#het ship so good it feels like queerbait | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

verycharismaticdragon · 1 year

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Currently reading a Korean webnovel instead of Chinese ones and this is making me conceptualize something, let’s see if I can put it in words…

My musings started with realizing that I’ve become very used to this cnovels thing where the main pairing is literally stated in the summary. Not the case for the k-novel I’m reading, and therefore I’m experiencing Pain and Suffering, — torn between my every instinct screaming that the author is setting up the OT3 endgame, and trying to lower my expectations to avoid disappointment. (And the novel is ongoing so I can’t even get spoilers for the ending :) girl help.)

As you may’ve guessed, I found myself strongly preferring the Chinese variant; but as to why exactly it was so important for my enjoyment to know the main couple… it took me a bit to figure out.

I mean, it’s not like I’m reading exclusively for romance, okay? Fannish activity-wise, sure, I tend to get fixated on ships (though even then, not all the time), but when it comes to reading (or any media intake, really), it’s not necessarily what I’m most interested in. Among my beloved titles, there are many where there’s no canon or fanon couple I'm attached to — and more than a few where there’s a canon couple that I neither love nor hate, just accept. So why did I get so attached to the concept of being, essentially, spoiled the endgame couple beforehand?

The key word that made it click was: promise. After all, it’s not like knowing the names of the characters that get together tells me anything about if they will be interesting or boring together, if they will be good for each other or make me scream “break up!” a million times. But it is a solid promise that these two people ARE gonna be a couple.

And thinking about the word promise reminded me of discussions on plot twists that I’ve seen on here, about what makes a good plot twist and what makes a bad one — specifically, the phrase “narrative promise” that someone came up with. Basically, narrative promise is in the set up and the build up. If the plot twist betrays the narrative promise, it will not work, and it will be hated by the audience, who’ll feel like their emotional investment into the story was mocked.

The thing about the narrative promise, and why this term stuck with me, is that it’s actually applicable more broadly than just for shock-factor plot twists. For example: what is queerbaiting, if not betraying the narrative promise that the two characters are gonna be together? The fans see the narrative promise — the set up and the build up that would be unequivocally romantic for a het couple — and expect it to be fulfilled; only to be called delusional by the very creators that gave them this expectation.

And this brings me to the next point: the catch of the “narrative promise” is that it’s never a guarantee. You can be completely sure the author is setting up X, only for them to turn around and do something completely different. (Possibly while calling you a little bitch for having the stupidity to invest your feelings into their creation, too.) After a while, a fan learns to manage their expectations. To not bet too much on anything, even if it feels like there’s no other way it can go. To wait until the end of the season or the last chapter before allowing themselves to get attached; to hold back on deciding whether something is good or not, lest they hype up something they will want to bury and forget later.

And this is where we circle back to c-novels, and to spoiling the main couple in the summary. Except I hesitate to call it “spoiling” because, as discussed, it actually heightens my enjoyment. For a simple reason: this practice takes the narrative promise from its nebulous, uncertain status to something concrete and real. Only for this one aspect and with the minimal-est amount of information possible, but still. That’s one thing I don’t have to guess about or doubt myself on (am I seeing things? is there a heterosexual explanation another way to read this? will the author simply kill off one of the characters before the end so that they don’t have to decide whether to make them explicitly queer?), and one thing I can count on (whatever else happens in the plot, I’ll still have this). It’s easy to invest emotionally into those characters and their relationship, when you have an assurance of their happy ending.

Ofc, I’m not saying that I don’t invest emotionally into relationships or characters other than the main CP — just that it is easier. And I would even say having this one(1) hard promise makes it easier to invest into other elements of the work, too, as it makes for a sort of safety net even if something else is disappointing or painful.

Like, say you are invested in one couple with great chemistry and one side character. In case of a pre-stated ship, even if the side character dies, at least you still have the canon couple. So it’s not like all of your emotional connection to the book is lost, and you can probably bear with the loss of that character by writing everybody lives AU or something. But if the side character dies AND the couple you were invested in gets broken up or killed off or straight-married with other ppl… then doesn’t that make the entire thing into one massive disappointment? to the point that you might even regret picking up the book that made you care only to slap you in the face?..

So yeah, having even just one ship guaranteed is very comforting. And then I thought, well, doesn’t this apply to another type of fiction that I’m very familiar with?

Fanfiction?

Which, since very early on, has adopted the practice of putting the endgame ship in the header of the fic. And which, probably not coincidentally, is often a response to a broken (or at the very least not brought to its logical conclusion) narrative promise. And which always felt uniquely easy to read for me…

See, prior to getting on this little thought train, I always assumed the ease was due to pre-existing familiarity with canon. You know, not having to learn the entire new setting, already having attachment to the characters… But now that I’ve connected these dots, I thought about times I read fics for fandoms I wasn’t familiar with, and originals formatted as fics — and really, wasn’t it always about the narrative promise made solid?

Esp with how fics make it even broader than cnovels, by having extensive tags and ratings and such. Getting into a fic, you have a pretty clear idea of what may or may not happen in the story, even if you don’t know what exactly will happen or how. And a fic can fail to live up to the premise set up by ship/rating/tags — but not completely turn its back on it.

(Well, normally. But in those exceptional cases where tags are misleading, at least you have something to point to when saying, “this is not what I was promised”. The ficwriter can hardly claim they don't understand why you expected [ship] to happen when they personally tagged their work as containing that ship — unlike the traditional media creators, who can always play the "you were totally misunderstanding my intentions the entire time" card.)

And having a solid promise like this, it turns out, takes lotsa pressure off starting a New Unfamiliar thing. I do, in fact, trust like that! So it’s no wonder that there were periods in my life when I would only consume fanfiction, because it was so much easier than extending trust to new titles. And it’s no wonder that what brought me back to being an avid reader were Chinese webnovels that use a practice very similar to what we have in fandoms.

I guess I understand myself better now! Still wish I knew if that k-novel's author is /j or /srs about the ot3 though.

#fandom #fanfiction #cnovels #danmei novels #idk just a lot of musings that i wanted to organize a bit. and since i already typed it all might as well set it free here

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outrunningthedark · 4 months

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I can't wait for all the unhinged queerbaiting allegations that will inevitably come

I sympathize with those people, I really do (I think a lot of them are young enough that a m/m ship going canon feels like the "obvious" choice because TV has adapted over time), but they don't seem to understand that the only way to avoid the situation is to stop getting content altogether - on screen or off. "Well, if Tim or Kristen shut down the speculation at least we'd know." Kristen made it very clear that they were being written as good friends/their own little family in her two years as show runner and the two reactions were "wtf why is she so homophobic" or "CLEARLY she can't tell us what's really going on, so let's just wait for the truth" (and then that "truth" never came). Tim has been VERY respectful of Buddie fandom, going so far as to say he's had conversations with others about what story they're trying to tell. He KNOWS how much it would mean to a small percentage of the fan base for these two to be canon. The fact that it hasn't happened, or been suggested outside of fandom theories? Not on him. But he makes one comment about being accused of queerbaiting no matter what he does (accurate!) and suddenly there were blogs acting happy that Kristen had been given more control as if Tim taking a backseat meant Kristen could put her master plan in place. 😐 (She did. She gave them girlfriends again.)

The last thing I want to say about the queerbaiting accusations has irked me for a while. I get the disappointment in a queer ship not being canon. I get that the knee-jerk reaction can be to say a friendship "isn't the same" as the feeling you'd get from canonized romance. But if the show is writing a queer ship in a way that mimics the het ones, and that ship never goes canon...is it BAITING? Or is it a case of telling a queer love story without labeling anyone because that's the best they can do?

#anonymous #tina speaks #buddie #tv: 911 #tv: 9-1-1

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invested-in-your-future · 1 year

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thoughts on bumbleby?

I…genuinely can't see a version of RWBY where those two are NOT the endgame. As characters they are closely tied since the very first trailer, the beauty and the beast metaphors just literally write themselves and beyond Cinder's plot, its the single most well built up thing in Volume 1 through 3 and their trauma is intrinsically linked. Their relationship is genuinely THERE - be it in terms of each allowing themselves to be vulnerable when around each other or just how much blake subconsciously tied herself emotionally to Yang (considering how much Mercury stuff hits her in V3). Its likely the single most tangible idea in the show.

The fact that I have SEVERE doubts it would have gone ANYWHERE had RWBY not been put into a situation where it's very survival as a show is in danger…speaks miles about how RWBY is handling various aspects of itself, be it characterization or social issues…

The show is…not great with inclusivity…at all. Be it tackling it as in-story issue (be it WF storyline or how the show handles trauma) or actually being inclusive. Inclusivity is something that comes up as patchwork against critique, rather than something that's intervowen into the show. The amount of queerbait, heternormativity, ableism or just outright insensitivity is just…yeah. Till certain point show is completely oblivious just how heteronormative it is, like it takes legit YEARS before the criticism reaches the writers and they throw at the viewer "here LGBT people exist" kind of moment.

It kind of made me feel like this relationship is this "break in case of emergency" thing, where the show is absolutely afraid to commit to any sort of buildup and instead dangles it as POSSIBILITY, while also throwing in a good share of random het stuff around. You take any moment in time of RWBY existing, Monty or no Monty and you will have SOMETHING - be it the way Sun's team is used in S2 that feels like writers being scared of WLW ships that came to be or the infamous bumbleby song incident where RT released an absolutely romantic ship song during pride month and then backpedalled hard on how it means nothing for canon and how all songs totally mean nothing for canon. Or how after the absolutely charged build up in V3, you get an…entire season of trying to counter-balance it with Blake and Sun where the show tries to execute a similar plotpoint between them. Its a repeated pattern of plausible deniability.

Even if you take a moment without a controversy brewing, it always felt like the writers are AFRAID of Blake and Yang actually interacting or progressing as characters or as a relationship. Volume 4 through 8 are filled with the kinds of situations where Blake and Yang "share a scene together", but in terms of writing it feels like there's intentional artificial wall placed in between them. The characters are not allowed to deal with their separation at the end of V3 because it could be viewed as romantic, the characters are not allowed to vocalize their trauma because their traumas are intertwined and it could be viewed as romantic bonding, the characters are not allowed to to react to each other's actions because reacting to each other can be seen as romantic. So in a way you get a lot of scenes where Blake and Yang can stand together in a same scene but not really progress.

