#WHY DID THEY SPECIFICALLY SINGLE OUT THAT ONE KID. AND WHY DID THEY SHOW MIKE LOOKING SO DISTRESSED ABOUT IT | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

munsons-maiden · 2 years ago

Note

Yes selling ketamine to a vulnerable teenager is bad but Eddie is a worse person for the way he treated Lucas and encouraged Lucas' friends to act.

Even if you hate jocks and hate sports and hate parties and whatever.... it's pretty obvious Lucas didn't have friends outside of Hellfire Club and the fact Eddie scheduled the campaign final specifically on the night of the championship game (he wouldve known the exact date, there wouldve been posters and announcements for months prior and hes not stupid) had to have been on purpose. And if he was trying to make Lucas choose a side? That's fucked up. Let a kid have a hobby outside your realm of interests you gatekeeping prick.

If by chance he genuinely didn't know the date? He could've postponed. People postpone D&D campaigns all the fucking time and it's not like Eddie had a job so he had to worry about scheduling issues. It's clear why you can't just move the date of a championship basketball game for 7 nerds to play a boardgame. No, he did this on purpose. To weed out the jocks in his nerd club. To ostracise Lucas specifically.The way Eddie interacts with Mike and Dustin shows he knows the people in Hellfire Club. He would've known who Lucas is. He wouldve known he loves D&D as much as the rest of them but because he also has a different interest that Eddie dislikes (not even for a moral reason but just because its popular), he's forced out. A group supposedly for outsiders is excluding one of their own for *checks notes* being an outsider? It's fucked up and just plain mean.

And Lucas will never forget that none of his friends NOT A SINGLE ONE went to the championship game that he won.

What say you, Kiki The Maiden?

Okay first of all, a disclaimer: I disagree with about everything you said. I love analyzing things, and everyone has different headcanons and interpretations, but the writers took great efforts to canonically exclude these arguments. I mean if it were like you said, I'd agree, but it canonically isn’t. I rewatched the key scenes for this reply and transcribed the relevant dialogues for the following analysis. Again, this isn't meant to be rude - you asked about my honest opinion, I'm giving it.

1.”Eddie selling ketamine to a vulnerable teenager”:

The scenes:

Eddie bumps into Chrissy in the woods, sees her obvious distress and asks whether she's okay, obviously concerned. From the context, it's obvious Chrissy initiated the deal and made him come to the woods because that's how most drug deals work and Eddie himself is obviously surprised that Chrissy asked for this deal.

They sit down, Eddie takes off his leather jacket and denim vest, his "shield" against the world as the costume designer Amy L. Forsythe calls it, thereby taking off his guard like he did in the D&D sequence. He canonically makes himself less intimidating because since people think he's mean and scary because he's a metalhead who plays D&D and deals drugs, and he wants Chrissy to see she doesn't have to be scared.

Chrissy asks how the deal works, Eddie explains it. His tone is neutral, the little quip about "and for obvious reasons...no receipts" meant to set her a bit at ease by making a little joke. He then proceeds to ask her whether his conditions - 20 dollars for the half - are okay, giving her control over the situation.

Chrissy stays jumpy and distressed. Eddie relates it to himself, takes the drugs away, out of her line of vision, avoids eye contact as he tells her "we don't have to do this. Just say the word and I'll walk away." He's defensive that she sees him as a danger because that's obviously how most people conceive him and it hurts. And since he doesn't want to pressure her into anything, he offers her a way out - no consequences, no questions asked; he puts Chrissy in charge again. He moves to go to show her he means it - and he does mean it, what he sees is that Chrissy obviously doesn't want him there from his POV - until Chrissy says: "No, it's not that. I don't want you to go."

That's where Eddie realizes she isn't scared of him, and does what she asked him to: he stays. He tries to build a connection, a common ground to talk about and set her at ease. He does. He yeets himself off the bench, making her laugh AND giving her more physical space. He's a little self-deprecating in a charming, sweet way (the yeeting off the bench and rolling on the ground, "we actually got a crowd of about five...drunks") and they get along well. Whether you ship them or not doesn't matter: they both are at ease with each other and laugh together, both sides have their guards down and the interaction is genuine and void of any ulterior motives, as the Duffers as well as Grace and Joe confirmed in various interviews.

Eddie offers Chrissy a 25% discount, which reaffirms he's not interested in the money. I mean, yes, he deals because he needs the money, but he wants those deals to be consentual and in Chrissy's case, he likes her. Again, no matter whether you ship them or not, he wants to be nice, no ulterior motives.

Chrissy asks him "do you have anything maybe...stronger?"

Eddie reacts shocked/surprised.

Chrissy is smiling very hard when she steps out of the van and follows Eddie into the trailer, which implies she didn’t seem nervous on the way or anything like that. (she only starts to get nervous/panic when she starts hearing Vecna’s clock - and even then, she doesn’t try to escape the trailer, but she tries to get to Eddie)

At the trailer, Eddie stars searching for the ketamine, which implies - as well as his "no, no, no, I got it. Somewhere." - that he doesn't often sell other things than weed. His confusion as to where he placed the ketamine is genuine.

Chrissy dies. Another thing: even while Chrissy is in her trance, Eddie respects her boundaries. He stays a few feet away, dancing, snapping, clapping to wake her up and only when she doesn't and he realizes she's in actual danger from something, he crosses into her personal space to grab her shoulders and as a last resort pat her cheeks to wake her up. If we compare the whole scene with that of Eddie and Steve in the UD, we can see the glaring contrast: Eddie sways in and out of Steve's personal space.

Ketamine isn’t classified as a hard drug, btw; its risk of causing addiction/dependency is as high or low as that of weed, and the risk of a deadly overdose is so low there’s not even a statistic for it.

Yes, Eddie sells ketamine to a vulnerable teenager (bear in mind that Chrissy is canonically 18 and Eddie is 20, there is no power imbalance, they're both seniors) - but he doesn't know Chrissy is vulnerable. We, the audience, know it, because we see Chrissy's POV, her ed, and we see her getting targeted by Vecna and we even get a glimpse at the abuse she suffers through her mother.

Eddie, from his POV sees: Chrissy Cunningham, the Queen of Hawkins High, from a good middle class/upper middle class family, the most popular girl of school, on top of the hierarchy. He doesn't know she even has struggles. We see the picture Chrissy paints for everyone is a perfect one (the little kiss she blows Jason at the Pep Rally symbolizes that). For all he knows, Chrissy is the Queen of Hawkins High who wants to be a bit rebellious before her graduation in one and a half months, the good girl being nervous about her first drug deal, or she’s simply having a bad day. The last time they canonically interacted was in middle school, and Eddie doesn’t know her. He doesn’t know how she usually acts or how to tell that she’s vulnerable.

Chrissy asks him to do the deal in the woods, Chrissy is the one who tells him she doesn't want him to go vehemently enough to make sure she means it, and Chrissy is the one who asks him for something stronger than weed (he never offers it!). Chrissy is initiating things, and she's her own autonomous person capable - at least from Eddie's POV - of making her own decisions, having her own agenda; she’s not some helpless little vulnerable girl. She’s a senior, just like Eddie. Stop vilifying Eddie in this situation. It wasn’t a good thing to do, it’s a flaw, but he never had ill intentions or ulterior motives and he had no way to know that Chrissy was vulnerable.

And selling drugs is what he does. It's a flaw, and one that makes him a complex character. He's a person, and sometimes people do stupid things. It be like that.

2.Eddie not postponing the campaign:

I'll sum up all four scenes relevant for this because again, what we see in canon and what is obviously canonically implied are the facts.

The Pep Rally: At the pep rally, during Jason's speech, we find out that the Hawkins tigers won the game "last night" which means that they're in the championship finale "tonight". Dustin and Mike react shocked that the championship game is "tonight", and Max explains "they call it a tournament. you win one game, you go on and so on until only one team is left." It's canon that they only knew 24 hours beforehand that the championship game would take place because they only won the final game to enable it the night prior.

Walking back from the rally, Lucas tells Dustin and Mike to "just talk to Eddie", which they both at first refuse, instead trying to coerce Lucas into not attending the championship game but the end of the D&D campaign, a campaign which has gone on for the "past semester" as Dustin points out, "we need you." To which Mike adds, "Yes, and the Tigers don't. You've been on the bench all year."

Lucas tells them that the point isn't only the game but "I'm getting good with these guys. I'll be in the popular crowd, and then you guys will be, too. Mike: "Has is ever occured to you that we don't want to be popular?" Lucas: "So you wanna be stuck with the nerds and freaks for three more years?" Dustin: "We are nerds and freaks." Lucas: "But maybe we don't have to be. Look, I'm tired of being bullied. I'm tired of girls laughing at us, I'm tired of feeling like a loser. We came to high school wanting things to be different, right?" - Dustin and Mike nod. Lucas: "So now we have that chance. I skip tonight, that's all out the window. So I'm asking you guys, as a friend, talk to Eddie. Get him to move Hellfire. Come to my game. Please."

The cafeteria scene begins with Eddie reading out the article linking D&D to satanism, sodomy, suicide and murder, poking fun of it before launching into the table speech during which he shows and states that he's tired and defensive and angry at his hobby being not only labelled as "less" than band, science, parties or basketball, but as evil, once again painting him as mean and scary, a freak "because we like to play a fantasy game."

When Dustin asks Eddie to postpone the campaign in the cafeteria, ALL the rest of Hellfire protests before Eddie yells "STOP" so he can speak and say he won't postpone, telling them to find a sub for Lucas.

Those are the relevant scenes. Now, on to your comments:

Even if you hate jocks and hate sports and hate parties and whatever....

he resents them for kicking him down, for having hobbies which are deemed good while his own, absolutely harmless hobby, is called less and even dangerous. The resentment of someone who got bullied and still gets bullied and scorned upon all his life simply because he dresses differently and his hobby is different. We see what those little pricks in season 1 did to Mike and Dustin and Will for being nerds and playing D&D - we all know for Eddie, it hasn't been any different. He jusged people the same way he gets judged and doesn't realize it, which, yes, is a character flaw, and one he very quickly strips after his encounter with Erica who, rightly so, absolutely roasted him to which he realized he didn't act nice and did the shitty thing people were doing to him and owned it and did better, genuinely welcoming him to Hellfire even though he just got roasted and insulted ("long-haired freak", the name freak something Jason calls him and which in the cafeteria scene is revealed to be a very sore spot for him) by her in front of his friends. Flawed? Yes. Learning and doing better? Yes.

it's pretty obvious Lucas didn't have friends outside of Hellfire Club

Canonically wrong. It's not obvious. It might have been if he and Eddie were close, but they aren't (later a bit more on that but bear with me.) The canon facts:

1.The costume design already shows Lucas, at the start of ST4, belongs more to the jocks than the nerds: he wears his basketball attire while Dustin and Mike wear the Hellfire Club shirts. It's the game of the pap rally where everyone wears their club's outfits (the Cheerleaders, the Jocks, the Nerds) so it's not the common outfit but it already separates Lucas from the rest of Hellfire/his friends Mike and Dustin.

2.Lucas is sitting with the basketball players.

It is canonically implied, in two instances, that Lucas started sitting with them regularly, leaving Mike and Dustin to sit alone with each other even before they joined Hellfire/met Eddie. a) in the cafeteria scene when Eddie remembers the moment he invited Dustin and Mike into Hellfire: "You were sitting on that table right there, looking like...looking like TWO little lost sheep" and b) in the scene where Dustin tells Max that Eddie has to be innocent: "When we got to High School, Lucas made all his sports friends. Mike and me? I mean no one was nice to us. No one except Eddie." -> Lucas had started leaving Mike and Dustin behind for the jocks long before Eddie invited them to Hellfire. Implying that Eddie as Hellfire's leader invited Lucas, who was already starting to join the crowd of jocks Eddie dislikes, into Hellfire despite him becoming one of the jocks.

3. Lucas canonically never hangs with Hellfire and Dustin and Mike because the jocks didn't know Lucas was friends with Eddie or anyone in Hellfire. They didn't even know he was friends with Dustin and Mike.

At Benny's when Jason rallies his mob:

When the mob shows up at Corroded Coffin's band practice:

Lucas: "Hellfire isn't a cult. It's just a D&D club. D&D? Dungeons and dragons? It's like a...it's like a game. It's fantasy."

Andy Warren: "And how exactly do you know all of that, Sinclair?"

Lucas: "Uh...well. It's my sister. Yeah. She's like...she's like a total nerd."

DISCLAIMER: Lucas lies here because he wants to find out what the jocks plan, not because he means it. He's a double agent already if you will, I'm only quoting this because obviously the jocks don't know Lucas is in Hellfire or even affiliated with any of its members, canonically implying that Lucas takes care not to be seen with anyone in Hellfire at school. When Jason attacks Garreth and forces him to tell him where Eddie is and Gareth says "Dustin Henderson" there's no indication that the jocks know Lucas is even friends with Dustin, else, they'd have asked Lucas about him.

Gareth: "Lucas? What are you doing with those douchebags?"

Jason: "You know these freaks, Sinclair?"

Lucas: "Uh. They know my sister. They tried to recruit me to their club, cult."

Lucas has friends outside of Hellfire, and he chose them, and it's canonically implied that he doesn't even hang around with Mike, Dustin or the rest of Hellfire during school. His reasons are totally relatable, I'm just saying your point is canonically wrong.

Eddie scheduled the campaign final specifically on the night of the championship game (he wouldve known the exact date, there wouldve been posters and announcements for months prior and hes not stupid) had to have been on purpose.

As per the dialogue in the episode with Max, Mike and Dustin didn't know, and Eddie had no way of knowing since he wasn't at the pep rally where it was said. There can't have been announcements etc because as I said, it's canon that nobody knew until 24 hours prior that the championship game would take place that night. If anybody had known that the game might take place at that date, it would have been Lucas, but since Mike and Dustin didn't know, I don't think Lucas thought about telling them, if he even knew. Canon is only that Mike, Dustin, Eddie and the rest of Hellfire didn't know because the whole school didn't know until 24 hours earlier.

And if he was trying to make Lucas choose a side?

