#queer coding vs queerbaiting

[disast3rtransp0rt]

"Sterek" is a great example of legitimate queerbaiting! And here's how it went down:

Jeff Davis, the WRITER and SHOWRUNNER would make tweets like this:

And for the Teen Choice Awards in 2012 he/the MTV twitter account posted videos of Tyler and Dylan on a boat! An actual boat! They were snuggling and giggling while saying things like "Sterek is real!" and "We're on a ship, pun intended!"

Jeff Davis used the potential for a canon queer relationship to win accolades and attention for his tv show, but in the end it horribly backfired. Viewership dropped significantly after Tyler Hoechlin left and the fandom felt really betrayed.

THAT is queerbaiting. Promising it, using it for your advantage as a showrunner, but never giving the audience what they want because it risks controversy.

Side Note: It's part of the reason Riverdale went so hard (and bad) on their "queer representation" at first. They were mimicking the success of TW in their format and relationship drama and wanted to be inclusive, but hadn't figured out the way actual queer people (much less queer teens who are struggling in their identity) wanted to be represented.

I don't know when everyone somehow collectively forgot the actual definition of queerbaiting but like... yall know queerbaiting was never about REAL PEOPLE'S actual identities right? It's about the MEDIA they put out.

Queerbaiting is when media hints that there will be queer rep to lure in a queer audience with no intention of ever delivering on that rep.

Queerbaiting is NOT when a celebrity experiments with gender or sexuality without coming out. They are allowed to explore!

Queerbaiting is NOT when an author writes a queer book without explicitly stating they share the same sexual or gender identity!

Queer media is NOT queerbaiting just because you don't know the creator's sexuality or assigned gender at birth!

Is the media explicitly queer? Then it's not queerbaiting! Simple as that! No one owes you an explanation of their own identity, full stop.

[0-therw-0-rldly]

I’ll preface this by saying I’m not really a shipper. I just enjoy canon couples on TV Series/films.

Terms I’d like B*ddies to remove from their vocabulary because they don’t know how to use them correctly:

Media literacy: For a group that uses this term a lot you sure do misinterpret everything in this show.

Queerbaiting: Going to expand on this one. A show that’s already been pre established for having queer characters simply cannot queerbait.

Ship baiting: While sometimes you can argue that they could be doing that, that’s only if you look at the show in a very biased manner. You might think this is the case but the general audience doesn’t think the way you do.

Ship war: This isn’t a one tree hill situation where there was Team Brooke Vs. Team Peyton where the middle guy (Lucas Scott) had canonically been with both women. This is people not understanding fanon vs. canon and not being able to just watch the show. It’s like playing quarterback on Madden and thinking you could be better than Patrick Mahomes.

Plot device: everything’s a plot device. Move tf on.

Predator: You sound like crazy MAGA supporters calling everything regarding the LGBTQIA+ community as predatory. Sit down.

Co-parenting: I know this is a big one and discourse was brought up during the hiatus. Oliver and Ryan have loosely mentioned this years ago but it was never to be taken this seriously. Do y’all even know what co-parenting is or are you that big of a donut? Buck is someone who loves his best friend deeply and by extension, his kid too. Him taking care of him frequently does not make him a co-parent. Maybe he is a parental or uncle figure, but he isn’t a co-parent. Also, I swear y’all need to learn how a will works. He is a GODPARENT, not a GUARDIAN. Stfu.

Hag: This especially applies to women, but to say that someone 25-30+ is a hag for still being in fandoms or enjoying tv shows/films is inherently misogynistic. Men are never held to this much criticism for enjoying fictional media, but women aren’t allowed to?

Queer Coding: people of the same sex “looking at each other”, hugging, or having intimate moments all together doesn’t make them queer coded. It could mean that they just love each other that deeply platonically. While representation is amazing and just because you interpret a character as queer coded (just like my ship baiting comment) doesn’t mean others interpret it that way as well. In addition, network TV has stipulations, and also actors are allowed to decline storylines. Ryan has mentioned his character is heterosexual an abundance of times which means (at least for now) that he isn’t willing to go for this storyline.

Dead naming: Y’all construing the fact that Buck wants people like coworkers and some of his former love interests, to saying Evan is his dead name is inherently transphobic because do you even understand what a dead name is? Evan Buckley is shown as being fine with being called Evan by both Tommy and his sister. I’m pretty sure some of his love interests have called him Evan as well.

Fetishizing: You guys saw two hot guys who “looked at each other” and for 6 seasons have wanted nothing but to see those two make out with each other. Those of us who enjoy Tevan saw Buck giddy at the thought of Tommy and have wanted domestic fluff for them since.

Anything to do with racism, homophobia, and misogyny: I’ve seen the way you guys have conveniently weaponized Henren and by extension Aisha/Tracie when you didn’t get the Ryan/Oliver interview, don’t try to act like you’re morally superior. Not to mention wanting a canonically gay man to die in a show and not even holding those who use your ship name to write CSA fics accountable because you’re petty and want to throw hissy fits. Anyone looking at your comments as an outsider would think you’re homophobes and yes queer people can be homophobic.

I do hope you can expand your vocabulary. 🤍

[wolfienation]

furthermore, leave jac schaeffer and mary livanos alone. they are the reasons we have this amount of queer rep, queer metaphors and queer coding in the show in the first place. jac filled in front and behind the camera with queer people. mary livanos is queer herself. joe, sasheer and aubrey are all openly queer actors, kathryn hahn has long been an ally for the community and calling this show, which has embraced queer culture so vividly queerbait is frankly ridiculous. hating on it because they centered one episode (out of NINE) on the gay teenage boy is even more ridiculous.

representation means all of us. it's not one vs the other. it's ALL of us.

[sleepynegress]

Meta About How Fandom Dishonestly Talks About Wanting "Queer (It Only Counts When it's White Male!) Rep"....

Fandom always looks like fandom...

The above tweet is dishonest. They are only talking about the characters they want to see be gay or queer in media, coincidentally white men. Mind you, Loki said he was into men and women in his show, they had bisexual lighting, and classic queerbait w/ Morbius and (sorry shippers but I gotta be honest about just my opinion, continue to ship away tho) ZERO chemistry with Sylvie. ...A lot of fandom ate that bait up back in the day, because that's as far as the media for these fandoms would go, back then. Given that Wiccan literally only just appeared with zero indication of his sexuality in MCU, beyond the character himself being portrayed by a gay actor (which I've written can be limiting as an assumption for gay actors, shout out to J Bailey playing love well, regardless), and having in-community affect (if there is a more appropriate term, let me know). Loki, if we're judging them by the same rules... And really, Loki is ahead since he outright said he likes both... The big difference I see is Loki gave classic queer (Disney) villain "coding" which is based in times when queerness wasn't allowed to be played outright as much, while Wiccan is simply giving gay teen existing. So, about that queer rep in the MCU... You mean Phastos and his whole husband and kids in The Eternals?

or Ayo literally being kissed by her partner in Black Panther 2 but we know it only counts to fandom if it's a white male... *sideeye* There's Val and her big gay energy... Hell, Taika went as far as cutting out some tongue action with Thor, which kept her bi much less obvious, and pushed the sapphic energy much more forward:

*the difference between coding and bait is these two confident acts, the second while winkingly gazing at the audience for a beat vs. Carol and Maria's "gal-pal" montage...it don't always have to be intimacy with the same sex* All this to say, you cannot claim to honestly want queer rep while ignoring explicit queer rep that ain't white male... because then it's obvious that you just want to see white gays in a hot make-out session... Which IMO is just the fandom version of straight dudes watching two girls kiss, and that ain't about rep, especially when deeper rep already exists and you ignored it. As for Loki, to me he always came off sort of vaguely slutty/flirty when bound, hit, or challenged in some way.

