#like being robin is being himself (queer) BUT it's also an idea that is impossible to live up to (society's expectations for queer people)

[oraclenthusiast]

anyway the juxtaposition of tim's secret identity being both his truest form and one he frequently feel uncomfortable with. the parallels between secret identities and queerness. just saying.

[flock-of-cassowaries]

I’m having a deep think right now about the overlaps and the differences between the appeal of fascism, and that of libertarianism.

On one level, this is because I am writing a Sucession fanfic, and trying to get into Roman’s head.

But on another level only reason I’m even writing Succession fanfiction is that I identify with Roman, and that is in large part because he is a queer person who is philosophically in the thrall of his terrifying conservative father, whose love he desperately craves.

And once upon a time, that used to be me. And I feel deep and abiding shame about that.

(Not the sexy kind of shame. The devastating kind.)

But as I delve into philosophical discussions of fascism and conservatism (and honestly, I have not yet delved the deeply), I’m starting to realize that maybe I have less in common with Roman, and more with Connor (if we leave out his weird S3 white-nationalism dog whistles about the evils of onanism).

I’m basing a lot of this on the first chapter – which is all I have read so far - of “The Reactionary Mind” by Corey Robin; which I came upon via the source list for the linked YouTube video.

[link to “Endnote 2: White Fascism” by Innuendo Studios, on YouTube.]

Robin (if I’m understanding him correctly) posits that the end goal of conservatism is fundamentally Fishstick fascistic, and that the real animus driving political conservative movements is always the desire of the privileged to remain above those the existing social order oppresses.

I have certainly voted for, and carried water for, conservatives (a fact of which I am, again, deeply ashamed), but I don’t think that was ever the real appeal for me.

I’m not saying I didn’t internalize beliefs that were (I now realize) racist, classist, ableist, and elitist; but I don’t think that was ever the main draw, so much as a side effect of reading the goddamn National Post every fucking day

But for me, I think the main appeal of conservatism was the illusory promise of total self-sufficiency, and of being impossible to further hurt. It was the libertarian lie, bound up in the same nihilistic appeal as the Nine Inch Nails song whose hook is “Nothing can stop me now, cause I don’t care anymore.” (‘Piggy’ is the song.)

In this respect, I think I had more in common with Connor; I was also the discarded child who grew up to think of themself as “a flower that grows on rocks and feeds on the insect that land inside of it.”

Honestly, that soliloquy (from S4E2) could’ve been me at thirteen.

I felt rejected and shunned by the world, but I was also rapidly becoming aware that I could use my looks and intelligence as currency (just a Connor uses his literal currency as currency).

It was only when I was 21, and ended a long relationship, and found myself with no one to turn to, and no idea who I was, that my father swooped in to be my new best friend; and that’s when I became more Roman-like in my fawning attempts to appeal to him.

But I think Roman truly believes that his father is better than him, whereas a much more significant part of me always knew my own dad was a false prophet.

I think the world reaffirmed this belief in Roman, because his father has been so successful, and I think his father, concerned with legacy, has been much more active in fostering this mythology than my own father was.

(My dad would tend to just willfully ignore that l existed for several years at a stretch, if I was acting too cringe [i.e. not stereotypically conservative-lady feminine enough] for his conservative sensibilities; something I am assuming that Shiv could probably relate to.

The scene where Logan tells her he wants her back in the fold was very similar to what my father did with me when I was 21, and I glowed just the same way she did.)

But yeah, I think an internalized belief on Roman’s part that his father truly is better than him, and a desire to “be as good” as his father in order to redeem himself and overcome this inadequacy in his person, really feeds into Roman’s affinity for fascism / conservatism.

And I think that belief structure is with him in that bathroom with Mencken, unacknowledged and subconscious, and even more insidious than his conscious priorities of wanting to win points with Logan, and maaaaaybe wanting to be pushed to his knees and have a fascist phallus (a fascllus? I’m going to hell) thrust upon him.

Anyway, if anyone ever reads this, feel free to suggest some books / essays / videos to my reading list.

So far, in addition to the above-mentioned Cory Robbins tome, I am planning to actually finish “The Ur-Fascist” by Umberto Ecco, and to at least dip into “The Dialectic of Enlightenment” by Horkheimer and Adorno, and “The Authoritarian Personality” by Adorno.

[ectonurites]

remember the cover for batgirls where steph had the little robin plushie and cass had the little superboy plushie, do u think those were like easter eggs or something that to show superboy and cass may be hooking up again? also i think it was released pre-queer tim but meghan didn't deny how much they meant to eachother so like it could mean eventually tim and steph getting back together too right? which like i don't mind bcuz i agree with her on tim and steph just wanted to know your thoughts on this!

