@shrekanie had this post in which she came up with the idea of having a hear me out cake but instead of characters you find attractive, one would put their rare pairs. I thought this was adorable so here's mine. And yes, I wanted the pairings to be actually rare.
I initially baked an actual cake for this but my parents ate it while I was gone and it's way too hot to work on the oven again so hear me out tiramisu will have to do.
(since Nathan is a book only character, my incredibly creative, fun and generous mutual @repulsa-2080 kindly allowed me to use her art of him (and Tucker) as a visual representation for this crackship)
Anyway, I'll explain my reasoning and visions under the read more. Many of these aren't actually serious, but rather based on jokes (looking at Raven/Sparrow & Duchess/Little Billy Goat) or on a more forced/platonic level (ex. Melody/Sparrow, Lizzie/Chase):
🐦⬛ Raven x Sparrow 🏹
Only if it is for comedy purposes. A Tumblr user who sadly deactivated had a galaxy-brained post on who the girls hear me outs were and Raven cited Sparrow as hers which I found hilarious. The idea of him finding out and annoying Raven is just wonderful to me. I don't see them getting past that though. I just see it as a funny way to mess with Raven a little.
♥️ Lizzie x Courtly 🃏
"Toxic Yuri", they say and it is a wlw ship with just a mild dislike for each other who would get to solve their issues if they would just spend a road trip together. I WANT REAL TOXIC YURI! I WANT YEARS OF ENVY AND MISTRUST!! I WANT INFERIORITY COMPLEXES!!! I WANT IDENTITY THEFT!!!!
I've got no angel to keep me in line, so I'm taking your narrative and making it mine.
I know Courtly is a despised character by the fandom but it never got to me. I loved her the minute I realised what sort of villain she was going to be and I honestly think if this show hadn't been aimed at 10 year olds she could have caused a lot of conflicts on the main group. She is selfish in that she wants to get power for herself but how can I not stand a chaotic jester trying to dismantle the monarchy? Even if it's only so she can become the new ruler. She is not morally worse than the other characters if you ask me. Go girl! Get what you want! Anyway, I feel like we should all focus more on how flirty she was with Lizzie and how she could easily embody the same-gender crush struggle of "Do I want you, or do I want to be you?" but driven to the extreme and much darker. To some extent I also feel like this could embody some Kitzie vibes in that Courtly would troll and annoy the hell out of Lizzie but while Kitty would be selfless for Lizzie, Courtly would not. She would be fucking insane.
🥀 Briar x Lizzie ♥️
Sadly not much to say but I really liked their dynamic during "Lizzie shuffles the deck" and I feel like Briar truly is the most magnetic out of all girls. I am a diehard Lizzie-Duchess enjoyer but I like the idea of Briar being the first non-wonderlandian girl on the bunch to truly make Lizzie feel welcomed among them and as a fellow child immigrant, I know how tender that feeling is and how profoundly touching such an interaction is, even if it's only brief. I like to believe Lizzie would have a soft spot for her.
🎧 Melody x Sparrow 🏹
I am a sapphic girl whose best friend-turned-qpp is a bi guy and if I had to project the struggle of female/male non-romantic close relationships being set under pressure by expected heteronormativity, it would be those two. There's little dialogue between them but what little screen time they share usually seems warm and friendly. On Spring Unsprung they are seen talking together at the end of the special, she is also the one to dunk him in the water tank after he provokes her in that very same special. During Farrah's party they are sharing the spotlight as musicians with no rivalry between them. On tale of two parties they are seen hanging out together in an amicable way. During Piping Hot Beats Sparrow is one of the firsts to show support for Melody's magic. And then there's Bunny's diary:
Melody even asked Sparrow [to the dance], though I'm pretty sure it's because she felt bad that nobody else asked him.
We don't ever actually get to see how that turned out but I like thinking about it. And I like imagining that perhaps it wasn't only that she felt bad for him. Perhaps there was some perceived pressure from the two simply being friends and it had finally gotten to her. I like to imagine it disappeared after that night.
🦢 Duchess x The Little Billy Goat 🐐
My two close mutuals know I am an ornithology enthusiast but they don't know I take care of goats pretty much every weekend. Next week I'll even be helping one to give birth. So I love those animals with all my heart. I couldn't stand the pigs but I would die for the little goats. + he sounds so cute on the THD Special.
Now, with that said, I don't see them ever getting together, but I like imagining she has a soft spot for his semi-canonical crush on her. It's cute. + I have this one head canon and would love to imagine a comedy webisode with it.
