The documentary makes it all worse cuz y’all… we were SO close.
Like what do you mean WILL was originally going to have that entire mindflayer confrontation? That he’d be bleeding out? That Joyce was going to go with Hopper, El, and Kali?
Mike would end up being there with Will, getting him out of a mindflayer trance. We would’ve gotten byler.
But because they were too big of cowards to make a gay ship canon, they had to ruin the entire supernatural plot of the show and all possible The First Shadow parallels.
So instead they made El sacrifice herself after all of her suffering, never giving her independence or lasting familial and platonic love.
They made Mike useless.
They made Will sympathize with his abuser and watch by instead of getting to take him and the mindflayer down himself, the thing haunting him since he was a child. I needed to see Will kill his abuser so bad and stand alongside El to destroy it all.
We could’ve had it all.
Fuck the duffers, man. Divorcegate gets more and more real every day. Petition to have her make her own version of s5 please !!
lmao they really used ChatGPT to help them write Stronger Things finale??????😭
the way will is never going to tell mike the painting wasn’t commissioned by el, not now, not when she’s dead, not when mike is clinging to that lie like it’s the last intact piece of her he has left. and the thing that makes me want to throw my film degree at the wall is that will is doing what he’s always done: putting el above his own feelings. even now. even when it costs him the one moment where he could’ve finally been honest. even when the truth would free him. he still chooses her. he still protects her memory over his own heart.
and narratively? it’s a mess. it makes no structural sense. it doesn’t protect mike, it doesn’t honour el, and it absolutely annihilates will’s emotional arc. all it does is make the van scene, already one of the most emotionally loaded moments of the seasons, feel even crueller. because now we’re watching will pour out his soul under the guise of a request that never existed, for a girl who never asked, and who is now gone. the emotional labour he did in that scene becomes even more invisible, even more uncredited, even more narratively punished. it’s like the writers looked at the most thematically potent moment of the seasons and said, “what if we made this hurt in a way that doesn’t even mean anything.”
it’s bad storytelling. it’s character driven cruelty with no thematic payoff. it undermines will, it flattens mike, and it turns el into a narrative shield instead of a character. and honestly, this really was our paintinggate, a whole subplot built on a lie the show refuses to interrogate, leaving the audience to do the emotional heavy lifting the writers didn’t bother to attempt.
mike being obsessed with everything that will draws/ paints is so funny because imagine after season 2, when the byers take down all the tunnel drawings, mike just steals like 50 of them for himself
later on when they're together, mike admits to will that he has a binder of his drawings - will's all like :}} omg so romantic so they go through the binder together but then will sees all the drawings of the tunnels and he's like "mike wtf is wrong with you why are u so obsessed with me"
i keep remembering random lines and shots from the show and being like. well WHAT was that for then
I rebuke Mike's epilogue haircut. Bonus points if u spot the reference
modern!will byers posting this on his instagram story with no context and mike stays up for 3 hours overthinking it
will byers and the truth like a blanket that always leaves his feet cold
the smiths / ethel cain / kazuo ishiguro / michael cunningham / jenny han / june gehringer
"I don't like girls" and the camera zooms in on Mike and Mike only.
"I mean I do, just, not in the way you guys do" and it zooms in on Lucas and Dustin with Mike out of focus.
“I don’t like girls” and
the camera zooms in on
Mike and Mike only.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
haiku bot now is not the time
question when people write post volume 2 fanfic are they ignoring that the duffers confirmed mike knew he was will’s crush, or do people not know? or a secret third option?
i love us for making up heacanons about how mike would look in the 90s and its all pretty sweaters and fluffy hair or alt looks n shit but realistically this is how mike looking when he shows up at will's doorstep
just in case you want to hear will's soft "mike" without all the annoying background noise :) also please pay attention to will's hand lingering on mike's shoulder.
i hate the bg music to this scene so thankyou dearly
one thing I have not seen talked about when it comes to Will's ending and future is: he should have a dog. he had a dog once and he lost it, suggesting he likes dogs, and therefore he should have one. it should be big and friendly and cuddly. it should often barge into will's in home art studio uninvited, messing up several of his sketches in his rush to lick will's face. it should be a reason will has to leave the house and go on long walks (the only exercise he enjoys). it should notice whenever will is having a bad nightmare about vecna and stick its cold nose against his cheek to wake him up. it should have a very nerdy name. please and thank you
im pissed and disgusted by the queerbait so
here is a masterpost on everything that doesnt make sense because byler isnt canon, plot holes that exist because byler isnt canon, all the ways mikes character was ruined by making him straight, AND how it was homophobic. i include explanations and categorize things by color coding! this includes scenes in the show, interviews, and posts from the stranger things team. (note: im not going to include things noah said-explained in tags)
warning, it’s very long because im including EVERYTHING. I found and listed 114 examples here. enjoy—or don’t.
as someone who literally studied this stuff, i’m sorry but why on earth would the duffers put mike and will’s first meeting on will’s memory tape if it wasn’t meant to mean something. that’s not a random choice. that’s not a cute callback. that’s the kind of moment you highlight when you’re saying “this relationship is the root system.”
and then making mike the first emotional touchstone on the tape? come on. that’s storytelling 101. you don’t give that kind of narrative priority to a relationship you plan to sideline later. you don’t build an entire visual motif around will’s interiority and then centre mike in it just for fun.
so why would they do all of that, the memory tape, the first meeting, the emotional framing, only to turn around in volume 2 and the finale and act like will and mike’s relationship suddenly doesn’t matter. it makes no damn sense. it’s not even about shipping at that point, it’s about basic narrative coherence. you don’t plant a flag that big and then pretend you didn’t.