#non-endgame ships

[conundrumoftime]

Fandom grandma tales: how I survived canon ruining two of the ships I liked.

(Written after a discussion with some of my TROP fan pals about how canon can break your heart re: shipping, and how fandom manages. There are spoilers here for the entire run of Babylon 5, and for one story JMS wrote after it. yes, that story. sorry.)

Babylon 5 was a sci-fi space opera show that ran from 1993 to 1998. It is sci-fi of the era of 22-episode seasons, of huge ensemble casts with characters who get their own B- and C-plots, with an effects and casting budget that doesn’t always match its ambition, and - something it was quite pioneering in, at the time - grand pre-planned story arcs. 

It’s the first fandom that I was involved with in internet spaces as it was running, or at least when its final season was (there’s Discourse and drama from earlier years that I missed). Its showrunner, J. Michael Straczynski - ‘JMS’ - was very active in (non-fanfic) fan community spaces, and you always knew exactly what he was thinking about things because he was part of the discussion around them. There was also fanfic, which he didn’t stop but didn’t go near on the grounds of legal liability for story ideas. 

Most of the fanfic in the early days as the show was airing was focused around two big ships, of which one was canon endgame (Delenn/Sheridan) and one was canon all-ends-in-despair (Marcus/Ivanova). I, as a teenager discovering a developing online fandom for the first time with all the overwhelm and excitement that causes (ask me anything about what reading fic was like before the days of tags/ratings/warnings!) got into Marcus/Ivanova and also into one of the minor ships, Delenn/Lennier.

Delenn/Lennier was never, ever going to happen in canon. This is obvious; it clashes with Delenn/Sheridan which was JMS’s baby darling OTP, the show’s big love story. Delenn is married for the later part of the show. Lennier is her diplomatic aide, is absolutely devoted to her, and they have a very intense mentor/student relationship, which it seems is kind of standard in their culture (when Delenn’s own mentor died she went briefly insane with grief and started a genocidal war over it) but is still Very Intense. He is canonically in love with her, but that’s as far as the explicit canon statements go.

However. HowEVER. Canon also gives us, for that relationship, some wonderful ship fuel. Lennier knows about every bad thing Delenn has done, including all the stuff she doesn’t/can’t tell her husband. He’s her link to her previous world and culture and stands by her even when they kick her out. She says at one point, “without him, I would stumble and fall and never get up again.” 

And then… we had Season 5, the final season.

Season 5, for various complicated production reasons, was operating a little outside of pre-planned story arcs and in this season the Delenn/Lennier stuff ramped up about three gears in one go. It was still very obviously never, ever going to be canon, and was almost certainly not intended by the creator (who wrote most of the episodes himself) to look like there was even anything there. At this point Delenn is married; any relationship with her aide would not only be going against the show’s OTP, but going against it in the sense where she’s cheating on her husband, and there is Just No Way JMS would have gone there. And yet! Season 5 gave us:

A scene where Lennier says he can’t stay, it’s too painful to be around her now she’s married, and she’s devastated and has the following conversation with her husband about it:

S: I got your message about Lennier. Is there anything I can do?

D [snapping]: Almost certainly not.

S: Is it because of me?

D: In part, I think so.

S: Yeah, I was afraid of that. Well, as we say back on Earth, three’s a crowd.

D: On Minbar, three is sacred.

S [slightly uncomfortable laugh]: Well, I don’t think I’m ready to handle that one, Delenn.

Delenn then calling Lennier back to the station to do some secret mission thing for her, which involves her sneaking out of her bed while her husband sleeps to meet Lennier in a darkened alley behind a bar, where she tenderly strokes his face and they have a whole conversation about whether her husband understands her or not.

A scene where Lennier comes back from his secret mission to meet both Delenn and Sheridan, Delenn goes to greet him with a hug, and Lennier does this very pointed step back and nod in the direction of her husband, and she pulls back and just sort of pats him on the arms instead. 

I MEAN.

But, the issue here is not what fans did about it but what canon did about it. Canon did the canon equivalent of dragging that ship outside and shooting it in the head. 

In the final few episodes of the entire series, Lennier tries to kill Sheridan, runs away in shame, and then someone finds his diary in which he’d been writing for ages about what a bad decision he thought Delenn had made and how her whole marriage was an awful idea. Even to this day, it’s fun/awful watching people go through a first-time watch when they get to season 5 and hit that. ‘Character assassination in the form of a diary’ was a whole thing for a while. It’s been 20+ years and the actor who played Lennier is stilll mad about it (not because of shippy stuff, but because he - correctly! - thinks Lennier absolutely would not have done that). 

