#tw queerbaiting

[1dumbfox]

this was too good not to share

[morrowsmotto]

I don’t have byler doubt, I have byler fear.

i think it’s obvious how queer-coded mike is. it’s painfully obvious he likes will.

but, will the duffers have the courage to make them canon? nothing has happened like this before. a turned-mainstream show is queercoding a character and making that character a love interest for the canonically gay one.

so, no byler doubt.

just fear.

[aphblr-shipfessions]

Been watching some of Aphmaus newer content to see how she's doing and highkey she made Zana so toxic Zane is obsessed with her and K.C wants nothing to do with him but at the same time doesn't want anyone else to have him and gets super super jealous? And then she keeps like lowkey queerbaiting us with Zane x Ein she had a video where Zana broke up and Zane got together with Ein and like they were actually healthy?

—

[janetsnakehole02]

Nah but what Kate Herron did to the genderfluid community is the textbook definition of queerbaiting. I know people throw that word around a LOT but in this case she dangled his genderfluidity so hard in interviews prior to the show’s release after everyone saw the “sex: fluid” on Loki’s TVA file and once the show was done and she was (rightfully) called out on the “have you ever met a female version of us” scene she conveniently dodged it with “they might not be at that point yet, they might not be genderfluid, it’s up to interpretation.” She literally threw us the fucking bait and backtracked on it the minute she saw the opportunity to do so and it’s so embarrassing for her honestly

[scorpionyx9621]

TW: Death, Queerbaiting, and Voltron

Like I'm sorry y'all I'm just as hyped for the new content as much as anyone but the second I heard Lauren Montgomery was the one directing the first animated movie my heart sank to my god damned stomach.

For those of you who don't know, Lauren Montgomery was one of the co-directors for Voltron: Legendary Defender with fellow LoK creative director Joaquim Dos Santos. For those of you who very fortunately were not on this god forsaken hellsite between the years of 2016-2018 VLD had this website by the god damned throat. From seasons 1 through debatably 6 it was a genuinely good, if weirdly paced show. Then from Season 7-8 the show went down the shitter. FAST.

To make a long story very short that can be easily explained much better than I ever could by a brilliant YouTube miniseries by The Sin Squad. Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos both had an original script that involved killing off one of the characters, but were forced by their production company DreamWorks to keep said character (It's Shiro.) Alive because DreamWorks correctly predicted that Shiro would become the favorite character of the show.

How did Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos react to this news that they had to re-write a heavy portion of the show just to keep Shiro alive? Well they made it work for Season 3-6 with minor jabs towards DreamWorks here and there. Yet the second they could get Shiro introduced fully back into the team on Season 7 onwards they do a litany of things ranging from pretty good to exceptionally bad.

Announce that Shiro actually died but we're gonna fudge with reality and our own universe to bring him back (cool I guess)

Instead of expanding upon Shiro's role as a leader and a character just designate him as a talking head and a wallflower until they get back to earth (Bad)

Upon getting back to earth, the show shoves a half-baked romantic subplot for Shiro involving another man whom we know Jack and Shit about only to have him be on screen for all of like 4 minutes, 3 of them he's fighting with Shiro, and the last 1 minute he's dying. Perpetuating the bury your gays trope yet again. (very derogatory and bad)

Take a character who literally could have been the champion of diversity in an animated show (A gay, physically disabled Japanese man suffering from PTSD) and turn him into a wallflower for what could have been a fantastic growth opportunity and just have him go through even more trauma all for shits and giggles. (Hatred)

LM and JDS both fully admitted that they did all of this and the reason for this being largely because of their resentment towards DreamWorks and they both regret how the show ended. (*Screams into the dark, cold, uncaring void*)

I do not mean this post to be an attack towards Lauren Montgomery. She has a family and loved ones who care about her, sh does not under any circumstances deserve harassment or threats. She is a professional writer who makes a whole lot more money than I do and is able to churn out a literal multi-million dollar franchise in less than 3 years. Even if said franchise crashed and burned in a way that is only comparable to the finale of HBO's Game of Thrones. She has the professional chops and I don't. I am not at all trying to say I could ever fix Voltron after the literal maelstrom of a shit storm it became with the fandom literally threatening to kill people over ships.

But I am never going to forgive her and Joaquim Dos Santos for what they did to Takashi Shirogane. Ever. And after hearing the announcement this morning that she's at the helm of this upcoming animated movie I cannot in good faith just sit by and let people not know what she has done. Yes you can call me a crazed Shiro Stan. You wouldn't be wrong. But Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos both tortured and maimed a disabled Japanese character and turned him gay only for the woke points and to create more pain. They never wanted to make Shiro gay in the first place because they never wanted Shiro to be alive at that point.

I am happy to see that the Team of Bryke is working very closely with Lauren Montgomery on this if only because they were they original creative directors, but if I were in their position being forced to give one of the highest positions to a well known and documented bad-faith actor, I'd keep her on as tight a leash as possible. I'm still going to watch the movie, but I am going to be hyper-vigilant about the fact that Lauren is the one at the helm. I want this movie to succeed just as much as anyone else, but like I said, I cannot in good faith just stand by and let it not be known what Lauren Montgomery has done and what she could be capable of doing again.

[wordsnstuff]

Genuine question. It's my understanding the way that JK Rowling 'told her fans that Dumbledore was gay years after the series had ended' was actually because someone on Twitter asked her a question about D. and she replied he was gay. I'm sure as an author yourself, you know authors know a lot about their characters that never actually makes it into the published work. So why do people assume she was pandering, and not just revealing something she'd known all along when someone finally asked?

