#as much as i love lumax it's true

[jaegerisim]

If u think that Lucas' story was handled well last season, I don't trust you.

[butterflysonnets]

yes i'm rooting for m*leven breakup because byler is neat but mostly? i'm rooting for m*leven breakup for the sake of el and mike.

to me, their romance was always a puppy love born out of a combination of social pressures, naïve curiosity, and a lack of true understanding regarding intimacy and romantic love and what it really is. it was real in that they do truly, deeply care about each other and they are close friends, maybe even shared an attraction, but a maturing romance is so much more than that. they've grown up and out of being boyfriend/girlfriend, and that's okay! i think television/film needs to show more often that most of us don't have definite "soulmates" or first childhood loves that we spend our whole lives with. it doesn't mean these relationships meant nothing and didn't impact us, it just means they've run their course and that something else is in the cards, and this is part of life!

i've always felt el was at her best and most confident self when broken up with mike, discovering who she was and what she liked alongside another girl her age instead of just relying on mike for mentorship on how to live in the real world. she deserves more of an opportunity to find herself, her autonomy, and her independence, and to love who she is, and she's made it clear she's felt insecure in the relationship with mike because she isn't being loved and understood the way she wants, needs, and deserves from someone who is her partner.

also, it's okay if mike doesn't love her in "the way he should". he is not obligated to love her romantically and stay in a relationship with her just because she's a girl, because she "needed someone", or because he cares about her a lot. he shouldn't be pressured into a romance if it's not truly coming from his heart. he deserves freedom to find out and honour who he is, too, instead of just staying in his non-functional first relationship — one he got into as a child, essentially — and defining himself that way because it's what's expected when a boy and a girl are close. he loves her in some way, yes, but it's okay if he doesn't feel comfortable or secure being her boyfriend anymore, for whatever reason that is. he's felt insecure too, and that's valid and it matters.

they are their own people and are steadily growing and changing every day. they need time to figure out who those people are, and it's become clear (at least in my opinion) that those people aren't meant to be a couple at this stage.

they deserve freedom. they deserve to grow up and be authentic to themselves and not feel like they need to lie for the sake of a relationship. they deserve to move on from this version of their relationship that isn't making them happy and rekindle the best part of their bond: their strong, beautiful friendship. they don't have to be a couple if it doesn't make them stronger and better and happier people.

i think it would be healthy and wonderful for a show, especially one consumed frequently by young adults, to show a relationship starting, progressing, and ending on good terms in this way. sometimes things don't work out, and that is okay.

[elevenenthusiast]

If those leaks about stranger things 5 on twitter are true then i have nothing else to say other than that it sounds ass.

[unsurebazookacore]

hot take, mike and el arent in love, because they are fourteen

well i guess mike is fifteen but still like as someone who has been fourteen/fifteen

GUESS WHO I WAS NOT DATING:

A. THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

B. MY FUTURE SIGNIFICANT OTHER

C. ANYONE WHO I WOULD BE ABLE TO SAY "I LOVE YOU" TO AND ACTUALLY FUCKING MEAN IT

D. ALL OF THE ABOVE (the answer is D by the way)

LIKE Y'ALL THEY ARE FOURTEEN

THEY MET WHEN THEY WERE TWELVE

"I knew right then and there in that moment that I loved you" MY ASS

[pretty-emo-dad]

I think Max signed and started her letters to each party member (+Steve) in a different way.

Lucas’s was “I would say ‘Dear stalker number 1’, but we both know you’re more than that to me,” and “Love, your totally tubular, MadMax”

Dustin’s was “Dear stalker number 2, and Hawkins’ certified boy genius” and “Yours, MadMax (PS. You’ll never beat my high score),”

Steve’s was “Hey Harrington,” and “Sorry for the trouble, Mayfeild,”

Wills was “To the least annoying boy I know, Will” and “I’m counting on you, and I see you. Love, Max”

El’s was “Dear Stalker number 3, and my best friend, El,” and “Love you from Hawkins to Paradise Island, Max”

Mikes was, “Dear Paladin,” and “Love, your Zoomer,”

[astrobei]

hello beloved suni. for valentine's day ficlet prompt... a lumax valentine's day perhaps?

(ft. lucas going Overboard and max secretly loving it?)

abby i would literally give you the world if you asked me to <3 happy early valentine's day and i hope you like this one !!

“I don’t understand this holiday,” El frowns, peering over the displays of red cardboard boxes and bulk-order roses. This corner of Melvald’s is completely decked out, with glitter and flowers and plush teddy bears as far as the eye can see– or at least until aisle three, where the store returns to its regularly scheduled programming of household cleaning supplies. 

The floral scent is almost nauseatingly strong, and Max is suddenly extremely thankful she’s nowhere near as allergic to them as she used to be, or Mrs. Byers would have had to drive her to the hospital as she broke out in hives. “Me neither,” Max says, squinting at a teddy bear with particularly beady eyes. “Consumerist nonsense.”

El gives her a bit of a weird look. “Um–”

“It means they just overdo the lovey-dovey thing to get people to buy stuff,” Max adds, and El’s frown smooths itself out.

“Oh, okay. I was just going to say that I don’t know why there’s only one day out of the whole year to buy someone flowers.” She reaches out, touches a tentative finger to one of the petals on the nearest rose, and then immediately retracts her hand as the petal falls off and flutters slowly to the checkered tiles of the floor. “Oh no.”

Max bites back a laugh. “I bet those flowers have been sitting in storage since the beginning of the month.”

“I don’t get this holiday,” El says again, and shakes her head. “Why buy someone flowers that have been sitting outside for two weeks?”

“Again,” Max says, rolling her eyes at the 20% off! sign, “they just want to make money off this stuff. They don’t care about love.”

“Bullshit,” El says, so suddenly that Max can’t bite back a laugh in time to keep herself from giggling loudly, the sound ringing through the quiet of the store. Half an aisle over, a guy in a suit shoots her a glare. She pulls a face at him.

“Bull– yeah, I guess so,” she says, as El turns to study the display of chocolates on their other side. “So jaded already?”

“I don’t know what jaded means,” El muses, “but I think this holiday is bullshit.”

“Yeah, that’s– yeah,” Max nods. “You got it. Hey, if these chocolates are on sale, then maybe we should get some anyway.” She picks up a heart-shaped box and flips it over. “You’re not allergic to nuts, are you, El?”

“I don’t think so. Won’t Lucas buy you chocolates?” El asks, turning back around to give Max a curious look. “He’s your boyfriend.”

“Yeah, well,” Max sighs. “This whole thing is so cheesy. I don’t need him to buy me chocolates, I just need him to put up more of a fight before I beat him at Super Mario Bros. I swear it’s not even fun anymore.”

El wrinkles her nose. “At least it would be better than what Mike did.”

“Oh yeah?” Max raises her eyebrows, then puts the box of chocolates down. The handful of change in her pocket can be spent on better things than overpriced and over-marketed chocolate anyway. “What did Mike do?”

“He got me a card that said I like you.”

Max stares. “I like– you’re joking. Please tell me you’re joking.”

“Nope.” El pops the p, and gives Max a look like yeah, I know.

“Okay, well, good riddance,” Max snorts. “I’ll be praying for Will. Poor guy.”

“I think it probably helps to actually love the person you give the card to,” El says thoughtfully, which is a pretty good point, and Max honestly doesn’t have much to add to that. She gives another cursory glance over the piles of sickeningly-sweet flower displays, the rows upon rows of stuffed bears that all look exactly alike, and then her eyes land on a discount bag of M&Ms.

“Okay, well, I still want these,” she says as she grabs them. “M&Ms are good no matter the day. You want anything, El?”

El peers around the corner of the aisle, and her face lights up. “Reese’s!” she cheers, then disappears from view. “One second!”

Max sighs, tossing the bag of chocolate up and down in one hand as she waits. She can imagine it now, being one of those poor schmucks at school who get bombarded with tacky cards and flowers that are on the brink of collapse. Just another way to flaunt relationships that are equally on the brink of collapse, probably. No one goes through the motions of over-the-top, elaborate stuff like this unless they’re trying to compensate for something.

She thinks about it, for a fleeting second– being given roses at school. The secondhand embarrassment of it all. A teddy bear that’ll no doubt collect dust on her bookshelf for the next ten years. Cheesy greeting cards– be mine and hugs and kisses and–

“Ready to go?” El pops back into her field of vision, a bright orange package clutched in one hand.

Max blinks. “Yeah,” she says, then firmly banishes any thoughts of cheesy greeting cards from her mind. No, thank you. She’s fine with her discount chocolate– that she got herself, mind you. No consumerist bullshit for her this time. “Yeah, let’s head out. Maybe Mrs. Byers will let us use her employee discount again.”

—-

Max knows something is off the next morning before she even gets in the car.

“You look weird,” she frowns, in lieu of a greeting. “What’s with you?”

Lucas ignores her. “Good mooorning,” he says, long and drawn-out and not nearly as obnoxious as it should be. “Are you ready for today?”

Max slams the passenger door shut behind her and says, “Well, my history presentation is today. So, no.”

“You’re going to crush it,” Lucas says, even though they have different history teachers this year and of course Max got stuck with the nitpicky one. “World War II isn’t going to know what hit it.” He takes the car out of park, backs slowly away from the lot in front of the trailer, and onto the main road. “But come on, that’s not what I mean.”

Max raises her eyebrows. Look, she’s not dumb, okay. It’s February 14th and she’s dating Lucas Sinclair. She knows there’s only one place this conversation is leading to. “Oh yeah? Well, I heard they’re serving chicken nuggets in the cafeteria today,” she says anyway, just to be difficult.

Lucas indulges her. He always indulges her. “Well I’m ready for chicken nugget day,” he says, even though he shouldn’t be, because Max is certain they haven’t used chicken to make them since before Indiana was even a state. He reaches for her hand over the console and says, “You might have to drive me to the hospital after but it’ll be worth it.”

Max bites back a smile and looks out of the window before he can see. “Loser,” she says. It comes out too fond for her to have any hopes about hiding it, and even though the radio is blasting Madonna, she hears him laugh as he squeezes her hand.

She thinks he’s dropped it, or maybe he’s picked up on the hint and hastily canceled whatever it was he’d been planning, but of course, no such luck. “Okay, well,” he says, as they get out of the car and make their way up to the school. “Can I walk you to your locker at least?”

She stops in her tracks. It wouldn’t have been suspicious if he didn’t ask, because he always walks her to her locker before class starts, but now–

“No,” she decides, walking away as fast as her legs will allow. “Don’t you have Calculus to get to?”

He catches up to her easily. “Come on,” he grins, matching her pace effortlessly. “It’s–”

She holds a finger up to his face. “Don’t say it.”

Lucas holds both hands up in surrender. “I didn’t say anything!”

“You’re thinking something! I know it! You’re– you’re scheming and you’re– up to something, I don’t know. Up to no good.”

“Up to no good?” Lucas laughs. “What are you, fifty?”

“Shut up,” she says, and then they’re basically at her locker already, and his grin grows exponentially which leads her to believe that maybe this was the plan all along.

“You should open your locker,” Lucas says, leaning against the adjacent one and clearly trying his hardest to look blasé about the whole thing. “Just saying. Because your books are in there and stuff.”

“If I open this and something jumps out at me,” Max grumbles, spinning the combination lock. “I’m going to–”

She trails off. Stares.

“Um,” Lucas is saying, peering around the open locker door. “You’re going to– what?”

“Kill you,” she whispers, before reaching into her locker and pulling out the biggest fucking bouquet of roses she’s ever seen. “What the hell?”

“Happy Valentine’s Day!” Lucas smiles. There’s something a little nervous about it, like maybe he was worried that she had some deep, lifelong trauma rooted in the holiday and maybe she was about to start crying in the middle of the hallway. “Do you like them?”

She could lie and say no, just to keep up appearances, but that would be mean, probably. “Yeah,” Max says, feeling herself smile before she can help it. “What– how did you get my locker combination?”

Lucas waves a hand dismissively. “Dustin,” he says, like this explains everything. Maybe it does– she doesn’t know. She tries not to keep up with whatever they have going on, because the less she knows the better. “But seriously– do you like?”

“Of course,” Max says softly. They’re pink roses, the real kind, fragrant and fresh and not falling apart at the seams like the flowers that had been shedding all over the Melvald’s floor yesterday. She wonders where he got them. She wonders how much he paid for them. “They’re– how?”

“I have my ways,” and okay, apparently Lucas is a total man of mystery now, and Max does not care enough to find out what his ways are, because–

Oh, these flowers are gorgeous. Like actually, genuinely, mind-blowingly gorgeous.

“You got me flowers,” she says, more to herself than Lucas, like maybe stating this fact as just that– a fact– will make it easier to comprehend.

He got her flowers. A lot of flowers.

Apparently Max Mayfield is, after all, one of the poor schmucks being given flowers at school.

“Well, I figured you’d think the red ones are dumb,” Lucas goes on, blissfully ignorant of the way Max can literally feel her entire face turning hotter than the inside of an oven. “And I know you like red, but they're red roses, which I know you’d think are tacky, so I figured these would be more your speed. More subtle. More– uh. Max?”

She blinks. “Huh?”

“Are you okay?” Lucas frowns, waving a hand in front of her face. “You haven’t blinked in, like, a minute.”

Max is definitely very, very red now. “I’m fine,” she gets out, “it’s just– thank you. These are nice.”

“Oh.” The tension slips away from Lucas’ shoulders, and he stands up a little straighter. Puffs his chest out just a bit, which makes her laugh. “Good. I’m glad.”

“I might just– leave them here for now, though.” She motions to the locker and tucks the flowers back inside. “If that’s okay.”

“Fine by me,” Lucas grins, then slings an easy arm over her shoulder. “Now about your history presentation–”

—-

And Max isn’t stupid, per se, but maybe it wasn’t the smartest of her to assume that it would end there. At lunch, Max is about to resign herself to her fate of a pathetically soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwich, when Lucas’ grinning face pops up in front of her.

“Hey!”

“Jesus Christ,” she gasps, and Mike snickers softly as she jumps.

“No,” Lucas says, pointing at himself. “Lucas.”

Max peels back the cling film around her sandwich with a growing sense of trepidation. “Why are you smiling like that?”

“Oh, no reason,” Lucas says, and so obviously Max does not believe him in the slightest. He’s got both hands behind his back, and Will is next to him stifling a laugh into his hand, and Max doesn’t trust Lucas as is but she especially doesn’t trust him if Will is involved.

“Could someone just tell me–”

Lucas sets a plastic tupperware container in front of her. “Ta-da!”

Max frowns. “What’s this?”

“Well maybe if you opened it,” Mike starts, and then she elbows him and he lets out a sharp, offended gasp. “Ow!”

“Shut up,” she says, peeling off the lid of the box. And then, “Lucas.”

He grins. “Yes?”

What the fuck. Max reaches into the box and pulls out the most perfect cupcake she’s seen in all seventeen years of her existence. “Did you– did you bake me a cupcake?”

Lucas scratches the back of his neck with one hand and says, “It’s from a box mix but. Technically, yes.”

“And it’s–”

“Red velvet!” Lucas announces, and he’s definitely being a little smug about it now, but Max supposes it’s probably deserved, with the way she’s been staring at this thing for the past forty seconds. “Um. Your favorite.”

“I–”

No one’s ever baked her anything before. She figures that no one’s really had any reason to, before Lucas, but that means it’s something that hadn’t even been on her radar of things that you can do for other people until now, which also means that she’s been staring at this damn thing long enough for Mike Wheeler to reach across her and try to scrape some of the frosting off the top.

That spurs her into action. She swats his wrist away. “Hey! Get your own!”

“I don’t have my own,” Mike pouts dejectedly. He looks over at Will. “Can you make me a cupcake?”

Will sets a second tupperware down in front of Mike. “One step ahead of you,” he laughs, “but you ruined the surprise.”

Mike’s mouth drops open, then closes, then opens again, in an excellent impression of a goldfish. “What–”

“Will came over last night,” Lucas announces, and they both have identical grins on their faces now. “While El and Max were off wreaking havoc on the poor city of Hawkins.”

“We went to catch a movie,” El chimes in, shoveling baby carrots into her mouth. “Hawkins is fine.”

“I can’t believe you,” Max hisses, because this is the second time Lucas has made her turn redder than a beetroot today.

Lucas just grins wider. “You love me,” he says, linking their fingers together across the cafeteria table.

“Gross,” Mike gags next to her, and then Will touches a hand to his wrist and he falls blessedly silent.

“You were saying, Wheeler?”

“Oh, shut up.”

—-

Max thought that maybe going home would mean an end to her suffering, but apparently not.

She frowns. Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic. It’s not like the roses and the desserts and the cheesy greeting card Lucas had pressed into her hands before dropping her off are hurting anybody. She rolls over onto her side in bed, hours later after dinner and homework and when she’s done boiling herself alive in the shower, and stares at the card where she’s propped it up on her desk. 

I love you bear-y much, it reads, with the most ridiculous cartoon illustration of a bear behind it. So ridiculous, in fact, that she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’d totally just picked it out to see the look on her face when he gave it to her. And it must have worked, and she totally gave him exactly the reaction he’d been looking for, because he’d laughed for, like, a solid three minutes after pulling up in front of her place.

“This is so stupid,” she’d said in the car, fighting back a laugh with every molecule in her body, and it’s true– it is stupid, maybe one of the most stupid things she’s ever seen– but suddenly her cheeks hurt and there’s something warm and fuzzy and gross bubbling up inside her chest, and she’s smiling.

“What the hell,” she whispers aloud, horrified, hiding her face in her pillow like there’s anyone around to witness her throwing all sense of morality to the wind and partaking in stupid greeting card traditions.

Clink.

Max sits straight up in bed. There’s a noise from the window, like someone’s tapping on it, but there’s no one there.

She frowns. What? Maybe it was a stray gust of wind, or a tree branch, or–

Clink.

A pebble comes flying at her windowpane, so small that she barely even sees it, then bounces off harmlessly.

“What–”

Lucas Sinclair is standing outside her bedroom window, waving like a maniac. “Hi,” he says, as soon as she gets the window open. “Are you busy?”

“Lucas?” Max looks down at her pajama pants and t-shirt, one she’s had for so long that she’s started to wear holes in it. “No, I was just– what the hell are you doing?”

“Being romantic,” Lucas says simply. “I was going to bring a boombox and blast something cheesy but I figured maybe waking up your mom and the entire community was less romantic and more asshole-y.”

“Asshole-y is not a word,” she says, in a meager attempt at a distraction from the smile breaking across her face. “You could have just knocked. At the front door.”

Lucas makes a face. “But that’s boring. Now are you going to come outside or do I need to climb through your window again?”

“You’re ridiculous,” Max decides, even as she swings one leg through the open window, shaking her head. “You are so ridiculous.”

“You’re laughing,” Lucas says gleefully. Her feet hit the grass and she shivers slightly, the ground gone icy with the February chill.

“Yeah, so?”

“And you’re also cold,” he says, and then he’s shrugging his jacket off and holding it out. It’s his varsity jacket, the one he has on almost every day. She’d never tell him, but she loves wearing it because it’s already a little big on him which means it’s huge on her and maybe the most comfortable thing she’s ever put on. 

She accepts the proffered jacket without a fuss, which is maybe out of the ordinary for today, but whatever. “Someone’s being real gentlemanly today.”

“Please. I’m always a gentleman,” and he says it kind of laughingly, but it’s not a joke. Not really. Lucas is the most gentle person she knows, and he brought her flowers and baked her cupcakes and gave her the most stupid card ever, and–

“Thank you,” she says earnestly, tucking the jacket in around herself.

Lucas shuffles his feet on the grass. “I know you’re cold,” he starts, “so I won’t stay too long. I just wanted to see you.”

“You wanted to see me?” Max stares. “You saw me all day at school. And you picked me up and dropped me off and–”

“I meant just you,” Lucas corrects, tugging her arms down from where she’s got them wrapped around herself, twisting their fingers together. “No rush. No first period bell. No basketball practice in the way.”

“I,” Max starts, throat gone completely, embarrassingly dry. God, she’s dating this guy, and she has been for forever, so why the hell is she still getting so flustered? “Really?”

“Uh, yeah?” Lucas says it like a question, like it’s obvious. “And I know Valentine’s Day isn’t your thing because you think it’s totally stupid, which is fine, because you’re kind of right, but– I don’t know. All I could think about all day was how lucky I am to be dating you.”

Jesus Christ. This is not a good look for her. If Mike ever asks, Max kept her composure, and was calm and collected and as totally cool as a cucumber.

“Really?” she squeaks, just a little bit, because the unfortunate reality of the situation is that she is not as cool as a cucumber and is, instead, as warm as– something that’s very warm. “You– really?”

Lucas laughs lightly. “Yes, really,” he says, thankfully ignoring her sudden combustion into a thousand little Max-shaped pieces. “And I’m sorry if the flowers and everything was over the top and they were so cheesy, but I literally just could not help myself.”

Max shakes her head. “No,” she says, warm and fuzzy and so happy that it’s threatening to spill over and out of her entirely. “No, it’s– I loved them,” she admits softly. “I did. They were lame and corny but I loved them. Even the bear card,” she adds, and he laughs again. “But holy shit, Lucas, you gave me so many things.”

“You deserve lots of things,” Lucas says. “Lots of good, corny, cheesy things.”

“I’m going to need you to shut up now,” Max says, then promptly buries her face in his chest. He doesn’t even seem fazed by the impact, solid and steady and unmoving as she wraps her arms around him. “But happy Valentine’s Day, stalker.”

She hears him laugh, somewhere above her. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” he says, and kisses her on top of her head. “I love you.”

[love-byers]

the first time i saw this, when i was NOT a byler shipper, i thought el was running TO mike. i thought we were getting a sweet moment where el runs to mike and he puts an arm around her or hugs her.

then i realized she was running away from him. 

and i was like, why?? they're supposed to be the couple why does she not want his comfort??

and even after will calls her out on doing mike wrong by lying to him, even after she sees that mike is attempting to talk to her and comfort her, that he's not angry at her, she still tells angela to lie to mike. more lies. that's how much she cares about keeping up the persona. had angela lied to mike, el would've continued lying to him the entire week. something she knows in her heart is wrong and not fair to mike.

this is a theme in s4. putting who you want to be seen as before being honest with your bf/gf. going above and beyond to preserve your lie, to be seen as who you want to be.

chrissy does that with jason. who she portrays herself as is completely different than who she really is and what she's really going through. jason has absolutely no idea chrissy is struggling and refused to believe chrissy would buy drugs, because chrissy didn't want to tell him. who knows how jason would've reacted if chrissy was honest, we don't know because chrissy didn't trust him enough to tell him. that's not love at all, that's sad.

this is a point in s2 as well. murray calls nancy out for being afraid to be her true self, and she stays with steve because she doesn't have to be her true self around him. she is her true self when she's with jonathan, and that's why they worked together. that's love.

the exact same thing happens with chrissy. the first time we see her genuinely smile is when she's with eddie. she's sweet and charismatic, and had she lived she totally would've gone to eddie's show, something you never would've expected from her, something her boyfriend, the person she pretends to love, would NEVER do.

robin and steve reinforce this too

you fall in love with the person who makes you feel accepted, the person who makes you feel like you can be who you are. the person you trust with your true self.

mike and el don't trust each other enough, they don't understand each other well enough.

they would have to change their behavior towards each other by leaps and bounds, and we're already at the last season. there is no time for that. stranger things isn't a multi season show about the complexity of romantic relationships and the healthy way to resolve problems. there is no time for that in just about any movie or show, especially a sci-fi show. you know what's way easier and way more likable? pairing your character with someone they naturally click with, who bring out the best in each other and for some reason can't help but be their authentic selves when they're with each other.

did it with jancy, like i said earlier

did it with lumax. when lucas and max talked on the bus max found herself spewing about things she'd never even said out loud before, and she had to stop herself. something about lucas just made her feel comfortable, like she could be herself and tell the truth. she trusted him.

"You're nothing like your brother, okay? You're cool and different, you're super smart, and you're like, totally tubular."

jopper too! joyce constantly had to hide things from bob, she was insecure about their family not being normal.

"This is not a normal family."

"It could be."

though bob had good intentions, the message of the show is not trying to be normal when you aren't. whatever it is about you that makes you weird or different, whatever you've been through that changed you, stay true to it. dont bottle it up and try to be someone else. all of vecnas victims in s4 were doing this, and it didn't end well for them.

they even did it with dustin and suzie. dustin constantly tries to impress max with his teeth, then in season 3 he says suzie thinks kissing is better without teeth. he doesn't have to be insecure about that or try to impress her. she likes him for him.

mike isn't comfortable being his true self around el either. he's insecure about his interests, he feels like he has to act older and cooler to impress her.

you shouldn't be with the person you feel you have to impress. you should be with the person who relieves that pressure, who makes you feel like being the authentic you is enough.

jonathan and nancy, lucas and max, joyce and hopper, dustin and suzie,

cough WILL AND MIKE cough...

[teambyler]

Mike DOES have a loving family (Byler analysis)

A common explanation for Mike having trouble telling El he loves her is that "he came from a loveless family." Not only is that inadequate -- Nancy couldn't tell Steve she loved him and it wasn't because she came from the same "loveless family." But I also don't think it's true.

Sure, Ted is distant. But Karen is very much emotionally available to her children. So I see this claim to be an instance of Karen Slander(TM).

Look at these moments where Karen made clear that it's okay to show love:

Karen is a loving mother when it counts. She only isn't as involved because she hasn't been included (yet) into the gang dealing with the Upside Down.

Not to suggest that the Wheelers that don't say "I love you," but there are families that don't say it that ARE close, affectionate, loving. It's just known. Similarly, saying "I love you" isn't even an issue for other relationships in this show: not for Lumax and Jopper. That's because their actions show that they love each other. And that's how relationships really need to be evaluated.

So no, I don't think having a "loveless family" adequately explains Mike not being able to tell El "I love you" outside of when her life's at stake. If one does love someone, one WILL say it when that person is pleading for you to say it.

Which El asked Mike to, but he couldn't. And Steve asked Nancy to in s2, but she couldn't. And we know how that turned out.

It's not that Mike can't tell anyone he loves them. Mike has no problem showing love:

-teambyler

[will80sbyers]

What makes you believe that byler is real? I ship Mileven personally, but I'm trying to understand byler shippers' logic, because a lot of the time it feels like it makes no sense.

I personally think there are some scenes in the show and there are some choices that the writers made that are telling us that the plot of the show is going towards Will getting a "pay off", in terms of writing, at the end of the show and Mike and El finding out they are better as friends instead and Mike discovering he has romantic feelings for Will!

The writers have emphasized Will's sadness in relation to Mike and El as a couple both thematically and visually, in the writing & filming of the show there are too many scenes like this especially in season 3 and 4 they have made it clear that he will never be happy if Mike and El are the endgame relationship, even during Mike's love monologue after he supposedly decided that he was ok with El having his own feelings for Mike by saying that the painting was a thoughtful gift from El when it wasn't... They put a shot of Will's sad face in the middle of the monologue, and also he was framed behind Mike when he said "I love you" which in film is a EXTREMELY weird choice unless it means something more is going on that should make us not want El and Mike's relationship to work - the writers have been sabotaging the emotional connection of the fans with mileven by doing this and I don't think that professional filmmakers don't know that, I think it's on purpose!

The writers have shown Mike and Will as having a deeper relationship than all the other relationships Mike has, putting him in the same category of El as one of his possible love interests in the plot, they have multiple scenes bonding in a tender way than Mike has with any other of his friends, they happen in private usually or in emotionally charged moments that they film to make you as a viewer feel like they are in private and show how they have this connection that's more than just friendship

The writers have wrote in the show since season 1 MANY parallels between Mike and Will and other official couples (Mileven too!!!) that are, in my opinion, hinting at them ending up together at the end of the show

You can find the parallels here

The writers have continously shown El and Mike to have some kind of problem in their relationship and made El decide to leave Mike behind multiple times even if to save his life because she loves him, the writers have been showing us how Mike is not her PLOT priority and instead they have put having a romantic relationship with Mike as Will's deepest desire since season 3

The writers are building up El's character to have a coming of age that has recurrent themes of her finding herself without the influence of others around her, her becoming completely free from any kind of influence, and Mike has been represented as having too many internal fears to overcome at the moment about their relationship, especially with the love monologue at the end of season 4, he has beliefs about himself as a person that clash with El's character arc about not having to feel influenced in any way, the end of the show for El should be her having complete freedom in all aspects of her life because of the circumstances of her upbringing... Not saying that Mike is influencing her in a bad way necessarily, I think they both love each other a lot but having a relationship with someone that is that much insecure about his role in your life because you have powers will always be a type of influence

The writers have shown Mike and El as not being a team at the same level by separating them constantly after s1, instead they have shown the other couples that work as working together in the supernatural plot (Jancy, Jopper, Lumax, Byler)

The writers have paralleled Mike and El's relationship to all the ships that are not working for some reasons/are not endgame and have more infatuation than a real "true love" kind of relationship (Steve x Nancy, Karen X Ted, Bob x Joyce)

The writers have wrote in multiple scenes of Mike acting awkward with Will (Mike!!! Not Will) or them having coded conversations about how much they care for each other that have no sense to exist unless there is a pay off at the end

The writers have presented El, Mike and Will as being in a love triangle and have been framing them in a love triangle composition in the framing of multiple scenes, with Mike at the centre

When during season 4 the writers talked about all the movies that have inspired season 4 and 5 they have put multiple movies with love triangles that are almost identical to the situation between Mike, El and Will

Will and Mike have multiple fight scenes that are scenes you give to two possible love interests usually, the way the fight happen is written as two lovers having emotional fights instead of as how you would write two friends fighting

The writers wrote in the show a precise parallel in all the scenes of Vickie and Robin... between them and Will and Mike, paralleling Mike to Vickie specifically... who is a canon bisexual character and even paralleling Steve and Jonathan in that context as observers of the couples!

The directors filmed their scenes how you would film romantic scenes in stuff like Bridgerton or a romcom lol

The whole painting scene was Will making Mike feel so loved that he felt comfortable being vulnerable with El, but this means he was still not comfortable on his own relationship with her, he didn't feel safe enough to open up on his own and needed that talk and needed to believe all of those ideas about him being the heart came from Eleven so that he made the jump and told her how he felt instead of being selfishly silent on it because he was too afraid of her possibly leaving him one day... When you are really deeply in love with someone in the context of movies the characters don't let those type of fears influence them and if what gives him courage is the feelings of another character in the love triangle it means he's the right person for the character

( idk if you saw gossip girl but the was a love triangle situation between Blair, Dan and another character where Dan made Blair believe the other character felt some type of way towards her, she understood that she loved Dan because of this act because she wanted those words to be from him and not from the other guy... The whole painting lie is that same trope)

The writers are obsessed with IT from Stephen King and there are clear parallels with it in the show, the whole plot of s4 about the painting is a reprise of the plot between the romantic relationship of Bev and Ben in IT (with the postcard and the poem) Beverly is supposed to be Mike, Ben is Will and Bill is El.... Mike and El share a kiss at the end of season 3 that is supposed to parallel a kiss between Bill and Bev (they did love each other and liked each other but are not endgame)

Both Will and Mike are queercoded multiple times during the seasons

There are WAYYYY more reasons but this post is becoming too long so I'll leave it as this lol

You should rewatch the show and imagine if Will was a girl, I think many people would be seeing what I'm talking about way more and take it as a sign that Mike is going to choose "Willow" and see how Will is the better love interest for him...

Maybe it's all just queerbaiting, who knows, but at the moment I believe this is way too much for it to be queerbait!

I personally think Mike is bisexual

Masterpost about it here

and has feelings for both of them, but his feelings for El have always been a "puppy love" type that is growing to become more platonic than romantic with time, and I think he's a best match with Will, I think Will is able to make him be the best he can be, he's capable of making Mike feel worthy in a very natural way unlike the relationship with El does at the moment!

In my fixed post in the blog you can find all these things in more detail if you're interested!!

Thank you if you read all of this, regardless of what I believe I think everybody should be free to ship what ship they like best!! 😊

[wakeupthemembersofbylernation]

AHAHAHA.

the episode titles of the first 6 episodes just leaked, and GUESS WHAT?

there's not a single mention of byler in any of them. HAHA.

because byler will NEVER happen!

ONCE AGAIN, YOU DELUSIONAL BYLERS HAVE LOST.

"b-b-b-but byler tumblr told me 5x05 would be called "the paladin and the cleric" and would end with a byler kiss 🥺 i thought-"

LMFAOOO. you thought wrong!

the duffers really are gonna humble you good when S5 comes out 🤣

you keep losing, and we love to see it.

BYLER IS BONES! AHAHAHA!

I’m not sure I believe the new leaked episode titles until further confirmation/clarification (I’m not much of a believer in “leaks” to begin with), but either way, this is an exceptionally silly ask even by Melvin hate anon standards.

Since when have episode titles explicitly referenced ships before??? And there’s no mention of M11 either? Or any other ship? So by that “logic,” none of them are happening. M11 bones. Jopper bones. Lumax bones. Jancy bones. Be serious for even one second. 🙄

The Paladin and the Cleric was always just a fun episode title idea. I don’t think anyone was married to it, what? 😭 I personally never believed it would be an actual title cause that seems way too on the nose to be a thing. Most episode titles only make sense in context.

And beyond that, I’d say that if these titles end up being true, there actually are some… interesting titles like Sorcerer and The Vanishing of ____ Wheeler that make me go 🤔 and set off my Byler spidey signals. And we still don’t have the final two possible episode titles.

The fact that you think Bylers are sheep who are easily swayed & controlled by what “Byler Tumblr” says instead of fans watching the show and coming to their own conclusions 💀

No one “lost” or “won” anything. You made up a strawman Byler in your head and then laughed at the strawman you created, which makes you the joke. And it also makes you sound super immature and silly. Middle school ahh logic. This ask makes no sense, and I’m only answering it because I’m baffled by it.

[coventhewise]

mike’s arc and his “regression”

since s3 a good portion of the audience has complained about mike’s character. as mike’s arc was tied with mlvn during the last two seasons, the dislike towards his character AND the ship has been increasing. these 3 are the most common reasons to why mike has been started to be disliked:

being reduced to “el’s boyfriend”

stepping back from being the leader

his treatment towards will

if you think about it, they would be right if we don’t take byler into consideration. the general audience knows that will is in love with mike, but they don’t actually think that byler could be requited. mostly because most of them believed mike’s infamous “love” confession. despite this, the general audience found this confession corny, rushed, out of place, cliché and unnecessary. the ga is TIRED of mlvn’s storyline, showing much more support to other pairings like lumax or jopper (or even to the jancy/stancy dilemma).

i can’t blame them. if you don’t like mlvn it’s almost impossible for you to not dislike mike since he’s been incredibly tied to his relationship for two seasons.

when you’re aware of what’s going on with byler, you realise the reasons behind mike’s behaviour, hence, you start liking him again. (i know there are exceptions of course, but when we are talking about the general audience they don’t generally have mike as a favourite character, and those who had him as a favourite think he fell off).

now, i’m going to talk about every reason i listed:

—being reduced to “el’s boyfriend”

mike’s focus since season 3 has been el and only her. from the general audience perspective you don’t see nothing more behind his behaviour, just an awful use of his character and bad writing. an extension of el. because that is what it would be.

mike’s plot in s3: struggling with his relationship.

mike’s plot in s4: struggling with his relationship.

it’s tiresome, it’s repetitive.

— stepping back from being the leader

in season 1 and season 2, mike was a crucial character for the plot. he was the leader of the party, he guided and encouraged them. mike was shown as a selfless and caring kid, so it was just natural that people would react negatively to his behaviour in the later seasons. (and it’s totally intentional).

— his treatment towards will

the show wants you to root for will, even if you don’t want to, it inevitably makes you feel bad for him. the audience notices that since mike and el started dating, mike has been treating will bad.

a solution to these 3 reasons:

the only redemption for mike is for mlvn to break up, it’s that simple. every reason for mike’s behaviour roots in his relationship with el. it’s holding back his character and the writers know it.

el, even with mlvn, is liked because she is a character outside her relationship, we have explored a good part of her past and trauma. we have watched her grow in every season, forming her personality, discovering her interests and bonding with other characters.

the ga doesn’t know much about mike outside of mlvn, since it has been his only plot line.

he is reduced to a love interest despite him being a main character. and that is a problem.

to conclude:

if mlvn is endgame (even if they fix these problems) mike’s earlier behaviour will never have an explanation.

you could say that mike gave a reason in his monologue, but as i point out here, it’s safe to assume that monologue was not entirely true.

byler is the only thing that makes sense for his character, it’s the only thing that could excuse his behaviour, it would make him a complex character instead of a “smug son of a bitch” (as hopper said).

[tender-emotional-music]

I do find it very interesting how so many mlvn shippers bring up the fact they want Mike and El to get married, or have included it on their s5 wish lists. First of all, no. Second of all, they’re teenagers. And thirdly, the show isn’t exactly marriage-positive, or at the very least it actively contradicts the idea that marriage = love, or is representative of a healthy relationship.

Joyce and Hopper, who have one of the key driving relationships in the show, are two divorcees, whose previous marriages failed for different reasons. We know they’ll end up together, but I doubt they’ll actually get married in a traditional sense. I wouldn’t mind it if they did, but I could also see them being together and having their joint family without being legally married. Either way, they’re an unconventional relationship and the show is very open about the issues they had with previous partners and the reasons behind these issues.

We don’t see much of other married couples. The Sinclairs appear to have a good marriage, but they don’t appear very often. The only other prominent married couple we see is Karen and Ted, which is… not a great example. We see Ted supports the family financially but is emotionally distant, and Karen tries but doesn’t always know how to connect with everyone. They aren’t very affectionate (hell, Karen nearly has an affair with Billy 💀), and it’s implied she somewhat settled for married life, even though she’s unhappy. I don’t need to write much about this, as the show explicitly states that they’re a typical American nuclear family. (I’m interested to see if this will be explored in s5 and if they’ll be redeemed somehow, but that’s purely speculation).

Just in general I think it’s interesting, especially as no one brings up marriage in terms of lumax or jancy. I wonder if it’s because they know there isn’t really anywhere else to take the couple. The other ships are slowburns. Melvin got together extremely quickly and have been shown to suffer for it, and never work through their issues to end up on the same page the way other couples do. It’s a relationship both Mike and El have outgrown, but do not know how to break off, or that it would be okay if they did. No one needs a wedding for lumax because we know they’re in love. I feel like some fans think a wedding is the ultimate way to prove mlvn’s love, even though we should a) already be convinced of it if they were actually a great couple , and b) the show has never fed into the narrative that marriage is the ultimate show of true love, especially as they’re extremely consistent in showing the unhappy reality behind many marriages. Just in general, ending with a happy little wedding would feel slightly out of touch for a show with a message about non-conformity

[carmenilla]

incoming anti-milkvan rant but pro-elmike rant (and some byler mixed in there because you know me)

my rants aren’t very organized so i apologize :,)

mike and el haven’t been together since like the first season, and their relationship has been descending since then.

the most they’ve spent by each other’s side was in season three, and even then they were in a group setting like the whole time and it wasn’t them, together. also we’ve all seen the season three blocking. they are almost never next to each other

with will it’s the opposite. mike and will spent no time together in season 1, but spent 90% of the time together in both season 2 and season 4 (el was barely with mike in either of these seasons) and while season three had them be less of a pair, once again, the season three blocking comes in clutch and makes sure to pair mike with will in every group setting

they even spent the end of season 4 together. even after mike confessed his “love” for el. el and mike aren’t talking, they aren’t with each other, they’re not even paired together in the blocking of the final shot. (we all know who is, though.

when are mike and el ever together since they’ve been dating, excluding scenes that further the deterioration of their relationship? they’re barely together at all.

el continuously has a plot/subplot of coming into her own. being independent. not being defined by papa, or her dad, or mike (as max says in season three). obviously she wants to have a family and loved ones. she deserves to have that. she does have that - but that’s not going to be taken away or lessened by her standing on her own two legs without anyone else telling her how they want her to do so

all of this has been leading to a milkvan breakup. it’s been built up for multiple seasons now. they’ve laid the ground work. mike and el were best together and understood each other the most when they were friends.

notice how i didn’t say “just friends” - romantic relationships are not actually any stronger than friendship. just different. in fact, friendship is stronger, and while romance can heighten that (like with other pairings in the show) sometimes it just doesn’t (like with mike and el).

mike and el haven’t been friends for a while. like how people say “just friends”, they’re just dating. they’ve been doing this since they were so young and they’re still so young and they don’t understand the importance of the friendship aspect of romantic relationships. they only understand what girlfriend and boyfriend are supposed to do, and they can’t even try to do that without it all falling apart.

they need to be friends again. their relationship would be so much stronger. i miss their friendship. they were so sweet and so understanding and so good together when they were actually friends. a lot of couples are both friends and dating, especially in stranger things - look at lumax, my favorite example of this and why i love them so much. but mike and el aren’t. and they should be. they were best when they were

i fucking love elmike and there’s no chance of me getting them back if they keep trying to date each other “correctly” instead of, i don’t know, trying to be friends again. making genuine connections with each other. being true to the nature of their relationship. they are such friends, and maybe if they were friends and dating it would work out, but they’re not and it’s clear they’re not going to be. so if it’s one or the other, they should pick friends. they are amazing together as friends. they were always best as friends.

and then when we flip over to the byler side of things. mike and will have had a long time being friends. they’ve been friends, best friends, since kindergarten. in season 5, they’ll be in junior year, and they will have been best friends for ten years. they’ve had time to have their relationship develop, unlike mike and eleven. they are so clearly very good to each other and with each other as friends - but there is something grating on their relationship and friendship recently. something bubbling beneath the surface, making smooth sailing not so smooth.

yes, this is a metaphor for homosexuality. homosexuality is banging on their door. these bitches GAY. and it’s straining their friendship. they’re still friends, obviously, and they still want to be, but by ignoring this whole other piece of their relationship, they start fighting and misunderstanding each other for the first time in the history of their friendship. something clearly needs to change here.

when byler does become canon, there is zero doubt in my mind that they will still also be friends. that is the backbone and most important part of their relationship, and that is why their relationship will work. and that’s also 80% of the reason why i ship them, especially over milkvan, who just aren’t friends anymore like they were in s1.

something needs to change here in both mike and el’s relationship and mike and will’s. something that will benefit all these characters individually and their relationships. something that the creators have been laying the groundwork for for multiple seasons now. and i cannot wait to watch it happen. i love all three of these characters so much and i need them to get their happy ending

[kiirotoao]

Byler and Confrontation 1.5: The Importance of Season 4

Byler being immediately comfortable with each other in season 4 would have been too easy. Too obvious. No other pair is as close as Byler, and if they kept in contact, their relationship’s progression would have been so clear that it wouldn’t even be interesting, and that’s why I think that Byler is plainly intentional to end up together in slow burn fashion.

Imagine the airport scene but they hug with all the emotion of true best friends (which, they are, and that’s a canon fact that Mike asserts and Will agrees with in s4e4, but I digress-) meeting again, crashing into each other, joking right off the bat, being comfortable like they easily could have been. Will comments on Mike’s ridiculous outfit and Mike defends himself and Will laughs and Mike’s forgotten how much he missed hearing that laugh. Then Will would give him the painting and Mike would be blushing, and the story’s over! Even if they dance around their feelings for the rest of the show long, they could have instantly recognized that something’s changed and yet stayed the same, and they’d be a unit again. Or should I say, a team?

I feel like there’s no other way to treat Byler other than subtly vying for each other’s attention (Will looking at Mike longingly, Mike turning to Will for wisdom) or blatantly vying for each other’s attention (Will the Wise, Mike Wheeler in general), and to go full blown best friends attached at the hip from day one in California would have been way too romantically charged. Not necessarily openly, but just in the way it’s easy to doubt, to have brows raised.

And what good storytelling would that be? To just seal the deal the second they meet? We know that they miss each other. Will was ready to give him that painting. And yeah, it takes Mike a whole business day to realize how much he misses Will, too, but that type of love that reaches out doesn’t originate from only that business day. So do they just flat out hug and say, “God, I missed you so much” ?? Of course not! Because that’s immediate intimacy. That’s honesty with no side effects, and that’s something that doesn’t happen in any well-created nor real life love story.

Once upon a time, the end? There’s no way! No one would be as invested.

And I’m not saying that I don’t want Byler to be so strained, or I don’t want them to be happy. I want them to be so happy. And seeing their mistakes and growing through them only makes that happiness more and more apparent whenever they come around. Because they find each other, in the end. They forgive and work through things and their chemistry abounds through tough moments, and that’s what makes them amazing to me. Literally look at every other ship in the show. Jopper fought all season long during season 3 because Hopper was jealous and Joyce was a stressed-out boss ass bitch. Jancy fought in seasons 1 and 3 before and after they learned more about each other and worked through their biases. Lumax had that fight at the arcade where Max didn’t believe what Lucas was telling her.

Anger often breeds hate, but sometimes, it creates something beautiful in people who, deep down, want to figure something out about each other: steadfastness.

Simply put, their story grows.

Which is why they couldn’t hug. Which is why they barely spoke. Which is why they lashed out at each other. Which is why it took a whole business day to rejoin as a team. Which is why their forgiveness is all the more sweet. Which is why their relationship is all the more sweet. Which is why they prove to know each other. Which is why they’re so good together.

Look at them!! Look at Mike, chuckling at five damn words. And this was BEFORE they truly amended fences!!!

I love how hardships bring Byler together. I don’t know about you, but I’d want a partner who doesn’t avoid the rough patches but strives to love me through them - because they will happen! No one is perfect! And no, I don’t mean fight and you will find love. But when you love, you will fight. And that’s what I think is what happens when Byler fight.

So I can’t wait for it to happen one more time, probably about the lie of the painting being commissioned, for everything to fall apart only to come back together because they realize it’s all one giant story of misunderstanding and internalized homophobia and repressed feelings - a final and urgent fight that demands them to let everything out in the open and truly realize that they are the love that each other seeks.

And, I mean, I don’t know, I think that it would be pretty cool to write a slow burn romance amidst all the love triangles and love-at-first-sights and tragic losses. With bonus unique notes of being childhood best friends with deeply-explored queer coding. Just saying.

[andy4yippee]

OH ALSO!!! your ranking of your fav ST ships? :D

YESS!!! ok here we go.

STRANGER THINGS MASTERLIST SHIP RANKINGS.

(includes brotp, otp, polyotp, familyotp.)

OTPS

Lumax - 10/10. meant for eachother!

elmax - 7/10. SOO cute, just i cant see it really happening.

byler - 1000/10. MY ONE TRUE OTP!!

mileven - 7/10. Cute, but its not my favorite. i liked them more in s1!

Duzie - 100/10. CUTE! nerd x nerd has me in a chokehold.

Jopper - 100/10. meant for eachother, again!

Jancy - 100/10. ADORABLE!!

Jargyle - 10/10. Cute!! the fanart is adorable. cant see it fr happening.

Stancy - 7/10. they were cute in s4- but I cant see them tgthr!

Henfield - 2/10. not my thing!

Hellcheer - 9/10. WOULD OF BEEN SO CUTE.

Boyce - 100/10. would of been adorable. poor bob.

Byerson - 5/10. cute but not my thing, cant see them together.

Edna - 0/10. why the fuck is this a thing HELP??

Henclair - 6/10. so cute, but max and lucas belong together.

Steddie - 8/10. Would of been super cute!

Wheelclair - 4/10. cant see it, would be cute.

Wheelson - 4/10. same thing as wheelerclair!

Stonathan - 2/10. cant see it at all.

Bancy - 7/10. this would of been my femslash OTP if she didn't fucking die.

Joyren - 5/10. I didn't even think about this till now..but imagine how cute this would be? obviously, wouldn't happen but....hear me out!

Rockie - 9/10. CUTE!! love them sm.

Ronance - 8/10. love it! its super cute.

BROTPS

Eddustin - 10000/10. MY BABIES!!

Dancy - 10/10. they were so cute in s2!

Stustin - 100/10. Love them in s3 especially.

Robeddie - 10/10 Gay Bestfriends.

Stobin - 100/10. The bestfriends ever

Madwise - 9/10. I love them sm.

Muwheeler - 10/10. Mike definitely had a stupid teenage crush on Eddie. obviously, this is a brotp and onesided because if it was requited it would be illegal....yuck.

FAMILYOTP

Elwill - 1000000/10. THE SIBLINGS EVERRR

Max's Moms (Nancy and Robin and Max) - 10/10. Love them.

Wheeler Siblings - 7/10. NEED TO TALK MORE WTF??

Sinclair Siblings - 10/10. SO funny together.

Magrove - 7/10. make me cry everywhere.

Byer Siblings - 9/10. Love them so much!

HenderFam - 10/10. Steve and Eddie are Dustins canon dads.

ByerHopperFamily - 10/10. My familyotp for life.

POLYOTP

Elumax - 8/10. this is so cute.

Stoner Lovers - 10/10. if they interacted, this would be my true polyotp.

Steddissy - 100/10. I CAN SEE THIS. if 2 of them weren't in graves. (one isn't even in a grave LMAOO) (forgive me)

Robins sapphic dream - 10/10. What the fuck is happening?? but I LIKE IT!

Gotta Love Nancy - 10/10. Again, what the FUCK? but i like it!

THATS ALL FOR NOW! :-)

[starsarefire824]

UPDATED ST Fanfic Guide

I am JustMyName on A03! (some people have told me they had no idea) I have really come to love writing for Mike and Will these past two years. Hope you find something to enjoy! 🖤 I also enjoy Madwheeler and some other unique ships so if you're up for something different this might be the spot for you!

✨Demons of Change and Wildflower Eyes ▻ rating: E ▻ status: Complete ▻ words: ▻ship: Byler, Troy x Mike, Madwheeler, minor Lumax and Henderhop ▻description: AU. High school hasn't been easy for Will Byers. He’s had to live with the emotional scars of a loveless father and supernatural worlds, as well as the physical ones from the hands of the bullies that make his everyday existence hell. One night, when he's looking for some peace and quiet Will comes upon one of them.

Sparks fly and Mike and Will can’t stay away from each other. Yet, there are things Mike isn’t saying: about his past, about his family, about his peculiar friendship with Troy. Things aren’t always what they appear to be, and loyalties born from violence will be rigorously tested.

Will, Mike, Troy centric. (This fic is very near and dear to my heart. <3)

✨Scum Rises ▻rating: E ▻ status: Ongoing ▻ words: 6,293 ▻ Separated Byler, Mike Wheeler/ OC ▻ description:

DEMONS OF CHANGE & WILDFLOWER EYES: PART II

"I should have just killed him, Will always lamented bitterly with tears in his eyes when he was having one of his dark spells. The guilt slowly crept up between them and they broke up the year after college. It was drunken and volatile and spiteful. And shattered his heart." * * * Just before Mike turns 26, Will kicks him out. With nowhere left to go, Mike must return to Hawkins alone. There he will have to face all the demons of his past, finding a bit of grace along the way.

This story will chronicle the year that Mike and Will breakup, and how Mike finds his way back. Takes place post Demons, pre Epilogue.

✨moonflower ▻ rating: M ▻status: Ongoing ▻words: 30,913 ▻ship: Byler ▻description: Will Byers hasn't been back to the town that haunted him since he ran away to college. But years later, after he is fired from his job and his drinking starts to effect his daily life, he has no other choice but to return home. There he'll face his past full on: his family, old wounds, and a long-buried lie he told his best friend one care-free summer's night in 1987.

✨Touch Me Like You Know Me ▻rating: M ▻status: Complete ▻words: 14,894 ▻ ship: Byler ▻ description: Mike doesn't go home anymore, not unless absolutely necessary. Instead, he stays far away from Hawkins, quietly shutting himself off from the world, and burying the pain of the things he never said to the boy he'd left behind. But when his mother convinces him to return home for his thirty-fifth birthday, Mike is finally forced to confront just how much he'd given up when he runs into Will by accident. Mike-centric. Estranged Byler reconnection fic. Soft and Sweet

✨Certain Slant of Light ▻ rating: M ▻ status: Ongoing ▻words: ▻ship: Byler, Will x OC. description: Will just wants to get through his last year of high school without incident, to feel normal for once in his life, and try to survive the building tension between him and Mike that grows with every word left unsaid. On the first day of school, Will meets someone new who may finally offer him the acceptance he craves, but he’s unsure what to do when it causes his relationship with Mike to hit a breaking point, forcing them both to confront their true feelings. And to make matters worse, Vecna is always there, whispering in his ear, and letting him know his fated role in the inevitable fall of Hawkins. Slow Burn. Will-centric. Mike-centric later chapters.

✨Lay Me Down Slow ▻rating: M ▻status: Complete ▻words: 10,821 ▻ship: Byler ▻description: It's 1998 and Will is anxiously making his way to a bar to meet up with Mike, who he hasn't seen in over a decade. Emotions run high as he shares a drink with him, and when a confrontation turns violent, it leads to truths being told and the two of them finding each other again. Will POV.

✨A Burning Thing ▻rating: M ▻status: Ongoing ▻words: 5,677 ▻ship: Byler ▻description: Will and Mike are childhood best friends. As summer fades, the two join their friend group at a lake house for a birthday celebration. There, Lucas's sister Erica is making a student film. The scene she asks them to act out---a passionate kiss---will alter their relationship forever.

In the aftermath, Will, struggling with caring for his abusive father, has to come to terms with the fact that he is set to leave the country for two years. Meanwhile, Mike has a crisis of sexuality and both men will grapple with their inescapable feelings burning just beneath the surface.

✨Heatwaves ▻ rating: M ▻status: Ongoing ▻ words: 18,567 ▻ship: Byler, Platonic Madwheeler ▻description: It's the summer before the Party are all set to move on to the rest of their lives: college, jobs, leaving Hawkins for good. Will isn't sure if it's the heat or his own self-torture, but one night on Mike's stubborn, idiotic campaign to get El back, Will agrees to pretend to be her so Mike can work on the speech he has planned. When the two of them get carried away, it leads both of them to exciting and terrifying insights into who they are and what it is they truly want.

✨Beautiful Things From Broken Soil ▻rating: T ▻status: Complete ▻words: 2,175 ▻ship: Byler ▻description: Mike and Will get caught in a rainstorm on a lazy summer's day.

✨I Don't Require A Definition ▻rating: M ▻ status: Ongoing ▻ship: Byler, Will Byers/ Original Character ▻words: 2,750 ▻ description: Will reminisces about his past and a friend he met at college as he reconnects with Mike on a camping trip the summer after sophomore year.

✨An Unspeakable (Of The Oscar Wilde Sort) ▻rating: E ▻status: Ongoing ▻words: 7,125 ▻ship: Byler, Mileven ▻description: They sit there for a long second in awkward silence, and Mike bites his bottom lip. He eyes the movie. “So what did you pick?”

Will fidgets with the tape nervously in his hands. His voice catches. “Uhm, yeah—it’s just this movie that’s based off of a book I read last year. I really liked the story.”

Will’s eyes find Mike’s and he blushes. “I don’t know. It’s kind of serious. We don’t have——“

Mike interrupts Will’s shy backpedaling by snatching the VHS out of his hand and turning it over like he is going to find the summary. Instead he just finds a Family Video logo. “What’s it about?”

“Uhm—well it’s about these two guys at Cambridge in the early 1900’s and they’re—-friends.”

Mike blinks. “Friends?”

Will’s eyelids flutter and he presses his lips together. “Yeah—-like—really good friends.”

or, Will brings over a movie to watch with Mike and it leads to certain truths being addressed. Complete with a Mike Wheeler in crisis.

✨Helpless ▻ rating: T ▻status: Complete ▻words: 2,973 ▻ship: Byler ▻description: “Hey,” Mike says, shutting his bedroom door behind him gently and padding over to the bed where Will lays, freshly showered and in his undershirt.

“Hey,” Will murmurs back as he burrows himself further into the bed and pulls the sheets up under his chin, trying to ignore his heart pitter-pattering inside his ribs. He smooths the fabric over his chest nervously.

Mike smiles over at him, something shy and sweet in the way his eyes crinkle. He breathes out and folds his thin arms across his chest, rubbing along his rigid hip with his thumb.

Will tries not to stare where Mike’s worn white tank top he always wears rides up, revealing pale skin and a shock of dark hair lining his belly and disappearing underneath his stupid Star Wars pajama pants.

It’s hilarious, really, Will thinks bitterly. Stuck in a bed with your friend at the threshold of the Apocalypse, and only able to think about what hides underneath his pajamas.

It’s so unfair. It’s fucking torture.

✨You're The Only Shape I'll Pray To ▻rating: E ▻status: Complete ▻words: 3,160 ▻ship: Byler ▻description:

Hands pulling at shirts in a darkened room, a tongue licking along burning skin, moans and pants and belt buckles being unclasped.

Mike presses his knees together so hard his bones grind.

“Tell me," he gasps. "—Confess—to God—-all of your sins.” Priest AU.

✨The Pact ▻ rating: M ▻ status: Ongoing ▻words: 97,440 ▻ship: Madwheeler, Byler, Elumax ▻ description: A pact between Max and Mike gone wrong gets them both unanimously voted out of the Party and they find themselves stuck with each other the summer after Graduation: fighting, commiserating, and begrudgingly discovering they are a lot more alike than they originally thought. .

✨Death Lies in Wait ▻ rating: M ▻ status: Ongoing ▻ words: 13,322▻ ship: Arranged Madwheeler, Byler, Lumax, Mileven, Secret Ship ▻ description: Massachusetts, 1890. Max Mayfield is twenty-six years old and at the hand of her parents, settles for a marriage of convenience to a widowed lighthouse keeper. A stranger she'll be trapped with for the rest of her life on a lonely strip of land surrounded by nothing but endless, lonely sea. But, as she settles into her life, and she and her new husband try to coexist, they get wrapped up in a mysterious presence on the cape. It calls to them. It's lulling and coaxing and sings to them at night. Max discovers the secrets her new husband keeps. Mermaids and ghosts of the past come to haunt them. Madwheeler/Byler//Lumax Gothic AU- Mermaid Will.

✨the winter tree resembles me ▻rating: E ▻status: On Hiatus ▻words: 2,706 ▻ship: Byler ▻description: The Revolutionary War is underway, and the upstanding Byers family, devout Quakers in their divinity, have expressly kept themselves out of the War of Rebellion. But newly rutted Alpha Will Byers has a grave secret he keeps from his parents. He has been recruited by his twin sister into Commander Washington’s clandestine ring of Rebel spies. But when he meets an English officer possessing bewitching brown eyes at the boarding house he’s assigned to, he slowly discovers the stranger has a secret of his own, as well as a tantalizing scent Will can’t resist. Lines will be drawn-loyalties tested and allies betrayed -no one is who they seem.

✨A Derelict Mind ▻rating: M ▻status: Ongoing ▻words: 8,259 ▻ship: Byler ▻description: Will wakes up to find himself chained to a chair in a room he doesn't recognize. There are orderlies and patients and a doctor with blonde hair and a terrifyingly sweet voice. But Will is not in one of his nightmares or one of Vecna's visions. He's a patient in Pennhurst Asylum, and everything he's known to be real: his friends, his family, the Upside Down... has been nothing but a delusion of a very sick patient.

Part of "A Certain Slant of Light" Universe.

✨Kind of Best Friend ▻rating: G ▻status: Complete ▻words: 1,206 ▻ship: Madwheeler (platonic or romantic) ▻description: Mike reads his letter from Max after returning to Hawkins.

✨ Mashed Potatoes ▻rating: G ▻ status: Complete ▻ words: 1,352 ▻ ship: Byler ▻description: "Wait," Mike says, grabbing the carton of milk out of Will's hand. Will blinks, his brows creasing in confusion. "What?" he asks with uncertainty. "We need milk, don't we?"

Mike stares at the carton Will has chosen. It's labeled with red lettering and a stamp of a picturesque farm across the front. Whole milk. Mike shrugs. "I mean----yeah. But-----" he raises an eyebrow. "Whole milk?" Will huffs and rolls his yes. "Yes. Whole milk? What milk did you want?" Mike shifts on his feet and pulls at the waist of his usual black jeans. "Well, I mean----we always drank skim at our house." Now, Will's mouth opens up a little. Offended.

"Skim?!" he asks, completely appalled. "Who actually drinks skim milk? You might as well drink water."

OR, Mike and Will really think the other is wrong in their grocery shopping decisions.

✨I Held On As Tightly As You Held Onto Me ▻ rating: T ▻ status: Complete ▻ words: 7,014 ▻ ship: Byler ▻ description: After years of life getting in the way---be it by distance or choices made--Mike hasn't seen Will in almost a decade. But one cold winter's night, he's back in town and Mike cooks him a meal.

✨When We Wake Up ▻ rating: T ▻ status: Complete ▻ words: 23,428 ▻ ship: Byler ▻description: Will and Mike having to share a room while waiting for the impending apocalypse and the utter torture it is for both of them.

✨Come Away With Me ▻ rating: T ▻status: Complete ▻ words: 18,760 ▻ ship: Byler ▻ description: “Two shots ring out! BAM!-then a pause-BAM! Mike’s head snaps towards the sound, squinting his eyes to orient himself to the darkness. A guttural, pained wail echoes through the trees as if some forsaken wraith howls at him in this lonely forest, it’s voice sounding all too familiar. Then, a loud screeching roar follows close behind it. Another shot! Mike sucks in a wretched, frightened breath, his heart thrashing in his chest so hard that it feels as if it might shatter his ribs. Dread settles sickeningly in his belly. "Will….” OR: The one in which Mike gets to be Will's knight in shining armor. Tending Wounds Fic.

✨ We Are All Fools In Love ▻ rating: T ▻ status: On Hiatus ▻ words: 13,098 ▻ ship: Byler ▻ description: Fifteen years after being forcibly separated as children, William Bennet recognizes a familiar brooding face, plucked from another lifetime across a crowded ballroom. As his and Michael Darcy's paths begin to merge once more, they discover they are now separated by more than only time and distance, but faults which lie within their own hearts. Matters of pride and prejudice. Regency au of our dreams.

✨First of All ▻rating: G ▻status: Complete ▻words: 1,772 ▻ship: Madwheeler ▻description: Mike's home from break during college and he and Max have to babysit his baby cousins. It's going as well as you can imagine. Set after the events of "The Pact."