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1x12 - Battle Lines

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Is it just me or has a lot of fandom forgotten what "AU" means? It's short for Alternate Universe. I keep seeing people talking about, like, "fake dating AU" or "only one bed AU." Unless your characters exist in a world where a) beds don't exist or b) beds exist in such abundance there could not POSSIBLY be only one of them, that's not an AU. It's just a regular degular story.

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Why would you say people ship Beetlejuice and Lydia? I’ve been a fan for so long I’m just like “huh…why do we ship it?”

Suddenly remembered I hadn’t answered this, and since I can’t sleep right now I’ll answer it! I meant to earlier and forgot.

I personally ship it because I love the concept of monster x human relationships, and especially when one character (usually the male part of the ship when it’s m/f) in this case this character is Betelgeuse, is dark, powerful, often immortal and even terrifying, (in Betelgeuse’s case also unhinged and absolutely crazy lol), and definitely the least you would expect to EVER fall in love, and yet he does fall in love with this other character who happens to be human, mortal, often quiet and also unlikely to fall in love. These two are the least likely to fall for each other, but they do! Then he starts to show a softer, completely unexpectedly romantic side to him that is reserved only for this woman he loves and no one else. She is both his strength and his weakness all at the same time. He is willing to do everything and anything for her.

Often these two characters are complete opposites and at odds with each other (or even enemies!) and yet they find each other in the middle. There is something they find in the other which cannot be replaced or found in anyone else in the world, and as unexpected and unusual and crazy at it is, before they even know it, their connection is forged in a way where they cannot and will not ever belong or fit in with anyone else. They’ve become a part of each other, even when the odds were against them or might be against them forever because they are intrinsically worlds apart. But love just finds them, and they meet in the middle.

I also love this kind of couple a lot when one of the two realizes their connection before the other, like Beetlejuice just knowing Lydia is *the one*, even if he can’t explain to her how he knows or why. This same scenario happens with Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. At some point he realized she was the one, and she just got under his skin and became an inseparable part of his being.

Although not always, I believe this type of couple also follows the female gaze, since the male character (as I mentioned above it’s often the male character) shows an interest in the emotions of the female part. This is true in Beetlebabes. He isn’t interested only in her body, but also in honoring her emotions and desires (like Betelgeuse honoring Lydia’s wishes to have a more private wedding and respecting her boundaries by not forcing her to kiss him or something like that, plus making an effort at being romantic by serenading her and giving her an absolutely romantic wedding with a magical dance in the air). These interactions that are more romantic than sexual speak to the female gaze.

I think also that Beetlejuice Beetlejuice had several “Universal fantasies” entwined in the Betelgeuse x Lydia relationship that are just irresistible for many romance lovers and when those are present, our minds just inevitably grab on to those fantasies and identity them whether we are aware of them or not. Our mind just goes yep this is a romance and oh boy what a romance this is and before you know it you are obsessed. If you haven’t read about Universal Fantasies in writing, these are basically just more specific tropes that really speak to audiences in a way that hooks them powerfully to a story, and more specifically to romantic stories. This concept is introduced by Theodora Taylor in her book 7 Figure Fiction (which I’m sure many writers know about since it’s pretty popular but I mention it just in case it’s new to someone reading this).

Another reason lots of people love this ship is just aesthetics as well which is also valid. For me this for sure became one of my top three Burton couples.

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It’s A Ship - Literally Revisited

As many of my long-time followers and friends know…

THIS BLOG supports the POTENTIAL FUTURE of Beetlejuice and Lydia.

In the past, I have written posts about WHY we ship Beej and Lyds, specifically here on this blog, when there are so many controversies. It needed to be cleared up many times because, with every new piece of media, there comes opposition, which is totally understandable if you are not used to supernatural or horror-themed romance tropes.

I am here to help break it down for all the new fans sitting back and trying to figure out the ship's where, what, why and whens.

Here we go!

Movie verse:

Many of us were young when we met Beetlejuice and Lydia for the first time. Some latched on to and related to a young Winona Ryder. It was a vibe, and while we are well aware that in real-life terms, a teen is not ready to be involved with a 600+ ghost (cuz that’s an option 🤣), we couldn't help but find the allure in the Living Meets Death dichotomy. As you will undoubtedly see, this is a running theme in the fandom.

