#the dating app experiment

[houseofcucci]

They’ll text you once a day like they’re taking their daily vitamins

[crabsnpersimmons]

"Hellooooo, sailors! You've travelled long and hard, why not kick your feet up and rest with me? I'll sing us a little song."

meet Echo! my new Eclipse OC! she used to be a performer on a luxury cruise ship (and this was one of her outfits!) but now she works as the front desk/security at an office building. a free-spirited bot with the confidence to boot, she lives life on her own terms—to the fullest.

some other facts about her:

she stands at 8'5" (same height as Clip! i realize this is my default Eclipse height haha)

her voice claim: HWASA Don't: "I don't care who you are, don't make me cry. I don't care who you are. I don't care who you are, don't make me lie."

however, there are moments when she sings that a second voice seeps in to harmonize: Whee In Watercolour: "I'm gonna raise me up, I want more colours for me. Now, just pick anything, ah!"

her "hair" is made up of wires that she plugs into the back of her faceplate! she changes them up often.

she hates it when people touch her hair, partly because they get tangled and partly from a bad past experience

she loves eating and can handle a lot of spice

she dates around, she finds humans entertaining, especially when they can pay for her meal

also tagging @starriegalaxy because she wanted to be tagged and i took that as an invitation to share the Echo brainrot with her right before her meeting today (wishing you the best, jestie!)

[eliounora]

how does one meet people to date when you have 3 friends and you've already met their 3 friends. there should be a dating app that doesn't make you want to dive into a thornbush

[fallloverfic]

Thinking about how people assuming Seth isn't into men is also a big reason why Osiris is an idiot, and Ra called Osiris out on that line of thinking in S02E78. In fact, she calls him, "Arrogant, foolish Osiris" (among other things) for this. Like that just happened in canon and I guess folks slept through that episode because people keep insisting he only loves Nephthys/is straight/can't like men.

Like people say "Seth isn't gay" and I think that's fair, but I don't think he's het, either. He doesn't evince interest in women generally. Osiris assumes Seth does because Osiris doesn't understand love. To him, Seth must be into goddesses solely because they can have babies.

Osiris does not comprehend that it isn't Nephthys' gender that attracts Seth to her: it is herself as a person. Osiris has no regard for that. He does not fathom Seth as a complex person with agency. To Osiris, "to love someone is to expect something from them." (S01E49). He catalogues people into capabilities: if I could provide the same things for Seth, Seth would love me. This disregards any relationship Seth might have with Osiris, Nephthys, or anyone else. He stole Seth's seed for who knows how many years. He removes Seth's agency in many ways.

This is a really common romance trope with the obsessive non-partner: "I'm better looking, I can provide more/the same, why do you love [love interest] and not me?"

Because the person they're pursuing has agency and love is complicated. This thinking ignores that. It treats people as goals to be reached or objects to be won.

Osiris sees no issue with this, despite his alleged wisdom, because "love" as he understands it, is "a selfish emotion that feeds on personal gain." (S01E49). Osiris is being selfish, and he'll do whatever he has to, destroy whoever and whatever he needs to, in order to achieve the object of his desire that is Seth. As Ra says, Osiris is "a rotting fruit" who "rot[s] those around" him. (S02E78).

So far as we can tell, Seth isn't in love with women generally. The only other woman to whom he potentially showed any sexual advances was maybe Isis? (Seth to Isis, "I had asked you to sleep with me." S01E39). But we don't actually know how he framed that offer/request when he tried to get her to join him in revenge, let alone if he actually wanted to sleep with her or just wanted to get revenge on Nephthys and/or Osiris, or if he just convinced himself that's what he was asking Isis to do and that's part of why Isis rejected him. We do know he's in love with Nephthys (S01E49). Or was in the past. Lately, he cares for Horus. I would argue he's demi-bisexual or demi-pansexual, but also isn't a person who's into labels. Not everyone is. Queerness is a spectrum.

Yes, he calls relations between male humans disgusting in a spur of the moment thought in S02E36, and that's sort of it. Seth generally thinks ill of humans, and he's not given to think kindly of Horus at the time, either. That's also not definitive. He changes (S02E70). He also would not be the first person in existence to internalize bigotry that would possibly target himself. Plenty of marginalized people are/act bigoted against their own people/themselves. At the time, Seth was also ill and trapped in a stronghold of people who hate him, safe on the kindness of humans. There are so many reasons that he might respond weirdly or not in a way that reflects his entire state of mind about his own wants. No one was asking him, "Are you gay?" or even "Would you date and/or fuck a guy if you had a chance?" Horus was carrying on a facade to fool Hanekate in a complex situation that Seth hated for many reasons, and Seth was understandably shocked.

I don't think he likes men generally. I think his body reacts to things (Osiris, Foreign God), as bodies tend to, which doesn't necessarily mean anything about his sexuality. But his being into Nephthys also kind of says nothing about his wants. He wants Nephthys. The person. Not a gender. His lack of being into a specific gender generally does not mean he solely likes women or cannot be into men or must be forced into it or something. He loves people on an individual level.

