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readthephible · 7 months ago

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i've seen people talk about shaymien drifting apart and missing their dynamic- since i know you love them both dearly, what are your thoughts on this?

oh dear anon, idk if you know what you’ve signed up for letting me ramble about them. hiding this under a cut bc it will probably be very long and also like tw speculation

so i’m basically rewording what i sent in an emotional, pms-infused series of messages to my bestie arrow @feral-teeth. i have been making connections and conclusions in my head where i’m having to step back and realizing they’re so parasocial, but i think i just emotionally connect to both shayne and damien so much that it “all” has a deeper meaning to me. keep in mind that this all just thoughts i’ve had as a viewer, it’s not me trying to say that any of this is factual or encouraging anyone to pry. don’t do that please (i, avery smoshpvnk, do not endorse the act of harassing real people with my speculative thoughts of them)

my over-emotional Shaymien Thoughts™️ have progressed with my obsession, mainly looking at the wavelengths over the course of their friendship how they’ve been close, then a little more distant, close, then a little more distant. i don’t have a set in stone timeline for it ofc, especially compared to like dan and phil where we have very solid chronological factors to make sense of things, but a rough outline: so random, they become best friends. they eventually become roommates for a little while. damien moves in with an ex and they drift for a bit while shayne gets miscellaneous roles and eventually books with smosh. shayne opens the door for damien at smosh.

from the get go they’re already a solid duo like in show with no name episodes, we see them closer with the damien and shayne show - so many good moments!!!, smosh pit weekly, then into the mythical era still with a good dynamic like in tntls and stuff. eventually we get hacking off mini series (iconic and under appreciated) that starts in 2019. then they seem to still have a good, standout dynamic through the pandemic videos. hacking off comes back for a bit about 2021. there’s also some GREAT moments from like twitch / heavy baf era (basically the time when saige is there) about them seeming really close, chaotic, having fun (ex. quelf, uno, game of life) there was also a stream damien did (12/14/21) where shayne came to his apartment (that i didn’t know about until recently??? i would die for the vod)

we get closer to the renaissance aka anthony’s back era with stuff like baf legacy series (where damien is touchy with shayne as expected, and also i know at the end of the series he is proud of everyone for the commitment and character work but the way he looks at shayne, kill me) ⬇️

[Image ID: baf legacy betrayal set. the main focus is damien in the middle dressed as mr. grub, smiling up at shayne who is standing to the right of the image and posing with a katana as the chosen. angela is on the left, jaw dropped. End ID]

then, the damien and shayne show revival! that’s where damien unintentionally clears up their timeline in a sense, and it’s cute how he gives a sappy monologue about him and shayne’s friendship. it’s really sweet even though damien did make a joke at the end to deflect from it.

i watched the video when it released, and admittedly i haven’t been a recent (as in last 5 years) smosh watcher since about august, but after this, i have just noticed a bit more of a decline in “joint content” with them. the space in which we have had videos with them together since then and especially this year has been admittedly lengthy. i have respect for my fellow rarepair shippers like how we all experienced the spommy drought, but i feel like with shaymien we have an extensive history of “canon” content rather than more consistent, current content, compared to like ianthony for example where we get to see their dynamic all the time. or anyone + the frequent cast members like shayne, ian, courtney. (i don’t really count shour/tney as a ship bc it’s real and like, not to be touched how i see it. but you do you.) even the ones we’ve got, they haven’t been seated together. (except for smosh mouth, but like, that’s the guest chair.)

could this be because damien is just busy outside of smosh? of course it could. in streams and through social media posts, you can see/tell/hear that he has been traveling, auditioning and working a LOT. i feel like with smosh videos though, besides maybe through the delay of sword af, there wasn’t a huge, monumental difference that oh, damien isn’t in videos as much. like it seems a bit more balanced i guess or less noticeable. but also, shayne has been in a ton of videos this year already, so why haven’t they been casted together with how frequently we see them in videos normally??

we get the we found our so random scripts smosh mouth episode. hallelujah shaymien is reborn. right?