Eddie never threatened to kick anybody out of Hellfire and as we got to know him in the later episodes, he never would have. It was about ONE night, the finale of the campaign, not generally about being part of Hellfire. Plus, Eddie never put Lucas to the test to see which side he'd choose, and he never even implied that he would've kicked Lucas out of Hellfire. It was about one single night. Again, petty and definitely selfish - but there was no ulterior motive, no mind games or power play going on.

That's fucked up. Let a kid have a hobby outside your realm of interests you gatekeeping prick.

Everything in canon implies that it wasn't Eddie's intention. He didn't know the date. He learned that day in the cafeteria. There were loads of equipment for the game and the setting - candles, chalices, all that stuff, and since Hellfire shares the room with the theater club (which is canon by the scenes and the lightning etc. that it's the theatre room) it means he needed to book the room to make sure it was free, meaning that it took work and time to organize everything so the campaign could take place. It never once is even implied that Eddie tried to gatekeep - and from everything we know, the one time when he did try to gatekeep D&D with Erica, he realized the mistake and stopped gatekeeping immediately, holding no ill will.

If by chance he genuinely didn't know the date?

He didn't know the date, that's canon, as I pointed out.

He could've postponed. People postpone D&D campaigns all the fucking time and it's not like Eddie had a job so he had to worry about scheduling issues. It's clear why you can't just move the date of a championship basketball game for 7 nerds to play a boardgame. No, he did this on purpose.

Eddie is the leader of Hellfire, but he's not the only one calling the shots.

The three others - Gareth, Jeff and Freak#3 as he's called in the credits - protested VERY loudly and vehemently as soon as Dustin asked to postpone, before Eddie even got to react. Eddie called them to stop protesting, and it was evident that out of 7 people (Eddie, Lucas, Mike, Dustin, Gareth, Jeff, Freak#3), 3 had already made it clear that they were firmly against postponing, Mike and Dustin wanted to postpone, and Lucas - who wanted to postpone - didn't even go to the trouble to show Eddie the courtesy of asking him himself whether he could postpone the game. Yes, Eddie is Hellfire's leader and DM, but it was 3 against 2 without Eddie and Lucas and 4 against 3 with them, a clear democratic decision not to postpone.

Part of Hellfire are Dustin and Mike who never, not once, asked him to postpone because they wanted to be at the championship game to support Lucas, but because Lucas couldn't be there because of the game. Eddie never knew it was important, Mike and Dustin never voiced that they wanted to support Lucas at the basketball game because they didn't want to and they made it clear with Lucas, only being swayed briefly. It's easy to point at Eddie and say "he didn't want to postpone, we had no choice!" when Eddie didn't even know Mike and Dustin wanted to go to the basketball game (which, again, they didn't make clear was something they wanted).

Had they told Eddie they wouldn't make it to Hellfire alongside Lucas, because they wanted to support him, Eddie and the rest of Hellfire would have had no choice but to postpone, with three missing players. Dustin and Mike had a choice here, and they chose against Lucas.

About the 7 nerds...yes, Eddie doesn't have a job. But what about the other three, Gareth and Jeff and Freak#3? We don't know whether they had jobs, other scheduling issues. You tend to forget that Hellfire isn't just Eddie, but 5, (without Dustin and Mike 3) other people who are included in scheduling decisions. It doesn't work this way that the DM is calling the shots and everyone else follows - no club works like this, except when it's a cult.

To weed out the jocks in his nerd club. To ostracise Lucas specifically. The way Eddie interacts with Mike and Dustin shows he knows the people in Hellfire Club. He would've known who Lucas is. He wouldve known he loves D&D as much as the rest of them but because he also has a different interest that Eddie dislikes (not even for a moral reason but just because its popular), he's forced out.

No, he wouldn't have, because Eddie wasn't close to Lucas, canonically, he didn't know him outside of the D&D games where you play and don't talk a lot about anything outside of the game. It's already been established that at school, Lucas was with the jocks, never with Eddie or Hellfire because else the jocks would have remembered seeing one of their own with one of the "freaks". And Lucas left before Mike and Dustin joined Hellfire, which implies Eddie never ostracized anyone, he never was responsible for Mike and Dustin growing apart from Lucas. They simply had different interests, like teenagers do. People grow apart, interests change. Lucas (and Mike) didn't show much interest in D&D in ST3 - that was Will's whole storyline! - and it is in no way implied that Lucas is sad to miss the campaign (he's sad that Mike and Dustin would miss his game, not that he wouldn't be able to play D&D, judging by the entire dialogue) or that he still loves playing D&D as much as he did. We don't know how he was during the campaigns when there were no jocks around to criticize Lucas and Lucas was free to be himself at Hellfire, but since Lucas never stayed Eddie and the rest of Hellfire during school, while Mike and Dustin did because Lucas was with the jocks and they didn't want to be with the jocks, it's canon that Lucas and Eddie weren't close, and maybe not even friends before the events of ST4. Another proof: Lucas at first actually believes Eddie killed Chrissy (which is relatable since everyone not knowing Eddie, Max included, came to that first conclusion until learning of Vecna and getting to know Eddie):

Again, relatable and Max showed the same reaction but Dustin knew Eddie didn't do it because Dustin was very close to Eddie, much closer than Lucas was.

Lucas: "You guys know he (Eddie) killed Chrissy, right?"

Dustin: "That's bullshit. Eddie tried to save Chrissy."

Lucas: "Then why do all the cops say he did?"

Not once was it implied that Eddie didn't want to postpone because he didn't like Lucas having other interests. It was, however, implied in several instances that it was the moment a whole semester-long campaign had been leading to.

A group supposedly for outsiders is excluding one of their own for *checks notes* being an outsider? It's fucked up and just plain mean.

It would have been, would it have been the case, yes. Canonically, it isn't the case, and Lucas is no outsider. He is an insider with the jocks (Jason: "I should've never let you in." - Lucas:"I shouldn't have knocked."), albeit within the circle of jocks, he's an outsider. We don’t know whether Eddie knows that.

And might I remind you that Eddie's last breath, the last moments of his life after sacrificing himself "for a town that hated him", were spent to make Dustin promise he would look out after all the lost little sheepies because he couldn't anymore? Yes, he did gatekeep (with Erica, not Lucas) but he had a lot of character growth during the series regarding his us-vs-them perspective (with Chrissy not being mean and scary, with Erica being a D&D nerd despite being an eleven-years-old girl, with Steve not being a douche, with Nancy Wheeler having guns, plural, in her bedroom) - but Eddie did never intentionally ostracize anyone. His entire character was written to embody exactly the opposite in the narrative: someone who founded a club for those who'd been ostracised from the rest of high school hierarchy. That was a canon core of Eddie's character and narrative.

That was the canon. Here's my opinion, based on those canon facts and implications I listed:

It was a fucked up situation for ALL of them, and that it went the way it did is their fault, all together, and I'm sorry for all of them that it went this way.

Lucas' POV is relatable: he's tired of being bullied and sticking with Jason and the jocks is his ticket out, and he genuinely believes sticking with the jocks to become part of the popular crowd will benefit Mike and Dustin as well, in the long run, to not being bullied anymore. He never has any ill intent towards anyone.

Mike and Dustin's POV is less relatable than Lucas', in my opinion: They want to play D&D instead of watching the basketball game they're absolutely not interested in even if it's their best friend on the bench and maybe even playing (nobody could have known he'd be playing, he only was because another player was injured, but Mike’s jab at Lucas being a benchwarmer is mean) - they wanted the old times back, they wanted to play D&D alongside Lucas but they chose to play without him instead of supporting him. Eddie never threatened to kick anybody out of Hellfire and as we got to know him in the later episodes, he never would have. It was about ONE night, the finale of the campaign, not generally about being part of Hellfire - they could have opted to support Lucas and Eddie would have needed to postpone. They didn't.

Eddie's POV: He doesn't know Lucas as well as he knows Dustin and Mike because Lucas never spends any time with him outside of the campaigns outside of school. Lucas doesn't even ask Eddie himself to postpone, which, in my opinion, is a bit rude. There has been a lot of work involved for Eddie, preparations for the setting as well as planning of the campaign since he's the DM. By not asking him himself, Lucas didn't show Eddie it was important to him that he could partake in the campaign so no, Eddie didn't know it was important to Lucas, who was sitting with the jocks while he let Mike and Dustin do the talking so he wouldn't be seen with Eddie and the other "freaks and nerds" as Lucas called them. Eddie was petty, yes, but he didn't have any ill intent either, neither towards Lucas nor towards Dustin and Mike - he simply wanted to play D&D and didn't know it was important to postpone because the only explanation Mike and Dustin gave was "we need Lucas as a player", to which the obvious solution was "get a sub". Plus, Eddie never put Lucas to the test to see which side he'd choose, and he never even implied that he would've kicked Lucas out of Hellfire. It was about one single night. Again, a bit petty and definitely selfish and a flaw - but there was no ulterior motive, no mind games or power play going on.

I'm not saying Eddie doesn't have flaws: he has, and that's important because they make him relatable. He acted selfish and ignorant because it was about basketball, and he did gatekeep with Erica until he realized he was and corrected the mistake immediately without being childish about it. Yes, he judges people prematurely and stacks them in neat little boxes just like they do him, and he learns it later on and stops doing it because he’s self-aware. Yes, he was stupid to sell Chrissy ketamine. But canonically, none of these things happened with ulterior motives or ill intent, and the narrative and writers went out of their way to show that because else, they would have failed to depict Eddie as the lovable character he was meant to be.

#kiki answers #eddie munson #chrissy cunningham

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buttbiscuit · 2 years ago

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Fine I'll say it

Yes selling ketamine to a vulnerable teenager is bad but Eddie is a worse person for the way he treated Lucas and encouraged Lucas' friends to act

The way Eddie interacts with Mike and Dustin shows he knows the people in Hellfire Club. He would've known who Lucas is. He wouldve known he loves D&D as much as the rest of them but because he also has a different interest that Eddie dislikes (not even for a moral reason but just because its popular), he's forced out. A group supposedly for outsiders is excluding one of their own for *checks notes* being an outsider? It's fucked up and just plain mean.

And Lucas will never forget that none of his friends NOT A SINGLE ONE went to the championship game that he won.

#yes steve went but steve's an adult and ex player its different #lucas' actual genuine friends hes had since he was a kid that all swore to be best friends forever....... none of them went #lucas sinclair #lucas deserved better #the duffers making their anti lucas agenda clear 🙃#'we hate jocks' they say as they make the only black lead in the show a jock........#stranger things 4 #eddie munson #yeah ill tag it all idc #i like eddie but this is the worst thing he did in the show its genuinely a nasty thing to do #like i kinda understand why they had to make someone close to the jocks for plot purposes but cmon its so fucked up #and why wasnt it Mike's lanky ass out there playing basketball huh.....

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upside-down-low · 2 years ago

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Fuck it I’m gonna put into the void what I had in my notes of linking a main older teen character to a Party member when I was making these two posts (scene redraws + duos), I spent enough time thinking about it, I’ll shut up after lol

TL;DR

Mike -> Nancy

Lucas -> Steve

Will -> Robin

Dustin -> Eddie

El -> Jonathan

Max -> Argyle

Fruity Four -> core four, easy:

Nancy and Steve would be Mike and Lucas: having known each other quite a bit, Steve being the jock Lancer to the nerdier but fiery Nancy like Lucas is to Mike

Nancy is capable of being a de facto leader of the group the way Mike is and to be the kind of person willing to jump off a cliff/jump in the water for her friends’ sake; she’s also unfortunately polarizing in the fandom much like her brother, partly due to how her romantic relationships are being handled

Steve is loyal, has big sibling—not necessarily second parent, but specifically older brother—energy, bit of a romantic, and the closest one of the group to have one foot in the popular circles before ultimately choosing his friends over that crowd; they also both directly faced off with a blond, fandom-polarizing “top dog” type of antagonist at one point

Ironically Nancy is more of the ranger in terms of weapons like Lucas while Steve would be more of a sword swinger like Mike’s paladin

Robin coming from a lower class background, having felt like an outcast, and possessing a similar creativity and sharpness (enough to survive the UD on her own for a week) with a sarcastic streak similar to Will; “Is that why you don’t have friends?” / “He just said he dumped your ass, that doesn’t sound like a break” That’s literally her

Imagine Robin being Will, her going missing, and then Jonathan turning up in the woods around the same time; Steve being suspicious of him + of the way Nancy trusts him to help them find Robin can mirror S1 Lucas’s suspicion towards El and her intentions while really wanting to find Will

I can see Robin falling in love with Nancy like Will has for Mike; meanwhile Nancy was raised in the Wheeler household that’s so famously known for having parents that love each other, and then there’s her relationship with Jonathan

Eddie would join the group later like he did in the actual show S4 + when Dustin joined the Party later; sharp, D&D informant guy, lives with a single parental figure, sometimes boisterous and snarky, a little impulsive, would also probably be the type to foster a demogorgon baby that ended up eating something it shouldn’t

Good natured bickering Lucas and Dustin (especially in the early seasons) to good natured bickering Steve and Eddie would translate so well

That scene in S1 where Dustin enthusiastically tries to get El to levitate a toy spaceship by just dropping it in front of her while she doesn’t react lmao that’s Eddie and Jonathan

Jonathan having limited social skills, complicated father issues, and been raised in an environment neglecting to see him as the kid he is in favor of seeing him as something else, such as a grown adult or a lab subject like El; he can eventually learn to develop as his own person independent of others after years of being depended on by others (as a psychic government tool/as a parentified caretaker for his family)

He too got arrested for busting someone’s face bc they talked shit about his family

People always talk about how he looks like he wants to explode someone with his mind. How can I not make him El

Terry was a fighter like Joyce; imagine Jonathan finding Joyce in the void and calling out “Mama” to her :(

Will and El duo -> Robin and Jonathan duo; Robin and Jonathan are like written in the same font in canon (5’8, nerdy, awkward but snarky pretentious art hoes that like Nancy Wheeler), do you see my Willel/Robjon vision

Do they look alike? Not even close but someone confused Jonathan for Robin on an ST4 poster once so im running with it

Why yes I am implying the Mileven/Byler triangle here would be Jancy/Ronance. I think that’s fun

Argyle is the last to join the Party, originally hailing from CA and wanting to make friends as a lonely newcomer to Hawkins; the supernatural and everything the Party deals with can be a lot, but he goes where the group goes, accepting the risk and rolling with it, sorta like he does with Cali gang in S4, driving all the way to Indiana, and learning his best friend’s little sister has powers

Initially Argyle was being left out of the loop by the group and later, despite being excited to meet him, Jonathan was probably a little dismissive of him at first like El was to Max

But they warm up to each other, and the S3 Elmax bonding where Max helps El experience being a regular kid -> Jargyle bonding where Argyle helps Jonathan experience being a regular kid kinda like S4 Jargyle with Jonathan having been able to have a friend + feel a little more like a teenager

El going to Max for relationship advice in S3 -> Jonathan going to Argyle for relationship advice

Also he’s a good driver; he was the getaway driver for Cali gang that is zoomer behavior

#stranger things #argyle stranger things #robin buckley #jonathan byers #steve harrington #eddie munson #nancy wheeler #swapped au

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baldwinboy5ive · 3 years ago

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Holy fuck, Daniel-san, Johnny Lawrence the worst of them all REALLY

and a MONSTER?

