#especially in cases when it involves straight audiences vs gay audience or men vs women reactions etc

[nightmare-chaser]

Listen ive watched a lot of hbomberguy eviscerating shitty entitled white guys who do shitty things, but this latest video is the first to make me like, personally react, like my jaw was dropping and i dont have the words to describe my feelings as a queer woman listening to some fuckin business major use other queer creators works to make misogynistic, bi- trans- and lesbophobic queer-erasing commentaries

[vampish-glamour]

I never watched G*od Om*ns, so it was fandom again with the "they're gay"???

At least Star Trek did this right, you know, not lying to please someone. Spock and Kirk was never a thing and also was never meant to be a thing. But the creator himself said, if you wanna see them like that, it's fine. Do what you want. But in canon it's not that way.

But really, somehow fandom seems to make it easy for creators to just bait, but never commit and they're happy, wtf.

And IF they get actual lgbt rep, they're upset because it's not the character they WANTED to be lgbt....

Actually, the fandom is largely against them being gay because they claim it’s “nonbinary and asexual representation”.

Which bothers me just because they’re basically applauding homophobic tropes simply because they benefit from homophobic tropes.

I want to make it clear that my problem isn’t “why aren’t you making the characters canonically gay?!!?!!? This is homophobic!!!11!1!1”. I’m fine with the relationship remaining a close friendship canonically. And canonically speaking, I think I might prefer that tbh.

My problem is with how the original homophobia in the book sort of goes ignored, and how the writer teases and hints and in this case I would actually say baits… and then receives praise from the fandom for doing what everyone else does when it comes to gay pairings.

Basic overview of the situation from my POV:

Book establishes a character as a gay stereotype

Immediately goes “but he isn’t gay because angels are sexless unless they make an effort” (IMO the sexless thing could’ve been established in many other ways. Did it really have to be done in a “don’t worry he’s not gay” way?)

Book proceeds to make the gay stereotype thing a running joke, with the character being called various homophobic slurs (but see, it’s funny because it’s misplaced homophobia. He doesn’t actually deserve the homophobia he experiences like an actual gay person would /s)

Show comes out, includes romantic music, lots of subtext, and the writer confirming that it’s a “love story”, as well as the actors confirming they acted “in love”. Except… it’s done vaguely enough that anyone can come away with their own interpretation. Which is nothing new. There’s literally nothing revolutionary about leaving a same sex relationship “up for interpretation”.

All the “representation” actually comes from what the writer says on Twitter. He goes on about how they’re sexless and therefore cannot possibly be gay but are also inherently “queer”… but doesn’t actually add this into canon. So casual viewers are not experiencing any sort of “representation”.

IMO this is a homophobic media trope. Give two men or two women scenes that would be explicitly romantic if it were a man and a woman, tease the audience with “maybeee~”, but still make sure that ultimately, homophobes won’t be offended and can come away from the material thinking “what good friends!”. Say “it’s up for interpretation”, which is something I hardly see with M/F pairings. Especially with the virtue signalling on social media.

Keep in mind, something isn’t “representation” if everyone comes away with different ideas of what was represented. If one person can think “they’re gay and married” and another can think “they’re aspec and in a QPR”, that’s not representation. Representation only happens when something is undeniable. For example, a character who is undeniably bisexual because they are shown to be interested in both men and women (biphobic pannies coming to their own conclusions don’t count here lol, since bi = pan and pan = bi, so even if they claim the character is pansexual, they’re still getting the same outcome)

Now here’s where my issue comes in.

Instead of calling this out, the fandom runs with it and benefits from it. A vague relationship on screen allows them to claim representation for themselves, usually for made up labels like aspec, SAM type asexuality, queerplatonic, etc.

They praise the writer for being “inclusive”, and for “representing” them… when really this “inclusivity” is a result of homophobic tropes, and there’s actually no representation at all. Keep in mind, all the clues for what could be going on come from social media. A casual viewer is either going to see two gay men, or two good friends. They have no way of knowing about the woke “queer” bullshit unless they’re heavily involved in fandom.

