surferboypizza

[surferboypizza]

I love these paralells so much

" I thought I lost you" "I did lose you" or smth

My endgames❤️

[surferboypizza]

Finn Wolfhard try not to play a queer teen challenge (please don’t actually stop I love his queer characters)

Credit to @d_delandr0 on Pinterest for the image

[surferboypizza]

Lucas knows something is up 👀

[surferboypizza]

im thinking about Hopper watching his basically adopted daughter get together with the guy he can't stand and he will AGAIN watch his new adopted SON being in love and getting together with the same guy AND I LAUGH EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

[surferboypizza]

Let's Analyze - Mileven's Gender Roles

Quick Note: A while ago I had you vote on what the next Let's Analyze post will be. The vote decided the next post would be about Season 2 Mileven. Given that I am now hosting a weekly Stranger Things rewatch party, I'll be re-watching the whole of Season 2 soon, and I would rather wait until I can watch the season as a whole to make a Season 2 analysis, rather then going through to watch the clips individually.

So I somewhat recently finally watched @teambyler's 3 hour byler legal defense video. Many of you already know this, but it's VERY good.

One point made in the defense of Mileven in this video is that Mike and El's relationship is unique in storytelling because they actually have reversed gender roles.

El takes on the masculine role as the one who has strength and power, and Mike takes on the feminine role of emotional support and caretaking (think about season 1 - Mike literally housed, clothed and fed her). Mike talks about this in the van scene.

In our VHS Club Discord Chat, @zarzar769 and @noneedtoargue1994 talked about how we can use these reversed gender roles to understand the flaws of their relationship better.

So I don't know if it's a universal thing or if its because I'm a woman, or a liberal, or whatever combination of circumstances - but I have a tendency to understand the perspective of a woman in heterosexual relationship conflicts, over that of the man.

And I feel like this seems to be a common experience when it comes to Mike and El's relationship. A lot of people call Mike an asshole, asking how could be so obtuse, so mean.

We understand where El comes from a lot more.

When we flip in genders and consider it in a new way, we can see their relationship a bit more evenly, and better understand how they are mutually bad for each other.

In this post we're gonna focus on the fights and conflicts in Season 4:

Rink-o-Mania

Mike: Holy shit, El... What did you do? What did you do?!

Now in this scene it is easier for us to see El's side of this, and judge Mike for yelling at her. We've seen what Angela has done to El, at school, on the rink, and moments before hitting her with the roller skate. We understand El's perspective here, and Mike can seem kind of obtuse for not understanding why she did what she did.

But look at this scene with a flipped gender perspective: Mike has just watched her boyfriend hit a girl (someone who we perceive to have less strength and power then El) hard enough to cause her to bleed. For a man, who has more strength and power than the person they've hurt, no amount of hurt the other person has caused them would justify this kind of violence. From this perspective, is it easier to understand why Mike would be horrified and accusatory?

I'm not saying what El did was right or wrong, regardless of what gender she is. These situations hold a lot of nuance.

"From Mike"

I've recently gone more in depth with this argument in this post.

In this scene, again, we're meant to empathize with El. She's been bullied and Mike wouldn't understand. She withholds the information that she's being bullied because while Mike is here she just wants to pretend everything is okay.

But from the flipped gender perspective we can contextualize why she's hiding this from Mike a little bit more. El is the man, he is strong, and has people in his life who expect and rely on him to remain strong - including, and perhaps especially, his girlfriend. Therefore, he can't let this weakness affect him, and he especially can't let his girlfriend see that this weakness effects him.

Does this seem like something you've heard before?

On the flip side you have Mike, the girlfriend, who wishes El would have told her about the bullying, because she understands - she could have helped him.

In this argument you also get El denying Mike's experience with bullying, saying that he doesn't understand. On a semi-unrelated note Mike and El actually have a conversation similar to this in season 1 episode 3:

But looking at this conversation with a flipped gender perspective, what we see is El not letting his girlfriend in - not letting her know his true feelings and struggles, because she can't understand. Why wouldn't she?

To phrase it how I phrased it in our discord chat - you'd be telling this girl that she should has an emotionally unavailable boyfriend. But it's Mike, the boy, who isn't noticing El, the girl's emotions, so instead we blame him for not noticing her feelings. he's not allowed to be frustrated because he should have known.

I'm not saying what El or Mike did was right or wrong, regardless of what gender she is. These situations hold a lot of nuance.

Conclusion

Both El and Mike are responsible for the deterioration of their relationship.

El holds the power in the relationship - both literal and figurative. He is stronger and more powerful than Mike, but she also is the sole reason they're in a relationship at all. She's the reason when they break up, and the is the driving force when they get back together. She feels a need to be strong, to be Mike's superhero, and that comes with the emotional burden of feeling like a monster and feeling as though she can't express her feelings with Mike.

Mike is not in the power position and he wants to be; he doesn't necessarily more strong or more powerful the El or any partner, but he wants to be needed. He wants to feel like he has a say in their relationship rather than everything being out of his hands. The one aspect of their relationship where Mike has ever felt needed is being in the care position - when El needed him for protection, for shelter, for food, for emotional support, and now she doesn't. Which makes him frustrated - frustrated that she won't let him help her, and frustrated that he feels he can't do anything for her. Which leads him to, at times, ignore her needs out of frustration - kind of like, 'well you don't need me anyway, so why should I try?'

