#scarablove

[izasquish]

For the record: I blame Symbrock/Veddie for getting me into this. A guy and his homicidal alien is just peak shipping 👌 Movie was good, too!

[fire-fira]

HOLY SHIT.

People who love Jaime/Khaji Da as a ship:

WE HAVE CANON SCARABLOVE FUEL!!!!

As of issue #11 of the Dawn of DC Blue Beetle series, Alberto Reyes-- yes, Jaime's father-- talks about Khaji Da in terms of them being Jaime's partner! AND draws a direct comparison to past instances where he fumbled in his own relationship with Jaime's mother.

LIKE????????

HELLO?!

LOOK AT THIS!!!

THEY WENT THERE.

(Obviously I have no idea where this might lead to in future issues or how they'll handle it-- whether they'll actually go in a ScarabLove direction or if they'll keep it relatively platonic like it has been in the past-- but I can honestly say I DID NOT expect this.)

[fire-fira]

IDK if you've been keeping up with the Trujillo Blue Beetle run, but they put Jaime with some random Horizon girl named Oo'li and it really feels like some half-assed attempt to prevent him from ever falling in love with Khaji, I don't know, maybe I'm running on some insane troll logic here, but the writers really put Jaime with a girl who's connected in some way to the Reach, when Khaji Da is RIGHT THERE! Do not ignore please, I really wanna hear your opinion on this.

While I will agree that the relationship with Oo'li feels shoe-horned (and that detail honestly isn't helped by the breakneck narrative pacing, which may be reflective of a time crunch those involved with this most recent run might be dealing with), I think it's important to step back and take stock of some things.

The vast majority of comic writers-- and presumed comic readers-- aren't likely to even consider Jaime/Khaji Da as a ship because they're sharing a body. For better or worse, there are a looooooot of people out there (both in fandom and outside of it) who can't or haven't wrapped their minds around the concept of a ship where one character is the host body to the other; if they've put any thought into that kind of ship at all, they may have difficulty conceptualizing how a romantic/queerplatonic/committed relationship of that type can even work when the characters involved technically can't do things like hold hands, kiss, or sit across from each other while having a candlelit dinner. (Yes I realize that example may be a little cliche in this instance, but I think it's the best way to convey one of the big stumbling blocks for some writers when it comes to this kind of ship.)

It's fandom where these concepts have really been hashed out and played with, so of course as fans we're going to see the obvious potential and the ways it could work, but writers for officially published works generally should not read fanfiction-- especially of anything they're actively working on-- because doing otherwise invites the possibility that someone might feel their own work is being stolen and repurposed by a company to make money, which can lead to a lawsuit. Ergo, if they're not already familiar with the concept of how such a ship could work (or they haven't come to that concept on their own), then the chances of them even thinking to do so in their writing for DC is slim.

And for as much as Eddie Brock/Venom has put forward the idea of a host/symbiont ship more broadly in the public imagination, that reach is still limited by who would be interested in seeing those movies, and if those people were or are able/willing to recognize the host/symbiont ship as even being a possibility. And even if they did, Khaji Da is a dramatically different character than Venom in temperament and personality; we also have no guarantee that anyone looking at the movie/various-tv-series Khaji Da has been in will think to consider Khaji Da as a fully realized character instead of an AI-that-is-maybe-'sub-human'-in-personhood-but-more-advanced-than-anything-we-have-and-so-should-be-respected-as-'kind of'-an-individual (and the siri-voice in the movie probably won't have helped change that perspective). The point is, with that dramatic character difference, it might not even occur to any of them that Jaime/Khaji Da as a ship would be believable or that the characters could even have the potential motivation to share that mutual interest.

We also have no clue if Trujillo or anyone else currently working on Blue Beetle have seen any of the Venom movies to even plant the idea of a host/symbiont ship in their heads. We literally have no idea if they're even aware of the concept. And even if they are, they're in the business of trying to sell comics. I don't know the ins-and-outs of the comic industry by any means, but I think it's fair to assume that introducing a host/symbiont ship in canon might be a risky venture-- even without the breakneck narrative pacing they currently have going.

