Stranger Things 5x04. Sorcerer
No title available
taylor price
NASA
Peter Solarz
Misplaced Lens Cap
Sade Olutola
Today's Document
Monterey Bay Aquarium
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
No title available
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year

No title available
Stranger Things
Sweet Seals For You, Always
Game of Thrones Daily
trying on a metaphor
todays bird
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"

@theartofmadeline
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
seen from United States

seen from Türkiye
seen from United States

seen from Malaysia
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from Germany
@juniperlake
Stranger Things 5x04. Sorcerer
miwi
I love the new album so much
idc what the cast or the writers or the canon could say, the party go to college together using their government hush hush money
the show didn't fall apart because byler wasn't endgame. it fell apart because in order to make sure that byler didn't come across as romantic, the showmakers had to retcon mike's and will's relationship as a whole and one of the most important friendships in the whole entire show... but some of y'all aren't ready for that conversation yet, i fear.
Byler Fic Rec Masterpost!
Just wanted to make a fic recommendation masterpost :)) Because I get a lottt of asks for fic recs and yeah here you go!
Byler Fic Starter Pack
My Fav Fics of all Time!!
Secret Relationship
Cleradin Fics
Fluffy Established Relationship Fics -> Developing Relationship Fics
Byler being strangely obsessed with each other Fics
Predominantly Miwi Fics
Spicy Byler but they're Sweet and Tender
Explicit Byler Fics
Byler Dad Fics
Jealous Mike Fics
Fluffy and Funny Byler Fics
Lesbyler Fics
Bravebyers/Wheelerwise Fics
Will Byers was Never Found AU Fics
Churchgate Fics
Season 5 Rewrite Fics
Historical AU Fics
Mike Wheeler Heavy Angst Fics
Willel Fics with BG Byler
Fics where Byler reunite
Bottom!Mike Fics
Jealous Will Fics
Time Travel Fics
Spidey Will Fics
Fics where Byler communicate in Morse Code
Apocalyptic Fics
Platonic Madwheeler Fics
Conformitygate Fics
Fics similar to the Power Outage Fic
Friends with Benefits Fics
Merbrave (Mermaid Byler) Fics
Surfsahoy Fics
Band AU Fics
<3 feel free to ask for more!
updated again with band au fics and a list at the top of all the essential/famous fics to read :)
"Am I really dating this guy?!"
Possibly the least accurate thing in the whole ENTIRE FUCKING EPISODE is how Mike’s trauma memory when Joyce is killing Vecna is not of Will being exorcized in season 2
Or of Will going missing, or Mike seeing his body dragged out of the river
Or of Mike nearly jumping off the fucking cliff
Or of his parents nearly getting killed in front of his face
Or of the rain fight or of rink o mania or of the I love you scene. NONE of that shit.
Not even IN ADDITION to El disappearing
THATS the sole memory they chose for him. Fuck them. I’m gonna be sick
Noah was so smart for his answer in that interview where he said he wished Will got to kiss a girl because we were all like, “OMG THAT MEANS HE GOT TO KISS A BOY BYLER ENDGAME.” No, it means poor baby never got to kiss anyone.
bring me back to the first time i saw this shot and was so sure that we won 😔
Also can we talk about how they reduced being gay to just sex. They made dick jokes while parodying an abused 16 year old who was forced into coming out in front of everybody by his literal abuser and did a whole skit on heated rivalry, dumbing it down to just gay porn instead of the actual story which revolved around two closeted men coming in terms with their sexuality. like it’s just tiring now…
This is genuinely my biggest issue with the hate the coming out scene receives and the SNL skit. People constantly reduce the queer experience down to just sex. “Haha why did Will have to take time to tell his friends he likes dick while the world is ending.” I’m so glad that we live in a generation where people don’t find it to be that serious because being queer is more socially accepted now, but the context of the time and place in which Will’s coming out scene takes place is so important. It was the 1980’s during the height of the aids crisis, in small town rural Indiana. Coming out was dangerous back then, gay men were dying every day while basically being ignored and shoved aside by the Reagan administration or told it was their punishment for being gay. Coming out has always been about so much more than sexual preference. The queer experience is rooted in social pressures, societal expectation, the knowledge that your life will always be slightly different and a little harder because of who you love.
this is 90’s college byler to me
