#is it platonic? is it romantic? who fucking knows!

[thriftdyke]

alright coming back to this post since I keep fucking getting notifications even though I turned rbs off ages ago lmao.

important update: since making this post I have experienced romantic attraction! (do not be happy for me, it was unrequited and this ended very badly). my takeaways since then:

my best scientific answer for “what is romantic love” is its attachment + some* kind of physical/sensual attraction (*does not have to be sexual but can be) + socially constructed meaning

my best poetic (& honestly more practical) answer from how it’s different than platonic love? it’s the yearning.

on an existential level? who fucking knows. or cares. just seek relationships that fulfill you and express urself honestly when u can. that’s literally it. I stand by what I said about defying the supremacy of romance over other relationships but the rest of it literally does not matter.

no need for any more takes. if anyone feels the way I felt when I first made this post: chill. go to bed. go outside. stop obsessively philosophizing or worrying about if what ur experiencing is “correct.” ur literally fine

it really does bother me how no one can seem to answer the question “what even is romantic attraction, really.” like some people are like “it’s who you wanna kiss and cuddle <3” and I’m like ok well kisses and cuddles can be either sexual or platonic depending on context. “It’s who you feel passion/desire/arousal for” well that just sounds like sexual attraction which you can have without even knowing somebody so I fail to see how that’s romantic. “It’s who you want to go on dates with” I go on dates with friends all the time plus “date” is a social construct anyway there’s really no innate difference between a date and hanging out. “it’s who you have deep feelings for” great news for you that can be literally any type of relationship. my friend told me she defined it as “who you wanna give roses to” and I’m like do u hear urself??? like the more I talk to people the more I’m convinced romance and romantic attraction is an elaborate socially fabricated illusion that has no real defining characteristics. and like there’s nothing Wrong with it being a constuct but why people are so attached to defending the supremacy of it is something I cannot for the life of me figure out

[niresenrab]

Modern Warfare sexuality headcannons

Price

Gay

There is not a heterosexual bone in that man's body. Like, he was deep in the closet for most of his life. Definitely had more than just the beard on his face. But you cannot convince me that he is genuinely attracted to any women.

Gaz

Bisexual

Honestly, that man is a boy kisser. I'm just saying bisexual because wishful thinking.

Soap

Bi and Trans-masc

I know at least three trans men that look like him. This man is fruity and I love him.

Ghost

Homormantic and Asexual

He's definitely on the asexual spectrum, but he is only romantically attracted to men named John (either Price or Mactavish).

Valeria

Bisexual

As much as I want her to be a lesbian, you cannot tell me her and Alejandro did not use to fuck. All of their interactions gives me messy break up vibes.

Milena

Homophobic

This woman murdered her billionaire husband and then proceeded to be a sugar mama to the biggest man whore I've ever met. She's definitely giving "I can fix him".

Laswell

Lesbian

I feel like my reasoning for this is obvious. She is happily married to her loving wife.

Farah

Bisexual

Honestly, just like Valeria, I want her to be a lesbian, but Alex exists. And there is so much chemistry between her and Alex that I cannot, with a clear conscious, say that she is not attracted to men, at least a little bit. Although, I feel like she was only attracted to women her entire life and Alex just happened to be an exception.

Makarov

Bisexual

He definitely has a male preference, but is willing to be with women. Either way, this man is a whore and a bottom.

Nikolai

Pansexual

He has definitely been around the block. If he has less than a body count of 100, I'd be surprised. Men, women, non-binary people. He's done it all in every position. He lives by the motto that he'll try anything once.

Also, not on the chart, I totally see Nikolai being trans masc. The baggy shirts are a big thing for me. Lots of layering in the chest region. But also, I like to think that the reason he is only known by an alias is because he destroyed all of his records with his dead name on it.

Roach

Transfem and aroace

I saw someone with a transfem roach headcanon. I don't remember who they are, but if you know tell me and I will credit them. Anyways, I really like it.

Also, this mother fucker gets no ass and likes it that way. She doesn't find attraction in anyone, and much prefers platonic connections.