idk, this could be me just totally misinterpreting, but i feel like ever since about the “decline” after the d&s show returns video, i feel like there’s a bit of a disconnect. and now this is me being incredibly parasocial and self projecting, but because i relate to damien so much, i can kind of tell that he is the kind of friend that puts in the majority of the work when it comes to upholding a relationship. is this true for all of his relationships? i have no fucking clue. but it’s something i’ve noticed with shaymien specifically. how they just don’t interact the same or bounce off each other as much as they used to.

i got a comment on one of my compilations that started more of a spiral for me:

[image ID: A YouTube comment saying “The fact that Damien wasn't at Shayne's wedding can be something so shocking and sad to me personally.”End ID]

is this true? who knows, i’m not gonna try to look into it too much, but from what i’ve seen, it makes sense. extremely speculative: surely we would have gotten photos? unless it was actually really small and limited, but why would shelby young post about it then? same with renfaire. you’re telling me they both went but didn’t even meet up?

anyway, it breaks my heart. not just in a shipper sense. at the end of the day, i really just want what’s best for them, i love their friendship and i can admire a relationship being only platonic but so strong. i have a thing for duos and always have because my lack of having a best friend throughout my life. anyway

from what i’ve seen as a viewer: you can tell damien ADORES shayne. ofc in our little alternate universes we take it a step further for fictional fantasy fun purposes, but on camera, you can tell he loves shayne so much. they both have seemingly gone through some rough shit, been very vulnerable, and grew up from being 20 and 21 together - so young and figuring out the world. i believe damien’s dad died around the so random time, and being a young adult moving to la to become an actor, mental health, neurodivergence and therapy, weight issues (me coded!! damien is me!!), relationships, etc. and through 13 years, shayne has been a constant.

you can tell how grateful damien is that shayne has been there, proud of how far he’s come, and what they’ve done together. (again, he kind of summarizes it in the d&s show revival.)

how can you tell?

1.) because of how he looks at shayne when shayne isn’t looking back. the way damien looks at shayne in the smosh mouth episode makes me want to BAWL.

the heart eyes haas is INTENSE. it’s just so tender, loving, sappy, sentimental and sweet—the intimacy of getting to be nostalgic with someone about a very niche, specific time of your life is such a concept to me. only damien and shayne know what it was like to constantly be asked “where’s demi?” then have that moved to “where’s anthony?” from so random to smosh. only they (okay, and maybe some other so random cast members) know what it was like to be a “special guest” for all the episodes and never have a solidified position on a goddamn disney channel show, or what the on set pranks were like, or who the makeup artist was that made you look dead.

damien is the one to mention the “metaphysical soulmate radar”. damien is the one to say it was their big break, just not in the way they thought “for friendship and good connections”. if you are Unwell like me about them, there is still the lowkey amanda playing the third wheel bc they’ve known each other for so long dynamic, but it’s different compared to like, bad 2 sentence horror stories.

2.) how he makes references and talks about shayne when he isn’t even there (recently, jackbox video with smosh theme where he did shayne’s bananas on monday joke). a semi recent stream where a character’s name was shane and he said there was no correlation and got all 🥰 (https://www.tumblr.com/queenofcaradelle/741683580962521088/hellers-brothers)

and this:

[Image ID: A tweet from Trevor saying “shayne blocked me” with a meme image of baby Peter Griffin. Damien’s reply: “The hell did you do? I’ve been antagonizing him for 13 years, and never got so much as a shady subtweet.” End ID]

no one asked bro /lh

3.) scroll back on damien’s instagram a bit and see how much shayne appears. here’s a link: https://www.tumblr.com/smoshpvnk/735024614400524288 but to summarize that post it is THIRTY. PHOTOS. where the focus is just the two of them. the vidcon post from last year where damien shared the text exchange “WE are awful 😌”.

AND DAMIEN’S POST ABOUT SHAYNE’S FUCKING BIRTHDAY. HELLO???

also, i stalked damien’s instagram (not promoting to do that, but i did it) and he is a very, like, proud and happy lover of people! like he wants to shout about them from rooftops! i wasn’t in this fandom for saige era, and damien has deleted those public photos from his instagram, but the photos come up on pinterest for me - they’re very cute, sweet and proud.

(took out the @ name of his ex - not about saige bc of date)

4.) even how he touches shayne: damien is a VERY touchy feely person and usually ghosts his hands or gives very light touches to others, but with shayne, it’s a full grab, it’s a grip on the shoulder, it’s an initiated hug. it’s “heart of the cards” with a bro handshake that shayne thinks is gonna be a high five but damien holds his hand and forces it still. even when he knows a touch wouldn’t necessarily be appropriate, with shayne, damien’s inner thoughts just seem to win so he ghosts it (ex. hacking off where shayne has oreo on his mouth and damien pretends like he’s gonna wipe it off)

— end of examples

damien just loves him so hard and so genuinely. and again, this is only speculation, but especially as of lately, it does not seem that shayne reciprocates that much admiration.

i know exactly how it feels to be damien. to need a person in your life that you can be 100% yourself with, without holding yourself back, because otherwise you feel like you’re going crazy. how you can love and appreciate someone so much it becomes obsessive. that person, that relationship, becomes a core part of your identity. how even if it’s not necessarily romantic, you can develop strong crushes on people that feel so intense and overbearing. how you want to spend so much time with them, envision the two of you becoming so close, jealousy making you really hard on yourself.

i know, and maybe damien does too, what it’s like to be the one who gives 75% in the relationship when the other person is giving 25%. the 75% person is trying so hard to keep it alive when it doesn’t seem like the other one is giving the same amount of effort, and disappointingly, unceremoniously, and ultimately — it fades away or crashes and burns.

i feel like the smosh mouth episode, as beautiful as it is, is a great example. how there is some good back and forth between them, but i feel like it’s heavily dependent on only so random nostalgia, which is great, but it’s not a lot of new information. we know they became friends from being on so random. it’s like finding one common thing you and a coworker have and being forced to work together on it to produce a result. again, i love that episode, i watched it the second it came out and blocked the world out to watch it. and maybe i need to watch it back to squash the little voice in the back of my head saying their dynamic is different now, or maybe i need to watch it again to make that voice louder, or maybe i shouldn’t even touch it bc it will break my heart to analyze.

ofc this is only based on what we see. maybe shayne just isn’t a pda person at all (not just touch, i mean other methods too like the 5 love languages. see: my edit of shaymien x everything i know about love by laufey) or damien’s is so strong it makes his look like nothing (again about the 75/25 though.)

maybe their friendship is absolutely blossoming privately and we don’t see it. maybe they will drift apart for a bit but come back together in an amazing way. maybe their friendship is so strong that it can overcome a (presumed) not speaking period like ianthony. or maybe it isn’t. maybe their friendship isn't as strong anymore because of them being busy with other things, or being on different walks of life (ex. shayne just got married which is presumably taking up a lot of time)

i don't mean that to negate any of damien's accomplishments ofc like boi is successful, but it must be hard in a way to have your best friend hitting such a huge milestone when you're just... with 2 cats. not getting to be with him as much anymore. drifting away from a relationship you thought would last forever. stuck caring so much more than the other person does. understanding that life must go on and so do people but it’s a sad event.

i know that, for me, staying busy and forcibly mindful and in the moment/present (working WAY too much) where you don't even have a choice to stop and think and be in your head sometimes just numbs it and makes you forget, and damien has seemed so busy lately. i’m glad he said in his tuesday 4/23 stream that he plans on taking a break soon and that it doesn’t feel bad to be busy. he’s an adult, he can handle his own life, i’m not trying to baby him.

also, i don’t mean to blame shayne or anyone else for my (admittedly silly) little perceptions of some guys from a youtube channel i love. this is, again, all entirely speculative.

my heart hurts thinking about the potential of them not being best friends anymore, of the lack of content we have seen with both of them recently, of my own perception of how much shayne means to damien. don’t listen to mitski (especially francis forever) and think about shaymien at the same time. but if you do, you better meet me in my dms. don’t think about how we’ve gotten, what, 4 videos with them both this year and it’s already almost may. don’t think about how we haven’t seen anything from shayne to damien lately and how it’s all been damien /about/ shayne, mostly indirectly.

who knows what’s going on. but either way, shayne is a big part of damien’s life. thanks for letting me get on my shaymien soapbox 🫡

#*entry of the gladiators starts playing*#shaymien thoughts #anon #anonymous #asks #shaymien #speculation #tw speculation #rpf #shipping #smoshblr #p #smosh thoughts

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