fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6107 ]

[ SECRET POST #6107 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6107 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 32 secrets from Secret Submission Post #873.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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02. https://i.imgur.com/a5J5WCq.png

It's very easy to have a 0% shipbaited score: simply withhold predictions and always be skeptical that anything will be canon. Done, 100% never baited, pat yourself on the back.

This would be more impressive if you can list and somehow prove 1) non-explicit queer ships in 2) non-explicitly queer media that 3) you DID predict would happen that happened, but you can't exactly do that anon.

As-is this secret says nothing much besides that OP seems to think that queerbaiting means "will they or won't they, now with 100% more gays!" and doesn't realize they aren't the same thing.

A+ reading comprehension. You thought Johnlock was going to be a thing for real, didn't you?

DA

No, they just seem aware that queerbaiting is not about ships? Plenty of it is "is this character queer representation or not" even if ships aren't in the picture and writers being like weeeell maaaaaybe who knows???

When has this happened? Because I can think of many more instances of a fandom going ‘this is totally meant to be canon/this character is meant to be queer’ only for the creators to explicitly state this isn’t the case and never will be, but the fandom ignores it and carries on deluding themselves, only to get act betrayed when it doesn’t happen just like the creators said it wouldn’t.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2023-09-26 00:06 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2023-09-26 00:48 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2023-09-26 00:17 (UTC) - Expand

Not a shipper, not talking about any particular ships.

A+ reading comprehension right back at you.

No it’s very easy to tell, you’re just dumb.

LOL I'm not even a shipper, there's nothing for me to tell. But I'm pretty sure that most people were sure that Cas>Dean wasn't going to be on screen canon and Eve/Villanelle weren't going to be on screen canon, not for real (that's the whole reason they were complaining after all), and then what do you know.

Writers can change things whenever they want. The only way to have a 100% success rate is to not play, or ignore all the times they did that.

Using Eve/Villanelle is especially funny as they were a romance that was set up from season one, it wasn’t subtle and was very clearly heading there, you actually have to be stupid to think there was a chance it wouldn’t.

Dean/Cas is one sided canon, sort of, so you’re not winning any points there either. So my point of you being dumb stands.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2023-09-26 19:34 (UTC) - Expand

I feel this. I always use to wonder if I was immune to getting desperate for shows/media to make a queer couple canon because of entering fandom in the early 2000s where unless it was specifically a show catering to queer people then it was just unlikely to happen for the most part. This just meant that you could hit fuck-it and ship away without having to care about the source material, because if its never gonna offically be cannon then you'd still have fanfics lol.

I saw someone on Tumblr blame the show Glee for starting the trend on hearing about certain fandom ships and made some of them canon; giving an era of fans the idea that if they can be annoying enough on social media like twitter - then they'll get their way eventually.
I'm inclined to believe that tbh.

Mm, I feel you. Whether or not I LIKE it, I can tell when ships are being set up purposefully. Sometimes creators are throwing possibilities out there, sometimes I can tell they're committed to a specific endgame.

And that's a COMPLETELY different thing from whether two actors have chemistry! Sometimes the showrunner is pushing a couple where the actors don't particularly have chemistry, meanwhile one of them will have OFF THE WALL chemistry with someone else in the cast, and OFTEN that will lead to shippers in the writers' room who will put in more moments between those characters because they want to see them play off each other, even knowing they will never become a couple.

And both those things are completely different from the issue of what characters would have the 'best' relationship by whatever metric a group of shippers might choose! Maybe there's a canon relationship A/B where the characters don't have a mutual respect and things are really emotionally uneven, and there are fans who would love to see A with their friend C who talks them up or provides the emotional support they lack. Sometimes there's a canon relationship X/Y where the characters are nothing but a source of love and respect and support for each other... and fans want to see Y with their nemesis Z, with whom they have a fascinating and charged dynamic and more potential for drama.

To me, I think it's a problem that so many modern fans place such a high priority on a ship going canon, and make it a problem when it's not, or complain that they've somehow been played or lied to. There are a lot of factors that go into shippability, for canon and non-canon pairings alike. But a lot of people run with the word 'queerbaiting' when it's NOT really accurate-- not all of those ships are intentionally teased in the marketing just because the actors have chemistry or someone in the writer's room prefers them to the endgame ship! And when it's the case of an actor or writer who does not get to make the decision as to what is and isn't canon, but who genuinely loves the non-canon ship... like, babes, that's not malicious, that's them agreeing with us and wanting to give us something nice, and it's up to us how we play with it once we get it!

