Billy The Rat King

Billy is the best character in Stranger Things, change my mind. (You Can't)

[billy-theratking]

I will defend Billy to my dying fucking breath and no one can stop me. 🖕

[miremummy]

i did vampire so why not werewolf ( ͡° ᴥ ͡° ʋ)

[basiatlu]

I like the way his back is arching in this one

[rigginsstreet]

I think billy, coming from California in the 80s, was used to a certain type of preppy rich boy who partied hard, fucked a lot, looked calm and quaint on the outside but was up to total debauchery behind closed doors. I can easily believe those were the kinds of dudes he’d go after. They had the best drugs, the fastest cars, the biggest houses with the nicest pools

So he gets to Hawkins and gets wind of this steve Harrington and his mind immediately jumps to “oh, maybe I can have some fun here”

Except he meets Steve after he’s already been lobotomized and he’s soooo disappointed. Where is the rich preppy jerk he was promised! He was hoping to get his shit rocked! This is so disappointing!

So that’s why he spends all of season 2 trying to light a fire under Steve’s ass. Many people don’t understand this

[rigginsstreet]

exactly the vibe i fear

[dealtgod]

DESCRIBE YOUR MUSE WITH NEGATIVE EBAY REVIEWS

tagged by: @freakarus , thank you! tagging: @teveharrington , @hawkinsingenue , @hawkinsown, @dontretreat, and you!

[thatharringrovehoe]

I'm never gonna get over this expression. Like "Bitch I'm trying to flirt with the prettiest boy is school, do you mind?"

[lapis-infernalis]

California vacation (part 1)

Got some kind troubles in my life but hope it's finally ended

[lovebillyhargrove]

Billy :

"You look and sound like a challenge."

[basiatlu]

Commission for @suotar ♡

[imsodishy]

oh OK, so I'm on record as not liking that they gave Susan a drinking problem out of nowhere in season 4. But, to make that character choice work: what if she and Neil met in AA and Neil 13th stepped her?

Neil's more than a decade sober Susan's just made it to two months when they meet. He positions himself as a helpful authority, and then as the only thing standing between her and relapse, and then takes total control of her life.

[clamberclogs]

reblogging with tags as a photo b.c. I’m a dinosaur and don’t know how else to do it. 

I’ve read fics where Billy’s mom is dead (a couple where Neil did something, a couple where it was cancer) but the idea I vibe with the most is that Neil used the law to separate Billy from his mom. I think it is a fascinating idea that Neil met Billy’s mom through AA or NA and 13th stepped her and then used that against her in a custody battle for Billy and used it against Billy, told him his mom was a junkie who didn’t love him, that Billy made her use/drink, and told the courts that Billy would only be safe with upstanding-citizen-Neil, not his horrible mother. The 70s/80s generally demonized parents with drug use. 

The only thing scarier than a demogorgan is the power of the state, especially when weaponized.  

[imsodishy]

It's extremely plausible, and if Billy’s mother finally did get clean and was trying to open up contact with Billy again that would be a pretty strong inciting incident for Neil to haul them out to Indiana while he still has sole custody.

[rigginsstreet]

watching a video and it was mentioned in passing the psychology behind children siding with the abusive parent and i then i started thinking about how billy straight up did not do that

like we see in the flashbacks him stepping in front of his mom during a fight, we see him both as a child and teenager talking back to neil

does billy follow his orders? yes. but does billy agree with them? does billy ever actually take a stance that he's with neil? no. he doesn't. in fact, we are constantly shown evidence of the exact opposite

so this notion people in the fandom have that billy is just like neil, that he would grow up to be just like, is following in his footsteps, is fucking ridiculous.

at his core, he rejects who neil is and he resents him above all else. this is a kid with terrible coping mechanisms and a lifetime of rage built up inside him that needs to be broken free. he's not a monster. and the fact people cant see that truly makes me lose hope in humanity

[moonlitvyl]

Kind of missing when Harringrove was so popular back in like 2017

[varma-kosto-st]

how is it not criminal to have pink lips like that??

(more painting practice and brush testing.)

[basiatlu]

He wants that dog in him 🌭✨️

[varma-kosto-st]

i liked this one enough to colour it. this also gives me a great opportunity to ramble about billy :>

SO

thinking about this was keeping my up last night, i remember an interview where someone (i think it was james marsters?) talked about how spike from buffy the vampire slayer was supposed to be a minor character that got killed off/written out at the end of his season BUT fans took a such a strong liking to him that the writers said hey, you know, we could write him into a recurring character??? and they did! now this wasn't completely like the fans probably imagined, even though the writers wrote him in more they were very much of the mind set that spike is a bad character and you should not only know that but also not like him so freely. which eventually lead to THAT infamous scene between buffy and spike. it felt like they knew better and wanted everyone else to follow their thinking too.

now what does this have to do with billy? i think he had the same charm to him than spike, where, despite the dark theme of his character, the fans took an extreme liking to him and wanted more. except the writers weren't happy about that in this case. they wrote billy as a bad person and i think they tried their best to make everyone else think so too. i think their whole goal was to make another bully character that people would hate and move on when he died, but they weren't prepared for the love and affection people had for him. now i fully understand it is their show and they can do what they want with it but i loved how the buffy writers stood behind their fans and went "here, you want a pretty boy? we got a pretty boy for you!". it would have been delicious seeing a bully and an insecure kid have a lovingly crafted growth arc where he can heal and find the friendship and love along the way (that he very much deserves).

i'm still very bitter that we didn't get that. i know billy is a VERY controversial character and many people out there hate him (and they have the right to) but there is a reason why he resonated with so many people, why so many people could relate to him and sympathise with him. i just think it's absolutely sad he got the ending he had but i am very happy the fans are keeping him alive and giving him a happy ending and the character growth i wish we could have gotten.

also dacre pretty :D

that's it, that's the ramble. also if you're still here i want to say i love you all in this fandom and that i'm very grateful you all seem to be liking my art!!!! yay!!!!!

[varma-kosto-st]

i've had the worst art crisis going on for the past year or so and i've kept getting just more and more frustrated with it (hence the long break) but i'm DETERMINED to get past it and just enjoy drawing again so idk, have a whole bunch of practice ones i did today after locking in?

(me after googling so many references today:)

[bigdumbbambieyes]

No because Steve and Billy are always flirting with each other, even years into their relationship Billy still likes to corner his boyfriend with a leering grin on his face while Steve rolls his eyes as he wrestles with his own smile because Billy is making him blush and he’s twenty-five he shouldn’t be blushing still!! But Billy eats it right up, loves that he can still make Steve turn pink like this, he just wants to eat him up — so he goes in for a kiss, the two of them with half-lidded eyes locked as they grin into a teasing little kiss, their lips not even in the right shape for it but they don’t care because they’re so in love and gross and can’t really handle the fact that they’re probably going to be together forever