#but I still don't think it's queerbaiting

[glubtier]

This might be an unpopular opinion but: I think it's better that they didn't kiss.

First, the elephant in the room: queerbaiting, which is a term I've seen thrown around. I think Fortiche showed us that they were willing and able to show us queer relationships "going there". So I don't think that really applies here.

Second, the slightly smaller elephant in the room: There are all types of relationships out there and not all of them need to kiss to be valid. Both romantic relationships without physical intimacy, and strong platonic relationships are valid.

But on a deeper level, I think it's important to recognize how much their relationship was rooted in their mutual respect for each other as intellectuals, and being forehead to forehead, mind to mind, is such a beautiful depiction of them coming together in the way they've always come together. For them specifically, kissing would just be A Thing That People Do I Guess. Like, it'd be fine? It just wouldn't have as much meaning IMO.

idk man I have to go through and do a rewatch to put everything together all at once, I just can't help but feel that this is the best ending we could have asked for, in the context of the series. Natch, I'd love for them to hold hands and run off into the sunset and do laundry and taxes together. :') But I think their story is beautiful, not just despite the ambiguity, but because of it.

And while I'm here, I want to say how expert it is to be able to write an ambiguous ending like this that still feels satisfying. That's fucking crazy. And yeah a lot of my reblogs have been centered around doomed yaoi because the tropes are all up my alley, but I think everyone's story is fantastic. Arcane was so good I just can't get over it.

i just need to express my love for this scene.

they literally coalesced in the most beautiful way imaginable. and i've been seeing a lot of people upset with the lack of a kiss. but, this scene should make very clear the love they hold for one another, and i actually enjoy it more without a kiss. touching forheads like this is actually a form of affection seen in the undercity, too. (cry) but what im trying to say is that their destinies are literally intertwined now forever, in every single timeline they will find each other. they were doomed to their own fates to save eachother. and jayce CHOSE to die with viktor, viktor pushed him away. he knew that this was his own end. jayce would rather die than live WITHOUT viktor. I MEAN, COME ONNNN. SOBBINGGGG. all viktor wanted was acceptance. in season 1 jayce would refer to viktors illness as a burden, and viktor in his machine form was his way of ridding himself of all his imperfections, as well as for everyone else. he wanted peace by eliminating human suffering.

but jayce realized viktors beauty in his imperfections. he loves him with them, and showed viktor he was never broken.

and that my friends is HOW DOOMED GAY YAOI SAVED ALL OF HUMANITYYY (and ekko ml) RAHHHH

[azaharinflames]

I can see the show slowly banking away from the queer arc. A soft retcon of Bucks bisexuality would also be perfect to continue baiting without having to either follow through or fear queerbait accusations again. Buck continues to only date women from now on, they never mention his sexuality ever yet Oliver is free to play Buck as queer as he always wanted. And by that I think he meant sending horny looks Eddies way to keep his base happy and engaged. It's really win/win for them. They got all the cloud for it last season, they could bait for another 15 seasons now all while not having to actually put any thought in how to tell a queer story.

Hi, Nonnie! Thanks for the ask.

See, in my mind, there are again two creatures:

One agrees with you, and definitely believes from now on Buck will only have female LIs. Most likely short relationships to keep Buck as the eternal bachelor of the series (like @unfuckablebogtroll said, have him be the Olivia Benson of 911), and then they'll put together a last-minute LI once they know the series is canceled (perhaps a female LI no one really knows, like Natalia, perhaps Tommy in a rushed right-person-wrong-time SL. I can definitely see both). If someone asks, well - he's bi! so him dating women exclusively doesn't erase that. Which, true, but in this context it is all much trickier than that.

One that disagrees with you, if anything because I don't want to become too negative or too cynical*. Because, yeah, sure, they can move on from Buck's bisexuality, but that is an insane bad look on them. If they still want to be praised and be recognised for their diversity and inclusion, it won't be it. Because, as I said, as much as a bisexual person is still bisexual even if they only date people from the opposite sex, fact is that in television things are trickier. Because it isn't as easy as just knowing something, they have to show it. Things are held to a different standard, and that's just the name of the game. So if Buck were to only date women moving forward, that would mean 1. a bad look on them, kinda like they lured their queer audience in (some of which had given up on the series already), only to bait them and 2. I honestly believe they would face some serious backlash for this. Of course, I cannot say this will happen, but I would be surprised if it hadn't.

