Hey there, Happy New Year! Sorry if this ask seems confusing.

I've really come to enjoy your blog as someone who is kind of new to navigating the world of comics and how to read them and you seem to be one of the people that's more vocal about all the fanon and canon differences and how that damages people's perception of characters. I'm just a bit confused in what you consider to be the difference of headcanons and fanon, I know fanon is a more of something that a big number of people believe, but if someone headcanons something that isn't covered in canon, would that be "bad" or fall on the fandom category?

Hope this doesn't sound mean or anything, I'm just a bit confused

hello!! welcome to batburger!!!!

wrt fanon vs canon my issue is this — parts of comic fandom are very vocal about not engaging with the source material. deciding what fanon is “good” vs “bad” isn’t the point because im not interested in policing peoples fandom experience. however there is a point where i don’t understand what exactly some people are fans of, because what they talk about is so disconnected from the original text.

imagine meeting a hunger games fan, and when u ask about their favourite movie or book, they instead tell u that they’ve never read or seen any part of the series, exclusively read fanfiction, and then inform u that they believe president snow is peeta’s grandfather and that actually haymitch was the authoritarian mastermind behind the hunger games. that doesn’t make any sense, and has no basis in canon. it’s a very extreme hypothetical, but i wouldn’t really take what they say about the hunger games seriously. it also reminds me a bit of the hp marauders fanworks that exist almost autonomously to the books (while still containing the same issues as said books).

most fanon enjoyers (and this is particularly pervasive with batfam fans) enjoy characters and relationships that simply do not exist. that alone isn’t a problem (crackships and headcanons have existed since ye olde star trek zine days) but the issue is that these fanon interpretations are loudly asserted as being the correct way to engage with the characters. i do not believe it should be controversial to prefer characters in their canonical text, or to ask why some fanon content is taken as gospel, especially when so much of it is racialised.

this lends into a wider trend where these headcanons are respected more than canon despite often being actively reductive, accidentally demeaning, or just plain bad faith interpretations. it’s much harder to combat the racism present in conversations about damian wayne when the people in question aren’t grant morrison or judd winick or scott snyder, but instead a nebulous group of people on twitter.

flatly, i encourage people to read the source material. there are a lot of comics, but googling ‘[literally any character] reading list’ has literally never been easier. start by consuming the movies or cartoons or films or shows or the one volume graphic novels, then pinpoint what u like and start from there. people are discouraged from reading comics — and they shouldn’t be!! especially for popular characters there are very accessible starting points!! u will find characters to love with rich history and lore!!!! support queer artists and artists of colour who are actively changing the industry!!! i guarantee that the fanon version of that male character u love is actually originally from a female character with a great miniseries written by greg rucka!!!!

OH for the ship grid: i had time on my day off and wanted to see what the most popular gay ships on asoiaf ao3 are (so what is popular when you exclude m/f tags and ships) so the following ten for the meme: aemond/lucerys, alicent/rhaenyra, theon/robb, sansa/margaery, theon/ramsay, renly/loras, jon/robb, aegon ii/jacaerys, tormund/jon, sansa/daenerys can’t wait to see where u place these, peace&love 🫶

HERE MY FRIEND again the makes sense axis is a combo of 'does it make sense in canon' and 'do i understand why people ship it' so if it looks a bit weird thats why 🫶 ship discussions udner the cut mwah

aemond lucerys.... look i get it. i do get it. 1) urge for yaoi 2) there are crumbs you can bake 3) cute actors. i understand. im deep in the yaoi trenches i understand seme uke i get it i get it. but also the idea its like Canon or an accurate reading of either character is soo...... lucerys is not a femme fatale or an ingenue. he is a plot device. and aemond.... aemond's 'obsession' with lucerys is more one bred from insecurity as opposed to yaoi lust. but i do get it. one love to the lucemond people. wish u guys would be normal about the UNDERAGE luke actor. he's an adult now but can we not do countdown shit. weird as hell...

rhaenicent #1 its literally canon. its subtext its textual its openly a part of the narrative. the complex web of sexuality, womanhood and patriarchy that seeps rhaenicent is so compelling. alicent as a lesbian and rhaenyra as a butch/lesbian/bisexual/trans/dragongender are genuinely compelling analyses of the characters. #1 foreva

im normal about throbb now<3 i think in canon the theon bisexual analysis is interesting but not super vital to his character. his sexuality and manhood certainly, but i like throbb more cos i like theon rather than on its own merits.

sansaery ❤️ i enjoy sansaery as a way to explore sansa's character and specifically her as a lesbian. both characters are fun and interesting but its high up cos it has a special place in my heart<3

im not really into thramsay i have no thoughts on it. one love to the thramsays though u guys are warriors. i think it has wayyy more sub/textual basis in canon than throbb

renloras is just canon so i dont have much thoughts on it. its sweet! make me sad. rip babes loras you would have loved gymbro culture.

jonrobb is meh to me idk 🤷‍♀️ theyre fine as brothers and there's not much analysis to be had of their relationship beyond that. one love to the brocons ig. cousincons

aegon x jace is beyond nothing to me sorry 😭 but thats mostly cos im not super into the dance or hotd beyond rhaenicent. i get why it exists but there's little to no basis in canon to bake nor does it have much analysis. one love to the jacegons of course

JONMUND... okay book jonmund is meh whatever but show jonmund is real to me. jon post canon is operating a cozy bed and breakfast with tormund in alaska beyond the wall. one of my fave crackships. he's kissed by fire!

daensa🍋❤️ i love u daensa. very important to my bi!dany and lezzo!sansa thoughts. song of ice and fire 🫶

A comprehensive not-PowerPoint presentation on why I ship hiorin even though they’ve only interacted twice… and that’s being liberal with the word “interact”

(For @zevacheiznekam coz they asked me to 😌)

