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Not so long ago, for the few that knows about it, I created an alternate account where I could do a more review type of blog but I realised that given my already difficult time of taking care of this one blog, I deleted it completely. I thought it would be better to do so since A. I haven't written anything on it and B. It was highly unlikely that I was going to anyway since my IRL life is far from stable right now and I already have multiple posts to finish on this blog alone.

I may recreate it one day if I feel motivated by the concept of it again and when my life is more stable but as of now, it's gone.

But don't worry, this one stays even if it's been incredibly difficult to keep it alive. It has emotional value so until Tumblr dissapears one day, it'll remain here forever.

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DOES ANYONE KNOW WHAT GAME THIS IS?

IM LOSING MY FREAKING MIND I THINK I FIGURED SOMETHING OUT BUT I NEED TO KNOW WHAT THIS GAME IS ANYONE PLEASE SAVE ME

LIKE THE FIRST ONE i see what looks like ... a dragon? a bird????? im losing it omfg

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I'm very sad to hear that Stranger Things: Puzzle Tales got shut down, really enjoyed that game and outside content it could give us about ST. Maybe possibly hints about the story, who knows ?

Hope that maybe it'll come back in a new form once ST5 releases!

We still have ST 1984 & ST3: The Game so we still have some video game content to dig into!

By the way, ST Fandom, make sure to remember to check these games before ST5 releases because last time ST4 released, they added new elements to those games such as objects and outfits. Make sure to check it out before the final season is released, who knows, maybe we will find something there.

Still hoping for my ST open world video game in the future though! 🤞

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Aaah Stranger Things comics.

The best thing about this franchise to me!

🥰🥰🥰

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_________________________________________

The source (of the trauma?)

Maybe

"It burns! Oh, it burns!" "Mom, I can't breathe. I'm suffocating!"

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What really happened to Will when he vanished...

I don't have all the details here but... a lot of this is starting to connect.

Will enters the U.S. Department of Energy.

He falls off his bike. Wheel stops turning (indicating time coming to a halt).

He rushes through a spooky forest (creepy trees... I'll touch on that topic later) into his home. Mom and Jonathan aren't there. He tries to call the police but the Demogorgon scares him into doing so.

He rushes toward the shed.

(The association between a shed and a bomb for context).

This "Little Boy" loads a gun.

Little Boy was a gun-type atomic bomb that was the first nuclear weapon used in warfare.

He comes face to face with a light (the truth). It begins shining brighter and brighter...

Likely an explosion occurred right at that moment.

As Will is compared to "Little Boy" here... there's a nuclear fission reaction. This means splitting in two.

Kind of like...

A boy being split into two. Two what you say? Two... personalities?

Perhaps this little girl appeared to take over. To help protect Little Boy from his trauma. She came into the light while he vanished into the darkness. She's the gatekeeper alter (an actual DID alter term...). The one who controls the gate and access to memories...

Thus, he remains in the dark with only "vague" memories.

This bomb going off caused time to stop at exactly 8:15, just like "Little Boy" the atomic bomb did. That atomic bomb caused time pieces to be stuck at 8:15 essentially leaving the city of Hiroshima frozen in time.

It's no wonder Brenner and co wear hazmat suits when investigating the shed. Nuclear fission leaves behind toxic nuclear waste, after all.

More on this topic...

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What was the first moment or scene that made you suspect or realize Will can alter reality? 🙋🏾‍♂️

Hi, anon. :) I think it wasn’t 1 thing in particular but an amalgamation of things. S3 was probably what made everything ‘click’ in my mind. But there were A LOT of things in prior seasons that made me scratch my head - such as the connection/parallels of certain human/nonhuman characters to Will. And I was trying to figure out-what the narrative explanation was for all of this.

But I think what made me think of Will altering reality ...was  mostly how the media Will consumed affected the supernatural plot specifically .  And how the mf was connected to Will’s emotional state and “Will the wise”.Of course this is all unconscious on Will’s part-and he’s unaware. I won’t mention outside film inspos just what’s in the show- for this post.

s1: the demogorgans are connected to Will playing the game.Like how rolling the 7 in d&d caused him to be captured by the demogorgan in the game and real life. And how in the game the demogorgan is attracted to blood so it is irl. The weakness of the demogorgan being fire. And in a s1flashback- Will mentions Will the wise using fire powers against the bad guys. Duffers (in interviews) and Nancy saying the demogrogan was like a shark- and Will has a Jaws poster in his room. And in s1, Will watches poltergeist and is thrust into the same scenario as the little girl (being trapped in another dimension- where the mothers can only hear their voices and communicate to them through electronics ). The fact Will can mess with electronics similar to other psychics, and the monsters.In s1 Mr clarke describes the vale of shadows (later the upsidedown) as being created by “necrotic” (’dead’-zombie boy) and “shadow” (shadow monster/mf) magic.  

s2/3: Mike says he was Venkman. And Will is thrust into the same scenario as Venkman’s love interest.Dana finds a demon-dog in her fridge, and hires the ghost busters. And right before Venkman goes on a date with her she is possessed by the big-bad, Zuul, and is transformed into the gate-keeper (who controls demo(n)-dogs). Venkman proceeded to try to talk to the real Dana , ignoring her possessed form and eventually realizes how serious her condition is, is forced to sedate her. Eventually with the help of his team, Venkman closes the gate to Zuul’s dimension, rescuing Dana in the process. 

