I think one of the worst feelings in the world is having a ship you hold near and dear to your heart that exists in a very specific timeframe for you but now you can't go back to that time.
This is an exaggeration, but also I hope someone understands what I mean.
I guess in this situation the ship in question for me is of Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson. I was really into the ship in 2022; they were ascending into the league and a lot of things just seemed to really click for me. They were cute together and had a lot of really sweet moments in college that could also be drawn upon when they were in the NFL. A parallel to another duo of LSU wide receivers who were known to be very close to each other. A close friend and I would have fun just headcanoning their interactions with each other, in a way that was most definitely idealized (but then again where would Sports RPF be without the idealization of the behavior of athletes in their romantic relationships). Overall, they were already some of the best receivers, and would always be bound together by being college teammates who won a national championship.
It was kind of brainrot; a couple of fics written in a short timespan, one of them being over 10,000 words long.
But then things happened.
...That was unnecessarily dramatic. But basically the Bengals were kind of stagnant, and the Vikings were also middling. Both of them continued to be great on an individual and statistical level, and there were some moments they shared together. But the vibe was becoming more distant, and they seemed to interact less.Somehow this is Joe Burrow's fault.
(me not making my personal experience in fandom defined by other people enjoying their own ship challenge: IMPOSSIBLE)
I feel like if I don't cool it real quick this could get into me regaling people of the evils of "joe'marr" which LOOK i see the vision for it i really do i just have other ships in mind and some of them don't take advantage of the qb-wr dynamic of college teammates to nfl teammates and making it to the super bowl and wow i really just spelled out the propaganda huh. sue me. i have other plans. also i guess im salty that was the ship non-nfl rpfers chose to latch onto. WHATEVER. in a just society there would be other more compelling dynamics. sadly we do not live in one.
(I guess here's a tangent about how Joe Burrow was kind of responsible #tome for the revitalization of nfl fans on tumblr/the rpfers bc I did become a football fan in the 2020 offseason and he sort of interested me bc of the first overall pick narrative. I thought I liked him a normal amount and then went on tumblr and realized that my "normal amount" was "miniscule." I get it but also. Man. There are at least 10-15 bengals blogs on tumblr. It's kind of scary. Anyways. Moving on...)
(Oh yeah I guess I also take issue with some shippers thinking their ship is so deprived for "only" having three pages of fic on ao3 bc. Bro. Be serious. You are just big and greedy. Take your ass back to Hockey RPF if you want a cornucopia of fic brother. I have survived in the tag since 2020 with the only other fic for my ship being a poorly written omegaverse fic. SHUT-)
(Ahem) What was I saying... uh. Right. They were interacting less. I did see a Tumblr user remark that Ja'Marr always seemed to be the chaser(get it) in the friendship. That he'd be the one doing all the initiating gestures. And honestly yeah I see that. I too would do that if I knew Justin Jefferson ANYWAYS but yeah Justin was more private, and eventually Ja'Marr stopped doing that so they don't really hang out or anything. Fuck my stupid baka life. (Sidenote it really is remarkable how LSU continues to add players with gay little vibes into the NFL while having absolutely rancid vibe coaches. Like Jayden Daniels should not be getting yaoi'ed bc Brian Kelly leaves a stench on his programs and you'd think that his evil would prevent the yaoi spirit from prevailing. AND YET.)
So yeah I guess for me it makes me sad because they're too good to be on the same team, since they play the same position. Also that they probably had a shared dream of making it big in the NFL, but that was probably what caused them to drift apart because they are also competitors and egos probably got a little bit in the way of a friendship and yeah. It's a little liminal, I guess. Maybe they will pull an Odell/Jarvis down the line. It's too early to tell. But for now, I will somewhat mourn the nature of their relationship.
Of course, in delulu shipper land everything can be peaches and rainbows but also sometimes I find myself too affected by how some relationships are presented. I guess that's one part of RPF. Maybe for me it was just shipping when they were new to the league, still trying to figure out the best way to approach those things, and feeling massively affected if something happens because I was shipping in the moment, as their narratives were being woven right then and there. By contrast, the story of Matt and Julio was already almost over by the time I'd caught on, so the ending didn't really take me by surprise. It wasn't an ending I wanted, but for the Falcons, there really couldn't be one.
