#i love this ship smh

[chinposan]

Well, I got this on my feed thanks to the algorithm, so now I kinda feel obliged to reply as an Obikin enjoyer.

I think three important notions of having a ship and let ship mentality is 1. awareness of the fact that we all interpret a body of work differently. Even what is explicitly said in text may be interpreted through storytelling devices like unreliable narrators or by assuming omission. 2. Remembering that the whole point of fandom is finding new angles/creating narratives based on the stories we love. Shipping especially so. And finally, that 3. it's all fictional good fun. Disregard the author, do your what-if's, write a bunch of noncon pwp, crack-ship characters who've never met or whatever.

In my humble opinion, you don't 'ship and let ship' nor are you fandom-friendly on this topic 🤷. I say this because you first claim that your interpretation is more valid than anybody elses by stating that Obikin and Quiobi don't work in-universe without saying why. Then you instead list a bunch your own preferred real-world norms, moral standards and associations as if they apply to others' fictional narratives.

To answer your question "Why can't Obikin be in a familiar relationship, not romantic?" it's because I don't interpret Star Wars the same way you do, I want to explore other kinds of narratives than you do, and I like to have good fun in the fandom we all love, just like you.

The world is a complex place and some of us prefer to explore other scenarios and narratives than those that are normative and entirely expected. For me personally it's because I find those narratives uninspiring.

To go into specifics, which you may not care about, I personally ship obikin as something in between platonic, romantic and familiar that is both intense, complex and blurry - feelings that they themselves don't fully understand or ever get to explore due to Obi-Wans repressed nature and reluctance towards discussing emotions. I see these feelings as existing parallel to Anakin's infatuation with Padmè - you can love more than one person - and for Anakin that's a big narrative theme. This interpretation is based on my reading of the 20 years or so of legends, canon and reference material out there. I enjoy this narrative becasue it enhances the tragedy of Mustafar, as there are extra layers of unresolved emotional tension there when the plot drives our trio into a corner.

I also enjoy jokingly referring to Obikin as endgame in reference to their reunion in the Force that is orchestrated by Obi-Wan while Padmé remains gone. But of course that's up to interpretation like everything else 🤭.

I really can’t understand Obikin and Quiobi. For me it tastes as both partially pedophilia and partially incest. Just think of it – both Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon have known their padawans since kids were 9 and 12 respectively. They were parent figures, literally brought their padawans up. And then – romance? How can any adult feel romantic towards a person who they remember as a child? It’s not the same situation when people with big age difference meet as grown-ups. Also marriage between step-parents and step-children or adoptive parents and adopted children, although not blood-related, is considered incest.

Ship and let ship, I know, but in-universe these ships just don’t work at all – and there’re a lot of shippers who insist Obikin is endgame and it has always been so. Specifically thanks to Matthew Stover, the author of ROTS novelization, who inserted a lot of ‘Obikin’ moments which are often translated as a prove of in-universe romance.

And I’m not even mentioning power imbalance of ‘teacher-student’ relationship. Why can’t Quiobi and Obikin be in ‘familiar’ relationship, not romantic? After all, Anakin canonically has Padme, and Obi-Wan is shippable with lots of characters without weird pedo stink (including clones, because clones are adult men who grew up faster, not kids in adult bodies).

[selfshipping-haven]

Okay. I'm gonna be real with you.

Yes, selfshipping should be for you. It should make you happy. You should make things for yourself.

But also, humans are social creatures, right? We like to share things with others and make connections, right?

So why should we look people in the eye, people who get 0 notes and interactions, and tell them that they should be doing all this for themselves, when other people get fanart for their ships?

Would it really kill people to interract more with people they don't know? People who can't draw as well or as constantly, or have less stamina, or just aren't talked to very much? Would that really hurt?

[mukimokai]

they're married !! 🏛🌱

[myuminji]

[not ship/ not romantic]

nai who's full of love instead of hatred. Nai who's full of love instead of fear. nai who knows only to love, that all he knows is love. and he hates that it's the only thing he can do—loving. being alone. loving. never loved.

and he hates the things that made him love: his love for rem, his love for the plants, his love for his brother. all his life he'd loved and love and love, and he's tired of loving despite never knowing what love is.

