#or that mike feel he doesn’t really know el because they jumped into a relationship so quickly

[argayle]

willel are not the best friends fanon makes them out to be. they are siblings. will eats the last of the eggos and el has a meltdown on him. el steals will’s good paints and he refuses talk to her for three days. will is chilling in his room listening to music with the door closed? not anymore. el has barged in, stuck her tongue out at him, and left the door open. el hogs the tv. will hogs the bathroom. both complain until jonathan drives them to the shops. el might use her psychic powers to trip will’s bullies, but she also uses them to steal his blanket when they’re sitting together on the couch.

but mike and el? those two are best friends. Mike and El are the ones that sit on the floor by El’s bed, talking shit about the stupid people in their classes. Mike is the person who lets El play with his hair. Will? Wear nail polish? Never. But the makeover El gives Mike behind closed doors… it’s eye opening, to say the least. But that’s pretty much the extent of their “girly” activities. Mike complains whenever El pulls him out of the house to go on nature walks or slouches around the driveway while El naively attempts to entice him into a game of pickup. It never works, and they end up sitting in the grass, and Mike gets a sunburn.

[nadia-zahra]

Deep Dive on Mike and his Gay Feelings

So a lot of people speculate when exactly Mike realizes he has romantic feelings for Will, and I’m jumping onto the snowball train. Lemme explain:

For the show’s pitch on the characters, Mike was insecure ab not having a girlfriend. From the start, the duffers wanted his character to struggle with not being heteronormative. All of the characters are type casted as being different in their own ways. But this let’s us know that Mike thinks having a gf is what’s going to make him normal. Lucas and Dustin didn’t have anything ab girlfriends in their description, so why Mike? Well, it implies that the duffers have always had the intentions of making him queer (ima gay mike truther personally), but I don’t think this means since s1 he knows he likes Will.

Season 1 shows us Mike and Will have a deeper connection compared to the rest of the party. Mike keeps a binder of his drawings, puts himself and the rest of the party in danger in order to find Will, trusts El solely because she says she can help find him, and was going to kill himself at the quarry because he had lost all hope in finding Will. I don’t think Mike starts developing romantic feelings for him in this season because tbf he’s 12 and it is really traumatic to have your bff of 5 year’s old disappear. But I will say that this behavior does show just how deeply he cares for Will and that his feelings definitely have some romantic undertones (again gonna mention the binder of Will’s pictures and drawings all over basement).

His relationship with El s1 also highlights how mike is queer. El is the only girl he’s ever became friends with that understands what it’s like to be an outsider. He’s in the mindset of normal=girlfriend, and since El is the only girl in his life he thinks they’re supposed to date. Even tho they are depicted as a blossoming romance, both Mike and El’s behavior isn’t romantic in the slightest. It more so reads as mike thinking him and El need to date because he’s a boy and she’s a girl, and El just going along with it because she doesn’t know better. The clearest piece of evidence that mike doesn’t have romantic feelings towards El is when discussing El living in the Wheeler house in 1x8. Mike says El would be like Nancy’s sister, but wouldn’t be Mike’s. This means that his feelings for her are platonic because he views Nancy and El as a sibling dynamic, but thinks the next step in their relationship is dating because of heteronormativity. If he didn’t view her platonically, he would’ve said El could become friends with Nancy or wouldn’t have mentioned Nancy at all.

Season 2 pre-snowball is when things pick up a bit more with byler because now we actually see how Mike and Will interact with each other. Will said Mike was the only one treating him the same. So before the ud, Mike was super affectionate and protective and was basically acting like a boyfriend? Cool, good to know. 2x2 specifically gives us the most insight into how they’re dynamic works. The whole Halloween episode let’s us know Mike thinks of Will and their friendship differently than the rest of the party’s. Him getting pissy with only Will for not talking to him ab max joining (even tho lucas or Dustin didn’t either), him immediately searching for Will after he’d left Will’s side for not even 3 minutes and then dragging Will back to his place to be alone, and, finally, the crazy together scene. Again, I don’t think the crazy together scene is when Mike realizes he has feelings for Will. This is when WE, the viewers, know Mike has feelings for him. That scene was the nail in the coffin in confirming these two clearly have romantic feelings. But for Mike, it was a turning point in their relationship. It confirms that they are their own individual team separate from the party. This scene probably had mike feeling all kinds of butterflies and just didn’t know why they were happening…yet 😏

His relationship with El s2, again, shows us that his feelings for her are platonic and also not has strong compared to Will’s. He doesn’t believe El is dead…but he also doesn’t search after her once, doesn’t bring up how he saw her out his window to the party (only to Will might I add), and, besides calling her everyday, Mike basically acts like she doesn’t exist. This is a complete contrast with Will’s disappearance!! This is the girl Mike supposedly has a crush on, the only girl he’s ever had a deep connection with—this behavior doesn’t add up with his character…unless he doesn’t feel as strongly towards El as he does Will. And the way Mike behaves versus how El behaves in their reunion is telling ab how they see each other too. It’s obvious that El feels romantically towards him now (she’s looking at him with heart eyes and is a little breathless), but he reads as platonic. Like if it had been Dustin or Lucas, he would’ve said and reacted the exact same way. He didn’t overreact (in my books at least) when finding out hop was hiding her either. Just really platonic and would’ve also started punching and screaming at hopper if it was anyone in that room.

THE SNOW BALL *duh duh DUHHHH*

I need to preface this beforehand: Mike didn’t think El was going to show up!! His reactions and responses of what’s to come are without El in mind.

Ok back to Mike realizing he like likes Will

When Dustin arrives late to the dance we see Lucas and Max together (presumably as dates) and Mike and Will…so he thought during the whole dance it was just going to be him, Will, and Dustin together once lumax started doing their own thing.

But then this random girl comes up and asked Will if he wants to dance and Mike pushes Will to say yes. Just noticed only Mike and Will turn to her when she comes up, Dustin doesn’t. this happens for two reasons 1) Dustin is heartbroken ab lumax so ofc he isn’t watching this happen 2) Mike isn’t heartbroken by lumax, and is also thinking “why tf is this girl coming up to Will?”. So when this random ass girl asks Will for a dance and Will looks at him for an answer, the only thing he thinks is to say yes because that’s what a good NORMAL friend would do.

Yet, even though he’s the one that told Will to say yes, he automatically starts sulking. He looks just like Dustin: heartbroken from jealousy.

but this is his face when he realizes what his jealousy is from:

YEAH THIS IS THE MOMENT HE REALIZES HE LIKES WILL

Sitting there, just processing his feelings, Mike realizes that his jealous insecurity of someday being replaced by Will’s future girlfriend is because Mike doesn’t want him have one and, instead, wants Will to be with him.

His face gives it all away!! He looks in shock. Eyes wide, mouth opened, and staring at nothing because he’s so deep in thought. He looks completely dumbfounded, like “I like like Will holy shit” is on repeat while he thinks about every interaction they’ve ever had. And this shocked face was intentional!! They stay on him with this face for almost 10 seconds before El walks in. This wasn’t just a quick cut to him looking bored (which is what it looks like if your just casually watching). They wouldn’t have stayed on him for so long if we weren’t supposed to notice his facial expression!

You might be thinking, why now? How does this girl coming up to Will and making Mike jealous get him to this realization? After all, he was super jealous when he thought Will liked Max, so why not back at the crazy together scene?

Heres the difference between him getting jealous over Max and Will versus the rando and Will: he saw unrequited feelings between Will and Max (she didn’t like him back), but not with Will and the rando (he says yes). Plus the crazy together scene leads Mike to believe their bond is stronger than anything else, but Will leaving him for a girl makes him realize it isn’t.

And this realization doesn’t help him mentally— it just feeds into his “I’m not normal” insecurity. Not to mention he thinks Will doesn’t love him back or even could. So guess who walks in and is able to save him from his gay crisis…

YUPPPP THE ONE AND ONLY EL

Even the mileven kiss proves mike knows he likes Will. Mike wasn’t originally supposed to kiss her— he duffers didn’t even want it, Millie did. She literally asked for it because she thought that shippers would be pissed (she’s the shipper) if it didn’t happen. The duffers don’t give a fuck ab what shippers want! Never have! And even tho it was her begging for it, I don’t think they would allow a 13 year old to make major decisions like this without it working with their vision. However…it does. They realized the kiss actually strengthens Mike pushing away Will, so that’s why they lit the green light on that impromptu kiss. The kiss is just Mike belly flopping head first into his new (fake) personality.

