#but if there's anything byler tag is gonna do it is repeat things

[rotisseries]

it's actually still so funny that will was revealed as gay and a bunch of dudebros on the internet lost their shit and were basically like "NOOO😫 HE WAS GREAT REP FOR THOSE OF US WHO DIDN'T GET ANY BITCHES IN MIDDLE SCHOOL😫😫😫" first of all, how embarrassing that you would admit that publicly. second of all, will byers was never for you, he gets SO MANY bitches! name a SINGLE time that he has been bitchless outside of his own free will

[maddy-ferguson]

Ik you don't like ambigulous sexuality Mike so I would like to know, do you think canonically Mike will be explicitly gay? I don't even mean like saying the word gay I mean even just explaining that he didn't like El romantically. Bc I'm confident in endgame Byler but I find a lot of gay Mike theories far fetched in the sense that it makes sense but I don't really believe they'd do that in canon and I don't think it's what the Duffers intended (like the Phoebe Cates scene). I think that if they wanted to do explicitly gay Mike then they dragged on the Melvin storyline for way too long for it to make sense to anyone who isn't spending time analyzing Mike's behavior because so much gay mike proof is so subtle unlike general Byler proof which a lot of the GA has picked up on.

I know the show certainly shouldn't cater to the GA, but it should still be understandable to the audience even if they haven't spent hours analyzing, and I think by now they've passed the point where they could convincingly show that Mike never liked El romantically in the first place.

I know I sound like I'm repeating a lot of Byler anti talking points so sorry if I sound like a Byler anti, I promise I'm not. I just really don't understand how they would do gay Mike and would like to hear what you think.

this is from a week ago and i've talked about it again since but i was so flattered that you a) knew i don't like ambiguous sexuality mike and b) wanted to ask this to me. <3 and don't preemptively apologize omg i love you

i honestly feel like the main thing is an unhappy mlvn breakup. think this. in spirit. i am sorry to every platonic elmike enjoyer i think they could've had a relatively fun onscreen dynamic post-breakup had the s3 breakup been final i really do but this is a post-season 4 world. failed monologue and all that. only one season left. i need it to be clear somehow someway that this relationship hurt el and that their relationship was bad from the get-go. no idea how realistic this is btw but i feel like they can't afford to have them break up off-screen or to have it be vague à la season 2 stncy because it's their quote unquote main couple lol.

i feel like making it apparent that the relationship was bad for both of them would be ideal. and specifically el not being all mature all oh it's okay because i don't love you either would be good i think. we would've had that had the monologue not happened but we're past that now. i don't think they'll be on bad terms by the end of the show they're not gonna hate each other or anything but i don't see them being instant best friends after breaking up AT ALL

and yeah i agree that a lot of gay mike proof is only proof in the sense that it's in there and some of it is inconsequential. but that could also be said of some byler proof lol, like no one in the ga is thinking oh look blue met yellow in the west they're color-coded!!

i don't think they dragged mlvn on for too long and i can't for the life of me word it in a way that makes sense so i'm gonna link this post (inluding the tags from my mutual who reblogged it) :) i hate mlvn, hate with a capital h but i think them staying together this long (it's only been like a year and three months in the show which is kind of crazy) makes sense for them for multiple in-universe reasons (mike being the one who introduced the concept of romance to el, el only getting back together with mike after hopper died, i can think of about a thousand reasons for mike), but for us as viewers, yeah idk, obviously ending the season 4 with them being broken up for good would've made it easier for the ga to accept the possibility of byler being endgame and of mike being gay but it would've also been very obvious so i can see why they didn't do it. they still need people to tune in and also we needed to feel like we lost at the end of season 4 and that includes me and the other...27k tumblr bylers at the time

