#note that queer love is not necessarily romantic

[hollowwhisperings]

When Queer Love Was The Plot Twist (or otherwise Story Relevant

Kingdom Hearts

Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories

Kingdom Hearts 2

Honkai Impact 3rd

Kingdom Hearts re:Coded

Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Kingdom Hearts 3

Life is Strange

Life is Strange: Before The Storm

Life is Strange: True Colors

Monstrous Regiment, Sir Terry Pratchett.

Good Omens, Sir Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman.

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, MXTX.

Tiān Guān Cì Fú, MXTX.

Aristotle & Danté series, Benjamin Alire Sáenz.

The Mortal Instruments, Cassandra Clare.

The Iliad, Homer.

The Odyssey, Homer.

Twelfth Night, Shakespeare.

Sherlock Holmes series, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien.

The Sandman, Neil Gaiman.

Wonder Woman

Birds of Prey, Gail Simone.

Gotham City Sirens

Deadpool & Cable

X-Men

Death Note

Homestuck

Sailor Moon

Cardcaptor Sakura

Tokyo Mew Mew

Mulan (1998)

Adventure Time

She-Ra: Princesses of Power

Steven Universe

Voltron: Legendary Defender

Yuri on Ice!!

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Some Like It Hot

Singing In The Rain

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Angel: The Series

High School Musical 2

HBO's House of the Dragon

MCU's Captain Marvel

MCU's Captain America: The Winter Soldier

that one Harry Potter play

BBC's Merlin

Supernatural

The Untamed (webseries)

Carmilla (webseries)

Nothing Much To Do (webseries)

Welcome to Night Vale (podcast)

Alice Isn't Dead (podcast)

The Bright Sessions (podcast)

Can you think of any other examples?

Note: though labelling these works as Queer (intentionally or otherwise) IS inherently "spoilering", please leave any elaboration within tags: while this post is largely intended to Inspire fans to return to these works with a fresh lens, some of these works are Ongoing or are too long to consume in a single sitting.

[a-wins-a-win]

unpopular opinion?? maybe?

Matt & Ivy have a really interesting dynamic!! both pre- and post-canon!! with or without romantic undertones!! either reciprocal or one-sided!!

and obviously it has to be handled with a particular level of care/respect BUT I think if we allowed them enough grace there is space to explore a really interesting possibility for that relationship.

[abyssal-endling]

unaddressed love notes (3)

I love you lots. I feel relaxed and happy when we hang out. I want to talk with you more and create things. I want to keep hanging out. I miss you a lot, honestly. I wish I could help you get through the pain that you mention. I'm always here to listen to you.

I want to kiss you, too. I don't know why. I think it's because I don't feel ashamed to want that. Maybe I should. But I want to hold your hand and kiss you. I want to make you laugh. I want to make you happy. I want to do stupid shit with you. I just like being around you, and I wish I was able to be there more. I don't like smothering people, and I think I do it without realizing, so I try to not constantly ask how you're doing.

You're so important to me, and I hope to see you someday.

[dotthings]

"Open to interpretation" does not mean you get to tell Destiel shippers how to see the canon, Karen

After the spntwit drama this week I think it matters to emphasize again how hard the antidestiel hatedom was going against how Jensen rolls when it comes to interpretation.

antidestiels continue to behave as if they believe "open to interpretation" means they themselves can dictate to other fans how to see the canon, and they call Destiel shippers and Misha "disgusting" just for speaking our viewpoints of the canon.

Destiel shippers give our take on the text and antis go "well you can't because JENSEN SAID--"

They very obviously do not listen to what Jensen says. Here is Jensen at Dencon 2021, where he pretty much clears the runway for fans to interpret however we please and his praise and appreciation for those readings: “This is the great thing about the show and I think the relationships and some of these characters is that they’re open for interpretation. If you find identity in a character because of whatever reason, fantastic! Great! If that encourages you to be a better person, or to love someone a little harder, to forgive someone for something, fantastic. That’s—that’s I think that’s one of the beautiful things about what we do is that we get to encourage people on a variety of levels.” -Jensen Ackles, DenCon October 2021

(Antis: But you CAN'T, because JENSEN SAID--)

Antis are stuck in a loop of their own making.

This is not the first time Jensen has conveyed his support for fan interpretation.

Jibcon 2015:

We also know from reports from a virtual m&g a short while after SPN ended that Jensen said he and Misha talked about the confession scene beforehand, and they "didn't want to over-define it" and "the artist isn't going to stand next to that piece of art and tell you what to see. You should be able to see, and it should be able to mean what it means to you and that's--that's the beautiful thing about art." (There is no video, this is pulled from fan reports, but as far as we know this is accurate reporting).

Antis: but you can't because Jensen SAID--

blah blah blah

Yes we can and it's not that we need Jensen's--or anyone's permission--however it's just so heinous how severely antidestiels stomp all over Jensen's respectfulness and protection of fan readings and his appreciation of that, and their lying about how he rolls. They are making very negative insinuations of him, yet somehow everyone else in fandom is the problem but them.

It doesn't add up.

"But you can't say Destiel is real and there was queer coding because JENSEN SAID--"

But Jensen said he's completely cool with how we see it.

He said so.

I have a permit. Jensen signed it. See?

Get over it. Find a new hobby. Move along.

A further thing--note my highlighting on excerpts from an interview with Jensen Ackles about Big Sky concerning the Beau/Jenny relationship. (TV Insider, 1.18.2023)

The phrasing should sound familiar.

Yes, that's right, he's used similar language to speak about Dean and Cas. And this is for a het ship.

"leave the audience wanting more" "we gave just a little bit" "but do we need to play it out in a graphic sex scene?" "a kiss wasn't necessarily needed" "let's tiptoe for now" "fired it up in a way that made it not so sexual...two humans really, truly connecting. It wasn't just like, oh, let's rip each other's clothes off."

Put that next to "I don’t think lust is involved with the romanticism" "there's some people that might try to sexualize that" "it was two sentient beings essentially" (Dencon 2021, Vancon 2022)

Isn't that interesting. (Also isn't it interesting he called it "romanticism"?)

Jensen also said something somewhere about how he would like to do a romantic comedy so long as it involves killing zombies. He doesn't hate romance. It's just that he likes genre and action stuff. He's not against, whether it's queer or straight romances.

He's also said he'd like to do a rom-com slash western playing opposite Misha Collins.

Not telling Destiel shippers what to do, but along with antidestiel misinformation spread, the Destiel lane is justly notorious for flinging accusations at him and I think it's relevant that he speaks about a het ship using similar language, and it's relevant how supportive he is of queer readings.

one last thing, this is old, from Jensen's time on Days of our Lives, but he wasn't against playing a queer character.

