#i do sometimes feel a bit like booboo the clown so dw i do know how you're feeling

[sevensided]

this is just my experience but i watched s1-3 as a casual viewer before i ever joined a fandom at all- and i took mileven as it came (i thought they were very sweet but i wasn't too concerned about it yk? i completely agree the family/friend dynamics are the focus). so i wouldn't say it's impossible for byler to become canon & be accepted by general audiences even if most didn't catch the queer coding. all byler needs now is a decent build up that's explicitly romantic imo and id say the 2 more seasons we're getting would be sufficient to make it happen gradually and naturally (ik many fans are already firm that it's been romantically built the whole time but to be completely honest i missed all of that while in general audience lol). it's the perfect time to start i feel like given all that happened in s3, and them being so close in 1 & 2, almost felt like a turning point? that said i really am on the fence about whether i believe it'll ever be a thing. i love that dynamic regardless of it's relationship status but i am hopeful the writers will surprise me 😂

Thank you so, so much for this message @rosyrosalie and I think you’ve brought up some really important points!

You’re very right in that Byler is not obvious to the casual viewer. I personally had a slight suspicion when I watched it the very first time, but it was only upon rewatches and some thinking that I thought there might be something deeper. Now that I’m on board, it seems relatively clear.

I also agree that it needs an explicit romantic build up. With El and Mike it was there from the beginning, and I think I’ve said elsewhere that if ST was made in the 80s then Mileven would 100% be endgame, because it fits the genre and it also pays homage to the stories that the Duffers draw from. It would be a perfect (if overdone) full circle. In comparison, Byler is the dark horse. I would lay money that there would be fans who watch S4-5 and complain that their relationship development doesn’t make sense. But that’s not our job to convince anyone: that’s up to the writers to illustrate how embedded Byler is to the story and how it’s been an undercurrent since the start of the show.

This does make me wonder as to how they’ll accomplish this. In order to realistically portray Byler, they’ll need to:

Show Mike no longer has feelings for El (partly done in S3 finale)

Show that Mike not only doesn’t like El, but doesn’t like girls

Show that Mike likes boys

Show that Mike not only likes boys, but likes one boy in particular

Show Mike accepting his feelings for Will.

And then you have a whole new cycle: Mike struggling with (what he perceives to be) unrequited love for Will. That needs to play out until Will’s cycle is complete, which would look like:

Confirmation that Will likes boys over girls

Showing that Will likes one boy in particular

Showing that Will likes Mike, and always has.

Mike and Will have actually very different trajectories. As it’s been mentioned a few times, Mike’s resistance is external (what will his family, friends think?) as well as internal (I can’t be gay, I like girls), versus Will, whose struggle I see as being wholly internal. It was laid out in S01E01 that Will might be gay (“Lonnie used to call him a f*g, said he was qu**r” / “Is he?” / “He’s missing is what he is!”), which, as we all know, gives Will ten times more queer coding than Mike from the start. I disagree slightly that Mike has had a lot of queer coding. In my view, it’s far easier to see Will as gay than Mike. In this sense, the writers have a large job on their hands in showing the audience how similar Mike and Will are, and how Mike is, in fact, not only gay but in love with Will. I don’t think it’s impossible by any means. But you are right: it would probably take two seasons to get there.

At this stage I’d posit that realistically you’d need S4 to bring Mike from uncertain to questioning to acceptance. Then you’d need S5 to bring Mike from believing his feelings are unrequited to Will responding affirmatively to them. A two season arc altogether. And that’s not even taking into account all the subplots and, of course, the main story, which is Will versus his power.

Regarding what you said about turning points... I agree with you. I think this sense is helped significantly by the Party growing older. They’re becoming more self-aware, more mature. They’re figuring out where they fit in the world and what role they have to play in it. That can’t be underestimated. So much of the show is about growing up and being true to yourself. Along with family and friendship, I’d say that’s a tertiary theme: self-acceptance. It’s illustrated in different ways through the show (D&D is just one example - on the surface it’s shown as nerds versus everyone else) and S3 was certainly evidence that those underlying, conflicting feelings are coming to the fore and (in Mike’s case) disrupting everything they hold dear.

I’ll wrap this up because I’m just going on a tangent, but suffice to say I agree with you, totally, that this will be hard to pull off from a writing point of view. But I contend there’s enough evidence in canon to pull the strands together. I think it will take at least two seasons to manifest, but S4 will be deciding season. Not to build it up or anything, but you can’t realistically have S5 be the “big reveal” because it’s probably too late by that stage and could come across as pulling Byler out of the hat. But given the subtle foreshadowing it’s received so far, I don’t think that’s the case. Thank you again for your message!