The One True Place Where You Belong - Jumba/Pleakley
Title: The One True Place Where You Belong
Author: WeyrdChic
E-Mail: lady.indigo@gmail.com
Pairing: Jumba/Pleakley
Fandom: Lilo and Stitch
Spoilers: For Lilo and Stitch, Stitch the Movie, and the animated TV series.
Notes: All pictures are screencaps from Stitch the Movie. TVTome.com is now TV.com and all official records of what was said there are gone, but I promise, the quotes are authentic. ^_^
EDIT: All links should be working now, though it seems whenever I fix something that creates 2 more things I need to fix next time. -_- I'm never, ever writing an LJ entry in Word first again.
Because someone asked, and so the answer doesn't get buried in comments for anyone else who wants to know: the series is still airing on Disney Channel, and is still airing new episodes. (Though it'll be ending soon.) Check disneychannel.com for times in your area, since they seem to have no rhyme or reason to when they air the show anymore. There's also a second sequel coming out on August 30th, Stitch Has A Glitch, but that's from a different production department so I have no idea how Jumba and Pleakley will be portrayed.
Some series episodes can also be found through the user 'Stitchy' at the Soulseek filesharing program, but the downloads there are very slow going. I wish we had a torrent.
I. What You’re Watching: Roots of the Family Tree
Lilo and Stitch alone isn’t an easy franchise to describe; the original film broke every cliché in the book and managed to cover some pretty heavy themes - broken families, outcasts, and love’s redemption - amidst its chaotic, quirky fun. Strangely enough, the relationship I’m such a big fan of doesn’t even show up much until the sequel, Stitch the Movie, and the subsequent TV series.
But to get to the good stuff, let me sum up the basics first:
Lilo and Stitch is about a newly orphaned little girl named Lilo who unknowingly adopts a destructive alien (Stitch) and helps redeem him through her refusal to give up on him. Her reason, and the movie’s theme, is the Hawaiian principle of ‘ohana: “’Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”
But every now and then we switch gears: to that alien’s amoral creator, Dr. Jumba Jookiba and his unwilling partner, Earth expert Agent Pleakley, sent to Earth to recover Stitch and imprison him. It’s the most odd couple kind of partnership you can get; in fact, they were pretty much stuck together as a sick joke. But through a series of circumstances, they grow softer towards Stitch and each other even when they wind up exiled to Earth for failing their mission.
By then, they’ve grown to identify and sympathize with Lilo and her big sister/guardian Nani, too. The pair winds up living with them, serving as Lilo and Stitch’s babysitters while Nani is working round-the-clock to make ends meet. For all their differences, they become bunkmates and best friends.
That’s where their real story starts. And that story, too, is about broken families and outcasts and love’s redemption. You just have to look a little harder.
II. Dr. Jumba Jookiba
“I prefer to be called EVIL GENIUS!” - Dr. Jumba Jookiba, Lilo and Stitch
Jumba is a self-proclaimed evil genius scientist, but even that isn’t simple. He’s a mess of contradictions - he’s amoral but not really evil, has a temper but isn’t vicious, distances himself from people but seems to regret it. The fact that we know very little about his history and even less of his internal thoughts doesn’t help.
His identity is built on his intellect, and his work is the most important thing in his life. Along with being the “father” of Stitch and 625 other genetic creations, all meant to cause chaos and destruction in one form or another, he knows a little bit about everything that you could name. He never fails to let people know this.
But since Jumba is scientifically minded, he tends to approach his relationships without emotions to get in the way. He’s deemed love a waste of time, though the series’ references to an ex-wife show he’s at least tried it. It’s this distance from people, and a general love of mischief, that makes him seem truly evil at first glance - but there’s the fun evil that comes from secret chambers and big explosions, and real evil, which he doesn’t subscribe to. Deep down he can understand and even love others. (In fact, when push comes to shove he can be soft and sentimental.) He’s just not very good at it, and his love for destruction makes it convenient to ignore that there are real people involved.
One fan posted this observation on a message board at TVTome:
I would guess that he creates the experiments because he is driven by an unending thirst for knowledge, and a massive ego. I tend to believe that his experimenting is what keeps him sane, because really, in a way, it's all he has. Sure, he has the ‘ohana now, but he seems to keep them at arm's length, almost as if they're a threat to his more rational sensibilities. He certainly seems very insecure whenever his genius is questioned by anyone, because it's obviously the part of his life that he holds in the highest regard... or so it seems.
Why does he bring up his ex-wife so often? Does he really despise her, or is she just an outlet for venting his own inadequacies? If he really wanted to bury the memories, wouldn't he try to forget about her? I think he secretly regrets the demise of their relationship and his own failure to make her happy. It seems like he has very poor interpersonal skills, judging by the way he insults Pleakley on a regular basis, even if he appears to do so jokingly.
Jess Winfield, one of the writers/executive producers of Stitch the Movie and the TV series, said he couldn’t have put it better himself.
III. Agent Wendy Pleakley
“You’re just jealous because I’m pretty!” - Pleakley, Lilo and Stitch
If you looked at the Agent Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch and the Wendy Pleakley from the sequel and series, you’d see two very different people. Mirroring this, Pleakley’s biggest problem is the search for his own identity and sense of authority.
Lilo and Stitch’s Agent Pleakley is an nervous, uptight Earth expert, who winds up annoying the leader of the Galactic Federation so much that she sends him to “control” Jumba when he goes to capture Stitch. Pleakley’s intrigued by the planet, which he thinks is a habitat for the “endangered” mosquito, until he actually goes there and learns more than what he saw through a Viewmaster.
Like all aliens we see save Jumba and Stitch, Pleakley values rules sometimes past the point of common sense. It’s the meeting of his rigidity and Jumba’s lack of ethics that gets most of the comic mileage in the movie. He at one point refuses to help Nani rescue Lilo just to conserve fuel, until his sympathies get the better of him. But he does have those sympathies - and deep down, Pleakley’s vanity is the kind that’s rooted in insecurity, and in a need to feel and be important.
When he’s fired from the Federation, he briefly breaks down crying. But it’s in losing these ties that he’s free from the organization’s rigidity, enabling him to take a look at who he really is. The change is amazing.
The series’ Wendy Pleakley (Pleakley’s first name, we learn, which means ‘brave warrior’ in his language) is Pleakley after a year on Earth and he’s, as one fan put it, “the gayest gay that ever gayed.” A disguise as an Earth female in the original movie has blossomed into a cover as Lilo’s Aunt Pleakley (married to ‘Uncle Jumba’) and a full-scale love of Earth fashion, especially women’s clothes of any time period. Even when he’s safe at home among friends, he’s become the housewife in working-girl Nani’s absence - cooking, cleaning, gardening. And even in private he wears a housedress and secretly tries on Nani’s clothes.