What *fandom* did, on the other hand, was Fixed The Problem.

Delenn/Lennier was not at all a big ship when the series was airing, and for a few years after. Then the fandom dynamics started to change. With less pressure on what canon was going to do, it felt like fandom had more space to play around with things it didn’t do. Fanfic got less interested in trying to fit within the overall story being told and started spinning off in all its own directions. And *this* ship started getting bigger and bigger. People did really interesting things with it, canon divergence went in all directions, everyone wrote a fix-it story of some variety, some authors did a great series of connected stories based on an idea that Minbari have three genders, the quality of the writing has been brilliant. And I think without that absolute whiplash feeling of what happened in canon, there would never have been this feeling of “well I’m not having THAT” which led to all this.

We did not need canon! Canon had done its thing. And canon had broken our hearts enough ways with many of the other stories it told (entirely on purpose) and we weren’t just going to sit back and let it ruin us forever.

By comparison, the other ship I was into was Marcus/Ivanova. This is entirely doomed. Susan Ivanova’s love life is just perpetually doomed. The first partner of hers we meet is an ex who’s interested in getting back together, but then it turns out he’s just using her to infiltrate the station for the fascist terrorist group he’s secretly joined. Then she falls for an archrival of hers, Talia, who works for Psi Corps, the organisation she loathes most of all things - but it’s okay because it turns out Talia is starting to question them too! Maybe these crazy kids can make it work! They have one night together and then OOPS turns out Talia was being secretly controlled by a sleeper personality implanted in her by Psi Corps the whole time. Ivanova’s love life is doomed. 

So for two seasons, she has this sort-of-flirty, sort-of-bickery, sort-of-friendship going with Marcus, who is on the surface of it very much “why not fall in love at first sight like a true romantic, YOLO!” but it turns out is actually deeply messed up himself and full of survivor’s guilt and pain and, you get the clear impression, would have died of shock if she’d actually called his bluff on the OTT flirting and said “yeah, let’s go for it”. And then he sacrifices himself to save her life. It is a very tragic ending, it is absolutely the way he would have wanted to go, she wakes up both furious and absolutely distraught, says that the last thing she heard was him saying “I love you”, says she wishes she’d at least slept with him once, and says that in a way all love is unrequited. PAIN. 

So, lots of fix-it fanfic, lots of ‘Marcus comes back to life’, lots of canon divergence AUs where he doesn’t die and they live happily ever after and both get over their huge levels of unresolved pain. Pretty standard for that kind of pairing. And as a pairing it doesn’t get in the way of any big canon pairings, it doesn’t imply anything icky like mentor/student power imbalances or adultery. And JMS clearly quite liked it. So that’s better, right?

NO. It was WORSE.

JMS wrote an Marcus/Ivanova story himself, published in one of the sci-fi magazines, to try to give them a happy ending. This happy ending involves Marcus, many many years in the future, waking up from the cryogenic suspension he’s in (it’s sci-fi, keep up, keep up). Ivanova is long dead, but he isn’t about to let this get in the way, so what he does is to *create a new Ivanova* by getting some kind of DNA + computerised memory/personality bank thing, finding a doctor who will clone her, putting himself back into animated sleep until the clone reaches the age Ivanova was when she died, then - THEN, I’M STILL GOING - takes her to a distant planet where, with her memories wiped and their spaceship having deliberately been crashed BY HIM so there’s no way back, they live out their lives in peace.

WHAT.

That pairing still does okay in fandom but it’s not really taken on a post-show world of headcanons and riffing on other people’s ideas and tropes in the way that Delenn/Lennier has (and we all just pretend that story never existed). 

So! This has been my experiences in the field of What We Do When The Show Has Thoughts On That Non-Endgame Ship We’re Into. Fandom manages. Fandom will see you through. And in the words of Susan Ivanova:

Babylon Five was the last of the Babylon stations; there would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, for if we don’t, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings - even for people like us.

[frownyalfred]

Re-reading my way thru some of your superbat oneshots and short shots and I swear one of these days I'm gonna make a collection of all the fics where Hal is just there in one way or another. He's soulmate coded for superbat but not romatic or any kind of love actually, hes just destined to always be observing superbats shit while occasionally getting the shit beat out of him both physically (by clark) or verbal (by bruce)

I love you Hal Jordan being just a guy with side-piece-core aesthetics and bad luck

Me: Hal Jordan is a great character with layers and I love writing him so much

The voices in my head: use him as comic relief for superbat

Me: no that’s mean and treats him as a one dimensional punchline, that’s not fair. you’re a better author than that.

