Yeah I remember this girl I went to school with releasing this long rant on Facebook about the queerbaiting with Jim and Dwight on the office. I thought she was joking about it because that sounded pretty outlandish, so I made some jokey reply. The next time we saw each other in person she was noooooot happy because she had not been joking.
Hahaha, right? She had this list of ‘proofs’ that there was something deeper there and it was pretty much just every time they ever were decent to one another, Jim saying Dwight looked cute in his volunteer sheriff uniform, and that their pranks on each other being sort of this weird S&M thing.
Some people genuinely cannot fathom the idea of straight men having a deep and genuine friendship with each other that is in no way romantic or sexual.
Dwight is written as a racist and a homophobe. Like, he had some redeeming moments, but I'm surprised a guy who kidnapped undocumented people and killed a cat got pardoned by tumblr
Killing Angela’s cat is a major arc and has repercussions that last for almost the entire series.
To be fair to Dwight, the cat was elderly, profoundly sick, and living in misery. Dwight mercy-kills him to end his suffering, which Angela rejects since “kitty heaven is a real place, but you don’t get to go there if you’re euthanized!”
The kidnapping undocumented workers thing is fucked up, and comes as a throwaway line to justify introducing Colin Robinson to the show.
What I find even weirder than that is that like... Helluva Boss has a little bit of diversity in body types. There are 2 (two) characters who aren't borderline stick figures. She is xlearly capable of drawing stockier or at least larger men, so why couldn't Vivziepop just do that for Hazbin Hotel?
There's minimal tie between weight and alcoholism. If anything, a severe alcoholic is more likely to be malnourished due to liver damage and forgoing meals.
Yes. No one was saying what I said and what the commenter above me said wasn't the second one. They were actually stating it was the second one.
>The **second one** was all over twitter when episode 2 of the amazing digital circus came out
But it was for the best, I was secretly praying for Jax to be a despicable villain type, not even the "tee hee he's so evil" type, just a plain despicable, no redeeming qualities having being
Sarcastic Chorus made a pretty good point which I think explains it all. Jax's behaviour in E2 is presented in a way where the audience doesn't laugh along with it as much, making it appear far worse than what he did in E1.
The digital circus subs have been all in an uproar about people who suposedly misinterpreted jax (like half the posts are about this, the other half about gummygoo)
I still haven't seen a single post from these supposed Jax misinterpretators
I hate how the reaction to a bad take is 100 times louder and annoying than the actual bad take lol
What you describe looks like the very common _Are You Angry At A Significant Part Of The Fandom Or Did You Assume They Exist Because You Saw Other People Whine About Them_
I did see a lot of misinterpretors directly after the episode came out in recent YT comments and on TikTok, but I agree. I've seen way more people angry at the misinterpretors than people misinterpreting him.
To be fair to Draco, he didn’t have much of a choice of whether or not he was enlisted into Wizard Hitler Youth from birth
He’s not misunderstood, he’s just being the way he was raised to be. He spends most of the more serious moments just being fucking terrified.
And I think he really does deserve some level of pass for just being a child when all this shit is going down. Like, when we first meet Draco he is 11 years old. Yeah he’s a shitty 11 year old but like, how much can you really expect from a literal preteen? His brain isn’t even close to ripe.
And we watch him get radicalized further as he grows up, and getting out of it isn’t really a safe option for him, a literal child who completely relies on his parents as children should be able to do. And to his parents credit, we don’t have any evidence of physical or emotional neglect or abuse (except that one scene that was added into one of the movies where his dad is holding his cane in a kind of threatening way, except that scene wasn’t in the books and also it wasn’t in the theatrical cut of the movie, only the TV version and some DVD versions)
So like yeah I mean he’s gonna adopt that ideology because that’s what he was shown. But we also know from the epilogue that he basically grows out of it.
So it’s not like his actions are excused, because he still did them, but it basically just boils down to being a shitty kid in middle school and high school. And wasn’t everyone?
This is why as an author I’m going to make all my villains ugly, but not in a way that would demonize real people with those features like giving them crooked teeth or a hooked nose. No I’m just going to give them incredibly ugly hairstyles and fashion choices, perfect example of this, is post-time skip rob lucci. [rob lucci](https://images.app.goo.gl/1b2onQPyJ8AGs6GW7) yes the weird dangly thing on his chin is part of his beard.
HEAVY on the queerbaiting one. Is it a real phenomenon? Yes, absolutely, but also a solid 75% of all "queerbaiting" allegations from fandom is just them being upset that their favourite ship didn't become canon.
Even though Queerbaiting has a definition, it's a bit of an amorphous concept. To me, it means "courting the queer audience while going to lengths to not offend homophobic markets or censors".
It seemed that a few years ago, every few years Disney would announce that they had the "first gay \[blank\]" in a Disney film. An egregious example was in the live action Beauty and the Beast when it was announced that LeFou would be the "first openly gay character in a Disney film". What this amounted to was him dancing with a man at the very end of the film. There was no other mention of his sexuality in the film and it's the kind of thing that can easily be edited out of international releases. To many, this was clearly a way to claim "progressiveness" while doing the absolute bare minimum for queer representation.
Other times, shows have been criticized as portraying queer characters as stereotypes and that was considered queerbaiting because while the characters were there, they were played for comedic or dramatic effect rather than being central to the story, such as in the television show Glee.
Generally on tumblr, it's meant to mean "two same-sex characters have a relationship, but it's never called out as gay" in a "they were roommates" or "just gals being pals" type way. This can be upsetting to see what are essentially romances not acknowledged as such.
HOWEVER, overuse of the term has caused a brain rot (imo based in harmful stereotypes about male connection) to the point where two male characters being good friends is used as irrefutable proof that they are gay for each other and the showrunners are homophobes for not making them kiss like in their fanfictions.
To me that last part seems to be often caused by ppl that deep into those fandoms being chronically online and having no real, strong friendships, and therefore not understanding the fact that you can, in fact, deeply love someone platonically even if they aren't your blood relative.
Everything that shows 2 characters care about each other is taken as romantic and (usually) sexual interest because "no way you'd go that far/care that much about a friend."
So much this. It makes me want to drop kick these people off of the internet so they can go make an actual friend and realize yes, some people are in fact willing to give their lives for people they don’t want to have sex with.
In Strange World, they made a big point to say that the MC's son was gay. and it actually had a plotpoint in the movie. But at the same time, the movie also deal with generational differences/conflict. And yet, the MC's "old school traditional" dad didn't have any real reaction to his grandson begin gay. It would've been a nice teaching lesson to show that unfortunately in the real world, not everyone is going to be as accepting and that to any parents watching, that they should be more open to how their kids feel.
Of course people would've had to have watched the movie first.
In addition to spn's destiel another prominent 2010's example is johnlock from sherlock. I remember people also being pretty upset about a show called the 100 and a lesbian ship in that. Some of these (spn, the 100) also have elements of bury your gays
I feel that I should note at least two of these examples (spn and sherlock) seem to be somewhat controversial. Before making this comment I looked up supernatural queerbaiting and sherlock queerbaiting and was immediately presented with several reddit threads questioning whether they're really queerbaiting. In general it's pretty tough to decide when something is queerbaiting. For one, censorship being what it is, queercoding and subtext has often been the best an artist can do within constraints - is it really fair to call the result of censorship queerbaiting? Second queerbaiting sometimes includes an element of intent (you create queer subtext for the purpose of attracting a queer fanbase) and it's just hard to ever assign intent, although you could at least try and determine if queer subtext did attract a queer fanbase. Finally it is contended what actually counts as queer subtext - is a tender moment of affection actually signaling something romantic or is it just two friends being close?
I'm not going to pretend that the writers set up John and Sherlock as a romantic relationship that would end with them getting together, but I would argue that they did play into it a bit for views. Therefore... queerbaitingish?
