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#mileven isn’t endgame
hessolivagant · 1 year
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God, this scene tells me a lot about how mike is feeling. Mikes micro expressions from el to will, is so??? Mike seems to have some conflict going on but we don’t exactly know what it is yet, which i 100% think is going to be addressed in s5. All of the looks, heart eyes and speeches are all going to add up to mike being a gay man. I know that Will isn’t going to be used for his queerness to help a straight relationship. This will ruin all three characters arcs, it would not make sense and it would also be harmful to the queer community:(
Mikes arc: this is based off my interpretation of mike and what i think his conflict and how he’s going to end up in s5. His conflicts are his queerness and his internalized homophobia that causes him to push everyone away while also watering himself down to the standards of “normal” mike is actually a gay man who loves to play dnd with his friends, he also loves star wars and writing :) but his father makes fun of him a lot, he was bullied in middle school, and he is associated with the “occultists”(dnd group💀) at school, he’s pretty much been outcasted his whole life for being different, so of course the poor boy is gonna have internalized homophobia and he going to repress who he actually is to impress el and to seem straight. He even pretended to not gaf about dnd but immediately after s3 he joins a dnd group, clearly he’s pretending to be someone he is not. At the airport he’s wearing his silly little outfit, and argyle points out that it’s a shitty knockoff, which is a double meaning. The clothes are knockoffs of ocean pacific and mike is a knockoff of himself. He was pretending the entire day. So his conflict is pretending he’s normal. Even though he stated in the first episode(with his gay montage) that he doesn’t want to be normal but then he turns around and does this? Interesting.
Mike and eleven: why i think mike and el won’t be endgame, mike won’t have his arc of being himself again and he’s gonna repeat the same thing his parents did(nuclear family) which is boring as hell and also ew? Why are we romanticizing this possibility?? Mike changed for el, mike changed to impress el. He also feels inferior to el and he’s said “i love you” twice to her for the past?? 4(?) years(I don’t remember I don’t pay attention to milkvan) mikes arc would be useless if he was just pushed into this other than, accepting himself and being who he was in s1 and s2 where he didn’t feel the need to pretend.
Mike and will: will, doesn’t pretend to be someone he is not. He’s still in the closet but he’s still himself. He doesn’t want to pretend to be anything else whilst mike is pretending. Mike needs will to fulfill his interests and accept who he is. They need each other to be themselves and they need each other in general because they love each other. If mike ends up with will, we will see our beloved s2 mike. And we will see a more interesting version of mike than mike with el.
Mikes s5 ending: none of us know but one thing i do know is that he’s gonna have his gay little moments, and i want it to be NOTICEABLE. I want people to be like “ohhh, okay that makes sense” LMAO YK?? Also byler kiss!! I’ll take anything, as long as they kiss and confess to each other. I don’t think theyll pull a reddie or all of us bylers are going to riot💀 so i want mike and will alive, they deserve a happy ending.
Also in s5 i want mike to be with another queer character where they open up, like robin orr vickie(?🤨) or maybe even just a conversation with will. OR SUPPORT, ANYTHING FOR THE POOR BOY😭😭 el could be like “mike, ik what you are” and it would work. Please, he needs comfort 😢
(Im in class and my teacher has been showing us monkey photos for like 30 minutes, so um😭???)
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allhappyandgay · 1 year
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The bedroom scene was undeniably flirtatious and romantically coded and whoever says it isn’t is specifically filtering out the signs so they don’t see it
(because we all know if they were straight everyone would clearly view it as what it is: an intimate moment)
here’s why:
Mike’s (and will’s) body language
The shots and cinematography (I was planning on linking @byleranalysis’s video on this scene cuz it’s great but I can’t find it, still though the shots are very telling. edit: t'was found! x)
Labeled ‘intimate moment’ in the script
Interruption trope
It inspired will to take his painting which is a symbol of his love for mike
Mike enters the room, completely shutting the door behind him (no matter the reason), leaving the two of them alone. He sits down on the bed, letting his bottom lip audibly slip out from under his teeth and nervously drums his legs while looking will up and down from behind. he let’s out, “thanks by the way,” which he knows Will will have to question (re: “I didn’t say it”). mike is aware will doesn’t know what he’s referring to, adding clear design to his approach.
Now this could just be me but starting a conversation with something like “thanks by the way,” regarding what you know the other person is unaware of, is intentionally setting them up for a surprise appraisal, which I think is very flirty.
This allows mike to make a joke out of his shitty behavior as a means to lighten the mood because admitting you were wrong and being able to make fun of yourself is hot, sorry not sorry! this is mike giving will permission to laugh at his behavior with him, which seriously throws him off and he looks mike up and down before turning away in excitement, denial, self preservation, vulnerability or most likely all of the above lol, poor flustered will. once he turns away mike draws in a deep breath to wipe the smile off his face so he can focus on apologizing to him. he shakes himself out of whatever trance he was just in so he could get to his point, squinting one eye and stuttering as he changes the subject. “hey, also, but, uh, about the last few days,” he starts, exiting flirting territory.
