The Asexual Geek's 2022 Recap
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| Image description: A stylized asexual flag, created by me using the website Canva |
Well, friends, here we are at the end of 2022. I have
covered a lot of ground this year – my fave fictional friendships, tropes I hate, aspec humor, how media often confuses asexuality with celibacy, how to
make fandom spaces better for aspec people, and so much more. It’s been a year
of extremely diverse posts and topics, covering a lot of genres, characters, and
mediums. As always, I’ve been extremely grateful for all the ways these posts,
and my posts from previous years, have been received by people. To all of you
who have read my blog, shared the posts, and made comments, you have my endless
thanks. Running this blog isn’t always easy, but seeing people enjoy my
analysis makes me so glad to be here. As always, as I prepare to take a little
bit of a break for the year-end holidays, I want to take this opportunity to
not only thank all of you, but to also do one final look at my 2022 topics
before we move on to 2023 (honestly, what even is time?). So, without further
ado, here is a look back at the topics I covered this year and my final
thoughts on a few of them.
A Year of
Redefinitions
This year, rather than focus on an overall series like I did
in previous years, I decided to expand upon a smaller grouping of posts. Back
in 2021, I did two posts under the umbrella of “Redefining” to begin and end
the year – “Redefining Love” and “Redefining Belonging.” So in 2022, I decided
to expand upon the posts that lived under that umbrella by adding three new
topics – redefining adulthood, redefining the future, and redefining the
concept of the “happily ever after” – as well as an unplanned post about
redefining the concept of “good.” These posts allowed me to explore some
elements of media and real life that bother me as an aspec person by
approaching them from different angles and offering my own opinions on how
these issues could potentially be fixed, which is always interesting to delve
into.
As often happens, however, many of these posts
got rather long, so I may not have been able to lean as heavily into
“solutions” as I would have liked – and indeed, maybe that’s the wrong word
(“Redefining Solutions,” anyone?). Rather than a solution, what I try to offer
is my opinion on how the tensions of these issues can maybe be relieved. I hope
that some of my ideas can be helpful, both to non-aspec people who want to make
things easier for aspec people in their lives, and to aspec people to give them
an idea of what boundaries they should hope to have in fandom life and real
life. Because aphobia hurts both aspec and allo people (as I likewise discussed
this year), I hope these redefinitions can offer a tiny stepping stone to
people, allowing them to think critically about these and other issues. We
don’t need to toss out words and concepts arbitrarily, but we can begin making
them more flexible or unpacking them more than we do, and I hope my posts
contribute positively to that notion.
The “Redefining” miniseries wasn’t the only way I redefined
things for myself this year, however. In 2022, I got very absorbed in Korean
dramas and soon began to realize that I could actually find good entertainment
that was comfortable for me in a large majority of them. Not only did I write
about the non-sexual/non-romantic heroines of the first three K-Dramas I watched, but
several K-Dramas made it onto my “Ace Safe Space” list this year. This might
not sound like a big deal, but finding K-Dramas and realizing I could actually
enjoy media in safety was a huge boon for me in what was, at times, a rather
tough year in which I struggled with myself and my identity (more on that
later). Therefore, my biggest redefinition was redefining my relationship with
media and what I watch, inviting in new things to enjoy. This was massively
helpful, because sometimes not having media to interact with can be deeply
disappointing to my geeky aspec psyche. But of course, Korean dramas weren’t
the only thing I interacted with this year, and I think my posts show that.
