shanaynay98

[shanaynay98]

so many characters in stranger things are shown to be interested in the opposite gender aside from their significant others (excluding will and robin for obvious reasons), yet the writers and set designers consistently avoid showing specifically mike to be interested in girls

now i'm not like some of y'all where i have gifs and screenshots tucked into my backpocket, but let's all try to remember these scenes

max has a crush on ralph macchio. she says that he's hot and that she bets he's a good kisser.

in the arcade, lucas and dustin are trying to win princess daphne in an arcade game (the name i forgot). when dustin fails the game, lucas says something along the lines of "princess daphne is still mine!"

dustin refers to his girlfriend as "hotter than phoebe cates", which is him indirectly calling phoebe cates very hot (making his girlfriend seem ungodly levels of attractive)

steve and jonathan both have suggestive posters of women in their room. jonathan's is pointed out by lonnie - lonnie tells him to "take that down, it's inappropriate". steve's can be seen before the st*ncy sex scene

nancy has a tom cruise poster in her room, pointed out by robin

but when it comes to mike, there's absolutely nothing that even mildly implies him being attracted to girls. the closest thing i can find is him asking dustin, "is she cute?" while dustin is talking about suzie, and when dustin compares her hotness to phoebe cates, mike is making a weirdass face that definitely does not imply any heterosexuality from him.

sure, he has a girlfriend. but we all know how that's going for him. (see: mike not kissing her back or even closing his eyes in the s3 finale, mike taking her hands off of him while they're making out, mike being unable to express his love for her while she's truly present, him never once explaining a single thing about el he loves/finds attractive except for "you can fly, you can move mountains" and "you're my superhero" and "you wore an oversized benny's burgers t-shirt one time", etc.)

bottom line - mike wheeler i know what you are

[shanaynay98]

ah yes my favorite endgame couple that directly parallels el’s abusive father figure

[shanaynay98]

Putting powdered sugar on the post below

[shanaynay98]

Claim your "I was a Byler before s5 came out" here

[shanaynay98]

has anyone done this yet

[shanaynay98]

milkvans after calling bylers insane for years just to watch the first ep of s5 and mlvn is already amicably broken up, will's feelings are revealed and mike is acting gayer than ever

[shanaynay98]

this photo kinda confirms that the byers live at the wheelers house 🤫🤫

[shanaynay98]

Help...the way this could 100% happen 😂

[shanaynay98]

Not being able to participate in a discussion extremely relevant to you without revealing intimate details of your life so you just sit there pretending you don’t understand anything about the topic while your brain turns into a gigantic clenched fist. = akin to torture

[shanaynay98]

Mike taking almost two full seconds to prep himself to say something comforting to Will so it's perfect when he spent the entire conversation flowing normally <3.

[shanaynay98]

From this...

To this...

Wth happened mike wheeler? 😂 🏳️‍🌈

[shanaynay98]

I love how season 2 is just

dustin & lucas: omg there’s a new girl max, she’s so cool and pretty haha, halloween is so fun, wow look I found a weird slug tadpole looking thing wonder what’s that’s abt…..

mike and will in the b-plot:

[shanaynay98]

“No Byler can’t kiss. It’ll be too uncomfortable for viewers to watch.”

The same viewers that watched two 13 year olds make out in a bed? When one of them was essentially a father figure to the other? Those viewers??

I think they’ll be okay.

[shanaynay98]

Honestly seeing the AIDS poster in the ST5 set design is such a relief because the AIDS Crisis subtext in the show has been there forever, but never explicit, and it's such important history that I'm glad it'll be more than just thematic/coded references. I'm hoping we get some actual in-text dialogue about it as well!

[shanaynay98]

When you realize Mike was the one acting weird and Will was just excited to see his friend again

[shanaynay98]

happily insane 🫠

[shanaynay98]