idk if anyone said this, but i saw your based post in the codot verse tag, and although it's heavily implied, scriddler will never be canon in rogues. he keeps reiterating this. honestly the whole podcast feels concerningly like queerbait and virtue signaling for as much as I love it
Thank you for your question I do enjoy these interactions, and I do apologise for my lack of activity. I am away from home at the moment, so I can’t provide the best sources, but I can give what information I have and form an opinion off of that.
To understand queer-bating, I’ll be using the 2012 Oxford English Dictionary, which describes queer-bating as “the practice of incorporating apparently or potentially LGBTQ characters or relationships into a film, television show, etc., as a means of attracting or appealing to LGBTQ audiences, while remaining deliberately coy or ambiguous” now the purpose of this is to capitalise of off the gay community while also pandering to the straight audience it is purposefully deceptive. When we think of queer-bating, we can think of louder examples like Voltron or smaller nods through cinematic storytelling with no confirmation. But the purpose is to be vague and create speculation.
Now I will agree I personally would think Jonathan and Edward are closer than friends, especially if I had no background context. When you look at the banter and chemistry between then I think it is fair to want to interpret it as such, however It’s debatable if we can classify rogues! as queer bating.
My own personal opinion on codot aside. Both creators in some way are queer, that doesn’t always mean good representation but scriddler as much as I do ship it, codot has never hinted that he likes or ships scriddler and in fact has been open that scriddler wouldn’t be happening. Now I scrolled through about 3 year of content only on one of his accounts and he specifies this on February 11th 2024;
and confirms their sexuality on June 4th 2024 (although he has older posts that do also mention their sexualities)
I went as far back as 2022 but did not see much content elsewhere he has then reiterated this recently and even within the rogues! Podcast sexuality is discussed so while we can be disappointed it’s not shocking.
For this to count as queer-bating they need to:
• be presented as both possibly queer
•be implied in a relationship
•used as a plot point/used to entice an audience
Edward is the only one openly presented as queer and codot doesn’t hide this while Jonathan is never hinted to be gay. There has been open communication for atleast 2 years stating their sexuality and relationship. I also couldn’t find scriddler content promoted by codot to even contradict what he was saying. So yes while this may be disappointing and I do critique codot I wouldn’t count this as queer-bating it’s been too explicit to be queer-bating.
