#anti Max Mayfield

[yuiyuuji]

And you know what? Fuck Max? What the hell was that?! She wanted something to happen to Billy? Holy fuck.

[el1ieez]

What do you mean billy can't call his boyfriend durring the middle of the night!!!!

[jackietaylorapologist]

gay couple and their bisexual friends

[love-byers]

something interesting....

the point of the running up that hill scene in Dear Billy is not just max remembering she is loved, it's her remembering the love she has for others. remembering the happiness she feels when she's with them.

it wasn't lucas's love for max that saved her, it was max's love for lucas. if she didn't love lucas, those memories wouldn't have saved her. the love and happiness wasn't handed to her by lucas, it already existed inside of her.

when, if you don't recall, THEY WEREN'T EVEN DATING.

during mike's monologue, his words should be evoking el's love for him. her memories of him. but nothing comes to her except when they met in the forest, because that's the only thing he says that's based in reality.

and, if el really loved mike, HE WOULDNT HAVE NEEDED TO SAY ANYTHING IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!! her love for him, the happiness he brings her would've been enough, requited or not, just like max.

for example, will believes mike does not share his feelings. but it doesn't matter. mike is still the light of his life, mike still gives him strength and makes him happiest. that's because his love for mike is strong on its own.

he doesn't need mike to spell everything out for him, because they have a genuine connection. a connection that doesn't require words to enjoy and understand. i didn't say it. you didn't have to.

i talk a lot about mike not being in love with el, but el is DEFINITELY not in love with mike. and i don't think she ever was.

[will80sbyers]

They all find their lovers vs. El (saves) finds herself

[lumaxramblings]

[harringroveera]

Can’t believe you stole Max’s thunder, Billy

[stervrucht]

Has anyone seen the Stranger Things VR game? There's some pretty telling stuff in there. Not sure if it's considered canon, but interesting they chose this narrative after season 4.

Just on all levels, it seems like Max understands El so much more than Mike does. Mike idolizes her, but he doesn't see the real her. Not like Max does.

You can feel it in every scene, how stark the contrast is in the dept of the affection Max shares with El compared to Mike.

If they want to rescue Mileven, they'll need to do some serious damage control at this point. But to be honest, I'd prefer it if they allowed her some character development on her own.

[samgelina-jolie]

Stranger things + headlines (6/?)

[human-ithink-yt]

the vines tightening around el’s neck when mike says “I love you” is actually insane

and then she looks at max, who she knows loves her for her (and you can take that as romantic or platonic, idc), and suddenly she is able to fight back

[pareiwheeler]

people will ask why lumax isnt more popular than mileven, learn the answer is racism and sexism, and pretend they never asked

[authorgirl0131]

I just realized something.

Steve Harrington is older than Billy by at least a year.

That makes the situation from season two seem so much worse.

So, his thirteen-year-old sister goes missing, snuck out of her room and no one knows where she is. He has to go from one house to another like a pinball- and at one of those houses, a woman in her forties is clearly into him, a minor, but we won't get into that now other than that probably puts him on one hell of an edge- to this house that looks abandoned in the middle of the woods. He can see his sister in the window, briefly.

And then a senior steps out. Steve is a senior in high school, older than Billy, maybe even eighteen, and he has a past of being a playboy. Then, when Billy asks if Steve has seen his sister, knowing damn well she's in the house, Steve lies. And keeps lying.

Alarm bells intensify.

All he does is put Steve on the ground before he walks in. The house is a wreck, there's no actual adult in sight (if Joyce or Jim had been there, he probably would have cooled down. Jim would still raise alarm bells, but he's an actual adult, a parent, so he's better than King Steve Harrington,) and Max, who is thirteen, is the only girl in the house.

His thirteen-year-old sister went missing and he found her- needing to look for kids he knew she hung out with- in a decrepit house- home to Jonathan Byers, who still has a reputation as a creep and Billy isn't sure how deserved that reputation is- in the middle of the woods at night with a group of guys and a man older than Billy who has a playboy rep and who lied about her being there and actively tried to keep Billy from going inside.

Billy doesn't know what's going on. That's the situation he walks into.

Can you imagine? I would have freaked out, too.

Because he's a teenager from California, he knows that this situation is all kinds of suspicious. He knows that Max is a child in a situation with a billion red flags she may not be old enough to see. But he sees them. He sees that she's been out for gods know how long and no one knows where she is. He knows that this house looks like a drug house or an abandoned house from the outside and that there's clearly something incredibly weird happening in this house. He knows that King Steve is an adult who lied to him and tried to keep him from getting inside to talk to his sister. And that his very young sister is the only girl in the house.

