People On This Site Are Unable To See A Close Relationship Between Two People Of Different Genders Without

People on this site are unable to see a close relationship between two people of different genders without interpreting it as romantic, sibling-like, father/daughter like (rarely the other way around), or mlm/wlw solidarity. Because apparently even on this site, which is supposed to be really queer and not heteronormative, two people of different genders can’t be close friends. (Not to mention the fact that if two characters a close and the same gender they’re pretty much always seen as romantic on here, and so are enemy kind of relationships.)

It isn’t all the time, and I guess it’s better than interpreting it as romantic all the time, but it’s still a thing on here that people do. Those are still important relationships, but in fandom friendship seems to get ignored a lot. This isn’t even so much in the original media, because there are close platonic relationships of both the same and different genders, it is mostly in fandom.

A part of it seems to be that if two people are close but not romantically there must be a good reason why they can’t be attracted to each other, such as not being attracted to that gender or seeing each other as family, which is fine, but people can be just not attracted to each other without a specific reason, I think that’s how a lot of friendships work.

I think it’s also connected to the thing where people nuclear family roles on characters and think of found family as being like a nuclear family with specifically designated roles. Just in general having to put all relationships into specific constrictive boxes with hard set roles and definitions. And this really seems to link  in with amatonormativity to me.

I think in a way friendship is one of the broader relationship types and can mean a lot of different things, and I don’t know, maybe people don’t like that. I might be wrong about this bit, I don’t know it’s just a thought. But in general friendship is probably a lot more common a relationship than some of the others mentioned, and a lot more variable, but I think  it gets ignored more in fandom spaces than other types of relationship.

it's so easy to deny yourself basic things, like food and sleep, in order to punish yourself. but you deserve better. you deserve tasty foods that make you smile, to sleep in and go to bed early, to be warm and cozy. you never have to "earn" that. you deserve all of that and more just by existing. you're allowed to be kind to yourself. kindness is brave.

Jenny Slate, Stage Fright (2019)

shout out to lesbians for being lesbians. keep on lesbianing

blue period— ch 1, ch 10, ch 25 / marie howe

i think the worst part of the internet now and its foreseeable future is the idea that you don’t even have to put in the work and have the curiosity to search for content- that it will simply come to you based on your ‘preferences’. except the end goal is to manufacture your preferences and make sure you have as few unmarketable ones as possible.