#i mean i can't do anything about that yk it's like;;; men are just horrible

[1010ninetynine]

a masterpost of what i consider gay subtext in Uramichi Onii San - the Manga

not the Anime quite yet. no offense Touko Machida but I simply do not want to deal with two interpretations of the work at this point in time.

Generally Kinda Romantic Subtext Between Certain Characters that I Think Can Be Interpreted Either Way

Uramichi and Usahara I cite this for the near telepathic communication. Say what you will - married couples are known for this shit - and while it's definitely not anywhere close to confirmed that these two characters have strong feelings for each other, imo this was pretty gay of them. But to put it one way - are you really friends if people don't mistake you for a gay couple at times? imo not really.

additionally, while it might be just beginning chapter art...tell me where our favorite bunny is looking? Is he being respectful?

(honestly i do think usahara is straight but yk...this mangaka likes his gay men pathetic methinks so there is a chance!)

2. Uramichi and Iketeru

back when iketeru was in hs and uramichi's age isn't given - but i think they're the same age? anyway the lyrics over this scene are just...gay as hell. And they're helping a child find their mom. That is married couple behavior.

(obviously could just be a joke/not intended. their relationship is literally a gag on not understanding each other because iketeru is too happy for uramichi)

3. Kumatani and Iketeru

there's also some somewhat strong subtext between kumatani and iketeru. Like first, kumatani was the first guy who got the weird shirt iketeru found.

and next, the constant protection of iketeru from alcohol is courtesy of kumatani our mvp

he even protects him from our favorite loser

while not as extreme as his protection of HACHITA THE BABY it is still noticeable that Iketeru is someone he cares about.

and both kumatani and iketeru hid their love life from the camera (as did the whole cast hehe). Kumatani literally says his love life isn't family friendly - which can mean a lot of things, including that he's homosexual. Iketeru says it's too beautiful to be shared - which can mean anything really, even that he's straight and had a normal love life that he ain't willing to share.

Imo this sequence of behaviors can be read one of two ways. First of all, you'd have to be blind to not see the obvious resemblance between Iketeru and Hachita, so the affection and thus acceptance of strange gifts due to their similarity is natural. But also...gay? Hmmmmmmmmmm

4. Uramichi and Kumatani

They kind of just hang out a lot, and Kumatani regularly reads more positivity in Uramichi than is probably there. Not really as showstoppingly romantic as the other three examples of subtext, but imo still quite a nice bit of fun in its own right. They're probably the ship easiest to imagine writing besides kumatani and iketeru and my personal favorite but before we get to that...

The Predatory Gay Man I Must Mention For The Completionist In Me

ok look. homophobic caricature he may be. but i said I would catalog all gay subtext in uramichi and imo on this website gay subtext include gay text (hxh moment) and capellini furitsuke is in fact. gay. and a horrible predatory man the likes of which rival your worst coworker. And probably beat him.

he torments the men around him and forces them to engage in behavior they're not interested in. i cite here usahara and saito's mistreatment but there might be more I missed.

like you can't describe capellini's behavior as anything but horrid and disgusting. i'll call uramichi onii san many things - particularly pro-lgbt in terms of rep isn't close. Still love it in general - and I'm pretty sure the author himself is gay given the ludicrous amount of male character thirst traps he draws - but i don't think he likes that about himself tbqh. But I don't really know him - just go on his twitter now and then.

Finally, the moment I've been waiting for but you all don't realize is coming maybe idk

Uramichi and Kikaku - a mostly one sided love story

This relationship isn't so much implied as it is easily ignorable yet true: it is obviously intended to be read as a love story of sorts, whether it be a gag about how lonely uramichi is and how he needs some emotional connection, or just plain 'he's gay'. This is literally the only guy who gets the door to Uramichi's heart regularly attempting to open treatment, let alone the fact that when Kikaku begs Uramichi to help him out with work he always agrees...maybe more so due to fear than genuine care but still.

there's probably more examples, but these are enough to prove my point imho

he also invites Kikaku to the first end of year party (there aren't any others at the time of writing, specifying in the case of a reader from the future)...or attempts to. Not to Saito Uebu or any other staff member - perhaps because he expects the ones he's closer to already be there, but still - specifically the guy who's only ever bothered him to help complete his work. It's what being horrifically lonely and dick brained does to you (i would know that best).

which leads to yet ANOTHER HEART DOOR SCENE THING

so uh yeah. uramichi's constant giving in to kikaku i think makes more sense if we consider the (slight) romantic inclination he ""might"" have for him.

