#<- cause every will post is a byler post inherently

[rotisseries]

everyone is always saying modern au will would listen to this or that artist who is not in his usual genre just because he would relate to the lyrics and this is of course not at all how music taste works but if it was will would actually listen to midwest emo. because every song is about how much your shitty hometown fucking sucks

[weirdo09]

i’d like to talk about erica sinclair, i hate how people love to put her into a stereotype and say that “oh she’s such a harmful character!” while she’s definitely not perfect (capitalism loving 10 year old) she like every other ‘sassy’ and ‘rude’ black girl character, i saw myself in because i couldn’t be myself, i couldn’t be ‘sassy’ or have attitude for obvious reasons. seeing her be everything i wasn’t allowed to be was comforting, it was nice to see her be herself without the fear.

but ofc y’all love to point out stereotypes and what nots before actually getting to know and analyzing a character. like lucas, y’all say he’s also a stereotype because he plays basketball like that doesn’t make sense. just because black men are mostly seen in sports like basketball doesn’t make him a stereotype for playing it. that’s like saying a blonde girl who has blonde hair is a stereotype because she’s blonde, dumb ain’t it? it’s supposed to be.

i love erica and her character but the fact that y’all would love to hate her before even diving into her character or making headcanons and being like fandom is and making fanon is really upsetting to me. i know the reason, it’s racism, y’all did the same thing with lucas and harassed caleb for playing lucas so it’s not new. but that doesn’t make it any less upsetting.

i feel like that’s the thing when i talk about racism, y’all are so used to pointing shit out and ‘taking down’ the internet trolls that y’all don’t seem to notice why your causes are inherently bad. ya just wanna be like everybody else and fight for what ya think is right. but again, i love erica and i love lucas and the way some of y’all treated and continue to treat them is really heartbreaking as a black kid. like using them for your ships like byler, harringrove and plenty others. y’all only like lucas because of his relationship with max and y’all only like erica because she’s a ‘snarky’ 11 year old who can run her mouth.

moral of this post is the sinclairs were one of the first black families i seen that weren’t dysfunctional nor carried out the stereotypes y’all set on black families like we’re always loud, there’s a bunch of kids, the kids don’t have manners, they’re messy dirty blah blah blah. seeing them made me feel happy, really, i feel like most of y’all can’t enjoy representation until it’s exactly like your life or perfect in every way.

[themikewheelers]

So..have you noticed how it's become sort of like a trend to call mileven "toxic". I know you've talked about this before but I've seen it so much since then. People jumping on the "bash mileven" wagon. Most of them are byler (not all) shippers, and they always end their argument w/ "Mike should be with Will!!" Even some freaking "madwheeler" shippers.. lol what?? Sorry for ranting but it's just been annoying me greatly.

I’m gonna be honest I don’t really like talking about this stuff because it makes me uncomfortable, so if ideally people could not send a bunch of asks in response to this that’d be great lol, but here’s just the main arguments I always see for why Mileven is toxic and why they make no sense 

1. “Eleven isn’t ready for a relationship after everything she’s been through.”

This one is absolutely a valid concern for their relationship. Mike and Eleven both are extremely traumatized, so of course that raises the question whether they’re both ready to handle a relationship. However, as of the canon show and what we’ve seen so far, there’s been nothing that shows or implies that their mental health is causing any problems in their relationship, or that their relationship is causing any problems for their mental health. Of course it’s a potential problem that could arise for them, but nothing that has happened in the show implies it and it’s not something that inherently will happen. There’s many mentally ill people in the world who feel like their illness limits their ability to hold a healthy relationship, but there’s also mentally ill people who are still capable of healthy relationships. For some mentally ill people, their relationships are actually really good for them and their health. Making generalizations that it’s impossible for either of them to handle a relationship after the things they’ve been through is not only false, but offensive to mentally ill people and trauma survivors. 

This argument also, in my experience, goes hand in hand with people infantilizing El. They treat her as a toddler who doesn’t have any emotional maturity after the lab. I will just say this, we know next to nothing about what happened to El in the lab. She had a very sheltered life and as a result has many gaps in knowledge, but she also had 12 years worth of experiences in there she matured through. We don’t know exactly what happened to her, but she wasn’t just staring at a wall sucking her thumb for years. She is a very mature person for her age and she is not a toddler just because she doesn’t have the education most people her age do. We don’t know what happened to El in the lab, and we can’t make assumptions about it to try and prove a point. 

