#this is a long way of saying that white queer people will never be able to give me the queer stories i need

[jesncin]

Okay, I'll bite, what are your feelings on the trans conner pitch?

Oh boy! Thank you for tossing me this bone because I have a lot of mixed feelings!

I notice that people online are very hot and cold about the Trans Superboy Pitch, they either love it or hate it and that doesn't leave a lot of room for nuance + discussion. So to be respectful to a fellow trans peer in the industry, I want to do a fair review/analysis of Skyrocket: the trans Conner Kent pitch by Magdalene Visaggio.

My general takeaway from the pitch is that I like the premise, but the details fumble the execution for me. I can really feel from reading the pitch that Visaggio cares about Superboy. She understands that he's a very weird legacy character who has struggled to find proper footing in the DC Universe after all these years. An effective legacy character is one who is able to spin off and expand upon the themes of the character whose mantle they carry. But the cheesy whatever-goes 90's-ness of Superboy's original run didn't give future writers a lot to work with in terms of a Superman Legacy Character.

It's why I genuinely believe the later retcon reveal that -part of Conner's DNA is from Lex Luthor- is a fantastic addition to his character. It takes a character who was just kind of screwing off to gentrify Hawaii back into the center of Superman's good vs evil conflict. But now Conner's problem is that his story is too tied to his origin and Superman's shadow. Placing Conner with the Kents in Smallville afterwards made him narratively redundant. What's next for him?

So let's dig into the pitch!

I like what's at the heart of this pitch. It's a very season-3-ATLA-Zuko "honor wasn't all it's cracked up to be" arc and I think that suits Conner's character really well! It's the details I have gripes with:

"Conner has been largely relegated to the Jason Todd of the Superfamily" oof, haha that's not a particularly fair characterization.

The constant comparing of Superman to Christian imagery. He's described as basically "Jesus goddamn Christ" in the pitch. The Tyrannical Kryptonians are named Saint, Shepherd and Savior. No surprise I don't like seeing a character who allegorically represented Jewish immigrants to be constantly compared to Christian imagery and deified.

It's inevitable with pitching to the company, but the pitch is bogged down by a lot of convoluted plot points. I get that it's necessary to pitch event tie-ins and universe hopping shenanigans, but it's a lot.

Leland feels like a plot device in this. I'm sure there were plans to flesh out the brotherly clone relationship between him and Conner so that he can feel like his own character, but from the summary he just kind of revolves around Conner the way the pitch describes Conner revolving around Superman. Oops!

Conner's relation to Luthor and Superman works as a story about legacy, bloodlines and the things parents pass down to their kids. It's best when handled thematically and not literally because it's easy to get into essentialist "good genes" vs "evil genes" near-eugenics talking points. Unfortunately this pitch has a lot of that vibe. Leland has more Lex genes so he's super smart. Conner and Leland are able to start a schism in the Future Tyrannical Kryptonian House by "proving their truer genetic link to the original Superman, unsullied by thousands of years of tinkering" thereby gaining allies. Not great!

The part where Conner wants to find "his own Metropolis" by moving to Dripping Springs, Texas. That's Jinny Hex's field of operations, so is it really his own space? I would've just given Conner a new town so he can better stand on his own and build out a unique cast system.

Okay let's talk about the trans stuff!

I get that it makes for an Iconic Visual Superhero Moment, but I really don't like the part where Conner steps through a magical crystal and pops out the other side as a trans woman. It robs her of having that discovery on her own. The pitch says "I believe that this is as natural a move as Iceman's coming out". And just?? Man, remember when Jean Grey read Iceman Bobby Drake's mind and robbed him of his agency by outing him through that invasion of privacy? For a pitch all about Conner's journey of defining herself, it weirdly robbed her of that moment.

The pitch does such a good job talking about how Conner feels like her whole life revolves around Superman and how pointless wanting to be Superman feels now that Jon Kent has taken the mantle. She has Clark's genes, goes to Clark's hometown school, is raised by Clark's parents and all that. So then why is she eventually named after the women in Clark's life? Constance "Connie" Lara Kent. Clark's Kryptonian mom and human grandma? Was the world so small that she could not name herself after anyone else or come up with a new name? Connie doesn't even get to name herself, her new name is one Martha Kent bestows her with. It's hypocritical, and doesn't have the same impact that Superman giving Superboy a Kryptonian name does.

Speaking of which, this right here is my biggest gripe. It's not in the pitch itself but?? Wait- why go on about how Conner deserves a name that's not given to her and then turn around and make Martha name her? Sure, Connie comes up with the superhero name "Skyrocket" herself but surely she also deserves to name herself considering the thesis the pitch built up about self discovery and agency right?

Also with all due respect, this is the whitest queer take on Conner's identity. I wish white trans people could understand that you can have multiple true names that reflect different parts of you.

When Clark gives Superboy the name "Kon-El" it matters that it's given. It ties so well to the idea of familial acceptance into a nearly-extinct culture. You wouldn't know how to reclaim that part of your identity when that culture's been wiped out, so of course it's an honor to be trusted with a name that preserves Krypton's culture. This is a common practice with diaspora reclaiming cultural names from closed cultures, they are gifted their names by someone more culturally connected. I think the pitch having Martha name Connie is trying to echo this, but it doesn't hit the same without that cultural context. It also undercuts the genuine joy Conner felt from finally having a name he truly identifies with. Conner was only ever referred to as Superboy before then. When Clark gives him the name Kon El, Conner cries out that Kon El is his "real name". It's one of his defining moments, and to have that be diminished by saying "It's still a name someone else gave him" is so disappointing.

Then there's the design.

This is gonna lean more into preference, but I'm not the biggest fan of this design! I get what it's going for but it has too much going on everywhere. It also doesn't have that proto-punk look original Conner had, so it ends up not feeling like him. It's too superhero, and not enough casual-wear-on-a-supersuit that Conner sports really well. I see how it fits in with the everyone-in-Superfam-is-wearing-jackets-era, but I also think those new designs don't look good either. Especially Supergirl's. I feel like Conner should be more punk post transition. No respectability beam for her!

Also the name Skyrocket? It's giving knock off-brand toy vibes to me I'm sorry D: People on twidder suggested Supernova and that sounds way better! Even Visaggio stated she prefers that name so you can't be mad at me for this.

Overall big conclusion feelings!

I've been following Visaggio's work for a while because it's awesome seeing trans people getting picked up in comics. While there are some things about her writing I like, for the most part I've felt like her work isn't my cup of tea. I tried reading up a bunch of interviews she's in to try to understand why her writing wasn't clicking with me, and what I discovered is that we have fundamentally different approaches to queer storytelling.

From Paste Magazine. I get where she's coming from, trans characters deserve to have multi-faceted narratives that don't overly center how they're othered at the expense of further characterization. But also? I just actually find the interior lives of queer people and identity interesting. I like writing the kind of escapism and joy that's informed by surviving and inheriting hardships rather than erasing those things or skipping past it. I think this is why Connie is robbed of her trans discovery in the pitch. Why we don't get to watch her grapple with gender identity in a political way. Queer stories about queer struggles are considered archaic and unnecessary nowadays. It's part of the escapism Visaggio values in her work; to give a place of respite for trans readers from the cruelty they experience in reality, but I don't connect to stories like that personally. Whenever I try to share queer Indonesian art and writing with my peers, I'm often told it's too painful to look at. That our pain doesn't fit the modern expectation for happy, empowering queer stories. "trans people get enough hardships in real life, they don't need that in their fiction" Visaggio still talks about her newest projects like this btw.

I'd love to see a take on Conner that more holistically continues the political immigrant themes of Superman. The white parts of fandom love interpreting Conner's identity crisis as primarily a queer struggle, but it's also one of a person grappling with his mixed heritage. He's a diaspora kid separated by a generation away from Krypton. He has yet to make peace with the Luthor side of his identity, one borne of generational trauma and resentment for one's roots. Instead of a take where his queerness separates him from the pressures of legacy, I want to see a Conner take that has themes that are intersectional about his mixed diaspora and queer identity. I want his superficial punk aesthetic to graduate into actual punk ideals. The anti-establishment and radical love philosophies of punk culture would make such a cool extension of Superman themes and it would make so much sense that someone facing so many intersections of marginalization would be radicalized from their experience. I want a queer Conner who isn't just empowering and idealistic, I want one that also gives space for queer readers to feel like their pain is seen too. Conner isn't "Truth, Justice and the American Way" he's famously "Truth, Justice, My Way".

There's a tendency in media criticism to treat marginalized talent as infallible, and I don't think that fair to creatives like Visaggio. Being able to look at their ideas with nuance instead of essentializing it as being Good or Trash is the best way to respect diverse creativity. And my nuanced feelings are that a white queer person who looks at Conner's story and just sees the queer part and dismisses the diaspora mixed heritage side of him,,, is not going to give me the Conner story I want to see.

#askjesncin #superboy #kon el #conner kent #jesncin dc meta #media criticism #the thing about conner superboy is that his character is a mess #and I love a mess. I could talk about mess all day #this is a long way of saying that white queer people will never be able to give me the queer stories i need

[thelesbianpoirot]

I really despise how people try to skirt around any kind of basic feminist praxis by saying their race or culture or other marginalized identity makes it different somehow. Yes, intersecting identities add nuance to feminist theory, not in the way you people view it. "Actually being feminine breedable and submissive may be negative for white women, but actually it is really empowering for black women." "It may be empowering for white women to work, but brown women have worked to long, we deserve to be dependent on men for a while." "It may be empowering to white feminists to be anti-makeup, cosmetic procedures and other frivolous female suffering for trends but black women NEED MAKEUP more an anyone else!" "Divorce may benefit white woman, but us brown women value family, and self sacrifice, so we counsel abusive men of color, so we can keep families together. They are always trying to breakdown brown families. We will not be calling the police when he beats her. We don't send another men of color to jail."

"Abortion may be for white able-bodied women, but my people are facing genocide so women of race/disability must keep the children they don't want, abortion for us is sterilization!"

"This lesbian pornography is actually very important to Queer culture! This lesbian porno was directed by a woman! And it stars actual queer actresses. So even though porn is usually bad, in this case, it is okay." "Controlling every aspect of a woman's life is wrong, unless it is my religion, then it is fine, atheist women may not approve, but my situation is different, a different kind of feminism but equal." "High heels are usually torture devices, but on a femme it just feels right, it is important to her femme identity!" We ain't never getting anywhere if women can just pull out a permission slip (race, sexuality, disability) to get them excused from practicing or honoring feminist praxis that will benefit ALL WOMEN.

#thelesbianpoirot

[decolonize-the-left]

Idk if any of y'all saw this video yet, but rn there's a tik tok going viral of of this white woman who confronted her parents bigotry on Christmas and got sent home. She's an upset mess about but not in a white savior/validate me way which I can respect.

And as always I have something to say about it.

So she says she starts a war after she reminds her parents that people are people and that she

"probably shouldn't have said anything to begin with because there's no point"

And I've seen this sentiment of "there's no point" a LOT among allies. Not just white allies to BIPOC either but with allies across the board, queer allies, ND allies, etc.

To clarify by "that sentiment" I mean the idea that your personal effort to correct, inform, or speak up on an issue is not Worth it unless it will cause a Change in the person/people you're addressing that You will be able to see reflected. Because if they won't change then you're just putting up with their vitriol, hostility, and ignorance for nothing, right? And why put up with that for nothing. You're a person with feelings and limited patience so if you're gonna experience something awful, it should be for something, right? Especially if it's someone you have to put up with see regularly like your parents.

And besties...

The point is trying. The point is challenging bigotry and ignorance wherever it exists. The point is to show bigots that their ignorance isn't tolerable. It's to show them that their bigotry isn't tolerable. And as many times as they will be harmful, you will rise to meet their challenge.

The point is to challenge bigotry because it is bigotry and there's no room for it in the future we're building.

And as awful as it feels to have your family disown, belittle, and berate you there are So Many people going through this. BIPOC, immigrants, queer folk, Muslims, etc. We know what it's like to have people who should love you treat you badly, what it's like to lose community and support. You're not alone in this feeling, you know?

But everyday we still talk to our families and communities and strangers online and we still challenge their bigotry and yeah it hurts sometimes but we do it anyway so the next generation of our community won't have to.

Because they may not be here yet but we are.

In my tribe we have this concept of 7 generations being deeply significant. Part of that belief is that you and your choices will impact the next 7 generations of your descendants. And I want to be a good ancestor. Not just to the generations of my family that don't exist yet but to yours too.

I want to be a good ancestor to family I'll never meet and the friends I'll never get to drink with.

To queer kids that never had to answer to anyone for their love, to Muslim and Black boys who never had to be mindful of the toys they played outside with, to the loud brown girls who never felt out of place, to the disabled lady up the road who is the First and only voice her doctors listen to.....None of these people exist yet, but they will as long as I'm doing what I can for them today.

And absolutely everything I do is for them. It's for the future I won't get to see. For a world I'll never get to walk on. For laughter I'll never hear.

THATS THE POINT

#society #mutual aid #ndn #direct action #indigenous #lgbt #disabled #neurodivergent #bipoc #oppression #bigots #Tumblr #leftist #activist #activism #protest #capitalism #liberal #allied #commentary #criticisms #idk

[pearwaldorf]

I have been trying to write this on and off for a while. I figure the second anniversary of the show is as fine an occasion as any to shove it out into the world. It is not everything I want to say about it, but I think the important bits are there.

It is a human impulse to be seen. To be told, through art, you are not alone. It is universal, but of special importance to people who are not well-represented in media (i.e. everybody who isn’t cis, white, able-bodied, skinny, and conventionally attractive).   

This show speaks to me as a queer person who figured things out later than most of my peers. (Not quite as late as Ed and Stede but not terribly far off either.) It’s not super common to see queer media address this, and I didn’t realize how much I needed that reassurance until I got it. That it’s okay to find these things any time in your life. To be told “A queer is never late, they’re always fashionably on-time.” 

They’re not my first canon queer ship. But they are the first ones where I knew it was true from the get-go. Multiple people assured me this was the case. And yet, I still didn’t believe it until I saw it with my own two eyes. This experience is not unusual for fans around my age.  

After I finished up season one, I laid in bed and cried. It’s not something I thought would affect me so much, but it feels like a weight I’d carried so long I didn’t realize it wasn’t supposed to be part of me is gone.

One of the reasons people unfamiliar with the fandom seem to think it’s absolutely crazy (which some of it is, to be fair, but every fandom has that) is the way fans of the show get extremely super intense about it. It took me a few weeks to realize this is a trauma response. I’m not even sure “trauma” is the right word. It doesn’t interfere with my day to day function, but it lasted for years. Decades. So it was definitely something that fucked me up. And in the way you can only start to see something as you’re moving past it, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get my head around this. (I don’t know if I have anything to say about it yet. Maybe I need more time to sit with it.)

I know this sounds contrary, but I’m really glad David Jenkins does not come from fandom. Sometimes it’s good to know where a line is, and others it’s better to not know there’s a line at all. And this is, sad to say, remarkable to somebody who has had to deal with this for so long. With so many writers and showrunners aware of the line, and getting right up next to it, but never crossing it.

Imagine doing a show with a queer romance and not understanding why this was received with such emotion and fervor, because it’s just two people in love right? What blissful ignorance that this needed to be explained to him! And then he listened to people’s experiences with queerbaiting, and went “Oh my god you thought I was going to do WHAT?” And then you go “Huh. That is really fucked up.” 

The problem with being told something enough, even though you know it’s wrong, is you start to believe it regardless. All the excuses and hedging. It’s so very difficult to do they tell us, when we hear from queer creators how they had fight tooth and nail to make it as gay as it already was. 

And then comes Jenks, just yeeting it out there: majority queer and (not and/or. and) POC cast, an openly non-binary person playing an openly non-binary character. The ability to not have to make one queer (and/or) POC character speak for everybody, so you can inject a tiny bit of nuance into the conversation. The way you can tell more kinds of stories, like the one where the smol angry internalized homophobe comes into his own with the support of a queer community, even though he was a giant fucking asshole to them before.

So many people were like “You can just DO that? It’s really that easy?” And wasn’t that a fucking Situation, to have that curtain pulled aside. What next? Majority POC casts with stories about POC written by POC? Absolute madness. (Please please watch The Brothers Sun on Netflix. It’s so fucking good.) 

And people will scoff and say “Of course a cishet(?) white man would be able to get this pushed through.” But do they usually? The thing I don’t think people understand about allies is they use their privilege to wedge the door open. You still have to do the work to get through, but at least you have a place to start. And it really fucking matters.

The press keeps trying to tell me The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin is the OFMD substitute we need while we float in the gravy basket. I’m sure it’s a perfectly fine show, but I don’t know who has watched OFMD and decided the itch we needed scratched was anachronistic historical comedy.

I want stories written by people that reflect their lived experiences, with actors and crew committed to bringing that to life. And I would like streamers and studios to commit to giving them a chance, and marketing them properly so people know they exist. 

You can keep people satisficed with scraps for only so long. At some point, somebody is going to give them a whole seven course dinner and people will wonder why they’ve been putting up with starving this entire time.

#our flag means death #ofmd #our flag turns 2 #pear watches ofmd #pear text

[beauspot]

Loki Matters a Lot to Me *Long Post*

If you go on my page you’ll see that I’ve never posted about the Loki show or Lokius before so you might be wondering why now that the show is (probably) over? I always liked this show, and I considered myself a fan but coming out of it I wasn’t shipping anyone.

Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed the dynamic Loki and Mobius had but I was just happy to have Loki alive so I savored that. Also I sensed some history with Mobius and Ravonna which I still think exists. I found all of the characters interesting. That includes this season but something about season 2 was different for me and I couldn’t figure out why.

Why did this show affect me so much? Why did this second season affect me so much? And particularly why did this ship, Lokius, affect me so much?

To understand where I'm coming from you should probably understand that first of all I am queer and even before I knew I was queer I had a want for queer representation. For me oddly enough it started with Owen Wilson in Night at the Museum. Jedtavius was a pairing I didn't even realized I shipped til I was older. The enemies to lovers thing was so cute and it pretty much got confirmed in the last movie.

(Just inconspicuously having your cowboy character quote Brokeback Mountain no big deal.)

I enjoy a good ship. As I got older however I began to crave real queer representation and I was lucky enough to find it in places like Steven Universe

And Adventure TIme

Then as I reached my mid to late teens I was able to see films like Brokeback, But I'm a Cheerleader, First Girl I Loved, The Miseducation of Cameron Post etc. Seeing these made me feel more secure in my sexuality.

Of course along the way I got dragged into non canon ships some of which were queerbait like Stucky or even worse, Stormpilot/Finnpoe.

The malicious part about all of these ships is the teams behind them waving these pairings out in front of people like a dog with a bone, hoping to draw them in to get their money knowing they had no intention of following through.

And I have become disillusioned with that. I have also become annoyed with fans of straight ships that oppose those queer ships acting like we're reaching.

I bring this up because there is a certain segment of sylkis(not all) and on a broader scale fans of straight ships that have this sense of persecution because fans of a queer pairing don't like their ship. It's weird and I am tempted to say it stems from homophobia. If you simply don't enjoy a ship that's fine. There are queer ships I despise, but try and assess where that hatred comes from.

There is a language that conveys romance and it seems like only when there is a minority involved do you guys become unable to understand it. This is an issue within most fandoms when it comes to not only sexuality but race in popular ships. For example, The Bear fandom in regards to Chef's Kiss, but I digress.

When a character feels the need to constantly touch another character that signals something, when a character fixes themselves so they look nice before they see another character that signals something. The way they talk, the way they act, how they are with and without one another says A LOT.

So why is it when we point these things out we get called delusional? Why do I feel like I'm going crazy every time I speak with someone about a queer ship? And why do I always feel the need to justify it?

Straight, white, pairings never have to justify their existence. They just are. Sylvie and Loki can fight, yell at one another, hurt one another, literally be the same fucking person and people will find that ok, but suddenly when people see Loki fixing himself before he meets Mobius we can't see love in that(you’re telling me this isn’t how someone acts when they see their crush unexpectedly)? We can't see loss in Mobius when he can't even do his job anymore now that Loki is gone? We can't grieve what could have been even if we find Loki as the God of Stories cool?

Why?

Mobius is the first person in probably thousands of years to tell Loki he’s not evil and he can be good if he chooses to be. We see how much this means to him. From this point on Loki is attached to Mobius like a puppy. Mobius becomes his person. I find something so refreshing about Mobius calling Loki out but then also offering him a path to redemption. He doesn’t let Loki slide, because he cares about him enough to know he can be better and Loki deserves to be better for himself.

So I was bothered by the way the finale was set up. I know they have the conversation about “the burden of glorious purpose” and often I am honestly a supporter of not everyone gets a happy ending even if they “deserve” it in a storytelling sense. I find the tragedy in that intriguing, but this didn’t feel good to me on a personal level. I didn’t walk away from the finale feeling sad but fulfilled, I walked away from it feeling miserable and empty. And I recognize that I attach myself to characters more than the general populace but I don’t really care? This hurt.

Loki wanted nothing more than for somebody to be there with him, to be for him, to love him and instead he ends up alone. Mobius ends up back in his timeline but he can't go back to his life. A version of him is already there and our Mobius doesn't even remember his children. Mobius doesn't smile at the end because he isn't happy. He's alone. They are alone and realistically there's a high chance these versions of them will never see each other again.

Does Sylvie seem bothered by that? No. She's ready to go live her life. And there’s nothing wrong with that, she took the gift Loki gave to her but Mobius is clearly, deeply hurt by Loki being gone. Because they found purpose in each other. In the order and chaos.

Having watched Good Omens and Our Flag Means Death season 2(along with the movie Bottoms starring Ayo Edebiri which everyone should watch 😁) in the same year I have become quite used to seeing queer rep in my mainstream shows. As the years have passed more and more queer characters are able to take center stage. So even though I knew Disney's track record I still held out hope because even the writer and composer saw the potential in Lokius.

Tom and Owen did too somewhat, but at the end of the day actors don't write the shows.

I think what bothers me most is that Loki is the first queer character in the MCU, we've seen him struggle and grow and learn to love and finally last season his queerness was made explicit (more than in Thor Ragnarok where he like fucked the Grandmaster or something). And they immediately paired him off with a version of himself.

Loki isn't gay so I'm not saying he had to end up with a man or anything you can be queer and end up with someone who is a gender different than yours my issue is a broader one which is, this story wasn't made to validate bi/pan people who date the opposite sex or whatever it was made to close Loki off to any other possibilities. One of those being Mobius.

Rewatching season 1 this decision is exacerbated because there are moments where they could have had him flirt with a man like when he was D.B. Cooper and boom we have on screen rep, but they decided “nah let’s just have him say it one time and then never acknowledge it again.” Again I want to reiterate, you can be queer and not be in a same gender relationship, but this is a television character. We don’t know their innermost thoughts like we’re reading a book we have to take them at their actions and we never got the opportunity for our first queer character to express that(at least in his own show because remember the grandmaster, but somehow that feels worse).

The executive producer recently came out and said Loki and Mobius were always meant to be platonic because they were trying to dismantle toxic masculinity by portraying “platonic male friendships”. A phrase I have grown to hate over the years because ALL WE EVER SEE ARE PLATONIC MALE FRIENDSHIPS. This is another parallel with issues I have with The Bear in which the cast and crew were like “why can’t women and men just be friends?” but only in reference to the black girl. Back to the topic at hand though.

Have you ever met a queer person who acknowledges they’re queer once and then never talks about it again? Especially someone with as much showmanship as Loki? Does that make sense to anybody? Even if he ultimately ended up with Sylvie(which I wouldn’t have liked but I digress) that would have been enough for me.

But instead we had this troubled character give up everything and everyone they love to sit on a throne they didn’t even want so that their friends could have a choice. So that they could have a life. And again I can find beauty in that, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. And I won’t pretend I do.

🥀End of Post🥀

sidenote ouroboros is so autistic tell me i’m wrong. he’s literally an autistic with no experience of ableism just pure autistic sunshine.

#loki #loki laufeyson #mcu loki #mobius #mobius m mobius #lokius #loki x mobius #loki season 2 #loki series #loki spoilers #lgbtq #loki odinson #the bear #the bear fx #the bear hulu #chefs kiss #sydcarmy #sydney adamu #tom hiddleston #owen wilson #ayo edebiri

[cardentist]

Context: [Link] (highly recommend reading even if it’s long) I debated where I should put this, but with the length of this post I want to put @nothorses master post about transandrophobia right at the top [Link] if this post is too lengthy for you or you'd like to read more after chewing on this then I Implore you to open that link and hold onto it.

I don't want to call out this person in particular, I'm certain they don't mean any harm by it and it's not within our best interests to pick fights with people who have (in this commenter's words) Nearly all of the same beliefs with some minor squabbles who are willing to support each other anyways.

but it's exactly Because I'm certain this person means well that frustrates me.

years ago I would've said something along the lines of "this is no different from saying 'I'm not homophobic because I'm not afraid of gay people.'" that it's nitpicking Accurate terminology by breaking it into pieces and judging the words its made up of individually when they're obviously intended to be seen as a whole. trans Men face oppression for being trans Men in a way that cis men do not, just like trans Women face oppression for being trans Women in a way that cis women do not.

but that was a long time ago, the perspective has changed.

"trans men can't have this term because it's too close to affirming cishet white men when they say that they're oppressed for being men" was a talking point back when "transmisandry" was the terminology that was landed on. and while my thought process about that was the same I Understood the kneejerk reaction. because there Was a concerted effort by certain cishet weirdos to make "misandry" a term that made them systematically oppressed by women, and more specifically was used to Deny the existence of misogyny (very ironically from how they acted).

(that said, I have my own reasons for liking that term even if I do see the problems with it, I understand why it was chosen at the time. which I get into here [Link])

"transandrophobia" was coined Specifically to avoid that connotation, to Denounce the association and address that frankly (on the surface) Reasonable kneejerk reaction while still being recognizable and serving the same purpose.

but the talking point about it remained Exactly The Same, completely unchanged despite the change in association. because the point was never About it evoking something unpleasant (though that certainly helped with swaying bystanders in the conversation) it was about the absolute refusal to believe in the concept of people being hated For their manhood. in masculinity intersecting with oppression More than just as a neutral trait.

now, what I'm Not going to say is that the concept of androphobia is a systemic oppression that's upheld by the majority or any governmental body. not mine and certainly not any that I've heard of. but I will Also say that conflating the Recognition of a sentiment that real people express With systemic oppression is not only unhelpful (there's a lot of things that aren't systemic but still matter) but has Also been used to gate keep minorities by exclusionist groups Plenty of times before.

such as when people stopped being able to insist that asexuals don't experience trauma for being asexual At All and instead insisted that it wasn't Systematic and therefore they didn't belong in the queer community. no amount of studies, no amount of personal accounts, no examining of actual law and actual acts of oppression from governing bodies or places of work would sway them. because as long as they could say "It's Not Systemic" they could dismiss it out of hand. when, really, even if they were right it shouldn't matter. if someone experiences trauma they deserve to have the source of that trauma taken seriously no matter the underlying cause. they shouldn't have to Prove that it's important enough to justify caring about.

but to get to my point 9 paragraphs in from where we started, the idea that anti-masculinity or androphobia or anti-man sentiment or Whatever you want to call it Doesn't Exist is pretty ridiculous coming from within the trans community for Several Reasons.

terfs hate trans women because they're transphobic, but they Also hate trans women because they're radfems. a core tenant of radfem ideology Is The Demonization Of Men And Of Masculinity. they think trans women are dangerous Because They See Them As Men Trying To Infiltrate Women's Spaces. and Yes that is obviously transphobia, but the way they talk about trans women is Not magically disconnected from their view of manhood or masculinity or Men As A Group. though Undoubtedly they will side with cis men if it gives them the opportunity to attack trans women, in part because it Is that intersection of Both anti-man sentiments And transphobia And misogyny that has them frothing at the mouth to hate trans women.

(see this: [Link] for a more in depth discussion on radfem ideology as a whole)

and the thing is, someone might be tempted to say "well their hatred of masculinity is Obviously tied to trans women, so there's no point in acknowledging it as anything But transmisogyny." and in fact, that's not a hypothetical at all, it's the default relationship people have with this concept.

but this mindset affects everyone, Especially otherwise marginalized groups.

radfems seeing men as Inherently And Biologically Violent, as rapists and unthinking monsters, Absolutely And Undeniably affects how they treat people of color (Especially black people). white women stalking black men and calling the cops on them because they see their existence as Dangerous has been a Thing for as long as cops have existed (it's the Reason that cops exist) and has been Documented as a current issue in the wake of black lives matter and the murder of black men by the cops. it is an attempt from white women to have black men murdered, to cause violence to them without having to physically implicate themselves, all while using the perception of themselves as inherent victims (small and docile and innocent) with the perception of black men as monsters.

and it Should go without saying, but this Obviously Is Not Saying that black men inherently have it worse than black women. recognizing the oppression of one demographic within an oppressed group Should Not Inherently Mean pitting them against other demographics within that same group. we should just be allowed to point out an experience that some people can have and let that be a neutral (if important) statement. the things black women go through because of Their intersection of racism and misogyny are well and truly Horrific, I certainly don't need to prove that.

and In Fact, black women are victims of that Same intersection of racism and androphobia that we see both from terfs and from white people everywhere. because "womanhood" Almost Without Question means "White womanhood," to have black traits (or to have Non-White traits) is to be closer to masculinity in the eyes of racists.

when terfs post a picture of a cis woman and harass and mock them for Clearly being a trans woman who will Never fool anybody it's universally because the woman in the picture has traits that aren't traditionally upheld as the standard for white women. it's misogyny, it's androphobia, it's transphobia, it's racism. because these ideas Aren't Inherently Separate. they Build on each other and they affect Everybody, because people who think this way don't just turn it on and off like a switch when they're attacking the "intended" target.

and All of these ideas come together and inform the situation with trans men, both on this issue specifically and As A Whole.

just the same as we see that intersection of transphobia and misogyny and androphobia with how trans women are treated (combined, of course, with other relevant aspects of an individual) we see much the same with trans men.

the difference is that people inherently Recognize that what's happening to trans women is more than Just ideas of transphobia (more than Just wanting people to stay the gender that they were assigned at birth), but they recognize Only the misogyny aspect. so when the same conversation is turned onto trans men people don't know what to do with it, Especially when combined with the (unfortunately common) denial that trans men experience Misogyny either.

that complex web of interlocking concepts, and in some cases the Idea Of intersectionality At All, are Denied to trans men. who are then minimized For the perceived lack in complexity (in their oppression, in their identities, and in their lived experiences).

"why not just call it anti-transmasc sentiment then? people might take it more seriously." even Ignoring Everything I've mentioned so far, the Reason I'm not happy with this is because trans men Are attacked (harassed, oppressed, however you want to phrase it) Specifically For Their Identities As Men. and as much as I Also want to establish that behavior and sentiment As stemming from transphobia, I Also don't think we benefit by erasing or softening that idea to make it more palatable to people who don't want to believe it.

this was a response I got to that post I linked at the very top of this essay. I trust that anyone reaching this point has an idea of how silly this is in context, if they haven't read that context themselves. and in fact I wasn't going to acknowledge it at all (I only have this image on hand because I took it to have a laugh with friends). but it's a Convenient and Simple illustration of this exact issue.

the hatred of trans men in trans, queer, and activist spaces is informed and Justified by the hatred of men as a whole. because If you can convince people that trans men are Inherently a privileged group you can justify presenting anything they do as attacking those less privileged than them.

Men are violent, Men shout down women, Men are misogynists, and so a trans man pointing out the existence of his own oppression while actively acknowledging the oppression of nonbinary people and trans women (Only making the point that it's unhelpful to try to quantify this oppression as a tier list and use that to inform how you treat individual people) that trans man is Actually just a Typical Violent Man Exerting His Privilege To Oppress Poor Women.

it's, very ironically, a silencing tactic to avoid addressing the oppression of a minority group to the benefit of the person doing it.

a trans man's manhood is a weapon that is Constantly used against him, and I Might (Might) be willing to call that "anti-trans masc sentiment" if I didn't know where it Stemmed from.

the relationship between radfems and the queer community is, to understate it, Fraught.

for most people who consider themselves to be trans allies, it's Easy to see that terfs are, you know, Bad. to understand that they're a transphobic group and Therefore dangerous. but by-and-large that'd Main and Only thing that that's understood about them.

and to an extent, that's because people believe that that understanding is Enough. that it's Enough to dismiss it out of hand and refuse to look at or Think about what terfs have to say. which is Understandable.

the issue is that no matter how much they Believe that terfs are bad and wrong, they're Still Vulnerable to being influenced by radfem ideology, talking points, and Active Intentional Manipulation if they don't actually know the Details of what it is they believe and how to spot them.

as a Very basic example, people who Believe "terfs are bad because they hate trans people" but Don't understand "radfems are bad because equate men and masculinity as being Inherent Violent and therefore inherently harmful to women" can see something like "men don't belong in women's spaces" and Not Understand that something they may be genuinely trying to consider or understand Is Radfem Rhetoric.

that specific example is, at this point, commonly understood as a terf dog whistle. but it's largely Only understood as a stand in for trans women and called out as transmisogyny.

which is a problem when, say, someone looks at a trans man talking about his experiences is oppression and trauma and says "this Man is shouting down women! this Man is being misogynistic and stealing spaces away from women! this Man doesn't Belong!" and Not Understand That It's The Same Idea. Because the person being targeted Isn't being misgendered (Most of the time), the exact Same silencing and othering tactic is used Effective against trans mascs while not being Recognized as that At All by the majority group.

sometimes these things happen because people passively absorb radfem rhetoric, integrate into their own way of thinking, and then use it against other minority groups without understanding what they're doing. sometimes this is done Very Intentionally by terfs trying to spread their own ideology and break up and cause rifts between groups.

this is not a hypothetical, this is Repeating History that we see over and over again with exclusionists in queer spaces. masterposts at the time had Dedicated Segments talking about the ways these groups shared ideas between each other, between radfems, even when the individuals Don't hate the same people [Link 1, Link 2]

there were Documented Instances of terfs Admitting that they had secret aphobe accounts that they were using to try to indoctrinate ace and aro exclusionists into their beliefs. there's documented instances of terfs admitting that they got to that point By Being indoctrinated through ace and aro exclusionist beliefs and talking points. we had terfs Openly comparing their ideologies to exclusionists Explicitly to recruit them. [Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, Link 5]

Because if you're Willing to accept that these ideas Are True, that the Logic that terf ideology is based on is Sound, then you're More Likely to accept when that same logic is pointed at another group. they target people that you're more willing to hate to pull you into their beliefs entirely.

and some people will go on never hating trans people (or never hating trans Women or trans Men or Nonbinary People or Binary Trans People, whatever the particular poison they're drinking), but it doesn't suddenly become Okay when radfem ideology is being used to hurt groups that aren't common sense associated with it.

what's more, these exclusionists groups Hated when you pointed out that connection. would spit and yell and call you bigoted for Daring to make the connection, even when (at it's peak and Most Ridiculous) they were quite literally taking posts originally written by terfs and replacing "trans women" with "ace people." Word For Word. which means it Never got addressed, no matter who pointed it out or how obviously wide spread it was.

and it's Tiring to have to say "if you can't care about how this affects trans men then at Least consider how perpetuating this idea puts trans women in danger" But It's True.

if you let people perpetuate the idea that trans men are Violent, that they're Oppressive, that they don't Deserve to have their own spaces, that they Inherently talk over and erase other oppressed groups by talking about their own issues and asking for compassion, if you Let people say "this group of trans people is Inherently Lesser" Because They Are Men, Because Of Their Closeness To Masculinity, Because Testosterone Or Maleness Is Inherently Corrupting

the jump between Which trans group you think of this way is not as difficult as one would hope. and if we're Never able to address it for what it is, address it As radfem driven androphobia And transphobia And exclusionism then we're going to Keep creating spaces where people are vulnerable to indoctrination. to radfems, to terfs, to exclusionists, to Extremist Reactionary groups of all kinds.

and beyond all of That, as alarming and Important as it may be, it's Also worth noting that radfems (and even Terfs Specifically) Do use androphobia against trans men, even as they force feminine labels on them.

Yes there are the obvious direction that terf oppression of trans men takes. treating them like confused women and trying to indoctrinate and detransition them to Save them or Fix them (which, in itself, is a type of violence). and there's the Resentment of "the frigid uncaring woman trying to identify out of her oppression to instead oppress other women," which isn't a sentiment totally Removed from the issue with how trans mascs can be treated in queer spaces (quite the opposite really, punishing trans men for daring to Be men by equating them with privilege and thus treating them as both an outsider and a threat).

but there Are instances of terfs treating trans men as outright Predatory. as a threat to Them and as a threat to the "poor confused women" that get "manipulated" into "the trans cult" by the trans men they Couldn't indoctrinate.

trans men are vulnerable little girls that are too stupid to know what's good for them and have to be converted Saved, they're the poor lesbians being stolen away from the beds of Deserving radfems women, up until they're Too masculine. until they have beards, until their voices are deep, until they stop wearing makeup, until they're balding or their waste changes or or or-

then they've Mutilated Their Bodies, then they're Frightening, then they're Aggressive and Invasive and Need To Be Dealt With, then they're Ugly Men even as radfems try to deny it.

the feminine trans man is a mark, he's a damsel in distress that radfems want to isolate and indoctrinate. the masculine trans man is Frankenstein's Monster, he's an ugly brutalized image of masculinity, the picture of what radfems hate othered away from what they're a Picture Of by radfems' transphobia. Uncanny and hated just the same.

this isn't "worse" than what terfs do trans women, it's not "better" either, It's The Same, It's The Same.

transphobia, misogyny, and androphobia in a Melting Pot to create a horrific buffet of oppression and abuse. manifesting Differently in different situations and between different people, and yet Fundamentally Connected through the beliefs and ideologies at play.

taking away one of these terms used to Describe this phenomenon doesn't Help, it obfuscates the fact that these things Are connected. which Worsens our ability to Understand them and Address them.

these ideas are Important, not just for trans men but for All Of Us.

and while I'm here, I'd like to address the Other issue I have with proposed alternatives like "anti-trans masc sentiment," Even when proposed in good faith.

if we were to go back and reexamine the terminology for the queer community as a whole and assess if these terms are the most Efficient they possibly could be, would we change them? would we stop using a term like "homophobia" if softening it could make it more palatable? make it easier to introduce the concept to people on the fence? make it easier to ask people to address their own biases without alienating them? if we did away with terms like "internalized homophobia" and instead asked people to address their "complex relationship with gayness" would we be able to get More people to listen?

maybe we could, Maybe softening the term would instead lead to people taking these ideas Less seriously exactly Because it's less direct, Because it's soft, Because it deliberately seeks to Not draw a reaction from a reader. I genuinely couldn't say how this would play out in practice, though we'd probably see both reactions to a degree and thus endless discourse about its effectiveness as a term.

but that's ultimately overshadowed by the Bigger Picture (though, more accurately I could say that it also Informs that bigger picture).

and that's Unity. Cohesion. Communication. Community.

the point of creating terms like this is, of course, in part to give minority groups the vocabulary and perspective necessary to convey their experiences to people outside of said group. and this purpose is endlessly important of course.

but More than that it gives a Community the ability to open a conversation with each other, to take their experiences as Individuals and create a melting pot where they can get a bigger picture of what We As A Group, As A Community, Experience.

this is completely invaluable in every way. it's what allows people to find each other, to know they aren't alone. it allows people to move conversations forward, to unravel complex ideas in a way that Can Acknowledge a vast array of often conflicting and yet Connected experiences. to be able to Build a community together, when lacking a physical space to inhabit, we need Words to connect us. both in passing as neighbors and to Find as Strangers.

when you take a community that already has established terms and you try to popularize an alternative, Especially while encouraging people to Stop using the previous terms, you Split Up that line of communication. people who congregate around one term Won't be in conversation with people who congregate around another, which inhibits the community's ability to grow and deepen.

people who Dislike a term (because it's trying to take something away from them, because they've been told that it's morally reprehensible) Won't engage with it, so posts that are tagged with Only that term will not be found. and even If that term is (unrealistically) universally adopted over time There Will Be A Period where people are simply ignorant of it.

and this is Very Much So used as a weapon by people who Don't want these communities to unify. who Don't want them to talk to each other and Get Ideas. and the smaller, more tentative, less supported a group and term is the more Vulnerable they are to this tactic.

this was and Is used Regularly by exclusionists, though I'm most familiar with how it was used by ace and aro exclusionists Specifically.

they would argue Endlessly about how Anything the ace and aro groups coined for themselves was Bigoted Actually. "aphobe" was attacked by Insisting that it was a term used by autistic people to describe their oppression (a lie, and a ridiculous one at that. there's nothing bigoted about the same term being used for multiple purposes). and "Allo" faced An Endless Barrage of never Ever accepting any term, no alternative, because They Didn't Want Ace People To Be Able To Define The Group That Oppressed Them, because they didn't Believe in that oppression.

Exactly in the same way that transphobes tried to argue that "cis" was really an acronym for something bigoted and so "cis" should be abolished as a term. Exactly in the same way that people argue that "transandrophobia" is offensive Specifically Because they don't believe that trans men are oppressed for being Trans Men.

the point is that they will never accept a replacement term, no matter what. if there Isn't an issue with it (by coincidence or from a certain angle) they will lie to invent one. it's Already Happened with transadrophobia being the intended replacement for transmisandry.

because the Point is double. First to break up the intended target community to hinder conversation around an idea that you don't want to exist, to make it harder and harder for it to be found and (by extension) Understood and expanded upon. and Second to prevent communities from being able to solidify In The First Place.

this wasn't the only tactic that was used to hurt ace and aro people, but it Can't Be Denied that the affect that it had as a whole was devastating. it's been Years since this whole thing started, since it died down even, and the ace and aro communities have yet to recover.

it's Easy to fall into the trap and say "well if we just get the term Right this time then it'll be okay ! if we Fix It then they'll stop!" but it Is exactly a trap. the point of phrasing it like this, of making it about bigotry or about the term being Problematic, is Both intended to demonize the group for having the Audacity to create a term for themselves at All, And to take advantage of well meaning people within the targeted community to do the leg work for them.

it's about silencing, it's about destabilization, it's about Breaking Apart communities so they can't Grow.

"Meet me halfway," they say. you take a step forward, they take a step back. "Meet me halfway," they say.

#discourse #trans unity #transphobia #transandrophobia #transmisogyny #androphobia #transmisandry #it's been a while since I've used that tag #but it feels appropriate here #long post #Really Long Post #when I started this I didn't intend for it to be Even Longer than the post it's in response to #Engages In Toxic Masculinity By Being Incapable Of Expressing Any Concept Or Idea Without Writing A Peer Reviewed Essay #actually while we're here #can I just make fun of that anon I got a Little Bit #shout out to the Very feminist take that women don't type essays

[id-rather-be-home]

do you think a lot of bylers try to force will into “the girl role” and mike into “the boy role”?

now obviously will is sensitive and gnc and more feminine in that regard, and mike is a leader and protective so he’s more “masculine” in that regard, but some bylers take that to mean will would always be submissive/passive in the bedroom too. what are your thoughts on this?

ooooof i feel like i may step on some toes with this one because top/bottom discourse gets on my nerves

(no hate at all to you anon though!!! just wanna make that clear first; this is a very good question!)

i think that a lot of bylers do tend to put will into "the girl role" and mike into "the boy role" subconsciously because it is fairly easy to do so! like you pointed out, will has some "feminine" characteristics while mike has quite a few "masculine" ones which makes it very easy to sort them into pre-existing gendered roles. it also probably doesn't help that mike is usually always the one to take care of and protect will and it hasn't really been seen the other way around (which i think is going to change in s5 but that's besides the point)

i think that we tend to sort homosexual couples into heterosexual roles even though i believe most of us who ship byler are queer ourselves; it's just such an easy thing to fall into because of how gender is treated in our society. if a boy is seen as "girly" then it's assumed he'd be on the bottom in the bedroom even though that isn't necessarily the case! it also doesn't help that will has, uhhh, certain Assets that make him more appealing to be on the bottom in a sexual relationship

however, i don't like when people treat sexual relationships as if they're so black and white; even when it comes to heterosexual ones where the sexual roles are pretty well defined.

do i think that will bottoms? yes.

do i think that mike bottoms? also yes.

their relationship is so... balanced and they treat one another as equals in such a way that i can't imagine they have sex only one type of way (whether that's bottom will or bottom mike). i think they would be very versatile and switch things up depending on how they're feeling that day or maybe who needs a little more reassurance and attention, things like that

that doesn't mean that neither of them have a preference for topping or bottoming. but we do not know enough about the characters in a sexual light to be able to determinedly say what their preference is - it's entirely up to an individual's perception based on what we know about them as is! i ended up in the camp that believes mike doesn't have a preference for either bottoming or topping (though he does play a bit more of a submissive role either way) because all he wants to do is make will feel good

will, on the other hand... honestly, it's something i'm still trying to decide. in my fic right now (which is where i'm exploring a lot of these concepts) he has a preference for topping BUT i can see that changing as the fic goes on and they get to experiment more with switching their roles up a little bit

however, whether or not will prefers to bottom i can't really imagine him taking a passive role in the bedroom?? even if he gets a little more submissive from time to time, he would never be passive about it

at the end of the day, nobody actually knows what these characters would prefer because we don't know their sexual preferences aside from what gender they like (confirmed in will's case, highly suspected in mike's obviously). so i think that people should be able to put them in whatever roles they want as long as they don't get mad at other people for not thinking the same as them which is... bizarre behavior if i'm to be honest

like, why would somebody get mad at me if i believe mike wheeler has a preference for bottoming instead of the other way around?

this has gotten pretty long so i'm gonna cut it off here but if you or anyone else has more questions about it, feel free to shoot them my way!

#byler #spicy byler #when we touch we are caressing stars fic #answered 💌

[fioras-resolve]

So like, representation in games is weird. It's critically important, but uniquely challenging due to the nature of interactivity. And a big part of this is that there's, by my estimate, two separate tracks for how representation works in video games. I'm going to be talking primarily about queer rep here, because I am a white, American, and (mostly) able-bodied transbian. If anyone wants to add on to this conversation, I absolutely encourage it, so long as you don't fling shit at people. So!

The first track of representation is one that's mostly unique to games. Representation as player empowerment. This manifests as giving players the freedom to be and express themselves in the game world.

So like, character creators are the most obvious example. What gender can you be? What race? What body type? A thing I've seen a few games do that I love is letting you pick any voice set regardless of the rest of your character, so like in Baldur's Gate III, you can pick a masculine voice but a feminine body, and that's just really cool.

Another way it's important is with romance options when applicable. Like, it was a problem with the early Mass Effect games that you couldn't enter a gay male relationship. It was a problem with Fire Emblem Awakening that for all of its marriage options across characters, apparently none of your 30+ units were interested in a same-gender marriage. Functionally, you aren't allowed to be gay in these games. So Mass Effect 3 letting you date Steve Cortez, and Fire Emblem Three Houses giving several options for queer S-Supports (although I haven't played the Mass Effect games and some of FE3H's romances are controversial) were welcome changes.

But the other track is representation as storytelling, and this is pretty broad. Basically every topic in the representation discourse surrounding other forms of media also applies here. I'm not gonna go into this too much because you've heard a lot about this already, but in my opinion it's important to have positive representation that mainstreams us to society, but also diverse representation because the human experience is vast. We need the joy, the sorrow, the rage, all of it, and games offer a unique artistic space to convey all of this.

...But sometimes, these two tracks rub up against each other. Because storytelling sometimes means disempowerment, but a disempowered player can often be viewed as "bad game design" by people who aren't thinking of video games as stories or art, but as entertainment or toys.

For example, remember when I mentioned Three Houses? That game was a massive stride in queer rep for Fire Emblem. But I had an annoyance as I looked through these romantic options. While yes, some characters can married as the same gender, all of them can also be married as the opposite gender. In fact, there is nobody in this game that a straight person can't date. Opposite-gender attraction is a given and the default. Everybody is either straight or bisexual.

To be clear here, because I know people are going to get at me for this, no I'm not against bisexual representation in Fire Emblem. I'm not even criticizing any individual example, Dorothea is one of my favorite characters. But what I am saying is that, in real life, some people are exclusively gay. There are a lot of men who a woman would never be able to date, and vice versa. I don't think that's a bad thing to want to express.

But from a pure empowerment angle, having a woman that a straight man can't marry is incomprehensible. Isn't having more choices better, rather than blocking someone off for "choosing the wrong gender?" I've actually heard this point from someone, phrased in this exact way, and I can't really sugarcoat this: I find it repugnant.

It's a stance that views these characters as entitlements and not as people worthy of respect. And I know that these are fictional characters and not real people, but a good character isn't just a proxy for audience expression. Also, if we take "romance as player expression" to its natural conclusion, then having a character who is asexual becomes bad game design. A character romantically inaccessible to me, the protagonist of the world? Blasphemy.

I think the real important thing about games is that, even outside of representation, "the player should be empowered" is a view that's often unspoken but unquestioned. A game can be moving, tragic, heartfelt, but it must also be an experience where you, the audience, are fucking cool. Every obstacle exists for you to rise above, every entity in the world that isn't you is either a tool or an adversary. Meg Jayanth calls this "White Protagonism" in her excellent piece that I couldn't do justice here. Keep in mind as always that it's both possible and necessary to enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic aspects.

Empowerment is a valuable tool in game design like any other, but the issue is that it's also extremely popular, to the point where it's just become what games are. And it's worth pushing back against that, so games can grow as a medium. So that we can tell stories, and have characters, and convey themes, that aren't tied up in a game designer's quest to make the protagonist the coolest guy.

But despite how critical I've been, these two tracks aren't mutually exclusive. They do clash with each other sometimes, but ultimately there's room for both. I look forward to the day I can play a bog-standard RPG that lets me change gender mid-game. I look forward to playing a polyamorous character, in a game that recognizes that as valid. But I also look forward to more characters like Guilty Gear's Bridget, an actual character who goes through a genuine journey of discovery, in a way that's warmed the hearts of so many trans women, including me. Ultimately, we just need queer rep in games, more of it, and it's never been a better time to make some. Just remember, there's a difference between letting the player be queer, and having a queer character.

#game design #fire emblem #queer representation

[cobragardens]

In the first essay in this post Maya Gittelman articulates something that I think is really important: it's not just the gender(fuck) of the characters' coding that makes Good Omens a queer story, it's that the story is about queerness itself.

Gittelman's essay:

The thing is, this is the shit I’ve been waiting for my whole life.

Before I knew the words, I was impacted by how every epic romance, every classic adventure, every story I had access to and enjoyed was cishet. I needed to translate either the story or myself to find myself in it—every single time. I grew up in the oughts, in the days of the Tumblr fandoms you’re thinking of. I wrote about this a bit more in my essay on the first season of Our Flag Means Death last year, and that first line applies here—queer heartache has never felt this good.

I’ve been able to consume a lot of queer storytelling lately—mostly white cis m/m, but not exclusively and more than I’ve ever been able to in my life, because I’ve been searching for it for a long time. Yet as we know, there are a lot of mainstream stories with queer “rep” that at their core about what marginalized queer people have been cautioning around for generations—normalization. Assimilation. Respectability. See, we can be just like you. We too desire to marry, participate as cogs in the violent machine of imperialism. We too want the right to give you our service, our allegiance. We too want to join your armies. I certainly can enjoy plenty of that media, but I’m still desperate for queer storytelling that’s not sanitized, not flattened out to fit cishet beats, something that tells a good story that’s queer on every level. And that means we deserve to see queer characters who are messy, who hurt each other, because sometimes, love isn’t enough.

While Good Omens in some ways still white cis m/m, it’s also not entirely, and what works for me is that it actually delves into asking the damned question: What if this love is a threat, actually?

