How to Identify Queerbaiting vs Romantic Buildup
I don't think I've ever actually taken you guys through it but there are ways to identify queerbaiting and confirm when a ship is not. [In this context I do not mean queerbaiting as marketing, I mean it as queercoding without follow-through]
People are queercoded/appear to be romantic when they use romantic tropes, are singled out from other characters, have lines in reference to queerness or romance from themselves or other characters. But there are a few key signs to look for.
Do they seem like an "old married couple"? Do they seem like they are already together it just hasn't been confirmed, as opposed to friends harboring secret romantic feelings for each other? If they are written with tropes, lines, and relationship plots as if they are currently in a relationship, and NOT like they are currently friends with feelings for each other, it is very likely queerbait.
The reason for that is
2. They lack momentum. They have plots and plot conflicts surrounding their relationship, but do not have a progression within it. We can even think for this example of relationships that were not queerbait, simply two friends who were focal. They may become closer over the course of a plotline, that is not what I'm talking about. That is STILL queerbait. If their plot is "I dislike you to I like you" or "I didn't trust you now I trust you" or anything of the like, an arc of closeness that can be achieved without romance, that is still NOT a progression. The progression must be an increase in flirting or romance of some kind. Not just an increase of romantic tropes or cliches, not just an increase in general closeness, but progressively more overt to the audience romance. Increased frequency is not the same as increased visibility, increased obviousness, increased severity. They may go from strangers to friends, enemies to friends, they may use romantic tropes, references or jokes, they may hint at a character being queer but not confirm it, they may even be increasingly physically affectionate. But if there is not an increase in visible romantic interest, there is not momentum. They have relationship plotlines, but those plotlines are detached from the romance - which remains isolated only to tropes, jokes, and coded lines/references.
Which brings us to
3. Their queerness/romance is completely detached from the main plot. Their relationship plot, if they have one, is about interpersonal conflict, trust, increasing closeness, something general that does not have to be romantic. The romance is exclusive to tropes and references. They may check each other out, they may partake in romantic cliches, they may flirt, they may display jealousy over each others' partners - even overt at times. But they will never cross the line into a plotline requiring romance as a factor or part of the resolution. They will likely not mention a desire for romance by the character as a setup. They will not mention an anonymous crush. They will not call out defensiveness around the idea of romance or that person, they will not call attention to any of this romantic behavior. They will never treat the queercoding as something that needs to be addressed. Within that, they will never treat it as the source of a conflict. All conflicts will be sourced with things unrelated to the queerness or romance so that they can be resolved without it. Behaviors will not be shown as consistent symptoms of it that need to be solved, it will not affect other people in a way that needs to be addressed. It will not affect other people at all. It will not prevent them from any goal and no part of it will cause anything that needs to be overcome. A character will be queercoded, but they will not react to their queerness, not overtly. Their queercoding and romantic references will not interfere with ANY other string of the narrative. It will be completely isolated from all other plots and characters. It will not be a source of anything so that they never have to address it for any goal. Any and all goals will be able to be achieved without ever bringing it up. If they fight, it will be about trust or behavior or something of the like. The topic of the fight will be more in line with what couples fight about than with what love interests fight about when the solution to the fight is feelings confession. And it will be resolved without one. Their queercoding will continue. And it will never interfere with any goal, so that it never has to be addressed.
Does your ship feel like they're going to get together? Or do they feel like something existing is going to be "confirmed"? If it's the latter, I'm sorry, it's likely queerbait. If there is something to confirmed that was previously hidden, they are also the ones who chose to hide it. And hiding something without consistent progression where it gradually becomes more obvious is then solely with the intention to hide it, something people willing and intending to tell a queer love story do not do.
Do writers sometimes choose to do confirm a romance despite seeming to lack some of the things I described? In recent years, yes! Some writers have chosen to purposefully fulfill the same tropes people loved - the "old married couple", "partners" energy - with an interpersonal plot that could have existed without romance but they decided TO have it be romantic.
The reason this is done is often in response to queerbait. The reason it does not follow the rules of traditional romantic storytelling is because it is not simply being told as a romance, it is being told as a queerbait resolved in order to heal viewers from past queerbaiting specifically.
Do not take these as an example. Do not presume a universal tide change. These are nice people who chose to write a mockery of the cruel. But they are mocking rules that exist TO define the cruel. When you see those rules, you should still absolutely assume queerbaiting. These are the exception. Not the rule. They are a purposeful callout of misbehavior by first demonstrating the same red flags on purpose. But that does not change that when you see those, they ARE red flags. Take them as such. It is much better to be happily surprised - as that surprise will come MUCH more rarely than it doesn't. It will be MUCH more likely that it IS queerbait. "If it walks like a duck..."
