#could become icons in mainstream media just for making them happen. wow will is canonically gay in a show that is THAT BIG? in a bro-media? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kocch · 2 years

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when I say that Will being canonically gay in stranger things is the biggest proof we need for byler it’s not simply because we know he is gay and that’s it - there is context that comes from being in fandoms for something like 12 yrs or more.

first of all, I’ve started watching ST because of people talking about will and byler on twitter (in july), as a person who barely knew anything about it (I didn’t even know mike and el were a couple, so I was super surprised they decided to make it romantic in s1 when I didn’t really feel like it would happen).

i was a sherlock fan who shipped sherlock/john. i’ve shipped non-canon couples for a long time (fandom spaces are queer spaces a lot of times). i know what it feels like to read things from a text that could imply things - a text that could be queercoded, depending on interpretation. i know what it feels like to have fun with fanon and ship things that are potentially there, but not textually canon (like steddie or ronance, imo). it’s fun and it’s mostly harmless, until the writers decide to use it as queerbait to make their fandom stay with them for a long time because they’re rooting for their queer ship (i think supernatural is the worst example of this, as they confirmed the one-sided love and then killed the queer character and sent him to hell LMAOOO). those are milking the fandoms, knowing the strongest core of a fandom is the hardcore ones (many queers) and not the casual public.

i’m a big fan of hannibal, yuuri!! on ice and she-ra, three shows that are mostly queercoded until they aren’t (and they confirm the queer ship to be canon). i swear, people CAN tell. you can see when there is a creator and writer and team who truly wants to tell a queer story/relationship, even when they can’t show it openly (like hannibal or yoi). as a person of the community myself, i’ve been able to tell it was canon. it’s different from fans just shipping things, or queerbaiting, there is care and intention and writing and parallels and romantic framing and so many things that make you see that it is there.

(now, for byler i hope it’s different. every straight couple in ST has at least one kiss and i think byler HAS to have at least one (dramatic, passionate, show-stopping) kiss because it would be totally unfair if they don’t. they have to be totally and utterly canon)

what is different about byler and stranger things, compared to sherlock or other shows for the straights?

it’s will being canonically gay. bbc sherlock would never do that. bbc sherlock would mock feelings. he would laugh about love. he would probably be even a bit homophobic, just for the sake of it.

and it’s not just will being canonically gay, it’s his love for mike being canon. i’m sure other people have said it, but will’s love for mike is NOT JUST A CRUSH. it’s not ridiculed. sure, it’s used to forward a straight ship (that is sinking), but the story is not finished yet and i want to believe that byler is endgame and the writing in s4 was meant to 1) leave things uncomplete and unseattled between mike and will, between lies and non-confessed feelings; and will being in the middle of a relationship that is sinking. 2) mike responding to will’s feelings of love and to no one else, not even el begging for him to say he loves her. 3) making EVERYONE AND THEIR MOTHERS feel sorry for will. cry for will. pity will. root for will. root for GAY WILL. (people who think he is straight and he loves el don’t count, those are morons)

will’s love for mike is LOVE in capital letters. it is not a crush. it’s never treated as something to laugh about, or something like a one-sided crush like Dustin’s crush for Max or Steve’s crush for Robin, those feelings are clearly more superficial and you can see that they’re not gonna happen from miles away. will’s love is A LOVE THAT MOVES MOUNTAINS. it’s totally romantic. deeply rooted. it’s like those loves you can see between jancy or lumax or even more jopper in s4, a love that saves one another, that makes people do crazy things, a love that is inherently part of the character, that makes them FEEL and DO and LIVE and you can’t imagine them not being in love with that person.

these writers know how to write that type of love. each canon ship they made (even s1/2 milkvan in some ways), i’ve loved it. they know what they’re doing, how to make it feel like it’s true love even without writing grand love confessions or making them kiss every other episode. it’s in THE NARRATIVE, the things the characters do and say and imply.

