( No Title )
I’m going to be brutally, bluntly honest and vulnerable for a moment.
I don’t have any positive familial connections. I don’t have any mothers or fathers, or sisters or brothers or aunts or uncles or cousins who were supportive, or caring, or loving, open or gently teasing to me.
That’s why I don’t understand at all what people are feeling when they say “I can’t ship them, they’re like siblings!” or “he’s like a father to her” etc.
I can’t look at a relationship between two characters– who are not blood related– who are supportive, caring, loving, dependable, open or gently teasing and see a relationship that somehow feels romantically taboo.
I look at a relationship that is caring, loving, open, teasing, comfortable, etc and I see romance.
I genuinely don’t have a yardstick to evaluate what people are seeing when they see a relationship like that and it makes them uncomfortable to ship because it reminds them of their family. I don’t know what that feels like.
And that’s why I ship so many things that people call “sibling coded” or “found family” etc. Because I don’t look at them and see family.
I look at them and I see the people who saved me from my family.
I guess what I’m saying is that whether or not you see two characters as having a ‘sibling dynamic’ is based on your own experience of siblings, and not an objective measure of a relationship type.
When I see someone say that they are disgusted by the idea of shipping two characters because they are “like family” it’s genuinely confusing to me.
It’s alienating and bizarre to me because to me they are saying that they feel like a relationship that is emotionally close, intimate, supportive, teasing– can’t be romantic.
I look at them like they have two heads because it feels like they are saying that the expect or desire a romantic relationship that is emotionally distant or unsupportive.
People are really out here getting their emotional needs met by their family in ways I only get by my romantic partners, I guess.
This is really interesting bc like. Any loving relationship, platonic, familial, romantic, whatever, can be teasing, close, supportive, gentle, all those things. What anyone interprets that as in characters is really subjective and based on your own experiences and also sometimes what you need in that moment. I’m kind of the opposite where I’m much more prone to seeing relationships as platonic (though not usually familial) than romantic and I get kinda miffed at the “there’s no platonic explanation for this” memes bc I love my friends and my family so much, the idea that for example if two characters look at each other particularly lovingly it must be romantic annoys me
I guess the takeaway is really just that any way we view a fictional relationship is really subjective and it’s all valid – that’s why it’s fiction there isn’t really one right way to interpret this stuff.
Discussion ¬