my biggest personal byler proof is just how much they remind me of my first queer relationship before we started dating
queer characters are incredibly easy to fuck over, even without intention. often spelled out or intensely sexualised to prevent misunderstandings for a mostly heterosexual audience, queer storylines are exaggerated and thus become unrealistic.
stranger things doesn’t do that with its queer characters. take robin:
this scene is done beautifully. genuinely beautifully.
robin admits her feelings for tammy and how she locked them away, not just because tammy didn’t like her back, but because she is a queer girl in the 80s. her feelings are unnatural and unwelcome in hawkins.
steve’s acceptance of robin in this scene makes people forget how horrifically this could have ended:
you don’t write a perfect representation of mutual teenage queer pining between childhood friends by accident.
queer pining is quiet and suppressed (especially for young people and ESPECIALLY in the 80s). It is unhealthy to suppress these feelings the way queer people tend to, it’s beyond the typical “secret crushes” straight people experience. queer pining can destroy people when they’re not supported.
through robins character, and wills arc in season four, we can see clearly the duffer brothers understand the nature of queer love, and wish to do it justice.
will ending up with some random last minute jock is unrealistic and does not do his character justice.
mike staying in an insecure relationship, constantly worried his girlfriend will grow out of him and leave him, rather than accepting will’s unconditional love for him, accepting his own love for will and letting himself be who he is, does not do his character justice.
even so, if they tried to set up byler in a way that would come across clear to the GA, it would, by default, become unrealistic and unrepresentative.
neither are yet able to admit to close friends and family they are queer, but they are supposed to convey that part of themselves to an (understandably) dense/heteronormative mainstream audience?
queer teenage love is not the same as straight teenage love, it doesn’t shock me that the majority of the audience isn’t able to pick up on byler beyond wills feelings, and they’re not supposed to.
we all say what we see, they don’t see the queer love brewing because they’ve never experienced it, they’ve never been mike and they’ve never been will. they’ve been max and lucas and nancy, steve, jonathan, etc etc
doesn’t make their heteronormative perspective accurate, they are just straight. they understand will and mike the same they do lucas and dustin. mike says they are friends, they have no reason to think otherwise. they do not know what queer love actually looks like, the duffer brothers do. the actors do. we do.
you are not delusional. you are queer.
if byler was widely agreed upon at this point in the story, it would not be an accurate representation of queer romance. that is the point.
my moneys on the latter and they better get every award for it.
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