So overall I def think they were just easter eggs more than anything else, I think trying to do Kon/Cass again now would honestly almost feel even more random than it had the first time just because of how they haven’t interacted since back then.

Now to clear up some timeline things: The Batgirls announcement with those covers was actually like a month after the queer Tim reveal in UL #6 + Meghan’s interview that mentioned Tim’s feelings on Steph (the Batgirls announcement was in mid September, UL #6 in August lmao)

But anyways, the thing is at this current moment, it’s not known or clear whether Tim’s still attracted to women/how he’s going to identify moving forward.

Meghan’s exact quote was:

(source)

Now, considering this and the quote in the actual comic where he mentions ‘I broke up with my girlfriend, someone who I love, for no reason’ (because. internal conflict he didn’t know how to put into words was the reason) to me it definitely feels like he still is attracted to women too, but that just realizing he’s not exclusively straight is shaking things up in his world so much that he’s not sure how to exactly put labels on it or anything yet. He’s got a lot of stuff to sort through and is taking it slow by figuring things out with Bernard. But until we get some form of actual confirmation on his sexuality, anything specific remains speculation! Since he’s still figuring things out he could come to the conclusion that the love he feels for Steph while real wasn’t romantic. Or it could be romantic and he’s attracted to women still too! We literally just do not know yet.

So considering it’s still possible he’s attracted to women, I definitely don’t think it’s impossible for Tim & Steph to get together again someday, but I wouldn’t count on that being any time even remotely soon. If Tim gets confirmed to be exclusively gay rather than staying unlabelled or getting confirmed as bi or pan, then obviously that would nullify chances of it, but considering that’s not where we currently are at the time i’m writing this, anything’s possible!

Personally as much as I do love Tim & Steph together… I definitely love it more as a past thing that was important and influential for the two of them but not something that lasts forever. So I don’t particularly want them to get romantically back together, but I do want us to get some content of them interacting now that Tim’s started figuring this stuff out. Them being exes who stay incredibly close friends once they can get over some of the awkward ‘we’re exes now’ stuff is an idea/dynamic I absolutely adore.

Now if that cover was indicating anything I’d want it to be a team up, a Tim + Steph + Kon + Cass group mission would be so much chaos in such a fascinating way, there’s so much to unpack between that group. (Tim & Steph = oh we’re exes now… okay how do we proceed, Tim & Cass = hey we might remember far more of our sibling relationship now because of infinite frontier, Steph & Kon = ok so we had talked about concern over Tim and now he’s come to this conclusion about himself how are we feelin about that/how does that effect or shine a new light on each of our respective relationships with him, Kon & Cass = oh my god we haven’t seen each other in years hows it goin)

[gyrlversion]

Will Byers Doesnt Have To Come Out To Be Stranger Thingss Queer Hero

Warning: This post contains spoilers for Stranger Things Season 3. 

Among all the weird and wonderful things that occurred in Hawkins, Indiana during the third season of Stranger Things, some of the more heartfelt and compelling moments of the show revolved around the characters sharing their innermost thoughts with one another.

When newcomer Robin (Maya Hawke) comes out as gay to Steve (Joe Keery) following the pair’s escapades in a movie theater bathroom, it’s a tender, realistic scene that makes your heart positively swell for lovelorn Steve and his plucky new confidant. After a bout of confusion, he realizes the girl he’s slowly been falling in love with will never reciprocate those feelings. He quickly accepts this, and thus one of Hawkins’ most epic friendships is solidified.

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It’s the show’s first official introduction of a canonically queer character, which is a victory for diversity and a fantastic step for Stranger Things, a show set in the ’80s. But the season also hinted at another character’s sexual identity journey: Will Byers (Noah Schnapp).

The popular fan theory stems from a moment that you may not even have noticed in the larger scheme of things — a tense, rain-soaked conversation between Will and his best friend Mike Wheeler (Finn Wolfhard) in the third episode of Season 3.

As Will grows frustrated with how his friends are concerning themselves more with girls and less with their friendship, he experiences the very same growing pains we’ve all gone through at one point or another. He’s content to stay in the basement with his guy friends and hang out, playing Dungeons and Dragons just like they all used to. But Mike and Lucas are especially gaga for their girlfriends, Eleven and Max.

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Will doesn’t seem to understand what’s so special about the relationships his friends have formed with the opposite sex, and one day his frustration comes to a head. He makes a hasty exit from Mike’s basement, the Party’s hallowed hangout spot, and walks out into the rain to head home. It’s not like his friends aren’t sympathetic — Mike goes out after him and makes an attempt at calming his friend down. For a moment, it seems like they might reach an understanding, but in the heat of the moment, Mike exclaims, “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls.”

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Will is immediately taken aback, obviously reeling from the hurtful remark. The hurt expression on his face is impossible to miss. For a moment, he has no idea what to say. He feels trapped — but to what end?