BONUS: Uramichi and Utano had a moment that was pretty cute but not enough to qualify as subtext in my eyes because they kind of have no chemistry in canon so i still get to title this gay subtext but I also like them

[iwaasfairy]

i hope this creep didn't save your nudes somewhere else fairy

yea that's the only thing

[aerltarg]

Maybe this is a stupid question, buuuuut:

I just can't imagine a world that Rhaegar comes back from the Trident, wins the war and becomes king. No, I'm not a anti Rhaegar, matter of fact I like him very much, I'm just can imagine how would Lya, little Jon, this whole affair, would settle in the capital. The norm that fics (at least those I read) tend to follow is to make Rhaegar:

1. A douche, paranoid and destiny-obessed king.

2. Completely incompetent, aloof monarch, that deep down has a heart of gold, but can't really be understood.

I mean, isn't he supposed to be a scholar since he was a kid? What's are your thoughts about it?

oh, yeah, i can totally understand this! it's is the whole point in canon actually, "the wrong man came back from the trident". you would expect a hero win against his antagonist and have a happy ending w his lady love but it doesn't happen. instead the subversion happens to them with rhaegar being killed by robert who becomes obviously a shitty king and lyanna dying after him. they were never supposed to have happy ending, they were created as tragic and doomed and dead from the beginning for the whole plot to start, jon to have his parentage mystery and dany to take the passed baton as the last dragon, prophesied savoir and the heir who has to carry entire house on her back now.

as for the realistic rhaegar wins aus that's the difficult question. tbh we just don't know enough abt their situation, plans and wishes. you see, e.g. in agot we can be right in ned's head and see his motivations, what he was thinking abt, what he was planning, what he was hoping to do. but if his story was told the way rhaegar's was i bet he would have his own crowd of haters and ~intellectuals~ jumping out every two seconds w their "hot takes" how actually all hints abt what rlly happened (ned being a good man w his own sense of honour, justice and experiences affecting him and the deal w cersei's children) doesn't matter and he was an ambitious prick, planned to grasp the power by being joffrey's regent and make his daughter sansa queen. (you can actually insert there any bullshit and still don't reach the level of stupidity of such "hot takes" this fandom loves so much lmao). also he would be blamed to the hell and beyond for being too stupid and not foreseeing the future and actions of other ppl bc ofc after everything happened it's so easy to say what was so obvious to notice. also they would say that the deaths of his men and horrible fates of his kids are 100% his fault and even straight up say he killed them lmao. i can rant abt it for hours so yeah. this is a situation w too many unknown variables bc it depends too much on actions of too many characters we don't know enough abt. the only thing it's possible to tell for sure is the fact that there couldn't be any perfect solutions since things got too complicated at this point.

such fics as you've mentioned tho are just a part of this dumb fanon where rhaegar is "too prophecy obsessed"/"incapable of love"/shrodinger's rhaegar both smart and stupid at the same time/whatever/all of this combined lmfao. the man was notably intelligent from the early age as you've absolutely rightly mentioned, his guesses abt himself being tptwp have nothing to do w egocentrism as some parts of the fandom would want us all to believe unless he wouldn't be so reasonable abt it and later on, after so many years, wouldn't have changed his mind and thought his son could be tptwp.

and literally fuck all antis that think you shouldn't consider prophecies that hold real power in this fantasy world lol. you know, aegon the conqueror was said to be motivated (or at least partly) to unify westeros by the prophecy and still got the treatment of perfect/maximum close to perfect figure of a leader everyone should look up to from the narrative and grrm. prophecy obsessed much, huh? i don't even talk abt all these parallels between him and rhaegar grrm put there not for bitches to ignore them completely! and i will never get tired of reminding that dismissing prophecies is UNWISE for targaryens of all people. the house whose story is built on the dream of young daenys and her father aenar that listened to her despite common sense (or what local "anti magic"/"anti prophecies" clowns consider to be common sense). targs would be as dead as the rest of dragonlords if not for daenys the dreamer. who else in the world has as many reasons to take prophecies seriously as them?

