oh my god, i forgot about my most random yet beloved rip/kendra ship until you just mentioned it
BUT HERES THE THING- it’s not random at all. like it’s 100% completely legit and now i will go into great detail about this as you have unleashed the beast
okay so first of all rip and kendra are like, the 2 driving forces of s1. there are no legends without them which is hilarious bc rip is now recurring and kendra isnt even on the show anymore but I DIGRESS- rip brought them together to kill vandal savage but it’s carter dying and everyone realizing that kendra is vulnerable that makes them decide to stay a team- and there’s this weird feeling rip has that like, he thought they would do this for his family- but they’re this far, distant thing, and kendra, kendra is this beautiful, wounded princess, the kind of girl fairytales start for, and as much as i think rip is kind of silently wounded by how little everyone cares about his family he, too, loves kendra with this sort of sudden ferocity- the way he literally shoves ray aside to grab at kendra’s face and stroke her hair like… haunts me to this day?? wow im a wreck
and the thing is- kendra cares about rip. she cares about him more than is good for her, because while the rest of the team has this distance between miranda and jonas, kendra not only doesn’t have the distance but refuses to put it there- she’s sort of the person who sees rip’s feelings the most honestly because she shares them- they’re both sudden and very young widows/widowers and like, at the end of the season mick loses len and sara loses laurel and then everyone loses kendra- but it’s rip and kendra who have this soul tether of absolute sadness that only the other understands
rip is the one who protects kendra from savage + people that would see her come under sexual assault multiple times, rip is the one who lets her bring carter back because he understands it in a way no one else does, the emotions between the two of them are some of the rawest on the show just throughout the series because they have this silent faith in each other and whenever something happens to the other they are devastated because in many ways they are partners in crime where the crime is an ongoing and silent suicide pact- and that’s not a joke, that’s literally a commentary on their declining mental states and how desperately they keep each other afloat
like they fucking love each other and there’s this deep and real intimacy in the relationship and like then when you factor sara on the outside looking into this extremely close dynamic of two people she desires closeness and attention from it’s just italian chef kissing the fingers the supreme worst thing on the planet earth
anyway rip + kendra are for real in love so that’s on no one but the show
