bitofanupsidedowner

[bitofanupsidedowner]

the way the milkvans envision mike rejecting will i'm s5 feels exactly like in avatar the last airbender when the ember island players make everyone super out of character and then they have actor!katara reject actor!aang like don't worry! i'll always love you... AS A FRIEND! and actor!aang is all happy about it while real aang looks devastated. same exact energy.

[bitofanupsidedowner]

interesting.

[bitofanupsidedowner]

*shaking, covered in blood and dirt, dark circles under my wide and crazed eyes* i can be normal about the media i like

[bitofanupsidedowner]

I was rewatching the “Beyond Stranger Things” show on Netflix and stumbled across a VERY interesting clip… I’m surprised no one’s ever commented on this here

“Unless you(Will) have powers…”

THE DUFFERS REACTION??? MILLIE SAYING “All right. I’ll stop talking.”?!???!?

[bitofanupsidedowner]

The fact that I usually despise love triangles and think of them as pointless drama, it's a big red flag for me when trying to find shows and books, yet my favorite TV show has literally every character be a part of one at some point and the Byler/Mileven love triangle to me is the best romance portrayal ever written really says a lot about Stranger Things and the Duffers. I full heartedly trust them to finish all of their love triangles perfectly.

[bitofanupsidedowner]

Having Byler doubt? Look no further than this scene right here.

Mike: “I should have explained myself because then maybe Eleven would have taken me with her and things would be different— but I didn’t know what to say.”

Will: “Sometimes, I think it’s just scary to open up like that, to say how you really feel… especially to people you care about the most. Because what if, what if they don’t like the truth?”

Then the camera pans to Mike looking pensive and nodding, which really makes no sense unless Byler is endgame.

In the argument that Mike is talking about, El begs Mike to tell her that he loves her. Milevens like to say that the reason Mike doesn’t say I love you to El is because he struggles with it due to his parents’ loveless marriage.

If this is the case and the thing that Mike failed to say to El is that he does in fact love her, why would he nod at Will’s words? Will asks “What if they don’t like the truth?”. Mike knows that El would like that truth. She asked for it!

In other words, the truth is not that Mike does love El. He isn’t having trouble saying that he loves her— the problem is that he doesn’t. And if Mike doesn’t love El, then the only logical S5 progression given Will’s established feelings is Byler endgame.

BY THE WAY if you’re thinking, well, he could just be encouraging Will rather than agreeing, because I briefly had this thought— it makes no sense. What is the point of this scene if that’s the case? Mike shares his relationship struggles, Will does the friend thing and offers insight, and Mike sympathizes but doesn’t relate? Nothing is established.

They’re fictional characters. Their words have purpose. Will specifically responds to Mike’s relationship problems with this insight into his feelings because the audience is meant to hear what he’s saying and apply it to Mike.

[bitofanupsidedowner]

I was rewatching the season 3 finale because i wanted to be insane about byler and i noticed this. I believe we're going to have a parallel scene between the one where Joyce tells El about Hopper's letter, but with Mike and El in s5 because what's one more familial love parallel milkvan is bones. Anyway here's what goes on :

El sees Mike looking at the painting or Mike thanks her for it. She has no idea what it is.

Foreshadowing the fact that Mike's speech was in fact that and not a confession because it wasn't genuine? Anyway the fact that it says heart to heart and the painting's meaning is "You're the heart" MUST be intentional.

You ever commissioned it, did you?

And then we have El see it for the first time and realize that Mike is the one that Will likes who makes him act weird.

Apart from the parallel there's also two other things that caught my attention. Firstly, the teddy bear is present in the scene, and i remember i read an analysis about how bears refer to Will on the show.

Secondly, and that's my favorite part, Hop's letter starts off as an ingenuine, forced speech, using JOYCE'S WORDS VERBATIM,which he doesn't believe at all. Exactly like Mike's confession is stiff and hesitant because it's lying,its Will's words. But then...

When he says screw it, i have to talk from my actual heart , we get one of the most revealing coded scenes about Mike's thoughts regarding the byers' move (or really, his ih and love for Will)... And bam, CONFESSION!!

[bitofanupsidedowner]

FIRST PEOPLE WERE SAYING THAT WAS GOING TO LOSE HIS ARM NOW THEYRE SAYING HES GOING TO LOSE HIS EYE I CANT DO THIS GUYS STOP. CAN HE JUST NOT SUFFER FOR ONCR

[bitofanupsidedowner]

I NEED Vecna taunting Mike so bad. Like please make him face his internalized homophobia I’m begging you Duffers 🙏

[bitofanupsidedowner]

Still blows my mind that they chose to put an unconscious Will in Jonathan’s room after the shed scene in s2 instead of in his own room, thereby leaving Will’s room open and empty for Mike to scream at Hopper in.