Mike begins his “I don’t like like Will, I’m normal 😃” phase that continues through s3 and s4. Except that phase takes a turn after he realizes he’s in love with Will in the season 3 finale, but that’s for another byler essay.

[wibble-wobbegong]

What are your thoughts on the wild fluctuation of Mike's outfits in s2? He's either wearing his fancy ass collared argyle sweater OR a blue hoodie that's falling off one shoulder half the time

The juxtaposition always gets to me

OH MY GOD this was actually something me and @aemiron-main talked about once and i think his perspective differed a little but also was incredibly based so he’s getting @ ed in case he wants to jump in on this

this is something that happens every season, but mike’s clothes always tend to parallel ted’s. for the two outfits you’re talking about, here’s ted’s versions of them

same hoodie, same argyle print. there are a few key differences though

I know your original question was about the difference between mike’s outfits, but first i wanna look at each of them in relation to ted. at their base, both of these colors are light grays, arguably white, and white is a color a heavily associated with self acceptance or living the truth (think el at the end of s4 or nancy’s halloween outfit when she admits to not loving steve). both ted and mike are comfortable in who they are on some level this season. yes, mike is insecure as always, but he knows what his goals are and he’s strong in his relationships with the people around him. the first two seasons are mike at his most confident, and mike doesn’t hold back his emotions this season nearly as much as he does in the later ones. he’s not afraid of himself here. ted seems to be pretty okay with being the stalest man alive

so the difference? ted’s clothes are particularly plain in comparison. there’s nothing else adding to his personality, he’s mostly a blank slate. he’s the epitome of normal, which makes it easy to accept who he is. mike’s, however, maintain the pattern of horizontal stripes. we see it in pretty much all of his outfits in season 1 and 2. the costume designers talked about including triangles in robin’s s3 outfit to indicate queerness, but in my opinion there’s an even more obvious design choice that indicates queerness. stripes.

we see stripes in a lot of will’s outfits too, but an even more obvious example of this design choice are the scoops ahoy outfits

steve has horizontal stripes, but compared to robin?? the stripes go unnoticed in steve’s outfit, but robin is shoving the stripes in your face because they’re an important part of the outfit.

what does that mean for mike’s outfits? mike has self confidence, but there’s more to it than that. there’s also that indicator of queerness that greatly differs from ted. it’s directly showing us that mike is different from ted through the clear change in pattern.

the jacket itself also works as an indication of how open mike is being with his queer feelings. i’m of the belief that mike realized his feelings in s2, hence the repression kicking in during s3, and his jacket gives us a visual of mike slowly realizing his own feelings, unconsciously at first but by the time the jacket is open his feelings towards will become more and more obvious

the jacket slowly opens up, starting where you can barely see the shirt underneath, to it being more open at the top when he goes to the byers and it stays like that up until will goes to the hospital. we don’t really see mike’s jacket until the scene where will is trying to recall his memory. mike was probably starting to pick up on something here, considering we can literally see him getting shy about it, which we haven’t really seen from him before (crazy together wasn’t really shyness in the same way though there were soft smiles. mike was more entranced by will and feeling the warmth of no longer feeling alone than he was being shy like he is here)

even though he’s starting to question things, i don’t think he fully understands what he’s feeling till his shed monologue, which adds the half lighting we see in s3 and 4 in regards to mike’s romantic life

mike has one other outfit with this hoodie

his undershirt is the polar opposite of the one we see him wear with will. where his other shirt has a light under-color and blue and yellow stripes, this shirt has a much darker under-color and the the stripes are very thin, barely visible blue bands followed by prominent red and white. mike’s relationship with el in the way we last saw it (romantic) isn’t opening mike to being who he really is and we can barely see himself in these moments. a lot of his feelings for el are rooted in survivor’s guilt, feeling indebted to her, and grief. that small bit of white shows that some of his care for el is legitimate, but only on a deeper level; he cares for el at her core, but a lot of mike’s current perception is rooted in things that aren’t true to himself because he’s gay and isn’t actually romantically interested in el

but yeah! hope that makes sense!! i’m writing this during my psych class lmao

[redshoes-blues]

El and Mike, Bedroom Analysis

I’ve started a rewatch of ST4 vol. 1 to see if I notice any background details or subtext that I didn’t pick up on during my first watch. I took a closer look at El and Mike’s bedrooms to look for visual cues into their relationship dynamics.

The bedroom of a character is important because it’s a space that reflects their innermost self. It’s their most intimate space which typically details aspects of their personality, inner world, and life. If there’s any place a character may display hidden parts of themselves via visuals, it’ll be here (see: Will’s “Boys Don’t Cry” poster as a clue into his sexuality, for example).

El’s Bedroom

In El’s bedroom, she has several visual cues that represent her love for Mike: a collage of floral hearts and an M+E heart on her wall, a photo of Mike on her desk, and most importantly the infamous Mike shrine. One thing that jumped out to me was a small detail in El’s Mike shrine.

The detail is a valentine, presumably from Mike, which reads “I Like You! Let’s Be Valentines.”

ST4 begins in March, a bit over a month past Valentine’s Day. I’m assuming the card is from V-Day 1986 given that El and Mike were separated the previous holiday [edit: the card features in El’s room during the summer of 1985]. With that in mind, the “Like” on the card from Mike really stands out next to all of El’s self-created hearts on the Mike shrine and in her room (which is adorable, btw, El is the sweetest kid!).

We know El is upset because Mike hadn’t told her he loves her in any of his letters. The card just adds further visual detail to the difference between how Mike and El view their relationship. El loves Mike, Mike likes El.

Mike’s Bedroom

While El holds onto anything Mike gives her and seems to pin a lot of hope and feeling onto their relationship, El is notably absent from Mike’s room. This is furthered when Mike throws away El’s letter when he’s in Will’s bedroom. We know Mike keeps all of Will’s drawings in a binder in his basement, and has a drawing of Will’s on his cork board.

Why wouldn’t Mike venerate El’s letters the same way he does Will’s drawings? The same way El does for the letters from him? Even if he did love El and was having a hard time expressing that love because of the behaviour shown by his parents: why throw away her letter?

It’s such an odd discrepancy between the way Mike receives items of affection from Will vs. El that it has to be purposeful. The two scenarios are clearly mirrored. This is especially the case because the camera pans over El’s Mike shrine at the very start of the season. El’s love for Mike displayed through physical objects isn’t just put in the background, but in the forefront. The same can’t be said for Mike, who shows no visual cues of love for El at any point in ST4.

Visual cues for unreciprocated love

For me, all of this is a visual cue to viewers that Mike and El aren’t on the same page with their relationship and what it means to each of them. In fact, while El loves Mike and proudly displays her love in her bedroom (a space reflecting her innermost self, where she is free to express herself): Mike doesn’t do the same. Instead, he displays drawings from his best friend.

Why is this important? Well, if Mike’s feelings for Will are romantic, then the letters and visual cues can provide insight into how Mike feels vs. the other characters.

El loves Mike. She proudly displays her love in her private space and writes him letters where she declares her love.

Will loves Mike and is growing to accept himself. He displays the poster of a queer-coded song on his wall and keeps a painting for Mike in his room.

Mike likes El, but he doesn’t love her. At least not romantically. His room displays drawings of Will’s, with no visual cues of a possible love for El. He doesn’t tell El he loves her in person when she confronts him, and afterwards, he throws away the letter from her. Even when confronted, he doesn’t hold onto the physical representation of El, despite holding onto drawings from Will.

Put together, I think the props within Mike and El’s bedrooms serve as visual representations of their inner selves. In both cases, they reveal that the characters aren’t aligned in their relationship. And they both deserve better than to be unhappy in a relationship that doesn’t reciprocate their true desires.

[bugsbenefit]

thoughts on the time skip and how it could tie in perfectly with Mike getting targeted early on

with Mike being such a central character to Will’s And El’s character it really seems like he has one of the biggest targets on his back narrative wise during the next season. especially since Mike was the only character to directly and verbally confirm that he will help Will kill Vecna he now isn’t just one of many threats Vecna could possibly face but also directly standing between him and Will, who’s Vecna’s most reoccurring target (this turn of Mike siding himself with Will isn’t even just told to us in the cabin scene but also later reinforced with the ending shot of Mike being the only one to stand directly by Will’s side)

i do really like the possibility of Mike getting targeted or temporarily taken out at the beginning of the season, but then ended up wondering how that would actually play out in the greater narrative. could they really skip forward a year while leaving this open ended for the characters? and well, there are definitely some interesting ways this could tie in with the story currently being set up:

the impending time jump is one of the things that’s been bothering me the most ever since s4 aired. (in one interview the Duffers estimated it after e2, this may have changed in the writing process but seems to be the best guess we can go off of right now) it’s always hard to incorporate time skips During a season without it feeling rushed. you essentially have to re-meet the characters halfway through. because it doesn’t matter if you tell the audience “none of them changed”, relationships will progress, especially if you jump 1+ year(s) forward. and i’ve really been racking my brain about how season 5 could actually pull off a time jump without essentially having to “start over” since that usually kills the drive and action for a bit which is a bad pace for a final season.

and so, usually, the only really good excuse to abandon your characters for an extended period of time while avoiding having two “beginnings” is to ensure that the characters have no chance to drastically evolve off screen. and in my experience there’s only really one way to show that the characters start back up where we left them. and it’s by breaking up the group.

friendships and relationships are halted that way, the audience knows they’re not missing any critical development. often character arcs are also halted this way in ensemble heavy stories since moving characters away from the group often removes the driving factor of character conflict and development.

IT is a very good example of this. (disclaimer: talking about the book, i haven’t seen any of the movies) the book jumps back and forth between the adults and their kid selves (shown in flashbacks) interestingly, the adult and kid characters are still very familiar despite the characters having lived almost 30 years off page. this is because their character arcs only start majorly moving again when their group reunites since they’re all tied to each other. the book is imo one of the best examples of “they all go their separate ways and find back together” since you really never feel like you missed out on something during the time skip

but while splitting up is usually the best approach to time skips, splitting up the ST cast seems very extreme, because how would this feasibly happen? they’re all back in Hawkins at the end of s4. so while having the characters not interact much for a year or two would probably keep the audience the most invested in the characters... how would this happen without feeling like it came out of nowhere?

and. well. it Did surprise me a bit how easy it would be to explain with story beats we were already shown.

watching the show it’s actually interesting how far the group drifts from each other. it’s also a frequent complaint i’ve seen from viewers: we start with a close knit friend group in s1. but s2 already breaks from that idea a bit by having the hospital and non hospital group. Will and Mike are doing their own thing, and even before Will gets possessed Mike actively pushes their friends away who are trying to help. and as the seasons progress and more characters become important they start splitting off. Dustin is usually with the older teens or Erika and rarely with all of the party. El and Mike were established to neglect their friends for a whole summer. and then in s4 this reaches a peak and is finally starting to get addressed. Max ghosts them. Will and Mike barely talk. and the argument that is highlighted between Lucas and Mike IS about the party splitting up and going their own ways. and it doesn't get resolved by the end of the season.

so we’re actually already left with a set up where the integrity of the group dynamic got repeatedly challenged and then finally verbally called out during s4. the idea that this could be built on during s5 isn’t that far off, especially given that the argument between Lucas and Mike is still open ended

interestingly enough. if we’re actually getting a scenario of Vecna targeting Mike pre time jump, Will’s love confession about Mike being the heart of the party could actually be some really cruel foreshadowing.

because what Would happen if Mike was out of the picture for the time skip?  well thankfully Will actually went out of his way to tell us this last season. the group would fall apart.

the line did always feel significant to me. it seems very deliberate narrative wise to have Will not only point out Mike’s importance to their friend group, literally calling him the heart twice, but also mentioning what would happen if Mike wasn’t there.

just throwing ideas out there but this could play out as them genuinely growing further apart without having Mike act as their heart /glue in this case. or them growing more focused on their individual goals without Mike acting as a unifying factor since he’s always been the unofficial leader of the group, their DM. this could have El and Lucas stuck trying to find Max, possibly with different approaches too thanks to their different abilities (we’ve seen Lucas read to her, El was trying to find her in the Void etc). we were already shown that Dustin would stick to the town and school, the Duffers confirming he would be dealing with grief over Eddie also fits that picture. and all this would leave Will on his own, most definitely clinging onto the hope that Mike is still alive which would give us the perfect parallel to s1 like we were told we would get. however, this time it wouldn’t be Will who’s missing

[sunflowerharrington]

I’m finally sending you my request!

I would probably want a fluffy to smutty Eddie x plus size reader fic. Based on “Do I wanna know?” By Arctic Monkeys.

Like her and Eddie are bffs and she has had a crush on him for what feels like forever, they tease each other and stuff but he never picks up the hints. The whole gang goes to the lake for a day and the reader is super nervous to show up in her swimsuit because she’s bigger and doesn’t want Eddie to think she’s gross. When he sees her he realizes the feelings he’s had for a very long time. They eventually go back to his place to change and they both end up confessing to each other. That’s just my idea but you can change it however you want to fit the song better if you like. 💕

Do I Wanna Know If This Feeling Flows Both Ways? - EM X PlusSize!GN!Reader

pairing: eddie munson x plus-size!gn!reader.

warnings: male masturbation, perv!eddie, friends to lovers, p in v sex, eddie’s wild thoughts, eddie’s pov, obsessions, borderline yandere!eddie, jealousy, anger, low self esteem, body issues, lack of self love, fluff and smut, mention of heather holloway and billy hargrove’s deaths, reader is wearing a bathing suit but this can be read as swim shorts too if you like, slight breeding kink (i think that’s it).

notes: i tried my best, babes, i really did. i don’t feel as though this is the best representation because i myself am not plus sized, so if this is bad i’m sorry, i just wanted to write this for you. poc friendly also :) enjoy! if you want you can listen to ‘do i wanna know’ by arctic monkeys!

side note: not proofread or edited, sorry if there’s spelling or grammar mistakes :( also, i couldn’t help myself from switching the pov and the crush to eddie, i hope you still like it baby!

word count: 1541

taglist: @jonathansonlysweetheart @steveslittlesunflower @thisishellfire @friendly-neighborhood-ghoul @hellfirehaley @fxllfaiiry @fleurfairie @liviawritesthings @myobmaya @thefreakofhawkins86 @lxvecakes @creneal @corrodedhawkins @wzrlds @sympathyforher @quickiesgirl @eddiebillysteve @taecube @eddies-bat (i hope i got everyone!) dm comment or ask me to be added or taken off for future updates! 🖤

There’s this story that brings you on the journey of young love. It’s like stepping out from a dark place and into the sun on a hot summer’s day, where the light is so bright and hot that your eyes ache and you’re blinded, where you panic, afraid you’ll never see the sun again. That’s what it was like when Eddie Munson fell in love. And he would always see the sun, as you were his sun, and he’d never let you go as long as you both lived.

He wanted you forever, he wanted to be yours forever. Whether that was as a friend, a best friend, or something more, he didn’t really mind. He just wanted you to stay in his life. Which was why on the day before you left for your vacation to California that you were going on with Chrissy, Robin, Nancy, Max, Erica and El, Eddie decided to ask the gang to meet him down by Lover’s Lake for a cool off from the hot sun. And everyone showed up, with Dustin complaining the entire time about the heat, with Steve telling him to stop whining.

Eddie loved their brotherly relationship, and he also loved the way Steve took in Max as one of his own without any questions, filling the big brother spot she never had. Eddie aspired to have that kind of relationship with someone, which is why he jumped at his first chance, taking Will under his wing, showing him the ins and outs of D&D and highschool romances—even though Eddie was never in a relationship before. But he swore by the fact that single people give better relationship advice than those in relationships… And he also helped Will figure out his feelings for Mike, so it was heartwarming to see that after Will confessed, Mike didn’t run away, he didn’t pull away. In fact, they got even closer.

Eddie wanted to be that close with you. And this “pool party” was the perfect way to do so. He even thought about fake-drowning so you’d save him, knowing you worked as a lifeguard at the swimming pool after Heather Holloway and Billy Hargrove went missing… Or so he thought. But Dustin and the others hadn’t told him the ins and outs of the Starcourt Tragedy just yet. They didn’t need to ruin his summer even more than you already had. You’d ruined him. You’d ruined Edward Wayne Munson, and you didn’t even know it. Standing on the wooden pathway around the edge of the lake next to Chrissy, ready to jump in, in your red lifeguard bathing suit—his favorite color, the reason why he hung out at the pool, just to see you in it, with your black bathing suit cover-up and your black and white flip flops—that he loved a lot.