-In s2 Will also plays dig dug which is about underground mazes- so the supernatural underground caves are made in s2. And it’s a callback to the s1 d&d game with “troglodytes “ (cave men). And in s3 the Russians had the underground lab too - sort of being the troglodytes in a way.

-Will is called ‘zombie boy’ and in s3 when Will watches a zombie movie and writes a d&d story about juju zombies- the mf creates zombies and creates a monster resembling the thing (because when Will was writing his d&d story he was next to the ‘the thing’ poster in s3). When Mike hijacks Will’s d&d story saying ‘they’ll torch the chambers, sacrificing themselves killing the juju ’. Will gets angry and yells “Fine, you win.” And then Joyce and Hopper do just that- when they pull the lever, and Hopper ‘dies’ sacrificing himself, and the Russians literally are eviscerated.

-Will says ‘will the wise’ is a wizard ( writing on a music tape in s3 “will the wise-wizard mix’ and having his password for castle byers be ‘rhadaghast’- a lotr wizard.) In d&d Mindflayers are created by inserting a slug in a humanoid (like Will at the end of s1). And similar to Will’s s3 d&d story-Will says in s2 the mf drawing was for a story he was writing (which isn’t exactly the truth, but close to what is happening).The way they describe d&d Wizards matches Will/mf perfectly “Wizards are adepts and magicians . wizards are able to create spells of explosive fire, sparking lightning, subtle deception, and gross mind control. Their magic summons monsters from other planes of existence, predicts the future, and turns defeated enemies into zombies. Their most powerful spells can transform one substance into another, summon meteors from the sky, and open portals to other worlds”. Dustin says the mf uses it’s “highly developed psyionic powers for mindcontrol.” Nancy in s2 says: “So this thing is like a brain that’s controlling everything.” And accidentally calls the mind-flayer the mind-flamer ( WW had fire power).Hopper then says “So how do we kill this thing shoot it with fireballs?”And Dustin says “ No, No, fireballs you summon an undead army.”Referencing Will (fire)and foreshadowing of the zombie-esque people Will caused in s3.But Mike actually nails it on the head when he says, “If the brain dies the body dies … closing the gate will kill him(referring to Will).Because it’s not the mindflayers’ brain - it’s Will’s brain- that both Will and the mf share! 

Joyce  describes the tunnels Will draws as “like lightning” (a power Will the wise was shown to have in s1  and mf has in s2).And note in s1 we are told Lonnie taught Will baseball (and this was when Jon told Will not to mimic him)- and suspiciously there is a baseball and baseball-mitt next to the ‘shadow monster’ (mf) drawing in s2, and a bat (next to the ww drawing in castle byers in s3). Cause mf= ww.  Will lies and says the mf is just a sketch for a story he’s writing- but even if that’s not exactly true. The mf is still something he unconsciously created. And the mf comes in s2 during Will’s PTSD “anniversary effect” and in s3 everytime Will is thinking of his romantic feelings for Mike (why the mf shows up in the summer despite light being his weakness). 1st time it’s on one of their ‘movie dates’, 2nd time when Will is sad when Mike and El walk off together down the hill to make-out, , 3rd time right after he smashed castle byers after Mike says “it’s not my fault you don’t like girls”, 4th time (after the fight with Mike) when Billy is yelling to open the door (a trigger) and confides in Mike, 5th time when Mike asks him to go away so he can talk to El in the hospital waiting area, and 6th time when Mike says he loves El. 

-Susie in s3 references the ‘A wizard of Eathsea’ -it’s about a male wizard Ged (Will) who casts a powerful spell, but the spell goes awry and instead he releases a shadow creature! The new Archmage, Gensher, describes the shadow as an ancient evil that wishes to possess Ged. But the ‘shadow’ turns out  to be a representation of the darkest aspects of his personality. And the only way for the chaos to stop is for ged and the shadow to merge.

-‘the dark crystal’ movie poster in Mike’s room is about a race called urSkeks who inadvertently divided themselves into two separate beings; the violent, materialistic Skeksis, and the gentle, contemplative urRu. It was only when they merged back together as one could harmony and peace be restored to the world.

- Montauk Project’- The original title for Stranger things was “Montauk”- in reference to the Montauk Project. Where Duncan could “open portals to other dimensions-  and lets loose a monster from his subconscious.”

