#janeace

it is simply economical to ship the two hottest characters in any given series. when you ship janeace, you are speedrunning looking at some sexy old people having fun being in love. it’s not rocket science. thread over

no actually. anyways. OK so. this all started bc. a long time ago. i was playing a game as ace where i had a rainbow map and the lens that lets everybody on your team see what you're looking at, right. and i was going around looking for totems and chests and the exit when i realized there was a jane player following me who was pointing at the stuff that was glowing with my map and dancing around all like ‘woah i want that thanks for finding it’. i thought that was rly cute so i moved out of the way to let her open the gates and take down all the totems and have whatever was in the chests whenever she found me. and then the game was over.

But that rly cute interaction just kind of gave me brainworms. afterwards i couldn't stop thinking about how funny it would be to imagine that scenario having dialogue and jane just marching up to ace opening up a chest like ‘hey. Can i have that’ and also how fun and good they would be as a ship if you didn’t look at it like the classic ‘opposites attract’ scenario, and more as if they actually weren't very opposite at all, and were in some ways Very compatible, they just had completely opposite circumstances that made them seem, on the surface, like they were from 2 separate worlds entirely.

like, there’s a handful of janeace content that existed before i got into the dbd fandom, right, and its not Bad?? but it tended to have vibes of ‘this is a stereotypical relationship between a super laid back toxic levels of egotistical manchild and a super uptight prudish nagging woman’, like some sitcom straight people meant to entertain jaded cishet 45 year olds. And i Guess i understand why that’s the obvious trope to apply to the concept of them dating each other. and i Guess i understand why people in the dbd fandom got that impression of them, and decided they Hated shipping them, if it was just going to be nothing but ace being like ‘haha you are so sexy and i am so immature why dont you just be the more responsible one forever’ and jane being like ‘noo stupid man i am so much smarter than you i am le epic girlboss and you are perpetually mentally 25 years old so now i have to be mean to get you to do anything’

but that interpretation is entirely reliant on bad faith takes on Both of their personalities!!

its easy to see jane as a flawless queen of everything without a loosey goosey bone in her body, but that ignores things like her painter cosmetic, where her face and hands are Covered in paint and all her brushes tucked into her hair; or the lines in her biography about her early days as a radio host, where she was fired within months for making too many ad libs and being ‘too frank’; or the fact that her rockabilly cosmetic is from an episode of her show... implying she regularly wears costumes on her show. shes literally from new jersey

its easy to see ace as a lazy asshole who only knows how to manipulate people- but that ignores things like his waiter and fisherman cosmetics, where he’s making an earnest effort to earn money doing honest [enough] work, but simply suffers from low self esteem if he feels inadequate and unprepared, and routinely goes back to being a gambler out of convenience.

i’d also like to take the moment to point out how they Both struggle with mental health issues. i think there’s a tendency in the fandom to gloss over a lot of the issues they write jane as having, making her seem perfect and mature and universally appealing with very few flaws, And a tendency to act like ace’s issues are all there is to him, someone who contributes so little and takes up so much space that it’s hysterical- which does them both a disservice, especially for My intents and purposes of saying wow both of these characters only get by running on alternating manic and depressive episodes. clearly aces entire life is centered around having addictive personality disorder and being in relationships that are toxic for him- in his lore, ace is encouraged to put himself in an extremely dangerous situation by a friend who is amused by watching him embarrass himself, and we get the idea that ace socializes with people entirely on a metric of ‘is this person impressed by how cool i seem when i win’ and ‘is this person just really into watching me lose because its funny and entertaining’, which he might not even be aware of.

clearly jane.... janes entire story is about her childhood trauma. Like i dont want to just have to retype her entire biography and also her tome lore but, in summation, her entire story is about the pressure of the life she had built as a reaction to her childhood trauma and how Even if she hadn’t gotten fognapped, she was likely heading towards a meltdown spiral from taking on too much work, getting too wrapped up in peoples perceptions of her, and becoming obsessed with gaining more influence, to the point of being willing to sell out completely in order to get even a Little bit closer to her audience Really Understanding how much she’s a normal person desperate for people to relate to her pain.

So Now Think About It. they're both among the more charismatic extroverts of the survivors, their livelihoods Both rely on being able to have a good conversation with people and build a really iron clad rapport in a really short amount of time, they both aspire to be sort of fancy and rich and get a lot of attention and clout And, for Both of them, this desire for that sort of life started early in childhood, dreaming about escaping poverty and preconceived notions of who they were. they both have multiple bits of flavortext in game about being naturally optimistic and seeking to share that hopeful attitude with their friends, so i also think jane's method of interacting with people is something that would, like ace's method of interacting with people, not always land.