But not as much as he loved you. Oh, he loved you so much. He’d do anything for you, including things from moving mountains to human sacrifice. You were his goddess, sent down from heaven to guide him through his highschool years, helping him to finally graduate in the summer of ‘86, and now helping him to finish his mechanics apprenticeship so he could get a job at the local garage. He hoped your car would break down a lot so he could fix it for you and impress you with his skilled fingers—while fixing your car, obviously, get your mind out of the gutter—instead of his swimming skills, or lack thereof.

He lay on his stomach next to Lucas, who’d been writing something down in a notebook, humming a Kate Bush song to himself. It sounded like Babooshka, and he had Max’s headphones on, so it must have been. Lucas was drawing a love heart with his and Max’s initials inside, and there was a poem beneath. As Eddie read the poem, his thoughts drifted back to you, the sound of your giggles filling his ears as Nancy splashed water at you and Steve playfully pulled you under the water with his arms… around… your… waist…

Fuck. No, this could not be happening. Eddie needed to be the one doing that. He needed to be the one with his hands around your waist, with his legs tangled with yours, with his hands around your— Woah, slow down there buddy.

Eddie rolled his eyes, he’d have to somehow slip away to sort out his growing erection somehow. Do you see what you do to him? He excused himself to the bathroom, stalking away from the group, into Reefer Rick’s cabin and into one of the rooms furthest away from where the group were situated. He sighed contentedly, working his balled fist over the shaft of his throbbing cock, the sensations of his hand squeezing over the sensitive nerves in his tip sending shivers of pleasure up his spine.

From where he was standing he had a clear view of you outside the window, the bathing suit hugging your full hips and your thick thighs he’d love to have his face between. He’d do anything for it. A small whimper left his throat as he fucked his fist faster, cursing your name under his breath, spreading his precum over the length of his dick.

“Fuck,” he mumbled under his breath, his hips bucking against his hand, whining and moaning as he kept his wide eyes full of undeniable lust on you. “Love fucking this pretty pussy, baby. My pretty pussy—fuck, baby, you’re so fucking tight, oh my God! Wanna have sex with you for real, sweetheart. Gonna cum in you again and again until you’re so full and round you look pregnant, baby—shit, fucking shit, oh shit— gonna- gonna make you mine.”

Eddie’s labored breathing turned into lewd gasps as his wrist flicking sped up, fucking himself through his high, his eyes squeezing shut, though the image of you bent over to pick up a bottle of sunscreen was still plastered in his mind. He wanted that image tatted on the inside of his eyelids.

His mouth dropped open and his thighs tensed, his chest rising and falling rapidly at the same time as his heavy breathing. One, two, three strokes until he let out a loud cry of your name, alerting you unbeknownst to him. He didn’t hear the door flinging open behind him as he came, thick ropes of cum dripping down his hand.

“Fuck, princess,” he chuckled. “Look at what your pretty ass made me do.”

He barely felt the arms wrapping around his waist until somebody rested their head against his back, against the area between his shoulder blades. His breath hitched in his chest when he recognized the color of nail polish you were wearing outside. You knew he only called you his princess, his sweetheart, his.

“Hi, Eds,” you murmured, your voice muffled against his skin, running your fingertips up and down his stomach, not realizing what had just happened, or just choosing to ignore it. “Had to come in for some shade, it’s too hot outside.”

“That’s because you were outside sweetheart. You’re gonna cause global warming,” he said, turning around after he’d shoved his softened dick back into his swim shorts, knowing that you hadn’t seen it because if you had, he knew his sweetheart would be freaking out. And he didn’t want that.

He wrapped his arms around your shoulders and pulled you close, discreetly sniffing your hair as he kissed the top of your forehead by your hairline. One thing Eddie didn’t know was how long it took Chrissy and Robin to convince you to go to the lake, practically dragging you out of your house and into Steve’s car. They promised nobody would think anything different of you, but that was so easy for them to say. Itty bitty bodies and tiny waists, but that’s not what Eddie liked. No, no. He loved your body the most.

He wanted to worship you as if you were a Goddess. Which you were, especially to him. He wanted to squeeze and kiss every inch of your body, and he wanted to suck hickeys into those deliciously curvy hips of yours and your neck. Oh, he wanted to cover your neck in hickeys, a few in the shape of an ‘E’ on the right side of your neck, and an ‘M’ on the left side of your neck. He wanted to mark you as his. And he wanted to do it now.

So that’s how he found himself on top of you as you whined beneath him, his shirt covering your body as he made sweet love to you, whispering words of affection to you as he chased both of your highs. He confessed he loved you as he came, seeing stars and angels dancing and fluttering around in his mind as thick ropes of cum landed on your breasts and stomach, seeping into his Black Sabbath shirt, joking that he’d never wash his sheets again after your cum began seeping into the sheets and the mattress.

You thought he was kidding, but he wasn’t, as you saw when you landed on the mattress after jumping back into the overworld after defeating Vecna in the Upside Down with your Eddie by your side.

feedback, likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated! they let me know that you want me to keep writing!

[thranduel]

came across another poll about who people’s LEAST favourite main character is, and as always, it’s mike (i already knew because i checked the comments first, so i selected him to double check and then unselected. i don’t have a least favourite out of any of the boys, they’re all my babies lol)

anyways the comments also say mike was their favourite in seasons 1-2 but not anymore. they also described why lucas, dustin and will are great but then didn’t even know what to say about mike because his character basically revolves around el and he doesn’t even feel like his own person anymore. all he did in season 4 was fight with el then go save her and got forced into saying a corny speech. many people have also said the writing for mike and finn’s acting has gotten worse (which i think is intentional in his scenes with el because he’s absolutely incredible in his scenes with will), but that says a lot anyway about his relationship with her. they also said his only character trait is liking el which is really sad. if he stays with her, that’s just horrible character writing and they’ve really turned mike into “el’s boyfriend” and that’s it. he’s barely even his own person anymore and the GA can see it.

but seriously, isn’t it interesting how most people stopped liking mike the moment he started dating el (seasons 3-4) because that’s when he changed and his character development went downhill?

now obviously most of us on here know there’s so much more going on with mike and it hurts to see people hate him so much. but honestly, when you don’t analyse like we do and you just see what’s on screen, some of the things he’s done (especially to will) IS shitty and weird especially if there’s no internalised homophobia explanation. like there’s absolutely no other reason for him to suddenly treat him so badly, and getting a girlfriend is no excuse and totally out of character for mike. also in general it’s just shitty seeing mike’s entire character revolve around el. what did he even do in seasons 3 and 4 that were focused on himself and his OWN personal storyline?? the closest thing we got to that were his scenes with WILL. but when he’s with el… it’s just always about her! it’s not fair to mike. this kid has so much trauma too and he can’t even talk to his own girlfriend about it because they don’t understand each other at all. there’s no proper communication or emotional support. even when mike tried to comfort el, she invalidated his trauma and said he doesn’t understand even though she literally witnessed him get bullied and jump off a cliff?? like it’s just so hurtful and unhealthy that they don’t understand each other at all. will was literally the only person that comforted mike and gave him strength and allowed him to express himself but anyways.

hopefully the writers have realised why one of their main characters has gone from most popular to most disliked. mike isn’t actually the problem, it’s the relationship he’s in and how it’s destroying his character and also hurting other characters around him (el has also been hurt because of this relationship). notice how when mike is with will, he turns into the old mike we know and love? the soft voice, the gentleness, the kindness, the one who actually cares about his friends? that side of him comes out when he’s with will because will brings out the best in him. he can actually be HIMSELF with him without being fake. but when mike is with el, he pretends to be someone he’s not. he becomes selfish and immature and excludes his friends and pushes everyone away. i absolutely hate it and i’m sick of it because i know that’s not who he really is. the show is literally trying to tell us this relationship isn’t healthy and i’m sick of people ignoring it.

[nxghtlxxght]

It’s not that late this time

Honestly, if mike told El that he loved her, in a way that would suggest he was IN love with her ( there’s a difference ), it would seem unreasonably forced. Like I can’t for the life of me think of a scenario in which that would happen and it would seem natural.

The fact of the matter is that over the course of 3 seasons ( 2, 3, and 4 so far ), Mike hasn’t been able to tell El that he loved her, to her face at least. I personally would only partially count when he said he loved her to the others, because it’s not as authentic.

I’ve heard people say that s2 doesn’t count for the amount of time Mike’s had to tell El that he loved her, but I kind of disagree. Throughout season 2, Mike had a full 353 days to consult and figure out his feeling for El. I get why people say it doesn’t count though, he wasn’t near her for the relative entirety of the season.