He tells will his home isn’t the same without him despite having all their other friends, and doesn’t mention his girlfriend until suggesting he was worrying too much about her, followed by “I don’t know, maybe I feel like I lost you or something,” bringing the two right back into a flirtatious standpoint.
This again could just be me, but asking “does that make sense?” is such a… I don’t even know the word, it’s just, such a thing to say lol. there are some situations where it’s annoying to hear, like a parent trying to confirm their child knows what they did was wrong. but the way mike asked will if what he’s saying makes sense low key gives me butterflies. he paused to make sure he’s on the same page in such a soft way and will immediately nods his head, holding back tears. Idk maybe Im making it a bigger deal than it is but I love that simple line from mike so much.
Mike and will both nervously gulp down air, unable to take their eyes off each other. the tension rises as the camera gets closer to both their faces, removing any physical distance you might’ve thought was there at one point. mike tells him that whatever it is that happens next, he thinks it will be easier to go through if they have each other, if they work as a team. quiet moments linger on their teary eyed expressions with every heartfelt addition from mike. he quickly looks will up and down again, emphasizing his desire to be “best friends,”—reciprocating wills own previously stated desire brought to light at rink o mania—his lips slowly parting with anticipation.
Will responds finally with a quiet “cool,” trying to keep his cool lol. you can see his excitement despite the stillness of his body, and there’s a calm steadiness to his eyes, glistening with tear beads. mikes eyes are also shining, the sunlight from the window illuminating his own teardrops sitting comfortably, refusing to fall. he raises one eyebrow as a smirk forms from his lips, looking him up and down once again but slower this time, before completing wills ‘cool’ with his own. he chuffs as his smirk grows into a smile, and they gaze at each other in silence for a couple moments.
This is a huge contrast to how mike was acting before their scene in Jonathan’s room, which tells us something changed for him because of it. mike was reminded how much he loves being with will, how much he missed his company. and without will having to tell him, mike realized he was being an idiot. of course this was seemingly because will reassured him about el, but quite honestly I think it was mostly by will flirting with him. he literally waltzed into wills room—without even knocking first—to get some more of whatever that was between them two scenes prior. and neither of them are fully aware the other is flirting or what that could mean (otherwise we’d be in very different territory by now), which tells us it’s intentional from both parties.
I also think it’s important to mention that what made them start flirting in Jonathan’s room was will reminding mike (and the audience) of their history and how they used to be, saying “that was you guys who saved me, that was you guys.” this is what made mike all giddy and what inspired him to address everything so they could be close like that again.
Based on this logic, will flirting with mike was what “knocked some sense into him”that he was being a “self-pitying idiot,” because mike apologizes to will by following the same energy that inspired him to, flirting. making fun of a situation. joking around.
All they had done since mike got to lenora was fight and ignore each other. then suddenly every moment they get alone they find themselves giving each other heart eyes and hiding stupid grins. they don’t even seem to question it, this is just how they are now. it comes naturally. so when mike realized how good it felt to be in wills presence again without arguing and being petty, just themselves, it probably gave him a huge confidence boost and made him feel better about the entire situation. yes will told him he would have another chance to tell el what he didn’t get to (which is what the GA thinks he wanted to hear), but what really lifted his spirits was having will back in his life, which inspired him to confront and apologize to him. he got a taste of what they could be like, and decided he needed that. he couldn’t go back to fighting and being awkward after their moment in Jonathan’s room. when he confidently swung the door to will’s open, and skipped straight into flirting, that was mike implementing his decision to turn back the clock, make things go back to how they were. but this time with slightly different intentions in mind.
Mike suggesting they be friends (best friends) again is also a callback to, canonically, “the best thing [he’s] ever done,” I might add. that holds a lot of weight, they didn’t need to remind the audience of mikes (also teary eyed and intimate) monologue in s2 but they did. mike basically relived the best thing he’s ever done in this scene.
After mike and will have their “intimate moment,” as the script itself calls it, a tire screech dramatically breaks their eye contact. we are brought back down to earth, where the two of them are actually several feet apart and not face to face. if you felt like they were supposed to kiss, you were quickly reminded that they physically couldn’t lol.
The tire screech wasn’t even that loud and yet their demeanors both changed drastically in less than a second, as if they’ve been caught doing something they shouldn’t. Jonathan hadn’t even barged in yet, but they were so focused on each other that a loud noise basically jumpscared them out of it lmao.
This is, as we all know, the interruption trope, which is used most commonly for ‘will they won’t they,’ tension reliant, slow-burn romances to keep you on the edge of your seat, only to make you throw your arms in the air and yell “oh, come on!”
The last part of the scene mike gets up and goes to the window with Jonathan, but we keep our eyes on will who gives mike one last pineful look before quickly grabbing his painting—a symbol of his love for mike—and stuffs it into his bag.
This is intentionally showing the audience that their conversation gave will either the confidence to give it to him—which he seemingly has been going back and forth between based on mikes behavior toward him, proving that’s what made him decide to take it in the end—or hope that it could go well, possibly implying he thought mike might feel the same, or at the very least was flirting with him (which he was).
