Chelby

Chelby is the femslash ship between Chelsea and Ruby Gillman from the Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken fandom.

Canon
Chelsea is a selfish, vain, narcissistic, evil mermaid that tries to manipulate Ruby in order for her to obtain the trident. With the trident Chelsea takes on a much more dangerous gigantic form and it's up to Ruby. She seems to do so by playing with her insecurities and having a moment of genuine compassion.

Ruby first met Chelsea after she saved Connor and learns that the new girl took credit for it seconds later. Instead of exposing Chelsea's lie Ruby allows the school to think this, as she had a bigger issue to worry about. Chelsea noticed that Ruby seemed off and asked if she was okay, before following her to the library. Where Chelsea sees giant kraken Ruby burst out of the building, Ruby took off again once she saw Chelsea and didn't want to hang around. From not knowing what is happening to her and was worried that she had become a monster. Ruby soon learns that she is in fact a kraken princess and is told the story of her mother's battle with the evil mermaid queen, Nerissa.

Despite being told that mermaids are evil and enemies of krakens, Ruby didn't believe Chelsea to be evil after she revealed herself to be a "flipping" mermaid. From how Chelsea was the one who saves Ruby from the kraken hunting captain and with Chelsea stating that she owed Ruby a sea rescue after she took credit for hers. Ruby was thankful for the rescue while Chelsea began to talk about the two of them becoming sea creature beasties, but after the day she had Ruby just wanted to go home and back to her "normal teenager" life. Before her life turned upside down.

The next day while everyone else was still talking about the Kraken attacking on the library and the video that caught a glimpse of Ruby, she turns to Chelsea for advice. Ruby had struggled to fit in for years while Chelsea was excepted on the her first day. Chelsea tells Ruby to abandon her life as a normal teenager and to simply embrace her sea creature heritage. The redheaded mermaid also suggested that a ditch day from school would cheer her up. Which it did as the two swim through all seven seas in a day, before stopping to rest from the fun they were having. Chelsea spins a story of her running away while other mermaids wanted to remain hidden from the krakens, believing that the two of them are now friends Ruby subjects that the two of them could try to bring peace between their waring kinds. This gets Chelsea to recommend the recovery of the trident and turn it into a symbol of peace, that way mermaid would come out of hiding and Ruby is provided with a chance to escape from her grandmother's plans to turn Ruby into a warrior princess.

Chelsea takes Ruby to the place where Mrs. Gillman had hidden the trident and explains that only a giant kraken can retrieve it, while her "mother" Nerissa died trying to retrieve it herself. Feeling sorry for her friend's loss, Ruby convinces her grandmother to teach her how to use the skills and powers she needs to reach the trident. While keeping her friendship with Chelsea and their mission a secret from the others. Ruby had even began to neglect her best friends squad from the times she spent hanging out with Chelsea within and outside of school. When Ruby was having trouble getting past the last optical to the trident and neither of having any idea as to how Agatha had got around it, Ruby suggests that they ask her for help. Chelsea tries to talk Ruby out of the idea of having her mother meet her daughter's mermaid bestie (knowing that Agatha would recognise her), but Ruby felt that it was the only way to show krakens and mermaids that they want peace.

Once Chelsea had the trident in her hands, however, she reveals her true nature and identify as Queen Nerissa. Who never saw Ruby as a friend and was only using her to reclaim the only weapon that can give a mermaid like her a fighting chance against a giant kraken. Nerissa ensured that Ruby was "taken cared" of before heading off to take her long awaited revenge against Agatha Gillman. With some help from her uncle, Ruby finds the strength to face Nerissa beside her mother and grandmother. Before they combined their laser eyes to destroy the trident, Ruby gives Nerissa a chance to stand down and later kept her grandmother from killing the mermaid she originally knew as Chelsea. Just as her mother had spared the mermaid queen before her. Despite Nerissa's lies and deception towards Ruby, "Chelsea" had helped the teenage kraken expect who she is and begins to take on her kraken responsibilities, while still continuing on at school.

Fanon
Ever since the first trailer dropped, people begun shipping the evil mermaid, Chelsea Van Der Zee, with the main protagonist, Ruby Gillman. As soon as it dropped countless artists started creating artwork of this pairing, quickly becoming the most popular pairing in the fandom, even surpassing ConnorxRuby, the skater boy which Ruby has a crush on. People quickly liked to imagine the two under different dynamics and circumstances. With the creators of How to Train Your Dragon being part of the team who helped to create the 2023 film, some had hopped they would try to find away to have Ruby and Chelsea form their own forbidden friendship. With Krakens and Mermaids being enemies, making the idea interesting among forbidden friendships/lovers fans.

The ship took a nosedive in popularity after the movie revealed that "Chelsea" is not only genuinely evil, but is also Queen Nerissa and is old enough to be Ruby's mother. Those who still want to ship "Chelsea" with Ruby often pretend that Chelsea is a real person and not just Nerissa's disguise. Some have offered a compromise and gave the name "Nerissa" to Chelsea's mother and have her be the evil mermaid who pressured Chelsea into faking a friendship with Ruby to get the trident. Those fans felt vindicated when leaks of early drafts of the movie revealed that Chelsea was actually going to be Nerissa's daughter early on. Many theorize that this was only changed to appeal to audiences wanting a "real" villain instead of a sympathetic one, even though many argued that Chelsea could've worked as a more sympathetic foil to her irredeemable mother, especially since Chelsea wasn't even going to be the main villain in the first place.

Shippers often express frustration at the movie's terrible ad campaign, either revealing too much about the plot or being incredibly misleading over the nature of "Chelsea" and Ruby's friendship with her.

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