#i feel like I need to say I’m not anti-stancy. i actually do like stancy when it’s done well. HOWEVER

[unfinishedslurs]

do u love the colors of the comphet

When it’s over, when Henry Creel is dead and dust and they’ve emerged battered and triumphant. When she and Jonathan have ended things. When there is no more fighting to be done, she and Steve give it another go. 

She knows he’s going to ask the same way she knew in ‘83. There’s no waiting this time, no need to wonder if Jonathan might want her too. They gave it the old college try (He lied to her. He was lying to her for months, and she knew something was wrong before that. She thought they could work it out. She’s so fucking sick of lying to herself being lied to). 

He asks with wide, hopeful eyes, running a nervous hand through his hair. He doesn’t have anything to be nervous about. She made up her mind before he even asked. 

She can do it right this time. She can love this boy the way she wants to. The way he wants her to. They’ve both grown in the years since. She’s going to do this right. 

That’s the mantra she keeps in her head when he picks her up and spins her. I can do this. 

She can’t do this. 

It’s somehow the same and different from when they dated the first time. They’re going through the same motions, but there’s something lacking. They’re both older, more jaded. They’re not kids anymore, and it shows. 

They rarely kiss. He hesitates now in a way he didn’t before. Sex is something they don’t bring up at all. Eddie makes a crude joke once, something or other about what Nancy is like in bed, and she and Steve make eye contact. There’s something there, something like mutual understanding, before Robin smacks Eddie upside the back of the head and the moment breaks. She keeps thinking about it long after. Whatever it is that they shared, they don’t talk about it. 

Maybe they’re lying to themselves, both of them. Puppets going through the motions, too stubborn to admit they’re play acting as real people. Still, she can’t give this up. She can’t make the same mistakes all over again. 

Robin corners her two months into the relationship. Part of Nancy is surprised it took her this long. The rest of her is angry she brings it up at all. 

Saying she’s cornered might be doing her a disservice. They’re having a sleepover, painting their nails and talking about boys. Everything a girl is supposed to do. Except Robin is awkward and fumbling, and every name she brings up sounds like a question. Nancy only has Steve to talk about, and barely talks about him at all. 

Finally Robin sighs and puts down the nail polish. “I feel like this subject is making us both miserable,” she declares. “I don’t want to talk about boys, I was just doing it because I thought that’s what you’re supposed to do at girl sleepovers. I haven’t actually been to a sleepover since I was in middle school and the other girls decided I was weird, but I’m pretty sure the point is to have fun. This is not fun. This is agonizing. We should talk about something else.”

“Steve isn’t making me miserable!” She snaps, before realizing she sounds way too defensive. 

Robin peers at her. “Yeah, see, that’s not what I said. That’s not even a little bit close to what I said. Maybe we should talk about this instead. What’s the deal with you and Steve?”

“What deal? There’s no deal.” She turns around and rummages through the nail polish selection. Robin doesn’t exactly have a variety. Her options are red, dark red, and black. She chooses the brighter red with the absent thought that the black would look good on Robin, with her long fingers and dark eyeliner. Then she banishes that thought away. 

“There’s definitely some kind of deal.”

“There isn’t.”

“Nance.” 

She can’t help but turn around then, drawn in by the tone of her voice. There’s a glass wall inside of her, and someone is pounding on it, trying to get out. She wants Robin to see it. She wants someone to see behind the glass. There’s something in her trying to get out. 

“Nancy,” she says again, eyes searing into her soul, “are you happy?”

She smiles, fake and fixed on her face. The glass stays firmly in place.  “Of course I am,” she replies. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

The next time Robin wants to hang out, she’s busy with college preparations. 

It’s not just Robin. She thinks everyone can tell something’s wrong with her. Eddie gives her these looks every time she and Steve are in front of him, like he’s putting together a puzzle. Her mom keeps trying to talk to her. Jonathan keeps trying to talk to her. 

They know, she thinks wildly, every time. She doesn’t know what it is they know. She doesn’t want to find out. 

She avoids them all. 

When she and Steve go to dinner, the waitress captivates her. 

