On October 5th, 2020, I startled awake at 5 AM in the morning. The sky was black. My heart was pounding. My bedroom lights were already on, giving the room a dim yellow, almost headache-inducing ambiance. Everything about this scene felt unusual to me, and it took me a minute to realize that I was no longer in my nightmare from the night before, where I was being chased down by creatures that had broken out of supernatural government containment centers. In the aftermath of dreams as vivid and as terrible as the one I just escaped, it tends to take a while for the physical world to feel real again. Were the monsters still after me? I needed a distraction.
I sat up in bed and turned to Twitter to scroll through some memes made by Teenage Bounty Hunters fan accounts (of which my account was one). I came across a tweet by a fellow fan asking for some Twitter friends and replied, cause I'm friendly like that. Within minutes, I found myself added to a burgeoning, brand-new group chat with 7 members and counting. After some introductions we bonded quickly over our favorite moments in the show. It wasn't long before we were sharing jokes and recounting our days, sending each other song covers and memes and artwork. And these people were funny. Comedians, all of them! I found myself laughing with my gut, whole body shaking, before even the sun came up.
As the deep-blue glow from my window transformed into genuine, early morning light, I discovered that my new friends were from everywhere in the world—the Philippines, Australia, Spain, India, etc. They were already addressing me by my nickname, telling me to go back to sleep (lmao), asking for my opinion on the group chat name. Small gestures, yes, but for a group of people that I didn’t know an hour ago, I immediately felt included, cared for, and accepted. I was excited to get to know these people better. It was a new day. And it felt like the beginning of something.
~
This, at the time, seemed like the culmination of my brief one-month foray into what’s known as stan Twitter. Growing up, I was always a lurker in fandoms and never a participant. I obsessed over universes and stories that I liked, but always privately, by myself. Maybe I was weird or overly self-conscious, but I’d always felt that there’s a kind of vulnerability in openly geeking out over fictional things, and I was determined not to make a fool of myself.
When I began questioning my sexuality in early high school, my shamefulness & secrecy around my consumption habits only intensified. I crawled the web in search for LGBT media, but I was still too scared to confront what it all meant for me. Even though I refused to put it to words, the question still hung over my head, heavy and unrelenting. Could this mean that I was ... ? I thought back to the way the single openly-queer kid in my grade got bullied so mercilessly that they went absent for an entire two months in the spring. I thought of that one convo with my mom in sixth grade, during the car ride home, when she said she'd kill herself if she ever had a gay child.
No one could know. But these stories continued to draw me in. It was almost comical how much of a ritual it became for me—I would bring my blanket over my head, enter incognito mode, and binge 'wlw' Youtube compilations at the lowest possible volume. I would read fanfiction late into the night. I used to think I was uninterested in romance as a genre, but there I was, hiding under my sheets, chasing that feeling of heartache and butterflies that I could only get from a good story about two girls in love.
In total darkness, the light of the laptop screen burned my eyes, but I wouldn't have dared to do this at any other hour.
~
Fast forward to 2020. Teenage Bounty Hunters took me by surprise. I picked it up reluctantly, only because my best friend would not stop gushing about how GOOD it was. Like, um, legitimately good? I watched the trailer. I remained on the fence. But what's more, she later teased, there's a significant girl-girl romantic storyline in it.
I took the bait.
What I was expecting was a trashy, indulgent show I'd binge once on a Friday night and forget about by Monday. What I got was so much more. In the past, I'd suffered through dozens of underwhelming movies and TV shows just to see a queer relationship on screen, but Teenage Bounty Hunters blew all my (admittedly, not-so-high) expectations out of the water. I forgot all about the promise of a gay love story later down the road; I was there for the unbelievable chemistry between the twins Sterling and Blair (whose sisterly bond is so authentic and entertaining) and the way Bowser's personality compliments their energy pretty much perfectly. I was there for all their bounty hunting shenanigans and all the ridiculous drama that unfolds at Willingham and at home. All of it ridiculous, yes, but also convincing, suspenseful, and full of heart. Teenage Bounty Hunters was, plain and simple, a damn good time.
When I reached the end of episode 6 (the first massive, juicy, jaw-dropping, scream-worthy GAY twist), I was sitting alone in my room, cackling and screaming so hard and for so long, you would have thought I was a maniac. Most people don’t laugh as loud (or out loud at all) when they’re by themselves. It was, honestly, kinda weird. I was bursting with the need to react with someone, to scream where another person could hear. I needed someone to go through all of these emotions with, someone to bear witness to me absolutely flipping the fuck out over this insane, rollercoaster ride of a show.
I did have my friend to talk to. She wanted us to Facetime when I reached the second half of the season, but she was too busy to call while I watched episode 6. So instead I flooded her with text messages, sending all-caps keysmash after keysmash, full-force ranting and raving in the chat, with the power of all the ‘OMG’s (with multiple G’s) and sobbing emojis at my disposal. She immediately matched my energy, and we built off each other like that, volleying back and forth a constant stream of not-so-coherent, text-based screams about how much we freaking loved this show.
A week after I finished the last episode, I was still shaken. The twists of the last episode was pure emotional devastation.
I was feeling emboldened.
There’s something almost-imperceptibly magical
Teenage Bounty Hunters came
I left incognito mode.
The thing I realized about this show Teenage Bounty Hunters was that it is, quite literally, shameless.
Maybe I’m dramatic, but Teenage Bounty Hunters changed my life. Maybe I’m just another, obsessed fangirl in a sea of thousands. Maybe I’m just another opinionated consumer, maybe I’m just more spam in your mailbox, desperately hoping my favorite show won’t end like this. Maybe I am strongly invested in the fictional universes and characters that bring me joy.
Truly, it took me years to arrive at this point. Teenage Bounty Hunters changed my life.
And I have no shame.