Writer: this is one of my male characters! he cares about his guy friends and loves them deeply.

Meta
Title:	Writer: this is one of my male characters! he cares about his guy friends and loves them deeply (not the title but the first line used on Tumblr)
Creator:	thylovelylionheart
Date(s):	September 2017 or earlier
Medium:	Tumblr
Fandom:
Topic:
External Links:	an extant reblog of the OP, which has been deleted
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Writer: this is one of my male characters! is a viral tumblr post on the topic of male friendship and criticizing m/m shipping. The post and its most popular reblogs have been heavily criticized as homophobic. The original post, now deleted, dates to September 2017 or before. By August 30, 2018, it had 103,234 notes, including 55,620 likes and 47,543 reblogs. As of May 15, 2021, it has 313,736 notes: 155,468 likes and 158,181 reblogs. This includes over 4200 reblogs or replies with content.

The post drew many positive responses from tumblr users who felt that women over-sexualize gay men as well as a few pointing out the flagrant homophobic assumptions underlying the argument. Responses touched on fans demanding that their ships be made canon, tumblr being full of shipping, arguments about how much representation there should be in professional media, and call-outs of the original poster for reblogging homophobic conservative Christian content.

Typical criticisms of the post are that:

• Depictions of male friendship are actually very common and include the entire buddy movie genre
• Men are afraid to "seem gay" because of homophobia, not shippers on tumblr

OP and the popular set of posts

One of the most popular reblog chains that most later rebloggers end up interacting with is this:

thylovelylionheart

writer: this is one of my male characters! he cares about his guy friends and loves them deeply.

tumblr: oh! so he’s gay!

writer: uh…no, he’s attracted to women.

tumblr: ….so he’s bi!

writer: uhh…no…….he loves his guy friends but he’s not romantically/sexually attracted to them.

tumblr: ….so you’re homophobic.

writer: (a gif of Ben Wyatt from Parks and Recreation showing incredulity)

sandersstudies

Healthy male friendships are almost as rare in mainstream fiction as gay male relationships, and maybe more rare in fanfiction. Let men be wonderful friends without pushing a romantic relationship, just like men and women should be able to be wonderful friends without the pressure of a romantic relationship.

fireteam-daybreak

• AGGRESSIVELY SLAMS REBLOG UNTIL I DIE*

the-shadowsmiths

This is literally the reason men are so terrified of being open about loving each other platonically, because they don’t want people to assume they’re gay just because they can be supportive of their fucking friends

csisui August 7th 2018, 6:01:45 am

(a wendy williams tea gif)

sandersstudies September 13th 2018, 6:49:41 am

I literally got anon hate about my response to this post, and I just want to say that I’m sorry…

for not reblogging it sooner.

Psyche bitch, this is a good post.

chivetur March 25th 2019, 6:43:56 am

PREACH

thelone-shipper

This is like a direct response to half of Tumblr.

nightfurylover31 May 28th 2019, 6:31:16 am

Not all relationships have to be romantic. Being close to someone doesn’t mean you are in love with them. Platonic friendships can be just as strong and wonderful as romantic ones.

dixiehellcat

Facts, up in here :) I like a good romantic ship, but there aren’t nearly enough great platonic ships!

Notable Criticism

2017

emaribaby, November 22, 2017:

OP literally has “pro-life” in their blog description like…

Tags: #posts like these are always sus.

robonip, November 22, 2017:

Op’s blog is a garbage fire of narrow-minded preaching disguised as love and concern, all in the name of a bigoted misinterpretation of God so

What you reblog is your decision, but at least y’all should be aware of the spirit this post was made in so you can decide with the whole full disclosure thing

matt0044, December 7, 2017:

please look at blogs before reblogging stuff like this because this is definitely thinly veiled homophobia

considering it’s painting lgb people as romance/sex-starved shippers who can’t appreciate platonic relationships which is just false

lgbt people are going to interpret your works in ways you did not originally intend and that is a part of being a creator

i don’t usually comment on posts like this

but i’ve been seeing this sentiment a lot and it doesn’t sit well with me

2018

givemethejojos, Jan 13th, 2018:

I’ve never seen tumblr attack the AUTHOR of the story, they’re more likely to attack people in the fandom who disagree with them(which is just as bad but you know what I mean)

The only case that would kind of count was people being mad at an author of some book who was being a dick about her male characters being shipped together, but that was justified because she was literally shitting on her own fandom so yeah…(there’s also a famous case of the Voltron Fandom, but it were the voice actors who were harrased, also it were only a klance shippers who were butthurt that their ship wasn’t canon)

tybalt-you-saucy-boi, Apr 6th, 2018:

uwu fans think they have more say over a character than their creator because they think finding gay male relationships hot or cute makes them progressive and defend themselves by saying they want representation when they aren’t even male.

