nobylerdoubt

[nobylerdoubt]

MIKE'S MONOLOGUE & CONTRASTING PARALLEL ||

Same setting but Will is now actively in the middle of their relationship, framed like he's in the back of Mike's mind, Mike is responding to his feelings instead of the moment being genuine only between Mike and El like it was in the first season

[nobylerdoubt]

I’ve seen someone bring up the ring El’s wearing on her index finger and apparently people say it was a gift from Mike and obviously the fans interpreted it as a promise ring that he gave to her in between s3 and 4 and she’s still wearing it in season 5 and I remember pointing out Nancy having one as well and someone said that Jonathan could have gave her one as well and now idk I don’t wanna go on another doubt spiral so I want to know your take on this😭

Ok, so the foundations of the whole "promise ring" thing are so shaky in my opinion. I went through the mileven promise ring posts on here to try and get a better understanding of it, and here's what I've learned.

The original idea about the ring came from a Netflix Geeked tweet, which kind of stated it like it was a fun fact. (Go girl, give us nothing.) It simply said Mike gave El the ring between seasons 3 and 4. It was Milevens who jumped to the conclusion that it was a promise ring.

This follows a longstanding idea that some milevens have that the two are gonna get married, especially super young and in season 5. This has no in-show foundations outside of Millie Bobby Brown's interviews as a CHILD where she said the two were "basically gonna get married."

Now the idea that Nancy got a promise ring from Jonathan... I can't find the post, but the one screen still I've seen of Nancy wearing the ring comes from season 1 - one year before Nancy and Jonathan even seriously consider dating. Let alone getting married.

To me, the ring holds the same double meaning most Mileven imagery and narratives in the show. Mike gave El the ring, and while at first it may look romantic - it's actually Nancy's ring that she gave away (as she states she gave away a lot of things from her room/life in season 4.) Yet another example of what is supposedly meant to be a romantic relationship between Mike and El being compared to familial relationships.

Honestly, I think the only reason they made that distinction is because, as with all things we see in this show, every prop, every costume, and every set dressing is put there with great purpose and meeting. The designers think to themselves - what are we trying to portray about these characters. We already know a lot of her costuming in s4 was integrating her into the Byers family with similar hair, borrowed clothes etc. I think where in s3 we see El starting to explore what she likes, following Hopper's 'death' in s3 we see her try and integrate more with others and focus on the relationships she still has.

On top of that we see in season 1 that El thinks Nancy is pretty, wears Nancy's clothes, and really tries to emulate Nancy a lot. (They're never beating the sibling allegations). So I think by having El wear Nancy's ring is also an homage to season 1, and the most logical explanation for how she got it is that Mike gave it to her.

All in all I don't think we have to worry about it being tied to any storyline in season 5. If they wanted us to know about the ring, they would have talked about it/shown it in the show rather than some 'fun fact' that was tweeted by an offshoot Netflix social media account.

Look to the blue hair-tie for example - Hopper's daughter Sarah wore a blue hair tie in the flashback scenes we see of her, which then moves to Hopper's wrist, where he wears it to remember her, and eventually to El's wrist to symbolize his two daughters. Even though they never explicitly tell us this in the show, we can pick up on it and it follows a very clear storyline.

The ring just showed up in season 4. I wouldn't even have noticed it, and there is no visual trail of how the ring got to El. I think if they wanted to do something like that they would have shown Mike wearing some kind of ring or something else in s3 maybe, then El's wearing it in s4. But it's not like that - the closest in-show reference we have is to Nancy's ring in s1. So it doesn't have this visual story of going from Mike to El, or even from Nancy to Mike to El. It's just there.

[nobylerdoubt]

My byler doubt is the monologue script, by watching the scene, it's pretty ambiguous how El is taking it, but the monologue says otherwise. Also Finn almost saying they got closer after thr monologue

I tried to post this earlier but then the tumblr app on my phone had a seizure or something? So if this is double posted I apologize.

First and foremost - I don't trust any version of the script. Not the Duffers script, and especially not the leaked script.

The leaked script was very prose-y for a script. I feel whoever was behind posting it (I wasn't super involved when all that stuff happened) was looking for attention because it was very inflammatory - one minute it's byler proof, the next it's mileven endgame. They knew who they were targeting that "leak" to.

As for the Duffer script - I think if there truly was anything in the script that would have spoiled what's going to be a huge reveal next season before they released it (did they release it? Again I'm not a script-gate expert) they would have edited it out. But I also wouldn't be surprised if they were careful with what they actually put in the script vs what they talk about in their inner circle about how the show will go. Because a lot of supposed leaks happen from lower-level people who work on the show who get access to sets and scripts etc - so why would they risk that information getting into the wrong hands?

As for Finn almost saying something - did he actually say it? Or are we just assuming that's what he was going to say. As a whole I don't trust cast interviews. I've talked about it a lot of here, but the cast is instructed to keep a lot of things under wraps, and could and have lied to protect the secrets of the show - byler being a huge one.

I go by what I see in the actual show - not leaks or cast interviews, and what we actually see is, as you said, an ambiguous reaction from El. And we know Mike and El are NOT closer after the monologue because Mike tells us that after the min-fight El and him have barely talked. In the two days they spent traveling in the same van together.

So to sum things up: Go by what you see in the actual show, rather than information outside of the show, because while it can be entertaining and help pass the time, we never know what has merit, and what's just noise.

[nobylerdoubt]

Heyy I was talking to my friend who ships milkvan she made a few good points.

In season 4

Milkvan and jancy parallel because they are both lying to their partners to stop them from worrying.

Secondly, she made a point that love is a feeling, to like something is a choice. She said that even though el didn't know her likes and dislike before s3 ( when she asks max) she has always known love. And has loved Mike.

Well she had mixed up platonic and romantic love ( we have seen mike parallel hopper)

Also a common one el wouldn't leave mike, someone who has kept her safe. Well we have already seen their relationship in ruins and seen her leave mike for max. But it is a common one obv.

Her points were mostly based on jancy and milkvan parallels in s4.

Do you think jancy and milkvan truly parallel in s4

Thanks for asking!

I do think there is a point that Jancy and Mileven do parallel in S4, however I'm of two minds with this:

At this point, as much as I'm rooting for Jancy and do believe they'll end up together, I'm not 100% sure if thats what's necessarily gonna happen. Jancy isnt necessarily my specialty when it comes to themes, hints, and foreshadowing.

Thier parallel could be to juxtapose how an endgame couple deals with secrets and miscommunication vs a couple that is not endgame.

Parallels are not meant to be mirror images of each other. If all of the couples in the show were written the exact same way, that wouldn't be good writing. Instead, parallels are used to foreshadow a couple getting together, or highlight the differences between those couples, or a couple that's not going to be endgame. That's why I think it's meant to reveal that either Jancy is not endgame, more than it's meant to highlight how differently these couples are going about this.

Jonathan and Nancy's miscommunication comes from a place of care for the other, at personal risk to themselves. Jonathan doesn't tell Nancy that applied to Lenora community college, because he feels he needs to stay close and protect and provide for his family, and he doesn't want to hold her back. We see this majorly in season three, because Nancy and Jonathan get into a fight because he needed that job to provide for his family, but she was being held back.

Jonathan and Nancy speak very highly of each other at the beginning of the season regarding the reason why they aren't seeing each other over spring break. The gist of that back-and-forth scene is that while they have their own reasons for staying behind (Jonathan staying to care for his family while Nancy stays to work on the newspaper) they're on the same page. If Jonathan had told Nancy why he didn't want to go to Emerson, she would have understood because she understands that he is protective of his family, and she loves that about him. Jonathan knows that too, but he doesn't want to hold her back. Because Jonathan knows that Nancy is ambitious and he loves that about her. The entire miscommunication is born out of care for each other. 

On the other hand, the miscommunication between Mike and El is rooted in selfishness. If you go with what is explicitly said in the show, Mike doesn't say "I love you" was to protect his own feelings - so that it would hurt less when she inevitably leaves him. If you go with the Byler subtext, the reason he doesn't tell her is because it isn't true. Either way, Mike is kind of stringing El along for his own purposes - he doesn't think he's good enough for her, so he's protecting himself from more pain while keeping her in a relationship with him OR he isn't actually in love with her, but he wants to keep her around because he thinks he needs to for his own image and his own comfort.

El lies to Mike about having friends and being well adjusted in Lenora - because she doesn't think she's good enough for Mike either. So instead of being honest with Mike and trying to lean on him for support (especially since, like he said, he has experience with bullying), she lies to make herself look better in his eyes, and make herself more desirable for him. (Which Mike is doing the same thing, as we understand him showing up that crazy elephant at the airport was the show that he wasn't being true to himself, trying to make himself more desirable to El.)

Finally, Jancy ends the season working together to repair the house. This likely symbolizes that they will work together to repair their relationship. However in this same scene Mike and El work separately, picking up trash, and Mike finds Will. This likely symbolizes that they will kind of "pick up the trash/rubble" of their relationship separately, and Mike, of course, will find love with Will.

Plus, hill pairings.

Okay, for the second point, I wildly disagree that "to love someone is a feeling but to like something is a choice" (because never have I ever chosen to like something), and that El has "always known love".

She hasn't. She's been deprived from real love for her entire childhood. She's basically a newborn when she first escapes the lab (see the 'born pretty yesterday' trope.) Over the seasons she understands love more and more - love from friends, love from Hopper/a parent/family, sibling love with Will and Jonathan, and best friend love with Max.

This is gonna be something I mention in my Season 2 Mileven post eventually - but theres a scene in Season 2 where El is watching TV and is fixated on this soap opera ("they'd be aghast!"), and what this scene really illustrates for me just how much romantic love is a wildly unfamiliar concept to her. A concept that had first been explained to her, in a kind of butchered way, by Mike in season 1, and if you read my Season 1 Mileven post - you already know that I think Mike has a distorted heteronormative idea of what romantic feelings are in the first place.

As someone on the Ace/Aro spectrum, let me tell you - differentiating romantic and platonic feelings is really hard. Especially when you have no framework for what romantic feelings even are.

And like you already pointed out - there's been comparisons of Mike to Hopper, El initially asked if Mike would "be like her brother". She's already confused her romantic and platonic feelings.

And let's just say that she does have romantic feelings for Mike - that doesn't mean that Mike loves her back. And that's enough reason to break off that relationship. Mike deserves to love someone, and El deserves to be truly loved.

And "El would never leave Mike because he's done so much for her," first of all: kind of a toxic relationship dynamic to stay in a relationship because you feel like you owe it to the other person, second of all: she doesn't have to leave him. They can still be friends! Breaking up with Mike doesn't mean never seeing him again and abandoning him. Their best scenes and interactions are when they aren't actually in a relationship anyway.

[nobylerdoubt]

My only byler doubt is the van scene and the pizza scene before argyle came, oh and parts of the monologue, like all the I love you's. Like ik they didn't help, but idk

So I've already done a post on the pizza conversation you can read here. 😊

The Van Scene

I actually think the van scene is one of the biggest pieces of Byler evidence there is - it's what turned me into a Byler believer to be honest.

The thing to keep in mind is that this entire season Mike has been questioning his relationship with El. He keeps seeking out advice from Will and wondering what he should have done differently - but he can't even say "I love you" out loud in these conversations with will. I think he understands thats he doesn't feel like "I love you" is honest, and he's starting to question why he doesn't feel that way.

Will, guilty about his own feelings for Mike, is determined to make sure their relationship works out - almost to pay penance for his supposed wrongdoing.