His energy has always been that, but I will give you, that the only person Loki actually *penetrated* onscreen was a man... not Mobius, but Agent Coulson... Once again, it's coding.

As for Wiccan, I think it's too early to say what the MCU will do rep-wise. YES Agatha All Along is giving EXPLICITLY gay energy. And yeah he's a gay character played by a gay actor, but will he get to be explicitly and honestly be attracted to another boy onscreen? I hope so for him, it would be qt and I would be chin-hands all the way for it.

...But again (same show!), I feel the same about Agatha and *spoiler*I know who Aubrey Plaza is playing but I'll be quiet *spoiler*

[theophagie-remade]

I've been kind of following the Gundam lesbians vs Bandai controversy from the sidelines (ie: the main characters got married (offscreen) at the end of the series and the production team is supportive; Bandai censored the explicit mentions of marriage in a recent magazine and then said that everything is up to interpretation) and. In general it's a really good example of how oftentimes it's not authors who should mainly be blamed for the lack of unapologetic queerness in anime and manga (or anywhere else, for that matter), but those companies that they work for

Which leads me to

And as a side note I want to reiterate this but anyone who calls them "queerbait", "yuribait", etc is a stupid dickhead because Toga is bisexual and in love with Uraraka. THE QUEER IS THERE

At this point it no longer makes much sense to wonder whether the romantic undertones to Uraraka and Toga's relationship are accidental or not. I won't claim that they will definitely end up together together (although I've seen enough Japanese fans go crazy for how proposal-esque Uraraka got to, like, at least entertain the thought lol), but what I want to say is. Everything that happened between them is deliberately meant to be read as queer, romantic, and mutual. Uraraka may have not said "I love you" back to Toga in these same terms, but through her actions and words she has reciprocated her feelings. Yes, even if Those Assholes say that she's just lying, that anything that isn't spoon-fed explicitly confirmed is just a "delusional interpretation"

Even then, the supposed line between text and subtext is... a bit eyebrow raising, innit. Toga being bisexual and having feelings for Uraraka is text. Exchanging blood being equal to kissing to her is text. Her insecurities are text......... Uraraka wanting to give Toga her blood, thinking that her smile is beautiful, and that she's the cutest in the whole world is text. I feel like that strongly suggests something at minimum, no. And. Can we really call it subtext, or even coding, when characters do everything short of dramatically shouting "I gay-love you!" to each other? These are more of my personal feelings, and I know that this happens because We Live In A Society, so we tend to feel like things like these must be outright defined so that our queer interpretations can gain validity and the right to exist in the eyes of the majority (= the cishet audience), but... I do find this way of engaging with media rather stifling, especially because... people who hate us to begin with won't care if two manga girls declare their love to each other. Chances are that they will get angrier, actually, or that they will look for excuses to deny their love ("the author was pressured by crazy shippers", "akchually the wording is ambiguous", "the degenerate West is corrupting the purity of the East", you name it)

Still, I know. I know that there's a lot of hunger for undeniably canonical queer relationships (for obvious reasons! understable reasons!), but to circle back to the beginning of this post, pushing back against the system is hard. Bnha's ending is still a ways off, and no one can predict the future. We don't know if Horikoshi plans to stress even further/more bluntly within the manga that Oh, They 👭🏳️‍🌈, we don't know if Jump would allow him to, we don't know if such a thing would be met with opposition elsewhere/afterwards (see: what Bandai is trying to do now, after everything has been said and done).

Regardless, sought after explicit confirmation or not, they do have something, something that is very much there to anyone who's willing to embrace it for what it is: mutual, queer love. And they're sooo real 🩷💛

[peachyqueenly]

Cookie Run, Queerbait, and why the concept does not apply to SeaMoon... 2!!!

//This is a repost of an older post, as something else came up that I wanted to add to this analysis. If you don't want to reread the entire thing, feel free to skip to the section headed with 'Queerbait: Lost in Translation'.//

There are a lot of issues with the way Devsis, the developers behind Cookie Run, handle diversity in their games. Most notably, it falls into the common trap many, MANY gacha games do in that it partakes in a lot of orientalist tropes. But one debate I’ve seen that I just cannot get behind, as a lesbian, is the idea that they have queerbaited-- most namely, with SeaMoon.

Below the cut, I will explain why: what queerbait is and what it looks like, queerbaiting vs coding, and why comparing WlW tropes from other countries to queerbaiting is unfair (and also maybe don’t apply a Japanese literary concept to a Korean game, more on that later). All in a bid to show why it is not only wrong to compare SeaMoon to queerbaiting, it is harmful.

SeaMoon, for those unfamiliar, is the name popularly given to the ship between Sea Fairy Cookie and Moonlight Cookie in Cookie Run. Aside from the ocean and the moon being a common motif for romance in fiction already, the game had hinted at their romance in a lot of in-game and side material. Most namely, Sea Fairy’s line about Moonlight’s heart ‘being the warmest’ and the “I want you Everyday” music video with their moment together + the lines that went along with that moment...

Your love brought spring to my endless winter...

For more examples of where their romance was suggested, I recommend this doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LPJU8yBYD8Ng7lhh_lR0bA2XRwmJTtbRceGuKahFxFs/edit

The point is, most WlW in this fandom caught onto the romantic ramifications of the ship long before Moonlight was expanded on in Kingdom and the recent updates all but confirmed their mutual affection towards one another. The two of them even got matching costumes and a bond story that was as close to romance as Cookie Run would do (as it is ultimately not a romance centered franchise).

With who they are established...

Queerbait: What is it?

Queerbaiting most popularly is understood as a marketing gimmick where creators and multimedia companies suggest queerness to draw in LGBT people and allies, only for the rug to be pulled out from underneath fans. Though it has other meanings, especially in other cultures as I'll explain more below. Whether this is utilizing the ‘bury your gays’ trope, the rep being constrained to insignificant side characters/moments, or just not existing at all.

The two most popular examples of queerbaiting would be recent Disney movies and Voltron. Though special shoutout to Harry Potter, as if we didn’t have enough reasons to hate the book series and JKR. As the stuff with Dumbledore was an obvious retcon to go ‘look how progressive I am!!!’.

Voltron’s last season had two key things regarding queerbait: the Klance drama (the ship between Keith and Lance) and Shiro’s bait and switch with his partner.