Long, dark hair in braids. Long fingers tapping against the notepad. Dark eyes in a dark face. She’s always loved brown eyes. Nancy has never been one to be jealous of other girls (lie, lie, lie), but suddenly heat floods her body. She wants to be as gorgeous as this woman. She wants her full lips, popping gum. She wants the woman’s swaying hips as she turns and leaves their table. She wants— she wants—

She tears her gaze away to find Steve already looking at her. 

The heat is dosed by the ice that fills her veins. All her senses go on high alert until she realizes he’s actually staring past her. She turns around to see the bartender. He’s handsome, she thinks, tall with tan skin and brown hair carefully styled. He’s talking to a customer, teeth shining as he laughs. 

When she turns back, Steve has firmly fixed his eyes on her. She could almost believe he’d never been staring at the bartender at all. 

There’s something there. Something just out of reach, something she could put a finger out and touch if she were braver. She doesn’t. There’s no gun in her hand here, no adrenaline to keep her going after it all falls apart. 

“What did your dumb boyfriend do this time?” Mike demands, storming in her room. Nancy has half a mind to yell at him to knock first before she registers his words. 

“Steve is- Steve is fine,” she says, startled. “He’s great, actually. Nothings wrong.“

“Then why are you so miserable all the time?” Mike accuses. 

“I am not miserable!”

“You are! You both are, and neither of you will tell anyone what’s wrong, or why-“

“I don’t know why!” She shrieks. Mike falls silent, eyes wide, and Nancy suddenly realizes she’s crying. 

“I don’t know why,” she repeats. “Everything is fine. He’s like, the perfect fucking boyfriend. It’s me, I’m the problem. There’s something wrong with me. There’s a beautiful boy who loves me, and I’m- I’m trying. I’m trying so hard to love him back, but I can’t. I can’t. There’s something wrong with me.” She’s desperate now, wiping away tears as she curls into a ball. She feels pathetic, crying in front of her little brother. She’s the oldest, she should be keeping it together, she shouldn’t let him see her like this. But she can’t help it. There’s something in her screaming to get out. 

Mike, with all the grace and bewilderment of a newborn deer, gingerly pats her shoulder. 

“Have you…talked to Steve about it?”

She gives him a cutting look. It’s probably not as effective as she wants it to be, with her red eyes and tear streaked face. Mike holds his hands up. 

“I’m just saying! He’s your boyfriend, you should talk to him. And if you don’t want him to be your boyfriend, you should really talk to him.”

“I want him to be my boyfriend, I just need to get past whatever this is—“

“Nancy,” Mike says. “It’s not just you. He’s miserable too.”

“Because of me. I just need to—“

Mike shakes his head. “I don’t think it is. If it were because of you, he’d be acting different. More…kicked puppy, or whatever. He’s just being weird,  and won’t tell anyone why. Dustin said he asked Robin, and she doesn’t even know.”

Nancy doesn’t have anything to say to that. 

“I think you need to talk to him,” he says again. “I think you need to talk to each other.”

“When did you get so smart?” She asks, instead of crying again. 

“I’ve always been smarter than you.”

She kicks him for that blatant lie.

“Are we holding onto a dead thing?” She asks out loud. 

He rolls over and looks at her. She’s worried she’s hurt his feelings, broken his heart again, killed any chance they have at a relationship, romantic or not. Then he snorts. 

“Robin got to you too, huh?” He asks, flopping back onto his back to look up at the sky. 

“Mike, actually.”

“Mike? That shithead? What does he know about relationship problems?”

“Are we having relationship problems?”

“I mean,” he says, wry twist to his mouth, “we haven’t had any arguments.”

“Nope.”

“Or general drama.”

“That might be debatable.”

“There’s no need to spice up our sex life.”

She snacks him for that one, and he laughs. She props herself up to look him in the eye. His face is more open than she’s seen it the entire time they’ve been dating. 

“I think you have to be in a relationship to have ‘relationship problems,’” she tells him. “Are we in a relationship?”

He visibly considers this. “I mean, I asked you out, and you said yes. And we never broke up.”

“We haven’t kissed in at least two weeks.”

“Did you want to?”

She takes a moment to think about it. “Not really,” she admits, and his face splits into a grin. 

“Not that you’re not still wonderful, Nancy Wheeler,” he says, teeth shining, “but I don’t think I want to kiss you either. Isn’t that weird?”

When they dated in high school, it was like he couldn’t stand being away from her. He spent every moment he could kissing her, wherever he could. Sometimes it felt almost like a performance he put on for the people around them, lifting her up and spinning her just so everyone would know how in love they were. It was stifling at times, feeling like something to prove. Still, it was how he was, so in love he could burst with it. 

Now, she wonders if it was always a performance. Maybe they’ve both been on a stage, and neither of them noticed the lights blinding them until now. 

“It is a little weird,” she says finally.

“Right?!”

He holds out a hand to shake, the other one firmly in his pocket. God, she wishes she could love him. “Good go, eh Wheeler?” He asks, smile crooked and shaky. 

She snorts. “We made ourselves and everyone around us miserable,” she points out. But she takes his hand. 

[ven0moir]

Hiii :)) hope your day is going well

I just wanted to ask you how do you think they're gonna deal with miIeven next season?

And also, if you want ofc, how do you think they could deal with miIeven if they wanted to keep their romantic relationship till the end? With Will's painting and lie and Mike's self esteem issues, how they could make this good, in a way we could see miIeven in a good light and still think that Will had a happy ending, or if you think there's no way to make us (not only bylers but GA since they also don't like miIeven) see it in a good light. (you don't have to answer this one but i think about it a lot and i would like to see other people's opinions)

Hello, Anon! Tysm for the ask, I hope your day is going well too! This turned really long but I added a small TL;DR in the end if you'd rather not go through this all!

I’m going to put a little warning here that I’m no longer sugarcoating my thoughts on Mileven, especially because I feel like the Duffers themselves are anti-mileven. So proceed with caution.

To answer your first question, the more I rewatch the show, the more I realize that Mileven seemed to be more a plot device than an actual relationship the Duffers and writers put much depth into. I sincerely see a scenario similar to S2 Stancy happening with Mileven. They naturally drift apart throughout the season, with Mike’s focus being Will and Eleven’s being Max. 

Their break-up scene will probably look similar to S2 Stancy. I do not see why they would stray away from this pattern when they’ve already followed S1 Stancy’s blueprint for S4 Mileven. 

Imho post-S4 Mileven is not relevant at all to either El or Mike’s arcs, and I would even go as far as saying that the relationship never truly took off.

S1 - they meet during the direst circumstances. Mike was kind enough to give her a hand, and then once he realized she could help, his desperation led him to act out in a way that filled him with guilt post S1. Whether or not he actually had a crush on her, or just thought he was responsible for her and had to like her to fit in is up for interpretation. Mike saved her when she needed someone, but it never went beyond that. Mike himself says this to us during the van scene.

S2 - Mike was filled with guilt because of how El died, blaming himself for it and everything. When he’s attempting to reach her, he even says he just needs to know that she’s okay and that he’s not even going to say anything, which implies he won’t try to find her if she doesn’t wish to be found. He legitimately just wanted to know she was okay somewhere and wasn’t expecting to see her again. They meet again in the end and kiss. S3 - THIS was the season to show us how cute Mileven actually was, and how well they worked together as a team and as a couple. Instead, we got some really weird context, such as them doing literally nothing but kissing for 6 months. When she’s with Max, we learn the topic of what Eleven likes never even came up in conversation while she was with Mike. Then he had his weird projection era, and they only seem to make up again after shit hits the fan once more. 

S4 - The first thing they tell us is that El has been lying in her letters to Mike for 185 days. And then more weird context. Honestly assuming that Mike was only nice to Eleven because he was ‘in love with her at first sight’ is such a cringe concept to me that I cannot believe the Duffers were serious for one second.

Mike and Eleven had the most development during S1, which set them up as a ‘savior’ in each other’s lives, and then the show never developed them beyond that. The only development they had was how the relationship makes both characters insecure. I personally don’t even think ‘Elmike’ can be salvaged at this point without some substantial screen time, which the show itself has proven time and time again it rather give that to other dynamics. 

I know some people disagree and think Mileven and Elmike are actually an integral part of the show but I just do not see why the show would prioritize them NOW after setting them up in different paths in S5 with Mike closing the season literally by Will’s side (while setting Will up for his hardest season yet) and El’s priority being Max, alongside reuniting with Hopper after thinking he had died for months. 

I sincerely feel what the Duffers have been building Mileven up to is a break-up. They have not been written as endgame.

