#i get that it's two attractive girls and one is canonically gay

[florallylly]

sorry queen but a cheater is a cheater is a cheater and that's not a label i easily let go of

[thrilling-oneway]

Also shout out to the person who said in the tags of that airi post who said that half the debates in this fandom are over gender or sexuality because that’s true and it pisses me off immensely

[laikabu]

re: my thoughts on laios’s sexuality (long post ahead lol)

let me start this post with this. first, this contains a lot of references to the new adventurer’s bible world guide book released last february. i can read japanese, but i’m sure they’re translated somewhere. general spoiler warning in case. also… i am ESL, so sorry for any grammar errors

second, if you’re on the team that insists laios doesn’t care about humans enough to form relationships, either read the manga again or at the very least read this thread.

last, please don’t chime in with your acearo headcanons on this post. there’s already a majority of posts here that insist laios is acearo and that anything else is impossible. i don’t like it the same way i don’t like when someone declares they hc marcille as bisexual to a poster who reads her as lesbian. i already have enough people here who declare he’s ace on my own art. at least people on twitter of all places don’t do this sort of thing to me. nothing in this manga is canon, you can headcanon anything i won’t get mad if you hc him as bi or something. just. don’t be weird on my post.

okay. trust me, i love women, and i love the idea of making my favs women lovers but the idea of laios being gay really appeals to me because of his background. this isn’t fueled by yaoi since i don’t even ship the only m/m relationship i bring up here, i just think it adds a nice layer to his disconnect with his own humanity

i do think laios has a very abstract relationship with his sexuality for a multitude of reasons. he grew up in a very conservative backwater village. he has a hard time recognizing his own feelings towards others just as much as vice versa. i don’t really care for the “laios is a monsterfucker” agenda people are pushing but i do think he’d engage in sexual thoughts in his own weird way, i won’t deny his deviantart fetish shit

as an autistic person myself, i relate to how he’d prioritize his special interest over social interactions. after all, he was fixated on monster food so he’s distracted from dark thoughts. he’s not an actual glutton

he’s shy around women, but i don’t think it’s out of attraction. i just think it’s because he’s awkward and doesn’t want to be seen as a threat. there’s a couple of times when, out of armor, he deliberately tries to make himself look smaller and nonthreatening.

he didn’t show any interest towards ashivia (the hubby hunter girl marcille replaced) and just humored her because she wouldn’t leave him alone. his other party members thought he was giving her special treatment so he had to tell her he “doesnt want to give her special treatment anymore”(even though he never did), so she left

ashivia did her best to butter herself up to laios and he didn’t care, but laios thought shuro was his bestest friend in the whole world because he was too much of a pushover to reject him. ironically… what ashivia did to him parallels what he was doing to shuro

also… yeah sorry i keep bringing up that one comic of laios saying if he were falin he’d marry shuro and then begging him to take him back to his country, or that comic of laios wondering why he doesn’t like him(and then the first two questions he asks the magic mirror was what if he or shuro were women). i don’t even ship them! but it’s not a reach to assume that he likes men because of this, even if it’s kinda played like a joke(after all,a lot of people like chilshi even though their ‘shippy’ interaction was played as a joke)

of course, given the setting, i don’t think knows he’s gay, he wouldn’t have the vocabulary to label himself. i do want to dance around with the idea of him forcibly confronting his own sexuality after years of yaad pressuring him to produce heirs lol. laios might not be cishet but he’s a king so he rdgaf about that right now. i’m open to him having female consorts for political reasons, but i don’t think he’s into women, is all.

before anyone brings up his succubus… god forbid an author makes hetbait. a part of the plot twist was that not-marcille wasn’t the only succubus enticing laios, his other party members were copied too. she was the only one who approached him. also… succubi aren’t always inherently romantic. once it realized marcille didn’t work, it switched to appeal to his desire to be a monster.

[badgalsasuke]

My thing with Sakura and Hinata stans that claim those characters are mistreated/hated by SNS shippers because they "get in the way" of the "gay ship", is that they always talk about it as if we're making shit up about them to mindlessly hate on them when we're just simply pointing out canon.

This tweet was in response to a SNS that pointed out that Sasuke is more important figure to Boruto than Hinata, basically that Sasuke is more the "mom" than Boruto's actual mother.

The shipper was being accused of belittling and degrading Hinata and Sakura by their stans but what is funny to me is that they weren't, they simply pointed out what's canon both in Kishimoto's and Ikemoto's work.

So if you as a Sakura and Hinata stan find that canon degrading and belittling then your issue is not with SNS shippers that point it out but rather the two mangakas writing the story. Your issue is with the story itself.

Sakura and Hinata are not good kunoichis, Hinata is actually the weakest of her generation. This isn't sns shippers degrading and belittling them, this is the canon Kishimoto wrote.

Sakura and Hinata aren't that close to their children. Naruto had to comfort Sarada when her mom couldn't and Sasuke is closer to Boruto than his mom. This isn't sns shippers degrading and belittling those women, this the canon Kishimoto wrote and Ikemoto continued.

Sasuke and Naruto would rather spend time with each other than go home to their wives. This isn't sns shippers degrading and belittling their wives, this is the canon Kishimoto wrote.

Sasuke has never kissed his wife and made sure the kiss Naruto gave him is the only one anyone has ever given him. Naruto thinks Sasuke is very attractive but considers his wife to be plain-looking. This isn't sns shippers degrading and belittling their wives, this is the canon Kishimoto wrote.

If anything, Kishimoto is the one you could consider mistreats those girls because they get in the way of the pair *he* actually likes and treats them like the nuisance he thinks they are, sns shippers are simply pointing this it out but we're the ones getting dragged as if we went and told Kishimoto to write all this.

The whole "female character that gets mistreated because she gets in the way of the gay ship" only makes sense to me if the female character is liked by both or either of the boys that make up the mlm ship and the mlm shippers ignore that or feel threatened by that. See for example the movie Challengers that revolves around the trio Patrick, Tashi and Art. Both Patrick and Art like each other but they also like and are attracted to Tashi yet the way Tashi is talked about by the fans you'd think she's preventing Patrick and Art from being together and being a total bitch because she feels threatened by their love/relationship when is the fans that feel she threatens their ship.

This is how I feel Hinata and Sakura stans believe their dynamics with Naruto and Sasuke to be and how we SNS shippers talk about them. But the thing is: it's not canon lmao.

