K

Perfect little princess

[furbetii]

Jane Hopper also known as Eleven as a character genuinely makes me cry, and the fact she was so let down by the creators tears my heart apart. Looking at pictures when she was young makes me so emotional. She wasn’t herself in the last season, merely a husk of what she was in past seasons, it’s criminal how badly they messed it up. Jane my angel you’re forever in my heart ☹️☹️♥️

[sunchildsatoru]

textbook definition of deserved better

[maritaimi-uwu]

Byler X Good Luck, Babe!

RIP Mike, you never managed to realise your feelings. RIP Will, you won't escape your true love.

[narrativelogicofbyler]

I’m honestly at the point of tearing my hair out because the costuming for will and mike is so blatantly, aggressively intentional that pretending it’s accidental feels like an insult to the entire field of visual storytelling.

the silhouettes alone should’ve ended the conversation. will’s soft, rounded, emotionally exposed outline versus mike’s rigid, angular, defensive one, that’s not “just how the clothes fit.” that’s intentional character design. that’s two visual energies built to interlock the second they share a frame. they complete each other’s negative space with such precision it borders on a confession. you don’t stumble into that. you build it. you don’t get that by coincidence. you get that because a designer built them as a visual pair.

and the colours? engineered. their palettes are engineered to resonate. not match, resonate. mike’s deeper, earth anchored tones stabilise will’s cooler, gentler hues. that’s colour theory being deployed with the kind of precision you learn in first year film modules. the frame literally settles when they stand next to each other. your eye relaxes. your brain goes, “yes, this belongs.” that’s not coincidence, that’s not vibes. that’s craft. that’s a department doing their job so well people assume it’s natural.

textures? again: deliberate. will’s fabrics tend to be softer, more tactile, more vulnerable. mike’s are structured, slightly rougher, more angular. when they share a frame, those textures play off each other: softness against structure, warmth against coolness. it creates a subtle visual tension that mirrors their emotional dynamic, the push pull, the longing, the miscommunication, the connection they can’t quite articulate. will’s fabrics absorb light, soft, tactile, vulnerable. mike’s catch light at the seams, structured, guarded, withholding. put them together and you get a visual metaphor for their entire emotional arc. softness pressed against rigidity. longing brushing up against fear. the clothes are telling the story even when the dialogue refuses to.

and here’s the part that might go over some people’s heads, but i’m making it my job to spell it out for this amazing fandom: this stuff matters. it’s not decorative. it’s not random. it’s part of the queer baiting machinery that made byler feel so narratively inevitable and then refused to follow through. when a show builds this level of visual cohesion between two characters, silhouettes that harmonise, colours that resolve, textures that converse, it’s signalling connection. it’s setting up payoff. it’s laying groundwork for a relationship arc.

and then… nothing. all that visual storytelling, all that coded intimacy, all that design work that screams “these two are meant to converge,” and the narrative just swerves away. that’s why people call it queerbaiting. because the craft is doing the heavy lifting the script won’t commit to.

what really infuriates me is that this isn’t subtle if you’ve ever taken a single class on visual composition. costume design is built in conversation with blocking, lighting, framing, the entire image pipeline. when will and mike share a shot, the costuming is designed to harmonise with the camera’s composition. the lines of their shirts guide your eye between them. their silhouettes interlock. their colours balance. the frame clicks into place like a puzzle piece snapping home.

so yes, they “look right together”. and the reason it “looks right” is because when they’re in the same shot, the designers engineered that effect. the human eye is drawn to balance, to contrast that resolves rather than clashes. when will and mike stand side by side, the palette settles. the frame stabilises. the composition feels complete. that’s not an accident, that’s a visual cue that these two characters are narratively intertwined. a team of trained professionals made damn sure they would. because the visual language of the show is screaming connection even when the narrative refuses to honour it.

it’s not accidental. it’s not incidental. it’s not “just the 80s.”

it’s deliberate, layered, academically recognisable visual storytelling and it’s infuriating how often that gets dismissed. and it absolutely contributes to why the byler situation feels like a bait and switch to me.

[sugarcubetikki]

These sequence of shots is exactly why Mike and Will are not just friends. The fact that this scene could’ve been a group hug where they’re all sobbing over Will’s body being found but they just had to single out Mike. They really had to emphasise that he was the most torn up about Will’s body being found like this whilst making him say “All of you are my best friends!” in the same season. It’s the fact that no one even assumed that Mike and Will could be the closer of best friends. Dustin thinks that him and Lucas are the closest of best friends but Mike and Will? No one ever says anything about their weirdly close bond. Sometimes, that’s everything you need to know.

[sugarcubetikki]

Recent reblogs of this old post are 100% correct:

(the last one is something I’ve thought about a lot. s1 and s2 lucas and dustin’s reactions to byler are interesting. never have they once acknowledged mike and will having a closer friendship but i like to think they can sense something but obviously they come from a small town in the 80s hence they haven’t made the connection. I think about them needing to call after mike in this scene and how that’s highlighted. I also think about in s2 when will has an episode during halloween and mike is all possessive, pushing dustin away and dustin genuinely is agitated by this and goes “mike!”. in s3 lucas is merely a bystander when will gets upset, mike is out there encouraging lucas that they should continue playing the game to appease will and dragging him to will’s house after the fight in the rain. in s4 dustin’s “mike won’t stop whining about joyce’s telemarketer job”. in st5 vol 1 i think about that moment where lucas reaches to comfort will after will stumbles near the tree but when mike looks at him, he pulls his hands away. lucas and dustin sense something for sure but yeah they have not made the connection yet. special friendship where they’re not the normal kind of best friends but yk they’re just mike and will. that’s how they’re like!).

[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.

[miwiheroes]

wasn't going to drink another "mike being morally grey when it comes to will" drink tonight but then i remembered that one scene where el says that she can't find him and mike basically says "well eat a granola bar i need will back"

[henrysglock]

I was talking to my mom about the finale, and she said to me "I can't believe they sent Will to Milwaukee in the Dahmer era". And so I had to go back and rewatch Mike's epilogue for Will myself.

Sure enough:

Vallaki, with the same syllable stresses as Milwaukee. I can see why the two sounded interchangeable to someone who doesn't know anything about DnD.

However, I looked a little closer at the scenery in the bar:

That's 100% the Pabst logo.

From what I can tell, they fucking sent Will Byers to Milwaukee circa 1990-1991, when Jeffrey Dahmer was most active.

And on top of this (which is news to me, because I'm not a true crime girlie):

Lionel (Lonnie..?) and Joyce? Really?

What kind of sick joke is this 🙃

(Not to mention Vallaki literally being the Enforced Happiness Tyranny City that's prone to cult takeovers...now why is that...why is Will being sent to the DnD near-equivalent of ST's Camazotz...Literally for what reason...)

[jacemustcry]

OPINION !! people who are saying its just a show, don't fucking understand how much the representation of repressed queer - acceptance - relationship actually means for people like me . if rick riordan, white, straight, middle aged man did not write nico di angelo as a closeted , repressed gay teen I would have NEVER known I was bisexual, or maybe i would have but YEARS later, rather than middle school whivh was key to my development as a person mind you. You can't fathom what the d*ffers have done to a set of queer kids in middle school who are repressing because of internal homophobia/ abuse or any reason for that matter who are watching the show and going "oh i guess my childhood love for 11 years that means so much to me is just a crush i can get over in a afternoon!!" let that sink in.

[0ceansoftime]

the byler reconnecting during college fanfic 20K+ words angst slowburn and 90s setting calls to me like the green goblin mask.

[miwiromantics]

Saying that us wanting queer representation was just noise, telling Noah to shut up when all he wanted was a happy ending for his character, not taking his consideration to the coming out scene like he isn’t a gay man himself, saying El just represents childhood wonder and killing her off, not caring about any of her trauma and depth, telling Noah to be ‘less gay’, disregarding Kali as her own character and giving her the most traumatic backstory with no happy ending. Duffers, I know what you are.

[bylrlvr]

i’ve played these games before

rare aesthetic: closeted gay men mourn for their lost potential with the love of their lives

[onstoryladders]

i feel like people forget how central byler is to the whole show. the first and second season are literally about mike's love for will – not even in a romantic way, but there's straight up DEVOTION there in everything MIKE does. he sees will's body pulled out of the lake and can't even accept that it's him and HE'S RIGHT. mike's love for will is literally so important but the duffers threw it out the window and treated it like it was nothing. even if they didn't want byler to happen, they could've handled it so much better. but they're cowards, so scared to make things gay that they couldn't even give the storyline a proper resolution. they couldn't even treat that FRIENDSHIP with the dignity it deserved and the weight that it's always had in previous seasons

[phosphorusab]

“Byler wasn’t queerbait” mfs when I pull up receipts

[dariatheidiot]

i dont fucking care about what the queerbait brothers have to say. mike wheeler is a closeted gay man and in love with will byers. fuck you

[gay-lien-from-space]

[eeriesilkworm]

I'm... so confused?

What was the purpose of the scene about queer signals, if Will was never going to receive queer signals? Why was the question concerned with the obviousness of signals, and not the mere presence of them? Why use the term "shared looks" when that was a known call and response on set for Noah and Finn?

What was the meaning of the snowball and avalanche metaphor? Why include that scene at all? Where was the payoff?

You're going to write an entire meta scene on queer signals of attraction, include examples that we have already observed, indicate an eventual pay off... and not let it pay off? Why? To be malicious?

You tell the audience through Will that Mike was just his Tammy this entire time and expect us to believe it? Was Tammy in Robin's video tape? Did Robin know Tammy since she was five? Did Tammy run after her in the rain or recognize her breathing over the radio?

And Will Byers never got kissed. Will Byers witnessed queer love, queer joy, and queer intimacy through a kiss at the beginning of the season, wanting that for himself because he's a romantic... and never even got kissed. Not even by his epilogue boyfriend.