Alex

Farah :)

This guy embodies the wife-guy trope. He loves his strong Commander wife. Can't even imagine showing attraction towards anyone else, man or woman.

Rudy

Gay

I feel like this is very self explanatory

Alejandro

Bisexual

He definitely prefers men, but has had a couple relationships with women. He seems like he would be a good boyfriend.

König

Unfuckable

Did y'all know that incels had a flag? Anyways, this man should not be within 50 ft of anyone. No bitches.

Graves

🦅 🦅MY PRONOUNS ARE USA 🦅🦅

He seems like the kind of guy that would find those videos of people making fun of pronouns hilarious. Like, he certainly said that his pronouns were USA at least once. With that said, shadow company does provide gender affirming health care to its employees. He's just a little stupid.

Also, bi.

[the-neptune-system]

i meant to respond to this earlier but ive been on vacation, lol. i was in the car for 10 hours yesterday so im still a little braindead but here we go !!!

pandalily is study buddies with remus and regulus. i imagine remus and regulus are dating but i know a lot of people dont like romantic moonwater so it could also be platonic

pandalily is also close friends with rosekiller, because evan is pandoras brother. barty and pandora specifically get along very well, because they both have the same sort of "down for anything, lets do crazy shit because why not" brand of chaos

i imagine rosekiller sometimes joins in on pandalilys ingrediant gathering excursions. whenever they join, the 4 of them always end up getting sidetracked and doing like, 10 other things as well as what they went for

evan bringing pandora and lily test subjects for their experiments (and also helping joining them or watching because he finds it interesting) (also its up to you if the test subjects evan brings are willing, unwilling, or dead)

regulus going to his study buddies (and remus his boyfriend or best friend) about the horcruxes, lily is immediately super interested which confuses regulus

the 3 of them decide to help regulus and regulus doesnt die in the cave, mostly because of lily, and regulus and remus decide to never fuck with her ever

snape sometimes joins in with pandalilys experiments, but he pretends to be uninterested because thats who he is as a person. lily and pandora always talk him into it

pandora and snape bonding over potions

barty being a willing test subject for evan, lily, pandora, and snape (because hes a masochist lol)

i tried to keep this focused on pandalily being friends with mlm couples because you said you really like that trope, so i think moonwater and rosekiller both fall into that but i also wanted to include snape because i think it just fits so well. pls enjoy these hcs and thank you for letting me yap lolol this was very fun

What if we made pandalily as 𝓕𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 as rosekiller????

[getvalentined]

FOR THE ASK GAME! i know you've posted a ton of amazing analysis, but i would love more of your vincent thoughts. If you're tired of writing about him right now, i'd also like to hear your thoughts about Glenn, who i don't know if i've heard you talk about a lot. 🖤

💭 How I feel about this character

I will never get tired of talking about Vincent Valentine. He is my favorite character in the whole of fiction, my blorbo of blorbos, and I consider him the single most personally compelling character ever created. I'm not sure I can quantify how much I love this character.

One issue I do run into with regard to how much I adore the guy is assertions and assumptions that it's because he's hot so I wanna fuck him, which is 1000% not the case. I do appreciate his looks—his Rebirth design in particular makes me slightly feral—but it's not from a place of attraction, per se. I personally have no interest in boning Vincent Valentine! I do think he deserves to do some boning, though.

💞 All the people I ship romantically with this character

I ship Vincent with Veld, Cloud, and Genesis, and often Cloud and Genesis at the same time. Also Reeve. Sometimes Tseng, but that's complicated.

I was the first person on the English-speaking side of fandom to draw VinVeld fanart, way back when Before Crisis was still fairly new, and I have RP'd VinVeld with multiple partners since about 2009. Chapter 19 of BC happened, I got fed a loose translation on LiveJournal, and my brain chemistry was changed—another Turk, still alive, who knew Vincent? And they don't refer to each other with any honorifics at all? And he recognized Vincent immediately when even Lucrecia didn't? Those two were basically married, I'm sure of it.

That said, I actually shipped Strifentine before I shipped VinVeld, and I still ship it really hard. My current slice-of-life slow-burn WIP fic is Strifentine, and in Ye Olde Fandom Dayes it was intended to be a core component of my massive Sefikura Bodysharing AU that temporarily broke FFN's review system, although I never got that far.