Sasuke doesn't like Sakura and makes everything in his power to avoid her but he very much loves spending time with Naruto and has no issue co-parenting his child with him, so how is she "getting in the way" when Sasuke already made sure she's not in the way?

Then you have Hinata whose husband also avoids her and prefers to spend his time with his best friend and believes his son to be more like said best friend than her. So again, how is she "getting in the way" when Naruto already made sure she's not in the way?

Neither of those girls get in the way of SNS because Kishimoto already made sure to get them out of the way, is really that simple. If you believe this is misogynistic and degrading and belittling I have no other thing to tell you but that Naruto is not the series for you.

[joicecubes]

HEY!!!!! HEY YOU!! (sits you down to listen to me yap about my queer headcanons for gravity falls characters)

mabel - okay lets get her out of the way. this girl is queer as fuck. she may not realize it yet, but in her teenage years i know she’s experimented with every single label and microlabel in existence. she’d try out hundreds of neopronouns. she realizes her obsession with boys as a kid was a result of comphet. i don’t have a specific label for her because i think in the end she’d discover she can’t make herself identify with any one label. because she’s just mabel! unlabeled and proud.

dipper - do i even have to say it… he’s trans. i think every queer person in this fandom headcanons him to be trans. moving on

stanley - he’s kinda unlabeled too, but for a reason opposite to mabel’s. ladies, gentlemen, doesn’t matter to him! i think its fair to assume he grew up believing that being gay was wrong, it was the 60s and 70s and his dad’s a piece of shit, but as he traveled the country and met so many different people and then witnessed the times changing around him… he’d just. grow into his attraction for men. like, yeah i like men? so what? he doesn’t care for labels. “bisexual, mabel? pansexual? quit making up words!”

(more starting with stanford under the cut this is gonna be sorta long)

stanford - hehehheee okay this is my favorite. i’ve thought about his sexuality a lot. he’s definitely gay to me, and i don’t have much reasoning for that other than like… my heart is telling me that’s the right answer. but he’s also definitely on the aroace spectrum. i personally think he’s demi or grayromantic, he feels romantic attraction VERY rarely and its part of the reason why he felt so helpless in the dating department as a teenager, and also why as an adult later on he tells fiddleford he doesn’t understand romance. he’s hardly ever experienced it! and he wouldn’t really KNOW he identifies with those labels until he’s back in his dimension and mabel is in her obsessed-with-queer-microlabels phase. he hears mabel say “demiromantic” and, being the nerd he is, immediately wants to know what this new word means and why he’s never heard of it before. so mabel rolls a big-ass whiteboard in and starts Mabel’s Guide to the Aromantic Spectrum! ford learns something about himself that day.

fiddleford - HE’S GAY. he’s gay. he’s so gay. i know he canonically has a wife but he literally leaves emma may to work on this mysterious project with his best and only MALE friend from college like… BE so fr. he made ford TWO christmas gifts and forgot to get anything for his wife!! i imagine his marriage to emma may was more of a way for him to deny his sexuality and live what he believes to be a “normal” life. and that obviously doesnt excuse the neglect to his family (because what the fuck fiddleford) but its how i personally make sense of his behavior.

bill cipher - bill transcends human comprehension of gender and sexuality. bill is just bill. but in human terms he’s a lover of all genders. as long as he can manipulate them, they’re fair game! (sorry ford)

wendy - okayyy yesss i know i used the comphet excuse once with mabel but i’m using it again god dammit. with the way wendy talks about her past boyfriends and how we see her be so vaguely invested in her relationship with robbie, it makes me think she’s either a lesbian or somewhere on the aromantic spectrum. she’s just not super interested! but she gives guys chances because why the hell not and is never super into any of it, eventually they break up, and she moves on with her life. i imagine sometime after high school is when she reflects on that and thinks… huh. was i ever attracted to men at all?

soos - saving the most anticlimactic for last… soos is straight to me. but he’s an ENTHUSIASTIC ally :)

thanks for reading i really like overthinking the theoretical queer identities of my favorite characters have a nice day (and let me know if you’re headcanons differ i would love to hear what people think!!)

edit: i’ve seen some people disagree with me on the comphet part for mabel, in hindsight my wording was way more definitive than i was meaning. check the replies for more on her :)

[deathnguts]

Marauders era characters and they’re bi/gay awakenings except not all of them are the obvious answer

Sirius: Remus (starting off strong with an obvious answer, god damnit)

Remus: Professor Ferox (I know he isn’t a canon character but his first crush being a cool teacher makes so much sense to me)

James: Frank Longbottom (young James was concerned with two things, and that was quidditch and pranks. Frank Longbottom let them get away with pranks and was captain of the gryffindor quidditch team)

Peter: No one (he’s Aroace to me and simply learned to be annoyed at romantic attraction)

Lily: Pandora (no explanation, simply vibes)

Mary: Lily (no explanation, simply vibes)

Marlene: Mary (fell for her best friend, rookie mistake)

Dorcas: Marlene (fell for a girl who fell for her best friend, rookie mistake)

Pandora: Dorcas (I’ve never actually seen anyone ship them, and I’m not exactly doing that either, but I can see Dorcas being Pandora’a first girl crush out of respect for her as a witch and admiration of her beauty and their friendship)

Evan: Regulus (Barty is the obvious answer but I like rosewater a lot and it makes sense for them to be childhood friends, therefore give Evan time to like Regulus even before they went to hogwarts)

Barty: Regulus (Barty’s brain chemistry was rewired by his love for regulus, even if you choose to believe they’re not endgame. I choose to believe that tho. I’m biased. Fight me.)

Regulus: Remus (hear me out ok, I’ve mentioned this headcanon before but like Remus just has that cool ‘bad’ boy persona with his scars and how quiet he is, combined with how he’s an intellectual and he’s Regulus’ older brother’s friend… as a younger sibling he was cooked from the start)

[mercyll]

Is Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury the first anime series to depict a married same-sex couple?

Given the rings and comments from the staff (excluding Bandai) it's pretty clear that both Suletta and Miorine are married. And looking at older anime couples I can't find another one where the characters are actually married to one another.

There are series that depict engagements and proposals (implied or otherwise with queer characters).

Some examples would be:

Yuri & Viktor from Yuri on Ice, where it's implied that they want to be engaged.

Ranma & Akane from Ranma 1/2, both find themselves in an arranged engagement but end up falling for each other anyway. Ranma is canonically genderfluid in both the anime and manga and Akane is attracted to Ranma as both a man and a woman. And this is ignoring all of Ranma's other fiances who know about their curse and want to be in a relationship with them anyway.

