strange-anni

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I already jumped into it, so i hope someone still here)))

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And as a bonus:

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Lucas on the Line and embracing change

In The Dustin Experiment, we see Robin have an intervention with Lucas, Mike, and Dustin when they have a major falling out (which we see parts of in Lucas on the Line) where she pushes them to consider each others' perspectives.

Tldr on the fallout: Lucas is ready for a change in high school and joins the basketball team but is upset that his friends don't even try to understand why or support him; Dustin doesn't want anything to change and is upset when his friends don't seem excited about things they all used to like like D&D and science fairs.

But at the same time, Will and El are gone, Max is barely coping and bails on them a lot, and Mike is distant and moody and not really present even when he's there. And part of the pressure seems to be that it's now on either Dustin or Lucas to care enough to hold the party together, and that's hard when they think no one else cares.

Robin of course gets them to see that they do care and have similar fears (Dustin's is 'being left behind', Lucas' is 'losing my friends', and Mike's is 'failing the people who need me').

But let's unpack, starting with Lucas.

Lucas on the Line is genuinely so good and my first thought when I finished was 'I'm so mad we didn't see more of this on the show'. Lucas' world is a little shook when he meets Jermaine, a black boy on the basketball team who's also into politics and poetry.

He's excited about the possibilities. He tells Dustin later that it's the first time he'd seen someone like him that he could look up to, and he wanted to impress him, to be like him, to fit in with him. But we see from his book that he also knows that his friends just don't get it (e.g. neither Dustin or Mike understand why he's teased for being an 'Oreo' while Erica does).

"Cool means something different for me than it does for them - whether they're talking nerd cool or popular cool. How, no matter where we go or who I am or who I choose to be, I'll always be the Black one standing next to them. Not that it's their fault or anything. But that one hour I sat with Jay was the first time I didn't feel defined like that. Instead, I felt a certain kind of freedom - that I could be anyone, anything."

Lucas is also upset that his dad doesn't seem to want to talk about his own childhood, that he's angry at other black people who speak out, that he seems to hate being black. And we do get a gentle moment with the two that also gets at some of Lucas' own behavior.

"There's something you learn very early about being us, Lucas," he says, calling me by my name for the first time in a long time. "As a black person in this world, you're always out there trying to live, but you're forced to spend so much time surviving." He pauses. "All I've ever wanted for you - for everyone in this house - is to live without always having to be told that all we must do is survive."

We also see a flashback to a much younger Lucas where he remembers going to the pool and getting bullied by a kid who says he's afraid Lucas will 'rub off' on him. He doesn't tell his mum about it later, he doesn't feel upset. He just feels exhausted, even at that age.

And I don't know if it's intentional, but he uses similar language in the Dustin Experiment and apologizes for letting the jocks rub off on him when that's not who he wants to be.

At the same time, Lucas wants to try and get through high school with less relationship and friendship drama, and Max and Dustin are kind of...a lot. We see Lucas really want to be there for Max but he doesn't know how (Robin tells him to just listen, that he doesn't need to solve anything which Lucas only gets when Jermaine does the same for him later).

But while he knows Max is not okay, we also see that he's a bit resentful that they're not spending time doing more normal boyfriend girlfriend stuff, he's rightfully still mad about Billy and how he was treated but Billy is dead, he wonders if Max isn't bringing him home because of how Neil might react to him. He's got his own sh*t that he's dealing with, he can't talk about it with his parents or friends, and he wants to be a good boyfriend but it's also so much.

I want to talk more about Max in a separate post, but it's all real and relatable. No one's a bad guy.

The last bit about Lucas that I really, really wish we'd see more of on the show is the pressure to be good. The jocks make it clear that they think he's only on the team because he's black, he gets called out for being the weak link on the team, and he just. He doesn't know what's true. He wants to just learn and have fun but that's not possible.

All he knows is that the bar is higher for him, and he has to show up and be his absolute best. But he also learns from Jermaine that he can't be too good, that he also needs to be okay with waiting his turn on the bench so he doesn't put a target on his back.

"You know what the greatest lesson I learned in the military is, son?..A targer is an enemy because someone has classified them so - that's something they cannot change, whether they like it or not. Such a target must make themselves smaller, not bigger, to survive."

Exhausting.

Which is also part of Lucas' deal with Dustin. He doesn't get why Dustin is trying to stand out all the time, doesn't tell Dustin things because he thinks he'll make a big deal and draw more attention, knows they don't get why he has to work harder and both stay ahead and keep his head down, and explodes at him saying 'while you've been busy playing with your experiments, the rest of us have been dealing with real life.'

