#They were queerbaiting us for years

[cthulhum]

does anyone realize how crazy it is to have the actor of a mostly headcanoned queer ship say the fans were never crazy and they were right all along after 10+ years of everyone just absolutely going nuts over the said queerbaited ship

#supernatural #dean winchester #spn #destiel #castiel #deancas #misha collins #im 20 i have been Experiencing supernatural and johnlock since i was 12 and merthur since wayy before that i have fought Wars #this is crazy #i love u hannibal i love u 911 (if u make eddie gay) #for the love of god by 'mostly headcanoned' i dont mean that it was never intentional #i am aware that they put the subtext in on purpose #they knew what they were doing #but my focus here is on the actor actually saying it because like #if its not mostly headcanoned then y was the entire cast denying it for years AND YEARS #like do yall not remember what jared and jenesn used to say #there have been many many many instances where the cast has made us feel crazy/stupid for saying anything abt destiel #im just saying TO ME its crazy that actors and creators talk so openly about these things now !!! again i was raised on merlin and sherlock #ok also im confused on the queerbaiting part #everyones saying its queer coding and not queer baiting but cant they be true at the same time ? #im not being dumb on purpose i swear im just confused #like yes dean is very much bi coded and their relationship is queer coded but if the creators deny everything #and we only get a last minute confession after 11 years #that doesnt count as queer baiting ? #someone smart explain this to me 🙏

[hiphopcherrrypop]

this one goes out to ME IN 2016 or whenever!

#star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #svtfoe fanart #tomco #tom lucitor #marco diaz #years later and i still don't know how to draw tom's dumb hair #THEY USED TO BE MY EVERYYYYTHING I TELL YOU #baby's first queerbait? #maybe idk! #been in my annual mood of feeling like rewatching the entire show but also rly not wanting to #also i am sorry to my neighbors bc i didn't realize my windows were open when i was singing too little too late earlier today </3

[utilitycaster]

I enjoy shipping, but I cannot see the appeal in watching shows only for the purpose of shipping; I think it closes you off to so much. I think coming into a work with the expectation that it will only succeed if a particular configuration of people end up happily in a relationship with each other when the curtain closes means you will reject so many unexpected choices altogether. It destroys your ability to appreciate the entire concept of tragedy. Just, imagine refusing to let yourself enjoy "I'm not a gardener" because you are too furious that a different kiss than the one you wanted happened to feel other emotions.

#does shipping above all make you less empathetic: I deadass think it does: an ongoing investigation by m utilitycaster #this alludes to candela bc i'm still thinking about how good that line is and how (thankfully only a couple) people ignored it #bc they were so mad that the horror show was a tragedy and that marion kissed jean instead #i suspect though that this is behind the viciousness of the c2 ships. people genuinely used the word betrayal for a thing never promised #and some of the extremely mean-spirited nature of some c3 shipping; even among ships where i see the appeal #like i am not against shipping. i like shipping. but if you define I Get My Ship as success you will be miserable and bitter so often #and i think this ALSO is why like. 19 year olds will act like they are a veteran of years of queerbaiting. #when in fact they're a veteran of watching shows bc they saw one (1) out of context gifset and thought that was a guarantee #anyway i've cracked it follow for more analysis of the nature of fandom and how it should probably be like car rentals #fandom old? no. fandom young. go get some life experience and perspective first. the trekkie housewives never missed.

[dkettchen]

Did I expect the black mirror s6e3 robot astronaut episode to turn into a transphobic hate crime metaphor this quickly rather than just a working from home metaphor? Nope.

Did my frantic googling (while trying to avoid actual spoilers) to see whether the “tragedy” the plot summary was on about was gonna be some world ending cataclysm that would upset me prepare me for this? Oh it sure fucking didn’t, so this is a PSA for y’all now

#haven't finished the episode yet but oh boy these first 20 minutes huh #black mirror #black mirror beyond the sea #trans #I don't like that the cis know about us these days I just don't like it #I am never prepared #other minorities have had to deal with these 'here's a bad thing that happens to people like you but now it's a robot/alien/etc' pieces of #media for ages but we are new to it I don't like it #I get it now I'm so sorry for everyone else who's had to go through this for years and decades goodness #like better than the inaccurate negative caricatures and transvestite serial killers and all that but fuckin' hel #spoilers upcoming don't read past this if you don't want them #is it really gonna be asking robot men whether they have a dick before mutilating them #and killing their family in front of them for sharing their life with something the hate criminals deem unnatural #like really? #like really??? are we sure about this? #gosh you guys remember striking vipers #when they kinda queerbaited and then gave us some solid cishet men having existential horror about whether shit's gay instead #those were the good times x'D #anyway I shall now go and finish watching the episode so we can get this over with heck

[dearedwardteach]

twitter and tiktok lgbts seriously need to learn to shut their fucking mouth and get educated on shit before they open it I am dead serious queer theory is not a fucking toy you can pull out as you please everytime something doesn't agree with you personally godddddd

#yes this is about the bury your gay/queerbaiting drama surrounding the ofmd season finale #but its also about what happened to that poor boy who plays in heartbreaker #ppl dont owe you shit #tv shows dont we you shit except for a good storyline and characters staying true to themselves and/or their character arc #just because you dont like something doesn't mean it has to be morally wrong / made into something that's not safe and needs to be cancelle #or whatever other dumbshit idea your social media riddled brains are producing #queer theory is not a toy for you to play with #why do you think we have medias with so many queer characters today huh? not bc u were on twitter 20 years ago cancelling medias that didnt #BUT BECAUSE QUEER AUTHORS THEORISED HOW OPPRESSION TRANSLATED INTO MEDIAS WE HAD ACCESS TO! #BECAUSE THEY PUT FORWARD CONCEPTS THAT ALLOWED US TO SEE QUEERPHOBIC PATTERNS AND BRING THEM TO LIGHT! #EVERYTIME YOU USE THOSE CONCEPTS JUST BC YOUR SORRY ASS WASNT HAPPY WITH THE DIRECTION A SHOW TOOK #TO MAKE IT A MORAL PROBLEM #YOU UNDERMINE THEM! YOU UNDERMINE THE TOOLS WE HAVE TO ACTUALLY BRING TO LIGHT QUEERPHOBIC PATTERNS IN MEDIA! #GOD WHY IS IT SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND YOU DUMB BRAINWASHED MORONS #our flag means death #ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd discourse #izzy hands #idk how to tag this for ppl who dont want to see the drama so i hope this is enough #bury your gays #queerbaiting #queer theory #god i am pissed off. #heartstopper #sorry my bad

[crowned-clown-rising]

Sometimes I'm like

ah, yes, destiel.

And since I've been here for a while I think of this:

because that used to be all that there was to those two, just eternal queerbait.

BUT THEN, THEN!!

I remember!!

Destiel now (for 2 years, actually) is also THIS

And I don't know about you but I always surprise myself with the shocking memory of very married!destiel and actually scripted and aired canon!destiel

Although it always comes with the horrible dirt-eating backlash of:

#idk everyday in the back of my mind it goes like #ah #destiel haha #WAIT. DESTIEL #destiel not haha D: #spn #supernatural #dean winchester #destiel #castiel #listen when I say those people traumatized us with the queerbait this is what I mean #it's been years and I'm still digesting it #idc if it's only canon on Cas part #the fact that we were told you sre not crazy #the fact that Cas said with words and tears I've loved you from the beginning #13 yr old me would never believe it #it's been a JOURNEY

[none-gender-left-man]

God give me the patience to not engage with byler doubt that's cross tagged

Give me the serenity to hold my hope high and not bicker w ppl who are jaded and can't keep their neg to themselves

Give me the wisdom to scroll past and let them be proven wrong later without wasting my energy

#byler #what is with the amount of doubt im running into can yall stop fucking crosstagging your posts in the tag like #thats rude af actually were here to have a good time not deal w other people's baggage from being queerbaited by other shows #stop acting like ST is default 'just like SPN/Sherlock' #we may be wrong but i sincerely doubt it at this point and either way why shit on us for having hope and fun #by having hope and talking about it being real and canon we contribute to social normalization #meanwhile yall will double down on comphet (even other gays) then wonder why normalization of queerness is so hard to het #get* #i understand why you doubt #but pls keep it to yourself bc we still have two years of waiting before anything is final #stop calling it bait before the story is done??? jesus

