🩵Wiolet💛

one day shed get to school with her hair all done and all and cry to willow because she couldnt play because her mom would hate it if she got her hair messed up and shes devastated by it. willow hugs her and tells her that the next day she can bring a hairbrush and brush her hair after playing so her mom doesnt get mad, and totally impresses michelle by telling her she can brush hair super well and she doesnt pull (joyce taught her to do it the way she does it so she can do it and her hair doesnt get too messy in case shes very busy one day and cant take care of it).

so from then on when recess is about to be over they sit together and willow brushes her hair like its this super important mission in a game and michelle sits there excitedly looking at her in awe cause look who cool willow is and doesnt have any complaints even though shes always hated having her hair brushed and screamed at any minor inconvenience.

lescleradin!

"but it wasn't queerbait, they just deluded themselves into thinking that it would happen" you mean they expected payoff for something and just. never got it? hey so you'll never guess what the literal textbook definition of queerbait is but why don't you give it a fucking shot huh?

"but it really wasn't queerbait in this case!" okay so there are literal queer teenagers out here who are so used to having no hope at all for their futures but they actually allowed themselves to feel hope for once and ended up having their hearts and trust broken, and then when they seek comfort from the queer community on here they're met with genuine disdain and a bunch of condescending remarks and are told that they "should've known better"? you people truly are doing wonders for queer youth's self esteem when it comes to dreaming and hoping for bright futures for themselves. good job y'all.

"but—" no. shut up. nobody cares if your media literacy is superior. nobody cares if you always knew how it would go and think the situation is fucking funny. shit like this sends queer teens into depressive episodes and makes them feel all cynical, hopeless and deeply disrespected and all y'all care about is whether it was actually queerbait or not. it doesn't fucking matter! what matters is to acknowledge the fact that so many queer people are so desperate for the kind of representation that makes them specifically feel seen so that stupid shit like whether or not a ship is or isn't canon feels like life or death to them, and what do y'all do? you make fun of them in times of their lives where they most likely feel like the laughing stock of the whole entire world anyways simply because they're queer and long for representation, in a fandom that most likely brought them so much joy and made them feel safe and welcome when they needed it most and also on tumblr in general just because y'all love to act condescending and cruel towards everyone you think is cringe and gullible and naive and what-fucking-not. and yeah, it really is that deep which is why i don't gaf whether this post receives backlash or not.

"is this post about stranger things" yup. for the most part i'm over that whole thing, though, so don't get it twisted. this isn't me taking out my disappointment because a ship i like wasn't endgame on everyone else, i actually couldn't care less about the fucking ship anymore when all of the queer stranger things characters, the queer viewers etc. were all mocked and ridiculed and done dirty in so many other ways than just in terms of the damn ship that wasn't endgame.

what i care about most is the fact that y'all are so fucking weird about queerbait. "idk about y'all but i'm having a blast seeing all of these people crashing the fuck out over this shit while i knew from the start how it would end" cool. tell me why y'all feel the need to share shit like this?

We’ve done lip biting to death... Let’s evolve.

thank you so much💗

i also drew this, i don’t really like it😭 but here it is anyway

Previous

After that she's right there with Will. She goes with him Everywhere.

It's as if she, after her talk with Will, switched from "I need to keep Will safe so I will take and keep him with me and stay at places that are far away from the danger" to "I need to keep Will safe so I will follow him everywhere and always be right there at his side, holding his hands so that I can make sure he's safe even when he's surrounded by danger". Which is not "trusting your child and letting them do their thing while you're working on not being so overprotective". Like not at all.

When they rescued the kids from the macz she stays behind waiting for Will and Mike with the last few kids while she lets Lucas, a 16 year old boy btw, walk back alone while he also has to protect and guide scared young children, who don't know what's going on and are in real danger of being abducted. She Lets Him Do That even though one adult with one group of kids and three teenagers with one group of kids would be much more reasonable and safe. But she doesn't do that. Instead she stays with Will instead, not Right at his side, but she waits for him to make sure he's okay.

When Will passes out during the battle, Joyce is the one carrying him even though Mike, who is taller and likely better on his feet, would be the more reasonable option when it comes to who carries Will in a high stress situation like that. But instead she Again lets a teenager guide children though an active battlefield just so she can hold Will and keep him as close and safe as possible.

