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lunaysol8 · 8 days ago

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I'm gonna cry.

Okay I haven’t seen anyone actually talk about this scene from S1E2 as Byler evidence but I think it’s so telling and honestly insane

In this scene, El asks the boys what a “friend” is and they explain it to her. They tell her and it’s wholesome. Then Lucas performs a spit swear with Dustin and it’s funny. This conversation was just leading up to a funny bit between the two! Right?

Wrong. Oh my god, WRONG.

I was like actually kicking myself when I realised I missed this detail not just on the first watch but on the second as well.

(I should have put a trigger warning in earlier but I didn’t so I’m editing it in now- TW for: homophobia, attempted suicide, bullying, reference to the AIDS crisis)

“Friend?”

“Yeah, friend: Will?”

El doesn’t understand what a friend is so Lucas gives the example of Will.

“What… is friend?”

“Is she serious?”

Dustin shrugs

“Um… A friend is someone—”

“—Is someone that you’d do anything for”

Lucas specifically referred to Will in his example of a friend. When El asks him to expand on their bond, he struggles to elaborate and seems exasperated with her questions. Dustin isn’t much better. He doesn’t seem to care much for answering her and they both chalk it up to the weirdo being weird.

Before Lucas can even begin his clumsy explanation, Mike jumps in with

“—Is someone that you’d do anything for”

Which is. Wow. He says it so simply, so bluntly, so instantly and he looks overjoyed at the opportunity to talk about his loyalty to not just Will specifically but also the rest of his friends.

And, bless him, he’s literally bouncing on the spot when he says it. This scene is adorable but it’s also kind of heartbreaking, especially when you take into account when Mike tried to end his life at Sattler Quarry to save Dustin’s baby teeth.

He would literally do anything for his friends. This isn’t hyperbole, this is Mike being excited to show El, his new friend, that he’s loyal and protective. He’s not exaggerating when he’s saying he would do anything because friends don’t lie.

And the rest of his friends know this. When Mike is about to jump, Dustin begs him not to because he knows Mike and he knows just how important loyalty and being a protector to his friends is to him.

But the way he says this:

“Someone you would do anything for” It’s like he’s beaming with pride for his friends. He’s ecstatic at the idea of calling them his friends and being able to be there for them, to protect them, and is proud of them for just being themselves.

Obviously, this could include the entire party, especially with how it relates to Dustin and Mike ‘protecting him’ at Sattler Quarry.

But the fact that Dustin immediately follows this up with:

“You lend them your cool stuff like comic books and trading cards”

Okay so maybe we are still talking specifically about Will. In the first episode, Will and Dustin race and Will, the snarky little shit (affectionate), declares that Dustin owes him a comic. This is. This is a pretty blatant reference to Will and Dustin’s friendship.

What he says is also a lot tamer than Mike’s declaration of undying loyalty which reflects Dustin and Will’s friendship vs Mike and Will’s status as besties for the resties. Quite literally.

Besties for the resties.

We should also take into account the fact that Mike most likely didn’t just jump off the cliff only to save Dustin’s baby teeth after seeing the person he would do anything for’s limp body being pulled out of the water. He would do anything for them both.

But the fact that in some sick alternate universe Will Byers was found dead in the quarry and 12-year-old Mike’s body was found there days later should be enough evidence to be honest.

And if El hadn’t have found Mike and Dustin when she did, this would have been their reality. And Mike knew this was an almost certainty, unaware that he would be saved, and he jumped anyways.

And how does that look? In a conservative small town where no major crime ever happens, the adults spread rumours of a 12-year-old Will Byers being hate crimed for being gay after going missing instead of having any compassion towards him or his family because of this child’s supposed sexuality. His body is found not long after he goes missing and within days, the boy he was rumoured to be so close with jumps in after him and dies.

And let’s be honest, Will most likely didn’t get this much shit for his alleged queerness because he liked art or was quieter than most. He may have gotten a picked on at school but for his parents to pick up on this? Lonnie was a bastard which is standard I guess. Common knowledge. Like the quarry meaning certain death thing. We knew that. Maybe he just gave him a hard time because he didn’t like baseball (Insert coded heart-to-heart with Jonathan and Will destroying Castle Byers with a baseball bat because he thought his feelings towards Mike were childish).

But for Joyce to bring this up to Hop instead of omitting both slurs and just leaving it at “he’s a sensitive kid” or just her most relentless “find him”s? For her to avoid the question when Hop asks whether or not Will is gay? Huh.

