#jane 'el' hopper

[venomlion3]

Saying fuck it and posting the half-done angsty Byler PMV outline I started working on when S4 came out for Stranger Things Day <3 initially I only wanted to post the finished product, but considering this weird art block I got going on rn and my account being dry art-wise I figured why not haha. Plus I'm really happy with how it looks and I wanna share it! Spoilers for S3-S4 of Stranger Things; the PMV as a whole largely focuses on S3-S4 (moreso S4) but has scenes from S1-S2 sprinkled in

Characters in order: Joyce Byers, Will Byers, Mike Wheeler, Eleven/El Hopper, Lucas Sinclair, Dustin Henderson, Jonathan Byers

🎶 Annika Bennett - Boy Who Has Everything

[kargyle]

beginning, middle and end

ships: Dustin/El tags:   Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Collage, Future Fic, Fluff, Reconnecting, Tutoring summary: At 19, Jane 'El' Hopper has been separated from her friends for what feels like an eternity now that they're all in college. But thanks to her need for some tutoring, she's about to be reunited. wordcount: 2927 written for: @st-rarepair-week day 4

[maiya-was-here]

OMG EL WAS SPOTTED AT THE CREEL HOUSE WITH VECNA

unrelated but shes such a cutie and this outfit is giving s3 el 🫶🏻

[miwiromantics]

Imagine putting them against each other. My babies.

[teambyler]

One simple trick to make it obvious that Mike and El don't have a healthy relationship:

Switch their genders. Imagine that El is a GUY with superpowers. And Mike is a GIRL who feels like a nobody next to him.

Why would this amazing guy ever like her? She doesn't deserve him. She's just some random person who happened to catch his eye.

(Pics by u/alwaysbi and from Reddit)

He heightens her feeling of inadequacy. Yet she can't imagine losing her superhero boyfriend, because her sense of self-worth depends on having this guy.

She must make sure he DOESN'T LEAVE HER. Loving him as a person is less on her mind than her fear that he will leave her. (Mike literally spends more time thinking and talking about El leaving him than about her being hunted by part of the government.)

When the time comes, it's chaotic and our superhero is in danger of dying. She genuinely doesn't want him to die. But in her love confession, she says that he is HER superhero. She still views him as better than her. She looks UP to him and admires him from below.

Their relationship has never been about them being in love with the other person, but with the IDEA of the other person, the IDEA of a conventional "happy" relationship. And in this case, one where she sees herself as the lesser half of the two.

And still, after her confession of love, he is barely talking to her! For his own reasons (in El's case, probably healthy ones), the superhero seems to have moved on. The girl's fear of losing him was actually well-grounded.

The unhealthiness of Mike and El's relationship is disguised by the fact that the show switches the usual dynamic in real-life opposite-sex couples, where often it's the girl who feels inadequate and undeserving of the guy.

We know the show DID pull back the veil at one point: Mike refers to himself as Lois Lane and El as Superman in describing how he feels:

The writers deliberately chose these words to make clearer the unhealthy unequal dynamic in the Mileven relationship. (As well as hint that Mike might like boys. =D )

Hey Mike! There IS someone who loves you exactly for being you, and unconditionally...

-teambyler

[cloudycleric]

do we ever think about how insane mileven as a concept is, how lowkey demeaning it is to her character? let’s take this scared, traumatized little girl who has no sense of self & still needs to learn fundamental grammar concepts & stuff & shove her into a relationship with mike. mhm. cool

[willbyersoffical]

Just Hopper and his kids<3

Best dad award goes to Jim Hopper

[noihavenosanitythanksforasking]

s4 is so iconic because you have Hawkins preparing for war and el fighting her demons and then its just the cali gang getting high and being gay and dramatic

[livsmessydoodles]

the tinie

[moonfruito]

el and nancy's experiences of girlhood being dichotomised in season one kills me. el looks at the pretty girl and the pretty pink bedroom and this life she's crafted that she parades in pictures and she craves it, so deeply, that she spends the whole season wearing nancy's old dress, this hyper-feminine pink thing, peter pan collars and frills. it sits on her so jarringly, resolutely at odds with her shaved head and death stare and face permanently stained with dirt and blood and tears, and mike's crumpled blue jacket doesn't match, doesn't fit, and she looks so small, but she wants to be the girl in the picture. she wants back the innocence that she never got to have, scrounges off the scraps of nancy's girlhood where she can find it, while nancy loses it at the exact same time. she loses her virginity and her childhood best friend and she ties her hair back and learns to shoot a gun and she learns, through the pain and violence, that her life as a small-town good girl behind a picket fence was lost with everything else that went that day, died with barb. she's a slut and a monster hunter and a woman at sixteen and now she's looking at the girl in the picture and craving her life too. she left her girlhood by the poolside, torn and bloodied and ripped fresh from her chest, and el picks it up, dusts it off, and wears it like armour.

[furimmer96arts]

🎶Can’t ever keep from falling apart At the seams Cannot believe you’re taking my heart To pieces Oh, it’ll take a little time, Might take a little crime To come undone now We’ll try to stay blind To the hope and fear outside Hey child, stay wilder than the wind And blow me in to cry Who do you need, who do you love When you come undone

[spookystarfishzombie]

[harringroveera]

See, Steve? Billy’s totally into you!

[miwiromantics]

If she dies in season 5, I WILL riot

[teambyler]

The story behind the "Nina Project" is a hint that Mike is gay/bi

I don't know if Bylers have already pointed this out, but the story Dr. Brenner gives on why it's called the "Nina Project" is a pretty on-the-nose parallel about El "waiting at the train station" for her lover (Mike) to arrive.

El hadn't seen her lover in months. Mike didn't write "love" in his letters. She waited at the airport for her lover to return:

But her "lover" never arrived:

The writers could have used any other memory-loss story, but they chose an obvious parallel to El waiting for Mike. They even changed the original story (where the lover actually turns out to be alive and returns), to make a point that he does NOT return.

Brenner says: "If only Nina could know THE TRUTH..."

By this point in season 4, El already knew Mike couldn't write or say that he loves her. What ELSE did she need to know?

What was "the truth"?

Yet another thing the Duffers will point to when Byler is revealed, to show that they planned it all along.

-teambyler

[yourelosingains]

how could anyone dislike her? she’s a sweet selfless girl that made a cute little squirrel named mr. fibly for a diorama who’s just trying her best every day she can. if you dislike her, i dislike you.