[descendant-of-truth]

Y'know what maybe I'm not done talking about Journeys queercoding actually. maybe I do wanna work out my literary analysis muscles for the sake of Pokemon protagonists. why not

To clarify, this isn't about me personally enjoying the ship between Ash and Gou. I do enjoy it, but I'm making an argument for potentially deliberate queercoding in the writing, I'm not necessarily just here to gush (though that may be a side effect)

I'm also a firm believer that actions or behaviors that we typically think of as romantic are only made romantic if that's how the people involved feel about it. I don't think romance is the only possible way to interpret their relationship.

But when it comes to predicting where a story might be going next, or figuring out what the writers are intending to hint at us, I gotta pull out my textbook of Romantic Tropes first to see what fits the bill.

And I'm sorry, but even if it's not the intended interpretation, you can't include all of these scenes:

...and assume no one in your audience will think there's anything romantic happening here.

Of course, those are just the obvious visual interactions between them that can come off as romantic, to say nothing of the symbolic visual hints; the no less than four rainbows they've been under (one of which was reflected in Gou's eye), the two sets of heart-shaped pokemon that swam past them in a single episode which also had them falling under a rainbow, stuff like that.

But even all of that is pretty surface-level stuff. If the writing doesn't support a queer reading very strongly, then my argument for the queercoding being particularly intentional would fall flat.

Thankfully, the writing does support a queer interpretation, so I'm in the clear! Since breaking this part down will take a lot longer, I'm putting it under a cut.

So, right off the bat we've got the basic setup for the show. For the first time, the focus is primarily on Ash and one other person, as opposed to two or more people... despite having a third person in Chloe, who could easily make this into a trio dynamic, considering she's friends with Gou from the start. But they choose instead to make the core of the show about Ash and Gou.

This is even reflected in promotional material, where they'll often be placed closer to each other than Chloe:

Them being roommates is something I usually bring up as a joke, but it is worth noting anyway simply because it's another way the writers have decided they're going to spend almost all of their time together when they really didn't have to.

But now we gotta get into the real Writing Choices(TM) that are the meat and potatoes of this analysis, such as: making brief allusions to the idea that they might like other guys, too

One way to build up a character's orientation is to show them being attracted to people in shorter instances before giving them a main love interest. Think Luz from The Owl House; she had expressed attraction to both boys and girls before she got a girlfriend or started wearing a bi pin.

Likewise, this is Ash when he's thinking about Leon after seeing him battle for the first time:

I kid you not, he keeps up this blush and zoned-out expression for a solid minute, so caught up in thinking about how cool Leon is that he doesn't even think to eat the scones in front of him.

Now, Ash is a person frequently characterized by his love for food, and in previous episodes he had expressed a particular adoration for Galar scones, so this is pretty unusual behavior for him.

So unusual that it's. literally never happened before, to the best of my knowledge?? I don't think it takes much analyzing to realize that, even if it was brief, you could easily take this as Ash having a celebrity crush on Leon.

(There's even pink flowers in the background but that's probably less important)

Meanwhile with Gou, his "setup crush" in this scenario would be Horace. These two have a whole episode dedicated to their first meeting and the bond they forged, and how that turned bitter on Gou's end when he gets stood up right as he thought he was finally making a friend.

What sets this up for a romantic interpretation is largely the framing of things towards the end of the episode:

"Why do I keep thinking of him" is historically not the most platonic thing you could be bitterly thinking to yourself while you remember stargazing with someone, even if I do stand by my statement earlier of nothing being inherently romantic by itself

The end of the episode also implies that the feeling is mutual, if this shot is anything to go off of

(It's just a very shoujo manga-esque frame okay there's no way I wasn't going to point it out)

And the ending scene is two Celebies looking down happily at the two of them while the narrator talks about how pokemon form "many different kinds of bonds"

Many kinds of bonds, huh? Wonder what he could possibly be implying there

Okay so we've got orientation buildup, next in line is this. suspiciously consistent trend of characters who are close to Ash telling Gou to take care of him, or even going out of their way to test him to make sure he's good enough to be his rival or friend.

Gou himself even echoes the sentiment completely unprompted once, which says even more to me that they're trying to make a point out of this:

And here's the thing. None of the other companions have ever undergone this sort of treatment. Nobody questioned whether or not Ash's friends were good enough to hang out with him before, so why now? Why Gou? What makes him different?

Kiawe is relatively easy to explain because (from what I can tell) he's just Like That about rivalries, but why the addition of describing a rival as "the person closest to Ash"? Why does Gary suddenly care about the quality of Ash's buddies when that was never really a concern for him before?

Well gee I don't know about you guys but to me, this feels like the trope where someone's friends and family all start scouting out the guy they're interested in (or who is interested in them) to make sure they won't like, break their heart or something. And despite my best efforts, I'm struggling to see how this wasn't the writers' intention behind these plotlines.

Gou telling Ash's mom that he'll look after Ash on two separate occasions as opposed to the initial one also feels like an easy parallel to someone promising their love interest's parents that they'll be a good partner.

To my understanding, that isn't traditionally something friends also have to promise, even if there's more justification here as Ash and Gou are traveling around and getting into chaotic situations regularly.

So, with all this in mind, it kind of reframes the stuff I mentioned earlier, doesn't it? The blushing, the hand-holding, the spin hug that I'm never getting over, the frequent appearance of rainbows and the heart shaped Pokemon (Luvdisc if you were wondering)... it feels a lot more intentional once you take into account the bigger themes in the writing.

And once you start looking, it keeps piling up. The way Gou hurriedly says that he totally didn't want to help Ash out or anything after Scorbunny gives him a knowing look, like how most tsundere tropes tend to play out:

Or the specific way Gou is taken aback by one of Ash's compliments before trying to play it off by looking cool, only to be comically shocked when Ash gets distracted by something else:

I could go on but I'm running out of image space and I think you get the idea.

Ash's side of this whole thing is admittedly a lot more subtle than Gou's (*cough* because he's arospec) which is why I haven't gone over it much - my aim with this post was not to go too far into speculation territory - but we at least have marketing on our side for that

Gee Ash how come Animedia let you feed Gou two pastries

Anyway, in conclusion: I ran these two through the literary queerometer and the results were positive, thanks for coming to my TED talk

[badaziraphaletakes]

It’s not necessarily a fully bad Aziraphale take but I feel like the ‘other who can’t admit their queer’ is pointed at him

Thanks for the submission @gretinternetllama

Well, they ain't talking about Crowley 💀 LMAO

This is the most privileged, out-of-touch Aziracrow take I have ever seen. If you think the most painful queer trope is “one of them’s scared to admit they’re queer”, then fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

The most painful queer “trope”, BY DEFINITION, is “one or both of them will be violently killed if they openly acknowledge their love”. Like Aziracrow. Like Castiel. (The tragedy of that isn’t that Dean didn’t love him that way. It’s that Castiel DIED for saying he loved him, lmao. It is so insulting to Castiel to suggest that the worst thing that happened to him is not having Dean’s love.) Like the overwhelming majority of queer people throughout human history. Because THAT IS THE DEFINITIVE TRAGEDY OF THE ENTIRE QUEER EXPERIENCE.