Do bear in mind that Hiorin as a ship is quite largely based in headcanon. While shippers like myself use canon as a basis to scrape whatever details we can about Hiori and Rin, their (brief) interactions and their personalities, canon material is more of an anchor from which several generally accepted headcanons have sprouted which we all kinda sorta abide by, although different people might have slightly different interpretations. This is just my interpretation. Also, this did sort of start as a crackship for me but then I started actually thinking about it and, uh, I don’t think it’s a crackship anymore when I’ve written nearly 50k words of fanfic for it on my AO3…

For starters, I began shipping Hiorin based on one singular interaction. It also happens to be the only one of two times where they properly talk to each other at all. This interaction (below) comes from the U-20 match, right after Rin has been roundhouse kicked in the face by Shidou. It was a moment that surprised me because despite spending the match getting progressively more and more aggressive to everyone else, Rin here isn’t aggressive towards Hiori. He lets Hiori help him up and they even manage to engage in a very brief but mutual conversation.

Now sure, Hiori is just being nice here and Rin is probably a bit stunned. They haven’t interacted since this moment in the manga and likely won’t again in any real capacity. Still, it was this interaction that got me trying to imagine what it might look like if they could be closer — mostly in the context of Rin actually being able to make a proper friend. He does seem to have a certain level of tolerance for Hiori that he doesn’t for the rest of Blue Lock (which I’ll explain later), plus Hiori is probably the only one patient, kind AND calm enough to be capable of being Rin’s friend without Rin despising it. Other kind characters like Nanase and Bachira are in my opinion too bubbly and talkative in canon for Rin’s more broody personality (although I do love a good sunshine x storm-cloud ship don’t get me wrong). Meanwhile, Hiori is equally as kind but calmer. More quiet. He’s also not got a drive to try and defeat Rin or devour him, which I think Rin would appreciate given he hates people who do try to go against him like Isagi and Shidou.

The only other substantial interaction we have for hiorin comes from the Third Selection tryouts match in which they’re placed on the same team. I’ve already made a post about it so go to that here for the relevant screenshots from the manga. I will copy over the conclusions from the post though. From this match I inferred that:

Hiori can keep up with Rin like it’s a regular day (speaking to Hiori’s adaptability)

This, for Rin, translates to “Hiori is reliable”

Rin can trust Hiori to definitely get the ball to where it needs to be if they cooperate, even though they’ve never played together before (and they didn’t even discuss a plan beforehand but were able to immediately link up without issue — see again Hiori being adaptable)

Rin doesn’t look down on Hiori the way he does with Isagi or Shidou, probably because he doesn’t see Hiori as a threat or insulting

This concludes all of their interactions in the manga. From here, me and other shippers use these small conclusions from canon as well as canon-adjacent information from things like the Egoist Bible Character Book to build a hypothetical situation in which they ARE able to start talking to each other more often and build a bond. Most of the fics about this pairing that take place in the canon universe will deal with overcoming the hurdle of ‘getting them to actually interact’. For us shippers, after that hurdle has been cleared it’s rather smooth sailing to imagine a relationship forming for a lot of reasons.

To begin, the obvious thing to focus on is their similar backstories. More specifically, the emotional responses they have to their backstories and how it could be a source of understanding between them (spoilers for the manga up to chapter 206). The resentment Rin holds towards Sae is incredibly similar to the resentment Hiori holds towards his parents. Both have canonically been shown wanting to hurt/kill their family members due to how these family members treated them, as well as the feelings of false love associated with these family members being a big part of why Rin and Hiori want to hurt them. Rin feels betrayed by Sae because he thinks Sae pretended to love him and care about him in their childhood to further his own ambition only to throw it all away like it was meaningless, meanwhile Hiori feels that his parents don’t actually love him and only want him to be the best because they never could be. This similarity is something that us shippers tend to use as way for Hiori to be able to understand Rin in a way that other characters can’t, as well as a way for Rin to be able to actually articulate his emotions surrounding Sae to someone who is able to understand him to a certain degree and won’t think he’s being “too edgy” or “over-reacting”. We can count in Hiori to not be judgemental of Rin.

Beyond their families though, the two of them just have similar interests and personalities. Rin likes horror games (Egoist Bible) and Hiori is a gamer. They’re both quiet, more reserved and Hiori’s ideal type in a romantic partner is someone who will leave him alone a lot (Blue Lock wiki). They’re ‘no-nonsense’ people who prefer to be blunt and to the point. It might seem a bit superficial but considering they basically never interact, it’s rather a lot to go on.

Overall, the completely made up dynamic that has been created by us shippers after taking all of this information into account goes something like this:

Rin doesn’t find Hiori as annoying or threatening as the rest of Blue Lock because Hiori is adaptable, no-nonsense and doesn’t try to come for Rin’s position as number 1

Hiori has an understanding of Rin’s trauma because he himself experienced something incredibly similar

They get over the ‘start talking’ hurdle and begin to realise that they actually have similar interests and can hold a conversation for longer than 2 seconds

The relationship builds from there, with Hiori being the ‘exception’ in Rin’s life and Rin being a safety where Hiori can talk about his true feelings without having to filter himself or be kind

In terms of other headcanons, these are a couple that I’ve seen floating around:

Neither of them like PDA very much. You might see them holding hands if you’re lucky

They play co-op together a lot, especially co-op horror games

They don’t pry into each other’s business. If one of them wants to talk about something, they will

They have the type of relationship where they’ll sit in silence not talking to each other for 30 minutes, then one nudges the other a bit and suddenly they’re cuddling (only in private, obviously)

They have had many long, depressing trauma-dump sessions with each other

It isn’t a depressing relationship though, mostly because Hiori is a light in Rin’s life and Rin feels like he can be more ‘the old him’ around Hiori (see: Rin’s light novel)

They both like striped clothing (see: Rin’s casual design and Hiori’s onesie, coaster design and child design)

And with that, I have finally finished my overly long, overly indulgent explanation into why I and others ship hiorin. It’s 3am for me rn so I might have missed smth so if any other hiorin shippers out there in the aether wanna drop in with their perspectives and/or stuff I forgot to mention, feel free! As for @zevacheiznekam, I hope this answered your question and you didn’t get too bored half way through 😅

(Also, if you wanna see some hiorin artwork, uh, shameless plug)

Sources used:

Blue Lock manga

Egoist Bible

Blue Lock light novels (we’re actually getting a Hiori one later this year which will hopefully add some fuel to the hcs!)