Now, are you aware of the Cyrano trope? I've referenced it in a previous post, but basically what it is is this: "Cyrano" is a person who is deemed undesirable (depicted with a big nose in the original), but Cyrano has feelings for a "Roxanne", but can never admit their feelings, because they are deemed so undesirable. But a third party who also has feelings for Roxanne has Cyrano help them in woo-ing her by giving her gifts (poems, in the original) that Cyrano makes. Roxanne falls in love with the person who made the gifts - not the third party. Cyrano.

So stranger things Will is our Cyrano, Mike is Roxanne, and El is the third party (I can't remember the person's name, sue me.) Will loves Mike, but he's gay, and doesn't want to out himself as gay/risk making Mike uncomfortable or making Mike hate him. But Mike needs someone to show him they love him - so Will uses El as a third party to give Mike the gift.

Mike feels a lot of love for the person who made/gave him this gift - with all those kind words and declarations of love and feelings attached to it. But he thinks El gave him the gift. So his feelings of loved are being attached to the wrong person.

TLDR the feeling of love Mike feels in this scene are for Will, but he's mistaking them as for El.

Mike's Monologue

I intend to do a Monologue deep dive at some point but I think it's still a way's off so I talk a bit about it here.

While yes, I think a big thing to think about with this scene is how his monologue is not what helped El in the end, there are other elements to think of here.

For one thing, Mike only did this speech because of what happened in the van scene. The entire time the speech feels like he's throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. Because it's not coming from Mike's heart, he's falling back on things they talked about in the van.

A big thing in this scene has to due with the mention of "superhero". We've established in this season that El doesn't really identify as a "superhero". This is a label that Mike continuously pushes on her.

In episode 3 Mike tells El not to listen to her bullies because "They're nobodies. And you're a superhero."

To which El responds "Not anymore."

Other times the word "superhero" are mentioned is in El's note to Mike saying she's "gone to become a superhero again" and in the van scene where Mike refers to El as Superman, and himself as not-as-good-as Lois Lane.

"Superhero" is an impossible standard that Mike holds El too, even if he doesn't realize. In El's eyes, the things Mike loves about her are always linked back to her abilities/powers.

And for someone who claims he doesn't care about her powers - Mike sure brings them up a lot in this speech: she's his superhero, she can fly, she can move mountains.

Finn claims to have adlibbed the line about El being his superhero in this scene - saying it's a "genius line". And it is - because it calls back on those previous moments where we see that "superhero" isn't something that El wants to be in Mike's eyes.

It should be mentioned too that this superheroification of El isn't good for Mike either. It makes him feel inadequate for her. Mike wants to be needed, and if he feels theres not much he can do for El, that's bad for his mental state and emotions.

But a smaller detail in this monologue is Mike's lies - specifically about Mike saying he loved her the moment he saw her. You can check out my Mileven Season 1 post for more on that.

But if Mike's lying about this - what else is he lying about in this speech?

"I love you"

I've said this a couple of times now, Mike does love El - just not the way she wants him to.He struggles to differentiate platonic and romantic feelings when it comes to Will and El because of the heteronormative society he lives in.

However, I think the reason Mike says "I love you" so much in this speech is because this is what he thinks El wants to hear. Remember, El is fighting for her life here, and Mike wants to encourage her by saying what she's been wanting him to say most.

The problem is - and I think El realizes it as soon as Mike says it - words aren't enough. What El actually wants is to feel loved. And Mike can't do that for her anymore.

[nobylerdoubt]

Gonna get back to posting soon - got distracted trying to work on a fanfic

[nobylerdoubt]

Also with Will canonically being a cheater (in games! Wanting to rig Vegas for example) but playing fair with Mike.

In Season 3 El spies on Mike and Mike says "That's totally against the rules!"

El: "I make my own rules"

Will is just so funny, for Mike he's all "It was a 7 🥰🥰🥰" and then two minutes later he's cheating to win the comic from Dustin lol I love him so much

[nobylerdoubt]

Will is just so funny, for Mike he's all "It was a 7 🥰🥰🥰" and then two minutes later he's cheating to win the comic from Dustin lol I love him so much

[nobylerdoubt]

The vote is for which one I do first.

Both will eventually get done - the last poll's options were "Baseball motif" or "Every Time They Say Gay", and the people voted for "Say Gay", so that one came first and now I'm working on the baseball post

The next "Let's Analyze" post will be looking at the Baseball as Conformity motif, but after that -

[nobylerdoubt]

Ngl that last byler doubt ask can only come from someone who is a gay Mike truther, on the other hand Bi Mike truthers like myself are just nonchalant about this😅

I agree! Any doubts stemming from Mike seeming to have feelings/be attracted to El, especially in earlier seasons, are coming from a perspective that Mike is gay, rather than Bi.

Personally, I'm more of a Gay Mike truther myself, so I tend to argue more from that perspective, and also since that ask seemed to want an answer from that perspective as well.

I think I put something in that response to the effect of "so what if he thinks she'd pretty - that doesn't mean the couple are endgame!" There were also some comments and reblogs to that effect as well.

All this being said though I think I want to use this ask as a reference in future posts:

I argue from the perspective of someone who believes all the signs point to Mike being gay, rather than bisexual. That being said, I think it's just as plausible that Mike is bisexual. Any moments that I may try and write off as Mike NOT being attracted to or liking El could very well be moments that he IS attracted to/likes El. Either way, this doesn't explicitly mean Mileven is endgame.

Any negative Gay Mike vs. Bi Mike discourse won't be entertained on this blog. Of course friendly debate is welcomed. 💙💛

[nobylerdoubt]

How I see Mike's arc as a bi Mike truther:

I think Mike started slowly liking El in s1 and then he lost her. El was a person Mike liked and cared abt, and that leads to him calling her in s2, Mike also spends so much time with Will this season, and, in my personal opinion, Mike always liked Will, he just didn't quiite know until late s4. He becomes happy because of Will, but then he gets posessed and Mike starts having issues, he lost El and he can't lose Will. Then we all know what happened and we jump into the snowball, when Will goes to dance with the girl, he feels something...odd, like it feels bad, but then El comes and he lights up again, the girl he liked. In s3 he starts having doubts, but he is going through puberty, he kind of feels weird towards Will, he knows his relationship with Will is different, but he has a girlfriend now, so let's leave Will (even though he did wanna play). He wants to get El back because she just left him for "no reason". At the end of s3 he starts realizing he has more intense feelings towards Will, Hopper's monologue makes it clear.

And then in s4...Well, he knows deep down.

[nobylerdoubt]

#1 reason I say don't trust interviews. They're human, not content.

words dont mean anything anymore

what does he even mean

[nobylerdoubt]

That's funny - I didn't catch the "twig" comment!

Let's Analyze - Every Time Someone Says "Gay"

Warning: homophobia and use of slurs. F-slur will be censored.

One thing I've noticed in Stranger things is that they typically try to avoid saying things outright. I've talked a bit on this blog on their use of "Show Don't Tell." This applies to relationships most often - as our core relationships - the ones we expect to last - typically avoid exchanging I love yous, and tend to show, rather than tell, the audience how they feel about the other person.

This concept of showing rather than telling translates in a big way to our queer characters. Neither Robin nor Will openly calls themselves a lesbian or gay, and no one explicitly refers to them as gay either (outside of bullies and abusers). However on my most recent watch through I couldn't help but notice just how many times the show references homosexuality.

Season 1:

Season 1 we see the most uses of gay words, four total. Three of these reference Will, and one being a reference to Jonathan.

EPISODE 1:

Joyce: Lonnie used to say he was queer, called him a f*g

EPISODE 3:

Troy: I hate to break it to you toothless, but he's not in danger. He's dead. That's what my dad says. He said he was probably killed by some other queer.

EPISODE 4:

Troy: Besides, what's there to be sad about anyway? Will's in fairyland now, right? Flying around with all the other little fairies. All happy and gay!

EPISODE 6:

Steve: You know what, Byers? I'm actually kind of impressed. I always took you for a queer, but I guess you're just a little screw-up like your father.

Season 1 tends to use homophobia as a general way to show who the mean guys are here - not our scientists, or corrupt officials, but our human antagonists.

Season 2:

EPISODE 8:

Billy's Father: So that's why you've been staring at yourself in the mirror like some f*ggot instead of watching your sister?

Like in Season 1, Season 2 uses homophobia to paint Billy's dad as the evil behind Billy's evil.

EPISODE 9:

Steve: Nancy?

This one I questioned if I should include it - because it's not an explicit reference to gay words. Steve is concussed here and momentarily mistakes Mike for his sister - but it's worth noting that Nancy is also a term used to call someone gay. Especially since this is in reference to Mike, I think this is a very smart a subtle way to allude to Mike's sexuality early on.

Season 3:

Season 3 differs from the first two seasons uses of gay words - instead of having other, more background characters call our main characters slurs and using gay as an insult, we have main characters outright stating, or being told, that they're being gay - but in a roundabout way.

EPISODE 3:

Mike: It's not my fault that you don't like girls!

EPISODE 7:

Steve: But... Tammy Thompson's a girl?

Robin: Steve...

Season 4:

This same idea is carried into the next mention at the start of season 4, where they talk about the possibility that Vickie likes girls.

EPISODE 1:

Steve: Do you know who pauses Fast Times at 53 minutes 5 seconds? People who like boobies!

After that we kind of go back to our old ways - but with a bit of a twist. Instead of a bigoted background character just being, the mentions start to become more casual and matter-of-fact.

EPISODE 3:

Russian: I am no fairy

There's a bit of a lack of judgement in this clip - the Russian here isn't offended so much as he's denying what he sees as a transaction for sexual favors, or possibly flirting. It's fairly neutral. He's simply saying - hey, I'm not the guy you need to be asking for that.

EPISODE 4:

Erica: Going out? I see he's taken a step down from Max...Chances are he's with your cheater boyfriend.

Here Erica implies that Jason is "going out" with Lucas in a different way - and I don't think she means it literally here (unless there's more to what Erica found under Lucas's bed that was so 'gross'...). I think she just can tell she already doesn't like Jason, and this is something she can say to get under his skin and get him to back off. Again, this seems like a neutral statement - not really judgmental.

So we see that homosexuality is mentioned at least once or twice per season. I think this serves two purposes throughout the course of the show.

To show the audience that the show in general disapproves of homophobia.

To keep homosexuality on our minds.

At the end of the day, Strange Things is not a show about being gay - it's not Heartstopper or Young Royals. It's an anthem for the outcasts, and queer characters have always been a part of that group of outcasts that the Duffers wanted to represent. I think to avoid this idea that these gay subplots "came out of nowhere" these terms being used throughout the show are just one part of the way they've tried to plant this idea that hey, maybe some of these characters are gay.

[nobylerdoubt]

The next "Let's Analyze" post will be looking at the Baseball as Conformity motif, but after that -

[nobylerdoubt]

Let's Analyze - Every Time Someone Says "Gay"

Warning: homophobia and use of slurs. F-slur will be censored.

One thing I've noticed in Stranger things is that they typically try to avoid saying things outright. I've talked a bit on this blog on their use of "Show Don't Tell." This applies to relationships most often - as our core relationships - the ones we expect to last - typically avoid exchanging I love yous, and tend to show, rather than tell, the audience how they feel about the other person.

This concept of showing rather than telling translates in a big way to our queer characters. Neither Robin nor Will openly calls themselves a lesbian or gay, and no one explicitly refers to them as gay either (outside of bullies and abusers). However on my most recent watch through I couldn't help but notice just how many times the show references homosexuality.

Season 1:

Season 1 we see the most uses of gay words, four total. Three of these reference Will, and one being a reference to Jonathan.

EPISODE 1:

Joyce: Lonnie used to say he was queer, called him a f*g

EPISODE 3:

Troy: I hate to break it to you toothless, but he's not in danger. He's dead. That's what my dad says. He said he was probably killed by some other queer.

EPISODE 4:

Troy: Besides, what's there to be sad about anyway? Will's in fairyland now, right? Flying around with all the other little fairies. All happy and gay!

EPISODE 6:

Steve: You know what, Byers? I'm actually kind of impressed. I always took you for a queer, but I guess you're just a little screw-up like your father.

Season 1 tends to use homophobia as a general way to show who the mean guys are here - not our scientists, or corrupt officials, but our human antagonists.

Season 2:

EPISODE 8:

Billy's Father: So that's why you've been staring at yourself in the mirror like some f*ggot instead of watching your sister?

Like in Season 1, Season 2 uses homophobia to paint Billy's dad as the evil behind Billy's evil.

EPISODE 9:

Steve: Nancy?

This one I questioned if I should include it - because it's not an explicit reference to gay words. Steve is concussed here and momentarily mistakes Mike for his sister - but it's worth noting that Nancy is also a term used to call someone gay. Especially since this is in reference to Mike, I think this is a very smart a subtle way to allude to Mike's sexuality early on.

Season 3:

Season 3 differs from the first two seasons uses of gay words - instead of having other, more background characters call our main characters slurs and using gay as an insult, we have main characters outright stating, or being told, that they're being gay - but in a roundabout way.

EPISODE 3:

Mike: It's not my fault that you don't like girls!

EPISODE 7:

Steve: But... Tammy Thompson's a girl?

Robin: Steve...

Season 4:

This same idea is carried into the next mention at the start of season 4, where they talk about the possibility that Vickie likes girls.

EPISODE 1:

Steve: Do you know who pauses Fast Times at 53 minutes 5 seconds? People who like boobies!

After that we kind of go back to our old ways - but with a bit of a twist. Instead of a bigoted background character just being, the mentions start to become more casual and matter-of-fact.

EPISODE 3:

Russian: I am no fairy

There's a bit of a lack of judgement in this clip - the Russian here isn't offended so much as he's denying what he sees as a transaction for sexual favors, or possibly flirting. It's fairly neutral. He's simply saying - hey, I'm not the guy you need to be asking for that.

EPISODE 4:

Erica: Going out? I see he's taken a step down from Max...Chances are he's with your cheater boyfriend.

Here Erica implies that Jason is "going out" with Lucas in a different way - and I don't think she means it literally here (unless there's more to what Erica found under Lucas's bed that was so 'gross'...). I think she just can tell she already doesn't like Jason, and this is something she can say to get under his skin and get him to back off. Again, this seems like a neutral statement - not really judgmental.

So we see that homosexuality is mentioned at least once or twice per season. I think this serves two purposes throughout the course of the show.

To show the audience that the show in general disapproves of homophobia.

To keep homosexuality on our minds.

At the end of the day, Strange Things is not a show about being gay - it's not Heartstopper or Young Royals. It's an anthem for the outcasts, and queer characters have always been a part of that group of outcasts that the Duffers wanted to represent. I think to avoid this idea that these gay subplots "came out of nowhere" these terms being used throughout the show are just one part of the way they've tried to plant this idea that hey, maybe some of these characters are gay.

[nobylerdoubt]

You’ve talked a bit about how Byler parallels other romantic relationships in ST.. I was wondering if you could go more into it.. especially with Jancy & Max and Lucas??

Certainly!

So @willthewise80sbyers has a series on parallels for these couples, so I'll link them here for reference as well.

Jancy (1) (2)

Lumax (1) (2)

Jancy

In general, Will parallels Jonathan and Mike parallels Nancy. Not just because they're siblings.

