#vecna is a homosexual

[hnbka]

so the duffers actually told me about the finale and the entire stranger things crew does the the hot to go dance until vecna dies from the power of homosexuality

[strawberrybyers]

love how the usage of california dreamin’ in season 4 is coming back around in season 5 with churchgate.

church is the place to pray away sin and demons such as homosexuality and the vecna/mindflayer. the church being covered in the upside down vines with the sign that has the scripture about how “this can’t be prayed away”. the church is not the safety net they think it is. “i pretend to pray” “you know the preacher likes the cold” “he knows i’m gonna stay” hahahayeah so anyways the church being a trap set up by vecna and because will is still tethered to him, he’s lured there with mike?? i love it. it makes me kick my feet and giggle. i love the symbolism of all this. like mike trusting everything will says because will is their spy except that means will is also vecna’s spy… it’s giving “i trust you because i love you despite the enemy lying within you” -> “how could you lie to me? i trusted you.”

[downbytheriversside]

the gay on gay violence happening rn 😔

vecna's coming for mike next. will, el, max? he obviously only targets gay people.

[mishapsandantics]

since stranger things revolves around its main characters being outcasts, here’s the primary ways that make the suspected endgame couples outcasts in season 5:

(my opinions are very much included!!)

jopper

I couldn’t start this without mentioning the fact that hopper is a literal fucking fugitive & joyce is his partner in crime for harbouring said fugitive. besides russian soldiers, they also have the US military to be worrying about next season, as they are also both parents to children who are connected to the upside down.

byler

stranger things follows “freaks” & outsiders on their journey to fight against supernatural fources & exploitation from government officials, to save the people around them. I don’t believe for a second that will’s love for mike was written for it to be unrequited, leaving the character that started it all without a love interest, whilst his straight friends have all found love. will has been outcasted for being gay from children at school & even his own father, from as early as season 1. it is clear from season 4 that he struggles from already accepting. it is also clear from season 4 that mike struggles from denial, which (imo) is why it looks like “he doesn’t feel the same way.”

we know that vecna uses people’s greatest fears & struggles against them so I imagine this could play a big part in how stranger things manages to address the feelings that come alongside homosexuality within a small heteronormative town in the 80’s. I think that the plan was always to show the difference in struggles between a character who does know that he is gay & a character who does not acknowledge that he is. a lot of people argue that they’ve already showed this struggle with robin & vickie but keep in mind the stranger things ending has been planned from season 1, but robin only asked to portray her character as a lesbian - after joining in season 3 - because it felt right when she was acting as robin.

also is there some sort of town rule that I’m unaware of that prevents more than one gay person acquiring a love interest lmao????

jancy

next up we have the og outcast couple! (looking a bit like their younger siblings in the picture above)

in season 4 it’s revealed that jonathan does not want to go to college because he is worried about leaving his family, which has been a major cause of stress for him since season 1. after will’s disappearance, jonathan was under a lot of pressure to find will & take care of joyce, but even before will’s disappearance, he worried about will & joyce due to lonnie being an abusive father. the stress of caring for his family & simultaneously lying to his girlfriend, eventually led him to start smoking. he had no friends before argyle & he’s never had a support system. he was outcasted in school for not fitting in with the other teenagers but now his decision to stay with his family whilst his old classmates move on to college, puts him in another isolated position.

a very common theme for nancy’s character has been the misogyny she’s faced as a young woman. in season 1 she is slut-shamed for accepting help from jonathan after being left alone & drunk by her boyfriend & in season 3 it’s a struggle for her to be taken seriously in an workplace run by men, no matter how hard she tries to show them that she is hardworking & capable. in season 4 we see her come into her own as a reporter & we learn she is accepted into her dream school but we also see her convince robin to change her clothes in order to be taken seriously in front of dr. hatch. I imagine season 5 will touch on this again as nancy’s story comes to an end.

lumax

we saw that the hawkins high basketball team had it out for lucas in season 4 but now that jason’s dead due to vecna’s portal splitting hawkins, I can only imagine how determined the team will be to take their anger out on lucas; especially since they believe lucas & his friends are to blame for what is happening to hawkins.

