#anyway all the best ships find each other beyond understanding and incapable of being out into words

[ferociouslycreativemystery]

Re-reading A Study in Scarlet after a decade and I only got as far as chapter two when Watson decided to describe Holmes' methods as "ineffable twaddle". Please excuse me while I rip the page out and swallow it whole

[mittensmorgul]

it’s a bummer to see you can’t enjoy the ending. I hope someday you can come around it it. It wasn’t perfect but it didn’t nuke its integrity. i think the heart of the show really shines through and it’s a shame that it’s not being appreciated bc there’s so much shipping drama 😣

Hi there!

I... first of, I really need people to understand this... the travesty of the finale for me has almost nothing to do with “shipping drama.”

Yes, I see the wild conspiracy theories flying around, and I’m honestly concerned for some of those folks and hope they can find a way to make peace with this in whatever way they can, because we aren’t likely to ever get a better answer than that this is legitimately the ending that Dabb thought was best, despite years of us seeing the best of his writing choices and guiding Sam, Dean, and Cas to grow past the roles that Chuck would’ve forced them to fulfill, and that at the end it fell flat because he couldn’t actually come up with a better ending than “this was always their destiny, free will is a lie, and these characters had nothing outside of the revenge quest they’d been raised for since birth and manipulated into over and over for the entertainment of a vengeful god.”

I can see how “surface level” viewers would feel that this one basic narrative point was satisfying, that Sam and Dean had grown beyond their own hopeless cycle of self-sacrifice that had driven the narrative for so many years. The fact that they both acknowledged that they should allow their stories to end in that way was satisfying... but only in the shallowest and most detached read of the narrative. Like, is this really the ONLY thing these two characters learned in the last 15 years? If so, that is BEYOND depressing af.

And even THAT message lost all narrative weight when the two of them were once again reunited in death, as if nothing else had ever mattered in their lives. As if neither of them had ever outgrown the codependency that had driven so many of those previous self-sacrifices and refusals to let go of each other even in death.

So yeah, in the absolute most basic sense, I suppose I can see how casual viewers or people who aren’t actually invested in these characters could find that at least narratively coming back to a starting point.

But narratives don’t actually work that way, and that’s not the point of watching fifteen years of story develop in between.

This story wasn’t JUST about Sam and Dean needing to accept that death might be okay actually.

This story was also about free will, fighting for humanity as a whole but also their OWN humanity and self-identities. In Dean’s case, the absolutely transformative growth from feeling like nothing but a hammer, a killer, a tool to be used. And then less than an episode and a half later, after finally accepting that truth into his heart and using it to defeat the original creator and reclaim the story of his own life for himself... he gets pied in the face after flippantly talking about his destiny and having no choice, and then three scenes later he literally dies impaled on a great big nail... like a hammer...

So I would kindly ask folks who feel satisfied by that shallowest possible takeaway of this episode, and maybe invite folks to look just under that surface. Try to understand why loads of us will NEVER feel satisfied with this ending, and why it truly does feel like the most hopeless version of the story. Like even in defeating Chuck, they could never be allowed to own their own stories and what happened to them after that point was just a twisted version of the “destiny” that drove Chuck’s entire plotline for them anyway.

Please understand where we’re seeing this as horrifically painful irony rather than some beautiful circular narrative about letting go.

For a lot of us, the shipping stuff would’ve been the cherry on top of the sundae. We would’ve been happy with a scoop of plain vanilla, though. We would’ve been happy for anything that honored the journey to freedom, and the choice at any sort of a different life of their own making than literally falling back on a nail fighting off one of John’s unresolved hunts and a vampire who had literally never been named in canon before, yet who Dean instantly recognized somehow... 

but sure, for those of us who felt that “the heart of the show” was all the stuff that the finale actually erased-- that “family don’t end in blood,” and that this was actually not a show about just two brothers but the love of their found family and coming to terms with the choices they actually HAD made for themselves versus the narrative that Chuck kept centering them in DESPITE what they would choose for themselves, the finale basically told us no, everything you ever found of value in this story actually meant nothing. It told us that Chuck’s story for them was their only truth in the end, and their only freedom was to be found in death.

Please, I am begging people, stop trying to gaslight us that this was some beautiful ending. Maybe think for a second that “your read” of the narrative that allows you to find peace with the ending is not what we saw and loved about this story for the 326 episodes leading up to this finale.