Nancy and Mike are both writers, Nancy being a reporter/journalist and Mike being and author and storyteller. They are both a bit loud (at least louder than Will and Jonathan), and have a bit more outward confidence and push back on issues that they don't agree with. Both are in relationships with the third party in their love triangle, and both have a certain societal pressure that pushes them towards that relationship; Nancy is pressured to be a "moral woman", a meek wife, who marries a well-off man and lives on a cul-de-sac, while Mike is pressured by heteronormativity and societal homophobia.

Jonathan and Will are both quiet, artistic types. They share an appreciation for music, are introverted almost to an extreme, and have a tendency to be pushed around a bit, rather than voicing their beliefs like Mike and Nancy would. They are more soft and sensitive than Mike and Nancy as well, and they've both been on the receiving end of bullying and abuse.

A lot of their similarities to one another stems from the fact that we're dealing with two sets of siblings - however I feel like there's a point to this. Jancy is the more "socially acceptable pairing" the general audience sees Jonathan and Nancy, and has no trouble jumping to the conclusion that the two of them will end up as a couple - which then begs the question, why shouldn't we be able to imagine Will and Mike as a couple as well.

So the purpose of paralleling Byler with Jancy is mirroring. By having characters and coupling so similar, it begs us to look at the differences.

Lumax

tw: mild discussions of racism

With Lumax I kind of feel like it's equal and opposite. Lumax and Byler are very different. But I feel like they both lay the groundwork for one another.

In season 2 we have Mike supporting Will as much as he can while he survives the horrors of the Upside Down, and in season 4 we see Lucas do the same for Max. This dynamic of Lucas kind of being like Max's tether to the real world in the midst of all this terrifying stuff happening to her feels like an intentional callback. I think like how in season 3 we have Mike leaning on Lucas for all this relationship help with El, Lucas looks back on what Mike did for Will for help with understanding how to support Max in this.

Also in season 2, we have Lucas and Max starting to fall in like/love with one another, but they face challenges due to Billy's racism, which brings up historical distaste and biases for interracial couples, which would have still been felt in this time period. This was a hard relationship to pursue because of this cultural bias. With Mike and Will we have another relationship with discrimination working against them, but in a different way. I think this is meant to be one of the many ways this show is an anthem for the outcasts. Lucas and Max love each other, so they pursued it and strove to make their relationship work despite all the people telling the no. I think as we see Mike and Will start to come together, we may see more references and parallels to Lumax in season 2.

Lumax and Byler fall back on each other, and inform each other. They're very different relationships, but they can look back on the other relationship as a reference point for how to move foreword and best support each other in their own relationship.

[nobylerdoubt]

My only byler doubt is how Mike looks at El's letter when reading it in s4

So when I went back to review this moment, I intended to try and analyze Mike's face in this moment... but I wasn't fully prepared for the fact that we don't even have a moment to look at Mike's face.

Before I get into that let's spare a moment to actually analyze his face here. It does have traces of an authentic Mike smile, and he's in his room, reading this by himself - so there's no one around him to try and convince. I would say this is an authentic reaction to him reading this later. What we have to remember is just because Mike doesn't have true romantic feelings for El, doesn't mean he doesn't like her - or even love her. She's his good friend, aside from their romantic relationship, and she's come so far. I would say he's happy, but this face to me doesn't scream "I'm in love".

Now onto the framing of this shot. To get this still I had to time the moment I paused perfectly. His face comes into the frame and before we can even get a good look at it the camera is turning away to point at Nancy.

Now I would think if we wanted to focus on Mike's feelings for El in this scene we would have gotten the time to see his face in response to the letter. Instead what the camera is centered on is Mike's closet - light on, and famously famously has a "one way" sign pointing to it in the next shot.

So as a whole I personally don't see all that much of an expression on Mike's face here, but if I hadn't taken a screenshot I wouldn't have really seen it at all - the scene moves past it way too fast.

Instead, this scene has closet and rainbow (on the letter) imagery.