Pinned
have a byler edit to TV by Billie Eilish that i made a year and a half ago but never posted (i spent way too long on it for it not to see the light of day)
i also edited the different parts of TV on top of each other myself for this audio, i had a Vision™️
byler angst edits you are always loved by me 💔
because then the show would be badly written (and mike wheeler's character especially would be absolutely ruined). his actions would make no sense and the duffer brothers would have lost the plot to such an astronomical level that they destroyed one of their best main characters from the first season for the sake of making a ship have more conflict.
yes, one of the reasons i ship byler is because it's gay, i am drawn to gay stuff because i am gay and because those storylines have a fuller potential to be very interesting and unique. but at the end of the day i am rooting for byler for two reasons - 1, i don't want my favorite character (michael wheeler from stranger things) to be massacred because i like him for the way he's written and don't want that taken away from me. and 2, i also don't want to see will byers be given a really badly written half-assed gay unrequited love because i also want his story to be well written and also as a queer person that pisses me off. i'm sick of writers mistreating queer characters so badly just to forward heterosexual relationships because it says absolutely nothing about queer people besides "boo hoo, isn't it so sad to be gay?" i'm sick of queerness being used as a plot device, i'm sick of people pushing the narrative that queer people just can't win or find happiness or joy because that only makes real queer people feel that much more hopeless.
i'm so sick of never seeing a fully flushed out queer love story in mainstream while we get bucketloads of heterosexual love stories. is it so evil to ask for a win every now and again? is it so evil to want to see representation of my community on the big screen for not just me to see, but for everyone to see? so that they know our stories exist too, that we experience things like internalized homophobia and self hatred and hopelessness, and that a lot of us spend a long time trying to push it down and try to force ourselves to be straight? mike wheeler is the perfect opportunity to showcase an incredibly common queer experience that i barely see in media at all, let alone mainstream media. our stories deserve to be told too, not just relayed back to ourselves, but to others who don't relate to us.
i am queer. i want proper representation. i want a compelling story about queerness. i want to see unashamed queer joy on my TV screen instead of a not even explicitly stated gay sob story.
i am a fan of stranger things. i want it to be well written. i want it to have a good ending. i want its characters to make sense and reach their full potential, instead of being absolutely wasted to half-assed writing for the sake of engagement.
so yes, at least on behalf of good writing and good representation, mike and will have to be gay. sorry!
mike's s4 love confession was genuinely so stupid it makes me laugh
"ohhhhh i couldn't say i love you because i was scared of losing you!!! i didn't want to get too close to you..... because then it would hurt if i lost you..... even though i've already said i love you.... and also you're my superhero and you saved my life and that's why i love you"
michael wheeler you are not getting out of this scot free what the fuck was that. shittiest love confession i've ever heard what is he even talking about
A BIG problem for Milkvan, is that the entire "Mike can't say he loves El" plot in Season 4 happens AFTER Mike had already blurted out that he loved her in Season 3 and El had said it back.
SO this means that, with the passage of time, Mike came to realize he did NOT love her like he thought he did.
Thank you for attending my TED Talk.
That is all.
-teambyler
Will thought El might DIE and he might not see her again:
THAT was the reaction of seeing someone you were TERRIFIED of losing is still alive.
It came RIGHT AFTER El's reunion with MIke, which looks downright casual in comparison:
Part of it course is that Will is an amazingly empathetic and caring person who's more in touch with his emotions.
But El is supposed to be the love of MIKE'S life, and they're supposedly the show's supposedly "flagship ship" (as Milkvans like to call it)?
(And the framing of the shot with Will in the background, and Mike's conflicted expression to Will, all INTRUDE upon what's supposed to be an intense romantic moment.)
Don't get me wrong, Mike does look extremely happy and grateful she's alive. But shouldn't have been MORE? Isn't Will's "Are you okay" instead of "I'm here" the thing to say? Have we really lowered our standards on the heights that romantic pairings can reach in fiction? Have we forgotten that True Love stories usually culminate at or around when one is afraid of losing the other person forever? (like in this Byler post by @kidovna)
Just ONE EPISODE EARLIER, we had Joyce and Hopper's reunion, which had far more weight:
For the 2 reunions in the desert, it's as if the creators were telling us: "There's a contrast here and you should pay attention to it!"