Fuck anyone who thinks that not being willing to openly acknowledge your love for your partner because you know it can never go anywhere BECAUSE YOU’LL BOTH BE KILLED FOR IT is internalized homophobia. (I can hear the gays in Russia laughing rn.)

Having said that, though, let’s take a look at the way OP analyzes “internalized homophobia”, because there is PLENTY to be concerned about there as well.

The “can’t *even* ‘bring themselves’ to admit they’re queer” is DISGUSTING. Fuck this person’s judgmental tone. God, the more I read this the angrier I get. (If they’d written a post saying “I feel so bad that Aziraphale is losing his chance at a relationship with Crowley because of his internalized homophobia; that must be so hard”, that would be one thing. They’d still be dead wrong, lol, but at least this take wouldn’t be bigoted crap. But that’s not, remotely, what they said. There is no sympathy or understanding on offer for Aziraphale whatsoever.) NO ONE has the right to judge someone for not being ready to accept that they’re queer. It is NEVER their fault. It is ALWAYS the fault of the disgusting homophobia and queer phobia of our society at large.

And also fuck anyone who judges someone for rejecting another person’s romantic advances. It’s literally never any of our business why they do that. (This is giving me flashbacks to the 2010’s Phantom of the Opera fandom. And that is NOT A GOOD THING, lmao.) Romantic rejection, even for a depressing reason like this, is not the tragedy people seem to think. No one needs to be with any one particular person in order to be happy. This whole thing is giving “oh, the poor person whose love interest won’t date them”.

Move on and find someone who will date you. Plenty more fish in the sea.

I'd say it's actually a lot more tragic for the closeted person, who has probably missed out on a lot of other relationships for the same reason and is hurting very deeply. But again, does OP have any compassion to spare for the characters they've labeled as closeted? Nah.

(Side note: If you can’t bear to date someone who’s in the closet, DON’T DATE THEM! It’s that simple. And for the love of GOD don’t pressure them to come out or blame them for not being willing to do so.)

Also. This whole thing is giving faint vibes of the putting-your-hands-over-your-ears, “la-la-la-if-I-ignore-your-problems-they’ll-just-go-away”, “if you come out, everything will be fine and everyone will magically accept you” trope, which is offensive, harmful, privileged, dangerous bullshit. Love does not always conquer all. Love does not always make everything magically okay.

(When it comes to Aziracrow in particular, it is also VERY MUCH reminiscent of the belief that once victims leave their ab*sers, their ab*sers will leave them alone, which is the POLAR OPPOSITE of what actually happens in those situations.)

The most ridiculous part out of all of this, though, has got to be mentioning Johnlock. 🤣🤣🤣 Um, which one of those two is supposed to be flamboyantly queer, exactly? Lol that’s just sad. We have better queer representation now. Come on.

Not to mention, Sherlock and John’s relationship/friendship/situationship/whatever the fuck we were supposed to think that was, was horrendously toxic. Nothing about the way they behave to each other is “loving”. Sherlock is a terrible person (and istg if I hear ONE SINGLE PERSON try to say it’s not his fault because of “mental illness” or some ableist bullshit like that, I will come after you with an axe) and not a suitable partner for anyone unless he does some seeeerious work on himself. Even supposing John is in love with Sherlcok, he has EVERY REASON IN THE WORLD not to want to date him - and it has fuck-all to do with shame (more flashbacks to the 2010’s Phantom of the Opera fandom lol).

Also... I thought we'd all collectively agreed to move on from Sherlock because it's horrendously anti-Autistic and queerbaity and Cummerbund Bumpersnatch is a vile ableist stain upon the face of humanity whose name I will not utter? Did I miss something lol?

To the next person to demean Good Omens and the precious, beautiful relationship between Aziracrow by lumping it in with crap like 'Sherlock' - we meet at the dueling grounds at dawn.

One final thing to add: Crowley doesn’t want to “scream their love from the rooftops”????? Because he also knows they’ll be killed or worse if they do that??? Canon Crowley is a FAR better person and a far more loving partner than willfully oblivious, damn-the-torpedos fanon Crowley. I wouldn't like this show if Crowley "wanted to scream their love from the rooftops".

There’s a LOT more that should probably be said about this, but my thumbs are tired and my heart is tireder still.

[nebulaic147]

Suggestion for a New Flag

Hello my friends,

I have been reconsidering parts of my sexuality recently. I have found it difficult to find a title that works with my specific, fluctuating relationship to asexuality and allosexuality. Graysexuality came closest but it still didn't sit right for me.

So, I would like to propose a new sexuality term:

Trochosexuality

Explanation

Trochosexuality (from the Greek prefix trocho- meaning ‘wheel, hoop’); an individual who identifies with this label is trochosexual, or a trochi/trochee (there is no gender definition in this distinction, it's more a matter of personal preference as 'trochee' is also a term associated with poetic metre).

Trochosexuality fluctuates between asexual and allosexual in varied degrees and intensities, generally with a sex-positive outlook. It is related to graysexuality where a person experiences little or no sexual attraction. However, trochosexuality is defined by undulating patterns of attraction. Sometimes, one is sex-repulsed or -indifferent, other times, sex-favourable.

The key difference from graysexuality is that one can experience sexual attraction (sex-favourable) on a relatively frequent and intense basis, but only at certain times and under certain circumstances. The same is the case with sex indifference or sex repulsion. One might have no allosexual inclinations, no asexual inclinations, or a blend of both at different times and in different situations.

It is possible for these patterns of attraction to overlap and co-exist (for example, feeling sex-favourable but having enough of a repulsed or indifferent edge to not want to act on it). Trochosexuals can but do not necessarily shift from one extreme to another (from sex-repulsed ace to sex-favourable allo). Periods of attraction and non-attraction can shift slowly or swiftly.

The Flag

Purple: Represents queerness and community; Can also be taken to represent the ace flag

White: Represents a lack of attraction and/or sex-repulsion; May also be taken to represent the allo flag

Orange: Represents presence of attraction and/or sex-favourableness; Has historically been used in flags as a symbol of healing, independence, and nonconformity (as with maveriques and gender nonconforming persons) - here, one might extend that meaning to trochosexuality's nonconformity to societal standards about sexual attraction

Yellow: Represents the middling or layered presence of attraction and/or sex-indifference; Can also mean joy in one's sexuality and sexual attraction/lack thereof

NOTE: The fluctuation of more and less vibrant colours in the lines represents the shifts of trochosexual attraction.