Let’s Talk a
Little More About Will
Back in late May, coinciding with the release of Stranger
Things season four part 1, I talked a bit about the character of Will
Byers. Will is what TV Tropes refers to as an “Ambiguously Gay” character
because there are several moments throughout the show where it seems like Will
is either gay, or at the very least not where the rest of his friends are in
terms of developing romantic and/or sexual attraction. As the name of the trope
implies, the prevailing theory is that Will is indeed a gay character. I
definitely believe the show’s moments of “queer-coding” Will do point in that
direction rather than another identity such as asexuality or aromanticism, and
I didn’t want any part of my analysis to contribute to erasure. However, I
nevertheless wanted to use that post to talk about the ways in which his
ambiguous sexuality is presented and is relatable. I found that there were
actually many ways in which the show explored Will’s emotions – such as being left
behind while all his friends moved forward – which I felt were handled very
well and which do feel like they could be aspec-adjacent. In general, I’d like
to see the emotions of more characters like him be handle in this way,
regardless of their identities.
All of this analysis was done before I had seen season four,
and now that I have, there are a few more observations I’d like to add before
we close out the year (spoilers, obviously). Throughout the first part of
season four, it seemed like the show wanted to draw attention to the fact that
Will is still different, as if to say that his struggles with his friends last
season were not one-offs. While I’m very glad that they didn’t choose to have
them be entirely forgotten or get lost amid the packed plot, I can’t help but
notice that Will’s friends still haven’t exactly upped their game. (For
example: I find it infuriating that Will’s friends joined a Dungeons and
Dragons club in high school, the very thing Will was trying to involve them
in when they ignored him and made him feel bad)
The worst offender is Mike, who visits Eleven and Will in
California and then precedes to act very weird to both of them. A lot of this
is because the plot requires tension between Mike and Eleven; however, Mike’s
interactions with Will especially feel out of character. For two solid seasons,
Mike Wheeler is a young man who refused to give up on his friends, Will
in particular. When Will is missing in season one, Mike refuses to give up on him,
even when there’s proof that he should. In season two, when the Upside-Down has
Will in its clutches, Mike is right there, reminding him of why he should fight.
In fact, in season four, part of how Will then encourages Mike to not give up
is to remind him that he is the heart of their group. So it was more than a
little frustrating to see “the heart” missing Will’s struggles this season,
including Will literally crying right beside him. Why is Will crying? Well,
this leads me back to the question of Will being “Ambiguously Gay” and how
season four somehow managed to make this question even more complicated.
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| Image description: Eleven and Will in Stranger Things season 4 |
There are several things in season four that suggest Will is gay, one of the biggest things being a painting Will is laboring over at the beginning of the season. Eleven mentions this painting in a letter to Mike, stating Will won’t let her see it, so she assumes it must be for “a girl he likes.” However, that painting is actually something he gives to Mike and when he does, he lies and says that Eleven commissioned him to paint it on her behalf and give it to Mike. The painting portrays the old Dungeons and Dragons crew together, with Mike as a knight in armor with a heart on it, and Will presents it to him during his aforementioned speech about how Mike is the heart of their group. During this speech, Will discusses how “Eleven” has been lost without Mike, even though it’s very clear he’s talking about himself. “She’s so different from other people,” he says emotionally, “and when you’re different, sometimes you feel like a mistake. But you make her feel like she’s not a mistake at all, like she’s better for being different, and that gives her the courage to fight on.” He then goes on to talk about how “Eleven” is afraid of losing Mike and how she needs him, a sentiment which Mike takes strength from, but which drives Will to those unnoticed tears. The only person who does notice is his older brother Jonathan, who is shown continually glancing at the pair, drawing even more attention to Will’s turmoil.
This, along with many other moments in the season, encourage
the notion of Will being gay and probably in love with Mike – so much so that many
videos actually call it “Will’s coming out” scene or “Will confessing his love
to Mike,” even though he doesn’t technically do either of those things. In fact,
this ambiguity seemed to really upset and disappoint a lot of viewers,
especially because it’s been going on for several years. When I was researching
my initial post, I found articles from 2019 (around the time the show’s third
season came out) in which Will’s actor Noah Schnapp originally described Will’s
sexuality as being up to viewer interpretation. In general, the “up to your
interpretation” approach is usually frowned upon by groups looking for
representation and can often be seen as wishy-washy, but the potential
did exist for this being portrayed well. In my post, I mentioned how the things
Will goes through seem like they could be meaningful for many groups of people.
