#especially since his 'redemption arc' goes hand in hand with suddenly switching his focus from steve to karen

[marypsue]

Ahh also as an addendum to my previous ask about the age swap (which I might’ve accidentally labeled as the body swap fic due to the foibles of being awake unexpectedly early ), I was curious what your criticisms are regarding Robin and Will’s treatments by the Duffers? I know you’ve alluded to being bothered by both but I’d be curious to hear more ( if you have the time/hankering!)

Hooboy. Okay. Buckle in. 

Obviously this is going to be a combination of actual literary analysis and Big Feelings That I Have, so like, please don’t take this as any kind of moral dictum on what to or not to watch, or how to or how not to interpret what you watch. Also, a lot of what makes me uneasy and unhappy about how canon deliberately handles queerness (as opposed to when it does queer things apparently by accident, which as you may have noticed, I have considerable amounts of fun with) has to do with behind-the-scenes context I’ve read about, so there’s a certain degree of Telephone involved. And I’m still only halfway through season four. There’s just so fucking much of it. 

With all that said. 

The behind-the-scenes context I’m most specifically concerned with are the season-one pitch bible(? I think that’s what it’s called) (which, it should be noted, ended up diverging in some quite significant ways from what ended up in the show) where the Duffers first raised the possibility that Will might be gay, and the anecdote that Joe Keery and Maya Hawke were the ones who decided Robin should be queer and had to really push for it and wrote and choreographed that scene in the bathroom. Put the two together, and it tells you that the Duffers planned that there would be One (potentially) Gay Character in their show. 

And that character was the one they spent an entire season directing violent, vicious, eventually outright murderous homophobic hatred at through the mouthpiece of a couple of bullies. You can say what you want about revenge narratives and those characters ultimately getting their comeuppance, but for Me Personally, it sucks all the fun and escapism out of season one to watch it thinking that those bullies only got punished when they aimed that vitriol at someone to whom it didn’t literally apply. Also I still have to sit through however many episodes of that vicious homophobia onscreen regardless, so, like, that’s a walk in the park anyway. /sarcasm 

And then there’s that whole bad business in season three, where it’s never been quite clear to me if we’re supposed to see Mike as having been in any way in the wrong. Kind of scuppers the argument, to me, that we’re supposed to be on Will’s side. And season four, which so far has had Will tagging along after people who are supposed to be his best friends but mostly don’t seem to give a single damn about him, doing absolutely nothing but looking morose and sullen and tragic and *coughcough* Artistic, and causing Problems for the nice straight couple. 

(Tangential to the point I’m coming to, but also, my son deserves better than to be reduced to a soggy cardboard standee with ‘GAY’ scrawled across it in magic marker the way season four seems to be angling toward. All the Byers, but especially the Byers boys, deserve better than season four seems interested in giving them. But I digress.) 

Also. I love Robin. If you follow me, you probably know that. I’m a hardcore, ride-or-die Robin girl. But. With Robin, from what I’ve heard of the context, the Duffers never intended for her to be queer. They wrote a girl who was smart and funny and sharp and talented and a little bit mean and a little bit insecure and a little bit weird but in an interesting, endearing way - as a love interest for Steve. 

And then, as soon as season four rolled around, once they’d been pushed into making her canonically, on-screen queer (in a beautiful, tender, heartfelt, true-feeling scene that they didn’t fucking write), suddenly she’s had a complete personality transplant. Suddenly, she’s an awkward, bumbling, annoying loser who’s only funny when she’s the butt of the joke, who’s no good at anything and who nobody really likes except maybe for Steve, an outcast even amongst the freaks. When she does do something smart or competent, everyone around her reacts with shock, like it’s wildly out of character instead of how her character was originally written. One of these versions of Robin was written with ‘gay person’ in mind, and it unfortunately wasn’t the one we were obviously supposed to like. 

In both cases, I get the feeling that the storytelling issues stem from this like...assumption that queerness equals isolation and misery and tragedy, and that there’s nothing to queerness outside of that. That there’s something inherent to queerness, something pitiable but repulsive, that causes the isolation and misery and tragedy (not that those things are imposed from outside, by, say, violent homophobia). That it would be absurd to imagine that queerness could ever be joyful, or playful, or that someone might ever, given the chance to choose, not choose to be straight instead. Or that there could be enormous friendship and community and heart and pride in queerness, or even that queer people might find friendship and community and strength in each other. Or even fucking talk to each other, ever. 