season 4 ended with max in a coma, after vecna consumed her to make the portal, which makes me believe she will be awoken after the main characters stop vecna & where she is throughout the coma will probably play an important role in stopping him. putting aside the impact of max having this near death experience after we discover her wish to “follow [billy] into death”, the injuries she sustained will be life altering. even if max is healed after vecnas death, I imagine we’ll see her having to readjust to life after the physical & mental trauma. “the eyes are the windows to the soul” we also don’t know if her eyesight will return with her soul or if she will be blind. on top of all this, her mental health struggles played a big part last season & we saw how isolated she was feeling. I wonder how that will effect her story next season. (also that photo!! I love lumax sm)

[androgynouswizardbanana]

Holy fuck I’ve cracked it

Will always senses the mind flayer when Mike is near

Bc the Shadow is a metaphor for homosexuality

And Vecna taking the Shadow and using it to hurt people represents the shame, hatred, and violence associated with homophobia which is why Will feels it when he’s in conflict with Mike

But “we have to stop him” means he and Mike will overcome the shame and turn the Shadow into something good. Something that makes people feel better for being different. Love instead of hate.

[runninguplenorahills]

The roller skate size theory doesn’t make sense!

Sorry guys but this has been bothering me forever and I finally just had to say it.

In the Hellfire game in s4,ep1 Dustin rolls an 11 which isn’t enough to defeat Vecna which is very obvious foreshadowing that El (Eleven) loses the battle against Vecna at the end of the season. Now, the roll that does defeat Vecna is the 20 and people have come up with the theory that Will’s and Mike’s roller skate sizes (both 10) foreshadow that, *tries to read scribbles on hand*, gay love will defeat Vecna… right.

Love of course plays a huge role in this show and yes s5 is Will centric, yes Will has powers, yes he’s the cure, yes he’ll get the boy, yes him and Mike will be a team next season, yes they’ll have their happy ending, and so on. But there’s actual much better foreshadowing for this than those gymnastics of a theory.

I mean, look at this:

I do agree that the numbers are of importance! They simply wouldn’t have made them carry the skates with the sizes facing towards the camera like this if those numbers didn’t mean anything because the shoe sizes on their own are obviously very irrelevant. But I do not believe that these numbers are supposed to correlate in any way with the Hellfire game/foreshadow Will defeating Vecna. Simply because…

…all three of them are carrying their skates with the size facing towards the audience. If they actually intended to draw a connection to that victory roll in the Hellfire game they probably would’ve been more direct and have them all carry their skates differently so that only Will’s skates are turned with the size facing towards us, displaying the double 10 aka 20.

…Mike and Will have the same shoe size. And thus this scene actually doesn’t give us a 20 at all, but a 40. Which makes absolutely no sense if this was supposed to be connected to the 20 from the Hellfire game. If they wanted to make that connection it would’ve been so easy to just give Mike a different shoe size so that there’s actually only one double 10 aka only one 20 in this scene to foreshadow Will being the one to defeat Vecna.

…20 is the maximum. You cannot roll a higher number than that, plus if you roll one 20 you do not need another, so if this was supposed to foreshadow the defeat of Vecna Mike and Will would have a 20 each which would actually prohibit them to work as a team and therefore contradict with the actual direct and undeniable foreshadowing that Mike and Will will be a team next season.

You could of course argue that the actual shoe size is a size 10, meaning that Mike and Will have a size 10 each so together they add up to 20 but this is visual story telling and visually, that’s a 40. And that really can’t be ignored. You can’t just bend canon to fit your own theories about what will happen in canon! The roller skate size theory would be very weird and just bad foreshadowing for just Will defeating Vecna, and also for Mike and Will defeating Vecna together which simply leads me to believe that those two things aren’t connected at all.

Instead, I personally think this shot of them carrying the skates is supposed to show that Mike and Will are in the same shoes which is an expression referring to being in the same bad/difficult situation as another person (mostly used like “I wouldn’t want to be in xyz’s shoes right now”). And well, if they both need size 10 roller skates that means their regular shoes are a size 10 as well which just underlines that not only does this apply to just rink-o-mania with Mike and Will both pushing each other away though still paying the most attention to each other, but also their struggles with sexuality.

“In the closet (at rink-o-mania)”? Make way for “In the same shoes (at rink-o-mania)”!

And let’s also not forget that Mike has another shoe-twin this season:

Yes, none other than Robin “gay gay homosexual gay” Buckley. Whose shoes in s3 actually foreshadowed that she’s gay gay homosexual gay:

So…. gayshoegate? Anyone?

[conanssummerchild]

i think that if anyone is going to get vecna'd next season, its gonna be mike.

why? well max obviously already got vecna'd so its not gonna be her, dustin and lucas already went through something highly traumatic this season (eddie/max dying in their arms), so the clear choices would be will, el or mike. (who, excluding el, werent of much plot importance this season.)

i really dont think vecna would go for el because she has powers (clearly stronger than his) and he's already weak now so that would be rlly dumb and i just dont think he would go for the hardest choice. he may go for el once he grows stronger, but i think it would probably be in a different way.

so out of mike and will, why mike? wills been through so much, why not him?

well thats the thing. wills been through a ton in the show already, everyone knows he's had arguably the worst hardest experience with the ud, everyone in the audience knows this already.

max got vecna'd in s5, yes to advance the plot, but also so we could see how much she'd been struggling as of late. what would be the point of doing this for will? unless they wanted to kill him off, which i dont think they will (maybe its naïve of me but i think our boys gonna get his gay love story, finally), there wouldnt be much narrative significance to this.

however, mike getting vecna'd, FINALLY showing us his internal struggles, which the duffers have been purposely been keeping hidden all this time, would be great.

plus i think vecna, in his weakened state, would probably go for the easiest victim and i really do believe that thats mike. he's been shown to be willing to sacrifice his life for his friends, is clearly struggling with something (*cough* homosexuality *cough*) and would be a big impact on everyone if he was gone (bc hes the heart :( i will fight u on this). also vecna has been shown to want to get him out of the way sooo...

[aemiron-main]

you don’t wanna hurt me: an analysis of the “nancy in the tattoo chair” scene

Not loving the Implications of the fact that we just saw young Henry strapped down in the tattoo chair and Vecna pretending to be Brenner and then we got Nancy in Young Henry’s place and Vecna coming towards her.

Long story short, I think there’s subtext in this scene that indicates Brenner sexually assaulting Henry in the lab, specifically regarding oral sexual assault.

Especially considering the theme of “swapping places,” that’s present in S4- and the fact that Nancy literally swapped places with Young Henry and Vecna Henry swapped places with Brenner.

So basically in this whole tattoo chair scene with Nancy, it seems like Young Henry = Nancy and Brenner = Vecna Henry. So, try and picture Nancy as Young Henry throughout this analysis and Vecna as Brenner. 

And then, what also haunts me is the parallels between this scene vs Billy and Heather’s s3 scene.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” versus “Don’t be afraid.” This scene between Billy and Heather is extremely sexual-assault coded, to the point where even the GA kept pointing it out.  And the writers went out of their way to make sure that the “nothing to be afraid of,” was directed at Young Henry, and not Nancy, as Brenner then turns to Nancy and says “is there, Nancy?” 

Brenner wasn’t talking to Nancy when he said the “nothing to be afraid of,” line, he was talking to Henry, that sexual assault coded line is directed at Young Henry. 

We have Billy-Heather parallels that not only occur between Brenner and Young Henry, but also Vecna and Nancy- but the Vecna and Nancy ones are still between Brenner and Young Henry in a way, as like mentioned previously, Nancy and Young Henry have swapped places and Brenner and Vecna have swapped places. 

Nancy struggles against the tentacles in an extremely similar way to how Heather struggled against the ropes. 

