#they're BOTH abusive to each other lmao they're codependent!

[liamgallaghermpreg]

the thing about samdean is that it is mother/son as much as it is brother/brother

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

having to ration my meds for a week thanks to refill fuckups right as i'm slamming facefirst back into my Extensive Web of Infodumps About Quarry Meta hyperfixation is biphobia. if it's a sign i'm ignoring it

[harukapologist]

Something I've noticed about Haruka and Muu's relationship is that while it's co dependent, Muu seems more of the 'co dependent' one. They're both attached to each other, but at least Haruka makes an effort to get along with the other prisoners and even form friendships with them (like Fuuta and Mikoto). He's even the one to initiate conversations with others, not just Muu. iirc, Muu doesn't really seem close to anyone else other than Haruka. She says in her interrogation that no one is like her cause 'everyone has a screw loose', is apathetic to the victims of Kotoko's attacks, disliking Yuno cause she became cold to Muu, even insults(?) (not really ig, but still) calls Mikoto a 'poser/playboy' in the headphone collab (though ig the character's personalities are still canon in that respect)

It could just show more of how Muu views herself as above everyone else and doesn't really care about them (or at least, doesn't have a proper way to show it) and she knows that Haruka is easily eating out of the palm of her hand, therefore she's glued to his hip cause it's basically like having a personal servant/assistant around. She just thinks that a 'queen and slave relationship' (as Jackalope said himself) is actually a 'friend and friend' relationship

I just found it always weird that Haruka actually tries to have more friends other than Muu, but Muu seems more attached to him than he is to her. Again, I really think it's just to show that Haruka is easy to 'use' and Muu takes advantage of that, therefore she'll have him around to do anything necessary for her (she even feeds him food, she was suspicious about first, in one of the minigram comics, where she even gets called out for using Haruka as a guinea pig)

Not saying that Muu isn't capable of genuinely caring for Haruka nor that she's an abusive monster, but it really just makes me think people are giving her, and HaruMuu in general, too much slack

You have a point, and I agree that people are giving Muu's role in the codependency too much slack (can the fandom please talk about Muu for once without watering her down to either abusive bitch or harmless little girl?) but I think they're both equally codependent on each other, just in different ways. Even though Haruka interacts with the other prisoners more (in fact I think he interacted the most with all the other prisoners and gave the most birthday wishes, but I didnt count so that's just a guess based on my 21773729 rereads of the timelines LMAO) you can really see how Muu's influence seeps into his attitude and mindset; copying Muu's answer almost identically about Kotoko's attacks in his interro, copying her confident "I did nothing wrong" attitude with Es, being so proud of his "new self" etc etc. my boy is isolating himself for her sake even though like you said he has other friendships, but to him only she matters; he's willing to damage and throw away everything he has for her. If Haruka was gone, there'd be no one to listen to Muu, no one she can feel truly superior to (not that she has malicious intent—I think this is a coping mechanism more than anything but I won't talk about that now), unlike the other prisoners whom she feels are superior to her imo—that's why she doesn't approach them but evidently from her occasional convos with them, latest being her birthday TL, she is able to step out of the codependency bubble and talk to them. Granted it's not truly friendships unlike Haruka's bonds with some of the others, but you can't really call Harumuu a healthy friendship either... Muu just has a shallow view of friendships in general. So she would spiral, but so would Haruka, because if Muu was gone he'd have no one who'd love him the way he wants to be loved, no one to dedicate his entire world to, since he sees himself as so so worthless, his only good trait is to be Useful and receive praise and attention for it, so what would he matter if there's no one willing to love him like that? (In his mindset)

[juniperhillpatient]

random thoughts about the Kirsches because I'm obsessed with them -

I've seen the headcanons that Wayne is abusive to Ethan, I guess based on that one line about how Wayne had a special bond with his first son (Richie) but I fully reject that because it's literally not based on anything canon. Also, Ethan & Quinn both showed strong loyalty & love toward their dad as adults. There's absolutely no indication of bitterness between them & I just don't see the point of making that up when the entire thing that makes the Kirsches intriguing is their bond as a family.