What if this love is something that does disrupt your norms, your ways of life? What if it’s an open danger to the systems you’re used to? What if this love could disrupt everything? What if it goes against God’s will and Satan’s too, what if it flies in the face of the ineffable plan?

What I’m saying is, I’ve wanted stories that let queer people be characters, with all the nuance and complexity that entails. Stories that are queer, intentionally, in both subtext and text, that aren’t asking an audience to justify their right to exist. Instead, they’re giving voice to the specifics of queer experience that don’t typically get mainstream care, multi-season tenderness. We deserve queer love stories that are wistful, epic, tragic not because they’re of the “same gender” but because the tangled truths of safety and trauma are inextricable from queer love. We deserve stories that are queer as subtext and text, metaphor and central plot and side plot too. We deserve queer stories that explore how queer love is infinite variety. We deserve genre stories that explore what immortality or something close to it does to pining, to longing, for wanting the one person in the universe you can’t have.

We deserve queer stories without homophobia that still explore the traumas of marginalized desire, in which neither party is truly the villain, just victims of the same system, at different stages of knowing it.

Show me what it looks like beyond the happily ever after, the will they/won’t they, the beats of a privileged cis white coming out. Breathe arcs of nuance and poetry and history into it. We deserve that epic romance, and we deserve to see how much it can hurt, because the depths of that wound evidence the ferocity of that love.

Growing up queer can feel monstrous, and I need to see that on screen. When you get preached at that people like you go to Hell for what you are and the ways you want, you start to relate to the demons. When you’re taught the truest, most joyful parts of you are unholy, it’s fair to ask—why should I respect the authority of a system that hates me for reasons I can’t control?

You learn to disguise your desire, and it changes you. It changes you to choke down your feelings, to deny them, to believe that they are sin. You learn to pour them into the hidden language of love that arises between you and whoever you’re lucky enough to share it with, so you don’t learn how to say them aloud. (Their arrangement, “little demonic miracle of my own,” the fourth alternative rendezvous. This is what queer love has looked like for millennia: something beautiful and true, despite, despite, despite.) Unlike those whose love has only ever been legal, permitted, “normal,” “holy”—your relationship is inescapably shaped by the threat behind it. You don’t get to see them as often as you like. You don’t get to talk, either to them or about them, because it might disturb the precious existence you have carved out together. You have to make up excuses, you can’t admit to anyone exactly why you can’t stop going back, and in this way you don’t always have to confront it yourself.

At the same time, that’s why queer love can be one of the most powerful forces in the universe—it saved the world last time, even if they didn’t call it that, yet. Aziraphale and Crowley don’t know so many details about each other’s lives and yet they know nearly everything important.

This is love—this natural state of slipping into the truth, until you awaken to it, inevitable and encompassing, all around you.

You might find yourself almost helpless to the magnetism. You can’t stop going back, finding your way to them, taking the risk, basking in the thrill of the comfort of their company.

And that’s why this finale, this story, this couple works so well for me—it’s queer in the telling, and while it always has been, this season literalized it on a new level and that matters.

#good omens #good omens meta #good omens as a queer story about queerness #christianity #ineffable husbands #the christian world is a dystopian horror #christianity is authoritarianism from the spirit outwards

[daisychainsandbowties]

your nonbinary beatrice post, i’m mentally jumping up and down on a bed ala s1 ava

nonbinary avatrice is so damn underrated imo, especially since they both read very trans and/or nd, (beatrice especially ((unrelated but lilith also has autistic vibes for similar reasons to beatrice)

ava is a bit complicated because on one hand it’s very likely she doesn’t care much or at all, and you have that whole queer af conversation between her and chanel about not knowing who you are because you never got a chance to explore or something that’s even queerer knowing that chanel’s actor is trans, and how often being queer and disabled goes hand in hand because of how man & woman is usually defined so much as a cishet white, thin, well off, pro status quo abled man/woman, but also on the other hand, that could also be the very same reason why a disabled person might firmly id as cis and/or with their agab, because of how they’re systematically denied manhood/womanhood because of their disability

and then with beatrice, like aside from the way she dresses, and i refuse to believe the combat habits didn’t make a few nuns realize that they aren’t so cis after all, you have the “people have tried to make me something i’m not. to make me normal. or at least, acceptable*.” and many people will “accept” gay people but only as long as they’re don’t display any gender queerness/gncness and/or transness

(*and obv that line is very easily also or as well interpretable as autistic beatrice, esp w how she displays a few behaviors that could be read as her being autistic, but that’s off topic)

<- first of all i am just yes yes yes about the intersectionality of disability/queerness & how it adds huge good layers to any conversation about nb avatrice. i rlly like the idea of Ava claiming her gender, b/c so often the systems and the institutions and ablism try to infantilise disabled ppl, & that extends to participating in gender, linking right to dehumanising tactics.

& i fucking LOVE Ava really doing gender and doing it her own way and grabbing it and running with it. Ava coming from a place where the ppl who 'cared' for her didn't give a damn about her girlhood. she's been confronted with her girlhood only in terms of pejoratives - 'you're a very x girl'

i am Thinking about the s1 line where we see sister fuck looming over Ava after she gets her period & saying to her 'you're a woman now' & how that is framed for us. just specifically what the entire event of menstruation feels when you are not cis.

ppl telling you that you're a woman (now, suddenly. like, fuck, when did i agree to this. who asked my permission?) and how you can feel your body being reframed and relegated in a certain way by the world and the anguish of that, often the blunt and speechless agony of it because the language that could latch onto what is wrong about the way that woman sits on your skin is unavailable to you

nonbinary avatrice is very mood to me because i think they in general have an extremely gnc thing going on. look no further than the outfits in s2. it is BOTH of them, also. Ava reads very boyish to me (hilariously in a very 'that kid with the band-aid on his nose & the blue shorts from pokemon who runs around on the beach going '!!! my footsteps keep disappearing'. ava silva-core).

there really is something in Ava that resists conventional femininity & i think it is very AVA the way she does it. she's giving the middle finger to it, she's shrugging at it. she's kissing gender on the mouth & girlbossing & also just being a little guy with her baseball cap turned around like ash ketchum. Ava silva 'gotta catch em' all' Silva but with the genders.

& yeah the fact that when beatrice is not in her habit she is wearing very masc clothing, putting her hands deep in her pockets, shirt collar sticking up out of her sweater. the outfit she wears to kick crimson in the face. the outfit from guttural scream fight night. her armour with its bandoleer of knives & her cute little throwing stars you use to hit soft tissues with pinpoint accuracy. the softness and the violence of her.

& you are so right. 'ppl tried to make me something i'm not' - you can imagine beatrice in the catholic school uniform with the pleated skirts and the soft v-neck jumper & the blazer & every teacher saying 'now girls' and 'please, girls' all the damn time. how electric it must feel to her to hear the word boy on her skin.

(& yeah. my first fic which is s1 beatrice POV i literally have a tag that's like beatrice is autistic & that's how i write her in everything. ligaments, star wars au bea they r all autistic. a part of it is... i am autistic so it ends up maybe being a situation where especially in second person it's hard not to write autistically but shrug emoji, i also just think bea reads very autistic to me. i have a whole bunch of my own feelings & opinions on what autism looks like w/ beatrice specifically but that's not for this post)

tldr: yes you are very smart and very right

#ftm-viktor-hargreeves #this ask was.... amazing thank you very much for it #i love 2 talk gnc avatrice and autistic beatrice #(also lilith for sure has the neurodivergence going on) #avatrice #autism tag

[queerxqueen]

I don't understand why the wrote Will being in love with Mike. I genuinely don't get it.

I'm going to bulk post a bunch of asks I have right now, all from presumably different anons, to illustrate the outrage:

stranger things s4v2 spat in my face and called me a queer that doesn't deserve love and a happy ending :/

I don't know why we thought the Duffers would write something good with Will when they didn't have anything to do with Robin and her coming out scene. I'm sorry I put faith in them. They're hopeless.

Wait until all the interviews start coming up, they will say that we, of course, misinterpreted everything and that they didn't intend on going that way at all. All while patting themselves on the back for that they think is an amazing story.

The fact that Mike was only able to give his speech to El at all was only because of Will... It's tragically hilarious and heartbreaking. If I shipped M*leven I would be upset that a third party character had to come in to push them along in the first place. Awful writing from the Duffers.

How dis the duffers think that what they wrote in vol. 2 meant Will’s sexuality was addressed??????

I mean — what did we expect from straight white men?

Why didn’t they just give Will someone else to like? Why did it have to be Mike? Even no one at all — it wasn’t necessary for his sexuality! This is a mess

Wow . Really fucking disappointed. They literally ruined mikes character, bye . He was my secon favorite now he is just like ….. idk my 7th favorite

Not only did Byler lose, Will stans in general lost because he STILL never came out as gay

Stranger Things is the Eleven show. Other characters can suffer as long as Eleven gets the center of attention. Only Eleven deserves happiness. Fuck other people's character development as long as El gets all the screen time and the hero worship. Other people can die and cry as long as Mileven gets to be the end game.

You know, I’m absolutely speechless about this. This makes me think they may kill off Will in the last season cause you know, why not kill of the gay boy. I couldn’t even enjoy the rest of it because of these scenes. What was the point of this???

yeah I'm just gonna leave the Byler tag and purge my follows list. I was excited for vol 2 but having been on the queerbait train before I'm gonna get off here thanks to you though for making the hiatus fun! I loved all your posts and theories!

this isn't even all of them

#byler #st spoilers #stranger things #stranger things 4 #antimileven #anon

[mueritos]

Hi! I’m asking this because I remember an answer to an ask you had a while back about taking a Women’s and Gender Studies class and being able to be in the class and contribute without taking up the most space. I think I’m having trouble with that in my own class. I noticed that the class doesn’t focus on trans people at all, and often unless prompted the lecturer will not bring up perspectives of women of color, let alone trans women of color. So I’ve been brining these topics up. But I’ve also noticed that I, a white trans man, is one of the only people routinely contributing to the class (which is all cis white woman, except one cis white man and one woman of color). Do you have any advice on how to keep discussions intersectional without taking up a bunch of space?

Hi! Its funny because since that ask, I am now the president of my school's Women's Gender Studies Honor Society (LMFAOOOOO). Here's what I have to say. The full title of this field of study is Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies. You are still entitled to take up space in this field just because you are not a woman. You still embody gender and sexuality (and even womanhood if we talk about transmens' transgressions/distance from womanhood) to various degrees! You should feel safe to speak up and talk about what you're talking about, and to me it sounds like you're adding more to the conversation that your own lecturer! I was in your shoes years ago. During my WGSS 101, I was one of two trans people (the other person was nonbinary), and 1 of 3 queer people in the class. We were consistently called "girls" "women" "ladies", our issues regarding sexuality and gender were not brought up, and the only reason why we ever read Angela Davis, Bel Hooks, or the Combahee River Collective, was because my Black professor had given our professor for the class those readings as recommendation. The entire class was full of virtue signaling ignorant white women who barely had any idea about their own place as women in society, and had much less to say about the field of women's studies. I remember TEACHING (i literally reached out to the professor to do this) the class terminology because these white women would not stop saying "Blacks" "queers/a queer" "Mexicans", etc because this class never even started with the literal basics!

I say keep doing what you're doing. There can be various reasons why the cis man and the woc in your class are silent, or even why all the white women aren't contributing as much as you. I'd rather the white ally be continually spitting truth and make other students feel safe and seen than a marginalized person who has got it all wrong (because believe me, I've been in classes with marginalized people who genuinelly have it all wrong). Not to mention, you're allowed to take up space in a class youre paying for.

Keep it up, because WGSS has a long way to grow, and it will only continue growing with people who intend to not conform to white women's version of WGSS.

#muertoresponds #im the president and also the only member so uhm. oops

[badpancakelol]

the one where steve is the monster in the woods: chapter 2

The dull fluorescent lights cast their sickly glow across the clinical cabinets — bouncing across the matte surfaces in the same way they do unpolished granite tiles: consuming all that lays before them, and barely giving anything back. They stay still on the ceilings, but it is a fickle thing, the way that they almost-flicker, no two lights the same. Circular and small, rectangular and long, acting as the sun for a curled up child who holds themselves on unsure knees, toes sticking to the tiles that they believe to be ruined. There is no upcurling of uncut, awkwardly and cheaply positioned bedroom flooring, but the curtains sag against their wayward souls; a curled child against their curséd sun, horribly still.

He doesn’t want to be here.

The man holding his hand is the same as always — with white hair that reminded him of Santa, and a warm smile that felt anything but. There was some sort of fictionality to him, as if he were trying too hard to appear comforting. Like some kind of uncanny-kindness that branded itself across his eyes, that had embedded itself into the smell of his coat. The man wants to be called a name that Steven does not want to repeat. The hand clasped around his palm is meant to make him feel better, and he doesn’t understand why it makes him feel sick. The door opens with an impressive creak, and Steven is deposited into the room with no windows and a large mirror.

The sound of shuffling behind the mirror, fingernails scraping across a table, a click of a button: “Proceed to the checklist.”

The checklist has always been there. For as long as he can remember. In his hand, on the wall, slipped under his door. He’s never completed it. Steven doesn’t want to be here, he knows that, he knows that he doesn’t want this. Knows that if he gives them what they want, then he will never be able to leave. He saw the way the other kids in the room were slowly carted off one by one — just like he was — for their weekly checkups. And Steven was cognitive enough to realise that some of them never came back. The small child with large eyes, the boy with blonde hair, the girl with the sloped nose. 

Sometimes, late at night, he’ll dream of where they were taken. If they were the lucky ones that had escaped the lights and the doctors and Papa.

But, Steven thinks, if he does this, if he makes them happy, if he makes them write down the green ticks on their clipboards, he will be able to see his mother and his father, and maybe then will they want him.

— — —

It feels like everyone is fucking staring at him. 

Steve knows that that isn’t true — because nobody would be able to know that what happened last night, that the body found in woods was his doing, that he had changed under the moonlight, after and during and before the Halloween party. It doesn’t stop him for being paranoid, though. Not when every turn he takes to get to his locker, to go to his classes, is met with the peering eyes just out of his vision. But Steve Harrington is not a murderer, a monster, in these peoples eyes, so there is nothing for him to worry about. None at all.

Except—

“How long d’you think Munson’s has been staring at you, Steve?” Tommy asks. And, really, Tommy H. is quite literally the last person that he wants to talk to right now. 

“What?”

Carol squeezes herself between them, as if they were still pals, as if they weren’t dickheads. “I think the little freak has a crush.” 

She says it in such a sing-song way that makes him think of her as a child. Teasing and pulling hair, and running to Steve about how Tammy and I kissed each other so we could practice for when we get boyfriends! Sometimes he wishes that she never changed. Or, maybe, he wishes that she grew up more.

“Well, now that little Stevie’s on the market, the queer probably thinks that he has a chance!” 

Right. Nancy. The breakup. How he’s bullshit. Maybe that’s the reason that it feels like the entire student body is staring at him — trying to gauge if he’s heartbroken and sullen, or if he’s already looking for another chance with another person. The reality is, he forgot about it. Or, he would have forgotten about it if nobody mentioned it to him, because he was more worried about the dead man in the woods, and the way his skin seemed to break and stretch, and the voice inside his head that has been eerily silent since he cursed it out. He still can’t remember who he killed.

Tommy and Carol cackle to each other beside Steve, beside his locker, and a hum in the back of his brain tells him to punch them. Slam their heads into the metal of the locker. Hold Tommy’s hand so hard that the bones start to creak, and he gets that scared, wide-eyed look on his face that will inevitably end in a crushed palm, a sickeningly sweet crunch, tears and snot and blood and—

Steve raises his hand to press against the crown of his brow, pushing and pushing as if trying to invert his own skin. He lifts his other palm — maybe to push Tommy and Carol and their incessant squawking and squabbling (give in give in give in), and places it to his other eye like a man blind. He rubs harshly against his face in a way that would be seen as uncouth by anyone willing to watch,  trying to rid himself of the violent-hungry feeling at the forefront of his skull. Smooth fingers meets smooth skin and the raised edges of—

A cut. 

From last night, in the woods.

A cut on his cheek, from last night in the woods, that Eddie had given him.

He snaps his head around, looks over the sea of heads to find where Eddie is still looking, where he hasn’t stopped looking, at Steve’s face— no — at the cut on Steve’s cheek. But, no, it can’t be because of that, can it? Steve knows, partially, possibly, what he looked like when he was not himself. He knew that he did not look human. He knew that he had horns and no jaw and horribly inhuman proportions — he looked nothing like himself. And the cut, if you can even call it that, is barely there at all! His other skin had taken the brunt of it. So there is no possible reason for Eddie to be staring at the cut. No, he has to be staring at him because of the breakup, because of something else, something else.

(But, if someone knew where to look, it was fresh, and pink, and obvious).

“Fuck off, Tommy.” Steve says, hands by his sides, eyes glued to where Munson was standing before he retreated around the corner. 

“Aww, has wittle Harrington gone soft—”

“Tommy.” Steve says, eyes turning first, head following a second later. If Tommy didn’t shut his goddamned mouth soon, Steve was going to show him how. “Fuck. Off.”

The two sneer at him as if he just pissed on their fancy carpet, and Steve may as well have. He needs to fix this. Steve needs to see if Eddie really knows — if he had figured it out, if he had told anybody about what what he thinks he saw — or if he was just as much of a gossip as the average teenager. But he can’t— Steve can’t just go up to him and say were you staring at me because you know that I was the monster in the woods, because you know that I killed that man last night? without completely, and utterly, outing himself. 