[oflgtfol]

in hindsight the way voltron basically laid down and rolled over and imploded was fucking hilarious. what a batshit experience that show was

#i need somekne to do a deep dive into this show and detail everything that happened both in the show / with the crew / with the fandom #bc i erased it all from my mind #like didnt fans try to blackmail the show crew over a ship or something I CANT REMEMBER #was that voltron or some other show #and just. the way the queerbaiting was so bad and then they backtracked and was like NO IT WAS DREAMWORKS CENSORING US #and all the weirdo fans were like omg they were censored DX #but anyone with a brain could see why that was a lie #…. and then like a week later it was in fact revealed to be a lie #like they did all that themselves for no reason LMAOO #GOD AND THE ONE VOICE ACTOR WAS ON TUMBLR #AND THEY REBLOGGED FANART OF THEIR (15 YEAR OLD GIRL!!!) CHARACTER SHIRTLESS #and when people were upset by that the VA just . posted a sparkle gif saying ‘are you upsetti have some spaghetti’ #and it eventually snowballed into the VA bullying a 14 year old off tumblr #and i think the same VA also bullied ANOTHER 13/14 yo off tumblr but on a separate occasion #LIKE IT WAS INSANE IT WAS SO INSANE #brot posts #i was like 15-16 for all this it has permanently changed me as a person #being 15 on tumblr in the voltron fandom did some irreparable harm to me psychologically

[kendallroynsfw]

i hate to say this but from one queer to another. if you guys are still letting yourselves get queerbaited by netflix….. that’s on you lmao

#i learned my lesson 5000000 years ago and i will never hope again. anyway watch the anti-queerbait ofmd #like i love you all so much but my loves. they hate us. #i Told You All they were dropping vol2 on july 1st for homophobic reasons #expect disappointment and never be disappointed angels

[orionsangel86]

There is something about proudly proclaiming a show "tumblrista catnip" that makes me emotional.

Something about how for years tumblrinas were ridiculed by show creators.

Something about Supernatural having a meta episode set at a convention with all the weirdo fans that made the main characters uncomfortable. Something something about Becky and the message that fangirls are gross and obsessive.

Something about Sherlock and the way fans were portrayed as crazy obsessive nutjobs for trying to figure out how he faked his death.

Something about creators mocking fandoms, dismissing them as freaks. Something about queer people not being welcome to engage in their creations because "why do you have to make everything gay?"

Something about the malicious culture of queerbaiting throughout the 2000s/2010s, followed by Bury Your Gays tropes across the media landscape because hell, you should be grateful we even gave you queer characters to begin with - and everyone dies in our show! You ain't special!

Something about Destiel questions being banned from conventions...

And then...

Something instead about Good Omens, and letting the story adapt naturally, embracing the fanbase and leaning into the fanservice.

Something about Our Flag Means Death, and the genuine outpouring of love and affection between cast, crew, and fandom that culminated in an explosion of fanworks that were never once mocked or deemed gross or wrong.

Something about Sandman, and staunchly digging in their heels on the queerness of it all, refusing to give in to the homophobes and instead avidly mocking THEM on social media rather than us.

Something about the writers hearing about fandoms favourite ships and excitedly stating that YES! We DID lean into that because it happened naturally and made sense.

Something about a firefighter coming out as bisexual after 7 seasons...

So yeah, something about a new high quality show made FOR US. By creators that love US. Respect US, and WANT our love.

Something about US FINALLY being a target audience for the best shows being made on TV now.

Tumblrista catnip. Creators saying "we made this for you. You are important. Your voices have been heard."

It just... all got a bit overwhelming for a moment there.

