#both his family and society

[pholiabanna]

It seems to be the popular opinion amongst the fandom that Mike was so mean for joining another Dnd club in season 4, but it’s actually a huge win both for his character arc and for byler, of course. 

Mike used to love not only Dnd, but other nerdy games, movies and comics. That’s one of his core traits (and Lucas’ and Dustin’s and Will’s). They are nerds, and that is presented as a positive thing, because the Duffers themselves said they were nerds when they were their age and they loved the same games. 

However, we see a radical change in Mike in season 3. He seems obsessed with the concept of growing up, which for him means dropping all of the games that we know made him happy, to spend time with his girlfriend instead. And the general audience and mlevens always present this “growth” as a positive thing, but again, if we remember the Duffers still consider themselves nerds to the core and still love Dnd and other games, why would they write a storyline about how dropping things that they like is good because as you grow up you should focus on your girlfriend? 

This storyline for Mike was clearly not meant to be seen as something positive. Ditching your friends and your hobbies for your girlfriend is not a positive thing in real life and the Duffers wrote that into the show. Will was in the right calling him out for that, but people -specially redditors- dissmiss it as him being clingy to his childhood and not growing up. But that’s not the intended message. Will was in the right because basically he was telling Mike he shouldn’t drop his others friends and the things he likes completeley. Dustin was also disappointed by this attitude, that’s why he spent the season with the Scoops Troop: he hated being sidelined because “he wasn’t important anymore”. Even Hopper calls this out: it’s not good to spend every day for six months seeing only your s/o and making out, meaning you’ve completely lost all contact with other people in your life and you don’t have personal interests that fulfill you. Mike hating Dnd (and nerdy stuff) was not intended to be a good thing. 

Here comes the interesting part: coincidentally, this happens to Mike right after he gets a girlfriend. However, the moment she moves out of town he magically regained interest to the point he joined Hellfire Club and he tells Lucas that “he doesn’t wanna be popular”? It’s almost like somehow, the idea of having a girlfriend and not playing Dnd were linked in his mind. A part of growing up, according to him in the rain fight, was not playing games, but as I’ve said, the Duffers didn’t portray that as something positive; the other part of growing up, as he also said during the rain fight, was getting girlfriends. So if the Duffers didn’t intend for Mike dropping games to be something positive for his arc, why would him getting a girlfriend not be something bad for his arc too? 

Him “joining another party” is good because he likes Dnd and nerdy stuff again. He’s growing and coming into his own. He’s accepting that he was wrong in season 3 and games are actually cool. He’s going back to who he was at the beggining of the show. That’s a good thing for his arc! He left behind the attitude that was portrayed as negative for going against the themes of the show. That’s what I also believe that Will would never be mad at him after finding out he’s in Hellfire. Instead, I think he would be so happy that Mike isn’t pretending to be someone he isn’t anymore. 

But we see this positive new Mike mainly during s4e1. Coincidentally, that’s the episode where his girlfriend is not around. Then in episode 2, he’s playing the part of the perfect boyfriend again, he’s trying to be grown up again (aka pretending to not care about games/Will, and being the perfect boyfriend for his girlfriend, accordint to what he thinks grown men should do because of societal expectations). The reocurring theme in this Mike-Dnd storyline is that he only stops liking it when he’s in a relationship with El in the same town. So, if not liking Dnd = bad, but not liking Dnd = having a girlfriend, then, according to the Duffers themselves, having a girlfriend = bad. That’s the point of Mike joining Hellfire, he’s discovering hemself, and apart from this helping his personal arc by him becoming more confident in himself and comfortable with who he is, this also fuels his sexuality storyline: it’s not good for him to have a girlfriend because he should have a boyfriend. And in season 4 he’s beggining to accept this (and he progressively accepts it more during his heart to hearts with Will). So Mike joining Hellfire is actually wonderful for Mike’s arc, because he wasn’t being an asshole in season 3 just because, and it’s good for byler, because it means that the good thing for Mike, according to the Duffers, is to date Will. 

[otaku553]

More doodles for the one piece spy x family crossover

[alicentes]

I didn’t sit here for years tryna stay calm and silent while listening to your bad takes on gale (who grew up oppressed, in poverty and then witnessed his entire district getting wiped out then rightly went to fight in the rebellion because it was his inlg chance of tearing down the system the wanted him and his family dead) being a “terrorist war criminal who is single handedly responsible for killing innocent people including prim and who is the REAL villain of the hunger games” just for y’all to turn and start stanning and defending actual facist dictator and child trafficker Coriolanus Snow because you saw a young hot version of him.

[rotisseries]

my favorite thing about mha has got to be how you can't tell if the writers are aware or not that the setting is in fact a corrupt police state

[nashvillethotchicken]

I wish there were more black people who were into iwtv so I can talk about how Louis's class and race interests intersected

[fromtheseventhhell]

Saying that non-conforming female characters don't face as much misogyny as their "feminine" counterparts is so funny cause literally the misogyny in their treatment is more overt because they aren't staying "in their place" like men think they should. The disdain for women + misogynistic societal ideals are so much more blatant in male characters interacting with these women. Countless times they are, in essence, told they need to sit down, shut up, and know their place but somehow that translates into them having "masculine privilege". I can only assume that people with this take haven't actually read the books and only get their information from second-hand sources.