When they all come up with the plan to connect Will to the hive mind through the demogorgon, it seems like she's trusting him more, but does she really? Sure, in that moment she allows him to possibly mind fight Vecna... but when he gets reconnected to the hivemeind, who is there standing right behind him? Mike and Joyce!! She is the first person to lean over him when he looses consciousness, she stays right next to him when he's passed out, sitting close to the couch and then with him on the bed, she doesn't even go outside with Mike when El and the others arrive back at the wsqk building!!! And I get it, her son is literally passed out, probably stuck in Vecna's evil memorys and it makes sense she would want to be by his side until he wakes up, but... come on that is not a mother overcoming her overprotective trust issues.

And even after Will wakes up she's still with him like, all the time. The others go to pick up/get out Max, Lucas, Robin and Vickie from the hospital and Joyce stays behind with Will. She sits right next to him when he comes out, she stands next to him at the top of the tower in the upside down, she stays with him in the Abyss when Will starts having his Vecna mind connection again, they arrive together inside the dead Mindflayer so that she gets to kill Vecna, on the ride back she holds Will's arm and they lean on each other.

On the surface it's all cute and sweet and makes sense because Will is in so much danger all the time, but it's not healthy. And it certainly isn't the arc of a mother overcoming her fears of loosing her child by working through her overprotectiveness.

I mean shit, even Hopper let El go into the Abyss by herself because he knew she needed to do that even though it wasn't safe and could possibly kill her without him being able to save or protect her in any way. Hopper Did kind over work through is overproteciveness in s5. In the end he trusted El to be strong and win against Vecna and she Did Win!!! Why were Joyce and Will not allowed to have that same arc??

It's pissing me off because Joyce is such a valuable character. She is so cool, she can do so much!!! Last season she Flew To Russia to go and save Hopper because there was a slight chance he was still alive. And she fucking did save him. She fought and won so many battles and she's so smart and notices a lot of things other people don't. They didn't do Anything with her this season. Her best moments this season were her scaring a demogorgon where it's later revealed that that wasn't actually her and instead Will; and chopping Vecna's head off even though he was already basically dead and defeated and it was really only added in for the emotional effect so they could have a flashback. Like. Joyce's biggest character moments didn't even Need her. She had no plot relevance!!! Instead they actually kind of made her a bit of a hindrance for the plot advancing...

Like, all they did with her this season was make her Will's protector which lbr should have been MIKE'S ROLE INSTEAD!! Though Will also just shouldn't always Need a protector... But if there was the want for a person who was putting a lot of focus on staying with and protecting Will, while also having that dynamic be balanced and not overbearing, then somebody like Mike, who has always been Will's protector, would fit that role much better than his mom. It's not balanced. Joyce's way of protecting Will is too much Because she is his mom. If there is somebody who protects Will it needs to be a person who is on the same level as Will. LIKE MIKE!!!!

So yeah idk this has been bugging me the whole time. Joyce was reduced to 'scared overprotective mom' and they even Adressed It In The Show and then. Didn't change it. Why??

Ngl it also kind of lessens the awesomeness of a lot of Will's scenes for me. Will wants to do so much and he has so much strength and power and Joyce is pulling him down. He needs to become his own person, he needs to be responsible for himself, he needs to be able to be in danger and get out of it without his mother standing right next to him all the time. It also reduces Will's character a little. It's as if Will can only fight Vecna in his mind if Joyce is next to him. It makes it seem like he couldn't do it on his own...

Will's coolest scenes and his biggest moments of character devellopment happened when Joyce wasn't immediately there for him. The field scene with Mike, all of his talks with Robin and seeing Robin and Vickie kiss in the hospital. The sorcerer scene!! Even him trapped in his own memory with Vecna looking through his mind was character devellopment because it lead to Will coming out. Hell, even his talk with Mike on the radio tower. And it's just all these In Between Moments that happen Right when Joyce isn't there to hold Will's hand for it.

Both Will and Joyce are incredible characters with so much strength and power and they can do So Much. But if you keep them stuck together like glue for the whole damn season, then they're not actually getting anywhere. Because they will instead just stop the other from reaching their full potential.

