fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4774 ]

[ SECRET POST #4774 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4774 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

[World of Warcraft]

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02.

[Yuri on Ice and Sailor Moon]

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03.

[The Untamed, Jiang Cheng]

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04.

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05.

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06.

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07.

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08. [WARNING for incest]

[Annie]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #683.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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02. https://i.imgur.com/frTQw9Z.jpg
[Yuri on Ice and Sailor Moon]

...Didn't the two in Yuri on Ice literally get engaged though?

Damn, what's the standard for "being canon" these days?

Yes and no? It sure reads like an engagement, but they spin it using ice skating metaphors. The extremely obvious romantic gesture is very clear, but if you take what they say literally, there's no words that propose marriage.

It might be the case that Yuri really is all distorted thinking due to competition anxieties and he might not have actually thought through his gesture to exchange rings with Victor to the point of mentally processing it as an engagement to be married. Since it's never outright discussed, you have to fill in the gaps yourself. But either way, it's an extremely romantic scene and it's crazy to no-homo it just because it doesn't spell it out.

People legit think that if they're not kissing (sight-line unimpeded) on-screen and blatantly saying "YES. THIS IS MY BOYFRIEND TO WHOM I AM ROMANTICALLY AND SEXUALLY ATTRACTED. JUST SO WE'RE CLEAR, I REITERATE--" that it's not canon. Never mind that it's rare even for het anime couples to not have a kiss shown off-screen or talk about each other that way...

I hate how much unrealistically higher the bar is for gay canon couples in fandom, because lbr it's just another excuse to tear down queer expression *shrug emoji*

da.

or how canon gay couples get torn to shreds for every tiny thing they do, bc if they aren't ~P-E-R-F-E-C-T~ then they're Bad Rep!!!!

Not to be That Person, but during the show's run and immediate aftermath, it was ABSOLUTELY ambiguous, both about what was put on screen and in how TPTB talked about it. I don't know if they've changed their tune since, but the most touching anime moment of 2016? According to the head writer, it was "up to interpretation" whether they kissed or hugged.

If we're doing comparisons to Sailor Moon: Kunzite and Zoizite never had to make out in order to make it blatantly, indisputably clear that they were a couple. Yuri and Viktor, though, make bedroom eyes at each other and exchange GOOD LUCK CHARMS FOR SURE NO HOMO in front of a church, and every time it seems like it is going to adress the elephant in the room, it veers off into some variety of "I love him but not like in a gay way". Sure, the show was not subtle about its target audience and it left no doubt about what it wanted us to ship, but the way that relationship is depicted is just... very, very weird, from a storyteling perspective. (but makes rather more sense in the context of the rest of the fanservice that made up like 30% of the show)

+1

I seriously don't get why people can't understand this.

Yup, THIS.

i think i'd be less annoyed if it hadn't been hailed as 'THE BEST GAY-REP IN ANIME' when... other shows, even years ago, have done better and more explicitly.

YOI is fine for me as addition to LGBT stories in anime, not as the pinnacle of it. and that's what i wish people understood.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2020-02-01 03:53 (UTC) - Expand

+1

(Anonymous) - 2020-02-01 05:05 (UTC) - Expand

I've only watched this anime once, so I could be wrong, but didn't Viktor became Yuri's trainer because the latter was flirting with him when drunk some years ago ? I ship/'ve shipped a lot of "could be canon/could be fanon ships" and have always leaned towards the sceptical side of shipping. But, with this couple, I've never questionned if they were or not canon. They seemed very obviously infatued with each other. And they're not even one of my ships (I like them, don't get me wrong, they're sweet. I'm just not interested in them outside of the show and maybe, of some amvs. But that's just because I love amvs).

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2020-02-01 05:29 (UTC) - Expand

Yeah, and that's exactly why I think of Haruka/Michiru when people talk about why Victor/Yuuri isn't canon. Haruka and Michiru never kissed or said "We're girlfriends, who are dating, and in love." But I've never ever met anyone who didn't think they were one of the most quintessential canon queer relationships in anime, emphasis very much on the "canon."

nayrt

They did say they loved each other, and implied it in a sexual way. Or at least in a way that connoted romantic intention. We got perspective from both sides where it was reciprocated. Their relationship was not built upon fanservice, it was meant as the genuine article. Unlike the poorly written drivel between Yuri and Victor.

Re: OP

(Anonymous) - 2020-02-01 19:32 (UTC) - Expand

the only thing i'll give ppl that say they 'aren't together' is that the show's dialogue wrt them and their relationship is weirdly vague, BUT, this doesn't by any means make it 'no-homo' since they are very clearly in love and attracted to one another. there's a lot of scenes that aren't at all subtle.

fandom just seems to want all canon gay couples, but especially m/m, to be making out every scene they share otherwise it's 'not canon' or 'queerbait'. it's fucking exhausting.

Okay, I really totally get what you're saying. Also, I would never call a couple "not canon" or "queerbait" if there's no on-screen smooches but they're as obviously together as in the OP.

