#(complicated cuz... a character can be confirmed queer and it can still be queerbaiting.

[essektheylyss]

I am once again BEGGING folks in the critrole fandom to understand that terms for problematic queer tropes have actual meaning and context.

Queerbaiting cannot exist in the context of "the queer relationship I prefer didn't happen but another one did." Nor does it mean "a queer character doesn't get into a relationship with someone they're implied to be attracted to." It cannot exist because one character you wanted to be queer was not confirmed as such and did not have the chance to explore a relationship the fandom wanted, in spite of a plethora of other queer characters and relationships in the media.

Because queerbaiting means an intended, marketed implication that there would be a central queer relationship that was never actually going to be delivered on, in an effort to attract queer audiences without alienating straight/homophobic ones.

Bury Your Gays cannot exist in the context of "character I ship in a queer relationship died." It cannot exist in the context of "other characters of canonical queer status lived." It cannot exist if the story and setting otherwise strongly and repeatedly refute the idea that any experienced queer happiness must be punished. It cannot exist if the character you're talking about has not been confirmed queer.

Because Bury Your Gays is a term for introducing a queer character into an otherwise straight work (usually in a tokenistic way) and then killing them off without ceremony or purpose—often or, depending on the definition, exclusively just after they have started or consummated a relationship, as it is an implication that queer happiness must be punished as a cosmic rule of the setting.

These tropes virtually cannot be present in a work if they are otherwise refuted by the work itself due to the presence of other queer characters. They suggest a rule of the narrative that queerness is anathema to the narrative and world, and cannot be allowed to exist, which cannot apply if the world and narrative is otherwise very supportive of queerness. In fact, the context of these tropes when they were established implied that this was applicable to the only queer person or relationship in a work, because in the context of their inception, it was nearly unfathomable to have even a semi-mainstream media with numerous queer characters and queerness normalized and expected within the setting.

EXTREMELY specific parameters would have to be met to have either of these tropes in particular present in Exandria at this point, and even then, the question of whether or not it would still apply given the conceit of the setting's relationship to queerness and gender as well as the improvisational format of the medium is something that would take whole dissertations to discuss and come to anything approaching a definitive answer.

#cr spoilers #cr discourse #cr meta #do NOT try me on this particular subject i stg #because your options are 'read my very reasonable and organized explanation post' (the 'me being nice' option) #or 'take my 600 page thesis on the matter to the fucking face' #feel like I should make a graph here. #does the character have to be confirmed queer? no for queerbaiting. yes for bury your gays. #does the story need to exclusively handle queerness in a tokenistic way? yes for bury your gays. it's complicated for queerbaiting #(complicated cuz... a character can be confirmed queer and it can still be queerbaiting. #depending on severity of the bait vs actual amount of time/importance of the character on screen) #(i.e. end of supernatural? queerbaiting cuz like. the ratio was absurd. the random gay character cameos in disney films? queerbaiting.) #does it have to be intentional? yes for queerbaiting. not necessarily for bury your gays. #death of the author and all that. #honestly I would personally argue that the nature of the game of dnd makes it impossible to have an instance of bury your gays. #but I'm not writing that essay today cuz it would be wasted on tumblr. #and like. in general. suggest a queer person who enjoys narratives about death and grief is homophobic one more time. #you will get the ream of paper to the face.

[azeher]

On Queerbaiting, Bad Voltron Bad, and Adashi

I finally found the time and patience to bring you this post. Take it however you want. Unfollow me, love me, fall in love with Ryan Renolds... Just take your pick.

The only disclaimer I’ll make is that the Voltron crew and the marketing team of DreamWorks are very capable of queerbaiting. I’ve accused them of doing exactly that before, but I was just getting ahead of myself. I just don’t think they’re queerbaiting us after all, not on purpose (the voltron crew at least. The marketing team can go eat a spoiled banana). But at the end this is like the Schrödinger’s Cat, we won’t know until we get to see the very last episode of the final season. I mean, korrasami was queerbait until the very last seconds before the credits rolled.

BUT, the crew has made quite the mistakes along the years, and I’m gonna make a list of them:

1- Opening their mouths. Just really, they should have stayed quiet, taken the initial praising and shown gratitude and that’s it. The very first and biggest mistake they made was thinking it was a good idea to talk about the show to the fandom. Not only they never knew how to handle it, sometimes they forced themselves to lie. By creating such an narrow relationship with the fandom they allowed them to ask them for things they wanted into the show. They allowed them to ask them questions they didn’t know how to answer and sometimes they had to be purposely misleading to avoid spoilers.

2- Believing their own misleading answers. And this is how I know they’re not queerbaiting on purpose. Because they tend to get passionate when promoting the show, they’ve said things in ways that could be misinterpreted by the audience. They think they’re saying something harmless, that the small difference between what they say would happen and what actually happens will translate well, but it’s never the case.

3- Not trying to know their fandom. This isn’t entirely their fault. It’s obvious the fandom they got wasn’t the fandom they were supposed to get. I.e., the fandom should be made up of grown ups that loved the 80s Voltron and came back out of nostalgia, and of little kids looking for cool space battles, and of teens that like action and humor mixed together. Because that was their target audience. Rather they got a fandom pertaining to an entirely different genre. They got people who don’t really care for the plot (don’t even try to argue with this. The hundreds of posts I’ve seen the last three years claiming smt along the lines of “Voltron would have to pay me to watch the show for the plot” prove me right) because it bores them, and are only focused on the one thing the show openly isn’t about: Romance.

