Nationality : France ! (so my English risk to be not very good..)
Why creating a English Tumblr ? : Because i personnaly find that there are more people and its expanded my world and my knowledge by not only attaching myself to one country (and it improves my English by the way) !
What's made me join Tumblr ? : Stranger Things/Byler/Mike Wheeler analyses & theories that i've seen in Youtube ! <3
My Wattpad : Arwen Universe (@Arwen11037) - Wattpad
I'm a multifandom person so this tumblr will be very confusing since i will post according to my desires !
LGBTQIA+ Safe place ! I'm Demiromantic Pansexual Genderfluid !
I'm so sorry to the Bisexuals but Francesca Bridgerton is a Lesbian. So is Michaela Stirling. Compulsive Heterosexuality is a thing. Y'all watched Fran decline every suitor available until she got to the autistic one like her. There was no romantic spark when they kissed. No rush of pleasure when he touched her. He was her best friend and husband. I adore him for this fact. But she literally forgot her own name the moment she saw his LADY cousin. Like, come on now.
And Michaela literally has No Boys Allowed stamped across her forehead. They're Lesbians.
I promise you, if they gave me any inclination that they liked men then I'd support it but they're not.
Has a Pansexual who fight against the Bi/Pan erasure in media i agree ! Because as much as peoples tend to forget that discovering being Bi/Pan does not mean that we have date every gender to know that ; peoples also forget that Lesbians & Gays can have been in a heterosexual relationship before and still be Lesbians/Gays !! It's a common Homosexuals experience ! By the way as a Aromantic as well, every time i've seen John and Fran on my screen i've always read them as Queerplatonic ! <3 Apparently in the books (i dis not read them yet) Fran IS in love of John and it's sweet but the show is different, and in the show it's not romantic for me. I could be wrong tho, i would like a Bi/Pan Fran as much as Benedict is !
I know itâs highly unlikely, but I hope at some point closer to the end of the Bridgerton series that we get one last grand hurrah with all the prominent characters in the same place. I want to see how all the different characters and storylines from each season come together. For instance, Simon and Edwina are siblings in law. Wouldnât it be so funny to see them meeting for the first time in the background of a hectic family charades scene? Or idk, I hope that if Posy ever marries some day that itâs to a man that gets along smashingly with the Mr. Featheringtons and joins their monthly cheese club. Like this extended family is getting big and when the series begins to draw to a close I want to see that reflected in the narrative. We get a quick scene of Madame Delacroix here and a little snippet of so and so there or whatever. Like wow, we know all these characters from all these storylines and now their family and friends. Isnât that amazing? Here they all are together, as evidence.
I've said it before but I love that one of the main things Eloise and Benedict have in common despite being so outwardly different from each other is how deeply they care and how much they invest of themselves in their relationships.
In the books they both ended up with the love interests who had the most abusive backstories exactly because Benedict and Eloise can't ignore people they perceive are in need of rescue. (Part of the reason both of them are so kind to Penelope when someone wrongs the local wallflower). Eloise and Benedict met Sophie and Phillip who were in situations they couldn't get out on their own and of course decided it was their civic duty to fix the problem. It's part of their nature. And I just love how this trait ties them together as siblings and friends.
They both act like they don't care about the marriage mart or about finding love but deep down they're desperately looking for the kind of love that sees them for who they are and still requests their help.
As Bridgertons, Eloise and Benedict are constantly looking for a cause to fight for, it happens with art and literature and all those little rebellions. So it's really romantic that their most precious achievements ends up being how much they changed Sophie and Phillip's lives with their love.
Yes, we need to respect the idea that Will can and should find happiness without Mike.
But we HAVE to give grace to the people who donât see Will being happy without Mike.
The show made it near impossible to sever Willâs journey from Mike. Willâs interest in boys over the course of the series was limited to Mike. Half of us wouldnât ship Byler still if we were shown Will wanting another boy.
So PLEASE stop making people feel stupid and whiny for not being able to see Will with another boy. Stop making people feel stupid and whiny for reading Mike as queer and insisting there is evidence for it when, quite frankly, youâre ignoring it just because the story says âMike isnât like Willâ.
To Bylers: stop being annoying in peopleâs asks if they disagree with you. Scroll, block, move on.
To non Byler Will stans: Good GOD give us some credit and mercy. Because Bylers who still ship Byler are tired of feeling dumb and delusional when weâve been told we are for years.
So. Before i return in my Stranger Things Obsession in 2025 (and still today but not for the same reasons), i've been deep in Bridgerton !
I've watching the entire serie 2 or 3 months after S3 as been completed.
My mom was the one who introduced me in this serie, she's a BIG FAN of this serie but nobody she knew watch it, so she INSISTED HARD on me to watch it, because she wanted to discuss about it. Personally I'm not a fan of historical series so i wasn't hype to watch it at first, but in the end she made me curious about it so i FINALLY watch it and... OH GOD I'VE LOVED IT !! <3
I realized that i love historical series when their fantasies, not when they're based on real story !
I love the characters and relationships between this characters (Peneloise / Benedict & Eloise / Kate & Edwina / Violet & Lady Danbury / ect..) and OF COURSE the romances ! <3 I LOVE the way that each seasons focus on one romance, it's awesome and you have for all flavor ! ^^
Also the creative liberties in this serie is BRILLIANT !! It's conceal perfectly for me the historic fantasy of this story to escape our reality and our modern knowledge to feel included in this story, whether it's the musics or the costumes, it's just AMAZING !!