I just want to preface this by saying that I don't know a lot about this subject, but from what I've gathered, this is what I think:

J.K. Rowling has an obviously bad track history of being an "ally" to the LGBTQ+ community. I have been aware of the Harry Potter series for most of my life, and I was fairly young when she announced that Dumbledore was gay. Of course there was controversy. 2007 was not as safe a time for us in the queer community, so that isn't surprising. I will acknowledge that it is frustrating that she would reveal this very significant information (significant in terms of possible representation within one of the most culturally relevant stories of all time) after the final installment was already completed and released with absolutely no representation in the actual text.

I can imagine that what you suggested, that she may have known that all along, may be true. Only she can tell you, and only you can choose to believe her.

But truthfully, I don't think that that part is relevant to the conversation anymore. Time has passed, and since then, the original film series has concluded. Now, in 2021, I have come to the conclusion that even if I were to give her the benefit of the doubt in terms of Dumbledore having been gay all along, I would still have to reconcile with what's happened since. After 2 feature films in the Fantastic Beasts series, which offers ample opportunity to provide gay representation through Dumbledore's character, why hasn't there been any?

Again, you could argue that the audience should give her the benefit of the doubt. "Well, the production team on the films don't want to jeopardize the market by including gay representation" or "Maybe she wants to incorporate the relationship between Albus and Gellert but the powers that be are preventing it" or even "Maybe they're building up to that plot line in a future film". However, I feel no inclination to give her the benefit of the doubt. Not only has there been no effort to include this fact, which would mean a lot to the large portion of her audience who are queer, but a deliberate avoidance of it.

The second film in the Fantastic Beasts series centered completely on the relationship between Dumbledore and Gridelwald, and the closest it got to representation was queerbaiting the audience who believed Rowling would finally deliver. The truth is, Rowling has had ample time and opportunity to provide representation for the LGBTQ+ community in the works she has put her name on. It's insulting that the best she could come up with was:

1. a queerbaiting sequel in a film franchise she invented to capitalize on her singular stroke of creative success

and

2. a 1000 page gender-revenge mental breakdown which clearly and deliberately used stereotypes that have been used to justify violence, suspicion, and hostility toward trans people for decades.

AND

3. a nearly 4,000 word (prize winning??) tirade making the entire fight for trans visibility and civil rights about her relationship with her father.

All while insisting to all those who criticize her actions that she is an "ally" to our community and that she is simply "concerned" about the youth.

[rant over]

Simply put, she has run out of chances. She has run out of excuses and she has exposed that even if she means well (which, your interpretation of her concrete action may lead to you believe she doesn't), her intentions don't really matter anymore. Any reparation she may attempt in the future will be contaminated by the damage she has caused, which cannot be overlooked anymore. She's thrown it in our faces, time and time again.

So yes, if you isolate the statement she made in 2007 you could probably justify her actions to yourself, but context matters and we have 14 years of context now that we didn't have back then, and it's only made her point of view clearer, and less encouraging.

* I just want to note that I have individually chosen to adopt the word 'queer' into my vocabulary when speaking about the LGBTQ+ community (which I am apart of). If this makes you uncomfortable or upset, please understand that it is a personal decision and while I respect your position, I expect you to respect mine in turn.

[cottagecoreangryqueer]

Okey, but I'm losing my mind so much over Our Flag Means Death because it's such a game-changer. The queerness of it all. It's mind blowing for someone like me who grew up being a little queer boy in the middle of nowhere, homophobia and transphobia all around me seen as the norm... And the only way out you could find, the only "being seen" was queerbaiting shows that would also most of the time just laugh in your face if you were queer and thought something "must happen, right?" (Supernatural's "fanfiction" episode, Sherlock BBC's episode with the fan theories being mocked, all the homophobic jokes in all the queerbaiting shows...). So even if you were slightly seen, you were still taboo, still *wrong* in your existence, you were just a commodity that made money and was fun to laugh at. But what other choice did the people like me have? Just resign to never even see queer-coding in our lives?

Hear me, my parents were some of the most homophobic and transphobic people I've ever met. The second something queer happened in a show they were watching and it wasn't, I don't know, queers being murdered or being hate-crimed, they would change the channel. Nevermind if they liked the show, they weren't going to even see something that could *slightly* be seen as respectful towards us queers. So two men looking longingly at each other in my computer screen was... Fuck, it felt so good. But then the rug would be pulled out from under my feet, homophobia would be back, and I could do absolutely nothing. Just wait until they would say something slightly queer-coded again while I had to deal with shitty homophobia and internalised it more, because it was coming from my favorite shows.

Now. In this day and age, where I'm 23 and have been living since I was 18 in a queer relationship with a very loving man, where most of my friends are queer and the only cishets we befriend know we won't give them a second if they're homophobic... I've seen how much queerbaiting gave me the trust issues everyone is talking about. And seeing how this show is actually NOT queerbait, just... Queer. It's been mind-blowing. So I got my boyfriend to watch it with me and let me just say. This is a fucking balm on the trust issues towards media, on the homophobia we've seen in every fucking TV show and movie, on the homophobia we experience day to day as queers in this world. So. I might be going insane over this show, yes, but how could I not.

[thewokecatgirl]

THIS IS A CLEAR EXAMPLE OF QUEERBAITING!!! WE SHOULD JUST CANCEL RTGAME AND CALLMEKEVIN!!! IF WE CAN CALL DREAM OUT FOR IT, WE SHOULD CALL THESE TWO WHITE CISHET MEN OUT!!!