The warning bell rings, the students scatter, Steve locks himself in a bathroom stall, and watches as the chunks of his breakfast swirl down the toilet.

— — —

First period passes too quickly. Sure, Steve’s never really been what you would classify as a star student, but he’s always been attentive enough that teachers haven’t faulted him for his work, and he’s been smart enough to not really have to listen in classes and still get mostly B’s. He’s never really enjoyed school, but don’t all teenagers? Isn’t that what makes him so normal and mundane, just like them? He’s never wished for class to go longer, but today, as he stands under the spray of the shower in the locker rooms in second period, he wishes that they did.

Hargrove mentions it on the basketball court. The girl who sits next to him in first period mentions it as soon as he places his bag down. He hears whispers of it through the halls, feels his hairs stick on end when the words reach his ears. And then, of course, there was everything that was going on with Munson, but one thing at a time, right?

“Did you hear, Steve?”

In their little group, Barb is the first one to bring it up during their break. He’s the last one to arrive — skin pink-kissed from the scalding hot water, hair damp and cold against the slight breeze. Nancy and Jonathan have nearly finished eating, but Barb’s food remains mostly untouched. It was one of those little quirks that she had — she said that it was always awkward when she was little and would show up to lunch late, and everyone else had finished. She would end up being the only one eating, everyone with their eyes on her, telling her to chew softer or drink quieter. So, whenever something would happen and one of them was late, they knew they could always count on Barb to join them.

It doesn’t make Steve miss, however, the hand that Nancy has placed within Jonathan’s. Their fingers are clasped together underneath the metal table, as if the piece of shitty furniture will stop Steve from seeing how deeply infatuated they are with each other. As if they hadn’t been pining for months, as if Steve didn’t feel the way that everything was slipping away from him. Nancy looks up at him from her empty plate as he takes a seat next to Barb, eyebrows furrowed, but Steve just smiles and nods and swallows his stapled heart.

“Did I hear what?” Steve asks. He already knows the answer, because it can only be one of two things: the man in the woods, or he and Nancy’s breakup. Judging from the way that Barb is looking at him with soft eyes but not pitying eyes, the way that she places her hand on the back of his and presses her thumb to his pulse in a soothing motion, he can guess which one she wants to talk about.

“They found a body of a man in the woods! It was all over the radio this morning. My dad says that it was probably just a bear or something, but my mum thinks that it might be something supernatural.”

“What, like bigfoot?” Steve snorts.

“No!” Barb says, and stabs her apple slice with her fork. “Okay, yeah, maybe. But wouldn’t that be cool? Hawkins’ own cryptid?”

“A man died, Barb. You can’t just say that it would be cool to have a Hawkins-branded-monster.” Nancy says.

“Maybe cool isn’t the right word, but it would make this town less boring, wouldn’t it? I mean, when was the last time anything even remotely news-worthy happened here?”

Jonathan turns his head to the side, and Steve can just hear the sound of his breath stilling, or the hairs on his arms standing upright and paralysed, because the last time something news-worthy had happened, it was his little brother going missing. Steve nudges Barb with his foot under the table, draws a little arrow on her skin with his finger tips towards Jonathan. He sees the moment that understanding crosses her face: the furrowing of brows, the wide eyes, the hunched shoulders. She didn’t mean any harm by the comment. Just, sometimes, words came out wrong, for her.

“Mike thinks it’s a monster.” Nancy says, her hand tightly squeezing Jonathan’s. “He said that his friend���s dad is on the police force, that they got a quick look at the body when they were still in the car.”

(Does he look different? Can they tell? He spent most of his classes picking at his fingers, looking at himself in the bathroom mirror, trying to see if he left something out. If he has a smear of blood across his hands, imbedded under his skin, his bones. Can he have one moment where someone doesn’t mention the dead man in the woods?).

“Monsters aren’t real.” Steve says, definitive, reflective. “Barb’s dad is probably right. It was probably just a bear attack.”

“Since when did we have bear attacks in Indiana?”

“Since forever ago, Jonathan.”

Jonathan snorts, and despite the weird almost-love triangle that’s going on between the three of them, it makes Steve happy to see him smile. 

“Stacy in chemistry said that he worked for the paper,” Nancy says. “It could be a rumour but.”

She stops, as if that is the end of her line of thinking. Steve can see the cogs turning in her brain, listing all of the people from her and Jonathan’s internship that it could be. The janitors, the paper-boys, her boss, the board, the other interns, the secretary, front desk.  

“Hey,” Jonathan says, leg lightly kicking the bottom of Steve’s shoes. “What’s his deal?”

Don’t be Eddie, don’t be Eddie, don’t be Eddie, don’t be Eddie. Steve turns around, slowly, as if he can fight it off, as if he can turn forever until the bell rings and they cart themselves back to the rest of their classes. It’s only a quick look that he spares, but it is enough to know — enough to confirm — that it is still Eddie who is peering at him. 

He knows, he knows, he knows. He was there in the woods that night, he had seen, he had given, the cut on his face. There’s no way that he hasn’t figured it out yet, there’s no way that he isn’t going to confront Steve about it. But what can he prove? There is nothing to prove. There is no way that he can say that Steve was in the woods, because everybody knows, everybody else had seen him leave the party, and the lights were on in his house, and he had collected his car before anyone saw that it was still at Tina’s. There is nothing to prove, there is nothing that can be proven, so why does he still feel breathless whenever he spots Eddie’s eyes piercing though him?

“I don’t know. He’s been doing that all day though. Just… staring at me.”

“You haven’t done anything to piss him off?” “Barb! You know Steve doesn’t do that anymore.” “It was a valid question!”

“It’s alright, Nance.” Steve sighs. “But, no. I barely even talk to the guy.”

Barb snorts. “Who knows, maybe he thinks you’re the one who killed that man in the woods.”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “Wouldn’t that be funny.”

— — —

“If you don’t tell me how the fuck to deal with Munson right now everything is going to be fucked!” 

Steve’s tried a couple methods, already, but the voice inside his head hasn’t responded to any of them. Not when he threatened to turn himself in, not when he pressed his palms close to his fireplace, not when he held his breath under the pool for as long as he could before breathing in as much water as his lungs could hold. It didn’t seem like the voice even cared about being caught, or for the state that his fleshy vessel was in. No, the voice didn’t care about Steve, didn’t care about what happened to him. 

The voice hadn’t made itself known, but, god, the noise that he didn’t realise that he could hear, now, did. The humming of his pool, the sound of the wind grating across his windows, the neighbours coughing into their handkerchiefs, the sound of the car starting up down the street. He had found that the only thing that made the sound go away, truly, was sleeping. It made listening something to be hated, and if there was one thing Steve was going to mourn, it was going to be listening to loud music. He couldn’t turn it up as loud as it could possibly get to drown out his own thoughts, his own very normal and mundane thoughts, and so, when he tried, when he played the radio station that his parents liked, the sounds of smooth trumpet turned strident, pushing against his brain as if he were a lemon to be grated into a too-fancy cocktail, Steve turned to his surroundings.

Around him, he can see the mess in its full glory. It’s going to be horrible to clean up, and if he were anyone else, if anyone cared enough to show up at his house, they would be horrified to learn that all of his mother’s fine china and pretty painted vases had been smashed into bits imbedded in the thick strands of carpet — blood stains across the wooden floors and the kitchen tiles in hopes of awakening a voice within him. But it is late enough that he expects no visitors. Nobody to knock on his door, or climb up to his window to save him from his own torment, ring his doorbell, ask for his love, his help, his body.

The shrill sound of his phone ringing is enough to cause him to jump — sidestep into the pile of shards that are scattered around him like some offering to an unholy being. 

“Can you just shut the fuck up!”

He walks to the phone with purpose, not caring for the mess of himself that he leaves behind, and he grabs the phone hard enough for the plastic to creak underneath his grip, ready to slam it back down on the receiver before he hears the sound of a woman — the calming sound of Joyce.

“Hi! Hello, Joyce, how are you? Is everything okay?” He says, code-switching his voice, his face, as if she has eyes that can peer through the wires and the electricity. If she truly did, she’d probably be more concerned with the mess than Steve’s slightly pissed off tone of voice. 

“Hi, hun. I know I’m calling late, and this is super late notice and you normally want to know a week in advance if you’re gonna babysit one of the kids, but the kids planned a last-minute thing at the Wheeler’s, and Will said he didn’t know how long they were staying until they went home, and I’m working late tonight, and only god knows where Jonathan went. And I just— you know, with everything that happened last time Will went home by himself late at night, I just,” Joyce pauses in her rambling. “I know you, Steve. I trust you with them.” 

(You don’t know me. Because if you did, there would be no way that you would let me near them. No way that you would be okay with these hands that have hurt, this voice that has lied, this face that has been nothing but fake).

“Just tell Will to call me whenever they need to be picked up. He still remembers my number, right?”

“Off by heart since sixth grade,” Joyce laughs. “Really, thank you, Steve. I can pay you double because of the late notice—”

“Nah, don’t worry about it.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s barely any work, anyway. I may as well just drop them all off while I’m there, it’s not like Hawkins is exactly a big town.”

“Thank you, Steve, seriously. I owe you one — whatever you need, whenever you need it. I’m only a call away.” Joyce says, and Steve can feel the warmth of her through the phone. 

Maybe he really is going crazy; hearing things within ranges that he shouldn’t be able to, hearing a voice within his head, thinking that everyone is staring at him, being able to picture exactly how Joyce looks, how she stands, how the warmth of her skin feels. Christ. At the rate he’s going, he’s gonna find out that he has a lust for blood, and can turn people into the same monster that plagues him. Or maybe he turns at every full moon or every Halloween. Maybe he’s unkillable — something disgusting and immortal in the way that he always wished he was.

Was this his fault? For not giving in? For pretending that everything was normal, that he was normal? No, focus. One at a time. Wait for Will to call. Pick up the kids. Drop them home. Figure everything out.

It doesn’t take long for Will to call, no. Barely even ten minutes after Joyce did, after Steve had ran his palms under the sink and tied his shoes, the phone shrieked from its place near the junction between the kitchen and the living room. His timid voice over the line is tired and happy and scared all at once — not exactly instilling a sense of hope within Steve. This is meant to be an easy pickup and drop-off. There is nothing to go wrong. There is nothing to worry about. He knows these kids like they know him, like Joyce knows him. He can do this. 

When he goes to pick them up, when he is directed to the basement by Karen Wheeler, Steve decidedly does not look towards the stairs leading to Nancy’s room. He doesn’t try to listen in, really! But it’s just that— she’s talking so loud. Even without his new-founded hearing, he’s sure that you’d be able to hear her from downstairs: on the phone, with Barb, in person with Jonathan. Jonathan, who Joyce doesn’t know the location of, who was meant to be Will’s ride.

Well, Steve guesses, it makes sense with how he’s been acting recently — trying to give his brother space, trying not to smother him.

(He does not think of how it hurts him. He does not focus on how his three friends, the only people he would truly call friends, are all together without him. It does not matter that they are not physically there. Somehow, it hurts more, to think of how they aren’t. How they are using their time apart to spend it together, and how that time had never included him. 

How long had they been doing this? Was this always how it was? When Nancy said she had to study, and Jonathan said he had a novel to finish, and Barb said she had a dinner with relatives, were they all just lying to him? Did they ever say anything truthful? Did they ever want him, like him, love him, the way that he did to them? 

No. No, he will not think about it. He will think of Jonathan. He will think of Jonathan and how it answers the question of where he is, and he will not think of Barb or Nancy or what this means for any of them).

It’s not just Nancy that is loud, either. The kids — Mike and Lucas and Dustin and Will and Max and Jane — are whispering behind the closed door of the basement. With each step it feels as if his heartbeat is drawing in the sounds of their voices — too quiet for anyone else, too loud for him. He can hear the sound bounce off the small round table, muffled by their shoulders pressed together in a circle. They’re speaking in not-so-hushed tones, but the door of the basement is heavy, and Steve isn’t the best to judge the loudness of things, anymore. Was it a normal tone? Was it too quiet, secretive? Was it perfect and normal?

“That’s a horrible idea.”

“You don’t even believe that it’s a monster, so why would it be a horrible idea, huh?”

“Well, if it turns out to be a monster, I don’t want to be the one to get eaten, Mike!”

No.

“I do not think it would be good to go out there.”

“Why? You said that there was a monster! If Hawkins has something like that, we need to be the ones to find it and—”

“Dude, if it can do what El is saying, there’s no way we could capture it.”

“Dustin, Lucas is right. The police surrounded the place pretty quickly, and you know how incompetent the police force—” A shuffle, silence. “Most of the police force is. They’re trying to hide the body.”

“I don’t think any of this is a good idea.”

“We should listen to Will.”

“No! We should go to the scene of the body and figure this out before something else happens!”

They know.

“Why would you say that? You son of a bitch I’m just gonna be thinking of a monster eating me all night—”

“Monsters aren’t even real—”

“We don’t know that it was a monster—”

“It had to be a monster—”

“Couldn’t be human—”

“A real monster—“

How do they know a monster killed the man in the woods? How do they know where he was killed?  He doesn’t want to be hunted. Steven doesn’t want to be a monster. He needs to— they can’t go on with this. Steven’ll tell Joyce. Or Mrs Wheeler. Or Dustin’s mum. Anyone, everyone. They can’t know, they can’t get involved. They can’t know about him. He’s not a monster. He’s not. He swears. 

“Hey! Time to go, guys!”

Steve pretends not to see the way they jump, or how the two closest to the door — Max and Lucas — bolt up from their seats at the table to shield the rest of the party from Steve’s eyes as they shuffle papers into their respective bags. Instead, he leans against the doorframe, smiles at them as comfortingly as he can.

“Who else am I carting home with me?” Steve asks, head slightly turned away from the chaos of the table. “And don’t even try to dodge it this time, Max. You live the furthest away and it’s the middle of the night.”

“Can you drop me off at Dustin’s?” Lucas asks. “I’m staying over.”

“And your parents know that?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yes, mum.”

Steve reaches over to ruffle his hair in the way that they pretend to hate. “Hey, you know I’m responsible for you for the short time you’re in my care.”

Jane tilts her head up at Steve, and there is that feeling again, the feeling that he ignores when he looks back at her. She can’t know. There’s no way that she knows.

“If you are here, my dad should be outside.”

Steve nods, says something offhandedly about how he’ll be waiting there for them. Jane and Max are the newest additions to the group, but they’ve grown on his as quickly as mold. He still doesn’t know that much about them, just knows that Lucas has a wicked crush on Max, that Mike is so fond of Jane that he doesn’t see the way Will looks at him. He doesn’t like to meddle in their love lives, and so he doesn’t. But if he gives them a few pointers, tells them to listen, to let them speak, to not treat them as if they are porcelain, well. He’ll just deny it.

So when he goes outside to wait by his car, he feels his heart drop through his stomach at the sight of the police cruiser that’s stationed by the curb. I left the party early because I was upset. I drove away. I stayed in my house all night and cried and slept and then went to school. I heard of the death through the radio. I have never been that deep into the woods.

“Harrington!”

I left the party early because Nancy broke up with me. I didn’t drink so I drove home. I slept through the night and heard on the radio the announcement of the death. I have never been that deep into the woods.

“Officer.” Steve says, hands by his sides, head lowered.

“You’re Joyce’s babysitter, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

The officer grunts at the formal address. “Call me Hopper.”

The front door opens behind him. He can feel the light bleed warmth into his skin. Steve needs to leave. He needs the kids to hurry the fuck up and get to the goddamned car so he can get out of the fucking police officer’s presence.

“Better get those kids home safe, Harrington. What with everything’s that’s happening in the woods.” Hopper puts his hands on his hips, looks over Steve’s head to the children slowly saying their goodbyes. “First time someone’s been murdered in Hawkins since, well. Since before either of us were born.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hopper claps him on the shoulder, a too-toothy smile on his lips, before Jane has ran up to his vehicle, and the door is open, and they are gone.

— — —

He needs to clean up the mess that is in his living room and dining room, scattered across the hallway and kitchen. Dropping off the kids was easy enough, with the only downside being the bickering about who gets to decide the music (“It’s my car, so I get to decide. End of story.”). He didn’t miss the way that they spoke in hushed tones, or the way that Max rolled her eyes at the idea of a monster being real. Steve just… chose to ignore it. For now. There’s nothing that can connect the monster in the woods to himself. Nothing except— no. He won’t mention it.

Slamming the door of his car shut, he tries to catalogue how much damage he did to his house. He already cleaned up the blood before, just so that it wouldn’t stain so easily. But the whole shitshow of vases and the china? Yeah, that was gonna take a while.

Steve turns on the lights methodically — his father always told him to keep the ones outside on, to keep some of the living rooms lights lit so that people thought someone was home, so that they weren’t robbed. It didn’t matter that Hawkins was a small town, and that nobody would dare cross his father, his strong palm, his stronger team of lawyers. It only mattered that it was them versus us he would say. You need to make friends with the right people, foster beneficial connections. Sometimes, Steve wondered what his father would think about his smoke breaks with Eddie Munson, being almost-friends with Jonathan Byers and actual-friends Barbara Holland, or his babysitting job that really was just hanging out with some tweens.

