what milevens refuse to acknowledge and will have to begrudgingly accept is that the events leading to the monologue were ultimately propelled by will’s lie about the painting, and a major lie at that. like they can brag about their love confession all they want but it’s an undeniable fact that the monologue wouldn’t have existed without the van scene happening beforehand. it was basically a domino effect of events (foreshadowed by argyle quite literally saying “mike wheeler, your dominoes are gonna fall” before the whole veiled love confession in the van).

mike was being honest? sure, but it would only be because he felt true love from will’s feelings for him (disguised as el’s) and thought that because of this, he could finally give el the kind of love she wanted from him. he didn’t just magically gain the ability to say “i love you”, he needed a key motivator in order to do that, which was ultimately based on a lie. to make this apparent, they wrote in the entire “you’re the heart” dialogue from will right before mike delivered his monologue, as a callback to the van scene and as a way of reminding the audience of will’s speech to mike. but what really makes me believe that the van scene and mike’s monologue are supposed to be associated with each other is the fact that being different and you’re the heart are basically two halves of a whole and form one song when combined.

i realized that all these discussions about whether mike intended to be genuine or was consciously lying in the monologue, don’t actually matter in the greater scheme of things because at the end of the day, mike’s words were majorly influenced by will giving mike this image of el that didn’t actually exist. mike’s last string of hope in saving his relationship with el (which is basically just him being afraid she’d not want to be a part of his life anymore if they truly broke up) happened because will lied to him about her feelings, and although will had good intentions, he had a false perception of mike and el’s relationship and how el truly saw mike. because of this, mike thought that his words were what el truly needed from him.

all of this will come back to bite the entire love triangle in the ass when mike inevitably learns the full truth behind the painting in season 5. because really, there’s no reason for them to make this entire storyline so elaborate if they don’t have something major planned for it. the painting either would've genuinely come from el so that the basis of mileven’s “love” would’ve been more authentic, or they wouldn't have made will lie about the painting and had mike gently reject him so that they could focus on letting him move on in season 5. hell, they would’ve closed the curtains in this plot already and gotten it over with sooner if they didn’t care enough about it. so why are they hellbent on dragging it out into the last season? because something will trigger the lies behind the painting to come out overflowing, and it would have a such a huge impact and actually alter the relationships in the love triangle.

maybe some people still don’t see the byler endgame vision, but you can’t deny that mileven’s relationship was doomed the moment mike was motivated by a lie to confess to el. because it automatically makes his words inauthentic and not strong enough. also, you don’t solve a couple’s relationship problems by heavily involving the second love interest and making him do so much work for them, unless you’re planning on setting up a huge payoff for him as a reward for his selflessness. everytime the writers had the other love interest attribute their acts of love to the partner of the person they have feelings for (like with jonathan telling nancy that steve took her home in order to make her feel secure in their relationship instead of telling the truth), said selfless love interest ended up with the person they wanted. because writing it this way makes the second love interest look more deserving of the love from the person in the middle of it all. because they’re the one shown to exert so much effort instead of their actual partner. this is not me trying to discredit el (because i know very well that she already did so much more than mike when it comes to the dedication put into keeping their relationship going), but more so me trying to point out the writing choices in the show and why they decided to put el in a situation where she wouldn’t be able to do all of what will has done for mike in season 4. why they decided that it would be will who managed to reassure mike and give him the exact kind of love he needed, why it was will who understood mike’s troubles and inner turmoils. it was a matter of showing who’s the more compatible partner for mike. let’s be honest, el wouldn’t have been able to understand what mike needed the way will did, because they were always struggling to actually connect with what the other person was trying to express and be on the same page. but will always connected well with mike. will knew that mike was feeling worthless and inferior, so he emphasized to mike how he was a leader/protector that inspired and guided the party. and mike loved hearing all of that, he was completely enamored and we even see him gulping and breathing hard. mike’s relationship with el was making him feel insecure and unneeded, but will was able to dispel that through one single painting and his own feelings for mike. it’s such a blatant way of showing the contrast between two love interests in a love triangle.

i guess one way milevens could disprove this giant piece of evidence and plotline is them desperately hoping that the painting has “fulfilled it’s purpose” and will never be brought up again, which, unfortunately, isn’t happening because the interview below basically confirms that mike learning the full truth behind the painting and will’s feelings for him will be carried over to the final season as a part of will’s journey, and it being resolved would complete his arc.

in a way, the painting was a plot device, but not to fix mileven's relationship, it was a way of setting up mileven’s inevitable falling out and byler getting together where there’d quite literally be no way out and no other satisfying way to resolve this plotline anymore. it would only make sense if this was the intention because the truth literally heavily centers around will’s love for mike and how deep and beautiful it is, while el’s supposed feelings and words that made mike feel loved didn’t directly come from her and was expressed through a lie. byler was already set in stone through the van scene.

I’d like to point out that the “it’s all just a bunch of coincidence” argument is very poor. People say that about anything they don’t like. If we’re using this argument then I could say that everytime Mileven accidentally held hands or touched or any of that lovey dovey stuff that the Mileven fandom goes nuts over is a coincidence, but I have 0 evidence that it’s a coincidence, I’m just saying it is because that’s how I, a biased person on the side of byler, sees it. And I love the Milevens that actually respect us, it’s just the toxic ones that stomp on us or rain on our parade that irritate me.

So I ask skeptical Milevens, why do you think it’s all a coincidence? Because the Duffers have gone on record multiple times saying that nothing in their show is a coincidence, so it’s odd of you to assume that it is, when that goes against everything the duffers have said.

I see a lot of people claim that all of Bylers very romantic coded scenes are just coincidences with out any real evidence solely because they want them to be coincidences.

Reminder that the duffers had to write, revise, have Noah and Finn read at the table read, rehearse, and then film all of Bylers romantic coded scenes. And do you seriously believe that nobody stepped up and said, “Hey, I think some people will start to ship this if you make your two male characters hold hands and look at each others lips.” Like on paper, that sounds romantic. And on screen, it looks romantic too! If the duffers didn’t want byler to be shown as romantic they wouldn’t have put all of that effort into Mike and Will’s romanticly coded scenes in season two. And sure, one could say they were oblivious and didn’t realize that this relationship could be seen as anything more than romantic and that one of their 100 other writers and revisors and producers didn’t step up and say “Is this really what we want to be conveying in this show when they’re just supposed to be friends?” (Which I doubt. The duffers and everyone else on the writing crew knew exactly what they were implying. And if the duffers themselves didn’t, I HIGHLY doubt that someone didn’t step up and point out how romantic some of these scenes are, especially considering multiple of their writers are apart of the lgbtq community which makes it highly more likely that someone would have realized as I’m sure their gay senses are much stronger than those of the cishet writers on the squad. ) However, byler kind of blew up after season two, so if ST didn’t mean for Mike and Will’s relationship to be seen as more than platonic, then why did they continue doing it in season three? And the thing is, we’re not “delusional” for thinking this. Hundreds of thousands of millions of people have pointed this out across all platforms. It stops being a problem with us and “seeing what we want to see” when millions of people see the same, and it becomes the writers problem for even implying that in the first place.

Here’s an example: take Lucas and Dustin. Sure, there are definitely people out there that think or head canon as either as gay, but not nearly as big of a community as the Byler community. The reason is: Lucas and Dustin don’t have queer coding. They haven’t been painted the same way as Mike and Will’s relationship has. Or Jonathan, yeah, people may head canon as him as gay, or even think he actually is, but he doesn’t have any evidence that really points up to the fact that he is, or that he could be.

The duffers aren’t stupid. They wouldn’t have written byler this way if they didn’t want people shipping it. The official ST writer account has acknowledged byler multiple times, before st3 even started filming. They knew what they were doing. If their goal was to portray Mike and Will as a simple platonic friendship, and that all of their queer coded scenes in st2 were just a coincidence, why would they continue to do it in season 3? Queer baiting is real, yes. However like I said before, the st writing team has a lot of queer and lgbtq+ members themselves, not sure why they would want to queer bait when they’re gay/lesbian/bisexual themselves.

The truth is, byler would have never made it this far if it wasn’t meant to be shipped and portrayed like more of a romantic relationship than a platonic one. They would have shut it down awhile ago. They wouldn’t be so ominous about it. Noah and Finn wouldn’t constantly dodge questions about it unless they legally weren’t allowed to answer them. The duffers wouldn’t have been so vague in the ending of season 3 or in any interviews regarding season 3 about byler. Mike and Will wouldn’t have gotten a whole segment in the official ST book, they wouldn’t have held hands! Seriously! They held hands. Did someone seriously not point out how non platonic that was?———

And use the excuse all you want, “Will was just scared. That’s why Mike held his hand.” Okay, well Max and Lucas held hands when they were both scared in the exact same episode but I guess that doesn’t count because they’re a boy and a girl and Mike and Will are two boys. ———-And it’s funny because you KNOW that if Mike promised to go crazy together with El, that would he in every Milevens Instagram bio, it’d be on merchandise, it’d be everywhere. If Mike said meeting El was the best thing he’s ever done, people would be going bat shit crazy over how romantic that is and how they’re so in love. If Mike and El fought and he ran out in the middle of the rain looking for her when he couldn’t even apologize to his real girlfriend who dumped him just hours prior, people would say that Mike was in love with El and how much he cares about her yadda yadda. But that’s the thing. It’s two boys, so apparently it has to be platonic. Because that’s just how it works in their cishet minds. ——I’d like to see a better argument then “it was all a coincidence.” Because that’s not valid. Why? Why do you think it’s all a coincidence? It’s all just fake? Please. Elaborate. Because if these romantic scenes involved Mike and El instead of Mike and Will, then they’d see. Because they didn’t have Finn and Noah rehearse all these romantic coded scenes multiple times for nothing. They literally wrote, revised, edited, rehearsed, and filmed ALL of these scenes and still went through with it. And even in season three when people really started shipping byler, they STILL directed Finn and Noah to look at eachothers lips. They still filmed the rain fight. KNOWING byler shippers existed and KNOWING this would only heighten the amount of byler shippers there are.

The duffers aren’t stupid. This isn’t a surface level show. Everything they do is intentional, they’ve said it themselves. And yes, I agree that some byler proof COULD just be apophenia, but stuff like this? Crazy together? Looking at eachothers lips? Holding hands? I’m the only one that cares about Will? Mike keeping his eyes open in the final Mileven kiss, those aren’t small little things. You’re telling me that they couldn’t find another take for that final Mileven kiss? No. Finn kept his eyes open because he was directed to do so. The duffers are writers and directors for a reason. They went to school for this. So please, I’d like to see some actual argument against byler other than “they said they loved eachother!” “It’s all a coincidence!” I’d like to see people actually counter my arguments with actual evidence. Not just “Finn says they’re in love” not just “Millie ships it!” Because interviews are not evidence. They’re instructed to create hype for the show. If David can lie about hopper being dead, Finn and Millie can lie about Mileven being in love. I don’t want the argument of “it’s been built up for 3 seasons so they won’t destroy it now.” Stancy was built up for 2 seasons and see how that turned out. And Mileven fell more in season three than it went up.

Anyways,, if you’re a polite Mileven, this isn’t for you. I love you with my whole heart. If you’re just vibing, I love you. Ship what you want to ship! Feel free to counter my argument! However, If you’re someone who calls us “delusional”, leave. The doors right there. The cast has talked about how much they hate the ship wars in our fandom, so if you’re just gonna say how stupid we are, don’t let the door hit you on the way out:)

Sorry for long post lol. Love you all

the reason people think its so impossible and crazy for byler to happen is because you lot make it seem more complicated than it actually is when really its so SIMPLE if you take out the heteronormative lens and understand how plotlines are usually written

it’s literally just BASIC STORYTELLING, person A undergoes relationship problems with his partner, we’re explicitly shown them trying to communicate with each other but to no avail because it ends in an argument where gaslighting and lying to each other occurs, and how they don’t actually understand each other (el literally says exactly this to mike, that he’ll never understand her struggles even if he’s also been bullied his entire life). we’re shown that they can’t communicate well with each other. for the rest of the show, person A then runs to person B, the other potential love interest, to seek comfort and open up to him about his problems and insecurities. they show us how person B is able to comfort person A well and person A can actually express himself to him and be vulnerable with his feelings in a way that he’s never shown to be with his actual partner. they can communicate well with each other, showing their compability and how they’re able to connect and understand each other well (i didn’t say it/you didn’t have to). person A then attempts to fix things with his partner with a love confession, but it fails because it was prompted entirely by person B who was the one behind the sentiments that made person A feel loved and needed enough to deliver said love confession. to make matters worse, person A based his love confession and words of encouragement off of the feelings he was made to falsely believe were his partner’s, when those were actually person B’s and they’re two different characters with different experiences and feelings that don’t exactly match up and diverge from each other. a relationship can’t work well if one of the people in it has to be constantly coached through taking the initiative to do something about it by a third party, and especially if this third party is the other love interest and has actually been the one to relieve him of his insecurities and fears in the relationship and not his actual partner, who he should be the one directly communicating with and working things through together.

two whole days after person A’s grand declaration of love, him and his partner still haven’t spoken to each other about their relationship and his partner has only had one off-screen conversation with him about her huge loss. said partner seems to be pointedly distant from him again, but person B does have another private conversation with him where they end up reassuring each other about their fears. once person A finds out that the sentiments of a painting that made him feel all sorts of things and convinced him into finally saying ily to his partner were actually all from person B, with his actual partner having 0 involvement in it, everything will come crashing down then finally falling into place. it’s all right there in PLAIN TEXT, we don’t actually need deep analyses and theories to prove byler endgame because its basically ingrained in the writing. the cinematography, lighting, easter eggs, parallels from movie references, subtext etc etc are just an added bonus of proof!!

byler isn’t this impossibly too-good-to-be-true gay relationship because they’re actually being given the SAME TREATMENT as the straight couples in the show in terms of how they’re being developed to romance territory. they start out as friends and are slowly able to connect with each other more personally (and not actually falling in love at first sight 😙), heart to hearts where the two people involved in the relationship are made to be vulnerable about their feelings and expressing their deep thoughts with each other, getting interrupted and startled out of staring at each other after a lot of their conversations together (they literally only do this with canon couples NEVER ONCE with pairings that are supposed to be just platonic), heck, they basically copy pasted the season 1-2 steve/nancy/jonathan love triangle plot to the season 3-4 el/mike/will love triangle plot where mike/nancy start dating el/steve then they’re accused of being jerks and neglecting their friends and slowly becoming people they’re not to impress their partners, they’re constantly shown to make out and don’t really have meaningful, deeper conversations with each other, most of their scenes are portrayed very unserious/lighthearted unless theyre fighting, the next season they can’t say ily to their partners then they open up to the byers brothers about it on top of a car, jonathan and nancy went to a road trip together just as mike and will were trapped next to each other in the same van for an entire season it’s literally the exact same format like be fucking fr 😭 ITS NOT AS COMPLICATED AS PEOPLE MAKE IT OUT TO BE CAUSE ALL THE DUFFERS HAVE BEEN DOING IS APPLYING THE SAME TROPES AND NARRATIVE STRUCTURES THEY’VE BEEN USING WITH THE STRAIGHT COUPLES IN THE SHOW TO A GAY RELATIONSHIP.

like really just sit and think about how clear the narrative actually is, and if they really wanted to make mileven this endgame main couple that people seem to be so convinced they are, they wouldn't have:

emphasized will’s pain and suffering in all of their moments together. it removes the intimacy in their scenes and inherently drenches them in a negative viewpoint no matter how you look at it

purposefully separated them for an entire season right after the “fight that they couldn’t come back from”, leaving no room for actual communication between them, and then making mike spend the majority of the time with will 💀 (this is a piece of fiction and they’re not REAL PEOPLE btw, they made a conscious choice to write these characters in a way where they literally couldn’t have a single time to talk things through about their conflict, its not just because el “happened” to be busy having her own self discovery arc along with the nina project, they would let them have atleast one uninterrupted moment to communicate with each other if they wanted to (which they seemed to not want since the surfer boy pizza conversation was cut short before it could get to serious territory!)

made will’s words and feelings be the one to make mike feel secure and loved rather than his own girlfriend’s

made the deliberate writing choice of will being the one to push mike to even say anything to el before she could die in vecna’s grasp

not let mileven have a single private moment together except for their fight. they never get to just be alone together like at all!! (and maybe it wouldn’t have been that bad if not for the fact that it’s a stark contrast to how they let will, the other love interest, have like 5 different intimate/private moments with mike 😭)

if this still isn’t enough for you to believe byler could actually be endgame then you’re just being dense on purpose 🫶