*s3 will’s voice* Can we please focus on fanon now?

Pros of writing: nobody else can write your story for you

Cons of writing: nobody else can write your story for you

the duffers: byler was never on the table

mike, choking back tears: it wasn't?

tower scene didnt feel like a rejection when i first watched it because i felt the spirit of van scene mike wheeler in that room

there's something so funny about talking about an oc you havent properly drawn yet. yea yea theres this guy - i know you havent seen them but you gotta trust me on the vibes here

i don’t think people understand how much of life is grief. not just people dying, but losing the version of yourself you thought you’d become. grieving the city you had to leave. the friends you lost not in argument, but in silence. the summer that will never come back. the feeling that maybe you peaked at 12 when you were reading books under the covers and believing in forever

rewatching the crawl is a different level of heartbreak after seeing the finale. what do you mean el is crying, practically begging mike to imagine a future where she can be safe with her loved ones. and she doesn’t get that in the end.

Ngl if I was Jane and my boyfriend of years didn’t return my “I love you” bc his homeboy wasn’t there to tell him to do it when I’m about to sacrifice myself I think I’d launch him across the MAC-Z at top speed, killing him instantly.

KILL AI AND REBLOG AND CREATE ART IN 2026

How reading any statement from the duffer brothers about the show feels:

do the writers and the promo team forget that will wasn't actually speaking for el? he was speaking for his own feelings? hello?

"you're the heart" is what will thinks of mike. this isnt a mileven thing, writers did you forget what you wrote again does someone need to go back to bed?

just nearly wrote armand telling daniel "you just need to lock in" lmao it seems like I am the one that needs to lock in.

psychosexual saw trap AU where armand speaks like a chronically online teen "chat are you seeing this pathetic guy? this sad little meow meow? chat i'm gonna torture him now. he has to lock the fuck in. i need to know how to be fascinating"

Young man teaching old man modern tech.

i’m begging people to understand that cinematography is not a series of happy accidents. it’s not a “whoops, the camera just happened to frame them like soulmates for four seasons straight.” it’s a craft built on intention, collaboration, and an obscene amount of pre‑planning. so when i say byler was always in the cards, i’m not speaking from delusion or wishful thinking, i’m speaking from the actual mechanics of how visual storytelling works.

and don’t even get me started on the cinematography, because the receipts are everywhere. you don’t repeatedly isolate two characters in soft, intimate close ups, build entire emotional beats around negative space, or bathe them in a golden yellow light that literally functions as a visual metaphor for queer longing unless you’re doing it on purpose. that’s not something a rogue camera operator just “feels in the moment.” that’s not how sets function. that’s not how blocking meetings go. that’s not how shot lists are built.

every choice, lens, angle, lighting temperature, colour palette, depth of field, is a conversation between the director, the DP, the gaffer (lighting department), the production designer, and the actors’ performances. it’s a chain of intention. so the idea that finn and noah’s chemistry somehow “accidentally” shaped the visual language of the show is laughable. if anything, the camera recognised that chemistry because the story was already leaning that way. the cinematography was reinforcing a narrative trajectory the scripts were too scared to commit to.

and that’s the part the duffers don’t want to admit: the camera has been telling the truth from day one. the framing treats mike and will as emotional mirrors. the lighting shifts when they’re together. the blocking pulls them into private two‑shots even in ensemble scenes. the visual grammar codes them as the emotional core long before the dialogue catches up. that’s not subtext, that’s text delivered through image.

so yes, i will die on this hill. because from a film theory perspective, from a cinematography perspective, from a narrative construction perspective, byler wasn’t a coincidence or a fandom hallucination. it was baked into the visual language from the beginning. the only thing that wavered was the writers courage, not the camera’s clarity.