Sammich's Journal

Jam and I were watching an excellent video by Mother's Basement about how bad Crunchyroll's subtitles have become and since it's basically supposed to be the main GOOD SOURCE of anime in English, it needs to correct the issues and not just shovel it out to the masses. I know I don't even subscribe to them anymore because I can't, in good conscience, support a monopoly. But it's further proof that large companies do not care about quality. They only care about shoveling out more product to the masses.

The absence of forums for anime and video games means people nowadays are relegated to screaming in game reviews on Steam or small enclaves. Gone are the large and more fun forums of yesteryear that used to thrive and promote discourse. Perhaps with the death of forums and discourse we've lost something. We're now algorithmically pointed toward specific videos where the comments are just huge echo-chambers. Reading comprehension is abysmal nowadays. I quite literally would make friends on forums in the old days. I don't know if there's much of us left. There are people who remember and know that it doesn't have to be a 120 character limit on your speech. You can have entire conversations on the internet if you so choose to.

I've been very interested in going back to the "old ways" lately. I feel the urge to sharpen my skills at writing and reading again. I want to use words for more than a brief cold emote/emoji response or reaction. I want to talk again and let people know that I genuinely care about what they had to say. We're not just faceless robots. It's something that we're being groomed into becoming but we have the power to stop it and become human again.

That's what I'd like to think, anyway.

I feel like Fujoshi get kind of a bad rep.  They're seen as "IDOLIZING" or sexualizing gay relationships in a fetishized way.  And while I believe it to be true in a way, I question that generalization.  At least toward myself. 

When I was in school my best friend was a gay guy.  Well, specifically he identified as bisexual.  Much of his romantic and sexual encounters were with men.  I had always wanted a best friend in general and the two of us were supportive of each other to the point that we were friends even when we graduated out of high school.  We had our own little in-jokes and cared about each other as friends do.  I was more into anime and manga.  He wasn't, but I told him how there was a genre of manga that was mostly gay relationships and he seemed interested.  At the time this was when there wasn't a lot of manga/anime in the west so I couldn't show him a lot.  Anyway, it was cool that he liked me despite my weird nerdy behavior.  In the end we grew apart because he would use drugs and would steal and basically I couldn't deal with that kind of thing.  He started caring more about himself and his habits and less about me in general.  So I stopped talking to him.

This doesn't have anything really to do with fudanshi, but I guess I'll always hold a special fondness for men who are gay specifically because one was there for me when my own brother would be an asshole to me. 

I grew into being a fujoshi and being into BL and all that, but mostly when I see fudanshi I feel like they're allies and like fellow fans.  Mostly I'm happy for them.

There's a couple of Vtubers in NijiEN who are fudanshi and two that play at being boyfriends. (I don't know if they really are, but they seem to be close) and I'm mostly happy for them and excited to get danmei, BL, etc discussions from a guys perspective.  Sensitive and kind-hearted people who are into romance are so cool and I adore them!!!  I don't know if this thinking is the bad thing that people hate?  I don't know if I say the wrong things or am being problematic.  I just know that I'm happy to find more fans of things I like in general.

I am so happy that there are English Vtubers like Uki Violeta and Fulgur Ovid to be the openly gay power couple of Nijisanji EN.  It's adorable and I can only wish the best for whatever they do.