I'll be honest, with the current pacing trends I don't think they'd be able to do justice to the Jaime/Khaji Da ship in building it up into something that would make sense and have readers-- who weren't already-- get invested. Host/symbiont ships are a hard sell, so there HAS to be a believable buildup, but when the pacing's shooting by like the reader got fired out of a cannon and has to rapid-fire take notes about what they pass within seconds so they can only record the broad strokes and nothing in between, then all of that buildup crumbles into nothing. (Case in point with relationship buildup crumbling into nothing: the whole thing with Oo'li.) Physicality can kind of override some of that in a narrative, but that requires the characters to have separate bodies so they can externally interact and separate from time to time-- and Jaime and Khaji Da, by the very nature of what Khaji Da is, don't have access to that narrative override.

In terms of them trying to sell comics with the lack of decent pacing and time that DC is pushing, it's probably financially safer for them to not put the effort in to try for that kind of narrative buildup; it would take time they don't have to do it justice, and trying to force it anyway might lose them buyers due to said buyers getting put off by poorly done stories.

Yeah, as a fan to whom the possibility seems obvious and who is heavily invested in these characters, it's frustrating. I get that, and I don't blame you. But on the flip-side, DC has made plenty of wtf decisions of late (don't even get me started on the absolutely ridiculous number of Batman or Batman-adjacent books they're currently putting out right now, to the point where Bat-everything is drowning out damn near everything else), and with the lousy pacing and quick turnaround on comics they currently have going I'm honestly glad that they're not currently tackling a Jaime/Khaji Da narrative. I don't want to see what they would do to it at this time, I don't trust them to do it justice.

And speaking as someone with at least one fave DC character who has shown up in all of 94 issues total, sometimes you're honestly much better off looking to fandom and fanfiction for what you want to see. At least then you know you have a solid chance of seeing it done really well rather than getting hit with frustration or disappointment over not seeing it at all.

[fire-fira]

a khaime headcanon that just came to me this afternoon:what if reach culture is so innately martial that acts of aggression and conquest are just how courtship works for them and khaji da has observed enough of xir (fully organic) superiors engaging in such behavior to win over their sweethearts from xir container, so when xe gets that planet-sized crush on jaime, xe offers to kill someone that has been grinding his gears just to get a relationship upgrade...(reply please)

lol Oh dear. That sounds like a reality full of delightful chaos.

(I have my own headcanons about Reach and Reach culture, but I like seeing what others come up with for their own interpretations-- because hell yes to the idea of multiple realities or a fictional species having cultural variation. It's a hell of a lot more fun than how scifi and fantasy usually tend to approach non-human species with the whole thing of 'this whole species has only ONE culture', which could be its own grumbling tangent, but I digress.)

Still, the idea of Khaji Da wanting to express their interest that way under those prior cultural circumstances? Yes.

[fire-fira]

jaime and his clingy murderous mcbeetleymuffins <333

Honestly?

1,000% YES.

[fire-fira]

do you ship khaji/jaime too??? i call the pairing khaime, it's also inexplicably linked to westerns and musicals in my hellhole of a brain (reply please)

I do! The most popular ship name I've seen for Jaime/Khaji Da is ScarabLove (either with or without a space), and I know there are at least a couple fics on Ao3 with that in their titles.

And not gonna lie, they make for a really good ship. What's not to love? Boy meets bug, bug learns to be a little less murderous, they wind up permanent partners, bug finds out what it is to be recognized and cared for as a person and decides they never want to lose that, boy winds up with snarky sass-master who he's smitten with making commentary in the back of his head on the regular. lol

I could go on about them for a while to be honest. n.n

[fire-fira]

"love like you" by rebecca sugar is such a khaime song, i lay awake at night imagining khaji da singing it to jaime (reply please)

Cute. n.n

While Steven Universe isn't really my thing, I can agree that the idea is adorable regardless.

[fire-fira]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

So @theredlanternavenger thought up this ScarabLove AU based on the trailer of the movie that's coming out later this year (2023), and it is a delight. As a beginning framework for the AU, I want to see more.

I'm just: 👀👀👀

Go! Look at the ScarabLove fuel! Jaime and Khaji Da are hecking adorable!