#we love el in these parts

[chirpsythismorning]

Milkvans on Twitter < 48 hrs ago: Byler stans HATE El, they just pretend they don’t. At least us milkvans are honest about hating Will.

New tumblr account < 2 hrs ago: El is useless and she should die. Also Will has powers.

[musicalchaos07]

Sometimes a sibling trio can be a self-proclaimed freak with a slight weed addiction, a boy who was demonically possessed and committed accidental homicide, and a girl with psionic abilities ❤️

[fruitbythefoot7]

they make me so happy 💕💕

[uselessnbee]

okay i don't want to be THAT bitch but if El calls out Mike on his bullshit in s5 how the love confession was shit and untrue i do kinda want Mike to turn around and be like "okay well what do you love me for?" because let's be real girl would not have an answer for that 💀

and maybe it would be good to be the last thing that would make her go oh i've never loved him that way either

like yes she totally should throw everything in Mike's face cause she deserves so much better but let's not pretend like she's a good girlfriend to him and it's just Mike being the problem

this fucker has been depressed and struggling for months and like did she ever even ask how is he doing? not her fault but the fact that Mike has been struggling and never once thought about talking to El because he doesn't feel like he can be vulnerable with her? the fact that he pretends he's someone he's not because he feels like she wouldn't want him for who he is? seriously no hate to El i love her to bits and yes Mike is bigger asshole in this but we really need to stop acting like El is perfect and can do no wrong

and that one time in s4 when Mike actually tried to be vulnerable with her and let her know that he understands because he's been bullied his whole life and she just invalidates his feelings and completely dismisses him? i do understand her pov and what she meant but as someone who's also been bullied and have so many people invalidate my feelings and how it affected me and still affects me to this day all the time it really hurt to hear it. the way Mike's feelings are constantly being invalidated and dismissed by both the characters in the show and this fandom just because "others have it worse" really disgusts me

anyways i really just want to point out that this is a relationship. there are two people in this relationship and it all goes both ways. it's not just Mike being an asshole friend and a shitty boyfriend. El isn't really a great girlfriend either and when they were just hanging out together the whole summer it is on El too. they're both just kids trying to do their best and making mistakes we can acknowledge that both of them make some really questionable things so they both can grow and learn

[reanimatedgh0ul]

ik this had to have been such a massive W for the neurodivergent/autistic chicanos out there when this was announced

[small-spark-of-light]

day 18 was to draw a car with negative points for complaining so

[pulpitude]

their dynamic (/p) is absolutely unmatched. i know the blood ending describes abel as being like an older brother to mc if you don't romance him but sometimes i really feel like pri acts like the protective yet intimidating older sister

[rotisseries]

I am the number one mike gets vecna'd truther. I have damn near 100% confidence that mike gets vecna'd. there is no version of s5 that I can imagine where mike doesn't get vecna'd. he will be shown horrendous visions and he will scream and cry and veccy boy will get his homophobic dog moment and mike is gonna be shaken up and refusing to tell anyone what he saw and it will be the most important, impactful, and jaw dropping vecna scene of the season, and I will be pulling up the cristiano ronaldo gif

[marypsue]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on S1 of ST being a tragedy! No main character dies, so I never thought of it that way before

I mean, nobody has to die for a story to be a tragedy (at least, in the modern definition. I'm pretty sure '(almost) everybody dies' is a requirement of Greek tragedies and Renaissance revenge tragedies). But also, no main character dies in season one...if you take season one as part of a series. Which it wasn't originally conceived as.

I am not going looking for copies of the original pitch bible, because I am lazy, and also I only saw them floating around this webbed site. But the show changed a lot from the initial pitch (Joyce had a Long Island accent! Lucas' parents were divorcing! Murray was there and named Terry Ives! Most of what ended up in Hopper's character originally belonged to Mr. Clarke! The original pitch bible is fascinating). And part of the original pitch was a proposal for possible sequels.

The Duffers' proposal for a possible sequel was "It's ten years later, and Eleven is dead".

So that's the setup. Everything that came after season one was made up wholecloth after season one was a hit and people wanted more, but also people loved the adorable little psychic murder child (cue the Duffers shockedpikachu.jpg) and Netflix obviously recognised it would be a bad call to make a new season without her in it. So it makes sense to take season one as a unit, as a self-contained story on its own. You can also take it as part of a whole, but it makes sense to read it first as a complete story. Especially given the thematic drift of later seasons and the way they are...I'm just going to say it, each new season is very much added-on to what came before rather than being built on foundation that the earlier season(s) laid. It is very clear there was never a planned five-season story arc from the beginning. (This isn't necessarily always a bad thing, when it comes to sequels, but it does mean it makes sense to 'read' each season as its own thing.)

