Best thing I've ever done

Finn:

At this time you may not say that you personally ship Byler

“It depends on what the Duffers write”/it depends on how the show goes/we’ll see what happens

“Ship what you want” <- a non-answer that intentionally walks the fine line between discouraging and encouraging

Noah:

At this time you may talk about your personal feelings about the Byler ship/Go ahead and say “yes, I ship Byler” if you are directly asked

If pressed for more details you may say “there will be more of that in season 4 - you’ll see” <- intentionally encouraging without revealing anything specific

Pretend you don’t know what canon means lolol

This is me guessing what they’ve been told they can and can’t say based on how they’ve answered fan questions so far.

What are three hopes or wishes that you have for the Stranger Things fan community as be begin 2021 and anxiously await season 4?

Thanks! My three hopes or wishes for the fan community?

Be

Fucking

Nice!

That was my reaction... It may seem too exaggerated, but it's a normal reaction for a byler shipper.

He knows something.

I thought I muted that overgrown tell-fans-what-they-wanna-hear fan-run tabloid-news(ish) Twitter account but I still keep getting Twitter notifications for it anyways because Twitter gives accounts clout for simply having a large audience regardless of whether or not they are an official authority.

I'm not usually one to focus on things that I dislike but because I am someone who enjoys speculation and theories and recognizing that "we don't know what we don't know" I have a strong dislike and distrust towards social media accounts that pretend to be an authority and don't make it clear that they are simply theorizing and speculating about a lot of things that truly can't be treated as absolute yet.

Everything a certain account posts (anything that they share that is not directly linking to a real authoritative source published by a more reputable news outlet) is often extremely click-baity and entirely formulated to simply tell fans what they want to hear and build vague, empty hype and generate reactions and likes. (Anything for that like and reblog!)

Maybe I'm not appreciating the way that accounts like these still keep the hype and passion for the series alive but I'm not sure the negative repercussions of the shady rumor-mill aspects of these types of posts are worth it.

If news and information isn't from one of the official Stranger Things accounts, from Netflix, or from an interview with the Duffer Brothers or cast members I don't trust it. I don't. And I like it when accounts are up-front and honest about their level of authority. If you call yourself a "news" account but don't provide any information on your credentials, only repost news from other sources (because you aren't hosting interviews with the cast yourself) and then you create new click-baity and misleading captions for that "news": you're not even tabloid-quality gossip because at least tabloids have their own staff actively seeking out unique scoops of their own from direct sources, you are just a fan account like anyone else.

For anyone that doesn't already know: hi! I'm @strangertheory ! And as implied in my blog name I am a blogger who is passionate about theories and speculation. I try to do my best at drawing a line between analysis, theory, hypotheses, and wishful thinking and headcanons. Most of what I talk about on my blog is speculative analysis and hypothetical, but I do my best to create theories based on evidence in the series and from official sources nonetheless and I try to cite it whenever I can. But I could be wrong about my ideas and I will never lie to you all or encourage you to falsely think that I am in any way affiliated with the official Stranger Things production. I am unaffiliated with Stranger Things and just a fan. In my opinion any accounts that don't make this clear and act as if they are authorities are dishonest and manipulative. And they bother me.

Some red flags for fake and unreliable fan accounts that pretend to be authorities when they aren't include (but are not limited to) : reposted content that looks like it was taken from elsewhere without citation or credit to the original source, click-baity statements that prioritize hype / reactions / reposts / comments over accuracy of information, vague credentials and information about the account that make them sound official but still tell you absolutely nothing about who they are and why you should trust them, fanon content mixed in inconsistently with more verifiable posts in attempts to make the less trustworthy content sound more legitimate, inconsistent or contradictory infornation, overtly incorrect information, etc.

So I wanted to rant about it a little today.

This isn't an issue with only one account out there: this issue applies to many accounts. But I do find it insufferable. I think it lacks integrity and respect for the people who work to provide fans with real news.

Alright: got that rant out of my system! (I feel a little better!)

(And I hope it’s okay to reblog your tags because I think you’ve made some important points!)

When do you think Byler will be canon? As in, when do you think their feelings will be explicitly shown or stated? TO CLARIFY: I don’t mean, when will they both admit their feelings to eachother, I mean when will the AUDIENCE know that they both have romantic feelings for the other no question.

And I don’t mean “they share a heavily queer coded scene!” I mean, “it literally confirms either of their feelings for eachother but in universe the characters don’t know that the other reciprocates.”

So the AUDIENCE knows for sure, whether that be something explicitly stated, or something like what they did with Jancy in season one or Jopper in season three where it’s evident no question that they will end up together Atleast ONCE throughout the show even when the characters themselves don’t know yet but we as the audience do (like when Jancy held hands, flirted, etc, even when they weren’t together)

Personally, I think something will happen in season four that confirms Mike’s feelings for Will, and vice versa. I’m not sure if they will DATE yet, maybe not until season five, however I do think it will be confirmed by season 4. As in, it’s undebatable. It cant just be something evident to us bylers, it has to be evident to the audience as a whole (unless you are super, super, oblivious.) But I do think it’ll be explicitly shown and made obvious to the audience by season four, even if they don’t date until season 5.

ok, apologies to my Askers, but going in order just isn’t working for me now that I have quite a few backed up. I’m going to answer them based on which ones I’m most prepared to address at a given moment. I think that’s my best chance at clearing out this queue.

Ah, confirmation bias. You’re speaking to my psychology degree by bringing that up. For those who are not familiar with the concept, confirmation bias is the tendency for human beings to take in new information in a manner that reinforces their already existing beliefs. This is perhaps most often seen in matters of politics or religion, where beliefs are very strong. It’s a mechanism by which people sort of “cherry pick” parts that they like, but not really in a conscious way.

For Stranger Things fans, particularly the Byler and Mileven shippers that were mentioned above, this would manifest as fans on a given side latching onto anything that supports their own ship. A fan would claim that any evidence in their favor is proof, while basically ignoring or negating anything to the contrary. This is a very easy trap for any of us to fall into, as it is very difficult to be aware of it occurring.

It’s true that we are in sort of a bubble here on Tumblr, at least compared to other social media platforms. This does run the risk of us being in a sort of echo chamber, but I counter that other fans have essentially done the same on other platforms through aggressive shouting down of anyone the mainstream disagrees with. That said, we do need to be aware of our own bubble here and not let it lead us to ignoring evidence even if it doesn’t support our conclusions.

Personally, I feel like Byler supporters on Tumblr have done a pretty good job avoiding confirmation bias. It exists, sure, but all evidence seems to have been evaluated and analyzed by someone in the fandom (let’s be honest, if it exists, it’s been touched on by @kaypeace21). So, I don’t think we’re ignoring any evidence in order to avoid weakening our belief. In fact, after season 3 there seemed to be a rather significant swell of despair from the Byler community. That really drives home how much we weren’t ignoring what we were seeing. It was only after time allowed for a more meticulous look at things that we were able to see that the evidence actually grew. It wasn’t an easy road, and many had to be convinced anew. Our beliefs were challenged because we DIDN’T ignore what we were seeing, and it took a lot of work to not lose faith. This doesn’t mean we’re in the clear. There are other biases out there that we also need to be wary of.

I can’t say that I cruise the Mileven tag, but, from what I have been able to gather, the evidence their belief is based off of is rather flimsy. There’s not much look at subtext or any sort of analysis. It’s generally just a look at the obvious, which they genuinely seem to think is enough. Mike and El kissed, they said they love each other, they went to the Snowball, etc. What I haven’t really seen from their side is a look at evidence to the contrary. Generally, they seem to just disregard it out of hand by saying Will just isn’t ready to grow up, negating him as a romantic interest for Mike out of hand. If this is typical of Mileven fans, then they are rather guilty of confirmation bias themselves. I digress, though, and I’ll stop there because I don’t want to create a strawman.

I read somebody pointing out that the music builds up really intensely (not romantically at all). And frankly, yeah, the music is about to give me a fucking anxiety attack lol.

And I read multiple other people saying that Mike feels horribly guilty/has a ton of trauma about letting El “die” at the end of season 1 to save them all. He feels like it was directly his fault - he used her and it got her ‘killed’. So he spends season 3 keeping his eye on her obsessively (side note they stalk each other, DJ play Every Breath You Take), because selfishly he doesn’t want to let her get hurt on his watch again. It fucked him up the first time and he doesn’t want to experience that trauma again.

So in this scene, it feels like he is being completely, 100% honest and accurate and spontaneous - it’s just that the phrasing is very easy to misconstrue, and we as the audience are supposed to misinterpret it. It’s a purposeful misdirection*. What he says is supposed to read as “I am in love with her and I can’t lose her!” When in fact, what he’s saying is “I got her ‘killed’ before, it was my fault because I used her as a weapon, and the guilt fucked me up. I absolutely cannot experience that again, so can we please come up with another plan because I love and care about her and I can’t lose her again because the guilt would destroy me.”

He is protecting himself. This outburst has nothing to do with him being in love with El. Not in a romantic sense. He absolutely DOES love her, very much, as a person - which is why the guilt would destroy him if anything happened to her again.

But I think this explains why he’s so completely mystified when she comes at him at the end of season 3 as though she’s “returning a love confession”. Because, like the audience, she has misunderstood. She thought he was making a confession of romantic love. But he wasn’t - and he probably remembers it as “that time I had an outburst about not wanting El to get hurt.” That would explain why he’s utterly at a loss when she acts like she’s “returning” his confession of love.

In fact, looking at the script where it says “what the hell just happened here?” and looking at Mike’s “huh? Oh. OHHH” facial expressions would seem to confirm this interpretation. And it would explain why Mike “doesn’t remember” saying he was in love with her - he literally did not have an outburst about being in love with her. At least, not in his mind. That’s just how it came across to everyone else, including everyone standing around him, the audience, and El.