Most probably, he was really- suspiciously- close with a male friend. A male best friend. A little too close and a little too affectionate and for a little longer than is normal for boys to be so close with each other. Maybe this best friend even thinks that befriending Will was “the best thing he’s ever done”.

Mike was willing to die. That’s not fucking normal.

His best friend went missing and bear in mind Mike had little to no evidence that Will was alive at this point. He was presumed dead. Mike was 12 years old when he tried to kill himself. You can’t just chalk this up to trying to save Dustin’s baby teeth.

“You make that jump from this height, that water turns into cement. Hits you like a ton of bricks, break every damn bone in your body.” -Hopper

Mike understood that he was going to die. Outside the fact that it’s common sense and probably common knowledge in a small town, where he’s probably been warned by parents and teachers not to play too close to the quarry, it’s basic physics. He’s a physics nerd. He knew that he would die and he still went through with it.

The fact that they emphasise just how brutal Mike’s end would have been by having Hopper stand there and explain in graphic detail what would happen if someone fell over the edge? And then they send the point home further by having Mike weigh his options for a good while before making the decision to ignore Dustin’s pleas and ,I don’t know, any will that he has left to live? Is insane. No pun intended.

I don’t think I will ever get over the quarry scene. Mike jumps off to ‘save’ Dustin and possibly to join Will, out of love and out of loyalty, but also out of lonliness. Fucking insane. Especially with how that would have looked in a conservative town during the AIDS crisis, if El hadn’t interfered. And how Dustin must have felt after he begged Mike to stay alive for him and saw Mike actively ignore him and try to sacrifice himself to save him.

So yeah. Mike would do anything for them both, to a concerning degree.

But back to S1E2, El asked what a friend was. Lucas hesitated. Mike excitedly said some deep shit. Dustin followed up with something more lighthearted but still painful (lowkey imagining how he must’ve felt after failing to get Will home safe, and then later get Mike not to jump) and—

“—And they never break a promise”

Mike when I catch you Mike.

What promise could Mike be referencing here? Friends don’t lie, perhaps? Yes. That. That’s like the only option at this point, I fear.

And we’re back to Mike specifically describing his relationship with Will. How do I figure this? It’s established right off the bat.

S1E1- Will chucks the die somewhere and he rolls lower than thirteen. Lucas tells him it doesn’t count if Mike doesn’t see it. Lucas is willing to lie. Lucas is willing to break the promise. Mike is specifically referring to his relationship to Will here.

“It was a seven.”

“Huh?”

“The roll: it was a seven. The Demogorgon. It got me. See you tomorrow.”

Will dgaf about winning the campaign if it means lying to Mike. He would never break his promise. (Do not bring up the Season 4 painting right now istg this is pre-the-puberty-amplifying-internalised-homophobia-thing (and also I could go on a whole rant about what Will meant by “ripping of the band aid” there so lmk if you guys would be interested in that))

Immediately, within the first eight minutes of the first episode of the first season of Stranger Things, it is established that Mike and Will do not fucking lie to each other no matter what and they have a bond much stronger with each other than with the other two boys.

What did Will say again?

✅ The roll was a seven.

✅ The demogorgon got him.

❌ He will see Mike the next day.

Oh. Okay. That’s not like. Blatant foreshadowing or anything. This might be a reach but I feel like the fact that Will never lies to Mike but told him that he would see him tomorrow, then went missing, may have amplified Mike’s desire to find him faster or at least served as a way to communicate to the audience that Mike and Will hold their promises dearly and if Will says he’ll see Mike tomorrow, Mike will do everything in his power to see him as soon as possible and this is made further tragic by his attempt to join him at the bottom of the quarry.

Maybe a reach. I’m confident about everything else though so who gaf. Let a girl have fun.

“—Especially when there’s spit.”

“Spit?”

“A spit swear means—Puh—you never break your word. Its a bond”

Comic relief for all the devastated re-watchers, classic. This scene definitely wasn’t intended to be sad but I’m a sap, I fear. Plus the absurdity of Lucas’ spit swear and how seriously he talks about it contrasts how bubbly Mike is when he talks about promises when he is the one who holds loyalty so dearly that he is willing to give up his life for it.

Oh my god, I’ve just had a thunker of a thought. It’s. Oh my god. I’ve had a revelation. But it’s 5 am and I’ve been trying to put my thoughts into words for like a good couple of hours now so. It’s to do with the spit swear thing and how it relates to Mike’s asexual treatment of El until Will’s disappearance. Oh my god. Stay with me. It sounds like such a reach and it may well be but I genuinely unironically think I’m onto something here. Especially with how comedically Lucas’ bits are played out compared to Mike’s. Holy shit. Aaand it’s nearly 6 am. Well. I’ll edit this for basic grammar mistakes later, it's fine.

Okay, I’m gonna end this part here so just let me know if you guys want a part 2 and I’ll tag some lucky individuals in it maybe.

Also let me know if colour coding the characters’ names was too jarring or something? I feel like it helped me get through writing this monstrosity but low-key idk how the rest of everyone will feel sooo just lmk :)

#stranger things #stranger things tumblr #byler #will byers #mike wheeler #byler endgame #mike wheeler is gay #byler nation #gay

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lunaysol8 · 14 days ago

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The white goo in the S5 teaser is the Upside Down dimension collapsing. My theory on exactly how Vecna and the Mindflayer will be defeated in S5E8...

So WHAT the f*ck is this white goo in the background? I have a theory... I think this shot is from the final battle in S5E8 when Vecna and the MF are finally defeated.

"But wouldn't a clip from the final battle be so risky to include in a teaser??" You might ask. Well, yes! But they've done it before...

Lo and behold, the shot of Nancy with her shotgun blasting Vecna's ass into oblivion was included in the S4 trailer. And now we know that Vecna was being attacked from two different dimensions in S4 (both in his mindscape by El, and in the Upside Down by the teens).

So here's my theory.

To me, this looks like the walls are collapsing and melting down into formless, colorless nothingness. It’s all going “back to the vat,” so to speak. This is reality (or at least this version of it) being undone. Deconstructed. Returning to its original blank slate.

Visually, the first thing it reminded me of was the white goo that the robot ‘hosts’ in Westworld are made out of...

The robot hosts look like normal humans on the outside, but their building blocks are anything but normal. They are not born, but mentally conceived and then built by human consciousness, and formed out of synthetic-biological material. They’re artificial, yet strangely organic. You catching my drift yet?

The Upside Down mirrors this, with its fleshy portals and that big ass meat wall, and I wrote about that in this recent post and why it supports the theory that Will actually created the UD within his own mind and brain (read the "The UD is Will's Mindscape" theory by @willbyersabyss). UD Hawkins can almost pass as normal, until you look at its building blocks. Outside of the weird copy of Hawkins that exists within it, the building blocks of the UD look nothing like our dimension or even like Dimension X, which both look rocky and naturally-occurring and born of the universe, not made of flesh...

(Spoiler alert below for a line said by Vecna to Will, as seen in the vol 1 merch style guide leak)

All this talk of "building" and "deconstructing" leads me to one of the show's biggest twists: Will is Vecna’s "builder." We know via a leak that Vecna says to Will: “You were my vessel. My spy. My builder.” We've seen Will be a vessel and a spy, but not yet a builder...

Except, yes we have! On the day he disappeared, he built the UD dimension (in which Vecna and the MF have taken up residence after finding a way into it from Dimension X in 1983) in his brain with his own imagination (and possibly with some accidental help from El). It was built out of nothing, and to nothing it shall return. To complete his arc that began with its creation in S1, he will destroy it once and for all in S5, with Vecna and the Mindflayer still inside. He will literally ctrl alt delete them from EXISTENCE by wiping out the entire dimension. With just his mind. And it's gonna be epic !!! It will give our heroes the peace and closure they deserve to live their lives, never again having to always look over their shoulder wondering if another gate will open again when they least expect it. PTSD = cured.

It also makes thematic sense: defeating Vecna = confronting trauma. It will be a psychological battle, not just a physical one.

Stranger Things unfolds through three layers of conflict--the human, the supernatural, and the psychological--with each level shaping and mirroring the others. Vecna and the Mind Flayer symbolize psychological trauma, PTSD, and cycles of abuse--wounds that run deep across the series (we see it not just with Will, but also with El, Mike, Max, Nancy, Billy, Billy’s S3 victims, Vecna's S4 victims, and even young Henry Creel himself in TFS). Season 5 returns to this theme through the anniversary effect, setting its story near the anniversary of Will’s disappearance. The story centers Will bc the show itself begins on the night of his disappearance, anchoring his trauma in fear, isolation, and invisibility.

That’s why Will is positioned at the heart of the final battle--not because of physical power, but because healing his trauma is key to defeating the source of it. His arc also hinges on finally accepting that he is not a ‘mistake’ and IS worthy of love, particularly through his connection to Mike, which will be huge for Will. His healing will not just resolve his own story, but unlock the emotional solution to the conflict itself and the central message of the entire show: that love can overcome hate.

The Upside Down reflects a duality. It is both physical and psychological, just like Will’s trauma. His suffering began long before he got trapped in the UD and possessed by the MF--it is rooted in his father's abuse, the bullying, and the homophobia. Physically and mentally destroying the UD, Vecna, and the Mind Flayer will symbolize Will’s healing from that trauma, as well.

"We'll fix it together, okay?"

This is also why El has never been able to defeat Vecna on her own with just her physical powers. She failed in 1979, even with the power of happy memories, and again at the end of S4. Although it’s an internal battle, trauma cannot be overcome in isolation--real healing happens surrounded by love and community (it’s why sadly, for both Henry Creel and Billy, who are DIRECT foils to Will and had similar abusive childhoods, were kind-natured, and were also called sensitive or faced homophobia, respectively, were NOT able to overcome their own traumas and cycles of abuse). El and Will will face this final battle together, supported by their friends and family.

This is foreshadowed in Season 4, when El gets bullied and she tries to fix her broken diorama alone right before her fight with Mike, rather than accept Will's help and support. That moment foreshadows not only:

How Will tried to fix El and Mike’s crumbling relationship for them all season long

But also how both El and Will continued to isolate and try to deal with their emotional struggles on their own without confiding in and leaning on each other (it's why they barely even felt like friends or siblings in S4, they carried everything alone)

And lastly, El’s failed solo battle against Vecna in his mindscape, because she tried to do it on her own again. It's a recurring issue that the group has always over-relied on her and her powers to land the final blow. In S3 she lost her powers as a result, and in S4 she failed altogether. But this time, in S5, Will and El will fix it together.

In Season 5, Will will not need new powers to defeat Vecna. The battle will be psychological, not just physical. He will realize he has always had a unique connection to the UD because he created it, and therefore has the power to end it. The message being: healing from trauma requires inner strength, and Will's journey will show that love and self-acceptance are what ultimately make us powerful...

So all this brings us back to this set-up in season 2:

If the brain dies, the body dies...

The UD is in Will's brain. Vecna's physical body and the MF are hiding in the UD. If the UD dies, they die.

In other words... if the mind heals, the monsters die.

This is Will's fMRI brain scan from S2 (which kinda looks like Vecna lol). According to Dr. Owens in S2, hippocampal abnormalities are typical with PTSD patients. So in other words, our psychological trauma can literally, physically rewire our brains. Will's gonna have to do some rewiring in S5 (AKA ctrl alt delete the UD, Vecna, and the MF)...

Vecna will be attacked from multiple dimensions again

Lastly... I think that in that shot of Nancy and Jonathan in the S5 teaser, we are looking at Nancy from Vecna's POV (or it will very soon become his POV). Like I said, it'll be a callback to the S4 shot (shown above) of Nancy blasting Vecna with her shotgun in S4 while El distracted him in his mindscape.

The group will once again be fighting Vecna in multiple dimensions (kind of paralleling what I said about how conflict in ST always develops across multiple fronts: human, supernatural, and pyschological!). I think she and Jonathan are cornering or distracting him in the UD, while Will destroys it from the outside/from within his mind. We might even get Max also dealing with him in his mindscape in S5 while all this is happening (that is, if she hasn't woken up by E8 yet and that's where she's been stuck all season). Vecna and the MF will be defeated by being attacked on all fronts, from every dimension, by everyone in our group (TBD on what El and the other characters’ roles will be in the final battle, I haven't thought that far ahead yet but lmk your theories! I’m thinking maybe Joyce and Hop might be helping Jonathan and Nancy escape the UD to let Joyce finally worry about saving Jonathan instead of Will this time lol).

Unfortunately for Jonathan and Nancy though, this means they are also still stuck in the UD, so they will need to find a way to get out of there before it collapses... but I think they'll be ok :)

TLDR: Vecna and the MF's ugly asses at the end of S5

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