I've also seen the rumors/leaks that there was at one point a reference to Wayne, Ethan & Quinn killing Mrs. Kirsch but I also fully reject that because if it doesn't make it into the final cut of the movie it's not canon & that is a HUGE plot point to just not dive into which is probably why it got cut.

I think that Wayne was a really hardworking & caring single father because to me that's what was heavily implied by the bond between Wayne, Ethan, & Quinn that we saw. They were OBVIOUSLY an extremely close family - like, codependently intensely close. We don't have canon ages for Ethan & Quinn so I love the headcanon that they were twins. Richie seems to be 2-3 years older than them & I bet they both totally looked up to & hero worshipped Richie. I feel like Richie & Quinn jokingly bullied & teased Ethan a lot but it was all in good fun, IDK Ethan just has the vibes of the sibling that gets lovingly bullied lmao

I honestly think the Kirsch's were pretty normal before Richie went down the path that he went down which makes their story way more tragic. Wayne, Quinn, & Ethan were obviously unhinged BUT they were driven to that by grief. Richie got sucked in by toxic Reddit fandom & there's no help for that but I feel like Wayne, Ethan, & Quinn were normal just maybe a LITTLE abnormally intensely close as a family until they lost Richie & it drove them insane.

I like the idea that the siblings were all extra overprotective of each other growing up & probably got into fights at school to protect each other. No one talks shit to any of them or the other two WILL knock your teeth out. This is practically canon because the main thing we know about the Kirsch siblings is that they invented being ride-or-die siblings.

I imagine that Quinn & Ethan watched their father losing sleep, getting bags under his eyes, & losing weight & meanwhile they're mourning their big brother that they loved more than anything too. I understand that Wayne is pushed as the mastermind in the fandom from what I've seen but I actually can see Quinn as the first to bring up revenge. She seems very calculated & I can see her as the one to decide this is wrong & something must be done. Maybe Quins brings it up to Ethan first & they talk it through & bring it to their dad together & Wayne is at a breaking point & he agrees & they all plot together from there.

anyway, there's nothing I love more than a toxic evil fucked-up family that is all for now <3

[casuallyakward]

Silly Game Time: Who are some of your favorite reptile characters? And what do you like about them?

They could be fully a real reptile (snakes, lizards, crocodilians--heck I'll even let you include amphibians like frogs, toads, newts, and salamanders if you want), partially reptile (like naga a partially humans and dragons are partually anything else), humanoid from fantasy or sci-fi (kobolds or silurians, etc.), or something else entirely. All that matters is that they're reptilain or reptoid.

not to toot my own horn, but i have a pair of ocs that are snakes - well, one of them is just a very traumatized girl and the other is a sort of astral snake that lends her enhanced abilities in exchange for occasionally bodyjacking her lol

they are some of my absolutely favorite blorbos, and they are basically in a highly toxic codependent abusive relationship. but! diversity win! they are both femme presenting :) lmao but yeah they are each highly exaggerated representation of some of my most mentally ill years which also happen to be my middle/high school years.

also realizing they are also perfect examples of my taste in fictional women - depressed cinnamon-roll and violent yandere lmaoooooo

anyway you can read about them and many more traumatized shapeshifting teens in the webcomic I make with my bestie, Inner Daemons (previously known as Daemons of Lorasne)

on a seperate note, also love all the dragon characters Dollightful created in a series of doll repaint videos - so so sooo creative with very impressive body mods to turn these monster high dolls into anthropomorphic dragons (of fire, water, earth, air, light, dark, and magic!)