4- The writing. Legend of Korra didn’t have perfect writing. Voltron doesn’t either. This studio puts all of its effort and talent out there, you can tell, but they still have a long way to go. Still, what they do is not bad, despite what spiteful people want to make others believe. This studio has some of the most beautiful animation out there and their strengths rely on art, humor, fight sequences, music and very dramatic scenes. Those are the five things they’ve mastered. But their writing and character focus are lacking. This is not something they can’t fix. Instead of trying to drag them down and boycott these amazing and talented artists and writers who are also human beings, we could give them the support they need to improve and keep delivering stories and characters we can fall in love with. I mean, we fell in love with these characters even when the writing wasn’t perfect. This season, whether some of you want to admit it or not, had the best writing they’ve offered so far but to dissect this statement would mean making yet another long post and just no.

5- The characters’ arcs. We’ve already established they don’t know how to write characters or romance. They’re good with other sorts of relationships but romance is the thing they’re worst at. And they also suck at being constant with characters’ arcs. The biggest proof? I didn’t know the fucking protagonist of Voltron was indeed Keith until like season 4, and I only found out cuz I watched some episodes of 80’s Voltron around that time and was struck with the realization. It was impossible to tell because so far all the focus of the story had gone back and forth between Shiro and Pidge. Then Keith and eventually Allura got their own arcs. So, how about Pidge makes that math cuz it doesn’t add up? How was acceptable for them to be unclear about who the central figure in the show was? Keith was introduced as the fourth character. And they even formatted the first half of the first episode so it looked like Lance was the protagonist. The second half they were already giving up on him and turning him into a joke and Shiro finally emerged as the central figure.

6- Romance. So they completely suck at romance and they made a good decision about leaving it out. But did they really? Cuz the show says yes, but the crew’s comments and awkward writing say otherwise. And this is what takes us to the next and saddest mistake:

7- ADASHI. I know you all read this far only to get to this point. I’m gonna include Ezor and Zethrid here as well because they’re also consequence from the previous point. Shiro is an amazing character and him being gay IS indeed a big triumph. We will forever know such a great and important Asian character is canonly gay. But the writers made all the rookie mistakes they could make surrounding his sexuality, AND Ezor and Zethrid’s relationship. Don’t get me wrong, I for once don’t mind these lesbians being on the dark side because they were still pretty badass and cool even though they were villains, but they took their ambiguous villainess too far, which wouldn’t have been a bad thing wasn’t it because they were the only lesbian couple in the show. So rookie mistake number one: Picking the wrong characters to be your representation when you’re gonna be so limited with representation. They also killed them off, which, well, they kinda deserved, but again, they were the ONLY lesbian couple, so how about give them the chance to redeem themselves (and your own writers)?

They introduced Adam and established he and Shiro simply didn’t work together but then killed off Adam without allowing us to get to know him, and without allowing him and Shiro to get some kinda closure. But the crew, again, didn’t know how to handle the way to go about hyping the show, and were yet again misleading by letting us believe we’d spend some time with Adam. They genuinely thought there was nothing wrong with killing him because he was no longer part of Shiro’s life and because war’s like that. So rookie mistake number two: Not being honest about the fate of one of the two confirmed queer characters in the show. When you have so few queer characters, and you really think you had to kill one of them, don’t treat it like a spoiler, BE honest, so the public knows what to expect. Soften the blow. Maybe they could have said he wouldn’t be in the show too long, and we would have made our guesses. Rookie mistake number three: Pick him as one of the casualties. I understand the intention of this was to make Shiro lose someone because of the war, but did it really need to happen? Did Shiro really need to lose someone? I’m sure no big plot point in the story would have changed if Adam had lived. Rookie mistake number four: Kill him before we got to know him and before he talked to Shiro again. If the purpose of his death was to impact Shiro or us, it would have had a much bigger effect if they had had time to interact again.

Now, could Voltron as a whole fix all of these mistakes? Yes. Yes they could. For starters, they should start talking with the truth. That would actually help to heal the fandom a lot. At this point, being quiet won’t serve of any purpose. Now it’s their real time to talk, but honestly.

Second, it all depends on how they wrap season eight. If they’re really planning on making a healthy queer relationship canon and explicit, that could be their salvation. They’d have to do it right, and it is possible, but fairly hard, especially with romance not being their strength.

Third. Adashi. Yes. Again Adashi. Remember when I said I had complicated feelings about what they did to it? Well, aside from what I already said, there’s this extra bit. And it is that they truly could have had a good reason to kill off Adam. I know that it makes you angry, but this is a possibility. Maybe the point is to let Shiro move on, find love again. He’s healthy now, not fearing about dying anytime soon and he’s matured. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes. And there are not reasons to believe Adam won’t be featured in another future flashback that could deliver that sense of closure we and Shiro need. So, in short, the reason I’m not as angry as I should be, is because this can still be addressed in the show.

It’s easy to be pessimistic and not to trust the ending. For all we know, eighth season might be just 13 episodes of quiznak writing and the mice founding their own theme park, but until the box gets opened we won’t know if the cat is dead.

#adashi #queerbaiting #voltron #vld spoilers s7 #and these are my final thoughts #this is what i think and this is what i feel #so don't bother me anymore