- In s1 Hopper says he likes the book cujo , that one of the guards is reading, and at the end of the book they replace the dog Cujo with a dog named Willie. A ref to Will creating the demo-dogs. The fact in s2 Chester (Will’s dog) died at the same time the demo-dogs appeared is probably not a coincidence.

- Susie has a wizard of oz poster & in s2 when murray mentions the supernatural he references the movie.He references Wizard of Oz by saying “people don’t like looking behind the curtain” (in the movie what was behind the curtain was a wizard-Will).

-in s3 Will & El parallel (sebastian & Atreyu from neverending story). Which Dustin references in s3.“Atreyu (who was deemed the ‘chosen one) is thrown  into the sea of possibilities (beach in cali). There he wakes on the shore of abandoned ruins (junkyard for El). There Gmork (The Mindflayer) reveals himself, having been lying in wait.He explains that Fantasia represents humanity’s imagination and is thus without boundaries, while the Nothing is a manifestation of the loss of hopes and dreams. And then latches his jaws onto Atreyu’s leg (like what happened to El).The Empress in the story later tells Atreyu, that despite being told he was the chosen one (he never was). And that it was always Bastian (Will) who was the chosen one -that could save them, all along! And that Atreyu’s (El’s) story, and “others” (the rest of the st cast) are following Bastian’s (Will’s) story all along, making them all part of his neverending story. The Empress tells Bastian that he has the power to save them using his imagination.”*Bastian has a bowl cut, appears to be a normal human, and from a single parent house hold. Bastian even temporarily goes evil after he loses his memories (just like Will).

IT ALL CONNECTS BACK TO WIIL!

* There’s also A LOT more evidence - like the many other correlations/parallels/eastereggs to Will and other human characters (El, Kali, Terry, Brenner, Max, Billy, Hopper, Alexi, Etc) who I believe Will created. As well as the parallels to Lonnie and the demogrogan(which in d&d is called “the deep father”).  I recommend reading my THEORY HERE for all that other evidence. It also includes the cited inspos  for the show there too (which i didn’t mention in this post). It’s a very long post-but I believe worth reading.

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This would probably explain why Argyle is not in Season 5.

It's 5:30 in the morning and I'm finally writing my thoughts (while listening the Twin Peaks theme on repeat) about Stranger Things again which hasn't happened in weeks and I look like this:

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It's 5:30 in the morning and I'm finally writing my thoughts (while listening to the Twin Peaks theme on repeat) about Stranger Things again, with no signs of being tired, which hasn't happened in weeks and I look like this:

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Will Can’t Remember His Childhood Very Well

This is something I’ve been theorizing for a while, but I didn’t realize until upon rewatch that they tell us this in the show. It’s been there in plain sight the whole time and I’ve picked up on it until now.

It happens during the Jonathan and Will talk in Surfer Boy Pizza:

Jonathan is sharing the story about Larry the Lego man and Will can’t remember. Or he does, but it’s just vaguely.

They then emphasize that Jonathan does remember it very well.

And yeah okay, not many people can remember their childhoods very well, but this is also a television show where things that are written often have deeper meanings and dual purposes.

Will doesn’t ever have a moment where he says “Oh yeah, I remember now.” Instead he actually claims that Jonathan is just speaking bullshit.

Yes I know that this scene wasn’t orginally in the script and was added later, but that isn’t a valid argument to disuade it’s importance because the fact of the matter is, it’s still a scene in the show. The creative process is interesting that way. Things can change every step of the way. It doesn’t make it any less intentional.

And then you combine this with NINA, the importance of memories in the last season, birthdaygate, twelvegate, Henry’s connection to Will, it’s safe to say that Will’s foggy memory of his childhood is written in for a reason, and this will be crucial in season 5.

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To add onto all of this, all the other characters, even the ones that suffer from the same problem that Will has regarding memory, have a memory or a collection of memories that they remember about their childhood or past even if they don't remember all of it.

El has memories about her experiences at the lab but also her mother albeit broken in pieces (and possibly manipulated) and unconnected but they are still there, Billy when fully possessed by the Mind Flayer still has, if you dig deep, a fond memory of his mother lost in the traumatic ones he has. Max when under Vecna's power is able to remember some of her time in California & the Snow Ball. (Plus all the other good memories that helps her survive him.)

Outside of that condition, characters like Hopper, Robin or Kali all talk about a memory or a moment from their past at some point in the show. Joyce & Jonathan have memories with Will in Season 1 just like Hopper has with his daughter.

Dustin even mentions an event, in season 1, about Will's past where Will fell from his bike & hurt his finger and even remembers how he sounded when that happened. But Will never mentions anything of that sort throughout the show.

Will, unless someone brings it up to him, like Jonathan above or Mike & Joyce in the shed, never reminisces about the past in any sort of way. Whether good or bad. Even what was supposed to be flashbacks to his time in the UD in Season 2, turned out to be about him being able to see in the UD while still being in the non-UD world.

