#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

[cleradinthealps]

mike better count himself lucky that he lived in the 80s because karen wheeler with access to facebook would be too powerful

[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)

[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.

[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

[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 😌

[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

[turkeycalamitybff]

on my stranger things bullshit again anyway

Holly being a major character this time???? I’ve got SO many things to say about that. Because she’s been foreshadowed to understand more than she’s letting on this ENTIRE TIME. Like I’ve seen no one talk about this but Holly def knows more than she’s letting on. And we’ve been shown that for so long. Look at season three episode seven “The Bite” around 2:50. When the other Wheelers are on the Ferris wheel Holly sees the trees moving, (the mindflayer) and comments on it. Like!!!! She has been in so many background scenes commenting to Karen about things from the upside down. And in season one she is the first one to see the “messages” from Will and the pressing on the wall. Will and Holly are TOTALLY connected. I was genuinely confused when she didn’t get a bigger role in season four but now it makes sense.

Will is what started the series but Holly will end it. And the Duffers legit said that they were paralleling season one (going back to those groups) so wouldn’t it make sense for ANOTHER CHILD CONNECTED TO MIKE WHEELER (who has been intimately connected to the plot each season I feel like) to go missing??? This is the WHEELERS season and no one can convince me otherwise. It’s all about learning that it’s good to be different. It’s about the WHEELER family learning that.

and it helps Karen get involved! Because in all the scenes Holly shows Karen something she could’ve just seen it herself. Holly was, objectively, a character that didn’t have to exist before now. But she does BECAUSE SHE IS CONNECTED TO THE UPSIDE DOWN. My guess is that she is heavily paralleled to Will this season (the title of chapter two one of the biggest examples) and is going to be the main catalyst and I for one am HERE FOR IT.

Will is the main character this season but the Wheelers are the ones who create the plot.

in general the Wheelers have always seemed to be huge. When the Cali gang gets back it would make sense for El to be at the front, correct? Or will? But no, Mike the one “leading the charge” it looks like. He really is the heart. When his sister goes missing?? Oh it’s over for Vecna.

also manifesting a scene after Holly goes missing for Mike to have a mental breakdown about the similarities to when Will was missing and Wills like so confused??? Like Dustin and Lucas see it too and they tell Will about how insane he went and Wills just. Shocked.

also manifesting a scene for the party (or everyone) where they find out what happened at the quarry with Troy in season one bc that was so built up? (Scene where hopper says that for someone to jump off was a death sentence) and then NOTHING happened and I need it to be addressed. Like maybe something similar happens and Dustin comments on it, and everyone finds out?? Just in general I can see how losing his younger sister could lead to Mike nearly committing suicide (that boy is SO depressed, Jesus) also I know this probably actually means nothing but I’ve always thought Holly was getting a bigger role since I saw the episode title “Holly, Jolly” like idk? It always seemed so weird to me and I always thought “oh hollys going to get bigger” and she never did? Also idk the episode title is just plain weird. Like I understand it’s like a play on the Christmas lights and ironic cause no one is happy but what always gets me is the comma. Like I would’ve thought they would’ve named it “Holly Jolly” which in my opinion makes more sense and is more continuos. Plus it wouldn’t bring Holly to mind as much and wouldn’t foreshadow her being part of it. BUT MAYBE they are going to parallel that episode and I won’t be crazy but who knows even. This last paragraph is me ranting.

tl;dr Holly and the Wheelers have been foreshadowed since season one to play a bigger role and to be connected to the upside down and we’re gonna see it in st 5.

[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 😐

[tabby-tiger]

Wheeler portraits

one 1983 one 1987