#a historic queerbait

[robinsbanduniform]

i am so sick and tired of the narrative that queer people don’t get happy endings, i’m sick of queer stories in media always ending tragedy and unrequited love, and i’m sick of the belief that we shouldn’t expect to be accepted because ‘that’s just how society is’ being considered a normal thing.

#thinking about byler #and queer media and how it almost never ends well #thinking about how it’s almost ingrained in our nature to expect intolerance #and how in media it’s expected that queer characters will either not be confirmed/canonically queer #or that we are being queerbaited #or that the character won’t be accepted if they do come out #and all of it is infuriating #specifically thinking about byler in the sense that if it were to become canon how much that could mean coming from such a mainstream show #or even will coming out and being met with acceptance #rather than a ‘historically accurate’ experience of discrimination #i mean for fucks sake #it’s a television show and while historical accuracy may be important #i don’t think allowing a queer character a happy ending-ish #would compromise the plot #anyways #enjoy my rambles #stranger things #stranger things 4 #st4 #byler #will byers #mike wheeler #strangerthings #byler tumblr #queer #queer community #queer coding #lgbtq #lgbtqiia+ #queer media

[mycenaae]

i don't even ship merlin and arthur but you have to acknowledge. you have to see the queerbait vision

#nat.txt #though to be fair it's mostly out of spite for how the fandom treated gwen and angel honestly. #imagine having the most beautiful woman in the world in your show's cast and you go out of your way to vilify her. for your pale coconuts #in my ideal world it's lancelot/guinevere/arthur throuple and merlin/gwaine. amen. #but you do have to acknowledge the truly historic queerbait that was happening. on christmas even

[chocolatepot]

do you think the extend of good storytelling is by how gay it is, and how much shipping fanart can be produced from it? and yes bonnet was a massive racist and slave owner this isn't news

a1) I said nothing about good storytelling. Someone in the notes on that post complained about OFMD getting the fandom and hype that Black Sails didn't; I pointed out that fun + queer joy = fannish engagement. It sounds like you should go berate them for caring about not getting Hamilton/Flint fanart!

a2) As someone who actively likes reading, watching, and writing romances, yes, I do think that fiction with well-written and well-acted romance is more appealing than fiction where that's a super minor note.

b1) It seems like you don't understand historical fiction? The real Stede Bonnet was a slaveholder. The character named Stede Bonnet written by David Jenkins & co. isn't. Having an issue with that isn't exactly baseless, but for moral consistency you have a LOT of other fiction to object to as well, so you should get on with that to make it clear that this has nothing to do with being mad about one pirate show being more widely loved than another.

b2) You probably shouldn't rest your "down with OFMD, up with Black Sails" rhetoric on moral grounds, because all the characters in Black Sails are also pirates, and the real people many of them were based on (such as Charles Vane, Blackbeard, etc.) were rapists and murderers. Even on the show itself, one of these has his men gang-rape a main character.

If you just hate OFMD, that's mystifying to me but totally valid. If you hate OFMD and want to seize on an objective reason to declare the show to be Objectively Immoral and all its fans to be Bad People, that's childish behavior and you should really put your energy into creating the kind of fic or art you want to see for Black Sails instead.

#well this got long #but it was enjoyable to write #I actually don't hate Black Sails! #I just got queerbaited by the fandom #it's moderately funny to me that this stupid poll - which Flint is WINNING anyway - has unleashed so much resentment #I went looking for Hamilton/Flint fic once and there was hardly anything #I would write it myself but I'm having too much fun in OFMD now #and besides I can't genderbend it because the canon is too serious and historical #ofmd #black sails #anon

[hellsfiction]

It’s always ‘How did Stede row all that way across the ocean and just happen to find the crew’ and never ‘How did Jim manage to get from Nassau to the Revenge with seemingly no boat and with no one noticing them board the Revenge at all?’ They’re queer babes, they can just do that <3

#OFMD #Our flag means death #Jim jimenez #Stede Bonnet #Um duh it's called gaydar #this is directly because I've finished my 5th rewatch with my dad #Watching OFMD with my dad was interesting #Explained the history of queerbaiting and he accepted it with no problem #which is weird because I feel like most queer people - myself included - didn't even really believe queerbaiting was real #until like the third time we were burned #my dad was just like 'oh yeah that sounds exactly like what some dumbass studio would do' #'don't doubt it for a moment' #and he accepted the romance between Stede and Ed without batting an eyelid #yet he really could not wrap his head around the idea of narrative convenience #I've also had to reiterate several times that OFMD flirts with historical accuracy but it's not in a commited relationship with it #after the fifth time he tried to fact check OFMD online I gave up

[thomas-the-goat-of-satan]

oh and I DO think that I'd probably kill myself if I had to pretend to be drunk on a boat and utter the words, "you're so soft!" to my co-star in order to promote the show TEEN WOLF. I'd be done! finished! but that's just me.

#I would Not kill myself actually because I historically don't do that. but I'd probably kill the cameraman! #teen wolf #sterek #yes it's queerbait but it's My queerbait #dylan o'brien #tyler hoechlin #show #cloey talks teen wolf #mine

[co-captens]

I've been reading a lot of media and representation criticism recently and maybe everyone is right. We can both want more queer characters throughout the background and front and center. We can want more "normal" LGBTQ+ characters just doing whatever and more radical representations of queer characters refusing the oppressive structures which characterize genres and societies. We can want explicit queerness from characters, because we have been historically denied explicit queerness or content which doesn't end in queer death, and we can want more significant, emotional, vulnerable connections aren't tied to sexual or romantic relationships, between any combination of genders. We can critique representation as an inherently liberal force and appreciate the creation of works in which we can finally see some small part of ourselves. We can want revolutionary, boundary-pushing independent media, and consume and enjoy other media all the while.

#ive just seen so much lately about accusations of queerbaiting being the reduction of complex connections to 'just gay' #which always feels to me like it's reducing the capacity for complexity of gay & queer connections #theres an argument that claims of queerbaiting uphold normative boundaries of masculinity and platonic intimacy #which ignores the historical absence of queer represetantations AND every work which does include intimate relationships #but doesn't queerbait #anyway my thesis is going terrible

[her-biness]

As someone who lied about not shipping Stucky to their best friend for almost 3 years for literally no reason: this poll has been an absolutely unhinged bloodbath.

#I feel like I’ve been shot back to 2014 tumblr #can we pls just be normal I’m begging #seeing the ‘clearly you don’t know your history’ had me rolling #sweetie we all got queerbaited by the superheroes it’s okay #historically we did get super queerbaited and that’s so true of you to say #I feel like a wizened fandom grandma rn #kids it’s thanksgiving let’s not bring politics up at the table and just be happy that SOMEONE finally got a win

[docwormie]

what's the name of the sickness where you think portraying marie-antoinette as sapphic is harmful because it's mostly just fetishization coming from the defamation pamphlets that circulated during her lifetime but also you need her to end up with lamballe or polignac in the 2022 tv show ???

#worst show i've ever seen i need more #they threw historical accuracy out the window anyway #might as well make it gay #instead of queerbaiting !!! #marie antoinette 2022 #marie antoinette #queer history #lamballe #gabrielle de polignac #emilia schüle

[moki-dokie]

been seeing some stuff on blue eye samurai and big yikes to nearly everyone pushing extremely western ideals onto these characters.

this is early edo period. 1600s. the japan you know now did not exist yet.

yall. please. there was NO concept of sexuality in pre-modern japan. that came with both the influx of christianity and western influence very very late in history. like, mid-1800s. (yes, there was christianity pre-1800s but it was not a widespread idea yet and wouldn't be until about the 1800s since, y'know, missionaries were routinely murdered before then)

"so and so is either bi and hasn't figured it out yet or..." no. that isn't how it worked then. nobody gave a shit what was between your legs. anyone could be attracted to anyone else. it was a little more common for male homosexual relationships to be between an adult and younger male - like many other places around the world - but two adult men could bang and love each other just as easily. relationships between women were quite common - especially since so many men were often away at war. there's tons of pornographic prints from the time depicting all manner of fun queer relationships. sex itself had absolutely no moral assignment to it. good sex was good health. it didn't matter who with. (well, social class/caste mattered more than anything else tbh but that didn't stop upper and lower class from fucking.) that isn't to say people didn't have preferences. of course they did. that is human nature. preferences arose more from physical appearance, caste, and circumstances with gender being about the last thing one would look for in a partner - romantic, casual, or otherwise. the only role in sex where gender actually mattered was for procreation.

