#and i don't even see them romantic

[levbolton]

1000 years of prison to anyone that depicts your ship as a heteronormal bs instead of owning up that people can have a much wider variety of dynamics in relationships

[peacockrulz]

N tries to tell another joke (gone wrong)

Sequel to This

[acidicwerewolf]

Zolu is canon. Doesn't necessarily have to be romantic, but their lives are so intertwined you just can't separate them. Doesn't matter what you ship or what you don't, or what you think of the characters, you can't separate them without changing some of the things fundamental to their characters.

[ruporas]

can’t talk about it

[ID: Black and white comic of Vash and Wolfwood from Trigun Maximum. The comic starts with the sounds "thud, thud, click". Vash, mid-action of peeling an apple, turns to the sound, noticing who it was that entered, and says, "Oh, Wolfwood, you're back." He resumes back to his apple in the next panel as he speaks, "Where'd you go? You snuck out of bed quickly this morning..." Wolfwood's hand then enters the panel, hovering over Vash's cheek and Vash looks up as Wolfwood asks, "Can I?" Vash responds, "Not going to talk about it?" while using a hand to gently hold Wolfwood's hovering hand and presses a kiss to his inner palm.

Vash then gets up fully, setting down the knife down on the table and the apple onto a plate, He leans into Wolfwood as Wolfwood explains, "Had to meet someone. Nothing interesting to talk about." Vash kisses Wolfwood's left cheek and a hand moves to cup his other cheek while muttering, "You're being vague." Wolfwood says neutrally, "If yer really that curious, keep askin'. We  can talk about that instead of doing this." Vash leans back and responds, "Let's talk after, since... You look so tired."

The panel pans to a close up of Wolfwood's downcast eyes, bags heavy underneath his eyes. He doesn't allow Vash to sit in that moment for long though, then saying, "Yer not helping, Spikey. Being all slow with it... I could fall asleep right now." He moves his hand to start unclasping Vash's coat, starting from his collar. Vash with red cheeks, responds briskly, "Oh, shut up. I'm worried about you. I can't be worried?"

The final shot shows Wolfwood's back to the viewer while Vash's softened expression can be seen as he holds gently onto the side of Wolfwood's face and a hand firm on his waist. Wolfwood responds, "I'm fine, seriously," pausing for a moment before continuing, "Is it okay to still..?" Vash responds, "Yeah, it's okay."

The next image is a shot from later that night after the previous comic. Vash and Wolfwood are now in bed, half naked. Wolfwood's buries his face into Vash's chest, his arms wrapped around him, while Vash is petting at his hair. Vash reminds him, "Hey. You said we'd talk about it." Wolfwood pauses for a moment before piping up, "In the morning? I'm sleepy." Vash says, "Okay..."

The next two pages start from the morning after. Wolfwood is already fully awake, pulling on his outer jacket as he says to Vash, whos' still bundled in his blankets, "Breakfast is on the table. Make sure to eat it. I'm going to grab some things in town and then we're leavin'. Got it?" Vash says, "Mh." Wolfwood responds, "Good. See ya in a bit." The dialogue starts to shift into Vash's inner thoughts now, as he gets up and eats toast, thinking, "Wait. Weren't we supposed to... talk about it?" The next shot then shows him fully up, meeting Wolfwood in town. He carries a half worried expression with him while Wolfwood slides on his glasses for him. A quick panel shows Wolfwood's tired expression from the night before and quickly juxtaposes with Wolfwood in front of him who's smiling gently, the shades covering his eye bags. Wolfwood asks him, "Still not awake yet?" Vash pauses, his thoughts stirring, thinking, "Oh. I guess I was getting ahead of myself... thinking you owe me that kind of honesty." He smiles at Wolfwood and responds, "I'm awake!" His thoughts continue, "Maybe one day, you'd trust me enough to share your burdens."

