The official Animal Crossing: New Horizons guide revealed the relationship between Flick and C.J.

[seliph]

So, if I live with my husband and another person in the same house, it is automatically assumed that the other friend is our partner in a polyamorous relationship?

Relationships of all kinds are complicated and assuming really specific things can just get everyone in trouble.

that's not what i'm saying at all lmao "your partner should be your friend" =/= "your friends should be your partner"

 

[Rave]

I mean, this whole mess wouldn’t have started in the first place the said people weren’t projecting themselves on the said characters and spouting their head canon as a fact. Partner or business partner makes no difference as both mean someone you work with. CJ refers Flick as his partner when you request a model trough him as he acts as the middle man of the deal by delivering the request to Flick and mailing it to you the next day and they both are event organizers. So in overall context it does make sense for him to refer him as a partner because they work together. Honestly, it sounds like huge overreach to imply that Nintendo would make a double meaning for LBGT people, when that was not the case at all. But you know, you can believe it and if it makes you happy, then ok.

This keeps getting repeated in this thread- "Headcanons are ok, but not when people act like it's fact!" What exactly qualifies someone as saying their head canon is fact? Every random tweet that says "oh haha theyre gay" doesn't need to come with a giant "WARNING! THIS POST IS A JOKE! I KNOW THEY ARE NOT A CANON COUPLE!" disclaimer at the bottom to not be read as fact. Or are headcanons fine as long as you never publically share them?

 

[Faux]

Considering I feel I cannot even comment any further without being labeled homophobic, and the reason this topic was started was effectively " guess they aren't gay, so y'all are wrong! " I feel like this thread needs to be closed soon for the hostile environment it's promoting.

 

[Saaga]

No, this whole mess wouldn't have happened if people could just understand that no one was "spouting a head canon as fact." No one was trying to make you believe that Flick and CJ are dating. In fact, this entire thread was started as an "I told you so!" to people who had a harmless headcanon about these two characters. The problem isn't LGBT people projecting themselves and sharing their headcanon with other likeminded people, the problem is when people take it out of context, take it to mean that we're shoving something down their throat when that's never what we're trying to do. The problem is when ignorant people tell us we're not allowed to believe what we want to believe because it's not family friendly, or it's too much of a reach. Please stop being condescending when you're still ignorant to the fact that no one is trying to shove a headcanon down your throat.

We wouldn’t have had video game journalists write them as something alone the lines of ”Nintendo’s first gay couple” on their articles if that view wasn’t forced in some way or, how do I put it, wanted to be seen that way by some fans. It would have been exactly that, harmless, if some vocal but loud minority didn’t try to force it as a canon on Twitter or Tumblr or in social media overall.

And by forcing it as a canon, I mean that they make posts like ”NINTENDO CONFIRMED THEY ARE CANON! THEY ARE GAY!” They don’t even say or specify that is their personal headcanon, but as a fact. I have no problem with headcanons, because they are just that, headcanons.

 

[Rave]

We wouldn’t have had video game journalists write them as something alone the lines of ”Nintendo’s first gay couple” on their articles if that view wasn’t forced in some way or, how do I put it, wanted to be seen that way by some fans. It would have been exactly that, harmless, if some vocal but loud minority didn’t try to force it as a canon on Twitter or Tumblr or in social media overall.

And by forcing it as a canon, I mean that they make posts like ”NINTENDO CONFIRMED THEY ARE CANON! THEY ARE GAY!” They don’t even say or specify that is their personal headcanon, but as a fact. I have no problem with headcanons, because they are just that, headcanons.

The media twists things all the time, constantly, every single day. "Media lies because they're FORCED TO" is quite the bold take. The video game media reported on it (and exaggerated, as media is prone to do) because it was a popular headcanon. We keep getting back to the main point which is that LGBT people can't innocently headcanon anything without being presumed to be LITERALLY FORCING THEIR IDEAS DOWN PEOPLE'S THROATS. Expecting every single person who ever writes a headcanon to include a disclaimer that they know it isn't a fact is... ridiculous.

 

[Faux]

sorry to say again ( but i had someone help me formulate what i mean ):
my take is not that it's being forced on anyone, i just don't like that there are people, even just since my previous post, that are giving back pats and interpreting partner as ambiguous, when they even directly said ' business partner ' in the guidebook, and also flick never even mentions cj.

it's one - sided as hell. if i hadn't met cj before i met flick, i never would have known they knew each other to begin with ...

it's not ambiguous.
it was not intentionally placed to give lgbt+ people hope.
it's not a step forward.

nintendo still has problems and they shouldn't be given credit where it isn't due.

that's my entire point.

