depending on the story

Evanuris Week

Day Five: Andruil

By definition you can't accidentally queerbait. Queerbaiting is specifically using a same sex pair from the show to market the show to queer audiences with no intention of ever following through on a romantic relationship.

There is officially licensed Destiel merch signed off on by Kripke. Teen Wolf had a commercial with the actors for Derek and Stiles draped over each other talking about being "on a ship." Both shows actively used scenes between them as marketing while actively mocking fans for wanting them together. Sherlock has multiple characters refer to Johnlock as a couple, including characters we're supposed to believe are never wrong about human behavior and pushed those scenes in marketing. Then they acted insulted when fans saw them as a couple.

That's queerbaiting.

Done on accident it would just be queer subtext. Done because they had no other choice due to censorship is queer coding.

The specific meaning of the word is really starting to get lost and it's a pretty important one to keep accurate. It describes a very specific phenomenon that was done repeatedly and maliciously for decades and is meant to examine that specifically.

jeanne trevelyan buys into being andraste's herald full-force. she was the youngest of 13 (twins with her brother, mace; several of her siblings are half-siblings from her father's first marriage), and her maternal grandmother is a fierce player of orlais' grand game. she meticulously married off her non-inheriting children to try to cultivate influence in all corners of thedas, with jeanne's mother being married to the widower trevelyan due to the comparative size of the trevelyan clan.

jeanne herself had three potential paths in life, according to her grandmother: marry an influential man, join the clergy, or become a templar, with grand-mama much preferring that she join the clergy. because, you see, grand-mama had always hoped one of her grand-daughters would one day become divine, and with jeanne's age and the divine's age, she hoped jeanne would be that grand-daughter.

in fact, mother giselle and jeanne are already in contact long before the events of the game, as jeanne's grandmother had introduced them in the hopes that mother giselle would become something of a mentor to jeanne.

all of which is just to say: in all the ways that dhavi is exactly what the chantry doesn't want their inquisitor to be, jeanne is exactly what they do want her to be. or so they think.

because even when the spirit of the divine tells her that it wasn't andraste who led her out of the fade, jeanne decides andraste was merely acting through the divine, that she's still chosen—she continues the facade of being andraste's herald even after being told otherwise. and instead of letting cassandra, leliana, or vivienne become divine, she ascends the sunburst throne herself.

the worst part, however, is that she begins donning masks as divine, participating in orlais' grand game even though by all rights the chantry is meant to be above mortal politicking. she aligns the chantry even further with orlais. she is just... the utter opposite of dhavi in all meaningful ways.

in her playthrough she romanced cullen and ignored his arguments when she decided to go down the templar specialization even after she knew about his addiction. she doesn't encourage him to continue taking lyrium, but she doesn't shy away from taking it herself.

which might have something to do with the masks.

ANYWAY

Do you ever think about Cassandra searching for someone else to lead, someone else to carry that responsibility, someone else to become her saviour?

I spent several minutes just staring at them (and trying to convince them to bite my fingers.) When my sister’s violin lesson ended, her teacher came out to the yard and explained that these goldfish were the same small creatures that were often unfortunately sold in plastic bags at state fairs. They were only about two inches long apiece, when she bought them and put them in the new, empty pond. In essence, they were like every goldfish I had seen before, but they had been given a much larger, much richer environment in which to flourish. As a result, they had grown into some of the most remarkable, vibrant creatures my twelve-year-old self had ever met with. All because of a pond.