Hyperfixator

• Buddie • Byler • Chenford • Sydcarmy • Ineffable Husbands • Janine and Gregory • Percabeth • they/them • ace lesbian @bylershippereleven on Youtube

[gayofthefae]

New pitch: the Stranger Things ending is Mike's book he released in the 90s and he wrote El to possibly have died so that Kay would think it was true and never find her and he took out the part where he and Will got together so it could be published.

[gayofthefae]

To all my loves who have been queerbaited in the past and are tired in general of what I call "palatable" queerness, I highly recommend to do you: Francesca Bridgerton.

This is Francesca Bridgerton

Francesca Bridgerton is openly very feminine and enthusiastic about the feminine and traditional aspects of society she participates in. Francesca Bridgerton was excited to start courting. Francesca Bridgerton was eager to marry her husband, John. Francesca Bridgerton loves John very much. Francesca Bridgerton very much wants to have children with her husband John.

And most importantly: it is becoming increasingly clear that Francesca Bridgerton is a lesbian.

[please note that it is fully canon that Francesca is attracted to women. The 'increasingly clear' part is this season's plot heavily implying a lack of attraction to men. But she is fully canonically queer.]

And on a very real level, the most important information of all:

John's cousin, Michaela, is based on a book character. Francesca's whole story was based on a book. Michaela is an adaptation of Francesca's love interest in her book who she ends up with and is already in the show following the storyline depicted in said book. It cannot be changed. It will not be backed out of. The only concern here is cancellation, not queerbait.

[sticklystag]

this picture is literally insane now like all of this equaled to nothing i know the set designers were mad as hell

[gayofthefae]

Conformitygate was a fun idea but I stand on the fact that the real reason all the costuming, set design, lighting and everything still reflects Byler is actually because Stranger Things is full of passionate artists and nerds who, in being that.....do not agree with how The Duffers ended the show.

And said "fuck this, dress him like his dad if you wanna give him that ending" "he hangs Will's painting over his bed actually fuck you, and it's right below his one way sign for an extra fuck you".

It wasn't the Duffers commenting on this. It was every passionate artist who loved this story so much and actually understood the characters, doing everything in their power to send the message through the screen everything from "this is ending is a dystopia" to "Byler are still endgame" or whatever each thing hints at. It's not theory or hint. It's spite.

Everything in their power to either imply the right ending is still out there for them in the future, or acknowledge that this is not it. Make that shit blue and yellow. Hang that painting above his bed. And if you're gonna write him into a conformist hellscape, I'm gonna dress him the way I did every time he was miserable and identical to the character who represents misery in conformity.

It wasn't a promise of a better ending. It was a fuck you to this one.

[gayofthefae]

What I'm honestly starting to think might have also happened with the quality is they just got too big a head and started turning down their writers' ideas - whether to their faces or just deciding later to not listen to their suggestions. Ego got in the fucking way of the awareness that different perspectives is what makes writing good.

Unfortunately, though, they made the very common mistake of likely cishet, white men, to in their show about outsiders, wrongfully think they were outsiders.

"Well when I was a kid I had crushes like that-" "And it was good for her story because in my life I've experienced this-"

wrong. this is a show about outsiders. You are not that.

They heard "not about us without us" and thought they counted.

[gayofthefae]

And if I said ending with an almost identical scene to season 1 isn't full circle but actually implies your characters haven't changed what then.

If someone could watch the season 1 scene and that scene and not understand there were major events in between you've done something wrong.

[kidovna]

my epilogue

[scoopstroopog]

"mike was the first person to treat el with kindness and like a human being"

put some respect on his fucking name please

[lyxchen]

Byler kiss that would have saved the world <3

Bonus: Mike without the hat :>

Also I have a bunch of close ups under the cut <33

[gayofthefae]

"Those crazy shippers" actually it's not about romance at all it's about how if you write a character to want something, anything, for a long period of time it's shitty to not give it to them, let alone to claim they're fine with that. I would also be this mad if Nancy didn't become a journalist, something that, like Will, she has been emotionally attached to wanting since season 3 and is centered in her character arc.

You callout the romantic portion, and I'm actually specifically talking about writers in interviews who do this not just antis, as a way of dismissing it. But if you write a character to want something for a long period of time you should give it to them, or openly admit that their ending was not meant to be a 'happy ending'. It's actually that simple. This is no different than El ending without a family or if Nancy had ended without journalism. Character wanted X. In this context that happened to be romance, but THEY made it that.

Will could have wanted nothing more than to be a professional artist. He could have wanted nothing more than acceptance from his family and friends.

I'm not crazy for acknowledging what his plot was about.

I once said that to queerbait they would have had to deny Will's feelings for Mike, which is why after they confirmed them after season 4 I was confident.

It turns out, they were just waiting to, and essentially have now, in the way that they treat anyone who references that they wanted for Will what he canonically wanted for himself overly creative or headcanoning, nothing more than a 'fan theory'.

To queerbait they would have had to deny Will's canon feelings for Mike.

And look at that. They are.

[kidovna]

this one’s for you jimmy fallon

[gayofthefae]

Can't believe they probably asked Grok how to write Will's ending before they asked a queer person

[gayofthefae]

Actually, Mike is a writer, Will is an illustrator and they live in California together because Mike said he wanted to leave Hawkins and it's safer for queer people, Dustin becomes a scientist, El owns a clothing shop in downtown Hawkins and lives near her parents, and Lucas and Max are how they were in the finale that's fine I love them.

Those flashforwards are described and we cut back to the DnD table where Mike, Dustin, Will, Lucas, Max, and El have all been playing. They pack up to pursue those lives, Mike looks back down the stairs bittersweet [not openly sad like he was, bittersweet] then Holly and her friends run down the stairs and start playing DnD. He smiles, walks upstairs, and closes the door. The end. Credits.

That still works. It works. The end.

[gayofthefae]

I realized what the Stranger Things ending was:

They never came up with any ending other than the season 1 one.

"El has a romantic moment with Mike before sacrificing herself. The party, now free of the monsters, is able to have a fun scene of playing DnD, but there's a bittersweet moment at the end because it's not the same without El now. El is implied to be still alive but it's left ambiguous. The end."

Are you fucking kidding me.

They came up with an ending to their miniseries. Did it. Were told to make the show longer, so in that time they wrote the characters to say a lot how they 'always wanted more than just that season 1 ending' and start to write more nuance into it and give them actual long-term wants...apparently just to fill time the network told them to fill, only to then not even come up with a new ending and just slap the same one on again. But now, they've established the characters actually want things, so it doesn't work anymore. [And they didn't even consider that.] And the problem is it works in season 1, sacrifices and all that, because in the first season characters are symbols of something. Symbols can live or die or do whatever they want. But after that, they're people. And it no longer works the same.

They just did the fucking season 1 ending again. They didn't even think of a new one.

That's why we did better than them at coming up with one. They didn't even consider the idea that their own characters had grown.

[bmissyb]

“this isn’t like one of your campaigns, you don’t get to write the ending” but the finale literally is literally mike writing the ending for his friends during a campaign.

this doesn’t make sense.

[gayofthefae]

"we do" and then he does alone

[wolfhaquarian]

whatever happens guys i'm just okay with it because it's a win-win.

conformitygate doesn't exist? cool, fans wrote an hypothetical ending BETTER than those in charge of doing it in first place

ending is up to interpretation? good, byler did happen and there's no ambiguous ending. a proper closure is given

this theory that started in the fanbase went mainstream? great, now everybody knows they all have shit in their heads, it's exposed

[grayathebisexual]

“I asked chatgpt” yeah well I asked the Duffers and it turns out they also asked chatgpt

[flowermyg]

"you're just mad at the duffers because byler didn't happen"the writers and directors of the show needed maya hawke to remind them while filming that lucas didn't know robin is a lesbian in the 80's who is dating vickie, so they should whisper about their date at enzo's and their relationship instead of talking loudly about it. yeah, they totally handled very well queer representation.

[gayofthefae]

People also forget that queerness is an identity with romance in its definition so asking for romance in representation of queerness is not the same as straight people being unwilling to go without it in every story