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gawdilykeu · 2 years
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VERY LONG BYLER VS MILEVEN RANT/ESSAY BUT NOT, MY ENDLESS THOUGHTS ON THE LOVE TRIANGLE IG
Table of contents thing cause this thing got so long:
Intro
My thoughts on Mileven (and why I don’t think they work anymore)
My thoughts on Byler (and why I do think they work)
Why I think Byler has a chance of being endgame
Why I think Byler might not be endgame
List of my fav Byler moments
Final thoughts
I have a LOT of thoughts on the whole “Byler vs Mileven” thing and I just need to get them off my chest for no one’s benefit but my own. First of all let me just say I like both ships, I’m not trying to yuck anyone’s yum this is all just my own opinion and interpretation okay? Okay good. Second of all I have no idea what the Duffers and Stranger Things writers are planning on actually doing and I don’t wanna pretend to know cause I honestly kinda think it could go either way at this point. So anyway, with that out of the way I will say that I personally am rooting for Byler endgame in terms of what I WANT, but I don’t hate Mileven or anything and I don’t know which one will be endgame. Also disclaimer I talk a lot. This will be long.
So first my thoughts on Mileven:
I think they’re cute and I see the appeal. Little nerdy boy meets mysterious badass (but sweet and traumatized) little girl, they go through a crazy ordeal together and help each other and become very emotionally bonded, then ensues a cute innocent puppy-love story. I get it! For years when I was more of a GA member I had never really given Byler much thought and I thought Mileven was cute but I wasn’t like invested into it or anything, and did see more issues in their relationship as the seasons progressed.
So anyway, my problems with their relationship are as follows:
- If we think about them from a real-word standpoint, the fact that they became romantically involved when they did is a little insane. If it were real life, I think anyone with a brain would agree that the last thing El in particular needed at that time was a “boyfriend”, or a boy kissing her, etc. I don’t blame innocent little twelve year old Mike, but poor little El had just barely learned what a “friend” was, and had no idea what Mike was trying to say when he tried to tell her he had a crush on her. She had no way of knowing anything about romance/what it entailed/what was healthy/what she wanted at that point. I mean really. When would she have ever had it modeled for her before? I seriously doubt she would understand the complete implications of something like a kiss. Plenty of twelve year olds with normal upbringings don’t fully grasp all the things to do with love and romance, let alone someone who was raised like El was. Again, if we were to pretend that something like this happened in real life, where a little girl escaped from a LAB where she was kept from the real world, not given a real name, emotionally and physically abused, dehumanized, and treated like an experiment for the first twelve years of her life, I think everyone would agree she would need a good amount of time to learn about/adjust to regular life. She definitely shouldn’t be getting romantically involved with anyone for a while, and especially not within the first week of meeting other people as a twelve year old. ANYWAY that was probably at least a little redundant but hopefully you get it. I don’t know how “realistic” Stranger Things wants to be in that regard, and you can have a little bit of suspension of disbelief with Mike and El’s love story, I get it, but yeah.
- As their relationship progresses and El adjusts more and more, they honestly don’t seem to have that much substance together, and while they obviously care for each other (how could they not considering their history together and how they met and bonded) their relationship is kinda immature and doesn’t actually feel that strong. They don’t really have any common interests (El still doesn’t know anything about DnD or any of Mike’s other nerdy [affectionate] interests and doesn’t seem interested in them, and also hasn’t developed too many interests of her own, but we do see she seems to like romance movies, something Mike doesn’t seem to like?), and spend most of their time ditching their friends and just kissing in season three. There just doesn’t seem to be a lot of development or mutual understanding to their relationship. They have communication issues, and their relationship problems are played for laughs in season three. Again, they obviously have some kind of bond, but now that they’re spending more time together their romantic relationship doesn’t seem that compelling or healthy. Also, we finally see El start forming other close friendships that she spends one-on-one time with outside of Mike only in season 3, and only THEN does she also finally start to even think about the fact that she can have her OWN INTERESTS AND TASTES. And she had a boyfriend before this? Anyway. You get it right? A lot of the GA actually seems to have an opinion similar to this now despite Mike and El being one of (if not the) most prominently featured romantic relationships in the show.
- They both seem to put each other on pedestals and (unintentionally) make each other insecure. Mike sees El as this badass superhero who at any moment could realize he’s a loser who’s not good enough for her and will not need him anymore. He doesn’t share his nerdy interests with her and at times even seems to try to pretend he’s someone he’s not to feel worthy of her and of a girl liking him in general (see: California arrival outfit). Meanwhile El seems to try and mold herself into a “pretty” “normal” girl to make herself feel worthy of having a boyfriend. She wants to fit the role of “girlfriend” and be good enough for a normal boy like Mike. She’s insecure about being different and doesn’t really want to be just a “superhero” or a “monster”, and idolizes girls she finds pretty and normal and tries to emulate them. She is also insecure about being bullied at school and not fitting in, and deliberately keeps this from Mike and lies to him about having friends and going to parties, presumably all in an attempt to impress him and make him think she’s good enough for him. So all in all, not a lot of healthy communication going on and they both seem to see each other (and themselves in relation to the other) in a somewhat skewed way.
- This can also be lumped in with their overall communication issues, but we also have the whole thing of Mike not being able to say “I love you” or the L word at all to El, something that means a lot to her and hurts her when she notices the pattern. Their whole fight about it in season 4 was also not a very healthy fight, and for me really did just highlight all the issues with their romantic relationship. The reasoning behind Mike not being able to say it can be interpreted in multiple ways sure, but it does just seem kinda “red-flag”y to me. El needs this verbal confirmation, and even when she’s confronting Mike about it and crying in front of him about it he just deflects and denies and STILL DOESN’T SAY IT! I feel like if you really were in love with someone and saw them crying asking you to tell them as much YOU WOULD TELL THEM? Unless you wanted to beeak up? In which case I also feel like that would indicate not being super in love? I don’t know. And yes we know he says it in the monologue but like it took a life or death, end of the world, situation to do it AND even then he still had to be coaxed into it by someone else. I don’t know. It could have been the writer’s intention to have the monologue fix all their problems and all that, but I kinda hope not, because I still don’t think their relationship seems healthy after everything else I’ve listed.
Okay, now onto Byler:
Like I mentioned, I never gave much thought to Byler until season 4. I had heard about it and knew some people shipped it, and I saw the appeal you know, but again didn’t think much of it and definitely didn’t think it had a shot in hell of being canon. Then season 4 happened, my third eye was opened, and seeing Byler become halfway canon was so earth-shattering and life changing that it made me think, if it came this far, maybe it has a chance of going all the way. And now all the pieces for me have clicked into place and I am 100% a Byler endgame advocate. If it’s done right, I think it would make so much narrative sense and be such a good ending for these characters.
So here is why I think that Byler should be endgame (whether it actually is or not):
- First of all, there’s the whole list of reasons I gave above as to why Mileven isn’t actually the healthiest relationship in my opinion, so that would (for me) justify them having a HEALTHY MUTUAL BREAKUP and El being single independent (which is not me wanting to take away her happiness or not wanting her to have a happy ending, El is my babygirl and don’t you dare try and tell me different) healthy and happy. I genuinely think it’d be best for her and Mike but especially her TRUST!
- Okay now onto my advocacy of Byler themselves. Pretty much of all the problems with Mike and El’s relationship are solved with Mike and Will’s potential relationship. I’ll list all of them in a similar way. Mike and Will met at the beginning of kindergarten and have been best friends ever since, already showing that they most definitely know each other well and have had years of bonding under their belts. They feel most comfortable telling each other everything and this is made clear multiple times in the show (hello crazy together scene, just to name one example). They specifically confide in each other and the bond between the two of them in particular (out of all the boys in their four-person friend group) has been repeatedly emphasized throughout the show. They have a special relationship and have been very close for some time.
- They know and see each other exactly as the other person is and love them for it, and don’t feel like they have to put up a front around each other. They have tons of common interests that they love sharing and partaking in together. Everything about himself that Mike is insecure about in his relationship with El, Will LOVES and knows him for. That nerd that Mike thinks isn’t good enough for El and avoids fully showing to her, a.k.a. his truest self, is quite literally who Will has known deeply for years and is in love with.
- No relationship is perfect obviously, and no one’s denying that Mike and Will have had conflicts in their relationship too, but the conflicts literally only started after Mike started dating El and pretty much all of them had to do with his relationship with El too. Like actually.
- Will loves Mike the way Mike wants to be loved, and you could argue vice versa. When Mike vents to Will about all his relationship problems with El, he talks repeatedly about how he’s afraid that she’ll realize she doesn’t need him anymore, and that he knows she doesn’t, emphasizing that he evidently wants to feel needed. We then learn through Will’s speech to him about El’s his feelings for him that Will needs Mike and always will. Every single thing Will says to Mike in that speech makes Mike feel infinitely better and more loved than he probably ever has, and all of it came from Will’s feelings and most of it can also be directly disproven as being how El feels. Mike makes her feel like she’s not a mistake at all and that she’s better for being different? El directly told him otherwise just the day before and we see that it’s true. Will’s the one who feels that way. El was mean to him and pushing him away because she was scared of losing him? She actively and enthusiastically wrote him while they were apart and signed all her letters with “Love, El” and tried to remain close. Will was the one doing this and was scared of losing Mike. She needs Mike and always will? Mike said himself that he knew she didn’t, and El was shown dealing with all her problems alone and often without Mike’s support, such as her problems with Angela and the Nina Project. It’s Will who needs Mike and always will. El signed her last letter to Mike after their fight before going to the Nina Project with “From, El”. I don’t know. it all seems to add up pretty well to me. So anyway, it’s Will who loves him the way he craves, and Will’s words and painting are what made him regain hope in his relationship with El because he thought they all came from her, but literally none of them did.
Now that I’ve sufficiently contrasted the two relationships and explained why I think Byler fits better, I’m going to explain why I think Byler has a chance of being canon/endgame:
- Will is completely canonically in love with Mike. This is the huge one and the one that opened my eyes to everything else. Like I said before, if they went halfway there’s a chance they could go the rest of the way too. If they do it right, I could easily see how they could introduce Mike loving Will back in the same way. If there’s a healthy Mileven break up, whose to say Mike can’t realize he’s either been in love with Will for a while and didn’t realize (thanks to heteronormativity), or realizes he loves Will and that Will is right for him after learning that all those words in the van and the painting were all from him? I could see this potentially being done through well-placed flashbacks and providing new insights on old scenes and stuff. It’s possible I think.
