Question meme

[altogetherisi]

 *crawls in*

Hi, internet!

I just got back from spending the weekend in France, and in the days preceding that I had Glee, a picnic, punting and Pimms trip... it is a busy time! pretty knackered right now, but DARREN CRISS ON WEDNESDAY OMG OMG.

 

Yay :D

 

****

 

Lal asked me these questions:

 

1. How did you discover fandom?
2. What do you want from S3 of Glee?
3. What fictional character do you most identify with?
4. Can you convince me why ~TDS SHIPPING SPOILER~ is endgame?
5. Where in the world would you like to live, if you live anywhere?

 

1. How did you discover fandom?

I was 13, and the internet was a relatively new thing for me to be able to use both at school and at home. Before fandom, it was for research and simple video games, and endless endless quizzes I remember. Some of which, I now realise, were porny fanfictions in quiz format. Really, really porny actually. Huh. Anyway, so, I was 13, and was revisiting my love for Artemis Fowl, and I found a link which I believe said something like "Can't get enough of Artemis? Click to read more adventures written by fans!" And that took me to FFN. And I dived in with a fierce hunger and never looked back. Obviously now I generally avoid that place, but at the time it was heaven. Absolutely like discovering a goldmine.

2. What do you want from S3 of Glee?

HA. A plotline for Mercedes! More songs for Tina! Most of all - for the writers to actually consult each other and maybe, y'know, watch their own show, and to make something with a bit more consistency of character development and plot arcs that actually, arc. Etc.

 

Specifically, well. I want Brittany and Santana to get together. I want Artie, and Sam, to a lesser extent, to stop being douches and to learn to be better and nicer etc. I am very serious about wanting Mercedes and Tina to get proper plotlines and attention, and I especially want Tina and Santana to sing more because both of them have awesome voices. I want Lauren to continue to be badass. I want Quinn to get a stable personality as a character and stick with it in a way that makes sense, because I love Quinn and Dianna Agron and I don't want her to be reduced to shipping fodder. I want Mike and Tina to stay together - only pairing to survive S2, I'd love it if they made it to graduation (er, if anyone is actually graduating next year? Who knows.) or whatever, another season. I want Emma and Will to get together, and for Emma to discover that she loves sex, even if they can only do it in the shower, or wearing latex or something else really clean. I want Neil Patrick Harris to come back and take his shirt off. I want Rachel and Finn to pull themselves together and either date or not or whatever but somewhere with less melodrama. Well, that's never gonna happen. I want some of these kids to actually study something at school for once.

 

Most of all. Well. I'm not fully sure what I want to happen with Kurt, and Blaine, and Karofsky. I want Darren Criss to still be around and have screen time and songs and stuff, but I fear that if (*cough*) he moves to McKinley (or however that school's name is even written) he will inevitably be a source of drama and his life will be wrecked. I feel like it would be safer for him and the Klaine relationship if they could just take a backseat and go be happy somewhere without the need for plotlines intruding. Can they skip out on school entirely and spend the whole season ordering the perfect coffee for each other and saying they love each other? Please?

 

OK, so. Assuming staying where they are in coffee and relationship heaven isn't an option (*le sigh* If only...). Hmmm. This is what I fear - that the writers will want to break up Kurt/Blaine (somehow, over something, who knows) and then have Kurt/Karofsky date (for a while at least) and then I suppose the easy option would be to eventually have them break up and have Kurt get back together with Blaine. That seems like something they'd go for *wibbles*. And I say this as someone that reads quite a lot of Kurtofsky fic, but I a) simply do not trust the writers to not mess it up were they to actually try to go for Kurtofsky, and also b) I like it, but it's not worth the pain of breaking up Klaine just to become canon. Does that make sense? I hope it does. I have sometimes trouble, with this omnishipping business, of explaining how I can simultaneously ship mutually exclusive things, and how I can ship something and yet not want it to become canon. 