I've shipped Vinesis since Crisis Core, because Vincent and Genesis are kindred spirits in a way that is similar to Vincent and Cloud while also being completely different, and I love that for them. Two men-turned-monsters-turned-Weapons, doomed to walk the planet until its death, paying for crimes that were never their fault in the first place. Lovely.

While I've never personally posted much if anything related to Valenstrifesodos, I think the dynamic between the three of them would be amazing. Also, as I described to a friend literally yesterday, it's like this: Genesis is Sephiroth's soulmate by fate, Cloud is his soulmate by force, and Vincent is Sephiroth's only living relative so he inherited both of them when the guy died.

Reeve and Tseng are much less commonly shipped with Vincent for me, mostly because I ship them with each other as endgame 100% of the time. In my head, Vincent was kinda with Reeve for a bit postcanon but it just didn't work, and he's honestly pretty attracted to Tseng but doesn't ever pursue it because Tseng kinda hates him. (Tseng does not hate him, it's complicated and entirely Veld's fault, if Tseng ever gets over it they'd have a really fun dynamic.) Sometimes—assuming he doesn't get back with Veld or enter into a relationship Cloud and/or Genesis—I feel like Vincent would occasionally be a third while Reeve and Tseng are together, but it'd be very rare.

🤝 My non-romantic OTP for this character

Also Genesis (in universes where Valenstrifesodos doesn't happen they're generally platonic for a very long time before anything happens between them), as well as Barret and Reeve, but I think my favorite option here is Shera.

They don't really have any canon interactions to speak of, but I spend a lot of time thinking about Cid talking to Vincent in Dirge, telling him that Shera is worried about him and will want to know if he's been eating enough—so they've had interactions, offscreen, between the OG and Dirge. Enough that Shera fusses over him and worries about his diet and sends messages along with Cid to make sure Vincent is doing all right. That's adorable. That's so sweet. I love that for both of them.

🚫 My unpopular opinion about this character

I feel like I have a lot of these, but it really depends on what one considers "unpopular." I guess the biggest is that he isn't in love with Lucrecia anymore? Even though that's...canon. Like that's canon. That is something explored in Dirge, the conclusion of their shared storyline is that Vincent was never actually in love with Lucrecia at all, because he never really knew her, and now that he does he actually appreciates her more, but is able to move forward and leave her behind. (Which is literally what she wants for him! She wants him to be happy without her! This was her goal and she succeeded! But god forbid women do anything!)

The next one is that he would not enter into a relationship with Cid because even if Cid is his type (which he is!) he's in a dedicated relationship with someone else, and Vincent has already done the song and dance of "fool around with a scientist under Shinra's banner* who has a highly intelligent scientist partner who isn't afraid to go to extremes for their work.**" It has nothing to do with interest or a lack of interest, it's because Vincent literally, canonically got killed and turned into a monster for poaching*** and he's never going to even entertain the idea of that ever again.

* Cid is an engineer in Shinra's Department of Space & Aeronautics

** Shera is also an engineer in the same department and was literally cool getting burned alive if it meant the Shinra No. 5 launch would go off safely

*** Lucrecia and Hojo were canonically married and were already in a relationship at the time that Vincent showed up in Nibelheim

The rest include such hot takes as Chaos' consciousness being gone at the end of Dirge (which is also canon), Vincent being Sephiroth's biological father (which is not canon but fuckit), and him being unabashedly pansexual (any character that expresses romantic or sexual interest at any time in any media is bi or pan until proven otherwise) but not having relationships with cis women or anyone who could ever theoretically conceive—he interacted with Nero, immediately knew what happened there, and is not so irresponsible as to risk making any more monster babies capable of flattening the planet when they have a tantrum. (This is actually super rough for him because it's a big part of his sexuality that he just has to cut off forever out of safety concerns and that's pretty fucked up but there's nothing he can do about it.)