Back to the point, I said this in another post here, but Mike maturing ( which he isn’t doing great at ) would be a shit excuse at trying to get m!lvn back on track. First, in my very humble opinion it would just be bad writing for Mike to suddenly tell El that he loves her. That in and of ITSELF is bad writing. 

Second, Mike maturing into a healthy relationship isn’t healthy, aka Mike maturing into being in love with Eleven. If he wasn’t sure when he started dating her, then he should’ve waited. He’s essentially dragging El along and she doesn’t deserve that. Maybe instead of trying to fix an obviously broken relationship, he could work on his internalized homophobia and talk about something other than his relationship

Kind of beside the point, but both Mike and El have a mild co-dependency issue because neither of them have been in a healthy relationship ( as explained here as well ). Mike admitted it, he’s been too focused on El to figure out that he’s been completely ignoring Will and their relationship. He’s kind of obsessed with her, he immediately took an interest in her the moment they met and hasn’t been able to pull his attention away from her for enough time. He has no idea what real love is, he can’t even take an example from his parents. So he finds comfort in El and what they have.

 El, like Mike, has no image of what a healthy relationship is either. She’s been stuck in a lab where she was abused and controlled for years, she didn’t have a real family until Hopper, Joyce, Will and Jonathan. Along with that, she has an unhealthy obsession with Mike. Sending letters, having a Mike themed box, being a perfectionist about meetings in s3, her anger when she couldn’t see him. ( + her up front rejection of Max due to jealousy )

Because of their shared co-dependency, they look for comfort and love in each other, which in the end only led to an unsteady relationship and both parties becoming upset in one way or another. They were better as friends, they had no unhealthy co dependency, they had meaningful conversations and a good time together, and all around they were happy.

Also beside the point, but if Mike wasn’t ready to commit to a relationship where he could be sure of his feelings, he shouldn’t have gotten in one. I get the concept of finding yourself through relationships, but that’s only okay if you have your partner’s consent. Everyone saw how hurt El was when she confronted Mike about not loving her, and I bet everyone was as equally pissed off at mike when he suggested only loving her because of her powers. Without letting El know that he wasn’t 100% positive about what they were doing, he’s dug a really deep hole for himself that’s going to be hard to climb out of. He also has really bad wording in his encounters with El. 

He couldn’t even say that he loved El to WILL, his best friend. Once again proving my point Micheal.

He needs to get his feelings figured out before jumping into something he doesn’t understand.

Good night <3

[aemiron-main]

I feel like we don’t talk enough about how finding her in the woods, the yellow t shirt, is the best memory that mike can think of to try and save El??? With Will in s2, he was pulling out the tears, spilling out how alone he felt, how happy he was that Will agreed to be his friend, but with El, he focuses on a.) the night they met and b.) that yellow Benny’s burgers t shirt. Two things that are traumatizing to el, considering how terrified she was in the woods, and the fact that Brenner and co terrorized/chased her at Benny’s.

He could have talked about any of her “superhero” feats, considering that he literally calls her a superhero. He could have talked about romantic moments between them, like kissing at hop’s cabin, or the sno-ball: but he doesn’t. Why? Because those aren’t good memories for mike., and, although not intentionally, mike is being selfish. The superhero ones, obviously, are tinged by the trauma of near death. The sno-ball is tinged by mike’s clear upset at seeing Will dance with a girl. Kissing at hop’s cabin is tinged by mike’s embarrassment when El shuts down his singing, and his discomfort when she puts her hands on him, to the point where he takes them off.

This might be controversial, but: what good, happy memories do El and Mike actually have once they’re in a romantic relationship with eachother? Like just between them? Using memories like max and El at the mall as an example, are there any memories like that for Mike and El? Genuinely? Maybe I’m missing something, but I can’t think of any. El saving mike at the quarry was shared between El, Mike, and Dustin, and even then, that was traumatic because mike had literally just tried to jump to his death.

The only small, happy moments they have are things in S1 before they kissed- things like Mike showing El the la-z-boy. But that would mean admitting that all of the best moments between them were before their relationship- that they were better off platonic.

Where’s the small happy moments in their relationship amidst all the pain around them? Because I can list a million of those moments for pairings like Byler, Lumax, Elmax and Jopper. But I genuinely can’t think of any for m!leven.

And I don’t mean this in a “they hate eachother,” way, but more in a “the heteronormative pressures surrounding them that have pushed them into a relationship have prevented them from really truly getting to know and befriend eachother,” especially since it’s established in S1 that El isn’t interested in any of Mike’s interests, and in S3 that mike feels like he has to grow up in order to be with El. (And also feels like he has to be with El.) Their romantic relationship is getting in the way of any genuinely happy moments between them.

The sno-ball could have been a great platonic moment: but instead, Mike and El both felt like they had to be romantic together, which caused Mike some issues when it came to grappling with why he was feeling upset about seeing Will dance with a girl, even though he’s the one that encouraged Will. If Mike and El were platonic, that conflict wouldn’t have been as difficult for Mike to process imo, because he wouldn’t have to juggle both “why do I feel this way about Will,” and “why don’t I feel this way about El.”

Seriously, I can’t think of any genuine, happy moments just between Mike and El that come after they’re in a relationship. Because their relationship keeps getting in the way!! They stop being themselves, stop being individuals when they’re in this relationship with eachother, which makes it impossible for them to get to know know eachother as individuals. Even when it comes to things like Mike’s apology in the grocery store aisle, that moment goes from happy to frustrating/anxious for both of them because Mike can’t say the word “love,” and El can’t figure it out. Not to mention that mike didn’t even apologize for lying, which is what upset El in the first place.

Maybe I’m missing something, but if El and Mike are so good for eachother, then where’s those happy moments? The answer is that there isn’t any. Max had memories with Lucas to run to. El doesn’t have ones with Mike to run to, especially since even considering the handful of “cute moments,” before their romantic relationship started, El was still afraid that Mike was going to send her to an asylum. As far as I can see, of her memories with Mike are tinged by some sort of trauma, which happens, especially considering the supernatural circumstances, but even then, El and Max have those happy memories. So why don’t mike and El?

Mike pulls from the Benny’s burger memory, the yellow shirt, because that’s his best memory of El. And he’s being selfish, not thinking about what’s best for El, what her best memories are. Seriously. Based on his warped and unfair perception of her + his subconscious focus on Will thats always been there, maybe it is the day his life started. Because that’s the moment that there was hope for finding Will. His life ended the day Will disappeared, and started again that night they found El. That’s the moment that spurred everything else (finding Will) into motion. And yes, ‘not everything is about byler,’ but the monologue is so strangely written, that it’s worth looking into.

[emblazons]

I know I’ve seen posts go around about how Mike using the walkie to talk to El for the 355(?) days was about him feeling survivors guilt (rather than something romantic) so this I know this isn’t any radical new thought but—

—I was rewatching S2 and realized that not only do the scenes of Nancy crying in the bathroom & Mike looking at the dinosaur he showed El + the millennium falcon from S1 happen back to back (implying the scenes are related thematically)…they also have the same track playing over them: Eulogy.

I know the reaching out to El thing is often read as romantic (and I think it is—at least on El’s part), but…honestly, the more I look at it the less I am inclined to understand what Mike does in regards to El throughout the majority of S2 as anything but a trauma response, which digs heavily at the whole “Mileven has been set up mutually from the jump” line of thinking I’ve see around.

Disregarding the fact that El is in fact alive (because Mike doesn’t know that)…feeling like he sees her sometimes, telling Will he feels like he’s going crazy, and reaching out into the void (but not going to look for El the way he did Will)—all of those read not as a kid who is secretly wishing for the one he loves to come back (or really anything romantic toward Eleven), but someone mourning the loss of their friend, similarly to Nancy.

I feel like people missing this and counting it toward the romantic weight of Mileven’s relationship overlook just how traumatized Mike is about losing El the way he did—and how nothing he does, from reaching out to her for 350+ days to crying and hugging her/fighting hopper when he realizes she’s alive until the kiss at the snow ball reads romantic in the slightest. We even know now that Millie asked for the snowball kiss for the sake of the fans and her character’s wants from the relationship, moreso than the Duffers originally planned it that way.

Still—even if it does become plainly romantic by the end of the season, the choice to use Eulogy over this scene, combined with several other factors, points nowhere but to realizing that Mike was mourning El’s death more than he was “wishing to have her back” in a romantic sense.