And also lastly I am making this a bit about byler because I feel like Joyce always being there with Will was a big reason for why him and Mike didn't have many moments alone together. And They Show Mike wanting to be with Will, stay at his side, hold him, care for him, talk to him so much!! But he can't do any of that because Joyce is always there too!!! And I'm not saying it's Joyce's fault that byler didn't happen, but it does feel a little off that all the potential byler scenes (Mike holding Will's hand when he passes out in shock jock, him briefly carrying Will during the macz battle, Mike possibly staying with Will in the abyss) all get blocked because Joyce is there instead, doing all the things for Will that Mike wanted to do for him too. And again all the byler moments we get happen in between scenes, right when Joyce isn't looking for a second or is in reach but still far enough away that they can have a moment to speak alone.

It's truely so frustrating cause I noticed recently how few moments Will and Mike have that are truely just the two of them. That are true vulnerable moments of them talking and being open and getting closer, without the possibility of somebody else always barging in at any minute. The only scene I can think of is the radio tower scene. Every Other Scene there are always other characters present in it too. Like even when they can't hear them speak, they are still there and so the moment can never feel truely intimate and special. And there was so much Potential for them to have scenes like that but they never actually happened because Joyce Was There too...

i turned cleradin into these lil guys <3

i’m gonna start off by saying i’ve always felt a connection to will byers as a character. i grew up gay, in a small town or two, with a single mom and an older sister, and as a life-long artist with sexual abuse trauma.

i grew up alongside will byers. when season one came out, i was only 9. and now that season 5 has been out and over for a few months, i am 19.

watching this boy, so similar to me, in personality and circumstance, go through the unimaginable and still somehow make it through and find a happy ending is amazing. truly. but i can’t deny the heartache i feel know byler will only remain canon through subtext and queer coding.

I was a girl in love with her best friend. It’s been something extremely hard to admit to myself for many reasons. of course, the fact she was a girl. but the bigger reason was that our families were so intertwined that i felt, if i told her, it would’ve destroyed everything. and the fact that i’ll probably never have the opportunity to tell her how i felt is something that haunts me.

like i said i was the will byers kind: quiet, shy, and scared. especially when i went from first grade to second grade. (in my old elementary, the students would be mixed up and given to a different next grade level teacher every two years.) so on the first day of school, i was terrified. but i was approach by this cute little girl with these small dark braids with big pink bubble bead hair ties. she just walked up to me in our classroom and asked,

“do you want to be friends?”

and we were inseparable for years. i still consider her the closest friend I’ve ever had. she liked traditional girly stuff and i was more of a tomboy. but despite that, she was the one i told my secrets to, who i called practically every night to play roblox with (the early days lol), lightsaber battles and sleepovers. her dad even dropped her off in the morning at my house so we could ride the school bus together.

but one day, when we were coming in from recess, she kissed me on the cheek, and my heart stopped. i didn’t understand why i couldn’t stop thinking about this small little thing. (i would only find out later that my mom would catch me making my barbies kiss when i was like 2-3) but because i had representation of what being queer meant, i was able to come to the realization that i was gay (or at least on the queer spectrum) fairly early on in my life.

i was lucky enough to have a supportive, loving family who didn’t care that i was queer. i remember telling my mom i thought i was gay and she just said “i know” and we ate dinner.

but telling my friends was an even scarier feat. so for years, i didn’t.

life when on and this crush on this girl didn’t go away, and though i never really knew if she felt the same way, she was still my best friend and meant everything to me. we talked about sharing a dorm in college. our parents even called us thelma and louise.

but when i went to a different middle school than the rest of my friends, the rift began. she became popular and made new friends, even got a boyfriend, while i was stuck back in the scared little bubble i made for myself all those years ago. we didn’t stop talking, but they became more infrequent and more surface level.

at the end of 6th grade, i moved away from the town i lived all my life.

but this wasn’t like will moving to lenora.

i didn’t get a spring break where she visited. i didn’t get a heartfelt moment where i could decide to move on. most importantly, i didn’t get closure.

we stopped talking. birthday texts were the only thing we had left and, eventually, those were gone too.