To the show’s credit, Shiro was actually gay. Even revealed to have had a partner he was engaged to. However, this rug was pulled out from underneath fans when they actively killed said partner. He was given another partner in the epilogue, but the fact he was revealed to be gay only for his partner to be killed off (coupled with the next thing) upset many queer fans.

Klance is a lot more insidious. In the run up to the final season, Netflix and the crew actively promoted the show using Klance and its popular support. Despite the fact they knew the relationship was never intended to be canon. This is one of the most explicit examples of queerbaiting out there, and is foundational to understanding the specificity and insidiousness of the marketing ploy.

For Disney, I would like to focus on the Star Wars sequels and Beauty and the Beast (2017). The last movie of the sequel trilogy had the creators talking about how there would be queer rep... leading many queer fans to believe they were talking about Finn and Poe for obvious reasons, something the creators never corrected/confirmed. Only for the rep to merely be two background characters in one scene.

As for Beauty and the Beast, Le Fou was celebrated as Disney’s first openly gay character, leading folks to believe they’d explore him having feelings for the titular bad guy. But that was never really explored in any meaningful way, and the rep we got of him was a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moment between him and an unnamed character. Arguably he could fall more into coding, but the fact Disney actively marketed him for his gayness is where it bleeds into queerbaiting.

In general, queerbaiting is a more modern problem, as companies feel they can say the word gay now. But are still wishy-washy on actual depictions of queerness. So we get them celebrating their inclusion, even if it’s ultimately little to nothing.

Queerbaiting vs Queer Coding

This is when an important distinction needs to be made: what is queerbaiting and what is queer coding. Queer coding is when media uses subtext, but never explicitly says, a character is gay. A good way to understand this is to compare 90′s disney movies to modern ones.

As discussed above, modern Disney will often go on about having queerness in their movies only for it to be minimal at best if not existent. 90′s Disney meanwhile never marketed their movies as having LGBT elements, but many fans could see the way in which queerness came through from characters like Ursula (literally modeled off a drag queen), Scar, and Hades. 

Queer coding can be seen as a product of the Hays Code era-- where positive depictions of ‘perverse sexuality’ (including homosexuality) was not allowed in film, relegating a lot of queerness to the roles of villains (hence the association Disney villains have with it). That, or queer creators had to find ways of coding their heroes in ways that went under the nose of cishet audiences.

Queer coding exists in a net-neutral space. As queer coding, while in many ways is outdated in a world where media can show explicit LGBT rep, was integral to the ways in which queer creators told their stories for years. And actively influences the way many queer creators continue to tell their story (for better and for worse). It can also perpetrate stereotypes against queer people, as we saw with the Disney villains, however.

Still, this is different than the relatively modern concept of queerbaiting as that is largely a negative phenomenon. Queer coding was a tool used and is still used by actual LGBT people, while queerbaiting is more often than not the work of cishet folks or corporations wanting to make a quick buck.

Queerbait: Lost in Translation

Another element of queerbait I did not previously address is how its more commonly understood in the context of cultures' media (such as in Eastern countries like Korea and Japan). As the financial reasoning behind the idea isn't as front and center (for a myriad of complicated reasons regarding how explicit queer rep can be from country to country). Though this definition of queerbait can also apply to US and English based media.

To some, queerbait also applies to coded LGBT relationships that are primarily centered on or meant to appeal to straight audiences (WlW rep meant for the male gaze, MlM rep meant for girls).

In other words, fetishized LGBT coding.

I would personally argue (as a queer non binary lesbian) that this meaning is less insidious than the money making logic behind modern queer baiting that happens in the US mainly, but its for an important reason...

A lot of this queerbait relies on elements of coding still. While the way many Western viewers see queerbait in American media relies on using explicit queerness as a marketing ploy. To compare, let's look at idol/sports anime and the previously mentioned Disney movies.

The idea that idol/sports anime is queerbait is... contentious. And one I'm not entirely sure I even agree on. But it is undeniable that some of its more WlW centric scenes appeal to the male audiences that view these shows or games. Still, nothing is ever made explicit. It utilizes elements of queer coding originating from the yuri/gl genre that was built up by queer people themselves.

To some, this may be more insulting. For me personally though coding has always been a net neutral, and this form of coding is just more on the negative end for me. Still, there is something there for queer people to take away.

Meanwhile, the way in which disney queerbaits its audience is by saying their character is LGBT then... doing nothing with it. Not even elements of coding. Just-- 'yep there's a gay character in our movie come watch it'!!! Its a lot more soulless compared to the previous one, and therefore to me is more insulting.

Why SeaMoon falls more into Coding

With the two elements defined, let’s explain why SeaMoon falls more into the realm of coding rather than baiting.

First off, the way the devs write romance is consistent with how they wrote SeaMoon. Most of the ways in which things were left vague before Kingdom could be explained in the devs unfortunate habit of not elaborating on things they really should elaborate on. On top of romance in general being coded rather than explicit in the franchise.

As an example, lets discuss the two closest things to M/F romance we have in the franchise-- PureLily (Pure Vanilla and White Lily) and MintCocoa (Mint Choco and Cocoa). 

PureLily became more explicit in the same update as SeaMoon (with Pure Vanilla wondering aloud if he still loves her), but in general the way their relationship was shown before the Crunchy Dreams event was largely through subtext (how the two spoke of one another, PV’s garden, etc) and outside material (the love quiz).

This also applies to MintCocoa. During the days of OB, the game itself did not elaborate much on either of the two’s characters (just as they didn’t with Moonlight). With most of their romantic subtext (like SeaMoon) being in outside videos, media, and merch. Kingdom in general seems more willing to elaborate on romance, as we saw in the story that came with Cocoa’s release.

And secondly, the devs never really threw SeaMoon around as a way of saying ‘look how progressive we are’ or to appeal specifically to LGBT fans. Anytime SeaMoon was included in media, it was often alongside other coded relationships such as MintCocoa or things like RaspRose (Raspberry Mousse x Rose). And even the times they did do things like promote themselves during pride month, they never used SeaMoon. Instead they used the Hollyberry kingdom (due to its bg having same-gender couples dancing and having drinks together). 

The way SeaMoon was treated up until the recent Kingdom update was more in line with queer coding rather than queer baiting. Which is NOT perfect, as media should go beyond coding in the modern age. But it is not as bad or as insidious as queerbaiting implies.

Not as insidious as either definition of queerbait; as nothing about the relationship between them is really centered on being for the male or fetishized gaze either. They're Cookies... in a series where romance is not a focus. While one could argue their romance is stuck more into the background compared to say MintCocoa and PureLily, it still isn't designed to be fetishized (in canon, what fandoms do with SeaMoon and other LGBT ships is its own matter).

Extra Note on S Class Comparisons

S Class is a trope in Japanese media where two girls will often have a very close bond, akin to romance. However, it is ultimately still platonic and disappears upon either graduation from school or marriage. It is over 100 years old, with some of the first pieces of the genre being in the early 1900′s. And was a major influence on the yuri, more commonly called GL now, genre.

