#u catch my drift

[eddiesangels]

dan wearing a choker, all black, ripped sleeves, see though,, something something phil wanting to attract emo boys something something

[darcyfirth]

based on vibes alone which one should i get?

[copiasslut]

Pre-show Copia drives me wild idk 😌🤭

[jollyhaunt]

if we stick to the timeline that the miskatonic massacre occurred around october 23rd or 26th 1985,

and the events of bride happened 8 months later,

then these evil gay fucks really came back to terrorize arkham during pride month.

[moth-tea-merchant]

I feel like all three of them should hangout

[gaytkachuk]

why say lot word when few word do trick?

[emblazons]

Thinking about how people who only (or primarily) understand Mike’s arc through a “hes queer and coming to accept it / struggling with heteronormativity/will get his happy ending when he gets with Will” lens are missing at least half of what defines his arc in the wider context / themes of the show.

Forewarning: long post (& also maybe an unpopular opinion)

Even as a queer person myself, I know that his arc isn’t solely about embracing his queerness (though it’s inherently interlinked). In Mike, you have a character who is being radically challenged by both external circumstances and his own decisions through a journey away from all kinds of forced conformity (social, familial, romantic & heteronormative) and into someone self actualized enough to live how they want…while also being strong enough to accept that they made mistakes along the way. Someone who is learning to be brave enough to say “this is who I am, what I enjoy, and what/who I love…and while it took me a lot of time to figure it out, now I can exist in the world embracing that even though it will take consistently resisting the tendency to accommodate people who think it’s unacceptable.”

Like. Even from a time before puberty (see: S3) Mike wants a life that stands apart from what’s expected of him in every area, not just in choosing a romantic relationship with another guy. He wants to continue to be a nerd and “child at heart” even though something else is repeatedly demanded of him by everyone from his parents to El in his romantic relationship. He wants to be a writer and someone who takes those nerdy interests into his adult life (cue aggressive gesturing toward the duffers themselves) and grates against all that’s been constructed for him even when he’s not (yet) brave enough to challenge it directly. Mike liking boys/loving Will is just “the final nail in the coffin” of his social and societal nonconformity—not the first (or the last) aspect of what makes him different from Hawkins or the life he was made to believe would suit him best.

Even the fact that Mike has a desire to be “normal” comes from an insecurity and fear that choosing what he truly wants will lead to him being outcasted and losing the people he cares for entirely—which is partially motivated by his queerness yes, but that also has a basis in his general interests and personality…which becomes especially obvious when you realize we are repeatedly shown that he is punished/has his wishes ignored in all areas he doesn’t conform, even long before we get into a plot where it’s clearer he likes boys.

We see it in how his parents have already started to demand he put boundaries on the time he spends playing his “childhood games” the very first scene of season one, how they demand social acceptable emotions from him when Will is missing, and how Karen & Ted want him to give up toys in S2 when he’s showing signs of depression (because they think the issue is him growing up, not that he’s struggling with loss or guilt for what happened to El).

We see it in how his own father comments about taking his CA trip away from him after calling Hellfire being a group for “dropouts” in S4 (implying that he is failing on an academic and social level that matters to wheelers—and that Nancy is good at).

We even see it in the way everyone from his bullies to his own girlfriend threaten and take things away from him when he doesn’t conform to social expectations...from Troy telling him to jump off the cliff to save Dustin in S1 (as punishment for the one time Mike stands up for himself in the gymnasium) to El jumping straight into breaking up with him and spying on him when he doesn’t do exactly what she wants him to in Season 3.

All of these moments are critical to understanding Mike as a person because they show us that, even without addressing his queerness, Mike’s desire to conform to socialized expectations involves but is not solely about him moving out of heteronormativity—it’s about him moving against everything that WASP, patriarchal, heteronormative and capitalistic and performative “wholesome American” values…and how he is learning to move past the fear of what will happen if he steps outside the lines in general, even though he already knows he hates those standards.

Mike’s “coming of age” arc is about finding the strength to choose the “path less traveled” in all areas of his life—even when it means (potentially) losing the support of the people he cares about. It’s about starting from a place of privilege and becoming okay with being outcasted from it in a way your insecurities never let you be before (which is inherently different than Will, who has always been shown to have some kind of support not just for his queerness but his artistic endeavors as well). Mike’s lack of support is why he starts from a place of deep insecurity, yes—but it’s also why him learning power of choosing to be himself, even if it means “losing” people when he’s honest about who (& what) he is will be universally powerful.

You don’t need to be queer to understand the power of what it means to know you will be okay even if people leave you. You don’t need to be queer to understand the power of stepping outside social expectations or your family’s way of raising you. You don’t even need to be queer to understand the weight of breaking up with someone you were only with to satisfy what you thought you should do, rather than be with who you want to.

