sheepfilms
Show & Tell
YOU ARE THE REASON
art blog(derogatory)
h
Mike Driver
Cosimo Galluzzi
official daine visual archive
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
đ©” avery cochrane đ©”
oozey mess
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
EXPECTATIONS
RMH
â
almost home
romaâ
Discoholic đȘ©
Not today Justin
noise dept.
seen from Austria
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Bolivia
seen from Chile
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from Mauritania
seen from Sweden
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Spain
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from United States
@angela-addams
New Chapter is Here!
Itâs called the Rite of Spring and features Mike and Will going to see ballet for their ARC friend together as a couple in matching outfits and Mikeâs obliviousness creating an unexpected love triangle đ
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch âą No registration required âą HD streaming
In the newest chapter I link Andyâs (Will and Mikeâs ballet dancer friend) performance as the Chosen One in Stravinskyâs âThe Rite of Springâ to queer men that died because of AIDS complications.
The Chosen One in the ballet is sacrificed and so Andy is dancing to his death while everyone is watching and does nothing.
Mike connects it in his head to Season 2 and how no one was actually trying to help Will and were treating his possession like it was fascinating experiment and PTSD instead of addressing the real issue.
I think season 1 and 2 especially really use HIV/AIDS as a metaphor of the whole season and it is a very heavy topic that I am not sure the Duffers address with much grace, considering how the show ended etc.
Anyway check out the newest chapter:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
mike wheeler broke barriers by being the first gay man in history to have awful fashion taste
Representation King!
Unfashionable gay man, heâs spreading awareness for all of the community đ
dawg what was the belt gonna do to stop the pipe đ
They were thinking that the belt is like a tourniquet, lmao
I understand the logic but, Michael, honey, pipes are not human limbs, you canât cut the circulation to the pipe lmao
I'm always so perplexed by the idea people have that Ted "our son?? with a girl???" Wheeler would be violently homophobic and cruel about Mike coming out, bc I truly feel like he has always thought Mike was such a strange and weird little guy anyway that it would just be like
"Mom, Dad, I'm gay/I'm dating Will"
Ted:
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch âą No registration required âą HD streaming
On the topic of people writing crack fics about the AIDS crisis, you do realise that the whole season 1 and 2 and Will being in the hospital is the metaphor for the AIDS crisis itself?
That shit ain't funny. Itâs not something that should be taken lightly.
Just absolutely appalled by peopleâs lack of shame.
Byler fandom, particularly younger fans,
This is the San Francisco Gay Menâs Chorus in 1993. The chorus members in white represented the only remaining original members of the chorus, while everyone in black represents original chorus members lost to AIDS. Thatâs 6 members left, just 15 years after its foundation. Thatâs only a glimpse of the lives taken in the AIDS crisis.
A lot of people in this fandom are too young to understand the impact that the AIDS crisis had. We lost almost an entire generation of queer men, not to mention the countless other victims of the epidemic. I know people who lived through it and lost countless loved ones. People were diagnosed, and then, as short as even a week later, they could be gone. The AIDS crisis is not something to make light of.
I think that incorporating what was a very real and tragic epidemic into post-canon fics is something that can be done respectfully, and can be an exploration of how these characters very likely may have been affected, and of the sociopolitical climate they lived in. However, the second that turns into the butt of a joke or, for lack of a better description, torture porn, that is absolutely disgusting. Itâs not edgy, itâs just plain disgusting. Do better.
In my fic poor neurodivergent ass Mike Wheeler doesnât understand the social script of how to date another boy (like that happened in season 3 where Lucas had to coach him) but he has his diner part-time job co-worker, a popular sorority girl named Claire, that gives him ideas.
And poor Mike takes them at face value which comes to 1950s situations like him asking Will out formally by saying âWill you go out with me?â
She says he should clean up a little bit and Mike goes on a spree of looking for some clothes at the thrift shops and trying to style his hair which comes out as a hideous side-partđ
Claire brainstorms a date-date ideas list with him and puts some conventional places like Rockefeller center and ice-skating etc but he comes up with his nerdy ideas too and Will picks the nerdy option.
She sometimes says cliches like âa way to manâs heart is through his stomachâ and Mikeâs begins a campaign in learning how to cook.
or âhere buy something nice for your Art Department Situationâ and Mike goes and gets a whole ass easel for Will.
People forget that the whole confessing before dating thing comes from BL, shoujo manga tropes and is not mostly how western dating actually works, at least from what we can see in romcoms etc.
I got a few questions on that in my fic. How come Mike asked Will out without professing undying love⊠Cause thatâs not how it works? Plus Mike has issues with this phrase as we established before in canon and he was able to make some sort of vague statement about it only after dating (swapping spit with) El since SnowBall until summer of the next year.
So yeah, give the guy some time he still thinks if he doesnât say heâs gay out loud no one would know (everyone knows lmao)
New chapter is here:
Itâs called Home Run and is a little post-mortem about what happened at New Yearâs, if you know what I mean.
Featuring the embarrassing Amtrak journey in a Slumbercoach with a shitter next to the bunks
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch âą No registration required âą HD streaming
Guys, did you know that Amtrak had these âdelightfulâ upgraded coach seats that had an open shitter right next to them?