The voices: use him as a hookup to make superbat jealous and get together

Me:

[viviarts-c]

Happy Valentine's! Have a College Mystery Trio Valentine's Day special!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 3.5 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9

Valentine's Day Special

[ghostlycleric]

I’ve been thinking about byler a lot recently, and I’m bored, so heres the main reasons why they’re my favorite ship (in no particular order). (Disclaimer: this is not an analysis, just pure opinion.)

1. Their Chemistry/Dynamic - I feel like I don’t really need to explain this much. In a very opinionated, not analytical stance, their overall vibe is just amazing. This is because of all the things I’ll list below, but when you’re not thinking analytically the chemistry is still obvious. This is what made me want to analyze their relationship in the first place.

2. The natural slowburn of it all - Love at first sight is one of my least favorite tropes of all time. I also don’t like slow burns when their entire thing is embodying the trope of a slow burn, if that makes any sense. To me, Byler is in that just right zone where they feel more natural than they do tropey. Their get together and everything in between will feel natural to me.

3. The cinematography - Byler scenes just LOOK AMAZING. The coloring and everything just always eats. They match! (And when they don’t its during fight scenes!) Their scenes look so comfortable, especially in season 2. I don’t know how to explain it.

4. Actually good arcs - They both have individual arcs. They don’t feel like one was made as a love interest and nothing more. Both are involved in the actual plot of the show, and their romantic plotline feels like its actually being used to get their arcs somewhere or to develop a theme. They feel like they’re worth my time.

5. They’re not THAT obvious - I love having subtext to analyze and things to speculate about. I like that it’s not totally a given that they’ll get together, and that their build up was gradual. I tend to lose interest once a relationship is established.

6. It’s a mutual and uplifting relationship - The way they have a CRAP TON of heart to hearts throughout the show where they’re supporting one another unconditionally??? Mike staying by Will’s side when he’s POSSESSED. Will helping Mike with his and El’s relationship even though he’s IN LOVE WITH HIM. The way their romantic relationship places a lot of value on their friendships (Will being mad at Mike for drifting from the party) and lives outside of one another. The way they’re not afraid to call eachother out or apologize. Their value of honesty and the breaking of it for the better of the other (Will’s monologue). The way Mike’s a better person when he’s with Will. Mike making Will feel like he’s better for being different. They’re exactly what eachother are looking for. Ugh I could go on forever.

There’s more to it, but I think this covers most of it. My brain may be rotting, but at least the ship is actually good.

[k9ninedecay]

content warning : yapping about my opinions on billford and the abuse involved uh oh ! i have thoughts

i be feelin like the only person who doesnt like billford when its portrayed as romantic or whatever i like seeing the aus of "reformed bill" but they dont feel like bill cipher it feels like a triangle who JUST so happened to also be named bill like girl thats oc x canon

i dont know i dont think me personally can see billford as anything other than yaknow what it is , it is an abusive past relationship romantic or not and its funny seeing reformation aus or aus where bill has to live with the pines family because personally if my abuser got sent to live with me id be stuck in a dissociative state for that entire fuckin time he was there 😭😭

i dont like billford in general ( this will get me shot probably ) ( edit : i dont HATE billford i dont mind seeing it , since its so popular what can u do but i personally dont ship it , at least not shown as non toxic yada yada and idm billford shippers UNLESS ur a weirdo strange weirdo then i hit that block button anyway back to post ) i only think portraying billford works IF you do it with the "toxic" (aka abusive) aspects and yaknow pre betrayal as people call it aka when ford found out bills true intentions i dont post much billford but the literal 2 times i posted billford which wasnt even intended to be shipped/ship material i just tagged it as that because they are both there i portayed billford in an almost creepy evangelical light because thats how it felt to me

billford as a ship TO ME is deep devotion and obsession rather than "oh he fucked that triangle bruh oh my gosh" billford genuinely disturbs me and i like exploring those disturbing parts when i even feel like making something billford adjacent

i feel the same about any bill shipping because ion think any of them can go good but you do you idgaf ship whatever

[zhoufeis]

MARGARITA Argentina, 2024. Created by Cris Morena.