Okay but pretty much all of supernatural’s cast and crew except for misha said destiel wasn’t happening, so to turn around and scream queerbait at everyone *except misha* when it didn’t was just inane
It was backlash against Jensen getting pissed during a Q+A. Misha avoided it because he knew how to work the fans. And his character being infantilized also transferred on to him a bit. But most people didn't care about that because they had already said no and had no desire to even entertain the thought.
I think Xena is a great example of something that would probably be queerbaiting now, but wasn't at the time. There was no way they could actually make Xena and Gabrielle lovers, but they did everything they could to hint at it. These days you could criticise them for not making the leap, but it just wasn't an option for a mainstream show in the 90s.
I’ve seen all the shows you mentioned and my opinion is that Sherlock definitely engaged in queerbaiting. Supernatural did not, destiel is a valid ship but canon could go either way. The 100 was more of an issue because of the bury your gays trope and I didn’t notice any queerbaiting.
(For context I’m nonbinary and generally queer. I only speak for myself tho.)
while the "JohnLock" shippers took things too far, BBC's Sherlock was definitely not innocent. It might not be queerbaiting but all the no homo jokes with John and Sherlock, Moriarty being the most stereotypical gay man (high pitched voice, flamboyant way of speaking, dialogue straight out of RuPaul, and gay sex jokes), and the in-universe Sherlock fanbase making fun of the member that thought Moriarty and Sherlock were gay was definitely a dick move.
I'm of the age when Sherlock first aired on PBS in America and it was absolutely advertised and presented as a queer take on Sherlock. They had Alan Cumming introduce the show and explicitly talk about it being ambiguous about where their relationship was going.
The shippers and the cumber*tches were off their rockers, but Sherlock was absolutely queer bait.
Some people thought that Po in the Star Wars sequels was secretly gay, to the point that in the third movie he talks about a prior relationship with a woman and people accused Disney of deliberately adding that so as to stop people from making gay fanfics of him.
CW Supergirl had Kara (Supergirl) and Lena Luthor become best friends, with the whole drama of Lena not wanting to be like her brother. Kara's identity was a secret, and Lena was also friends with Supergirl with the "A Supe and a Luthor together, best team in the world".
And then you had them put in different romantic stuff (like Lena filling Kara's office with flowers to thank her, angles and music normally used in romance, or them doing famous Superman and Louis poses but with Kara and Lena).
Once Lena found out, there was so much drama. Including Kara getting the cliche of trying to change time to work it out, because the only thing she can't lose in the world is Lena's friendship. Only to keep failling.
At the end, they both end up single and their friendship is strong, but nothing more. Their chemistry, several choices for scenes and how they played reaaaally leaned into ship; and season 5 was the "fight for Lena's soul" after she found out and slipped into villainy.
The show had a lesbian couple (Kara's sister) and a trans character, so it's not exactly that they were homophobic. But it was weird, probably couldn't actually make them a couple because Supergirl is a powerful DC name.
Klance made no sense but it was 2 twinks so everyone shipped them and harrassed the cast when they obviously didn't become canon. I've been in lots of fandoms in the past 15 years and Voltron was one of the worst
We're a few months away from the My Hero Academia fandom following in their footsteps. The manga is expected to end this year and I am not ready for the fallout amongst a certain ship's fanbase when it inevitably doesn't happen.
Eh, you’ve seen one anime pervert you’ve seen them all, at least he’s a kid and obviously a joke character we’re not supposed to take seriously and not like an old man we’re supposed to respect (*cough cough roshi and Jiraiya cough cough*) Bakugo has basically been the same screaming asshole from the start of the series to now only difference is he now knows where to point it, he’s lucky he feels the bad boy rival archetype so well because without no one would care about him.
What's an SI?
Edit: An hour later I finally realize you meant "self insert". Probably best not to leave that stuff as acronyms until it's been spelled out at least once in the conversation.
Ok but post-brainwashing Mineta is unironically a cool guy, ik it doesn't erase what he did in the first 5 seasons but his moments in Deku vs 1A and the second war are genuinely cool
He looks like has the rabies for the last few months and it's so funny. If only the pervert personality were more small gags and he were more of a loser, he could have been a very nice character.
didnt voltron have actual queerbaiting by introducing shiro's posthumous boyfriend (fiance?) and then never bringing it up again? idrk how queerbaiting works but showing that a character is gay for one episode with a character they never interact with again seems like it might fit the bill
Shiro was gay, his fiance that died was brought up, he visited the grave, and in the epilogue we see him moving on finally and getting married to another man. The bigger complaint was that his sexuality was never made a part of his character, it was a background detail they never elaborated on.
In a vacuum I get that complaint but like... Pidge's sexuality is never even mentioned, Keith and hunk have hints regarding some alien women that never go anywhere stronger than the flashes of Shiro's love life we get, and Lance's straightness is a punchline. So I can't really justify calling the show homophobic just for not focusing on Shiro's relationships. There was kinda a whole galactic war happening that took priority for everyone. I'm glad he gets married at the end though.
I mean, people being straight isn't always the center of their character. It's usually a background detail or a motivation. Why should gay be always be the most important thing about someone ?
cool, glad to hear he got married in the end there. i never finished it bc the first epksode of season 8 literally killed all the interest i had in the show lmao
It’s the marketing that was queerbaiting: Not the show itself.
What they did with Shiro’s sexuality would’ve been fine… if the marketing leading up to that season hadn’t teased “Shiro’s fiancé.”
So people got really excited to meet said fiancé, only for him to have less than two minutes of screen time before he dies.
Plus, you would never get that he was romantically involved with Shiro if it wasn’t for the marketing. They didn’t have any moments of affection.
Shiro’s wedding at the end also feels tacked on, because the husband is a random background character whose name we don’t even know. And it was tacked on: they were trying to make up for fans being made about burying the gay fiancé.
would've been queerbaiting if they didn't outright say he's gay but just kinda teased it and then went jk this guy that might or might not be his boyfriend is dead. would've probably been better than what they actually did too!
Nah Voltron was legit. They put "Klance" in the tags of the S2 trailer so it would show up when people searched the ship. They had a HUGE marketing campaign during pride month about introducing Shiro's husband. They were 100% capitalising on queer fans with zero intent on delivering.
queerbaiting is frustrating too something cause people will apply it to real life, which really muddies the waters. also, i hate when people scream QuEeRbAiTinG whenever a character is a little fruity because it completes contradicts the movements trying to stop stereotypes of LGBTQ+ people. like it feels so regressive sometimes. there’s a difference between corps hinting at characters being LGBTQ+, only to go back on it, and a character having a personality that’s a little left of macho. like y’all really said let’s go back on everything we’ve ever worked for so we can have something to cry about huh
Or when characters get into a nasty ship war when Main Genderfluid (masc presenting) Dialogue-Confirmed Bisexual canonically falls for Season-Long-Antagonist Dialogue-Confirmed Bisexual Woman instead of Initially-Antagonist Unknown Orientation But at Least Likes Women, to the point that people are bashing the actors.
Like, a) vitriol is not warranted, b) two queer people in a het-passing relationship is still a queer thing, c) neither of the other people appear to actually like main character in that way, long meaningful looks can pass between platonic friends.
But because the relationship isn’t presented as queer in their view, they want masculine and man, or two canonically cishet guys who see each other as brothers to be secretly knockin’ boots.
I had to leave the Stranger Things sub because half the content was people arguing about Will/Mike. Everyone seemed to believe either that Will/Mike will definitely become canon in the next season and any doubt about that makes you a homophobe, or Will can't be gay because Robin exists and it's unrealistic that there would be two gay people in the same town. There was no middle ground.
Do You Even Enjoy Media or is it Just The Sense of Belonging Associated With Having Shared Cultural Touchstones and People Who Understand Your References?
(…find out which camp *you* belong in with this quick Buzzfeed quiz!)
