#its like if u thought metrosexual meant that someone was gay and sexually attracted to fashionable people and got mad that a character....

[alcoholicweiwuxian]

I'm gonna be really honest with you I did NOT read most of this the first time around -- I stopped once you started explaining aro-/ace-spec identities like I'm fucking stupid and I got annoyed -- and I still havent read most of it, and I'm not going to, because its nearly 3,000 words. That said this popped up in my activity again and i feel the need to point out that all 2,801 of the words you typed are predicated on a definition of "sapiosexual" that is straight up untrue.

I'm not saying you cant headcanon Jaskier as arospec but I am saying that writing nearly 3,000 words lecturing for "falsely equating" aromantism with queerbaiting when the character is not even canonically a-spec is genuinely unhinged and maybe you should not do that next time.

(Not to mention that even if he was canonically aspec that would have literally zero bearing on my original point because the fact remains that the show very intentionally created a dynamic between Jaskier and Geralt that was homoerotic with no intention of following through, and then pivoted to placing Jaskier in a queer relationship with another person at the same time as they drastically changed the nature of Jaskier and Geralt's relationship to no longer have homoerotic undertones. Regardless of how you feel about this from a Watsonian perspective, the show very clearly engaged in a tactic of making a character canonically queer in order to rebuff entirely accurate labels of queerbaiting.)

i meant to mention this back when season three first came out but uh. i forgor. but. I think the third season of The Witcher really demonstrates how the presence of queerness does not negate the presence of queerbaiting, and that it can in fact be used as a method of sidestepping allegations of queerbaiting.

Like I know I'm not the only one who noticed how aggressively they "no homo" backpedaled the dynamic between Jaskier and Geralt. They did it in a way that was really aggressive and jarring too, like even if you saw zero queercoding you could tell the relationship dynamic was altered in a weird way. There was just such an absolute lack of subtlety with their no-homo'ing? like iirc there's straight up a scene where Jaskier pretty much explicitly is like "i could never see you romantically <3 we r suuuuch bros <3 best buds !" which was such a weirdly transparent attempt at shutting down the previous dynamic established between them.

What's especially wild to me is that in that season they changed the dynamic between Geralt and Jaskier so much that there really wasn't much going on ship-wise between them anyway, regardless of that weirdly explicit declaration of platonic-ness. They didn't even need to do all that !!!!

This weirdly aggressive and sudden change in dynamic at the same time as making Jaskier canonically bi was such a transparent attempt at escaping the queerbaiting allegations lol. Like it was like "yeah we wanna shut this down hard but people will get mad so. here's a canon queer character" lmao

idk. i feel like this may be something that's getting phased out as a tactic to a degree -- or rather, shifting its exact methodology -- but "escaping queerbaiting allegations by introducing a canon queer character" is definitely an established thing i see pretty often. I also think the shift in tactic (from introducing a new side character for that purpose, to canonizing a main character's queerness) isn't actually better when the intent remains the same. Idk ! I'd just be a lot less critical of Jaskier being canonically queer if it weren't so clearly linked to an attempt to sidestep queerbaiting allegations.

[imaginationlandtrilogy]

🏳️‍🌈 kyle and/or stan if u will!!

Just now getting to this! Thank you <3 (a little long because apparently I can't have headcanons without giving an essay in reasoning)

send me a 🏳️‍🌈 and a character name and ill share my gender/sexuality headcanon for them

Kyle: There's no way Kyle is cishet. I refuse to believe it. Throughout the series, he's always been shown to be different from the others in his self presentation, his way of thinking... etc. I'm not going to look further for more episodes proving this, as this is just at the top of my head, but the two that come into my mind first are "South Park is Gay" (S7E8) where Kyle is shown as the only kid who's not metrosexual, the joke being an obvious satirical swap on how queer children are treated in school. I think people can choose to interpret this how they'd like, but given how much Kyle is shown to be different from others, I'd like to believe it's evident of some sort of deviation from a heteronormative world (although I would assume he's more comfortable with masculinity than not). The second is one I never see being brought up, "Miss Teacher Bangs a Boy" (S10E10) in only the women and Kyle being able to understand the immorality of Ike's situation. The episode was meant to convey the generalized thought process of men versus women, men constantly responding "nice" throughout the episode, while only women were able to see how wrong it is. Cartman, Kenny, and even Stan seemed impressed with Ike, while Kyle was the only boy concerned. This is proof of his thoughts deviating from the norm, and in this episode specifically tying into Kyle and gender interpretation.

That being said, I want to say that Kyle wouldn't align with either being a man or a woman - he would be somewhere in-between, or perhaps not there at all! Kyle is the type of person to take pride in his individuality (even if he does succumb to peer pressure at times) and stick to what he believes is true, so I see his gender identity being on its own, something like being agender. I myself am agender, so perhaps I'm projecting with my own relation to his personality, but I believe he wouldn't feel as if he'd even fit on the spectrum of gender, but not feeling like he has one at all - he's just Kyle! I'm answering more than I need to here, but I think... with Kyle, he feels more comfortable having a direct answer (black and white), so he'd flip-flop to different genders/sexualities so much until he found the right one! He's not content with just knowing he doesn't align with the heteronorm, he needs to know exactly what he feels, exactly what is defined... exactly who he is. I think he would just stick with he/him pronouns, as it's what he grew up with and what he's used to, so he doesn't mind it! He tried out they/them, but just couldn't vibe with it. So agender Kyle using he/him pronouns (who still prefers to appear masculine than anything else).

I'm projecting again. Asexual Kyle. I can just feel it. Kyle's always been one to focus on the emotional aspect of a relationship more than the physical, such as in "Butters' Bottom Bitch" (S13E9), when he emphasizes how important it is to make sure your first kiss is with someone special. It just can't be with anyone! Actually, with this, I want to attach the demisexual label to Kyle. He's definitely some branch of asexual, though. As for romantic attraction... I see Kyle as being gay. I don't know, just... the crush he had in the early seasons with Rebecca seemed like the type of crush that he only had because heteroromanticism is so engraved in society. I know that lots of people, myself included, have had crushes on the opposite sex as a child only to realize later that it was only because you felt like it was expected of you. You were only acting out what you learned in a heteronormative society. His later crushes when he developed more as a character, however... I do not believe he felt romantic attraction to either Nichole or Heidi. With Nichole, he showed no interest in her until he found out that she liked him. With Heidi, he didn't show interest in her until the girls told him he did. With both of these girls, he didn't just like them on his own - he had to have some event happen first, then he came to the conclusion that he liked them. It's kind of like what I said with Rebecca. (As for Leslie, I felt a lack of connection with the storyline, so unfortunately, I wouldn't feel confident discussing it - I'm leaving her out here.)

Stan: He/they. Remember how I said with Kyle that he would want to know exactly what his identity is because that's the type of person he is? Stan's the opposite. I think at first, Stan kind of has a little gender crisis ("The Cissy" [S18E3]), and, similarly to Kyle, he gets hung up over that, but instead of it being tied to identity, it's the emotional journey of that, if that makes sense. It's the fact that they're learning something new about themselves, finding a whole new part of their identity that they didn't know. Stan's desperate to find out who he is, really, and it takes a bit - it's a rough journey, but I think once they figure that out and feel comfortable and adjusted with this discovery, the label of "queer" would work out just fine. He was never able to figure out exactly what he was, but I think the emotional journey that they would've went on would make that okay. To Stan, it's not the idea of those labels, but the emotional journey of self-discovery. It may flip-flop at times, but I think Stan would like to use the label of "queer". Compared to Kyle, Stan's identity would be more important to him, more rooted in heart because that's just the type of person Stan is - he's very sentimental with things.

As for sexuality, Stan is bisexual. It just fits. I think Stan would have an easier time figuring out their bisexuality than gender. First came the gender, and that really did make it easier to come to terms with being bisexual. Again, it's the emotional journey that really helped things more than anything. And he would definitely be the type of person to wear little pride pins, like, a little bisexual flag on the cap to his work uniform or something. The idea of not being cisgender and straight would be uncomfortable at first, as I feel Stan would be afraid of what people thought of them, but over time, he really would come to love and be comfortable with who he is. A long journey, nevertheless, but there will be an end.