u/Beautiful_Survey2099

Love these pics from a gorgeous day out! Looks like Season 2 because Elsie's there in her captain's hat, special mention to Rain who is clearly in her element. ⛵

"Shipping" has been a long favoured pastime for fandoms. It's become the primary way that many fans engage with fiction be it TV or literature. It's been what entire marketing strategies have been built upon. Jellies or Bonrads, Hermione and Harry, shipping fictional characters often with characters they are not paired with in the original source material. Why do we ship? And have we always done so. Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot and Guinevere. Isn't all art and entertainment a means for an escape, a little fantasy?

In recent times , shipping is considered more controversial especially when it involves real life people. Actors, celebrities and public figures who are not together in real life.The word "Shipper!" is often flung around as a slur ( very much on Reddit)

Is being a shipper disrespectful to their partners? Is it because shipping actors who play romantic scene partners and spend long hours on set very often end up falling in love. Is it uncomfortable because it can easily happen?

There is an entire fandom built on shipping a pair of Canadian figure skating partners who were Olympic gold medalists, partnered together since they were children and everyone was convinced they were soulmates . They both went on to marry other people and have families. Yet the shipping persists. What is the psychology behind this? Is it because people want the performance of love and the intimacy to be real? Does it matter if it isn't, why are fans crushed to discover the feelings are platonic ? Maybe even like siblings for athletes who grew up training together everyday since they were little.

We saw a reprise of fan edits and rabid shipping when both returned to host segments during the Winter Olympics this year. I did find the rhetoric online to be lighter though. No one was hotly defending their real life spouses and families , even if they should have.

There was shipping when Television's first couple were not a couple: Mathew Rhys and Keri Russell who were co-stars on the Americans. Fans instantly picked up on their electric chemistry onscreen and off. Both are always laughing, in splits in interviews, and the fandom went wild with Cold War geopolitics and hot and heavy shipping. Again more controversial because Keri had a husband at the time and small children. I never saw much backlash though, and in their case the fandom was fed when a couple of years later Keri was full term pregnant with Mathew's first child.

In the YA category shipping has far reaching impact. It drives entire campaigns, even alters storylines. In The Summer, for a casual observer it was inevitable that Belly would end up with Conrad. But the show was teased till the bitter end that it may not end that way. Giving hope to Team Jeremiah and even Team Belly for people who wanted Belly away from both brothers.

With YA shows there are YA actors who often have partners. They are now online for the world to dissect and observe under a microscope. There is a case for them to keep their social media public and build influencer careers or share in the limelight of their partner's success. Young fans want to follow the girlfriends and even boyfriends ( though rarer) of these actors and in some cases even create fan pages for them!

Does shipping hurt them? Can it become disrespectful and often trolling? And does it challenge their identity as the significant other of a celebrity.

How harmful is shipping and is social media the reason it's not as lighthearted as it used to be.

What does persistent shipping say about the people who ship? is there an epidemic of loneliness? Are people living vicariously through these characters, real or imagined?

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I know someone already mentioned Lola for the MCU, but honestly, I’d love to see her as either of these two—with Psylocke being my absolute top pick!

With the X-Men set to make their grand entrance into the MCU, we’re all eagerly waiting to see who gets cast for the core team. While a lot of big names were already announced, two of Marvel’s most prominent Asian mutants—Jubilee and Psylocke (Psylocke/Kwannon)—haven't had any official casting announcements yet!

Honestly, Lola Tung would be an absolute dream cast for either of these roles.

As Jubilee: She has the perfect energy, charisma, and screen presence to bring Jubilee’s vibrant, 90s-cool vibe to life. She can easily handle the humor, heart, and youthful optimism that makes Jubilee such a fan favorite.

As Psylocke: Lola has the talent, range, and presence to step into a darker, more intense, and action-heavy role like Psylocke, bringing real depth and style to the character.
The catch though is she needs to train Martial Arts and combat sports which i think is possible given Lola is into sports too.

Given her star trajectory and how incredible her team is at picking high-profile, quality projects, securing a spot in the MCU X-Men lineup just feels like the natural next steps.

What do you guys think? Which of these two would you want to see her play, or would you rather want Lola to stay out of superhero theme movies/films?

Chris and Lola are known for taking longish social media breaks. Chris in particular has been taking quite a few lately and we've noticed rarely updates his projects. Didn't post for Hacks or even repost the cute story Jean Smart made where she tagged him. Nothing for CTTS or even the in production picture for The Summer ( Lola also didn't share it ). He hasn't shared sponsored or charity events that he's attended recently either. Since January there have only been personal "dumps" of a mix of throwbacks and recent, mainly of his roommates and girlfriend.

A few days ago he broke his social media hiatus stretching from May to post another personal dump of pics of himself and his girlfriend . The next day he posted a set of behind the scenes pictures from The Julia Set.

