#teambyler

.........can we allow a gay man to talk about queerness in the 90's and how that could apply to a FICTIONAL character who is presumably an ADULT.

i'm so sick of this bullshit.

oh yeah it's fine when nancy and steve have on screen soft core sex as teens, but talking about will possibly queer flagging makes someone a horrible person. get a fucking grip. or just say you're homophobic.

this kind of rhetoric is what keeps people in the closet. it's what is killing queer people. to frame queerness as something wrong, dirty, perverted.

it KILLS people.

the show makes allusions to puberty and sexuality all the time, and we are arguing and canceling people for pointing out a necklace? are we serious? there are bigger problems to worry about.

like possibly the growing homophobia in this fandom.

Many of you have followed me ( @teambyler ) or read my essays analyzing Byler (I've linked some of the most-shared ones below). I am actually also a LAWYER who has a YouTube channel called RONALD OFF THE RECORD, and I just released my big video on Byler! (I also have another YouTube channel with 45K subscribers that I mention in the video)

I'm prepared to put my professional reputation as a lawyer on the line to comment on a piece of science fiction, because goddammit this is important to me! It is not "delusional" to think Will and Mike will become a couple, and there is nothing wrong with you if want it to happen! This is a video essay I've been planning for at least SIX MONTHS, and I put a lot of work into it. Please share, and please leave comments. Enjoy! =D

0:00 Why this video 1:38 Hate for Byler on the internet 10:16 Case for Mileven 15:21 Case for Byler: Starting premises 17:56 If Will were a girl… 25:30 The evidence! 29:05 EXHIBIT A: The Snow Ball 31:34 B: Mike's reactions to El and Will being upset 34:21 C: Season 3 ending montage 39:16 D: Airport reunion 47:51 E: Rink-O-Mania argument 51:28 F: Heteronormativity, audience expectations 58:25 G: Throwing away the letter 59:55 H: 2nd heart-to-heart scene 1:05:43 I: Mike can't say he loves El 1:13:27 J: Platonic reunion 1:15:12 K: Will's role convincing Mike to say "I love you" 1:20:08 L: Effect of the "love confession" on El 1:39:54 M: The Painting Lie 1:43:22 Honorable mentions 1:45:27 Non-diegetic evidence 2:01:23 Actor statements 2:07:01 Season 5 information 2:10:34 NOT how you write an unrequited love story 2:16:07 Why Byler SHOULD happen (queerbaiting, etc.) 2:28:21 A more powerful story 2:35:45 A personal note

I'm now making this my new pinned post, so I'll list a few of my posts here for people to check out.

Link to my Byler Part 2 video!

Some other @teambyler posts:

Mike was saying "I love you" to Will

Questions to ask if ever you have Byler doubt

How the Duffers have set Will up to have a happy ending in Season 5

The most heartbreaking way Byler can culminate (and how I predict it will) (I know this is less likely than an "escape from Camazotz" possession scenario, but I still want this to happen =D )

How the Duffers likely will make the general audience AWARE of Byler and CHEER for Byler

Posts defending open and free discussion of gay sexuality in Byler Tumblr:

In defense of celebrating Will's likely coming-out and sexual liberation (9/25/25)

Attacking me for proving the show portrayed Mike having sexual feelings for Will betrays LGBT+ liberation, youth sexual liberation, and the Byler fandom (11/7/25)

In current times, the community is being completely misrepresented by MAGA and other conservatives. They portray the movement as “pedophilic”. You using an argument that shifted society to becoming more accepting of all people, ESPECIALLY queer people, is just disgusting.

This does not represent the LGBTQ community or our values.

You use the history of the community to support this, but that is just blatantly wrong. Your actions are pedophilic, not empowering. We are all in agreement that there should be conversations about queer sexuality in media, especially for youth, but you are NOT doing that.

You are making jokes about minors being in pornos. You deliberately highlighted a certain body part on Will. This approach would be different if the characters (and actors) were adults, but they are not. They are 15. FIFTEEN!

I beg the fandom to realize how outrageously weird it would be for a man to make such a comment about a 15 year old walking by him on the street, and how this is the exact same thing.

