#MY CRACKSHIP GOT CANONIZED

[leixo-demo]

"😭😭😭 they disbanded" you guys love to spreand badly translated information just luke the idol fandom when people thought pearl and marina broke. They're on HIATUS, they stopped doing music and I belive and this is not copium, that It's because they're on their honeymoon AND NO MORE DISCUSSION

[achaotichuman]

When Tamlin was dragging Beron out by his neck, Eris fell in love, THERE I SAID IT

[flashyfools]

YAMAHIYO WIN???

[mellohiizz]

i need some of your parrot art very sad. like, make him very very sad, as sad as you can make it. horribly sad. depressingly tragic sadness.

oops. sorry, i think i traumatized your bird.

[acksolotel618]

Nobody understands Zane x Emmet like I do. They are my prized creation and reason for living. They are my favourite ship for some reason and I stand by this. This ship I created half a year ago late at night is the best thing ever and nobody can convince me otherwise.

they are named visionshipping and have canonically been in the same room together, fun fact. (Ninjago movie advertisement/small teaser when the ninja were in Emmet's apartment.)

They met properly when they were coincidentally talking to the same brick wall contemplating their existence,,,they enjoy cooking and abiding by the law. They also both fake killed themselves in front of their girlfriends I thought I'd mention this.

[warrior-of-storms]

I used to not be a multishipper. I had the one ship for this character and the one ship for that character and I didn't care much for whatever else they had going on

Then I discovered Tim Drake

[spinnysocks]

heyo spinny!! whats some of your favourite tlg ships? or just any you like in general

EHEHEHE rubbing my hands together. evilly. hehehe

well, kiburi is my pathetic wet cat blorbo and i happen to love all the crackships for him. kiburi x makuu? funny as fuck. kiburi x ushari? love them in nikki's pirate au they keep me up at night. kiburi x janja? the outlands brotp ever. my favourite character's stupid ships my beloved yknow?

in terms of other ships: reirei x goigoi obviously. baobabfruit ofc (thanks to you :] /pos). jasiri x kion because yeah. and as you could never tell (/sarc) i love poly ships so banzai x shenzi x ed, tano x nne x madoa, & kiara x tiifu x zuri are ones i really enjoy too. oh and i'll say timon x pumbaa too since they were my first tlk ship i suppose :]

[girlwiththegreenhat]

i am never going to recover from the death shroud radio play actually

[ghostyolive]

MARTEL X PATRICIA!!!!!!

[rebelcracker-s]

prudom--- (violent sobbing)

[emily-mooon]

Either I’m a genius or insane for coming up with the crack ship of Young Neil and Stacey Pilgrim.

[hexhomos]

Hey man, I follow you on bluesky, but I’m too shy to interact openly 😔 Could you maybe share more about the state of the fandom before season 2? I was watching Arcane as it was coming out in 2021, but I never interacted with the fandom back then so a lot of things that you say come as a surprise… Even I knew that a lot of people disliked Jayce tho which was crazy to me because he was my favorite after Jinx and Silco and I always found him to very compellingly written. But I never thought that he was hated to such an extent! Was Jayvik really a crackship with a small fanbase as some people say? I knew it was much smaller than Caitvi which I thought was totally fair and understandable, but I’m pretty sure that I saw a decent amount of fan art on my Twitter TL back then…

Its very inaccurate to call jayvik a crackship during season 1 LOLLLL s1act1 had such a JV boom it was partially marketed by word of mouth as possible canon yaoi. And I say "marketed" with intent, netflix official pages and riot official pages made posts/memes with these two, including some sexual innuendo. Keep in mind, vikjayce was an old ship: from 2012 onwards there's already faint niches in the community and even fanfics.

I have some of those social media posts here.

The marketing yaoi memes became a problem after act2 came out and a lot of the audience felt rightfully betrayed/led on by corporate; i think on the netflix side they got confused on who the canon gay pair was but old time players were well acquainted with riot's HORRID handling of mlm couples - the disappointment wrt jayvik in season 1 was palpable and impossible to ignore, partially because their stories WERE well liked ingame as their lore selves, and in act1 as a potential couple.

for a little while back there "riot HATES gay men" became a whole memetic chorus repeated ad nauseam, and this did affect the decisionmaking process. In the following months they got lil nas X to collab on their yearly esports theme and collab on the new gay champion release (a man permanently separated from his ex partner because he was terrible in the relationship. no comment) and we also got the pride month reconfirmation that tfgraves are gay for eachother, though once again not in a relationship and not allowed to even confess, they were just posing in general proximity under the rainbow flag; an obvious step down from the pitch where they had Old Romantic History. Not even a kiss. You can sense the pattern on how riot approaches gay men here, and /why/ a lot of people on the fence have rallied behind jayvik after season 2. It would finally subvert the trend.