‘but sunday, she’s an insanely famous self help talk show host!! how could she be Bad at socializing with normal, average, not-famous peons???’ would You want an insanely famous self help talk show host grabbing you by the shoulders just to be like 'dont worry, It gets better :^)' while your leg was caught in a bear trap and you were having your fingers sliced off and your heart ripped out?? and some dudes taking pictures of it?? probably not. People who would be into that are likely in the minority. but you know who Is in that minority???? Ace.

imagine if after Weeks/Months/Years?? of terrifying trials where everyone is getting ripped apart and fangoriously devoured or w/e, jane is Still trying to be helpful in the only way she knows how to her new friends, but they’re all Less than receptive to it. bc you think people like feng min and jake and david, all these tired ass antisocial introverts, want to keep hearing ‘dont worry we can do this’ over and over and over again, every single time this happens??? probably not. at some point they would probably be like ‘wow, jane, that’s great, but im actually? Tired of dying over and over again, and what you’re saying is Not helpful right now’. even her fellow celebrities, like kate and yun-jin and felix, or even just other more sociable and positive types, like meg and claudette and adam, might get really tired of hearing stuff like that as they get shredded up for the 39480459th time.

but it’s the thing that occurs most naturally to jane to do for people when they’re upset. she’s spent Years putting all of her time and money and self worth in being able to do this and watching it make a meaningful impact on people!!! And she’s spent years being validated in her sense of self relying on being that type of parasocial icon for people!!! so how is she going to make it in the fog without getting her heart broken and sent to the void where hopeless survivors go if she cant do the one thing she’s best at??

but then maybe it finally comes down to just her and ace as the last two survivors one night, after getting progressively lonelier and lonelier for what feels like forever, realizing that her Love Language is somewhat inert here, and when she works up the nerve to pull the ‘hey, it’s gonna be fine, we can get out of here’ card on Him??

it finally Works. he smiles back at her and says ‘yeah, youre right!!’ because he is Also a tireless optimist who doesnt believe in bad luck and sees a silver lining to every situation. he’s the guy who is perpetually smiling in order to make sure there’s always at least One person who hasn’t given up hope yet, and knows the value in holding out just long enough to be absolutely sure there’s no possible way to turn things around. he will never pass up the opportunity to look at a bad situation that way- he’s a gambler, the idea of a potential payout for taking that slim of a chance is one of the only things in life he cares about. AND SHE CAN WORK WITH THAT

so the most hilarious thing in the world to me would be if one of the first few times they ever actually speak to each other by the campfire after a trial, everyone is sort of looking around like ohhh god this is gonna be weird, he’s such a little weirdo and she’s so poised and normal

but it Actually isnt weird. for better or for worse, ace is good enough at reading people- and knows well enough just how much power jane has- AND DOESNT WANT TO GET THE SHIT BEAT OUT OF HIM BY A FAMOUS GIRL AGAIN- that he manages to be not a complete loser around her, mostly. she Also has to tap into her ‘talking to normal people’ skills in order to communicate with him initially as well, but even thats just something that would sort of sweeten the deal for her. i’m not under the impression he’d know a whole ton about her before encountering her in the entitys realm, so there’s not even as much pressure in interacting with him as there is with someone who i can easily see being a jane romero show stan before the events of the game, like yun-jin or meg, who she loves and would be friends with, but also still feels a bit obligated to be really put together around, for her images sake. so for her, there’s a bit of relief in making friends with such a comparatively average person, and for him, it’s cool that she even wants to talk to him, and a bit humbling that he can no longer claim to have the most bravado and largest presence out of anyone in the fog.

this isnt to say that they dont have their differences- obviously, she’s a hard worker who wants to come off as entirely self reliant and tireless, and he’s a self professed mooch who wants to just manipulate his way into success without actually applying himself unless it’s easy and fun and makes him look very sexy and cool- but i don’t think thats something that would completely kill their chances of getting along and having a successful relationship. they are adults. they can work it out

in fact its probably for the best that jane has such a well developed sense of self worth, so that when ace fucks up and says something tactless because he’s being a little clown creature, she can swiftly, easily disarm him into taking it back and informing him that he can’t say shit like that, rather than get her feelings hurt or just assume there was nothing to be done about it, like i think a lot of other survivors would do *cough felix cough*. He needs someone who can nip his antics in the bud instead of enabling him. and where anyone else doing that might kind of bug him, in this fantasy universe i have created where i get to dictate how all fictional characters act, it makes sense to me that he would defer to her judgement.

