No Guys There’s Gonna Be Several S1 Flashbacks, We’ll See Mike Crying, Miwi + Jonathan Scene, What

canon gay rep: i like a boy b-but ... i'm a boy!! eek!

queerbaiting: du weißt ich würde für dich bis ans ende der welt gehen. / ich hab dich vermisst. / ich kann aber besser schlafen, wenn ich weiß, dass dir nichts passiert. / aber wenn's schief läuft, dann bist du da. / wenn man etwas liebt, dann kommt man zurück. / wir brauchen dich hier. / ich bin da. ich war immer da. / wir. / wenn irgendeiner auch nur laut hustet, dann komm ich da rein. verstanden? / das hier ist aber nicht normalerweise.

Keith is not a hissy black cat, he is a grumpy young pup/wolf that will bark and growl if you get close but once you gain his trust he will follow you to the end of the universe and protect you from everything

Lance is not a golden retriever, he is siamese cat, he is outgoing, a bit vain and talkative but also highly judgmental and can get grumpy and hissy if he doesn't like you

(x)

"live every day like it's your last": scary. weirdly foreboding. not a good thought process if you get anxious easily. stressful. so much pressure that it loops back around to making you do nothing. "live every day like it's your FIRST": everything becomes fascinating. renews the excitement of discovering things for the first time again. makes you feel like exploring stuff. #mywisdom

miwi headcanons!!!

- we're always talking about miwi being cute (and they were!!) but i bet they were also those really weird kids that ate grass, sand and leaves

- mike would totally be grabbing random bugs and will would be kinda grossed out but also interested in it

- they would play pretend of the weirdest things like mike would play as a rock and will would be a little lizard

- will used to make little doodles all over mike's face and one time he mistakenly used a permanent pencil so they had to scrub at mike's face for a hour to get the ink out and even then there were still some doodles there the next day

- they used to have a little code that they've created that only the two of them knew about and sometimes their moms would find these little notes with cryptid symbols on them and would be very confused about it

- mike always shared everything he was eating with will, going from normal things to share like snacks to unhinged things like lollipops. once nancy caught them sharing a lollipop and was very grossed out by it, she went on a rant about all the germs they were sharing but they didn't care about it

- when will was at mike's house for sleepovers, sometimes they would sneakily get karen's cheesy romance novels to read because they thought it was super funny and embarrassing. they would keep quoting lines from the book to each other and lucas and dustin were always like....wth are those two on?🤨

- mike would get the weirdest things he could find to castle byers and they would look at them throughout the whole day in will's microscope, sometimes he would go out of his way to grab this one specific thing that he thought will would like to look at and he wouldn't stop bothering everyone who was around until he got it

- and obviously they were very touchy feely with each other and they would often find excuses to keep doing that, so one time they were having a sleepover and mike suddenly realized that he didn't have another sleeping bag so now unfortunately will would have to share with him :/ lucas was like...you know he can just sleep on couch right.?🤨 and mike went on this rant about all the negative points of will sleeping on the couch until everyone just gave up and let them do their thing

so wait you know when in episode 7 charles starts to see what's actually in hell after he and edwin start running for it and edwin says "you have to experience hell to see what's really there" does that mean that charles' personal hell was seeing edwin helpless and in pain and scared and unable to get away from a giant spider made of baby doll heads? does it? interesting 🕵️‍♀️

Canon Remus was not a hardened orphan living in a group home. He was a chronically ill child raised by loving parents that were willing to FIGHT DUMBLEDORE to protect him. (Literally, Lyall DILF Lupin thought he was coming to take Remus away when Dumbledore personally delivered Remus' Hogwarts Letter)

So no, Remus was not a smooth-talking 7-ft-tall Casanova badass sex God with rippling muscles. He had zero friends before attending Hogwarts due to the fact that his loving parents kept him isolated out of fear that their son's Lycanthropy would be discovered, which would have ruined his life.

Canon Remus was most likely a timid, awkward, sheltered kid that was afraid of his own shadow because Hogwarts would be such an overwhelming experience for a little boy that has never interacted with another child in his LIFE and probably never even left his own home before. I imagine that books were his only connection to the outside world, which is why I can't stand the HC that he is completely illiterate when he first arrives at Hogwarts

tldr, Remus Lupin is the love of my life and is one of the few Marauders era characters with an actual backstory and personality, but this fandom just refuses to move on from a singular fic that completely rewrote everything about him.