Jermaine's advise to Lucas is to basically try and not get in his own way, but it's hard. Even at the end of the book when he says he's ready to be himself and contain multitudes, wholly and unashamedly, the reality is that it also comes with the pressure to show everyone.

One last note on the books - Lucas isn't very impressed with Steve or Eddie, but he does take advise from Robin, and I hope we get to see more of their dynamic next season. I also see a lot of Nancy in Lucas (high achieving, perfect oldest children who take on the weight of the world while also being constantly reminded of their place in it) and I hope we get stuff with them too.

Part 2 with the Dustin Experiment and resisting change...coming soon?

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They swapped the hands they wear their watches on... Get whoever made that shoe theory on the line

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Confession I kind of don’t like the suggestion that the way in which they will show Mike liking Will is having him constantly worry over him/be desperate to save him from something. The reason Mike & Will work and would be better together than Mike & El is because of their friendship, I don’t want Mleven 2.0 where the only reason people perceive them as in love is because of the life and death dramatics. I want emotional support and strong communication and teamwork between them (I also want flirting like in 4x04 but that’s besides the point). In s3 Mike fusses so much over El making her own choices about using her powers that it suffocates her, she literally has to tell him to stop it and to “trust [her]”. And aside from that all he does 24/7 is worry she’s going to die and/or abandon him, it’s nauseatingly repetitive and says nothing about their actual romantic relationship. I don’t want that for Byler. I want Will to tell Mike “I need to do X” (X being risky/dangerous thing) and for Mike to say “okay, talk to me. tell me how I can help. how are we going to do this?”. Maybe we’ll get it both ways depending on if Will tries to do something really stupid like sacrifice himself, and obviously Mike being a bit on edge in general because of Will likely being Vecna’s main target makes sense, but I just want their relationship to be mostly focused on showcasing their actual bond and why it’s so special instead of forcing this state of panic onto Mike that is too reminiscent of his trauma-induced dynamic with El which is half of why I need that ship to be over in the first place

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Nancy Wheeler seems to be a somewhat frequent clock swapper

At the start of the S2E1 she wears it on her right wrist seemingly for the entire day. Then at the beginning of S2E2 it's back on her left wrist.

I'm not entirely sure but I think she wears something on her right arm underneath her sweater at Tina's party. If it's her clock, it's back on her left wrist the next day.

In S3E6 it's still on her left wrist after their fight with the Mind Flayer in the hospital. Later in the same episode she wears it on her right wrist.

It stays there until the end of the season only to be back on her left wrist at the start of S4

Max and Fred are two more characters who wear their clocks on their right wrist. It's not all the Vecna victim though since Patrick seems to wear it on his left wrist and with Chrissy I'm not even sure if she wears any and if she does it's hidden underneath her jacket.

What does it all mean? I do not know

Talking about the watch theory

So we can see that they have switched the hand on which they used to wear their watches but here is where it gets weird...

So the symbolism of wearing watches on each hand is this

But mike was initially wearing it on his right and Will on his left so that doesn't make much sense mike through season 3 and 4 was not rejecting conformity he was in fact doing the opposite while Will was doing exactly that. But now Will is wearing it on his right and mike on his left? This doesn't make much sense? Maybe it has something to do with upside down... Does this make sense

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Defeating the dragon for God Will…

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Does anyone have an idea what these two are wearing?

Bc to me it suspiciously looks like this

But can that even be true?

Does anyone have any other opinions?

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Projection vs. Reality for @glisten-inthedark

a.k.a., How Will thinks Mike also makes El feel vs. How Mike actually makes El feel

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questions that have still yet to be answered: how is mike there

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I think you are spot on with your observations. There is definitly something more going on with Mike.

As @/doriandrifting and others pointed out in this post Mikes room as well as the basement is a total mess and according to Max the latter also an armpit, probably meaning it stinks. Yet Mike is shown to be there and has probably slept there too. Maybe he's got no energy to clean or doesn't see the point in it?

I think this indicates that something more is going on which started somewhere in the past although I'm also not quite sure when exactly. It wouldn't surprise me if this has something to do with Will disappearing from his life after S3. It probably amplified what was already there. I'm sure though that there are more reasons for his behavior.

There is the fact that in S1 he said to El that his mother is a great cook and can make her anything she wants. That's some time ago though and I assume back then he still found comfort in his moms cooking and liked to eat it but then something changed? Something which made him not have much of an appetite anymore? Probably also not feeling the same comfort in his family and their support or lack thereof anymore.

Karen in general is also not doing well and has been slipping as a mom. She's been drinking wine for years (even during the day) and it's only getting worse. In S2 she still knew where her kids were all of the time and later in S3 she doesn't know (and looks/ sounds kinda drunk while saying it.)

Then there is the fact that Mike as always been a liar as pointed out by @/thefirstlioveyou in this post. This probably also hints to the fact that he's hiding a lot of issues. He's probably picked that habit up from his parents too as they are also not happy but pretend to be happy and he does the same thing with El. He's not happy with her either but he's still convincing enough that Will believes him and then pushes him into the fake love confession. And it's Will of all people aka the person he's in love with doing this making matters so much worse for Mike.

So yeah, it would not surprise me if all what's going on mentally with him now starts to affect him physically as well. I'm sure we'll get more on this in S5 as well.

On a last note, Robin and Vickie making food at the end S4 also stands out to me. Like they are providing relief to the victims and I really hope that's also meant as foreshadowing for Mikes and Wills issues. As in they're getting better and finding some help and relief in each other as well as others/ their friends and family

cw blood/gore

hi! saw some beautiful fanart that reminded me of the manga The Promised Neverland (heavy rec to look it up, at least the promo pics -you might find that the outfits look kind of familiar). if you haven't read it, the story follows a group of kids who think they're orphans, but in reality are being raised as human cattle to feed the demonkind (and they are killed by a spear in the shape of a rose, like in the aforementioned fanart). Here's the thing, tho: only children younger than 12 and completely raised in that farm can be sacrifices bc the premium meat is their brains, which is why they're subjected to rigurous mental, academic and even physical training (in their innocent minds, to be the first choice for a couple looking for a kid to adopt.)

besides a few interesting parallels in the setup of this story to hawkins lab, it made me think of something that might be an additional clue to DID theory: El was so notoriously frail in 1983, she even looked malnourished. The kid characters in the TPN farms were well-fed not only to 'taste nice', but bc a growing brain needs LOTS of nutrients to function, even moreso when it's being stimulated above capacity. With El being the only kid left in the lab, shouldn't Brenner and the staff have taken much more care of her health -if anything bc they wanted her to be 'a powerful weapon'?? sure, it might be possible that whenever she was thrown in the dark room she wasn't given any food for indefinite periods of time, as well as (maybe) the amount of drugs terry consumed during the pregnancy playing a part but, as i mentioned above, that would've been counterproductive to the lab's goals.

tl;dr: it makes little sense that el was that tiny and almost sickly-looking if she was supposed to be a well-kept weapon.

the small built overall, imo, rather makes me think of someone who grew up in poverty, who might have been denied meals depending on who was warding him -someone who continually didn't get enough nutrients for a very young age, i think. wbu?

Ahhh your brain!

CW/TW: Disordered eating and fatphobia

(Disordered eating has been a common theme within the show that we don't talk about enough.)

That manga sounds like it definitely could be inspiration for ST!

Being raised as human cattle to feed the demons... wowww. Thinking about how "Byers" means to live by a cattle shed, and of course the shed that Will vanished in. Also, all the cattle references throughout the show.

(Of course this makes me think of Hopper and the Russians being fed to be "plump" and "full of nutrients and protein that a growing monster might need".)

But yes yes YES, you're absolutely right! El was STARVING when we first see her I mean...

Why wouldn't they feed her enough? You're right it doesn't make sense. They have the funds to do so, and she's supposed to be a powerful weapon, arguably the most powerful!

El is small built just like... the boy who was explicitly said to be small. SO MUCH SO that they had him played by Noah Schnapp who is 2 whole years younger (!!!) than the other boys. They even tried to hide his muscles in ST4 to make him look less buff (sorry guys, Buff Byers isn't a canon concept...)

The Byers are poor, and this also isn't talked about enough. Joyce has been struggling with her mental health/working a lot. Jonathan also works and is forced to take on the role of a parent. And... Lonnie is implied to have an alcohol and substance use disorder and is obviously a neglectful parent (to say the least...)

Growing up, I think it's highly likely that Will was not provided with adequate nutrient...

(Hopper cracks open a walnut as he says this... walnuts resemble brains...)

Anyway, here's some likely ED references...

Why are all these references present? I'm not quite sure yet, but I do think it could be related to Will's warped view on food/diets (or maybe Mike's? Or both?). However, I definitely do think that Will was not cared for properly at times nor provided with adequate nutrition growing up... and that's why El (his alter) was starving when she appeared at Benny's Diner.

His parents forgot to feed him.

[strange-anni]

Them living together , please🧎‍♀️

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Mike has never shown attraction towards girls, we have the rest of the gang mentioning girls, female celebs etc, but Mike and Will never do that. So yes I think it's fairly obvious Mike is a closeted gay boy in the 80s.

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Mike Wheeler - Exactly Like Their Parents (23s)

@best-thing-at-this-party this is the one i mentioned @your-local-bi-guy @imatotallynormalteengirlok @throne-of-crows

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Nancy and Mike as sort of foils in the classic case of how they react to the same situation, that situation being their family (and the way Mike's costuming mimics his parents as soon as he gets with El)

Becoming their parents being Nancy's biggest fear that she constantly, consciously avoids.

But it being Mike's most desperate goal, no matter how forced and wrong it feels.

Because people get it wrong. They think the show has established the Wheeler parents as something undesirable. No. Nancy has. Mike has never spoken ill of them once. There is no such thing as objective storytelling. They are not inherently a cautionary tale to every character. Mike has never expressed resentment of them once. In fact, he strives to be them.

And I think part of his own struggle is that he doesn't resent them like Nancy. So now, he's confused. He doesn't understand why that looking at his parents, going for "nuclear family" and achieving "loveless relationship" was him succeeding. (Because the trapped feeings is part of it. He didn't want to have a nuclear family. He wanted to be straight. He didn't want a nuclear family. He wanted to want one.)

Milkvan Wheeler parents parallels "exactly like their parents" speech short edit

[strange-anni]

cw blood/gore

hi! saw some beautiful fanart that reminded me of the manga The Promised Neverland (heavy rec to look it up, at least the promo pics -you might find that the outfits look kind of familiar). if you haven't read it, the story follows a group of kids who think they're orphans, but in reality are being raised as human cattle to feed the demonkind (and they are killed by a spear in the shape of a rose, like in the aforementioned fanart). Here's the thing, tho: only children younger than 12 and completely raised in that farm can be sacrifices bc the premium meat is their brains, which is why they're subjected to rigurous mental, academic and even physical training (in their innocent minds, to be the first choice for a couple looking for a kid to adopt.)

besides a few interesting parallels in the setup of this story to hawkins lab, it made me think of something that might be an additional clue to DID theory: El was so notoriously frail in 1983, she even looked malnourished. The kid characters in the TPN farms were well-fed not only to 'taste nice', but bc a growing brain needs LOTS of nutrients to function, even moreso when it's being stimulated above capacity. With El being the only kid left in the lab, shouldn't Brenner and the staff have taken much more care of her health -if anything bc they wanted her to be 'a powerful weapon'?? sure, it might be possible that whenever she was thrown in the dark room she wasn't given any food for indefinite periods of time, as well as (maybe) the amount of drugs terry consumed during the pregnancy playing a part but, as i mentioned above, that would've been counterproductive to the lab's goals.

tl;dr: it makes little sense that el was that tiny and almost sickly-looking if she was supposed to be a well-kept weapon.

the small built overall, imo, rather makes me think of someone who grew up in poverty, who might have been denied meals depending on who was warding him -someone who continually didn't get enough nutrients for a very young age, i think. wbu?

Ahhh your brain!

CW/TW: Disordered eating and fatphobia

(Disordered eating has been a common theme within the show that we don't talk about enough.)

That manga sounds like it definitely could be inspiration for ST!

Being raised as human cattle to feed the demons... wowww. Thinking about how "Byers" means to live by a cattle shed, and of course the shed that Will vanished in. Also, all the cattle references throughout the show.

(Of course this makes me think of Hopper and the Russians being fed to be "plump" and "full of nutrients and protein that a growing monster might need".)

But yes yes YES, you're absolutely right! El was STARVING when we first see her I mean...

Why wouldn't they feed her enough? You're right it doesn't make sense. They have the funds to do so, and she's supposed to be a powerful weapon, arguably the most powerful!

El is small built just like... the boy who was explicitly said to be small. SO MUCH SO that they had him played by Noah Schnapp who is 2 whole years younger (!!!) than the other boys. They even tried to hide his muscles in ST4 to make him look less buff (sorry guys, Buff Byers isn't a canon concept...)

The Byers are poor, and this also isn't talked about enough. Joyce has been struggling with her mental health/working a lot. Jonathan also works and is forced to take on the role of a parent. And... Lonnie is implied to have an alcohol and substance use disorder and is obviously a neglectful parent (to say the least...)

Growing up, I think it's highly likely that Will was not provided with adequate nutrient...

(Hopper cracks open a walnut as he says this... walnuts resemble brains...)

Anyway, here's some likely ED references...

Why are all these references present? I'm not quite sure yet, but I do think it could be related to Will's warped view on food/diets (or maybe Mike's? Or both?). However, I definitely do think that Will was not cared for properly at times nor provided with adequate nutrition growing up... and that's why El (his alter) was starving when she appeared at Benny's Diner.

His parents forgot to feed him.

[strange-anni]

Will Byers in Stranger Things 5