I would say post season 1 it was obviously caitvi city, with some other niches, biggest ones being timebomb and jayvik. Caitvi were Mega viral, successfully tricked general audiences into calling the game "league of lesbians" for a while back there, ascribing progressivity to the company where it was pinkmoneying at best. People's general hatred of jayce made it so he was underutilized, misread and mischaracterized at large, INCLUDING in caitvi or general fanworks. He was a republican trumpian dumbjock stocks guy, insert your least liked man here. It was not uncommon to click on a jayvik fic/fanart and see some sort of sentiment related to "oh jayce sucks but someone needs to kiss viktor", and this was mild ribbings when compared to people who DIDN'T ship it. On these other waters it was common to see "Viktor deserves much better!!!!!!" plastered on all the walls. hence the massive y/n stats on viktors page.

still, people who stuck by jayvik were generally doubly invested on it, and they even got a couple of zines made! Secret santa projects were also up and running for some years. There was fanmerch though not as much as we are seeing now, and also a recapture of league vikjayce content in much, much smaller numbers. Even back then and in the years before season 2 some rioters would already share and interact with these fanworks; people insisting that jayvik is "new" or was uncommon before are extremely wrong. In AO3 stats alone they were in the top 3 league ships of all time after season 1, and they are firmly #2 as of now, rapidly growing. The fanbase is cosmically larger now but the seed was always there.

[s-p-r-i-n-g-t-i-m-e]

the hate for any non-canon ships, even if they don’t “break” canon ones in TOH fandom is absolutely ridiculous

even ships like gustholomule, with characters who have no canonical love interests, is hated on, simply bc “it’ll never happen”

shipping is almost NEVER abt what will and won’t be canon, it’s abt character dynamics, exploring relationships, seeing (a) character/s you adore be happy and hold hands with someone who also adores them

and even tho huntric began as a crackship/pipe dream, as both their characters and personalities were developed more, we just have more evidence that they would be good together (which tbh I need to make a post on)

BUT even if we never got that, and there wasn’t any ‘real’ connection between them, that still wouldn’t matter and people would still be 100% entitled to shipping them

Something that really bothers me that a lot of the TOH fandom doesn't seem to understand is that Goldric/Huntric, as a ship, did NOT originate from Edric and Hunter briefly interacting. Goldric/Huntric is one of the oldest if not the "original" Hunter ship. In fact, that's why it's called Goldric!

It was a ship before we even knew Hunter's name, and before Hunter even showed up in the show! We knew that both Hunter and Edric were 16 year olds, and everyone was really hopeful for TOH having an actual M/M romance that wasn't just the gay dads trope (unfortunately, TOH falls short in its representation for MLM).

The ship is a crackship, absolutely, but by no means is it a ship because the two of them interacted for a few moments. It is a ship born out of the hope for an main M/M pairing and a ship born out of the acknowledgement of how these two characters have (unintentional) parallels and foils within their stories.

By no means does anyone have to ship it, but it's frustrating to see people think that it's just a ship because they "stood next to each other" or that it originated that late into the show. (But, to be clear, even if that was the case, there's nothing wrong with it!) The TOH fandom is the first time I've seen in a fandom where people genuinely bash on others for non-canon or crack ships, so I just wanted to clear up the origin of Goldric and explain that it is one of the "original" Hunter ships.

[georgeplease]

HEY!!!

Are you bored this Christmas Day? Scrolling away on tumblr and ignoring family? Why don’t you tell me your favorite Harry Potter Headcanons in my inbox!

It doesn’t matter if they are unpopular, mildly popular, or very popular! I want to hear it! Tell me who you think should’ve ended up together, who might’ve been hooking up behind the scenes, or a wild crack ship you can’t help but love. Tell me what little quirks you think the characters have, their pet peeves, maybe what love language you think they have. I want to hear all your personal headcanons for the characters! Tell me about your favorite headcanons for your relationships with characters! Selfships, canonships, crackships, NO SHIPS TOO! Tell me about what you think they got into during canon, what they might be like in a modern au, in a fantasy au, any au! How the book should ended, how characters survived , or who should’ve died!