Before anything else, I want to offer a brief aside that maybe we should be careful when comparing a Japanese literary trope to a Korean game. Comparing the two countries can be a very... very touchy subject matter. Especially in the context of this being a genre that rose in popularity during the colonization of Korea by Japan.

I do NOT think you can compare SeaMoon or anything in CR to S Class tropes. But I will discuss it just to clear things up, as I find comparing the trope to queerbaiting problematic.

It is more akin to queer coding rather than queer baiting. Why? Many of the authors who utilized the trope were queer themselves. In fact, “Obuko Yoshiya, a lesbian Japanese novelist active in the Bluestocking feminist movement, is regarded as a pioneer of Class S literature”. Again, a key factor that separates coding and baiting (being that queer creators will often code but won’t bait). 

The genre is at its worst stifling and harmful to the modern day GL genre in Japanese literature, and extremely heteronormative. But to compare it to things like queerbaiting or to entirely dismiss it as a form of WlW rep in the context of how it was used by actual queer people in Japan is entirely unfair to the genre; queer rep does not look the same in every country.

S Class also evades the way in which queerbait can mean being meant for the male gaze, as it is a trope whose origins lie earnestly in media meant for girls. That does not mean it can't be used to appeal to the male gaze, but it is not where it started.

Ending Notes

Are the devs perfect in their representation of SeaMoon and WlW? Of course not, there is a valid conversation to be had on how queer relationships constantly being merely coded rather than explicit is annoying and hurtful. And more and more queer people have this critique of the concept of queer coding. On a personal level, I can forgive it in this specific case cause its in line with how the devs do romance in general. But if it bothers you that it was merely coded for the longest time rather than explicit, that’s entirely valid.

But the idea the devs ever queerbaited audiences is unfair and actively makes many WlW feel invalidated in how they easily saw the coding present in the two’s relationship. Again, queer coding is a net neutral phenomenon while queerbaiting is mostly negative. To subscribe such a notion to what is important rep to so many WlW is hurtful.

Sources

https://www.animefeminist.com/escape-yuri-hell-flip-flappers-critique-class-s-genre/

https://bookriot.com/what-is-queerbaiting-vs-queer-coding/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LPJU8yBYD8Ng7lhh_lR0bA2XRwmJTtbRceGuKahFxFs/edit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_S_(genre)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queerbaiting#:~:text=Queerbaiting%20is%20a%20marketing%20technique,romance%20or%20other%20LGBTQ%2B%20representation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_coding#:~:text=Queer%20coding%20is%20the%20subtextual,character%20in%20media%20as%20queer.

[blanketforcas]

some people in the spn fandom don't know the between 1. queerbaiting vs queer coding and 2. canon and not canon and it's getting frustrating... like cas' romantic love for dean is very much canon and dean clearly loves cas (I believe it is at least partially romantic based on context clues and the fact that dean is such a queer coded character although I guess you could interpret it as platonic). I think people also tend to equate the writers with the executives and show runners, like there were lots of writers on spn, some of them liked destiel, some of them didn't, but the ones who liked destiel weren't going to be able to make cas and dean make out, it probably wouldn't even have gotten far enough up the chain to be properly considered. so like I do get people's frustrations with the show sometimes but I feel like the actors and writers get a lot of blame for limits the producers and executives put on them. I'm also not entirely convinced of the queerbaiting argument because it felt to me that a lot of show runners were trying to actively distance themselves from destiel so that the show wouldn't just be known for that.

yeah all of this, basically! i do think some queerbaiting on some level happened, but the queercoding and censorship part was bigger. (plus, like you say, it's canon on cas' side and little more ambiguous on dean's side (but also pretty undeniable cause if one of them was a girl we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place))

it's just a very complicated mix of everything. show of all time in every possible way

[ilistentogirlinred]

a bunch of ideas for essays i have

ESSAY IDEAS:

fandom and parasocial relationships with celebs

primarily musicians

KPOP!!!

shipping

how this effects the idols themselves

and the fans perception of idols

“delulu”

competitive nature

groups

positions

obsession

racism

infantilisation

“maknaes”

lisa, jungkook

ONE DIRECTION

fucking larries

obsession

FITTH HARMONY

SWIFTIES

the idolisation

white feminism?

performative activism

NOT SEEING CELEBS AS REAL PEOPLE WITH FEELINGS!!!

mysoginy in fandom culture

internalised mysogyny

mysogyny in the works themselves

how that is internalised

the prevalence of m/m ships

patriarchy!

boo

KPOP!!!

shipping

how this effects the idols themselves

+ their friendships with each other

and the fans perception of idols

homophobia in the industry

“delulu”

competitive nature

groups

positions

obsession

racism

non fans who dislike the industry/fans

infantilisation

“maknaes”

lisa (crazy horse)

jungkook (seven, etc)

DEBUTING ACTUAL CHILDREN

THOSE ARE CHILDREN WTF DUDE

SHE IS BARELY 14

SHE IS 13

SHE WAS 12 WHEN SHE WAS ON THE SHOW

possible human rights violations?

work hours

neglect

mental health issues

suicides

beomhan therapy video (managers)

homophobia in the industry

if an idol comes out, fans will treat it as “proof��� that their ship is “canon”

or will just be outright homophobic

FANSERVICE

its not gay but…

influence of fandom on modern media

queerbaiting/queercoding to attract an audience

destiel

teen wolf

bbc sherlock

tropes

enemies to lovers

DONE WRONG

queer rep in media

queerbaiting/coding to attract viewers

supernatural, sherlock

destiel, johnlock

teen wolf

queer coding in disney!

accidental?

LUCA!!!

cultural differences?

anime

YOI, SK8, Haikyuu

Naruto

superwholock -> ourgoodshadows

early 2000s/2010s YA dystopia plague, ya books in general

hunger games

marketing

movies

divergent!!!

bad

no second half of the third one lmao

maze runner

technically first!

LOVE TRIANGLES

twilight (either read or consult ms elloy, mya, etc)

hunger games

“big strong guy” vs “childhood friend”

predictable

repetitive

c’mon guys make it gay for once

try a conga line love triangle

that resolves itself with polyamory?

SPORTS ANIME

why is it so popular?

fandom, duh.

ok but why?

easy. gay anime boys

why is sports anime so gay?

power of friendship?

close bonds between people of the same gender

lack of characters from the opposite gender so less heterosexuality and f/m ships

but thats fandomy

the inherent homoeroticism of sharing a locker room

referring back to friendship/close bonds

BLUE LOCK

HOLY CRAP BLUE LOCK

its gayer than haikyuu but there’s no power of friendship really

there are very close bonds and strange definitions of attraction tho

bachisagi, reonagi, ryusae

REONAGI SHOUJO SPINOFF

attraction -> obsession

soccer -> dream -> lack of care about self

RYUSAE FUCKED UP IDEA OF (and perception) ATTRACTION

soccer = attraction, bond, romance/sex, etc.