The power of being strong enough to overcome your insecurities in order to “step out of line” and live and love as you want to is universal, and a stunningly brave choice no matter what or why you chose to do so. The fact that Will will be there waiting to love him in that honesty with himself is beautiful, yes—but it’s not the only lesson to be learned for Mike’s character.

Mike starting out with everything the world (or, at least America) tells would make you happy, realizing he is not happy with those things and rejecting them knowing it might have consequences is what makes his arc powerful, because he is learning (exactly like his sister Nancy) to be brave enough to accept those consequences (which for him are getting dumped, and feeling like he’s being left behind by some of his friends) to follow his own heart.

Even though The Duffers aren’t writing this into a tragic ending (aka: he’s not going to die or be left alone, because the duffers writing is inherently designed ro champion the outcast), these are the things that have (and will) make him relatable even to an audience that doesn’t know queerness. Erasing the fact that his lesson is the bravery it takes to follow your heart solely to talk about him liking guys (even Will) is to undermine his humanity, and the lessons to be learned from him by even the most general an audience.

TL:DR - the heteronormative aspect of Mike’s character is not the sole or even inherent issue within Mike, though heteronormativity is inherently built into his struggle.

There are deep dives on how his arc is also about a war against toxic patriarchy, toxic masculinity, emphasis on capitalistic and academic accomplishments over artistic ones, and even conformist relationships (whether they’re queer or not) that should be explored for his character—and I for one like him too much not to move out of just “this boy is queer because xyz” and into “let’s talk about Mike in terms of the wider scope of his cultural context and upbringing.” 🤷🏽‍♀️😂

[happeecat]

頂きます

[willyhoos]

she was made just for me.

[disco-cola]

POV: this is what my life should’ve looked like but I was born 30 years too late (I made this for my future therapist to visually elaborate) (jk) (or am I)

[ynbabe]

I need to get off the internet cause there was only one word that entered my mind here

Pregnant ome- [GUN SHOTS]

[theopolis]

The way this panel is drawn, I feel like Harry's looking at something other than the wheels in question

He definitely does want a ride though

[captain-solemn-titty]

anthony j. crowley

[blamemma]

red bull seem to be confirming via their latest ig post that Daniel will be attending the Nashville Show Run he was scheduled for on October 14th, the weekend before COTA

[roe-and-memory]

i think WAY too much about the hc of lightning having rosacea. its at the forefront of my mind ALWAYS.

his cheeks are perpetually flush, thats a given. it goes hand in hand with his sight issues (light sensitivity - also an autistic trait; goes hand in hand with sensory processing disorder which i Also believe he has), and it flares up with emotional stress.

lightning isn’t a big stresser, not during the day at least. he really doesnt worry about anything unless he has a Reason to be worried about it, like something hes been warned about. however, his nightmares are a WHOLE different story - he doesnt realize it, but they cause such an immense amount of stress for him at night. the only thing he ever really stresses ABOUT is going to sleep, he hates it with every fiber of his being, because he knows what’ll come to him in the middle of the night and he knows he cant do a thing about them. he himself wouldnt label it as stress though, only sally and doc and literally everyone around him who’s been a witness to this sheer discomfort whenever it comes time to rest.

so, in the middle of the night, he’ll have these nightmares, and he’ll Stress in his sleep. it’s why he listens to music so often while he sleeps, that walkman helps keep him some type of calm if its not too bad, but when it IS bad? oh. god.

he’ll wake up in the morning with a face so burning hot it could be mistaken for a fever, and sometimes possibly some vision impairment (blurry - this goes away over the course of a couple hours; worsened light sensitivity - this one lasts the entirety of his flare ups), his cheeks and nose are red and underneath the freckles that litter his face you can see little purple blood vessels in his skin becoming more prominent. it drives him NUTS. it also doesnt help his case that these flare ups just make him More exhausted, therefore more subconsciously stressed about falling asleep. its like one big Loop of sheer Hell

sally and doc have both mistaken it for him being sick, but when it Kept happening (and lightning expressed its happened his whole life, just awful flare ups that made his face hurt like hell) doc actually looked into it and figured out what it was. theres no cure for it, but the discovery led to a Lot of attempts at solving the core issue - his nightmares. nothing really worked, and that kind of sucked, but it was better safe than sorry to see if they could dampen the amount of times it DID flare up.

sometimes it looks kinda like he spent an hour standing over a fire pit, letting the flames and smoke billow up into his face - its been mistaken for burns on multiple occasions - and its a pain to race with because his helmet sometimes rubs against it and makes the rash feel 100x more irritated ..

[foosybit]

the mayoshino zombie doctor + corpse combo is rewiring my brain and changing my life