and even more, about byler... something i wrote in a fic i’ll never finish but imo it’s the biggest point we can take away from will’s love and confession in s4. WILL SEES MIKE. will sees mike for who he is and loves him anyways. he sees the best and worst in him and still loves him and knows him and grounds him to reality and tells Mike how he could be the best version of himself, pushing him to fight for it (you are the heart). will’s love is ancient and deep, it’s a love that we don’t even know when it started, it’s always been there, it’s always been part of will (and part of mike, because it IS MUTUAL). it’s like breathing. like the sun every morning, it’s just there. it’s not going away. it’s not even a choice, at this point, there is an helplessness in the love will feels - it’s too big and too much for him he would love to run away from it, but still he can’t deny his heart.

and that’s why i think byler is endgame. because will is canonically gay, and he is in love, and no one is making fun of him for that. his love for mike is serious, profound, romantic, genuine. it makes you cry and root for him. it’s LOVE. the strongest of forces. and every byler scene is made with care. it’s never taken lightly, not even their fights, they always matter. there is no mocking in there. no sneer. it’s treated genuinely. almost like the creators are telling you: “look here, look at them, it matters. it matters to them and it should matter to you. there is something serious brewing here, and it is romantic love”

#byler #personal #mike wheeler #hello i'm a romantic #idk if i already expressed these things in other posts or tags bc i cant remember what i say in here and i waht i simply think and it's bee #two months of me thinking about them so i'm sure these idea have evolved with time and i'm still digesting them fjhrfijrh #but yeah. YEAH.#will byers #i just think will's love for mike is neat and mike's love for will is even more neat #this is probably me thinking and digesting 200 analysis posts i've read in weeks but also AHHH I NEED TO SCREAM #irbgrig9tu #me pretending to be media literate as a queer kid who has consumed and fantasized about queer ship for 2/3 of their lives #no but for real i finished watching st s4 and i felt: wow. this is differnet. this has the potential to be groundbreaking and the duffers #could become icons in mainstream media just for making them happen. wow will is canonically gay in a show that is THAT BIG? in a bro-media?#it's a bro-coded genre and they're gay??? ?WILL IS GAY??? WHAT IS GOING ON #i was a confused queer for a whole two days #My st talks

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olderthannetfic · 4 years

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It’s International Fanworks Day and also the 30th and final post in this series. If you follow my tumblr, you know that my true fandom isn’t buddy cops or Highlander or any of those things. No, my true fandom is...

WANK

No matter which bitchy piece of fujo-course nonsense you’re looking at on tumblr, no matter which debate about WNGWJLEO or women in slash or fanfiction vs. media you're reblogging, your grandma was having that fight in a zine somewhere in 1985 and at Escapade in the 90s.

Here’s a vid review from 2002:

"History Repeating," [...] was an Amanda vid. In-fucking-credible. Who knew? Who knew I could like Amanda? Who knew there were fresh HL clips I hadn't seen a thousand times before in HL vids? (Of course, as someone pointed out, she had her own spin-off.) This rocked--sharp, fast cutting and pretty, pretty shots, with a hot bisexy vibe running through it. And, you know, people like to say that there's all this self-hating misogyny in fans--you know, that women hate shows about women, hate women characters breaking up the OTP, etc. But when you see a femme-centric vid like this bring down the house, you really have to wonder. Is it misogyny, really, or is just that we usually see a bunch of crap representations of women in media and resist them?

So on the theme of There Is Nothing New Under The Sun, here is a selection of past Escapade panels on gender, representation, and problematicness:

1993 - Anti-Feminism in Slash Fandom (Or, how 'it was never this good with a woman' syndrome... where are the women, and why do we care?)

1995 - Why Lesbians Read Slash - (What's the attraction? Why do they care? Why do they write it?)

1996 - Character Bisexuality: Convenient fiction or character trait? (Is this a good compromise between "We're not gay, we just love each other" and "I was gay all along and just faking it with women"? Or is this too easy? Special mention for the stereotypical bisexual villian who's evil, sexy, and can come on to everyone.)