there would be no queer awakening moment, no sudden switch flipped, no stigma to have internal conflicts about because it simply did not exist as a concept whatsoever. you were either attracted to a person or you weren't, it was that simple. gender played no role when it came to sex and sexual attraction. the japanese were lightyears ahead of western cultures in this particular area - like most cultures were before christianity came in and ruined everything with its backwards morals and strict good/evil dichotomy.

yall have got to realize queer rep will not and should not always adhere by modern western standards. there was no straight, gay, bi, or anything else of the sort. the closest they ever got was referring to roles during sex - as in who is giving and who is receiving.

i know this is mostly a made up story but it is still set within a very specific time period and culture, which should be honored and respected by not making it fit into our box. tons of research went into making this show historically accurate (albeit with some discrepancies but tbh they aren't really that huge) right down to the calligraphy writing. please please please don't whitewash the culture from these characters.

i say this mainly because without this knowledge, so many of you are going to build these characters up on a foundation they aren't meant to be on and then you'll rage about queerbaiting and bad queer rep if it isn't somehow super explicitly stated, if it doesn't match your very modern, very western ideal of what queer looks like. don't try to force this plot and narrative and characters into something they canonically and historically aren't. headcanons are a thing, AUs are a thing, fanfiction is a thing - leave your western thinking for those and let these characters simply exist as they should otherwise. this is one of those times where the queerness really does not need to be examined at all beyond what we get.

i know it can be hard to wrap your head around - sexuality is such a huge part of our identity in the western world and has slowly started to spread amongst other parts of the world in importance. but just keep in mind with these particular characters, that concept would be so very alien to them.

#blue eye samurai #i'm gonna bite people if i see complaints about queer anything in this show

[blessyouhawkeye]

bbc's merlin was literally thee most show of all time they gave us a black actress playing guinevere, one of the greatest queerbaits of our time, katie mcgrath (sword), katie mcgrath (evil), blatant disregard for any sort of historical accuracy, a queer metaphor they publicly said "didn't mean anything", and then at the end they fucking killed king arthur. truly legendary.

#i know arthur died in legend too but it was SUCH a funny choice for their teen show #your show's premise was what if everyone in arthurian legend was young and hot. and you Killed Arthur at the end! #hysterical no notes #merlin #bbc merlin #merthur

[scarrletmoon]

okay i know the Discourse™️ has been going on for way too long at this point, but

i think some people outside of the OFMD fandom don’t actually get why we’re particularly annoying about this show

OFMD is not the first queer show to ever exist. if anything, it's a late entry in decades of queer media. over a year and a half since the first few episodes aired, everyone knows that OFMD is queer. that doesn't make it particularly special

but back in March? this is the trailer that dropped in February of 2022, 2 weeks before the premier. if you're used to seeing queer chemistry in shows that aren't intended to be queer, you might see the hints between Ed and Stede here. but to most people? it's just a silly little pirate comedy. just guys being dudes. the trailer doesn't even hint at the other 2 canonical queer relationships in the show -- the closest it gets suggesting romance is the music and the pink in the poster

so when people watched this show in March 2022, they went into it expecting subtext and nothing else. to them, it was like watching Sherlock or Supernatural or Merlin in the 2010s. if you were in any of those fandoms -- especially Sherlock and Supernatural -- you know what it was like; constant jokes at our expense, being mocked for creating explicit fanwork, made fun of by the creators and within the show itself. if we saw queer subtext, that was our problem. this was a time when you pretended NOT to be in fandom, for fear of ridicule. we kept our fanwork to ourselves, we DID NOT share it with the cast, and we accepted that our favourite ships would probably never be canon. maybe one day, if we were lucky, we'd have a show where the subtext wasn't mockery as much as deliberate foreshadowing -- but that had to be YEARS away

right?

