#but i also think just them not wanting to be there for fan service is also valid

[littleclosetofbyler]

I personally don’t really want Byler to hook up in season 5 purely because it doesn’t feel like something either Mike or Will would jump to doing immediately, especially not Will (though we may see a more confident side of him in season 5 that might want to especially with an “end of the world” vibe weighing on them), I could see Will wanting a more “ease into it” or “sweet romance first” type of relationship, and having both Mike and Will go from deep in the closet to immediately dtf doesn’t feel right.

But I understand why people want it especially since in season 5 they’ll be older than Nancy was in season 1 and the same age as Jonathan and Nancy in season 2, and in season 1 Nancy hooked up with Steve and in season 2 Nancy and Jonathan hooked up, so by having Byler hook up, it does equivocate them with the other older teen straight ships we’ve so far seen be romantically entangled. A lot of media, especially teen media (which ST isn’t, but the majority of the characters are young) feel the need to “purify” queer ships, so Byler not hooking up may come across as trying to do just that.

But again I personally don’t want them to hook up because I don’t feel like it makes sense right away immediately after a confession or kiss for Will and Mike specifically. If there was to be a season 6 then that’s when I’d want them to have their own implied hook up scene because I think both characters wouldn’t be able to go from repressed in the closet to immediately hooking up at the drop of a hat, they already have enough to process and come to terms with regarding their sexuality, sex itself just seems like it would be something to build up to together.

(I’m aroace though so maybe that’s affecting my personal opinion?)

Anyways I do think the Duffers will give us a kiss, I think they’ve set it up where it’ll be this incredible moment of joy and catharsis, and I don’t think the Duffers are cowards, I think they’ll push for this especially since it’s the final season. Fuck Netflix, this is the culmination of a slow burn friends to lovers romance and I think they’ll want to do it justice.

I got indeed a lot of hate for that post, and your message. Thanks for being civil.

I think the opposite, it's not about being pure, it's about it needing to be just a friends to lovers without going overboard with hypersexualization or fan service.

The thing with S1 and the teens is that we as GA at the time, never saw them as teens, because we didn't know them at the time, they were new and getting into show for it.

In S5 when the kids will be that age (20-24 actors, 16 characters) it's "okay" but it's also weird as hell because they entered the story at 11... i don't know about you but I would rather no see this kind of scene with anyone I would have meet at that age.

When I say a lot of you are young for this, I mean it in the sense that you haven't seen the fandom act; the same happened with Harry Potter in 2001 when we didn't even know how to stories would end, everyone was insane for it.

Then the infamous scene in that last part happened and... everyone was weirded out.

Media is a weird format, and a lot of fans are weird, doesn't matter which side we are from.

And people just leave a comment, I don't go well with asks, I don't even know how they work, i am here for the theories.

[anonymouscheeses]

They are everything to me.

[disastergenius]

by far the worst take i've seen so far post-ep19 of Junior Year is that having a week-by-week live play would have allowed fans to essentially influence the direction of the story in the way they want it to go and that would have resulted in the cast being more sympathetic to the Ratgrinders (ie getting them a redemption arc)

why do you feel the need to try and control this story? YOU ARE NOT THE ONE TELLING IT. if you want to tell a story please go write your own, or go write fanfiction to cope or whatever but you don't get to say that the players are telling the story wrong when it's their story they are telling

[seilon]

please don’t by k.will did more for the gays back in 2012 than any boy group can possibly do with fan service and crop tops in 2024

[kailoros-spam]

Obsessed with the house of hades section in the odyssey where homer just keeps mentioning mythology people odysseus meets there. Glad to know fanservice already existed 3000 years ago.

[discluded]

loving the mileapo fan service of giving us pretty much nothing for their birthdays and v-day. slaaaayyyyyy

no service for fans kings! 🥲🥲🥲 they do not care about us

[bonethievery]

Knives in the little waiter uniform is soo fucking silly.

