#stcritical

[smalltown--byler]

will: uhh mike, how do you know what coming out is?

[smalltown--byler]

to the stranger things cast and crew, take notes - this is how you respond to queer fans finding comfort in your show. the duffers could have said this exact thing about gay people seeing themselves in mike wheeler and shipping byler, but instead they reduced us to "noise" and consistently dismissed and trivialised us. matthew lillard is a real one for this

[smalltown--byler]

noah should have written will's ending because this is so much better than what we got. instead of will being sidelined and coming out unscathed in the final battle despite screaming bloody murder in the mac-z due to the pain of his connection with the hivemind, he should have been central.

imagine will having a fake-out death to kill the piece of vecna inside him, just like harry potter 'dies' to destroy voldemort's horcrux. just before will passes out, he chokes out a confession to mike that he was never his tammy, that he loves him and always will. mike is crashing out over will's body, screaming and crying and gagging as he looks down at his hands covered in will's blood, but he whispers to will that he loves him too, that he always has and he's sorry it took him so long to say it but he's ready now and PLEASE WILL COME BACK TO ME. will wakes up with a gasp, pulled back from the edge by mike's love, and his fake-out death made vecna vulnerable enough for el and kali to finish him off.

[smalltown--byler]

"making up for all the things i missed on stranger things, maybe some romance. i feel like i was robbed of a good romance in stranger things". speak on it, noah!!! will byers being the only main character of the show not to receive a reciprocated romance arc despite being characterised as a hopeless romantic is not ok - it's 2026 and queer people deserve to see more than merely self-acceptance!

[smalltown--byler]

there's absolutely no fucking way that the duffers said that will was meant to come out in s4 but he "hadn't earned it". coming out is not something gay people have to earn! we deserve to have autonomy and the dignity of coming out whenever we decide it's right for us. coming out is also not an end-of-the-road reward - it's just the beginning of our journey, one that should allow us to proudly own and embrace who we are. they clearly have a very regressive view of what coming out means for gay people. it's a particularly egregious comment because will's coming out in s5 was partly motivated by vecna scaring him into it before he was ready with terrifying visions - is that will 'earning' his coming out? they really need to shut up when it comes to talking about queer representation because they're doing more damage every time they open their mouths

[smalltown--byler]

The Stranger Things fandom has a serious homophobia problem. I've seen some truly abhorrent "jokes" about Will: people saying he'll die of AIDS, get killed by Dahmer, that Vecna "made him gay" via the CSA, that he would have enjoyed the CSA committed against him because he's gay. This is violently dehumanising. As a queer fan, having to wade through this kind of shit just to engage with Stranger Things spaces has been exhausting and degrading.

In the first five minutes of looking at the main Stranger Things subreddit, I've already found:

1. A comment saying that Will in the gay bar is a set-up for him wanting "gratuitous, hedonistic, shallow one-night stands", and another person agreeing saying that "gay culture is hook-up culture".

2. A whole post saying that Will is a terrible friend to Mike and saying he should be condemned for his "disgusting" behaviour of flirting with Mike despite him being in a relationship.

3. Somebody dismissing Will's canonical music taste (post-punk + alt rock) and saying that since he's gay he'd be listening to Madonna.

Let's start with the gay bar comments. Why are people so desperate to reduce gay bars to places of sleazy debauchery where Will would only be looking for a cheap hook-up? Gay bars were spaces of community, safety, friendship, and belonging in an era where that was incredibly hard to find. They were often the only places queer people could exist openly. Framing Will's presence there as inherently dirty says far more about your biases than his character. And the scene itself makes it look like Will is sitting at the bar waiting for someone - very likely a pre-arranged date with the epilogue boyfriend - rather than looking for anonymous sex. But even if he was looking for something casual… so what? There is absolutely no need to lean on tired, nasty homophobic tropes that frame gay sex as dangerous, immoral, or corrupting. There's also no need to push the idea that queerness is inherently sexual rather than romantic. Queer love is just as profound and soft and tender as heterosexual love - it isn't just meaningless sex, it is intimacy, devotion, and care. It's innocent first crushes, gentle yearning, and emotional safety. If you can't see that, the issue is your own unwillingness to see queer people as fully human and deserving of love.

Now the comment that Will is a "snake" and "disgusting" for flirting with Mike and he should be "condemned". This language reinforces harmful homophobic stereotypes that frame queer people as predatory, suggesting they should be shamed simply for expressing their queerness around straight people. What's especially telling is the double standard - I have never seen Steve called disgusting or a "snake" for flirting with Nancy while she was in a committed relationship with Jonathan. Straight teens in this show are allowed messy crushes, love triangles, bad timing, and inappropriate flirting without being morally indicted for it. But Will — who is far less explicit or pushy than Steve — is crucified for the same behaviour because his desire is queer. This is especially cruel when you remember that Will was living in a time where telling the wrong person he was gay could turn him into an instant parish, or worse - he had no choice but to send coded signals to Mike and see if he reciprocated because he couldn't exactly tell him outright that he had a crush on him!

The scenario of Will hitting on Mike and Mike being uncomfortable/grossed out by that was the basis for plenty of anti-gay hate crimes. The perpetrator could plead the "gay panic" defence and get off scot-free for beating an innocent gay person simply because 'it's their fault for being gay and coming onto me'. The intense language around Will - "disgusting", deserves to be condemned, etc. - makes me think of gay panic. Are people still really that sickened by the thought of a queer person being into a straight person?

And then the Madonna comment… seriously? Do people still not realise that gay people aren't a hivemind who all like the same things, but individuals with our own interests? We're real, fully fleshed-out people, not just one-dimensional tropes.

At the core of all this is a refusal to see Will as a full human being. These comments are expressions of real-world homophobia that rely on flattening queer people into stereotypes: predatory, hypersexual, morally suspect, interchangeable. Will isn't judged by the same standards as his straight peers but rather punished for being visibly queer.

Stranger Things spaces normalising this kind of language sends a clear message about who is welcome to participate and who isn't. Queer fans shouldn't have to constantly defend our humanity just to talk about a show we love.

And it doesn't stop at just seeing homophobic comments about Will. As a queer person who ships Byler, I've been told in general Stranger Things spaces to "find Jesus", called a fetishist, freak, and creep, accused of being inappropriate with kids, told I'm "not a real lesbian", and more.

There is a clear pattern of dehumanisation that people are far too comfortable excusing. Lovely little safe haven for outcasts and marginalised people the Duffers created, right? ☺️

[smalltown--byler]

noah saying that he thought will would die because his connection to vecna would mean that he felt everything vecna felt when being killed LMAO your own actor calling out illogical plot holes

[smalltown--byler]

noah watched all of the harry potter movies in the lead-up to shooting s5 and has spoken about parallels between harry potter and stranger things, so it's no surprise that he likes the 'will has a piece of vecna inside him and needed to die to defeat vecna, à la harry being voldemort's horcrux' theory. he probably thought all of the harry potter stuff would actually have a meaningful place in will's arc and he'd get a cool fake-out death instead of being sidelined off-screen for most of the final battle