#anti queerbait

[herhighness-thequeenofhearts]

My greatest wish is that the showrunners of every show that’s ever queerbaited us looks at the fandom goodwill and popularity of Our Flag Means Death and goes “well damn, that could’ve been us :(“

[scroofy-was-here]

if byler isn't endgame, why did they let it drag on for so long?

why have they been building it up season after season? why haven't they had mike reject will already?? why didn't they resolve it in the same season where it's a major plot point??? why are they giving us the possibility that it could happen if it's not????

why even give Will a crush on Mike?????

[wellofdean]

Sorry ,for me personally, it has to be out loud acknowledge to even remotely make up for how badly they treated fans over the years, the out loud queerbaiting in one breath and mocking in the next. The in text gay jokes, sexism and homophobia. The digs at their own fans.

They want the credit without having to do it. Again. They want the pat on the back they need to earn it this time.

Years of baiting for views and profit needs a payoff imo. Sorry people downplaying how important the canonization of this ship in particular is just hurts to see over and over. Stop letting them off the hook please. You deserve more. We all do.

It’s important. It does matter.

The cas/destiel hope baiting continued with the Winchesters and that’s why I’m at a put up or shut up moment with Jensen and the writers. He and Danneel kept the hype up every week that the show was airing all the while knowing cas doesn’t even get a name drop. He’s not even hinted at. Mary/john paralleled destiel so many times yet refused to call it want it was.

They could have shut it down week one, they interacted on tweeter a lot during airing and knew what fans thought there was going to be an acknowledgment or hint that never happened. They are smart people, they saw the speculation and hype but didn’t step in with a gentle ‘sorry guys this is about the new crew’ they fanned the hope instead with ‘something big happens’ that was just dean meeting the new team.

Loved the Winchesters as a show, sad it got dropped cause I loved the new cast so much. That said the baiting hurt and wasn’t necessary, the show was good.

Everyone is looking back with rose colored glasses and rewriting history. But things were ugly with the spn team/cast/writers at times. The homophobia was pretty out loud in a way it was allowed to be in the early 00s. They’ve grown and that’s wonderful but it still happened.

They need to earn the praise they want imo. No hate! Glad you are happy! just feels a little unfair to say we should all let them off the hook again and be happy with nothing while praising the benevolent straights. Just my two cents 😅💚💙

I want to answer this sympathetically, because I know it's disappointing that no one has been willing to just say "Dean and Cas are gay for each other" out loud, and I don't think there are many people in this fandom who picked up what the narrative was putting down, and were not disappointed in the finale for LOADS of reasons, only one of them being that Dean never had the chance to acknowledge what Cas said to him. I understand your feelings, my anonymous friend, I really do. I too found the end of Supernatural deeply frustrating, because they managed to erase the meaningful journeys of every single character, not just Dean, though what they did with Dean was the worst. I completely understand wanting them to JUST FUCKING SAY IT. I do. I get you. I simply do not agree.

My argument, which I have made many, many times, is that what you want is THERE in the narrative. They made Cas Dean's ride or die, they made it obvious that Dean can't carry on without Cas -- that the loss of Cas means Dean loses his will to live. That was explicit. They made it clear that more than anyone else, EVEN Sam, Cas is essential to him. They structured the narrative around Dean and Cas's emotional beats. They let Cas say the obvious thing out loud, and then showed us Dean behaving exactly as Dean would in a situation like that -- in the midst of his existential crisis about who he is and whether he has ever had free will, and with the world falling around them -- they showed us Dean unable to speak, unable to respond but overwhelmed with emotion. Like, remember that when Mary died when Dean was four, he was unable to speak? Is it really so hard to imagine that he loves Cas with all his heart? To read love in Dean's watery eyes, and the way he chokes down his heart and begs Cas not to do this? Not to being saying goodbye? I mean... I CAN DO THAT MATH. Literally everything about the story supports it. IT IS THERE.

Fandom always argues: if Cas were a woman, we wouldn't have any questions, so what I am just wondering is, why do we have questions again? Is it because we (homophobically) can't just see it for what it is because it's gay? Because, when it's gay we lose our ability to interpret narrative, and we need to be told, like we are 5 years old, what's happening in a perfectly obvious story? Or, is it a skill issue? Is it because we need the creators of the story to affirm our interpretation? We need the actors to just TELL US what they meant when they did that thing with their faces? Do we need their permission to understand it for what it is?

I've said many times that calling what happened on Supernatural 'queerbaiting' because no one ever made out or fucked on the maps table is really offensive to me actually. Don't you know that there are queer people in this world who never get to live their truths? Who just ache and yearn and want, and never get to have? Like, that there are in fact queer people who are afraid to say what they feel, or who don't understand or embrace who they really are and what they really need until it's too late? Are those not QUEER EXPERIENCES? I love Dean and I love that story because it's queer as hell and it makes ME feel seen, because I am like him! I am a queer person of his age who didn't ask myself those questions seriously enough in time! My own queerness is very fucking real, and it is UNLIVED. That HAPPENS to actual queer humans, and like, it's not queerbaiting when it's just queer, but didn't tell you the queer story YOU wanted it to tell. You saw years of tease? I saw years of choices, and love, and accretion of deep wells of emotion. I saw a clear romance, and a character becoming. It was a story I needed, AS A QUEER PERSON.

And the Winchesters was just joyful if you went in with that understanding of the previous story. It was like getting an A+ in Supernatural week after week from Dean himself. I can accept that the stars didn't align for Cas/Misha to come back in the first season, accept that if he were coming back, it needed to be more than a cameo to make it right, and that it didn't work out. I am so sad it was cancelled, but I can accept that it was leading someplace it didn't get to go. That's not queerbaiting, either! It's telling a story that was aborted, and I think if you don't see that, then that is DEFINITELY a skill issue.

I'm not looking back with rose coloured glasses; Supernatural is fresh in my mind. I watched it again without the internal pressure of expectations that aren't going to be met, and let it tell me what it was really doing all along. I am happy. It's a really compelling, deeply romantic, deeply queer story. I don't need permission from anyone involved to think that, and I don't need it explained to me. I understand wanting it to just be fully explicit, but I would not trade the story it did tell for a simpler, less engaging one, that asked less of me. I love it very much AS IT IS.

And, please: point me to this fabled abuse of fans. I have never really seen an example of it that is not easily debunked with a little bit of context.

[eexhausted]

sorry to be back on my anti sylki bs but it’s BAFFLING how so much of the fandom doesn’t see what the relationship between them ACTUALLY is. it’s literally about loki recovering and his SELF DISCOVERY - aka the whole point of the show. it’s not true romance it’s symbolism.

“i just want you to be okay.” HMMM i wonder! oh jee what other reason could he have for saying this that ISNT passionate love for yk, a version of HIMSELF?!!!! it is so obvious to me and idk how its slipped some peoples minds

anyway live laugh love lokius

[will80sbyers]

[sunflowerdigs]

I have a theory that they're deliberately removing Tommy from all promo material so that once the show comes back on and he and Buck break up, any queerbaiting claims can't be validated in any way. Because I can see the bt fans trying to play that card and just making everything really ugly for a bit.

Fwiw, even if LFJ is currently contracted for a different show, that wouldn't preclude the promo team from using videos or images of him from s7. And, honestly, in all of my fandom experience, I've never seen fan hostility stop a team from promoting an aspect of a show. The SPN ship wars were legendary but Castiel still appeared in promotional material, sometimes even alongside Dean. In fact, sometimes fan hostility is good - it translates into clicks, which is all the SM promo team cares about. I think that's why they let LFJ's cameos go on for so long - while he wasn't part of their promotional strategy, he was bringing in engagement, which the network probably saw as a positive thing (at first).

[ima-super-natural]

I'm so disappointed I finally watched the "gay angel" show everyone had been telling me was "so queerbaity" since like 2015 only to find out the ship only exists because the only other male to ship the main character with would be incest and the characters themselves actually have no tension at all.

[juniorfor2]

Whatever the writers are planning on doing to eventually get a Rhaenyra/Daemon reconciliation, they really need to hurry it up.

Daemon at least finally seems to be at the climax/end of his arc, so it’s fairly easy to see how he’s going to be when it comes their reunion.

However, I have no clue how they are going to manage Rhaenyra’s character without shoving in development at absolute breakneck pace. Right now, she’s not at the climax/end of her arc - she still seems to be at the ‘rising action’ part. She’s still moving further and further away from Daemon, getting more frustrated with him.

Especially with the fast Mysaria romantic development and kiss - which I know is characterized as a one time thing but shouldn’t have even been developed in the first place if it doesn’t have an impact besides Rhaenyra being bisexual. They spent at least 3 scenes just with them talking and reassuring each other to bring that one development, and at least one of the scenes does essentially nothing to move the plot forward at all or truly develop the characters in a good way. I think the only good one was where they were, “moving the plan forward,” the rest looked liked it was plucked from a s7 Varys and Daenerys conversation.

I just don’t see how they are going to properly reconcile at the end without some weird, one-sided ‘only Daemon needs to apologize cause he’s everything wrong with the relationship.’ I know the writers are now in the habit of shoving characterization in without any good pacing, but this feels like the reconciliation isn’t actually going to be much of one.

