#is this what straightbaiting feels like

[smartzelda]

"In every game it's clear they're *basically* in love! They're canon and you all have to subscribe to that or you're wrong!"

And it's a ship that feels like the most straightbaited ship of all time

[portraitofadyke]

I think Our Flag Means Death is a very unique show in a way that they don't care to cater to mainstream media. And yes, by mainstream media I mean the general straight people.

I think it's very important that we have feel-good shows like Heartstopper. A few years back, a tv show about two queer boys in high school would be unthinkable. But its plot generally revolves around explaining queerness. Sure, it's nice. It's definitely the show I would watch with my family if I were a teenager and wanted to come out again (I had to watch glee with my mom to do that. not optimal). It's the show where teenagers find love and themselves, but sexuality is constantly discussed, explained, sanitized. It's the show straight people will watch. And that's good. We do need shows like that.

But Our Flag Means Death doesn't even bother trying. It's a show about mostly middle aged people, most of them not white, most of them queer in one way or the other. It's really a game of spot the hetero, like someone said. And the characters are not sublte about it. They have sex for fun, something most characters don't have in tv shows, definitely not queer characters. They make dick jokes. They are not all conventionally attractive and they know it, and the writing doesn't care. They are all people before they are queer representation.

Stede's storyline in s1 is in a part about discovering himself and his sexuality, but it's not obnoxiously repeated. Instead, it's played in a natural way. Stede's storyline is ALL about finding himself, yet it's not just about that. Just like Ed's storyline, it's about toxic masculinity and allowing himself to have fine things and self-hatred and finding his place in a world, something most of us can relate to. Hell, none of us were even sure the main characters were going to kiss and end up together, we were all so sure it's a queerbait. But this show doesn't bait its audience. It's not afraid of weirdness. It embraces it instead. There is a nonbinary character. No, they are not a mermaid. Call them jim. That's it. Yes, Lucius and Pete got engaged. Everyone there knows what mateolage is, congrats. Olu and Jim never break up and then Archie shows up, then Zheng, and we all know. We all know.

Two men nearing fifty have a deep, romantic moment where one of them appears as a mermaid, and it's treated as the profound scene it is without ridiculing it. This would never fly in a 'mainstream' media. It would have to be downplayed. Here, it saves Ed's life.

The show tells you racists suck, but it doesn't tell you in a condescending, finger-waving way catered to the white people. Instead, it sets your ship aflame and burns you alive, runs a knife through your hand, puts poison in your drink and kills you.

This is a show for adults, for queer people of all kinds, and it does not give a fuck if anyone else gets it. It's so rare to find a tv show that caters to us, yet alone a tv show that's genuinely good and caring and so well loved.

This is a show that basically straightbaited its audience in the first season, that's how much they don't care.

Idk, I just feel that it will take ages for another show like OFMD to exist in a world full of MCU and media that tries so hard to be liked by everyone it loses its personality and charm. Rant over

[teambyler]

Byler wouldn't be "straightbaiting"

When Byler becomes canon, I can already see the accusations:

"We've been straightbaited by this show TWICE!" (Referring to Robin being gay after being a possible love interest for Steve.)

But this isn't about keeping "score" between the gays and the straights. It's about what makes sense for the characters.

Steve thought he and Robin would make a great ROMANTIC COUPLE, but as it turns out not only is she gay but he's also has needed a BEST FRIEND outside the "popular crowd" he's grown out of. (In retrospect, it was also clear that Steve wasn't really into her sexually but liked her as a good friend.) And Robin has needed someone she can come out to and talk to about girls:

Mike and Will, meanwhile, are BEST FRIENDS, but they'll actually become, well, you know...

Mike and Will are the same thing, in reverse. They have all the same nerd interests. But Mike also feels inadequate in his relationship. He needs someone who sees him as a hero. Will has felt the deepest love for Mike after all Mike's done to help him. They give what the other person needs.

"Straightbaiting" would be the show building up a straight romantic couple as something that makes sense for everyone involved, then pulling the rug out from under them to cater to mass-market pressure (which let's be real doesn't exist for LGBT+ couples since most viewers relate more to straight relationships).

Nope! If Byler plays out, it wouldn't be "straightbaiting." It would be be "Mike- and Will-serving."

