#homoerotic tension between them fr fr

[littlemmmonster]

OMG I'm sooo happy to see your feedback!!! Thank you I also have a lot of arts that I want to post and soo many that i haven't drawn yet!!

[friends-to-lovers-tournament]

Friends to Lovers Tournament: Round 3, Side A, Match 2

propaganda under the cut!

Polyneed:

Okay so they were childhood friends who wanted to form a band together, but slowly drifted apart after Saki fell ill and was admitted. They formed their band again after Saki joined the school. Originally, Shiho was the only one who wanted to go professional out of all of them and was offered to play with another band who was going pro, but she hesitated because she wanted to continue playing with her friends. HER DREAM WAS RIGHT IN HER GRASP BUT SHE STILL REFUSED. The rest of Leo/Need also decided to go pro with her even though they had no previous experience, just because they wanted to be with their friends. They're constantly encouraging each other and take really good care of each other. They mean sm to me fr 💙💙 Also, some gay ass lyrics from their songs:

Please don't think you don't matter, love won't end this easily- NeedLe

Even if I smile so that I don’t cry Even if I walk so that I don’t fall The words we hide will never be conveyed There’s only one future that we can envision, So let’s see it with our own eyes-  1 For your sake, I shall sing my weaknesses For your sake, I shall realize my hopes For your sake, I'm laughing today May these feelings of ours will resonate with someone's- Order Made Overflowing in my voice, in my thoughts The yearning that I entrusted to you- Voices It's painful and lonely to sing, but If it's with you, then I want to sing for the world- the WALL

They sing an awful lot abt feelings if you know what i mean

Fuyupoly:

Submission 1:

they're from the winter troupe of the mankai company, and unlike the other troupes they're all adults. that said, they all have varying degrees of trauma and emotional stuntedness. it takes them some time to fully open up to each other bc they're all very cautious of each other's boundaries and don't want to cross any lines which initially led to some issues in the group's formation. over time they've learned to bridge the gap while still being mindful of hard boundaries. at one point they have a discussion about what exactly their relationship is (gay) cuz they were talking about how the other troupes have clearly defined dynamics (spring=family, summer=besties, autumn=rivals & teammates) but they don't,, and homare deadass says they're "people bound by a common destiny" which in and of itself sounds very Gay (like why are you as a man bound to other men by a common destiny), but it goes even further because homare starts spouting WEDDING VOWS: "In sickness and in health, for better or for worse, we shall share our laughter and our tears as those with an intertwined fate... How beautiful we are!" THIS IS A DIRECT QUOTE FROM THE GAME AND THE MC EVEN REMARKS "i can already hear wedding bells in the distance..." 

gradually they become closer, in individual sub-units based on who's paired up as co-leads for a play, and as a troupe overall. also two of its members are childhood friends who had a messy 'divorce' in their young adulthood and it took the game breaking its genre to introduce a timeloop for them to finally make up if that means anything to you. one of their troupe songs "precious to us ~bokura no kisetsu" has some pretty beautiful and fruity lines: "The many kindnesses born in me here / Never fail to breathe life into my chest / Even all the pain and bitterness / Have now become dear to me (Ah…Stay with me)", "No matter how many times our season passes / Let us keep living together / Holding our hands, without ever letting go / Let us open up the curtain of tomorrow", "There is no need for words, because once our gazes meet / Joy sparks a light in your eyes", "Our journey, may it be a brilliant one / As our breaths overlap as one"

a lot of their plays has a LOT of homoerotic tension between the two leads too. their first play has tsumugi and tasuku play angels, and it's heavily implied that tasuku's character has an unrequited crush on tsumugi's character. their third play has azuma play a vampire and tasuku play Just Some Guy and it's generally agreed in the fandom to be one of the gayest, if not THE gayest, play A3 has ever written. obviously the vampire thing is very fruity, but there's also how the vampire was longing to bite the human but was holding himself back, and when the vampire left the human in the end, the human was absolutely HEARTBROKEN over it and was swearing they would reunite one day. the stage play of this takes it even further by having the vampire embrace the human from behind and BITE his neck. the fourth play is a watered-down adaptation of Phantom of the Opera where they genderbend Christine into Chris among other things and change the relationship between Chris and the Phantom to one of friendship.... ostensibly so, because there's still a lot of homoerotic undertones in their interactions. i could go on but this should be enough of a sampling taste 

Submission 2:

the writers rlly said "let's take 2 normal guys who are childhood friends and have been into theatre since their school days and have them go through a pre-canon messy divorce, an eccentric poet with a potentially controversial haircut, an amnesiac sleepyhead who can only be awoken with marshmallows but is also somehow extremely athletic despite doing nothing but sleeping and eating marshmallows all day, a man who is so beautiful and mysterious he breaks gender, and a supposed android from a fictional south asian country, and throw them into a blender, oh and for good measure let's throw in some theatre and angst and gay and angst and gay" and the end result was marriage. i mean it took them a lot of awkward fumbling around and conflicts to get there but they got there and thats what matters. ok *technically* in-text they're all rlly good friends and kinda found family BUT they are found family via marriage papers i do not make the rules chief