It’s unclear at first blush whether he’s offended at Mike’s insinuation that he just doesn’t like girls “yet” or if he doesn’t like them period, meaning he could be queer — a slip on Mike’s part that he apologizes for in the moment. Fans have interpreted it both ways, and while it could be a simple, innocuous comment, it’s caused quite an uproar in the Stranger Things fan community. Is Will gay? Are we hurtling toward a coming-out story line for him in the near future?

There are a few ways to take this statement. One, Mike could be asserting that Will just hasn’t grown out of the stage where playing with his friends isn’t as important to him anymore. It can take a while for children to fully blossom into teenagers, and with it, find a sense of their sexuality. Will could be what’s colloquially referred to as a “late bloomer,” and could indeed find himself in the middle of a relationship in a later season.

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After being trapped in the Upside Down and possessed by the Mind Flayer, Will has undergone some of the most traumatic events of the series, and these stressful situations could have affected his emotional growth — making him cling to the people and experiences that bring him comfort.

But it’s possible that this line also foreshadowed Will’s Season 4 journey, as he enters high school away from Hawkins and the comfort of The Party. It’s possible the Duffer Brothers have began building the foundation for a coming-out story line for Will since the beginning. In the creators’ original treatment for the series, they described Will as a “sweet, sensitive kid with sexual identity issues” who “doesn’t fit in with the 1980s definition of ‘normal.'” This initial character description codifies Will’s queerness. Of course, things change from page to screen, and neither the Duffers nor Schnapp have canonically confirmed Will’s sexuality, preferring to leave it up for interpretation.

Speaking to The Wrap, Schnapp explained that he believed the line was meant more along the lines of not being ready to grow up.

“All his friends have girlfriends and they’re out dating, and he just wants to have fun with his friends,” he explained “You see in Episode 3, he just wants to play D&D in the basement, and now all of his friends have girlfriends and they are dating. And it’s kind of, when you hear Mike say that line, it’s really up to the audience to interpret it. I kind of just interpret it like he’s not ready to grow up and he doesn’t really want to move on to dating and relationships yet. He still wants to be a kid and play in the basement like he did in old times.”

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Meanwhile, according to Finn Wolfhard, the scene wasn’t always meant to play out the way it did. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, he noted there were “a lot of different versions.”

“We tried, ‘It’s not my fault you don’t like girls yet.’ I don’t even know if it had to do with Will’s sexuality; I think Mike was just mad and listing off a genuine fact that he’s not interested,” he explained, though ultimately acknowledged that it was “all up to the Duffers and what they want to do” when it comes to how the story will ultimately end up playing out.

While it would certainly be a transformative part of the series if Will were to come out, how do fans feel about that direction for the boy who vanished to the Upside Down?

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“I’m happy they introduced Robin as a queer character but seeing Will have his big ‘moment’ is kind of what I’ve been waiting for this whole time,” Stranger Things fan Tony Mattingly told MTV News. “He hasn’t really ever had a big, triumphant win or anything like that, and it’s like, ‘Come on!’ He deserves happiness too, and I think a queer storyline for him makes total sense.”

Others, like Sacqua Campbell, believe Robin’s coming-out moment only previewed what’s to come with Will.

“They decided to test the waters [with Robin,]” she said. “They wanted to see how people would respond to a queer character before committing to making one of the main characters gay, and now they’ve done it, so it’s time to see if the positive reaction gives them the ‘go-ahead,’ of sorts to go in the same direction with Will.”

All of the fan speculation around Will’s sexuality only further heightens the need for more queer characters on our screens. But positioning Will as a character with an impending queer “reveal” would make total sense for Stranger Things, a story about a group of kids coming of age and experiencing uncertain things like first love while saving humanity from certain evil. By the end of the third season, all of the members of The Party have found that special someone — Dustin and Suzy; Lucas and Max; and Mike and Eleven.

But just because Will may not be “interested in girls,” that doesn’t mean he has to be interested in anyone at all. Sexuality is a spectrum, and there’s no one way to be queer — nor is there a set timeline for these kinds of revelations. He’s 13 and about to enter his freshman year of high school. He’s moving at his own pace, and going into Season 4, he has someone new by his side: his surrogate sister of sorts, Eleven. There’s so much to explore with this pairing; after all, they’re the only people who understand each other’s trauma. Not to mention, they’re both outsiders. It’s possible that Eleven will be a significant part of Will’s coming-of-age journey.

Whether that journey brings him to a certain realization, we’ll have to wait and see. But Will Byers doesn’t have to come out to resonate with queer fans who so desperately see themselves in him, a kid who doesn’t quite fit in a heteronormative society. After all, he’s a David Bowie in a room full of Kenny Rogers.

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