-teambyler
what was the point of making will in love with mike?
why was will used as a plot device to force mike and el back together and "fix" their relationship issues? (the writers literally took his OWN feelings for mike and his OWN painting for mike that was supposed to be something special between them only and made it all about... el? this is genuinely one of the most cruel, ridiculous and unnecessary writing decisions i've ever seen if it doesn't result in will getting the person he loves)
why did they clearly highlight the contrast between byler and m*leven's relationships all season? how mike makes el feel like a monster for being different vs how he does NOT make will feel like a mistake for being different? how mike and el had the biggest fight after mike apologised vs how mike and will made up and ended up closer than before after mike apologised? how mike and el don't have healthy communication and struggle to understand each other vs how mike and will always have genuine heart-to-heart conversations, understand each other so well and sometimes don't even have to say any words? how mike feels insecure in his relationship with el and has his trauma/feelings invalidated vs how will manages to always make him feel special, confident and gives him strength when he's struggling and needs help?
why are there so many parallels and similarities between will and el as individual characters AND also their relationships with mike?
why is mike's relationship with will different from all his other platonic friends? (and don't just say "because will is in love with him", because in some scenes, MIKE is the one who initiates things and goes out of his way for will. which reminds me, you know how everyone says mike does so many romantic things for el? like not giving up on her when she's missing, taking care of her, being protective over her, etc.? he actually did all of those things for will first)
why did mike vent to will about his fight with el (the fight he claims they "can't come back from") without directly saying what the fight was about? all he said was "maybe i should've said something... and if i would've said that thing, then maybe she'd want me there with her." so... you're venting to your friend and you can't even specify that your big fight was about not being able to say "i love you"? why was it kept so secretive if you truly love her and it's no big deal? you've said you love her in front of a group of people before anyways, even when will was there, so why can't you even say the words to him while venting?
why did mike vent to will (again) and say that if he would've explained himself to el, maybe she would've taken him with her? will says he thinks it's scary to open up like that, to say how you really feel, but shouldn't mike and el already know how they both feel about each other at this point? el heard mike say he loved her in season 3, and at the end of the same season, she said "i love you too" before kissing him. they have kissed a lot, sent letters to each other and do lovey dovey things, which should make their feelings quite clear?????
and what was the point of this line from will?
"because... what if... what if they don't like the truth?"
we're supposed to be talking about el here. sure, will was subtly speaking about himself, and we know that as the audience. but mike doesn't. this conversation is about el, so mike still thinks will is talking about her. why on earth would he NOD after will says the part about how she might not like the truth? mike knows that "the truth" she WANTS to hear is "i love you", so why wouldn't she like the truth? why did mike nod at what will said and why did he agree with him? what is actually even happening in this scene??????????????
why did they make all the canon couples stand together in the final shot of season 4, with mike and will standing together too?
what was the point of ANY of this if they weren't planning on making byler endgame?!?!?!?!?!
big fan of bambi and thumper
Explain why Mike always look miserable without Eleven
I'm drunk so I don't really have time sorry
sometimes ppl will be like “omg this is the biggest byler proof idk how people still ship milkvan” and then pull up some of the weakest evidence we have
the best evidence we have is
i'm all for the littler pieces of evidence but imo when it comes to The Big Proof we should stick to what's always been our best argument lmao
Heavy agree on this one
Sometimes I'll see bylers trying to convince others by bringing up blue and yellow or like, Mike staring at Will's lips
And yeah these are pieces of evidence too ofc, especially blue and yellow imo cause they did not need to do all that, but that's not our main argument guys cmon😭😭 Obviously if you present that as MAIN evidence they're gonna think we're reaching
I mean, cool opinion. But El didn't insist, she literally said 6-8 words in the entire season, Mike just abandoned the pennhust plan by himself. And saying she is a weapon was just to convince Lucas of keeping hee. He genuinely developed a crush on her in s1-2. Finn even said he prefers mileven because it started at the beggining
she did sort of insist though. maybe insist isn’t the right word, but when mike asked el to go knock on the front door and talk to his mom, she said “no.” and explained that it was dangerous, and mike realized “oh shit, yeah, maybe let’s not do that”. but mike did not want to keep el initially. whether or not you believe mike and el are in love by season four, mike was not in love with her when he first saw her, unlike how he claimed in his love confession.
as for finn, if finn saying he likes mileven more means mileven is canon, then what about noah saying he likes byler more and they’re “building that up”? neither of us can really win that argument, so i personally don’t cite it as byler evidence, and don’t accept it as mil3ven evidence
but once again, just my opinion. we’ll see in s5 !!