BACK TO HAIKYUU

rivalries

rivalry -> close friendship

mirrors enemies to lovers very slightly

tis the power of friendship

power of friendship combined with coming of age?

YUURI ON ICE!

the canon gays

SK8 the infinity

queer coding?

QUEERCODING IN ANIME

is it all perceived and unintended due to differences in cultural upbringing?

possibly but the undertones are still very much there

maybe its censorship? who knows

killugon -> possibly find sources

the homoerotic queer-coded rivalry or friendship

established from the start

sasunaru, kagehina, bakudeku, renga, killugon, fucking soukoku, etc

also tsukkiyama, matchablossom, leopika, etc

SOUKOKU (and the rest of bsd)

the irl authors - were they queer?

FIND SOURCES!!!

[cthulhum]

Hey so I was one of the ones who commented on that post, hope you didn't take any of it personally bc I really didn't mean it that way. I apologize if it came off that way!

What you said in the tags of your reblog of that post, I think that is the entire problem. Like the near-complete silence (except from Misha) over the years muddied the water so much that we actually can't even tell what's queercoding vs queerbaiting. But you are 100% correct both of em can be true at once and likely *was* true simultaneously due to what seems like absolute chaos in that metaphorical writers room (different writers conceptualizing destiel differently)

The problem is that we really, really don't know what went down re: intent on destiel, and may or may not ever find out.

But if you're interested I'm trying to make a somewhat comprehensive resource on what the HELL happened with destiel over on @destielfandomlore. Granted I started this like literally 10 days ago but there are definitely some patterns emerging and it at least SEEMS to support that there was some level of intent present.

Anyways again I'm sorry if my comments in the tags sounded harsh!! Feel free to reach out too if you have more questions or thoughts :) although idk how helpful I would be lol

noo this is so sweet i didnt think u were harsh or anything i genuinely want to know what everyone else thinks about this and u were very respectful and my reblog was not about u i promise !! its just that english is not my first language and u all r so well spoken and sometimes i dont understand all of it and its intimidating and makes me feel kinda stupid and some of those things i talked about like queer coding vs queer baiting still confuse me ?? anyway i am in fact interested in ur research and just anything else u have to say in general if u think itll help me understand these things !! idk ure very sweet thank u for this <333

[spnyouresostupid]

In this essay I will...

Surprise this time there actually is an essay lol

In ‘It’s a Terrible Life’ Dean Smith (Dean Winchester with no memory of hunting) is queer coded. We see him drinking oat milk in a latte he made with the espresso machine he owns. He has a very definite sense of style, and due to a line of dialogue is revealed to be a fan of Project Runway. He cares about how he looks and is self-conscious enough about his desk job making him put on weight that he is shown be on a very specific diet for the duration of the episode. 

I know what you’re going to say (especially those of you born after 2000); you’re just stereotyping him, men are allowed to like all of these things, and you would be right...but we’re talking about film making and visual short hand and with that comes a lot of history.

Queer coding vs. Queer baiting

Queer coding became necessary in the Hayes Code era, writers and directors wanted to include LGBTQ+ but it was literally forbidden. So queer coding came to be, where the film makers wouldn’t be censored as long as it wasn’t explicit text or too obvious in subtext(or if they were a villain but queer coded villains are an essay for another time).

Ultimately queer coding in those days was actually positive and subversive to the puritanical rules of the golden age of movies. So they were trying to make the queer characters as identifiable as possible without being overt, and it would make sense to either focus on or exaggerate more obvious queer traits. The short hand over time became - queer man acts “fruity” or feminine and queer women act butch or masculine. (I’m going to focus on queer men for relevancy)

Visual short hand is necessary for effective film making, and by the 70′s these ideas were deeply ingrained in the industry even though the Hayes Code was abolished. It was expected that audience would know that femme or ‘girly’ men meant gay; and they did. These stereotypes have been challenged in recent years (most of the progress has been made in the last 10 years, if I’m honest).

This is where queerbaiting comes into play. Queerbaiting is not the same thing as coding. Coding was subversive and rebellious in the face of those who wanted to control and censor film makers. Baiting is putting the coding into a character in a time when there’s no reason not to make the character explicitly queer. Whereas coding was made to include queer people in spaces they were being pushed out of, baiting is purposely excluding queer people because the film/tv makers are more afraid of the possibility of losing money than to make their work more inclusive.

Queer coding and visual short hand of queer people are essential to understanding why a viewer might declare a character queer even if it’s never explicitly stated and understanding how queerbaiting is detrimental by denying the audience the truth of what the coding promises.

Now that we’re all on the same page I will say again; Dean Smith is Coded gay/bi.

Yes all the examples as to why this would be true are stereotypes, but  those stereotypes were still the visual short hand standard at the time this was filmed. So Dean Smith has been coded as queer by an industry that very much understands everything I just went over...but he is never explicitly stated as queer which creates a queerbaiting situation. That’s nothing new to Supernatural but it does raise an interesting question:

Why code Dean Smith as gay/bi at all? 

They don’t do the same with Sam, he seems to be just as hetero as he is for the rest of the show. This question becomes even more intriguing and baiting when Zack tells Dean(when he’s back to normal) that all he did was remove Sam and Dean’s memories and plunked them in this office building with vague backstories. So...

What is the point of coding Dean Smith as gay/bi? 

Given the precedent set by the rest of this show it was surly not to defy stereotypes- this show loves troupes and stereotypes. I can only conclude that the writers thought it would be funny because light homophobia was very accepted in 2009 but....

Inadvertently what the writers/director(possibly Jensen) have done, is imply that there is some part of Dean Winchester that IS queer. That whatever same sex attraction that Dean has, was repressed by his neglectful drill sergeant father. Without that, and raised by (the far superior) Bobby and Ellen and free from hunting, this Dean is allowed to be queer. He’s allowed to be ‘softer’ and show interest in things that might be seen as feminine. 

This episode begs me to see Dean Smith as gay/bi and then expects me to believe that there is no queerness in Dean Winchester even though they’re both the same person. That is a suspension of disbelief that even a show about ghosts and monsters can not ask the audience to swallow. It’s just too much.

TLDR; Dean Smith was queer coded as a joke, but by the rules in universe it means that Dean Winchester is also queer 🙃

[alarrytale]

Happy friday Marte! I was scrolling through random feeds on IG and suddenly there was a reel preview with Harry´s baby photo and logo of our most popular and known radio so I got curious what that was and so I clicked on that reel.

There were 2 radio presenters (woman and man) guessing who is that (literally Who is this world known singer?). While the man had no idea (he guessed Robbie Williams lol), the woman quessed it right after few seconds and when they found out it´s really him, they were suprised and then the man said "Well, he looks better wearing female dresses" and something like he´s suprised Harry´s not wearing clothes for girls from very young age.

