Where Cleric!Will finally finds a way to follow Paladin!Mike into Hawkins and where Paladin!Mike forgot to tell Mike and Will *something* because he just assumed they were lovers as well ... <3
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Where Cleric!Will finally finds a way to follow Paladin!Mike into Hawkins and where Paladin!Mike forgot to tell Mike and Will *something* because he just assumed they were lovers as well ... <3
i'm imagining bravebyers to be sort of angsty. like imagine if mike the brave was randomly dropped into hawkins right after the death of his beloved, will the wise. imagine will the wise using the last remnants of his power to send his lovely mike the brave to a safer world. and so mike the brave lands in epilogue hawkins, where he sees will. but it's not his will. and mike the brave accepts that. he thinks as long as this will is happy with this version of mike, i will be fine. but will isn't happy because mike (wheeler) is being a total idiot who won't confess his feelings. and so mike the brave decides to be a true paladin, and he brings byler closer together. he encourages mike to confess his love to will. if mike the brave cannot have his will the wise, he'll damn well make sure that byler can be together in another universe. in every universe. every universe but his own.
Oh this is like cocaine... Thank you Finn
We should have known that there was something wrong from the fact that they're inverted again in Dimension X
i used to hate on this scene here because i thought it was will forgiving his abuser, but the more i think about it the more i realise it's actually will forgiving henry who was taken over by the mindflayer. and it's him forgiving himself. he wasn't forgiving vecna. he was forgiving someone he saw himself in, he was forgiving someone who was also abused by the same being. and by forgiving henry for being taken over by the mindflayer, he's forgiving himself for that too.
"it wasn't you" = "it wasn't me" it wasn't will who killed those soldiers in 1984. it wasn't will who spied on his friends.
of course, after that, henry tells will that he chose to be this way, which in my eyes reads as will realising that it wasn't henry's fault, just like it wasn't his own, that they became possessed and did terrible things UNWILLINGLY. however, once henry started doing it WILLINGLY, he became at fault. it WAS him, vecna, not henry.
to be clear, i am not giving the writers their cookies because this could have been fleshed out so much more. it isn't clear enough that will is forgiving himself and realising that it's not his fault for being taken. but that is what this scene is. i think they could have actually gone into the csa storyline far better with far better implications, but i have better opinions over this scene now.
this scene is great in concept. it's will forgiving himself for being abused and the consequences of his abuse. but it was so poorly rushed, and we should have gotten to see henry's memories from the play.
so yeah, i don't think we should be pinning this as a scene where will "forgives his abuser." he's forgiving someone and talking to someone who was abused by the same entity he was and telling him that it is not his fault, which in turn shows that will no longer believes it is his own fault either. HOW WE GOT THERE? don't know. there is no clear progression from will thinking it is all his fault to this, but this is what the scene is to me now.
follow up
Giving powers to Will and not making him have even ONE conversation about it with El is CRIMINAL 🫠
What’s the good thing about a secret episode not releasing today? It means that the GA will lose interest in conformitygate and it will become ours again.
There’s that freedom of being able to talk about it in that queer way without having to hear them make it about Mike and El running away together to a land with 3 waterfalls.
I know the thrill behind it is the prospect of a secret episode airing (and if that happens then that truly is cool) but conformitygate is still such a cool and meta way to perceive the ending that I think our fanbase should hold onto regardless of the outcome. Write those fics, make that art, write those analyses based on it.
I think it returning to us again is it returning to its roots and what it truly means. Keeping it niche is sometimes good and honestly what retains the true meaning of something.
duffers writing the tower scene as some kind of brutal shut down for bylers is so funny because their love literally shined through anyways. we ended up with a heavily queercoded mike who stumbled over his words and knew what "coming out" meant, will looking the most in love he's ever been, an indirect kiss through the water bottle sharing, and overall great chemistry that couldn't be matched even when mike's gf was dying.
ok but seriously conformity gate is incredible regardless of what happens
Option 1: you're all correct about another episode and you're bloody geniuses for noticing all the clues and piecing it together and being confident despite people telling you repeatedly that you're going crazy (almost like a reoccurring theme in a show we've all seen huh)
Option 2: you're wrong about another episode, but you're all even more bloody geniuses for piecing together evidence that makes a far far more compelling and complete ending to a story. The evidence and the narrative pieced together has managed to even convince people that have never analysed the show once in their life that it's going to happen
so mike is imagining this whole conversation, based on wills feelings for mike, disguised as el’s, does this mean mike kissed his embedment of wills feelings? but couldn’t say i love you bc it’s still el? but mike wants to kiss the idea of will byers?
indirect kiss?
THEY ARE ONTO SOMETHING GUYS
THIS HAPPENED THEY CANT TAKE IT AWAY FROM US, ITS CANON
I'm sorry, but "kids' minds being weak and easy to mold" does not work with me as an excuse as to why Will was taken. It could be why a kid was taken, but this particular kid gave Vecna the slip for days. He escaped a demogorgon multiple times, including, somehow that they still haven't explained, right after it snatched him into the Upside Down in the first place. He ran and hid for nearly a week without food, water, or a safe place to rest.
I understand that they didn't really think ahead in the story at the time they made season 1, but they still need to make it coherent with season 1.
If I'm Vecna, I'm cutting my losses and going after someone else. This kid clearly isn't worth the trouble.
Unless, for some reason we've also not been told, he is worth it. Will never seemed like some random victim. He was targeted, stalked and hunted. Maybe his powers, not the ones from Vecna or the hivemind, really are innate and something Vecna wanted.
I know there's questions about how good at writing the Duffers actually are, but are they so bad that they're leaving massive plot holes everywhere?
one thing I’m not seeing anybody talking about is that there was literally no payoff for will’s coming out scene. like it didn’t help him in the final battle, it didn’t explicitly make him stronger, and vecna didn’t even try to use his queerness against him so like…why did the duffers make him come out in the first place if there was gonna be no payoff? kinda feels weird and homophobic and like they were just trying to please bylers so they put together a shitty impersonal coming out scene and said “here damn”
mike literally calls will a sorcerer in his campaign almost 2 years after he’s lost his powers that boy is so nerdy and down bad he still thinks will has innate powers 😭
Actually, when Mike said "best friends" he didn't reject Will. That scene was fucking romantic, they were flirting, Will laughed, and Mike stumbled over his words, and looked hungry yearningly at Will drinking from the same bottle.
"If we're friends. Best friends". Yeah, right, Michael.
Shit we saw after? They secretly dating for 18 months, and that's why Karen thought Mike is with Will. Because they always together, and if her son wasn't home that night he def was with Will in her mind.
I don't care, they are together.
stranger things | 486 frames, each one animated/remixed by hand | no ai used 🗡️🫀✨
i feel so creatively re-inspired by diving back into this universe. which makes sense, given its impact on my art at formative times in my life. in 2026, i want to focus on being a storyteller, not just a photographer, a designer, a marketer, etc. this feels like a step in the right direction. and a bit like mike, i suppose!
more to come, probably. ttyl.
Conformitygate Byler
Better than what we got