And now, there’s also the fact that Henry’s Vecna hand very much resembles a facehugger- which in and of itself is 100% confirmed to be intended to represent homosexual oral rape (source). I’ve posted before about the resemblance between Henry’s clawed hand and a facehugger but here’s some examples:

And let’s also look at some Alien vs Predator scenes and some Prometheus scenes- granted, these two creatures aren’t technically facehuggers, but they’re from the Alien franchise, they’re related to facehuggers, and they’ve got the exact same sort of oral sexual assault imagery.

And continuing on with the “Henry’s hand vs facehugger parallels,” the facehugger literally has fingers and resembles a pair of hands. And Henry’s clawed hand literally latched onto a victims face and then tilts their head upward, exactly like a facehugger. Henry doesn’t just grab his victims’ faces or set his face on top of their face- he whips his hand forward, latches onto their face, and tilts their head back, all exactly like a facehugger. Look at these gifs as an example the similarities between the motions:

Now that we’ve established that Henry’s clawed hand is definitely intended to resemble a facehugger, let’s go back to that lab vision scene between Vecna and Nancy and the idea of Nancy representing Young Henry and Vecna representing Brenner. 

So, hypothetically, Young Henry was in the position of being attacked by a facehugger, and Brenner was in Vecna Henry’s position- but wait, Brenner doesn’t have a clawed hand.

But let’s remember what the facehugger represents- homosexual oral rape, which is something that, unfortunately, Brenner is most definitely capable of.

And we also have shots like this lingering shot of Brenner with a suspiciously phallic coat fold pointed directly at Joyce’s face.

Also, Vecna’s other victims don’t tend to speak once he had his hand above their heads/sunk into their heads- but Nancy? Nancy continues to shout “no,” repeatedly- why make that choice? Why add that dialogue for Nancy when it’s not there for other characters? Well, Nancy’s scene has one thing that the other scenes don’t- she’s meant to represent Young Henry. This choice is made to emphasize the nonconsensual aspect of it and tie it back to Young Henry being sexually assaulted by Brenner. 

And going back to swapping places yet again, look at the lyrics of “Running Up That Hill”: Do you wanna feel how it feels? Do you wanna know, know that it doesn't hurt me?  Do you wanna hear about the deal that I'm makin'?  And now look at Henry’s dialogue with El:

“You can’t hurt me more than they already have” And then going back to the lyrics of “Running Up That Hill”: You don't wanna hurt me But see how deep the bullet lies

Look at how deep the bullet lies- bullet, like the bullet-shaped soteria that’s buried deep beneath Henry’s skin? In the scene where El is afraid of hurting him? 

And the wording of the lyrics with “you don’t wanna hurt me, but see how deep the bullet lies”- the use of the word “but,” implies that due to the bullet being deep, the person is question is going to be forced to hurt the other person- just like how El was forced to hurt Henry because of how deeply embedded Soteria was.

Like, Henry doesn’t say that it won’t hurt/El isn’t going to hurt him- he says that  no matter how much she hurts him, she can’t hurt him more than the lab has. These scenes tying in to “Running Up That Hill,” reinforce the idea that the theme of “swapping places,” also applies to characters like Henry and Brenner, which reinforces the idea of the “swapping places,” that occurs during the tattoo scene, where Nancy swaps places with Young Henry and Vecna swaps places with Brenner, implying that what’s going on between Nancy and Vecna has subtext regarding things that have already happened between Young Henry and Brennner (the oral sexual assault subtext). 

Also, there’s constant references to Brenner “hurting,” Henry, and it’s interesting to me that El mentions the fact that Brenner “hurt,” Henry when she’s talking to Vecna Henry in the mind lair:

Why is this interesting? Because Henry already knows that El knows that Brenner hurt him, at least in the context of Brenner hurting Henry by electrocuting him. They had a whole conversation about it in 1979 after El saw Henry being electrocuted:

And even if El didn’t initially remember the 1979 conversation, she JUST relived it via nina, so she absolutely remembers it by the time that the conversation in the mind lair happens. So, why does El act as if she’s aware of something that the audience isn’t aware of? Why does she act as if there’s some other “hurt,” that she’s referring to? Because there is. Because “hurt,” in this context is referring to sexual assault. At some point, I’m going to do a deep dive into the use of the word “hurt,” in ST in general, but considering that during the mind lair conversation, El is referring to some sort of “hurt,” beyond the electrocution scene, some sort of “hurt,” that wasn’t shown to the audience onscreen, I think it’s likely that there’s sexual assault subtext here when it comes to the word “hurt,” especially considering how often that word is used specifically regarding the lab, and how frequently Kali talks about being “hurt,” by lab staff and how she was “just a child,” and all of the “loss of innocence,” themes that surround Kali.  So, so far, we have a scene between Brenner and Young Henry that references a deeply sexual assault coded scene between Billy and Heather, and then we have the scene between Nancy and Vecna with tons of “Alien,” imagery that canonically represents homosexual oral rape. And we have Nancy literally swapping places with Young Henry, and Vecna swapping places with Brenner, while homosexual oral rape imagery is literally shoved in her face as she yells “no”. And next, look at this excerpt about Freddy Krueger’s clawed hand (keeping in mind that Vecna’s clawed hand is confirmed to have been inspired by Freddy Krueger’s hand):

And the scene that Englund’s referring to? The one that he ties to being an oral sex innuendo? 

I don’t know about you guys, but that scene looks pretty familar to me: 

So, that’s yet ANOTHER piece of oral sexual assault imagery that’s present in this scene- a scene where Nancy has literally swapped places with Young Henry, and a scene where Vecna has swapped places with Brenner- hell, not only has Henry literally swapped places with Brenner by discarding the Brenner illusion and appearing in its place within the tattoo scene, but the scene of Vecna walking up to Nancy is a direct parallel to Brenner walking up to Henry’s bed when Henry first wakes up in the lab.  And like I talked about in this post, even just that brief scene of Brenner walking up to Henry in the bed has SA parallels, so for ST to then parallel that bed scene in the tattoo scene in ADDITION to all of the oral SA imagery that’s present in the tattoo scene? It paints a pretty horrifying picture. 

Like, going back briefly to that screenshot of the tentacles around Nancy’s arms and legs, it’s interesting that the tentacles have replaced the leather restraints that were previously being used on Young Henry. 

Why is this interesting? Because there’s SO much sexual assault imagery tied to those tentacles, and specifically oral sexual assault imagery when we look at scenes like Will being rescued from the UD:

So, when to comes to Nancy in the chair, even the restraints in the tattoo chair have been replaced with something that’s tied to oral SA imagery in ST. And the fact that Henry had to be restrained and wasn’t just sitting willingly adds to the subtext regarding nonconsent here. And this gets into more speclation territory, but the way that Nancy fights against the restraints (something that we don’t see Henry do) is interesting, because it brings up the question- why WASN’T Henry fighting? He was clearly in pain, so why wasn’t he fighting? Well, he was possibly drugged. We don’t know what all they had him hooked up to when he woke up, and he seems generally out of it and disoriented during the tattoo scene, and he doesn’t seem to fight back physically, or with his powers, and it seems pretty early for him to have gotten soteria’d (and even if he was soteria’d that early, he still isn’t fighting back physically or even verbally).  I wouldn’t be surprised if the Nancy scene wasn’t just showing us what happened between Brenner and Young Henry, but specifically was showing us what happened between Brenner and Young Henry prior to the tattoo scene- Henry likely woke up in the tattoo chair after being drugged, struggled and panicked, was sexually assaulted, and “cooperated,” out of fear of being assaulted again and because the drugs hadn’t fully worn off.

Long story short: the tattoo scene uses Vecna-Brenner parallels and the theme of swapping places (and literally swapping Young Henry with Nancy and Brenner with Vecna) to convey subtext of what happened to Young Henry when he was in the lab with Brenner (oral sexual assault).

[the-lark-ascending69]

How would Robin's coming out to Dustin would be like?

Omg my first anon ajsnsndjs hii

That's a very interesting question. I imagine he'd be the party member that's closest to Robin given everything that happened in S3, so he'd be the one she trusts most and the first one to know. Even if she knew Will was gay, I think she'd still want to tell Dustin first.