And please try to understand that we were not wrong to see the entire narrative through this lens. Because we were literally validated IN CANON, and told that we understood the depth of the story and the characters just fine, actually. There’s literally ONE episode of the entire series that burns it all down in a bewildering pile of wtf. And that’s #327. That throws that entire read out the window to well actually us all back into Chuck’s literal ending... This was literally the ending Chuck wanted to force them to enact for him, and it’s what ended up happening even after they defeated him-- the ultimate Big Bad of the entire series should’ve been defeated, but instead he pulled off one final victory over the entire story.

Becky: No. You can't-- Chuck: I did. Becky: Y- This is just an ending. Chuck: Yeah. I don't know how I'm gonna get there, but I know where I'm goin'. Becky: B-But it's so... dark. Chuck: But great, right? I can see it now -- "Supernatural: The End". And the cover is just a gravestone that says "Winchester". The fans are gonna love it. Well? Becky: It's awful! Horrible. It's hopeless. You can't do this to the fans. What you did to Dean? What you did to Sam? Chuck: There, see? It's making you feel something. That's good, right?

and

Dean: Well, what now? You're not gonna dust us. Chuck: Oh, yeah? Why not? Dean: Because you're holding out. For your big finish. Yeah, we know about your galaxy-brained idea, how you think this story is gonna go. Sam got a little look into your draft folder. Chuck: Sam's visions -- they weren't drafts. They were memories. My memories. Other Sams and other Deans in other worlds. But guess what. Just like you, they didn't think they'd do it, either. But they did. And you will, too. Dean: No. Not this Sam. And not this Dean. So you go back to Earth 2 and play with your other toys. Because we will never give you the ending that you want. Chuck: We'll see.

And even in DEFEAT Chuck thought he understood these characters, thought that having rendered him powerless they would finally take their revenge and kill him, but they didn’t, because he never actually understood these characters at all. And the story he tried to force them into from day one was never about THEM, it was about HIM. 

And then Dean gets like two whole days of freedom and choice and is apparently incapable of making any of the choices that don’t throw him immediately back into Chuck’s favorite story. Like none of that resolution in the previous episode meant anything at all. He even SAYS it in the finale:

Dean: Yeah, no. I think about 'em, too. You know what? That pain's not gonna go away. Right? But if we don't keep living, then all that sacrifice is gonna be for nothing.

And then two scenes later the show gives us the Nelson Muntz HA HA and Dean is no longer living, and Sam is left to carry on as a shell of himself and wander off into Blurry Wife Land to devote any even remotely content moment of the rest of his years to raising a  Replacement Dean to fill the void, and is never able to pick up the pen to write anything better of his own life than Chuck would’ve dealt him in the first place.

So I’m glad that top-layer takeaway is sustaining and enough for you. It wasn’t, and will never be enough for the rest of us.

What was actually real in all of this? We were.

Until we weren’t.

And that’s honestly a shit message to be pushing on people in the wake of it all. So please stop.

I should actually thank you for the kind intent with which your message is phrased, but that doesn’t make it feel less hilariously awful. Though I chose this one to reply to as the least insulting of all the messages currently in my inbox on this subject. So thanks for that, at least.

[border-spam]

Q: Do you think Typhon was an abusive father? He says he was a 'third rate dad' but doesnt explain why. Randy said he refused to touch Tyreen after Leda died. His reaction to killing his kids could just be bad writing. Troy said he thought he was a freak, but that could be Troy's insecurity. Our only evidence is what Typhon and the Twins say, but Typhon is suspicious already and the Twins are shown to be manipulative. Was Typhon a clueless father trying his best or an abusive asshat?

Hooo boy. Been sitting on this one a while. In we go. 

Was Typhon DeLeon an abusive father: A nerd essay by me, cause I’m a sad fuck.

Yeah. He was. 100%. Absolutely.

Just not intentionally, and for reasons that were coming from good places. I can’t stand Typhon but I’m going to remain relatively unbiased in this bar insulting him as much as possible cause fuck Typhon. Eww.

Bl3 left us with shockingly little information to go on when it came to figuring out how all this went down, how Typhon’s upbringing or lack thereof of the Calypso Twins warped them into the broken monstrous Gods they became, and if he was actually really to blame or not.

We have four main players in this puzzle. Typhon, Troy, and Tyreen DeLeon, and Leda Calypso. One of these characters didn’t get a single line of dialogue and was reduced to being a fucktoy attached to a womb, so poor Leda is out of the equation.

We have a third party write up on Typhon released after the game containing a lot of content that was never in the game, including some of his logic behind the choices he made here.