Nomura’s art

BG3 Crackships

I currently have two modes when it comes to my crackships for BG3.

I have some crackships (like Aurelia x Araj) where I am like this:

Like, this ship has no basis, I know that they have no basis. I just had this idea - and I ran with it.

And then there is the other one. Like this one specific one. Astarion x Themberchaud.

Like, I can give you a 60 minutes power point presentation on why this actually totally makes sense.

Heck, I am fighting the urge right now to write a whole long blog on how that came to be xD

The simplest answer to why Alenoah became popular is a fanfic called Slippery Slopes by courtney-deserved-better on Ao3 happened. The fic saw Heather being eliminated rather than Noah during 'I See London…' as it explored how Alejandro and Noah's semi-friendship turned rivalry turned romance would look like in this TDWT rewrite.

Alenoah did exist as a rare pair before with a few authors who were loyal from the beginning, but that fic put it on the map. It led to an explosion of TDWT rewrites with Alenoah, which eventually to authors realizing they could put these two in even further Situations. It also led to a bunch of fanart for the fic being made on tumblr. Which exposed more people to the ship and its potential as a different flavor of Aleheather. Which led to even more art and it became a huge snowball until you now see.

I'm under the impression that it pulled most of its fans from Noco since Alenoah arguably has more basis in canon that you can work from. Not to diss on Noco of course, I just don't see where else the fans could have come from since I don't think they just popped out of nowhere, and Noco had the most fans with the potential of conversation purely based on the number of fans.

That's just my theory though! I've only been in the TD fandom for a couple of months thanks to Island of the Slaughtered so I'm basing all of this on my observations via tumblr and Ao3 rather than being in the fandom during rise of Alenoah.

Thanks for answering my question on where this might have started! I'm definitely curious about that fic. Noah has only so much screen time and following him to a final 2 scenario, regardless of ship fodder, sounds fantastic.

I think your theory is plausible. I was active in the Total Drama fandom between 2010-2014, but only came back recently. At that time, Noco was definitely one of the popular ships next to Duncey. The height of it was definitely 2007-09 because of the "ship tease" accidentally cuddling together scene in Island. Noah's always been a fan favorite. And the fandom fell in love with Alejandro the minute he appeared on screen.

This is a very generalized opinion, but early fandom for anything was really, really attached to whether or not a ship was canon. LGBT pairs of any kind were sparse in cartoons or Western animation at large. Noco makes sense from the perspective that these two had the closest, plausible chance at canon. Even if it was a snowball's chance in hell.

More recently, fans are a lot more open and receptive to crackships and rarepairs than the early 2010s. While this is a wildly different example, Alenoah kinda reminds me of how fan content helped Hanamusa (Pokemon) take off and become as popular as it is now. I want to do more research on this. I might end up writing an essay if I'm not careful, lol.

you get it. dont mind me, but this has been nagging for a few days when i saw mentions of chilaios has no 'canon basis' or along those lines or dont get why its even a thing and its really not that hard? like theres a ton of reasons why someone would gravitate this ship and for myself while i enjoy the height difference alot, its their deep mutual trust and respect that has me vice gripped. idk it seems like more ARE catching onto chilaios and its steady rising so its weird to still insist on its 'crackship' status

right??? it drives me insane. i don't know what the hell happened in modern fandom for people to dismiss ships with plenty of material to work with as having "no canon basis".

i guess it has something to do with fandom's increasing gravitation towards canon being necessary for shipping. in this fandom specifically you can certainly ship farcille by that metric, and like... god, i dunno what else. i assume they're just making shit up about how their ships of choice have a canon basis to make themselves feel better about it. bc at the end of the day, dunmeshi is not a romance, and the only kiss we ever see is from a relationship where one is in love and the other is like "aw, you're such a good friend." (kabru was real mean for that.)

either way, back to chilaios--back in my day (shakes cane), what they have was more than enough for a "valid" ship. so much so that no one would have questioned it except people who hated it. which... is probably true here as well, a lot of the time. like, dismissing a ship you don't like as being meaningless probably feels pretty good if you actually believe yourself.

you know what an actual dunmeshi crackship would be? (throws a dart at the wall) mithrun/dandan. makes no sense, right? they were in the same room maybe once, never interacted, and have no reason to interact. that's what a crackship is. it has no canon basis whatsoever.

crackships and rarepairs can overlap, and often do, but a rarepair can also be something with real canon interactions that just didn't take off in the fandom. chilbell probably still counts as one, though it does have fics and art, so your mileage may vary.

chilaios, then, with an entire fucking 14-volume-manga's worth of interactions, several of which were important specifically to the two of them, is not a crackship, and god knows it's no longer a rarepair either, if it even was back before the anime. (i know there was like, 1 fic on ao3, but the manga was being published for like 10 years so i assume the general fandom was just a lot smaller.)

calling chilaios a crackship is straight up just not true. not what that term means. they have the same amount of canon basis as multiple other popular ships, and imo they have the chemistry to back it up, but even that isn't necessary. all told it's a pretty standard ship. they're friends, there's tension between them but there's also a deep mutual trust, and there are very few chapters where they don't directly interact (either because the chapter isn't about the touden party or bc one of them isn't present).

sorry for rambling. i feel passionate about this, lmao... not even just because it's my otp but because misuse of fandom terms drives me up the fucking wall.

