#when we get queerbated

[kpopulr]

케이윌 (K.will) '내게 어울릴 이별 노래가 없어' MV Teaser

Did I blink at the point where this moment happened? I feel played.

[bottombaron]

oh ok so its the usual no-homo bullshit you always hear, good to know.

[moomimania]

guys, I'm cooking..... 👀 this is just a teaser, I have a whole thing planned ☄️

alright, I want to share some Moominvalley season 4 thoughts SPOILERS AHEAD

I don't want to go on a long rant, but, like many others, I was disappointed. Mostly since the writing felt off and a lot of character arcs felt completely abandoned (especially Moomintroll). And while I never truly believed they would make Snufkin and Moomintroll canon, I hoped they would continue with the same level of subtext as in previous seasons.

So believe me, I get the frustration - I'm right there with you. But I wish people would stop accusing Gutsy for queerbating and getting unreasonably angry at them for "ruining the show".

We have no idea what Gutsy or Moomin Co.'s true intentions were, but I refuse to believe they intentionally wanted to queerbate anyone. Probably Gutsy just weren't allowed to canonize the ship, if they wanted to, since it was never canon in the source material.

But does that matter?

Definitely there is a need for more explicitly queer media, but this is not that show. Here's a quote by Sarah Z on youtube, summing up my point perfectly:

"Why would some official stamp of canonization from an author hold more weight than the myriad connections audiences have made with the work?"

That snufmin didn't become canon in this adaptation doesn't make the queer reading of the pair any less valuable.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think Gutsy or Moomin Co. are exempt from criticism, but please be respectful and constructive when giving it. Or, use any of your creative skills to rewrite the parts of the show you didn't like - that's what I will do 😉

Anyways ~ I highly recommend giving Sarah Z's video a watch, as she explains some of the issues with the phrase "queerbating" - and if it's too long a watch, skip to 31:10 to get the TL;DR:

[stupidnicknamehere]

I convinced a friend to watch OPLA with me a couple of weeks ago. When we get to episode 6, she laughs uncomfortably in *those* scenes with Luffy and Zoro.

"Is queerbating necessary?" she asked me.

"What are you talking about?" I replied.

A few hours ago, she called quite excitedly.

"omg, why didn't you tell me that they are like that from the source material?!" I thought it was more fun to let her figure it out Hehe~

So I think I have converted to a new zolu shipper.

[squiirby]

the bf and i are like 11 seasons deep into it’s always sunny in philadelphia and i genuinely don’t understand where people get the queerbating narrative when it comes to macdennis. like yeah, sure, from what ive heard it’s never canon, and its not…particularly mutual, i suppose? but it’s also…

we’re supposed to think that. we’re supposed to know for sure that mac is gay, and at least think that he’s at least a little gay for dennis. it’s not that the show teases at it but never makes it canon just out of spite. it’s…implied within the show, because it’s funny. that’s not “queerbaiting”. that’s not bait. that is, in fact, the joke. the joke is that they’re gay! and it being a joke also doesn’t necessarily stop it from being something that’s just Happened in the show.

and maybe, maybe it is BY DEFINITION queerbaiting, but don’t even pretend it gets anywhere near bbc sherlock levels, because that’s not even a fair fight. it doesn’t clear bbc sherlock by a damn mile. yeah, sure, they just “hint” at it, but…c’mon. it’s not queerbaiting! we must draw a line in the sand!

they pretended to be gay lovers. the scene in the bar with mac getting dennis drunk. many such cases. that’s not subtext. that’s just text. is it supposed to be taken seriously? for the love of god, no. but queerbaiting? weak. travel back in time to consume all the shows we REALLY liked on this hellsite 5-10 years ago and i’ll show you REAL queerbaiting. let me introduce you to a little something called vol-

[s-c-l-n]

i think the percy jackson fandom needs to have a serious sit down talk on fandom etiquette and it applies more to fans on tiktok but everyone needs to hear it

number one: new fans cannot complain about waltzing into an 18 year old fandom and coming across spoilers. of course fans will be discussing and comparing the books to the show and talking about future books along with it. this is a series with 2 spin off series, other series that connect to this one, a musical, and 2 horrid movies no one really talks about. you are not safe to just come in and expect everyone to spoiler their discussions from current or be shocked when you come across older posts about the series that feature things from all books in PJO and HoO.