No matter who's "side" you're on, this relationship isn't healthy for either of them.

Tag List: @a70smatthew @maddyxroses

[surferboypizza]

This is my favorite picture ever

[surferboypizza]

aged-up byler x skam france ? (thats what this is from right? i havent actually seen it)

time: 6h 8m

[surferboypizza]

a note on 'need'

i saw a post the other day about addiction: when an interest decreases the range of things that make you happy, it's not a healthy interest.

i think the way that el needs mike – the kind of interest in him she shows – is just like that, not just with happiness but with self-worth and normalcy, too:

el relies on mike and only mike to give her validation, to make her feel happy, valued, loved, normal. (that is, expect for that brief time in s3 where she hung out with max and dumped his ass and we all cheered, plus the latter part of s4.) and it comes from things like her superpowers, her saving the world, and her appearance as a 'normal girl' – all things that don't really have to do with el's inherent value as a person.

el's arc is about detaching herself from that need, as OP said. it's like they say: give a man a fish and he'll be fed for a day, but teach a man to fish and he'll be fed for a lifetime. she's teaching herself to fish, finding validation within herself, thus opening herself up to greater joys and a higher, more sustainable self-worth.

the way that mike needs el is the exact same: he sees her as his sole source of normalcy, his only avenue to being seen as a respectable person, and relies on her to fulfil that role. and while she loves him and kisses him and writes him letters, she never really shows him why she values him as a person, why he couldn't easily be replaced by any old teenage boy. he expresses this insecurity in the van: he worries he's not good enough for her, because she never expresses valuing him as anything more deep than 'boyfriend'. (i obviously don't think they ACTUALLY don’t value each other as people, and i think el and mike really love each other, but not as a boyfriend/girlfriend, that's my point here)

now, the way that mike and will need each other is different: will is a perfectly healthy, functional person without mike's validation (supernatural trauma notwithstanding). he doesn't need mike like el does; but he is made happier by him, not in a way that cuts off his ability to derive happiness from other things but in a way that makes him feel better about himself. mike makes him feel like he's not a mistake and like he's better for being different; he makes will's internal sense of worth grow rather than binding will's worth to himself as the only source, like he did (unintentionally ofc) with el.

will does the same thing for mike in making him feel like a hero, letting him know that he's a good person who can do great things – again, it's a case of increasing his range of happiness rather than decreasing it by showing that his worth is an inherent part of himself.

because true happiness comes from within.

in this sense, will teaches mike to fish, so to speak, and vice versa – while el and mike are one another's go-to fishmongers. and they've got a membership with them now so it really doesn't make sense not to shop there, right? even though the fish isn't very high-quality. even though they only sell just enough so that the other doesn't starve. even though they're running out of money to offer in return.

El's Arc - "Pretty" to "Bitchin'"

tagging @gayofthefae and @hawkinsschoolcounselor bc their posts really help me with my analyses and i wouldn't be making posts without them xoxo

As I said in my post earlier, I have been rewatching seasons 1 and 2 and I've kind of pieced together some separate scenes of El to gather into this really interesting arc about her self-discovery and her self-image after leaving the lab. My guess is that the majority of this arc spans S1 and 2 and perfectly carries on into S3 and 4 where she really has her self-discovery arcs. Also keep in mind there are many many facets to her full character arc, and this is probably just one of many. I'm not an El expert per se, I've never analysed her this much in depth before, but I'll try my best :))

Also, this is not a pro-mileven post, in case you were wondering.

Basically, I've noticed that there are certain repeated words referring to El, and things that she keeps repeating in S1 and S2. From the beginning of S1 and sometimes in S2, she refers to things as "pretty". Later on, she stops referring to things as pretty and instead repeats the words "bitchin'" instead.

Basically, my guess is that pretty symbolically refers to her wishing she could be a normal girl, have a normal, non-lab childhood. Bitchin' refers to her embracing her powers and who she is as a person. At least by the end of S2 and in S3. By S4, she's using Bitchin' to impress Mike again, because she wants her powers back for him to love her again.

This arc is also tied to her wanting Mike to validate her as what she wants to be - a normal girl with a normal life. However, by the end of the arc in S2, she starts to become her own person.

Let's actually begin:

Here is the first mention of the word pretty.

She's referring to Nancy here, looking at the pictures on the mantle of Mike's family who live in the classic, nuclear family, normal lifestyle. She sees the good-girl daughter Nancy Wheeler, and calls her pretty. She isn't just simply calling her pretty though, to me, she's encapsulating everything she sees in this image.

A regular girl, with long neat hair, good clothes etc. El does not see herself as this in the slightest.

Mike's response is to say "I guess" - which makes sense because it's his sister and he's kind of annoyed by everything she does at the beginning of this season. Mike notes that El called her pretty.

The next, arguably the most important, scene is of El looking around Nancy's room. This scene has no other purpose other than to perpetuate this particular arc that she wants to be like Nancy, that she wants to have a normal childhood.

So far, the scenes of her looking around Mike's house have been her finding things that trigger a flashback to her childhood in the lab. This scene in Nancy's room is the last one where she's looking around the Wheeler house alone. The previous scenes which trigger her lab memories are showing her real childhood.

The Nancy's room scene shows the childhood she wishes she had.

The camera pans around Nancy's room, from El's perspective, who is looking at it in wonderment. So far, she's only seen Mike's room. This is a girl's room and she's a girl, so she's seeing what she wanted as a kid.

Here, she's getting emotional over a music box tune. Music box tunes often elicit themes of early childhood and infancy, also calmness and peace. Her getting emotional over it portrays that she's trying to remember something from her own infancy, but her infancy has never been as calming as a music box.

The music that plays in the background of this scene also has notes very similar to a music box. These musical motifs are often associated with "childhood, nostalgia or gentle, whimsical feelings".

The next thing that is extremely important for this arc, is the fact that El gets very emotional over looking over pictures that Nancy has up in her room of her childhood. There are pictures of little Nancy looking happy, doing normal things, hanging with her best friend Barb, looking like the classic young girl with a happy childhood. El is clearly yearning for that in this scene after remembering so many awful things from her childhood.

This scene is the scene where she basically gains the desire to become Nancy - which is portrayed using the word pretty.

Also keep in mind that El probably knows how she looks - not like the typical girl. So when the boys suggest taking her to the middle school and Lucas says that they can't do that because....

....of her appearance, this reinforces her idea of needing to look "pretty" in order to feel like a normal girl with a normal life.

So she gets a make over by the boys - who are the ones to decide what they think makes a normal looking girl. Keep in mind that the make up and the dress and the wig were not her choices.

So after all this pining over Nancy's childhood and looking like Nancy - when Mike, the person who has taken care of her from the beginning of the season, the person who she's definitely attached to by now, calls her pretty - she must feel pretty gratified. She's achieved looking like a normal girl, even if it's just a costume. This isn't just about her looking like a girl that Mike finds pretty either, this is about her looking like Nancy. Who is his sister. Huh okay definitely romantic asf....

Eventually, Mike covers it up by saying pretty good, which El then decides to repeat into the mirror. She looks extremely emotional in this scene where she's looking at herself - and it's important that Mike is also seen in the mirror because, as we see later on, he becomes part of her desire to have a normal life. Part of her normal image.

After all, he's the one to give her a "normal" name: El. The first thing that gives her identity.

The most important thing to note here is that she is literally wearing Nancy's dress. The first interaction that El and Nancy have is about the fact that El is dressing up as her, which makes perfect sense.

Another strange thing to do with Mike kind of inadvertently referring to El as her family, which further gratifies El's desire to be a part of the normal Wheeler family, is the fact he calls her his cousin:

The next biggest turning point of her arc in S1 is when she uses her powers to harm somebody again - Lucas. This brings her mind back to the lab and her very abnormal childhood, especially when Mike says "What's wrong with you!" - basically showing that her using her powers for bad and not being the perfect normal girl is not what he wants. (Although this isn't actually why he says this, this is just how it looks to El). This is very clearly tied to her arc surrounding opening the UD gate, and feeling like she's a monster for doing this.

When she runs away, she roughens up her clothing and her wig. When she looks into a "mirror", the lake, and sees her true appearance and how wrong the wig looks now, she gets extremely angry at herself.

This encapsulates her arc perfectly because it shows the anger at herself for using her powers incorrectly, and shows the anger at herself for not actually looking or acting like a normal girl would - since the dress and the wig were always going to just be costume pieces. She's aware that she doesn't look like a regular girl, maybe she's even aware that she looks like a boy.

This idea keeps being perpetuated by many characters in the first season.

Which I'm sure just makes her feel more like a freak.

When El arrives back at home, again without the wig and with the dress all messed up and dirty, she looks again to Mike for that reassurance that she is still normal even without the costuming.

To me, this is not romantic, and none of the times that he calls her pretty or her wanting him to call her that are. This is her wanting reassurance that she is just a normal girl still, due to her trauma, even though Mike has surely reassured her that she's not a monster. So when he says, albeit weirdly, that she's still pretty (because he wants her to be happy, as you can tell by his tone), she looks back at the mirror, emotional and smiling. This greatly contrasts to her looking in the lake and screaming at her reflection.

She needs Mike to feel normal - just like he needs her to feel normal oh! Twinning <3

Basically, we've established that she believes she wants to be a part of the Wheeler family to feel normal and like she has a normal childhood. Mike is very much part of that picture. This is reinforced when he paints a picture of her perfect ideal scenario of living a normal life when all the upside down stuff is over:

Mike: "My mom, she's a pretty awesome cook. She can make you whatever you like... Well, yeah, Eggos but real food too." *Sighs* "See, I was thinking, once all of this is over and Will's back and you're not a secret anymore, my parents can get you an actual bed for the basement... My point is, they'll take care of you. They'll be like your new parents, and Nancy will be like your new sister."

El:

She doesn't know her feelings. If she knows what romantic feelings are anyways, she clearly doesn't feel any here, otherwise she would make a disgusted face rather than a curious one. After Mike refuses this idea, that's when she seems legitimately disappointed, because he's taking away her chance at what she wants:

No matter what you say about Mike's behaviour in this scene, this is not romantic at all. oh my god - she literally doesn't think that there's a possibility for romance here. She's being presented as this naive "born sexy yesterday trope" nonsense, I hate it when people think this scene is super cute. I mean yeah, it might be innocent, but innocent in this icky way i cant even-

She ends up pressing him for an answer, and this is where she gets a new idea of a normal girl life: being taken to the Snow Ball by Mike. Being taken to a dance at a school seems like a very normal girl, normal childhood thing to do. She just wants a life where she's not this lab creature she thinks she is, and Mike is providing her with that.

