let 👏 noah 👏 schnapp 👏 act 👏 out 👏 a 👏queer 👏 happy 👏 ending 👏

something fulfilling in watching two projects (stranger things, thor: love & thunder) hype up their “queer content” as if they’re doing something groundbreaking by doing the same bullshit we’ve seen w/ poorly done queer rep for ages

meanwhile projects like our flag means death, a league of their own, heartstopper, first kill, the owl house, etc. (all in the same year as the other two projects, may i add) perfectly demonstrate how behind those projects are when it comes to rep. how dumb they look for even attempting the dumb “up-for-interpretation”, token queer character shit.

showing how simple it is to, if you are marketing for a queer audience, not to treat us like shit. showing queer people in casual lights, showing our stories in multiple genres for multiple ages, showing multiple queer characters across a spectrum of identities, whether that be sexuality, gender, race, etc.

all it shows me is that i won’t settle for the bullshit queerbaiting. not anymore.

once again it doesn’t matter what we headcanon mike’s sexuality as as it hasn’t been confirmed. we can call mike gay, queer, bi, pan, etc because as of right now he doesn’t have an official sexual identity. also, as long as mike wheeler and will byers kiss on the lips does it matter if mike is gay or bi?? either way he’s in love with will.

if he’s gay? GREAT. if he’s bi? GREAT. if he’s straight? it’s a NO from me

we have 3 queer characters that haven't even kissed anyone of the same gender but the show is full of straight ships that have whole scenes of them making out and holding hands and like I know we will get explicit queerness in s5 but it still feels like I can't expect too much and like I shouldn't hope to have Elmax or Elumax too even if it has semi-romantic subtext in the show but I should be glad if I get the ones we already have even if we will have one season against 4 of straight people being straight and like I just think it's fucked up that I feel like this and I feel like that if the show is not made explicitly queer from the beginning then we should be happy if we get even one queer character... plus all the other queer shows are getting canceled or end up killing one in the couple or they have depressing storylines... it's so fucked up

it makes me sad to see people headcannon eddie as gay

he is BISEXUAL

did you see eddie’s chemistry with chrissy ??

please let eddie and steve be bi and in love

TWO BI BOYS ARE JUST AS VALID

i wish queer rep was more like queer coding

"for your modesty, dude" and "i guess i got a little jealous, steve" and "dontcha, big boy?" and "hey, steve? *heavy loaded longing look* make him pay" are so much more interesting than the vast majority of actual queer rep sorry not sorry

gay/bi mike wheeler discourse is so hilarious from my pov. I'm here sitting on my bench watching you all going at each other's troaths virtually, eating popcorn and knowing that Mike is straight, that the Duffer Brothers are lazy and they wrote Will to be in love with Mike because they wanted to take the safer route : sad gay kid pining over his straight best friend. They didn't add a new character for Will in season four because it wasn't suitable for Will and Mike storyline. If Argyle wouldn't have existed and in his place there would have been the new Will's love interest, what the fuck would Mike have done for eight episodes ? Will's storyline would have been different, he couldn't be Mike's counselor. Will and Mike's storylines in season four are attached not because there is this big plot twist around the corner and by*ler will be endgame, it's because of cheap, lazy writing. They didn't know what to do with both of them. So it's really funny reading this whole online discourse "Mike is clearly gay" "Mike is perfect bi representation" when i am here with a bitter taste in my mouth thinking that in good hands, in hands that really cared about queer identity and queer representation Will Byers would have been treated differently.

i just know i’m going to log on to this website on july 2 to see noah schnapp being canceled for queerbaiting

idk if anyone has made a similar post, but byler is literally the duffer’s only shot to prove that the queer representation in this show isn’t completely secondary to the cishet characters.

like u mean to tell me it took three seasons for us to get our first ever explicitly queer character. a character, who, by the way, doesn’t get a fully developed and compelling relationship arc with her love interest, because she’s secondary to the straight characters. we will only get A SEASON of robin/vicky, when other relationships have been built up for a minimum of 1-3 seasons. 

like i mean KAREN WHEELER AND BILLY were going to fuck before we ever got a queer relationship??? HOW. DOES. THAT. HAPPEN. 

this is also part of the reason why i think noah confirming will’s sexuality was so validating, because not only did it validate our interpretation of will’s subtextual queercoding, it also proved that it was possible the duffer’s actually care about giving at least one queer character a satisfying, thought out arc. and for that arc, which is centred around will’s otherness and isolation in, not only, a homophobic society, but also within his friend group and general life because of his very unique experiences with the upside down and his sexuality, it simply doesn’t make sense for it to be effectively cut short because the guy he’s in love with doesn’t love him back. leaving him alone, just as he was when he started the show.

