#also it's like one of the only shows i know with platonic heterosexual male and female characters whose relationship is equally important

[thirstyvolleyballhoe]

parks and rec is such a good show and gave us so many great memes and yet it's so underrated in pop culture

[ultraethereal22]

REVISITED LESBIAN MASTERDOC

I wanna share with y'all my version of the lesbian masterdoc. we know the og is a bit problematic, but it helped me sm, so I revisited it. if you don't have a lot of points you aren't necessarily a lesbian. notice that a lot of points also have cons (maybe you're bi and you prefer women, you have orientation OCD, you're aroace, that's your taste in men, you are emotionally unavailable, etc). so here we go...

you believe women are objectively pretty and men are objectively ugly

you believe love is just friendship with kisses

you see having sex with men as a burden

if you're a virgin, you wanna have your first time with a man in a long time

using religion as an excuse (subconsciously) to have sex after marriage

in your sexual fantasies the man is not very detailed/the more there are details the more you're bored or disinterested/you're the observer of the scene and you focus on the woman

you constantly doubt you're into men, but you don't do that with women

you find interesting men that you can't have (taken/married men, gay men, aroace men, fictional men, celebrities, much older men, men who clearly don't give a shit about you)

you prefer having long-distance relationships with men

in series and movies you focus on female characters and don't care about the male ones

having sex with men as a form of self-harm subconsciously

you prefer feminine men

when you think you have a crush on a guy, your fantasies are never actually romantic (ex. you imagine yourselves simply hanging out and enjoying each other's company, with no kisses or stuff like that)

you think you're not attracted to men cuz you still have to find the one

you have very high standards with men, but not with women

you run away as soon as the boy likes you back

finding absurd other girls lose their minds over men

not getting what's so special about certain men (ex. Leonardo DiCaprio)

you have never noticed him, but when other girls start to like him you start to crush on him, too

crushing on the guy that is liked by the girl you're super close with

believing that being attracted to men means simply finding them "nice"

choosing a boy as a crush just because someone asked you if you liked somebody or they pressured you

wishing you were a lesbian

believing you can't be a lesbian because you would've already known

believing you gotta have sex with your man just to show him you care for him, not because you enjoy it

basing your attraction for men on their personality only

finding boring future with a man

being scared of being a lesbian and asking yourself if you're one at the same time

having an intense friendship with a woman, especially if she's sapphic

always imagining yourself with a man in the future, knowing you'd rather be with a woman

thinking you'd be 100% with a woman in a world with no homophobia

changing a lot of labels, but never considering the lesbian one. you'd rather go directly for aroace

believing you're into men, but you don't care about making male friends or you have never found them interesting, not even in a platonic way

when a straight fantasy isn't making you horny, you change the story many and many times to try to turn you on on purpose to prove your heterosexuality/bisexuality

you go out with any man that likes you

you want men to want you, but when it works it makes you feel uncomfortable

getting into a straight relationship just for material convenience or to feel cool or not to let the world think you could be sapphic

wishing your boyfriend wasn't that into romantic stuff and sex

you get over men very fast

wishing for a relationship, not really for a boyfriend

wanting sex with men for validation

you need to be drunk or high to have hetero sex

wanting straight sex only if you're subdued

wanting to kiss a girl friend "to know how to kiss boys"

touching a girl by mistake and feeling weird after it (it could be simply an arm touch)

feeling awkward in a changing room

"if she were a boy, I'd be with her"/"if I were a boy, I'd be with her"

"if I were him, I'd never treat her like that"

being obsessed with queer culture as an "ally"

"everyone is a little bit gay"

everyone thinks you are

wanting to kiss a female friend as a sign of "big friendship"

some girls kiss each other to turn men on, so you take subconsciously this opportunity to kiss one because you actually desire to

kissing girls when you're drunk/high

you constantly find ways not to believe you're a lesbian

you find more sensible gay men's attraction than straight girl's attraction to men

not having "enough time for men and relationships"

if your friend uses other pronouns too, you use them a lot, more than the feminine ones to subconsciously bypass your attraction

treating bad out of nowhere the girl you were so attached to

every time you find a man funny you automatically think you're into him

you try to like men to feel more feminine (for trans girls)

joking many times about not being attracted to men or their genitals

btw if you're sure you don't like men in a sexual way, but you still don't know if you like them emotionally I recommend to research on limerence. that's how I realised I was a lesbian<3

I hope all of this helps you girlies. you're always valid♡

[xxmisukii]

Oh boy…. being a Jayvik shipper is hard (especially on twitter)

I can understand if people see them as platonic, romantic,… but brothers? When I and my sister heard that ppl see them as brothers, we looked at each other with disgust (we’re not the only one). And everytime I see post on tik tok or twitter that is aimed for shippers, there is ALWAYS at least one comment that says “oh but they’re like brothers” (if u see them like that, then ok it’s your opinion idc, but if you proceed to argue about it NON STOP with the shippers, calling them stupid and delusional, then something’s wrong with you, if you can’t even respect someone’s opinion)

AND they always use these same arguments whenever they can:

Argument numero uno: “but Jayce said he’s like his brother”

like yeah we get it, he said it, but what was the last time he called him that ? In season 1.

He stopped calling him that after.

(And it happens in real life too, you can change how you see someone after some time)

Number 2 “but writters said they aren’t canon”

when did they said that? (I’m genuinely asking)

and so what? it’s not illegal to ship characters even when the creators says it’s not canon. go argue about it with some animators, music creators, voice actors,… because they ship it too (btw same thing happened with Luca)

Also did they forgot about concept of “shipping”?? it doesn’t matter if they end up together or not. Ppl shipped Elsa and Jack Frost, FFS

If Jayvik was heterosexual pair, no one would fvcking deny it, everyone would say that they’re romantic and more than friends (I know this argument is used a lot, but it’s the reality)

Argument number 3: “Men nowadays can’t be just friends”

Yeah sure, but girls and boys always have to be something more than friends, right?

(The homophobia is loud)

The reason why many ppl ship it, is because they have good chemistry, dynamic, lore, etc. and not because they’re both dudes

If the creators want them to be just a friends, then they should interpret in the show more

If you can’t live with the fact that ppl ship two male characters, then don’t interact, easy

(Anyway this is all, sorry about this long rant, but I’m tired hearing the same things EVERY.DAMN.TIME😀 these ppl make me feel like shi sometimes)

[lover-of-mine]

I just saw someone genuinely argue "as a Buddie shipper" (which I don't believe) that Buddie shouldn't happen because: their close friendship is too important, the text of the show doesn't support Eddie being gay the way it supports Buck being bi, Eddie is "not ready", and that Ryan Guzman plays Eddie "too straight" to be able to pull off acting Buddie and this feels like to me someone who doesn't actually ship Buddie but is claiming to cause they think it'll give them more credibility in criticizing it.

1) if I see one more argument about how their close male friendship is too important because of toxic masculinity and that making it romantic would ruin it I'm going to lose my marbles because this is the dumbest take. TV is FULL of vulnerable platonic male friendships - 9-1-1 is FULL of them. Also them becoming romantic does not mean they would no longer be friends.

2) So we're just pretending queer-coding doesn't exist now okay.

3) I'm sick to death of the argument of Eddie not being ready. When is he allowed to be ready??? Does he have to suffer for a decade before he's allowed to figure things out??

4) They have to be watching the show with their eyes closed to think Ryan Guzman who has been playing Eddie "Heart Eyes" Diaz for 6 seasons couldn't pull off Buddie.

I'm gonna talk about all points, but the Eddie is too straight thing drives me INSANE. Four months ago, if I said "oh, Eddie is straight, no way buddie is happening" I would have whole essays on how he's gay thrown my way before I hit post. We're talking about a character who had panic attacks about his girlfriend. Who this season had literal erectile dysfunction with another girlfriend. There is no heterosexual explanation for the way Eddie was looking at Buck during the poker game. That man looks at Buck like he's the sun, the sky, the stars, and the moon. Like Buck is somehow the best thing he ever laid eyes on. Yeah, there are threads to pull. With Buck. We only need Eddie to be into one man. And boy, do we have threads to pull there. And honestly, if you wanna see Ryan play painfully straight men, go watch anything else in his filmography, that man knows how to act painfully straight. It's not what he's doing with Eddie. This narrative that Ryan is somehow sabotaging buddie's chances is so beyond ridiculous. Personally, I don't subscribe to Eddie being strictly gay, but I legit don't care anymore as long as he's out of the closet soon give him whatever label, but even if there weren't threads to pull to make it seem like Eddie is in love with Buck, and there are a lot of them, this idea that Eddie being gay is only valid if he's a stereotypical gay man from the beginning is NUTS. Why does gay have to look a specific way to be valid for y'all? This is such a harmful point of view. You want rep but it needs to fit in this one specific box or else it's not valid? What is wrong with you?