And finally, we have the information given to us by the three remaining characters. Typhon, and the Calypso Twins.

Breaking this down further, we have two characters at odds with each other, Typhon and Tyreen. 

Tyreen hates Typhon. Hates. It can’t be stressed enough that the only motivation the writers left in the game for poor Ty, was how much she hated her father. Tyreen however, is also a grade A dramaqueen and someone who I cannot bring myself to trust completely when it comes to her describing how Typh treated the twins. I am positive everything she says is based on a truth, but how much of it has been over exaggerated and built on after years of brooding and hatred is up to us to work out, and that’s quite hard to do.

Typhon on the other hand, is a grade A bullshitter. We learn this through his logs and through actually just *talking* to the vile little prick. He speaks in anecdotes, he relies on constantly retelling stories to communicate. I wouldn’t trust the little shit as far as I could throw him. He constantly exaggerates his accolades, his sexual prowess, likely how much his wife was infatuated with him, his skill in adventuring, everything, but he still confirms he was not a good father, so that really says a lot. 

Finally, we have the only person I actually trust when it comes to their opinion on this. Finally, we have Troy.

Something I’ve noticed after chatting with friends about this and covering old content, is how little Troy Calypso ever seems to lie or bullshit. He is shockingly honest, it’s a real surprise compared to Tyreen. He’s truthful to the vault hunters, his emotions are pretty much worn on his sleeve around Ty, and even in dialogue with the likes of Katagawa he is direct and not nearly as “flowery” in his communication as she is. 

He hates the majority of the COV followers and shows a complete lack of coddling them, and he does the same with the VH and raiders. He’s direct in his communication in general, especially when alone and out of persona.

Troy gives us more backstory about the twin’s family life than literally any other point in the game does, and he explains it genuinely, 1:1 and privately to the VH over echocom. He has no reason to lie. There is no gain in this for him, there is no grounds for me to think anything he said was false because lying in this situation wouldn’t match his established character. 

Troy does not hate Typhon. 

Troy did not want to leave Nekrotafeyo. 

Troy did not want to leave his father.

The info Troy shares with us is that Typhon couldn’t let Ty out of his sight after Leda had her “accident”, and he was overbearing in his worry for her. Troy was sidelined as a child and felt that his father just saw him as a freak while doting (unwantedly it seems) on Tyreen. This may not have been directly the case, but again, there is no reason to think Troy is making this up. He doesn’t make up things like this for pity, he actually seems quite averse to looking for pity in general.

Tyreen says Typhon kept them in a cage, that he was afraid the Bandits in the universe would tear them apart, and instead held them prisoner. This is semi factual, but definitely blown out of proportion because again, Troy doesn’t feel this way. Typhon (according to the additional info in the writeup I linked) was terrified of what corporations would do to twin Sirens -considering one is male-, and that’s a really valid concern.

They would absolutely be hunted by the likes of Hyperion if Jack hadn’t been balls deep in his mad rush for the warrior at the time. Typh wouldn’t let them leave home based on this, and while I can understand his logic, there are three main things to consider here:

Troy and Tyreen both seem to think Typhon thought Ty was a monster and that was the reason they were not allowed leave. That is fucked. There is no way they both came up with this out of the blue, and Typhon must have at some point said something or acted in a way to imply this was the reason. That is horrific. That is beyond abusive to say to children, and it was definitely a factor in how warped their mentality towards themselves over time became.

The twins were so terrified of Typhon finding the ship parts Troy was working on and destroying them, that they hid them inside their mothers grave. Again. This is horrific. This is not something young adults who aren’t abused would consider doing. Troy has never alluded to hating Typhon and still agreed with Tyreen this needed to be done. The fear there is palpable, this is not the behavior of young adults who’s relationship with a parent is healthy.

The twins and Typhon had a complete lack of trust between them. A family with this level of distrust has encountered abuse at some point. Typhon was so distrusting of his near adult children ( the twins sounded very late teens - early twenties on Nekro ) that he refused to allow them to have any semblance of a life. He refused to let them be free, because he so feared they would either be incapable of caring for themselves, or would hurt others. The twins distrusted their father so much that they had to resort to hiding their escape means from him. Even Troy, who thought once the ship was complete they’d be taking Typhon with them, didn’t trust him enough to let him know what he was working on. They were afraid of what their father would do if he found out. 

This dynamic drips abuse. If it was just Tyreen telling this information to us, I’d find it hard to take as factual as I said earlier, it would feel blown out of proportion, but Troy telling us, and the echologs existing and backing it up? Well, it’s not a lie. It did happen.

