#and no i'm still not over mike and eleven extreme chaos edit

[gayofthefae]

Another hard truth of the matter for arguers is: if they wanted to write an endgame ship, they wouldn't have made it so easy for their build up to confession towards El to be confusable with buildup to confession towards Will.

You and your girlfriend are having trouble and you keep telling your best friend how you wish you had told her you love her and you don't know why you can't? That is not clear enough for me to be rooting for you to "tell her the truth".

As Pink Podcast recently said about Francesca Bridgerton before she met John, I want to root for you to get what you want but I can't do that if I don't know what you want.

They didn't tell us what we wanted, leaving us to split off in our guesses based on his ambiguous words - which they could have made less ambiguous. Half of us split in the direction of his strange behavior towards Will being over-correction, half split in the direction of the last thing we saw in his point of view behind him happy in his relationship with El.

But if they were making Mike and El endgame, they wouldn't have constructed that split off at all. The only reason to encourage confusion is to get people to both jump ship and be surprised when it comes. They have no reason to disguise whether Mike and El will stay together unless they are playing Will as an option, which he wouldn't be unless Mike is queer, which wouldn't make sense for his storyline unless....

Plus, they already have their "Team X" "Team Y" marketing quota filled. They haven't been using that for marketing, so why split opinions then not use it? Because the more you poke the bear, the more passionate people get, which only works for characters whose relationships aren't the center of their arcs like Nancy, Steve, and Jonathan. And they want you to be as calm and open minded as possible, with no fear of "I told you so"s so you can be fully onboard when it happens.

They made you root for what Mike wants but didn't tell you what that was for 8.5 of 9 episodes, only having Mike present a question with no indication of whether the answer was of the ONLY two options: "if I loved you less maybe I could talk about it more" or "I don't love you anymore"(which has other implications when you consider Will's plot), and only providing payoff for people who had vaguely guessed that the answer of reasoning and what he wanted - which they chose to convey HE didn't even know until late in the game - was vaguely "El", but they still didn't know the details enough to root for him to confess the "truth" because they still didn't know what that was and so were happy because the characters said they were happy but not invested as it was happening because they couldn't empathize enough to predict the next word with the characters or read the subtext.

They did some weird shit to make even the die-hards be invested in only the rewatch because they couldn't predict the reasoning even if they predicted the outcome and made a a large portion of people become indifferent to the relationship, with an even larger group actively rooting for him to be with someone else. They did some weird shit. And it ended up exactly how they wanted to.

The only people left invested are the people who nothing could have swayed. Everyone else is indifferent, "Team Will", or a combination of indifferent and hopeful for Will that makes them obliviously "Team Will". They did some weird shit and they did it on purpose.

[gayofthefae]

Something about Mike in season 3 just mirroring the straight people around him in both Lucas and El with of course, the whole thing with Lucas, but also like "I wish I was still with you" being met with a short, quick, monotone "I know. Me too."

"Diddo. What you said. Yup. That."

That whole line, really. "I wish you were still here and we were still kissing" being met with not just that flat, almost urgent, delivery, but to say in response "Yup. See you to tomorrow" and then go over and out.

"I know. Me too. But I'll see you tomorrow, alright? First thing."

"Totally. I'm feeling all the feelings I'm supposed to feel too. Don't worry about asking me back or talking too long though because remember I'll be there tomorrow anyways so bye!! Gotta get to a date!"

Just rewatching that scene and the pacing juxtaposed straight through like that really makes me go "oh honey...". Because it really is ":))) I wish I was still with you......<3" "YEAH. ME TOO. BUTI'LLSEEYOUTOMORROWALRIGHT? FIRST THING." ":))).....Tomorrow <33333 XDDDDD....<3". Like even the way they keep the camera on her lingering and smiling and listening but cut away from the him the second he's done talking.

The way she waits for his response to "wish I was still with you" too reminds me of the scene in Sex Education (A SCENE THEY COMPARED MILKVAN TO THEMSELVES IN THE MIKE AND ELEVEN EXTREME CHAOS EDIT BTW!!) where Ruby tells Otis she loves him over the phone and has a cute anticipatory smile on her face and he says "that's nice" and hangs up. (Sex Ed spoilers but this couple btw BREAKS! UP!)