The male friendship thing, please tell me where are we lacking vulnerable male friendships in media? Media is made of male friendships. Everything everywhere is about male characters. And Buck and Eddie dating would not negate their friendship all of a sudden. Yall do realize you're supposed to like the person you're dating, right? Isn't literally everyone on the planet telling everyone to marry their best friend? How would that ruin their friendship? It just makes them a stronger couple because they have that foundation. And there literally isn't a show or movie that had two guy best friends who weren't introduced as queer who started dating. Literally, does not exist in media, how would losing exactly one friendship suddenly destroy male friendship representation everywhere? And we weren't even be losing the friendship, the friendship is gonna be a core part of buddie forever. You want strong male friendships? Go watch literally anything else. Every procedural ever has two guy best friends. Go watch house, any of the ncis, h50, the one chicago shows, hell, go watch lord of the rings or something, there are so many male friendships in media. No one is gonna die if Buck and Eddie kiss.

And the whole Eddie not being ready thing. Are we watching the same show? The show where madney started while Maddie was running for her life or bathena started while Bobby was actively suicidal? Or that even henren was presented to us when Hen cheated? Buck's own definition of love is "So every day is the best day ever. Is that really love? Right? Shouldn't it be when you're at your worst, they're at their worst, you have every reason to give up, and you still decide you want to try again?" loving someone at their lowest is the definition of love for that show. It's working through the bad to appreciate the good. And again, this idea that someone needs to be healed to be worthy of love is fucked UP. Eddie is never gonna be fully healed. Recovery isn't linear and he has ptsd. He will forever grieve Shannon. Does that mean he's never gonna be allowed to be loved because he is a human being who has been through hell? What does it take for someone to be "ready for love", huh? What's the threshold here? He was in a helicopter that was shot down and got shot 3 times, he was abandoned by a wife he later was forced to watch die, he was shot at again in broad daylight, he watched his best friend die and had to save him, his own parents just stole his kid. What does he have to do to prove that he is worthy of love, how does he have to handle all that? What I'm getting here is that someone who's been through shit can't be loved, is that the message we're sending? Really? No one seriously wants Buck and Eddie to open season 8 dating, but they are partners and best friends and they don't have to have everything figured out before they go there, they can figure it out together, they do it together anyway. Why can't they take that step and figure things out as a couple? Jesus.

[eisforeidolon]

In regards to that post [X]:

We could talk about the same old fallacies - OMG, Dean's siren is a guy! Yeah, a brother. OMG, Dean was supposed to say I love you in the Crypt scene! Yeah, it was removed and replaced with what the writer explicitly said was the less OOC version of what he meant anyway, "We're family". We could talk about the blatant absurdity of statements like "Dean liked men it happened on my screen" which bear no resemblance to the SPN that aired. But we've done that before and others have got this reiteration of it well covered.

So I wanna focus for the moment on this particular even more repulsive gem: "Like he literally doesn't need to verbally tell us he's bisexual we just know. He may not know but we do. This is an unmovable fact sorry."

It tells us a few things. One, this person is a fucking idiot. Two, this person, yet again, thinks that ~*interpreting*~ sexuality from the way someone looks/stands/makes eye contact/eats pastry/whatever numbnuts conspiracy bullshit you like? Is more valid than how a character identifies and is identified by those who created him. People can just look at you and know what your sexuality is better than you do, there's nothing repulsive about that idea at all! I've got a mountain of shiny pennies that says if Dean had literally never interacted with a man for the entire span of the series, they would have insisted it was because he was so afraid of how much he wanted to fuck them. There was no way the writers could have written Dean that someone like that would have accepted as actually heterosexual, because that's not what they personally wanted, so that's not what they were going to see.

I'm not saying there aren't things that might be said about how relatively questionable some of the gay jokes in SPN are, especially in the early years in terms of making queerness a punchline. But if we're going to talk about that? We need to do it not only in the cultural context of 2005 rather than 2023, but in the context of portrayals of real world men - and particularly those in fairly rural settings who aren't going to be particularly conscientious in the way they rib each other. Which becomes a whole other discussion about where to draw lines when you're writing fiction and dealing with things that might be realistic but also potentially offensive.

Furthermore, I'm not saying there aren't things that might be said about how SPN continually used romantic tropes for platonic relationships and how it's not entirely absurd for that to land different with the audience when the characters are not blood-related. Except that discussion needs to include not just how maybe the writers shouldn't have treated it as such a joke that a relationship between two male characters might have been possible, but also how fans should absolutely not have equated a relationship being theoretically possible with any specific relationship they wanted being owed to them. Especially in the context of those romantic tropes being used so so so much more between brothers all the fucking time setting the tone. As well as how it's not just problematic to treat the possibility of homosexual relationships as a joke, but problematic to insist literally any closeness between two male entities is gay, reinforcing all kinds of nasty toxic stereotypes about sexuality and masculinity which underlay a lot of modern adult men's issues with expressing their emotions and having genuinely close and open relationships outside of their romantic partners. I've seen fans wonder how heterosexual dudes can watch this show and love the brothers' relationship without seemingly noticing the weird undertones of how claustrophobically intertwined they are, and I think it's very much that when it comes to wanting a fantasy of platonic closeness, they're looking for realism as much as most women reading trashy romance novels are - but that's a whole other digression and this is already too long.

At the end of the day, not only was SPN not created in the cultural context of Very Online Tumbrites in 2023, convinced that nothing should ever be is heterosexual and every fictional story should be about them and what they want? The fact their ostensible original point misses is the real world and most other media of 2023 aren't like that either! Some of these shippers come across like they've literally never seen two adult male friends interact with each other or any actual love stories in media - and it's not just early 2000's television characters getting this treatment from entitled shippers who want to use representation as a weapon against creators as to why they're owed things they absolutely aren't.

[izzymeadows]

Okay some of you NEED to read this.

Johnlock wasn't queerbaiting. The show never tried to make them look romantic, even if they did look romantic sometimes, and the showrunners made a fucking point of saying they weren't gonna be a pairing. If anything, the show made a point of mocking the fans for shipping the characters. Remember that there's an episode where the characters spend like 15 minutes reading theories about what happened to Sherlock and Moriarty and mocking them. It's a very obvious, very clumsy way to make fun of the fans of the show and their theories and fanfics, and honestly, i don't know how they got away with it to the point of still having enough audience to make another season after that.

Klance was only partially queerbaiting. Netflix totally used the interest of the fans on the ship for marketing purposes, which is a way of queerbaiting, and iirc some of the voice actors said they shipped it as well, but here's the thing: the show itself never treated them as anything remotely romantic. They were rivals that became friendly rivals. Lance was consistently written as annoyingly heterosexual and spent a big part of the show openly interested in Allura. And Keith's most important relationship through the whole show was with Shiro. Most of the disappointment was on the fans themselves, not on the show, because Klance is very obviously written as platonic.

Byler would absolutely be queerbaiting. They would have used Will's feelings to help a straight pairing and he, the only male gay character of the show, would be the only one not only to not get his happy ending, but also to not have had a romantic relationship in the whole show. They also made a bunch of merch of his painting, an expression of his feelings for Mike. It would be a total queerbait because it would be inside and outside the show. Byler is undoubtedly written in the show and not going on with it would be deceiving the whole audience, not only the Byler shippers.

It is indeed not the same. Byler would be way worse than anything you might have felt with the other pairings, because the other cases ARE cases of fanon ships that people took more seriously than they were. None of them were written as romantic in their respective stories. Byler is, to the point that not making it endgame would make the whole show objectively worse.

[aveline-amelia]

This might get me cancelled, but idc, so...

Fanfiction is supposed to be transgressive. It is supposed to be about looking at something and saying "I could go somewhere interesting with that", "That was stupid, I could fix that", "I can make that better", "I can make that happen", "I can make them fall in love", "I can make them happy".

