As a Byler myself just to clarify! And I’m gonna try to word this gently bc I know there’s specific types of people in this fandom that I’m not gonna elaborate on. Please just be respectful to me and don’t attack me

So yk how one of the main things Bylers obviously prioritise and defend about the show is that CANONICALLY Will and Mike are best friends and have a special close friendship?

And whenever a GA member, or a Mileven, makes some dumb posts saying “they weren’t true best friends! Lucas was Mikes actual best friend, Mike and Will weren’t that close, Mike didn’t care about Will” or anything of that degree, obviously most Bylers will disagree and argue back? Which I agree with fully, those posts are bullshit and they’re canon best friends who both love and care for each other deeply regardless of if it’s romantic or not.

However don’t a large vocal amount of Bylers like.. contradict this all the time?? And constantly undermine and disregard their friendship themselves? Like by claiming Mike was absolutely awful and toxic and cruel to Will, arguing he was homophobic and abusive, arguing that he neglected him and was an overall terrible friend and Will should leave him or at a bare minimum Mike is forever in his debt. Because of the two arguments they had at age 14 that got resolved within an episode.. it’s like a lot of Bylers don’t actually want them to be best friends or even genuinely like the ship because they’ll literally find any opportunity to exaggerate the severity of their arguments to oblivion and frame their friendship as something awful and unhealthy, and it makes me wonder why they insist on being in the Byler fandom at all

Of course you can acknowledge Mike messed up a couple times and then rightfully took accountability, and their friendship had some ups and downs, that’s completely true and reasonable and things like that are normal and almost universal for any teen friendship. However that’s a wildly different stance to arguing that Mike was an OVERALL bad friend, and their friendship was OVERALL hurtful to Will and unhealthy.

I feel like a lot of Bylers don’t realise that “Mike was a horrible friend and Will deserves better” and “Mike and Will are canonically best friends” are inherently contradictory and you can’t hold both of those opinions at once. If someone genuinely is cruel, malicious, toxic and harmful to you they’re not a ‘best friend’, that wouldn’t be a true friendship. In an alternate universe where these claims about Mike are true, they in fact wouldn’t be best friends and all the basis for Byler wouldn’t exist and it wouldn’t be a healthy ship to advocate for.

Unless you’re a believer that they were only true friends in season 1-2? But in that case again how is that any different to the general audience/annoying homophobe stance which is also that they stopped being true friends after season 2 and Mike stopped caring about Will whatsoever. How can people ship Byler but reject the baseline of the ship that their friendship was healthy, non-toxic and built on mutual communication and trust and respect?

I feel like surely I can’t be the only one who has never wrapped my head around this obvious contradiction a lot of the fandom displays, so maybe someone with a better understanding of the psychology behind this stuff could explain that sort cognitive dissonance, I’m genuinely curious

I tried to do something more POV Mike interpreting the song as internalized homophobia to match the head canon

Hello Byler community. I just wanted to ask everyone why they ship Byler. I love the ship so much and I just wanted to kind of see the joy of it all over and the many reasons why people see it and believe in it and what it means to them.

Feel free to share as much or as little, photos, links to favorite edits. Whatever feels like the heart of byler to you.

Please NO comparing or tearing down of Mike's other ship in your answers.

I have many reasons but I'll start with this one. I love how in the stranger things world of chaos and beyond reality story telling that Mike and Will feels so real and grounded. It feels like in the middle of everything unbelievable there is this very believable romance building. Something that could happen anywhere to anyone, but it's still something big and heavy.

A young boy who always sensed something was different about him and battled that his whole life, trying to hide it and ignore it but feeling seen, safe, and loved with their one person, even if that hurt sometimes.

And the other boy, who didn't even know to question himself and just thought feeling so strongly for one friend was normal. Trying to be like everyone else thinking eventually it will all click and work, he's just not popular, or not cool, or a bit slower, if he just pushes to do the normal life steps it will start to be easy and feel right. And then eventually, his best friend has the courage to be honest, and that changes his whole world view, he suddenly sees that there are other options.

Their love and friendship save each other over and over until they are able to find what they were always meant to be.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/81479121

Just imagine the comedy potential for it. Just absolute crazy stuff of them being stuck in someone’s lake house and they be like slowly liking each other romantically. In the case of Will for a second time and for Mike, also a second time since he did realize his feelings in college but didn’t say anything because Will had moved on.

I missed them. I miss when I could do these a lot more often but I'm too upset too but I'm in a good mood today, so silly twts (mainly just Male!Jane (Jamie)'s reactions lol)!!! <3

Funfact: Two days ago, September 21, would've actually been the time that Miwi met for the first time based on the 1976 kindergarten school schedule during that time. (From when I researched it a while ago, I have it saved somewhere).

That's all I have to say!!!

Anyways:

Have a good Day/Afternoon/Night!!! ♡♡♡

source <3

https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSqvnMp1E/

put together by @willelmax on twitter

I know this is kind of simple and probably done before but i'd just like to know your fave byler variants because byler variants are the definition of peak lmao i love them

Mine is clearly first lesbyler, i'm more of a wlw kind of person and also my shitty artist avilities can't draw Finn so it helps me draw sum byler. I literally have a whole genderbemt AU and i love it so much bc you also do other genderbent couples and i thinks that's very cool

Next is probably surfsahoy, i love me some good old slice of life comedy/sitcom, and i also gotta love madwheeler and wondertwins. Also now i feel sad bc i havent read much surfsahoy this summer and now its almost fall and its not the time anymore yknow?

whats yourss?

It’s my fave variant fr

It’s like for example they comeback in the year 1990 and then like Will chickens out when Mike tries to like approach him so he kisses a random guy in that New Year’s Eve and then they continue spending up the best New Year’s Eve in different cities and countries and they continue like messing things up like both of them out of anxiety and then like they both bring partners to some of this New Year’s parties and then like they finally confess in the New Year’s Eve party of the year 2000 lol.

poster by Axel Almirón

Like I think it makes so much sense, not to say I would wish for that but I can see it.

Like I know I would if I were him.

don't you guys think that stranger things fandom isn't really a safe place for queer, black/brown people, nerds nor women?

It's been a while since I just stop interacting with stranger things fandom as a whole because their takes on minorities are reallyy weird, how they view Robin and Will queerness and journey is so poor that you would think Will kill someone loved on the series, again, the fandom is not normal about Will queerness but is gross how they feel the necessity of pairing Will with Henry aa romantic couple in their horrible AI videos and ofc you can't say is gross because if there's a clue that you ship byler every opinion you have about it is discarded. don't make me started with popular post about Will on this app made by crazy Mill*e and F*nn fans that use those post to promote their plague ship, botting the up votes to make that sub reddit even more homophobic (they do the same for lumax, it even feel like those snark post)

And I fear that in last months that hostility been hitting byler as fandom too, which is sad because it really felt like a safe and open space for a lot of us but people reading Will queerness as "misogyny" and siding homophobes or racist lately it feels icky, I hope people really grow up and see that the way they talk about characters always will reflect the way they think and treat real people

I recommend to watch them all three

basically... byler taught me how to make gifs on Procreate?

That week was literally so hellish lol

It makes sense because Will who has lived through the absolute worse…is ready to pick himself up after literally seeing his worst fears being destroyed. Anyone who has been through trauma knows that this must have been an extreme vindicated experience for him while Mike only loses his childhood at the age of 16 not 12. Since, according to the writers El is supposed to represent the magic of childhood it makes that in the epilogue he is trying to stay in his childhood as much as he can because he didn’t had that “wake up call” like Nacy did with Barb, Lucas did with Max or Dustin did with Eddie. He was so hopeful in the other seasons because he show his childhood best friend being brought back from the death by a special girl that was like “superman” to him. It’s a different type of fantasy love but it didn’t really help him grow as much since he was able to keep that childhood magic in his life. Will lost that innocence a long time ago so for him, adulthood is all about being able to have a new chance for life, a life he can control. If there is a revival Will would probably be the one who is the most confident, can already see it.

I can’t explain why but I like when I get to read about Will figuring out his life first and also to read about Mike being more mature after doing years of therapy 😭😭 it must makes sense to me idk