Like not even just as a pairing, you don't need a pairing to deal with character sexuality. You can still do entirety of will they won't they after having confirmed that yes Blake and Yang can be interested in women romantically. But the show avoids it till the last possible moment.

Given to be fair, that applies to more than LGBT topics - Ruby has spent her ENTIRE SCREENTIME from start of V4 till end of V8 being juuuuust on the brink of having a proper character moment where she can reflect on her trauma, for example, just scene upon scene where any kind of breakthrough is suddenly interrupted or goes nowhere. That's because the show is afraid of committing to ANYTHING overall, not just LGBT pairings. Any sort of character development, any sort of growth or change, any sort of progress. Any bigger revelation is toothless (just think back onto Salem flashback and just how it changes absolutely NOTHING in the show)

So you have basically a show where you have a bunch of characters and relationships with a lot of potential and possible build up and the show kind of does nothing with it for entire seasons. Because the show is afraid of change or progress of any sort.

Countries can fall, people can die and nothing changes.

Characters Don't. Status Quo Doesn't. Setting Doesn't.

It feels like the show is stuck. Stuck just after V3 ended. Stuck and just throwing multiple kind of redundant plotlines at the viewer to distract.

I love Blake and Yang as a pairing and I think its one thing that makes the most sense in the show. Its one of the main draws to the show for me when I still watched it.

I wish this show was THE show that lived up to the boundless storytelling potential that that relationship is...alas.

So yeah, its complicated.

#RWBY #Blake Belladonna #Yang Xiao Long #bumbleby #rwby

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rcrisdraws · 23 days

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I love seeing the results of these polls. I'm in a queer bookclub and we were discussing as a group a similar thing: some of us were adamant about preferring canon queer material over all others, and some of us preferred better writing even if it was for het or even queerbaiting.

I'm personally here for strong narratives and my preferred writing style, or a genre I enjoy more than the gender or sexuality of the characters but it was a fascinating conversation. I'm also in the minority bc I don't really "ship" in books or movies, so I know that affects my position on it. But anyway, neat to see a wider poll than my bookclub!!!

I feel pretty confident in my character/narrative writing, even though I'm always looking for critiques and while definitely just a rough draft you can message me to show you the story so far (it's a near future sci-fi racing romp), regardless of that i felt like there's definitely a certain form of... reticence when it comes to canon wlw media or media focused primarily on women, which is why I phrased the question the way that I did.

Definitely feeling like the 'good writing' bit is a double edged sword depending on people's preferences in terms of romantic tropes and character tropes in general (and I'm feeling as a writer rather predictable in terms of tropes that are to be put forth because that's what I enjoy writing), but it's double especially whenever it comes to women characters. The anxiety is that even though the trope is a well established, well liked, celebrated even, trope for queer/queerbaity media it'd either be extra scrutinized or disregarded bc of the gender of the characters. Having books like The Locked Tomb series and the flagship ship of the newest media obsession be wlw (Farcille from Dungeon Meshi) is making things hopeful though bc it is kinda the vibe i'm striving for

But yeah it's a big big big convo to be had on the topic

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shadowfiredemonwolf · 2 years

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the claim that saying korrasami or bumbleby were forced is homophobic makes a joke of real homophobia

I often feel korrasami and bb stans make a joke of real homophobia whenthey try to say merely a statement that their ships were forced and shouldnt have happened in favor of het ships that had actual buildup to getting together for a while ( and korrasami being incompatible with eachother)

same sex ships arent exempt from criticism

saying a same sex ship is forced or has/had no evidence / buildup or saying that this thing they are trying to claim is evidence of romantic love isnt and they are just wearing shipping goggles to see evidence where there is none isnt homophobic it makes a joke of real homophobia to abuse it in a shipping war or to try and defend your ship from criticism by claiming that the person criticizing it is just doing it because its a same sex ship

its not shipping the het ship over the same sex ship in a shipping war its not saying a same sex ship was forced and thrown in without buildup/ makes no sense/ last minute retcon /

quit using homophobia accusation for internet arguments

quit acting like caring about lgbt community means that if there is a canon same sex ship you have to support it ( korrasami was a last minute retcon that broke the narrative and the narrative up to the lok b4 finale last 2 minutes ( including part of the finale) pointed to the show ending with korra single but possibly a hint ot makorra getting back together

( it doesnt matter that korrasami was the only piece of lgbt rep in show fact is it was forced last minute retcon thrown in at the last minute ( and many people part of the lgbt community criticized it it being gay doesnt mean any criticism is wiped away) it doesnt matter if there there arent many examples of canon same sex ship if people see it as forced ship

undoubtedly if asami was a guy most people wouldnt ship korrasami

I could turn the you only ship that ship/ only criticize my ship based on genders involve on them saying that if blacksun was a w/w ship and bumbleby was a het ship they would go queerbaiting and there was nothing that pointed to romantic bb ( bb shippers wear shipping goggles to take the most minor moments as romantic bending over backwards ignoring context or looking at other ships moments and to look over blake and yang moments to try to find any possible similarity

like if in a ship tease moment for blacksun he winked they will claim that yang winking at blake in a scene is a romantic moment or renora got a romantic scene on a plane they will claim that means bb having a moment on plane is romantic and that if you saw the renora moment as romantic you have to see the bb moment ts romantic when the moments were different

not to mention ignoring context like in v3 sun saw blake crying about yang losing an arm seeing how blake felt guilty over what happened to yang and blaming herself which is why she ran and why in his conversation to blake at end of v4 about not needing a reason to risk his life he brought yang up

and bb shippers tried to turn the moment into “sun realizing blakes feelings for yang” when there was nothing about that scene that would cause him to think blake had feelings for yang

or claiming adam saying he will destroy everything she loves confirms blake having romantic feelings for yang when adam said EVERYTHING she loves including her family he tried to kill ghira and kali because of this promise

he only attacked yang because she was nearby ( yang called for blake both of them turned to yangs voice and adam saw blakes face ( blake would have had the same reaction if it was weiss) and so he chose starting with her

not to mention the whole well adam is her ex so yang getting hurt by himis evidence ( that is reaching and flimsy)

)

equality means that you shouldnt ship the same sex ship just because its a same sex ship

you shouldnt complain about them teasing a het ship because there are a good number of possible same sex ships involved you can go I wish they teased the same sex ship instead )

( I have seen people call blacksun forced

equality means that same sex ships are just as open to criticism as het ships if its okay to call a het ship forced without getting called a bigot its okay to say the same thing about a same sex ship. same sex ships are not magically immune to being badly written or forced

and I have seen people go there are tons of shows where het ships becomes canon in response to people saying bumbleby was a forced ship ( which is insulting for it implies the only reason they shipped blacksun over bb was because it was a het ship which often times comes off as projection given how I have seen people complain about blacksun being teased going there are tons of same sex ships that they could do ( which shows them to be the ones shipping something based on genders involved)

it doesnt matter that there are tons of shows where the het ships become canon the reason why they shipped blacksun for example was because of the relationship development blacksun got teased since v1 ( during which bb got nothing that hinted at romantic relationship you have to wear shipping goggles to see anything like taking the scene where blake was crying while yang was unconscious while sun saw and try to claim it was meant to be a sign of romantic relationship claiming it was somehow meant to show sun that blake had romantic feelings for her when there was nothing about that scene that pointed to them having romantic feelings for yang.

that scene showcased blake felt guilty/terrible about yang losing an arm and that was purpose of sun seeing it ( nothing about bb was hinted at as romantic ( you have to take any positive interaction to the most minor detail and twist and stretch it including scenes where yang wasnt there like rwbytalks )

the fact that there isnt many examples of lgbt reps or canon same sex ships is irrelevant it shows that anyone who try to argue this as being the type of person they accused others of being of only shipping something based on genders involved shown by how they go there are tons of shows where the het ships become canon which is irrelevant lacking same sex ships that are canon isnt a shield from criticism or make it so bad writing or the ship being forced is allowed to be ignored

bad writing is bad writing

they have called blacksun forced just for being a het ship when it wasnt forced

( blacksun had natural growth and development since v1 ( which began with sun being interested in blake sun was interested in blake as a person ( I have seen peolpe try to go but blake told him all that info but not her team who she spent more time with sun was a faunus it would be easier to tell him this stuff without fear of discrimination )

there are plenty of lgbt people who criticize korrasami and bb and oppose those ships for being forced ( korrasami just being thrown in at the last 2 minutes breaking the narrative which pointed to korra single but makorra eventually getting back together the narrative push for makorra is included in the season finale of b4 like the camera focusing on mako when they said they couldnt find her ( so they just threw in korrasami in at the last two minutes of finale with korra being ooc which is required for korrasami are incompatible )

I have seen people try to go but korrasami is the only same sex ship in legend of korra you dont care about the lgbt community if you dont support it when that is irrelevant to the fact that it shouldnt have happened because it was forced/bad writing causes korra to be ooc

which is more important then filling a quota by having a same sex ship saying we should support something because of a quota is reducing everything to the genders involved ( and I have seen people who try to go there are plenty of shows where the het ship become canon who say shit like that which makes that statement come off as projecting they are the ones shipping something based on genders involved and try to defend their ship by citing the genders involved or there arent that many same sex ships when that is irrelevant it doesnt matter that korrasami was the only same sex ship in lok it doesnt matter that there arent many canonical same sex ships

not only are they not exempt from criticism or people disliking it ( just like het ships arent ) bad writing is bad writing its more important to go with the beats of story and what makes sense with the characters and what was built up then making korrasami or bb canon two popularsame sex ships ( populariy doesnt mean there is actual evidence there is such a thing as an appeal to popularity fallacy a same sex ship being popular doesnt mean there is actual evidence or the writers have to make it canon