It's why one of my fandoms had about 30% more works shipping the main character with her (male) best friend as opposed to the guy she marries in the show. People looked at it and said "That isn't right. This is better". So they made it themselves.

But guess what? Shipping her or just liking her more with her love interest was still more popular amongst more casual audiences. And the fanon shippers were surprised by this!

It's why I am baffled by the things I see stated online.

People thinking that there being more fanfiction about a particular ship means more people ship it, as if one fan writes a fic each and then leaves and as if there are no people who ship it and just don't write fic? Because they are not writers?

People being surprised that main characters are shipped with other main characters more as opposed to a character that appears in one episode.

People being surprised that people can believe a character is straight in canon and still enjoy fanon slash ships where he's shipped with other men.

Of course there will always be more M/M works than M/F works. We have enough heterosexuality in media already and as for F/F, while queer women do write F/F fanfic, there aren't that many queer women in the world statistically as opposed to straight women and even if fandom has a larger number of queer women than average, queer women write M/M works too.

You can believe this is Problematic, but guess what, back then, we were all freaks and weirdos. People would share links on obscure websites because they were scared of being sued. Professional writers would purge all their fanfiction and pray to god no one ever finds out. And if you wrote gay fanfiction? Good luck being taken seriously anywhere.

We went from "ship and let ship" and "don't like don't read" to "supporting this platonic surrogate father-son bond makes you a bigot because the father figure once made an ignorant comment" and "it's problematic to ship the hero with the villain because the hero is scared of him".

Fandom stopped being about Liking and Enjoying things and started being about Fighting People and Proving You're Right and Your Ship is Better. Because if you don't become canon, if you don't Win, what is even the point?

Of course it will be like that, when you tell people shipping something is Activism and not shipping something makes them a Bad Person and shipping something you morally disagree with makes them a Bad Person and more importantly makes you a Good Person for fighting the important battle of stopping people from imagining two imaginary people kissing in their heads.

Shipping is a feeling. Sometimes it's "I ship this, hehehe." Sometimes its "Oh no, I ship this and I wish I didn't." Sometimes it's "I wish I shipped this but I can't." It's supposed to be fun and not a form of mental torture.

It's not a choice. It's not writing fanfiction or making fanart, that comes later, but it's not even a requirement. You can write fanfiction for something you don't even ship! You can write fanfiction for shows you didn't even watch!

And shipping something doesn't make you Better or Worse.

Ship shaming doesn't stop people from shipping something, it only has the potential to make them feel worse for something they, for the most part, can't control. And when the person in question is a literal teenager who also self-harms, it certainly has no potential to do anyone any good.

And it's why when the proshippers see a person like that, a person like them, they welcome them in. "You're with us now. It's your ship. Own it. Come join us." Because they have experienced the same thing and they know they would want someone to stand up for them, too. They won't let you feel as if you're alone. Because you're not and you never will be. You have a community, you just need to look for it and find it.

It's what made me realize that the antis were the bullies. Also, the antis were a bunch of teenagers too, who thought they were doing important activism by yelling at people in caps lock.

So get off your high horse. It's not that serious. Stop talking about it like it's life or death and maybe you will feel better.

It worked for me.

I want the same for you.

And I swear, if someone here starts with "But what about-" No. Let me stop you right there.

[the-missann]

Honestly, I was talking to my brother and got another idea for a game. Especially after Princess Peach Showtime.

I'll preface this by saying PPS is the perfect game for girls and women imo. Female main character, outfit changes, aesthetic color scheme--everything about the game gave me nostalgia and it isn't even out! I'll be looking forward to playing it (if I have the money 😷) because it makes me actually feel like a female without the color pink as the only color or horrible gameplay attached to it.

But it's sad as hell that it takes so long for something like this to come out. I got Super Princess Peach a few years after it came out and as a little girl, that was the most enjoyment I got out of a game that didn't have hot male characters keeping my attention.

Obviously, the main issue is men game developers. I'm not gonna be all "video games are men's fantasies and bla bla" I don't care because all I want is for some games to be a woman's fantasy ☺

If I knew a female game developer, I would help her in a heartbeat to make a game that actually caters to what women look for in games. Men can keep Cammy being literally butt naked if I also can get Lee Chalon in more swimwear 😌.

I understand the sentiment of girl gamers and that if games didn't have "heterosexual man juice" sprayed all over it, things would be better for us; but it's not gonna change and I wouldn't want it to because I grew up with games that had big breasted women and useless damsels I had to save, and I love some of those games *cough*DMC*cough*. I just want there to be more on both ends of the spectrum.

So, honestly, that's my TED talk, but I at least wanted to show the kinds of ideas we could be getting alongside our usual games.

~Read on if your interested~

Speaking of usual, where is the Huniepop with male characters 😤

Like, do people not realize that a game full of hot dudes with the main point being to engage sexually with them would be the first thing I'll throw $20 at?

Anyways 😀

My first real idea is a collectathon for house items, clothes/outfits, and other accesories.

Imagine Mario Oddessy, but just with the clothes. Instead of collecting the moons, you'd collect various items of clothing you could dress your character up in. A sofa for the house you live in or an accessory to style an outfit with.

I think, just maybe, there's a correlation with Animal Crossing and The Sims being popular with a female audience.

Personally, I don't like the current climate of ignoring a woman's natural interest in fashion and things that look good. I get that it's a stereotype, but all stereotypes are based in reality.

It's bad that girls are being shunned away from wearing a pretty outfit just because that's seen as "girly", but guys are "cool" when they have a good fit and even get praised if they "break gender roles" [insert sigh here]. I even think about how much this would help trans girls to discovery themselves more.

And it doesn't have to be something stereotypically female either. I'd never wear a skirt or dress, but you best believe if a flowy jacket or cute sweater came my way, I'm wearing that shit and I'd love to play games that allowed it, if they weren't unplayable and unbearable.

I usually hate platformers, but I'd love one if my objective was to get clothes and other designing items for a house or my character.

Next Idea

Obviously, VNs are usually the games associated with women, but I'd enjoy one that had gameplay on the side. You know, scratch the itch that Obey me! just doesn't.

Obey Me! Is perfect having guys who are likable without forcing random female hate as "conflicts". However, there's nothing to the gameplay so I'm usually pretty bored after a while.

And even if there is some kind of gameplay, you usually are forced to be romantic and there's no platonic options. Like, I was reading a post by Hamilton Hour and a review said exactly how I feel, they said this:

A lot of the time, I feel like romance games often push you into pursuing a relationship with someone, and when you don’t, the character will get sad and then you feel awful about it.

Original Post here

And no truer words have been spoken!

Seriously, what is with games doing that? Why not give us more content in the game and make all three if you want. Like Stardew Valley, there's options to be an asshole, to be platonic and options to be weird/overtly romantic. It makes it interesting to replay the game and see different choices.

I got off track though, back to the VNs with no gameplay. I really mean for there to be more romance oriented VNs with male characters that have gameplay. Like, Phoenix Wright, Danganropa, or Professor Layton but with romance lol.

I say this because there's tons of dating sims where the primary objective is to date women and they're always super good. Again, if anyone needs help I'd be willing to work on creating a story. Just ask.

Next idea

This isn't really an idea, but just something I wanted to say.

I super want more fighting games with male options that don't look like they were made for no one to love. I just think it's so convenient that female characters who are made to be "unattractive" are still the prettiest things on the planet.

Also, has anyone ever noticed that male characters in fighting games that are attractive are always married or devoted to another? However, most women aren't. Like Mortal Kombat for example. Now, I don't play this franchise so I could be wrong, but I have seen it and try and keep with the latest releases.

And I just happened to notice that the human characters who are male are usually married or dating someone.

On the opposite end, females in Mortal Kombat are either widowed, single with someone who has just a crush on them, or so butch they don't care for romantic relationships.

You can't be more blatant than that.

Street Fighter takes the design approach to turn away women. Seriously, name one male character from SF who's traditionally attractive then name a female, I guarantee you, you'll run out of men.

Then there's Tekken, my favorite.

Tekken is my fav for that very reason. There's a wide range of characters who have no romantic involvement, but they look human and *gasp* they're attractive?? What kind of sorcery...

Lee Chaolan

Hwoarang

Jin

Leo (ik they're essentially non-binary, but all that means is both get a victory)

Shaheen

Miguel

Hell even Paula and Law fit this imo.