number two: older fans cannot criticize other older fans for pointing out things new fans say/do. yes, people are going to find it shocking others like luke, most people in fandom have been there for a long time and have forgotten what its like to not know who luke truly is. that and chastising fandom for wanting a bit of gatekeeping for old jokes from the books or just straight up fan-made. this is fandom, there will be things not everyone can understand/experience because of their new entry.

number three: this one goes for new fans, we see your head cannons and your ships, but know that when they do not become cannon, you cannot get upset because these characters have been in established relationships for over a decade, you will not change that. and yes, there are queer ships for your enjoyment, they just come later on, you will not get queerbated (hopefully) (and if they never get to that point, read the books !!)

sorry for the long winded post, i feel this fandom is in need of reminders that not everyone has read the book/people who are new are not entitled to absolute secrecy for what is to come in the series when there is at least 15 books of source material that has been out

[artsyna]

"Actually, Trobed or Troy and Abed could be canon (romantically) in the movie, we are in 2023 and we'll, queerbating isn't really that well seen, plus even though people see their scenes as "gay jokes", there are just some scenes that even homophobes can't deny that it's romantic!

One of these examples would be the zombie Halloween episode, that zombie infection was a real deal, people using the excuse that when Troy said "I love you" to Abed it was "just a reference" is stupid. They already mentioned that the people who were infected could die, this was Troy's REAL confession to Abed, Abed said "I know" because he only knows how to communicate through movies, but if you look at their eyes you'll see how sincere it is. When Troy gets back and enters and tries to change the thermostat, he attacks every zombie that was in his way, until he sees Abed. When he sees him his gaze softens, he tries to talk to him (keep in mind that he was going to HIT A GIRL, but he wasn't going to hit Abed?) , It's clearly a romantic scene.

People comparing this to the Annie and Abed kiss scene is honestly so dumb, it was totally different. You see, the paintball match was fake, and Abed was just playing a part, but Abed wasn't Han solo in the Halloween episode, his words were just a reference, the other one was a whole part, it was fake (like how the paintball game was fake like Annie and Abed but the zombie apocalypse in the school was real like Troy and Abed's relationship.)."

(the way I said all of this to my friend yesterday is insane)

[shaunashipman]

One of the things I'll never forget is watching people get bullied out of the 911 Fandom for pointing out the friendship between Hen and Chim is extremely prominent in response to BoBs whining about how Buck should have gotten with Eddie instead of Taylor because there needs to be more male female friendship represention but then turning around saying that Hen and Chim don't count because Hen is a lesbian. And the amount of hate that got sent to people who were defending Chimney and calling out a lot of the racism geared towards him after he punched Buck.

Plus I resisted watching 911 for the longest time because all I ever saw about it were the queerbating accusations. So imagine my surprise when I finally watched it only to find out about the sheer amount of Queer representation. Is the show perfect? No. Because nothing is. Are there things that personally squick me out in the show? Yes definitely. But I'm not going to bully anyone over liking the things that rub me the wrong way.

not the male/female friendship shit 😒 but when we say we need more queer guy/straight guy friendships they riot

how does it not count because hen's a lesbian? does there need to be the possibility of them being attracted to each other but they "just work so much better as friends" for ppl to be satisfied?

and yeah, they woobified buck so hard about the punch, because gods forbid a man who's wife is basically missing and who probably hasn't slept in days doesn't act completely rationally on learning his friend was keeping information from him about his missing wife. meanwhile the same people play "racism police" and harrass a fan artist into deactivating because they felt the artist was whitewashing jee, despite the artist being korean themselves

hen & chim is so slept on. sorry not sorry but they are better besties than buck & eddie. they are the OG, they are literally ride or die. we deserve to see so much of them, so much hijinks. but they're a butch black lesbian and korean man, so they don't get as much focus as the white & white passing men.

I would love if we got an episode of basically chim and hen just doing their own, amateur sleuthing with shit going wrong. don't even need the other characters I will be glued to my screen to watch whatever nonsense they get into.

and there is so much queer rep. as happy as I was about buck being bi, I was also seething at the amount of "the gay firefighter show is actually gay now" like newsflash motherfucker! it's been gay since the word go.

