Nah there's a time skip of a few years in s5 so Will needs a boyfriend idc like even if Byler did become canon in the back half of s5 Will is just gonna look like a second choice atp I rebuke it.
The time skip isn't going to change Will's feelings... and if it did, that would make such a cheap cop out from the mess the Duffers has set up with the whole Byler situation. If that was how it was going to go, there was NO need to handle S4 like they did. They could have made Will's feelings shallower, they could have given him a potential love interest this season, even just show a guy watching him from afar to hint that there might be someone who's into him would have sufficed, but they did not.
What they did is make him completely crazy about Mike and completely crushed by his feelings and the fact that he can't express them. What they did is invalidate his feelings over and over so that he could stay loyal to his sister and not risk losing his best friend. What they did was make him feel like he's invisible and wrong and a mistake because of how he feels. What they did is make him feel like his feelings do not count or matter compared to Mike and El's.
As a writer, you absolutely CANNOT end this plotline with this message. Will HAS to be seen. His feelings HAVE TO be acknowledged. And they have to be addressed by the only person that counts: Mike.
I didn't say I want Byler to be endgame at this point. I doubted they would ever be endgame before S4 and I still think it's unlikely (though I keep wondering why why why they even brought them up if they don't want them to be endgame. they always choose the road that will give Will the most pain and i hate them for that), but Will's feelings have to be addressed. They can't just be swept under the rug like they never happened. His feelings are VALID. His feelings are as valid as anyone else's. They have to be seen. If Steve gets to tell Nancy that he still has feelings for her, Will DESERVES to have the same chance. Yes, he deserves to "bother" Mike with his feelings, deserves to be able to tell the truth and realize that he's not WRONG for feeling how he feels. He's just in love and his love is NOT a burden.
Mike might never love him the same way, but he HAS TO see Will and TELL HIM that his feelings aren't a burden. Even if he can't love him back romantically, he has to love him back in all the ways that matter. If he doesn't, if he never even finds out how Will feels for him, they will never even be friends again. Because right now Will feels like they are friends only because Mike doesn't know the truth about him. Mike has to know and embrace him whole for Will to believe he's not a mistake.
That's my issue. They built it up so much, they can't come back now. They have to make the perfect confession scene or this will be an insult to any queer person to ever exist.
Will's feelings must be heard, in the same way as everyone else's.