Will is the only character in the show with other who have that condition turn out this way... To such a degree that he barely remembers or never does it from his own initiative, about the past. Especially about what he experienced in the UD when he was for one week alone there and with no means to be able survive there.

I would even say that if we pay attention to Noah's acting choices, it seems to annoy him in a way when people try to do that or events lead him to think about stuff from his past.

But from what we've seen from the BTS in Season 5, it seems that is about to change with him starting to remember some of the events he experienced in Season 1 while in the UD.

Will Can’t Remember His Childhood Very Well

This is something I’ve been theorizing for a while, but I didn’t realize until upon rewatch that they tell us this in the show. It’s been there in plain sight the whole time and I’ve picked up on it until now.

It happens during the Jonathan and Will talk in Surfer Boy Pizza:

Jonathan is sharing the story about Larry the Lego man and Will can’t remember. Or he does, but it’s just vaguely.

They then emphasize that Jonathan does remember it very well.

And yeah okay, not many people can remember their childhoods very well, but this is also a television show where things that are written often have deeper meanings and dual purposes.

Will doesn’t ever have a moment where he says “Oh yeah, I remember now.” Instead he actually claims that Jonathan is just speaking bullshit.

Yes I know that this scene wasn’t orginally in the script and was added later, but that isn’t a valid argument to disuade it’s importance because the fact of the matter is, it’s still a scene in the show. The creative process is interesting that way. Things can change every step of the way. It doesn’t make it any less intentional.

And then you combine this with NINA, the importance of memories in the last season, birthdaygate, twelvegate, Henry’s connection to Will, it’s safe to say that Will’s foggy memory of his childhood is written in for a reason, and this will be crucial in season 5.

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I've finally started organizing all of my observations and theories about Stranger Things from over the years, and what I believe is truly going on behind the curtain (as Murray would say.)

It's going to be a while before I complete this theory masterpost, but I'd like to share an introductory post today which summarizes the overall structure of my masterpost and its contents so far.

...

I would like to lead with a list of claims that I believe I can very reasonably make about Stranger Things, and demonstrate to be true through canonical evidence and citing specific details and scenes in the show:

the show often focuses on the psychological and mental capacity of the human mind, and the human mind in general, both in casual ways ("mind-blowing!") and formal ways (ex. Mr. Clarke's lecture on Phineas Gage in season 2)

the show features consistent references to trauma and traumatic events, characters attempting to navigate living with their trauma, "shared trauma," as well as characters being seen by doctors who claim they will help characters work through and heal from their trauma

the concept of a greater collective consciousness is repeated throughout the series in different contexts

I suspect I'll add to this list of reasonable claims.

...

The following are topics that will each have their own dedicated section (or separate post, I haven't decided on the best approach yet.) I might reorder these based on how best they flow into one another as I go.

...

Topics:

themes of trauma and memories

Doctor Owens

Will and El

"Caught between two slides" - Will, El, and Mike

Kali and El

Hopper

Billy Hargrove

Will and Max parallels

Will and Eddie parallels

Henry Creel

The lab and Doctor Brenner

The Numbers

"Nancy Drew"

Robin and Steve

Lonnie

themes of "time travel" and the concept of exploring memories from the past

parallels between Murray and Mike (I get so much laughter on this one, but I'm serious)

Miscellaneous other relevant details (I'm sure somebody is going to say "but what about Terry Ives" and I can anticipate a number of other common critiques of my theories at this point since I've been talking about them for a while, so I'll try to get ahead of those common questions this time.)

Conclusion

*This list of topics will surely expand and shift as I go.

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Thinking about how the spiked baseball bat could be a representation of the normativity destroying the holder from the inside but also an agressive and defiant response against it...

Used to fight monsters that are representative of our characters' insecurities & traumas during the whole show and in the seasons themselves...

But does bastardizing the object that's used to play the game the way to fight that normativity or does it only add further destruction to the situation ? I would argue yes and no.

But Will is caught in the middle; both literally and figuratively...

How can you win if you're only forced to lose ? How can you lose if you cannot win ?

"Thanks for ruining the game" : the game as the metaphor for Lonnie's abuse of Will Byers and heteronormativity (aka the "game" as a "performance put on display")

In ST, it's well established that baseball and games are related to Lonnie Byers, who abused Will during his youth (and Jonathan too).

The "game" is a symbol of heteronormativity (it's a performance) and tends to be linked to masculinity in a bad way.

In S1E4, The Body, I noticed a scene I didn't really pay attention to before.

Hopper, who's looking for the truth after Joyce stormed out of the morgue, saying that the body found at the quarry is not Will, interrogates the "state person" who "found Will" in the quarry. He finds him at a bar, the "Hideaway" that is very reminiscent to Lonnie. And he's watching a match of baseball, drinking beers like Lonnie does, and when Hopper tells him he knows he's a liar, the man says : "Thanks for ruining the game, dick".

