All theories and analyses I make are based on my own personal interpretation, opinion and intuition. I do them for fun. Even if you find any of them curious, please draw your own conclusions! I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
byler
The pairing that got me into the ST fandom, I learned so much through it and definitely felt like bylers helped me up my media literacy and writing skills ❤️ fingers crossed it pays off!
current era > [ #birthdaygate are u real ]
chance you BETTER not fail me brother istg why am i even trustign your suspicio9us ass istg
This baby got me out of artist block fr this is my favorite thing right now ❤️ i have no idea what's going on entirely but SOMETHING'S GOING ON
#birthdaygate🎈
✦✦ paddington 2's birthday plotline 🎂
✦✦ rink-o-mania date reinforced 🎁
✦✦ the nothing 🧿
✦✦ mike's pov 🗣
✦✦ imaginary friend 👭
bychance investigation 🕵
✦✦ on the bychance vs byler civil war 🔫
✦✦ will/birthdaygate + 001 + chance frequency 💊 { coincidence? }
✦✦ will/birthdaygate + 001 + chance wordplay 🎉 { coincidence? }
✦✦ bychance debate forum 🤼️
✦✦ debunking bychance round 1 💔
✦✦ debunking bychance round 2 💔
✦✦ breakfast table leak 🍽️
✦✦ billy loomis + stu macher homage ...? 🔪
✦✦ will + chance as meta concepts? 🤞
✦✦ bychance puzzle pieces from vol I collection 🧩
✦✦ in defense of the vol i jocks ( ugh ... ) 👊
✦✦ bychance puzzle pieces vol II promo 🧩
✦✦ is that Chance's brother? 👶
✦✦ serendipity + free will and chance 🍀
✦✦ last BYCHANCE post 💚
✦✦ "fortune favors the bold" 🧙♂️
meta dives
✦✦ on stranger thing's derivative nature 📝
✦✦ the duffer's favorite oc? 🌱
✦✦ dnd & bdsm 🎲
✦✦ hunter romanillos interview ✅
marketing
✦✦ carebear merch 🐻
✦✦ the fear street: prom connection 🩸
✦✦ the wednesday connection 🖤
memes
✦✦ bychance chose me
✦✦ why is he real, bro
✦✦ feeling like a mad scientist
✦✦ day 1 of trying to unsee bychance
✦✦ day 66 of trying to unsee bychance
✦✦ will's 3 boyfriends
✦✦ who is chance?
✦✦ first bychance article
✦✦ what does the ga know ...?
✦✦ 001 was always planned
"surf that tasty pie" randomly came up on my youtube playlist and the way i burst out crying and ran here to type this out ........ that was going to be a byler song, i am so fucking sure of that ... because it was never used in the entirety of the series ....
and god, the van scene and all, the pizza innuendos, etc like ... damn they really chickened out
All theories and analyses I make are based on my own personal interpretation, opinion and intuition. I do them for fun. Even if you find any of them curious, please draw your own conclusions! I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
byler
The pairing that got me into the ST fandom, I learned so much through it and definitely felt like bylers helped me up my media literacy and writing skills ❤️ fingers crossed it pays off!
current era > [ #birthdaygate are u real ]
chance you BETTER not fail me brother istg why am i even trustign your suspicio9us ass istg
This baby got me out of artist block fr this is my favorite thing right now ❤️ i have no idea what's going on entirely but SOMETHING'S GOING ON
#birthdaygate🎈
✦✦ paddington 2's birthday plotline 🎂
✦✦ rink-o-mania date reinforced 🎁
✦✦ the nothing 🧿
✦✦ mike's pov 🗣
✦✦ imaginary friend 👭
bychance investigation 🕵
✦✦ on the bychance vs byler civil war 🔫
✦✦ will/birthdaygate + 001 + chance frequency 💊 { coincidence? }
✦✦ will/birthdaygate + 001 + chance wordplay 🎉 { coincidence? }
✦✦ bychance debate forum 🤼️
✦✦ debunking bychance round 1 💔
✦✦ debunking bychance round 2 💔
✦✦ breakfast table leak 🍽️
✦✦ billy loomis + stu macher homage ...? 🔪
✦✦ will + chance as meta concepts? 🤞
✦✦ bychance puzzle pieces from vol I collection 🧩
✦✦ in defense of the vol i jocks ( ugh ... ) 👊
✦✦ bychance puzzle pieces vol II promo 🧩
✦✦ is that Chance's brother? 👶
✦✦ serendipity + free will and chance 🍀
✦✦ last BYCHANCE post 💚
✦✦ "fortune favors the bold" 🧙♂️
meta dives
✦✦ on stranger thing's derivative nature 📝
✦✦ the duffer's favorite oc? 🌱
✦✦ dnd & bdsm 🎲
✦✦ hunter romanillos interview ✅
marketing
✦✦ carebear merch 🐻
✦✦ the fear street: prom connection 🩸
✦✦ the wednesday connection 🖤
memes
✦✦ bychance chose me
✦✦ why is he real, bro
✦✦ feeling like a mad scientist
✦✦ day 1 of trying to unsee bychance
✦✦ day 66 of trying to unsee bychance
✦✦ will's 3 boyfriends
✦✦ who is chance?