The aura of drag queen aside, he also loves how “pretty” he is in his female disguise, once flirted with boys to reassure himself of this fact, and went through a long, elaborate plot to avoid getting married. (The episode where this happened is practically the Holy Grail of Jumba/Pleakley slash, and I will cover it in detail later.)
Part of him is still a stickler for rules (he hates Jumba’s work and calls the experiments “little monsters”), and he still has a need to command respect. Since he no longer has a job with the Federation he seems to be looking for a new identity, and this is what makes him try out something new every week - though the only thing that ever seemed to work for him is time as a fashion designer in an alternate future.
Pleakley has a knack for coming through and surprising you at the most unlikely moments. Wearing a heart of gold on his sleeve has made him tame a few of Jumba’s experiments through love and empathy alone, reminiscent of Lilo. He’s stronger and smarter than everyone knows - it’s just a matter of looking hard enough.
IV. Why? Because It’s There
“So, tell me, my little one-eyed one…” - Jumba to Pleakley, Lilo and Stitch
And it is there. Oh boy, is it ever. Many Jumba/Pleakley shippers are convinced that the sequel/series writers intended this, that hint after hint of slash is no accident.
The first movie doesn’t reveal much. It’s more backstory - there’s a big guy and a little guy and they have to learn to cooperate so they aren’t fired (or, in Jumba’s case, locked up for life). You don’t see them getting closer, but you can feel it; Jumba gets progressively gentler, Pleakley starts thinking of them as a unit. An end montage suggests that they may live together in their own house, but it doesn’t seem very romantic. They were just polar opposites who had the chance of becoming very good friends.
Then we hit the sequel and, much like Pleakley’s character, everything changes.
Stitch the Movie has Jumba and Pleakley living in Lilo’s home, sharing a bunk bed in her old room, and posing as a married couple for their Earth disguise. Going on that premise and Pleakley’s love of drag alone offers a wealth of material, but we quickly see that they have a relationship even deeper and closer than that.
Not long into the movie Captain Gantu, another former Federation member, attacks the house. They assume he’s come back for Stitch and start filtering out the back door, but Jumba lags behind to rescue some secret project from his lab area. Naturally, it’s Pleakley who notices and follows him.
This leads Jumba making Pleakley hide in a trunk with an alien container, which we later discover has dehydrated experiments, all 625 of Jumba’s earlier models leading up to Stitch. We see Jumba closing the trunk lid. “You are not to be making peep, my little one-eyed one, or entire galaxy is doomed.”
Let me give some backstory for a second: ‘my little one-eyed one’ has sadly only been used twice. The first time is actually when they first meet, in Jumba’s prison cell after Jumba’s been given parole so he can capture Stitch. Jumba and Pleakley have just met, and Pleakley is terrified of him. There’s nothing romantic about the way he says it; it’s menacing if anything. He’s probably trying to freak the poor guy out because it amuses him.
Now flash forward to Stitch the Movie’s use.. This is after a year on Earth when they’re best friends. Jumba says it quietly; he’s insistent because he’s nervous but it’s also soothing in a sense, especially since Pleakley was reluctant to help Jumba with something he knows must be “evil and bad.” Suddenly it has a new meaning. In this context it can’t be anything other than a creative version of ‘my dear’.
It’s especially interesting because this is Jumba. From the sequel onward, Jumba has a habit of rarely referring to anyone in the house by their real names. Most of the time Lilo is ‘little girl’, Nani is ‘bigger girl’, Stitch is still ‘626’. Jess Winfield explained that this is Jumba looking at people as scientifically as possible so he doesn’t get himself too attached. But he also points out that Jumba calls Pleakley by his name constantly, because they’re best friends. So the only nickname Pleaks has ever received - except for a few instances of ‘one-eyed noodle friend’, which still has ‘friend’ attached - is squishy, romantic, and an in-joke from their old days.
Back to the story, Jumba is quickly kidnapped so Gantu and his employer, Jumba’s former financial backer Dr. Hamsterveil, can torture the experiments’ location out of him. For his entire absence Pleakley is in hysterics. Pleakley’s the dramatic type, but it’s hyperemotional even for him. He clings, whimpers, and cries. He pulls out the intergalactic phonebook and systematically calls every planet listed until Jumba’s found. He collapses to the floor teary-eyed at one point.
He’s the one who goes to retrieve Jumba, trading his lover-I-mean-roommate for the 625 experiments, which Hamsterveil wants to use for some kind of unspecified world domination. The instant he sees Jumba his eye lights up, and he calls out to make sure he’s ok. When Gantu threatens Jumba with a gun, his arms fling out dramatically - “No, he’s allergic to plasma blasts!” When Lilo and Stitch show up and must decide between the life of Jumba or the experiments, it cuts to Pleakley again, wringing his hands and looking like he’s about to cry. Lilo and Stitch, just as compassionate and caring about their ‘ohana, aren’t nearly as distressed.
Obviously Jumba gets free, or there wouldn’t be much of a story. And here’s where we switch gears a bit to Jumba’s end of things. Jumba says twice throughout the course of the movie that he has no family; he was, we learn later in the series, banished from his planet of Quelta Quan for “evil geniusing”. He says this plainly, even assertively, not showing any pain or regret over it.
When he’s free, Pleakley says “Thank goodness our little broken family is back together!” Jumba’s reaction is very telling.
“I have family? Oh! I have family!” And he sweeps Pleakley up into the first of many hugs.
Making a segue into the series now: they hug constantly. In “Angel”, Pleakley is disappointed that his film footage of Stitch in love is ruined, never fated to make it on ‘America’s Gooshiest Love Stories’. Jumba tells him not to worry, as it’s time to start on the sequel - which could easily refer to Stitch and his love interest Angel, but he then grabs Pleakley up in a very friendly spontaneous hug. Sequel indeed. In “Amnesio” they lose their memories and forget each other for all of ten minutes. When they remember, they hug for another ten and don’t let go, in what eventually just seems like cuddling. Pleakley is shivering and upset after a plan goes awry in “Sprout”, and Jumba doesn’t even flinch before putting his arm around him as they walk off into the sunset together.