Submission 3:

The reason why they are so friends-to-lovers to me is because their relationship is founded on quiet and unconditional acceptance of each other—regardless of how flawed they may be or how heavy their burdens and trauma may be. When the troupe first formed (sans Guy who was in another country at the time), they didn’t have any major clashing personalities at the very beginning and generally they were mindful of each other’s boundaries, unlike the other troupes that came before them. However, it’s BECAUSE they were too mindful of said boundaries that it was difficult for them to break down their walls and bond as a team—and there were a LOT of walls to break down, as all of them had varying degrees of emotional baggage and trauma.

In fact, it’s only three plays in that they finally truly start opening up to each other, with Azuma getting the ball rolling by opening up about the deep loneliness that haunted him ever since his childhood. It’s during this conversation that they also discuss what their relationship as a troupe is, because the other troupes have defined their relationship as a team (Spring is family, Summer is best friends, Autumn is rivals & teammates), and Homare goes on to declare that they’re “people bound by a common destiny” and goes on to spew wedding vows: "In sickness and in health, for better or for worse, we shall share our laughter and our tears as those with an intertwined fate... How beautiful we are!" I mean… it can’t get any more obvious than this, really. They are married.

But anyway, Tsumugi says he wants their relationship to be one where while they respect each other’s need for space, they’ll also be there for each other and share their pains and burdens—or in his words: “supporting each other when our burdens become too heavy to bear on our own”—which I think is really sweet because it carries this idea of quiet, unconditional acceptance; they don’t push each other to share more than they’re comfortable with sharing, but with whatever they ARE comfortable with sharing everyone carries the load and pain because pain is easier to bear when you’re not bearing it alone <3 

A later part of the story focuses on Hisoka, a mysterious amnesiac, being terrified of regaining his memories and facing some “sin” from his past that has led to another character, Chikage, trying to take revenge on him. When he confesses this to the rest of the Winter troupe, Homare asks, “How heavy is this sin you bear?” and Azuma suggests, “Perhaps it’s just heavy enough for the five of us to carry together.” (at this point Guy hasn’t joined yet). The stage play adapts this scene into a song called Key to Memory. The key (pun unintended) part is 1:27 where there’s a back-and-forth between Hisoka and the other Winter troupe members (sans Tasuku because he wasn’t in that particular play)

Hisoka: “I’m scared…”

Tsumugi, Homare, Azuma: “It’s okay.”

Hisoka: “My unforgivable sin…”

Tsumugi, Homare, Azuma: “Let’s carry it together.”

Hisoka: “I might not be me anymore.”

Tsumugi, Homare, Azuma: “It’s all right. We understand and we accept you, so let’s go together.”

And it ends with Hisoka singing: “I was afraid to open the door of my locked memories. But if everyone is here, I believe I can do it.”  In both the game and stage play, Hisoka fully regains his memories and reconciles with Chikage (long story). He tells Fuyupoly he can’t go into detail about his past with Chikage because it’s dangerous but he’ll tell them when the time is right, and they accept this saying that no matter what his past is, they know and love him as their Hisoka which obviously is a very sweet thing for friends to say, but it’s also very Marriage-coded to me.

Later, Guy is introduced as an android from Zahra (a fictional South Asian country) and joins the Winter troupe as a temporary member—because he’s stuck in Japan for the foreseeable future—until they find a permanent member to replace him. The other Winter members have a conversation among themselves and agree that regardless of whether he’s really an android or a human they’ll accept Guy for who he is and help him improve his acting, which again harkens back to the idea of ‘unconditional acceptance’. Eventually it’s revealed that Guy is in fact a human who has forgotten his memories of the past and his emotions. He recovers his memories all at once which shocks his system and causes him to pass out. When he wakes up in his room, he finds the rest of the Winter Troupe asleep around the room—which I believe is symbolic of their whole theme of “quiet acceptance”: they don’t want to push Guy to share beyond what he’s comfortable with, but they’re always there to listen to him and share his load if that’s what he wants. He opens up about the memories he recovered, and they don’t treat him with pity like he’s a lost child, but still extend gentle empathy and understanding. They also emphasise that it genuinely doesn’t matter to them whether he’s human or android because he’s Guy first and foremost. It’s at this point that Guy truly lets himself become part of the Winter troupe/Fuyupoly and not just as a temporary stand-in member, because he’s found a place where he’s found himself again and people who will accept who this “himself” is, whether that be an android devoid of emotions or a human brimming with vivid beautiful emotions.

