the throne of the bird blog

byler and birds 🤝

[clown-busters]

If conformitygate is real, Robin should not be trusted

I love Robin, but this whole season her character was off to me. Its like looking through Vicky's perspective, she's kinda secretive, kinda off, and she doesn't seem to be experiencing anything for herself, only bouncing off of other characters arcs/moments.

This strangeness begins when she and Will go to the playground and Will discovers he's been seeing through Vecna's eyes.

"But if that's true, it would mean..."

This is not the face of someone who's concerned that their friend has a psychic link to the enemy. This is someone who's plan is coming together.

A second later she schools her expression:

In episode 5, Shock Jock, she is the only one to interact with the dial. She's been working at the Squawk for over a year. She knew it was there before episode 5.

She should notice immediately that it isn't supposed to be red. Whats even more damning is how her reaction and Holly's are contrasted "back to back".

We see Robin test the voltage with Will and makes no comment on the color of the dial.

Then a few scenes later Holly realizes what is wrong about this illusion world.

And after that Robin looks at the dial again and disregards it. She sees it TWICE.

What has me the most distrusting of Robin though is how she steers the conversation in episode 6 when Lucas starts spiraling about Will being passed out.

Lucas is more concerned over the fact that Will is still knocked out despite them "fixing" the problem. The dust is gone, the connection severed so why is he still in there?

Robin ignores what Lucas is really freaked out about and steers the conversation to an earlier point he made about Max and Holly.

She doesn't want them to know Vecna's plan, to start spiraling and pulling apart the entire fake reality they're in. So she makes a new compelling story. A tale of where Max and Holly and Will actually are to distract them from the real question. Why is Will still asleep. Because it's not just Will. They're all asleep.

Unfortunately she gets one thing wrong (or two.)

Firstly, this is not "Will". Should I Stay or Should I Go is on the album Combat Rock, not London Calling. Now you could say sure, this doesn't matter, maybe Robin only knows his favorite band and not his favorite song.

But she does know Holly's favorite song. The only other person that knows Holly likes this song is the person who gives her the cassette tape.

Bonus moment that I wanted to mention:

[abirdonathrone]

one thing im really noticing now with the rise of conformitygate among the GA compared to the tag on tumblr is how much more credit is given by us bylers here. we tag people, give credit for theories that we build on, thank someone for pointing something out. i just saw a reel of a girl listing all of the pieces of evidence for “conformity gate” (THERE IS NO SPACE) and i swear i know the original tumblr post where each of these theories came from. all the evidence the GA is working with came from here, from byler, and i wonder if they’ll ever really know.

[undeadp0et2-deactivated20260602]

seeing mainstream news outlets talking about a stranger things conspiracy theory i watched be born on my nerdy tumblr dash in real time is crazy.

[mischivana]

My Stranger Things Epilogue Headcanons

Byler - Mike realizes he’s gay after Will moves to New York, Mike moves in with Will. Mike now writes two types of books: YA adventure novels and Will does the cover art, and children’s fantasy books where Will is still the illustrator. He releases his writing under the pen name Michael Byers. Will eventually gets his own permanent wing at the Museum of Modern Art. He releases all of his art under the name William Wheeler. Eventually they adopt a daughter and name her Ella Jane Byers-Wheeler.

Lumax - they get married after they both graduate college. Lucas ended up going back to basketball in high school and actually ended up getting scouted for college and later drafted into the NBA. Max becomes a social worker specializing with kids whose parents are or are going through a divorce or kids who are being neglected, either intentionally or not, or kids who are facing some sort abuse by a family member of any kind. They have one daughter, Katelyn(they call her Kate).

Henderhop(I’ve been converted) - Dustin becomes a NASA Scientist and is eventually stationed in a small town in Iceland where he’s surprised, but relieved, to see El happy and well, being the apprentice of an old woman who runs a bakery. Eventually they fall in love ofc. El has to stay in Iceland obv, but Dustin routinely makes trips back to visit her and after a few years of doing this El finally comes back to Hawkins for visits once it’s sure she’s safe to do so. Dustin eventually makes groundbreaking discoveries with the universe, the multiverse, and the science of wormholes and black holes and wins a Nobel peace prize for it. Dustin and El has two cats named Eddie and Benny. Eventually a girl wanders into the bakery saying she’s run away from a bad home life and Dustin and El take her in, her name is Stephanie.

Rovickie - they stay together! They move to Chicago! Vickie gets a solid nursing job in a Chicago hospital and Robin gets her own radio show which broadcasts all over the country! Everyone tunes in obviously and listens to her stories and random tangents. Every now and then she’ll dedicate a song to one of them or make an inside joke. Robin is eventually written in history books as one of the most influential early LGBTQ+ activist because of her radio show. It’s run and broadcasted by her and her team and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop them!

