#vldiscourse

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Is queerbaiting a real thing? Before the klanti movement really got going it seemed like it existed, but they completely delegitimized the term for me. If I saw someone in another fandom try to claim queerbaiting, I would be more likely to question their shipping habits than the creators intention (bc i assume the creators HAVE no intention honestly).

It’s definitely a real thing, but I’ve seen less and less of it lately. 

Queerbait was a major issue in the gap of time where LGBTQ+ equality was making massive visibility & legal breakthroughs irl, but mainstream media representation was still lagging behind for various reasons (such as fear of pissing off the queerphobic straight/cis majority that made up most of their viewership.)

please note that the below account isn’t from a ton of research - mostly just fandom osmosis. anyone who has more information to add or use to correct this is invited to do so.

In a weird way, the disparity between media representation and queer visibility was (is) highlighted by online transformative fandom, where queering straight media, particularly by ‘shipping’ male main characters with each other instead of with their designated (female) love interests, was (and is) common enough to draw attention.* as transformative fandom visibility increased online, so did creator awareness of how transformative fandom was queering its characters. and in the space of time between high, positive visibility and low representation, queerbait was the result.

(*the popularity of ‘slash’ / mlm in transformative fandom is greatly exaggerated. however, it is comparatively common for a variety of complicated reasons, ranging from ‘it’s hot af’ to ‘this is how i realized i was a trans man’. )

In Western world/English-based media circles, real queerbaiting has traditionally looked something like this:

popular mainstream media series revolves around two or three reasonably handsome* white dudes who are either buddies or frenemies. director/producer/actor (usually a straight, cis (white) guy or guys)has/have never considered the possibility these reasonably handsome white dudes are anything other than cis & straight.

transformative fandom does its thing and a huge number of fanworks feature the reasonably handsome white dudes in romantic/sexual relationships with each other.

popular mainstream media director(s)/producer(s)/actor(s) get wind of transformative fandom making their straight, cis characters gay for each other. Cue ‘wtf??’ reaction, mainly expressed in uncomfortable ‘lmao aren’t girls** weird??’ jokes to interviewers / convention audiences.

popular mainstream media team realizes that the people creating all these super gay fanfics are also doling out tons of money for merch/conventions/etc. between this & increased LGBTQ+ visibility irl, it’s potentially profitable (and good press) to at least pretend to be down with queer ships.

with dollar signs in their eyes that directly conflict with their discomfort of how transformative fandom has queered their straight cis characters, the powers that be add references to the popular gay ships in future show seasons, teasing the fandom with hints of canon viability.

however, the director(s)/producer(s) never intend to make the gay ship canon, which usually becomes clear by the in-show references themselves, giving the characters straight love interests once their fun is over, and/or how tptb talk about the ship when appearing in news coverage.

(*Bandersnatch Cucumber is a mystery to me, I admit.)

(**transformative fandom being majority not-(cis)men, no matter what the percentage of women in it, it would likely appear to be ‘all girls’ to people who are socialized to think of a room that’s 30% women as 50/50 male/female. (as usual, and unfortunately, nonbinary identities are not really accounted for in these studies or discussions.)) 

 the two most well-known instances of such queerbaiting that I can think of are

Supernatural, where the creators & actors were hyperaware of their transformative fanbase from early on. before castiel appeared they made jokes & in-show references to wincest, and after castiel appeared the popularity of destiel led to multiple instances of ship teasing followed by intense mockery, both in-universe and irl.

BBC Sherlock, where the creators & actors made derogatory references to the popularity of the JohnLock ship. it had some mild referencing/teasing in-show, iirc. (at least Moffat was open about it never being canon.)

I’m sure there’s other instances, but this is what I can think of off the top of my head.

I think this slow disappearance of queerbaiting corresponds to a couple of things:

increasing industry exposure to transformative fandom (which has a lot of LGBTQ+ participants) by social media shifts, increased accessibility to creators, & more transformative fandom members being in mainstream media industries

the LGBTQ+ community & its concerns/desire for mainstream media representation being taken more and more seriously (and consequently happening more and more often).

time, exposure, and a slow invasion of transformative fandom participants gradually accustomed straight, cis mainstream media creators to their media being queered, and also made it safer for queer/lgbt+ creators to be open about their identity and creating content that acknowledges their orientation/identity. there was also a short-lived time where criticizing the interests of women was socially unpopular, and this courtesy was extended to transformative fandom as a space with many women in it. (telling anyone that isn’t a cis man that their interests are terrible and bad is making a comeback now.)

but even more importantly: media representation has slowly (far too slowly, tbh) increased, with more and more characters being introduced as not straight*. The idea of a queer ship becoming canon is no longer borderline absurd and sensitivity to the importance of that media representation continues to broaden and increase. in consequence, the kind of people who might have once deliberately queerbaited their audience with canon shipteasing and nods to the ship fans would no longer have many excuses to hide behind if they didn’t follow through in canon. 

basically: queerbaiting is out of vogue because the people that usually engage in queerbaiting are more likely than before to be punished for it in the public eye. it’s far from 100% the case, but it’s had a little bit of chilling effect on queerbaiters.