We had countless reunion fics featuring an older Lydia (sometimes by years, sometimes by months) reconnecting with her villain/antagonist. Many were dark fic, some light and fluffy and some off the wall chaotic, while some crossed over into the MoToon verse (yes that is a thing)

So here we are, more than 30 years later, and our pair reunited legitimately on the big screen. It was beautiful and, without giving away any spoilers since this new piece of media is still fresh, it gives us more to play with because, let’s face it, he is not done haunting her.

With this movie universe, there is still potential for this ship to thrive. (And that’s not just because Winona and Michael are down. I still am in shock over their revelations)

Toon Verse:

Yet another oldie that many grew up on. This one is a hotbed for both friend-shipping and Relation-shipping.

Here, we have a long-term bond that can be wholesome, platonic, romantic, complicated, or, on occasion, dark and twisted.

Stories have ranged from childhood crushes to outright possessiveness. The fanart from cute fluff to… well… rule 34.

Lydia is young in this cartoon. We are aware of that and in any cartoon fandom, aging up is par for the course. It is expected (and preferred by many) that any stories of romance happen in circumstances outside of the toon cannon.

Age issues aside, we cannot deny that BJ adores her. The man has an entire shrine in his head, idolizing this twisted, weird girl that, once again, many older fans related to. He would do anything for her and has proved it many times. The chaotic dead man with no shits to give will give up freedom and wealth and go against his nature to make her happy.

How can we not find the potential for a future of these two goofballs?

Musical Verse:

This universe combined the goofiness of Toon with the antagonism of the movie—a nice combo that I and those we call MusicalBabes enjoy.

Regardless of what the cast believes or feels about the shipping subject, they are working with a pair of unseen, attention-starved, chaotic nut jobs—a compliment, not disparagement.

Beetlejuice and Lydia need each other. They were miserable before they met and would have continued to be so had they not entangled themselves in the other’s existence.

Living and the dead, once again, need each other to balance their lonliness.

Does musical verse have ship potential? Hell, yes, it does. (Also, this is the only piece of media where the wedding actually went through)

Just a few Common Tropes In This Ship: (there are so many more than this)

Mayfly/December Romance (also see: May/December and Age Gap)

Reincarnation Romance

Death and the Maiden (also see: Monster and the Maiden)

Beast and Beauty

Ugly Guy, Hot Wife

Boy meets Ghoul

Why the name Beetlebabes?

Read: Beetlebabes: A History

To find more ship related content use: Beetlejuice x Lydia, Betelyds (alt. Beetlyds), Beej and Lyds, Beetle and Babes, Beetz and Deetz (or more simply Beetz) are the original ship names. BeetleBabes, MovieBabes, ToonBabes and MusicalBabes are all relatively new.

This blog often uses Beetlebabes but it’s not a hard fast rule that it will be on every post.

The goal of Its A Ship - Literally...

I created this blog many years ago (around 2016) to collect all the goodness in the fandom. Memes, art, fics, fan theories. I picked up the ship names and used them as tags. Gathered as much as I could from Tumblr posts, in all universes, and tried so hard to stay neutral amidst the internal fandom drama. (give or take a few misteps, iykyk)

The only goal I have here is to collect and share and boost all universes. Movie, Toon and Musical, including the mini verses of MoToon and Graveyard Revue if I can find it.

I do this for fun, to destress and play internet magpie with shiny beetle stuff while I stuff everything into the queue.

Lots of love to you guys. And as always, please show love to your fan creators. Credit them and boost the signals. These creators do so much hard work.

- 🪲 - 🪲 - 🪲 - 🪲 - 🪲 -

Previous Posts Like This: Because It Needs to Be Said Yet Again (2017) | One More Time (2019)

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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Opinions and Points.

SPOILERS... obviously.

Ok I watched the movie, and ... some things that are my own personal thoughts and possible points I noticed. And some things I have seen others point out to where this is just my over all opinion and its kinda long.

