#(not even in a shipping way... just obsessed with the dynamic)

[resident-cake-anon]

(つ╥﹏╥)つ 🩵💛✨🫶💕💖💐🌼💝

TEOTEO… thank you so much for including me in your valentines gifts this year…….

i am so so grateful to have a friend such as you & i am in awe of you everyday !!

Happy valentines 🍒💋🍷🍓

@ourlittleforever @resident-cake-anon @frankenbridez

[inksandpensblog]

I made my name in this fandom on not shipping, but I must confess that the character dynamics I tend to already imagine Chosen and Dark having do lend themselves rather compellingly to that framing. Of all the ships in the fandom, ChoDark has always been the one that I felt I actually understood the building blocks of to some degree.

But, as I usually steer away from fan-material that focuses on shipping, I’m not really aware of how the ship is generally represented in the fandom. So I have no way of knowing if the way I tend to see the ship has any traction in the fandom already or if my take is an unusual one.

Here goes…

I tend to imagine their relationship as a situation where neither really understands what’s happening between them or the effect they have on each other and they both land on wildly different conclusions because they don’t know how to communicate and just assume that they’re on the same page.

I tend to imagine Dark as having a “you showed me what it means to be alive” sort of obsession with Chosen, one that started because Chosen’s violence awoke something in him and he doesn’t have the context to know that Chosen’s violence is born of trauma. All he knows is the thrill of watching Chosen do violence and the thrill of doing violence with Chosen.

For Dark, simply being with Chosen is innately violent, and being with Chosen is fulfilling because Chosen and the violence he wreathed himself in during those early days were the meaning of life to Dark.

Meanwhile, this attraction is completely one-sided on Dark’s part.

Which is not to say that Chosen doesn’t care for Dark, oh no; Dark is someone Chosen doesn’t have to keep his guard up around, and he finds Dark’s presence comforting. Chosen likes Dark’s company and even seeks him out.

They’re allies, and Chosen takes the commitment of that to heart.

But he’s not really invested in a bond the way Dark is.

[vynnyal]

Finally finishing totk

[victimized-martyr]

ur making me wanna ship kyman (only if cartman gets therapy) what the actual fuck is Tumblr doing to me

Nice to tempt you to the dark side 👻

lolol in all seriousness, that’s cool! Technically, Cartman *is* in therapy. He’s seeing Thomas (Panderverse), remember? And it’s strongly implied he’s on medication (Cupid Ye). Can’t say if he’s getting better or worse, but Cartman definitely has evolved. If you want to go the redemption route, it’s been shown that it takes little for Cartman to be “fixed”. He just needs discipline, a sturdy male figure in his life. He… needs to be dominated. Literally (tsst) and if not that, he needs to get out of South Park— his biggest enabler. So, he’s not too far gone. He’s a real piece of work though, and South Park’s wellbeing (in-show and out) can’t function without him being an asshole. It’s just who he is. But whoever decides to stick with him has to have a lot of determination to deal some damage control, or keep him in check. (hm, sounds familiar…)

So, there’s your condition met. Go forth and ship kyman! 🫡

[ghost-bard]

Might see if i cant do a little reload to the neve/bellara choice in act 3 (??? Or is it late act 2 i fr do not know) just so i can record davrin stopping deirdre from going after bellara bc that scene and the 3 of them in general live rent free in my head and i was paused right after for so long that the recording i thought i saved was just. My paused screen of elgarnan lmao

[alchemiclee]

I think doing shipping through and aroace lens makes things complicated but also interesting. I think one reason I don't enjoy straight ships as much is because it's very rare for people write/talk about them with a queerplatonic dynamic. straight romance is so "normalized" in society, it's hard to get any other dynamic out of those ships from other people in conversation or writing. it's mostly always romantic. (especially when "guys and girls can't be *just* friends" is extremely common and has ruined mamy of my own friendships) but I enjoy a handful of a straight ship with that dynamic. it's just way more rare to see talked about than gay ones from my observation. anyway point is, more queerplatonic type ships and stuff please! those aren't explored enough!

[marsbotz]

i ship inhun in a way that differwnt and more swagful than anyone else btw.