[skizzle1]

my girls Pandora Rosier and Dorcas Meadowes <3 not shipping!!!

-

headcanon time!!

so pandoras canon death was her experiments right?? well i think she’d have tons of scars and marks from her projects and some can’t be magiced away and i kinda love that for her so i added scars to her design!!

&

dorcas and pandora were like sisters and always with each other. when pandora found baby luna (another hc that she was adopted) dorcas was by her side every step of the way and became the best auntie. so did marlene they definitely  spoiled her <3

also i kinda ignore the whole everyone dies thing so let’s pretend 1981 was a good year for them. i’ve seen enough sad marauders content this month. (or maybe this was the last photograph they took together and luna finds it after her mom dies )

[respectthepetty]

*walks back into the room with a sparkle in my eye*

I just find it sooooo interesting that when Tan asked if Phi was Non's boyfriend . . .

He didn't say no.

And even the mom was under the assumption they were still together.

I don't know when is a good time to tell your ex's family that you broke up with him (by telling him to get lost and die) but . . . I feel like it should've been before this.

Maybe? Perhaps? Possibly?

[verfound]

FIC: "A Story for the Kids" (MLB; Lukanette; LBSC Lukanette Month 2024)

@lovebugs-and-snakecharmers is doing a Lukanette Month for September 2024, and we all just kinda tossed some prompts in the disco to compile a list?  We ended up with 71 prompts, so I decided I’d roll some dice to pick a prompt, do a twenty minute (ish, bc we all know sometimes they run away from me) sprint, and try to get some short fics out this month?

Read on Ao3

Prompt 42: “I can’t believe our first date ended in the emergency room.”

“…I can’t believe our first date ended in the emergency room,” he groaned, sinking forward in the chair to drop his head in his hands.  His elbows dug almost painfully into his knees, and just because that didn’t feel like enough pain he twisted his fingers in his bangs and tugged.  She had the nerve to laugh at him, though her chuckle sounded kind of groggy.

That was probably the pain killers.

They…had dosed her pretty well.

“I can,” she said.  He heard a tapping, and he looked up to see the pulsox on her finger tapping against the railing of the bed she was curled up on.  She looked…she looked…

God.  She looked like shit.

Why hadn’t he forced her to stay home?  They could have rescheduled.  They could have done this another night, any other night, and she could have rested, and…and…

…she would have been alone when she’d collapsed.  And it would have been worse, and he’d probably be beating himself up for an entirely different reason.

Still.

He should have insisted they stay in.  Rescheduled.  It was just a date.  Just…

You wanted this as much as she did and you both know it, a tiny voice in his head reminded him, because had suggested it.  Rescheduling.  And she had fought him, nearly bringing herself to tears because she had thought he had meant cancel.  He swallowed and reached for her hand, worry and guilt creasing his brow.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You didn’t tell my appendix to rupture,” she said.  He squeezed her hand, swallowing.

“It didn’t rupture,” he said, because that was very important.  The nurse had been adamant about how important that was – how good it was he had gotten her here as quickly as he had.  Because it hadn’t ruptured…yet.  “That’s why you’re going into surgery as soon as your parents get here, remember?  Because it did not rupture.”

…their date would have been so much worse if it had.

“We never even made it to dinner,” she sighed, her eyes closing.  “I owe you so much for this.”

“Stop that,” he said, scooting his chair closer to her bed.  “You didn’t do this on purpose.  And this…this is a fluke, Mari.  This means nothing.  As soon as you’re better, we’re rescheduling.”

“Feels like déjà vu,” she sighed.  Her eyes closed as she sank back into the bed.  “Couldn’t finish a date last time, either.”

“It’s not the same,” he said, his voice hard.  “It’s not.  Marinette, please don’t think…this is just bad timing.”

“We always have bad timing,” she groaned.  A little whimper escaped her, and she curled in around herself as another wave of pain hit her.  “We’re jinxed.  Doomed.  Cursed.”

“We are not,” he insisted.  “Marinette.  You…you still want to go out with me, right?  You want to reschedule, right?”

It had been a long time since…he had just started to accept that they’d never be more than what they were – really good friends – when she had stormed into his berth, nearly in tears, and declared she couldn’t do this anymore.  She loved him – still, always, forever – and hated that he didn’t know it.  That she wasn’t allowed to act on it.  And sure, he’d probably moved on and wasn’t interested anymore, but she had to tell him that – and that had been about as far as he’d let her get before he’d kissed her, because holy shit that was everything he’d ever wanted to hear.