🌟 One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

It's funny, because prior to Rebirth's release I said the one thing that would make up for Vincent not being playable would be if he turned into something and attacked the party, but obviously the devs wouldn't do that with a character everyone is supposed to trust—and then they did! I wanted to see them do something with the asymmetry established in Dirge, maybe give him a wonky eye or something like I draw him a lot of the time, but the devs would never do something like that—and then they did! I wanted him to be more fleshed out, like it would be nice to know if he ever had hobbies, but the devs would never waste time on that—and then they did! Rebirth Vincent was made especially for me.

All I really want now are more interactions between him and Cloud moving forward into FF7Re3, and I have a decent amount of faith that it'll happen.

[ for the character breakdown ask game ]

[its-maemain]

Childhood Friends Tim and Zoé my ravishingly beloved and beloathed.

That friend you don't see too often but can't help but gravitate to every time. That one friend that when they pull away it hurts incomprehensibly. That one friend that you can find no matter what yet know nothing of them once you have. That one friend that feels like it all went the wrong way…

[marbit-enthusiast]

It’s a little messy but—some Johnnyboy for the soul

[recent-rose]

hey i dont go here but jayce's speech about viktor in s2e9 isn't him saying 'u should never have tried to heal yourself, you were perfect the way u were x3' it was him saying that viktor's physical health never made him any less beautiful, never made him any less important, never made him any LESS, period. he wasn't saying viktor didn't need to pursue a cure for his ills like come on his motivation to invent hextech was to help people. to cure disease. viktor's first and foremost among them.

he said what he said because it was the thing viktor craved to hear most in his life, and that is why those were the words that punched through his defences even as the machine herald: jayce loved him wholly and unconditionally, healthy or ill, good or bad, human or inhuman. he would always be loved just the same.

[vaguely-concerned]

just had the thought 'in the end the most important thing varric taught rook was how to make a home for, with, and in other people' and then I had to go lie down on the floor and clutch at my head in unceasing agony for a few hours, as you may well imagine. hawke and the kirkwall crew........ in the end you kind of saved the world a bit in the most characteristically indirect and chaotic of ways. not by anything in particular that you did or achieved or accomplished (lmao imagine!), but just by -- having existed, and by the love that was always there, despite it all, in all its imperfections, even when no one was saved by it in the end. you're not here right now and you're not quite haunting the narrative but I hear your voices bickering and arguing and laughing from the other room. (and so, I think, does varric. all the time.)

'did you think you mattered, hawke? did you think anything you ever did mattered?' yeah actually, varric says with da2 and keeps saying through the series. you were here. and I loved you. and as it turns out that mattered more than almost anything in the world, no matter how long it lasted or how fucked up it was at the time or what else happens, because varric manages to pass that feeling, that intangible... home, that echo of you all as you were together, that love, hopefully the best parts of it, on to someone else for them to bring with them on their journey, with their family. and maybe the world will be kinder this time. you never know. merrill's line of 'Everything affects everything. We were born, a bunch of things happened, and now we're in a mess with our friends.' varric's greatest fear of becoming his parents. even through the wreck and the ruin of the world, ghosts upon ghosts upon ghosts of love -- malcolm hawke, who we never even see, but his life touched hawke's and hawke's touched varric's and varric's touched rook's and rook is passing it on to the family they're creating. the unbroken legacy of love shines through in ways that are stronger and stranger than any magic. help

[def-not-kaz-brekker]

I hate it when people don’t take aromanticism seriously. I hate it when they say “oh it’s just a phase I also thought I was aromantic but then I got a partner.” It doesn’t apply to everyone.

