Would you guys hear me out if I said that Eternal Sugar has lowkey become a victim of the "bury your gays" trope or at least something scarily similar to it
Even if she's not perma dead, it's still weird and I think it still counts. We were given a character arc of a sapphic woman who showed symptoms of BPD and was terrified of the world outside of her 'paradise' and wanted to keep her female love interest in it to protect her. A redemption arc was implied at and her love interest said she'll be waiting for her with open arms when she's ready... and when she finally steps outside the garden to pursue her passion, she basically just dies thinking she was right, the narrative proved her point. Her last moment with Holly is her telling her to get away from her before she's set on fire, and Holly just doesn't seem to gaf about her death and it's even said that we're "better off" with her gone. This isn't even just a bad ending for Eternal Sugar, Holly was implied to have loved her back and wanted to be "two halves of a soul". Sugar's sloth was still necessary in maintaining balance. All of the beasts and ancients should've gotten to understand each other. Passion and sloth should've gotten to co exist to create happiness. Sugar's own trauma is barely addressed, she never got a chance to heal, Holly isn't really given a chance to fully understand her. Then Sugar's soul gets absorbed by a man she hates who had already been causing trouble for her (Shadow Milk), and he gets to be understood and gets a proper character arc with his own male love interest? All when shadowvanilla and hollysugar have direct parallels? All when Eternal Sugar was more redeemable than him? (She actually had good intentions and let Hollyberry leave the garden and said she'd think on her words). Eternal Sugar Cookie is a traumatized and misguided sapphic woman who just wanted happiness for everyone and to protect the ones she loves and this is what Devsis did to her
Shit, maybe "bury your gays" isn't the right term, more like "bury your lesbians/sapphics", but it still has the elements of the bury your gays trope. Sapphics are denied proper character arcs so queer men can shine (even if I don't see Shadow Milk as a cis man, Devsis seems to see him as one and treats him like one, and shadowvanilla is treated like an mlm ship), so this feels like more lesbianphobia specifically than general homophobia. So I would say that this fall into something adjacent to "bury your gays". It just mirrors the way the trope is usually done (killing off characters in the middle of their arcs, not giving them the chance to be with their love interest, ect)