[izzysbeans]

I want people to know that i think we shouldnt settle when it comes to representation and fighting against queerbating. If a show has multiple characters queerbating, as it often happens since many times the queerbating is happening in a relationship between 2 queercoded characters, we should advocate for ALL of them to get their queer jurney. Because we got baited on both fronts, because we were gaslight on both fronts, because we need to get rid of this idea that ina group of people there can only be one of us. We are main characters, there are a lot of us, we make friends with each other at times even before we understand we have something in common at all. And we deserve to be seen, our stories told and shown to everyone. I love shipping in a fandom, i even don't mind multishipping at all and i think the point of participating in fandom discorse is to have fun and share it with like minded people online. And i think celebrating wins is very important. But please don't stop advocating for good representation on screen, please don't forget were the baiting happened in the show, don't settle for the bare minimum. I know it feels so exciting to even get that because we are so starved for representation we will watch anything. But if we settle we loose. We did not get here by settling.

Always have fun but never forget were we came from

[irontragedyreview]

One of those manga that I consider deserves an anime adaptation is Ao No Flag/Blue Flag. It’s short but above all I like how it touches on issues related to sexual orientation. Touma and Taichi’s story is tender but above it’s builds little by little, in the same way that the relationship between Taichi and Futaba is also beautiful and it doesn’t feel that she is the beard or  the middle of Taichi and Toma love.

Taichi learns and changes with Futaba and they push each other to improve, Taichi with Futaba learns to get out of his comfort zone, which had been one of the reasons why he and Touma had drifted apart, Taichi stops hanging out with Touma because he believes that they are in different social circles in high school, even when Touma tried to get closer but there is only so much he can do. His friendship with Futaba and subsequent love relationship doesn't feel bad because it’s built in a way that develops a relationship between two people who begin to enjoy each other's company, but above all who are there to support each other in overcoming their fears, even if in the end they end up with different people.

However, I feel that the end of the manga feels rushed in presenting you with certain events, both Touma and Taichi's relationship, and Masumi's revelation as bisexual. I would like to focus on Masumi more than any other character because honestly a cliché part of my heart was hoping that Futaba and her would end up together, especially because of the level of devotion that Masumi had towards her. Also in the end when  I saw her  married to a man, it left a bad taste in my mouth because she had settled for the easier life that represented hiding her sexuality. Of course, this doesn’t really happen, from the few words we see from Masumi's husband we can understand that he’s aware that Masumi likes both men and women and it doesn’t make him jealous or insecure because he trusts Masumi and her choice to be with him. In my blog there is a post (not mine) talking about this topic. At the beginning I also saw Masumi's marriage as her deciding to stay in the closet, especially because throughout the story the way she describes her feelings for Futaba and how she had tried to go out with boys but without feeling right. All this leads us to think that Masumi is a lesbian, which is why I would have liked one chapter before the ending with a broader development of her sexuality. Although, I want to say this I consider that knowing her bisexuality feels rushed but I don't feel that it’s wrong or queerbating because I can find myself in Masumi, I don't feel that it’s wrong to show that we’re still not completely clear about our sexuality while we’re teens, as a bisexual woman I remember going through a process to accept that I liked men and women. It was a big "I can't be a lesbian because I like guys" but it was also "I'm not straight because I like women too”, getting to a point where both thoughts coexisted and didn’t repel each other took me a while, especially because at the time I didn’t know the word bisexuality. I think that despite everything, Masumi is a good character to feel identified in the discovery of her sexuality because I can understand how her crush with Futaba canceled the possibility of perhaps feeling something romantic or even sexual towards others,  it makes sense that her feelings for Futaba occupy a space that perhaps didn’t allow her to fully explore other relationships to fully understand other aspects of her. That's why I think that once her crush with Futaba ended and had the opportunity to meet other people, she was able to discover herself.

[youreacroftlara]

I’m fairly new to the Warrior Nun family, but this announcement has really boiled my piss.

Last year I heard about season 2’s release and the Avatrice kiss and I was pretty intrigued to watch. But before I could, it was cancelled. After years of suffering through Supergirl and being queerbated left right and centre with Kara and Lena, I figured I didn’t wanna go through the pain of watching a story only for the ending to be cut short and never continued. So I never watched WN…up until I heard that it was saved.