[edoro]

dunno if you're particularly into the series at all, but if so, I'm curious about your feelings on the sibling/familial dynamics in gravity falls

oh anon, i was very into Gravity Falls! i have three fics published to my main ao3 account and a hidden disused tumblr full of spicy problematic shipping fics because i am who i am.

i think they're really good! there's a lot going on there. i like the tension between Dipper and Mabel, how one of them wants to grow up too fast and one of them wants everything to stay the same, and the way they clash and argue but are ultimately always there for each other. they clearly love each other a lot and have a far more supportive and functional family structure than the Stans did, but they still have their issues.

Stan and Ford meanwhile are an on-fire garbage can and i love it. these two are soooo fucked up. these twins have every single issue. love their wildly dysfunctional and abusive upbringing (cannot BELIEVE a number of people sincerely argued that their dad was not abusive lmao) and the way they both project so bitterly onto each other. love Stan's clingy codependence because he doesn't feel like he has any value outside of being attached to Ford, and Ford's simultaneous enjoyment of having a built-in scapegoat and hanger-on and someone to feel superior to AS WELL AS being smothered to death and wanting to just escape and create his own individual identity.

i love how messy and difficult the Stans' relationship is too even as adults, like, how they just can't let go of all the pain and wounds of their childhood or all that deeply held resentment towards each other. i have to say that insofar as i'm on anyone's 'side' here, it's Stan's; i understand Ford intimately, and get exactly why he felt and thought the way he did (and does throughout the series), but he's an asshole who scapegoats Stan as the cause for every single bad thing in his life because that's easier than examining 1) the larger systemic factors 2) the role their Entire Family Dynamic played in it 3) his own responsibility and also 4) the fact that while what happened with the project and his dream college chance sucked, for sure, having to go to a shittier school and work hard is... idk just not that fucking bad lmao.

like sorry dude but the pain and trauma of having to attend a second-rate college and really devote yourself to standing out does not compare to being kicked out of your home at 17 and made homeless, and it's something that tons of people deal with, and frankly i think a huge amount of Ford's anger about that imo is based in the fact that he feels like he's better than that and deserves better, and has spent most of his life seethingly furious about the fact that the world around him does not recognize his talent and superiority.

(which is very much a coping mechanism for feeling like the only thing he has going for him IS his intellectual abilities - nobody values anything else about him, and it feels like his only way out of a future of grinding misery, so of course he retreats into self-obsessed misanthropy. i understand it very well, but i have enough distance from my own period of Being Like That to recognize that it's a selfish and assholish way of viewing oneself and the world, lmao.

and to be clear i'm not bashing Ford here, i think he's a lot of fun and an excellent character and very relatable - he's very human, and i love that. he's messy and kind of shitty and struggles to be better, and it's extremely understandable.)

i think the way that we see Stan recreate his own childhood dynamics with Dipper is interesting too... the way he treats the twins is very, idk, i guess it's a very familiar sort of pattern to me. Mabel is a girl so he can form an emotional connection with her, that's safe, and she can be his silly special princess who he loves and spoils, but since Dipper is a boy, they can only connect through the Rituals Of Masculinity, which especially in Stan's case are extremely toxic and damaging.

so Stan ends up perpetuating his own abuse on Dipper, albeit less severely - i 100% believe Filbrick physically abused his kids, and i think sometimes Stan might skirt that line, but i don't think he'd ever raise a hand to either of the twins. he is absolutely emotionally abusive towards Dipper, especially earlier on in the show before they kind of reconcile in terms of Dipper thinking Stan hates him.

that's just really interesting to me! i always love that examination of like, how this sort of thing echoes down generations. you can see the fingerprints of Stan's father in how he treats both of the twins, the attitudes he brings towards them...

also Ford is like, wildly irresponsible lmao. the whole thing where he starts like, taking Dipper into his confidence and having him keep secrets and trying to get between him and Stan and Mabel... like i don't think he's doing it on purpose or has malicious intentions, he's just lonely and kind of stunted and really likes this kid and sees himself in him and is not really able to look past that self-projection to who Dipper actually is and how they're different, but oh man.

