Livv 💜

Having a character grow up in solitary confinement and then ripping her away from the only family she's ever known to live a life of solitude once again is not good writing.

Having a character be in love with his best friend and then just compare it to a high school crush is not good writing.

Having Eleven say that Mike has always been the person who truly understood her after showing us in the previous seasons that he only sees her as a superhero IS NOT GOOD WRITING.

People denying the queerbait are pmo so bad saying "Well Mike was never going to reciprocate anyway so it's not queerbait" and "there are 3 queer characters [Robin, Will, and Vickie] so you're just mad that the ship didn't happen" just proves they don't know the definition of queer bait

It clearly says it's not just a storytelling tactic but also a marketing tactic.

First lets hit on the storytelling though. Mike was only able to tell El he loved her in s4 because of Will's love for him. Mike looked uncomfortable with the kiss in s3 meanwhile his interactions with Will felt drastically different. His top song in the Basement Beats playlist being Smalltown Boy, a queer song. He was a queer coded character whether the Duffers intended it or not. Sure they had Robin and Will and ig Vickie as queer representation, but they also wrote Mike in such a way where a large portion of the fanbase interpreted him as queer.

But that wouldn't have been an issue.

If the Duffers just came out and said Mike was never meant to be interpreted in such a way.

One example of someone shutting down an LGBTQ head canon was Dana Terrace a few months back. The Duffers could've easily done this.

Or even easier? Do what they did with Wenclair. Shut it down completely before it could get out of control.

That's what should've been done after s4. Someone should've come out and said "No Byler isn't happening."

If it wasn't happening it shouldn't have been treated as if 'rejection' (if you can even call it that) was some big twist.

And the worst part?

They knew about Bylers.

They called us, 'noise'.

They let us be called delusional for YEARS. They let people make homophobic comments FOR YEARS. And the marketing teams? Fed into it. The made posts about the ship, they acknowledged it, they made it seem like a possibility. They strung us along for profit. That's queer bait.

Oh

And erasure apparently? that's neat.

But the thing is, if Byler had been confirmed not happening I, and many others, still would've watched the fifth season.

But now? I don't even know if I can stand to rewatch past s3 knowing what became of my favorite character (Mike Wheeler), the mistreatment of their gay character (Will Byers), AND the misogynistic way they handled their female protagonist's (Jane Hopper) story.

The Duffer's queer bait ruined so much rewatchability for me and so many others and I just hate it.

Because despite everything I still can't help but love the show. I just hate the Queer baiting sucker brothers who decided that "Forced conformity" was what was killing the kids and then gave us an ending so bad that fed into conforming that people are believing that there's 1-3 secret episodes.