I cannot wait for the new season soon with Benedict my beloved ! <3 I'm excited to know Sophie too ! Because yes, i did not read the books (yet !) but i planed on it, even tho, to what i understand, the serie take a lot of liberties !
When The Writers Botch The Protagonistsâ Internal Conflicts
A lesson in internal conflict and how overlooking it breaks both your main characters and your story, featuring Stranger Things
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Every well-written main character goes on a journey in their narrative, and at the heart of this character arc is an internal conflict: the push and pull between what the character wants and the fears and lies stopping them from getting what they want.
Internal conflict, especially for multiple characters, can be tricky to pull off, but itâs what makes characters relatable. To everyone. We all have desires, fears, and misbeliefs about the world or ourselves that stop us from going after our desires.
Internal conflict is The Clash between desire & fear.
The average story is able to create payoff with the main characterâs conflict, having them (and in turn, the audience) learn something along the way.
But when you decenter the emotional arcs of your main characters, or steer those arcs off their trajectory, the entire story falls flat and the audience walks away learning nothing from your story.
What Is Internal Conflict & How Does It Work?
Internal conflict is made up of 3 ingredients:
Desire: What the character wants most at this point in their life
Fear: What the character is afraid of
Misbelief: The lie holding a character back, which they are often oblivious to until they confront their fear in their aha moment. It is then that they realize âIâve had it all wrong.â
The protagonistâs misbelief is, ideally, written as the opposite of the storyâs theme.
Why is that important?
Because when the main character has their âaha momentâ, the audience has an aha moment of their own. They identify their own misbeliefs and apply the moral of the story to their own lives.
So, letâs apply internal conflict to Buddy The Elf.
Desire: Buddy wants to find belonging, to find the place where he âfits inâ. When he finds out heâs not actually an elf, Buddy hopes to find his real family, where he belongs.
Fear: Buddy is afraid that his family will reject him.
Misbelief: âI am an oddball, there is no place where I belong, and my real family doesnât want me.â
Buddy's misbelief is challenged during his "aha moment" when the real Santa arrives, and he realizes his Christmas cheer IS valuable after all. Once Buddy challenges his misbelief, his family accepts him. Buddy gets what heâs been shown to want the most over the course of the film. That's the payoff for overcoming his fears.
Now, letâs apply this to the protagonists of Stranger Things to show what happens when internal conflict is ignored and the audience is scammed out of an emotional payoff.
By protagonists, I mean these sweethearts:
Will Byers âïž
I think itâs safe to say that love defines the character of Will Byers more than anything. Love separates Will from Henry Creel, who he foils. Unlike Henry, Will has a loving family and friends, who are key to Will snapping out of possession in Season 2 and honing his powers in Season 5. Internal conflict arises for Will when romantic love enters the picture, something which *sigh* Henry has and Will doesnât. Platonic love defeats romance, yay! Except Lumax, Lumax is the most powerful ever!!
Anyways, Willâs internal conflict in the later seasons is set up around romantic love, and the shame he has around it because of his queerness and trauma from (CSA coded) abuse. This shame around romance is something I expected Will to overcome, because he also has a desire for romance that is so pure and inseparable from his queerness arc. I explain how Will is written to be a romantic hero here.
Willâs Internal Conflict
Desire: To be loved by someone who doesnât see him as fragile/weak or a mistake, to be loved for exactly who he is, and to find romantic love like his friends.
Fear: That he really is a freak, a mistake, and that nobody will love him if they knew the truth about his queerness. That he will never find love because he is gay and because of the trauma he experienced, because he is outcasted.
Misbelief: âIâm not gonna fall in love, I donât deserve love, because of who I intrinsically am.â
Misbelief stated:
How Willâs misbelief should have been handled: Will shouldâve been shown that he is deserving of the romantic love he wants. And Will wants Mike up until the end.
Will shouldâve realized that his desire to fall in love was a GOOD thing, not a BAD thing. His love shouldâve overcome his fear and shame.
Willâs misbelief is that he doesnât deserve Mike; he squashes his feelings for Mike down time after time. Will shouldâve been shown that he DOES deserve Mike, the boy who sees him for exactly who he is.
Willâs ideal aha moment would involve him realizing that Mike does love him, and that Mikeâs love gives him the courage to fight on, to stand up to the fear Vecna has been instilling in him.
The theme shown to the audience would be that love overcomes fear, and that queer kids, abused kids, too, can have the romantic love they desire.
If the point was to show that Mike made Will feel bad about himself, they didnât give Will an alternative love interest who made him feel better about himself. This is what happens in The Holiday, where Kate Winsletâs character is in love with a man who strings her along, but then Jack Blackâs character is introduced as a better match for her.
Again, itâs fine if Mike wasnât the right person for Will, but there wasnât another person for Will.
You donât just write a character to want romance and⊠not give them romance. In Willâs case, thatâs homophobic, actually.
What the writers did instead: They portrayed Willâs desire for romance as a weakness he had to overcome.
Characters can have misbelief-based desires (for example, a character who wants wealth or success), but if the protagonistâs desire is misbelief-driven, the pursuit of it is usually shown to hurt the characters around them.
For example, in A Christmas Carol, Scroogeâs desire for wealth is lamented by the townspeople, and his work partner Bob Marley warns him against it.