People who yell "straightbaiting" really just have a problem because Byler would be the first time two MAIN CHARACTERS got in a same-sex relationship with each other, in a show that already has had FIVE heterosexual pairings: Nancy/Steve, Mike/El, Nancy/Jonathan, Lucas/Max, and Joyce/Hopper. They just want straight people to have a monopoly on representation (again).

-teambyler

[straightbaittournament]

may the best bait win! propaganda under the cut

brienne and jaime:

[major spoilers for the show] homoerotic as hell. for some reason. from what i've heard this seems like a rare case of buried straights. jaime i believe dies right after they get together. the first time they have sex jaime says he's never done it "with a knight" before. literally most of my knowledge about this ship comes from bait: a queerbaiting podcast (one of their "straightbait specials"), which i'm officially suggesting as propaganda i'm only up to s4 but i feel like they should be hereThey def have already been submitted but I'm getting in early on the #BraimeSweep They're soulmates 4real :( <33 "Brienne caught him before he could fall. Her arm was all gooseflesh, clammy and chilled, but she was strong, and gentler than he would have thought. Gentler than Cersei." "The swords kissed and sprang apart and kissed again. Jaime's blood was singing" "Jaime's golden hand cracked him across the mouth so hard the other knight went stumbling down the steps. His lantern fell and smashed, and the oil spread out, burning." "You are speaking of a highborn lady, ser. Call her by her name. Call her Brienne." "In this light she could almost be a beauty, he thought. In this light she could almost be a knight." Come on. This het couple has no right to drive me (a lesbian) crazy. If they don't get together I'll explode.

kathryn and chakotay:

Janeway is the Captain of a Starfleet ship lost so far from home it will take decades to reach. Chakotay is the Captain of a Maquis (rebel) ship also lost there. They decide to work together to get home and combine their crews when the Maquis ship is destroyed, and Chakotay becomes her second-in-command. Because of the seriousness of the situation, Janeway feels that she cannot afford the distraction of a romance and so they never get together. They have NO personal space and look longingly at each other quite often and one episode has them forced to abandon ship potentially forever and they live together in a little house and he builds her a bathtub because she complains about not having one and they share a romantically charged massage where he tells her a made up story about a warrior and the woman who inspired him which he openly admits is made up and actually about them. Also he holds her while she cries about their chance of going back to the ship being destroyed. In a different episode she “dies” and he cradled her body while weeping about it. They also have candlelit dinners regularly and she lent him a copy of the book her ex-fiancé gave her, and every time the show conspires to make one temporarily unaware of the other, they flirt hardcore. An episode designed to show how they wouldn’t work as a couple only makes more people ship them. Also a young version of Janeway meets older Chakotay via time travel and asks him if they’re together in the future despite her being engaged at that point. He declined to answer directly.they have a lot of Tension thruout the series & a very deep relationship, but Janeway has someone waiting for her back home & Chakotay ends up in a romance plot with another person in the last season (that I personally felt came from out of nowhere but whatever) I rooted for them! I rooted for a str8 couple! I did not care that Janeway had someone waiting for her back home even tho I usually do! but I did not care! they deserved to fuck!

[columboposting]

I say this as a certified gwen cooper stan and defender and lover etc etc so if i see anyone in my replies coming for my girl its on sight. But it is honestly completely batshit insane to me the way seasons 1 and 2 of torchwood consistently do this thing where on-screen development or depiction of Jack and Ianto’s romantic relationship is directly preceded by a category five Gwen and Jack Unresolved Sexual Tension event. Like, Jack propositioning Ianto over Suzie’s corpse comes right after a scene where Jack and Gwen make moon eyes at each other from across the Hub; in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Jack only asks Ianto out on a date after a failed attempt to woo Gwen; in Reset, Martha’s conversation with Ianto about getting him and Jack a red UNIT hat comes after her convo with Gwen where both of them are like “man we must be the only two people in the world who havent been with Jack.” The obviously most insane example is in Something Borrowed when Gwen and Jack dance together extremely intimately AT GWEN’S WEDDING and Ianto literally has to WALK OVER to take Jack off Gwen’s hands. (If I missed any more examples please tell me because i feel like I did. Also Fwiw not every Janto scene follows a Gwack UST event, though by the same turn not every Gwack UST event is followed by a Janto scene. But I think there’s enough here for it to be a pattern.). So there’s this consistent thing where we see Jack make moon eyes at Gwen and only going to Ianto after this fails to result in anything substantial. This creates the impression that Ianto is Jack’s second choice for a partner, and that Gwen is his first.