2. “Jealousy makes for an unhealthily relationship”

Possessiveness is a sign of a toxic relationship. Excessive jealousy is a sign of a toxic relationship. Regular jealousy, however, is not. Every person on the planet gets jealous sometimes, in fact it’s a very healthy emotion in small doses, and at some point in every relationship jealousy will surface, whether small or large, because it is a natural unavoidable emotion. Eleven is a very insecure person, and after being separated from Mike for a year, she comes back to see him talking and laughing with another girl. I don’t think that kind of jealousy is a sign of a toxic relationship, I think that’s a pretty normal reaction from her and a lot of people would have felt the same. If that kind of jealousy became super prevalent or excessive or in any way became an influential part of their relationship, that would be toxic, but as of right now it’s nothing more than a one-time occurrence of a 13 year old girl feeling insecure as a normal reaction to her circumstances.  

Also, I would make the argument that Eleven’s jealousy over Max isn’t purely romantic jealousy over Mike, but I discussed that more here

3. “Their relationship is too intense/dramatic.”

Mike and Eleven’s relationship, at least from what we’ve seen so far, is 100% very intense and dramatic. But that’s not exactly a toxic thing because there’s context behind it. In almost every single interaction we’ve seen them have, they’ve been plunged into various life-or-death situations where everything is intense. When you’re in that kind of high-stress situation, all emotions become more intense. So yes, when you look at Mike and El, during all the times they’ve almost died or lost each other, they’ve been very dramatic about their feelings. Dramatic emotions for a dramatic situation. But if you look at the times they’ve interacted where there is no dangerous life-or-death situation going on, they really are not that intense. Look at the Snow Ball, that’s one of the only scenes we get where the kids are in a normal, casual situation, and in it Mike and El are acting just like any other relationship between 13 year olds.  Obviously if the two of them were all “I can’t lose you again” or “I never gave up on you” in a casual everyday basis, that would be weirdly intense, but there’s nothing unhealthy about acting emotional in an emotional situation. 

4. “They’re too clingy/attached/dependent and being separated caused Mike to go into a bad place”

This one kind of goes along with the last one, but it all comes down to the context. Yes, when Mike and El were separated it really messed them both up a lot, but I wouldn’t say that’s toxic because it makes sense for their situation. From El’s perspective, she’s been in total isolation for almost a year. She hasn’t been able to leave a small 2-room cabin in the woods for months, only interacting with one other person, who’s gone most days anyway. Of course it starts to drive her a little up the wall, and of course she’s going to miss her best friend. Then from Mike’s perspective, he thought El was dead. In fact, he thought he watched her die. Grief really messed him up in season 2. It didn’t help that he didn’t even know if she was actually dead or not, and that obscurity is what led to him doing stuff like calling out for her just in case she was alive. Mike was absolutely a mess in s2, but that wasn’t because El was gone, it was because he was in grief over the fact that she was presumed dead. Those are not the same things. If going into grief when someone you care about dies means you’re dependent on them, then sure, Mike is dependent on El. And honestly, I’d make the argument that Mike’s depression in season 2 was not solely a result of losing El. It was also a result of a lot of trauma, along with the stress of having to keep it a secret and therefore not being able to process it. 

Again, context is important. El didn’t just hop on a bus and go, “Bye Mike I’ll see you in a year!” She literally exploded in front of him, and then had to go into total isolation for months and months. If in future seasons when things return to a more casual and normal setting Mike and El are still super clingy and attached, then that would be a cause for concern, but them acting that way in the context of s2? 100% normal (and healthy)

Mike and El’s relationship, at least from what we’ve seen now, is not toxic. Maybe in the future it will become unhealthy, but there is the potential for that in all relationships on the planet. No relationship is 100% perfect and they all have the potential for problems because people themselves are not perfect, and everyone has their rough edges that can cause problems when trying to form a life with someone, there’s not such thing as two people being a “perfect fit.” But that is not the same thing as toxic. Nothing in Mike and El’s present relationship has shown that they are in anyway unhealthy or damaging to each other. Arguments like this do nothing but belittle actual toxic relationships. Posts about it really are nothing but parts of petty “ship wars” or people feeling threatened that a ship they dislike is popular, but there’s lines not to cross, and throwing around labels like that meaninglessly crosses them. 

But on a more positive note I’ll just say this. Mike and Eleven’s relationship has been built on three key factors: commitment, honesty, and loyalty. They’ve been shown to be completely supportive of one another and want nothing but to ensure the other’s safety and happiness. Beyond just having good chemistry, the two of them have demonstrated having a surprisingly healthy and mature relationship for their age through their dedication to one another.