1996 - Female Heroes: Female Empowerment, or male power in women's bodies? (Give a woman a gun and make her really tough. Wow, cool! yes, or no? Are we celebrating women, or are we merely putting breasts on male action heroes? Heroines under discussion may include (but not be limited to) Sara Connor, Ripley, Vasquez, Thelma & Louise.)

1997 - Gender Astigmatism (The Gender Continuum: in what we read, in what we write, and what we are, there is always a connection with a point on the gender continuum. How do our definitions of "feminine" and "masculine" influence our creativity? Where do bisexual characters fit in? (besides there, you dirty-minded person!)

1998 - Xena: Does Girl-Slash Get Us Going? (Xena is the first show with a feminine couple to be really popular. What kind of slash fans are interested? Does gender orientation matter? Or do slash fans love slashy couples regardless of their gender? Can m/m fans be 'converted' to f/f fans?)

1998 - Bastards & the Women Who Love Them (When Methos says, "you live to serve me," any normal '90s woman says, "I don't think so!... or does she? A happy contemplation on the virtues of handsome thugs.)

1998 - Slash: a Continuation of Women's Writing, led by Constance Penley (In case you didn't know, in her recent book NASA/TREK (yes, the slash is intentional), she addressed slash as a continuum of women's writing, combining women's romance, and the male quest romance. Join her for a discussion of slash -- where it was, where it is, where it might be going.)

1998 - The Trauma of Slash Fans in Het Fandoms (Or, what to do when find women doing all that cool, tough-guy stuff you love.)

1999 - Male Slash Fans - Welcome Voice, or Infringement? (Slash is written by women for women — or is it? The Internet has attracted new fans, including the "male slash fan". Who is he? What does he think of what "we" do? Do we care?)

2002 - Femslash (General discussion on female/female slash fiction. If Buffy wanted something cold and hard between her legs, why didn't she just choose silicon?)

2003 - Slash: Feminist political act or really good porn?

2005 - Where have all the lesbians gone? (When some slash lists explicitly state m/m only, where do you go for femslash? Are there any hot femslash couples? Pimp your femslash fandom here, or bemoan the lack of strung female characters in the current conservative social climate.)

2007 - Femslash: The Other Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name (Femslash. It's a work that makes some of our hearts leap for joy and inspires complete and total disinterset—or even dislike and disdain—in others. Where can we find the good stuff? What makes it good? And what's up with the haters?)

2007 - SGA: The Women of Atlantis (What do we like about how the women of SGA are written and portrayed, and what makes us wince? What do we think about how their issues are being woven into the show's narrative?)

2008 - Gay is Not Slash (...even though slash is sometimes gay. The current argument about m/m romances by women as taking recognition *away* from male gay writers, depends on m/m writing being intended as gay lit. And slash, for one, isn't, even if there can be overlap. What overlaps? What doesn't? What examples do fans like?

2009 - Female Character Stories: Halfamoon, Full Moon or Just Moony (F/f slash, and other stories centered on female characters, are gaining visibility in fandom. Are there things fens will write about women that we won't about men? (Given MPreg, *are* there?) Should f/f be like m/m, or is it unavoidably different?)

2011 - My ***** is Not Ideologically Driven, But is it Homophobic (Slash fandom often sees itself as a mostly liberal community. IDIC, right? But recently there's been a slash backlash: it's anti-feminist, a 'symptom' of internalized misogyny. We're 'erasing' the women characters after all. Is slash homophobic? Does slash fandom appropriate gay culture? Is it awesome and ennobling as it makes us happy in our panties, or is all that self-hatred bubbling just beneath the surface of our porn?)

2012 - Natural Woman (We've lamented the lack of strong, believable female characters (who dress appropriately). But now we have them: Gemma Teller and Audrey Parker; Salt and Haywire; we've got Bechdel-passing women who look like they can throw a punch. Still, most of them are in the sci-fi or action genre, so are we really seeing progress? And what are we doing with them, as fans?)

2012 - Don't Call It a Bromance (It's Just Canon) (TPTB are increasingly aware of slash, and bromance is regular fare on TV canon these days. Does overt bromance make the fic and art hotter or just vanilla? Is there an anti-slash backlash in our shows? Is the emphasis on men's relationships making women disappear? Inquiring minds want to know. If you have answers, theories, or just want to squee, join in the fun!)