Okay, one thing is that for me it´s kinda cringe when I see literally anyone mentioning Harry in my country. Not that I´m living on Mars but as much as I am experiencing everything connected to him (and Louis and 1D) only through tumblr and IG (aka following international pages) it always gets me that people know him in my country. Second thing is that it´s exactly the same as any radio/TV/media anywhere - those people actually have no clue who Harry is under the surface and they only know how he looks like, his most known singles (and that WS is about eating p*ssy), his fashion choices or his girlfriends. And so they only comment on these topics without any deeper level of thinking. I sent that reel to my cousin who is also larrie and she´s the only person I can personally talk about him while don´t have to explain anything. And while she shared the came cringe as I did, she also had a good point writing me "Do you know what is total cringe for me when I see somebody is talking about Harry in our country? That nobody cares about anything else that his date life. Not a single other mention than who he had dated or is currently dating."

And that´s why I´m writing you - not that it´s anything new in this fandom but it still kinda get me how much sex sells and most people don´t go under the surface of who is really his, nobody cares that much about his music or stories he´s telling us. Or if there isn´t this date life mention, then it´s always his fashion choices (aka what that male presenter said) again with any deeper thinking that he might be queer coding or what inspired his outfit - lol the other day I found in my gallery printscreen from one czech online tabloid from May 2019 (back in 2019 I didn´t care about him this much as I do now) after Met Gala with title "Harry, are you hiding some secrets about your sexuality? Harry Styles came to Met Gala in sheer blouse with ruffles and high heels". And coming back to the reel topic, that´s exactly why I don´t even like to talk about him with anyone else than my cousin or other larries because nobody can appreciate him that much as we do because we are the only ones who really cares about him. And while I´m happy I´m living in this larrie bubble and don´t want to share him with people who can´t appreciate him, I´m also incredibly sad how others view him - pretty face, sex god and womanizer who wears "weird" outfits to be more interesing than he is himself.

Hello and happy friday to you too!

Yeah, it gives you perspective doesn’t it! The image he's portraying to the gp is working, because they don't look further than the surface. It's sad for us who knows what's really behind the curtain, that he's not a caricature or who he shows himself to be. I can't talk about him to anyone other than fellow larries, because the gp only read magazines or tabloids mentioning him, and end up getting the wrong view of him. It's also so incredibly embarrasing sharing with others, gp friends or work colleagues, that your're a fan or either H or L. When i do, with L they are like 'the dude who got arrested and had a kid he never sees? Wth, marte, i'm judging you rn...', and with harry they're like 'the serial vs model dater who's a bad actor?' or 'the queerbaiter?'. It's exhausting. And i've now stopped defending them or admitting to still being a fan. It's sad.

I hope for an image rehab for the both of them so i can acknowledge being a fan of them again. Take notes, Santa Clause!

[peachyqueenly]

Cookie Run, Queerbait, and why the concept does not apply to SeaMoon

There are a lot of issues with the way Devsis, the developers behind Cookie Run, handle diversity in their games. Most notably, it falls into the common trap many, MANY gacha games do in that it partakes in a lot of orientalist tropes. But one debate I’ve seen that I just cannot get behind, as a lesbian, is the idea that they have queerbaited-- most namely, with SeaMoon.

Below the cut, I will explain why: what queerbait is and what it looks like, queerbaiting vs coding, and why comparing WlW tropes from other countries to queerbaiting is unfair (and also maybe don’t apply a Japanese literary concept to a Korean game, more on that later). All in a bid to show why it is not only wrong to compare SeaMoon to queerbaiting, it is harmful.

SeaMoon, for those unfamiliar, is the name popularly given to the ship between Sea Fairy Cookie and Moonlight Cookie in Cookie Run. Aside from the ocean and the moon being a common motif for romance in fiction already, the game had hinted at their romance in a lot of in-game and side material. Most namely, Sea Fairy’s line about Moonlight’s heart ‘being the warmest’ and the “I want you Everyday” music video with their moment together + the lines that went along with that moment...

Your love brought spring to my endless winter...

For more examples of where their romance was suggested, I recommend this doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LPJU8yBYD8Ng7lhh_lR0bA2XRwmJTtbRceGuKahFxFs/edit

The point is, most WlW in this fandom caught onto the romantic ramifications of the ship long before Moonlight was expanded on in Kingdom and the recent updates all but confirmed their mutual affection towards one another. The two of them even got matching costumes and a bond story that was as close to romance as Cookie Run would do (as it is ultimately not a romance centered franchise).

With who they are established...

Queerbait: What is it?

Queerbaiting most popularly is understood as a marketing gimmick where creators and multimedia companies suggest queerness to draw in LGBT people and allies, only for the rug to be pulled out from underneath fans. Whether this is utilizing the ‘bury your gays’ trope, the rep being constrained to insignificant side characters/moments, or just not existing at all.

The two most popular examples of queerbaiting would be recent Disney movies and Voltron. Though special shoutout to Harry Potter, as if we didn’t have enough reasons to hate the book series and JKR. As the stuff with Dumbledore was an obvious retcon to go ‘look how progressive I am!!!’.

Voltron’s last season had two key things regarding queerbait: the Klance drama (the ship between Keith and Lance) and Shiro’s bait and switch with his partner.

To the show’s credit, Shiro was actually gay. Even revealed to have had a partner he was engaged to. However, this rug was pulled out from underneath fans when they actively killed said partner. He was given another partner in the epilogue, but the fact he was revealed to be gay only for his partner to be killed off (coupled with the next thing) upset many queer fans.

Klance is a lot more insidious. In the run up to the final season, Netflix and the crew actively promoted the show using Klance and its popular support. Despite the fact they knew the relationship was never intended to be canon. This is one of the most explicit examples of queerbaiting out there, and is foundational to understanding the specificity and insidiousness of the marketing ploy.

For Disney, I would like to focus on the Star Wars sequels and Beauty and the Beast (2017). The last movie of the sequel trilogy had the creators talking about how there would be queer rep... leading many queer fans to believe they were talking about Finn and Poe for obvious reasons, something the creators never corrected/confirmed. Only for the rep to merely be two background characters in one scene.

As for Beauty and the Beast, Le Fou was celebrated as Disney’s first openly gay character, leading folks to believe they’d explore him having feelings for the titular bad guy. But that was never really explored in any meaningful way, and the rep we got of him was a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ moment between him and an unnamed character. Arguably he could fall more into coding, but the fact Disney actively marketed him for his gayness is where it bleeds into queerbaiting.

In general, queerbaiting is a more modern problem, as companies feel they can say the word gay now. But are still wishy-washy on actual depictions of queerness. So we get them celebrating their inclusion, even if it’s ultimately little to nothing.

Queerbaiting vs Queer Coding

This is when an important distinction needs to be made: what is queerbaiting and what is queer coding. Queer coding is when media uses subtext, but never explicitly says, a character is gay. A good way to understand this is to compare 90′s disney movies to modern ones.

As discussed above, modern Disney will often go on about having queerness in their movies only for it to be minimal at best if not existent. 90′s Disney meanwhile never marketed their movies as having LGBT elements, but many fans could see the way in which queerness came through from characters like Ursula (literally modeled off a drag queen), Scar, and Hades. 