Okay, now that we've established all of that. Season one has one very clear goal, one very clear stake for the characters: save Will Byers from the Upside Down. (I like this. It makes the stakes both extremely high and extremely personal, it makes it very easy to understand each character's motivation, it also keeps the stakes grounded in reality. I like this a lot.) And by the end of the season, that goal is accomplished. So at first blush, you're right, season one doesn't look like a tragedy.

But when you start to unpack it a little, you start to see just how many important things were lost along the way. It's most glaringly obvious with Mike and El, with Nancy and Barb. The whole Wheeler family is fractured down the middle, with Mike and Nancy on one side and Ted, Karen, and Holly on the other, and Karen, who's been trying so hard the whole time to be part of her children's lives and understand what's going on with them, is aware of the ever-expanding gulf between them but will never be able to cross it, and will never fully know why. Hopper's finally managed to snatch a kid out of the jaws of death, save a woman he obviously cares about from the pain of losing a child, and Joyce has finally had someone believe her, support her, trust her. But it became blindingly obvious to me on my fourth rewatch that Hopper's plan, from the moment he went to leave the middle school gym, was always to trade El for Will. And that decision (and the fact that Joyce obviously understands that he did something to get the lab to let them go after Will, but she obviously doesn't dare press him on what) has broken her trust in him, and left him with what looks like an equally heavy burden of guilt as what he was carrying before. The lab stays open. The government gets away with everything. No one will ever know the true extent of the hurt they've caused.

And in the end, none of it even saved Will. He's back. He's alive. But he's spitting slugs in the sink. He's permanently marked by the Upside Down, and by trying to hide it from his family, he's putting a crack down the centre of them, as well. They're losing Will, just as surely as they had when they thought he was dead, just without him going anywhere.

And there's still a hole in the world.

The fragile bonds of community, the things that people share in common, the way catastrophe can bring people together and bring out the very best in them, are the major thematic threads woven through season one. Human connection is the only thing that can change what seems inevitable, the only thing that can bring back what's seemingly lost forever.

And it's still not enough to protect anyone from the random tragedy of the world.

The love was there. The love mattered. The love bent the entire course of the world around itself.

And it still wasn't quite enough.

If that's not a tragedy, then I don't know what is.

[bylertruther]

i don't like season three when viewing it as a continuation of seasons one and two, but i do very much like season three when viewing it as the prequel to seasons four and five... hmmmmm.

[maddy-ferguson]

i feel like the fact that barely anyone who watches the show thinks of will as the main character might be indicative of the fact that he isn't

[chirpsythismorning]

Some of the evidence supporting Mike not being in love with El is brutal. No, but seriously.

In s3, when El's leg is injured, instead of Mike putting his arm around her waist, allowing him to take some of the weight off her injured leg, he puts his arm around her shoulder, basically having the exact opposite affect of taking the weight off of her, instead just adding more weight for her to have to carry.

Now, I’m not coming at Mike here, I’m actually coming at the writers, because this choice here has everything to do with them using this gesture to signal Mike’s lack of feelings for El, even at the expense of realism.

I say this bc any person with common sense, including Finn and everyone around him and Millie filming these shots, would've known it looked unnatural for Mike to be adding more weight onto El as opposed to taking some off of her.

This means that what Mike did here, Finn was directed to do, and therefore it was for a specific reason.

And we know they could have easily made the opposite choice, because they show us Max AND Lucas doing it.

See how putting an arm around El's waist looks so much more natural? Because homegirl is injured and clearly needs help taking weight off her leg to qualm some of the pain she's experiencing there, which is why Max and Lucas are shown here doing it the correct way.

And so, why can't Mike do the same? Why are the writers making a point to show Mike being incapable of simply taking some weight off of El, instead doing the exact opposite?

I don't think it's as deep as Mike not being able to do something intimate, and that's bc, again we see Max and Lucas doing it.

I honestly think what they're trying to convey with this choice here, is that Mike thinks he's helping El, when he is in fact doing the opposite despite his best efforts. The implications of that and how that sort of aligns with their romantic relationship and what it leads to at the end of s3, going into s4, is pretty spot on.

I do think Mike thinks he's doing the right thing by being with El instead of voicing any doubts at the end of s3, because he is under the assumption that she is in love with him. I do think he believes he is indebted to her and that this is the least he can do after everything they've been through together, which has mostly been riddled with romantic pressures and so continuing that instead of disputing it seems like the only option anyways. Not to mention, he does care for her deeply, so it's not hard to imagine that he's a teenage boy confusing deep care for love (he literally tells us this is his problem when he can only say care and not love to El's face... but that's a whole other conversation).

Still, when it's all said and done, Mike's not actually doing El any favors by being with her romantically, if that is not what he truly wants.

Because that's the sad truth about all of this, which is that you would never want someone to be with you just because you want them. If you knew that they truly couldn't have those feelings for you, you'd want to know, right? You don't deserve someone just because you have deep feelings for them. And I think there's so many layers to this idea, bc many people are capable of not giving Byler a chance bc they truly believe Mike could never return Will's feelings. Will also feels this way atp, so though it hurts, he rips the band aid off, because he would never want Mike to be with him just out of pity or something. No one would want that. And so it all really comes down to who Mike truly loves romantically and wants to be with. And the right thing to do, even if it hurts someone, is to be honest, because being with them just bc you think that will make them happy is never going to be enough if you aren't truly feeling it, or worse, feel it for someone else.

We see how Mike's inability to be honest with El at the end of s3, leads to a season of Mike feeling deeply insecure and undeserving of the love El has to offer him, and even though he does try, he always comes up short. Despite Mike putting up this front that they are the perfect couple, the details are telling us something is off. And it gives him away.

Another example that I think is very similar to this loaded gesture from Mike to El in s3, is the scene in s4 when they hug in the airport.

Common sense ppl, picture this: You're reuniting with your long distance girlfriend. Then suddenly, she runs up to you, with her arms wide open, and instead of opening your arms wide to embrace her properly, you take the bouquet of flowers you brought her as a gift, and shove them against your chest just as she approaches to hug you, effectively squishing the present you got for her (a pretty delicate present at that) for no reason other than to... what exactly?

Like?? El isn't even squishing the present Mike, she's trying to hug you, dude! Your gf is trying to hug you properly and you threw the gift you got for her in between you so you could throw in a careful! x3??

Again, this has less to do with Mike's thoughts and reasoning behind this gesture in a literal sense, and more to do with the simple fact that this is a narrative choice! Mike is not a real person! There are real people sitting down and writing this and actors are having to do multiple takes to act it out. What feels natural for a situation is going to be what is often chosen 9 times out of 10, because of realism and wanting the audience to see stuff happening that is believable. That 1 time though, when it's not being done the way it would usually be, is usually because there's a specific reason for it.!

So the question really is, not why is Mike doing this, but why are the writers having Mike do this, and what message are they trying to convey about Mike's feelings based on his behavior, in these moments where he's just not capable of committing to El genuinely, one way or another?

[travisdermotts]

I think the only thing more embarrassing than sending anon hate about a mutual is forgetting to turn on anon and sending two asks back to back

[whynotimtired]

Thinking about Finn calling the mike monologue "notebook-ey, in the best way" when- and I haven't seen it in a long time so correct me if I'm wrong- that man wrote letters to her every single day for a year. And she didn't know about it for even a second because her mom kept every one of them away from her. She thought he was ignoring her, or didn't care anymore. And he thought the exact same. Until she confronted him about it and he told her it wasn't true. And that it's not over.

Now who was the one who didn't get any letters? Who didn't get any calls? Who was the one who said "that's just not true." to "you've made it super clear you don't want to hear anything I have to say." Who complains constantly, to the point his friends are annoyed, that Joyce is always clogging up the line? Who thought he was ignoring him, that he didn't care anymore? And who felt exactly the same way?

"You called maybe a couple times. It's been a year, Mike."

-

"Maybe you should've reached out more, I don't know. Why is this on me? Why am I the bad guy?"

[stewykablooey]

do you think arian Knew that stewy was going to be gay, or was that just something he himself brought to the character? either way, it's just so funny to know his one version of a businessman is the gayest one possible. and I know interviewers have asked him about kendall and stewy's relationship before, but I wish they could've asked him just about stewy's sexuality in general, like I feel like his relationship with the roys is one of the least interesting parts of stewy as a character. he's so fascinating, like I want to know all the little things about that character that I feel like arian has definitely thought about, which is probably why he's such a well-lived character.

arian had originally auditioned to play lawrence yee, and when they asked him back to read for stewy instead, he said he didn’t really change much about his performance. but i also think stewy was always meant to be a little 👀 considering what we’ve seen from the original scripts Plus yes i absolutely agree and think a lot of this was arians work in bringing so much to the character. even with the extra lines in the script that suggest this or that, stewy in the scripts falls completely short of stewy on screen and that’s all arian

[crossbackpoke-check]

do you really believe in him? is he a good kid? no problems? you're gonna love him. you're gonna love him.