You could argue that this pattern constitutes Jack choosing Ianto over Gwen, but… I dunno. The obstacle that consistently stops Jack from pursuing Gwen further in the scenes I’m talking about is not his commitment to Ianto but Gwen’s commitment to Rhys. (If you want an example of TW S1/2 actually showing Jack choose Ianto over Gwen I’d point at End of Days: Gwen metaphorically awakens Jack by kissing his corpse (he doesn’t seem to object but Gwen is obviously the one initiating), and then Jack immediately runs off to make out with Ianto. Compare with, say, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, where Jack tries to initiate with Gwen, gets cock-blocked by her engagement ring, and subsequently asks Ianto out. You see the difference?

To set my cards on the table I am obsessed with Jack and Gwen’s straightbait situationship, and I think it is completely fine and cool and entertaining, actually, for Jack and Gwen UST to coexist with canon Janto (Jack is from the Free Love century and has two hands; meanwhile it baffles me that people get on Gwen’s ass for the crime of (checks notes) being into Jack Fucking Harkness, as if being attracted to him is not completely normal and understandable), HOWEVER the show’s scene to scene editing CONSISTENTLY gives the impression that Jack would choose Gwen over Ianto if given the opportunity. So for all that I think a lot of Gwen hate is like, people being unfairly mad at Gwen for “getting in the way” of a gay ship that, per the show’s writing, she never actively interferes with or disapproves of and is generally shown to support, the way the show uses the language of editing does actually kind of value Jack’s hypothetical straight relationship with Gwen over his existing gay relationship with Ianto in a way that frankly fucking sucks. I have no idea whether or not this was intentional or whose fault it is (if I had to blame anyone I’d blame the writers involved and the editors involved, but tv production is complicated and this is a systemic problem that would be difficult to identify if you’re only looking at one episode at a time) but whatever happened its like. A lowkey homophobic element of an otherwise mostly queer-friendly show. Literally what were they thinking.

[girl4music]

I once heard the term “straightbaiting” in regards to ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’. As in, what we queer people get in another show where there’s queerbaiting. But with Xena it’s just with the opposite sex instead. And that’s accurate because the central relationship in ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ is Xena and Gabrielle. The show revolves around both of them as main characters and their love relationship - be it platonic or romantic.

Every other episode in the earlier seasons they would bring in a male love interest for either one of them (later in the show they would also get female love interests as well as male love interests; Gabrielle - Najara, Thalassa, Brunhilda. Xena - M’Lila, Lao Ma and, ugh, Akemi) but none of these love interests lasted. They would either die, leave or otherwise just never show up in the show again. They were either always temporary fill ins/stand bys until the other main character returned or used as a relationship conflict between Xena and Gabrielle, basically stating and showing how unnatural it was for either of them to have any sort of love relationship going on when it’s not with each other. And whenever this happens, the show itself feels shaky and off-kilter: unbalanced.

In a sense,… not straight. It feels not straight for it to be straight. It feels fake. It feels abnormal. Wrong. Exactly the way a queer person is supposed to feel when it’s queerbaiting in a primarily straight show. Straightbaiting in Xena feels like that to a straight person because Xena is genuinely a queer show and, therefore, in that show,… Queer is right. Queer is normal. Queer is real. And even with the female love interests - it still feels that way because, again, the central and most important relationship is X and G!

So ‘straightbaiting’ is absolutely the most accurate term to describe what the experience of ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ is rather than queerbaiting because it’s not Xena and Gabrielle that is the bait. It’s everyone else. And this is especially true with the male love interests. Except maybe Ares. But that’s a whole other topic altogether that takes understanding Rob Tapert’s mind, who is genuinely team X and G all the way but just has hang ups with X and A. I won’t go into it here.

But yes, it also boggles my mind something awful when anyone watching Xena today could call it queerbaiting. It’s honestly the entire opposite. You can’t watch episodes like ‘When Fates Collide’ and ‘Who’s Gurkhan’ and hell, even Season 2’s ‘The Quest’, without realizing that the creators are genuine with how they write Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship. It’s not a joke. It might have started out as one but pretty damn quickly they changed course and it became serious. So serious that almost every other relationship for Xena or Gabrielle feels like a joke. Feels like it is the bait that keeps straight people tuned into watching a queer show about queer characters the way straight characters acting queer are the bait for queer people to watch a straight show.

