meetinthewest - Tumblr blog

[meetinthewest]

The Upside Down is Will's Mindscape REVISED

I've been wanting to make a revised version of this theory to fit the updated canon so here it is! Most of this is a repeat of what I said in parts one and two (and three but I'm disowning her), but there’s a lot of new stuff too!

Dimension X is the origin of the democreatures, the Mind Flayer, and the powers. Gates to this dimension have been opened since 1943 when the USS Eldridge disappeared thanks to government experiments. El opened one of those gates in 1979. Then in 1983, she opened a gate to somewhere else. A different place to the dimension already explored for decades. This caused elements and monsters from Dimension X to spill over into this new dimension. So what is the Upside Down?

I think it's Will's mindscape.

Why do I think it's a mindscape in the first place?

When El entered Billy's mind, a huge red storm was visible from the beach memory. When the Mind Flayer/Vecna is in someone's mind, his mindscape combines with theirs, leaving his red storm behind. If this storm is from Vecna's mind, why is that storm in the Upside Down?

As El goes further into Billy's mind, she ends up at the place where he got flayed. This location is like a snapshot of that night. There's also a swirling red storm above it that creates a funnel. In the UD, the bats and Vecna's red storm spin in a circular motion above his house, just like Billy's Mind Flayer storm.

In Vecna's mindscape, he has his victims strung up on the pillars. This is identical to the makeshift graveyard in the UD library. His mind is also a snapshot of the broken Creel house due to lifelong possession. Billy and Vecna's minds are stuck in their traumatic memories and so is the Upside Down. The UD is stuck on the day Will went missing, Will's most traumatic memory.

Vecna's mindscape is overrun with vines for the same reason. In TFS, we find out Henry was possessed by the Mind Flayer. The vines come from Dimension X, so his mind mirrors these characteristics because it's corrupted. This is why the Upside Down has the vines. When El opened the gate, she connected Dimension X with someone's mindscape, causing the vines to spread throughout their mind.

The spores that infest the UD are especially interesting to me. Spores are not a characteristic of Dimension X or Vecna's mind. They're only from the UD. So why do the spores appear in both Max and Billy's mindscapes when they're being attacked? Unless there's another mind combining with theirs...

And then there's the fact that psychic contact opens gates to the Upside Down. Why would that occur? So a psychic connection with someone's mind opens a gate to... a random dimension? Nuh uh. It has to be a mindscape!

The first gate to Dimension X was opened using technological equipment, not psychic contact. Even El's Dimension X gate didn't use psychic contact. There's a difference for a reason! The Upside Down needs psychic contact to reach. But wait, the Russia gate! We'll get to that later...

They literally refer to the Upside Down as a brain multiple times as well. "If the brain dies, the body dies." It would make perfect sense for the Mind Flayer to call a mindscape its home.

And my favorite piece of evidence: Music opened a gate to the Upside Down not once, but twice.

To be fair, the second gate may have been opened by El when she connected Will to the radio. The thing that makes me think otherwise, though is the thumping sound in that scene. It sounds like it started before El reached him. Will was trying to get through the gate. El contacted Will through radios several times with no gates as a result, so why is this one different? It was the music.

What was the reasoning behind music saving them from Vecna again?

Music can reach parts of the brain that words can't... right. So why would music open gates to the Upside Down? Music is reaching into someone's brain! That dimension is a mindscape. But whose?

Will! Will! Will! The music need to have significant meaning to the listener. Should I Stay or Should I Go is consistently shown to have significant meaning to Will. They give us an entire flashback emphasizing it's importance! So a meaningful song to Will just happens to open a random gate? Unlikely. It was Will's lifeline out of his mindscape.

Vecna's red mind storm didn't appear in the UD in s1. It wasn't until Will's possession that the UD was taken over by this storm. Why is there a correlation between the storm forming in the UD and Will's possession? The UD is his mind. Will still feels the Mind Flayer and the storm haunts the UD after the particles were exorcised from him. This is because the Mind Flayer resides in his mind.