[nullians]

Read one post too many about the eternal “if you don’t like girl characters you are misogynistic” discourse and now I’m like. Damn, idk how to tell you that it can be very easy to sense out the intentions that stood behind creating a character. Like, for the longest time I thought I was the problem but in the end it turned out that I just wanted to see angry (how hard to come by) and not made to soften it women who were made with joy and celebration. It took me forever since being a kid to find a girl in media that was allowed to be unattractive by the typical standards and that was allowed to be proud and happy about it and not change. Idk, like people always say it’s a YOU problem but… so many male characters that appeal to people are despite not having much screen time etc made To Be appealing? And that makes a difference

[xcziel]

wow they decided to copy yoongi almost exactly: concert lovefest for army and then dip

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

the best part about super mario rpg on the switch is that i can play it in bed or on long car trips

geno and i will never be apart again

[winterdusktales]

yg has conditioned ot7 ikon to be a touring group so now even when they all left yg, all they (ikon & hanbin) do is tour and join various music festivals. like i know those guys would prefer inviting other artists to guest in their concert over inviting them for a quick tiktok challenge or something

[gayofthefae]

The thing with the Byler twist - and it is a twist, even if we’ve predicted it - is that all that the general audience really needs to be on board is to realize that all of Mike’s behavior will have remained in character. No sudden change or confusion to accommodate this fan service ship. Even if you didn’t see it coming, it is very consistent with his behavior over the seasons.

That’s all you really need for a good twist. Not predictability but rewatchability. Does it makes sense? It doesn’t matter if it was built up. Because this isn’t a slow burn. It’s an “it was under my nose the whole time” subversion. Yes, it’s been built up from the start but that’s the part about being under your nose the whole time. Some people will have caught it some won’t, but ultimately, the fact that Mike’s behavior won’t change is what will make people see it.

Because the general audience is, by definition, not actively fighting the idea. Casual viewers. Character consistency is all that’s needed. Even if it WERE to be fan service, if they were to be able to execute that unplanned plot with great character consistency, props to them, that’s the story now, and I’ll accept it. (Just like I say a non-Byler ending would be totally great if it can maintain character consistency and realistic happy endings within that - I just can’t think of a way it can). 

This has been a long way of saying.

Mike and Will getting together will not feel out of character or like an adjustment or accommodation to this “new” storyline. And that’s really all that’s ever needed for a twist or subversion to work. It doesn’t have to be foreshadowed or predictable. It just needs to make sense. And as long as that’s true, no general audience member will fight it.

[itsays]

the funniest thing about bw stans throwing a tantrum because they dont get another bl together is that at their level of popularity, considering how much gmmtv favors them and loves money, if bw wanted another project together, they'd get it, they simply dont want to lol

[savethepinecones]

i need to stop scrolling through the watcher stuff i feel like im not seeing anything new its just the same arguments over and over again

[femslashspuffy]

I'm not so much mad Izzy dies I'm just mad that the tone feels so wrong. It shouldn't be happy before happy after, if it's supposed to be a big thing make it a big thing and this one for sure shouldn't be small

[flanaganfilm]

Mr. Flanagan, I’d like to ask a question and I deeply hope that it does not offend or upset you. I am strongly considering canceling my Netflix subscription due to their new password sharing policy. However, Midnight Mass is one of my favorite shows of all time and I know it isn’t available on DVD, and I’m also profoundly anticipating your take on my favorite Edgar Allen Poe story. So I wanted to ask your take on people accessing your work through, uh, other means. If it’s something that’s offensive to you or will harm you or the other people who work so hard on these shows, I’ll happily keep my Netflix just so that I can keep supporting your work. I respect you far too much as an artist to do otherwise.

Again, I really hope I’m not upsetting you by asking this question. Thank you for everything, and I hope you’re having a great day!

(NOTE 6/4/2024: I'm editing this entry because, well over a year since it was posted, some journalists dug this up and used it to create click-bait headlines that are misleading, out of context and artificially combative. While I was of course disappointed over the years that Netflix opted not to release my work on physical media, I never experienced any hostility or aggression in those discussions, and I sincerely regret the manner in which this post was used in the press this week.)

Hi there - no offense taken whatsoever, in fact I think this is a very interesting and important question.

So. If you asked me this a few years ago, I would have said "I hate piracy and it is hurting creators, especially in the independent space." I used to get in Facebook arguments with fans early in my career when people would post about seeing my work on torrent sites, especially when that work was readily available for rent and purchase on VOD.