The backstory lets not forget beetle is a unreliable narrator as proven by the first movie as Julliard and Harvard did not exist while he was alive, and unless he was possessing someone when they graduated its unlikely he said the truth. - so I don't think he gave us the full backstory. Maybe yes he did marry her, but given he never dies on screen and previously stated point. I just find it hard to believe that he drank a poison then had enough strength to chop her up as much as she was, if it was actually effecting him. i find it far more possible he had already been poisoned so often he was immune at that point. and was just pissed his new wife tried to do him in. Also in first movie it was suggested with the red mark he hung himself... maybe he tried to take over the death cult and had to do himself in for a quicker death?

the Newspapper. Yes it did say people were falsely accused of offing themselves at death, I think this was to help clear up the plot hole that would have been with Astrid's dad. And maybe be a red haring for Beetle. Next few points are BeetleBabes related so if you don't like the ship, please move on.

He gave her autonomy in his power. During the therapist scene when he "sewn" her mouth shut, it was less truly sewn and more duct taped. She had the ability to remove it, yeah he had it stick long enough for a gag, but not much more. He didn't force her.

The Contract and Nullification of it. Beetle wrote the contract, and he worked as a dead con man for years, he knew the handbook inside and out. He wrote up the contract for Lydia to sign and save her daughter, knowing there was a Massive Loop hole. even blowing a hole in the "back door" of the Neither to insure the loop hole was as big as it could be the second he had her sign, obviously with a bit of theatrics for both signing and explosions. But would we expect anything else from him?

Delia calling him: when Delia died, she called him asking to go to Lyd's wedding. He did so no questions no strings. Any other deal he always asked for something in return but for Lyd's step mom he didn't charge a dime, possibly because he felt Lyds would be upset if she missed it, and didn't get to say good bye.

Rory Beetle obviously didn't like him, could tell he was scamming Lyds, and yeah he probably could have sent him off but instead had to prove to Lydia why that guy was bad, hence why he used truth serum. He need to make sure she wouldn't go back to that guy once he was gone again. It was even hinted he heard her talking in the graveyard rushing to the church that she was not ready to marry.

He planed to go away. His song at the end, was not one of love and togetherness. MacArthur Park is more of loss and remorse. He was saying Goodbye to Lydia! Not permanently anyway

He set up sending away Deloris and helped the contract become Null When Deloris burst in through the door, the wind didn't effect Lydia, or Beetle, or Delia but the book slid to Astrid as easily as it had moved away, He moved it to her, conveniently on the page to summon sand-worms and how to brake the contract.

He stalled for the cops I find it funny how in the first movie he summoned a Man of the cloth and the guests. But this time he had both, and unlike the first time he wasn't rushing... he took his time to sing a whole song and to let the Neither cops show up, possibly also baiting Deloris to take care of her but I'm still not sure on that bit. ether way He had won, he had Lydia, the pastor, and guests. But instead he did a song and dance, a song that I already pointed out was one more of goodbye.

He let Lydia send him away. Beetle loves to make a entrance, he also may love to make a exit. he has also shown he can silence someone for just saying his name once. But instead of silencing her or taking over her voice as he had before. He started a dramatic plea, showing her he was getting sent away, showing her he was going to let her send him off.

The ending given the fact he may have over heard about Rory, And all the other notes, he could probably see Lydia wasn't wanting marriage at that time. But I also feel... he just likes the chase. What fun would it be if the Coyote already caught the road runner? he didn't mind her sending him away, because it means he could keep trying to get her to call him willingly. Over all this is just my ramblings that I don't have any friends irl who may appreciate them or be able to properly counter lol And if you made it this far thank you. And I hope you liked the movie as much as I did.

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When Beetlejuice sings "After all of the loves of my life, you'll still be the one." We see the images of Delores, Lydia and BJs (Tim's) pet dog. BJ fell in love with Delores at first sight without really knowing her and they weren't even married 12 hours. He does know Lydia as evidenced from his stalking for 30 years. lol So in reality, Lydia is the only one he has ever truly loved in his 600 years of existence. There's never really been anyone else. Lydia was always the one.

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I NEED to ramble about that wedding scene it is the ONLY thing on my mind right now like I've seen this movie 3 times now (forcing my partner to watch it with me again tomorrow <3) and its that WEDDING SCENE

Look the entire time if you just watch BJ he looks at her with the softest fucking looks ever, that man is DOWN BAD and he loves her so fucking much to the point that he knew that he had to let her go. They can't be happy at the moment with her still alive so he will wait

I'm so obsessed with how he only looked at her the entire sequence, so much other things were happening but he only had eyes for her. Sorry Lydia but if someone looked at me like that I would marry him on the SPOT

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They've got that je ne sais quoi (matched freak energy)

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Antis: "The movie isn't a big deal."

