Mike Wheeler never rejected Will Byers. The Duffer brothers did:
• They introduced a gay character to use as a plot device, made him suffer both physically and emotionally throughout the series, and never allowed him any happiness.
• They sidelined him in favor of other characters, including new ones – even in the final season, which, in their own words, was centered on Will.
• They made him fall deeply in love with their self-insert, who constantly gave him mixed signals, giving this relationship significant narrative weight with no real payoff.
• They portrayed him as craving romantic love more than any other character, yet never gave him the chance to actually experience it – not even with his hypothetical epilogue date.
• Ultimately, they tried to manipulate the audience into believing that his arc had been about (self-)acceptance all along, even though it contradicted everything shown in the series.
Will Byers is a tragic character because his creators never truly cared about him.
Using Will as the vehicle for a self-acceptance arc screams of patronising cishet saviour complex bullshit. Also a weird choice to project their own 'couldn't pull in high school' sob story if they're both straight dudes. Will did not need to learn a lesson about not being loved back. No queer audience member needed to learn a lesson about not being loved back. And we sure as fuck did not need a couple of straight dudes trying to deliver this message to us. We've all lived that story in ways those two sewage spills could never comprehend. But the biggest turd in the mix is the narrative betrayal. Will believed he wouldn't fall in love. He believed he wasn't deserving of reciprocal romantic love. He was shown as wanting romantic love more than any other character in the show. And he ended the show (romantically) alone, not loved in return, denying his own love, and forced to believe that all the signs he saw from Mike were in his own head. That is not. how. you. tell. a. fucking. story.
The people who needed the "you don't need a relationship; you need to love yourself" message were dudes exactly like the Duffers. Cishet men are the ones who wallow in depression and fall for the manosphere grift because they can't get into relationships. They're the ones who are likely to become violent or stalk women who reject their romantic advances. And they're also the demographic most likely to commit suicide when they get dumped or they can't find anyone willing to date them.
Queer people are well aware that not everyone they're attracted to is going to like them back. They understand that just because they want a relationship with someone doesn't necessarily mean that person wants to be with them. Cishet men are the only demographic who don't seem to understand that they aren't entitled to romantic relationships and that not being in one isn't the end of the fucking world.
It's genuinely insane that the Duffers tried to frame the "not everyone you're attracted to will be attracted to you" bullshit as some deep outlook on life that we as queer people need to learn as if this isn't THE FIRST thing you learn in your journey as a queer person. We already KNOW that sometimes we wont get who we love, we don't need some allocishet assholes telling us this for the hundredth time. What we do need is to be told that sometimes we do get that, what we need is to be shown that queerness and suffering aren't synonymous but its like non-queer people can't fathom a universe were queer people are actually happy and hopeful in their queerness without it coming in the form of acceptance from the cishet crowd. UGH FUCK THE DUFFERS ISTG!!!