There ARE, however, ships you CAN trust. Ways to distinguish coding from buildup.
It sounds counterintuitive, but to not be queerbait, your ship WILL be portrayed AS friends. Not people who fulfill every part of romantic partnership except the physical. They cannot shift INTO romance without first BEING friends. And therefore, the show WILL acknowledge that this is what they currently are if they have any intention of changing it, because a romantic build up and payoff that then starts a romantic relationship IS portrayed as CHANGE of nature of relationship. To portray that change, they need to acknowledge that they are not currently in a relationship in ORDER to feel that contrast for when they are.
You cannot properly "confess" that you're romantic if it was never denied. Pure unspoken grey area cannot satisfyingly be contrasted. Denial is often a setup. A setup to be contrasted by confession.
It also WILL have momentum. The characters will become increasingly closer, feeling like they are moving towards something. Their motion will not stop and that has an implication, that they won't. There will not be pauses or starts and stops. All of their plotlines will be in service to this increasing closeness. All plotlines acting in service to it positions that closeness as their main arc. "Where does the closeness lead? If nothing has been able to stop the motion, how far will it go?" will be the central prompted questions by this consistent momentum. When you look back two seasons, their relationship should be LESS close than it is now. If it isn't, I'm sorry, it's too stagnant and it's likely queerbait.
I cannot see Mike's delivery of "cool" fitting into a season 2 interaction. He was not confident enough for it. Their interactions were more emotional, not flirty, that was not an energy present, even in the majority of season 3. It was a recent development. There should always be acknowledgeable "recent developments".
It also SHOULD interfere with the characters and their lives. Not just their relationship, not just their conflicts, the queerness ITSELF.
It itself should cause issues that require resolution. The resolution set up here is romantic. If romance is the source of any issue then it has inherently set up them getting together, because it is a condition of the solution to the issue. A solution that HAS been acknowledged as something important to solve a larger goal. If it is not addressed, the conflict remains an issue, even if the individual fight has been resolved. In Stranger Things, this is shown through the repetition of the same issue even after it's seemingly resolved in season 3, an acknowledgement that the source of the problem, which is solely queerness, has not yet been addressed. It WILL IMPACT the characters' behavior. It will CHANGE them in visible ways.
It will also likely affect other characters or a larger goal. SCREENTIME WILL BE USED. SCREENTIME WILL BE DEDICATED TO TAKE ATTENTION AWAY FROM ANOTHER GOAL OR PLOTLINE TO PUT ON THEM AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP CONFLICT. It will not be isolated to only them and this plot. It will affect other characters. It will affect other plotlines.
If it is isolated enough to only the involved characters and single plotline, it is able to be removed without impact to the larger story and that is a bad sign.
Those conflicts will also continue to serve the purpose of the aforementioned momentum. They are pointless if they do not. The apologies for individual resolution to each symptomatic issue caused by the queerness will increase the closeness of the characters to add some new development as I said, increase something that will further distance them from where they were in previous seasons. Everything will be used to advance this closeness.
To recap:
To be able to change into lovers, they must be acknowledged as friends.
To move naturally into romance, they must have momentum that never stops. All their plots will also serve the purpose of advancing this increasing closeness. No season should look equally as close for them as the previous, or it means that their season plot was not being used to increase this closeness and the motion was temporarily stopped.
It will interfere with other characters' plotlines. It will affect the larger narrative. Queerness itself will cause an obstacle to some goal. It will not be contained to only the characters and plotline involved, it will contribute to the narrative in a way that cannot be separated out from it.
Each plotline and conflict they have will serve the purpose of advancing their relationship, continuing the momentum, making them closer, introducing new aspects or dynamics they did not previously have, becoming more comfortable with each other, more confident. The goal will be clear as each conflict will exist to serve it. Everything overcome will be in order to make them closer. And to clarify, by closer, I do not mean just closer than they were. I mean portrayed as closer to something.
Keep in mind, though, it is not just one single one of these signs that proves that it isn't queerbait automatically! You need a collection of them, and should not assume you're safe just because you have one if all the others still fall under the previous, queerbaiting category.
We CAN prove these. We CAN check our facts. Because queerbaiters DO. HAVE PATTERNS. They DO LEAVE TRAILS. They keep the door open. They maintain the option to never address it. They do not corner themselves, you can SEE their foot in the door. You can SEE the doorstop, holding it ajar for their escape.
There are ways. There are ways to see if the door is closed.
They are still writers, at the end of the day. And writers must maintain a structure. They will never involve their queercoding in the plot enough to risk that structure.