All in all, we know there is a rebound in the near future, and I will be honest, I'm fully expecting that rebound to be a woman. I will be pleasantly surprised if he rebounds with a man - as much as we know the relationship is very short-lived, as Tim has already warned.

We'll see - I'm one of them that believes that, for Buck, it's either growing back together with Tommy, or nothing. And nothing as in - he'll be the eternal bachelor until the series ends, because I truly believe they won't be able to find a LI that tops Tommy, or one the audience falls half in love with, in comparison to how much they loved Tommy. So. I might be wrong on this one, but I truly think that, long-term, it's either getting back together with Tommy, or a string of half-assed and unfulfilling LI until the very end of the series.

Oh! I also want to add - I don't see the 'throwing glances' at Eddie, mostly because I want to believe they are not that stupid. They're playing a dangerous game and are currently toying a very thin line here. We know they don't have plans to have Buddie happen, but if they actively start baiting their audience, it will look extremely bad on them.

My inbox is open for ranting, venting, or discussing! And if you wanna talk more things than 911, it is open for that as well!

Take care <3

*Disclaimer: not saying that you are being too negative or cynical. I 100% understand where you're coming from, especially after the way the show has dealt with all of this in the last few weeks. I see what you're saying and I partly agree with it.

[redysetdare]

I think queer stories would be better if people stopped assuming that queer representation hinges on if two characters are romantically involved at all. Like the moment you accept characters as being queer without needing romance to prove said queerness then i think we'd find ourselves with a lot more unique, nuanced, and interesting queer stories. but by limiting queerness to only romance you are stifling queer stories.

[ladyriot]

It's really all the mini romance arcs in this damn show...

3x08 Cuts Like a Knife

3x12 Love The Way You Lie

The undercurrent of season 3 is Maura trying to get Jane to drink more wine for her health and every single moment of it feels like a romantic B-plot.

[fvckw4d]

The concept of queerbaiting annoys me. I was told that it refers to a work of fiction pretending to cater to a queer audience but then pulling back from it to avoid alienating homophobes, which is an incredibly specific thing. But a lot of people seem to think that it instead means "any time there's any gay subtex, metaphor, or ambiguity" or "whenever something from 1995-2012 was being a normal amount of homophobic for the era."

[patchesofuniverse]

I found this in my drafts - I wrote it after I finished Leverage: Redemption S1 and then most of the original series. Posting it now with the caveat that I never got around to watching the rest of Leverage: Redemption so I do not know what happened from there.

----------

It still amazes me that people who've lived through

- Sherlock, where the creators outright deny that their two male leads could ever get together, while throwing out constant M/M fanservice.

- FIFTEEN seasons of Supernatural, where women can't survive for very long because they'd threaten the fan-preferred M/M pairings, and one of the actors for the pairing straight up denies that his character could even be gay, shot down questions about it, and finally just "didn't want to put him in a box" following an outcry near the very end of the series.

- She-who-shall-not-be-named, who never so much as hinted that any character might not be straight, but then declared one gay when the series was basically done.

- and however many more queerbaiting shows

can look at Leverage and think the creators are trying to pull one over on us.

- "That means I would be thinking about you and Parker, which I never do!" in the least convincing tone, after lamenting the suave thief Parker is out with that night.

- Watching them kiss and nodding

- "'til my dying day" and "but you never, never need anything" "Yeah, I did" looks over at Parker and Hardison for a moment before looking back "And thanks to you, I don’t have to search anymore."

- Confirmation from the creator that the OT3 is canon.

- "Even numbers only baby" and "Age of the geek, babe"

- The hints in the show (Hardison being aware of how Eliot wakes up, "we built vents in the house", etc) and then confirmation that the three of them live together.

- The necklaces

- Hardison talks to Eliot AND Parker before making the decision to step away from the team. Parker's scene is more dramatic, sure - but Hardison checks in with Eliot too, and Eliot confirms his support before Parker drags Hardison off for their chat.

They haven't given us a kiss or the exact words, sure. Polyamory still isn't widely accepted in the US - it's very possible that they can't give us a big flashy display on screen because of executive meddling, or just that they have to consider ratings.

But what they've given us is in line with the characters they've created. They also never make it into a joke, aside from Hardison's "We're together" bit in The 12 Steps Job (which was season one). They don't make flashy fanservice out of scenes with Hardison and Eliot together, or with the three of them.

The Leverage PTB haven't queerbaited us with the OT3. They queercoded them. And then confirmed that they intended the things we saw on screen.

