#maybe in season 1

[gayofthefae]

I think I thought this too and thought he just couldn't get to her or at worst she didn't see him but on my second watch I remember reading the subtext "I don't need your comfort. You don't even love me." Everything is crashing down on her at the same time in this moment I think. And it does so more when she gets more "proof" later with his reaction to Angela but it is right now, too. She can pretend they're relationship is good and secure but she is not feeling good about being vulnerable with him right now because she doesn't trust that his compassion is real, and even so, being close to him may just serve as a reminder of the stress she's associating with him right now.

And that goes along with the lie thing. She doesn't trust him to love her the way she needs right now so she doesn't want to be reminded/confirmed that he can't and she is still, as she has been out of insecurity all day, trying to make the day about "me and you" and ignoring Will in a desperate attempt to CONVINCE him to love her. She isn't actively ignoring Will like Mike is, she just can't afford to focus on anything but giving Mike the perfect day. The perfect day a perfect girlfriend would give him. The kind of girlfriend a person loves.

And yeah, the simplest easiest way to resolve tension in a relationship like this? *Gasp* don't write in the first place! Need a plot conflict for the couple? Make it situational! (S4 Lumax) Systemic! (S3 Jancy) Projecting you past problems! (S3 Jopper). Don't make the couple have problems that come FROM the couple. The whole point is to romanticize it and say that they SOLVE everything together and BY being together. The tension is when they're apart and being together resolves it. If it is ever demonstrated that they are relaxed apart and, because of their conflict, BECOME stressed when together, we will not want them together. At worst, they should be the same apart and together and not be improved by each other. But, out of love and wanting to work things out, THEY ADD STRESS TO EACH OTHER'S LIVES. ESPECIALLY in season 4! Like I said, it's why she doesn't want to see Mike! It would be overwhelming and piling onto her current stress!

Mike and El consistently become more stressed when they're together. They love each other and have good moments in their dating but all of their conflicts are 2 steps back, 2 steps forward aka their relationship itself stresses them out and they fight all season to get to a place where they can be happy together. Sweet, telling of love, love is work, but love shouldn't be THAT much work. And being happy together is the bare minimum. They have not surpassed the bare minimum because they can't even maintain it consistently.

They have said repeatedly now "being together equals stress but when they overcome it, they're okay. Not being together inherently equals being okay."

If they wanted us to think something different they would have shown us El not doing okay as a result of her separation from Mike during season 4 even ONCE. They even managed to bring up Max even though that plotline was almost entirely flashbacks. They mentioned Max to give the reunion more satisfaction. They even showed El thinking of Will as she referenced the mind flayer to Papa. But nothing for Mike. (And Jonathan, she loves you too).

There is so much they COULD have done and didn't. But more importantly, there is SO much they could have NOT done and DID.

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...

[starry-bi-sky]

FUNNIEST fucking shit that comes with making Danny eleven years old when he had his accident in "late at night, when the nightingale sings" is the implication following, that everything that happened in the show did too. And I fully intend on (mostly) keeping it like that. There'll be some changes (of which I need to figure out) but for the most part??? Yeah relatively the same.

Like I FULLY intend on keeping Dark Danny occurring 6 months post accident. Do you know how fucking HILARIOUS that is??? That Dan got his ass kicked by a goddamn FIFTH-SIXTH GRADER?? I'd never show my face ever again. Homeboy spent the last ten years being a one-man mass extinction event, only to get his ass beat by a kid who hasn't even lost his last baby tooth. That's hysterical. I'm losing my mind just thinking about it.

AND PARIAH DARK TOO. Imagine being an eons old tyrant capable of dragging whole towns down into your dimension, and you get singehandedly shoved back into your coffin in less than 48 hours by a kid whose bedtime is still 8:30. You didn't even have the time to expand your army! You were still trying to take over the city the kid came from!

And he just!!! Shoves you back in!! Insane! This kid hasn't even been dead for a full year yet! He's still growing in his ghost fangs! And he just knocked you flat on your ass in an oversized mech suit. What the fuck! It's like looking down and seeing a four week old kitten meowing very indignantly at you and trying to bite your feet, except that kitten is also actually a black-footed cat and they have a 60% kill success rate, and oops! Now you're dead. You took too long laughing at the kitten trying to attack you that it clawed up your pant leg and ripped out your throat.

COULD I, realistically, span these episodes out over the course of 2.5 years prior to Danny's family dying?? Yes I could! Do I think it's hilarious (and horribly traumatizing, which makes it twice as fun) to shove all of this into the span of (roughly) a year instead?? Yes. Because the show has such a skewed timeline that I've always just assumed that at the end of the show, Danny was starting his sophomore year in high school. So fuck it, lets go for it!

[xxlumos]

*smooch*

[sameboot]

Simon petrikov coping FAIL compilation

[countingstars-17]

Max: “fuck me this is boring, should have brought my pillow”

[theelmoarchive]

More people than I expected enjoyed my chip rotting drawing so have my silly designs 🫶

They're not updated from the stuff more toward episode 100-115 cause I drew them right after the outfit change💥🐊🔥 i might draw updated versions soon who knows,,

[nexo-nex]

Theres gotta be a message/metaphor somewhere about briar having rose tinted glasses in her main design and her finally realizing her destiny is not as good as it was painted out to be for her

[elyasdoodles]

Flash Warning!

The demogorgon… it got meh.

[alien-bluez]

i don't think i posted pirate au so. pirate au.

[lejoursobre]

Pretty sure everyone and their grandma already draw it but here's my version! (👀 kinda waiting for s3 to turn it into a ✨triptyque✨ 👀 just saying... if someone involved in the show happens to hang out on tumblr... The chances seem low but we never know... 🦆)

[existence-is-overrated]

just thinking about how crazy it is that ‘maxiel’, ‘lestappen’, ‘yukierre’ etc (names for two drivers just being together) have been adopted by f1 social media admins and general fans without knowing the implications™ behind combining their names like that

[magicandmundane]

Something something Clone Force 99 breaking binders in every season finale

[jestroer]

Bisexual wives of all time

[most-normal-eccles-cake-ignorer]

while I was looking for gabriels in the intro, I noticed this redheaded person w dark clothing and lighthaired person w light clothing that appear to kiss in the theatre:

i'm making this about the 1941 kiss theory

---

edit oct 7: a few kind people have mentioned that they remember a post from the official good omens account (possibly on twitter) that said the two people kissing are War & Pollution, and the shadow beside them is Famine. (If you have the link please send it this way! I have done a fair bit of searching but with no luck and it's haunting me bc it must be real but i can't find it)

@0owhatsamsays also pointed out that in the X-Ray bonus video "Title Sequence Easter Eggs" Peter Anderson says there are specific characters from season 1 in the highlighted boxes, and as you can see, the kissing booth (top level, far right) is one with a little trail of stars coming off of it.

[sableeira]

this is the same man btw. what is in that poison? gay juice?

[lyraofthestarsss]

What’s this?

AND HERE COMES AARON LYCAN WITH A METAL CHAIR!