Just thinking about that theory that byler would save the world. When you think about it, isn't that beautiful? Isn't it absolutely beautiful that after years of trying and failing to get rid of the supernatural, the upside down, the demogorgons, the mindflayer and vecna, after years of pain and suffering and bloodshed and death and violence and destruction.. After all of that, after fighting back has never been a permanent solution, isn't it so beautiful that the way they finally win is by these two boys accepting and expressing their love for each other? Isn't it beautiful that they love each other so much that they can save the world together just because of the fact they're together? I don't know, I think that's really beautiful :)

ok so hear me out but I need mike in the upside down calling out for will like how el and will both called for mike (their love interest) while they were in the upside down

rip to whatever episode the byler kiss is in bc once that’s on my screen I’m gonna have to pause, get up and walk around trying not to scream, and then sit down and watch it at least two more times while pinching myself so I don’t pass out

You know what I would kill for in s5 of stranger things???

Will and Mike having a really heartfelt conversation towards the end of the season (prob about the painting) and then Mike goes “You love me?” His voice is filled with wonder and love and he has a smile on his face. For some reason Will isn’t scared and he works up the courage to say “I didn’t say it.” Mike looks at Will as if he’s the most beautiful thing in the world and says “You didn’t have to.”

My Mother's Unbiased Byler + Milkvan Opinions - Viewing ST for the 1st Time!

(UPDATE)

My Mama has now witnessed Stranger Things in its entirety. Her favourite season was the third, her favourite characters Hopper and Joyce, her favourite pairing would be those guys too, and her most disliked pairing? Can only assume.

I wanted to write out her thoughts on the second to last episode previously, as she'd held many, but before I knew it we'd finished the whole show and I was forced to an income of NEW opinions which ruled out my memory of any old ones. Shucks. But boy did this lady have much to say. The only way I can break it down is by providing a sample of quotes she'd delivered, in order, a day after having finished the series.

All are just things she said about milkvan and byler, as they're this post's main focus. There's simply much to say about these relationships too, being so up in the air over where they ought be expected to turn out. These are all direct quotes too (as I typed as she talked, unkown to her) so you'll have to excuse the natural way in which some lines come off as unfocused, being written after real time conversations. Let's get into it:

Ok I really don't know whether she likes Mike very much. She actively disliked the guy earlier on, and now her feelings appear to be more mixed. A lot of her discussion was solely around this guy's actions.

"It's almost like he's [Mike] forcing himself like- ok Hopper he was kind of very passionate and kissing, you know he sort of instantly- with Mike, from being obsessed and spending so much time with her [El], suddenly he starts cooling off more and more and suddenly- they even separated right? I mean yeah that was out of his control but he, but he didn't really seem like he missed her you know it's like he just got on with it."

This point caught me off guard. I don't know how much I agree with my mother on this. It made me realize that during Mike and El's separation, there weren't many quiet Mike moments in which he expressed worry for her, beyond a couple that blend into him simply having breakup concerns. Any time Mike mentions distress for her whilst she's away, his talk evolves into him simply anxious over the state of their relationship. As a group, everyone in our Cali gang clearly wanted to save Eleven, but Mike really should have gotten more heartfelt moments in solitude (that means without Will you suffer bros) in which it is demonstrated to the audience that he really does miss her, as someone who is in love. Her being away shouldn't simply come off as a writing excuse for him to vent to Will. There wasn't enough of that tenderness milkvan desperately needs, and if anything I watched was an attempt then it really wasn't translated well - never trumping everyone else's familial or close frienship-like fret for El, never showcasing his concern to come from a more personal place. I mean how hard is it to have him in her room, staring longingly at a photo of hers, with a background composed of soft music. Then literally leaving it at that. I mean that is it. No Will rushing in there to insist, "you can tell her that thing when you see her k? It'll all work out trust me ight, you're the heart you're the HEART!" que affectionate gazes, constructs a byler scene for no reason I guess .

"I mean how do we know that he missed Will? He articulated it. Why didn't he articulate this the same way to El?"

True. I mean the fact that I can't remember a moment after they find El in which milkvan ask oneanother how they are, and communicate how much they missed eachother, does indeed say something. They shared a hug and touch when they first reunited, which was gladly interrupted by Will. That pineapple + pizza thing was not long enough, or sensitive enough, to be their moment. There was clear bonding, but it didn't breach a level of romance and chemistry nearly decently. It's good that they got at least that, I mean we need to know that these guys are at LEAST really close friends. And then the camera just felt like panning over to Will about to burst into tears in a corner. Like huh? Bruv you've now made it so that milkvan's pizza bit leaves a bad taste in our mouths. If I were a milkvan I'd be furious.

"You know what, I think it's done purposefully to create that sort of cold, distant, confused, you know they wanted to make people say he's [Mike] bisexual. For people to question. They want to get people to think that."

My Mama believes writers intentionally soured milkvan for viewers to "confuse" audiences, build up anticipation, make them question milkvan's relationship and wonder if our main man will spin to Will. I agree. They want that good ol' triangle comeuppance.

"They really are trying to bring that across- so that people start thinking Mike, you know he doesn't love El, he loves Will. They're really trying to, make people think that. Giving them [milkvan] a really nitty gritty relationship."

Yup.

"When you're gay. Coming out like that it's- it's terrifying. You have to be very careful. And Will could, he could tell. You know when someone is attracted to you. I think, things became sort of- sort of complicated. And Will sensed, he could feel that Mike is attracted to him. And that's why he could open up like that. Because you can always tell. You know, you just know, so that's why Will was able to confess these things to him [she sees painting scene as a confession, whether Mike realized it or not, and so do I]."

Well damn Mama. And there you have it folks. My.. I'm not gonna call her the h word but.. my- notabigfanofgaythingsandwouldbehappytopretendtheydon'texist mother, perceives Mike as a homosexual kid, and just that. Well bloomin heck that's all the confirmation I need.

I didn't expect this as a turnout, I mean so particularly. My Mama actually didn't like byler - I think. Well. Bloomin heck. She actually enjoyed Vickie x Robin, and this shocked me to my core. I don't know whether this is simply due to her being a fan of Vickie's actress (recognizing her from Anne With an 'E'), but I do know that my mother has a bias in gay relationships and sees ones involving females as more "pure" than that of two males. So her language when describing Will has changed since her realization that he loves Mike for sure (which became undeniable in the van scene). She describes him as being 'obsessed' with Mike, and says writers really wanted to get that obsession across. I agree with Will having been one note during season 4, him hopefully having more time to shine in the approaching season, but I thoroughly disagree with him coming off as obsessive. I suppose our camera man displayed the guy's little glances at Mike so often that my Mama felt it was overdone, and unable to be ignored. I also think she's just avoiding use of the word 'love' when describing anything homosexual.

She still doesn't think Mike demonstrates how much he loves El enough to leave no room for debate. According to her, his moments with her seem surface level. Just as a reminder she does not know my thoughts. She watched that entire 'I love you' thing and still isn't secure in any genuineness of the guy. I believe she supposes that we're intended to acknowledge milkvan's romance, but also probe it.

I now wonder whether my Mama was good enough representation for the average audience, because she actually does own a bias - this being that she usually actively dislikes gay things. So I puzzle over whether her brain overanalyzed any of the boys' highlights, wanting to "expose" their homo intentions. At first things were up in the air, but it became clear that Mike did not pass her gaydar, he was simply too intimate with Will to make that pass. And this wasn't the case in other seasons, she never questioned their friendship til now. She also hasn't acknowledged any supposedly queer relationships besides rickie (vobin?) and byler, meaning that other fan favourites such as elmax, steddie, ronance and such else didn't stand out as gay to her. This doesn't signify those other relationships to not have a chance, I'm elmax's personal cheersquad, it's plainly clear that my mother didn't have a tendency to point at every same sex relationship and yell suspicious. Byler was purely undeniable. You can thank Will's love being canoned for this, otherwise noone would have a need to read into Mike.

I don't know whether she supposes byler to have a chance moreso than the milk in the van, even with Mike's ambiguity. It would seem that as of right now her guess is that watchers are intended to second guess both relationships in order to build up interest. However, she doesn't know how unlikely Will's love life is to turn out negatively seeing as those damn writers manipulated crowds into consistently sympathizing for him. Dunno about the rest of you but that sounds like good news to me.

I have no idea how to close this analysis. Is it an analysis? There's much more I want to say, much more she said, but I fear this to be too jam-packed and aimless as is. I'm writing a third part to my most recent milkthevan failing relationship deep dive, and that'll possibly consist of thoughts I wish to input after gathering so much data from my mother.

I know literally nobody asked but I’m thinking about byler and ASL. Maybe they learn when they’re little so they can communicate when Mike is too overwhelmed for words (autistic Mike Wheeler Real) or even just so they can have conversations right in front of people without them being able to overhear. Then, later down the road, after some incident with the Upside Down, Will loses his hearing and it’s terrifying and lonely and-

And Mike’s already signing and telling him it’s going to be okay, that he’s there for him, and really Will, you’re never going to get any quiet or peace of mind with me around.

Mmm yeah. Byler sign language.

This is an interesting Twitter thread:

I was wondering, what if the letter theory is true? And what if El is the one who finds and reads that letter, addressed to Will, ending with "Love, Mike"?

Ngl I would love to hear the couple phone conversations Mike did have with Will in between S3 and S4.

How awkward were they? How long? What did they talk about? Did Mike tell Will about Hellfire? Did they ever talk about that Christmas meetup that never transpired? Did Mike fill up the calls with meaningless small talk, or did he let the silences run long, so he could listen to the sound of Will breathing?

i don't want mike wheeler to have a big revelation about his crush on will in season 5. i think he's completely aware of it by now and trying to accept himself after what will said to him in the van. my perfect scenario would be the whole party + the babysitter's club to slowly piece together mike's crush on will because he's becoming more and more obvious about it. that ending in el confronting mike and breaking up with him before agreeing they are better off as friends. clearly will doesn't realize this because he's completely sure his best friend is Straight and In Love with his sister.

Based on a post I made a while ago

I call this one “crying into your pillow when the person you are in love with moved to the other side of the country, and doesn’t even know you love them”

st5 theory/byler rant

So we all know that the Duffer brothers love visual metaphors & details.. well I've been analyzing this photo for a little and I think this scene is about an enlightening and hopefully conversation. As you can see there's a lot of harsh shadows except for the big ray of light shining through the window. Now if for example Mike is talking to Will this could represent the dark past of their relationship but that they still have a lot of hope to grow together instead of apart and that no matter how much they fight the core of their relationship is made of pure love.

Mike not having a birthmark might be because of byler.

For people who don't know, originally the Duffer's wanted Mike to have a large birthmark on his face but they ended up scrapping that idea for an unknown reason, but I think I might know the reason.

All the kids from the main party in season one are all ridiculed, hurt or made fun of for something about themselves, something out of their control

Lucas is bullied for being black, Dustin is bullied for having a disability, El is treated like a lab rat because she has powers, Will is bullied for being gay and Mike.. Not really anything, he's bullied but there's not an obvious reason for it like with the others.

I'm going to use Will as an example for what I'm about to say, I think Mike is also bullied for being queer even if he doesn't know it. Will is absolutely not open about his sexuality, he keeps that hidden as much as he can and yet people bully him for it anyway because they can tell there's something different about him. The same could easily be true for Mike as well, he's bullied because they can tell something is different about him. If they had given Mike a birthmark however, everyone would assume he's being bullied for the birthmark, not for being queer, and that's not the story they're trying to tell with Mike here.

I noticed a similarity between “Stranger Things” and “But I’m a cheerleader”

In “But I’m a cheerleader”, Megan and Graham go to a gay bar with some friends. In “Stranger Things” Mike and Will go to a school dance with some friends. Megan gets asked to dance by a girl and Will gets asked to dance by a girl. Will and Megan don’t want to dance with the girl. But Mike urges Will to dance and Graham urges Megan to dance. Both Megan and Will go to dance with the girl and fake a smile while dancing. Mike and Graham watch sadly from afar, regretting urging their love interest to dance with someone else. Then, they both find someone else to dance with to hide the pain. Mike dances with Eleven and Graham dances with Sinead. But deep down, Graham likes Megan and wanted to dance with her and Mike likes Will and wanted to dance with him. Since Megan and Graham become a canon couple in the movie, maybe that hints at byler becoming a canon couple too.

come on, guys, the show litteraly showed us that Mike Wheeler is a boy liker. they used show, not tell, and yall need to be looking more.

Van scene, yeah, we focus on Wills dialog, the painting, the stares, but what if we paid more attention to the background? Now we know they spent a whole day filming this scene to get it perfect, the lighting, the angles, the lines, everything. all the lighting and shadows were artificially made, placed there on purpose to make the scene show you more than it was saying.

Surfer boys van, behind Mike wheeler throughout this whole scene, the 'boys' red writing is always behind him when the camera is directly in front of him. Then, when the camera is angled to him, we see shadows. The shadow of the 'boys' writing is nearly always beside him throughout the whole scene. I don't think we ever see the word 'surfers' shadowed behind him, but if we do, it's always accompanied by 'boys/boy' and never on its own like boys/boy is. we know that this scene is a indirect coming out from Will, he's using his emotions but Els name to say how he feels, this is really the first time it's shoved in the audiences face like this, but the 'boys' is never behind him at all. Will is the tell. He's telling the audience/Mike how he feels, while Mike is the show. the background shows the audience how he feels.

and all of this is accompanied by when he was looking for someone to take Lucas's place in D&D that in the science room the background has the phrase "women in science" written pretty big behind him and a literal flame Bursts in front of him.

this is also done in the same montage were we see a Mike POV shot in the wrestlers room and he's looking at the two boys wrestling and they literally have Bowl cuts like Will.

this is all without pointing out the 'one way' sign pointing into his closet or the rainbows associated with him or even how the triangle on his jacket he wears throughout most of s4 is nearly always pointing at Will, he will literally move around a whole room just so that the triangle is pointing at him, and that's without taking into regard how the costume designer put triangles on Robin's clothing to signify her being Queer.

Mike Wheelers' identity is shown, not told.

(I also wanna say I told my media teacher about these things and she told me these were all film techniques that 100% point to Mike being queer and In love wit Will sooo)

Season 5 coming back full circle to season 1 and the general theme of subverting tropes

In every season we have characters try to make the plot conform to a common trope only for that trope to get subverted.

Season 2

The expected love triangle would’ve been Max, Mike and El but that’s not how that went. Though when El runs away from home and visits the school, she sees Max and Mike talk and pulls Max off her skateboard. El tries to make the plot conform to the obvious choice for a love triangle but of course we know that’s not what’s actually happening.

Max, Dustin and Lucas form the actual love triangle of the season. A LOT of people were expecting Max to choose Dustin so them ending up together would’ve been the expected outcome. And that’s also where we get Steve as the character that tries to make the plot conform to the obvious outcome. He encourages Dustin and gives him relationship advice, setting up the plot to end with Max and Dustin being a couple but that’s not what happens. Max chooses Lucas!

Leaving season 2 we have El trying to push the trope of the jealous girlfriend

Season 3

And starting season 3 we have El and Max become best friends -> not conforming to an expected rivalry.

Steve and Nancy are broken up and Steve has trouble finding a girl he likes and then there’s Robin. Robin and Steve were the obvious endgame couple and we even have Dustin pushing Steve towards her constantly. He’s the one trying to make the plot conform to the obvious. Dustin puts the thought in Steve’s head that Robin is the perfect girl for him. We get Steve and Robin open up to each other and holding hands on a roof, totally hinting at the fact that they’re gonna end up together but that’s definitely not what happens. It’s revealed that Robin is a lesbian and she rejects Steve.

Season 4

Yet again we have Dustin trying to push Steve towards a girl but in vain because while the love triangle isn’t completely resolved yet, Nancy chooses Jonathan in the end of season 4.

For the next one we have Will being the one that tries to make the plot conform to the gay rejection trope. Will is self sabotaging by pushing Mike and El together which evidently isn’t working because El doesn’t talk to Mike in the end of season4. We also get Will trying to make the plot conform to the expected ending of the grand love confession saving the world which……..yeah, didn’t at all happen! Quite the opposite actually.

Season 5

Realize how I left out season 1? It’s because we’re coming back full circle to it with season 5. The obvious direction of the plot of season 1 is Mike and El falling in love. That’s what’s expected since episode 1 and throughout the whole season we don’t just have one but four characters trying to push that narrative: Dustin, Lucas and Nancy push Mike towards El and plant the thought inside his head that he’s supposed to be in love with her. So Mike himself starts to push that narrative too. But that’s not what’s going to happen.

-> It follows a pattern: there is an obvious outcome, there are characters trying to make the plot conform to that obvious outcome and in the end something else happens instead! Season 5 will most likely pick up on season 1’s expected outcome of El and Mike falling in love and finally subvert it. It will be revealed that Mike and El have never actually been in love. They’re gonna break up and while El will get her amazingly bitchin’ independence arc, Mike will end up with Will <3

Y'know what? Before Stranger Things s4 aired, it was pretty much labeled as the make it or break it season for Byler.

For up to three seasons, Byler was easily disregarded as a delusional ship. There was enough for it to make clear sense in people who really focused on it - but in terms of the rest of the audience, the attention on Mike and Will as a pairing just wasn't enough. Everyone acknowledged that if season 4 of Stranger Things needs to send fans signs that Byler won't be endgame, they'll do it that season.

I set myself up to be ready for any disappointment if that was the case. So the season aired. And y'know what I got?

I got Mike and Will spending the entire season together. I got confirmed feelings on Will's side. I got shade thrown at Milkvan as their every 'happy' scene together put focus on Will. Byler became, not a possible idea, but imposible to ignore.

When Volume 1 first aired my little brother got to it first, and when I asked him if it was Byler'esque (we'd had a bet) he reluctantly said, "sigh yeah...".

Years before I'd asked my father his thoughts on Mike and Will's relationship, he'd responded saying it was strictly platonic.

After season 4, he just treats it as canon.

"It's just obvious now, the show wants to set them up".

Guys. My father, a man who has a hard time excepting anything un-het in film, was completely convinced in their relationship after watching season 4.

Do you think this should have been the impression he got if they didn't want to bring light to this pairing? The impression any audiences should have gotten?

Byler is now WIDELY popular and recognizable, it's actually DEBATABLE if they'll get together over Milkvan.

I feel like longtime Bylers always saw them that way so they've noticed the change a bit less but, sitting down and actually thinking about it, that's crazy. We were the uncanon queer ship, now we're literally halfway canon are you kidding me? Should this have been the writing choice if they didn't want people disappointed in Mike and El's staying together? No! If Milkvan is endgame then they had an easy 'out card' to not disappointing Bylers. Un 👏 canon 👏 it 👏 in season 👏 4 👏. It would have been EASY. Give Will another set up interest, make it clear that Mike and El belong together. Bylers would have continued to be seen as delusional, and most audiences would have continued rooting for Milkvan. We all know that that isn't the case now. Now if Byler doesn't happen, I daresay the majority of the audience will be baffled. And Byler still continues to get milked! Interviews hyping them up, blooming signpost. It's hype that doesn't need to be there if it's all pointless.

Now, I actually lost a little bit of faith in Byler. It makes just so much sense, yet it almost makes too much sense in a way that it seems too good to be true. But this post is a thought that keeps me up at night. Forget queer bait, it'd be the worst writing decision possibly ever made if this stuff wasn't meant to canon them - literally soured Milkvan for watchers.

So did season 4 of Stranger Things 'make' or 'break' Byler? It efing made it man.