Utena & Anthy from Revolutionary Girl Utena, while the circumstances of their engagement are out of their control, the two of them fall deeply in love with one another despite that. And in the movie they kiss.

Other LGBT anime couples are together or in love but next explicitly depicted as engaged or married would be:

Michiru Tenou & Haruka Kaiou from Sailor Moon, they are very much together and in the Crystal series end up living together and adopting a baby.

Yukito Tsukishiro & Touya Kinomoto from Cardcaptor Sakura, who are in love with one another.

Eiji Okumura & Ash Lynx from Banana Fish, who are in love with one another. And it hurts.

Yuu Koito & Touko Nanami from Bloom Into You, who are two girls who fall in love with one another. And in the story you watch them grow and get closer.

Nezumi & Shion from No. 6, a sci-fi drama where two boys fall in love. This one also hurts.

And countless other examples, none of which I could find have the characters taking their relationship further than dating or engagement.

So, is Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury the first married same-sex couple in anime?

On a minor note, there have been several gay weddings depicted in manga.

Some examples would be:

Our Dreams At Dusk by Yuhki Kamatani, which was written by an asexual, X-gender author.

Until I Meet My Husband by Ryousuke Nanasaki and illustrated by Yoshi Tsukizuki. This manga was written by a gay man and based on his own essays about his life. The manga is auto-biographical.

I Married My Best Friend To Shut My Parents Up by Kodama Naoko, who has written several other LGBT manga, most of which are Yuri.

And there are several more!

Bonus:

Shoutout to Episode 7 of the 80s anime Dirty Pair for having a wedding between a cis man and a trans woman in one episode.

[letteredlettered]

You are really making me appreciate gay!Harry! I know its not present in all you stories but I usually only wanted to see BiHarry and now Im finding new ways to look at Harry and how "easy" ( aka believable to me) a gay interpretation can be. Like Harry has nearly all his most emotionally charged/complex relationships with men, his canon love interests are underexplored without much screen time and generic (into his sport + hot like everyone at school points out), combined with Harrys denial of the safe heternormative family he would've had, I can see how would amplify internalized heteronormativity. I guess some of this is just a byproduct of a male centered narrative about teenagers but still interesting to explore in fics =)

I'm glad. Bi!Harry is great. He certainly seems to think he's attracted to girls in canon, so if you want to keep that but also write him with boys, then I can see how he would identify as bisexual. I also think bisexual representation is really important, since bi identities often get erased, especially if they settle down with someone.

But while I've written bi!Harry a time or two, I'm afraid I mostly see him as gay, gay, gay. I think it has to do with the way his attraction to women is written in canon; his feelings about Ginny come out of nowhere--no. That's not exactly true. His feelings for Ginny come out of watching Dean and Ginny kiss, which might mean he wants to kiss Ginny. It also might just mean he wants to kiss. And maybe it's specifically watching Dean with Ginny that gets him hot. Anyway, I actually like that scene, since it gives us the monster in Harry's chest, but everything after that feels really passionless.

And just because a guy has a passionless relationship with a girl doesn't mean he's gay! But Harry also seemed pretty passionless with Cho, and he's not passionless around Draco or Sirius or Snape. I mean, it makes sense that Harry is going to have strong feelings about a bully who tortures him, a long lost godfather who loves him, or a teacher who abuses him. But the fact that he does have chemistry with those guys and doesn't with his girlfriend does make me more interested in seeing him in relationships with men.

But yeah, a lot of it has to do with what you're saying about internalized heteronormativity. All Harry seems to want is a family and place to call home, which you see in his feelings for the Weasleys and the Burrow, in his feelings for Hogwarts and Dumbledore, his feelings for Sirius. The boy lived in a cupboard surrounded by people who hated him and told him he was worthless; he sees these other people with loving families and homes, and of course he wants that. And because of the way the world is, of course he thinks you have to a marry a girl just like his father did, have kids, and live in a magic house with a picket fence.

It's a case of compulsive heterosexuality if I've ever seen one. Bisexuality is still a complete rejection of comp het, but I love the idea of Harry realizing that what he thought was attraction to girls was comp het all along.

[genericpuff]

What are your thoughts on the whole Hestia x Athena thing in LO? Personally it always infuriated me with how hypocritical it was of them to date each other despite them both being members of/Hestia being in charge of TGOEM. It especially annoyed me how Hestia constantly told Persephone that as a TGOEM member she can't date anyone but later saying that her relationship with Athena doesn't count. I give some credit to Artmeis for calling them out when finding out, but it wasn't enough

The hypocrisy is one thing but it at least could have been expanded on as a plot point (Hestia didn't even have the spine to return the coat and apologize, Artemis had to do it ???), but what REALLY ticks me off is that Rachel clearly tried to include queer rep through Hestia and Athena who are two traditionally aro/ace goddesses. So really all she did was erase their original queer identities, both of which are still massively misunderstood and argued over whether or not they're "real". And shit, we even see that in her old asks that lesbian sex "doesn't count" and that asexuality is somehow just a sliding scale / stepping stone towards "becoming" another sexuality (in this case, gay).

Like... you can be asexual and also still be romantically attracted to the same sex, "becoming gay" doesn't automatically erase someone's asexuality. Artemis can be gay and aroace. Lesbian sex is still sex and isn't a "loophole" to retaining one's virginity. To be fair, the whole "vestal virgins are flaming lesbians because you can be a virgin and still have hot lady sex" thing came from an anon, but like... she doesn't do anything to challenge that idea in LO either, if anything it's reinforced through Athena and Hestia using their relationship as a "loophole" within TGOEM (and the narrative never actually stops to analyze that.)

And then the cherry on top is Rachel removing the sexualities - sometimes even entire character identities - from canonically or commonly-accepted queer gods and giving them to others. Crocus is no longer a lover of Hermes, but a one-dimensional nymph who was killed as a plot device and then never spoken of again. Ampelos is no longer a satyr loved by Dionysus, his name now belongs to Psyche, a heterocis black woman who doesn't know how to read and has been basically forced into slavery. All of Aphrodite's children who ranged in gender and sexual identities are now replaced with one-dimensional cutout characters with no specific labels or characterizations beyond the translations of their names. Eros has been reduced to the "gay best friend" whose first introduction into the story is inebriating a 19 year old girl with the intent of dumping her in an older man's car. Apollo has been turned into a generic big bad whose only goal is getting his hands on Persephone and nothing else, with zero nuance to his actual characterization or plot arc, he's just "the rapist" who conveniently becomes a pawn in some bigger nefarious plan that makes zero sense. Dionysus and Achilles have both been turned into babies.