Rants!

You x my mom: (ノ｀Д´)ノ彡┻━┻

┻━┻︵└(´Д｀└)

┻┻︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵┻┻

(ノ｀Д´)ノ彡┻━┻

T_T at least they're a team but I wanted a naruseku sweep ( ≧Д≦)

Narcistoru/secretoru: Yeah i can gurantee this is the only submission for them for Some Reason. Because no one ships them. Like i have searched the internet far and wide and turn up with like. Close to literal zero. And here's the thing, this is entirely illogical. They work together in this evil group and their deals are essentially that they're. Unhappy people. At first you think they're just annoying but actually they're annoying snd Extremely Miserable. In silly ways, they are such losers and so cringefail. I could write an essay on both of them individually, but basically i love how their focus isn't on being better people, it is on being happier. Individually.

The show is divided into clear parts of who is the main antagonist at the time which really makes you FEEL how unhappy they each are. They're a group but they're also not bc they choose to be unhappy ad get on each other's nerves about it and that's a prime focus of their characters. Anyway, these two make me insane, they spend a lot of time together during the middle part of the show, bc the first villain is gone so now it's just the two of them and their leader who isn't doing much yet. After this part, one of them, narcistoru, is defeated so he's gone for the time being. But these two, they hate each other SOOOOOOOO much it's insane. This is because Narcistoru is an annoying bitch and Secretoru hates that. And they're both generally insane people with dumb beliefs and issues that they view wrongly. It's just so glorious to see them annoy each other so much. Post Narcistoru's main screen time, he gets his conclusion episode. He escapes from prison and Secretoru is supposed to retrieve him. But like not because they need him, in fact, they absolutely did not care that he was arrested because none of these people give a flying fuck about each other. It's just that he wasn't supposed to be a risk. Secretoru and Narcistoru have a rather petty and hilarious fight. Because you see. Now they don't have to get along. They are not on the same side. So the hostility is really thriving here. In fact, she manages to capture him, and while fighting the pretty cures (magical girls), hensays some annoying shit and she goes "actually i changed my mind" and shoves him off this rock in order for the monster (they always summon one) to fucking kill him. Like she tries to murder him in cold blood soley because he's annoying and this was entirely inevitable actually. She wants that twink obliterated. They don't bring this up again in the finale when they're both in prison. They just. Kind of hang out now. They've reached a level of tolerance.

And you may think "why do you ship this" LOOK. THEIR INTERACTIONS. ARE SO FUNNY. IT'S JUST. A VERY FUN SHIP. BECAUSE THEY'RE HILARIOUS. The hostility is so great and i think it would be neat if they had some t4t hatesex. It would solve nothing. They mske each other so much worse. But it would be very hot. Also secretoru has a general "can you shut the fuck up" attitude towards him. I don't even technically ship it but i ENJOY the ship.

And yet. I am so alone in this which is insane because i definitely expected ship content for them even before i actually wanted it myself.

But no, of course people ship Narcistoru with actual fifteen year olds. Like so much. And there is ZERO content for the ship with the other Actual Adult that he interacts with on a regular basis and who he has a fantastic and entertaining and INTERESTING dynamic with. So basically, i am not just sad, i am also SO SALTY. They are so insanely rarepair despite being an absolute epic duo. Awesome crackship, 10/10, literally comedy

Obiwan/grievous: Ok so this is a HUGE crackship and some people are not going to agree but like, Obi-Wan is what comes to mind when you think of the jedi and Grievous hates the jedi as a whole because he believes them to the cause of his mutilation and the suffering of his people, but the jedi are not the ones who did this. Grievous is a pawn in the game of the sith and he doesn't realize that his mind has been altered against his wishes or that he will be desposed of as soon as the war ends. Obi-Wan is a compassionate man and is able to consistently go toe to toe with Grievous, making him a rival Grievous can't help but respect in a weird way (his people are warriors, for all we know, fighting could be a method of flirting to his people yaknow? And obiwan genuienly flirts as a way to throw off his enemies, think of the comedic potential if Obi-Wan didnt realize how MUCH hes been a flirt or if Grevious acctualy gets flustered by it because obiwan is such a competent fighter and IF ONLY HE WASNT THE ENEMY-) If Obi-Wan knew what happened he would have tried to make amends and help his people, and if Grievous learned that it was Dooku (a former jedi turned sith) who turned him into a monster against his will, he'd probably be willing to team up with Obi-Wan to bring down Dooku and the Sith plans for Galactic domination to avenge and to protect his people, and they would be an absolute powerhouse since they are already familiar with eachothers way of fighting and from a writers point of view its filled with so much potential angst and drama, and hijinks, and even enhances the plot and creates parallels between the two that the franchise has never bothered to make and it has so much potential even if they don't fall in love they could be really good friends/partners/allies and if order 66 goes as planned they would be badass rebels its such an overlooked possible dynamic PLEASE 🥺

Nightmare Polycule: The cursed creation of like. 4 people on a niche fandom discord. Polycule consisting of pretty much every adult character in the series. It's awful and somehow the best thing ever. The potential for both crack and angst is unmatched. The divorced parents energy is OFF THE CHARTS. Marcia realizes she is a morosexual and has a crisis about it. Gringe confronts his prejudices by falling for a no-good wizard. Jillie Djinn is Marcia's ex and also dead and also GHOSTING ON HER COUCH which makes it very hard to bring her boyfriends over. Marcellus tries to be dramatic about the fleetingness of human life (except his) and gets made fun of until he confronts his trauma instead. Sarah and Mrs Gringe are having tea and getting a break from the drama.