We can understand that this is a metaphor for 3 different things :

The game as Will's faux-suicide : Will never actually drowned, so Hopper saying he doesn't believe Will drowned ruins the game that the Lab is playing.

The game as Will's abuse : Hopper as a cop (and all the people ruining "the game") interferes with Lonnie's abuse, puts an end to it.

Heterosexuality: It's well established by now that Will and Mike are both gay, and in love with each other but heterosexuality, or the display of heterosexuality, is ultimately contraried because neither Will nor Mike likes the game (the performance of heterosexuality and heteronormativity) : so Hopper "ruining the game" is a metaphor for the fact that any performance of heterosexuality coming from Will (or Mike, later on in the show) is actually a lie. It's fake.

Jonathan plays Will one of his mixtapes and they listen to “Should I stay or should I go” by The Clash in Jonathan’s room, as they wait for Lonnie to pick Will up to take him to a baseball game (Lonnie’s idea). In the background we hear Joyce yelling at Lonnie over the phone for ditching Will. 

Will: “He’s not coming is he”

Jonathan: “Do you even like baseball?”  (aka : do you even like GIRLS?)

Will: “No but, I don’t know it’s fun to go with him sometimes”

Jonathan: “ Has he ever done anything with you that you actually like, like the arcade or something”

Will: “I don’t know-”

Jonathan “-No. He hasn’t. He is trying to force you to like normal things, and you shouldn’t like things because people tell you you’re supposed to. Especially not him.”

As I discussed earlier, Will’s dad Lonnie is homophobic and bullied Will as a child, by calling him a f*g and a queer. Jonathan is obviously aware of this, and he knows this is why Lonnie is trying to force Will to like “normal”, meaning ‘straight’ things. Jonathan is telling Will to stay true to himself, like whatever and whoever he likes, and to not listen to what people consider to be ‘the right way’, and to not let what others think or say affect him.

When Will destroys Castle Byers in S3, he does it with a baseball bat = Lonnie, heteronormativity, after Mike plays "the game" that Will doesn't want to engage with.

In S2, Steve and Mike's father tell him that he's "on the bench, he's not playing the game": Mike is fully dedicated to Will, fully in love with him, and he defies heteronormativity.

In S4, Lucas is playing the game (football but still) and he's winning = he left the bench.

I will further elaborate for the game metaphor in other posts but I wanted to highlight the "thanks for ruining the game" event.

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Could you possibly do an analysis of the Byers Family as a whole?