If Rachel wanted queer rep, she was already in the right place. The entire Pantheon was her oyster. But instead she managed to go the complete opposite with it and not only erase the queer identities of Greek gods in LO, but went the extra mile of egregiousness by replacing those queer gods with token-queer stereotypes and one-dimensional characters who are just there to say they're gay for the brownie points before being shoved back into the closet. They're out, but they're still not seen.

[shaylogic]

Messy Masterpost: I don't have the words so here's a mess of links and ideas

@captainfantasticalright's Dead Boy Detectives: a breakdown of Dante's hell. This post is a masterpiece of understanding how the Hell/afterlife dynamics work in Sandman Universe and DBDA, and it's sent my mind buzzing like crazy

My post about Simon's book

Not just any book

Theory about Simon's brother/father? Being a part of Burgess' Cult ("Order of Ancient Mysteries")

Thank you @niko-sasaki-dbd

Ba'al ==> Sa'al

Seems like Simon may have gotten a demon-summoning book that worked from his brother who may have been involved on Burgess' cult from Sandman. He died with book in hand, and that's the one he's tearing apart on repeat in Hell. Tumblr user listed above identified what the book might be, based off the image.

This interview at 12:52 George Rexstrew answering that Edwin's favorite thing about Charles is his unconditional love and acceptance of him.

Post about Charles bearing his soul to the Night Nurse like Orpheus played music to Cerberus

Interviewer talking about "straight friend" Charles "rejecting" gay Edwin, only for George, Jayden, Beth, and Steve to stiffen up slightly. Asking about how Charles didn't have a gay panic reaction to Edwin's confession. This interviewer is actually gay and interviewed on a gay network later, which threw me after this question.

=>If Charles had really gay panic rejected Edwin, it really would have ended like Eurydice, thrust back to the pit of Hell to wallow in the internalized homophobia, rather than being released with the support and healthy love of Charles.

Actors have reiterated multiple times that the case is not closed on Edwin and Charles' romance, they're just getting started and figuring it out in the midst of all the chaos.

People are stuck in Hell because they believe they belong there but Edwin gets out the second time because Charles KNOWS he doesn't belong there! And reminds Edwin of this when he's getting pulled under in it all

Charles went back to his red polo after the confession and escaping Hell with @nerdytacollama's excellent addition on episode 7 specifically!!

Edwin's whole arc was about accepting loving and being loved and his attraction to men, and his love of his best friend, specifically

Steve Yockey saying the confession NEEDED to happen on the stairs out of Hell. One reason being that Edwin may have been too afraid to go through with it after, another being that he could get dragged away forever at any second and it could be his last chance.

[above article pic quote from this]

But also based on the Hell worldbuilding of the Sandman Universe where people only go to hell if they believe in it and believe they deserve to be there > Edwin believing his want for intimacy at all letalone with other men being "such a sinful life" (Night Nurse paperwork) > the upward climb of healthy love from the Dante's Inferno Post > Edwin HAD to confess on the stairs and be accepted! It freed him of Hell~!

Simon moved on from Hell with Edwin's mutual sorrow for the two of them and somewhat understanding/forgiveness? Maybe self-acceptance from the gay guilt

Edwin's form saying he would serve in Hell for living such a sinful life and then be reassigned to a more pleasant state (Hell not an eternal afterlife, just time served and then moving one)

[image posted in @reviewcreature's post with @melefim's addition]

If Edwin went back now, loved and accepted by his friends and himself, would he pass on to the better place?

My post wondering about reincarnation in the Sandman Universe, which others weighed in on in the comments about how it's indeed canon

The parallels of the Lust room in hell being a butcher shop with bloody hanging bodies to reflect the debauchery of bloody writhing lust bodies ===> compare to "Girls' Night" when Jenny was running and hiding from stalker Maxine in her butcher shop behind meat ===> compare Edwin's arc of accepting "sodomite sin" of being attracted to men (challenge to the epitome and catalyst (ha) by the Cat King) and him having been through the Lust room of hell before and him STARING AT THE RED BULL ON THE BUTCHER SHOP WALL (as compared to directly in the first linked post)

The purity of Charles and Edwin's love compared to that and the stereotypes of how male love is depicted in media, as George, Steve, and Jayden have spoken out against gently in multiple interviews

How it's partially childlike, partially deep friendship where two men can hug and cry, partially a crush, partially potentially reciprocally romantic

The juxtaposition of Edwin's archetypical confession to Charles on the stairs of Hell on the way out of the Limbo of it, with Maxine guilty and desperate just below them, not even looking toward the open door

Fans wondering why it was so easy to get out of Hell. The worldbuilding canon saying that Hell is what you make of it (Charles says this in the original Season of Mists Ch 4 comic, Edwin says it in episode 7 to Simon). People in Hell stuck because they feel they deserve it.

@podcastenthusiast's post about being glad Edwin didn't see Simon move on, because then he'd really wonder we he himself suffered so long

==>CHARLES got Edwin out because he KNEW he didn't belong there!!!!

They push and pull each other by the arms the whole way to the top!!!!!!!

Magical weight in the snake pit "nothing's meant to leave this place"

Charles literally dragging Edwin out of Hell for the love and devotion to him!!!!!!!!!!!!

Allegory of dragging him out of his self-rejection and holding him by the face saying over and over "I love you. I accept you. I'm not leaving without you."

Openly gay producer/director Steve Yockey insisting on being the one to write Episode 7 and you can feel it in every color on the screen.

There's no higher power deciding this, despite the paperwork and minders ensuring everyone is sorted. It's an internal self-decided fate, unconscious.

I'm not gonna be able to link and list every pic and organize this in the state I'm in but--

ARE YOU SEEING ALL THE THINGS I'M SEEING?

Girl help I'm getting visions!!!!!!!!!!!!

[blissfulbluee]

If Sang-woo is gay (completely canon imo), do you think he’s dated men as an adult? My own hc is he fell in love with Gi-hun as a teenager and hated himself for it. He began to resent Gi-hun, for making him fall in love, for loving Sang-woo so deeply (even if it was only as a “friend,” Gi-hun probably felt the same way for a while), for being able to express himself openly, for dating girls and getting married, etc. As an adult he is so wracked with internalized homophobia and shame that he completely represses his need for intimacy. He had a one night stand or two, but felt horribly guilty and alone afterwards.

