The character ever

[mystical-byler-magical]

Will Byers did not survive a week in the upside down for you all to baby him and claim that he isn’t able to cross the road by himself

[dustin-henderhopped]

If people spoke about the other party members they did about Will

-Max wouldn’t learn how to drive because Billy could also drive and it could remind her of him

-Dustin should stop wearing his hellfire shirt because it could remind him of Eddie and how he died

-Lucas shouldn’t listen to Kate Bush because it could remind him of Max being vecnad

-Mike would be afraid of frogs because Troy called him frogface to bully him and it could bring up those bad memories

-Wanting El to go to the mall is problematic because the last time she went to a mall she lost Hopper.

-Will should stay from Max because he shares a name with Billy and it could unlock Max’s trauma

[dustin-henderhopped]

Rip Mike Wheeler you would have loved the tungsten cube

[dykecinema]

A lesbian will make a JOKE post on their own damn blog about not liking whatever the yaoi of the month is and people will be in their comments acting like they killed their family

[sun-moon-talia]

in 2014 you could come on here and say “misogyny is bad and more ppl should consume media that includes women” and everyone would agree with you. nowadays you post something like “if you don’t care about women you might be a misogynist” and the reblogs are ppl saying “ummmmmm this take is actually problematic bc the only way i can escape misogyny is by pretending women don’t exist :/” we’re so cooked.

[elcorhamletlive]

lately feeling bitter about that "sometimes a man hurts every woman who enters his life because his true soulmate is a man" quote and the logic behind it seeping on fandom interactions. the framing of misogyny as a sign of closetedness is both deeply homophobic and has the side effect of acting like mistreating and hurting women is like, a minor oopsie and/or quirk that should be viewed as endearing, a casual misstep on a male character's journey toward self-acceptance. plus the mistaken belief that "hating women" is somehow incompatible with "being sexually attracted to women" when straight men all over the world prove time and time again that it isn’t the case.

[elcorhamletlive]

Honestly, bylrs thinking the show was basically, at its core, written for them and that all the other elements on the show were there to somehow foreshadow, parallel, imply or be compared to 'bylr' as a ship, is something that I've not seen in any where with other fandoms before. At least not to this extent.

Like wdym all relationships are there to somewhat imply or foreshadow bylr? wdym robin and her coming out scene were supposedly there to somehow foreshadow mike's (nonexistent) gay narrative? Wdym all the other ships on the show are at their core there to be props for the supposed overarching plot which is bylr? not only milvn is about bylr, but also joyce and hopper, max and lucas, jonathan and nancy, eden and argyle, etc, were all there to be 'byler' or prop up that ship.

like, I am a dedicated BL/GL shipper, I've been involved in many fandoms and have variety of ships from different media, and admittedly, yeah, shippers can be entitled and make up random stuff to prop up their ships, but this level of entitlement is something I've not encountered before.

Yeah that was always a big issue with the theories, a kind of tunnel vision that only makes sense if you are a shipper blogging on tumblr.com. In reality it would be very counterproductive to write a show about this supposed romance while spending so much of your time dealing with other characters and dynamics instead of the alleged romantic "leads." Before season 4 I remember making the point that Mike and Will's relationship wasn't even among the top 3 most important relationships in the show, platonic or otherwise, and people reacted like I was talking nonsense but if you actually sit down and watch the whole thing, not just Bylr scenes, you'll remember how sidelined they both were as characters in season 4. Poor Will had less screen time than new characters and you want me to believe the entire show is some convoluted plot to give him an epic romance? It makes no sense.

Besides it veered into some pretty obvious misogyny when it came to using female characters' existences as launching pads for Bylr. El can't be upset at the end of S4 because she failed to save her best friend, it has to be about the boys. Robin's coming out is not about her, it's about the boys. The Wheelers' failed marriage is not about any of the women in the family, even though they're the only ones who seem to be emotionally affected by it. Etc.

[dustin-henderhopped]

Byler forever ✌️

What did Will do to deserve a life of misery?

[firstkurdonearth]

ME🤝ANTI MIKE WHEELER TAG

[elcorhamletlive]

the way people talk about carlton as if he’s this horrible abusive asshole who’s just like lonnie when literally all he did was buy will a drink and hold his hand. the insane levels of homophobia in the bylr fandom needs to be studied.

Well, haven't you heard? It is not homophobic to joke about killing a canonically gay character, the only guy in canon to have romantic interest in Will. It is, however, homophobic to acknowledge that Mike is straight in canon. Maybe you didn't know that before because you don't have their many #filmdegrees and all that #medialiteracy. Homophobia is when someone is mean about my favorite white straight boy.

[shorelinejam]

This being the way the average byler speaks about Carlton on a regular basis.

[arstoryels]

To be very honest, my hot take is that both Milevens and Bylers are similarly delusional in one sense: They deeply believe that Mike is this amazing loving boyfriend who is obsessed with El/Will, and therefore they treat him like a prize to be defended or won.

But in reality, he's literally just a nothingburger self-insert that they project their ship headcanons onto. The only "protective" or otherwise interesting character traits Mike has were dropped by season 2. And in doing so, it created such a big vacuum in his character that he could be molded into anything if you tried hard enough.

The interpretations for Mike in both of these ship communities differ so wildly, it's like they are speaking of two different people most of the time, instead of a canon character. And because neither of these characteristics are really canon to him by season 5, they only exist in the ship's fan community. Shippers start treating it like reality, which slowly turns them into criticism-intolerent . Thus, the moment they interact with anyone outside their community, they end up getting mad at people who do not agree with assessment of Mike's motives (which most of the time, is the rival shippers.)

While all of this bullshit is happening, people literally ignore the root cause of all of this discourse in the first place: which is the duffer brothers awful character writing.

[arstoryels]

I know it's a very irrational urge, but do y'all ever wish you could just take Will away from Bylers?

[dustin-henderhopped]

The media literacy they talk about

[ferocioustrout]

(person who physically cannot care about a character unless theyre hot and can be shipped yaoi style voice) no you don’t understand it’s not that I don’t like women it’s just that all of them in every piece of media are horribly written mary sues who are evil and bad. not my epic male blorbo who I ship with some guy he interacted with once and has every superpower, committed war crimes, and had 3 lines though. he’s awesome and well written and if you really think about it he’s the best character in the series

[glitchy-haha]

"Oh cool! A poc and/or female character! I wonder what the fandom thinks of this fine character-"

Racism.

"Aw dang it."

Misogyny.

"Aw dang it."

A horrid combination of both.

"Aw dang it."

A good portion of the fandom clearly favoring the white male character that appears for two seconds then dips.

"Aw dang it."

Whitewashing.

"Aw dang it."

Whitewashing with the fuckass excuses.

"Aw dang it."

Rarely being able to have any sort of conversation about the character without having to deal with the people who clearly do not understand said character (usually of the racism and/or misogyny they have for that character.)

"Aw dang it."

[lastritesbish]

henderhop nation where we at !!!

[sillylittlerock]

genuinely henderhop would have been so incredible. a deadpan girl who says the most insane things out of context then provides no explanation with an animated boy who talks an insane amount. a girl who does crazy things and a boy who backs her up no matter what. an abused girl and disabled boy getting to be the main romance of a mainstream show. like we genuinely could have had it all.