🎸 Tucker x Nathan 💂
Silliest and most heartwarming thing we have come up with and I love it. Pretty sure it's only a rare pair not because people wouldn't support it but because Nathan is a book only character with no canon design and Tucker doesn't even have a single line of dialogue. However, I ended up loving them. Pretty sure the first person to actually come up with it was @athena-xox though, as the earliest mention I could find on the ship was her reblog of my post, that lead to this post, which then lead to my wonderful friend @repulsa-2080 actually drawing a very humorous sparchess-wolfdancer-tuckthan comic and now it is canon to me. Completely made up fandom delusion but this one is harmless, cute and adds some well deserved diversity on the male cast. He was a punk, he did ballet. What more can I say?
♥️ Lizzie x Chase 🛡
Ok, this one is tricky and I do not like it as an actual dating thing. I like to headcanon Chase as gay tbh. He and Darling can have wlw-mlm solidarity. However, it is undeniable that Lizzie (among pretty much all the girls who went with her to Wonderland) was attracted to him when he took his helmet off. And then there is this:
I have lots of conflicting feelings when it comes to Lizzie's canon love life and Dizzie on itself. I like it for what it is in the canon. A privileged guy semi-accidentally breaking a foreign girl's heart. Mitski's "Your Best American Girl". And with that in mind, I would love to see daydreaming of a romance with someone who would understand her, someone who dreams in the same language as she, someone who shares part of her culture.
With this said, I wouldn't want to see them together. Gay Chase and Dizzie, Kitzie or Lizzly for me. Nothing else. But I would appreciate getting to see Lizzie superficially pine over someone who symbolises the life she could have had, had she not been forced to flee her home.
🏹 Sparrow x Tucker 🎸
Not much to say but as mentioned here, to me they are both under the polysexual umbrella and were probably one of each others first romantic/sexual experiences.
🧚🏻 Farrah x Huntlynn 🪓👠
I love pathetic women who know they are secondary and will just silently witness and smile because I am one of them and I have finally come to feel some form of self-love. This is what self-care looks like.
I'm convinced that if the writers had introduced Farrah a bit earlier and had allowed her to feel strong negative emotions due to her place in the narrative, even if those would remain repressed and invisible to others, she would have probably been my favourite character. I see people shipping her with Ashlynn quite often and I like that a lot and can definitely see it but I would like to also take into consideration her canon crush on Hunter. Let's make her life miserable. /hj
On a slightly more serious note, I genuinely enjoy non-reciprocal romances in which the rejecting parties aren't vilified. I find it very moving when a person is able to move past their own feelings of hurt and rejection to see that these aren't signifiers of moral failure. I like how mature Farrah seems to be about this (she's not, the writers just didn't want to work on it) but would love to see her having her own moments of self-loathing and teenage angst.
🐱 Kitty x Courtly 🃏
Again if this show wasn't written for children we could have had some slightly more complex depictions of Courtly and the idea of her and Kitty interacting is just too good to pass. They could have a friendly rivalry due to both of them having a mayhem creating nature + mutual respect and admiration due to their creativity and audacity. And according to "What's in the cards for Courtly Jester", that might even be the case, as the two are seen walking out of the multi-hex with Sparrow, so at least someone on the writing team probably understands where I'm coming from with these two being similar and probably sharing a taste for silliness.
Problem is, and here is when things can get angsty:
Lizzie Hearts. Darabella-Dizzie-Kitzie dilemma turns into Darabella-Dizzie-Kitzie-Kittly dilemma and as a connoisseur and enjoyer of trash I simply can't resist the silliness and melodrama of a love dodecahedron.
🥀 Briar x Ginger 🍬
I have actually thought about this for a long time and they are dear to my heart, even if I will always have bribelle as my endgame. As said, I see Briar as the closet key to many of the girls on EAH and also as someone who exudes such a friendly, confident and warm persona that it is impossible to really develop negative feelings towards her.
I have seen people refer to Ginger as a nlog due to the way she speaks of Briar on her inner monologue on Kiss and Spell and while I can see where they're coming from, I don't really think we should judge her so harshly because she is never outright malicious towards Briar. She is just envious and self-loathing, and can you blame her? She is 16 and doesn't have a very privileged place in EAH society. Yet, I feel like if these two would spend a few hours together, Ginger would probably promptly lose what little animosity she has for Briar and I would really enjoy seeing that.
Anyway, I'd love turning this into a tag game but I don't want to burden anyone as I'm not close with many people. If you feel like making one, I'd love to see it though. Thank you for reading : )