Thanks for the ask! What a good question.

I also think Sang-woo is probably canonically gay, or well I think it's very easy to interpret him as much.

I honestly agree with you here. I don't think he dated men very often. Maybe a few hookups or some kind of hidden casual relationships, but never a full on romantic relationship with a man. A lot of it is repression and being the most attracted to one person basically his whole life. I don't imagine a world where Sang-woo wouldn't have internalized homophobia at some point in his life.

I do think that if he was in love with Gi-hun as a teenager, he wouldn't be able to move on. It would soooo bother him enough to envy Gi-hun and want to avoid him. Seriously, he messed up Sang-woo's whole life just by making Sang-woo have a crush on him. Sang-woo finds it hard to fall in love with someone, so when he does, it's hard and its all-consuming for so damn long. It got better as he became older and had more responsibilities, but it lingers and sometimes rears it's ugly head. That's one reason why he can be so shy and reserved when it comes to Gi-hun. He just can't handle being around him for too long.

[jinbeisluffy]

I see so many posts over different social media platforms about sexuality/gender hcs for the strawhats and i want to add in my own two cents because i believe im very correct (but anyone’s opinion is valid so long as it doesnt go against canon coding)

Luffy - the most aroace and trans guy to ever BREATHE. i dont mean aroace in that hes somewhere on the spectrum where he can still be attracted to people, because he cant. this guy had never grasped the concept of romance and never will, because theres no reason for it to him. hes trans because i say he is, i dont have many reasons for THAT but its just the signals hes sending me. trans to trans communication trust

Zoro - gay. thats it thats the post. no but i dont ship luffy with anyone but zoro is just attracted to literally any man who is strong, thats his criteria and thats all he ever needs. is he aware of it? not at all, he has no idea that its not normal to get bricked up by the thought of other men

Nami - i havent seen a bigger lesbian in media ever, genuinely i dont think any other character is as obviously lesbian as she is. she loves girls unapologetically no matter what, supports all girls at the end of the day (cough kalifa) . i also hit her with the asexual beam because i can, specifically demisexual because i THINK so

Usopp - while i wanna consider kaya, i wanna consider sanji too and thats making me lean between bi or omni even if omni is a label under the bi umbrella. its more a question of if he recognises his preference for men or not, because he does prefer then at the end of the day. the ace beam bounces from nami to usopp because he too doesnt feel anything and doesnt think about it either

Sanji - oh my god where do i begin. maybe just the blatant queer coding of wci as a whole?? of course hes attracted to women, thats not an aspect you can remove or just toss around to being something else. he loves and respects women, but he is so QUEER. all of wci is just queer coding, its a queer story and sanji is a queer character i will die on this hill. he probably has some kind of gender issues too, what specifically? no clue, but he likes people of multiple genders and is in deep denial about it all the time he wont ever truly accept it but he can one day as a treat live with that fact

Chopper - oh hes a reindeer he cant really have a sexuality DID WE FORGET THE FACT HES HUMAN TOO ISNT THAT LIKE HIS WHOLE THING, NOT BEING A MONSTER BUT ALSO A HUMAN. HE IS BOTH? i dont have any specific labels to slap onto him, just that hes a people lover and encourager of literally everything. ace beam bounces onto him too

Robin - trans trans trans trans trans trans trans trans you will accept robin transfem into your life right here right now. she can like anyone, she has no label on it, she just likes people and cant bother with genders or anything like that. the ace beam actually skips her because if they were doing a hear me out cake she’d be the one putting all of the crazy things. freak. (lovingly)

Franky - HOW TRANS CODED IS IT NOT TO REBUILD YOUR OWN BODY TO BECOME A BETTER VERSION OF YOURSELF AND TO REBUILD YOUR LIFE IN A WAY YOU WANT, BUT GOING BACK TO WHAT YOU LOVED ABOUT YOUR OLD SELF, AND EMBRACING IT. literally, trans goals. he modified his body and went i might as well give myself top surgery and an awesome dick while im here!! sexuality wise hes a lover of everyone, but he has preferences for women (robin) but encourages all bromances (with brook)

Brook - THIS IS WHERE IM MOST PASSIONATE!!!! people can say that hes the token straight grandpa. but theyll never understand the joy of old gay brook had a romance with his captain, the joy of brook trying to subtlety let the other strawhats know he accepts them (he isnt subtle at all and everyone knows). look at brook in drag twice for no reason and tell me he isnt queer, in some way. the ace beam finally hits someone and its brook, insert skull joke here

Jinbei - very specifically old gay man who didnt really do much throughout his youth, he always knew he liked men but he never had TIME to do anything, too busy being awesome and a father i fear. now that hes with the crew he isnt automatically gonna seek anyone out, but hes also not gonna restrain himself from finding interests in people, hes being more selfish now and thats good for him. finally the ace beam hits jinbei and proceeds to fly off towards other op characters that i might talk about some other time

can you tell im asexual and love projecting onto characters with it !!!!

[nobylerdoubt]

Hiii, I love gay Mike truthers, but how do you interpret Finn saying El is Mike's first romantic feelings towards someone?

As a general rule I don't pay much mind to cast interviews, because of a variety of reasons:

The information that cast can give away about the show is very controlled. Especially information that could spoil future seasons.

Cast opinions don't have as great of an impact on the show as the narrative that the show runners, writers, and producers. In good shows, including Stranger Things, the actors do get a good amount of input on their characters. We know Maya and Jamie got a lot of input on Robin and Henry/Vecna/001, so I would assume Finn, Millie, and Noah got input too - however at the end of the day they don't get the final say. For example while it's said that Maya was the one to make the decision or give the input to have Robin be a lesbian - Maya herself has shut this down and said that the Duffers brought that to the table and had probably planned on Robin being a lesbian very early on in the process.

This being said though - I do have my thoughts about this.

For one, as far as casual fans and viewers believe, Mike does have romantic feelings for El, and it would be weird from that audience's perspective for Finn not to say that. I think him trying to talk around or avoid saying Mike has romantic feelings for El would tip people off that that maybe isn't the case.

Secondly - I think from Mike's perspective he thinks he does have romantic feelings for El. His relationship with El is different from his relationship with his friends like Lucas and Dustin, or even Max. With those three he can be more brash and sarcastic, while with both Will and El he softens his edges. He knows what El's been through, and for a long time now he's been someone El can depend on. It's the same with Will, but one of them is a girl, and one is a boy.

