I’ve never ever loved a character as deeply as I love Will Byers. I’ve loved him so deeply for several years, he meant so so so much to me, I felt so seen in his character, I felt what he felt so deeply and my love for him never wavered for MULTIPLE YEARS even when I was a kid and watched the show casually and stuff I still adored him so much and was there for him I have always been a Will stan first and foremost above all else and I’m just horrified. His character helped me realise who I am, his story reflected how I felt. Low income household, single mother, and older sibling, he felt so real. His personality reflected my own, his struggles were as mine, his self discovery and acceptance came as mine did, the same time as one another. His character was so beautiful and I just… how stupid of me to hope that the character I love so dearly would be allowed the one thing he truly wants?

Pinned Post byler will byers st5 mike wheeler noah schnapp stranger things 5 will stranger things william byers

sunflowersand-bees

someone said karen would give will all of the letters mike wrote to will in freshman year but never sent after everyone moves out and moves away and mike’s long gone and it’s been a while since they’ve talked but will stops by hawkins when he’s on a road trip and he doesn’t have a good reason for why he does but he decides to drop by the wheelers’ house and he hugs karen and stays for lunch and talks to holly, who’s graduating high school soon, and he says that it has been a while since he’s talked to mike but he promises karen he’ll call, and she even gives him mike’s number on a post-it, just in case, and she hands him a stack of letters she found in the corner of the basement, and she figures he should have them, since they are addressed to him, and he takes the letters and he knows he’ll never open them and he waves goodbye to karen and holly and he tries to ignore the way their voices had echoed around the house, how empty it now was, and he calls mike from a payphone twenty minutes outside of town because he’s not a liar and he won’t break his promise to karen but he doesn’t say anything and he just hears mike’s curious voice as he answers and he inhales and opens his mouth to say something, but before he can, mike speaks again.

“will?”

will hangs up.

miwiheroes

i have been second to jane my entire life and i will not be the person you settle for just because you cannot have her. no i wont do it. NOT WHEN IVE SPENT MY ENTIRE LIFE LOVING YOU

kultsheep

wearing the same shirt.

cute detail, noah in december 2024 at a vinyl shop just before finn’s birthday.

bylerbutmakeitacademic

undercoverpig44 asked:

What do you think this says for the state of queerbait moving forward? When byler didn't happen I was initially concerned because I thought "wow if they can integrate it into the narrative and still not follow through then what can queer audiences trust?" But a part of me also thinks that no other writer would actively harm their story like that. I can't imagine they would have done all of that in S4 and V1 of S5 just to queerbait? That seems like ridiculously irresponsible writing and feels more like plot bait than anything 😭

bylerbutmakeitacademic answered:

it shows that queerbaiting has lost its narrative utility. once upon a time, studios relied on plausible deniability to keep everyone “hooked,” but viewers are too media literate now. if you gesture toward queerness without committing, people read it as cowardice, not cleverness.

the reality is pretty blunt: they didn’t follow through with byler, and that is queerbait. the amount of narrative scaffolding doesn’t erase that, it intensifies it. because queerbait isn’t defined by the presence of build up, it’s defined by the refusal to resolve what the text itself has been promising.

and that’s the part people keep trying to dodge. you can have years of coded longing, mirrored cinematography, emotional arcs that hinge on unspoken desire, and a visual language that frames will’s feelings as the emotional truth of the story, but if the writers choose not to conclude it, then the end result is still queerbait. leaving it ambiguous doesn’t magically absolve the choice. “up to interpretation” is the industry’s favourite escape hatch, and it’s one queer audiences have been forced to recognise for decades.

what makes this case so jarring is that the byler setup wasn’t shallow. it wasn’t two jokes and a wink. it was baked into the plot, the character motivations, the thematic spine. abandoning that isn’t just disappointing, it’s narratively incoherent. it breaks the emotional logic of the story they built. and that’s why the outcome lands as queerbait: not because the build wasn’t there, but because the build was there and they still refused to honour it.

so yes, if they don’t follow through, it’s queerbait. and since they didn’t, that’s exactly what we’re left with. the scale of the setup doesn’t protect them from that label; it’s the very reason the label applies.

crazytogether4ever

No matter how much money they spend or how many "cool" designs they made, this Mind Flayer will still be the most terrifying monster freaking ever

kidovna

will byers with a prosthetic eye in the 90s (insp)

Keep reading

pancak3sandbac0n

It's not Finn and Noah sticking it to the Duffers. It's Birthdaygate.

I've seen a ton of posts about Finn and Noah keeping up the gay subtext through their acting choices in Vol2-3 even though the script shut down Mike and Will's relationship (and the Duffers said Byler was never the plan, which I don't believe is true). But they're actors, and while they certainly do get to make choices about their performance, the Duffers ultimately decide what makes the final cut.

If the Duffers didn't want them to act so gay for each other, they wouldn't have.

Everyone seems to think they just tanked Byler in Vol2-3 for some shitty reason (Netflix interference, the divorce, ect.), but the deterioration of their relationship was actually a result of them following through with birthdaygate.

It's been theorized since S4 that Venca/the Mind Flayer was making everyone forget about Will because their memories of him helped him break out of his possession enough to tell them to close the gate in S2. Everyone was still on board with this theory when Joyce said in Vol1 that Will was 11 instead of 12 when he got taken, but it seems like it's been forgotten now.

I think what we saw in Vol2-3 was an extension of birthdaygate. Vecna/the Mind Flayer made everyone forget about their emotional attachments to Will (and his to them), so the plan to use Will as a spy wouldn't get interrupted again.

We see this in Will's relationship with Mike in particular, since he was the one who really got through in the shed scene in S2 and was the main catalyst for Will unlocking his powers in S5E4. ("Getting to Mike, now that was the key.")

When Will talked to Joyce about unlocking his powers, he described his memories from the little film, but none of the memories of Mike were there, even though he was featured most prominently in the original sequence. Will also called Mike his Tammy, which we all know is bullshit.

Mike was more physically distant in Vol2-3, and we saw Will get erased from the Rink-o-maina memory in the end credits. Mike also left Will in the Abyss to what? Go shoot a flare gun at the giant spider thing? He would never.

Their deep connection had clearly been messed with, but it was intentional from a story-telling perspective.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is on the S5 inspiration board, and that's exactly what we're getting with Will and Mike here.

SPOILERS: In that movie, the main couple break up and have their memories of each other erased. But they end up finding each other again the next day (in Montauk!) and decide to try dating again even after they learn that they'd been together previously.

Even though Will and Mike have had their memories of their bond tampered with and possibly erased entirely by the last couple of episodes, they're still attracted to each other! They're even dressed in pieces of clothing that Clementine and Joel wore when they met again in Montauk (an orange hoodie and that fuckass beanie). They didn't remember each other at all at that point, but they were still drawn to each other.

The Duffers knew what they were doing here. This isn't all an accident. Finn and Noah didn't get one over on them by acting like Mike and Will are still into each other. They're acting like they're attracted to each other because they ARE attracted to each other, and that's how the Duffers wanted them to act.

And yes, I think they're going to release new episodes in which Mike and Will find their way back to each other, probably by working their way through those lost memories like they do in the movie. I think they're too full of themselves not to.

the-lost-seven-7

bylerpining

help i'm still at the restaurant. actually no one help me im right where i want to be

mcmerrygoround

It's fair to not believe in a new surprise episode. It usually never happens.

But if a main theme in a series is not to believe in coincidences, to the point that one of the protagonists looks you in the eye and tells you directly, and then that series ends but all the "coincidences" lead to the conclusion that the story is not over, then the story is not over.

I don't know about you guys but...