The final image shows Wolfwood pulling at Vash's cheek and Vash complains, "Owwwww why..." Wolfwood quickly says, "You were thinking something stupid, right? It's all over yer face." Vash mutters, "Nooo, I wasn't..." END ID]

[embrace-your-illithid]

hungy

[cutter-kirby]

as much as it's sometimes funny to call arthur and john homoerotic i really genuinely appreciate that their relationship is entirely platonic like. they're friends :] they're buddies :D they've gone through so much together and time and time again they choose to call each other their friend..... it's very sweet

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

hate that I have to clarify whenever I think of two characters as having a powerful and purely platonic bond as "just friends". like I have to say that but they are not "just" anything.

did you hear me. I said they are friends. not brothers or siblings or maternal or paternal or any other familially-defined relationship. they are friends!!! do you know how powerful that is??? they! are! friends!!! they are FRIENDS

[romans-empire]

Honestly, I could talk about Lucky Patch for hours. I didn't expect to like their dynamic when I played UTY for the first time, yet here we are.

To be honest, I did not like Flowey prior to Undertale Yellow. To me he was merely a side piece to the overall story of Undertale, I disregarded him and focused on the Dreemurr family which in hindsight does include him, just not in the way that I could comprehend back when I was younger. UTY really helped me in understanding his character and realized just why he was so compelling. Now he's one of my top favorite UTDR characters. I still hate this stupid flower though, I wish the worst for him /j /pos.

And Clover, I did not expect to attach myself to this child so much. Clover's personality is rather hard to get unless you were really looking in between the lines and other easily missed dialogue or in-game narration. Thankfully, I am the kind of player that remembers really small details, especially when it comes dialogue and narration. I do admit that I project to Clover a lot, my fics are a testament to that. However, I did enjoy them as a character and protagonist in their own right, removing all biases will not change that. They are one of my comfort characters and favorite characters of all time.

Combining the two, we get Lucky Patch. I do see why most people I've seen in the fandom might not like this dynamic, it's not for everyone especially if you aren't into peeling off layers upon layers of a character. Though, I am really happy that the Lucky Patch enjoyers are much more present here on Tumblr. If you don't look closely or take things at face value, Lucky Patch is a toxic dynamic built on lies and cruelty. Even when looking further, you cannot deny that aspect. But what makes them compelling is that this dynamic is mostly driven by the characters and their psychology. Especially Flowey's. If you do not understand the character, you will most likely miss the intricacies that make them, them.

Clover and Flowey's relationship span across all timelines and routes, so taking their relationship from one route only is not the way to go. That's the reasoning to the most common complaint I see when it comes to them, most non-Lucky Patch enjoyers only see their relationship from one angle or route. Most of the time, they take it from the vengeance route or neutral. My reply to that is that their relationship develops as the routes change. From vengeance, neutral, to pacifist, their dynamic changes in accordance but you can see why when you look closely at the context being given to us throughout their interactions in each route. At the end, you will understand why Flowey lets Clover go. Why he spew his little speech at the end of the true pacifist end.

In other words, I love these tragic doomed toxic codependent flowers so much and I will commit atrocities to defend them.

[many-gay-magpies]

god what really gets me about dead boy detectives and what i think i love so much about the show and the relationships in it is that like. the romantic and sexual relationships aren't portrayed as being more unique or important than the platonic relationships. they're all just RELATIONSHIPS.

charles and crystal's attraction to each other and eventual hookup isn't this big end-all be-all relationship that shatter charles and edwin's friendship and draws charles' attention away from edwin; it's just a THING that happens. they're just two people that care about each other and happen to also be attracted to each other, and a hook-up happens, then they decide that neither of them are in the right place for it and it's nothing awful. crystal kisses charles, but it isn't some big spectacle of her declaring her love for him; it's just her saying goodbye and that she cares about him, like her hugs with niko and jenny and her handshake with edwin.

edwin realizes he loves charles romantically and tells him, and charles says he doesn't really love edwin romantically BACK, but it's okay, because they still love each other so much in so many other ways that this one tiny difference could never change them—and it doesn't!! they're still just as close, still care for each other just as much, still SHOW that care for each other just as much. their relationship didn't completely end because edwin loved charles in a way charles couldn't reciprocate, but at the same time it isn't "solved" by edwin getting over it, because there's nothing TO solve. it's just another type of love, added to everything that already exists between them. and they have LITERALLY FOREVER to figure out what it means.

the relationships between edwin & niko, crystal & niko, and crystal & edwin aren't given any less weight for being solely platonic, just as charles & crystal's relationship and edwin's feelings for charles aren't given (that much) MORE weight for being romantic. crystal and charles' conflict in the closet is about EDWIN, about how they're BOTH his friend and BOTH want to get him back; it has very little to do with the feelings between THEM, romantic or otherwise. similarly, the weight of charles' and edwin's relationship isn't diminished in the LEAST by charles not reciprocating the romantic side of his feelings (or SAYING he doesn't reciprocate, at least—we can all argue about the legitimacy of that in the notes).

i'm sure there are more examples than this, as well as probably some examples that CONTRADICT this, but like... by and large, it feels like dead boy detectives is a show where all the relationships are given equal weight regardless of platonic, sexual, romantic, or familial status, and as someone on both the asexual and aromantic spectrums who has struggled time and time again with shows casting out the importance of all other relationships in favor of prioritizing romance, that is INCREDIBLY refreshing to see.