 

SO. I want Karofsky to come out, maybe just to his dad at first? His dad seems nice. I want him to somehow find his own Blaine-like gay mentor/possible first gay relationship. (I think that's highly unlikely - Glee currently has 5 queer teenagers, and that's amazing and wonderful and boy do I wish that wasn't unusual, and as I say, I want them to introduce at least one more so I can ship Karofsky without endangering Klaine, but I don't know whether the show would make the leap. Also, they really like love triangles on this show.) 

BASICALLY I JUST WANT KURT AND BLAINE AND KAROFSKY TO ALL BE OUT AND HAPPY AND STUFF.

 

On which note - I want more gay kisses in general, and more Klaine in particular. And Brittana. I want Darren Criss to take his shirt off, maybe do a scene in a swim suit or a towel or something, that would be nice. I'm caught between tropes on the gay sexuality actually - part of me wants Kurt to develop one (to get away from the whole, gays are ok as long as they aren't actually *doing* anything thing :/ ) but on the other hand, him and Blaine being all romantic and sweet rather than sexy somewhat subverts the whole gays = sex maniacs thing, especially with the interesting juxaposition of Brittany/Santana being sexual toward each other prior to (HOPEFULLY, COME ON WRITERS, COME ON) getting together into a relationship. GIRLS AS SEXUAL BEINGS = A GOOD, NON-WORLD ENDING THING.

 

Oh man, you probably expected bullet points, not an essay. OH WELL. TL;DR:

 

In S3 of Glee I would like

~ Plot
~ Kissing
~ Shirtlessness

 

KTHNX.

 

3. Which fictional character do you most identify with?

LAL THIS IS NOT A FAIR QUESTION I CANNOT POSSIBLY ANSWER IT. 

 

I want to say EVERY CHARACTER ALL OF THEM but really, actually, truly... probably no one. Perhaps that is not the answer you were expecting? I identify a lot - A LOT - with various bits of characters from all over the place, and of course I have more in common with some than others. I can pick out of sets; I'm more Harry than Ron, Hermione or Ginny; I'm mostly Marco with a good dash of Rachel and a splash of Tobias; I'm lots Alan and Gerald; I'm half and half Lydia and Emily, not so much Cassie. (I'm more Mark than Eduardo, Chris or Dustin, but apparently they aren't actually fictional?! What's up with that.)

 

Oh, I could cheat and say my own characters? Except, again, there are bits of me in all of them, but I don't think one is more like me than the others. Which is funny, because it started with a self insert, only I was trying to be ~clever so the self insert wasn't supposed to be isn't the brown haired teenage girl that yearns for magic but hates witches, but one of the other characters. Really though, I can't write a character I don't feel at least a bit of. If they are to come out of me they have to start inside me.

 

ACTUALLY. I am trying to think of times I have gone "OMG THIS BOOK IS ABOUT ME, ACTUALFAX ME!" Off the top of my head though, my brain says a) Quentin from Magicians; and b) the narrator from The Bell Jar, whose name I can't remember but that remains one of my favourite books ever ever ever and which the first time through I had to keep pausing to go "OMG THIS BOOK IS ABOUT MEEEEE!" (Then all the suicide attempts happened, and I was vaguely concerned that I might be triggered into something. Which, uh. Didn't happen. But it was that , um, good?)

 

So, there. A character from a book you didn't like and a character that tries to kill herself rather a lot. Um. Please still like me. Why didn't I just pick, like, IDEK, Martha Jones and move on I have no clue. 

 

4. Can you convince me why Seb/Jamie is endgame?

 

Probably not, but I'll give it a shot :P

 

For the record, I don't see it as necessarily endgame. There isn't any Nineteen Years Later to casually sidestep if you want. They might go on one date and have it not work out or whatever. No pressure.

