Ryers

Ryers
Art by @inveinity
GENERAL
Stranger Things
IT
Character	Richie Tozier
Character	Will Byers
Canonical?	Fanon
Status of Relationship	Never met (do not exist within same universe)
IN FANDOM
Type (?)	Slash
Also Known As	Trashy Zombie, R+W
Tropes	• Crossover Ship

2

Ryers is the slash ship between Will Byers from the Stranger Things fandom and Richie Tozier from the IT fandom.

Canon

Will and Richie are not from the same media, so they've never interacted in their original material and definitely never will. Still, this ship appeared due to their similarities and others reasons. The most famous motive of why people even considered this as a ship is because of the fact that Will is canonically in love with Mike Wheeler, who's played by Finn Wolfhard. Coincidentally, Finn also plays Richie Tozier, a character who has somewhat a lot in common with Will, and because of the fact that some people think Will's crush on Mike is not reciprocated, people like to ship him with Richie instead, someone who would "treat him better."

Richie and Will are both kids who lived in the 80s. They were confirmed as canonically gay (fueling even more this ship for being a slash) and had their struggles pointed out in their respective media: both of them are bullied for being "obviously gay". They're also called different names: Zombie Boy (by his bullies) for Will, and Trash Mouth (by The Losers Club) for Richie. Both of them are considered nerds, Richie liking to spend time in the arcade and Will having the exact same hobby as shown in season two. Overall, they're gay bullied nerdy kids struggling loving their best friend and all of these similarities could be points they could easily bond over.

Fanon

Ryers is the biggest crossover ship in both IT and Stranger Things fandom, having 85+ fanfics on AO3 and a lot of fanarts on Tumblr and Twitter. It's often interpreted that Richie would have a crush on Will first and make him flushed most of the times with his flirty jokes, in a time where Will is frustated over Mike and is just done with him, finding a new love with Richie, someone physically identical to him. Eddie, Richie's canon love interest, is mostly not mentioned or glossed over as just a silly crush.

Its biggests rivals is definitely their ships with the people they fell in love with in canon, in Richie's side it's Reddie, and in Will's Byler. Even other small slash ships with them always defeats Ryers in popularity, like Stozier or Byclair. Richie is not the only one of the Finn Wolfhard characters to be shipped with Will, them being considered as "Mike variants" so Will gets everything he wants in a literal sense. In Ryers fanworks, Richie and Mike are sometimes even depicted as twins or cousins.

When platonic, in fanworks Richie likes to make Mike jealous of Will for both Will's sake (trying to matchmake them) and his own entertainment. Will also always finds Richie's humor hilarious, in contrast to Eddie who gets easily annoyed over them. They're sometimes associated with the meme "steal your girlfriend", since Will is in love with Mike and in most fanworks Richie would just show up somehow and make Will get head over heels for him instead.

Fandom

FAN FICTION

Will/Richie tag on AO3

Will & Richie tag on AO3

TUMBLR

Will x Richie tag on Tumblr

Ryers tag on Tumblr

WIKIS

Will Byers/Richie Tozier on Fanlore

Trivia

• They're both 13 at certain point in their series. Richie is 13 in Chapter One, and Will is 13 in season three.

Gallery

All art in this section is fan made, and must be sourced back to the original artist. It also must have permission from the original artist to be posted here. If your art is here without your permission and you wish to have it taken down, please inform an admin, so that we may delete it.

Art by @purplepakwan