setting up, advertising, or alluding to queer relationships in media with no intention of actually depicting that relationship in order to capitalize off of queer viewers without scaring away general audiences.
what queerbaiting is not:
popular fandom ships not becoming canon
ambiguous or unconventional queer stories
real people experimenting with their gender or sexuality
and anything else that doesn’t fit the definition above
Kinda wanted to rant about some of my thoughts on, uh, relationships in fiction. Mostly about why a quality canon pairing is so rare to come by. Sooo here we go?
There was a time when I blamed bleak and boring canon relationships (you know, the ones you look at with an “ugh did they REALLY need a romance in this story”) on heteronormativity. However, when I started browsing through some fantasy books with lgbt+ protagonists, I discovered all the same faults within them.
By the “all the same faults” I don’t mean heteronormative abusive clichés adopted by mlm/wlw fiction - dozens of people before me have elaborated on that topic much better than I would have, besides, those books I read (or tried to) were by no means your typical yaoi manga. In fact, most of them could’ve been filed under Tumblr Approved Certified 1000% Healthy Relationships, which, alas, didn’t save them from being Boring As Hell and/or Completely Unbelievable. In some cases, the overall writing was decent, and I could’ve enjoyed the plot if not for an extremely poor-written romance. In other cases the authors managed to write amazing, believable and thrilling non-romantic interactions between characters, utterly failing the romantic ones.
At some point I understood that being able to depict an emotionally fulfilling relationship between characters had little to do with said characters’ gender. It’s more about (most probably unintentional) writing laziness.
Let’s take a generic romantic plot. Two characters meet and have some bonding moments which result in both of them liking each other, both of them Definitely Not Liking Each Other (they lie, we all know they lie), or one of them liking the other (presumably unrequited; chances are the other one was also interested right away but was damn silent about that). Bonus points if the main reason for getting attention is the good looks and/or being an oh-so-special snowflake, totally not like the others. So, the characters got their mutual interest. And - that’s it. Really. Everything else that happens between the destined lovers has one single excuse: they are romantically interested in each other, ergo this is True Love. Character A will rush in to save Character B regardless of the consequences despite having known Character B for, like, a couple of days. Character M will be willing to abandon all their values and purposes for Character N’s pretty eyes. Character development? What character development, let’s have some awkward lovey-dovey moments. Not enough tension? Enter The Horrible Ex, enter jealousy aimed at a lamppost that was lucky to receive a warm lingering gaze from the object of crush (they should be looking at meee!). Never underestimate the power of Damsel In Distress trope: even if the damsel in question is not, in fact, female, the trope will a) give the other party a strong purpose; b) release the author from burden of writing sappy interactions for the next part of plot; c) plenty of opportunity for dramatic longing and a bittersweet reunion. Tl;dr: boooriiinggg.
(Side note: I’ve got nothing against saving-each-other situations, in fact, it’s one of the strongest dynamics ever, perfect for forging bonds between characters. I’m talking about using the trope excessively and on an otherwise weak character dynamics).
Now let’s take a generic fan-favourite non-canon ship. Well, not the “take two hottest guys in the canon and make them make out” one or the “take the hottest character and the most relatable character” one, but the one with actual interactions, perhaps a semi-canon with heavily dropped hints or just a really strong well-written bond. Also, healthiness of the ship is irrelevant here. Usually those pairings are based on a friendship, a partnership of some sort, or a rivalry. The characters have come a long way, they’ve endured lots of things together (or, perhaps, inflicted lots of things on each other). The point is - they didn’t have that magical excuse of being star-crossed lovers, or (in some cases) the luxury of showing it on-screen. That’s why everything that happens between them has to have much more solid reasons, thus feeling more real, thus building the tension and the closeness without all of the romance-ish superficial means.
So, the difference is rather clear. Now for another issue: minor characters’ canon pairings which can turn out surprisingly well, much better than the main characters’ love story. What’s their secret?
There are two main ingredients for their success. Number one: well-written secondary characters tend to have distinct or even borderline eccentric traits to leave an impression despite having less screen time than the main character. Matching two quirky personalities can be fun and look good. Number two: due to their - again - not having too much screen time, their relationship development consists of several colorful bonding moments, and then - ta-da! - they are together (or mercilessly torn apart by cruel fate). No excessive brooding and moping around, no fillers - just the essence of it.
So… is it even possible to write a decent love story for your main characters?
It sure is, though there are far more examples of the opposite.
Here is an unusual tip: try leaving love out of equation for time being, at least for the first part of the story. Imagine your characters as friends, or as enemies-to-friends, whatever suits best. Does the story still look good? Do the characters have reasons to be together besides being lovestruck - like respect, trust, common goals or, vice versa, contrary goals? Is their bond strong enough without sexual tension? If not, it would be better to reconsider some things in their relationship.
Love takes time. That doesn’t mean any good love story is a slowburn - hell, given right personalities and/or circumstances, the characters may bang the first day they get to know each other, or one of them can get a crush-from-the-first-sight (mutual crush-from-the-first-sight? rather unlikely). The trick is to remember neither of those are straight paths to Eternal Love. In the first case the characters would need time and bonding events to decide they mean to each other more than a one-night pleasure or friends with benefits. In the second case the fallen-in-love character may experience disillusionment after realizing that the object of their crush is, in fact, a real person much unlike the idealized image they’ve built earlier. Afterwards it’s again up to time and bonding events to help decide whether this real and far-from-perfect person can be an object - and subject - to a stronger, more mature feeling than a fleeting crush.
PLEASE NOTE, For anyone wanting to order directly from our web store from The Americas or Europe:
Due to the ongoing Pandemic (and Japan continuing to be closed to visitors due to COVID) and now the war in Ukraine, shipping has become extremely difficult, time consuming, and expensive for us from here in the Japanese countryside. Japan Post is not shipping at all to many countries, and the rates for shipping through other shipping companies are becoming prohibitively expensive. Therefore we HIGHLY recommend you order our posters through one of our retailers closer to you.
If you are in the Americas especially Canada, we recommend ordering from Giant Robot.
Hopefully these shipping issues won’t last too much longer, but the world is full of uncertainty these days, so we want to make sure you can purchase the kozyndan products you want, even if its not directly from us (since you will pay far less shipping and likely receive them faster)!
If there is anything you don’t see on those sites, particularly our larger archival prints, or you want to place a large order, feel free to order directly from our shop and we will be happy to ship to you!
(If you are ordering from the US, Australia, New Zealand, or from Asia, feel to order anything directly from us if you like).
Thank you so much for understanding and your patience! We appreciate your support so much!
You can ship characters for happily ever afters, sure, you can ship them for tragically-then-happily, you can ship two or three or four or more, you can ship endless combinations of personality types and relationship dynamics
but you can also ship characters under very specific circumstances, or for a certain period of their life but not for all of it, or only in a certain universe. You might say “I ship these characters” and what you mean is you think they are fascinating together and could have a story together. That story could be any kind of story.
Sometimes it means you want them together for the rest of their lives. Sometimes it means something different than that.
I don’t know about you, but for me, “I ship it” means “There is a story in this ship and I am interested in that story.”
for me, “I ship it” means “There is a story in this ship and I am interested in that story.”
Thank you for articulating this. Yes. Exactly.
Shipping only destroy lives if you allow it to. Ship responsibly.
You started on a hunch at 3 am in the morning and created those first tee-shirts
You got them printed.
You even created a site to showcase the designs.
Then you plugged in an easy e-commerce platform like WooCommerce for payments.
And now you have got customers in Iceland.
Question is: How do you ship from your site easily ?
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PDFs have been sent out! Thank you to everyone who bought a digital copy of our zine If you placed an order but have not received an email, do contact us via DMs or email us at [email protected] ^^
All physical items have been shipped out! If you encounter any problems with your shipment/tracking, do contact us via email us at [email protected] and we’ll do our best to help you out!
We’re super excited to see everyone receive their zines o(≧▽≦)o If you post any pictures, do tag us @iwazine!
Digital products will be sent out by the end of the week (30th Jan) at the latest! Thank you once again for all your support and patience! ｡ﾟ(TヮT)ﾟ｡
Second batch of orders has been shipped out! If you have not received a tracking number yet, don’t worry! That means we are still preparing to send your order out to you ^^ We thank you for your patience!
If you’ve received your order, we’d love to see any pictures Do remember to tag us @iwazine so we can share your post!
