⋆☆⋆wyctmcts?⋆☆⋆

I could go on and on about these two. Them ending up together would've made the incredibly shitty finale slightly less incredibly shitty. A lot of people saw themselves in Will and the scene where he unlocked superpowers through love and self-acceptance had a huge impact on its own. But a lot of people also saw themselves in Mike and decided to come out so they didn't end up like he did in the finale (alone, depressed, stuck in his hometown, carbon copy of his dad etc etc). Before the last season, there was a clear majority of Mike x Jane shippers in the general audience but this kinda flipped on its head when volume one came out. People finally SAW the romantic lighting and score and micro-expressions we had been seeing for years. People finally got on board with the idea of them ending up together. There was momentum like there hadn't ever been before... only to get wasted in volume 2. Some people in the byler fandom say December 2025 (the month between the two volumes) was genuinely the happiest and most excited they've been for something in a long time. God we miss that month so much - when the possibilities were still endless. Anyway, the stranger things fandom as a whole has a tendency of getting really hostile sometimes. But it was relatively more calm in the byler side of things. People were coming up with really creative theories and 'gates' and edits and fics and art. A community of outcasts gushing over the possibility of two outcasts ending up together on screen in a show whose creators repeatedly emphasised their supposed love and support for outcasts all over the world. Byler becoming canon would've also contributed to an increase in queer slowburn stories. Mike would've been seen as one of the better written queer characters in media. But since they didn't end up together, he's basically just an average jerk.