And my personal fav, ❤ Dragunov ❤

I know he doesn't (sometimes) fit the traditionally attractive group, but bro have you seen some of his renders?

Idk I just find him pretty

Bite me any day sir *rawr xD*

Yeah he's 27, and looks about 40, but someone likes that irl (aka me) and I ain't special. So I know others would probably appreciate the older looking gentlemen type and not just the baby faced hottie (dilf come on).

Any-fucking-way

Next Idea

The last thing is more related to writing than an actual game idea.

You know how in Zelda you're saving... Zelda?

Well, why the hell isn't there a game where I'm saving Link (and no, the CDi games DO NOT count).

I mean in general, I'd love a game where you play as a heroine and you're saving a male character. Don't even get me started on the many ways that could work.

A god is wounded and it's up to her to save him

A prince is captured while on enemy lines, no one else is capable of infiltrating but her.

Needing a vessel, your childhood friend's body is snatched

Afflicted by a curse, she knows where to find the remedy

Like come on, is it that hard to make a male in need? No it's not, dudes are human too and sometimes they need help. Enough with this solo shit, if men could be alone than why the hell do they all want girlfriends or need wives make it make sense

All this is to say, female coders, developers, writers, we need ya'll 🗣🔊

And as I've said throughout this, I would not be opposed to helping someone create the story of a game they're developing.

Thanks for reading, if you got to this point, be sure to take care of your self, drink some water if you haven't or get some sleep if it's late 🍂

~Buh-bye now~

[mynameisntgeoffery]

I like this joke.

The people who don't know regular show quickly realise that the person is about to say they had a threesome.

The people who know regular show know it's muscle man about to finish with 'My Mom!', which was so often portrayed as him degrading the other dialogue partners early on in the show. This is probably the first context where 'My mom' works as well as 'your mom'.

I, however, have a headcanon that muscle man loves his mom and would never talk badly about her outside of jokes - because he doesn't let anyone else joke about her in a degrading way. I'd like to interpret that by saying his mother fucks too, he's implying that he holds gratitude for his mother making him and also suggests that mordecai and rigby fucking should not be seen as an abhorrent thing compared to heterosexual sex.

Therefore, I propose that Muscle Man is an ally. He could be bi or another identity, but the only male partner he's had was Fives, which I believe has not been confirmed to be more than a platonic relationship, if a very strong one (I don't know enough about qprs to definitively call it one). Muscle Man does, however, have a girlfriend by the name of Starla, whom he had kids with - implying heterosexuality, but bisexuality is still on the table.

However, I believe the first interpretation is also a valid one, because it would be funny as hell for him to subvert our expectations by saying he has fucked both mordecai and rigby, which would probably make him bi. These could be alternate timelines, perhaps.

I refuse the second interpretation; I believe muscle man is too wholesome to be homophobic.

So, to reiterate, Muscle Man is either being supportive of mordecai and rigby's relationship, or that he is bi and has fucked them both before.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. I am open to critique and other interpretations.

"Mordecai and Rigby from Regular Show fucked", I say into the mic.

The crowd boos. I begin to walk off in shame, when two voices speak and command silence from the room in unison.

"They're right", they say. I look for the owners of the voices. There in the 3rd row stand Mordecai and Rigby.

Another voice rings out from the next row: "You know who ELSE fucked?"

[popironrye]

What's the best course for a Lost Boys fanfic? OCxCanon but Poly?

No interest in my work needed, just give me your two cents for a moment, pls. Hiya poppies, and vampire sluts. If you're new to my page, I have a trio of goth witches I made as fancharacters the movie The Lost Boys (1987). This might seem like a weird place to ask this, but I have ideas and no one to talk to me about them. I wanna work on a long story for them. A version of the story from the perspective of my own characters taking place of the Emerson family. Much as I love them, they're not involved in this divergence of canon.

So basically I am 1000% for the lost boys being poly with each other. Homoerotic vampires and all that. I am also 100% on board in making my ocs into a poly with them as well. However my ocs are not poly with each other. I'm not against it, I just image them as a close platonic sisterly family as opposed to girlfriends/lovers. My biggest problem is that I don't have experience with polyamorous relationships. It feels a bit odd for me to have 4 boys but only 3 girls. That's not to say an odd number of poly people can't have a relationship, I'm just worried about shifting my ocs with specific boys, showing favoritism, and other wise neglecting someone or leaving someone out. As a bi gal, I also find it odd to have gay love between male characters and heterosexual love between my ocs and the boys, but no sapphic love to share. I do have one thing that can fix that though. Add Star! <3 Adding Star would be a great addition for my trio honestly. Fill out the crew and give my ocs a sapphic option, not to mention I could see her having a lot of fun with my ocs.

[thesoftboiledegg]

I've had plenty of issues with the way the Rick and Morty crew has approached Rick's sexuality in the past, but in the case of Rick's scene with Bird Person, I don't see how you could not interpret it as romantic. I would've preferred it if the episode made it explicit, but I felt it was less "haha were they in love or not?? we're never tell lolz!!" and more "Rick wasn't ready to admit his feelings yet."

The proposition itself is bordering on romantic--Rick's not just asking Bird Person to go on an adventure with him. He's asking him to go on endless adventures through an infinite number of realities for the rest of their lives, forever. Like OK, you can enjoy going on adventures with your friends, but Rick's basically asking Bird Person to spend the rest of his life with him.

That alone might not be enough, but when Bird Person presses him for an explanation, Rick suddenly gets awkward and uncomfortable when he says "You matter--to me." Then he panics when Bird Person uses the word "relationship," implying that he knows what's going on but doesn't want to admit it.

Finally, when Bird Person rejects him, Rick loses his shit and storms off. I don't think he would've reacted like that if someone like Squanchy turned down an adventure (unless Rick's also got it bad for Squanchy, lol.) Even if it WAS platonic, Rick must be pretty attached to Bird Person to flip out like that.

Of course, at the end, Rick admits that Blood Ridge wasn't one of the worst moments of his life--it's what came after. Maybe I could understand a platonic interpretation if Rick and Bird Person had a huge falling out and never spoke again, but that's not what happened. On the surface, this was all about Bird Person turning down the chance to go on adventures. Rick's reaction shows that it was much more than that.

The funny thing is that even Memory Rick reacts badly to that scene. He starts ranting about how Bird Person's an asshole and he doesn't love him. Pretty harsh reaction to seeing a "friend" turn down the chance to go on adventures, my man. Present Day Rick was also clearly uncomfortable, although he's more forgiving at this point in his life.

This episode also has a couple of scenes that you could interpret as allusions to Rick's sexuality. As I said in another post, Rick's big moment with Bird Person at the other end had romantic vibes--Rick stretches his arms out like Rose in Titanic while Bird Person steps behind him and wraps his arms around him. Like come on, no one would call that platonic if Bird Person were female.

Also, as @exkernal wisely pointed out, we literally see Rick come out of the closet at the end of the episode. Totally a coincidence, right?

And at the end, Rick still hasn't changed much. Bird Person calls him out on the fact that Rick only brought up his child as a last-ditch effort to get him back to reality. Rick withheld that information because he wanted Bird Person to hang out with him and go on adventures with him--"a hundred years," as he put it. Plus, the Story Train episode makes it clear that Rick's still got it bad for Bird Person.

Normally, I get frustrated when the writers won't explicitly acknowledge Rick's sexuality, but eh...in this case, I think he wasn't ready to admit his feelings to anyone, including himself. Still would've preferred a flat-out statement, though.

But sure...the man who fell for a male dragon, had male lovers in the Story Train episode, had an (admittedly brief) tryst with one of Unity's male bodies and confessed his love to his male best friend is 100% heterosexual, am I right?

[luna-rainbow]

I've been thinking a lot about this ask and how it pertains to stucky. As I understand, the gist of it is there are certain tropes and storylines that Hollywood has declared to be Romantic (for heterosexual couples only), and even if two same sex characters follow the same tropes and story beats, Hollywood will not recognize them as romantic, because they're blind (willfully or otherwise) to anything other than heterosexual romance. That is, heterosexual romance is always presumed/a given, and people reading queer subtext are looked at with a surprised Pikachu face. (I also liked your analysis of Wuxia platonic same sex soulmate tropes vs heterosexual romance.)