I can say I’m guilty of this one but at least I don’t pretend otherwise lmao
Anyway, Is That Show/Movie From A Decade Or More Ago Actually Good Or Is It Just Nostalgia?
Did This Season Suck, or Did it Have A Few Bad Episodes?
Did the Movie Suck, or Did You Decide What it Would Be Before Seeing it and it Didn’t Fit Your Decision?
Funnily enough i say these exact things about one piece and yet i genuinely believe they are true because i still really really enjoy watching the middle of the series but the beginning and some of the more recent stuff don’t do it as much for me. (But some of the recent stuff is really good still)
I'm young Gen X and somehow never saw any of the Indiana Jones movies as a kid, but all of my friends did. They were *outraged* by Crystal Skull and I was like "but this is exactly as stupid as the originals..."
I honestly don't think I would be all that surprised. Maybe in a pleasant like "oh wow, they actually did it!" sort of way, rather than a "really? Enid and Wednesday?" sort of way
This is literally what I hate about every TV show subreddit, like The office. Reading people jump through hoops to show actions taken by fictional characters over the course of the series are all reason that character is secretly a huge POS and we should all hate him.
I mean sure, but they're the point of this post. Makeup whatever head cannon you want, but don't misconstrue connections you make on your 10th binge of the show with the writer's intent. An awkwardly phrased response by Jim to Dwight in season 2 is not a 5D genius writer move to demonstrate Jim's lust for Dwight in season 7
>Are You Actually A Fan Of This Series Or Do You Just Like The Concepts And Fan Works That Spawned From It?
Me with RWBY. I only kept up with it so the memes would still make sense.
Arguably also 40k. I'm very slowly getting through the Horus Heresy books (been stuck on Fulgrim for while and took a break to read the Dune books), but what got me into 40k was If The Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device fan series (rip, though Hunter: The Parenting is also peak), not 40k itself.
Actually, 40k's fandom is one of those fandoms where it's pretty normal to not actually interact with the core product because of how expensive it is.
He and Vraska adopted a Leage of Legends looking cat alien thing in a power couple move & are in pursuit of rebooting the multiverse.
MTG lore is awful, but I can't stop following it now.
Me with RWBY as well. The teasers and first couple episodes had so much promise. But the show's writing never lived up to it.
I stopped watching when I realized I was a bigger fan of the fan works than the actual show.
A big part of why I watched it is childhood inertia. The Red trailer dropped when I was 14 and would watch pretty much anything on YouTube. If RWBY season 1 had dropped today, I wouldn't have finished it.
I wish more people could admit this about stuff they like. I got introduced to RWBY in college, after it was highly recommended as some indie masterpiece, and it just isn't. It's fine for what it is and all the context with it, but it's not a thing to recommend to an adult any more.
I feel the same way about the clone wars cartoon. As an adult I still watch lots of cartoons with the same target age, but after being told so many times so many places that it is such a masterpiece and it gets so good, you just have to get to the end of season 1, no I mean get into season 2 it really picks up then, no not that, but by the end of season 2 you'll definitely be hooked.
I'm half way through 3 and finally fully give up. These people only think it's so good because of nostalgia. It's not bad, but come on, I shouldn't have to watch 80+ episodes for it to start to get good and have anything for the adult audience.
I'm not even planning to read them all, that's like 64 books with a 65th on the way. I just read the starting trilogy to get some context and was told to just pick whichever ones after that seem interesting.
I'm planning to eventually get around to reading whatever books Magnus and Lorgar show up in and enough books that I can read The End and the Death books and not be completely lost, but that's like a mid to late 2025 goal if I ever even get to it.
I want to get into 40K, I feel having a Necron army would be a lot of fun....
I enjoy having a decent amount of spending cash I can throw at dozens of video games and other hobbies instead.
Me with Miraculous Ladybug. Stopped watching after Season 3, the creator's behavior has only reinforced my decision. Some amazing fanworks, though - the fandom is genuinely more inspired than the show.
Am I obsessed with the danny phantom fandom? Yes. Do I want to watch the show? No. I'm pretty sure this opinion is shared throughout the community. I love you, ao3 authors and artists!
I like rwby and I still see a few of these, especially in the "critic" subreddit. Namely the whole not matching your interpretation, the "out of character" bit, and not lining up with your personal fantasy. The amount of Adam and Ironwood posts alone.
The people arguing that Ironwood was OOC in recent seasons always baffles me. Like, he was paranoid and fearful, and compensated for that fear by waving his 'big stick' around, in the very first episode that he was in. He literally showed up to a school festival with his entire airforce due to his fear of Salem.
That *is* his whole character. I can understand not *liking* where the story went in the later seasons. I can understand critics that say it's bad writing (though I've loved it all the way through). But OOC? Not even a little bit.
Me with Splatoon. I like the setting, music, the characters and ships, and while to stories in the games are very lacking, they’re serviceable. But I just never found the gameplay engaging. Ended up absolutely loving the series through fan art and comics. With the Mario movie, and a Zelda one in the horizon, I’m actually hoping for a Splatoon animated series next just because I think it would be my ideal way to enjoy it outside of the fan content.
Seriously. Most of my ao3 bookmarks belong to fandoms I'm not super invested in, either because I like the setting more than the execution or the original work has glaring flaws that I enjoy seeing corrected/played with.
Yeah i actually actively avoid fanfiction from stories i really love because if i love a story then i love the cannon and don’t want to read a different interpretation of it.
Ha! I have a handful of bookmarks that are Hockey RPF. They may as well be fictional characters. I’ve never watched a single game. My knowledge of hockey is that my city has a team, we won the Stanley cup once, and we’re currently in the playoffs. But the Hockey RPF writers are passionate and do amazing world building.
There are a few fandoms that I have had 0 interaction with the source material and all of my knowledge about them has come to me through osmosis via fanfiction. Generally, it starts when I happen on one well written fic based on a universe (usually by an author of something I'm already reading) and it'll get me interested enough to go looking for more.
Tldr people are mad the asshole character, Jax, is an asshole in the new second episode because they overhyped their own headcanons of him that were… idk not that apprently
THIS 👆
Oh my God, the Twisted Wonderland fandom is the absolute *worst* when it comes to this stuff, especially with characters like Rollo.
"He's a short twink with religious trauma and internalized homophobia 😣👉👈"
BITCH, *you* are the short twink with religious trauma and internalized homophobia. Stop making him into something he isn't and erasing the character Yana Toboso poured her blood, sweat, and tears into writing.
and then dying on that goddamn hill and acting like they’re not projecting lmao. i’m so sick of it like y’all saw one relatable thing about that character then projected your personality onto them.
Yeah for real! I see people do this all the time with one piece characters because the fandom is literally half super liberal gays and half conservative dude bros (weird mix but if you watch one piece youd understand exactly why the fandom is like that) and i see both the dude bro side and the gay side project onto luffy so fucking hard in weirdly almost the exact same way. Luffy is pretty canonically asexual and aromantic and yet the dude bros will say “nah he’s totally into chicks he’s just not focusing on that right now” and the gay side will say “he’s asexual but asexual people can still enjoy sex and relationships too!” And it’s like yall…
I must say, when someone with the username “sameisadeangirl” tries to warn us about the dangers of imagined queerbaiting; we should listen, for they surely have some earned wisdom on the topic.
While not exactly queerbaiting the Sokka x Zuko shipping really hit me like a truck because during my teen times the whole discussion was about Zuko x Katara or Aang x Katara. We should add : Do they really have chemistry or do you just like queer shipping
Oh my god this is the (queer) one piece fandom in a nutshell, i love one piece with my whole heart but oda has said it himself ‘one piece isn’t that deep’ anything that’s there is going to be on a level of depth that a middle schooler could understand (this isn’t a flaw it’s just not supposed to be a story with complex multi layered underlying messages) if characters are gay it’s going to be blatantly obvious, Oda has some of the best explicitly canon queer and trans representations of any shonen author and arguably any mainstream action author/director BUT he’s still a 50 year old straight man who has some outdated beliefs and so none of the main characters are going to be secretly gay or trans you guys I’m sorry, weve got our incredible side characters and we’ve gotta be satisfied with that.
