#i’ve never watched that show but i know they’re kweers

[amiharana]

priDEMONth vs pridEMOnth

[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.