When he rejects Osiris, it's not because Osiris is male, but because Seth cares platonically for Osiris solely as a brother and monarch.

Osiris to Seth in S01E41: "What am I... ...to you? Am I just the king that rules over the land that you protect? Am I just your brother born from the same womb? What about besides that? Have you ever even thought of me as something more?"

Seth: "Why do you need to be more than that?"

Ra to Osiris in S02E78, "You think that Seth turns away from you because you are also a male god? And you think Seth desires female gods because of their power of creation? . . . If that is the conclusion you have come to, then it is proof that you are already breaking down."

It's all right there. It didn't need to be that overt because you can see it in the rest of the story, too, but the overtness is now there. Clear as day. Osiris' line of thinking about Seth's affections is wrong. And to imitate that is foolish.

It's Seth's deep love for individuals that allows him to open his heart to Horus (S02E70). Osiris and even Nephthys do not see Seth for who he is. Horus does. He refuses to forget. And that's why Seth cares for him, because it's Seth's deepest wish (S01E40-1).

In sum, assuming Seth loves Nephthys because she's a woman and this is the end-all statement about his sexuality/interests will get Ra to laugh at you just like she laughed at Osiris for assuming basically the same thing.

(Also assuming all protagonists and/or love interests in boys love stories have to be gay to have relationships with other men is really weird. Plenty of protagonists are bisexual, pansexual, undeclared, or questioning)

[hotdrinks]

i am about 95% sure I fall on the aromantic spectrum but i do think I would be less aromantic if twin peaks dale cooper was real and my boyfriend

[transsexualprophet]

skill issue

[bloomshroomz]

Imagine:

an aro-centric friend-finding/qpr/dating/hookup/etc. app called "Cupid's Aro"

[anjumstar]

Why Katsuki reads as queer coded.

Long before I shipped bkdk, Katsuki read as a queer character to me. Not meaning that Hori was assigning a sexual orientation to him but that he has qualities that parallel or make sense within the common narrative of the (western, I'm reading this through a western lens) queer experience. Here's why:

Disclaimer that this isn't to say that these traits make someone queer or that Katsuki is being intentionally written as queer, it's just reading Katsuki through a queer theory lens 👍

1. Perfectionism

Katsuki, if nothing else, is an incredibly hard worker. It's clear that in middle school, he worked to be at the top of his class. While he's a naturally intelligent and talented guy--as we see with his early skills in both sports and kanji in flashbacks--it's implied that he works for it. He doesn't have to work as hard as Izuku does, but it seems as though he works harder than, say, Todoroki does. I interpret this due to the way he berates his friends for underachieving in class. He knows that he's inherently smart, but he also knows that he achieves what he does via hard work, and so--as with Izuku in the flashbacks--he doesn't understand why his peers don't achieve the same.

Perfectionism is a classic queer-coded trait because it's a shield. If I'm otherwise perfect, no one can hate me for the thing that makes me different. It's a queer impulse to try and disguise "negative" traits with armor in the form of positive traits. You see this in people who are bullied becoming the class clown, for example, using comedy as their armor. If a queer person is afraid of not being loved for who they are, there's an impulse to be valued for what they can offer. This can manifest in overachieving and overcompensating so that they are never looked at with scrutiny, so that they can never be found out.

Katsuki makes himself scrupulous. He has an interest in maxing out every merit-based skill that he can so that he is no longer able to be scrutinized. He even takes advantage of popularity despite not liking people, as it's social capital and makes him more untouchable. He doesn't ever want anyone to look deeper than the skills that he offers. And when this strategy is interrupted, we see--

2. Anger

Anger comes from fear of vulnerability. In the context of the queer experience, this can easily be a reflex to keep people at a distance, as the perfectionism does, and a manifestation of repression. For Katsuki, it's both.

I don't think I need to put much explanation into how anger distances Katsuki from others. People's first impression is to fear him and then either avoid him or follow behind him. This collapses somewhat at UA, where people don't fear him, but it keeps him from forming bonds with people on any other basis than mutual respect. There's not a lot of intimacy like we see in, say, the early Todoroki + Iida + Izuku dynamics.

There's an argument to be made that Katsuki's explosive personality is a nature/nurture mix from his mother. That he's mirroring her behavior and that's basically it. No repression or fear involved. But we don't see enough of his parents/childhood to really spell that out. What we do get a good view of is his early desires from Izuku.

In those aforementioned flashback scenes, we see Katsuki not simply being confused when Izuku is unable to juggle a soccer ball, skip stones, or read kanji--Katsuki is upset by it. He's having strong feelings that he doesn't understand (not necessarily romantic! They're young!) and he covers them with anger. This continues through to middle school, when Katsuki is angry that Izuku is applying to UA, angry when they're paired against each other in the first partner exercise and Izuku has some success, when they're paired together for the final exam. These are BIG feelings and what for?