. caring about the lgbt community doesnt mean you have to support a specific canon same sex ship , it doesnt mean that any time where there is a ship war between a het ship and a same sex ship you support the same sex ship orif asame sex ship becomes canon you support it because people should ship things based on how they like the characters interacting the chemistry and hints in the show etc

bad writing is bad writing

and if the het ship had buildup and development while same sex ship didnt the het ship should be canon ( to be frank people often abuse the term queerbaiting to mean my same sex ship didnt become canon and they saw evidence where there is none

there is no doubt there are plenty of times where in a ship war between a het ship and a same sex ship where the het ship was teased /canon they tried to claim it was forced when it really wasnt

I often see the whole you would ship it if it was a m/f pairing

that could easily be turned around on them ( especially since they are the ones who often cited the genders involved in the ship or lgbt rep as defense on why their ship deserves to be canon

going there arent many shows where the same sex ship becomes canon

it makes any accusations of the genders involved affecting someones judgement to come off as projection

korrasami were barely friends they barely interacted ( including the timeskip between b3 and b4 korra sent asami one letter to vent )

asami taking care of korra at end of b3 isnt evidence of a special bond asami just being her sweet self and trying to help korra when korra didnt request it ( korra only smiled during that state with air babies , her dad , and bolin

korrasami often stands on headcanons like claiming korra chose asami )

the only thing that hinted at korrasami was in the last 2 minutes ( bryke admitted they only thought asked the execs if they could do it when the finale was being made

the narrative pointed to a ending with korra single but hints to makorra getting back together for they overcame the mutual issues that led to the b2 breakup ( neither of them were ready for a relationship with anyone at the time )

heck even in the finale when jinora said they couldnt find her the camera focused on makos expression

mako was the one who went with korra to confront zaheer and supported korra the way she needed to be the way the others couldnt

mako made a speech about korra the person how he admires her etc while tenzin helped korra by bringing up korra the person and how she grew which asami failed to do by going youre the avatar showing that she doesnt understand what korra needs korra was always focused on korra as the avatar

there is no doubt that if mako and asamis genders were involved no one would ship korrasami or at least only a few while there would be alot more complaints about the ending

equality means if a same sex ship is forced it gets criticized if you spend years giving a het ship teasing mutual attraction and development while they bonded over the persons needs and interests etc (

and then suddenly change direction after the guy steps off the show for a bit to make room ( say the teasing arguably began in v7 though it can be said it began in v6 finale though there wasnt anything inherently romantic about those scenes it can be said they intended it to be either way the sudden hard push to bb in v7 is shocking before then there wasnt anything that showed an attraction to eachother and is forced ( it wasnt subtle it was nonexistent everything you love starting with her isnt a statement that blake had romantic love for yang adam declared he will destroy everything she loves including friends and family yang cried out for blake he noticed blakes expression and since yang was nearby he said starting with her. ) it gets criticized

a last minute retcon korrasami is bad

imagine if say the genders involved were switched

where a female main character only showed an interest in a female character before and while they did have a breakup the breakup was done in such a way that it was open ended to them getting back together once they overcame the mtuual flaws they just werent ready for a relationship at that time neither of them would have worked with anyone and after overcoming the mutual flaws and teasing them all season including in series finale they suddenly in last two minutes put the female character was put in with a guy who she barely interacted with ( and was ooc in the last two minutes

or if say after years of teasing mutual attraction and development for a same sex ship they suddenly began to hard push one of the female characters with a man season after the female left temporarily while equating them to a couple who were treated as canon since the start

(speaking of v6 moments I have seen people try to go if you saw renora moment on plane as ship tease you should see the blake and yang moment on plane as ship tease when no the claim implies the only thing different between those two scenes are the genders involved ( and its annoying when they try to take any other ships moment to try to build support for bb ( its like saying that since ( example ) renora hugged it means bb hugging is evidence ignoring the framing and context like renora getting a camera zoom and music swell )

the set up for blake and yang plane scene is different from renora one ( them both being plane scenes doesnt mean they should be viewed the same

( sun winking at blake in his introduction and yang winking at blake in burning the candle doesnt mean they are the same the framing and context is different which is why sun in his introduction scene was viewed as blacksun ship tease

the fact that both scenes involve winks doesnt mean that since we saw the sun introductio scene as ship tease we have to view the burning the candle scene as ship tease

it often feels like bb shippers try to steal ship tease moments from other ships to use as support for their ship and try to find any blake and yang scene with some similarity like if people bring up a scene where sun winked at blake they will try to act like the burning the candle scene where yang winks at blake is romantic

or with the renora plane scene claiming that blake and yang having a plane scene needs to be viewed as romantic if you saw the renora plane scene as romantic when the way the characters acted is different not to mention the set up etc

like renora plane scene being a private affair focused on those two with the boop song playing a song about noras love for ren

eight-of-pentacles . tumblr . com/post/651259837931569152/why-do-you-say-yang-winking-at-blake-in-burning

Because it’s about framing and context.

Sun’s wink is accompanied by a slow-mo pan of his expression, followed by the camera focusing on Blake’s slack-jawed attention, along with a literal choir singing in the background while she stares at him. This is his introduction— to Blake, but more importantly, to the audience. This is the first moment we properly meet him, and it’s through this very particular gaze.

Yang’s wink is precipitated by her trying to convince Blake to come to the dance for her own mental and physical well-being. There’s no attention given to any other motivation on Yang’s part during the exchange, or what Blake’s reaction was following.

One of these has clear romantic intent. The other does not. If I were to present these two scenes to a random bystander and remove the names from the samples, and if I asked them to tell me which scene they thought was meant to be a romantic one, my guess is that they would go with the Sun and Blake scene. Because again, it’s about the framing of the scene, and the context of the situation the characters are in.

I say that Yang’s wink is dubious evidence at best, because I acknowledge that it can technically be read as romantic— but a.) it’s extremely covert, and only noticeable if you’re looking at it to find romantic evidence in the first place, and b.) I’m highly doubtful that was the writers’ intent in the first place.

the fact that there are only a few same sex ships that are canon doesnt make it homophobic to be against a specific same sex ship being canon or to say its forced and shouldnt happen it doesnt mean you dont care about lgbt community or rep (

writing is more important than that

korra and asami were barely friends they barely interacted in b4 while the narrative pointed to makorra getting back together ( given they overcame the mutual flaws that led to them breaking up mako getting a speech about what korra meant to him while asami didnt really do anything asami just went youre the avatar ( and failed to help her or understand her korrasami requires someone to wear shipping goggles to see evidence where there is none twisting the most minor of moments or claiming that we would see it if it was a male/female pairing like what people claimed for the scene at the end of b3 where asami being her sweet self helping korra ) when no we really wouldnt and very few people would ship it

not to mention creating headcanons to use to get their ship to stand

like the headcanon that korra sent asami a bunch of letters ( when there was only one

or claiming that korra chose asami to help her in b3 when nothing pointed to that korra only smiled due to the air babies and her father she didnt smile due to anything asami did ( and korra and asami personalities are incompatible with each other like thier conflict style ( korra would need someone who would be willing to argue with her like mako does ( arguing isnt inherently unhealthy ( the problem in b2 was how they handled conflict they weren't ready for a relationship with anyone at that time )

with bb ( the teasing arguably began in v7 ( for nothing in v6 was inherently romantic people try to argue that if you say renora plane scene was romantic then you would have seen bb plane scene as romantic if it was a m/f pairing when that just isnt true the renora and bb plane scenes are different in how the characters act and the surrounding ( renora doing the lay head on shoulders scene a private scene focused on them as boop song played while yang noticed blake felt upset and held her hand to comfort and ruby also proceeded to comfort blake etc as the following scenes happen )

it reminded me of people trying to claim that if you say blacksun introduction was ship tease you have to say burning the candle scene was romantic because yang winked at blake ( besides the fact she has winked at people before like ruby and the white fang grunt ) when the framing and context are different sun introduction got the slowmotion run and angelic choir

its annoying when people try to take other ships moments to use to try to put up their ship bb doesnt stand on its own

another example is creating headcanons =and seeing evidence where there was none/ finding meaning in scenes which comes off as reaching

like people who try to claim the scene where sun saw yang with a arm lost and blake crying was meant to show sun realizing blakes feelings for yang that there was no other reason to show that scene like that because sun already knew she was injured

there was nothing about that scene that would make him think blake had feelings for yang what sun saw would cause blake to understand how blake felt guilty and this scene was followed up when he brought up how yang wouldnt hesitate to help blake after he got injured he brought yang up because of blakes words regarding the people close to her getting injured

it wasnt to make sun realize blakes feelings for there is nothing to make someone think blake had feelings for yang in that scene or in that episode adam going I will destroy everything you love ( then after yang yelled for blake adam saw blakes expression )

starting with her isnt the show stating blake as in love with yang yang is her friend that would fall in everything you love territory ( he tried to kill her parents) and blake didnt give any special emphasis to yang when bringnig up her missing her team

lgbt representation isnt a valid defense for bb or korrasami being canon

for writing is more important

it goes to show that you wouldnt ship that ship if it was a m/f ship

if say the only option for lgbt rep is throwing a ship in at the last minute at the cost of breaking the narrative ( korrasami ) its better to just leave the show as having no lgbt rep and saving lgbt rep for extra materials if you were genuinely concerned about not including lgbt rep and not just wanting a publicity stunt due to lok not getting enough

or with bb instead of throwing away the years of teasing mutual attraction and development just keep blacksun and pair yang up with a girl who doesnt have anyone she was being teased with for years ( like weiss)

( to be frank it gets annoying when I see people who called blacksun forced get mad at people who say bb is forced and try to claim homophobia or that we wouldnt say that if it was a m/f ship ( implying our reasoning is due to the genders involved which comes off as projecting given how many times I have seen people claim blacksun was forced or complaining that they teased blacksun when there were plenty of possible same sex ships options ( while claiming that blacksun is being forced on them ) which showcases they are the ones who were calling ship(s) forced because of the genders involved they were the ones whose views on the ship would change if one of the genders of the characters were switched ( blacksun was never forced on anyone it had natural teasing mutual attraction and development where sun took part in blakes arc ( I have seen bb shippers constantly try to undermine blacksun to put bb in favor like rwbytalks posts or people trying to smear sun as a creepy stalker when he went after her out of concern and desire to help or claiming that sun only was interested in blake because she was faunus or that is only how sun viewed her

