I deleted my fandom Twitter account because I don't like the drama associated with it, but my algorithm still occasionally shows me ST and Mileven-related content. (I may still follow some of you there!)
Something that really irks me? The near-psychosexual glee that comes from the concept of El dying and Mike either hurting or killing her. These kinds of tweets get hundreds, if not thousands, of likes.
Y'all aren't beating the internalized misogyny allegations!
And this problem ain't limited to Byler shippers: I saw a Mileven fan call Will (or maybe Noah) a homophobic slur in Portuguese. (I only know this because of autotranslate.) That person isn't going to Heaven, and anyone who associates with them is enabling them.
My spiciest hot take about the misogyny of the Stranger Things finale: While I stand by my belief that El’s conclusion is misogynistic and unsatisfying, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone talk about how Kali, a South Asian woman, gets even worse treatment.
Not only is a character whose found family has been murdered brought back only to die by suicide — until, y’know — her dying act is saving a white character’s life.
My stranger things opinions that I am not budging on
1- Mike is not a toxic boyfriend, he dropped the ball a few times, but he did pick it back up every time.
2- Lucas Sinclair is 100x cooler than Billy Hargrove and Jason Carver combined
3 - Will does not need to be with Mike to be happy
4- No, Will is not the most traumatized. Stop putting everyone’s issues on a totem pole and putting Will on the top
5 - Jonathan and Joyce were more likely to have been physically abused by Lonnie than Will based on the way they acted around him
6- Yes Jonathan was parentified, no it was not Joyce’s fault
7- Billy was not a good brother, Max was his emotional (and maybe physical) punching bag really
8- Steve probably does not have abusive parents, stop copy-pasting Jonathan and come up with something new.
9- Nancy is not an apathetic person, this girl is ruled by her emotions, it’s a canon fact.
10- Nancy and Mike’s sibling relationship is fine. It makes sense that they don’t hang out all of the time as they have different friend groups and schedules. Nancy drives Mike to school every day canonically. Just because they aren’t the hugging type doesn’t mean they hate each other.
11- El is mature enough to have a romantic relationship, she is mature enough to understand what a romantic relationship entails, she understands that she likes Mike romantically, she did not mistake him for a brother or a friend.
12- El is not stupid
13- If you think Martin Brenner loved El genuinely, I do not trust you
14- Henry Creel was a nice kid. He stopped being a nice kid when he killed children.
15- Will is actually the one who needs independence from Mike
16- In every byler fight, Will was also in the wrong, he also had terrible timing.
17- If you judge max for “using el for her powers” when she was worried sick and terrified for Billy, then show some of that judgement to Will when he canonically tells Mike in the van scene that he wished that El could make money for them to play DND all day
18- Nancy did not abuse steve
19- Nancy had every right to call their relationship bs (it was bs)
20- Mike was not under any obligation to play DND with Will, nor was he under any obligation to find Dustin. He is not their mom.
21- Nancy is not Steve’s prize because he matured
22- Steve canonically was a bully in s1, stop ruining his character growth by denying it ever happened.
23- Steve is not the mom, he is the annoyed big brother who is actually good at taking care of kids and thus gets saddled with it
24- Someone needs to pry Robin away from Steve. (The fanon Robin, not the canon one)
25- Max’s advice to El in season 3 is more of a case study of the blind leading the blind. But she genuinely thought she was helping though. I love mileven though and I was sad they broke up, but I don’t blame Max though. She was just excited that El wanted to hang out with her.
26- I feel like we understate how much Sara’s death hurt Hopper. Like why does no one talk about it?
27- Barb better keep haunting the narrative.
28- Stop woobifying Will and Steve, they are not innocent angels, they can be really mean sometimes. Their flaws are what makes their characters interesting, not the stans who insist that anyone (the wheelers) who dare to bite back are the issue. I like them for being the mean, dramatic people with a heart of gold that they are, not the innocent babies victimized by the evil wheeler siblings you insist they are.
This is an interesting point. There’s nothing in the show that explicitly (or even implicitly) points to King being aroace. There’s also nothing that explicitly (or implicitly) points to her having any specific sexual or romantic orientation.
If and when the show establishes anything, that will settle the matter. Until then, though, it’s all just speculation.
The reason why I bring up her being aroace is that Taylor Dearden herself says she thinks of the character that way.
Like I said, I see the vision in Kingdon and love the fics I’ve read, but I don’t feel strongly about it happening in the show. I just also think platonic intimacy is underrepresented in media.
I’ve said before that I love the idea of it, but I think it’s really important to depict both platonic intimacy and aroace representation.
I also just don’t think a show like The Pitt is one we watch for the romantic storylines. I love romance and shipping as much as the next person, but there’s something refreshing about it emphasizing professional and platonic relationships.
Disclaimer: I don't know Finn Wolfhard and never will. I have no strong thoughts about him as a person beyond the observations that he seems like a nice dude and he's name-checked a lot of movies and musicians that I also happen to like. Again, he seems like a cool guy!
Anyway, I saw the the snippet of him finally talking about whether he believes El survived. What I get from his answer is he looks at Mike's belief as way a of coping with loss, but he also said that the ending is purposely ambiguous and just doesn't know what the truth is. I get what he means, since Mike admits that he chooses to believe, even though he can't be sure.
So what does Finn actually believe?
Short answer: I don't know.
As I said, I don't know him. I don't feel it's productive (or appropriate) to try and obsessively psychoanalyze him or his answers. I know he's close with the Duffers, and I also know that he's liked social media posts saying that only Millie knows El's true fate. As a digital media professional who's run major social media accounts both in-house and while at agencies, I'm confident that those are coming from him.
Given what he's said before about coming back in the future, it sounds like he'd say yes to a Mileven reunion. As it stands now, though, the ambiguous ending is what we're left with. He isn't any different from us when it comes to not having an answer.
One other thing: This answer is as mealy-mouthed as when he talked about his feelings over Mike's ending. The guy is a pro at giving non-answers that one can interpret in an infinite number of ways.
Wine (all search results for a wine mojito points to a dry white like Sauvignon Blanc)
Blueberries
Lime
Mint
Given it's a slushy, there's also going to be a lot of ice.
I asked the bartender if he was able to give me the exact recipe/concentrations of each ingredient. He told me he couldn't, which makes sense, but he said that it's effectively a frozen blueberry mojito.
I don't know if it'll make the Void scene any easier, but knowing we have a drink to latch onto is something in my book!
Stranger Things didn't get nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the Primetime Emmys this year.
I was expecting at least a perfunctory populist nomination; I bet Netflix was, too. After all, the last season of Game of Thrones won Outstanding Drama Series, and we all remember what a disaster that was.
Of course, Game of Thrones at its best is a much more consistently great show than Stranger Things, but there's something to be said here.
The show also didn't get any writing, directing, or acting nominations. It did get a few technical nominations — props to those teams, since these noms are deserved — but Netflix had a serious FYC campaign and clearly expected something in the major categories.
I won't be surprised if executives are fuming right now. More to the point, this can't be good for the Duffers' professional relationship with them.
On Bylerisms, Johnlockisms, and fandom history being a circle
So the Stranger Things season finale finally aired and people are… heated. I lost interest in the show a while ago, and I’ve mostly been keeping up with the fandom through reddit and tumblr. I didn’t have much stake in most of the outcomes, except that I’m mostly happy that Steve survived, so I consider myself to be a fairly neutral party when it comes to the shipping aspect of the show. The one ship I really liked was Eddie/Chrissy, and we saw what happened with them.
Anyways, I’ve been passively observing the Byler fandom from some time now; more out of fascination than any real enjoyment of the ship. I’ve been seeing the think pieces, the evidence compilations, the pleas for canon Byler, etc. I’ve seen people move the goal post over and over again (it’ll happen in part one - it’ll happen in part two - it’ll happen in the finale).Â
The thing is, I always suspected that Byler wasn’t going to be canon. Not because I think the Duffer Brothers are homophobic (although… more on them later) or because they chickened out. I just think it was never the plan or intention outside of having Will have unrequited feelings for Mike.
Queerbaiting
What is queerbaiting? Fanlore describes it as “the perceived attempt by advertisers or canon creators to draw in a queer audience and/or slash fans by implying or hinting at a gay relationship that will never actually be depicted.” Some people consider queerbaiting to be subtext between two male characters inserted into a story, followed by deliberate “no homo” moments. Shows like BBC Sherlock and Supernatural are known for this.Â
BBC Sherlock is particularly frustrating in this regard, because there’s clear moments in the show that tease Sherlock and John having some sort of romantic feelings for each other (John asking Sherlock if he has a boyfriend in s1, John’s conversation with Irene about them both being in love with Sherlock in S2) followed by vehement denial that any actual feelings between them exist. Moffat, the showrunner of BBC Sherlock, has always been demeaning and snide towards the shippers. He always made it clear he had no intention of following through with Johnlock, even as fans convinced themselves he was lying.Â
Despite Moffat’s condemnation of Johnlock, the shippers were still convinced it was going to happen. They wrote thinkpieces, essays, compiled evidence, dug through cast interviews, hyper-analyzed the “subtext” of the show, all to prove that Johnlock was canon. A part of the fandom even convinced themselves that there was a "secret season" that was supposed to come out that would prove that Johnlock was canon. Obviously, the season didn't exist.
While BBC Sherlock had moments of tension in the actual show while being condemned as “weirdly sexualized” outside of the show, on the other side of it you have Voltron: Legendary Defender.
Unfortunately, let’s talk about Klance.Â
Klance is the ship between Keith and Lance that became the Voltron fandom juggernaut. Shippers were convinced that Klance was going to be canon (“Klance is cannon king”) and would write think pieces, evidence compilations, hyper-analysis of the subtext. etc.
The creators of Voltron were even fond of Klance as a ship, having said things like:
"The Klance ship is one that maybe comes together from a little bit of that opposites-attract situation where you have two characters that really don’t get along and you want to find that path that ultimately leads them to each other." - Lauren Montgomery
"I think the ship between [Keith and Lance] is that their character arcs have one of the biggest evolutions of the show. They started off in one place, their relationship has evolved, and I think shipping them is just continuing that evolution and its natural progression.” - Joaquim Dos Santos
Shippers took these supportive statements (plus the now infamous drawing of Lance and Shiro holding an LGBT sign) as evidence that Klance was going to eventually become canon. The problem though? In the actual context of the show, there was very little to no proof that the pairing was eventually going to get together. Keith was devoted to saving Shiro, and Lance had a big fat crush on Allura. Not only that, but in later seasons they barely had any screentime together.Â
I personally think that Voltron handled its canon queer character Shiro very clumsily, but do I think it queerbaited? On the Klance front, no. I think that people involved in the series showing love to a ship doesn’t necessarily mean they’re dropping hints that it’s going to happen. I think Lauren and Joaquim were simply expressing that they enjoyed the interpretations that the shippers were going for. But if you look at the content of the show and the time that Keith and Lance actually spent together, it’s clear that the ship was never really going to take off.Â
So with all that in mind, do I think Byler queerbaited? I mean, not really? The show always portrayed Will’s crush on Mike as one-sided. In interviews before the finale, the Duffer Brothers and multiple cast members have pretty much said that Byler wasn’t going to happen. What I did see from that side of the fandom was “guys, it doesn’t matter if Gaten said Byler doesn’t happen, he just doesn’t want to spoil the ending!” Yeah… maybe if they’re telling you it’s not happening, believe them. After all, look at what that got the BBC Sherlock fandom. Absolutely nothing to show for.
Zutara
This might seem like it’s coming out of left field, but I think Zutara is actually a great ship to talk about when we’re talking about canon expectations. Zutara is the ship between Zuko and Katara in Avatar: The Last Airbender. It was, for a very long time, the fandom juggernaut ship.Â
During the time the show was airing, Zutara shippers were convinced that Zutara was going to happen. They wrote essays, posted evidence compilations, dug through interviews, hyper-analyzed the “subtext” of the show.
Are you starting to see the trend here?Â
Despite all the evidence and think pieces that the shippers compiled, if you look at the story beats and character moments presented in the show, it was always clear that Katara and Aang were going to be together, regardless of how popular and beloved the other ship was. The difference between Zutara and Kataang shippers? Zutara shippers would post 20 page essays and 40 minute video essays to prove that their ship would become canon, while Kataang shippers would simply go “well, I mean, just watch the show.”
On over-analysisÂ
My rule of thumb for a ship is: if you have to write a multiple page manifesto on trying to prove it’s going to go canon, it’s probably not going to go canon.
Showrunners and writers aren’t creating content for the obsessive fans that pause every little frame to talk about how the yellow and blue lighting that hits Mike’s eye is sending secret signals meant to prove that Byler is cannon king. They’re creating content for the family that’s gonna put the show on during the afternoon and watch it with their kids, and maybe go on facebook and write “wow! What an emotional finale! I cried like a baby” and then move on with their lives.Â
That isn’t to say media isn’t meant to be analyzed, just that there’s a line between analysis and over-analysis. But that’s what people go to film school for. There is a film language that you can go learn about. The way a shot is presented, the way actors are placed in a scene, the way lighting plays into a scene, can all tell a story.
The animated movie The Incredibles is a great example of how a film might use lighting to tell the audience a story. The story opens in a flashback to the “glory days.” The majority of the scenes here are shot in what is known as the golden hour (the period where the sun is low that’s casting a soft, warm orange light on everything). There is a constant rimlight on the characters that makes them appear to glow. When the movie shifts to the present and Bob’s life is now boring and bland, the film’s colors become cool toned greys and blues. The sky is constantly cloudy and the characters are constantly in shadow. It’s visual storytelling.Â
At the end of the day, media analysis isn’t set in stone and many people can watch the same film and have different interpretations of what happened. For me personally, I draw the line when shippers start theorizing that the showrunners are sending out secret signals that only they are smart enough to catch. At that point, it’s becoming more tinhatting than analyzing. Filmmakers and showrunners don’t want to send secret signals to only their super special part of the fandom. They want the broader audience to understand the story they’re trying to tell.Â
Showrunners are never as invested in the ship to the same degree that shippers are
Unless the show is a romance like Heated Rivalry or Bridgerton, this is generally true. The thing about a lot of shippers (not all, obviously) is that they watch the show through a shipper lens. They’re number one priority is to see their ship go canon, so everything becomes about the ship. Every interview, every mention, every piece of promo is meant to show that Byler or Klance or Zutara or Johnlock is going to become canon.Â
So maybe Lauren and Joaquim like Klance. Maybe the Duffer brothers have shown support to Byler shippers. That doesn’t mean those ships are on their mind. The Duffer Brother’s priority is to tell a show set in the 80’s about kids fighting monsters from a parallel world. Their priority in season 5 is to close the story out in a way they believe is going to satisfy the fanbase as a whole. Shippers are a small percentage of the fanbase.
Also, be realistic about who these people are. The Duffer Brothers are two middle aged white cishet men. They’re not going to have the same shipping mentality as teenagers and young adults on Tumblr. They might acknowledge Byler shippers, but they don’t get shipping fandom, ship wars, ship analysis. To them, it’s just a funny little theory that a portion of the fanbase is passionate about.
On Fandom racism
This might sound out of left field, but bear with me right now. One of the things that irks me about shippers is they’re willing to let everything slide as long as their ship becomes canon. I was reading a dozen thinkpieces on how the Duffer Brothers were going to change the game forever and revolutionize representation for all.
… The Duffer Brothers can’t even write their one Black character, Lucas, in a meaningful way. Something that Black fans have been talking about for years, but have been mostly ignored. In fact, I’ve only seen Byler shippers bring up the show’s racism now that they’re ship isn’t canon. So, when people thought that the two white boys were going to get together, the Duffer Brothers were the champions of marginalized voices. But now that those two white boys aren’t together, you’re all willing to talk about the racism in the show?
This isn’t the first time I’ve observed something like this, and one of the most egregious examples is The 100 fandom. The 100 featured a WLW ship between protagonist Clarke and another woman named Lexa (Clexa). This ship actually went canon, and The 100 was praised for its LGBT inclusion and storyline.
I, however, was not impressed with the show, when after four episodes it killed off the main Black character Wells Jaha. Wells who, in the books, was one of Clarke’s main love interests by the way. In fact, many fans of color often talked about how clumsily and downright offensively the show handled its Black and Brown characters, and their voices were often ignored.Â
It was only after Lexa, a white woman, died that shippers started complaining about the racism in the show. They were willing to overlook it as long as they got their ship. Similarly, I’m not particularly enthused to suddenly see Byler shippers only NOW throw accusations of racism at the Duffer Brothers now that their ship isn’t canon, when POC have been talking about these issues for years.
This is just a general PSA for shippers: if you’re only willing to talk about racism and other isms after you’ve lost the ship war, you’re not being very authentic. Shipping is not activism, and your sudden willingness to talk about these issues that you were happy to ignore in the past isn’t cute.
At my time of writing this, this was one of the top posts in the Byler subreddit:
Oh, but I thought the Duffer Brothers were the champions of minority rep? Now y'all wanna call out racism? Interesting.
Stop listening to these wannabe experts
This one is a personal pet peeve of mine, so I’ll keep it short and cute. I’m just so tired of these self proclaimed video editors, Hollywood insiders, production assistants, baby screen writers, people with film degrees, film students, goddamn lawyers who come out of the woodwork to proclaim, “yes, the ship is happening, trust me guys I’m an EXPERT.”
And now it didn’t happen and you look foolish. The reality is that it doesn’t matter if you’ve been to film school and graduated with high honors. So did I! But we’re not privy to what’s going on in the Stranger Things writer’s room, so all these videos proclaiming “yes I am an expert and I assure you it’s going canon” are literally just giving people false hope. Congratulations, you were loud and wrong.
And the snake continues to eat its own tail
I’ve been in fandom for a long time, and everything I’ve witnessed go down in the Byler fandom, I have seen it happen before multiple times over. The twenty page essays, the accusations of queerbait, the letting racism slide until your ship doesn’t go canon.
I haven’t interacted much with the Byler fandom, and I genuinely don’t dislike them. A lot of it feels like baby’s first fandom disappointment. It happens. One of the few times I did interact with the fandom, I pointed out that there were queer-positive shows currently out there that could use love and support instead of putting all their hopes and dreams onto Byler, which was not a guarantee to happen. Shows like Interview with the Vampire, Agatha All Along, Heated Rivalry, The Owl House, In The Flesh, Schitt’s Creek etc. I was downvoted to hell and back, and told by another commenter that it wasn’t my place to speak on such representation. I’m a queer woman, for the record.Â
And well, look where we are. Byler didn’t happen, as I figured it wouldn’t because I’ve seen this before, and fandom is in full crashout mode.
And they will be until they find their next ship to hyper-fixate on, and write 40 page essays on, and swear up and down that the showrunners are sending them secret signals that their ship is going to go canon and if it’s not it’s because there’s actually a secret episode that never aired and like, just trust us guys, it’s going canon guys. Trust us.
This has all happened before and it will happen again.
This is such a masterclass of a troll answer — she said it during the press tour for Enola Holmes 3 — and the fact that more people don't understand that is astounding.
The fallout from the reveal that many popular fanfics on AO3 were written at least in part with the assistance of Claude AI continues.*
I've seen endless discourse on Tumblr, TikTok, and Twitter. There's a lot of hurt, confusion, and general unease that no one seems to know how to move forward with.
I know this has been especially difficult for Byler shippers, especially since some of the biggest fics in the fandom were caught with copious amounts of Claude in the HTML.*
To the people who ship Byler, I'll repeat what others have already said: You have no reason to feel ashamed for enjoying fanfic. The author(s) who weren't transparent are the only ones in the wrong here.
These fics became popular for a reason. Platforms like Claude are programmed to generate prose that reads as if a human wrote it. Writers use these platforms to write stories using popular tropes, essentially creating means-tested fanfics that are likely to do well.
Again, the problem isn't you. It's a lack of transparency and the need to prioritize hard metrics like clicks.
One last thing: I don't ship Byler, so I'm not sure this is going to gain me any followers from that fandom. (This isn't personal; I just don't think my content is going to be your jam.) But I've long believed in the power of fandom and its ability to help people find a community they might not find elsewhere.
Moving forward, I hope that everyone can find solace in real work that comes from people's passion. At the end of the day, it's fandom. It's supposed to cultivate joy.
* For reference, this is defined as prose itself written with AI, not grammar or spellchecks. As a full disclosure, I don't use AI to write any dialogue or prose, but I have used it to check my work for typographical errors and verb tense consistency.
* Mileven fanfics have also been found to have been written with AI. This isn't a problem unique to any ship.
One of the most popular Mileven post-ST5 fix-it fics has Claude in its HTML.
*sigh*
It's only at the end of the fic, and without the author here to explain herself, it's hard to tell what she used it for exactly. However, we can't pretend that we don't also have this problem.
ETA: Please don't use this as an opportunity to harass the author, who hasn't been active on AO3 since January and hasn't used Claude in any of her other fics. The HTML only indicates Claude near the end of the final chapter. Given how long the fic is, she could have used it for who knows what reason. Unfortunately, the fact that she hasn't been active since January means we're left with unanswered questions.
My point here isn't to attack her as a person or even as a writer. The fic itself is quite good, even without the Claude bits! But like I said, we're left with unanswered questions, which is frustrating.
I recently watched Avatar: The Last Airbender for the first time.
Yes, I'm very late.
Still have something very important to declare, though I know it's a sensitive topic for many. Because of that, I'm keeping it under the break.
I really like Aang and Katara as a romantic couple.
No, they're not the most exciting relationship in media.
No, they're not even the most exciting canonical couple in the show. (Those honors go to Zukko/Mai and both Sokka/Suki and Sokka/Yue.)
However, Aang and Katara complement each other well. They challenge each other to grow as people. Aang matures not because Katara makes him or pushes him to, but because she inspires him to be with her empathy and support. Meanwhile, Katara is able to let her guard down with Aang, and he also brings levity to her perspective.
They're two people who will work to be together and grow together.
I get why Zutara is a popular ship, I really do. I wouldn't have minded if the show had gone that route, either. But with the story that's presented, I think Aang and Katara really work.