Because I knew there was a possibility that this story would be continued, I decided to watch WN. And of course, I fell in deep - binge watching the series within two days. Safe to say, Avatrice and the other characters have all taken a special place in my heart. I, like many other members of the fandom, was looking forward to seeing what was in store.

So when the triology announcement came out, with no participation from Simon, Amy, Alba or KTY, I wasn’t phased. Before I’d sort of hoped maybe the likes of BBC or another UK studio such as Film 4 had taken the reigns (and not hollywood/amazon or other streaming platforms). The writer/actor strike seemed to be the cause, so I wasn’t worried. Plus, the thought of THREE movies featuring our girls? I was stoked.

Then we got the email a few days ago. At first, I was excited- the writers strike had just ended, so maybe Simon and co. were going to speak? I was at least hoping there’d be more detail on the plot etc. and then Simon posted that tweet. And it all snowballed with the other writers and my heart just sank.

Tried to stay positive, but it’s pretty hard to do when the show’s writers are all saying they know nothing about it. So I went to bed last night (I’m in the UK) praying we’d wake up to good news.

How fucking wrong was I.

This contest is just a huge slap in the face of not only us fans, but artists, writers and actors on the original show. The T&Cs basically state that whoever wins will get their art abused and exploited for the next FIVE YEARS in return for what? A sketch? Pfffft please. Have you learnt nothing from the writers/actors strike at all?!

The worrying thing is what this contest signifies…the producers of this movie clearly don’t have the rights to the Netflix show that we all love. Hence no Simon, hence no announcement on the actors and hence the shitty attempt to get fans to do the hard work for them and design a new Halo.

It really is a joke. If the new producers are reading this, please do better. Engage with the fandom….and for the love of god, get SIMON BARRY on your team.

I don’t know what else to say other than this is exhausting for us fans - and this is coming from someone who didn’t get a chance to get involved in the fight to save WN at the beginning of the year!

Let’s just hope I’m proved wrong and that the movies will be what we hoped.

(P.S. also, please fire Perfectly Productive Media from all your future web copy/media relations - as a copywriter I can say that the countdown pages they’ve produced are 💩)

[impossiblyizzy]

when I first started watching wwdits I came on tumblr and saw a post that was like 'at this point it's obvious that nandermo is going to be canon, it's just a question of *how*' and here we are at season 6 and it really looks like we've been queerbated! sort of. because all five of the main characters are canonically queer. but at this point I'll be very suprised if we get any kind of nandermo kiss/relationship!

[be-better-then-yesterday-you]

Writing Challange

For?: Anyone, but really I think it would be a pretty interesting study to have “anti-shippers” of the couples in question, to write these scenes.

Prompt: Re-write cannon scenes of popular “completely straight” gay ships that “fans created” and writers/showrunners/actors never encouraged or used as “queerbate”, as heterosexual relationships using the exact same actions and words and emotions as the original scenes.

Why?: I think it would be interesting to see just how many people would still see that particular couple the same way and how many would discover they actually do just have an aversion to gay ships.

I think that alot of people see the word “queerbaiting” and dont fully understand it. They take it like “oh they’re angry coz they didnt get their way, and they just want to make everything gay” … that is so completely not what it is.