( not to mention claiming it didnt make sense for blake to come clean with sun when she didnt for the group ignoring the fact that it would be easier to come clean with another faunus since it would be safer an she was already running from group

the framing and contexts are important and the framing and context of v1 blacksun introduction and burnign the candle are different

eight-of-pentacles . tumblr . com/post/651259837931569152/why-do-you-say-yang-winking-at-blake-in-burning

Because it’s about framing and context.

caring about the lgbt community doesnt mean you support every single same sex ship that becomes canon regardless of writing

it doesnt mean if there was a ship war between a same sex ship and a het ship you support the same sex ship ( even if there was nothing for the same sex ship that pointed to a romance) and lets say in a genuine situation where the same sex ship and het ship both have the chance of being canon the characters have shown an interest in each other caring about the lgbt community doesnt mean you ship the same sex ship

it makes a joke to determine whether you care about the lgbt community based on shipping ( especially given how intense ship wars can be when its between 2 het ships

#anti bb #anti korrasami #shipping nonsense #rwby #anti bumbleby

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akookminsupporter · 3 years

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I'm gonna play devil's advocate here and say we shouldn't keep interpreting fanservice as only queerbaiting. Fanservice has been a phenomenon in kpop for ages now and, considering how homophobic Korea was and still is, that fanservice did not start out as queerbaiting specifically. Fanservice was not meant to attract lgbt people, but to facilitate a way in which het girls could fantasize about their idols without feeling like their idols were unavailable. Unless I'm reading your comments wrong..

I've talked about fanservice and queerbating? I don't remember. But I can see your point. Is or was queerbating a well-known concept in South Korea? And I don't ask this as a form of insult or to call them ignorant but for example, in my country it's not a well-known concept. Or it wasn't. That would be a good way to start this conversation.

But I honestly don't know if started out that way. From what I researched at the time, fan service is a concept that originated in Japan, which sought to please the audience. That was or is its main objective.

Now here's the part I don't understand, two Idols flirting on stage, giving the impression that they are a couple, with suggestive touches between them and in some cases kissing each other, are pandering to the audience? That's taking the concept too literally, if we remember that this originated in Japanese anime and manga.

I think that's why fanservice in K-pop was taken or understood as queerbaiting, especially by the Western audience, it's not exactly what they were trying to do but it is what they ended up projecting ?maybe I'm wrong.

Assuming that by doing all that they would be pandering to their audience, wouldn't they be assuming that their audience likes gay themes, gay couples (this specifically about fanservice with male Idols)? A pretty bold assumption, especially if we also remember that their main audience was Korean with all that implies.

You say maybe it was applied to make it easier for heterosexual girls to fantasise about their idols without feeling that their idols were unavailable... by suggesting or pretending that two male idols are a couple... so, here I can apply my theory about ships? That is a fetish for some people? I don't know if fetish is the right word. But it is a fantasy of many heterosexual women, isn't it? That's why a lot of them like to read yaoi manga, some watch gay porn, m/m fanfic etc. Is the attraction, often sexualised, of same-sex relationships, especially between attractive men.

I understand when fan service is them doing aegyo or acting cute, but the part about making two idols act like they're a couple, i don’t.

I want to make one thing clear, there's nothing wrong with that, and I mean homosexual content or content that has homosexual suggestions, but I find it interesting that the most common way they seem to do fanservice to please their audience is by doing something with sexual connotations. homosexual connotations.

clearly I don't know much about the subject and have more questions than answers or opinions, don't hate or insult me, if anyone wants to add to the discussion my ask box is available.

#anon #ask #kpop #fanservice

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sherokutakari · 3 years

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Things I don't like about Slyki:

It feels rushed

I think Loki and Sylvie work better as siblings with the way they act, both combativly and friendly

Saying they're bi but still giving them a romance the hets could overlook bc it "passes" annoys me (and before anyone screams biphobia, I'm happy to break down my feeling about this in a similar context of why sexy clothes can be liberating for irl people, but still sexist as hell and not empowering at all in fiction bc it's still a writer's choice to portray them that way,)

Loki's arc is supposed to be about learning to love himself and grow, not learning to love an iteration of himself from another timeline and still not learn things about himself bc of it

The actors' chemistry is just straight up not there for me in a romantic sense. The Lemantis scene literally made me go "oh god please don't. Okay thank you yes comfort without romance, thank u bbs." and Loki's thing right before he was pruned didn't feel genuine. Whether bc it was a trick or just, again, a chemistry thing, idk, but it felt very Not Good to me.

Not 100% a Lokius shipper (why does everything HAVE to have romance?) but the way Loki and Mobius play off each other feels more flirty and like it could go somewhere than Loki and Sylvie

Again: Why does everything have to have romance???

Reasons I will still absolutely fight you if you try and say Sylki is a "bad ship":

"It's incest!" Literally how. They are the same person from entirely different timelines, and entirely different individuals bc of it. Like that's the whole point. Look me in the eyes and tell me Croki is also the same person and therefore "basically siblings." Also I know y'all still shipping Thorki. Y'all ain't slick. (And I'd argue that's not incest either but I digress,)

"It's selfcest!!" ... yeah? Why is that bad? Go read some opinions about Loki x Jotun Loki that have been floating around since 2011 and get back to me. That's like a Whole Thing. Plus Idek why selfcest would be bad bc it hurts literally no one, but go off I guess

"It's queerbaiting!!" Look okay I get it, and as said above, I'm not a fan of how they're handling Loki's queerness bc the ship is total Het Comfort Food, but a bi person being in a relationship with someone of the opposite gender does not suddenly make them straight. Also Loki is canon genderqueer, even in the MCU now. His relationships can't be anything BUT queer. Die mad about it.

"It's not gay like in thought it was gonna be, so it's bad!!!" ?????¿¿? Get over yourself??? I'm a little disappointed too, but how about we don't fetishize queer/mlm relationships so much, hmm? Take a deep breath and go outside for half an hour. Let a bee land on you. Bc guess what. Even if it was Lokius/Loki² with another male presenting Loki, it wouldn't be a "gay" ship any more than Sylki is "straight" . The boi isn't cishet.

Anyway I have a lot of feelings about this ship (that I don't even like??) and I love Sylvie so fucking fight me

#Loki #Sylvie #Lokie Laufeyson #Sylvie Laufeydottir #Loki 2021 #this is very rambly #and somehow i am on both sides of the 'he's bi regardless of partner' fence #depending on context and intent #but people being assholes over fictional characters #and sending horrible messages to the cast and crew #boutsta catch these hands #Shut up Christi #anyway Im at work bye #Spoilers #Loki Spoilers #requested tag:#anti-sylki

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thedeviljudges · 3 years

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not an ask but your post on queerbaiting in response to @quillsandscreens 's post on gahan being headcanon hit the nail on the head! I don't really have a say in the convo bc im straight but my very straight ass could spot the queercoding from MILES away. I was so baffled when some others couldn't see it. It's all there, subtle but very intentionally framed. And had Gaon being a woman, the straights would've shipped the two to the ends of the earth without any change of script.

100% on point. so this is just me rambling here, but i tend to generalize in terms of straights just bc well, they're dominant and think everything is about them most of the time. so that's not to say everyone (like yourself) does not see the relationship within tdj. however, a good majority don't because they get to be blinded to all of the ways they are not negatively impacted by being queer. on top of that, if you're not within those circles of queer communities, there is so much context you miss out on, and that's a whole other level of overlooking.

underrepresented communities build specific context, discussions and language for each other to pick up on. (very poignant example of this is that is a little more mainstream is the fact that many women and their friends have no issue calling each other a bitch, regardless of whether it's out of love or not. but the minute a man calls a woman one.... nope. bc women understand the context in a non-threatening way. men, on the other hand, do not use that shit playfully and even if they try, it's uncomfortable).

so there is a lot of coding that happens with characters bc 1. there are rules/laws in place that prevent it being stated or could actually harm the crew/production/ability to get funded and 2. it's its own song and dance, the ability to create nuanced, subtle gestures and lines to show a character for who they are without uttering a singular word is absolutely incredibly bc of those limitations.

hets are so used to things being explicitly stated. they've never had to read between the lines. it's always handed to them, so no wonder that skillset isn't sharpened. they're under the impression that if it isn't said word for word, it must not exist and the intention was never there to begin with. but it's all about overtones (look at the stuff going down with venom right now and fans vs critics, which tells you a lot).

at the end of the day, people will see what they want to see, and they will fail to ignore context clues in favor of their own biases. and there are those even with queer characters and fans, yes. reading to much into things and stretching out things for a smidge of representation, but the difference there is that we are never given that to begin with. we've always had to find representation, and so that became the code of conduct, especially in conservative societies that are still battling queer rights.

you're absolutely right that if gaon had been a woman, everyone would've eaten it up. i'm still surprised tdj is still as popular as it is, but i know that it'd be significantly moreso if there was straight scenes involved. but thank god we weren't given more bc the entitlement and downright nasty behavior hets displayed with the gaon/soohyun scenes before they all realized she died...... i will never forget that. literally i will never forget how fucking curl and nasty they were because they couldn't let ONE show be for the gays. and the only reason for that is mainly bc of jinyoung and their obsessive need to be a self-insert with their kpop favs.

on top of that, they really did love the gaslight the entire fandom, even here on tumblr, about how wrong we were, how we turn everything gay, and we're misogynistic bc they couldn't take a damn minute to read/find analysis posts. like, i'm genuinely tired of straight people having the monopoly on what they think is right/wrong, and using misogyny and other social justice issues to call us crazy/delusional. maybe if we had openly queer tv and films for us to enjoy, we wouldn't feel the need to create and find context in the content we love and consume.

and just to reiterate in general, not pointing figures at you anon, tdj is NOT queerbaiting. it's queercoding, and fandom really needs to learn the difference.