(*but hardly ever trans. unless the whole point of the show/movie is what a tragedy their life was because of being trans. and then they’re played by a cis person. (I’m very tired, y’all.))

up until this SDCC 2018, klantis were agitating that:

because the executive voltron team has mentioned several times that they were hoping very much to have canon LGBT+/queer presence in the show, and

with all the obvious canon hints* that kl4nce was going to be canon,

anything but kl4nce endgame would be ‘queerbaiting’.

but I hope the difference between what is being called ‘queerbaiting’ in this situation and what queerbaiting actually has been in the past is immediately evident:

the creators/showrunners were straightforward in stating a wish for lgbt+/queer rep in their show, and also in their uncertainty that they would get the okay from DW to make it explicit in canon. they have also never brought it up on their own unless asked, because the intent was never to trick anybody into watching vld by shipteasing non-straight ships as canon-but-not-really.

when asked about kl4nce’s fandom popularity, JDS & LaurM admitted that they never saw it coming - which suggests that early on, at least, there were never any intentional hints that kl would be canon endgame. if they had expected kl to be popular, that would point more to intentional direction to tease kl endgame.

in short: it’s pretty clear the creators did not intend to trick anybody into thinking kl was going to be canon king with the intention of yanking the rug out from under them, so ... not queerbaiting.

(*I don’t ship kl4nce & rivalships have never done much for me, so if you wish to read up on a kl4nce fan’s take on canon evidence that their ship will be endgame, you might want to check out the ‘klible’. it’s very, VERY long, & if it will only make you angry I would encourage you to not read it, but it will give you a feel for how kl4nce shippers who are sure kl4nce will be canon watch vld.)

You wrote this question before SDCC 2018/the news that Shiro is canonically attracted to men and was in at least one long-term relationship with a man in Kerberos was dropped. I wrote most of this before this news was dropped as well. 

it’s still not obvious that kl4nce will be canon or even that lance will turn out to be canon bi; if kl4nce isn’t endgame, I’m not sure what klantis will accuse the creators of. (probably still queerbaiting, tbh.) but to be clear: voltron has delivered on the only thing that the creators had said they were hoping to give us - queer representation, which has come in the form of Shiro being a (currently single but still valid af) dude who gets romantically involved with other men. whether Shiro ends up with anyone at the end of the show or not, or anyone else in the show ends up being canon non-straight/non-cis, he’s still queer and he’s still important af.

to be completely honest, at this point i would be surprised if romantic sk wasn’t the intended endgame of the writers/showrunners. I don’t know if that will be allowed to be explicitly shown, however. and even if it wasn’t the intention of the showrunners to make sheith romantic canon, I still wouldnt’ call it queerbait. No matter what Shiro’s romantic prospects are at the end of voltron, he will still be canon queer, headcanoned as gay(as in mlm-exclusive) by the creators, and have had a long-term, loving relationship with another man that was explicitly shown to have existed in a kid’s cartoon. 

the LGBT+/queer community has everything in the world to celebrate in Takashi Shirogane. :)

[just-antithings]

Just Anti Things: “v-slur survivor” because it wasn’t enough to make a mockery of the word slur

[shipping-isnt-morality]

just realized something and now i'm... disappointed. the staff said they originally planned to kill shiro for good in s2. and now they said they wanted shiro to be gay from the start. do you know where i'm going with this? it's frustrating.

either “they’re lying about wanting him to be queer from the beginning” or “they intended to kill off the queer representation” ?

I think that’s a pretty cynical way of looking at it. maybe the original plan was to do both those things, and then somebody said “hey that had some bad implications” so they decided not to? I mean…… we can’t scorn them for having a bad idea at one point, especially if they didn’t go with that bad idea.

But…. I don’t actually know that much about voltron, so if anybody has a different perspective feel free to chime in.

[hoshihiime]

Unpopular opinion? 

(Slight season 6 spoilers under the cut)

It makes me so sad to see people say Lance is a rebound?

I mean, personally I didn’t get that impression at all, and I’m going to be very honest when I say that. Although I ship Allurance, that doesn’t mean I was super hyper-focused on it this season. I knew from the beginning that Lotor was up to no good, as much as I prayed and hoped that he was gonna be good for real. But from what I was able to see this season, Lance not only cares for Allura a great deal, but obviously Allura cares for him too, romantic or not.