Their disguises throw them into overt slashiness, even sometimes crossing over into their private lives. For one thing, they already bicker like they’ve been married for years. Pleakley says typically housewifey things about how Jumba never gives him any credit and needs to pick up his clothes. When they’re actually forced to play the roles in front of other people, they seem to segue into it naturally; Pleakley calls Jumba ‘darling’ and hangs off his arm, and Jumba doesn’t flinch at it. In “Yapper”, while chaperoning Lilo, they check into a Honolulu hotel together as ‘Mr. and Mrs. Jookiba’ and Pleakley uses the trip to go sightseeing with Jumba in tow. Through the entire episode they don’t touch once, yet look like they completely belong together. For such an odd-looking couple, they have incredible chemistry.
Pleakley plays the role well in hard times, too; in “627”, after Jumba and Stitch had a fight in which Jumba’s ego was injured, Pleakley fixes Jumba a plate of his favorite food and brings it out to Jumba’s lab, trying to gently console his friend the whole time. Lilo, Stitch, and Nani have never done this sort of thing for Jumba. It’s only Pleakley who has such an intimate understanding of him.
Pleakley’s love of dress-up extends to Jumba, too. For Halloween in the episode “Spooky”, Pleakley makes Jumba wear a series of couple costumes with him: Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler (“Frankly, my dear, I am not giving darn!”), Antony and Cleopatra. He dresses Jumba as King Henry VIII for a Renaissance festival, something Jumba protests until Pleakley explains how Henry was famous for beheading his wives. Jumba says he “[is] liking this Henry person,” while he and Pleakley exchange a look that suggest this is more playful husband-and-wife banter than Jumba complaining about his ex again. The tour de force would have to be in “Frenchfry”: Jumba is leaving for a few days for a scientist’s conference, and Pleakley dresses as Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca and tries to reenact a “painful parting scene, like in the Earth movies” to see him off.
But the massive amount of evidence for the Jumba/Pleakley pairing wouldn’t be complete without a look at “Fibber”.
“Fibber” features one of Jumba’s early experiments, a glorified lie detector, in what’s basically Pleakley’s coming out episode. It sheds a lot of light on Pleakley’s history and emotional state, and the potential it shows for Jumba/Pleakley has made fans of the pairing based on this episode alone. (And it’s one of the most mature and well-written episodes to date, in my opinion.)
Pleakley’s mother has been pestering him to get married practically since the beginning of time. She’s so desperate to see this happen, in fact, that she’s about to fix him up with a hideously ugly girl from his own race. Pleakley privately insists to his ‘ohana that “there will be no wife, no lady, and no marrying,” emphasis theirs, and the fear of telling his mother this makes him so desperate he lies that he’s already engaged. This makes Pleakley’s mother so excited that we’re lucky enough to get a visit from her and the rest of the family.
Surprised by the arrival, Pleakley hurriedly tries to pass Nani off as his fiancé. It just barely works; they’re clearly uncomfortable as hell and Pleakley yelps like he’s been scalded when she hugs him at one point. But when Momma Pleakley hires a real Vegas minister to oversee the wedding, for what will be “eternal intergalactically binding vows”, Nani bails. Lilo’s solution? Jumba in a makeshift dress and surprisingly flattering makeup, calling himself Jumbina.
Neither Jumba nor Pleakley say a word of protest, and Pleakley in fact seems a thousand times more comfortable than he did beside Nani. Pleakley’s mother doesn’t care as long as he marries someone. They’re about three words away from the end of the actual ceremony when Nani’s boyfriend David, due to misunderstanding, crashes the wedding.
Jumba’s reaction to being saved from eternal gay marriage? An angry “You are interrupting climax of Earth ceremony, surf boy!” Then Gantu crashes through waving his gun and looking for the experiment, and Pleakley leaps into Jumba’s arms in fear.
Later, when the truth comes out, Lilo stresses the importance of loving your family for who they are. Pleakley tells his mother he never wanted to be married - he’s happy just as he is. And as a sweet, hopeful look passes between them, she accepts him…though she wants him to try wearing men’s clothes more often. Realistic, but hopeful.
Jumba/Pleakley is an abnormality in a few ways - the sheer volume of canonical evidence, and the rareness of fans in a pairing that’s been mentioned all over the place, by slashers and non-slashers alike, even in mainstream journalism. Because of his transsexuality and effeminity, “Is Pleakley gay?” is a commonly asked question in forums. A Florida GLBT website once wrote a blurb on the show, describing the couple as “queerer than a tangerine.”
We’re also a fandom lucky enough to get an official word, through Jess Winfield’s answer to some brave soul who tactfully asked the question of Pleakley’s sexuality. Since so many of us wave the ‘canon’ flag, this was especially important for us. And…strangely enough, Jess didn’t disprove it. Not entirely. He didn’t approve it, certainly, but his answer was interesting…
We certainly have fun putting him in various outfits both masculine (toreadors and safari gear, for example) and feminine. But it's a non-issue. We studied Pleakley's anatomical drawings from the feature and as far as we can tell, he doesn't even have a clearly defined gender! The mysteries of Plorgonarian sexuality are way beyond the scope of our show. As we see it, Pleakley's an earth expert, fascinated with EVERYTHING about Earth, including female fashions. And Jumba's his best friend and bunk mate. Of course they quarrel and get on each other's nerves sometimes, but, as you’ll see in upcoming material, they're quite inseparable.
Now, all of this would work if not for the fact that in “Fibber”, gender roles, and sexuality for Pleakley’s race are exactly what we have on Earth. And wearing female clothes is still inappropriate for him, judging by his mother’s reaction to it. (And his final lie that he’ll refrain from wearing it.)
So when a much more ironclad “no” could have been in order, the official answer was that it doesn’t matter. Pleakley enjoys his lifestyle and he and Jumba care about each other deeply. And really, that’s all we on the good ship Jumba/Pleakley need to know to make this work.
V. Yin and Yang
“…Like yin and yang. Two very different things coming together to make one good thing.” - David in “Yin-Yang”, Lilo and Stitch: the Series
Now that I’ve pointed and screamed “CANON!” a lot, let’s look at the subtler, more emotional reasons this pairing works. Evidence aside, it won’t be an easy road for them, but it will be very worth it in the end.
Pleakley is clearly in love with Jumba. Everything points to it: he has the clearest gay orientation, he’s already fallen into the role of Jumba’s wife quite nicely, and everything he does seems to be a gigantic hint he’s throwing out on his best friend’s behalf. He’s enamored with the big guy, even tries to fill his shoes while he’s away, and when Jumba once rushed to his rescue he shouted “Jumba! My hero!” aloud.