The fact this moment was deliberately focused on says “hey! will got an idea from this interaction—one that specifically made him decide to take the painting—so you should too!”
In conclusion, gæ.
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bookofwambs · 10 months
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byler/mileven/willel challengers au
mike wheeler, new champion tennis player, has all eyes on him, especially the iconic hopper-byers twin sibling duo of tennis. what starts off as a friendship in a competitive world, the three slowly find themselves caught up in a complicated romance filled with jealousy, petty, anger but most importantly love. and just like a sports game, there’s a winner and a loser to the prize that’s mike wheeler.
during his peak, mike has to chose between the two things he loves most, will or tennis, after their relationship was leaked to the press. a gay tennis player? is that even allowed?
and while the two boys have to figure out whether love really does conquer all, the best female tennis player since billy jean king, jane hopper suffers from a traumatic accident on the court and causes her to enter early retirement as a tennis player.
with the press suffocating our star crossed lovers, will decides to retire as well, knowing he rather be true to himself than play some measly game. while mike, finds comfort in the arms of jane, the girl who’s been waiting for his attention ever since he invited her and will back to his hotel room that one summer night. and with her help, works to fix his reputation—to be the greatest, most sought out tennis player in the world.
after 5 years worth of losing streaks, mike wheeler enters the court for a challenger event planned by jane. his opponent? will byers.
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bylerrhugs · 3 months
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Something that I think is funny is how mad toxic milevens get when they see anything about Byler. You don’t see them get mad at Elmax, you don’t see them get mad at Henderhop, you don’t see them get mad at madwheeler. You only see them get mad at byler. And why would they be so mad over byler and not any other ship that includes El or Mike? Because they know that byler actually has a chance at happening. So then they call the people who ship byler delusional or dumb because they know that byler will most likely (I know it will) happen. I’ve seen people say “Milevens relationship is terrible but they won’t break up.” And that’s usually the sort of toxic Milevens. So even some of them know that Milevens relationship isn’t real, but they don’t think they’ll break up. All in all, byler endgame.
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thefirstlioveyou · 3 months
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isn’t it interesting that for a good majority of audience, all a straight relationship has to do to be considered peak fiction or writing is to make out and have an unhealthy dynamic that loser cishet men can self insert themselves in? for general audiences, these ships don’t need to prove themselves why they’re good - they just have to be a boy and a girl.
but then you got a fully fleshed out dynamic between two characters of the same sex, where their endgame fulfills their personal arcs and are meant to be; they just work, all while still reaching their full potential as characters. but instead of support and, y’know, basic media literacy, it’s always, “why is everything gay now? why can’t they just be friends?” well, because they only ever are! that’s why!
maybe it’s because i’m queer and will naturally be drawn to media i can resonate with, but it’s incredibly rare for me to believe there’s romance in a fictional het ship. it’s almost always souless, always the same formula. there’s no effort to make the audience fall in love along with them. don’t get me wrong, there are queer relationships that also feel poorly written and i cannot seem to be drawn to, but i’ve never experienced this the same amount of times i have with a het ship; not even close.
however, i never felt this way watching stranger things. lumax, jopper, jancy - they are absolutely believable romances. there’s conflict, there’s reason why they love each other. but most of all, the relationship takes its time to grow. the writers understand pacing is an important factor for writing romance.
this is why mileven always seemed so different from the rest, and why it was always destined to fail because of it. it was forced. literally in the narrative, it is pushed upon mike by his friends. el is kissed and because she sees mike in this pedastal from her trauma regarding male caregivers, she follows through and grows an unhealthy dynamic from the understanding of love she’s only ever been familar with. i genuinely believe she never would have seen him in a romantic light if he hadn’t kissed her. and finally, their character arcs just cannot be fulfilled if they continue to stay together - they just can’t. they just go back to square one with zero growth.
there is no actual appeal to the ship. it was cute the first season! but… that’s it? they kept getting pulled away from each other by the story itself, so they get like no time together. and the time they do, they’re busy breaking up. they have no common interests, they can’t give each other what they want/need, they unintentionally trigger each other’s traumas, still have yet to connect on a personal level.
but, i guess that’s what you call beautifully written television romance.. i guess that’s where we are.
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bibylers · 4 months
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OKAY SO MANY PEOPLE ARE DOING THIS SO IM GONNA TRY IT TOO!
Stranger Things season 5 predictions :00
So, lets start!
- Byler endgame, ofc 😭
- Jopper endgame 100%
- Lumax endgame!!!
- Elmax friendship back 😭🩷
- Thessalhydra bossbattle (basically just a irl recreation of will’s painting)
- main four back (Dustin, Lucas, Will, Mike)
- Will has POWERSSS
- Will with a gun 🗣️🗣️🗣️
- Mike having a gay awakening and gay crisis (like nick nelson 💀)
- Mike gets Vecna’d
- FLICKERGATE
- LETTERGATE
- basically the whole theory of Mike and Will having a rain kiss + Mike confessing his letters & Will confessing about the painting (a notebook parallel)
- Max NEEDS to wake up
- Max is trapped in vecna’s mind which is why El couldn’t reach her in s4 ep9
- Mileven break up (El breaks up w Mike)
- Will is connected to Vecna and Vecna will ask him to join him just like he did with El
- Will is gonna be in his badass era
- Byler will protect eachother WAYYYY too much 😭😭
- Mike and Will tells the party about their relationship
- Will (or Mike) is gonna get hurt and then Mike (or Will) is gonna be like “I thought I lost you ☹️☹️☹️”
- some of the main characters will die (also including the older main characters + Hopper, Joyce and Murray ofc)
- The ending is gonna be happy but there’s gonna be a small hint at the end that Vecna and the upside down isn’t gone yet (like a light flickering or Will rubbing his neck)
- Will and El will be close to death at some point (but survive!)
- The thessalhydra is gonna be defeated by the main four (Mike as the leader and Will with his powers)
SKSJJSJS THERES SM MORE BUT THESE ARE MY MAIN PREDICTIONS!!
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alexthefunniest · 2 months
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Funniest mileven arguments to why byler won’t be endgame
I’m sorry if there’s any grammar errors or mistakes, I wrote this angrily at 2 am when I couldn’t sleep.
1. “Its the 80’s”- as if there isn’t any movies that have happy queer endings that were made/set in the 80’s, yall are just lazy and don’t want to actually do any research.
2. “It’s a Netflix original”- ok? And? Like we literally get a new mlm/queer show on Netflix every year, byler is a mlm relationship which Netflix has a lot of, young royals, heartstopper??? Are you guys ok?
3. “Cuz it’s too popular” - we already have over two queer confirmed characters in stranger things, the show that’s about fighting forced conformity ?? The show that focuses on nerds, losers and people that don’t ‘fit in’ ? And y’all find it so hard to see ur two main characters being gay? Read the room respectfully.
4. “It’s one sided” - if it was one sided they would make Mike tell Will he doesn’t like him in s3 and give Will a new love interest in s4 (it has been confirmed that there will be no new characters in s5 and that the producers want every character to have their ‘perfect ending’) Will believed he was a mistake and thought he wouldn’t fall in love, because he is queer so he most definitely will have a queer love interest and it will be Mike.
5. “Mike is in love with el”- is he tho? He never actually said he loved her to her face without the world and her life depending on it, he’s been pressured to say it twice and when she told him she loves him back the man didn’t look happy but conflicted.
6. “Mileven endgame” - it’s really not, the amount of symbolism that points to their downfall (such as everyone calling them the ‘star crossed lovers’ which are basically lovers deemed to fail, and more) is HUGE, they have too many familial parallels it’s insane, why parallel the it couple with family themes and relationships? Another problem I have with this it’s the fact that it’s very rare for the first ‘original’ pairings to stay together till the end of the show (like with Bob and Joyce or Steve and Nancy)
7. “Byler wouldn’t make sense to the plot”- watch the show again, just because somethings more subtle, doesn’t mean it’s not there, y’all will always say that about queer relationships but whenever u guys see a straight relationship in these subtle moments you jump into conclusions that they might end up together, it’s called being a hypocrite.
8. “Mike isn’t gay” - it’s what he’s been telling himself too, the guy was obviously made fun of and called slurs like Will, everyone already thought and knew their relationship was ‘special’ and everyone suspected something, that’s why Mikes own dad was surprised and said “our son, with a girl?” Also your so called straight Mike has a room filled with pictures and posters of buff men, he’s never shown any interest in girls or women (except el who’s been said, looked like a boy in s1) not to mention the first song on his official Spotify playlist being “small town boy” (yk the song about a young gay man running away from his homophobic small town??).
9. Mikes love confession- if u call that a love confession I wouldn’t wanna date u brother, he was pushed to say ily by Will, the same Will that was in the frame of Mike lying when he said that his life “started” when he found El in the woods, which was obviously a lie because Mike called El a weapon and said he’ll “send her back to pennhurst or wherever she comes from” after they found her, also if the love confession was honest why would El be still upset with Mike and not talk to him after??
10. “El wasn’t upset at Mike but was sad about Max” - me when I’m in denial, she wasn’t sad about Max until she found the coke bottle underneath her bed, then we get the flashbacks of her and Max having fun in s3, she wasn’t thinking abt Max before that, its called common sense and logical thinking skills.
11. “There would be no time for byler to develop in s5” - it might seem crazy what I’m about to say, they were literally childhood best friends and it’s been confirmed that Will had a crush on Mike since s1, they literally started to build their romantic relationship MORE in s4, with all the ‘[emotional, tender music playing]’ and parallels between byler and jancy, also even if they haven’t started to build their relationship up in a romantic way in s4, y’all remember how in less than a season Jonathan and Nancy slept together or how Max and Lucas got together in a spawn of a season (mind u they met in the same season). Byler knows each other since little kids and always had potential y’all are just in denial.
12. “Why make Mike queer” - why not? Do y’all actually believe that one of the main characters plot line is just about getting with the girl at the end? Even if it was (which lets be so fr now) why would Mike get with El from the first season (they kissed in s1 and basically u can count that as they’re together wtv) if that was his main goal as a character? Well written shows have something called a “character development” which the producers of st love apparently, so why make Mike just a bland character that just gets with the main girl character, and why have El date the first guy she ever met, I just think it would be very shallow.
That’s all, this was written in a silly way cuz it’s basically me talking to myself, it’s okay if u ship mileven I just really don’t like disrespectful fans that yell at bylers and call the ship disgusting, I don’t care about what who ships as long as we all just have fun and not yell at each other 🫶🏻
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lordystrange · 9 months
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Mileven is a childhood fantasy, Byler is reality
Bylers are often called delusional and Byler endgame called unrealistic. But it’s the other way around.
Mileven is ”everyone’s” childhood fantasy: boy meets girl, they fall in love, get together, date for a while, get married and live in a big house at the end of a cul-de-sac with two or three kids and live happily ever after.
While stories like mileven happen, that love rarely lasts. It either ends in divorce or like Karen and Ted.
But byler is the reality. Two people are friends and slowly fall in love. That makes them struggle and be scared because they don’t wanna ruin their friendship but eventually they are honest with each other and get together. Because they were friends first, there’s mutual trust between them and they know one another well enough to communicate and maintain the relationship. They don’t need to show everyone else how perfect their life is with marriage, kids and a big house, they can just go their own pace. They may end up married, with kids and the big house, but they would also be happy in a small apartment with no kids. Because they are in love both platonically and romantically, and that makes the relationship strong.
Sure sometimes even those relationships end in divorce, but even the divorce is often handled better than in mileven type of story. They were friends before, and in the middle, so they can be friends after too.
Mileven is what we’re taught to want and go after. Byler is what we learn love to actually be.
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(This pic isn’t exactly related to my post but it’s my favorite so I keep posting it every chance I get)
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sarahivess · 1 year
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60 questions to ask the Duffers if Byler isn’t endgame
Thank you @merth-or-nothin for the help!
1. Why emphasize so much on the strong “Friends don’t lie” in the very first episode of the show, showing Will couldn’t even lie to Mike, only for him to lie to Mike for the first time in the second to last episode of the second to last season?
2. Why did Mike and El such a short build up before getting together? If they were meant to be endgame, why not build them slowly, so the audience could be invested in the development of the relationship?
3. Why were Mike and El separated every single season?
4. Why do Mike and El fight so much when they’re together? They barely have any cute scenes at all when they’re dating.
5. Why did El refer to Mike as "her first boyfriend?"
6. If she was meant to only date (then marry) Mike, why draw attention to the fact that he's the only boy she's dated?
7. What was the purpose of El asking Mike if he'd be like her brother in s1? Why give them a familial association?
8. In season 4, why is it revealed that Will is in love with Mike as Mike's relationship with El is eroding?
9. Why make a point to show the audience Will loves Mike the way he wants to be loved, while El makes him feel like a random nerd?
10. Why have Will in the background of every single Mileven scene (except for their bedroom fight) in the entire S4, making the audience to root for Will?
11. Why have Will love Mike at all?
12. Why bring Will into Mike and El's relationship? If Mike doesn't feel the same way, it's a waste narratively and it's anticlimactic.
13. Why did Mike change so much between seasons 2-3 without any perticular reason? And no, it wasn’t just puberty. That change made Mike go from being one of the most loved characters to one of the most hated ones.
14. Why frame Mike and Eleven’s relationship in S3 as unserious and unhealthy?
15. Why make everyone go against their relationship and why break them up as early as in the beginning of the second episode of S3?
16. Why empathize so much on El in EP3 and her independence, making us (the audience) feel genuinely happy when she breaks up with Mike and frame the breakup scene with light-hearted humor and comedy?
17. Why make Will and Mike’s first fight scene in the show dark and angsty? And making it a huge contrast to Mike and El’s comedic breakup scene.
18. Why make Max say “he’ll come crawling in no time begging for forgiveness” to El, which was true, but he didn’t come crawling back to El. He went to Will’s house, begging for forgiveness.
19. Why spend SO MUCH time on the Byler scenes and putting so much effort in them so they’ll look intimate? It’s such a contrast to Steve and Dustin’s scenes for example which is almost always comedic.
20. Why have so MANY Byler scenes at all?
21. Why have “tender emotional music” in almost all of the Byler scenes in S4?
22. Why make Will even confess behind El’s name instead of just confess himself and having Mike rejecting him right away? Why drag it out all the way to the very final season?
23. Why spend an entire day filming the van scene if it wasn’t that important anyway? If Will is just ending up getting rejected anyway?
24. Why the whole painting plot?
25. Why so many parallels with Jopper, Jancy and Lumax?
26. Why the very same soundtrack when they became friends again as when Lucas and Max became friends “On the bus”?
27. Why is Finn describing Mike’s story arc for both season 3 and season 4 as “Mike is trying to be a normal teenager”, “Mike is trying to be as normal as possible” and “He’s trying to keep on a normal path” why so much focus on Mike trying to be normal?
28. Why spending two seasons on Mike trying to say the word “love” to his girlfriend? Isn’t that a kinda boring arc for someone who’s just having bad self esteem because of his parents loveless marriage?
29. Why does the whole cast and even the Duffers always so secretive and giddy and smiley every time Byler gets brought up if it’s just another sad tragic unrequited love story?
30. Why having Will say “I’m not gonna fall in love” with such a heartbreaking tone and then end up making him not get the boy he’s in love with and has been since the very beginning?
31. Why put so much effort in the set design to queer code Mike (as in rainbows, shirtless men, monsters with muscles, the word BOY in the bg, multiple closet imagery, even a big sign towards the closet saying “One way” if it meant nothing or was just weird coincidence’s?
32. Why the triple take? What was the point of that?
33. Why filming and editing the last scene of S3 emphasizing that Mike is going to miss Will more than El? (Him looking back at Will’s house, then it cuts to Will, then it cuts back to Mike who walks up to his mom and hugs her with a heartbroken look on his face)
34. Why make El say in the letter “I think there’s someone Will likes, cause he has been acting weird” but all we see in s4 is Mike acting weird?
35. Why make Mike being able to hug everyone except for Will, when he could hug him just perfectly in s3?
36. Why make Mike treat Will differently than his other friends?
37. Why make Mike and Dustin have the same look on their faces as they watch Will and Max dance with other people and then after that Mike looks upset until El shows up?
38. Why is The Duffers so “hushy hushy” about Byler at all? If it was obvious it’s unrequited why not just clear that shit up because they KNOW they’ll get a lot of backlash if it turns out it was a big queer bait all along.
39. Why start to build up and hint at Will’s love for Mike from the very first episode and make it canon in the second to last season?
40. Why so many coded talks which easily could be interpreted differently? Like Karen’s “I want you to know you can talk to me, I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide anything from me”, Ted’s “See what happens?” About Will’s disappearance (as in see what happens if you’re queer? You get abducted, killed etc) and Ted’s “our son with a girl?”
41. Why make Mike NOD in the scene when Will talks about how difficult it can be to open up about something the other person may not like to hear?
42. Why make Will having to remind Mike of the painting and his coded speech before Mike can say it? Why could he only say it the moment El was about to die?
43. Why make it look like Mike doesn’t want to kiss El by removing her hands away from him (3.01) and not reciprocating, not kissing back with eyes wide open looking confused in 3.08? Why frame him like he isn’t interested in girls at all? (Princess Daphne, Phoebe Cates, Max etc.)
44. Why never show us Mike’s pov?
45. Why SO MUCH effort in flashbacks during the entire S4 except for the monologue when El only remembered one single moment with Mike? Why did she had so many with Max but only one with Mike?
46. The ending scene in S4. WHY put them in couples when they could just have made them stand together all of them instead?
47. Why does it look like El isn’t talking to Mike at the end of S4? Why does she look annoyed at first and THEN sad when she finds the bottle under her bed which reminds her of Max?
48. Why SO MUCH yellow and blue coding when it comes to Will and Mike? Even their colors of their clothes are almost always blue and yellow as well.
49. Why make Mike nervous every time Will is close to him in S4 or accidentally touches him?
50. Why make Mike say “we’re friends” to Will twice when both him, Will and the audience clearly knows that already?
51. Why associate the word “crazy” with “love” and then make the “crazy together” scene?
52. Why having Mike saying “it was the best thing I’ve ever done” about meeting Will but then having him say his life didn’t start until he met El?
53. Why did Mike’s words work for Will in S2 (making him being able to communicate) but didn’t for El (not until she looked over at Max)?
54. Why write the lines for Will “We could just play DnD for the rest of our lives” and “Not possible” about him joining another party?
55. Why make Mike look at Will’s lips so much? Why the flirtiness in the bedroom scenes in S4? They could easily have remade those scenes if that wasn’t intentional.
56. Why all the classic romantic interruptions in season 4 which we’ve seen plenty of times in the show between “more than friends”-couples earlier?
57. Why make such a HUGE contrast between El’s reaction to being without Mike and Will being without Mike in S3? (El did a high five with Max while Will cried and destroyed Castle Byers)
58. Why make Mike say “Hawkins isn’t the same without you” to only WILL and not to El? Why does Mike not have any problems opening up to Will but only to El?
59. Why couldn’t Mike say the full reason why he and El had their fight in 4.03?
60. Why have so much hints and clues in the show that Byler is endgame so it’s possible to make 300+ pages slideshows, hours of long videos with proof of Mike being gay, if everything is just unintentional or “made up”?
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bylerpolls · 1 month
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Would you rather…
1) Byler/Will’s feelings for Mike are just never addressed again and Mileven is endgame
2) Byler/Will’s feelings are just never addressed again but Mileven isn’t endgame and El dies
3) Byler/Will’s feelings are directly addressed and Mike lovingly rejects Will and Mileven is endgame
4) Byler/Will’s feelings are directly addressed and Mike lovingly rejects Will but Mileven isn’t endgame either and El dies
5) Byler/Will’s feelings are directly addressed but Mike never answers because a demogorgon comes out of nowhere and devours Mike immediately so nothing is endgame
6) Will’s feelings are addressed but Will never confesses and Mileven is endgame as a result
7) Will’s feelings are addressed but Will never confesses yet Mileven isn’t endgame either
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dukeofdelirium · 8 days
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less than a year until byler is bones ❤️
awwww is someone scared of byler endgame? 😂
let’s look at the facts, shall we?
1) Will was deliberately written to be gay and in love with Mike
2) in the same season this was revealed, Mike was deliberately written to be incapable of telling his canonical girlfriend he loves her
3) Mike also cannot touch Will for some reason even though they are canonically best friends. Cant even hug him without having a whole crisis
4) Mike is confirmed to not know that Will is gay or in love with him, stated by the Duffers AND Finn meaning there is no reason Mike shouldn’t be able to hug him unless…. 🤔 he is perhaps in love with Will?
5) Will gives Mike a coded love confession using a piece of art he created that was never resolved, meaning it is absolutely going to come into play in the final season
6) Mike was pushed into telling El he loved her BY Will, and then afterward she barely spoke to him
7) Mike and Will ended the season at each others side, literally paralleled with 2 canon couples in the same exact frame, which is very intentional foreshadowing
8) again I repeat the lie Will told Mike, the lie that is the ONLY reason Mike even confessed to El in the first place and tried to say he loved her, has not been resolved.
What do you really think is gonna happen in s5? That Mike is gonna find out Will lied, that everything Will said was from El was actually just how he felt and that Mike’s response to said lies was a direct response to Will’s own love confession and that Mike is gonna be like “well that’s so weird and gross of you, Will!” 😂
They literally wrote Will as a second love interest to Mike. They wrote Mike as having serious issues with his girlfriend. They wrote Mike and Will together the entire season and Mike and El broken up the entire season. They ended the season with Mike and Will together and a whole lot of unresolved romantic tension between them that we again are not making up or imagining with shipping goggles. It’s literally a canon love triangle.
And you think the love triangle isn’t going to end with byler? Lol. Why even write byler as an option if it won’t be acted upon? There’s literally 0 reason to have written Mike or Will this way in s4 unless the plan is for them to end up together. It’s not some difficult narrative to comprehend. If Mike can’t tell his gf he loves her, there logically must be a reason for it. 🗿🍷 but it’s ok, I know you’re slow seeing as you’re a mileven. Take your time, maybe eventually you’ll get it <3
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y’all rlly think Mike isn’t in love w Will when he’s out here looking at him like this for literally no reason LMAO bro is gay. bro can’t tell his gf he loves her cuz he’s gay and closeted. bro is gay coded more than Will ever has been and Will is the confirmed gay one 😂
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doriandrifting · 7 months
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Mike😳isn’t a FEET🦶🏻 he is STRAIGHT and shawn Levy is a bad direction🧐 he wants to queerbait u h uh uh !‼️🚭 and you fallen by the three 🌳 no fr stop being crazy he said bye bye yall crazy cowns🐮
u have the wrong blog. I ship mileven!! so obvious they’re going to be endgame. shawn levi needs to stick to making jeans and stop ruing the show with his agenda. mileven is the heart of the show 💙💛
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just the way he looks at her 😍😍😍 his eyes gleam with hetero pride
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bylrlve · 3 months
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Warning! Potential leaks for season five of Stranger Things!
Alex (aka @dyersfilms on twitter, used to be swiftlynatalia) is the person who successfully leaked most of season 4 due to her knowing a source. She did, however, insist Byler was entirely platonic that season and they fought for most of it and only made up at the end in the pizza van, so…
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Here’s her saying she won’t post any byler leaks this time around, which she has said previously.
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She got a message saying they’re all fake, and she thinks they all are, so keep that in mind.
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Here’s a short one: Will distancing himself from the party bc it’s too hard to be closeted and to be around Mike. If real? Endgame fr.
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A ‘leak’ from episode one where shit goes down after the opening scene of Will singing SISOSIG, Will falls, and Mike helps him up,
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Here’s an extremely detailed one that casually drops Mileven breakup, Robin-Mike bonding over Vickie and Will, Will trying to avoid Mike ‘confronting him about the painting’, Mike and Jonathan fighting over Will’s safety. Nothing here is debunkable but…. Yeah. God, would it be nice, though.
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The two most interesting ones. First, an ask that’s almost entirely plausible except for the mileven part - and that part, specifically, I’m calling bullshit on bc it claims that Hopper is still on the Mike Hate Train. It was made abundantly clear, after their talk and their awkwardly long hug at the end of season 4, that that’s in the past. Besides, it just wouldn’t fit tonally. S3 was the heterosexual-cliché, silly filler season. S5? Nah. Can’t 100% say it’s fake, but even Alex agrees this one isn’t real.
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Lastly, an interesting one that’s plausible throughout which claims Mike gets seriously injured and spends some time in hospital. Will stays by his bedside after everyone else leaves and kisses Mike on the forehead. Mike wakes up after he leaves - I think the insinuation is that Mike does a Half-Blood Prince and wakes up knowing that someone he felt safe with was there, but he doesn’t know who it was. If that’s legit? As I said, endgame fr.
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I do want to note that both the mileven and Byler asks word the ‘main character getting injured part’ as everyone being ‘shaken up’ so there are a few options: it’s the same person with legit leaks, and Byler isn’t endgame. That, I’d be more willing to accept, cautious as I am, were it not for the Hopper part, which sticks out like a sore thumb. Second option: it’s the same person messing around. Third: it’s two people, one building on the other.
Cannot emphasise enough that these are most likely just bored people having fun, but I figured I’d share them all. The last one is getting passed around the tag sans context, and I wanted to clarify everything else Alex has received. Do not get your hopes up about Byler based solely on these.
Letting my imagination run absolutely wild here for just a moment, however: Maya and Vickie are confirmed to be filming at the hospital set, presumably visiting someone. There’s also a pic of someone with bloody shoes. Imagine if Robin visits Mike in the hospital, witnesses some Platinum-Tier Will Byers Pining™️, and ends up talking to Mike after he wakes up - no mention of how long he stays there.
Lastly, it is fun comparing these to the more doom-and-gloom (re: Mike) leaks Sapphicjopper on twitter got. The awesome @solgmorell has a post explaining those in detail.
Oh, and an interview came out today where Shawn Levy said something insane but, you know, water is wet.
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pinkeoni · 8 months
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Rambling thoughts about Mike’s sexuality (😱) under the cut
I think Mike’s arc next season is probably going to center around his sexuality although I don’t mean to say that in a way where I reduce Mike to just romance and being Will’s boyfriend, but rather the lived experience of being queer (especially in the time period the show takes place in) is something that can be all encompassing to a lot of aspects of his character including his home life, his mental health, his relationships with other characters (platonic or romantic) and yes, could be explored metaphorically depending on how he interacts with the supernatural next season, however that may go.
Is this an actual concern in the fandom? Honestly I don’t know. Maybe I’m making it up. Maybe I’m alone in a room speaking to a wall. But I think I’ve seen this concern before when it comes to Will’s storyline so I figure that it may apply to Mike as well.
If byler is to be endgame and Mike is to still be revealed to the audience to be gay then I can’t imagine his sexuality not being the driving force for his narrative. If there are concerns about a character arc revolving around one’s sexuality then I don’t think it’s unfounded, as both Mike and Will were relegated to the romance sideplot of s4 while being barred from the supernatural story. However, and maybe I’m giving the Duffers too much credit, I do have faith for them to explore queerness for both of them not just as a label or a vehicle for romance but as an identity that affects many different aspects of life including but not limited to the ones I listed above. At least just given the way that Will’s arc has been written, I know that at the very least the Duffers do not see gayness as interchangable with straightness.
I was talking about this with Jo and AJ and Jo made the good point that just being gay, in itself, is interesting. Mike being gay is so interesting. Mike being interested in a boy is so interesting. Mike leaving a longtime girlfriend for a boy is so interesting BYLER is so interesting and GOD I hope that the season gives ample time to explore those aspects. (While of course, maintaining the individual arcs of both character in said relationship)
Some arguments I’ve seen from milevens include “You just like Byler because it’s gay” or suggesting that the move from mileven to byler is going to be a simple one, viewing queerness in a vacuum and completely ignoring any complexities that come with being gay, as well as all of the real world context. Byler being gay, in itself, inherently makes them more interesting than mileven. Mike being a gay character inherently makes him more interesting than if he were straight. (And yes the show does still have to deliver on that, although I choose to be optimistic and say that they will) And Mike’s shift from dating a girl to being with a boy, in itself, is a complex path that leaves plenty to be explored.
Of course being gay isn’t his one characteristic, but I think his identity as a gay person does inform and is connected to these other aspects.
Using Will just as an example, his story is about a lot (past trauma, bullying, romance, the supernatural) and I’ve talked a lot about how, even if it’s just metaphorically, a lot his arc is connected to being gay.
I don’t think they would focus on his queerness as a way to reduce his character, but rather use his queerness as an lens to help encompass the many facets of him into one arc.
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dattuff · 8 months
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Even if you dislike mileven there’s no way or reason to think they won’t be endgame in ST.
- Mike and Elevens relationship has been a core part of the show since S1
-Ending 4 seasons of growth at this point would be pointless
- Mikes whole arc in S4 is getting over feeling like he’s not good enough for eleven and when she realizes she’ll just kick him to the curb, him feeling like this is the reason he couldn’t say “love”. If they were to fully break up in S5 it would make that whole growth of mike useless.
- seen opinions saying “eleven needs to be single to focus on herself/ find out who she is” but that’s quite literally her arc of S4
Mileven isn’t my favorite ship in the show but let’s be fr at this point of the show with literally 8 episodes left of the show; there’s no reason to believe they won’t end up together unless everyone just dies in s5💀
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hellinhawkins · 7 days
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