Which is especially infuriating, because the whole central theme of season one (besides surface appearances being deceiving) is that community and care between people who are very different but discover they have more in common than there is that separates them is what saves the day! That love comes in all kinds of forms, and they’re all important, and that love can be stronger than fear! 

But apparently, according to the Duffers, queer love doesn’t count and queer community doesn’t exist. It’s just isolation, misery, and tragedy, and I guess we the watchers are supposed to sit outside of it and pity Them for it (and be quietly, sneakily, a little bit nastily grateful that it’s not happening to Us). Because of course nobody watching the show is queer. Of course. This show is made for normal people. 

It’s part of the same attitude I’ve also seen play out with the Duffers’ inability to just let a white dude be bad. Oh, they want to talk a big game about how they’re on the side of the freaks, and bullies are bad, and everybody should be respected and appreciated for who they are. But when it cuts down to the bone, when applying that precept to a girl or a person of colour or a queer person makes a straight white guy come off as a monster, they keep trying to dodge it. 

The more antagonists they try desperately to rehab without ever acknowledging why they were antagonists in the first place, the more it starts to look like they simply don’t really believe that the people those antagonists hurt really matter. That, somewhere deep down where the assumptions that are so baked in you don’t even realise they’re assumptions live, they don’t really believe that girls, or Black kids, or queer people are as fundamentally human and deserving of respect and compassion as their beloved awful straight white men are. That what they really think about bullies is that bullies are bad because the bullies picked on them, instead of the kinds of people who deserved it.

(See also: that time a twelve- or thirteen-year-old Sadie Sink didn’t want to have to do a kiss in the Snow Ball scene, so the Duffers, who had just been joking about having her do it, actually made her do it. For multiple takes. Specifically because she didn’t want to. And then later related that anecdote to the press. Because they thought it was funny.)

Anyway. Personally, I’d prefer canon just never say anything definitive on the matter of Will’s sexuality and stop trying to push the narrative in that direction, so I don’t have to watch the Duffers spectacularly fumble yet another attempt at Writing About Marginalised Groups. 

(Also, this is absolutely not me saying Watch A Different Show - I’m here writing fanfic for this stupid show, it’d be pretty fucking rich of me to try to tell people to stop watching it. But I’d really love for many of its fans to get some more exposure to less-mainstream, more deliberately queer literature and film, so y’all can see what it really feels like to be seen and acknowledged and loved by a story, on purpose. I get it! I do! I too have wanted very badly to feel like something I loved, loved me back. 

But you don’t have to content yourselves with scraps. And you definitely don’t have to be so concerned with those scraps that you blame your friends, cousins, siblings, brothers in arms for ‘stealing’ some kind of ‘representation’ from you by asking to be seen and acknowledged and loved as well. The bastards who’ve been withholding that recognition from all of us would love nothing more than to watch with amusement, gorging themselves on a banquet, while we tear each other apart over a couple of discarded bones. Don’t give them the satisfaction. We don’t have to be isolated, pitiable, pathetic, miserable tragedies. Put the hollow promises of exclusionism and respectability down. There is queer art and literature and film and community and joy and love in abundance that you don’t have to beg anyone for, and you are invited to participate. This is me inviting you to participate. 

And cordially inviting the Duffers to meet me in the woods behind the 7-Eleven.)

...

tl;dr the way the Duffers treat queerness when they do it on purpose feels like a combination of othering, contempt, and misery porn, and I hate it. And that, in a nutshell, is the rant I’ve been sitting on for the last two-and-a-bit years. I’m getting down off the cafeteria table now. 