BUT

I still want to see the make outs. All the make outs. In every scene. Please and thank you powers that be.

ayrt.

whatever floats your boat, but personally when canon ships are nothing but make-outs i get bored and loose interest. i need the emotional connection above everything else or i stop caring. so this means by necessity that they can't make-out all the time bc they've got to interact like normal ppl for me. not just two dolls being smushed together, i've got porn for that.

That Victor and Yuri look, tho... ugghh. They are so in love. I can't with the deniers, Victor and Yuri are overflowing with absolute infatuation for one another and it's what drives them throughout the entire story. No, they didn't say "we're boyfriends now and have sex on the regular!" but my god. They are so damn in love.

I think a lot of us see this show's fanbase and get tired of it being hailed to the skies as 'canon gay' representation, when we remember similar series like Weiss Kreuz or Yami no Matsuei which had plenty of subtext and ran on that, and the subtext was part of the fun. But nobody would call either of them BL. They were pretty much made to be subtext-heavy and geared towards fans who would ship and slash the pretty boys, without being bound by canon tops/bottoms or love interests.

If we didn't already have Gravitation, Patalliro(Way back in the 80's!) and other explicitly BL anime, I could have accepted it as 'Canon gay' the same way I see Lawrence of Arabia or Brideshead Revisited as canonically gay stories. As it stands, it's a subtext heavy show made for an audience that likes subtext and freedom to ship how they please(which is a feature, not a bug). It's not a show that I would rec someone looking for canon gay, as little as I would rec 'Bend it like Beckham' to someone looking for films featuring lesbian love stories.

Er. BL is a genre unto itself. All BL is gay but not all gay media is BL in Japan. YOI and YNM and probably even out-there media like Loveless include m/m romance without being BL. On the manga-only side of things, Sasaki to Miyano is a BL manga in everything but name, as the author is explicitly eschewing the label and lampooning the bad tropes while giving us a great slow, romance that’s finally paying off :)

Now hang on, you can't list BL anime as evidence of how Yuri on Ice wasn't explicit enough. BL has traditionally been its own genre - explicitly romance targeting women.

I agree there's some crossover of genre tropes in subtext-heavy anime. Whether it's because of a reasoning that "gay sells" to fangirls or a genuine intention to make nuanced, intimate relationships, who knows. Homoeroticism is especially prevalent in sports anime. A year or two before Yuri on Ice, Free! Iwatobi Swim Club popularly seemed ultra gay.

But Yuri on Ice just isn't on that level. It's simply way too explicitly intimate - if not explicitly visual - about the relationship between the characters. They kiss - even if it's semi-obstructed, it's obvious enough. The romance is far more clearly built into the narrative.

I agree that there are other shows out there that are way more clear about what's going on and don't hide behind metaphors. There are even a couple non-BL genre anime that do this. No. 6 and Shin Sekai Yori are ones that come immediately to mind, though it's worth noting canon gay relationships are still really rare in anime outside of BL. That being said, Yuri on Ice does extend beyond mere subtext and yaoi-goggles, and I don't think it's fair to downplay what it is in terms of a gay relationship.

As the person who made the 'Yuri/Victor is not canon' comment on the secrets you're too lazy to make page, the relationship in Sailor Moon is much more canon than Yuri and Victor ever was. I haven't watched SM in forever, but their relationship was intended and reciprocated. Usagi has a huge crush on Uranus, even after she finds out she is a girl, and even that is more canon than Y/V, because her crush is acknowledged by the story.

Victor and Yuri are played up as much as physically possible, the entire show is meant to make the fangirls go crazy, but as soon as things get too heavy they dial it back completely with Yuri's flailing and misunderstanding. It's just how the show is.

I don't think you actually watched Yuri on Ice. They get engaged!

No they didn't. Yuri bought the rings as a token to get Victor to not be mad at him after all he did was whine and complain the entire time they were out in the city together. He did not realize they were engagement rings, he literally said as much and was surprised and denied it when people pointed it out. Victor makes a general statement about it which Yuri continues to splutter at and deny. It's done for fangirls to squee about and get off to, not done as a token of them actually being in any sort of relationship.
You people sure are blind when you want to be, like seriously.

Are you kidding with this Yuri and Victor's relationship *wasn't* intended and reciprocated?

What was dialed back, Yuri's awkward reaction to everyone seeing the rings? Oh, please.. There was no "flailing and misunderstanding" post-kiss, or when Yuri was in narrative skating erotically for Victor, or any of the body language, embraces, etc.

You seriously have a double standard.

Yuri was skating for his love of pork cutlet. He thinks about the food, not Victor every time he skates, he doesn't even respect Victor as a person or a coach enough to actually listen to anything he says. Never actually talks to Victor about basically anything, which is why we never get to see Victor's POV. Something halfway essential in a romantic relationship.
There was no 'flailing and misunderstanding' post-kiss because there was no kiss. We see Yuri overreact to /everything/ over the course of the show, he would be doing the same if he had kissed Victor. But he doesn't because all they do is hug.

It can't be a double standard when one interpretation is no more based in canon than the other.

Of course this goes back to the problem that people still feel they have to play games with lgbtq that they wouldn't with het, which makes gratuitious "no homo" moments obligatory for all the platonic relationships.

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