The hoops: Represent one’s cyclical, yet complex and often interwoven patterns of attraction. The threaded links–whose black and white lining and inner colours are inverted–reflect how attraction can weave and overlap seamlessly.

Let me know if you want clarification, there is confusion, or if you have any further suggestions to elaborate or change. Everyone who relates to this term is fully welcome to use it regardless of gender or sexual or romantic orientation.

If you plan to share this information, please reblog and/or give me credit.

With love, T. C.

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/749218521745145857/while-i-love-some-queergay-whatever

“Kissing on the forehead isn’t necessarily romantic” makes sense if we are talking about a work of media that is made in a time/place where that was a common thing between same gender platonic friends.

But are you, anon? Or are you talking about like, a piece of Western mass media from the past 50 years? Or are you talking about anime — because if anything, kissing is even more loaded in Japan than it is in the West, especially if there are other people around. (Lots of people in anime fandom love to use “but Japanese culture” arguments to no homo, but are banking on no one reading them actually knowing jack shit about Japanese culture — because it’s almost never true or based on any real Japanese cultural difference, there’s just making shit up. It assumes people will take for granted anything that frames Japan as “foreign and inscrutable and impossible for Westerners to understand” which is just Orientalism tbqh)

Just saying, because I almost never see this shit said about like, a novel from 1820 or something from a culture like, say, some Middle Eastern countries where men kissing other men platonically is a thing…. and almost always see it said about current media from a culture where kissing on the forehead would be seen as something you’d likely not do to a platonic friend of the same gender.

You can’t “impose your cultural norms” on something from the same culture as you lol, or something from another culture that has the same norm! And an (for example) American assuming that modern American media plays by the rules of modern American culture and seeing it through that lens, doesn’t necessarily mean that American is unaware that different norms exist in different cultures. But like… it just makes sense to analyze a current American show for American audiences set in America in the modern day through the cultural standards of 2020s America and not, say, Bangladesh or Namibia or 1850s America.

And on another note, if you were as much of a fan of “queer readings” as you claim to be, you’d know that they often have little to do with authorial intent. In fact, it’s often specifically about reclaiming media that didn’t have you in mind as the audience.

(Seriously, I really doubt you have read many of those queer readings, bc if this bothers you so much, the stuff queer studies academics and cultural critics see as “gay subtext” in old Hollywood movies — hell, the stuff that gay, bi and sympathetic-straight directors and actors and writers often very much INTENDED as gay subtext in those movies — would make your brain explode.)

Anyway, we’ve all been in fandoms where there’s a ship some people insist has a ton of subtext but it’s just two guys sharing a scene occasionally and they just WANT to believe it’s there when it isn’t, and it can be annoying sure if there are so many people insisting this that it’s inescapable and becoming fanon that affects the fic about the ships you like, or if they’re pushy and sanctimonious about it. (My current fandom has a group of people who insist the only reason other people don’t see all the “subtext” for their random rarepair is racism or something, and then ignore how much textual stuff they have to deliberately leave out or misinterpret for their reading to “work” lol. Like scenes where their starry eyed expression is directed at a different character and that’s obvious in the actual episode but not in their selectively edited gif set or meta post.) But that is not the same as doing that with KISSING ON THE FOREHEAD ffs. And also, let’s not pretend that slash (or femslash) shippers are the worst offenders, like het shippers — and the broader culture — doesn’t constantly treat “a man and a woman interact” as meaning “they could/should be a couple,”

If you’re not bothered by that, but you’re bothered by when people do it with two men or two women… yeah you gotta ask yourself why that is. I have an idea why, and it’s not bc of your greater cultural open mindedness lol

--

[stuffnonsenseandotherthings]

Joke is a Fresh Spring Roll (and Zo is a Picky Eater)

So it seems that Hidden Agenda has decided to play with it's food....

As an audience, the first thing we learn about Zo is that he likes to play it safe. He absolutely hates being taken out of his comfort zone and will seek out the familiar when and where he can. Case in point: he's had a crush on Nita for YEARS and he can barely bring himself to walk past her when they're in the same room.

It also seems like his desire to play it safe also extends to his food; he has a set dish - basil chicken with fried egg over rice with no basil - and a set drink - chrysanthemum tea - and he has absolutely no interest in deviating from them. He knows that he likes those two things, so that's what he'll have and it's what he'll continue having until the end of time if he has it his way.

Unfortunately for Zo, however, Joke has other plans.

Almost as soon as they start spending time together, Joke is on a mission to expand Zo's taste buds, get him to try new things, and challenge his ideas of what he likes. It starts as early as sealing their pact with the Roselle juice (which Zo does not like), then carries over into their dinner at the Vietnamese restaurant (which Zo makes a show of not enjoying), and then on into their second dinner date.

Joke is constantly trying to get Zo to try new things and will even go so far as to make their deal of him helping win over Nita rest on wether or not Zo will try his food:

Joke is trying to use food to open Zo up to trying new things that he doesn't think he likes.

Just like with his basil chicken and rice, Zo has never considered other options on the romance menu and Joke is well aware of this. From what we've seen so far, Zo has never considered liking anyone other than Nita, no matter how unsuccessful his suit is. Further more, it doesn't seem like it's ever crossed Zo's mind to consider men as romantic interests and even if he has, he's definitely never seen Joke as anything more than someone who annoys the heck out of him....

And because of Zo's very closed and risk-averse mindset, this in unlikely to change on it's own.

So Joke is wooing him with food, new food to be precise. Using their little dinner dates, Joke seems to be trying to (very gently) get Zo used to trying new things, to going out of his comfort zone and to becoming open to the idea that what he thought he liked (basil chicken and Nita) aren't necessarily the only things he likes and that maybe he likes other things more (fresh spring rolls and Joke).

And the thing is, it's working.

Zo may not have liked the Roselle juice but even with all the fuss he put up in the restaurant about eating the spring rolls, he still liked them enough to want to order them alongside his chicken at the lunch stand and when Joke said he'd feed him the macaroni, Zo eventually gives in by (albeit fake grudgingly) going to try it himself.

Joke's love language is apparently food and what he's currently telling Zo is "You're a picky eater and I'm a spring roll but maybe (just maybe), if you try me, you'll like me"

[Also a side note but using the act of trying new food to represent (and act as a prelude to) the journey of queer self discovery is pretty darn cute and while I'm not expecting anything overly deep or groundbreaking from this show I am definitely here for it]

[legacyofthedamneddsaf]

Hey hey! First off, I love this AU to absolute pieces. It's so damn fun to watch/learn about.

Second of all!! Is it okay to have everyone's pronouns and/or identities?? I just wanna know, not just for the sake of curiosity, but also so I don't misgender them when rambling about the AU(/pos) to some people

mod talk under the cut!

