herald of the cocklesbaiting era

[castielstwigandberries]

armand they could never make me hate your zero chill and inability to give no fucks

[lamiasage]

I needed to draw this scene... Devil's Minion got me bad

[castielstwigandberries]

love this show about vampires fake idgafs

[frogstiel]

founding tenants of the spnblr experience:

They Didn’t Even Cast Abel

Expect Him To Be In A Hat

[castielstwigandberries]

"average person cannot make their mind up about destiel" factoid actualy just statistical error. average person knows how they feel about destiel. queerbait jensen, who lives in denial & changes his mind 10,000 times a day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted.

[vampirementality]

they really shouldve just given holly's plotline to mike.

imagine the chaos of the madwheeler duo running rampant in vecnas mind.

imagine them being forced to see each others worst memories and recognising the real reason they butt heads so often is because they just cant stand how similar they really are.

imagine they fight because theyre still in denial about their similarities because theyre both self hating idiots, and/or they have some sort of disagreement, maybe about how to escape or maybe max confronts him about how he's treated el in the past.

imagine that right as tensions are highest, they stumble into another memory and max finds out that mikes big secret is that hes in love with will. and he expects her to berate him. to yell at him, say she just knew there was something wrong with him, but of course she doesn't. she just hugs him and tells him its okay. and he's so caught off guard that he doesn't even react at first, but then piece by piece he just starts to break down and cry into her shoulder, because its such a relief to finally just admit it to someone, and the fact that max, someone who isnt very fond of him on a good day, still accepts him honestly just makes her the perfect person to admit it to.

imagine she opens up to him about how it wasn't the music that saved her at all, it was her connection, her love for lucas, and that if he wants to escape he has to accept the same thing for himself. he has to realize what love really tethers him to this world.

[loserrsquad]

mike getting so flustered by being saved he panics and introduces himself by his full government name 😭

they’re so smitten oh my god

[castielstwigandberries]

in the end what bugs me about the finale is that whatever this is, it was not a happy ending. the thing they spent the last 2 seasons to prevent literally happened. and the message is just so bleak and hopeless and sad? and all in all not even consistent.

1. the way i see it, although god and the angels and the demons were meddling free will was still very much a core theme in the universe. crowley and aziraphale had free will, adam had free will, that's what prevented the apocalypse. we also know that while crowley and aziraphale were sent to influence people in the end most of humanities actions were actually their choice

2. the thing that actually took the free will away from humanity was the predetermined end of their universe. and this is exactly what happened. in the end none of the humans were allowed to decide how they wanted to live, hell, they weren't even allowed to know about what was going on

3. they. killed. all of humanity. and all the animals and plants and stars and planets and so on. it doesn't matter that god created a new one, part of this ending was the greatest extinction event in the history of the universe making the universe itself history. in the first season they were adamantly protesting against the flood, in the finale they sacrificed themselves for the flood to happen

4. this is bloody suicidal. or actually probably homicidal. just look at it this way. someone comes up to you and tells you 'actually you don't have free will because there is this all powerful being that decided you have to die now. but good news! we are all for you having free will. so you must die. so another universe can be created with real free will'

how the fuck do you make an ending where the only way to achieve free will is that the being who is responsible for you not having free will decides you can have free will. and you are not even there to argue for yourself.

5. like, man, there might not be god or angels or hell or whatever here, but i think everyone has at some point felt as if they had no control over their life. and sometimes things happen you dont have control over. and sometimes people decide things for you. and good omens says that if something like that happens the only way to get back that control is... to kill yourself and hope the next incarnation of yourself has it better

6. we have been told the system cannot change but we haven't been shown it? at any point in the show? gabriel and beelzebub absconded and changed their view on the apocalypse. crowley and aziraphale never did what they were told. i can get behind the idea that changing heaven from inside is bullshit but the idea that they couldn't have achieved a better world in the go universe is absurd. one line in this show is literally 'i think next time it's going to be us vs them' as in heaven and hell against humanity and that would have been a so much better way to achieve free will than whatever that was

7. the idea that the existence of angels and demons alone is incompatible with free will is not convincing to me at all. apparently your nature already makes you evil (opposed to free will on principle)

8. the fact that most of the characters we know all congregated on the same spot in that bar is not a fucking coincidence and honestly? that feels like more meddling on god's part than we ever saw before. but maybe that's just a me thing.

9. once again. WHY IS THE MESSAGE THAT THE SOLUTION TO BEING IN DIFFICULT CIRCUMSTANCES IS THAT WE NEED TO KILL EVERYTHING AND START OVER

[castielstwigandberries]

the thing about conformitygate is like: do i actually believe that they will drop a secret finale? no, not really. but that isnt because i think the theory doesnt make sense. mike being vecna'd is an incredible theory and i love the idea of the audience also being 'vecna'd' in that way. i just dont believe the duffers are that intelligent or let's say, against conformity, as the theory expects of them. i am looking forward to all the fics that will get written, because it is a very compelling interpretation to me, one that thematically makes much more sense than the actual ending. maybe what i just want to say is: in my mind conformitygate isnt the secret episode but the theories and stories you all made along the way! and thus it will never die. if a new episode dropped that would be certainly crazy. but if it doesnt that just means yall are much better writers than the duffel bags (tbh i assume that is a given). also for fucks sake stop using the word 'delusional' please, it is disrespectful towards all the people who actually experience delusions. it downplays the severity and consequences of actual delusions if you so readily compare it to something like this. (and i know it probably comes from the word being thrown around as an insult so much but still, being insulted by it doesnt mean you can coopt or reclaim it if you are not actually delusional, especially as it is not. an. insult. the people using it as such are just ableistic arseholes) thank you

[whatisstevenabt]

I knew platonic byler was dead when Will told the group to go on without him and Mike left. I’m sorry the Mike Wheeler I know would NEVER.

[sublimin4lvrses]

rovicke break up (maybe). robin calling Steve and Jonathan lovebirds. robin asking Nancy about the babes at her college. might as well start shipping ronance and stonathan smhh

[hotdogmacaroni-deactivated20260]

robin was just a plot device to help will and i hate that.

i wouldn’t mind her helping will, and it made sense that she did. i found her and will’s dynamic very wholesome and integral for will’s arc of self-acceptance, but she had zero arc outside of will. her whole character was boiled down to her sexuality and how her queerness could progress will as a character instead of herself. and i hate how so much of her development happened off screen. her learning about her sexuality? happened off screen. her getting with vickie? off screen. not to mention how her arc was just will’s but far less developed and mostly outside of the on screen plot. they really did robin dirty as a whole tbh.

it’s almost like they don’t know how to write queer characters… 🤔

[fuchsia-tulips]

when i saw will in the background of all the mileven moments, i started DYING LAUGHING

[gayofthefae]

Here's my thing. Here's why I'm still here, still...confused, by the idea of them not doing Byler. In every other plotline, every other theme? They exceeded my expectations this volume.

They addressed that bonding over shared trauma is not a healthy basis of relationship, saying that it only creates a feeling of closeness for a few years before it feels stifling. I had NO expectation that they would say this about them. Wonderful job. The unproposal together instead of just Jonathan realizing he shouldn't and never telling her he was going to was so sweet, I loved that scene.

I expected them to address Dustin's grief and the parallel between Steve and Eddie in his life, but I did NOT expect them to directly address Steve's jealousy in season 4 and how it affected his relationship with Dustin and Eddie's death! That was AMAZING! I was very impressed.

Honestly, overrall, that whole group's season 4 plotline and my analyses of it I did not expect to be so brought to light. I said that Nancy wasn't interested in Steve just, finding ways to distance from Jonathan, and she SAID that. I said it wasn't about Nancy for Steve, it was about feeling rejected by Dustin and he SAID that. Both those topics were only really clued into by one or two lines in the whole of season 4 but they came back to them very directly!

Max directly telling Holly that not acting in a situation where you could not have helped and only would have endangered yourself too is not the same as cowardice is what I've been saying about Will's plot and the themes of the character deaths - including Eddie's, which was MENTIONED in this context - for YEARS! And they had her directly address it to Holly. That not stabbing Vecna with a fire poker because you know it won't help and standing by at the sight of violence are not the same thing. Sometimes your body paralyzes you because it knows there is a reason for your fear, and you should NOT overpower it out of some moral self-berating. That is a LIFE-SAVING message I have praised in this show for YEARS but never have they said it explicitly like that and they DID.

I also really liked that they came back to El's anger at Hopper for planning to sacrifice himself. That was a smaller, side one for me but I didn't expect them to, I kind of expected it to be swept under the rug and them move on in their fight, but it wasn't. She did lose him for almost a year and she was hurt by his decision to risk that again. It makes total sense and I think it was very strong for them to address that.

And actually TO talk about Will's queerness, let's do it.

They started that coming out strong out of the gate. With his fear not just being rejection, but change. Even in allyship, that his loved ones would treat him as some fragile thing again and their relationship would change. That they wouldn't leave him on purpose but that it would just naturally cause them to drift over time. Those are very real and common fears that are extremely under-talked about. The grief over connection in adolescence he mentions, that he's saddened by the fact that they have always shared so much that it felt strange when he couldn't relate to them on something. It isn't always that he wanted to be straight but that he wanted to continue to be the same as them.

Those are all very specific details not usually addressed or acknowledged. It's usually simplified to "fear of homophobia", because that's about all that straight people understand of why people don't come out. But "I'm afraid you'll try your best to keep me in your life and support and accept me but we will ultimately drift apart because we won't be able to relate to each other in the same way anymore" brought back VIVID memories for me.

And the actual framing of the coming out itself. I already felt great when we started with that conversation between Will and Robin. Coming out was not described as a goal. It was described as a step. That made me very happy. It is rarely done. But queer stories should not center straight people finding out. Straight people patting themselves on the back for simply not rejecting you. As if straight people provided you your happy ending in choosing not to harm you. It is a step TOWARDS your actual personal desires. Coming out is an important step TOWARDS the romance that is actually your goal. The want you realized that started this all. It is a checkbox, not a finale. It is a jumping off point.

Everything but Mike hit the nail on the head for me. Honestly. That's what confuses me. Because it is the same values they just demonstrated so beautifully that would save his character in this finale.

That's what confuses me. That's what I keep coming back to.

[castielstwigandberries]

watching ds9 to detox from the absolutely shitshow that was stranger things and yeah, Quark, you are so totally fucking right

nothing means anything anymore

[beeplesnorp]

Sorry how did Will go from this:

To this:

With no negative interactions with Mike? (Other than whatever Vecna showed him)

I hate to hold hope but this change seems so drastic. Only time will tell.

[castielstwigandberries]

currently balancing all my hopes on the visions vecna showed him being the thing that brought on this change of my mind and that he is just pretending to be over mike cause he is afraid of what vecna showed him

[castielstwigandberries]

the way i see this maybe, just maybe, working out hinges all on the visions vecna showed will - visions we did not see, neither when it first happened nor when they were explicitly mentioned by will. if this is in any way written in a salvageable and not horrendously bad manner then show-not-tell is still important. and in this instant we definitely didn't get shown shit. Will tells us what Vecna showed him, he tells us that his feelings were just a crush, that mike was just his tammy, he tells us that mike "isn't like him". But the thing is that none of the things are actually shown to us. the visions for the most obvious part. but also that it was just a crush or that mike is his tammy. in contrast: what we have seen so far tells us that will is in love with mike he already laid all his feelings for mike bare in the van scene, feelings that later lead to a direct love confession. (and this scene already is a perfect example of show-dont-tell). in contrast to tammy mike has been will's best friend for over a decade, will doesn't idolise him from afar, he understands him like no one else (once again the van scene where he says the things that actually lead to mike being able to confess his love). the one thing we know about tammy apart from being robins crush is her being 'tone-deaf' - and despite of that robin was convinced she could sing amazingly, up until the point she saw her again after she got over her - will never was so blind to anything concerning mike (except maybe his feelings for him). i am not an expert on crushes by any means but from what i heard they always were somewhat impersonal, an infatuation with someone you barely know - exactly what robin described with tammy. that is patently not at all the relationship mike and will have. and after season four no one talked about will having a "crush", i think even the actors talked about "love" when talking about will's feelings. next up the past tense: will's speech makes it seem like he is over mike but none of what we have been shown this season supports that, at least i haven't seen anything. why show will being so earnestly interested in how robin in vickie got in a relationship (especially after the rovickie and byler parallels last season) if it doesn't amount to anything. will has brought up robins journey twice this season, once in the hospital and once on the roof where they electrocuted the pumpkin. both times it makes only sense that he is thinking about mike (in ep 4 he even flirts with him, something which robin clocks). if will really realised mike was his tammy after robin's speech why does he ask her again about her relationship development? especially in terms of the timeline after her self acceptance (something he just had last episode btw).

the point where wills outlook actually changes is after vecna shows him the visions - visions we have no clue about! my guess - or rather my hope - is that vecna showed will more than he let on in the coming out - something that put mike at risk because of his feelings for him or something that showed mike having a bad reaction to his feelings for him, convincing will he would be better off without having feelings for him anymore. we all already agree that will was pressured into coming out by vecna, so what if this framing as "empowering moment" is what will is trying to convince himself this is, his plan to escape vecna's grasp, but in reality he (and we as the audience) will realise his plan didnt work because he was still hiding? because some part of him was still diminishing his feelings? because he still didnt believe he was worthy of being loved?

basically the way i see this working out is if this coming out scene was intended to feel exactly as bad and uncomfortable as it was. if this is the result of vecna using will's feelings once again against him and if in the finale he will see through all of vecna's manipulations - even the one that led him to belittle and warp his own feelings for mike in the first place.