IF YOU ARE IN LINE FOR BYLER, STAY IN LINE!!!!
making this post from queue purgatory because I hit fucking post limit for the second time in my life (first time was sorcerer eve, go figure) but I'm here to say, I'm back in. this is going to be very long and all over the place so just let me take you on this journey walk with me
I reread the LA Times interview with fresh eyes and a less broken heart and it's got me thinking not all hope is lost. I'm very cautiously optimistic as opposed to full on byler confidence like I was before vol 2 came out. but!
welp. a few things caught my eye in that interview.
first off, they spoke a lot about how they want their characters to be emotionally ready for that final battle, because vecna preys on secrets. it's why the jancy breakup happened, it's why the dustin and steve makeup happened. do I like this for will and his coming out scene? from a doylist perspective, nah. but I can respect it from a watsonian perspective.
now, before I would have very confidently said: you know who looks like he has a secret? mike fucking wheeler! but for now, I'll just very cautiously say, no pov from him for almost 3 seasons could be intentional.
"Because that’s what Vecna weaponizes against you. If you don’t have that self-hatred or self-doubt or those insecurities, then he can’t hurt you. When Will purges himself of that, he becomes unstoppable — or that’s the hope." mike could still be the chink in this (way too big at this point) group's armor. I guess we'll see.
second thing of note. the duffers ARE actually taking the queer characters in the show very seriously. this in itself doesn't mean much vis a vis byler endgame, I just think it's important to give them the benefit of the doubt when this is how they speak about the coming out scene and noah:
"I can’t emphasize enough how much the actors influence the characters, and their journeys as people really feed into what we’re writing and how we write those characters. You’re trying to channel Noah and what he went through and his growth, which we’ve watched as a person, as he’s found himself. Most of what is in the show is the first take, the first close-up that we did of Noah. It was incredible to watch because it’s one of those moments where Noah was not acting. Those words were real that he was saying. It was very emotional. It felt so real to Noah, so truthful to him. Hopefully the scene feels like that to other people because a lot of kids are watching. You feel a certain responsibility, especially with scenes like that. You can’t be careless about it."
third, just like noah's response when questioned about byler, there's no actual talk about mike's feelings for will. pretty much everything in the LA Times interview is centered on will's journey and will's character arc.
"It’ll all be right if this secret crush you have works out" versus "You don’t need that.” Even if it disappoints some people, it’s the more important message to put out into the world." <- this paragraph in particular had me like NOOO! but I think what they're really trying to get across isn't "queer kids should just settle for acceptance" but rather "you need to love yourself wholly instead of putting your self worth on someone else loving you." which. isn't that the exact interpretation of robin's Tammy Talk we've been saying is correct? and NOT the "don't flirt with your straight best friend because he's your Tammy Thompson" one?
"— in [Episode] 4, when Will finds his power, what we were intending was not that his love for Mike gives him these powers, but his love for himself and tapping back into how he felt when he was younger — that was the key to unlocking his full potential."
isn't this also what bylers have been saying since vol 1??? now, I do actually think will's love for mike helped him unlock his powers, but more accurately, I think mike's love for will, and will's love for mike, together in a feedback loop, along with joyce and jonathan's love for will, was the thing that helped him accept himself and unlock his powers. none of this is giving us any insight into mike's feelings, because those are a spoiler!
I know one of the biggest disappointments during vol 2 was just how little mike we got. but the truth is, neither in show nor in this interview is there ever mention of mike reciprocating or NOT reciprocating. we're still entirely cut off from mike. could this just be bad writing? sure. I think most of us are thinking that right now. but hey! let's leave at least a little room for the possibility that The Korrasami Twist does indeed exist.
fourth thing to note is these two quotes, which are in different parts of the article, but which I feel are very relevant to each other:
"How do we get Will in a place that he feels confident and strong? And that, ultimately, is him confronting these fears and exposing himself to everyone, including Mike." <- will did need to come out. that was something we knew was going to happen. separate from mike. this was something will needed, to get to that point of feeling confident and strong.
"Not one crush of mine worked out. It hurts you, though, right? If you feel feelings and it’s unrequited, it feels like an attack on you or makes you feel unwanted." I know EYE was freaking out about this bit but the truth is, none of this concerns mike's character at all, nor does it give us any real insight into him, tbh. mike is simply not what this article is about. sounds to me like what they were really going for was just. will being okay with himself. unrequited feelings hurt like a bitch. queer ones especially have an extra element of shame or fear that makes them even harder to navigate. will can't really be A Real Life, Honest To God Sorcerer until he gets to a place where he no longer hates himself, and part of that is facing the possibility that his feelings for mike are unrequited.
And of course, we have this:
Q: Nancy and Jonathan, at one point, are bracing for imminent death and find themselves having this touching and tender moment, sharing confessions and hard truths. What was the lay of conversation for what you wanted from that moment — there’s the acknowledgment of their trauma bond and a slightly romantic unproposal?
Matt: It’s not dissimilar, in some ways, to the Mike-Will stuff. These are people who do love each other very much; it’s just a question of, “What does that mean? What does the future look like for them?” Whenever we talked about Jonathan-Nancy — there’s got to be this feeling that they feel like they must be together because of what they’ve been through, and how could you ever connect with somebody else who hadn’t been through the same thing? But are they right, in the long run, for each other? We wanted to express that as best as we can.
Ross: It was a challenging idea. We’ve been building to it, but to get it across in five-ish minutes, it’s a complicated thing. It’s not just a soap opera where it’s shipping and who’s going to end up with who.
bylers have often used parallels between other couples and byler to strengthen our argument--and here the duffers are, drawing the comparison themselves. maybe I'm finally taking the plunge to go full on delusional, but I think there's a reason why the jancy breakup confused so many people. this might be the end of their relationship within the show, but I think it's very obvious they're still in love with each other. I willing to bet a nickel and a dime that jancy are going to have some kind of open-ended maybe-at-another-time ending. it seems to me that the duffers aren't suuuper interested in leaving everyone off in neat, tidy boxes. they like the messiness of "well, maybe once they work on each other, who knows."
but more importantly, jancy have been paralleled to byler by the show multiple times, and here are the duffers outright telling us that they agree. and while jancy have the obstacle of "what are we outside of our shared trauma" and are likely going to work on themselves outside of canon, will's internal struggle has been about acceptance and he is already there. all that's left is mike. and what has been mike's internal struggle? we don't know, but 👀
And lastly there's just this: "So much of the show is two things: just our love for the supernatural in the movies that we grew up on, and the other part of it is dealing with all the feelings that we had growing up."
i think, understandably, most people are zeroing in on the whole "mY cRuShEs NeVeR LiKeD mE bAcK" woe is me bit of the article (lol, sorry matt). but one thing about stranger things is that a lot of the time it's just little nerd boy wish fulfillment. it's why ET is a psychic girl that beats up their self insert's bullies. it's why the gay kid everyone underestimated turned out to have super cool mind powers at the last second and his eyes go white. it's why dustin proved everyone wrong, he DID have a girlfriend All Along! it's why the show is unapologetically cringe. and what's more wish fulfillment than writing about your crush that never liked you back except this time they do!
I don't know. I'm thinking I'll wait until the finale to pass judgment, i jumped the gun. this isn't over yet. we knew this would happen and we all STILL crashed out. trust in yourselves, guys. we guessed pretty much all the other plot points EXCEPT byler, for some reason? the signs are so many, and so concrete, that a lot of us were not even disappointed, we were straight up CONFUSED.
besides, we haven't even seen whatever the fuck this scene is about:
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