Tim I Wish You Were Born A Girl (the song) is so byler coded

I love the idea of robin and steve seeing will and mike interact in s5 and js side eyeing eachother

I feel as though there is a desire to completely dichotomize byler when they don’t need to be polar opposites in order to fit together. They are individuals, but it’s their differences AND their similarities that make their dynamic what it is

Mike's definition of normal went from this, caring for his best friend when he went missing (regardless of the reason people said he went missing) and willing to do anything to find him:

To this:

A.k.a., what Mike used to think was normal vs what society taught him 'normal' was.

Bonus:

before i fully realized i was bi, i used to say stuff like, “you know, in another life, i think i could’ve been bisexual!” 

and idk i feel like that’s the kind of dumb shit that mike wheeler would say that would cause like... lucas and max and literally everyone to turn and look at the camera as if they’re on the office 

in 2011 the first case of compulsory heterosexuality exhibited by a man was reported. and that man was mike ross.

mike accepting, loving, and celebrating will's otherness while rejecting his own is so . it's literally Soooooo like i can't see through my tears rn jgenuinely . he's so......... i can 't do this icant finish the post he's so . MICHAEL.............

there is no heterosexual explanation for this. only homo.

ok so here’s how i think this whole situation went. El tells Mike about Will making a painting and about how she thinks it’s for a girl and then for some reasons they show us Mike’s reaction then at the airport there’s Mike’s weird reaction to Will trying to hug him (was it jealousy because he thinks Will likes a girl? idk) then he notices the painting and asks Will about it (hoping that it was actually for him?) and Will probably thought Mike didn’t care about the painting cuz he was acting weird so he just told him that it was just a painting acting like it was nothing important and Mike went back to thinking it was for a girl, at rink o mania Will thinks Mike wasn’t paying attention to him at all but it turns out Mike was paying attention to him and told him that he ruined the whole day cuz he was “being a douche to El” but Will calls him out and asks him if he was mad cuz he didn’t talk to Mike cuz he understood what that was really about and Will thinks that Mike only called him a couple times but it turns out Mike tried to call him many times but the line was always busy and kept complaining to Dustin about it(and probably wrote him letters but never sent them) and then Will asks him “and us?” (while talking about their friendship) and Mike (who thinks Will is straight and likes a girl) took it romantically and felt the need to clarify that they’re friends and then after Will says that they used to be best friends the camera pans back to Mike and he starts talking again (and in the closet starts playing after Mike starts talking again). now let’s take a look at this scene in the desert (from @mikeandwillel ) Mike relates to what Will is saying cuz he’s scared of hurting El with what he actually wants to say (he’s gay)

In the van Will gives him the painting and he went back to thinking it really was for him (yes it was) but then Will lied to him and told him that El commissioned it (no she didn’t) but then Will started talking about El’s feelings(his feelings) and since Mike already used El’s name as a way to disguise why he was mad at Will he understood what Will actually meant and that he loves him back so when they went to the Surfer Boy Pizza place he tried to break up with El and tell her what he was too afraid to tell her when they got into a fight but then Argyle interrupted them and then the topic totally changed so he thought it was best to tell her later. look at this parallel (from @mikeandwillel )

“i care for you.. so much”

Things got bad and he didn’t know what to do and then Will told him that he’s the heart and reminded him about what Will told him in the van and he probably thought that he was being stupid for hoping Will was talking about himself in the van and for hoping he felt the same way

 and now El was in danger and he had to act fast and so he told her what he thought she wanted to hear what he thought would save her (but El knows he lied). In an interview Millie said that El needs to find out who she is  without Mike and that at the end of s4 she found out she’s her own superhero(which is why i think she’s gonna be the one who breaks up with Mike) and remember how s4 ended?

with the 2 couples and the the future couple(?) together on the hill which parallels this scene oh and those are the same flowers Mike gave her at the beginning of s4 (the Duffers personally handpicked them to make sure of it)

post byler first kiss concept:

mike: people like us dont get happy endings will

will: it’s literally the end of the world and this is the happiest ive ever been

Mike wrote dozens of letters to Will when the Byers were in Lenora. He signed each on with a love Mike. He never sent them, he was too ashamed. He'd cry himself to sleep reading these letters every night. He could stand himself for loving Will, but he couldn't blame anyone but himself for loving him

“THEY WERE INSANE FOR THAT”

and it’s js mike looking at will

bro is in love

no but the fact that the script is all in Will’s pov too... I mean, from the way they shot the whole season you could tell that the point were Will’s feelings, but this just cements that. 

The fact that Mike has no directions in the script it’s because the point is that Will would not know what Mike is thinking either. The only directions are very blatant things like Mike throwing away El’s letter, which is something Will can see and take at face value. But Mike’s expressions and feelings and thoughts? Not there. 

We don’t know how Mike feels because WILL DOESN’T KNOW. 

Will is the pov for the whole thing, Will is also, may I suggest, an unreliable narrator. 

In the Rink-o-mania scene he says that Mike is not interested in anything he has to say and that the guy basically ignored him, but Mike goes “you were moping, rolling your eyes” etc. which tells us that Mike was NOT ignoring him at all. In fact, he was paying very close attention to Will’s moods? 

May I suggest that Mike has felt like a bit of an asshole for the whole season because WILL felt neglected by him? 

The only scene where we get Mike from a pov that isn’t Will’s this season is the fight between Mike and El. But I’m ready to bet whatever you want that even in that scene, the pov is El’s. And she also feels neglected. 

We are not being given any insight in Mike’s feelings at all. He’s behaving werirdly and no one around him can phantom WHY. Everyone is just unhappy with him. 

For the whole duration of S4 we have Will trying to guess what Mike’s problem is and ASSUMING he just needs reassurence to fix his relationship with El, which has him pushing Mike even further towards El. But was that Mike’s issue? 

What stands out to me is that Mike never actually tells Will what it is that he wanted to say to El. He’s vague about it when they have that heart-to-heart on top of the car, until he voices something that has probably been plaguing him for a while during the van scene: what if it was just mere conincidence? What if it was never fate? What if it was puppy love all along and he just got confused? 

We assume that he’s saying that because he’s insecure about himself, because that’s how WILL TAKES IT. But what if Mike is actually voicing concern about how he truly feels about El? What if he’s doubting he loves her but in a redundant way because he feels like he’s the bad guy for feeling that way? 

And then when Will tells him that El is always gonna need him he also starts to think that he’s just being insecure. 

Still, when the time comes once again to say ILY to El, he hesitates. Whatever issue he had is not resolved. He still cannot say it. So Will comes in, reminds him of the whole discussion they had in the car and pushes Mike to say it, because he’s just being insecure, right? He needs to be more confident in how he feels (supposedly). So he says it. He repeats it over and over and Will feels crushed. Here you go, he loves her. 

Except... does he? Or is he just overcompensating with the seven ILYs? It’s not like he could back down at that point. El was on the verge of dying, if that what was going to keep her alive, of course he HAD to say it. 

No matter how you think about it, the whole thing feels like Mike is hurting Will almost on purpose over and over because we take everything in the same way Will does. 

But is that truly how Mike feels? 

The truth is that we are given zero insight into Mike’s feelings that aren’t tainted with Will’s perception of the situation. 

And the fact that they keep Mike’s feelings so hidden is actually a very important plot point, because there was no NEED for it. If the point of it all had been to make Will suffer and make the audience feel bad for him, having Mike’s thoughts and feelings be explicit would have made us feel MORE pity for Will. If Mike loving El had been evident and descripted, we would feel even more for him. But the point is that IT’S NOT. 

His thoughts are concealed and that only tells me one thing: that we would be surprised of what he’s actually thinking. That what goes on his head is NOT what comes out of his mouth. There’s a disconnection and we are not meant to know what it entails YET.

Mike tried to ignore the way his heart was still beating in his ears as he turned and opened the closet to fish out an extra pillow and a blanket. He spread them out on the floor once he located them, and then he sat down. When he looked back up, Will was still sitting on the bed, staring at him. Mike flushed under his gaze, unsticking his tongue from the roof of his mouth as he tried to work up the bravery to just get this over with, already, “What?” Will’s jaw trembled for a second, and then he said, “Are you mad at me?” And that was not even remotely in the wheelhouse of what he was expecting Will to say, “What?” 

I finally posted part 2 of this little ficlet I wrote last year, hope you enjoy!

No matter what happens, I literally never learn.

I just keep deluding myself into thinking that I have to hear the other side of a debate to be completely sure of my opinion (I do this a lot bc it’s hard for me to form strong opinions for some reason). Then I’ll read something stupid, but since they said it so confidently, I’ll start to second guess myself. Like girl… you know damn well that not all takes are equal.

This is about a post I saw where they said that they think mike has no internalized homophobia btw

you're so me actually i do this too