personally, i can't wait for the scene from 5x01 "the crawl" where everyone is gathered at hop's cabin with dustin or lucas or someone explaining the concept of a dungeon crawl, and mike excitedly looks at el and goes "maybe i'll get a sword like in your painting!" and el just looks at him like 🤨 and will is awkwardly standing there trying not to make eye contact with mike but they don't have time to unpack that yet because vecna is nearby,, but now mike knows. he knows el didn't commission the painting.
441 notes
·
View notes
Still recovering from the fact that season 4 even happened.
Season 4 episode 2 occurred. Mike couldn't hug Will or write the word "love" to his girlfriend in the same scene. He defended the nature of his and Will's relationship to Will.
He spent the entire season with Will, often isolated from the others in their group, and separated from the main plot for an exclusively person one. Remember our confidence after volume 1 on the outcome - because the nature of both plots was a build up NOT paid off - because the buildup itself WAS there. The lack of payoff does not undo that.
We have 6 episodes of buildup for Mike and Will (they weren't in episode 7, but I am including episode 1 for its painting comment and general Will queerness) followed by 2 of subversion that still ended with them on that hill together. When it cut to them, before even cutting to the other couples, my mom laughed the way you do in a single loud sound you can't keep in, and she was right. That shot was "Byler against the world".
Season 4 happened. Maybe Byler wasn't definitively canon in season 3, but season 4 informed that in retrospect. Will is canonically gay with feelings for Mike, people. I used to be GA, so I know damn well that after episode 1, it still could have been just gay. After season 3, it still could have been neither.
They wrote season 4. That happened. I feel like we've all adjusted to it too well. Frogs in boiling water but the water is boiling for tea and the tea is still SCORCHING hot, don't you forget.
32 notes
·
View notes
The shed scene.
Ok, if Byler isn’t endgame, then explain why in this scene, in the Byers’ shed, there were Joyce, Jonathan and Mike. Wouldn’t have been more intimate to just have Joyce and Jonathan, who are his mom and brother? Why is Mike there?
Let me give a little context here:
We’re in S02E08 and Joyce, Mike, Will and Hop just escaped from Hawkin’s Lab
Will’s unconscious and the characters are trying to find a way to defeat the Mind Flayer
Mike has an intuition which is that Will is the only one that knows how to defeat him
At this point, they need to wake up Will, but doing so would put them in danger as he’s a spy for the Mind Flayer
So they make the Byers’ shed a safe place to connect with him.
We know, from the previous episodes, that the Mind Flayer is increasingly taking up Will’s brain, almost eating Will’s memories. Indeed, he just remembers Mike and his mom.
So, to understand how to defeat the Mind Flayer, they need to talk to Will, but how to, if the Flayer is “commanding him”?
The answer is clear, because we see that: they need to talk, connect to him, through memories of his.
Joyce talks about the moment she brought Will’s drawing to work and Will felt embarassed
Jonathan talks about the moment he and Will built Castle Byers, to escape from the sadness and anger of their household
Mike talks about the moment he asked Will to be his friend and we know for sure that this memory is all about joy and love.
Yeah, any of his other friend could’ve pulled out some joyful memories (e.g., some adventures they had or some DnD campaigns) but could any of them pull out memories that awake LOVE in Will?
Mike’s speech is different: it’s the only one that awakens in Will a positive emotion (and the only one, through which, Will seemed to resurface and have some kind of reaction) and it’s just after that, that Will starts morse coding (he was kinda trying through Jonathan’s speech, but was after Mike’s that he started doing that 100%).
Mike chose their very first memory to reach Will, pretty much what he tries with El*ven in S4, could any other members of the party come up such an emotion-dense memory? I believe not.
Also you can notice that as soon Mike starts speaking, Will’s face is immersed in light:
The light pushes away the darkness. The light, which is the good, eliminates any shadow (evil). Will is fully exposed to the good feelings that his first memory with Mike evokes in him and this is enough to take away any evil.
Mike’s presence is crucial, through love he can help Will out: shortly after Mike stopped talking, Will was eventually able to code:“close gate”.
As I said, Mike tried to do the same thing when El*ven was piggybacking in S4 but did that work? Not even a tiny bit. That’s because his love for her is not the same love he feels for Will.
And this to me screams endgame.
365 notes
·
View notes