I’m honestly surprised it took this long for this to be requested. The Byers family is really at the heart of the entire story. I’m going to try and limit this analysis to the on-screen portrayal of the family. If you want more of a deep-dive that includes predictions and suppositions that draw on the writers’ background material and references, I would point you to @kaypeace21. There’s some real next level stuff going on with her work, but I’m going to try and stick to what I know best. I will not be including El in this, though she may come up in passing, as we have yet to see any significant portrayal of her as a member of the family. The Byers are a family of unexpected strength and love. There’s a lot there that would suggest a family in shambles, but outward appearances can be misleading. I intend here to go through the family one-by-one and then go into some conceptualizations of the family dynamic based on my understanding of psychological theory and human development. My memory on some of the details of the show may be off, so feel free to correct any errors I may stumble into. Lonnie I’ll start with Lonnie, though it’s difficult to really refer to him as a part of the family. Still, for at least a portion of this family’s development, he was there and active in the others’ lives to some extent.There is much we simply don’t know about the family dynamic when he was still an active member of it. What we do know, however, is that he was involved in Jonathan’s life until he was at least 10, due to the story of Lonnie taking him hunting on his birthday, but that he was out of the house prior to the start of Stranger Things. Jonathan would have turned 10 around 1977, so the Lonnie would have left his family for up to 5 years prior to the first season.  Lonnie’s actions, as portrayed in the first season, depict him as a selfish and callous man with very rigid ideas of masculinity. He would routinely try to force his sons to conform to these ideals. We can see this through the aforementioned hunting trip, which brought Jonathan to tears, and through his overall treatment of Will. The fact that a man would call his own prepubescent son a “queer” or “fag” is harsh even by 80s standards. He would also attempt to get Will to enjoy baseball, though even then it’s implied that he often fails to deliver on his promises to spend time with his youngest.  Lonnie showed up in the first season upon learning of Will’s apparent death. He would seem to be a concerned father at first, but Joyce would later learn that Lonnie was prepared to file a wrongful death case against the owner of the quarry that Will was believed to have drowned in. Money has seemingly always been a concern for the family, but Lonnie is the only one who even considers financial compensation. All of this says a lot about where his priorities lie and what his values are.  Joyce Joyce Byers is, by all on-screen depictions, a loving mother and open-minded, friendly woman. It is curious as to what she would have seen in Lonnie (we will not assume Murray’s theories to be accurate), but conservative, small-town culture at the time certainly would have led many a woman to see a macho guy as ideal. Joyce has been portrayed in making many sacrifices for her loved ones, and she has a fiery temper that has come out whenever someone would seemingly try to get in the way of her taking care of said loved ones. By the time we are introduced to Joyce, her priorities seem to be her children. She works as a clerk at a local general store, presumably not making much money. It is assumed that after Lonnie left she had no significant romantic relationships until Bob Newby in 1984. While Joyce seems to love both of her sons a great deal, it is suggested in season 1 that she felt closer to Will. Despite this, there was no apparent favoritism. Joyce did however, albeit unintentionally, trigger some issues with Jonathan during the events of Will’s disappearance in 1983. Despite the lack of financial resources (we do not know if Lonnie pays any financial support), Joyce tries her best to support her children. She even managed to get an Atari 2600 for Will, which, even after the video game crash of the early 80s, would have cost her the equivalent of over $100 of today’s money. At first, Joyce welcomes Lonnie back into her life when he showed up after learning of Will’s “death.” She seemed exhausted and initially leaned on him for support. This changed when Joyce learned of his planned lawsuit against the owners of the quarry. She proceeded to lash out at him angrily, accusing him of never caring about his sons, perhaps giving us a look into what ultimately led to their separation (were they ever actually said to be divorced?). When Lonnie couldn’t even come up with what college Jonathan wanted to go to, Joyce viciously spat out that he has wanted to go to NYU since he was a child. To Joyce, not knowing something like that about your own child is reprehensible. When she brings up to Chief Hopper that Lonnie would refer to Will with gay slurs, the discomfort it brings to her is clearly visible. It’s purely speculation, but not out of the question based on what we know about her, that Joyce isn’t so much disturbed by the idea, but rather that she ostensibly allowed Lonnie to say such things. As the series moves on, Joyce is shown seeking out stability and security for herself and her family. Her relationship with Bob was an attempt to rebuild a sense of normality. Bob took a genuine interest in the boys and clearly loved her a great deal. His traumatic loss affects her greatly. She develops an understandable sense of paranoia about Hawkins and the agency behind the lab which ultimately leads to her deciding to uproot her family and leave town to parts yet known. While her decision to do so is certainly understandable and well-intentioned, it could have unintended adverse consequences that I intend to explore further below. Jonathan When we meet him, Jonathan Byers is an intelligent young man and a talented photographer. On the other hand, he is also well aware of the family’s struggles, perhaps more so than Will, and is somewhat parentified. Jonathan is not social, and is shown to be something of an outcast at school. We do not know how far back this goes, but it is possibly a result of Jonathan needing to go to work to help support the family. Jonathan is more like his mother than his father, as seen in his unconditional support for Will and his generally sensitive and protective nature. While in many cases a parentified child is a cause for concern, in Jonathan’s case it may well have given him a sense of purpose that allowed him to weather the rough family life he’s experienced.  Indeed, Jonathan initially seems to derive little satisfaction in life outside of photograph and his family. He apparently had already resigned himself to a life of sacrifice, at least until he can try to make a life for himself through photography. While he would go on to develop a relationship with Nancy Wheeler, he never lost his fraternal/borderline paternal bond with his little brother. He literally fought monsters to save and protect Will on multiple occasions. It is quite possible that Jonathan fosters a continuing sense of guilt, as the only reason he was not home the night Will vanished was because he took an extra work shift.  With Joyce, Jonathan seems to almost see himself as a co-parent rather than a son. While he clearly loves his mother, he is not above calling her out and butting heads with her as seen in the first season. When Jonathan sees what he thinks is Joyce losing her mind, his reaction is an angry outburst. While there is not enough evidence, this could be a result of abandonment issues as a result of his father leaving.Despite his maturity, Jonathan is still just a teenager at this point, and one who is already blaming himself for his brother vanishing. He needs his mother but sees her as abandoning him. Joyce is going around and publicly making herself seem crazy. While the viewers know that Joyce is right, Jonathan reacts like any of us may. He comes around once he realizes the truth, but it is clear that he is holding in a lot of his own pain and he may hold some resentment towards Joyce, even if he is unaware of it himself. Jonathan was older than Will when Lonnie left, so he would presumably have been more aware of what was going on. He also would have been old enough to potentially blame Joyce for failing to protect him and Will. This last part is all speculation, however. Jonathan’s relationship with Will is perhaps the strongest in the family. Jonathan helped Will build Castle Byers in response to Lonnie’s departure. He stayed until it was finished despite a rainstorm and (a presumably very young) Will’s lack of skill at actually helping. He would go on to support Will in all of his endeavors, blatantly encouraging him to dare to be different. He clearly doesn’t want to see Will succumb to the pressure of conformity. He makes it very clear that he supports Will completely and unconditionally. There is a suggestion here that Jonathan fears that Will may have a lingering desire to please their father at the expense of his own preferences. Will Will is smart, sensitive, artistic, and caring in a way that was discouraged in adolescent boys in a town like his. Will is heading towards the latter years of middle school as the series starts. Lonnie is already gone, but his influence is still there. Joyce dotes on him as much as possible, but time and resources are scarce. Jonathan takes on a hybrid father figure/big brother role to help keep Will happy. Oddly enough, given the circumstances of the plot, Will actually seems to come out the best. I will go further into detail below, but compared to his mom and older brother, Will actually has the most going for him. I’ve already covered Will’s role in the family above, but there is a bit more to explore from his perspective. Will is the much-loved son and brother to Joyce and Jonathan, and the bane of his father. Joyce wanted Will to be happy, and made every attempt to bond with him. Will did indeed seem to have a good relationship with his mother, as shown in his excitement to see Poltergeist with her and his risking his life to warn his mother of the Demogorgon. We also see many scenes of him bonding with Jonathan over music, but their relationship goes deeper. Jonathan is someone who Will confides in his relationship with his father. Will also worries about Jonathan’s hand injury despite the fact that he himself is in a hospital bed, having just woken up after being in the Upside Down for a week. Despite how good his relationships are with his mother and brother, Will is shown craving his father’s love. We do not know if Lonnie ever directly called Will a “queer” or “fag” or if he only referred to him as such to others, but Will does seem aware of his dad’s lack of support. Even though Will does not like baseball, he makes a pretense of it in an attempt to gain his father’s love, and he takes it hard when his dad does not deliver. It’s quite possible that Will harbors guilt as to what happened to his family, blaming himself for his dad leaving. Much like with Jonathan, this is speculative, but it wouldn’t be an unusual reaction for a young child whose parents split.  Development and Outlook

