i probably liked your fic.

she/they, 23 fangirl and lover of poetics. byler truther !!mdni!!

[pikasflower]

Clips from my recent animation!

[kosmogrl]

[haloheliac]

“Robot Suit” by Thierry Mugler, Vogue Magazine, November 1995

[weltenwellen]

Wildness Before Something Sublime Leila Chatti

[vivalafiesta00]

[domi--mi]

frolicking around, nymph willow and her satyress paramour

[meandthemist]

I have screenwriting software and I stg one night I’m writing volume 2 using all the Byler lore and sending it to the duffers via mail alongside my dogs doo doo in a stinky little bag.

[meandthemist]

We are going to make this year a creative one. The story will be told!!!

[meandthemist]

Do you know what makes me the most upset? I know I can get over this queerbait because I’ve done it before. But I just read that article with the Duffers saying that they thought this unrequited story would be better for young viewers, and that breaks my heart. To find out they withheld so much just to learn they saw the Byler possibility as “your secret feelings working out will fix everything” and gave Will a self acceptance arc only to sideline the other crucial perspective to confirming this (mikes perspective, which they have been hiding from us and still are) and ended up with all of us feeling heartbreak. Byler was never unrealistic. It could have made sense, and they could have had TWO representations of someone learning their sexuality and finding love. It could have shown us comphet! Which admittedly is a lot for two straight men to comprehend, but I had a lot of hope in Shawn Levy (for whatever reason!!)

And I don’t care what these two straight dudes say, most of the young queer fans ARE Bylers. And they let them down. They let them down. I don’t care if it’s “unrealistic”. I detest and resent this rhetoric that it’s a good message for the young queer people to learn how to be rejected. They already feel rejected. I’m sure they’ve already been or felt they’ve been.

It makes me sad that they saw Byler as an unrealistic fantasy where “your secret feelings working out will fix everything” when they’ve always had so much more depth than that. I get it, power comes from yourself, but why only yourself? Why put so much focus on the love between them up until this point? It’s sad.

It upsets me that there might be kids now discouraged from love. LOVE! WHERE DID THE LOVE GO? Even if it’s “unrealistic”, when has that ever stopped anyone in tv from showing unrealistic teen straight ships? I just know there are so many young queer kids right now who are devastated. So I can’t sit here and be okay with the idea that this message is better. It just makes me really sad that this was the message that they thought was more important.

[weltenwellen]

Arielle Hebert, "The Inventors"

[meandthemist]

volume 2 - initial perspective

Here comes the hetero again, ready to rain on everyone's parades.

I’m ready for this pain to be over soon. It’s eaten so much of my life but at the same time, like anything it’s helped me understand the kinds of stories I want to tell. The kinds of things I want to do for communities like this. The so-called "imaginary" idea of Mike Wheeler being gay actually helped me recognize the signs of internalized homophobia in myself. This ship helped me come out, and grow closer to those around me. I know so much more about who I am and what kind of stories I want to tell now.

I hope that once we feel out this disappointment, it'll light a fire under our asses as a community to vouch for the kinds of stories WE want.

That is all. We have suffered before and healed and we will do it again.

[meandthemist]

DON WE NOW OUR GAY APPAREL 🔔

[kitkat9400]

This 😂

[sofixt0k]

Sometimes I feel like people underestimate how explicitly romantic Mike and Will’s fight in season 4 actually is.

Because for that scene to feel that emotional, both of them had to perfectly understand what they were implying. That kind of tension doesn’t appear out of nowhere.

When Will says “and us?” after Mike justifies the letters with “it’s because she’s my girlfriend, Will,” the whole conversation shifts immediately. Will isn’t asking to be called a boyfriend, but he is pointing out that what they have is just as important—or even more—and that’s exactly why it hurts him so much that he never got letters from Mike.

And Mike’s reaction says everything.

That “we’re friends! we’re friends!” is not normal, not casual, not neutral. It’s a wall Mike puts up because Will touched a place Mike doesn’t want—or can’t—face yet. It’s defensive, rushed, almost desperate.

The scene was written specifically to highlight that contradiction: Mike saying one thing, his body language saying another, and the conversation moving into a territory where they both know there’s something more, but neither of them says it out loud.

That’s why the fight feels so intense. Because it’s not just a misunderstanding between friends. It’s a conversation loaded with something they both understand, but Mike tries to deny and Will tries not to break.

It’s an implicitly romantic conversation. And it’s meant to feel that way.

[palarer]

Can we pause and realize that yes, byler is most likely going to be endgame, which is a historic narrative accomplishment. But in terms of media perception and social progress, I feel we are already in a historical place -- the general consensus from celebs and talk show hosts and articles is that people are in favor of the queer ship in a not-niche-queer series. Andy Cohen asked about Will and Mike getting together. Lizzo posted about 'Byler Endgame'. Conan reposting Byler edits. More people. Some people suspect Jimmy Fallon was fujoing out, who knows. Reviews for The First Shadow are outright saying Creelby parallels Byler. Collider said Will is a better love match than El. The support going into Vol 2 and the finale has already broken through to mainstream. That already feels historic. So many GA still don't think byler will happen. So many people hated Will and Mike as characters before this season and even wanted them to be killed off. I saw people still saying Mileven was the heart of the show, and that byler was a crack ship up to the day of vol 1 release. And yes, some are still adamant about that, but now we have the MAIN STANCE IN OFFICIAL OUTLETS AND RANDOM CELEBS SAYING THAT BYLER IS ENDGAME AND NEED TO GET TOGETHER? The closest i've seen to this narrative structure for a queer ship is Korrasami, and they still didn't even get to show anything explicitly about their love on screen -- no kiss, no confession. Will has already made a veiled love confession on screen. If Stranger Things does anything more, this will be another point of history, for storytelling and queer canonization. But even at this juncture, the fact that there are so many eyes who can now see it and report on it--not as a niche subculture but actually as a general attitude-- is just unprecedented.

[pleoros]

Eerie lava formations around the West Kamokuna Skylight in Hawaii's Volcanoes National Park, 1996 Photo: Laszlo Kestay

[meandthemist]

call me william byers because I too have ominous visions and a gayness that haunts the narrative