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Then in book 2 the whole theme about second chances couldn't possibly be there, could it? Like, Belly's whole speech about "if you get a second chance you'll do everything you can to not fuck it up" or her speech to him before they kissed/when he chose him about not changing her mind again/not repeating the previous summer. Or is there?

The original video I quoted:

In the initial leak of the script we got this:

So we know that Mike is confused by what Will is telling him. Something doesn't add up but he doesn't know what it is (we know that Will is talking about himself and he loves Mike so we get it, but Mike doesn't).

We wondered what it is that Will previously didn't get, then, and I've seen most people point this out as the correlated item:

but later in the script we actually get another part where it is stated that "Will does not get it", which is this:

and this comes right after Mike makes a whole speech about him and El not being destiny and the whole Lois Lane/Superman analogy.

Will does not understand why Mike would feel this way about his relationship with El. And tbh neither do I! There is one thing Millie is right about: El is obsessed with Mike. She has a little love shrine for him!! What is Mike even going on about here?? It makes no sense that he would feel like she doesn't need him.

So the key word in the script here...

is that Will TRIES to get what Mike is saying, and to Will the only explanation that makes sense is that Mike is feeling insecure?

But did he actually understand what Mike was being insecure about? Was that what Mike was trying to say?

Because after the whole speech Will gives him, Mike feels reassured but he does NOT in fact get it. Will said the words, but there was an underlying meaning that Mike couldn't catch, which we know it's the fact that Will was actually confessing his feelings for him.

Noah does not need to know where the triangle is going, nor Mike's feelings (and neither does Millie), in fact, it's easier for him to wear Will's shoes if he does NOT know and assumes that Mike simply likes El and there's no moving on from that, because that's exactly what Will thinks? If I were the Duffers I wouldn't tell Noah anything about Mike's feelings either, because he does not need to know about them to give his performance.

That's very not true for Finn though. Finn needs to know what Mike is thinking to act him out, he cannot just "assume" how his character is feeling when his feelings aren't the focus of the story, because he has to act in a way that is consistent with the future of the story. So yes, he must have given explicit directions on how Mike was supposed to feel in every moment and what he was thinking for Finn to be able to act it out in a way that wouldn't go against the resolution of this love triangle.

i’m putting “problem” in quotation marks because i don’t think it’s a problem at all, but it’s something that would make it hard for the general public to notice that a character arc exists in the first place. I’m saying this because I also had the same problem and I only saw the light when I came to the Byler tag and started putting 2 and 2 together. 

I’m talking about continuity through seasons. This whole time I failed to realize what Mike’s character arc was and most importantly I failed to see that it was in developing through seasons without reaching an ending. 

I only started wondering what was going on with Mike in S4, when his weird behavior with Will made it obvious that there was something and it wasn’t just a teen being a teen, like I assumed in S3. 

And still it took me so long to figure out that his weird behavior is not something that came out of nowhere in S4, but it’s actually something that they have slowly built up through the seasons. That no, Mike’s queer character arc hasn’t magically started in S4, but has been going on from the start and that we got it very much presented to us in S3, both for Mike and Will. For Will it was “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls” and the destruction of Castle Byers, for Mike? Hands down the ending of S3. 

My biggest mistake going into Mike’s character, contrary to Will’s, has been to assume that all his arcs started and ended in the same season and that there was no continuity with it, because I was too blind to realize that there was some place they were going with him and that they had yet to reach. I don’t even know why I didn’t realize, Mike is literally our MC, he starts off as our protagonist, if anyone had to have a character arc it would be him?? So why did I just take his character at face value? Istg I feel so stupid right now.

I’ve been waiting for Will’s character arc to take center stage, I knew his queerness was going to be a focal point for him sooner or later, but Mike’s changes completely felw me by because the Duffers never made them obvious. It’s all in the details, and if you’re too taken by Mileven, you’re bound to miss (or dismiss) them. 

For example, when the end of S3 happened, I assumed that the reason why Mike made that weirded out face after El kissed him and told him she loved him was because he was just taken aback that she had heard him confess in the first place and nothing deeper than that. Perhaps it was a bit exhagerated for confusion, but, again, I assumed it wasall for laughs. S3 treated the whole Mileven relationship very lightely and humorously, so it made sense to me that even such a scene would be a bit comical. 

S4 forced me to reconsider everything. 