So imagine 1989. Mike and Will travel by the Cardinal from Indianapolis to NYC in a double Slumbercoach, with an open metal shitter as their fellow companion, for 20 (!) hours.
And naturally they decided to share the upper bunk (like soldiers) so no one would have to sleep facing the shitter.
The plumbing btw was the hole that opened directly onto the tracks
And(!) the cherry on top, Ted Wheeler paid his own good money for this âupgradeâ so Mike could lie down instead of sitting on the coach seats.
This might be a weird or controversial take, i dunno, but I kinda need to get it off my chest.
In so many posts and fanfics it's always this thing of 'oh will is in love with his sisters boyfriend' and 'el would feel weird about her ex dating her brother' and like I kinda get it, but I think this kind of simplifies the dynamic between the three of them in a way that does them a disservice?
Like I'm sorry to say it but El and Will are not that close. I'm not saying they don't care about each other, but they were living together for what, six months? We never see them bond or be that close, the only thing was Will trying to console her after her presentation, but it's kinda obvious she is not really letting him in emotionally. In the show both of them are shown to be emotionally closer to Mike than to each other. They are not open with each other even if they care about one another, which makes their dynamic interesting and unique in its own way.
And I think they both know to some degree that Mike is the big unspoken thing standing between them. El is not dumb, she knows how much Will means to Mike, and subconsciously I can see her being jealous of it. And she cares about Will, too, but she also has so so much of her own emotional baggage to deal with, so it probably feels safer for her to keep him at a certain distance. Before S4 they have barely spoken to each other and Will was actively resenting her in S3. To just turn around and make their dynamic into that of close siblings is just off to me, especially in regards to the whole Mike thing that's been sitting between them before they ever lived together. And to pretend like these feelings of resentment and jealousy they have of each other, because they know how much the other means to Mike, would just disappear because they live together as siblings just doesn't feel realistic to me? Like it's so much more complicated than just 'oh we live together and we're siblings now, so it would weird if you're close with Mike', when Will and Mike were close first??? And El knows this! I don't think Will as her brother and Mike as her boyfriend are these seperated things for her, she is very aware of the bond between them.
I don't know, I just don't think El is as oblivious to Mike's feelings towards Will as a lot of people think, and to me it seems like it's a big part of why she is not as close to Will as people make it seem. Like I think to her Will is Mike's best friend first and foremost, the one he so desperately wanted to find when he was missing in S1, before she considers him her brother.
I hope this makes any sense, lol, and obviously everyone can explore these dynamics in fanfictions as they want, but I think this gets oversimplified sometimes and to me this kinda takes away from how interesting and complicated and kinda sad El and Will's relationship actually is.
This đ
I think, and thatâs my personal opinion though. the whole point of El feeling insecure might be because of how much âbros before hoesâ Mike is about Will.
So yeah. Agree with OP, they ainât siblings in the normal sense, that explains Will being quite dismissive of her in Season 3, the whole âswap spit with some stupid girlâ and the fact that El pretty much ignored Willâs birthday to have a date with her BF⊠yikes
For this ten year anniversary I remember me and my teenage little sister going to the Stranger Things popup shop in Paris.
We were displaced in France because of the russian invasion of Ukraine and the only thing that brought joy to her face was watching Season 4 in 2022.
She cried when Season 5 finished because of how shit the ending was.
This goes to show just how important these shows are and how much the duffle bags have failed their fansâŠ
New Yearâs chapter was literally me pouring all my anxiety I felt at my birthday regarding the passage of time and imposter syndrome etc.
Mike would probably be this kind of person himself as even in the show (especially season 4) when he starts high school he is trying these new personas. First with Hellfire Club and trying to resemble Eddie, then wearing knock-off California drip at the airport.Â
So in this chapter he is so harsh to himself, a pre-med that almost got his stomach pumped at Christmas because of depressive drinking half a bottle of bourbon.Â
A baby writer who makes pamphlets that believes he is a fraud in the room full of artsy-fartsy people.
A closet case, even though he helps his non-binary friend go to the barber and get a masculine haircut.Â
but I still think itâs quite funny chapter. Cause I like my tragicomedy too much.
Shameless plug below
https://archiveofourown.org/works/79263006/chapters/233568311
New Yearâs Chapter is here!
Itâs called The Artist Formerly Known as Will Byers.
I wanted to write it as a whole existential crisis about adulthood in Mikeâs mind.
âcause every one has that moment during the New Yearâs or birthday about the passing of time etc
and also there is some interesting development between Mike and Will too
https://archiveofourown.org/works/79263006/chapters/233568311
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
Free to watch âą No registration required âą HD streaming
so ted and karen didn't know about el before season 5. ted said mike was visiting his sweetiepie in season 4.... very interesting very very interesting
source
so âno sweetie pieâ is about Will then? lmao
itâs funny to me while the heteronormative crowd is just spitting bile about byler ship on socials while the community is just making fanart and writing fics and doing cosplays and making trinkets.
There is this Persian saying: The dogs bark, but the caravan goes on.
Donât pay attention to the dogs, folks đ€