And to an extent I can see that for stucky. Like you pointed out in the tags, they probably wanted to show Steve metamorphizing into a beautiful butterfly to win Peggy's affection and admiration. Bucky in the bar scene was supposed to be the jealous best friend (jealous that Steve was getting the action he always took for granted).

But it... doesn't work? For a steggy romance to work, she shouldn't look at him any differently before or after the serum-- she should value him for what's inside, not what's outside. (Or is this me not understanding heterosexual male writers again? Do guys really want a woman who finds them attractive only after they get swole? Then they're viewing their romantic partners as trophies, and not as real people lol.) And I don't know about you, but I never saw her look at Steve preserum the way she looked at him postserum. For steggy to work romantically, she should have looked at him postserum with concern for his wellbeing (given how much he screamed and the very real risk of his death during the procedure), not with desire.

(Contrast this with Bucky looking at Steve like "wtf" while Steve was helping him off the table-- more bewildered than impressed. And immediately followed up with questions about Steve's well-being. For Hollywood, this is "just" a good platonic friendship, but for me, this is a genuine show of love-- platonic or otherwise 🙄)

And it also doesn't take into account decisions such as having the Howlies sing "There is a Tavern in the Town," which can only apply to Bucky (looking resignedly between Peggy and Steve) in the bar scene, or playing "It's Been a Long Long Time" right before Bucky crashes back into Steve's life, both of which are overtly romantic songs. I understand that for the casual viewer, these songs will fly over their heads and not be thought of again, but I really think that someone somewhere working on these movies had to have chosen these songs knowing how they would come across. They can't be that obtuse! Heck, they reused It's Been a Long Long Time in Endgame for the steggy dance 🙄 and this time, it was blatantly meant to be romantic.

Even Marcus and McFeely acknowledge that stucky has all the hallmarks of a romance. There's a quote that they wrote for the Captain America comics that's been blogged about a lot--

No adventure is complete without a love story. And, yes, these books have one — the longest, most tortured one in Marvel history, in fact. We're talking about Steve and Bucky, without smirking or innuendo or raised eyebrows. Platonic though the relationship may be, from the meet cute to the tragic separation, their bond has all the elements of a classic romance. These two men love each other — as any pair of friends who faced exclusion, combat, inhumanity, and death would. Their bond stretches across half of the twentieth century. [...] Just as Jeph and Tim's earlier Daredevil: Yellow, Spider-Man: Blue, and Hulk: Gray all dealt with the major love interests in the heroes' lives, so too does Captain America: White. Steve and Bucky are each other's soulmate, if you will, because no one on Earth understands what either of them has been through as well as the other does.

They acknowledge it!! Even while beating it over our heads that their bond is platonic, they acknowledge the romantic beats. And call them soulmates. If it's true in the comics, I feel it's doubly true in the MCU.

I guess my point is, I don't think that they were trying to queerbait, because yes I do think there is some Hollywood blindness to queer subtext at play and also blindness to how genuine love between two characters can be read as romantic (as opposed to just love won as a trophy), but I also don't think they're as oblivious and blind as some people say. Or maybe they are!

They certainly weren't blind after #givecaptainamericaaboyfriend or with Civil War and Endgame. I believe that the complete lack of resolution between those two and their final separation was, among other things, meant to prove once and for all that they weren't gay, and it really speaks to the homophobia and conservatism of the people who own their characters.

(I also have thoughts on how the Russos chose to make Bucky Steve's most important relationship in CATWS. As opposed to Steve having the dream sequence where Bucky and the Howlies say we're with you til the end of the line, they chose to have only Bucky say it to Steve on the day of his mother's funeral, when he was feeling his lowest, and offer him a home together. And they chose to have Steve repeat it to Bucky to break through 70 years of brainwashing-- longer than either of them knew each other, three times as long as their lives together before they were brutally separated. Of course this can be read as platonic, but they weren't just acquaintances-- they were family, the only two people in the world that understood what the other went through. They chose to do that! If they had kept Bucky and the Howlies, they could have reduced the intensity of Steve and Bucky's relationship, but they decided that it had to be more intense.

I don't know where I'm going with this, I just felt like venting lol)

OKAY there is WAY too much to unpack in that particular post so I'm just going to rehash their points, which I generally agree with:

There is a particular group of people who either make up MCU's writers or are the audience that the MCU is trying to target

Romance, in the contemporary sense of developing a relationship (often with warmth and wonder) between love interests, is not the intent.

Courtship (as opposed to romance) is a competition, and the object of ardour is a trophy to be won.

Partnership is the space for emotional intimacy, where they are allowed trust, maturation, vulnerability and loyalty.

Courtship does not require emotional poignancy because the goal is to bed someone (look I'm being extremely dudebro about this)

Obtaining the person they desire (i.e. courtship) does not lead them to a partnership with that person; however, a strong partnership may lead them towards obtaining their "professional" goal (i.e. the other goal apart from appeasing their loins).

Writers are aware that romantic tropes are effective narrative tools to build emotional connection and poignancy, and they will employ those tools in their stories.

However, when those tools are employed in building a partnership, the writers either willfully or negligently overlook the unmistakable romantic subtext that is now written into that partnership.

Even with awareness of the tropes, they (the writers and the target audience) default to seeing this partnership as purely professional, utterly familial, completely brotherly, despite its emotional intensity being above every other relationship. Soulmates, but platonic.

The existence of partnership and courtship is to satisfy the virility quota in this piece of dudebro media.

A different group of audience perceives courtship = emotional intimacy = partnership. For these people, courtship should lead to partnership, and this is the group that will recognise the romantic subtext in the partnership because that's the desirable outcome.

This is all heteronormativity, misogyny and toxic masculinity rolled into one giant ugly ball, but I'm not going to go into it cos I want to focus on Steve-Bucky-Peggy. Feel free to drop me an ask if anyone has thoughts.

I'm going to put this under cut because a) IT'S WAY TOO LONG and b) sometimes I think deconstructing stories take away the magic and it's not for everyone (or every mood).

Steve-Peggy

It consists of an audience surrogate and an object of lust/worship/pursuit. Often, the object is out of reach at the start, and the audience surrogate needs to get stronger/better/hotter/more confident in order to win them. Possibly, the audience surrogate just needs a chance to show off what they were already good at, like being a much better person than the other options. There are typically rivals for the object’s affection whom the hero must beat. The sexy lamp love interest’s feelings may be developed a bit towards the end of the plot, but they’re not usually a major focus.

This is a pretty accurate description of CATFA's plot if you took an extremely dudebro and superficial look at it. Steve is the audience surrogate, Peggy is the object of pursuit, Bucky is the rival. When Steve first meets Peggy, she's beautiful, poised, his superior, and way out of his league. She overlooks the small, awkward, unimpressive him and that is the point. He only catches her attention by dropping out of a vat with steaming abs becoming stronger/better/hotter/more confident. However, she only displays momentary interest, until he impresses her that he is much better than the other options by disobeying direct commands to go single-handedly rescue his Bucky bravely taking down a Nazi compound. There is a rival for Peggy's affection -- the Bucky we had established earlier as handsome, confident and popular with women -- and the new and improved Steve is shown to beat this rival. This is like the glow-up/transformation scene in rom-coms where the love interest can't look away and there is nothing the rival can do to snatch attention back. It's the ugly duckling trope but with a role reversal.

As for the "Tavern in the Town" scene? I know I've done meta on this (because it fits with the Stucky lens) but my non-Stucky (?pre-Stucky) reading was that the song was not reflecting Bucky's jealousy, but foreboding his impending doom.

Fare thee well, for I must leave thee, Do not let the parting grieve thee, And remember that the best of friends must part, must part Adieu, adieu, kind friends adieu, adieu, adieu, I can no longer stay with you, stay with you, I'll hang my harp on a weeping willow tree, And may the world go well with thee. Oh! dig my grave both wide and deep, wide and deep, Put tombstones at my head and feet, head and feet, And on my breast carve a turtle dove To signify I died of love.

He had just committed to following Steve when that song began to play, and this is what puts in motion the chain of events that leads him onto the train. The turtle dove signifies friendship, love and devotion, all of which are part of why he made the choice to follow Steve, and it is this very choice that will lead "the best of friends to part".

