I'm crying why was she Mike the Brave in a past life

I'm sorry I just feel like I cannot stress this enough...

SHE WAS LITERALLY PRESSURED INTO KILLING HERSELF AND THEY MADE HER DEATH SCENE ABOUT MIKE

A SIXTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL WAS TOLD THAT HER LOVED ONES WOULD BE IN DANGER IF SHE DIDN'T COMMIT SUICIDE, AND THEY MADE HER DEATH SCENE ABOUT SOMEONE WHO ISN'T HER

not that we need another reason to believe that mileven is not meant to be, but... we are shown repeatedly that the touch of the person you love can wake you up from the trance. for max it's lucas. for will it's mike (s2 halloween, hospital, famous spy scene). hell, sometimes for will it's enough to just hear mike's voice (s3 cinema, s5 abyss). it is that deep for will.

but we also should take into consideration the situations, where the touch fails. this is how the show reveals to us what someone truly means to the person in the trance.

for example, nancy doesn't wake up from vecna's trance when steve is touching her. stancy? not gonna happen is all i'm saying, steve is not that person to her.

so what does that mean when they make a big deal of showing how mike grabs jane's hand and she doesn't wake up? well, he isn't that person to her either.

jane is not in love with mike, he's not her soulmate. the same as nancy is not in love with steve.

i wonder if there are more.

why do we discuss the fact Mike calls his gf superMAN, but do not discuss that he associates himself with a girl? meaning that he does accentuate twice on the aspect of dating a guy:

1) in his imagination (forget that it’s El for a sec, he might even not speak fr about her in this scene) he has a picture of a superMAN

2) and then he goes “at least if another person dated such a GUY, this person had a cool job”

don’t focus on Lois Lane being a girl, focus on her being in a relationship with a guy

yes, it’s logical to come up with LL after that reference, but the ref is done for a reason, nah?

this is soooo deliberate I can’t unsee it

conclusions conclusions

Mike can’t lie to his friend in the very last seconds of her life.

read more why byler is endgame in 5x08 already even w/o conformitygate here

I was today years old to find out that they were sitting in pairs… in different rows, not all together

Byler happening is inevitable, even if it never becomes canon on screen.

Mike knows Will is gay now. That alone changes everything. And the most important thing is this: Mike never actually finds out that Will is in love with him. The best friend scene is not a rejection. It’s Mike accepting Will for who he is, without ever being told the full truth.

Because now that Mike knows Will’s sexuality, the door is finally open. Open for Mike to recontextualize years of intimacy, devotion, jealousy, and emotional reliance. Open for him to question himself in a way he never allowed before. Open for the possibility that what he has always felt toward Will was not just friendship after all.

There is simply too much subtext. Too much narrative weight. Too many loaded looks and deliberate choices. Byler cannot be dismissed as nothing, even if the show leaves it ambiguous. Even if it never says the words out loud. Some stories do not need explicit canon to exist. They live in implication. In subtext.

And they have barely even begun their lives. They have just graduated high school. Their world has finally slowed down enough for them to exist outside of survival mode, to breathe, to imagine a future that is not defined by fear. Of course nothing is resolved yet. Of course everything still feels unfinished. Coming of age does not end at eighteen. For many people, that is where it finally starts, when feelings are given time, when truths are allowed to surface, and when the one constant in your life finally becomes your forever.

mike saying bye to will twice in the s1 finale is one of my favorite cornplating details in the show like that’s such middle school crush behavior fr

I’m kinda bummed my kids didn’t get to bond much at the resolution of their arc (season two??)

of course mike is in love with a verb not a number he’s a writer not a mathematician

The way he sees Will is annoyed so he has to immediately be annoyed as well