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lighthousegod · 1 year

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Hello and welcome to my rant from my time on Stranger Things Steddie and Friends Twitter for the past few months.

K I'm really pissed but its fine I wrote this all before the poll thing. Now I just. Can't get rid of it. (Me at tumblr headquarters right fucking now)

Anyway. Sorry for the interruption.

The fact that I've seen several ST fans claim most people who like steddie are fetishizing them is already shitty, but what makes it even more shitty is that they focus on them being two white cis guys fetishized by "white girls".

To reference the two white cis guys first, yeah, you got me there. That really is all those two are in the show. And if you wanna talk representation, well shit! Let's do it! Out of the main cast, we have 3 people of color: Lucas, Erica, and Argyle. Lucas is much too young to be in a relationship with either of them and already has one of his own, and Erica is ten years old. Now, I love Argyle, but he was written to be a comic relief character that had no arc and never met either of them. I think that's a wasted opportunity, Eduardo is great and would've done well as a fully fleshed out character, and there is a conversation to be had about whether that character would've been received the same way Eddie was being a white guy. But the thing is, he was never even CAST as a character who could be compared with Eddie- again, his whole character was "funny stoner." THAT is fucked, and people have definitely decided to ignore that fanon. In fact, Jargyle has become a pretty well known ship! Weirdly enough, the content I've seen of them has majorly been from people who also ship steddie! It isn't as popular as Steddie, though, and I don't think that's ONLY bc of half of the ship has less lore than eddie. There definitely is at least some internal bias us white queer folks should take into account when considering what ships we focus on in media.

However, I don't think that's why it's being brought up. I don't think I read tweets from lesbians with she/her in their bios condemning all us steddie ppl who just ship it because "they're two white guys we can fetishize for being in an mlm relationship" bc they're trying to be good allies. That COMPLETELY disregards that transmasc and nonbinary people (ESPECIALLY transmasc people of color) make a BIG chunk of the steddie fandom. Crazy, it's almost like Eddie was written to represent an outcast and literally GOT TARGETED BY CHRISTIANS and a bunch of people in marginalized communities related to his struggles! Except oh, yeah, that'd exactly what happened. And yeah, okay, he's a white guy and it IS pretty shitty that they cast a white dude to represent outcasts in general, but the people talking shit are watching the SAME DAMN SHOW that has a huge fucking cast and still has minimal representation. Fuck, man, Caleb McLaughlin has faced SO MUCH hate from assholes "fans" as the only black main character. Why the hell are people using that very real issue to back their shitty arguments against a gay ship on twitter?

Again, I wanna preface that 90% of these kinds of comments come from lesbians and bisexual people with she/her or she/they in the bio. I thought yall were COOL with the gay and trans people. Yall ARE queer people. Some of them were even big Ronance or Rovickie fans! YALL. WHY IS FRIENDLY FIRE ON??

A lot of this argument is backed by claims that steddie fans ignore canon queer rep, too, and I just don't understand that.

I know. Robin is representation. I am SO HAPPY to have her, and I'm so happy that Maya pushed for it, and as a transmasc person who was not out at the time and likes girls, I felt very seen when watching her coming out scene with Steve. However, I know I don't fully understand the lesbian experience as someone who likes guys too. I know Robin means a lot to wlw fans, especially lesbians. There have been instances where steddies have co-opted that scene to make it about steddie, and that is not okay. (I've never SEEN this happen, but I've seen people talk about it. All the steddie guys on Twitter that I follow were making it pretty clear that that was not cool and pretty fuckin lesbiphobic. I agree, whoever did that, fuck them. Wlw and specifically lesbian wlw relationships have very little rep and Netflix canceled all their shows and it's super fucked.) But besides this, I actually see a LOT of steddie fans who very much love Robin's character. Most of the steddie artists and fic writers I know are also ronance, rovickie, and/or Buckingham creators. A lot of them are wlw themselves!

//I should also note that Will is canonically gay now and I'm super excited, but truly, I just don't see as much appeal in byler because they're so much younger than me now. I totally love Will as a character, and I was around the kids' ages when the first season came out, but I'm in college now. I relate a lot more to the older kids! I'm real happy to have will as mlm rep and I hope he gets his moment in s5. I just didn't latch onto him and Mike the way I did Steve and Eddie! We all got preferences and that's fine.//

All this to say, I'm just so tired of Twitter, man. I just saw a post about how many cis women who claiming its "ableism" to say they have to be around anyone who identifies as masculine, including queer men, queer mascs, cis men of color, butch lesbians, etc. And I've seen a lot of that lately too. It's just so weird to see someone who identifies as a queer woman talk shit abt a steddie fan with a hellcheer shipper.

(man I can't even get into that rn. Chrissy and Eddie shippers in ST fandom are a whole other bout of drama. I've seen steddies be pretty nasty on the issue toward bi women who ship that bc of age difference, which I never really understood because eddie has no confirmed age?? Like idk how he can be a super senior AND 17 on his missing poster but whatever, I'm not stressing abt that as long as you dont make them have a weird age gap on purpose. Hell, I even thought they were love interests at first, too. But DAMN I've seen some hellcheer people that hate steddie. None of this justification type shit either, they just say "it doesn't make sense" and "I'm scared of steddie" and "they ruined the fandom and eddies character" like bro that's literally homophobia. like oogily boogily gay people jumpscare homophobia. So I just don't talk to those guys usually.)

Whatever abt the straight ppl tho they're never gonna get my weird gay stuff. But what SUCKS is when it's other gay people saying this stuff. Like what about mlm wlw solidarity man? Why do I gotta see a rovickie stan and a hellcheer girl talking abt how steddie shippers are all misogynistic and hate women?? Esp when so many are transmasc?? It's getting weird and TERF-y and I just. I wish we were cool again. ST is abt outcasts at the end of the day, it's why we root for them and relate to them. There aren't even a lot of queer people from the 80s around because of the kinda hatred people like us face. Not to mention racism, ableism, misogyny, all of it. For centuries. The people up top all hate us. We gotta have each other's backs and twitter is making us INSANE instead. God.

Anyway I'm gonna go watch the mandalorian now later losers.

#steddie #gay stranger things #discourse #sorry about this im gonna delete twitter soon #its rotting my brain #fuck twitter

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lunapwrites · 2 years

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Omg I'm dying with the titles!!! Can I have something from "waiting room"?

Hi hello yes friend! <3 I am fairly certain this is another bit from LTL, but let me check...

OH NO. Ohhhhh this is from a VERY OLD version of the bathtub scene (still Remus POV!), before I ended up reworking a bunch of things. I'll note what changed under a cut, but uh. Here is a small, inoffensive snippet of this one lol

"I can't believe you did this." Dora snorted, squirting different coloured dyes into several small bowls. They'd broken out the good china for this exercise, he'd noticed. "I absolutely can." Sirius sighed dramatically, and Remus was beginning to suspect he'd somehow switched consciousness with his fifth-year self. "I just fancied a change." "Then paint some walls or something, you prat, not…" He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at Sirius' hair, which truly looked horrid. "Eugh, look, no offence, cariad, blond is not your colour." "You don't think it makes me look like my cousin? My dear old mother used to say we had the same cheekbones." He pursed his lips, tapping his cheek with his index finger. He did have lovely cheekbones, but that was rather beside the point. "Probably why she tried to marry me off to her, come to think of it." "Cissy had actual colour to her hair. This is… erm…" "White?" Dora supplied, grinning as though she weren't at least partially responsible. "Well, that's a word for it, isn’t it? Thank you Dora." Sirius scowled; the effect was rather ruined by how ridiculous he looked. Don't laugh, Lupin, you'll just get him all het up again. Whatever made him happy, right?

Right. "I’m never staying blond, ta very much." Dora winked at Remus, then grabbed Sirius' head firmly and turned him so he was looking straight down into his lap. "Too right you're not, now sit still so I can apply this."

OK, so if you want to see the changes...

This was the version where Remus ALSO sat down and let Dora dye his hair (he no longer does this.) Fun fact: this is what my PFP is from lol. I'm still a little sad I lost that bit, but. Oh well. It really wasn't that important.

The hearing never happened in this version, so Sirius was still trying to figure out a legal way to clear his name rather than Remus flinging himself at the situation like an angry cat.

The whole borderline alcoholism angle with Sirius was not addressed yet like it has been in LTL-canon, and the problem was going to be a lot worse. I decided to walk it back a little because he didn't really get the chance to full-on spiral down that particular well like he did in actual-canon.

This version takes place the same night the Weasley kids + Harry show up at Grimmauld Place. I pushed it up earlier in the month instead because it was WAY too messy and honestly I didn't want to put a bunch of anxious teens in the same house as a couple of inebriated adults. As I was writing it out, the discomfort overrode any comic value.

Sirius got to be The Adult In The Room, which... I ended up reworking as a concept into some better/healthier moments, since it's important for his character arc.

The discussion between Remus and Dora re: his past addiction issues was originally going to happen here, and Remus was also going to mentally draw parallels between his past and Sirius' current struggles. I felt it was a little too on the nose.

I had been laying the groundwork for actual UST between Dora and Sirius here, which no longer strictly lines up with where they're headed in LTL.

There was a photograph of Remus with green hair. I will be working this into LTL canon SOMEWHERE, or so help me XD

Remus took paint thinner to Walburga's portrait, and Dora drew a dick on her with a sharpie which she couldn't scream about, owing to no longer having a mouth. While the scene is hilarious, I could not in good conscience keep this as is, and the writing in the dialogue is so genuinely terrible I want to cry lol. (Not like the words they're saying are bad, just I was still in the "need to write the way they sound" mode, and it just isn't a good look, it's going back in the hole forever.)

There's probably some other changes here but yeah, just generally tone and trajectory and pacing and plot alllllll changed from where this was at initially lol.

Thank you for the ask!!

#ask game #responses #giant massive plot rework #deleted scene #the quarantine mood chapter that never was #sirius black #remus lupin #nymphadora tonks #ltl #ot3 #hp #writing #my writing #old writing #definitely didn't ninja-edit so the formatting didn't get confusing.

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adulting-from-scratch · 3 months

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Independence terrifies me.

I went from being coddled to having to think about everything.

The idea of being an adult is scary.

So last year, I was living at the place that I'd called home. It wasn't just home. When I was younger it was a sanctuary, a place that was safer than home.

I'd lived there full-time since my second semester of my freshman year in high school.

I didn't have any prospects, which I'm ashamed to admit. I got up, ate, went on my phone, and went back to my room. Sometimes played video games. I'd stopped reading, despite specific books and comics previously being some of my greatest loves.

I'd been out of therapy for three years, I'd just barely started seeing a psychiatrist again. And the day that I called and had an over the phone consultation with a DBT therapist, my house burned down.

I'd tried working two jobs in the past, gotten fired from both. One was a little under a month.

I kept saying, "I'll look, I'll apply."

Or, "I'll look at going back to school."

I did...on occasion. Not as often as I said I did, nowhere near as often as I said I would.

I was severely depressed. I didn't shower or brush my teeth as much as I should have, the latter led to my needing my top four front teeth crowned, courtesy of my grandparents.

Last week, I was supposed to walk down to catch the bus. I live in a semi-rural area, and it

A few weeks ago, I broke down crying in therapy as I voiced aloud the rude awakening that had hit me.

"All this shit I have to figure out and think about and they all cost money!"

This was after my grandfather told me at some point he'd expect me to pay for my therapy. He didn't say when, just at some point.

To me, this was a looming threat. I've made so much progress since being back in therapy, and that's with it being paid for and getting a ride there. That progress looks like not having outbursts, doing laundry, signing back up for school. Not exactly impressive. But worth acknowledging.

It took me time to work up the courage to make a psychiatrist appointment last week, due to being off my meds for a few months. Everything takes conscious effort.

The first time I had to seriously think about money. I'm not struggling right now, I'm living with my mother. But I don't know what the future holds.

In my mind I'm just one or two more failures away from winding up dying on the street. Or being a leech on my family for the rest of my life.

One is dramatic, both are pathetic. And a bit delusional. Plenty of people are educated and harder working than me and still wind up out there.

I'm back in school, taking two classes, not working, because I doubt I'd be able to handle more than that.

I'm still trying to figure out a study program. I

Today, half of me wishes so badly to go back to living there. Having all my needs met, binging whenever I want. Not having to think about much.

But I not only wasn't productive, I wasn't really happy. I was filling the void.

I didn't want to end my life, I just didn't have a life.

But it was easier to say I'd become an adult later.

My grandmother still saw me as her kid, so it was okay, right? But she's not here to enable me.

I was comfortable. But not okay.

Do I want sympathy? Maybe. But in comparison to so many other people, I'm not sure my struggles are worth complaining about.

Life is hard as fuck, and it feels like it's only going to get harder, but I've been far too sheltered, and it hasn't done me many favors.

Independence terrifies me because I'd prefer to have someone else tell me what I have to do.

I feel like I need a lot of handholding.

But the only hand to hold is my own.

That's not quite true, I have my basic needs met. I have hands to hold, family and friends. I just don't have someone constantly hugging me.

But that's what I'm used to. So the adjustment is rough, to say the least.

It's such a stark difference, and my mind is already a bit different, that I have to remind myself feeling and fact are different.

#adulting #living with mental illness #mental health #neurodivergence #depression #bpd #anxiety #functioning with mental illness

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