#dead boy detectives #neil gaiman #representation matters #queer culture #the sandman #good omens #ofmd #911 #destiel #supernatural #sherlock #fandom history #tumblrista catnip #look how far we've come

[yellowsubiesdance]

finally, years after this series finished and all the queers were freaking out about that finale, i’ve finished legend of korra

#the ending was good #and for the time that it came out that ending was a huge win for us bisexuals #but also given how many years have passed since it came and all the progress we’ve made since then it can definitely feel like a let down #i can understand new queers watching that and feeling like they were queerbaited #but again when it came out the queers went feral #aside from the ending queer rep um that last season was aight #it was pretty good actually not just aight #but i think season 3 was definitely the best out of all the seasons #but this one was good just bc we got toph finally #and then we never see her again lol

[neil-gaiman]

hey mr gaiman. i saw that this post got revisited and wanted to address it.

i submitted this ask over a year ago on my old account and it was one of the stupidest things i ever did. it was my first tumblr account. id only been really online for a few weeks. i was 13. i was just coming back to school after a global pandemic.

ive been a fan of good omens for years and a fan of yours for longer. i was brought up reading odd and the frost giants and fortunately the milk, and as i got older i fell in love with your norse mythology book, good omens, snow glass apples, the sleeper and the spindle, and more.

i was excited to see one of my favorite authors on tumblr and tried to come up with the most bold and interesting ask i could think of.

i was rude and misinformed and it was a stupid choice of me to send it in with no thought.

but i got feedback. some in the form of kind suggestions. quite a few in the form of death threats and people telling me to kill myself.

while those specific messages were rude and hateful, the point got across. i educated myself to the best of my abilities, and eventually came back online.

not only did i misuse the term queerbaiting but i also implied that you were not an amazing supporter of the queer community. that’s absolutely incorrect. you’ve done so much for us with activism, representation, and overall kindness.

i wanted to address this ask that got so much attention because despite moving accounts i still feel guilt and shame every time i see it, or even when i interact with any of your posts at all. i need to actually address it.

also, i wanted a proper apology to be made. by no means am i now a saint. but im trying to be more thoughtful about thinking before i speak.

whether or not you decide to make a public response to this, i think ill find some peace knowing you’ve received this. ive needed closure on this for a long time.

im overjoyed and thrilled that season two is so close. thank you for tolerating the dumb questions of pretentious kids and thank you for helping to create a world where we can grow to be better than we were.

First of all, and most importantly, I'm really sorry that people were mean to you. That's awful. And nobody should ever have to deal with death threats or online threats and attacks, let alone a thirteen year old.

And secondly, you do not owe me an apology. I figure I have a Tumblr account, people ask things. Mostly they'll get nice replies, occasionally (normally when I'm being asked the same thing over and over) the replies will be terser. There has to be a certain amount of rough and tumble though, and occasionally I'll grab an ask that represents all of the asks I've had on that subject, and try and reply to all of them. That's what happened to you. I was getting tired of being accused of Queerbaiting for the occasional answer about a Season that was not yet released and about which nobody knew anything. And I needed to tell everyone who was doing this that they had to stop now. You had the misfortune to be the representative of all of the other people.

If you are not making mistakes you are not human and you are not learning anything.

(I wish there was tone of voice on the internet.)

And I think you are growing and learning and will make a fantastic adult.

I really hope you enjoy Season 2 when it drops.

#And I hope as many people are nice and supportive about this post #as were mean about that first one

[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 🥲

[portraitofadyke]

I think Our Flag Means Death is a very unique show in a way that they don't care to cater to mainstream media. And yes, by mainstream media I mean the general straight people.

I think it's very important that we have feel-good shows like Heartstopper. A few years back, a tv show about two queer boys in high school would be unthinkable. But its plot generally revolves around explaining queerness. Sure, it's nice. It's definitely the show I would watch with my family if I were a teenager and wanted to come out again (I had to watch glee with my mom to do that. not optimal). It's the show where teenagers find love and themselves, but sexuality is constantly discussed, explained, sanitized. It's the show straight people will watch. And that's good. We do need shows like that.

But Our Flag Means Death doesn't even bother trying. It's a show about mostly middle aged people, most of them not white, most of them queer in one way or the other. It's really a game of spot the hetero, like someone said. And the characters are not sublte about it. They have sex for fun, something most characters don't have in tv shows, definitely not queer characters. They make dick jokes. They are not all conventionally attractive and they know it, and the writing doesn't care. They are all people before they are queer representation.