I’M SORRY

DID YOU REPRESS EVERY SINGLE MEMORY YOU EVER HAD OF PONYTAIL MAN BECAUSE I WON’T BLAME YOU IF YOU DID

... is what I said the first time I ever watched these scenes. I was kind of joking, but then, the more I thought about it, what if I wasn’t joking? And then a whole AU spun out of my control about what if Daniel-san really did repress all of his Terry Silver memories?

It'd make for such a dark turn, and would be such a wild way to do it. Daniel is so angry at Cobra Kai, and specifically at Johnny, but what if he's so angry at Johnny without fully understanding why he's so mad? And that's why he keeps lashing out at Johnny.

And Johnny does eventually show his true colors, which is that he really isn't such a bad guy - yeah, he definitely was a total dick to Daniel in high school, and sometimes they definitely went too far, but it wasn't like the kind of psychological abuse that Terry Silver did.

Also, in the bit where the committee digs up the old ban by the '85 committee, and say that it was due to the actions of John Kreese, Terry Silver, and Mike Barnes, this does sound familiar to Daniel, of course. He remembers Kreese, all right. And he remembers fighting Mike Barnes. He doesn't know who this Terry Silver dude is, but just assumes that either he was hired on to help train Mike Barnes, or maybe he was just another Cobra Kai student who fought unethically in the tournament, but was a fighter he never faced. (But that's not important, he thinks.) All he really knows is that when the committee is bringing up the '85 tournament, he just feels this rage towards Cobra Kai, and thinks... well, it must be because of Johnny.

Similarly, when he first saw Johnny at the dealership, he's really happy to see him! Well, because he likes Johnny... because I severely ship it, okay... but yeah, he does feel like he likes Johnny, but then later when he finds out Johnny is reopening Cobra Kai, he again feels that rage about it, and then confusion, because why was he so happy to see Johnny earlier if he's so bad, and did such bad things to him? And thing is - yeah, he DID do bad things, but like - !!! "Kids being stupid" bad, not "psychological abuse and driving you apart from your beloved mentor" bad!

But... Daniel feels the second one, without knowing why it's such intense rage and anger and hurt.

I'm also imagining that someone who's heard all the Johnny stories (because seriously, these two just tell everybody about each other hahahha) being like, "Geez Daniel calm down, it was a hill, not a cliff, and okay so he beat your ass a few times, but you fought back! And didn't it basically resolve when he handed you the trophy? Why are you still hung up about it?" (OKAY SO Johnny never apologized BUT ANYWAY.)

And Daniel thinks - well okay, when you say it in WORDS like that, sure, okay, it doesn't sound like it was really that bad! But then... if it "wasn't that bad," then why does he hurt so much, and why does it make him feel so guilty about how he acted towards Mr. Miyagi...?

Part of this whole thing unraveling could involve Johnny even learning about what Terry Silver did, when Daniel finally does remember, and this whole story comes out. Johnny might eventually have to come to terms with what he did to Daniel in high school. He could finally apologize, say he never really meant anything by it, he had his own anger issues that he was working through, and so on. He might even eventually accept that it isn't some kind of "weakness" to have been manipulated by Kreese - because Daniel wasn't "weak" for being manipulated and victimized by Silver, was he?

And at the same, he has to admit that the sort of sob story he told Miguel wasn't the whole truth, he wasn't just the victim because Daniel came in and stole his girl, he really did do mean stuff to Daniel, too! Then Daniel, too, might even have to scale back a little and apologize - oh man, how the turns really will table, when he has to admit that Johnny, while still bad, wasn't as bad as a "monster," and obviously is no Ponytail Man hahahaha. Maybe he'd have to apologize for overreacting, like with the rent raising, calling him out so hard during the committee meeting, and the like, because once all of his Terry Silver memories come flooding back, he realizes that he actually put the BLAME on Johnny for all of the anger and hurt he felt about Cobra Kai. Johnny had to take the blame for it... because there was a monster, and Daniel just couldn’t remember him.

Man, also - I talked to @idontknowkaratebutiknowcrazy (which is what gave me the courage to even post this at all haha so THANK YOU) who pointed to these lines from Daniel:

Such a good moment.

What if this moment showed his true feelings about Johnny, without any of the Terry Silver memories tarnishing those feelings, a rare moment where he could actually see Johnny for who he really is? Perhaps it was because his head was clearer in that moment, needing to be strong for Robby. And if those really are his true feelings about Johnny, then HAHAHA that's my way in for LawRusso I guess, that’s my way in and I’LL TAKE IT.

Anyway. All these thoughts just came to me out of nowhere, and wouldn't go away, so I had to write this whole thought experiment out.

#cobra kai #daniel larusso #terry silver #johnny lawrence #long post #VERY LONG POST SORRY #the karate kid #the karate kid 3

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lesbianrobin · 3 years ago

Note

What do you think are the good and bad aspects of each season of ST?

ok 1. thank u for this question omg and 2. this answer may or may not be a mess, but either way it’s long (almost 7k words lmao) bc i’m insane, which is why it’s under a cut. it’s still by no means an exhaustive list but these are the things that just kinda came to mind.

also i realize you asked “good and bad” and i wrote this whole post as “strengths and weaknesses” which um. is not Exactly what you asked. but close enough <3 i also ended up including a lot of au ideas ksjdckmn bc like i personally hate when people say a certain plot or whatever was bad without suggesting anything that could have improved it yknow so whenever possible i tried to provide Some idea for fixing the issues i had with the show!!

season 1

strengths (this is probably gonna be the longest section but that’s because a lot of these strengths also apply to s2/s3 by default)

nostalgia and authenticity

this one’s pretty simple, but i think that season one did a good job of blending classic eighties media homages (such as the many many e.t./el parallels) with explicit pop culture references (such as mike’s yoda impression, mentions of the x-men, etc) to create a show that’s essentially dripping in early eighties nostalgia without it feeling too forced. before st, i think the most popular depiction of the eighties in mainstream media was that overly exaggerated neon scrunchie aesthetic from the mid to late eighties, and it was usually done in a comedic sense first and foremost. st took a different approach, instead focusing on the early eighties, a time that’s often ignored in favor of going either Full Seventies or Full Eighties, and i think that this choice likely resonated with adults who lived through the eighties and hadn’t yet seen something that felt quite so accurate to their own adolescence. a lot of young people who watched st were totally unfamiliar with this period of time, unfamiliar with books/movies like “stand by me” that st borrows from heavily, and i think st lent more seriousness to the eighties than most young people had experienced so far, and this was refreshing and interesting!

the use of dnd in the show is also quite genius in a way i’m not sure i can articulate?? it isn’t something Everyone would have played at the time, but it’s something that existed within a different context back in the eighties than it does today, and it really lent a sort of authenticity to the naming of the show’s sci-fi elements. like, of course these kids would name parallel dimensions and monsters and superpowers after these similar things in their favorite game! it just feels so real and it grounds st in our reality moreso than you might expect from the typical sci-fi or horror universe.

utilization of existing tropes

almost every single character in st clearly originates from some popular trope. the plot itself is riddled with classic eighties movie tropes. almost every single element of stranger things can be clearly traced back to some iconic eighties film or just to, like, overused horror/sci-fi/mystery/coming-of-age movie tropes in general. this might sound like a bad thing, but it really works in st’s favor! starting off with familiar tropes gives st the ability to easily create a lot of complexity and make a big impact by selectively deviating from those familiar, comfortable tropes!! while el’s whole plot, hopper’s character, etc, are all examples of this in action, i think the steve/nancy/jonathan plot is the greatest example. even from the start, the fact that good girl barb dies while nancy is off having sex with her asshole boyfriend is an incredibly thorough inversion of the most well-known horror movie trope in the book. how often do girls in horror movies have sex for the first time, walk home alone in the dark of night, and live to tell the tale? nancy and jonathan’s dynamic at first glance is a sort of classic “good girl meets boy from the wrong side of the tracks, discovers he’s actually got a heart of gold” thing, but instead of following this well-trodden path, st diverged. nancy is brash, impulsive, and at times downright insensitive. jonathan is angry, bitter, and actually a bit of a creep at first. while they have the capacity to emotionally connect and support one another, they can also bring out each other’s darker side, which is not what we’ve come to expect from that initial tropey dynamic.

in addition, steve, the popular rich asshole boyfriend, is actually... a human being! unlike the cartoonishly evil jocks that we’ve come to expect (especially from eighties movies), steve has complexity. despite his initial immaturity and selfishness, he’s also kind to barb, he backs off when nancy says no, he’s gentle and sweet when they sleep together, his first big Dick Move of the season is in defense of nancy, he realizes the error of his ways after the fight and does what he can to fix it, he’s worried about nancy when he sees that she’s hurt at jonathan’s house, and to top it all off, he ends up saving both nancy and jonathan’s lives when he could have just walked away, and the three of them all work together to fight the demogorgon. like... steve began as the most stereotypical character of all time, and by the end of the season, he had one of the most compelling and unique arcs among the whole cast!

finally, at the very end of the season, instead of dumping steve for jonathan as expected, nancy ends up getting back together with steve, and they’re both on friendly terms with jonathan. i realize that i just kinda. summarized s1. but my POINT is that i don’t think the dynamics between the monster hunting trio would be nearly as fun and interesting had the characters of nancy, steve, and jonathan not been set up to follow certain paths that we already had charted in our own heads. like, within the first couple episodes of s1, it’s pretty obvious that nancy and steve are gonna break up, nancy will get with jonathan, and steve will either die or go full evil or just never be seen again. like, duh! you’ve seen this story a million times! you know that’s how it’s gonna go! so, when the story DOESN’T go that way, the impact of each character’s arc and the relationship dynamics become stronger due to their unexpected complexity and authenticity.

distinct plotlines separated by age group

this one’s rather obvious, but the way that the adults in s1 were essentially in a conspiracy thriller while the teens were in a horror flick and the kids were in a sci fi power-of-friendship story and all three converged at the end... wow. brilliant showstopping etc. not only was it just really well done and unique, it also gave stranger things near-universal appeal. like, there’s genuinely something for pretty much everyone in season one!

casting

obviously this applies to every season sorta by default, but when i think about what made season one So successful, i always think about the cast, and not just winona ryder. yes, she’s absolutely amazing in the show and it’s very doubtful that st would be as big as it is today without her name being attached to it from the start!! however, i think the greatest determining factor in st’s success is the casting of the kids, particularly millie bobby brown. like... el is just absolutely incredible. she’s amazing. this has all been said many times before so i won’t harp on it, but millie and the other kids are all So talented and charismatic and i think their casting has been instrumental to the show’s success.

strong visuals

the way that multicolored christmas lights which have been around for decades are now kinda like. a Stranger Things thing. jesus christ. those lights are probably the biggest stroke of stylistic genius on the show.

atmosphere and setting

this is probably like. the least important one here for me sdjncdsc because i think s2 and s3 both had like Even Better atmospheres and shit but s1 was good too and it laid the groundwork!! i know a lot of people would have preferred st be set somewhere more Spooky with lots of fog or giant forests or whatnot, and while i do enjoy thinking about alternate st settings and how they might alter the vibe, i think hawkins indiana was a good choice. as the duffers have said, placing stranger things in a fictional town allows them more flexibility than if they’d gone with their original plan of using montauk, new york. besides that, i think the plainness and like... flatness... of small-town indiana just Works. like, the fact that hawkins is never really scary on the surface is a big part of the horror in the lab’s actions and their impact. hawkins isn’t somewhere that people just disappear all the time. it isn’t somewhere known for strange occurrences (prior to s1, that is). it isn’t somewhere shrouded in mist and secrecy. hawkins on its surface seems like the sort of place with no secrets and nothing to fear, and that’s the point! the lab is out in the open! it’s right there! everything is so close to the surface, yet so far out of the public eye, and i think that really works.

the byers family’s whole deal (specifically the joyce/jonathan dynamic)

this is going here bc i miss it so bad in s2 and s3. i’m not one of those people who believe The Byers Are The Whole Point of the show, because st is and always has been an ensemble, and el, hopper, and the wheelers are just as instrumental to the plot as the byers, but ANYWAY, i do think the byers were one of the most interesting aspects of s1. joyce’s difficulties with supporting her sons as a poor and (implied mentally ill) single mother, jonathan’s stress as a result of having to earn money, care for his brother, and keep the house in order when his mother is unable to do so, and the resulting tension between them when will’s disappearance and supposed “death” brings the situation to a tipping point? holy shit! it’s so good! that argument after they see will’s “body” is just incredible and gut-wrenching. their relationship feels so real and messy and i think it’s just... good. also winona ryder REALLY acted her heart out and she carried a lot of s1 which i think people often forget to mention so i’m saying it here.

