Wynonna Earp (TV series)

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Fandom
Name: Wynonna Earp
Abbreviation(s): WE
wearp
Creator: Emily Andras
Date(s): April 1, 2016 - present
Medium: TV
Country of Origin: Canada
External Links: Wynonna Earp official website

Wynonna Earp on Twitter

Wynonna Earp on IMDB
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Wynonna Earp is a SyFy TV series based on the comic book series by Beau Smith. The series follows the titular Wynonna Earp, a descendant of Wyatt Earp, and her journey in fighting demons, reconnecting with her sister Waverly, and finding love.

The show has an overwhelmingly queer fanbase, with sapphics in particular gravitating towards the show after the introduction of Wayhaught and the assurance of their survival in 2016, the infamous year of sapphic Bury Your Gays.

The fandoms for the series and the comics are fairly separate, as most fans of the former haven't gone on to read the latter.

Canon

When she returns home to her hometown of Purgatory for her uncle's funeral, she turns 27 and discovers that she is the current Earp heir. As such, she is able to send Revenants (previous victims killed by Wyatt Earp and reanimated as demons) back to hell using Peacemaker, a gun. Deputy Marshall Dolls of the Black Badge Division recruits her, her sister, and eventually Doc Holliday to deal with the Revenants and other supernatural threats in Purgatory.

As the series went on, further supernatural beings made appearances besides demons, some in greater roles than others, including angels, vampires, zombies, and werewolves.

Judging from dialog in the pilot, and the show bible (from 2014-ish?), the town of Purgatory seems to be set around the Montana border and the Badlands of Alberta, Canada.

Characters

Main characters

Recurring characters

Fandom

Fans of the series go by the name "Earpers", and are known for their "Polite No Chill" stance, especially while successfully campaigning for a second season, and beyond, and other related fan activity.

Earpers are known for their reputation of having “No Chill,” and when they combine their efforts for any cause things usually go their way. However, one of the nicest aspects about the Earper fandom is that even when they are unleashing the full power of “No Chill,” Earpers do so in a way that is positive and with utmost respect, aka “Polite No Chill.”[1]

Much of the fandoms rise is attributed to averting the use of the Bury Your Gays trope with Nicole Haught during the 2015-2016 TV season. It gained a particularly passionate fandom after this and it known for its ability to mobilise in fan campaigns for season renewal to voting in polls that favour the show.

Wynonna Earp fans are also known for applying their #NoChill attitude to fundraising campaigns. Earpers raised more than $12,000 during a 2017 GLAAD Spirit Day drive, organised in part by the hosts of popular podcast, Tales of the Black Badge. They had initially hoped to raise $1500.[2] TPTB promoted the campaign within the fandom, and offered to name a Season 3 character after a randomly selected donor, if the campaign raised $5000. In 2018, Earpers raised $24,000 for the GLAAD Spirit Day Drive.[3]

Shipping

As of July 2016, the vast majority of works for Wynonna Earp on AO3 are femslash.

See List of Wynonna Earp Pairing Names.

Conventions

Wynonna Earp has an active conventions scene which the cast regularly attend as guests. Some of these cons includes:

Fan Campaigns

Season Renewals

Campaigns for a season renewal started as soon as the first season finished, with the site Wynonna Earp Fans providing much of the information on how fans could best help.[4] This become the typical structure for the fandom henceforth, with Wynonna Earp Fans continuing to direct fans to social media campaigns, organised season re-watches and the likes.

Fight For Wynonna

In February 2019, fans began to notice that there had been no social media activity around the filming of season 4, and after reaching out to Melanie Scrofano online she confirmed that they had not started shooting the fourth season and was unaware why the delay had happened. It soon broke that IDW, the company that makes the series, was having financial issues and had thus delayed production. In response, Wynonna Earp fans took to social media under the hashtag #FightForWynonna to show support of the series. Fans also started buying billboard ads in Times Square, leading to ones from showrunner Emily Andras, and stars Melanie Scrofano and Tim Rozon. The billboards led to increased media attention and articles about the fan campaign appeared in several publications.[5][6]

In July 2019, it was announced that Wynonna Earp would return for a fourth season.[7]

Bring Wynonna Home

Discussion & Controversies

LGBT portrayal

  • Bury Your Gays: During the 2015-2016 television, season when Wynonna Earp's first season was airing, the rise of the Bury Your Gays trope lead to outcry online and negative media coverage of the shows employing it. This led to fans becoming worried that Wynonna Earp would follow this trend and kill off either Nicole or Waverly. Some potential new viewers even claimed they would not watch the show out of fear that it would those characters. This did not end up being the case, much to fans relief, and gained the show much accolades within the fandom.
  • Cheating Bisexuals: There was anger over Waverly kissing Rosita in season 2. Despite Waverly regretting it and Rosita encouraging Waverly to tell her girlfriend Nicole, a section of the fandom felt it played into stereotypes of bisexuals being promiscuous and more likely to cheat on their partner.

Accusations of Racism

  • After Dolls was killed at the beginning season 3 there was discourse within the fandom over how quickly some fans were to dismiss claims it played into harmful tropes in which black characters are more likely to killed-off than their white counterparts. Some found it hypocritical that fans who were so vocal in their beliefs about the damage of the Bury Your Gays trope did not extend this to Dolls' character.

Fanworks

Fics

Art

Vids

Meta

Archives & Fannish Links

Tumblr

Podcasts

References

  1. ^ Ways to “Polite No Chill” Others to Watch Wynonna Earp on Netflix
  2. ^ Wynonna Earp Fans and Writers Banded Together to Raise $12,000 for GLAAD Spirit Day article on The Mary Sue, posted Oct 25 2017.
  3. ^ Wynonna Earp Fandom Spirit Day Drive 2018
  4. ^ Fans CAN Help Wynonna Earp Get a Season 2!
  5. ^ Wynonna Earp Fans Are Using an NYC Billboard to Fight for Season 4, an article on pride.com, Mar 7 2019.
  6. ^ Wynonna Earp: Fans Take to Times Square to ‘Fight for Wynonna’, articles on Den of Geek, March 7, 2019.
  7. ^ Wynonna Earp Season 4 Is Finally, Actually Happening, Vulture article, posted July 2, 2019.
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