a ship is a vessel: cretaceous edition

[bestfrenjun]

preface

the most popular ship arrangements in jwcc fandom (as far as i’ve seen) is:

• brooklynn (f13) / darius (m12)
• kenji (m15) / ben (m14)
• yasmina (f15) / sammy (f14)

which is like. fine, i guess, if we’re insistent on neatly pairing off all six kiddos. this is like the mh-lr-nm-cj of the jwcc fandom

but To Me it should be:

• brooklynn / yasmina ♡♡♡♡♡♡
• kenji / ben
• sammy / no one because i have yet to warm up to her as a character
• darius / no one because he’s 12.

alternatively i’ll take ben / darius and kenji / sammy instead for Neatness.

jwcc, being a kids show, has a fandom largely made up of their target audience (kids!) and thus are very vocal about shipping dynamics that make them uncomfortable. they have valid points: if you’re under 18 and think the idea of a 12yo and 14yo dating is weird then like, you’re right. i probably would’ve thought that too in high school.

as an adult, however, i can see that it’s not… a big deal lol especially within the context of this show. a grade 10 (kenji, yasmina) dating someone in grade 7 (darius) or grade 8 (brooklynn) is a little ??? unconventional and yeah, you would definitely feel the age gap between someone in elementary school vs. someone in high school. but here’s the thing: they’ve all Trauma-Bonded. if you’re stuck on an island with five other teens, the last thing i’d be thinking about is “wow i’m so much younger/older than this person, that’s inappropriate” ESPECIALLY with how much time this gang has spent together. by season 3 it’s stated that they were on nublar six months. imagine being stuck on an island with only five other people—other kids around your age—and you’re homesick, experiencing dinosaur ptsd, constantly in fear for your life, AND hormonal. like. ??????? a more realistic team dynamic among the camp kids would be resentment for each other. they must be sick of spending so much time together! instead, the show has portrayed the six of them as having a found-family dynamic built on life-or-death trust, and if six months of spending time together isn’t an environment that could foster confusing and messy romantic feelings, idk what else could. so tl;dr: i have no problem with age gap shipping between these characters because of their history.

(it would be fun if fandom explored the dissonance between objectively knowing that someone is Young for you vs. having romantic interest in them. kenji pov… the mess of a human he is… wake up fandom.)

edit 22/04/16: so upon rereading this write-up again i realize it’s hypocritical considering how i feel about age gaps in rpf LMAO. you can draw some parallels between the idol trainee experience and the Group Bonding of being in a k-pop boy band to the group trauma experienced by the campers, but the difference is: i’m not trying to read or write smut about the camp kids. these characters are not real nor are they based on the likeness of Real People. it’s not the same!

popular ships

yasammy: I GET IT… I DO… THEY SHOULD BE CANON… BUT THEY AREN’T AND I’M GLAD BECAUSE I DON’T LIKE SAMMY!

i wish i did! i do! yaz and sammy have a lovely friendship and from a character development perspective, they needed each other: sammy’s persistence on The Power Of Found Family Friendship vs. yaz’s initial lone wolf-ism and reluctance to let people in. yaz as a character has grown sooo much since the first season, barring her wing-woman role in season 4 which i will conveniently ignore as it doesn’t fit My Narrative, so for that i say thanks sammy? as a ship, both romantic and platonic, they’re great, they work well together, they might as well be romantic canon at this point, but they aren’t ♡ so i win.

((but it wouldn’t kill the writers to put in a little lgbtq+ representation in the show considering we have uh… That Ship as canon.))

dinostar (brooklynn / darius): She’s A Lesbian And He’s 12? but really i think they are suuuuch cute besties, they have the similar age-ism going for them (youngest girl and boy of the group), both a little on the fringes when interacting with the other campers and equally not taken seriously because of their age. despite this they both take on a leadership role when it comes to decision-making/Scheming for the gang—brooklynn has her life experience as a vlogger, darius is extremely smart and is often hc’d as being neurodivergent—pushing the plot forward when it comes to Life-Or-Death Situations. romantically i’ve never considered the possibility, but again: I Get It. and as the final ship in the pairing-off dynamic i listed above, it’s like. yeah i don’t hate it.

wildcity aka benji (kenji / ben): MY BELOVEDS……… i was a little ?? about them at first, skeptical of them being a token gay ship that the fandom concocted, but then i read fics by Ailendolin and i went. yup. they’re mine now! plus they have a height difference so like. duh!

admittedly the only ship i’ve read more than one fic for lmao but the quality and the tropes <3 hurt/comfort is a big theme for this relationship, leaning heavily on ben’s Trauma of being left on his own on nublar + kenji’s guilt as The Eldest for not taking care of all the campers. he doesn’t blame himself the same way darius does (more on that later) BUT kenji does think about ben in his absence—he inherits his pouch and wears it, tries looking for him, etc. there’s also the reunion scene that really steered the ship. and then the writers killed this ship with canon brookenji.

romantic plausibility

the best rarepair in the whole show aka yasmina / brooklynn: 2pick shipping at its finest BUT LISTEN: HAS THIS FANDOM EVER THOUGHT ABOUT THE POST-CANON POSSIBILITIES? this is me being a rarepair shipper x future / post-canon fucker coming out in full fruition. in canon they have the reluctant-acquaintences-to-temporary-rivals-to-friends-to-lovers dynamic, which NO ONE HAS EXPLOITED IN THIS FANDOM (wake up people!). season 3 was everything To Me as one of maybe 10 yazlynn shippers on god’s green earth. i think they’re great. it’s upsetting that yaz was dealing with trauma while being both kenji’s AND brooklynn’s wingwoman in season 4, but whatever. i’m calling that brookenji break up at the end of season 5.

the au i have written in my head about these two is: post-canon/future fic (duh), yaz dealing with bouts of ptsd but pushing herself in her career to ignore it (unhealthy coping mechanisms <3), brooklynn pursuing investigative journalism, they reunite when brooklynn is flies out to [xyz city] to cover a story for [insert plot device] and yaz happens to be in town running a race. brooklynn attends her race. they trauma-bond afterward. would it be problematic to say they’re aged up significantly and they do 18+ things? probably, and i wouldn’t write a scene about it, but In My Head it happens. feelings realization. UGH!!!!!

ben / darius: a quick twitter search told me this is a Problematic Ship among the fandom AND I HAVE THOUGHTS ABOUT THAT… not the point right now because my point is: i like benrius A Lot, platonically and romantically they’re cute! generally i don’t think of darius as a character capable of romance because, as the fandom likes to point out: he’s 12. does that mean he can’t have crushes? no it doesn’t! i like the idea of one-sided love line of darius → ben ♡ kenji, where darius has a silly little crush on ben who is clearly dating kenji and darius is obtuse toward it LMAO. post-canon, when the kiddos get off the island (because they will!) i’m more inclined to believe that ben and darius would actually remain friends (yasammy too, while we’re at it). there’s a post-canon benrius fic i read where they’re deciding on colleges to go to—super far off in the future for the jwcc timeline—and it was cute. very marginally i prefer platonic > romantic, but as a romantic ship i like this one the best for darius. as for canon, their friendship develops very nicely over the course of seasons 2 and 3 as darius reconciles with ben from the incident (and gets over the guilt of not saving ben from falling, which LITERALLY isn't his fault, he's 12 how could he expect himself to hold up ben from falling off the monorail?). in my opinion and spotty memory, benrius have the only relationship in the show that a) experiences emotional conflict, and b) gets explored on screen, so imo they have the most potential for maintaining a relationship long-term.

kenji / sammy: convenience shipping. they’d be fun together! that’s all i’ve got to say lmao

platonic only please

kenji & darius: they give me the same energy as johnny / mark. they have a brotherly dynamic where the older person (kenji) doesn’t respect the younger one (darius) as an Actual Person and sees them as a kid. like not to talk about johnmark but those are the vibes i get from kenji toward darius. as the show progressed the alpha-male-bro persona that kenji has settles down and in season 4 that energy isn’t as prevalent between them, but this ship is nothing more than platonic. i’m so mad at the writers for ending season 3 with a possible rift between kenji and darius—one that had the potential to break the friend group and have really good consequences for everyone—but this is a kids show, and instead of going for character complexity they blamed kenji’s attitude toward darius on protective instinct over brooklynn which. BOOOO TOMATO TOMATO !!!!

kenji & brooklynn: barf emoji… where did this ship come from? why them? my fingers are crossed that they paired off kenji with brooklynn to allow yasammy to have their canon endgame (not what Eye deserve, but what their shippers deserve because they have valid points) and not to deter benji shippers. it’s like, was this fuelled by homophobia (kill off the possibility of benji) or to give room for canon yasammy? who knows. this ship literally came from nowhere and the consensus among the fandom is that it sucks and wish it didn’t happen. i need to rewatch the show to see if they sprinkled any hints at this ship because it really does not make sense narratively.

kenji & yasmina: LISTEN UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS HERE… THIS RIGHT HERE… THIS IS A TOP TIER LESBIAN & HIMBO DYNAMIC!!!!!!!! the eldest boy and girl who are not leaders in planning but spiritual motivators for the team + shared responsibility for taking care of the younger campers <3 the only thing season 4 got right was yaz being a wingwoman for kenji—i know kenji would do the same for yaz if the tables turned and yasammy had a romantic arc.

everyone else: i literally never think of yasmina x ben, yasmina x darius, sammy x ben, sammy x brooklynn, or ben x brooklynn. they don’t exist at all outside of the camp group! acquaintences/friends at best.