#darkships

[impships]

does a really cool carwheel and then... EXPLODES!!!!!!!!!!!!

[smellyoulater1]

craig and karen i tried drawing in a more anime style. **this is ship art** craig takes care of both kenny and karen whenever he comes over and makes sure they are safe And brings stripe over because it makes karen happy and stripe has play dates with the rats at kenny's house. And craig lets karen do his hair and decorate his hat and doesny complain because karens just a litle girl and craig is very protective over her. Because he knows how much she means to kenny

Anyway would this be considered a proship/darkship becaise like i heavily ship crenny like they are married and craig and karen have a slight age gap–

[iamnmbr3]

HI, HELLO, I HAVE A QUESTION. I really like your take on Dumbledore's view on Tom Riddle. Leaning on that post you made about him being obsessed with Tom and seeing him as a seductive femme fatale type villain - do you think Tom would've gone for that? Seducing Dumbledore, I mean. And whether or not it would've worked. We already know from the Grindelore relationship that Albus wouldn't have been taken into the "dark side" with love, but I could see him indluging it on a pretense of "I'm trying to keep an eye on him/fix him" tbh. What do you think? Also what do you think of the ship itself? Thank you, I hope you have a great day. ♡

Thank you very much for your kind words. This is an excellent and very interesting question. (For those wondering anon is referencing this post).

Personally I actually think that Tom probably would not go for that except possibly as a very last resort in a situation of great need. Tom appears to be averse to any type of physical touch in the series. As far as I recall, we only see three instances where he makes physical contact with another person - when Dumbledore solicits a handshake from him when they first meet, when Hepzibah Smith pinches his cheek, and when he touches Harry for a moment in the graveyard to show that he can. Of these instances, only one was initiated by him, and that was out of necessity. The other two were tolerated but clearly made him uncomfortable, especially in the second case.

Other than that he doesn't touch anyone. His followers kiss his robe hem, not his hand or foot. He uses magic to hurt them but never touches them. He also was likely never touched much in the orphanage, except possibly as a punishment, so it probably became something he was neither accustomed to or enjoyed. (He does seem to actively enjoy petting and holding Nagini, which is lowkey weirdly adorable.)

In the case of Hepzibah Smith he does bring flowers to keep her happy (possibly at the behest of his superiors) but otherwise does not act flirtatious at all and in fact seems desperately determined to ignore her advances and keep the conversation focused on work. If he wanted to he could've batted his eyelashes at her and flirted back to try to get information or money/gifts out of her but he actively chooses not to despite being quite poor and having much to gain. Incidentally, this is part of why I think coming across the locket was a coincidence and not a plan, since he doesn't seem to be actively trying to learn anything about what objects she has. (As an aside, given the way she feels entitled to touch him without his consent or any indication that he welcomes such behavior, I think his decision to kill her may have been over more than just the locket.)

There's also Bellatrix. She clearly would like to have a romantic relationship with him and marrying her would have materially benefited him. It would have gotten him more acceptance into the Pureblood circles he was moving in and gotten him access to her tremendous personal assets including her vaults. Note that in book 7, he stores the cup in her vault because he probably doesn't have one of his own and is presumably still #broke. However, he goes out of his way not to marry her. Because he doesn't want to. Because he would rather use up-front means to get what he wants - through compulsion or fear or force or loyalty - than by offering himself in that manner. (Given that he was extremely attractive and that he grew up in a vulnerable position in abject poverty he was probably already familiar with this as an option and actively sought to avoid it, which may have played into his avoidance in later life as well.)

So yeah, I personally think he'd avoid trying to seduce someone into something if he could. That said, I think there's probably fodder for an interesting fic if someone tweaked the circumstances or the characters just right.

As to whether it would have worked, maybe? But it probably would've made everything 1000 times worse. I don't think Dumbledore is someone who would become besotted and easy to manipulate as a result. I think if anything it would make him more dangerous. I could definitely see him doing some mental gymnastics to justify to himself why indulging would be actually very noble and selfless and all for the "greater good." But that mental gymnastics would also come with even more justifications for why this proved Tom was inherently evil and the spawn of Satan. So I don't think it would make him likely to look on Tom more favorably.

If anything, it would make him more likely to want to control and degrade and humiliate him even more than we see in canon. It would also probably make him even more fixated (if that's possible lol) on him than we see in canon. I could also see a scenario where Dumbledore potentially did some mental gymnastics to justify why pursuing Tom would be for 'his own good' / 'the greater good of society' etc. So yeah, all this could again be good fic fodder, but I don't think it would end up working out that great for Tom in the majority of circumstances.

Except perhaps in a scenario where Dumbledore ends up putting off certain plans to destroy him so he could play a more prolonged and personal game to destroy him which also would involve some type of romantic/sexual element as well (definitely purely due to necessity of course) and Tom using this to 1) take advantage of the delay and Dumbledore's own belief in his superiority to put plans of his own into motion and 2) create situations where Dumbledore ends up sacrificing his own people to keep said elaborate game going. But again I don't think Tom would prefer to use that approach, especially with someone like Dumbledore given their history. I think he'd much rather just have a clean and fair fight.

As for what I think of the ship, I think there are potentially interesting things you could do with it, but I see it as something that would end up being an extremely dark ship if we go with the canon dynamic and characterizations - more so, I think, than is the general consensus among those who ship it.

[tamarahtalkstv]

If Selfcest Is Just Masturbation To Some People, Then Technically Speaking It’s One Of The Most Healthiest Forms Of Shipping.

[theminecraftbox]

In general like other fandoms.

Tbh I’m having trouble coming up with examples. despite the reputation I’ve been building, I’m not much of a shipper. I usually prefer *dark content* to specific *dark ships*.

I like most anything in SPN that’s problematique. Samifer, of the canon variety, is great—it’s not a ship about obsession but certainly one about hatred and intimacy.

[scarletxmoon]

You're No Saint | Multidarkcoulpes

[kalinara]

@miahs89 asked me: Rip/Eobard, Rip/Savage, and Clint/Natasha for the ship meme.

I’ll start with Clint/Natasha.

Honestly, I’ve always been pretty indifferent toward them.  I thought they had good chemistry in Avengers, but I didn’t really care about the secret wife and family.  (Why not?  SHIELD is a kind of creepy organization at best, the awesomeness of Nick Fury aside.)

I tend to think Clint’s kind of a cypher.  Competent, but I’ve never gotten attached.  (I think comics Clint is alternately hilarious or a total douche, depending on which run you’re reading.)  I like Natasha, but I’ve never really ‘shipped her with anyone in the MCU.  (I like comics Bucky-Natasha, but I’m not sure how much, if any, of that backstory actually translates.

Rip/Savage (this is going to get long).

I’ve honestly never understood why more people didn’t ship this horrible horrible darkship pairing.  I mean, Reylo and Darkpilot have HOW much material based on one torture scene each.  Rip and Savage have one of those, AND Savage ends up so obsessed that he keeps the freaking novelty pen that Rip uses to escape for almost four thousand years.  He made the guy the Satan figure of his cult.

And in a weird way, I get it.  I think Rip represents something very interesting to the ancient version of Savage.

Obviously, the show has ditched that whole primal but sophisticated caveman backstory for Savage, but he still retains that strength and survival mentality.  Everything is about strength, everything is about power.  Weakness is to be abhorred and scorned.  The weak are tools to use and discard.

And then here comes Rip Hunter, out of the blue.  A weird foreign guy who managed to somehow get into Hath-Set’s inner sanctum, past all of his guards, to try to kill him.

And I doubt Savage really cares why.  Hath-Set wasn’t a nice guy even then, so Rip probably wasn’t the first would-be-assassin.  Savage makes me think of that monologue from that crappy Streetfighter movie.  “For me, it was Tuesday.”

But Rip came so CLOSE.  He fought Savage.  And he WON.  And the only reason Savage is alive now is because when it came down to it, Rip flinched.  His compassion, his humanity kicked in.  His weakness.

And it should have ended there.  His assassin was skilled, but weak.  And that weakness finished him.  That fits Savage’s world view.  Now let’s find out more about this mysterious person...and he can’t.  He imprisons him, starves him, implicitly tortures him.  And he can’t get anything out of the guy.  And it doesn’t make sense, because weak men yield.  Weak men break.  But this guy, already proven to be too weak to live, just doesn’t.

