#Byler doubt

[buckieduckie2]

some stuff to cure byler doubt

[pbnjloverman]

Byler doubt fucks me hard with no lube and not protection

[chirpsythismorning]

Why I Don’t Experience Byler Doubt

It’s simple. One of the most essential techniques in storytelling: Show, don’t tell.

Show, don't tell is a technique that allows the audience to experience the story through actions, words, subtext, thoughts, senses, and feelings rather than exclusively through the creators' exposition, summarization, and description.

Even more importantly (assuming we want to enjoy ourselves bc this is supposed to be high quality entertainment), it adds drama. Rather than telling viewers what's happening, a filmmaker will use this technique to show drama unfold. 'Telling' is factual and avoids detail; while 'showing,' is detailed and places the human subject at the centre of the drama.

This technique is literally playing out in the narrative when it comes to Mike’s inability to tell El he loves her (or even simply write love Mike in his letters), which he never would have had to tell her (spell out) in the first place, if he had just shown her that he loved her.

It’s no fun having to spoon feed your audience. Instead, it's much more enjoyable for the storyteller to present the truth in the details, even sometimes contradicting very basic assumptions that are being outright told. Hence why, for example, when the Duffers were asked about the Vecna reveal, Ross used the opportunity to go on a mini tangent: 'the best twists are ones that you go, “Oh, I should have seen that coming.” As opposed to the twists that go, “Oh, well that just came out of nowhere.” So, “Oh, I missed these clues along the way.” But you get nervous when you’re writing it because you go, “Well, to me it seems obvious--'.

In fact, Show, don't tell is what largely allows surprise revelations to hide in plain sight. Because obviously, if a writer just tells their audience everything that's happening while it's happening, we would always see what's coming next.

And so the problem I have with downplaying or even completely refusing to acknowledge the importance of Show, don't tell, in the case of Stranger Things especially, is that, in order to comfortably subscribe to what is being told, I have to ignore what is being shown.

We see this play out all the time on Reddit in particular, which if I'm being honest is the only platform at this point that treats mere speculation about Will and Mike's relationship as if it is the end of the world. On the rare occasion the mods don't remove a byler related post, the post is either already negative towards byler or the comments are filled with fury over the poster simply thinking critically by speculating about byler. Even if you manage to get a fan over there in the comments to consider certain evidence pointing towards byler as incriminating, they'll still manage to end it by downplaying the Duffers and their abilities, because 'They're not that smart!'...

They'll ask for evidence, be presented with it, only to insist that it's all reaching because details mean nothing and everything about the show is actually just surface level, ie. it's not that deep.

Without even realizing it, they're low-key admitting that going the byler route would be smart, and yet here they are tirelessly defending a show that, according to them, has shit writers and no deeper purpose. All this does is prove that they are hoping this is the case. Because even despite being presented with strong evidence that the show might very well be epic, they would rather reject it altogether.

They would rather have one of their favorite shows suck and defend it religiously, then consider the possibility that it's good and gay...

Don't get me wrong, there are definitely fans on reddit that don't hate byler. I imagine out of the million in that sub, there's a silent majority that would be open to it. Keep in mind, most fans still active at this point in hiatus are hardcore fans, and so they're obviously opinionated, that goes for everyone on most platforms rn. And yet, I know there are very likely casual fans who are popping in there every now and then, the same people in the majority when after s4 dropped, saw that monologue and said What the actual fuck was that?

There’s a reason no other couple on the show has needed to hear the words I love you to believe it. Well, besides Steve and Nancy…

Because SHOW, DON'T TELL. That's why!

So, what do I mean when I say that Show, don't tell is why I no longer have byler doubt?

It's actually pretty ironic, but basically the moment Mike told El he loved her, that's the moment they showed us that he didn't.

I mean, for starters, how does one go about filming a romantic love confession? Because if we're being entirely serious right now, they made just about every artistic and creative choice possible to go against what a romantic love confession should look like to feel satisfying.

I mean, you'd probably want the atmosphere to be intimate, right? Make the audience feel like these two are the only two people in the room (world) for this moment?

Well, that's not the case for Mike and El, nor is it the case for literally any of their scenes in s4 (arguably a lot of their scenes in the series; Will the wise drawing in El's room, I'm looking at you). Almost all of the scenes with them together in s4 had Will in the background, often times in the literal frame between them. That is NOT how you film scenes for a romantic pairing that you want the audience to root for, from beginning to end.

You guys gotta understand, rewatch value is one of the most important aspects to this story for the Duffers. When talking about the prospects of s5, they mentioned that they rewatched all the Lord of the Rings, saying how important it was, despite what some fans might say about the ending being too long, or this or that, bc to them, it was necessary to watch it all, and to rewatch it and rewatch it, in order to appreciate the entire story as a whole, aka the way it was intended.

If you're a serious about Mike and El as a romantic pairing, but because of the way the show has set up their relationship over the seasons, you can't sit down and enjoy more than a quarter of each season bc they're either separated, broken up, or on the rare occasion they are together and happy, they're accompanied by a kicked puppy in every shot, maybe all of that's for a reason.

And that applies to the scene in Surfer Boy more than any other scene in the show, a scene that is supposed to be Mike's monologue to El... You mean a scene that directly parallels Mike's monologue to Will in s2?

When planning the end of s4, do we think the Duffers just decided they wanted this intimate moment between Mike and El to have Will in the frame behind Mike (visually piggybacking off of him, in an episode titled The Piggyback...) in almost every shot, including when he said I love you for the first time, for no reason at all? Or is it possible there was a reason for it? Just like there's been a greater reason for everything?

Like bro, I'm sorry, but even if what's being told in that scene is relevant, all of it still reads as either a lie, a partial lie, a lie of omission or a platonic truth hiding behind romantic phrasing: I don't know how to live without you = platonic (trauma bond), whereas I can't live without you/I don't want to live without you = romantic. The later is out of desire/want, the former is out of fear of the unknown.

The entire scene the lighting is blinking rapidly. And so the vibe they're going for here is uncertainty, which is quite odd for a love confession that's supposed to feel certain? Then we have El seeing all red the entire time. She's literally choking, hearing Mike struggle to muster up anything that could help her pull through, only to overhear Will calling Mike the heart, followed by Mike finally saying I love you????

And I guess according to the Duffers, nothing says true love like a love confession ending abruptly by a two day time jump...

Oh and how about, instead of them taking the time at the end of the season for El and Mike to have a private moment, where they could finally address their love for one another, let’s have them barely on speaking terms, and the one time they do talk, let’s have it be offscreen and mentioned in a private moment between Will and Mike, who in contrast to Mike and El, we're going to prioritize having a scene with them alone together at the end of this season...

In the last minutes, let’s have El look at Mike and Will, only to avoid them with visible annoyance. And THEN let’s show Mike visibly defeated by El's annoyance, instead prioritizing reassuring Will, aka his friend with whom he shares an I didn’t say it/ You didn’t have to bond...

I mean? Are we just not going to talk about it? The fact that I didn't say it/You didn't have to could pass off as a literal synonym for Show, don't tell...

It just kills me that even with all of that, the Duffers were like, You know what? Fuck it. Let's show them all the endgame couples lined up next to each other, with Will and Mike in the middle and El standing on her own in front of them. If by now they still refuse to consider it, after everything, this ending probably wont convince them anyways, but it makes for great rewatch value...

Seriously, if you're subscribing fully to the belief that what is being told is the whole truth and nothing but the truth (so help you god), then you're having to ignore all of that. And I can't ignore all of that, I just can't. Which makes it impossible for me to experience doubt anymore.

[lordystrange]

365 days ago I comforted several internet strangers who were heartbroken after vol 2. Not because of any character death but because they felt queerbated and shamed for believing in a happy ending for two gay kids.

And then those people started analyzing. They rewatched, they researched, they learnt about film production and queercoding, they analyzed and came up with theories.

That one day almost all of us had byler doubt. And now almost none of us has that anymore.

It’s been a hell of a ride. Thank you all for participating. Let’s keep doing this! 💚

[novalunosiss]

It’s almost been 24 hours since vol 2 came out and I’m still super pissed off, so here’s a list of everything wrong in volume 2.

Byler. Queerbait of the fucking century??? I would’ve been significantly less upset if they hadn’t advertised/marketed it so hard during pride month. And making the queer kid the sad gay vessel through which the straight couple thrives is nothing short of homophobic.

The deaths. They advertised this season as being particularly dangerous/full of death, which was a straight up lie. The only people who died were either antagonists or minor background characters, with the exception of Eddie (though it was extremely obvious from the start that he was canon fodder, much like Bob- despite how much I liked Eddie’s character, there was never a doubt in my mind that he wasn’t going to die.)

Max’s “death”. So I know I just did a section on the deaths but this one pissed me off so much I had to give it it’s own seperate section. Max’s “death” was a total copout. Don’t get me wrong, I love her character. But I wish she did die. Having someone die and be brought back to life is such a terrible, cliche, overused trope. It’s too safe of a choice. Where is the danger? I want to actually be scared that the characters I love might not make it out alive. And since when could El bring people back to life? That’s never been explored in the show before, making it completely out of place and confusing when watching the scene. Having Max die would’ve been impactful, and shown to the audience that any of the characters can die, not just new ones, or unimportant background ones. It would’ve raised the stakes! The scene where she “died” was heartbreaking and powerful, but then they negated that by bringing her back to life, rendering the scene pointless. They either should’ve actually genuinely killed her, or not have her “die” at all. Having that “in-between” sort of situation where she technically died, but came back to life (albeit in a coma) was super flaky, and imo, bad writing.

Speaking of bad writing, the time skip! This is genuinely one of the worst things I’ve seen implemented in the show. I generally don’t like time skips anyway, but at least the one at the end of s3 made sense. The main drama of that season was resolved, and they needed to show the Byers moving away. The time skip this season, however, made 0 fucking sense. The drama hadn’t been resolved, it just skipped like half of the climax and the entirety of the falling action, and went straight to the resolution (which wasn’t even a resolution at all). 2 days is a pretty big time skip to implement after skipping half the climax. What happened during those two days??? It was confusing as fuck, and none of the characters actions/behaviour during the “resolution” phase of the story made sense, maybe with the exception of Dustin and Lucas, who were shown to be grieving unlike almost everyone else. You’re telling me that Nancy, Robin and Steve just fought fucking Vecna, almost died, and some of their friends did die (if you count Max) and two days later they’re happily packing up a bunch of old belongings to donate, without a care in the world? And during that scene, there seemed to be little to no concern about Mike’s whereabouts from the entire Wheeler family until he actually showed up. They mentioned they’d been trying to contact them for days, but nothing about their demeanour beforehand implied concern.

The monologue. Need I even say more? It was cheesy, cringey, and made no narrative sense. The reasoning Mike gave for being unable to tell El he loved her was one of the stupidest reasons I’ve seen in media, ever. Where was the “amazing monologue” we were promised by the Duffers? That sure as hell isn’t what I’d call amazing. Finn is a great actor, and he’s done amazing monologues before (*cough cough*, the shed scene) so that isn’t on him, it’s on the shitty script. “I feel like my life first started when I met you in the woods”? Bullshit, and such a cruel thing to say in front of Will, who’s life was literally turned upside down on the exact same day. “I loved you since the moment I saw you”? Love at first sight is a cringey trope. Mike was 12 when he first met Eleven. He probably didn’t even know the meaning of love, especially when you take a look at how dysfunctional his parents marriage is/Nancy, his older sisters relationship at the time was. Also, how can he say he loved her the moment he saw her when he spent most of s1 trying to get rid of her (saying he was going to send her back to pennhurst) and calling her a “weapon”? El could’ve found strength to beat Vecna in something far more significant than a teenage boy telling her he loves her, but noooo.

Will’s painting. I really feel like I don’t have to elaborate on this one. It just fucking sucked. They built it up like it was going to be some really important declaration of love from Will to Mike, only to have it be used to help further Mileven. Also the actual painting was ass, and all the fan theories about it were way better and more meaningful. (Like the idea we all had of the swingset where Mike and Will first met, or even just a painting of the two of them as their D&D characters, but SEPERATE from the rest of the group so it was actually obvious what the painting meant.)

The upside down thing with Henry?? I don’t even know what’s going on there. It was super confusing. Is the mind flayer actually Henry? Did El create the upside down or was it there before? Why did it look like that when Henry first got sent there, but looks like Hawkins now? I know they’ll likely answer these questions next season, but there’s just too many questions and knowing now how shit the duffers are at writing, I doubt they’ll all be answered satisfactorily.

The terrible character development. By that, I mean that there was none. Literally no characters had any development. They were all exactly the same as they were at the start of the season. El is still dependent on Mike/isn’t her own person. Mike is still a fucking asshole who treats his friends like shit. Will is still in the closet and hiding his true feelings from everyone around him. Nancy and Jonathan are still lying to each other. Steve is still pining after Nancy. Robin is still pining after Vickie. I could go on and on.

The Duffers hate minorities + poor people. Will and Robin, the two queer characters, don’t get well rounded love interests like all of the straight characters, and Will in particular is made to suffer constantly. Lucas and Erica, the two black characters, are both physically assaulted. Max and Eddie, the two poorest characters, who are living in a trailer park, fucking die. (from @hellfireds) Oh, also? The Duffers filmed parts of s4 in a fucking Nazi prison, where Jewish people were held against their wills and killed. (from @artmuseumsandoldbooks)

I’m going to keep updating this list as I think of more things that are wrong with vol 2. There’s already so many things I could add if I decided to include the shit wrong with vol 1 as well, but vol 2 was significantly worse so I’m just gonna stick to that. Feel free to suggest anything else I should add to the list

In conclusion, FUCK THE DUFFERS

[lunabug2004]

Okay but seriously y’all… we can’t make any assumptions off these ElMike pics

Cuz like… besties and even exes can look at each other fondly and it be totally platonic

Even as a slight multishipper (sorry I say this all the time but seriously what matters most to me is just my child being happy, whether that be with El or Will), I’m sorry M!levens but I don’t feel the romance through these pics

And that very well may be just cuz it’s not Mike and El but Finn and Millie hanging out b/t takes or something

But fr… I don’t think we need to panic (yet), Bylers.

[tender-emotional-music]

(A little bit of byler doubt ahead, skip if u want)

I don’t know how to feel about byler s5 until I see how they’re promoting it. Like it already seems like they’re promoting lumax over Melvin, which is very interesting when you see how much melvin promo there was before s3 compared to now (and lumax is the preferred ship generally, since we see them get stronger in s4 and melvin break down).

At least we know that we have confirmed Will as a main character, and that they’re promising to round off his Upside Down arc and his personal arc, but I’m just having flashbacks to the volume 2 days i guess 😭

Everything seems to be in place for El to break up with Mike and for byler to be canon in s5, but that doesn’t mean that the Duffers will see it that way. Just because something would be a bad writing decision doesn’t mean that that decision won’t be made.

So yeah, I’m just going to be a bit tentative until promo starts, so I can see what direction they seem to be taking. I usually try to ignore what the social media accounts say, especially if they’re not the main ST or ST writers one, since I doubt the people running them know what’s going to happen, and are just there to generate hype for as wide an audience as possible. I’m really looking forward to the trailers and cast interviews tho, since they help establish what mindset we should be going in with

[hessolivagant]

Byler doubt going crazy right now

[bylerconfessions]

Sometimes I worry that I'm suffering from extreme confirmation bias and that we as Bylers are setting ourselves up for embarrassment when it's revealed that the Duffers were just writing a fairly conventional show all along like they all think, and Mike was always intended to be the straight self-insert everyman character. And I'm worried it wasn't even queerbait either (at least not originally, maybe now it would be due to marketing). They truly just accidentally made him seem queer. I fear that because by all appearances, the Duffers are straight nerds. And on the surface Mike is pretty similar to other straight nerd teen characters from 80s media.

Occam's Razor (the simplest explanation is usually true) and all that. I'm worried they might not see anything wrong with Will being the gay kid who crushes on his straight best friend, and they might see Mike lovingly rejecting Will as a happy ending. Would they really plan out all these intense, complex, brilliant Byler theories and shift away the cultural conversation around their show from being a fun, entertaining, scary time with catchy 80s songs like Running Up that Hill to being "the show that suddenly went gay in the final season." A lot of people are comfortable with Robin being a girl liker, but Mike being a boy liker and kissing a boy might be a bridge too far.

Also, Bylers are SO confident in Byler, so I worry we're too overconfident. We openly mock and taunt the dumb GA, the media illiterate Milevens, the Reddit dudebros... everyone. But doesn't pride come before a fall? We could be so horribly wrong about the intentions of the creators and that would be super embarrassing and they'd never stop gloating and being homophobic. I mean, weren't we wrong about Volume II? (Many Bylers believed Mike was gonna come out and ride off with Will into the sunset at the end of the season, but instead he monologued to El about how much he "loves" her).

But then I rewatch the show and see how gay Mike obviously is, and I'm like, "Nah, Byler endgame is literally in the bag."

yea like volume 2 is always reminding me “hey what u think is gonna happen could be the inverse!!!”

and also most discussions in the byler community talk about byler like it’s canon, so if it’s not what we gonna do???

[etherealwanderings]

No but Noah deleting his tweet about Mike and Will being 2 pretty best friends after S4 got released will never be not funny 🤣 Tell me that you know that Will and Mike aren't gonna stay only besties without telling me that you know that. 🤣

[hesquietoday]

I hate to be pessimistic but at the very least the couples costumes thing is more solid proof that it was actually queerbaiting if byler isn't endgame

[pbnjloverman]

im having so much byler doubt and I have seen a lot of post talking about how byler its not gonna be canon and the worst thing is that this post are made from byler shippers.

I feel so bad about this because byler has been my entire personality for the past 7 years and I have never doubt so much about byler like now, if byler it's not canon that will be so embarrassing for me

But idk i still shipping and I hope s5 proof me wrong and byler its canon and all the doubts that I have don't exist anymore

[sinclairstarz]

biggest byler doubt for me is just that it makes too much sense for the people writing stranger things to write

[d0v3uae]

someone help me.

yall im having byler doubts, SOMEONE HELPP

[starbylers]

Monologue anon here! Thank you so much for that whole post, I wasn't expecting something this detailed when I wrote the ask lol. It definitively made me understand the purpose of the monologue more, and I love that interpretation. I can finally have an explanation for why the monologue had to happen, so thank you for that!!

But at the end of the day I guess I'll always be a bit skeptical and wonder if all this could just be bad writing, and we're just reading too much into it. Like the fact that it has lies, I could see the writers think it actually doesn't, like they could be thinking that Mike genuinely fell in love with her in that moment even if he didn't know what it was yet. They've done other retcons, because back in season 1 the full story wasn't complete yet. And the "surprise, it was all Will, that means he's the one Mike actually loves, not El!" argument feels a little cheap and I'm not sure the audience will buy it. But we'll see, I guess they could write it in a way that makes sense. Anyway I really really hope we're right! Fingers crossed!

You’re welcome! And I understand being skeptical but I mean, agree to disagree I guess haha. I don’t think their writing is without flaws by any stretch of the imagination but the evidence for Byler goes past bad writing—it’s at the point where several of their choices would be completely illogical and against their own interests if the purpose was for Mlvn to be endgame.

And about retconning stuff, I suppose it can happen? But the writers account have said that they don’t believe in love at first sight and in season 4 they literally made fun of the trope with Argyle and Eden. In my opinion, they don’t believe in it. I mean they are grown adults, I find it really hard to believe that they are seriously advocating for the idea of love at first sight being a thing that is real and happens. Romance in Stranger Things also always comes from a foundation of friendship.

I also don’t think it’s as easy as ‘surprise it was Will, Mike loves him now’ 😭 I was just trying to put it in simple terms, I only meant Mike finding out makes it clear to the audience that he could only confess after he heard how much Will loves him, and will be a key factor in him beginning to realise that Will is actually the right person for him. I don’t think it’ll be this immediate switch, it’ll happen over the course of the season in conjunction with Mike and Will getting even closer and their dynamic becoming more explicitly romantic. They won’t just spring Byler on us with no build up lol. But yeah fingers crossed, I hope we’re right too :)

[lunabug2004]

Y’all I’m struggling rn! My Byler doubt has come back full-force :(

Idk what happened! The leaks honestly made me more confident cuz I didn’t feel the romance in the video at all! Idk where all that confidence went tho and now I’m sad! I do know that going on TT is not helping tho, cuz m!levens are spamming every lip-read vid (they keep showing up on my fyp) with comments dissing Byler.

I honestly do like Mike & El together, but I think Byler is sooo much cuter and would be such a wasted opportunity (not to mention the queerbaiting 💀)!

Someone help me get my Byler confidence back pls it’s so much more fun to ship confidently!