(the potential for writing it AS deliberate grooming is off the charts tbh. i'm still waiting for someone to come up with that fic because there's just a lot of potential there.)

so, anyway, tl;dr is that i think the sibling/family dynamics in gravity falls are really good and complex and layered, with a lot of pain and tragedy in there, but also a lot of love and striving to do and be better.

[thebleedingeffect]

I feel that both SS and botw/totk zelink aren't toxic but that they have very good potential for it. The potential is rife for co-dependency, impostor syndrome, obsession, strong separation anxiety, goddess-related trauma, etc. "I don't know who I am without you" type beat. Love so deep it swallows you whole. Pre-calamity also has fantastic drama potential in the need to keep secrets, etc.

YEAH THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I MEAN I UNDERSTAND YOU!! Canonly? Yeah they're not toxic at all cause I very much doubt nintendo would ever be brave enough to make Link's and Zelda’s relationship questionable in any way lmao. But like... the potential is there, there's so much of it, and the worst thing is that it's not unbelievable at all to interpret that they could very easily slip into toxic tendencies. I also agree with you I think sksw and botw/totk zelink are the two with the biggest risk of becoming toxic lmao.

I made that joke post thinking about sksw zelink cause I just could not thinking about of the sheer amount of implications about their relationship in that game. Surface level? Yeah it's pretty sweet, very much classic 'gotta save my love from evil' sorta deal, but there's SO MUCH going on besides just that!! There's an entire conversation where sksw Zelda straight up says 'I emotionally used you and purposely stayed away from you because I and this world needed a hero. Hylia decided this for you and I'm currently experiencing an identity crisis because I'm not sure if I just fabricated your love for me, but either way I must take advantage of it.' LIKE WHAT THE HELL??? HI??

Like just fucking, personally I think Link would be a more victim of the codependency, separation anxiety, and maybe obsession? Idk I see that as something that I think Zelda would go through actually, along with goddess-imposter syndrome, and severe trauma towards fate and all that. What's even worse is that once you start digging into sksw and botw/totk zelink's relationship there are so many things that are borderline concerming if anyone decided to expand on them. Tbh I also completely agree with you about the pre-calamity thing I think they would hide SOOOOOOOO MUCH SHIT FROM EACH OTHER !!!

Personally I really like to imagine that botw Link actually did hold some resentment for Zelda because he was jealous over the fact that she was able to avoid her fate for so long. From what we're told in botw it's very heavily implied that the opposite happened to Link, the goddesses had chosen him when he was just a kid. Also the idea that Link had been purposely given extremely difficult and near-abusive training for years to prepare him for being Zelda’s guard and Zelda never knew <333 and he never told her <333 so he has even MORE buried resentment <333

But those are just my ideas cause my favorite zelink relationships are when they're emotionally MESSY and FASCINATING TO ME sjsidjd they don't even need to be romantic, platonic is actually totally fine for me, I just love messy bitches.

But yeah I totally agree, I think while they're not toxic in the text itself, I think they very much have the potential to be. The potential for being so intertwined with destiny that it becomes as much of a slowly corroding force as much as salvation. You love them so much, you can't imagine a world without them, you hate them, you resent them, you wonder if they actually love you or just what purpose you serve, you wonder if they love you or if they've just been broken down and told to. You panic if they're not by their side, your skin itches with the need to run away, you can't look at each other in the eye, did you ever love each other if you were never given a choice?