I will try to be short and sweet here. When one looks at the family as a whole, the many moving parts of the family and their environment quite frankly make sense. The family is portrayed in a reasonably realistic fashion. Lonnie’s displeasure with his family life, along with what is quite possibly dissatisfaction with his life in general, result in him leaving. These same factors left their mark on his wife and children. The Byers receive little support from the community, and are indeed seen as outcasts, resulting in reactions that range from indifference to scorn. This would lead to the Byers relying even more on each other and seeming even more like outcasts. The cycle is harsh. Even as you go outward towards more indirect influences, the Byers do not conform to conservative 80s norms, which sets them at odds with society as a whole. They are basically an island in a stormy sea. This is where Will’s bright spot comes in. Will has what the others in his family lack, at least before the events of the series: friends. Will is not an outcast in the same sense of the others. While he is still scorned by the larger school population, his relationship with the Party serve as a protective factor. In other words, he’s better able to deal with the bad aspects of his life because he has his friends to fall back on. Joyce and Jonathan, on the other hand, only have each other. Mike in particular is a source of strength for Will, which is what makes the rockiness of their relationship in season 3 so hard for him. Joyce and Jonathan would both form relationships outside of the family that make them better able to cope. Jonathan and Nancy have a mostly healthy relationship, and Joyce almost looks like a teenager in how carefree she is with Bob (before the plot hits high gear anyway). Joyce and Hopper aren’t quite as healthy, but there are signs that it could head that way before Hopper is presumably killed.  This is where Joyce makes a decision that she may come to regret. While her own attempts to develop a better ecoysystem seem cursed, Jonathan finally seems to have someone outside the family (indeed from a well-off family) that not only doesn’t scorn him, but loves him. Will has a group of friends that, despite some trials, is actually growing. Joyce, however, decides to separate them from these relationships in a well-meant attempt to save them from the town, the lab, and the Upside Down. It is hard to blame her for this, but the decision is nonetheless curious. She seems to be coming around to the idea of staying due to a burgeoning relationship with Hopper, which runs contrary to her tendency to put her kids first. One could excuse her for being clouded by grief, and we don’t see how she broke the news to Jonathan and Will (and El) or the aftermath. They all seem to have made peace with the idea, but the goodbyes are emotional, and Joyce herself looks upset and perhaps guilty, but this puts the family back to relying solely on each other, at least in the short term. Will they become stronger and be able to regain normalcy away from Hawkins? Will they end up resenting Joyce for it? How will El fit into this family? Can Will cope without his friends? Can Jonathan and Nancy’s relationship survive at a distance? How is Joyce going to be able to support a now-larger family? How will Lonnie fit into this? That all remains to be seen, but would be realistic elements to include in the next season.

[0aurelion-sol0]

I've finally started organizing all of my observations and theories about Stranger Things from over the years, and what I believe is truly going on behind the curtain (as Murray would say.)

It's going to be a while before I complete this theory masterpost, but I'd like to share an introductory post today which summarizes the overall structure of my masterpost and its contents so far.

...