Part of me was thinking to be more careful about what to ship. But honestly, it's fine. Some ships are worth living through, even if they meet an end. Because they can just be continued fictionally. And that is the beauty of RPF...
This is an exaggeration, but also I hope someone understands what I mean.
I guess in this situation the ship in question for me is of Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson. I was really into the ship in 2022; they were ascending into the league and a lot of things just seemed to really click for me. They were cute together and had a lot of really sweet moments in college that could also be drawn upon when they were in the NFL. A parallel to another duo of LSU wide receivers who were known to be very close to each other. A close friend and I would have fun just headcanoning their interactions with each other, in a way that was most definitely idealized (but then again where would Sports RPF be without the idealization of the behavior of athletes in their romantic relationships). Overall, they were already some of the best receivers, and would always be bound together by being college teammates who won a national championship.
It was kind of brainrot; a couple of fics written in a short timespan, one of them being over 10,000 words long.
But then things happened.
...That was unnecessarily dramatic. But basically the Bengals were kind of stagnant, and the Vikings were also middling. Both of them continued to be great on an individual and statistical level, and there were some moments they shared together. But the vibe was becoming more distant, and they seemed to interact less.
(me not making my personal experience in fandom defined by other people enjoying their own ship challenge: IMPOSSIBLE)
I feel like if I don't cool it real quick this could get into me regaling people of the evils of "joe'marr" which LOOK i see the vision for it i really do i just have other ships in mind and some of them don't take advantage of the qb-wr dynamic of college teammates to nfl teammates and making it to the super bowl and wow i really just spelled out the propaganda huh. sue me. i have other plans. also i guess im salty that was the ship non-nfl rpfers chose to latch onto. WHATEVER. in a just society there would be other more compelling dynamics. sadly we do not live in one.
(I guess here's a tangent about how Joe Burrow was kind of responsible #tome for the revitalization of nfl fans on tumblr/the rpfers bc I did become a football fan in the 2020 offseason and he sort of interested me bc of the first overall pick narrative. I thought I liked him a normal amount and then went on tumblr and realized that my "normal amount" was "miniscule." I get it but also. Man. There are at least 10-15 bengals blogs on tumblr. It's kind of scary. Anyways. Moving on...)
(Oh yeah I guess I also take issue with some shippers thinking their ship is so deprived for "only" having three pages of fic on ao3 bc. Bro. Be serious. You are just big and greedy. Take your ass back to Hockey RPF if you want a cornucopia of fic brother. I have survived in the tag since 2020 with the only other fic for my ship being a poorly written omegaverse fic. SHUT-)
(Ahem) What was I saying... uh. Right. They were interacting less. I did see a Tumblr user remark that Ja'Marr always seemed to be the chaser
So yeah I guess for me it makes me sad because they're too good to be on the same team, since they play the same position. Also that they probably had a shared dream of making it big in the NFL, but that was probably what caused them to drift apart because they are also competitors and egos probably got a little bit in the way of a friendship and yeah. It's a little liminal, I guess. Maybe they will pull an Odell/Jarvis down the line. It's too early to tell. But for now, I will somewhat mourn the nature of their relationship.
Of course, in delulu shipper land everything can be peaches and rainbows but also sometimes I find myself too affected by how some relationships are presented. I guess that's one part of RPF. Maybe for me it was just shipping when they were new to the league, still trying to figure out the best way to approach those things, and feeling massively affected if something happens because I was shipping in the moment, as their narratives were being woven right then and there. By contrast, the story of Matt and Julio was already almost over by the time I'd caught on, so the ending didn't really take me by surprise. It wasn't an ending I wanted, but for the Falcons, there really couldn't be one.
Part of me was thinking to be more careful about what to ship. But honestly, it's fine. Some ships are worth living through, even if they meet an end. Because they can just be continued fictionally. And that is the beauty of RPF...