He slides his shoes off, not caring to untie them. It’ll be a problem for him in the morning when he runs late for school. Steve throws his keys to the bowl at the kitchen counter. He makes to move to the living room, to assess the mess of his mother’s belongings, to grab a broom, to sweep it all away—

Oh.

Eddie.

“You were the thing in the woods.” He says. “I know you killed that man.”

“How did you get in here?”

“I picked the lock.” Eddie fiddles with something in his pocket. “Don’t dodge the question.”

Steve stands at the edges of the dining room. He breathes in deep and closes his eyes for just second, lets his shoulders drop from where they’ve been hunched to his ears. This situation — he needs to deescalate it. He needs to know if there’s anyone else here, if Eddie told anyone else what he saw in the woods, had accused Steve to anyone else within his circle. Eddie sits at the dining room table, the horribly plain and circular dark wood making his skin seem deathly pale. His feet are placed firmly on the ground, leg jumping and bumping the chain connected to his jeans. He must have only started fidgeting now. The sound is too loud for Steve to have missed it.

He places one foot in front of the other, his eyes swinging across the room to see if anything has changed — to see what has been moved. “Monster? Eddie, there’s no such thing as monsters—”

“No, don’t even fucking try that!” Eddie stands up from his seat, points a finger towards Steve. Nothing has been moved. The vase pieces stay shattered on the ground, beneath Eddie’s boots. “Don’t come any closer — I saw the cut on your cheek. It’s in the exact same spot as the monster’s.”

Steve raises his hands up, palms facing Eddie as if to say I have nothing that could possibly hurt you. “That’s ridiculous. This? This little thing? It was just a shaving accident, Eddie. Nothing more.”

“You’re one of the only people that left the party early.” Eddie says. “There’s no one else it could be.”

Steve smiles, takes another step forward. “Eddie, buddy. You must be misremembering — I didn’t leave the party early. I took Nancy home—”

“Nancy who was ushered out by Jonathan Byers? Don’t fucking deny it, Harrington. I saw you leave.”

He drops his hands.

This approach isn’t working. He’s just too stubborn. If only Eddie could just take him for his word, Steve wouldn’t have to do anything to him. Wouldn’t have to hurt him, or make him disappear. He never meant to hurt anyone, but if Eddie stays alive, if he knows everything that happened because of his stupid fucking stroll through the woods, then he needs to be gone. It’s a shame, really. Steve quite liked their shared smoke breaks. But some things just aren’t meant to be.

No.

No? Steve thinks. You do not get to decide what I do with my life. You do not get to come and leave whenever you please. You weren’t there when I needed you, so you don’t get to have a fucking say in this.

He is weak. He is scared.

The voice moves his head, like hands pressing softly against his cheeks, and points him towards Eddie’s hands. Eddie’s hands that are still in his jacket pockets, that he can hear shaking, that he can hear pinching at threads and pulling at the inner lining— destroying and tearing apart in his fear.

Make him terrified.

Steve tilts his head up, looks down at Eddie’s form down the curve of his nose. He knows that they’re the same height, but when Steve stands just so, and when Eddie is hunched in on himself, it is as if they aren’t even in the same atmosphere. Steve places his hands into his jacket pockets, he leans back on his legs, calm and comforting and at ease. And then, when Eddie’s legs have stopped moving, and his chain has stopped jangling, he smiles.

“What do you want, Eddie — to turn me in?” Steve laughs, flicks a stray hair out of his vision. “Because I don’t think that the police department will believe any of what you’re saying right now. You saw me leave the party early, and somehow that connects me to the murder in the woods?”

Eddie stands still, and Steve feels the voice revel in the smell of his anxiety. He takes a few steps forward, calculated and perfectly pressing his socked feet into the shards of broken china and useless flower vases. 

“I’m flattered, really. Sure, I’m athletic, but do you really think that a freshly turned eighteen year old would be able to overpower an adult man?” Steve smiles, takes a breath as if to contemplate the answer. “No. They’re not going to believe that I can turn into a monster, they’re not going to believe a single word you say.”

He takes another step.

“Now, on the other hand.” Another. “You broke into my home, picked the lock so that you could get in.”

Steve sees the exact moment he becomes aware of what he’s implying. Sees the way that the words fail him in his throat, and how his left hand stills in its destruction of fabric. Eddie stands frozen as Steve leans into his space, places himself so close and intimate, before he continues.

“Maybe you wanted to steal something from one of these rich houses, and you saw through the trick of leaving the lights on, thought nobody’s home. Smashed a couple vases and expensive china trying to find where the cash was stored. And then, when I walked in, when you heard the car door opening, when you saw me come through the front door,” Steve arches blunt nails up towards the scabbing cut on his cheek, presses deep and harsh and scratches it away, leading to the corner of his eye. “You picked up your knife, the one that you have in your pocket, right now, and slashed me across the face.”

The blood from the opened wound rolls down in crimson beads. An unknown desire builds up in his gut to taste it, and, really, his instincts, the voice, haven’t fully lead him astray, yet. With dainty fingers, Steve presses the pad of his thumb into the warmth of the blood, brings it to his lips. He watches with fascination as Eddie tracks the movement, as his eyes, as his body stay still, and blessedly silent.

The voice within him hums — content. I’m doing the right thing, this is for the best, aren’t you proud?

Keep going. You’re doing so well. Keep going. Make him scared. Warp his actions. Warp his words. You’re doing so well.

“Who do you think they’ll believe?” Steve smiles, tilts his head. He leans away, turns towards the stairs, feels the blood pool to the surface of the thin cut, refilling what once was wiped away. “What was your plan, anyway? Since you knew what I was, already.”

Eddie stays still in his place, standing amongst the wreckage that is his dining room. Steve doesn’t hear him move. 

“You said you needed help.” 

And— well. 

Steve doesn’t know what to make of that. 

It doesn’t seem like the voice does, either, because it does not respond in the giddy glee that it did when Eddie was quiet and pliant and still. No, instead, it feels as if it has gone, again. As if it has decided that this interaction is done, and Steve does not need the guidance, that it has gotten off this ride, only to reappear when the voice decides that a change in the actions, in Steve’s actions, must be created.

He doesn’t understand. He thought he did good.

“You can let yourself out.” Steve says, instead. He makes his way up the stairs, the task of clearing the shards of his tantrum abandoned. “I’m sure you already know how.”

— — —

For a while, it felt like he was going to get away with it. Threatening Eddie, leaving the party early, the murder. A week had passed since the man in the woods’ untimely death, and nothing had, truly, changed. Sure, he and Eddie didn’t have their customary I-Don’t-Want-To-Go-To-Gym smoke breaks, and there was something weird going on within his friend group, and Nancy and Jonathan were more distant than usual, but, hey, the price one has to pay for not being found a murderer and-slash-or monster, right? There’s logical answers to all these changes, of course. Nancy and Jonathan are distant because of their new founded puppy-love. Barb is absent because of the sense of being a third wheel with them. Eddie refuses to speak to him because of… everything that happened.

(Or, that is what Steve thought before the current morning. But we can let him dream, for a bit, can’t we?).

He’s forgone the radio today, and every morning after Halloween. Steve can’t stand the sound of jazz or opera — that wonderful radio station of his parents’ sounding utterly horrific to his ears, reminding him of the man that he cannot properly remember. There is a part of him that wishes he could just picture his face — maybe where he killed the man, what he actually did. He had tried pleading with the voice again, to no avail. Really, what did he think he was doing? It didn’t respond to him when he first tried to ask for help, why would it indulge his desires now?

The tea is not new. One spoonful of sugar, a dash of milk, and a teabag that has been steeped for just the right amount to not be too strong. His father used to call him a sissy for liking tea — something about it being a girl’s drink, but Steven had been too young to truely understand, too much on his mind. The thermos is one that Nancy had gifted him, and Steve wonders if he should still be using it. Is there some unwritten taboo about what he can and cannot use now that they’re broken up? Is he meant to mourn every item that they shared, that he gifted to her, that she gifted to him? It is only a thermos. The item itself is nothing special — thick, double layered glass that kept the heat in or the cold out. It is not special, and there are hundreds and thousands of them that exist, so why does he feel like he should’t be using it? Like he’s crossing some line that nobody had articulated.

Maybe this is why he had been so startled, once he untied and slipped on his shoes, started up his car, by the voice of the reporter over his car radio. 

“The man who was found dead in the woods has been confirmed to be Hawkins Post’s Tom Holloway. With his family left devastated, the police are urging people to come forward…”

Holloway. Hawkins Post. The man that he had killed — the man that had been murdered to the point of unrecognition — was Nancy and Jonathan’s boss. He’s never met the man. He doesn’t even know what he actually looks like. If Steve tried hard enough, he might be able to make out the vague features; greying hair, a square jaw, tired sunken eyes. He let the breeze come in through the open car door, and he tried to remember anything about him. Any mention of his name by his now-ex-girlfriend and her now-boyfriend. Tom Holloway. Tom Holloway. Hawkins Post. What did he do? Why was he so familiar? 

It was like it was on the tip of his tongue. Something important that he wouldn’t forget normally. He knows that Nancy talked about him. No, that’s not right. He knows that Nancy bitched about him. Yes — this is how he knows him. Not by face, barely by name. He knows that he wasn’t a good person. He was an asshole. 

And maybe that made him feel a little bit better about this— outcome. So to speak. The voice had not given him any indication of why Nancy’s boss was the one it targeted, but if Steve is remembering correctly, if the words that Nancy said were true, then there’s a part of Steve that says he deserved it. Or, no, maybe deserving to be hunted wasn’t the best way to put it, but there could have been worse people to die that night. Worse people for his anger, for him, to be directed to.

Hunted? Since when did he remember that the man was hunted?

(Pitiful. In their last moments, when they are fearing for their life, humans become so pitiful. Where is all the anger and vitriol that was held before? Was it ever real? Was it always just a façade? Did this strength even exist in its truest form, or was it always just playing pretend, as if this adult is a child that yearns for nurture?

“Please, please, don’t— I have— what the fuck do you— please—!”

The man shuffles backwards in the mud of the ground. Warm satisfaction curls its tail around the bony limbs of this body as tears track down the man’s face. Isn’t this what he wanted? Isn’t this how he treated everyone else? As if they were lesser than him. As if he was something to be afraid of. How many lives did he need to destroy, how many people did he disregard because of his own ego, before he realised that he was nothing but a pathetic worm? He’ll give the man something to be afraid of. Not the figurative monster that these humans refer to. Something real.

Steve’s body takes a hunkering step forwards, legs seemingly creaking at the movement. It has been so long since these bones have been out, since these bones have been full. A hand, a claw, reaches forwards to the withering form of the worm in front of him. It cries out pleas that are all for naught. The decision has been made. He has seen Steve’s body. He cannot live any longer. Bowing down, he leans in close — sees the vague outline in horrific non-colours of the body of the worm, the face of the worm and his snotty complexion — and breathes deep. He smells impeccable. The worm smells of fear.

He lifts his hand above the worm’s head, sees the way he looks at them reflecting the moonlight, hears his voice run hoarse in pleading and begging and crying and screaming and dying and dying and dying and dying and—)

“Shit!”

The glass thermos shatters in his palms, across the dash of his car. Steve watches in sick fascination as long claws recede from his fingertips, as the skin recollects its natural non-ashy colour, leaving a mess of red seeping into his cuffs. If the man was Tom Holloway, and he was Nancy’s boss, then the connection was there. And Eddie already knew about Steve. 

— — —

The best thing he can do on such short notice is to feign interest. Sink the bloody cuffs into the cold water of his ensuite bathroom, shuck the jumper and pull another on. This was just a normal day. A normal day of high school, and not doing homework, and detesting the people he was meant to detest — jocks and nerds and people who he will not mention by name, right now. People do not look at him when he walks down the halls, and he would have thought that it would be a comfort: being invisible, today. Nobody looks his way. No teachers, no students. He stalks down the halls as if he is any other human student who likes their boring classes, who had heard the news on the radio about dead Tom Holloway of Hawkins Post.

They’re already waiting by his locker. Nancy, Jonathan, Barb. It makes his walk stop, shoes making that god-awful skidding noise against the tiles of the hall. But it doesn’t make them turn, too caught up in their conversation — pressed palms against shoulder blades, tight eyebrows, drawn grimaces and no teeth. He can smell their despair, the feeling of their outrage, and, distinctly, something sharper, or warmer, softer, something that does not belong in this conglomerate of downtrodden faces.

“Nance,” Steve starts, because he knows that if he said nothing, that if he tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, they would look at him as if he were an other. He needs to feign interest. Be interested in her turmoil, mourning a man that she had vehemently hated, had wished death upon before. Things change when words become real. When they gain power. “I heard what happened, with your boss. How’re you feeling?”

“How am I feeling? I feel as if someone I know just died! Like, yes, he was a horrible person, but I didn’t think that he’d just— that he would be the person— he didn’t deserve to die!”

Well, Steve thinks. To each their own. 

“I just,” Nancy sighs, delicately places a thin hand atop her brow, barley touching her forehead. “I don’t even know how I’m supposed to feel.”

Steve watches as Jonathan moves his hand up from where it lived inside his pocket, watches as it is placed against Nancy’s shoulder. He locks eyes with Barb for a moment, sees the way her eyes were following it, too. For a split second, he’s almost confronted with the idea that they were both kind of pining for their friends who were in relationships with each other. But Steve no longer felt towards Nancy what he did before, no longer felt how Jonathan did. At least, that’s what he tries to tell himself. If there’s one thing that he’s held on since the days where he would see his father, it’s to fake it till you make it. 

The hand movement, though, is so much warmer than what he imagined it could be. Steve tries to pinpoint how he really, truly, feels about their relationship, about how fast she had moved on, how easy it was for her to move on. Was he blind in his human body, too? He saw the signs in the later stages, yes, when he was truly sure that they were crumbling into dust, but were they always there? The second that they had first kissed? How about when he first asked her out? 

And then— there was Barb. He turns to watch her again, sees the way that her touch is only friendly, with no other motive there, and he wonders. Steve knows Barb. He’s known her for so long, now, would consider her a close friend. Had she always liked Nancy? Did she like Nancy before Steve did, before Jonathan did? There’s a sick part of him that hopes that she will find that happiness within Nancy, within someone else, leave all of them floundering. It seems like, out of all of them, she’d probably be the perfect match.

“Thanks,” Jonathan says, “For driving Will back home. I know it was super late notice, and I would have if I could, but—”

“Things got in the way.” Steve finishes. Tries not to spit the words. “It’s no big problem, really. What with all this happening, I can’t imagine how Will felt. Especially since it all happened close to where you live, near your part of the woods.”

Jonathan shifts a little at that, angles his body closer to Nancy, making their group even more tight-knit against the rest of the students. “It’s technically near your house, too.”

He didn’t really think of it like that. Steve tilts his head, tries to picture the woods separating them in his head, like a map. It’s weird to think that the only thing dividing them is the dense trees, thicket, and money bracket. What makes Steve’s house so attractive to buyers is exactly what makes Jonathan’s so poor. The woods so close by are so scary and off-putting. Oh I love how the woods give you privacy! I hate the sounds of the howling wind through the trees. The crickets chirping in the woods is so calming! 

Steve thinks that he could have been good friends with Jonathan, if he had the chance. He doesn’t think that he will, now, with the way that Nancy looks at him, the way that Jonathan looks at her. It feels like there’s a hole within his chest — something that’s always been there, that he has only just noticed now. Something that had started off so small an unnoticeable, something that he had ignored until it festered and grew and devoured parts of himself that he was only just learning to love. He will never be able to be friends with them. Not in the ways that he wishes he could, not in the ways that he wants.

“The principal said that they were gonna hold a meeting in the gym,” Barb said. “Who’s gonna bet that it’s about this?”

“There’s nothing else that it could be.” Jonathan says. “Nothing as important.”

“Hopefully they don’t say anything about you guys.” Steve says. Tries to quell his beating heart. What will the principal say? Will they say anything about him? Will he see Eddie?

“I hope so, too.” Nancy says, as Jonathan removes his hand, shuffling around their group until they’re headed in the right direction. “I know I usually say we should go in early to get good seats, but…”

She doesn’t finish her sentence, but Steve doesn’t think she has to. He nods, watches above the heads of the students, catching the straggling eyes and fingers pointing in their direction. It’s no coincidence that their group has formed a semi-circle around Nancy — she was already part or the Hawkins high editorial newspaper committee, people already knew about her internship at the Hawkins Post. They didn’t know about Jonathan, too quiet, too reserved, or maybe they just didn’t care as much. All they heard was the words dead man and Hawkins Post and connected them to sweetheart Nancy Wheeler, trying to draw as many connections as they possibly could.

(He should’t feel happy about this. No. No, he should not. But these people are so preoccupied with trying to pin it on Nancy, trying to see how she feels, trying to gage how she’s responding, what she’s said about the dead man, what she feels about the dead man, where she was when he was killed, spiralling and tunnelling until they can only see her that, for once, for once in his miserable god-forsaken and humanely boring life, Steve Harrington is invisible to their eyes).

The warning bell rings, and their semi-circle stays strong. The students shuffle pass them, slowly surely, trying to glimpse and peer and leer and hear the little sniffles that Nancy does not make. Steve watches as she glares back at them through the cracks in their armour. Watches as she snarls in a way that makes her look even more deadly. 