and even if the duffers paired will up with a random guy character, like they did for robin with vicky, it’s literally so lazy and proves queer characters and queer audiences are secondary to them, since we can’t even get a genuinely compelling, intriguing relationship between two queer people onscreen. 

so if not for us, at least byler will put a pretty dollar in their pockets and prove they are capable of actually writing queer characters as people deserving of acceptance and love. 

very bold of netflix to post the 4 new ships to come out of season 4 only to write "friends" twice (!!) in the caption

It just hit me... we're going to get Robin kissing Vickie next season AS WELL AS Mike kissing Will

We are getting at least TWO queer kisses in s5, from TWO queer couples, with wlw and mlm rep

This makes me so happy

ok but u gotta admit it's fucked that they hyped up that "will's sexuality will be addressed" and then used it purely to further a straight couple

But... they didn't only do that?! The scene with Jonathan was where it was made most explicit in my opinion, and that was purely about Will and Jonathan, nothing else. If that car scene was ALL we had I'd sort of get it, but it wasn't. And again, what were people actually expecting here? Will to end up with Mike, when Mileven has been rock solid since S1? Will to explicitly say "I'm gay" despite being fourteen and in the 1980s?

Will's sexuality WAS addressed, and it was addressed pretty damn explicitly between him and Jonathan, and that scene so easily could have been Will breaking down to Jonathan out of fear or self-hatred. But it wasn't. It was Will crying out of relief. It was Will crying because Jonathan hasn't forced Will to say anything he isn't ready to say, but said in no uncertain terms that absolutely nothing could stop Jonathan from loving him. How was that purely furthering Mike and El? That was a beautifully crafted scene which was about Will and Jonathan, and focused on the unbreakable bond that they share.

For many of us, Will Byers isn’t “just” a character - he IS us.

Over the years, we’ve seen some general audience members mock Will Byers. He’s been hurled with homophobic slurs, called a “crybaby”, and most recently, has had his queer pain belittled and reduced to a joke. When we speak out against this bullying, we are often met with statements like “why do you care so much?” or “it’s just a show, don’t take it so seriously” or even “learn to take a joke”. But to those of us who see ourselves in Will, his pain is no joking matter. We’ve LIVED it. We’ve experienced it first hand. Will Byers may be a fictional character but the people he represents are very real.

For those of us who are queer, neurodivergent, or who were the sensitive child, these aren’t just “harmless jokes”. Time after time, we’ve seen characters like us sidelined, victimized, villainized. We’ve been used as plot devices, the punch line of jokes, and queerbaited. But Stranger Things has the chance to change that. To show that people like us, people like Will, can have a happy ending. We have agency in our lives. We are not a joke. We are not a narrative device. We are not a side kick. We can be queer and nerdy and quiet and sensitive, but we can still kickass. We can be heroes.

And this is why characters like Will are so important. This is why queer representation is so important. To show that we are not alone. We are seen and valid and deserving and loved. Words cannot describe the solace of seeing a character just like you when you’ve spent your life feeling isolated and misunderstood. Will Byers reminds us that we are not alone. Everyone deserves to see themselves on-screen and off.

Stranger Things may be a fictional story but the characters’ experiences are real. So, let’s stop making fun of people’s comfort characters. Let’s stop making jokes about their pain and trauma. Let’s take a moment to remember that these characters represent real life people and real life experiences. They may be “just” fictional characters to you but they mean so much more to us.

So sloppy seconds byler is the better option? That’s bullshit it’s just girls frothing at the mouth over m/m

LOL. it’s not sloppy seconds if from the very beginning they’ve been leading up to byler.

when the duffers pitched montauk, which was a bit of a different show from stranger things, they wanted will to be gay then too. something tells me they wanted their main character to be gay and in love with his best friend for a total of FIVE SEASONS because stranger things is a best friends to lovers story that happens between MIKE AND WILL.

and i’m not ashamed for being a queer person who wants queer representation. i usually don’t give other people’s negativity attention, but i feel like the last part of your sentence is a bit harmful as not everyone is fetishizing mlm or wlw relationships ☺️ a lot of us are in the lgbtq+ community and care about representation— especially representation in a big netflix show such as stranger things. you don’t have to like byler. if you like mike and el then that’s great! enjoy the show how you want, but also don’t go around claiming people who want to see them as a couple or aren’t for the same ship as you are wanting it for weird reasons other than just wanting to see themselves and their stories onscreen. hope you have a good day and keep enjoying stranger things! maybe you’ll get what you want or maybe we will. who knows! bye and thanks for your ask! <3

and like st is not even the worst in this case but still it's the fact that I KNOW I need to check my expectations for this stuff simply because it has always been like this

worried that stranger things is gonna end up a voltron-type situation