vecna attacking mike and showing him all the moments he's had with will, showing him not saying he loves el, forcing him to come to terms with the fact that he's not straight and it terrifies him because he's been trying to hide it from everyone including himself for so long.

so when they manage to pull him out, he's standoffish and defensive again, withdrawing from everyone but especially will until someone, maybe nancy, sits him down and asks what he saw, what's got him so frightened? so he opens up and he's so scared, but they comfort him, reassure him he's not dirty or disgusting or anything like that and there's nothing wrong with liking boys.

and maybe he feels a bit better, but is still largely uncomfortable and withdrawn, until vecna gets will. until he's faced with the very real prospect of losing will without ever telling him what he means to him, and he decides he'd rather be honest than hide in the safety net of dating el and pushing will again.

hence, emotional monologue (and maybe mike uses the mixtape he made for will to break him out)

Will and El seriously go through all of season 3 without exchanging a direct word, huh? The Duffer Brother’s are really gonna do that to us huh? Like they freaking adopt her at the end of the season but can’t be bothered to give them one (1) interaction all season? Like not even just Will, the show completely forgot El has significant relationships outside of Mike and Hopper. Like I know a cornerstone in the story this season was that Mike and El spend too much time together but really???

I mean, I disagree that they forgot El has significant relationships outside of Mike and Hopper?? She spent more time with Max this season than Mike and Hop combined?? And obviously it wasnt as spotlighted, but her relationships with Lucas and Dustin definitely had their moments to shine as well. And to be fair, outside of the characters I just listed, El doesn’t rlly have a relationship with anyone else?

Which kinda connects to what i wanna say now, which is that yes Im disappointed we didnt see more of El with Will/the Byers in general, but the more I think about it, I think its a good thing. For El and Will specifically, I think its in character. Bc Will didnt rlly seem to have the greatest feelings about El, and that makes sense! I know everyone kinda wanted them to be bffs from the moment they met, but its realistic it didnt go that way, especially from Will’s perspective. I do think Will is jealous of El (and Max to an extent) and that makes sense. Think about how El even joined the party. Will was in the midst of the most traumatic week of his life, and when he came back of course his friends were super supportive and caring and they were always there for him, but he also knew that while he was gone they made this new friend and they missed her v much. Will feels nothing bad towards El of course over that, and jealousy probably isn’t even the right word, but he feels weird. This girl joined his friend group and he doesn’t even know her but now sees his friends upset that she’s gone. I do think to an extent he felt replaced. The same way El felt replaced by Max when she first came back in s2. The boys never did anything to specifically make Will feel replaced, its just the circumstances of how everything happened that just made things weird for him.

Then flash forward to s3. Things are finally normal. For once, the whole party is together, and Will rlly has his chance to get to know El. But there are other things he’s concerned about. First off, after spending the last year of his life battling constant trauma, he’s finally in a position where he can start to move on, but he feels like in that year so much of his childhood has been taken from him. So he clings to stuff like D&D, which his friends are moving on from, but he still feels like is an important part of his childhood and he wants to hold onto that. Also, his friends have changed so much since before everything happened, and I wont say they’re genuinely more mature than Will, but in a very superficial definition of the word, they are. They’ve got girlfriends. They don’t care about playing games. They dont wanna be kids, they wanna be teenagers. So I do think Will feels threatened by that and he hates feeling like his friends are growing up at a different speed than him, and the girls kinda become a symbol of that for him. He wants to go back to how things were before everything, and that includes not wanting the girls to be a part of the group. He doesn’t rlly understand Mike and Lucas’s relationships, he sees it as just them wanting to “swap spit” with “stupid girls.”

And I don’t think Will holds any bad feelings towards El or Max directly. Especially El, cause I do think he has very positive feelings for her. He knows she’s the girl who saved his life, who helped his friends, who’s genuinely a rlly good person. He knows that, and I think he does rlly like El as a person. He just hasn’t rlly had any interest in forming a relationship of his own with her bc he still feels awkward just having her a part of the group. So now going into s4, we can see that after everything with the Mind Flayer coming back Will acknowledges how silly his feelings before were. He realizes whats important and lets go of his anger towards the other boys for not caring about D&D anymore and all that stuff. And also, obviously now he has a real reason for why he should try to bond with El. Bc she’s not only is she living with him, she’s one of the only people he has left. So I’m looking forward to actually getting to see their relationship grow, and not just suddenly have them be BFFs as soon as El came back in s2. I never rlly thought about Will’s feelings with this stuff before, but the more I do, the more I realize how kinda ridiculous it was to assume he’d just be automatically completely accepting of the girls to the group without feeling any weirdness about it himself