Neurodivergent queer millennial (she/her, INFP) who fell into the beautiful love story of Mike & Will (Byler) in the subtext of Stranger Things...
Status: the demogorgon in the Duffers' walls
The subtextual love story of Mike and Will in Stranger Things is a work of art
'Byler' is much bigger than ships, bigger than fandom; and although many people aren't welcoming of it, I hope more people will join us in seeing its beauty.
You don't even need to ship Mike and Will to enjoy the subtext of their love story. There are people here who don't consider themselves 'Bylers' at all, but they understand the subtext and support it. I do ship them, personally, I think they're adorable and they'd probably be my favourite characters even if the subtext was never a thing at all. But a story is not about ships.
A story is not even about fandom. A story should never, ever revolve around the wants of its fandom. That's why, if I'm really honest, a part of me feels that it shouldn't have been a long-running series, but instead a movie or a book. Something that doesn't create long-standing attachments, something that isn't constrained by fandom.
The biggest problem this subtext has is the expectations of the fandom, which are completely at odds with it. And as much as I admire the Duffers, this is kinda their fault. The way they decided to do things unfortunately created a mess, and no matter what the outcome of the final season, there will be a huge mess for everyone to deal with. As much as we hope to be happy after seeing the final chapters, we can't escape the climate it'll inevitably create - both within the fandom, and outside in the general public. If Byler is endgame, then our joy will be dampened by the cries of others. If it's not... we'll be devastated at the loss and waste, and the position that would put us in against the naysayers. The whole situation is really unfortunate.
'Lol Bylers are delusional and it's your wants that you demand to be canon!' Well that's not quite accurate.
As this fantastic article pointed out, the subtext of Mike and Will, and the subtext of sexuality, LGBTQ issues, and politics, is very real, and for some people, actually very obvious!
A lot of media has subtext, which a lot of us viewers don't pick up on. At least not consciously. The author of the post introduced the idea of subtext with a couple of examples, one of which was the British series Merlin, to the author's great amusement. (And yes, it is amusing because Merlin and Stranger Things have something in common. It's funny and painfully frustrating at the same time... like being a Byler.)
Stranger Things, despite what many people in its fandom seem to believe, is a work of art in subtext. Yes, the commonly accepted canon text also has layers which are artfully crafted. But it's the subtext that truly makes the series great.
For reasons that I will go into in another post, I think it's extremely important that the story comes out of the subtext, and becomes fully revealed on the surface. But let's just suppose, for a moment, that it doesn't; worst case scenario it doesn't get revealed and it's kept hidden away (despite that ultimately being pointless and a waste of time, if I'm honest):
There is no such thing as 'delusion' in subtext.
Nightmare on Elm Street 2 was confirmed to have gay subtext. Yes, a Freddy Krueger film has gay subtext of its protagonist Jesse dealing with his homosexuality - in the 80s.
Quote from Screen Rant:
'Beyond that, the film's release in 1985 was at the height of the AIDS epidemic in the United States, which caused a lot of stigma surrounding gay men and subsequent gay panic was on the rise… Chaskin has since said the subtext was always intentional and he had written the script to comment on the AIDS crisis, gay panic, and the angst young men experience if they struggled with their sexuality.'
Did you know the beloved 80s film Stand By Me, based on the novella by Stephen King (The Body), is actually quite ambiguous? Some people think the friendship between Chris and Gordie reads as queercoded, with some pointing to Chris in particular as giving gay vibes (please read about this, I'm begging; Search this on Google and see what comes up). Despite loving this movie for 20 years, I never saw it until I realised that other people did! Now I have a new perspective on the characters, scenes (one in particular which I never really understood the meaning of, but now have an idea what it could be), and the film is even greater than before. Subtext is fun!
Nightmare on Elm Street 2 confirmed. Stand By Me up to the viewer's interpretation - which, considering so many people have the same interpretation, isn't invalid. Even if some people take offence to the suggestion and try to argue against it as though it affects them personally…
And so it may be in Stranger Things. If hundreds of thousands of viewers see the subtext, write extremely long articles explaining it in depth, create 1-3 hour long videos explaining it visually, and write hundreds of posts about its intricate details and the possibilities of those details, then logic would have it that the subtext is there.
And that subtext doesn't care about fandom. It doesn't care about shipping. It cares only about its message.
And the message is amazing, beautiful, wonderfully told.
Which is why I still struggle to understand why so many people are against this… besides the shipping. Especially people in my own age bracket, my own generation. I understand immaturity, its lack of perspective and its terrible takes, but mature adults mocking 'Byler', calling the interpretation of subtext a 'delusion', is really not a mature take. Dismissing subtext interpretation comes from personal bias against that interpretation (please I'm begging you to read what the Internet has said about Chris and Gordie).
It's so disheartening to see people vocally hating the idea of Mike and Will being a thing. It's a much better story than the alternative that so many people want. Don't get me wrong, Stranger Things is a great show even without this subtext. But in comparison, it's not amazing.
If we look at the subtext, however, Stranger Things is a fantastic series. I don't see why anyone who identifies as a progressive, liberal ally would be against this subtext. It has a great message and it's a message we need in 2025.
Is it really true that it's mostly queer-identifying people on this side of the fandom? I think we are the majority, but that begs the question: Why? Are we the only ones who can possess the sight? Are we the only ones who like it?? Depressing thought.
Maybe people would say they're fine with subtext and fans of the subtext.. as long as it stays subtext and we all shut up about it becoming text. That way, they get what they want, what they expect, and what they're comfortable with/relating to.
Well, if it doesn't become text in season 5, I'll be very disappointed and very confused; Because I don't understand why such a deep LGBTQ message would be kept hidden. Why have it as only coded subtext that mostly members of the LGBTQ community pick up on and talk about? Sure, it's nice, it forms a story that people can relate to, appreciate, and build community around. Subtext is nice. But it doesn't do anything. It doesn't say anything. It has no impact on wider culture and political climate.
I'm sure it's happened many times before. But Stranger Things has laid out such an intricately-woven tapestry, and it clearly has something to say, especially with season 4 and its themes of Satanic Panic (remember we talked about gay panic above), anti-conformity, and its subtle reference to Stonewall. They clearly want to say something, and this isn't even subtext - it's right there!
So despite my fears that they'll leave Mike and Will's love story in the subtext, I'm expecting it to come out.
Stranger Things, say something, speak up, be authentic and be who you really are! I'm counting on you to reveal who you really are, out, and proud!
this one is for everyone still here, regardless of whether you’ve squeezed yourself onto the bus yet or not. because as genuinely fun as looking for hidden clues and analyzing various details is, one of the most convincing points towards conformitygate being exactly what we’re headed towards for me is simply that, when you step back and look at the general picture of all of this, it’s really the only explanation that makes sense.
let’s look at our options.
let’s say you’re in the camp of people that don’t believe in conformitygate, and believe that byler was queerbait. sure. i understand where you’re coming from.
if you think this, though, then that doc HAS to set off alarm bells for you. you cannot both take the doc (or the interviews) where the duffers make themselves out to be incompetent fools who don’t understand a single thing about their story completely at face value WHILE continuing to point at every little detail that forms the coherent, subtextual arc of mike coming to terms with his queerness. these things cannot coexist. you cannot accidentally write linear character progression that is quite literally all explained by a single reading of him. you cannot unintentionally have costuming and lighting and set design that all directly supports and actively adds to said reading, because all of those decisions are made at the discretion of the directors.
the duffers themselves wrote the van scene, and then proceeded to stare at it over the TWELVE HOURS it took to film. every detail we’ve seen, they would’ve been watching ten times over. i’m not sure how the whole ‘secret underground homosexual subtext rebellion enacted by the entire cast and crew without the duffers’ knowledge for ten years’ thing became such a wildly popular theory here, because. guys. this is the show whose entire first season is a very tightly executed and incredibly detailed metaphor for the experience of what it’s like being in the closet. come on.
(and don’t even get me started on divorcegate. you are a supposed homophobe who wants to write a show except you don’t so you tell your wife to do it and she, an established writer in her own right, agrees to do it for absolutely zero credit for some reason and makes it gay and you, the homophobe, are fine with that? why would you pitch a show you had no intention of writing with themes you hated if you had no way of knowing it would be as successful as it was? this makes the entire cast and crew either look like idiots for not noticing ten years of ghostwriting or incredibly cruel for all being complicit in it? a lot of the issues people have with s5’s writing are apparent continuity errors. the person responsible for checking for those (the story editor) was a woman. how did we get here.)
i cannot stress enough that if the writing was written by people who did not care about what they were doing nor understand the character they were writing, None Of Us Would Be Here. this community, with its hundreds of thousands of words of analysis dedicated to analyzing even just the SCRIPT ALONE, would not have grown to what it currently is, because there would be nothing to look at. here, i’ll even give some examples:
- p 5r is one of my favorite games, and overly-eager, goofy golden retriever boy ryuji is my favorite character. the writers, however, really like making him the butt of the joke. so much so, that there’s a scene in which— after literally saving all of their lives— his entire group of friends is made to genuinely beat the shit out of him and then leave him alone on the street, despite four of them (one of which being ryuji himself) being established victims of abuse. this scene comes out of nowhere, is never addressed, and is almost universally hated by the entire community with how unnecessarily cruel and ooc it makes everyone involved act. it’s almost always skipped over in analysis of the characters, because you can see that this was the writers’ bizarre way of prioritizing “comedy” over anything else, and does not fit in with any characterization that comes before or after it since everyone goes right back to acting perfectly normal.
- dipper from GF is commonly hced to be a trans man. this wasn’t the original intention of the character, so not every single detail of the show lines up exactly with this interpretation, but it fits perfectly fine as a reading of him. his canonical relationship to his masculinity is explained, and fully makes sense regardless of whether you’re viewing him through a lens of being trans OR cis!
- and a certain character from p 4 (i truly don’t even dare to utter the name) has an arc related to gender so thematically confused on what it wants to say that there are about 3 main different ways to interpret it, none of them line up perfectly and actively contradict/undermine themselves multiple times, and nearly twenty years of ruthless, unending discourse have been born as a result.
none of the above can be applied to michael wheeler. people have been hating on him for years because, if you aren’t looking at his consistent throughline of subtext, his actions don’t seem to make any sense. NOR are we given any explicitly stated reasons or alternate explanations for his behavior! but, under a queer reading, literally every single one of his actions in previous seasons can be explained, and logically fit in alongside each other. there is a visible progression of an arc there if you know what you’re looking at, and there aren’t any ill-fitting details nor inexplicably bizarre scenes that get in the way of its portrayal. it is literally impossible to have him be the way he is unintentionally. if episode 8 were genuinely the end, then that would make byler a deliberately planned, intentionally plotted queerbait from people who fully understood what they were doing. it could not have existed in its current state otherwise.
…so then, that doc literally has to be fake. the interview answers have to be fake. they’re playing dumb on purpose. (because, really, how do you have someone sitting directly next to you while holding a giant camera pointed right at your computer screen and not be immediately overly aware of everything currently visible in your tabs?)
which should then make you want to ask…why? why deliberately make yourself look incompetent? conservatives aren’t going to care about queerbaiting, but they are going to care about shitty writing and plotholes in the same way anyone else would. why would you willingly invite a larger group of people to get mad at you for no reason? voluntarily tank your own reputation? if there isn’t more content coming intended to ‘redeem’ them, there is virtually no reason to do this.
(also, if you look closely, the rain scenes in the documentary are absolutely staged. so we can already say that they are being told how to act in At Least one scene. nothing stopping them from staging more.)
i was watching drew gooden’s video on the finale, and when he got to the doc he said something along the lines of “well, and there was my answer. they rushed it, and they didn’t really care.” to the GA, which consists of many fairly casual viewers who have never really looked at outside press, this is a perfectly acceptable explanation for what happened to the finale. but for bylers? some people have been analyzing every single bit of information pertaining to this show for years, and should have a whole laundry list of interview quotes and one-off comments (and the SHARED LOOKS TATTOO, for christ’s sake) that directly contradict everything we’re currently being told! incoherent and unintentional writing makes an incoherent and unintelligible arc. bylers haven’t been analyzing nothing! hasn’t that been proved, time and time again?
and the issues with episode 8 weren’t just contained to byler— everything was off, to an almost uncanny degree. how do you study bad finales, and then insert nearly all of their elements into your own unintentionally? that’s absurd. getting All of the answers wrong is far more suspicious than getting only some of them wrong, and is actually more indicative of you knowing all the correct ones.
truly, the finale not being intentional and conformitygate not being a thing would require such an endlessly long list of things to coincidentally, simultaneously Occur that i think it’d actually be something of a statistical anomaly. conformitygate is the more logical answer here. i’m not trying to place myself as someone wholly promising that this is all 100% confirmed, because nothing truly is, but it is absolutely the explanation that makes the most sense out of everything the internet has come up with thus far.
I say all of this with genuine love and peace because I love this Byler fandom, but that's exactly why I'm compelled to say what I'm about to say.
Bylers have, for the most part, completely missed the fact that multiple other TV shows have written queer subtext and used queercoding, and it didn't pay off and become canon in a single one. For this fandom to become unstuck, it needs knowledge. We cannot begin to understand what happened here without seeking the answers that are out there. And those answers aren't just out there - they're living right next door.
Who wrote the queer subtext of House and Wilson in House M.D? Nobody knows. Why did they write it? Nobody knows. How elaborate is it? From what I've heard, very. What do people say about it? The exact same things that Bylers and anti-Bylers say, word for word. Copy paste. It's like looking in a mirror.
Who wrote the queer subtext and the parallels in Supergirl? Nobody knows. Why did they do it? Nobody knows. Supergirl had a sapphic ship that was gaslit and made fun of. You know what those shippers talk about to this day? Parallels. They have perfect parallels as evidence, just like Bylers do. They say, '.... But it could mean nothing!' Just like Bylers do. Superco*p shippers analyze too. It's like looking in a mirror.
Supernatural shippers never got answers. Sherlock shippers never got answers. I love and enjoy conformitygate theories, but I don't really see any reason to believe that something will come of it. I think it's just... there. Like everything else. Just there.
I do think the Duffers might have been involved in making the Byler or Mike/Will queer subtext, but there are multiple writers in that room who could have written it. The Duffers said they didn't want to be writers, so that leads me to assume that the good stuff, the deep subtext, was largely written by others on the team. The Duffers might just agree with it. It's really impossible to say; just like the elaborate queercoding and queer subtext of countless other shows that preceded us, we'll never know who exactly is responsible for it, and how. The subtext is definitely, absolutely, 100% there, no doubt and no debate. It's just... a mystery. It's always a mystery. No one has gotten answers before us, and maybe there's a possibility that we'll be the first, but we aren't the first to believe that. This whole game has been played by loads of people before us, but the majority of Byler tumblr doesn't seem able or willing to see that yet. And I find that.... depressing. Those other shows, other fandoms, that have already played this game, completely identical game, are right next door as our neighbours but we're not learning from them. Why not? They have so much to teach us.
Divorcegate makes no sense because, again, it ignores the obvious, that multiple other shows have done this exact same thing with queercoding and subtext and ships, no divorce required. I saw something called protestgate, which was basically a theory that the writers were so angry about writing Byler for nothing, that they got together in the tearoom and conspired to sabotage the whole series. Fun, but.... the other shows didn't have writers protesting subtext, because they were.... writing subtext, the whole time.
The biggest problem that I have with Byler tumblr, which I love dearly, is the fact that a lot of Bylers are unable and unwilling to really consider the very high likelihood that this subtext was never planned to be canon. Most people here are still standing in the exact same positions they were in before season 5. It's depressing to witness. We have information available to us but no one wants it. Other shows, other fandoms, are waving to us, but we don't look at them. Subtext is subtext. It's often designed to be subtext, nothing more. That's kinda how subtext works, and in the case of queer subtext I hate it and I have endless complaints, but queer subtext is subtext nonetheless. Designed to be underneath the surface, out of view of many. It's been done, again and again.
Your post was mostly about the documentary, so I'll finally answer that... I haven't watched it in its entirety, but I think it just shows that season 5 was rushed, the Duffers for whatever reason lost their way with the story, and shit just went wrong. Yes, it's weird and crazy when the show was great, I do acknowledge that. I also acknowledge that conformitygate has tons of great evidence. I think it's true - as in, I think the idea could have been deliberately designed to keep fans talking and theorising and coming up with headcanons. And I think it probably ties into Byler, because they hinted that Mike and Will have been manipulated, they've forgotten, it's not real, etc, so Bylers still have something to believe in. Non-Bylers don't see it, and non-Bylers who believe in conformitygate believe in it without involving Byler at all; they don't see Byler as necessary because they already don't see the Byler subtext. Conformitygate just gives everyone something to work on, Bylers or not. The whole fandom has theories. Your question will be: 'How can they lose the plot and simultaneously come up with conformitygate?' Well, the documentary doesn't show Byler subtext being a part of Stranger Things at all, and to most viewers it isn't, but we know it's in there. In my opinion, Byler subtext in season 5 is a horrible horrible mess, I try to make the best of it in my posts, but it's a whole damn mess. It was beautiful, then it wasn't. And I think that's just because they wanted to kill the ship at the same time. You can't write a beautiful subtextual gay love story that's running parallel underneath the surface, and kill all hopes of the ship being canon, at the same time. I mean, maybe you can, but... hell, it didn't happen here. What we got was a massacre. Byler ain't even bones, it's worse than that.
I'm sorry that this probably comes across as arguing. And I really don't want to take people's enjoyment or belief in conformitygate. I just wish, like really really wish, that Bylers would recognise the old practice of queer subtext, which has been done to death, in exactly the same way as Byler, and understand that Stranger Things isn't different. It CAN be understood, when we look at the people who came before us. But most Bylers don't seem to want to look at those who came before us. Why not?
Absolutely no het explanation or good excuse for the whole 'signals' thing. Even in the text it doesn't work. The field scene has some beautiful ideas in text and subtext until that signal that 'isn't reciprocated' by Mike tone deaf Tammy Wheeler, apparently. Robin indirectly calls Mike tone deaf by comparing Tammy to Mike not clocking the signal, and the Duffers themselves said he 'doesn't clock it'. But why should this mean that Mike doesn't reciprocate? They're trying to say that queer people signal to each other, so if someone doesn't return a signal, it means they're not queer. But that's not really how signalling works; if a woman was flirting with me and giving me signals, I wouldn't clock it either because I just don't believe a babe would be interested in this awkward potato that is me. It doesn't mean I don't reciprocate, doesn't mean I'm straight, I just don't understand someone flirting with me -
Dude doesn't clock it, you said so yourself!
And this happening by the radio tower as if this signal is The Ultimate Sexuality Test...
A test I'd fail, mind you.
I've written about this scene being Mike acknowledging and encouraging Will's innate power/magic (being queer, basically - a sorcerer), and that in itself is a lovely idea, I can acknowledge that. But at the same time, Will is going in with a test to see if Mike is like him. Why? The script is already telling us that Mike isn't like Will, that Will is something different, unique, and special. So why does Will also go in with a signal? Why is it necessary? Just to hammer home this point that Mike isn't like Will? He doesn't reciprocate because he isn't a sorcerer? Why did Will even think Mike could reciprocate in the first place? Everything Bylers have said since volume 2, about Will believing there's potential with Mike, why does he believe that? Where does he get this suspicion from? Mwtfdydgate made sense because why does Will seem hopeful at the beginning of this season? It makes no sense in the text that you're trying to sell to us as a beautiful platonic friendship on Mike's part. You know what, I could acknowledge the intended beauty of the text here, if only this fuckass thing about signals hadn't been involved. It contradicts the text, it's confusing, and worst of all it just seems like queerbait. Is it there for Byler subtext? Is that the reason? Because it just feels disingenuous to me. And I cannot appreciate the beauty of Mike and Will's friendship as this show clearly wants me to, because the contradictory writing just feels disingenuous and, frankly, insulting. Everything about Byler in season 5 just felt insulting. Neither the text or the Byler subtext truly feels beautiful. I try to feel it, for my own sanity. But this shitshow gave me little to work with.
And as a neurodivergent queer potato, I am just not convinced that Mike tone deaf Wheeler is straight just because he fails to clock a signal that I wouldn't clock in a million years -
It's morbidly funny to me that we're far from the first to be gaslit by gay subtext and we say all the same things that others have said before...
To start with: I've read two reddit threads about the queer subtext between House and Wilson in House M.D and... I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Everything people say about it sounds exactly like Byler. People say the amount of queer subtext is astonishing. People say House and Wilson have internalised homophobia and comphet. People say they're the central relationship of the show. People say if Wilson were a girl it'd be obvious. People say the subtext became the text. On the other hand, people say it's 'looking too deeply into things'. They say it's a delusional headcanon. They call people fujoshis for interpreting this friendship as queer: 'They're just best friends bro'. Funnily enough, the subtext has even been confirmed by the actor Hugh Laurie - and people still don't see it and deny its existence.
This gay subtext between House and Wilson was also confirmed by the same person who has confirmed Mike and Will's
So, my question is... WHY? Why is this a thing in House and why is it a thing in Stranger Things? Why is this a repeating pattern in TV? What purpose does it really have? What's the intent of writing it, and simultaneously pretending that it doesn't exist?
Queer subtext may be appreciated by some queer viewers and have positive impact, but I can't help but see it as more insidious than anything else, when you consider the gaslighting and mockery that always comes with acknowledging it, and the fact that people love the idea of relationships that they're denied from seeing the way they see straight relationships.
The people who see House and Wilson as queer and romantic aren't wrong and they're certainly not delusional, and neither are we!
I'm so angry that a beautiful queer love story was created and placed in front of me, and then just snatched away, and I was laughed at for liking it in the first place.
Because queer subtext feels like a game. And I didn't consent to playing it.
Already started snooping on another fandom's ship tag so I'll be talking about that too...
When I talk about the deep subtext stuff like El being a personification of Mike's love for Will and the wizards/sorcerers being queer (and El being a wizard/mage on Mike's behalf as his personification), it sounds binding, strictly subtext with no way of coming out. But it could have! I had it all worked out, see, back in November when I was a joyful, whimsical, optimistic little unicorn. El's independent journey of finding her identity as Jane seemed like a perfect match for the Byler/queer Mike subtext: If Byler had happened, then El wouldn't need to be his magical personification anymore, she could have stopped being 'Eleven' and lived as her own person, with her own identity - Jane. What is a name, after all? It's identity. What is sexuality/orientation/gender etc? It's identity. Your queerness is how you identify, and your name is how you identify. If we take this a step further, although Jane is her birth name, it's technically also the name she would have chosen for herself, the name she would have owned, on her own terms, by her own decision, after being misidentified for all her life. Sound kinda familiar? It matches queer identity, not just sexuality, but gender too. (I've seen some interesting posts about how she was denied her femininity in the lab, which is a relevant point.) Her whole arc in the text was a perfect match for the queer subtext. So perfect, in fact, that I really believed that they were building towards that independence and true identity for her character, and that the show was all about queerness and identity at its core. Just because she's a personification of Mike's queerness and love for Will, and just because it's the wizards/mages/sorcerers etc who are queer or queercoded or representing a character's subtextual queerness, doesn't mean the Byler subtext couldn't have been lifted to the canon. It had the perfect opportunity to make the subtext and text a perfectly aligned, beautiful match: one about identity. And what a fantastic show that would've been...
I don't know if I'll write about it but I've been planning to do some research into other shows that have had gay subtext and/or left fans feeling queerbaited. The first one I'm going to look into is House M.D, which apparently has intricate, elaborate gay subtext as much as Stranger Things has with Byler. I wouldn't expect it in that show, but the more you learn I guess... Stranger Things isn't the first and unfortunately it won't be the last. This is why I often rant about queer subtext only ever being subtext, it's such a common practice. Even just queerbaiting without subtext as intricately written as Byler, super common and it's important that we, as queer viewers, are aware of this. We're not the first fandom to be gaslit. Another show that caught my interest is Supergirl; I'll be doing some research over the next week...
Sometimes I think we should have an alliance with other fandoms who played these games before...
If I was better suited to the job, I'd start a whole movement called 'Take the Queer Out of Subtext'. This shit would never happen again if I had my way. Sometimes it's okay, sometimes it has positives, but I really believe that, in a lot of cases, it just has negative consequences: gaslighting, mockery, homophobic harassment of queer fans for simply believing in queer potential, heartbreak... and the worst crime of all in my opinion, the implications that gay should be hidden away.
When Derek is taken to Camazotz, he knows the truth about what's going on. Holly feels like she's going crazy, but Derek knows about Mr. Whatsit. Yet he does not say anything. Why? Let's revisit
Ah Yes, Mr. Whatsit threatens to hurt Derek's family. So he keeps his mouth shut. The Camazotz plotline in the show is meant to serve as insight into what's going on in the real world. And where is Derek's family...
That's right! Joyce and the others have the Turnbows. They were drugged and kidnapped in EP3 on the night of Nov 4th and never seen again. They also do not appear at any point in the epilogue, which signals that they are still being held prisoner.
The kidnapping of the Turnbows done by our characters parallels the attack on the Wheelers done by Vecna. If we consider, that Mike is actually the one that vanished, then him and Derek have some things in common. From this I theorize that the Wheeler's are also still being held prisoner. There is no body b/c they were kidnapped.
Derek and Mike have had some other moments:
I think most people found this a bit odd, considering they don't share so much as a word with each other --- and yet, he singles out Mike. I think Derek knows more than he's letting on, and he is trying to warn us/Mike. Who is Mike's best friend? That would be Will. But this particular instance is Byler being best friends with Mike. Stay with me. So In Camazotz: Mr. Whatsit=Joyce, Holly=Mike, Max=Robin, and Derek=BYLER. I'm 100% dead serious, Derek is a sub for Mike and Will's relationship. This is the code for us to read the main storyline. They are Chess Pieces. Everyone is subbed.
I think Max is Robin for a couple reasons. First of all, Max is an older mentor to Holly. And Maya said she mentored multiple people. Also Robin is the only one of Steve, Jonathan, and Nancy that I think could be Mike's mentor. Also, we have the scene where Max asks Holly to stop pacing. And then there is Robin in the hospital with Vickie who is pacing. I considered Lucas, but Max is older than Holly so Robin really makes the most sense. Will on the tower said that he had to find his own path, and I think that Mike will too. Robin will mentor both of them.
Holy fuck guys. Now that I'm thinking about it. Remember how incredibly mean and insulting the kids were to Derek like in an exaggerated kind of way?
I've thought for a long time that the kids in Camazotz represent us, the audience. This is literally the general audience shitting on Byler. I couldn't place it before, but now I totally get it. And then they form a cult to bring Holly (Mike) Back to the Light. As in back to heterosexuality. It's a double meaning. And then they get incredibly violent, choke Mike (Holly), and shove him down the stairs. The cult kids are the fucking GA and Holly/Mike are the queer audience.
HOLLY DOES NOT LEAVE DEREK BEHIND = MIKE DOES NOT LEAVE BYLER BEHIND
Translation Below: Mike (Holly) isn't like that -- Mike's not gay. Bylers are lying. A monster tricked Mike (Holly) into homosexuality. That monster is Robin (Max) -- a lesbian. The kids claim Mr. Whatsit as their lord and savior without questioning anything, and he is trying to take over the world. Hmm. HMMMM. The kids reject the evidence of their eyes and ears, until EP8 when they see Vecna.
Also, In EP3, Derek is looking at a Tesseract which is a method of Time Travel in A Wrinkle in Time. This foreshadows Byler time travel.
Derek wears rainbow (blue, yellow, green, red). Derek is also between Mike and Will in several scenes. So maybe he serves as a BRIDGE between the two to communicate. Derek is a rainbow bridge between Mike and Will -- I WONDER what that could mean. Will is doing his best to fight back and get through to Mike, but he loses and is punished for it in 506.
Derek stands back and does nothing in 507. The BRIDGE has been disconnected. We all know that the MF (Joyce) needs to keep Byler apart. She stands between them.
Love defeats Fear and Mike can prevent Will being lost to the MF (Creelby Parallel). The Mind Flayer is incredibly intelligent, but she has a big weakness. Let's be honest, without love, the MF would have won every single time. Love saved Will in S1 and S2. Love saved El and all of them in S3. Love saved Max in S4. And El banished Henry in the rainbow room using her mother's Love.
Another random scene with Derek and Mike:
This was also another weird moment. Derek is waving to Mike like an alarm. We are still stuck. But Byler is metaphorically waving to Mike. Maybe it's Mike's feelings for Will poking out again. Maybe the bridge isn't totally broken? This means there is still a somewhat open line of communication between Mike and Will so not all is lost.
EP8 Holly calls Derek an idiot and Derek says he's not. I view this as Mike saving his and Will's relationship. He won't leave it behind. In Camazotz, read through the code, Mike saves Byler. And then Mike/Holly is knocked out in the cave -- we don't know what happened after that. On the Tower, Mike says he feels like an idiot and Will says he's not. I think the scene with Derek and Holly represents Mike calling himself an idiot regarding his and Will's relationship. B/c as I've already noted, Derek = Byler. He's not one or the other, he is their line of communication.
Due to the parallel between these two scenes in the finale battle, there's a good chance that Noah did not ask them to write it in. Did you say ARG? I thought I heard somebody say ARG. Hook line and sinker we are the bait.
No Body = No funeral that's why. They made a choice not to bury their gays. Literally.
Another thing: Joyce (MF) rebrands Derek (Byler) as Delightful Derek. He is now cooperative, he doesn't get on anyone's nerves or cause a ruckus. I take this to mean Delightful Derek = Non cannon Byler which pleases most of the population.
But what does Holly/Mike say? We need Dipshit Derek. Ergo, we need cannon Byler to escape Camazotz.
And Now for a real gem....
Not Only is Joyce GRINNING as her son suffers in agony, but that is also NOT JOYCE. That is a double. Someone pointed this out in the comments and holy shit this is the worst picture I've ever seen.
I have to say, I'm barely doing anything the pieces are just falling into place. I'm not even done. I thought everything fell into place once I realized that Joyce is the MF but holy fuck did things truly fall into place after I realized Derek is Byler. It's like finding the decipher key to a puzzle. Everything just makes sense.
There's a lot more Derek stuff to go through so I'll put it in the next part.
and his last name is "turnbow" and isn't that interesting how that could be "twisting" + "loop/knot" or "bending" as if it's a reference to bending and twisting time in time travel?
My confidence that Derek really is meant to be viewed as a subtextual personification of queerness is not just his rainbow shirt, but his rainbow name: Derek Turnbow → Derek Rainbow
Taking on the challenge of trying to find a het explanation for pipegate. Because making sense of Byler involves looking at the text and subtext as two separate stories, at least for me. (But I'm still as frustrated and angry as the next guy.) So, we were shown a scene in which Mike tells Will his unique powers are innate - it was warm, sweet, and beautiful, and was building up to Will saving Mike's life at the end. It could be argued that the dick jokes and the decision to have Mike and Will holding hands trying to contain the flood is about Will's sexuality, Will's self-acceptance, Mike's acceptance of him, and was building up to Will saving Mike's life with that queer self-acceptance and queer love. Because Will's queerness and queer love for Mike is a beautiful thing (before volume 2), and Mike's acceptance and encouragement and unconditional friendship is a beautiful thing (until they throw it away and do nothing more with it until Noah calls them out on it). The scene is all about Will's coming out, his sexuality and love for Mike no longer being contained which is great because they're a team.
This could be argued, it kinda makes sense. If we just take the show as it is, how people perceive it generally, it kinda makes sense.
But queer Mike subtext would make more sense. The dick jokes framing Mike and Will together with a rainbow between them (Derek's shirt), as they look at each other. Derek Rainbow standing between them as they try to keep the door of the washroom closed. There's loads of gay subtext about being caught in bathrooms here. And that can't be argued as strictly about Will, it implies equal queerness on Mike's part. You could say that Mike bursts the pipe because he's the reason that Will realises his powers and saves him, Will's love no longer being contained in shame. But you could also argue that it makes sense that Mike bursts the pipe because his own feelings can no longer be contained, and that's why they hold the pipe together, getting caught together, and hold the door together with Derek Rainbow between them. Queer Mike also makes sense when we consider that Will dropped the cola can making it burst, similar to Mike hitting the pipe and creating the flood. Okay, it could be argued that Will's burst cola can and Mike's burst pipe are both about Will's queerness and self-actualization, but it makes just as much sense, if not more sense, that it's queercoding Mike.
There is so much in season 5 that points to a queercoded Mike, but we're supposed to ignore all of that. I don't know if the dick jokes and pipe thing is supposed to be solely about Will, or if it contains queercoding and Byler subtext, or if it's just designed to queerbait and give Bylers false hope. I honestly can see the argument for all three:
1. It's about Will's sexuality and love for Mike, which Mike supports and accepts, and will ultimately save Mike's life
2. Byler subtext implying that Mike is still repressing his feelings and trying to contain them/hold it back - this reading supports the subtext of Mike being heavily associated with Pink Floyd's The Wall this season, which is mostly a subtextual association, albeit blatant
3. It's cruel queerbait designed to give Bylers something to hold onto (ha)
In conclusion: I'm no closer to understanding the mess that is Stranger Things.
The thing is, even if I look at the text vs the subtext as two separate, parallel stories (the better one unfortunately hidden and gaslit away), I still can't help feeling annoyed by the way they reduced Will's love for Mike to a 'crush' after making his LOVE such a huge, important plot point in volume 1 (and season 4), and admittedly quite a beautiful one at that. Let's start with the field scene and the way it conveyed LOVE, beautiful queer love, in the text:
Now, I need us all to put the Byler subtext aside for a minute to talk about what the show wants us to see, the text. I may be desperately holding on to my urge to talk about personification El being a wizard/mage etc on Mike's behalf but for now that subtext isn't the point. In the text, this scene is Mike telling Will that his sexuality and love is his innate power, and he's encouraging Will to use that power. Now, I have a lot of complaints about season 5 and the overall handling of Byler, but I do see what they were going for here and... it is actually beautiful. At least it was before volume 2. You see how Will is gazing at Mike, smiling beautifully at Mike, his eyes lighting up, his face glowing, his whole vibe heartwarming? Not only that, the sun is shining, adding warmth and a beautiful, pure glow. The birds are singing too, a common way to signal love in film. The whole scene is tender, soft, warmly lit, heartfelt, pure, and incredibly sweet. In the text, it's because Will loves Mike, and his love for Mike is all of those things: tender, soft, heartfelt and pure. It's a beautiful thing, his queer love is a beautiful innate quality, his unique power. And it's very important that Mike is telling him that this power is innate, and encouraging him to use this 'magic'. Because -
It was foreshadowed. Will saves Mike (and his friends) with this innate magic, his power, his queerness and queer LOVE. How do we know that Will saves Mike with love? Because the heart on Mike's shield foreshadowed it. Mike is protected by love. Yes, it's also Will's self-love and his self-acceptance, but the heart is on Mike's shield because Will's queer love is directed at Mike specifically, and Mike encourages Will because he loves Will exactly as he is. We also know that Will saves Mike with love because the field scene was absolutely overflowing with romantic tones, down to the birds chirping.
Textually, if we put Byler subtext aside, it's admittedly beautiful. It was great for Will's arc, and it was great for Mike and Will's friendship, even if Mike isn't a Sorcerer like Will in the text of the show.
The problem is, it all kinda went to shit after this.
Mike and Will's story was considered over after Sorcerer. They were done and dusted with it, and they separated them until the coming out scene where Will refers to Mike as 'a crush' that he 'had' in past tense. This might be a really trivial and petty complaint, and honestly, I might just be reducing the power and intensity of crushes? But it feels a little off-putting to hear this grand gesture of queer love that we witnessed in episode 4, and was a massive foreshadowing device for the entirety of season 4, be called 'a crush'. Having a crush and being in love are two different things, and everything we've seen of Will up until season 5 volume 2, conveyed love. If we consider season 2 it's completely understandable that Will fell in love with Mike. I don't really see why El's love for Mike would be considered love, but Will's is only a crush.
I might as well admit that I was triggered by a YouTube video, one of the countless videos criticising season 5, in which the creator said 'El loves Mike, Will has a crush on him'.
Didn't anyone ever question why Will loves Mike, or, as they say, has a crush on him? Did anyone ever sit and consider Will's pov in the series and what might have made those feelings bloom for Mike specifically? Why does El get to be in love, but Will just has a crush? Look, don't get me wrong, Will realising his power and finding self-acceptance and his inner worth and value is amazing, it's a beautiful idea in and of itself and the execution of it in Sorcerer was grand and epic. But why can't it be love? Why can't it be the grand, epic, warm, sunny, birdsong feeling of love? I mean, it was, right? Not only Will's self-love, but love for Mike too. The field scene conveyed love, not a crush. Textually, they were doing fine with this idea, but then it felt unnecessarily reduced, sidelined, and waved away. Because it wasn't convenient anymore. The truth is, after Sorcerer, it became more of an inconvenience to have Will in love with Mike, so they reduced it to a crush to make it sound more fleeting and easily overcome.
You do get over love, technically... in my opinion, love often leaves feelings behind, permanent feelings. I've been in love and I'll always have feelings for them, a place in my heart and memories, I'll always be thankful for their influence in my life. It's not just about me; sure I can make the story of our relationship about me, how it affected me, changed me, how I grew and evolved from it, but that person's actions and influence is half the story - it's about them too, it's about us.
Which is why I think they reduced this grand queer love to a mere 'crush' to make it about Will, to make it more believable that Will moves on quickly and easily after gaining self-acceptance.
Love is convenient when it's needed. It's inconvenient after that.