Unfortunately, Pleakley’s still too far from love for himself to fully pursue Jumba, I believe. He’s so dead set on finding his calling that he doesn’t realize he’s perfectly happy right now as Jumba’s “wife” and Lilo’s aunt. Granted, it’s not a glamorous job or an official one, but it’s the one he’s chosen for himself and has lasted longer than any gimmick of the week.
Jumba is a bit tougher; in fact, anything that could be against the pairing seems to stem from him. He’s bisexual at the very least, with his former marriage and a one-liner in one episode about building a robot wife. More importantly, he insults Pleakley to keep their relationship somewhat distant, jokingly calling him stupid or ugly and often not specifying that he’s just kidding. (Thankfully, Pleakley doesn’t seem too pained by the insults.) But it’s his constant closeness to Pleakley - the hugging, the friendship, the calling him by his name - that says there’s more to it than that. He just has to admit it.
Along with his need to distance himself from people, Jumba still has remnants of an old, dangerous temper that might get him in serious trouble. After Pleakley’s lovey-dovey treatment of Jumba in “627”, he discovers that Jumba has made a new experiment in order to show Stitch that he can be improved on. Their reactions show that Jumba’s love of chaos can still cause a rift between them: Pleakley threatens to call the authorities almost instantly, and in response Jumba threatens him with violence, literally scaring Pleakley into silence for a while. Obviously this would have to stop for any kind of relationship to grow between them.
But Pleakley was sent to Earth with Jumba to “control” his destructive urges, and it’s actually something that’s happening in a subtler way. It’s Pleakley’s steadfast friendship that gives Jumba leaps and bounds of progress. Jumba also feels a connection to Lilo, whom he’s very protective of, but Lilo is a child, Nani doesn’t like the aliens much, and Stitch seems inexplicably detached from his creator. Pleakley, though, is an adult and fellow alien. He understands Jumba on a much deeper level, respects him unconditionally, and loves him in spite of his flaws. Having Pleakley in his life forces Jumba to deal with relationships of any kind, as well as his own lack of ethics. With enough time he may learn to open up, show his vulnerabilities, and even fall in love.
In the episode “Yin-Yang”, a few different examples of the yin-and-yang concept are featured. Jumba and Pleakley were one of them, and they really are that idea to the fullest. Since the beginning of the series you can see their influence on each other and how much that may change them over time. As mentioned before, Jumba has already softened a bit and is allowing a very close and powerful friendship to enter his life. Meanwhile, Pleakley is gaining the courage to realize his own orientation and act more assertive in what he wants and who he is, something that his family and the Federation never made possible but Jumba teaches in spades. They’re chaos and order, the letter of the law and its spirit, the manly man and the (transsexual) housewife, the logical mind and the heart of gold. And while they’d be a bit of a stereotype if Pleakley were actually a woman, they do stand as characters that balance each other, that need what the other has to offer.
Like I said at the beginning, Jumba and Pleakley’s story is the same as Lilo and Stitch’s if you look. They hail from broken (or in Pleakley’s case, dysfunctional) families - Jumba is estranged from his to the point that he declares he has none, while Pleakley’s siblings say they hate him when they’re angry and his mother pushes them all hard to her overbearing heart’s content. They’re outcasts, cut off from the rest of the galaxy, confined to Earth all their lives for their failures. And I believe it’s the love of Pleakley and Lilo, ultimately, that will curb Jumba’s anger and need for destruction, opening him up to feelings and experiences outside his own intelligence and ego. Which leads us back to the idea of ‘ohana.
Jumba and Pleakley have been cut off from everything else they know - but they've found ‘ohana on Earth, among Lilo, Stitch, and each other. It’s in a remote island town, removed from the rest of the galaxy, that they’re able to learn and grow unto themselves and in their relationship. Removed from their own families, they've made a family for themselves; in spite of their fears they’re not about to abandon or overlook each other. In fact, they’ve proven they’re willing to do anything for each other.
Throughout the series Lilo is trying to find each experiment “the one true place where it belongs”. Jumba and Pleakley’s one true place is together, yin and yang learning from and loving each other. They’re “inseperable”, and that is canon.
VI. Recommendations (or: I Have Run Out of Cute Titles)
In a huge, terrible Lilo and Stitch fandom filled with Mary Sue writers, the Jumba/Pleakley fandom is small and tight-knit. With a few exceptions it’s also extremely high-quality; you don’t have to wade through a lot of bad porn or out-of-character sap. The brunt of discussion and fic for the fandom is at Gay Aliens, a list I started when the series first started airing last year. We’ve grown to almost 150 members, although only a few are very active, and we post at a pretty steady rate. I’ve been thinking about making a LJ group lately, as well, if there’s enough demand for it.
This isn’t the first essay-like piece that’s been written about the pairing, although the others have been a pretty much in-fandom thing. falasama has written a few pieces, about Jess Winfield’s statements on Pleakley’s sexuality and the slashiness of Fibber. (She’s also a fantastic artist who draws a lot of Jumba/Pleakley stuff; her work can be found here.) I’ve written a tongue-in-cheek review of Fibber myself, along with both movies, which can be found in the Gay Aliens group in the Files subfolder called ‘J&P Evidence’.
Fic itself in the Jumba/Pleakley fandom is sparse but excellent. I don’t think there’s a single author in the batch that I wouldn’t recommend. The relationship is also so varied that you can write the couple in any way possible, from the darkest of angstfic to the fluffiest of fluff.
I’ve noticed a few running themes, and I’ve sorted them out here to get you started:
- There’s definitely the potential for WAFF in the Lilo and Stitch universe. Fala’s written an adorable piece called The Fuscia Dress where the boys admit their feelings for each other while trying to smooth over a major social gaffe. Aliens A La Carte by Therese takes the slashier moments of three different episodes and expands on them beautifully.
- A question that’s been asked a few times is how Jumba and Pleakley would have a sexual relationship, given their physical and species differences. Nastyface’s Fruit Salad and Lies’ Adaptation try to answer this question.
- Nastyface’s The Cost of Living and D.K. Archer’s The Meaning of Exile both deal with the chilling results of one half of the pair losing the other.
- I’ve explored my own fascination with Jumba’s darker side in Beautiful, a reaction to the episode “627”. But a better look, in my opinion, is D.K. Archer’s character and relationship study Criminal Indifference.
For all I’ve put a serious bent on it here, the J/P pairing can be a lot of things depending on how you want to enjoy their relationship. But in all of its varities, the fandom’s a nice little corner of the ‘Net with high quality and a real love of our ‘ship. We can always use some new blood, so if any of this peaked your interest then be sure to drop by.