[epiphainie]

I completely agree with you in that there are many bad faith interpretations of tommy and buck and tommy’s relationship. I don’t know if this one I’m about to share would necessarily be a bad faith interpretation but I’d like your take on it. In the scene where buck comes out to eddie, eddie says to buck “this changes nothing between us” and buck responds with something along the lines of “uh good, that’s a relief”. I’ve seen a lot of people interpret buck’s facial expressions as not showing just relief but relief mixed disappointment because a part of buck wanted things to change between them, in the romantic sense, he just doesn’t realize it. I do agree that buck’s expression as he says the words is interesting but I don’t personally think it has anything to do with him harbouring romantic feelings for eddie. for me it felt like one of those moments where you dread the reaction for so long, that when you finally face the thing and open up, even if the other person’s reaction is positive, it takes a minute for you to really internalise it and let yourself believe it.

Another moment that people often talk about from this scene is reaction to buck saying he can’t stop thinking about tommy. People often say eddie’s facial expression shows some sort of disappointment but again, I don’t know if that’s it? again, it is an interesting expression so I get why people would pause and focus for a minute but to me, it reads as eddie searching for a moment to give his honest advice to buck in the scenario.

Anyway, I’d love your thoughts on those particular moments and how you see them. Again, I’m not saying that the interpretations people are making of that scene in relation to buddie are necessarily in bad faith. I know it’s fun to analyze and interpret scenes in ways that you enjoy and I’d never want people to stop doing that. I just feel like Oliver and Tim have been very clear in that they do not want to tell a story where a guy comes out and is in love with his best friend and if buck was truly disappointed in hearing eddie say nothing’s going to change between them post buck’s coming out, that would be a quite bold contradiction.

Hi anon!

I'm not sure if you actually meant to send this to me because I'm kind of the exact opposite of a person who engages in the practice of reverse-engineering actors' faces to find deep secret meanings that doesn't actually exist in the script. I think it's a slippery slop of a fan practice where if you go "haha he looks jealous here" and want to make it gay in your fantasy world and are capable of compartmentalizing that from the actual text, it's great! If you look at it like it's subtext that is meant to one day come to surface, as some sort of proof that this is not the actual story, you're either too deep in your world that you treat these characters like they have agencies and thoughts and feelings and are not, yknow, fictional - or that actors are making the conscious choice to layer their performances with breadcrumbs for a plot that doesn't exist at the time.

I've seen all these arguments with almost every scene this season. Eddie's face when Tommy enters the bachelor party. Buck's face when Bobby says Tommy is good for him. Bobby's face when he says Tommy is good for Buck. Eddie's smile when they enter the hospital room. Most of these are insignificant and the others have in-text explanation (Yeah, Bobby smiles weirdly in that scene. Guess what, he's kind of planning to kill himself). And like I said, if people want to read these in a pro-Buddie sense and go do fandom stuff with it, that's great. But we all know this fandom is taken over by the question of "will Buck and Eddie happen?" so everyone who's not even doing this in bad faith (I don't think all do) are looking at it in "does this support canon romantic Buddie?" lenses. So much of shipping Buddie is about speculating for the next episode, next season, next whatever that I think it's so easy to find yourself on that slippery slop where you fit every shot, face, editing choice to your interpretation. There's also the sunk cost fallacy at play here - once you do it for so long, it's hard to give up on the belief that it'll happen.

I think both Oliver and Ryan great actors - and that scene is one of my favorites in the season - but no, I don't think there's more to their faces than what they're given to play. Which is as all of them mentioned a billion times, a scene of a guy nervously coming out as queer to his best friend and receiving support. If I'm wrong and the rest of this fandom is right and the production/writers/showrunners are actually fully married to the idea of canon romantic Buddie but The Powers That Be are keeping gay Eddie in the closet as if he's a real person and they're the evil step-mother, and come S10 Buck realizes he's been in love with his bff all along, then yeah in-text, that would recontextualize all their performances. It still wouldn't change what the writers' intention has been with the text as it exists today or be proof that Oliver and Ryan are making acting choices for a hypothetical future SL.

[usercelestial]

i genuinely think i might kill myself

[starbylers]

No but I do find it funny how Mlvns are throwing tantrums, furiously conceding that Byler could possibly happen, cursing the writers and saying they’ve given into fan service, all because of ST day ignoring their ship when tbh marketing should be the last thing causing anyone to lose hope this early on 😭 Like how is this the thing that took you out yet Mleven lying fighting separating and not speaking once after Mike’s ugly-lit monologue with Will’s kicked puppy face in the back didn’t phase you? Will showering Mike with love to comfort his insecurities instead of his literal girlfriend doing it, and the reminder of those misattributed-to-El feelings giving Mike the strength to “confess” didn’t make you stop and think?? Not even the insanely staged final scene Byler + couples framing made you blink??? I just think it goes to show that they really pay attention to and place importance on the wrong things, having to have things spelled out for them by the ST promo team (like that Will’s hidden love confession is obviously the most heartfelt moment) in order for them to even acknowledge a different perspective, meanwhile the rest of us just watched the show lol.

[eexhausted]

you can tell who’s really winning loki s2 bc lokius fans are at least somewhat enjoying it and analysing all their interactions, while sylki shippers are saying they’re being “disrespected” the writers just. bc their ship is popular and making shitty memes about “WHERE IS OUR LOVE CONFESSION”

[charmac]

what's the origin of "trust the structure"? i always see it on macdennis posts but i don't know what it MEANS

Well the origin is the show itself, lmfao:

It's essentially the idea that there is (and has been) a structure in place for Macdennis becoming canon. AKA Macdennis is not fanon/shippers reading too much into the show, but a deliberate, slow-burn narrative being written and told by RCG.

BUT if you don't know what the structure is, I could not recommend watching this video by @youreeatingthedog more highly enough.

[it-happened-once-in-a-meme]

Gotham Conservapedia Ridiculousness (Analysis of Homophobic Warnings 🤨) 🏳️‍🌈😂

I saw that there's a weird website with a page on conservative warnings/reviews thanks to @memesandmusicalss 's post

Spoilers for up to season 3 & non-explicit ones about how canon Ed x Oswald is):

Here's what I find especially hilarious(ly sad)/ironic about these "warnings":

•the author completely forgot/ignored that before Nygmobblepot, Barbara Kean was with Renee Montoya, even before she became a villain

•Since it's said that the show turned into a "homosexual propaganda" in season 3, Barbara and Tabitha were apparently never an item either, or their very sensual kissing doesn't count as propaganda. Maybe it's not gay if one occasionally has a boyfriend? 🤔

•Lucius and Ed's relationship, which is full of gay tension, is completely ignored too...or given a free pass because these two are too good together 😉

•Despite Barbara being described as bi & the author(s) thus knowing that sexuality exists, Ed is interpreted as only attracted to men while in the show he's clearly been attracted to women: conservatiness made him gayer! 🤣🏳️‍🌈

•The show never explicitly said he was attracted to men either, but it seems the author's on our side, fellow Ed x men shippers 🥳🤗. Something homophobes are actually good for: agreeing with us that the queerbaited, never explicitly queer characters are in fact queer. 🥳🤝

•Nygmobblepot is seen as propaganda when the actual show criticized their relationship so much & made them hate/dislike each other nearly all the time. But of course for them, the bad part isn't the possessiveness or jealousy, it's the gayness *shaking my head*

•There's no praise of Ed being the perfect house wife! As if they don't see him as a role model (for women) 🙃😂

[taw-k]

A lot of people complain that the Loki series was queerbaiting with lokius but lemme tell you... They weren't. They were queerbaiting when they told us we would get ACTUAL REPRESENTATION in the show. NOT a split second scene in the end credits of an episode written in FINE print 'fluid' FFS!!! and not Loki vaguely mentioning possibly having had a male lover. "Perhaps a bit of both" PERHAPS?! OWN THAT SHIT, LOKI!!

[juniorfor2]

I’m at the point after hearing that the Mysaria/Rhaenyra was meant to essentially mirror the Alicent/Rhaenyra queerbaiting, that I don’t know whether or not to support Emma’s decision to make it a full-on kiss or hate it because it means Rhaenyra is cheating.

“It wasn’t scripted as a kiss. I think it was scripted as…there’s just breath between them or something, and then whatever happens is interrupted,” Mizuno told TheWrap… It was D’Arcy who suggested how the scene could play out.

I will always love Daemon and Rhaenyra - or at least their book version, don’t know about the show considering the writing. Rhaenyra would not cheat on Daemon - regardless of whether or not the two of them had an additional partner, it certainly would have been consensual if they did. The scene was also forced in, and doesn’t help at all for any potential reconciliation.

But considering that the entire episode was obviously meant to play up some sexual tension between Mysaria and Rhaenyra, and considering the writers were planning to only suggest that they had feelings for each other, just like they’ve now done to so many relationships to get away with the idea that they are progressive - I’m also kind of glad that Emma at least committed here and the queerbaiting didn’t happen (even if I will still argue that it looks like qb, because the rest of the context/intention around the scene wasn’t erased). They at least committed to actually showing such a scene, so I do love the - unintentional and technical, but present regardless - fuck you to such writing. Cause whatever feeling it caused the writers when they had to decide whether to prioritize hating Daemon, or to not show an actual wlw scene, is a gift.