#st scripts

[howtobecomeadragon]

why are they so fucking goofy??? i love them

[alex-the-bringer-of-chaos]

Okay gang, regarding the script: no fucking wonder Finn says Will's love is beautiful. No wonder basically everyone on the cast is rooting for byler. Otherwise this shit is the saddest there is. We know David knows the ending, he called it beautiful. There's no fucking way he would be saying that and giggling and shit if byler wasn't endgame.

El's journey has ALWAYS been about her sense of identity and the need for familial and platonic love. Her romantic relationship with Mike holds her back, makes her miserable (as we saw on s4) and when she dumped his ass and spent time with her friend Max was the happiest she's ever been.

Will and Mike's journey has been connected from the start, no, before that. The story wouldn't exist if they hadn't been friends, they NEED eachother in a healthy way, they make each other happier, the love they want/need is the love the other one gives them. But their story has also been about self-love, just like El's. The difference is where that need come from.

El needed to learn self-love because of the whole shitshow of trauma and the growing up on a lab, abusive af place. She struggles with seeing who she is because she has only been seen as 2 things her whole life: a superhero or a monster - and her relationship with Mike reinforces that viewpoint, which is why she is happier without that romance.

Mike and Will's struggles come from being gay in the 80s and from their family - Mike cause his parents are more worried with fitting in causing them to be in a loveless marriage and Will cause of his piece of shit of a father - those things affected their view of themselves and of their future. They need to learn self-love on their own, obv, but they're relationship is key to it. They've always needed each other, always will. They love each other so much!

At the end, El's happy ending is being her independent self with the love of her family and friends, and Mike and Will's happy ending is together!

[robin-buck1ey]

Regardless of what any scripts say, Natalia and Maya played Nancy and Robin to be in love.

That’s just a fact.

Not even a joke.

With each other’s canon romantic interests and with each other (same smiles)

[emblazons]

So uh. Did my own reading and came back to people saying they are doubting things which…interesting, but:

considering all 127 pages of that just confirmed a lot of what I already suspected and saw myself, im just gonna list some quick personal faves, including:

El getting a “her breath catches” moment over Max

Confirmation that I was in fact reading the talk El had with Vecna as what drained her correctly when I rewatched the season last month

The contrast of Will calling Mike “the heart” only for two seconds later El to show that “her heart” is Max instead

The fact that we get El “throwing away an old board game” in the cabin (rather than a paper in the sink that made the final shot) which DEF plays into the thinking of her outgrowing games/into her own and also serves as a DIRECT contrast to Mike’s arc of embracing his love of games (thinking back to hopper S3 letter too)

+ bonus points for it being Will who is concerned she is shutting them out, rather than Mike lmao

Dead flowers as important symbols script confirmed

El being (playfully) shady af with this line about Mike being a dog—fully playing seasons long shade of her being referred to as people’s pets

LUCAS READING MAX A WONDER WOMAN COMIC RATHER THAN THE TALISMAN!?! 😭

And also just this. Because even in the script, we cannot escape Mike not being El’s focus…but Mike still looking to Will for reassurance 🥲🫡

[cerebraljopper]

this hug and hand-hold was literally just david and winona 😭 jopper would be nothing without them

[henrysglock]

The Stardust Spider Is A Fursona? (And Other Thoughts On "Monsters" in ST)

Being me, I was doodling the Mindflayer during a meeting. And something hit me.

Henry, in TFS, asserts that his superhero-sona is "The Stardust Spider". As I talked about before, that's a direct reference to The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Queer aliens, trying to stop the apocalypse, you all know the drill.

But even more blatant than all that...What's spider-shaped and made of intergalactic dust?

So now I have another question.

Hey, Henry...You weren't drawing the Star-Dust Spider, were you?

And when TFS Henry talks about the Stardust Spider...he's not referring to the Mindflayer, is he?

And with all this in mind...

If we consider the Star-Dust Spider (read: the Shadow) being the sidekick, then what the fuck, pray tell, is Vecna???? Vecna being literal mystery meat...a) because we don't know his true identity and b) because he's made up of multiple kids of flesh: human and creature/tentacle

All this talk of superhero-sonas takes me to something (tangentially related) that's been rattling in my head since it was posted:

And until now I wasn't sure why it was so stuck in my head. But now I know.

It's an Iron Man reference.

"A monsters wasn't built overnight" vs "Heroes aren't born. They're built"

Monsters = Heroes. Villains ≠ Monsters.

That logic fits weirdly well with:

"I'm the monster." "No, you saved me!"

"He's the monster, Henry. Not you." "Papa hurt me, but he was no monster. He was an ordinary, mediocre man."

(There's also supposedly a line in the VR game where a scientist thinks "Brenner's little pet. What a monster." about Henry, but I have yet to hear that for myself.)

This all implies that a) the monsters are the heroes and b) the villains are just ordinary people, which...has some interesting implications when it comes to script details.

"-- but also for himself" Right. Okay.

And so if monster = hero/villain = mediocre man...

I just. Hm. Takes me way way back to my posts about the version of One who looks weirdly like Brenner...who also happens to be the One who flash-cuts to Vecna.

Anyway...much to think about. Many such cases.

[chirpsythismorning]

Did you see the Piggyback script dropped?? Thoughts?

The script is pretty much what I expected. If Mike's monologue had won out on the writer's twitter polls last summer, it would have looked the exact same and even back then I would have felt the same as I do now.

They knew that this script would be available to the public when they submitted it for an Emmy. They knew fans would be running to find out the 'truth'. I highly doubt they would release a script that revealed El's true feelings about the monologue, on a random afternoon, still almost 2 years before that reveal. That would diminish all of the work they put into keeping this surprise under-wraps. If they had released a script that gave away El's true feelings, the jig would be up, there would be no room for people to speculate about milkvan or byler anymore. Byler would clearly be endgame from the perspective of everyone if they had revealed that El was upset with what Mike said, including milkvans. S5 would have been spoiled with still 2 years of waiting left. And so, why would they do that?

Something I also want to point out, is that the script that the supporting cast/crew get, has to be bare bones to avoid leaks.

The leaks that tend to come out in the cases that they do, are from folks that are working below the line. Basic BTL employees sometimes have to have access to scripts in order to perform their duties.

And so a revelation that El was not happy with Mike's monologue, being written blatantly in the script, then being given to up to 100 people, poses a huge risk of a leak.

They want the audience to finish s4 believing that Mike's monologue was everything El wanted to hear and that they are now back together with no problems. That's indisputable. And so having their script contradict that, in a season that has no intention of addressing it, would be very confusing for everyone casually working BTL involved, who are being fed one story publicly and seeing a completely different thing on paper.

When it comes to the Duffers though, they definitely have a script that includes all those details that dozens upon dozens of BTL are not going to have access to.

Here's what I mean:

You'll notice that Matt is holding a script here that says Matt Duffer in big block letters across it.

There would be no need to have this big display of this script belonging to Matt, as like a watermark on literally every page, unless what's on it is unique and it's important that no one else has access to it.

It also makes sense he would need to give Noah and Finn pointers on the spot in the moment, considering a lot of Mike and Will's scenes have a record for having little to no details in the script, making it come off like every interaction between them is unscripted and impromptu. And while I do think Noah and Finn are fully capable of some in the moment ideas, I highly doubt every single scene between Will and Mike is improvised.

Considering what scene this is in this picture, I'm gonna guess Matt was reminding them of the knee tap here, which I doubt was in the script that the dozens of BTL got that day. For example, according to the piggyback script, the byler shoulder grab was unscripted... But really was it? They wrote that scene to parallel with the s2 super-spy scene and so they knew that original scene ended with a hand hold... I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the Duffers (and even probably Noah/Finn's) scripts included it, but the scripts with bare bone details given to random PA's didn't have it...

I would assume at best that the Duffers, directors, the handful of officials at the very top managing each department, and the main cast have a way different script than what the hundreds of average crew members are getting.

This is also something that would allow them to pinpoint who leaked things. Because if a script with a Matt Duffer watermark got leaked, they'd know that whoever had access to that script, less than a handful of people at most, would had to have leaked it. But considering those people are probably very very trusted by the Duffers, that would never happen.

And so they can sit comfortably knowing that any leaks that happen, are not going to have all the details that relate to things they don't want fans to get too close to figuring out right now, least of all the entire audience. Because they give out those bare bones scripts, knowing that they could be leaked, and so they avoid those details with full awareness of the worst case scenario.

I will say, something that really stood out to me though about this script is that SOOOOOO much ended up being different on screen than what it originally was in the script... Like entire scenes are either missing or there are scenes that aren't even in there that ended up being added the day of it seems (I guess originally Jonathan and Nancy were going to be on the roof?). Which just goes to show that the writing process never stops, least of all during the filming process. It's there constantly. If an actor wants to change the wording of a line or if they want to go about a scene differently, a writer needs to be there to green-light it.

Another thing that had me cackling after reading fans thoughts about the script on Reddit, was how some were acknowledging that Nancy's feelings about the situation between Steve and Jonathan were sort of missing (her POV), and everyone agreed that it was probably to keep the love triangle uncertainty up in the air...

All I could think was DAMN! These Wheelers!!... I'm sure if I even presented the comparison they would deny it, despite being able to recognize it in the script for Nancy. Just like they're willing to recognize that Jancy/Stancy is a love triangle, but are incapable of acknowledging that Byler/Milkvan is as well.

With roughly 2 years left until ST5 is gracing our screens, and with filming not even having started yet, us bylers need to realize that this back and forth of validating both sides won't be put to a stop officially any time soon.

While that might be hard to hear, the good news is that they're gonna continue to create uncertainty for both sides, including milkvans.

Because the reality is, byler isn't queerbait because they have every intention of following through with it. And so that means stuff that constitutes as bait will continue, bc for them it's just literally foreshadowing.

And so when s5 is really starting to approach and posters drop and we see yet again that Mike and Will are being paired up in promo... It's gonna be hard for milkvans to insist this isn't queerbait anymore. And it's gonna be hard for them to insist none of it means anything when they fully expected to go into s5 with little to no byler interactions and with Mike and El being in love and in their endgame fluff era...

In the mean time, get ready for uncertainty if you're already at risk of byler doubt. Just remember that all of the evidence in the show doesn't evaporate bc they want to keep fans guessing during hiatus. They don't want anyone to feel 100% certain right now. If anyone is, best believe that they're ready to throw something in the mix sooner than later that will inspire doubt. And it'll continue to go back and forth like that until right before s5 drops.

[paradise-yuna]

Lol This is so accurate.😅 Mike wasn’t expecting that. My confused lil man 🥺

[wastelandroses]

Will and Mike reconcile x Stranger Things 4 - Dear Billy script

(from Strangerwriters)

[aemiron-main]

staring at the piggyback script. this is from max in the creel house. WHAT DID THEY OMIT WHAT DID THEY OMIT IN THE CREEL HOUSE

[ineffablelvrs]

remember the day when we got both byler and elmax scripts? yeah that was the day the gays won once again

[howtobecomeadragon]

my hands before putting on lotion:

[polyamorous-eleven]

Script: Max touches Eleven’s face to make sure.

Episode: Max touches the side of her head two times, pinches her cheek, raises El’s chin with her hand, touches her arm and the back of her head

[robin-buck1ey]

So what your telling me is that “definitely” was improvised and that the duffers didn’t write Vickie (atleast here) to definitely like boobies🤨

Also it was “em” so Joe Keery wanted more boobies not “I like boobies you like boobies Vickie likes boobies!”

[strangeswift]

Reblog this pineapple pizza slice to flirt with the person you reblogged it from by shoving it down their throat.

(Inspired by this post by @theonebyler)

[cerebraljopper]

jopper bandaging scene excerpt from the 4x08 script!

“he’s surprisingly CALM” joyce’s presence makes him feel calm, she is his safe space THEY ARE IN LOVE YOUR HONOR

also! they use the same “sense of calm” to describe hopper looking at joyce in melvad’s in 3x01 🥺