#biribiri

And I literally said, very quietly to myself "...No. No way. They didn't—they wouldn't."

Because we've seen this scene before, right? In a thousand anime, a million movies, we've all seen the teenagers looking at fireworks together, and one turns to the other to say something, sees the look on their friend's face and stops, because that look on their friend's face is more precious and important than anything they could have to say. That moment when they realize something about themselves, or confirm something about themselves.

We've seen this scene before, but I couldn't fathom that this was intentional. Even having played Scarlet and Violet, where Nemona looks at the player and essentially says "my treasure is you," I couldn't imagine that was what they wanted from this scene—after all, she has the same line in-game regardless of whether you're playing a boy or a girl. The queer implications aren't unintentional, per se, it's just that it's less work to let her have the same dialogue regardless. I never assumed it was set up with a female player character in mind, because why would it be?

But this scene...that's just Juliana. A custom Juliana design, no less! But they didn't mean it that way, they couldn't have meant it. This is the largest media franchise in the world. There was no way.

...And then this happened immediately after:

And I literally started crying because yes, yes they did, they would and they did, holy shit.

"My treasure is you."

I know a lot of younger LGBTQ+ folk don't understand what a huge deal this is, but it is a huge fucking deal. I'm old enough that I remember when too much implication of queerness in popular media could get a series shut down entirely, so I'm always blown away when I see even an inkling of representation in a major media franchise—even if it's definitely just a matter of programming convenience.

This is absolutely not just convenience, this is completely intentional and equally overt, and over half a year later I still get super emotional thinking about it.

What a time to be alive.

I comm'd @skeline to draw the silly gurl and a burga cause I really really love her