Most of the discourse I’m seeing was “Allura kissed Lotor after knowing Lance’s feelings” so obviously he’s the rebound? Does this mean to imply that Allura doesn’t like him at all? Or even has been growing closer to him throughout the seasons? Romantic or Platonic, they do care for each other. 

Allura leaning against Lance after such a huge betrayal to her - she needs it. She’s allowed to be upset, she’s allowed to be comforted, the weight of the entire universe was now in jeopardy because she has fallen for the wrong person. And she knew it. And Lance was there to help her. Romantic or not, Lance was there as a friend, a team mate, looking out for someone close to him. Not trying to get in their pants. The scene in which Allura saves Lance, was that not genuine concern? Fear of losing him? Someone she cares about might be dead, but of course it doesn’t really matter because she doesn’t love him, does it? The scene with the mice when Allura’s face falls after the realization, there’s the possibility that she hadn’t developed those sorta of feelings for Lance, but there was always a sort of affection there. I believe she has an affection towards all the Paladins, at least. 

Allura chose Lotor, yes, I understand that, but does it really make Lance a rebound? She knew her mistake, perhaps the future of rebuilding Altea with someone like her was too enticing, too good to be true that she fell under a supposed lovesick haze with Lotor. We all saw how fast she fell, and she suffered for it. And is it her fault if Lance was the one to step up to the plate and comfort her in her time of self-doubt? Like I said before, she is allowed to feel this way, and she is allowed to have someone comfort her.

Will Allura reciprocate his feelings just because of “the big bad breakup”? No, I don’t think so. After everything, I feel like their bond can grow stronger. Will it end up romantic? I don’t fucking know, I’m not a show writer. So we’ll have to wait and see. 

This season showed me their development, their growing relationship, a closer bond between team mates. Whether or not Allurance is end game, I really don’t care? Sure I’d be over the moon because wow my CottonCandy Cuties, but that’s really besides the point. I just want the both to be happy and supportive of each other. I’m not trying to attack anyone here, I’m not targeting any ships, any one person specifically. I’m just - sad. Sad to see so many people call our sweet boy from Cuba get called a rebound through this whole season.

[jan20]

I read the thing on why you hate Bex. You do realize she didn’t know the age of the person she was talking to right? Also these are ships and yes it’s wrong but like they’re not real. Not tryna be that bitch here but that’s all

hi,, maybe u didn't notice but I didn't actually write that post so maybe u should send this to op maybe,,,, also even if she didn't know the age of the person she's still incredibly unprofessional for saying the shit she says and fighting with fans online. and don't give me that "it's not real uwu" bullshit cuz that's no excuse for saying things like that. defend her all you want I still don't care about her

[sweetmascherari]

I am also of the mind that Shiro is what the considered their show rep because of his history. They are both willy-nilly with his character and just completely at a loss with what to do with him because - from hearsay roaming about - he was never going to make it to the end of the series.

I am not sure if this was ever solidly confirmed as their initial story goal, or if it was factually denied. But ever since "hearing" that, it makes sense to me how they treated Shiro as their emotional/plot ragdoll. They was he is suddenly "the gay one" to appease fans. The way he was just pushed back into a secondary role - but let's just magically give him his own transforming ship so that it's totally not what it feels like is going on... [cough]

True or not, my mind has solidly latched on to that being the reason behind Shiro’s endgame.

RE: the sexuality ask (I am a completely new person!). It's absolutely okay to say Shiro is gay, but they never said he was - just that he is a man who finds other men attractive. iirc, the creators ("word of God") actually said he was anything you wanted him to be (which, sure, is probably another cop-out but 🤷‍♀️). I personally see him as pansexual and just because the only two people we explicitly see him with are guys would not negate that, just like only seeing Lance with girls wouldn't make his bi ass suddenly straight 😂

So weirdly enough when I was answering the previous ask I had a whole paragraph about how I personally saw Shiro as more pansexual than gay, but I ended up deleting it because it drew out my answer in a longer, more convoluted way. I'm not going to delve into this particular territory much because there are too many ways people can view themselves – and more specifically, too many ways I can end up accidentally offending someone. So I'll just say, here's the way I see it. I have actually canonly heard (I think) three characters blatantly stating their own sexualities in recent media. And two were in Brooklyn 99. It's not a thing that happens often, is what I'm saying, so we have to interpret things based on the information that has been provided.

The creators of VLD putting Shiro in a relationship with two different men was them technically, condescendingly confirming that he IS gay. Except they did it in the most cowardly way. This is especially emphasized if, like you said, they later stated that "he was anything you wanted him to be." That is absolutely a cop-out. That's not them being inclusive of other sexualities, it's them maintaining plausible deniability. I think they chose Shiro specifically because his sexuality was more…vague on screen. This allows them to tell their audience "Is he gay? I'll leave that up to your own interpretation. wink" while telling the higher ups "we never actually said anything one way or another. It's not our fault if the fans are interpreting things a certain way."