The writer has a habit of teasing things and being intentionally misleading. Here’s an example

Not telling what’s going to happen and not giving spoilers, is very different from intentionally baiting. “Wait and see” sounds like a “yes”… because it would be incredibly shitty to lead people on when the answer is a solid “no”.

However, considering he’s only half of the writers, and establishing a relationship other than what he and the other writer discussed would be disrespectful… the answer is very likely “no”.

So just say “no”. It’s okay to say “no, they’re not getting together”. But he knows that people are more likely to watch if they’re waiting for the two to get together the whole time…so he has to keep it vague and mysterious and he has to keep baiting.

Of course the answer could very well be “yes” and that’s what he’s hinting at. But I highly doubt it, mostly because of the “only one author around” issue. So until I’m proven wrong, I will maintain that this is him being intentionally misleading, as he admitted to.

So that’s where I have the issue—I wouldn’t have an issue if he just straight up said “no, they’re not going to hook up, they’re good friends”. What is an issue, is perpetuating classic homophobic media tropes, of giving just enough but not too much…and then saying “it’s up for interpretation”. Which roughly translates to “here’s some crumbs for the gays”. What’s especially an issue, is then disguising this under woke kweer language and lapping up all the praise you can get for being such an “Ally” to “queers”.

And of course, I have an issue with how the fandom receives this. Because instead of calling the bullshit out for what it is, they actually call gay people talking about homophobia “aphobic discourse”, and say things like “gay men have enough representation!!”, and try to argue that actually, the homophobic trope of vague same sex relationships that are left up to interpretation, is actually super inclusive and amazing and progressive because it represents asexuals, aromantics, nonbinary people, queerplatonic relationships, etc.

Or they put down gay people for wanting more explicit representation, because “uhh… some people are aro!!! Some people are ace!!”. Despite missing that non romantic or non sexual relationships between men can be found in pretty much every single piece of media ever, and is 100% socially acceptable. Explicit gay relationships however, are still looked down upon.

And then they act like the religious homophobes, by taking “explicit gay representation” to mean “explicit hardcore sex scene”. Like I’ve seen nobody demand a sex scene when they’re talking about gay representation in G O. I’m certainly not. Yet the kweers always manage to interpret gay people wanting proper representation as “you want sex!!! You want porn!!!”. To me, it really seems no different from religious homophobes seeing an advertisement with two men and immediately talking about how it promotes “deviant gay sex”.

What worries me is that these types of fandoms—who applaud creators for giving gay people crumbs—set a precedent for other creators. They make it known that gay representation actually isn’t needed for media to be praised. They give creators a safe way to get out of representing gay couples—while keeping both the queers and homophobes happy at the same time. Now they can hop on social media and say “no, they’re not gay, but it’s up for interpretation!” And the queers will think this is top tier representation, and praise the creators for it.

As always, this turned into a long spiel lmao. But that’s an explanation of my thoughts and why I’m frustrated. Again—I’m not mad that a romantic relationship isn’t canon. That in itself isn’t homophobic. But the way that the writer and fandom are handling it, is.

I’m not familiar with Star Trek (I do want to watch it, mostly to understand the Star Trek vs Star Wars stuff lmao.), but it sounds like that’s a good way to handle it. If you don’t want to make a relationship canon—that’s fine. But be honest about it, don’t drag fans along with teasing and baiting.

[comparatist]

Something I wrote about Manga.

Manga plays an important role in promoting tolerance for gender minorities.