I will listen to most headcanons!

Join me, for the Christmas HP Headcanon Party!

MY INBOX IS OPEN TO HEAR ALL YOUR HEADCANONS YOU HAVENT BEEN ABLE TO SHARE! AND EVEN THE ONES YOU SAY EVERYDAY!

These are not for requests, I want to talk to the community and have some fun for all of us not having a great Christmas Day and are using tumblr to escape!

[zenkindoflove]

Fandom Shipping Terminology 101: ACOTAR edition

Hi! So I decided to put a little resource together for the ACOTAR fandom. Since many people join the SJM/ACOTAR fandom and have never been in fandom before, they encounter a lot of fandom terminology that they are not quite sure what it means or have seen others use it incorrectly so they get a false impression of the meaning of the word. So I put this together, including examples from the fandom, so that people can use it as a reference to learn more about what these terms mean and when they're appropriate to use. This list is focused on words related to shipping.

Tldr definitions (note: these are definitions that I wrote based on my own experiences/research on fanlore. These are always up for interpretation and meaning and nuance change over time and depend on fandom context)

Canon ship - a relationship where the characters have romantic interactions in canon

Fanon ship - a relationship where in canon the characters are platonic but the fandom has accepted as a ship with romantic undertones, canonical potential, or has become so popular within a fandom it's has surpassed the need/desire for canon

Crackship - a pairing of two characters where the idea of them together is strange or funny depending on the circumstances. Often in these ships, the characters have little or even no interactions in canon

Rare pair - agnostic to fanon or canon status. A rare pair simply means the fandom does not make a lot of fan content for it.

End-game - This is a canon ship that is together by the end of a series.

Slash ship - Fanon ships that feature queer relationships. M/M usually takes on the term slash and F/F has the term femslash.

OTP - Stands for One True Pair. This is a ship that a shipper considers to be the most important one that they love in a fandom.

NOTP - anti-OTP, or a ship that a shipper detests/is squicked out by

Multishipping - the act of shipping a character with multiple other characters.

For more context and thorough examples read more under the cut 

First, what the heck is a ship?

The origins of shipping and becoming obsessed with fictional relationships predate our modern understanding of fandom. Modern fandom roots can be traced as early as Star Trek: The Original Series. But the terminology of calling a couple you like a ship or the act of obsessing over fictional (and sometimes non fictional) couples "shipping" has its origins in the X-Files fandom. While ACOTAR is a romance, many fandoms do not have romance as a central element of its plot, and yet, shippers find a way. That's exactly what happened for the fans of Mulder/Scully. Those who wanted them to be in a romantic relationship were called "relationshippers" which then got shortened to "shippers". The verb "to ship" would appear later from this origin.

The way to think about "what is a ship" though is really based on do people think up romantic scenarios with these two characters? If yes, then you have a ship. And in ACOTAR, oh baby, are there MANY, MANY SHIPS.

Canon vs. Fanon ships

Where does a canon ship end and a fanon one begin? Now that, my friends, is not as clear cut as you might think.

I think this discussion is very important for the ACOTAR fandom because of the state of the ship war currently. Often, there is back and forth about which ship is canon or fanon (and *eye twitch* people throwing around crackship as a derogatory term to de-legitimize a ship which makes me wanna punch shit).

I'm gonna burst everyone's bubbles and say, I personally think Elriel, Elucien, and Gwynriel are all CANON ships.

Why? Well, that's the part that is up for interpretations my friends. What is deemed canonical romantic interactions? That is where a lot of lines can become blurry and if you have ever shipped a fanon ship before - you KNOW what I mean by that. Is it a charged glance? A caress of a hand that lingered too long? Is it a shared kiss? Or do the characters have to explicitly declare "I'm yours and you're mine"?

I've shipped a lot of kinds of ships. Canon. Fanon. Canon that had its end-game blown up. You name it, I've shipped it. And to me, a canon ship is anytime the writer of the canon is putting characters in a romantic situation, regardless if they end up together or not by the end of the series. If they wanted you to feel butterflies and think "could they?", and you felt butterflies, well my friends, you're responding to canon romance. And we've seen evidence of all three ships having those moments.

But, what does that mean for fanon ships? I have shipped a fanon couple where I got butterflies from their canonical scenes together. I've read into their moments and thought "wow, that was romantically charged". I think this is where the lines of canon and fanon are blurred. Because what this comes down to is, did the author intend this? Or am I seeing more into an interaction because I like it? Most fanon ships do hinge a lot of their interest in said ship because of what happens in canon. But, often times, the authors of said content are not necessarily wanting you to take away from their writing that these two characters are interested in each other romantically. You just can't help it. You see it. You see the potential, and you want it to go there so you see more of it the more you look.