Though "want to tell" may not be the correct phrase. I don't think Robin wants to tell anyone, period. She only told Steve that quickly because she was under the influence of drugs, and I'm sure his positive reaction made her feel a lot safer, like she could actually pursue a girl and tell people about it. But even then, I think she can't help but assume everyone could be an enemy until proven wrong. That'a just how things were. Steve was the exception, not the rule, and she doesn't expect anyone in her social circle to accept her. Before telling Steve, she said it herself - if he knew her he wouldn't want to be her friend.

So I think she wouldn't come out to Dustin unless she really had to. Maybe he thinks she's trying to solve something on her own when she shouldn't because she keeps disappearing to be with an unidentified individual. Maybe Steve got a girlfriend and Dustin thinks he's cheating on her with Robin. Maybe she's being taunted by Vecna about her homosexuality and Dustin insists it's crucial that look out for each other and stop hiding. It's not empowering or glamorous or dignified and it doesn't reafirm her agency in any way. Robin coming out to anyone at this point isn't going to be pretty. But Dustin is rambling and coming up with all of these hypotheses on what could be wrong with Robin, to the point Robin realizes it's gonna be better to just tell the truth. She grabs him by the shoulders and stops him and and tells him look, whatever you're thinking about, it's not that, and it just seems so ridiculously stupid compared to everything that's going on. I mean, just look at Max. She's the one you should worry about, not my stupid, useless feelings. She tries to convince him that it's something personal and that he shouldn't worry about it, but Dustin insists that Max's mourning was also personal, until it became a gate for an evil wizard who wants to destroy thr world. Then Robin tells him she doesn't want to talk about it. Dustin tells her that's what started everything with Max. Robin tells him she's not Max, and that Steve knows anyway, so she's not alone. She can handle it. Then Dustin just feels offended that hairspray head Steve knows something he doesn't when he is the brains of the operation. You are the brains of the operation? Robin asks, trying to change the subject, but Dustin insists that she's not alone, and that whatever it is, this is what friends are for. He honor promises on Suzie that he won't tell anyone. He wouldn't insist so much if he didn't knew doing this almost killed Max last year. He's a traumatized 15yo looking out for his friends and Robin knows that. Between you and me, Dustin is her favorite. He's the only boy in the party with half a brain, at least. And she thinks it's funny when he bullies Steve. He's a toddler in her eyes but he's her friend, and she never had many friends growing up. Now se has like, three and a half.

If I tell you, you won't want to see me anymore, she tells him.

What are you talking about? I put up with Steve every day. It can't be worse than that, he says.

Believe me, it's worse, she says.

Whatever it is, you're part of our party now. No soldier is left behind.

So... she tells him. About Tammy Thompson and Vickie and maybe even about Nancy, and how she told Steve and how scared she was all her life. How she knows it doesn't seem normal to most people. Maybe she let herself be convinced that it actually is. She feels like a freak sometimes. And that's it. That's the reason she was acting weird. She wasn't kidnapped and replaced by interdimensional aliens. She's just in love with a woman.

Dustin is, admitely, a little shocked. It never crossed his mind that that might be the reason. He just wasn't expecting it, and he stays silent for a minute. Probably the longest minute in Robin's life.

And then he tells her that's okay. Yeah, yeah, it's not that weird. He plays DnD and he doesn't have collarbones, so he's not going to be judging anyone anytime soon. Plus, he likes girls too, so he can at least relate to that. He knows Mike thinks Will doesn't like girls, and Will is always going to be his friend no matter what, so there's no reason it'd be different with Robin. He hugs her real tight actually, and tells her the party is there for her. No one has to be alone.

Robin actually tears up a little when Dustin isn't looking. She feels incredibly lucky, and she can tell papa Harrington raised his kids right. Maybe things aren't as grim as they looked. Maybe Dustin is right, and she doesn't need to be alone. Maybe she finally found her people.