And I cannot put it anymore concisely than that. That IS ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’. It is a straightbaiting show. So much so that Lucy and Renee have laughs about it. These are two straight women taking the piss out of the show’s attempts to keep its straight audience. Laughing about how unnatural it all feels for Xena and Gabrielle to have “straight” love relationships, proving my point completely true without knowing it. And I’m emphatically saying this as a queer woman myself that headcanons Xena as bisexual. Still queer but not gay. It feels extremely wrong for Gabrielle to be doing this. But it doesn’t ever matter because it doesn’t ever last. What lasts is the central relationship. That of X & G.

So regardless whether the nature of Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship is platonic or romantic, the creators are purposefully telling and showing you all love interests or love relationships besides theirs fail in comparison. And that’s not a very “queerbait-y” thing to do, is it? That’s actually the opposite of queerbait.

[raisinchallah]

you know i am really fascinated by the gabrielle/joxer and xena/ares fans with huge victim complexes because its such a beautiful illustration of how getting straightbaited turns straight people completely insane and could not survive one day experiencing the daily life of a queerbait enjoyer like they sometimes seem really offended they even have to defend their position and that in many ways especially the gabrielle/joxer side they have less evidence for their favorite relationships canonicity than the femslashers they have declared war with like theyre totally off kilter unsure how to cope with this like change in the balance of fandom power and that gay people run the show in the xena fandom my impression as of now is that joxer/gabrielle fans have the biggest victim complex as they are also regularly mocked in the show and i think even regular straight people find it kind of cringe so its niche within that space but xena/ares fans are like in many ways regular m/f fans and their victim complex is mostly about how they wish women could be strong and powerful without being gay and that this also constitutes oppression to be assumed to be gay for being strong and a woman and both feel they must stand strong against big subtext tho in many ways and some whoosh articles say this and try to make peace amongst the sides that actually all of these relationships constitute subtext and that everyone is feeding off the same subtext scraps with nothing entirely confirmed beyond one sided feelings from men towards women adn that xena and gabrielle love each other but again this illustrates how straight people turn insane if they do not get what they want..

[chainofclovers]

biscuits 😭

Literally just staying up all night crying about the end of an era and attempting to wrangle 7800 layers of feelings into a thing that can come out in English

But I've been thinking about the biscuits

Not just the croissants she's eating in the scene where we think they've slept together (I refuse to feel baited by that scene btw, even though it and Beard's entrance made me feel like I'd ascended to a new plane of reality; the scene happened for a reason; I'm too tired to go into it; my relationship to heterosexual ships is interesting enough as it is and I don't need to develop a fucking straightbaiting chip on my shoulder and walk around with that; also Ted/Rebecca's incredibly intentional yet incredibly unconsummated-within-the-three-season-arc connection is like every femslash ship I've ever loved; I've decided to just lean into T/R's story being unfinished and to treat the rom-com leave-cute reference as a fond homage to what could be; I'm allowed to be as generous as I want to be with this show and these writers; LMAO; crying my ass off [stilted Scorpio version]; but genuinely--I can be as generous as I want to be and I don't have to hate this if I don't want to hate this)

Anyway

I've been thinking not just about the croissants she's eating in the scene where we think they've slept together, and how those aren't biscuits, but also about how she doesn't tell him she'll miss the biscuits and he doesn't talk about the ritual and he never bakes her biscuits again as far as we can tell and he doesn't give her the recipe

And it hurts but I love it

[[[[ The biscuits are his dick (-- @boglady ) ]]]]

Because it's so intrinsic to who they are that they just don't talk about this ritual engrained in the last 2.5 years of their lives, I think...and sure, sometimes we see Ted reference the biscuits when he walks in with some...but no one notices. Ted's mom doesn't notice. Trent doesn't notice. Higgins notices, but he was involved in the early s1 biscuit taste-testing, and he's all-seeing in a lot of ways so it's different. Lord knows Sassy isn't getting a biscuit even if she's gotten to enjoy Ted's actual dick a few times. Keeley is close enough to notice, but she's suspiciously quiet about it. Beard has to come over and fix Ted's oven all the time, but we never see him comment.