All upside-down context removed, that's a horrifying situation.

[shieldofiron]

I’m fine I didn’t just imagine Billy walking Max down the aisle to Lucas. And they’re all healed. They’re all ok. I’m fine!!

[love-byers]

the first time i saw this, when i was NOT a byler shipper, i thought el was running TO mike. i thought we were getting a sweet moment where el runs to mike and he puts an arm around her or hugs her.

then i realized she was running away from him. 

and i was like, why?? they're supposed to be the couple why does she not want his comfort??

and even after will calls her out on doing mike wrong by lying to him, even after she sees that mike is attempting to talk to her and comfort her, that he's not angry at her, she still tells angela to lie to mike. more lies. that's how much she cares about keeping up the persona. had angela lied to mike, el would've continued lying to him the entire week. something she knows in her heart is wrong and not fair to mike.

this is a theme in s4. putting who you want to be seen as before being honest with your bf/gf. going above and beyond to preserve your lie, to be seen as who you want to be.

chrissy does that with jason. who she portrays herself as is completely different than who she really is and what she's really going through. jason has absolutely no idea chrissy is struggling and refused to believe chrissy would buy drugs, because chrissy didn't want to tell him. who knows how jason would've reacted if chrissy was honest, we don't know because chrissy didn't trust him enough to tell him. that's not love at all, that's sad.

this is a point in s2 as well. murray calls nancy out for being afraid to be her true self, and she stays with steve because she doesn't have to be her true self around him. she is her true self when she's with jonathan, and that's why they worked together. that's love.

the exact same thing happens with chrissy. the first time we see her genuinely smile is when she's with eddie. she's sweet and charismatic, and had she lived she totally would've gone to eddie's show, something you never would've expected from her, something her boyfriend, the person she pretends to love, would NEVER do.

robin and steve reinforce this too

you fall in love with the person who makes you feel accepted, the person who makes you feel like you can be who you are. the person you trust with your true self.

mike and el don't trust each other enough, they don't understand each other well enough.

they would have to change their behavior towards each other by leaps and bounds, and we're already at the last season. there is no time for that. stranger things isn't a multi season show about the complexity of romantic relationships and the healthy way to resolve problems. there is no time for that in just about any movie or show, especially a sci-fi show. you know what's way easier and way more likable? pairing your character with someone they naturally click with, who bring out the best in each other and for some reason can't help but be their authentic selves when they're with each other.

did it with jancy, like i said earlier

did it with lumax. when lucas and max talked on the bus max found herself spewing about things she'd never even said out loud before, and she had to stop herself. something about lucas just made her feel comfortable, like she could be herself and tell the truth. she trusted him.

"You're nothing like your brother, okay? You're cool and different, you're super smart, and you're like, totally tubular."

jopper too! joyce constantly had to hide things from bob, she was insecure about their family not being normal.

"This is not a normal family."

"It could be."

though bob had good intentions, the message of the show is not trying to be normal when you aren't. whatever it is about you that makes you weird or different, whatever you've been through that changed you, stay true to it. dont bottle it up and try to be someone else. all of vecnas victims in s4 were doing this, and it didn't end well for them.

they even did it with dustin and suzie. dustin constantly tries to impress max with his teeth, then in season 3 he says suzie thinks kissing is better without teeth. he doesn't have to be insecure about that or try to impress her. she likes him for him.

mike isn't comfortable being his true self around el either. he's insecure about his interests, he feels like he has to act older and cooler to impress her.

you shouldn't be with the person you feel you have to impress. you should be with the person who relieves that pressure, who makes you feel like being the authentic you is enough.

jonathan and nancy, lucas and max, joyce and hopper, dustin and suzie,

cough WILL AND MIKE cough...

[will80sbyers]

this game is soooo ANTI MILEVEN!!!!!!! WHAT HAVE WE BEEN SAYING!!!!!!

[lorax-devito]

I feel like we don’t talk about there’s more to life than stupid boys enough

It was about El finding herself and her friends instead of her life been centred around Mike and stuck inside hoppers cabin all the time.

This line in season five El was going to realise that she doesn’t need Mike and she’s powerful and brave on her own she’ll probably dump him as well because she’s gonna be focused on and well….byler canon

I’m not gonna go into a massive deep dive about this but it’s really important and we don’t talk about it enough. I reckon it’ll be really important for season five as well as the story and it has always stood out to me for some reason.