This is how Mike Wheeler explains that incest is wrong guys

Also El keeps pressing and says "No? You can't?" and it's like she keeps wanting to be his sister and getting confused whenever he takes that away from her 😭

When El then asks Mike what he means, he says that you don't even go with a friend, but he never actually says that he likes her, and just decides to kiss her - which he expects her to understand as a romantic gesture I guess. She doesn't know. All she knows is that Mike thinks she's special, Mike is going to help her feel normal and have a normal life.

He is the image of a normal life.

So when she almost gets captured again by the abusive father figure that made her feel like a monster, the one who raised her in a lab where she feels like a fucking experiment, of course she is going to reach for Mike, who is her chance at a normal life. Reaching away from one familial figure to the next.

^^ This bit isn't simply her reaching for someone she trusts or loves, it's about her desperately trying to claw her way back to her only chance at safety.

Then we have the scene that basically confirms this whole thing 100 times over:

Mike: "The bad man's gone. We'll be home soon and my mom...she'll get you your own bed. You can eat as many Eggos as you want....... And we can go to the Snow Ball."

She wants this life. This isn't just about her wanting to be romantic with Mike - the writers didn't just have Mike say about the Snow Ball. They had him promise all the other desirable, familial things that El wants too. She wants him to promise that he will give her a normal life, and he does.

Could go on a complete tangent about how "Promises" are presented as something that can never ever be broken by Mike - meaning Mike gets trapped in this loop over and over of knowing that he's promised El a normal life. Even if his own feelings change, he has promised to provide her normalcy. Oof.

Onto Season 2. This theme of familial love and found family is very much carried on into Season 2, but not in the same way. El has sacrificed herself at the end of Season 1, and has tried to return to the Wheeler household, only to find that she is not welcome.

El is then trapped by Hopper. She shows a desire not just to leave to see Mike, but she shows a desire to leave to go trick or treating, aka the most normal childhood thing to do on Halloween. She just wants to be a kid like everyone else. Meaning, whenever she wants to leave to see Mike, she's trying to leave to have a normal life.

(Also, she only learns how to have a romantic relationship through Romcoms and dramatic romances on TV. Not through her own desires. Her relationship with Mike isn't part of her self-discovery journey, it's an obstacle)

For me, this desire for normalcy is basically proven in the fact that when she finds out there is ANOTHER chance at having a normal life (through finding her mother) she completely abandons the Mike thing and decides to go through that route instead. This is also likely because she keeps trying to contact Mike, but he never sees her, and when she goes to the school, she believes he's moved on without her. So she gives up and takes another route to normalcy.

Now for the moment that inspired this whole post. I just really needed to get out my thoughts about this:

El looks around what was supposed to be her childhood bedroom. Paralleling the scene in S1 where she looks around Nancy's room, yearning for a normal childhood.

PRETTY.

This is definitive proof that the word "pretty" has nothing to do with her wanting to be called beautiful by Mike or something. She's not just calling a teddy bear pretty. She's reminiscing on her old desires to be like Nancy. She reminiscing on her old desires for a normal childhood. She's thinking about the possibility of if she was never taken to the lab, she would have been in this bedroom.

The way she says it too, it's with this sad tone. Like she's kind of resigning herself to actually not having a normal life - seeing as she's arrived to her one chance at it and seeing that her mother is unresponsive.

"Bitchin'"

This season is where we fully see El embrace her powers. We all love to hate on Episode 7 of Season 2, but it's actually really really important to her character. We see her be scared that Brenner is back and ready to take her home to her abnormal childhood. We see her channeling her anger. We see her come to embrace what makes her different.

When she comes back, she looks completely different. But not in a "normal" way. She looks......

No longer pretty - aka normal. She's embracing her powers and her true self. Hopper also backs this up - it's important that he is the first person to embrace this because earlier in the season, he was the one to stifle her true self.

This word is then further associated with her finding herself in Season 3, which is where she kind of regresses back into not knowing who she is at the start of the season. She defines herself as Mike's girlfriend, and he's basically the only person she sees. The reason for this? He's the only one that makes her feel normal and happy. If someone out there calls this super romantic and not signs of an insecure attachment I'll throw my psychology degree hands okay

After she hangs out with Max, she no longer thinks she needs Mike. Max is now the one that makes her feel good - she's the one that doesn't just make her feel normal, but makes her feel free.

When El tarts becoming her own person, and in this season she really really embraces her powers, she calls herself this word again:

In some ways, I think this is just fan service to the line in Season 2 LMAO because S3 was ripe with fan service but I can really see this as just being her looking for validation for her new self from Mike again. Her being a "badass' superhero is what he puts on a pedestal. Her powers are important to her sense of self, and when someone that you are attached to puts you on that pedestal because of your powers..... well.....

When those powers are taken away, you feel the need to create a new version of yourself.