i was tagged by @thewaaywetalk to list my crackships for asoiaf!!! fun prompt!

i mean i do think briensa is considered a crack ship bc they haven’t met yet in book canon and brienne isn’t shipped enough outside of braime bc no one has taste except me and three other people in this tugboat with me. check my girls-

god the northern lighting sucks so bad. anyways.

i have a hard time defining "crackship" largely because people will call anything a crack ship nowadays (*cue grandpa voice*) and back in my day people only called stuff that was like person/inanimate object or crossover ships crack but now you can ship two characters who have interacted, think about each other on several occasions, and have a bunch of narrative parallels and you get told its a crackship. personally, so long as they interact one (1) time i say it's got basis in canon!!!!!!!!

probably my most obscure is Black Aly and Alyn Oakenfist for F&B and Grey Worm & Jeyne Poole for the main series. I had a theory that the pact of ice and fire was a wife swap thing so not only would Jace marry Sara and his first born daughter would go north but also that Baela would marry Cregan as well because I thought anything short of Cregan getting some sort of dragon - literal or metaphorical - right now was dumb. egg on my face i guess alskjdf anyway i think more interesting for baela but i also thought it would be really interesting for black aly and alyn oakenfist especially considering his affairs - "i left my religion, my home, my entire life behind to marry this bastard turned legitimate that charmed me and he has the audacity to cheat on me with another valyrian" really hits for me, especially considering how close benjicot and addam were. once again, f&b is full of missed opportunities (to me).

the grey worm/jeyne poole thing came to me in a dream where grey worm and jon became friends and grey worm stayed in the north and married jeyne poole because they both have similar, extreme traumas and aren't noble born, and sansa gave jeyne away since all of jeyne's family was dead and grey worm started calling himself grey worm poole (i did say it was a dream) and now i just really really need something like that to happen to both of them or i'll die.

i'm gonna tag @transdimensional-void @kingcunny @maegorsbignaturals @riana-one @daenerysstormreborn @eggblackwood @allyriadayne no pressure but you better match my dumb ass energy aldjf

I was thinking crackships dreamed up for shits and giggles, but like LapTex and Saria x Kirsten are kinda hard to decisively beat unless you get into like Suzuran x Lappland territory. Though on the same topic, what are some relationships you like seeing explored for non-fluffy reasons, whether that's toxicity or more how I like Muelsyse/Saria because they're so different and the barriers that raises are just *interesting* to me.

Let's not get into any territory where children are involved. People sexualizing Amiya in my inbox was bad enough.

Saria + Doctor is really interesting to me because her talk lines and appearance in Dorothy's Vision demonstrate the existence of a lot of trust and professional respect between the two, but Saria's also one of the few characters that actually treats the Doctor as a peer or near-peer (allowing for the restrictions of Rhodes Island's corporate hierarchy) and can stand toe-to-toe with them in pretty much any arena where they specialize. Doc is an accomplished research and medical practitioner? So is Saria. Doctor is a skilled and intelligent leader on the battlefield? So is Saria. Doctor has experience with corporate politicking? So has Saria. They have a ton in common and the rare opportunity to connect with a (rough) intellectual equal. There is really so much to explore with them.

Given that Indra's files say she supposedly embodies the ideals of chivalry better than most of the actual titled knights of Kazimierz, I am desperate to see her and Nearl interact, or would be if I felt more Nearl content was a good thing

I really want to see the Penguin Logistics folks and related characters interact with Rhodes Island, because there are a lot of textual indicators that they work more closely with Rhodes Island on a more frequent basis than we really see in the story (Texas in particular served as the Doctor's bodyguard often enough for it to make a positive impression). I want to see someone explain Rhodes Island's 401(k) matching policy to Lappland.

Honestly, I'd like to know more about the Glasgow Gang in general, but the story chapters they feature in will still be releasing at a rate of one a decade when I die of old age, so I've kind of given up hope on that

I like seeing Bagpipe and Ch'en play off each other. Ch'en needs someone who doesn't take her too seriously.

More Nearl Family content would be great except it wouldn't.

I want to see Schwarz again. It feels like the narrative forgot she existed after the Rainbow Six crossover. Would love to see how she interacts with other characters

I want to see post-Stultifera Navis Laurentina making friends and just chilling or getting into trouble because this shark is a mischievous little brat

All of Gavial's interactions with the Acahualla gang are funny as hell

I want to see more of the funny stuff Logos apparently gets up to in his spare time

cannot begin to describe how important lyndata was to me back in the day. it started with me obsessing over ardata (upper middle class and privileged, you think shes got it all and shes using it for evil, but shes actually stuck in a situation she has no way out of: she WANTS to leave, shes the only character who LOOKS FORWARD TO leaving the planet bc it means an escape. it can easily be read as a metaphor for suicidal ideation, coupled with her literally self harming in front of you, and then saying youre the only person whos ever tried to be her friend) and being so sick of the way people treat her, glossing over her and treating her as if shes just evil for no reason, while worshiping the ground all the male characters walked on

then we got lynera, and she was another complicated female character (middle of the road, all but isolated by greater society, hated by almost all of her cloister mates except bronya, who she loves, cherishes, ADORES in an extremely unhealthy way, and doesnt want anything to happen to her, and shes miserable living like this but its all she knows), and she was also tossed to the side in favour of the dude she shared her volume with

and then... yknow... i just pushed em together! two women, suffering under the system that punishes change, i thought theyd compliment each other. then i got obsessed with them, as you do, they worked so WELL together, and they never even interacted! if everyone else got to ship tagora and galekh, who didnt even canonically know each other until galekhs route, then why cant i do the same with two girls!

AND THEN.

AND THEN.

THEY *DID* ACTUALLY INTERACT.