I think zelink has a ton of potential, BUT I think it's more toxic flavor just deserves to be explored way more cause there's no way sksw/botw/totk are HEALTHY in the SLIGHTEST

[nonbinarychaoticstupid]

As someone who has had both abusive and toxic family members, as well as codependent relationships with abusive and toxic friends and romantic partners (as well as friends turned romantic partners, plus friends turned romantic partners turned exes turned enemies turned semi-friends again turned - we dont speak e v e r anymore) like.., there's a hardcore difference. and I say this having been on Both Sides of the toxic And abusive bestfriend dynamic. adora and catra were hardcore haaaardcore toxic af towards each other in the first four seasons. naturally. they're enemies with a lot of personal bitter painful drama and blood in the water between them. theyre gonna shove the knife in right where it hurts. catra especially. she might be mean and petty and spiteful and awful to adora. she might be toxic. she might not particularly care whether or not the world ends if it means everyone else is gonna suffer as much as she is. or if it means people are going to finally see her as in charge and capable and Not Needing Anyone Else and Especially Not Adora™. but that doesn't equate to her being abusive lmao.

EXACTLY! THANK YOU! (/gen /pos) that’s kinda catra’s whole s5 arc - learning to improve, recovering, and attempting to fix her mistakes. 

[whetstonefires]

I see lots of potential with your Damian clones fic! I've always wondered how Damian and Tim would get along if Damian wasn't programmed to kill Tim. With your fic, you could explore the Tim-Damian dynamic 7 (or was it 6?) ways! I kinda imagine each clone representing a side/aspect of Damian (but ofcourse they're still characters in their own right). Plus the kids are hella cute

Thanks! And...huh, that’s an interesting thought. Tim and Damian’s relationship was very much defined by Damian’s relentless antagonism, so yeah, it would have been completely different if not.

And then you’ve got two options--Damian’s still an asshole as default interaction metric and just has no particular antipathy toward Tim for some reason, or Damian has a major personality overhaul and isn’t a dick just generally, which would change all his relationships.

...the fact that DC aged Damian up three years via retcon without changing his behavior or appearance or really how people react to him bugs me a lot. Ten to thirteen are really major years in the socialization process. A ten-year-old child who insults everyone he meets and throws food at the wall is considerably less likely to grow up to be a man who abuses his power over others than a 13-year-old who does the same thing. He’s not only got more time to sort himself out, he’s in a more plastic stage of identity formation.

(This is also why I feel like Bruce’s parents dying when he was 8 is more consistent with his characterization than 12. But I digress.)

The thing about these kids, though, is how much they aren’t Damian.

They’re going to have a lot in common, of course; they’ve got the genes for his sturdy build and precision of motion, for example, and I suspect a certain amount of the tendency toward drama is genetic lmao. And they share a frame of reference in the League.

But Damian and the septuplets had very different experiences of childhood in the League of Shadows. Damian’s entire upbringing centered around being special--the heir, the son-of. He was required to be a prodigy, and expected to perform to a high standard specifically in contrast to others, and to win. And his mother loved him, and it wasn’t explicitly a conditional love, but...

Meanwhile, the clones were not special. They were disposable, even. They weren’t anyone’s personal kids. They could die in fights or accidents, and no special efforts would be made to fix them. Nobody loved them. They were encouraged to view one another as rivals, but not all that hard and mostly in terms of how whoever was lowest in status at a given time was vulnerable to being broken down for spare parts. (This didn’t happen often, but it always potentially could.) They were expected to excel, but not to the same level, and not on an individual basis but to par with the group.

Even within the same overall conceptual framework, the contrast between being assumed to have value and having to maintain that status, versus being presumed to have very little value and having to avoid having none is actually considerable, and the difference between the primary risk associated with failure being loss of identity versus being literally trashed is greater.

It’s not that Damian’s life wasn’t occasionally seriously threatened during his training, but that was never the primary threat he was dealing with, more of a tactical goad, and it’s very much not what his anxieties center around.

This latter fact has been dealt with in canon mostly as a symptom of brash youth, but it also speaks to how Talia (and to a lesser extent Ra’s) very much wanted him alive, and he was secure that as long as this remained true he was probably fine no matter what. In spite of his various hardships, his childish sense of immortality remained intact.