And Season 4 is where El reinvents herself and regresses backwards in her arc. She's, yet again, trying to create the normal girl, normal life. She knows that Mike had put her on a pedestal for having super powers, and she's afraid that if her powers aren't good enough for him, and if she shows flaws when she has no powers, then he'll view her as a monster.

This all stems back to her original storyline in Season 1. See, it all comes full circle.

Now, back to this word. Pretty is no longer used. But bitchin' takes on a new meaning. It is the new "pretty".

El seeks validation from Mike again, wanting to seem like she has a normal life, a cool life that he desires and something that he'll show love for. She needs him to like this idealised version of her without flaws, with friends and good grades and someone who goes to fun parties at a roller rink:

Then we see El go through her Season 4 arc which I just cannot begin to summarise, but I'll try to show what it means for this metaphor of her needing Mike to validate her:

Mike finds out about her lies, but she hides from him and refuses his initial comfort. She then acts violently and very out of the line from her idealised version she created.

The way he reacts reminds her of her old, abusive father figure who made her feel like an experiment. (again links to the old S1 arc)

Mike then refuses to talk to her, making her believe that he views her as a monster. She already thinks that he doesn't love her anymore because of the no powers thing.

He calls her a 'superhero' despite her really not feeling like one.

She throws the words back at Mike in a note later. Basically telling him that she no longer needs him to tell her that she's a superhero for her to feel like one.

In the lab, she figures out that she was never the monster. This is extremely important because she does this without needing Mike to tell her that he loves her.

When Mike does tell her that he loves her, it is no longer satisfying because she doesn't need this anymore. He also continues to call her a superhero.

Mike makes El feel normal - he gives her that stability that she was craving since she was extremely young. She just wants a normal childhood. After embracing her powers, she realises that in order for Mike to love her, she needs to have badass powers like a superhero, meaning when she loses them, she reinvents herself as a normal girl again. When she shows flaws, her powers no longer "make up" for them, so she thinks Mike views her as a monster. She wants him to tell her he loves her for her to stop feeling like one. She figures out she was never the monster by herself in S4. Mike continues to put her on a pedestal and overexaggerates her powers in the love monologue, which is no longer needed because she has figured out she...

DOESN'T NEED MIKE

but yknow who does??? will... okay bye guys this took me for ever

[surferboypizza]

okay guys guys guys

one week ago i sent a photo of byler to one of my friends and aksed her wich one of them is in love and she firstly said „the one in yellow“ but then I showed her 2 more pics and she was like „okay no,both.“ and NOW i sent this to her:

And she was like: „bro none of them. the boys are in love“

and i just screamed. i told her for 5 minutes straight how much i loved her and then she asked „Well is it correct?“ and i just told her „oh well….basically yes.“

We won.

[surferboypizza]

saw this on twitter and cant stop giggling

[surferboypizza]

El's Arc - "Pretty" to "Bitchin'"

tagging @gayofthefae and @hawkinsschoolcounselor bc their posts really help me with my analyses and i wouldn't be making posts without them xoxo

As I said in my post earlier, I have been rewatching seasons 1 and 2 and I've kind of pieced together some separate scenes of El to gather into this really interesting arc about her self-discovery and her self-image after leaving the lab. My guess is that the majority of this arc spans S1 and 2 and perfectly carries on into S3 and 4 where she really has her self-discovery arcs. Also keep in mind there are many many facets to her full character arc, and this is probably just one of many. I'm not an El expert per se, I've never analysed her this much in depth before, but I'll try my best :))

Also, this is not a pro-mileven post, in case you were wondering.

Basically, I've noticed that there are certain repeated words referring to El, and things that she keeps repeating in S1 and S2. From the beginning of S1 and sometimes in S2, she refers to things as "pretty". Later on, she stops referring to things as pretty and instead repeats the words "bitchin'" instead.

Basically, my guess is that pretty symbolically refers to her wishing she could be a normal girl, have a normal, non-lab childhood. Bitchin' refers to her embracing her powers and who she is as a person. At least by the end of S2 and in S3. By S4, she's using Bitchin' to impress Mike again, because she wants her powers back for him to love her again.

This arc is also tied to her wanting Mike to validate her as what she wants to be - a normal girl with a normal life. However, by the end of the arc in S2, she starts to become her own person.

Let's actually begin:

Here is the first mention of the word pretty.

She's referring to Nancy here, looking at the pictures on the mantle of Mike's family who live in the classic, nuclear family, normal lifestyle. She sees the good-girl daughter Nancy Wheeler, and calls her pretty. She isn't just simply calling her pretty though, to me, she's encapsulating everything she sees in this image.

A regular girl, with long neat hair, good clothes etc. El does not see herself as this in the slightest.

Mike's response is to say "I guess" - which makes sense because it's his sister and he's kind of annoyed by everything she does at the beginning of this season. Mike notes that El called her pretty.

The next, arguably the most important, scene is of El looking around Nancy's room. This scene has no other purpose other than to perpetuate this particular arc that she wants to be like Nancy, that she wants to have a normal childhood.

So far, the scenes of her looking around Mike's house have been her finding things that trigger a flashback to her childhood in the lab. This scene in Nancy's room is the last one where she's looking around the Wheeler house alone. The previous scenes which trigger her lab memories are showing her real childhood.

The Nancy's room scene shows the childhood she wishes she had.

