ConformityGateAnon

Anon send-in for anyone involved in the conformitygate/stranger things community! Confess your hot takes or opinions without the fear of getting harassed on your own blog 💖

[anonymousconformityg]

Hey everyone!! I'm new to the conformitygate community, but I do know that there's a lot of discourse. So, I wanted to make this account to allow anyone, regardless whether or not they truly believe in conformitygate, to just send in anons, let out their opinions, all without any pressure or judgement, since there seems to be a lot of that here.

(I can take questions on my personal stance, but please know that I have no hate towards anyone involved with the st fandom, no matter who they ship or what their stance on the finale though....the finale was pretty bad tho ngl).

[anonymousconformityg]

Byler and Mileven are equally mid Byclair Hopclair Elmax Henderhop and Hopclair are literally right there.

Fuck that white boy.

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[anonymousconformityg]

Question for Bylers, why can't Mike be in love with both El and Will? It's seems more logical to me that he is bisexual with the context of both relationships.

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[anonymousconformityg]

I remain very curious how byler can be obviously indicated by the narrative and then not happen.

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[anonymousconformityg]

Mike can be bisexual...like even if you believe he has some hidden feelings for Will he can still in fact be in love with his girlfriend too. They don't have to be mutually exclusive. You don't need to trash his canon female love interest just because you like him with the guy more. He can be Bi. Which is honestly more realistic to me anyway with how much of a loverboy he is

This is where i start to get annoyed with Bylers, when they start saying Mike and El are the most abusive toxic relationship they've ever seen in thier life. Like im not gonna lie if you think they're bad idk what you're gonna do in terms of media, when like 95% of most shows portray a worse couple and they're still beloved. You guys would not survive watching any early 2000s media I'll tell you that.

Byler is like the only fanbase I've seen that consistently tries to make the canon female love interest some abuse victim. Like superbat fans or fans of SupermanxLex aren't going on saying Lois Lane is some evil woman using superman. Like I've only seen bylers do this.

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[anonymousconformityg]

"Would be funny if conformitygate happens and it's end with Mileven wedding."

Bylers incapability to realize that Mike's greatest fear was losing Eleven rather than being closeted would be the funniest crashout of all time.

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[anonymousconformityg]

"That's what shows up on screen??"

Is it because El's a superpowered human that clashed into his normal world, is it because Mike doesn't know how to handle girls in the first place because he's a teenage boy that doesn't know shit like every other teenager on the planet, or is it because he's specifically in love with Will?

You point out his discomfort, but have you considered looking into the why of him being uncomfortable that doesn't have to do with him possibly liking guys? If this was Byler subtext, there would also be scenes of him being specifically fixated on guys in a way that would show him being curious about exploring that gender romantically.

I'm all for using that discomfort to support byler fanfics, go as crazy as you want with that, but seeing that discomfort is *only* because he wants men and insisting it's canon feels very forced to me.

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[anonymousconformityg]

I still think what ruined Stranger things was the fact that Netflix saw a brand in it, instead of a story. Like i'm glad they haven't cancelled the show but i still have to wonder if seasons would be better if they kept the same dark atmosphere as season 1 and 2.

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[anonymousconformityg]

Would be funny if conformitygate happens and it's end with Mileven wedding.

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[anonymousconformityg]

Can we just end this conversation about Byler? Mike is canonically in love with El. Will's story was about friendship and self acceptance. It wasn't written that way and you can't just twist the story to be the opposite. If Mike was really in love with Will, the ending would be different. If Will story was supposed to end with him finding love, it would end that way.

You can hate the ending as much as you want but you can't just ignore years of built up and then complain it was supposed to be your interpretation that will be the only correct one.

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[anonymousconformityg]

“If there was subtext, blocking, "staring at his lips" and whatever else, it would've then showed up on screen of Mike clearly being uncomfortable with El”

But it literally does show up on screen? Throughout the show? Most Byler discussions specifically focus on what shows up on the screen in regard to Mike? What do you think Bylers talk about? There’s a reason why Mike is specifically why people were confident in Byler

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[anonymousconformityg]

"I'm literally a screenwriterand film major"

with this being an anon blog where people can just say anything, alsomentioning how some of what you say falls under the dire sins of screenwriting, I don't entirely believe you. Then again I have trust issues when it comes to the internet so maybe that's a me thing.