Its understandable in a sense that the term queerbaiting isnt fully understood by all because theres no such thing as “straight-baiting” in television and movies. Its the actual complete opposite … when its a male/female relationship, its called a “slow-burn”, inferring that it will eventually become something. Its called “taking advantage of the actors chemistry” and while it is talked about and hinted at as a “will they/ wont they” its never actually in question because the majority of the time, chemistry reads are done between these actors for the specific reason of knowing “will this sell?” But when it comes to queerships, once upon a time they happened by accident. Actors were brought in with a different storyline and then something showed up on screen that wasnt intended and through that they discovered that there was this entire massive subset of fans who were not being acknowledged in life or on television … so they did exactly what they did with their straight relationships. They took advantage. They teased and hinted and wrote things that had they been a “usual” couple, would eventually lead to “endgame”. They encouraged the will they wont they of it all. Took advantage of that chemistry. The only difference? They never intended to give their fanbase that eventual outcome. They straddled the line of keep them invested but never encourage. And now? Now it seems that its become a requirement for shows, to have that one relationship that is strictly-straight friends, “which is so much more special then romantic love sometimes”… but they will still play off of it and benefit from merchandise and views and hashtags and everything that brings in a dollar from fans who are only looking for exactly what they’re calling it … “every kind of love” …. Why cant two women have a healthy faithful relationship? Why cant two men who are best friends, ALSO fall in love with each other? Why cant a character who has only ever identified as “straight” grow and realize that they’re bi or pan or gay? And why cant two people be both best friends and queer but also find love with other people? Why cant a queer man and a straight man have a healthy loving friendship that doesn’t have to end horribly? A big part of it is because of those words! Words that for so long have been used as homophobic slurs and still today in Twenty-freaking-twenty-four are used with hate instead of what they actually ARE which is how people identify how they LOVE . Words that the LGBTQIA+ community have taken back and fight every day to redefine with love and Pride and positivity, but that the “ entertainment industry” still shy away from due to a history of hate-filled, un-informed homophobia. An instilled fear that if they step over that line, then it will all fall apart. That the villagers will come with their torches and pitchforks and storm the castle so to speak. So they stay just this side of “not too far” and spout the company line. “I think its really important that we show every kind of love” but never actually doing that. Because the other company line is “who else can we exploit for a dollar?”. And its not new. The entertainment industry has always used queer people to their advantage. Once upon a time it was for the “hilarity” of a man or woman dressing in drag to get away with some scheme. Or it was about gay bashing and feeding into hate and fear by showcasing what a horrible insult it is to be called gay or how dangerous it is to be out. How sexy it is for two women to be together - but only to turn on the straight male lead. Now its become something along the lines of a joke again, but now the joke is “we know what we’re doing and we’re going to keep doing it because we’re profiting off of it, off of you.”

Queerbaiting isnt us seeing something unintentional or not there. Queerbaiting is this: if the same scene can be rewritten the same way but as female/male, and you can suddenly see it as romantic, its because the relationship is queer coded, to pull in specific fans.

Scripts are not just dialog on a page. While actors are sometimes given leeway, they are given a script telling them how to portray the words on the page. How to move, speak, emote. A director films this, re-sets films again multiple times until what is written comes across on camera the way it was meant to. This is all then edited even further to make things even more impactful and entertaining. It is then viewed and approved and only then shown to these “delusional fans.” This is all done knowing what reaction they will get from it. There are people who actually have the job of encouraging these ships. Of finding more ways to profit off of something that somebody else is in charge of disproving to fans by calling it unintentional. It is an industry, a business, nothing is unintentional. That is queerbaiting.

Challenge: Just change one thing. One characters gender, thats all.

Go ahead and give it a try. Im honestly curious as to the outcome.

Also add some ships that you think apply in the tags!!

[chaoticdelinqueerwithglitter]

Yes,I'm gonna talk about THE KISS 💜🌈

I'm still jumping around my home and seeing all the Kokonui edits I can find, 24h later and the hype doesn't go away.

So I wanna talk about why seeing this kiss animated (specially in such a beautiful way, really, thanks Liden Films), was so important for me.

I started to watch anime when I was little and, besides Dragon Ball, Sakura and Sailormoon were the first animes that really catch my attention.

Sakura specially will always have a place in my heart 💜

(and yes, I know CLAMP had a lot of dark shit going on on their mangas, but when I was a kid, I only saw the queerness and that made me happy)

I was around eight/nine years old, it was the end of the 90s and the queer representation in occident was... Terrible. It didn't almost exist and was full of "kill your gays" and queerbating.

Suddenly, I was watching a show were it was okay for a girl like Tomoyo being in love with her best friend, were nobody had any problem with Xioran being oppenly bisexual (he likes Yukito before Sakura), were Toya and Yukito became my first ship ever. I used to scream to the tv with their scenes, saying things like "okay, gave Yukito your magic, but say that you love him Toya! Focus! Kiss!"

Then, Sailormoon had Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus that were girlfriends. More than one character with genderfuckery. The three Sailor Stars that were genderfluid in a legendary level.