The camera pans around Nancy's room, from El's perspective, who is looking at it in wonderment. So far, she's only seen Mike's room. This is a girl's room and she's a girl, so she's seeing what she wanted as a kid.

Here, she's getting emotional over a music box tune. Music box tunes often elicit themes of early childhood and infancy, also calmness and peace. Her getting emotional over it portrays that she's trying to remember something from her own infancy, but her infancy has never been as calming as a music box.

The music that plays in the background of this scene also has notes very similar to a music box. These musical motifs are often associated with "childhood, nostalgia or gentle, whimsical feelings".

The next thing that is extremely important for this arc, is the fact that El gets very emotional over looking over pictures that Nancy has up in her room of her childhood. There are pictures of little Nancy looking happy, doing normal things, hanging with her best friend Barb, looking like the classic young girl with a happy childhood. El is clearly yearning for that in this scene after remembering so many awful things from her childhood.

This scene is the scene where she basically gains the desire to become Nancy - which is portrayed using the word pretty.

Also keep in mind that El probably knows how she looks - not like the typical girl. So when the boys suggest taking her to the middle school and Lucas says that they can't do that because....

....of her appearance, this reinforces her idea of needing to look "pretty" in order to feel like a normal girl with a normal life.

So she gets a make over by the boys - who are the ones to decide what they think makes a normal looking girl. Keep in mind that the make up and the dress and the wig were not her choices.

So after all this pining over Nancy's childhood and looking like Nancy - when Mike, the person who has taken care of her from the beginning of the season, the person who she's definitely attached to by now, calls her pretty - she must feel pretty gratified. She's achieved looking like a normal girl, even if it's just a costume. This isn't just about her looking like a girl that Mike finds pretty either, this is about her looking like Nancy. Who is his sister. Huh okay definitely romantic asf....

Eventually, Mike covers it up by saying pretty good, which El then decides to repeat into the mirror. She looks extremely emotional in this scene where she's looking at herself - and it's important that Mike is also seen in the mirror because, as we see later on, he becomes part of her desire to have a normal life. Part of her normal image.

After all, he's the one to give her a "normal" name: El. The first thing that gives her identity.

The most important thing to note here is that she is literally wearing Nancy's dress. The first interaction that El and Nancy have is about the fact that El is dressing up as her, which makes perfect sense.

Another strange thing to do with Mike kind of inadvertently referring to El as her family, which further gratifies El's desire to be a part of the normal Wheeler family, is the fact he calls her his cousin:

The next biggest turning point of her arc in S1 is when she uses her powers to harm somebody again - Lucas. This brings her mind back to the lab and her very abnormal childhood, especially when Mike says "What's wrong with you!" - basically showing that her using her powers for bad and not being the perfect normal girl is not what he wants. (Although this isn't actually why he says this, this is just how it looks to El). This is very clearly tied to her arc surrounding opening the UD gate, and feeling like she's a monster for doing this.

When she runs away, she roughens up her clothing and her wig. When she looks into a "mirror", the lake, and sees her true appearance and how wrong the wig looks now, she gets extremely angry at herself.

This encapsulates her arc perfectly because it shows the anger at herself for using her powers incorrectly, and shows the anger at herself for not actually looking or acting like a normal girl would - since the dress and the wig were always going to just be costume pieces. She's aware that she doesn't look like a regular girl, maybe she's even aware that she looks like a boy.

This idea keeps being perpetuated by many characters in the first season.

Which I'm sure just makes her feel more like a freak.

When El arrives back at home, again without the wig and with the dress all messed up and dirty, she looks again to Mike for that reassurance that she is still normal even without the costuming.

To me, this is not romantic, and none of the times that he calls her pretty or her wanting him to call her that are. This is her wanting reassurance that she is just a normal girl still, due to her trauma, even though Mike has surely reassured her that she's not a monster. So when he says, albeit weirdly, that she's still pretty (because he wants her to be happy, as you can tell by his tone), she looks back at the mirror, emotional and smiling. This greatly contrasts to her looking in the lake and screaming at her reflection.

She needs Mike to feel normal - just like he needs her to feel normal oh! Twinning <3

Basically, we've established that she believes she wants to be a part of the Wheeler family to feel normal and like she has a normal childhood. Mike is very much part of that picture. This is reinforced when he paints a picture of her perfect ideal scenario of living a normal life when all the upside down stuff is over:

Mike: "My mom, she's a pretty awesome cook. She can make you whatever you like... Well, yeah, Eggos but real food too." *Sighs* "See, I was thinking, once all of this is over and Will's back and you're not a secret anymore, my parents can get you an actual bed for the basement... My point is, they'll take care of you. They'll be like your new parents, and Nancy will be like your new sister."

El:

She doesn't know her feelings. If she knows what romantic feelings are anyways, she clearly doesn't feel any here, otherwise she would make a disgusted face rather than a curious one. After Mike refuses this idea, that's when she seems legitimately disappointed, because he's taking away her chance at what she wants:

No matter what you say about Mike's behaviour in this scene, this is not romantic at all. oh my god - she literally doesn't think that there's a possibility for romance here. She's being presented as this naive "born sexy yesterday trope" nonsense, I hate it when people think this scene is super cute. I mean yeah, it might be innocent, but innocent in this icky way i cant even-

She ends up pressing him for an answer, and this is where she gets a new idea of a normal girl life: being taken to the Snow Ball by Mike. Being taken to a dance at a school seems like a very normal girl, normal childhood thing to do. She just wants a life where she's not this lab creature she thinks she is, and Mike is providing her with that.

This is how Mike Wheeler explains that incest is wrong guys

Also El keeps pressing and says "No? You can't?" and it's like she keeps wanting to be his sister and getting confused whenever he takes that away from her 😭

When El then asks Mike what he means, he says that you don't even go with a friend, but he never actually says that he likes her, and just decides to kiss her - which he expects her to understand as a romantic gesture I guess. She doesn't know. All she knows is that Mike thinks she's special, Mike is going to help her feel normal and have a normal life.

He is the image of a normal life.

So when she almost gets captured again by the abusive father figure that made her feel like a monster, the one who raised her in a lab where she feels like a fucking experiment, of course she is going to reach for Mike, who is her chance at a normal life. Reaching away from one familial figure to the next.

^^ This bit isn't simply her reaching for someone she trusts or loves, it's about her desperately trying to claw her way back to her only chance at safety.

Then we have the scene that basically confirms this whole thing 100 times over:

Mike: "The bad man's gone. We'll be home soon and my mom...she'll get you your own bed. You can eat as many Eggos as you want....... And we can go to the Snow Ball."

She wants this life. This isn't just about her wanting to be romantic with Mike - the writers didn't just have Mike say about the Snow Ball. They had him promise all the other desirable, familial things that El wants too. She wants him to promise that he will give her a normal life, and he does.

Could go on a complete tangent about how "Promises" are presented as something that can never ever be broken by Mike - meaning Mike gets trapped in this loop over and over of knowing that he's promised El a normal life. Even if his own feelings change, he has promised to provide her normalcy. Oof.

Onto Season 2. This theme of familial love and found family is very much carried on into Season 2, but not in the same way. El has sacrificed herself at the end of Season 1, and has tried to return to the Wheeler household, only to find that she is not welcome.

El is then trapped by Hopper. She shows a desire not just to leave to see Mike, but she shows a desire to leave to go trick or treating, aka the most normal childhood thing to do on Halloween. She just wants to be a kid like everyone else. Meaning, whenever she wants to leave to see Mike, she's trying to leave to have a normal life.

(Also, she only learns how to have a romantic relationship through Romcoms and dramatic romances on TV. Not through her own desires. Her relationship with Mike isn't part of her self-discovery journey, it's an obstacle)

For me, this desire for normalcy is basically proven in the fact that when she finds out there is ANOTHER chance at having a normal life (through finding her mother) she completely abandons the Mike thing and decides to go through that route instead. This is also likely because she keeps trying to contact Mike, but he never sees her, and when she goes to the school, she believes he's moved on without her. So she gives up and takes another route to normalcy.

Now for the moment that inspired this whole post. I just really needed to get out my thoughts about this:

El looks around what was supposed to be her childhood bedroom. Paralleling the scene in S1 where she looks around Nancy's room, yearning for a normal childhood.

PRETTY.

This is definitive proof that the word "pretty" has nothing to do with her wanting to be called beautiful by Mike or something. She's not just calling a teddy bear pretty. She's reminiscing on her old desires to be like Nancy. She reminiscing on her old desires for a normal childhood. She's thinking about the possibility of if she was never taken to the lab, she would have been in this bedroom.

The way she says it too, it's with this sad tone. Like she's kind of resigning herself to actually not having a normal life - seeing as she's arrived to her one chance at it and seeing that her mother is unresponsive.

"Bitchin'"

This season is where we fully see El embrace her powers. We all love to hate on Episode 7 of Season 2, but it's actually really really important to her character. We see her be scared that Brenner is back and ready to take her home to her abnormal childhood. We see her channeling her anger. We see her come to embrace what makes her different.

When she comes back, she looks completely different. But not in a "normal" way. She looks......

No longer pretty - aka normal. She's embracing her powers and her true self. Hopper also backs this up - it's important that he is the first person to embrace this because earlier in the season, he was the one to stifle her true self.

This word is then further associated with her finding herself in Season 3, which is where she kind of regresses back into not knowing who she is at the start of the season. She defines herself as Mike's girlfriend, and he's basically the only person she sees. The reason for this? He's the only one that makes her feel normal and happy. If someone out there calls this super romantic and not signs of an insecure attachment I'll throw my psychology degree hands okay

After she hangs out with Max, she no longer thinks she needs Mike. Max is now the one that makes her feel good - she's the one that doesn't just make her feel normal, but makes her feel free.

When El tarts becoming her own person, and in this season she really really embraces her powers, she calls herself this word again:

In some ways, I think this is just fan service to the line in Season 2 LMAO because S3 was ripe with fan service but I can really see this as just being her looking for validation for her new self from Mike again. Her being a "badass' superhero is what he puts on a pedestal. Her powers are important to her sense of self, and when someone that you are attached to puts you on that pedestal because of your powers..... well.....

When those powers are taken away, you feel the need to create a new version of yourself.

And Season 4 is where El reinvents herself and regresses backwards in her arc. She's, yet again, trying to create the normal girl, normal life. She knows that Mike had put her on a pedestal for having super powers, and she's afraid that if her powers aren't good enough for him, and if she shows flaws when she has no powers, then he'll view her as a monster.

