#Mike what the fuck are you doing

[butterflysonnets]

absolutely insane that mike literally p a n i c k e d when will was like "well what about us?" because will wasn't even really making things gay he was honest to god just inquiring about the state of their estranged friendship and wondering why mike didn't make time to talk to him when they're supposed to be best friends but MIKE was the one having an aneurysm like "🏳️‍🌈⁉️ W H AT!!"

“WE'RE FRIENDS” “i know mike” “WE'RE!!! F R I E N D S!!” “right so why don't you call me — ” “I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND” “… that in no way answers my question"

[foccaccia]

Day 18, Judgement, for Wyllstravaganza2024! Please open image for better quality, etc etc.

[spookystarfishzombie]

[eddiezpaghetti]

It has come to my attention that SOME OF YOU who read my last Byler post remain UNCONVINCED. So I'm gonna tack onto it this:

I'm older than fucking God and air, and I've been out and proud since 2007. Yes, I know what homophobia is, and yes, I know what queerbaiting is. I know about Supernatural and Teen Wolf and Sherlock and blahdyblahdyblah. No new ground is being covered here. I thought I made that clear in the original post, but, clearly, I did not.

I am aware of queerbaiting and homophobia, and I'm still wholeheartedly certain in Byler being canon anyway.

Okay, so there are three types of relationship I want to discuss when it comes to queerbaiting. They're all, like, "queer relationships that could have happened, but didn't".

First off, queer-coding. This isn't really a thing so much anymore, but it still crops up every once in a while. I'd argue it probably happens most with male-male relationships in family shows these days. First example that comes to mind is Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowny from Steven Universe. You can't make a relationship canon because some shitty overhead bastard overhead said no, so you get as close as you can without compromising the show. Can't make someone gay? Well, now their comedy routine is a blatant allegory for a romantic relationship. Boom-shaka-laka. This is something I don't see being a problem with regards to Stranger Things, but I want it to be there as contrast, a demonstration of one of many things queerbaiting is not. However, one could argue that, thus far, Will Byers is, canonically, queer-coded. It's pretty fucking heavily implied in the show, and the creators have confirmed it, and you're gonna be able to see it if you're not FUCKING BLIND, but word of god is not technically canon which means that interviews don't technically make something canon, blahdyblahdyblahdyblah, technicalities, Robin has been explicitly stated in the text to be queer while Will has, thus far, not, outside of good ol' Show-Don't-Tell. Of course, anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that that's going to change by the end of Season 5, but, hey, for what it's worth, I'm throwing this out there.

Alrighty, Thingamajingama Number Two: "Oops, I accidentally made the greatest love story known to man." AKA, a genuine, honest-to-goodness mistake. Unfortunately, we do live in a heteronormative society. Sometimes people who don't think about being gay much write a friendship that's incredibly compelling and don't even consider the possibility that it could have been read as romantic. Something something Top Gun something. This is, again, not queerbaiting. This is Steddie, this is Ronance, this is Elmax, this is your favorite flavor of non-canon ship this week, this is not Byler. The creators know DAMN well what they're doing. They've talked about it. We know this. Nothing new here.

Which brings us to the topic of discussion here. Actual queerbaiting. This usually starts out as an "accidental greatest love story", and then reacts to fan response. And when I say "reacts", I mean like a goddamn chemical reaction. Like bleach and ammonia, bitch. It's noxious and it's gonna kick your fucking ass without mercy. This is when a creator is like, "Hey, let's get our queer audience invested, but we're not actually going to give them what they want because our straight audience isn't here for that/we personally think it's gross/we don't give enough of a shit to want to research a goddamn thing to write a real gay character," blah blah blah whatever excuse they want to come up with this time.

And when you think "queerbaiting", I want you to think "bullying". Because that's what it is. It's lucrative bullying, like beating us up and taking our lunch money, but it's bullying all the same. And it's a real goddamn thing, even if people misuse the word a lot, often when they mean one of the two above, sometimes when they mean "bury your gays", which is another homophobic thing entirely that I'm not going to get into here. Queerbaiting is the thing we're focused on, and it's real, and it's bullying. And here's the reason I want you to think of it as bullying:

They

Think

It's

Funny.

They are actively making fun of us.

That's why Dean had the "Cas, get out of my ass," line in Supernatural. It's why the "Do you like boys?" line happened in Teen Wolf. It's why "Lie with me, Watson," happened in the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies. Because "It's just a joke, mate." "It was just a prank, bro." "You didn't really think it would happen, did you?" "You should see your face."

So here's probably the biggest reason I don't think it's specifically queerbaiting in this specific instance of Will Byers and Mike Wheeler.

Stranger Things has never, not once, made a gay joke. Ever.

Every single time queerness comes up, it's dead serious.

Lonnie calls Will a fag, and the show is not at all reluctant to show what a goddamn horrible person he is. And when Hopper latches onto that, it's not as "Hahah, is he gay, though?" It's because he's trying to determine a potential motive for Will's disappearance, and even if someone had interpreted it as a joke, Joyce immediately has a line that functions as snapping her fingers in front of the audience's face and yelling "FOCUS" when she says "He's MISSING." Basically outright saying "This isn't funny!"

Troy calls him a fairy, along with targeting Lucas and Dustin for their skin color and disability respectively, and Mike gets damn near murderous. Troy is portrayed as a goddamn monster and the show portrays it as justice when El makes him piss his pants and later breaks his arm.

Steve calls Jonathan "queer" as a slur and gets the shit beat out of him for it.

Billy's father is revealed to be homophobic and abusive in the same breath.

Mike says "It's not my fault you don't like girls!" and we're shown how devastated Will is and Mike immediately follows him to beg for forgiveness.

There is a joke in Robin's coming-out scene, but it's not at Robin's expense. It's at Steve's. Specifically for being heteronormative.

Jonathan has multiple scenes where he's trying so hard to tell Will that he's always going to love him as he is, whether he's gay or not, without pressuring him to come out before he's ready.

Even when there's a little bit of ribbing at Robin's expense, it's always because she's an awkward nerd who's nervous around pretty girls, just the same as Lucas and Dustin are teased when they both first develop crushes on Max, and even then, even then, it always comes as a package deal where they make fun of Steve's girl problems at the same time.

Stranger Things is an emphatically pro-gay show. It may not be the core point of the show the way it is in, say, Our Flag Means Death, but there is nothing less than respect for its queer characters. Its queer characters are always taken completely seriously. No one is making fun of us. They never have. That's why I have serious doubts that this is queerbaiting. It would come completely out of left field for the bullying to start in Stranger Things' final season.

So it's not at all likely to be queerbaiting because queerness is taken completely seriously. The creators have talked about Will's queerness, at least, so it's not an accident. And queer-coding would be silly to expect from this show when it's already on its final season. Like, what is Netflix gonna do? Cancel it? Not to mention all the explicit queerness that's in there already. And no one's gonna "What about the children?" a show that's had sex scenes in it since the first season.

There's no fakeout here. It's gonna happen. Breathe.

[princeofcyberpunk]

hi motorcity fandom is this anything

i was not expecting the cartoon about teens with cars to genuinely change how i view the world

[emblazons]

It’s “realizing that Will’s struggle in S2 with being infected with a virus that spreads and will kill him quickly (but doctors don’t care) is a metaphor for how gay men were treated during the aids crisis” hours

—right alongside Mike (who comes from a family with a Reagan sign in their front yard + a mom who outwardly supported Margret Thatcher), who sat at his now confirmed gay best friend’s side the entire time he was sick and watched as people were willing to let him die because he was viewed as expendable……and now has an ongoing storyline where

1) his relationship with his girlfriend is falling apart because he doesn’t love her romantically

2) he’s staring longingly and pushing toward the freedom his gay best friend embodies for him, and

3) he cannot bring himself to tell anyone around him something because “what if they don’t like it” + dehumanize him for telling the secret truth he cannot bring himself to externalize, despite now knowing something that scares him about about himself:

(Bonus points for the fact that the first time we see Mike push Will and himself toward a girl is after he watches how people were willing to let his gay best friend (and him, by extension) die should they not confirm to expectations)

[marzipanandminutiae]

Apparently Mike Flanagan is working on an adaptation of Carrie, and everyone is saying things along the lines of "I know he's going to be the one to give us a book-accurate Carrie" and that's insane to me because a) he has never worked with any plus sized actors as far as I can remember and b) the closest he ever gets to book accuracy in anything is looking at the book once, maybe

Carrie is thin and conventionally attractive. but she's gay! not for Sue Snell, though; that would make too much thematic and narrative sense. she's gay for [throws dart at board] Donna Kellogg, a character who never appears in person in the book, and who is actively friends with the villain. This Makes Sense! Representation Win!