Ranma was also there. Non-binary dream for me, thanks Ranma 💜

I'm saying that, for a queer kid in the 90s, the level of genderfuckery that anime had made me felt seen. Made me felt like I wasn't that weird for liking the girls in my class, for not feeling like a boy or a girl (even if it took me decades to realize why). This characters, this representations, made me felt less alone. Made me think for the first time in my life, that there was other people like me, that being straight and follow gender roles wasn't the only choice out there.

Edit, because I forgot to mention Utena. The girl that refuses to adapt to gender roles and ends ups becoming her own prince and saving her girlfriend from the abusive brother. Utena was also mythical for me.

Of course, not everything was wholesome in the way of portraying queer representation in anime and manga, I'm not saying that.

So that was what got me into anime, what made me start buying manga with my small allowance.

A few years later, I discovered fanfiction.net, yaoi and BL. I found a place on the internet full of people shipping characters that were like me. A place were it was safe being queer. I also started getting into shonen, were the queerness wasn't as magical as in shoujo, but thanks mostly to the fandom, it was still there. I could ship them even if it wasn't canon, because most of this characters never had a romantic interest, so... Who said they were straight? (Obviously, even if they were in canon, we could ship them anyway)

And this is what I'm trying to say. More than twenty years later of seeing myself in a character like Tomoyo, of starting to ship gay couples in anime...

I COULD FINALLY SEE A GAY KISS BEING ANIMATED IN A SHONEN!!!

(I insist, in such a beautiful and perfect way)

So no matter what you think about this ship, about Koko and Inupi relationship, no matter if you like it or you hate it...

What happened yesterday was really important for a lot of people. Because having referents, can save queer people lives. Is that simple.

So thanks Liden Films, thanks Ken Wakui 💜

Of course, I also had a big hype when this scene happened in the manga and Wakui gave us so much gay subtext (not so subtle most of the time), that I could make a whole post about queerness in Tokyo Revengers. But let's be honest, there is a lot of only anime watchers out there. Or a lot of people that, like me, discovered manga thanks to anime.

[gothikangelica]

It's Pride Month, lovelies! Time to give you guys an update for this year, as you saw the pic.

Story time!

Up until 2021 I assumed I was always straight / hetero while being a LGBT ally. Always showing support for my friends, especially my best friend since I was the first person he came out as gay. And they all appreciated it.

But coming 2021, that's when I started to question myself a lot of times. It was like the lable "straight" didn't make sense to me.

Last year in the end of May, I came out as heteroflexible / elasexual, which meant I was 80% straight. I was cool with it and so were my friends.

But boy... life sure is full of surprises. Because months after that, I started to have more questions. The famous "bi panic". But I didn't jump on it right after, since I wanted to be sure. Not to mention I was scared of faking it and queerbating...

And since this year, they were getting stronger and stronger. So much that... I reflected on myself and finally realized that I'm indeed bisexual.

My boyfriend is still the absolute lovable angel. He accept me with open arms and even agreed with me that it's actually an advantage, since we can simp for women together. 🤣

My best friend, I believe he already saw it coming. I can't hide anything from him. 😅

But anyways, this is who I am. It feels super right within me and I'm very thankful I have amazing friends that supported me in this self-discovery journey and still do to this day. 😊

Happy Pride Month, everyone!!

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

What we have learned from these poll mishaps is that OFMD is most loved therefore most hated HOWEVER Stucky, despite their fucking US department of defense budget and their Disney sponsored chokehold on action movies, somehow does not have the ability to rally the troops like a game of thrones core in its execution off brand b list treasure island fanfic that got middling reviews and hasn't been airing in five years. which is actually fucking pathetic. Y'all had the whole deck stacked in your favor financially culturally sociologically and you are down to the fucking decimals on this when the Kankri Vantas of piracy ratioed us for no reason other than that people hate us??

No words for Stucky what a fuckin fall from grace. "On the stucky website? On the we love being queerbated website?" No! You are on the Captain James Flint website now. Get into it. He's ginger, he talks like an over enthusiastic philosophy professor, he's gay, he's the worst white anarchist you know, he joined the navy and then quit when they wouldn't let him kiss his boyfriend because he can excuse colonialism but he draws the line at homophobia, he just beheaded the CEO of Tumblr and declared himself the posting king, and he is your overlord. The mascot this website deserves!