#St Fandom Critical

[flushed-for-the-trolls]

Byler Is Toxic As Fuck And Sucks

Honestly, as of S4 Vol. 2 Byler is this toxic relationship of Will's codependency and obsession of Mike and Mike's staunch refusal to grow as a person unless led by the fucking hand (presumably by Will).

And the only other self evident fact worse than the one I just laid out is that no matter what, fans of the show will NEVER acknowledge any of this.

The fact of the matter is: If these sort of events transpired between friends, like:

(Being talked down to after your friends ignored your whole ass D&D campaign ((I don't play D&D but from what I've heard, that shit doesn't just happen on a whim and they typically take several hours to see through, so double ouchies there)).

Having your lack of a romantic/sexual desire being thrown in your face and treated as the problem when it's absolutely not,

Giving up D&D in honor of your party disbanding... Only to have them join a D&D club the second they get into High School,

Being ignored for a whole ass year,

Having your supposed best friend FORGET YOUR BIRTHDAY, then blow up at YOU at it when you're ((understandably)) upset and moody,

Having to carry the emotional burden OF said friend on 2 separate occasions, including ((and I CANNOT believe I am saying this)) giving your friend a pep-talk and painting to convince him that HIS OWN GIRLFRIEND STILL LOVES HIM

and

... Ugh... What I can only describe as the BIGGEST slap to the face. the monologue.)

You would ABSOLUTELY cut off a shitty excuse for a friend. At this point this ship is just romanticized toxicity and I've just stopped loving it.

When I see Will still simping for his deadbeat excuse of a friend I just roll my eyes. It's not cute, it's disturbing and pathetic. This isn't love, it's romanticized Stockholm Syndrome.

Will doesn't need Mike, he needs a firm sit-down on how to cut ties and move on with his life.

Will deserves someone better, and so does El, for that matter.

Anyways, this was supposed to be 100x more coherent and structured, but I switched off the tab and when I switched back to the one I was writing this on, it refreshed without my input and I lost it all, so fuck it, this is all you're getting.

Just about every ship's fandom sucks, but by God does the cake go to Byler fans, sorry but not really tbh.

I will say tho: Kinda sucks going through the Anti Byler tag, cuz it's either shipping discourse (Hell) or people being straight up homophobic (mega hell)

[thats-ill-eagle]

(Also applies to both yuri and hetero ships.)

It's all about the balance. Even if the abused partner is also an asshole, if they are mistreated by their partner without returning 'the favor' to them, that's not 'toxic relationship that is such a shitshow on both sides, that it's entertaining to watch'. It's just abuse that should not under any circumstances be romanticized or downplayed by the show/movie or its fandom, even if it's fictional.

[violette-drop]

St. Peter😇🪽

[isolatedcorner]

Now that Noah Schnapp is cancelled I’m not afraid to say it: Will Byers is a pathetic loser annoying character and contributed little to the plot of ST. He’s the epitome of a sadboi gaybait twink and I do not care for byler because of this.

[statementlou]

Louis might not be chucking bricks at No. 10, but people are responding like he’s never displayed leftist politics or challenged a government position on anything. He supported demands to the government about a fix for UK touring musician post Brexit and Marcus Rashford’s petition about food insecurity. He fought the police about their social media use in 2018 and criticised the UK government position/support for factory workers in the pandemic. The things he speaks about are usually UK issues and meaningful to him or his family and friends. He’s also most likely to speak when he isn’t working. Also that specific anarchy has a punk anti authoritarian message as well. That statement fits Louis pretty well. He has been a poster boy for not sitting down and shutting up and doing what you’re told since 2012. If he was he probably wouldn’t have a solo career and he definitely wouldn’t have sold out the O2.

I like this point about him speaking out more when he's not working, I think that's a really great and useful observation and makes so much sense. I feel like it makes sense in two ways right now: like first, I don't blame him for not wanting to do things that would jeopardize how beautifully everything is going for him right now after the number of setbacks and troubles he's had to get here, it must feel so precarious. And knowing for a fact that any political statement you make will spawn a dozen tabloid stories and all kinds of outrage is bad enough, but add to that the fact that it's simply impossible to predict which thing will turn into a huge viral mess- it's a lot. And second, he's not just working, he's been on TOUR! I've been around musicians my whole life and one constant is that tour is time outside of normal time and life, it's a bubble, it's only paying attention to right where you are and what's in front of you and the people there with you and everything else is put off and neglected, is for when you get home (and have massive post tour letdown depression and fatigue). I'm not saying he can disconnect with the outside world entirely... but putting everything on pause? I would be surprised if it were any other way, and I would be surprised if he's been following the news and counter news and so forth closely enough to feel comfortable speaking out publicly about anything when it will be so scrutinized and picked apart. I would add to your list supporting the rail strike (something we wouldn't even know about if it hadn't been tossed in as an aside by an interviewer in the print only version of a piece, he didn't post about it or anything) and attending and posting about the BLM protests (not to mention telling people to pirate his stuff come on how punk is that), and I agree he is much more likely to speak out about UK issues which makes sense: most people are most moved by issues that are close to their lives in some way, and it's his brand. And I agree that even though as an anarchist I love talking about what anarchism as a political ideology actually is, the symbol does also have a common meaning in the world as just basically standing for anti-authoritarianism, and Louis as a guy who rejects authority and the status quo is nothing new at all and one of the reasons we love him, and in the last few years I feel like he's been going further in that direction both aesthetically and politically, and we love to see it! Plus he has pretty much always sported this slightly punky aesthetic to some degree, even when he was being dressed up like a little ken doll he snuck in skater looks and indie band tees and so forth (something something it's part of why his fanbase was so primed to love his new sound and it wasn't the risk he feared it was because people were always drawn to him who were already into that aesthetic even when his sound wasn't that yet) it's not like it's just a brand new out of nowhere side of him or something.

[stranger-rants]

"St/eddie is a gay ship for gay people, and Harringrove is a gay ship for straight people" has always been a phenomenally bad take, but it's also just a reflection of respectability politics in queer spaces. You can be queer and like either ship, but let's not pretend St/eddie doesn't appeal to straight audiences in any way.

Everything y'all profess to hate about Harringrove actually stems from a desire for queer people and their relationships to look respectable, and that respectability inherently ties into the belief that if queer people just look and act The Right Way then we wont be oppressed by The Straights. Some of you see this ship as a threat to that.

You can't criticize Harringrove for being a "bad" queer ship, while also saying or suggesting that it's a ship "made for straight people to consume" when the reason why you hate this ship is that it's not respectable enough. You need a ship that is neat and non-threatening with queer characters who never say or do anything wrong.

I have to reiterate this every time, too - Billy is the only one canonically called a homophobic slur. He is not respectable, though, so you deny any possible queerness he may have to highlight the very few interactions of two characters who are otherwise very straight in the text of the show as the pinnacle of queerness and queer relationships.

Ship whatever you want, but it's plain hypocritical to point at the ship that is hated specifically because it is not respectable enough to straight audiences, and then say that this same ship was made for straight audiences. A large number of Harringrove fans are queer themselves, and proud of it in a way that is not meant to appeal to straight people.

Not that any of you saying this will actually internalize anything I've said because you've all managed to convince yourselves that anyone who criticizes St/eddie (fans) are just homophobic. (It's not homophobia. Some of you are just obnoxious and insufferable, especially making spaces like ours less enjoyable for no reason).

[lumaxramblings]

i'm getting really tired of this game yall

[eruthiawenluin]

Dean: *is heterosexual, homophobic, misogynistic, racist, and a Proud American^TM; is meant to be in order to appeal to a conservative audience, and if he does anything “feminine” it’s literally for a laugh because of how solidly he conforms to cisheteronormative standards outside of that (see: his fanboying over soap operas); he is thee macho man of the show, and he not only adheres to but loves the self-serving flaws of the culture he’s a part of*

Dean Stans: Well we don’t care about the actual implications of his character being, at its base, a glorification of cishet white American patriarchy. What if I wanted to see him fuck the first white guy who is remotely available.

