HOOOOOLD THE PHOOOONE WHAT THE FUCK WHY ARENT WE TALKING ABIUT THIS MORE WHAG RHE SHIT

EXCUSE ME TUMBLR BUT WHY DIDNT I SEE YOU GUYS TALKING ABOUT THIS FIRST??? HELLO????? WHAT DID I MISS

RAHHHH IM GOING CRAZY

People work harder to create reasons why Mike and Will won't get together than the Duffers would have to work to have them get together.

There's not enough time.

It'd come out of nowhere.

Mike's not gay.

Mike and El are in love.

The show is not that deep.

Will ripped off the band-aid already.

Will's story is about acceptance not finding love.

Sigh.

It's all bullshit. Cut the crap and admit that you have a problem with gay people.

They've been building it for years already.

Years.

Don't blame anyone but yourself if you were too blind to see it.

My dad isn’t homophobic but, he thinks that I’m denying that men can be friends, aka that I’m attacking his friendships. It’s so dumb

don’t talk to me. WHAT DO YOU MEANNNNNNNN WE NEVER LOSEEEEE WE’RE WINNING MY BOYS ARE LOOKING FIREEEEEEEE

I love that photo sm, it feels warm and soft (if that makes sense) I’m smelling the byler in the air 🤭🤭🤭

im 90% sure i dreamed this but i swear i saw a photo of will byers bts on stranger things where he had the bloody nose. i think this was a dream though. thought i would share

I think that was a dream Ollie but some posters have him with a bloody nose

Why I think Byler is endgame

Before we start, you must know I'm really skeptical about theories and all. I like to read and have fun with them, but believe them? It's really hard for me as a 20 years old queer person. Since young I've suffered being queerbaited by mainstream series, Stranger Things wouldn't be the first nor the last to do that.

I know today things are a little bit better, but for the sake of my poor broken heart, I'm always expecting a deception. Yet, I can see byler happening in season 5.

Here we go to the reasons why.

The existence of Robin

I've heard a lot of straight people say, before season 4 and even now, that "Will can't be gay because Robin is the gay person in the show. There is no reason for another one".

Like? The show can have 38272 straight, developed and important for the plot characters, all of them with love interests and happy endings, and one gay character inserted as a comic relief is fine. Two? To much to deal with.

I know, I know, disgusting. BUT what if I say that Robin was not a character added to the show only for a comic relief or identity representation at all? That she was presented for the watchers to consider the existence of a gay character in the show. For them to recognize some queer coded things that, without Robin, they wouldn't be able to?

Robin was presented to us in Season 3. As we must know, the third season of the show is mainly dedicated to character and relationships development. Thanks to it, we got to see the characters way more cylindrically, their fears, mistakes, who they are in their normal daily life. Mike, El, Hopper, Joyce, Erica and Steve gained many new layers in this season, but Will had the most special one: the first explicit hint of his sexuality.

And then, Robin appears. At first we are conditioned to think she likes Steve, the Duffers play a game with the watchers' heteronormativity using the dubiousness of their dialogs. And then, boom! She is lesbian. Not only lesbian but repressedly in love with a girl - at least was - and jealous of Steve.

Thanks to this coming out scene

The interpretation door was open to see this as Will being in love with a boy, repressing his feelings and being jealous of the girl the boy is dating with.

Will's jealousy and feelings for Mike back then stamped the background of everything, it was being slowly built inside the show - but not inside the character, remember the Snow Ball script? It was always there, just unseen.

Until here we are only remarking that Will is gay. But what Robin has to do with byler as a ship?

Well, if she is the queer character created to open this door for Will, created to gain the sympathy of the general public as comic relief character who bonded with two of the most popular characters of the show - Dustin and Steve - since s3, showing the watchers the struggles of a queer person in the 80's in a "light" way and making the viewers to cheer for her love life, of course her character holds a big role with byler building a romantic relationship.

