#its made far worse by the fact that hes the only cishet guy friend i talk to regularly anymore. truly eye opening conversations

[phobiium]

just remembered the worst conversation i had recently in which a straight guy friend unironcially used the term "snapchat homosexual" like that was normal phrasing ppl use . when will my suffering end

[jerry-hornes-foot]

Incoming duffer brothers rant :)

I'm still fuckin mad that Steve says the f slur in season one, for a lot of reasons

- Point 1

Like a lot of choices the duffers make it simply has big edgelord teenage boy energy. Like they saw a chance to crowbar a slur into their show and jumped at it and that always annoys me. It's the sort of thing that you need a really really solid reason to use, and to be honest in the case of two cishet men writing a programme I just don't really see the need at all

There's no plot reason for it at all, at no point before or after that is it even hinted that Steve is homophobic, and so it shouldn't be in his vocabulary. It doesn't say anything about the plot, or the characters, it's not even making comment on social issues. It's just there to make you go "oh my god I can't believe he said that!"

-Point 2

It's just dumped into the middle of an episode because they literally forgot what Steve's character was. They wrote him to be a bully, except they accidentally made him a perfectly reasonable guy right up to that moment. He tells his friends to stop bullying Jonathan, he's nice to Barb, he only breaks Jonathan's camera because he used it to commit a literal sex offence against Nancy, then they suddenly remember he's meant to be a bad guy and in the space of less than five minutes he paints the nancy sign on the cinema and says a slur.

It's as if they got to that scene and realised they'd made Jonathan the bad guy by accident then went "uhhh fuck, let's just have him do the most heinous shit we can imagine out of nowhere". It feels rushed, and a bit lazy, and to be honest the fact that they use the slur literally just for the shock factor makes the whole thing worse for me

- Point 3

They never address it ever again. Steve learns nothing from it. Yes, he goes to apologise to Jonathan, but he could have also gone to apologise just for beating him up or for calling him some other horrible (not bigoted) name

It's an issue that plagues a lot of the duffer brothers writing where they tack a really awful character trait onto someone for shock value and then forget they did it. The same thing with Jonathan and the creeper photos, in seasons 2-4 Jonathan is just a sweet misunderstood teenager, and that element of season 1 is never addressed to the point that one can only assume we're meant to pretend it never happened.

Steve never has an arc surrounding use of language like that, he never actively regrets it, he never even actually gets given a moment to apologise. It just gets left there to hang over the character as this weird out of place element. I think story wise season 1 is probably the strongest, but the characters are all fundamentally different people to the point that watching back certain scenes is jarring. Which, for me, just reinforces point 1, its so whiplash inducing how out of place it is that it just makes me feel even more that they picked it just for shock

- Point 4

This is what made me furiously write this in the middle of the night. No one says fuck in stranger things. It's rated 18 and there's one fuck ever (afaik). There are characters like Eddie who will occasionally get given really clunky lines because they use shit or damn in a place any normal person would just say fuck. Especially with Eddie, in fact, the awkwardness of the lack of fucks makes it feel super intentional