(although the one thing I will say re: Carrie's size is that the book does pull a But Not TOO Fat on her at one point, mentioning that "her body chemistry won't let her get past a certain size" or whatever. And some people who see her in her prom dress think she's pretty, which in the 1970s came with a weight limit even more than it does now. So she's not thin, for sure, but as written she's probably more average-sized than actually heavy)

[chayannesegg]

okay rewatching the creation lore and it's SO sweet the way mike (and mine!) are consistent in advocating for richas during the whole thing: telling people off for pressuring him for answers he doesn't have, trying to keep blame off of him given the impossible situation he's been put in (obviously he'd never have killed his tio tubbo if he knew this would happen! it was meant to be a bet), attempting to take the brunt of sunny's anger. it was such a tense situation and he does a great job navigating it on behalf of richas

he's also still very kind with sunny (esp once he realizes how upset she is, bar a few mistimed jokes) trying to focus on bringing back her dad, while firmly protecting richas and it's just so good!! he's so good!! even with his relationship with sunny being NOT good! she's been antagonistic with him for days, and now he's defending the person she sees as directly responsible for her dad being gone, but he still tries even if sunny is not able to recognize it (bc he's the adult and she's hurting so much)

i'm just so glad richas had mike with him for that conversation. it would have been so much harder for him if someone wasn't there firmly on his side, defending him and his feelings

he comes across so independent and brazen-faced most of the time, but he's just a little boy put in an impossible position.

told he's accidentally really killed his tio; told he's holding the piece that's keeping him from returning; told he's ranked 7th in tubbo's hierachy and disposable in the face of other eggs; watching chayanne and sunny get increasingly annoyed with him (and threatening him!)

who is going to care what he thinks, what he feels, about how he's expressing his hurt?? well, his pai ofc and it's so lucky he was there with him

[hoss-bonaventure]

took a blinker and now i wanna talk about the very obvious gay crush that blue-collar lawyer has for his bright-eyed twinky protege

[andiwriteordie]

*clears throat* get ready for the most ridiculous thing i’ve ever conceptualized

not to get all up in my holly wheeler bullshit again but i’m gonna need you to imagine some kind of chaotic world in which holly in the 1990s watches home alone when her big brother and his boyfriend are home on thanksgiving break 

and then something happens where holly is home alone while everyone is out at work or doing something else and then things... get really strange.

there’s a faceless monster outside her window, and suddenly all the phones are not working, and the lights are super fucked up, and the last time holly remembers seeing anything this insane was when she was really little? and there was that weird wall at will’s home? or the trees were moving that one fourth of july?

but holly’s stuck. she can’t go outside or get a hold of anyone to help her.

so what does holly do?

she pulls a kevin mcallister.

and holly home alones the fuck out of this demogorgon.

[reel-fear]

Genuinely so curious who Mike thinks is gonna be buying The Cage or the new DCTL GN bc with the way he tweets as far as he's concerned, it's not gonna be:

The queer people he has actively admitted he will never show any representation of in the games.

2. The POC he has actively fought against representing in his franchise. [Who he also mocked for thinking they would be represented in his franchise]

3. The Bendy fandom which has always been concerned with topics of diversity esp in the sense of queer people since its creation. Who he has responded to really poorly esp in regards to the GN.

4. The fans who critique him. [He blocked me for doing so lol]

5. His fans in general who he tweets about like this currently. [He's being vague about why people were mad at him or sent him 'nasty messages' because if you actually looked into why you'd see he was in the wrong. Either way, a very hateful way to speak abt ur own fanbase.]

Reminder while Mike is trash talking his fans he has always treated them rather poorly. The fans who won the fanart contest for Chapter 5 never got their posters actually in game due to it being rushed. Not only was chapter 5 a big slap to the face story wise, but it was literally so rushed he couldn't be bothered to add in the art his fans gave him for his game FOR FREE. [Meatly blames this on a crazy timeline, reminder him and Mike are the literal ceos of this company. The proposal of future updates here is also pretty cruel considering Mike nowadays happily admits he corrupted Chapter 5's source code and therefore literally can't update it At All currently. Because he is a moron]

At least they got to be in Boris and the dark survival, and by that I mean that was the Only game they got to be in so far, isn't that just treating your fans like you love them? Shoving their hard work into a spin off game almost nobody has played or addresses much. [Hell, who knows if with the Lone Wolf rebrand they'll even stay there. In which case they'll be in None of the games, only in the credits of BATIM]

6. The Bendy fans who just generally disagree with him on stuff. Like the new ink demon design where there is literally a public poll showing people generally prefer the old one.

