And Us?

By saying that it tells me everything I need to know about the duffers, that they don’t think queer love is “real” or “serious”. Not only did they refer to will’s years long love for mike as a hallway crush, but this is how they refer to Robin and vickie’s relationship.

They even couldn’t keep their “token queer couple”, who got together off screen together.

It becomes clear the only reason they were even a thing was for Robin to guide Will, who didn’t even get love himself, and afterwards they lost their purpose in the eyes of the duffers.

They just used them as the “shut up here is your representation” and at the end they couldn’t even care about that.

He was a plot device to express Will’s queerness. They made him say an out of character homophobic comment to express Will’s queerness. They made him behave poorly towards Will in s4 to show Will’s longing for him.

They created conflict between Mike and El so Will could play relationship therapist, through which he showcases his feelings for Mike and uses them to fix mileven's relationship. There's no explanation for why Mike behaves that way, none of his POV on the situation, so you know what that means? They made him cruel to Will to further Will’s arc. They made him unable to say 'I love you' to his girlfriend so Will could fix it, furthering his arc.

Funnily enough, byler not happening meant that they gave no explanation about Mike's behavior, and in turn, it reduces him to byler.

He's a plot device in El’s story too. He's used throughout season 5 to offer El this hopeful ending. He can’t even get a word in during El’s sacrifice. He stands there and provides no input, while El tells him how much she appreciates him.

He's basically a blank canvas for Will and El to express their feelings on. He's not his own character anymore. And that's a thousand times more tragic than his girlfriend dying.

“it’s forced conformity,

Finn describing mileven as a ‘leech you can’t get rid off’ and confirming that Mike lied in the s4 monologue.

Noah being the one to add in actual good scenes in volume 3 because the duffers were so bad at closing the story.

the duffers absolutely queer baited the audience. everything I learned academically about visual storytelling was pointing toward a byler slow burn, and then they completely abandoned their own setup. we didn’t hallucinate subtext; we didn’t “make up” a ship. they built it, then pretended they didn’t, and the result reeks of homophobia.