[Mod note: There’s a LOT more but we’re afraid of crashing the post. I (Deli) summarised it the best I can since I’m familiar with A3, but if you want to read the full thing you can check it out on this google doc)

[elizabethkitley]

”that's an interesting debate tbh i honestly have no idea at this point fhnkdhn it's just been really interesting to see the lowkey homoerotic tension between these two that's been going on for a while now”

this lowkey homoerotic tension between them is worse than a slow burn fr 😩 they’ve been dancing around this for a bit now and I feel like them being apart could make one of them crack at some point.

you can have that tension that everyone else sees with nothing going on…like that makes no sense. it’s gonna be funny if it’s one of Caitlin’s teammates that stands up though 😂

could be one of the gays on the team who calls it out with how close she is to them lmao

feel like if she were to confide anyone on there about the thing they have going on it'd be them

[guiltycorp]

@crimsongrimoire here: #okay honestly the last name part bugs me too#doesnt it STILL say on the wiki that a former alias was their last name#like what is your proof! cite your fucking sources!#literally somehow one of the worst wikis ive been interested in#so many sources of made up ass info are just like trust me bro#and the gross oversimplification of their dynakic#*dynamic jesus.#like idk you can prefer them platonically idgaf. just dont make shit up wholesale to sell a narrative that doesnt exist.#(...not to say klk enjoyers dont as well But. brother insisters are so much worse about it)#(so few genshin fans have reading comprehension at all fr)#its just such a mess. you can just Say you dont see them romantically. you wont die. i promise#no need to have 10 banners and 20 tags with posturing about how you want klk shippers to choke and die#when theres like Literally nothing Inherently Wrong with it#though people who say shit like 'yeah well it WOULD be hot if they WERE brothers so!'#you are not helping the cause#the 'making people mad on purpose for fun to make them look dumb' works so rarely and almost never over fandom nonsense#either way big agree op#fave#funnily this is the same kinda people who are all like AWWWW HIDDEN STRIFE WAS SWEET IT WASNT SAD AT ALL#and like completely misreading the tone of like All the letters esp those between kaeya and diluc#which is funny cause like Every post ive seen on the subject has been about Them and That part and how AWWW THEY KEPT I CONTACT?!?!#when.... the letters on both sides carry very palpable senses of tension from the wording and esp the brevity of dilucs#some very minor but painful details#and just in general all the letters in question like.. while it was nice diluc was getting support#it was in the WORST circumstance. its incredibly melancholy and bittersweet. like yes its nice to know everyone cares.#but also it was so avoidable. but also at the same time nobodys fault. even though both of them kick themselves for it#remembered my other point DILUC ONLY REPLIED TWICE. TO KAEYAS 9 LETTERS. THAT IS NOT KEEPING CONTACT!#there is no reason kaeya wouldnt have put any other letters from him with the others tbh unless theyre recent in which case#kinda irrelevant. thats not 'keeping contact' theyre in the same place now like Often.#ngl we have no indication if kaeya got those letters to him somehow or just left them for his return.

Literally like!! Genshin fandom has actually been one of the worse fandom experiences for me, and I think we can blame a lot of it on the game and its translation, but also it’s just so goddamn frustrating at times. That klc post was written before hidden strife but if anything the event further confirmed that their dynamic wasn’t ‘adopted siblings’ (despite eng translation as usual messing up everything including Kaeya’s opinion of their fight) and that Kaeya doesn’t view himself as a Ragnvindr. 

An AU where Kaeya would have been fully adopted could be potentially interesting, actually! Ragbros AU if you will. But for some reason people never really go for all the implications of that - how strongly it would influence Kaeya’s internal conflict and his abandonment issues, how Diluc would change his treatment of Kaeya, how differently another Ragnvindr progeny would be viewed in Mondstadt, would he succeed the Dawn Winery’s business, so many possibilities... But no, they simply take canon klc dynamic and twist it, ignoring all the discrepancies which point to a non-familial relationship. That tag is just one more annoying attempt at censure within fandom spaces, familiar to anyone who ever interpreted fictional relationships as homoerotic before (how dare you tarnish this beautiful brotherly or sisterly bond by your sinful delusions etc etc yawn). And big agree about Hidden Strife letters, they still represent the usual dynamic as is the norm for all those temporary events. But fandom sadly tends to go for extreme interpretations, either the characters totally hate each other or they are secretly totally fine and getting along splendidly... I guess maybe people are getting tired of this kind of one-sided relationship, so they want some kind of resolution one way or another, but I kind of like the place Kaeya and Diluc are in right now. It would be nice to get some more Diluc POV just to confirm whether he cares in a detached way or in a barely suppressed passionate & deep way, and/or if perhaps he does carry some hateful feelings towards Kaeya, but otherwise it’s just a really good starting off point for creating fan content.  Speaking only for myself, but it’s all the more bittersweet that there is a possibility that they won’t reconcile after all, that their paths might diverge, that their ideologies might already be irreconcilable without us knowing, that Diluc maybe doesn’t really care that much after all. With this in mind, positive outcomes such as reconciliation, a romantic relationship or a rekindling of friendship, are so much more impactful.