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radishsnakes-moved · 8 years ago

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1) Sorry if I came off as rude or attacking you, that wasn't my intention, but I just think that calling shinoyama 'queerbating' is simply not correct. Yamagi's feelings for Shino were hinted at as soon as in ep 4 of s1, when he outright asked if Shino liked girls - girls specifically (why would he be interested in Shino's orientation if he wasn't intersted in him personally in the romantic sense?), then were made clear in ep. 7 with the heart grab scene and then further reinforced later on, by

2) showing Yamagi's evident disdain/jealousy every time Shino mentions girls etc. It was very obvious from the beginning that Yamagi is gay for Shino, so the only question left was whether Shino would ever find about Yamagi's feelings and reciprocate, to which episodes 45/46 gave us an answer. The 'let's drink till morning, the two of us' WAS, in fact, Shino's explicitly asking Yamagi out romantically. It just couldn't have been anything else in that context, when we know for a fact that Shino

3) does consider going out for drinks, two people only, as romantic (again, the AkiLafter scene in ep. 41, and Shino's 'don't you know what that is? go with her alone'). And then there's Yamagi's reaction - the wide eyes and the 'quit joking around, you don't even know how I feel' (plus his confusion about 'how Shino felt' later on when he talks to Eugene) which made it clear that's exactly the way it felt to Yamagi as well - as a date invitation, except he couldn't know back then that Shino was

4) serious. But Shino WAS serious - the fact that he grabbed Yamagi's hair out of his face to look him straight in the eyes before asking him out was a clear indicator of how serious he was. He wouldn't have given Yamagi false hopes otherwise, while being perfectly aware of Yamagi's feelings for him. And it's not only that, the entirety of Shino's body language towards Yamagi in all their scenes together in ep 45, his fond expressions, the looks and the smiles that we'd never seen on him

5) before that, the gentle tone of his voice, him calling Yamagi scary with evident fondness (it's actually a common motive in anime, to reveal that a manly man may not be afraid of enemies, war etc. but he's always afraid of his spouse), everything about those scenes screamed that Shino knew about Yamagi's feelings even before the big reveal and was totally on board with them. Ep 46 basically confirmed what was already obvious, that in the end, they both had romantic feelings for each other

6) and had Shino not died, they'd have ended up together eventually. They're basically as canon as an IBO couple can get and their not getting a happy ending doesn't make them any less canon (technically there's still a chance Shino could turn out to be alive, as they literally went out of their way to not show us his body). As for the other potentially queerbaiting couples, I don't think that orumika, gaeein or makugae are meant to be interpreted as romantic (even though I ship all three).

7) As for Aston/Takaki, in their case I do interpret them as romantic without a shred of doubt in my mind; after all, there was a canon blushing and Aston promising to protect Takaki and his happiness was a clear-cut romantic trope, and they just seem like your typical Gundam couple, but I guess it was probably too early to establish that explicitly in canon, as Aston was most likely not ready yet to realize what his feelings for Takaki really were. Anyway, they fit into the pattern of s2's

8) policy of killing romantic couples off (followed by Naze/Amida, akilafter and shinoyama, and maybe Mika/Atra/Kudelia in the nearest future). But that's just Gundam for you, to destroy a love before it has a chance to bloom. It doesn't really qualify as queerbaiting to me, as they do this to hetero couples just as much. As for Gundam 00, I don't think that anything has been confirmed when it comes to characters' sexualities and such, but it was easy to figure out from the context. I've seen

9) a post in the general tags listing all the characters considered to be LGBTQA, so, from the top of my head - most of the named innovades are gender-neutral, from what I've gathered, with the exeption of Anew and Ribbons, I guess? The situation with Tieria is more tricky than that, though, as it's been made clear in the show that he identifies as a man, and that's how basically everyone sees and treats him; it's been also said a few times in the show that only men can be Gundam pilots and

10) I think it's about the physical build rather than how someone identifies (thus the theory about Nena Trinity being, in fact , an actual trans-girls; I've read it once on tumblr and it made a lot of sense within the story, but I can't find the post anyomre; I guess the blog has been deactivated), but then the official materias list Tieria as gender-neutral too, so it's really hard to tell, especially given the fact that Tieria has the means to produce spare bodies for himself and probably

11) decide their gender as well? So yeah, the whole situatuon with Tieria is as unclear as it can be, but one thing clear is that he identifies as a man in canon and is canonically in love with another man (Neil) even if he can't classify those feelings yet (as his letter to Lockon would suggest). I think it's safe to say that Lockon is bi; he says something about being nice to women in the show once and he clearly feels something special for Tiera (that even Feldt has noticed) and calls him

12) cute etc. I think it's safe to say Lyle is bi as well, as he literally hits on Tieria in the beginning (only to be immediately shot down, because there's already one Lockon in Tieria's heart). Setsuna is pretty much considered to be asexual (but not necessarily as aromantic, as he clearly feels something for Feldt in the movie). Alejandro Corner is gay; he's explicitly shown to be sleeping with Ribbons in the Special Edition compilation movies. There could be more, but it's hard to remember

13) everything on the spot (I should try to look fot that masterpost in the tags; hope it's still there). As for other Gundam gay couples I personally consider canon, there's Trowa/Quatre from Gundam Wing and Dearka/Yzak from Gundam Seed. Oh God, this turned out so damn long and now I'm feeling bad for bothering you and making you read all this, but those Gundam discussions are always so compelling (hope tumblr doesn't eat any of the messages; I had them saved just in case though).

Don’t worry about it; I’m always happy to discuss Gundam! Admittedly, I don’t get as heavily into Gundam as I’d like to; 00 is my favorite series, but I’ve only seen the main 50 episodes, not the movie(s). As for other Gundam series, I’ve only watched the original, Unicorn, about 1/4 of Wing, a tiny bit of Age and Reco, IBO, BF, BFT, and F91 (IBO and 00 being my favorites of what I’ve watched). I’m going to try and address every point in this, feel free to shoot another message if I miss anything important!

Admittedly, in the beginning I didn’t pay attention to IBO while I was watching. I tend to have a one-track mind when it comes to anime I like, and when I’m obsessed with one, I usually can’t bring myself to care about another, so I didn’t pick up a lot of things.

ShinoYama is, in my opinion, the least queerbaity ship in the entire Gundam franchise; I’d go as far as to say it’s completely canon, and honestly, I feel like it’s the closest we’ve gotten to a gay ship being treated exactly the same as a het ship. Yamagi obviously had romantic feelings for Shino, and Shino didn’t seem to consider it out of the question. Had he survived, I actually think they might have gone canon. Sorry if it came across as me dismissing ShinoYama as queerbaiting; I think they’re the closest we’ll ever get to representation!

It could be me caving to heteronormativity, but I feel like AkiLafter was made more explicit than ShinoYama in the “he’s being asked out on a date” department. It was handled similarly, but I still get a different vibe from it. I could be wrong, though!

Body language and wording are always a part of ships in series like this. And I feel like they were all leaning towards romantic in ShinoYama; they were heavily implied to like each other romantically. But again, it’s always just implied. None of the explicit kissing and “I love you”s that you get with things like Lyle/Anew and Naze/Amida.

I abandoned MakuGae pretty early on once Ein was introduced, so I don’t know a lot about what hints may have been dropped. And Ein and Gaelio weren’t around each other long enough for anything to be solidified. Orga and Mika, however, I feel are at least slightly indicated to have feelings for each other; it may be completely platonic, but there is such a strong emphasis on all the times that they hold hands, if one of them had been female it would have automatically been considered to be canon, even with the MikaKuuAto situation going on; which I could talk about for a long time, but in short, it’s pretty much canon, though with the KuuAto being a bit more subtle than MikaKuu or MikaAto (I am acutely aware of how Kuudelia said she loves Atra, though; that’s not something I can overlook, I’m just comparing it to the explicit MikaKuu kiss and Atra’s request to “have babies with” Mikazuki). MikaKuuAto is an entirely different subject that I’ll save for another post.

Aston and Takaki were very much hinted to be romantic. All the tropes were there, all that was missing was explicit confirmation; and there’s not a doubt in my mind that we would have gotten that had they been a straight couple. My issue with all of this, if you can call it that, is that the het ships are always made more explicit than the gay ones, however “canon” the gay ones may be. The only problem in my mind is that so many het couples have been made concretely canon, while the only gay one we’ve gotten is ShinoYama. And though there’s an equal amount of killing off between them, you’re still left with more living het couples than gay ones. Equal killing of love interests is like the difference between equality and equity; if you take an equal amount from someone with everything and someone with almost nothing, that’s technically “equal”, but the person with less inherently loses so much more than the person with everything.

I admit it’s been a while since I’ve watched 00, so I don’t remember much about it. Nena being trans isn’t something I ever picked up on, so it could have been made more clear. I definitely headcanon most of the Innovades as some form of nonbinary, but I always based “canon” for that around what pronouns are used for the characters; and in all of their cases, it was always he/him or she/her. With Tieria, it was mostly a headcanon spawned from the episode where he crossdressed to infiltrate that party, and how easily the female form and voice came to him; hell, on Wikipedia’s “List of transgender characters in media”, Tieria is listed there. Later in Season 2, though, he’s portrayed as being a cis male, so that somewhat threw my headcanon of him being a trans boy out of the window. I also heavily headcanon Regene and Revive as trans boys, though solely because of their voices. Really, though, the pairs like Regene and Tieria or Anew and Revive; they’ve been stated to share the exact same genes, so in same-gender pairings, neither or both of them are trans, and in different-gender pairings, one of them has to be trans.

I do think it’s implied that Tieria loved Neil, but again, it was never made as painfully explicit as things like Chris and Lichty, Anew and Lyle, Naze and Amida, etc etc. Tieria obviously cared a lot for Neil, and never really got over his death; but I still feel that it was never made as clear as those other ships whether the feelings were platonic or romantic.

As I never saw the movies, I didn’t know about the thing with Alejandro and Ribbons; if that’s a thing that happened, then I definitely have to see the movies. And though I never fully watched Wing, I did pick up on something between Trowa and Quatre, but still; Never hinted at as much as Heero and Relena.

Wow, my response ended up almost as long as your questions. You don’t have to worry about bothering me; I very much enjoy talking about Gundam! If I missed any points you made, don’t be afraid to send me another message~

#gundam 00 #gundam iron blooded orphans #gundam ibo #gundam tekketsu no orphans #g tekketsu #gundam wing #Anonymous

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