(They do call her Mother but Talia very firmly and almost entirely successfully partitioned the clones as ‘not her sons,’ both because even though she did partly send Damian to Bruce to protect him she was not emotionally prepared for his rejection and is still reeling, and because they were literally made to be expendable, spare bodies, and her sense of self-preservation is too well-developed to allow herself to get attached. The same way if you work in the sheep industry you can’t get too sentimental about the lambs, because a certain number are meat.

She still didn’t like them getting hurt or anything but it was in the category of One Of Those Things, it wasn’t personal.)

One of the things this divergence has meant, in this case, is that unlike Damian the septuplets are very sensitive to adult approval from a survival perspective. So while they’re not actually submissive unless you give them no other options, they have a certain inclination to conciliate as a first resort.

While Damian, of course, is a provocative hellion, because making a point of his strength and importance was how he learned to register his value, and being ignored or disrespected constitutes an existential threat in the schema he was given as a child.

And yet, at the same time--because they didn’t receive focused personal attention from their caretakers, the cloneboys aren’t nearly as inclined toward emotional dependence on adults. They eventually, somewhat covertly, learned to depend on each other. That’s their security. They don’t bleed the need to be accepted. They’d benefit from stable adult attachment figures, even kind of want them to varying individual degrees, but they don’t need them, not acutely.

While both Damian’s parents and his favorite brother have a very easy time breaking his heart. So, the clones are much more cooperative than Damian, but also much harder to manipulate, and harder to secure the loyalty of.

And of course the effect gap of having your identity founded on singularity versus barely distinguished from peers is profound.

They are individuals, but they’re acutely codependent, so neither Tim nor anyone else can have a relationship with any one of them that doesn’t built on and influence the relationship with the group.

So, really, no matter where I take the story, Tim���s relationships with the individual clone kids are going to barely resemble any potential relationship he could have had with Damian in alternate timelines where Damian wasn’t one of codependent septuplets, which is...almost all of them, I presume. Sorry to disappoint on that front!

[edoro]

For ask game Hunter/Luz, their poly with Amity(and maybe Willow??xD) and mmmm King/Collector?👉👈

Lunter

What made you ship it? - they just have really good chemistry! like, idk, it's such a slamdunk of an otp - plucky naive optimistic protagonist slowly learning that her actions have consequences and that she has to go out and make the life she wants to have vs waiting for it to just happen to her, with a strong moral center and a desire to help meets abused captive prince in service to the evil emperor and gets through to him with The Power Of Friendship, putting him on the path to questioning the regime he's served for his entire life? What's More Classic Than That? and they're such foils to each other, too. Hunter is literally living the YA fantasy protagonist life that Luz wants in the beginning, except she's mentally living in like DragonLance and he's in a Joe Abercrombie novel - she's in classic swords n sorcery fantasy and Hunter is living in gritty grimdark low fantasy. having a 'destiny' fucking sucks, actually. it was all just a lie used to control him, and even when he still believed it he felt constrained and suffocated by it. their relationship is just so fascinating to me too because they have such an intense bond with each other, despite not necessarily being like... that close? they know each other's most damaging secrets, even though they're both better friends with other members of the group. they rely on each other so much. holy codependence! and for all the contrast between them, they have a lot of things in common too! Hunter's also a very optimistic person, it's just that his life sucks so bad all his best case scenarios are still completely horrible. they both have personal experiences with loss and alienation, they both tend to take on more than they can handle and hold themselves responsible for things beyond their control, they both have huge guilt complexes, they both cope through fiction and fantasy lives... they just have a really solid relationship, and adding romance and/or sex to it feels like a very natural evolution of what's already there.

What are your favorite things about the ship? - uhhh i think i kind of already said most of that up there, lmao... i just love how well they play off of each other, how similar and different they are, the way that Hunter is literally living the life Luz thought she wanted, the way they both see themselves and each other as leaders of the group and feel like the others depend on them...

