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I know many of you don't read my long posts so here are my greatest recent Byler-canon comforts:

1. Lies, when revealed (especially when they directly influence the plot of the person lied to), have to affect the person lied to. Acceptance is a neutral response and therefore the only effects it can have on Mike are homo(phobic) or homo(sexual). (But homophobic wouldn't have impacted his actions and...well it isn't that one)

2. The nature of the tragedy of self-sabotage is that things would have gone differently had the character not self-sabotaged. Tragedy lies in the "what if". For season 4 to be a romantic tragedy for Will (which it canonically is even if the whole show isn't), there has to be a "what if"/"if only": if only Will hadn't lied, Mike would have reciprocated.

If these aren't true, the plot is pointless because it affects nothing if removed: Mike doesn't love Will? Then they wouldn't have ended up together whether Will told him or not. Mike doesn't love Will? Then he would have told El he loved her without the prompting of "you're the heart" and the painting from El. <- that is bad writing, and I trust the Duffers know better than that. They've demonstrated better in the past.

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full credit to @ bylerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (danielle) on tt for this!!!

this is actually one of the smartest theories ive seen i love this

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Please don't let this flop like my other memes🫩🫩‼️

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— Richard Siken, ‘Crush’ / Mike Wheeler, Stranger Things

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the reason mike was never inside the upside down until now?

because it literally represents will's queerness and mike's only able to figure himself out thanks to his feelings for will in s5.

(well ik he has gone down to the tunnels in s2 but that doesn't refute my argument since he was literally with will all season, thus, being in tune with his feelings)

so that's why he's finally going in the ud/directly interacting with vecna in s5.

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it escalates even further because steve is actually starting to really care about will, like thats one of his children dammit,

and so at some point, when a group of them (Steve, Will, Dustin, Robin, Jonathan, Mike, Lucas, and Nancy) are traipsing through the woods on some kind of mission, somehow the conversation drifts to Jason and his gaggle of goons (RIP but not really)

Steve scoffs, dragging his trusty nail-bat along the forest floor as he walks. He goes on this whole rant about how "that guy was so judgy too. Always going off about how 'homosexuality is a sin,' like shut up man. There's nothing wrong with being a little gay-"

"Steve you've been bringing that up a lot lately." Dustin interrupts.

"Huh?" Steve responds smartly, noticing suddenly that everyone in the group is giving him varying levels of odd looks. "What do you mean?"

"You keep bringing up gay people and how you're 'so cool with it' and it's 'totally fine to be that way.' Is there something you want to tell us, Steve? You think someone here might be secretly gay?" Says Dustin, joking.

Jonathan coughs uncomfortably. Steve stops himself from chancing a glance back at Will. Shit.

"Oh! well it's uh-" Steve shoots a look to Robin, who stares back at him absolutely mortified. Shit.

"Yeah it's um- It's me!"

Everyone halts in their tracks.

Okay so he panicked. Sue him.

"...What?" Dustin says, a partial grin on his face like he's not sure if Steve is joking with him.

Jonathan is glaring daggers at him.

Steve runs a hand through his hair uncomfortably. There's no backing out now. "Yeah, it's me, I'm gay."

"What?" This time the disbelieving question comes from one Mike Wheeler, who is looking at Steve like he's grown a second head.

"Since when?" Dustin balks.

Steve wracks his brain for a good answer. "Well... uh, I kinda- I mean I definitely had a thing for Eddie."

Dustin's eyebrow shoot up to the fucking moon. Will is looking at him with stars in his eyes, like what he's hearing is too good to be true. It sends a pang straight to Steve's heart.

Nancy snaps her fingers. "Oh! That makes perfect sense!"

"It does?" Says Steve, voice cracking. Robin elbows him.

"You had a thing for Eddie," Mike repeats skeptically. "Eddie Munson?"

"Shut up Wheeler, maybe I did, you don't know," Steve snaps, maybe a little too defensively.

Dustin's hands come up to grab his own head in disbelief. "Oh my god..."

