anubituf:

hibernatingsunflower:

It’s fucking queerbaiting and the fact that the fandom is jumping on it just makes me sad because WE COULD’VE HAD IT ALL

okay i’m actually going to say some shit here because i’m tired of people not understanding that cartoons are incredibly limited with what they can and can’t do.

AMERICAN MADE CARTOONS AIMED AT CHILDREN CANNOT SHOW HOMOSEXUAL RELATIONSHIPS.

it sucks. it does. but there’s a difference between a show who has overtly homosexual characters and has the freedom to show homosexual characters, such as Supernatural or Sherlock, and instead chooses to show tender moments and then slam their elbow into your side yelling NO HOMO.

however!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

cartoons don’t have that because homosexuality is still deemed “immoral” and they’ll be fucking censored or taken off the air if they try. so what you get is a lot of homosexual characters and relationships that are clearly coded to be gay and/or a couple but the average straights-only-middle-american won’t notice.

Look at how they dubbed Sailor Moon: they just changed a handful of dialogue points (added COUSINS COUSINS COUSINS in and mentioned MICHIRU KISSED A BOY) but kept everything else the same. The characters are STILL HEAVILY WRITTEN AS SUCH but CENSORS WANTED IT CHANGED.

or bubblegum and marceline from adventure time. AGAIN. CANNOT DO WHAT THEY WANT DUE TO CENSORS. a webshow implied they had a relationship at the end of What Was Missing and the parents flipped their collective shit. petitions to get the show removed went up IMMEDIATELY and that episode was taken down. Adventure Time creators have even told the people doing the comics that Marcy and Bubblegum were a thing/are a thing but they can’t say it outright because then parents will get angry, boycott their show, and get them removed. Homosexuality is also illegal in some countries these shows air in and so the fucking network doesn’t want to be screwed over so they say no.

The only show I can even think of that had an openly gay reoccuring character that was western made was Braceface, and 6teen had one for an episode, and that was Canadian made and as far as I know we’re a bit looser about that.  But that character never had a boyfriend.

So.

In conclusion.

Queerbaiting is what Supernatural does. Where Dean and Cas could get together, they could get away with it with minimal backlash, but the creators won’t because they know it’ll piss some parts of their audience off. There is nothing stopping them from doing it because their show airs at a later timeslot and is aimed at adults, and their show has openly gay characters. Queerbaiting is what their actors do, by constantly riling up the fanbase with hints and teases that they could do it but they never will.

Queerbaiting is not what Adventure Time or Korra do, because their hands are tied and they’re at the mercy of what the network execs what them to do. They’re limited to implications because they can’t fucking do it.