me and michael // william, it was really nothing
Jules of Nature

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tannertan36
DEAR READER
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ

Love Begins
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Cosmic Funnies
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Sweet Seals For You, Always
Today's Document
noise dept.
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
occasionally subtle

Kiana Khansmith
Mike Driver
we're not kids anymore.

oozey mess
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me

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@katspajamas
me and michael // william, it was really nothing
how many times has ao3 gone down in the last 24 hours?
this one’s for you jimmy fallon
"Shit"
Stranger Things epilogue tweak - Mike the Wise
bonus below
Reading the comments on Netflix’s social media pages is hell. It’s absurd how many people miss that the real issue isn’t whether Mike could realistically reciprocate Will’s feelings, but rather the quality of the writing itself. The story clearly exploits and romanticizes Will’s pain. For at least a couple of seasons, it emphasizes his romantic longing and encourages the audience to invest in it. Yet, all that suffering and tension are ultimately dismissed and never properly acknowledged or respected. While Will’s pain remains unresolved, the heterosexual couple is given a serious, tragic moment framed as meaningful, despite being rooted in avoidance and misunderstanding.
So this isn’t a question of realism; rather, it is about writing that appropriates queer pain to enrich the narrative but ultimately discards it without any payoff. I wish it received better acknowledgment in mainstream media.
for some reason can't reblog this post (PLS go read it),, but essentially netflix has 105 mins of "ghost time" added to the end of 5x08 that's locked and will become available tomorrow? and the episode size (in gb) takes up way more space in netflix than a typical 2 hr episode should ?
my irl who HASNT SEEN STRANGER THINGS asked me about conformitygate today btw
yall i take back what i said about conformitygate THIS IS GLORIOUS this is what we should be using our voices for. this is making our refusal to accept homophobic misogynistic racist writing get major attention!! and its making fun of the people who made fun of us aka the showrunners. and it's showing off our creativity and talent.
yk what hell yeah
ive made a couple anti posts, but that was truly just concern about the depths some people were getting into with it mentally
if we can come up with a coherent enough theory that it alerts not just the GA, but the General Public to prejudice in hollywood, by all means, let’s keep fucking screaming
there SHOULD be an episode 9, because they WROTE A BAD FUCKING SHOW
exactly!! like do i believe conformitygate in the sense that i think there IS actually a 9th epsisode? no
BUT i believe in what conformitygate represents and stands for. which is calling out bullshit and bad writing, holding people accountable, and making our voices heard so that we are taken seriously instead of simply being considered "noise"
we are critics. we are criticizing. we have power. lets use that!!
What the hell. Yeah.
Let's make the noise they hate so much and DEMAND MEANING.
Demand ARTIST INTEGRITY and real REPRESENTATION for minorities.
Demand that authors compromise in the quality of their work instead of outsourcing it to their FANDOM.
Demand that show runners treat the craft of storytelling and cinematography with RESPECT.
exactly. don’t let people get away with doing the bare minimum. don’t be complicit in letting art lose its meaning.
art exists to express feelings, to focus on the little things, to be creative. when you take all that away, all that’s left is disconnected words and pictures.
because with art, you’re not just telling a story. you’re telling a real persons story. it may be fictional, but a real life person is going to relate to that.
don’t take on such a massive and honorable task if you can’t do it any justice
me talking to the duffer brothers after watching the finale 💕
since the creators like to leave so many things in the finale ambiguous then I'm running with it and making my ship canon anyway lmao. they belong to us now!!!
Yes, they meet up accidentally during college, yes, they never stopped thinking about eachother, yes, they're now free to face those feelings!!!
Imagine writing a finale so terrible it got half the fandom theorizing it was fake and there's an actual finale coming our way. Truly bizarre. (Love reading those theories tho, they're so fun).
Anyways, I'm doing my part with a little fix-it fanart :) I tried to make it as big of a tribute for this ship as possible. I've had so much fun these past few weeks interacting with this fandom, I'm truly grateful I've found a little space for myself in here. And I'm glad so many people enjoyed my art and stayed with me for longer, I am so thankful for you all! 💕 Reading your comments, sharing excitement with you and interacting in general has been a highlight of my days! I think it got me through this winter, it was a really nice escape. And an intense one. Whew.