 

From my side though, a lot of my appreciation for Seb/Jamie is rooted in my liking Seb. Which is apparently unusual, but there you go. See also: Kurtofsky shipping. Anyway, here's what I see. Seb picked on Jamie, possibly to a horrible extent. Seb and Jamie have things in common - they are both magicians, and both gay teenage boys in an environment where this is certainly unusual. But Jamie is secure in a way that Seb fundamentally isn't. Seb is alone and confused. Mae likes to play up the idea that she and Jamie have been somewhat abandoned by their parents, but really they were brought up in an environment with a) at least one parent that given the opportunity was loving and supportive and pretty cool really and b) plenty of money, which isn't a substitute for love but sure doesn't hurt. Most of all, Jamie had Mae, a proactive kickass supportive would-literally-kill-for-you sister. Plus, magician, and one that is pretty powerful even before the whole circle-pet-demon thing. Whatever happened at this school, Jamie comes across as confident and secure in himself.

 

Seb doesn't. Seb has no one to start with - I think he's been in care? (I hope I didn't just, like, make that up...) No one that would miss him if he, oh, moved to London with a bunch of mysterious and most probably not CRB checked magicians. And ok, that's a flippant comment, but if TDL were books about actual drug addiction rather than demons that would perhaps be taken a little more strongly as an indication of Seb's situation. So, Seb has no family, and so I see much of his behaviour as being him trying to find a family unit to be a part of. He hangs out with a particular set of boys at school, he tries to get in with Mae, he goes with the magicians despite being uncomfortable with their actions, and when they don't particularly value him he stays regardless instead of leaving. Where else has he to go anyway? That speaks volumes to me about his past experiences and sense of self worth. 

 

Excuse me, I need to pause and go, awwww my bb Seb. Awww. *hugs* Anyway.

 

So, I see Seb as essentially lost, alone and scared most of the time. His picking on Jamie is not nice, not at all, but it is often a practice of the insecure pack animal - picking on Jamie simultaneously gains the approval of the other guys, and therefore a sense of identity and place in the social hierarchy and thus the inclusion he craves, while also distracting from his own "weaknesses" ie his sexuality by overly pointing it out in Jamie. See also: Karofsky. And like, everyone else ever.

 

OK, so Seb's actual relationship with Jamie. For a (long?) time, Jamie was the only other magician Seb had met, and I think it's fair to suggest that Jamie might very well also have been the only out gay teen Seb had met. Jamie has both these characteristics that Seb has, and this might sound weird but Jamie is better at both of them than Seb is. Effortlessly. Jamie has more magic than Seb, and again it might be an odd concept because, no, you can't actually be better at being gay than someone else, but what I mean is, Jamie is out, Jamie is proud, Jamie has his identity and is secure in it. Jamie does Seb better than Seb does. Jamie is things Seb is too scared to try to be. On top of that, Jamie is cute and Jamie is funny and Jamie is fascinating and Jamie is what Seb wants and Seb is somewhat confused because that other thing he wants, inclusion, has been gained at some effort, and the alienation of Jamie, and it might be lost if he gambles and tries changing and wooing Jamie.

 

The magicians though, are the catalyst - they remove Seb from the environment of school, and they show him the hard way that inclusion at the cost of targeting others is... not so great, if in a slightly more extreme way than he was doing at school. And also, y'know, Jamie's charms are strong in all ways, so. Seb gets it together enough to doing the right thing (and trying to please Jamie) over inclusiveness, and this is a big deal, OK, it really is, and a lot of people never manage to make that leap. 

 

Right, so, so far, Jamie is awesome and Seb likes him, because Jamie is awesome. But why should Jamie be with Seb?

 

Firstly, because what Jamie wants is someone to be really nice to him. I know, I know. Seb hasn't been entirely - or at all - nice to Jamie in the past. But I really see that Seb is devoted to Jamie, even when they aren't dating, even when Jamie is evil, even when Seb gets nothing for it, even when he gets to see Jamie flirt with Gerald, even when his devotion to Jamie leads him away from the magicians. Seb really likes Jamie, and I feel confident that he would treat Jamie really well from the end of TDS onwards. 

 

Secondly, because Seb is actually moral enough to not be down with the killing people thing that was such a deal breaker for Jamie with Gerald.