OFMD was never billed as a queer show, not in the beginning. there was no LGBTQ+ tag on (HBO) Max, it wasn't on anyone's list of upcoming queer shows in 2022, it flew under the radar through most of its first season. this was a show about pirates, and sure, some of them were queer. but not the LEADS. if you think they're romantically involved, that's must be fandom brain poisoning

except the 9th episode aired, and they kissed. and the show said "you're not crazy for thinking they have chemistry because they really do. it's been a romance this whole time". and in the 10th episode, Stede realizes that he's in love

(not mandating you watch this clip if you don't care for the show, but there's something that feels particularly earth shattering about no one saying the word gay but knowing that Stede's realizing he is, that it's completely unambiguous and explicit in a way that only straight romances are usually allowed to be)

this is why people freaked out about this show. no one knew. even the creator, David Jenkins, was surprised when WE were surprised that it was gay for real -- he set out to write a love story, using all the tried and true beats of a rom com. he'd never even heard of the term queerbaiting. he looked at historical Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet and thought "oh, there's something here" and just...wrote that, with very little fanfare, like it was inevitable. like it was obvious. of course Jim and Pam end up together. of course Buttercup and Westley end up together. what kind of disappointing ending would it be if You've Got Mail ended with the main characters just going their separate ways?

so of course Ed and Stede are in love

look, i get it. we're annoying and won't shut the fuck up about this show that seems mediocre at best. i watched the whole thing back in march, thought "huh, that was cool" and was sure that i'd forget about it in a few days

an hour after looking at fanart on twitter, i was lost in the fucking sauce

there's just so much to unpack from a mere 10 episodes. it covers racism, toxic masculinity, gender expression, sexuality, trauma and abuse. and i don't think we should overlook the fact that the non-white characters in this show get to be fully human in a way i haven't seen in my favourite shows in recent memory

additionally, most OFMD are 25 or older. we're not people who've been spoiled by queer rep, who don't get how hard it used to be, how you'd have to grovel for scraps, how shipping and fanfiction was a way to find queer rep where we thought there never would be. we've been here. we're annoying about this show because for a lot of us, it's the first time we've been treated like our queerness isn't an anomaly that needs to be relegated to its own section, that needs to be praised for the bare minimum of acknowledging that we exist. it's not pulling punches to avoid scaring away a straight audience. it just is.

OFMD for me is like when i watched Black Panther for the first time and realized that this is what white people felt all the time. have there been other black superhero movies? of course! does Disney fucking suck? BOY does it. but that was the first time i got to sit in a movie theater and watch a mainstream film that looked at Africa and said "look at how beautiful you are, exactly as you are"

and idk. i think that's really cool

#scarrlet rambles #ofmd #cant wait for all 5 notes on this post #and dont be fucking mean i'm not trying to start shit #anon is off btw if you want to try that #we're going to have a productive conversation or none at all we're adults here #for some reason tumblr didn't save my links and stuff THANKS TUMBLR #anyway the typo version is floating around now i guess 🥲

[hamishcat437]

Was just thinking about this and realised how fucking funny it is that my best friend getting me to watch the first season of bsd at a sleepover in highschool kick-started a chain reaction that ended up sending me on a journey of self-discovery and caused me to realise that I deserve love and have nothing to feel ashamed of and also that I am a raging homosexual

#I'm not going to elaborate but literally I just realised this and it's so fucking weird #the queerbait anime about people named after historical authors with superpowers help me to become who I am now #what is up with that #I'm not even as active in the fandom anymore but dazai will always be my avatar for a reason #ham rambles #bsd #personal I guess? #congrats kas I hope you're proud of yourself <3 #like yes warriors and wings of fire had a massive impact on me growing up and ace attorney kind of saved my life #but bsd was definitely more influential on me than I usually give it credit for

[godd-howard-did-it-again]

.

#people are amazing /s they get one show that gives queer representation and nb trans rep and REAL ROMANCE #and they call it lame #you guys deserve all the queerbaiting shit it's been shoved down your throat for years #cause you get ONE GOOD THING and complain because its not good enough or not historically accurate #jfc. shut up. WE NEVER GET NICE THINGS #the only nice things until a few years ago were mlm dramas where one of the psrtners was abusive and there was rape involved #ofmd isn't the best thing ever but calling it lame when it GOVES REPRESENTATION AND GOOD ONE is just a shitty take

[andsomemaniacgotridofthewheel]

David Jenkins was not a Big Name Showrunner before OFMD. In fact, I had never heard of him before. I am not even sure what he did before OFMD, according to IMDB he wrote exactly one other show and it is one I have never even heard of before.

