#and billy's character literally just had dacre campaigning for him..... and got fucked over in the end

[biillys]

Billy is literally a racist 💀

Don't compare him to the baby girl that is Mickey

this is the funniest ask i possibly could've woken up to. thank you

[thedeviljudges]

i wanted to know your feelings on barb holland dying vs. billy hargrove. (not that it's a competition between them just i know there was a lot of 'justice for barb' after s1). tbh we didn't really get to know barb that same way we got to know billy or really anyone else with a name the starts with b and died for that matter. and i know people are trying to come up with theories that he's the american (ie: his doppelgänger being the real him). just interested in your thoughts.

this is kind of a complicated topic bc as you said, there was a lot of fans involved with ‘justice for barb’ and how strongly they felt for her only through a few episodes. still to the point where they continue making merch for her despite her not having been apart of the show for well over 3 years now.

anyway, to the point. i don’t really have a direction for this conversation, so i’m just gonna spit out a lot of different thoughts. just sort of stream of consciousness style.

it’s true that we didn’t get to really know barb. when you really look at it in comparison to billy, i do feel we know more about him. however, there’s a lot of context clues when it comes to barb. there are for billy, too, but i just mean that it’s sort of easy to draw upon who barb was as a person, or at least some of her background. what was given to us in the show... i think people resonated with because barb was nancy’s friend who was pushed to the side for a boy. it led to a change in dynamics and her friend pushing her away in favor of steve. not to say they shouldn’t grow up (and we see this situation with will wanting to remain with the party while will and lucas, and even dustin to some extent, are involved with girls), but nancy kind of pulled a very cliche move in which she treated barb kinda like shit, especially during the pool scene before she died. i know for me, it hit home given i’ve always been the...... lesser friend of the bunch. like, you get to enjoy certain situations by being with your friends until they abandon you. they drop you and don’t communicate with you because they found a boy to hang with or a new friend. nancy is flawed, and i do dislike her a lot, but i’m just saying it’s very teenager of her to pull that and for people to relate because barb didn’t do anything wrong. she tried to look out for her friend. she just wanted to study and make it through high school with her best friend without those dynamics changing, without nancy changing who she was as a person for a boy. that imo is very relatable.

i will also say that when i watched st1, i did so about a month or two before st2 aired. i didn’t know anything about the show. i didn’t even know billy was going to be a character. i literally knew jack shit except the show had kids in it. i say this because when i was watching st1, i fully expected barb to come back—not in st2 but by the end of st1. like, i thought she’d make an appearance. i thought she’d have another scene with nancy in some way letting her know something was amiss. maybe that’s just my poor viewing skills, but it really felt like they left something to be desired with barb?? i mean, they search for her and realized she’s dead, but i don’t know. after she was dragged into the pool, i thought there’d at least be something to wrap up her storyline.

now with billy—he was supposed to be barb 2.0. his storyline in st3 (well, let’s be real. will’s storyline in st2 was meant for billy), but because they couldn’t fit it in, they left his death plot for st3. which meant the dbags had to do more world building for billy (the horror!!!!!!!!!!!) because he was never planned to be around that long anyway. also meaning, his character would’ve had it worse than barb because if they had stuck with his original plot line into st2, we never would’ve gotten the scene with neil (courtesy of dacre). he would’ve just been another kid that died. a bully at that. i don’t think there would’ve been any justice campaigns because we would’ve really gotten a bland character. the only reason billy is even mildly interesting in st2 is because of steve and because of the accidental queer coding. on paper, billy is bland as fuck in comparison to barb if you look at his episodes prior to the scene with his dad (ok not so bland because next to steve, that’s something else, but i hope you get what i mean here. he tries to push steve around. that’s it. there’s no other reveal about him).

st3 for billy tried to give him more of a (failed) redeeming story, which then leveled him out and put him on par(-ish) with barb. so you’re right. it’s not really a competition, but it boils down to the fact that because of the way st2 came out, and the absolute need to give billy something more than just being a bully to fuel the plot of st3, there had to be more backstory. there were more episodes to do that with than there were for barb, which is why we know more about him than her. however, barb already started out well-established based on those context clues, whereas billy’s was never really established to begin with until the dbags forced their own hand.

i like barb tbh. i can understand why people miss her. she’s relatable. so is billy, but i think people view abuse, neglect and bullying as much darker and therefore, not willing to explore the depths of it in comparison to the feelings of not being chosen over a boy. i’m not quite sure how to explain this, but barb’s situation is much ‘lighter’ and safer while billy’s is full of dark nuances and gray areas that people just don’t really wanna touch.

barb got justice for who she was and was already established to be. billy didn’t get that, not really, because the dbags hadn’t planned to keep him around and tried to switch his original narrative with a lousy, half thought out plot so that he could earn the justice that barb got from the beginning. sucks to see how much that didn’t really pan out. (by justice, i mean that barb was taken unfairly and earned a spot in character’s minds as a good person. billy never would’ve had that..... well shit. he still doesn’t have it despite his plot, lbr).

so that’s what’s kinda in my head. barb and billy both deserved better at the end of the day. i hope they’re in the upside down helping each other survive, lmao.