Platonic vs Romantic vs Familial feelings can sometimes be hard to differentiate. It's not as cut in stone as we'd like it to be. A great in-show example of this is Robin and Steve - I think most of us accept that they're more than just 'best friends', but obviously at least Robin doesn't have romantic attraction to Steve (I obviously have some more fanon-centric ideas of their relationship, but I'll stop here because this is about as far a canon goes). I think a big art of why we have this dynamic between those two is to show how blurred the lines can be with the true nature of feelings.

So with the idea that Mike has this comphet storyline, two people who he has these protective/tender feelings for, even if they're slightly different. He has no other basis for what romantic attraction feels like, and through logical deduction with input from the heterosexual society that he lives in, he's deduced that these feelings he has for El are romantic feelings. But as he gets older, he starts to call this logic into question.

[emblemxeno]

How Gay/Bi the Fire Emblem Fates Characters Are! (this is just for fun, lol)

When I said I wanted to do this, I sort of meant it as a joke, but lol here it is

Here's what I did when making this:

-There's no order within the tiers (i.e. just because Sakura is left of Camilla doesn't mean she's 'more gay' than Camilla), I just put them in this order cuz that's the order I read the supports.

-For most of the Gen 1 cast, the conversations between characters and Corrin are the same no matter what gender Corrin is. This aspect could either mean 1) characters could be base level queer because they can theoretically have the same intimate friendship-turned-relationship with Corrin despite gender OR 2) characters are more definitively straight because they don’t marry a same gender Corrin despite the same conversation. Due to these equally valid readings, I chose not to look at the Corrin supports where they’re the same for both genders.

-The characters that do have unique, gender-dependent Corrin supports are the Gen 2 cast and the "Corrin-sexuals" (Scarlet, Flora, etc.), so I did look at those.

-I read the same-sex supports as catalogued here on Serenes Forest

-I cross checked them with the JP versions of the supports, on pegasusknight.com. Had to use Google Translate which is pretty pathetic, but this was a silly thing to pass the time, not anything serious.

-Most importantly besides the same sex supports, I also looked at the JP exclusive Nohrian Festival of Bonds, translations of which I found @fe14festivalofbondstranslations

Here's a link right to the Nohrian festival masterlist Things can get pretty fucking gay sometimes at that festival, let me tell you.

-I peeked at the My Room dialogue as well, but there's not a good catalogue for those on the English side besides the Fandom Wiki (derogatory) and youtube videos, and pegasusknight.com again for the JP side

-As a rule, I ignored FE Warriors 1 and FE Heroes when making this, but there are some instances in those games that I wanted to call attention to when relevant lol

Keep reading for specifications!

------Red Tier------

-Corrin, Niles and Rhajat are canonically queer in a gameplay and story sense.

-In the JP version, Niles S support with Male Corrin has a good few lines acknowledging the fact that they're both men and what that implies when he proposes, lines the English version cut out.

-Rhajat's entire support chain with Female Corrin in the JP version is unique and different from hers with Male Corrin, while the English version simply copy pasted the male version for both genders. This was done because her S support with Female Corrin was her angsting about being attracted to another woman and being rejected and hated for it, but luckily it turns out F!Corrin returns her love.

For those who haven't read the JP version of Rhajat's support with F!Corrin, here it is linked for your viewing pleasure! IMO it's one of the best supports in Fates.

-To explain the English localizations changes, I think it's because Fates released during a time where the forward thinking stance for gay relationships was trying to pass them off as normal/no different than straight ones. Nowadays, there's more recognition that that's not true; however, even though our attractions as queer people are not socially identical to non-queer people, we are still entitled to rights. Acknowledging the difference of queerness while still respecting our existence and providing opportunity for us to be together, is a stance that ages a lot better over time, and so in my opinion, the JP supports aged a lot better than the English ones.

-However, It isn’t just through the interactions with Corrin that the latter two express attraction to the same gender either, IMO. Niles flirts with other guys constantly (especially in the JP version with Arthur and Subaki), and Rhajat’s connections with other girls, I find read like the girl having a crush on them, like her supports with Selkie and Mitama.

------Orange Tier------

-Anyone who’s followed my blog knows that Soleil is my least favorite character in Fates. Regarding her relationships and sexuality, I find her writing in the English localization to be slapdash and confusing, and her writing in the Japanese version to be incredibly offensive, gross, and predatory. I’m electing to say that her attraction to women is real (thereby ignoring her Class S characteristics), but that she needs a significant overhaul in both versions of the script to even approach characterization that’s both competent and non-problematic.

------Yellow Tier------

These characters display behavior on more than one occasion that reads as very gay to me.

-Sakura and Elise are very good friends to their respective female retainers, and are lovey-dovey to each other as well. Not just in Fates either, their Valentine's Duo in FEH is extremely sweet.

-Not only do Kaze and Silas have incredible devotion to Corrin regardless of gender, they themselves can share a deep camaraderie with each other. Kaze hits it off immediately with Xander (they treasure each other's friendship at A rank, and Xander gets lost in Kaze's eyes at one point lol), as does Silas with Ryoma (he does a blood bond with him and that's gayer than gay sex tbh). In the Nohrian festival of bonds, Kaze calls Laslow very attractive alongside being his usual overly considerate self, and Silas borderline asks Saizo out on a date.

-Unless you've been living under a rock, Camilla is self-explanatory. Toxic Yuri vibes at all times, she's got really fun conversations to read when they're with girls.

-Laslow is the one I'm most iffy on, because his attraction to women is a core part of some of his characterization. But his connection with Odin is just as deep as it is with Selena, his relationship with Xander gives great Doomed Yaoi vibes, and if you squint he goes pathetic Uke mode with Saizo (just like he did with Gerome tbh)

------Green Tier------

-I was initially gonna call this one "Closet Key" but then I realized it was all women in this tier, so I changed the name to something funnier lol.

Every character in this tier has another woman they have a pre-established connection with, often equally or more significant than the ones they have (or can make) with marriable men.

-I did kind of cheat with Azura because I'm considering F!Corrin for her, which I usually wouldn't do. But IntSys really loves ramping up the intertwined fates between Corrin and Azura, regardless of gender, so I'm inclined to include her. I mean, if F/F Edeleth can get so big despite not being different from the M/F version and one character being a silent protag, just because the S rank button exists, I don't see what's reasonably stopping F/F Azurrin from being the same.