And he somehow got HBO to make his weird little show about gay pirates, and he got Taika Waititi to help with it, and while nobody was expecting anything of it - I mean come on guys, remember when OFMD dropped and everyone only gradually realised what it was - it became The Little Show That Could. With almost no advertising. No marketing. HBO did clearly did not expect this show to be anything, to make any real money or to go beyond one season.

But then it blew up.

Because David Jenkins was so insightful, he was so good, he brought so much fresh wind into a business where we usually can tell how the next three steps of how any show is going to go (and to be fair, a lot of us feared that Izzy's death in season 2 was coming, because all the signs fit), that we put him on a pedestal.

THE FUCKING PEDESTAL.

Yes he is brilliant. He has done stuff with OFMD that you never ever see somewhere else. He has understood that historical accuracy, as well as physics and geography, are merely backdrop for plot and characters. Completely irrelevant if you need them to be, but then suddenly important if you have a bit of story that won't work without. He understood that queer relationships deserve to be told, and when confronted with skeptic fans he learned about queerbaiting.

He took a lot of tropes and put them on their head. He structured his show like fanfic. He put thought into his stories instead of following the beaten track. He single-handedly raised the bar for every showrunner out there.

But it is still only his second show.

If he didn't shine so brightly during OFMD's first season, nobody would have expected so much of him.

And yes. He dropped the ball on Izzy.

I loved Izzy to pieces ever since season 1, I wanted to pin him to a board like a bug and study him and take him apart and put him in a blender and in situations, I loved to hate him and in season 2 I loved to love him. He is such a brilliant, complex character, so well written and so well played by Con O'Neill; the options for character analysis, relationship analysis, various interpretations of everything he has done, are simply limitless. 🤯 That is due to David Jenkins & Con O'Neill.

And David Jenkins, standing in the spotlight of all of our exaggerated expectations, decided it would have the greatest emotional impact if he killed him. He made him a symbol, for the end of The Golden Age of Piracy™, and he killed him.

He was right.

He was not original.

He fell for one of the very tropes he so successfully fought in season 1, and for the most part of season 2.

Procuring an emotional response by having a beloved character, who was just starting to embark on an exciting new journey, die tragically and emotionally, providing motivation for the remaining characters.

It was a cheap move.

It is not a Bury Your Gays. Everyone is queer on this show, you can't call something a Bury Your Gays if that would be true for every character death.

But Izzy was also old, and disabled, and he had survived a suicide attempt (that he was driven into, not chose for himself), and had just had an arc of growth and character development that could have gone on for such a long time after this. He had just learned to trust and be vulnerable and experience (gender)queer joy. God, there were so many places his character could have gone.

I loved Izzy as a character, I didn't relate much to him. But Your Mileage May Vary, and I am so, so sorry for everyone who did. You didn't deserve this.

But David Jenkins? Is still sooo much better than any generic bland showrunner that is going places in Hollywood. You want to boycott anything, boycott the big streaming services that don't have the guts to make their main characters queer, to think that "a bit of both" is inclusive or bold, and who drive out any creatives that object and try to sneak in inclusiveness. They are the enemy. They are systemic discrimination and injustice.

David Jenkins is just starting out. And he did so much better on his very first successful show than anyone who has been in the business for years. If anyone deserves a chance to prove that he can do better, it's him.

I'm sure he'll come to regret his decision. I'm sure he'll see where he went wrong, how he could have done better, and fix it in any show he might do after this. I, for one, would much rather see any show he is involved in than most of the crap that the AMPTP is putting out, now or in the future. He can only get better. And he did do a lot of things right. Never forget that. Because the majority of showrunners can't even do the minimum, and David Jenkins went above and beyond.

I think he deserves a little slack. If anyone in the streaming industry does, it's him.

It's the fucking pedestal that is the problem. It makes people who do good but are not perfect suddenly look worse than the most cowardice, opportunistic mediocre guy. But they are not and they deserve a leg up, or we are stuck with the worse option who gets support from all the wrong places. Don't fall for it.

