#spearherd

I'd like to hear your thoughts on Lute and Abel, both platonic and romantic—; whichever it is you prefer. Their ship is sooo underrated and I'm so glad I found someone that also enjoys them! Have a good day/night/whatever time it is!!!!!!! 🫶

This one has been slowroasting in my ask box for a tad, whoop! Thank you so much for the love and hopefully I can do our lovelies some justice!!

Lute and Abel how I adore you. I am very interested in seeing where Abel’s character is going in future seasons because all of my major thoughts on him really are quite entangled with Adam but I think that’s a fun premise in and of itself, living in his dad’s shadow. Hellaverse loves their parent-child relationships and I really hope we actually dig into more of that on Abel’s (and Cain’s, hopefully!) front despite the dearly dead dad in question.

I think part of that is why I’m so drawn to Lute/Abel, because of how utterly fucked in the head Lute is about Adam and authority and devotion and Most Things, Actually. I’ve seen lots of people having Discussions about the ethics of such, but to me that’s the whole point. Like father like son indeed. Except Abel is indecisive, inexperienced, generally awkward as hell, and needs purpose in his (debatably deserved) authority. They’re opposite in nearly every way and yet near-perfect toxic complements to each other, and while usually I don’t put any preference to more “canon-likely” ships, I would just be so fucking interested in what we could get from them. Obviously nothing healthy, but the “Bitch you better fall back” of the finale gave me. Vibes 👀.

Honestly, I’m also a big fan of the Lute-Abel-Emily trio in all computations (though three-way mutual throuples is always chef’s kiss to me). I think Emily is the calm and collected that the two need, Abel is the middleman, and Lute… Lute just needs some love ^-^.

Also, I don’t know if you’re around here for my petplay-posting, but puppy4puppy is SO important to me, and I feel like Lute and Abel both have soooo much pup potential in very different ways. They “play”-fight all the time for Enrichment, and Emily can handle them both!

like people writing this ship off as toxic is funny to me, because yeah? it is, but i personally think that’s worth exploring! it’s what makes it so fun to ship them! they’re both a mess, and could be messes together! i even like calling them my “griefcouple” cause to me, their relationship is born from grieving adam (even though abel barely looked like he did, but in my mind, he totally did). abel and lute could be arguing with other, crying and then fucking each other raw and i’d sit down and watch knowing that there’s layers to their relationship even if they’re not ideal.

but that’s just me tho, and sorry for exuding major “english major with all the time in the world to unpack and examine media” energy but with the recent backlash against the ship, it’s got me thinking about a lot of things. i just hope that the ship doesn’t discourage anybody from shipping it because imo, it’s super ripe with what-ifs and what-abouts and all that jazz.

NO NO NO ANON YOU!!! YOU GET IT!!! This is exactly it! I think some people just kinda look at the toxicity of the ship and think we just want it to remain in, stasis or something skdjkdfgj idk, but to me a lot of the appeal of a toxic ship is how it can EVOLVE from that

Like YEAH I'M DEFINITELY INTERESTED IN IT *WHILE* IT'S TOXIC but I also like to explore how that could change over time, and what events would shift their dynamics and feelings. I love the way you're describing their development because yes I agree, that's also how I see it evolving. I think Lute would start off seeing Abel as pretty much just a replacement for Adam and use him to cope with her loss, but then maybe.... she starts liking some of Abel's own characteristics too? Adam wasn't kind or gentle with her, and this new Abel is starting to act more like Adam, but some of his own personality traits are.... kinda nice too??? what is this????

Exploring that route, or even an alternative one where, like you said, Abel just becomes worse and worse and more influenced by Lute to be like his dad, that's really interesting too! It doesn't have to be wholesome or a good relationship model to follow, it's about creating stories and developing characters in interesting ways.

people will try and police others for liking a ship that’s somehow “too toxic” as if it’s a moral failing like… sometimes, we just wanna see the mess y’know? it’s fun! it’s sexy! it has some narrative juice to it! fuck everybody else and just do your thing!

I understand why people don't like their ships to be toxic and like, whatever that's fine, you don't have to like it, it's when you try to tell others what they can ship and what they can't that I have a problem with lol like why do you care, leave me alone

It really isn't worth it caring about what their opinion on you is tbh, like what are they gonna do? They can't stop you, and you're not doing anything wrong or harming anyone (as much as they wanna claim that you are lmao) I don't ship toxic ships because I think that's an ideal relationship, to me shipping is about how interesting the dynamic is and the development that will bring to both of the characters. In the case of lutabel, of course I like the toxic aspect of it but I'm actually really interested in the development from that, to something more healing down the line, especially for Lute.