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i like how my favorite episode from each season matches the season number, like:

season 1, episode 1

season 2, episode 2

season 3, episode 3

season 4, episode 4

season 5, episode 5 do not disappoint me!!!1!1

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if you told 2019 me that byler now actually has a chance of being canon i would’ve died on the spot tbh

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i feel like once byler becomes canon in season 5, the general audience is gonna rewatch the whole show and finally see all the stuff we’ve been seeing this whole time 😭

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propaganda i’m not falling for

- byler being endgame would ruin the show

- steve deserves better than nancy

- stobin

- will byers villain arc in season 5

- will byers hate

- will byers death in s5

- anything but a happy ending for will byers

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does finn wolfhard know mike is straight? rewatching s4 rn and it’s just so funny. genuinely either finn just can’t play straight characters or there’s smth fishy goin on.

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yearning for s2 byler rn

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the stranger things reddit makes me giggle because wtf do you mean big monsters who can eat humans by opening their face and alternate dimensions are okay but Mike wheeler being a homosexual is WAYYY too unrealistic

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yall like my new insta pfp? lawl

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mike & el’s relationship sometimes mirrors steve & nancy’s in s1–2 and i think it’s intentional.

some parallels that keep standing out to me:

1. the love confession vs the sex scene:

steve & nancy sleep together in s1. but while that’s happening, barb is being brutally murdered. the scene isn’t really romantic; it’s uncomfortable. it’s meant to feel wrong.

now cut to s4: mike finally says “i love you” to el… while she’s actively being choked to death and while max is literally dying. it’s a horrific scene, and yet we get this Big Romantic Moment™ dropped right in the middle. we’re not supposed to feel swept up. it’s supposed to feel off. like something’s not clicking.

2. “i love you” becomes a requirement, not a given:

in both steve/nancy and mike/el, saying “i love you” becomes a problem.

steve breaks up with nancy because she can’t say it. el spends all of s4 needing to hear it from mike, and he refuses until the worst possible moment.

what’s interesting is: none of the other healthy, canon couples in the show have this issue.

• lucas and max never have to say “i love you.” it’s clear in their actions.

• joyce and hopper don’t say it either, but we know it’s there.

• even nancy and jonathan never make it a thing.

in those couples, love is just understood. it’s safe. it doesn’t need to be proven.

so when “i love you” does become a hurdle, like with steve/nancy and mike/el? that’s a red flag, not a romantic milestone.

3. emotional needs are dismissed, not met:

in s2, nancy tells steve how guilty she feels about barb. steve’s response? “let’s just be stupid teenagers.” he doesn’t meet her pain, doesn’t sit with it. he brushes it off.

mike does something similar in s4. el asks why he never says he loves her, and instead of giving her what she clearly needs, he dodges: “you know what I think of you.”

again, not a 1:1 parallel. steve was immature, and mike was scared, but in both cases, the girl’s vulnerability gets shut down.

☆

i just think it’s telling that the only couples in stranger things who have to fight for “i love you” are the ones that don’t last (or shouldn’t last).

the show’s showing us that love isn’t about the Big Moments or dramatic speeches. it’s about being there, emotionally and consistently.

and when that’s missing? no amount of “i love you” can fix it.

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"both sides of the fandom are toxic!!"

milevens: mike will never love Will back he'll reject him and then everyone lives but him

bylers: if they touch el i'm killing myself

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Whenever I get Byler doubt I just try to picture a scene where Will gets rejected and all I can come up with is..

Mike: “er sorry man I don’t feel that way. Thanks for saving my failing relationship tho. Btw becoming your bff is still the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Will: “👍” *moves on*

Like 😭 is this the big satisfying conclusion to Will’s arc that’s being dragged out till the last season and is supposed to “tie the whole story together,” no, no it’s not.

“☝️🤓 oh but moving on from unrequited feelings for your best friend is a common queer experience and would make Will realis—” who gaf 😭😭 This is a show about d&d monsters coming to life and the power of friendship and allat girl is ‘realism’ really the argument we wanna go for here.