So how perfect is it that in everything Rebecca has to process about Ted leaving, she almost becomes another person who has taken for granted that Ted performs this absolutely deranged gesture of love in baking her biscuits every single week and delivering them to her in a pink box every day...because that's really telling. She puts a lot of work into asking him to stay. She's feeling all kinds of desperate things. She isn't at all like the people who don't see what he's been doing for her; her reasons for never mentioning the biscuits again are nothing like the biscuit-invisibility everyone else experiences. She just can't or won't say anything because the biscuits are untouchable

And in the season 4 that will exist in my head but will almost certainly never be a reality, someday, when they see each other again, he makes her some biscuits and she's so angry she can't eat them

(And then things get better and she does, but not at first)

(This is why I had to take Wednesday off work)

(I'm fuckin' losing it)

[disasterbijamietartt]

I’ll need a few days to really process the last episode, so don’t expect any meta until the weekend.

But I wanted to write a post about why I believe in the writers and why I think that … this sounds so arrogant and delusional, but that my predictions here* are roughly what will happen and queer folks can stay hopeful.

(*tl;dr: Essentially that Colin will be the inspiration for main characters to address their queerness, Ted Lasso spent two seasons straightbaiting its entire audience and this season will end queer as fuck)

When I started watching Ted Lasso I thought it would be a fun, but silly little sports comedy, but very soon it got obvious how the show featured heavier themes and that they didn’t follow the expected script. Like, when Rebecca tells Ted the truth, you’d normally get some drama and rising conflict – but we got instant forgiveness.

And it got soon obvious we’d get a love triangle with Jamie, Keeley and Roy and – as someone who knows how the script goes – my first assumption was, that Roy x Keeley will be endgame (which was sad, since I adored Jamie x Keeley from the beginning, but I digress).

But some of the things that usually put me off love triangles were missing: there was no prolonged unnecessary drama after Roy learned that Keeley hooked up with Jamie the night before, Jamie and Roy didn’t fight over who would “get” Keeley (even though Roy’s jealousy sure was one reason for the tension between him and Jamie, but it wasn’t the only one), Jamie didn’t try to actively win Keeley back throughout the second season, he didn’t try to sabotage their relationship, even though he still loved her. The rocky parts in Roy’s and Keeley’s relationship weren’t related to Jamie at all, on the contrary, Jamie kind of unintentionally fixed their problems.

So, when they diverge so much from the expected, should I really still assume they’ll end the show with the thing everyone expects to happen? (like, in classic romance structure, Roy and Keeley now had their third act break-up, that always happens before the happily ever after … but as Phil said in an interview, they’re situation is a lot more complex than you’ll usually get.)

So, anyway, Ted Lasso was playing with expectations from the beginning. You’d expect Ted x Rebecca and Roy x Keeley endgame cause that is how the classic narrative works but the show subverted classic structure in the first season. So why should we assume that they just stick to the classic script now?

Also the theme song:

“Yeah, might be all that you get,

Yeah, I guess this might well be it“

I always thought, for an optimistic show like Ted Lasso this was a kinda sober beginning. But if you look at this with a queer eye … Cishet people are so used to seeing their happy endings playing out, so that is what they’ll expect to get. Until the last couple years, queer people barely got any stories with happy endings, so you didn’t exactly grow up with the expectation you’ll get a happy ending.

So you just had to take what you got.

But on the other hand the song has this hopeful bit about trying and not giving up. And … okay, I’m not sure where I’m going with this, but, idk, it just feels like it would fit as the theme song for an ultimately hella queer show?

And there are a lot of allusions to “The Wizard of Oz”, starting with the title of the first episode, Ted being the “Man from Kansas” aka Dorothy – googling I found this post pointing out a lot parallels in the second season, so it is not just me being delusional again.

For context: The movie was released 1939. Between 1934 and 1968 due to the Hays Code people couldn’t be shown as being explicitly queer in movies in the US, so writers started to queercode characters to still indicate queerness. And there is of course queercoding in “The Wizard of Oz” just like Ted Lasso and the movie as a whole resonated a lot with queer audiences, making Judy Garland a Gay Icon (see here). 

Both the movie and L. Frank Baumans novels have a lot of queer subtext (like, there is even kind of a trans character in the novels?). "Friend of Dorothy” was a way gay men referred to each other at a time, where they couldn’t just openly ask about someone’s orientation.

Fun Fact: The movies title song “Over the Rainbow” soon became a queer anthem and people wondered whether it inspired the rainbow flag. But the creator, Gilbert Baker, said he was inspired by,

wait for it,

“She’s a Rainbow” by the Rolling Stones (see here).

Rings a bell?

The episode “Rainbow”?

Roy returning as a coach to Richmond?