tartsartsnfarts, Aug 17th, 2018:

Respectfully, friends, if you can disagree with your family on politics and still love them, disagree with a friend’s choices and still want the best for them, disagree with a business move your boss makes and still respect them, it should not be a contradiction for us as Christians to be able to disagree with the LGBTQ+ community based on what we believe our Creator has told us through His word AND still love them, all of them. (And I know that many of you may argue that homosexuality is not a choice, but acting upon the feelings you have, I believe, is.) If you cannot understand that, you do not fundamentally understand Christianity.

Hey anyone that’s not a homophobe reblogged this, the OP has this on their blog right before this post they made.

As a bisexual Christian I wanna say fuck this attitude, God made me love men and women and you can’t ~disagree~ with LGBT people any more than you can ~disagree~ with POC or whatever. I didn’t choose to be bi and if I choose to be in a loving, healthy relationship with someone that’s not a man then I know that God chose to put them in my life and will want us to be happy together.

Seriously if you ever see a post that’s like ‘guys not everything HAS to be gay :))))’ 90% of the time it’s gonna be from someone who is actually a homophobe and not someone that genuinely cares about seeing non-romantic relationships represented in media (if they did care they’d be complaining about m/f friendships not getting represented)

tags: #please guys whenever you see someone complaining about something like this or about Tumblr or what have you be sure to check the op #there can be legit problems with the community or the portrayal of minorities but way too often its so obviously disingenuous shit #also fuck off any so-called Christians that talk like that #youre giving us a bad name with your bs

thebodybioelectric, Sep 25th, 2018:

Yeah, if only there was like, a genre for buddies, who maybe meet and become friends but are explicity hetero. Like, I don’t know, they could meet at their job? Maybe their cops or something. But the celebration of male heterosexual friendship is just so shallow that like, some sort of “buddy cop” genre would never work. Maybe like the army? There are a lot of dudes in the army. Like maybe you could emphasize how heterosexual there relationship is by implying incest between if any of them were gay, no matter how silly this is. So like, a war band of brothers or something? Gee, if only the gays weren’t so selfish and let heterosexual men have their brief moment in the sun were they can see the platonic male/male friendships they probably never got to have growing up and which weren’t reinforced through sports, scouts, camping trips, gendered recess activities, frats, or any other plethora of deeply entrenched social institutions. No, straight men are never given enough opportunities to gain other male friends, and they certainly shouldn’t have to deal with icky gays when they create their fantasy world in which they might have the opportunity to have a friend

soalkie October 16, 2018:

OP is literally a right-wing, pro-life homophobe who reblogs posts about homosexuality being a sin. SUPPORT MALE PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS BUT DO NOT SUPPORT THIS POST

And before anyone asks, yes, I have proof in several screenshots, but if you wanna find it yourself just search up ‘gay’ or ‘homosexuality’ on their blog and it’s 60% about sin, 30% random bullshit, and 10% this post over and over

2019

cardentist, May 30, 2019:

meme from post

funny how straight men being too homophobic to hug each other is gay people’s fault and how showing positive depictions of gay people is being framed as not only counter to solving the problem, that problem being homophobia, but also less important

because gay people are oppressing the straights by, making posts online about naruto being gay

tags: #gif #discourse #not to mention that one doesn't fucking counteract the other #people in relationships can and should be friends #really wasn't expecting 'gay people matter less than straight people do' to be the new Woke Hot Take but here we are

2021

Suaine, May 2, 2021:

The amount of people reblogging this whole thread makes me want to bash my head against a wall.

You really found a great community of people justifying homophobia for you, awesome, yay.

Let me break this down.

Healthy male friendships are almost as rare in mainstream fiction as gay male relationships, and maybe more rare in fanfiction.

Bullshit.

There are SO MANY healthy and loving and diverse male friendships on TV and other media. Guess where all the slash comes from. Just guess. It’s because men are allowed to have deep and meaningful connections with each other on TV ALL THE TIME.

No, really, just pick a show. Any show. If there’s a group of guys, most of them will be friends with each other in varying ways, even to the point of physical intimacy that some people only ever achieve with family or a spouse. LITERALLY MOST OF SLASH FANDOM IS BASED ON THESE INTENSE MALE FRIENDSHIPS.

This is literally the reason men are so terrified of being open about loving each other platonically, because they don’t want people to assume they’re gay just because they can be supportive of their fucking friends

This is the one that kills me.

