#i love you i know scene in the trailer is so very mileven coded you can’t even blame me for this

[bookofwambs]

byler/mileven/willel challengers au

mike wheeler, new champion tennis player, has all eyes on him, especially the iconic hopper-byers twin sibling duo of tennis. what starts off as a friendship in a competitive world, the three slowly find themselves caught up in a complicated romance filled with jealousy, petty, anger but most importantly love. and just like a sports game, there’s a winner and a loser to the prize that’s mike wheeler.

during his peak, mike has to chose between the two things he loves most, will or tennis, after their relationship was leaked to the press. a gay tennis player? is that even allowed?

and while the two boys have to figure out whether love really does conquer all, the best female tennis player since billy jean king, jane hopper suffers from a traumatic accident on the court and causes her to enter early retirement as a tennis player.

with the press suffocating our star crossed lovers, will decides to retire as well, knowing he rather be true to himself than play some measly game. while mike, finds comfort in the arms of jane, the girl who’s been waiting for his attention ever since he invited her and will back to his hotel room that one summer night. and with her help, works to fix his reputation—to be the greatest, most sought out tennis player in the world.

after 5 years worth of losing streaks, mike wheeler enters the court for a challenger event planned by jane. his opponent? will byers.

[elkdiaries]

Idk if anyone has asked this before but how do you think that they would fit byler into the season with everything going on? I’m really trying not to lose hope for Byler and ur page honestly gives me hope.

do not fear, hope-inducer is here!

based on the trailer alone, there is so much evil-related plot to look at and analyze. it all may seem very overwhelming to you and many others, and the minimal amount of byler we got in this trailer was, i’ll be honest, kind of a let down. but there is no need to worry! here’s why.

i’d like to start off by saying that the duffers have NEVER cut off a key part of the plot or left a story unfinished, despite whether the main audience likes it or not. every detail, no matter how big or small, is carried onto further seasons until it is resolved. most tv shows would not have continued to show characters like joyce, hopper and max grieving into further seasons, for example. of course they wouldn’t abandon this huge fight between two main characters (which was very romantic coded). they write things into the show with a purpose. why would they write all this byler in if they weren’t going to follow through with that story?

another point that some of my fellow theorists made was that there’s no way they’d spoil a giant plot twist like mike actually liking will to the audience this early. not only would that probably cause backlash from the homophobes, but it would make the slowburn and anticipation much less interesting.

keep in mind that generally, there weren’t any scenes centered on romance in particular in this trailer, when it comes to any of the ships or couples. it’s not just byler that wasn’t included— mileven hardly got any scenes, as did lumax and jancy. there is this one exception.

and this is such an obvious love triangle. if they weren’t going to continue on with byler, they wouldn’t have added will in the middle here, focused on the couple in front of him and looking upset. every single glance and song and scene that’s included in this show is intentionally added. if they were going to drop byler, will would be off somewhere else in this scene, but no— he’s in the scene, and clearly bothered. with clips like these, it’s highly obvious the route they’re going to be taking when it comes to romance.

you may be thinking, “what if they just make will a third wheel, and go for the unrequited gay crush trope?” they won’t. i mean, from the looks of it season 4 will start out with will still third wheeling and being sick of it and mike having so much internalized homophobia that he’s still doing this bullshit. but then for the majority of the rest of the series, el is gone and getting her powers back, leaving mike and will alone with unresolved romantic tension (that the stranger things socials have called out! see this post.) to hash out. there is twice the regular amount of showtime to execute these scenes too, so time shouldn’t even be a concern!

as a final note, i’m going to reiterate the fact that there were not any romantic scenes in the trailer. yes, el and mike had scenes where they looked at each other, and steve and nancy had scenes where they talked, but it doesn’t mean in any way that these will be endgame couples. of course people will assume that because mike and el are holding hands that they’re going to be back and happier than ever this season. but as other theorists have pointed out, trailers are meant to mislead us! for right now they’re pleasing the main audience, but they didn’t make a point to add in a ton of romantic scenes regarding the main couples of s4— probably because they’re going to be VERY different this season. 

so again, no need to worry! the duffers know exactly what they’re doing here. they always have. <3

[kaypeace21]

Okay look I love them juicy theories but uh...if you're right, if Will and El both get taken away and that's why neither of them are in the 'riding away from the Byers' house' shot, I'm gonna THROW HANDS and call the police because that is a personal crime against my mom Joyce Byers and also my son Michael Wheeler who has never done anything at all to deserve having both the loves of his whole ass life abducted by the government when he already went through losing them both once, l mean, WHY

The Duffers are both good writers (so it makes sense that they are going to change things up so things don’t get repetitive.) Plus, it’ll leave us all patiently waiting for s4 (even if it we have to wait another 2 years) because we’ll all need to know what happens next! And yes Joyce, Jonathan, and ESPECIALLY Mike are going to lose it. Will and El’s powers and storylines have been paralleled throughout the whole series , read my “Will & El represent Yin and Yang (thematic analysis)” here. Then the amount of parallels of Byler and Mileven, and hints are absurd, gif set here .  My posts about Mike being bi  here . And Videos I made that have more evidence of the byler/mileven parallels, not mentioned in the other posts here and here.

The fact that Will went missing in s1, and El was missing for most of s2, only verifies to me that both will be taken at the end of s3 and be separated from Mike and others for most of s4 (since it would have Will & El’s stories finally converge). Also, the fact that the fandom has been joking and asking the Duffers “when is Will getting a haircut?” and “I’ll be so happy when he gets rid of that stupid bowl-cut”. Makes me think the Duffers would be like “YEAH, We’ll give him a haircut, and you won’t be happy about it, MUAH-HA-HA” XD. I think s3, is where Will’s feelings for Mike, and Mike’s feelings for both of them Will be heavily implied (but not verified). I don’t usually take what extras say seriously but apparently they’ll be a mileven breakup & a byler-fight/breakup until Mike has “cute makeup scenes” with both of them.  Which goes with the Duffers pattern of always paralleling Will & El/ byler & mileven, plus It would explain why at the beginning of the season Will & El are always always by his side but become distant with him and become closer with each other instead.

Pre-breakup(s)

Post-breakup(s)

So it’ll be interesting to see how Mike copes with this and maybe how similar those breakups/fall-outs and reconciliations will be. Before the s3 trailer, they said they’ll be a “Mike/Will & Mike/El scenes” at Lover’s lake (along with Max/Lucas & Nancy/Jonathan having scenes there too) and they stated “Dustin and the rest of the gang are too busy saving the world”- so they predicted Dustin teaming up with Steve/Robin/Erica (and not being with the rest of the gang) before the trailer came out! And honestly, if he ‘makes up with’(or even has romantic coded moments with) both of them AT LOVER’S LAKE! No one can tell me Milevill won’t be (ambiguously-coded) endgame XD. The extra’s twitter was suspended (so I can’t verify everything they said), but someone took a pic of one of their posts.

Like take what they say with a grain of salt. But if this is true, whether or not this  is before or after 1 or both breakups is almost irrelevant. Because if at lover’s lake we have Lucas/Max (COUPLE), Nancy/Jonathan (COUPLE) and then Will/Mike/El (???) there, that should raise a few eyebrows. This is pure speculation, but I think that after their breakups,EL/Will suspect something supernatural is going on but have no proof- but suspect the remnants of the mindflayer are in ‘cold’ places with people, like the pool and lover’s lake, and unbeknownst to them, the Scoops Ahoy ice-cream. So they go to Lover’s lake together, Mike hears about this and misinterprets this and internally freaks out and rushes over there, but by the time he gets there he pretty much gives them his blessing, and apologizes, and probably starts being self-depricating . Will/El probably explain the misunderstanding and all makeup (lol someone write that fanfic please XD). 

And at the end of s3, Mike is going to be truly heartbroken- honestly if he sees both of them being taken away at the same time… he most certainly will have a mental breakdown at the mall. And I wouldn’t be surprised that in s4 Mike will be in a very dark place, and do many self-destructive behaviors (since it’s been hinted he has had mental health issues as early as s1 and he already was acting out in s2 when El went missing).Could you imagine the crap he’ll do as a teenager when both of them are gone?! This will probably last until he teams up with Joyce (to try to find them, I wrote a theory about this, but won’t be posting it until s3 is out and I can confirm this s3 ending theory is true).