So we can all just accept that they are absymally bad writers now, right? What's hard to believe is anyone let them *get away with it* but... wow. This is like... embarrassingly bad.

This is outrageous. Instead of their STARTING point being what impact did they want to have with El's story, it was "how do we toy with the audience"? How do we make it unexpected? How do set it up?

They lost the forest for the trees.

Irresponsible. And shows their flaws as writers because having the abused girl commit suicide to "break the cycle" was one of the worst decisions they could have made.

-teambyler

goth will goth will goth will we all say in unison

(referenced Angelx 🇵🇷’s (viktorbuttbootynaked) goth will cosplay on tiktok, go check him out !!!)

The hidden epilogue if you ask me(not finished :b)

this shot with the rainbow in the back is killing me. the queerness is haunting them

wait i just realized that the Mike's dorm room with that picture of that bi writer is only in his vision for the party which means he was invisioning a future where he could be free, be himself without feeling shame, where he could stop conforming to society, he probably looks up to that writer and relates to him and reads his books with tears in his eyes because he knows the writer is queer and hiding it and he can relate to it but he also wishes that one day he could be free

i have a little idea where mike writes a self-deprecating book about his feelings for will growing up and his guilt and loyalty to supporting el and how he dealt with the fact that will "moved on" and likened himself to a vampire and his insatiable hunger

but then johnathan, in the middle of his booming film career, takes the time to read it and is heartbroken by the "selfish and monstrous" way mike thinks of himself and adapts the book into a film with a new light. an outside perspective of the love that he himself saw unfold between two young boys in the midst of impossible circumstances all once again through the story telling of this "vampire".

except in the end the truth is, the vampire was never a villain to anyone but himself. and the vampire gets the happy ending he deserves.

btw this "poster" is literally nothing i envisioned and i kinda hate it but i spent too much time on this shit to scrap it SO

can't get over how much better stranger things 5 would be if I wrote it 🤭

See the "You always understood me" scene could've worked

If they actually showed Mike understanding Jane in the show rather than focusing on tearing Mileven down and emphasizing how Mike legit didn't understand her...

Or even if they used s5 to show him being a good boyfriend rather than just a friend and removed the "always"

But no they instead wrote a queer romance, failed to follow through, didn't make Mike follow up on his arc from the previous season by making Mike say noting back when Jane said "I love you" and then left Mike in the closet forcing the byler fans to drag him out themselves with fanfiction...

They should've written the scene completely differently, written their story differently (starting from s3), or straight up just made Jane talk to someone else in the void... LIKE MAX OR WILL

If they made Mileven cute and sweet and actually enjoyable to watch I would be a mileven shipper!!!

in shows and movies, when you decide to include an intentional shot depicting someone in harms way against their will, AND it is from the pov of a character so they know that this abuse is happening,

you cannot just gloss over that. there needs to be a discussion about saving them. this doesn’t mean they have to be rescued necessarily, but you have brought in this moral dilemma and you cannot just leave it dangling in front of the audience, never to be mentioned again.

so the children deserved to be saved, but not the abused pregnant women and their unborn children? they don’t even deserve a mention, or even a character acting conflicted over the decision to leave them there?

they were simply used as a plot device and shock factor. because it’s so cool and interesting to see dozens of dying pregnant women who are genuinely never seen again. they are depicted as vessels that don’t matter enough to take up screen time

just another instance of this show introducing a sensitive topic and then not treating it with the care it deserves

Foah is not cool guys. This is not good at all. I love Noah and Finn. But this will cause them to distance themselves from each other to stop rumors. Do you guys want that? This is messed up. I know Byler not being canon hurts. But this is not how you cope. GO TO AO3. That's how you cope. Leave actors and their friendships alone. Go read on what happened with Yibo and Xiao Zhan back in the day. This is how fandoms break apart.

Mike fumbled

A reason ST ending doesn't feel like one is that a lot of the characters choices seem motivated by fear rather than love.

Holly: we see her facing her fear and making a brave choice over and over. She find access to her inner strength thanks to Max. And yet she fails to escape. We're shown the fight is hopeless.

El's choice: she does it to avoid a terrible future she fears. It's portrayed as a choice she makes while feeling hopeless, it doesn't come from a place of strength. As a result it never feels like she's choosing to protect what she loves, but rather to end a situation with no way out for her.

Will: when he comes into his powers he's motivated by his love for his friends, his newfound inner strength, and by choosing to listen to Robin's voice rather than Vecna's. His coming out scene seems off coming after that: here he's motivated by his fears of what could happen if he keeps a secret, his sense of duty, and the hopelessness he feels after loosing the kids and being shown a vision by Vecna. It's brave but it doesn't come from self love and acceptance.

For both Will and El, there's seem to be a misplaced sense of selfsacrifice at play.

Mike: he wants to be brave and not have regrets yet in the end he's unable to say I love you (either to El or to Will) and end up with nothing but regrets.

Hopper: he's proven right in his fear of loosing another child

A hopeless end to a show that started about childhood and the power of friendship.

someone on insta said that mike and el didn't have their relationship developed enough to deserve purple rain as the bgm to that fuckass kiss, and i couldn't agree more. not with the absurd lack of chemistry between the two the entire season (and even the entire series). lol.

[looks to the duffers]

in front of you, there were three choices:

option one: kill yourself → go NOWHERE with the love triangle by making neither byler nor mileven canon. nobody is satisfied.

option two: accept your fate → let will move on from mike FROM S4 ONWARDS to avoid queerbaiting, and develop mike and el's relationship PROPERLY—with clear communication between the two and actual romantic gestures besides making out all the time.

option three: escape → don't be pussies, and make byler canon. you've spent over five seasons building up one ship (byler) while breaking down the other (mileven), and with mileven's relationship status being broken up at best and ambiguous at worst by the 18 month timeskip in S5E1 PLUS the entire signals + snowball/avalanche + self-acceptance combo arc will has been having in S5V1 SHOULD GO SOMEWHERE. it's basic writing; you start a plotpoint, you should see it through the end. simple as that.

and yet, despite all that, you somehow found a secret fourth option. by you completely disregarding all three of the involved characters' arcs.

how vile do you have to be to put these kids through the horrors, only to never give them the proper endings they deserve?

tldr: byler deserved purple rain more.

fuck you, duffer brothers. you ostracized and alienated the very audience you swore to protect. i sincerely hope you never make bank again, because clearly, you guys can't write for shit—not without a woman ghostwriting the entire show, and definitely not without the use of ai. fuck you.

There is a universe where Mi/even is a beautiful story about an abused girl finding herself and family, and then falling in love. A story where she realizes she does belong, despite the world telling her otherwise

There is also a universe out there where Byler was endgame, and we got some of the best queer representation on TV ever.

Unfortunately for us, we get the double kill misogynistic, homophobic ending. Yay.

I wrote this before the finale came out, but it ended up being very similar to #that scene, so I guess you can pretend this is a rewrite. With flirting as it should be.

‼️I NEED THE DUFFERS TO SEE THIS VIDEO AND THINK OF IT EVERYDAY ‼️