#Stranger Things Salt

[flushed-for-the-trolls]

Byler Is Toxic As Fuck And Sucks

Honestly, as of S4 Vol. 2 Byler is this toxic relationship of Will's codependency and obsession of Mike and Mike's staunch refusal to grow as a person unless led by the fucking hand (presumably by Will).

And the only other self evident fact worse than the one I just laid out is that no matter what, fans of the show will NEVER acknowledge any of this.

The fact of the matter is: If these sort of events transpired between friends, like:

(Being talked down to after your friends ignored your whole ass D&D campaign ((I don't play D&D but from what I've heard, that shit doesn't just happen on a whim and they typically take several hours to see through, so double ouchies there)).

Having your lack of a romantic/sexual desire being thrown in your face and treated as the problem when it's absolutely not,

Giving up D&D in honor of your party disbanding... Only to have them join a D&D club the second they get into High School,

Being ignored for a whole ass year,

Having your supposed best friend FORGET YOUR BIRTHDAY, then blow up at YOU at it when you're ((understandably)) upset and moody,

Having to carry the emotional burden OF said friend on 2 separate occasions, including ((and I CANNOT believe I am saying this)) giving your friend a pep-talk and painting to convince him that HIS OWN GIRLFRIEND STILL LOVES HIM

and

... Ugh... What I can only describe as the BIGGEST slap to the face. the monologue.)

You would ABSOLUTELY cut off a shitty excuse for a friend. At this point this ship is just romanticized toxicity and I've just stopped loving it.

When I see Will still simping for his deadbeat excuse of a friend I just roll my eyes. It's not cute, it's disturbing and pathetic. This isn't love, it's romanticized Stockholm Syndrome.

Will doesn't need Mike, he needs a firm sit-down on how to cut ties and move on with his life.

Will deserves someone better, and so does El, for that matter.

Anyways, this was supposed to be 100x more coherent and structured, but I switched off the tab and when I switched back to the one I was writing this on, it refreshed without my input and I lost it all, so fuck it, this is all you're getting.

Just about every ship's fandom sucks, but by God does the cake go to Byler fans, sorry but not really tbh.

I will say tho: Kinda sucks going through the Anti Byler tag, cuz it's either shipping discourse (Hell) or people being straight up homophobic (mega hell)

[liveandletrain]

My Stranger Things fandom pet peeve is the way the fandom gets onto the Duffers and Netflix for discarding characters and relationships as if they don’t to the exact same thing.

The example that comes most prominently to mind is the way y’all are out here throwing Steve at every new love interest who walks by as The Most Important To Him as if this mans life doesn’t revolve around Dustin and Robin.

If Steve didn’t have somewhere to stay he wouldn’t be shacking up with Billy Hargrove or the Munsons. He’d be hiding under Robin’s bed or in Claudia Henderson’s guest room.

[queen-of-hawkins-why-ler]

Not to be that annoying person but any YouTuber or influencer who posts an “analysis” of Stranger Things without even MENTIONING Will or if they say the classic “Will is sidelined and irrelevant,” I genuinely don’t care what they have to say lmao. I’m not sure anyone who doesn’t recognize Will as being a vital character and the story as being about Will is media literate enough to appreciate the show for the same reasons we do. Like, are those people really even fans??? How the GA pretends Will is an irrelevant side character will never not be wild to me. Like, newsflash, this show is his slowburn love story and you’ve been unknowingly digesting it for over half a decade. 👏

[greenfiend]

On the topic of Band-Aids…

Sure Will “ripp[ed] off [the] Band-Aid”, but where did it leave us? It left us with an enormous wound, spreading all across Hawkins.

A heart shaped lake ripped apart in the centre.

Obviously, that wound needs to heal, and somehow I doubt Mike and El’s “love” for each other will help matters. Especially since Mike’s “love” speech to El occurred right before this wound opened up.

People who simply study scripts and script writing only know a portion of what’s going on. A lot of clues come from the visuals and subtleties that are not written on a page.

[byler-alarmist]

Why did I think of this scene.....

[ihni]

Inspiration from this post by @stranger-rants ... Sorry but I couldn't NOT draw that, come on, he deserves all the love that little kids can give him!

[inklessletter]

You belong in the daylight, in the sand, and the sea and the salt that I don't find in your eyes.

You belong in the summer, child of the sun.

🌅

Keep trusting, love. We're not done.

[elevenenthusiast]

If those leaks about stranger things 5 on twitter are true then i have nothing else to say other than that it sounds ass.

[donttellunclesam]

Eddie says he doesn't play favorites in Hellfire (he's a liar)

(close up under the cut)

[suzieloveships]

Don't get me wrong, grumpy old man with a sad backstory being force to take care of a child which leads to him opening out and healing from his past trauma and the two of them developing a parent-child relationship is the best trope, but you what is also amazing and needs more love?

An irresponsible and/or immature teen boy/very young adult man being force to take care of a kid(s) which leads to him having a character development and redemption and the two, or more, of them developing a siblings relationship.

I need more stories like this

Edit HOW COULD I FORGOT!!!

Feel free to add more if you know any

[fleursfairies]

jonathan and will would go to a bunch of random concerts in the 90s and early 2000s. they still go to them but they went to a LOT back in the day

the donnas, the gogos, pepper, the cramps, billy idol, the cure, muse, red hot chili peppers, nirvana, L7, the slits, pet shop boys, the clash, the ramones, veruca salt, hole, babes in toyland, the b-52s, 4 non blondes, bob dylan, blondie, rush, the white stripes, they probably saw sublime in some random back yard

etc

[jonathanbyersphd]

Justice for Argyle tbh

[queen-of-hawkins-why-ler]

“Stranger Things will still be a good show even if Byler isn’t endga”—let me stop you right there bc if anything other than Byler endgame happens then Stranger Things will have a worse final season than Game of Thrones and deserves to be the laughingstock of the internet forever and deserves to be shat on forever.

[rogueddie]

so anyway I think Steve would wear long skirts as pjs. just plain, ankle length skirts that are soft things like silk bc they're so comfortable and he kinda wishes he could wear them out but he can never find anything that fits well on his biceps that matches.

[findafight]

So many shippers want to take stobin away from each other by either undermining their big friendship moments, especially the bathroom scene by either making Steve talk about someone else when he's describing how amazing Robin is or (as I've unfortunately seen) have Robin lie about liking Tammy (to cover her crush on Nancy) which makes the entire scene ingenuine and the basis of their solid friendship a falsehood, or by giving their dynamic to other characters like making Robin and Eddie best friends before scoops (when they probably didn't even know each other beyond going to the same school). Just. Why. Why must you separate them? Why do you feel the need to remove their big emotional moments of love and trust and give it to different characters?

[corrodedcoughin]

The only character from stranger things who wouldn’t lick a salt lamp is ted wheeler because he contains no joy in his heart