Robin appeared in Season 3 because the viewers wanted Milven to happen in season 2 - thanks to the heteronormativity and kids sexualization I may say - when it wasn't going to, it wasn't scripted like this and it's not going to be endgame. So Robin's creating a scape route for the writers.

The hints given about Will being called a f@g and Mike over protective and supportive behavior with Will were not enough to create this bridge between friends and lovers as we know very well.

Movie Date and Schrodinger Cat

Moving on. We know Will is gay. Okay. What is still uncertain in the show is Mike's sexuality and required feelings towards Will. Here, we are focusing in the required feelings part.

I read a lot of analysis about the "movie date scene". I remember people discussing the blushing frame and the holding hands theory even before s4 coming out and at the time it sounded like joke to me - as I said I'm really skeptical. Yet, after rewatch the part and reading a lot (especially @greenfiend 's one about the holding hands thing), I feel like I finally understood why the scene is so spoken of.

It's pretty simple, it's another open door. Not like Robin who is there to guide us to read between the lines but as something that is open to interpret and rely on when they finally get together. It was made for when people start to question "where did this relationship came from?" and create assumptions like "it came out of the nowhere".

In the scene, Lucas, Max, Mike and Will go to Starcourt's movie theater to watch a horror movie together. When arguing about Mike's behavior, Lucas remarks that he is spending romantic time with his girlfriend by going there. When they are finally inside, lumax and byler sits separately, then things start to get really fishy.

The construction of the whole next part, when they are inside the movie theater, from the beginning of the movie to the black out and end of the scene, are basically hands. Hands everywhere. In the close ups, in the people around them and even in the movie. Why? For us to see it, to think of it, to imagine. To imagine what? It's up to you of course, but we know people hold hands at movie theaters, specially when watching a horror movie, and we also know byler is the main focus on that scene for some reason.

But they didn't show us their hands, did them? No. Because of that, no one can really say they were holding hands, but the same can't be said about them not holding their hands. The construction of the scene deliberately leads us to question the possibility, however there is no true answer. Like the Schorodinger Cat, they are holding and not-holding their hands.

Also, the "are you okay?" Mike says, the camera play and Noah's acting leads us to think that, if they are holding their hands, it was Mike's initiative, not Will's.

The whole scene is purposefully dubious.

Noah looks down at his hand at the end of the interaction, up again, and then smiles. It's there but they don't show us! At the same time, if it was an unromantic moment, they would've shown us they were holding hands as they did before, so why not? Why do they keep the whole thing subtle, calculated, and masked by the MF plot if not to hold a secret meaning behind it all. A secret meaning for us to discover yet.

Like pleaseee, I swear this is some kind of torture for us gay people.

Mike's character construction and Finn's acting

I'm a ST fan since the beginning. I was here when the major public liked Jonathan better than Steve, when Mike was the favorite member of the party, and Finn was treated as one of the best child actors of the show. Looking back, it's pretty obvious things changed a lot since the third season.

Why things changed? In the last two seasons, Finn was accused of being "out of the character" and "having a bad acting". And Mike turned into a douchebag in public eyes.

The truth is: the way the writers had chosen to show us Mike changed. He still is the same insecure, paranoic, loyal, compassionate character who is a jerk sometimes from the beginning, but we didn't get the chance to see his POV since s2.

Mike is a character trapped in the expectations of the viewers. They expected him to date El, to love El as a girlfriend, to treat her the way she deserves - what he can do, but clearly not as a boyfriend. Their relationship wasn't scripted the way it happened, so his character needed to go through some changes to remain himself. And, of course, for mlvn to end, the viewers needed to hate his version with El. Again, it is a scape route.

His character is still the same, but the way we see him is different. The truth is the viewers expected Mike to acts towards El the way he did with Will after they started dating: unconditionally supportive, trusting, and understanding, but guess what? This was never on Mike's character to begin with.

He doesn't understand, trust, or support people unconditionally. They are showing how much he is inflexible and selective in what he wants to believe since the very first episode, we can see that in the relationship with his family and friends. Just remember his fights with Lucas in s1, s2 and s4 and Dustin in s2 and s3, they are his CHILDHOOD FRIENDS, but even them don't have the pleasure of Mike's unconditionally support and trust. The only character he is truly open to is Will.

These changes were made for us to see the difference between Will and the rest of the world for Mike. In season 3, when he appears to be a jerk to everyone, no exception at all, the only person he seems to retract this behavior for is Will. In season 4, Mike fights El and Will, but again, the only one he seems to understand and retract from his defenses for is Will. Again, the only person he is really open with.

Now, speaking about sexuality, the other reason for people to blame Finn's acting is the awkwardness in kissing and intimate scenes - like the first I love you he heard from his girlfriend.

I don't know about you, but for me, it is almost painful to watch them kissing. Not only kissing, the whole dating thing looks like a performance, and it's not a good one, if I may say. But here is the thing, it's on purpose! The same goes for the looks he gives Will's and Eddie's body.

Don't even think that every look, expression, or camera play is not calculated. These people spend so much money in the show for it to be half assed by bad acting or misinterpretation of the script.

👏👏👏 I love bylers sm we always pull through with the good shit like this

BRO?? THIS IS NOT FAIR LET ME IN

I couldn’t be trusted with that information 💀💀💀

The Importance of the Tiger Pride poster on the season 5 bts video

I’m slightly insane so I spent 2 hours this afternoon analysing the entire video, and this tiger pride photo caught my eye as a little detail no one has mentioned. This may be a bit of a reach BUT the stranger things crew repeatedly show how important even tiny parts of the set are to this character.

The tiger pride poster is obviously in support of the Hawkins tigers, and what is drawn on there is a paw print. But I don’t know if it’s just me but I think that’s an odd way of drawing a paw print. The pad isn’t the right shape (on the poster it more looks like a heart) and the toes are too thin. Here is the poster, then what a tiger paw print should look like. I know they’re a bunch of high schoolers who have made this poster, but this feels like deliberate foreshadowing.

Keep the heart shape in mind.

Additionally, the paw print is coloured in red, which seems an odd choice. The tiger colours are orange and green, literally shown behind the poster, so it would make sense if it was either of those colours. So if we flip it upside, it actually looks like a red bleeding heart.

And you know where we have seen a very important red heart before - on Mike’s shield on Will’s painting

There are many reasons this heart could be included.

I think including this little detail ultimately ties together the importance of the painting to everything Mike does this season, and how it is essential in everything he does, if it is showing up in insignificant places like a poster at school.

However, since the heart is bleeding it could also suggest that Mike gets hurt, or alternatively, his shield gets damaged. We know that he has been building up an emotional shield/guard for the past two seasons, so this could go show that this season this is broken down and he is finally truthful to himself. He stops trying to push Will away, and push his feelings for him aside. Furthermore, to have a bleeding heart means to be a softhearted person, which reinforces the idea of Mike opening up this season.

It could also suggest that since Mike is protecting the whole party with his shield that he fails to save everyone and feels like it is his fault. I think the obvious candidate here is Will, since he is undeniably the person Mike cares most about in the party. I think this links well to the theory that since each season starts with Mike being late to something, he will be too late in saving someone (or so he thinks)

Just some fun little thoughts, let me know what you think.

TL,DR: Mike will be EMOTIONAL this season

Yesssssss, I want to see Mike being more vulnerable bc Finn is rlly good at deep emotional scenes

byler fans be like

Literally me tho

broke: shipping b*ler

woke: shipping willhail 😍

i am offering all willhail shippers free drinks, rb with your orders 🥰🫶

what is this ship guys I’m scared what is this ship

me when ppl ship el and will (they’re literally siblings even if they’re not blood related)

no literally my grandma ships them and I’m just like wtf, is byler rlly that bad sherry