weaknesses

pacing/timing

ok so pacing is probably going to go in each season’s weaknesses, to be honest, because i think they all had a blend of some good and some bad pacing. good pacing is invisible pacing, though, so i probably won’t be putting it in any of the strengths sections and will only be focusing on it in the weaknesses. i’m also probably not going to talk about weird day/night cycle things, just because i don’t want to get nitpicky on timelines because that would require going back and rewatching things to double check timing which i don’t wanna do at the moment lmao. anyway, when i think of bad pacing in season one, i primarily think of two things: nancy’s little trip into the upside down and subsequent sleepover with jonathan, and the sort of staggered nature of the climax in the final episode. the latter is simple so i’ll explain it first: while i understand that each group’s respective climax is like part of a chain reaction and that’s why each big moment happens separately and at different times, i think that st is strongest when the whole group is together, and i think that makes the stakes feel higher too, so i’m not In Love with the way s1 separated everyone and gave each group their own climax.

okay, now on to the nancy/upside down thing! idk if i’ve ever talked about it before, but i think the worst decision made in s1 by far is the inclusion of nancy’s brief trip into the upside down, wherein she dives headfirst into another dimension with absolutely no backup, watches the demogorgon chow down, freaks out and runs around for a minute, and then leaves. like... what the fuck? even putting aside what an idiotic decision this was (because i do think nancy’s tendency to rush into things headfirst is an intentional and consistent character trait), it just kind of destroys any remaining suspense surrounding the demogorgon and the upside down, and it accomplishes basically nothing besides scaring nancy enough to have jonathan sleep over, which is lame. i will break it down.

like, first of all, nancy just getting to waltz in and out of the upside down and get a good, long look at the demogorgon makes the entire thing far less mysterious, and by extension far less scary. like... before this scene, we the audience haven’t got a good look at the demogorgon. we’ve seen its silhouette briefly and we’ve seen a blurry picture of it, but nothing more, and i think that is far more effective at building fear than this jaunt nancy goes on which gives us a full view of the thing and makes it into less of a horrifying nightmare and into more of a humanoid animal. like, maybe this is just me, but i found the demogorgon far less intimidating after that scene than before. it also lets nancy and jonathan know For Sure that they’re right without providing any crucial information that they need to fight the demogorgon (aka it’s unnecessary to the plot), which removes a very compelling story element (the faith nancy and jonathan need to have in order to keep going against a vague and poorly understood enemy, the doubt they might have about each other and their own sanity, the possibility that they might be wrong, the trust they need to have in each other) a bit earlier in the plot than i believe is ideal. at the end of episode 5, nancy goes into the upside down and jonathan doesn’t know where she is and it’s intense!!! you’re thinking like, oh fuck, not only is nancy missing and fighting for her life now too, jonathan might be implicated in her disappearance!! some people already think he’s the one who killed will and people know that he took creepy pictures of barb and nancy before they both disappeared, maybe this is gonna cause some serious problems for him!! maybe nancy will find will in the upside down and she’ll help him survive!! fuck, maybe she’ll actually die!! this is huge!! and then episode 6 starts and they’re immediately like oh nevermind jonathan found the tree and got nancy out and she’s fine. my point with all of this is that nancy entering the upside down could have done A Lot in the grand scheme of the plot, but all it did was just... get jonathan to sleep over so he and nancy could have some awkward romance moments and steve could see them together and pick a fight. which could have honestly happened at Any point while nancy and jonathan were working together to hunt down the demogorgon, without ruining the demogorgon’s and the upside down’s mystique. so yeah <3

weird behavior and dumbass decisions that make no sense (aka the whole camera thing)

gonna go off about the teen plot again sorry but: why was nancy so unbothered and quick to forgive jonathan for taking those pictures? girl what the fuck are you doing? why wasn’t that a bigger deal? why was jonathan’s motivation for doing it so weak and why did they just kind of forget about the whole thing? why did nancy TRACK HIM DOWN AT THE FUNERAL HOME while he was PICKING OUT HIS BABY BROTHER’S CASKET to be like hey can you tell me what’s in this creepshot you took? it’s insane. it’s so insane. i mean i think the funeral home thing is hilarious and i don’t mind it being in the show necessarily but like my point here is that i think a lot of character decisions in s1 just kind of.. happened because they Needed to happen for the plot. like, they wrote this plot that required jonathan to be secretly taking pictures of the party and required him and nancy to work together after seeing something odd in the pictures, but they didn’t like... really consider what that event would mean for their characterization and relationship. the whole thing was sort of just dropped with minimal discussion and i think it did both nancy and jonathan’s characters a disservice and was really mishandled.

lighting and saturation/color grading

i am literally begging horror/sci-fi shows to let me see shit. i GET IT okay i understand that when you’re doing cgi effects it helps to keep the lights down and i’m not mad at any of the lighting in the demogorgon/upside down scenes!! i’m really not i think the demogorgon scenes in s1 all look sick!! but like... dude. the colors. where are they. why does everyone look like a vampire. i know blah blah this was probably an intentional stylistic choice intended to mimic film at the time blah blah but dude a lot of old movies are very colorful!! please just let people have color in their faces so everyone doesn’t look like a sheet of paper!!! also i’m white and not a professional lighting designer so yknow grain of salt but i think lucas was kinda poorly served by the lighting sometimes in s1. not Hugely so, not to the degree that i’ve seen poc be poorly served by lighting in other shows, but there were some times where it felt kinda like the lighting setup was just not designed with darker skin in mind.

horror

i just personally don’t find s1 very scary like... ever. i don’t think they were really Trying to be extremely scary yknow so i’m not counting this as a big deal, but i do think that each season has improved on the horror aspects. i think s1′s horror lies more in the mystery and the unknown than in what’s seen onscreen, and as i’ve said already, i think s1 kind of fumbled that suspense ball.

season 2

strengths

the possession plot

i’ll warn u rn this whole s2 strengths section is probably gonna be really short bc idk like. how much there is to really say i feel like it’s all so self-explanatory skjncmn. anyway yeah the possession plot!! eerie as fuck, and noah OWNED. so did winona tbh and finn and sean etc but like. noah. wow! i think the possession plot helped the show maintain a good amount of tension and suspense throughout the season, and a lot of scenes with possessed!will are flatout disturbing to watch. in a good way. i think the mindflayer and will’s possession were far more genuinely frightening than s1′s demogorgon, and it provided a new layer of depth and intrigue to the antagonist besides just “bad monster want eat people.”

tone and aesthetics

halloween season... literally halloween season. halloween season. that is all.

actually i will elaborate a bit and just say that i think s2 did a good job of having the sort of foreboding vibe that s1 was often going for, but without the annoying darkness and desaturation. so points for that.

also st2 is like one of the best Autumn pieces of media ever like it just. like steve and dustin on those train tracks with the fallen leaves all around them.... god. god the vibes are unparalleled. all of the halloween stuff also really contributes to the nostalgia st runs on yknow it makes you think about childhood and trick-or-treating and you kind of get transported like damn... i remember going to the rich neighborhoods to score the good candy..... idk i just think the whole thing is incredibly effective.

“babysitter” steve

by sending nancy and jonathan off together, the show created a problem: what to do with steve? this problem pushed them to create the unconventional and unexpected duo of steve and dustin, and the world is so much brighter for it. seriously though we all know steve and dustin are great i don’t need to argue that point. all i’ll add is that i think allowing steve to grow in this way, serving as a mentor figure and becoming genuine friends with someone so unexpected, really took the originality of his character to the next level. no longer content just to defy his archetype, in s2 steve begins branching out in ways that never would have been considered in s1, creating an incredibly complex and interesting person from the sort of character that most shows would have simply written out or killed off for convenience’s sake. and it works and steve and dustin are such a joy to watch and i love them. <3

the lucas/max plot

so first of all max mayfield is the most perfect baby girl on god’s green earth and idk what i would do without her but anyway. i think lumax is the best romantic relationship in the show and not just because they’re the only ones with like an age-appropriate approach to the whole thing. it’s also because their relationship accomplishes more than just putting the two of them in a relationship!! lucas and max spending time together motivates billy to do his evil shit, providing more conflict in the narrative, and it also helps establish max as part of the group in a relatively natural way while giving both her and lucas a great subplot. lucas (and dustin) has a crush on the new girl, they start spending some time together, and lucas ends up needing to decide whether he’ll keep the secret of the upside down and lose her, or risk both of their lives by telling her the truth. that’s a pretty big, character-defining decision that he gets to make!! max has to choose whether to trust this boy she barely knows and endanger herself, or to walk away and stay safe, yet another great character-defining choice that also contributes to the sense we get as an audience of max as somebody who’s incredibly lonely and desperate for love and connection. this post is way too long already and i have a ton more to say so i’ll stop now but yeah i think lumax really Works in the show without ever distracting or detracting from the overall plot and narrative in the way that some other ships (coughjancycough) often do.

balance between the normal and abnormal

s2 i think did a pretty solid job of melding daily life with more fantastical sci-fi horror elements. i enjoyed seeing so much of the kids at school in the first few episodes!! you really get a strong sense of where they’re at in life, what their daily lives are like, and you get a sort of gradual shift into madness that makes everything feel more grounded than i think it would if they had just leapt straight into the horror shit, yknow?

the el and hopper dynamic

go back and rewatch s2 and tell me that’s not one of the most moving portrayals of parenthood and trauma and growing up that you’ve ever seen. you can’t. or well you can but i won’t listen. i really can’t imagine stranger things without el and hopper’s relationship, and it’s my absolute favorite part of s2. their whole dynamic is so beautiful and complex, and gives them each amazing personal arcs in addition! the black hole scene is literally one of the show’s greatest moments of all time. any given scene between the two of them in s2 is just guaranteed to be heartwarming as well as heartbreaking, and i think that makes for an incredible show.

weaknesses

flashbacks

okay this applies to Every season they All have too many flashbacks but in s2 specifically... please stop showing me shit from season one. i watched it. i know what happened. you don’t need to spoon feed everything to me!! flashbacks can be a really helpful way of delivering information to an audience, but st has a bad habit of not only being kinda demeaning in how often they flash back to shit that the audience already knows, but they also have a bad habit of using flashbacks almost as a crutch to avoid having to deliver information subtly and naturally.

you know i gotta say it... the lost sister

this is so sad. the lost sister really is like a great concept for an st episode, and i’m not mad about the idea of st taking a break from the normal action to focus on one story for a full episode, but the execution of it was just dreadful. kali and her crew feel very over-the-top and stereotypical, and its placement in the season totally kills the tension and excitement that was built in “the spy.”

i think the lost sister honestly could have gone over far better, even with the stereotypical fake-feeling gang kali has, if they had just swapped it with “the spy” like... ok, the end of episode five has el setting off to find kali and will collapsing on the ground seizing. right? imagine if, instead of immediately following will to the lab, we’d followed el. we don’t know what’s happening with will, but it’s a very simple cliffhanger that leaves us on edge without making us feel cheated by the show cutting away. we follow el on her little journey, everything happens much the same as canon, and then at the end, el sees hopper in scrubs. she sees mike, screaming, sees that they’re both in danger. holy shit!!! what the fuck!!! what’s happened since we left will seizing on the ground??? we feel el’s fear and confusion. she decides to go home. and then... boom. “the lost sister” is over. now, we rewind, right back to will seizing on the ground, and “the spy” commences. we learn how they got into the danger that el saw in the end of “the lost sister,” and we sit on the edge of our seats all through “the spy” and “the mind flayer,” KNOWING that el is on her way back to save them but not knowing when she’ll arrive!! idk i don’t think that would have necessarily saved lost sister but i think it may have alleviated some of the issues that i and many others have with it, timing-wise.

the nancy/jonathan sidequest

once again, the idea of nancy going off on her own little mission to find justice for barb after s1 is like. amazing. genuinely i love that plot for her and i can’t imagine anything better for her to have focused on in s2. unfortunately though i think her and jonathan’s little trip to see murray was just kind of... lame. the whole thing just felt like an excuse to get the two of them alone together, yknow? which is fine i guess people contrive all sorts of situations to get characters alone together for romance reasons but in this case i think it just really doesn’t work for me because of what it’s juxtaposed with. like, will is POSSESSED, and jonathan is just off on a mini road trip and sleeping with his bestie, and jonathan never seems to communicate to joyce/will that he left town, and joyce never like... thinks to tell him that will is like sick and fucked up and they’re looking at him in the lab??? like it’s so weird i know joyce always forgets about jonathan when shit’s happening with will but jfc you’d think at some point in that like... 72-ish-hour period where jonathan was out of town she would have thought about him. like at least once. maybe i’m forgetting something and she mentioned him sometime and i missed it but even still, i hate the juxtaposition of nancy and jonathan just like cheers-ing at murray’s place and sleeping together and whatnot while everyone else is dealing with possession or trying to hunt down dart yknow? it feels really boring in comparison and i think it could have been done far better. like it was SO insanely easy for them to get into the lab and get an admission of guilt and escape with it!! i think it might have been a lot more engaging if maybe someone from the lab tailed them to murray’s place and they had to like lose the tail and race to get the recording out to as many news outlets as possible before they got caught, or something like that. the tension in their plotline is completely resolved in episode four!! episodes five and six are just them screwing around and addressing envelopes. while there were a lot of strong ideas in this plotline (i really enjoy nancy going out of her way to get justice, and the fact that they have to water down the story to make it believable), i just think the focus on nancy and jonathan getting together hindered it a lot without adding a ton to the plot or their individual characters.

season 3

strengths

starcourt mall as a setting

while i don’t think the mall was utilized quite to its full potential (something i could make a separate post about if anyone’s interested), i do think that starcourt was a genius addition to the series. i’ve said this before, but building a new mall is a literal Perfect in-universe justification for a significant leap forward in fashion and aesthetics, and it provides a great location for characters to just... be characters. idk how else to articulate this i just think that the mall is a great setting to let people interact with each other and to bring people together who may not have been otherwise (i.e. scoops troop). not to mention how sick it was to see the mall get wrecked toward the end kdjncdkm like they were able to do so much more with the mall in terms of like The Finale than they could with just the byers house or the cabin or the school or even the lab. i love all the back tunnels they run through it’s such a fun like acknowledgement of how this glitzy eighties mall is just a real place where employees get shipments and take out the trash and shit idk it’s all about the perfect facade and what’s hidden what’s underneath what’s hiding in plain sight etc etc i’m just saying words now. anyway.

