dragonlady7

men can be tender, queers can exist, we can have it all, that's how fandom works

via https://ift.tt/3gXsV51

galadhir https://galadhir.tumblr.com/post/637584616629354496/if-you-sexualiseromanticise-the-relationships :

no-mere-mortals https://no-mere-mortals.tumblr.com/post/637225813507506176/if-you-sexualiseromanticise-the-relationships :

tlaquetzqui https://tlaquetzqui.tumblr.com/post/637085835976753152/if-you-sexualiseromanticise-the-relationships :

veronicamarsbars https://veronicamarsbars.tumblr.com/post/184664182520/if-you-sexualiseromanticise-the-relationships :

if you sexualise/romanticise the relationships between the boys in The Lord of the Rings, then you clearly don’t understand that Tolkien is portraying brotherhood, the importance of friendship and, ahem, Fellowship, and what masculinity should look like.

Tumblr: It’s so disgusting how Western culture won’t let men express affection or emotional vulnerability without saying they’re gay.

Also Tumblr: Legolas and Gimli, Frodo and Sam, and Merry and Pippin are all clearly gay couples.

Tolkien: watches his school friends die horribly in WWI, feels immense guilt for the deaths of the “lower class” men put in his command and writes a series of books where this time the friends live and the true hero is a working class character who gets to come home in the end

Tumblr: there is literally no heterosexual explaination for this

I think we can say with a fair degree of certainty that Tolkien did not intend for them to come across as gay relationships, and that he intended to portray brotherhood, friendship and Fellowship between men who are suffering terrible things a long way away from women.

As such - especially since he’s writing from experience - it’s really good that he portrays men as such sensitive and loving people.

It’s true that we shouldn’t immediately leap to the conclusion that because they’re sensitive and loving they can’t be heterosexual. Heterosexual men can be sensitive, loving and tender people, and we shouldn’t forget that.

Nevertheless, this is fandom and we can ship whoever we want. We can sexualise and romanticise whatever we want. No one gets to put limits on the imagination, and no one has to explain why they’ve chosen to queer (what the author probably intended to be) a straight relationship. Slash stories are not inherently lesser than any other kind of stories and do not need to be justified, excused or supported by canon in any way.

We’re fandom, we write what we want. (Your picture was not posted)