“but the context of the situation is to emphasize the importance of queer media—” Do you need to make sexualizing jokes in order to do that?

Your intention does not matter with these comments, because at the end of the day, positive or negative or serious or lighthearted, you placed minors, 15 year olds, in a sexual light. Furthermore, you used an argument that drags in the LGBTQ community, and while some points are true, they are not applicable when the conversation surrounds minors.

So like the byler lawyer/ronald/teambyler, whatever you wanna call him made a response post. However, im not able to fully read it as he deleted his account before I could.

I did read a couple paragraphs though from a reblog, and I just wanna say this.

We arent mad at you cuz you think Mike and Will might be sexually attracted to each other.

We’re mad at you for comparing an emotionally charged scene between TWO 15 YEAR OLDS to a porno.

Let me remind you guys that comparing a scene to porn is WILDLY different from saying “these kids might have sex” and i’ll tell you why. If Will and Mike had sex, it might be empowering, sure, but it would also (hopefully) be handled well and show how much they love and care about one another. Porn is simply made for the viewer to get off.

“It’s a great opportunity for Will to confess his love to Mike and be rejected.”

Sorry, what? What is this, rejection will build character shit? Will Byers doesn’t need to endure another canon event for gay people— he has already experienced homophobia from his father, classmates, and best friend. He has already experienced the event of falling for your straight best friend (Will’s interpretation of Mike’s identity, not mine). He has experienced the thought that he’s never going to fall in love.

Why is the GA so hard pressed for Will to have an unhappy ending?

When lesbianmindflayer got dogpiled on and cancelled in 2022 I didn't say anything because I was so scared of how vile and disgusting people were being. And I regretted not saying anything then, so I'll actually say something now.

tw: discussion of csa & BDSM practices

There's textual merit to the association with BDSM that Ronald made regarding Will.

I talked about Will's UD trauma in this post ( scroll all the way down to read the bit about WiseOne ):

The main takeaway from it, is this:

Will feels disgusted at the idea of kissing, not because he's ashamed of his attraction to men, but because of how the whole UD experience made him feel about his body, its needs, and desires when it comes to romantic love.

Addressing the BDSM stuff specifically, this show wasn't shy AT ALL when hinting at this concept:

SADISTIC + DUNGEON MASTER + SODOMY + SUB

ALL BDSM terms--The reason for this? If you ask me, it is because this practice has a lot in common with DnD.

For example, they share the idea of fantasies being played out in a safe, consensual environment, with someone trusted ( said person is literally referred to as 'Dungeon Master' in both, mind you ).

I'll delve into that in a later post because it is part of a wider meta-dive I'm doing, but for now, and I'm pretty sure others have said the same already;

Will Byers is dealing with a shit ton of SHAME when it comes to his body--internalized homophobia, which was bad enough as it was, but then on top of that, the UD trauma he experienced.

The possibility of an adult Will Byers finding healthy ways to reclaim his body/pleasure and overcome his trauma & internalized homophobia through BDSM practices is not something we will explicitly see in the show, but it could very well be hinted at through a necklace, just like how it was for Eddie. (re: the hankie code.)

And cancelling someone over bringing it up, and making all of this wild assumptions about said person over a comment they didn't mean maliciously, shows a level of immaturity and BAD FAITH in this fandom that has me genuinely concerned.

You know NOTHING about Ronald/his life experiences and what he could've possibly been through in life as a millennial queer man. He's not getting paid to promote Byler or whatever, he's doing it because he's passionate about it and wants to put out content for it / keep up with the goings-on around it. Give the dude a break.

And I'm taking this opportunity to say something I've been sitting on for a while now: I'm almost CERTAIN S5 will have a lot of you clutching your pearls and accusing the Duffers of god knows what. And no, I'm not just talking about potential sex scenes or whatever your takeaway from that is. This is Will's coming-of-age season. Really think it's just a coincidence that it's also the ONLY season rated TV-MA? We will very likely learn how really affected Will is by everything he went through in the UD, and it'll REALLY hurt, honestly.

So yeah, I suggest those of you who quickly jump in the bandwagon to cancel Ronald to take it down a notch and start looking a little deeper into the show you spend countless time obsessing over and analyzing. Because this show might just not be for you.