so what makes byler so important to me isn’t the fact it was my life—that i lived the part of will byers almost line by line. but the fact that his story could’ve showed me what could’ve been if i hadn’t been so goddamn scared. if i had fought harder. been more honest. did the brave thing and just opened my goddamn mouth.

that’s what made me love volume 1 of season 5. and what made volume 2 + the finale so devastating.

i had never felt this way about any queer representation i had ever seen. i rewatched volume 1 at least 6 times from when it dropped to christmas when volume 2 dropped. and i had hope even until that basement door faded out in the finale. and for at least a few weeks after that, i felt so stupid, so betrayed, and so heartbroken. i couldn’t think about anything else for so long.

i think about what byler could’ve meant to queer kids everywhere, who don’t know they’re queer, who are in love with someone they believe they can’t have, and i feel sick. because byler could’ve been pure hope for these kids. and, as many shows and movies have been for me, a catalyst for change in their own life.

i will close this with something i said in a caption on tiktok because it feels worth saying:

queer love is deserving of respect and representation. not only do we want and need it, but we also deserve it. because there are too many stories of loves never resolved and lost by time, circumstance and fear. and somewhere, everywhere, there is a queer person afraid to come out, afraid to acknowledge their queerness. because we all feel we’re alone. we all are alone until we are shown we aren’t. and seeing someone reach out and grab the thing we couldn’t possibly dream of grabbing shows us it isn’t impossible. i mourn everyday what fully canon byler could’ve meant, not only to the fans, not only to stick it to those who deny us our rights, but to those who can’t talk about who they are, even to those closest to them, but can relate and feel their story in will byers or mike wheeler. we deserved this. don’t EVER let anyone convince you we didn’t.

xoxo,

will byers variant,

Just wanted to make a fic recommendation masterpost :)) Because I get a lottt of asks for fic recs and yeah here you go!

Byler Fic Starter Pack

My Fav Fics of all Time!!

Secret Relationship

Cleradin Fics

Fluffy Established Relationship Fics -> Developing Relationship Fics

Byler being strangely obsessed with each other Fics

Predominantly Miwi Fics

Spicy Byler but they're Sweet and Tender

Explicit Byler Fics

Byler Dad Fics

Jealous Mike Fics

Fluffy and Funny Byler Fics

Lesbyler Fics

Bravebyers/Wheelerwise Fics

Will Byers was Never Found AU Fics

Churchgate Fics

Season 5 Rewrite Fics

Historical AU Fics

Mike Wheeler Heavy Angst Fics

Willel Fics with BG Byler

Fics where Byler reunite

Bottom!Mike Fics

Jealous Will Fics

Time Travel Fics

Spidey Will Fics

Fics where Byler communicate in Morse Code

Apocalyptic Fics

Platonic Madwheeler Fics

Conformitygate Fics

Fics similar to the Power Outage Fic

Friends with Benefits Fics

Merbrave (Mermaid Byler) Fics

Surfsahoy Fics

Band AU Fics

Coffee Shop AU Fics

Teacher AU Fics

Sevenspins Fics

okay *rubs hands together* so. i actually built my byler sims an apartment a few weeks ago while having #commonroomtime with my roommates and we kept making jokes about it dirty and disgusting and i put cobwebs in the corner and cracks in the wall and stuff. sorry byler. but in all seriousness i do think their first apartments would be rather shabby and rundown. young struggling creatives in their 20s etc etc. in my head they have the potential to be kind of r/malelivingspace because they do notttt scream interior-designadly gifted to me...but giving them the benefit of the doubt here i think their apartment could be kind of homey/cozy and very 90s. it's a shitty one bedroom with a tiny kitchen but friends are always welcome on the couch. they definitely have lots of books and cds and a ps1 nintendo 64 + a gameboy that they do nawwwt play about. they saved up for a decent tv but the rest of their furniture is used shit they picked up here and there that doesnt match but somehow works. they dont own 2 of the same mug and they have multiple throw blankets in rotation for movie nights. their walls are filled with art and lots of framed photos of family and friends <33 one of them has some nerdy collectible sword shit on display in the bedroom i cant decide who

some visuals ⬇️⬇️