The announcement — the thing that starts the beginning of the end, the beginning of change, and revelations, and things that Steve would have never imagined — is made in the gym. Everyone is ordered to gather there, teachers ushering students who were left loitering in the halls, students who were even more late than their group was. When they had first arrived, the four of them, semi-circle disbanded and stood, back straight, faces denying anything that could be placed upon them, they had gotten stares. Or, Nancy had. It was just as Steve had noticed before: as if everyone and everything else was an afterthought, student body latching their hooks into the newest piece of flesh laid bare on the cutting table.

They quickly made their way to the only places they could see available, squishing themselves between the bodies of their peers, trying to blend into the background, not be spotted by the eyes of the principal, as he coughed and sputtered down by the microphone and the stand that held papers. He shuffled nervously, and Steve thought he had very right to be. If this announcement was about Tom Holloway, the dead man in the woods, accusations or warning and anything in-between, he would have to draft up a speech in the mere minutes before everyone got here, organised everyone to be here.

“I’m sure,” the principal says, and his voice hushes everyone, the noise and chatter a dull hum at the back of Steve’s head, “That you’ve all heard about Tom Holloway. I wish the Holloway family well for this tragedy that they are dealing with, and usher everyone to respond to their peers respectfully.”

He says the word as if it is rubber — rolling it around in his mouth, chewing it up in his tongue, before spitting it out. The faces of the people around Steve turn to look at their group, again, in the moment that the principal stops speaking, shuffling papers that held no meaning. He meets them head on, watches through the corner of his eye the way that Nancy faces forward, the way that she doesn’t want to face them, and does it for her. He tilts his head up, looks at them down his nose, eyes narrowed, teeth bared, and watches the way that they turn back to their measly, pathetic little groups, heartbeats racing, neck burning, hair sticking up on end. When Nancy taps her fingers against his thigh in thanks, he drops his gaze back to the front of the stage.

The front of the stage which held the principal, the secretaries, rows and rows of teachers in plastic chairs. And Chief of Police, Hopper.

“I was informed by the police that we will have a strict curfew in place, for those under the age of twenty-one.” The outrage is delectable and palpable, and Steve wishes that he could focus on it — their turmoil. But he can’t, he can’t, not over the way that Hopper seems to be scanning the faces of everyone there, not over the way that Hopper, the same man who saw him before, is here, is here, in a place where Steve had felt a semblance of safety, in a place where he was not meant to be.

“Before any of you ask,” the principal says, and Steve tracks the way that he looks to Hopper for confirmation, the beats of silence before Hopper looks away from the crowd to give him his blessing, “This is about Tom Holloway, and the circumstances around his death. They don’t know what—”

Hopper coughs, and the students murmur, and it is too loud, too hot, too much.

“Who did it, yet, and the police just want you all to be as safe as possible.”

He can feel eyes on him. Steve can feel one set of eyes, no more than one, and he knows who it is, because Hopper has not scanned across his section of the gym, yet, his section of the students, and there is only one person that would have any reason to look at him like that, would have any reason to look at him at all. Eddie. Steve doesn’t turn. He doesn’t want to see him. He wants to see him. He can almost picture how he would look — frizzed hair, wild eyes, hands clasped into the fabric of his dark-wash jeans. He wants to see him, he wants to turn around, but what will he be met with if he does? Steve knows where he is not wanted. He knows that Eddie does not truly want to look him in the face, not after everything, not after finding out what he knows. 

When the assembly is over, announcement made, Hopper leaving as quickly as he can, Steve tries to hurry their group. Barb just looks at him with a question in her brows, but Nancy and Jonathan seem to have the same idea, and when they reach the double doors, teachers still sat, students milling about and trying to waste time before going to lunch, Steve catches a glimpse of Eddie. Catches a glimpse of how the basketball club is all huddled together like ants on a dead bird, staring at him. At Eddie.

“We’ll meet you there!” Barb says, hushed whisper, loud enough to be heard over the other students. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why Nancy and Barb are ducking into the bathroom together — from Nancy’s hunched shoulders, to the uptick of her eyebrow. She just needed somewhere that she wouldn’t be stared at. Even if that had to be in a bathroom cubicle guarded by Barb.

It leaves Steve with Jonathan, walking to the cafeteria to secure their spots. The hole inside of Steve that has grown ten times in the time that he’s left it alone aches at the unsure, warm, smile that Jonathan gives him. As if he is unsure what they should do, as if there is no way for them to be friends. They wait by the doors as the students pass, as the herd is herded into the cafeteria, into their extra classes, or music practices that take up their precious de-stressing time, and just… don’t talk.

Steve would love to. He loves to talk, most of the time. If you got him talking about something that he liked, something that he legitimately liked, or tricked himself into liking, he found it hard to stop. Maybe that’s what people were talking about, that passion that he felt like he lacked. Though, he usually stayed quiet. Listened, rather than spoke. He liked to watch the way that people said things, the ways that their lips would curl around certain words, the way their eyes would flutter, or their noses would scrunch. The human body was such a fascinating thing, and he would often find himself imitating the things that he had learned in the mirror — a snarl here, a sparkle in the eye there, looking up through his eyelashes every now and then. It was good practice, and it was oh-so-fascinating seeing how his face muscles moved in response to his thoughts.

When the students have passed, and Steve makes his way to go to the cafeteria, to save them those precious seats, but before the girls have come back out of the bathroom, Jonathan places a tender palm on his shoulder, much like he did with Nancy. Only, this time, Steve can feel the shake in it. The tremor that runs from his ring finger to his heart, left elbow weedy and thin underneath his jacket.

“I’m…” He starts, eyes darting around as if there were someone watching. Steve knows that there isn’t. Would know if someone was. “I’m glad that he’s dead.”

He rushes out the words like they’re toxic, trying to get them away from him. They tumble and they shatter across the floor because— oh? Isn’t this an interesting revelation? Had what he done so carelessly, had the murder Steve committed in the woods create some type of good in the world? Did people benefit from a man dying?

“Yeah, I’d rather him just be,” Jonathan takes his hand back, pushes the shoulder back and away, hair swishing with the movement. “Away, rather than dead. But the way he treated people? The way he treated Nancy?”

Steve smiles. This is good news. He did something good. The net-good of the world has gone up because of that pitiful worm dying in the dirt. What he did was justified. What he did— what he did without meaning to— was the right choice. It wouldn’t happen again, no. The stress was enough to tear his pretty hair out, and he had worked so hard on it, so, no, it wouldn’t happen again. He would go back to being good little Steve Harrington, with his good little friend group, and the only person to know the fucked-up truth would be Eddie Munson, and, let’s face it, who in the fresh hell is going to believe him? Everything was going to be alright. Everything would be just, again. Because that man deserved to die.

“No, yeah, I totally get it, man.” Steve says, hides the glee in his veins. “Just, maybe hold off telling Nance about that? She seems a little torn up after everything.”

Jonathan nods, paces the space across the doors. Steve pretends not to see the way that he looks at Steve and then to the bathroom that Nancy and Barb are still in, revelling in their alone and girl time.

“What happened?” Jonathan asks. “Between us? I know, stupid question, with you and Nance and then me and Nance, but. One day I felt like we were making progress to being friends, and then it felt like it kinda just—”

“Imploded? Disappeared?” 

“Yeah. Exactly that.”

Steve sighs, presses his shoulder into the wall and leans as hard as he can, tries to imbed the dirty tiles into his flesh. There is a part of him — the part of him that is not really him — that wants to make Jonathan hurt. 

To tell him about how there could be a universe where they are friends, but that all bridges have been burned, and the hole in his body is only rotting from the inside out, that there is no way for them to be, ever be, something that even resembles friendly, despite the way that they like to talk to each other. The smiles are empty, the words are empty. Steve knows that Jonathan only directed his outburst about the dead man towards him because he has nobody to tell — because he is the first person he saw. 

“I know you two are like… almost-official,” Steve says. Pretends that it doesn’t hurt, just a little bit. “You don’t need my permission to do anything, really. You’re your own people, and there’s nothing I can do to stop you, but just, please. Give me some time. Everything’s just, you know, a little weird, now. I don’t really think there’s any proper way to deal with what’s going on in our group.”

“Okay,” Jonathan says. Nods his head, rubs his cuff along the underside of his nose. “Okay.”

— — —

It turns out that the assembly is like a blessing in disguise. The I-Don’t-Want-To-Go-To-Gym smoke breaks that Steve had thought were destroyed — little bits of friendship floating through the air — by the revelation of… him, were not actually that. Destroyed. By the time that lunch finishes (an affair mostly steeped in silence, as Nancy and Jonathan huddled together on the side of the bench that she and Steve used to occupy, shielding each other from the eyes of the public. Barb had mostly been sympathetic — warm palm reaching over the cracks in the metal tables to warm Nancy’s fingertips, Jonathan’s elbow. And Steve had tried to give them that same comfort, tried to give them any of what she could, because a part of him, no matter how much he tried to fake it, or pretended to be normal and human, had always cared for them in some real way. He doesn’t think the kindness in his eyes was read as such, but if he believes it to be true, he can trick himself into thinking that he is good), and an English class goes by,  it’s time for gym. Usually it’s the class that he enjoys the most, whether he be in the mood to actually participate in the sport, or to skip, with Eddie.

But— he had thought the smoke breaks would dissolve. Destroyed, despondent, and dead due to Steve, himself, and what he was. 

He had decided to skip, this time. The moment that he walked even in the direction of the gymnasium, he had already garnered the attention of one Billy Hargrove, buzzing around his shoulders, asking questions that he knew Steve wouldn’t answer. How’s Nancy holding up? Does she need someone’s shoulder to cry on? Too bad that couldn’t be you. Do you know if she’s still single? I heard that she wanted that guy dead. What a bitch. When Steve had turned to give him nothing more than a blank eyed stare, Hargrove had just huffed and slammed his shoulder into Steve’s. The moment that he had started stalking off into the direction of the gym, Steve had turned for the little gap between the two buildings, a place which they would call theirs.

And, of course, he was there. Because this wasn’t just Steve’s spot anymore, this was a shared spot with shared history, between the two of them. Steve’s just glad that Eddie didn’t try to run away at the sight of him.

“Room for one more?”

Eddie sighs, and it is beautiful thing. The way that his shoulders dip, and he brings his knees up to his chest, how he blows air to try and move the heavy curtain of his fringe out of the way of his eyes. Steve’s been telling him to trim it for forever now, but Eddie said that there was nobody in Hawkins that could truly take care of curly hair. That the last time he went in for a routine trim, they had cut his hair so lopsided that Wayne had to take clippers to his scalp, in an attempt to salvage what was left. 

(“At least you looked metal,” Steve laughs. “It suited you.”

“You don’t even know what that word means.” Eddie snorts, double-breathes his way through the cigarette. “And are you saying that you don’t like this look? My luscious curls? My mane?”

Steve smiles. It isn’t the first time that they’ve had this conversation. Circling back to things that they have branded as Safe. Things that they can bring up when Steve is too quiet to be human, when Eddie is too happy to be real. Things that they have branded as Theirs. Safe and Comforting and Just in ways that other pieces of conversation weren’t. Steve didn’t know what made it such, what made it so easy. He wished he did so that every conversation could be Safe. 

He learnt what conversations, what topics were Wrong, with Eddie. Talking about Nancy, their fathers, classes. Things that existed outside of themselves in a capacity that was too true, and too much, and not enough all at once. They did not talk about their parents, and they did not talk about how their holidays were — they did not talk about all the things that Steve would talk about to Barb and Nancy (and sometimes even Jonathan). 

This was different. There was something different between them. In their conversations that could circle between the same topics, with the same answers. Because they both knew, every time Eddie’s hair was brought up, or Steve’s old-new shoes were addressed, they would run in the same circles, play the same parts, as if it were a new conversation, as if it were a rehearsed part of a play that was just filler, that told them everything and nothing about themselves.

How was your day? Steve would say, and Eddie would reply with: good, I’m just tired, every time, no matter how he truly felt. And then Eddie would laugh about something, and regale Steve with a formulaic response that he wanted to test out on his group, and Steve would listen, because if there is one thing he is good at, it’s listening, and would laugh and cry and smile in the right places. This was Safe. This was Comforting.

“I think they’ve all suited you,” Steve says, “Made you look pretty.”

He deviates from the path, from what is Safe, and is rewarded with a shy smile, and calloused fingers knocking against his in the distance between them. What does this make them? Are they still Safe? Is this still Comfort?).

“Always, Harrington.” Eddie spits, shuffles closer to the wall.

There’s a part of him that doesn’t want to mention it. He knows that he will have to, if he wants to fall back into something Safe. But he doesn’t want to. It’s the first time that he’s actually felt, almost, afraid of doing something. Of the repercussion of his actions. It did not matter that the man was dead. He could not change that. He could not stop that. Steve could have stopped Eddie finding out — been more secretive, taken a different approach, done anything and everything differently. This— the distance— was his fault, and his alone.

“The basketball club has been pissy-er than usual.” Eddie says, turns to lean his head back and up against the brick wall. “I’m used to the comments about being a freak, about being queer, or whatever. I can deal with that. Embrace it, you know? But with this guy murdered in the woods, with a body in the woods, found in a way that is almost demonic?” 

Eddie laughs again, and lets Steve fill in the gaps. He doesn’t even look at him, turn to acknowledge him more than giving him the space to be able to breathe. Steve knows what it means — what his carless murder has equated to: Eddie being targeted by thick-headed jocks who think that anything non-normative equal demon-summoning-demonic-murdering-virgin-sacrificing psycho. Steve knows that the location doesn’t help. Knows that the woods bracket the trailer park in the same way it does Steve and Jonathan’s houses.

“I never wanted that to happen, Eddie. I didn’t want to pin it on anyone — I never wanted to kill someone.”

“Well, you did. You turned into a fucking monster and then you killed a guy in the woods, and now people are starting to think that me your ex-girlfriend are the ones that fucking mauled him. So tough luck, Steve. Because while you live in your ivory tower, having all the fun in the world, not having to deal with any of the consequences that you made, everyone else does!” 

“I didn’t want to kill him—”

“Tell that to the dead man!” Eddie says, and he turns to look at Steve in the eyes for a moment, and what he finds must be truly ugly, because he turns away the second they connect. “Or his family! Did you even notice that Heather isn’t here today? That she’s probably mourning the loss of her dad? Jesus Christ, Harrington, do you ever stop to think? Ever?”

He misses the closeness in which they used to sit, under the guise of lighting each other’s cigarettes. he wishes the things that were Safe and Comforting. He doesn’t want this. He never wanted this. Steve had only come to terms with the dead man — the man that he had no control over — and now all of that was being thrown back in his face, confronting and ugly and horrible.

“What can I do to fix it?” Steven can follow instructions. Steven has always been good at following instructions.

“Well,” Eddie huffs, flicks the butt of the cigarette to the ground. Steven watches as the ash durns to dirt to nothing. “I don’t suppose you know how to resurrect the dead, so maybe calling off your posse, your friends, would be a good start? Stop people from spreading rumours about people who you know have very much not killed someone?”

The basketball club. The rumours. It would be easy. It could be so easy. All he had to do, all he had to do was let it out, was let it sing, let it have one moment, just a small one, just so small that it wouldn’t even be a blip in the history of the universe, so small, Steven, it wouldn’t hurt, so small, so pitiful, it wouldn’t hurt, it wouldn’t hurt it wouldn’t hurt it wouldn’t hurt it wouldn’t hurt it wouldn’t hurt—

“They’re not my friends.”

Eddie snarls at that, kicks his legs out, and makes to stand — return back to a class that he hated, with people that are spreading rumours about him, because he doesn’t want to be here, he doesn’t want to be near Steven, he doesn’t want him.

“Could have fooled me.” 

— — —

The curfew makes Joyce enlist Steve into the rotations of taking the kids home from their regular meetups. If he was properly paying attention and not replaying a certain conversation over and over again in his head, he would have heard something along the lines of we don’t want to compromise their growing social skills because of this! and something else of the nature of they feel safer together. But he was preoccupied, knowing only when, where, and who to pick up and drop off. 

When he arrives at the Wheeler’s to pick them up, he doesn’t even try to eavesdrop this time — he does not want to hear it. He does not want to hear what they might be saying about him. And yet, it is as if nobody is listening, because he still makes it out, in the seconds before he’s opening the door, the way that they say next victim and let’s find out and solve this mystery and monster monster monster as if they were invincible, and this was just some fucked up version of Scooby-Doo! 

Steve wishes it was. He really does. Maybe someone can come up to him and rip away his fleshy mask, reveal who he is meant to be. Would that be so horrible? Would all that remains be a monster?

No one. Steve thinks, as he opens his mouth to mention curfew to the kids. Nobody else is going to die.

“Curfew, kiddos! Chop-chop. We gotta go double-time on this if we all want to make it back before Hopper comes knocking at your door.” He watches the way that they scatter, that the mixed words of oh shit! and why didn’t you keep an eye on the time and hurry up! fill the room. This is their Safe. Their Comforting. 

“Could you drive me home?” Max asks, quick and simple, like ripping out a tooth or a splinter. “I forgot to ask Billy, and I don’t know if he’ll be home to pick up the phone.”

Steve doesn’t ask where he would be at a time like this — when everyone their age has to be in their homes in less than hour. Knowing Billy, Mr. Bad Boy Extraordinaire, he’s probably at some girl’s house, ready to jump out her window and into his car, straight back home. Or maybe he’s just taken his car and driven straight the fuck out of Hawkins. No Hawkins equals no curfew.

“Sure, Red. You’ll just be the last one.”

