#or 'take my 600 page thesis on the matter to the fucking face'

[essektheylyss]

I am once again BEGGING folks in the critrole fandom to understand that terms for problematic queer tropes have actual meaning and context.

Queerbaiting cannot exist in the context of "the queer relationship I prefer didn't happen but another one did." Nor does it mean "a queer character doesn't get into a relationship with someone they're implied to be attracted to." It cannot exist because one character you wanted to be queer was not confirmed as such and did not have the chance to explore a relationship the fandom wanted, in spite of a plethora of other queer characters and relationships in the media.

Because queerbaiting means an intended, marketed implication that there would be a central queer relationship that was never actually going to be delivered on, in an effort to attract queer audiences without alienating straight/homophobic ones.

Bury Your Gays cannot exist in the context of "character I ship in a queer relationship died." It cannot exist in the context of "other characters of canonical queer status lived." It cannot exist if the story and setting otherwise strongly and repeatedly refute the idea that any experienced queer happiness must be punished. It cannot exist if the character you're talking about has not been confirmed queer.

Because Bury Your Gays is a term for introducing a queer character into an otherwise straight work (usually in a tokenistic way) and then killing them off without ceremony or purpose—often or, depending on the definition, exclusively just after they have started or consummated a relationship, as it is an implication that queer happiness must be punished as a cosmic rule of the setting.

These tropes virtually cannot be present in a work if they are otherwise refuted by the work itself due to the presence of other queer characters. They suggest a rule of the narrative that queerness is anathema to the narrative and world, and cannot be allowed to exist, which cannot apply if the world and narrative is otherwise very supportive of queerness. In fact, the context of these tropes when they were established implied that this was applicable to the only queer person or relationship in a work, because in the context of their inception, it was nearly unfathomable to have even a semi-mainstream media with numerous queer characters and queerness normalized and expected within the setting.

EXTREMELY specific parameters would have to be met to have either of these tropes in particular present in Exandria at this point, and even then, the question of whether or not it would still apply given the conceit of the setting's relationship to queerness and gender as well as the improvisational format of the medium is something that would take whole dissertations to discuss and come to anything approaching a definitive answer.