- They do have a decent amount of romantic tension and subtext in season 4 in particular. The repeated interruptions during intimate moments where they both are startled out of it, the fight where they say verbatim the words: “You called maybe a couple times. Meanwhile El has like a book of letters from you.” “That’s because she’s my girlfriend, Will!” “And us?” “We’re friends. We’re friends.”, the longing stares and double takes, like come ON! That is so blatant. I am also a strong advocate for the fact that if Will were a straight female character but everything else was the same, wayy more of the GA would ship them, realize they have a chance of being canon, pick up on the romantic subtext to their scenes and their compatibility, etc. Like way more people would realize that they are a valid option for a romantic pairing and I stand by that truth. Even Will being canonically gay and in love with Mike isn’t enough for some of these people because I guess maybe they think there’s no way Mike could like him back since Will is a boy and Mike’s had a girlfriend. First of all, are we forgetting bisexual people can exist, second of all, are we forgetting comphet can exist. There’s multiple ways that Mike liking Will back is possible despite Will being a boy and Mike having had a girlfriend (I am personally a bi Mike truther cause I think he did have a crush on El initially and it would also help explain why it would take him so much longer to realize he’s attracted to boys if he was attracted to girls too, whereas Will never liked girls so he realized he was different much earlier on. I support gay Mike truthers too though I think both are valid😌).
- I do think all the deliberate pairing and framing of them, again particularly in season 4, feels significant. Like the way they’re together all season having heart to hearts while El is gone and her and Mike are having problems and how practically their entire plot is centered around the Will Mike El love triangle. And the last shot of season 4? That one seriously gets me. Like that’s gotta mean something right? Like we have three couples extremely obviously placed as distinguished pairs, literally all eight feet apart from each other, and then El in the foreground alone. Like they could have had the others places as a sort of group or something, but they made the choice to have Nancy and Jonathan standing hand in hand, eight feet away theres Mike and Will standing side by side, and then another eight feet and we have Joyce and Hopper hand in hand. Like?? Anyway. That one feels huge to me.
- Will is the only character of the main group who has not had a romantic storyline yet. He’s the only one who hasn’t had a kiss or relationship or anything. And then we find out (as some had speculated) that he is in fact in love with Mike specifically, and it becomes a central part of his storyline. We’ve also been told that Will will play a huge part in season 5 and will have his coming of age moment, so it sounds pretty plausible that he could get the boy he’s loved for years and finally have the love story he never thought he would. We even have the scene in season 3 where his mom says “You’re not gonna think it’s gross when you fall in love” and Will mumbles “I’m not gonna… fall in love” which seems like it could be foreshadowing to me. Now that we know he is in love and we know who he’s in love with, it seems like it’d be a great payoff and resolution to have him end up with Mike. And just to reiterate, I think it would genuinely be best for El herself and for her character arc to be single, I am not just saying that for Byler’s sake and I put that on everything. But for Will’s storyline, the natural, satisfying, and happy resolution feels like it should be for him to get Mike I think.
- We are shown that Will is very selfless and self-sacrificing multiple times in the show, and this is further shown with his love for Mike. Despite being in love with Mike and feeling him grow distant at times due to his relationship with El, Will does nothing but try to help Mike when he comes to him with his relationship problems. He cares deeply about El and Mike and their happiness, and so he willingly self sabotages and breaks his own heart to push them back together and try to singlehandedly repair their relationship. Like literally. He gives Mike that whole speech about how “El” feels to make him feel better and try to assuage his self doubt and make him feel needed, and it works, and as soon as Mike is feeling better about his relationship with El Will turns to the other side so Mike can’t see him and sobs his eyes out. Like oh my GOD. And then I’m what, not supposed to root for him? This also makes me feel like it’d be such good pay off for Will to then end up with the boy since he loved him so selflessly and patiently from the side all that time. So was this all intentionally set up by the writers? Only time will tell.
- Another thing that hints at a possible Byler endgame for me is the Jancy/Stancy love triangle parallels to the Byler/Mileven love triangle. People talk about a lot of Byler parallels to multiple other relationships in the show but the Jancy ones stick out the most to me. First of all we have the fact that Jancy are literally Byler’s older siblings. They could also be called Byler technically since it’s going off last names. The whole speech that Murray gives to Nancy and Jonathan in season 2 also fits sooo well with Mike and Will. Just replace Nancy with Mike, Johnathan with Will, and Steve with El. And the scene where Nancy and Jonathan sit on the car in season 2 and have a heart to heart when Nancy can’t say I love you to Steve paralleled to the scene in season 4 where Mike and Will sit on a car and have a heart to heart when Mike can’t say I love you to El. And might I also add that the Wheeler and Byers siblings sit on the same sides in both scenes, and both Wheeler siblings hold a soda can in each scene. I feel like that’s gotta be intentional. Right? And as we know, Nancy ends up breaking up with Steve and gets with Jonathan, and I’m rooting for Jancy endgame especially cause we also have them as one of those isolated pairs in the last shot of season 4.