What subtext there is in stranger things supported the fact that Will yearned for Mike, as that's what showed up on screen and could be clearly communicated to the viewer. What didn't was Mike's reciprocation. If there was subtext, blocking, "staring at his lips" and whatever else, it would've then showed up on screen of Mike clearly being uncomfortable with El, being intimate with her, andinstead would've given that to Will. If what you write in "subtext" doesn't eventually show up on screen to support it, you don't write it in the script at all. That's not "boring," that's communicating to your audience as effectively as possible. So no matter how much you hate the Duffers for [insert reason that makes whoever's reading this happy], disregarding them saying "Byler was never in the cards" is blatant disrespect. I agree with them whole heartedly, because as someone who wrote multiple scripts and filmed before and watched this show, the only subtect there was supported Will's feelings. Take for example that crying scene: if they wanted to show Mike thinking on his feelings for will, they wouldn't focus on only Will and would give a spare short to Mike with an uncertain expression, showing both explicit concern for Will and uncertainty for his own feelings. Byler requires that reciprocation, clear on-screen reciprocation. Trust me, I'm not saying that the Duffer's are good writers, but if they wanted Byler to be on screen to support whatever "buildup" they wrote last season, they would have. It would've been shit, because they're bad writers, but it would've been there if they wanted it to be.

And to the three people reading this, take film student's words with a grain of salt, that includes me too if you want to. We are not experts. I've seen so many film students who've misunderstand and/or fail at the very thing they're studying. We are pretending to be experts on film, when we're not. Hardly anyone is. We're always learning. Hell, a lot of the film students at my own school don't even bother to watch movies (I wish I was joking). A lot of the analysis I see on here (the disrespectful ones) are usually by people who think they know the Duffer Brothers and/or Stranger Things and its creation process better than their own creators, when only the Duffers do. The cast might've thought Byler would happen, but they are not writers.

Mike's really fucking boring anyway, sorry. If Will has enough sense to get rid of that bowlcut, he has enough sense to find someone better than Mike.

Yes, I'm queer.

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[anonymousconformityg]

“To the person who keeps talking about film narrative and subtext, I am now convinced that you never took a screenwriting class. That's all”

Hi. I am literally a screenwriter and a film major

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[anonymousconformityg]

never understood the opinion that Mileven is somw toxic abusive relationship. Like do you guys realize they are 14?

There only issue was miscommunication. Even if you pull the "she's too traumatized for a relationship" do you even really know what you're saying?

"She didn't know her name before kissing Mike"

Ok sure what do you think that really did though. Because then you claim she has some huge dependency on Mike when the show makes it very clear she doesn't. In fact she spends most of her plotlines alone figuring out how to get by on her own. She's not dependent on Mike at all.

Also she kissed him once before knowing her name. Every single time after was in S3 when she knew her entire life storym And the S1 kiss was just a sweet moment that yall try to twist into some weird groomer story.

"Oh but in S4 she needed him to tell her she loved her so it's clear she's dependent on him"

Or maybe...she's 16 and the first person to treat her with love and kindness is struggling to verbally tell her how he feels, and after being bullied relentlessly she's feeling anxious and insecure and doesn't know how to communicate that properly.

El has never been dumb or stupid she's never been someone who can be forced to do stuff, the very first time we see her even in the lab she's trying to rebel. She's not "too traumatized" to fall in love and kiss and a boy. Yall act like they were doing the deed in S1

They went to the mall and made out. They don't start dating until S3 and for the most part it's entirely inocent. You can't write of El's feelings for Mike just cause she's traumatized.

There relationship was always meant to be sweet and innocent, and it was always about choice. Choosing each other cause that's what they did every season.

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[anonymousconformityg]

Holly Wheeler is overhated. Yeah, she got a shit ton of screen time for no reason, but she was fun and Nell Fisher is a great actress.

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[anonymousconformityg]

To the person who keeps talking about film narrative and subtext, I am now convinced that you never took a screenwriting class. That's all

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[anonymousconformityg]

“It’s shown that way in his coming out scene. He was scared, and it’s the 80s, so it could’ve gone horribly. That’s real for a lot of gay people. I have a older cousin who came out to his Christian parents and was sent to conversion therapy. Stories about not being accepted are reality for people.”

But the only reason you can make that argument is because of the coming out scene, which is obviously polarizing. You can’t just take that scene and then retroactively say Will’s arc has always been about acceptance and people were crazy and wrong to believe that he should find love with his closest friend. One scene doesn’t make the rest of the show and the ways people viewed it disappear. I don’t feel like Will’s five-season arc was building up to being “accepted,” and I think if that’s the arc they were building up to, they should have written it differently. I understand that Will was scared to be accepted but there was literally never any doubt that his specific group of friends and family would accept him from a viewer’s standpoint, so that’s really boring. The show tells us that Will is happy at the end, but that doesn’t mean I believe it’s what’s best for Will’s character, and I’m not afraid to say it

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