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? - the potential pseudo-incest angle of them being found family only makes it better tbh i'm not really sure because i'm not 100% sure what the popular vs unpopular opinions about the ship are! i think the hand-wringing about how shipping Luz and Hunter erases Lumity is kinda dumb - no amount of shipping is going to take away the canon relationship, and a lot of it ends up sounding like "well she's Not As Queer if she's involved with a guy" which is uhhh biphobic hmm... i definitely don't think Hunter is actually any more responsible or less impulsive than Luz, he's just better at rationalizing and has more actual experience with military logistics and mission planning. also my ideal dynamic for them is like, Bitter Academic Rivals/Collaborators (they're both at once, yes, even and especially if they're fucking) - i want them to end up being researchers into glyph magic who work together fantastically but also vocally trash each other's methods and conclusions from time to time and are in fierce competition.

the rest of it is under the cut!

Lumiter

What made you ship it? - the fact that i love Lunter and also don't want to break up Lumity and also love polyshipping, tbh. also, Hunter and Amity have a really fascinating dynamic as metamours

What are your favorite things about the ship? - the poly dynamics, definitely, and specifically the relationship between Hunter and Amity - i just think those two have a ton of incredibly fascinating potential! Hunter and Luz are so close and know so many of each other's worst secrets, but Hunter and Amity both know what it's like to grow up in an emotionally abusive, controlling home, which is something that none of the other kids can relate to at all. so i just love the fact that they share that and i love to think about them relating to each other more deeply on that basis and being able to understand and comfort each other in ways that neither of them can really get from the others, because sometimes it just... no matter how kind or sympathetic or understanding someone else is, there is just often something different about the quality of understanding from someone who's gone through similar trauma, things about the experience of being abused and traumatized that you can both relate to each other about that others can't - often not even big things, either, but just kind of littler more mundane aspects of the experience that can feel so unreal and bizarre and alienating to live with until you find someone else who knows what it's like

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? - i don't think that Amity being a lesbian necessarily precludes her from being sexually involved with Hunter in some capacity in a poly scenario, and personally i find it a lot more interesting to explore how her lesbian identity might impact the ways she sees and engages with him sexually than to just blanket declare it totally off-limits and forbidden to even think about.

Lumiter + Willow is very similar tbh - i love big poly clusterfucks, i love a whole friendgroup who are all kinda in love with each other, i definitely love Luz/Willow and Amity/Willow action (and the potential for awkwardness there, PLUS the potential for like, Hunter and Amity getting really competitive over who's a better significant other...)

King/Collector

What made you ship it? - i don't know if i'm like an active shipper of it but i think it's cute! they have a lot in common and a lot to connect about, both being long-lived extremely powerful beings, and i think that they could easily end up being extremely important to each other. they also exist as narrative foils to each other and bounce off each other in really interesting ways.

What are your favorite things about the ship? - i think just seeing it as kind of a domestication arc sort of thing! it's sort of a Beauty and the Beast type of scenario, except the beastlike demonic creature is the Beauty and the more or less humanoid one is the Beast! the Collector is what King could have ended up like, if he hadn't been taken in by Eda and raised like a person. the Collector is obviously a very neglected and very traumatized kid, whose only company for the last couple of centuries has been A Literal Fucking Serial Killer And Child Predator, so like, of course they don't understand the value of another person's life or have a very robust sense of morality - they've spent the last couple centuries watching Philip break his toys over and over again and just make a new one whenever, and that's been his only social contact at all. so there's an element of tragedy, a "there but for the grace of God go i", and i think that puts King in the best position to reach the Collector and show him that there's a different way to be. King could extend that helping hand and offer them care and support, including the extremely loving action of "telling someone when they are being a huge asshole and alienating everyone around them with their own behavior." also, they're just little guys, it would be so cute?? like what an adorable pre-adolescent baby crush scenario. and maybe them being bffs who grow up and develop feelings for each other... so many cute options!

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship? - uhhhh i truly do not know because i have no idea what the actual opinions are here. sorry!