Jopper - Hopper gets his own damn ring to give to Joyce instead of just taking Jonathan’s. They get married at a small ceremony with close friends and family and stay in Hawkins. They make trips out to New York/LA at least twice every year to see Will and Jonathan. The boys come back to Hawkins for Holidays though. Eventually when El finally reveals that she’s alive they make a yearly trip to Iceland with Jonathan and Will so they can all see her.

Jonathan - Jonathan’s consumer documentary is actually very popular. He gets offered several internships after he graduates from NYU and takes one up and moves to LA. He’s now a revered film maker known for his films that send messages about underlying societal issues. His first Oscar is displayed proudly in the Byers house next to a print of Will’s first painting that made it into a New York Museum.

Nancy - She realizes that she actually doesn’t need anyone but her friends and her family. Love just isn’t her thing and that’s okay. She bounces around cities for awhile before settling in either Washington DC, New York, or LA(I couldn’t decide). She becomes one of the most revered investigative journalists and feminist activists and icons in the journalist world. Eventually she goes on to be Editor and Chief of whatever Times she ends up in depending on the city. Eventually she finds love in another person(a man or a woman, I’m all for bi Nancy) but it’s likely someone she works with. She’s a working lady first.

Steve - Steve stays in Hawkins. He becomes the Sex Ed teacher and the baseball coach all the good stuff we love for him. He treats all his boys as his own kids and they feel like it too. He very quickly cultivates the best baseball team in Hawkins because of his intense yet encouraging coaching style. He eventually settles and finds a wife and they have a nice little family. One or two kids, not the six. He also chaperones Hellfire but he mainly just leaves their room unlocked lets them do their thing while he coaches Baseball.

Erica - Continued her pursuit of science before realizing she’s better at politics. In college she gets a PHD in Scientology and a Masters in Political Science and Criminal Justice. She works her way up in the ranks of government Leslie Knope style before eventually becoming the first female President of the United States in 2016.

Holly - Holly restarts Hellfire! Her and her friends take turns being the DM but most of the time it’s Holly. More people join but not a super amount, D&D is still frowned upon in this time period, but Hellfire lives with Holly! Steve, as mentioned before is the adult chaperone but he just lets them do their thing and tells Holly to get him the keys when they’re done.

Karen - Divorces Ted and takes half of his stuff. She gets custody of the kids too. And the house. She gets a white Persian cat and names it Fernando.

[michael-queerler]

the purple rain montage we SHOULD have gotten.. sigh

[abirdonathrone]

and when i say i looked more forward to sim mallex’s st 5 crack video that the entirety of the 5th season

will rewatch this twenty more times instead of netflix ❤️

[decidueyefan]

Me and my brother were bylering out about possible plots for the new episode, and we were talking about Mike realizing the epilogue is a vision, and vecna giving him more and more visions where Mike has to keep finding the doors out of his own memories. This led to us thinking that the one way sign pointing to his closet is the FINAL DOOR OUT OF THE VECNA MINDSCAPE. Imagine the buzz omfg

[partypooper1111]

Mike watching Brokeback Mountain in 2005

[retro-quant]

Conformitygate Byler

Better than what we got

[lilialunaa]

making robin, the lesbian character, be the centre of every dick joke in s5 and then having her make an STD JOKE? in the 80s??!!

erasing vickie in the finale and saying high school love doesn’t last, except for max and lucas because theirs is “deep”???? but ur queer relationships weren’t??

having will get over a lifelong crush in 3 days? the queerbaiting? THE “FRIENDS? NO THANKS” *long ass pause* “BEST FRIENDS”????????

using rovickie as a plot device for byler and then using byler as a plot device for mileven??

nah they’re homophobic😭idc

[abirdonathrone]

oh i might end it all

[thewisewill80sbyers]

Look, I think it's probably not happening at all, but the finale they gave us is so horrible that I really don't understand how it's possible to make anything like that and be serious about it, even just for that "final battle" that is literally just NOT possible at all.

even if sci-fi at least the starcourt mall battle was credible inside the stranger things world, they got hurt heavily, some died, they were running away most of the time etc

it was plausible even for a group of nerds

but the last battle in ep. 8 is NOT plausible, not even Eleven flying like that is plausible inside the previously established canon... and for sci-fi to work it must be based on science not on pure fantasy. this is supposed to be sci-fi and it wasn't...

another suspicious thing to me was Dustin expecting something magical before finding out about the wormhole because he never did before... They always expected something scientific and used DND fantasy to name it...

That final battle should have been sci-fi but it was "fantasy play" as Mike calls it...

[abirdonathrone]

first mike matching but this too…

the camazotz imagery continues…

[sirmichaei]

A violet spray?

That causes blindness if the target fails because they do not possess WISDOM?

A failed wisdom saving throw banishes the failed creature to another plane of existence of the GM’s choosing.

[rainbowkatsurprise]

GUYS

I KNOWWW ITS NOT REAL THE ENDING I GOT EVEN MORE SHIT TO SAY HEAR ME OUT

the binders spell 'lie' in the bts pic but changed in the actual show???

all of the truman show parallels throughout (the one scene of will sitting behind the clear whiteboard w the circle around his head etc)

both mike AND nancy mimicking their parents/becoming them!!!! nancy's hair is the same as her moms, mikes glasses match his dad etc

what's up w the painting???

mike never has had straight hair UNTIL THIS EPISODE ENDING WHERE HIS HAIR IS LIKE HENRYS

mr whatzit board game in the basement

joyce and hopper date there was ppl in the background looking directly at the camera

the graduation w the big yellow sign that had 0 words on it

the graduation everyone doing the same pose henry does????

max's skateboard w the swirl on the back looks like the orb from wills painting ( also looks like hypnosis )

hero's play every time mike looses will

wtf is netflix doing on twt?? their post have been weird and cryptic asf and removed ep 8 title card

lights flickering in the back of wills date

there is more guys if yall want to hear it

[actuallyathena05]

…

[nerdthatsiriuslylovesteaxx]

Okay but just imagine for a second conformitygate was real

Imagine the start of episode 9, Mike is sitting alone in his basement, staring at the painting. The typewriter is on a cluttered desk, the entire scene is shot yellow, he's wearing blue, he looks just like his dad. One sentence is typed out on the page, "I'm sorry for my secrets, I wish I could stop living in regret." All his friends have moved on, they're gone, long gone. The only people left in Hawkins are Steve and Mike and they lost touch years ago, he's moved on too. He's old now, writing books that never sell, living in the basement of his dead parents, sobbing over everyone he lost, realising he loved Will but had never said it, and now he'd moved on and he was left here writing stories he was too scared to live. He has a handful of pills in his left hand, a mug in his right, it has a heart on it. Whispers "I'm sorry" before going to swallow (if you die in the trance you're still dead, if your mind does so does your body) , then he hears Will's voice calling out for him, begging him to come back. He drops the mug and it shatters, stand up, basically throwing himself out of his chair, trying to find Will, screaming out his name.

He snaps out of the trance, falling to the ground. He's in the upsidedown, they still haven't split up, nothing happened, it was a trance. But he knows that future could happen, and parts of it were true, and his future could be true if he doesn't change something. Will sits down in front of him, asking what he saw, asking if he's okay, that it was over and Mike just hugs him. "You're here, you're- thank God you're here, I thought I'd lost you" (Mike to Will btw) "Of course I'm here, you won't lose me" "He showed me the future Will, a future, I lost you." "Mike-" "I was alone, regretting everything I never said." "You're okay, it's over now." "No, it's not, that future could still happen, he showed me today, he showed me my whole life, he showed me killing myself because I had nothing to live for. Will I love you. I have loved you for years, you are everything to me, everything, I'm sorry about everything I said and everything I didn't, I was scared, I know you were too and that I hurt you but if he showed me anything it was to stop hiding because I would regret it later. Will Byers I love you so so much." He just strangles him in a hug, "You will never, ever, lose me. You understand that? I love you too." and then Mike shows him the mixtape that he had in his pocket the whole time, 'for Will' written on it in messy hand writing. "Just in case Vecna tries anything again" and they kiss,it's not a long kiss, just a peck. The actual kiss is saved for the epilogue don't worry.

*better battle sequence where it's shown what Mike saw was only there to make them underestimate Vecna*

*a few more deaths but El doesn't die*

*our questions are answered*

Now we're here at he epilogue, it's basically the same but more natural. Robin stayed in Hawkins and stayed together with Vickie, Steve is seeing someone, Nancy's a part time student and working as a journalist, her and Jonathan share a flat in New York but aren't officially back together or dating or anything. Max and Lucas are together but have more character than their relationships, El lived and finally gets a normal life with her family, Dustin does his speech but he's wearing the actual Hellfire shirt and says for Eddie at the end. His hair is long, and the order of the flipping off and diploma is the same as what Eddie said instead of what we saw. Will and Mike are together and we finally get paintinggate, basementgate and flickergate *enter the actual kissing*. The dnd game at the end is happy because while high school is over their friendship isn't and the campaign has changed as well, the story is more than ten hours long, the plot isn't full of holes and we still end with Mike looking at Holly. It's the same but not exactly, things are more natural, less artificial, less perfect (because let's be honest more people should have died, the only person that died that mattered was El and that could have been used by Vecna to show Mike how he would lose everything in the end to scare him.) and it's just so much more satisfying because they aren't conforming anymore.

It's forced conformity, that's what's killing the kids

[abirdonathrone]

can’t express how much i love this ending, this is canon i don’t care