⚔️🛡️❤️Will's knight & Mike's artist🧙‍♀️✨

Original Artist: Blue Tomato

CUTTING THE ORIGINAL COMIC FUCKING SUCKS SO HERE’S THE ORIGINAL SIZE:

the cleric and his paladin 💛💙

I've been very busy and so only started to read my Tumblr inbox.

Oh my god, so many kind words! I'm glad my videos and Tumblr posts have been helpful. I'll try to respond to everyone but just putting this out there...

I of course also did this for MYSELF: because Byler promised to fill a hole that was in my life and is in the lives of many (especially older) queer people. Plus, I wanted to popularize it and also do what I could to nudge/pressure the Duffers and others behind the show to follow-through on the promise of the beautiful love story they had prepared...

My only regret is that I'd assumed the Duffer Brothers were superlative writers and had integrity.

And we've had the collective fortune of this experience forging a strong community: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And tougher. Remember that our community survived criminalization and the AIDS crisis. We can DO this!

(Also, I will stay active on Tumblr. And I plan at least one more video on Stranger Things. Stay tuned!)

What's next? How about some old-school tactics such as protesting the Duffers at their public appearances. In fan conventions, we can speak from the floor. Other opportunities will present themselves that this passionate and creative community will identify and take advantage of.

(EDIT: Anyone know how Wikipedia works? In addition to making the Duffer Brothers the first picture you see under Queerbait (which is stronger than the current example of Johnlock where the creators DID deny it would be canon!), a Byler with the wherewithal should start a new entry on Wikipedia on the "Stranger Things queerbaiting scandal" linking to sources/evidence!)

Everything we can do to continue denouncing the Queerbaiter Brothers and demanding to know the truth why the show built up Byler -- to the extent that even cast members expressed that they supported and/or anticipated Byler -- and yet it didn't happen. Everything we do puts more pressure on people, and lends support to cast and writers, etc. -- particularly Noah, who seems the most unhappy and has the most reason to be outraged about it -- to find the courage to tell the truth.

bylers who are completely unshaken and confused by the drama

og finale byler truthers who quote the duffer's korrasami tweet fourteen times a day

fan art and ao3 bylers keeping us satiated with fix-its

bylers who are fully in the depression stage of grief and are taking a leave of absence

bylers who are in the bargaining stage of grief teaming up with bylertwt to prove cutgate real

pissed off bylers who are angry at the very idea of cutgate and just want the band aid ripped off

hopeful bylers who are literally too afraid to reblog any theories out of fear of jinxing it

angry duffer hating bylers who are fully prepared to boycott every duffer project from now on and place some kind of spell on them

sad duffer hating bylers who can't believe just how bad the writing has gotten

ex shawn levy glazing bylers who are literally too stunned to speak

"everything is political" bylers who are concerned about the state of popular media if this ends up being bait and are blaming the whole ordeal on late stage capitalism

unsure bylers who are a different one every hour.

In this one he even visibly lowers himself when he switches from Lucas to Will.

In this once he's slouching so much he's SHORTER than Will.

Dustin talks about the bridge being held together by exotic matter, represented by the circle on the diagram.

Then later we see Will with his head aligned with the exotic matter circle represented in the diagram.

Then after his talk with Max, her comment about everyone having something they're scared of (Henry with the cave, Will's sexuality) is what motivates him to finally come out to his mom and the whole party.

And later in the coming out scene, Max clocks this when Will talks about Vecna being able to look into their minds and use their insecurities against them.

But what nobody clocks is what Will really means when he tells the party that he needs to be in the Upside-Down while El fights Vecna...

Because Will is planning to sacrifice himself to destroy the exotic matter.

Now it makes sense as to why Will came out to everyone instead of just Joyce and Mike. Not only because he wanted the truth to be out in the open so it couldn't be weaponised by Vecna, but so he could finally be honest about himself for the very last time.

Now it makes sense why he assumed Mike "wasn't like him" and was just, 'his Tammy' when he still hasn't directly talked to Mike about his feelings. By this point, he had seen no hope for a future with Mike and even though he loved him, he was ready to let him go.

At the beginning of 'The Bridge', Will blames himself for being Vecna's vessel. Blaming himself for being weak and controlled.

But even after he's came out, he still holds onto that guilt. If he destroys the exotic mass, even if it costs his life, he thinks it will compensate for digging the tunnels and everything that's happened to him under Vecna's possesion.

Okay, agreed, but………we spent so much time justifying everything that went on in s4v2 and yet here we are in 2025 trying to do the same thing. Justifying. Analyzing. Interpreting things through a lens that supports our pre-existing belief. I ask this with earnestness in my heart rather than malice but at what point do we see the show and see the interviews and accept that the duffers are both showing and telling us who they are (people who don’t care about queer romance/rep outside the tired ‘self acceptance is the be all end all’). The phrase goes ‘when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.’ We didn’t believe them the first time but maybe we should the second. It might save us some heartache - heartache I wish we weren’t experiencing, to be clear, and I do appreciate that you’re trying to keep spirits high. It’s a really generous thing to do. But I just hate that we’re all here fighting for scraps of queer joy when we deserved so much more.

(re: this post)

"at what point do we see the show and see the interviews and accept that the duffers are both showing and telling us who they are"

so genuinely: after the finale. after we've seen the whole thing. like trust that i WILL be coming for their asses with the angriest posts if it really doesn't happen. but nothing i've seen yet has convinced me well enough that it ISN'T when put next to the mountains of evidence across 5 seasons that it IS.

i'm not asking folks to hold on hope for another 3 year wait, i'm saying to give it 5 more days while we wait for the final installment of a franchise that has been going for nearly 10 years.