hey i noticed some people on the fandom who criticized your post about will. when you mentioned about bar in the 90s and that you didn’t like the ending they gave to will.
i completely agreed with you but some will stans criticized you on their page.
i think it was important to tell you
Oh, I noticed, but thank you. I just ignore all that.
People can get angry all they want, but it's misplaced if it's directed at me. I'm just pointing out the ending the Duffers gave.
Let's be clear. I'm older than most people around here. By a lot. I was alive in the early 90s when Will's epilogue flash forward or whatever it was supposed to be took place. Not old enough to go to a gay bar, mind you, but still. I know the situation a lot better than most people around here.
Even if Will was very careful and only looking for serious relationships (which a lot of people were), the fact remains that the culture at the time encouraged sleeping around. That's club life, whether it's gay or straight. A big reason why gay men got such a bad reputation for this is because a gay bar was one of the few places gay people could even safely meet. Going to a coffee shop or library to meet a nice guy wasn't exactly in the cards. So, if Will is going to gay bars, there's a good chance that any guys he meets there have been with other guys, and, yes, like it or not, HIV was a huge concern in the gay community in the early 90s.
Another thing people got mad about was saying that Mike and Will may never have spoken again. And, to me, based on how little we got about either of their endings, there's no reason to think they stay in touch. It's the early 90s, there's no cell phones, yet. Well, there are, but they were insanely expensive at the time, and they wouldn't start to become mainstream until the end of the decade. We already saw them lose touch before when Will moved away. If we're to take Mike's endings for them all to be flash forwards and not just his predictions, then he spends his days writing stories to try to avoid accepting that El is gone while pining away for her, meanwhile, Will is off in the big city. Given what we know of Mike, he's not likely to reach out to Will. He'll assume that Will is happier where he is.
The Duffers made a big deal about their endings being "realistic" when questioned about their decisions. I'm just taking that idea to an uncomfortable place because it's clear the Duffers never even thought about it.
Then there's the matter of Robin. People thought my take on her was homophobic. I take no pride in pointing out what the Duffers did to her. As well-meaning as she was in season 5, she made a lot of presumptions about Will, most of all that his situation with Mike was the same as hers with Tammy. But she didn't have any of the backstory to see that, while Tammy was just a girl Robin barely knew, Mike had been the most important person in Will's life for most of his life. She can be forgiven for that, because, as I said, she meant well. The real crime the Duffers created with her was how she treated Vickie. She had been habitually lying to her (with reason, I admit), but all we really see of their relationship is hot and heavy making out. Combined with her reaction to Will's questioning, assuming he wanted to know how someone wants to make out, when he wanted to know about dating, suggests that their relationship is mostly physical, or at least was at the start.
The homophobic stereotype is the Duffers', not mine. I'm just pointing it out. It's clear there's not an emotional closeness between Robin and Vickie, which, yeah, all the lying would make it difficult to be close like that. Vickie is genuinely concerned for Robin to the point that, even though she's furious at her, she wants to get her help. But Robin doesn't seem to reciprocate that. She's dismissive of Vickie's concerns after she learns the truth. I get that Robin would be somewhat desensitized to it all, but it's shockingly insensitive. Their last in-person conversation is Vickie asking if the Upside Down atmosphere is safe to breath (which is a valid question we never got a real answer to), only for Robin to brush is off with "unclear." Ok, end of conversation, I guess. Their last conversation, period, was over the walkies. Vickie was asking about the state of the mission, and Robin told her to not be stressed, and Vickie says she'll bottle her emotions.
That's it. That's how their interactions end. I may have exaggerated a bit with how I characterized Robin's reactions to Vickie, but, come on, they're meant to be dating. But come the epilogue, Robin is asking Nancy is there's any hot babes at college and mentions "overbearing significant others."
The Duffers decided to act coy about whether they were still together, but it's pretty clear they wouldn't be. That is, if the Duffers even gave the subject any thought when writing the epilogue. It's clear to me that they saw the LGBT characters as nothing more than a means to an end. Robin's arc existed to move Will's arc foward in the final season (after him having three seasons of the exact. same. arc.), and Will's arc existed to move along the sci-fi plot. Both get largely forgotten and given bland endings after Will comes out.
I should be allowed to point all this out without people getting mad at me.
And calling me homophobic? Guys, I'm a middle aged bisexual. It doesn't make me homophobic to point out homophobic writing. The problem some people have is that seeing me point it out conflicts with their headcanons of the characters. Well, I'm sorry if it's uncomfortable, but it's just what the actual canon states. I understand why you're mad. You should be. I am, too. We got a shit ending, and our beloved characters were treated as disposable caricatures of who they previously seemed to be.
I don't like it, either. The difference is that I direct my anger where it belongs: the Duffers.
