THIS IS GROSS AND KINDA FUCKED. GO AWAY.

about Ben being queer coded

I must start saying this post won't be about ships. This is about some of the things in Ben's character arc that can be paralleled with queer experiences. Feel free to add more parallels on the comments or reblogs.

These are just some general observations that I already pointed out before and that I wanted to put in a single post.

For me, seeing queerness in Ben is not about simply putting him in a relationship with a men. For me, it always has been about Ben's identity as a person, about how his queerness could be inherent to his character.

Now talking about Ben's character during JWCC, the first thing we should mention is how his arc portraits a journey of self-discovery.

The way he changed after the monorail incident. The way he transformed himself and started doing things he hasn't done before. He clearly was trying to achieve more freedom by doing that.

When he turns into his "island boy" persona in season 2, his identity is not clear for him yet. He tries to perform some confidence, constantly trying to affirm himself as brave, but he doesn't know who he is.

In season 4, he freaks out about it and starts thinking he is not good enough for being that persona he was trying to be, and to protect camp fam.

This identity "crisis" is so common for queer people. Not just that, but the feeling of displacement he expresses in S4 when he's thinking that who he already is is not enough, really resonates with lgbtqia+ realities.

When he turned into an "Island Boy" we finally thought Ben was feeling free to do whatever he wanted. But the truth is that he kept feeling insecure about who he was and S4 shows this to us.

That's why I used the word "displacement" to describe his situation. I know he had his friends' support. But anyone in his situation would feel out of place, after all, he was questioning his own identity.

When he advises Yaz after she came out to him on season 5, it looks like he knew what he was talking about. For me, what justify he having that specifically knowledge about life is that he has been questioning himself too. And I'm not even talking about Ben questioning if he is queer himself, I'm talking, again, about him questioning his own identity in general. And this is already enough for us to make a parallel with queer experiences.

Guys pls tell me I'm not alone on this:

Pls tell me I'm not the only one who still lives by the "Ben's girlfriend is fake" truth. It's just that Ben liking girls sounds so surreal for me lmao.

Sometimes I think I might have hallucinated all his coded queerness. Maybe we all made it up? I don't know, seriously

Oh but what about he being bi? I swear,,, as a bisexual myself this man is not bi coded for me. Also having a girlfriend doesn't make him bi if nobody confirms his bisexuality or represents it on the show. So, no.

Concluding, I think if she ends up being real I'll pretend nothing happened, ignore it, and be delusional bc if not I would be sad so this is how I cope 👍 :D

I have just finished my jwcc rewatch. If after jwcc alone someone told me that Ben ends up getting a girlfriend, I would assume that they haven't seen a single episode of the show.

Benrius this Benji that. I don't care. Ships ultimately don't matter.

Ben has at least two scenes in which his dialogue (in my opinion very seriously) suggests that he is a queer kid. Thinking about "there's nothing wrong in being different" in season 1, and "figuring himself out" in season 4.

But the thing is. It's not just dialogue that queer-codes him.

His entire character arc heavily relies on him "being different", "standing out", going against the crowd. He only ever fully feels like he fits in in season 5 - at the end of his journey. This is literally an average queer teenager coming out of his closest experience - we all struggle(d) with feeling just a bit different, even if we were accepted into the group, even if we were supported. We still felt (still feel) that sometimes sets us a little bit apart from the norm. This is Ben's entire character starting from season 1. You could argue that all of them need time to learn how to operate within the group, and that's true, but Ben's always been an odd-ball and you can't argue that.

"But what about Yaz and Sammy? They are a canon sapphic couple and their character arcs don't follow the same pattern." Yeah. So? First of all, not every queer kid's experience is the same. Second of all, notice how by the time feelings started to bloom they were already a solid part of the group. It certainly gives a sense of safety and comfort. Ben feels different from the beginning and more importantly is treated differently. Sammy grew up in a loving environment. For Yaz the most difficult part - opening up - was already done in season 1. So yes, obviously they are not in the same situation as Ben.

ALSO ALSO. I still strongly believe that Darius, Yaz and Sammy's reaction in Chaos Theory, also confirms that they also considered Ben to be queer. Why else would they be so shocked? They know Ben inside and out - they know that his an amazing (if only a bit weird) person and an incredible friend. He is easy to love once you get to know him and they know it. So why would they be shocked?? Not because they think Ben is unlovable, but because they didn't suspect him of ever getting a girlfriend.

