Snowflake Challenge #3
Jan. 8th, 2026 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkrosaleenI was planning on writing a long, grumpy post about all my frustrations with Stranger Things season five, but this challenge popped up and felt like a sign from the universe to focus on the positive.
Challenge #3: Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.
-
Dear Will Byers,
Congratulations on defeating evil and saving the world! You've been my favorite Stranger Things character since episode 1.2, when we learned that you love The Clash and don't like the things your shitty homophobic dad thinks you should like. You were such a smart, creative, resourceful kid, reaching out through dimensions and finding clever ways to communicate with your loved ones. You were unimaginably brave in the Upside Down, clinging to your favorite song and the memory of your loved ones until you made it out of hell.
You really became my favorite in season two, after you made it back to the surface world with a boatload of PTSD and internalized homophobia. You didn't want to be treated like something fragile and broken, but you knew you had changed in the Upside Down: something was different about you now, there was something dark and toxic and poisonous inside you that could destroy everything you loved.
In a literal sense, you were correct: you came back from the Upside Down with a stomach full of Demogorgon slugs and a strong psychic connection to an evil, powerful hive mind. In a metaphorical sense, you came back with the wounds of trauma and violation, and those wounds were a dark reflection of the queer sexuality that you already felt made you a monstrous freak.
But one of the main themes of this show is that it's cool to be a freak, that it's better to be Bowie than Kenny Rogers, that being your true weird self is better than being a popular mouthbreather who attacks what they don't understand. You're the weirdest of the weird, a quiet artistic D&D nerd who doesn't like girls but does like The Clash and The Cure and Alan Turing and Mike Wheeler. Like your narrative mirror El, your pain and trauma gave you superpowers, but love and belonging and acceptance gave you the strength to master those powers and save the people you love.
I didn't like season five, but it's not your fault. I don't think season five was bad because you cried too much, or because your friends hugged you after you came out, or because your actor couldn't act (I think he did fine with a not very good script). Your journey was about accepting the weird, dark, freaky things inside you as part of who you are, and the moment when you used the power of self-acceptance to psychically wreck a bunch of demogorgons was the best moment in season five.
I'm so happy that you get to move to the city and find love, creativity, and belonging. I'll always have special memories of the years we spent together, and it doesn't matter if the world blames you for season five sucking; keep on being your awesome queer nerd punk self.
Challenge #3: Write a love letter to fandom. It might be to fandom in general, to a particular fandom, favourite character, anything at all.
-
Dear Will Byers,
Congratulations on defeating evil and saving the world! You've been my favorite Stranger Things character since episode 1.2, when we learned that you love The Clash and don't like the things your shitty homophobic dad thinks you should like. You were such a smart, creative, resourceful kid, reaching out through dimensions and finding clever ways to communicate with your loved ones. You were unimaginably brave in the Upside Down, clinging to your favorite song and the memory of your loved ones until you made it out of hell.
You really became my favorite in season two, after you made it back to the surface world with a boatload of PTSD and internalized homophobia. You didn't want to be treated like something fragile and broken, but you knew you had changed in the Upside Down: something was different about you now, there was something dark and toxic and poisonous inside you that could destroy everything you loved.
In a literal sense, you were correct: you came back from the Upside Down with a stomach full of Demogorgon slugs and a strong psychic connection to an evil, powerful hive mind. In a metaphorical sense, you came back with the wounds of trauma and violation, and those wounds were a dark reflection of the queer sexuality that you already felt made you a monstrous freak.
But one of the main themes of this show is that it's cool to be a freak, that it's better to be Bowie than Kenny Rogers, that being your true weird self is better than being a popular mouthbreather who attacks what they don't understand. You're the weirdest of the weird, a quiet artistic D&D nerd who doesn't like girls but does like The Clash and The Cure and Alan Turing and Mike Wheeler. Like your narrative mirror El, your pain and trauma gave you superpowers, but love and belonging and acceptance gave you the strength to master those powers and save the people you love.
I didn't like season five, but it's not your fault. I don't think season five was bad because you cried too much, or because your friends hugged you after you came out, or because your actor couldn't act (I think he did fine with a not very good script). Your journey was about accepting the weird, dark, freaky things inside you as part of who you are, and the moment when you used the power of self-acceptance to psychically wreck a bunch of demogorgons was the best moment in season five.
I'm so happy that you get to move to the city and find love, creativity, and belonging. I'll always have special memories of the years we spent together, and it doesn't matter if the world blames you for season five sucking; keep on being your awesome queer nerd punk self.