PRIOR TO VOL18s RELEASE, THE STEAM PAGE WENT UP, AND IT HAD THIS

someone sent it to me, and i thought it was a FAKE SCREENSHOT. i thought they made it and sent it to me bc they knew itd make me happy, and it did, but then it was REAL. IT WAS REAL! THEY WERE ACTUALLY IN THE SAME SHOT! my silly little crackship that i was so invested in and NAMED, IT HAD BASIS. and not only basis, but THIS

SHE CALLS HER "MY SWEET THIIING"!!!!!!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH I WAS FREAKING THE FUCK OUT?????????????????? sure, galekh had a "canon crush on tagora" who "presumably reciprocated" or whatever, but lyndata, my crackship with the COMPLICATED LESBIANS, had a PETNAME. by that point i had resolved myself that the writers had completely dropped the ball on ardata, and they kind of also did on this route (what they had was FUNNY and CUTE but it made no sense how she went from vol1 to vol13 to vol18), but they brought her back one final time. my favourite character, and they put her in the SAME SCREEN as my SECOND FAVOURITE, and they actually talk to each other and its cute and she calls her her SWEET THIIING!!!!!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Little question: How do you see the relationship between the four Hollow Heads?

A little complicated ! in the fewest words possible

I like to switch up my headcanons for these guys cause theyre just fun to play with and different relationship statuses give a different perception to their interactions but the one(s) ive been mostly going off of is:

- They are not siblings, and the only thing in common in anything of similar regard is being made from the same creator

- They have a weird intrinsic connection with eachother, i like to call it soulmates but its not the same way as youd think. They take on features of the other(s), which ive shown visually through their eye colors

- Weird reincarnation bullshit atla style but not exactly because noone is dead for realsies. I think i best explained it in this post, however with the added addition that victim is NOT DEAD..so we just dunno whats going on orz

Now onto the specific pairings:

- Im a big fan of chodark so youd often see me draw em in a more romantic way, but i like em in whatever form they come in, the important thing is theyre fucked up together. They are crazy codependent, being the only company eachother have for like?? 8 years?? They drive eachother crazy and fight tons but theyre all they have so they still cherish their bond. Communcation skills 0. Dark is a lot more peppy about life, while Chosen's taken to sulking more often than not but he tries to cheer up for Dark's sake. They both have their problems, Dark still tries to attack Chosen on a regular basis because of his coding, and Chosen has been trying to recover from everything that happened from noogai's pc, they try to make it work 👍

- Countering the first point on this response,,, i like Chosen and Victim as twins,, i feel it adds a layer to their (what could be) relationship, sharing the same face, same woes with their origins, but turning out sososo different but still The Same. Makes me feel some typa way

- Victim and Second are sooooo special to me, i hope they interact in future episodes;;;; The first creation all jaded and wrathful about its creator, and rightfully so! Having been given the worst end of the stick while the other, the latest creation, young and hopeful, treated the best out of all his predecessors and given Everything that they never gotten. Victim is mad salty about all that and hugely envious, but hes more on exacting his revenge on noogai and making Second watch. In another world they couldve been friends, animating/drawing buddies perhaps...

- Chosen and Second ! Weve already seen what their dynamic is (or atleast in that specific situation) so ive not added more to it. Honestly been treating their relationship as a rebound from chodark,,,,,,, Yakno chosen just got out of the house to actually talk to other people other than Dark, finds a nice sunshiney stick to his dark and gloomy demeanor and things are good ! Their relationship could be something really special if they were to find themselves in a different situation than the one theyre in;;;

- I honestly do Not know what Victim and Dark would be like together other than the crackship of "evil girls who make out with eachother as their exes watch" but yakno ! Hollowhead Whore Saturday. Honestly it depends on what kinda villain victim is and how dark is like after getting her ass handed to her

- Weve seen Second and Dark but other than that i think if Dark were alive and got to hang out with the others and Second, she would be scared shitless of Second or Dark would act as a high and mighty bastard and Second gets a bit pissed off about her attitude at some point

This got a bit long but hrhrghrheh the hollowheads r so special to me,,,the one common thing about them is originating form the same creator and they all turned out so different and yet they have so many similarities between eachother hrhrgrhrggrhhrhr

thoughts on banwally. i've never played any of garten of banban so you are my only reference for what happens in those games and consequently, what makes banwally a compelling crackship.

buddy..... you have opened a can of worms you could have never prepared for

when or if I started shipping it: i actually have an exact date, may 29th of last year. everyone in my friends server is really into crackshipping so we like to share random ideas with each other and i posted them as an idea on that date. i have never been the same since

my thoughts: crackships are kind of hard to talk about in this context because there isnt anything canon to go off but ill do my best. when welcome home first started gaining traction i saw a lot of people saying "this is what good mascot horror looks like" (whether or not wh even counts as mascot horror is. debatable.) so me associating banban and wally with each other was already a thing before i started shipping them. at some point i realized they both have a lot in common (monotone voices, often associated with devil imagery, passive most of the time but gets a little Silly with it sometimes) and i was like woah.... they should kiss. again a lot of my thoughts surrounding them are based in headcanon so im struggling to talk about them in a way that doesnt make me sound fucking insane BUT im a sucker for pessimist/optimist ships and they very much fit that to me. i think they balance each other out in a way, wally is a bright spot in the Endless Misery banban deals with on a daily basis, and banban is pretty logical and grounded which levels out wallys spacey-ness. theyre very much a jessica and roger rabbit "he makes me laugh" type of deal but with the fun addition of identity issues and whatever the fuck wallys deal is

what makes me happy about them: the fact that theyre both freaks of nature (banban is a weird clone manmade abomination thing, wally is either straight up an eldritch entity or a manmade puppet with eldritch qualities) is another thing they have in common to me, so i think theyd be accepting of each others weird traits because they know what its like. banban doesnt give a fuck that wally is up to some scp shit, he might as well live in the scp containment facility. theres a kingdom run by a giant kangaroo woman with a magic scepter who is in charge of keeping a bunch of baby demons and the father(?) of those baby demons trapped in her pouch or else the entire kingdom will be destroyed. he has seen weirder. banban wouldnt just love wally because hes handsome and hes nice to people, he loves all of his weird traits too because they arent even weird to him.