Author: WeyrdChic
E-Mail: lady.indigo@gmail.com
Pairing: Jumba/Pleakley
Fandom: Lilo and Stitch
Spoilers: For Lilo and Stitch, Stitch the Movie, and the animated TV series.
Notes: All pictures are screencaps from Stitch the Movie. TVTome.com is now TV.com and all official records of what was said there are gone, but I promise, the quotes are authentic. ^_^
EDIT: All links should be working now, though it seems whenever I fix something that creates 2 more things I need to fix next time. -_- I'm never, ever writing an LJ entry in Word first again.
Because someone asked, and so the answer doesn't get buried in comments for anyone else who wants to know: the series is still airing on Disney Channel, and is still airing new episodes. (Though it'll be ending soon.) Check disneychannel.com for times in your area, since they seem to have no rhyme or reason to when they air the show anymore. There's also a second sequel coming out on August 30th, Stitch Has A Glitch, but that's from a different production department so I have no idea how Jumba and Pleakley will be portrayed.
Some series episodes can also be found through the user 'Stitchy' at the Soulseek filesharing program, but the downloads there are very slow going. I wish we had a torrent.
I. What You’re Watching: Roots of the Family Tree
Lilo and Stitch alone isn’t an easy franchise to describe; the original film broke every cliché in the book and managed to cover some pretty heavy themes - broken families, outcasts, and love’s redemption - amidst its chaotic, quirky fun. Strangely enough, the relationship I’m such a big fan of doesn’t even show up much until the sequel, Stitch the Movie, and the subsequent TV series.
But to get to the good stuff, let me sum up the basics first:
Lilo and Stitch is about a newly orphaned little girl named Lilo who unknowingly adopts a destructive alien (Stitch) and helps redeem him through her refusal to give up on him. Her reason, and the movie’s theme, is the Hawaiian principle of ‘ohana: “’Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten.”
But every now and then we switch gears: to that alien’s amoral creator, Dr. Jumba Jookiba and his unwilling partner, Earth expert Agent Pleakley, sent to Earth to recover Stitch and imprison him. It’s the most odd couple kind of partnership you can get; in fact, they were pretty much stuck together as a sick joke. But through a series of circumstances, they grow softer towards Stitch and each other even when they wind up exiled to Earth for failing their mission.
By then, they’ve grown to identify and sympathize with Lilo and her big sister/guardian Nani, too. The pair winds up living with them, serving as Lilo and Stitch’s babysitters while Nani is working round-the-clock to make ends meet. For all their differences, they become bunkmates and best friends.
That’s where their real story starts. And that story, too, is about broken families and outcasts and love’s redemption. You just have to look a little harder.
II. Dr. Jumba Jookiba
“I prefer to be called EVIL GENIUS!” - Dr. Jumba Jookiba, Lilo and Stitch
Jumba is a self-proclaimed evil genius scientist, but even that isn’t simple. He’s a mess of contradictions - he’s amoral but not really evil, has a temper but isn’t vicious, distances himself from people but seems to regret it. The fact that we know very little about his history and even less of his internal thoughts doesn’t help.
His identity is built on his intellect, and his work is the most important thing in his life. Along with being the “father” of Stitch and 625 other genetic creations, all meant to cause chaos and destruction in one form or another, he knows a little bit about everything that you could name. He never fails to let people know this.
But since Jumba is scientifically minded, he tends to approach his relationships without emotions to get in the way. He’s deemed love a waste of time, though the series’ references to an ex-wife show he’s at least tried it. It’s this distance from people, and a general love of mischief, that makes him seem truly evil at first glance - but there’s the fun evil that comes from secret chambers and big explosions, and real evil, which he doesn’t subscribe to. Deep down he can understand and even love others. (In fact, when push comes to shove he can be soft and sentimental.) He’s just not very good at it, and his love for destruction makes it convenient to ignore that there are real people involved.
One fan posted this observation on a message board at TVTome:
I would guess that he creates the experiments because he is driven by an unending thirst for knowledge, and a massive ego. I tend to believe that his experimenting is what keeps him sane, because really, in a way, it's all he has. Sure, he has the ‘ohana now, but he seems to keep them at arm's length, almost as if they're a threat to his more rational sensibilities. He certainly seems very insecure whenever his genius is questioned by anyone, because it's obviously the part of his life that he holds in the highest regard... or so it seems.
Why does he bring up his ex-wife so often? Does he really despise her, or is she just an outlet for venting his own inadequacies? If he really wanted to bury the memories, wouldn't he try to forget about her? I think he secretly regrets the demise of their relationship and his own failure to make her happy. It seems like he has very poor interpersonal skills, judging by the way he insults Pleakley on a regular basis, even if he appears to do so jokingly.
Jess Winfield, one of the writers/executive producers of Stitch the Movie and the TV series, said he couldn’t have put it better himself.
III. Agent Wendy Pleakley
“You’re just jealous because I’m pretty!” - Pleakley, Lilo and Stitch
If you looked at the Agent Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch and the Wendy Pleakley from the sequel and series, you’d see two very different people. Mirroring this, Pleakley’s biggest problem is the search for his own identity and sense of authority.
Lilo and Stitch’s Agent Pleakley is an nervous, uptight Earth expert, who winds up annoying the leader of the Galactic Federation so much that she sends him to “control” Jumba when he goes to capture Stitch. Pleakley’s intrigued by the planet, which he thinks is a habitat for the “endangered” mosquito, until he actually goes there and learns more than what he saw through a Viewmaster.
Like all aliens we see save Jumba and Stitch, Pleakley values rules sometimes past the point of common sense. It’s the meeting of his rigidity and Jumba’s lack of ethics that gets most of the comic mileage in the movie. He at one point refuses to help Nani rescue Lilo just to conserve fuel, until his sympathies get the better of him. But he does have those sympathies - and deep down, Pleakley’s vanity is the kind that’s rooted in insecurity, and in a need to feel and be important.
When he’s fired from the Federation, he briefly breaks down crying. But it’s in losing these ties that he’s free from the organization’s rigidity, enabling him to take a look at who he really is. The change is amazing.
The series’ Wendy Pleakley (Pleakley’s first name, we learn, which means ‘brave warrior’ in his language) is Pleakley after a year on Earth and he’s, as one fan put it, “the gayest gay that ever gayed.” A disguise as an Earth female in the original movie has blossomed into a cover as Lilo’s Aunt Pleakley (married to ‘Uncle Jumba’) and a full-scale love of Earth fashion, especially women’s clothes of any time period. Even when he’s safe at home among friends, he’s become the housewife in working-girl Nani’s absence - cooking, cleaning, gardening. And even in private he wears a housedress and secretly tries on Nani’s clothes.
