#use it.

USE IT.

Let him be he’s trying..

why on earth would anyone, especially a byler, want to follow in the footsteps of the duffer brothers.

So, there are many things I want to say about this. I want to give an answer that isn't my instinctive response of "fuck you and i hope you shit your pants in your sleep", so I will attempt to address these questions and concerns.

I do find it funny that you sent another anonymous ask pretty much saying the same thing, because apparently, I didn't reply to your ask fast enough. For context, it is; "there are white cubans so do you enjoy cuban culture and think steve would fit in well with that? in that case you don't need to brownface a white character. or do you just want to fetishize hispanic cubans? also its really weird to make the only drug dealer character latino i mean come on......".

So first things first. No, I am not Cuban, but I am part Native American and was raised around primarily Hispanic people my entire life due to where I lived.

Second. I find it grossly performative for you to send this ask telling me not to headcanon a character a different race. I think this type of activism is extremist and unfounded in actual ideas or beliefs other than your need to feel 'better than' or superior to others.

In regard to fetishism, I would like to mention first to people that are not you, that fetishism of people of color is rampant and highly uncomfortable. It is seen recently with the new character of Miguel in the animated movie "Across The Spiderverse".

But back to the subject at hand, which happens to be my art of Steve Harrington, I want to ask where in all of my art is there fetish content? Are there multiple drawings or comments focusing on his looks? How hot I think he is? Personally, I don't see that.

I notice that in today's culture, people tend to throw around new words they learned to use as an end-all-be-all. Their winning card up their sleeve. But it's not, because you don't even use the word correctly. To make note of what fetishism is, I'll put the definitions below.

: an object or bodily part whose real or fantasied presence is psychologically necessary for sexual gratification and that is an object of fixation to the extent that it may interfere with complete sexual expression

or: an object of irrational reverence or obsessive devotion

To take these definitions we find that first, it is a topic for sexual gratification. And in my art, I'm personally not seeing anything sexual come into play. Sure, I put him in crop tops and short shorts. But I do that because I feel it fits his character regardless of race because of his personality and the time they were living in. I personally wear crop tops and don't set out to be sexualized, so if you see it in that way, I fear we may be encroaching on what I consider a "you problem".

Third, on you speculating on why I can't just keep Steve Harrington white as he is in canon. In multiple places, I do in fact mention that I am not drawing canon. I'm drawing headcanons. Headcanons, described by the dictionary, is "something that a fan imagines to be true about a character even though no information supporting that belief is spelled out in the text." So, this ask isn't quite viable seeing that I have never said I was drawing the canon version of Steve Harrington.

Fourth, you mention that I "brownface". I fear that you may also be the person that had a dry broom handle fucked up their ass when the new Ariel movie came out.

Fifth, you say that my half-Latino Eddie Munson is "a bad look". To this, I find it interesting that your first connection was drug dealing alongside a Latino character. Personally, I didn't take drug dealing into consideration. And rather a funny headcanon I saw of someone saying Latino Wayne Munson would cook peppers to "smoke" Eddie and his friends out of the house. And again, as someone who was raised primarily by Hispanic influence, my mother did the exact same thing. If you decide that every Latino character is based on stereotypes, then live your life that way, but don't tell me what is and isn't a bad look, seeing that you are the only person who has a problem with it.

Sixth, you ask why I don't just draw the canon characters of color. I will. I have sketches of them. But since you obviously have looked through my art, you might notice that I only really draw the older teens. They are my favorite to talk about and draw.

On that, Isn't it interesting that there are only three people of color in the show? Two are siblings, and one is a side character introduced in the last published season. This is why I add people of color into my headcanons. I find, that if I can do whatever I want with a personal interpretation of a character, I am going to add diversity where I can.

I think it's important as a culture of fans that produce new content over a piece of media, to fix, change, and do what the original writers didn't. We see this commonly in sexuality headcanons because there aren't that many canon lgbtq+ characters. Typically, fan-given content adds minority or oppressed groups that the original creators did not give. Because frankly, people of color deserve to see themselves in the media. Lgbtq+ people deserve to see themselves in the media. If we continue to stay true to canon exactly with all of our fan spaces, we would be found boring, repetitive, and stale. The idea of fan spaces is to take canon and expand it. To have fun with it and to add ideas and quirks to the characters that other people can relate to where they once could not.

I will not apologize for getting bored of every character being white. I will not change what I am doing either. Because I am not doing anything wrong, moral, or unjust in any way. I think the main problem comes with you finding so much hate with a silly drawing of Steve Harrington simply because he isn't white. So I wonder why you find him and Eddie not being white so concerning.