✦✦ first bychance article
✦✦ what does the ga know ...?
✦✦ 001 was always planned
someone once said that the major issue with will's arc is that all of will's suffering and pain was shown on screen for hours but all of will's joy and love and happiness was left up to the imagination and implied off-screen, and i was never the same
I haaate discourse about who "deserves" redemption and forgiveness because it Should Not Be About That but. in Will's case specifically it's pretty hilarious that we have people in fandom complaining he could never forgive and fall in love with a bully when he canonically attempted to forgive Henry. I guess it's because people tend to ignore/forget this scene happened? but it did. Will extended compassion to a literal murderer who kidnapped him, ruined his childhood, violated his body and mind AND tried to take over the world. I think he could bring himself to forgive a few punches
THE FUCKING TITLE??? AND THE VIBES??? THIS SONG IS SO BYLER CODED THE FUCKING TITLE TOO AND THE SOUND AND THIS SONG WAS NOT IN THE ENTIRE SEASON.
IT FEELS DAMN MAGICAL AND EPIC BUT SOFT AND TENDER LIKE WHAT THE FUCK???? And oh my god I could say so much about this but I'm getting ALL EMOTIONAL because what?????? WHAT???????? AND THE TITLE
SURF THAT TASTY PIE
IT FEELS SO LIKE ... GOING WITH THE FLOW AND WAVES AT YOUR OWN PACE I NEED TO BREATHE????
And the whole 'try before you deny' gay subtext vibe and I'm going to SCREAM??????
honestly, what the hell was even this song about? it was NEVER used in the actual show at ALL and the title + the overall song vibe is super byler-coded???
yeah no idc what these people say, something happened bc there were way too many elements that pointed to byler
BYCHANCE is the romantic pairing between Will ❤️ & Chance 🍀
Status as of S4:
✨strangers✨
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
*Timeline done from my POV, I might've missed some things and be wrong about others, please keep that in mind as you delve in!
MAY 19TH, 2024
"STRANGER THINGS SCOOP: WILL BYERS WILL HAVE A LOVE INTEREST IN STRANGER THINGS 5"
AFTER MAY 19TH, BEFORE JULY 3RD, 2024
BYCHANCE DISCOVERED/CREATED AS A "JOKE" BY TWITTER USERS NICO AND SENA, WHO WERE PART OF THE LEAKERS GROUP CHAT WHERE THE LEAK ORIGINATED & IT BECAME THE CRACKSHIP WE KNOW TODAY
Nico and Sena didn't believe Will would have a new love interest, but in the spirit of fun, they entertained the idea and began to brainstorm about who the potential love interest could be because further iterations of the leak included that the love interest was 'someone we had seen in the show' <- source unconfirmed/deemed unreliable by the users involved & there is still a lot of confusion surrounding this.
They chose Chance out of a list of candidates based on the following criteria:
🎯 He was the most attractive out of the jocks
🎯 He resembled Mike the most
🎯 Will x Chance would fit the tired trope of 'gay kid x closeted jock/bully', which, as far as I'm aware, originated from the TV show Glee.
JOCK = David Karovsky, portrayed by Max Adler
GAY KID = Kurt Hummel, portrayed by Chris Colfer.
This was Bychance's blueprint.
As outdated as this trope is, other Netflix productions have adapted it in recent years. with certain subversions:
Adam x Eric ( from Sex Education )
Ben x Charlie ( from Heartstopper )
Enid x Lucas ( from Wednesday, another Big Netflix Hit )
Lori x Tyler ( from Fear Street: Prom Queen )
Steve x Nancy ( from Stranger Things itself )
You could even argue S4 Lucas x Max fits this trope as well!
& likely others I am missing. Not all of them are queer, but they all follow the same formula:
JOCK x MC ( typically nerd and/or queer ) = NOT ENDGAME
JULY 3RD, 2024
LOVE INTEREST LEAK CONFIRMED, BUT CHANCE DEBUNKED AS THE LOVE INTEREST
source
At this point, you could consider Bychance to be 'debunked', however ...
JULY 11TH, 2024
BYCHANCE HINTS DISCOVERED IN THE SHOW
- discovered by @cypherheartnokey upon a rewatch of the show and noticing the "weird dialogue thing" the show does. ( absolute mad genius queen )
💬 38 🔁 32 ❤️ 238 · Why Will x Chance (bychance) REALLY IS going to happen… 😳 · (…temporarily let’s hope…)
Let’s first pay attention to
MARCH 18TH 2025
BYCHANCE FITS THE SHOW'S STRUCTURE / CYCLICAL NATURE
- discovered by @ven0moir & others.
💬 6 🔁 20 ❤️ 155 · So, Bychance is on my radar and ... I think it'll actually happen. · Disclaimer, I realize this is me going full unhinge
APRIL 10TH, 2025
"THE WORLD IS FULL OF OBVIOUS THINGS, WHICH NOBODY BY ANY CHANCE EVER OBSERVES" <- Bychance thesis statement
- discovered by @ven0moir & my personal #1 hint.
💬 0 🔁 6 ❤️ 29 · I'M FREAKING SCREAMINGGNOIGJK · HELP I COULDN'T EVEN GET A PROPER SCREENSHOT BC THE WAY I JUST COLLAPSED TO THE FLOOR HOW
MAY 11TH - 15TH, 2025
THEORY STRESS-TEST
- anons with excellent points, counter-arguments & new clues that have helped refine the theory and have been compiled in the Bychance Files (currently undergoing an update)
💬 21 🔁 9 ❤️ 44 · Clearing the air on the “Bychance vs Byler Civil War” · Bylers vs Bychancers? More like Bylers & Bychancers vs The Misco
APRIL 14th, 2025
THE 'CHANCE + 22 ( +1 )' PATTERN
- discovered by @ven0moir after following the apparition of #22 as a breadcrumb for #birthdaygate 🎈 & my personal second hint.
💬 10 🔁 6 ❤️ 39 · THE BYCHANCE CIPHER - Chance + 22 ( + 1 ) · bychance menu
alright, boys--here we go again. i'm expanding on the 7 instan
JUNE 8TH, 2025
LEAK ORIGIN
According to Minou, a leaker that was also in that leaks community / group chat the love interest leak originated from, the leak itself was first brought up by @ThwipT_
source
I must add that Minou is now considered extremely unreliable.
AUGUST 3RD, 2025
THWIPT_ CONFIRMED
However, I got some confirmation from Sena in DMs that ThwipT_ *was* part of the conversation surrounding the leak. I will not be posting our DMs for privacy reasons, but she confirmed the following:
🎯 ThwipT said that Will's love interest "was NOT Mike"
( this indicates to me that he knew something about it, but did not go into detail )
🎯 ThwipT did not say who the love interest was and has made no further comment on it.
Assuming ThwipT does know more than they're letting on, the main question to answer here would be:
is ThwipT_ unreliable like Minou said, or are they reliable? Imo, the answer to that is YES based on the following:
source
see the date? MARCH 12TH, 2023. This supposed "unreliable leaker" had insider info on the VOL SPLIT as EARLY as the START of 2023 AND HE. WAS. RIGHT.
✦ . ⁺ . ✦ . ⁺ . ✦
WORKING HYPOTHESIS AS OF SEPTEMBER 2ND, 2025:
Regardless of who was the first person to bring it up, the "Will has a love interest" leak was intentionally released by production to get the ball rolling and the fandom talking about it. They were HOPING Bychance would emerge in the fandom, but there was no GUARANTEE . To what extent or to what end? Uncertain yet.
Here are my reasons for believing this:
#1. Stranger Thing's derivative nature.
The Duffers bank on the familiarity we have with the tropes they use so we as the audience make subconscious connections.
re: Nico and Sena were decently strategic when selecting Chance as Will's "fake love interest"--it wasn't something they "made up" entirely at random, like the fandom believes.
#2. This happens in the industry, and it IS, realistically, within the vast realm of possibilities.
source
#3. The show itself might've hinted at a 'CHANCE LEAK' through the "weird dialogue thing" that got cypher down the bychance rabbit hole in the first place.
#4. The weird "fairytale/dream logic" the clues follow, which also gives me "marketing" vibes + is potentially connected to #birthdaygate🎈.
But, as I always like to remind, draw your own conclusions.
this report is subject to evolve, change, and become something else entirely as time goes by and new information is brought to our attention!
tagging some of my bychance besties who might find this insightful <3 @cypherheartnokey @offsidetracked @anotherjlynn @loverb0yloser
Bychance rewrite in which Chance rebels against Jason’s gang with Lucas in season 4, and then he gets introduced to the supernatural side of things, by/ler gets definitively shot down at the end of the season, and Will is set up with Chance instead. Thinking a “jock with a heart of gold” trope. Sporty but empathetic x artsy guy who hates exercise. Maybe Will gets up to go walking when he can’t sleep for nightmares, and he runs into Chance on an early morning run, and it becomes a little ritual where they walk and talk in the early fog. Season 5 self-acceptance arc can still happen (and is still the most important part), and Will can still be a bit hung up over Mike, but then he realises that Chance was the one sending signals all along. Epilogue confirms they are together, and we get a little more romance for Will than just a two second bar guy with no lines or name. Bonus: this AU means more byclair scenes too, since Will and Chance are both besties with Lucas.