Also: Jamie comparing the team to the Rolling Stones? Himself to Mick Jagger and Roy to Keith Richards, who both wrote the song?

And, looking at episode titles some more: The color "Lavender" is so queer it has it's own LGTBQ-section on Wikipedia. Also the bisexual pride flag, where the colours overlap to form lavender? There was probably some other reason I forgot that the episode where Jamie returned was called like the queerest color ever, but still …

WHAT A BUNCH OF CURIOUS COINCIDENCES!

Oh God, the more I look, the queerer everything gets! I think I could go on some more, but I need to get breakfast and then some work done.

[lunammoon]

I love how you implied that throughout the Entirety of Series 5, Amy thought The Doctor and Marion were in a Will they Won't they situation.

I really wanna see how that Affected her Actions.

And I kinda Hope you delve into Trial of a Timelord, where The Doctor went "If I Wanted to take down Corrupt Civilizations, I should've stayed Home!", with Marion doing a Whole Reason You Suck Speech to the Judges as a representation of the High Council.

That whole area of media 2010s-2016s ish was a period in which a lot of mainstream media hadn't caught up to the fact that gay people wanted to see themselves represented and ended up doing a lot of ha...maybe...but they say they don't like each other like that...but maybe....(<-the writers have 0 intention of making this an actual couple) Sherlock, also by Steven Moffat is an example of this and so when I was coming up with rough ideas for the various dynamics in different TARDIS teams I thought:

"hey what if a young Amelia spent her whole childhood thinking the man and woman she met were a couple and when they weren't kept trying to get them to see that they were the ones for each other even though neither was interested in anything romantic or sexual with the other"

Her flirting with the Doctor is to get Marion to react while Marion’s main reaction is "Hey? Rory deserves better than that."

So a subplot of season 5 is Amy (and Rory to a lesser extent mostly from being dragged along) is trying to get The Doctor and Marion together with the two of them being varying degrees of oblivious and apathetic.

The joke is that I'm straightbaiting or at least Amy is being straightbaited. I would hope the audience would understand what's going on.

On the topic of Marion and Gallifrey.

Have you ever had a friend, who every now and when would causally give anecdotes about their family, and you never really said anything, because their anecdotes paint a really concerning picture about their homelife, but the tone of voice in which they tell you this clearly thinks that they think what they're telling you is, like, not normal EXACTLY but not so out of the median range of familial behavior to be worth getting upset over and you don’t want to ruin their day, but when you happen to see their mom in public you don't say anything but are visualizing blowing them up with your mind? Maybe you want to tell them off but you don't want to make your friend's life hander.

This is how Marion feels about Gallifrey.

That's not to mention I'm pretty sure Tectun triggered the Flux bc the Doctor found out so Marion’s eventual blow up is less a furious stream of consciousness as she is wont to do and more of a series of very clipped very angry sentences.

[fitzrove]

sisitod for the ask game?

Hehehehehehe >:D The big one,,,,

1. Why don’t you ship it?

Ok so I put "don't ship it" because in principle I don't. The thing is, I've written sisitod fanfic (not linking cos it comes with a bunch of warnings but it's on ao3) - my issue is, again, exactly like with Krolock and Sarah in TdV, that I don't like common fandom interpretations or the direction in which the show portrayal has gone since the mid-2000s. I ship it how it was portrayed in Vienna 1992, with Tod just being a symbol, I think it's SUCH a powerful message (like some creatives have said!) to have the only man Sisi could ever truly love be "unthreatening" (= imaginary), androgynous, made of poetry and magic... I don't think the Máté and Mark take of "dream guy" works for Sisitod, I think it takes away from the themes xD

And again, with the fandom interpretations - I just have a deep disbelief in Sisi wanting Tod in the long-term, as he is instead of as she dreams things, or it being empowering that they're together in the afterlife forever. It's so powerful that there's just a split second moment for them to be happy together, and yet it profoundly changes everything forever (this is especially the case for Máté Tod - omg he truly is an insane meow meow, like, encountering Sisi makes him feel things for the first time and he doesn't know how to cope with it, also my interpretation is kinda that he vents this on Rudolf who surprisingly - due to being a freak - likes it 😭😂). Also I see the sisitod relationship as nonsexual for historical reasons so that's also a contrast with some fandom takes

2. What would have made you like it?

I think it's ok in 1992 😌 and on the symbolic level!

