mike wheeler defender

💞Ships Week 2026: #1 – #20 💞

It's the big one! Welcome to the final day of ships week. Here are your top 20 ships of the last year, with the full list under the cut:

1. Byler +22 Will Byers & Mike Wheeler, Stranger Things

2. Spamtenna Spamton & Ant Tenna, Deltarune

3. Jayvik Jayce & Viktor, Arcane

4. Phan +4 Daniel Howell & Phil Lester, YouTubers

5. Sonadow +14 Sonic & Shadow, Sonic the Hedgehog

6. Hollanov Shane Hollander & Ilya Rozanov, Heated Rivalry

7. Polytrix Rumi & Zoey & Mira, KPop Demon Hunters

8. Buddie -1 Evan Buckley & Edmundo Diaz, 9-1-1

9. Destiel -4 Dean Winchester & Castiel, Supernatural

10. Krusie Kris Dreemurr & Susie, Deltarune

11. Caitvi +74 Caitlyn Kiramman & Vi, Arcane

12. Superbat +31 Superman & Batman, the DC Universe

13. Pureshadow* Pure Vanilla Cookie & Shadow Milk Cookie, the Cookie Run franchise

14. Stobotnik Agent Stone & Dr. Robotnik, Sonic the Hedgehog

15. Radiostatic Alastor & Vox, Hazbin Hotel

16. Gelphie Glinda Upland & Elphaba Thropp, Wicked

17. Pazzi Paige Bueckers & Azzi Fudd, WNBA players

18. Radioapple -12 Lucifer Morningstar & Alastor, Hazbin Hotel

19. Bucktommy -7 Evan Buckley & Tommy Kinard, 9-1-1

20. Hannigram -7 Hannibal Lecter & Will Graham, Hannibal

First of all, I want to say that after waiting an entire month and finally finishing Vol. 2, my feelings were pretty much the same as most people’s: deep frustration. These three episodes felt painfully mediocre—nowhere near worthy of our expectations. Whether it’s the fact that Byler didn’t develop in the way we had hoped, or the overall narrative pacing that left people genuinely confused, it was hard not to feel disappointed.

I’ve seen countless discussions about these issues across sns. What I want to bring up here, though, are some points that are rarely talked about—though a few people have mentioned them—and which I believe are extremely, extremely important.

With only one episode left in the entire series, the most devastating thing for Byler fans is that so many of the clues and setups we noticed in the past haven’t been called back at all. It’s reached the point where we’re starting to doubt ourselves. We were once so sure—like Joyce noticing the Christmas lights flicker. But please don’t ignore the details. It was precisely by re-examining those details that I managed to calm myself down and reassess these three episodes. And now, I genuinely believe these choices make sense.

Let’s talk about character-driven storytelling and narrative function in screenwriting.

People have noticed that in these three Vol. 2 episodes, the screen time for Mike, Will, and El is almost nonexistent. Fans are angry because Will’s coming-out scene felt unbearably awkward, and because it seems like the creative team intended to use that scene to close Will’s entire character arc. At this point, Byler feel completely boned, and many are convinced this is outright queerbaiting.

Here’s the theory I want to propose first: Will’s emotional arc and character narrative are not over. What I mean is—they’ve clearly put all the important material into the final episode. The storylines involving Will, Mike, and El belong to the main narrative. For protagonists, their “highlight moments” directly push the core plot forward.

From a structuralist narratology perspective, a character’s high point is equivalent to a qualitative shift in the subject–object relationship. If you trigger that kind of narrative transformation before the final episode, you are essentially ending the story ahead of time. So from the very beginning, the writers had to make sure that the season finale would be the most powerful episode—and carefully decide how that power should unfold.

At the same time, this show excels at ensemble storytelling. We love every character, and every relationship between them—and that requires significant screen time devoted to supporting characters. But when supporting characters get their own highlight moments during the story’s climax, those moments must ultimately serve the protagonists. The narrative needs to follow the principle of perspective anchoring.

That means the writers have to “wrap up” each strong supporting-character storyline before the final episode, giving them their own moments to shine. Now you can see why the main characters almost disappear in these three episodes: their highlight moments must be saved for the final climax. And because the climax’s screen time belongs to the protagonists, the writers had an enormous amount of groundwork to handle in Vol. 2.

So please—stop blaming our creator for a moment, and look with me at what they actually did in these three episodes.

They gave Dustin and Steve a genuine relationship high point. Starting from Dustin’s trauma, moving through his conflict with Steve, then facing danger together—and finally, after the crisis, Dustin truly opening himself up and confronting that trauma head-on. All the odd behaviors Dustin displayed throughout the season are fully explained through this arc. And through conflict and reconciliation with Steve, their relationship is elevated to a deeper emotional level.

Another Byler pair: Nancy and Jonathan.

This couple starts running into problems as early as Season 4. They can’t be honest with each other, because their love was born out of shared trauma—and that pain never truly went away.

Most people have always believed this pair to be the most stable, unquestionable canon in the entire series. Because of that, many viewers didn’t even realize—until finishing all of Vol. 2—that what they were actually watching was a breakup. Of course, I still have some reservations about this particular narrative choice. People love Jancy too much; no one ever expected them to break up. But I think this is yet another example of the Duffer brothers’ fascinatingly chaotic brains. I won’t go deeper into that here.

Lumax! I have to say, out of all the characters in these three episodes, Max shines the brightest. She embarks on her own adventure with Holly inside Henry’s mental prison, while Lucas and Rovickie fight their own battle in the hospital. These two wars unfolding in parallel had me clenching my fists in anxiety for this couple.

And when Max slowly wakes up in Lucas’s arms, we finally see them reclaim each other. This heartbreaking pair—after enduring such a long stretch of trauma—at last reaches a moment of happiness.

These three sets of characters all receive their own highlight moments across these three episodes. The writers deliberately bring their storylines to a full emotional resolution, because the screen time that follows must serve the protagonists. So please, stop complaining that Mike seems hidden in the shadows, or that even Max’s wheelchair had more presence than he did.

I keep hearing people say Vol. 2 was boring, messy, or downright incomprehensible. But once you understand that the writers are carefully preserving the narrative rhythm to serve the final episode, you might start seeing these choices very differently.

That said, I still can’t convince myself to accept that much children content. I genuinely can’t figure out why those children were given so much screen time. Unless their presence is meant to serve Henry’s character arc, the amount of focus they receive feels excessive. And I still don’t understand the narrative purpose of these scenes.

In solid storytelling, supporting characters are supposed to function as contrast, echoes, or mirrors for the protagonist—in this case, the protagonist’s perspective is Henry’s. If they fail to do that, then it violates some very basic principles of narrative theory. So we’d better discover the true function of these kids in the final episode—otherwise, I’ll consider this the biggest misstep of the entire series. The same logic applies to Kali as a character.

From this point on, most of the remaining characters will likely appear as service characters for the unfolding main plot. Their personal highlight moments are already over. And I don’t believe El will truly face death. I don’t think any writer would openly telegraph the death of their core character in advance.

So in the final episode, what we’re likely to see is this: the main group finally enters the ultimate main quest and steps onto the battlefield. This central storyline is anchored by Henry’s narrative thread. The first wave of character highlights will likely focus on El (maybe with Kali?). As Holly’s storyline is wrapped up, we’ll be led into a false climax.

And then—the spotlight shifts from El to Will.

Because we all know things are never resolved so easily. Will’s trauma will be fully uncovered and exposed, triggering the true final climax of the entire series. Oh—and are we forgetting someone?

Yes. That damn guy whose emotions we never get to see clearly: Mike.

We are finally about to get Mike’s POV.

These two narratives—Mike and Will—will unfold simultaneously. And at the absolute peak of the final episode, we’ll see their shared character highlight moment. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for all season—the most emotionally explosive payoff of all.

Will Byler still happen? Yes. I still believe Byler will be endgame—and not quietly, but in an emotionally catastrophic, full-on eruption kind of way.

We will experience Mike’s avalanche moment through his POV.

How?

Here’s where I want to bring up Catradora.

I haven’t actually watched the show myself, but I’ve seen countless people on Twitter explain how this ship became canon. If, like me, you hadn’t heard of them before but are curious, I highly recommend looking it up. This is a lesbian ship that the Stranger Things writers are known to love.

Throughout the entire series, they were never officially acknowledged as canon—right up until the final episode.

And then, in that last episode, when Adora is in danger and on the verge of disappearing, it’s Catra who reaches her. But Adora has already given up on surviving. She says: “It’s too late. I failed.”

Catra screams in despair: “No! No! I will not let you go! Don’t you get it? I love you! I always have!! So please—just this once—stay!!!”

It’s Catra’s love that saves Adora. And Adora, in turn, uses love as a shield to protect Catra. With tears streaming down her face, Adora looks at Catra in disbelief and asks: “You love me?”

Catra pulls her lover tightly into her arms, crying and smiling at the same time: “You’re such an idiot.”

Adora looks at her, softly says: “I love you too.”

They gaze at each other—and then Catra cups Adora’s face and kisses her deeply.

Tell me that doesn’t sound like the most romantic Byler endgame imaginable.

And yet, I’m willing to bet that right now, very few Byler shippers actually believe something like this could really happen.

There are only five days left until the final episode. But I’m saying this with absolute certainty: Byler’s ending will parallel Catradora.

When Mike looks at Will, standing on the edge of death, all the love he’s hidden—deep, buried, and unspoken—will explode like an avalanche, impossible to ignore any longer. He’s about to lose the person he loves, and he screams:

“I do love you! I always do!”

This moment directly parallels the Season 4 pizza shop scene where he tells El “I love you.”

Oh God. Everything will flip—from the worst shit imaginable to pure electricity shooting straight through your bloodstream. Whether you believe it or not.

Guys. Believe me. That’s exactly what the Duffers want.

I’m willing to bet on it.

Everything—everything—has been part of their plan. Including the interviews we’ve seen, and all the hints they’ve dropped. That word Mike has been unable to say for so long—that “that thing” or “blank blank”—has become the biggest Chekhov’s gun of the entire series.

If this wasn’t all set up for one final, massive climax, then everything Mike has gone through—this awful “bad boyfriend” arc—would make absolutely no sense.

Finally, I have one more bold idea—this time about how El might enter Will’s memory world.

What I find interesting is this: whenever El enters someone else’s memories, the camera usually takes us through a lotof visual information. We’re shown things. But when El finds Will, we don’t actually see those things we would normally expect to see.

So can we speculate that El may have already seen some memories—and that what we’re seeing now is intentionally withheld? Or perhaps El will re-enter Will’s memory world later, and everything is being saved for the final episode’s climax?

The van scene. Will’s feels stupid at sunset. The coming-out scene.

Will explicitly says Vecna showed him something terrifying, but we still haven’t seen what that future was. Think about that for a second—Derrick’s visions were shown to us in full. Yet for Will, we’re expected to accept that awkward and painful coming-out scene without ever seeing what Vecna actually showed him.

And now we know something else: all of these scenes only last a few minutes onscreen, but every single one of them took an unusually long time to film.

So here’s the question: were these scenes shot with multiple cameras, deliberately designed to be re-presented later in a different form?

We already know what these scenes have in common: they are all Will’s trauma.

This leads me to my theory: in the final episode, El will enter Will’s memories and witness these traumas—not alone—but with Mike.

You might say, damn, Mike doesn’t have superpowers. But please pay attention to something extremely suspicious that happens in Episode 7.

At that point in the story, they suddenly introduce a brand-new concept we’ve never seen before.

Think back to the moment when Kali and El are sitting back-to-back on the grass. El shares her vision with Kali. Kali is literally standing inside El’s mind and asks: “Have you ever done this before? Shared your mind like this?” El shakes her head.

They even added visual effects for this scene.

Now ask yourself: if this concept wasn’t going to matter later, why introduce it at all? Why write this dialogue? Why spend extra money on effects for something supposedly meaningless?

There is only one reason this concept exists: El will share her mind with Mike.

Together, they will experience Will’s trauma.

They will see the truth behind the painting lie. They will see Will’s tears. They will see the moment Mike didn’t clock Will‘s flirting—and Will’s crushed, disappointed expression afterward. And they will finally see the terrifying vision Vecna showed Will: everyone—especially Mike—pulling away from him, fearing him, and not loving him.

In that moment, Mike will finally understand everything. He’ll understand Will completely. He’ll understand that Will’s feelings were never just a “crush”—they were love.

I swear, if the final episode unfolds the way I’m describing, Episode 7 will go from being the most disappointing episode to the greatest episode of the season—second only to the finale itself.

Of course, anything could happen. Maybe the Duffer Brothers really are just two assholes. If that’s the case, I hope they somehow see this post early enough to rush back to set and reshoot everything to save their careers.

Just kidding. LMAO. You and I both know that’s not happening.

But after calming myself down and asking how I’m still able to ship Byler after watching Vol. 2, I realized something important: destroying this ship would also destroy one of the most meaningful pieces of artistic creation and media analysis in recent years.

We’ve been so happy witnessing these two boys’ friendship—and the love growing inside it.

If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably noticed that English isn’t my first language. Still, I chose to spend a huge amount of time trying to express how I feel right now. I believe language is never a true barrier to emotional communication. I used AI and translation tools, so some phrasing may not be perfect—but my belief remains firm:

Will’s story does not end here. He will not become a sacrifice to queerbaiting.

One thing I genuinely respect about the Duffer Brothers is that they don’t try to please everyone. They create what theywant to create. They didn’t try to cater to Byler shippers with shallow, fan-service-y gay soap opera scenes. They know their foreshadowing and symbolism have been understood by some—and that many others won’t like Byler at all.

And honestly? That’s cool.

I’m a creator too. I make things I love in my native language in my spare time, and I wouldn’t change my creative intent just to match what an audience expects to see.

I truly love this show.

So let’s wait together and see whether the first day of the new year brings us something truly great—or completely destroys the rest of our year.

Anyway,Happy New Year. 🎆