‿̩͙⊱༒︎༻keira༺༒︎⊰‿̩͙

- clock

- noise

- off-screen

- interpretation

they took a queer character’s feelings, his longing, his emotional labour, his narrative vulnerability, and used them as scaffolding for a relationship he isn’t even part of. they lifted will’s emotional beats, his confessions, his heartbreak, and simply stamped el’s name on top like it was an interchangeable sticker. from a craft perspective, it’s not just sloppy; it’s narratively unethical. it treats queer interiority as a tool rather than a story. it treats a queer character’s pain as a convenient emotional engine for a heterosexual romance that couldn’t sustain itself on its own terms.

and the thing is, this isn’t subtle. it’s not buried in symbolism or blink and you’ll miss it gestures. it’s right there in the blocking, the framing, the colour theory, the dialogue, the emotional pacing. it’s the kind of thing you’d pause in a lecture hall and say, “okay, class, here’s what happens when a show wants the cultural capital of queer representation without committing to the narrative responsibility of actually following through.”

so why did mike spend probably a summative 50 hours staring at wills lips?

so why did they even put in the blue and yellow patterns?

so why is there a one way sign pointing into mikes closet?

so why couldn’t mike tell eleven he loves her?

so why did mike react like that to will coming out?

so why did byler have so many parallels to canon couples?

so why was mileven not explicitly still together at all until the finale?

so why was mike always more distressed about anything involving will than eleven?

so why did mike imply on multiple occasions that will and eleven took up the same space in his life which was why he couldn’t make both relationships work like in s4?

so why was mike in wills film reel when that was explicitly what robin said did not include tammy?

so why was the painting never addressed?

so why tf did mike react like that to el kissing him and telling him she loved him before her and the byers left for california?

so why did the van scene take hours to film?

so why was will asking robin about signs that someone wanted to date him?

so why did the sky change to pink after will shoved mike in the field?

and i could go ONNNN and ONNN like oh my god we have mountains of evidence, there is so much that it’s simply impossible that every single thing is a coincidence, even if some are.

so are the duffer brothers just cowards? idiots? intentional queerbaiters? why did they expect us to be satisfied with this ending? like give us SOMETHING. no byler canon leaves so so so many loose ends and is just incredibly poor characterization and writing and makes no sense plotwise.

aside from my emotional attachment to byler, as a writer myself, this is pathetic. you don’t write a slow burn rejection and you don’t pour hours into symbolism for it to symbolize nothing. never write again duffers.