 

Thirdly, because Seb looks cute, and looks similar to Nick and is therefore perfectly possibly Jamie's type. (It never would have worked with Jamie/Gerald, as my "two blondes shouldn't date" rule demonstrates.)

 

Fourthly, because Jamie is awesome. No, really, he is. And brave, and badass, and cool. And he totally has a crush on the somewhat unattainable powerful older guy in Gerald, or powerful bombshell in Nick, sure. But with Seb, Jamie isn't the one doting, he is the one that gets to be doted upon, as is right and proper. Jamie doesn't have to reach or stretch or change anything that he is for Seb. 

 

So basically. Jamie's awesomeness shows Seb how to be good and conveniently, become just what Jaime has been looking for. They have similar frames of reference and life goals going forward (ie, the happiness of Jaime, morality of magicians, etc.) but their differences bring out the best in and accommodate each other. Which is a pretty good ship I think.

 

5. Where in the world would you like to live, if you (could) live anywhere?

With Darren Criss. 

IN A WRITING CASTLE. OR HOGWARTS. HOGWARTS WHERE I WRITE ALL THE TIME.

 

WITH YOU AND ALL MY OTHER FRIENDS AND ALSO DARREN CRISS, AT HOGWARTS, WHERE MUCH WRITING AND ALSO HILARIOUS HIJINKS OCCUR REGULARLY.

 

(Seriously, at the moment, I am really into America, so my instinctive answer is either New York or LA. Maybe I could mainly live in New York but winter in LA, I hear the New England winters are bitches.)

 

If you would like to play the question game, say "QUESTIONS!" and I shall ask you some :)
 

Comments

[branquignole.livejournal.com]

OMG QUESTIONS! I LOVE MEMES.

Also, isi, I agree with everything in this post, with every single thing! Especially this:

Can they skip out on school entirely and spend the whole season ordering the perfect coffee for each other and saying they love each other? Please?

YES YES YES. I really don't want the writers to break up Kurt/Blaine, whatever they do, they can't do that to me because it would break my heart. D: BTW, I've been thinking, wouldn't it be hilarious if the one going off with Karofsky was Blaine? Not that I want that. But it would be somewhat... unexpected. IDK, I ship Kurt/Karofsky, kind of, I guess, but in a way where you don't want it to become canon, but I also want them to be happy, all three of them, so the obvious answer is - OT3! :))) Okay, no. I don't want that to be canon either.

Plot and kissing basically sums up what I want for season 3, but shirtlessness would be a nice extra? :) Tina and Santana should totally get more songs, Santana and Brittany should totally get together, and Lauren should totally rock on. Yeah.

CAN I COME LIVE AT HOGWARTS TOO? WITH YOU AND ALSO DARREN CRISS AND TONS OF OTHER WONDERFUL FISH AND NON-FISH?

[brimtoast.livejournal.com]

Thank you for not spoiling the TDS thing. I still haven't read the book yet because I am a giant life failure, and I was able to be not-spoiled because of your considerate labeling :)

Winter here is hard but not unbearable. I am guessing it's worse in England, actually. Mostly I am just biased against LA so I am like NOOOO LIVE HERE AND NOT THERE. If you are going to live on 2 coasts, live in NY and San Francisco.

I sort of have been thinking that I would like to do this meme and then I forget, but now I am thinking about it and yes! I do! I would love some questions. Any questions you want to know. It will give me something to make an LJ post about!

[altogetherisi.livejournal.com]

Yay for not spoiling things! I hope you get to read it soon though, I think it is pretty damn awesome. I should add it to the list of awesome things I should write a long post about...

I guess I'd just got the impression that it's really cold and snowy for ages? Kinda like Canada lite or something. The UK actually traditionally has very mild winters considering how far north we are, it's way colder on much of the continent. Though recently we have had some epic snow. Not a huge fan of snow...