willingness to experiment and go against expectations

gay robin. neon aesthetics. giant fucking meat monster. i know some people hate both the neon and the meat monster but i personally think they were kind of amazing and like. yknow regardless of personal tastes i think it’s impossible to deny that s3 had a lot of incredible visuals, and they’re all visuals that just wouldn’t have been possible if the show were too afraid to stray from its s1 aesthetic. robin being canonically gay (and her resulting friendship with steve) and the season’s striking visuals are two things that most everyone (besides like homophobes skjncdknm) can agree were great, right? and they were both departures from where the show began and what we all expected!! so yeah i think while some of the experimentation in s3 wasn’t ideal it was also that experimentation that allowed for some of the season’s strongest elements to come about.

the hospital sequence (and the season’s action/horror scenes in general)

this one is fairly self-explanatory. while they may have underutilized the “body snatching” element of the season, the hospital sequence with nancy and jonathan fighting off their possessed bosses did an amazing job of building tension and creating a genuine sense of really intense and personal danger.

in general i think that s3 melded action and horror rather well, particularly in the sauna test, the hospital, and when the mindflayer busts through the roof of hop’s cabin. horror can come from many things, and in this case, st elicited horror largely from the feeling of helplessness, and it was really effective for me personally. i think it worked better for me than s1′s brand of horror because it doesn’t rely so much on a lack of knowledge or a sense of suspense that inevitable disappears upon a second viewing.

the body horror we got in s3 was also really fun! that’s it i just think all the blood and guts and slime were fun and i would like more of them. once again, the impacts of body horror are less dependent upon the viewer being in the dark or unsure as to what’s happening, and as such i think it tends to be a little more effective at eliciting reaction in the long term.

timing and mechanics of the battle of starcourt/finale

i think the battle of starcourt is just fucking awesome, and beyond that personal opinion, i think it’s the most high-stakes and intense finale of all three seasons, and this is for two main reasons! 1. el is out of commission, and 2. (almost) everyone is in the same cental location. this means that (almost) everyone is in danger all at once, and they are all working together at the same time to fight the same threat. s1/s2 have their groups more fragmented for the finales, and while i understand why in each case and i wouldn’t call either season’s finale necessarily weak, i do think the centralized nature of the s3 finale just Works on another level. in s1 and s2, large segments of the cast are already perfectly safe by the time el dispatches the primary threat. in s3, however, everybody save for dustin and erica is still in danger up until the last moment, and el is seemingly (you can def debate how much power she still had in her when she peeked into billy’s mind and whether the memory broke the mindflayer’s hold on him or if she was actually controlling him to some degree) completely vulnerable. this increases the tension and raises the stakes, making the finale a real crescendo to fortissimo as opposed to a series of little mezzo forte moments. i hope everyone reading this knows music idk how else to phrase that my brain is stupid.

emphasis on friendship and adolescence (but in a different way than s1/2)

this is definitely a controversial one but i think that s3 really did like... show a side of friendship that had been more or less unexplored thus far in the show. el and max were amazing, and i think it’s really nice that we got an opportunity to see the kids have some growing pains as well as see them support each other through Normal Adolescent Stuff like boyfriends and breakups instead of just like. death and trauma. this is maybe just a personal preference, but i think it can be really enlightening and provide a lot of depth when you get to see how characters respond to normal everyday conflict and not just how they respond to giant world-ending conflict!! letting el use her powers for goofy teenage shit like spying on boys and messing with mean girls at the mall is not only fun for her and the audience, but it also really emphasizes just how much those powers are a part of el, making it that much more devastating when she loses them at the end of the season.

weaknesses

tonal dissonance

so this is like. obvious. but it must still be said! i won’t go on and on about it since we all know this so i’ll try to like talk about it from an angle people don’t usually? anyway. it seems to me like they were maybe a little worried about s3 being too dark. while the choice to really lean into humor was definitely driven by the sorts of eighties teen films from which s3 drew inspiration (like fast times at ridgemont high), i think it was also done in an attempt to alleviate the more troubling implications of some events in the season, particularly the russian bunker plot. like, yeah, st can be incredibly dark, but if they’d played the whole “children being stuck inside of a foreign military base, tied up, tortured, and drugged” thing completely straight without the humorous elements that exist in canon, it had the potential to be like... disturbing on a new level. steve and robin don’t have powers like el yknow their kidnapping/torture doesn’t have any sci-fi elements to sorta soften the blow. they’re just innocent teenagers being brutalized and traumatized by grown men. so anyway yeah i think maybe the writers were concerned about this storyline coming off as too dark and they wanted it to be a little more whimsical but they ended up pushing way too hard in that direction and creating extreme dissonance at times. this goes for joyce/hopper/murray/alexei too, but to a lesser extent. i think the ridiculousness in that group felt a lot more like... realistic. but still.

newspaper plot

once again i feel like i don’t even need to say this skjdncmn we all know it was insane how the show basically ended up delivering the message “while misogyny is a serious problem poverty and classism are not” and i’ve said it on this blog a million times so i don’t need to repeat myself. i’ll focus on another weak point of this plot: the fact that it completely separates nancy and jonathan from everyone else. once again, the show’s preoccupation with j/ancy held them back! like... can you imagine a version of s3 where nancy and jonathan both worked in the mall? i have a lot of ideas about this possible au and like how the plot could play out differently if they worked in the mall but first of all it’s just more realistic, second of all it further utilizes the mall as a central setting, and third of all, it would bring everyone together. as it is in canon, nancy and jonathan were unnecessarily isolated from the rest of the group, and this isolation was detrimental to both of their characters. like, they only ever get to interact with each other! if they’d gotten summer jobs in the mall, they could have had more interactions with the kids/steve/robin, and they absolutely still could have had a similar argument! maybe in this case, nancy notices the rat thing (or something else odd) herself when taking out the trash behind the mall, and she wants jonathan to ditch work with her to check it out bc she thinks it may be related to the lab. jonathan doesn’t want to ditch work because he needs his job, nancy argues that they’re working shitty mall jobs anyway and who cares if they get fired, and we get more or less the same thing as s3 without the cartoonishly over-the-top misogyny. i mean honestly i think the rat shit could have been cut entirely it didn’t rly... accomplish much of anything. in my opinion. like imagine s3 without the rat plot you literally would not be missing anything except it would be more surprising when the dudes melted into goo at the hospital. so yeah i think it would have been better if nancy and jonathan had jobs at the mall, weren’t isolated from everybody else, and were maybe absorbed into the party’s plot or the scoops troop’s plot from very early on, allowing them to interact with more characters and have a less... dumb.... plot. like god splitting up nancy and jonathan between the party/scoops troop would have been So Much better i just. sdkjcnksdmn anyway yeah.

briefness of group reunion/separation of groups

remember in s2 at the beginning of “the gate,” where mike and hopper had a confrontation and max and el met for the first time and el hugged everyone and steve and nancy had their sad little moment together outside... where’s that energy? obviously the s2 reunion wasn’t that long either, but it made space for some significant emotional moments to take place. s3′s reunion had some hopper/el/mike resolution, but besides that... there was nothing, really. i just think that the whole group getting together in s3 was SO exciting and powerful the way they did it (with both the scoops troop and the adults having their own Big Moment reconnecting with team griswold family), but the emotional potential was more or less squandered.

i also think in s3 at times they were really stretching to keep everybody separated even though it made no sense. and like... in s1 the separation worked bc nobody else knew that (x group) was experiencing weird shit too, and beyond that, each group (as i mentioned in the s1 section) was sort of operating within their own genre and bringing something unique to the season. they’ve stopped doing that though! now, the groups aren’t separate bc each plot is tonally/structurally different, the groups are just separate bc... they need to be, because it’s a big ensemble cast and you can’t just have them all be together for a whole season or it would be way too difficult to coordinate things and keep the show dynamic. all this is to say that i’m excited for s4 because the location differences make it so there’s a Reason for each plot to be separate at the beginning, and i think that’ll work better.

general ridiculousness

i dont mean like i think it’s bad that they made jokes this is just me lumping in all the dumb shit like hopper not worrying about el and not wanting to check on the kids, him and joyce bickering long after they both know they and their children are in danger, max seemingly forgetting that billy is a racist abuser, etc etc. i think many of these are just a symptom of the show 1. trying desperately to keep the groups split up a certain way even though it may not make any sense, and 2. trying to fit into a certain genre/trope mold when their actual characters are more complex than the tropes they’re imitating. this is so fucking long already i am not gonna elaborate further rn but i trust u all know what i mean.

soooo... yeah, that’s about all! i mean it’s not all there are definitely many more things i could talk about and i know i focused sorta disproportionately on the teens which is my bad :/ but i’m done for now. thank you for asking, and apologies for the delay in responding!! i’m sure some people reading (if anyone read this far) will disagree with some of what i’ve said and that’s alright like i’m not The Authority on st or anything i’m just trying to talk about like my own thoughts yknow? so yeah luv u all i hope someone enjoyed reading this!!

#asks #em talks #lesbianrobin.canon #stranger things #if u actually read all this i love u and im sorry #these r just my opinions!! and im sure i misremembered some shit my brain is swiss cheese #i did my best tho

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hopefullystillatheatrestudent · 4 years ago

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this might be a weird thought but the way jensen performs masculinity (and i KNOW it’s a performance cause like, have you SEEN the mockumentary?) is just.... so inherently queer to me lmao

ok. okokokokokok. you asked for this. i have a LOT of thoughts on this. it’s gonna be under a cut because i’m gonna be annoying and psychoanalyse a celebrity i’ve never met(and hope i never do) but trust and believe when i tell you i know what i’m talking about so

you want my opinion? here goes. there is absolutely no way jensen ackles is straight. i hear you, ‘how do you know that he’s bi? that’s invasive and creepy’ but may i counter that point by saying how do you know he’s straight???? why is the default for everyone heterosexual? that’s a toxic mentality to have; ‘oh you don’t know for sure so just treat him like he’s 100% straight just in case’ like....what? heteronormativity drives me wild i’m sorry

and also, um, just to, um, prove my point that this man is decidedly not straight™(i really don’t want to do this but like it has to be said) we KNOW he’s not straight because his d*ck has spoken for itself around misha, like, four times. I HATE SAYING IT!!!!!!! but, um, straight men don’t get aroused by men. ...do i really need to explain myself further???? that’s what i thought(and don’t give me the ‘it could have been for unrelated reasons’ or ‘that wasn’t a boner!’ crap because um good lord yes it was and misha caused every single one so no it wasn’t a coincidence i’m gonna move on before i collapse into myself like a dying star)

anyway, on to the topic at hand which is jensen and his performative masculinity. and it’s a juicy one.

after the unconscious amount of hours i’ve put into watching and subconsciously judging jackles, i have come to the conclusion that like, 90% of how he presents himself and talks and even moves is an act. it’s a facade. it’s a shield. he is not that person. it actually seems exhausting, because he tries to compose himself in this macho, manly, confident and effortlessly cool way, but he’s not that person he desperately wishes he was and wants to be perceived as. he’s on guard every second, even the slightest tilt of his head is like, pre-meditated in some way? if i’m going FULL body language analyst mode, i’ve noticed he has a certain posture he always shifts himself into, and it’s very ‘pursed lips, stoic faced, gruff voiced, square-shoulder, broad and manly’ but, not to be rude jensen, it kind of reads as a little kid imitating the adults he thinks are cool? oof i am going IN huh(it’s out of love though i promise)

he is trying to be this person at every second:

because that’s who he wishes he was, because that’s how he gets validation from the people around him that he looks up to; straight white guys. but to me, who he presents himself to be at conventions is just as much of a performance as this whole eye of the tiger bit is.

oh i should mention i know his body language isn’t naturally like that because how he naturally carries himself is actually pretty flamboyant? like he seriously must be toning himself down HARD

examples:

there’s no tension in his body here as opposed to the eye of the tiger gif. i’d describe it as...generally loose and free? he’s at ease when he moves like that and you can see it.

oh and dude!!! DUDE!!!! how could i not mention the fucking SPECTACLE that is his voice??? jensen. i watched season one. i know where your voice naturally sits. THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU SOUND LIKE. and there have been so many accounts of fans visiting jensen in his trailer and being surprised that his real voice is two octaves higher. again, his performance of masculinity is all encompassing. he can’t even talk normally because, in his mind, that’s a chink in his armour.

and, like you said, anon, this whole smokes-and-mirrors gong show of ‘i am the cool texan man’ is inherently queer. who are you trying to impress??? guys??? that’s pretty gay dude.(btw: gay[honorary])

i feel like i’ve already read this man for filth but i have to keep going bc i have so much to say

ok next thing i’m gonna talk about is how jensen says one thing but everything else about him tells us the exact opposite. another HUGE element of performative masculinity, ONE THAT DEAN WINCHESTER IS A MASTER OF. have i mentioned how dean and jensen are like mirrors of each other when it comes to their sexuality and queer identity??? because it is fascinating how everything i say about jensen also directly applies to dean.

allow me to introduce the grumpy face™. as in, the face he glues on when he’s enjoying doing something but doesn’t want to let anyone know it. and it’s ALWAYS when he’s doing something that could be seen as unmanly in any way. (and when i say manly i mean the ‘ideal’ version of manhood that doesn’t really exist but that jensen seems to be striving for[and dean too])

prime example is this video he did with daneel. the grumpy face™ doesn’t budge the whole time as he’s like,,,,playing an instrument and acting like he doesn’t want to bc i guess that’s too girly??? but i also find this video fascinating because the joke IN it is kind of that they’re both poking fun at him for being so insecure about playing a freaking flute. because, i mean, he gets into it, but he wants you to think he is not.

also this picture.

what is this. i hate them. jensen is smushing himself into misha’s forehead but noooo his face is telling us ‘i hate this’ because CLEARLY he does. also misha’s so happy ew gross

he does that face in photo ops with misha ALL THE TIME but how many times has he also literally asked the con goers if he can also have those photos on his phone too? because of course he actually loves touching misha and is actually a sentimental fool but he tries so hard to hide it and fails so spectacularly.

oh and this. and of COURSE this. actually let’s talk about the hitch kiss for a hot minute because it’s a perfect example of exactly what i’m talking about

(he is so transparent guys. he tries so hard but he’s so obvious.)