when you look at the facts i don't think gay mike would seem far-fetched to the average non-homophobic viewer: mike takes in a girl. kisses her after being told by everyone that he must like her, after telling her that his sister would be her sister and that and after 8 episodes of her being repeatedly mistaken for a boy and for will specifically. doesn't see her for a year, spends a season glued to will's side, kisses her again at the snow ball. pushes will away in season 3, inadvertently calls him out for being gay and for not growing up. starts having problems with his gf as soon as said gf starts to look like a girl and learns that she can have preferences of her own. lies to gf and gets broken up with, is very obnoxious about it all season. indirectly tells will he actually doesn't want to grow up and wants to keep playing with him at the end of the season. goes back to playing dnd as soon as s4 begins, which goes to show that he actually didn't mean what he said about wanting to grow up last season (either that or he's a hypocrite and hates will specifically. lol). acts weird with will again. focuses on his gf WHO LITERALLY LOOKS LIKE WILL IN A DRESS for the day. gets lied to by his gf and is then left behind by her, isn't as obnoxious about it but also keeps talking about his relationship without ever mentioning why they fought so he never has to explain why exactly he couldn't say That thing. to his boy best friend who he keeps having emotional talks with. doesn't say the thing until he gets told that he's the heart and all that by said boy best friend and still struggles to tell gf that he loves her. end of the world

i really think most of them are just not thinking about it. i remember asking my friend how likely byler being endgame was to her in august and she was like i...had never considered the possibility of el and mike not ending up together. then i talked her ear off for 60 minutes and she was like okayy i can see it maybe And she was sad for mike. so!

i think no matter how it goes we're gonna get an interview confirming it because they had to do it FOR WILL because people couldn't possibly imagine that the character who'd been called gay for the first time in the first twenty minutes of the show could actually be written to be gay

but maybe he'll tell us he's gay himself lol who knows

[demadogs]

Controversial opinion incoming but a lot of m*lev*ns are homophobic. Now I'm not saying that if you don't like a mlm ship (or a wlw ship) that you're a bigot, that's dumb. However I think it's very telling that m*lev*ns, who repeat over and over that byl*r isn't happening, can't help but comment on anything involving byl*r. If it's not going to happen then why are you so threatened by people shipping them? What's the issue with people innocently shipping byl*r? Obviously if it isn't gonna happen, then clearly there's another issue 🤨 I'd like to end this by saying I like both, this isn't ship hate. I'm bi and seeing so much unchecked homophobia in this fandom sucks; and it gets swept under the rug because people see it as just "ship war" nonsense.

no bc you are so right its never just “i love m*leven” it has to be “i love m*leven and i HATE BYLER”. i think a big thing about it is that most of the mean byler-antis are honestly just kids being immature. most of them are younger than the actors. ive been delving into both tags after i received this ask and of all the m*leven shippers ive seen that are chill and nice and just say stuff like “i dont personally ship byler but i can see why people would”, they are usually in their 20s or even 30s and the ones that yell about anti-byler are usually under 15. ive also noticed that a lot of the nice m*leven shippers say theyre queer in their bios and the ones who are mean dont… hmm.. wonder why that is.

but youre right a lot of it is just straight up homophobia and also hating on will a lot? hasnt that kid been through enough why do you hate him? look at this post here. this literally might be wills birthday of course hes there come on.

and this was an anon sent to the hawkinsschoolcounselor account which is just undeniably homophobic. why do they enjoy the thought of will getting rejected and laughed at for being gay? are you fucking kidding me? i was in shock when i saw this i didnt think some of them were this bad.

i think they deleted it i cant find it now but a few days ago i saw a post in all caps of someone saying they’d be so mad if they made byler canon and theyd “shove [their] m*leven fanfics down the duffers throat”. thats literally what they said. which honestly is just embarrassing and makes me wanna deactivate and proves what i said about how most of them are just immature kids but fucking hell its insane. and youre right. its usually brushed off as a “ship war” when a lot of the times theres definitely something else going on.

obviously this is not every m*leven shipper! thats not what im saying at all but some of them just have no respect for anyone who ships byler instead and its insane. theyre more adamant about being anti-byler than pro-m*leven.