I do not know why you dislike LA but in my head it is a wonderful place where the sun shines and various beautiful people roam free. Well, drive everywhere, I guess. My friend is at UCLA and I am DETERMINED to go visit her next summer on some kind of trans-America trip of awesome. Which everyone seems to think will not happen, but they do not understand the depths of my determination!

I've been to San Francisco! I was quite young so I'd love to go back and appreciate it properly ie get drunk in gay bars but I don't think I know anyone living there any more, so it's more difficult to invite myself to stay lol.

And my fantasy of what New York is like is the jewel in the crown basically. I WANT TO GO OMG. Like, a lot. One more year, one more year...

Here are some questions! I hope they are not stupid.

1. Did you always want to teach, or is it something you kinda wandered into and realised it was for you? (And how is it going so far?)
2. Do you think/feel/behave differently between FPF and RPF fandoms?
3. You have a time machine, but unfortunately it only goes backwards in time (which is how it got here in the first place, lol.) Would you go, and when would you like to go to?
4. What food do you love a lot but can't/never get to cook for yourself?
5. Are you more excited or more sad for the last Harry Potter film?

[altogetherisi.livejournal.com]

Wooo memes! Haven't done one for a little while :) OF COURSE you are invited to come live with me and Darren Criss in the fantasy Hogwarts writing castle as one of my friends. :D And it would be TOTALLY AWESOME.

I just want to carefully wrap Klaine up and keep them safe and happy forever. I fear writers generally, and the Glee writers in particular, only seem to get people together and break them up again in their tedious search for drama and repetitive plotlines. They are too restless! Please let us keep Klaine at least for a little while longer, writers. Don't go breaking my heart...

Ahaha I have thought that the cracky no-one-is-happy-with-this-what-the-fuck situation would be to have Blaine and Karofsky go off together. Ahahahahahaha NO. If I was writing the show, Karofsky would be offered a sports scholarship and go to visit the college, and there meet a super cool, attractive guy, preferably a fiiiiine black guy, that could help Dave out of the closet and into living and loving life and himself and gay sex. That would be IDEAL.

I'm so glad you understand my shipping-without-wanting-it-to-become canon thing. Yet another thing that I took for granted in HP fandom that seems rarer in other fandoms I've been in, and that can leave me kinda baffled sometimes.

Here are some questions for you:
1. What is German language fandom like? The internet is so sprawling and connecting, but for me at least being monolingual is a barrier that stubbornly remains, and one of the few frankly. Aside from the actual language, does it feel like a significantly different social space from English language fandom?
2. What pairing or trope do you always wish there was more fic for (but that you can't be bothered to just write yourself)?
3. What was the best thing about London/the UK, and what was the worst? Did anything surprise you?
4. Which are your 3 favourite Darren Criss songs?
5. What would your perfect night out be like?

[hanelissar.livejournal.com]

Oooh QUESTIONS! :D I am collecting questions from everyone and then I'll have a MASSIVE MEME omg it will be epic. XD And probably very boring to read but I'll have fun rambling about myself!

Ahhh I used to LOVE quizzes! Oh god the number of Harry Potter quizzes I did before I even knew what lj was...*happy sigh for youthful days*

YES MERCEDES PLOT. SANTANA AND BRITTANY TO BE AN ACTUAL REAL 'WE ARE GIRLFRIENDS OF AWESOME' THING! Woe for Sam not being in it anymore though, I never cared much about him and wasn't fussed when I heard the news about him leaving until I suddenly thought BUT OMG MERCEDES! D: So now I'm sad and hope it's a lie and he does return. I kind of hope Blaine doesn't transfer to McKinley because it will be all *drama* and also the only reason he'd be moving is to be near Kurt. Which I think is a bad reason to uproot your entire life - boyfriends (and girlfriends!) are nice and awesome things to have but when you are young I do not think they should be that around which your orientate your life. But I also really don't want them to break up which would totally happen if they stay apart so basically I DON'T EVEN KNOW ISI, I JUST WANT DARREN CRISS TO SING AND BE BEAUTIFUL. <3

Also congratulations! Because whilst I have not been converted to Seb/Jamie, I do at least get where you're coming from a little more. So...that is good?