The aura of drag queen aside, he also loves how “pretty” he is in his female disguise, once flirted with boys to reassure himself of this fact, and went through a long, elaborate plot to avoid getting married. (The episode where this happened is practically the Holy Grail of Jumba/Pleakley slash, and I will cover it in detail later.)
Part of him is still a stickler for rules (he hates Jumba’s work and calls the experiments “little monsters”), and he still has a need to command respect. Since he no longer has a job with the Federation he seems to be looking for a new identity, and this is what makes him try out something new every week - though the only thing that ever seemed to work for him is time as a fashion designer in an alternate future.
Pleakley has a knack for coming through and surprising you at the most unlikely moments. Wearing a heart of gold on his sleeve has made him tame a few of Jumba’s experiments through love and empathy alone, reminiscent of Lilo. He’s stronger and smarter than everyone knows - it’s just a matter of looking hard enough.
IV. Why? Because It’s There
“So, tell me, my little one-eyed one…” - Jumba to Pleakley, Lilo and Stitch
And it is there. Oh boy, is it ever. Many Jumba/Pleakley shippers are convinced that the sequel/series writers intended this, that hint after hint of slash is no accident.
The first movie doesn’t reveal much. It’s more backstory - there’s a big guy and a little guy and they have to learn to cooperate so they aren’t fired (or, in Jumba’s case, locked up for life). You don’t see them getting closer, but you can feel it; Jumba gets progressively gentler, Pleakley starts thinking of them as a unit. An end montage suggests that they may live together in their own house, but it doesn’t seem very romantic. They were just polar opposites who had the chance of becoming very good friends.
Then we hit the sequel and, much like Pleakley’s character, everything changes.
Stitch the Movie has Jumba and Pleakley living in Lilo’s home, sharing a bunk bed in her old room, and posing as a married couple for their Earth disguise. Going on that premise and Pleakley’s love of drag alone offers a wealth of material, but we quickly see that they have a relationship even deeper and closer than that.
Not long into the movie Captain Gantu, another former Federation member, attacks the house. They assume he’s come back for Stitch and start filtering out the back door, but Jumba lags behind to rescue some secret project from his lab area. Naturally, it’s Pleakley who notices and follows him.
This leads Jumba making Pleakley hide in a trunk with an alien container, which we later discover has dehydrated experiments, all 625 of Jumba’s earlier models leading up to Stitch. We see Jumba closing the trunk lid. “You are not to be making peep, my little one-eyed one, or entire galaxy is doomed.”
Let me give some backstory for a second: ‘my little one-eyed one’ has sadly only been used twice. The first time is actually when they first meet, in Jumba’s prison cell after Jumba’s been given parole so he can capture Stitch. Jumba and Pleakley have just met, and Pleakley is terrified of him. There’s nothing romantic about the way he says it; it’s menacing if anything. He’s probably trying to freak the poor guy out because it amuses him.
Now flash forward to Stitch the Movie’s use.. This is after a year on Earth when they’re best friends. Jumba says it quietly; he’s insistent because he’s nervous but it’s also soothing in a sense, especially since Pleakley was reluctant to help Jumba with something he knows must be “evil and bad.” Suddenly it has a new meaning. In this context it can’t be anything other than a creative version of ‘my dear’.
It’s especially interesting because this is Jumba. From the sequel onward, Jumba has a habit of rarely referring to anyone in the house by their real names. Most of the time Lilo is ‘little girl’, Nani is ‘bigger girl’, Stitch is still ‘626’. Jess Winfield explained that this is Jumba looking at people as scientifically as possible so he doesn’t get himself too attached. But he also points out that Jumba calls Pleakley by his name constantly, because they’re best friends. So the only nickname Pleaks has ever received - except for a few instances of ‘one-eyed noodle friend’, which still has ‘friend’ attached - is squishy, romantic, and an in-joke from their old days.
Back to the story, Jumba is quickly kidnapped so Gantu and his employer, Jumba’s former financial backer Dr. Hamsterveil, can torture the experiments’ location out of him. For his entire absence Pleakley is in hysterics. Pleakley’s the dramatic type, but it’s hyperemotional even for him. He clings, whimpers, and cries. He pulls out the intergalactic phonebook and systematically calls every planet listed until Jumba’s found. He collapses to the floor teary-eyed at one point.
He’s the one who goes to retrieve Jumba, trading his lover-I-mean-roommate for the 625 experiments, which Hamsterveil wants to use for some kind of unspecified world domination. The instant he sees Jumba his eye lights up, and he calls out to make sure he’s ok. When Gantu threatens Jumba with a gun, his arms fling out dramatically - “No, he’s allergic to plasma blasts!” When Lilo and Stitch show up and must decide between the life of Jumba or the experiments, it cuts to Pleakley again, wringing his hands and looking like he’s about to cry. Lilo and Stitch, just as compassionate and caring about their ‘ohana, aren’t nearly as distressed.
Obviously Jumba gets free, or there wouldn’t be much of a story. And here’s where we switch gears a bit to Jumba’s end of things. Jumba says twice throughout the course of the movie that he has no family; he was, we learn later in the series, banished from his planet of Quelta Quan for “evil geniusing”. He says this plainly, even assertively, not showing any pain or regret over it.
When he’s free, Pleakley says “Thank goodness our little broken family is back together!” Jumba’s reaction is very telling.
“I have family? Oh! I have family!” And he sweeps Pleakley up into the first of many hugs.
Making a segue into the series now: they hug constantly. In “Angel”, Pleakley is disappointed that his film footage of Stitch in love is ruined, never fated to make it on ‘America’s Gooshiest Love Stories’. Jumba tells him not to worry, as it’s time to start on the sequel - which could easily refer to Stitch and his love interest Angel, but he then grabs Pleakley up in a very friendly spontaneous hug. Sequel indeed. In “Amnesio” they lose their memories and forget each other for all of ten minutes. When they remember, they hug for another ten and don’t let go, in what eventually just seems like cuddling. Pleakley is shivering and upset after a plan goes awry in “Sprout”, and Jumba doesn’t even flinch before putting his arm around him as they walk off into the sunset together.