Queer coding can be seen as a product of the Hays Code era-- where positive depictions of ‘perverse sexuality’ (including homosexuality) was not allowed in film, relegating a lot of queerness to the roles of villains (hence the association Disney villains have with it). That, or queer creators had to find ways of coding their heroes in ways that went under the nose of cishet audiences.

Queer coding exists in a net-neutral space. As queer coding, while in many ways is outdated in a world where media can show explicit LGBT rep, was integral to the ways in which queer creators told their stories for years. And actively influences the way many queer creators continue to tell their story (for better and for worse). It can also perpetrate stereotypes against queer people, as we saw with the Disney villains, however.

Still, this is different than the relatively modern concept of queerbaiting as that is largely a negative phenomenon. Queer coding was a tool used and is still used by actual LGBT people, while queerbaiting is more often than not the work of cishet folks or corporations wanting to make a quick buck.

Why SeaMoon falls more into Coding

With the two elements defined, let’s explain why SeaMoon falls more into the realm of coding rather than baiting.

First off, the way the devs write romance is consistent with how they wrote SeaMoon. Most of the ways in which things were left vague before Kingdom could be explained in the devs unfortunate habit of not elaborating on things they really should elaborate on. On top of romance in general being coded rather than explicit in the franchise.

As an example, lets discuss the two closest things to M/F romance we have in the franchise-- PureLily (Pure Vanilla and White Lily) and MintCocoa (Mint Choco and Cocoa). 

PureLily became more explicit in the same update as SeaMoon (with Pure Vanilla wondering aloud if he still loves her), but in general the way their relationship was shown before the Crunchy Dreams event was largely through subtext (how the two spoke of one another, PV’s garden, etc) and outside material (the love quiz).

This also applies to MintCocoa. During the days of OB, the game itself did not elaborate much on either of the two’s characters (just as they didn’t with Moonlight). With most of their romantic subtext (like SeaMoon) being in outside videos, media, and merch. Kingdom in general seems more willing to elaborate on romance, as we saw in the story that came with Cocoa’s release.

And secondly, the devs never really threw SeaMoon around as a way of saying ‘look how progressive we are’ or to appeal specifically to LGBT fans. Anytime SeaMoon was included in media, it was often alongside other coded relationships such as MintCocoa or things like RaspRose (Raspberry Mousse x Rose). And even the times they did do things like promote themselves during pride month, they never used SeaMoon. Instead they used the Hollyberry kingdom (due to its bg having same-gender couples dancing and having drinks together). 

The way SeaMoon was treated up until the recent Kingdom update was more in line with queer coding rather than queer baiting. Which is NOT perfect, as media should go beyond coding in the modern age. But it is not as bad or as insidious as queerbaiting implies.

Extra Note on S Class Comparisons

S Class is a trope in Japanese media where two girls will often have a very close bond, akin to romance. However, it is ultimately still platonic and disappears upon either graduation from school or marriage. It is over 100 years old, with some of the first pieces of the genre being in the early 1900′s. And was a major influence on the yuri, more commonly called GL now, genre.

Before anything else, I want to offer a brief aside that maybe we should be careful when comparing a Japanese literary trope to a Korean game. Comparing the two countries can be a very... very touchy subject matter. Especially in the context of this being a genre that rose in popularity during the colonization of Korea by Japan.

I do NOT think you can compare SeaMoon or anything in CR to S Class tropes. But I will discuss it just to clear things up, as I find comparing the trope to queerbaiting problematic.

It is more akin to queer coding rather than queer baiting. Why? Many of the authors who utilized the trope were queer themselves. In fact, “Obuko Yoshiya, a lesbian Japanese novelist active in the Bluestocking feminist movement, is regarded as a pioneer of Class S literature”. Again, a key factor that separates coding and baiting (being that queer creators will often code but won’t bait). 

The genre is at its worst stifling and harmful to the modern day GL genre in Japanese literature, and extremely heteronormative. But to compare it to things like queerbaiting or to entirely dismiss it as a form of WlW rep in the context of how it was used by actual queer people in Japan is entirely unfair to the genre; queer rep does not look the same in every country.

Ending Notes

Are the devs perfect in their representation of SeaMoon and WlW? Of course not, there is a valid conversation to be had on how queer relationships constantly being merely coded rather than explicit is annoying and hurtful. And more and more queer people have this critique of the concept of queer coding. On a personal level, I can forgive it in this specific case cause its in line with how the devs do romance in general. But if it bothers you that it was merely coded for the longest time rather than explicit, that’s entirely valid.

But the idea the devs ever queerbaited audiences is unfair and actively makes many WlW feel invalidated in how they easily saw the coding present in the two’s relationship. Again, queer coding is a net neutral phenomenon while queerbaiting is negative. To subscribe such a notion to what is important rep to so many WlW is hurtful.

Sources

https://www.animefeminist.com/escape-yuri-hell-flip-flappers-critique-class-s-genre/

https://bookriot.com/what-is-queerbaiting-vs-queer-coding/

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LPJU8yBYD8Ng7lhh_lR0bA2XRwmJTtbRceGuKahFxFs/edit

https://twitter.com/CRKingdomEN/status/1532119839178952704?s=20

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_S_(genre)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queerbaiting#:~:text=Queerbaiting%20is%20a%20marketing%20technique,romance%20or%20other%20LGBTQ%2B%20representation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_coding#:~:text=Queer%20coding%20is%20the%20subtextual,character%20in%20media%20as%20queer.

[princesssarcastia]

Just wanted to say I love your tag "the last great american queerbait" bc yeah. It really does feel like we'll never see this level of bait in a major media property again. Which is probably a good thing, but it makes spn all the more unique...

thank you! that's from @biggersons on this post here. excuse me while i now ramble about this bullshit

i'm sure someone else has said this before on this hellsite, but YES. supernatural is one of the last of a dying breed, certainly one of the most iconic. supernatural was thee CW show to end all CW shows before it was cool. one of the last shows with such a dichotomous fan base, with dudebros vibing with all supernatural's surface level masculinity and violence on one end, and queer people screaming into the void about intricate rituals dean creates to touch the skin of other men on the other. hell, it was one of the only popular shows on TV in 2020 that still did 22 episode seasons; certainly nearly the last sci-fi/fantasy shows to do it.

remember that post about the difference between queerbaiting, queer coding, and subtext? FOR 15 YEARS SUPERNATURAL DID ALL THREE SIMULTANEOUSLY. its a work of art. homophobic, homophobic art. also racist. and sexist. why am i enjoying this content again?

