#washroomgate

All of us, as Bylers, need to eventually realize that metaphorically/mythologically speaking, Eleven acts as a personified manifestation of Byler’s love.

Eleven SYMBOLIZES an idealized, childish & naive version of Byler that is pure, wholesome & cute—but also needs to eventually adapt, change, be integrated or put to rest in order for their love to be able to evolve into a more mature, renewed version that healed and learned from past trauma, embraced rebellion, developed independence and “emancipated” itself. The character that encapsulates or is tethered to this evolution is Max Mayfield, but that is a topic for another post.

Eleven lying, feeling jealous and possessive, being bullied, publicly humiliated, reacting with thoughtless violence, experiencing brutal guilt, reliving flashbacks to her most traumatic memory at Rink-o-Mania—ON WILL’s FORGOTTEN BIRTHDAY of all possible days, mind you—is NOT just about Eleven herself, at least not in a superficial character sense.

What it means is that, in the past—probably on the dreaded & forgotten 1979 birthday party event where Will turned 8 years old—the love between Mike and Will ALSO went through some kind of traumatic experience involving lies, emotional turmoil, severe bullying and humiliation, violence and guilt. To the point that its memory had to be forgotten, buried or erased in-universe by the characters themselves, SOMEHOW.

And in true Stranger Things fashion, this very same core traumatic series of events are going to be mimicked and replicated in s5 in a similar way. AKA, involving similar beats, motifs, themes and emotions.

Eleven GOING THROUGH IT after all that, being ARRESTED by authorities, and TAKEN AWAY from Mike and Will, while Mike and Will themselves are both angry and distant at her and also each other—this quite literally means Byler’s relationship SUFFERING, being PUNISHED, FRAGMENTED and WITHDRAWN while Mike and Will become ANGRY and DISTANT at eachother.

What’s Birthdaygate’s connection to Bychance, you ask? Well COUNTLESS things, but most importantly, and to make it short, 22Gate. Chance quite literally WEARS Will’s birthday on his basketball tanktop. He is PLAYER #22. This was a discovery by @ven0moir btw, please check her brilliant posts.

Bonus point among a billion others: Mike, in his desperation for finding El (aka BYLER aka Will’s love for him after feeling the stinging pain of jealousy), stumbles into an ORANGE 🍊 WASHROOM no less; to witness something he shouldn’t.

In the official s4 scripts, he originally even goes as far as PEEKING UNDER A GODDAMN BATHROOM STALL. You cannot make this shit up. It’s insane.

In s4’s case, the “something he shouldn’t” was girls in their privacy; in s5 vol 1, it was Will stumbling upon Rovickie; in s5 vol 2, let’s see what they have in store involving jealousy, a washroom, invaded privacy, and the color orange.

It’s also right after this scene that Mike goes on his famous fake IDGAFer butthurt jealous cokerant about how Will has been neglecting their relationship. With multiple orange extras and set pieces in the background, for some reason.

Mike: You should have told me Eleven was having trouble. (You should have told me our relationship was having trouble AKA you searched for love somewhere else.)

Will: i didnt know they were gonna be here, Mike. (I didn’t know you were queer / interested in me / going to catch us here.)

Mike: yeah, but you knew she was having trouble for like, a year, and you didn’t tell me. (Oh, so you’ve been having this secret relationship for like a year and didn’t tell me.) — Now we finally know why later in this scene they say “a year” instead of the 6 months that have actually passed since Will left Hawkins (AKA left Mike lmfao). It’s because the purpose was to foreshadow Will meeting Chance in late 1986 and Mike finding out their secret relationship a year later, in Nov 1987 (ST5 vol 2).

But yeah, as always I’m sure it’s all just a totally random coincidence with zero implications to the wider narrative.

There’s so much more to say about this, but after volume 1 and by now, I think it should be obvious that the Byler plotline still needs to get severely worse before it gets any better (and eventually pays off in an actual, truly satisfying manner).

The Byler issues haven’t been processed or addressed. The true conflict and drama still haven’t happened in the story. THE STAKES HAVE NOT YET BEEN RAISED.