#queer bait

[piper-124]

Queerbaited so hard my homophobic dad was upset about byler not being cannon

[duckmewton]

I don’t think people talk enough about how much it absolutely STINGS to let yourself hope for queer representation that never comes.

Not like, the sanitized and “easily marketable for the GA” kind of representation. Not the “one of them dies to teach the audience a lesson” kind. Not the blink-and-you-miss-it kind. But the messy, slow-burn, emotionally intimate kind. The kind that looks like longing and devotion and years of shared history. The kind that feels REAL and RAW.

Because every time it happens, there’s this familiar cycle.

First comes the excitement. The careful optimism. The way you tell yourself not to expect anything, but still start noticing the framing, the parallels, the lingering looks, the narrative weight placed on this relationship above all others. You notice how their arcs mirror each other. How their growth is intertwined. How the story itself seems to insist that this matters.

And for a moment, it feels like maybe, FINALLY this time it will be different.

But then comes the inevitable disappointment.

Sometimes it’s tragedy. The story decides that queerness must be paid for in suffering, that love like this can only exist if it’s cut short, punished, rendered untouchable. Sometimes it’s vagueness n ending that hovers just shy of confirmation, carefully crafted to invite “multiple interpretations,” as if ambiguity is somehow more acceptable. And sometimes it’s the slowest, cruelest version: years of development that simply go nowhere. Threads dropped. Promises implied and then quietly abandoned.

And what makes this hurt so SO bad is that, it doesn’t happen once. It’s that it keeps happening. Over and over and over again.

There’s a very specific kind of heartbreak in realizing that the depth you’re seeing the devotion, the intimacy, the narrative centrality, was allowed precisely because it could be denied later. That the story could borrow the aesthetic and emotional language of queerness without ever having to commit to it. That your investment was acceptable because it was never going to be validated.

And it’s just so fucking exhausting, because queer audiences are constantly told we’re “reading too much into it,” even when the text itself invites that reading. Even when the writing, the acting, the framing, the symbolism all point in the same direction. We’re told to be grateful for subtext, for implication, for scraps while straight relationships get clarity, closure, and canon without having to beg for it.

So yeah. It hurts.

It hurts to recognize the pattern even as you’re falling into it again. It hurts to feel foolish for hoping, even though hope is a completely reasonable response to the story you’re being told. It hurts to watch creators and studios benefit from queer audiences’ passion while never quite meeting us where we are.

And maybe the worst part is that, despite knowing all this, we still let ourselves believe. Because the alternative, never hoping, never engaging, never seeing yourself in anything, is worse.

So we keep watching. We keep analyzing. We keep loving these characters fiercely, even when the narrative won’t love them back in the same way we do.

And every SINGLE time it ends the same, we’re left holding this very specific, very familiar kind of grief. One that comes not from imagining queerness where there is none, but from being shown just enough of it to know exactly what we’re being denied.

For once I’d like to be more than just an implication for the general audience. I exist. I love. Why isn’t that enough?

[sparklezart2000]

BYLER WAS QUEER BAIT AND ANYONE WHO DENIES IT DOESN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT QUEER BAIT IS

People denying the queerbait are pmo so bad saying "Well Mike was never going to reciprocate anyway so it's not queerbait" and "there are 3 queer characters [Robin, Will, and Vickie] so you're just mad that the ship didn't happen" just proves they don't know the definition of queer bait

It clearly says it's not just a storytelling tactic but also a marketing tactic.

First lets hit on the storytelling though. Mike was only able to tell El he loved her in s4 because of Will's love for him. Mike looked uncomfortable with the kiss in s3 meanwhile his interactions with Will felt drastically different. His top song in the Basement Beats playlist being Smalltown Boy, a queer song. He was a queer coded character whether the Duffers intended it or not. Sure they had Robin and Will and ig Vickie as queer representation, but they also wrote Mike in such a way where a large portion of the fanbase interpreted him as queer.

But that wouldn't have been an issue.

If the Duffers just came out and said Mike was never meant to be interpreted in such a way.

One example of someone shutting down an LGBTQ head canon was Dana Terrace a few months back. The Duffers could've easily done this.

Or even easier? Do what they did with Wenclair. Shut it down completely before it could get out of control.

That's what should've been done after s4. Someone should've come out and said "No Byler isn't happening."

If it wasn't happening it shouldn't have been treated as if 'rejection' (if you can even call it that) was some big twist.

And the worst part?

They knew about Bylers.

They called us, 'noise'.

They let us be called delusional for YEARS. They let people make homophobic comments FOR YEARS. And the marketing teams? Fed into it. The made posts about the ship, they acknowledged it, they made it seem like a possibility. They strung us along for profit. That's queer bait.

Oh

And erasure apparently? that's neat.

But the thing is, if Byler had been confirmed not happening I, and many others, still would've watched the fifth season.

But now? I don't even know if I can stand to rewatch past s3 knowing what became of my favorite character (Mike Wheeler), the mistreatment of their gay character (Will Byers), AND the misogynistic way they handled their female protagonist's (Jane Hopper) story.

The Duffer's queer bait ruined so much rewatchability for me and so many others and I just hate it.

Because despite everything I still can't help but love the show. I just hate the Queer baiting sucker brothers who decided that "Forced conformity" was what was killing the kids and then gave us an ending so bad that fed into conforming that people are believing that there's 1-3 secret episodes.

Stranger Things WAS a show for outcasts about outcasts. Until s3. And that sucks.

[i-like-red-star-burst-b3]

My favorite show filled with queer bait

[lemon33-3]

The duffers wrote 2 specific scenes with Will Byers and being gay that changed my life. One in 2022 in the van, which led me to fully accept myself. And one in 2025 that’s taught me that no matter how accepted i am i don’t deserve love or a happy ending. Thank you duffer brothers and shawn levy.

[princess-of-the-passionfruits]

if byler doesn’t happen this will be my biggest heartbreak since November 5th 2020

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[out-here-trying]

what the fuck

What was an absolute slap in the face duffers, like what the fuck guys

they taunted us with the whole “no not friends. Best friends”

they made us into laughing stock, made us feel delusions. A 10 year queer bait is cartoon evil

suck my fat one duffers

[heartmilheart]

Part of me wants to believe that conformitygate is real like that same part of me wanted to believe that Byler was going to be endgame somehow and someway and that the hope shouldn't have stopped until the credits rolled