This Leigh Janiak thing is actually SO validating. I know it's not confirmed but the Matilda Effect is so real to this day. And guess what she wrote? Fear Street. A supernatural horror series centering acclaimed queer representation.
For those who don't know, she was married to Ross Duffer...until season 5. When suddenly and confusingly, setups stopped being paid off, plot themes seemed to stop being understood, and queer representation got worse.
I feel so vindicated at that idea. Mike telling he loves her was his CAVE - the place in the story where every character is at their WORST. Him not being with Will was narratively to Max DYING based on the timing and structure that is REQUIRED.
The painting was CYRANO. They stopped in the MIDDLE of the Cyrano trope and DID NOT COME BACK TO IT.
And something recently irking me in reading The Duffers' interviews is they never seemed to understand their characters, abuse themes, and queer representation in interviews as much as they demonstrated in the show.
Maybe now we know why.
It reminds me of a post I saw recently about how to tell when writers use AI [or just didn't write their own work]: ask them about it. Ask them about details, ask them to elaborate on things - big things, little things, it doesn't matter. They will be SO. EXCITED to tell you at LENGTH.
I always thought The Duffers were just holding back and would do that once the spoilers were out. But maybe they just didn't have it in them in the first place.
In all recent interviews I've seen they have lacked an understanding of their characters to the depth their writing from season 1-4 represented. Now I think we know why.
Byler was intended. Every basic narrative structure pointed directly to it, I said that a million times. I originally said it would betray their writing quality in a way queerbaitors never have, incomprehensibly demonstrate a sudden loss of skill.
But that's not what it was. It is very possible that it wasn't a loss of skill. But a loss of the one person who had that skill.
They understood queerness with extreme depth until a sudden point never made sense. Someone else did and she left makes a hell of a lot more.
And it did not.