 

[driftwoodisle]

this entire thread took 10 years off my lifespan lmao

 

[Saaga]

This keeps getting repeated in this thread- "Headcanons are ok, but not when people act like it's fact!" What exactly qualifies someone as saying their head canon is fact? Every random tweet that says "oh haha theyre gay" doesn't need to come with a giant "WARNING! THIS POST IS A JOKE! I KNOW THEY ARE NOT A CANON COUPLE!" disclaimer at the bottom to not be read as fact. Or are headcanons fine as long as you never publically share them?

I don’t think you understand what I’m saying, can’t speak for others you may be referring to and you are overreacting a bit. So to simplify, a headcanon is your own personal canon which may differs from actual canon as it has elements, story, characters etc. not present in the actual continuity, but inside your mind. So people understand when you mention or refer something as your headcanon, that it’s YOUR personal idea of the subject or character that exists only in your head and therefore doesn’t actually affect the actual canon in anyway. The key is how you present it.
For example, X and Y are non-canon couple in the actual canon, but two fans want to imagine them as a couple and here is how they present the idea: ”My headcanon is that X and Y are a couple.”<— Straight to the point and clear.
vs. ”X and Y are canon, sorry I don’t make the rules.” <—which is their headcanon, but it is poorly and unclearly presented that may confuse the reader because they can’t tell if the writer is presenting their idea as a fact and which can cause misunderstandings. No, you don’t need to put any disclaimers unless you want to/ feel like to, just make sure that reader understands that what you are sharing as a headcanon is presented as headcanon and not some opinion or idea that is not canon as canon.

 

[axo]

when someone says "X and Y are canon, sorry I don't make the rules" they're making a joke. I just wanted to clarify that, I know sometimes joking doesn't come across well through text, but it's a joke. A lighthearted joke that I think people have every right to make. Just like when someone posted earlier in the thread that Flick and CJ were "mega gay" it was a joke. Obviously they ship Flick and CJ, but it was a joke since we all obviously know what the article says at this point.

 

[Rave]

We wouldn’t have had video game journalists write them as something alone the lines of ”Nintendo’s first gay couple” on their articles if that view wasn’t forced in some way or, how do I put it, wanted to be seen that way by some fans. It would have been exactly that, harmless, if some vocal but loud minority didn’t try to force it as a canon on Twitter or Tumblr or in social media overall.

And by forcing it as a canon, I mean that they make posts like ”NINTENDO CONFIRMED THEY ARE CANON! THEY ARE GAY!” They don’t even say or specify that is their personal headcanon, but as a fact. I have no problem with headcanons, because they are just that, headcanons.

Been said, but when people say that... they're joking. People who make jokes on the internet are in no way obligated to word their posts to make sure that you know it's a joke. Making a joke and not making sure that every single person who reads it knows it's not real does not mean you are forcing people to believe what you believe, or lying with the specific intent to make people think these cartoons are gay.

 

[MayorMudkip]

okay so i wasn't going to respond in this thread again but someone referred to a point i made and i want to clarify my position!

Several people in this thread, joking or not, have said the developers/localization team " knew what they were doing " when they used the term partner, as if the word is exclusively romantic, and it's some wink - wink that they'd use it. It's also been purported many other places by people who want to force the idea they're a couple.

hi, i'm one of the people who said this! i stand by what i said, which is that the NOA localization team knew what they were doing by using the word "partner". my point was not that they thought the word was "exclusively romantic" or even that they were trying to wink to the audience, but simply that as people whose literal job it is to understand the nuances of language, that they would fully understand that using the word "partner" would mean some english-speaking people in the region they're localizing for (where one of the most commonly used meanings of the word is as an allusion to a romantic relationship, usually but not exclusively between two queer people) would read it that way. with that in mind:

it's one - sided as hell. if i hadn't met cj before i met flick, i never would have known they knew each other to begin with ...

it's not ambiguous.
it was not intentionally placed to give lgbt+ people hope.
it's not a step forward.

nintendo still has problems and they shouldn't be given credit where it isn't due.

i completely agree with you that nintendo shouldn't be given credit for this, centuria. i do believe the use of the word "partner" is ambiguous, deliberately so (as someone else pointed out earlier, if they'd meant "roommate" or "business partner" or "friend", without intending any room for ambiguity they would have said have had cj say any of those things). it's unusual for nintendo to not be extremely specific when it comes to shutting down interpretations of their characters as queer, so this is definitely a deliberate choice in some way, and i can say with 99% certainty, with nintendo's publishing standards being what they are, that the use of the term would at least have come up in a discussion at some point before making it into the final game.