This all stems back to her original storyline in Season 1. See, it all comes full circle.

Now, back to this word. Pretty is no longer used. But bitchin' takes on a new meaning. It is the new "pretty".

El seeks validation from Mike again, wanting to seem like she has a normal life, a cool life that he desires and something that he'll show love for. She needs him to like this idealised version of her without flaws, with friends and good grades and someone who goes to fun parties at a roller rink:

Then we see El go through her Season 4 arc which I just cannot begin to summarise, but I'll try to show what it means for this metaphor of her needing Mike to validate her:

Mike finds out about her lies, but she hides from him and refuses his initial comfort. She then acts violently and very out of the line from her idealised version she created.

The way he reacts reminds her of her old, abusive father figure who made her feel like an experiment. (again links to the old S1 arc)

Mike then refuses to talk to her, making her believe that he views her as a monster. She already thinks that he doesn't love her anymore because of the no powers thing.

He calls her a 'superhero' despite her really not feeling like one.

She throws the words back at Mike in a note later. Basically telling him that she no longer needs him to tell her that she's a superhero for her to feel like one.

In the lab, she figures out that she was never the monster. This is extremely important because she does this without needing Mike to tell her that he loves her.

When Mike does tell her that he loves her, it is no longer satisfying because she doesn't need this anymore. He also continues to call her a superhero.

Mike makes El feel normal - he gives her that stability that she was craving since she was extremely young. She just wants a normal childhood. After embracing her powers, she realises that in order for Mike to love her, she needs to have badass powers like a superhero, meaning when she loses them, she reinvents herself as a normal girl again. When she shows flaws, her powers no longer "make up" for them, so she thinks Mike views her as a monster. She wants him to tell her he loves her for her to stop feeling like one. She figures out she was never the monster by herself in S4. Mike continues to put her on a pedestal and overexaggerates her powers in the love monologue, which is no longer needed because she has figured out she...

DOESN'T NEED MIKE

but yknow who does??? will... okay bye guys this took me for ever

[surferboypizza]

If Mike clocked Will in the van scene, then this expression is him being like "but why? why are you making me do this?" :((((((((( okay thx

[surferboypizza]

Thinking about how the Snow Ball kiss was literally confirmed fan service for Milkvans.

That they did not have any intention of having them kiss at the end of that season (abnormal for a romantic reunion don't you think....👀) but Millie thought that fans would be disappointed with that.

"Byler is fan service" meanwhile the writers trying to write Byler and shift away from Milkvan were making little sacrifices to give Mike and El romantic moments.

Their original intention was for Mike and El NOT to kiss and then for it to cut to WILL looking over at them dancing as *the* last shot before cutting away to the mind flayer.

Their original intention was basically this

Not a Mlvn payoff. They wanted to end on a Byler setup.

[surferboypizza]

Rewatching S1… some of the subtle little hints about Mike liking Will are insane

“i knew you were acting weird i just thought it was cause of will.” “I knew you were acting weird i just thought it was cause of steve” WILD side by side considering Mike is implying he thought Nancy was acting weird because she’s dating Steve (understandable Nancy would make this comment considering Will was missing but the fact that those two lines coincide makes me wonder if we’re supposed to read in between the lines)

Also these,

Do all the Wheelers know something??

[surferboypizza]

Does anyone else find it interesting that in two seasons where Mike clearly struggles with internalised anger (homophobia lets be real), there are two otherwise unnecessary scenes where he watches someone try something new and different (Lucas with new coke in S3 and El with hawaiian pizza in S4) and Mike states his immediate distaste for them -- BEFORE he even tries any of them. He calls them "gross" and "blasphemous".

It happened twice. If this happened once then I would have chalked it up to a funny scene just for humour purposes, but he's the only one being put in these situations. Both times, these scenes don't add anything to the story. (Yes I know that the new coke scene is a product placement, but they made Mike the one to refuse it for a reason.) To me, they've been put there by the writers to show that Mike's the type, in these two seasons, to go along with public opinion even if he's never actually tried them.

In the 80s, obviously, the public opinion is that traditional relationships are good, and queer relationships aren't. He's already seen conforming to society's ideas of a man when he expresses that women act on emotion and not logic. He's being affected by public opinion.

The difference between the two scenes is that in S4, he's made to actually try it by Argyle and El, who use the line "Try before you deny" (obviously fucking queercoded). Then he actually decides he likes it, which is off camera, but you can see it in the subtitles that he says "actually it's pretty good".

These scenes, to me, or nothing but foreshadowing. A little nod to go back on and rewatch post-season 5.

[surferboypizza]

moment of appreciation for this nancy fit bc i think abt it all the time

[surferboypizza]

The rink-o-mania scene might be the gayest scene in all of Stranger Things lmao. Here they are playing queer anthems like You Spin Me Round and Tarzan Boy with gay couples in the background, pride flags on clothing, a guy behind Will wearing a shirt that says “I like contact sports”, Mike and Will having the gayest meltdown about how they’re “friends” while a score plays the second Mike speaks that is LITERALLY titled “In The Closet”

They are so unserious lmao like the gay coding and subtext is literally funny atp to these writers