spreading the gay agenda with glee

Two separate times Will mentions pushing Mike away out of fear. Fearing losing him.

And what was his one supposed act of flirting?

Literally pushing Mike away... shoving him right in the heart.

like you cannot tell me this isnt them. and its like even their sizes too 😭

Henry was terrified of the cave. Why? Well, lets look at the symbolism involving caves. Understanding the allegories are essential to understanding the story as a whole.

Caves can symbolize the heart. HMM very relevant. It also can symbolize the subconscious mind.

However, what I find the most interesting is Plato's allegory of the cave:

In the allegory, Plato describes people who have spent their entire lives chained by their necks and ankles in front of an inner wall with a view of the empty outer wall of the cave. They observe the shadows projected onto the outer wall by objects carried behind the inner wall by people who are invisible to the chained "prisoners" and who walk along the inner wall with a fire behind them, creating the shadows on the outer wall in front of the prisoners. The "sign bearers" pronounce the names of the objects, the sounds of which are reflected near the shadows and are understood by the prisoners as if they were coming from the shadows themselves.

Only the shadows and sounds are the prisoners' reality, which are not accurate representations of the real world. The shadows represent distorted and blurred copies of reality we can perceive through our senses, while the objects under the Sun represent the true forms of objects that we can only perceive through reason. x

While Max and Holly believe they are "safe" within the cave, but they are, unknowingly, prisoners within it. Henry has escaped the cave and knows the truth- that it's a prison!!! The cave is also a metaphor for the closet. Henry wants everyone to go towards the light aka THE TRUTH!

I think this is why he is the most misunderstood by everyone. Henry/Vecna does not want to imprison characters, he wants to free them. He wants to create a new world, one free of conformity. Our "heroes" are the ones choosing to imprison themselves. They believe the truth is ugly, evil, and should be hidden away and/or destroyed.

This leads me to the belief that Vecna (and those within the UD) represent "the truth".

In ST4, Vecna "ends the suffering" of his victims by forcing them to face their truths. He is "freeing" them. The truth sets you free.

That's why the ending of ST5 felt so... wrong. Our characters have everything all wrong. They were fighting on the side of conformity not against it.

I’ve been saying 🥹

VECNA is a scapegoat for the government, the military, and the lab (the ACTUAL three-headed thesselhydra, the ACTUAL villain of the series!). Everything we see him do is something that has already been established to have been done by the lab, the government, or the military! By that point in the show!

Henry, obsessed with time ? Rewinding time ?

Nah, that lab is trying to cover something up & is changing the times & the stories.

Two separate times Will mentions pushing Mike away out of fear. Fearing losing him.

And what was his one supposed act of flirting?

Literally pushing Mike away... shoving him right in the heart.

WHY do the dice in the background of Henry and El's conversation keep changing - it's not even a small nudge, they keep being rearranged into different shapes/formations

I don't think there's any reason to think that, no.

We were just plain wrong in our interpretations.

That said, I think we had every right to come to the conclusions that we came to. The clues were all there, and the Duffers sat back and watched as we pieced things together incorrectly. They were more than happy to let us be wrong and get a ton of no-effort engagement.

But, like most things, it wasn't a problem until it suddenly was a problem.

Season 4 changed everything. Noah changed everything. The Byler community exploded.

With Noah coming out, Will's sexuality and feelings for Mike becoming canon, and Noah subsequently championing Byler, things grew out of control at a rapid pace.

The Byler community was no longer an innocuous portion of the fanbase that could just be ignored. We started to control the conversation. Hell, I dare say we became the conversation, especially as the between-season hiatuses grew to 2-3 years each. We became noise that the Duffers couldn't block out anymore.

There were always little hints that Byler wouldn't happen, but they were always so vague that, when combined with the fact that even Will's feelings were just subtext at the time, could be taken as protecting a future reveal. One of the biggest "hints" we thought we had was the way Mike treated Will in season 2. He was tender, protective, devoted in a way that he wasn't with anyone else. I'd argue he was never any of those things with El, at least not to the same extent. However, even after season 2, it was said that Mike's devotion to Will was a manifestation of his trauma at El's "death." There was really little to nothing said about his and Will's bond beyond it bringing light back into Mike's life after losing El.

So, we probably should've realized at the time that, even way back in season 2, the Duffers only saw Mike as El's love interest. They were just extremely shitty at writing it, constantly making Mike treat both El and Will poorly, but only ever really making things right with Will. We saw that as him actually being in love with Will. I personally saw it as him redirecting his feelings to El as a social acceptable alternative, with his romantic failings being the result of him not really seeing her that way. But I suppose I was foolish to think the Duffers had enough of an understanding of psychology to ever write something like that. And we were all a bit foolish to ignore the signs and think it was leading to Byler, but the Duffers willingly brought us along for the ride.

By writing Will's story the way they did, it was only natural to think something would happen. I don't know when exactly Will fell for Mike, but I'd guess it was the Snow Ball. After everything that happened in season 2, it would make sense. It was Mike's story that ultimately broke through to Will in the shed, and he looks to Mike when the girls asks him to dance. The script also says his eyes are on Mike while they were all dancing.

They knew as far back as season 2 that Will would be in love with Mike (fuck all that "crush" shit). They made that decision and then wrote three more seasons to follow up on it. Three more seasons, mind you, where Will pursues Mike, only to realize Mike doesn't see him like that and ostensibly moves on, only to come back the next season in the same situation. Three more seasons where Mike treats Will with a unique tenderness while completely failing to connect emotionally with El.

Cue season 5, where the Duffers went all in. Mike doting on Will again. They've been living together for 18 months. Will sees Robin and Vickie kissing. Mike gushes on Will possibly having powers while seeming unconcerned about El being gone. Will actively flirts. Will saves Mike's life after remembering the history of their relationship. Mike looks to be in total awe.

How could anyone blame us for thinking it served a narrative purpose?

How could anyone blame us for coming to the conclusion that Mike truly loved Will, but was trying to repress it?

But their grand plan for all this was for Mike to just be bad at feelings, El to never find out who she is outside of her powers or relationship with Mike, and Will to move on in a day's time after the only other gay person he knows tells him her feelings were holding her back from being happy.

Despite Mike being all about Will a day ago, it's all quickly forgotten after he is put in a trance. A still-confusing scene of Mike looking at Will on the couch, only to walk away, probably should've been a huge hint to us. As soon as El returns, Mike basically forgets about Will, just as he always has. And, at this point, there's little time to go with the whole "he uses her for feelings he's not allowed to show Will" thing. It truly is a case of him just using Will as a substitute for when El is gone or for things he's not confident enough to talk to her about.

The hints were all there, I guess. We just chose to interpret them in a way that benefited our preferred endgame. But the hints were there, especially in season 5, because the Duffers wanted to keep us watching. So, even while they were telling the actors to stop talking about Byler, they still wanted us to talk about it. Who was driving fandom engagement between seasons for the most part? Byler fans. They just didn't wanted to be able to say they weren't encouraging it.

Assholes.

Let's not even get into the greater train wreck of the Robin and Will dynamic, where Will, after a conversation with Robin, suddenly feels empowered to flirt with Mike because she told him about the signs she picked up from Vickie. No, despite Mike's flirty behavior, Will tries exactly once to flirt, and then gives up because Mike doesn't immediately respond.

It was such an impossible task to believably get Will to move on after all of this that they had to get him to take what was honestly terrible advice. Robin presumed her experiences would be the same as his and she legit discouraged him from loving Mike or he'd be miserable forever. Meanwhile, Robin treats Vickie increasingly poorly, and isn't even together with her or is on the way to it in the epilogue between the "overbearing" comment and asking Nancy about the women at college.

Meanwhile, Mike tells Will his ending involves leaving and going to a big city to be with his own kind if he wants to be happy. Personally, I have to wonder if Mike and Will ever see or talk to each other again after that final summer. Mike only seems to care about pining away for El for the rest of his life, and Will seems to be about cruising gay bars, which, in the early 90s at the height of HIV, was not an especially safe thing to do.

I feel like the Duffers let their true feelings on gay people shine by the end.

But we had every reason to see what we saw. It wasn't until season 5, perhaps, that the Duffers weaponized it, but it was always there. They made the conscious choice to make Will's series-long arc be about him having feelings for Mike. They can go on all they want about it being a self-acceptance story where he has to be ok with being gay, but that wouldn't require him to have feelings for Mike for 3+ years. That wouldn't require that he have the same season arc of "I love MIke, but he loves El, so I have to move on" only to come back the next season and do it again. There were a lot of other ways they could've done this, but they did it this way, and I honestly think it is partially due to them knowing there was a sizeable Byler fandom. This is why it's queerbaiting.

no, noah did not queerbait. ever. he was invested just like we were, and was hyping up the potential before he got the scripts for the latter half of the season, then he stopped. not to mention none of the cast had an idea about all the character's endings until they were already months into filming. holding byler endgame signs at cons isn't baiting either, it was not something valid enough to turn down AND it made his fans happy so of course he'd go along with it. you all KNOW how noah is. he's excitable and positive, he's so young (or definitely as byler picked up after st4) and always had a close bond with his fans. he wanted to share joy with bylers/will's fans and was let down along with us

he was also 17 when people started throwing queerbaiting blame onto him. a child who was in the closet himself, with no control or power as an actor against writers despite what (uninformed) people may think. now it's still going on years later and so many of you think it's okay and don't call it out when you should

and along the way, this fandom hardly ever defended him against actual homophobic abuse, never stuck up for another member of your own community, put expectations on him to make a ship happen while knowing how difficult it is for queer people in the entertainment industry

noah has been consistent about showing disappointment in how mike has been a bad friend to will, with finn even expressing the same thoughts along the way because it was TRUE. I hate what the writers have done to byler because of their bullshit to fix what they apparently "accidentally" set up, but noah and finn and others are just speaking for what they see in the show which is fair. we now have really shit scenes that (when viewed from the byler endgame lens) don't have an explanation for, and DO make mike look shitty (rain fight and the "no homo" moment at the airport). they were so desperate to cleanse their self insert after season 4 that they made mike's priorities and behaviour so messy, that's on them not on noah and how he speaks about the ship 🫩

noah has vouched for will so many times across the years. he and jamie have spoken about asking for more and being denied it - it's not their fault! he understands how will's coming out scene should've been different and intimate. he fought for byler's story after seeing how tossed aside the pairing was, he literally got us that scene on the tower. despite it being a pathetic and cruel, barely even bare minimum script that essentially said "fine, here" to noah, he didn't have control of that. he fought for the fans that the duffers didn't care about because HE cares. and always has

noah was quite literally in the middle of this whole situation for years now until the show ended. a whirlwind of needing to be in will's mindset, as well as then being interested in fan's reactions. he's only just had time to really start processing it all, so how can anyone be surprised that his opinion fluctuates as he spends more time thinking about byler AND seeing what points fans are making

if you don't think that it's perfectly normal for noah to have developed his thoughts in recent months just like we all have, then idk what to tell you. I saw people say he changed his tune despite saying byler would be roommates (sorry, where in that answer did he imply romance anyway?), despite bringing up him talking about will confessing his love in mike's arms as he dies, but that wasn't about byler endgame either? that was just a scenario for "will tells mike how he feels". so I don't get why people think he was still vouching for byler endgame after the show ended and is now doing a 180 when he's been consistent in his priority of - what is best for WILL. as he should be. god forbid the actor of the one character who didn't get ANY romance or a kiss want him to find it somewhere, to find his community, and not stay stuck

he didn't say he hates byler, he's going off of what is on screen, what the story sadly ended up telling and yes, it is so fair of him to say will should not beg for mike. will did all that he could and was SO brave to even come out. he's also not real so NO he can't be blamed for mike not figuring his own shit out lmao?? do you hear yourselves?? will got nothing and you still want him to do the work, unbelievable

from everything I've seen over the years, I do think noah believed in the same story we all thought was being set up. narratively it made sense, the duffers had the biggest fumble of the century and the month after the sorcerer scene proved that with how much bigger byler got, but now with what they actually gave us? yeah it's not great for byler. that's okay, or can eventually become okay as we process, because we push forward and create and love

noah just wants will to be loved how he deserves, I thought that's what we should all want as a fandom? do you not love will outside of byler? I'm a hardcore byler, they're my endgame absolutely but that is not gonna blind me to the nuanced point of view of the gay actor who brought the will we love to life