Sorry this is so long, they're all just terrible and complicated people who have horrible messy relationships with everything. They require intense explanation!!

Legacy: he/him. Also responds to it/its, but wouldn't necessarily label himself that way if asked. Otherwise, he doesn't care much for labels. OOC, he's acespec but doesn't put many restrictions on who he's interested in - he's kind of a slut that way.

Dave: he/him, although he doesn't care too much. Like Legacy, he's unlabelled. His standards are basically "anything that moves," but he's pretty arospec - the only person he'd consider maintaining a serious connection to is Legacy.

Henry: will only accept he/him, he finds anything else very disrespectful. He's bi, but he's not really interested in romance or sex right now, he's too married to his research. (And, like, his dead wife, also.)

Peter: he/him. He actually labels himself! He would call himself transheteroflexible, he just doesn't talk about it all that much. He's got bigger issues.

Blackjack: responds to any pronouns, but if you asked he'd say he/him. He calls himself gay as an umbrella term, but doesn't have any more specifics than that. OOC, he's probably on the arospec!

Dee: she/they lesbian. (she's just like me fr!) She gave a lot of thought to this while she was distracting herself, so they would actually describe themself that way! I personally think she worries a lot about counting as femme or butch while also not having the best conceptualization of either identity. But at least we have lesbians in this godforsaken world.

Jake: if you ask, he'd say "he/it," but he only uses it/its in the fucked up way where he feels like if he chooses the dehumanization then it's totally fine and he actually doesn't care. So, out of canon, he/him! (note: I'm absolutely not saying it/its is inherently dehumanizing, both the other mods use it/its!! I just think Jake has problems in his mind.) He's really repressed about his sexuality, he's (regretfully and messily -s) been with Legacy but his emotions on that are so complicated he tries and fails to absolutely never think about it again. What he has going on with Roger is a lot less fucked up, but he's still weird about it. I don't think he'd call himself any kind of queer, but he's probably bisexual.

Roger: he/him, but he's dabbled with she on occasions. He thinks he's completely romantically destitute and nobody will ever love him, so he hasn't bothered with putting a name to his sexuality, but he's the kind of guy to say "everyone likes men, that's normal!" He is in for some incredibly eye-opening months with the Damned for sure.

this emotionally stunted man is going to go the fuck through it in possibly the worst time and place for it. oh well! -s

Harry: he/him, he'd call himself bi. He knows this because he had a thing with Joe, and he assumes that attraction to women is a universal constant even though he personally leans heavily towards men.

the ancient greeks would like this guy i think -h

Steven: he/him, gay, he's probably the only person here other than Dee to have a solid concept of their own identity! Shoutout to Steven for being uncomplicated

and that was "2 ppl who dont really label themselves or have strong ties to their queer identity try to figure out how a bunch of other ppl would feel about theirs," as translated by arden. you could say that we write what we know -s

yeah, the mods are all different flavors of aro/acespec and genderweird. it's all so difficult forever

[alexandraisyes]

eclipse is not straight, at least imo. He's either really gay for Sun, or aroace (or something else idk)

Also same goes for Solar- either aroace or really queer. Not straight.

My gaydar is going insane for them

It is my personal belief/headcanon that Eclipse is aroace. We never get confirmation, but he's really touch-averse in general, and he has ASPD. I can literally confirm as someone with ASPD who has done their research that if you have full-blown diagnosable ASPD you fall under the aromantic umbrella. Most of us are demiromantic or romance-repulsed (more the former than the latter). There's an actual psychological reason behind this as well.

(Rifling through my notes hold on)

For someone with ASPD who has learned to care and respect their partner, love may still be experienced differently compared to individuals without the disorder. Their expression of love might be more pragmatic or rational, characterized by a deep sense of loyalty and commitment rather than intense emotional connection. They may prioritize actions over words, demonstrating their love through practical gestures and efforts to ensure the well-being and happiness of their partner. Their love may be marked by a strong sense of protection and responsibility towards their partner, as they recognize the importance of the relationship in their life. They might strive to understand their partner's needs and preferences, even if they don't inherently grasp them on an emotional level. Despite potential challenges in empathizing with their partner's emotions, they may still demonstrate care and consideration in their own way, seeking to maintain harmony and stability in the relationship. Over time, with effort and self-awareness, they can develop a deeper understanding of love and cultivate healthier relationship dynamics.

Earlier set of notes I had stashed away. Looking for the psychology set now.

The aromantic umbrella encompasses a wide range of experiences related to romantic attraction, including people who experience little to no romantic attraction (aromantic), those who experience it rarely (greyromantic), or under specific circumstances (demiromantic). Given this diversity, many people with ASPD who struggle with emotional connections find that their experiences align with some aspect of the aromantic spectrum. The difficulty in forming deep emotional connections, which is common in ASPD, can directly influence one’s experience of romantic attraction. If emotional connection is a significant part of romantic attraction for most people, then those with ASPD might not experience romantic attraction in the same way or at all, leading them to identify as aromantic. For people with ASPD, identifying as aromantic can be a way to understand and communicate their experiences with attraction and relationships. It provides a framework that validates their experience of not feeling romantic attraction or feeling it differently.

Literally speaking as someone with ASPD who knows several other people with ASPD, everyone I have talked to experiences an extremely reduced or no romantic attraction. Most of us don't even know that we can feel romantic attraction until we form a deep emotional bond with another person, and if you've been following my writings about ASPD, you'll know exactly how difficult that is for us. Aromantic doesn't mean you don't have an interest in dating, it literally is just a reflection of how much romantic attraction you can feel.

Aromanticism refers to a romantic orientation where an individual does not experience romantic attraction towards others. This doesn't necessarily mean they are uninterested in relationships or incapable of love; rather, their relationships may not involve the romantic elements traditionally expected in society.

I cannot tell you a single relationship with someone with ASPD that is "traditionally romantic" because we literally just do not love like empathetic people. We don't "fall in love", instead it's a deep sense of loyalty and devotion for someone who has earned our respect, and if romantic love comes on later in life if that person sticks around, then good for us. But it's not considered a natural thing for us because most of the time people aren't willing to stick around that long, or we get freaked out and dip before we can form any real connection to others.

As far as Solar, I don't really know what he is nor do I have a speculation. He might be aroace; he's never really expressed an interest in dating or things like that. I think it's a fun headcanon that he's demiromantic like a lot of my friends have suggested for him.

Weekend Ask Game - Send Me TSBS Confessions

[sapphicbookclub]

Author Spotlight: Talia Bhatt

We're excited to highlight Talia Bhatt, author of the current club read Dulhaniyaa. Read on to hear how her identity and experiences informed her writing, and how queer love is a jailbreak.

“Desi trans lesbian” feels, sometimes, like an ephemeral identity.

I am situated nowhere transhistorically and barely transculturally, having to borrow the language, social trappings, and forms of identification of the nation(s) that colonized and impoverished mine to even express my embodiment and positionality coherently. In a world where Afsaneh Najmabadi can pose the question “Is any one of you a lesbian?” to a room full of Iranian transsexual women and get blank stares, as she relates in Professing Selves, or where Deepa Mehta notes in her groundbreaking lesbian romance Fire that Hindi lacks even a word to express the concept of a woman loving another intimately, romantically, carnally, I am unmoored and unfixed, an anomaly because I dare to imagine my transsexuality independent from men.

“Woman are for men”, assumes every culture with harsh patriarchal contradictions—which does not entirely exclude the West—and trans women doubly so, since the abhorrence of non-heterosexual modes of living and social organization leads many from cultures like mine to presume that a woman would only transition to be with a man. A profound loneliness dogs my very existence, alerting me to the wispy shadows of a shrouded past that barely had a record of women like me prior to the midpoint of the 20th Century, only whispers and rumors and sensationalist gossip scrawled in academic journal by Esther Newton, alluding to the idea of a “man” that, having availed of hormones and surgical interventions, now sleeps with lesbians—the scandal. 

No ancestors that are mine to claim.

Dulhaniyaa is not a particularly melancholy book, though a certain pensiveness pervades the opening chapters. There a story within the story written in subtext, in allusions and word choices and snippets of dialogue, that Esha and Billu and Dolly and others are aware of: my homeland, my motherland, my culture and my nation and my state—it is not a place for queer women. It is certainly, emphatically, not a place for a trans woman who fancies herself still attracted to other women, or even indelibly non-binary in a way. Women like us have no names, no pasts, and almost certainly no futures within the narrow confines of the constructed and stifling heterosexual hegemony.

A reviewer was kind enough to sum up Dulhaniyaa for me better than I ever could, stating triumphantly that “Queer love is a jailbreak.” It’s a quote that has stuck with me both for how simply it states a core theme that I certainly labored to convey without necessarily consciously meaning to, as well as for how profoundly vast and unencompassable the prison I find myself in is. My shackles are Time and Language itself, my cell the land I was born in, my wardens its people. I am a refugee in a sense that many, many queer and especially trans people tend to be, evicted and disowned and erased from hearth and homeland.

I wrote Dulhaniyaa because someone broke me out of that cell. She saw the woman I was as well as the woman I could be, and helped me bridge the gap between the two. She is now my wife.

Queer love is a jailbreak. Get your pickaxes ready.

[onbearfeet]

Queerwolf By Night: Queercoding, Media Literacy, and Werewolf By Night (part 3)

Lovely to have you back for this, the final part of our examination of WBN being queer as fuck. If you missed the earlier presentations in Media Studies and Writing Hacks With Kat, Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here.

We've gone through the Hays Code AND the AIDS crisis so far, and that's a lot, so could I interest you in a cup of coffee brewed over a campfire?

Thanks, Ted. You're a peach.

So let's look at the final scene of WBN through a queer lens. There's a needle drop, color is restored to the world, and we see Jack waking up in the woods to drink coffee, grunt at Ted, and eventually decide that sushi should happen.

(Side note: I have a whole rant about queercoding and sushi, but I cut it, so here's a gif of Aziraphale gayly eating sushi in Good Omens, which you should watch.)

Okay, enough queer angels. Time for more queer monsters.

First things first: this scene is SO DOMESTIC, y'all. They're literally playing house in the woods, in that Ted has built Jack an adorable little house and brewed his morning coffee. The camp is littered with little domestic touches like the French press and the guitar. It's a homey, if slightly eclectic, vibe. (Where did Ted find a payphone?)

There is no explanation for these objects being there, afaik; Ted and Jack both have presumably come from some distance away, involuntarily in Ted's case, so there's no reason Ted would know the location of a well-stocked camp to put an unconscious Jack down in if Jack even set one up. Presumably the camp is Ted's work, but there's never an explanation for where he got any items other than the robe and the phonograph. (I'm particularly curious about the flower mug, personally.) Yet the objects are not remarked upon, and the entire scene is played as if this is a relatively normal morning for the two of them.

In fact, most of the mechanics of the scene are effectively those of a morning-after scene, perhaps a morning after characters fall into bed for the first time. Jack wakes up groaning, crawls out of bed to see where he is, and finds his partner has laid out something like breakfast for him and is prepared to discuss the events of the night before whenever Jack is ready.

And speaking of that discussion, we once again have displays of queercoded masculinity: Jack and Ted being physically affectionate, playful banter, and emotional vulnerability when Jack asks about Elsa. You know the drill by now. The camera pans up as "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" swells and fades out.

Wait.

Rainbow?

Let's talk about music in this film.

Michael Giacchino is primarily known as a composer of film music. WBN is his directorial debut. I guarantee you've heard his music before, because it's basically in every summer blockbuster franchise. If you can't get John Williams, Danny Elfman, or Hans Zimmer (all of whom are getting long in the tooth), you get Giacchino and he turns in a fucking SCORE.

Now, I am not a music person. Not at all. But even my musically illiterate ass knows that traditional film scoring derives a lot from classical music, especially Romantic composers like Beethoven. And that means LEITMOTIFS, baby!

(I learned about leitmotifs from Bugs Bunny and Star Wars. Do not be impressed.)

A leitmotif is a short musical phrase that can be used to signify a character, object, or theme in a larger work of music. For a very basic example of this, look up the Force theme from Star Wars and watch a supercut of all the times it was used to indicate that someone was using the Force. Or just watch this Sideways video about why the music in Rise of Skywalker was ass:

Anyhoo. The point of leitmotifs is to give an audience a feeling without necessarily tipping them off to exactly WHY they're having that feeling. And Giacchino LOVES his leitmotifs.

So when he uses someone else's music, he's extremely aware of the emotions that can come attached to that music. It's literally what he does.

There are two pieces of music used in WBN that Giacchino didn't write: a late 1930s recording of Vera Lynn singing "Wishing Will Make It So" and Judy Garland singing "Over The Rainbow" from The Wizard of Oz. Let's start with Vera Lynn.

Vera Lynn was an English singer most associated with big band music before and during WWII. During the war, she was known as "the Forces' sweetheart", both for her efforts to entertain the troops and for the fact that she was kind of every British fighting man's waifu. What Betty Grable's legs were to American GIs, Vera Lynn's voice was to British servicemen. She's best known for the song "We'll Meet Again", which is about exactly what it sounds like. She was a nice lady, by all accounts, and there is a ferry boat named after her now.