- I do feel like it’d be kinda unsatisfying/weird to end the Will being in love with Mike storyline any other way. Will gets over Mike? Well then why did they establish him being in love with Mike for years, it doesn’t seem like something you just get over. And then what would have been the point of making his character in love with Mike anyway? Angst? They could have had him still help fix Mike and El’s relationship without him loving Mike. Will gets rejected by Mike and has to just deal with it? Again, then what was the point of making his character love him in the first place? And that just feels anticlimactic and cruel, especially considering what Will’s character has been through. I want him to have his happy ending so bad. Will meets a new boy and gets a new love interest? That would be so unsatisfying cause it would just be some rando that the audience isn’t nearly as familiar with/attached to, and for a character as central as Will it just feels lame. And I again raise the question WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE POINT OF WRITING HIM BEING IN LOVE WITH MIKE FOR YEARS? And then if the whole Will loving Mike thing/WillMikeEl love triangle is just never really addressed again in season 5 then that’d just be shitty writing. So anyway. Also, I sorta feel like Mike rejecting Will/not feeling the same way is the more “expected” thing to happen, so him feeling the same and them ending up together would actually be a more satisfying twist. And we know they love a good twist. And again, IF they did it right I think the writers could at least make most of the GA on board with Mileven breakup and Byler endgame by the time it happens.
- Mike’s monologue was not nearly as compelling as it could have been, if you ask me. Which makes me wonder whether or not that was intentional. Flashbacks are used abundantly in season 4 for emotional impact in scenes like that, and to showcase different characters’ important relationships. There was no Mileven flashback montage, in the season of flashback montages. And they totally could have done it!! There are plenty of genuinely cute and happy Mileven snippets that they could have used to make one, so I wonder why they didn’t when they did that for so many other characters. Like would Mike’s monologue not have been the time to do it, to remind the audience of all their good shared moments and reinstill everyone’s faith in their relationship? And also, the main line that irks me from the monologue is where Mike says about the first second he met El “I knew right then and there, in that moment, that I loved you. And I’ve loved you everyday since”, because…. no he didn’t? Like I’m sorry if the writers genuinely meant that to be taken at face value and taken seriously because it’s just objectively not true. Why in the hell would this distraught twelve year old out searching for his missing best friend in the rain, upon coming across a scared kid with a shaved head and wearing nothing but a huge t-shirt in the woods, have his first thought be “I’m in love”? That makes no fucking sense. And we also see that he didn’t! He looks at her in bewilderment, understandably, and that’s the one Mileven flashback we get. And, that night after they bring El back to Mike’s house we hear him telling Lucas and Dustin about how he wanted to send El back around the front of the house in the morning and have his mom deal with her. He says “she’ll send her back to Pennhurst or wherever she comes from and we’ll be totally in the clear.” Does that sound like someone who was in love at first sight? No! Because why on Earth would he have been? So anyway, if the writers were really being fr with that then I genuinely just don’t know what to say. Also the stuff where Mike talks about how she’s a superhero and can fly and move mountains and stuff. I still feel like El wants to be seen as a normal girl and a person and know that Mike loves her for that first and foremost, so those lines are iffy to me too. He could have thrown in more about what he loves about her as an individual I guess. There are so many other compelling, true things they could have potentially written to make the monologue as impactful and “Mileven solidifying” as possible, but they didn’t. I think. And they didn’t include flashbacks. Just saying. And then there’s also the thing people have brought up about how they still don’t seem totally great after the monologue, and we get another Mike and Will heart to heart afterwards where Mike says El hasn’t talked to him much. Like there’s no final Mileven cute scene, or Mileven kiss, or anything.
Okay, now for reasons that I’m not positive that we will get Byler endgame, and why I think it’s still all up in the air and could go either way:
- Mileven has been an established canon romantic pairing since season 1 that many people are used to and also like (even if I do think they’ve fallen a little bit out of the GA’s good graces over the past few seasons), and it does sometimes just seem kind of crazy to think that they’ll break them up in the last season of the show.
- Mileven has had some very cute and endearing moments, and genuinely good scenes. The season 2 reunion is still unmatched actually. Their snowball scenes are also really good, and the scenes in season 1 where Mike calls her pretty, especially after her wig is gone. And their initial love story is cute.
- I do just sometimes have doubts that such a mainstream show will make a gay relationship between two of the main main characters canon, especially when it hasn’t been completely spelled out since the beginning. Cause you know there’s mainstream shows that have blatantly gay characters at the forefront and are mainly targeted at gay audiences, like Heartstopper and stuff, and there’s mainstream shows that aren’t primarily gay shows but have token gay characters (but those characters are more often than not side characters who don’t have much more to their personality other than being gay), but there doesn’t seem to be many mainstream shows targeted at all audiences that aren’t primarily “gay” shows that introduce gay characters and relationships into the forefront. That was a run-on sentence sorry. Point is, it would be kinda crazy and legendary for Stranger Things to end with their two main male characters getting into in a gay relationship in the last season. Will I think is already pretty great representation; he’s a main character with huge plot significance, he’s super well rounded and beautifully portrayed, and him being gay in no way takes up what his character is. Like he’s definitely not reduced to just being a token gay character. He’s the Will Byers. And him being gay only became more blatant and “confirmed” as his character got older and his storyline progressed, but he was always a gay character and you can see it from the beginning if you’re not stupid. Anyway, I digress, I’m just saying I have some doubts because it’s so common to be queerbaited or not have canon gay relationships happen when they aren’t established from the beginning on such big shows that aren’t primarily for gay audiences.