Manga is a cultural phenomena in Japan and the rest of the world. It’s not exactly a genre but an art of storytelling comprising the interests of all age groups. The style is considered to have its origin in ukiyo-e-prints of Hokusai in 19 century. The tradition lies in the creation of humorous art. There are tales of men who love to cook and woman who love to eat, Sommeliers having their extraordinary penchant for wine and the list goes on. Though the manga tradition has been categorised into four distinctive groups based on gender stereotypes, like ‘shonen’ being targeted for the young male audience and ‘shojo’ being set to arrest the attention of young female audience, while ‘sinen’ and ‘josel’ getting marketed for the older male and the female consumers respectively, significant crossover in the readership has been thoroughly noticed on the grounds of demanding good books over gendered stereotyped ones. Manga, as a mass medium of serialised characters has played a socially critical as well as an escapist role since the 1970s. However during the 20s and 30s, manga was explicitly a matter of juvenile interest, but then, after the economic boom in the post-World War 2 era, it expanded its market for all ages and social sections while exploring vast amount of subject matter. They however, primarily, focussed on sports, large eyed adolescents, the adventures of samurai and gangsters, and tales that indulge into the deep layers of sex and violence, often evoking pornographic fantasies.

Yaoi, also known as boys love or BL is a genre in manga and other such media platforms such as anime, drama CDs etc. exploring the features of homoerotic relationships between male characters. The general has been created by woman authors for female audience but the section attracts male readers too. It is basically defined by its characteristic feature of paring the male characters in the role of protagonists. The sexual top is known as ‘seme’ who becomes the active pursuer while the passive pursuant one is known as ‘uke’ or the sexual bottom. The term yaoi dates back to the doujinshi culture of the late 1970s to the early 1980s. It was then as self-deprecating way of referring to an amateur fan art parodying the mainstream manga and anime depicting their male characters in vague or explicitly sexual circumstances. Such writing or art resembles two Helens Cixous' idea of the “I’ecriture feminine” or the feminine fiction where writing is a way of pleasure for women to celebrate their desires by creating narratives around effeminate bodies thereby suggesting for a safe distance for the women’s desires and physical selves while defamiliarising the female body by making it somewhat male, reducing the vulnerability of woman, often implicated in an overtly sexual text and showing a way to expand her boundaries that she would not have done in real life, but through erotic discourse, anchored to the male body of the passive uke.

Shoujo manga stories also play an important part in the featuring of romances between young boys or young men from the mid 1970s.

In many Yaoi mangas, the performative male bodies, being the key to the unfolding of the narratives, especially during sexual acts, do succumb to heterosexual roles. In sexually violent manga of the yaoi genre, the male body of uke performs the role of the body to be violated which may even include male pregnancy(mpreg), pheromones going out of control etc. Therefore the romanticised, beautiful male body(bishounen) is made to play various roles ranging from pornography and wish fulfilment to a aesthetic beauty and different ideas of ‘tough love,’ as often the victim is portrayed to be falling in love with the assailant and forgiving his trespassing. These tales cater exclusively to the female psychosexuality, as they are produced by and for women and as there is no involvement of the female body in the stories, enter amount of pleasure that is derived from these texts is through mental correlation.

‘Boku Patalliro!’ is a Japanese manga series which explores the themes of yaoi, was written and illustrated by Mineo Maya. The plot focusses on comedy, primarily the weird adventures of Patalliro himself. Generally episodic in nature, the subplots often have little connection to the main one, other than involving the same identities.

Patalliro du Malyner VIII is the 10 year old diabetic child King of Malynera who grooms himself as a cat when he finds himself in frustrating circumstances and mimics the run of a cockroach when there is the need to speed up. In 1982-‘83, when homosexuality was still considered a taboo, Patalliro daringly flaunted it for laughs. Bancoran is an MI6 agent appointed by the British to be Patalliro’s personal bodyguard, is an efficient killer. The character identifies himself as an effeminate homosexual person. There are instances of Patalliro making fun of Bancoran's sexual nature which the latter is forced to accept owing to the royal advantage that the former enjoys. Bancoran is constantly frustrated because the enemy-agent assassins that he fights off to maintain Patalliro’s safety are the ones he fantasizes about. Patalliro himself seems to have interesting Bancoran and often tries to seduce him through various disguises or role-playing likes of which are that of a pretty boy or a beautiful woman.

