Will Byers Has Done Nothing Wrong Ever

Jess. 25. She/her. AO3: Zara_Zara My main is pika-cthuluuuu

[bylermyheart]

Thinking about how Mike must’ve been a very loud child and how I’m sure Mike must’ve yelled at Will sometime when they were children (not maliciously, but out of excitement) and Will must’ve visibly been scared by that (because of Lonnie) so Mike created the Will voice right then and there and vowed to himself to be more gentle around him.

[ninononono]

Back to the Futur AU, in which Mike travels back in time using a bicycle as a time machine and tries to stop his younger self from hurting Will's feelings with his incredible cluelessness. But he's always too late...

[izzyapricot]

cursed for life cause every time i hear any byler related song i look like this

[narrativelogicofbyler]

i’m not letting anyone gaslight me into pretending the duffers choices weren’t homophobic. you don’t deploy decades of queer cinematic language, build an entire emotional arc on queer longing, and then yank the narrative rug out from under a queer storyline without that meaning something. intent or not, the impact is the same: queer people got told their love is optional, expendable, and ultimately less important than a het couple the show itself kept proving didn’t work. that’s not “subtext,” that’s structural homophobia baked straight into the storytelling.

[soclearly]

me when i'm hanging out then remember how stranger things ended

[sweetbittermess]

dont think about mike wheeler too much youll just cry and reach the obvious conclusion that he really needs a hug from will byers.

[the-lost-seven-7]

scream au (again)

[lady-stardust1972]

we DESERVED to have mike find will wound up in vecna’s vines in the upside down.

we DESERVED to see mike rip frantically at the vines, cutting them down one by one.

we DESERVED to have will’s limp body fall into mikes arms, and mike cradling his face to wake back up.

WE. DESERVED. MORE.

[loserrsquad]

i started this painting a while ago but i kinda hated it so i stopped 😭

it was supposed to be goth/punk byler but i lowk gave up. still thought id post it just for fun tho

[lumishells]

[kashilie]

There should exist at least one universe where they could be happy in their youth right? Right?! 😭

I tried to integrate colour somehow into this depressing grey piece, hope it isn’t too ugly 🥀

[0ceansoftime]

we should have gotten mike wheeler crashing out in a bathroom then angrily washing the tears off his face

[narrativelogicofbyler]

i think what’s going to haunt me, academically, emotionally, structurally, is that mike and will weren’t just sidelined. they weren’t even treated like an afterthought. it was like the text made an active effort to erase the bond it had spent years meticulously building through blocking, colour, framing, and performance. and that’s the part that makes me furious on a film level, not just a fandom one.

because the duffers had a goldmine on their hands. genuinely. the kind of narrative chemistry and thematic architecture you can’t manufacture. the visual language was doing half the storytelling. the performances were carrying emotional weight the script didn’t even bother to articulate. they had the scaffolding for a queer coming of age arc that could’ve made actual television history.

and they threw it away, not even for something groundbreaking, but for a het couple they themselves kept demonstrating doesn’t work. a pairing that repeatedly fails to communicate, fails to understand each other, fails to share a coherent emotional language. they sacrificed a once in a generation dynamic for a relationship the text can’t even convincingly defend.

it’s maddening because mike and will had everything. the ache, the narrative symmetry, the cinematic potential. they were the story’s emotional spine, and the show acted like that spine was optional.

but here’s the thing: they didn’t erase anything. we saw it. we understood the craft even when the creators pretended it wasn’t there. mike and will are in our hands now, and we’re not letting the artistry, or the history they should’ve made, disappear.

[motherlennon]

John and Paul arriving in Vancouver, Canada (August 22, 1964)

[ninononono]

Start living your stories - be brave! Better late than never. Happy Birthday Mike Wheeler

[narrativelogicofbyler]

it absolutely floors me, in a very film & tv studies way, how freely noah is speaking about byler and the mishandling of his arc. we’re only four months out from the finale, and NDAs on productions of this scale are usually airtight for years. yet he’s out here at fan cons, on panels, just casually articulating frustrations that actors are normally contractually muzzled from even hinting at.

from an industry perspective, it suggests something unusually permissive (or unusually fractured) behind the scenes. from a fandom perspective, it’s delicious. academically i’m analysing the implications, but emotionally i’m thrilled he simply refuses to shut up. it’s chaotic, it’s cathartic, and it’s the most compelling accidental PR spiral i’ve seen in a long time.

[velvet4510]

I’m still reeling from just how patronizing and condescending the writing of Will’s storyline is in season 5, and those two adjectives need to be used more in reviews of that season. When you actually think about the finished storyline as its own thing, separate from outside theories or headcanons, it’s literally just Will “being put in his place” and “finally getting over his selfish perverted delusions.” That was the intention, that was the execution.

A tortured, isolated, mentally and physically violated gay boy - who sacrificed his own happiness for his best friend’s happiness and made said friend feel seen and loved for the first time in his life - finally “learns his lesson” and “stops preying on this innocent straight guy.” Robin is the heroic, wise, all-knowing mentor who only sees and speaks the objective truth about a guy she doesn’t even know, and guides Will to “snap out of it and stop believing his feelings are real.” Mike never learns the truth, but he doesn’t get a say in the matter because “he’s just Tammy.”

That is downright patronizing and condescending.