#sterpril

[sunshine-gremlin]

April in school: khakis, button down shirt (tucked in, sleeves down), ponytail, CisHet Christian, votes Republican

April playing skiball: khakis, button down shirt (untucked, sleeves rolled up), ponytail, gay as fuck, disciple of Sappho the OG Lesbian

[obscurememesubjects]

[hedarompich]

✨ Sterling Wesley and April Stevens ✨

[girloikawa]

i just want to talk about sterling and april from teenage bounty hunters for a second. who are they? two sapphics—one a self identified lesbian, the other one a probable bi—who, over the course of the show, fall for each other. besides the whole “friends to enemies to lovers” excellence thing they got going on, why are they important as characters? because they’re religious.

now, i’m not religious, i’m not sure it’s my thing, at least right now i’m really not. however, i live in the dirty south usamerica, and i’m a lesbian. it’s not fun, and i’m not out, but it is what it is. most everybody here is religious, christian religious. so, with this rampant god stuff shoved down my throat and the causal homophobia that comes along with the people doing the shoving, it is so, so easy to forget that christianity ≠ homophobic. that god is actually supposed to be a figure of love, or whatever.

i have never, not once in my life (though, a short one), seen a teen girl who is at the pinnacle of practiced christianity say, “i know god still loves me for being a lesbian.” do you know how cool that is? not only for me, a non-religious lesbian, but for religious lesbians? (more specifically, the bible following lesbians.) to have someone in a show say that religion and gayness (or queerness) can coexist? that god loves you, it’s just the people who believe in him (them? it?) that are homophobic pieces of shit?

april and sterling’s storyline/s are so important. we never got their happy ending and we never got to see them be accepted by their religious community. although it is a bit prosomptuous of me to assume they will be, because they might not or even probably won’t accepted, it would be nice to see them say “fuck you, we’re queer, get over it,” or have it be some sort of lesson or speech they give at school. but they cancelled the show. we never got to see religion accept lesbians and wlw in general.

that storyline is meaningful to a lot of young individuals, a lot of young sapphic girls, who are struggling against their sexuality and how it effects their view of religion. really, netflix?

[so-fake-nice]

Me constantly refreshing the April/Sterling page on AO3 trying to get fed

[sapphicute]

sterling wesley - teenage bounty hunters (2020)

[cheeseandbeans]

sterling and april are the rory and paris rep we DESERVED

[kristiemewisstan]

I’m gonna miss April sm. Legit devastated.

bro I’m so devastated that the show didn’t get picked up. I saw myself so much in Sterling and April having grown up bi in a very Christian culture and I was hoping this could be for others what I needed in Middle and High School. tbh I’m still religious and seeing them be okay with themselves was healing for me as an adult. I just wish that it could have went on because I can see how helpful this would have been to me. Gay/Bi Christian girls that were 100% okay with who they are and didn’t have internalized homophobia looming over them was such a refreshing thing to see and I will miss this show a lot because of it