#st symbolism

[soft-tender-emotional-music]

okay say queerbaiting or milkvan endgame all you want but i have yet to see any plausible heterosexual explanation for the following

- the airport hug

he was happy to hug will in season 3 and happy to hug lucas in season 4. when the entirety of the show has made it clear that mike and will share the more profound bond (destiel iykyk) out of the party it makes no sense for him to not want to hug him- unless it’s because of his queer realisations atm

- ‘we’re friends, WE’RE FRIENDS’

um it is simply not plausible that mike clocked wills feelings enough to say this yet didn’t pick up what he was putting down in the van speech. bffr mike was absolutely on the defensive here, mans was trying to convince himself

- mike looking at eddie

you’re telling me you watched the scene in episode one where eddie has his ‘if you’re inTo baNd’ speech and still think mike isn’t a homo? he has a lil fanboy crush on eddie and none shall convince me otherwise

- mikes reaction to el kissing him and i love you too

there is no heterosexual reason for him to look so taken aback and distressed after her kiss and her saying she loves him too. the music and els face all suggest a beautiful moment of love but mikes face looks shocked completely contrasting this. esp contrasted against his face at ‘what if you wanna join another party’ and considering his face when he hugs karen at the end of s3. up till then he had made no effort to try and rekindle their relationship but still wanted to see her and talk to her while she was away. ur gonna look at me and ur gonna tell me that i’m wrong

- ‘i care for you so much’

yes i understand that some people have trouble saying i love you- as we see with nancy and steve. bUt the way this is framed in this scene makes it feel queer. he is deflecting he says he cares for her but can’t say he loves her. this is why i’m a gay mike truther this feels like he’s trying so hard to be someone he’s not but he’s reached his limit. he can’t truly say he loves her until under so much duress and pressure. even when he first said ily in season 3 was just a slip up and significance was only given to the words through everyone else’s reactions, not mikes own reaction.

- ‘mrs byers has this new job, mikes always complaining about it’

im sure i butchered this quote but we KNOW him and el only talked on walkies because she couldn’t talk on the phone for dead of the government figuring out she was alive. this line proves mike called plenty and he can only have been calling to talk to will. while yes it is feasible that he was calling as friends, why wouldn’t he say something? leaving this revelation until the last season makes it significant, and therefore makes it romantic and queer.

- shared looks

do i even need to explain. their looks are just fucking gay. especially that one in season 3 where wills like he’s here and mike just keeps staring at him for a good while

- the emphasis on lucas and mikes friendship

they make clear in season 1 that lucas is mikes best friend by mikes convo with dustin. and in season three their status as best friends is made clear because they relate and complain to each other all the time. then WHY throughout the WHOLE show is mike and wills bond given the most focus??? season 1 will is mikes motivation, season 2 he is his priority, season 3 they have an important arc and season 4 they have ups and downs but ultimately their relationship is regarded as most important- they are the only two from the original party who have consistently been paired together. dustin and lucas were both in the hawkins crew but were always in separate groups. there is no heterosexual reason to make clear who mikes best friend js then spend 4 seasons focused on his relationship with will.

- framing

there is no heterosexual reason to frame him in a closet at the milkvan season 3 kiss. there is no heterosexual reason to put a one way sign pointing to his closet. there is no heterosexual reason to pair him and will in the closing shot alongside two other endgame couples. need i say more.

- blue and yellow

obviously this colour symbolism is undeniable at this point. whether or not ppl believe it symbolises their relationship or just their characters, it’s clear that will is yellow and mike is blue. there’s a reason we barely see green clothing or lighting. there’s a reason mikes bouquet to el had purple (her colour) but too much yellow (will). there’s a reason their flannels always have hints of the other persons colour.

- will as mikes priority

instead of coming crawling back to el for forgiveness in s3 he goes to will. he says his life started when he found el (a lie like the rest of that speech) yet when will went missing he only cared about him. all of season 2 showed that he loves will so much he wouldn’t leave his side ever.

i have many other opinions about why milkvan endgame would completely undermine so many messages of the show but yeah i’ll stop for now

[will80sbyers]

I just had a lightbulb moment lmao what if dogs are a symbol for "being a prisoner" of someone or being like a prisoner/feeling suffocated

In s1 Mike says El is not a dog because she's not a prisoner anymore like she was with Brenner and then in season 4 El makes drawings of dogs near the rainbows because it's connected to the period of life when she was treated like a dog by Brenner

In season 1 when Will's dog starts to bark Joyce arrives to take him away by the collar

In season 4 El has to wear a literal collar like a dog

Hopper -> "Don't look at the dogs" scene in 3x01 and then he becomes a prisoner at the end of the season

The dog that Max and Nancy interact with in season 4 is in a cage literally

The Demodogs were used by Vecna as prisoners that were doing forced labor making the tunnels

And there is a transition in episode 4x03 at the minute 46 where we hear dogs barking and then we see the prisoners in Russia that were doing forced labor there

[wheelercore]

Because I'm a stupid homo obsessed with imagery and symbolism blindness is used to often to symbolize losing hope/not being able to see the "light"/ being stuck in darkness. I mean it was pretty obvious with the vecna victims- being confronted with their guilt and trauma ends up with them being rendered blind and stuck in "darkness". Like UD monsters all lacking eyes, because they are a representation of humanities "shadow self".

Also Victor rendering himself blind when he is told the last of his family, Henry, had "died". He cannot see the light anymore. Victors family was his "light".

Also related to the glasses symbolism but that's a whole nother post.

[mashbrainrot]

Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce, MASH, 1982 // The Penitent Mary Magdalene in the Cave, Edouard Kasparides, 1890

[tomatoart]

it ate my soul and left my body

[lesbians4buckleys]

cowboy buddie doodle woahhh!!

just a lil rough thing i did to draw out their design while i work on their actual piece :3 thought it was cute enough to share

[linaxart]

carpet weaver

[thesilicontribesman]

Patterned Sandstone Cross Shaft, 1050 to 950 CE, Llanfynydd, St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff, Wales

[the-evil-clergyman]

Death: It is I who makes you serious; let us embrace each other, from the series The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Odilon Redon (1896)

[magnolia-sunrise]

what have you gotten yourself into, lover mine?

~

my homage to the history of homoerotic depictions of St. Sebastian, featuring none other than Bastien <3 this piece is inspired specifically by depictions from Guido Reni and Roberto Ferri, as well as James Clifton's paper on "The Erotics of the Axillary Pose"

[my-t4t-romance]

we're rewatching shadows and symbols (star trek ds9) and at the scene where kira and cretak were verbally sparring over comms during the blockade, I said "in another timeline y'all would be having insane lesbian sex" and my mom just stopped knitting and put her face into her hands

[illustratus]

Saint Michael Vanquishing Satan

by Gustave Moreau

[mashbrainrot]

St. Sebastian by Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1614 // Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce, Mash Episode "Deluge", 1976

[baeksay]

[𝟵𝟵𝟵] 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗔𝗿𝗲 𝗠𝘆: 밤비 밤비 𓂂 ˳ 𖤓  ࿐

[lovsome]

As an adult, he became obsessed in spells with trying to identify the exact moment in which things had started going so wrong, as if he could freeze it, preserve it in agar, hold it up and teach it before a class: This is when it happened. This is where it started. […] But really, he would know: it was when he walked into the greenhouse that afternoon. It was when he allowed himself to be escorted in, when he gave up everything to follow Brother Luke.

That had been the moment. And after that, it had never been right again.

[fierysword]

Deuteronomy 32:18 and Job 38:29-30 paired with St Hildegard's vision of the universe as a Cosmic Egg (and, let's be real here, Cosmic Yoni).