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

the endless curse of being utterly uninterested in romance in fandom spaces

[inkperch]

Spite-born WiP-

Yes this ship does come from me absolutely despising the people who say Scara and Furina have a lot in common and/or ship them when the puPPET IS RIGHT THERE-

[sonknuxadow]

every time someone tries to make the i love captains scene in sonic prime about that one pirate shadow costume that has never been relevant to anything ever while completely ignoring that knuckles was the captain actually being discussed there an angel loses its wings

[kami-kun1003]

Sebek is mean to Silver but secretly cares about him so it’s ok ❌

Silver and Sebek have a very complicated relationship that goes deeper than just your generic tsundere “it’s not like I care about you” trope and has a lot of potential to be an interesting dynamic where they’re not exactly friends but can’t bring themselves to outright hate each other ✅

[ladyseidr]

my favorite part of the william and henry dynamic aside from The Horrors is just them infodumping abt tech @ each other for hours

[casketears]

thinking fondly again of my unfinished omori au fic where mari has just died, and aubrey has been so thoroughly ditched by kel and hero, and sunny hasn't left his house in weeks, and aubrey (because naturally it all comes back to aubrey) is just so angry all the time but she doesn't know where to put it, so she tries to distract herself; make things normal again by going over to basil's house at least, but even that doesn't work because the fucking freak has scribbled over all of their shared memories. and she's so angry, and she's so hurt, and basil doesn't even have an explanation- he's just staring at her helplessly, like it's not even his fault when they both know it is, and she's just so fucking angry, and without even knowing it she's reeling her fist back and - yeah. she makes contact. and basil's nose is broken, probably, and there's thick blood pouring out of it, but when he turns his head again to face her it's not to match the stunned horror that she herself feels. it's to let her do it again. and anyway this au is called 'aubrey semi privately uses basil as a punching bag to cope, and he is worryingly okay with it', more at 6

[catcatb0y]

"proship DNI" my brother in Christ this is Dead Plate...

"proship DNI" my brother in Christ you are a Rick and Morty fan

[lenorenevermore99]

Why 457 is actually valid af and not just a "joke" ship

I wanna start this by saying that I'm in no way, shape or form convinced 457 is canon nor I think there will be anything remotely romantic between the two of them in season 3. But people seem to think it's just a joke inside the fandom, while actually, their dynamic is pretty fucking valid and I want to analyze that in this post.

One of the most discussed things (if not the most) when it comes to this ship is the stares.

Some think this is the stare of love, others think In-ho just enjoys seeing him suffer. Well, let me tell you it is neither.

But before we delve into the way In-ho stares at Gi-hun, we first have to go back to talk about Hwang In-ho as a character.

As we know, Hwang In-ho is the Winner of the 2015 Squid Game. He went into the games so he could have the money to treat his sick, pregnant wife, much like Gi-hun who did the same for his sick mother. Both of them won the game, but both of them were too late to save the person they loved from a sad fate.

This lead to In-ho becoming the Frontman. We don't know exactly what happened in the timeframe between him winning and him becoming the Frontman, but we can safely assume that after loosing his wife, In-ho lost faith in humanity. The games have destroyed him, they turned him into the villain he is today.

And the thing is, when he looks at Gi-hun, he sees his past self in him. This was confirmed by both Lee Byung Hun (In-ho's actor) and the director of the show himself.

Or to be more precise, he sees his past self. He sees who he was before the games changed him. And this is what led to his fascination and obsession with Gi-hun, because here's the thing; the games traumatized Gi-hun, but they didn't break his faith and hope in humanity, like they did with In-ho himself.

And this is the thing that, in my view, both fascinates and deeply angers In-ho. Deep inside, subconsciously, he is thinking, "Why were YOU able to retain your hope in humanity? Why were you able to remain a good person when I couldn't?"

In-ho was genuine when he told Gi-hun he wished he'd try to be happy after winning (or to better say, surviving) the games. I find it especially interesting when he tells him "Just pretend it was all a dream."

In-ho wishes he could pretend it was all a dream, but he couldn't. Think about it: he's a billionaire, but he lives in a shitty, small apartment. He doesn't talk to his mother, he doesn't talk to his brother, he doesn't even go visit his wife at the cemetery. Pardon me for borrowing the phrase from The Hunger Games, but he's not living the life of a victor. whether it's because he feels guilty or something else, I guess we'll find out in the next season, but that's not the point. The point is, that In-ho wants Gi-hun to do what he wasn't able to do after he won. He wants him to be happy because he sees himself in Gi-hun.

This is the most important point in this post.