Presence of beautiful, effeminate bishounens are abundant in the shounen-ai mangas, as well as socially accepted good looking Tamanegis (King’s group of elite guards) as bi-seinens in disguise. Patalliro’s narrative is parodic and pokes fun at itself through parodying the shounen-ai culture in many ways. Mild boy-on-boy actions, lighthearted atmosphere and good vibes are the salient features of the shounen-ai manga even if there are mentions of violence, it's not extreme. Another yaoi trope is the mannerisms and the gaits of the characters being very dignified to match with their physical beauty.

The semes are amazing lovers and are able to deal with their counterpart’s tantrums. Bancoran's relationship with Maraich, who once tried to assassinate him and almost regularly beats him up, is that of a regular heterosexual couple and he takes care of Maraich like a ‘husband should'. Maraich, a firm believer of monogamous relationship based on mutual loyalty gets pregnant despite being a man which, kind of makes their picture of domestic bliss complete.

However, when the subject of tolerance towards gender minority shown through manga is being discussed, the readers and critical thinkers should keep in mind that the concept of consent is often overlooked in a text emphasising on overtly sexual portions. The seme-uke relationships are often devoid of permission and the way they get portrayed through the mangas, is nothing but a normalisation of manipulation and glorification of the violation of bodily autonomy,. Body shaming and extremely unconventional body features creating serious insecurity and unrealistic expectations among Japanese gay men isn’t something that should be considered tolerant in any sense. Gay men often feel uncomfortable at their representation in such texts where bodies and sexuality are produced and consumed as tools of entertainment for women. However, the question of sexual exploration vs one sided homosexual ‘love’ being imposed upon the other is not raised as there has already been the normalisation of the disturbing trend in Japanese pornography, both gay and straight, of the sexual recipient not acting according to his/her will as words like ‘iya’ meaning ‘no’, ‘yamete' meaning ‘stop', ‘itai’ meaning ‘it hurts' get frequently used. Surely, manga covering the yaoi genre has great representation of the gay sexual love and relationships but the absence of consent in most cases doesn’t really make it tolerant for the gender minorities. Mere representations are not enough and the concept of free will in a healthy relationship should be a much discussed topic in the manga tales. It’s high time we realise that an act upon it.

[dragonlands]

Friendship vs queerbaiting

"Can we stop shipping all (m/m) friendships as romance?"

First of all, no. Why should we? Shipping is supposed to be fun, and we can ship whatever we want as long as the characters are fictional. With real people it's a little trickier but this is not about real people shipping so I'll leave it at that. People don't usually choose a ship, shipping happens a little like falling in love: we find ourselves attracted to the dynamic of certain characters and the ship just kind of happens.

Shipping is not activism, like people often remind here. We fans don't need to ship the ship with the most under represented dynamic, we should ship the ship that makes us happy. It's not homophobic if you don't ship the popular gay ship. Its not racist if you ship the main character with the white person instead of poc bc you feel like these two have a better dynamic. And so on. But I need to add here that if a queer/interracial couple is canon but you ship them in a straight/white relationship with someone else it's a little... questionable at least. It depends the dynamic and the history of these characters and so on, but I'm just saying that there are exceptions to the rule I just presented.

So, if you feel like friendships between two men are under represented you have no right to tell people they shouldn't ship it because you prefer their dynamic as something else than romantic. And also: where did the idea come that they are under represented? The sole reason why so many non canon ships are m/m friendships is because THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. Plus, all kinds of friendships are shipped, f/f and f/m too but they're much rarer in mainstream fiction which is why they are also less popular in fandom. If you think "Fandom only ships canonically straight white men", look at Clexa for example. They only had one season together, and it got to the top of tumblr's most shipped list immediately. Stormpilot is very popular and it's interracial while neither is white. Don't blame the fandom for something the creators are responsible for.