Back in 2014, my movie Before I Wake was pirated and leaked prior to any domestic release, and that was devastating to the project. It actually made it harder to find distribution for the film. By the time we were able to get distribution in the US, the film had already been so exposed online that the best we could hope for was a Netflix release. Netflix stepped in and saved that movie, and for that I will always be grateful to them.

However...

Working in streaming for the past few years has made me reconsider my position on piracy.

In the years I worked at Netflix, I tried very hard to get them to release my work on blu-ray and DVD.

It became clear very fast that their priority was subscriptions, and that they were not particularly interested in physical media releases of their originals, with a few exceptions.

While companies like Netflix pride themselves on being disruptors, and have proven that they can affect great change in the industry, they sometimes fail to see the difference between disruption and damage. So much that they can find themselves, intentionally or not, doing harm to the concept of film preservation.

The danger comes when a title is only available on one platform, and then - for whatever reason - is removed.

We have already seen this happen. And it is only going to happen more and more. Titles exclusively available on streaming services have essentially been erased from the world. If those titles existed on the marketplace on physical media, like HBO's Westworld, the loss is somewhat mitigated (though only somewhat.) But when titles do not exist elsewhere, they are potentially gone forever.

The list of titles that have been removed from streaming services is growing.

I still believe that where we put our dollars matters. Renting or buying a piece of work that you like is essential. It is casting a vote, encouraging studios - who only speak the language of money - to invest more effort into similar work. If we show up to support distinct, unique, exciting work, it encourages them to make more of it. It's as simple as that. If we don't show up, or if they can't hear our voice because we are casing our vote "silently" through torrent sites or other means - it makes it unlikely that they will take a chance to create that kind of work again.

Which is why I typically suggest that if you like a movie you've seen through - uh - other means, throw a few dollars at that title on a legitimate platform. Rent it. Purchase it. Support it.

But if some studios offer no avenue for that kind of support, and can (and will) remove content from their platform forever... frankly, I think that changes the rules.

Netflix will likely never release the work I created for them on physical media, though I'll always hold out hope.

Some of you may say "wait, aren't The Haunting of Hill House and The Haunting of Bly Manor available on blu-ray and DVD?" Yes, they are, because they were co-produced with Paramount, and I'm grateful that Paramount was able to release and protect those titles. (I'm also grateful that those releases include extended cuts, deleted scenes, and commentary tracks. There are a number of fantastic benefits to physical media releases.)

But a lot of the other work I did there are Netflix originals, without any other studio involvement. Those titles - like Midnight Mass, The Midnight Club, and the upcoming Fall of the House of Usher - along with my Netflix exclusive and/or original movies Before I Wake and Gerald's Game - have no such protections. The physical media releases of those titles are entirely at Netflix's discretion, and don't appear to be priority for the studio at this time.

At the moment, Netflix seems content to leave Before I Wake, Gerald's Game, Midnight Mass, and The Midnight Club on the service, where they still draw audiences. I don't think there is a plan to remove any of them anytime soon. But plans change, the industry changes.

The point is things change, and each of those titles - should they be removed from the service for any reason - are not available anywhere else. If that day comes - if Netflix's servers are destroyed, if a meteor hits the building, if they are bought out by a competitor and their library is liquidated - I don't know what the circumstances might be, I just know that if that day comes, some of the work that means the most to me in the world would be entirely erased.

Or, what if we aren't so catastrophic in our thinking? What if it the change isn't so total? What if Netflix simply bumps into an issue with the license they paid for music (like the Neil Diamond songs that play such a crucial role in Midnight Mass), and decide to leave the show up but replace the songs?

This has happened before as well - fans of Northern Exposure can get the show on DVD and blu-ray, but the music they heard when the series aired has been replaced due to the licensing issues. And the replacements - chosen for their low cost, not for creative reasons - are not improvements. What if the shows are just changed, and not by creatives, but by business affairs executives?

All to say that physical media is critically important. Having redundancy in the marketplace is critically important. The more platforms a piece of work is available on, the more likely it is to survive and grow its audience.

As for Netflix, I hope sincerely that their thinking on this issue evolves, and that they value the content they spend so much money creating enough to protect it for posterity. That's up to them, it's their studio, it's their rules. But I like to think they may see that light eventually, and realize that exclusivity in a certain window is very cool... but exclusivity in perpetuity could potentially limit the audience and endanger the work itself.