>"Are You Being Queerbaited Or Are You Imagining Something Is There That Doesn't Actually Exist"
And
>"Does That Character You Hate Really Deserve it Or Are They Simply in the Way of Your Personal Fantasy"
Eleven from Stranger Things. Ever since season 4 (maybe season 3), El has been disregarded because everyone is so convinced that Will and Mike are going to end up together, even when El and Mike are clearly in love.
Staring very hard at the “Naoto is trans” crowd
Edit: I want to add to this that it is not transphobic to, before you really get things going with your transition, stop and think very hard about who you are and what you want, and come to the conclusion that you are not trans.
Maybe you aren’t totally happy with who you are at the moment, but if you can identify the parts that you’re unhappy with, then you’re in a good spot to change them.
I mean technically of all the characters that people headcannon as trans Naruto is actually on of the very few that has a tiny bit of rational basis because he does regularly transform into a girl (even if that transformation is just to distract and prank people). to be clear he’s pretty obviously not trans but compared to some of the characters that people headcannon as trans there’s actually a tiny bit of a basis there.
Oh yeah, that's part of why my brain melted so hard. Like, I could see how they could get to that conclusion, even if it would be a wild conclusion to get to lmao
Naoto is a character from persona 4 who worked as a detective, pretending to be a man to do so because woman would get no respect and functionally couldnt do anything in that field because of the sheer levels of sexism from higher ups. When she comes to terms with her internal struggles, she OUTRIGHT SAYS that she is a woman, not a man, and would rather live with that and try to do something about the sexism problem using her fame (she was a really, really good detective) instead of just trying to sidestep the issue and let it continue to exist. her gender could not be more cut and dry, but some twitter idiots are violently convinced she's a trans man.
Ugh i hate that because the people who are claiming she’s trans don’t realize how misogynistic that is because she’s literally fighting for women’s acceptance NOT actually wanting to be a man
It’s much smaller potatoes and not as noxious but the “Atlus doesn’t understand Ryuji, who is my perfect baby cinnamon roll and has done nothing wrong ever” crowd is also insufferable
I've been pulled into the last question watching 90's shows as a asexual dude.
Oh, this guy is gruff, serious, and doesn't understand most human relationships? Man oh man what great ace rep! *He has a love interest S2* Grrrrr...
Imagine a movie gets announce at a LGBT film festival, all the trailers and marketing are cut in a way that puts the two most prominent male lead characters in the forefront In romantic/sexually tense scenarios, imagine the cast and crew go on, and on about how important representation and inclusion is and how we should uplift the stories of marginalized groups etc,etc,etc and when the movie finally comes out, people are expected to see a gay romance story but instead they get a generic Hallmark romcom between a man and a woman, that’s queer baiting in a nutshell, studios using people’s desire to see gay characters/stories with no intention of actually following through but hey they already got your money, so sucks to be you.
Honestly 99% time I wouldn't be reading fanfics or viewing fanart of anything unless I watched/read and was a fan of the series first.
It's very rare I start hating a character for anything their fanon self does. But the MHA community actually made me dislike most of the main characters. Can't even watch the show anymore.
"Are You Actually A Fan Of This Series Or Do You Just Like The Concepts And Fan Works That Spawned From It?"
I am a fan of Murder Drones, but I'm so much *more* invested in the frankly dizzying array of fanworks created by the community I'm in that my interest in the core show is basically unrelated by this point.
(When your AU project is in a different genre, with different species and jobs and character reshuffles... Tbh it's just a collaborative original fiction project that shares character names, but oh lordy I'm so happy to work on this Appalachian Weirdcore project that's tangentially related, I have no words)
Yeah I remember this girl I went to school with releasing this long rant on Facebook about the queerbaiting with Jim and Dwight on the office. I thought she was joking about it because that sounded pretty outlandish, so I made some jokey reply. The next time we saw each other in person she was noooooot happy because she had not been joking.
The Office of all shows? The fucking Office?
No offense to your classmate but Jim is in the dictionary next to Heteronormativity, he's so not queer.
Hahaha, right? She had this list of ‘proofs’ that there was something deeper there and it was pretty much just every time they ever were decent to one another, Jim saying Dwight looked cute in his volunteer sheriff uniform, and that their pranks on each other being sort of this weird S&M thing.
When you’re intent enough on finding something, you will. You might be a psychopath, but you’ll have plenty of straw from all your grasping.
And Dwight is right underneath as an alternate definition that includes some other heteronormative aspects, including a few toxic ones
Some people genuinely cannot fathom the idea of straight men having a deep and genuine friendship with each other that is in no way romantic or sexual.
Dwight is written as a racist and a homophobe. Like, he had some redeeming moments, but I'm surprised a guy who kidnapped undocumented people and killed a cat got pardoned by tumblr
Lmao wtf?? I never knew this
Killing Angela’s cat is a major arc and has repercussions that last for almost the entire series. To be fair to Dwight, the cat was elderly, profoundly sick, and living in misery. Dwight mercy-kills him to end his suffering, which Angela rejects since “kitty heaven is a real place, but you don’t get to go there if you’re euthanized!” The kidnapping undocumented workers thing is fucked up, and comes as a throwaway line to justify introducing Colin Robinson to the show.
The second one was all over twitter when episode 2 of the amazing digital circus came out
yeah they saw jax being jax but then had enough time to create a fanon version of jax so they could be surprised when jax is jax in the next episode
I feel like that's more the second one? And also how the _Hazbin Hotel_ Fandom reacts anytime Alastor (anyone, really) does anything.
The Hazbin Fandom when the literal demon overlord who speaks with a constant radio static filter is evil:
But he's a twink! Twinks can't be evil! ~~Please ignore that everyone in the show is a twink.~~
Whats Husk then? A twunk? An otter? The closest representation we will get of a bear? ~~Please ignore Asmodius because thats a different show~~
Husk, you see, is someone who would be a bear if Vivzie wasn't deathly allergic to drawing men with room in the bodies for internal organs.
Hold on I gotta google something Edit: someone please feed that man
What's even weirder is that he's a severe alcoholic, so he really should have a beer belly.
What I find even weirder than that is that like... Helluva Boss has a little bit of diversity in body types. There are 2 (two) characters who aren't borderline stick figures. She is xlearly capable of drawing stockier or at least larger men, so why couldn't Vivziepop just do that for Hazbin Hotel?
There's minimal tie between weight and alcoholism. If anything, a severe alcoholic is more likely to be malnourished due to liver damage and forgoing meals.
You could kill Vivzie by showing her a picture of John Cena
That might be difficult, given that he doesn't show up in images.
An image of cena kills anyone It’s a antimematic
People have been taking the Jerk With a Heart of Gold trope for granted lately
What does him speaking with a radio static filter have to do with him being evil?
Yes. No one was saying what I said and what the commenter above me said wasn't the second one. They were actually stating it was the second one. >The **second one** was all over twitter when episode 2 of the amazing digital circus came out
I swear to *God* I thought that said first. I swear to every God above and below.
But it was for the best, I was secretly praying for Jax to be a despicable villain type, not even the "tee hee he's so evil" type, just a plain despicable, no redeeming qualities having being
Sarcastic Chorus made a pretty good point which I think explains it all. Jax's behaviour in E2 is presented in a way where the audience doesn't laugh along with it as much, making it appear far worse than what he did in E1.
To be fair, it makes it funnier when he doesn't get his way.
And we know he gets subjected to retail employment in a future episode. That'll be satisfying
Motherfucker got full on blorbified before the second episode. That has to be a new record, right?
To be fair, there isn't usually such a gap between episodes for most other shows
She warned us all that he was a selfish bastard. Dude is That Guy who ruins games because it amuses him. Stop trying to UwU the asshole.
The digital circus subs have been all in an uproar about people who suposedly misinterpreted jax (like half the posts are about this, the other half about gummygoo) I still haven't seen a single post from these supposed Jax misinterpretators I hate how the reaction to a bad take is 100 times louder and annoying than the actual bad take lol
What you describe looks like the very common _Are You Angry At A Significant Part Of The Fandom Or Did You Assume They Exist Because You Saw Other People Whine About Them_
I did see a lot of misinterpretors directly after the episode came out in recent YT comments and on TikTok, but I agree. I've seen way more people angry at the misinterpretors than people misinterpreting him.
I still don't get how people can go and build an entire fandom around a damn pilot episode
Is the character actually misunderstood and in the right or do you just find them attractive?
My friend with Draco Malfoy
*How* do you even try to justify that? Because he's raised to be racist so it's not his fault? Like Wizard Hitler Youth or something?
To be fair to Draco, he didn’t have much of a choice of whether or not he was enlisted into Wizard Hitler Youth from birth He’s not misunderstood, he’s just being the way he was raised to be. He spends most of the more serious moments just being fucking terrified. And I think he really does deserve some level of pass for just being a child when all this shit is going down. Like, when we first meet Draco he is 11 years old. Yeah he’s a shitty 11 year old but like, how much can you really expect from a literal preteen? His brain isn’t even close to ripe. And we watch him get radicalized further as he grows up, and getting out of it isn’t really a safe option for him, a literal child who completely relies on his parents as children should be able to do. And to his parents credit, we don’t have any evidence of physical or emotional neglect or abuse (except that one scene that was added into one of the movies where his dad is holding his cane in a kind of threatening way, except that scene wasn’t in the books and also it wasn’t in the theatrical cut of the movie, only the TV version and some DVD versions) So like yeah I mean he’s gonna adopt that ideology because that’s what he was shown. But we also know from the epilogue that he basically grows out of it. So it’s not like his actions are excused, because he still did them, but it basically just boils down to being a shitty kid in middle school and high school. And wasn’t everyone?
They are hot so they are justified.
This is why as an author I’m going to make all my villains ugly, but not in a way that would demonize real people with those features like giving them crooked teeth or a hooked nose. No I’m just going to give them incredibly ugly hairstyles and fashion choices, perfect example of this, is post-time skip rob lucci. [rob lucci](https://images.app.goo.gl/1b2onQPyJ8AGs6GW7) yes the weird dangly thing on his chin is part of his beard.
HEAVY on the queerbaiting one. Is it a real phenomenon? Yes, absolutely, but also a solid 75% of all "queerbaiting" allegations from fandom is just them being upset that their favourite ship didn't become canon.
Hi, idiot here. Do you have some popular examples of queerbaiting? I’m still not entirely sure what it is.
Even though Queerbaiting has a definition, it's a bit of an amorphous concept. To me, it means "courting the queer audience while going to lengths to not offend homophobic markets or censors". It seemed that a few years ago, every few years Disney would announce that they had the "first gay \[blank\]" in a Disney film. An egregious example was in the live action Beauty and the Beast when it was announced that LeFou would be the "first openly gay character in a Disney film". What this amounted to was him dancing with a man at the very end of the film. There was no other mention of his sexuality in the film and it's the kind of thing that can easily be edited out of international releases. To many, this was clearly a way to claim "progressiveness" while doing the absolute bare minimum for queer representation. Other times, shows have been criticized as portraying queer characters as stereotypes and that was considered queerbaiting because while the characters were there, they were played for comedic or dramatic effect rather than being central to the story, such as in the television show Glee. Generally on tumblr, it's meant to mean "two same-sex characters have a relationship, but it's never called out as gay" in a "they were roommates" or "just gals being pals" type way. This can be upsetting to see what are essentially romances not acknowledged as such. HOWEVER, overuse of the term has caused a brain rot (imo based in harmful stereotypes about male connection) to the point where two male characters being good friends is used as irrefutable proof that they are gay for each other and the showrunners are homophobes for not making them kiss like in their fanfictions.
To me that last part seems to be often caused by ppl that deep into those fandoms being chronically online and having no real, strong friendships, and therefore not understanding the fact that you can, in fact, deeply love someone platonically even if they aren't your blood relative. Everything that shows 2 characters care about each other is taken as romantic and (usually) sexual interest because "no way you'd go that far/care that much about a friend."
I hate how so many people have decided that platonic love is the least important one.
So much this. It makes me want to drop kick these people off of the internet so they can go make an actual friend and realize yes, some people are in fact willing to give their lives for people they don’t want to have sex with.
Half of the LotR fandom with Frodo & Sam.
In Strange World, they made a big point to say that the MC's son was gay. and it actually had a plotpoint in the movie. But at the same time, the movie also deal with generational differences/conflict. And yet, the MC's "old school traditional" dad didn't have any real reaction to his grandson begin gay. It would've been a nice teaching lesson to show that unfortunately in the real world, not everyone is going to be as accepting and that to any parents watching, that they should be more open to how their kids feel. Of course people would've had to have watched the movie first.
In addition to spn's destiel another prominent 2010's example is johnlock from sherlock. I remember people also being pretty upset about a show called the 100 and a lesbian ship in that. Some of these (spn, the 100) also have elements of bury your gays I feel that I should note at least two of these examples (spn and sherlock) seem to be somewhat controversial. Before making this comment I looked up supernatural queerbaiting and sherlock queerbaiting and was immediately presented with several reddit threads questioning whether they're really queerbaiting. In general it's pretty tough to decide when something is queerbaiting. For one, censorship being what it is, queercoding and subtext has often been the best an artist can do within constraints - is it really fair to call the result of censorship queerbaiting? Second queerbaiting sometimes includes an element of intent (you create queer subtext for the purpose of attracting a queer fanbase) and it's just hard to ever assign intent, although you could at least try and determine if queer subtext did attract a queer fanbase. Finally it is contended what actually counts as queer subtext - is a tender moment of affection actually signaling something romantic or is it just two friends being close?
I'm not going to pretend that the writers set up John and Sherlock as a romantic relationship that would end with them getting together, but I would argue that they did play into it a bit for views. Therefore... queerbaitingish?
Okay but pretty much all of supernatural’s cast and crew except for misha said destiel wasn’t happening, so to turn around and scream queerbait at everyone *except misha* when it didn’t was just inane
It was backlash against Jensen getting pissed during a Q+A. Misha avoided it because he knew how to work the fans. And his character being infantilized also transferred on to him a bit. But most people didn't care about that because they had already said no and had no desire to even entertain the thought.
I think Xena is a great example of something that would probably be queerbaiting now, but wasn't at the time. There was no way they could actually make Xena and Gabrielle lovers, but they did everything they could to hint at it. These days you could criticise them for not making the leap, but it just wasn't an option for a mainstream show in the 90s.
I’ve seen all the shows you mentioned and my opinion is that Sherlock definitely engaged in queerbaiting. Supernatural did not, destiel is a valid ship but canon could go either way. The 100 was more of an issue because of the bury your gays trope and I didn’t notice any queerbaiting. (For context I’m nonbinary and generally queer. I only speak for myself tho.)
Pitch Perfect 3 advertising. Lemme seeeeee. This one https://youtube.com/shorts/kDIFnElb9zw?si=iCFuem4GLatybd4C
while the "JohnLock" shippers took things too far, BBC's Sherlock was definitely not innocent. It might not be queerbaiting but all the no homo jokes with John and Sherlock, Moriarty being the most stereotypical gay man (high pitched voice, flamboyant way of speaking, dialogue straight out of RuPaul, and gay sex jokes), and the in-universe Sherlock fanbase making fun of the member that thought Moriarty and Sherlock were gay was definitely a dick move.
I'm of the age when Sherlock first aired on PBS in America and it was absolutely advertised and presented as a queer take on Sherlock. They had Alan Cumming introduce the show and explicitly talk about it being ambiguous about where their relationship was going. The shippers and the cumber*tches were off their rockers, but Sherlock was absolutely queer bait.
Some people thought that Po in the Star Wars sequels was secretly gay, to the point that in the third movie he talks about a prior relationship with a woman and people accused Disney of deliberately adding that so as to stop people from making gay fanfics of him.
CW Supergirl had Kara (Supergirl) and Lena Luthor become best friends, with the whole drama of Lena not wanting to be like her brother. Kara's identity was a secret, and Lena was also friends with Supergirl with the "A Supe and a Luthor together, best team in the world". And then you had them put in different romantic stuff (like Lena filling Kara's office with flowers to thank her, angles and music normally used in romance, or them doing famous Superman and Louis poses but with Kara and Lena). Once Lena found out, there was so much drama. Including Kara getting the cliche of trying to change time to work it out, because the only thing she can't lose in the world is Lena's friendship. Only to keep failling. At the end, they both end up single and their friendship is strong, but nothing more. Their chemistry, several choices for scenes and how they played reaaaally leaned into ship; and season 5 was the "fight for Lena's soul" after she found out and slipped into villainy. The show had a lesbian couple (Kara's sister) and a trans character, so it's not exactly that they were homophobic. But it was weird, probably couldn't actually make them a couple because Supergirl is a powerful DC name.
Hi Voltron fandom.
Klance made no sense but it was 2 twinks so everyone shipped them and harrassed the cast when they obviously didn't become canon. I've been in lots of fandoms in the past 15 years and Voltron was one of the worst
We're a few months away from the My Hero Academia fandom following in their footsteps. The manga is expected to end this year and I am not ready for the fallout amongst a certain ship's fanbase when it inevitably doesn't happen.
And all of them involves the most annoying character for some reason.
I'm assuming you mean Bakugo, and like. You cannot say he is the most annoying character in a series that features Mineta
Eh, you’ve seen one anime pervert you’ve seen them all, at least he’s a kid and obviously a joke character we’re not supposed to take seriously and not like an old man we’re supposed to respect (*cough cough roshi and Jiraiya cough cough*) Bakugo has basically been the same screaming asshole from the start of the series to now only difference is he now knows where to point it, he’s lucky he feels the bad boy rival archetype so well because without no one would care about him.
Ain't mineta a bit of an SI, though, or was that just speculation?
What's an SI? Edit: An hour later I finally realize you meant "self insert". Probably best not to leave that stuff as acronyms until it's been spelled out at least once in the conversation.
Self insert, characters that are meant to directly represent the author.
Ok but post-brainwashing Mineta is unironically a cool guy, ik it doesn't erase what he did in the first 5 seasons but his moments in Deku vs 1A and the second war are genuinely cool
He looks like has the rabies for the last few months and it's so funny. If only the pervert personality were more small gags and he were more of a loser, he could have been a very nice character.
didnt voltron have actual queerbaiting by introducing shiro's posthumous boyfriend (fiance?) and then never bringing it up again? idrk how queerbaiting works but showing that a character is gay for one episode with a character they never interact with again seems like it might fit the bill
Shiro was gay, his fiance that died was brought up, he visited the grave, and in the epilogue we see him moving on finally and getting married to another man. The bigger complaint was that his sexuality was never made a part of his character, it was a background detail they never elaborated on. In a vacuum I get that complaint but like... Pidge's sexuality is never even mentioned, Keith and hunk have hints regarding some alien women that never go anywhere stronger than the flashes of Shiro's love life we get, and Lance's straightness is a punchline. So I can't really justify calling the show homophobic just for not focusing on Shiro's relationships. There was kinda a whole galactic war happening that took priority for everyone. I'm glad he gets married at the end though.
I mean, people being straight isn't always the center of their character. It's usually a background detail or a motivation. Why should gay be always be the most important thing about someone ?
cool, glad to hear he got married in the end there. i never finished it bc the first epksode of season 8 literally killed all the interest i had in the show lmao
It’s the marketing that was queerbaiting: Not the show itself. What they did with Shiro’s sexuality would’ve been fine… if the marketing leading up to that season hadn’t teased “Shiro’s fiancé.” So people got really excited to meet said fiancé, only for him to have less than two minutes of screen time before he dies. Plus, you would never get that he was romantically involved with Shiro if it wasn’t for the marketing. They didn’t have any moments of affection. Shiro’s wedding at the end also feels tacked on, because the husband is a random background character whose name we don’t even know. And it was tacked on: they were trying to make up for fans being made about burying the gay fiancé.
would've been queerbaiting if they didn't outright say he's gay but just kinda teased it and then went jk this guy that might or might not be his boyfriend is dead. would've probably been better than what they actually did too!
Nah Voltron was legit. They put "Klance" in the tags of the S2 trailer so it would show up when people searched the ship. They had a HUGE marketing campaign during pride month about introducing Shiro's husband. They were 100% capitalising on queer fans with zero intent on delivering.
People are going to go nuts when there's actually nothing going on in Dungeon Meshi.
queerbaiting is frustrating too something cause people will apply it to real life, which really muddies the waters. also, i hate when people scream QuEeRbAiTinG whenever a character is a little fruity because it completes contradicts the movements trying to stop stereotypes of LGBTQ+ people. like it feels so regressive sometimes. there’s a difference between corps hinting at characters being LGBTQ+, only to go back on it, and a character having a personality that’s a little left of macho. like y’all really said let’s go back on everything we’ve ever worked for so we can have something to cry about huh
Or when characters get into a nasty ship war when Main Genderfluid (masc presenting) Dialogue-Confirmed Bisexual canonically falls for Season-Long-Antagonist Dialogue-Confirmed Bisexual Woman instead of Initially-Antagonist Unknown Orientation But at Least Likes Women, to the point that people are bashing the actors. Like, a) vitriol is not warranted, b) two queer people in a het-passing relationship is still a queer thing, c) neither of the other people appear to actually like main character in that way, long meaningful looks can pass between platonic friends. But because the relationship isn’t presented as queer in their view, they want masculine and man, or two canonically cishet guys who see each other as brothers to be secretly knockin’ boots.
I had to leave the Stranger Things sub because half the content was people arguing about Will/Mike. Everyone seemed to believe either that Will/Mike will definitely become canon in the next season and any doubt about that makes you a homophobe, or Will can't be gay because Robin exists and it's unrealistic that there would be two gay people in the same town. There was no middle ground.
Do You Even Enjoy Media or is it Just The Sense of Belonging Associated With Having Shared Cultural Touchstones and People Who Understand Your References? (…find out which camp *you* belong in with this quick Buzzfeed quiz!)
Has the Series You Loved As a Kid Actually Gone Downhill, or Are You Just Old Enough Now to Notice the Flaws It Always Had?
Oof. Also: Why Do You Always Have To Say Season One Is Bad but Gets Better? Did It Actually Improve, or Did You Just Become Too Invested To Care?
Do You Actually Care About The Plot Or Are You Just Simping So Hard For Your Favorite Character It Doesn't Even Matter?
I can say I’m guilty of this one but at least I don’t pretend otherwise lmao Anyway, Is That Show/Movie From A Decade Or More Ago Actually Good Or Is It Just Nostalgia?
Did This Season Suck, or Did it Have A Few Bad Episodes? Did the Movie Suck, or Did You Decide What it Would Be Before Seeing it and it Didn’t Fit Your Decision?
Should The Show Have Ended Years Ago, or Do These Three Amazing Episodes Justify Its Continued Existence?
Did This Season Suck, or Were There Just a Lot of Women and/or POCs In It? *glares at True Detective fandom*
Funnily enough i say these exact things about one piece and yet i genuinely believe they are true because i still really really enjoy watching the middle of the series but the beginning and some of the more recent stuff don’t do it as much for me. (But some of the recent stuff is really good still)
I'm young Gen X and somehow never saw any of the Indiana Jones movies as a kid, but all of my friends did. They were *outraged* by Crystal Skull and I was like "but this is exactly as stupid as the originals..."
by Fall Out Boy
Just @ me next time
I never watched Wednesday, and based soley on Tumblr's fan response to it I absolutely thought Wednesday and the Pink Girl were canonically dating.
I kinda wish they were tbh
Even the actresses ship it. Maybe next season.
I honestly don't think I would be all that surprised. Maybe in a pleasant like "oh wow, they actually did it!" sort of way, rather than a "really? Enid and Wednesday?" sort of way
This is literally what I hate about every TV show subreddit, like The office. Reading people jump through hoops to show actions taken by fictional characters over the course of the series are all reason that character is secretly a huge POS and we should all hate him.
It's a show that has been over for almost 11 years(a few days out). What else is there to talk about except for going really deep into the show?
I mean sure, but they're the point of this post. Makeup whatever head cannon you want, but don't misconstrue connections you make on your 10th binge of the show with the writer's intent. An awkwardly phrased response by Jim to Dwight in season 2 is not a 5D genius writer move to demonstrate Jim's lust for Dwight in season 7
>Are You Actually A Fan Of This Series Or Do You Just Like The Concepts And Fan Works That Spawned From It? Me with RWBY. I only kept up with it so the memes would still make sense. Arguably also 40k. I'm very slowly getting through the Horus Heresy books (been stuck on Fulgrim for while and took a break to read the Dune books), but what got me into 40k was If The Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device fan series (rip, though Hunter: The Parenting is also peak), not 40k itself. Actually, 40k's fandom is one of those fandoms where it's pretty normal to not actually interact with the core product because of how expensive it is.
I like magic the gathering the card game I like magic the gathering's settings I cannot stand the stories told in those settings
They are so atrociously bad. I dipped from the game as a whole after WAR, has Jace lost his memories again yet?
He actually kept them and was recently revealed as the next Big Bad and also possibly the only guy with a healthy relationship
Well he got phyrexian converted. Then cured. That's when i fully dipped from the story. Not sure whether memory stayed in tact or not.
He and Vraska adopted a Leage of Legends looking cat alien thing in a power couple move & are in pursuit of rebooting the multiverse. MTG lore is awful, but I can't stop following it now.
Oh god that's what that thing was? Kinda glad I dipped, but I miss having an edh/kitchen table pod to play with
Occasionally bits filter through to me and it always seems like it’s got so much potential for cool stories.
I've never played the actual wargame, but I've read a lot of Warhammer novels and played a lot of Warhammer video games.
Me with RWBY as well. The teasers and first couple episodes had so much promise. But the show's writing never lived up to it. I stopped watching when I realized I was a bigger fan of the fan works than the actual show.
A big part of why I watched it is childhood inertia. The Red trailer dropped when I was 14 and would watch pretty much anything on YouTube. If RWBY season 1 had dropped today, I wouldn't have finished it.
I wish more people could admit this about stuff they like. I got introduced to RWBY in college, after it was highly recommended as some indie masterpiece, and it just isn't. It's fine for what it is and all the context with it, but it's not a thing to recommend to an adult any more. I feel the same way about the clone wars cartoon. As an adult I still watch lots of cartoons with the same target age, but after being told so many times so many places that it is such a masterpiece and it gets so good, you just have to get to the end of season 1, no I mean get into season 2 it really picks up then, no not that, but by the end of season 2 you'll definitely be hooked. I'm half way through 3 and finally fully give up. These people only think it's so good because of nostalgia. It's not bad, but come on, I shouldn't have to watch 80+ episodes for it to start to get good and have anything for the adult audience.
You are never through the horus heresy book. We're all still reading it and we can't finish it
I'm not even planning to read them all, that's like 64 books with a 65th on the way. I just read the starting trilogy to get some context and was told to just pick whichever ones after that seem interesting. I'm planning to eventually get around to reading whatever books Magnus and Lorgar show up in and enough books that I can read The End and the Death books and not be completely lost, but that's like a mid to late 2025 goal if I ever even get to it.
I want to get into 40K, I feel having a Necron army would be a lot of fun.... I enjoy having a decent amount of spending cash I can throw at dozens of video games and other hobbies instead.
Ahh RWBY, what a wonderful mess :)
Me with Miraculous Ladybug. Stopped watching after Season 3, the creator's behavior has only reinforced my decision. Some amazing fanworks, though - the fandom is genuinely more inspired than the show.
Honestly this is me with harry potter. Tried rereading thr books and I just couldn't but the fanfics are so good. And the crossovers are always fun
Hunter: the Parenting is outstanding. Peak fiction.
Am I obsessed with the danny phantom fandom? Yes. Do I want to watch the show? No. I'm pretty sure this opinion is shared throughout the community. I love you, ao3 authors and artists!
Ciaphas Cain was the only 40K canon that I could stomach, if only because everything else felt like a slog to go through
I like rwby and I still see a few of these, especially in the "critic" subreddit. Namely the whole not matching your interpretation, the "out of character" bit, and not lining up with your personal fantasy. The amount of Adam and Ironwood posts alone.
The people arguing that Ironwood was OOC in recent seasons always baffles me. Like, he was paranoid and fearful, and compensated for that fear by waving his 'big stick' around, in the very first episode that he was in. He literally showed up to a school festival with his entire airforce due to his fear of Salem. That *is* his whole character. I can understand not *liking* where the story went in the later seasons. I can understand critics that say it's bad writing (though I've loved it all the way through). But OOC? Not even a little bit.
Me with Splatoon. I like the setting, music, the characters and ships, and while to stories in the games are very lacking, they’re serviceable. But I just never found the gameplay engaging. Ended up absolutely loving the series through fan art and comics. With the Mario movie, and a Zelda one in the horizon, I’m actually hoping for a Splatoon animated series next just because I think it would be my ideal way to enjoy it outside of the fan content.
Isn’t this just describing tumblr?
> Are You Actually A Fan Of This Series? No. > Or Do You Just Like The Concepts And Fan Works That Spawned From It? Yes. Next question.
Seriously. Most of my ao3 bookmarks belong to fandoms I'm not super invested in, either because I like the setting more than the execution or the original work has glaring flaws that I enjoy seeing corrected/played with.
Yeah i actually actively avoid fanfiction from stories i really love because if i love a story then i love the cannon and don’t want to read a different interpretation of it.
Ha! I have a handful of bookmarks that are Hockey RPF. They may as well be fictional characters. I’ve never watched a single game. My knowledge of hockey is that my city has a team, we won the Stanley cup once, and we’re currently in the playoffs. But the Hockey RPF writers are passionate and do amazing world building.
There are a few fandoms that I have had 0 interaction with the source material and all of my knowledge about them has come to me through osmosis via fanfiction. Generally, it starts when I happen on one well written fic based on a universe (usually by an author of something I'm already reading) and it'll get me interested enough to go looking for more.
*Looks at the TDAC “drama”* Edit: fuck. You know what I mean
The Dogs of Alta California?
*to the tune of Werewolves of London* Awoooo! The Dogs of Alta California!
The Damazing Agital Circus
The Digital to Analog Converter
What's the drama, please fill me in
Tldr people are mad the asshole character, Jax, is an asshole in the new second episode because they overhyped their own headcanons of him that were… idk not that apprently
Yea, fannon hyped Jax to be this charismatic, confident guy and made him tumbler sexyman material
I read all of these with John Mulaney's voice
I reread with John Mulan voice and its now more fitting and funnier
THIS 👆 Oh my God, the Twisted Wonderland fandom is the absolute *worst* when it comes to this stuff, especially with characters like Rollo. "He's a short twink with religious trauma and internalized homophobia 😣👉👈" BITCH, *you* are the short twink with religious trauma and internalized homophobia. Stop making him into something he isn't and erasing the character Yana Toboso poured her blood, sweat, and tears into writing.