yet antis out there act as if rhaegar is one dimensional weirdo whose every character trait is abt mf ~prophecy obsession~. like how can they miss one of the main points so badly?? the game of thrones distracts ppl from the real danger beyond the wall, yk, the one rhaegar was aware of and meant to deal with. there wouldn't be such a problem if he became king and had as many years of head start before ice zombies apocalypse as ignorant bobby b did. rhaegar had to die just for westeros to sink in shit and our main heroes to save everyone to make this story more epic LMAO

so yeah, too many ppl portray rhaegar as this one dimensional robotic creature without any knowledge of what feelings are idk even for what reason. it seems these ppl can't read for real bc rhaegar was not only intelligent af as well as dutiful ("it seems i must be a warrior" but "he loved his harp more than his lance") but also. ugh emotional?? my boy had constant emo sessions w brooding at ruins of summerhall, sleeping out there beneath the stars all alone and writing songs that made all women cry. does it sound as someone who "isn't capable of love" lol? folks act as if he was completely heartless from the day he was born (bc he didnt play w other kids ig??) but in reality their emotional range is less than the one of a spoon in comparison to rhaegar's lol. i'm not even gonna address the horrible attitude of demonizing him for his implied depression, vile clowns never listen to themselves when they talk abt targaryens and their "madness".

tldr; these fics are mostly lame af and suck at characterization if they're making rhaegar like that lol. anyway his character isn't abt being a good or a bad king, it's abt being a would-be-king for characters in books and readers in reality to sigh over his tragic aura and pretty aesthetic abt how it could've been. however, grrm clearly doesn't write rhaegar as evil or incapable as some parts of the fandom would want to try to persuade others. realistically speaking in the scenario where he wins there couldn't be any perfect decisions but it's a territory of speculations on thin air and lit nothing more since canon doesn't provide us with enough information to rlly theorize anything instead of building biased headcanons some ppl call "analysis".

but remember what barristan said about rhaegar while practically watching him all his life, from a literal baby to the man grown:

“I know little of Rhaegar. Only the tales Viserys told, and he was a little boy when our brother died. What was he truly like?”

The old man considered a moment. “Able. That above all. Determined, deliberate, dutiful, single-minded.” (ASOS, Daenerys I)

“Prince Rhaegar’s prowess was unquestioned, but he seldom entered the lists. He never loved the song of swords the way that Robert did, or Jaime Lannister. It was something he had to do, a task the world had set him. He did it well, for he did everything well. That was his nature. But he took no joy in it. Men said that he loved his harp much better than his lance.” (ASOS, Daenerys IV)

[bartsugsy]

sorry but can't help but dislike some Robert lines referring to baby as changing everything like I thought Aaron did? and saying he didn't care until baby like which bs what about Aaron and Liv like smh, and saying holding baby was best feeling ever like what about meeting/marrying the love of your life referring the product of the biggest mistake as all things thought Aaron was to Robert hurts tbh might sound harsh but can't help it like I hate this sl

i actually think they’d benefit from having more parallels between the baby and aaron personally, bc…

OK I HAVE HALF-FORMED META ON THIS AND I’M HUNGOVER AND SLEEPY SO I CAN’T REALLY MAKE MY BRAIN WORK WELL ENOUGH TO EXPRESS IT TODAY BUT I’LL JUST DUMP MY THOUGHTS HERE ON U

yes, the baby is a product of rob’s biggest regret (WHICH, INSANITY THAT HIS BIGGEST REGRET ISN’T THE DAY HE ACCIDENTALLY KILLED HIS SISTER IN LAW BUT HERE WE ARE), but it’s also his son and he has developed this instant love and attachment to the little squidge

aaron is obviously the love of robert’s life

and between aaron and baby squidge, we see the two people now who essentially mean the most to robert in the world (according to robert)

that’s not a bad thing, love isn’t a finite source lmao 

and it’s his son - aaron would fuckin be so disappointed in robert if robert didn’t love squidge enough. god, i feel like rob being a shitty dad would be the biggest thing that would actually drive aaron away, in all complete honesty. so, to aaron, although the baby is a representation of their problems, i don’t think aaron could support a rob who ran away or didn’t try to be a dad

but look, i’ve said this a million times over, but if the baby didn’t exist they still would have fallen apart at some point - ROB LITERALLY SAID IN THE SCRAPYARD SCENE ON FRIDAY THAT HE BLAMED THE WHITES FOR HIM LOSING AARON BUT THAT HE KNOWS NOW THAT HE HAS NO ONE TO BLAME BUT HIMSELF - THIS WAS SOMETHING ROB DID