Steve-Bucky

The problem is, Steve-Bucky also takes from rom-com tropes -- "from the meet cute to the tragic separation" every friggin movie thanks guys -- but it also has the added weight of emotional connection, narrative significance and moral core. (Okay I know a lot of you guys dislike Peggy but she does have lines that tie in with Steve's narrative and moral direction. Overall, though, the impact of her character on Steve's personal and narrative arc is much less direct.) When you have two competing arcs, and one has more emotional weight, i.e. actually in line with the romantic tropes it draws from, then audiences will respond to that.

Steve-Bucky's relationship is intended to be a partnership, and in the dudebro framework, partnerships are professional-oriented. What this means is that Bucky is the key to Steve achieving his "outward" goals - recognition, fame, rank, respect, proof of righteousness, etc. But when Steve's professional goals are so intimately tied with his moral core (even more than many other heroes) and his identity and his self-belief, this means that it brings in a major emotional component that is separate to the actual emotional connection of the partnership itself. (I don't know if I'm making sense or talking in circles now)

I think the creative choices you've point out about CATWS are deliberate, but only as a way to use romantic tropes to pad out (what they perceive as) a non-romantic relationship. They know the emotional punch of the movie will hinge on how well Steve and Bucky's relationship holds up. CATFA hadn't given Bucky a lot of opportunity to show his significance in Steve's life -- hence the strategically placed "end of the line" and "even when I had nothing I had Bucky" scenes. On the one hand, they are retcons, but on the other...they worked. They worked so well that we see the tragedy of their separation and the strength of their connection. So they've really overcompensated on Steve and Bucky by giving them the fate-defying shared-life-experiences and woken by a true love's vow of commitment, that in a franchise that habitually squeezed out heterosexual relationships out of much less, it's no wonder people read it as romantic.

My guess at the situation, based on various interviews and publicity over those years, is that yes, the intent of Steve and Bucky was that it's a heterosexual friendship, but the creators were cognizant of the romantic subtext. They preferred the platonic reading (as that was their intent), but they were softening to the idea that a sizeable audience was reading it as romantic. And then Disney happened.

[melanccholia]

The Rumor Comes Out: Does Bert and Ernie is Gay?

    Growing up on public television in the early aughts, I, like many children before me and many who came after, delighted in watching the brightly colored and educational exploits of Jim Henson’s puppets on the PBS show Sesame Street. Among them, the famous figures of Bert and Ernie, two “male” puppets who lived in the same house, slept in the same room, and were almost never for a moment apart from one another. Even now, close relationships between men- both platonic and romantic- are heavily stigmatized in American culture, and, despite being inspired by the real life camaraderie between Jim Henson and Frank Oz, the two remain a rare example of gentle affection between two men in media. The first recorded instance of Bert and Ernie being interpreted as being in a homosexual relationship was in 1981, when Kurt Anderson described them as “[conducting] themselves in the same loving, discreet way that millions of gay men, women and hand puppets do. They do their jobs well and live a splendidly settled life together in an impeccably decorated cabinet” in his book The Real Thing. Though he later admitted to making the claim as a joke, the plush couple went on to become gay icons to thousands of queer people who grew up watching them on the screen, maintaining a time honored gay tradition of seeking a reflection where none may be. 

The idea took such firm hold, in fact, that the New Yorker published an issue on the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling with a cover depicting Bert and Ernie curled up in domestic peace on their couch. It caused an immediate statement from Sesame Workshop itself, claiming that they are not gay, never have been and never would be- and it was not the first time they had made such a statement. Later, after writer Mark Saltzman admitted that during his time on the show he had always modeled them after the relationship between his late husband and himself, Frank Oz took to Twitter to finally put the claims to rest in September 2018: They are, most decidedly, not. They’re just puppets. And anyway, why do people care so much? “Does it really matter? Why the need to define people as only gay? There's much more to a human being than just straightness or gayness.”

Why does it matter? If we are all just people, the same as everyone else, why should we need to be pointed out? If we are all equal, why must we be defined as different? In Genre-Queer, Kazim Ali observes that “certain kinds of writing (bodies) are valued more, are promoted and supported and legitimized and that the kinds of writing that are undervalued or marginalized are precisely those which undermine (in both their form and content) traditional power structures and traditional ways of thinking.” This legitimization sends a clear message- even in a children’s show preaching acceptance and equality, undermine the existing structures enough and be prepared to find yourself labeled and discarded as other. In this light, writers would historically couch homosexual and homosical themes in heterosexual language, forming both the safety net of plausible deniability and a queer media culture that to this day remains incredibly sensitive to homosexual subtext… For many, it is this subtext, both real or imagined, that allowed queer individuals to see themselves reflected in their favorite characters. They can pretend, for even just a moment, that when they look up at a beautiful portrait of the world, someone like them can be staring back. 

And yet, some argue, without that intentional subtext, it shouldn’t matter because it is the author who has the final say, anyways. Elena Ferrante once wrote, on her own immateriality as an author, that “I know that my books can only be female… But I also know that female (or male) absoluteness is inconceivable. We are tornadoes that pick up fragments with the most varied historical and biographical origins.” During his online diatribe, Oz doubled down on his position, saying that “I created Bert. I know who and what he is.” I wonder, though, how much a creator truly knows his creation, and how much of life’s detritus can be discovered, blended into the character purely by accident? I can sympathize with the plight of keeping the little creature you have made close to your chest, but once on paper, once on screen, it has no choice but to take on its own life- especially so, for a character designed to be handed off from writer to writer. As well, the character already can only exist in the space between author and reader, and the reader’s role in the birth of the character can’t be discounted. The reader isn’t stupid, after all (no matter how many would try to deny otherwise), and when the fragments picked up by the author’s tornado settles, it is the reader who’s job it is to pick them up and examine the pieces the author themself is blind to. 

 Bert and Ernie, as all facts point to, are puppets, are men, are fictional when held in the hand and real to whom they matter, and most importantly, they have a wonderful relationship. To see them as straight is fine- Sesame Workshop would rather you did. To read them as gay is also fine. Human connection is a universal theme, and whatever form it takes, all that matters is that it touches the hearts that need to be touched. As Oz concludes, “If Jim and I had created B & E as gay characters they would be inauthentic coming from two straight men. However, I have now learned that many view them as representative of a loving gay relationship. And that’s pretty wonderful. Thanks for helping me understand.”

[stormblessed95]

Hiya!!! It's been a quite a bit since I have sent in an ask to one of the blogs I follow. I hope you don't mind me and my questions 😅. I've talked to you in DMs before, so it wouldn't bother me if you wanted to talk about this there instead of bringing possible drama to your blog! Welp, let's get to it! (Sorry if it is long and goes off topic. Hard to organize things in my head 🥲)

I know you are and probably will forever be into books and sometimes anime, if I am correct, and I felt you were safe and knowledgeable to come ask about this. (I don't know if you have talked about fanfiction, just in general, but I feel like you have made passing comments about it but I can't remember exactly what was said.) My opinions are still coming up and trying to settle down and due to that I would like some other opinions on this.

Anyways! I recently came across a TikTok about fanart of an anime, specifically a male (bestfriend if I am remembering this right) duo holding hands and, well, it looked sweet (it showed nothing sexual, only a type of love that could be read as either platonic or romantic depending on the viewpoint of the person). One of the first comments (a pin of shame really lol) was about how disgusting people are for fetishizing these two men, and essentially all male duos in any anime. Furthermore, the commenter stated that those who only read things or write fanfiction (or anything really) about two men are fetishizers as well. And this made me pause and made me feel weird? in a way. People were trying to correct them by saying to learn the difference between shipping and fetishizing and that confused me even more I think. Because why was the original person so heated about this (and it kinda seemed homophobic in a way? Because some people like to automatically assume people who haven't come out are heterosexual and when you try to suggest otherwise, they get mad and defensive over it. Kinda suspicious and weird)? Additionally, someone brought the point of them and others only getting mad about people shipping, reading, writing about, etc. two men and why didn't they get angry over the people who only do the same to a man and a woman? (Also, I would like to know why people get so heated over something they never had to comment on. If they don't like it, then just leave instead of showing what your true colors are like. Furthermore, why are people so worried about what others they do not know read or watch, when it has nothing to do with them. Sigh.)