[fireinclined-archive]

HELLION

who is hellion?

so in an ironic twist of fate, life inclined cassandra would be the most reckless, thoughtless, and violent version of cassandra and to be quite honest, i don’t think she and splinter would ever be friends, let alone her becoming the mother of the turtles.

people who are life inclined should have the ability to heal and to kill- it’s only the limitations added to the capellan gene pool that made it so that life inclined people could not kill without dying themselves. that ability still exists. just as regular cassandra can be a wildfire or a campfire, life inclined cassandra can be a healer or a killer, and what hat she’s wearing can change very quickly.

life inclined cassandra- who we’ll call “hellion” bc tbh that’s what she is, feels cheated out of her ability to kill- one half of her inclination is closed off to her. so to compensate for this, she has trained herself to be EXTREMELY skilled in battle. like holy shit, she is a huge fucking threat. and she lives for the thrill of battle, because she can also use her ability to heal in battle…on herself.

she’s so reckless with her own body- i’m not sure if she can, say, mend an a limb that’s been cut off back onto her body, but she has some serious skills. so she’s self destructive bc who cares!!! she can just heal herself!!

in this same vein, she doesn’t care about the safety of others. who cares! i’ll just heal them! she pushes people to do things outside of their comfort zone in a bad way, she’s vulgar and mean, and quick to resort to violence. she won’t kill innocent people but..she’s very comfortable with the idea of killing.

hellion joins the foot clan after arriving on earth, but is uncomfortable when she realizes the turtles are just kids, and after one significant event, she defects

hellion’s change of heart

cassandra once said splinter’s kindness is what she loves the most about him and that he reminds her of all the good that’s left in the galaxy on the bad days. that’s really fucking important!! in ANY au.

so…i’m thinking specifically in the manhattan project, when they’ve captured and drugged splinter, hellion looks in his eyes that are full of hurt, and there’s just…something about him. something about him that when shredder starts his fight with splinter and splinter clearly doesn’t stand a chance, hellion whips out her Super Cool Space Gun™ and shoots shredder right between the eyes (or..not, because that would derail the rest of the series but i really am in love with the idea of hellion just. casually killing him). in the ensuing chaos, hellion suddenly switches sides, since she has no loyalty to the foot whatsoever.

at the end of the fight, splinter asks her why she helped him, and the real reason is that she could sense the kindness in him, and…hellion has lived a life deprived of kindness, so much so that she craves that mineral kindness. granted, that’s been mostly her own choice, but still.

what does she tell him? “you remind me of someone i once knew.”

which…isn’t a lie. the last person who had that kind of kindness in hellion’s life was keandra, and he’d been repulsed by how violent and mean hellion had become, and their friendship ended on a bad note. hellion goes to leave after saying this, then stops and adds that she’s not a threat to them anymore, and that they might see her around, but she’s got a bunch of stuff to work out.

hellion’s redemption arc

after the manhattan project, hellion lays low, with the foot after her for her betrayal. she doesn’t really do anything noteworthy until the invasion, which is the height of hellion’s redemption. she sets up a clinic and for the first real time ever, uses her powers to heal others more than herself.

after the invasion is over, hellion sets up an illegal clinic somewhere for mutants (and humans too, but mostly mutants.). in order to make it legitimate some day and also just so she knows how to better help people, she starts putting herself through medical school

hellion’s capellan turtles

she’s got a huge soft spot for children. so…let’s say even more auish capellan turtles au, since that’s the only au where she actually gets the opportunity to raise them. hellion at this point has recognized that theon was abusive and that she doesn’t want to raise her children that way. instead…she looks back to her mothers.

 she remembers evelyn’s playful roughhousing, and so she tickles them and lets them ride on her back and picks them up and spins them around. she remembers cammilyn’s reassurance and the way she encouraged cassandra to the best she could be, and so hellion encourages her children wholeheartedly in whatever they pursue. she remembers raelyn’s grace and wisdom, and struggles to be the same. 

hellion would still be violent and get in fights but never, ever would she even consider laying a hand on her own children. or tearing them down with her words. she is so fucking soft with her family in a way she isn’t anywhere else.  

she wouldn’t join the foot because now she has a reason to care about herself- she has to be there for her kids. she’d probably?? start her transformation into a Good Person™ because of her kids, not splinter. idk where splinter would even fit in in this au 

hellion’s turts would be a lot rougher, a lot rowdier, and with zero respect for authority (…other than hellion’s tbh). they’re punks, rebels without causes…a lot like hellion herself. but she’s raised them to respect good, innocent people, so they don’t hurt anyone…without reason.

hellion trying to discipline her kids is?? so laughable because she tries not to yell so she’s just trying to put them in time outs or w/e but they’re just running around and screaming and she’s just standing in the middle of this chaos, having a silent breakdown

if any of the boys hit each other outside of the socker boppers, the punishment is much more severe. they lose tv privileges, have to do chores for the brother they hit, etc, etc. i’d imagine since this is one of the biggest and most important rules- don’t hurt each other- that the turt who’s being punished is lowkey shunned for a few days. its not something hellion enforces or encourages, but it’s something that’s developed over the years nonetheless 

hellion & the turtles’ living situation

they live on her ship until they’re five! and they probably? share a room until then. however they probably all end up running to hellion’s room in the middle of the night because her bed’s the biggest and her room is actually? pretty far away from theirs. so they all go to her and snuggle w/ mom.

when they turn five, hellion realizes they’re gonna need their own spaces, so she buys the old cabin in the adirondacks that’s paola’s cabin in the main verse, fixes it up and gives everyone their own room. she sleeps up in the cabin as well, although the cabin is probably JUST for sleeping- most of their day-to day activities happen in the ship.

things to note 

they’re still capellan turtles- they’re all taller than normal, they all get an inclination, etc etc. another thing to note is that hellion does not know about new capella- therefore…they don’t know any of their extended family and believe that keandra, who they only know a little bit about, and hellion are the very last capellans.

they’re probably also a little more awkward around humans because not only were they raised by an alien, they were raised in the woods, away from other humans (as opposed to living right under them)

hellion!donnie

well, first of all, hellion really tries to help donnie grow and flourish intellectually bc whoa hello this kid is smart. she encourages him wholeheartedly and tries to help him with his projects where she can. since the turts are probably living in hellion’s ship, whether that’s on earth or not, donnie probably followed her around when she does repairs on the ship when he was little. she’d ramble on about what she was doing, and donnie would just absorb it all.

since i’d imagine there isn’t much to fix on the ship the way there probably is in the lair- the ship was made to last a long time, and designed to be lived in- that probably takes a lot of weight off donnie’s shoulders- that, and he has his mom to fall back on since she was doing repairs since before donnie was born.

hellion still loves astronomy with all her heart, and teaches all the turtles, but especially donnie, about the galaxy the way her grandmother did with her. when he’s like…14 she teaches him how to drive the ship.

another thing i realized like, twenty minutes ago, is that the hellion turtles would never learn ninjustu, unless splinter were to come into the picture later on. but even then, hellion never makes the boys’ focus on fighting. when they’re older and hellion is a few more years removed from the person she was before the turtles, she realizes she doesn’t want them to follow her footsteps, and is hesitant to teach them to fight at all. she doesn’t want them to put their self worth into fighting, because that’s what she did, and after she got the turtles and gave that up?? hellion lowkey had an identity crisis. she latched onto the role of mother to give her a sense of purpose and identity.

until they run into the kraang, which…again, unless splinter comes into the picture somehow, is the ONLY ones they’ll run into, all hellion teaches them is self defense.

[girlreviewsgirlmovies]

Sierra Burgess is a Loser

This movie could have been so much better, and that hurts more than if it was just bad. 

It opens with Sierra getting ready for the day, which is honestly so common in these types of movies it could be a trope. She has a moment where she compliments herself in the mirror in this bit which I think was well-placed seeing what comes next: we do see a single hint that maybe she’s not as confident as she’s about to seem for the next bit of the movie. We head off to school with her and meet the Plastics-- I know, I know, but that’s what I’m calling them for now, because it has that cliche trio of alpha bitch and two worker bees that is so darn common in teen movies these days. Veronica is shown to target Sierra right from the start, but then we come to Sierra and the movie’s first big “could have been good but wasn’t” aspect comes up.