This show is so heavily focused on the outcasts winning for once, not only this but there are countless examples of ST ‘not being realistic’ (i.e Steve not being homophobic, lumax thriving despite being an interracial couple in the 80s (even facing racism from Billy), Dustzie thriving despite being long-distance and Suzie’s family being Mormons and heavily restrictive, Rovickie giving each other such clear signs despite how dangerous it was to be openly queer in the 80s (as proven by multiple characters insinuating that Will’s disappearance in s1 could’ve been due to a hate crime)). So do we really think they’re gonna go with the ‘realism’ route and choose to use the gay main character’s feelings in favour of the typical het relationship?

If this still isn’t enough, try to come up with an ending for Will that is satisfactory and brings the story full circle that is not just “oh he moved on from his almost-decade-long love for his best friend and suddenly found someone else.” Don’t even try to do the “he found peace with himself” because that trope would only work with someone who was forced to be reliant on others and is now learning to be independent (sound familiar?), not someone who was forced to have to fight through everything on their own. If they pull that shit in the end with Will then it would simply just be boring.

Imagine they do that LMFAO, Will in the end being the only person in the entire main cast except for like Murray and Erica to not have a partner, a soulmate. Does that sound like a good ending for him? Exactly.

Of course this is not to say that Mike is some sort of trophy that Will deserves to have, it’s just that it’d be a strange choice for the writers to put Will through so much trauma and only add things to the list with no proper conclusion even as the story ends. Mike’s sexuality is a whole other discussion, but even he deserves to have someone in the end that he is on the same wavelength with, and that person is no longer Eleven. ( Read: “Because without the heart we’d all fall apart. Even [me], especially [me]. … You make [me] feel like [I’m] not a mistake at all, like [I’m] better for being different, and that gives [me] the courage to fight on. … So yeah, [I] need you Mike, and [I] always will.” I don’t think there is a single scene in the show where El says anything even remotely similar to Mike, and I think that’s really telling. )

That’s all I’m gonna stop rambling now 🚬🚬

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mike when will said “el told me what to draw, she commissioned it”

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twi stuff

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if will was a girl byler would be so much more popular smh

(trying to point out some of the homophobia in the fandom! Thank god byler is what it is)

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byler "stereotypical romantic moments"

i don’t get when people say byler won’t be canon because they’ve never had a stereotypical romance scene. like no “almost kiss,” no awkward “are you guys dating?” moment, nothing like that. and like… seriously??

first of all, imagine if we had gotten an “almost kiss” scene back in 2022. imagine what that would’ve done to the fandom. the entire mystery of who mike ends up with would be dead on arrival. everyone would’ve known. the media would’ve gone insane. the stranger things team literally couldn’t give us that and still maintain any suspense about the love triangle. if byler had one of those scenes, it would’ve been game over for mileven right then and there.

but second of all… byler does have those romance-coded scenes. people just don’t recognize them because they’re not filtered through the usual heteronormative lens.

like rink o mania? when will says “what about us?” and mike cuts him off all defensive like “we’re friends. we’re friends.” sorry but that is literally the same exact trope line that canon couples in this show have used. jancy. jopper. it’s the classic “i’m gonna pretend i don’t feel anything so this doesn’t get more real” line. textbook.

and then there’s that second heart-to-heart scene in the bedroom. mike gives that awkward ramble about how they should “work as a team, friends, best friends,” and the moment is clearly building into something emotionally heavier… and then it gets interrupted. by the pizza. which is just. the show literally did the “interrupted emotional breakthrough” trope. the same exact structure they use for “almost kiss” scenes. and people still say there’s no romantic tension there?

like what do you think would’ve happened in that scene if they hadn’t been interrupted? they were sitting across from each other in total silence, eyes locked, both clearly shaken. the tension was loud. just because it wasn’t shot like a typical straight romance doesn’t mean it wasn’t a romantic moment.

i’m just saying. the tropes are there. you’re just not used to seeing them applied to two boys.