[pixlatedvampire]

Someone come help me kill my ghoul and skeleton so I can have Ragnvaldr and Cahara in my party

[charlesemersonwinchesteriii]

The real fujoshi throne, of course, is Hodgson's cabin on the ship, perfectly situated between Little's and Irving's such that he can hear both of them jerking off and softly moaning the other one's name, each unbeknownst to the other.

[lilac-rose-writes]

takes your austix and throws them into my au machine. they have come out with trauma and pronouns. you're welcome

[max-the-silly-guy]

Chat do we fw reflective detective

[jupiter--dream]

So tired of Cream being considered "the vanilla/super wholesome ship" when, yes, it ends like that at one point, but both Dream and Cross are characters who have a hard time seeing their own value past their usefulness, I wish there were more fics exploring the ways their tendency to self-sacrifice would hurt the relationship

[venice-1987]

An annoying phenomenon I've noticed

Alternatively: Whatever you do, don't go onto the TDP reddit

(Alternatively, let people ship things)

[lethality-of-dual-strike]

(most of) my favorite fop character sketches to take my mind off of the sense of impending doom

[solivagantingrebel]

OKAY SO GHOSTSOAP AND PET NAME THOUGHTS,,

Ghost who just got in a relationship with Soap and is pretty new to dating and being in a committed relationship, he wants to do couple-y things with Soap, and he knows Soap wants more lovey dovey stuff from him but he's somewhat clueless about the whole thing and ends up being way too serious and intense about it.

He gets in this weird conundrum about names - pet names in particular. He wants to give Soap one, and 'Johnny' can definitely count as something similar since he exclusively uses it for him but it's not exactly that. He also does not want to be awkward about the whole thing. Johnny deserves the world and then some, the least he can do is put an effort and be purposeful about it. So, he ends up researching pet names, reading relationship articles, running himself mad trying to figure out what would be perfect; to the point of whispering different pet names out when he's cuddling with Johnny and thinks he's asleep. (he's not - completely that is- soap dismissed that it was real the first few times but after it kept happening, he secretly relishes how cute ghost is being)

It gets to the point that Soap is already casually dropping all these Gaelic pet names for him and he's still stiffly calling him 'Johnny' and nothing else because for the life of him, he can't figure it out. Then, one day, he's just randomly bantering and cuddling with Soap and Johnny says something stupid and he just goes "fucking hell, love" while shaking his head and he freezes a second after because he realises what he said and Johnny's staring at him all wide eyed and shocked, and he's panicking.

Because out of everything, anything, the most basic of pet names slips out. Hell, 'love' is something you can say to a stranger, something you can say to anyone where he's from and it doesn't even-

Johnny's looking at him, blue eyes murky with the slightest hint of tears and yet there's a smile on his lips that's softer than anything he's ever seen. He doesn't even get to think before he's leaning over to grasp Ghost's face tightly to kiss him until they don't have a breath left in their lungs and when they finally pull away, Johnny looks at him like he's holding everything and more between his hands.

(because soap knows ghost, he knows he doesn't say things he doesn't mean and when he said love casually, as if there wasn't a world where he wasn't his love - he knew he meant it wholeheartedly)

[tackykachowch]

Okay, here it goes. So, there's been this one thing that I was thinking about for quite a while. Almost a month, actually. Yes-yes, you guessed it, it's about s2 again. BUT!! With a twist. Let me show you what I mean

S2 introduced us to the (terrible) Vander's "apology" letter, a(n awful) flashback in The Last Drop, and the main element of our tonight's analysis - a (horrific) True Reason™️ for Vander and Silco's split up. In it we can see Silco throwing a molotov at enforcers and that led to F*licia dying. This enraged Vander and he tried to kill Silco. And what's wrong with that, you ask? Well, that was what I was asking myself as well. Because no matter how hard I thought about it I couldn't find a valid reason Why this feels wrong to me. So I went "Welp. Fine. Some things I just don't personally vibe with" but THEN. It Finally Hit Me. The thing that bothers me about this "reason" the most is the thematic dissonance.