Stede's storyline in s1 is in a part about discovering himself and his sexuality, but it's not obnoxiously repeated. Instead, it's played in a natural way. Stede's storyline is ALL about finding himself, yet it's not just about that. Just like Ed's storyline, it's about toxic masculinity and allowing himself to have fine things and self-hatred and finding his place in a world, something most of us can relate to. Hell, none of us were even sure the main characters were going to kiss and end up together, we were all so sure it's a queerbait. But this show doesn't bait its audience. It's not afraid of weirdness. It embraces it instead. There is a nonbinary character. No, they are not a mermaid. Call them jim. That's it. Yes, Lucius and Pete got engaged. Everyone there knows what mateolage is, congrats. Olu and Jim never break up and then Archie shows up, then Zheng, and we all know. We all know.

Two men nearing fifty have a deep, romantic moment where one of them appears as a mermaid, and it's treated as the profound scene it is without ridiculing it. This would never fly in a 'mainstream' media. It would have to be downplayed. Here, it saves Ed's life.

The show tells you racists suck, but it doesn't tell you in a condescending, finger-waving way catered to the white people. Instead, it sets your ship aflame and burns you alive, runs a knife through your hand, puts poison in your drink and kills you.

This is a show for adults, for queer people of all kinds, and it does not give a fuck if anyone else gets it. It's so rare to find a tv show that caters to us, yet alone a tv show that's genuinely good and caring and so well loved.

This is a show that basically straightbaited its audience in the first season, that's how much they don't care.

Idk, I just feel that it will take ages for another show like OFMD to exist in a world full of MCU and media that tries so hard to be liked by everyone it loses its personality and charm. Rant over

#ofmd #yes i am rewatching for the millionth time #just felt like talking about ofmd and how important it is for the milkiont time #it's not perfect but it is to me

[suzetonic]

Still don't understand all the hate Legend of Korra (and more specifically Korrasami) has gotten recently.

"But it was too forced!" "There were no big hints they liked each other romantically!" "They didn't kiss so it's queerbaiting!"

You do realise the finale aired in 2014, before same-sex marriage was legal all accross the US (France had just barely made it legal the year before!), with basically no precedent for queer rep in cartoons let alone the main character, right?

I remember watching the last episode the day it aired. I had just realised I was bisexual myself at the time. Seeing two women hold hands while lovingly staring into each other's eyes was GROUNDBREAKING. The crew had to FIGHT to make it happen, and Nickelodeon's S&P STILL censored it to hell. But that was the FIRST sapphic relationship I'd seen confirmed in a cartoon, and I was certainly not the only one. I felt SEEN. I felt VALIDATED.

It was one of the big steps forward for queer representation in media. We wouldn't have what admittedly still little queer rep we have now if it hadn't happened.

#legend of korra #korrasami #queer representation

[buckttommy]

i don't think i really understand pr and what actors should and shouldn't say. why is what oliver's saying so wild?

Hi, it's okay. I'll walk you through it. The tl;dr version is written in bold.

So. PR, or, Public Relations, is the dynamic between the general public (us) and any entity that has interests to protect (in this case, that would be the network + 911). PR teams are designed to ensure the relationship between the public and [their entity] is as harmonious as possible. Happy relationship, happy consumer, happy company.

Because keeping the peace is the intention of good pr, pleasant ambiguity is the name of the game. People can speculate, and people can guess, but no one should ever be able to look back at your words and claim that you've given a definitive answer on anything—good or bad—because definitive statements can harm the entity's bottom line, whatever that may be.

Oliver is very good at keeping the peace between the network and the public. We know this because we have seen evidence supporting this fact for years. He always says a little bit of what everyone wants to hear—he'll keep things vague (plausible deniability) for the sake of the network, while also giving nods of support and encouragement to the fandom without promising anything. You know how he's talked about being cautious and aware of what he's saying in interviews because he knows the impact it could have? Okay, well, aside from wanting to avoid "queerbaiting" allegations, this is part of the reason. PR is a very delicate game and he plays it very well.

Or at least he did.

Right now, Oliver is using binoculars to identify the line, making sure the line is exactly where he left it, and then taking a giant wrecking ball to it. Because now, Oliver is saying things that should absolutely not be said in interviews, or to anyone in the general public, at all. Now, he's elevating the conversation from pure speculation, to actively confirming and placing the blame at people's feet for things that have gone on behind the scenes.

Saying that Buck's Queer storyline was floated years ago? Huge no-no. Why? You were on tumblr yesterday. You can see why. People were angry, and people were hurt, but most importantly, people started to ask questions. We started to look at past arcs, past moments in Buck and in Buck and Eddie's relationship (because, whether you like it or not, Buck's queerness is and always has been tangentially linked to the existence of Buddie) to try and pinpoint when/how his queer arc could have launched. Now. Most of us have been here for years, so we can easily look back at the show and see where it's pretty damn obvious how Buck's Queer arc could have launched, depending on the arc(s), the characters at the time, things that were going on outside of the show (re: Oliver liking Buddie edits before/after the shooting), etc.

But we're not the only ones who are reading these interviews. Other people—casual fans, new fans, people who don't give a damn at all and are just clicking around on the internet—are going to look at these interviews, they're going to look at the things Oliver is saying, and they're going to have the same questions that we had. When could this have happened? And, more importantly, why didn't it? To keep it simple: everyone is going to start looking a little closer at the man behind the curtain, and the network does not want that.

Now, sure, it could be argued that, "hey, 911 isn't with FOX anymore, so maybe Oliver is allowed to say these things." But that's not really how it works. Sure, he might have a bit more leeway (as in, a microscopic, so-small-it-might-as-well-be-insignificant amount of leeway) to say whatever it is he wants, but this isn't the first time a major transfer/acquisition has occurred, and there are safeguards in place (such as NDA's—Non-Disclosure Agreements—which often do not expire for years post-acquisition, depending on the entity they're protecting) to prevent him from harming FOX's bottom line. So, that reasoning rings hollow. Especially because, now, it's not just FOX he's pulling into the fray either.

In the article that dropped today, he openly acknowledges this thing between Buck and Eddie in Season 7. And at this point, we're well into ABC's era. So the fact that he's saying, "I went to Tim and asked if there's something I can play with when Eddie says he's going on a date"—that's odd behavior from him. Not necessarily bad, just odd. And after years of toeing the line, the question that has to be asked now is why? And, more importantly, why now?

Does this mean that Buddie is going canon? Not necessarily (and, before anyone freaks out, I'm not saying it's not going canon either; I'm just saying this isn't an indication). But The Buddie Problem, at least, in the way Oliver is addressing it, is something the Higher Ups would want to keep quiet for as long as possible, for whatever reason. Maybe because they intend to go forward with it. Maybe because they don't. But the fact that he's cracking the shades open and letting light through is deeply fascinating.

But, despite all this, it's important, also, to realize that, even with demolishing the good PR line he's always walked so carefully, Oliver still isn't promising us anything. He's still treading carefully regarding how we, Buddie shippers, will interpret his words. He's not claiming Buddie canon is a go and it'd be remiss to think that's the implication here when it's not. He's not that stupid, and he's not that cruel. But all of it is very curious.

So that's why a lot of us are looking at each other, and then looking at Oliver, wondering what the hell he's doing. Because he knows better, and we know he knows better. We know he's very good at playing this delicate game but right now, he's making moves that are... intriguing... to say the least. And it's not just him, even though he's the main culprit. 9-1-1's move to ABC—and this entire press junket since 7x4—has been rife with sensitive information being released to the public, starting with Lou's untrained self revealing that it was supposed to be Eddie and Tommy that were going to get together, and circling back around to... literally every single word Oliver has uttered in the past three weeks.

So. It's odd! As you can see. So I'm sitting back, and I'm waiting and seeing because something is happening behind the scenes, and I don't know what it is (and I don't even think it's bad!) but it is still very much happening. So.

#god this was so long and i'm so fucking late for work #jack answers mail #tv: 911 #oliver stark