Part of me wonders if the idea that the OT3 are queerbait is the fact that Eliot's relationship with Hardison and Parker is more subdued than their relationship with each other. I think there may be folks who want to see them as a perfect, exclusive triangle where they all share the exact same relationship style. But that's not how polyamorous relationships have to work - and indeed, it's not how most of them work. Parker and Eliot have always had a different kind of relationship than Parker and Hardison. It's not unreasonable to think that, even in a committed romantic threesome, the three sides of the triangle would represent different types of relationships.

[giantkillerjack]

ur post about queerbaiting and the dismissal of people in fandom to critical analysis is so incredibly true thank you. i feel like marcille's writing in the anime has been super misogynistic a lot of the time and every time i bring this up all anyone wants to say is "well maybe this isn't for you! and you shouldn't watch the show!" like. i don't think this is about taste lmao, i am analyzing the text in front of me and coming to conclusions about the craft of it.

[This is in reference to this post]

YES!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

It is so so frustrating!!!!

It's like being at a restaurant and being served a bunch of delicious appetizers, but then one of the bread appetizers is literally just a plate of crumbs; and then when you're like, "Hey, uhh, why are we being served literal crumbs?", a bunch of the other folks eating at the restaurant are like,

"WELL HOW ABOUT YOU JUST DON'T EAT HERE THEN??!? YOU MUST NOT BE THAT HUNGRY, SO JUST FIND ANOTHER RESTAURANT AND DON'T EAT WITH US!!"

And maybe they say it politely, but "Aw, sorry, maybe this restaurant just isn't for you 💖" is just trading out an aggressive dismissive tone for a patronizing dismissive tone. It's the same message.

And it's like! I was honestly happy to move on from the crumbs once my complaint was acknowledged because the meal overall is still delicious, but then all these folks got SUPER WEIRD AND DEFENSIVE ABOUT IT, so now I find myself double-checking all the other dishes -- and, actually, you know what those eggs DO look a Iittle misogynistic undercooked!!!!

[walker-lister]

I just have to remind myself sometimes that no matter what anyone else says, the way a piece of media makes me feel and the positive impact it has had on my queer identity is valid, and that tearing myself apart thinking I have to defend it or questioning my own place within queer communities is not at all important when compared to the almost tangible sense of 'rightness' that piece of media helped me to feel about myself.

[no-truce-with-the-heroes]

people who don't watch, read, or care at all about a thing but feel entitled to scream their opinions about it anyway are the bane of my existence

[lukaherehelp]

I have to remind myself to not read the tags and text post on the La Moderna tag because the amount of people that are calling Laurita and Celia's storyline queerbait is insane.

Is sad, yes, but just because they don't end up together, doesn't mean is queerbait. Not every queer storyline has a happy ending, y'all. Specially in a period drama jaidjakdjaks

Maybe is my spanish pride and how well Spain as provided me with queer stories since I was a kid, that I see those comments and I'm like "queerbaiting where??? do you even know what that means???"

[ishouldreallybeelsewhere]

Episode one of Supernatural is so flawed that, had I watched it for the first time last night (instead of for the third), I would not have have watched the second. Ever. The flaws are things I simply didn't pick up on when I was thirteen, and memory glazed over with emotional attachment. I understand why these flaws are there, what the writers tried and failed to do through clumsy dialogue and strange character decisions. There's no subtlety. Everything Sam says is direct exposition, specifically the things that he would not have to say to his brother.

I do not do reviews so that's all I'm going to say.

[infinitesoul29]

Will spend the last days of the year doing edits for these two ships. A purely magical Kanchan and Pallavi from Maja Ma. And the adorably fun pairing of Ana and Mariana from Madre Solo Hay Dos 🥰

[simptasia]

legit, janeway/chakotay and picard/crusher’s interactions are like peering into a universe where straight people are the ones who have been oppressed and as such in the 90s they had to be ambiguous and dance around the subject

[nymika-arts]

I rmbr you posting a while back that 911 isn't queerbaiting. And at that time I agreed. Just found out about this though-

https://www.tumblr.com/sherlocking-out-loud/717736323395518464/and-on-the-subject-of-queerbaiting-fox-us-never?source=share

This is DEFINITELY queerbaiting, acc to me. Thoughts?

link

honestly i mostly just find this hilarious lmao

[patronsaint-ofthedenial]

I rather dislike Harry Styles but I have decided that it's honestly a waste of my energy to get mad about him and I think I'm one step closer to achieving inner peace

[concoulor]

i’ll forgive sunny for still being on the air if they do macdennis