Now before we go, just because I can, a quick list of my favorite Byler moments in (mostly, I think) chronological order:
- Mike biking home crying and then hugging his mom after they find Will’s body in the quarry
- Mike shoving Troy to the ground for making fun of Will and saying he was “in fairyland now, all happy and gay”
- Mike and Will reunion in the hospital where he puts his head on Will’s chest
- Mike finding Will outside the arcade snapping him out of trance putting his arm around him and taking him back in.
- Mike gazing forlornly at Will’s empty desk
- Will screaming for Mike in the upside down
- Mike finding Will and taking him away from everyone else and bringing him to his house on Halloween night when he finds him having a panic attack after a vision (the general pattern of Mike always being the one who finds Will during these things)
- Crazy together scene
- Mike demanding to be let in to the Byers’ house to see if Will is okay
- The “we won’t let him” scene where Mike comforts newly possessed Will and puts his hand on Will’s
- Will screaming for Mike while being wheeled through the hospital in agony
- Will remembering Mike’s name even when the Mindflayer’s possession starts to take over
- Mike carrying unconscious Will at the lab
- The scene where Mike cries while telling possessed Will about the first day they met and how asking Will to be his friend was the best thing he’s ever done, and possessed Will cries too even though he can’t answer
- When Will immediately turned to Mike after that girl asked him to dance at the snowball and he didn’t want to
- The Byler Lumax double date at the movie theater where the pairs sat in seperate rows and everything
- Will’s “I’m not gonna fall in love” scene
- The rain fight where Mike says “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!” and they both fall silent
- Mike chasing after Will in the pouring rain immediately after the fight to apologize
- Mike and Will hugging when they’re all saying goodbye to the Byers and Will’s crying so hard
- Mike staring back at the Byers’ empty house after the moving van left and everyone rode away with Hopper’s letter narrating
- Mike going home after the Byers were gone looking empty and shell-shocked and hugging his mom, still with Hopper’s narration
- Will painting in his room for Mike with El’s letter to Mike narrating and saying “Will has been painting a lot! But he won’t show me what he’s working on. Maybe it is for a girl! I think there is someone he likes, because he has been acting… weird.”
- Will looking absolutely dopey happy while waiting for Mike at the airport with his painting
- The awkward airport reunion where Will goes to hug Mike and he doesn’t hug him back and pats him on the shoulder instead and Will’s face immediately falls and he doesn’t give Mike the painting or say what it is (why on Earth would Mike do that I feel like that must mean something else too)
- The fight at the roller rink where Mike says the “We’re friends. We’re friends.” line
- Will staring at Mike all during breakfast while Mike is distracted
- The heart to heart in Will’s room where Mike crumples and throws away the letter from El and Will comforts him
- The heart to heart in Will’s room while they’re packing where they apologize for everything from before and Will gets tears in his eyes when Mike says “It’s Hawkins, it’s not the same without you.” and all that stuff and then at the end they both smile at each other in silence and jump when the moment is broken and Jonathan comes in. And then Will decides to put his painting in his back pack
- When Will stares at Mike with the most longing look of all time when they’re out in the desert and Mike looks back at him, sees Will looking at him and does an awkward flustered triple take before going back to what he was doing and Will keeps staring
- When Mike and Will have the heart to heart on top of the car (just like Jancy) and Will says “Sometimes, I think it’s just.. scary, to open up like that. To say how you really feel. Especially to people you care about the most, because, what if- what if they don’t like the truth?” and then gives Mike a meaningful glance
- The talk in the van where Will finally gives Mike the painting but then pretends it’s from El and tells Mike how he feels and also pretends that’s from El and when Mike feels better he turns out to the window and sobs and Jonathan notices the whole thing
- So many longing stares from Will in season 4 and multiple interruptions of intimate conversations
- When Mike and Will have a heart to heart in Hopper’s broken down cabin with the sun beams coming through the broken wall and framing Will beautifully and Mike grabs Will’s shoulder
- The final shot of season 4 with Mike and Will side by side in a distinguished pair staring over Hawkins with the dramatic music
So I think I finally said everything I wanted to say. This was way longer than I expected maybe the longest post of all time. I don’t think I even said anything that hasn’t been said by someone else before but still I just wanted to get all my “Byler vs Mileven” thoughts out in one cohesive thing cause it’s been driving me crazy. But these are all the things I find relevant I guess and anyway yeah Byler endgame please Duffers but if you don’t I’ll survive I guess maybe just please end the show well that’s all I ask. ALSO one last thing if Byler becomes endgame but it’s done in a shitty way I’ll be so mad cause there’s so much potential. If any of them die also I’ll never forgive the duffers that is NOT how I want the love triangle resolved. I don’t want any of those three to be sad I want happy endings all around and that goes for the other characters too they’re all my pookies it’s just that this post was about Byler and Mileven. This is my final word.
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girlfox · 21 days
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#𝐎𝐔𝐓 𝐎𝐅 ⠀⠀(⠀ⅰ.⠀)⠀⠀𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑:⠀⠀ಇ⠀⠀oh-kae!#cw negative#tw negative#cw vent#tw vent#tagging this for people who don't want this kind of negative content on their feeds!#remember to protect urself first.#and i'll keep this super vague not to be like . . dramatic? but just because i only need to get this off my chest.#but i need to vent so badly because i'm reaching a breaking point. i can /feel/ the anxiety building up in my throat.#i've been 10000 % vibing on my own and really comfy here! i've been loud n' proud about that.#but ever since i've been active here it feels like old issues are rising up and it feels like borderline harrassment.#like. under the radar.#i know this isn't anything anyone is going to have noticed or seen or anything.#but talking with friends who do notice and stuff. i just hit a bad point all of a sudden.#i'm not going to openly talk about problems here on the dash of course.#but drags my hands down my face. i just want to do my own thing man.#i have more time to be here now that school is done for a couple months & i just wanna enjoy it to the fullest hah#i'm finally back into enjoying ahri the way i used to!#but. i dunno. i might bury my head into my inbox & retreat into some video games or something.#i don't really need reassurance or affirmations because this isn't a pity post or anything.#i feel validated by the amazing friends and interactions i get here as is! so thank you to all of you. seriously. ily#but good lord.#i dunno i just wanted to vent and i will delete this later.
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ask-artsy-oncie · 10 months
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I was reminded of the time that tumblr tried to make "monster high but with tumblr sexymen", and one of the characters was (obviously) the daughter of the once-ler.
And the funny thing to me about that is that in the canon of the illumination lorax movie, the once-ler is heavily implied to have an estranged daughter. I don't know all the sexymen off the top of my head but I think he might've been one of the only ones referenced in that trend who actually had a daughter in his own canon.
#Stupid shit#I'm gonna provide context in the tags for those who want it but I also like the idea of just leaving it there#Okay so for anyone who wasn't in the fandom: when people say the movie gave us no one to ship the Once-ler with they were LYING#The movie gave the Once-ler no MALE characters to ship him with - thus Oncest started#However - the second most popular Once-ler ship was between him and Norma#(Who - if you haven't seen the movie in a while - is Ted's grandmother who tells him about the Once-ler and how to find and barter with him#This was mostly just a ship born from theory and logical deduction - why does Norma know so much personal info about the Once-ler?#Were they perhaps friends? Lovers? In the past? Where was she in his life and at what points? When did she leave?#And people started making theories and shipping the two - primarily as past lovers. But there was art of them reconnecting for sure.#HOWEVER - this also meant that there was a theory that Ted's mom was also related to the Once-ler#As in - hmm this daughter of a very short fat woman is oddly tall and thin... hmmm#And so the running theory wasn't just that the Once-ler and Norma were once lovers - but that the Once-ler was also Ted's grandfather#Who was entirely estranged from the family due to self-exile and possibly bad blood between him and Norma at some point during his downfall#(I actually do think that it's funny that the Once-ler's youngest design purposefully draws some comparison between him & the Truffula tree#Only for the character theorized to be his daughter to also evoke some Truffula tree imagery in her design)#ANYWAYS that was a theory for about as long as the movie was out - Normaler (the ship) was a thing for as long (if not longer) than Oncest#And was present enough that there were like actively flame wars between the two groups of shippers#Like literally I directly remember this it's so insane to me that no one ever brings this up when talking about the shipping in this fandom#BUT THEN!!!! The Lorax comes out on DVD. The fandom rejoices and everyone takes pictures of themselves buying or holding the DVD.#If you dig far enough and I haven't deleted it yet you might find mine. I was in full cosplay wig and all.#Anyways - we have the movie in HD now!! No more cam rip footage!!!#And now we can take high-quality screenshots that truly show off the detail of the backgrounds in this movie#(The fandom loved to gush about how detailed and well-designed the movie's backgrounds were - that wasn't just a throwaway transition)#Only - what's this?????#In one of the shots at the end of the movie - we very briefly get to see the inside of the Once-ler's lurkim - like the living room#AND THERE - IN THE BACKGROUND - ONLY VISIBLE IN HD#IS A PHOTOGRAPH OF A WOMAN WHO SUSPICIOUSLY HAS THE EXACT SAME SILHOUETTE AS NORMA#Normaler fans rejoice and 'Grandpa Once-ler' theory is accepted into canon (or - more accurately - 'implied canon') by most fans#So yes - for those keeping track - while the evidence wasn't as concrete as it could have been#The Once-ler is implied to have been the father of Ted's mom in the movie
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Baby boy brother birthday photos from last year that I just realized I never uploaded!
#cats#also hopefully it's not weird to still post photos of George (the brown cat) even after his death a little while ago. I just have so many#beautiful old pictures of him that I still love but just never had the time to sort through or upload (my cat photos folder on my#computer had like 450 pictures in it or something lol... SO many). I feel like it's kind of just honoring or appreciating him#and not actually strange or anything. like what am I supposed to do. delete them?? I want to share them still because he is beautiful and#perfect ! idk. aNYWAY. Also this is their 2022 birthday when they turned 14 years old. (even though I think when I posted#their 2021 bday I might have said they were 14 then too. I was off by a year lol). 2023 when they turned 15 I unfortunately#was feeling kind of sick at the time and didn't really have the energy to do the decorations like I usually do. So they just got a few#treats and stuff. But I didn't know that would be george's last birthday lol. :/#They also do not really know or care though. they're cats who cannot process it or know the concept of birthdays so. eh#I still have no idea how these got lost on the computer though. Like I had them fully edited ready to post but just sitting in a folder??#Since MARCH 2022 lol... ??? the folder was in another folder of pictures so maybe that's how I overlooked it#But it's my 'once every 4 months computer organizing and clean out time' so I was going tghrough looking for pictures#I could drafts posts out of or sort or etc.#They got lots more treats for this birthday because one of my friends actually game me a few gifts for them#elderly boys.!!!!#I used to write in the little caption/image description sections to talk about them all individually but at some point tumblr broke that#feature and for so long they never saved or weren't visible so I stopped doing them and just ramble a bunch in the tags instead#but I kind of miss them. Thinking about old posts of the cats where I commented on each photo individually too lol.. the good ole days
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essektheylyss · 1 year
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Safety tools for games are very well and good and if you and your group need them you should absolutely use them, but sometimes the way people talk about them feels like they are using those tools as a straight-up substitute for, like, working to develop interpersonal skills and the capacity for talking openly with friends.
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This whole train derailment thing in East Palestine, Ohio is so horrific.
And those toxic chemicals got into the Ohio River!
And I heard people saying that there was danger that it could possibly get into another body of water?
Apparently, this is going to affect 10% of the country's water supply, as things are? (According to one comment I saw, anyway.)
The place really has become the next Chernobyl, and everything has been handled so badly! (I feel if this had happened in a bigger state, that wouldn't have happened. And I strongly feel they should have evacuated everyone on day one.)
And no one's talking about it! In fact, at first they were covering it up and tried to arrest at least one reporter on the job of reporting the truth (finally more people are starting to discuss all of this, but still not as many as you would think. Especially with the massive ramifications this could have for so many!)
And why hasn't the president or any of the big wigs talked about this or done anything about it? Why didn't people in hazmat suits knock on the people in East Palestine's doors to tell them to evacuate when they finally did give them that order, instead of acting so blasé? You know if it was a place that people actually cared about, people would do so much more. I'm disgusted with my country.
#and it sounds like the whole thing might have happened because the railroad workers had gone on strike because they wanted safer worker#conditions and sick days. something that the president denied them. which in turn led to this tragedy#and also because. like. the railroad lines/tech is really ancient stuff that hasn't been updated since the civil war?#basically. as always. greed won out over safety measures and now we have this to thank for it#i guess people are also worried that acid rain could come from this. from that massive black cloud that's still over east palestine ohio#you know what? i wasn't going to admit this for many reasons. and maybe i still shouldn't. i might come back and delete this tag#but i'm from ohio. not from this city. but guess who still has to worry about all of this now affecting her (like the water not being safe)#and is furious about it and how everything's been handled? this girl#at this point there's a good chance i may die from cancer somewhere down the line from the water i've already ingested (that was#contaminated) since the derailment happened. before they were upfront about just how bad all of this was#and now i'm even MORE mad. in some ways. upon rewatching this one video i had before and realizing i'd gotten some of the context of it#wrong before. like apparently they've let some people come BACK to live in the town if they have nowhere else to go. being like 'carry on.#there's nothing to see here!' when that is NOT okay. when the town is still SO VERY TOXIC and hazardous to their health. and. tbh. the#government should probably be flipping the bill for them to be staying elsewhere for their safety at the moment
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marshmellowtea · 11 months
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sometimes i think about the tma fandom and get genuinely furious like y'all really let the predominant interpretation of these characters be "jon (a character overwhelmingly portrayed as a moc) is a feral dirty man who's constantly messing up and needs to be straightened out by his female coworkers (who we've flattened out into two dimensional caricatures who are the Reasonable Onestm with no flaws of their own and also hi did we mention one of them is a literal cop who was complicit in excusing her partner's police brutality? no? we're just ignoring that cuz she's canonically a woc so we have to flatten her into the one with the braincell? okay) and his boyfriend (who is overwhelmingly portrayed as white and who can do no wrong in the fandom's eyes despite showing classic signs of emotional abuse in the final season AND whose trauma constantly gets treated as More Valid than jon's, especially regarding their upbringings)"
and tbh canon did very little to dispel these interpretations either especially with that weird framing of the main moral dilemma in the final few episodes and that makes me furious too lmao
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binders-and-beanies · 2 months
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Doin bad again folx
#might delete later I’m just wide awake and miserable#summer bill came out today and it’s $7100 not including housing which will be $2400#literally dunno how im gonna pay for that and my dad is. adding to the emotional turmoil of it all#not able to get a loan at least not before the bill is due#able to get aid luckily but again who knows when or how much#my bday is tomorrow and for months I’ve been like please just let my bday be a good day i need one#i need some hope. not that I haven’t had good experiences lately bc I have. but nothing that lasts#nothing i get to feel good about for more than a day before a new problem drops#I need to enjoy my birthday without feeling this deep dark dread and fear and fucking guilt and hopelessness#I have fun plans for today And tomorrow and I’m grateful but honestly stressed about that too#bc it’s gonna be a lot + bc of all I need to do outside of that#+ I don’t get to spend my bday w friends the way I want like I have one friend Maybe coming w me#my bday is supposed to feel celebratory and instead it feels like absolutely forcing some illusion of choice or joy in my life#on top of it all. the most peaceful I usually ever feel is in bed w my partner and now my body won’t even let me hold or be held by them#currently laying next to them not touching them so I at least don’t keep them up w how physically miserable I am rn#I’m literally always physically miserable at this point and it feels like spring is never gonna come and provide any relief#but it’s like can I at least be cozy w them. nope instead I’m wide awake facing various horrors#despite being permanently exhausted and falling asleep in class after 40 ounces of coffee#Im just. so fucking unhappy in life rn dude I don’t want life to be like this forever with the constant threat of it getting much worse#fucking shred of joy in this godforsaken world: the sleep noises they r making rn#mine#txt#vent post#suicidal ideation tw#<- cry for help
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queen-lance · 2 years
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Listen... I really enjoy Wally's friendship with the original Titans, but I can't be the only one who thinks he's really OOC in almost every Titans related title, right?
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jojotier · 6 months
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3, 10, 25!
3. Favorite musical artist / group you started listening to this year?
I started listening to more Lil Nas X. Dude fuckin rules
10. Something that made you cry this year?
Fun fact! I recorded this one!
So I was fucking around in my local library's recording booth trying to improv for a podcast idea I had to figure out the voice I wanted to use and finally settled on playing Lee. I don't remember how but somehow I just spontaneously burst into fucking tears, like full on sobbing water sliding down my face Ghibli tears, utter panic grief tears as if I'd actually found the dead body of a little old man in some far off futuristic recording studio. Lowkey didn't know I could do that
25. Did you create any characters (in games, art, or writing) this year? Describe one
I created MANY characters (as is my nature) but definitely the one that I have in my brain rn is Luniel "Lou" Ravenwing, the former demon King who is now the gap moe butch husband of the shepherdess Synia of Yeld and step-girlfather to prophetically powerful magician, Syl! She's so fucking awkward and stoic but she's trying So Fucking Hard. She loves her little family.
You can read about her protecting her family from the exploitation of the Crown in a long-ass oneshot I wrote unprompted in a 6 hr fugue state here!
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rawliverandgoronspice · 6 months
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help I'm having a case of "game got out, many complicated feelings, beer in a dingey hotel room by the highway on my own", we'll get through it but I might cry about it a little bit at some point
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nerdsandbabyteeth · 1 year
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Constantly trapped between I can’t wait to live away from my family and spend more time alone because I feel like my thoughts will have time to settle and I will lose my mind if I live alone because I am starting to lose a sense of self this week simply because two of my friends are away and I don’t speak to anyone much in school.
#noggin time#I also cannot stand the fact that people I know follow me online or people I respect even#because I have a constant nagging feeling I’m completely and utterly embarrassing I see people posting abt things in their life and like#venting or whatever and I could never do that I think bc so many people follow me that I see face to face#I mean I’m doing this right now but tumblr is it’s own beast I have like one person I know irl on here I think#also it’s not like I have no friends I still talk to teachers and other people but it’s my best friend who I meet every morning and my new#friend I made this year who is in all the same free periods as me and also likes talking about tv shows so it’s like two people I talktomost#if this were a therapy session which it now is I would trace back my feeling of pure unfiltered embarrassment at simply being online back to#when I used framecast when I was like 9 and I drew a character inspired by someone’s oc and they vague posted quite civil abt it like please#don’t copy my ocs guys and I cried about it for hours and hours and I’ve never been the same since not to sound dramatic but it’s true#I delete Instagram every 3 days because it starts to make me feel physically unwell and then I re-download it because I miss everyone#I didnr consider i might have some sort of mental issues other than autism until recently because I just convinced myself this isn’t a prope#r issue I should just get over it but at this point it’s violently affecting my moods when I’m not immediately talking to anyone
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beeapocalypse · 10 months
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learning how to code shimeji-ee stuff. hackerman
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floral-hex · 10 months
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lol as soon as I match with someone on tinder, I delete the app because I’m a scaredy cat and don’t want to go through the mortifying ordeal of being known 😅
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mcalhenwrites · 8 months
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Seriously, I wish I knew what I was doing wrong with my writing, tho, bc if I want to be a career author, why can't I get anyone to engage with what I share for free? Isn't that a sign of being EXTEMELY BAD AT THIS?! (And yeah, lots of my followers aren't active, some might be bots that slipped through, and people miss things on their dashes, but most of the time, I get notifs for reblogging other people's writing from the couple of hundred who must still be active out of nearly 1k. Whatever I post? Not wanted.) And please don't "write for yourself" at me if you see this, bc I've been writing for over 30 years and couldn't name anyone else I am doing it for. Even with gift fics, I don't write anything I don't want to. Edit: Also like... it's hard to express these feelings and not go, "ugh, shut up shut up" to myself, but... I can't really keep going on like this (with the nonstop only-ever-experience-failure* part), I just can't. *Some people never do anything but fail, we try and try and try and maybe maybe maybe it'd help to be believed that when we can't swim on our own, we drown Another edit: I just... I want to be good enough, and I want to be happy, and I want time and spoons to write, and I want to stop waking up scared bc things keep getting worse and I can't save myself.
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exopelagic · 9 months
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THAT GUY WAS A US FIGURE SKATER
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