There had been…a lot that they’d needed to talk about, but at the end of the day none of it really seemed to matter anymore.  He already knew her secrets, and thanks to his time on the road with Jay (and a certain monk that he still wanted to kick more times than not) he felt better prepared to protect them.  To protect her.  And she had still been nervous – she’d been guarding those secrets for so long now, and the idea that she didn’t have to do it alone anymore…

They hadn’t broken up because they’d wanted to, before.  A lack of love and commitment had never been their problem.  Balance and timing, maybe, but they were older now.  They had both grown.  Balance was…easier.  Usually.

Though it seemed timing was still out to get them…

“I want Luka,” she whimpered, pain flashing across her face again.  “He’s gon’ be ssso…” her voice was slurring, then cut off completely with another whimper.  “Worried…”

…yeah, he was.

But she was going to be fine.

As soon as Tom and Sabine got there, the doctors would take Marinette into surgery and she’d be fine.  If she could just wait…

She had collapsed on their way to the restaurant.  That he’d actually made reservations at, because it wasn’t technically their first date, but it still kind of was, and he’d wanted it to be special.  Memorable.  He’d wanted to show her he was serious, that the bullshit didn’t matter and he wasn’t running away this time.

…she was definitely going to remember it, that was for sure.

“I’m right here, beautiful,” he said, kissing the back of her hand.  He wondered if she felt it, through the tape holding her IV down.  “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Hurts…” she whimpered.

“I know,” he said.

He hoped her parents got there soon.  The staff had had trouble reaching them – something about a car accident near the bakery and a downed line making cell service spotty, and it was late enough that he wasn’t sure if the landline at the bakery would be switched off for the night.  They had reached them, though.  Because he’d been able to reach Juleka, and she had rushed over to tell them, and they’d be there as soon as they could.

They would be.

And if Marinette took a turn before then…the doctors would make sure she was fine.  He knew they would.  But she was still just young enough that her parents had to give the ok first, and unless she was critical the doctors were going to honor that.

…he understood.  He did.  He still thought it was bullshit.

She groaned again, her bleary eyes blinking open.  It took her a moment to focus on him, and he wondered if it was the pain or the drugs and how many of him she was actually seeing.  He kissed the back of her hand again – a little higher this time, so he could know she would feel it – and a tired smile curled her lips.

“Look…at it this way,” she said, her voice still groggy but sounding easier than a moment before.  He hummed, brushing his thumb over her fingers, and she sighed as she settled back into the bed.  “Gonna be a hell of a story for the kids someday.”

…kids.

Kids?

…kids.

A choked laugh was startled out of him, but it had nothing on the booming laugh that barked out behind them.  He jumped, squeezing her fingers as he turned to see Tom, Sabine, and Juleka standing behind them.  Tom was still laughing, looking like Christmas had come early (and maybe it had), and while it was more reserved there was still a smile on Sabine’s face, too.  Juleka…Juleka looked like she had just gotten her blackmail for the next few years, though he wasn’t sure if she was planning on lording it over him, Marinette, or both of them.

“That’s right, mon choux!” Tom laughed, walking over to the head of the bed and clapping a hand on Luka’s shoulder.  He bent down to press a kiss to her forehead, and she smiled at the touch.  “The kids will love this story!”  He looked up at Sabine, his grin growing, and whispered: “Did you hear that, Sabine?  Kids – plural!”

“She’s always wanted plural, dear,” Sabine said, her voice entirely too calm for the way it made heat crawl up Luka’s neck.

“So gross,” Juleka muttered, shaking her head – but Luka noticed she was smiling, too.

…he had to smile, too.  Just a bit.  Despite the worry still swirling in his gut.  Despite everything.

He supposed that meant she definitely wanted to reschedule.  If this was going to be a story for their kids.

[charlesleclerrc]

She was keeping money in his crib. Did she leave that for us? Did she leave?

[edwin-paynes-bowtie]

I've never seen Arcane, and whether I will or not depends on the answer to this question. Is Jayvik endgame?

