Duke, new to the family, awkwardly entering the kitchen where various members of the Waynes are hanging out/baking/drooling over the baking: Uh… random question, is Tim dating someone?
Steph, all her training focused on stealing baked goods: oh yeah he’s got a boyfriend, why?
Duke, just wanted a book, utterly disgusted: I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t outing him if I told you he’s currently defiling the library.
Jason, slamming down a bowl of brownie batter: he’s fucking WHAT-
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there's something about the way people talk about john gaius (incl the way the author writes him) that is like. so absent of any connection to te ao māori that it's really discomforting. like even in posts that acknowledge him as not being white, they still talk about him like a white, american leftist guy in a way that makes it clear people just AREN'T perceiving him as a māori man from aotearoa.
and it's just really serves to hammer home how powerful and pervasive whiteness and american hegemony is. because TLT is probably the single most Kiwi series in years to explode on the global stage, and all the things i find fraught about it as a pākehā woman reading a series by a pākehā author are illegible to a greater fandom of americans discoursing about whether or not memes are a valid way of portraying queer love.
idk the part of my brain that lights up every time i see a capital Z printed somewhere because of the New Zealand Mentioned??? instinct will always be proud of these books and muir. but i find myself caught in this midpoint of excitement and validation over my culture finding a place on the global stage, frustration at how kiwi humour and means of conveying emotion is misinterpreted or declared facile by an international audience, frustrated also by how that international audience runs the characters in this book through a filter of american whiteness before it bothers to interpret them, and ESPECIALLY frustrated by how muir has done a pretty middling job of portraying te ao māori and the māoriness of her characters, but tht conversation doesn't circulate in the same way* because a big part of the audience doesn't even realise the conversation is there to be had.
which is not to say that muir has done a huge glaring racism that non-kiwis haven't noticed or anything, but rather that there are very definitely things that she has done well, things that she has done poorly, things that she didn't think about in the first book that she has tacked on or expanded upon in the later books, that are all worthy of discussion and critique that can't happen when the popular posts that float past my dash are about how this indigenous man is 'guy who won't shut up about having gone to oxford'
*to be clear here, i'm not saying these conversations have never happened, just that in terms of like, ambient posts that float round my very dykey dash, the discussions and meta that circulate on this the lesbian social media, are overwhelmingly stripped of any connection to aotearoa in general, let alone te ao māori in specific. and because of the nature of american internet hegemony this just,,,isn't noticed, because how does a fish know it's in the ocean u know? i have seen discussions along these lines come up, and it's there if i specifically go looking for it, but it's not present in the bulk of tlt content that has its own circulatory life and i jut find that grim and a part of why the fandom is difficult to engage with.
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Ohhh fic where Steve and Robin and Dustin and Erica all casually make funny little haha jokes with each other about getting tortured/almost caught by the Russians under Starcourt because they all have that shared trauma and had many a long late night calls reassuring each other they're alive and playing dnd together and fulfilling lifetime supply of icecream obligations.
They do this because sure the rest of the party knew there were Russians under Starcourt but everything they went through in that basement was sorta...forgotten in the aftermath of literal flesh monster. And with Hopper dead and the Byers moving, there's so much happening that whatever happened to Steve's face (lost another fight...) and why he and Robin went from mildly antagonistic co-workers to codependent goobers who couldn't go literally a day without seeing the other or what made Dustin always ask if Erica was going to come for party hang outs are all sort of brushed under the rug. Not a big deal, really. Bigger things happening after everything.
And they cope together and scoops troop is a weird little section of the party no one but them really understands. Robin and Steve are attached at the hip and to a lesser extent so are Erica and Dustin (but they'll never admit it), and they all have mini gatherings together.
So, the casual mentioning of starcourt and specifically what went down with the Russians is commonplace for them. (Erica is quick to remind them she saved their asses, and are they so lame they need her help again? but she smiles and Steve and Robin just laugh and give her a big hug.) And somehow, they forget that not everyone really knows what went down before July 4th 1985.
And I want them to do it in front of everyone. I want them to have their stupid "this was so fucked up but we're alive and we got through it so now we have to laugh or we may never stop crying about it" banter at a big "we saved the world again!" Barbecue. I want the rest of the folks there to go silent and them not to notice.
I want someone to mention Steve not getting a black eye this time, congrats! and Robin going "the only reason why I didn't get one last time was because the Russians said-"
And Steve, who is lying with his head in her lap, reaches up to gently cup her cheek and says in a terrible Russian accent "don't worry, we will not ruin your pretty face!" (everyone is quiet around them, they do not notice)
She laughs. "And punched me in the gut a few more times. I peed blood for like, three days."
Steve goes "ewwww" only to be pinched by robin.
"you peed blood too, dingus. You got it worse than me and my pretty face."
He giggles and opens his hand up for a high five "pissing blood buddies, hell yeah!" And shifts in her lap. "But they bruised my pretty face. Rude."
"aww. It's okay, Stevie, your face is still so pretty. Prettiest boy in Hawkins."
"thanks Robin."
"at least Dustin and Erica got us out before they started ripping out fingernails." She shudders.
"or used the bonesaw"
"mmm. Unfortunately not before we got funky truth serum drugs though."
He leans up, looking at the two "y'all couldn't have been a bit faster?" But he's smiling, teasing. A well worn joke.
Dustin and Erica respond simultaneously with "I'm missing bones, Steve, what do you want from me?" And "I was ten and my legs were short as shit. Beggars can't be choosers." Respectively.
It is at this point an Actual Grown Up butts in.
"what. What do you mean ripping out fingernails?"
Robin and Steve look towards Joyce, who asked.
"like. To interrogate us? Because we just kept saying we worked for scoops even with the truth serum."
"because they thought we had to be superspies to get into their creepy lair and not a bunch of kids."
"mmhmm"
Hopper jumps in "wait. You were tortured by them?"
Robin and Steve give him eerily similar looks that express how obvious the answer to that is.
"yeah, duh."
"I don't go looking to get brain damage every year, you know."
Hoppers eye twitches. "Why didn't you say anything?"
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yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.
to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!
i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.
also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.
they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.
they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.
i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.
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