Also in Azura's DLC map in FE Warriors 1, a possessed Female Corrin is placed in the role of Arete for references sake, and when Azura says "No! But I just got you back!" it comes across really gay instead of familial lmaooo.

And yes, I know they're cousins, IRDGAF. If problematic hetero relationships can happen in this fuckass series, might as well give the gays some of the pile.

------Blue Tier------

-Y'know that theory about how such overt, try-hard masculine identity can often end up looking homoerotic? Yeah, that's Saizo to me. And he's canonically really misogynistic, so naturally he'd be homophobic as well, lol.

But man, what a flamer he is. Pun entirely intended.

The lord/master and retainer relationships in FE have long been able to be read as romantic, because the lengths that some retainers and guardians go for their charges? It's crazy.

Saizo is incredibly Ryoma-pilled as it is, but in the Nohrian festival conversation, he offers to hold Ryoma's footwear to his chest to keep them warm. And offers the same thing, but for Ryoma's cloak. Yeah yeah, it's explained away as an antiquated tradition of servitude, but IMO that says something about how fucking queer-coded and desperate the master/servant relationship is in FE and fiction as a whole.

Also, again from the Nohrian festival: Saizo gets Silas a doll for his troubling thoughts, Silas says Saizo is actually really nice deep down and basically asks him on a date, Saizo blushes something fierce when Silas calls him cute, and then Saizo actually intends to go on said date at the end of the conversation.

Now, the Nohrian festival could just be pumping Queer Fog into the air to make him act up, but there's just something about Saizo... I wanna put him in a fish bowl and shake him around (affectionately derogatory)

-------Purple Tier------

The characters in this tier have few but noteable instances that are eyebrow raising, and if they had more same sex supports, I'd be curious to see how they'd do.

-Hinoka of course has her Cringefail Wife Setsuna and endless Toxic Yuri potential with Camilla.

-Leokumi is as popular as it is for a reason, the enemies-turned-closest friends schtick is a classic. But they're also just really close with their respective male retainers.

-Ryoma is harder to get a read on because the guy reads as clueless about romance in general in other supports. But he does entertain the servile fantasies of Saizo in the festival, as well as perform the blood bond with Silas, so... maybe Bi by way of Accomplice?

-Xander, as I mentioned earlier, got lost in Kaze's eyes in their support. He explains it away as him liking how Kaze's determined nature changed from when they first met, but hmmmm. But he also has a deep relationship with Laslow and loves him a great deal despite his antics, and also in their supports puts him on house arrest by forcing Laslow to sit on the floor next to his desk while he works and that's fucking nuts, like whoaaa. At that point you might as well have him under the desk.

-Selena and Beruka can theoretically slide into the Green Tier because being in Camilla's orbit just makes you display chronic sapphic tendencies (Beruka in the festival, and Selena in both the supports and the festival), but there ended up being more gray area than the ones in the Green Tier already.

-Charlotte's a toughy because it's a flip-flopped version of Laslow, but she does comment on other women's beauty a lot, and is basically blinded by how pure and wonderful Elise is in the festival. Also in the festival, her and Selena become girl-best friends, and that's good enough for me.

-Arthur is mostly a funny bumbling oaf, but in the JP version (Treehouse you are my mortal enemy), he calls Niles very cute and says he wants a more close, heartfelt relationship with him at the end of their supports, and that was enough to make Niles get embarrassed sooooo...

-The Corrin-sexuals are a chore to dig into as a rule because they have so few conversations.

But Shura has a Nohrian festival conversation with Ryoma, and he gets so submissive servile when he's talking with him, it rivals Saizo. He also calls Corrin's eyes beautiful in a JP My Room dialogue regardless of gender.

-Flora and Scarlet are interesting cases because it's not necessarily *their* writing feels gay, it's just that F!Corrin has unbelievable rizz in her unique supports with them. She calls Scarlet beautiful and strong, and goes stargazing with her in the A rank, with some nice existential dialogue that usually only the closest relationships get into. And with Flora, she uses her three special wishes for Flora to have a happy and fulfilling life, even though Corrin herself admits not being too spiritual. She'll do anything for Flora to be happy, and that's really gay of her (affectionate).

-Shiro is the one most iffy in this tier, part of it could definitely be bias on my end because I really enjoy his supports lol. But unless the translator is fucking up, he calls Asugi cute in the JP version of their supports. His supports with Male Corrin and Siegbert can skew towards "desperate for approval from oblivious guys" which is sad and also relatable lol. He's also not as fussed about Nina's Fujo Fits as other guys are, so he's just tolerant in general. Again though, he'd definitely fit as an ally, too.

-Mitama I found doesn't get as immediately annoyed with her girl support partners as she does with boys, and she's immediately close with Rhajat so like... they can be girlfriends as far as I'm concerned.

-Asugi probably wouldn't have been here were it not for the fact that the JP version of his M!Corrin support has him basically say "I wanna reincarnate and make sweets with/for you in the next life" which, yes it's primarily a reference to how Asugi will be reborn as Gaius in Awakening, but also 1) this support is already predicated on the fact that Asugi and M!Corrin have been going on trips to eat sweets in town which both of them admit is something romantic couples do and 2) M!Corrin outright says Asugi is being romantic when the latter drops that reincarnation line. Real recognizes real.

-Nina, Nina, Nina... The Fujoshi to Unexpectedly Queer pipeline is an extremely entertaining one to read. Her support with Caeldori is meant to be a contrast to Niles' support with Subaki, because while the dads hate each other at first, the daughters hit it off immediately. From Nina though, it's giving schoolgirl crush. And in her support with Soleil, after they had their little Fujoshi vs. Himejoshi arguments, they concede ground to each other, with Nina saying she's interested in fantasizing about two girls for a change. There's also the Hoshido festival of bonds when she's married to M!Corrin where he says "hey, why don't you imagine yourself as a boy when I'm flirting with you" and she starts going haywire, which has a slew of implications, both good and messy, that I'm just awestruck by what IntSys cooked when writing that DLC.

------White Tier------

-As a big fan of this game, I will be the first to admit that a lot of romances are written really weirdly and don't flow properly. Part of this is just the writing itself, while I feel another part of it is just how big the cast is.

The characters in this tier though, not many of the supports, be it with the same gender or not, feel like they could lead anywhere, and I couldn't help but feel part of that was because they were deliberately written to be the youngest of the child units. For the Gen 2 cast, Fates already dials it back by having them usually just be boyfriend/girlfriend (or 'lover' in the JP version) rather than hop right into marriage, but with Kana, Midori and Percy, it feels even more out there writing wise. So to save myself the headache, I put them here.