I have a theory, that the writers absolutely know that Ben was read (still is!!) as queer-coded and they acknowledge that. If he really has a girlfriend, I will be disappointed because I bet it will be shown as "haha, you didn't think it was true". Like... Yeah I didn't think it was true because it doesn't make any sense. the shock value will fall flat because, I kid you not, other than his two lines about his girlfriend, the entire show suggests he is gay. He never gave bisexual or pansexual vibes (and I say that as someone who looooves to put a "pansexual" label over my fav characters). If his girlfriend turns out to be fake... I'm instantly curious how it will be explained, how Ben will behave. I don't think he lied, so it would mean that she is a fraud, a catfish or a spy. I think it would be an incredible thing to explore in the show tbh.

I thought it through and through. I rewatched jwcc with Ben's girlfriend on my mind. I still believe that he is queer-coded.

I wasn't thinking about ships too, because for me his queerness is inherent to his character. For me it is about his identity as a person, not simply being with someone (yes, I tagged as Benrius but was just to more people to see it lmao).

For me he is queer coded because, like you said, he knows what is like feeling out of place. That feeling of displacement and his journey of self discovering are topics queer people are used to.

I think we should point that when he turns into his "island boy" persona in season 2, his identity is not clear for him yet. He tries to perform some confidence but he doesn't know who he is. In season 4, he freaks out about it and starts thinking he is not good enough for being that persona he was trying to be, and to protect camp fam. And again, this identity crises is so common for queer people.

Oh, and you mentioned the phrase "going against the crowd", making me think about the loneliness around it. "Oh but he was with the camp fam!" Yes, but a possible consequence of feeling displaced is feeling alone. Another thing tons of queer ppl live daily :0

About Sammy and Yaz, I think is different bc to be queer you don't have to live a typical queer experience. We are pointing Ben's experience here bc of the similarity with common queer realities, but u don't need to live a stereotypical lgbt experience to be queer

And about what to do if she ends up being real, I don't think I can just be happy for him like you lmao . I think I'm for so long on this queer coding interpretation that he having a girlfriend started feeling to much out of character for me... So like I said I will just pretend nothing happened and live my life bc if I start thinking to much about it I'll get sad :(

(This may get long+it will have S3 spoilers so everything under cut!)

This post is a way to explain why I called what happened in season 3 as heteronormative.

You are obviously allowed to read him as bi/pan coded. You can headcanon him as such. It's totally valid!!!!

The thing is, can you call what happened on season 3 as bi/pan representation? Really? Can you celebrate it as a expression of Ben's bisexuality/pansexuality?

I'm asking that bc at this moment, we don't have any canonical prove to classify him as bi or pan. And Ben hasn't a canon sexuality. So you get it's different seeing him as bi coded from seeing him as bi representation? While "queer coding" can refers to the subtext, I'm using the word "representation" to refers to the canon material.

So when I called what happened on season 3 as heteronormative I was referring to the representation, I was not doing it to exclude a possible bi/pan coding around Ben's character. I was using the canon events as base.

But what about the mentioned subtext? Can't we use it as a prove?

Look, I'm differentiating subtext from canon for a pretty important reason: interpretations of the subtext can diverge. If you think about it, it would be to easy for the audio-visual industry if for making a character from a piece of media canonically queer, they just had to do a implicit subtext. Bc this would mean they don't have to make anything explictly queer, and since not everyone would see queerness in the mentioned subtext, that media wouldn't necessarily be associated with the lgbtqia+ community ( this is a general example, I'm not referring to jwct).

And I need to be clear: I'm not saying I don't see value in subtext.I love seeing subtext in things! I'm just saying I don't use it as a official confirmation of queerness, since we never know if that said subtext were intended by the show/movie's writer.

So concluding, Ben is queer coded for me, but this queer coding doesn't match with the current heteronormative representation of his character, and that is exactly what I got disappointed at.

So let's make it clear

-> Yes I think Ben is queer coded

-> No I don't see what happened with him in season 3 as queer representation

-> Yes I recognize you can headcanon him as bi/pan or think he is bi/pan coded

-> No I don't think what happened is season 3 represents well a bi/pan person

-> Yes, I'm treating what happened as heteronormative

You asked for it, so here's a selection of my storyboards from that scene! This scene went through quite a bit of changes, and we were trying out different things for every version, so some of these are from my rough pass, and some are from the clean pass. I went a bit too over-the-top for my original rough pass -- Kenji full-on cried and everything -- so that got removed even before the clean pass, but I thought it'll be fun to see haha. For the clean pass we also tried something where you can't see the crack until both of them had left the room, but in the final the spiderweb crack was brought back.

Bonus meme from this scene that was on our meme wall for forever: