Finally on tumblr.

Took me long enough... Anyways: 💙💛

[miwiheroes]

thesweetestdream (author of ttmd;ttms) and lamepartes (author of the power outage fic) being the same person is the biggest gag of 2026

the fact that you got the two most popular byler fics of all time AND they're both in the top 10 most kudosed fics on ao3 AND its not because people saw your first fic and immediately went to your second bc ur the same author is insane. like this has to be the biggest egoboost of all time bc its just confirmation that your writing and characterisation like is that good.

[auracobaltblue]

How thesweetestdream’s reveal feels like:

[hellfirehoe]

thesweetestdream and lameparties being the same person has to be top 3 byler events

[kidovna]

stranger things, first show in history to introduce the cyrano trope and shoot cyrano right in the head with chekhov’s gun

[kidovna]

right, i forgot that if they fired the gun, we would’ve actually gotten some payoff.

[byerswonwon]

genuinely what the actual… fuck ?

continuously trying to prove that it was mileven all along by reheating byler nachos is so embarrassing honestly like even the writers of these damn characters can’t deny it that byler was destined to be canon bruh

[chocolatemilkbear]

Here is a compilation of Netflix Stranger Things queerbaiting examples that I found (and there's probably more)

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

They have a lot of fucking nerve telling us it was never even hinted at, that we were always just noise to them.

[crazytogether06]

The Secrets that you keep (When youre talking in your sleep) Byler fanart :)

“Did you write to me?” He asked again,

“When I was in California?”Mike swallowed.

He could lie.

It would be easy.

“Why are we talking about this?” He asked, trying to kiss him again.

Will moved his head to the side, “Mike.”

Mike dropped his head onto Will’s shoulders, eyes squeezing shut, hands squeezing just as hard, “Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you send them?”

“Will.”

“Can I have them?”

“They’re stupid.”Will’s fingers curled in Mike’s hair, and he pulled him away from his shoulder, “I don’t care.”

Mike let out a breath that sounded halfway between a laugh and a surrender.

“I don’t even know if I still have them.”It was a lie; they were tucked in a shoe box in his closet, where they were safe, where no one would see them.

Will’s lips twitched like he didn’t quite believe him.

Mike leaned forward, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips once more, “If I find them.” He murmured.

“That’s all I ask,” Will murmured back, tilting his head to allow Mike to deepen the kiss once more, as if he knew the answer already.

Looking down at the box in his hands, Will hurried down to the basement, sitting down on his bed, opening the box.

He knew what the letters said, he’d read them all weeks ago, he just wanted Mike to actually make the decision to give them to him this time.

There were fewer than when he’d first seen them.With a frown, he started pulling them out, opening and reading through them.

Yours, yours, yours, yours, yours, yours, yours.

He huffed to himself, shaking his head.He’d taken out all the ones that ended with ‘love’.

Of course he did.Of course, Mike had combed through them before handing them over. Of course, he’d taken out the ones that crossed the invisible line. The ones that said too much.

The ones that couldn’t be explained away as clouds or friendship or spell slots.

“You’re such an idiot, Mike.”

He whispered into the room.

CHAPTER 32

Oh, DH_epub, the writer you are...

[ohnotsureyet]

‘Cars. Something. Anything.’ Or Will finding a shoebox of letters, the drawings binder and Mike's special magazine on his evidence hunt in the The Secrets That You Keep (When You're Talking in Your Sleep) by DH_epub. I fell in love with this fic, it's so good, go read it!

It was a lot of fun to draw Mike's messy room. Yeah I know the letters on the sign and teh arrow are supposed to show the other way lol, but whatever :D And of course, the soundtrack for this one is Pulp.

And here lies another fanart of mine for this fic :D

[mikewheelerisaqueerler]

if you haven't read "the secrets that you keep (when you're talking in your sleep)" by DH_epub on ao3 yet you are absolutely missing out on one of the best representations of internalised homophobia i've ever read

and also some serious mikewhatthefuckdidyoudogate shit and we know we all love that

im so serious please read it it's the best thing ever

https://archiveofourown.org/works/75832486

[m0thergoose]

IS ANYONE TALKING ABOUT THIS FIC IT’S KILLING ME

[diplodocuschip]

I do NOT see enough people talking about the secret that you keep by DH_epub enough

the ending to the latest chapter had me GAGGED and any fic that explores mike and his stupid brain is a 10/10 in my books

ALSO ARTSYLE CHANGE (again) just bare with me while I develop it

[l00ciddreamerz]

Agreed. This fanfic is so fucking good one of my favorites I’ve ever read!!!!!!! It’s such an amazing character study of Mike and such a fun take on the MWTFDYD gate. I’m DYING for the next chapter

[crazytogether06]

Im at chapter 21 but holy crap. Byler nation you NEEEEDDD to read this. It will change your life, and i mean it.

Chapters: 45/45 Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Steve Harrington & Mike Wheeler, Will Byers & Dustin Henderson & Lucas Sinclair & Mike Wheeler Characters: Will Byers, Mike Wheeler, Jonathan Byers, Nancy Wheeler, Ted Wheeler (Stranger Things), Karen Wheeler, Holly Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, Dustin Henderson, Steve Harrington, Robin Buckley Additional Tags: mwtfdydgate, Pre-Season/Series 05, Mike Wheeler Has Internalized Homophobia, Mike Wheeler is Bad at Feelings, Mike Wheeler is a Mess, Mike Wheeler Being an Idiot, Jealous Mike Wheeler, Mutual Pining, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Sharing a Bed, Living Together, Gay Panic, Holly Wheeler Has a Crush, During the 18-Month Timeskip Before Stranger Things 5 Vol. 1, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2, Ted Wheeler Being Homophobic (Stranger Things), Ted Wheeler Being an Asshole (Stranger Things), Bad Parent Ted Wheeler (Stranger Things), Karen Wheeler Tries, Good Sibling Nancy Wheeler, Mike Wheeler is Down Bad, POV Mike Wheeler, The Party Friendship (Stranger Things), Dreams, Lucas Sinclair ships Byler, Fix-It, Mike Wheeler Finds Out About Will Byers's Painting, Minor Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Making Out, Mild Sexual Content, Miscommunication, Cheating Mike Wheeler, Dry Humping, Underage Drinking, I use really convoluted metaphors for no apparent reason, Mike Wheeler Has a Sexuality Crisis, Mike Wheeler Has a Crush on Will Byers, Mike Wheeler Has Issues, Stranger Things 5 Rewrite, Stranger Things 5 Finale Rewrite, Eventual Smut, Dirty Thoughts, Wet Dream, Forced Proximity, Slow Burn, I don't think there's a -gate I haven't or won't cover, Dom/sub Undertones, Masturbation, Brat Will Byers, Sexual Overstimulation, Orgasm Edging, like accidentally, Top Mike Wheeler, Service Top Mike Wheeler, Bottom Will Byers, Mike Wheeler gets fingered Series: Part 1 of Do You Want to Know a Secret? Summary:

Mike thinks it all started the day the Byers moved into their house.

Having sold their house in Hawkins a year and a half prior and moved to California, when they came back, and the town got put in lockdown, they didn’t have a place to go.

Mike had kindly offered up their place during dinner.

~

The 18-month gap between s4 and s5 told from Mike's POV with minor other POV's as the story progresses. The gap has been lengthened to encapsulate more time passing. They start at 16, but by chapter 6 they're 17 1/2 with them turning 18 chapter 32/34.

Also known as the answer to Mikewhatthefuckdidyoudo gate

Steve Harrington is to Mike what Robin is to Will

Season 5 Rewrite to follow

Everything is tagged appropriately. If you choose to read, that is your prerogative. No smut occurs until chapter 36.

[narrativelogicofbyler]

as someone who studied screen performance, blocking, and editorial intention, the whole “bylers make such a big deal out of mike looking at will’s lips” thing is honestly exhausting because… it is a big deal. it’s not fanon, it’s not reaching, and it’s definitely not fetishising. it’s literally just recognising the visual language the show was using.

when an actor’s eyeline repeatedly drops to another character’s mouth, that is one of the oldest, clearest romantic codes in film and television. you don’t do it once by accident, never mind three, four, five times. you don’t frame it in close ups if you don’t want the audience to notice. and you absolutely don’t leave it in the final cut unless it’s intentional.

mike is not hard of hearing. he’s not lip reading. he’s not confused about what will is saying. his eyeline is doing what eyelines do when a character is overwhelmed, drawn in, or fighting something they don’t want to name. that’s why it reads as intimate. that’s why it reads as charged. that’s why it reads as queer.

and again, acknowledging that isn’t fetishising. it’s just understanding how performance and camera grammar work. if it were meaningless, it would’ve been shot differently. if it were meaningless, it would’ve been edited out. but it wasn’t.

so yes, mike staring at will’s lips is a big deal. the camera told us it was. the edit told us it was. the performance told us it was. people can pretend it’s nothing, but the visual language was doing the heavy lifting, and was doing it loudly.

[teambyler]

Will's original motivation to come out was to build up courage to approach Mike about his feelings about him:

The show quietly REPLACES this. The reason he comes out becomes a vision from Vecna???

A vision that was OFFSCREEN?

I smell meddling.

Byler was planned, then pulled. You can't convince me otherwise.

-teambyler

[narrativelogicofbyler]

what absolutely incenses me, on a personal, professional, academic, representational ethics level, is that the duffers genuinely seemed to believe the correct narrative takeaway for us queer viewers was “you’ll survive unrequited love :)” instead of the far more basic, foundational, narratively ethical “your love is real, valid, and deserving of reciprocation.” do they understand how deranged that is within the history of queer media? do they understand how many decades queer audiences have been force fed the exact same consolation prize?

because let’s be clear: we as queer people are already told, repeatedly, institutionally, culturally, that we should settle for less. that our love is a subplot. that our desire is a punchline. that our emotional arcs exist to prop up straight characters development. and then these two men come along, borrow the entire cinematic language of queer longing, the blocking, the framing, the colour theory, the proxemics, the micro expressions, the ache, and decide the most responsible thing to do with it is reinforce the idea that queer love is narratively disposable.

in my opinion, that’s not just a misstep; it’s a catastrophic failure of cultural literacy. it’s amateur. it’s cowardly. it’s the kind of storytelling that betrays a total lack of awareness of the medium they’re working in. you don’t get to use the emotional architecture of queer cinema and then shrug when it comes time to actually honour it. that’s not subversion, that’s negligence.

and honestly, i can’t decide which possibility is more infuriating: that they didn’t think at all, which is embarrassing for anyone working in a visual medium with this level of cultural reach, or that they did think and still concluded that queer love being treated as meaningless was perfectly acceptable. either way, the result is the same: a narrative that tells us queer viewers, yet again, that our love is a lesson, a device, a sacrifice, but never something worthy of fulfilment.

it’s enraging because it’s lazy. it’s enraging because it’s harmful. it’s enraging because they had every tool, every visual cue, every performance beat lined up to tell a story that mattered, and instead they chose to replicate the same tired, damaging trope that queer media has been fighting against for decades.

it’s not just stupid. it’s a dereliction of narrative duty. and i’m tired of pretending it’s anything less.

[narrativelogicofbyler]

when i describe byler as queerbait, i’m not invoking the superficial metric of “they didn’t kiss.” i’m referring to the show’s sustained mobilisation of the formal apparatus traditionally associated with heteroromantic storytelling. this isn’t fan interpretation; it’s a matter of cinematic convention, audiovisual rhetoric, and genre coded semiotics.

the blocking consistently positions the characters within intimate spatial thresholds, confined interiors, and emotionally charged proximities, all of which are historically coded as romantic sites of disclosure. the proxemics collapse interpersonal distance at narratively strategic moments, producing a visual tension that aligns with the grammar of longing rather than platonic rapport.

the camera language reinforces this: slow, deliberate push ins; symmetrical shot reverse shot structures that privilege emotional reciprocity; close ups that linger on micro-expressions of vulnerability; and selective depth of field that isolates the pair from their diegetic environment. these are not neutral choices. they are the same techniques used across classical and contemporary cinema to construct romantic subjectivity.

and then there is the score, which functions as an interpretive framework. leitmotifs recur specifically around their shared emotional beats, employing harmonic suspensions, unresolved cadences, and timbral softness that mirror the musical strategies historically used to underscore romantic tension. film music theory is clear on this: scoring is not decorative but semantic, guiding the audience toward a particular emotional reading. when the music aligns with the visual rhetoric of romance, the text is making an argument.

so when i call it queerbait, i’m identifying a dissonance between the show’s formal signification, which unmistakably constructs a romance through image, sound, and performance, and its narrative refusal to acknowledge the implications of its own craft. it’s not about the absence of a kiss. it’s about the deployment of a romantic semiotic system without the narrative follow-through that system promises.

in other words: the issue isn’t the lack of textual confirmation. it’s the presence of romantic form without romantic resolution.

[humblebumble023]

Small comci based on this tweet