1. misha was never supposed to be onstage with him. so it’s a boldface LIE and OBVIOUS PLOY TO GET MISHA TO KISS HIM when he says ‘they’d like us to make out now’. but of course the way he says it is ‘oh my god can you believe what these crazy panel people are making us do haha but i mean what they say goes amirite’. same energy as ‘oh my god did you just dare us to kiss rn???’ ‘....no i didn’t’ ‘oh my god i can’t believe you’d ask that haha but i can’t say no to a dare lol’ it’s the SAME THING

2. the fact that he was in the worst mood before misha came onstage and FAKE KISSING HIM made him feel...SO?? much better? like not just a little better a lot better like, again, that says a lot, because if they weren’t dating he would not be in a better mood if misha kissed his cheek unprompted. bc that cheek kiss wasn’t a joke it was a genuine sign of affection and AHHHH

3. after the kiss happens. you know, the one that jensen actively leans into and is smiling like an idiot the whole time through and is quite clearly having the time of his life during....he says ‘well, that was uncomfortable’. .......my guy. um. i don’t know how to tell you that i do in fact have eyes and you are NOT pulling the fast one you think you are

like i’m so sorry jensen but i have you pegged. it’s literally no use.

god there’s so many instances of him doing this with misha specifically. the whole ‘ew gross lol’ but then everything about him tells us the exact opposite. like this(i hate this. how dare he say ‘he has though, hasn’t he?’ LIKE THAT?????)

so yeah my point with that is he really wants us to think he is one thing when he is the antithesis of what he’s trying to be. he really likes those things that he talks down about, and everything he’s loudly projecting is all to hide how he really feels. he went to a gay bar with daneel, for crying out loud. he wants to play a role in drag. he’s queer and he likes it. pov: you’re jensen ackles train of thought: ‘ok so i really like this thing that people might make fun of me for or call me gay for liking so if i just say ‘lol as if’ and make a grossed-out face they will be FOOLED. i am a genius. hey misha wanna blow on my ear lol i meAN GROSS EW’

i have two more things i want to talk about when it comes to this topic so PLEASE bear with me anon this is why you took so long to answer clearly lmao

ok so we’re now going to go over my favorite hot take of all time. which is ‘how do we know dean’s performing masculinity? because sam isn’t.’ only replace dean with jensen and sam with jared and oh my god do we ever have a case

jared is as STRAIGHT as they come. he is secure in that knowledge. and that’s why he is perfectly comfortable treating misha like this:

and not try to scream ‘i am not enjoying doing this!!!!!!’ at us. because he doesn’t care what we think of his sexuality like jensen does(because he has nothing to hide whereas jensen DOES)

something i found the other day that no one has brought up but i SCREAMED upon finding it is this one clip THAT I CAN’T FIND OH GOD but i promise i’m not making it up. i can’t believe i can’t find it guys it is gold. i need need NEED to talk about it. and if anyone knows what i’m referencing and can apply links in any way i will love you forever but here’s what happens off the top of my head:

ok so i’m a bit too braindead to explain it perfectly but um basically it’s a j2 panel and someone brings up magic mike and i think jared says ‘yeah i didn’t watch it’ and then jensen says ‘all the way through’. stupid joke. whatever. the joke is that jared is gay for watching magic mike.

and then i literally kid you not. jared gets this like ‘jesus christ ok dude? lol’ look on his face and then goes ‘projecting much, mr. ackles?’ and jensen gets a guilty look on his face and walks away. and jared did not say it as a joke. he was being dead pan and earnest. and jensen knew it too, he knew he was projecting. i wish i could show you guys the clip i promise if i ever find it i’ll link it but IS THAT NOT SO DAMNING FOR JENSEN????? like come ON. also proves my point that when you compare how they feel about watching magic mike. jared doesn’t care bc watching it just doesn’t interest him, but he also thinks that just watching it in itself doesn’t make you gay. jensen however.......has a different mindset, clearly.

‘projecting much, mr. ackles?’ is actually a great title for my next and FINAL section(we’re almost there folks) which is how jensen projects his insecurites about his own sexuality and relationship with misha onto misha.

i hope by now we’ve all seen this video of jensen impersonating cas. it is a blatant microaggression on his part. and like obviously homophobic. it’s like in his mind if he makes fun of them for being gay it makes them both less gay somehow??? it’s self-deprecation in a way??? let’s just tell it like it is: that impression was just jensen’s overt internalized homophobia rearing it’s ugly head. he does it a LOT too when it comes to misha.

i mean:

and that whole mess where he’s making fun of misha for being a bottom in their panel in 2016? ‘so you’re saying, like with football terms, there’s a handler and there’s a receiver heheheehe’ jensen you’re not exempt from being gay just because you know football terms lmao

oh and his OTHER impression of misha where he mocks him for...bicycling...because it’s not a manly enough sport??? jensen NO ONE else has ever thought this hard in their lives about what constitutes as masculine enough to be a sport before. that’s all you bud. we don’t find those jokes nearly as funny as you do. you are reaching, sir

the good news is that misha thinks it’s hilarious and knows it’s projecting on jensen’s part and will tease him endlessly for it. many stories come to mind, like that one photo op story where they’re literally dressed in rainbow banners and pride stickers but when misha goes to hold his hand jensen said something like ‘no way’ and then misha stepped back, put his hands on his hips and went ‘that’s the part that’s too gay for you???’ and jensen LOST it

or when that whole underwear thing happened(messy messY MESSY BTW) and then a fan asked a question about what dean and cas would do in rome and misha just said ‘when in rome’ and jensen makes a face like ‘are you serious’ and then misha says ‘you can’t look at me like that anymore, because of what you did!!!!!!’

OH and that whole story about when misha suggested they put jensen in the closet for that cat video....yeah um

and then when jensen was asked to do bisexual finger guns for a photo op and the con goer said ‘he looks bisexual here’ and misha literally said ‘oh he definitely looks bisexual here. i would say he’s actually closer to the gay side of the spectrum’ so..um...make with that as you will

OH MY GOD i’m finally done. wow. WOW. that was a lot. i hope i’ve blown your minds. ty anon i really wanted to talk about this and i hope you’re happy with the outcome!!!!!!

#cockles ask #sexuality spec #jensen is bi #anti rps for ts #cockles #liz answers #ok i have to admit it is crazy i have retained all this info #i hope someone appreciates it #my analysis #mine

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kaypeace21 · 4 years ago

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I believe that byler is an endgame

but why would they spend 3 seasons winding up with mileven?

People REALLY need to pay attention to the shows the Duffers cited as huge inspirations to them. Cheers,dawsons creek, freak &geeks did exactly what the Duffers are doing (and the Duffers said these shows inspired them)

. Cheers for over 5 seasons built up the pairing of sam and Dianne- had them break up in the s5 finale and then in the last 2 eps of the 11th season have them get back together and once again break up explaining for the 100th time they were wrong for each other and brought out the worst in eachother . Cheers would build up multiple pairings (Frasier /Lilith (s4-11/broke up in s11) , sam/Dianne (s 1-11, broke up in s11 permanently) , rebecca /sam (s8-10) Rebecca/robin (s8-9) -these pairings lasted for multiple seasons and they all broke up! They built pairings up for multiple seasons but showed throughout the show why those pairing in cheers could never work out in the long term. The same Thing happened with almost every pairing in Dawson’s creek (they’d build up multiple pairings up -sometimes for multiple seasons- sprinkle in good but also dysfunctional aspects of those relationships- and then break them apart for good ).

Also in Dawson’s creek 2 characters (a rich girl and poor guy with daddy issues) date and breakup- but both of their gay brothers get together and are endgame instead of them (cough jancy vs byler). One of the gay guys (the rich one with the book smart sis) even dated the main girl (Joey) for a while before admitting he was gay and that he was in denial (while dating the main girl for more than a season ). In D.C even the main guy(Dawson) / girl (Joey) don’t end up being endgame (despite teasing it for all 5 seasons) . They did this with a lot of couples in the show. Honestly, the Duffers pretty much borrowed this idea of showing pairings with issues and breaking them up -but toned down how long they’d bait them . Like 11seasons of showing dysfunctional couples date -ick. And Dawson’s creek ... my god it had a literal love octogon/ love webs (so many love squares/pentagons/ and on and off relationships). The 1 adult couple broke up and I’m not exaggeration 4 times, and Dawson got back with 2 of his girlfriends like so many times. And ugh I’d say each (of the 4-5) main characters dated at least 4 people -and each of those relationships lasted for like 20+ eps each... and then after all that build up -break up ). That’s not even including the people the main 5 or so characters would date for like 5-6 eps . Thank god it was toned down compared to Dawson’s creek or cheers. i can’t imagine the frustration watching those shows during its airing 😂

Freaks & geeks (set in the 80s)was also inspo.14 y old Sam who is bullied and called “homo” “queer” etc throughout the whole series - he also obsesses over a cheerleader girl for the whole series and in the second to last ep of the series- they finally start dating and he realizes they have nothing in common and says “it’s boring. all we ever do is makeout.She likes nothing i like. We can’t talk to eachother. We never have fun.” And he admits he only keeps dating her cause everyone would call him “crazy” to not date her. sam and her are also said to be “from different planets” and “different species” just like mileven in s3 lol. The gf of sam also says before they dated she saw him ‘like a sister’ (like El asking mike if he’d be her brother in s1, before they date). And after this sibling comment various characters -encouraged the couple and said they would be good together (before they dated-like what we’ve seen in st with mileven and other ships ).Sam eventually decides to not cave to peer pressure- and breaks up with her. Meanwhile sam’s sis (is a straight A student, who is initially into a popular guy and starts hanging with the cool kids). After getting over the first (popular) guy, she later dates another guy- a music-obsessed-stoner-guy with a cruddy dad...and she breaks up with him (like jancy?). That couple was even called ‘romeo & juliet’ before they broke up-similar to mileven being called “romeo & juliet’ before their breakup. plus r&j were never in love... just like mileven.

All 3 shows had the main guy/girl date but not end up with eachother in the end . And both shows -would build up several pairings that looked like endgame but would show faults in those relationships and would have them breakup (because those pairings were never that healthy together). Which I believe is what they’re doing with jancy, jopper, mileven and lumax (explained in my analysis here all the evidence for why I don’t think they don’t end up together). I mean there’s many reasons I listed in the analysis but you think it’s a coincidence - jancy, lumax, mileven , and Steve/rando girl who rejected him in s3-all incorportated spying on their love interest ? you think the duffers think that’s good to have all these romantic pairings spy on eachother? When in the show they canonically have the us gov (villains) spy via phone taps, and hidden recorders, and cameras? Brenner used El as a spy for his own gain ? they even call the mf a ‘spy’ (which the characters perceive as the main villain)... i don’t think the mf is actually villainous but that’s off topic).The point is narratively equating spying as something ‘wrong’ by characters our main cast of heroes is against. But having that same cast of heroes partaking in spying themselves … specifically on to their romantic partners- and not also showing it as a negative. But romanticizing it? Would be quite hypocritical. And a HUGE narrative oversight.

Also build up?

S1- mileven kiss right after el asks if he’ll be her “friend” or “brother”. Has others compare el to mike’s sibling /cousin. Hint Will is gay . Have hints mike is queer too/ and cares deeply about Will. Constantly mention how el physically resembles Will/a boy. Parallel mileven to ted/Karen who were “never in love”. Have Nancy and mike verbally compare the jancy/stancy love triangle to mileven/byler . And at the end of the season mike writes a story for Will that likens the 2 to han/leia. Flo says about jancy/Jon “ only love makes you that crazy and that damn stupid”. (Which flo wasn’t entirely right about since jon punched Steve for insulting his family- for Jon it was familial love -not romantic love. But put a pin in that phrase)

S2- was pretty much byler season (and mileven barely interact that season). Byler say they’d go “crazy together”. But el’s new catchphrase is she’s “not stupid.” They Compare mileven to luke/leia (siblings that kissed) . Ref ghostbusters and parallel byler to the romantic pairing of Dana /venkman (but have el just be a ghost and mike a ghost buster which isn’t romantic but the opposite) .parallel mileven to hopper/el. Have el spy on mike, el hurt a stranger cause of unhealthy jealousy, have mileven dance to a song about a possessive spying/Stalking ex gf . Throw in mileven burns like “they’re not in love they’re not even from the same planet.” (El being et ref) . Have mike say annoyed “a bond ?! (Scoff) cause you shared nougat?! “ (egos like s1 ) “. Mike saying after knowing max for a week “hate you? I don’t even know you?” (He knew el for a week too so no way he loves her -cause he doesn’t know el , just like max ) . mike even criticizes his friends’ instant attraction to max saying “you haven’t even spoken a word to her.”Dustin saying “ I don’t have to . I mean -look at her.” Which makes it even more suspicious that mike was into a girl who multiple characters said looked like a boy (specifically Will) in s1. Have El watch a soap opera (all my children) and mimic the scene of erica kane and her love interest michael. Which in the soap opera-isn’t endgame, and ended with some stalking after their breakup.