There were so many different writers and directors and showrunners and camera operators even, that you have:

the showrunners and the marketing gurus running a long-con advertising will-they-or-won't-they-(they won't) queerbait on the queer people screaming into the void because the execs want their money AND the dudebro money but hate the queer identity and the fact that they kept rubbing their queer little hands all over supernatural's manly man masculine characters...

the writers who Been Knew queer coding dean and cas and getting it under the homophobic execs' noses, to the delight of their queer audience...

and the writers who were just monkeys at typewriters churning out nonsense with moments of shakespeare who kept loading on more and more subtext that made the queer audience want to take them by the shoulders and shake their heads right off.

frankly given this mess the only person left who gets to speak with any authority is misha collins, which—

this combined to make a show that is near incomprehensible as a whole but can be sanely consumed in smaller chunks or through fanfiction that burns out the stupid stuff. There's NO way it makes sense if dean and cas aren't madly in love with each other. none. the plausible no-homo ship sailed in like season 7, or like the second time one of them watched the other die and grieved like a widower.

and yet. those dudebros, with allll their money and viewership, are still there. still watching. and so the CW tries to have its cake and eat it, too. for fifteen, fucking, years. because they fear the homophobic backlash if they just fucking commit.

they were too afraid that they would stop making something profitable to realize that they could have made a work of art, that they could have made HISTORY.

no one else will do it like them again. no one will ever even get the opportunity. i can't see anything ever again coming close to having the kind of cultural impact supernatural has, that weird mix of americana and masculinity and brief flashes of themes that make your breath catch and crave more. supernatural was a mirror of american culture in the best and the WORST way, and I don't know that TV creators have the range or the desire to ever reflect us back to ourselves like that again.

there are more explicitly queer shows now that are so much better and more heartfelt, with production teams that aren't remotely predatory. I adore them all! we need them! we deserve them! I want more of them! supernatural should not be a template for anyone ever because it was objectively terrible!

but their was something magical about the tentative hope in the air while it was still going, that little voice in the back of your mind that says, it's been fifteen years!, maybe it will grow beyond its origins, maybe they can learn from their mistakes, maybe they can reach for the happy ending that is right in front of their faces if only they would look past their prejudices long enough to see it. to see us. that's why the show blew up again in the fall of 2020, during the U.S. election, because on a meta level it was reflecting our culture and the moment back to us once again.

of course, in the grand american media tradition, they set that hope on fire. one last queerbait for the road.

so. yeah. its the last great american queerbait.

[ot3]

Do you think that Narumitsu is queerbaiting?

This is kind of a difficult question to answer because I think whether or not something is queerbait depends really heavily on the intent of the writers. A lot of the big picture stuff about narumitsu was a result of kumiko suekanes feedback/suggestions (I believe it was her idea to both make edgeworth phoenixs age as he was originally much older, and for them to have some sort of pre existing connection, because she thought they needed to be peers with history for people to get properly invested in their story. Which I agree with!) Suekane drew yaoi doujinshi so I don't think it's impossible or even unlikely that she was intentionally playing into more romantic character tension there. but she's not a writer ever! Shu Takumi is responsible for all of the trilogy writing and I dont think he was ever even a little bit trying to play into the desires of narumitsu shippers.

If memory serves I think he was like, at least aware that some people saw phoenix and edgeworth romantically but I don't think that in any way influenced the way he wrote his characters. It just does not strike me as the man's style, from everything I've read. Hes not immune to fan feedback (I believe some pretty big stuff in dgs2 was a result of fan reception of dgs1) but I have just really never gotten the impression from anything that takumi is interested in pandering to his audience.

I think he's like hirohiko araki where he just keeps writing these insanely charged feeling relationships between men without the question of whether or not they're kinda gay literally ever crossing his mind. Ace attorney as a franchise is also very devoid of any current romantic relationships for members of its main cast. The series is so unconcerned with romance as something in most of these characters lives that I think it'd be hard to make them date each other in a way that didn't feel strange even if you were going to make them gay.

However, past the trilogy, I think you'd be safe to call it queerbaiting. There's literally no reason for edgeworth to keep showing up like he does other than to roll into town, have some pandery conversations with phoenix, and then let the plot keep chugging along. Capcom knows that that character dynamic is a huge part of what has kept their franchise relevant for the past 20 years. Shu takumi was adamant that phoenixs story was done after tnt- he only put him in aa4 because he was made to. Aai2 cleanly tied up edgworths arc. There's nothing left to do with these characters other than parade them around to be like "hey, remember these guys? Now they're calling each other daddy in court" or whatever. And to me that's bait.

But make no mistake I am taking this bait. Phoenix calling edgeworth daddy in court lives on in my heart as a triumph. Queerbait really isn't the end of the world to me, and I think the critical thing with recognizing queerbait isn't to try and blacklist franchises for this crime, but rather to make you aware of what expectations you should have going in. Knowing when something is queerbait vs queer coding vs textually queer vs none of those things but you could do a meaningful queer reading of it if you wanted to is REALLY important. There aren't hard lines between these concepts but a lot of fan spaces fail to meaningfully distinguish between them at all and you end up with a lot of bizarre and incoherent critical analysis as a result.

[imperiuswrecked]

Is John Constantine queerbaited? Asking as someone whos only ever read his original Hellblazer series (skipping Azzarellos run because prison rape and Mike Careys because its boring and Milligans because its really bad lol) In issue #51 on pg 5 he mentions 'Girlfriends, The odd boyfriend...', In the comic though its implied he uses women mostly. Was queerbaiting a thing in the 90s? Asking as a nonfan of him because I feel like that is something they'd totally do?

I don't feel John Constantine as Queer Baiting so much as he is Queer. He said he was bi, by saying he had both men and women partners. I would even say Queer Coded is the better term to use instead of baiting, and a lot of fans often mix up the two. I won't get into a discussion about Baiting vs Coding as many other much better informed people have already talked about this in media which would be easy to google and read about the differences.

It's not surprising to see a comic character mentioning a queer relationship then nothing ever following up from it because unlike today where we have more Queer characters being out, it just wasn't a thing done even in the 90s, and there were very few open and out characters that seriously took this subject and wrote good arcs about it. And yeah sometimes some creators threw that stuff in for “shock” value or whatever. I have not read every single John Constantine comic out there but I do invite other fans who have to weigh in on this subject. I do seem to recall he was flirting with another man at one point and that he slept with the devil too, but I don’t know which issues those were, so like, yeah John is Bisexual.

[dotthings]

Let me be even clearer. You're a fool if you think Jensen wouldn't play it if it had been written as clear text from Dean's side. You're a fool if you think Jensen doesn't by now know what queer coding is and isn't aware of queer coded bi Dean in love with Cas and you're a fool if you think he's against it. You're also a fool if you haven't pieced together that Jensen was baffled by it all at first, but his more recent views are for it, and that likelihood is high he was worried about misleading fans. I think he had a real struggle over wanting to participate in the queer coding vs if it doesn't come to pass as overt, the accusation of queerbaiting, which is a worry Misha spoke about.

If you think in the year 2024 that Jensen is anti bi Dean or antidestiel. Get your critical thinking checked.

Destiel fandom needs another reminder that Jensen said he didn't play Dean aware Cas was in love with him and he hasn't said anything about "not playing it that way" wrt Dean's feelings. People in the Destiel lane really need to stop spreading false takes that are picking up on narratives that come from antis instead of listening closely to words Jensen actually spoke.