#mike is already gone

[byler-alarmist]

God can you just imagine Mike coming to the conclusion that Will is in love with El....she's the reason he was moping in Lenora....that he only painted because she told him to even though it broke his heart....

Some tense moment and they're fighting, and Mike is choking back tears and finally says "it's her.....isn't it?"

And he leaves, heartbroken, before Will has a chance to explain.....

[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.

[chirpsythismorning]

Wait, did Mike sleep in Will’s room in Lenora?

[strawberrybyers]

the duffers said they’re going back to s1 dynamics and since the upside down is stuck on the day will went missing it would make sense for season 5 to parallel s1 and even s2. so with will going back to being the main character, him still having a connection with the mindflayer, an emphasis being made on electricity and lights, mike being protective as hell over will in s1+2, then what if will decides to go to the upside down and mike goes with him or will gets dragged into the upside down again and mike sneaks away from the group to go down to the upside down without everyone else because he doesn’t want to wait to come up with a plan he just knows he needs to save will asap

“i’m the only one that cares about will”

[cherry-treelane]

everytime i feel bad and stressed about my life i remember that i might be in a troubling situation and having a bad time but im not season 4 fiona gallagher in the clink after leaving crack on the counter which my 3 year old baby brother happened to ingest resulting in a fatal near-death experience thats wracked me with never-ending guilt and forever altered my life

[usakkhae]

THE BIGGEST CRIME ISN'T EVEN THE KIDNAPPING

IT'S THE FACT THAT THEY SEPARATED TAZERCRAFT

[strangersynth]

i enjoy s3 what can i say

[paintingformike]

.

[findafight]

Saw an earnest yet completely inaccurate or misinformed take and it's like okay fine fine just ignore that even tho they're out to lunch on what happened in that scene no need to comment keep it to yourself. Or at least your own post's tags

[oveliagirlhaditright]

I was watching some video about the FNAF movie--I forget which one--and there was, like, a picture of some technician working on the animatronics or something like that. And this video posed the theory that that was Henry Emily. And they then brought up how that guy actually looked a lot like Mike, Garret, and Abby's dad, via a picture we saw of him: so they're theorizing that they're Henry Emily's kids, of course, and he was their mysterious dad (who left) that Mike only vaguely talked about in the film.

And I think I'm definitely buying this theory, because it does seem like Mike, Garret, and Abby were filling in the role of the Emilys in this movie. So to have that actually be literal would make a lot of sense.

Also, unless the movies change a lot of things (and, I mean, that's always possible), I don't know how we're doing the future plots if we don't have some of the stuff with Henry Emily and his family in the story.

Plus, it would make some random parts of the movie make more sense. Like, I'm assuming we're still having the Bite of '83, of course. And I think most of us (rightfully) assume William Afton blamed Henry for that (at least partly), for his son dying. The animatronics were his invention, so even though William's son, Michael, literally put William's youngest son in Freddy's mouth, he was surely thinking it was faulty craftmanship of the animatronics that caused Freddy to bite down and made him lose his son.

And that then caused him to want revenge on Henry. In a "you cost me my child, so I'll take one of yours" way. And thus he killed Charlotte. And started killing kids after that, period.

But in the movie, it looks like we don't have Charlotte. So I'm proposing that Mike, Garret, and Abby were Henry's kids, of course. And Garret is essentially game!Charlotte: William kidnapped and killed him as revenge towards Henry, and Garret becomes the Puppet. Yep.

Though I made a post the other day about how even though the movie didn't do the "Mike Schmidt is Michael Afton" thing, that I hope we still get Michael Afton in the films, but I'm now doubting we will. Even though Mike isn't Michael Afton in this (most likely. Some are theorizing he could be William Afton's son, and neither of them know it: like, his mom was with William before Henry and left William), I think Mike will still be fulfilling the Michael Afton role.

And I'm also thinking that even though Abby is probably Henry Emily's daughter in this... she's clearly our "Elizabeth," and is probably going to become Baby. She already almost did in this movie. (I know that was an Ella animatronic, but it also looked a lot like Circus Baby.)

I think the movie decided to make Vanessa Afton's daughter--and yes, I do think that means Security Breach Vanessa is, too--and Elizabeth Henry's.

Anyway...

[byler-alarmist]

If Will really did die back in S1, I think Mike would have made a shrine out of all his drawings and toys and other things that reminded him of Will.

Karen would overhear him in the basement murmuring to himself for hours on end, carrying on imaginary conversations with his departed friend.

The other boys would move on with their lives eventually, but not Mike.

[kingcriccket]

The thing about the fall of the house of usher is that like. I think Mike Flanagan is a great character writer but... somehow maybe not a very good horror writer? Which I know is an insane take given his body of work but like. He's great with suspense, but when that tension finally breaks, at least in Usher, it tends to feel kind of... stupid rather than scary.

Which means you're watching all of these interesting, horrible people play off of one another in excellent ways, portrayed by excellent actors, as they unerringly make their ways towards extremely obviously telegraphed and kind of stupid deaths.

[warrenwaskilledbyadeer]

The knowledge that other people make aus like Milo Murphy characters as Wizard of Oz has me so relieved but so anxious

Relieved because I'm not an insane weirdo who has to hide it anymore

But anxious because now I kinda feel like I wanna talk about it??

I have a few for Amnesia that I really really like actually and I almost told a friend about one of them today but I chickened out skdjsksk

I'm shaking now gahhhh

(I apologize to my few followers who see these posts btw, I just use tumblr as a venting place because it's very easy for them to be lost in the void forever but also I got to get a little ranting/venting out of my system)

[thesunshookwithjoy]

Grief! It’s bad!

[dgaftilwedie]

in the home stretch of breaking bad (the last 8 episodes)........ shudders............ im so scared

[aph-estonia]

can't believe i'm speedrunning alcoholism