The Three Laws Of Fandom

will doing little hops when he’s excited to meet his friends is the only good thing in this world btw. i can’t make gifs but he does it when meeting up with the og party (specifically lucas, who returns the hops) in episode 2 for trick or treating and he does it when running up to greet mike at the airport

How the stranger things kids polycule works:

(+ we can add max to the will byers' boyfriends gang if we headcanon them as non-binary)

I want Will to complete his journey down the Ben Pincus pipeline… mild mannered gay previously dismissed by his friends and bullied gets constantly hunted by monsters until he becomes a survivalist king and unhinged pyromaniac

mike “my boy’s mad at me. i hope i die” wheeler

vs

lucas “me and my girl don’t fight. she tells me shut up and i do.” sinclair

Mike looks up to Will. Literally, and most of the time?? I looked through seasons 2-4 and this happens during most of their scenes together. Mike, who's several inches taller than Will, somehow always arranges himself to look at Will from a lower angle, or at almost equal height.

The boy has bad posture in an effort to... what? To be able to see Will's face better? To make sure Will knows that Mike doesn't figuratively look down on him, doesn't baby him? To make sure Will knows they're equals? To close the distance between them? To not seem bigger or taller than Will? To make sure Will knows he's seen and understood? All of the above?

Mike leans down to look Will in the face:

And he sits down so he can be on Will's level or look at Will from below:

Notably for the above pictures from the hospital in s2, we see that Will and Mike look fairly level in the second picture, but in the first, it's shot so that Mike is looking from such a lower angle. So this seems to be intentional.

Here are some of Mike and El to compare. Mike has much straighter posture in scenes with El, leaving him taller, further away from El, resulting in him not looking El in the face as often. We see this exacerbated in s4, as Mike is even taller, the distance is further, and he also isn't looking at El much with good eye contact or without sunglasses or the sensory deprivation glasses. When seeing Will and Mike at the same height, it feels like an equal relationship, but seeing Mike towering over El makes their relationship feel less equal. He's not looking her in the face as often in an effort to understand her.

We see a lot of Mike and Lucas together in s3, and Mike also stands fairly tall compared to Lucas in their shots together, making any height difference obvious. In the picture set below, we see that, but also some side by sides of how Mike stands when talking with Lucas, and then how Mike talks with Will just seconds later. You can see how different it is: Mike adjusts for the height difference with Will in a way we don't see him do for anyone else.

So I don't think it's just that Finn Wolfhard is too tall and he's made to lean over to make it easier to film multiple people of varying heights. It's a Mike and Will thing.

Another couple comparisons:

The rain fight: Mike stands taller in their rain fight at the beginning when he's on the defensive, but he gets lower and closer to Will the further into the fight they get, when they're saying the more important things to each other.

The phone booth: We can also see Mike bending over to look at Will in the phone booth, but standing straight and further away when Jonathan is listening to the phone.

The movie theater: when they're first sitting down in the theater, maybe when people are still looking at them, Mike sits tall, but he sits lower once the movie has started and he wants to talk with Will.

On that note, Mike stands taller around Will when in public or around others he doesn't feel as comfortable around. This might be to hide aspects of his relationship with Will, or to be protective towards Will. I didn't include these shots, but Mike also stands tall when protecting Will from Dart in s2, when he's with Will in the field after Will is possesed in s2, and in the gunfight in s4.

But one on one with Will, talking with Will, listening to Will, having heart to hearts with Will, he scrunches his back so much so that he can be at equal height or lower than Will to look Will in the face or to look up to him.

They hired Noah and Finn knowing that Noah was younger and shorter, so I don't think they meant for Will to be a taller character.

This is just their dynamic. Mike is the tall one but he wants Will to be able to feel like the tall one.

isn't strange that will knew how to use this type of gun but jonathan didn't? we know their father taught them. or jonathan was hesitating to answer because he has a trauma from when lonnie forced him to kill a bunny? i have another theory, it's probably not true because their father is an asshole and i doubt he cared that much. but we also know that lonnie suspected that will is gay and called him slurs, so maybe he only taught will so he can protect himself in case of a hate crime? i don't really believe in this, but like it's a possibility. either way it's sad.

Manifesting them as the “defeat Vecna” trio next season bc they’ve all been affected by the upside down & have a connection to Vecna PLEASE I NEED IT

It always got me how, right from the beginning, Will is depicted as doing exactly the right thing. The thing that you would usually be yelling at the screen for the characters to do when they're being stupid:

He's honest, he abandons his bike and runs, he locks the door and puts the chain on, he immediately yells for his mom and Jonathan, he phones 911, and when all else fails, at the age of fucking twelve, he grabs a gun to defend himself. And despite all that, he never stood a chance. We're supposed to root for him. It makes it that much more satisfying when he's saved in the end.

Similarly, in s4 Will is shown to do everything right to help his sister and his best friend. He supports El at school, he argues with her about being honest with her boyfriend, he fights to see her when she gets arrested, spends an entire season looking for her while acting as their relationship counsellor, and when all else fails, he gives his love confession that he'd been holding in for years as hers, because he cares more about seeing them happy than himself. Will resigns himself to suffering in silence for the sake of the people he loves, he thinks he never stood a chance because he feels like he's alone, he feels like a mistake and WE ARE MEANT TO ROOT FOR HIM.

All in all, I think this is just another beautiful way they've set up byler endgame. That mirrored catharsis of Will doing the right thing, only to go through so much undeserved pain, before he can finally live and get what he deserves, will be so very worth it and will make for a great main character arc :')

What a loving family

canon btw. if you even care