Sofía

iT's nOt mY fAuLt yoU dOn'T LikE giRlS❤️ | Colombian🇨🇴 | Microbiology student🐢 | 18

[sofixt0k]

I think I need to say this out loud, even if I’m like… 100+ days late.

Before the Stranger Things finale, before everything blew up, before the chaos—there was Byler. And I was there. Not casually. Not “oh I like this ship” and move on. No. I was deep in it. I’m talking 12 to 18 years old, every single day, all day. Tumblr wasn’t just an app, it was basically my second brain. I woke up and checked it. I went to school and still checked it. If I mentioned Byler to someone, I already had a tab open to prove my point.

It wasn’t just a phase, it was a whole era of my life.

And then the ending happened.

People processed it immediately. First week, first month, even now—everyone has something to say. Some are still angry, some moved on, some turned it into jokes. And me?

I just… didn’t come back.

I didn’t make a dramatic exit. I didn’t post a goodbye. I just stopped opening Tumblr. Not completely—I’ve posted maybe two or three things, reblogged something here and there. But every time I get a notification, I feel this weird… block. Like my brain goes “nope, not today.”

The funny thing is, I can’t even uninstall the app.

Because somehow it feels like I’d be deleting something way too personal. Like I’d be erasing a version of myself that lived and breathed Byler for years. And yeah, I know how that sounds. But if you’ve ever loved something this intensely, you get it.

I’ve had friends who cried. Readers from my Wattpad who told me they were genuinely heartbroken, but still found comfort in the things I wrote. And then there’s me, just… here. Not crying, not ranting, not moving on either.

I don’t know if it’s denial or shock or just my brain protecting itself.

All I know is: I’m still not ready.

And the reason I’m even posting this is because I just got another Tumblr notification and it hit me all over again.

So if you see this, if you interact with it, if you reblog—

I probably won’t.

I’m disappearing again. Maybe for another three months. Maybe more.

Not because I don’t care.

But because I cared too much.

[sofixt0k]

I’ve seen so many people say they wish they had never shipped Byler. That it ruined their experience. That it genuinely hurt them.

And honestly? I get it. I really do.

But I can’t relate.

Because I cannot imagine my life without shipping Mike Wheeler and Will Byers.

Since 2020, life hasn’t exactly been kind to me. Those weren’t the easiest years. Not even close.

But they were the most beautiful years to be part of this fandom.

The Byler fandom gave me something I didn’t know I needed — comfort, creativity, connection, softness in a world that often felt unbearably loud.

The fanfics. The fanarts. The edits. The discussions that went on for hours like we were decoding the universe itself.

It was never just a ship.

Somewhere along the way, Byler became a space where I rediscovered my love for writing — a love I had buried under insecurity, doubt, and the quiet fear of not being “good enough.”

I talked about them endlessly. To friends. To family. To anyone who would listen.

Mike and Will were never just characters on a screen to me. They were emotion. Possibility. A story that felt like it mattered.

Am I sad? God, yes.

What happened — or rather, what didn’t happen — still hurts.

But if I could go back in time and choose again?

I would still ship them.

Every single time.

Because loving Byler gave me joy during years that could have easily been defined only by pain.

And now that Stranger Things is over, something strange and beautiful has happened:

They’re ours.

Not in a possessive way — but in the way stories always become the audience’s once the screen goes dark.

We know who our Mike Wheeler is. We know who our Will Byers is.

And in thousands of fics, artworks, and headcanons… they are loved the way many of us wished they had been.

Byler was never just about “going canon.”

It was about connection. About seeing something tender and holding onto it. About finding pieces of ourselves inside a story.

Maybe I’ll be more cautious in the future. Maybe I won’t let myself believe so deeply again unless the story is explicitly, undeniably queer.

But I will never regret loving them.

Because Byler, to me, was never just a ship that could have been.

It was a feeling. A refuge. A chapter of my life I’ll always carry with me.

And I will continue reading/writing about them until the day I die.

[sofixt0k]

I think the only reason I didn’t fall into the depression I thought I would if Byler wasn’t real is because, quite literally, everything is chaos right now and it doesn’t even feel real. Being part of the Byler fandom, before the Stranger Things fandom, being in the Noah and Finn fandoms at the same time, everything feels insane. How badly executed the show was, all those interviews, how badly the Duffers came off—everyone agrees it was a mess. The belief that there was a secret episode. Finn on SNL. Now Foah stronger than ever (I’m not a shipper, but hey, it’s funny). Byler exploding on AO3, memes everywhere about Stranger Things/the Duffers—all of that—AND EVEN NOW TWITTER DOESN’T SEEM AS UNBEARABLE AS BEFORE. Bylers are still the best people in the world and they keep making the most beautiful edits, fanfics, and fanart.

Yeah, I don’t know what timeline I’m in, but I know it’s not the worst one.

[daisydood]

The Finn wolfhard gay cinematic universe grows

[sofixt0k]

Guys, can someone tell me why Volumes 2 and 3 of Stranger Things still aren’t out? I’m left with so many questions about what’s going to happen now that Will has powers. Also—DID YOU SEE THE WAY MIKE WAS LOOKING AT HIM!?

[michellethebrave]

Byler is actually endgame because I refuse to accept ST5 (Vol.2 and 3) as canon if it was written by ai

[mikewheelerisaqueerler]

joyce saying "that THING is NOT my son" in season one while everyone was preparing for the funeral is exactly how i feel talking about the epilogue right now

[cowboylikehopee]

finn after realising the duffers and shawn levy had him checking out noah everyday over the course of 10 years for no apparent reason

[andrewthegaynerd]

This is everything to me.

The beginning of the cast expressing their disapproval of how the Duffers handled Byler. I personally can't wait for Noah and Finn to get their chances to talk about it.

[lilialunaa]

we lost the battle… but we won the war😛🤭

[alcxcornerstone]

"the stranger things finale made no sense and they ruined most of the characters" I say into the mic

the crowd boos and I begin to walk off the stage, defeated.

"no, he's right"

I look up.

it's the entire cast.

[michellethebrave]

Me to whoever wrote S5 Mike Wheeler

[wizardbyers]

I love how we've all collectively agreed that mike is still gay and repressed

[sofixt0k]

It’s been quite some time now, at least in theory, since the definitive end of Stranger Things. And I deactivated my TikTok account—not out of embarrassment over shipping Byler or anything like that—but because before I even say what I really want to say, I need to explain something.

I’ve seen so many angry comments. I’ve reposted all of them because I genuinely identify with every single one. I even wanted to make my own comment, from a place of frustration about everything that happened. But I think it all really comes down to this: I feel a deep sadness, mixed with a kind of detachment and emptiness.

Because there’s nothing sadder than ending up hating something you once loved—something that, in a way, was a safe place for you for so many years.

Since I was 12, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, Stranger Things was that safe place for me. I built my account around it, around Byler. And I always knew that if Byler didn’t become canon, I would be devastated. But one thing is that pain—and another completely different thing is feeling like everything was ruined.

Because yes, it hurts not to see Byler together. But it also hurts to see how my favorite character, Mike, ends up. It hurts to see Will’s ending. It hurts to see the ending of almost everything. It’s all so frustrating.

I don’t really know how to put everything I’m feeling into words, but I think it all boils down to this: it hurts so much to end up hating something you loved, and to no longer find a place for yourself in something that once felt like home.

[thewisewill80sbyers]

I don't think I'm ever going to move on from the anger and denial stage of losing what Stranger Things was to me, I never in a million years would have thought that they would have ruined the WHOLE ending, I thought there was a 1% of possibility that they didn't do byler, but I never thought they would write the WORST ending they could ever write for almost all the characters, that they would make them all be out of character and create weird scenes with weird dialogue, that the show would randomly become fantasy instead of sci-fi and the writers would do interviews talking in a disgusting way about their own characters (like saying El is basically an object instad of a person) and their whole show and just make me deeply hate them AND also that there would be a 1% of possibility that there's a better finale which means they just decided to do mass gaslighting on their whole fanbase for their ego boost and that the proof of this supposed real/fake finale scenario would make so much sense but that I could not trust them to deliver on it because of how much they fucked up the whole season 5 and messed with our heads

[mikewheerlerdefsquad]

Can we talk about the sheer nerve they had to claim their finale is better than the ending of any other series? They turned Stranger Things into a senseless Marvel-style show where everything feels rushed. The battles against the villains were far more intense in the earlier seasons.

What’s worse is that they genuinely believe every character arc was handled with care. That’s insane. What exactly is the conclusion of Jonathan’s arc? Of Eleven’s? Of Mike’s and Steve’s? Why did they even give Will powers atp? He was sidelined right after getting them anyway.

Their excuse is “we wish we’d had more time to work on the ending.” Oh really? Then you could have taken your time and actually delivered something meaningful.

And admitting that you basically know nothing about D&D, when it’s the very heart of the show, is just shameful.

[thewisewill80sbyers]

MORE time??? They had YEARS and started writing season 5 when they were making season 4 what the hell are they on!!! I swear nothing makes any sense

[mioakem]

oh and don’t forget what the highest rated episode of the whole season was

[teambyler]

Yes!

It was the gay empowerment/abused boy overpowers his abuser episode, and people loved it.

Meanwhile the Duffers' idea of "gay representation" was a liberal guy's watered-down idea of what an appropriate "coming out" portrayal should be, trying to kowtow to the conservative crowd... and people on both sides hated it.

This is the folly of sanding off the rough edges and sanitizing our experience and not showing who the real, courageous we are.

People don't end up "accepting" queer people because we plead that we're "just like them"; it's when we FIGHT and others recognize the struggles in their own lives and are inspired by us. That's why Sorcerer was so inspiring to people: it linked to Will's coming out to finding POWER.

As far as I'm concerned, Will's coming-out arc ended in Episode 4. THAT was a far better conclusion than what we got.

-teambyler

[noyouwerebeautiful]

oh we're too much noise?

yeah i think we showed you noise.