#x #the devil judge

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holding-out-for-an-antihero · 3 years

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Destiel, Reylo, and Schrödinger's Canon

It’s now been over a year since the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and nearly 4 months since the Supernatural finale aired. As someone who’s involved in both fandoms, it’s been really striking to see the similarities of what happened with the Star Wars fandom and Reylo compared to what’s currently happening in the SPN fandom with Destiel. And while these are obviously two very different ships and fandoms with different dynamics at play, I do think the two situations have a lot in common. For instance-

Both Destiel and Reylo are the largest ships in their respective fandoms, but they’re also very divisive with vocal groups of fans who are against these particular ships. Additionally, the fandoms themselves are split among different factions of people who have very different (and fundamentally incompatible) ideas about what both these franchises are REALLY about (Reylos vs. The Fandom Menace, Hellers vs. Bibros/Bronlies).

Both Destiel and Reylo are made canon at the end of the story with a heroic sacrifice culminating with a love confession/kiss, respectively, only for one of the characters to be immediately killed off. Like, IMMEDIATELY. Now, this in and of itself isn’t weird. Lots of couples become canon right as a franchise is ending, and plenty of love stories have tragic endings. However, what makes these two instances truly bizarre is . . .

This newly-canonized romance between two of the central characters is NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN IN THE STORY. We don’t see the surviving character really react to or process the other character’s death, and no other characters ever bring it up in any substantial way. Instead of treating it like a major story development, it’s instead treated like a weird little story blip that happens and is then immediately forgotten about by everyone.

This results in a weird tonal disconnect between the story the creators think they’ve written and the one they’ve actually given us. They think they’ve written a happy ending (Dean’s in Heaven! Rey’s a Skywalker!), but what we really got was an unacknowledged tragedy with no catharsis whatsoever (Dean never got to speak his truth to Cas; Rey is still alone & her soulmate is dead). Which feels super shitty, and not in a good way like a well-written tragedy.

Furthermore, the romance is barely addressed by the creators themselves. It’s not mentioned in marketing, interviews or convention panels with cast/creators etc. It’s almost as if the very people who created the storyline are embarrassed or ashamed of it and are doing their best to pretend it didn’t happen.

The weirdness of everything leads to the rise of various conspiracy theories (some of which are eventually shown to be correct) within the fandoms involving edited-down scenes, last-minute ADR, alternate cuts with better endings, and actors being secretly unhappy with their character’s arcs.

Of course there are additional factors to consider (in particular, the impact of homophobia on the SPN ending). But I do think it’s interesting that an enemies-to-lovers het ship from one of the largest franchises in the world and a queerbaiting slash ship from a long-running television cult classic both botched their endings so badly and in such similar ways.

Finally, speaking personally as someone who was heavily invested in both these ships/fandoms, these endings serve as nasty reminders that these franchises aren’t for people like you- the female fans, the queer fans, the anyone-who-isn’t-a-straight-white-dude fans. It’s for those REAL fans who watch & interpret the show/movie in the Correct Way™.

#spn #destiel #spn meta #star wars #reylo #deancas #supernatural #tros #spn finale #sw meta #my post

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meggannn · 2 years

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obviously left hand is not perfect but good lord. i feel like trying to claim its queer-baiting is almost raging that it doesn't have a easily palatable "happy" ending. the story works bc it is a tragedy. i also feel like using online modern shipping terminology is, idk detrimental or disrespectful to the text almost? idk... like so what if they don't easily slot into some "canon" romance trope, it feels like disregarding the in text connection that's there by the end of the book. ANYWAYS SORRY i just had a ???????? moment seeing that last ask.

I got the sense the people claiming it was queerbaiting were young so I didn’t want to be too harsh, and I made mistakes when I was young too and still do so I won’t judge, but queerbaiting seems like the wrong bone to pick with TLHOD. I would understand a claim of Burying Your Gays a little more, cause Estraven does die and BYG has a media history that stretches back decades, except its impact is lessoned when you’ve got a planet full of other gay characters who DID survive the story, and in fact the cishet guy (is he even het?) is vastly outnumbered by all the living gnc characters who do just fine living and raising kids long before and after he enters their lives.

if TLHOD was promoting itself as a modern day romance published in 2022, I’d understand the critique. but it wasn’t; it’s a dark political scifi fantasy and it never advertised romance. modern language doesn’t always fit historical contexts or needs and that’s fine, language and terms will always evolve, but thinking critically about the words we use and why is important, as is not jumping to the closest modern lingo we have to describe things made in an entirely different time period or literary context. not that TLHOD is so foreign to be undefinable in today’s words, and assigning modern fandom lingo to old works can be funny sometimes, but I wouldn’t take someone seriously if they walked up to me and told me a fifty-year-old book and Ursula K Le Guin, who has been dead since 2018, queerbaited them in 2022.

#askbox #anonymous #sorry to be pedantic and grouchy about lingo definitions but like idk! words matter!#sometimes we don’t have the right words for our feelings or criticisms #but it doesn’t mean we should latch onto the most accessible one and call it a day

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key-to-my-heart · 3 years

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see i feel like rainbow high is right on the line between queer baiting and accidentally queer coding bella and jade

like it’s obvious bella and jade were built on a close friendship. theyre in the same dorm, they were shown to be very talkative with each other in episode 2, and obviously their relationship grew when bella comforted jade in episode 4.

episodes 7 & 8 show clear closeness between jade and bella... almost a little too close. to some it may seem platonic but obviously jella grew to be the fandom’s biggest ship, being pure opposites, it obviously gained lots of love! and then that is where the ship name “jella” came, from the fandom!

seems like sliiight queer coding

but then... with jella being the biggest ship, obviously the official rainbow high saw and they must’ve thought “Jella? a cute best friendship name? sweet! we just have to use this in the vi life about them”

and then that’s where they start crossing over the line into queerbaiting. idk it’s not like voltron level queerbaiting or how it is in some animes but like

mga KNOWS this is a big ship. a pairing that is shipping romantically. gays. the LGBT. and they grabbed our romantic ship name for platonic uses??? what. WHAT.

i wasn’t too mad abt it bc i took it as a hint like omg jella is now subtley canon??!?! like they aren’t obligated to make a big deal out of it bc i’d rather have casual romance than some over dramatic stereotypical gay couple. but also gays do receive the treatment het relationships get like holding hands, kissing, getting married, going on dates, having kids, etc. so like. idk idk

but still. it’s still on the border. and if jella doesn’t go canon soon i will be very very mad. they have made statements like this

idk. it’s just very interesting. i have a feeling they might go canon. i was worried how they’d do it/if it would even happen if bella didn’t come back. but with bella back and with these statements, i think there’s a semi good chance idk. this talk happens far too often than it should, not that we should have to talk about it, but i just really hope they happen. i just REALLY hope it happens in a casual, nice, pleasant manner. i hope they get the same treatment as amaya x river does. also speaking of... there haven’t been many jella posts from the official RH lately? usually the tease content before they give it to us so idk. IDK SJSJS this is just facts opinions and theories all mixed together.

but yeah. if they’ll tease amaya content, stella content, krystal content, new dolls and more, then i hope THESE teases happen, too

#rh: theories #rh: opinions #jella #jade hunter #bella parker #rainbow high #rainbow high dolls #rainbowhigh

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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I’m wlw. While, I’m not going to shame WLW members of the FNDM, bumblby pisses me off. V6 skipped development for both characters for the sake of “confirming” it, but I thought there scenes in V7 were cute. At first. Then it felt like RT dangling gay keys in front of my face. Now they’re attached to the hip while giving the het. ship (Renora) independence. Yang doesn’t care what Ruby thinks and only Blake was upset by her fall. What are your thoughts?

I’ve touched on their relationship quit a bit over the years, on and off, so I’ll try to summarize those big thoughts here:

I like the ship. I’ve always liked the ship. I’ve never been a die-hard fan like some, but as soon as I entered the fandom and realized they were a thing I went, “Oh yeah, I can see that. I’m on board!”

Which isn’t to say I’m always a fan of how people engage with them. It’s a fact that every major ship in any fandom is going to have its annoying, dramatic, and toxic elements. It’s also a fact that RWBY has developed a reputation for being particularly vitriolic. I think a lot of the hate towards Blake/Yang stems less from what we actually got in the canon and more from bad experiences from a small subset of fans. Not everyone. Not even the majority. But enough that casual fans, Blake/Sun fans, those who dislike the ship, etc. have reached a point where bmblb is a) so incredibly prominent and b) at times so heated that even a fellow shipper can grow frustrated at the state of the “RWBY” tag. This then bleeds into our reading of the canon material. After all, if you’re frustrated about seeing this pairing so often in fandom spaces and/or you’ve had a bad run-in with someone who ships them, seeing even more of them on Saturday will exacerbate those feelings.

This is a frustration that’s increased as the show still refuses to make the relationship canon. Crafting scenes each week where something semi-romantic occurs, but isn’t enough to confirm a relationship (like the forehead touch) creates a branching number of annoyances, from “Oh my god how is this still not canon” to “Here’s another week of the whole fandom claiming it is canon.” Those “dangling gay keys” are a problem both for those desperate to see the relationship confirmed because they love it and those desperate to see the relationship confirmed so the characters can begin focusing on other aspects of their identities. “Attached at the hip” feels too close to queer baiting for comfort while simultaneously too narrow a depiction of Blake and Yang. Surely they have concerns and relationships outside of each other.

I agree entirely that the relationship was rushed in some respects. However, there’s a post somewhere in the depths of my blog where I argue strongly that queer relationships should be allowed to be rushed, simply because so many het ships are too. I stand by that. I understand the frustration of moving from the two interacting primarily as teammates to suddenly holding hands, but that’s a gap that appears in many, many non-queer pairings. Jaune is a great example. Though we introduced Pyrrha’s interest in him from the get-go, he was running after Weiss for his whole time at Beacon, got a little closer to Pyrrha, she suddenly kissed him, and then... we’re meant to believe they were madly in love? His grief is certainly written in a way to imply as much. The cultural expectation of the guy losing the girl just fills in the rest, we didn’t actually see it on screen. So I both agree and disagree. I always want RWBY to be better written, but I also don’t want to hold our queer pairings to standards we don’t demand of the het ones. That way lies a lot of excuses for why it “can’t” ever happen. I’d rather have poorly written and rushed representation than no representation at all.