Respect aromanticism as you would respect any other identity

[sunflowertoonz]

Death Metal

Technically a Biograft OC, this guy is my love letter to all the Boombox’s that helped keep me alive in matches

I think they should be friends

Also this with their old design bc my friend told me to draw them doing their makeup

[normystical]

ATTENTION ALL ALASTOR SHIPPERS: 

uniromantic 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME. PROCEED

[altschmerzes]

i need to stop shadowboxing the concept of romance when i write. i need to make my brain go to a world where romance doesn’t exist when i write because feeling its constant presence and people’s expectations of its presence and reading in of its presence is making me a worse writer.

like. thinking a lot about that post that’s going around rn about Books That Are Clearly Afraid Of The Reader. been thinking about how fear of being interpreted or perceived or whatever permeates a Lot of what i do and always has, creatively, and frankly compromises it, especially in terms of fear of people reading romance into my stuff because of how much i write about interpersonal relationships and intimacy and reliance and vulnerability and intense emotional situations.

i need to stop trying to build a boat with my main priority being ‘i dont want people to insist to me that this is a car or make people feel tricked into seeing a car etc etc’ when there is actually no part of this boat that needs to be made with cars in mind at all i could just Build The Damn Boat. this metaphor got lost.

point is i need to stop letting romance take up space in my stories at all. even if it's just as something i'm doing backflips over and around. i need to just start writing about platonic relationships - friendships, queerplatonic relationships, familial relationships, etc - without feeling like i need to first disprove romance as an automated and inherent assumption. romance should have no quarter here, even in feeling forced to deny it.

[mistyscenter]

I love that this fandom doesn't understand Baxter's character, I adore how they patronize him,a whole ass adult, for facing the consequences of his actions.

I love how people make him feel like a sad little baby when he leaves mc as if that's not something he made extremely clear. I love how people treat this 19 year old as if he's not old enough to understand the consequences of his actions. I love how Baxter is aware of his flaw's but feels like he can't break them because people only see him as a tool and this fandom reinforces that.

I love how people will get mad at Nico for doing the cardinal crime of being 6 years old but will baby a 24 year old Baxter. I love how people make him this charismatic rich guy when it's shown that he's a hot mess that doesn't know what he wants. I love that Baxter's whole character arc is about his self sabotaging tendencies and how everyone ignores that. I love that people fell in love with the mask he had for most of the dlc.

I love that this fandom lacks reading comprehension skills and understanding of nuance characters, great job everyone for not understanding how writing works :)

[muirmarie]

Me: I joke about writing the same McCoy centric story over and over again in different ways

Me: and like. I love doing it and imma keep doing it because it makes me happy.

Me: but also. I do sometimes wonder if it's like. A little Much.

Me: like maybe I should branch out or something

Me: [reads another fundamental and extremely insulting misread of McCoy's character by someone who is clearly making a Choice to cast McCoy as the villain, because they have to get him out of the way of spirk, because they're too???? idk immature??? to realize that even when you're in a relationship with one person, other ppl can and SHOULD still be important to you]

Me: lmao I hope I AM too much actually!!!! I hope it is 100% obnoxious how much I love that doctor!!!!! Time to write more versions of the same story of McCoy being forced to realize that he is loved and cared for!!!!!!

Me: I KNOW MY NICHE AND IMMA DIE IN THAT NICHE, THANKS

[necrotic-nephilim]

https://www.tumblr.com/necrotic-nephilim/763928808823963648/au-this?source=share

#make a Steph an al ghul to balance it out or something.

oh you could have stephanie come back later like jason and damian post bruce's "death" and she could be pissed and ok maybe she didn't expect him to kill Black Mask but this asshole immediately put tim back in the suit and just didn't seem to react to the fact she "died" at all

(linked post) OOOOH YEAH yeah, that would be so fun! i always love anything that explores Steph's feelings about her death and how Bruce handled it, especially if it puts her on the same side as Jason. i think it's fun if she's an al Ghul in this AU, but also fun if Jason and Damian just. *steal her*. convince her that they're More Right than Dick and Tim and that they're just as disillusioned by Bruce as she is. she's their sister, literally or figuratively. because she understands what it feels like to be cast aside by Bruce.

meanwhile, Cass is devout to the symbol of Batman, making her firmly on Dick and Tim's side. could this lead to StephCass but of an incredibly fucked up variety? yes. i love the difference of the two sides of siblings being entirely whether or not they felt "accepted" by Bruce. it adds so much to the rivalry and the eventual romances. they're either going to tear each other apart or fuck. probably both.

[null-doesnothing]

everyone complaining about the new S&Co episode because it had a section where Mariana and Watson shared a bed are super fucking annoying btw just saying