bitofanupsidedowner

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Fish in the sky <3

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so apparently our fish bois became canon back in January, and NO ONE TOLD ME!!??

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Whipped this up in honour of luberto being canon

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A lot of people are misunderstanding Mike’s internalized homophobia. It’s an inside thing he feels specifically about himself. He doesn’t hate gay people, he hates himself, and nobody seems to be portraying it how it is or talking about it.

He wasn’t being homophobic to Will in the S3 rain fight, when he said “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls!!” it only kind of slipped out. This is something Mike has probably been telling himself since he realized he doesn’t like girls. He is so obviously projecting, but he’s destroying everything in his path along the way.

Mike is anything but homophobic, he literally pushed Troy to the ground for calling Will a fairy. But I think he also did that as a defense tactic for himself. He took those words to heart. He internalized the homophobia meant for Will. When Ted said “see what happens?” he wasn’t blaming Mike, he was blaming Will for being gay. He was trying to teach his son a lesson and say “see how they treat gay people? This is how they’ll treat you. Don’t even think about being gay.”

And Mike is a sensitive, emotionally-driven character. He probably has every homophobic slur and every passive aggressive comment from his father stuck in the back of his mind on replay. He says to himself, “see, you shouldn’t be gay, it gets you hurt.”

Anyways I’m just trying to say that if Lucas or Dustin were gay, Mike wouldn’t care and he really wouldn’t make it a big deal. But he acts so differently around Will because by now he knows he likes Will. There’s no use in denying it anymore. But the only problem is that Will is gay too, which makes things too real for Mike’s comfort. The chances of Will liking him are astronomically higher than the chances of Lucas or Dustin liking him. But maybe it would be easier to reject them and act straight than it would be to reject Will and see his heart break in real time.

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Guys it’s happening❤️

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never forget

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Stfu...😭

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I’m sorry but the comments are taking me tf out I can’t-

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Will comic preview pages are up! (full comic out next Wednesday)

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Narutito

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if they didn't want byler to be canon they wouldn't have established that nobody does it like mike wheeler? like. nobody is ever going to come close to that for will. they've been friends since they were in kindergarten, they made each other feel not alone, mike makes him feel like he's not a mistake, they're passionate about the same things. they were friends first & understand each other's trauma better than anybody. nobody communicates with mike the way will does and vice versa, nobody makes mike feel how will makes him feel and vice versa.

anybody else who tried to fill that role is always going to be missing something. they would be stuck third wheeeling their own relationship. like. it would never be fair to anybody to have to compete with mike in a "who loves will the best" competition

the thing is there's always going to be things about el nobody outside of the lab can fully understand, so that depth needs to come from somewhere else. but mike and el don't have that. the relationship itself isn't actually unique in its closeness or how well suited they are.

you could argue their dynamic "el is a superhero he found in the woods and she's saved them all" is what's supposed to make it unique but not even that is genuinely unique to them, because dustin and lucas were there too, she's saved all of them, and mike doesn't even see her differently than anyone else sees her. when mike and el hug on that cliff it's not even unique because dustin joins.

like... imagine if when mike held will's hand in season two, dustin was lingering in the background and puts his hand on top of theirs. very different energy. milkvan avoids any real level of emotional intimacy like it's allergic.

it's not like it's just not possible to do with el because max and el have something unique. out of everybody that's ever taught el anything, she's the only one who bothered to teach el that she's allowed to be her own person, and their little mall montage was the happiest we've gotten to see el. she loves max so much she literally became her heartbeat. like.

max's impact on el is unlike anyone else's and it's what she focused on when she was next to dead and it's what gave her the strength to break free, that's so much more special than "taught me what a lazyboy is" and frankly nobody loves quite like el hopper period so it's a shame it's being wasted on a very forgettable relationship with a guy who treats her like garbage.

mike to will is literally framed as a forever thing. there's never going to be another. will could date every interested man he ever met and there would never be competition for mike wheeler.

it's very intentional. that's why he's painted as what they want for the rest of their lives and el's like "well, he's my first boyfriend, i don't know if he's good at kissing." diabolical. nobody does it like they do it for a reason.

i'm rambling but whatever i don't care. like... REALLY imagine being the poor goddamn sap who dates will byers and has to deal with the envy and jealousy of will's best friend/love of his life who is absolutely going to act like a dick to you because he has jealousy issues and lashes out when something threatens his place in will's life?

its literally just not happening. mike's ability to not blow his cover is always threatened IMMEDIATELY by anyone expressing interest in will or will expressing interest in anyone. max, the snowball girl, angela. nope. mike knowing will is gay and not dating him? mike accepting that will likes men, but that mike isn't going to be the man he's with? its just unfathomable

jealous mike wheeler reigns supreme and he WILL kiss william byers on the mouth

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sorry but UGH. will season three and four being canonically in love with mike, but also paralleling mike... fucking diabolical actually

like yeah there are the big sad doe eye looks and his dialogue and his actions and mannerisms but then there's will destroying castle byers at his lowest point. it's not that it's the worst thing that's ever happened to him, it's that this is when we're shown that he's lost hope, he's done, it's over, and it blatantly calling back to mike destroying the fort in the basement in season one when he was convinced there was no more bringing will back and he'd failed is just?? you could talk about that every day and it wouldn't be enough.

will destroys his with a symbol of his dad & conformity, mike tears his apart with his hands and kicks it into the ground. they both get so overcome with feelings they dismantle this thing that brought them comfort and peace??

these great big cues of love and hopelessness and yearning are shown through mike first. he isn't just more explicitly gay coded than will. he doesn't just exhibit these traits more, he exhibits them first. we see them through him before we see them through will, the difference being when we see them through will we're told they're romantic, and with mike everything is just as confusing and muddled and hopeless and messy as mike himself feels. he doesn't understand it yet. he just knows will is gone.

it's just so sad?? for all his extensive experience getting tortured, will was still clinging to hope in season three when mike had already had his i'm never coming back from this moment. he tried, but he never really unpacked. he lost it and then he had to just keep moving forward, and he tried so hard to move forward. but he couldn't because the trauma and guilt and obligation held him back. he acted out in need of comfort and he got the reverse, actually, in that the things that gave him comfort were taken away as punishment.

season five cannot get here fast enough i'm going INSANEEEEE

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emo that after everything they still called it castle BYERS and put a baseball bat in it even though will doesn't even LIKE baseball. no matter how they try to get out from under lonnie's heel he's still there and will wants his approval

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what i love about byler is there's sooo much evidence sometimes some of it'll slip your mind and then you'll randomly be reminded of something that's literally just a normal canon ST fact and it's like. yeah that's literally just...gay... there's no other explanation

like mike wanting so badly to talk to will that he'll whine dustin's ear off about it but also not being able to write him letters... in a season it's made canon that mike unintentionally reveals things about his feelings (from, mike) when he writes letters.

like. what were you gonna say bud?? a letter is not gay. that's like saying talking is gay period. words can be gay if you say gay words bt why would that be a concern. dustin's writing to him you know it can be done and you want to talk to him! why aren't you?

why can't you have a conversation with will unless you can bounce off what he's giving you. you're not a small-talker so why do you need that?

you know dustin writes to him and you have questions. you have stuff you want to talk about. el talks about will so you have an opening. but you won't.

were you scared you'd say something and he'd know what you meant? were you scared he wouldn't care enough to try and figure it out? that he wouldn't write back and it'd really be over?

were you scared what he'd tell you if he did? about his new life and his new friends and the girl in his class who tries to play footsie with him? about the painting el mentioned in passing but you can't stop thinking about? maybe he found a new party after all.

maybe the whole thing was in your head but maybe it wasn't. maybe he did feel how you felt and he doesn't anymore. maybe he DOES like girls and you don't.

did you just want to hear his voice? were you hoping he wanted to hear yours? why isn't he allowed to know that you care about him, mike? you end up telling him, anyway, so why couldn't you? why'd you need to wait until he told you that you saved him before you could say you missed him?

LETTERGATE MY BELOVED

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it’s wild to me how important letters were to s4. the season opens with el voicing over a letter, joyce getting a secret letter from hop, will complains about not getting any letters from mike, max reads out a letter to billy’s grave, and writes letters for each party member…

clearly letters are an important symbol/detail in st4.

so why is it when we see mike open not one, but TWO different letters from el, he crumples BOTH of them, tossing one into the mess of his bedroom, and the other directly into a trashcan.

comparing this to el’s “book of letters” from mike, and how he simply trashes the ones from her, it’s safe to assume that he doesn’t keep her letters anywhere to easily reread.

i just dont know man. that’s such a glaring detail to me, how little care he puts into the messages and words she writes for him. what’s up with that, michael?

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I reference this meme so often and nobody ever gets the reference. It's so distressing