made this a while back！…>_<…

These are the valentine’s cards posted by official strangerthings.things account. 😏

“you were my vessel…my spy…my builder…we’re going to do such beautiful things together…..such beautiful things……”

will:

Chapter update of Win Or Lose!

The final one 🥳🥳 Link

It's a longer chapter with a sprinkle of conflict, a lot of kissing, and Mike and Will navigating many firsts in their relationship together 💕 Hope you guys enjoy ☺️

That moment you realise you’re the main character

LEAK/SPOILER about Season 2 of Stranger Things!

RANDOM TWITTER ACCOUNT: "'Steve and Nancy have an intimate conversation and talk about future plans, kiss, and say they love each other!''

Stancy is endgame guys!

EDIT: Some people aren't used to my sarcasm. This is poking fun at the "leaks"' that Mike and El will kiss in a field or something in Season 5 and how this supposedly proves Mileven is endgame. Such a ''leak'' wouldn't have proven anything then. And it proves nothing now.

-teambyler

Stranger Things S4 — Complete Airport Scene Analysis Powerpoint

67 slides of agonizing film analysis and rewatching the fuck ass Mileven kiss scene over and over again later, it’s done gang 😭🙏

i didn’t proof read, so disregard grammatical errors & all that, please and thank you😘😘

References (under the cut):

Chapter update for Win Or Lose!

Lots of fluff and important convos between mike and will 🥰

Link to chapter

Enjoyyyy!

The Cyrano Trope & Byler

The byler painting lie is such a clear example of a literary trope where a character receives some form of courtship that makes them feel "in love", however the character does not know the true identity of WHO they got it from. 

This trope has a full fledged name called "Playing Cyrano". It comes from a famous french play from 1897 about a character named Cyrano, who felt that the love of his life, Roxane, would never love him back because he was not good looking enough. Still, he tries to find the courage to convey his love to Roxane through a love letter (think~ painting) and this is what happens: 

(link to full article)

Will is the one "playing Cyrano" here for El, as a means to make Mike happy, help Mike and El's relationship, and also to secretly convey his own feelings for Mike in the process. 

This trope very obviously ends with Roxane (Mike) falling for Cyrano (Will) upon learning the true identity behind the letters (painting/van speech). 

And it's also precisely why Mike makes the expressions he makes at Will in the van; why his eyes shine with awe, why he takes breathless gulps as Will speaks, the whole nine yards. 

I've spent a long time wondering why Finn Wolfhard acted the way he did in the van scene (the expressions he makes are VERY distinct and emotive, he was given clear acting directions for it), and this is the most concrete reason why: The writers/directors here were trying to show us how Mike is perceiving Will's gift and words, and what it's making Mike feel. The van scene is not ONLY about Will, but about Mike's feelings too!!!

Mike's expressions in the van scene clearly tell the audience that he feels like he's falling in love all over again. It's giving him hope for his relationship with El. It's making him forget about his insecurities with her, and making him feel needed and loved. 

And the obvious catch here is that it's all Will doing that. Not El. And that's the missing piece to how they're going to segue into byler in season 5. 

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Beyond Stranger Things, obviously the idea of 'Playing Cyrano' has been adapted for literally over a hundred of years, into hundreds of stories, cementing it as a trope in romance plotlines. Here are just a few other examples:

Ben and Beverly from It

Ben gives Beverly a poem, but she thinks it's from Bill and ends up with Bill in the first movie. In the second movie she learns who the poem is really from and rightfully ends up with Ben.

Olivia and Sebastian from She's the Man

Olivia quickly falls for Sebastian while reading a sheet of song lyrics he wrote. But she thinks the lyrics are written by his twin who is disguised as Sebastian at the time. She spends most of the movie chasing after his twin, but eventually finds out the truth and ends up with Sebastian. 

Ellie and Aster from The Half Of It

Ellie agrees to help a jock named Paul write letters to his crush Aster. Ellie is in love with Aster and communicates it through the letters under Paul's name. This helps Paul and Aster's relationship a lot and they begin to date. Eventually Aster finds out the real person behind the letters, which leads to Ellie and Aster ending up together.

I especially love how the Cyrano trope is used in this story, because it shows how easily the trope can be molded to fit the queer perspective: in the original, Cyrano believes his love will never be reciprocated because he's not attractive enough. While in the Half of It, Ellie believes her love will never be reciprocated because of her gender.

Otis and Maeve from Sex Education 

Otis plays Cyrano for Jackson who is hooking up with Maeve at the time. Otis is in love with Maeve and knows everything about her, and essentially meshes with her perfectly. But he's too insecure to confess to her. Meanwhile, Jackson doesn't mesh with Maeve super well, and gets Otis to play Cyrano (eg. Otis telling Jackson Maeve's favourite books) . Maeve and Jackson end things when she finds out the truth about Otis's involvement, and her/Otis are the main couple of this series. 

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Overall the moral behind Cyrano's story is about how love at first sight is foolish and that appearances are not the basis of true love. 

Reading about this trope struck me with the thought that maybe this is why the writers forcibly shoved El and Mike into the love at first sight trope— even when it doesn't totally fit Mike's behaviour or words in S1E2 (after he sees El the first time, he does not behave like someone "in love" at all and plans to send her away). 

In most cases of the Cyrano trope, the love that exists between the "wrong" pairing is mainly based off of physical appearance and cyrano's masked courtship. There is little else holding them together. So by writing Mike declare that it was "love at first sight", it makes me question the whole basis of his love for El and how superficial it might be. I mean sorry Mike, how did you know you loved her the moment you saw her? You didn't even know anything about her. Meanwhile there's an undeniable depth to byler's bond— their friendship deepened and evolved over the course of many years, and it's anything but superficial.

(Side note: this trope sometimes involves Cyrano actively aiding the other love interest -Christian/El- but sometimes does not. In byler's case it does not. Will does not directly plan with El to woo Mike, and instead uses her name to an unknowing Mike to help their relationship. This trope can be executed a million different ways, but the main point is: the one in Roxane's role doesn't know who is causing their feelings of love)

This is so dumb but I'm directing a production of the prom rn (stay with me) and there's a line where they flip through what's trending on Twitter. Well, since Twitter isn't a thing anymore I changed the line to be what's trending on tumblr and we send them the trending list in the moment

My ask is please please please on Friday (Jan 10th) we use the byler tag SO MUCH that it gets in the top three trending and can be mentioned in the show 😭🫶🏼

I love how reading byler proofs genuinely improved my observational and analytical skills while watching other movies and tv shows

genuinely same

like i pay way more attention to how shots are blocked and framed now, and catch random lines that seem throwaway but aren't at all and circle back around later.

and as it turns out, in many good movies and shows, these things really do lead you in the right direction of the story

I’ve been wondering what yall are thinking

Yes, but like not in an intense "would disown his kids and hope homosexuals burn in a fire" kind of way like Lonnie probably is. Instead he's probably more of a passive, average day to day homophobe: Where he supports politicians that definitely aren't pro lgbt+, and says shit like "I don't care if you're gay just don't shove it in everyone's faces", and "Adults can do what they want but kids shouldn't be learning about or exposed to that gay stuff"

Projection vs. Reality for @glisten-inthedark

Happy New Year Byler Nation 🎆