#spoiler they are probably never getting divorced we can't separate them

[sadfruittheatre]

Name: Aneas

Age: Over 5000 (equivalent to a 15-year-old)

Gender: Nonbinary (he/they)

Species: Shinjin/Core Person (I lovingly call them fruitboys)

Height: 4’

Likes: gardening, sewing, cooking, romance novels, and corny jokes

Dislikes: himself, silence, people who are rude to/about his wife, aphids, and high shelves

Fears: fucking up his job and also that one day his plants will suddenly become sentient and start revealing everything he’s ever told them, or alternately start judging him or telling him they hate him

Personality: Aneas is generally very shy, reserved, and nervous. He doesn’t like to stand out, and he doesn’t even think he should. That said, he always tries to be amicable and kind, and if you get to know him, he’ll talk your ear off about the things he’s interested in. He’s a hopeless romantic and catches feelings easily— so easily, in fact, that he is already married (to someone his own age, don’t worry), and takes his duties as a husband very seriously.

However, he also struggles with a lot of internal darkness. He’s severely depressed, which can often manifest as anger, bitterness, and thoughts of violence. Said violent thoughts are especially likely to become violent actions if you upset his wife in any way, shape, or form. His self-esteem is incredibly low and he’s often prone to jealousy and projecting his own insecurities onto others. He hates this part of himself and trying to be a good person in spite of his darker impulses only adds to the imposter syndrome he already feels.

Background: Aneas is from Universe 5, one of the four universes (out of twelve) that isn’t some degree of a dumpster fire, and for the most part, has lived a pretty average life. He was an average kid, with average skills and an average amount of friends. And that was perfectly fine by him, until his friend Bragi suddenly had a lot less time to hang out thanks to all the special classes he was in. He was worried that this development would potentially spell out the end of their friend group, so he decided that he would try to study and train hard so he could bridge that gap between them.

However, not everyone is born with natural talent. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t catch up. He couldn’t even come close to catching up. The repeated failed efforts had done a number on his self-esteem, and in an unfortunate case of projection, he was sure his friend thought he was as stupid and useless as he did, so eventually, he just sort of gave up. Not just on this, but everything. He sort of just coasted by until one day, it was announced that there would be a lottery held to find the next West Kai.

Aneas entered his name into the drawing on a dare and lo and behold, it was the first time he’d won a drawing for anything. He was entirely too young and entirely too unqualified, but the lottery had spoken. And so, armed with some basic training from the other Kais, he made his new home on a tiny planet somewhere in the Other World where he would watch over his quadrant of the universe and try to figure out what in the hell he was doing.

His mental health was already bad enough, and none of this was helping much, but in a desperate attempt to keep himself from spiraling any further, he took up gardening. It took a lot of trial and error, but it proved to be something he was really good at. It wasn’t long before most of his little planet was filled with plants, all with their own names and personalities and meticulously interconnected lore. Was he going a little crazy? Probably. But talking to an audience that could never possibly judge him for his darkest thoughts wound up being incredibly therapeutic.

However, his life would change dramatically once again when he was more or less voluntold to be a parole officer for a high profile prisoner of the Time Patrol because no one else wanted to do it. Coulie, the apprentice of the Demon King’s sister, Towa, was someone with a lot of blood on her hands thanks to her incredibly dubious science experiments, and now she was at his front door. The initial encounter was tense and awkward, but they quickly found some common ground in their loneliness and talking about these more difficult feelings with the plants they worked with all day, and both of them sort of ended up forgetting why they had to meet like this to begin with.

After awhile, Coulie expressed the desire to stay with him once her parole was up, and so, being that they were already raising a beautiful plant named Eugene together, Aneas, sufferer of terminal Shoujo Bitch Disease, saw only one course of action: marriage. It was some wishful thinking that got entirely out of hand, but after a lot of miscommunication and one of Eugene’s leaves blowing in the air, Coulie reciprocated and the two were wed.

However, their peaceful wedded bliss can’t last forever, as their pasts tend to keep coming back to haunt them in various ways, from Aneas’s childhood friends, to Coulie’s former cohort and prince of the Demon Realm, Fu. Not to mention all the gods and demons alike who are more than a little baffled by U5’s baby West Kai marrying U7’s baby demon war criminal.

Will they ever know peace? Will it all come crashing down in divorce? Find out on the next episode of SAD FRUIT THEATRE!

