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AAAAAGHHHHHHHHH 🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽

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i love how the wheelers are just watching their byers hug each other like dw guys ur gonna get married into the family soon

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no cuz what the hell is this heavenly lighting… why is the sunbeam between them symbolic of a growing light… why are they mirroring the “superspy” scene… why are we bringing back season 2 vibes the gayest season yet…

i’m still here.

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the siblings of all time

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will being absolutely BATHED in light in this scene is so telling!! as we know, all the lighting in this scene is artificial. completely artificial! this is one of the rare times we actually see mike's POV, and it is will, being bathed in light!!!! what the heck! and all the lighting being 100% intentional due to it's artificial nature also means that every shot and lighting/ colouring use is definitely purposeful, therefore will being drowned in light from mike's perspective definitely implies how mike feels about him. absolutely no debate about this. and people still don't see byler??? are we just watching the show with our eyes closed at this point?

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☎️💌byler 70s

I made a dialogue based on my own AU, where Mike is an office worker and Will is a good designer. husbands ehehe

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we're past the appropriate rejection window honestly. remember how steve is rejected by robin in the same season he develops feelings for her? or how dustin is symbolically rejected by max in the season he develops feelings for her? that's because it would have been a super weird choice to build it up for a really long time and then end it with a rejection.

there's a reason why in season three when joyce rejects hopper, we all immediately know it isn't a real rejection, even though they're fighting, she's grieving and planning to leave, and he's being unreasonable and unfair. there's reason after reason to think it's not going to happen, but because he's had feelings for her since season one we know it's going somewhere.

who waits on the edge of their seat to watch someone get turned down? who stays subscribed to netflix for that? that kind of thing would not be interesting, it would just be a confusing way to spend the increasingly limited time right before your show ends. penultimate season. every scene has to mean something bigger, all the way down to lucas talking about new coke or mike trying a new kind of pizza.

in writing you primarily only want to wait and build up to things if the result is going to be worth waiting for. rejection of the perpetually tortured gay kid is predictable and doesn't function to do much at all story wise. easy to write around, too, but they did the opposite. they built will's character around this.

they also have no need to dip back into the rejection pool narratively, doesn't add to the story. especially this late into the game. (sidenote, weird how people were not nearly as sure robin was going to be rejected despite her love interest being mirrored to mike, significantly less developed, and introduced so late, but i digress)

if they wanted mike to reject will, it should have been during the van scene. he should have given mike the painting and said something along the lines of, "i know you don't feel the same, but i really want you to know how el sees you, how we all see you. you're the heart. we'd fall apart without you." it would have still been sad but it would have been an ending.

because plotlines need to end! they need to end when it makes sense for them to, not before or after. dragging it along means they either realize they have something worth dragging, or have deliberately decided to prolong a plot point past its logical conclusion for the sole purpose of milking every last second of misery they can out of will, which would be needlessly cruel and so, so gratuitous.

it's not like the van scene NEEDED to happen exactly how it happened. any scene that is solely character driven with no impact on the plot can be rewritten over and over and changed into whatever it has to be. it was written as the most romantic mike moment in any season, and it was filmed and lit and directed extremely specifically. zero accidents.

robin and vickie was unnecessary without a plan. mike and will was unnecessary unless they have a plan.

so they must have a plan. if mike was going to reject will, it had to be in season four. but mike didn't reject will. not at all. he was actually very, very moved by what will had to say, he just didn't entirely realize what it was he was saying.

in fact, they made sure that this plotline was not just unsolved, but that it was obligated to come back, by having it go against the character's most consistent moral line of friends don't lie. and gave it to the character who, in his introductory scene, refuses to lie. dishonesty has genuine ramifications in this show, and will's is attached to a physical (treasured) object that has to come back into play. they can't sweep it under the rug and mike can't reject will without it coming off as... just... far too late.

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there’s no WAY the duffers would give will anything other than the best ending possible after all that he’s been through.

like sure, let’s have this poor gay boy get abused and called slurs by his dad, ruthlessly bullied at school (and called queer by his peers), get kidnapped and taken to another dimension (where he’s forcefully used to be a host for baby demo-creatures), then possessed and tortured when he finally gets back, then ignored by his friends, and finally used as a relationship counselor for his best friend and sister, all while being in love with that best friend

yet somehow, through all of this, people also want him to be rejected (or much worse) by the boy he’s loved since he was a kid 😕

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Nothin wrong with some S3 Sapphic Jancy right?

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us: will is gay

them: nahh

*will is confirmed as gay*

us: will is in love with mike

them: nahhhh

*will is confirmed to be in love with mike*

us: byler is endgame

them, sweating: nahhhhhhhh

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this part breaks my heart every single time. nobody yearns like these boys do.

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sade doing god’s work thank you for your service

THIS IS ABSOLUTELY SENDING ME

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stranger things 5 leaks (100% real)

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this one parallel is enough to make ME fucking crazy and it lives in my head rent free

Mike views himself as Will’s personal protector. He pulls Will away from their other friends when they try to comfort him. He puts his arm around Will’s shoulders twice in season 2, something that is recontextualized in season 4 as a romantic gesture from Mike when he re-enacts the same shit with El.

Except for the fact that this whole moment with El isn’t genuine, it isn’t real, it’s a fucking act they’re both putting on to try and appear “normal”. The way Will watches this in the background oh god I’m gonna kms. Mike is literally trying and failing so bad to project Will onto El, he’s trying to transfer his feelings for Will onto her and it doesn’t work and never has and never will! He does this repeatedly in every season. Here’s another parallel that makes me feel deranged

Mike understands the saying “love makes you crazy”. He then indirectly poses this to Will in season 2. It’s basically a coded way of asking if Will loves him. Will reciprocates (though he isn’t able to for the majority of season 2 due to what happens to him). They smile at each other with tears in their eyes and then look away like they’re ashamed of something.

In season 3, Mike is trying and failing to force himself to love El because he realized in season 2 that he was in love with Will. He then tries to intentionally recreate the “crazy together” moment he shared with Will, with El. He gets annoyed that she doesn’t understand what he’s saying. They don’t understand one another. They don’t love each other.

But you know who already confirmed they did love and understand one another?

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brother💔🥀

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5. being the one to snap will out of his upside down visions (at the arcade AND on halloween)

6. taking will home and reassuring him that they’ll go crazy together

7. going to will’s house to make sure he’s okay, staying overnight (sleeping on will’s floor), being there and holding his hand when will wakes up from a nightmare

8. staying at the lab overnight and sleeping on an uncomfortable chair next to will’s bed (“are you hurting again?”)

mike wheeler moments that feel like you would see them in a fanfiction:

when will is in the hospital at the end of season one, he's the only one of the boys who stays awake, and when jonathan comes to get them, he throws himself down on him and puts his head against his chest (perhaps to listen to his heart? hm?)

the other boys express concern, but mike is the one whose emotional reactions were supposed to be in tune with. he is singled out by karen and after they find will's body he's who we see freaking out, lashing out, hugging his mom and crying

emotionally going through his binder of will's art

just kidding i'm not making a full list it would take me forever he is literally always just. like that. he is so fanfiction coded. i just wanted to talk about the head on the chest thing because it was so precious