And I'm not even going to start on how the Alpha Male-ification of Remus has also resulted in the complete assassination of Sirius' character for the sake of internalized heteronormativity that runs rampant in this fandom.

there's just something about talking to a man, mentioning the Barbie movie. Because you talk about it, excited, and he says it's stupid, it's bullshit and then you ask him why and he just shrugs. Like have you seen it? no. Have you seen the trailer? no. Do you know what it's about? No. It doesn't matter, he is set on the fact it's bullshit becuase it's pink, it's girly, it's about dolls. Like suddenly you're a little girl again who tried to hate everything associated with girls and girlhood because it was stupid and ridiculed and you didn't want to be made fun of.

what if I was slowly dying of internal bleeding and hypothermia and you stayed with me and read to me. Because you know I'm dying and you don't want me to be alone and scared (like you were). And what if I chose You, instead of heaven?

So what are Will's flaws?

Is Will totally perfect in every way? Is he a jealous saboteur? Or a secret third option... neither. Let's discuss Will's flaws and nuances!

1. Emotional suppression

Will avoids his problems. He hates talking about both his emotional and physical danger because he doesn't want to be treated differently. From a young age, he was taught by Lonnie that he shouldn't express his emotions because that makes him "sensitive" and "weak." So now he likes to hide.

This emotional suppression causes his feelings to worsen over time. Once he finally lets it out, he explodes. Instead of healthy conversations, he says and does things that he'll probably regret later. He blows up at Mike, he yells at Jonathan, he destroys Castle Byers, he shows his hand (what about us?)

Will's avoidance doesn't only have consequences on him, but others. If he had told someone he was feeling the Mind Flayer earlier, they might've been able to save some of the Flayed. But he couldn't tell someone because that puts him in a place of emotional vulnerability. That's exactly why he waited until after he fought with the boys to mention the supernatural. He traded one vulnerable situation for another, allowing him to avoid opening up about his true feelings. It was a distraction.

This also doesn't let others to heal from their altercations. Both Lucas and Mike try to apologize to Will, but he brushes them off. Will thinks he doesn't deserve consideration. The walls he puts up forces others to hold onto their own guilt, leaving a sore spot in their relationship. We can see this soreness in Will and Mike's relationship in s4. They never healed from the rain fight. Well... not that Mike tried to apologize after the Mind Flayer debacle. Again, distraction on Will's part.

Will’s inability to handle change is also due to him bottling up his feelings. His trauma and suppression makes him stuck in the past. He doesn’t let himself move through each day where these emotions would be felt.

It's interesting how Will is deemed the emotional one when his sensitivity is actually a result of him keeping his emotions in. Once that dam is opened, it's hard for him to stop. He breaks, just as he fears.

2. Self-hatred

And all that emotional suppression leads to Will internalizing other people's view of him. Will's self-hatred stems from bullying and his father's abuse. He thinks he's to blame, that he's a mistake. As more people distance themselves from Will, he believes there's something wrong with him.

When he thinks he deserves mistreatment, his relationships crumble more. They're unable to reconcile. True forgiveness can't be achieved if he doesn't think he should be apologized to in the first place.

Will's hatred is the reason why he tried to sacrifice himself in s2 to save his friends. He doesn't think he deserves to be saved. This makes him an easy target for Vecna. It's very likely that Will's self-hatred will factor into his upcoming supernatural plot.

The more Will hates himself, the more he hides, the more he suppresses his emotions.

3. People pleaser

If Will is anything, he's a people pleaser. He's selfless. So much so that this is the first thing we find out about him. While admirable, it actually leads to more bad than good. His people pleasing tendency goes hand in hand with his emotional suppression. Will doesn't like to take up space and inconvenience other people.

Will's never ending effort to please others leads to him making assumptions. Wrong assumptions. Whether it be letting Max join them on Halloween or pushing Mike to give a love confession, Will tries his best to use his mediator role to give people what they want.

But he doesn't know what they want, does he? Will wanted to make Dustin and Lucas happy, but this created a rift with Mike. He thought Mike was itching to profess his love for El, but that wasn’t what either of them needed. In an attempt to help, he's making it worse.

He must be successful sometimes, though, because there's an expectation from his friends that he'll fulfill their needs at the flick of a wand. This vacancy from Will makes him a pushover. They think they can make fun of him and he'll just take it because that's what he does. When Will finally stands up for himself, they're shocked. That's out of character for him. It's like they want to say: “Why isn't he letting us be mean to him? :(”

Mike even expected Will to tell him that his own girlfriend was being bullied. Will's people pleasing explodes in his face. So now when he's unable to read their needs and fix it for them, he's to blame. Will takes on the weight of their problems too much. While it's good that they rely on him, there shouldn't be pressure for him to judge their every whim. But it's not exactly their fault because Will set the stage for this behavior.

Weirdly, Will's need to please others is the reason why he didn't call Mike. He thought Mike wanted nothing to do with him, so he didn't reach out. There he goes assuming things again! But Will was there, waiting for the rare occasion where Mike did want him. He went so far right that he ended up left.

Will's behavior towards El is also an instance of wrong assumptions. Will didn't like being treated differently in s2, so he assumed El would feel the same way. He used his own experiences to inform how he should treat others. Babying El would make her feel more ostracized. Instead, he offered emotional comfort, similar to the comfort he received, after the bullying. This doesn't really help her because she doesn't have the same emotional mechanics as Will.

So Will assumes things, pushes his own wants down, and lets people walk all over him all in the name of being pleasant.

4. Freeze, fly, fight. In that order!

When Will is scared, he freezes. This flaw is so significant that they talked about it textually multiple times. I'm not sure I would consider it a flaw since it has saved him more than it's harmed him, though.

The few times Will has decided to fight instead of freeze, he was kidnapped and possessed. Confrontation isn't an option for him. His body believes he'll be put directly in danger if he does anything but freeze/fly. Fight is only used as a last resort.

It only really enters flaw territory when it's an inconvenience. He froze during the sauna test, when El was being bullied, and when he should've shot the creature in the shed. Will is unable to help himself and others when he's scared.

When he snaps out of it, he cries and feels guilty for being so hesitant. He wishes he could do more but he can't. This wraps back around to his self-hatred.

5. Jealousy

When his best friend of 10 years that he's in love with starts to ditch him for some random girl, it's not shocking that there would be some jealousy! Will is the silent jealous type. His jealousy doesn't really manifest into resentment or outward action against the other person. Unlike a certain someone...

Will only shows it through rolling eyes, a snarky comment here or there, or an outburst at his most emotionally vulnerable. I mean, if Will really wanted to see El crash and burn, he could've kept his mouth shut the entire Rink-O-Mania day. Or he could've ignored her in the courtyard as she picks up the pieces of her project. But he didn't.

The worst we've seen Will's jealousy was during the rain fight. He called El stupid. There's no beating around the bush, he was in the wrong for that. But this came out of Will because his emotions were at an all time high. Why? Emotional suppression!

A lot of Will's snarky comments towards El are out of genuine confusion. He doesn't understand how El can have exactly what he wants, but she's willing to ruin it by lying. Unfortunately, he later learns that exact lesson. He's envious that she can do what Mike hates without major repercussions, while he's somehow blamed for her lies. And why does he get blamed? People pleaser expectations!

Will waited until a quiet moment to inform El of her mistakes. Will's goal isn't to humiliate El. He doesn't let his jealousy lead to resentment. Instead, he tried to (snarkily) lead her to make better decisions because it's not fair! It's not fair that she can have it all without working for it!

And now we're back at self-hatred. Some of his jealous moments make it bubble back up. He bends his painting, something he put his blood, sweat, and tears into, because he isn't enough for them. Their ideal day is without him. Will's art is an extension of himself. He's aiming his anger back at himself by hurting his art.

All of his flaws connect back to his low self-esteem in some way. This is why it's important for Will to receive and accept love in his life. A big part of his arc is self acceptance.

So there it is in all its glory! All of Will's main flaws in one post. What did we learn? Will suppresses his emotions, hates himself, pleases others to a fault, freezes, and is green with envy. And he wouldn't be Will without 'em!