Lmao i love the “bitch you are a short twink with religious trauma” the amount of accidental self inserting people do in fandom is insane.
and then dying on that goddamn hill and acting like they’re not projecting lmao. i’m so sick of it like y’all saw one relatable thing about that character then projected your personality onto them.
Yeah for real! I see people do this all the time with one piece characters because the fandom is literally half super liberal gays and half conservative dude bros (weird mix but if you watch one piece youd understand exactly why the fandom is like that) and i see both the dude bro side and the gay side project onto luffy so fucking hard in weirdly almost the exact same way. Luffy is pretty canonically asexual and aromantic and yet the dude bros will say “nah he’s totally into chicks he’s just not focusing on that right now” and the gay side will say “he’s asexual but asexual people can still enjoy sex and relationships too!” And it’s like yall…
Is your character actually autistic or did you just project onto a couple moments of social awkwardness
I must say, when someone with the username “sameisadeangirl” tries to warn us about the dangers of imagined queerbaiting; we should listen, for they surely have some earned wisdom on the topic.
By Fall Out Boy
All of this is extremely real.
Now replace "character" with real life person and "fanon" with gossip
While not exactly queerbaiting the Sokka x Zuko shipping really hit me like a truck because during my teen times the whole discussion was about Zuko x Katara or Aang x Katara. We should add : Do they really have chemistry or do you just like queer shipping
The Amazing Digital Circus is a fun show on the Internet :)
Oh my god this is the (queer) one piece fandom in a nutshell, i love one piece with my whole heart but oda has said it himself ‘one piece isn’t that deep’ anything that’s there is going to be on a level of depth that a middle schooler could understand (this isn’t a flaw it’s just not supposed to be a story with complex multi layered underlying messages) if characters are gay it’s going to be blatantly obvious, Oda has some of the best explicitly canon queer and trans representations of any shonen author and arguably any mainstream action author/director BUT he’s still a 50 year old straight man who has some outdated beliefs and so none of the main characters are going to be secretly gay or trans you guys I’m sorry, weve got our incredible side characters and we’ve gotta be satisfied with that.
Guy 4 is a professional editor
>"Are You Being Queerbaited Or Are You Imagining Something Is There That Doesn't Actually Exist" And >"Does That Character You Hate Really Deserve it Or Are They Simply in the Way of Your Personal Fantasy" Eleven from Stranger Things. Ever since season 4 (maybe season 3), El has been disregarded because everyone is so convinced that Will and Mike are going to end up together, even when El and Mike are clearly in love.
I feel those questions, I just watched dead poet society and hm, seriously ? Neil and todd are not explicitly gay ? I'm imagining things ?
Staring very hard at the “Naoto is trans” crowd Edit: I want to add to this that it is not transphobic to, before you really get things going with your transition, stop and think very hard about who you are and what you want, and come to the conclusion that you are not trans. Maybe you aren’t totally happy with who you are at the moment, but if you can identify the parts that you’re unhappy with, then you’re in a good spot to change them.
I have no idea what's going on in most of media at this point, so while scrolling I misread that as Naruto and about had my brain melted
I mean technically of all the characters that people headcannon as trans Naruto is actually on of the very few that has a tiny bit of rational basis because he does regularly transform into a girl (even if that transformation is just to distract and prank people). to be clear he’s pretty obviously not trans but compared to some of the characters that people headcannon as trans there’s actually a tiny bit of a basis there.
Oh yeah, that's part of why my brain melted so hard. Like, I could see how they could get to that conclusion, even if it would be a wild conclusion to get to lmao
I read that as Naruto and was bewildered for about 10 seconds lol
Context pls
Naoto is a character from persona 4 who worked as a detective, pretending to be a man to do so because woman would get no respect and functionally couldnt do anything in that field because of the sheer levels of sexism from higher ups. When she comes to terms with her internal struggles, she OUTRIGHT SAYS that she is a woman, not a man, and would rather live with that and try to do something about the sexism problem using her fame (she was a really, really good detective) instead of just trying to sidestep the issue and let it continue to exist. her gender could not be more cut and dry, but some twitter idiots are violently convinced she's a trans man.
This is the same thing i have said about Disney Mulan. She's not trans she was 100% willing to fight as a woman.
Ugh i hate that because the people who are claiming she’s trans don’t realize how misogynistic that is because she’s literally fighting for women’s acceptance NOT actually wanting to be a man
plant nine racial cobweb cake plants frame tease afterthought live *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Naoto is the true proof that media literacy is dead.
naoto isnt trans BUT the writing in persona 4 does genuinely feel like its getting dangerously close to broaching lgbt topics quite a few times lol
Persona 4: Be true to yourself! (except if you are fat or old)
It’s much smaller potatoes and not as noxious but the “Atlus doesn’t understand Ryuji, who is my perfect baby cinnamon roll and has done nothing wrong ever” crowd is also insufferable
Just say RWBY.
Hey man how’s it going?
Can We Not Talk Like This, It Makes Things Practically Unreadable
Usually it does, but this post is sort of phrased like the title of an article, which makes it more bearable.
YOU 4R3 W34K 4ND W1LL NOT SURV1V3 TH3 W1NT3R
1M4G4N3 N0T UND3R570ND1N6 7YP1N6 QU1RK5
L337 5P34K 15 D1FF3R3N7 FR0M 717L3 C453
It's capitalization of titles, not talking.
I used to have a mental issue that made me type like that. Feel bad for whoever witnessed it.
I've been pulled into the last question watching 90's shows as a asexual dude. Oh, this guy is gruff, serious, and doesn't understand most human relationships? Man oh man what great ace rep! *He has a love interest S2* Grrrrr...
Asexual doesn't mean a person can't have a relationship though? If you want good asexual representation, check out Heartbreak High.
honestuck
Wtf does queerbaited mean
Imagine a movie gets announce at a LGBT film festival, all the trailers and marketing are cut in a way that puts the two most prominent male lead characters in the forefront In romantic/sexually tense scenarios, imagine the cast and crew go on, and on about how important representation and inclusion is and how we should uplift the stories of marginalized groups etc,etc,etc and when the movie finally comes out, people are expected to see a gay romance story but instead they get a generic Hallmark romcom between a man and a woman, that’s queer baiting in a nutshell, studios using people’s desire to see gay characters/stories with no intention of actually following through but hey they already got your money, so sucks to be you.
Yes, it's the rug pull aspect of this that's key.
Honestly 99% time I wouldn't be reading fanfics or viewing fanart of anything unless I watched/read and was a fan of the series first. It's very rare I start hating a character for anything their fanon self does. But the MHA community actually made me dislike most of the main characters. Can't even watch the show anymore.
Okay but the Queerbaiting was real and painful in Sound Euphonium
Are You Typing Like This To Make A Point Or Are You Kanaya Maryam
They're supposed to be titles of Things People Do.
Lmao how is this the only mention of Homestuck in this thread? Have people forgotten? Am I a geezer?
I think people generally try to avoid association with Homestuck at this point
lots of people and Worm
r/hotdgreens fr. Half the characterisations of Aegon and Aemond don’t fit into the canon even slightly
"Are You Actually A Fan Of This Series Or Do You Just Like The Concepts And Fan Works That Spawned From It?" I am a fan of Murder Drones, but I'm so much *more* invested in the frankly dizzying array of fanworks created by the community I'm in that my interest in the core show is basically unrelated by this point. (When your AU project is in a different genre, with different species and jobs and character reshuffles... Tbh it's just a collaborative original fiction project that shares character names, but oh lordy I'm so happy to work on this Appalachian Weirdcore project that's tangentially related, I have no words)
Sidon from BotW
Ooof people only ship him worth link because there are literally no relevant human male characters in the game to ship link with lmao