#david jenkins #our flag means death #ofmd #izzy hands #ofmd izzy hands #con o'neill #nikku.txt

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

why are people so against oliver and ryan talking about buddie, don't we want this, don't we want buddie to be canon? i'm sorry are we rooting for buck to end up with tommy or something, like I don't understand why so many people are saying stop asking them about buddie?

If we want Buddie then shouldn't we be asking buddie questions? I mean I'm so sorry but I'm just very confused, shouldn't we be happy that buddie is getting this much press and love? Why are we against it?

Okay, this is going to be a long one.

There are a few reasons why people are concerned about publications teasing Buddie happening and using the ship name and asking Oliver and Ryan about the ship. I'll try to be as concise as possible.

I would like to note, I'm not going to answer a bunch of questions about this. Other people have answered similar questions plenty of times, if you take a bit to look around 911blr. I'm sure @catdadeddie has gone into this a few times.

However, I understand that we are getting a lot of new fans this season, and so I want to try and explain comprehensively for those who haven't been around. I hope this covers everything.

Whenever a ship is between two people of the same gender as opposed to two people of the opposite gender (I know, I know, but we can't get into the gender spectrum right now just play along with me), everyone involved has to be very, very careful when it comes to talking about that ship ahead of said ship going canon.

It is very easy to slip into something called "queerbaiting." I'm assuming that you and most people online and in fandom by now have heard of this term but just in case: queerbaiting is when a show acts like a queer ship might happen in marketing and promotion in order to draw in a queer audience.

Historically, this was done by having a main character played by a woman have a romantic thing with another woman (flirting, even kissing!) who was a guest star, hinting at the main character's bisexuality/queerness, only for that guest star to never come back and for the show to act like it had never happened. This was done during something called, IIRC, "sweeps week" which was basically an important week for TV viewer ratings in the 90s. It was a way to boost your numbers by drawing in queer viewers with the promise of actual queer rep that then wasn't realized. It's a marketing tactic.

Nowadays the nature of queerbaiting has changed a bit. It's an overused term that frankly people love to (mis)use whenever a ship of theirs doesn't go canon and a show dares to do things like having two people (like say Ryan and Oliver) who play the two halves of the ship do an interview together (whether you ship Buddie or not, they are close friends, and it makes sense that they'd do a few interviews together - that is not queerbaiting). A good example of real queerbaiting is Rizzoli & Isles which, among other things, took out billboards and magazine spreads showing the characters (two women) in suggestively sexual and romantic positions and with slogans hinting that the two had more than just friendship together, then never, ever delivered on it and in fact laughed at the idea of the characters being gay for each other.

(I WAS THERE, GANDALF!!!)

Because of this unfortunate treatment of queer audiences and the (historic) dearth of actual queer characters and queer ships going canon (it's getting better but still), networks, showrunners, and so on have to be very careful when, say, they want to make a queer ship canon.

Look at how ABC handled Chenford, a popular ship in their show The Rookie. Chenford was not a planned ship - the fans adored the chemistry between the two characters (Lucy Chen and Tim Bradford), the writers liked the idea and decided to lean into it, ABC gave the go-ahead, and the ship officially got together and went canon last season. ABC heavily promoted Chenford and the ship and made a lot of jokes about it in the last couple of seasons leading into the ship going canon, using the ship heavily in their marketing.

ABC cannot necessarily do that with Buddie, because even if Buddie is going canon, until that happens, they could get accused of queerbaiting. There's a much bigger minefield to navigate because of this historic misuse of queer audiences and queer characters.

So whenever journalists and publications use a popular non-canonical queer ship name for clicks and fandom interest, if that ship doesn't immediately go canon or if the network/showrunner/etc doesn't say "yeah they're totally gonna kiss! with tongue!" people accuse the show of queerbaiting. This is unfair to the show for two reasons: one, the network is not going to bother sending "shut the fuck up" letters to every single damn publication out there for using a ship name in their headline and talking about a ship - they'll be accused of homophobia and it draws even MORE attention to the issue re: the Barbra Streisand effect (look it up); and two, the people involved in the show are NOT going to spoil the anticipation and surprise by admitting ANY ship is going to go canon before it does.

This is simple marketing - the movie trailer doesn't (or shouldn't, anyway) show you the ending of the movie or everything that happens in it. TV shows want you to tune in every week and speculate and guess. They're not gonna spoil a ship ahead of time.