ALSO OMG YES ISI LET US LIVE IN HOGWARTS WITH DARREN CRISS AND DO MAGIC AND WRITE BOOKS AND FIC AND HAVE HIJINKS. <3

Love you lots and lots!
xxx

[altogetherisi.livejournal.com]

ARGH HAN I WAS MEANT TO COME UP WITH QUESTIONS FOR YOU AND THEN I just failed to, I don't even really know why. Um, sorry.

Here are some questions for you:
1. We both know Theology is awesome. But if for some reason you couldn't have studied it, what other subject would you have liked to read?
2. Have you been writing recently, and how has it been going?
3. Recently we have rejoiced muchly over shipping coming true in TDS. Is there a book or show where the shipping went somewhere you disagreed with/were left disappointed with?
4. Do you like to cook? What is your favourite meal to prepare?
5. What would your perfect night out be like?

QUIZZES QUIZZES SO MANY QUIZZES. Most of them weren't anything to do with Harry Potter, they were like personality things. And the porn, too. I don't even know why I read so many of those now I think about it... o_O After doing a good quiz/getting a result I particularly liked I would paste the result into an endless word doc. Sometimes I printed them out and stuck them to my folders. But mainly I just kept them, and I'm pretty sure I still have all those results somewhere. They are all things like, IDK, "You are an Autumnal spirit" or something. I WAS SO COOL.

I'm not hugely clear on whether Sam will be completely gone? At first I was like, well, whatever, Harry Shum has apparently been a non-regular for two years, and he and Darren were last year, so just because he didn't get promoted doesn't mean he got dropped entirely. But then Chord's tweet made it sound like he was gone, so... :/ I guess I'm sad for him because he is a bunch of wasted potential, and also might have helped Mercedes into plotline land. But I doubt I'll miss him. Just hope his replacement is, y'know, better.

Er, *cough* I think it's *cough* pretty certain that Blaine will be transferring. As I said, I'm concerned that this will lead to INEVITABLE AND POINTLESS DRAMA *wibbles* But this summer of Klaine staying perfect and beautiful in coffee heaven, this they cannot take from me. In other news, I am MORE THAN ON BOARD with the idea of Rachel, Kurt and Blaine graduating and then having some kind of moving-to-New-York-and-trying-to-make-it spin off. That would be just great. GET ON IT RYAN.

xxx

[laliandra.livejournal.com]

WELL WHAT IS THIS NOW?

It's like I've remembered that livejournal exists!

I lovedlovedloved your answers, darling. You are the best <3 and I'm so sorry that I've been such a failure at replying. It was not through lack of love, or that they aren't super awesome answers. I'm just really absent minded.

I love how most people I know got on the internet and went GIVE ME ALL OF YOUR HARRY POTTER THINGS. And Artemis Fowl! I only read the first few (I want to say 3?) books but I loved them.

~ Plot
~ Kissing
~ Shirtlessness


This is why I love you. And I want all of these things tooooo, OMG. I just want everyone to be happyyyyyyy. Maybe Blaine can take Karofsky under his wing and be his gay mentor now that he's Kurt's boyfriend. And I want Brittany and Santana to get the same level of recognition although this probably won't happen because slightly damaged mixed race lesbians couples do not get the same response/amount of screentime/fannish adoration as cute white (and I know that Darren Criss himself is mixed race but that's a WHOLE other thing) guys.

MORE SONGS FOR TINA. OR BUST.

Okay, so, your Jamie/Seb answer was really interesting to me because it actually highlighted a lot of ways of looking at their relationship that I hadn't thought about before, and frankly that no one had mentioned before! Twitter's endless campaign of "he's evil but can be cured by LOVE" thing was NOT compelling to me. But But with Seb, Jamie isn't the one doting, he is the one that gets to be doted upon, as is right and proper. Jamie doesn't have to reach or stretch or change anything that he is for Seb. sort of is. That's extremely charming. Also the thing about Jamie actually having a lot of power in that relationship is extremely valid. I suppose I tend to have extremely negative reactions about any kind of bully/bullied relationship, for what are probably painfully obvious reasons! But I maybe shouldn't look at this relationship through that lens, or not solely, anyway.

