BYLER FOR BEST COUPLE AND CUTEST COUPLE EXACTLY THANK YOU MAYA, ft Jimmy Fallon Bylering out on main

"And she's been so tired lately, so even though I DO trust her, I started looking through some things. And you know what? Robert Nash Han, I swear, I'd be able to trust her more, but every time I look there IS something to find. Eva, her hiding her desire to go to med school, not telling me she was thinking of turning down the captainship, and now this? I just saved her from space, did your parents show you some of that? Oh, good for them on trying to limit screentime, we're trying to do that with Mara and Denny. Anyway, I just got her out of space, she trusted me to do that, but yet not with her health? And she didn't tell your dad, *I* had to. And we were both so worried and mad and I just...I don't know, I love her, but I need her to trust me back, to take care of herself, you know? We're a team, and I'd like to feel like she understands that. Oh, and your dad fired her, so I expect he'll be your next appointment. Which, actually reminds me, can I reschedule for Hen's appointment tomorrow? Yeah, she's still in the hospital now so it might be a tight squeeze trying to get here, if she gets released. Oh, yeah, of course I'll talk to your mother about it. Thanks."

more than anything conformity gate is like. the tumblrina's final revenge. "just noise" huh? okay fuck it *mobilizes the entire internet into calling out the 10,000 plot inconsistencies and production errors you left in your $400million slop finale*

Claim yours now!!

I have been on this damn boat for too goddamn long!!!!!

HELLO???????????

If I was the duffers I would never write again.. how bad do you have to mess up to convince almost an entire fandom that the ending you wrote was fake and you’re going to release the real one??? 😭🙏

Also I am now a believer in divorcegate. :D

"You're a terrible person for not believing hard enough in leftist pipe dreams" well maybe you're a terrible person for believing in leftist pipe dreams over tangible harm reduction, ever think of that

Add to this "You're a terrible person for being willing to sacrifice actual people for leftist pipe dreams."

So after all is said and done these are some things I fully believe until disproven.

The Duffers are not the driving creative force behind the show. Or at least the best parts of the show. They had a ghost writer/s who were the geniuses behind it all and at some point they were gone and the bros couldn’t keep up the quality and lore . Be it Ross’s ex wife or someone else. I also seriously believe it’s possible they stole the idea/script for the show as was alleged by someone. That’s a bit tinhatty but ya know… the finale was so so bad I can’t not go there.

The Duffers are greedy and lazy yes, but I also believe they were on board with byler up until season 5 and then something changed before vol 2.Despite them saying Netflix wasn’t interfering, I don’t believe that and I think it’s proven that the Duffers lie constantly and since they still have a show upcoming with them (the supernatural nursing home show) it behooves them to play nice with Netflix still. I do not think it’s a coincidence that the biggest show on their platform abandons the gay storyline it was building up for years, that woulda been controversial to many, as well as have big repercussions in more conservative markets (all leading to loss of $$) especially right when Netflix are trying to acquire Warner Bros and the deal has already faced scrutiny from lawmakers and Donald Trump himself. Netflix wants this deal to land, so making nice with Trump and not rocking the boat with too much ~wokeness~ helps that agenda(just look how Elon responded simply to Will coming out? ). And yes the platform has queer shows and content but ST is not just a ~queer only show that can be ignored and brushed aside. It’s THE biggest show in the world. It’s the cornerstone of the platform and probably its biggest money maker not only in steams but sheer breadth or merchandising. It’s their cash cow. And this would not be the first time people cow tow to please Trump. We have had a multitude of people, businesses and even news channels bend the knew to Trump.

And last but not least, The Duffers probably laundered some of that 450 mill budget because why the hell does a lot of the show look so BAD lol

If I was the Duffers, even if I was on board with placating Trump and stuff, I would’ve at least done it the “ambiguous Byler” way to be respectful of the story I had been telling. Make Will come out only to Joyce, end the show with Mike and Will leaving together for college and let people think they’re just best friends or they’re together if they want. But I would NOT have pushed the chemistry-less hetero ship or made Will be humiliated or his story reduced to an epilogue boyfriend.

And yeah, they 100% pocketed great part of that budget, because those special defects 😖

I want to ask you all to be strategic with your complaints and anger towards what the Duffer Brothers and marketing team has done to those that actually followed the writing and market decisions made which resulted in us recognizing that season 5 was a mess, most especially with a botched finale that is incongruous with the majority of the show.

First: know your audience

As an example: if you are a Byler fan and you've spent the last few years swearing that the colors blue and yellow were intentionally used in the show to symbolize Mike and Will's love for each other, step back and realize that literally nobody outside of your fandom circle will see that as concrete evidence of queerbaiting.

Don't even touch on symbolism. Don't mention props or pop culture references or anything more than surface level. You aren't talking to literary scholars, you're talking to the general audience and the Duffer Brothers. Point out the bullshit in simple ways.

Return to the essential components of what was written and shown repeatedly in the story itself and character dynamics.

Point #1: Talk about how we were given a scenario in which Mike was (definitely since season 3) repeatedly shown to not understand or communicate with El well, lied to her, repeatedly seemed unconcerned by and even irritated by her expressing her feelings and desire for him to be a better boyfriend, and that they devoted entire scenes to Mike not being able to tell her that he loves her. Emphasize that they showed a more neutral relationship between Mike and El in season 5, but without any expressly romantic interactions until Mike's (now allegedly hallucinated, according to the Duffer Brothers) goodbye kiss in the void in the finale. Why does Mike have such a fraught relationship with El? Why couldn't he tell her that he loves her, even when she was literally crying basically begging him to do it? Why could he only tell her after Will's lie about the painting, and while Will was shouting at him to remember that he's "the heart"? Why was everything Mike listed in his season 4 love confession superficial (love at first sight claims, saying she's his superhero but he insists he loves her the way she is etc.) and nothing about his love for her as a person?

Point #2: Call out specific instances in which Mike's lack of concern for El was directly contrasted with his concern and compassion for Will's feelings. For example, when Mike and El were fighting in season 3, Mike spent time laying on his couch eating chips complaining to Lucas about it and asking"what did I do wrong?" and talking about how women are too emotional. Max reassures El after she breaks up with Mike that surely Mike will soon beg her forgiveness and say he's sorry. (This doesn't happen.) In contrast, after Mike and Will had their fight and Mike and Lucas were being rude and pretending they were no longer interested in DnD (which we know isn't true because he was passionately in Hellfire Club in season 4), Mike bikes in the rain (with Lucas) to find Will and apologize. We see him banging on the Byers' door yelling how sorry he is and begging him to come out and talk. Mike is shown to be willing to beg for Will's forgiveness, but not El's. There's other parallels like this one, particularly in season 4 with the contrast between Mike and El's "From Mike/ you can't even write [I love you], Mike / you never say it" fight, and Mike and Will's "I didn't say it / you didn't have to" apologetic and happy, optimistic heart-to-heart in the same season. I won't break them all down now, but you all know the scenes.

Point #3: Within the context of Mike and El's repeatedly struggling relationship, shown in frequent direct contrast to Mike and Will's very strong bond across all seasons... the writers deciding to treat the question of whether Mike might reciprocate Will's feelings for him is made into far more than simply an observation about Will's feelings. Mike being closeted could answer questions regarding why Mike is so emotionally unavailable towards El in spite of his determination to make the relationship work. It would offer a more generous reading of his immature and selfish behavior across the seasons than simply saying he's a kid that doesn't know how to be a good boyfriend. It does Mike's character a disservice, since we know he knows what appropriate behavior towards someone you care about looks like, he demonstrates that with Will all the time.

Point #4: They let fans believe Will had a chance and that Mike might reciprocate his feelings all the way up until the finale episode. Will was written as suddenly having hope in the possibility of Mike reciprocating his feelings at the start of the season, and in the penultimate episode a vision from the antagonist was what led to him telling his friends through tears that he realized that the person he had feelings for wasn't like him and was just a crush he'd have to get over. We need to lean a little on pointing out storytelling structure and logic here, but it's very atypical for a hero's fears stoked by a villain to be proven correct in a finale. That's not often seen as satisfying storytelling.

Lastly: don't let critics or the Duffers trivialize audience investment in character relationships or character arcs making narrative sense. Can someone add up the total hours spent across all seasons focused on the relationship between Mike, El, and Will, and how Mike's motivation within the supernatural main narrative was often tied to these character dynamics? That's a huge part of the story you built, Duffers. Like it or not, if you want an audience that cares about your story, that audience will care about the character relationships along with caring about the high budget action scifi spectacle you're putting on, too.

You might fool the casual viewer and critic s paid to write up a news headline about a show they watched on their cell phone, but you're not fooling us.

And finally: if creating alt accounts for your Twitter rage helps, do it. They'll make fun of fandom blogs and accounts dedicated to Byler or specific characters because it's easier to make us look like overzealous fans in a fan bubble that will seem unrelatable to the general audience. Make yourselves look like whatever normie will sell best to these conformists. Play their game a bit. Screw it. But get them to listen.

Show that the idea of Mike liking Will back isn't irrational, but a very plausible possibility built into the story. And then list all the ways they failed to shut down the idea and even fanned the flames repeatedly in marketing to profit off of the hope it could happen.

You can even tone down your conviction to sell it better. Look to get them to admit it was a very reasonable reading of the set up, but no need to claim it was the only one. Simply argue it was the most logical one.

I used Byler as an example because of the large community talking about this issue, but other observations made by fans are incredibly valid criticisms too. Approach with basic observations that the general audience cannot deny. Same formula.

Fans aren't "noise." They're the people who fed your success. They're the people that believed you were skilled writers.

self explanatory

no because look at me and tell me that this is not the look of “ive been yearning for you all my life and I love you with all my heart” on BOTH OF THEIR FACES.

did they forget to tell finn and noah that mike and will “are just friends. best friends 😃”

I'm here to heal you.. nothing can stop me from loving them

oh and don’t forget what the highest rated episode of the whole season was

I get what you’re saying, but I beg to differ : Season 5 of Stranger Things was designed to make people feel suicidal, and I’ll tell you why.

With season 5, the Duffers pushed every “queer children, kill yourselves” button:

1. They gave every signal that the main queer ship would not just be canon, but that it would be the Big Thing all the way up to volume 1, only to violently deviate with a horrible coming out scene in episode 7 and a message of “queer people must settle for self-acceptance” in the finale.

2. They made sure to release each volume on a big holiday, so the disappointment of the coming out scene was released on CHRISTMAS DAY(!!!) and the horrendous finale on NEW YEAR’S EVE (!!!) These are super sensitive dates, especially for people who are already vulnerable or lonely in any way.

3. Season 5 was full of “self-sacrifice” (read: suicide) themes. Volume 1 it was Hopper being willing to blow himself up, volume 2 had the suicide pact between El and Kali, and the finale had Kali being unceremoniously killed as well as El killing herself. The idea of Will sacrificing himself was also in the air the whole time, and Max talked more than once about that “first door”.

4. Vecna’s shitty motive was basically “life isn’t worth it” and “I’ll take you to a better world”. And it indeed looked like a better world, at least on the surface, or at least better than the real world with problems and challenges.

5. In the finale, El - the girl who was abused her whole life- killed herself; and the takeaway was that life did indeed get better (in a shitty, conformist way) for everyone else because of it. The options presented are either kill yourself, or live a life of conformity. Queer people don’t get to find love, or even worse, stay in the closet riddled by guilt, abandoned people don’t get to find a family, people in loveless marriages stay there.

Do I think a piece of media is worth ending your life over? Obviously not! Would I be surprised if I saw the headline “teenager/young person kills themselves over Stranger Things/because Byler wasn’t canon”? Not at all. Don’t forget Netflix is the same platform that produced 13 Reasons Why.

And if, god forbid, that happens, and any parent, relative, friend or loved one of the victim needs to understand why, you or anyone can feel free to point to what I just wrote.