This means that when journalists and articles pull this shit, they're putting the showrunner, the writers, the actors doing interviews, and the network in a bad situation that they can't really do anything about. Not without causing more mess.

So that's reason number one why a lot of us are annoyed: by yelling about Buddie, these articles and journalists are setting the cast and crew we love up to get yelled at for queerbaiting if Buddie doesn't immediately happen, and there's nothing the cast and crew can do about it, and it's all so the journalists and articles can use us, the fandom, for clicks. So we're also kinda getting used here, and it doesn't feel great.

The second reason we're annoyed about Buddie questions is that it's being asked of the actors who, nine times out of ten, have ZERO CONTROL OVER THE STORYLINES.

Now, there are exceptions. Jennifer Love Hewitt, who plays Maddie, has pushed back on a couple storylines that were given to her and has therefore had a strong hand in shaping Maddie's character. One infamous (in a positive way) example is that Maddie and Eddie were supposed to be an endgame couple. JLH, however, immediately loved the character of Chimney and clicked with Chim's actor Kenneth Choi, so she asked if Maddie could get with Chim instead, feeling he'd be a better fit for her character. And lo, both the beautiful ship Madney and the insanity that is Buddie shipping was born because Buck ended up stepping into that co-parenting-Chris role that Maddie obviously would've originally filled.

However, it should be noted that JLH was an established star before coming onto 9-1-1, and her husband is friends with Tim the showrunner. I would argue that the only other two actors who have any power on their storylines are Peter and Angela, the latter because she can do whatever she wants forever, and the former because (like Angela) he is an executive producer on the show.

It's not that actors never ever get to have a say ever, but the writers, showrunner, and network have much more power. They create the storylines, they make the decisions. Not actors. So when the actors are repeatedly asked about a ship, they're put in an awkward position where they might not even know the full storyline for their character that season and now they need to answer in a way that doesn't reveal any information they do know, but also doesn't insult shippers or dash their hopes. This is a double minefield for queer ships because, again: historic insults to queer fans and characters, nobody wants to be offensive.

The third reason is that this fandom has, historically, treated Tim, Oliver, and others like absolute dogshit over Buddie not going canon. Oliver's left Twitter and taken big social media breaks because of how he was yelled at online. It's not cool, guys. Vent all you want but directing it at the cast and crew isn't okay and maybe if it was just you talking sternly that would be fine (maybe) but when it's dozens of people? It's bullying. Full stop.

Every single time Buddie has not gone canon instantly, the actors and others have gotten verbally abused on social media. Every time the actors have been asked about Buddie and not said "ohmygod yes I want it to happen so bad" (they are not allowed to say this because it might create false hope because again: historical queerbaiting) they've gotten yelled at. We are tired of the actors getting yelled at over something over which they have no control.

The fourth reason is that Oliver, especially, has gotten asked about Buddie a LOT. A lot. The poor man is very tired. He's been cornered about Buddie and asked about it aggressively by certain journalists (one journalist, Max Gao, actually tried to corner Gavin who plays Chris over Buddie - this was a few years ago so Gavin was even younger than he is now and I personally think that is an incredibly unfairly loaded question to give to a child).

If I may dive into speculation for a moment, given how the actors have been SO gleeful about the move to ABC, the fact that they've admitted ABC is letting them do storylines and little moments that FOX wouldn't, and a few other things I won't get into here because this damn thing is long enough already... I suspect FOX would not let Buddie happen. If this is the case, then actors being asked about Buddie is even more loaded because they are being asked questions about it and they can't say "yeah we want to but the network won't let us." THEY WILL GET FIRED FOR THIS.

But, whether or not my speculation is true, the fact remains that when you are repeatedly, over and over, aggressively asked if this fan ship is going to happen or not, you get tired. There's only so many times that someone can give a diplomatic answer before you just want to snap "stop fucking asking me!" Journalists love to take advantage of fandom and social media chatter to get attention for their articles so asking over and over again about Buddie isn't because they genuinely care or think it'll happen, it's to get shippers reading their article, and so bombarding the actors and writers with this question when they've already kinda said their peace a lot about it is frustrating. Just! Leave them alone!