S3- mileven is finally dating : multiple characters (lucas, Will, Hopper, dustin,Max, etc) in the show dislike and verbally complain about them together . In cheers all of sam’s friends hated him dating Dianne and would vocally complain about it (similar to joyce they even clapped/cheered after 1 of their many breakups) . Mike is horrified by the spying(that mileven fans romanticized in s2) , el is happier single and neither is heartbroken over the breakup. They date for 2 eps and then breakup . Mileven being together inhibits El’s character arc from s2 (aka she went from wanting to explore the world and leave the cabin in s2 to see her friends, to ignoring her friends and cutting herself off from the world in order to stay in the cabin all day to make out with mike for 6 months - she would literally lie to her friends about curfew to return to the cabin and kiss mike -going against her ‘friends don’t lie’ mantra from the past 2 seasons too ). Mike canonically doesn’t trust her / doesn’t believe in her ability to make decisions and lies to her and never apologizes for lying. And el doesn’t apologize for spying . They throw in more gay hints of mike & Will. Mileven is called “bullshit” like s2 stancy . And Both pairings in the show kissed a bunch and said “I love you” (but they weren’t endgame). They also contrast s3 mileven scenes to s2 byler scenes and have byler win out. And once again parallel mileven to hopper/el and Karen/ted. As well as paralleling and likening Mileven to stancy in numerous other ways (besides the “bullshit “ line) . They also parallel mileven to stobin (both are straight baits) .They parallel the stobin confession to the mileven one -both confessions have them sitting on the floor, both girls have bandages on their legs, and both confessions are interrupted by dustin. Also both Steve/mike use the terms “crazy & stupid ” to confess to robin/el. But unlike Will who agrees to be “crazy “ with mike .El confused , asks “ what makes you crazy?” And robin says she didn’t have a crush on his “stupid hair”. el even says in reference to mike “there’s more to life than stupid boys.” Showing how el/robin don’t have romantic feelings for the boys-like the flo phrase of s1. Unlike Will who after fighting with mike calls himself “stupid” over and over and rips up the photo of him and mike where they promised to go “crazy together.” Even Steve says in s2 stancy should should “pretend to be stupid teenagers” in love. Emphasis on “pretend”. And when el says she loves mike “the first I love you” plays -the only other time that song plays in s3 is when robin rejects Steve (cause she’s gay.) cough cause mike is gay too.

There’s a lot more in each season (that illustrates mileven was built up -but not as a positive couple but a problematic one that was never was in love to begin with ). But I’m trying to keep this short . You can read this post here where I go in more depth about all of this .

S1-2 builds up the problematic ships (but showed good and bad aspects of their dynamic) . like the spying of jancy, lumax, and mileven or the jealousy. of Hopper in s2. In the s2 finalie they have them kiss or hug/exchange romantic glances. And in S3 we see the after math of this with all the couples officially dating - and they show all the couples issues at the forefront . I already talked about mileven. But, Lumax broke up 6 times (they dated for 6 months- and every month they dated max dumped him ). Jancy fight in the opening of ep 1 and don’t understand each others issues (sexism/poverty-and Jon’s issues with his dad) . And neither supports the other in their passions of journalism & photography.Nancy is also called “nancy drew” who in 1986 (year of s4) before going to college dumps her long term highschool bf (who helped her in many of her past mysteries/novels ). Their relationship was also shown as complex and somewhat dysfunctional because of both parties -before nancy drew dumps him. And (even if not dating like the other pairings) jopper almost go on a date in s3. Joyce was trying to hide the fact she was moving, Hopper was horribly jealous, and all they did was yell and argue.Murray says to joyce regarding hopper “he’s a brute... probably reminds you of a bad relationship” (aka lonnie/Joyce) . They even have Joyce watch a cheers ep- which directly compares jopper to (dianne/Frasier) who weren’t endgame in cheers but a rebound . Hopper /fraiser both drink chianti . Fraiser asks dianne to marry him/Hopper asks Joyce on a date-both women stand them up. Or when Joyce asks Hopper out she calls her self ‘detective byers ‘and Hopper name drops miami vice. Which had an on and off again relationship for several seasons- of the male /female detectives.The relationship faded out as Gina realized they mainly got together when one or both needed someone. Crockett was very protective of Gina, and had some jealousy when Gina was involved in relationships , but was the first one to be there for her when things went wrong. And they realized it was better to not be together romantically. Heck seems like all these couples have negative film/tv parallels... lucas in s2 mentions not liking winston in ghost busters cause he came ‘super late’ (like Max). in s1 disses michael myers (which Max dressed as). And at the end of s3- lumax dress identically to eric/donna from a ep of that 70s shows (in the ep eric/donna were broken up).

(s3 was marketed as the “summer of love” and “summer love” is a euphemism for flings that don’t last.) s4-5 Will probably show good healthy ships/break up the problematic ones from past seasons .

So first 2 seasons focus on the unhealthy ships / and the last 2 seasons focus on healthy ships. S3 the middle season would be considered the turning point -and why none of the popular ships (assumed to be endgame) came off looking that great (compared to how they were presented in s1-2) .

#byler #anti mileven #byeler #stranger things

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doyelikehaggis · 3 years ago

Note

it’s time for the dreaded s6 finale emotions

*strong regret in projecting onto ryan as much as i do because this episode h u r t s*

tyler being the one to invite ryan along?? g a e

“can’t send a man to his doom without getting drunk first” he’s trying so hard to fit in. poor bastard. and not calling the others out for excluding him? you can just tell he’s trying so hard not to ruin it for everyone, and nobody even gives a shit. and then of course he eventually snaps, he’s just spent over an hour having to watch everyone have a great time and forget about him, and then alex suddenly expects him to have bought mike a gift, and they fucking tell him to stop being so selfish and god those fucking assholes

god the conversation where may-li tells charlie about her grandad. it’s so beautifully acted, emily burnett sells the denial perfectly, it just,, ow

this episode is hard to watch when you have really strong empathy and project onto both ryan and charlie. h e l p

wow charlie really just delivered a baby in a car in the middle of the woods huh. i keep forgetting how absolutely badass that is

you know what absolutely kills me is the vague suicide subtext to ryan running away. take that goddamn phone conversation out of context and that’s what it is and that’s the worst part of all of this. and chloe saying that he’s left a note and that “i think he’s really gone for good”. o u c h

the fact that NOBODY EVEN NOTICES RYAN’S GONE EXCEPT MIKE AND CHLOE. even tyler doesn’t fucking notice. and then everyone cares more that mike’s gone to find him than that ryan even left in the first place. but we’re not meant to think about that because tracy’s here and everything’s absolutely fine right. this episode is murdering me can you tell

lily complaining about men on that facebook post. bit fruity of her, i must say *‘a day in the past’ flashbacks*

i havent watched my mum tracy beaker yet but i really need answers on how it fits timeline-wise into the tsotb/tbr/tdg canon

the fact that chloe isn’t even wrong when she says everyone would hate ryan even more if they found out mike isn’t there ‘because of him’ (read: because he quite literally had a breakdown and ran away and mike, being the only decent person in this goddamn show, went after him)

ah yes tracy, care worker of the year, really just said ‘your problems don’t fucking matter, forget that anything’s wrong because mike is getting married’. i love tracy but wow that is not the thing you say in this circumstance and the only reason it worked was because he felt bad about the cake and whatnot

this episode has such an all over the place tone. they really just went from mike freaking out to fiona figuring out he’s gone to a damn slo-mo shot of tracy and mike on a bike while ryan sprints behind them.

oh my god i forgot bailey was in this episode!! i hate him (affectionate)

this goddamn episode is so full of emotions i almost threw up oops. anyway it absolutely kills me that ryan looks like he’s about to cry pretty much the entire time. that poor kid. and then chloe really just pulls a tee and apparently loses all empathy towards him huh. love chloe but wow

i don’t think we get a chance to read what ryan wrote in that note? but i kinda wish we did. could’ve given some extra insight into everything

i have no idea if any of this is coherent, or how much of it is an actual analysis and how much is me projecting but oh well, this episode(s) is a fucking emotional trainwreck, what can you do

Oh god. I'm not prepared.

*valid regret to have, that sad queer kid with anger issues and insecurities experience hurts real bad*

Yes!! Once again proving that Tyler is the only one in the DG who actually cared about Ryan and wanted to be around him. He was pissed at Alex for not inviting Ryan like he was initally supposed to, and then took it upon himself to make Ryan feel included anyway.

That scene really pisses me off, because Alex really is going after him. You can tell, he won't let Ryan make a single joke without trying to be snarky about it, and then he purposefully tries to humiliate Ryan because he knows that Ryan couldn't possibly have known to bring a gift.

Oh yeah, I can barely ever rewatch the first part of the wedding for all of these reasons, but especially for Charlie finding out about her grandad. Emily really is way too good of an actor, that's why it's so painful.

I relate way too much to the strong empathy and projection, that shit hurts so bad.

Yeah!! Charlie did that!! Honestly, credit to her because I would not have been as calm as she was on a normal day if I had to deliver a baby in a car in the middle of nowhere, never mind after everything she had been through that day.

Okay, so you found a way to make Ryan's whole storyline of those episodes hurt way more than it already did. Thanks for that. But you are right, it does have that vague subtext to it. If this wasn't a children's show, I would've actually been worried that's where they were going to go with his storyline.

It does suck that nobody really noticed or cared that Ryan wasn't there. I wish even Tyler had shown a bit more concern, but I suppose they've only got enough time in an episode for so much.

That was definitely one of Lily's fruitiest moments, and that's saying a lot because of the aforementioned "a day in the past" flashbacks. Honestly, all of her scenes with Carmen and some with Tee are always fruity, there's nothing else to it.

Okay, so, I can kind of answer that one. My Mum Tracy Beaker definitely carries on from The Story of Tracy Beaker since it involves clips of it when Tracy sees Justine. However, it's only really connected to tbr/tdg canon through vague hints. Like, Tracy has a published book called "Who Cares?" and there's a mention of her being an ex careworker, and she wears a "T" necklace but it's slightly different from the one that she wears in the wedding episode. So, we know there are subtle references to TBR through these background details that are really just glossed over. There is a weird little moment when Tracy's daughter tells Justine that Tracy wrote a book, but Justine should already know that considering it was a big part of their reunion in Tracy Beaker Returns. At best, we can at least assume that everything that happened in TBR is canon for My Mum Tracy Beaker. I feel like, if we want to be able to make the timeline for the wedding add up with My Mum Tracy Beaker, we'd have to assume that Tracy hadn't already had Jess during the wedding. Since the wedding takes place around 2018, and Jess is 10, My Mum Tracy Beaker would have to be set in 2028 at the very least, and that would have to mean that Tracy had Jess the same year as the wedding. Either that, or she did already have Jess but just... never mentioned her because she was staying with Cam.

It really does kill me that Chloe was right about that, because you'd think at least some of them would have some sort of sympathy for Ryan. I wish Tyler did. Honestly, he had a genuine breakdown and ran away, and no one cared except Mike. Great family they are.

Yeah, that was not Tracy's best moment, but... that's just Tracy. She doesn't think, she acts on what she believes to be the best solution in that very moment. She was never exactly an aware winning care worker in all fairness skjdashd but Ryan definitely needed to hear something other than that.

I could barely be sad or stress during that episode specifically because of how chaotic it was, and ESPECIALLY because of that slow-mo that had no right being so damn hilarious.

SHFKDASJDLK "I hate him (affectionate)" well at least I'm glad the (affectionate) is there lmao. But I was screaming when I realized Baily (and Liam) were there, I was so happy!!

Oh yeah, Ryan looked so upset, he was absolutely blaming himself so badly. There was no need for Chloe to come in there "wish you'd run away for real" like fuck off. I love her. But fuck off.

I don't recall actually seeing the contents of the note now that you mention it.

Yeah, don't worry, I'm not sure most of my reply to it is coherent either. But those are episodes are some of the most fun to analyse because Drama and Angst.

#ds-umbrella-manufacturing-co #ask away earthlings!#tdg #the dumping ground #long post #ryan reeves #tyler x ryan #alex walker #charlie morris #lily kettle #my mum tracy beaker #tracy beaker returns #tracy beaker #bailey wharton

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itsonlystrange · 4 years ago

Text

First off, I am not sending hate to any Mileven shipper. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I will only be providing actual facts and evidence, and hopefully will be staying relatively unbiased. As always, this is a PRO-BYLER account. If you do not ship Byler you do not have to read all the way through :).

This will be a 2 part series. The first part will address MILEVEN and how they will not be endgame. The second part will address the likely hood of BYLER being endgame.

So, I’ve been sucked into the Mileven side of Instagram after liking ONE Mileven edit, which is besides the point. Recently I’ve noticed a lot of people say that “They were love at first sight!” Or that “Why would they break up now if they’ve had 3 seasons of development?!” So I’m going to go ahead and supply you all with:

MILEVEN VS BYLER.

PART ONE (MILEVEN)

To start off with the first statement, “They were love at first sight!”

May I remind you how utterly mortified Mike was when he found Eleven. As any 12 year old boy would be. He did not give her any form of “heart eyes”. He looked genuinely scared. He took her home as a courtesy, not because he was “madly in love with her!”. Obviously not everyone would take home a random 12 year old bald girl, but El being taken to the Wheelers was not meant to be seen as a romantic gesture, it was literally just a plot device for the Kids to figure out she had powers.

May I also remind you that Mike wanted to get rid of her. He stated multiple times that she was just a weapon, and a device to find Will. He only let her stay BECAUSE she knew who Will was. He was fully ready to let her go, and send her back to wherever she came from. In the end of it all, he only cared about Will and finding Will. El was simply used as a device to find him. Obviously, now, I do think Mike cares about El. But not in a romantic way, more so a “cute puppy way”. I think he loves her, but that he’s not IN LOVE with her, romantically.

The show has shown constantly how horribly they work together. El’s most confident and prideful moments were when she was AWAY from Mike. Mike’s most loyal and selfless moments was when he was AWAY from El. They do not compliment eachother like that.

Second of all, they have nothing in common. In season one when Mike was explaining his figurines to El, she looked genuinely disinterested. Now some may say that this could be because she didn’t quite understand what she liked back then, which just further proves that she shouldn’t be in a relationship! If she can’t decide if she likes a dinosaur toy or not, how is she supposed to decide if she likes Mike! And we also know that she did have the ability to differentiate between things she liked as she seemed genuinely interested in Nancy’s clothes and photos. The only thing they have in common is shared trauma! Notice how all the other couples share something:

JANCY: love for writing and adventuring

LUMAX: both are comical and enjoy the cinema and the outdoors

DUZIE: science

Along with most of the other couples. But what does Mileven have In common? Can anyone please name ONE good memory between the two when they weren’t in danger. All the “good memories” they have are from when the world was ending.

If you said “Oh, but they make out a lot!” That’s not a ‘good memory’, hell, that’s hardly memorable at at all. Hoppper, Will, and Lucas even admit that for those 6 months in between season 2 and season 3, all they did was make out. That is not love, that is infatuation. Infatuation is a strong desire for someone, mainly romantic, that focuses on the physical aspects of their relationship rather than the emotional. Love is a deep rooted feeling. You do not need to make out all the time to be in love. Love is emotional, of course it can be physical, but you need that strong feeling before any physical aspect of love can be genuine.