Interestingly, it doesn't really make me like it more if it's gay... It still doesn't make it more viable long-term to me if we have girl tod 😂

3. Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

I love Elisabeth 1992,,, (Except the final performances where Pia and Uwe straightbait too hard 😭😂💀 I know everyone loves them in those vids and I'm happy for them being completely insane about it, but I don't think it works for the portrayal/the story. Also it's THEIR FAULT that the show has gotten straightpeople romanticised over the years, apparently Kunze and Levay consider them The Actors for these roles and so they became afflicted with sisitod brainrot and started adding more romantic songs and plot changes 😭😂)

Also without sisitod we wouldn't have todolf which is my religious affiliation so I am very grateful it exists

[will80sbyers]

I think mlvn was framed positively while they were children and before they started dating. It’s when they become established and start growing up that the Duffers decided to portray them in a negative light which makes perfect sense to me considering what they’re doing with the story. That’s also around the time Byler started to become more obvious in the narrative.

I agree that they were framed more positively in the first two seasons but they were also framed as obviously romantic since the start and that's the ONLY point I was making

it's clear when you watch that they focus on Mike's reaction when they find her in the woods

they focus on them getting closer than the others and liking each other more and more

they use romantic framing in film ( the pretty scene)

and also romantic tropes for them many times like the interruption when they are about to kiss

they use the romantic trope of the young kid liking someone and denying it saying "ew gross!" but really having a crush

they had their first kiss together and it was focused on and placed on a private moment between them only

we know it's even in the script, in one of the few real scripts we have Mike is described as having feelings for her at the snowball

these are all facts in the show, they are FRAMED as liking each other genuinely and being in a relationship for real and that is why so many people shipped them.

they didn't ship them because of heteronormativity, they shipped them because

THEY ARE LITERALLY FRAMED AS A REAL COUPLE.

That is a fact.

Now, could it all be REVEALED as Mike having comphet? ALSO, YES.

how are people here always talking about how an amazing "straightbait" byler will be for the audience but at the same time denying that Mike and El are clearly being framed and made it look like they are a real romantic couple, I will never understand...

make up your minds already 😱😱😱😱

[worstqueerbaittournament]

I don't think Luca and Alberto are queerbaiting in the slightest, they're just young kids who're new to everything. If that wasn't a classic no-holds-barred childhood romance story I don't know what is. And anyway, they had plenty of opportunities to pair up Luca with Giulia but they never did that, Alberto clearly meant something else entirely to him. There would be 0 ambiguity here if one of them was a girl, like imagine calling Your Name or something straightbaiting.

I am unfamiliar with both of these movies! Feel free to send opinions in!

[straightbaittournament]

(shaking, through tears) may the best bait win! propaganda under the cut:

mulder and scully:

Infamously treated and teased by showrunners + writers like how a gay couple would be baited and like a gay couple in general, although eventually they do kiss and have a son (although that falls through and they become kind of divorced)

during the entire original run of the show i'm pretty sure chris carter would have said they never had a romantic relationship (they had a baby without ever having had sex!) however in the revival their sort of ambiguous What Are We deal was made a lot more explicit so feel free to veto based on these grounds LITERALLY INVENTED 'SHIPPING'. YOU'RE WELCOME

while i'm... pretty sure they get together eventually (i've only watched a bit of the x-files), from what i've heard they invented the term "shipping" because of people arguing over whether they would/should be romantically involved, so i think they should be included, for fandom history reasons if nothing else

they are a man and a woman who don't get together until ridiculously late but are hilariously devoted to one another, clingy, self-sacrifice-y, and also Forehead Kisses

They’re together but they’re not they love each other but barely know each other

clara and twelve:

their relationship is heavily romantic coded, but is never explicitly confirmed as romantic or not. the queerbait thing of teasing them on socials but never paying them off in canon applies here! also secret love confessions by way of double entendre or omission

they "arent romantic" but obviously they are

They are a man (I guess?) and a woman never get together but physical contact is filmed with such tension, there's jealousy with one member's significant other, "do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference," "I'm changing history to save Clara," "run you clever boy and be a Doctor," "people like you and me, we should say things to one another," "I'll be the judge of time," "If you love me in any way..." okay these all have context but trust me it's Insane

They never get to be together and in their last episode together, Clara presumably confesses her love to him and WE DONT EVEN SEE IT. like immediately after he gets his memory wiped.