[seagull-scribbles]

Two Bros chillin’ on a rooftop, 5ft apart 'cause they're not gay 👀

[lre333]

(found)family dynamics ft. nose presets by @kashisun​ 🖤

Y’ALL i can’t wait for you to get your hands on these amazing presets - MARINE, you mfkin’ DID THAT, OKAY?!! *inSPIRED* had me up playin in CAS, making up whole damn backstories for sims i just met ~sigh~ they already got theme songs and nicknames cuz you had the NERVE to pop off on these wonderfully unique, character-filled, deeply customizable schnoz shapes ~ i’m in love <3333

a lil scenario occured while i was putting the family together, learning their quirks and how they interact with each other - an entire mess XD

in order of appearance :

vanity ; as “i’m watching my shows” non-snitchin’ witness / too pretty for this

snickers ; as accident-prone troublemaker crybaby / jealous he’s not the baby

ariel ; as perpetually sick-of-this-shit scandalized younger sibling / good sport

hunny ; as not the mess but has something to say about it / lowkey accomplice

mamma neptune ; as rough-edged at work, soft toward the children / the glue

[youngestdaughtersyndrome]

Everytime i feel the slightest desire to get cosmetic surgery done i imagine telling my twelve year old self that no, we just arent pretty; yeah, i guess everyone was right about us not being good enough; yeah, its irreversible so i'll never have to look like you again. Works like a charm if yr determined to not get work done. Also deeply emotionally devastating holy shit

[comedicreliefonlyworkswhenfunny]

Horikoshi, repeatedly: People are shaped from the environments that they are born in. They are complex and not two dimensional. Some hard times affect others more, and they can lash out in harmful ways. That doesn't mean they're bad people, and that doesn't mean they can't change. Their actions may be reprehensible or unforgivable, but they are still human.

This fandom, time and time again: That can't stop me because I can't read.

[universalheart]

apocalypse

[fellhellion]

I can’t tell whether this is me having an autism moment or whether this is the kind of thing that crops up 6 months out of a film’s release, and I’m not trying to be an asshole but hand wringing about what if btsv reveals Dana is Gabriella’s biological mother is just. Not a concern I understand tbh.

Like for one, atsv shows less than nothing about her other biological parent. We know Jack shit about whoever contributed 50% of her DNA to the point where there’s just as much evidence for like. Alt Miguel spawning this child asexually like a starfish or this baby arriving in a little white blanket via stork.

There’s no family photos in the bg, no other parent was in Gabriella’s life when her father died otherwise we would’ve been shown them etc. we have more evidence for alt Miguel being a trans man that got a sperm donation than we do a partner being involved in the creation of this kid lmao

also blah blah blah it’s a good writing decision that there’s no partner shown there because otherwise it invites a dimension of moral complication to the story (ie. the violation of trust and consent that is secretly replacing someone’s partner) that atsv just isn’t trying to court, because the entire point of Gabriella as a writing device is to be an additionally sympathetic dimension to Miguel’s motivations and guilt.

Secondly, PAD is the main guy continually referencing Dana as Miguel’s fiancé (whether past or current) and unless he somehow sneaks his way into the writer’s room, I genuinely don’t understand any kind of concern that we’re somehow going to get an other parent reveal for Gabriella when the opportunity for that came and went already, and the film writers have been very open abt the fact they’re taking liberties w this iteration of the character (Asking for Oscar Issac’s opinion on the writing as a Latino man etc) and thus Miguel’s characterisation isn’t supposed to be a one to one adaptation of any singular comic run.

[halyorke-vampiredisaster]

Most of the time In the Flesh is just another dvd case on my shelf that I don't think about and then once in a while I go to rewatch it very innocently and 5 minutes in I'm violently run over by how fucking raw it is and by how insanely hard it hits omg

[interesting-interludes]

— 🍯

[hexados-on-a-string]

the only reason hydron didnt live is bc if he was part of the brawler's interdimensional found family, that'd involve him getting a character arc on account of actually having a support system and also the fact that zenoheld is dead and they didn't wanna write that so they just killed off hydron. this lives in my brain though.

[tenshindon]

Also I would like to say I think are perception of Chi has been swayed by the anime especially English dub where she was pretty much Goku’s smart foil. In the original Japanese manga… she is dumb. Her and ox are written with a dumb hick quality. Why does she sign up for the tournament because she wants a hunk, she has a son fuck fighting I’m going to be a mother who cares about education… idk anything about it but now it’s what I need to do because I’m a mother now! Again it’s the original Japanese manga I’m talking about. I got all of this from Mr. Fusion from part 3 of his Sayian arc video.

so she's stupid because she understands that having an education can generally get you far in a typical society ???? and she wants her son to have a normal, successful upbringing ??