#cheekrub

Nothing wrong with that. Sexuality is fluid iirc so it’s nothing to make excuses about or solidifying, just take your time and do as you please :> There’s no rule saying you have to mark it down or anything, remember.

yeah i’m aware, but writing it down and sharing my experiences makes me feel a bit better.  i’m really grateful that i was able to find resources to explore my orientation because otherwise, i would have felt rather lost and alone.

you don't think i'm snarky enough???? >:s

I expected the worst when I began but... it shocked me with how good it was, with some real emotions and realistic life issues and amazing friendships. Sports anime usually turn me away with too much obsession with the sport, or big focus on matches and winning, but Free! mostly uses swimming as the main thing linking the characters together, and most of them don't even care much if they win or lose as long as they get to swim or be with friends.

So although I guess it is technically a "sports anime" it is WAY more slice of life than anything else, and their problems and feelings are so relateable that it's easy to find one or eight favourite characters :D

When visiting home, I watched Free! S1 and S2 with my parents, in their 60's, and my grandmother, in her 80's. My dad actually liked it the best out of anyone else in my family. He's pretty nerdy, so Rei was his favourite, and he's always worn his emotions on his sleeve, so he really enjoyed a show with a mostly male cast being so obvious about their feelings XD

i think there's a lot of factors contributing to why certain fandoms have more queer fandom representation than others.

age could be a determining factor - usually fandoms with an older fanbase around their late teens or early 20's will be more well-versed and well-explored in their own sexuality.  so generally, i've seen more non-heteronormative characterizations in them.

another important factor to consider is the demographic that is reached - obviously a series with canon queer characters is more likely to attract a queer audience than one without.  since pokemon is a kid's show and has very conservative portrayals of gender/sexuality, many people tend to default to that intention.  as much as we'd like to believe there's heavy queer subtext in the pokemon series (and who knows, maybe some of it is intentional without being queerbaiting trash? [laughs]), it's going to be a while before they put anything too risky in such a primetime family timeslot (idk if you've noticed but a lot of anime play really late into the night...)

size of the fandom also affects it - the attack on titan fandom is so huge that trans/queer headcanons is more or less normalized just because of how large of an audience it reaches (also remember that they have a canon f/f couple).

Nah, not really XP I remember the meme though.