This is driven home even harder by the fact that are multiple similarly structured parallels in S1 and S2 made between Nancy and Mike that are blatant remarks on their romantic prospects (Jonathan taking Nancy into her room paralleled with/cut to Mike and Will’s crazy together scene with “Outside the Realm” playing, Nancy & Jonathan talking in the motel comparing hands paralleled with/cut to Mike waking up on Will’s floor after his nightmare)—

—so this one showing up between Barb & El makes it easy to distinguish as platonic. And why else would they use that track (especially considering it transitioned into “Eleven” once he started radioing her) other than to show that there is parallel mourning between Nancy and Mike of a friend (presumed) lost?

Anyway. Just a thought I had lmao. Here’s the clip too if anyone else wants to watch it through:

[stellariumcircus]

it's not my fault you don't like el p3 | byler fic

part one | part two | mike gets vecna'd, music doesn't save him.

Mike was safe, for now.

And it wasn’t music that had pulled Mike from Vecna’s curse. It had been Will, so they’d spent the last few days joined at the hip for most moments. 

“You didn’t tell me you were having headaches, or nightmares, or anything. Mike-” Will stopped. They were only friends. Mike was meant to be kept at a distance. Still, he had to ask. “What’s going on with you?”

Mike shook his head. His hands sit folded between the knobby poking out from his shorts. “You were there, with Vecna.”

“I was there?” Guilt was a taste he was familiar with, now, always on the back of his tongue. It tasted like buttery popcorn, bubbling soda, like rain that’s slid into the corner of your mouth in a downpour. 

He thought of the Upside Down, of being blindfolded, of his hands not quite being his hands anymore. Or maybe, worse than eldritch monsters, Mike had figured out the truth of the painting.

“Yeah. Yeah, you were there.” Mike didn’t look at him. “You said it wasn’t your fault that I don’t like El.” 

A chill crept up the back of his neck. He brushed it away by rubbing his palm against it. “What? That’s crazy. You love El.”

“Is it, though?” Mike scoffed. His hands folded tighter, white bone pressing close to the skin. “I don’t think it’s crazy at all.”

“Mike,” Will began. Mike may have not thought he deserved El, but he deserved the world. El was wonderful. Mike was wonderful. They could be wonderful together, and feel wonderful things. “You know what El thinks of you.”

“Yeah, I know what she thinks of me. It’s what I think of her.” He crossed his arms over his stomach, a shield over his softest parts. “I thought I’d feel it, you know. After you told me all the stuff with the painting, and then I did it. I said what she wanted to hear, it didn’t fix it. I didn’t fix it. I really wanted to believe it, too, you know? And it’s so stupid, because she almost died, Max basically is dead, Eddie’s gone, we got to live, and now we’re broken up, and the world is ending. It’s stupid. It’s so stupid.”

Stupid, stupid. He remembered those words, knives on his tongue, razors in his throat, while he knocked down Castle Byers. 

Will straightened. He wasn't sure when it could've happened. “You’re broken up?”

Mike’s shoulders jerked, noncommittal. “Yeah. I guess. It feels serious this time. Like, before, it was silly. It was funny. This time, you know, it’s kinda. Real.”

Will hated to hurt, like anyone would. But even more, he hated to see Mike hurt. “Mike. She broke up with you before, didn’t she? I’m sure you’ll get back together, if you talk to her.”

“No, no. That’s the thing, here. I don’t want to get back together.” His shoulder turned away with his head, spine following the graceful movement of his jaw. “You were right, Will. What you said when you got me out. I think I’ve known it too, this whole time. El doesn’t need me.”

Carbonated guilt fizzed on the back of his tongue. He would not be the reason their happiness was ruined. “That’s not true. I shouldn’t have said that. I was saying anything I could think of to get you down.”

“But you were right. She doesn’t need me. She needs, I don’t know. Hopper, and your Mom, and you. I always needed her more because it made me-” he stopped short. He took an enormous breath, greedy for air, pulse jumping in his throat. “You were right before, too. In the dream, nightmare. Vision. Whatever. I mean, it wasn’t you. It was Vecna. One. Did we ever figure out what to call him?” 

Will felt his eyebrows raise. “You think Vecna is giving you excellent relationship advice.”

“Well, dude,” He tossed his hands up, exasperated, like rolling figurines and dice across a board. “That makes it sound stupid.”

“It is kind of stupid.” It should’ve been funny. Why wasn’t it funny, anymore?

“No, Will,  I don’t think Vecna should become a shrink as a backup career if taking over the world doesn’t work out so well for him,” Mike said, which was such a Mike answer that it was hard to feel bad for him even when his face looked a little bit like the aftermath of a storm. “But at least it was true, you know?”

Maybe the time apart had changed everything. For the first time, Will didn’t understand Mike. “I’m sorry, I’m not following. What part of the curse speech Vecna gave you was true?”

Mike finally looked at him, then, and gave him a look that could wither flowers. “He was right. I don’t like El. Or at least I don’t want to get married and live in the suburbs going to PTA meetings. And it isn’t your fault. It’s mine.” His eyes softened, glare slipping into an expression Will had never had a name for. “Or, I don’t know. I guess it’s a little your fault.” 

Will leaned away. He held his breath. Will didn’t hope anymore, and he didn’t now.  “How is it my fault?” 

“Because, I don’t know. It just feels like…” Mike groaned, back crashing back onto the bed. He landed, wrist pressed over his eyes. “I thought being in love,” he said the word love quieter, like it was a secret, “was going to be a better version of, you know. When we hang out it’s like we could stay up all night laughing on your floor. Like that, but better.”

“So get El to play D&D with you?” 

“What if it doesn’t get better than that, for me, though?” His wrist stayed over his eyes, hiding. Will watched, waited for it to move. It stayed, shielding. “What if, for me, love is just…Playing D&D for the rest of our lives.”

All the terror he had seen in the last few years, still none of it could hold a candle to the beat of his heart now. “Isn’t there more than that?” 

“I don’t think so. What if we started a new party?” Mike sat up, and his shield came down in the process. Face no longer hidden, they saw eye to eye. “You and me.”

You and me. Will and Mike. The words had grown so close together, so thoroughly tangled branch to root that they were synonyms. “Impossible,” Will said, throat closing around his voice.  This wasn’t what he hoped it was. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to play with just two people?”

Mike looked at him, turning towards the light. He had a face an artist could love, could carefully craft dark eyes from charcoal, could lovingly chisel cheekbones from marble. “Are you saying we wouldn’t make a good party?” His eyebrows drew together even as his mouth smiled, like he shared Will’s confusion. “Come on, wizards and paladins go great together.”

Will swallowed. It was not unfamiliar, to feel his throat like a vice, his eyes heat, his brow furrow. He began to turn his face away, to hide it, to put everything away where at least no one, no one, and especially not Mike would see it-

And then, warm fingertips pressed to his jaw. It was the lightest of touches, but it didn’t take more than a suggestion for Will to look his way. 

“Don’t do that. No more hiding.” 

Will nodded, letting out the smallest sniffle. Still, too loud. 

He wanted to move, he really did. But everything was tight, locked, chaining him to the one thing he knew; making himself small.

Will didn’t have to meet Mike in the middle, though. It was Mike whose hand pressed flat to his jaw, Mike who closed the gap between them, Mike who stole the breath off Will’s lips with the press of his own.

And it was also Mike who pulled away first. His hand fell from his jaw, only to worry at the fabric of Will’s shirt instead. “So,” Mike began, nervous and smiling and nervous all over again. “What do you think?”

“Yeah,” Will got out. He didn’t think he had ever cried in a happy way before. “I’ll join your party.”

His hand set over Will’s. Fingers a bit like birch branches, pale and elegant, wrapped through the gaps in his own. He squeezed, and did not let go. Will squeezed back. “You and me.”

[planetbiomes]

okay hi!!!

(im asking from main btw! polyamorous el here!)

so, idk if u saw tags under your posts but im absoultely invented in your stranger things spiderverse au AND SO HERE COMES THE QUESTION

i love dustins backstory, but u didn't tell anything about his relationship with el so im curious how it works for him! bc we already know that mike will try to stand far from will bc we doesnt want to lose him but it will be too hard for both of them, but what about dustin? will he catch some feelings for el? and if he'll do, will he try to not pursue any romantic relationship with her bc he would be scared that what happened to suzie will happen to El as well?

asdfg

sorry kinda excited about it. anyway, love your little comic <3

OMFG HIIII SOMEONE WHO IS AS OBSESSED WITH HENDERHOP AS ME??? A DREAM COME TRUE 🥰

Also I completely forgot to add Henderhop to their backstories so my bad! ^^’ I do want to expand their backstories with more comics in the future! But for now I’ll just ramble here 😛

In Dustin’s universe, he’s really good friends with Will and El, he knows Mike through Eddie, and seeing his good friend as another Spider-Man is endearing to him so he visits Mike in his universe a lot to get away from most things-

However in his universe he and El are good friends but never get the chance to talk considering she is still with Mike, at first- he was never interested in relationships after everything that happened with Suzie, it was too hard to bare at the time. He was out of it for the most part- he drifted away from Mike, El, Will and all of his friends. However when he went into the Spiderverse with Mike and met this El- they sort of began to bond. Mike and Will had their own problems trying to avoid each other, but realized that avoiding the problem won’t fix anything, they try to make amends as best they can together. With Lucas and Max trying to fix things as well they are sort of stuck in the middle and decided to support each other, Dustin began to open up to El because she was the only one who was there to listen and genuinely understand. She told him what she went through too, they finally found someone on equal footing with each other.

It began to shift into a more complex friendship, he would visit her universe just to talk, and she would do the same.

They both agreed to keep their relationship strictly as friends, until Dustin would be up at night thinking about her, his feelings became mixed and it troubled him, he confronted El saying how scared he was to loose her as well.

He could never imagine the world without her in it and it scared him. “The world needs Spider woman. But what happens when I need her more?”

She felt his anguish, but from what they’ve seen from Will and Mike, trying to avoid anything and each other doesn’t solve anything, it hurts more to stop.

“Then why stop?”

She told him that Spider man or no, they are people too, sure they aren’t normal but who cares? They have each others backs and understand each other more than anyone else in the world. Maybe that’s worth more than something?

Yes they do get together! And they stay together! They have minor bumps in the road in their relationship but they communicate and pull through it together, they understand everyone around them more than they know, what they see around them makes their relationship stronger, and they teach each other a lot of things, El’s relationship with Hopper gets stronger because Dustin tells her to keep the people she loves the most close to her. And in return, she tells him to open up to his close ones, allowing him to build up the courage to talk to Steve.

They are just such a cute ship and I think they would be the most healthy relationship but that’s my opinion lolll

Also they would do the iconic upside down Spiderman kiss except Dustin would jump back onto the ground so they can do the kiss <3

And they hold hands the most out of everyone, the first time they talked they held hands as sort of support and understanding of each other, it became their connection to hold each other tight and never let go. :)

Hope that answers your question!! Sorry it’s long but I love to talk about their stories aaaaaaa I will make more art of them and of the others as well because I love them too much- thanks for the question :D

[strawberrybyers]

idk thinking about what the cast has said and all the details throughout stranger things, volume 2 doesn’t add up! idk something’s off. vecna gets to your head. he alters reality. maybe they’re portraying the events in a weird way because it’s not reality? like the 2 day time jump was really awkward. the cut to nancy, steve, and robin going through donation boxes was not the next scene i was expecting. it felt like something in the middle was missing. also, i don’t know if it’s because it had been 3+ hours of intensity and action, then it moved to a more solemn tone quite awkwardly and quickly, but when hopper and el reunited, i didn’t feel as emotionally moved by it the way i thought i would. the energy felt a little off to the point i was anticipating something bad to happen. i kept thinking “oh shit vecna is messing with el this isn’t actually hopper”, but no the scene kept going. we then see mike hug hopper. i’m sure mike does care and love hopper, so him hugging hopper isn’t my issue, it’s the fact he hugs hopper and we understand he’s hugging him because he’s been gone, but we know with will they’ve been separated too but he couldn’t hug will and yet don’t know why? this is the beginning of my villain origin story i stg.

and why did they make el and mike have this big “i love you” issue and have it be mike’s only conflict then the season ends and he says “they’ve barely talked to each other”? they never talk about anything ever lmao. that’s what i don’t get about their relationship. the season starts off with mike not being able to say he loves her, but then is able to when will tells him he’s the heart? why did he have to hear that from will? el was literally in tears, begging him to say “i love you” and he still couldn’t say it, but i’m supposed to believe they’re an endgame couple? 😂 i understand they’re 14/15 years old, but lumax is written really well! even suzie and dustin who have only had 4 minutes of screen time together make more sense. el and mike just barely have any development in regards to their relationship. mike doesn’t have any character development at all. they literally assassinated his character for no reason lol. also, el’s arc has been about her finding autonomy and i thought the way they’ve written her discovery to independence, finding family and loving herself was really good. i just feel like her storyline doesn’t fit in with mike. i’m sorry but there’s not much there in my opinion. we’re going into season 5 and they still feel like two people who barely know each other.

and since when can el bring people back to life? why did karen have her own poster if she had like 5 minutes or less of screen time? a poster is an advertisement for the show. the poster is giving a hint as to what will happen in the plot, but karen isn’t even involved in the main plot. she’s completely oblivious to everything lol. then noah said they’re building up byler, but in what way were they building it up? if anything they just brought it down. will and mike barely even feel like friends anymore. why are we going into season 5 still dealing with the nancy/jonathan/steve love triangle? then the parallels between will and henry/vecna/001 couldn’t have been coincidental, right? they both talk about not being able to fit in. they both have experience with the upside down. they even have will dressed like the child version of henry. will is one of the main characters who has an intense tie to the upside down and yet it hasn’t been fully explored for 2 seasons. why did vecna keep him alive? vecna never even mentions will. i’m just wondering in a very delusional way if there’s something else at play? could it be that volume 2 feels so chaotic and messy because it’s supposed to be? i have no idea anymore does anyone have any thoughts

[aquariusdeanw]

Brenner’s death makes me emotional. But not for him.

When we see El for the first time she’s in a lab gown, barefoot, starving after she spent a night in the forest where she saw the outside world with her own eyes for the first time in 12 years.

we discover that growing up she was praised for doing morally wrong things, punished for doing morally right things.

when she was punished though, it was never Brenner. He always ordered other guards to hurt her. When it was time to praise her, there he was. He built this sick relationship where she sought approval of the only person that didn’t physically hurt her.

It’s twisted that Brenner actually believed that he was doing it for her. That he actually saw her as his daughter.

El wonders in the woods and there she finds Mike, that brings her home with him. At his house she is shown love in a way that she never thought it was possible. With kindness. With tenderness. She sees Nancy room, sees her baby pictures and El slowly realizes how much she missed. The childhood that was stolen away from her.

When Brenner and El reunite at the end of s1, he’s “worried” about her; but it’s too late, she already saw a world completely different from the lab, a way of treating her completely different from how she was treated there.

«I’m going to take you back home, where I can make you well again. Where we can make all of this better, so no one else gets hurt.»

«Bad. Bad. Mike. Mike.» she says when he picks her up.

Brenner is devastated, things will never go back to the way that they were. She knows that he’s the bad guy just like everyone else at the lab.

///

Everything stays like this in El’s mind until she feels the weight of who she is. Yes, she hits Angela without her powers, but that reminds her that she did use them to kill people. That she could’ve used them for bad things. That she could be the monster. That papa could have been right in taking her away and keeping her locked up. She barely resist the police and doesn’t try to defend herself in the interrogation room because maybe she deserves to be locked up.

Then everything changes again. Papa is alive, she runs, he’s still bad in her mind so she hits him. She tries to run away one more time, but he’s the only one that knows how to help her discover if she’s really the monster, so she takes his extended hand, and they’re together once again.

He explains a lot to her, talking about her real self. But something isn’t right, and when she discovers what really happened to One, it’s too much to take.

He let her down once again, and this time there is no doubt in her mind. He’s not her papa, her dad, and all the bad things that happened in her life are because of him. Her mom, Benny, Barb, Bob, the gate, the mind flayer, 001. All the things that she felt guilt over, were never her fault.

She’s not the monster. He is.

When she tells her that, he cries. The tears are not manipulation. He really is sad. He really believes he’s doing the right thing. He doesn’t understand why she won’t understand.

The military comes to kill her so he picks her up in his arms and runs like he did many years before. He tries to protect her when the helicopter shoots them.

He’s dying on the ground when he tells her “I want you to know, I’m proud of you.”

Something that every kid wants to hear their parents say to them.