Sierra is shown as quite confident in the face of Veronica’s bullying. She puts on a face like it doesn’t hurt her. I loved that! I found it so refreshing because so many movies in this genre show unpopular people defining themselves by the popular people. Despite that first interaction and what happens later, this bit of the movie establishes Sierra as not one of those characters. Veronica is an annoyance in her life, but not one that she ever seems actively hurt by. I loved this... right up until we get told by the movie later on that Sierra is not that person. Of course, just like Veronica, she can have her game-face, she can pretend things don’t hurt her... but the movie isn’t nearly as clear about what’s real for Sierra as it should be. They needed to pick a direction, and they didn’t. They could have shown Sierra confident in the face of her bullies but breaking down after, but nothing like this ever happens.

And this is a huge problem in light of how the movie progresses. Veronica gives a guy Sierra’s number, they text all night, they start to like each other, they call... I can only just buy this in light of the person Sierra was shown to be, even despite that first little bit of the movie, but only because we didn’t see the conversation and I told myself, “Okay, Sierra must have not realized he thought he was texting someone in particular right away.” Then she figures out it’s Veronica he’s texting, and things go a little wonky.

Sierra enlists Veronica to help her, and I think this is the strongest aspect of the movie. Actually, this middle bit with Veronica is almost worth the pain of the bad bits. I won’t talk about the arc in detail, but I will just say that there’s nothing that’s done wrong. There are places it could have gone for tell don’t show, and it didn’t. Veronica and Sierra start to have a wonderful friendship while tricking this guy and it’s adorable. They both make each other better. The only character development in the whole movie rests in these bits. If it weren’t for the romantic window dressing of the situation that pretends to be the movie’s focus, this could’ve been an awesome movie just based around how a situation like this brought these two girls together.

There’s a lot of little things in this bit that are so good to me, mostly between the girls. Veronica’s home life was given the exact treatment I think it needed, and just un-cliche enough that it felt fresh (she’s not the first popular girl from a broken home but the trend does tend towards rich popular kids, especially since Mean Girls), and her mother is shown as living vicariously through her daughters’ youth in a way that really criticizes “beauty before brains” mindset as coming from parents raising their kids wrong. I dunno, I just really think this middle bit is the strongest part of the movie. 

Eventually, Sierra starts calling Veronica “Ronnie”, it’s very sweet. They take lots of selfies, confess things to each other... this is the kind of content I really come to girly movies for, not the romance, not really.

And then we come to another problematic aspect of the movie: the kiss scene. I’ll be honest, I fast-forwarded through this bit because it was just so painful to watch. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but the catfishing came to a level where Veronica was faking a date with Sierra in the wings giving her lines, there’s a few good moments for their friendship where Veronica says that Jamie would like her Sierra and that Sierra’s presence in her life has made her finally consider her own future properly and says that Sierra should be a singer... and eventually Jamie leans in for a kiss. Instead of dealing with the catfishing problem-- we all knew that wasn’t going to happen-- the lines of consent are crossed and Ronnie asks Jamie to close his eyes, and Sierra kisses him. He tries to open them, and she shoves her hand on his face and tells him to keep them closed-- this was very uncomfortable and violent imo. Girl on guy consent-crossing is not any better than the opposite. I should have seen it coming with the catfish theme and the way things were progressing but I was not ready for such a violation from our “hero”. This is the first bit where I felt I was losing my suspension of disbelief regarding her being the “hero” of this story. Yes, even after all the catfishing, I was still with it. The circumstances were strange, but I could see this happening... you know how a lie gets bigger and bigger as you maintain it, that’s how I felt Sierra had progressed into this catfishing, and that was somewhat forgivable. I was on board for redemption for the bad things she was doing, but here I thought, “No. No way.”

Then we come to this party, Sierra gets drunk blah blah, Ronnie is told not to hang out with her blah blah... there’s this bit where Ronnie’s college boyfriend who she’s been studying to impress shows up. I definetly make a squeaking noise of excitement when he said, “I saw your post” and she just lit up and said “The Hamlet one?” Despite the fact her studying was driven out of impressing him, honestly I think that line sounded a whole lot like she was proud of herself for making that progress, that this is something she’s started to enjoy. Her character development is A+ here. Anyways, the guy takes advantage of her naiivity to sleep with her and dumps her over DM the next day, and Ronnie goes to Sierra for comfort (awww!)...