what makes me sad about them: they lend themselves pretty well to angst (i hate that word but idk a better one to describe this) because theyre both from horror media, and i like to pelt my favorite characters with hammers so >:) my friends and i (same friends who got me into crackshipping) have a group rp thing going on, and theres a mini arc going on right now based on the fact that banban got SUPER fucked up trying to fight sir dadadoo and his army. wally wants banban to leave the kindergarten because of how dangerous it is, he wants him to live in home where he doesnt need to fear for his life all the time. but despite all the horrors he has to put up with, banban doesnt want to leave everyone in the underground behind. theyre still his friends, and he wants to protect them. as much as wally wants him to be safe, he understands where hes coming from because he wouldnt want to leave his friends behind either. this leaves him feeling really conflicted and confused, and the homewarming update taught us that wally doesnt do well with those kinds of feelings. just some thoughts for yall <3

things done in fanfic that annoys me: nobody except me would wanna write fanfic about them and im too depressed slash lazy to actually write anything so. uh

things I look for in fanfic: see above

my kinks: size difference where the top is the smaller one i have no such things. i am a man of the lord.

who i’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: wallaby (wally/barnaby) is pretty epic so if that ends up being canon i wouldnt be mad lmao. ive also been wondering if wally might end up whoever "w" is (the awayfrompryingeyes.net mod) because clown said theres another ship that will be canon but that he cant talk about because its inherently a spoiler somehow, id be fine with that too. not much to say about banban because gobb doesnt do romance aside from whatever the fuck nabnab and nabnaleena have going on

my happily ever after for them: things finally calm down at the kindergarten to a point where banban feels comfortable leaving to be with wally, and whatever the hell is going on with home also calms down. banban would still visit the others obviously (i think he would introduce some of them to wallys friends, barnaby and bittergiggle would get along super well i think) but he can finally be somewhere where he isnt constantly fearing for his life :]

uhh tldr dont say "what if i shipped this" as a joke. it will become no longer a joke and you will write like a million words about two characters from entirely different media who have never met and never will meet. worst mistake of my life

Do you have other Arya ships? Asides from Gendrya (OTP).

Totally Jonrya. The only other one with some solid foundations.

Then there's Edric Dayne x Arya which I appreciate because I like Edric, but I don't think it has a future in the books. I would have seen it well in another life where Arya has to settle for an arranged marriage, but gets to live with a decent person, in a place where women have a few more rights. In the land where her heroine Nymeria ruled.

Dany x Arya ...Like Rhaegar and Lyanna but better under any point of view. But it will never happen.

No canon basis other than parallels to the past but I like Aegon/young Griff x Arya too.

These are the main ones, then there are less popular and more crackship ones. As long as the relationship is consensual and the age gap isn't too big I don't complain. Cause everyone should love my gurl!

But of the little ones, my favorite is Willow Heddle x Arya. It doesn't exist, I'm the only person on earth who likes it, but... come on they'd love each other.

If I may ask what is the original context for afohiko? I am still making my way through the manga so I definitely may not have gotten to a pertinent part yet so I preemptively apologize if that is the case. Is it based on an interaction they have, or was it spurred more from you imagining how they would interact and enjoying the way their personalities fit together? Either way your content of it is very enjoyable and very interesting. :] I also like how expressive your art style is! I hope you are having a nice day.

Aw, thanks :DDD

tl;dr (but I’m not putting it under a read more because I’m feeling obnoxious): the original context for afohiko is that I want Prime Torino to be popular, and if I have to bait people onto my blog with hot AfO, then I’ll fucking do it. It’s still honest work!

//

Okay. So, for context, what you need to know first is that I am a strong promoter of Prime Torino. I love him, he’s hot and miserable and devoted to lost (well, debatable) causes. And I want other people to love him too, but this is a thankless task because Prime Torino is very notably a traumatizing jackass.

I still want people to love him. So I scheme, quite constantly, for ways to slot Prime Torino into AUs and ships.

Around two years ago, April 2021, @pocketramblr made a Google Poll for cursed ships. GranAfO got 1%. This is pretty unremarkable, except for the fact that I could refer to it a month later, and assign the genesis of All for One x Gran Torino onto her when some anon (possibly frustrated that I kept dodging Nana x AFO questions) asked me about it.

And at first I was like, ‘Oh, ew. AFO is a jackass.’ And then I started drawing it, and I ended up with one of those standard kabedon poses with Prime Torino against the wall. Which got me these kind of reactions:

What could I conclude? That by drawing an attractive All for One with Prime Torino, I could bait people into thinking twice about Prime Torino. (MY AGENDAAAA)

DfO Week was then announced; between my own afohiko art and the few asks Pocket fronted for an dfohiko thought experiment, I was inspired to start writing the first of many branches of dfohiko verse. I like to ground my fics with a bit of basis in canon, but you gotta understand--this is a crackship. I’m shooting blind here except for a few key references/facts:

1. Gran Torino survived the initial retreat with Toshinori in tow, even though AFO certainly must have seen them fleeing the scene. Sorahiko then survived the following decades AND Kamino Ward despite evidence of AFO’s insane scorched earth policies.

2. The Ultra Analysis book has this for a quick 101 of Gran Torino’s perspectives of a few characters:

For a character assigned as ‘nuisance’, AFO sure doesn’t bother swatting him into a hole six feet deep. And for name-calling AFO a ‘monster’ + having an infamous stance on killing to save, Sorahiko is incapable of dealing damage. (Undoubtedly because he knows he would get squashed like a bug. But I digress. This post is for reading too deep into the unspoken bits.)