Let's start from the very start (again). In season 1 ep2 Silco tells Deckard that "there's a monster inside all of us". See? This is a key phrase here. "There IS a monster inside all of us" meaning that no matter who you are, a hero or a villain or something in-between, there's ALREADY a living monster inside you. Let's take a look at a couple of examples. Vander let his monster out for a long time, hence why he became "The Hound of the Underground", but it didn't bother anyone since he was "the good guy" beating "the bad guys" up. Jinx showed her monster a little since she was young, and we can see it in how she was trying to make a working bomb with needles in it, but nobody paid attention to it since none of them worked. Deckard's monster was out and proud, but everyone was mocking him because he was weak. Mel let her monster take over her thoughts when she wanted to make Piltover her greatest creation no matter the price, even when the price was the lives of countless Zaunites. I think you get the picture. But why then Silco, the character who introduced us to this theme Himself, couldn't have one when he was young? What is the purpose of making him completely innocent? To make us sympathize with him more? Well, that's certainly a cheap trick, because people who wanted to emphasize with him already did so since season 1, and those who didn't probably won't do this even after the flashback. "Corrupted innocence" is not a bad trope, but like I showed with previous examples, it doesn't really mesh well with Arcane's world and other main characters. So, why not make it so Silco started to slowly let his monster come out to the surface, but Vander was so terrified of it that he decided to kill it no matter what it took? Because remember, the way Vander tried to kill Silco was EXTREMELY violent. It is very likely that he didn't want to take any chances with what he wanted to do.

Well that's all good and sound, you can say, but something isn't quite right here. Isn't the season 1 finale's title "The monster you created"? Why, you're completely right, my dear friend who is the other part of me I let to speak. But the thing is, these two themes coexist with each other, and moreover, they CAN'T exist without each other. There Is a monster inside all of us, ever since we're born really, but as we grow up and experience new things and meet new people more of these monsters can be created, or it can fuel the existing monster to become bigger and bigger (which still counts as creating tbf). Let's look back to the examples I provided earlier. Jinx was a little violent when she was a child, but then she experienced betrayal, grief, resentment etc, and they became her monsters as well, finally fusing into one in season 1's finale. Deckard's monster required only a little more power to become really terrifying. But there are a couple of characters who behaved themselves differently with their monsters. Because even tho there is a monster inside us, but like Victor said: "There's always a choice". You can love and nurture the monster, encourage it to become bigger and bigger, or you can try to ignore it, to seal it deep within yourself, until it finally bursts out, or you can accept it, live with it at peace and not let it influence you at the same time. That's precisely what Silco, Vander and Mel did, exactly in this order. And that's what makes the story all the richer and interesting, because characters deal with the same situation very differently.

So after all of this bunch of text I can finally and confidently say: s2's explanation for Vander and Silco's falling out is complete bullocks. Not only it cheapens the conflict between them itself, but also robs Silco and the story overall of their complexity and separates them from one of the main themes introduced in season 1. With that, dear audience, I bow out. Have a good night

[the-sleepless]

Drew some peskyblaze inspired by @mudboowl’s design of tango, and his wonderful artworks!

It was quite fun doing the lighting effects-

[rainysofsunshineao3]

Ok ok,

I'm getting what they're doing here...Season 1 everyone knows Jinx is Silco's. Everyone references that he's her father, she's his daughter. It's a fact everyone understands. We get only small snippets of Vander being a father figure to Jinx when she was young, the only two I can name off my head is him giving her the juice in the cup and him saying to Vi "Take care of Powder".

Season 2 rolls around and the writers make a hell of an effort to say "Look, Vander is her dad too!" with Jinx herself saying "dad" twice, her sniffing Vander's jacket and not Silco's (which tbh I'm a little pissed abt, but moving on) and the whole "he's your dad too". This time, they really really put the other father figure in the subtext, barely giving him mention at ALL except for in drawings from the Art of Arcane book and some subtle cues in the show (like, she write DADA or FAMILY all over most of the art pieces with Silco), as well as Young Silco's hair being pretty much Jinx's iconic hairstyle and the whole heartbreaking water burial scene we get.

By the end of the series, we know she loved them both very much and they loved her very much in turn, regardless if it was healthy or not. They just switched which dynamic was in the subtext.

I must say, though, WHY COULDN'T SHE CALL SILCO DAD, WHY WAS THAT NOT THERE I NEEDED MORE FLASHBACK OF YOUNG JINX AND SILCO.

On that note, I also need those 60 seconds of Timebomb we were robbed of, Riot better make a directors cut or SOMETHING

[orphicauroras]

Yep antis got it right. I ship my absolute favorite character with my least favorite batboy simply because I hate Elain. Nope, it has nothing to do with Gwyn feeling comfortable or Azriel feeling settled. It has nothing to do with their banter and chemistry. It's all because I hate the third archeron.