If they just didn't want a word as strong as fuck in their programme, fine, but that doesn't really fit right in a programme where they were happy to fire in the f slur when there was half as much adult content in the programme as a whole

~~~~

Maybe I'm overthinking the whole thing, it just makes me feel super yucky anytime I watch that scene and I wanted to share my thoughts on it. I've seen people talk about it before in terms of Steve as a person but I've been thinking for a while now about it in relation to the text as a whole

Anyway if you made it this far well done hahaha thank you for sticking it out, sorry for getting mad !

[stina-is-a-punk-rocker]

becky albertalli’s ‘simon vs. the homo sapiens agenda’: a review, amongst other things

I walked into Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda fully prepared to hate it. I’d read it a grand total of one (01) time before, way back in December 2019, with very high expectations that were dashed to smithereens halfway through. On my first reading, I found it terribly cliché, vapid and utterly undeserving of the multitude of four- and five-star ratings on Goodreads.

I’m still iffy about those ratings (it’s a solid two-point-five, three at best for me), but I didn’t hate it as much the second time around. Maybe it was because my expectations were so low that the only way it could go from there was up. You could say that I almost… enjoyed it.

That didn’t stop me from scribbling a page of complaints, though.

I’ve seen many reviews hailing the book as a win for the LGBTQ+ community, for BIPOC, for YA fiction. And Albertalli’s certainly done a better job of writing the character of a homosexual male than certain others. Simon’s whole coming-out crisis is definitely relatable, and it’s definitely a relief to have a character who’s accepted their sexuality instead of one who spends roughly 200 pages whining, “bUt HoW cAn I LiKe BoY wHeN I aM bOy??”

And yet it can be so tone-deaf in other parts.

The most glaring example is at the start of the book (I doubt this constitutes as a spoiler), where Simon says (lmao), about lesbian and bisexual girls: “I think it’s different for girls. Maybe it’s easier. If there’s one thing the Tumblr has taught me, it’s that a lot of guys consider it hot when a girl is a lesbian.”

Yes, the really says ‘the Tumblr’. And it’s not the last time, either.

I find it hard to believe that Simon, a gen-Z if my calculations serve me correct, has a Tumblr account and doesn’t know about Phan, Drarry, Destiel (RIP), Larry Stylinson (yikes) and the other staple gay OTPs of gen-Z Tumblr culture. If there’s one thing the Tumblr has taught me, it’s that there are way too many gay male ships with a brunette and a blond, with predominantly female fans.

Granted, Simon’s talking about their school’s gossip blog in particular, but that can’t be the only blog he follows.

Because fetishization is so easy, am I right, ladies?

You might bring up the ‘death of the author’ paradigm; Simon’s views ≠ Becky Albertalli’s; Simon is a teenage boy and teenage boys are generally idiots- and yet it feels like this is something the author genuinely believes, because she’s also included Simon being A-okay and even flattered by his friend Leah’s gay fanart and fanfic obsession. Yeah… no. Fetishization of queer people is creepy and dehumanizing and I’ve yet to meet a single queer person who’s on board with the idea of cishets doing so.

Also, the fact that he warmed up to Martin even while he was being blackmailed is something no actual closeted queer would do, ever. I’m pretty sure I’m speaking for loads of queer people when I say that being out to someone you don’t trust is a literal nightmare- even worse when they use that against you. And this motherfucker’s all like, “Well yeah, he’s threatening to out me to everyone if I don’t set him up with my best friend, but he’s kinda funny :) I think we could be friends.”

Simon- fuck you, you smoothbrained numbskull.

Another thing I found cringey was how many pop culture references were thrown in. Why, on god’s green earth, would you name a dog Bieber? For one, that’s a godawful name; for another- Justin Bieber? Really?

I consider myself a pretty avid fan of Harry Potter (here I will insert the obligatory ‘fuck you, JKR’), and whenever I see a reference thrown in, I feel like that one Spider-Man meme. And yet there were way. too. many. in this damn book. Seriously. We get it. Simon’s a Potterhead. That’s enough.

Also, I’m obligated to cancel anyone who likes Reese’s cups. They’re fucking vile.

Other attempts at gen-Z-ing that made me want to fling myself into the nearest black hole: every time Simon said ‘I can’t even’; a pop-punk band called ‘Emoji’ (!!! the way I cringed !!!); ‘the’ Tumblr (yeah, I’m never letting that go); Nora unironically saying ‘OMG’ in a verbal conversation; the absolute LACK of One Direction references (see, this is why I love John Green); amongst others.

Simon’s got zero personality outside of his sexuality. In case you didn’t catch it the eight thousand times it was mentioned, Simon is gay. And… that’s about it.

Leah’s annoying and yet I’m ashamed to say I can sort of see where she’s coming from (I’ve had a long and illustrious history of being left out and ignored by my friends, but this is neither the time nor place to discuss my childhood trauma, so I’ll leave it at that). Her enmity with Abby was unnecessary and uncalled for. Nick’s… a Jewish guitarist? And that’s about it? Abby’s cute and quirky and lovable and I love her. Martin’s a bag of dicks plus more. It was pretty obvious to me who Blue was; if you’ve read a YA book, ever, it’s the easiest thing to guess.

The characters were painfully one-dimensional. I can imagine them existing in that particular story, but I couldn’t tell you a single thing about them outside of it. It’s like they don’t exist outside of those pages- they couldn’t be actual people, if that makes sense (it probably doesn’t, but humor me).

The family dynamic between the Spiers was believable and pretty well-written (says me, who has zero siblings). I liked how the diversity didn’t feel contrived- just enough information to tell you that Abby and Bram were black, Nick was Jewish, Blue was half-Jewish, amongst others (funnily enough, when I first read it, I thought the exact opposite). The dialogue between characters felt pretty natural, too.

In conclusion: was Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda a perfect LGBTQ+ novel? I’ve read objectively better works on Ao3 (seriously, those of you who look down on fanfiction are missing out on some quality stuff), but it’s a pretty standard Wattpad-worthy story. It has its issues, and it’s far from the best thing I’ve ever read, and it’s not going on my favorites list anytime soon. You’re not missing out on anything if you choose to not read it, I can guarantee you that. But it’s a decently fun read, and perfect if you want something to while away an afternoon- it’s hardly going to take up too many hours to get through.

And would you look at that- I finally managed to write a review without a single spoiler (admittedly, there’s nothing to spoil outside of Blue’s identity, but let me have this).