You Can Hold My Hand (if No One’s Home)

I tend to care about taking a more realistic approach to Riptide in terms of resource management ect, so here's some random thoughts about clothes.

(minor spoilers up to episode #87)

Space management is important on a ship, so pirates tend to stick the essential clothing pieces, and change and wash them less than the average land-dweller.

Pirates don't smell great. This is just something you have to accept.

(except Gillion. Gillion smells of fish and salt and seaweed and the ocean, and never smells sweaty because he doesn't sweat in the human sense, he's just always moist)

Pre episode #87:

Chip has one shirt and one pair of trousers. When he needs to wash them, he will just walk around shirtless or in his underpants depending on what item is being washed. even for a pirate, this is a bit excessive.

he has like three pairs of underpants and he washes them concerningly infrequently

Jay has a change of clothes - she has a spare shirt and trousers, 2 bras that she alternates between, and several pairs of underpants. This is closer to the regular amount of clothes you would expect a pirate to have

After Chip lost his shirt in Allport, he borrowed Jay's spare one since I refuse to imagine him shirtless for the entire Feywild arc. My boy would be cold! :(

Jay is overall the most well-groomed due to her Navy upbringing. However, this isn't something she enjoys - more like something that she feels obligated to do. She finds washing her clothes a pain, and doesn't mind not smelling great or being dirty. As a kid she always hated washing and wearing uncomfortable clothes. As she spends more time on the pirate ship, she becomes less well-put-together and starts to drift more towards a Chip-level of cleanliness - though she promises herself she will never stoop quite as low as him. It's a matter of pride.

She does pick up his habit of walking around shirtless or in her underpants when she can't be bothered to get dressed / it's too hot / whatever. It's a pirate ship, social norms don't matter. Everyone on the ship is family and no-one cares.

She stops wearing bras when they are not on land for the same reason. However, when they come to land, she does make a concerted effort to make herself look socially acceptable and conform to standard norms regarding dress, since she knows this will get them a better reception with the land-dwellers they interact with.

Gillion's was raised to be well-groomed, but didn't have a chance to pack a change of clothes when he was kicked out of the Undersea. His clothes are stiff and encrusted with salt from all the time he spends in the water. There isn't as much of a need to wash items of clothing in the Undersea, as they are in water the whole time, and stains don't show up in the underwater gloom unless they're extremely obvious. Chip and Jay teach him how laundry works easily enough, and Gillion employs a similar strategy to Chip. However, he washes his clothes less frequently than they do as they are always being resubmerged in water anyway.

Post episode #87:

They finally get Gillion a change of clothes. He has an alternate shirt and trousers.

Since they have a bigger ship by this point, the crew has space for a few more fun/luxury items of clothing that aren't for everyday wear. Only a few - ie one special shirt - but it's still nice to have.

(Gillion has an emo band T-shirt) (yes they have emo bands in the fantasy world of Mana) (come on we all know at this point that the world doesn't conform to a consistent time period)

Jay realises she hates her current clothes because the starched sleeveless shirts she has been wearing, though they have become far less starched after a year of heavy use and improper wear, are very scratchy on her skin. She buys two softer wooden sleeveless shirts instead (ie the ribbed design a lot of the fanart of her features). She gives the old shirts to Chip

Chip buys the coat, which keeps his shoulders warm, and so he often prefers to go shirtless to show off his tattoos. However, he will wear Jay's old shirts when his tits get too cold.

LISTEN fish and chips is NOT mutual pining to me, it is one-sided on Chip's side. Not because Gillion doesn't love him back, but because Gillion accepts whatever love he is given and it doesn't occur to him to expect or demand any more. Gillion is very happy to be in a romantic relationship with Chip, but he's also happy to just be friends/family/whatever queerplatonic familial closeness Albatrio have going on. There's no pining on Gillion's side, because Gillion has already got a family he never would have expected to be blessed with, and it doesn’t occur to him to expect anything more than what has already far exceeded his expectations.

And this is where the angst comes in, because as we know, Chip:

hates himself and thinks he's a burden on everyone around him and thinks he’s unworthy of love

puts Gillion on a pedestal and thinks he’s this wonderful perfect paragon who Chip can never come close to measuring up to

has internalised homophobia and a crippling shame at the thought of ever revealing his dependence on others

So on the one hand we have Chip, with all these internal reasons why he can never bring himself to make the first move, because he thinks Gill would be disgusted at his presumption for thinking someone as amazing as Gill could possibly deserve someone as awful as Chip - and on the other hand we have Gillion, who is never going to make the first move because it would never occur to him to expect more love than he’s been granted, and would likewise consider it a presumption to demand more after he's received so much more generosity from the crew than he could have ever imagined, and probably expects Chip to someday find his true love and live happily ever after with them with Gill's blessing. So what do they do in this situation? Chip fantasises about Gillion being in love with him and making the first move, then feels disgusted at himself and beats himself up for feeling that way about his friend. Then Gill deliberately ignores any hints Chip might make that he likes Gill, because Gillion must be misinterpreting human behaviour again because in Gill's mind there’s no way Chip would be flirting with Gillion, Gillion never even considers that he might fill that role, because surely Chip is destined for another, a human from his own world. Then Chip interprets Gillion's intentional obliviousness as rejection, and a confirmation of all his negative beliefs about himself.

Suffer.

ignore my friends note 😭🙏

The Hero

do you think when lizzie found out jay left the ferin family her heart broke a little more. because ava never left the ferins. no matter how much she loved lizzie, she never gave that up, and in the end that was what broke them. do you think the thought crossed her mind that if jay changed, maybe ava was always capable of changing. maybe lizzie just wasn't worth changing for.

if price is shadowbeard's son. and shadowbeard was like a father to lizzie. and lizzie is basically chip's older sister. and price is like a brother to chip. and ollie is price's brother. and ollie is also like chip's younger brother. i'm just saying ella's ended up with more kids than she anticipated

chibo

take figures out of their boxes btw. sew patches on your favorite jacket. go to bed with your favorite plushes. wear the pants you usually save for special occasions. draw something cool on your wall. put a sticker on your laptop. dye your hair and pierce your lips. glass is meant to break, metal is meant to rust. items are meant to be used. that's how the world knows that somebody loved them.