[this is a good a time as any to say I dont fuck with 'ace is unironically sexist' headcanons or whatever, i want him to have moved Past whatever the hell was going on in his tome, as that was Meant to be a painful experience in his past that he’s still hung up over as being one of the worst times of his life, NOT an accurate snapshot of who he Currently is in the game!!! so i dont mean he’s saying and doing Genuinely Problematic things to her or anyone else on a regular basis... he can just be kind of weird and careless]

i like imagining that since she has the status and wealth and influence that he could only Dream of having, its a bit of a ‘whatever she says goes’ situation when she suggests slight changes to his behaviour, within reason. On this note, from the Other side of the fence, jane could eventually have an issue with trying to tailor his personality Too much to her liking- her bio literally says she ‘needed more; she wanted others to follow in her footsteps’, so its easy to imagine there might need to be not just boundaries around reining in his behavior, but boundaries around her tendencies to want to control his behavior in the first place. even their flaws are compatible!!!!!! its nice for me to imagine that there would be plenty of scenarios where jane is the one getting spun out mentally and ace has to be the one to ground her, since at the end of the day, she’s just a normal person caught up in the relentless perfectionism of showbusiness. that their relationship isnt just ‘selfless perfect hot girl fixes stupid washed up scrimblo mans life’, because they Both have valuable things to tell each other and perspectives the other sorely needed. and because honestly??? jane is less content in her life than ace is in his!!! again, on a surface level, it’s easy to see them and think he’s the problem and she’s the problem solver, but its way more complicated than that.

a lot of how i think about them takes place in a post-fog environment- if we’re meant to believe that the survivors in the game will get out eventually, that means we’re invited to consider how they would make it back in the real world. and maybe jane would take this time to say. ‘Well, i can’t really afford mentally to be everyone’s best friend on the tv with a million clothing lines and makeup products any more, now that everyone saw my funeral and all. maybe i should set my sights a little lower and try to just take it one day at a time’. and maybe ace would take this time to say. ‘well that whole experience just taught me a whole lot about what it’s like to care about other people for once. and the idea of being in a casino or bar right now is extremely overwhelming and bad. but What Else am i supposed to do???’ and that’s when they can move in together and she can see what its like to try Less hard and he can see what its like to Try for anything at all even a little bit. it is extremely endearing to me to imagine, like, jane at home painting or writing, and maybe ace has his 2nd or 3rd ever little part time job for underachievers, like being a bartender or waiter, and when he gets home shes there to be like ‘wow you did it im so glad you finally learned to be a relatively productive member of society, i know its your least favorite thing ever but it means a lot to me that you arent fully reliant on all my money also i dont care if you still do gamble shit every once in a while because clearly thats just What Brings You Joy so have fun doing that on your days off still’.

OR!!! flip it turnways: she Does go back to being a tv personality, or writer, maybe talking about what it is she just went through, and needs to come home after the strain of being on tv and dealing with media industry people all day [which was already extremely bad for her, her bio describes her regularly getting migraines after filming] to someone who actually understands the fog and believes her and was there, and spent his day making sure the bed is made and the floor is vacuumed and dinner is ready for her. and you know who can do that??? be a little stay at home himbo wearing expensive pajamas and embroidered slippers, loading the dishwasher while blasting jazz for slutty old men on an expensive sound system in a luxury new york penthouse??? Ace. Again. that’s always what the answer will be here

so we all agree that it’s not epic or poggers to depict utterly useless men riding on successful womens coattails. But. if she makes more money than she knows what to do with, and he actually makes himself useful, Why Not be the sugar mommy rich gf to this dude who has agreed to keep your house running and be your peppy little old man cheerleader in exchange for getting fancy clothes and also lots of hugs and kisses. and also you spent an indeterminate amount of time being tortured to death infinitely in a hell dimension.

I think that’s fine!!!!!!! theres literally no end to the situations in which they can, despite being a high strung girlboss and a manic pixie malewife, get along, and see and value each other for who they are, and how they decide to cope, and what they need, in order to not get utterly lost in the sauce of the weird fucked up mentally and spiritually draining lifestyles they both live. in my honest opinion.