that being said, whether this is a case of queerbaiting, queer localizers trying to sneak in some gay content (and as i've said previously in this thread, those things are not mutually exclusive), or something else, nintendo absolutely does not deserve any sort of credit for it. hell, even if this was a good-faith, legitimate attempt at queer representation that backfired, they still wouldn't deserve any sort of credit, obviously, because one throwaway line with this much room for interpretation is obviously not actual queer representation in any sense. i am completely against megacorps like nintendo and disney trying to claim credit they did not earn for their measly, pathetic attempts at "representation". if people want to view flick and cj as a gay couple, more power to them, and i think there's more than enough suggestion in the text to allow for that to be a legitimate view beyond simply "headcanon", but that doesn't mean it's good representation, and i don't think i've seen anyone suggest that in this thread (which is a very pleasant surprise; if i see one more person praising gigantic corporations for putting in possibly-gay-blink-and-you-miss-them background characters one more time i'm going to scream).

i certainly will go on viewing flick and cj as a gay couple -- again, not because i'm a shipper (i wouldn't consider myself a part of any fandom) or eager to see my headcanon validated, but simply because 1) i think there's enough in the text to support that view, 2) because it's pleasant for my gay little heart, and 3) because it probably makes a lot of people at nintendo (and on the internet at large) angry/uncomfortable that i see them that way (and i love making those particular people angry/uncomfortable).

no disrespect at all meant by any of this, and i gotta say i really appreciate how mostly civil this thread has been thus far. the nature of representation (and what counts as good vs. bad representation) is a thing that warrants serious discussion, despite what some very vocal people online would have us believe, so i appreciate that everyone is keeping best intent in mind in this thread.

 

[Faux]

if they'd meant "roommate" or "business partner" or "friend", without intending any room for ambiguity they would have said have had cj say any of those things

they did specifically say business partner in the guide, tho.

i just wanna clarify in general i'm totally cool with the ship, and think it's pretty cute.
but it was not left ambiguous for people to ship. everyone's making a word mean something more than it is...
it literally says business partner in the guide.

c.j. is like a hyperactive teenager/very young adult ... i don't think him saying business partner would fit his persona.
it doesn't mean it's not implied. idk.

 

[Saaga]

Did you join the site just to call LGBT people delusional
We aren't "shippers" honey we know Gay lingo when we see it Because we use it and hear it in our day to day life.

Also if you truly wish to go for the "Definition" route I'll have you know you are very wrong my dear.
As my lovely friend google so kindly brought up for me here are the official definitions. #2 will shock you!

1. either of a pair of people engaged together in the same activity.
   "arrange the children in pairs so that each person has a partner"
2. either member of a married couple or of an established unmarried couple.
   "she lived with her partner"

No, I never said that _the LBGT people_ are delusional, stop misinterpreting my words. I was merely annoyed at a vocal but loud minority of people who claimed that CJ and Flick are canon couple, when it was evident that was not the case. Not aimed specifically people here at all, this happened to be the place to vent out. And no, I didn’t join the site to call people, but because I wanted to take part in the topics. This happened to be my first topic to take part in and currently the most used one, because people keep sending me replies and I reply back when I can after work. Understandably the topic is something that sparks strong opinions, so misunderstandigs opinion clashes are bout happen.

You must be a bit naive to think that’s the only definition of what partner is. And I didn’t really think you would copypaste the front page of google search. I give you Ö for effort. Let me expand your horizons a bit, no pun intended.
P.S. Do you honestly believe that Nintendo sends their players subliminal messages trough their games? Don’t you think you are going a bit overboard? I’m slightly concerned about you.

 

[axo]

You must be a bit naive to think that’s the only definition of what partner is. And I didn’t really think you would copypaste the front page of google search. I give you Ö for effort. Let me expand your horizons a bit, no pun intended.
P.S. Do you honestly believe that Nintendo sends their players subliminal messages trough their games? Don’t you think you are going a bit overboard? I’m slightly concerned about you.

the whole point of that user posting the dictionary entry for partner was to show that there *are* multiple meanings. that's the entire reason why anyone thought Flick and CJ were dating to begin with. no one thinks that the word partner exclusively refers to romantic partners, that's the reason we keep using the word ambiguous. the term partner is ambiguous, and that's where the headcanon came from. literally no one is denying that the word partner can refer to business partners, we're just trying to say that any word could've been used. hell, they could've said "business-partners" from the get-go instead of leaving it up to our imaginations until the companion book dropped. but they didn't. they used a word with multiple meanings and this is what happens when you leave ambiguity in media.

 

[tybalt_cake]

why are y'all making a huge deal about this? , just ship them or not if you want to and move on.

 

[MayorMudkip]

they did specifically say business partner in the guide, tho.

i know, but i'm talking specifically about in-game dialogue. companion books/player's guides are written by an entirely different teams than localizations, typically long after the language used in in-game dialogue has already been approved. i've addressed this repeatedly at this point, but again i'll say that it's possible for the following to be true simultaneously:

1. for different languages to have different versions of canon;
2. for the NOA localization team to have been aware of the many meanings of the word "partner" when the word is used without a clarifying modifier (such as "business")
3. for the NOA localization team, being aware of this, to have chosen intentionally ambiguous language;
4. for the player's guide, written and approved by different people within nintendo (or by outside contractors), to offer one particular view of the intentionally ambiguous language chosen by the localization team (a view which, by the way, does not inherently negate a romantic perception of that language, since as other people have pointed out, you can be roommates/business partners with someone you're also in a romantic relationship with)

yes, it says "business partner" in the guide (a document that, statistically, most players of New Horizons will never see or own a copy of). but it says "partner" in the game. every detail that goes into a game, particularly one of this scale, with this level of budget, is deliberate, especially when the developer/publisher is as exacting as nintendo. that's my only point. if they wanted every english-speaking player of new horizons to understand with 100% certainty that flick and cj are absolutely not gay, they would have used different language in the actual game -- but they didn't. does that make it good representation, or representation at all, for that matter? no, as i've already said. but it is a deliberate choice to be linguistically ambiguous, which invites audience speculation.

 

[queentylerqueen]

this thread isn’t about shipping them, phrasing it as such would imply the relationship doesn’t exist canonically

 

[Faux]

but it is a deliberate choice to be linguistically ambiguous, which invites audience speculation.

I highly disagree because were I not in the LGBT+ community myself, partner rings extremely platonic to me due to my job in law.
Partner is used there as business partners in lawyers, police, etc.

It's way more commonly used to the average person as a business thing, or like the definitions above like paired off students having a partner, statistically.
You can certainly believe it was chosen to allow people to think this, but I think that that is an incredible reach considering the original connotation of the word.

I acknowledge many other instances it is used, including romantic, but as I stated, Flick does not even once mention CJ. It's too hard for me to see how it's viable to say anyone did this as a nudge that people could pick up on so much as, you know, finding a word that a character like CJ would use, because that's kind of important.

 

[queentylerqueen]

I highly disagree because were I not in the LGBT+ community myself, partner rings extremely platonic to me due to my job in law.
Partner is used there as business partners in lawyers, police, etc.

It's way more commonly used to the average person as a business thing, or like the definitions above like paired off students having a partner, statistically.
You can certainly believe it was chosen to allow people to think this, but I think that that is an incredible reach considering the original connotation of the word.

I acknowledge many other instances it is used, including romantic, but as I stated, Flick does not even once mention CJ. It's too hard for me to see how it's viable to say anyone did this as a nudge that people could pick up on so much as, you know, finding a word that a character like CJ would use, because that's kind of important.

To the average person (eg one not involved in the law business) partner has a romantic context, especially if it’s used between same-sex partners. It’s an incredible reach to say otherwise. If you’re going to cite statistics please actually cite them.

It’s a bit more than a nudge. The most simple reading of the dialogue is CJ giving what his relationship is to Flick— his partner. Do either of them look like lawyers, policemen, students, to you?

 

[MayorMudkip]

I highly disagree because were I not in the LGBT+ community myself, partner rings extremely platonic to me due to my job in law.
Partner is used there as business partners in lawyers, police, etc.

It's way more commonly used to the average person as a business thing, or like the definitions above like paired off students having a partner, statistically.
You can certainly believe it was chosen to allow people to think this, but I think that that is an incredible reach considering the original connotation of the word.

I acknowledge many other instances it is used, including romantic, but as I stated, Flick does not even once mention CJ. It's too hard for me to see how it's viable to say anyone did this as a nudge that people could pick up on so much as, you know, finding a word that a character like CJ would use, because that's kind of important.

You're right that the word "partner" has additional connotations in law and law enforcement. But I disagree that the "average person" doesn't know about the romantic meaning of the word. This is obviously anecdotal, but I recently had a conversation with my parents where we discussed how when my mom hears the word "partner" she assumes the inherent meaning is "romantic partner" -- as in, a synonym for "significant other", regardless of the gender of the person using the word, unless otherwise specified. My dad has been a lawyer for many decades; my parents are both cisheterosexual people and are not any more or less more familiar with elements of queer culture than your "average" boomer cishets (other that what my best friend/platonic life partner and I have taught them with our gay little ways).