Now I wanna focus on these moments. During the second game, during mingle, and during the lights-out massacre, we see Gi-hun being absolutely destroyed over the players that were killed. He's undoubtedly blaming himself for it. And here we see In-ho staring at him, not with the look of love, not with joy at his suffering, but with sorrow. He's sad for Gi-hun, because he could have spared himself further suffering if he didn't stubbornly decide to go back into the games.

What In-ho is thinking right here, in my view, is; "See? There is no hope. There is nothing you can do. Stop torturing yourself, just give it up already. How much more pain do you have to go through before you give up? Accept you can do nothing and go on with your life. Try to be happy."

Now you might be asking, okay, but what does that have to do with romantic love?

Well let me tell you that these feelings I just described can easily and quickly turn into love.

Many philosophers over the centuries have come to the same conclusion; we see part of ourselves in the people we fall in love with.

"The Front Man believes that Gi-hun is wrong in his way of thinking, but perhaps, he reflects on himself through Gi-hun. He does want to destroy Gi-hun's belief. I felt that a small part of him, unknowingly, might be hoping for Gi-hun's thoughts to be right. And rooting for him in some way."

These words Lee Byung Hun said about In-ho, makes me think of Jacques Lacan's theory in particular (which is a rather complex topic and I will try to summarize as shortly and as simply as I can).

For Lacan, love, at least in the beginning, is essentially a form of narcissism. When we fall in love, we're also falling in love with ourselves. We see ourselves in the other person, but we also see in the other what we subconsciously think we are lacking in ourselves. Which doesn't mean the other person will fix us because, at least according to Lacan, this lack is something that can never actually be "fixed".

And I think that's exactly was is happening with In-ho. He sees in Gi-hun what he's lacking in himself. They were traumatized the same way, but reacted in two completely different manners. In-ho became cruel and disillusioned with humanity, while Gi-hun still believes in humanity and wants to save everyone.

I know that this way, 457 seems like a one-sided kind of love, but that's honestly my personal interpretation of the ship. I think Gi-hun could have fallen for Young-il, for the person In-ho was before the games, if they had more time. But the Frontman In-ho? The person he became after becoming the Frontman? There's no way.

Not all loves are meant to happen, not all lovers get to be lovers. Some are meant to just leave us wondering what could have been. Which is what makes transformative works so fun and interesting! From the canonverse toxic fics to the wholesome alternative universe flower shop fics, I think their dynamic is valid as fuck.

I rest my case.

[racheldrawsthis]

Even if Dead plate wasn’t queerbaiting, it was DEFINITELY shipbaiting. The dialogue option about whether Rody is jealous of Vince’s possible gf, the hair drying scene, the way he stops correcting Rody about not calling him Vince… u guys r tumblr girlies, you knew damn well what you were doing LMAO. There’s nothing wrong w that lol - it makes for a fun dynamic - but don’t claim that queerbaiting never came into it pffft

My co-developer and composer who worked on the game are both men, calling us "tumblr girlies" is a bit condescending and disrespectful.

To queerbait or shipbait, it means we were taking advantage of possible queer characters and relationships as a means to appeal to queer audiences while maintaining ambiguity about the characters' sexualities. We don't believe the game was baiting anyone since again not only the sexualities of the characters aren't ambiguous as it was fully stated they were written as queer the moment they were designed way before the game was even developed, we've expressed multiple times that while the game does have themes of queerness and cannibalism the main plot and intention behind the source game was always intended to heavily focus on exploring the horror that comes from toxic and unhealthy obsessions and mindsets and how far one is willing to go for them (Rody's self-sacrificial and desperate love for Manon, Vince's selfish obsession for perfection, Rody and taste, etc). The game is about a waiter seeking out and realizing what happened to his ex-girlfriend, that's always been the main plot, Dead Plate is a game in the thriller/horror genre and there was not a single mention of the game having any possible romance in it nor the queer identities and interactions of the characters were used to promote the game in any of the official game pages or promotional material to draw in more audiences, so hearing that you're watering the game down just as some kind of shallow bait is a bit disheartening.

Sometimes characters just happen to be queer, and not all media with queer characters are strictly about romance. Their relationship is still up for audience interpretation and people can take them as whatever they like if they want to enjoy them like that as long as they aren't hurting anyone but we never meant to intentionally bait anyone into trying out the game using their queerness, and that as queer writers ourselves we've expressed time and time again how we wished people to check out the game for the overall narrative and message it has rather than for people to only focus and view the game as shipping material since we believe the game offers a lot more than that.