The idea that we shouldn't ship friendships tells something about how our society portrays romance - an instant connection, physical attraction, something that consumes your soul after the first glance and makes you leave everything, even your friends and family behind. As if you were ready to die for them after one conversation, one night together, sometimes even just one look. This doesn't sound healthy or even normal to me.

Romance and friendship are not mutually exclusive. Healthy romances are often build on friendship, and even if infatuation comes first and dating second, any couple who has been married for years will tell you that the secret to a happy marriage is being good friends too. Best friends, actually, since they have to spend most time together. Of course I'm not saying we shouldn't ship different kinds of dynamics, I enjoy love/hate relationships as much as the next person, but popular ships that are accused of queerbaiting are usually canonically close friendships.

Drawing a line between close friendship and queerbaiting can be tricky, I admit. Sometimes even if I do think something is queerbaiting I understand the opposite opinion, sometimes not. Often, the opposite argument is something like this: "Yes, they clearly do love each other very deeply, deeper than most friends, but that's because they're like brothers/siblings." And I'm like... no. I know brotherly love is a saying but it isn't really... a thing. For people who aren't actually brothers. Because there are two things that make people siblings: 1) Biology, as in they are genetically siblings. 2) They have been brought up as siblings, they have the same parents and have known each other since birth.

Often siblings are both, but there are adopted siblings, and biological siblings who haven't met each other before adulthood. So if you can't check either of these for your ship, it's not incestuous. No matter how brotherly you think their love is. Because yes, people can form strong bonds to people outside family, but even childhood friends don't have the experience that siblings have. They don't have the same parents and the same happy family memories or shared trauma. They've never had the kind of authority that a parent is, who is close for both and able to decide who's right about the fight and who gets a punishment, who gets the bigger cake slide etc. And when you're biologically related the biology actually affects your relationship: it's just part of surviving the natural selection that we protect those who are genetically like us. Also there's a natural repulsiveness towards our relatives which prevents us from getting mutant babies. These things obviously apply to adoptive siblings too, but not to "bros".

So if someone says that these two characters have a deep connection but it's brotherly, sure, they can think that, but they have no way of getting actual evidence for their claim. Whereas if I think some characters are in love I can present evidence. I obviously can't prove it unless it becomes canon, but I can make it pretty clear why I think so.

Now, I'm all for having male characters be close friends without it making them gay. We need to show that men should be able to talk about their emotions with each other, just like female friends do. It's proven by many studies that straigh men are likely to have their girlfriend/wife as their only emotional support, and that needs to change. Male friend supporting the other when he talks about his crush on a girl: hell yeah. Male friend supporting the other when their parent dies: hell yeah. Male friends talking about games and selfcare and literature and their interests just like female friends do: HELL YEAH! I would like to see male friendships where they need each other because they have shared interests and memories and because they can be open with each other. Being physically comfortable with each other. All that.

But, you see, most so called friendships that are popular as ships and accused of queerbaiting, are not what I just described. These friendships are codependent. If the other died or was taken away from the other the other wouldn't just be sad for a year or so, but they would lose their grip of life and themselves. They are contradictory, and the characters are bad at describing their feelings for each other, unaware whether the "friendship" is mutual, surprised when the other shows that they care. They are full of misunderstandings, and the narrative seems that there's something that they're going towards. Normal friendships are solid and stationary, and while they do change with time and circumstance, they're not constantly evolving as if what the people involved have right now is not what both want.

Friends have fights over petty things, and sometimes just can't be around each other. These characters usually fight - if they fight - because they leave things unsaid and the viewer is forced to think: what did they mean to say? There's tension, neither of them knows how to quite be around the other but they need them like they need air. It is sometimes even shown that even if the other is in a relationship with another person, they can't share the most important parts of their life with that person - they need their "friend" for that. As if love was just physical, no common interests or chemistry needed.