[fuckmylifeupplease]

I stg if y'all don't watch, if y'all don't stream this show and run our chance for the slow burn wenclair I am craving, I'll never forgive y'all. Trust in Hunter, trust the cast, and heck if Hunter was even allowed to post that I'm feeling we can trust the writers. Trust in Jenna, this girl has worked so hard for this character with so much care because she is that important to her, she gets Wednesday, in her we can trust. With a character like Wednesday this slow build is so important, the fact she has no interest in her 'love interests' but actually has amazing development with her friendship with Enid is such a big thing. I can see the set up for the slow burn we deserve. The series is also just 8 eps for the first season, that's amazing development for 8 eps! Imagine seasons to come ;-;!!! And there is other LGBTQ representation this season which explains the WednesGay promotion, this gives me even more hope for wenclair since there's already queer representation in the show!!! No queerbaiting here. Wenclair has yet to be confirmed but also denied, we have hope. Y'all, please, dropping before even watching it doesn't make any sense and will just ruin any chance of this actually happening. Personally, the reviews have just hyped me up and I can't wait, I know I'ma binge and rewatch multiple times not even for streaming but because of what this character means to meeee. I hope everyone does watch it, counting on y'all.

Now I'll be going back to writing about my two faves 👍🏽 and some drawings too cause I'm inspired.

Edit: Just realized something else, how fucking amazing would it be if they have this 'love triangle' set up to reel in the straights just to have it be wenclair build up in season 2, I can totally see this happening just from how popular wenclair is even with all the fucking reviews y'all, like come on, the reviews are so positive if anything!! We gotta be hopeful and show how much we want it now. No one should feel discouraged, especially when Jenna outright said she wasn't for a love triangle for Wednesday. We can't let it get cancelled when that's such a big possibility 😭 they're obviously straightbaiting!!!! Either way I'll happily live in my delusions for now.

[olderthannetfic]

Hi ONTF, sorry to vent in your inbox but I’ve just stumbled into 3 different posts in rapid succession that had me boggling. I don’t know, they were probably just vent-y tumblr hyperbolic posts but is this really how a lot of people on here are about the media they consume?

One was about how another show ended in a queerbaiting mess (did it? Really? Does queerbaiting mean what you think it does?), the second one was about how people should boycott any show with even a hint of queerbaiting (which, in context, seems to mean with any shippy dynamic that doesn’t become canon in 2 episodes!) and the third one was about people insisting that a show is actual representation when, as much as I liked Good Omens, it just isn’t.

I was left staring at my screen with the impression that these people are either looking at meh shows they don’t actually think much of with their slash goggles firmly on and basing their opinion of the show’s worth on weather their ship becomes canon or trying to shoehorn representation in shows that they did enjoy because otherwise they wouldn’t feel as good about liking them? Idk, I guess what I’m asking is was it just 3 badly worded posts or is this an attitude you’ve noticed on this hellsite?

And at the same time if representation, no, let’s be honest: if the canonical status of their specific ship is so important to them that they can’t enjoy a show unless it’s there why do they seem to mainly be watching mainstream stuff with low chances of an actual payoff? I keep rewriting this part, I keep getting sidetracked. Basically I agree with you that people on here seem to put way too much faith in the idea that mainstream shows are writing things a certain way to bait queer audience when I think they’re just doing what mainstream shows have always done and most just don’t much care. But I wonder what has caused this idea, what gave people the expectation that their queer ship, often between well known main characters, has a chance in hell of becoming canon? Is it because roughly ten years ago a couple of shows went “actually yes, this infamous cannibal is in love with the fbi agent! Straightbait! Our main pirate is queer!”? But Hannibal and Black Sails were both pretty niche, not super popular shows. They were, and remain, exceptions. Sherlock and, idk, Got, were whole other beasts popularity wise. The fact that it is still unusual is why people where so happy and excited about ofmd! But statistically? Either a show is clearly marketed to a queer audience or the chances of a queer main character/ship are abysmally low and I don’t get why people keep doing this to themselves. Sorry, I’m rambling and confused at that absurd boycott idea and I’m curious to hear what you and others think.

--

Well... when you mostly read books by AO3y people and hang around in fanfic space, reality does cater to you. One forgets how different the rest of the world is.

And in many ways, that's a good thing.

But I spend a lot of my time on original m/m rather than big name shows, and it definitely helps.

When one swims in the AO3/Tumblr/Tiktok/whatever waters all day long and then goes back to really big media, expecting the same status quo, one is disappointed.