She mutters something about not caring when she gets home, just as long as it’s before curfew, as the car starts. All the boys live close enough together on a strip that doesn’t have many turns or tribulations, and Steve locks the car, walks them to their front door and waits patiently for their parents to come round and say hello, welcome, thank you so much Steve! Waiting with the kids earns him a handshake from Dustin, a roll of the eyes from Lucas, and a small smile that said wonders from Will. 

(And a hug from Joyce. But Steve thinks she would give him a hug no matter what he did— which in itself is a baffling thought. The act of giving without expecting something in return).

The drop-offs are routine. They are normal. They are how they should be, if not a little bit earlier, a little bit more frenzied than normal. The boys wave back three times as he starts the car, as Max toys with the radio, as she mumbles out directions and an address, as if Steve hadn’t had it memorised since the first time he had to drop her off.

The curfew, the assembly is not a blessing in disguise. 

It already revealed itself with the conversation with Eddie— smoke break retained, friendship on thin ice. 

It chooses to reveal itself, now.

To ruin everything. Set off a chain of events that cannot just be discarded and cast aside, misremembered and justified as an accident, this time. He does not know this, but, in the future, if he looked back on everything, he would be able to see where things started to go wrong. 

When they arrive at Max’s home, at 4819 Cherry Lane, Steve turns off the car. Watches Max’s eyes. The way that they’re glued to the thin curtains. Honey warmth spills out of them, shadows of the people of the house being projected like some sick puppet show.

He hears the fighting. He hears the sound of a voice too loud, too sharp, too old to be Billy’s. Too masculine to be Mrs Hargrove. He hears the telltale noise of shouting, of screaming. Steve turns to Max, because sometimes he doesn’t know if the things he hears he is meant to be able to, as a normal perfect human being, as a non-monster, if this is something that she can clearly hear too—

And then, the sound, the shape, the silhouette of a body being flung into a window.

“You gonna be okay, going in there?” Steve asks, eyes mirroring Max’s, glued to the lights of the house. He shouldn’t let Max go in there. He should take her back to his house. He should tell Hopper. He needs to check on Billy tomorrow. And he knew it all too well — Steve knew all about fathers like that, fathers who would get too loud, who could never be wrong, do no wrong, even when they, even whey they would say things, even when they would do things—

“I have to, don’t I?” Max whispers. She is quiet in a way that she never is— that she should never be. “Curfew.”

This is my fault this is my fault this is my fault this is my fault this is my fault this is my fault—

“Please don’t tell Hopper. He won’t—  he’s nearly 18. He doesn’t want to tell the cops because—”

“I know.” Steve says. And he does he does he does, in a way he wishes he didn’t. And he knows he knows he knows, that nothing will happen, that nobody will say anything, that nobody will feel Safe in that household, until that man is gone.

#steve harrinton #steddie big bang 2023 #steddie #eddie munson #stranger things #Don't Look at Me as if I'll Disappear

[pearwaldorf]

we need to talk about Rahaeli

This is slightly tangential to the dumpster fire that is OTW, but it is something I think is important to also take into consideration.

If you're following the comments on the OTW announcement posts, you may have seen reference to Rahaeli (Twitter) aka synedochic (DW) aka Denise. She is a co-founder of Dreamwidth, where FFA is hosted.

Denise is a Fandom Elder, in both the descriptive and derogatory senses of the term. She's been around forever, since the pre-Livejournal days. She has no hesitations about throwing around that Fandom Elder status, in the same way somebody like Franzeska or astolat or anybody else in the clique that founded OTW would.

Perspective from older fans is absolutely valuable, I want to emphasize. You want people who were there to explain why we are concerned about restrictions on explicit/queer/legal but "morally objectionable" fanwork, or how younger fans embrace purity rhetoric. But it's different the way Fandom Elders wield it, the implicit assumption that because they are older and have Seen Some Shit, they automatically have some sort of wisdom to transmit to the young'uns.

Denise knows a great deal about social media moderation, anti-harassment measures, and the legal obligations surrounding the discovery of CSEM/CSAM* on sites you're responsible for administrating. That expertise is extremely valuable when explaining to people why/how everything with OTW is very very concerning.

She also knows fandom very well, and exactly how to calibrate her words to push buttons. I remember her meltdown about Cohost, another social media site that looked like a viable competitor to Dreamwidth at the time. Here is a summary of it I wrote at the time.

I'd like to get into criticism of the part of that Twitter thread where she throws a random non-sequitur into an already extremely long thread. (I know this is already a long post, please bear with me.)

At this point, she's gone on about OTW, their gross neglect of volunteers, Rebecca Tushnet, and a bunch of other stuff for like three or four screens. They are all things we should rightly be appalled by, so we're on her side for saying things that need to be said. We are probably also getting a little tired and not reading things as closely as we should. I think this is absolutely deliberate.

She then pivots the thread to EndOTWRacism (hereafter EOR) with what seems like an offhand comment about how she doesn't agree with their goals. She wrongly characterizes the end goal of EOR's campaign as a desire to moderate fic on AO3. This is patently false and is explicitly stated on their call for action under What Do We Want. They want AO3 to come up with anti-harassment policies and content policies for abusive and racist fics (what some people would characterize as troll fics), which are clearly written to degrade and harm fans of color**. We are not talking about fics with bigoted stereotypes or racist characterization.

EOR links heavily to work by Stitchmediamix, a well-known and outspoken Black anti-racist advocate in fandom. They write a column about race and fandom for Teen Vogue, and have been the target of incredible amounts of harassment. Denise thinks it's biased and kinda weird EOR does this.

The reason EOR relies so heavily on Stitch's work (and that of Dr. Rukmini Pande) is because very few people actually write about this stuff. It's horrible, thankless work that doesn't get you good attention but needs to be discussed anyways. (Acafandom, such as that which gets published in OTW's journal Transformative Works and Cultures, is racist as fuck, but that's a whole other topic.)

Here we see yet another impossible standard white fans are never held to, the one where non-white (but especially Black) fans must be ideologically pure with no lapses in temper or frustration. Whomst among us would be able to respond with perfect grace every single time they were set upon by racist mobs?

We depart from the Twitter thread here because Denise has made a statement on Dreamwidth about why she included all the stuff about Stitch when she was making a critique of EOR. The summary of the post is basically "A bunch of people told me stuff, I saw screenshots, but I won't even share redacted ones, so just trust me OK?"

I don't know Stitch (we have corresponded exactly once) or follow their work***, but I feel like if there were actual evidence they send harassment towards other fans surely it would have come up on FFA by now. The nonnies don't like them over there, and I suspect anything that proves they have actually done anything of the sort would be like throwing chum to piranhas.

Probably the most galling bit of Denise's post is this:

Under no circumstances should anyone use my writing, my own arguments, or my repetition of the concerns of the fans of color who have reached out to me, as an excuse to engage in racist harassment of Stitch or of anyone involved in the EndOTWRacism protest.

She knows exactly what she's doing. It's like dangling a steak in front of a hungry dog and telling it "Please don't lunge towards it because I'm telling you not to."

The second most galling bit is the way she, a white woman with a great deal of institutional power, justfies pointing even more racist harassment towards a Black fan known for continued anti-racist activism even though it makes their life hell and calls it solidarity.

Fuck that noise. As Dr. Pande says, there are many ways to discuss incidents like this without identifying individuals. Denise could have posted a person's account, in their own words, of their harassment experience. Even in an attempt to demonstrate faux solidarity she denies POC fans a voice.

I am glad Denise can contribute her technical and legal expertise to explaining precisely how the OTW has been negligent in their responsibilities to their volunteers and how they are noncompliant with important laws regarding extremely harmful material. I regret she has undermined this important work with unnecessary detours into racism and incitement of harassment.

I am extremely angry about having to make this post. It's another pile of shit on top of an already giant dumpster fire. But apparently upholding racism and white supremacy is still something people in fandom are going to do, even as an important organization within it burns down around our ears.

--

*There is a difference (cw: duh) between the terms! I did not know this until yesterday.

**I'm not getting into definitions or hair-splitting about this because it's not the point of this post.

***If you are interested in actually reading Stitch's work, here is a great place to start.

#otw fuckery 2023 #racism in fandom #otw #organization for transformative works #ao3 #archive of our own

[cascadianights]

I also sometimes create the strawman, the rich straight white cis abled man who has everything going on & nothing wrong.

But it's a trap. That person exists, but he sure as hell isn't the majority. You're probably not going to run into him on the street, or in a Tumblr argument. The experience and power that person holds is immense, and anything said to knock them down is valid - even if it means redirecting the exact vitriole and hate, the same death threats and "you don't even deserve to be alive" shit that's been thrown at us, and calling it "progress."

If you aren't careful all it does is mutate the very valid, long-standing frustrations you hold into a way to disregard other's real struggles & any information you don't want to hear.

It's how TERFs fueled women's anger and frustration at the men who've hurt them, into anger towards all men and anyone approaching or coming from masculinity. It flattens this huge swath of experiences into one line, a man who learned his whole life the negatives of masculinity and nothing else. It doesn't provide healing for the women who were hurt, it pushes them to be more afraid and see every man as a danger regardless of the situation. It doesn't teach men how not to be dangerous, or how to recognize people teaching them to be. It alienates, everyone.

It's the way white people will internally roll their eyes at a light skinned indigenous person talking about their culture, or interrogate them to be sure they have a right to it. It's the way "white privilege" has become shorthand for "immense class power," both erasing the original targeted points the term is trying to make AND alienating the massive poor rural white population who KNOWS your full of shit saying they've had everything handed to them. It's the way states with white liberal city centers are seen as massively progressive (even if it's only 2% more of the pop that are democrats, gathered in 1% of the state) - and states that vote red every time deserve to be "cut off and sunk into the ocean."

It's the disabled people who need to feel Most Oppressed to validate the reality of their suffering, so spend hours trying to prove that mental disability and physical are separate & put their fellow disabled peers through the EXACT shaming/interrogation/judgement/"its not that bad have you just considered trying" treatment our doctors put us through. It's the way the new acceptable thing in disability spaces is to mock autistics (always portrayed as white and very low needs) for being too annoying/loud/present.

It's the way they can differentiate between a Real queer (who they agree with/can pity) versus a Fake queer (who said some shit they didn't want to hear/hasn't had the exact same lived experiences and could Never Understand). It's the way they can argue for hours about which minute aspect of identity that is only visible sometimes grants unimaginable (and Literally Unreal) safety and power, rather than focusing on the fact that none of us should need to be passing at all times to feel some level of safety.

It's a strawman! That only serves as an outlet for anger that tends to splashback on everyone around you! It has its place, and that place is not in almost every single conversation we have about difficult topics! Your morality cannot be based on finding ways to validate redistributing the violence that has been shown to you! Your political stance cannot be "only the people like me who agree with me should live!" Your MOVEMENT OF PROGRESS AND EMPATHY cannot be based on the cop you never learned to quiet in your mind!!!

We will never succeed if we ourselves are cutting our own communities to pieces.

#most of these reasons apply to all of them #needing to feel most oppressed to justify punching “up” at those around you #needing to differentiate the Real from the Fake esp if it means you can write off anything they say #needing to find a way to prove that someone w a Bad Opinion isnt a Real Member of that group #needing to make it seem like everything youve faced is entirely unique and not understandable #by anyone but the most select few #youre doing community wrong #youre doing healing and listening and compassion wrong #youre giving in to your anger to your white supremacist teachings and to the cop in your head #and youve got to fucking STOP #liberals #important #to come back to

[ben-j-erickson]

RWRB: Thoughts on the movie

SO a while back, i let the entire internet(like 2 people) know my thoughts on the RWRB trailer. i watched the movie last night. and i have so many, SO SO many thoughts about it. Buckle in kiddos, this is gonna be one long fucking post.

In honor of Mr. Alex Claremont-Diaz and his endless lists, here are some lists including but not limited to what i liked and what i didn't like.

What i liked:

Uma Thurman. Slayed as per usual. I did think they could've done more with her bc she's so much more mom-president in the books. Still, though, Uma Thurman is always amazing and it's amazing to see her.

The way they did the texts and calls? Phenomenal! Did they technically only do that once? yes but we ignore that for a minute

The way that they addressed being queer and the coming-out experience. Everyone deserves to be able to figure out their sexuality/gender in their own time and to be able to tell the world at their time and pace. And they made sure to put that in the movie. [Quick tangent: two of the biggest queer projects of the year(so far), Heartstopper and RWRB both have themes about coming out and how it should be. ]

The sex scenes were actually not bad. The "let's make love" scene never happened in the book and their first time having sex together was way more low-key in the book but I liked that gay intimacy was shown in a very unflinching sort of way. The book certainly doesn't shy away from-for lack of a better word- smut and I'm glad that the movie took a less fade-to-black approach. (and yes, reader, it did make me want to get dicked down. No, I will not elaborate, take from that what you will)

Phillip. I never thought that I'd say this but Phillip in his little 2hr condensed form is actually really accurate. he pisses me off and he's condescending and a real prick. good job writers

Okay. That's some stuff i liked. Apologies readers, my dislike list might be longer than my like list but its coming from a place of love, I promise

What I didn't like:

June. WHERE WAS JUNE???? i get that its a 2-ish hr amazon movie but still. You're gonna have Nora(more on her in just a sec) but not June?? June was a very big part of the book who is a big support for Alex and is just generally cool. Making Alex an only child did not feel right y'all.

If you're gonna have Nora in the movie or like combine Nora and June or whatever the writers/directors/producers had in mind, then DO IT RIGHT. Nora in the books is firmly queer and cool and like probably austistic and a hacker(?). She's got her own sideplot with the whole Richards leak(again, more on that later). She helps Alex come to terms with his bisexuality. And you're just gonna make her a little side character that gives Alex advice and is maybe working on the Claremont campaign. like c'mon. Nora and June are Alex's support system, they're the people he relies on, the people who have seen him before being first-son and after becoming first-son.

Speaking of Alex being the first son, i wasn't happy that they sort of just glossed over Alex's insecurities. we get a little of them in the emails but part of what makes Alex so relatable is that he is confident and he is smart and he does want to help people but he also understands and feels the difference between himself and Henry. Henry is white and British and privileged and has a myriad of insecurities too but Henry will never understand being judged solely on your skin. On being compared to someone else but understanding the double-standards that come along with it. i honestly don't know if i put it correctly but that is why i loved alex so much.

FUCKING MIGUEL RAMOS. WHO MADE THAT FUCKING DECISION????? first off, for those who have yet to read the book, Miguel Ramos is not in the book. Rafael Luna is. Liam is. Both men are very important for Alex(and Henry)'s story. Liam is a key component in Alex's journey in bisexuality. Rafael Luna's involvement in the Richards Campaign is also very important plot-wise. Luna is also one of the guys who Alex realises he thought was hot btw.

The Richards Campaign!?!?!?!! felt very non-important. like i just don't really feel the need to root for the Claremont Campaign or root against the Richards Campaign when they sort of take a backseat. in the book the Richards campaign is the one to leak the emails and its a more malicious strike against the Claremont Campaign vs a jealous reporter who the Alex hooked up with once leaking the story.

WHILE we're on the emails, i know that you can only fit so much in here but COME ON MAN. the emails are sort of the foundation of Henry and Alex's romance. they text(AFTER ALEX GIVES HENRY HIS NUMBER BTW) and then they email each other and its so gay/bi and so happy and so romantic and the quotes man the FUCKING quotes and i didn't get that and can you tell that the emails mean a lot to me

the "history,huh?" moment did not feel as impactful to me. fight me on that , i don't care.

Bea. Said it before, not how i pictured. But boy did they really reduce Bea. Mind you, she's got a very big role in Henry's life an they do try but the powder princess stuff is kind of important.

Princess Catherine. Where is she? Who knows? Again, cut for time but my gosh people, she's the reason Queen Mary turns around on Henry and Alex.

Speaking of Queen Mary, they switched her around for a king?!?!?! LISTEN i get not wanting to make real-world comparisons yadayadayada but Stephen Fry?!?!?! im so sorry that man is too nice for you to try to convince me that he's a racist and homophobic ruler.

Alex's parents. They're together, i guess? minor thing so that's why its here idk.

SO that was a lot of complaints and some good stuff.

You may be thinking "THANK GOODNESS, it's over"

WRONG.

I have more thoughts, dear reader.

Look, was it a perfect adaptation? no. adaptations rarely are.

Was it a good movie? yes. it was.

This movie made my little gay POC heart very VERY happy. it made me happy to see something that I treasure be put out into the world in a movie that I will be watching over and over and over. I'm obviously not pleased with the multiple liberties they took but I'm taking what I can. We need more queer everything out in the world. More queer books, more queer movies, more queer photography, more queer tv shows, more queer museum exhibits, you name it. Given the current state of the world and attitudes about queer people, it is essential to make and consume queer media in all its forms. Queer media makes sure that everyone knows that we're here and queer and we're not going anywhere. This is an important story to tell. And it doesn't have to be perfect. It just needs to tell OUR stories.

Henry, Alex (and also Nick Nelson and Charlie Spring) have made me want a love like theirs. A love that is genuine and real and honest and full of hope. A love who understands me and who I understand. To quote Dr. Taylor Alison Swift: "A love that was really something, not just the idea of something."

#alex claremont diaz #rwrb #rwrb movie #rwrb spoilers #rwrb book #henry mountchristen windsor #firstprince #sorry for the rant #rant post #thats my opinion #gay #bisexual #swifties #taylor zakhar perez #nicholas galitzine #red white and royal blue