the dismissive and often disdainful reaction to the absence of masculinity in will is but one example. will and will ONLY is ridiculed by the general audience for offenses a lot of us gay guys were picked on for, like swaying his hips, having a fagcent, being weepy, being noticeably more sensitive and demure than his straight friends in body language and personality. even the show, despite glaring missteps in the representation, celebrates him for who he is and notes that he should never have to change to belong in this world.

rather than following suit and celebrating who he is, people in the fandom seek to make him assimilate as an overcorrection for his visible queerness. can’t be TOO different! can’t be one of those stereotypical gays! that’s offensive! here’s my question— why EXACTLY are you offended? if you can’t pinpoint it, think it over a little longer before you speak. valuing reasoned opinion over reactionary ones is how you build a better place

being a flaming queer isn’t stereotypical. what’s stereotypical is how it’s handled. whether the gayness is respected and given life, or whether it’s used as spectacle, laughingstock, or bare minimum brownie points. example: will drag headcanons! will fans like it because it fits with wills clear enthusiasm for theatricality in a safe space, his love for color and costumes and art and campiness, his clear drive to be initiated into community activity, his creative spirit, his strong enjoyment of gender nonconforming artists like david bowie. if a straight homophobe said will would do drag solely because he’s gay THAT would be stereotypical, especially because they’d likely be saying it with intent to insult. does their mistaken belief make drag bad? no.

it breaks my heart to see us conceding to the standards of living that straight people have set. if you have a certain vision for will, or by extension for yourself, you should pursue it because it feels authentic. none of us should hunger for straight approval.

overtly unabashedly queer things (aka: anything beyond a subtle button on a jean jacket) are NOT embarrassing or overly excessive either. a lot of people DID build their lives around being queer and still do. to a lot of us, it’s not a tack-on adjective, but a personal identity, a social status, a way of seeing the world. in those days people created gay choirs, baseball leagues, bands, book clubs, hell probably DND groups too. they went to clubs and bars because it was a guarantee of finding likeminded people. it didn’t matter how unrelated their interests were to sexuality, the issue pervaded everything because they weren’t accepted anywhere else. and even if they were accepted, it was on the basis of conditional tolerance, which honestly feels degrading to accept when you can have actual belonging with your own community

so. before declaring any shade of effeminacy or digression from the norm as weak or insulting or pathetic, do a little reflecting. effeminate gay men are the strongest people i have ever met. they bravely walk outside the norm every single day with their mannerisms, personality, and physical expression, despite disrespect both inside and outside the community.

love comes in colors, i can't deny

in 1990s new york, will byers finds love.

words: 10,031

chapters: 1/?

summary: Brooklyn, 1991. Will is having nightmares again, and he doesn’t know why. He has a loving boyfriend, doting friends, and a vibrant community. He’s happy. Almost.

Whenever he can’t sleep, he steals into the city armed with nothing but a paintbrush, making his mark in places only he knows. Will intends to keep these paintings- and his harrowing past- a secret forever.

And honestly… who knows what will make a comeback. Apparently the hanky code has been making rounds on social media again lately lol

We also forget just how loaded earrings on men used to be. Back then, men wearing earrings at all wasn’t considered particularly “normal” in many places, and the “right ear” thing became part of a recognizable social signal back then.

Hell, my father was still eyeing men weirdly for wearing earrings well into the 2000s.

➳ Book Accurate Fancast of The Hunger Games

Shawnee Pourier as Katniss Everdeen

Kristopher Hyatt as Gale Hawthorne

Lucas Lyngaard Tonnensen as Peeta Mellark

Kirsten Dunst as Madge Undersee

Zahn McClarnon as Haymitch Abernathy

Myha'la as Johanna Mason

Marlon Teixeira as Finnick Odair

Havana Rose Liu as Annie Cresta

We are seeing brown and black children massacred by real life imperial genocidal regimes every day. If Suzanne Collins really had something to say, she would have cast these children as their original ethnicities to emphasise the realities of the world she wrote.

there's two truths you have to confront with this casting, anon. and they're very unfortunate, and downright disgusting, if you will.

the first truth, is that the hunger games was written by a white woman, for a white liberal and conservative audience. which is her alignment. her takes on poc characters are half-baked with locations filling the rest of the worldbuilding in. her idea of minorities are sepulchred by stereotypes and underlying racism. but as long as the white crowd approves of what they think they know of poc, the trilogy will always be a hit with no issues, because they know nothing of racism.

the second truth is this — we're in a time where white people have decided that open racism is okay now. because of a certain president, and because of the slow painful death of "being woke," several white kids playing black and brown ones are okay to them — it gives more white people representation, and the white plight makes more money in the box office.

what's more, is that i believe that we expand far too much grace to collins. if she was willing to defend whitewashing katniss & then refuse (not publically, but through action) to never defend amandla sternberg when it came to the torrents of abuse and hatred she received for playing the (canonically) martyred little black girl of the first novel, why on earth would she aid in casting poc in power? why would she allow her story to be sullied by anyone who isn't fair like her?

and MOREOVER, everyone partaking in these movies are mainly white. with no poc input, they could never allow anyone of colour who isn't a tragedy kill or humiliation ritual within a character. it's a shame, a damn fucking shame, but we need to think of why.

This is the same Will Byers who said, "I don't like girls"... Whatever happened to those debates about how you can only insist a character is X if said character says X on screen? Will did. So, what now?

Does that talking point only exist for Mike's sake? Mike whose character arc revolves around loving and losing his magical girlfriend. The same Mike everyone refuses to accept was never intended to be gay, despite the Duffers' proven history of lifting inspiration from other media without heeding the implications (subtext).

Mike, a fictional person, only exists within the confines of a narrative which is now over. You're entitled to interpret his behavior in prior seasons and speculate extratextual scenarios in which your beliefs are realized. However, it's important to remember how your interpretation is in contradiction to the story he operates within.

What's happened in this sub-fandom since the finale is a bunch of people complaining: "Well, I know better than the Duffers, therefore my personal reading is more valid". Cool, you still didn't write the show, which a majority of us came here to discuss. You can't overturn the facts of the story with the fiction of your mind, then expect people to follow your illogic.

The line between reality and fiction has blurred in this space, because fans refuse to accept being wrong. Consequently, people frequently confuse projection as analysis or position lies as fact. Anything to affirm their specific point of view.