Sometimes fanon ships are very clear that the canon is not even hinting at these two characters together romantically. And that is perfectly fine. To me, a fanon ship is a ship that has become so ingrained in the fandom community that the fandom thinks of these two together romantically. That it doesn't really matter anymore what the canon says or doesn't. The fandom has created this relationship and it lives and breathes within what the fandom builds for it. Azris is a perfect example of a fanon ship in ACOTAR. The canon interactions between Azriel and Eris are sparse and platonic in nature, yet the fandom itself has created a whole fanon around them with a large enough community that as soon as you enter the ACOTAR fandom, you immediately know this ship exists.

Rare pairs and Crackships

These two terms are often used interchangeably as if they are synonyms. Now, a rare pair can be a crackship but not all rare ships are crackships and vice versa.

Generally, a rare pair is devoid of canon or fanon connotations. A rare pair is a ship that receives little attention from fans and has few associated fanworks. So, a rare pair could be a fanon couple that few people think about romantically. For example, Emerie and Gwyn have a lot of interactions in canon. I would not think shipping them together to be a crackship because I mean, they're friends, they like each other, they read smut together. There are a lot of scenarios one could imagine them falling in love. But they have a whopping 12 fanfics under their tag in AO3. Therefore, they are a rare pair but not necessarily a crackship.

A rare pair can also be a canon ship. For example, Thesan and his unnamed lover are canon. However, when you look up their relationship tag on AO3, there are 23 works and most do not appear to be focused on them.

I also have seen people use rare pair for very popular ships (like Azris) when they mean fanon. Again, rare pair is really an indication of "how much fan content can you find for this" not necessarily are they canon.

Crackships really were birthed from the intention of putting two characters together "4 da lulz" to bring back early 2000s internet lingo. Crack shipping is usually a pairing that the idea of them together is a little absurd but also fun. Beron/Tamlin is a quintessential crackship example, especially why it came to be (but we will avoid getting into all the origins of that). There is no real reason to think Beron or Tamlin would ever have a romantic interaction and thinking about it makes you laugh. Crackships can sometimes turn into fanon ships. This is another example where the lines do get blurry. But really, crackshipping is about intention and the use of absurdism within fan creation.

I also want to say, often what I see in the Elucien v. Elriel and Elriel v. Gwynriel ships wars is the use of crackship in a derogatory way, and thinking that if one of these ships does not become end-game, therefore, it proves the other was a crackship. Simply put - no. That's not how it works.

End-game

Related to the above point, I think often where the ACOTAR ship wars really derail themselves, is conflating fanon/canon/endgame with each other. I don't see people often using the term end-game, when really, it would help so much with the judgmental and strange ship policing that this fandom loves to do. Specifically, this fandom has a hard time talking about the value within shipping fanon, or shipping the blurriness between fanon and canon for any characters that do not have end-game potential. ACOTAR is not a complete series. Therefore, in a strict definition, no couples are end-game. However, given the genre, there are several couples who are clearly going to be end-game. And really, what I think the ship war community needs in their discourse, is to start using the term end-game when they want to discuss the outcome of Elucien, Elriel, or Gwynriel having a canonical Happily Ever After. The reason being is that you can use end-game, and not insult another ship. End-game is simply a fact. There is no hierarchy involved in what ship is best or not. Because ships can be beloved whether they're canon or fanon or canon who did not end up together. And they all can have very valid reasons why people ship them despite not achieving end-game.

I also urge the ACOTAR fandom to realize that end-game is not the end of YOUR experience of your ship. Your ship lives on despite what the canon may or may not give you. Even if you ship a canon ship that does not achieve end-game, you can create those fanon end-games for yourself. Many popular ships end up being popular because of the effect of that ship not achieving end-game. And while I am using the prime-ship war as examples within this post, I've seen other microshipwars popping up within the fandom as well. So, I'm not trying to pick on this specific set of conflicts, it's just the one I see most prominently.

OTP vs NOTP

I think the ACOTAR fandom could also really benefit from adopting this terminology.

The point of declaring OTPs and NOTPs is a way for you to signal to others in your fandom, "This is how much I care about this ship. Whether I love it it or hate it. Tread carefully". These terms are not meant to say one ship is better than the other from a moral standpoint. Instead, it's to indicate to others that you have a strong preference. You're going to love your OTPs regardless of what arguments others throw at you to convince you to not love them. You will probably be very annoyed by your NOTPs regardless of what others try to do to convince you that they're actually cute/sexy/hot/perfect for each other. And what the ACOTAR fandom could benefit from, from readopting OTP/NOTP language, is having a common understanding where different shipping communities boundaries are and how they can better utilize those boundaries to prevent constant fighting. Now, ship wars are inevitable because of how people see their OTPs and NOTPs, but general rule of thumb is - don't engage with your NOTP's content for your own mental sanity.

Multishipping

Multishipping can be used in many ways. Some people use it to say, hey I'm in this fandom, and I ship a lot of couples. But the origins of multishipping as a term, comes from ship war discourse in other fandoms. Multishippers generally are people who ship one character with multiple other characters. For example, if you ship Elain/Lucien, Elain/Azriel, Elain/Gwyn, Elain/Tamlin, etc etc etc, you are a multishipper. I generally would not consider someone a multishipper if all of their ships do not cross streams. It just sort of means that you ship a lot of couples. Which tends to be normal for romance series with a lot of couples. Maybe not a single of those couples is your true OTP, and that's what you mean by saying you're a multishipper. And that's okay. I think though that multishipping generally in other fan spaces is a marker of you telling others that you don't draw harsh lines with who you see characters with. I often see multishippers not declaring NOTPs. It's kind of a state of how you go about shipping often. I, for one, identify as an OTP shipper. I've never really multishipped. But I also have a very strict standard of what I call my "ships". Anyways, this is to say, this term has a lot of uses. And sometimes it can be confusing which of these uses a person means when they say it.

Slash shipping 

I've seen over the years that slash as a terminology has fallen out of favor. In the past, slash shipping was the pinnacle of shipping in fandoms. The term slash comes from the first modern fanon ship, Kirk/Spock, where the / between their names, which we now all know and use to indicate a romantic pairing (note: & is used to indicate a platonic interaction between characters), exists because the Kirk/Spock shipping community really were the originators of shipping communities creating fan content and sharing it in with each other in a massive way. In general slash (and femslash) is an important modifier of shipping because it explicitly tells you that this is a queer ship which often were not mainstream and considered canon until more recently. With the rise of canonical queer ships, I think the subversiveness of shipping queer couples has lost it's edge, therefore slash is not needed as much anymore to directly state the nature of your ship.

I wanted to keep this in the post though, because I think it's incredibly important history for ALL ACOTAR fans to understand. Shipping queer couples, and especially shipping FANON queer couples, has always been the backbone of fandom. Kirk/Spock walked so Destiel could fly. These are all queer ships that have strong fanon roots (and that fanon has had impacts on their canon) and have shaped fandom and your concept of shipping and romance tropes in inextricable ways. You don't have / without Kirk/Spock. You don't have Omegaverse, without gay shipping within the Supernatural fandom. And I wanted to make this point because this fandom has a strong het (heterosexual) ship bias. Which is okay. It's a romance series with a lot of heterosexual canon couples. But, I think because of that, many people are not entering this fandom with an understanding that people shipping queer fanon couples have been the ones who were the originators of many fandom terms that we have come to know and use today.

Conclusion:

I hope you all found this informative and that you can take away something from this post that can help you have better interactions and ability to communicate with others in this fandom. Again, I want to stress, that this is heavily influenced by my own 25 years of experience being in fandoms. And I haven't seen it all. Others will have different interpretations of these terms and experiences using these terms. So, feel free to add on anything that you think would be helpful to those in the ACOTAR community to better understand how to "ship and let ship". I do think that ship war are inevitable and not necessarily a bad thing. But using the right terms can help you engage in a more respectful way within ship war discourse.

[lifesteal-headcanons]

queerplatonic swagsquid anon returning with a crackship i've been rotating in my mind. just hear me out guys pretty please: ash/squiddo/reddoons.

squiddo & ash are QPPs, ash & reddoons are dating, and squiddo & reddoons aren't really sure what they are but they're Something. they got close because of their mutual bond with ash and now they're also inseparable. sometimes ash & redd go on dates, sometimes they invite squiddo, sometimes it's just ash kicking it w/ his qpp, and sometimes redd & squiddo hang out and chill. i have no canonical basis for this at all, only my love for swagdoons+swagsquid. but consider it pretty please i love them dearly

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