it’s gotta come from somewhere

the thing is like men and men really cant be friends because the sex part does always get in the way like thats true. and i mean that like im actually dead serious about that

like have you ever seen two straight men attempt to be friends with each other but the gay sex they arent having is literally preventing them from the transformative healing power of friendship. this is real

i dont even mean this in a "they want to fuck each other" way (although many of them do and will never know it) i mean that like the fact that gay sex is even hypothetically possible between them makes it loom over their friendship like it genuinely haunts them that they could be having it. gay sex is the elephant in the room every time they attempt to be emotionally vulnerable with one another, every time they let a hug linger too long. they cannot address its existence and so there is always something in their way, preventing true connection. and that something is the gay sex. that they are not having. the elephant of gay sex

rpf is at its best when you don't even Want to ship it but theyre so Like That you don't have a choice

i like how in dennis & dee's mom is dead when the guys go out to look for dudes you can see what type of man they're attracted to. dennis goes for the younger, lean, fashionable blond guy. mac goes for the ripped guy by the gym equipment. charlie goes for the older, passionate, poetic man with the crossbow. but he also is the only one to successfully bring the guy home with them. and he sits in bed with the plushies and has the guy read a bedtime story to him

the big man is the masculine dom and the dom is the top and the little man is effeminate and transgender but fully passes as a cis man and has top surgery but since he doesnt have bottom surgery he literally has to be a bottom theres no way for someone with a vagina to top and the bottom is the sub and they are both uncomplicatedly homosexual with zero positive emotions for women and they both have adhd and autism but only the kind of autism that doesnt actually disable you and they also crossdress but in a specifically humiliating way (why would a MAN wear a DRESS??? 🤪🤪 etc.) and they live together in a big house that they can both effortlessly afford and they're married and have 2 kids a dog and a cat (because Big man is dog coded and Little man is cat coded) and neither of them have jobs or lasting damage from canon events they've been through or physical disabilities or PTSD that I cant turn into Angsty Ship Content and the sun has a big smiley face and birds are just V shapes on the paper it doesnt have to be more complicated than that you dont have to flesh them out. you dont have to. and if you think about it wouldn't it just be soooo much effort to draw a whole bird?? youre just having fun its mean to ask you for detail. and my teacher lives at the school and the bus driver lives in the bus and everything is exactly the same :)

Fandom will see a female character going through turmoil and trauma and think “How can we make this about how a man feels?”

"ethical rpf" pisses me off i'm writing about hitting him with a belt

There's a recurring online tendency to aestheticize consensus itself. The imagined future village is full of emotionally compatible people who enjoy communal gardening, conflict resolution circles, acoustic folk music, mutual aid potlucks, and repairing bicycles together at sunset. Which is nice for the people who genuinely enjoy that lifestyle. But plenty of humans are solitary, prickly, obsessive, urban, nocturnal, sensory-seeking, technologically attached, contrarian, novelty-seeking, private, or just plain difficult. Those people do not evaporate after the revolution. They do not get Left Behind while you are Raptured into the Utopia. They become your neighbors.

It's often the most male-catered to and even misogynistic media that feature some of the deepest and borderline homoerotic relationships between men. But that is to be expected. People think that patriarchy enabling homoaffectionate relationships between men is a bug, but it's actually a feature. True love can only come from a place of respect, and men often don't respect nor esteem women. They don't see women as capable of intellect, or strength, or imagination or even humanity. Those attributes are reserved to men. Which is why men's true love is often reserved for other men while women are just props to them. That's why it's easier for a lot of male writers to create stories about supposedly heterosexual male characters having the most world-shattering (accidentally romantic) bonds with other men, but not with women that they're canonically attracted to. It's because they can't fathom their male protagonist being so deeply affected by a woman's character, since women are to be lusted for and kept as props for their little domestic fantasies but never truly respected or admired as individuals. The ancient greeks were more honest about this stuff because they understood that patriarchy and male/male affection went hand in hand.