Eventually, we come to the third-act misunderstanding that everyone saw coming where the situation comes to a head. Well, I say everyone saw coming: everyone saw there would be a third-act misunderstanding, but the direction it takes manages to be both out of nowhere and unsurprising at the same time. The homecoming game (I assume) happens, Sierra is there with marching band, Veronica is here to be a cheerleader, and Jamie is there as the opposing team’s quarterback. Jamie obviously kisses Veronica when he sees her, she pushes him away but only after Sierra who was watching unbeknownst to them pushes Jamie away...

... and Sierra, who has shown very little cruel tendencies up to this point (besides the whole consent issue), decides to humiliate Veronica in front of everyone by hacking into her social media and showing the whole school Veronica got broken up with over DM. Nevermind the fact this would not be the social murder the movie portrays it as-- just humiliating for Veronica but I don’t think anyone else would have noticed... in the fallout, the fact that Veronica and Sierra have been playing with him is revealed to Jamie, and Veronica has this bit where she says to Sierra “you think I’m mean but you should look in a mirror” which seems to come from an earlier form of the script or something because it’s basically a rewording of Mean Girls’ “You Cady are a mean girl” and no movie attempting that theme will ever be as striking as the masterwork so they should stop trying. Besides the rip-offiness of it, it just doesn’t fit. The only mean thing Sierra has really done is the catfishing and the bad touch kiss, and she’s never really shown to hate Veronica for being mean and at this point they’ve been legitimate friends for half the movie. Where did Sierra’s cruelty come from?? Why is it getting this response? This scene just doesn’t fit the movie at all. It was like I’d switched channels into Mean Girls 2 or something, but I hadn’t. 

And then she gets home and snaps at her parents for being beautiful in a move that has no previous indication throughout the movie she feels this way. This movie needs to know the difference between showing and telling, because in the climax, it tells us one thing about the characters even though it’s shown us another for 50 minutes or so. 

And then comes my next complaint: Sierra writes her song (which was good, don’t get me wrong, if its use was terrible) and everyone suddenly goes “oh poor sierra she deserves forgiveness and a happy ending because her life is just so hard because she’s so ugly” (seriously, the song is about how she’s not conventionally beautiful and how hard that is for her and everyone just forgives her for playing with their lives), and gets off scott free. It wasn’t even a proper apology! Jamie takes her to the prom because Veronica explains on her behalf, and roll credits. 

There are a few other miscellaneous complaints-- we have a gay black best friend (yeah, couldn’t just chose one stereotypical minority type of best friend for their one-dimensional support character!), for some reason Stanford is implied to not be interested in a white legacy girl who has near perfect SAT scores and parents with money to pay her tuition (like, I know maybe she wouldn’t get a scholarship with her amount of community involvement but seriously her dad is famous and a Stanford graduate, she just needs the minimal submission requirement and she’d fucking get in!) And I was also not impressed by the whole “why does everyone think I’m a lesbian” joke. Like... it just... wasn’t funny... and they hit it three or four times. She never does anything lesbian-y and I was sitting here like, “Are you saying lesbians are unattractive girls?”???  A few other details here and there in dialogue and the like were weaker too.

I did laugh so hard I spilled a glass of water over when she signed her name is “Shit Pizza” though. So there’s that. 

There were so many individual aspects of this movie that I just loved, but as a whole it just didn’t work together. In my opinion, the whole movie needed refocusing to go from passable to actually good. Instead of the third-act misunderstanding going the way it did, I think the movie could have been saved by shifting the focus. Use the catfishing as a tool to connect the two girls and write a friendship plot. Let Sierra face the consequences of playing around with Jamie and have him not be interested in her because she hurt him, and let the real prize be the friendship she made along the way. And remove the whole “Sierra betrays Ronnie” bit because it came out of nowhere, have it be a more realistic confrontation between them for the kiss that doesn’t involve such an uncharacteristic behaviour, remove the Mean Girls shit, and then end on Ronnie and Sierra going stag together to homecoming. Or maybe turn it into a romance between them, because god knows we need more LGBTQA+ romances in film. Doing something that like that and doing another pass of the script for making sure what they show matches up with what they tell could have saved this movie.

But they didn’t, so it hurts to know that they almost made a good story but fell just short of doing anything truly noteworthy. Overall, the content was basically passable, but there were some problematic points that I think didn’t belong and the ending fell flat.