Reblogged
i know everyday i say im over it and everyday it turns out im a fucking liar but i just want to properly leave my thoughts somewhere so they’re not all floating around my head. so in no particular order:
1. byler
a. mike wheeler
mike was never my favourite character but he (and nancy! but that later) was always the one i related to the most, and not just because i love writing and storytelling. i mean heart on your sleeve until everyone else started to act like it was time to grow up, so you rapidly transform into what you thought was the most adult version of yourself you could possibly be? while trying to grasp onto the things that make up your identity that you have been time and time again belittled for? while the world is constantly shifting and changing around you from what you have always known and what your parents have always known into something far more sinister but your parents are not aware; worse, you are? who is incapable of saying “love” but nonetheless makes love very clear, assuming it’s true and not just wearing the expectations? constant and clear self endangerment under the belief that it will serve a purpose (which is usually helping your friends)? and i mean the most mike wheeler test of all: happy to be useful. bar the cinematography and allusions and grand gestures that may just be best friendship, it is the characterizations of will el and mike which drive me to consider byler, because mike needs to be needed. it is his driving force to be a leader and a safety net and a shield for his friends, and el needed him in the beginning. she needed anyone, really, to show her how society worked and how to live a normal life. but then she had hopper, and kali, and max, and even the byers. and she didn’t need him anymore, and mike didn’t know how to continue a relationship where he goes from being relied upon to being an object of affection. so he reverts to what he knows, which is his parents, and that goes as well as expected. and more on el: her arc is about finding herself, and independence, and autonomy, and romance is secondary to that. meaning, mike is secondary to that, and he has never been patient enough to accept being secondary for anything. bringing us to part
b. will byers
will was definitely my favourite character, and i did relate to him a lot: a reserved, sensitive kid who watched others around them run headfirst towards adulthood and thought, wait. we’re not savouring the time we have. it’ll go so soon why are you rushing it? a kid who always wanted love, but didn’t know how to ask for it. and ergo, the third point of the triangle. will needs someone who can understand what he went through. that’s why an epilogue bf would never make sense — will is NOT the type to explain his worst traumas to someone in order to seek comfort. probably nobody can understand exactly what he went through, but if there were anyone who could support him through the worst of it, it would be mike, who was his best friend and still a kid and yet never stopped looking for him, or el, who got him back. but el’s trauma is different. opposite, even: she was protected, and used, and stripped of identity, while will was hunted and violated, in part because of his identity. which leaves mike, who recognized his breathing, and sat by his bedside, and always made sure he was okay. and sure, it could be platonic. but again, will is looking for love. he is explicitly stated to want romance. and maybe it’s platonic, but from his actions and speech, until s5 vol 2, it’s clear mike loves will more than anyone else in the world, and it’s clear mike needs to be needed, and it’s clear nobody will ever need mike more than will. if the sky falls and all hell breaks loose, you cannot tell me that the first thing those two are doing isn’t looking for one another. and will wants love, and mike wants to hold onto the key aspects of his identity as he grows up. i mean what the fuck else do you want me to say? which leads to
c. the epilogue
who the fuck is that guy and what have you done to my mike. like hello? sure, lobotomize him in vol 2 and 3, and give arguably THE main character no screen time except a few snippets of dialogue portraying him as insensitive and dumb, and then one emotional climax scene begging his gf of several years not to kill herself. and then, on top of that, let him never move in. let him just sit in the restaurant forever, with that fuckass painting on the desk, slowly turning into his father, who he never wanted to be.
and, let his best friend be the one that got away. in a gay bar, despite his abusive alcoholic father, because apparently his identity is reduced to his sexuality? what happened to his art? his creativity? his fucking love for his friends and family, which was so strong and so reciprocated it had gotten him powers?
are you telling me that whomever wrote their relationship in the first two seasons, which despite will’s absence was so goddamn clear because of how apparent it was, and then wrote its steady deterioration (which can be poignantly attributed and explored under a lens of internalized homophobia) just…. dropped the fucking ball? which brings me to
2. conformitygate
a. cutgate
i watched vol 2 a few hrs after it dropped and the sheer drop in writing quality from ep 5 to 6 to 7 had me flabbergasted. so obviously i went online to see how everyone else was feeling and at some point i found cutgate and it made me feel so much better. of course big bad netflix is screwing over my favourite show! just sign the petition and then i’ll get the secret good version! or at least i tangentially hoped that, because it would be such a shame for a show i’ve been following half my life to just end like that. and then i remembered it wasn’t the ending, there was the finale! there was hope! i would get mikes pov, he would be vecna’d, all his repressed hopes and fears and dreams would be drawn out (the coffee, the mood swings, the distractedness, the blank stares) and his friends and family but most importantly will, who has known him since kindergarten and who he has saved and saved in return, and we’d get byler kiss. so anyways.
b. the finale
december 31, the finale drops. i watch it, even though i have tickets for the theatre the next day. it’s okay, i guess? the fights were anticlimactic. i love nancy, and she deserves everything, but i didn’t understand why it was her volunteering to be bait. if anything, it should’ve been mike. joyce decapitates vecna and the memory montage and i LOVE it except that mikes memory is of el, because cmon. if there was a venn diagram with his loved-one-related trauma and his vecna-related trauma, the middle would be full of will, not el. but i digress.
when doves cry — banger. landslide — banger. heroes — banger. almost makes me forgot what an absolutely dumpster fire the characterization in the finale and epilogue is (don’t get me wrong the graduation scene and dnd ending and putting the binders away and mike looking back was SO cinematic. but a few good moments don’t excuse the overall shitty writing) and don’t even get me STARTED on purple rain for that fucking joke of a goodbye.
so overall there were a lot of highs and a lot of lows and i guess it’s hard to end a tv show that had so many expectations. and the ambiguity of the ending already had me thinking so many possible fanfiction scenarios, because anything is possible now. all the byler college fics are canon, so cheers, i guess? and after watching it in theaters with friends in jan 1, i think i make my peace with it. but then
c. mass delusion (affectionate)
i go online because of course i do. and im grieving the high hopes i had placed on the finale and i see the theories and i think yes! what a solution to everything that went wrong. mikes pov never given, his utter uselessness, his inability to communicate with will, leaving will in the abyss, all the plot inconsistencies since vol 2, and his weird dynamic with el and will. and all the weird stage design choices and placements and costume designs. just everything was so well thought out! so even though i know the duffer brothers are not smart enough to pull a meta-commentary like this out of the biggest show on netflix and keep it hush for this long, i log onto netflix on jan 7. and its not there.
i guess it could be the 11th or 12th. i would be delighted if we get an ep 9. i just don’t have a whole lot of faith in it.
3. miscellaneous
a. jancy
i know i said i’d talk more on nancy, but i also wanted to talk about jonathan. (them and lucas, the older siblings of the show, are the absolute STARS i tell you.) first, how dare jonathan get fucking sidelined. what is one important plot point this man gets this whole season. what happened to the complexity of his character? why does joyce still treat him as expendable when will is more bubble-wrapped than ever? what im saying, i guess, is justice for jonathan, because on top of the character assassination, you just sink his relationship with nancy? the one that empowers him to be the best possible version of himself, until you fucking sabotaged it in order to drag out a love triangle that was never going to be anything anyways? fuck you duffers. i never would’ve thought that was a break up if the article didn’t exist, and i still choose not to believe it, because look at ANY other fucking scene in the rest of the show and they are clearly in love. which brings me to nancy, because she is such a fucking girlboss. and i love her. but that relationship made her a better person, and that scene as bait really should’ve been mikes, because then you get to do a three point shot between will, mike, and el, who started it all, working to end it all together. i man cmon man did you really waste that chance? we know nancy is good at shooting and she already got the near death experience with jonathan, and we already know jonathan will not be happy with her choice, but you know what we don’t know? how lucas would react to mikes decision to be bait, after max did nearly the same thing last season. how dustin would react, after losing eddie, and scared to death of losing steve. how nancy would react, after finding her sister missing and her parents bleeding out (because even in the version we got. mike didn’t fucking react. what a waste, duffer brothers, of supreme talent, because finn wolfhard as mike, imagining a world where he’s the only wheeler left, but he has no time to truly process it? god, the vision), and how jonathan would react, knowing full well this is the boy his siblings love and would do anything for.
and again, the epilogue. this was actually heartbreaking, but jancy are still together fuck canon.
b. vecna
you cannot tell me that a physical battle was ever a better concept than a mental one. hopping through different characters traumas and personal hells? will and lucas seeing mike jump into the quarry? steve and mike and lucas and will seeing dustin watch eddie die, and get jumped by the basketball team? everyone actually seeing what will experienced in the upside down? the amount of music that could’ve been playing, the character arcs and interactions, the potential for byler? come fucking on. and don’t even get me started on the selective hive mind and lack of focus on will — the main character, who is notably connected to vecna — as vecna is killed. what happened to being a sorcerer, which is innate? why is that never touched upon again? are the duffers truly just shit as fuck writers?
c. final thoughts
i grew up with this show. i started watching it in middle school, when they were in middle school (even tho three seasons were out by then) and thinking about it on and off the past few years, and i started the new year watching them graduate, knowing ill walk that stage this june. this show has meant a lot to me this whole time, and i really did have unreasonably high expectations, but i guess ill never really be ready to say goodbye to a show that represents my childhood. to a show very clear about its messaging, which has always been about growing up. and maybe the messaging has taken a turn for the worse in the last few episodes, what with “kill yourself to end the cycle” and “conform to social norms or else” and all the other truly bullshit takes, but i can’t really have it in my to ever hate this show. i did really want byler, because i think they’re perfect for each other, and i wanted literally my two favourites (i know what i said, and i am ignoring it, because fuck you duffers) to end up happy together. but i’m happy about lumax and dustin, even if they also got reduced to one part of their more complex identities. and i really wish all the characters and cast and crew a good life.
i’ll add more to this if it ever strikes me again how much i need to let out, but for now, i think im putting stranger things to rest. though if conformity gate does turn out true, i guess yall will see me here.
thanks for reading!
Reblogged
I started thinking about conformitygate and I think the entire finale is Mike's Vecna vision.
Early on in the episode, when Max is brought into Eleven's head, Vickie seamlessly vanishes into thin air, and when Vickie finds Max in her trance, a SCREECH sound effect is heard during the transition (the reveal that Max is glitching out).
Not every scene has this. Ironically Vickie also seamlessly vanishes for the rest of the finale, indicating the possibility that the rest of the finale isn't actually reality, or at least happening in someone's mind.
But when does the finale switch to someone's mind (and cease being real)?
I think the Stranger Things twitter account already told us.
The black screen.
Black screens are typically used in the show to emphasize that we're entering someone's mind. Watch any time Eleven uses her powers, the screen goes black. It happened at 16:22 in the finale, when it faded to a black screen to indicate that we were entering El's mindscape and then Henry's memories.
(This is all still actually happening, btw. This isn't a vision, yet.)
After this, there's a sequence of events, multiple things happening at once. Vickie and Max being discovered by the military (and we never find out what happened to them), Hopper's countdown, El/Max/Kali finding Henry and stopping the world merging, and the Hawkins crew about to be crushed by the radio tower. This all happens simultaneously.
Eleven shatters Vecna/Henry's connection to the kids and frees them (he loses Holly), at the exact same time that the tower cracks and Steve slips off the tower. And then?
He lets go and it goes black. For a long time. Then we hear a sharp screech, like a transition, and we're back to the same exact moment, except now Jonathan has heroically saved him. YAY!! So we don't realize what's actually happening.
We're inside someone's mind, and that ominous screech?
That's right, it's a Vecna vision. But whose mind are we in? Mike's.
He's the key. The missing piece of the puzzle. "Eyes on me!" The final shot of the entire show is Mike in the basement.
But how do we know for sure that this is Mike's vision? Because after that screen, everything goes to shit and Mike's character starts to change rapidly. That's where conformitygate comes in.
First, let's look at Mike pre-black screen (which I'm gonna call BS for now).
2:16: Mike and Eleven part ways at the van, and this is the Mike we know and love. He's sweet, encouraging, he gives her a comforting platonic hug. But it also gave me the impression that this was going to be the last time they ever saw each other. And in a way, it was, if we assume that their later interactions weren't actually real.
11:36: Mike and Will talk on the radio tower. Even though the best friends thing was dumb, Mike was still acting mostly like himself. He was nervous, messing up, offered Will his own water bottle. It's sweet, buzzy, typical Byler fare. He assures Will that he's not going to lose him because of Will's feelings.
19:16 (just minutes before BS): Will and Mike finish each other's sentences and we get this look, a typical Mike looking at Will moment. No other words to describe it tbh.
At 21:26, BS happens and the next time we see Mike, Nancy and Robin hug, celebrating that we're alive. Typical celebration moment, albeit with a bit of a random group, but ok.
But I noticed, while everyone's celebrating, Will is seperated and at the back, and Joyce seems to be furiously saying something to him. He is totally still, he didn't hug the party, just stands there. We never hear what Joyce is saying.
What follows is a series of generic writing, heavier focus on fan favourite characters like Steve and Nancy, cheesy dialogue, and over the top fight sequences that feel more like a DND campaign than a real episode of the show. Inconsistencies, plot holes, but more importantly, Mike's character becoming way more El focused out of nowhere, and abandoning Will. Even their friendship is slowly wrecked. This has all been talked about to death, so I'm going to focus on three more things:
1.Montages appear frequently post-BS, and my sister (@steve-needs-a-hug shout out) said it reminded her of how Vecna can just peruse through your memories, flipping through them like a montage. And there are a lot of these, including a Mileven one.
You know what else is interesting?
When Mike enters Eleven's mind, there's no black screen. He seamlessly falls into it, like how people in Vecna visions can go from one thing to another with ease.
2. Mike's character becomes so useless during the post-BS portion of the finale, to the point where his little sister is more heroic than him. He becomes the butt of the joke. This could be Vecna preying on his insecurities, telling him that he's useless in an attempt to break him.
3. His worst fear comes true. He becomes like Ted, all his friends have moved on without him, and he's stuck alone and repressed, telling their stories but never creating any of his own. He loses Will. He loses Eleven.
Vecna shows you your worst fear realized.
So, if my Mike theory is true, what's happening in real-life? What actually happened?
Mike went into a trance during the tower collapse.
At the same moment that Steve almost falls to his death, and Holly breaks free of the connection, Mike's eyes roll back and Vecna shows him and us the rest of the finale. Because the show has been emphasizing that Byler is the key to defeating Vecna, not El being a superhero. That's just what Mike falsely believes. In order to ACTUALLY defeat Vecna, Mike needs to confront his fears and accept who he is. NOT conform like in the vision. Vecna is trying to break him but he needs to fight that.
If we're operating on this theory, then we don't actually know what the true ending is, perhaps to allow us a chance to create our own. So, idk about y'all, but that's exactly what I'm gonna do.
Reblogged andiwriteordie
the good place has crossed my dash and I just thought of a really funny au of conformitygate where Mike keeps on figuring out something is wrong and Vecna just keeps crashing out and resetting the timeline.
Reblogged
"mikes gonna hear good luck babe in 40 years and lose his mind" "mikes gonna hear conan gray in 40 years and go crazy" mike is gonna watch dead poets society like a week after will leaves hawkins and in a fit of insanity is going to fly to new york and show up at his door unannounced like the messy gay disaster that he is
Reblogged andiwriteordie
someone start the fic rn
Reblogged soap-is-an-artist
it's because you're always identifying with that damn character
#mike wheeler#will byers#stranger things vol 2 and 3 fucked me up because why are we doing this to the characters i see myself in okay are you saying#that i don't deserve that happy ending?? yes i am taking it personally but that is because of the power of delusion and projection#get better duffers seriously
Reblogged andiwriteordie
Hi, Byler fans. I don't usually post here but I just finished the Stranger Things finale and wanted to get something out that I feel needs to be said. My grandmother had an older brother named, coincidentally enough, William.
He was born in 1919 and he was gay.
Everyone in the family knew. It became an unspoken secret. And here’s the part people don't really say about the past: he wasn’t cast out. He wasn’t beaten. He wasn’t disowned.
They loved him. They were a close‑knit family.
What they did instead was play a game called pretend.
They never said it out loud. When the family gathered for holidays, his siblings brought their spouses. Uncle Bill came alone. His partner wasn't invited, of course. They didn't even want to know he had a partner. When children asked why Uncle Bill wasn’t married, the adults smiled and said, “He’s just a bachelor.”
That answer was given to my mother in the 1950s. To my sister in the 1970s. And to me in the 1980s.
People like the Duffer brothers seem imagine that the past was only made up of violent, cartoonish homophobes. And sadly, there were a lot of those, just like there still are today. But some families were “fine” with gay people—as long as they were quiet. As long as they didn’t ask for the same things. As long as they didn’t bring love to the table.
Uncle Bill was accepted on one condition: He sat alone.
So when a modern show frames a gay boy’s arc as “learning to accept himself without expecting love in return,” that’s not radical. That’s not brave. That’s not new.
That story is over a hundred years old.
It’s the story of being tolerated, not chosen. Of being loved in theory, but denied in practice. Of being welcome—so long as you don’t make anyone uncomfortable.
My Uncle William lived that life in 1919. We don’t need to keep calling it progress.
I know a lot of people on here are young. So take the pain you're feeling now and remember it as you get older. Write your own stories that embrace what this show denied. Write the story you wanted Byler to be. Be the generation that stops telling this tired old story.
Do it for my Uncle Bill. Do it Noah. Do it to give the middle finger to the Duffer brothers. Most of all, do it for yourself.
Reblogged andiwriteordie
stranger things, first show in history to introduce the cyrano trope and shoot cyrano right in the head with chekhov’s gun
right, i forgot that if they fired the gun, we would’ve actually gotten some payoff.
That was a mess, that's all I'm going to say.
Reblogged
will byers i’m so sorry you deserved better. but also. also. mike wheeler i’m so sorry you deserved better. no they will never make me hate you, only the writers that fucked you over. i genuinely feel horrible for mike, because what the fuck. he’s depressed and stuck in the past, while he shares stories about how everyone else has found happiness and their own place in the world. once a favourite character always a favourite character, man, i don’t care, i love you mike wheeler, you did not deserve to have been dumbed down to a cardboard cutout and you also did not deserve that ending.