You are literally justifying homophobia. You’re saying that it’s worse to be called gay than it is to not be able to be open with your friends. Come on, do some fucking self reflection here.

Because what you’re saying is that men would love to be more open with their friends, but they are too damn homophobic to do so. What, it’s too difficult to say “no, we’re not a couple, but thanks for noticing”? It’s too hard to be thought of as gay so men can’t be arsed? Do you realize how that fucking sounds?

My god, you kids. You’re seeing homophobia in action and you’re cheering it on.

Of course men can just be friends and cuddle and be lovely to each other, same as women, but how many times, how many times is it *actually* gay in actual canon. For either?

No, really. I’ll wait.

The concept that men can’t be affectionate for fear of being considered gay is inherently homophobic.

And instead of doing something about that, you’re here shaming people, most of us queer, most of us starving for stories that reflect us in this way, and you berate us for that desire. What do you think fanfiction IS? We’re bringing out what mainstream never gives us. It’s always friendship, never queerness, and I know you know that. You see the same shows I do.

So, I don’t know, maybe sit with that for a while. Or keep doing the homophobes’ work for them.

Posts in Support

2017

leader-of-datlof, November 18, 2017:

This is literally tumblr with every male character ever lmao

archivedtdp, November 27, 2017:

If you need a character to be just like you in order to like them more or empathize with them more then you have serious problems, mostly centered around being self-centered, shallow, and lacking empathy.

Leave content creators alone. You can write your pervy yaoi and slash fics all you want because that’s fandom, but don’t go after someone, don’t insist these characters are gay or else, or anything like that. Just be sane, okay?

Reply from tennojirina

it's ok you can say it's the klance fandumb

Reply from thepencilsketch-blog

You can head cannon a character as gay (key word: HEADCANNON which means not everyone has to agree with it) until the creator says otherwise. If they do, then please stop! But the fact that people attack those who headcannon characters as gay is kinda a rude thing to do. Especially if you claim it’s “shoving the gay down your throat”. Bottom line: headcannon what you want until the creator says otherwise.

Reply from takeabreathandsmile

@thepencilsketch​ I agree that people can hc whatever they see fit, absolutely. But that's not what this post is addressing. This is referring to the idea that two male characters can't share a deep bond without being branded as gay by a good 90% of the fanbase. And when the writers/actors/creators of said characters say outright that it isn't true, they're attacked for it. A common problem on this website is fans forcing their ideas onto creators and other fans.

vaporwavevocap replying to mirkafortvna, December 25, 2017:

op has “pro-life” in their description, they reblog islamophobic posts, as well as posts that demonize slash shipping and imply lgb people can’t let men be just friends.

so i would take this post with a pinch of salt…especially because this situation never happens.

This situation has happened, being anti-abortion is a good thing, and fuck Islam.

I don’t know the OP but this, this is a good post.

2018

omghealthdrink, Jan 15th, 2018:

Basically Togashi with anything Kurama related.

Tags: YuYu Hakusho Anyone old enough to get this ref?

the-real-adam-taurus, Apr 2nd, 2018:

Smh. Bitter gays. Never satisfied. Write your own damn stories, then, bitch.

heardbook, Apr 4th, 2018:

Sorry to be rude but seriously shipping aint fetishization but this right here where a dude can’t even have a platonic relationship with another dude this is fetishization an I get real fuckin sick of it because it’s shit like that, that makes some dudes afraid to be too close of friends either cause they feel uncomfortable, they don’t want to be outed, or they’d rather not be called something they aren’t it’s rude it’s disrespectful and it’s fuckin heinous because y’all can’t keep your headcannons an shit out of real life and or stop yourselves from trying to force your headcannon onto a writer or else y’all’ call them homophobic.

autobotqueerbee, Aug 14th, 2018:

I may be gay but I fucking hat yaoi fangirls on tumblr in the voltron fandom a lot because of shit like this

moonlit-maiden Aug 14, 2018:

We all know why they do it; it’s a fetish. 9 times out of 10 the people/fangirls who fixate on male-on-male to an unhealthy degree have a fetish for it.

tricornking, September 23, 2018:

Its exactly this attitude that made me drop the Kingdom Hearts fandom some time after KH2 came out, I once had a friendship with a guy as deep as the one Sora and Riku have for each other, so to see it (and Sora and Riku’s) constantly invalidated because weaboo fujoshis couldn’t POSSIBLY CONCEIVE OF THE VERY IDEA(!) that two boys/men could have a deep, loving relationship THAT WASNT SEXUAL (imagine that!) was honestly so othering and insulting.