------Gray Tier------

-The characters here are on a spectrum of "very hetero" to "too few instances to really guage anything."

In their same-gender supports, the crux of their conversations are more about something to do rather than the connection to the other person (Oboro, Hayato, Rinkah, etc.) or they are just... very straight-coded (like actual good friends instead of the "really good friends" stuff) because it doesn't ring the bells in my head (Felicia, Hinata, Odin).

-The beast characters were also hard to figure out because holy shit, these fuckers skew more towards animal than person sometimes and that makes reading romantic supports a wild experience. Like at times Keaton is just a puppy that can speak and I don't know how to apply that to a romantic/sexuality reading.

-Oh, and there's Forrest. He's very gender nonconforming, but pretty exclusively attracted to girls. He just also happens to be very compassionate and soft spoken so combine all those traits, and you got a character that gives off a fruity vibe to a lot of people. Love him dearly, but sometimes people/characters aren't queer, they're just artistic (this goes for Shigure and Hisame too)

---

Thank you for reading if you made it this far, I had fun making this!

I'd also like to say that while I'm a fan of making everything gayer and busting down doors for more options (such as the gay mods that exist for this game and Awakening), it's also fun to dive into the nitty gritty on who could easily slip into the queer label by using the text we already have. Really flexes the brain muscles, at least.

[wheeloffortune-design]

'You need to understand,' I tell my brother with a manic look in my eyes, 'that, as a community, we were used to queerbaiting. We were used to crumbs. If a show had two semi-attractive male leads with a minimum of chemistry, we shipped them. Yeah, sure, it could be cringe, but it's not like we had a lot of queer characters to obsess over.

'And most of us were girls, right, or at least were subjected to media aimed at girls all our lives, and we were trained to recognize romance. We know the story beats, the dialogue, the framing, the language used in media that says this is a romantic scene. And then, there was a decade or two where all the stories were about male friendship (but let's be honest all the stories are about male friendship since bloody Gilgamesh and Enkidu, but don't get me started on that)-- and anyway, they kept using all those framing devices for romance to talk about friendship. The silences, the stares, the jokes, the sacrifices and promises and-- you get what I mean. So of course we shipped the hell out of these guys.

'And if they really wanted us to ship straight couples, maybe they should have given bigger roles to women, huh. But that was the scene: great shows with a male lead and his best friend, and they were all interesting and handsome and they faced adversity together, and overall had the most romantic story arcs without being romantically together. Yeah, I know you've seen the Winter Soldier.

'So we were pretty okay with crumbs. We made mountains out of crumbs. It was fine, relatively speaking.

'And then there was Sherlock,' I say, waving at the tv, where episode one is on pause on a frame of John Watson licking his lips while he asks Sherlock if he has a boyfriend. 'That show brought it all to eleven. The handsomeness, the chemistry, the drama, the stares. The jokes about them being a couple, so many jokes. You know that haha are you a married couple is a romance trope, right?

'The actors made acting choices that hinted at attraction, and the directors kept those choices and framed them in images and music and timing-- because everything in a show is a choice. Those are the choices they made.

'So of course we went crazy.

'And the people who made that show loved the attention. They had fun with us, until it was too much for them. And then they started making fun of us.

'I think it kinda broke us, as a community. Because we loved the show, and the characters, and the actors, and the writers. And the show kept framing the story in a way that said "You're right! This is a romance!"

'And then the interviews went from hinting at romance to plainly mocking us. Haha those silly fangirls, they see gay stuff, but Shelock Holmes isn't gay, what are they thinking, huh. Silly little girls.

'I'll be honest, it hurt. And it's not like there was a lot of queer media to focus on either, at least not mainstream, well produced shows like that. It took many years after that whole debacle to get canon queer characters. We're still all surprised that Our Flag Means Death had a real kiss.

'So yeah,' I sigh, looking at the paused tv, 'imagine, in an era where queerbaiting was the norm, to become the one show that became synonymous with queerbaiting.'

I unpause.

"It's fine, it's all fine," says the tv.

'Yeah right,' I scoff.

[tigsbitties]

you there. i wanna ask you a question. In the Dialtown Phone Dating Sim Universe would yaoi be a word used to describe m/m pairings like it is in our world or would it be used to describe pairings between two phone headed people? I ask because out of universe Oliver and Karen are both described as "gay", but this only extends to them wanting to date exclusively phones or typewriters-- gender doesn't actually factor into the equation at all. And from an out of universe perspective it is simply set up this way as a compromise so characters don't all have to be vaguely bisexual but players don't have to play the game as any specific gender if they don't want to. Which is all well and good. but it opens a beautiful world of implications.

First. we have to ask ourselves if this is the standard everywhere or just how these two specific characters experience sexuality. Like there very well could be characters who are, for example, exclusively attracted to women and the head type doesn't matter. The topic simply isn't explored enough in depth within the game itself to make any definitive conclusions--but i have to assume there's variation on this given the nature of human sexuality is hardly rigid.

It should be noted that head type and gender often going together but not necessarily correlating is a progressive stance in universe. Typewriter=girl and phone=boy is both, likely seen as a more rigid, unchangeable rule by more conservative people and is something that the game itself doesn't really challenge outside of the player character. There are no canonical phone women or typewriter men npcs in the game. So even in Dialtown, a place said to be more progressive than other areas in terms of object head politics on account of being its origin point, its not particularly common. And the assumption is if your head doesn't correlate with your gender identity than you would want to change it.

But like. Gingi can't be the only person with the potential to defy this. statistically speaking. There have to be phone women and typewriter men who either can't get their head changed for one heath reason or another or simply want to have their head not one to one correlate with their gender either as an expression of identity or occupation. I'm sure their are male journalists or authors who have typewriter heads or female telemarketers or hotline operators with phone heads for the sake of convenience who have nothing extraordinary to say about their genders otherwise. After all, occupation seems to outrank gender in terms of head presentation, at least in Dialtown.

Plus, the head type gender dichotomy is extremely arbitrary (as all socially gendered things are) and is only set up that way because one guy 50 some years ago liked the idea. But that doesn't change what is and isn't considered ""normal"" in the game's world. Is head/gender discrepancy a big enough issue to have a bearing on pop culture? is yaoi only yaoi if its both m/m AND phone/phone because thats the baseline expectation or does only one half of the equation have to be true and if so WHICH takes precedent