an unforgettable fourteen hour experience

What I don’t get are how byler shippers can love byler so much but also strangely HATE mike. I’ve never seen shippers do this before, most shippers, even the most obnoxious ones seem to love both characters in their ship but with byler it seems like they just like will and mike is the worst person to exist? They call him a misogynist, a incel (despite the fact he had a gf) right wing. I just don’t understand it!

To me it feels like some of them don’t like the ship itself but rather they want to be right, they wanted the show to confirm their theories. That’s why they are obsessed with it becoming canon.

Bylr theories rested on the idea that Mike was a completely different character than the one we saw in canon. That instead of being an oblivious, self-centered, insecure, well-meaning, short-tempered and proudly nerdy kid, he was a long-suffering, repressed, burdened caregiver who deeply wanted to conform to societal expectations and shaped his whole life accordingly. They fell in love with the latter, and that's the version they ship with Will.

When canon confirmed that Mike was not this person, they became deeply resentful and spiteful against the canon version, partially because they had spent so long trying to convince themselves what happened wasn't the truth and so never had to cope with it (which is how you see people bringing up the most random reasons to hate on Mike now, like the Venkman debacle--would him being gay have made Mike's behavior in this scene more acceptable? No. But people don't care about racist microaggressions if it comes with a side of a white male canon ship, so no one cared before. Now that Mike is undeniably straight, there's no reason to defend him, so let's all pretend to care).

It’s funny how their reasoning for their complaints about madwise is because “they barely interacted the past few seasons it makes no sense they have no established relationship ” well Holly and Max didn’t either? Even though Holly did play a huge part in helping Max get out of camazotz they still barely had a relationship before then so what’s the excuse for that huh? Oh yeah I bet you got nothing.

(I’ll also never forget the tweets about El’s death and them complaining about why Will gets to live and El doesn’t and them claiming Max stole El’s place in the party like Mike previously feared.)

It's sooo tiring because like. Sure we didn't get to see Will and Max being close before, but it's not like we got tons of content for them in S5 either! They had what, two hugs? One of which being Will being happy to see Max back and the other being Max being supportive of Will coming out--both situations in which any pair of friends would interact, even if they weren't super close.

I try to see their opinion sometimes, but it usually comes from people who also have very weird other grievances from Will's character (eg. Passive Homophobes who just don't wanna see queer people on tv or Milevens with a vendetta to hurt Will because they hate Byler) so i truly can't understand if this opinion is coming from good faith or not

In my experience it's either people who are not shippers but are stuck in heteronormative mindsets of "but it wouldn't be historically accurate" or "but Will needed to accept himself first" (both weak arguments that are easy to counter for obvious reasons); the groups you mentioned; or people who feel defensive of the show as a whole after the (admittedly exaggerated imo) backlash against S5, and as a result have adopted the position of defending every single creative decision and conceding to no criticism.

I have also seen the "just because he didn't kiss a boy, doesn't mean he was treated badly" take coming from people complaining about El's ending, and so, following cursed fandom logic that keeps pitting Will and El against each other, they point out how she was done dirty by denying critiques of his treatment.

I'll concede these people have kind of a point because while I'll always complain Will didn't get a romance I do think he was treated better in S5 than El, and his ending was vastly superior. And a lot of people in fandom talk as if him not getting together with Mike was a death sentence. So I get the frustration of seeing shippers going around saying Will's character was destroyed, that all he got was humiliation, that he and Mike will suffer forever because they never will get over each other etc and trying to point out that no, in fact, Will and Mike got happy endings, while the main female character was tossed aside. This sentiment I find valid. Will did not get the worst of it by any means.

I'm always rooting for more inclusion in mainstream media, but it's always wishful thinking with those shippers. I know in the case of queer kids/young adults, it's usual about yearning for more complex representation in more accessible media with higher budgets than your typical indie queer media made with a dollar and a dream but at the end of the day, we can't forget that the most mainstream we managed to get so far are productions more like HR that attracted its audience also of straight women with their rather explicit sex scenes also toned down to cater to a more common denominator in this case being the initial books’s fandom I reckon. 

I stand my ground by saying that we shouldn't expect from commonly perceived straight movie makers to push those limits for us in the first place by including queer subplots as some kind of sick plot twist or hidden gem; not because they are unable to deliver a satisfactory story, that's simply not the case, but because pitching not explicitly straight idea for a story is always a deliberate choice and i’ve never believed a queer aspect of it would ever be concealed to the point of becoming a plot twist in the first place. Many straight/bi/not cis movie makers, including producers etc, are eager and open to contribute to making those more complex, groundbreaking queer stories so they could see the light of day, but I'm rather sceptical they would opt for that diabolical move if we are talking about those truly satisfactory media; it's still a war in a pitching room in case of featuring queer subplots and those eager to fight for it, they are always rather candid about their intention and you can sense even in the way they articulate their thought about their projects (I guess the last great example would be Richard Gadd’s Half Man). 

What I'm trying to say, a casual representation we got in ST is cool enough but why would anyone even expect to get some ground-breaking queer love story between not even the main characters of the show as some kind of convoluted plot twist is beyond me. I'm always saying, go and support your local indie projects so the same people are gonna give you what you were waiting for all along, one day and in the meantime, just enjoy what you are given in regular media (with a healthy dose of healthy criticism but why would we even want to antagonize those eager to share their platform with us?). It's all counterproductive and very much resembles Democrats’ inability of grassroots movement if I'm being honest. 

I know I'm mostly rambling in not even proper English but heaven only knows try to say any of that in shipping spaces, especially bylr ones these days. 

I'll say I have not watched HR but it seems to me an unfair characterization to say they "toned down" sex scenes--the show got huge partially because of their open portrayal of sexuality, which was enhanced by the gay director's specific choices. I believe the books must be more explicit because it's probably easier to do so without the visual element, but my understanding as an outsider is that the show built on that to the satisfaction of many, many queer viewers.