[rey-jake-therapist]

*sorry I think my ask cut off the first bit here so I'm sending it again (Haladriel reminds me of Darklina, in the sense that both characters are so loved by me individually and the dynamic is fascinating, but as an actual ship in fandom? I have to navigate through the misogynist takes that are reducing the female character to a trophy)

I saw this in the haladriel tag on x and I think I pinned down the reason why there are certain people who can't handle dark ships and won't stop invalidating them by screaming about abuse/misogyny. It's because in their minds, they take things very concretely, not being able to 'read between the lines', and thus it's hard for them to really think in abstract ways. They just can't divorce fictional characters from actual problems in society. Don't get me wrong, there is a parallel between them that exists as a fine line, and we should absolutely call some things out. But in the realm of fictional characters, shipping, and make believe? That's strictly a 'them/individual' problem, not an 'us' problem. There are SO many haladriel shippers. We get so many fanart by talented people, many of whom haven't even heard of Tolkien. Are they supporting misogyny or have they had to 'navigate thru misogynist takes' in order to draw two characters together because they like their dynamic? It's not our fault that these canon police antis can't separate fiction from reality, and see every aggression toward a female character (unless it's by another female character, or it's a m/m relationship) as misogyny, while ignoring actual inequality in societies around us, as well as ignoring the truth that men can also become victims of abuse/violence. It all goes back to the funny hypocrisy of touting a beloved female character with admirable traits like strong, fierce, powerful, but the instant a male character challenges her and shows any kind of aggression at her - because spoiler alert, he's a villain, it's literally how he was written - these canon police antis whine about misogyny instead of just saying they don't see what shippers see in a fictional pairing and leave it at that. Like, it's ok, you don't need a reason to not like a pairing. The funny thing is, for all their fascination on Galadriel and Sauron as individuals, they fail to comprehend Sauron's character beyond what is stated in black and white in front of them (going back to the concrete vs abstract thinking). I'm not even a huge fan of Charlie, and even I can understand the 'seeing Gal as a trophy' bit is just a very simplified jest at the comparison to Morgoth and the Silmarils. If they actually bothered to read more of his interviews, it's very clear he sees her as beyond just that. Oh, she's just another ring to him basically? Ok but then why do I keep hearing cosmic connection spoken by him anytime Galadriel is brought up in interviews? Cosmic connection flew over this person's head like a frisbee.

I hope you don't mind me saying I never liked Darklina 🙈 I don't know if it's because I wasn't a big fan of the show in general, of because of the actor I found too pretty, or the dynamic in general... It just never worked for me.

I'm probably significantly older than most Tumblr users, old enough to remember how Mulder and Scully shippers were shamed and mocked when Internet and forums barely started to be a thing anyway 🤣 If you ever heard of X Files or even better, watched it, you know that there isn't a ship that's more vanilla than this one. And yet shippers were being mocked for seeing romance where there was only "platonic friendship" (joke on them, 9 years later Mulder and Scully were endgame), when we weren't told that "Scully deserved better" because "Mulder was abusive towards her

Shippers were always made fun to and it'll never stop, I'm afraid. I've stopped caring about what anyone has to say about a fictional romance I like tbh. I don't know if you use social media such as Reddit and Twitter, as far as I m concerned avoiding these places help a lot. Haters don't seem aware of Tumblr's existence, and I pray every day that they remain ignorant because I really like it here 💜

The best we can do is to keep having fun with what we love... That won't change these idiot's minds, but it will probably piss them off ;)

[pandasmagorica]

Actually, need to make a few more notes before I proceed with the last two episodes.

Spoiler-based discussion follows

On of the problems with TV or movies is that unless you are doing one of those rare real-time scripts, you have to leave scenes out. So we don't know what happens (beyond Yuuki and Misaki getting divorce papers drawn up) between when Misaki catches Yuuki and Shuuhei in a sexual situation and when everyone is making merry for Christmas. Specifically, do Yuuki and Shuuhei have furthere, um, intimacy?

Here's why that's important.

Okay, earlier in the series, Shuuhei did indeed encourage Yuuki to act on his (Yuuki's) desires. So, during the seme!Yuuki scene, when Shuuhei objects, seme!Yuuki reminds Shuuhei of what Shuuhei had told Yuuki to do.

As a reminder, there's no blushing maiden trope going on. Shuuhei has been quite lascivious in his behavior toward both Yuuki and Misaki, and has pulled Yuuki into a love hotel at one point earlier in the series.

Still, Shuuhei does become angry at seme!Yuuki's behavior, so there are consent issues involved.

As I mentioned, we go from this to the three of them setting up Christmas decorations with no indication that anything has been resolved between Shuuhei and Yuuki about this or even that anyone has tried to resolve anything.

Okay, now here's why that's important:

First, we don't know which of the following is true:

Yuuki really likes the seme role and was just using his wife's impending return as a convenient time to move on it.

Yuuki isn't actually into a seme role but needed to force Shuuhei to help set up a situation where Yuuki's wife would be moved to divorce hi.

Second, we don't know which of the following is true (within the world of Japanese QL):

Shuuhei, while initially shocked by Yuuki's behavior, has actually been wishing for Yuuki to be forceful with Shuuhei instead of always making Shuuhei take the lead.