I hope to create more fanart for this series in the future, maybe branch out into other characters as well. I'm still full of ideas! But for now I feel like I need to take a step back and let this hyperfixation fade out a bit. I need to focus on my college assignments for now, maybe I'll even find some time to work on my comic, but in the meantime I'll be posting some art that has been waiting on my drive :) I also still need to process the conclusion to this show, cause geez. Feels kinda terrible. But I'm glad to be a part of this incredibly supportive community. Never stop being so passionate, fun, and creative, y'all are amazing 💕 I've learned so much about storytelling and visual symbolism thanks to all the people's analysis and I can now implement it into my own art! And all of you should too! I can't wait for what the fandom comes up with now!
Lots of love 💙💛
I’m a few years older than the Duffer brothers. Of course Stranger Things feels like home to me. But I love the characters most.
Will and Mike were my favorites from the beginning. I relate to Will in a bunch of ways. Quiet. Creative. Nerdy. Honest. Supportive. When very young, called “sensitive”—a plea, sometimes an accusation. Read as gay. Survivor of bullying and abuse. Feeling unseen. Convinced there must be something wrong with me.
Mike’s love for Will, platonic or not, was sweet and wholesome. I loved how Mike was so tender and protective. They both flourished in that dynamic. I’ve been lucky to have that a couple times in my life and it was wonderful.
The writers did Will and Mike dirty. Don’t get me wrong, I mostly loved the concluding season, despite all the pointless, even malicious, loose ends. I’m not loud, but I shouted and cheered when Will broke those Demogorgons. But how could they end Will and Mike’s stories like that?
I’m supposed to accept that Will was repeatedly abused his entire childhood, convinced by Vickie and Vecna to get over his lifelong love within a mere couple days, coerced into coming out, and the best future we can imagine for him is meeting someone at a bar? His friend—no way… best friend!—doesn’t see him sharing his art with the world? There’s no chance Will might illustrate Mike’s stories?
Like it or not, it’s no coincidence such a large number of us read Mike as repressed: it’s the most charitable explanation for his actions. Now I’m supposed to accept that Mike was a piece of shit to his best friend and girlfriend for no reason? Because it’s not like he learned anything, ever, in the entire series. Even after Hopper counseled him to respect Jane’s autonomy and accept her decision, he didn’t. He couldn’t even imagine telling her he loved her!
I’m worried about the wider implications. Mike: It’s OK to never grow as a person, but to spend the rest of your life reminiscing until you turn into a sentimental version of your emotionally deadbeat parent. Will: If you’re queer, it’s OK if your friend treats you badly sometimes for no reason. The best you can hope for is moving to a new city and finding new friends. Don’t even daydream about reciprocated love.
To say nothing of the implication that sometimes the only way a teenager (Jane/El) can end the cycle of abuse is by suicide.
But, just… how they wrote Will and Mike makes me deeply sad. It reminds me of beautiful friendships I’ve lost and my deep fear that, because of who I am, I may never find something like them again, or anything that lasts.
And their double standards for straight and gay couples is ridiculous.
They say none of their crushes ever worked out, so it's more realistic that Will not end up with Mike.
Except Lucas and Max, who met at 13 and got together as a crush and are implied to stay together.
Except Mike and El, who met at 12, before El even knew what a friend was, let alone a boyfriend, and had a crush that led to a train wreck relationship, but are implied to have been truly in love before tragedy separated them.
And don't even get me started on Robin and Vickie breaking up off screen after getting together off screen. I wish conformitygate were true just to explain her absence being the result of Mike not knowing anything about her.
But, no, the Duffers just plain don't hold gay people to the same level of regard as they do straight people. And they hide behind "realism" as an excuse despite that not stopping them from some utterly ridiculous story elements.
reblogging both duffer hate posts and conformitygate posts
they may have CGI’d it out, but i’ll never let the world forget that will byers had an earring in mike’s gay little fantasy of him
Will occasionally gets postcards in the mail.
No name. No address. No matter where he is.
Always of art.
Postcards of paintings from all around the world.
He likes researching them and learning about the artist, what the paintings mean, where the paintings hang now.
He knows she wouldn’t be there if he went, but he still looks into the cities that the galleries are in. Reading about the history and imagining her telling him about it. Imagining her exploring. Learning. Existing freely.
He doesn’t tell anyone because he knows she trusts him not to. Trusts him to not try and find her.
He likes to think she still checks in with him as occasionally the meaning or subject of a painting will hit too close to home with him and whatever the current thing that was bothering him.
He wishes he could write back. Wishes he knew how to check on her as she checks on him.
But since everything ended, his powers lay dormant. Only evidence they still exist are the small ‘electrical faults’ that are perfectly timed with big emotions and always end in a nose bleed.
i genuinely believe byler was the original plan and they abandoned it for some reason because the entire show makes no sense and plenty of the plot holes are non byler but so many are that it’s ridiculous