The final piece for me is how Typhon responded to Troy being dead. 

He couldn’t have fucking cared less. He did not give a flying shit. 

The one person who had shown any regret towards leaving him, who had cared about him, and Typhon didn’t bat an eyelid that he was dead. He gives an “Ah well he was a monster anyway lol” response, then immediately starts trying to baby talk his wittle girl, his ickle Starlight. It’s gross. It was vile.

It really showed where his value lay and had always lay, and confirmed Troy had been telling the truth when he’d awkwardly tried to explain how Typhon had just always seen him as a freak, while overly doting on Tyreen to the point of smothering her. 

He was a terrible father, and while his abuse came from a place of concern and love, it was absolutely abuse. 

Had he so much as tried to find his kids, had he cared about them an iota more then sitting on a dead planet jacking off to memories of his wife for nearly a decade, the twins might have stood a chance. They might have been able to be happy.

Asks are open!

[whitewolfofwinterfell]

hey, shannen! regarding your last post about skins (effy/cook): it's really interesting to hear other opinions. Personally, I liked that that specific pair didn't end up together; I always thought their relationship was too dysfunctional and damaging to make a good fit! But I have to admit, I didn't watch all of the fire/ice etc episodes and maybe it's been too long to remember s3/s4 correctly haha;) just love to hear your take on it if you find some time! best wishes :)

Hey there, anon!

I couldn’t have recieved this ask at a better time, because I literally just finished re-watching seasons 3 and 4 of Skins yesterday! 

Thanks for sending this ask, I always love to discuss these topics and I’ve never really had the opportunity to discuss Cook and Effy in-depth before. Strap yourself in, because this is pretty lengthy, but hopefully you’ll enjoy reading my take on it. :)

Cook and Effy are a very complicated ship for me, because part of me thinks they’re very toxic and that practically they could never work as a couple. However, the other part of me thinks that they were only portrayed that way on the surface, and that in actuality, there is no basis for thinking that. Cook and Effy absolutely could’ve worked together if the show had given them that opportunity.

Personally, I don’t think it was their relationship that was dysfunctional or damaging, but Cook and Effy themselves. As people, Cook and Effy were both deeply damaged people by the time they met in season 3. Having known Effy from seasons 1 and 2, we know that she suffered from some form of Selective Mutism and that she generally had a lot of emotional difficulties in regards to opening up to and connecting to others. Nothing describes that as well as her line in season 2 when she said, “Sometimes I think I was born backwards, you know, came out my mum the wrong way. I hear words go past me backwards. The people I should love I hate, and the people I hate–” In seasons 1 and 2 Effy was around 14-15 years old and she was already demonstrating reckless and self-destructive behaviours - regularly taking drugs, having sex with people she barely knew and generally entering into dangerous situations (e.g. Spencer in 1x08) with no regard for her safety or well-being. Also, at the end of season 1, she suffered the trauma of seeing Tony get hit by the bus, which we know hugely impacted her because she made reference to it in season 4.

As for Cook, although we never physically get to see his past in the same way we do with Effy, we know enough to know that his childhood was far from happy and that it deeply affected him. His mother was a neglectful and unstable alcoholic who was known for having sex with men for money and his father abandoned him when he was a young child (we also know he was a complete asshole from his appearance in the season 3 finale). He had an uncle, who was a bigoted drug dealer who not only supplied him with drugs but encouraged him to partake in it. Everything we know about Cook’s family suggests that he was neglected and it’s very likely that he raised himself for the most part, which explains why emotionally he was closed off, afraid to connect to others and incapable of maintaining healthy relationships (this was particularly clear with his friendships with Freddie and JJ).

So, to summarise, Cook and Effy are two people that both struggled (for different reasons) with emotionally connecting to people and that were terrified of opening themselves up to love because they didn’t want to get hurt. Their relationship for the majority of season 3 (up until 3x08) was a manifestation of that inability to forge connections and/or fear of it. It was a shallow relationship built almost exclusively on sex, and although some may perceive it as unhealthy, it wasn’t. It was a mutual understanding between two people whose reasons for being together were the same - they were using each other.

For Effy, her sexual relationship with Cook was all about avoiding and repressing her feelings for Freddie. We know this because Effy said in 4x05 that she knew from the very first time she saw Freddie he was the closest she would ever get to being close and in 3x07 Cook revealed whilst under the influence of “truth” pills that Effy was having sex with him because she couldn’t stand the fact that she loved Freddie.