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

Confession #5 by anon

"I know the fandom loves Garak but god I hate him I hate him I hate him.

My ND ass cannot parse people that don't have made a habit out of lying, you think I'm gonna get GARAK?!?!!! And hos mannerisms are so aggravating because he feels so fake he's always playing a role and I'd like him to stop.

Mr. Robinson this is not a critique of your acting abilities."

[junewongapologia]

I know it's been lost in the many, many annoying years of ST writers deciding Vulcans are bad and contemptible for having what amounts to just really visible cultural differences from humanity, but I really like how... Culturally Vulcan Spock is.

His colleagues have like a fixation on his mother's heritage but... he grew up culturally Vulcan on Vulcan and his human mother all but states in Babel that she's basically assimilated into Vulcan culture because she agrees with its ethos. In all of TOS Spock considers himself Vulcan.

He's... very well adjusted and settled in so he is, he's a guy who sacked off the VSA to join a pseudo-military against the wishes of his pacifist dad and on the ship he plays Vulcan musical instruments with his human colleagues, and keeps a room full of Vulcan cultural artefacts that presumably remind him from home. (I get that this is half-retconned in the movies - most explicitly in ST V 🙄 - and also pretty inconsistently written in TOS but it's still there!)

Idk it's kind of sad to me that the Vulcans are literally the innovators of IDIC and they've been flanderized into these isolationist bigots because the stoicism/pacifist vibes can be kind of confused and off-putting to people.

Like. List of Vulcans we actually meet in TOS:

Spock

Spock's dad, ambassador to Earth, married to a human in some weird 60s sitcom couple dynamic, in-text reason he is estranged from his half human son is literally stated outright as being because he thinks Starfleet is too militaristic and he's a pacifist - like most Vulcans.

T'Pring - Spock's fiancée/wife, breaks up with him because it seems like too much of a hassle to be married to a celebrity, never seems to have any issue with his parentage, clearly thinks he's Vulcan since she divorces him via Vulcan ritual (logical, fight to the death) and not Human ritual (illogical, loopholes/contacting your local divorce lawyer)

Stonn - has two lines, neither of them are about Spock.

T'Pau - kind of maybe says something bigoted ("they say thy Vulcan blood is thin"), but then pulls strings to get the Enterprise off the hook for disobeying orders at the end of the episode, presumably as a favour to Spock, who she knows is going through a rough time, or out of respect for Not-Really-Dead Jim.

Surak - from a war torn civilisation five hundred years ago, still less bigoted towards other species than McCoy lmao

I might be so wrong about this but idk I just like Spock's room full of unabashed Vulcan shit, and I think ST has ignored and wasted opportunities for interesting stories bc they're kind of obsessed with deconstruction of everything about TOS/the ST universe to the detriment of anything else including the actual original ethos of Starfleet.

[flushed-for-the-trolls]

Billy Hargrove Stans Are Fucking Obnoxious.

Not gonna lie folks, getting really fucking tired of seeing Billy Stans openly cross-tagging, egging other people on and trying to guilt-trip people out of not liking Billy.

No. I do not care that Billy is an abuse victim, he abused his younger sister, tried to murder three kids and another teen. The moment he began abusing someone else, it ceased to matter what happened in his past. Billy is not a saint, not a hero, Billy Hargrove is a monster. That is it. That is all there is to it at the end of the day. Yes, he died doing something good and heroic, but he is still an abuser who hurt many.

He gave an apology? Who to and what for? Was it to Max, for all the years he had abused her? Was it Lucas for targeting him for his race? Was it for any of the others who (in a normal universe) would be traumatized at having a speeding car racing at them? Or is it just a blank apology for EVERYONE? Can we just do that now? Can he just say "Sorry" and just be forgiven by everyone? That's not how anything works.

You wanna know who DOESN'T forgive Billy? Max! Billy's favourite abuse victim, who sincerely wished and wanted Billy dead for everything he put her through.

