it's funny how bylers presume about el, her relationships, what's healthy for her character and what they think will be "good" ending for her (from an obviously biased lens) but if i say what i think will's ending should be then how dare i presume about a gay guy? unsurprisingly, in bylers "objective" analyses, el always ends up breaking up with mike then: either going away with kali becoming "independent" away from her father and friends, or faking her death, or actually dying ... anything except for staying in hawkins (if it's rebuilt after vecna is gone), or being happy with her friends and family. like it's not even about mike, she has a family in that town but bylers desperately want her away from her friends, especially mike, because they are quite simply ... insecure and envious of her. they know if el lived in the same place as the rest of the group, her and mike will always find a way back to each other, even if they "take a break" in between.
irrespective of how she eventually ends up, b/lers jealousy is ugly. i don't think most of them even like her. they only pretend to "care" about her character but irl harbor and display much misogyny and ableism. many presume to understand her better than anyone else, then proceed to say the stupidest things to get her out of the way so their dumb ship can have some pathetic chance of becoming canon. as if once el is "out of the way" mike will somehow change his sexuality and fall in love with will.
don't talk to anybody abt respecting jane when u use her lab name that was used to strip her of all personhood lmao? yeesh
her lab name is eleven whereas "el" is given to her by mike and all her friends + family refer to her as that. el hopper is the name she goes by, you can call her jane if you like lmao but that does not negate the point of my post.
""Women should be protected"" is used to objectify and then patronize, because if a woman is a delicate flower she cannot be trusted with her own safety or her own autonomy, like a child. When you treat anyone as inhuman, whether it reads as positive or negative, denying them personhood will reject the parts of them that don't fit into your idea of what they should be, leading to an incomplete idea of who that person actually is, which is extremely unhealthy. If Mike sees Jane as a superhero despite her insistence that she is just a normal person, if she breaks that illusion, whether by showing fault or some other means, the version of Jane Mike is in love with will cease to exist. He has had five years to build her up in his head and his perception of her does not seem to match her internal personhood, which is, arguably, the most objective version because it is true to the person it is representing. Partners are supposed to see each other as people, on equal footing. If the basis of their relationship means Mike cannot divorce himself from an inaccurate perspective of the person he is supposed to know better than anyone else then their relationship is not supportive of Jane's journey of self-hood. Arguably, the person we see who are most outwardly supportive of Jane's self-discovery are Max, who said that Jane is her own person outside of her relationships with men, and wasn't afraid to tell her that Mike was treating her badly (although he did have his reasons and I don't blame him for lying to her after being threatened by Hopper, Hopper HAD been trying to talk to them politely (which Mike knew) and I think we can all agree Mike was being a little shit, and if he had had Jane's best interests at heart he wouldn't have been being so disrespectful to her FATHER. It is not his fault it snowballed, but he most likely knew his actions had consequences if he was going to disrespect his girlfriend's father, given they're both minors under the guardianship of their respective parents) and took her out to figure out things she liked, something that it is heavily implied that Hopper or Mike had never even thought about in however long Hopper had been her father and however long Mike and Jane had been dating. Another person we see who is heavily involved in Jane's self-discovery is Kali, who, wouldn't you know it, also gave Jane another outfit. That's just speculation on my part but I think it's cute and also indicative of their relationship. Although Kali had her own rules and stipulations (the outfit being given to her, instead of chosen herself), she was important to helping Jane figure out what she wanted and did seem to care about Jane heavily. They shared a background and Kali was definitely her own person by the time Jane met up with her, which was most likely encouraging because until the episode previous, all Jane had was her lab name, a nickname (from her boyfriend), and hand-me-down clothes. Her choosing to leave the cabin earlier that season was Mike motivated (I do think season one brought them together very well and I do enjoy the Snow Ball scene), but it was her own decision and it set her up for a very sporadic slow burn of a self-discovery arc (given the fact it was ongoing in seasons two through four). Neither of these people are Mike, and they both treat Jane very differently than Mike does. If I remember correctly, Kali gives her an ultimatum and although that isn't entirely fair because it's a lot of weight to put on Jane, it gave her a chance to make her own decision, which I believe is intentional, given their shared background and its lack of autonomy. (1/2)
This makes it especially glaring that something is wrong in Mike and Jane's relationship for after at least six months of them dating, Jane still doesn't know how to tell what she likes. Personally, this comes off very weird to me, as making-out is intimate or an advanced relationship activity, and while it can be read as romantic and I don't think Mike and Jane ever did anything and I would not like to speculate on this, it can also be seen as a sexual activity. Jane does not know what she likes until Max teaches her, and I don't believe it's a stretch to assume she doesn't know what consent is either. It seems obvious that they did not teach it to her in the lab and given Hopper's reaction to having to talk to Mike and Jane about making-out, I don't believe that that would be a conversation he would have, especially given the time period. On that note, while consent was not as heavily emphasized as it is today, and Mike and Jane were both young so honestly there's a good chance neither of them knew too much about consent, it's something that needs to be explored in-depth, can be an uncomfortable topic, and most importantly, not knowing what it is it does not lessen the impact that occurs when someone does not feel comfortable doing an activity, even if it's explicitly romantic. Consent is important either way, and as people watching Stranger Things, a show set in the 1980s, we can acknowledge the time frame while still acknowledging that it's not right, even if it makes sense for them not to know better. Mike objectively knows more about relationships than she does, and that's not ableist. It is ableist to assume that disabled people cannot consent, cannot know as much about relationships, or cannot form their own opinions. Everybody, however, SHOULD know what they're getting into when they're doing something with their bodies. There's also a point to be made that in season one, Lucas says something about Mike liking Jane because, ""[Mike] likes that a girl isn't grossed out by him for once"". And while that might have been fueled by emotions, Mike (nor the rest of the party) seem to have any other friends, and they're all boys. The Duffers have described Stranger Things as a show about outcasts, for outcasts, and using this statement, we can infer that Mike, you know, IS an outcast. He feels different and weird and Jane is a girl that seems to like him. That's normal. Feeling normal/not inherently broken can be euphoric, and being an outcast can be miserably lonely, even if you have friends or family that support you. I won't say he doesn't love her, because he definitely does at some point, but if we assume that Mike is in the closet, it has a lot more depth, and makes a lot more sense for the way he treats her, especially in the later seasons. You talk about Byler fans wanting Mike to "change his sexuality", but I'm assuming you've had the privilege to not know what compulsive heterosexuality means.
Compulsive heterosexuality is when a gay person denies they're gay and engages in heterosexual behavior to cope with it/further their denial. This is especially common in homophobic environments because there is an inherent risk to being gay. Even today, with more acceptance, there is a chance that by coming out as gay you may lose your home (be kicked out) and your family. Being gay means you can be hatecrimed or discriminated against, and I can only imagine how much more common that was in the 1980s. I'm also assuming you've never had to be in the closet but it can make you kind of a dick because you're unhappy, whether you know why or not, and even if you do, you can't do what WOULD make you happy, because again, there's a risk to being out that it might not be worth it to take, even if you're miserable hiding. That's the truth. So yeah, pretend it's homophobic all you want, but for Jane's sake I hope Mike treats her badly BECAUSE he's gay and not just because that's how he treats women. If that's just how he treats women/his girlfriend and they stay together, what do you think that implies for Jane? She'll be with someone who doesn't treat her like a person after being dehumanized her entire life. I don't think that's the happy ending you think it is. Also to address your original point, I have seen a popular Byler theory that Jane and Mike never got back together at the end of season four (I think it was Will that mentions on the rest of the way to Hawkins, Jane didn't speak to Mike once, over the course of two days, sharing the back row of Argyle's van). The theory draws on that and the Mike and Jane dynamic shift (season three, his hovering and the current season where she doesn't seem to be his top priority anymore), and the fact they discuss the party's future together, which is primarily a FRIEND group. Regardless of this is true or not, the popular acceptance of this theory implies that there's an unspoken common acceptance that their hypothetical breakup was amicable. So it seems like you're just making people up because this is a common theory and it seems like people are already chill with them being friends if they had/have broken up so there's really no need to cart Jane off anywhere away from their friends. Even if Mike and Jane don't end up staying together there is no denying the fact that they do indeed care for each other, but as a couple Mike at least seems to have trouble expressing that. I really do believe they work better as friends. I want Jane to have a relationship where she is seen for who she is and not some idealized version of herself. INDEPENDENT of that, I also want Will to have his happy outcast ending. I want to feel like Mike wasn't just emotionally unavailable because that's just the way he is. I don't want Byler to happen at the expense of Jane, but I genuinely do not think this relationship is what is best for her, because she shouldn't have to settle after everything that has happened to her. (2/2)
just remembered this existed, midleven's brain exploded loll 😹😹🥱🤭
also ur username is so ironic lowkey you abandoned the blog right after the finale im crying bro ""forever midleven""?? more like. not even enough passion for a single day after the finale lol
lmao talk about bylosers stupidity and obsession. your hyper fixation with my blog shows whose brain really "exploded"
as far as my username is concerned, mileven IS forever lol they will forever be the main canon lovestory of the show. they don't need my "passion" to prove it everyday to media illiterates. while your fanonship is what folks always knew: a one-sided crush, never reciprocated & never canon. even when el is "dead" mike dgaf about will lol wtf are you gloating about? instead of stalking blogs like a creep, try something else to cope or maybe take a break off the internet, you sound like you sorely need it.