Like as a writer, as a director, as a storyboarder and basically anyone involved in choosing what scenes happen in what room, the most obvious choice is to put Will in his own room. After all, we later see Joyce enter Will’s room specifically to stare at the open windows and realize they need to stop making the environment suitable for the Mind Flayer. It would’ve been the perfect opportunity to show Will lying in his own bed with the windows open, hammering this point home.

But instead, they put him in Jonathan’s room. Which makes it clear to me that putting Mike’s breakdown in Will’s room, with Will’s wallpaper and his yellow walls, standing right about where Mike spent the night sleeping on the floor—in the clothes he’s been wearing for 3 days and 3 nights now—to stay by Will’s side, was very important to the creative team.

And I think it seriously lends credence and weight to the interpretation and theory that a major part of Mike’s breakdown was not only survivor’s guilt, but a culmination of the past week’s events regarding Will’s condition, as well as because this means Hop knew Will’s condition was worsening and yet he didn’t bring El into the loop to help Will, something Mike implies he thinks she could do on Halloween (“El would [understand].”)

We know and understand that Hop was prioritizing his adoptive daughter’s safety, but to Mike, it was outright betrayal on several levels. In his eyes, this man, this authority figure who carried Will’s unconscious body through the lab, didn’t tell Mike that the person who had the greatest chance of saving Will’s life was alive, much less try and get El to come help. El had to show up on her own in order to get involved. In his eyes, it’s like Will was dying of a rare disease and Hop had the cure the entire time.

For all Mike knew, Hop would’ve never revealed El was alive, Will be damned. (I personally think Hop would’ve broken eventually, especially for Joyce’s sake, but Mike probably didn’t think the same in the moment.)

[bitofanupsidedowner]

[bitofanupsidedowner]

my little prince that has to sit at the highest point he can find

[bitofanupsidedowner]

“I didn’t know what to say” YES YOU FUCKING DID OH MY GOD

[bitofanupsidedowner]

Imagine if, at the beginning of the same episode where Mike later rescues Will from the lake--we saw the actual deleted scene of a tearful Mike riding his bike home. Including the deleted scene would foretell the rescue beautifully, while the rescue itself gives Mike the emotional closure he needs. It would be the perfect way to transition from helplessness to empowerment, all done in one episode that leaves spectators happy for him.

[bitofanupsidedowner]

not to mention giving her a gift wasn't even his idea it was lucas's 😂😂😂 and he didn't know what to get her which annoyed lucas and will. he was basically tryna make lucas do all the work for him. it's just funny how wrong they need to characterize him to get their ship to make sense

milkvan's version of mike is just.... byler's mike remixed to make hetero even though canon doesn't support it 🤐

i haven't seen these specific ones in a while but i just got reminded about those romantic hypotheticals milkvans used to pitch a lot that were already answered explicitly within the show

like the ones that went "if el ever went missing, mike would turn the world over to find her!" or "if mike and el broke up, el would be so sad!" and "if el and mike ever fought, mike would bring her a gift and do anything he could to cheer her up!"

i don't even know what show they're watching sometimes. like. what does mike and el's relationship look like to people who love the curtain. honestly i don't know if they're being intentionally obtuse at this point because it really feels like a deliberate effort to ignore what's actually being shown. cause it's not like they're just normal levels of wrong, they've been specifically proven wrong without an ounce of vagueness

[bitofanupsidedowner]

i haven't seen these specific ones in a while but i just got reminded about those romantic hypotheticals milkvans used to pitch a lot that were already answered explicitly within the show

like the ones that went "if el ever went missing, mike would turn the world over to find her!" or "if mike and el broke up, el would be so sad!" and "if el and mike ever fought, mike would bring her a gift and do anything he could to cheer her up!"

i don't even know what show they're watching sometimes. like. what does mike and el's relationship look like to people who love the curtain. honestly i don't know if they're being intentionally obtuse at this point because it really feels like a deliberate effort to ignore what's actually being shown. cause it's not like they're just normal levels of wrong, they've been specifically proven wrong without an ounce of vagueness

[bitofanupsidedowner]

i haven't heard anyone talking about this on here for maybe a while but the proof that mike was performing during his monologue isn't just in the monologue itself. it's in its foreshadowing.

remember the suzie house scene? and how it clearly contains a lot of symbolism and foreshadowing for later than season and probably season 5?

well it foreshadows the love monologue quite clearly. it has a girl being filmed choking and dying - just like how El is choking before the monologue.

it's also no coincidence that the child doing the filming is dressed and made to look like a young duffer brother lmao

"It looked genuine."

Is no one going to talk about the implications of this? Like I get that not everything means something but the fact that it's a girl choking, and someone filming her for no reason, someone who's dressed to look like an older guy kinda like a director of the show they're in, and saying something actually looked genuine, as if they were directing the guy to look genuine whilst not actually being genuine is really.....interesting.