By contrast, Willâs pursuit of Mike is shown to be a net positive - for both Mike and Will. Willâs love, expressed through the painting he gives Mike, encourages Mike to be brave. It results in Mikeâs growth as a character, as well as Mike and Willâs bond repairing.
Desires that are portrayed as good should be achieved by the character in an emotional payoff.
What the writers did instead: They set Will on the exact character arc Robin has been on.
Why this doesnât work:Â
Robin didnât work at Scoops Ahoy with Tammy Thompson.
Romantic love has always been decentered from Robinâs character arc, which is about acceptance and community. Even when Robin pursues Vickie in season 4, a lot of focus is put on her friendship with Steve and how that gives her the confidence to show Vickie her interest.
âBut Steve was paired with Robin for all of Season 3, and he had a crush on her. They didnât end up together.â
Steveâs crush on Robin was resolved by the end of the season.
If the California plot was supposed to be Scoops Troop 2.0, there was no bathroom scene.
If Byler was meant to be unrequited, it should have been a hard no by the end of Season 4.
Instead of addressing Willâs crush on Mike and âripping off the band-aidâ, the show set up Mike and Will to grow closer together in Season 5.
This is a very different approach to the other unrequited love plot lines in Stranger Things, which are resolved in one season.Â
Jane Hopper đ
Jane/Elâs arc centers around finding family, connection, and belonging after being abused, as well as taking your power back (literally) from your abusers.
She finds the most solace in Hopper, her adoptive dad, Max, her best friend, and Kali, her lab âsisterâ.
I know some of yâall are going to say she finds solace in Mike, but he is shown to cause her more grief than happiness from Season 3 onwards. She explicitly tries to end the relationship twice because, in her own words, Mike 1. lies to her and 2. doesnât understand her.
Mike is security, stability, the boy Jane falls back on because she grew attached to him first. Her internal conflict works best if it ends in her growing away from Mike.
Janeâs Internal Conflict
Desire: To find her family, learn about the world, and live a happy life free from the lab.
Fear: That she cannot break away from the lab or end the cycle of abuse she was subjected to. That she will never adapt or be accepted in the real world.
Misbelief: âI do not belong. Anywhere. I am a monster, and I am not cut out for a normal life.â
Also, âI need the validation of others, of men, to be worthy of love.â
And perhaps âI need to âadaptâ and live a normal life to be happy.â
Misbelief stated:
How Janeâs misbelief should have been handled: Janeâs arc in Season 4 shouldâve continued as it was set up when she stood up to Papa. She shouldâve been shown that external validation was never the answer.
Yes, this external validation she is misguidedly seeking includes asking Mike to tell her âI love youâ.
If Mike was supposed to be a good thing in Janeâs life, they should not have written him to use the same language as her abusers (ex. âWhat did you do?â), and he shouldâve made her happy instead of stressed.
Kaliâs return gives Jane another option, taking her own life by choice, but this option is contrary to Janeâs desire for belonging.
In order for her misbelief to be proven wrong, Jane had to realize that she DOES belong, somewhere.
If Janeâs misbelief is âI have to adapt, to be a normal girlâ, she shouldâve been shown that she belongs and can be happy in spite of her powers and past. That these things, in fact, made her lovable.
Janeâs ideal aha moment could go one of two ways.
A. Jane realizes that she never needed Mike, that she was happiest broken up with him. Then, out of her own free will, she chooses to stay with the Party and Hopper instead of risking her own life, because they are her family. Or she chooses to leave the Party, because she wants to be independent.
B. Jane realizes she belongs with Kali, and she discourages Kali from taking her own life.
She chooses to live a happy, independent life with Kali (who understands her situation) and leave the Party behind, and they use their presence to break the cycle.
The theme shown to the audience would be that connection and making your own choices is the right way to heal from abuse. Not romantic attachment, and not ending your life.
What the writers did instead: They portrayed Janeâs desire as something unattainable. They also showed that her fear and misbelief were true, she was right about her inability to belong in the real world.
Janeâs character arc was filler for the Duffers, who ultimately saw her as a prop and symbol whose purpose had to be fulfilled by dying.
They fridged her, letting her fear and misbelief stop her from ever being able to pursue her desire.
They did that instead of having Jane confront her fear and misbelief so that she could pursue her desire.
As with Willâs internal conflict, this is just showing the audience that âsometimes, you never get what you desire most in lifeâ.
Mike Wheeler â„ïž
Mikeâs internal conflict is the hardest to pinpoint, because he doesnât seem to have one at all. Mike Wheeler appears to be a cardboard, static character. In every season, he loves El, heâs Elâs girlfriend, and heâs loyal to his friends.
Until Season 3, where you start seeing the cracks in Mikeâs relationship with Jane, how it makes him insecure, how it causes him to push his friends away, especially Will.
Mikeâs arc then becomes one of identity and insecurity. He loses himself, his role as the heart of the Party, in his relationship with Jane. The relationship feeds into Mikeâs insecurities about himself, as he places Jane on a pedestal and reduces himself to a ânobodyâ.
Then Will comes around and tells him thatâs not true⊠which WOULD be the perfect challenge to a misbelief that is barely explored at all.
Desire: To be a hero who can lead his friends to victory over the Upside Down; to hold his friend group together.
Fear: That growing up will tear his friend group apart; that he will lose the people he loves.
Misbelief: âIâm just some random nerd, a nobody. I canât do anything to support my loved ones. In fact, Iâm not important to them at all.â
Misbelief stated:
How Mikeâs misbelief shouldâve been handled: Mike shouldâve realized that Will believed in the person he wanted to be all along; that Jane was holding him back from embracing his role as the âheart of the Party.â
Will told Mike that his value was in his words, his leadership, his heart, so he shouldâve used that to help his friends fight.
