#Wheeler family

[gaysforbyler]

“Mike can’t tell El he loves her because that’s a Wheeler trait”

You mean when Nancy couldn’t tell Steve she loved him? Stancy, who broke up? Or do you mean Karen and Ted? Karen and Ted, who according to Nancy, never loved each other?

I agree. It’s a Wheeler trait to be with people they don’t love in order to conform to societal norms. It’s a Wheeler trait to not be able to lie and say they love people when they don’t. It’s a Wheeler trait to be in unloving relationships. We agree on this.

[strawberrybyers]

and what if we get a parallel to will and jonathan’s scene in s4 with mike and nancy… like is season 5 actually giving me everything i want?? am i actually getting an emotional bonding moment between mike and nancy??? this is so important to me i fear

[thefirstlioveyou]

i get very upset when i get to the part where ted suggests they go down and talk to mike about witnessing his best friend's dead body, and karen suggests they just wait for him to come to them. (spoiler alert: he never actually does... so they never do either)

oh and then the least she can do is let him stay home from school. but then - as she's telling him she's going to comfort and check on barb's parents (not him) - she invites him to just tag a log and just read a book, as she gives someone else who isn't her son the time of day to talk about everything going on. but it's ok because she'll let him pick out an r rated movie, right?

giving your kids physical gifts is something some parents like to do to substitute for the emotional care they're struggling to provide, and that's clearly what's happening here.

i love karen, and I can't wait to see her development next season. but this is part of her character - her avoidance of things is crucial to understanding her character and understanding the wheelers overall next season. only hugging her kids isn't being there for them. and it's not like she isn't aware - she knows it's wrong! we see her actively TRY and change this, but struggles to because this is something that needs to be tackled with her husband! but he's. not. there. either. she doesn't know HOW to fix this.

but she - and the whole family - will learn to next season

[stranger-theory]

Stranger Theories by my mom, part 1:

Holly's gonna go missing and the reason is because it's gonna draw the Wheelers into focus again.

Karen's child just went missing and she has no idea what's going on. She's terrified that her daughter is dead and she has no idea what she's gonna do about it. She feels like she's going crazy. Who else had this storyline? Joyce. Karen isn't going to be alone because Joyce understands. Karen won't be clueless because Joyce understands.

Nancy and Mike get to spend time with each other more and actually talk about the things they said they would back in s1. "No more secrets" never really came to fruition. This gives HUGE leeway for the audience to actually, finally, understand what's going on inside that bigass head of his. We could also see what Nancy thinks about the whole Steve vs Jonathan thing.

We get to see how all of this affects Ted Wheeler and actually understand who he is as a person, give him some flavor. Does he actually care about his family? I don't know but s5 can answer that now. Maybe he ends up leaving Hawkins, who knows. The point is that we have a definite answer now.

Holly is the catalyst for clearing the air in the Wheeler family. She can answer so many questions we as the audience have and I'm thankful for that.

My mom also made a great point that the town will respond incredibly different to Holly's disappearance. Will Byers is known as "the queer" who has a crazy mom and comes from a low class family. Yes, there were absolutely search parties out for Will, but we still saw so much bullying from people, too. People like Troy and Tommy H. are actually going to care about her because she's a pretty blond girl from a middle class family.

I'm very curious as to what the characters reactions of this are gonna be. Is Will gonna be sad that he didn't have this much attention on him? Is Mike gonna be sad? Is anybody going to notice at all?

I suppose I'll just stay on the edge of my seat for now.

(everybody thank my mom for this)

[spookystarfishzombie]

[booksandpaperss]

dear byler’s who talk abt and analyze the wheeler family,

headcanons n fanon n stuff with the wheelers are fine obviously but if we’re talking about analyzing CANON:

no Karen is not going to be homophobic part of her arc is being afraid to break out of social norms and being proud of her kids for doing it even tho she’s not the best mom

yes Ted IS casually homophobic dude literally had a Reagan sign and he’s a conservative man in a 80s be fr

no Ted is not viciously homophobic he is too apathetic to care (tho he’s probably made comments abt it occasionally, that’s up to interpretation rn tho 🤷🏻‍♀️) and the fanon Lonnie Byers-ification of Ted is insensitive for several reasons

no Ted is not gay just bc Mike has been paralleled to him and he smiled at hopper one time like it’s probably just bc he’s pro police again be fr

no I will never unironically be a Ted apologist and sympathizer

no the Wheeler parents are not abusive yes the Wheeler parents are emotionally neglectful there are many ways parents can traumatize their kids

no Karen is not a bad person

yes Karen IS a bad mom

no Ted is not a good person he could not give less of a shit about Nancy and Mike and so far the show has not given me a single piece of evidence to believe otherwise

no Ted is not the worst possible dad but he’s a pretty shitty one

yes Karen loves her kids even tho she’s a pretty bad at showing it sometimes

yes it is ALWAYS the fault of parents for not properly caring for and raising their kids regardless of life circumstances tho there is room for complexity it is still always the parents responsibility to nurture their kids and support and reach out okay are we all clear on this now?

Okay great 🙏

[cringengl]

Idk, I just think that the s5 "family finally accepts him for being queer" arc should go to Mike, not Will.

Not to say that Will shouldn't come out to the rest of his family in s5 (because I'll be rioting if he doesn't), just that his acceptance is already guaranteed with both his friends and family and so it shouldn't be the crux of his s5 arc.

Will's queerness is an open secret, and as he is extremely honest, he doesn't necessarily try to hide it, despite the bullies. Stranger Things as we know it wouldn't exsist without Will's friends and family loving him unconditionally, and it's not like Will doesn't know that he is loved. There would be no substantial material for this to be the centre of Will's arc, because as the audience, we already know what's going to happen.

Mike on the other hand.....

The subject of whether Mike's parents are homophobic and how they would treat his coming out has been widely debated and I've seen wildly different views on how this would go.

From the very first season, just like the Byers' love for eachother has been established, so has the Wheeler family tensions. They are trying to uphold a nuclear family, but it's clear to the audience that it isn't working. Mike coming out as queer would shake the foundation of the family they are trying to be as it doesn't fit within the stereotype. They could then learn as a family to stop conforming, whereas the Byers never tried to conform in the first place- they are all seen as the town 'freaks'.

There is so much dishonesty in the Wheeler family- Nancy and Mike promising not to lie to eachother but still being distant, Karen almost having an affair, Mike hiding El in his basement as well as the members of the family dealing with conformity: Nancy's s1 arc and Mike and Karen's s3 arcs. Mike coming out would be powerful, present unpredictablility, break honesty into the Wheeler family and give a satisfying conclusion to help with the wider Wheeler family arc as well as neatly tying into the themes of conformity within Stranger Things.

[your-stranger-halfblood-things]

Karen and Ted: We raised three perfectly normal kids who definitely don't need therapy

Joyce, getting ready to steal the Wheeler kids: You have three kids we don't know about??

[lovbyler]

mike is going to be such a protective big brother this season, i can't wait to see him bond with holly and bonus if there are scenes of them with nancy too!!! i need more wheeler brothers content 🙏🏼🕯️

[skeletal-butterflyy]

Now let me say I’m the biggest hater, I hate the way that you walk, i hate the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress, I hate the way that you sneak diss

[light-lanterne]

hmm, i just saw the loveliest gifset of nancy being protective of max and once again got reminded of the fact that she's never shown that amount of concern for mike.

for three seasons straight, she'd even leave him to his own devices when it wasn't the safest. ditching the kids at the gym in s1 regardless of the fact that they were being hunted,,, leaving them with steve in s2 when there were demodogs still at large (and knowing the kids have a proclivity towards getting themselves in danger),,, straight up driving away from starcourt, leaving them with no escape method, as well as russians and a flayed biIly in the premises (even when seeing first hand what happened to the last two flayed men they "killed").

in all three instances, mike's the only constant (which doesn't seem unintentional in the slightest) and it's not just about that. she's worried about will in s2 and s3,,, el in s3,,, max in s4,,, even on lower stake circumstances, she comforts dustin in s2, when he was sad at the snowball (even though mike was also moping at right around that same time).

and yet, for mike, she only showed concern in s1, a little in s3 (but it was mostly about will, seeing as he'd been targetted by the mf before), and a little in s4 after vecna shows her his plan.

idk,,, it just makes me sad to see her being so protective of everyone, pushing herself to be brave even when she's still just a teen girl who shouldn't be dealing with any of this, but always leaving her own brother to the end. almost like an afterthought; the last thing in her mind, only worrying about him when the big bad straight up shows her his death.

and even then, when he returns from cali after days of suspicious lack of contact, she doesn't give him a hug. doesn't ask how he's doing,,, doesn't even talk to him, from what we were shown.

because, after all, there are larger problems at hand than mike.

[strawberrybyers]

when karen goes missing in s5. when nancy and mike discover they’re related to the creels in the process of trying to find their mom. when el discovers henry is her dad because the lab secretly impregnated terry. therefore all of this putting another nail in mikeven’s coffin 😌

[friendsdontlieokay]

Rewatching Stranger Things again for the millionth time and I got to notice one thing: HOLLY WHEELER IS SO DONE WITH HER SIBLINGS!

The little girl just wants to spend some time with her parents in peace and then there are her siblings just running around the house, screaming, fighting, yelling and making chaos

[jonathanbyersphd]

On the Wheeler Siblings

Chapter 1: The Hellfire Club/Stranger Things Pilot Script, The Duffer Brothers/I'll Give You The Sun, Jandy Nelson/Chapter 1: The Vanishing of Will Byers/ Never Grow Up, Taylor Swift/Stranger Things The Battle of Starcourt Script, The Duffer Brothers /Chapter 7: The Bathtub/Where did you go, Hishaam Siddiqi/Chapter 8: The Battle of Starcourt/Never Love an Anchor, The Crane Wives/ The world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire, Ritika Jyala / Chapter 1: The Hellfire Club

[spookystarfishzombie]

[booksandpaperss]

so… y’all do realize that Mike’s relationship with his mom is not healthy, right?

Or am I gonna need to explain why having a mom that outwardly says she’s “there for you” and does genuinely care, but is never actually emotionally available in part due to having a completely absent husband is not exactly a recipe for a healthy mother-son relationship 😐