2014 - (The End of?) Ladybashing in Slashfic (Slashfic used to regularly feature bashing of female characters. Now, blatant bashing seems less fashionable. If you recognize this trend, let's talk! Were most ladybashing fics ones for juggernaut pairings in megafandoms, or were they everywhere? What's causing the change: more women in leading roles/ensemble casts, fic writers being more conscious to avoid bashing ladies even if they're not their favorites, more willingness to blame show writers' bad writing (instead of the character being just bad/evil/stupid) for bad female characters, or something else entirely?)

2015 - Fifty Shades of Fandom (Fifty Shades of Grey has become the representation of fan fiction in mainstream culture. It’s bad fan fiction, and it’s being used to ridicule women while making millions off women readers and viewers. Can we connect with these women: proto-fans who would love to read, and maybe write, great fan fiction if they found it? Can we use the FSoG phenomenon to expand our community? Does keeping our doors closed and our mouths shut perpetuate both monetization of our fan culture and misogynist scorn?)

2016 - Who Are We? (How do we define ourselves in this age of so many OT3s and team orgy pairings? Does m/m/f count as "slash"? Is slash-only space slipping away? (And would that be bad?) Do m/m and f/f belong together more than they do with m/f? Is "Media Fandom" a valid term any longer? Who are we if we start shipping het?)

2016 - Ladies Loving Ladies. (There would seem to be enough queer women in fandom to write/want more f/f. Do lesbians write f/f, m/m? Both? Do straight women? Or are we still missing the iconic female characters and relationships that create a great slash fandom? Did they figure out the answer to this question at TGIF/F and if so, what is it?)

2016 - By Us For Us (Fic, even kinky slash, is practically mainstream these days. The ebook revolution puts publishing within reach of almost anyone. Sundance hits have been filmed on iPhones. So why aren't fangirls making more media? Or is it happening right under our noses? Is this a place where our women's gift economy does our community a disservice? Discuss what's out there, what we'd like to see, and what's holding us back.)

2017 - LGBTQIA+ in Slash Fandom (Queer fans have always been here. In a subculture often defined as "for" straight women, what do we as fans have to say about non-straight, non-cis, and non-conventional sexuality and gender in fanfiction, in fandom, and in the larger culture?)

2018 - Confronting the Tensions Between Slash and Queer Representation (Slash fandom thrives on homoerotic subtext. Many queer fans are unwilling to settle for this quasi-representation. Part of every slash fandom seems loudly invested in their ship becoming canon. Some are queer fans who want actual textual representation in their favorite shows, and some are fans using queer politics to fight ship wars. Then the “slash is not activism” posts make the rounds. Is slash activism? Is advocating for slash ships in canon the same thing as advocating for queer representation?)

2018 - Representing Slashers (What does "representation" in the media mean to us? We know what more gay or POC representation means, but what about slash fandom, which is largely female and focused on bodies that don't resemble our own? Would better female characters in media better represent us? Or male characters written for a female audience? Come talk about the intersection of slash, personal identity, and media representation.)

2018 - Anonymity in Slash Fandom: Choosing to Hide (Why do the majority of slash fans hide their hobby? Is it fear of blackmail? Embarrassment? Fear of losing employment? How does this affect your happiness? How does this affect your security? What would an ideal world look like? Who would/have you told about your interest in slash? Who would you never, ever, tell?)

2019 - Fandom Post-Slash? (In an era of "ships" and #pairing #tags on Tumblr and AO3, has the "slash" label lost its meaning? Same-gender pairings are as popular as ever and fans still ID pairings with a virgule between the names, but how many fans still call m/m and f/f slash or femslash? How many fans identify as "slashers?" Het and slash were opposing binaries which few fans crossed. Are these barriers breaking down? What purpose has the term "slash" served? Has fandom moved

past it and, if so, what does that mean?)

#escapade 2020 #escapade con #fandom meta #fandom history

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