Mike shouldâve had to confront his fears and insecurities on his own. Instead, he barely lifted a finger in the supernatural plot.
Mikeâs ideal aha moment wouldâve happened after he feels like heâs lost both Jane and Will (disaster moment). This wouldâve forced Mike to realize that he himself has value, outside of his loved ones, even when he canât save his loved ones. Even better if Mike surprised the audience with depths they didnât expect - Mike could learn to love all of himself, even the parts of himself he was afraid of.
The theme shown to the audience would be that you are lovable just as you are - you donât have to be a hero or savior. And/or that accepting yourself makes you strong, gives you the courage to inspire others and fight on. What better ending for a âshow about outcastsâ than the âeverymanâ character accepting that he himself is an outcast, and finding power in that?
What the writers did instead: They had Jane tell Mike that he indeed is valuable to her, when the narrative did nothing to support this. When, in fact, Jane hindered Mike's character growth.
We were never shown WHY Jane loves Mike. âYou understand me better than anyoneâ⊠point to three times in the show where thatâs true. Where Mike âgetsâ Jane more than Hopper, Max, or Kali do.
We were, however, clearly told why Will loves Mike.
They reduced Mike to the boy Jane and Will love, when he should have faced his fears and misbelief independent of them.
They proved Mikeâs fear, being separated from the Party and his loved ones, right. Thatâs exactly what happens at the very end when he loses Jane, with no arc of him learning to accept loss. Heâs just miserable.
I think you can tell what I'm getting at here. Fear and misbelief win, because the "lesson" is "sometimes, things just don't work out."
Why Does This Matter?
Internal conflict isnât just putting your characters on a journey, itâs the tool writers use to teach their audiences the themes of their story.
Letting a characterâs fears and misbelief win is exactly how you âassassinateâ that character.
By shooting down the emotional payoff of three main character arcs in Stranger Things, the audience does not learn anything about themselves by the time the credits roll.
Itâs soulless and designed for passive viewing; happiness and comfort to weakly charm the masses. And the worst part is, Stranger Things had the potential to be a story that challenges what the audience thinks about themselves and about others.
It's bitter men sacrificing good storytelling in lieu of "you get what you get, and you don't pitch a fit."
Will âIâm not gonna fall in loveâ Byers never experiencing romantic love as the only main character in the show despite being in love for years.
Jane âI do not belongâ Hopper sacrificing her own life leaving her found family because she believes she could never live a normal life.
Mike âIâm just some random nerdâ Wheeler becoming a shadow of himself only existing in relation to the people he cares about the most that ultimately move on from him anyway.
The lover that couldnât love. The daughter without a family. The hero without purpose. All dreamers living their nightmares with smiles on their faces.
This is diabolical writing⊠maybe it couldâve worked if it was supposed to be a tragedy but I think itâs clear that itâs not what they intended.
Why Will Byers is written like that ? Analysis & Byler Proof
I still see in Youtube, genuine peoples who loves Will, believing and saying : "Why Will does not have a boyfriend in S4 ?"/"Why does he have to be in love with Mike ?"/"Why does he not have a coming out arc with Mike (like what we suppose they will and already did with the other characters) ?"/"Why does they (Duffers Brothers) do nothing with his homosexuality ?"
I've seen that A LOT recently on Youtube comments and videos about Stranger Things ! And all i want to say is..
YES !!! IT'S EXACTLY WHAT WE SAYING !!!
Why does he not have a boyfriend in S4 ? Why does he have to be in love with Mike ? None of this was necessary for a fulfilled & satisfying arc for Will !!
You're ALL RIGHT !! That's literally one of our biggest point !!
S3 was vague enough on Will's arc to effectively be reframed in S4 ! (that's actually what happen by the way but in Byler's favor ! XD)
In S3 apparently (i was not in Stranger Things at the time) a lot of peoples have thought that Will's behavior was only because of lost childhood and nothing else. But other peoples was making a point of Will being Gay and realising it this season, in addition to his lost childhood. And we starting having some more Byler's in the back but not enough to not go back from it !
It would have been easy to go like this :
In S3 Will start to realised his Gay, all of his friends have girlfriends to hang out with but not him, he cannot. His friends it's all he have. But he see that it's not the case for his friends, so he lash out. Particulary at Mike who he was the most close, he now feel disconnected from him ! In the end they reconcile but his still affraid of something.. how he will react when he now his Gay ? Would he reject him ? Him, with whom he spent almost his entire life ?
With that we start S4, Will's feel alone in California, El is here but it's not enough. But he has met someone : a funny, clever, kind guy who he's befriend with ! Who he developped feelings with ! Mike come back ! But.. he still doesn't know how to talk to him, he want to, but he doesn't know how !? A lot of things going on : El lashed out at Angela, go in prison, but finally's been taking in a secret project to get back her power, and then SHOOTOUT !! No time to talk to Mike right now, in addition the guy he crush on who's gotten caught up in all this !! Will in the road trip FINALLY at some point get to coming out to Mike, and Mike is okay with it, he doesn't care as long as Will's happy ! And he notices that Will act strange toward the new guy ! ;)
S5, Will is in danger but he can count on his family, he's friends particularly Mike, and his crush, wich he as developed real feelings about ! Mike's support and help Will to coming out to everyone and more importantly, to is new found love, like Will helped him with El !
