#my precious baby boys

[queen-of-hawkins-why-ler]

The genius of Byler in s1 (the significance of Mike and Will spending all season separated)

Y'all, I started a ST rewatch from season 1, and I just wanted to make a post about how genius the setup of Byler and Mike and El's relationship is from the very beginning of the show. Actually, I believe that Byler has only been able to progress as a slowburn love story and eventual plot twist because of how strategically it was initially set up.

Mike and Will are introduced as having a "different" sort of relationship with each other, as opposed to the standard friendships they share with Dustin and Lucas. Right off the bat, we see that Will values being honest and vulnerable with Mike more than he values things that would otherwise benefit him. Around Lucas and Dustin, he acts as though he is fine with winning the DND game as long as Mike doesn't see the roll, but as soon as they leave, he admits to Mike that he lost and that the demagorgon got him.

We can also see that Mike has a different sort of relationship with Will than he has with the other boys. What is important to note, though, is that in s1 we only see the special care and affection Mike has towards Will in the context of Will not being physically present, as he has been taken by the demagorgon. Mike acts a good deal more concerned about Will and more eager to find Will than Lucas and Dustin do. He is the character of focus or the "protagonist" in s1, so we see him talking about Will to his family, and we see how upset he gets when he sees Will's "corpse" at the lake. El, Lucas, and Dustin all stay at the quarry, and Mike has an emotional meltdown and bikes home crying and hugs his mom. In this way, the show is suggesting from s1 that Will is special to Mike in a way that is different from how Mike views/treats Lucas and Dustin. But the thing is, we assume that Mike's perspective is only highlighted BECAUSE he's the protagonist/character of focus and not because his relationship with Will is unique and something we should be paying attention to.

I fully believe that if Mike and Will had been together in s1 the way they are in s2 and if we'd seen the way Mike acts around Will in s2 from the very beginning, then Byler would have been a lot more obvious, and I think we would've been able to recognize from the very beginning that Mike and Will are gay and that their relationship is building up to a romance. But because we only see Mike's care and affection for Will in light of Will's absence in s1, we can't connect those dots and recognize the love they have for each other. Also, we are introduced to El right after Will gets taken, and Mike spends all season with El, developing a relationship with her: a relationship that for all intents and purposes holds the appearance of a romance, even leading to a kiss. It's no wonder why the audience ships M*leven in the beginning instead of Byler, because all we have to go off of is Mike and El's close relationship and the high amount of screentime they spend together vs Mike and Will's one shared scene. We don't see Mike's sweetness and protectiveness over Will until season 2, but by that time, we have already had the expectation set for us that Mike and El are in love, so we never stop to consider that maybe the show is actually building up Byler. S2 is a direct reversal of Mike's relationships with El and Will in s1, with him looking for and missing El the way did with Will in s1, and sharing a lot of screentime/sweet moments with Will the way he did with El in s1. But because s1 already set the precedent that M*leven is romantic and Byler is platonic, we have no reason to assume that the roles are actually opposite from what we were initially shown.

The only reason Byler works the way it does is because 1. we are tricked into thinking that we are only shown how much Mike cares about Will because he is the protagonist and not because his relationship with Will is special, and 2. s1 builds up Mike and El's relationship while never properly showing us Mike and Will's relationship, only introducing the true prospect of Byler once we have already grown attached to Mike and El's relationship and the idea of Mike and El being in love. In s3, Mike and El date and make out all the while Mike and Will's relationship is rocky, so we have reason to believe that Mike is in love with/cares about El primarily and struggles in his friendship with Will because he is too focused on El. Even leading into s4, we assume that Mike and Will's friendship is still rocky bc Mike has been neglecting Will in favor of El and not because he's coming to terms with his feelings for Will and dealing with internalized homophobia. Yet, once Byler becomes canon and people go back and watch the show in light of it being canon, they will see that Will has always been special to Mike and that their relationship has always been highlighted as being noteworthy and different. We simply weren't able to recognize it from s1 because we never saw Mike and Will together: only how much Mike cared about Will while he was gone. And by the time their relationship turned blatantly romantic and special in s2, we still couldn't recognize it because of the expectation of M*leven. The writing for Byler is just so genius and well thought out even from the start.

[daysofyellowroses]

How about a short fic of David and Kerry hanging out? I just recently saw the iron claw and loved it!

oh my goodness i will absolutely write this, those two absolutely stole my heart so any chance to write them i will take 🫶🏻🌼💗

[snazzyjazzyazzy]

What’s your thoughts on these two?

I don’t talk about Hypnosis Mic enough on here but my god their dynamic is just- I love them so much 😭

[sourkreem]

birthday hangout!! they went to jasons favourite shitty diner afterwards :)

not him eating a very sugary burger fondant cake

[fuckoffwade]

"Say that again, bub?"

Muscle anatomy is my downfall! I have to relearn everything all over again if I want to draw my baby boy.

[amid-fandoms]

smooch 💋

[sakuraharukaaa]

ever seen a boy so cute that even his fingertips are blushing???

[cherrylymeaid]

Painting practice!

[riicekernel]

[ladykyriaa]

Actually yknow what sit down.

Im not done talking about how the animation team deliberately put THIS SCENE

Into the OP

Out of all the scenes (yes even the frog scenes) this is honestly my favourite because of how raw and vulnerable it looks

How they're always visualizing Maomao as Jinshi's source of light to his otherwise bleak life.

Look at this tiny little baby and tell me he doesn't deserve all the good things coming his way.

He YEARNS for her.

That's not the only thing though. Considering how he grew up, there's probably a part of him that's always scared that she's going to somehow be taken away from him

That's probably how jinshi actually feels with Maomao. Comfortable that he's able to show the not so perfect eunuch that everyone knows him as, but a child who's barely grown up and anxious that his favourite is going to be taken away again. So YES THIS SCENE MEANS A LOT TO ME

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 296

Through a series of miscommunication, the League is now under the impression that Batman, strange cryptid that he is, may or may not have given birth to the other vigilantes running around in Gotham. This was not helped by Bruce referring to all of his children, no matter how big they get, as his babies. Nor was it helped by Red Robin, in the middle of a narcolepsy-fueled imminent crash, mentioned how he had no mother. 

It also doesn’t help that no one is aware that they are in fact completely normal people, and not aspects of Gotham itself brought to life. Though really that’s on the bats themselves, because at this point they should at least count as undead. 

[aurantiumred]

jason should be allowed to nibble on his friends. he's just a little guy starting to unmask. chomp! he doesn't bite hard enough to draw blood or hurt don't worry. he also has stupidly sharp teeth.

he's like a dog he gets random moments with uncontrollable amounts of energy and before he just paced and now he runs circles in the backyard at full speed. leo made the fence rounded so he doesn't bang into it and hurt himself while bounding from one end to another. jason zoomies.

[cheesecakeyuri]

Boop the boy

[zonky-zara]

Unpopular opinion: Hama isn't a twink. He's average sized. His dad and brother are just fucking huge.

[jinikaris]

hyunlix dominATE tour moments | BULACAN ★ 75 // -

⤷ holding hands and water shenanigans during final greeting ©

[phantom-peachie]

something something bby girl posting 🫡