Multiple movies the writers named as inspiration support that the UD is a mindscape:

Peter Pan: In the original Peter Pan novel, Neverland is a map of a child's mind, or a dreamland

The Neverending Story: Fantasia is a physical manifestation of imagination

Alice in Wonderland: Wonderland is a dreamland

The Wizard of Oz: Oz is a dream

There are probably more movies with similar concepts on the inspo boards, but these are just the ones I've seen! Maybe these dreamlands clue us into the origin of the UD. The Neverending Story has been inspiration for ST since s1, with Will being a direct reference to Bastian, the creator of Fantasia. Why compare these characters at all? Will has also made a world through his imagination.

This fits extremely well with Will's characterization. We constantly see Will trying to hang onto DnD because he uses the game as escapism. DnD is literally an imagination game! In s3, we never really see the UD. This is the same season where Will fails to use his imagination because his friends deem it childish. It's connected! We don't see Will's imagination land because he's losing grasp of it.

This also explains how Will was able to shadow walk in s2. It's easy for him to slip into the UD because it's his mindscape. If now-memories and shadow walking were symptoms of possession, Billy would have experienced it too, but he didn’t. Will is special. Will even felt the Mind Flayer in his neck BEFORE it possessed him. Why would he feel it before possession? It was already in his mind.

I haven't seen TFS myself so this is based on what other people said happened, but when Henry was controlled by the Mind Flayer, the smoke would be spinning around in the void. Weird how Will's Mind Flayer influence was shown in the UD, not the void.

Yeah, you could say that Will’s visions in s2 were just visions, not the real UD, but I beg to differ.

And Owens would agree with me. He asked if Will felt cold to the touch when he was in his episode. Why would he feel cold during a vision? It was pretty obvious Will meant that he felt scared... unless Owens knows more than he lets on. He knows that the Upside Down is Will's mind. That's why he asked. That's also why after watching his men fix the UD communication, he went to rewatch Will's tapes.

Speaking of other people in the UD, wouldn't Will be able to tell when people venture there if it's his mind? Nope! Max couldn't tell El was in her mind until she flung Vecna across the room. Will probably can't feel them either. Ok but wouldn't Will feel the burn? Also nope! The vines in the UD are not from there, they're from Dimension X, so Will needs to be connected to the hive mind to feel their pain. The UD is just the background, not the hive mind. Oh and that whole hive mind thing is another UD-mind comparison.

Back to Owens, he said that the anniversary of Will's disappearance opens up neurological floodgates. Gates? Meanwhile, the giant gate downstairs is getting bigger and leaking out into the world. Yeah. He knew.

Now I need to talk about the VR game for a second. I'm not sure how canon this game is to the show, but I'm going to cover it just to be safe. Considering Jamie Campbell Bower did voice acting for it, I'm guessing a good chunk is canon. It has A LOT of proof for this theory. Like a lot. But still take it with a grain of salt since the game doesn't align 100% with the show.

Here's a link to the gameplay I watched (I skipped around but still)

The VR game is about Vecna wandering around mindscapes. Creatures from Dimension X seem to be infesting these mindscapes and the player has to fight them off. Interesting. So democreatures can go into minds? Dimension X critters wandered into the UD when El made the connection! The UD could very well be a mindscape.

There's a point in the game where Vecna reaches at Will's head and claims him as his own. This transitions into Vecna being inside the UD version of the Wheeler house. It's implied that he went into Will's mind. So he went into Will's mind and ended up in the UD. Which could mean nothing.

Then he goes even further into Will's mind to possess him. There, he sees Castle Byers with spores around it. Not the UD Castle Byers, the real world one. Will's void is the only one that has spores. A few other minds like Alice Creel and the demogorgon have floaty things, but they're more green and glowy, so I don't think they're the same thing. Spores are the staple of Will's mind.

As I said before, the spores are not present in Dimension X or Vecna's mind, so these are solely Will's. And they're in the UD. But why would Will have spores in his mindscape?

Joyce mentioned in s1 that Will loves Christmas. This is important enough that the season ended with the Byers celebrating the holiday. So what if Will tried to imitate Christmas by making it snow? Even Holly mixed the two up! Vecna may have taken this and put a dark twist on it, making the snow into diseased spores. This would tie into the stigma around gay men at the time because of the AIDS crisis. Vecna made Will's mind diseased to reflect his internalized homophobia.

Vecna's first glance at Will in this game prompts him to believe Will is the key. Alexei described the machine that opens gates as the key. Will is the key, he is related to the gates.