Shuuhei is not only shocked by Yuuki's behavior but doesn't want to have to put up with it again.

Two of these combinations work well together and two bode separation for Yuuki and Shuuhei.

Here are the two that work:

First, if Yuuki likes the seme role and Shuuhei likes that Yuuki likes the seme role, then they are sexually compatible and can proceed with this new understanding of these interests.

Second, if Yuuki is faking to impress his wife and Shuuhei hates the behavior, then Yuuki has to prostrate himself and promise never to do it again, something he already intended. They can continue with seme!Shuuhei and uke!Yuuki (I like the sounds of those) and have continued compatibility.

But now for the two that don't:

Third, if Yuuki likes the seme role but Shuuhei doesn't like the uke role, then they're not sexually compatible. If they can't agree to switch off on an ongoing basis, they're going to be rubbing each other the wrong way and will ultimately split to find new, more compatible, partners. (Because of Shuuhei's life situation of homelessness and couch surfing, he may put up with the situation until he finds new boyfriends or girlfriends, at least one of whom can host him.)

But the very last is the worst of all: If Yuuki was faking, but Shuuhei likes seme!Yuuki, Yuuki will eventually have to come clean that he was faking for Misaki's view and Shuuhei is going to feel used. In such a case, Shuuhei may well leave even if his sleeping situation has not been resolved.

This is why the missing scenes are potentially important. Are Yuuki and Shuuhei continuing to be sexual between Misaki's discovery and the Christmas celebration?

A side thought is that if this show is going dark, there may be murder involved somehow. But I'm going to assign that the lowest possible probability.

Time to watch and find out.

Go ahead, prove me wrong!

Ongoing first watch: Me & My Husband & My Husband's Boyfriend

Episodes 1 & 2, episodes 3 & 4, and episodes 5 & 6 of 10 previously watched. Latest watch of episodes 7 & 8. Japanese series.

Okay, this is strange because I'm probably going to watch 9 & 10 tomorrow. But commenting on 7 & 8 now will give me a chance to collect my thoughts. It will also give me a chance to clown, as people say in the Tumblr fandom vernacular.

First a heads-up that there are a couple non-cons in these episodes. Actually, the first one was at the end of 6, I think, but we find out now that while it started as a mistake, once Shuuhei realized his mistake he decided to keep going.

The other is that Yuuki pulls a full-on seme on Shuuhei; it's not what it seems, and Shuuhei is not the intended victim, but it's non-consensual nonetheless and there doesn't seem to be any consequence from Shuuhei for Yuuki's action, which is disappointing for me (but not unexpected in a Japanese QL that seems to be going darkish based on what @absolutebl has said about Japanese QL) (please feel free to correct me if I've misinterpreted what you've said).

There's still the issue that Shuuhei is couch surfing, which could be the reason for no consequences. And Misaki is being courted by both Shuuhei and Misaski's best friend's roomie. But it's not at all clear that she's interested in either one. So, if she were to go with one of them, would it be her taking what she thinks is her only choice? This same goes for Shuuhei after Yuuki pulls the seme act.

I'm still clowning that there will be a happy ending. But I might not get it, and the chances are looking slimmer and slimmer.

Spoilers and spoiler-based clowns follow

Misaki's co-worker continues to send Misaki photos of Yuuki and Shuuhei, and Misaki finally catches and confronts her about it, getting a denial and a lecture. Misaki's best friend also recommends to Yuuki that he let Misaki go and pursue the roomie, and Yuuki gives his consent directly to the roomie, but where is Misaki's consent in all this?

So, this leads to Yuuki getting a text from Misaki that she's almost home, and Yuuki pulls this full-on seme with Shuuhei, pushing him down and pulling his own clothing off just as Misaki enters their home.

Misaki leaves, goes to the roof where they previously played dead, and plays dead for a while, then gets up.

The next thing we see is a Christmas celebration with the three of them which includes Shuuhei bearing a gift (his own painting) - see what I mean about no consequences? But it's for both Yuuki and Misaki, and a moment later they gift each other with divorce papers.

Sad, but not surprising.

So, time to clown the ending. I have a few possibles that I will put down, then proceed to watch the ending.

Ending 1: They go full poly. Shuuhei is with both Misaki and Yuuki. Misaki is with Shuuhei and the bestie's roomate. Probability: Low

Ending 2: Everyone is unhappy and live separately in loneliness forever, or at least for now. Probability: Low to medium.

Ending 3: Yuuki and Shuuhei end up together. Misaki and the roomate end up together. Probability: Medium.

Ending 4: One of those couples ends up together, probably Misaki and the roomate. Yuuki and Shuuhei wind up splitting but with hope for their paths forward. Probability: Medium to high.

Let's go see.