A Vera Lynn song about childhood and wishing is what Verussa plays in the labyrinth, apparently to annoy Elsa, who switches it off (even though that's going to inform everyone of where she is). For the purposes of queercoding, Vera Lynn is mom and apple pie, or possibly mum and fish and chips, and above all she is safe, compulsory heterosexuality. The Forces' sweetheart.

Judy Garland, on the other hand, is a queer icon.

I can't overstate what a Big Deal Judy Garland and Dorothy Gale from The Wizard of Oz are in queer culture. The themes of the story, including acceptance of the unusual and embrace of a found family (along with the sapphic elements of some of the books), resonated so deeply with queer people that for several decades, "are you a friend of Dorothy?" was code for "are you gay?" The US Navy actually launched an investigation to find the mysterious "Dorothy" who was supposedly the ringleader of all the gay sailors.

And then there's the song itself, with its theme of longing for a faraway, more colorful place where those who don't fit in at home are loved for who they are. It's, uh, pretty resonant with the queer experience.

So I now draw your attention to the phonograph. Gramophone. Record player. Whatever it's called.

In WBN, we first see the player set up in the labyrinth, presumably by Verussa or at her orders. It's playing a Vera Lynn song about childhood and wishing, which apparently annoys Elsa so much that she switches it off, thus alerting Jack to her location.

The next appearance of the player is in the camp, where it's now playing "Over the Rainbow" beside Jack as he wakes up. Ted has presumably stolen it; there's no other candidate for that, and we already saw him swipe a murder robe for Jack, so why not a record player too?

In other words, Verussa Enthusiastic Heterosexuality Bloodstone sets up the Compulsory Heterosexuality Machine, after which Elsa Ally-Coded Bloodstone turns it off in disgust, and Ted swipes it and turns it gay for Jack's benefit.

That's the coding. That's BARELY subtext. I really don't know what else to tell you. This essay started with my making an offhand joke to bluemoonperegrine about Ted and Jack being "literally friends of Dorothy" and then realizing nobody else in the conversation had noticed this stuff.

So what do we do about all this? Is WBN queer? Does all the Wolfstone stuff pale in comparison to the glory of Russallis? Am I trying to start a ship war in a fandom so small it probably wouldn't fill up Vera Lynn's namesake ferry boat?

Jack, you can answer this for me.

Nope. Not trying to start anything. I happily read Wolfstone, and technically have written some. I love all three WBN leads and am happy to enjoy them in any configuration (although my personal preference is group napping in a puppy pile, because these characters deserve naps).

I just figured it was worth documenting all this so people who haven't had the benefit of my very strange education would be better equipped to recognize (and ideally enjoy) old-style queercoding when they see it.

Wait a minute. You promised writing hacks. It's in the series title and everything.

Shit, you caught me.

Obviously, queercoding isn't a universal tool. There are plenty of storytelling contexts in which it's much better to make characters explicitly queer. Representation matters, and all that.

But sometimes you won't have time for explicit confirmation (like when your story takes place overnight and nobody really has time to play tonsil hockey). Sometimes you won't be able to include it due to outside constraints (like Disney being Disney).

And sometimes, you'll remember that there are plenty of people who can't or won't pick up explicitly queer media. Homophobic parents who won't let their kids watch Love, Simon ... but who WILL let them read your YA novel about unicorns or whatever where there are two female unicorns who are, uh, life partners. Grumpy uncles who refuse to acknowledge their nephew's boyfriend until they notice that, hey, they kinda act like Finn and Poe from that Star War. And so on. Sometimes, coded rep is the best rep you can get ... and so it's useful to have. A good toolbox has ALL the tools.

So if you're building characters for your story and don't or can't have specific queer goals, throw in a little coding. Put a rainbow T-shirt on a kid. Let two boys hold hands or have literally any feelings. Let a girl say a girl is pretty. Look up some of the older symbols for queer love and have someone growing lavender in their garden, or use newer queer symbols and have a character crack an egg in a key scene. Have a character who's content without a romantic or sexual relationship, and has an arc about something else, because aces and aros exist too.

There's a whole universe of coding out there. Go add some layers to your work.

Or better yet--see if they're there already. You might surprise yourself.

Sometimes the monster has a familiar face.

[tevanbuckley]

whew the deranged BOB anon really needs some fresh air (and a little time out on the naughty stool imo)

does anyone believe for a second that it would have been preferrable to that side of the fandom to have tommy with eddie? i can't believe your BOB anon was able to type that with a straight (no pun intended) face.

it's all fine and good if someone ships b*ddie endgame but it really irks me that some diehards don't see any point to buck being bisexual except in the context of b*ddie. they can lie to each other about just wanting queer rep and soulmates but what they're really saying is that they care more about their ship than the character they claim to love.

meanwhile buck is out her happy and free and thriving and finally -- finally!-- getting comfortable in his own skin. let the baby bi live his best life ffs. none of us knows what's going to happen with tommy but i personally can't wait to get to know him better and watch his relationship with buck flourish into something beautiful. and on that front, we are off to a goddamn great start.

*quick note, i've kinda lost track of which BoB asks i've actually responded to/posted and i'm trying to rotate nice/normal stuff into the mix so it's not wall to wall insanity here, but be aware y'all are not necessarily seeing stuff in the order i got them*

having collected many, many of their opinions, i'm starting to think this anon is just way, way too attached to their gay eddie hc, the more messages i get the more the focus has shifted to being pissed that gay!eddie doesn't seem to be happening. as if they've been personally cheated out of the storyline they want.

like they hate lou but also would've been fine if tommy and eddie had gotten together? (which??? if their complaint is a lack of romantic chemistry between buck and tommy, i'm not sure what's seems so compelling about tommy and eddie? they were incredibly bro-y)

[anti-anti-vents]

Welcome to my blog! If you’re new to these debate, leave now and never return there are some things I’d like to define, since I find often times people mean many things when saying them.

What is shipping?

Shipping is the act of depicting, or wanting depictions of, two or more FICTIONAL characters in a relationship, that is romantic and/or sexual unless stated otherwise. The most common reason people would do this, and the one that comes to most peoples minds, is that the person thinks these characters would work out well together. However, there’s many more reasons than that to want to explore a dynamic, so it’s a misconception that that’s always the case. Please note, it’s not shipping when real people are involved instead of characters, that’s sexual harassment!*

What is a proshipper? What is an anti? What is an anti-anti?

In short, a proshipper is somebody who believes it’s okay to ship any characters for any reason. An anti is somebody who believes that shipping dynamics that would be toxic or immoral IRL is also not okay to do in fiction, and often go to length to let people know this opinion when they find a ship they deem to be inappropriate. And finally, an anti-anti is somebody who doesn’t necessarily believe that EVERY ship is morally neutral, but does believe you should never harass somebody over it regardless.

So, why are you an anti-anti?

