Never been one for “Happily ever after - The End.”
Always been one for hard work and a continuation.
But getting both together really doesn’t hurt because while it still might be a happy ending, it’s not the end. There’s more to come for them. More to happen. More challenges, more conflicts, more rocky road, more compromises and likely more sacrifices. Hard work.
Love is always hard work so I always go for the ships that represent hard work. Enduring through the drama and chaos together and coming out stronger because of it. It’s a constant retesting of their love. There is no such thing as “happily ever after”. It’s a fantasy. And even in a supernatural/fantasy storytelling, I still much prefer ships that represent the hard work. That walk through a storm and come out the other side dishevelled and stained but standing - and hand in hand. That’s far more romantic to me than any “happily ever after” ever will be because what it shows me is that their love is based on a constant devotion towards each other and not on any kind of reward that can be had in being with each other. That even if no happiness was possible for them, these two people will still stick by each other. That’s what love is. To still be around for them - totally devoted to them - even when there’s no happy end because if the happy end is all you’re there for, you’re not actually in love with them. You’re in love with an ideal of them. An ideal life with them. But that ideal life may never come to fruition. Yet, they’re still there by your side regardless.
Waverly and Nicole really go through a storm together and all the while they’re clinging to each other tightly shielding each other from the oncoming debree. They get to see the sun eventually and that’s great. But they know that that’s not what love’s all about at all. They know love is hard work and that it will always be. That’s what I’m here to watch. Not happily ever after because that’s not a real thing and I’m glad that it’s not because it’s not interesting. It doesn’t say anything about love other than that it’s an ideal to fantasize and obsess over. But the person you picture yourself in this ideal life with is right there with you now and you’ve got to decide what matters more.
That’s what WayHaught represents as a WLW ship.
Hard work with how their love keeps building and evolving through everything that they go through together - be it negative or positive - because what they’re devoted to is each other. Their love is not based on an ideal of what they could be or can get to. It’s there regardless whether they happily end or not. And all ships that represent this are worth shipping.
I mean just look at all my other OTPs. None of them represent idealism. All of them represent hard work. And none of them got a happy ending like WayHaught did. None of them end up happily married in the end. But then again - what WayHaught’s tying of the knot represents is not a representation of happily ever after. It’s a statement of commitment and compromise and equality. It’s a way of expressing and attesting to one another that the love they have for and devotion they have to each other will not make them ignore their responsibilities and obligations as Guardians to Purgatory and the Ghost River Triangle. As Waverly told Jolene. She can be a wife AND a hero and she will be and Nicole has to allow her the agency of being both. Likewise, Waverly has to allow Nicole the agency to take on the supernatural alone as the Angel’s Shield. They both have to put aside their worries and anxieties and fears of losing one another to allow this. And their vows to each other are a promising of that which is why I find their endgame so damn powerful. Because it represents trust and faith and respect and support and all the things a marital partnership should do but rarely ever is in TV art/entertainment sadly.
I cannot wait for ‘Vengeance’ to see for myself where the narratives for these 2 incredible individual female main characters leads from where they were left off because there is so much we do not know about them. What I would really want to see is how much they’re upholding their vows in their next adventure together. How much they’ve truly allowed each other all the agency of being both domestic AND heroic partners. ‘Cause vows are just words. I want to see the actions. I want to see the proof that they are truly as equals now and neither of them are being overbearing worrywarts because they truly know what each other are capable of and understand that their individual strength and power is necessary to fighting for the greater good.
That’s all I really want to see in this next adventure. The evidence that they’re truly equal forces in love and life and they don’t try step on each other’s toes because there’s nothing more unromantic to me than lovers that don’t let each other be all that they can be out of some nonsensical excuse of “protecting” them. And what you’re really doing when you subject someone to a “love story” of “Happily ever after - The End.” is you’re making them feel incapable and therefore, unworthy, of achieving an ideal of true love when an ideal of true love is not, never has been and never will be true love because hard work is the truth.
You know, I got into WayHaught long after everyone else did. After the hype of watching and shipping them died down. And I don’t regret that fact because I feel like I would have looked at them with negative preconceived notions if I was introduced to them at the same time as everyone else was. If I was watching them at the time they were a pop culture topic, I would have had my “they’re just a trend and nothing more” glasses on when watching their scenes together. So I’m quite happy that I discovered them when I did. At a time when virtually no one else was talking about them because everyone had moved on.
But now with the news of the return of them through the ‘Vengeance’ Tubi movie - I can join in the hype of shipping them and I will feel really authentic in doing so because I know that I do sincerely view them as a significant ship that teaches a real meaning of LOVE and it’s not just some pop culture fad everyone is obsessed with because it’s cool to obsess over them. There’s depth there. There’s substance. There’s truth. Because it always make me feel really odd when everyone seems to get it but I don’t and vice versa. But as I said - if you look at every single one of my OTPs or favourite ships - all of them are the same as far as what they represent as a ship. It’s hard work and constant devotion to each other because of hardship. It’s not any kind of idealistic version of what “love” is. It’s not happily ever after. It’s not whirlwind romances. It’s not even “true love” as a concept like in all those favoured childhood fairytale stories. It’s hard work. That’s what I choose to watch and ship and it’s what I always will if I even care about any TV love story at all.
