#what is queerbaiting

[martinsharmony]

Also real people do not queerbait. That would be like viewing their own life as a marketing technique which would be insane.

real people being partially closeted or ambiguous about their own sexuality while making Gay Art is not queerbaiting

[lavendervalleyexpress]

Disney: you can make your movie R-rated but their relationship can’t be explicitly gay

Ryan: oh don’t worry this is a totally platonic road trip buddy comedy

The movie: The poster says, “best friends come together”, there’s a meet cute ugly at a bar and Logan immediately assumes Wade is there to hook up with him (so does the bartender), Wade calls him honey badger, and angel baby, their road trip song is a rock ballad about being lonely and wanting to meet someone, the second act has the classic romcom miscommunication/fight, they’re having a heated fight to one of the most iconic love song duets ever, Wade says, “the Honda Odyssey fucks hard too bad you don’t” and Logan says, “oh we’re just getting started”, after that there’s a shot where car they're in is rocking back and forth for hours and then it cuts to them asleep the next morning, there’s a line about Wade having Logan’s dick in his mouth (spoken by Ryan’s daughter), there’s a scene where they’re looking at each other longingly through a window because they think Wade is about to die (even though Logan hated him yesterday), Wade is very clearly staring at Logan’s abs after his shirt explodes then makes him put on a shirt after he sees other people also looking, they save each others lives by holding hands to a Madonna song about blowjobs, Logan starts walking away until Wade calls after him and he stops like he’s about to turn around and run back and kiss him but the camera cuts off before he does, Wade introduces Logan to Al like a nervous teenager introducing his girlfriend to his mom, and the last shot is their masks sitting next to each other in their ONE BEDROOM APARTMENT

Disney: ok we have notes

Ryan: no.

The movie: *makes $1,000,000,000*

[wren-kitchens]

im annoyed and a little pedantic so can i just say as a blanket statement

queerbaiting is when the promotion for a FICTIONAL STORY intentionally hints towards two characters having a romantic relationship, without any intention to follow through in the show, in order to get queer people watching without discouraging the homophobic enjoyers of the show

queerbaiting is NOT:

a celebrity who you think is queer because theyre gnc or they have a 'vibe'. that is a real person and they cannot queerbait

two friends of the same gender pretending to flirt with each other for fun. those are real people and they cannot queerbait

a show with two characters of the same gender who are canonically friends that YOU PERSONALLY think would be better in a relationship. that's not bating, that's shipping, and subject to opinion

there are more but those are the main examples of people misunderstanding what queerbaiting is and being mad at something that isn't actually a problem

[cthulhum]

does anyone realize how crazy it is to have the actor of a mostly headcanoned queer ship say the fans were never crazy and they were right all along after 10+ years of everyone just absolutely going nuts over the said queerbaited ship

[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.

[castielsprostate]

breaking the sign in two by how hard im tapping it

[imperialgrunt]

okay I don't even go to this fandom but I was watching a video on supegirl queerbaiting and am I actually supposed to believe that the writers and directors and showrunners are depicting a platonic relationship here

what the actual fuck

[whenfatecollides]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 3x14 Bad Girls

[crazy-together-reddie]

Loki just instantly doing what mobius tells him to is driving me fucking insane.

Mobius says ‘gently’ and Loki just moves the guy out of the way. No violence at all.

Mobius says ‘go ahead’ and Loki bashes these guys into a wall. Much violence.

She’s finally living up to her true title, no not the god of mischief, Mobius’ little pet.

[saberafterdark]

what if i ended it all right now.

[faramirsonofgondor]

Today has been a wild day indeed.

[irisivys]

something about the new popular shows seems awfully familiar to me hmmmm.....

