#all the gay girls watched erathia when they were little and couldn't explain why they loved it more than everyone else

[eskawrites]

is it foolish of me to believe that in the celebrity fake dating au several years in the future once the very first fanfic site is up there is a large uptick in erathia sales and tenar/lark becomes a popular ship

not only is it extremely un-foolish of you, anon, it's also completely on point. like, you have no idea. this is something that has been in my notes since basically the beginning of this fic.

like, i think robin in particular has always been a role model for girls since the erathia films, and it's absolutely my headcanon (actual canon?) that there's a small part of her fan base that's just lesbians exchanging knowing looks with each other and quietly wishing her the best.

i also fully believe there was a tenar/lark fandom basically as soon as the second movie came out. after all, nancy and robin put a lot of thought and effort into making their characters' dynamic something more than the usual 'two women fighting over the male protagonist.' (fun fact this is partially inspired by the making of wicked the musical and how glinda and elphaba could've been typical catty opponents and instead became incredible foils who present the show's great love story). combine that with their natural chemistry, and gay/bi women would easily read their relationship as a potentially romantic one. catch a bunch of women in the late 80s/early 90s passing around fanzines a la early Star Trek fandom or something

anyway i could talk about this forever but i probably shouldn't. instead, here's the actual semi-polished lil write up i made a few weeks back:

Tenar and Lark—Nancy and Robin’s movie characters—actually have a bit of a fandom going on and have since the 80s. The fandom only grows when Robin comes out, and then when she and Nancy go public with their relationship (in fact, there’s a bit of a conspiracy for a while in early 1998—Nancy and Robin aren’t hiding anything, but they’re not confirming anything through interviews, either. So when paparazzi photos start coming out of them holding hands and going out together, most of the public is like ‘oh gals being pals’ but a not insignificant number of Erathia fans know what’s up). Anyway, as Robin and Nancy become more serious, more and more people rewatch the Erathia movies and see their characters in a new light. Suddenly all the work Nancy and Robin put into building their characters and creating a three-dimensional friendship between Tenar and Lark translates into the potential for something deeper. Tenar and Lark become one of the most iconic wlw couples, kind of on par with something like Xena on Gabrielle. In the early 2000s, someone asks Scott Clarke what he thinks of Tenar and Lark, and he just chuckles and says it makes sense and he wishes he saw it way back when.

(there are probably some spin-off books, eventual prequel/sequel series, etc and so on that come out--the erathia films were originally based off of the star wars trilogy, after all. and you bet your ass that in all of those, tenar and lark are completely in love)

#asks #anon #celebrity fake dating au #ronance #(sorry to anyone in the ronance tag who hasn't read this and has no idea what's going on) #anon you have NO IDEA #i have been vibrating with excitement all day long #just waiting until i could clock out and answer this #i've wanted to talk about the fictional fandom influence of this fictional franchise in a fanfiction story i wrote for MONTHS #tl;dr tenar and lark become THE 80s lesbian catnip ship #it's like a rite of passage #all the gay girls watched erathia when they were little and couldn't explain why they loved it more than everyone else #then they watched it when they were older and were like....oh. oh that's why #erathia