what did they mean by that and other mysteries
FINN WOLFHARD & NOAH SCHNAPP One Last Adventure.
Maya putting Will and Mike under cutest couple that never was I knew she was on our team. 🤭
Truely missed oppurtunity, not having them kiss in these outfits. Would have saved the world without anyone ever having to enter the Upside Down... smh
Guys I played DnD with my friends for the first time tonight and one of my friends I have this huge crush on. And I kind of think she likes me too but I can’t tell, but we originally made our characters in love with each other in the story before we had to change it. I just feel so Mike and Will coded right now. And I’m telling tumblr because I can’t tell anyone else. 😭
Now that the final episode has been released, we must confront an uncomfortable truth: the fact that Vecna never once attempted to weaken Will by exploiting his fears—including his homosexuality—renders the coming-out scene narratively unnecessary.
Will explicitly states that he chose to reveal his fears, to name them aloud through his coming out, so that Vecna could no longer weaponize them against him. This confession was framed as an act of reclaiming power. And yet, Vecna never uses this knowledge. Not once. There is no consequence, no narrative echo, no payoff. The promise collapses into silence.
This means that, from a storytelling perspective, the scene ultimately served only two purposes. First, to suggest that Will is “moving on” by reframing his feelings for Mike as a mere crush, reducing them to a childish infatuation—his so-called “Tammy.” A claim that rings false, because love does not evaporate in twenty-four hours. Second, to expose Will’s sexuality as spectacle, offering homophobic segments of the audience an open stage on which to mock him.
There was no reward for the vulnerability demanded of him. No narrative protection. No dignity.
This could have been an intimate coming-out scene—quiet, human, reverent—one that honored queer experiences rather than consuming them. Instead, it was staged as public theater: a performance played out before an audience, centered on a Will who is crying, apologetic, and visibly terrified. A boy laid bare, not held.
What makes this more disturbing is the reality behind the camera. Noah Schnapp was subjected to twelve hours of filming that forced him to tap into the deepest, most fragile parts of himself as a gay person—so deeply that he reportedly dissociated by the end. And yet, the creators later had the audacity to present this scene as a flawless example of progressive representation, proudly positioning themselves on the “right side.”
But this scene is, in fact, a perfect reflection of how Will’s arc—his feelings, his sexuality—has been treated all along: pure performance, concealing manipulation, steeped in heteronormativity and internalized homophobia. The emotions of a young gay man are exploited to prop up a heterosexual couple that was already narratively broken. Will’s love becomes an instrument of emotional and psychological torture, used against him until it culminates not in growth, but in humiliation.
And worst of all, this is where his personal arc ends.
He is denied reciprocity after being fed false hope—both as a character and as a mirror for the audience. His story is then summarized in a hollow epilogue image: Will in a gay bar, paired with a generic boyfriend, as if that alone were fulfillment. As if his soul were not better reflected in an art school classroom, or a museum, or any space that resonated with his sensitivity, his creativity, his inner life.
The Duffers dared to reduce Will to this: a martyr who never attains what he desires most—not only love, but mutual love—and the sole gay character of the series.
Mike, too, is hollowed out. Reduced to nothing more than Eleven’s obsessed boyfriend, despite never behaving that way throughout the season. His trauma is ignored, his complexity erased, his character flattened, retroactively rewritten so that all his emotional turbulence since season three is never explained. A convenient simplification that discards years of nuance.
The fact that most of the strongest Byler-centered episodes since season two—and Volume 1 itself—were not written by the Duffers, while Volume 2 and the finale were, stands as damning evidence to me. Evidence that the Duffers are, at best, mediocre writers who have reaped praise built on the labor of others—the true storytellers behind the series’ most compelling, layered, and human moments.
What remains is a story that asks queer characters to bleed for symbolism, to suffer for aesthetics, and to disappear once their pain has served its purpose. A story that calls this progress.
But progress does not look like this.