Will is the one to say they're going to miss the opening. The opening of the gate! The Russians just happened to open the gate once Will got to the mall. Were they waiting for him? They passed through a huge crowd of people, it's possible that one of the Russian spies were watching. They knew they had to be in Hawkins for the gate to properly open. Will being near was the key. The scene Will is watching here is a dream sequence, yet another Upside Down dream link. Later on when Alexei says that the door is opening, they cut to this scene of Will. Will is an important piece of the equation.

So while there was a gate opened using technological equipment, they still needed Will for this to be done.

That begs the question, why does the Upside Down only sit beneath Hawkins? Why couldn't they open a gate in Russia? A gate to Dimension X was accessed in the middle of the ocean in 1943 and was also opened in Nevada. The Upside Down is different... they need Hawkins. Why? Let's ask Mike.

Right... Hawkins isn't the same without Will!

Will's mindscape is bound to Hawkins. When El opened the gate, it altered his mind and made it stuck there. This is why Will doesn't feel Vecna until he gets to Hawkins. The giant gates didn't rain spores for two days, but when Will is there, they suddenly start. He's even warned before it happens!

I think Will's distance from his Hawkins-bound mindscape is the reason for his forgotten memories (birthdaygate). He's losing himself and the others are losing him too. He goes fairly unnoticed in Lenora. No new friends, Jonathan drifts away, Joyce is less protective, Mike never calls. He didn't even become a target for bullying even though he's visibly gay and friends with El (the new "weird" girl). It's like he's invisible. This may be symbolizing how a piece of him is missing.

There was a scene in TFS where Brenner was able to use equipment to see into Henry’s mind and from there, he could see Dimension X. Since I haven’t seen the scene myself I’m not sure how exactly it went down, but if it means what I think it means, Brenner used Henry’s mind as a bridge to reach Dimension X. It doesn’t feel crazy to assume the UD works the same way!

And I think that's what the whole “blue meets yellow” thing was about. Dimension X is the yellow dimension, the Upside Down is blue. There's probably a border where these dimensions meet. They meet in the west! The west is where Will is (California) and where a Dimension X gate was previously opened (Nevada). The UD is spreading to Will.

This is what Dustin says on the other side when they're messing with the lights (a Will creation btw). Interesting how he compares the mind attacks to crossing dimensions. Mindscapes are other dimensions!

There's emphasis on this being just like Mother Gate... but is it really? El wasn't in the demogorgon's mind, she just poked it from the outside. Unless it was the same and El entered someone's mind.

The name Mother Gate has a lot of implications, one being El's mother. Terry Ives' mind is stuck in a memory loop. Perhaps the Mother Gate title hints at the owner of the Upside Down suffering the same fate. Very convenient that Will's kidnapping parallels Terry's entire memory sequence (see here).

Speaking of stuck memories, this relates to my theory that Will has creation powers and time traveled through memories (read here). Why would Will have the power to create objects in the UD? Where did it come from? Well if the UD is his mind, we have our answer. There's clearly some form of creation power in these mindscapes and Will harnessed this power by memory hopping in s1. Now it's stuck in his memories. And because of an incident, his mindscape is physical, so these creations are real.

So what happened exactly? How did El open a gate to Will's mind?

We're led to believe that contact with the demogorgon is what opened the gate to the Upside Down, but did it really? In that scene, El touches the demogorgon, it roars at her, she's pulled out of the void, and THAT'S when the gate opens. There's a few seconds between the contact and the gate. So what if something else happened that we didn't see?

The demogorgon was eating an egg when El touched it. This egg is found right outside of Castle Byers in the UD. Coincidence? When Hopper finds this egg, it’s almost like he's in a trance. Then he gets interrupted by Joyce screaming Will's name over a destroyed Castle Byers. El was in a trance-like state, then the demogorgon screamed at her, much like this scene of Hopper and Joyce. What if this is hinting at El connecting with Will after touching the demogorgon?

Maybe when the demogorgon screamed, it startled El, and she overshot her contact. Will could have been inside Castle Byers in the real world, next to the demogorgon on the other side. El ripped a tear through the real world, Will's mind, all the way to Dimension X where the demogorgon was. This made Will's mindscape a physical location. (I made a longer post about El thumping Will’s head here!)

Will was then targeted by Vecna because of this connection. Think about it! Why are there such heavy implications that Will was in a Vecna vision that night, only for him to be taken to the UD? That place is his mind.

So there you have it, all the reasons why I think the UD is Will’s mindscape. If you want to read more little tidbits about this theory, check out the Will's Mind Theory tag!

[meetinthewest]

The Superman Reference

How “on the nose” it is but so many of us missed it

A man with a secret and a disguise to conceal the truth from his love interest…

Superman and Clark Kent

Whenever Superman is brought up in this fandom, it’s usually just pointed out as gay Mike evidence. While I do agree that Mike is in fact gay, I don’t think that’s the only point of the reference. Additionally, Superman is brought up because of dual personas/disguises.

It’s definitely worth noting that Argyle refers to El as “Supergirl” and “superpowered girlfriend” but only Mike refers to El as “Superman”. More specifically, he only refers to El as such in the van scene. He even takes things a step further and compares himself to Superman’s love interest… Lois Lane.

Lois Lane is unaware of who the man is behind Superman (Clark Kent).

In the same scene with the Superman/Lois Lane reference… Will expresses his feelings for Mike… under a disguise!

Clark Kent is Superman’s alter ego. He is Superman in disguise. He is the persona of Superman that allows him to blend in and essentially “hide”. As above describes, he’s passive and introverted… much like…

I must say that, it’s very interesting how for most of Stranger Things, Will and El are not “present” at the same time. When El appears, Will disappears. When Will appears, El disappears. This of course is mainly true during the first two seasons of the show.

Now, even if you do not subscribe to the theories that Will and El are actually somehow one and the same or even to theories that Will has powers… Will being Clark Kent still works.

Much like Clark Kent with Lois Lane, Will has been harbouring a major secret from Mike. His secret of course being that he’s gay and in love with Mike. Though perhaps, he may have other secrets as well. We will just have to wait for ST5 to know for sure.

As we all know, Will is disguising his feelings in this scene. He is “El”; thus he is “Superman” here.

And I think Mike has known a long time… deep down.

[meetinthewest]

Mike is named after famous theoretical physicist

John Archibald Wheeler

I reference this in my art here if you’re interested in checking it out.

We really should talk about this more…

John Wheeler is known for his work on promoting Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Mike has art on his wall titled “Relativity” by M.C. Escher based on the theory.

John Wheeler is also known for popularizing the term “black hole”. Stephen Hawking even referred to him as “the hero of the black hole story”.

He has also done a lot of work on quantum mechanics. Specifically, he has theorized that time may work much differently on a quantum scale. Wheeler’s Delayed-Choice Experiment, and the One-Electron Universe are examples of theories in which he postulates if subatomic particles can essentially “time travel”.

While I know Mike is “not a dog”, he does share something major in common with the dog in Back to the Future (who happens to be referenced in ST). Lol.

Anyway… much to think about.

[meetinthewest]

am i crazy for pointing out the green lightning bolt pointing very clearly at mike and will

[meetinthewest]

For those still in doubt that Will flayed/influenced Hopper in ST3…

So when someone flays another basically what happens is, as Mike states they “[take] over their mind” and “basically become him”.

Now, it’s very interesting how in ST3 we see Hopper act childish- but exclusively in ST3. The very same season Will desperately holds onto his childhood.

It’s suspiciously very meta for him to say lines like this. It’s intentional. The writers didn’t just forget how to write Hopper. We are supposed to notice this abrupt shift in his persona and overall demeanour.

As Will says, he likes to hide. Interestingly enough Will and him share that in common. Note the “only used me when he needed me”. Same is true for Will using Hopper. Hopper still has moments where he is his “normal” self.

Whenever Hopper is “serious”, it’s really him. Whenever he’s emotional and kid-like, he’s under Will’s influence.

The Clues

So, let’s start by going over some of the major clues, shall we?

Him saying this to a Byers of course. Interesting writing choice.

The original script tells us that Will wears colourful clothes. That’s his style and he stands out because of it. Now it seems to be Hopper’s style all of a sudden too. It’s even noted by officer Powell here that it’s surprising to see Hopper dress this way.

Play these transition scenes. The first one has Lucas asking Will for permission to take a shower, then we are shown Hopper showering. I suppose Will granted Hopper said permission. Then of course we have El asking “how can you tell when someone’s a host?” afterwards the first person we see is Hopper himself. A perfect example of a host. They answered her question!

We are often shown Hopper acting childish. Look at how he’s holding his pillow! We never saw him doing this in seasons prior. Then we have Murray outright calling him a “manbaby” and “children”.

When “Hopper” orders an alcoholic beverage he struggles with the pronunciation. Reminiscent of a young person attempting (but failing) to appear older and more mature.

We even are shown him being fed lines that came from a Byers.

Now for the major clue. Why oh why did they show Will while Mike explained that Hopper threatened him? Not just Will, but Will moving pieces on a board. He’s essentially controlling things! Bending to his will, if you will. I mean it makes sense. We know Will was very jealous of Mike and El and complained about them! Just like Hopper, he wants them to break up. Perhaps even more than Hopper actually does.

Then we have Mike referring to him as crazy! That’s their special word, so naturally “Hopper”/Will does not take this well. Look at his face! He looks betrayed.

The References

It’s extremely subtle, but we have another Byler/Jopper parallel here. Earlier in 3x01, we see Joyce holding Hopper’s left hand, very reminiscent of Mike holding Will’s right hand last season. Then we have Hopper communicating in Morse Code as he and Mike fight to lock/unlock the car door several times. Notice how we have a shot of his left hand doing the locking of the door? Same one Joyce held. I’ve tried to work out what he’s communicating but I’m falling short. If anyone wants to take a stab at it please let me know your findings!

Then we have the Back to the Future references. Again very subtle, but there nonetheless. As we know, Will is compared to Marty Mcfly a fair bit, ever since his very first appearance!

Do you recall the plot of Back to the Future? Marty travels to the past, accidentally changes some things, then has to bring his parents back together! Will does the same thing… through Hopper!

And just like Marty… things get a tad bit awkward…

Now keep in mind… these scenes all occur within the same episode. While trying to set up his mother and Hopper together through “flaying” Hopper, Will accidentally gets his mom interested in him (as Hopper). That is why he refers to Murray as “Freud” aka the Psychologist who created the theory of “the Oedipus Complex”. This is also why Robin drops that line about of the movie.

So… How?

If you recall back in ST2, Hopper is spat on by something and was trapped in the UD. Will is able to sense him and thus is connected to him. Hopper is a part of Will’s hive mind. I also believe they may be biologically father and son… but that’s for another post.

The Implications of All of This…

So what does this mean? I’m not fully sure, but it seems like Will has some abilities here. I have no idea if it’s future Will manipulating things, or present Will and I’m not so sure how aware he is of all of this.

But in regards to Mike… here are some funny implications…

ST3 shows us a Mike with a peculiar fascination with bears. Bears seem to be associated with Will and “bear” has a specific other definition…

Now the icing on the cake with this is the fact that Mike has made comments regarding Hopper’s weight multiple times! So, he’s well aware of Hopper’s “bear” status. Mike shows interest in bears because he’s interested in Will. Will essentially is a “bear” while he is puppeteering Hopper.

It’s also nice to know that Will actually did get that hug he yearned for from Mike. We just didn’t realize it. Mike and “Hopper” hugged a tad longer than normal too while Will was facing them of course.

To conclude, I know this theory sounds so silly and I sound insane, but I swear to you… this is real. I may be wrong about some aspects of this but I know Will influenced Hopper in some way. Remember though, it’s not a constant thing. Will only “used him when he needed to”. Will experienced being flayed in ST2, then he became the “flayer” in ST3.

If you have any questions or comments about this theory feel free to send me an ask! These things are fun to think and talk about.

[meetinthewest]

So the very first white rabbit mention is in the first episode, with Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit playing at Benny's Burgers, which is owned by Benny Hammond - a reference to Benjamin Lockwood and John Hammond who were the fictional characters who built Jurassic Park.

Someone help me find Mike's matching dinosaur please.

This is a movie that hits all the beats - clones, Alice in Wonderland, viruses, computer codes, radios, biology, nontraditional mating, limited power supply, doors, creatures, labs - and we've had references every season which I'm too lazy to find screenshots for, but a lot of them involve the demodogs and meat monster scenes, and Scoops Troops finding the green goo (which is DNA in the movie).

And of course the whole setup with Hopper not being into science, and Dr. Grant not being into computers. Grant hates kids and is trying to evade them all through the movie, while Hopper has lost his and is finding another.

Also, Joyce using her belt to turn the Russian machine's keys is a definite reference to a scene where Grant has to tie his seat belts together because they have the same parts - and it's foreshadowing a plot twist later.

Anyway there have been a LOT of references. And boy do we have a white rabbit one here.

‘Whte_rbt.obj’ was a computer virus backdoor programmed into the system by Dennis Theodore Nedry, a computer programmer who accepted a bribe to smuggle dinosaur eggs off the island.

The virus would basically sabotage the park's security system, turning off the park's power supply, which would reset the security locks and shut down the electric fences so he could gain access everywhere in the park except the Raptors section.

We had a pretty important reference to this with Bob at the labs in 2x08 (and it's an explicit one), but we've also had mentions of electric keys pretty much every single season.

The virus would covers its tracks by deleting itself once the proper commands were given, BUT it would trigger an infinite loop if you tried to get into the system without the ‘magic word’.

In the movie, the only way to break the loop is to shut down and reboot the system. In the books, they discover that they restarted the system while it was running on auxiliary electricity which quickly runs out and they have to manually turn on the main electricity.

I've talked about how it feels like Brenner is purposely letting El 'die' at Nina before bringing her back to life, and how that always seems to be tied to her powers returning and strengthening. Also the frequent references to her battery life. And this fantastic post talks about Mike's monologue and the heart being in the wrong place.

In the books, you undo the virus’ damage by using the command ‘fini.obj’ BUT this is built into the park’s code and you have to reset the mainframe to clean the phone lines from the false modem sounds the virus makes.

I think they're using the computer virus analogy here in some way with Hawkins / the upside down / the mindscape / heart.

Also - you have the virtual virus, but you also have all the dinosaurs which are clones created by mixing dinosaur DNA with other animals like frogs (lol.) All the dinosaurs were made female to prevent breeding, but they begin to mate because some amphibian DNA in their makeup allows them to change their sex when put in a single sex environment.

But they are also missing an enzyme and will die if they go too long without it.

But also.

[meetinthewest]

im currently rewatching stranger things for the sole purpose of analyzing camera angles, blocking, lighting, and whatnot, so here’s another little thing i noticed

this scene. when jonathon and joyce call out for will and the camera cuts to an angle from inside castle byers. castle byers where will was hiding. this scene foreshadows that will was right there the entire time by showing his perspective. especially since the entire scene jonathon and joyce were shouting his name, but at the end joyce yells “where are you,” when he was right where she looked

also just imagine we open season 5 and its this scene from will’s perspective. will hears joyce and jonathon calling out for him and he tries calling back, but its useless as he hears their voices fading away

[meetinthewest]

brb gonna go cry....😭

[meetinthewest]

Mike Stopped Time For Will

Seriously. He did. Let me explain.

These scenes represent stasis. These cars are broken; their wheels unmoving. Not unlike how time is “stuck in 1983”.

I really, truly, believe that wheels represent time in this show.

This scene, where Will encounters the “Demogorgon” for the first time tells us this. The closeup shot on the wheel spinning clockwise then stopping- that’s time!

And who’s responsible for stopping the wheels of time?

Wheeler of course.

We could steal time… just for one day (Heroes by David Bowie)

If you fall, I will catch you, I’ll be waiting… time after time (Time after Time by Cyndi Lauper)

[meetinthewest]

the reason why season two of stranger things is my favorite, is because it’s so validating to watch as a queer person.

the feelings were ALWAYS there, but when you’re a child you can’t fully grasp what you are experiencing.

but it is there and it doesn’t just disappear.

will and mike have been in love with one another ,but lacked that maturity to understand it. It got lost between who they are and who the world wanted them to be.

i’ve seen a lot of people demonize the pure love between children (of the same sex) , since they have such a flawed understanding of what queer love truly is.

It’s not always inherently sexual or depressing - even if that’s what media mostly likes to put out.

byler is real and raw , and it’s what we need to see in lgbtqia rep.

[meetinthewest]

I just realized they showed us two lovers in the back of the van before they show us Will and Mike having their conversation + the love confession lmao because Argyle and Eden go there to spend time together

[meetinthewest]

I don't see enough people talking about how the season ended with Byler and El and Hopper. Like those were what they closed out on. They pretty much closed out on "Byler and El not needing Mike"

[meetinthewest]

all the guilt Jonathan feels for not being there for Will and not saving him before he experiences all that trauma always makes him prioritize his little brother, even when he sees Nancy go away because of her grief for Barb and wants to be there for her too because he likes her, he has to choose to give priority to Will and his family... like he does for the college problem... plus I think all his fears of bringing her down with him are probably screaming in his mind that she deserves better than what he can give her, and he doesn't want her to do what he's doing by abandoning his own life for others, he wants her to succeed in all she does and go on to become the best journalist ever

[meetinthewest]

How BttF and Terminator Subtext Told Us How Important Will Is…

And how important Joyce and Hopper are in relation to Will.

Upon first glance, the BttF and Terminator references seen gratuitous and nostalgia bait but- they offer subtext that run a lot deeper than you might think.

First of all, both movies involve time travel and an important mother, father, and son dynamic.

For Back to the Future: Marty (son) travels back in time and tries to make sure his parents (George and Lorraine) get together. He has to really push George to ask Lorraine out. Now, thinking of the flayed Hopper theory- Will does the exact same thing as Marty! While Hopper is flayed by Will- he asks out Will’s mom. Will influenced him to do so!!! Don’t believe me? Well… remember the episode where Murray basically pushes them to have sex? By them I mean… Joyce and flayed Hopper (Will…). That’s the same episode Robin says “I’m pretty sure that mom wanted to bang her son” (her comment is about the movie BttF because Lorraine at one point “has the hots” for her son Marty.) Plus, Hopper refers to Murray as “Freud” (who is known for the Oedipus complex…)

Now for The Terminator references. The Russian man with the appearance of Arnold Schwarzenegger as Terminator first encounters Hopper at Enzo’s where his “date” with Joyce was supposed to be at. It’s very suspicious that he happens to be there. If you’ve seen The Terminator, you’d know that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character’s goal is to kill John Connor (son)’s mother Sarah Connor (mother) before she gives birth to him. Kyle Reese (father) travels back in time to protect Sarah. So, I’m thinking this Russian man had the same goal- targeting Will’s mother, Joyce. Luckily Joyce stood Hopper up for their date and after Hopper and Murray managed to keep Joyce safe the entire time but OH BOY it’s suspicious.

So yeah they’re really pushing this mother, father and son dynamic…

[meetinthewest]

remember how will couldn't describe that awful feeling after the mind flayer entered his body? he literally couldn't find the words. and then joyce said "what if not words?". and he drew. drew impulsively, feverishly, he was torn by the feeling inside and he reflected it on the paper.

and what do we have in season 4? will draw enthusiastically, long and painstakingly. he created this drawing, living day to day with only one feeling for mike which will could only express in the only way he could.

my heart breaks even more.

[meetinthewest]

honestly this shot tells me everything i need to know about the love triangle

LOOK AT HIM AND WILL. THEY LOOK LIKE A FUCKING MARRIED COUPLE DAWG COME ON

mind you their fight happened maybe 10 minutes ago. and they're already attached at the hip. no personal space. like there are so many ways they could've positioned them to make it look less like mike and will are a duo and el is alone, or that mike and will aren't automatically cool after the fight, or that mike was more concerned with being there for el. they didn't have to make mike and will stand that close they just didn't

if mike really loved her on her good days and bad days he wouldn't be standing with will, who he just had an explosive fight with. he'd be at that table with her comforting her, because even though it was a 'bad day' for her and she really messed up he still loves her and want her to know he's there and on her side. instead he stuck with will and left her all alone and never once implied he was on her side and would be there for her through it. he left her to feel like a monster. if you love someone, and you know you love them, you simply don't do that.

[meetinthewest]

mike told el he loves her and immediately after it max died and the apocalypse started.

visual storytelling guys visual storytelling