They Fucking Forgot His Birthday

First off, why tf would you do a shot like this if this is just his platonic buddy? Will walks out of frame, therefore the scene is not about him. As he walks off, the lens focuses clearly to a singular shot of just Mike watching in medium close up. This means his perspective in this moment is going to be important. That this scene may even be just about him in particular.

So, this shot of Will and the girl dancing, is from Mike's perspective. Him watching them.

Because they then show us another perspective in this scene for a moment to let you know who's is who's. Dustin's.

The camera moves from Mike & Dustin frowning and watching to zooming in and panning over to Lucas and Max dancing. And as we know, Dustin originally had a crush on Max, so he is clearly upset by seeing this unfold and watches longingly.

The camera even pans back and zooms specifically in on Dustin in this moment to tell us that he is watching Max & Lucas, and that was his perspective in that moment when the camera was on them dancing.

And then it literally cuts right back onto them zoomed in for good measure, telling us that this moment is Dustin's perspective:

Because then it slowly moves the camera across the room over to Stacy, as if the camera is literally his neck turning, noticing her. Which we know right after this shot, he goes over there to ask her to dance.

Notice how Dustin and Mike's attention are in two different places now. Dustin moves on quickly.

These are two different screenshots of the same moment. Like please look at Mike's and Dustin's faces here. Dustin changes the coarse and is now nervous but determined to go up to Stacy. He forgets Max, because he knows that is never happening now. But poor Mike Wheeler. His sights are still locked on the same spot. On Will dancing with the girl. Please look at this kid's face 😭 it goes from this:

I'm sorry, but this kid is realizing something. There is something going on in that brain of his and possibly even something is his stomach that he can't place or is scared to name. Mind you, let's remember. This entire scene, Mike says absolutely nothing, literally. Starting from the very beginning, when Will was still standing there, up until he sits looking miserable. Anyway, everything in this scene that Mike expresses is through facial expression and body language. Which you know what scene this reminds me of? Hm, oh yeah:

This one, lol. This scene may be Will's chance to speak from the heart, but we don't get as many shots of Will while he is speaking in this scene compared to shots of Mike simply reacting quietly. This kid has been going through it for several years. When he goes through something with high emotions involved, he goes quiet, clearly.

Leaving it on this devastating note before Jane walks in and his spirits lift. I know people most likely brush off literally everything that happens before Jane enters through those doors because he seems happy once he sees her. But this entire scene beforehand is clearly crucial.

Mike looks absolutely devastated before she arrives, so I think many take it as "Oh no, Jane is not here, therefore Mike is depressed", but his mind this entire time was clearly elsewhere, not on Jane, because he was preoccupied with whatever was going on before.

Her walking into the dance made him forget everything. And people seem to conveniently forget that while Mike is having this cute moment with Jane, Will is still off dancing with that girl. Which is why Mike was originally sitting there alone in the first place. Will dancing with that girl instead of sitting there with Mike gave him the chance to sit there alone, looking shattered. Mike clearly seems to instantly regret doing so as he watches them walk onto the dance floor and watches silently. If only Mike hadn't silently nudged Will to respond yes to her, he may have been sitting there alongside him.

How the Duffers chose to have Mike react

If Byler was really "never in the cards", why was it on-screen? Are we really supposed to believe they accidentally wrote, filmed, and edited this level of gay subtext into the show, and somehow kept repeating that same mistake over and over throughout all five seasons without ever realizing it, and without any of the experienced, competent people they collaborated with for years noticing it and pointing it out to them?

it might be a henry prequel? idk. like i’m genuinely baffled😭

I KNEW I WASNT FUCKING CRAZY LMFAOOOO

also “What’s next, the movies?”

Having 70% of the fandom turn against you is not a success, even if there’s a bigger plan behind it. People won’t simply forget everything that happened over the past year. Good marketing should build excitement and engagement, not alienate a large portion of the audience while catering to only a tiny fraction of the fandom.

and earlier he posted about b-side vinyl

and finn's new single called TUNNELS is out on 06.10.2026

I love Byler, but I could've gotten on board with another love interest for Will if they'd made an effort to write one for him. They had several seasons to do so. They could've written a flirty interaction between him and another boy in Lenora. They could've subverted our expectations and revealed that the painting was actually for someone else he had a crush on. They could've made the bar scene with Carlton longer so we could finally see the "snowballs" and "avalanches" conversation pay off. But they didn't do any of that. They dragged out his feelings for Mike until the penultimate episode, stunting his character development, and then had the nerve to claim they didn't give him another love interest because they wanted his journey to be "more internal and about himself."

Still, I might've been okay with this half-assed self-acceptance angle if they hadn't also established that Will wants romantic love. No, I don't think anyone needs sex or romance to be happy, and as poorly written as his coming-out arc is, I am glad he learned to love and accept himself before he started dating anyone. But we are repeatedly shown how self-sacrificing Will is, and one of the few selfish desires he has is to be loved romantically. Not only is it cruel to deny him this after all the horrible shit he's endured, it's also bad writing to establish this as one of his central desires then fail to meaningfully resolve that aspect of his character arc. If they were really so determined not to give him a love interest, they could've at least used the vision Vecna gave him about his future to explain the sudden change in his feelings for Mike. But in typical Duffer fashion, "it happened off-screen."

It didn't have to be Mike, but Mike is what they gave us. So every time the Duffers try to play dumb and act like Bylers were delusional for thinking Mike and Will might end up together, I start throwing imaginary tomatoes at them, because they're responsible for all of this. Even if Byler was "never in the cards", they still should've addressed the ship once they realized how popular it had become. Mike and Will barely interact in season 5; telling us Byler wasn't going to happen wouldn't have spoiled anything. Instead, they leaned into it, both in the story and in the marketing, because as the "loudest" subsection of the fandom, they knew we'd give them the most money and attention.