your local bitch

!! FREE PALESTINE !! she/her. pan. chocolates & cakes. gol-gappe & chowmein. sprite. stranger things. byler truther&lover. at a distance, spring is green. soohyun&joon. goblin. kim shin&eun tak. friendly rivalry. jae&seulgi. billie, olivia, taylor, sabrina, gracie, ariana, cas, the neighborhood.

[bylertruth3r]

barbie/ken byler

[rottentiger-art]

Only Debling subplot/cameo I'd be interested in

[ashenolive]

Omg yes there is an article that everyone needs to see!!

'Stranger Things 5' Missed a Major Opportunity To Give Will the Ending He Deserved

Stranger Things' final season missed a major opportunity to give Will Byers a proper romantic storyline by the end.

[teambyler]

It's nice to see Collider -- which I assume is NOT an insignificant publication as they had that exclusive interview with the Duffers where they claimed to have known Mileven would be endgame from the beginning -- publish this piece which basically presents the Byler perspective to a broader audience.

Only thing missing was citing the community's belief that the show QUEERBAITED. Still, it basically lays out the case pretty well for the general public, and it points out the show's worse treatment for its queer characters and relationships compared to its straight characters and relationships.

Hoping for more coverage!

Make sure to leave a comment!

-teambyler

[teambyler]

Noah spent the most time with Finn, or shot the most SCENES with Finn?

There are Tiktok edits of Finn and Noah being close on set with clips from the new "Making Of" Stranger Things 5 documentary...

(EDIT: Replaced the 2 original pics I was informed were AI-generated)

... and I saw comments like this get a TON of hearts:

... and I still don't buy it. :)

If you rewatch the full clip where Noah said he spent more time on set with Finn than anyone else:

he's asked what his favorite moments "on set" were... the ordinary meaning of this is his favorite scene

Noah treats it like a spoiler! (Or in this case, because shooting had wrapped and he knew Byler wasn't to be, that it would raise false expectations) He says he can't share his favorite moment because it's from Season 5 "so I can't tell you." So it probably is a scene and not some mere on-set shenanigans

"I spent the most time with Finn throughout the course of [Season 5]"... "I must make sure not to say anything for Season 5"... very specific wording! Again, he treated it like it would've suggested Byler! Why?

Also, given the grueling shooting schedule, if you're spending most of your time with another actor it's 90% certain it's because you're working together and not just hanging out for each other's scenes!

Also, all the BTS clips I'm seeing are from scenes where Mike and Will were in the same scene.

(Note that my belief in BylerGate -- that the Duffer Brothers intended Byler to happen but at some point, for unverified reasons, they backed out -- doesn't require Finn and Noah to actually have shot scenes together. But if there are cut scenes it does make it almost certainly true!)

Just wanted to address this! I think folks are still understandably looking for any queer joy after what happened with Byler. (Also if you ask for my amateur opinion, based on the limited info we have they seem very sweetly platonic. And especially after Season 4 shooting it shouldn't be surprising that the actors grew close and would emotionally react together to the show ending.)

Anyway, carry on! =D

-teambyler

[georgeodowd]

So we can all just accept that they are absymally bad writers now, right? What's hard to believe is anyone let them *get away with it* but... wow. This is like... embarrassingly bad.

[teambyler]

This is outrageous. Instead of their STARTING point being what impact did they want to have with El's story, it was "how do we toy with the audience"? How do we make it unexpected? How do we set it up?

They lost the forest for the trees.

Irresponsible. And shows their flaws as writers because having the abused girl commit suicide to "break the cycle" was one of the worst decisions they could have made.

-teambyler

[teambyler]

SNL echoing the homophobic lampooning of Will's coming-out scene as going on too long and supposedly intrusive and unnecessary I did NOT expect.

It's outrageous.

We may hear the excuse that maaaaaybe they're making fun of the Duffer Brothers. Even if that WERE the writers' intention, it doesn't matter because then this was horribly ill-conceived. Because that is NOT what the bigots are thinking. It's widely understood that the coming-out scene was attacked by homophobes. This skit, instead of making fun of how many people were in the room or the trite "And me's" or hundred other things wrong about it, has Will go on forever about being gay and "liking D..." The bigots who thought the scene was pointless and a waste of time to push "the woke agenda," will think this skit agrees with them.

And to the average/casual viewer, this isn't making fun of the writers but of WILL (and by implication Noah's performance.) It didn’t clearly direct itself at the bad writing of that scene but instead made fun of Will for coming out.

(EDIT: Video.) (And another video criticizing the episode.)

I have not watched SNL in years. Are they now trying to cater to the right wing nowadays?

And with Finn guest-starring there's an implicit endorsement. I wonder if Finn, Gaten, and Caleb will say anything about this. (Or even KNEW about this!) Because right now it has the appearance of them participating in it. And they're all under NDAs that probably make it harder to criticize the Duffers' writing. smdh

-teambyler

EDIT 2: I've seen the "Heated Wizardry" skit be enjoyed by queer people AND by people who think it's making fun of queer people, ship furries, etc. SNL seems to be walking a fine line where they try to cater to queer people/progressives and to bigoted people at the same time, each side seeing what they want to see. (because capitalism) It's sleazy. I've already said how they could've written this without echoing the bigots. And citing the fact that there are queer writers avoids the issue of what's in the skit itself and how the bigots see it.

EDIT 3: I'm not sure if some of the pushback is people wanting to defend Finn here, but I'm not impute any ill intent on Finn. I have no idea what role if he played if any in the coming-out spoof. And as for my observation of overall catering to both sides, I think that is something people should be more aware of as the same piece of writing can appear to be aimed at us and seem to "support" us, when it actually has a face turned to people who are definitely NOT us at the same time. We Bylers just went through this experience with the Stranger Things show itself! And I think it's something to be mindful of.

EDIT 4: Here's a tweet with 12K likes where the poster (WARNING: Case of "whataboutism" to justify bigotry) acknowledges that the joke was to make fun of WILL:

EDIT 5:

The subjective intentions of the SNL crew or any actor are entirely beside the point. And if SNL, which is anti-Trump and MAGA, didn't intend it to be homophobic and meant to criticize the writing, then they need to apologize and clarify their intentions with the skit. Yet to date they have not done this.

[bylerworld]

remember when this was all we had

those were the days man so peak

[narrativelogicofbyler]

i used to bristle whenever people threw around “heart eyes” for their ships. most of the time it’s just blocking plus a vaguely intense stare, nothing actually happening in the performance. but the van scene between mike and will? that was the moment i had to retire my skepticism.

the micro expression work in that scene is unreal. finn and noah are communicating entire emotional arcs with the smallest shifts, eye flicks, breath patterns, the way their faces settle when they’re not performing for anyone else. it’s the kind of acting you only catch if you’ve spent years studying how cameras read faces.

and then the field scene… honestly, it’s a masterclass. the pink sky, the framing, the stillness, but it’s will’s face that destroys me every time. he’s torn between ache and flirting, holding this impossible balance of longing and hope. it’s that tiny, trembling smile that doesn’t quite land, the way his eyes soften and then sharpen like he’s daring mike to meet him halfway. meanwhile mike’s entire emotional conflict is flickering across his eyes in real time. they’re running two separate performances that keep reaching toward each other in the negative space.

i’ve never seen mike look at anyone the way he looks at will in those scenes, and the same goes for will toward mike. that’s not fan projection. that’s actor driven subtext. finn and noah understood their characters emotional trajectories more intimately than the writers ever committed to on the page, and they built a whole relationship in the micro expressions the script refused to name.

credit to them, they turned eye lines, breath, and barely there expressions into a love story hiding in plain sight.

[miwiheroes]

the one thing about both bylers is they have no idea what a rejection/breakup scene is supposed to look like

[scoopstroopog]

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

put some respect on his fucking name please

[narrativelogicofbyler]

when maya put will and mike together under “cutest couple that never was,” the room didn’t just have a reaction, it erupted. full body applause, actual screams, that instinctive swell of noise you only get when an audience feels like they’ve just had something they already believed quietly confirmed.

that kind of reaction isn’t random. you don’t get that level of visceral, immediate response unless the general audience has already internalised the pairing as narratively plausible. they saw those two faces side by side and their brains went, “oh. yeah. that tracks”.

[dearest-loveliest-elizabeth]

The legacy of stranger things that the duffers did not plan for

[walkwithme-alittlelonger]

and while we're on the topic i really hate how much the female characters in this show were called a bitch. thomas calls 9 year old holly a bitch, henry calls 13 year old tina a bitch, even hopper calls kali a bitch!! the female characters in this are so underdeveloped but they love to throw that word around with so much malice

[gothmikewheeler]

the vibes of the boys' interviews makes so much sense now. they were fed up.

[hearteyes-wheeler]

@crowleysshittyglasses mentioned mike looking like ted and... well. We asked them to address the parallels in the show and they decided to address the worst parallel of them all

Mike wheeler, the boy who couldn't break the cycle, fell victim to forced conformity and followed in the footsteps of his mentally checked out dad.

[mindflamer]

i think what really gets me is they wrote a fucking tragic ending but presented it as a happy one. it seems clear to me they wrote mike as a closeted gay man. even till the very end, there is subtext about mike and about byler. but will ends up in a bar with a random boy and mike ends up alone in his room with the painting from will on the wall. he talks about a story he can never tell and cries putting his binder next to will's. he never said i love you back to his girlfriend before she died. it's fucking tragic, but they couldn't even commit to that. it's wrapped up in looking like a happy ending to everyone but the queer people who devoted our time, love, and attention to their story. we are left devastated in a way nobody else can see, as if that doesn't already happen to queer people enough.

[roxstarrs]

LMFAOOO cancel it louder

[bylrndgm]

LINK! Too lazy to click: