this post is to point out similar parallels and their differences between the canon ships in the show, especially in favor of byler and jancy. this is a pro byler/jancy and anti-mileven/stancy post so if you ship the later dni or read at your own risk
'life started that day' vs 'best thing i've ever done'
season 4 Mike conflicting himself in season 2 in his monologue scene. Mike tells El that his life started the day they found her in the woods while in season 2, he tells Will that asking him to be his friend was the best thing he'd ever done.
also Mike stating that his life started the day Will's turned upside down in front of him also hurts.
most of the ga take this as it is without understanding that this specific line his brings up a lot of conflict. It asks the question 'which scene is Mike lying in,' because both of this cannot be true at the same time.
as a byler i can say that the second scene is shot in a much more genuine way. there is no music in the background and no other shots at any character while the first scene has blaring music and shots at both jonathan, max and will.
4. Mike
there isn't much to expand on in these scenes but it is still very telling. both will and el are looking out the window, crying and mike is in both shots but he only looks at one of them.
personally, i feel as if this is a take on how well mike is at emotionally reading them just like i expanded on in point 3. even if no words are said, Mike still looks at Will. he still looks for Will.
even in the first scene, the camera pans over to Mike glancing at Will instead of his own girlfriend who was just publicly humiliated. i feel like this more of shows mike is more concerned about his relationship with will after their fight than about el.
now this is the very obvious parallels used by many bylers to prove that they are endgame. most of these i have gotten from this post by @kittykat940. i won't post all their points, pls go through their original post.
1. Car talk
this car talks that usually happens between canon ships, usually when they have their heart - to - heart conversations.
2. Lies
alright, most obvious jancy/byler parallel is that both jonathan and will lies to nancy/mike regarding to steve/el.
jonathan lies to nancy saying that steve is the one that told him to take nancy back home during the night of the party
while will lies to mike saying that el is the one that commissioned the painting.
3. more parallels (because i can't name stuff)
4. Lumax/Byler parallels
5. Jopper/Byler
6. Byler/Rovickie
these two clips between will and robin is very important. they are both openly queer characters being portrayed in between their love interest and opposing ship.
in the first scene, will is blurred out as the audience is meant to focus on mike and el reuniting but still notice that will somehow plays a big part in this.
in the second scene, robin is seen more clearly to show her feelings towards what is happening between vickie and her boyfriend. in this scene, the audience is meant to feel bad for robin and root for her love. and we know for a fact, that both robin and vickie will be canon couple in season 5.
same with will and mike perhaps??
both vickie and mike looking at robin/will.
and in the end scene, both of these couples are seen together at the end of the season.
alright... that's all i got.
i have linked the first two parts above and pls look at all the original posts.
this post is to point out similar parallels and their differences between the canon ships in the show, especially in favor of byler and jancy. this is a pro byler/jancy and anti-mileven/stancy post so if you ship the later dni or read at your own risk
most of the points here i've gotten are from the comments from this post. i will also be tagging the the original posters here (if u don't want to be tagged pls inform me to remove it)
there isn't anything to say further about these two shots other than that it is very similar.
in both scenes steve/el is looking at nancy/mike with sad expressions through a window. i interpret these two scenes as them looking at the other person through a glass; basically through a lens.
even if there isn't anything specifically negative about these two scenes, there is a jancy scene in the exact episode that kind of does oppose the second scene.
it doesn't say much but it definitely is something worth mentioning.
5. Privacy
one of my favorite stancy/mileven parallels.
please read the original post by @bugsbenefit
this whole parallel exactly proves the point that mileven and stancy are almost exactly the same.
in the same episode
mike/steve are both welcoming el/nancy into their home and offering them new clothes because their own ones are drenched in water. the clothes are exactly the same: blue shirt and grey sweatpants
steve waits for nancy to undress in front of him but she asks him for privacy. mike hands the clothes to el and she decided to undress in front of them but mike immediately stops her and asks her to do so in the bathroom because of 'privacy'.
both Steve and El aren't familiar with the concept of 'privacy' (for totally different reasons) but only when Nancy/Mike asks for it, does Steve turn around/El changes in the bathroom.
But we know that Nancy does go against it and it immediately results in the uncomfortable stancy sex scene interjected with barbs death scenes.
both these scenes play out exactly the same in the beginning and they both clearly try to convey the same message; privacy. they are direct parallels of each other. but stancy was clearly meant to be making the audience uncomfortable and if mileven is being paralleled with them then...!?
i'll leave it up to ya'll to figure it out.
Jancy/Mileven parallels:
this is a pro-byler post but it wouldn't be fair to disregard the parallels between jancy and mileven.
1. Denying
in both these scenes, Nancy and Mike ask each other if they like Jonathan/El and they both deny it. They both then end up officially with Jonathan/El in the next season.
i don't have anything to say against this because it is a legitimate parallel between mileven and jancy. Both siblings deny their 'feelings' for the character that they will end up together with.
I think this is the strongest jancy/mileven parallel there is.
2. Reuniting
This scene isn't widely considered a parallel but i'm still going to be including this because it makes sense to do so. I think this scene moreover shows the difference between mileven and jancy and how the duffers view both of them.
similarities:
in both these scenes, Jonathan/Mike run out of Argyle's van to reunite with their partners, Nancy/El. This was an especially important scene to me because these were after Steve/Will 'confessed' their feelings to them.
this was a scene showing that they're still happy to see the person their still with, El and Jonathan. This scene was supposed to show that no matter what Steve/Will said, Nancy/Mike still has feelings for Jonathan/El.
but it doesn't.
difference:
how they display the following scenes after that are directly against each other. if you consider this as a parallel, then the following scenes should immediately disapprove that they are the same even if they play out the same.
how they show the character in between their ships are very different.
Will is directly in between Mike and El while Steve is shown to be passing them by instead. Steve isn't viewed as a 'threat' to Jancy while Will is to mileven. Will's confession actually holds some weight for Mike than Steve's confession does to Nancy.
Will's feelings play a very important part in mileven's relationship while Steve's aren't.
Will and Steve:
this, again, bleeds into the Stancy/Byler parallel i talked about in the first post. One confession was purely out of selflessness while the other one was because of selfishness.
one more thing to support my selflessness/selfishness claim is that even if Will loves Mike, he isn't mad at El. He doesn't show his anger or show outward jealousy towards her. He isn't holding anything against her because he is clearly happy to see her.
Will doesn't view El as competition.
Steve, on the other hand, outwardly displays his sadness when Jonathan and Nancy reunite with each other. It is to the point that Robin has to pet his back to reassure him.
Steve views Jonathan as competition.
this is not to show hate for Steve, this is just pure observation.
I could've found a way to included this point in the first post regarding stancy and byler but i found it more fitting to use as a sort of similarity and difference between mileven and jancy.
now that we got jancy/mileven out of the way, let's talk above byler and mileven instead. these two ships are very written to oppose each other in every single way.
there aren't a lot of things to be expanded on regarding their parallels because it is so blatantly obvious.
i feel compelled to also mention that both ships are written with opposing tropes. 'friends-to-lovers' and 'love-at-first-sight' are vastly very different categories.
1. 'yes' and 'no'
one of the most mentioned opposing points between Mileven and Byler are their first words to Mike. El's first word to Mike was 'no' while Will's was 'yes'.
'no' vs 'you said yes'
i think it's sort of on the nose to mention that the first thing El does is disagree with Mike while the first thing Will does is to agree with with him.
2. 'Understanding'
the most obvious parallel between Mileven and Byler is during Mike's scenes with both Will and El in season 4.
In this scene, Mike and El are arguing because Mike doesn't tell her he loves her. She uses the line that is directly paralleled to his conversation with Will.
'you never say it' 'i say it' vs 'i didn't say it' 'you didn't have to'
this scene so simply means that El needs to be reassured by Mike that he still loves her because his actions are not saying it or even displaying it.
her asking for this reassurance immediately disapproves the argument that he just can't say 'ily' because of his parents. even if he can't say it, he can still show it through his actions. her asking for this means that he hasn't been showing her that he loves her
especially with scenes like:
'what did you do' and 'she didn't look fine'
she needs to still hear that he loves her. she can't read that he does.
the whole 'i didn't say it' 'you didn't have to' scene opposes them exactly with mike saying that he doesn't need words to understand what Will was saying.
Will's actions were enough for Mike to understand him.
this further proves my point when we take into account that Mike had no idea El was lying to him the whole time in rink-o-mania. he didn't clock that she was uncomfortable with Angela and her friends when they came up to her.
even when Angela took her away, mike wasn't responsive. only when Will outwardly stated that something was wrong did he actually have a reaction.
and even in this scene where mike is calling out to el but she runs away from him instead is not just her being embarrassed in front of him but also her not reading him as someone who would be able to comfort her.
he isn't someone she finds comfort in anymore. she literally wants to hide herself away from him. and even then, she begs Angela to tell Mike that it was all just a joke and that they are really friends because she doesn't understand Mike enough to know that he would still love her and regardless of it.
that she would still be someone 'cool' in his eyes without all these lies.
but she doesn't.
Will and Mike, on the other hand have a whole other relationship dynamic. they don't need words to understand each other because they can read the other based on only actions.
will understood mike's expressions enough to know that he needs reassurance during the desert scene and mike clocking will enough to know that he wasn't enjoying himself in the roller rink. in the second scene, Mike uses Will's actions (rolling your eyes, moping) to determine that Will was annoyed and moody the whole day, there was no need for Will to even say it.
byler doesn't need to say anything to know each other while mileven does.
more parallels in part 3.
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i would like to make clear that these are my interpretations of the scenes, it doesn't mean they r actually canon. these are just observations made by me.
this is part two of the parallels between ships. thank you for reading!!
this post is to point out similar parallels and their differences between the canon ships in the show, especially in favor of byler and jancy. this is a pro byler/jancy and anti-mileven/stancy post so if you ship the later dni or read at your own risk.
most of the points here i've gotten are from the comments from this post. i will also be tagging the the original posters here (if u don't want to be tagged pls inform me to remove it)
the main reason I made this post was because i recently saw an ask regarding how Will parallels Steve in season 4 and how if byler happens then jancy logically cannot be endgame. so i would like to address this in length with the many parallels between each ship.
Firstly,
Byler/Stancy parallel:
similarity:
both Steve and Will have one specific parallel shown in season 4; they both confess their love to a significant other one way or another even if the other is in a relationship with someone else. Steve to Nancy and Will to Mike. They have both made it clear to the audience that they have feelings for the other person.
difference:
the nature of their confessions.
Will uses El's name instead of his own to give Mike the confidence to, in the long run, not give up on his relationship with El. He masked his own feelings to help Mike instead of conflict him.
Even after hearing about Mike and El's relationship problems and how Mike describes the fight they had as something they couldn't come back from, he doesn't try to present to Mike as a potential love interest he could have and conflict him. He doesn't disregard El from the equation and instead uses her as a shield for his own feelings.
By doing so, he has given up on his feelings for Mike and the possibility that those feelings will ever be reciprocated. He does this for Mike's own happiness.
It is a selfless thing.
Steve's confession did the absolute opposite. He outwardly states that he is still in love with her and has plans of the future involving her by his side. He disregards the fact that she is still in a romantic relationship with Jonathan and inserts the idea of them being together.
By confessing, Steve is asking her to think about the possibility that she might leave Jonathan and fall for him again. This creates conflict. Going into season 5, it is clear to both Nancy and the audience that he will still have feelings for Nancy and even outwardly display them.
it is a selfish thing.
Nancy's reaction.
Mike's reaction.
Will isn't looking to be with Mike anymore while Steve wants to be with Nancy again. Those are two very different things.
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Stancy/Mileven parallels:
Now that we got that out the way, let's talk about stancy and mileven. These two ships are perfect parallels of each other for all the wrong reasons.
1. 'i love you'
They follow the exact sequence of each other:
original post by @bugssavetheworld
both mike/nancy are able to say they love el/steve until they are actually pressured to by the later.
mike saying he loves her and nancy saying 'i love you too'.
el/steve literally begging mike/nancy to say they love them. in these two scenes both steve and el have outwardly expressed what they want nancy and mike to say and yet they aren't able to profess their 'love' to the other.
these two scenes happen straight after a supposed date they both went on:
and on these dates, el gets humiliated with a milkshake thrown at her in front of mike and nancy gets drunk and spills a drink on her dress in front of steve.
after this whole sequence, both steve and el are separate from nancy and mike and here they go on their own journey. They are both more focused on their self-improvement and character arc.
they both have a some what 'confrontation' scenes with mike/nancy using the same words they used.
2. 'First Kiss'
original post by @love-byers
the scores used for both scenes here is called 'the first kiss'.
the first scene is during mike and el's first kiss so its pretty on the nose. It doesn't seem like anything at first but during the second scene it is clear that Nancy has somebody else on her mind.
in the season later on, nancy gets together with jonathan. These scenes don't directly parallels each other but the duffers wouldn't have used the same music scores for no reason.
the original poster expanded more on this parallel in this post.
3. 'Love and death'
this is probably one of my favorite parallels between these two ships pointed out by @stranger-feathers.
*maniacal laughter*
during one of the most 'narratively' intimate scenes with Steve and Nancy, it gets interjected with literal scenes of Barb screaming for her life and getting killed by the demogorgon
this scenes were meant to make us uncomfortable and lay the ground for Nancy to feel guilty about Barb's death but there hasn't been any direct indication that Steve and Nancy's 'love' killed barb.
But this scene has very strong similarities to that of Mike's monologue and the outcome of it in season 4.
during mike going on this whole monologue on how he loves El, it gets interjected with scenes of El being chocked and results in Max's death (and Eddie's) and the destruction of Hawkins.
stancy 'sex' scene:
Results:
mileven monologue scene:
results:
if you think about it, both of these scenes perfectly resemble each other with the way they both play out.
this was Nancy's way to show that she loved Steve and that she wants to fully commit to him and this was a scene where Mike is saying how much he loves El and is committed to loving her.
and they both end following tragic disasters.
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the post is not allowing me to add anymore pictures so i will be continuing this in a part 2 post. thank you for reading.
I want a scene between the jonstevenance trio where nancy charges forward with a gun in her hand while Steve tries to tell her that it’s too dangerous and that he should go ahead first because it’s dangerous. I want a scene where jonathan stops him and says that she can handle herself, and doesn’t need anyone to protect her, that she knows what she’s doing and can make her own decision. I need the audience to see how both of them perceive her, how both of them understand her and how only one of them is best for her.
pro billy hargrove but anti jonathan/will byers and anti noah schnapp is crazy
Lmaooo exactly. Like they just cant believe their ship is drowning because nancy chose jonathan over steve. And they’re bringing Will into this as well??? And Noah?!?
And for some reason they’re talking highly of Billy? Like the guy that steve hates??? Irdk
This is what happens when delusional and hateful people get access to the internet