Obviously there will always be some things that can only be shared with a certain person and that person may not be your lover, but at least in my opinion it makes sense if your romantic partner is the one who gets you the most. Especially if the love is supposed to be ideal or even supported by the audience which mostly is the case in fictional romance. And if the "friends" have most in common with each other, have shared their most vulvenerable moments with each other and seem to have romantic chemistry to many of the viewers, why not make them a couple? Because they are both straight men? (Or women, but most often men since most main characters are men.)

The argument against queer ships is usually just "not everyone is gay". Yes, well, obviously not. Some people are straight, that's true. They don't feel attraction to the same sex even if their life depends of it (So I've heard. As a bisexual myself this sounds like a weird concept. Whatever.)

And the conversation continues: "I think these two men you ship together are both straight, so they can't feel attraction towards each other."

"Fine, that's your opinion. But how do you prove that?"

"He slept with a woman/flirted with a woman/ loved a woman etc."

"Bisexuality. Exists. Also, some gay people try to date the opposite sex before they admit they are gay, because society teaches that's the normal thing to do. They could be in denial, or pretend to be straight so they don't get beat up or something like that, it's often hard to be queer. But once again: BISEXUALITY EXISTS."

So, the person saying they're straight is usually just basing their thoughts on heteronormativity, thinking that they're straight until proven otherwise. Fandom, on the other hand, looks at how the character acts around different genders and bases their opinion of their sexuality on that.

Back to "Not everyone is gay". What do people even mean when they use that phase? I look at the fictional universe that I love and see zero canon queer people, or maybe two minor characters that were in one episode. The world is filled with characters, and I'm only pointing at a few of them and saying that they seem to have potential for a romance, why not? Straight people already have almost every popular character, is it really too much to ask if we could get one or two too? That's not everyone.

The fans don't want the show/book/movie to become a romance suddenly, we're in this fandom because we like the thing that makes it what it is. We're just asking to acknowledge the romance that literally is already there. WE'RE NOT ASKING FOR A SEX SCENE. We're asking for something that could make the people who watch/read the thing from their heteronormative viewpoint see that it was actually queer all along. So that they would stop ridiculing us queer people for "seeing things that aren't there." Something very small will do: Hannigram didn't even have to kiss because everything needed to make a romance were already there, they just needed one conversations to make it clear that yes, Hannibal was in love with Will and yes, Will did ache for him too. Simple. Korrasami just walked off together in the end. With both cases the fans were happy, and it proves that the idea that "fangirls just want to see two men fuck" is wrong. We just crave to be represented.

The final argument against the queer interpretation is: "Relationships are complex, and sometimes you don't fall for the person who seems to be the perfect match for you." Yes. Real life is complex. Sometimes love is just physical, often you don't fall for your friend. BUT. As a writer, you're not trying to recreate real life. You're showing things and emotions that are important to the story, so why make a multi season/movie/book arch for a relationship between two men if you're just going to pair them off for someone else?

As a person who's into writing I get really confused by these things. One of the first lessons I learned that I still hear daily is: "show, don't tell". If you've shown us the two men falling for each other, telling that one or both of them suddenly love someone else won't fix it. And if every other character in the universe seems to think these two are a couple then it's not very hard for the viewer to see that too.

I am tired of hearing about "platonic love stories". The creators have called so many popular ships that, as if it somehow excused their queerbaiting. Platonic and love story are each other's opposites, and platonic love stories don't exist - unless they're talking about the platonic concept of love: that humans had four legs, four arms and two heads but they were too powerful so the gods divided them in two, and that's why people need a soulmate. But usually they don't mean that - however, sometimes they do. Thank gods for Hugh Dancy. But when creators literally call the ship a love story between two men yet insist it's not romantic, it probably aren't the fans who are reaching. If it's a love story, let it be a love story.