Rewatching it now, knowing how Mike is behaving 6 months later, that scene takes a completely different connotation and meaning. A lot of similar occurrences do. 

The Duffers have done this before, multiple times. Think Jonathan and Nancy in S1, for example. Their story begun in S1 but by the end of it, Nancy was still actively in a relationship with Steve and the consequences of the time she spent with Jonathan only “hit” in S2. There was continuity there. It was just way less flashed out, it all happened pretty fast although spanning two seasons and it was way more in our face. 

Mike and Will? Have been built up for 4 seasons. From the very start. In the slowlest way possible. In the tiniest details. Their storyline has been constructed one moment at a time, hidden, almost, in the background, but there nonetheless. 

Putting all the pieces together I can clearly see the picture now. I assumed it was just Will, I never really expected Mike to have a character arc per se. I assumed we knew all we needed to know about Mike, I was never expecting any big revelation or anything. But now I can see that his character arc has been going on for 4 seasons and has yet to reach completition, just like Will’s AND El’s (independence arc). 

There IS something going on with Mike. There has always been. I just couldn’t see it until they made it pretty obvious in S4. Some people still think it’s nothing but it was immediately clear to me that they were trying to tell me something when they decided to 1) bring up Will’s feelings for Mike when they could have made it puppy love and give him another love interest 2) have Mileven have ILY problems when the whole audience assumed that was solved at the end of S3 3) have Mike be extremely conscious of Will’s presence for no apparent reason. 

The fact that Mileven are STILL dealing with a problem they introduced in S3 that we all (at least the general audience) assumed had been solved by the end of it is telling us that whatever storyline had been going on in S3? Is STILL ongoing. No, the issue wasn’t closed there. Mike’s character arc didn’t find resolution there, in fact, in hindsight, I could say that’s where his character arc actually properly started. Not to say that nothing happened before then, but I think that’s when he was hit with some kind of realization. 

So the more I look at it, look at the big picture without dividiving the story in seasons, the more I realize that there can’t possibly be anything but Byler at the end of it all. I’ve been saying this since I’ve watched S4. The decisions they took with the story were too deliberate, they can’t lead anywhere else, but I was still 50/50 because I felt like they took it out of nowhere for Mike. But if you put his whole experience into perspective and not divide it into seasons, it’s actually all right there. 

It’s hard because we get years of pause between seasons and the ending of one season stays with us for a long time before we question it so it all feels way more dragged out than it really is in the show. Plus details get lost in time and the Duffers were EXTREMELY delicate with it all. Will’s sexuality included. I picked up on it early but I know for a fact that most didn’t. It was never explicit, it was all very gently introduced. I just never realized they had done the same for Mike. 

I don’t know what Mike’s sexuality is and I’m not even gonna argue (I headcannoned him as bi for a while but who knows) but from a writing perspective, I know that the only possible and logical conclusion of his character arc is Byler. 

I’m so confident in them being endgame at this point that it’s scaring me. It just feels so obvious now, I can’t unsee it. HELP. 

Istg S4 was more about Mike’s feelings for Will than it was viceversa. We got Will’s pov but the real source of their tension was Mike the whole time. He initiated it all. He knows he has feelings for Will and he doesn’t know what to do with them. He’s a queer mess. I just know it for a fact at this point. It just makes SENSE. 

We discuss the terminology so much on here but tbh it all seems kinda up in the air because a relationship between kids to me is simply... a relationship between kids.

I'm sorry but I cannot take it too seriously? Even if they kiss I'm like... yes but they were kids??​ I had a friend who kissed in a relationship when she was 12 and then she wasn't with anyone else until she was 22. The relationship itself lasted a few months but they met just a few times by themselves and they kissed some but then it was over because he got bored, I suppose, and she took the blow.

If you ask her today, she says it wasn't love. At the time, though, she couldn't stop crying about it.

I mean, what is love anyway?

You cannot expect a 12-year-old to experience a relationship in the same way an adult would? So if love is this and this and this based on an adult experience, then what you feel at 12 in your first kid relationship most likely wasn't it? But to the kid themselves it was still possibly something really intense, just different...

I don't know, I cannot categorize mileven one way or the other with certainty, simply because it was an experience they had when they were way too young and unaware of themselves to put it in a box...

So when you guys say it's either platonic or romantic between them and argue about stuff i can only think that they are children.

But for a while at least they believed it romantic. It was their experience in that moment. If in hindsight they decide it wasn't, that's for them to understand. But in the moment they, at least, thought it was. Doesn't that make it romantic?

I think that the line between romantic and platonic is way too blurry when you talk about kids their age, the whole discourse seems so redundant to me, it confuses me.

I’ve been thinking about this insistently for a while now, but I kept dismissing the thought because I had no time to put my suspicions together. I wanna try now. 

So, listen, I know that we always talk about how S4 shows us Will’s POV and makes it a point to hammer his feelings and reactions in our mind: the camera constantly pans to him to show his expression to us, especially during moments between Mike and El, in a way that never lets us forget he’s there. This seasons, we are literally forced to think about Will during any California scene related to Mike. We are made conscious of him and what he would think of everything that happens, especially when Mileven is on screen. 

Do you know who else is been shown to be concious of him?

You guessed it. 

Mike.

And while we aren’t actually given access to any of Mike’s thoughts, I’ve been insistently feeling like I’ve been wearing his shoes this season. 

That the reason why the camera and focus has turned to Will continuously throughout it, showing us his reactions, is because Mike’s focus is continuosly on him. 

Mike keeps thinking of Will. 

Especially when he’s with El. 

From the very first moment they meet at the airport, through Rink-o-Mania, we are shown Will “moping,” “rolling his eyes”, and we think Mike doesn’t notice because Will thinks he doesn’t, but he does. 

So I’ve begun to think about the differences between putting focus on something and using someone’s point of view in film. Unfortunately I’m not studying film or anything so I won’t even try to make it sound coherent or professional, but I do believe that even as an uneducated watcher (which some media literacy) there is something i can do, which is feel. 

I am supposed to feel, in fact. I thought that was the only thing that the Duffers were doing by consistently showing me Will. I thought they were making me feel for Will, while keeping Mike’s pov completely hidden from me. But then, the more I thought about Mike and about the little we got from him, the more it felt like this whole thing was more than just us getting the story told from Will pov. Some of it literally puts him into focus where he shouldn’t be, but the scene itself is not quite through his eyes... 

The two instances that immediately come to mind are the moment Mike and El reunite and Mike’s monologue, especially. 

When Mike and El reunite, we got blurry Will standing between them in the background. We cannot forget about him and we are led to think “oh no, poor Will, is he okay?”. The fact that he’s blurry, contrary to Robin being completely in focus in the parallel scene with Viki, stands out to me too. Because why are we led to think that, but we aren’t able to see him until Mike and El turn towards him? 

Do you know who would perceive Will that way during that moment? Mike. 

Mike reunited with El and they didn’t kiss and the scene is shot in a way that makes me feel like I AM Mike and I know Will is RIGHT THERE and I don’t know what he’s thinking (yet) but I’m so conscious of his presence I cannot comfortably reunite with my girlfriend. 

While the scene is not actually shot through Mike’s eyes, it feels like i’m wearing his shoes right then... does that make sense? Perhaps I’m projecting, but even during his monologue, the way he hesitates when everyone knows what he’s supposed to say, the way he turns to Will and the way the scene is shot in a way that constantly includes Will as Mike speaks makes me feel like this is the same way Mike feels. 

He’s in the scene, but the focus of his thoughts? Will. 

Mike was introduced to us as our MC in the first seasons, and watching these scenes I wonder if that isn’t what he’s still. Yes, his exact thoughts are concealed, but his focus isn’t lost on us. 

Throughout the series we have already been shown that Mike’s priority has always kinda been Will. Even in S3 when Mike is supposed to be obsessed with El, he doesn’t really despair when they break up, but it takes one fight with Will to have him biking across town in the rain. I think S4 somehow cements that in a very subtle way through directing choices. 

Does it mean I think Mike knows about Will’s feelings for him? No. I think he’s oblivious to them, because he’s too wrapped up in his own. But is he conscious of Will? Oh yes. He cannot ignore him. Not even when he’s having a moment with his girlfriend. He’s constantly aware of Will. The same way we are made to be concious of Will too. 

I’m more and more convinced that we have gotten more about how Mike feels than we realize during this season. And it was mostly through directing choices. 

Again, I might be projecting, but I can’t stop thinking about it. 

If my theory about Mike not dealing with IH but dealing with a oh-god-i-have-feelings-for-my-best-friend freak out is true, this would make so much sense...