Agree entirely about there being a problem with Yang’s fall. Blake’s reaction was fine. The lack of reaction from everyone else was not. As I said in my recap, you can’t prove their love by taking love away from these other relationships. Making Ruby seemingly care less about her sister will not convince me that Blake cares a great deal. Though this is a problem RT has across the whole cast, tying into that “attached at the hip”ness. Characters tend to have one (1) relationship and that’s it. RT really struggles to write a cohesive group, instead creating a collection of duos that happen to inhabit the same space. I can see places where they’ve been trying to correct that this volume — Yang speaking to Ruby about Summer, Nora talking to the girls about Ren — but moments like Blake’s talk with Ruby really struggle. In that, these characters haven’t spoken in seven seasons, so all Blake has to say is a generic, ‘I believe in you’ that comes across as stilted and unpersuasive — we can see the writers trying to convince us that Ruby is The Best and that these girls have a relationship when they... don’t. And scenes like Yang’s fall show us that these underlying struggles are still at work. RT doesn’t know how to craft a scene where everyone reacts because Yang is a well-rounded person sporting a deep and unique relationship with three other teammates. They know how to craft a scene where the one (1) relationship takes centerstage and everyone else becomes cardboard cutouts.

As for renora’s independence, I need to side with RWBY on this one. The entire point of this arc is that Nora realized she is also attached at the hip and wants to do something about it. That’s a good thing! Whether or not RT actually manages to write a relationship where they’re together without being entirely co-dependent remains to be seen, but splitting them in this last episode was a good start. Similarly, the show did separate Blake and Yang for the majority of this volume and now may have separated Yang from the group for a significant length of time. That’s not the same thing as the girls realizing they need space like Nora did... but then, they aren’t in an acknowledged relationship like Nora is. I don’t think it’s fair to compare them when Yang and Blake haven’t even reached the point where they’re talking about their relationship, let alone what that looks like going forward, and therein lies my real criticism. In order to see the depth RT is trying to give to renora, they have to actually make bmblb canon first. It all comes back to that. The question of queerbaiting, how they find healthy boundaries, how they compare to other relationships in the show... there’s no real groundwork to discuss any of that until we can say, 100%, that they are, in fact, a couple.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #mymetas #Anonymous

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hamliet · 3 years

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when does a relationship become queerbaiting? theres a book that i really like and the 2 male leads characters have a lot of storylines and arcs where they get closer and i think some of the tropes used can be similar to the typical romantic tropes, neither of them end up with anyone at the end of the story since its more about found family and the long journey the whole cast goes through. they even get shipped by another character as a running gag. personally i always saw it as being open to interpretation but recently the revised edition of the original novel came out and there were several lines those 2 characters had about each other that were kinda toned down, i didnt think much of it but i saw a post about how it was clearly baiting and the author was being homophobic for toning it down. i didnt think it counted as baiting since as far as i know, the novel was never advertised as anything with romance and the author never pretended they were gonna end up together. i am definitely a little weirded out by the decision to change those specific lines but a lot of the story stayed the same, including a lot about their relationship so idk what to think.

i guess im more confused on if it counts as baiting, or even substext??

Sooooo I am not the best person to ask about this, because I’m a cis woman who has thus far in life only been attracted in a romantic sense to cis men. I can talk a bit about baiting as a general concept in fiction, but you should definitely take it with some grains of salt.

Baiting, for me, is like deliberately playing up an aspect writers have no intention on delivering on. Usually this is done for ratings, to tease fans, fanservice, etc, but without payoff, it is just bad writing. Red herrings are good in writing, but only can be successfully used if the actual result is more satisfying than the herring. This applies to writing in general, not just to romantic ships. However, when the baiting involves historically underrepresented groups for no reason other than to get fans to spend money consuming the story, I think we can all agree that becomes something more grotesque than just bad writing: it’s insensitive, socially irresponsible, frankly hurtful.

Some common examples are Bridgerton which has a gay character, who is extremely minor, yet they played up this character in advertising. Also, Rizzoli and Isles I think actually had its producers mention deliberately playing up the lesbian subtext to hook the audience without ever intending on following through.

That said, context also matters. Like, there are aspects of the culture of the work’s author, the target audience, and such that come into play here also (so like, romantic tropes differ by culture. For example, enemies to lovers is common in Asian stories but less in the west, and the “girl who pursues a guy” is extremely common in Japanese shonen in particular, while it is very much a cringe trope that almost never results in romance in American fiction. So if a writer reads, say, tropes that are common in America into a Japanese work and says it’s baiting, that’s quite possibly not the intent even if it may have been the experience of the reader. So even if there was no intent, there can still be hurt, and that hurt can be real, if that makes sense.

The definition of what constitutes ‘baiting’ varies. I do think that, in true Tumblr fashion, the term gets thrown around a lot and loses its intended meaning, or is so rigidly defined that creators can meet the letter of the “not a bait” requirement while ignoring the spirit of it.

To start with the latter: regarding something hitting the letter of what most wouldn’t consider baiting yet not really the spirit, let’s look at The Rise of Skywalker. This movie had a genuine lesbian kiss in it... between two characters we’d never seen more than a glimpse of while others are celebrating around them. Since it has a kiss, it’s not baiting, right? Well... the director deliberately said in the lead-up to the film that he included it because he “wanted LGBT people to see themselves in the film.” If “see yourselves in the film” is like a nanosecond of background, then, like... idk. Baiting or not, it feels icky, and I know some people consider it baiting and some don’t even if they don’t like, love that representation. But I think this is more queerbaiting than like, Nobara and Maki, who don’t have explicit romantic coding.

Going back to the former, in terms of ‘queerbaiting’ losing its intended meaning... I think there are a lot of really poorly written romantic ships out there, often het, while a lot of same-gender relationships are really well written regardless of whether there’s romantic coding within the text. The main emotional energy in stories with 90% male characters (as frankly many if not most stories are, great job world) is probably between two men. There’s just so much more potential with well-written characters who share a lot of screen time, so of course people are going to ship them. In my opinion, this does not inherently make it baiting, but it certainly creates an environment that lends itself to baiting even if the writers aren’t intending to do this.

Like, you could say the main emotional energy in BNHA is Bakugou and Deku. However, Bakudeku is 100% not queerbaiting. It’ll never be canon romantically (I don’t even ship it lol). There has been nothing to imply romance between them even if the main emotional message can be seen in their development. Deku/Ochaco is likely to be canon, but there is a significant lack of genuine emotional energy between them (the story’s plots and themes don’t coalesce around their relationship), so it’s probably going to feel forced. In contrast, Naruto/Sasuke had an actual kiss in canon, which while played for laughs is a lot more direct romantic coding than anything between Bakugou/Deku. I actually don’t think the majority of Narusasu is baiting, but I definitely think that one moment in chapter like 3 was really poor fanservice for yaoi fans, and has not aged well at all.

It is also the case that fans can confuse headcanons with what is actually in the text, and that just never ends well. For example, Clover and Qrow’s ship in RWBY: a lot of people read Clover as gay, which led to “bury your gays” outrage when he died. A member of the crew stated explicitly they had never intended for Clover to be a love interest for Qrow, and truthfully here was nothing strictly romantic in their relationship--nothing like a kiss or a declaration of love or a parallel to another romantic couple. Hence, I don’t personally consider it queerbaiting or bury your gays, but a lot of fans felt that it was and their pain is legitimate even if I think textually the argument isn’t there. The one thing I do think is true about this in particular is that there was also no strict platonic coding, which encourages headcanons. Clear writing, yo. It can help.

Note the word “can” not “will,” because strict platonic coding doesn’t always fix things, either. In what was probably a reaction to the outrage over Clover’s death, you had extremely blatant platonic coding of Ruby and Penny’s relationship this season leading up to Penny’s death. Ruby refers to Penny as “our friend” three different times, wherein “friend” sends a platonic message and “our” sends an even stronger message that it’s not about the two of them despite the fact that their friendship is one of the sweetest and most interesting in the show. A lingering Ruby-Penny hug then is followed by a lingering Penny-Weiss hug, then Yang, then Blake, etc. The writers went out of their way to hit people over the head with “platonic” and yet they have still gotten accusations of bury your gays and queerbaiting because people will see what they want to see in a story.

Seeing what you want to see in a story also isn’t inherently bad. People who are underrepresented are going to have to read themselves into stories because Lord knows writers ain’t incorporating them well enough if at all. It’s why “Mary Sues” are common in fanfiction, which is primarily written by people who are not straight white men: because where the hell else are we to see ourselves in fiction? So essentially the macrocosm of culture creates this problem, both in terms of baiting and the misuse of the term, and the only fix is a shit ton more good representation.

#ask hamliet #writing stuff #Anonymous

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backdraft-bimbo · 3 years

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Instrospection of the Day:

Why Do I Love So Many Mlm Ships?

I've wondered why the media I care about almost always involves two (usually) white dudes pining for each other. Destiel, Merthur, Johnlock, Good Omens, etc. (And there's also some POC ones like Klance and NaruSasu, et cetera et cetera...)

But it hit me: there's not a lot of queer media that isn't just white dudes. It's not just me being drawn to them because they're white and they're dudes, but mostly because it's seen as unconventional and I often have felt like the outsider, so I relate to it. I'm not male nor am I sexually or romantically attracted to people, so why the mlm ships?

Well, I can't name many straight romances that actually make me scream in excitement when they finally go canon. The closest I can say is probably Leo and Calypso from HoO, Chloe and Lucifer from Lucifer, Jamie and Claire from Outlander, and so on...

There is such a long list of mlm relationships everyone loves, mostly because of how common it is for writers to write mlm content, like best friends, with more slowburn subtext than het relationships are usually given. The reason I can't name a straight relationship that has been theorized or wringed dry by its fandom is because there is no urgent need to. People don't pine as much for straight relationships when there is clear potential of them actually becoming canon. You don't really have to worry about marketing or backlash for heterosexual relationships onscreen. That is why conspiracy theories happen when it comes to gay pairings. Hence the discourse.