Mileven have nothing in common. It’s very clear that Mike is still into D&D and is a nerd. Especially as he might be in the Hellfire Club next season (a D&D club) and also because we’ve seen that D&D is going to be a big aspect of season 4, meaning he’ll most likely be infatuated with it again. It’s obvious that El needs to figure herself out first. She needs to develop into her own human being. She’s still learning. She’s into poppy colors and magazines and makeup (which is great!), but even on a more basic level, they still share nothing in common. Mike is a nerd, we have established that. And notice how in s3 (when he was with El) he felt the least like himself. He acted so out of character. He didn’t use weird Star Wars analogies or gush about the new movie coming out like previous seasons. Now of course one could say that he’s growing up, but we see that he is genuinely still a nerd as when he’s in time of crisis he goes back to those analogies. He goes back to gushing about the new toys he’s getting at Christmas, he goes back to being a nerd. It’s almost as if he’s wearing this mask, and at the end of s3 he forgets to put it on. And then El kisses him, and he realizes that he didn’t enjoy that. So we know for a fact that he is very much still into D&D and those other shenanigans atleast to an extent, considering how happy he was to hear that Will wasnt giving up the party or D&D. Shouldn’t Mike be with someone who is atleast a little similar to him? Regardless of his sexuality, shouldn’t he be with someone that allows him to be his true self? He was incredibly Cocky and arrogant in season 3, almost like he had to be a “man” for El, and in his mind, being a ‘man’ was giving up all of the things he loved, and only kissing El, almost as if she was an object he had to obtain more than an actual human. Which Max agrees with! He treats her more so of a mask he has to wear to cover his true self. Shouldn’t el be with someone who likes the same thing she does? But then again, what does el like?! Exactly! She needs to figure out who she is before she dates anyone. She didn’t even know what shirt she would like to wear!

Now I just find this silly. Development? Really? Okay let me show you their “development”

SEASON ONE: El could only speak 4 or 5 words. They had essentially zero romantic interactions besides the kiss at the end. If El and Mike never kissed (excluding the time they almost kissed in the bathroom), people would most likely only see them as a friendship. Let’s flip the tables a bit. If El was a boy and Mike and El never kissed, this would further prove that they don’t have any romantic tension. Lucas says it the best: “You only like her because she’s the only girl who isn’t grossed out by you!” Which I agree with completely. It’s more of an infatuation. Mike is infatuated with the idea of finally having a girlfriend. Because he knows something is wrong inside him and wants to ‘fix it’ by dating a girl, as if suddenly his sexuality identity issues would disappear. El doesn’t know anything about Mike, and to El, Mike is a hero. To El, Mike is fearless warrior. And Mike knows that isn’t true. But with el, it gave him the chance to start fresh. It gave him the chance to start and become a different person. He puts on his persona of being “strong” and being able to stand up for himself, yet in the end, it’s El who does the saving. The reason he ‘likes’ El so much is because she isn’t disgusted by him. But mike is afraid that if he shows his true self, El wouldn’t like him anymore, and he’d lose that mask. And without a girl to cling to, he’d finally have to confront his sexuality. Which is why we never see Mike being his true self around El. In every single season, he is this false person. He’s wearing a facade, to keep up with these lies. Because he fears that If El knew how nerdy he really was, she’d be uninterested, and he ‘can’t lose her’ because he knows that El is most likely the only girl who will never be grossed out by him. Because all the other girls in this town know who he is. That nerdy guy from the AV club. And he needs a girlfriend. He feels safe that way. Because if he doesn’t have a distraction from his sexuality then he might take an extra step on accident and accidently act on those feelings

Ep 1: making out

Ep2: breaking up

Ep 3-6: fighting

Ep 7: neutral

Ep 8 ½ : neutral

Very end of ep 8: together?

How is that romantic? So from what we know, Mileven got a kiss in season 1, a kiss in season 2, 2 make out sessions, and then they fought. HOW IS THAT A GOOD RELATIONSHIP?

90% of their relationship throughout all 3 seasons has been kissing and fighting. That’s literally it. Not once have we seen them just hanging out and talking. Not once have we seen them go on dates. And as Hopper, Lucas, and Will put: that’s all they do! The Duffer’s purposefully put that line in to show that, it’s really all they did for those 6 months. There was no emotion to that. Just kissing. That’s it. Kissing and fighting is all Mileven has been. And honestly they would have been pretty cute in season 3 if the Duffer’s hadn’t messed it up. But the duffers aren’t stupid! They did this on purpose! Because they wanted us to disagree with Mileven. They wanted us to find it obnoxious. Because they know that they don’t have chemistry! Finn and Millie are brilliant actors and could have definitely pulled that off, meaning the Duffers had to have specifically said to “not act in love”. Mileven is a summer fling, Finn said so himself. They are their true selves when they are apart, and when they are together romantically, they stunt each other’s growth. They’re way better as bestfriends. El needs to figure herself out before she can date anyone.

Thank you for reading part one! Part two will be up soon, and will follow why I believe Byler will be end game!

Heavy inspiration from @kaypeace21 & @hawkinsschoolcounselor

#stranger things 4 #stranger things #byler #byler rights #byler theory #stranger things theory #anti mileven #byler is endgame #st4

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sergeant-donny-donowitz · 4 years ago

Text

The Confession: Cliff Booth x Fem!Reader

Requested by @lababy2727

TW: abusive ex

@tealaquinn @frozenhuntress67 @juxt4p0siti0n @kwyloz

@what-the--curtains @taikawho

*Let me know if you wanna be added to the taglist! :)))

******************** "Well, shit Cliff..." Rick chuckled, leaning against the car door as they drove down the highway after a long day on set. Cliff grunted, though, he couldn't hide a smirk. "You're a damn lucky man, partner." He couldn't forget you. It was your first big role in a Hollywood film. You walked on set, absolutely star struck, though you kept your cool. You wore a bright yellow dress, and a kind smile. You were an actress working on a movie with Rick, and Cliff. You and Rick had to kiss in one scene, and of course you were both professional about it. "It's only acting," Rick laughed a little. It had only been a few days since filming began, but the three of you had hit it off. More specifically, you and Cliff hit it off... And Rick was having a lot of fun pointing out every single chance he got.

Cliff rolled his eyes behind his shades, as he pulled into the driveway. The two made their way into Rick's place to watch Bounty Law, and drink a couple of beers.

"How'd you know?" "Kn-know? Know what?" RIck smirked, knowing damn well what he knew. Cliff grumbled, "Forget it." Rick chuckled, "Whenever Y/n gets you goin', you run off." "I don't run off." "Today sh-she made you laugh too m-much, and you t-told her you had to go b-back to your trailer." "So?" "Cliff, you don't h-have a trailer." "..." Rick went on, "Y/n's a smart kid. She sure as hell knows that." Cliff sighed, "Well shit...She don't know that." "N-no she knows." "Well shit." Cliff shrugged, pretending not to care...but he absolutely did. "Sh-she knows why you said t-that." Rick smirked, though Cliff shook his head, "Y/N's just sweet. That's all."

"Sure. That's all. That's why y-you mentioned her out of the b-blue, huh?" Rick laughed as he popped the cap off another beer. "She might just be worth mentioning," Cliff smirked a little as he opened a beer, and put his feet up. There was a knock on the door, and Rick got up. "Glad you feel that way." Cliff narrowed his eyes, knowing Rick never mentioned anyone else joining them. He opened the door, "Y/n!" Rick greeted you with a bear hug and led you into the livingroom. "Glad you could make it! I was just about to make some margaritas. Y-You want one?" You giggled, not because of your slightly-intoxicated friend, but because you caught a glimpse of Cliff scrambling ot his feet. "Sure thing, Rick." "Alright, you g-go on n' get y-yourself a seat, kid." He winked, noting your reaction at seeing Cliff. You bit your lip, and glanced down as you stammered a little, "C'mon, now Rick." He lit a cigarette with a laugh, "Margaritas' gon' ta-take a while, make yourselves comfortable." He disappeared into the kitchen, and you called out, "Nothing's gonna-" You bumped into Cliff. "Y/n!" "Cliff!" You laughed nervously, but sincerely. You didn't expect him to be there, but you weren't complaining. It was a fun night, with just the three of you... Well...Rick kept coming up with excuses to leave the room, and you didn't quite realize why. Looking back on it...it wasn't much of a mystery. So, a couple nights a week, you'd join Cliff and Rick to watch Bounty Law. Sometimes you'd hang out other days and watch other show. Maybe the Saint, or the Time Tunnel. Whatever was on. Margaritas, Bloody Mary's, beer and cigarettes became a familair sight. Cliff became less standoffish. He stopped running off to his imaginary trailer. You made him laugh and smile like he hadn't done in as long as he could remember. Eventually, you started seeing each other (without Rick around...and he might have been the happiest person in the world when he heard that). Some nights you and Cliff met at Musso & Frank's. Some nights you went by the Santa Monica Pier. Some nights, even if you'd planned to go out on the town, you'd both just stay at your place, make dinner together, or hang around. Months passed, and you were with Cliff and Rick, watching another episode of Bounty Law, when you saw a trailer for your new movie. Clinking margaritas and bloody mary's you celebrated that night. Still, it meant your time working together was coming to an end. Rick sighed with a shrug, "That's Hollywood. Meet nice people, move around, a-and meet more nice p-people." You nodded, though you were just starting your career out, you quickly learned that. You mentioned in passing that you'd landed a part in another movie. You'd start filming in Hawaii in a few days. It'd be a while before you could find the time to watch Bounty Law with them...or do anything with Cliff. Rick asked, "B-but you'll be at th-the wrap up party, tomorrow night, won't you?" You sighed, thinking about it. You really wanted to go, having met so many wonderful people on set....specifically Cliff and Rick. But it was the night you were flying to Hawaii. Still... "Maybe for an hour or two. Don't get your hopes up, boys." You smiled, glancing at Cliff, as you stood by the door. "Bye, darlin'." Rick hugged you, just in case you couldn't go. "Bye, Rick." He chuckled, then glanced between you and Cliff, finding an excuse to leave you alone again. "Y/n..." "Yeah, Cliff?" You waited with a soft smile, and it made him blush...which was not an easy thing to do. Yet you did it so effortlessly. Before he could say anything, you both heard a loud crash somewhere in the house, followed by Rick cursing. Cliff sighed, knowing he'd have to fix whatever it was eventually. He laughed a little, resting his hand against your face, "Good luck out there, kid." You smirked, "I'll bring you back a Hawaiian shirt or two." He laughed again, and his glance lingered on you. "If you can't go tomorrow...I mean..." "Aw, Cliff..." You flung your arms around him, "I'm gonna miss you." He hugged you back, resting his chin on the top of your head, "I'm gon' miss you too..." You left, though you knew there was more on his mind. You also knew that with Cliff, you couldn't push him to say things when he wasn't ready to. He stood by the doorway, as you pulled out of the driveway and drove down the hill lined with houses. He jumped a little when he heard a voice behind him. "You love her." He shut the door, and turned to Rick, who had a smug grin on his face. "She's young, Rick. Big up and coming star. She don't need me." "You're too old for this 'i-if you love her l-let her go' shit, man." "Forget it, man." Cliff shook his head, put his shades on, and his denim jacket, and grabbed his keys. Brandy was definitely hungry, after all. Rick muttered, "Goddamn it." having worked so hard to bring you and Cliff together, and it ended just like that... The next night, you drove down the highway. You sighed with a soft smile, seeing as you had an hour or two to spare. You pulled up to the big mansion, hearing blaring music, and seeing bright colorful lights from the street. You left your luggage in the trunk. You'd only be around for an hour or two, then make your way to the airport. It wasn't long before you spotted Cliff, wearing a bright yellow Hawaiian shirt. "Cliff!" He picked your voice out among the crowd, quickly turning around, with the widest grin you'd seen in your life, as he practically rushed toward you with open arms, "Y/n!" You were only beginning to talk, swaying with the music together, loosely, making each other laugh. "Y/N." You both heard a loud, agressive, drunken voice stagger through the crowd. You muttered, "For fuck's sake." His name was Mike. He was your ex. And he was not happy. He pulled you away from Cliff, gripping you by your forearm. "What the fuck did I tell you about-" Cliff stepped in immediately between you and Mike, with a warning and low voice, "Hey man. Leave her alone." He barely looked at Cliff, "Stay out of this, pal," then looked back at you with glaring, fuming eyes. "We're through, Mike. We've been through for months. Get that through your fat fucking head." He scowled, and lunged at you, but Cliff gragged him by his shirt, slamming him onto the concrete, as people gathered around. Some beginning to pull Cliff away, while others dragged Mike out of the property. As soon as he was out, everyone let Cliff go. He could have broken every bone in Mike's body, but he didn't want to scare you, he didn't want blood on his favorite shirt, and frankly... a drunken asshole of a stuntman like Mike wasn't worth a night in jail. The crowd slowly dissipated, moving toward the bar, the pool, and the music. "Cliff..." He looked at you with a soft expression. You picked his shades up from the ground, though they were broken. You ran into his arms, and he said, "I'm sorry, Y/n. I didn't think-" "No, no you-" He looked at you. Your eyes... He couldn't keep lying to you. So he said what he'd wanted to say from the moment he met you on set. Even if you went on to be a big star, if you moved on, if you forgot about him, he'd never forgive himself for not letting you know this one thing. "I love you." You looked up at him, knowing it was almost time for you to go. You hadn't even left yet, and you missed him already. "I love you, too." He smiled, "You know where to find me." "Friday night, at Rick's." It may take a few months till filming wrapped up, but you'd be there. "I'll bring some beer," you laughed, as he walked with you to your car. He ended up driving you to the airport himself, just for a half hour more with you. You kissed goodbye, and you remarked, "Save one of those margarita's for me?"

He winked with a grin, "You got it, baby."

#Cliff Booth #cliff booth x reader #rick dalton #Once Upon A Time In Hollywood #OUATIH #ouatih imagine #cliff booth imagine

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