With Cook, his reasons for entering into a sexual relationship with Effy were simply because he was attracted to her (which we know from the first moment he saw her) and that was what Cook did and was used to doing - he had casual sex with lots of girls. Cook’s perception of sex was a clear indicator of the complex emotional issues he had. His obsession with having sex was a result of him desperate craving intimacy whilst simultaneously being afraid of it. He had sex to attempt to have that intimacy with another person, but then labelled it as casual and meaningless to invalidate that intimacy and close himself off to it.

When looking at it like this, it might seem ridiculous that I then claim that their relationship wasn’t damaging, because it certainly wasn’t what constitutes a healthy relationship, but by the same token, it wasn’t bad either. From the first time they had sex, there was a mutual understanding between Cook and Effy that their relationship was just no-strings attached sex. There was no manipulation or coercion, it was all consensual and mutual. As their relationship continued, it became complicated because feelings got involved and both of them were hurt by each other, but it was the kind of hurt all relationships experience and nothing particularly awful. In season 3, Effy was hurt when she found out Cook was sleeping with Pandora but she knew that she and Cook weren’t exclusive and that they could both sleep with whoever they wanted. Effy’s reaction to that was much more about Pandora’s betrayal, as her best friend, than Cook’s. And Cook was hurt continuously by Effy’s feelings for Freddie and her relationship with him. Besides that, there was nothing that happened between Cook and Effy that constitutes damaging. In fact, I’d argue that Effy’s relationship with Freddie was much more damaging to her than her relationship with Cook was. What I’m trying to say is that Cook and Effy’s relationship was exactly what a friends-with-benefits or casual-sex-buddy relationship looks like, and therefore not dysfunctional. Even when their relationship developed beyond the casual type due to Cook falling in love with Effy, it was still what any non-reciprocated relationship is. Cook was heartbroken, he attempted to express his love for her on occasions and she made it clear that she didn’t return his feelings in a respectful but firm way (excluding 4x07 when she rudely told him to piss off after he told her he loved her, which always really bugged me because it felt so OOC).

Regarding your comment about Cook and Effy not being a great fit, I’ve actually always felt the opposite. Although they’re very similar (x) and the popular saying is that opposites attract, I think Cook and Effy worked together really well. I don’t think we got to see just how well they could’ve worked, because they were never truly together and most of their relationship was about the triangle with Freddie/Effy. Effy said in 4x07 that Cook was never good for her, but I never understood that because there’s absolutely nothing to support that claim. If you look close enough, you can see how good they were together. The two of them actually spent a lot of time together, although we never see it on-screen, it’s spoken about or hinted at. For example, in 3x08 Cook turned up at Effy’s house and was on a first name basis with her mom and had brought groceries to cook for her, suggesting he spent a lot of time at her house (and not always in her bedroom since he knows her mom) and also that they did do other things other than just have sex. Cook also knew that Effy’s favourite film was E.T. which means they either watched it together or Effy told him. At the end of season 3 they spent a significant amount of time (we can assume weeks, maybe even months) on the run together, only in the company of each other. My point is, they clearly got on well and knew each other too. Whenever Cook and Effy had scenes that weren’t the melodramatic angsty type that Skins is well known for, they were light and natural together (x). Throughout the whole of the season 3 finale (which is a very Ceffy centric episode), they worked. If you take the Freddie/love triangle drama out of the equation, they were affectionate towards each other, they had fun, Effy was supportive and protective over Cook when it came to his dad and Cook was making plans for his future with Effy (to get a job and a boat). Putting aside their individual issues (which I mentioned above), when Cook and Effy were together they were good together. Even if they were just having sex, that was okay, because it was what they both wanted. They knew how to have fun and be in a moment together, and that was what drew them together from the beginning, because they could lose themselves in a moment and forget about everything else. Also, for all their similarities, Cook didn’t have the same depressive tendencies as Effy and was able to keep her on an even keel more so than anybody else (this is particularly obvious in comparison to Freddie, who I felt fed Effy’s depression). That’s why I find it so strange that there’s this perception that Cook was wrong or bad for her, because firstly, Cook never actually did anything to warrant him being “bad” for her. He drank too much, did drugs too much, partied too much but so did Effy, so did Freddie, so did every character on the show (excluding JJ). Cook never did anything to push Effy to a dark place, he never did anything to hurt her or harm her in anyway. Everything they did together was what Effy was doing before she met Cook and what she did with everybody else. In fact, I sincerely believe that Cook was capable of helping Effy and reaching her emotionally more than anybody else. In 4x07 when Effy was in a fragile mental state, she trusted Cook (despite not knowing him because of some hypnosis bullshit her psychopathic therapist did to her) and later in on the episode Cook was the one that brought her back.