3. Gran Torino in his fight with Kurogiri ends up saying, “If you’ve got a preference for a date, then I’ll go with you wherever you want.” (Crunchyroll subtitles, E78). This is obviously one of those one-off lines, and not even canon to manga, but I like referring back to it as an indicator of Gran Torino’s Bad Taste in Men.

All this to say… afohiko is hilarious to me, and I can draw/write them as hot disasters, in both ways oblivious to the red flags at the start and end of their relationships. Emphasis on hot. You think Prime Torino’s hot, right? Did I succeed in my agenda?

I also deeply dislike the argument to popularity when it comes to the definition of crackship, I prefer something like "ships entertained primarily for their absurdity and incongruity with the source material" (and I also don't consider crossover ships crack by default) but like. Jesus christ that person really proves that shipping as a popularity slapfight impoverishes the imagination.

exactly, some crackships are very popular and some very unpopular/rare ships are ships with strong canon basis, popularity has literally nothing to do with whether a ship is "crack" or not. "absurdity and incongruity with the source material" are spot on, personally i think the ridiculousness of crackships is the point - you don't create a crackship because you (at least initially) legitimately think "oh these two would make a great couple", you create it because "oh my god you know what would be really crazy and funny?" or at least that's how i see it.

Why I ship Bucklena, and I hope the Thunderbolts movie pairs them together

https://twitter.com/Gothamette/status/1488939466852945923

Link to the fanmade trailer this screenshot is pulled from here. 

Okay, so I’ll start off by saying this - if the execs at Marvel Studios have the cojones to make Yelena asexual/aroace, like she is in the comics (at least from what I’ve seen online, haven’t read all of the comics so I can’t speak to how canon this is), I am 100% on board, and give the studio a lot of credit for showcasing asexual representation in a *huge* property.

However, as this twitter thread delineates way more eloquently than I could ever hope to, there is a very good chance that either Yelena’s sexuality will not be addressed at all in the Thunderbolts movie, or they’ll pair her in a heterosexual relationship - in which case, if it’s the latter, Bucky Barnes is the obvious (and, imho, only) choice. But before I say anything else, I just wanted to get that out of the way - I am all for asexual representation in Marvel properties, and genuinely, if Yelena being asexual is explicitly made canon in the MCU, I’m on board. *Editing to add, because this was an oversight on my part ~ if Yelena is confirmed as lesbian/bisexual, and the writers decide to pair her with a woman (like, say, Kate Bishop or Wanda Maximoff), I’d support that as well. FOR THE RECORD*

But until that happens ~ Yelena Belova and Bucky Barnes are the best potential pairing in the MCU, imho, possibly ever.

In case you’re new here + haven’t been spammed by the Bucklena fanfiction writing kick I’ve been on these last couple of months - hi, I’m your resident 27-year-old fanfic writer, and I’ve written fanfic for over half of my lifetime, for just about every fandom you can think of. I generally veer towards pairings that are canon-adjacent (not quite crackships, *could* feasibly be made canon, but it likely isn��t gonna happen), and in the MCU have shipped ScarletStrange, Romanogers, Kate Bishop x Peter Parker, etc. Given that Bucky and Yelena are about to be in a movie together, and not currently engaged in existing romantic relationship - of the list of pairings I’ve outlined above, they’re the most likely to wind up having some sort of romantic relationship. And I’mma tell you why I’d be excited to see that happen.

#1) They have similar backgrounds, and can relate easily to one another

This one is fairly self-explanatory - their stories have obvious parallels. Both were brainwashed by Russian organizations, turned into assassins against their will, and defected/escaped later on in life. While Bucky has displayed clear signs of PTSD, from what we’ve seen, Yelena is a little tougher to read/more stoic, however this could be a front - regardless, their respective ways of dealing with their past traumas could be an interesting dynamic to explore in the Thunderbolts movie, particularly since of the two of them, Bucky is going to take on more of a “Team Leader” role, if you will. Maybe part of Bucky’s job is going to be to get Yelena to open up? Whatever it is, I’m game.

#2) While they have a hard exterior, both are not-so-secret softies, and are sentimental when it comes to their found families

Case in point: Yelena’s reaction to Alexei calling their family unit back in Ohio “fake,” and Bucky’s reaction to Sam giving up Cap’s shield in Falcon + The Winter Soldier. They’ve both lost so much (their biological families, friends, years of their lives to evil organizations, etc.), and neither of them have much of a support system + family unit. And while that alone shouldn’t be the basis of a relationship, the way they view their “found families,” and the respect they both have for it - Bucky with Steve, and Yelena with Melina, Alexei and Natasha - shows they have similar values, and want the same things, even if they don’t state it explicitly.

#3) Yelena is effortlessly charismatic, and Bucky - while a bit out of practice - can be quite charming, too

Look no further than Yelena’s scenes with Kate Bishop in Hawkeye, and Bucky in just about all of the first Captain America movie - Yelena isn’t necessarily flirty, per se, but she has a natural charisma that radiates in her conversations. And Bucky, while definitely rusty and in need of some of some practice, is a complete flirt when he’s interested in someone, which could make for some entertaining banter + chemistry between the two. 

And, finally ~

#4) They both deserve love + happiness, probably more than any two characters in the MCU

This is another one, imho, that’s pretty self explanatory - Bucky and Yelena have both been through A LOT. They’ve both lost people, spent years of their lives brainwashed, and somehow, they’re still standing - and beyond that, they still live by a moral code, and aren’t villains/didn’t allow their traumas to make them evil. They deserve some happiness, and if it’s as a romantic relationship, awesome.