AND ROB AND REBECCA HAVING SEX WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN AS HURTFUL TO AARON AS IT WAS, HAD ROB NOT SPENT MONTHS PLAYING REBECCA IN AN ATTEMPT TO GET MORE MONEY AND POWER

AARON AND ROB ALMOST BROKE UP IN JANUARY AND SHOULD HAVE DONE THEN AND THERE - YOU DON’T ALMOST BREAK UP THE DAY BEFORE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO ELOPE, GET MARRIED TWO MONTHS LATER OUT OF FEAR ABOUT PRISON AND THEN GO INTO YOUR MARRIAGE EXPECTING TO NOT HAVE SOME SERIOUS ISSUES

THEY NEVER RESOLVED THE JANUARY FIGHT, NOT ONCE

THEY WOULD HAVE BROKEN UP EITHER WAY

THIS BABY IS A PRODUCT OF IT, BUT IT’S NOT THE CAUSE AND IT’S NOT WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE FOR THEM TO WORK

THE BABY COULD BE REVEALED TO NOT BE ROB’S TOMORROW AND MOVE OUT OF TOWN AND AARON COULD GET BACK WITH ROBERT AND THEY WOULD STILL HAVE PROBLEMS

BECAUSE THEIR PROBLEMS EXISTED LONG BEFORE THE BABY DID

and ok anyway, back to my point - rob loves this baby and more than that, knows that if he is in squidge’s life, he’ll have a direct influence over the way squidge turns out, as a human being. and rob truly believes that he destroys everything he touches.

so now here he is, trying to be in the baby’s life because aaron refused to let him run away

horrified that his own dad is right and that he’ll mess up the baby’s life too

but also determined to be a better person for the sake of lil squidge, because he needs to be, because he doesn’t want squishy to grow up to be as miserable and as messed up as he is, or to ever hold his own child and only feel ashamed

SO OK, THAT’S ROB’S CURRENT RELATIONSHIP WITH BABY SQUISHY COVERED

ROBERT LOVES AARON MORE THAN FUCKING LIFE ITSELF, WE KNOW IT, ROB KNOWS IT, AARON KNOWS IT - i don’t need to go over this, rob loves aaron

but rob as he is now is no good for aaron - rob can barely keep his own life together, rob still kissed rebecca bc he saw an easy way to make some money, rob lashes out and causes hurt to people he loves, rob makes awful, awful decisions at every turn

but the thing is, there was a time where, more often than not, rob was so so so good for aaron. during the abuse sl, rob was genuinely vital to aaron, one of the biggest and most important pillars of support aaron had. rob is the reason aaron found liv. rob stopped chas from fucking things up. rob took aaron to hospital, made him feel safe enough to talk, put aaron’s well being as his highest priority and never asked for anything in return and aaron, at that time, needed that.

and this, coincidentally, happened directly after robert was shot. robert’s shooting was ultimately the start of rob’s redemption - and if you look at rob’s actions between finding out aaron didn’t shoot him and the start of the abuse storyline, you see rob in a place where he, more than anything, wants to be back with aaron. but he’s plotting - he tries to buy the pub, he helps aaron with doug, he’s still sort of… he’s got the best of intentions, but he’s definitely still a lil scheme machine

but anyway, rob is (mostly, not always), hyper focused on aaron’s well-being during the abuse sl and then it’s all over and they get together properly and things are good and naturally, rob doesn’t have to be quite as I HAVEN’T SEEN AARON TODAY IS HE OK HOW IS HE DOES HE NEED SOMEONE TO SIT NEXT TO HIM QUIETLY BC I VOLUNTEER AS TRIBUTE, yk? aaron is doing better and they have liv to deal with and that’s fine, they’re trying to find their footing as a couple and things return to normal, sort of

