#shipping thoughts

She's a Popstar. She and Blitzo dated.

Then she said "I love you," and he ran off, leaving her to pay for the hotel, stole her car, and ran 3 rings to Wrath, AND maxed HER credit-cards on horse-riding lessons!

There's no denying, he did her wrong!

He even seems proud of it!

.

But anyway, after they broke up, he moved away from the party-scene, adopted a kid 17-year old, founded his own freelance Assassin Business, and-- EVENTUALLY-- started working on changing that "recurring thing where you alienate with your toxic routines!" (to quote from Moxxie's Bad Trip)... And didn't really brag about, or talk about, having dated a Popstar.

Meanwhile, Verosika threw a party about Hating Her Ex, rose in fame as a Popstar released new songs (some of which were inspired by their relationship-drama), went to rehab, left rehab and went back to drinking, decided to make the "Hate My Ex" parties an ANNUAL occasion, and (presumably) stalked her shitty ex-boyfriend so she could invite every Ex, Hookup, & Former Friend he HAD to those "cathartic, theraputic" Hate-Fests.

She went out of her way to show up at the building where he works, and steal his parking spot. (This is not explicitly stated, but given she knew about a breakup by the next morning... Yeah, I think she knew that Blitzo worked in that building, and used the Reserved Parking-Spot that she had crossed out I.M.P and spray-painted Verosika Mayday on.)

She & her crew demeaned and assaulted Moxxie, when he tried to resolve the dispute in a civilized manor. And this provoked Blitzo to go in there and challenge her to a "Killing vs Fucking" Demon-Duel.

He won that fight.

And she got back at him by publicly dragging his name through the mud and talking shit about his skills in bed.

And yet. Despite it all. The heartbreak, the stolen car & credit-card, the humiliation of being vulnerable, and having those feelings thrown back in her face-- this selfish, wreckless, heartbreaking freak has the nerve to make her feel GUILTY for being ANGRY at him!

.

Anyway. The next episode after Apology Tour-- the next episode after Blitz saw a whole crowd full of people hate him, regret him, kill him in effigy in a variety of ways, after he was told off and forced to look his past relationships in the face--

Blitz was spiralling.

Actively sabotaging his business, his finances, his relationships with Loona, Moxxie, and Millie. Binging ice cream and niche porn about death & ghosts. Acting suicidal, crashing out in the worst way wed EVER seen from him thus far.

Just. It makes me think.

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Charlie and Vaggie = affectionate

Charlie and Vox = affectionate

Vox and Vaggie = words cannot describe their hatred for each other

Or is Vaggie just cut from the picture?

Ah, very interesting question!

My answer is: yes, I tend to prefer the option of Charlie in a sort of triangle shaped dynamic with them - her relationship with Vaggi preserved mostly as is. AND ALSO Vox is with Charlie in whatever capacity suits the shipping premise. All the while, Vox and Vaggi are engaged in either highly comical, or deadly serious, warfare.

After-all, we have a DECENT amount of canon to semi-canon (see below image) interactions between the two, and all evidence points towards mutual animosity. We had Vaggi threatening Vox and Velvette with a deadly weapon and attempting to (unsuccessfully) coordinate lethal violence against Vox by way of Lucifer.

And, of course we have:

"Where do I sit?"

"Who the fuck cares?"

👏 Having 👏 said 👏 that, I also think Vaggi + Vox's dynamic is fertile ground for exploring and developing a pragmatic alliance, or even friendship. My rationale being there's a lot of fascinating differences and similarities between these two characters, how they respond to adversity, questions of morality, and how they might approach their relationship to Charlie.

(As just one hypothetical for a starting point: they are both killers.

And between the pair, Vaggi has likely extinguished far more souls.)

Also, bluntly, I wouldn't want Charlie to be permanently caught in the middle of her two partners sniping at each other forever. Has she not suffered enough?

The answer is: no, and she will continue to suffer. But I can give her a bit of a break, goddamn.

A big pillar of my argument is the fact that Vaggi has demonstrated an ability to shift from hostility, distance, and aggression to kindness, empathy, and care. Her whole character journey is leaving behind a life enmeshed in military and murder. She begins S1 unsympathetic to Angel Dust and Pentious; by the end of the season she loves them as family.

There's also her dynamic with Alastor, where she often meets his catty belligerence with unfiltered exasperation. But, she appears to have a sort of respect and almost rapport with him at times as well ("Al be nice" + "Don't worry about Al.").

Note also how Vaggi is one of few characters to refer to Alastor as "Al", the other being Vox himself.

With Vox, it's a bit more complicated. One the one hand, he DOES demonstrate an ability to have a deeply emotionally close (inasmuch as the Vees are capable) non-sexual relationship with Velvette.

But then again, he absolutely despises Angel Dust, Val's favourite toy.

Now, this is where I get a little bit hand-wavy, but I'd to propose the following:

Vox IS absolutely jealous of Angel Dust, but it is a hatred far more layered and complex than "he's also with my partner", and this is a conversation worthy of its own essay disconnected from StaticBelle and/or StaticChaggi

Just because we haven't SEEN Vox be capable of forming a positive connection with the partner of his partner, doesn't mean it's not possible. The exploration of how this could work should be part of the intrigue and appeal; see above points

I've been musing over the ship potential between Eros (Cupid) and Thanatos. Love and Death. Love is cruel and Death, kind.

I also love their canon descriptions. Makes me wish I was more of an artist.

I find it interesting that Frank, Hazel, and Percy find Thanatos in his Greek persona while Nico and Jason find Cupid in his Roman persona. They acknowledge each other as counterparts.

