there’s something wrong with your sister

aidan, 20s, he/him

[bylerposting]

Note: I’ll be frequently reblogging S5 leaks, potential spoilers, and discussion posts/theories around them. I’m gonna try to tag them all with #st5 leaks and #st5 speculation, but I may forget from time to time.

edit: Unless I see proof of life leaks that are just word of mouth are just fanfiction to me. If you see me reblogging a "leak" with no real proof attached, I reblogged it because I enjoyed reading it not because I believed it

[bylerposting]

i just watched iron lung and if you had told 2024 me that Markiplier understood scifi horror better than the duffers I would have called you crazy

[narrativelogicofbyler]

from a film and television standpoint, the byler situation is one of the most baffling cases of narrative malpractice i’ve ever seen. the show constructs an entire visual, emotional, and thematic grammar around these two characters, and then refuses to follow the logic of its own cinematic language. that isn’t just disappointing; it’s academically infuriating.

because in my view, noah and finn weren’t just “acting well.” they were performing with a level of intertextual awareness that suggests they understood the trajectory they were building. the microexpressions, the blocking, the breathwork, the framing choices, none of that reads accidental. it reads like two actors who believed they were moving toward a specific emotional resolution. and again, this is just my interpretation, but their performances feel too aligned, too intentional, too coherent to be dismissed as coincidence.

and then there’s the queer coding. one character canonically gay, the other consistently framed, lit, and directed in ways that evoke queer subtext so loudly it borders on textual. from a media studies perspective, that creates a contract with the audience, a promise of thematic follow through. and in my opinion, the show breaks that contract. spectacularly.

and honestly? it feels like the actors were caught in the same trap as the audience. if this were a case study in a seminar, we’d be talking about queerbaiting not just as a marketing tactic, but as a failure of narrative ethics. because when performers invest in a storyline that the text ultimately refuses to honour, that’s not just disappointing, it’s structurally incoherent.

the waste of genuinely brilliant character work here is something i’m not sure i’ll ever stop being academically furious about.

[phoenixwrites]

Linnea studied child holocaust survivors to portray trauma and the audience called her character “evil” and “emo” and everyone assumed she was the traitor.

We all want complex female characters but when we get them everyone immediately hates them.

[rikyberryohyea]

✨ HEWWO 🗣️✨

If everything goes well AND MY DESIRE TO CONTINUE COMICS STILLS THERE, I will return to making sequels or things related to my alternate universe. For now, it was just how they met.

Maybe I'll do a shorter one later, depending on the context. Also, if all goes well, you can go to the questions section and I'll answer anything (even with art) about it.

First fact: Will’s mark can be made invisible with magic, but it consumes a lot of energy. (It’s a mark of cursed users.) The mark can spread across his entire body, and it turns completely black when the curse takes control of him. The mark reacts to his emotions—negative emotions are what make him lose control of both himself and his magic.

[bylerposting]

I might be forgetting something but why even open 4 gates if you’re just gonna close them up with metal and suddenly have one giant ass nether portal at the library instead

[krokodilsredimudil]

A crew member's revelations (gone unnoticed)

So I was reading comments on ST reddit (yep, i'm masochistic)

And then I stumbled upon this one (all names are blurred, I'm not doxxing anyone)

On the one hand, this is just a rando on the Internet who says shit with no proof

On the other hand, it's a rather serious allegation (sus) and worth looking into

I skimmed through their post history. They're active on multiple subreddits where they mention work in the film industry

So I decided to dig deeper and two hours later I found their imdb page. They're legit!!!

Let's look at everything they said about working on ST and the Duffers (brace yourself, it's A LOT):

This person seems incredibly bitter. However, all that info that's resurfacing these days ...

Take everything with a grain of salt.

And wait for the NDAs to expire ...

[onstoryladders]

the fact that we were actually supposed to take mike's monologue in season 4 at face value is crazy....... wdym we're supposed to believe that he really loved her as soon as he met her. wdym he calls her a superhero and we're supposed to think it's a good thing. wdym

[givehimthemedicine]

duffers directing Jaws would be like hmm let's not put Jaws at the end. due to shark fatigue

[corefourever]

hello! Caleb is nominated for outstanding supporting actor at the naacp image awards. Could you please post the link to vote for him here? https://vote.naacpimageawards.net/categories/9d2db50d-eb2e-43c6-a413-08de2c5a3e90/entrants if the stranger things fandom can be so loud that media picks up their secret episode theories, then they can vote to get Caleb a win.

Thanks!

Vote for Caleb!!!

[onceuponlia]

“You have to keep toying with the audience.”

That line says it all for me.

It was never about delivering satisfying endings for their characters, doing right by the story, or making sure the fans were happy in the end. It was never about uplifting freaks and outcasts, either.

I’ve already talked about how they betrayed the show’s own values, but I never expected them to openly admit that they enjoy toying with their audience.

This isn’t “we make them think everything is doomed, and then a twist happens and everyone is safe and gets a happy ending.” It’s “we make them believe in a good ending and then crush them at the very end.” That’s not subverting expectations in a meaningful way — it’s setting viewers up to expect hope from a show like Stranger Things and then mocking them for it.

It’s unbelievable how a storyteller can show such indifference towards their own characters and such blatant disrespect for the most devoted part of their fanbase.

I understand that not every story needs a happy ending. But when a show repeatedly promises one, that expectation doesn’t come from nowhere.

Stranger Things, you were truly great once. I’m not sad that you ended — I’m sad that you ended like this.

[dukeofdelirium]

“I asked ChatGPT” well I asked the Duffer Brothers and they uh- they also asked ChatGPT…

[new-ronantics]

never getting over how the california character arcs were rendered completely pointless in s5…

will was retconned into believing he might have a chance with mike all over again even though he’d already given his feelings up in the form of a painting that was never properly addressed.

mike failed to say he loved el back in their final moments together because he was “scared to say goodbye”, which was the exact fear he was supposed to have overcome through his monologue in s4.

el sacrificed herself because she believed her existence would doom her loved ones, even though in s4 she learned that she was never the monster she thought she was and that she deserved to live.

[givehimthemedicine]

I know a lot of us, particularly those into analysis, feel adrift now that the ending of Stranger Things makes it feel like none of it meant anything. like, well, what's the point anymore, if we were only ever seeing patterns in static? like any more analysis would mean continuing to write love letters to showrunners who have just spit in our faces. like we ought to go cold turkey out of bitterness, even though our wheels are still turning.

but now that the letdown is a tad less fresh, I want to encourage us all: if part of you wants to keep going, keep going!

this is some rando's permission for you to continue being a cringe little freak about ST in the unmonetized privacy of your own tumblr / ao3. I say, go ahead and finish that big post that's in your drafts. I want to see it. follow those parallels. make that edit, that shitpost, that web weave. write that post-season-2 fic. post like season 5 doesn't exist. or 4, or 3. make your own rules.

the most fun part of ST was always the community more than the actual show. we're in control of how long that lasts.

these characters and their stories and messages still exist in whatever way has made you happy all along. you don't have to throw away the good with the bad.

refusing to post about ST here anymore doesn't hurt the duffers' feelings or cost them a cent. they don't know or care that you exist. ruining your own fun doesn't stick it to them, so do what you were gonna do anyway.

instead of to creators who dgaf, our love letters can be to the characters' potential, to the messages the show once advocated. to our own community - our creativity, our pattern recognition, our ability to take their thousand loose ends and tie them together into something that has meaning to us in spite of the writers' intent.

stick around! keep creating! keep analyzing what mattered! I won't leave if you won't. 🤍

[emblazons]

Divorcegate is alive and well, because this?! AND **First Shadow (?) taking Kate Trefry midway through S5 too…knowing Shock Jock was the last halfway decent episode?

GG I guess—to Leigh and Kate, the ones who brought us the plot and quality we were missing ☠️ behind every great man is a greater woman, Stranger Things Edition

[i-see-miwi]

The woke agenda got me I genuinely cannot interpret Michael wheeler as straight no matter what I do. hes just that gay idk what to tell you

[queerxqueen]

this is speculation but i do really believe byler was in the plans up through season 4 and they chickened out because netflix needed to use stranger things as a strategic chess piece in their larger plans of world media domination.

i mean, the season 4 california plotline still makes no sense outside of setting up the possibility of byler endgame, though i think they were always operating under the idea that they could set it up but never knew with certainty if they'd be allowed to make it pay off.

but stranger things 4 blew up even more than the first season did in 2016 or any subsequent season, breaking streaming records of all kinds and launching into a full cultural landmark (x). we're talking kate bush resurgence and eddie obsession, merchandise-able everything: hellfire club t-shirts and surfer boy pizzas and immersive experiences and, and, and.

look. we can't really talk about stranger things without talking about the greater context of netflix in the streaming wars circa 2022.

in 2022, netflix was losing subscribers for the first time in a decade (x). netflix begins cracking down on password sharing, offering tiers with ads, desperately trying to keep up their lead in the streaming wars even while competitors like disney+ and hbomax were starting to catch up (x).

in other words, when stranger things 4 came out as a smash hit - it was already a crucial pivot time for netflix. frankly, all they had to leverage was their successful ip. and the more they merchandise everything, the more it grows into a star wars/hp level honest-to-god franchise, the more netflix depends on that revenue stream---the more they absolutely would not risk potentially upsetting the masses with a queer story like byler. or, ultimately, with anything all that daring or unexpected when it comes to ending their biggest flagship show.

then we have the duffers recently saying in an interview that they might return to stranger things "in 20 years if we’re all broke and need some money ... We’ve all talked about it; this is our safety net.” (x)

they sold out. plain and simple. stranger things grew bigger than them and bigger than just the story it wanted to be, into a major cultural and (more notably) FINANCIAL chess piece to be manipulated by the powers that be of netflix. it has the kind of potential for theme parks and spin-offs and reboots and tie-ins for decades to come and they simply couldn't risk that by canonizing byler. they make weak excuses about this being how the show was always going to end, say it's going "full circle" simply by not having let any of 4 seasons of development influence the story's ending from what they did in the very first season, effectively erasing years of character development, particularly for el but also for mike and will.

they pussied out. end of.

tldr; capitalism ruins everything because what else is new