7. The Bendy fans who can see he is actively lying to them. To their fucking faces.

He says this has always been the case, but screenshots and links to tweets regarding the books being canon prove it was not. Does he really think bendy fans are stupid or something? [Unless he's admitting here he lied to Kress when he told her the books were canon which sounds worse!]

8. Anyone who doesn't like the idea of giving money to a guy who laid off tons of employees then afterwards thought it was a great idea to express his anti-union views! Also brag about how good of an employer he was, according to his employees, he was not!

So in summary; Mike is an awful person who has not learned anything from the awful things he did. I will not be purchasing The Cage because, combined with this and his absolute refusal to take any kind of critique or see any differing interpretation of his franchise, I have no reason to think my problems with the franchise will ever be addressed or fixed. I probably will pirate The Cage along with any future Bendy Products [Including the movie] and will do my best to avoid giving it any kind of monetary support. Unless this changes any time soon, I can't see myself making anymore positive Bendy posts soon.

Mike has just managed to make it so hard to speak positively or optimistically of this franchise when he's so willing to broadcast how little he cares about it or its fans. I'm at the point where I refuse to pull any of my punches with my problems with it. What's the point of trying to play nice with my critique when either way the people creating it don't care?

So with this post, I want to invite anyone who feels similarly about the franchise to tell me, make a post or send an ask talking about how all of this makes you feel. It may not change how things are, but genuinely seeing other people share my feelings of anger makes me feel better. It feels nice to see when other people share our same concerns and worries. I'd also love to know if anyone else thinks they'll be avoiding purchasing Bendy products over this.

I'm not forcing anyone to participate in it nor trying to say anyone who doesn't supports mike but genuinely maybe if we can collectively decide to boycott things like the movie, graphic novel and The Cage... It might at least make the bendy devs acknowledge how much they have destroyed their own fandom's faith and trust in them.

The way Mike tweets about his actions like he had no control over why people were mad at him at least proves to me he takes NONE of it back nor regrets it. If you didn't know about his actions and only went off his tweets, you would be led to believe Mike has been needlessly picked apart by fans over things he couldn't control [or in his own words, had his words twisted and taken out of context]. That is not how you speak about your actions if you have actually learned better from them.

anyway, that has been my bendy dev callout post. This is an open invitation to anyone feeling similarly upset about the way the franchise is going to talk about it. It's genuinely nice to see how people feel about this and the more we talk about the more it's likely the bendy devs are forced to address our concerns. I don't think they will but hey, that's why I'm not gonna support them with my money anymore nor am I gonna be nice to them in any content I make critiquing Bendy. I mean I'm also basically making this post just in case anyone asks me Why I feel this way towards to bendy devs/as a way to respond to anyone who thinks I am too harsh in my critique in the future.

As always, it seems the best part of Bendy isn't actually anything about canon but about what the fan's are creating with the ideas Bendy failed to do anything interesting with.

Also the books, the books slap.

[pigeons-with-jello]

mike crew should get so much more time oh my god he is so precious and fun and i dont care how many people he killed hes amazing

[halfthebrain]

Omfg

Mike won against Harvey and Harvey didn’t mind at all. Rather the opposite, he’s so amazed by this boy. Oh you stupid fuck, Harvey. What’s more, he loves watching Mike wipe the floor with his opponent.

And when he did win against Mike he barely enjoyed it. Even regretting fighting Mike in the first place.

For someone who has built his whole persona around loving to win this can only mean one thing when he doesn’t care about wining. When wining and being a winner is something else entirely.

[will80sbyers]

walking April fool's people are those that really think this means nothing from Mike's side lmfao there was OBVIOUSLY tension and "I have no idea what's gonna happen next" is the writers saying this bitchy boy is NOT straight idc

[signofthestriking]

I like to imagine that DeerStan and PandaFan got isekai'd into the Danceverses with no fucking clue what Just Dance was as a game. Idk why thats as funny as it is but Im picturing a middle-aged man and his manager getting thrown into another universe together and going "well might as well become DJs".

[chirpsythismorning]

When I suggest Mike’s arc is in part a queer coming of age story and not just him being some prize to help El or Will defeat the big bad—

Angry anons: