i did read your post, however people already picked apart the rest of it so i saw no point in doing so myself. Your paragraph from which i quoted from heavily implies that seeing two characters as romantic is equal to devaluing friendship when that is not the case and that's what i'm trying to point out. these conclusions, especially among lgbt fanbases, are usually drawn because their close friendship would make them a good couple. it is not a matter of throwing their canon relationship out the window.
The official Animal Crossing: New Horizons guide revealed the relationship between Flick and C.J.
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i did read your post, however people already picked apart the rest of it so i saw no point in doing so myself. Your paragraph from which i quoted from heavily implies that seeing two characters as romantic is equal to devaluing friendship when that is not the case and that's what i'm trying to point out. these conclusions, especially among lgbt fanbases, are usually drawn because their close friendship would make them a good couple. it is not a matter of throwing their canon relationship out the window.
are you, like... for real? I'm sorry, but how can you complain about gay people "forcing their opinion" on you when gay people have had heterosexuality forced on us for our entire lives? hell, the newest update is going to shove heterosexuality down our throats with the reese/cyrus stuff. but no, the problem is that the gays ship two (2) characters and the straights have a hard time relating to that! won't somebody please think of the poor straights!
Okay, now I'm getting where you're coming from. If you put it that way, it makes more sense. I didn't mean to say that seeing two characters as romantic is equal to devaluing friendship. What I meant is that assuming that a close relationship is always romantic in nature is a bit shallow in my opinion. That's an issue mostly unrelated to homosexuality. But that's the entire point of shipping, isn't it?
Again, it's completely fine if you're wording it accordingly like : "Oh, I think CJ and Flick would make a really cute couple." instead of "These two are so obviously gay for each other! He called him his partner, which is clearly a romantic term and everyone who disagrees with me is a homophobe!"
I never complained about gay people in particular. Please don't put words in my mouth. I would never give you a hard time for wanting a little bit of representation.
My issue was that this couple was very much hyped as romantic couple, based on a single word that isn't even explicit and that people were being ridiculed for disagreeing. I would have the same issue if, say, Flick was a girl, making this entire issue unrelated to homosexuality. I would still complain about people trying to justify their ship and devalue other opinions whitout having any confirmation that this is actually the case. This isn't about them being gay. This is about people trying to enforce their opinions on others!
I think I said enough. If I offended anyone with my posts I truly apologize. Please don't take this as a personal attack. I was just trying to provide a little bit og perspective.
Sorry if this has been answered: CJ just calls Flick his friend.
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I wish people would stop twisting and interpreting things to fit their agenda.
As a trans person, I've found people latching onto usage of they/them or just lack of someone being addressed with pronouns at all ( which is the case in Japanese anyway.. ) to be exhausting. I have cried when seeing actual honest representation in media before, I felt seen.
I do not feel seen by people giving undue credit for ideas, or forcing their ideals SO hard that they act like the idea and creation of the very character (s) they're head cannoning for belong to them. As a writer, it's this that makes me wary of getting myself to a point where I could publish anything.
I don't want English teachers trying to say I made a curtain blue because the scene is sad. I don't want people saying I had a character use a generally neutral nickname to secretly try out an NB or trans identity.
Sometimes, it just ain't that deep.
THAT SAID.
If you want to pretend, that's entirely okay!! I want people to have their hc ships, I want people to speculate how cute Francine and Coco would be as girlfriends.
But stop saying that ambiguity is representation. It isn't. They shouldn't be given credit for the most lazy thing they can possibly do. They don't deserve that, and people who need that rep do not deserve to be a towel that they wipe their hands on then tossed to the side because we've been fulfilled.
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i couldn't agree with this more, this was incredibly well said. I know before I mentioned how I chose to believe this was a (incredibly) subtle nod to LGBT people but that's just my really generous interpretation. That doesn't mean it's good representation, even if the ambiguity was intentional. I think my only point is that LGBT people should feel free to project themselves onto media and create representation for themselves without being attacked or belittled for it. (while also not needing to give unnecessary credit to companies and corporations for doing the absolute least amount of representation as possible)
Hot take: Who cares? Do I think Flick and CJ an official canon couple? Nope! Am I still going to read it that way because it's a game about cartoon animals and it hurts no one to think 2 of the cartoon animals are dating? Also yes! I just... don't get all the "You're calling people homophobic for not liking your ship!!!" stuff when 99% of the time I see arguments about this, it's one person going "haha fish man and bug man gay" and the other going "well nintendo CONFIRMED they aren't!!" as if that means anything. No one's questioning people because they don't agree that Flick and CJ are a couple, it's because of the amount of people incredibly angry that people might dare to go against canon.
Fair point, but I don't think a majority of people shipping this genuinely think this was intentional representation on the part of Nintendo. Who does it hurt to head canon stuff about characters? Who's trying to push an agenda and force other people to think they're a couple?
I have to say I LOVE the idea that flick just chooses to be red for the Aesthetic
Fair point, but I don't think a majority of people shipping this genuinely think this was intentional representation on the part of Nintendo. Who does it hurt to head canon stuff about characters? Who's trying to push an agenda and force other people to think they're a couple?
I have to say I LOVE the idea that flick just chooses to be red for the Aesthetic
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.
I said in my post I support headcanoning. I do not support letting devs swipe their representation achieved cards because fans want to insist this is absolutely canon and that the translators are pulling one over on the big boys who would otherwise apparently smack them on the hand and tell them no.
More issues with deciding words mean what you want them to. Not every minor disagreeance means every point someone has is wrong or is in disagreement with what you were saying. Not to call you out, or anything like that. But just to point out I explicitly underlined a headcanon for something that is obviously not canon. I never said anything was wrong with it, I never said anyone was being hurt.
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I definitely agree!
I just wish we didn't have to give props for cheap, lazy things like acting as if using 'partner,' which has well established history of NOT being in any connotation romantic, means they're totally feeding us the rep we need and deserve. ):
It's disappointing every time I see someone saying it's totally intentional and purposeful, because it makes me think, " it's come to the point where we'll take a word that doesn't mean ( x ), but we will MAKE it mean ( x ) just to feel seen! "
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Key word being jokingly, how many people really genuinely think that Family Friendly Nintendo tm would intentionally put a gay couple in their game? And does saying things like "forcing an agenda" and "forcing their opinions" and "twisting it to their agenda" not inherently imply that what they're doing is wrong...? If you aren't referring to headcanoners with that, who are you referring to?
I agree with you that Nintendo shouldn't be getting brownie points for representation when it clearly isn't there, but I'm not seeing the correlation between headcanoning that equaling giving them points.
This is exactly how I feel about Disney lately, barely even doing the minimum of representation, calling it "subtle" and then letting media outlets run about how great their non-existent lgbt undertones are. Its incredibly exhausting and disappointing. I'd really hate for other companies to pick that up and start a hardcore queer-baiting trend. Whether that's what nintendo intended to do, I don't exactly think so. But I still think we shouldn't give them a pat on the back for it. I'd really hate to reinforce this behavior further when we were finally making progress on being out in the open in media.
As much as I love and fully support the interpretation of them dating, we just need to keep this in mind.
Lots of people use slurs and say it was a joke, or an accident because they were mad. Many times you might have a bad friend who 'jokingly' insults you for lols. That doesn't make it any lesser.
A joke isn't sarcasm, and most jokes carry actual hope. And not everyone is joking, we can't just declare that because we think it's a joke means it is.
Besides that, genuine intent does not carry over well enough, especially in text, for that not to be seen an issue for me.
Different opinions.
I don't have much more to say about it, my English isn't great enough.
You're... comparing joking about two cartoon characters being in love to calling people slurs. One is harmful, one isn't. The problem is thinking that gay people are being pushy/forceful for wanting the characters to be gay while people who *don't* read them as gay are just innocently, kindly stating their opinions, but I digress. Agree to disagree ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That's not even the topic I was talking about, nor even what you stressed from me, but okay.
Have a good day anyway, Tuesday already. Power through this week and this social distancing.
My point is that you're saying headcannoning is innocent while also saying that people forcing their opinions is bad and wrong, while drawing no line between the two, then comparing it to calling people slurs??
Anyway, have a good day too
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.
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.
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. No one is telling you that you have to share the same opinion as us, we're just asking you to respect our opinion.
back again aaa.
" 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. "
I agree ! But I do want to note that some media is making this happen by being obnoxious with their article titles. They changed it, but Polygon had an article whose title they changed at least five times now without changing much of the content at all, previously titled just earlier this morning, " CJ and Flick are gay, deal with it. "
I think if this wasn't going around like that, it wouldn't be so easy for people to justify having a fit about something harmless. ):
" 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. "
I agree ! But I do want to note that some media is making this happen by being obnoxious with their article titles. They changed it, but Polygon had an article whose title they changed at least five times now without changing much of the content at all, previously titled just earlier this morning, " CJ and Flick are gay, deal with it. "
I think if this wasn't going around like that, it wouldn't be so easy for people to justify having a fit about something harmless. ):
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Actual Magical Girl
I think it should also be mentioned that no one in any way said that the use of terminology as "partner" and "roommate" to suggest them being in a gay relationship without confirming it was in any way GOOD representation. Just that the people in charge of dialogue did this to make it ambiguous, especially to het people, but recognizable in SOME way for people who are not heterosexual.
I would much rather have a gay couple who are as up front as reese and cyrus exist rather than 2 characters who never see one another at all in the game be portrayed as possibly gay but not gay enough for the homophobic people to boycott the game y'kno?
If the dialogue was "I know a guy who does these cool models of fish. I'll hook you up with one if you give me some fish in return" and not "My Partner's into makin' slick collectibles if you want one. he's sooooooooo talented" then there would be 0 correlation between the two aside from he knows flick. But the word partner, the elongated "so" and the fact he had to comment that he is talented like.... that's all context clues there. I don't call my roomates or friend my "partner" when I'm helping them find commissions that's for sure.
You can read it at surface value or take it for what the implied meaning is. It's not GOOD representation but it is there and it means nintendo is warming up to the idea of further diversity in their games. Let us not forget the tomodachi life fiasco.
I would much rather have a gay couple who are as up front as reese and cyrus exist rather than 2 characters who never see one another at all in the game be portrayed as possibly gay but not gay enough for the homophobic people to boycott the game y'kno?
If the dialogue was "I know a guy who does these cool models of fish. I'll hook you up with one if you give me some fish in return" and not "My Partner's into makin' slick collectibles if you want one. he's sooooooooo talented" then there would be 0 correlation between the two aside from he knows flick. But the word partner, the elongated "so" and the fact he had to comment that he is talented like.... that's all context clues there. I don't call my roomates or friend my "partner" when I'm helping them find commissions that's for sure.
You can read it at surface value or take it for what the implied meaning is. It's not GOOD representation but it is there and it means nintendo is warming up to the idea of further diversity in their games. Let us not forget the tomodachi life fiasco.
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