after his capture. Don't imagine him having a decent grasp on most spoken languages but still struggling to read. Don't imagine Torbek casually being a polyglot and never realizing it's smth impressive.))

((P.S.S. Don't imagine briggsy having mapped out all of Torbek's features by sound and touch. Don't imagine his terror of eventually losing those senses as well. They send audio messages mostly. And then Do NOT Imagine the metamorphosis in the EoM campaign and Briggsy's sheer joy of semi-lucidity of senses, of the knowledge that he'll one day be able to see and taste and touch his lover in full. But of it only happens when they're worlds apart and trapped as such))

You are killing me, anon

Anon my heart

I don't even know how I can add to that, this is perfect

First of all I wanna bite myself in the butt for not thinking of Bugaboo (I love that nickname, I'm so mad at myself) and Torbek would call Briggsy "Captain" to ground him when his temper is acting up

And Torbek being the princess of bugs is cannon now to me. I imagine especially after being modified with the witchlight, he would have not an immunity but a resistance to bug venom

Also, even tho I haven't seen it yet, it would really frustrate me if someone just hears Torbek talk and think that he would be "stupid" because of the way he talks. You would just need to really listen once to what he is saying to realise that Torbek is actually quite eloquent, so thank you for pointing that out, he would be sitting there for a lifetime visualising world verbally for Briggsy, and he would switch between languages when he thinks that they would sound nicer as a description

And everytime (fiction or non fiction) a visually impaired or blind person asks "to see someone face", it just melts my heart. Cause even tho they can't see too know what the eye color or hair colour of the other is, they know every wrinkle, every mole, if you have dimples or acne or a sort of facial fluff, the way your nose is shaped and how your lips feel, the unique way your ear is shaped, they know your face better than you yourself and better than every other seeing person (sorry had to get that one of my chest) so Briggsy doing the same with Torbek is just -GAH💕

(I haven't seen up to the metamorphosis episode yet but I know about this already because I've read through Briggsys, honestly very empty, fanwiki article but his thrill of that he might be able to actually SEE him? I'm bawling)

AHRG EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR ASK IS PERFECT I LOVE IT

We are all building this ship together and that is really something special

[edwardsissyhandsthtdanceslikeabb]

crazy person check: did you see Richie being eviscerated by Syd in steadily personal and intense ways, until he was ultimately bothered / defeated, after belittling and undervaluing her. while also backdropped by past gems of empathy/connection and fondness.

all culminating in them getting in each other’s faces, and Syd brandishing a knife against him, and a part of you didn’t see it as a mere symptom of the chaos erupting in the kitchen, but as a greater manifestation of their tension (despite the good), especially with how needlessly close and frankly abetting/low Richie was speaking, not stepping away from the challenge, which later led you to realize that you actually ship it?

Especially bc he valued Sydney’s words sm that it borderline induced his S2 psychological spiral (which is fckɪɴɢ hilarious lol), exemplifying her impact/value to him, and how she’s equally if not more unhinged than him. and was allowed her retaliation in a grander, more intense way which validates her feelings against Richie, and elevates her above a passive recipient. With this tension transcending into S2, with their pointed tentativeness whenever they would initially interact, although awkward, it was evidently made so by all the things unsaid.

And doubly appreciate the detail of S2 ending with Carmy and Syd on repeatedly bad/disconnected footing and Richie conversely, earnestly imploring Sydney trust him, wanting to be utilized by her, giving himself to the person who arguably holds the most weight (was the one who really saw his inherent issues/needed to prove himself to) and was thusly crucial in pushing him to grow. and how sydney trusted him, chose to in fact — despite everything — which allowed her to achieve a huge part of her dream, actually being there for her - in opposition to his prior trend of self-centeredness (and so becoming endearing to you and smth you really appreciate). And the easy synergy this brought, evidencing their compatibility and natural gravitation — so while sydcarm are mirrors, their fallibilities tend to distance and depersonalize them from e/o - at least in carmy's case. Did this make you admire their depth and dynamicness and their uncanny ability to complement each other, whether piercing under the skin or building the other up? Did their [initial] tension make you think they were gonna makeout, but are you satisfied even tho they didn't (OOC, duh), but lowkey think they wanted to/should, like sydrichie nasty sickonut hɑτefuck when (with knife even)?

Would you lowkey love it if the show trolled and ended up not pairing sydcarm but unexpectedly the two that challenge each other - with sydrichie, despite many ppl falling to their knees in wallmart. Should sydrichie kiss sloppy style with τoɴɢue to make me very happy?

Do I need help? And is it an obvious problem that I ship Syd with any cousin 🐻 that breathes (she can't help that she's so charismatic and wifey 🤷🏿‍♂️)? Yes, yes. Clearly indicative of a hashtag normal person, very well adjusted yes.

[fushitoge-blog]

twt: @hachi_jjk

[venacesaur]

where's that one post about how it's extreme mode to headcanon a character as aroace when they're part of a really popular ship....so true. especially when you headcanon both characters in the ship as aroace

[saythenameritwika]

#boochan: his love story

[moonlitkihu]

Unpopular opinion.

Lucius and Narcissa is my favourite couple

[zenith-does-stuff]

დ .•*””*• And Then They Took Over The World •*””*•.დ