Their disguises throw them into overt slashiness, even sometimes crossing over into their private lives. For one thing, they already bicker like they’ve been married for years. Pleakley says typically housewifey things about how Jumba never gives him any credit and needs to pick up his clothes. When they’re actually forced to play the roles in front of other people, they seem to segue into it naturally; Pleakley calls Jumba ‘darling’ and hangs off his arm, and Jumba doesn’t flinch at it. In “Yapper”, while chaperoning Lilo, they check into a Honolulu hotel together as ‘Mr. and Mrs. Jookiba’ and Pleakley uses the trip to go sightseeing with Jumba in tow. Through the entire episode they don’t touch once, yet look like they completely belong together. For such an odd-looking couple, they have incredible chemistry.
Pleakley plays the role well in hard times, too; in “627”, after Jumba and Stitch had a fight in which Jumba’s ego was injured, Pleakley fixes Jumba a plate of his favorite food and brings it out to Jumba’s lab, trying to gently console his friend the whole time. Lilo, Stitch, and Nani have never done this sort of thing for Jumba. It’s only Pleakley who has such an intimate understanding of him.
Pleakley’s love of dress-up extends to Jumba, too. For Halloween in the episode “Spooky”, Pleakley makes Jumba wear a series of couple costumes with him: Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler (“Frankly, my dear, I am not giving darn!”), Antony and Cleopatra. He dresses Jumba as King Henry VIII for a Renaissance festival, something Jumba protests until Pleakley explains how Henry was famous for beheading his wives. Jumba says he “[is] liking this Henry person,” while he and Pleakley exchange a look that suggest this is more playful husband-and-wife banter than Jumba complaining about his ex again. The tour de force would have to be in “Frenchfry”: Jumba is leaving for a few days for a scientist’s conference, and Pleakley dresses as Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca and tries to reenact a “painful parting scene, like in the Earth movies” to see him off.
But the massive amount of evidence for the Jumba/Pleakley pairing wouldn’t be complete without a look at “Fibber”.
“Fibber” features one of Jumba’s early experiments, a glorified lie detector, in what’s basically Pleakley’s coming out episode. It sheds a lot of light on Pleakley’s history and emotional state, and the potential it shows for Jumba/Pleakley has made fans of the pairing based on this episode alone. (And it’s one of the most mature and well-written episodes to date, in my opinion.)
Pleakley’s mother has been pestering him to get married practically since the beginning of time. She’s so desperate to see this happen, in fact, that she’s about to fix him up with a hideously ugly girl from his own race. Pleakley privately insists to his ‘ohana that “there will be no wife, no lady, and no marrying,” emphasis theirs, and the fear of telling his mother this makes him so desperate he lies that he’s already engaged. This makes Pleakley’s mother so excited that we’re lucky enough to get a visit from her and the rest of the family.
Surprised by the arrival, Pleakley hurriedly tries to pass Nani off as his fiancé. It just barely works; they’re clearly uncomfortable as hell and Pleakley yelps like he’s been scalded when she hugs him at one point. But when Momma Pleakley hires a real Vegas minister to oversee the wedding, for what will be “eternal intergalactically binding vows”, Nani bails. Lilo’s solution? Jumba in a makeshift dress and surprisingly flattering makeup, calling himself Jumbina.
Neither Jumba nor Pleakley say a word of protest, and Pleakley in fact seems a thousand times more comfortable than he did beside Nani. Pleakley’s mother doesn’t care as long as he marries someone. They’re about three words away from the end of the actual ceremony when Nani’s boyfriend David, due to misunderstanding, crashes the wedding.
Jumba’s reaction to being saved from eternal gay marriage? An angry “You are interrupting climax of Earth ceremony, surf boy!” Then Gantu crashes through waving his gun and looking for the experiment, and Pleakley leaps into Jumba’s arms in fear.
Later, when the truth comes out, Lilo stresses the importance of loving your family for who they are. Pleakley tells his mother he never wanted to be married - he’s happy just as he is. And as a sweet, hopeful look passes between them, she accepts him…though she wants him to try wearing men’s clothes more often. Realistic, but hopeful.
Jumba/Pleakley is an abnormality in a few ways - the sheer volume of canonical evidence, and the rareness of fans in a pairing that’s been mentioned all over the place, by slashers and non-slashers alike, even in mainstream journalism. Because of his transsexuality and effeminity, “Is Pleakley gay?” is a commonly asked question in forums. A Florida GLBT website once wrote a blurb on the show, describing the couple as “queerer than a tangerine.”
We’re also a fandom lucky enough to get an official word, through Jess Winfield’s answer to some brave soul who tactfully asked the question of Pleakley’s sexuality. Since so many of us wave the ‘canon’ flag, this was especially important for us. And…strangely enough, Jess didn’t disprove it. Not entirely. He didn’t approve it, certainly, but his answer was interesting…
We certainly have fun putting him in various outfits both masculine (toreadors and safari gear, for example) and feminine. But it's a non-issue. We studied Pleakley's anatomical drawings from the feature and as far as we can tell, he doesn't even have a clearly defined gender! The mysteries of Plorgonarian sexuality are way beyond the scope of our show. As we see it, Pleakley's an earth expert, fascinated with EVERYTHING about Earth, including female fashions. And Jumba's his best friend and bunk mate. Of course they quarrel and get on each other's nerves sometimes, but, as you’ll see in upcoming material, they're quite inseparable.
Now, all of this would work if not for the fact that in “Fibber”, gender roles, and sexuality for Pleakley’s race are exactly what we have on Earth. And wearing female clothes is still inappropriate for him, judging by his mother’s reaction to it. (And his final lie that he’ll refrain from wearing it.)
So when a much more ironclad “no” could have been in order, the official answer was that it doesn’t matter. Pleakley enjoys his lifestyle and he and Jumba care about each other deeply. And really, that’s all we on the good ship Jumba/Pleakley need to know to make this work.
V. Yin and Yang
“…Like yin and yang. Two very different things coming together to make one good thing.” - David in “Yin-Yang”, Lilo and Stitch: the Series
Now that I’ve pointed and screamed “CANON!” a lot, let’s look at the subtler, more emotional reasons this pairing works. Evidence aside, it won’t be an easy road for them, but it will be very worth it in the end.
Pleakley is clearly in love with Jumba. Everything points to it: he has the clearest gay orientation, he’s already fallen into the role of Jumba’s wife quite nicely, and everything he does seems to be a gigantic hint he’s throwing out on his best friend’s behalf. He’s enamored with the big guy, even tries to fill his shoes while he’s away, and when Jumba once rushed to his rescue he shouted “Jumba! My hero!” aloud.
