#castle byler

[elephantshoetoo]

💙💛💚

Hello fellow Bylers!

Because I care about Byler a normal amount (I swear) I wrote the fanfic "The Byler Files" for my daughter, who is equally obsessed with Will and Mike from Stranger Things and needed to see them get their "crazy together" happy ending. Hopefully, we'll all get to see the real thing next year when season 5 comes out (pun intended), but who can wait that long?

Please check it out if you also love Byler, and leave kudos and comments if you like -- the feedback means a lot to me. 😊

Love,

Byler Mom

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*This fan art, "Castle Byler," is also drawn by me specifically for the fanfic, and available at RedBubble under the username ElephantShoe.

*My daughter @pinksmonkey and I also make Byler Theory videos on YouTube. Follow her for updates and links to future videos.

*link to my fan art:

[zunaki]

Repainted an old Byler illustration 💖

[therainscene]

The Morning Visitor by Dino Buzzati reminds me of Will Byers so I redrew it with Will Byers, enjoy 🙃

[wlfhardinc]

What if this is Byler:

Maybe they’re both in the upside down for some reason taking a little walk together and they walk past the destroyed Castle Byers and then Mike apologizes again and admits his feelings😍

[teambyler]

Byler kind of HAS to end this way in Season 5 - Let's talk #Castlegate

Let's have another Gate, shall we? =D

We're all freaking out and speculating how Byler will culminate. I've already given my best guess how it'll happen. But it's still a guess.

But I'm PRETTY SURE on a scene that would happen late in the season, If Byler is endgame. It's almost borne by NECESSITY.

I'll explain:

In s2 we saw Mike donating his toys, like his parents told him to...

In s3 we saw him tell Will, "We're not kids anymore. I mean what did you think, really? That we were never gonna get girlfriends? That we were just gonna sit in my basement all day and play games for the rest of our lives?"

And Will destroyed Castle Byers...

As someone points out in the comments, this wasn't just Will thinking he was "stupid" for wanting to play games, but for wanting a life with Mike...

A theme for Mike has been telling himself to put away "childish things," to "grow up" and be "normal." But he doesn't really want to: in s4 he's playing D&D again. He tries to bury his feelings for Will, but he gives up on that also.

If he and Will get together in s5, then there's no use trying to be "normal" when you're a boy with a boyfriend in small-town Indiana. They will start defining for themselves who they are. And that could include "playing D&D and Nintendo for the rest of their lives."

That's why, at the end of Season 5, after Mike and Will get together, they have to rebuild Castle Byers. They get to rebuild their childhood dreams and hope for the future.

We've already seen that Castle Byers will be featured in the season 5 BTS video:

Castle Byers is probably important in s5 for a number of reasons. It's where Will hid in s1 while in the Upside Down.

It's a possible place for the planned Miwi flashback(s) of young Jonathan, Mike and Will. Jonathan helped Will build Castle Byers when Lonnie left. Young Mike and Will must have spent a lot of time there playing pretend, playing out stories that became their D&D games. (I'm hoping for a flashback of a young Mike playing a paladin swearing allegiance to Will saying he'll always protect Castle Byers!)

When Gaten Matarazzo read the script for the final episode, he called it a "full circle" moment. I'm sure there'll be several moments. I'm willing to bet money we'll see the Original Four playing D&D together. I'm pretty sure another will be Mike and Will going to Castle Byers together and rebuilding it.

And of course, they'll kiss there!

This, more than anything, is a way to show they've fully accepted who they are, who they've always been, and always will be.

It's a perfect way to culminate the "childhood friends to lovers" trope: they end right where they began.

-teambyler

[annoyingexboyfriend]

california dreamin’ :(

one year of will’s diary so i now present 9 pages of his life

[kaiminluu]

byler x dirty dancing GRAHAHAA

[janeirl]

WAIT. so if they’re apparently done filming with castle byers as said in the last vid on st day, and if the miwi scenes are being filmed LATER this month, then that means that they’re not gonna be filming the flashback with jon mike & will building castle byers ?? like it would be a DIFFERENT flashback???? AND THEY WOULDNT BE THE RIGHT AGE FOR THEM MEETING ON THE SWINGS RIGHT???? SO THEYRE GONNA BE FILMING A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FLASHBACK WITH THEM… YALL. WHAT ARE THEY FILMING. WHAT IS IT GONNA BE I NEED TO KNOW SO BAD.

[alyxdrawsthings]

Happy Stranger Things Day!! ✨

[milliebugydementia]

i like to think that the parallel between mike destroying the pillow fort el slept in and will destroying castle byers is actually very meaningful -

i like to think that the choice of a pillow fort was deliberate for hiding el. it's a childish object in the same way castle byers is, and the destruction of it symbolises a loss of a kind of softness and innocence that will never come back.

when will destroys castle byers, it's after trying to make things go back to how they were before he went missing. it's the emotional culmination of all of his angst that the things that have happened to him have happened, and that he's stunted in place when everyone else is moving on and managing to be straight. especially because castle byers was something he & johnathan had built to cope with their father leaving.

when mike destroys the pillow fort it's because he's lost el, and with her any hope of finding will.

it's notable that in the scene, he first stares at the door as if waiting for el, or even for will, to come back. he cares for el at this point as her own person, but i think in this scene he is angry because he feels stupid for ever letting himself hope that he could find will again, and that things could go back to normal - just as will felt trying to get the party to play D&D with him.

for both of them it is a deep embarrassment holding frustration and grief of losing their childhoods, and of losing each other, as two people who were boys together.

the fact that mike has this development so much earlier than will in the show is testament to how the trauma changed the both of them - mike grew up too fast, and will didn't get to finish growing up.

i think mike's actions in the show all follow on from here. his grief of losing will - first when he went missing, then when he came back and was wounded - was so much that he shut it out in favour of being angsty about eleven. and then once she came back, he couldn't understand why everything still felt wrong, and instead he rejected childish notions and preferred to think of his woundedness as maturity, getting obsessed with eleven in order to avoid doing things that reminded him of how things used to feel when they were still kids. this is why he is so mocking and cold to will, because he hasn't really processed how much will going missing shook the security of his world at such a young age, and he never acknowledges that it did. he also hasn't been able to grow up, he's just trying to hide it from himself.

[gayofthefae]

I can rewatch the roller rink fight. I can rewatch the fight in the rain. I can even rewatch the van scene (kind of. I cry but I CAN). Because they are either resolved or such a clean payoff that I can see the resolution in my mind and it's desensitized me.

But you know what I can't rewatch? You know what I don't put myself through unless in the context of the episode? This scene.

Because it hasn't been resolved. Because the van scene might be resolved by him sharing his feelings, but he needs more.

He needs to not be "Stupid. So stupid" for believing Mike could love him.

[elephantshoetoo]

BYLER FIGHTS VS. MILEVEN FIGHTS

I've seen a few posts pointing out how Byler fights bring them closer together, whereas Mileven fights tend to push them further apart and are never resolved in a satisfying way.

BUT ALSO...

Mileven fights are not nearly as fun to watch. They tend to be painful or just plain bitchy. But BYLER fights...?

Byler fights are PASSIONATE. There are so many points during Byler fights where it would feel completely natural for them to just grab each other and kiss.

Mileven fights be like:

But Byler fights are all:

In conclusion:

[cannibalismyuri]

something about "only love makes you that crazy, sweetheart. and that damn stupid." and "crazy together?" and "so stupid." just. i know we've gone over this but it's RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR FACES what the hell.

[elyasdoodles]

“You’ve been waiting all this time.”

[ghostlycleric]

Literally S3 Will Byers after the rain fight

[castlebyler]

this really is will byers' season guys