If the writers had opted to keep Will’s sexuality ambiguous as Noah originally
said, although this wouldn’t give any one specific group canon representation,
it could have broadened the horizons of his story. This would not only allow
more people to have the feeling of seeing their story communicated through him,
but it might also bring a lot of groups together in a way that doesn’t always
get to happen in stories.
However, following the more recent backlash against the
ambiguity of Will’s sexuality, Noah has discussed Will’s sexuality in a way that
makes it seem likely season five will give Will an actual coming out. This does
not particularly surprise me, not only due to how his character was portrayed
throughout season four, but because what he initially said about Will’s
sexuality was actually contradicted by something actors Finn Wolfhard (Mike)
and David Harbour (Jim Hopper) said about Will while responding to fan theories
before the fourth season. Regarding a theory that Will and Eleven are in a
secret relationship while together in California (a theory which seems to
ignore a lot of clues about Will’s identity, whatever it may be), both actors
made the comment that Will supposedly has a crush on another member of the
friend group. David Harbour even says that Will “wanted to play games in Mike’s
basement forever,” a callback to the argument Will and Mike have in season 3.
Unlike usual, I’m not saddened by the notion of my headcanon
being wrong, since I went into my analysis of Will fully acknowledging that I probably
was. Even if Will is not aspec, his character arc and the things he goes through
can still feel familiar from different perspectives, an aspec one included, and
thus he can teach us something about aspec identities even if he doesn’t
identify as such (which, of course, he still could; but, since the show takes
place in the 1980’s, it’s unlikely). Additionally, the example of how Will’s
sexuality is handled by the show and interpreted by fans, both in good ways and
in bad, is something I think can easily lend itself to future topics on this
blog. Whatever happens, I love Will’s character and I’ve loved analyzing him –
and, with any luck, maybe the fifth and final season will finally give him the
self-acceptance and peace he deserves.
A Tough Year
I feel like I’ve ended up saying this every year since I’ve
started the blog, but 2022 was a bit of a hard year for me. While nothing
could compare to the global chaos of 2020 or the personal sadness I endured in
2021, 2022 was nevertheless unique and painful in its challenges for me. In some
instances, I discussed these things on the blog, incorporating them into blog
posts such as the post about my aspec fears I did around Halloween or my
discussion of making fandom spaces better for aspec people. In other instances,
these things have not explicitly shown up much in my analysis, but have
nevertheless had tremendous impact on me. Some of these struggles have nothing
to do with my aspec identity and are just weird life events; other things are exacerbated
by being aspec, and that makes them even harder to deal with.
This year has been tough primarily because of the usual
things that prey on my self-confidence and self-love, along with new
challenges, but there have been glimmers of hope. I’d like to take this time to
briefly give a shout-out to the people in my life who have helped me get
through these tough moments by supporting me and reminding me to not give in to
the cruel inner voices that tell me I’m in the wrong. Just like Will Byers says
in the speech I mentioned earlier, being different sometimes makes me feel wrong,
and I need people who remind me to keep fighting and going on, people who make
me feel like my differences are not weaknesses, but strengths. Without them, I
would not be able to pour my honest feelings out like I do here every other week.
In some cases, those people are my family, but in some
cases, they’re good friends of mine. In the latter case, I actually got to see
a few of those friends for the first time since before the pandemic this year
and it was a great way to remember that I'm not alone. And in many cases, even
just seeing that people are reading and responding to my posts, as I said at
the beginning, has been immensely helpful. I say this all the time and I’m
probably starting to sound like a broken record, but I really am so honored by that. I
hope I can see all of you next year as well as I continue with even more
analysis and hopefully even more growth.
May the end of the year be a season of peace and health for
all of you, and I’ll see you on the other side.
With all my platonic love,
The Asexual Geek
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