one big thing about polyshipping for me is, like. you know how some people will have their eyes opened to homoerotic relationships in media bc they'll realize, "wait, if these people were two different genders, i'd 100% assume they're into each other. i have a double standard that i never noticed"?
there's a polyamorous equivalent in certain media that's basically just. "if you didn't assume this character is monogamous, you would 100% believe they have crushes on & are dating all of their friends." OR, "if this character wasn't dating somebody else already, you would 100% interpret this new friendship of theirs as a crush/budding romance."
usually the creators of the media aren't thinking about polyamory when they make it! usually the creators of the media are thinking "i want this character's friends to be as important to them as their romantic partners, we don't get enough of that in media," which is great and true and also EXACTLY WHY IT WORKS AS A POLY NARRATIVE. people will be like you don't Have to polyship why can't you just let platonic relationships be important ugh 🙄 & i'm like i did my years in the "why can't two men just be friends why does everything have to be gay 🙄" trenches. you're not doing this to me. we're not doing it about polyshipping. we're skipping over that whole discourse cutscene because i am Too Tired For It. don't even start
sometimes characters are so full of love and affection and joy for so many people that i start gnawing off my hands about how polyamory isn't normalized. because i'll watch/read certain media and i'll be like. listen. this is a polycule. i know you don't know this because your creators don't know this and that is totally okay but you are a Wildly polyamorous person who's ambiguously trapped in the 2000s/2010s with Big Monogamy psyops eating your brain. please let me free you. please i can give you Everything .
PLEASE KISS YOUR FRIENDS
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[looks left, looks right]
I've been holding this one back until people got cool with a lot of things very quickly but I think nows the time
lets have a quick examination of c!allium off the top of my head
1: ranboo joins the server and is immediately heckled by dream
2: that same day he meets tommy and they have the famous exchange where tommy asks ranboo if he likes flowers (to rib him) and ranboo accidentally punches him trying to give it to him. this is cute on its own, but of course we Know that tommy loves flowers, that he covered his house in them, that he sung to the plants in l'manberg
3: and importantly, that he took the flower
4: tommy immediately taking ranboo under his wing and running off to Do A Prank with him. this is really important because this is tommy trying to go back to the way that things were Before. the way that he'd had fun with his family and what he did when he felt safe and secure. this is tommy being silly with a new person he might consider a friend, but it's Also him trying to reconnect with that happy Free feeling he'd had before
5: they'd made a bunker specifically to plan out their prank, and he'd put the allium that ranboo gave him into a chest hidden for safe keeping. And That Allium Survived. he kept it and it survived
6: when they're caught not because what they did was Actually out of line (griefing was an every day occurrence, even and Especially between l'manberg and dream's territory), tommy Deliberately Did Not Throw Ranboo Under The Bus.
he didn't take it seriously, he made fun of everyone because the situation was ridiculous, but he Never implicated ranboo. and in fact, he only started Admitting to the crime When Ranboo Was Being Implicated. he Deliberately Took The Fall For Him.
(and it's worth noting that the evidence that was used to tie to tommy to the crime in the first place were signs that Ranboo wrote).
7: and in return Ranboo Stood Up For Tommy. ranboo is a character defined by his conflict avoidance and lack of spine, But He Stood Up For Him. he admitted to being a part of it, and he pointed Out that tommy was taking the fall to try to protect him, and he did so Specifically to counter tommy being called selfish.
8: then in between the trial and exile day tommy opened up to ranboo, both about being afraid of his relationship with tubbo falling apart AND with his relationship with wilbur. admitting to having nightmares and admitting that this fear of losing tubbo is tied to having lost wilbur. this is something he'd never said out loud to anybody at this point, and it'd be Many Many more months until he'd open up about it to anybody else.
9: while there Were people who visited tommy in exile multiple times, ranboo was undeniably the most consistent (outside of ghostbur, until well. dream tried to kill him)
he visited him in person And he wrote to him regularly. dream saw this as a threat so explicitly that he tried to sabotage their writing, to which ranboo circumvented it.
he'd regularly talk to tommy and try to help him while he was breaking down. he's on the of the only people on the entire server to have a full picture of what happened and it ate at him.
10: he was Also the first person after techno to find out that tommy was still Alive.
11: ranboo's "dream is the reason" being intrinsically tied to how he's Seen dream hurt tommy and rip him apart from his friends.
12: His Speech At The Green Festival. "why can't you guys just choose PEOPLE" not direct at tommy but to Defend Him. why didn't they defend him because he was their Friend? why did the politics Matter when they all knew what was happening was wrong? (of course, we know the answer to that. but ranboo wasn't there to see it. he didn't know)
13: ranboo being there at doomsday, despite everything he was there. I Think About It
14: Ranboo Being There At The Disc War Finale, Finally Putting Himself Between Tommy And Dream. Dream Specifically Looking At Him In A Crowd Of People. I Think About It I Think About It.
15: Tommy's Death, My Fucking God Tommy's Death. him finding the allium and realizing that tommy had kept it. him openly furious at the way the server treated him, how nobody saved him and how all of this could've been prevented if people had just Acted, if they'd Cared. everyone including himself.
chewing out sam for leaving him, sam talking to him bluntly about exile, I Think About It I Think About It I Think About It
16: ranboo and tubbo shadowing tommy after his revival. killing mobs for him, putting blocks under him while he's walking, watching to make sure that he's okay. Trying To Help Him Be Okay. doing therapy with him, talking with him. so afraid that he'll just disappear. "does he make you happy?" I think about it
17: tommy having a place in the mansion, even if he'd never moved in, he was supposed to be there
18: a major part of ranboo's struggle with his enderwalking not Just being about the fear of it happening at all, But The Realization That He Might've Hurt Tommy and how it absolutely Ate Him Up Inside
In Conclusion: if beeduo marriage hadn't happened I fully believe people would've started shipping c!ranboo and c!tommy and all of the discourse about rpf would've happened about them instead, and then years later tommy would've dropped his own actual rpf featuring his real self. this alternate timeline is way funnier
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