If I was going to write them I'd probably throw Hypnos in too. Love sandwiched between the twins Death and Sleep.

Discussion welcome. Got any thoughts? Throw them in the chat bubble or send me an ask (anon okay)

I was thinking about Celesgiri as one does, and I was think about why I wasn't really into the ship, and I finally realized it why. It's simply a difference in what most people find appealing about Celesgiri and what I find appealing about Celeste.

From what I've seen the main appeal of Celesgiri is girlboss x girlboss, but Celeste isn't a girlboss, she's a girlfail. She's a japanese highschooler pretends to be european royalty, if you want an equivelant, it's like if a white guy living in America constantly dressed and acted like a samurai, claimed to be descended from one, and called himself Nobunaga or something like that with no sense of irony at all. To each their own, but I would definitely struggle to keep a straight face.

Anyways as I thought about it some more, Celesgiri started to gain appeal to me, not as girlboss x girlboss, but as girlboss x girlfail.

Just imagine, Celeste sees Kirigiri, this hot, cool, detective girl, and Celeste instantly falls for her, she's pining. So, Celeste tries to get close to her while roleplaying as her cool OC Celestia Ludenberg, and Kirigiri does not care.

Like Kirigiri sees this japanese girl telling her that she's a european royal with no hint of irony, like yeah Kirigiri ain't gonna fall for someone like that.

Celeste is pining for Kirigiri but nothing she does is working.

Then one way or another Kirigiri sees the real Celeste, aka in her on words the loser Taeko Yasuhiro, and Kirigiri likes that more, and that's the closest Celeste has ever gotten to succefully wooing Kirigiri.

And then Celeste has to be like what's going on???

Kirigiri likes the normal Taeko Yasuhiro, and not the extravagant, cool, Celestia Ludenberg?

And this could be interesting for Celeste or Taeko or whatever, because I think Celest in a way wants to be like Kirigiri, she wants to be stoic, cool, unbother by trivial emotions, that's kind of the persona she puts on the killing game.

So Celeste now has to deal with the fact that her crush and the person she kind of wants to become, doesn't care for the cool "oc do not steal" persona that she puts on, but finds her the most interesting as her real self.

And to me that's the most interesting part of Celesgiri, or any Celeste ship for the matter. It's not Celeste being a girlboss to whoever her partner is, but it's Celeste learning to let go of the Celestia Ludenberg persona and discovering that Taeko Yasuhiro isn't so bad.

edit: part 2 is up!! if you liked this go read part 2 as well :3

-okay, we all know they aren't going to just have a calm cutesy confession. buckle up and listen up, cuz shit is about to go DOWN.

-shadow milk is the beast of deceit—not only deceiving others—but himself, bc he refuses to accept that for the first time ever, he wants to love someone with the truth he thought himself incapable of

-and he is certain that pure vanilla won't accept his raw and real self, so his manipulation becomes even more intense, because he believes he is not worthy of love otherwise

-AND THAT'S WHERE GIRLIEPOP MYSTIC FLOUR COMES IN!!

-one day she randomly appears in front of pure vanilla and before he can go like "GAHH WTF" she plainly states "here i think you should have this" and chucks a notebook at his head and proceeds to peace out with no explanation

-meanwhile at the spire of deceit shadow milk spammed all the other beasts with so much junk mail that they had no choice but to show up to see what the actual fuck is going on with him this time

-and when they're all standing in front of shadow milk he just stares them down with RAGE and spits out "DIARY. NOW."

-and esc, bsc, and ssc just stare at each other like "??? excuse me what diary??"

-they could tell it was something important, but none of them suspected that shadow milk of all people would keep a silly diary

-mystic flour cookie arrives a little late and when shadow milk spits the same question at her she casually admits "oh yeah i gave it to pure vanilla"

-CUE A GIGANTIC CRASHOUT. the sheer destruction even has BURNING SPICE of all cookies shivering in his nonexistent boots

-but silent salt is lowkey kinda chill about it and starts munching on some star jellies like popcorn while watching the whole building fall apart

-meanwhile black sapphire cookie is trying to get candy apple to help with damage control only to see her jealousy cause her to CRASH OUT WITH HIM and so he just resorts to crying in a corner trying to keep everything together being the only sane one

-eternal sugar questions "why pure vanilla specifically??" and mystic flour explains that the diary is all about him

-hearing the gossip shadow milk gets angrier and blurts out something in a rage about how pure vanilla isn't supposed to know about his feelings under ANY circumstances.

-mystic flour is fed up and rants like "oh please, even i think the concept of love is futile, but what's even MORE futile is YOU being so obviously obsessed with pure vanilla yet lying to yourself even more than you do to him!! also i'm tired of trying to visit you only to see you giggle under the bed writing in that diary of yours"

-burning spice's jaw drops. "i might be the literal beast of destruction but... DO YOU ACTUALLY HAVE A DEATH WISH!?"

-eternal sugar's like "yeah no i need to call the sugar angels to get the healing baths ready you're going to NEED it."

-her distress summons pavlova cookie who takes one look at shadow milk's crashout over pure vanilla and instead of helping esc he squeals and starts writing shadow vanilla fanfiction

-and in the middle of shadow milk crumbling literalyl everything in his path, black sapphire having a mental breakdown, burning spice trying to hold mystic flour back, eternal sugar watching pavlova in disappointment, mystic flour calmly accepting the chaos, and silent salt still vibing with their snacks...

-CUE PURE VANILLA ENTERING.