#idk if this dissertation of mine makes sense at all it’s 2am and i’m rendering an edit as we speak & i’m really tired so sorry if it’s

[nances]

Here’s a handful of cautious optimism as a treat, my brothers in byler

I think there’s a huge misconception about the state of this ship atp. You guys do realize we’ve always been 10 steps ahead of the general audience, right? We knew Will was gay as early as in 2017, some were aware of this back when the first season released too. If I’m not mistaken, the idea that Will might be in love with Mike was around and going strong especially post-season 2, and especially after that one line in the script “Will isn’t looking at the cute girl, he’s looking at… Mike”

Most of us expected explicit byler in season 3, needless to say we were morbidly disappointed. What we did get, however, was yet another hint at Will being gay, and the number of articles with speculation about Will’s sexuality started increasing exponentially. Any way you break it down, we really only got evidence of Will being gay, and there was little indication of him having feelings for Mike.

Season 4 brought the plot line of Will being in love with Mike to the table in canon. We got to see how strong his feelings for Mike are, how they are absolutely eating him up and yet he’s still putting the happiness of his sister and the person he’s in love with above his own, even if that means he suffers. We saw both him being in love with Mike, being absolutely selfless about it AND beating the homewrecker allegations. Personally, I’d call this a W.

Now I understand why we had our expectations regarding byler so high up, Noah’s comments were only stirring the pot. I don’t know if he was truly trolling, and all this buildup amounts to nothing, but he did say “they can’t end it there”, and on some level, he’s aware of the outline for season 5.

If this is indeed gaybaiting, I by no means want to defend that but we have to acknowledge that his idea of “building up byler” pretty much matches that of the general audience’s. We’re only getting groundwork as of right now. As much as we like to joke about him having a secret account on here, a couple of years ago he was, on some level even hostile about the prospect of Mike and Will being gay.

The fallout of what vol.2 turned out to be hit hard, there’s no denying that. Most of us were shocked they actually ended up fueling midleven even more, despite the fact that we were so convinced that going that route would essentially be anticlimactic and bad writing. There was a lot of dissatisfaction with using Will’s feelings as a prop for the straight ship (understandably so.)

But the thing is, the general audience is now for the first time properly aware of the possibility of byler being canon, and a lot of people are picking up on just how bad the lead-up with the monologue was. A lot of people agree that midleven is getting repetitive, and that the monologue was mediocre at best. Is it really indicative of delusion to assume that this ship is being set up for doom? Meanwhile byler’s popularity is skyrocketing and the tag has gained yet another thousand followers after the release of Vol.2 alone.

We don’t know what’s going through the Duffers’ heads. Oh I wish we did. But we really don’t. We do know for a fact though that they don’t really rewatch their show (albeit I hope they’ve learned their lesson after this) which drastically diminishes their credibility as skilled writers. In terms of cinematography and soundtrack, Vol.2 was absolute peak, but the narrative, however, was a mess. They left a lot of loose ends untied, and they’re going to have a shit ton of exposition to do next season.

So either they’re really shit writers, or midleven was anticlimactic and mediocre on purpose.

Despite everything, there’s still the fact that one of those loose ends is Will’s lying about El commissioning the painting. It’s evident in the letter in episode 1 and as far as we know, she’s never really played D&D. If they’re really as good at constructing stories as they’re hailed, we should expect this to go somewhere. Because the Steve and Nancy stuff was left unresolved as well. Same with Max’s letters. If they really decide to leave all of that unaddressed, it simply won’t be a look good for the show.

Bottom line is, they did say they wanted to write an authentic story, and I really hope they realize that having the main guy and main girl end up together is the most overused trope ever. We should all sit on the fact that we did get a fairly good amount of content to advance byler, and that they could’ve just left this storyline about Will’s feelings for Mike out altogether. They made a conscious choice not to. Now I don’t think that half of the shit presented in the byler slides was intentional, but I do think that there still is a chance that they’re heading towards a midleven breakup and byler endgame. I could be wrong, but this is just how I see it now that I’ve let it simmer for a while. We’re still in for an entire season, jopper’s development spanned over 4 seasons and jancy got together in the span of one, so realistically, anything is possible.