"I mean the hair? That really did it for me. And the way that he dressed, and the way that he talked and was just- I mean he was really hyper but it was cute? And his eyes, fuck man... I could get lost in those for days." Steve goes on. And none if it is strictly untrue. Eddie certainly had been pretty. For a guy that is. And Steve misses him. Misses him like he misses an old song he heard on the radio once as a kid but can't ever find again because he can't remember the name of it. He wishes he could've gotten to know Eddie better.

Nancy steps closer to him and places a comforting hand on his shoulder. She looks at him with so much sympathy Steve thinks he might actually shed a tear. Robin furrows her eyebrows, like she's not even sure if Steve is still lying anymore.

Jonathan looks like he doesn't know what to believe. At this point neither does Steve. He's opened this can of worms and now he has to lay in it, or however the saying goes.

"Hey man, that's cool." It's Lucas who speaks up this time, shooting Steve a warm smile. "Thanks for telling us."

An answering smile creeps onto Steve's face. "Of course it's cool Sinclair," he says, bringing his nail bat up to rest on his shoulder suavely. "Everything I do is cool."

i just think it would be so funny if in st s5 they make it so Will has a tiny but very much obvious crush on Steve, so as to set up a sort of false love triangle type deal (which they have done in the show several times before now) and like obvious enough that even Steve has figured it out (with the help of Robin of course) but now he feels super extra guilty about that time he called Will a queer when fighting Johnathan, so now he's trying to make up for it by being super nice to Will and hanging out with him all the time and always sublty-not-so-subtly being like "and if someone here were gay that would be totally awesome and fine with me because I'm cool like that, haha right Johnathan?" but as stupid and corny as he is it actually does succeed in making Will feel more comfortable around him (+ all the other older teen characters) and meanwhile Mike is just seething with jealousy and he can't even do anything about it because Steve is genuinely just being super nice and helpful, do you guys see the vision

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total eclipse of the heart starts playing during the byler kiss because the gays deserve to be corny and cliche. cringe, even.

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🕯️🕯️🕯️ MIKE WHEELER GAYLY SAVING WILL BYERS FROM THE UPSIDE DOWN 🕯️🕯️🕯️

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someone just pointed out to me that during mike's monologue to el in s4 she most definitely heard will urging him on the whole time like "don't stop, you're the heart 🥺" like she knows he had to basically be forced to say it 😭

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Ok but the potential created by Mike being the heart of the party in Will’s eyes? Unmatched. Imagine Vecna targeting Mike to get to Will, saying stuff like “I have your heart in the palm of my hand” and “the thing about hearts is that they break easily” LIKE STAY WITH ME NOW

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mmmm cleradin my beloved

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oh yeah! let's fulfill the traumatized gay boy's story arc by killing his brother, having his long-term crush reject him, and y'know we may as well kill him too at this point! yeah, that's definitely what's gonna happen!

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it’s funny when people say “they’re not going to focus on romance in season 5, they have to focus on the plot!” because mike and will’s relationship has actually always been an integral part of the plot. in fact, it STARTED the plot!

the vanishing of will and mike not giving up on finding him is the only reason he stumbled on el in the woods to begin with, and that’s how the story continued. it all started with will and the impact he had on the people around him.

his sexuality and identity also plays a huge role in his trauma, which vecna targets people for and uses to mess with people’s emotions.

almost EVERYTHING about byler can be heavily intertwined with the main plot. people just act like it’s “irrelevant” and “unnecessary” simply because THEY don’t want it. they’re uncomfortable at the thought of it so they try to come up with any excuse to try and make it sound stupid and unimportant when their relationship and bond is literally the heart of the show that started everything

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Guys what if Vecna starts giving Will visions of him killing Mike when he's possessed. And Will doesn't tell anyone but he's terrified he might hurt the person he loves most. And Mike can tell that something is wrong with Will but Will refuses to open up about it. And Will starts pulling away more and more because he doesn't want to risk getting possessed and hurting Mike, and this leads to prolonged TENSION. And then at a breaking point Mike loses it and confronts Will about why he's acting this way and Will just breaks down and cries...

GUYS.

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idk if this has been pointed out before but i just realised this:

Mike gets 7 points of damage. And a few moments later the rain fight happens,where their friendship and everything between them crashes down and gets damaged.

holy fucking shit, how have i not noticed that before??

The foreshadowing and the callbacks are so crazy