and they argue constantly

and there’s rarely a moment where rob’s not doing something that aaron is inevitably going to yell at him for

rob leaves larry to die, tries to murder chrissie with a tree, vows revenge on the whites for andy and then, once andy’s name is cleared, keeps going because he’s found an opportunity to line his pockets some more and rob loves money

my point, in describing all of this (which obvs u already know) is that here we have present day rob, with a new little human who he suddenly feels an incredible amount of love for, and rob is vowing to change, to be better and suddenly he’s allowing himself to be ashamed of his actions, knows he needs to stop tormenting the whites - hell, larry offers him shares and rob’s instant reaction is “oh fuck”. the rob of two weeks ago would have done the most evil smirk in the world and then tried to up the share percentage somehow tbh.

and u have rob, pledging to squidge, that he’s gonna be a better man - something that rob spent so long trying to do with aaron during the abuse sl

and i think making the comparison between who rob was then and who rob is now with sebastian is important because these are the two people rob loves most in the world - aaron and squidgy - and rob’s idea of love at this level is sort of insane

if rob loves you, he’d do anything for you

anything except actually, really, genuinely change the way he needs to, because he doesn’t understand how to yet

so rob pledging to aaron that he would be better was from the best place within rob, and he meant it and he tried and on some level he did succeed, but it wasn’t enough and it wasn’t permanent enough

and the words he’s saying to sebastian are the same - they’re not enough, he doesn’t know how to change when so often his instincts are still bound to chasing money and power and making horrible impulsive decisions

ALL THIS TO SAY

I THINK THERE’S SO MUCH VALUE IN COMPARING THE WAY ROB LOVES BOTH AARON AND SQUIDGY AND THAT LINE ABOUT HOW SQUISH CHANGED EVERYTHING WAS SO GOOD BECAUSE

WELL, ROB SAID IT TO AARON RIGHT BEFORE HE ACCIDENTALLY PROPOSED

AND THEN ROB SLOWLY DESTROYED THEIR RELATIONSHIP

AND NOW YOU HAVE ROB SAYING IT TO SEB

KNOWING THAT IN TWO MONTHS, ROBERT IS GETTING HIS REDEMPTION STORY

NOT NOW

IN TWO MONTHS

SO IT’S JUST…

IT’S NOT THAT ROB LIED TO AARON ABOUT HIS FEELINGS, IT’S NOT THAT HE HASN’T MEANT EVERY ROMANTIC OR CRAZY EPIC LOVE-RELATED THING HE’S EVER SAID TO AARON, BECAUSE WE KNOW HE HAS AND WE KNOW THAT ROB LOVES AARON, THAT AARON IS THE LOVE OF ROB’S LIFE AND THAT HE DID, IN MANY WAYS, PROVIDE THE BEST IMPETUS FOR ROB TO CHANGE

BUT ROB HAS TIED HIS CHANGES TO AARON AND NOW TO SQUIDGE

AND THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS

BC WHEN HE LOST AARON, HE THREW THOSE CHANGES HE MADE AWAY TOO

AND NOW… IF HE LOOSES SQUISHY TOO? WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO HIM

IF ROB IS GONNA CHANGE, IT NEEDS TO BE FOR HIMSELF

IT NEEDS TO BE

ROB AND AARON ARE NEVER GONNA WORK OTHERWISE AND ROB IS NEVER GONNA BE ABLE TO BE THE DAD HE WANTS TO BE, IF HE EVEN ENDS UP GETTING THAT CHANCE

so yeah… more aaron/baby squidgle parallels would be awesome tbh

last thing but (and i’ve said this before too) i love that the three people rob spoke to about his feelings were aaron, squishy and jack - the three absolutely most influential men(/boys) in his life. there’s a reason why rob’s relationship with jack is being so heavily drawn into this - just as there’s a reason why the birth of squishy brought aaron back into rob’s orbit. these are three people who rob has wanted to change for, for good reasons or bad. 

idk, i just really like it as a storytelling piece. but that’s just me.