Use Volume, Not Violence

Multiamory March 2026 — Day 09: Triad

Whats really funny about stranger things is its a predominantly white rural town in buttfuck nowhere in the 80s. If you think any of them would be as progressive as theyre written in the show and in fic, like, lol okay. Like even Reagan signs in yards and is canon.

I think theres a lot to be said about what being raised in an abusive, catastrophic environment does to a person and what they parot and how they have to grapple with that. I spent the first however long of my life in a cult who preached homophobia, had to grow up and get out of it to figure out who I even was let alone how that was okay. Growth is possible, especially when you leave toxic environments. And I wont ever live a life where I dont believe that.

With that being said, he aint racist in my story. I have stories where he is and its condemned. Joy of fiction, I can make anyone into whoever I want them to be.

And its free content you dont have to engage with. Im a rando on the internet you dont have to engage with. Write whoever you want to write about. Read about whoever you want to read about. Its like so great that were allowed to do that, ya know.

It looks like just about anything if the storytelling is good enough!

I’ve read fic where Robin Buckley is a bad, terrible, unforgivable friend. I’ve read fic where Steve’s parents are actually fantastic people. I’ve read fic where Jonathan and Argyle and Nancy and Barb in a goddamn polycule. I’ve read nasty smutty threesomes with Tommy and Carol and Steve. Are any of those things canon? No! The point of a fanfiction is to be a good fucking story. What does a good story need? Characters that serve a specific purpose for the author. And guess what? The author can make that character and their purpose whatever the fuck they want—because they’re writing fictional stories about fictional people that no one is making anyone else read.

So—first of all, there’s that.

Second of all, I think we as humans evolving in the world need to remember that to write fiction about something or someone does not endorse a person or action. Also, just because someone writes a character doesn’t mean you’re supposed to like or sympathize with them, either! Like, am I supposed to like the protagonist in John Updike’s A&P? Because frankly, I think he’s a creepy fucking loser! And guess what? There are people who disagree with me and there are people who do agree with me—and none of that (necessarily) means shit about Updike. (Now I would like to say here that I don’t know anything about Updike in particular—my POINT is that someone’s fiction should not be the end all be all of how we understand them.)

Finally—I grew up in the American Deep South. I worked long and hard to understand race and misogyny in America, to make sense of my place as a brown queer disabled woman, to understand what I had had normalized to me, and also what I /actually/ believe to be true about the world. And, frankly, thank god I was doing all that at a time when the internet was not quite yet the end all be all of existence for other people—where you could listen and learn and evolve and become better without having every single part of you scrutinized for public consumption. I think we are only as good as we allow others to be, and so we must be willing to give them grace and kindness and opportunity for change if we want to be given and capable of the same. The idea that we might not explore that in story form just seems like uninteresting and disengaged storytelling, frankly.

We kind of flipped them on their heads from how I usually write them, switched their dynamic, and its fun and exciting and new.

@recklessandlazy captured Andie so well. Nailed Robin. This is who they are in 15.2. If you want to see who they are and where they're at in the sandbox, here's fucking art.