“You’re my family. My daughter.” He says. He bops her nose, like he always did. El cries and takes his hands.

With his dying breath he begs her to understand, just that. He doesn’t beg for forgiveness, just understanding.

Eleven turns her head away. In the direction of Will, Jonathan and Mike.

The little girl that was tortured throughout her childhood, never turned bad. The little girl that could have had every excuse to choose herself, always put the others first. Her moral compass never wavered. The little girl that jumped at every touch, at every sound, learned how to love and how to be loved. She saved Will and she saved the world. Because there was one thing that he never taught her.

“A friend is someone you do anything for.”

One good lesson that she valued infinite times more than the thousands bad things he taught her.

All of her pain originated from him, he doesn’t deserve her giving him peace in death.

She drops his hands.

«goodbye papa.»

[bugsbenefit]

i don’t know if anyone has pointed it out yet but it’s not leaving me alone.

so s5 is supposed to be a return to form of s1 meaning there will be some parallels, either plot wise, character arc wise, references, etc. (s4 also had a bunch of refs to s2, literal horseshoe narrative, bla bla we know we know)

right, so looking back, very big part of ST is the way the story is told through multiple povs, which makes sense since the show has an assembly cast. but just like any other season, s1 isn’t focused on all the characters equally it has clear main characters. (like how s4 focuses on characters like, El, Max, Dustin etc. while the whole Cali crew has Very little actual plot relevancy).

and right off the bat after Will goes missing, E1 makes clear which characters are going to Tell us the story: we have Mike, almost everything we see the kids do is from his perspective. then, after S1E2 El becomes the other primary kid pov (she stands out as only getting a pov from E2 onwards, since she only shows up in the woods at the end of E1), we see her past at the lab via flashbacks and her general perception of the world outside the lab. meanwhile the teens have their own plot and two primary povs as well, Jonathan and Nancy. first revolving separately around Will and Barb and later merging into the same goal they work on together. the same goes for the adults were we get Joyce and Hopper, at first investigating separately and then ending the season going into the UD together.

there’s three overall plot lines (kids, teens, adults) that end up merging in the end. (Will is his own party here in the UD who makes appearances for all groups occasionally but who’s pov we don’t get. however, he’s still THE central character that’s started the whole plot to begin with even without us seeing his perspective)

all other characters that are in the show by then get a different treatment to those main focus characters. we only see their povs when none of the other main narrating voices are present. (e.g. Dustin taking over as a focus only Once and it’s after Mike jumps off of a cliff and we aren’t supposed to know if he’s okay yet (this season does him dirty poor guy). Lucas going on his sick solo mission where he abandons both Mike and El which gives him a few minutes of screentime that’s centered around him and him only. or even Brenner, who’s pov we actually get 3 times this season when he’s alone and evilly stalking and scheming and we have no other way to see him be silly and evil than to hard cut to him)

(unrelated tangent but Steve is pretty funny actually because we get his pov multiple times but he’s COMPLETELY removed from the plot, he doesn’t even know something weird is going on. he’s just busy trying to save his relationship with Nancy the whole time and doesn’t even catch a Glimpse of the supernatural hell demon haunting the town. until it tries to eat him in the finale. which also only happens because he wanted to go see Nancy again and ran into the trap... this guy is on a completely separate mission the whole season. everyone is living sci-fie mystery and Steve still thinks he’s in a coming of age romance movie... the lad is going through it this season he’s so clueless)

so TLDR of all of this bc it’s really just a general observation of the way S1 is told which might be boring if you watched it recently:

season one stands out by having 6 main POVs: Mike, El, Nancy, Jonathan, Joyce, and Hopper

right

sooo. now why...

that’s literally just all our s1 povs. nicely lined up and even split into three way kids, teens, adults formula. the only difference being that Will is actually included here, standing with Mike, instead of being stranded somewhere in the hell dimension.

like... that feels INCREDIBLY intentional. they even went out of their way to drag Nancy (and Nancy only) away from the rest of the Hawkins crew who went to the school - just so she could stand on the hill with them here. it’s those 7 characters for a reason, the narrative goes out of it’s way to make sure all of them are here. and all of them just happen to be the exact same characters who Started narrating this whole story to us?

(also sorry but did they just abandon Argyle out in the woods picking mushrooms for this?? i get he isn’t part of the og gang but Damn, just because they want to go stand on a hill doesn’t mean they can just fuck off when the evil spores start raining from the sky. they literally switched Argyle out with Nancy for this)

if i were to make a guess, I’d say s5 is going to have them be the main pov’s just like in s1 to close the story off in a circle. (even the narration would be part of the horseshoe narrative then lmao)

and that would also make sense for the characters. literally half of them were trapped in the stoner van for the whole of s4. they’ve been excluded from the plot for a reason and it gave others like Max and Lucas the room to shine as the main characters. i think the next season will have the same 6 povs closing the show that started it, with the exception that Will is now part ALSO a part of these povs. (the main character, according to what the Duffers say, even)

I’ve seen people say this shot looks like group ups for s5. and i agree. the different plot strands we’re going to get will definitely be centered around these 3 groups (maybe 4? El standing on her own could mean a Lot here, she could potentially fill a role similar to Will for example, where he would occasionally pop in with all of the 3 parties and make appearances everywhere. so it could also be 3 groups but El swings around between them?).

but yeah anyways. i’m calling it now. those 7 are going to be the main povs of s5.

[morganee]

A comment on this post on twitter made me think about something and how the theory about El and Mike being already broken up at the end of S4 could actually work.

So the tweet is about the time jump at the end of episode 9, when we get the “two days later” board. I guess it’s safe to say that the “two days later” bothered pretty much everyone. It felt out of place, almost lazy writing. While I can understand, up to a certain point anyway, why they did that, I’m still confused as to why they didn’t somehow show us snippets of those two days. I get it, there was no time to actually show the Cali gang travelling for two days or have the Hawkins group gather together and deal with the consequences, but I think they could’ve given us something like a few glimpses of what happened in those two days in a short montage (e.g.: Max being rushed to the hospital with Lucas following her, Steve, Nancy and Robin finding Dustin with a dead Eddie in his arms, El being hugged by her brothers and Mike, the Russian group hopping on a plane, you know, little scenes like that). Still, we got nothing.

A comment underneath the tweet said something about getting to know about these two days in S5 through flashbacks and I can see that happening and actually, this might work for certain plot lines.

I’m a firm believer that they already shot some scenes for S5 while filming S4 and this flashback comment got me thinking: what if they already shot El and Mike breaking up?

Imagine this: at some point in the first episode of S5 we have Mike and El talking about something and it’s clear that they’re not in a relationship anymore. Cut to: a flashback of two days earlier where we have El and Mike in the pizza place. It’s right after the monologue, El just woke up and she has a blanket around her shoulders. Jonathan, Will and Argyle are outside, giving them some privacy. It looks like a sweet moment, the one you would get after a love confession, but it’s actually sad. El is telling Mike what Brenner told her, that maybe he was right about her not being ready, but she doesn’t go too deep into this conversation because she wants to talk about Mike’s speech. They talk, she’s sad because she knows Mike lied to her and at the end of it they break up because they both realise that this is not working. (And I really hope we get the "I dump your ass" line again but with them laughing, that'd be so sweet!)

I never liked the theory about Milkvan being already broken up at the end of S4 because I think that’s something we need to see. In my opinion, no ship that’s been this relevant deserves an off-screen break-up because it leaves such a bad feeling (I had to live through one for one of my OTPs, I don’t wish that on anyone, it leaves you confused and hurt, and you feel like they just made fun of you). But I would be okay with that if we get a flashback in S5, because it wouldn’t be off-screen anymore but it would be something that’s already happened.

And honestly that would explain so much.

Why did El and Mike barely talk during those two days? Why is Mike so detached from El? Why doesn’t he stay behind to comfort her when they get to Hopper’s cabin for the first time? Why doesn’t he stand next to her on the field? Why is he always paired with Will?

Because they already broke up!

El leaning on Mike in the hospital can easily be a platonic scene (it also parallels with El leaning on Hopper, her dad, at the end of the episode). It's the first time El sees Max after trying to save her and she didn't know the extent of her injuries. It's a shocking moment and she needs comfort and Mike’s still an important person in her life, even if they're not together anymore, so it's only logical that she would seek comfort from him.

Honestly, I feel like this would be a good way to handle the break-up off-screen in S4 but still give it to us on-screen in S5.