TL;DR ILU AND WOULD MOVE TO A WRITING CASTLE WITH YOU, LIKE, TOMORROW. <3

[altogetherisi.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOSH I NEVER THOUGHT I'D SEE THE DAY

Hello and welcome back to LJ! Never leave us! Here there be words! Aw, I didn't mind massively, it was just a bit like "Here Lal, these are for you! ...Lal? ...........Lal? oh" but you are here now and that is WONDERFUL.

Oh dear, it is slightly weird now the series has started and disappeared again afhgffjg Glee why do you do so many annoying things to remind myself what I had hoped for, and to be able to go "hey that happened!" "no signs of them going in that direction yet" and also "GIVE ME LAUREN ZIZIES BACK RIGHT NOW OR I WILL CUT A BITCH" or whatever. I am also really confused about Karofsky - I thought Max Adler was coming back at some point? But now Kurt is apparently a senior, if Karofsky was older he would have graduated? And if he wasn't a senior then hell, no one at that school was older than the Glee kids. IDEK what is going on there in canon. So confusing.

I'm not sure any other pairing anywhere gets as much attention as Kurt/Blaine atm. Maybe Bella/Edward, but really they are pretty much over now IMO... I love Brittana muchly, and it does has a strong fan following, but Kurt/Blaine are such a phenomenon that I just don't think it's possible right now for anything to compete. 3x05 will be very interesting to see. But I do think that Brittana has as much of a following as the other Glee ships, is probably much more popular than some of the boring, het ones. In terms of wider recognition, I think they would get more if they each got the chance to sing more. Chris and Darren are both amazingly talented and the show helps showcase this, so people pay attention, and a successful spiral thing happens. Naya and Heather are also pretty freaking awesome, but the show doesn't showcase them the same way. That's a shame. (And maybe comes back a bit to them being gay female and mixed race as a couple. And maybe because they are mainly comic and eye candy characters originally.)

I'm glad you found my attempt to explain what I see in Seb/Jamie interesting and different! Of course, if it is simply not your cup of tea then I would never suggest it should be, and if you have such reasons as I think you are alluding to then I want to bundle you up and cuddle you forever and say Laaaaaal.
Rather opposite to you, I have a massive thing for bully/bullied and the "homophobic bully is secretly gay and into victim" trope, which is why I was shipping Seb/Jamie enough prior to Covenant to put them on my shipping chart haha. Which SRB remarked on actually. LOL. So I was already looking out for them the first read through, including refusing to believe that Seb was seriously into Mae instead, and then felt massively vindicated by the end of Covenant etc etc. My point being, I started thinking about the two of them as a couple dynamic ages ago. But what I found, and ship now, is really rather different from what I was expecting pre-Covenant. The Seb/Jamie relationship we get is really pretty different from other former bully and target relationships IMO.
And I think the main point is that to me, Jamie is very much not the woobie in the relationship. Jamie might start TDL as the damsel in distress character, but he really doesn't end the series that way. (The fact that I want to cuddle and comfort Seb so much, and many other fans apparently do not, only makes me want to cuddle him more.) I think that first scene in TDC is very revealing - the first time we actually see Jamie and Seb together, and ostensibly Jamie is being bullied, but actually Jamie is very much in control, in a position of power, and it's Seb that is scared and in danger. So, yeah. I know Jamie says he hates Seb for making his life hell, and I'm sure that is legitimately based, but it really is a very different dynamic from other bully and bullied scenarios. Ha, another trope subverted by SRB!

Anyway, thank you for being willing enough to wonder about it!

You will be first on the invite list for the writing castle! <33333