Anyway, back to the questions! I am kinda confused over this because I do read quite a lot of fanfiction and books (I wish I could read more books 🥲) that include LGBTQ relationships. How does one differentiate between shipping two male characters and, well, fetishizing them? Actually how does one differentiate between the shipping or fetishizing of any characters (whether they be best friends, rivals, or even strangers) of any gender really? Does only reading books or fanfiction about LGBTQ relationships make someone a fetishizer? And if so, how? What are examples of someone who fetishizes these relationships? Why do people like to throw this term out willy-nilly anytime they don't like something? Isn't that only diverting attention away from serious issues of fetishizing?

I would like to apologize in advance because I absolutely know this is a lot and you may not want to touch on it. I would also like to say thank you in advance, even if you don't want to touch on it. Just writing my thoughts out to someone really helps a lot.

Welp! Please keep up the great work on your blog and I hope you know that me and I am sure others love your blog. (Also, I loved your post the other day about The Legend of Korra! It brought up so many memories of watching the show and falling in love with the characters.) Have a great day or night!

Hi Mae, it's nice seeing you in my inbox again! Although it's definitely a heavy topic this time. Lol and yall know me, I write essays! (Also yes, I do read lots of books and I'm newer to anime, but loving it basically this past year) To start this all off, I'm just going to address your brief question over a previous fanfiction post. I do have one, it's basically just an ask over someone asking if writing/reading real person fanfiction is okay or crosses boundaries in my opinion. I briefly mention fetishization in there, but I can definitely break that down more in this post. But that FF post is here:

I'm also not really going to address the comments about how someone saying fanart of 2 male characters holding hands is gross fetishization or that it's a bad thing to do/draw/read about, whatever. That's just homophobia, plan and simple. We all know what it is. I'm currently watching Naruto for example (for the first time none of yall better spoil anything!!) and if someone is going to pitch a fit over Naruto and Sasuke (my partner's ship lol) being a popular ship or someone making ship art but would be totally fine with TenTen and Neji being a ship and/or ship art even if they don't agree with the ship. That's just plain 100% homophobia since neither of this ships are actually canon (or end up Canon to my knowledge, I'm only halfway through the show so.... lol) that person is just using a word they've learned about in an effort to shame other people for something they don't want to see, because they are a homophobic asshole.

So cutesy ship art of two people in a depiction of a queer relationship is not fetishization. Especially if you don't know these characters sexual orientations. So then, what is fetishization? Fetishization is the reduction of a person to aspects of their body, identity, or relationship structure. Basically you find this person attractive (or other things) simply because of this one characteristic, and it wouldn't otherwise matter who that person is. Such as their queer, or their race, or any number of things. As well as feeding into harmful stereotypes of that community in an effort to feed into your own entertainment or kinks. Such as sometimes when men want to date an Asian women simply because they want a "waifu." And their interest in this woman comes solely from her being Asian and nothing else. In the queer community it is huge. Gay fanservice on stage in kpop and the cishet straight girls losing their shit over it for the fantasy, is fetishization. Because ask those girls if they think their idol is gay and their answer is no. They like it for the fantasy. And this is actually also a huge issue for a lot of cishet men and the wlw community. It's straight people (usually) using queerness to fuel their own sexual fantasies. For a personal example, I briefly dated this guy before my currently relationship. I was not out. And yet, when he learned I had kissed girls before him... he never once thought that meant I was anything other than straight.... lol it just made him "love me more" and constantly talked about how "hot I was for kissing girls" etc etc etc. He 100% was fetishizing wlw relationships and I'm not sure he ever put it together that my having kissed women in the past wasn't in an effort to provide him with sexy stories in the future. 🙄🌈

Another way the fetishization happens of queer relationships is the constant need by cishets to put them into a box that makes sense to them. This is done in just general ways they talk about our relationships, or in fiction and media. Well which one is the "man" and which is the "woman" of the relationship? Unfortunately, jackass, a lesbian relationship isn't going to have a "man" in it at all. Thank you, next. A fictional romance story that features a queer relationship that views and promotes this relationship as basically nothing more than sexual, is people using their queerness to get off on. And that's fetishization. It's viewing them not as real people (or protrayls of real people) snd only seeing them as sexual objects. It's the obsessions with knowing "who's the bottom" and either making one hyper masculine and the other hyper feminine. It's the people who go "ugh, I don't think BTS are gay/BTS acting gay makes me super uncomfortable, ugh fanservice" while at the same time turning around and shipping two of them together. It's okay as long as it's your dubbed gay fantasy ship. Otherwise, keep the gayness away from where people can see it.

Or in another way bts ships are fetishized, in regards to JK at least, is changing aspects about him and his tattoos in an effort to promote your ship in your art. This is once again, fetishization because you are detracting who Jungkook is a human being and a real person, to nothing but the other half of your queer fantasy ship. Because once you start changing things to make it how YOU want it instead of how it is, its nothing more than a fantasy. And that's not okay. Artists are @/jjkwifeplz and @/humanlouvreart please block them if you haven't already. Both has a history of similar fetishization depictions in their drawings and the later also is biphobic on top of them both changing JKs tattoos.

Another way that queer people get fetishized is the way people view queer relationships ONLY in terms of sex. It goes hand in hand with homophobia. Cishets fetishizing queer relationships is part of the reason why they have a hard time separating talking about sexuality with talking about sex. It's why you see bitches kicking up a fit about a same sex couple sharing a small peck in the newest Disney movie, saying they don't care if you are gay just don't shove it in kids faces. But have zero problems with all the kisses shared between straight couple in Disney movies. Even the INCREDIBLY problematic ones, such as Snow White where the prince is in his 30s and is kissing the 14 year old unconscious princess. But no issues showing that to our kids? Who cares about consent as long as it's not gay? Like really? Good lord. Someone's queerness is not a kink nor should it ever be.

So to wrap up and try to answer any questions of yours I might have missed in the mess of my rambling before this.... lol Does only reading LGBTQ+ fiction make you a fetishizer? No, but also intent, impact, and what/how you are reading it does matter a bit there too. But if I'm going to read a romance book (which is not my main genre of books i tend to pick up but still), 90% of the time, it's going to be a queer romance. I like the characterizations and pacing better normally and I enjoy reading about queer joy. I also enjoy the tropes more usually. (I just read Icebreakers if anyone wants a rec and it was adorable!)

Why do people just throw this term around willy nilly anytime they don't like something? They learned a word and are trying to use it to shame people to make them stop doing something they don't like. Even if it's not accurate. It's also likely their homophobia or any of the other -isms/-phobias out there. Isn't that just diverting attention from actual issues of fetishization? Yes. Yes it is.

I understand this is kind of a rambled mess. Im sorry! Here's hoping I've sorted it all into somewhat more cohesive mess and it makes sense and answered you. And i hope you (and others) find it at least a little helpful. If there are any of these questions that I didn't answer or missed or didn't fully cover or if you have any others, let me know! And I'll do my best to explain it if i can. 💜 thanks for the ask!

[casperrscapes]

over-analysis of ash ketchum's relationship with his companions,, part 3

part 1 part 2

Disclaimer: I will be looking at each relationship from first a platonic standpoint, and then a romantic standpoint. Some of the romantic standpoints will also have a sub-category of AroAce!Ash (I am not on the a-spectrum, so feel free to correct me if I get anything wrong). When looking at a possible romance between Ash and a male companion, I will be ignoring the actual possibility of Pokemon allowing a non-heterosexual relationship, and looking at it from an emotional standpoint rather than a logical one. I will try my best to let my past history as a SatoSere shipper, AureliaShipper, and a SatoGou Shipper not impact my views. I have not watched all of the animes, so feel free to correct me on certain parts. I will only be looking at companions from the main anime (no movies).  

Mallow:

Platonic:

Mallow is similar to a mother in the Alolan group, and this extends to Ash. She has a motherly nature and is sort of like a caretaker for the group. Mallow is one of the first people to accept Ash into their group, being the one to show Ash around the school. She is a wholesome, sweet, and outgoing character, with her fair share of sassy moments. Her friendship with Ash is similar; She doesn’t have too many interactions with him, but their friendship is very sweet, with a few moments where Mallow gets a bit sassy. As with the rest of the Sun and Moon cast, their relationship doesn’t get a whole lot of screentime. Ash isn’t the absolute closest to her, but the two of them are shown to be good friends throughout the show. 