Fans are excited to receive such a surfeit of Chris after a long dry spell and we are happy with what we can get. Still some fans are perplexed and question if it's really him managing his account.

We noticed that his personal dump being the first one after months received the windfall of fan attention and is now at nearly 1 million likes whereas his upcoming movie which would have benefited from the same level of attention is at a relatively low 190k.

The Julia Set which premieres at TIFF next month is a small indie in the market for a distributor , his co-star Chase Infiniti is an executive producer on the project. It's an all-hands-on-deck situation, promoting a movie and I am sure they appreciate Chris posting. We wonder why someone needed to pip them to the post by sharing all those personal pics first ( tags included)

Arguably in the greater scheme of things social media seems trivial , but is it really? Especially when you have 5.5 million followers .

🤳

Hi we are thrilled to announce a new Lola Tung subreddit!

Lolatungofficial

https://www.reddit.com/r/lolatungofficial/

Now you may ask, why do we need another sub when there is one already?

Well the reason is, one of our mods ( Who also moderates Lola Tung) and another moderator on Lola who together contribute pretty much ALL of the content on there, have surreptitiously been taken off as mods with no valid reason provided, apart from there being "too many mods". Oddly enough the remaining ones are basically inactive.

It may not seem fair but that's how things work in the totalitarian regimes of Reddit. 🫠

We also realised that there are a couple of users who control these subs and have an agenda to push which funnily enough doesn't seem to be about supporting these actors.

If you want to continue to get your regular fix of Lola updates we suggest you join the new sub . We will focus on going deeper with discussions on everything from career , movie plots and more.

We will be keeping up all our content on ChrisLola as well! And grateful for all the new members and contributors. We are already averaging 5000 weekly visitors on ChrisLola in just one month.

We hope to allow open discussion on these subs as long as it remains respectful and constructive

🧿

With Beatrice Kitsos his costar for his upcoming *Better than the Movies* movie

We look forward to Chris and Lola playing many different characters in the future. But for how much longer will they still be remembered as "Belly and Conrad." I can envision Chris being called "Connie baby" for decades. It must be wonderful to play a character so beloved, but is this helpful or would they rather move on completely?

I remember Alexis Bledel being called Rory for years and talking about the Gilmore Girls in interviews even fifteen years after her show wrapped. She's won an Emmy for the Handmaid's Tale but no one wants to talk about anything other than "Team Jess'" or "Team Logan".

Robert Pattinson and Jacob Elordi have moved swiftly past their YA roles. Robert famously used to criticise Twilight and called his character Edward Cullen "unhinged" while he was still making the films. Jacob also has been very open about his dislike for the Kissing Booth series.

There are of course actors like Keri Russell who was adored on Felicity but has broken out of that mold completely and is now known for so many other great roles but still looks back at her Felicity years with love and nostalgia.

I wonder if Chris and Lola will remember their time on The Summer as fondly? What about their co-stars?

More than the actors will their huge fandoms move on? Will the teams and the "ships" die down or will they pursue these actors for many years to come?

🍿~📽️ ~🎞️ ~💘

Lola is trying out eclectic roles, from horror to period drama and is moving far away from her character as Belly at warp speed. There is no way to know her next move!

I saw some chatter online about Lola being in the "Spiderverse" or in the X-men movies. I could see Lola fitting in very well in the DCU and Marvel Universe.

Would love her in X-Men, they are really going all out on casting. With Adam driver rumoured to be Magneto and Sadie Sink as Jean Grey I could see Lola fitting in really well , people are saying Jubilee ( Lana Condor played her ten years ago) but I could see her even as Mystique.

Would love to see her play Silk in Spider-Man. I think they've had a couple of actresses play Cindy Moon , Silk's alter-ego but I think Lola has the star power to be a full blown DCU superhero! What do you think ?

🕸️

Phia Saban who plays Helaena on House of the Dragon has been liking Lola's recent pics all over Instagram , on her own profile as well as on other pages like Cosmo.

Are they friends? are they going to be working on something together. Is Lola going to be a dragon rider one day in the final season ?

Happy to share our love of Chris and Lola, their future projects, their special connection, the Summer I Turned Pretty Movie and of course our beloved Belly and Conrad.

We wanted to carve out a space on Reddit where we can chat about them, follow their work and their co-stars and also have fun.

Hope you enjoy our silly subreddit. We now have an average of over 4000 weekly visitors!

Share with us why you fell in love with Chris and Lola and the show! We want to hear from you 🥰

Lola is now dressing in dark, romantic, turn of the century inspired styles . Dystopian Victoriana with bodices and corsetry, a far cry from the jean shorts and peasant tops of beachy girl Belly .

Looking forward to more of these costume inspired looks as she continues into her period drama era as she films A24's Please.

https://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/lola-tung-dilara-findikoglu-lingerie-dress