Unfortunately, Pleakley’s still too far from love for himself to fully pursue Jumba, I believe. He’s so dead set on finding his calling that he doesn’t realize he’s perfectly happy right now as Jumba’s “wife” and Lilo’s aunt. Granted, it’s not a glamorous job or an official one, but it’s the one he’s chosen for himself and has lasted longer than any gimmick of the week.
Jumba is a bit tougher; in fact, anything that could be against the pairing seems to stem from him. He’s bisexual at the very least, with his former marriage and a one-liner in one episode about building a robot wife. More importantly, he insults Pleakley to keep their relationship somewhat distant, jokingly calling him stupid or ugly and often not specifying that he’s just kidding. (Thankfully, Pleakley doesn’t seem too pained by the insults.) But it’s his constant closeness to Pleakley - the hugging, the friendship, the calling him by his name - that says there’s more to it than that. He just has to admit it.
Along with his need to distance himself from people, Jumba still has remnants of an old, dangerous temper that might get him in serious trouble. After Pleakley’s lovey-dovey treatment of Jumba in “627”, he discovers that Jumba has made a new experiment in order to show Stitch that he can be improved on. Their reactions show that Jumba’s love of chaos can still cause a rift between them: Pleakley threatens to call the authorities almost instantly, and in response Jumba threatens him with violence, literally scaring Pleakley into silence for a while. Obviously this would have to stop for any kind of relationship to grow between them.
But Pleakley was sent to Earth with Jumba to “control” his destructive urges, and it’s actually something that’s happening in a subtler way. It’s Pleakley’s steadfast friendship that gives Jumba leaps and bounds of progress. Jumba also feels a connection to Lilo, whom he’s very protective of, but Lilo is a child, Nani doesn’t like the aliens much, and Stitch seems inexplicably detached from his creator. Pleakley, though, is an adult and fellow alien. He understands Jumba on a much deeper level, respects him unconditionally, and loves him in spite of his flaws. Having Pleakley in his life forces Jumba to deal with relationships of any kind, as well as his own lack of ethics. With enough time he may learn to open up, show his vulnerabilities, and even fall in love.
In the episode “Yin-Yang”, a few different examples of the yin-and-yang concept are featured. Jumba and Pleakley were one of them, and they really are that idea to the fullest. Since the beginning of the series you can see their influence on each other and how much that may change them over time. As mentioned before, Jumba has already softened a bit and is allowing a very close and powerful friendship to enter his life. Meanwhile, Pleakley is gaining the courage to realize his own orientation and act more assertive in what he wants and who he is, something that his family and the Federation never made possible but Jumba teaches in spades. They’re chaos and order, the letter of the law and its spirit, the manly man and the (transsexual) housewife, the logical mind and the heart of gold. And while they’d be a bit of a stereotype if Pleakley were actually a woman, they do stand as characters that balance each other, that need what the other has to offer.
Like I said at the beginning, Jumba and Pleakley’s story is the same as Lilo and Stitch’s if you look. They hail from broken (or in Pleakley’s case, dysfunctional) families - Jumba is estranged from his to the point that he declares he has none, while Pleakley’s siblings say they hate him when they’re angry and his mother pushes them all hard to her overbearing heart’s content. They’re outcasts, cut off from the rest of the galaxy, confined to Earth all their lives for their failures. And I believe it’s the love of Pleakley and Lilo, ultimately, that will curb Jumba’s anger and need for destruction, opening him up to feelings and experiences outside his own intelligence and ego. Which leads us back to the idea of ‘ohana.
Jumba and Pleakley have been cut off from everything else they know - but they've found ‘ohana on Earth, among Lilo, Stitch, and each other. It’s in a remote island town, removed from the rest of the galaxy, that they’re able to learn and grow unto themselves and in their relationship. Removed from their own families, they've made a family for themselves; in spite of their fears they’re not about to abandon or overlook each other. In fact, they’ve proven they’re willing to do anything for each other.
Throughout the series Lilo is trying to find each experiment “the one true place where it belongs”. Jumba and Pleakley’s one true place is together, yin and yang learning from and loving each other. They’re “inseperable”, and that is canon.
VI. Recommendations (or: I Have Run Out of Cute Titles)
In a huge, terrible Lilo and Stitch fandom filled with Mary Sue writers, the Jumba/Pleakley fandom is small and tight-knit. With a few exceptions it’s also extremely high-quality; you don’t have to wade through a lot of bad porn or out-of-character sap. The brunt of discussion and fic for the fandom is at Gay Aliens, a list I started when the series first started airing last year. We’ve grown to almost 150 members, although only a few are very active, and we post at a pretty steady rate. I’ve been thinking about making a LJ group lately, as well, if there’s enough demand for it.
This isn’t the first essay-like piece that’s been written about the pairing, although the others have been a pretty much in-fandom thing. falasama has written a few pieces, about Jess Winfield’s statements on Pleakley’s sexuality and the slashiness of Fibber. (She’s also a fantastic artist who draws a lot of Jumba/Pleakley stuff; her work can be found here.) I’ve written a tongue-in-cheek review of Fibber myself, along with both movies, which can be found in the Gay Aliens group in the Files subfolder called ‘J&P Evidence’.
Fic itself in the Jumba/Pleakley fandom is sparse but excellent. I don’t think there’s a single author in the batch that I wouldn’t recommend. The relationship is also so varied that you can write the couple in any way possible, from the darkest of angstfic to the fluffiest of fluff.
I’ve noticed a few running themes, and I’ve sorted them out here to get you started:
- There’s definitely the potential for WAFF in the Lilo and Stitch universe. Fala’s written an adorable piece called The Fuscia Dress where the boys admit their feelings for each other while trying to smooth over a major social gaffe. Aliens A La Carte by Therese takes the slashier moments of three different episodes and expands on them beautifully.
- A question that’s been asked a few times is how Jumba and Pleakley would have a sexual relationship, given their physical and species differences. Nastyface’s Fruit Salad and Lies’ Adaptation try to answer this question.
- Nastyface’s The Cost of Living and D.K. Archer’s The Meaning of Exile both deal with the chilling results of one half of the pair losing the other.
- I’ve explored my own fascination with Jumba’s darker side in Beautiful, a reaction to the episode “627”. But a better look, in my opinion, is D.K. Archer’s character and relationship study Criminal Indifference.
For all I’ve put a serious bent on it here, the J/P pairing can be a lot of things depending on how you want to enjoy their relationship. But in all of its varities, the fandom’s a nice little corner of the ‘Net with high quality and a real love of our ‘ship. We can always use some new blood, so if any of this peaked your interest then be sure to drop by.