Some smart-ass musical-fan antis burped up this idiocy at me (I Blocked them, natch).

OK, antis, here we go:

Yesterday I was book-shopping with my BF at the Mall of America (which is my local mall).

You can tell how much of an audience a movie has by the amount of businesses carrying movie-tie-in merch. If a movie flops or doesn't do well ( i.e. Dumbo 2019) the merch is pulled from stores fast, in order to make room for stuff that sells (I worked retail for years, I know how this goes).

The amount of retailers with Beetlejuice 2 items is bigger than I saw for The Avengers.

Hot Topic and Box Lunch have huge Beetlejuice Beetlejuice sections, first thing you see as you walk by. I didn't take pictures, but you can see the items on their websites.

Along with that, Bath & Body Works, of all places, features a Beej 2 display right in front.

The Beej stuff smells like grape juice. WTF? If anything it should be green and smell like limes. Who wants to go around smelling like Welch's'?

And then there's Forever 21. It's crammed with Beej.

Not to mention there's merch at Claire's.

Look at the demographic. These are aimed at Gen z and younger. A whole new generation of Beetlejuice and Beetlebabes fans have arrived.

"But it's for the first movie!"

A lot of Gen Z haven't seen the 1988 film. Many have just discovered it because of the sequel.

And you know the scene they want on their merch? The wedding. They want Lydia's red dress. If the idea of the wedding is gross to them, they wouldn't cough up $50+ for the dress ( two were sold while I was there).

Guess how much merch from the musical is in the MOA?

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‘I didn’t mean for this to happen… this isn’t what I wanted… I just wanted to breathe with you.’ 

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𝘽𝙚𝙚𝙩𝙡𝙚𝘽𝙖𝙗𝙚𝙨: 𝘼 𝙃𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮

Reposted

There are many names for the ship and friendship of the dynamic duo known simply by their names: Beetlejuice and Lydia Deetz.

In the beginning, they were considered a horror-comedy icon. She is strange and unusual. She wants to die and be part of the land of the recently deceased. He is wild. A pure chaos machine who lives up to his side of the deal. He knows the ins and outs of the hereafter and wants to get the fuck out. For good.

Lo and behold! The trope of a quid pro quo marriage. He gets out. Her friends are saved from an unknown doom.

Then marketing took over. Merchandise! Toys! And ultimately a cartoon. Who would be the star of Beetlejuice: The Animated Series.

Well, Beetlejuice, of course. And why not make it friendly to the kid's world by taking the youngest character and making her more vulnerable and spooktacular? They could have carried the show without a Lydia but they chose not to do this.

They chose the one girl in the movie he tried to marry: deal or no deal. The girl was in a wedding dress and instead of making them enemies... They make them friends. Friends who share and anniversary, terms of endearments, and blatant flirtations.

Thus, the first shippers were born—a bunch of kids who saw two chaotic characters who were perfectly balanced with each other. We grew up, and so OUR IDEA of Lydia grew with us. Granted, a few of us are freaky and wanna jump the ghost, but rarely will you see a shipper want to split up the duo.

Now for the names; Beetlejuice x Lydia, Beetlyds, Beetz and Deetz, Beetz, Beej and Lyds, Beetle and Babes and now, unintentionally, Beetlebabes.

Ironically this was not the intended name for the ship. We (as in my friends and I) called ourselves Beetle Babes. As in We are the Babes. Fans, mostly ladies, who love to obsess over a ghost from an old 80’s franchise.

The second meaning came naturally because, Didn't BJ call Lydia ”Babes”? Yes, he did in almost every episode. Lyds, Babes, Lydia. Three names he uses for her his best friend.

So Beetlebabes became an easy identifyer for the crew. And it became a standard name for shippers when the new fans came in, but I bet you didn't know that some OG Beetlebabes only Friend-Ship them? And some Relation-Shippers don't like smut or sexual content of any kind.