It's funny how the oh so "enlightened" claim to be supporting victims of abuse while ignoring Will, Jonathan and Max. I guess they just don't matter?

The only thing I hate more about stupid fandom bullshit is the fact that I feel compelled to comment on it. I like to stay in my own bubble, but.

Oh.

My.

Fucking.

God!

These people just CAN'T stay in their fucking lane. There's always a Billy Stan (I say Stan specifically because I don't mind admiring villains/antagonists for their complexity or for analysis purposes, that's totally fine, these people I'm referring to are obsessed with Billy and pretend that he did nothing wrong) that's cross tagging, acting like a total ass and mocking/provoking other people.

When you try and wash away Billy's abuse, use particularly crafted terminology like "Abuse survivor/victim" to try and portray Billy as nothing more than a poor, misunderstood abused teen, then you've become an abuse apologist.

I don't personally care, but I start to care when certain opposing fandom corners are infringed upon, because believe it or not, I don't like arguing 24/7 on any of these hell sites. The blacklist/block feature exists for a reason, and it's not so you can ignore it and make your obnoxious personality other people's problems.

Get a life ffs.

Billy Hargrove is not a hero.

Billy Hargrove is not a good person.

Billy Hargove did not get redeemed.

Billy Hargrove became a monster and died as one

If any of these statements offend or upset you, perhaps that is the cue for you to look deep inside yourself and ask why it does.

[gentle-giant-swag]

Gentle giant swag, round 2 battle 22

Citron bracket

[animerunner]

Someone: Where can I find Cloverway dub legally?

Me: Cloverway is gone.

Same person: -there’s a demand!

Yeah an artificial one in the FB groups.

Your a minority market in an already minority market. With a dub that was heavily disliked by the primary liscense holder to begin with. To the point I feel like the FB group needs to be reminded of they threatened to permanently withhold the liscense back in the mid 2000s over what happened.

No amount of apparently wanting to see a 20 year old dub because you didn’t see it the first time. Is going to make it suddenly legal.

It is not a good dub. It is not worth risking problems from both of the actual liscense holders.

And this isn’t even starting on the fact the company is quiet literally gone!

It’s gone

Y’all need to let go. It’s not coming back and never will and quiet honestly NEVER SHOULD.

It is not good. And nostalgia is not good enough to revive a homophobic inc*stual dub.

And before someone starts on the It was a different time excuse is bullshit. They could have easily picked something that was overly questionable and sending weird ass signals

But no they went with that.

[every-dayiwakeup]

If you can't tell how Nate Jacobs and Billy Hargrove differ, then it's safe to say you shouldn't be watching Euphoria.

[dizzying-faust]

I can't decide which fandom I had the worst experience in, Svtfoe or Miraculous.

[stranger-rants]

I’ll also never not question the motivations of The Duffers (who are white) wanting to “explore” racism against an interracial couple in the second season - none of which was fleshed out with any fidelity, when they were openly criticized in season one for not only villainizing their only main character of color Lucas, but for underrepresenting people of color in their work in general and for Netflix shows like The Get Down with a majority cast of color not getting nearly the same amount of promotion at the same time as Stranger Things. When you look at it in the context of what was going on outside the show, it becomes really suspicious that they wanted to do that storyline.

And given the way they wanted Dacre to use racial slurs in his scene with Caleb and given the way Billy’s actions had no impact on Lucas beyond that one scene and given how they barely gave Lucas a storyline in the third season and made his little sister a mouthpiece for capitalism and given the way they punish Lucas in the fourth season for “betraying” his friends who were in fact alienating him and given that Lucas and Erica both fell victim to a lynch mob that literally mimics racist lynch mobs in American history which went right over so many viewers heads, I can’t help but think that these two white men don’t actually care about Lucas or racism.

They just wanted to use it as yet another “decoration” or aesthetic for their show, and damn anyone in the audience who might be triggered by these things. Just because racism exists in the real world does not mean that white creators are well equipped to tell those stories in their fictional worlds, and fans should be critical of the fact that people like The Duffers are literally profiting off of it.