Sidenote: the reason I watch Youtubers who are close with their bros is probably because, like everything else, I long to attach myself to something that I can relate to. No matter what form it comes in. Even if you are not in my position, it should be clear that everyone wants to be understood one way or another, no matter who they are. It's just there's more straight people in the world than not, so they dominate many many things, they hold more influence in media, etc.

When I cling to another queer ship, it's not always a cute nerdy little fixation (though who's to say it can't be more than one thing?). For me it's coming from somewhere deeper, a place that has always felt misunderstood and longs to see myself be represented, and since it's typically questionably-queer white men played by straight actors, then I will take what I can get like I always have. If there were more wlw onscreen (like Bubbline, Gentleman Jack; not oversexualized for a male gaze, cough cough Blue is the Warmest Color) then I would surely be as batshit crazy when talking or theorizing about them, but the truth is that there aren't many wlw ships that match the sheer magnificence of Merthur or Destiel or Klance or a dozen other mlm ships. Those are kind of one in a million to me personally. A rarity.

I know there's the really cute Supergirl ship, and if you look on ao3 it's one of the top wlw pairings, but that platform is primarily dominated by white male relationships. And why, you ask? Because of the patriarchy, yeah, but also because that is what we've been given. I want asexuals and I want aromantics and I want women struggling with accepting their identites in a male-centric world, but the sad fact of life is that I know I am a small percentage, a minority that will likely not be the center of attention in media.

Queerbaiting is a form of capitalism, making bank off how desperate we are for some representation. And I find that revolting, but it's really all I have sometimes. I have watched literally every gay film I found worthwhile more than once. There aren't many good ones, and the ones that I truly enjoy I can recite from memory. Somehow the mlm ships that end up being queerbait do a better job at making slowburn romance than most gay films out there, and that is just astounding. So can you blame me, everyone who enjoys these ships, for clinging to them?

And the looming question I ask every day: where do I go now? What should I attach myself to next to feel understood? Onto the next ship, I suppose.

Anyway, there's my garbled little self analysis for tonight.

#analysis #lgbtqia #asexual #aromantic #aroace #mine #gay #mlm #destiel #merthur #johnlock #the holy trinity :(#of THEY DESERVED BETTER ships #introspective

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lais-a-ramos · 4 years

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On Lovecraft Country and the way the narrative presents queerness

"No masters or kings when the ritual begins

There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin

In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene

Only then I am human

Only then I am clean"

Hozier, Take Me to Church

oh, boy...

i knew some of these deaths could happen in the finale, but i definetely wasn't prepared for any of this, wow.

i guess that, with the events of the finale, including atticus' death, there really is no point in getting the show renewed for a season 2, as as i hoped and wished before, because all of the conflicts that were set up were resolved. i mean, there's always the possibility of using time-travel to do a retcon and bring all the dead characters back, or, at least, two of the protagonists and the villain, but, maybe it would take too many alterations in the narrative, because it seems like the whole thing was planned for a mini-series.

so, now, all we have left is to do a breakdown of what worked and what didn't in lovecraft country's limited series run.

i think that, overall, the message of black ppl taking back the power of ancestry that was stripped from them by white supremacy and structural racism was well-done, and the symbolism was very well-crafted in the final takedown of the season's main villain, which was a representation of how the racism based on indifference born out of white privilege is almost as bad as the racism based on pure hate and despise, which is a valid message, considering the former is a bystander to the abuses and rise to power of the latter.

although i still find the timing was poorly chosen because, well, as of now, all over the world, it's not white ppl who dub themselves "liberal" or "progressive" and claim themselves to not be racist but refuse to act anti-racist that present an actual threat to our human rights, but literal, actual fascists and neo nazis...there are bigger fish to fry now...

but i digress...

on the final score, i guess that when it comes to queer/LGBTQ+ representation, the show fell actually felt real short for a product that crafted so well the race issues, proving that there is still a lot to go before we get to see intersecting identities being portrayed in media the same compex way they exist in the real world.

no, lovecraft country is not guilty of queerbaiting, unlike some of the same ppl in fandom that are the firsts to either erase the half of a couple that is a BIPOC or to deny a canon cis het biracial ship to hype up a fanon white wlw ship and other problematic stuff plenty of times in LGBTQ+ fandom spaces might say.

but that doesn't mean that the treatment of LGBTQ+ issues was satisfying or can be considered good rep, and it actually repeats some of the same tired tropes about queerness and blackness.

while we can say that the show did a relatively good job with montrose as an individual, the same can't be said of the other characters and the final messages.

like, for example, introducing a trans/non-binary indigenous, the Arawak two-spirt Yahima, only to kill them on the next episode was insensitive, to say the least.

while it's true that misha green apologized for the mistake, and said she and the writers tried to make a point that even oppressed groups are capable of oppression, the final score was that a trans/non-binary character was introduced as a plot-device and brutally murdered before having even a chance to properly develop.

in other words, used as a prop.

in a world in which trans ppl are brutally murdered at alarming rates, and most of the victims are BIPOC trans ppl, that is something that we can't let it slide just because the general message of the show was good for cis het black ppl.

the same can be said on the treatment of sammy in the narrative.

while it's true that montrose being aggressive and acting the way he did, pushing ppl he cared about away and shunning every chance of vulnerability due to internalized homophobia, toxic masculinity and misogyny, as this very interesting critique by amani marie hamed of nerdist pointed out, his characterization nonetheless falls into the same old stereotype in american culture of accusing black ppl of falling behind when it comes to queer acceptance and associating black masculinity with homophobia.

also, the author of the article says it better, but, overall, sammy's existence ends up being just another plot device, serving to say to the audience that the producers and writers know that queer ppl existed in the 50's, but, at the same time, repeating some of the same tropes as usual, like associating being queer with being clandestine and deviant instead of showing it as a natural thing that was perceived as deviant at the time, as we can see by that scene of sammy having a sexual encounter in the alley behind his bar.

the author even mentions that queer ppl overall had houses, and most of the encounters actually happened there, and that scene reinforces the idea that queerness is inherently animalistic.

the article also points out how sammy is mostly there just to be shutted out, first by montrose and latter even atticus, and, ends up being another prop to lift montrose to deuteragonist status, being rejected and abused by montrose solely to highlight tic's father journey with his personal issues that apparently he simply wrapped up in a span of 2 episodes.

the fact that sammy was a also a more feminine gay man, even participating in ball culture as a drag queen, and yet most of his appearences involved him being degraded or shut out or overall mistreated by montrose, even tic, and that scene in which atticus forgives montrose after he revealed he never acted on his homosexuality and cheated on tic's mom, even though it's implied she did cheat on him with his brother george, just reinforces the idea it's ok for black and brown men to be gay, as long as they are not THAT GAY™️.

the introduction of thomas in episode 1x09 only to be murdered in the riots is another example of how queerness seem to come with a price in this show if you act on it.

once again, a gay character was introduced in the narrative to further montrose's pain and trauma.

and his introduction was absolutely not necessary, because being a survivor of a massacre like the tulsa riots and a survivor of parental physical abuse is already was already enough for making tic and the audience begin to emphatize with montrose's pain, there was no need to kill another queer character just for that.

not to say we should agree with everything the nerdist article says, of course.

at times, it felt like the author was saying that addressing these issues in the black community is a problem on itself, and that is definetely not the solution.

but, when we consider the setting of a limited series with a plot-driven approach to the scripts, the way the topic is addressed ends up being superficial and rushed, and what could have been a delicate approach to a complicated man discovering his sexuality if the show was an on-going series, ends up being just a narrative built to put montrose in the spotlight in an attempt of getting a few emmy nominations for outstanding performances, and that's about it.

now, what really serves to cement the LGBTQ+/queer representation in lovecrat country as a disservice is the treatment of ruby, christina and their relationship.

i did a few metas explaining christina's and ruby's characterizations, including one i posted before the finale started explaining why ruby was so important to queer black and feminine-aligned nbs being a dark-skinned fat black queer woman discovering her sexuality and figuring out there was more to life than the social roles that were pushed into her, and how the parallels between her and christina, two different women separated by race and class but with the common feeling of being interrupted by social restraints that binded them, were a way for a character like ruby to be treated by the narrative the same way white women get to be treated in fantasy stories, as someone worthy of being courted and romanced as a light-skinned and thin black woman like her sister leti.

but with that finale, and the way the whole thing played out, with not only christina and ruby dead, but also with christina killing ruby, felt, ironically, like the very same trope that's been the norm for queer characters for a long time.

if we consider the tropes of the genre the show and the source material draw inspiration from, pulp fiction magazines, a medium that was very popular until the rise of the cinema and TV in the 50's and 60's that also served as an inspiration for them, then we know that in this medium some of the harmful tropes about queerness that exist until this day were particularly prevalent, including that of the queercoded villains.

to talk about this, i'm going to refer to this amazing article by tricia ennis on the history of queercoding for syfy wire.

first, a definition:

"queer coding, much as the name suggests, refers to a process by which characters in a piece of fictional media seem — or code — queer. this is usually determined by a series of characteristics that are traditionally associated with queerness, such as more effeminate presentations by male characters or more masculine ones from female characters. these characters seem somehow less than straight, and so we associate those characters with queerness — even if their sexual orientation is never a part of their story."

between the hays code in cinema going from 1934 to 1968, the comics code authority in the comics industry from 1954 to the early 21st century (with dc comics and archie comics being the last to break with it in 2011, mind you), the code of practices for television broadcasting from 1952 to 1983 and its predecessor for radio NAB code of ethics, the authors all over mass media couldn't approach the topic of queerness and portray openly and proud queer characters under the risk of being persecuted by the censors, and so, begin to hide queer chracters under the disguise of subtext.

and given the content creators couldn't show any form of positive queer/LGBTQ+ representation under the risk of being punished by the censors, the alternative they found was to portray the queer characters as the villains or antagonists or degenerates, and punish them with death.

the syfy wire article says it better than i ever could:

"even dangerous LGBTQ tropes rose out of this time period, as the depictions of pulp noir femme fatales and other deadly women rose in popularity. these women were usually written as promiscuous and sexually devious, both with men and sometimes with women. they were also evil and usually met their end as a result of their sins. While depictions of LGBTQ characters were frowned upon, depictions of them in this specifically negative light were not. you were not endorsing an “alternative lifestyle” if your gay characters always met an untimely demise. Instead, they were merely paying for their poor choices. this trope would eventually give way to what we now refer to as 'Bury Your Gays.' "

and the thing is, all those censorship laws are over by now, but the tropes/clichés that arised on that era are still prevalent in pop culture 'till this day, consumed by the audiences and reproduced by content creators, in the industry or in fan spaces, whether they are aware of said trope/clichés or not.

now, that is where ruby, christina and their affair on the show enter.

to explain how problematic and harmful the way these characters have been portrayed is, and what kind of message it sends about black queerness, i first have to explain christina's function on the story.

christina, as a character, was basically the texbook pulp noir femme-fatale, checking most of the boxes of the tv tropes description of the trope, from the "red equals evil and sin" imagery to being a wild card, that character who changes sides according to their own desires and individualistic goals.

in her specific case, helping the white supremacists and the black heroes alike in her pursue for unlimited power to protect herself from the oppression that comes with being a white woman, particularly a wealthy one, in which the very same presumption of innocence that gives them privilege over BIPOC is used to infantilize them and strip them from their agency, putting their bodies and choices under the tutelage of cis het white men.

so, her function on the show was basically to manipulate the characters on the two sides alike.

and that is where the problems in queer representation come in, because, to manipulate them, she acts as a sensual seductress.

and what does the script uses to highlight that this is a character willing to go to the most immoral places to achieve her goals? it makes christina a sexually fluid and gender fluid character.

that is basically playing a move straight from the hays code era.

not only does the show plays christina's sexual and gender fluidity as her being "freaky" and a proof of her deviant nature, but it makes her seduction of ruby as a central part of the scheme that positions her as the main villain of the show.

this portrayal of christina as a textbook femme-fatale with a touch of white feminism is already very problematic on its own, especially when we consider her death and how brutal it was, because, yes, while it's true she is privileged because she is white and wealthy, she is still a woman and a queer one at that, and giving her the same traditional treatment for femme-fatales in pulp fiction ends up reinforcing harmful stereotypes about gender and sexuality.

but, when we consider what it means for ruby as a character, it gets WAY worse.

ruby is a character that's been shown to feel very frustrated about the ways in which societal structures of power interfere in her life, not only on a professional level, but even on a personal level as well, making her feel "interrupted".

dealing with the same issues that all black women and feminine-aligned nbs who don't fit into the eurocentric standards of femininity and of beauty do, and not matching the criteria for being hypersexualized by society as the black women considered conventionally pretty -- with thin bodies like the white women or hourglass body frames, being light-skinned and so on --, ruby has her humanity stripped from her because everyone expects her to be stronger than it's humanly possible.

everyone seems to expect something of her at home, her younger sister took advantage of her money for years, and not only all of her goals in the professional realm seem to be frustrated by social structures of oppression, but even her relationship goals as well, given that most of the men that she gets involved with, whether they are black or white, seem to believe they have the right to abandon her and treat her like trash because she doesn't feel a thing and is "strong" enough.

ruby feels frustrated and tired, and she has every single right to do so, because, as what happens to most black women and feminine-aligned nbs, she is disrespected and disregarded by everyone, white and black alike.

so, when christina comes in with an offer of improving ruby's life with magic, of course she takes the opportunity.

and it seemed like the show was willing to deal with the moral complexities of christina's shapeshifting potion and validating ruby's feelings, or at least, sort of validating.

but, by killing her at the end, it just played out as if ruby's feelings meant she was merely a traitor to the race, and not a woman who was tired of feeling frustrated with all of these impossible obstacles society sets for black women and feminine-aligned nbs, especially dark-skinned and fat ones like her, and justified in her anger and frustration.

she did everything right and accomplished nothing, and, when she finally decided to rebel and focus on herself for a change, she met her demise.

but that is just the tip of iceberg, really.

what makes this situation with ruby so frustrating is the fact that, when the show presented christina's queerness as another sign she was "on the wrong side of the tracks" and a villian that should be defeated by the black heroes, which consist in a family, the narrative is implying that a person has to choose between their queerness, on one side, and their blackness and community on the other.

of course, one might argue that the fact montrose was turned into a gay man himself in the adaptation prevents this from happening. but, when we consider montrose was forgiven by tic only after reinforcing he never did cheated on dora and acted on his queerness and lived his gayness, when he really had every single right to do so, especially because it's implied dora slept with his brother george and the three of them knew she was just montrose's beard, then we have the message that it's ok to be queer as long as you don't act on your queerness at all.

there is a part in the review for nerdist that i mentioned above, in which the author says that one of the book's best qualities was that "the source material also illustrates the importance of family and community ties between Black protagonists", and that the TV show ruins it when it "introduces abuse, alcoholism, and family dysfunction, and strips Black characters of their own magic."

that is a part of the article, published in october 14 2020, that now no longer makes sense after the finale, because that message is there.

but, the actual problem is that the ideas of family and community shouldn't be taken for granted bc they are always under political dispute, and are oftenly used to reinforce backward messages when it comes to gender and sexuality, serving as a tool for the control of the bodies and authonomy of ppl of various marginalized groups and intersecctions, including women, BIPOC and queer ppl alike.

while these things are not inherently good or bad, and they are also part of the culture and identity for plenty of BIPOC ethnical identities, the concepts of family and community are usually weaponized by conservatives and used to justify things like queerphobia and the restrictions over reproductive rights.

queer ppl in all walks of life and skin colors all over the world have to deal with plenty of conflicts about coming out because, by deciding to live their own truth, they can never know for sure whether coming out will put them at odds with their families and community until they dare to do so.

so, ruby's dillemma for not knowing what to choose, her family or a life with christina, plays out as the type of experience queer ppl have to deal on a daily basis, and when we consider the intersection with race/ethnicity, it gets even more cruel because our gender identities and sexual/romantic/aesthetic orientations, that are natural parts of us, make us being invisibilized and silenced in our own cultures and feel like we have to give up on our own communities in order to be able to live our queerness.

there are few things more gut-wrenching than that feeling of fear that you might be disowned by your family and relatives and your community -- whether is it a neighbourhood, a village, a small town etc -- because a part of yourself is considered at odds with your heritage.

and when we consider all the christian imagery in the show, the final result is a really troubling one.

while it's true that being christian and believing in god doesn't authomatically makes anyone a bigot (i actually still retain some of the beliefs i was raised into as a catholic latin-american), it's also true that now, more than ever, we can't ignore science, including history.

the entire way in which they referred to magic as a devil's work was very troubling and evocates the same discriminative rethoric that white european colonizers used to justify the destruction of the ancient old religions and beliefs of BIPOC in their own homeland, the ancient culture of our ancestors, and also the oppression of peasant women in europe.

while we can't generalize, given each culture had its own particularities, there's an agreement in the scientific community that, overall, the cultures of the first nations and indigenous folks from the american continent, the african continent, the asian continent and oceania/pacific islands were far more accepting of different manifestations of queerness.

that means that queerphobia was part of the colonial project, once the traditional family values of christianity were used as a tool for the white colonizers to regulate the bodies and sexuality of the colonized and keep them under control.

and that is why the association of these ideals of family and community as inherent to blackness ends up being problematic, because we can't discuss racism without discussing colonization, and we can't discuss colonization without considering the ways in which queerphobia and religion were used as tools of colonial oppression.

the worst part is that, when it comes to ruby, the producers and writers really didn't need to do kill her at all.

and while the show did right in not showing how christina killed ruby, sparing the audience from watching another black body being brutalized, it's also true they didn't have to kill the character to get her out of the way from the final confrontation between christina and tic's family.

they literally went and changed her background from her book counterpart and made the woman a musician, and a blueswoman at that.

all they needed was to have her share a goodbye scene with christina the same way she had with leti, saying that she wanted to be with christina but couldn't fight her family and friends like that, grab a copy from the safe travel negro guide and set off in a bus to travel all over the U.S., singing very sad blues songs about falling in love with a white devil once.

that's all the producers and writers needed, to use the "sent in a bus" trope.

but the choice was to portray ruby as a character facing the consequences of following her desires , which ends up feeling like a punishment for a dark-skinned and fat queer black woman for daring to question the position society has placed her because of who she is.

this is in no way an attempt to "cancel" the producers or the writers, because a) their work is still important as a team of mostly black creators and b) canceling doesn't seem to have significant consequences, and seems to lead only to more social media wars than anything else.

but now that it finally seems diversity is getting more space in media, this type of discussion gets more important.

there is a slow increase on more representation of queer/LGBTQ+ characters in media and more productions involving queer/LGBTQ+ creatives, but, most of the time, the characters and are white, or, when there are biracial couples, the characters of color are just token minorities, and the same happens with the creatives involved in the production.

there is a slow increase in BIPOC characters representation in media and more productions involving BIPOC as creatives, but, most of the time, the characters are cis heterosexual, and the same happens with the creatives involved in the production.

but, for pop culture and media to be truly diverse, there has to be more space for the narratives of ppl that exist and belong to the two groups to raise our voices and be heard, whether is it in the entertainment industry, society at large or even in fandom spaces.

because she shouldn't be forced to pick between one identity over the other.

our existences shouldn't be interrupted just because society doesn't know how to deal with them.

and if that make us sinners, then so be it.

#lovecraft country #ruby baptiste #christina braithwhite #ruby x christina #rubtina #rutina #montrose freeman #lgbtqiap+#lgbtq representation #queer representation #poc representation #woc representation #moc representation #black women representation #representation in media #representation in fiction #tv representation #it's ok for non-BIPOC queer folks to reblog #and it's ok for non-queer BIPOC folks to reblog

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