#strangerjackets

[avassfilms]

the jackie taylor and will byers tether

[miwinthealps]

drop her ass in the canadian wilderness!!!!!!

[soapyspurnell]

the concept of steve harrington having a crush on jackie taylor before realizing she, like robin, is also a lesbian, and they go on to become best friends

[miwinthealps]

nancy wheeler was shauna shipman’s wilderness baby kinda in a way if the timelines matched up

[miwinthealps]

the travnat to jancy pipeline

[bunnygirlsephi]

currently writing my strangerjackets, and idk about jane... because will is already lottie and I refuse to change it.. someone helppp

[miwinthealps]

hi oml i saw your post im a little obsessed with the idea of byler in a yellowjackets situation lol

hi!!!! sorry it took me a hot second to respond to this! i have So Many thoughts so i wanted to sit down and take time to respond to this ask because i too am obsessed with this scenario!

i actually semi-planned a st yellowjackets au fic last summer but never got around to writing it (funnily enough, this one-chapter byler fic i posted in december was originally intended to be the first chapter of the yellowjackets fic. i lost writing motivation so i ditched that idea and just wrote about them making out in mike’s car. lol). however i do have several notebook pages full of ideas!

the fic’s initial concept was meant to be somewhat canon-compliant. all of the events of seasons 1-4 occurred, but after the gates opened and Hawkins became an apocalyptic wasteland, Owens sent planes to get the party + crew out of danger and to a safer location far far away. this obviously does not go well and long story short, the plane crashes in the remote Canadian wilderness.

Hopper, Joyce, and Jonathan die in the crash, leaving Will and Jane deeply grieving and the gang without any real adults, which scares them. Nancy takes the role of the primary authority figure.

outside of this fic concept, i’m a big fan of the bancy/jackieshauna tether in which Nancy is Shauna and Barb is Jackie (obviously). however, seeing as Barb is dead in canon, i went for a different route that still fulfilled the pivotal plot point that is Jackie’s death and thus snowballed the events of yellowjackets. obviously someone has to be the first to be taken by the Wilderness so we can get into the complexities of the cannibalism and hunting. it was really important to me that, like Jackie, this wasn’t just some throwaway character and was leader/pivotal figure of the group. and because this was a Mike-centric fic, i also wanted it to really impact him because that makes for an interesting story. all of this considered, Nancy plays “Jackie” in this scenario.

After Nancy’s death, things really start to shift. winter gets Bad and everyone is starving. Jane, like Lottie, has a very strong connection to the Wilderness but is very conflicted as to whether this is connected to Henry/the UD or is a separate entity entirely. She becomes extremely engulfed by this connection to this thing she doesn’t even understand but knows that she has to listen to It, knows that It wants something from them and will get it regardless of whether they hunt and kill each other or not. I am also really interested in the Jane/Lottie tether in the sense that they both feel like they do not belong in the world, so the Wilderness provides a sense of solace for them that they are hesitant to leave.

As for Mike, he wants to get tf out of there! He is very much losing his mind after literally eating his sister to survive winter and cannot bear the thought of sacrificing more of his loved ones to the Wilderness. he’s grappling with clinging to his humanity after participating in such insane, violent acts while trying to lead the party the way Nancy did. the Mike/Nat tether is strong here. he’s also covered in blood a lot

Will’s connection to the Wilderness is something he doesn’t understand and unlike Jane, he doesn’t want to understand it. like Travis, Jane gets Will drugged up on mushrooms to see if the Wilderness tells or shows him anything. despite his kind soul and good nature, i think that the Wilderness would change his personality significantly and Jane’s cultish Wilderness worship would really impact him. he is Scared and figures that the only way to survive is by giving the Wilderness what It wants. so he does participate in the cannibalism and feels capital a Awful about if after. it seriously eats him alive (no pun intended) and fucks him up mentally.

exploring how the removal from society shapes byler’s relationship with queerness and each other is really interesting to me and definitely parallels taivan in the show. in the fic, i planned for them to get together after the crash. and because it’s yellowjackets, it gets really fucked up really fast. Mike will do Anything to keep Will safe, and if that means rigging the card drawings so he doesn’t pull the queen of hearts, so be it. he is morally gray when it comes to Will. Will is also definitely having Tai-like visions while he sleeps (byler/taivan are My gothic couples!!)

another fun Wilderness Mike idea of mine is that he tried to escape to find help Laura Lee style. though he doesn’t die, the crash (bless his heart, surviving not one but TWO plane crashes) leaves him with a huge burn scar on his face (bc yknow. Mike was originally written to have a scar!).

i have lots of thoughts, sorry this turned into me ranting about a fic i’ve never written lol! some of this post wasn’t exactly byler-centric but maybe someday i’ll make a post about the two of them specifically and how they would act in a yellowjackets situation!

[miwinthealps]

hashtag My strangerjackets