delirious from byler

*18 | she/they* Just like Eddie Munson, I’m here for a good time not a long time.

[nadia-zahra]

Byler Analysis/Theory Masterlist

Getting to the point where I have too many analyses/theories, so here's a masterlist for easier accessibility:

Harry/Will parallel analysis + st5 Will speculation

Mike's monologue theory (masked confession of platonic love)

st5 byler theory based off last byler scene

st5 byler theory based off byler numbers

st5 byler theory + final battle prediction

Rink-O-Mania observation

Mike's Lois Lane/Super metaphor analysis

Timeline on Mike and his Gay Feelings (s1+s2)

Timeline on Mike and his Gay Feelings (s3)

Timeline on Mike and his Gay Feelings (s4)

Mike's Monologue reblog convo between me and @ lupon

Mike's gay character development: writing perspective

Mike's obliviousness obsversation + st5 speculation

Stranger Things / Talisman Plot Parallel Theory

St4 Nintendo observation + @ stranger-chichka Nintendo theory

3 times st4 subtly hints at byler killing Vecna + 1 obvious time

Argyle’s homosexual symbolism and relating it to Mike + @ stranger-chichka add on

Difference between Mike writing to El and him calling Will analysis

Unexpected "byler saving Hawkins" evidence from Netflix pic

Rain Fight analysis

Byler Tarot Reading (for funsies)

St5 Ramblings Plus More

This list will be updated with future analyses/theories

[flygoing]

laptop overheating?? pour water on it to cool it down!

[chastittie]

i trusted you

[flygoing]

Do not trust people like me. I will take you to museums, and parks, and monuments, and kiss you in every beautiful place, so that you can never go back to them without tasting me like blood in your mouth. I will destroy you in the most beautiful way possible. And when I leave you will finally understand, why storms are named after people

[will80sbyers]

How did I stumble upon a conversation between a greek God and a mortal

[magentamee]

argyle is the person you want on your team in an apocalypse

LOOK AT THIS LOOK AT THIS:

WOODWORKING skills

COOKING skills

TRACKING skills

FORAGING SKILLS??!

GUYS????? argyle needs to and will hopefully become an integral, ESSENTIAL member of the big kids gang. he knows so much and this is only addressing his survival skills

in THIS HOUSE, we love argyle!!!

[mostlylurkinbarelypostin]

Can’t stop thinking about how unhinged this scene is. I LOVE it so much.

This is literally the next supermarket scene that we get after Mike’s failed love confession to El, where he couldn’t say the words and couldn’t get her to understand his cryptic, coded language. Dustin interrupts on the radio, probably to Mike’s immense relief, and then we get this absolute masterpiece.

Mike goes from sitting close to El in the scene prior to sitting the farthest away from her, directly next to Will. In the previous scene Mike is sat close to El because Max instructed him to hold pressure on her wound. It continues a common theme of El and Mike being forced together because El is in need of help and Mike is being made responsible for her. As soon as Mike has the CHOICE though, he sits next to Will. And not just next to him, but barely even a foot away. Like they’re sat so close together that even the shots that are focused solely on Mike have Will partly in them.

Moving on from the positioning, there’s possibly the best and most unserious part of this entire scene which is the fact that they sat them right in front of the FRUIT section, which is simply incredible. They also put Will on the left so that he’s positioned under the “Always #1” part of the fluorescent sign above their heads.

Then there’s the obvious fact that they’re all coupled off, including El who is sat with her beloved eggos behind her. This scene also draws your attention to how complimentary all the couple outfits are. Max and Lucas are both in shorts and Max’s thick strapped top is reflected in the layered look of Lucas’s shirt. Both Nancy and Jonathan rock pants and striped shirts. Finally, Mike and Will look like they share a closet (lol) with their short shorts and color blocked polos with bright collars. They all look so good together. Even El is matching with the yellow Eggo boxes behind her.

Finally, there’s the fact that Mike isn’t even really paying attention to El in this scene. Instead he’s more focused on arguing with Lucas about New Coke.

This whole scene feels like a test to see how obvious they could be about Mike’s sexuality without people noticing, which is apparently extremely obvious considering they put Mike and Will with the couples and literally spelled out that Mike is fruity and that Will is his #1, yet most people came away from that scene still thinking that Mike’s love confession was successful and that he’s madly in love with El.

All of this has been pointed out before but I just think this scene is incredible and I keep thinking about it. Bless the people that make this show ❤️

[theoriginalbylergod]

I love you ×9

Ok so I am probably not the first person to notice this or point it out since I've only been a byler for like six months... BUT I did maybe go a little crazy about this. So I'm gonna talk about it.

So a few days ago I was thinking about the mlvn endgame argument "well Mike said 'I love you' nine times". And like, first of all, saying "I love you" doesn't undo a year's worth of deliberate lying and miscommunication. That's not how relationships work. Their issues are still very much real and very much not going anywhere because they're not even TRYING to do anything about them. But also... I was thinking: why nine times? Why that number specifically? Was it just random? Is there maybe anything to indicate that nine is significant? Is there maybe a scene in the first episode of s4 that tells us how we should react to the monologue?

So, the DND basketball montage. Great stuff. Amazing foreshadowing. Everyone loved it.

I got to thinking about it. Decided I needed to know what Mike's roll was. I kinda spiraled about it on twitter because I could not see it clearly and I couldn't tell if it was an eight or nine. Desperate times called for desperate measures so I recorded my tablet with my phone and found the perfect frame.

IT'S A NINE

CLEAR AS DAY! IT'S A NINE! GREATEST DAY OF MY LIFE!!

Anyway, I don't know how DND works. I don't know why this roll evoked the reaction it did from the party - most significantly, Mike's very disgruntled reaction (I don't mean The Party™ I just mean literally the party that is playing this campaign) I genuinely don't know what the fuck is going on in this game. But what I do know is they wanted us to associate this roll with failure. That's why it corresponds with a missed basket in the basketball game. That's why Eddie gets this ooo that sucks for you guys look on his face. That's why we hear a chorus of "nooo" from the party. That's why Mike says "no no no" and looks extremely upset. I don't know anything about DND, but I can read context clues.

So I'm not going to try to understand what's going on in the game, I'm just gonna go off what I think they wanted us to subconsciously pick up on.

So they show us all of this. They associate Mike with the number nine in the first episode and then that number shows up AGAIN in the last episode.

The monologue cannot be associated with anything but failure. Whether that be mlvns failing relationship, or their very real failure to save Max (at least before El revived her), and their failure to save Hawkins. The monologue does not stand apart from that. It is completely interwoven with these failures. If you have average media literacy, you know that. Even before I was aware of just how important byler is to this entire story, before I was aware that they've been setting up byler endgame since day one, you would never catch me thinking that the monologue was supposed to be received positively by the audience. You would never catch me saying mlvns love saved the world. (Although that's because I genuinely forgot about mlvn a few weeks after I watched s4). I think I received the monologue in the way it was intended to be received. I didn't fully understand it, or why they would execute it the way they did, but I still received it in the way I believe it was intended to be.

So I know the general agreement among bylers is that the monologue kinda sealed the deal for mlvn bones. Like I'm not saying anything new really. But I genuinely do think that Mike's roll in episode one, the reactions to it, and the missed shot it corresponds with were meant to foreshadow the monologue and how they wanted the audience to receive it.

This is fiction, everything means something. Everything is thought of. The timer (and maybe scores, I genuinely can't remember) in the basketball game had significance. Other rolls in the DND game had significance. Why would that be any different for Mike? Especially when his roll was a nine and that number shows up for him again when he says "I love you" nine times. And both of these things are associated with failure.

Not that we need any other reason to interpret the monologue as a less than good thing. It's just the way that it is, it's pretty easy to figure out how they wanted us to take it. But they still did give us a hint. I think it's really cool.

[error501]

my town drug dealer shared this on facebook im cryigng 

[jwanwan]

why in the world are you friends with your town drug dealer?…

[error501]

beucuase i buy drugs from him 

[blowinonglitter-deactivated2015]

LOL. And you put his name on there, you tryna get him caught ?

[error501]

Hello yes police there is a drug dealer i saw on the internet.his name is joe.   

[mosticonicposts]

certified iconic post

[strangertheories]

ST Redditors complaining about queer characters in the 80s being 'unrealistic':

[rainyyarchive]

can someone in s5 please hit on will so we all get jealous mike wheeler, except make it a boy this time and not angela so he'll really fume and come to his senses already (I'll literally eat any fanfic up that offers me this trope)

[doriandrifting]

Omg wait, so the reason Will said they felt like “now-memories” is because even though they were happening that moment, they were taking place in the Upside Down which is stuck in the past, so everything happening was technically a memory, or atleast felt like one?

So by that logic, the UD was functioning on a different timeline than the main world, so Vecna was living in the past, and the point of his curse could have been to create a point in time where the two worlds are aligned (the library) so he could be free from the UD?

[nadia-zahra]

Wait a sec….

[sacredindigos]

i wanna d word

[nadia-zahra]

Dick?

[nadia-zahra]

Byler tarot reading lmfaoooooo

ok before i tell yall what the cards said, i gotta say

1) i technically did 3 readings because my gut was telling me the first two readings were a lil off (and I ALWAYS aim for the most precise answer), but istg with each reading i got the exact same cards (for the most part). Like i reshuffled them before I began and i get my cards by shuffling them until they turn over, so the fact that 90% of these cards were revealed THREE times is insane.

2) this is just for fun don't take this seriously at all!

3) i will not be explaining what each card means. I'm way to lazy to do that

I pulled 20 cards (cause byler duh) and heres what they said after repeatedly asking the question, "what's byler gonna be like in st5?"

btw this is in fact in order of when they revealed themselves

six of pentacles reversed

seven of wands reversed

queen of swords

So El's choosing to be on her self love journey by becoming single and independent because she's sooo fucking done with Mike's bullshit.

ace of swords

king of wands

four of wands

After El breaks up with Mike, he kinda has an "oh shit maybe I was never in love with El" moment and like things about his sexuality start clicking a lil bit more. This isn't saying what his sexuality is, it's just saying he's finding out he's not straight. He's really happy that he no longer has to deal with his toxic ass relationship with El anymore and that him and Will are a team again. He can breathe a lil.

two of wands

six of wands reversed

five of wands

wheel of fortune reversed

ten of swords

two of cups reversed

three of pentacles

That is until he discovers Will lied ab the painting. He's gonna be really really angry and upset that Will said it was from El-- he feels like this was a huge betrayal because Will's never lied to him before. He and Will will get into a fight over the painting, and it's not gonna be pretty. Like this fight will be the messiest and ugliest fight within the series, and will borderline breakup their friendship-- that's how fucking bad its gonna be.

the hermit reversed

knight of swords

Mike feels like he just lost his bestest friend in the whole wide world and now feels completely and utterly alone.

My first initial reaction when seeing the hermit reversed was "oh Vecna's gonna be all over his ass", but I'm not certain about that at all. Like this is a reading only about byler and how its gonna play out-- not about how Mike's gonna be dealing with Vecna.

(side note-- idk why this is pretty much only from Mike's pov. I was honestly thinking about them both equally, so maybe this plays out from his pov in st5)

queen of swords

ten of cups reversed

El and Mike are gonna have a heart-to-heart! El's gonna help him come to his senses and get him out of this funky ass headspace he's in. He's gonna open up about the fight and why it hurt him so much finding out Will lied. She's gonna remind him that even though he had this big ass fight with Will, Will is still his bestest friend and still needs Mike.

king of swords

three of wands

The hierophant reversed

Idk if its gonna happen because of Mike and El's heart-to-heart or if it's gonna be Will that tells him himself, but one way or another Mike is going to find out that Will's in love with him. Suddenly the clouds part and everything clicks for Mike: he's realizes he's in love with Will too. They're gonna reconcile and finally get together, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

The End.

I can not fucking believe that my cards told me THREE times this is what's happening. And like the fact the reading starts with El gaining independence and the fucking HIEROPHANT REVERSED is the final card. plssssssss byler's so canon it's ridiculous asdhsdfl

[merth-or-nothin-deactivated2025]

I wonder if the tween Mlevens on Twitter realize that the homophobic cishet guy who agrees with them that El has to marry Mike and have his babies right after high school in order to have a happy ending most likely looks like this:

[nadia-zahra]

nothing puts a smile on my face quite like laughing at incels

[mikeslawyer]

“i didn’t say it” “you didn’t have to” because mike knows will so well that he doesn’t even need verbal communication to be able to read his emotions.

“you were miserable! moping, rolling your eyes!” because even though will thinks that mike doesn’t care, mike spends his time watching out for will and observing how he’s doing from the corner of his eyes out of habit no matter how much of a fight they’re having.

I AM GOING TO BE SICK !!!!!!!!

[rainyyarchive]

I dont think we talk about the contrast between mikes behaviour towards wills drawings vs els letters enough. cause tell me why is that man literally collecting every single little piece of art of his best friend in a binder, but crumbles up and throws his girlfriends letters in the trash 😭 like that's so sad actually cause if I was mike I'd treasure those letters just as much as wills paintings.

story telling wise that shows us a lot, though, like where mike emotionally stands and who might be the endgame couple lmaoo

on top of that, els "mike box" (which is so so sweet of her 😭) is lowkey made with little to no effort cause why is there a literal s3 screenshot of them?? 💀 and you literally can't make this up but mikes valentines card saying "I like you" IS CRACKING ME UPPPP. it's just so telling its INSANE

mike and el get crumbled letters and a box like that while byler has the whole painting plot 😭 they're basically screaming byler endgame in our faces

[willbyersapologist]

this is NOT how you look at someone you consider to be “just a friend” btw!!!!

[nadia-zahra]

shoutout to Will for being strong ash and keeping his cool, personally I'd fold so fucking fast I'd break my back

[merth-or-nothin-deactivated2025]

I wonder how many layers of mental gymnastics you have to do to convince yourself that saying a woman requires a man to be happy AND she must marry the first guy she ever dated and have kids with him while she's still a teenager is feminist.

[nadia-zahra]

i actually laughed out loud at how crazy this mindset is

[anbyex-deactivated20240110]

the "i like you" valentine card, mike sent el, always reminds me of the fact that it wasn't that he couldn't tell her he loved her, it was that he literally didn't want to.

he went out of his way to find a card like that, because he refused to tell her "i love you".

it's just mind-blowing. and kinda sad for everyone involved to be honest.