As for how they could salvage romantic Mileven … I feel like it’s too late at this point. The absolute most they can do is RETCON Will’s confession by having Eleven have her own. Which depending on how they do it will feel just as cheap as Mike’s monologue. “Yes indeed! Even though Will lied about the painting and I don’t really behave like I love you at all I do feel that way about you.” Absolutely nothing they can do or say redeems Mileven THIS late in the game. ESPECIALLY not after the way they handled Will and the painting plot. Because even if they somehow by some miracle manage to patch up Mileven last minute, where does that leave Will???? If Will’s whole arc with Mike was to just give him a painting and a confession, so then he can move on, WHY DID THEY MAKE SUCH A HUGE DEAL ABOUT HIS PAIN??? 

When Dustin was heartbroken in S2, the show showed his disappointment but then we saw him try to move on by asking other girls to dance. He at least had that option, Will does not. He’s a closeted gay teen in the 80s in love with a best friend he’s been through so much with. We don’t even know how long Will has had feelings for Mike in secret, so using his feelings and painting like that, as “realistic” as some people claim it is, is just unnecessarily cruel. They could’ve had him move on from Mike at the end of S3, and given him some unnamed crush in Lenora. They did NOT need to make him in love with Mike if all that’s coming from it is a rejection in the LAST season. 

So yes, TL;DR: 

Romantic Mileven is beyond saving at this point, and MAYBE at best, we get some nice Elmike scenes to set them up as friends now once the initial sting of the breakup has subsided.

Even if they wanted to do the insanity of keeping Mike and Eleven together, it’s just going to feel like cheap fanservice and Sunk Cost Fallacy-ish. 

[spockbuthumannb]

I have been watching Stranger Things recently and, I've got to say, I do not ship Mileven at all. I don't really have any opinions on Byler but Mileven feels kind of unhealthy.

Eleven was kept in a lab for the entirety of her childhood so her emotional and mental development will be that of a six or seven year old at best. She obviously experienced trauma during her time at the lab and with 'Papa' using her and manipulating her so constantly. She gets into a romantic relationship with Mike very soon after leaving that situation which is advised against by every therapist ever after leaing a toxic situation, don't enter a relationship. Addicts are also told this constantly. She doesn't really understand her emotions and has been given no explanation for them, which isn't Mike's fault and I'm kinda disgusted by the anti-Mike stuff going on but I'll get to that later. She has no idea what she likes or how to behave, as evidenced by Max in season 3. She also doesn't appear to know how to interact with Mike as a person or have any common interests with him, blatantly stating that she has no interest in his 'nerdier' traits.

Onto Mike, he has never actually seen a healthy relationship develop. His parents are obviously distant and unhappy and have been for a while, Stancy was a mess, with Nancy using Steve to hide as Jonathan pointed out and poor Steve getting his heart broken after becoming a better person to be worthy of her, and Nancy and Jonathan having the bumpiest start to a relationship you can get and them not being around for the actual initiation in season 2. He is a smart kid who has never been in a relationship either and has little to no experience with a healthy romantic relationship. With his dysfunctional family i.e. a spiralling, isolated mother, an uncaring, slightly absentee father, a distant, aggressive older sister in seasons 1 and 2 at least and a younger sister he barely interacts with, the only close healthy relationships Mike appeared to have are with Will, Dustin and Lucas. He also ditches his interests and traits that Eleven doesn't like that aren't bad, just nerdy. This isn't in any way healthy, especially for a boy of his age, to be conforming to what this one person wants by ditching his friends and interests for her.

With both being unprepared and not fully understanding their feelings, neither are truely ready for this relationship. Eleven isn't ready for any romantic relationship for a while and Mike needing someone with more emotional and mental stability so he can grow as a character.

I don't understand the Mike hate. He is a literal child who is just as inexperienced at romance as the rest of the Party. He is seen as a sweet kid by nature in season 1 who is distancing himself from everything and becoming more aggressive just as Nancy did in her relationship with Steve. It's not Eleven or Steve's fault, but sometimes the love you have for someone isn't the love they need. Seperation for both of these couples is honestly the best thing for them in my opinion.

There we go, that was long, I'm sorry if I missed anything and I don't mean to offend or upset anybody. If you have a problem, please just express it calmly and kindly instead of hate. I am not well versed in season 3 so sorry if I miss anything.