Romantic:

The signs of a possible Ash and Mallow pairing are more prominent during the beginning of the show, though as the show progresses, they seem better off as friends. The chemistry is there, and can certainly be acted upon, but the main factor is that they don’t show any signs of being attracted to each other. Mallow does hold Ash’s hand in the first episode and is quite supportive of him, but that’s about it. They don’t blush, get flustered, or show any feelings towards one another, showing that they likely aren’t interested in each other. It’s not a bad pairing, but they simply don’t show any signs of being attracted to the other.

Lana:

Platonic:

Lana is a quieter and more soft-spoken character, but has more humorous moments. The lies she feeds Ash leads to some hilarious moments between the two, including the time she told Ash she would fish a giant Gyarados. The two are good friends, having some great bonding episodes with each other. They don’t quite have a sibling dynamic, but they still seem like great friends!

Romantic:

We don’t get many hints that the two are interested in one another, but their friendship does have some romantic chemistry. The classic gag where Lana’s two younger siblings, Harper and Sara, ask if Ash is her boyfriend is quite humorous. Lana’s bright red blush could potentially hint at her liking Ash. Another hint of her possibly having a romantic interest in Ash is when Kahuna Olivia asks if Lana and Ash are going on a fishing date, leading Lana to blush once again. Though, a lot of these moments could just be the Sun and Moon anime playing it up for laughs, as we all know it does. Ash doesn’t seem to show any signs of liking Lana, so a romantic pairing between the two doesn’t seem likely. Lana’s hints at liking Ash are few and far between, while Ash has shown basically none. They’d be a good relationship if acted upon, but just don’t show many signs of liking each other in that manner. 

Lillie:

Platonic: 

Ash and Lillie are shown to be quite close, with Ash spending a lot of time with her while she tries to get over her fear of touching Pokemon. Ash was incredibly invested in helping her through her fear, and they both seem to enjoy their time together. During the beginning of the series, Lillie is incredibly shy and clumsy, with an aura of innocence around her. Ash helps out with a whole lot of Lillie’s character development, helping her to become more confident, and of course, touch Pokemon. Their friendship is incredibly sweet, and Ash’s desire to help Lillie is admirable. The two are simply very close friends.

Romantic:

The possibility of a relationship between Ash and Lily seems greater than any of the others in Sun and Moon. She often blushes at what Ash says, which can both be interpreted as romantic, or just a part of her bashful personality. Ash, on the other hand, seems more emotionally invested in Lillie than anyone else in the Sun and Moon series. It is not often that Ash gets invested in another character's more private affairs, so Ash wanting to help out so much can definitely be interpreted as him liking her romantically, though this can also be interpreted as Ash just being his kind, good-hearted self. The two also spend a lot of time together, which gives them a lot of time to develop romantic feelings for each other. There are definitely enough hints at an Ash and Lillie pairing for a relationship to be possible between the two of them.

Kiawe: 

Platonic:

Unlike in the previous seasons of Pokemon, Kiawe is both one of Ash’s companions and his rival. The two are both extremely competitive, which is what gives their friendship that side of rivalry. Though Kiawe and Ash’s rivalry is nowhere near as serious as Ash and Gladion’s, you can tell that they are still very competitive with each other. There aren’t any major battles between the two, but since they start as the strongest trainers in the school, we often saw the two training with each other. These battles allowed us to learn more about their skill progression throughout the series. Though the two are both hotheaded in their friendship, you can tell that they both respect each other’s abilities immensely. 

Romantic:

Though the two are quite compatible in a romantic relationship, the two never show any signs of being romantically attracted to one another. Their relationship seems to be strictly kept to being friends and rivals. They’ve never shown any hints of being interested in one another. Once again, they’d be good in a relationship, it is simply the fact that signs of attraction are never shown. 

Sophocles: 

Platonic:

Ash and Sophocles are shown to be friends, but because of how often Sophocles is thrown into the background, I can’t say much other than that. Like with most of the other geeky characters that Ash meets, Ash seems to admire Sophocles’s inventive traits. Sophocles also seems to admire Ash’s ability as a trainer. Other than that, they do seem like good friends, but I can’t get much of a read on their dynamic since their interactions aren’t very impactful or memorable.

Romantic:

Ash and Sophocles don’t seem like they’d be all that compatible in a romantic relationship, nor do they show signs of being interested in each other. With how little they interact privately, they don’t seem to have created much of an emotional bond, leaving them not much to build a relationship off of. They also don’t show any hints of liking one another. The two seem much better off as friends.

A bit of a shorter one this time!! Like always, constructive critism is appreciated (o゜▽゜)o☆. I have actually watched all of Sun & Moon, so I don’t think I got too much wrong about the characters?? Still, if I did, feel free to correct me!!  I’ll post the last part with Goh and Chloe once I find time to finish writing those ( •̀ ω •́ )✧!!

[occasionaldaniel]

Someone got mad at what I thought was a pretty mild take and posted this comment:

So I thought I'd expand a bit.

First off, yes, I personally want that type of story. It is a personal want and need that I have.

Second, I still believe it is a thing that "we" as a culture need.

If you spend any amount of time on social media, you will come across stories of women and girls thinking they had a great male friend, who one day told them they were actually "in love with them", and when the woman did not reciprocate those feelings, the male "friend" stopped being a friend at all.

Meaning, they were only "friends" with the woman because they wanted to sleep with them.

Now, I think it's perfectly legitimate to seek out someone's company because you are attracted to them, so you can get to know them and ask them out. That's fine! What's not nearly as okay is to cultivate a seeming long-term friendship, only to immediately ditch that friendship when it's clear the other person isn't going to sleep with you. If you do that, you didn't really see them as a friend at all, but only as a prospective fuck.

And again and again, I hear stories of this happening. Hell, I'm pretty sure I've done it myself in one way or another. So why this repeating pattern of behaviour?

For the sake of argument, let's assume we learn behaviours by watching other people (because we do). And let's assume for the sake of argument, that we can also learn behaviours from watching fictional people (because we can).

This isn't as simple as to say that because I once watched When Harry Met Sally and then no other films, I don't believe that men and women can be platonic friends. It is to say that we can really only exhibit behaviours we have previously seen modelled or had properly described to us.

If the behaviour, or narrative, we constantly see modelled in media, is that a man and a woman in any kind of relationship must inevitably pursue a romantic relationship, and specifically that this will be sought by the male party, whose expressions of affection, whether in words or actions, are post-fact understood as signs of his romantic love for the female party, then how are men to also learn that a male party in a heterosexual friendship can be affectionate, caring and supporting, without wanting something other than friendship out of the relationship?

If the presupposed attitude we always have described to us is that a man should want to primarily sleep with/pursue a romantic relationship with a woman, thus seeing them primarily as prospective sexual partners, then how are we to learn what it looks and feels like when we don't do that? How are we to learn to separate between being supportive, caring and affectionate in a platonic way, and being those same things in a romantic way?

Again, it's not as simple as "watch the right media and you will come out okay". But if the whole of our media consumption and culture around it focuses on this dynamic, it's no wonder there are so many men who struggle to have simply friendships with women. And for that reason, it bugs me when people start shipping what I see as a completely platonic relationship.

And when I say "stories" or "narratives", I don't necessarily mean just straight up fictional stories like TV-shows and books and films. I mean any stories or narratives we come across in real life as well. We need to see and hear about men and women, boys and girls, being "just" friends, so we can understand that that's a perfectly valid and complete way of having a relationship with someone of the opposite gender.

(There's even more that could be said about how male/male friendships tend to lack emotional and physical intimacy due to internalised homophobia, which makes us seek those things out in relationships with women and then we end up equating those things with sexual and romantic relationships. But I should probably stop there before I come across as completely nuts for going this deep based on some random person's rude little comment...)

Anyway...

Is this a hot take? Maybe. I don't know. I see a lot of Faye x Spike stuff when looking at Cowboy Bebop stuff on here, and I don't really care for it.

I guess I get the appeal, but it just never made sense to me. And maybe I'm a daft viewer, but I never saw it in the show.

I saw someone point out that they gradually show that they care for each other by rescuing each other in turn in different dire situations. Yeah. Sure. Friends can do that too. You don't have to love someone romantically to be there for them.

I guess this irks me because I'm also sick of the romantic/sexual pairing always being a given when there's a male and female main character in a show. I want stories of men and women being friends without romance and sex being a given assumption. We (mostly men) fucking *need* those stories.