At first, Katsuki wanted Izuku to be on his same level, in the flashback scenes, and he was let down when Izuku wasn't. Then, after the river scene, Katsuki switches, and wants Izuku to be pushed down, to prove his own superiority in the face of Izuku's inherent goodness. This pairs his need to be perfect with an inability to face his admiration for Izuku. When he begins to see enviable qualities in Izuku, he represses those positive impressions. Whether or not you're reading bnha through a bkdk lens, there is repression here. Katsuki doesn't want to feel that there is something desirable about Izuku, that there's something he could be given by Izuku. That feels unsafe to his sense of self, and hence: anger. Anger, which is a trait also found in--

3. Masculinity

Masculinity is different culture to culture, and I'm not cultured enough to unpack the differences between western and JP representations of masculinity, so we're just gonna cast a wide net here.

Katsuki's parents are fashion designers, yet Katsuki pursues the absolute most violent career path that exists. And yes, this is because being a hero is the best (meaning very public to a young child with the trappings of fame and valor), and because his quirk is compatible with it, but that's not where the story ends.

All Might is Katsuki's role model. And yet, the persona Katsuki takes up is nothing like All Might's. As stated earlier, Katsuki is smart. He's smart enough to recognize that All Might is kind, friendly, generous, and likeable and that those are inextricable parts of his brand. And yet, Katsuki goes out of his way to instead be cold, mean, and unapproachable.

Again, wide net, but these are masculine traits. They keep a person closed off and inaccessible. They make it impossible to get close enough to really see a person. This is the same kind of shield that the perfectionism provides: armor against intimacy and scrutiny.

And, of course, the thing that a man can never be is weak. Weak is feminine. For a man, weakness is queer.

Katsuki's greatest fear seems to be being found out as weak. We begin to see him unpacking this, as he begins to admit to himself that Izuku is stronger than him, but, of course, we also see just how much work goes into him unpacking it. It only comes from honest self-reflection about himself, his bad defense mechanisms, and his relationship with Izuku. With introspection, he fears weakness less.

In conclusion

Queer theory is about heteronormativity and what it means when a person deviates from the norm into queerness. Katsuki's story in bnha is very much one of a character having many layers of armor to make him free from scrutiny, and slowly peeling those off to reveal his imperfections. This is the queer arc of a character being closeted, to a character coming out. Again, it's not to say that Katsuki is literally in the coming out process, it's to say that his narrative arc is a very queer arc, and it always felt that way to me. And, of course, as a bkdk, I see both those original closeting moments and the coming out moments as pretty much all being linked to fundamental interactions with Izuku.

Tbh, this theory is still a little half-baked. I don't know enough about queer theory, and I'm lacking a bit of cultural knowledge to give Katsuki the full breakdown. But before I had a single bnha ship, it was my impression that Katsuki was gay coded, and I've had these thoughts rattling around in my brain for over three years and I finally wanted to get them out (after a previous attempt that tumblr ate, rip). Maybe later on I'll do an analysis about who I think that Deku's experience is all about compulsory heterosexuality, hehe. Thanks for reading!

[ford-ye-fiji]

Idly looking up dating apps (as one does) and christian mingle is fifty dollars a month?

[imogenkol]

In a weird “longing for romance” mood…..hope I get well soon

[hangmanapologist]

yearning so bad i can feel it deep within my bones wondering why no one wants to pick me

[procyonis]

Does anyone have good lesbian dating app recommendations?

I’ve been torn because my last relationship really has fucked me up, but my therapist thinks going out and getting to know people would help me out.

[willowser]

willow everyone around me has a partner/fwb (we're in our 20s) and i'm still a virgin i feel so excluded 😔!! i want to have sex too i'm just scared and feel soooooo left behind. childish almost because i am an adult woman with a job and license and can legally drink and rent a car! grrrrr! and i know in my heart that it's silly to feel this way but i can't help it sometimes

oh my dear !!! 🥺 i think when we're surrounded by people that are involved in something that we're not apart of, it's very normal to feel excluded !! a lil' left behind !!! but 🥺 intimate relationships are not the same as hobbies or tv shows that our pals are into for the moment 🥺 and i think the fact that you do feel scared is !! v important !! and something that you should pay attention to !! 🥺🩷 regarding a vulnerable moment such as this, i think you would regret it more to rush into it with someone while you're scared, more than you would regret just waiting 🥺 until the time feels right 🥺

being a virgin does not equate to being childish, friend 🥺 you're right !! you're a grown ass woman with a job and a license !! that can drink and rent a car !! you're a multi-faceted human being 🥺 and you can't be narrowed down any one way !! 🥺 this is just another piece of you 🥺 and life is so different for everyone, you really can't compare yours or your experiences with others !! bc all that usually does is leave us feeling off-track, when really !! there is no track !!

it's not silly to feel this way 🥺 it's normal !! and i'm sure it will come and go and that's okay ! but know what's best for you 🥺 and if you're feeling a scared or unsure, it's so important to listen to that little piece of you ! 🥺

i am kissing you on the head friend ! and hoping that you don't feel pressured or left behind 🥺🩷✨️

[music-for-them-asses]

Quick question:

[squish--squash]

question for people who've been on dating apps seriously: how long did it take y'all to get a first match and how often did you match with someone bc either dating apps are abysmal in general or there is something seriously wrong with me.

[romantically-yours]

I just wanna go on dates with her