honestly, i don't think we talk enough about how cruelly will byers was written.
you're telling me you write a little child suffering homophobic abuse from his father, at an age where he probably hardly knew what being gay was, solely for liking drawing better than sports.
you write a child growing up, mostly likely hating gay people because of the experiences with his father. at this stage it's fair to assume that will probably feared actually being gay because of how he was treated by lonnie.
then you decide to make that, which probably feels like the worst prophecy ever to this child right now, actually be true and write this character to be gay, therefore introducing a deeply rooted internalised homophobia arc that is not handled with respect or care. ever.
to top that off, you make this character be in love with his best friend, which, considering that they didn't become canon, is a terrible writing choice.
you then give this boy further trauma by making him victim of a kidnapping by an inter-dimensional being and abuse that is a very clear allegory of CSA, by an older man. I don't fucking care that vecna is a supernatural villain, he's still "human enough" to mirror a real pedo going after a little boy.
next, you decide to just never touch up on this again.
instead, you write this character to be "annoying" to others (s3), "childish" and "stupid" (s3) and like he's "getting in the way" of your bullshit straight relationship (s4+s5) while simultaneously using his feelings for his best friend to fix this bullshit straight relationship you failed to write properly; ultimately making half of the general audience, hoping and wishing that this character doesn't survive the story.
you then drag out the whole "will has feelings for mike" shit, which isn't only unfair to the audience, but also to will as a character himself, keeping it ambiguous, trampling his feelings, diminishing those feelings to a stupid hallway crush, and in the end, after all, never giving this character a happy ending that involves a true love story.
instead you pretend that one experience of acceptance entirely erases the pain and trauma he went through, ultimately making all those things seem small, even though they are not, because you don't want to spend time on having will actually heal from his trauma.
you write a scene where his abuser forces him to come out to a huge group of people by having said abuser use this boy's sexuality and feelings for his best friend to blackmail him and attempt to gaslight him into believing he will never be loved if the people around him know the real him. oh and also, you make sure that it's super obvious that this boy is not ready to come out yet.
you turn the outing scene into a joke, and make it about everyone, except the gay character.
unfortunately, the GA has been begging you to kill this character because he's "useless", so you give him supernatural powers and actually empower him but only for like 5 minutes. afterwards he's irrelevant again.
why? because when you wrote s1 you had no need to flesh will out as a character; instead you decide that being gay, being hated for it and being kidnapped is this characters only personality trait. naturally, after s1 you didn't know what to do with him anymore, so you decided to only base his arc off his trauma, but, again, never handle that respectfully.
so yeah, will was only there to be the pitiful, traumatised gay boy and that is an unbelievable disrespect towards him as a character and all of the queer audience.
and don't get me started on many homophobic narratives where told to "be true" through will's story.
finally, all of this, canonically, takes place during the aids crisis.