It’s a mixture of: a lot of fans really are that bad at reading narrative text, and fans grouping around other fans who are good at making themselves sound correct and trusting them to be right even when they’re not. And said fans enjoying the attention and believing their own hype because they have an audience.

Combine the two and you have a recipe for disaster imo which is why so much of modern fandom is… like this. Slapping on the QB label is just an excuse to give their petty ire a moral justification most of the time.

Mmm, I just don't like it when writers/showrunners tease the fans. I don't mean tease as in leave them crumbs to make them think a ship is going happen, I mean tease as in thinking that constantly joking about whether the characters are gay or not in the show itself is funny. I got fed up with it in Sherlock, and I didn't even want Sherlock and John romantically together in canon.

Sherlock and Watson are a target for this, aren’t they? A Game of Shadows also joked a lot about the possibility of them being gay.

They've been a target for this since at least the 1920s, and probably going back to the Edwardian era if you knew the right people.

I agree. I don't know, maybe it's something other than queerbaiting? I always thought of it as a form of queerbaiting or connected to it, I can see others here are using the word with a specific meaning that this type of thing may not fall under. I guess if it's happening with a couple that the creative team knows queer audiences would really like to see together, it strikes me as either a form of queerbaiting or similar thing. Whatever it is, I hate it, comes across as very meanspirited and uncomfortable for me as a gay viewer.

ayrt

I personally think of it as queerbaiting, but I didn't want to give OP the impression that I actually thought Sherlock/John was being supported by the show, because I didn't think that. But I don't care for the way the writers treated the fans about the ship. If they're not going to be canon, then just tell the damn story and stop wink wink nudge nudge joking about it.

ayrt

Yes, it's less the ship is supported by the media, more mocking the idea of the ship and teasing viewers who want to see the ship/gay characters by suggesting the characters are gay, but it's all a joke, it's not actually a thing, etc. I find it distasteful whether it falls under specifically queerbaiting or not (I agree that it does, for me, because it's still stringing the viewer along for a ship that will never happen, and knowing it's only a joke doesn't make it less irritating).

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2023-09-26 19:34 (UTC) - Expand

You know, it's really weird to me that I've come across people accusing creators/writers of more than one show of queerbaiting when there were actual queer characters and relationships on those shows. The characters were just not the ones those people wanted, I guess.

Because "queerbaiting" is not real. It is literally just people mad their ship isn't canon trying to dress it up in progressive language to make their tantrums seem more legitmate.

No, it's a real thing with a word that gets overused and misused. It's like "gaslighting" and "cultural appropriation."

Writers who have stated afterwards that they liked implying a queer ship might happen when they didn't mean to make it happen are guilty of queerbaiting. That is the definition. If we don't know their intent, we can't know for sure if something is queerbaiting. But it's not like writers stating their intent was to queerbait in all ways except using the word has never happened.

Fans have used the phrases "queerbaiting" and "bury your gays" about the same ship or characters, and that shows so many don't know what either thing means. One ship can fundamentally not be both. If it's really queerbaiting and one of them dies, it's not bury your gays because the gay isn't canon. If it's really bury your gays, it's not queerbaiting because the gay is canon. You can't have your hate-cake and eat it too.

I have no interest in what will be canon and it is a great's way to live.

It honestly really sucks being stuck in a fandom where seemingly 90% of my fellow shippers were utterly convinced the clearly-not-going-to-be-canon ship would be made canon, because it's almost impossible to actually talk about the ship as they exist in the canon, it becomes all about this never going to happen canon status that the fandom is salivating over and when the inevitable fall happens it turns into an absolute clusterfuck where the fandom rips itself to pieces. I just want to talk about my ships without it turning into fights over 'winning'. :(

I know ship fandoms have always had no chill, but I really wish people could just enjoy what they ship regardless of canon-status because it doesn't ultimately matter. I have both canon and non-canon ships, neither type is better, they're all fun.

It's seriously baffling. It's fans tricking themselves and then getting mad about it. I was in Sherlock fandom when all that went down and I was utterly baffled at the number of people who hypnotized themselves onto believing that Johnlock was going to be made canon. How does this happen? And yet it does.

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