SEE ?!! And i just invented that while writing !! And the painting can either : Not exist at all ! Exist, but it is for the new guy ! Or can simply be a real platonic gift for Mike, to thank's him to accept him and still be his best friend ! He could have at some point in his life having a crush on Mike, heck maybe Mike was his Gay awakening ! That could still exist but without the romantic feeling coming with it ! We don't always end up with our first crush and/or Gay awakening !
Like that we could have : A great coming out to your childhood best friend story ! A real, complete, love interest and love story for Will ! And Byler could have simply existed in fanfic ! Everyone would have been happy !! ^^
But it's not what the writer's have decide to do, they actually do WORST !!
S4 was THE season who cemented the fact that Wil is IN LOVE with Mike, putting that right through our face ! The painting became a plot device/chekhov's gun the moment when Will said it has been commissioned by El ! And they've put Argyle in the story when he served as nothing (he doesn't even come back in S5), when they could've easily placed a love interest for Will. Like that we could have getting attached to this new character important for Will, and geting to know him more in S5 ! Like Robin (and even Vickie since she will come back in S5) ! Two seasons to get attached and rooting for him and Will BUT NO !!! They've choosed to confirmed and affirming Will's LOVE for Mike, and in do so Byler becoming half canon !
Of course, it is possible to give a boyfriend for Will in S5, and we could get attached to him in one season ! In contrary of what's a lot of peoples think : it is possible, we have time to do someting like that ! The Duffers have already demonstrated that multiple time's !
However, it's ignoring the fact that they could've done that one season prior in a more simple and effective way ! It's also ignoring the whole pining and affirming love of Will for Mike in S4 ! And ignoring the very plantant checkhov's gun that is the painting !!
Instead of asking yourself all these questions, sit down, take a step back, and think about why ?
I've start to read again some of my pre-s5 analysis & theories because i like to hurt myself apparently !
And, bro.. this analysis that i've made is so much more relevant now !!
They REALLY could have ended the whole Byler storyline in S4 and put a new love interest to Will in S4 instead of Argyle that they throw away anyway, like..
I would have been so much more happier if they've do that instead of.. queerbainting us until the very last minutes of the finale and put Will a epilogue boyfriend..
I really consider to maybe do a fanfic/rewrite of S4 & S5 with this idea !
Navigating the complex feeling of 'ambiguous grief' as a byler fan.
On failed storytelling and our boy Mike Wheeler
Ambiguous grief ~ grief for a future that never materializes is professionally considered a valid psychological loss.
I can't pretend to know the devastation felt by queer bylers, but I do know I woke up the morning after seeing the finale with a hollowed-out stomach as though I'd been physically kicked. I was genuinely in the foetal position. I'd never really known the true sensation of feeling 'gutted' until this point.
My journey as a byler has always been accompanied by an interest in the meta view of what it means to be a fan in our modern culture, something I can thank therapy and my arts/film education for. If you've seen any of my analysis posts, they focus heavily on byler's visual storytelling as well as the social dynamics of the fandom itself. I'd left space in my heart for a disappointing, or at least unexpected, ending of Stranger Things to happen outside of byler, including El leaving and her survival being left uncertain. I knew Mike would have to learn to live without her as soon as he said he didn't know how to in the s4 monologue. But foreshadowing like that, I figured, would be consistent with foreshadowing for byler. I didn't mind the idea of El leaving as long as it was done well for all of the characters in this love triangle.
What I didn't expect was for them to drag Mike's grief arc out until the very end instead of giving him something to ease the pain before the credits rolled. Or for him to learn zero lessons in any meaningful way that resonated throughout the whole narrative.
It was as though Hopper was talking directly to me in that memorial scene when he spoke about acceptance...
... only this was actually a double-edged sword that Mike didn't even get to wield not only about how to leave a beloved show behind, but grieving the loss of something that was, in my opinion, a far more beautiful story - one that never came to be.
I've known and loved other queer stories that did indeed end in a happy way, or a way that made sense to me - mainly in literature rather than on screen, which is its own conversation - so I know it's possible to follow the trail of vibes and visual storytelling like we did for byler. I know it wasn't all in my head. And as a side note, I struggled to figure out how this connected the hurt queer fans with the disappointed straight - often female - byler fans like me, who are often dismissed as fetishisers of gay romance. After all, what byler fan, no matter their personal identity, hasn't been vehemently called 'delusional' ?
That word. 'Delusional'. Ugh. What do they even mean by that? Clearly the majority of us are not actually suffering from some kind of painful, psychosis-induced illusion. We've seen, with our own eyes, people open their minds to byler in real time, including a straight male viewer called Matt's Multiverse on TikTok who documented his whole journey. I know friends and family who were similarly open-minded. So we know we're not crazy, even if we are crazy together, because the story was not over when s5 rolled around and byler had everything going for it.
But I realised the ending of s5 hurts not only because byler was fumbled, but because the entire show was - including mileven, in its own way. When I look at what appealed to me about byler as a straight female viewer, I have to look at the fact that I used to enjoy Mike and El pre-s3. I have to look at the way society views romance itself, and especially how girls/women view relationships and intimacy. When romance is a major element of a story, it is often dismissed as fantasy or fairytale, whimsical or silly - even though every single human on Earth needs love of some kind, and a great many chase romance.