[sukibenders]

Intersectionality is something that, sadly, is often pushed to the side in Arcane discussions, specifically from a certain side of that fandom. They will go on and on about Viktor, as they usually do, talking about how he suffers from classicism and ableism within the show and fandom respectively (as they should as these are issues, but there is a catch when it comes to these fans as well), but when others in the fandom, especially Mel or even Sky fans, point out the racism and misogyny (misogynoir) that is often rampant in this fandom, particularly from said fans mentioned prior, all of a sudden its not possible or being overdramatized. Like they suddenly can't understand how some of their rhetoric includes or invites the same thing black fans have been calling out since the beginning, because how can you discuss the ableism and such that Viktor faces, but laugh or joke around with people who call Mel slurs or just denounce her to a trope? I thought you were for calling out forms of hate within fandom, or does your "activism" only stretch so far? And back to a previous statement, about the catch regarding those particularly fans----some of them regurgitate the same harmful rhetoric towards Viktor that they say they supposedly hate, just in mode subtle ways. How are you going to say you hate when Viktor is infantilized, but will be quick to forget he's a grown man who can defend himself (often when trying to pair him against Mel, framing her as the aggressor, and sometimes even Jayce too but to a lesser degree)? Not saying Jayce doesn't get equal amounts of hate, but his more so gets pushed aside along with his character to ultimately frame Viktor in higher regard, often making him ooc. It's like they pick and choose when the issues are prevalent, and when they aren't, and it's so frustrating.

[undead-moth]

I know I've been on about this for a while now and I'm being a hater but you're telling me SydCarmy was "always meant to be platonic" even though there are two seasons of writing making use of tried-and-true explicitly romantic tropes, themes and writing signals, and SydLuca is going to be romantic because...he was nice to her on screen for a few minutes?

I don't even care if people ship SydLuca, or if they just prefer it, but you can't honestly tell me that you believe Carmy was always meant to be a friend but Luca is an obvious love interest.

Just because Syd and Carmy haven't kissed or confessed their love to each other doesn't mean that isn't very obviously the direction this show is going. The Bear has already shown you who is endgame. It has shown you every episode of the show so far.

Honestly I really don't think The Bear fanbase understands this show or cares about these characters or the story being told here, which is unfortunate because this show is shockingly well-written in comparison to most shows right now, and we should be so grateful for it but all we're doing is complaining that the writers led us on by not making a ship canon fast enough. It's just. Sad.

[smallsies]

sorry but. something about how fanfiction is vastly undervalued by readers in fandom culture. how people love to read stories about their favorite characters but only if they're in love, or if they at least sleep with each other. there's so many incredible stories that are just missed because fandom culture struggles to see beyond romantic pairings and relationships.

[yardsards]

people love an "i'll take care of you" "it's rotten work" "not to me, not if it's you" character dynamic until the character who needs to be taken care of is disabled. then it's supposedly fucked up and toxic for a person to have to take care of someone else.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Do you think the girls face like. Polyphobia or something

[brionysea]

when max is depressed we know something's wrong because lucas says with his words that he knows something's wrong but when mike is depressed we don't think anything of it because will's right next to him rolling his eyes about how stupid straight people are

[aces-to-apples]

Every time I see screenshots of Veilguard romance options followed by complaints about them not being "actual flirting" I am more and more confused. Like call me crazy but I actually think even calling them "flirt" options is a misnomer that's doing us all a disservice. Like look at them. Look at the heart. It's not about the nebulous concept of flirting, it's about showing care. Showing love. And oftentimes that's not an asinine comment about how someone looks, but rather a piece of affirmation, an offer of help, or a reassurance that their needs (or even baggage) are okay (good, even) because that means they're with you for it.