And AGAIN: if this was a M/F ship there could maybe be room for teasing the will-they-won't-they but because of historically bad treatment of queer characters and fans, THEY CANNOT DO THAT. So the only option open to them is to KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT. And keeping one's mouth shut and threading that diplomatic needle for years is EXHAUSTING.

We do want Buddie to be canon, nonny, and in my opinion we are going to get it. All this recent PR supports that, (again: in my opinion).

However, we have seen Oliver get bombarded with what he thinks about Buddie until the cows come home, and he deserves a break. There's nothing new he can say, there's nothing new he's allowed to say. We have seen other parts of the fandom scream that we're being queerbaited because Buddie didn't instantly go canon, without any consideration for the fact that a) queerbaiting is a marketing tactic and b) there might be other factors at play preventing it going canon. We have seen journalists take advantage of us, the shippers, in order to get attention, and we have seen them create an awkward and embarrassing atmosphere in interviews by repeatedly asking about the ship. We have seen shippers make us look bad by hounding the cast and crew on social media about Buddie, treating every woman actress who plays a Buck/Eddie love interest like shit (yes, I know about Edy, but she could be a saint and parts of the fandom would still go onto Instagram to call her names), and generally being absolute pills that would tempt any showrunner, actor, or writer to say "y'know what fuck 'em let's not make Buddie canon I'm not rewarding this shitty behavior."

"If we want Buddie then shouldn't we be asking Buddie questions?" No. Not like journalists and fans have been. It's something to bring up - in my opinion - sparingly and with an awareness of how queer storylines and ships and fandom have been mocked, ignored, baited, and so on over the years. They don't ask about Buddie because they give a shit. They ask because they want our clicks for their ad revenue and they want our retweets and likes and comments. And it's certainly not something to bombard the actors with on social media and bitch at them if it doesn't happen. It just makes the rest of fandom look bad and makes us look like children.

Additionally: These are not new questions! They're not only asking these questions now that it looks like Buddie will go canon, with serious hope and consideration based on the marketing and storylines. They've been asking this since season fucking two, when Buddie was clearly not planned, just to get fangirl (gn) clicks. They wanted to get attention and teehee over how Oliver/Ryan/whoever reacted to people thinking Buck and Eddie should touch dicks. 'Kay?

We know the pattern. So when every piece of media is screaming BUDDIE!!! we are not seeing it as "OMG could we go canon?" We see it as another round of being taken advantage of for article attention, another round of parts of the fandom being bullies and yelling about being baited, and another round of the actors being backed into uncomfortable corners.

That's why we're concerned, worried, and annoyed.

*collapses* I hope this covered everything and explained it all.

#mads answers things #THIS IS SO LONG OH GOD #I wouldn't know concise if it smacked me in the face #making this rebloggable for now so people can spread the information if they find it helpful/informative #but the moment there is clowning (derogatory) I'm turning reblogs OFF I do NOT have the patience #I spent an hour working on this instead of the F&F AU so like not to sound aggressive but this BETTER have answered y'all's questions LOL

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

some iconic quotes from the podcast 'bait' about merthur

"if we're taking queerbaiting as representation, which we are, morgana is a much better queer figure than merlin is"

"merlin's whole thing is 'if I stay closeted long enough and keep on supporting my oppressor, then maybe maaaybe one day his son will love me'"

"the show ends with merlin living in the present day still waiting for arthur to rise again and maybe fuck him this time"

"because he's immortal, merlin could have called the cops on stonewall"

"merlin in the present day is probably some arthurian scholar and is absolutely insufferable" "writing really erotic– have you ever read an academic essay by someone who wants to fuck the historical figure they're talking about, that's what merlin is doing"

"my favourite merthur fanfic trope is uther will consistently be like 'arthur it's ok that you're having sex with a man because at least you're not going to get any bastards but you can't have sex with a sorcerer'. like no it's the same thing! you don't understand the show you're watching"

"arthur is like 'if you're a sorcerer merlin, I guess that's okay, I just don't believe your kind should have rights'. he's one of those people that's like 'it's fine if you're a homosexual but I still think it's a sin'"

#i re-listened to it jumping off the tags of my last reblog #I can't argue with any of it tbh #bbc merlin #merlin #merthur