Obviously, I don’t believe in harassing people, that should be a given. And I do find most ships morally neutral, but the main reason I don’t call myself a proshipper is that some do still leave a sour taste in my mouth (namely ships that “fix” a queer person, or turn an abuser into somebody super sweet; but feel free to RESPECTFULLY drop some reasoning into my askbox why those are okay if you want). However, I do recognize that it’s just fiction, and I can’t see into the minds of the people making it, so I’ll never truly know their reasonings.

What the hell got you into this discourse?

Well, if you can’t tell by my pfp, I love the game The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. (Spoilers ahead) But if you know anything about the game, you’ll know that the internet didn’t agree with me. They got mad over the CLEARLY PORTRAYED AS IMMORAL, completely optional outside a few implications, part of a demonic dream and not actually a real thing that happened, horror game incest. My goodness, you’d think they’d be mad at the actually romanticized cannibalism, or the many other pieces of media that include incest, but no. At the end of the day, this was just an excuse to doxx a trans woman until she left the internet. Because that’s who’s affected by this discourse. Not big media sensations and fiction that’s reached enough mainstream appeal to be genuinely normalizing things for the masses, but instead small indie creators and queer people. We need to do better.

Do you have a DNI?

Just don’t harass people, that’s all I ask. Regardless, this is a side blog, so I won’t be following back.

[discobiscotto]

Just Guys Bein’ Dudes: A Needlessly Huge TED-Talk About Luca & Alberto’s Relationship

Ready for some big-brain BS?

Well, ready or not, here’s a “little” dive into how I interpret/perceive Luca and Alberto’s relationship.

Note: I’m referring to them as my own headcanon versions of them as men. It can certainly be applied to them as young adults and teens for sure, but I’m diving into ‘Ciao Luca’ territory specifically. So, there, just being clear on the who’s who.

What’s their deal anyhow?

Are they romantic partners? Are they attracted to eachother, yanno 👉🏻👈🏻? Buddies? Buddies with benefits? Are they even a couple? Are they husbands? What’s their deal?

So, a couple years ago when I was starting to get really busy with the headcanons, I went on a tear about their relationship to lay down some kind of clear foundation for it. I felt alittle conflicted at the time about how their relationship was going to feel/act like.

To me, because I love ambiguity, I wanted to keep that energy going from the original source material…but with alittle “oomph”…considering there’s been time and maturity tacked on. They can’t just be Pallin’ Around forever, something’s gotta give with chemistry that strong imo.

If I’m being honest, them being point-blank romantic partners felt too cliched and predictable/boring. Courtship, wooing, marriage…snore. It just didn’t feel like ‘them’ to me. It bordered heteronormative somehow. I was just …PUTTING MYSELF TO SLEEP.

Not to say they aren’t romantic, because they certainly are in their own right! It just isn’t the defining Vibe of their relationship.

As a queer lady with a pretty open mind in terms of what defines a relationship and/or bond, I believe that love expression is on a spectrum. Different strokes for different folks, yanno?

I scooted myself over to that old filing cabinet in my brain with random Greek Philosophy tid-bits (that I was impressed wasn’t put thru the incinerator) and I got polishing.

I remembered a few terms, like storge (family love), Eros: romantic, mania: obsessive/stalkerish love, agape, philia, the list goes on.

We’re gonna focus on PHILIA, typically deemed affectionate and/or “brotherly love”, I think also falls under platonic love.

We’re going to come back to this later☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻☝🏻

As a couple of seamonsters (first and foremost) the human concept of love may not necessarily compute to them. Not that they get confused or turn their nose up at it, but rather it’s more boxed-in and rigid than, I guess, fish love? Haha.

Example: homosexuality, bisexuality, and heterosexuality as concepts are human inventions to help humans navigate their life and their identity in the world, be part of a tribe, and potentially find mates.

They’re social constructs, like gender conformity, and Mondays.

Seamonsters really don’t have that. They’re similar to humans in alot of ways, but in terms of attraction, love, and social awareness, they just kindof ride the wave and go where the current takes them.

Opposite sex pairings likely happen more often because [gestures] instincts and Makin’ Fries. But just like humans, same sex relationships happen just as much!…but seamonsters have no concept of homophobia (strictly a human invention) so there’s no discouragement or imposed fear of the relationship…it just happens if it’s meant to and the world keeps spinning. [deep sighs]

Luca and Alberto are aware of human society and customs (especially now that they’ve been living amongst them for atleast 15 years). So, they still try to do-as-the-humans-do sometimes. They know that they feel a strong bond to eachother that can’t be ignored, and when humans sense a similar bond between each other they express it by being physically intimate, or giving gifts, or creating things for eachother, etc.

So, basically, it boils down to “I love my friend, so I wish to express that love for him like that [gesture].”

Now bringing it back to Philia up there!👆🏻

That particular source defines philia as brotherly love, both must be men (in the Greek system), they respect and take pleasure in eachother’s company, bond through exploring philosophical truths, and sexual intimacy or attraction is optional.

This other source takes it a bit further saying that we could be diving into “friends to lovers” territory which is the aforementioned “oomph” I was referring to. The bridge into Eros stuff without being completely rooted there (ie your usual romantic pair).

Their relationship isn’t based on physical attraction, but began as a close friendship that progressed into something more. Not built on lust, but on mutual affection and respect for eachother.

They are an “unlikely” pair. Where a hockey hug became alittle tighter, and the joined hands in a good old “Piacere Girolamo Trombetta” started to linger.

They feel safe with eachother, they love and prefer eachother’s company, they share eachother’s worlds and feel deeply connected in them. Alberto cooks meals for them because he loves Luca, and Luca gives Alberto [SPOILER] because he loves him back.

They share a “I can’t quite put my finger on it but I feel safe, warm, and happy with you, I enjoy your company and what we have, I love the feeling of you being close to me, exchanging warmth and heartbeats, and I feel like this is more than going out on dates or ‘picking out curtains’.” kind of thing.

They’re roommates who kiss and “play house”. They are in love…but express it in their own unique way. They are openly affectionate. They keep people guessing, they confuse the neighbors, they have an “inside joke”.

Alberto lays on the housewife schtick: straightening Luca’s tie and sending him on his way with a packed lunch.

They call eachother heteronormative terms of endearment, mostly to be cheeky. Sarcastic “Honey” or “Dear” followed by someone affectionately ending up in a headlock.

They love to play with the human version of “married life”, little do they realize they’ve grown genuinely accustomed to it.

They’re queer but have no name and nowhere they’d rather be except each other’s arms (that one place that makes perfect sense).

They aren’t married…they never can get married…but that doesn’t stop them from sharing their homes, their beds, and a last name written on their Christmas cards.

In conclusion, humans say they’re gay.

The Paguro’s say “They built a farm together.”

SOURCES: