#also if they’re going to make byler this slow burn endgame ship

[grace-aline]

Why I think Bob Newby had to die (part 2)

Make way for Jopper!

Listen. I’m as into shipping ST characters as much as the next Byler. Edits, fanart, fanfiction. Can’t get enough of that shit. Shipping is such a good, positive lens to watch the show through, and my GOD does it bring out some incredible analysis and literary criticism in the fandom.

I feel like I should preface this post by saying that, although I’m very fond of Bob, I’m not anti-Jopper by any stretch of the imagination. Hats off to those who are, but unfortunately I think that fighting Jopper is a bit like fighting the tide going out; like it or not, it’s probably going to happen. Canon Jopper definitely has its issues, don't get me wrong, but it’s exactly that; canon. It’s the most logical, inevitable endgame outcome at this stage, and I don’t think that’s likely to change.

However. I do think that Jim Hopper’s presence in the show was enough to write Bob’s death warrant.

Because from the minute Bob steps onto screen, bridging the gap from extra to character the longer the camera remains trained on his cheerful, innocent face, the same kind of inevitably follows him. Not the inevitability of his death, per say, but certainly a sense that somewhere in writing headquarters, an egg timer has been flipped on Bob and Joyce’s relationship, and that their time together is now counting down. In Beyond Stranger Things, the Duffers talk at length about Bob as being Joyce's "dorky boyfriend" who ultimately “...was always- he was always going to eat it.”

Joyce and Hopper, on the other hand, are one of those duos who are written with a implied degree of romantic certainty from the very beginning of the show. The eye contact, the bickering, the way she calls him ‘Hop’. We as viewers are given the ability to speculate as to their history from their first scene together; when Joyce arrives at the police station to report Will missing. From episode one, season one, they’re looking at each other like this:

It's not necessarily overt, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that there is implied history between the pair. When you watch this scene, you also just. Get the general sense that Hopper is going out of his way to help Joyce? I know, I know, Hopper is initially very dismissive of Joyce’s concerns. But the way Joyce is able to talk her way into meeting with the Chief of Police, the way that Hopper himself organises searches and takes time out of his day to meet with and give Joyce personal updates… I guess you could argue that, being Police Chief in a small town, Hopper doesn’t have anything better to be doing with his time. But it’s not like he's only doing the bare minimum for her and Will, and we don’t see him answering early morning callouts or searching through the night for Barbara and Cindy Holland, for example. To me, it definitely reads as Joyce getting special treatment from Hopper.

It's not just us viewers speculating, though. Throughout the show, multiple side characters assume or otherwise divine the fact that Joyce and Hopper have unfinished business together. After defending Joyce to his officers and storming off, Callaghan remarks to Powell that “Her and the Chief have screwed before, right?”, Doctor Owens assumes that Hopper is Will’s “Pop”, and Murray gives the pair a fair earful when he finds out that they’re not dating: “...why don't you two cut the horseshit and get to the part where you admit your sexual feelings for one another?... And now, rather than admit these feelings, you're dancing around one another with this mind-numbing, frankly boorish mating ritual." Even Alexei, who has like half an hour of screen time total and has only known Joyce and Hopper for a couple of days, is shocked by the fact that “They have not had sex?”

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that any viewer or character with even an ounce of media literacy can tell that the Duffers establish Joyce and Hopper’s slow burn romance from very early on in the show. Despite their personal obliviousness (or perhaps more likely, their unwillingness to acknowledge the elephant in the room), there are a few key scenes in which even Joyce and Hopper themselves acknowledge the tension between them.

Bringing us back to season 2, though, what I’m most interested in are their interactions in 02x01: MADMAX. (I think it’s important to look at the series of moments between Joyce and Hopper here as being accumulatively damning to Bob, rather than individual scenes which could mean nothing on their own.) Keep in mind also that this is the first time we’re seeing Hopper and Joyce interact this season; the last we saw them together, they were on a high-stakes mission to bring Will back from the dead. First, Owens mistakes Jim for Will’s father, a mistake he continually makes throughout the series.(I'm thinking about the way that he later addresses/defers to Hopper’s wishes for Will, rather than Bob, and the way that he pulls Hopper, rather than Bob, aside to explain that Will is infected by a parasitic host.) As they depart the lab, Hopper and Joyce have an interaction which is slightly tense and defensive, respectively. After a pause, Hopper asks, “How’s, uh, Bob the Brain?”, not meeting Joyce’s eye, his tone faux-casual. Joyce replies, perhaps a little too quickly, saying, "Don't call him that... He’s good! We’re good.” Her tone has no real bite to it, though. Not long after this chronologically, but in the next episode (2x02: Trick or Treat, Freak) Joyce and Hopper share a cigarette back at her house. After discussing Joyce’s concern about Will’s worsening condition, they move on to (dangerous) reminiscences:

“Brings me back to old times.” "What?" "Well. Sharing my cigarettes between-" "Fifth and sixth period.” "Yeah, under the steps. Mr. Cooper caught us that time, remember? He was like ‘hey, assholes...’” “-we ran, we just ran.”

They laugh together, and then pause, holding one another’s eye contact as the music takes on a slightly melancholy tone. And I know, I know, eye contact isn’t concrete evidence. But just look at the way that they’re looking at each other:

As viewers, I think the Duffers want us to read into the subtext of this interaction; that is to say, what isn’t being said rather than what is. The Duffers want us to, in hindsight, rewatch the scene and see Hopper’s jealous curiousity, Joyce’s playful banter and obvious connection with Hopper despite her ongoing relationship with Bob.

So, Joyce and Hopper’s connection to one another is carefully and clearly established from the beginning. Let’s look at the suitors vying for Joyce's attention, then.

Hopper is a man of action, a man of impulsive decision and a blustery kind of confidence. Being ex-military and generally just fairly quick off the mark, he has a talent for coming out on top of whatever challenge is thrown his way. On top of this, we as an audience are expected, even encouraged to prefer him as a potential suitor because we spend more time with him, and because his character arc is more satisfying. There’s more meat, more complexity to a character who starts out carefully written to be somewhat unlovable in season one. You have to work to like him, work to see his perspective and appreciate how his past, intentionally fed to us in touching, accumulative flashbacks, informs his current approach to relationships. When season 2 opens, we see soft spots, fleetingly, in the way he takes El in, feeding her and clothing her and keeping her alive. We see a soft spot in the way he is implied to have gone with Joyce to every single one of Will’s appointments and in telling her to “…call me first” if she’s worried about Will. In other words, Hopper’s usefulness in dangerous, high pressure situations, when combined with his slow character growth, gives him this inherently endearing quality to audiences. If you didn’t start an outright Hopper fan, maybe you didn't necessarily want to like him, but you knew that characters needed and relied on him; and slowly, slowly, he grew on you too. Maybe not, I don't know. But that's my interpretation.

By contrast, and intentionally I think, Bob fails where Hopper succeeds. He isn’t as smooth or as quick-witted as Hopper. For example, he is frequently shown making verbal blunders, such as being too forward with Joyce by telling her he wants to move out of Hawkins with her, or giving Will poor advice regarding his episodes. On a more mundane level, a lot of his lines are framed in such a way as to make him come across as a little bit socially tone-deaf, unaware of the potential cause for embarrassment in phrases like “sneaky little buggers”, “the Bob-mobile”, or who could forget, *vampiric accent* “I hope it doesn’t suck!” And sure, Bob’s manner of speech is endearing in its own way, but what I’m trying to convey is that, unlike Hopper, it comes with a catch; we as viewers can’t help but cringe a little at him, even as we smile. The central characters are no different, either. Below are actual, real-time reactions to Bob:

Also unlike Hopper, Bob is less situationally and physically adept. He’s got his brains, but he doesn’t know how to use a gun, he doesn’t stand up to Owens and the other Doctors when they're mistreating Will and he ultimately fails to get out of the Lab, a character flaw which costs him his life.

From an even closer reading, just look at the way Hopper and Bob grate against one another in the Lab, one of their first and also one of their last scenes in the same room. To the absolute credit of scripting and acting choices in the scene, Hopper is fiercely calm and focused on the logistics of their escape, while Bob appears out of his depth from the way he gets uncharacteristically snarky with Jim, the way that his breathing is louder and more erratic than the other characters', and even Bob's comedically awkward stance as he tries to help Hopper to raid one of the dead guards:

I think there’s also something to be said about their obvious height difference. Sean Astin, who plays Bob, stands at around 5”6 inches, meaning that David Harbour, who plays Hopper, towers over Bob at approximately 6”2 inches. Now obviously height differences don’t actually, materially matter, but I think the way that Hopper physically dominates and intimidates Bob in his greater height and stronger build is meant to be another, subtler indicator that Bob is in over his head, quite literally.

And then, once he’s alone, Bob’s panic escalates, visibly sweating profusely as he starts to make regular, fatal mistakes. He leaves the gun behind in the basement, he knocks over a broom, alerting a Demodog to his hiding place. And of course, he stops running too soon in the reception hall, ultimately leading to his demise. Helpfully, the Duffers make sure you don’t miss any of these slip-ups with the use of an ominous zoom and a carefully timed stinger on the abandoned gun, and the way the broom falls in a dramatic, almost comic slow motion.

It would have been much quicker and more efficient for them to just hold up a big sign that says, “Bob is weak compared to Hopper guys! He’s not cut out for Joyce’s lifestyle!”

And listen. I’m not saying that I think Bob deserved to die for being unable to match Hopper’s cool-headedness or his combat skills. But I do think that the Duffers exaggerated Bob’s gentle goofiness at times, so that when standing next to Hopper, fans know that ultimately Hopper will replace him.

Interestingly, David Harbour confirms my theory in the Beyond Stranger Things documentary, which covered the filming of Season One and Two: “Does Hopper think that Bob and Joyce are a good match? I would say absolutely not. I mean look, I get the impulse that she’s following in terms of like… she was clearly in a very destructive relationship with Lonnie, and she’s clearly very protective of Will. And so she’s sort of chosen this guy that’s going to be… very nice to her, very nice to Will, and be a kind of good, dorky father figure.” He then goes into how he thinks that ultimately, Joyce and Hopper are “…two really lonely, lost people that really need each other.” “The short answer,” he goes on to summarise, “is I do feel like the sex will be a lot better with Hopper than it is with Bob.”

Hard to know what to say after that one, so there you have it. Another reason why Bob Newby had to die.

[byersfanclub]

Yes, they left some things as 'open ended' or sus in any case, still, they did not know if they would be able to continue the story or not. How can you build up a slow burn if you do not know if you will get the chance to continue your story? They ofc wanted their story to continue but they did not know if they could do that. Therefore, the majority of the stuff that happens in S1 had to happen in that season.

We also do not know what they would have done with Steve. The reason why Nancy goes back to Steve was because the writers changed their mind due to Joe's acting they decided to keep Steve on the show.

then wouldn’t it make sense to leave m1leven open-ended instead of making them kiss? i’m so confused, if m1leven was meant to be endgame and to be the main couple (minus all of their relationship issues) making their romance a slow burn literally just makes the most sense for them? i literally don’t understand what your argument is, m1leven didn’t need to happen in s1 AT ALL considering it was literally millies idea to have them kiss. i literally don’t understand what you’re trying to argue here?

if you’re pro-byler then i’m very confused. m1leven being set up to be a slow burn romance in s1 does nothing to the rest of m1evens storyline. if m1even never kissed in s1 i genuinely don’t think it would have done anything to mess up the story line considering it wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place

writing m1leven to be the MAIN couple of stranger things (being promoted as such) and writing them to be together from the very start of the show literally just makes no fucking sense with how they’ve continued to be written. all im saying is if m1leven wanted me and other ppl to actually root for that ship and ppl to actually care about it??? it would be a slow burn instead of the hot mess that it is. no one cares about m1leven to the extent that m1levens do and they’re one of the smallest sides of the ships within st.

meanwhile byler is the one being written to be the slow burn romance.

i’m basically just flip-flopping byler and m1leven vs what’s going to be canon and what won’t be canon. you’re trying to argue against me as if your opinion is fact when it’s not. it’s simply your own opinion on the matter, just as this is my what own opinion is as well.

i’ll say it again. as someone who believes in byler endgame, if m1leven was meant to be endgame and byler was never even thought of by the duffers, they would have written mike and el as a slow burn romance instead of forcing them through 4 seasons of no romantic chemistry.

the end.

[chirpsythismorning]

WAIT I could also totally see this happening between El and Mike again, except it’s El saying this to him, in her own way.

I could also see El confronting Will about lying about the painting. I do love the infamous ‘what painting?’ line everyone is predicting to hear from El to Mike (still want it honestly), but I almost wonder if El and Will’s talk at Rink-O-Mania was partially set-up for El being the one to confront him about lying.

I do think Mike is going to confront him as well, that seems inevitable.

But we’re still sort of up in the air when it comes to how much Mike understood in the van, so idek if he would confront Will in like a dramatic realization way?

If he knows, wouldn’t he avoid letting El even see the painting, bc he knows Will is lying and El has no clue what it is?

Maybe he had a feeling and the piggyback scene made him doubt himself, so he’s now thinking he was wrong?

Even then we still see Mike gravitating towards Will at the end of the finale/post-monologue. So it’s almost like 2 days later, he knows at least subconsciously that El’s not the one who needs him..

Idk

All I know is it would be pretty iconic of El to use their own advice against them in s5 (and rightfully so 🤣😭)

at the end of season one Mike hugs Will that is back after disappearing all season

at the end of season two Mike hugs El that is back after disappearing all season

at the end of season two Mike watches as El and Will leave to fight the monsters without him

at the end of season three Mike watches as El and Will leave to go live somewhere else leaving him behind

Mike grieving for Will

Mike grieving for El

and what if this becomes a new parallel in season 5 ?

[mikewheelerdoesntkissgirlies]

I’m watching tiktok and everyone is like so sure about mike rejecting will that i’m thinking of not opening the app till i see season 4.

Why would they make Will like Mike if he doesn’t reciprocate his feelings? It makes no sense. Just to make Will suffer?

The way Mike looks at him. The way Mike stayed with him when he was sick/possessed. The way they went crazy together and Mike was the one who said that. How he held Will’s hand. How he looked at his lips multiple times. The ending scene where they are both smiling. “It’s the best things I’ve ever done”.

Everyone is so sure Will likes Mike but they don’t seem to think Mike likes Will, why? I don’t understand. This boy is IN LOVE with Will and has always been, it’s just a slow burn.

“Mike isn’t going to randomly break up with El to go with Will” pls we know. What do you think we think will happen? That Mike goes in the first season and kisses Will? That he will admit his feelings at the start? NO 😭

“Why have they been developing Melvin for 3 seasons if it isn’t endgame?” Development? You call THAT development? They kissed only after a week of knowing each other, and people seem to forget why Mike wanted El to stay. (because she said she saw will and knew where he was.) If you call a childish argument “development” then idk what to tell you, you’re not going to understand anything I say.

Also, Finn looks MUCH MORE interested when talking about Will/Byler (the video with David, Winona and Caleb) than he does when the interviewers ask him about M!leven, he seems bored of the ship and actually seems like he doesn’t like it.

With all the proofs we’ve gotten over the past weeks (interviews, videos…) Think whatever you think but don’t go posting things saying “pls byler is stupid they’re not even gay” when we’ve literally got proof.

Sorry, I got mad over a toxic girl.

[gayofthefae]

I think the writers know what they’re doing. I think they always have. I used to ship Mlvn but it wasn’t even my top ship. And that’s because they chose not to build it up much. They SEPARATED them, but in not making it any sort of slow-burn, there wasn’t much payoff. My number one was actually always Jancy. Now, I’m rooting more for them going their separate ways amicably and being single - but it’s funny how that works, because if that happens and everything else I wish for and somewhat expect:

Mlvn, who had one season of buildup, will have on person end with someone else

Jancy, who had one and a half seasons of buildup, will end single.

Jopper, who had 3 and a half seasons of buildup, will end together.

Even Lumax are an interesting exception because while, like Mlvn, they had one season of buildup, and even some s3 issues in the background, the entirety of season 4 was spent on renewed buildup for their relationship - emotional separation, not physical, that they had to bridge. Physical is simpler conflict because you know that once they’re together again, it’ll all be fine. Emotion keeps you more on the edge of their seat always waiting for what next they’re gonna say and do. It keeps the power with the characters and their choices. They had one season of buildup but they renewed it arguably making it two to renew the fans intrigue with it. Mlvn had one season and left it there. Issues or separation aside, by then, they were together. Even when they weren’t technically in season 2, it was clear that there would be nothing stopping them once the physical distance was closed. Their buildup was over and now it was onto their relationship.

But Jancy got a season and a half, clear, from the get-go. And they might be endgame or not but with that amount of time built up, either checks out against it.

Lumax looks to be endgame and they got one season buildup, one season casual, then another season of buildup as the people they had become. Pause everything - that is so beautiful. They are different people now so they get different buildup. They revamped it to say that the new people they are are compatible AS WELL rather than trying to argue that they still are the people who were then too.

But I think that’s what they’ve done with Mlvn. They gave them one season of buildup and no more since then. I even think it’s a bit silly how people call Mike’s speech a “love confession” because confession is usually used to describe those types of speeches with people confessing that they have romantic feelings at all not saying ily after dating for a year. 

Unlike the others, they had very short buildup to minimize the payoff and thereby minimize the attachment and the damage to audiences of separating them. And unlike Lumax, who also had one season of buildup, they aren’t falling in love of all over again as they change and grow as people together, they’re trying to hold on to the people they were when they did the first time out of fear that growing up will mean growing apart. They’re holding on too tightly and that’s what’s straining them.

And that’s okay. They can break up and it can be what’s best for them because, the combination of short buildup and having now been together for almost the entire time makes it feel unearned because it’s so disproportionate. I think they know that. So a five season show had a couple with two season buildup. good. and a couple with four season buildup. very good. and a couple with two separate seasons full of buildup, neither short buildup at the very beginning. smart. and a couple with one season of buildup at the very beginning. that works...for a couple of seasons. Then it becomes what you were attached to for only 1/4-1/5 of the show 6 to (as of next season) 8 years ago.

People like buildup. We had Byler buildup this year. We had Jopper buildup this year. We had Lumax buildup this year. We had Jancy four years ago so we’ll see where they go. But even with that being long ago, it’s different because it really wouldn’t matter that it’s been 6 years if 6 years ago you got a 4 year payoff, you know? But it wasn’t. Even within the timeline, these people had had a relationship before the buildup for 7 years for Byler, Jopper had history but truly it was 3.5 years for them, Jancy were friends for just over a year, Lumax had a week but their love was self-awarely framed as immature because of it, getting a revamp after they had known each other for 1.5 years, but Mlvn knew each other for a week before the payoff. It just feels different.

And they did well at that. Because this way, the romance was unearned which makes it easier to let go of, but because the romance was SO early it puts them in a unique situation of having an un-paid off friendship buildup over the past 6, soon to be 8, years! Yes!!! Hell, they even planted seeds for it similarly to the ships! Everyone else were framed as friends then became romantic eventually as the payoff (or quickly then backtracked and became closer friends before becoming romantic again, which, again, I LOVE), but they were always framed romantically by everyone around them with Mike saying he wanted to teach her about friendship but that is still what we truly have yet to see. And I can’t wait for it.

5 season platonic lovers to friends slow burn, you will always be famous.

[itsonlystrange]

Okay I’m just saying..do you guys realize what a cultural reset canon byler would be?

Like it would trend on Twitter, 100%. People who have never seen the show before would become interested in it, ESPECIALLY people who are looking for queer representation in shows.

Byler is a good slow burn that’s INTERESTING. It’s not your stereotypical gay guys who obviously like eachother and are only there for comic relief and pushed to the back so that the het ships can get the spotlight. It has DEVELOPMENT. And it’s rare you come across stuff like that.

Neither mike nor will are stereotypically “gay”. They are just regular teenage boys who happen to not be straight. Usually gay ships portrayed in TV and Film are used as comedic relief. Or the overly flamboyant gay guy and the super macho gay guy getting together in the last 10 seconds the show.

Yes, there are a TON of good shows out there that have queer representation however a LOT of them get thrown under the radar or are overshadowed by the more heterosexual ships or shows.

So imagine, a show as big as stranger things, having its two boys be in a canon relationship. Like the internet would BLOW UP. It’d be the topic of every interview. Finn and Noah would be the topic of every interview. Stranger Things would have relevancy again.

Obviously, ST is still relevant however with this whole hiatus it’s falling off the radar easily and people are becoming bored. But this...this would blow it up again.

Obviously queer ships are NOT there to make a show relevant again, at all. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is, imagine all the lgbtq+ kids that watch ST. The lgbtq+ BOYS that watch ST.

Often, when queer relationships are portrayed in film or television, it isn’t portrayed accurately. And it’s often shown as “if you don’t come out this way then you’re invalid.” Or “if you have internalized homophobia you’re invalid” and a thousand other things. Hell, I remember being much younger absolutely hating myself or not “picking a side” and being so confused with my self and wondering why I was even bisexual in the first place.

But then you have byler, which portrays a much more accurate relationship between two closer than normal boys. It portrays the internalized homophobia, the abuse and bullying people back in the 80’s (and still now) would endure. And yeah, it’s not the most accurate depiction but it’s FAR better than some other popular show’s queer relationships.

Millions of people watch this show, an abundance of them being lgbtq+. And imagine them having a ship to look up to. A ship that doesn’t portray gay relationships as a “joke”. And even better, Mike and Will are teenagers!!

Often, in film and television, queer ships are usually based around two adults. In fact, a lot of times they portray young teenagers being in a gay relationship as “gross.” They say that it’s too “mature”. That having a partner that’s the same gender as you is wrong, and that you need to be a little bit “older” because apparently being in a queer relationship is only for adults because queer relationships are just too “inappropriate.”

But then you have Mike and Will who are two 14 year old boys. Who aren’t stereotypically “gay” as the movies portray. They’re just normal teenage boys. And that’s how it SHOULD be portrayed. We need to stop portraying Lgbtq+ ships as “inappropriate” or “weird”. They’re just two teenage boys in love.

Remember when everyone found out Robin was lesbian after being straight baited? Yeah. The internet blew up. So take that and times it by ten thousand. That would be canon byler.

It’d be a huge step for the media. Unfortunately, we haven’t come that far with queer ships. It’s gotten better but there’s still a lot of steps to take. But having a huge show like stranger things have their two man boys be in a canon relationship and have it portrayed regularly, guys!! That would be huge!!

Imagine all the little kids getting to grow up with that. Or all the teenagers that are Mike and Will’s age struggling with their sexuality seeing these two boys who aren’t stereotypically anything be canonically in love. Like, that would be huge.

I know that if I grew up with a canon byler I would definitely have felt a lot more sure of my sexuality earlier on. So many kids would have a wonderful ship to look up to that isn’t fetishized or treated like it’s “weird.”

And the fact that it’d be the topic of every interview. Noah and Finn wouldn’t see the end of it. People would talk about it non stop. It’d be advertised on social media accounts, the duffers would talk about it, the stranger writers would talk about it. I mean, it’d be big!!

And yeah, it’s sad that a gay ship becoming canon would be revolutionary, but that’s just how the world is. We still haven’t progressed past that yet. And it’ll take awhile before having a gay shop isn’t a big thing.

I often see people say “if byler became canon then everybody would stop watching” which just ISN’T true.

They’d gain so many viewers. It’d be more popular than Mileven ever had been. Yes, Mileven has their cute moments, however at the end of the day, Milevens dynamic has been done before. Thats not to say bylers hasn’t, obviously a canon byler wouldn’t be the first. But it’d be the first big canon queer ship in awhile. Straight ships with mileven’s dynamic happen all the time.

And at the end of the day, ST isn’t a romance show. If Mileven didn’t end up being end game I don’t think many people would care. It wouldn’t be as big as people say it is. I feel like the fandom likes to think that Mileven rakes in all the money but that simply isn’t true. It’s a science fiction show at its core and the core viewers don’t watch for romance. If Mileven is what raked in all their viewers then season 2 wouldn’t have been as successful as it was, considering mike and el don’t even interact until the last episode of season 2. So I really think the fandom is just overreacting on that part. Yeah, people are gonna leave the fandom. Just how people left when stancy wasn’t endgame or when their favorite chatacter died or when something happened that they didn’t like. That’s just how life works. They’re gonna lose viewers regardless of what happens because not everyone will be happy with how season four plays out. But at the end of the day, it’s hot like ST is going to lose 25 million viewers because two 14 year olds weren’t endgame. It’s often easy to forget that the fandom doesn’t reflect ST’s viewership. The fandom takes up only a small percentage OF their viewership. So yeah, some fan accounts may deactivate, just like how a lot of bylers left the fandom after season 3. But it’s not like nobody’s going to watch the show, that’s absurd. Mileven isn’t their main cash cow. It isn’t even on the leader board of st’s main cash cows. If anything, Steve dying would make st lose more viewers than Mileven not being end game. And it’s been made more clear recently that a lot of people prefer Jopper over Mileven, especially with the ending of season 3. We gotta remember that, the FANDOM is mainly teenagers however stranger things main demographic and viewership is ADULTS. And I don’t see many 21+ year olds not watching the show because a ship almost 10 years younger than them wasnt end game. Most of st’s viewers don’t care about the romance

TLDR: canon byler would be huge for stranger things and would probably blow up the internet. It’d also be good commercially and financially for stranger things. Also having byler he canon would be so helpful to all the kids and teens and even adults out their struggling with their sexuality and would make so many lgbtq+ kids, teens, and adults feel seen and feel loved and feel validated. Over all, canon byler would do more GOOD then bad.

[lesbianrobin]

have u done an analysis on endgame st ships? a penny for ur thoughts

i have not!! i would like two pennies please. my thoughts are not actually worth that much but i think i deserve them anyway. i’m gonna talk about some stuff that may seem unrelated or only loosely related to the question but i prommy it’s relevant <3 warning this ended up being like a thousand words somehow idk how that happened but i’m putting it under a cut bc i’m nice like that.

so! something that’s kinda unique/interesting to me about stranger things is how all of their ships are so clearly telegraphed and quickly developed. there’s a sense of... impatience, for lack of a better word. on the surface, it appears to be largely an effect of the cinematic style of the show; there’s very little room for questioning who someone’s gonna end up with or for slowly developing a relationship over time when you only get eight episodes every like. twoish years. AND you have about a dozen main characters AND evil government forces AND monsters from another dimension. it’s a lot to juggle!

stranger things has a lot to accomplish in a pretty short amount of time. the timeline of a single season usually spans no more than a week (excluding flashbacks/end-of-season timeskips), and well... nobody wants the important stuff to happen offscreen! i’ll use the stoncy love triangle as an example: jancy was originally intended to get together at the end of s1 after steve’s death, but since they decided to let steve redeem himself and survive, there was just no time to separate stancy and get jancy together without it seeming wayyy too abrupt. since jancy was always their plan, they didn’t want to leave nancy with steve, but they knew they couldn’t just have that boyfriend swap occur offscreen... which is why s2 Had to have a stancy breakup plot in order for the writers to accomplish their goal of getting jancy together.

the main characters in stranger things tend to maintain homeostasis between seasons, their circumstances and relationships rarely changing any more than the audience might have just assumed they would anyway (like lucas and max dancing together + sharing a kiss at the end of s2 and officially dating by the start of s3). steve and nancy are dating at the end of s1, so they must still be dating at the start of s2, and thus we must break them up DURING s2. joyce and hopper are friends with some deeply buried feelings in s2, so they’re friends with Less Buried feelings that must become apparent during s3. excluding the stancy situation (for reasons which i think are obvious but i will talk more about later), momentum is always forwards. mileven, lumax, and jancy argue, but they come back together, presumably more mature and stronger than before. 

all of this is to say that stranger things has thus far been rather dedicated to their starting ships. there isn’t much misdirection; mike’s crush on el is obvious from the start, nancy and jonathan share charged moments even while she is with steve in the beginning, lucas shows interest in max immediately and shares more significant interactions with her than the other boys from early on in s2, and the deep loyalty and care between joyce and hop is always apparent. steve and robin (initially intended to be together romantically) hold hands quite early in s3 and dustin asks steve about whether he likes her. 

the point? stranger things doesn’t dick around when it comes to love! they handle their ships with remarkable efficiency. in each season, it tends to be pretty obvious from the start who’s going to end up with who, and heading into the show’s fourth season, almost everybody is paired off: mike and el, max and lucas, joyce and hop, nancy and jonathan. which leaves us asking... are all of them going to last until the end?

we’ve only had one true breakup on the show so far, and as i’ve said before, the stancy breakup is an anomaly as it was essentially “righting a wrong,” allowing jonathan and nancy to get together as they were intended to do from the start. the only other romantic relationship to end on the show was between joyce and bob, and well... we all know why that ended, and it started/ended within the confines of a single season. 

stranger things tends to treat each season as an extended film, right? they draw inspiration from classic 80′s films, and each subsequent season after s1 is treated as a sequel (they are Literally referred to as stranger things 2 and stranger things 3). when they introduce tension in a season, they’re inclined to resolve that tension by the season’s end so that people leave satisfied, while also providing a plot hook for the next “sequel” for audiences to theorize about. this hook is always part of the grander plot, not a will-they-won’t-they tease or something else of the sort. remember, they could have broken up steve and nancy in s2 and waited to get jancy together in s3, but they didn’t! they wanted to go ahead and resolve the tension! 

while there are narrative and practical incentives that i’ve covered for this impatience/efficiency/[insert better word i can’t think of here], i also think it kinda reveals something about the writers of the show. to some degree, they genuinely care about and want their ships to be together! we’ve watched them introduce new characters just to kill them off a couple of times now, and i think it’s fair to say that the writers might be a bit too attached to the mains to consider killing any of them off (at least prior to the series finale). maybe... this reluctance to kill their darlings extends to ships.

romance isn’t the primary draw of the show, but an indulgence, something that there may not always be time for but that the writers continue to prioritize as much as they can because they enjoy it, or feel that it is important to the overall product. if we accept this idea, that the inclusion of and focus on so many romantic relationships in stranger things is (to some degree) indicative of the writers’ own desires, then it might inform our speculation regarding endgame ships.

i’m not here to like... really actually assert that i know what’ll be endgame, because i don’t really know jack shit. however, i do think that the writers are pretty invested in all of the current canon st ships (and yes, i am including jopper in that, as their romantic development was explicit in s3). i also think that the writers like catering to fans, leaning into popular jokes (steve “the hair” harrington) and devoting more and more time to the ships fans obsess over (particularly mileven). 

with this all in mind... i really think that most if not all of the current canon ships will be endgame. 

i think that barring any extreme circumstances (i.e. a character Actually dying instead of just fake dying) jopper will be endgame. they’re the only ones that the writers have had the restraint to actually do a slow burn with, and i really can’t see them devoting so much to developing their dynamic just to say it was all for nothing in the end. 

i’m less confident on the others. there are some signs in canon that the remaining couples have some serious problems and may not last, but these issues are often dismissed, played for comedy or brushed over within the text itself, and many of the details within the text contradicting this dismissal are often so small that it’s unclear whether they’re intentional or not. while breaking up mileven might make perfect sense for a fan who reads into subtext and pays attention to unusual acting choices and subtle parallels, it would be a pretty risky move on the surface level. allowing these ships to remain canon for awhile and garner large fanbases only to break them up later would require both a willingness to actively contradict the desires of their audience as well as a certain degree of restraint in their romantic storytelling, which runs counter to the impression i personally have of the st writers (this is, of course, my own personal opinion).

there’s a good chance that at least one of the current canon ships will break up by the end, if only because i think that it would be a little boring if every relationship stayed the same for almost the entirety of the show’s run, and the stranger writers like to keep things new and exciting. perhaps long distance will kill jancy or mileven, or lucas and max will go off again and never come back on, but either way i wouldn’t be surprised if we got a breakup in s4. even with that, though, i think it’s somewhat likely that a current couple may break up in s4 and get back together for the series finale, just for the sake of a little suspense. overall, though, i feel like our current canon ships are going to be more or less the same at the end of the show.

that’s about it. i suppose i didn’t really... answer the question you asked skdndsdkjc i feel like you probably just wanted to know like if i’m a byler endgame truther (which i am not but i could happily be proven wrong). thank you for asking, though! i hope this made at least a little bit of sense.