I absolutely understand that Shiro can easily be viewed as pansexual – or specifically not strictly gay – because, like I said in the previous ask, that's because I don't think he was planned to be gay from the beginning.

[glitterandgrunge]

Vld fandom: THESE TWO CHARACTERS GLANCED AT EACH OTHER AT EXACTLY 12:42 THEY'RE IN LOVE

Actual canon: they were pals. Buds. Chums. Friends.

[read-me-loud-and-queer]

i have a theory that shieth remains very popular because it’s the closest thing to an incestuous ship that voltron could have for a while

[ghost-system]

“It’s gross for adults to make nsfw of characters who are minors. I dont consent to being thought of in that way.”

oh my goooodddd the self-centeredness of this like holy shit. when i make nsfw stuff of a fictional character the only real world person im maybe possibly thinking about is me.

Like fuck off and leave me to mourn the youth I never got to have bc of my abuse. Let me live vicariously through fictional characters and imagine for a time what life could have been if fate hadnt so tremendously screwed me over so much. 

[sanzoumon]

[deadllock]

@manicpixiedreamspock

The Discourse was basically that sheith was Bad because “shiro is an adult and keith is underage” even tho ages werent confirmed until now and keith is also an adult 

[freedom-of-fanfic]

klantis played themselves.

at this point the klanti portion of the vld hatedom is self-perpetuating. even if kl were to become vld canon, it would not be satisfactory to them b/c they’re invested in a fanon version of the ship that has little resemblance to canon k & l. k&l getting together in canon, therefore, would look nothing like their fantasies and still offend them.

by choosing to defend their ship’s ‘right’ to be canon by tearing apart every other ship for being problematic, they lost the chance to enjoy kl as the rivalship, frenemies-to-lovers story that attracted people to the ship in the first place. they’ve made everybody else miserable with constant hatred and harassment and bullying, and made themselves miserable in the process.

as k’s screentime is taken up with becoming the main character, true leader of team voltron, & evolving his friendship with sh1ro, & romantic Alluranc3 looks more and more likely to be canon, all that klantis have left is viciously tearing into & humiliating anyone who ships something other than kl, threatening the show creators & cast, and defaming the show itself with false claims of ‘queerbaiting’. they’re too invested; they can’t back down. their entire fandom presence is built around kl being the only viable non-straight canon ship. their only remaining defense is escalating their aggression towards everyone else.

I think they’ll just keep getting worse until the show ends and, with a final burst of malice, they are released from their hellscape of their own making to build a new one in a new fandom. they have no other choice, because admitting that their nastiness is unjustified and ineffective is to admit defeat, and bullies can’t admit defeat. (perpetuating the belief they can never be defeated is the source of their power.) 

but despite the damage they’ve done to tumblr/twitter fandom as a whole in pursuit of their canon king, the fact that vld fandom continues to create, enjoy itself, and ignore their bs is testament to how little power klantis have at the end of the day.

keep trucking, vld fandom. you’re all heroes.

[just-antithings]

Just Anti Things: they should have killed Colleen Holt because the Holts have had it way too easy

[shipping-isnt-morality]

Do you think the fandom was part of the reason that Keith got aged up two years? Or I guess like that if had influence on that decision?

It’s hard to say definitively, especially since i don’t really watch the show, but from what I know about how the industry works: probably not. The writing team is probably AWARE of the shipping wars, but the public-facing side that gets a lot of grief about this kind of thing is only a small fraction of the people making decisions about plot and direction.

Granted, Voltron might be different - but my impression of the studio generally is that they’re not overly responsive to fan behavior. AtLA, which the executive producers both worked on, had ship wars that nearly tore the fandom apart too - but it was said repeatedly that this didn’t affect the writing of the show, which was planned years beforehand. It’s also important to remember that the fandom seems overwhelming because that’s the spaces we’re in, but the active fandom is a tiny portion of the viewership of the show. They might put in a throwaway line or two for the fandom, but the primary audience is kids, and it’s being written with kids in mind.

[bi-lances]

doesn’t this mean that Keith JUST turned 18 tho?? so he’s 3 months older than hunk and 9 months older than lance???? that’s why hunk/lance are still 17. i feel like that makes way more sense that Lance and hunk just turning 17 when Keith is already turning 19

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Please join me in coming up with and sending non-ship-related asks to the team so they have something other than ‘WHY ISNT MY SHIP CANON YET’ options to pick from

Bex Taylor-Klaus, Jeremy Shada and Rhys Darby + executive producers Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery are answering YOUR questions!

To participate in Voltron’s Answer Time:

Submit a question here: https://dwan.im/VoltronAnswerTime

Join us next Tuesday, July 24th @ 12pm PT / 3pm ET for their answers!