[eclipsecrowned]

ARE WE FINALLY ALLOWED TO SAY YOU CAN SHIP BR1ENNE WITHOUT MAKING HER A LANNIST3R TRADWIFE TO AFFIRM FEMININITY AS IF THE WAY SHE IS NEEDS TO BE RECTIFIED DASH ARE WE FINALLY GROWN ENOUGH --

[tamelee]

Kishimoto is such a troll

[respectthepetty]

Some viewers are saying that a story of revenge is too tropey and Phi/Non endgame is “too predictable”. But there are so many twists and turns that I’m surprised every week and I gave up guessing; ANY outcome/explanation for ghost/mundane murder-fuckiness makes sense. DFF is basically a choose-your-own adventure. I personally love revenge stories because it’s so satisfying when wrongs are righted. I really hope we see Phi/Non reunite; I will lose my shit (again) if that turns out to be the case - just like I lost my shit with the reveal that they were lovers. Please start a PhiNon Supporters club where we can all wear matching membership bracelets!

Anon, one of the major reasons I'm enjoying Dead Friend Forever, which in its current moment in the story is not very enjoyable, is because all theories are possible. I agree with you that this is really choose your own adventure!

If you are defending Fluke, skip to page 87! If you ship Jin x Phi, go to page 129. If you think Tee should be spared, flip to the end. If you think White is an innocent bystander, stay on the current page, but if you think he is New instead of Tan being New, go to page 95. If you think Phi is actually the worst offender, move to the next chapter. If you want to know who Perth is in this story, keep reading!

I'm scrolling through the tags enjoying each person's take and desires for the series because they are all different. And, of course, some people aren't enjoying the series, which happens with all shows. Others feel it's predictable while you and I think this could end six different ways. Like you wrote, any outcome is going to make sense to me because every action up until this point has made sense to me, (except Fluke cancelling the Uber). The conversations are all over the place and about twelve different things. I LOVE IT!

Also, as a person who actively maintains a Grudge Garden and a Petty Prison where I nurture my grievances against shows, I think disliking a show for trivial reasons is acceptable. If people hate the idea of Phi and Non being together in the end because it feels predictable to them, that has nothing to do with me and how I'm interacting with the show, so I remain unbothered by it.

But as for what I am concerned about, if Dead Friend Forever and BOC wanted to sell merch from this series in order to raise funds for upcoming projects (praying 4 Minutes is Bible x Fluke, amen), a simple red bracelet would be the only item I'd need because this Phi x Non ship ain't sailing itself!

[lunar-years]

re: “the jamie factor” to the roykeeley resolution in the finale, they really do have to do something about it because they heavily implied that keeley still had feelings for him multiple times at the beginning of the season and that was… never resolved? unless they intended the resolution to just be that she wanted to be friends with him?? but (and maybe this is just my shipping goggles) I don’t feel like that really explains how she was talking about him to shandy and jack

Exactly.

This is one of the few things that will actually hack me off if it's done incorrectly in the finale (read: Roy/Keeley getting back together and Jamie is neither mentioned nor shown. Or, 1000x worse, if they do show him finding out/one of them telling him afterwards and he's just like "Oh I'm so happy for you guys! my two best friends who I absolutely don't also have feelings for! together at last! :)" because WHAT). I'm pretty confident they won't do that because of how little sense it makes but like. It's still an illogical fear of mine.

And look, I'm all for an ambiguous ending in which ot3 isn't defined. I don't really need any further confirmation beyond what we got last week. But the fact that the narrative did start (and subsequently interrupt) an "I don't want to just be friends" conversation between Roy & Keeley makes it an almost certainty that they're going to finish said conversation. In which case, I don't see how Roy and Keeley could make any choice about their relationship without thinking about/including Jamie. The only route to ambiguity I can see is Keeley turning Roy down (maybe after some more glances in Jamie's general direction to suggest to viewers with eyes that he's part of the reason) and then the three of them shown briefly as friends again.

As you say, there's been several moments in the season where it's been made pretty clear Keeley is thinking about Jamie in that way again. And even in the moment where Roy/Keeley are talking and Jamie interrupts them, Keeley 1) does not look like she's about to give a resounding yes to Roy and 2) drops her hand SO fast the moment Jamie walks through the door. How else are we supposed to read this, like ?? We know Roy still loves Keeley, there's been nothing to indicate Jamie isn't still in love with Keeley (as he told her last season) and everything Roy/Jamie this season has not been subtle development... the dots are connecting in a way that the writers absolutely have to not only be aware of but also intentional about at this point.

Not to mention that last week the entire Jamie Roy Keeley plot was however many minutes of "there is no heterosexual or monogamous explanation for this" so uhhh. yeah. I can only conclude that ot3 is going to be addressed.

[onesourapple]

“Tedbecca isn’t canon just accept it”

My honest reaction: