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don’t forget “the silver cat feeds while blue and yellow meet in the west”

silver cat=vecna

feeding=vecnaing fred chrissy max and patrick

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Lumax cause I miss them

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one thing i find funny about byler is that (in my opinion) Mike's look in s4 is infinitely gayer than will's, the character who's canonically gay, everything from his hair to his clothes just screams queer

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no comment needed

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Mike and Brenner parallels are definitely there but what i feel like a lot of people misunderstand is the parallels between Mike and Brenner aren’t a reflection on Mike- they say far more about El and her dependency on the men in her life (and why she needs to be single).

Disclaimer- IN NO WAY DO I THINK MIKE IS ABUSIVE ETC.!! He can be a bit of a crappy boyfriend but outside of the romantic aspect of things he has a beautiful friendship with El and they have a lot of (platonic) love and trust for one another. Mike and Brenner couldn’t be more different, which makes the reasoning behind these parallels all the more clear.

El is a victim of abuse by Brenner and also what she went through with Henry can easily be read as grooming. As a result of this El bases her self worth around what people think of her. She spends her entire life as an experiment, she is bought up thinking she is only as valuable as she is to Brenner and his experiments. Without her powers she is nothing to him in her mind (and this is also the sad reality of her situation at this point). If she isn’t successful and doesn’t progress as Brenner would like then she sees herself as worthless- we see this dynamic in season 1 when Brenner asks her to come back and be his “good girl”. If she does what Brenner, the most prominent and influential figure in her life, who acts as a “parental figure” to her (as papa) says she is good. If she doesn’t she’s a failure in her head.

When she meets Mike Mike is kind to her- okay yes he wanted to send her to a mental asylum but he still took her in, gave her blankets etc.- that’s probably the most genuinely kind thing anyone has ever been to her. She sees that Mike is a good person, he takes her in and as we see through the e.t. inspiration and also the parallels that Mike has to Hopper, he becomes almost like a parental figure to her. How does she keep that person in her life and keep him happy with her so he won’t leave? She is useful to him and helps him look for Will, his missing best friend who he is desperate to get back. She straight away wants him to know that she can help. When he gets mad at her after they find Wills body? She immediately starts searching on the walkie to prove that she can still get Will back, she’s still of use to him.

Again this speaks nothing about Mike- El is a traumatised little girl, a victim of abuse who has had no access to therapy or any idea what a healthy normal relationship dynamic looks like. She’s just a little girl fighting to keep someone she wants to stay in her life in her life the only way she knows how to.

We see a similar thing happen in s2- she looks up to Kali in a very similar way. She shifts her whole style, she helps Kali locate people and does as she says because she sees her as an older sister- a guardian, an older family member who has great influence over her and she looks up to. Though this is the season where we see the start of her independence arc, her arguing against Kali and Hopper her new father figure- though still we see in the beginning of season 3 how Mike and Hopper still have a great influence on her. She wears supposedly Hoppers handy down clothes and not ones she likes. She has Mikes poster hanging on her wall- her new “use” to him, her new role in his life is being his girlfriend so she throws herself into that, neglecting forming friendships within the party that much (Max looks pretty shocked to see her when she first approaches her, if Mike doesn’t spend a lot of time with the party El spends even less than what he does with them because she can’t go to starcourt with them). She sees being a girlfriend as her new “use” to Mike, and tries to be the best one she can at her own expense. She gets anxious and upset when he is only two minutes late, she voices in the breakup scene that he treats her like a “pet”, implying she’d been unhappy for a while but bottled it up.

It’s Max who introduces her to the idea of picking something she likes for herself- “Not Hopper, not Mike. You.” and that’s what makes her friendship with Max so special, as she starts to grow out of the idea that she’s “only as valuable as she is useful to others”

Unfortunately however she looses her powers and Max (by moving too Lenora) around the same time. She’s always been Mikes superhero- they first got together because her powers were of use to him and used her powers to get Will back and save Will and Hawkins in s1/2. That’s why Mike calling her his “superhero” hits so hard. Because she can’t be his superhero anymore- she can’t fill that role. Again she’s just a teen girl who was a victim of abuse and had no access to therapy. As she’s bullied more and more she feels even more useless, worthless. And if she’s no longer “useful” to Mike, if she can’t be his superhero he will be upset with her and leave her (again he never would but this is what El thinks). That’s why she lies- she has to make up for her lack of powers by being perfect in every other aspect. “Good at maths”, “popular”, her “grammar getting better” but she isn’t. But Mike can’t know that so she lies

This is why it’s so important for El to remain single in s5. It’s not the men in her life who are abusive (anymore) but it’s about how she relies on them and bases her self worth on their opinions of her. She may be a monster but if she’s a useful monster that’s okay in her head. But finally we see at the end of s4 she begins to see that she’s not the monster, or just Mikes superhero. She’s El, she’s her own person with her own autonomy and thoughts and she needs to fully step into being independent. That’s why Mike and Brenner have so many parallels- it’s not about Mike. It’s about El and her mindset and arc. It shows that she isn’t ready for a relationship yet.

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being a mileven shipper must be so boring

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Dunno if this is intentional or not but it’s kiiinda interesting how that whole bit in 1x01 where Dustin and Lucas are saying that Nancy’s different now that she’s dating Steve (and not joining D&D) also works for Mike in s3 acting different (and not joining D&D) now that he’s dating El

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oh my god can you imagine El's letters coming in the mail and Will asking his mom hopefully if there's anything for him and having to be told no every. single. time.

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Is no one gonna talk about the fact that Mike makes Will feel “normal” and okay for being him while Mike makes El feel alienated, monstrous, and like she’s only a superhero to him.

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BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

maybe hot take but queer m*levens who actively dislike byler have some mike wheeler shit of their own going on

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"joyce has this telemarketer job, she's always on the phone, mike won't stop whining about it"

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The "it was all a d&d game and they're back in Mike's basement" theory is so funny to me because like...

Assuming that everything that happens in the show is part of the "campaign", you're telling me a group of eleven year olds sat in a basement in 1983 and one of them was like "and what if my character is in love with your character and spends years quietly suffering, thinking his feelings are unrequited?" And the other went "got it" and started penciling emotional repression and internalised homophobia onto his character sheet.

Will: roleplaying, trembling voice "and when you're different, you feel like a mistake..."

Mike: age 11, scribbling furiously “he’s in love with me but I’m too emotionally repressed to notice.”

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Vecna lowkey did Will a solid when he called Mike "my friend" in the hospital because imagine if he just outed Will's crush to everyone like that. A crazy and nefarious deed.

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100% canon btw

I like to imagine that Will and Mike used to hold hands literally all the time as little kids. Maybe even kiss each other on the cheek because Joyce used to do that to Will and so he assumed you just did that to people you loved. they only saw it as showing love and they loved each other. That’s all they knew. They’d hold hands when going to the playground, when they felt scared, or just when walking somewhere. They only stopped when people started giving them weird looks and they realized it wasn’t “normal.”

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PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS PLS IM MANIFESTING THISSS

This isn't rlly an s5 prediction, but I wanted to draw it anyway

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another reason why byler SHOULD be canon

hey guys! this is more proof on how fucked up the mileven fandom/the ga acts with byler!! sorry for being a bit down today im just very annoyed at how we are getting treated by other people.

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This scene is not talked about enough

the shot just screams forced conformity and gender roles

What do you mean in a show where "its forced conforming that's what killing the kids, that's the real monster" these two end up together at the end?