With byler, I saw a relationship that could be sweet, romantic, tender, anti-conformist, special, genuine, and caring in the face of internal and societal pressures. It made me believe not only that queer romance could be alive and well in media, but that romance in general was not dead.
Byler was for the queer folk, but it was also for anyone who dreamed of goodness and respect and intimacy and emotional connection and freedom in human relationships. Of overcoming what society told you to be and embracing what makes life beautiful: genuine feeling and vulnerability.
With the byler view of the show, I was able to not only vicariously walk a mile in the shoes of queer people, opening my heart more and more to both Will and Mike as their story moved me deeply, but I could also see my own experience reflected: in the way that men often struggle to meet the intimate needs of women, in the way women struggle to discover the elusive emotional needs of men that society so often tells men to hide. A s5 story that fleshed out Mike's struggle with masculinity and sexuality was not a baseless hope - it would have followed s4 beautifully.
And yes, I suppose the show subverted a cliche trope by having Mike dream of a fantasy land instead of El, the girl... but do the Duffers really think that women are always the sappy idealists and men are the logical thinkers? Were Mike's tasteless jokes in s3 about species and 'emotion not logic' instead a reflection of their actual views, rather than heavy-handed irony?! Do they think Mike being the dreamer is subversive, non-conformist storytelling?!
It's not. At least, not in a story that's already about outcasts who don't fit cultural norms and who explicitly claim to be proud of their differences.
Yes, Stranger Things is the 80s, but this show needs to also make waves for a current audience to be relevant and meaningful. And modern society is more aware than ever of toxic masculinity, male emotional repression and the 'Nice Guy' type by now. I don't exactly see Mike as this dangerous kind of 'Nice Guy', but the way the Duffers wrote him certainly implies, somewhat, that they are. A hidden danger, only revealing itself when its too late.
And Mike certainly has the potential to become that Nice Guy in the future, judging by that little epilogue scenario he dreamed up for himself. Plenty of space for lonely writer Mike to become Mr Nice who pities himself a little too much, and whose frustration ends up curling outwards, harming women and potentially men alike...
Maybe I'm being too cynical, but if we want to be really bleak (and really truthful), we could even find the seeds of this in his character from as far back as s1, when he tired of El every time she stopped providing him with a service - i.e., finding Will. Even if we read that as a nerdy boy who is just madly excited that he found a real life superhero and doesn't want to waste time, there was a stark difference between Mike's impatience and the tenderness towards El exhibited by, say, Dustin.
There's always been something spiky and a little scary about Mike, but I was happy to lean into it, because I thought that was leading towards some kind of character reveal, something deep and dark and fascinating that we'd discover as he grew up. Something like insecurity and self-loathing that could only be remedied by love and acceptance. Something that, as the show continued, seemed to soften whenever he was with Will, because something about Will made him want to be a better person.
Because I was all for Mike and El. I was desperate for their intimate conversations as I awaited s3. But they never came. I lost faith in the show, happy to give it up and enjoy the early seasons, not willing to look deeper and see if the issue was performance or direction. But now, the comparison between byler and mileven scenes is too blatant.
I hope I'm not speaking out of turn about their performances, because I certainly would place blame mostly on the writers and directors here; for not being able to create compelling writing, for not being able to summon chemistry between the actors of their main romantic pair.
But no. It turns out, the Duffers don't seem to think these character traits for Mike were anything out of the ordinary at all. As countless mileven fans have said to excuse his behaviour over the years: 'he's just a kid'. Might as well say 'boys will be boys' and be done with it.
And yes, Mike was just a kid, but isn't this his coming of age story too? I guess I'd hoped it would have more development; that it would do what the greatest stories do, and push Mike to the limits of his possible experience, not only regarding external obstacles, but internal ones, too.
But that's not what we got. Not only did Mike - and the audience he stands in for - get very limited time to actually process his grief on screen (a pacing inadequacy made more startling by the way that Dustin's grief was thoroughly explored throughout s5, and the way Mike's own prior grief for El had been explored through s2), but mileven had already been completely ruined by the entirety of s5's lack of clearly intimate scenes. Nothing hit home, nothing had emotional resonance to make you wonder if they were the ones to root for. The most convincing aspect of their dynamic was that they sounded like a passionless couple who have been having the same domestic fights for a decade.
El filling the tub, saying she should warm the water up, while Mike tries to get her to open up? Oof. It was straight out of an adult divorce drama like Revolutionary Road (2008) - not exactly an inspiring portrayal of young lovers who are not yet 17.
But I went back and actively tried to watch the finale from the perspective the show seemed to intend, where Mike is oblivious to Will and completely in love with El.
I tried to recall how I felt during s1 and s2 when I rooted for Mike and El. I even looked at things from the POV of an emotionally stunted Mike with abandonment issues who clings to his childhood crush/friend El until the last pathetic moment of their goodbye (an interpretation many of my GA family hold).
Do I think the Duffers drive the latter perspective home hard enough if this was their intention? Not at all - but no matter, because any version of this show with oblivious Mike + sad Will still technically works, after a fashion. It does. I can see what they tried to pull off.
But do you know what else that version of the show is?
Mediocre, shoddy, and somewhat cruel.
And what better demonstration of that than the fact that half of Mike and El's romantic montage clips during their tearful farewell overtly feature a devastated Will in the background? Even after Will and Mike's closure is apparently done and dusted in that dingy radio tower scene (thank you Noah for your work, but by god I'm so sorry) - we are still not allowed to forget Will's role in this relationship.
Do you remember November? Remember the finale to Vol 1?? It was set in the Mac-Z too, a flaming warzone bombarded with bullets and dead bodies.
And yet that sequence with Will coming into his powers was more epic, wondrous and romantic than the grand climax of the whole series between Mike and El. I mostly mourn for my current byler self, but a tiny part of me mourns for the mileven enjoyer I used to be, the casual viewer I used to be, who was satisfied with Mike and El. She would not be satisfied now.
So this is what this whole mess comes down to, for me. Queer rep, yes, romance, yes - but mostly, artistry.
Because the chemistry, the glances, and the feeling between Mike and Will leapt off the screen, didn't they?
I had no cause to invent seeing this. I had no bias or agenda because I had no need for a bias or an agenda - a straight privilege, I know, but also a confirmation that anyone who calls me delusional for enjoying byler is merely mocking the ability to see from a new perspective and dream of stories with real meaning and resonance.
Because isn't that what byler was? If we're being really honest? A better story?
Isn't the fact that a solid portion of byler fans used to be mileven fans the very proof of that? I mean, who did the opposite? Who preferred mileven in the end having previously preferred byler??
No one.
And when I say the show is shoddy, I don't mean to downplay the pain we all feel. I donât mean to dismiss queer people's devastation by saying "this show is just a bit crap, but not terrible enough to really get upset about". What I mean is that when it comes to craft, to something that goes beyond subjective enjoyment, it turns out that the show actually is just...
Careless. Shoddy workmanship. It's not even horrendously bad - that, at least, might elevate it to cult status, like The Room (2003). Nope, it's just plain old mediocre.
And as someone who loves beauty and craftsmanship, that's what hurts the most.
How embarrassing for the Duffers. And what a god damn waste of our boys, fictional and real. This was a show that so many people loved, both in the audience and in the cast of creatives who made it, and they just let that slip away like sand through an hourglass.
The curtain behind the curtain is not a total lie, but a shallow truth, referring only to the first layer: the conspiracy Nancy was uncovering, not the rest of the showâs dynamics and mysteries. When Mike saw El in the blonde wig for the first time, it wasnât leading to performative heterosexuality, but simply him seeing and loving the âreal herâ, aka the girl who was not a lab rat with a shaved head, but a pretty blonde girl. It's not even her real hair colour. That alone tells you so much about how the Duffers view girls and women, and breaks my heart even more as I lament what this show could have meant to anyone who longed for something that captured a modern healthy sensibility of young love.
Listen, Mike's struggles and insecurity issues are a worthy story to tell. These struggles affect real people and can indeed end in happiness or tragedy in life as we know it.
But this is a story.
And did it make for great storytelling?
No, I do not believe it did.Â
The very first thing I read in my book on screenwriting by Robert McKee, Story, the one that inspired many of my byler analysis posts, was that a story can still exist without perfecting its execution, but that it will suffer in quality and reveal the humanity (or lack) of the storyteller.
Robert McKeeâs screenwriting book was never about what is or isnât a story. It was about what makes a good story, or, if you work hard enough, a brilliant one.
But what the Duffers have instead done is create an unfinished story, and with Mike, their apparent stand-in, an unearned tragedy.
I don't even have the capacity to write in depth about Will or El's stories right now, but Mike is impossible to ignore. He did not begin in a place of high happiness that would foreshadow his deserved downfall into earned, inevitable tragedy. Yet they've taken him to the limit of the human experience on the negative end of the scale - what Robert McKee calls the Negation of the Negation in storytelling terms - and left him there.
If Mike's story value is Freedom vs. Slavery, what they've done is left him enslaved in the worst possible way a human can be enslaved: denial.
Mike ends the series not only lying to others, but to himself, too - telling himself that El is still alive, and not allowing himself to tell his true story - whether you believe that story is about El's existence, or his love for Will, or both.
When I read Robert McKee's Story last summer and rushed to make byler posts from what I'd learned, I accepted the possibility that byler could be handled poorly alongside my hope that it would be magical. But never in my worst nightmares did I imagine they'd do this to Mike, because the result is not a story that I don't subjectively like, but a story - and a coming of age story at that - that does not truly allow it's main characters to come of age.
Had Mike really started to grow towards maturity during s5, or was he thrown right back to his s3 self when he grabbed El in the finale and begged her to never leave him?
Did he sit and stare at the memorial statue for 18 months, just like he sat inside El's fort for almost a year trying to reach her in s2? Or was it just the turning point of graduation that made him reminisce?
And where was his best friend, Will, during all of this? Did they share any moments, learning to grieve what El meant to each of them and helping each other to heal?
Yes, there's beauty in the cinematography of the final DnD scene that is so reminiscent of beloved byler scenes from s4 - in fact, it's full of the kind of warmth and whimsy that has been a throughline in byler's story as a whole, such as Mike Wheeler's repressed queerness bursting forth in the form of wanting to plunge his vampire teeth into the hot-blooded flesh of his best friend, if that's your read of this scene (and what a read!)
But it's all weighed down by an abstract gloominess that is not solely about thematic change and moving on from childhood. The graduation scene before it felt uncanny, a bittersweet ending that was heavy on the bitter and sparing with the sweet, and it's not because of what is happening on the surface, but because of the subtext.
Because even at the end of this story, when subtext can finally be brought into the text... when things should finally pay off in a story...
we still don't know enough.
El's death is supposed to be the great ambiguity of the finale, but for me, the ambiguity is all Mike's.
Mike's hopes for his friends' futures are set up as flash- forwards rather than just fantasies, telling us how the party will end up. But the details elude us, leaving a strange subtext of uncertainty that might be realistic for the characters, but is unsatisfying and unmooring for the audience, who expect closure. Lucas and Max will live happily together, but are they in Hawkins? Dustin will go on adventures and continue his love of learning - but why do we know exactly which college Robin is at and not our original boy Dusty? We know Will is going to further discover himself, community, and a new love... (or is it? They don't even commit to sealing it with a kiss).
Yet somehow Will's line to Mike, 'And the storyteller? What about him?' holds as much romantic subtext, even in a non-private group setting, than everything else that came in Vol 2 + the finale combined. The unspoken thoughts of the actors float beautifully to the surface, telling us more and more about these characters even in the denouement where things are supposed to be petering out.
It all feels so vague and flimsy, and it's all because of Mike.
We know he will write. He will tell stories. But as he places his DnD manual on the shelf, lingering longer than any of the others in a way that not only implies so much about him and Will, but about his childhood as a whole, what we don't know is whether writing will truly save him.
I always jokingly said Mike was a tragic period drama man, but I wasn't prepared for just how true that would turn out to be. Someone get him a chemise and cravat and a black stallion so he can ride off into Hawkins woods. He can tear through the countryside until his thoughts stop chasing each other, and when he returns to the mountain of papers in his office, dreading yet another evening of twirling society beauties around the ballroom, he can stumble out into the fresh air and come across a stable boy he grew up playing alongside before life pushed them apart...
That's a story we've heard before (kind of), but it's the mark of a good writer to be able to weave what are time-old tales into something fresh.
Maybe, for the Duffers, something stood in the way of them doing that - of creating a good story, well told. There's certainly been many theories about why that might be since I first started writing this post, back on January 2nd. They've said they found it hard to move out of childhood, and spending their lives making a show about nostalgia illustrates that rather well. I also remember an old interview where they wondered why they'd want to heal their emotional wounds when such wounds are what contributes to artistic expression. It seemed a very childish and stubborn way to regard creativity, and it makes me think of things that Finn Wolfhard, a guy twenty years their junior, has already spoken about in interviews regarding his own creative output: whether an artist needs to be tortured to make art, or whether creative expression can be born from the co-existence of healing and pain.
So maybe the Duffers' obsessiveness took a different shape, something more insular and self-regarding that led away from brilliance rather than towards it. I mean, art can be therapy for the artist, but what Iâve learned is that if youâre going to make something designed to be an experience for an audience as well as yourself, you also need to actually consider the experience of that audience.
So you see why I cannot feel shame for seeing something that wasnât perhaps intended with our boy Mike - his being in love with Will - because that hope was built on the belief that artistry and quality and beauty would prevail, in both the storyteller and in their story.
Itâs been said that when it comes to story, art exists in the space between the screen (or page) and the mind of the audience member.
What we loved was a version of the show with more depth and artistry than it actually held. We chose to believe that beauty could transcend chaos to create the kind of meaning that resonates through the ages, a work of art so intricate that it would never be lost to the sands of time.Â
I take solace in knowing that stories with such depth do exist - Iâve seen them. Iâve experienced them. Stories made by artists, inventors, dreamers, visionaries and obsessives with extraordinary empathy and attention to detail are something the world will always need. Writers who would still write even if their work never saw the light of day, just for the thrill of it, for the love of the craft alone.Â
And maybe the Duffers are happy with their mediocrity. But honestly, if so, I pity them, because I have this secret feeling that if Mike is their stand-in, then Will - and maybe even El - is the person they subconsciously dreamed they could be.
The artist, the wizard with innate powers that remain a mystery in everyoneâs eyes, including Mikeâs.
Why do writers create characters? Where do they come from? Because the character of Will Byers is a certain kind of miracle to me, one that is perhaps a result of chance, luck and magic as much as skill or intention. Iâm so happy to have had the feeling, long before I had even finished s1, that he was a very special little guy indeed.Â
So go ahead, hateful fans! Call us 'delusional'. But Iâm not sure thatâs an insult anymore. All it means is that while others were happy with mediocrity, we dreamt a little bigger. We saw beauty where it might not have even existed, and what is an artist if not someone who is capable of that?
And though Iâm not bargaining for a redo, I know that on the horizon somewhere long down the line, itâs possible that we may see this story again, a future remake or adaptation where Mike and Will are finally brought out of the subtext by a storyteller from the generation who grew up watching this show. Someone who loved what this story gave them, and might one day think to themselves...
this. mike bring described as a âdebilitatingly insecure kidâ who âkisses a girlâ (not even saying her NAME) is so crazy that i always thought it was done on purpose specifically to bring up the fact that it wasnt true feelings but him trying to avoid his insecurity and feel more normal. clearly this is what the actually talented writers of the group saw too, and how they, as the ones who actually knew what they were doing and clearly took over mikes character and turned it into this compelling story as one would naturally assume to. idk im not writing this right im going to bed. but like. UGH. mike wheeler the character that you became, the idea of queerbaiting so hard you literally dont just give them chemistry with another character, but make them bring irrevocably gay and unreadable from any other perspective, then sentence them a life of being in the closet because you got a divorce and are mad others wrote âyourâ character better than you can
even conceive. i love you actually talented writers on the team who thought they were making history and being allowed to tell a queer story