[mymultifandomhell]

✨ superheaven ✨

[wingsofhcpe]

actually there's a huge difference between queerbaiting/"Hey guys look how gay these two are haha they're definitely gonna end up together, give us views uwu oh- never mind oops they're going to superhell" and "Hey it's 2004-2012 and there's no way we can get away with having our protags/main couple be two gay men but we really want to show these two are soulmates so we'll do it through subtext and underlying messages and by literally telling you over and over again their relationship is the most stable and important in the entire show, and the ending will imply they lived and died together", and it's insane that some of yall don't see how these two are not the same fucking thing.

[unimportant-ramblings]

NEW photos have dropped from Glinda the Good and Elphaba Thropp's engagement photoshoot. The couple is set to tie the knot, according to The Time Dragon Clock, on November 22, 2024 (via The Ozmapolitan)

[veloursdor]

the thing about larys strong is that i think he's been lonely his entire life, lonelier than even he realised/admitted to himself. he craves connection, someone to see him for who he is. and that's what's been guiding most of his actions throught the entire time we've known him.

when he saw alicent being unheard and unseen, he tried to form a connection with her as he saw himself in her (through manipulations of course, but his intention there when saying "i could be your ally" were sincere). but she rejected him (by refusing to see him as a man, by being horrified at his true self (the harrenhal fire), etc) and thus he grew to resent her and want to control her/humiliate her like she "humiliated him", probably thinking it was enough because of the power she gave him.

but then viserys died and alicent's power died with him.

spoilers for season 2 of house of the dragon below the cut

i think his "love" for her... changed or was put on the back of his mind after 2x04, especially after he sees the moon tea and she's in pain. when he asks her about criston, his reaction to her words is as if he is confused, as if he's recalculating what he thought of her because he's seeing her in a whole new light.

and maybe he is seeing her truly for the first time ever.

he said "you and i are the same", was always listening in on her conversations to gather information, maybe even convincing himself by doing so that she truly was like him. but, i think that, when larys says "you have not been yourself" is his way of saying "who are you? are you who i've always thought you were or someone i do not know?" and has to change his view of her, of what he convienced himself he saw in her.

maybe he sees that he's been living in a lie made of his own words.

so, when the council scene happens, he pities her and rejects her idea, because it has no ground and she's grasping at straws. (i do think he does feel sorry for rejecting her but he also doesn't have enough solid ground with aemond as regent (his position in the small council is fairly new) and slighting aemond would cost him the power he has, so he stays quiet and looks away).

however, he also manages to drive a nail to alicole's coffin but he walks away without looking back at the mess it left.

they then don't share a scene at all for the rest of the season.

from then on all his scenes are with aegon, and we see a side of larys we haven't seen before.

ageon gave him power (of course larys manipulated aegon with the Hand comment) because of his "loyalty" following blood and cheese (i still believe larys "let it happen") and made him his master of whispers. he placed larys in the small council (when alicent never did in the 6 years she acted as regent) and gave him status outside of the dungeons. he "brought him [larys] out of the shadows" in a way.

the show has made a point to tell us, since episode one of season two, that larys has been looking at aegon the same way he used to look at alicent in season one, staring him down as if he could see what he's made of, constantly analysing and calculating how to best approach him.

he made small attempts at conversations and funny lines ("that castle is more crippled than me") as the whole alicent thing is going on.

and then the battle of rook's rest happened.

with aegon barely holding on, we have a scene where larys is honest, vulnerable, sincere maybe for the first time ever (yes there's manipulation, but also genuine compassion). he sees the struggles aegon will have to face because he lived them himself.

like with alicent in the weirdwood, he tried to form a connection with aegon. but where alicent "rejected" his true self, aegon instead listened to what larys was saying, saw the truth in it and raged, which made larys feel seen and heard, beyond manipulation and twisted words, probably for the first time in his life

larys, for all his talk that love is a downfall, craves connection, the desire to not be alone in the world. he does feel love.

and whereas alicent rejected his love and was disgusted by his true self, aegon welcomed his help, invited his advice, and embraced his aid to become stronger

i think larys will be loyal to him as long as aegon allows his love and it does not fester into resentment, like his love for alicent did