#i ship him with ponce and van gogh

[sd2006]

Finally watched Clone High and you'll never guess who my favourite character is!

It's Gandhi!

Na it's JFK! But Gandhi is close second though, he has a special place in my heart as a fellow ADD/ADHD person.

[spicedfink]

Updated of my Clone High ship list:

Actual Ships:

Abe/Harriet

Abe/Topher

Cleo/Frida

Confucius/Joan

Harriet/Joan

JFK/Joan

Jackée/Lizzie

Scudworth/Mr. Buttlertorn (wasn't going to include non-clones but it needs to be said: they're basically canon in season 1. I don't know why season 2 and 3 have been trying to gaslight the audience into thinking they're straight)

I just think they're neat:

Abe/Confucius

Abe/JFK

Cleo/Confucius

Confucius/Gandhi

Confucius/Harriet

Confucius/JFK

Gandhi/JFK

Gandhi/Joan

Gandhi/Van Gogh

Harriet/JFK

JFK/Topher

JFK/Ponce

JFK/Vlad

Joan/Topher

Joan/Jesús

Joan/Vlad (trans FTM Joan though)

Topher/Van Gogh

Julius/Van Gogh

Van Gogh/Vlad

Abe/Confucius/Harriet/JFK/Joan/Topher

Abe/Confucius/Harriet/JFK/Joan

Abe/Confucius/JFK/Joan

Abe/Confucius/JFK/Topher

Abe/Cleo/JFK (like in AUs)

Abe/JFK/Joan

Abe/JFK/Topher

Abe/Joan/Topher

Confucius/Gandhi/JFK

Joan/Jackée/Lizzie

Exs (aren't meant to be but were):

Abe/Cleo

Abe/Joan

Cleo/JFK

Cleo/Anne Boleyn

Cleo/Elvis Twin (one of them)

Cleo/Julius (very briefly, like didn't even last a day)

Cleo/Maire Antoinette

Joan/Catherine the Great

Joan/George Washington Carver

Joan/Van Gogh

I don't ship:

Abe/Frida

Abe/Gandhi (could be one sided with Abe liking Gandhi)

Cleo/Gandhi (they're siblings)

Cleo/Joan (basically step-family)

Confucius/Frida

Frida/Gandhi

Frida/Harriet

Frida/JFK

Frida/Topher

Gandhi/Topher

Harriet/Topher

Harriet/Toussaint (what were they thinking making him act just like her?? He deserves better than being reduce to the male version of Harriet)

poly bleacher creatures (they might experiment but I don't see them all dating at the same time)

[clonehighconfessionss]

jfgogh is so bad

i dont mean to be mean, and i have no ill will towards the people that enjoy the ship, do what makes you happy. but the level of popularity it gained amongst new fans and the majority of the content that came out of it left a bad taste in my mouth

dont get me wrong i like van gogh. i think the bits he had were funny and his design is great

but kids were very clearly projecting themselves onto van gogh's character and they interpretted him as some "uwu misunderstood lonely edgyboi but also anxious softboi artsy outcast XD hes just like me!!!!!!" and they couldnt admit they had a crush on jfk so they instead put van gogh and jfk together. and it made no sense.

if people wanted an mlm ship with jfk, ghandi, abe and ponce are right there. they all have chemistry and tropes that could be paired easily together with jfks meathead jerk jock character instead of what fans though van goghs character was.

do people want a relationship with a height difference and silly shenanigans?: ghandi

enemies to lovers and opposites attract?: abe

childhood friends to lovers and hurt and comfort and angst?: ponce

there are so many better options than some random background character with 3 lines.

and all the fics that came out of the ship that romanticized self harm and severe mental illness were messed up

tldr: out of all the fandoms ive been apart of, jfgogh is one of the worst ships i have seen. f-tier

It’s okay to dislike Jfgogh. It’s not my favorite ship, but I don’t dislike it.

My opinion is that it’s okay to ship whoever as long as it’s not a problematic ship. The ship, itself does not need to make sense.

From what you’ve told me, it seems Van Gogh is ooc when it comes to the ship. It is annoying but isn’t the worst thing. Jfgogh isn’t the worse ship out there and it’s fine if people ship them together.

[thebad---catholic]

Clone High and changing fandoms

So thanks to a certain 4 hour retro rerun video, I now have JFK induced brainrot. Earlier this year, Avatar: the Last Airbender rose in popularity again after being put on netflix. As a veteran fan, it was very interesting to see how a new viewers interacted with the show. For example, originally Zutara and Kataang were the main ships that dominated the fandom. In 2020? Sokka/Zuko became wildly popular out of no where. Aside from dumbass woke takes like “Iroh’s a war criminal”, I’d say I overall enjoyed the new life breathed into the fandom.

While watching clone high for the first time, I came to realize what I loved about the show would’ve been interpreted differently in 2003, and that I wasn’t alone in these reinterpretations. This is best seen with JFK and Abe. From what I can tell from sifting through an old live journal community, Abe was fairly well liked. Abe/Joan and Abe/JFK and Abe/Cleo were all fairly popular ships. Now though? People fucking hate Abe. I fucking hate Abe. He’s a shallow simp who mistreats his only friends to impress a girl who constantly manipulates him. He’s so overprotective of Cleo he fucking yelled at her while she was trying to comfort jfk who was grieving his best friend. In the context of being a spoof of contemporary teen dramas, this probably would’ve been funny? But without that, it just makes Abe look like an unbelievable douche.

Conversely, we can do nothing but stan our bicon chad with two dads, JFK. But when the show first aired, JFK having two dads and finding John Dark attractive were jokes- any same sex attraction between two men was funny. But now? Genuinely endearing. He’s also a certified himbo with an ass that won’t quit, and in contemporary internet that’s enough to score as a character. I credit him partially for the shows resurgence, since his funny voice and dialogue make him prime meme material, more so than any other character.

Coincidentally, side characters like Van Gogh have skyrocketed in popularity. Sad art bois are also very in vogue. This lethal combo has actually made JFK/Van Gogh a popular ship. Of the 186 clone high fanfictions on AO3, 44 of them are this ship. That’s twenty-five percent. They don’t even interact in the show. JoanFK is in close succession, followed by Ponce/JFK, meaning a whooping 60% of clone high fics are just jfk ships. Even if there’s some overlap of the tags, that’s still pretty sizeable.

Looking back at old shows to see how tastes change is a lot of fun, but kind of striking when a relatively short amount of time has passed. I remember kinda having to justify why I liked a ship? And now??? Take two characters you find remotely interesting and smoosh them together. Cleo says “hot” when she finds out she tried to get with Joan? Before it would’ve been “lmao, hot lesbians”- actually, it’s still that, but now we’re invested in them being in love. At some points I found Joan to be very annoying because of how she puts down other girls (like the giggly vapid slut bit). And then I thought, “god, I’m so glad the trope of girls putting each other down is dying out”. I hadn’t watched clone high specifically, but tropes like that were everywhere when I was growing up. It was always the girly girl vs the tomboy, or goth vs prep in this case. It was exhausting.

There’s a lot of things I hate about modern fan experiences. I hate fandom police who try to dictate what content to enjoy. I’m genuinely surprised no one has done a callout post for everyone shipping clone high characters bc tHeY’Re UnDeRAgE- but really, in a lot of ways, fandom has just become much more carefree, and sincere. What you like doesn’t have to make sense, it doesn’t have to be anywhere near cannon, just have fun. Just have fun, and be horny, and love himbos, himbims, herbos, and bimbos. And that’s beautiful.