As for Cook and Effy ending up together, I believe 100% that they should’ve been together, even if they hadn’t stayed together. If I had been in charge of the show, I would’ve completely scrapped the Freddie/Effy relationship and pursued a Cook/Effy romance from the beginning. From my perspective, it made complete sense that these two damaged people that were unable to emotionally connect would strike up a causal sexual relationship and eventually come to fall in love. Obviously, it wouldn’t have been a straightforward road for them or a particularly happy relationship, but it would’ve been very interesting to watch their ups and downs. Cook loved Effy completely, she was the first and only girl he had ever loved, and that was significant for his character and to have her return that love would’ve led to development for both of them. Skins as a show is all about young love and it’s realistic in its portrayal of that. All of the Skins relationships have their problems and none of them last (because the reality is a lot of young relationships don’t last as their lives go in different directions), so I couldn’t see Cook and Effy’s relationship lasting and them staying together, even if they had been together in seasons 3 and 4. Season 7, however, is a completely different story.

I’m a huge Skins fan and have been since I was a young teenager, but I strongly dislike season 7 and the choices that were made. In my opinion, to bring Effy and Cook back for the final season and not have them interact was criminal. Regardless of Effy’s romantic relationship with Freddie, Effy and Cook were strongly connected and fans would have loved to have seen them reunite. Since you didn’t watch season 7, you won’t be aware of how Cook and Effy developed, so I’ll briefly summarise. In season 7, Cook and Effy had both hugely mellowed in comparison to how they were in seasons 3 and 4, whilst keeping their core personalities. In season 7, Cook and Effy as a couple would’ve just worked. It was a chance to explore their unfulfilled potential and finally make the most of Kaya and Jack’s chemistry whilst remaining respectful to the Freddie/Effy relationship. If I could’ve written season 7 I would have had Cook be on the run (like he was in Rise) and Effy pursuing him because she’s seeking answers about Freddie’s disappearance. I would’ve had the two reunite and have Cook fall to pieces, because it’s Effy - the only girl he’s ever loved - and she brings to the surface everything he’s been keeping bottled up. But I would have him suppress those emotions and react angrily to her having found him, telling her she was stupid for looking for him and that she should’ve let it go. I’d have Effy respond angrily telling him that she couldn’t let it go and that since he and Freddie have gone everything’s gone to shit. Eventually, Cook would tell her the truth about what happened with Freddie and the therapist, and then in their grief-stricken and heightened emotional state they sleep together. Afterwards, Effy is conflicted because on the one hand she’s still grieving for Freddie but on the other, her feelings for Cook are resurfacing and the fact that Cook loves Freddie and is grieving him too means that they’re connected in a unique way. I would then have Cook get angry at Effy (again, because let’s face it, this is Cook lol), tell her to leave and go back to her life and forget about him like she should’ve done the first time, that he deserves to be punished and on the run for the rest of his life for what he did. Then Effy defends his actions saying Freddie’s death was her fault, she was the one that brought the doctor into their life and when Cook killed him he was only defending himself. I would’ve had Effy choose to stay with Cook and live with him on the run because she feels she has nothing at home to go back for. At that point, they wouldn’t be together, but the implication would clearly be there. It wouldn’t be a happy ending and it would be open ended, but I think it would’ve worked perfectly. Not only would it have provided the fans (and Cook and Effy) with closure for Freddie’s death, but would’ve explored that potential of Cook and Effy and ended on a semi-positive note.

One final thing I wanted to talk about, is that despite the fact that I think Cook and Effy were a good fit and definitely weren’t dysfunctional, shipping Cook and Effy isn’t about happy endings or them being ‘good’ for each other or even ending up together. The appeal of the ship (for me, at least) is the messiness and realness of it. When two people have such complex and unresolved issues as Cook and Effy, it’s impossible to be in a healthy, happy, functioning relationship, because they’re not those things themselves. However, Cook and Effy show what love can be when it’s not neat or simple or easily defined. They also show that you can love another person with your whole heart despite feeling broken inside. Plus, Cook and Effy had such a palpable chemistry, history and connection that it’s difficult for me not to ship them and root for them to be together, even if only temporarily.