I would like to lead with a list of claims that I believe I can very reasonably make about Stranger Things, and demonstrate to be true through canonical evidence and citing specific details and scenes in the show:

the show often focuses on the psychological and mental capacity of the human mind, and the human mind in general, both in casual ways ("mind-blowing!") and formal ways (ex. Mr. Clarke's lecture on Phineas Gage in season 2)

the show features consistent references to trauma and traumatic events, characters attempting to navigate living with their trauma, "shared trauma," as well as characters being seen by doctors who claim they will help characters work through and heal from their trauma

the concept of a greater collective consciousness is repeated throughout the series in different contexts

I suspect I'll add to this list of reasonable claims.

...

The following are topics that will each have their own dedicated section (or separate post, I haven't decided on the best approach yet.) I might reorder these based on how best they flow into one another as I go.

...

Topics:

themes of trauma and memories

Doctor Owens

Will and El

"Caught between two slides" - Will, El, and Mike

Kali and El

Hopper

Billy Hargrove

Will and Max parallels

Will and Eddie parallels

Henry Creel

The lab and Doctor Brenner

The Numbers

"Nancy Drew"

Robin and Steve

Lonnie

themes of "time travel" and the concept of exploring memories from the past

parallels between Murray and Mike (I get so much laughter on this one, but I'm serious)

Miscellaneous other relevant details (I'm sure somebody is going to say "but what about Terry Ives" and I can anticipate a number of other common critiques of my theories at this point since I've been talking about them for a while, so I'll try to get ahead of those common questions this time.)

Conclusion

*This list of topics will surely expand and shift as I go.

[0aurelion-sol0]

My Arcane Season 2 criticisms:

Things I actually disliked:

How the Hextech plot turned out, I though it was very badly executed especially in terms of Viktor's evolution through the whole show. Lack of proper explanation about what was actually happening, unnecessary and horribly executed twist at the end, clumsy established rules and dissapointing payoff for anyone involved in this plotline. Final battle was cool and I like the Commune's designs but dear god, was this storyline confusing...

Ekko's community plus the tree's state at the end of the show. You really couldn't put a 15 seconds shot of the community being well and tree being ok ?! Seriously I know you had to make choices given it's animation but come on now... It was like one of the main driving points to stop Hextech for him & one of the safe haven of Zaun & Piltover and it's completely shoved to the side but no, we have to see minutes of Loris, Steb and Sky being there just being a representation of our characters' inner conflicts as if them doing it and/or saying it out loud wasn't enough...

Ekko convincing Jinx to not kill herself by telling her what he experienced, Jinx rallying the undercity to protect Piltover & Zaun from Noxus & Viktor and a proper conclusion to Sevika's story regarding all of this. WHAT THE HELL ?! We needed to see this, this is so important & it's completely ignored. IN WHAT world, did anyone think cutting this was a good idea ?! We needed to get a proper closure & development about Ekko & Jinx's relationship which was already thin to begin with. We needed to see Sevika affirm what she truly thought about Jinx and a moment about Isha regarding the two of them even if Sevika wasn't super close to the kid, we needed to see Sevika get to see the Undercity finally rallied together after spending the ENTIRETY of the show trying to do that and see how that whole thing came about for them to fight with Piltover. It is ridiculous to that me that this was cut... It was so important!

Things I didn't necessarily dislike but I have mixed feelings about:

Jayce not getting a single scene with his mom. I know she was there at the end, in the crowd, mourning him but come on, not even one scene with her before the end where she could allow him a form of reflection and comfort before putting his life in danger or after, I don't know... DISSAPEARING FOR WEEKS IF NOT MONTHS! I know you could interpret it as Jayce being so lost on his mission that he forgets about her and her importance but she was one of the reasons they ended up in Piltover in the first place. It's of course not as vital to the story but it could have provided some breathing in this fast-paced season.

Vi's character arc this season. While there are some part that I like, I feel like it wasn't explored as deeply & as fully as it could have been. The foundations are there but aspects like her relationship with Vander, violence and Zaun could have been pushed far more than they were in this season.

Caitlyn's arc and how the most important bit happened off-screen, again, just like with Vi, the parts it would have been better to see or being more developped weren't as much as they could've been. I am not of the conclusion she didn't face any consequences or was let go by the narrative of the things she did, but her coming to terms with her actions happened mostly off-screen and that is a shame because it was one of the more interesting parts of Season 2.

Singed's characterization. Now I understand why he was developed the way he is, in terms of what he represents for Caitlyn and for the show, but I don't think it was as compelling to me to have him be yet another parallel for the themes of the show or being a reminder of them was completely necessary for me. We got it the other times, I understand why, it had it's purpose; I just prefer how evil Singed was in the original lore & the story he had back then. I understand humanizing antagonists & reinforcing the theme of your story but sometimes it's nice having an element that's a bit of an outlier and explore other themes to give some variety to the story.