Beetlebabes are Kids, Teens, and Adults. They are students, parents, CSA survivors, therapists, cooks, homemakers, artists, animators, and filmmakers. They are strangers on the street who don’t even know the musical came to be and only remember the deadly duo through fond memories of two close pals who, for all we knew, were living out their impromptu wedding in the only way they know how.

Now, as I update this, we have a new movie in which Beetlejuice and Lydia are once again affianced. BJ refers to her as the love of his life, bringing more shippers into the fold.

So here we are, The Beetlebabes. We ship the gal who wants death and the ghost who wants life. The balance. The dichotomy. The polar opposites.

This has been the revisit of the history of Beetlebabes. I hope you all are enjoying your time in the fandom and you all have my best wishes to stay happy, healthy, and creative.

Keep being awesome, Babes! 🖤

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Vi que alguien lo sugirió pero no sé usar mucho está app así que no sabía cómo publicarlo en ese post o no se si lo compartí ahí aunque fue divertido hacerlo 😁

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he doesn't love Lydia he flirts with the secretary he went to that place created by Juno

Ok, let's talk about it.

"Secretary" - You mean Janet? He just looks at her, never flirts. A key component of BJ's character in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is that he hasn't been sprayed down with overly sanitised 'political correctness' to appeal to wider-audiences. He's just as gross as he always has been.

He states that himself and Lydia "have a definite psychic connection" but they're not actually together. He knows this and probably knows Lydia doesn't feel for him in the same way he does. That's why he pulls out all the stops at the end.

Checking out Janet is harmless and just a reminder to the audience that he's still the same gross guy. Besides, Lydia's had a whole child off-screen with Richard and later wound up in Rory's snare. She's done plenty more than check someone out - and you don't see BJ complaining.

(Well, except for Rory. And it's canon that BJ hates him for how he uses Lydia.)

The Whore House (Dante's Inferno) is used as a distraction. He gets off on scaring people, so Juno uses this to her advantage after the snake incident.

Besides, he'd not properly met Lydia when he went into it; just used her as an empty threat to rile up Barbara (which worked).

"I think she understands me."

He's never spoken to her. By this point, she's only ever seen him in snake form. We have very little evidence as to why he seems so interested in her. That's why we *theorise*.

The second movie is where the presence (and evidence) of love comes into play.

Everything he does for her is pretty much selfless. As I said in my rant, he barely puts up a fight when she tries to send him back. We know from Beetlejuice (1988) that he could stop her if he wanted to. But he lets her send him back. Not even that, he makes a whole joke out of it:

"Shoulda got married in Vegas."

You expect me to believe that this guy, who apparently "doesn't love Lydia" wouldn't be raging about being defeated again? He immediately makes a joke about the whole thing. We know by the end of the movie that he hasn't let her go. It wouldn't be a surprise if this was his plan all along.

He knew, no matter how grandiose the ceremony was, that she wasn't ever going to follow through. It's all fine for Lydia to ask him, "But how do I know that you're gonna keep your word?" when she doesn't even keep hers.

But he gave her that beautiful ceremony regardless.

By the end of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, he has saved Lydia's daughter, helped Lydia see Rory for who he really is, given her the most beautiful farewell ceremony he could, Lip-synched the entirety of MacArthur's Park to her, physically given her his heart and topped it off by reuniting her deceased family, Charles and Delia.

If that isn't love, I don't know what is.

And if all of that didn't do it for ya, just look at how he looks at her.

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Aw, don't mind him, Lyds. He's just floating on by.

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more on beetlebabes discourse

I don't care what you think or your opinion about my ships. Ships are about FICTIONAL characters. What people ship says NOTHING about who they are offline. I'm not going to argue with anyone about this. I said what I said.

Y'know what I do care about? Evil, judgmental idiots telling people to kill themselves. Because, Lydia is a fictional character with mental health issues and real people with mental health issues relate to her.

You might actually push someone over the edge to kill themselves. Stop and think about that. You can use your keyboard to kill someone. You will actually have a real person's blood on your hands.

If I see people being stupid about beetlebabes, I will report you. See, I can report that I'm blocking you and you will be investigated. I encourage everyone else to do the same.

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I think it's neat that Beetlejuice is a bio exorcist...

And Lydia is a ghost exorcist.

It's very yin and yang of them.

Very Heirophant and High Priestess of them. But kinda gender swapped too. 🤔