And then, he escapes.  Leaving behind a novelty pen (exploiting Savage’s guards’ own weakness.)  Savage is sophisticated.  He’d recognize it as a mechanism that is far more complex, in a tiny mechanical way, than anything his people could construct.  But it’s the escape that stings more.  Because in the end, he got away.  He gave Savage nothing.  The weak man defied the strong man and succeeded.  He triumphed.

That’s not just an insult.  That’s blasphemy.  That’s a transgression of the fucking natural order.  A weak man WON.  So of course, Savage can’t forget this encounter.  Even after four thousand years.  Because it doesn’t matter how many times he wins.  How many people he conquers.  How many times he proves his ideals correct.  Because there was that ONE man.

Eventually, he met the Time Masters.  And god knows what they told him.  But imagine they told the truth.  Or at least part of it.  He learns that this transgressor of the natural order isn’t just a weak man, was not just a man.  But a Master of Time itself who abandoned everything for sentiment.  It’s mythic transgression.  Mythic weakness.  

So of course, when Savage finally creates his cult, he uses this man as a symbol of everything disgusting and vile and wrong.

And then of course Rip comes back.  And back.  No matter what he does to the man, he just never stops.  And he’s still a trainwreck of a man, still emotional, still weak...but he still denies Savage his rightful victory.  At best, Savage comes out even.  His plans usually lying in rubble around him.  But that isn’t enough.  (And that doesn’t get into the fact that his adversary is allied with Chay’ara.  That’s a whole OTHER kettle of fish.)

I think Savage’s obsession with Rip is very similar, in a way, to his obsession with Chay’ara.  Both defied him.  Chay’ara however is an equal.  She’s strong and powerful.  An equal, deserving mate.  Rip is not.  Rip is a blasphemy that must, MUST be brought to heel.  The weak must be made to submit, in order to validate Savage’s entire world view.

So, it’s about power, and obsession, and domination...and given that it’s Savage, sex gets wrapped up in the rest of that as well.

As a darkship goes, there is so much to unpack and dissect, to analyze.  It’s mesmerizing in a way, but also horrifying.  There’s no possible way a consensual relationship could result, let alone a healthy one.  But as horrible as it is, in a dark twisted sense...I do kind of ‘ship it.  (But only as long as Savage meets a very unhappy end.)

Rip/Eobard

I’m not sure what it is about Rip Hunter that my brain equates him to villain catnip, but there you go.  I have darkships with everyone.  There is a lot less to unpack with Eobard than there is with Savage though.  Eobard isn’t the same kind of dark passion/obsession driven monster that Savage is.  He’s a different kind of demon.

Eobard is the kind of man who sees people as tools.  Or maybe toys.  They can be useful.  They can be amusing.  And he can even grow fond of a few.  But mostly, they’re there to be used and discarded.  

Eobard particularly likes however when he gets to make powerful, dangerous people his tools.  Look at his relationship with Barry through all of season one.  And the satisfaction and amusement that he had making his future enemy basically dance to his tune.  Rip, I think, is similar.  We know that Eobard and Rip have crossed paths before.  (”An interesting man”, Eobard notes as he studies the Time Sphere that Cisco made for him.)  And if you watch the Legion’s reaction carefully, when Phil steps out as Rip, he’s just a little bit tense.  The laughter when Phil fumbles the gun almost seems relieved.

When Eobard gets to violate Rip Hunter’s mind, he gets to make a tool of a powerful adversary.  And what a fun, entertaining tool he is.  A tool that can walk into a camp at shoot General George Washington in the face without flinching.  A tool with easy, cool competence, that’s uninterested in the power play games of Malcolm or Damian.  A tool that can get him everything he wants.  And more besides.

I think Eobard’s only regret with this affair is that the Time Masters are already gone.  I think the dream of turning Captain Rip Hunter against the rulers of Time itself is probably better than any porn to him.

What’s one more way to use a tool?

But of course, the ideal end is castration by Sara Lance’s knives.  :-)