[henrysglock]

Is there a possibility, if the shadow is truly just an alien sentient being, that it's female? It's a weird thing to think, because it behaves like a virus and I don't think it would need to reproduce sexually, but IT was a pregnant female, and Ungoluant was a she apparently (never read LOTR). The shadow being female somehow would keep up with the theme, and it would partially explain why Vecna is so female coded at times, if it makes sense? Sorry if it's random, but whenever I have a random thought I like to hear what you have to say about it

Whatever it is, I think it defies the concepts of male and female. I also think it pushes the human concepts of male and female irt its victims. I'm not sure we can assign it one way or the other.

As you mentioned, the Mindflayer is compared to a virus, and viruses technically reproduce asexually. However...they do require a host. For all intents and purposes, viruses "impregnate" cells. They use injectable genetic material that hijacks the cell's own reproductive machinery in order to produce a "brood", so to speak, of viruses. The cell then bursts, releasing the young. Are viruses male or female, then?

There's also the additional point of the repeated AIDS/phallic/homosexual subtext (hell, even blatant text in some areas), and while we could compare it to Alien, with the facehuggers being a spider-like symbol of oral rape/"what if men could get pregnant by rape"...but even then the facehuggers laid young, which is more of a democreature thing, see: Will and the tentacles.

So we end up with all this AIDS/homosexual rape subtext that's completely separate from the references to the other homosexual oral rape (but still female, technically) subtext, which has me walking right back to "are viruses male or female?"

I'm also wary of thinking they'll copy too directly. The Duffers copy a lot, but none of it is an exact 1-to-1. So while it would fit the theme...I'm not sure it's entirely what they're going for. Having it be the same concept but with an inversion on the mode of reproduction/link to biological maleness and turning the victims into the female (rather than just having eggs like IT or grown young into incubator-type victims like Alien) would be something that's in-keeping with the Duffers' habits of trope subversion.

[strawberrybyers]

ok somehow i discovered a comic called “penguin dreams and stranger things” that was created on march 1, 1985.

if you know anything about penguins then you know that homosexuality amongst penguins has been proven! also, the comic was inspired by the painting “daybreak” which was considered to be romantic featuring TWO women

the comic is about characters michael binkley and the penguin, opus. in one of the comics, michael brings opus to school to meet his friend milo. this comic also mentions greenpeace’s rainbow warrior and how opus boarded it; i made a post about that here. there is also mention of “soviets” and “the big one”… vecna is also known as “one”/there’s a connection between the upside down, the lab, and russia. michael also dresses up as boy george. boy george is a gay male singer. does anyone know if boy george is featured on the official spotify playlist for mike???

opus the penguin has a similar story to el’s?? both separated from their mother and doesn’t know who his father is. also, opus is associated with the rainbow warrior and el is associated with the rainbow room.

this is how the character michael binkley is described… um, why are there similarities to mike lmfao??? michael binkley has a closet that is filled with anxieties?? anyone recall the scene of the one way sign pointing to mike’s closet in s4?? and in a recent behind the scenes photo, we can see a star wars poster on mike’s wall. mention of computer technology.. we know there’s a computer club from one of the behind the scenes photos. anyways, michael is expected to be a certain kind of person even though he has other desires… finn wolfhard: “mike is just trying to be as normal as possible”

milo bloom was the main character and is friends with michael binkley. once opus the penguin is introduced, milo gets overshadowed by michael and opus. now, why does that sound like what happened with mike, el, and will?!?! also, there’s mention of spear fishing with a whale harpoon?? a sticker to stop fishing is on the door from the recent behind the scenes photo and there’s multiple mentions of whales on that door! i wrote a post about whales here.

i know this is insane and maybe i’m reading too much into it, but this would be absolutely one hell of a fucking coincidence. like I AM CONNECTING THE DOTS I SWEAR

[byleriscanon713by]

So I might be reading too far into this but I took the duffers funko pop thing and sorted it

Code:

Yellow- friend pairings

Green: romantic pairings

Blue: familial pairings

Red: not currently present

Okay so we’ll get into the friendship parings first.

So I think will and robin will get to have a fun friendship this season. I think they prob want robin to hang out with someone other than Steve and Nancy so will and her would bond well since they’re both part of the lgbtq+ community. I also think there’s potential for her to help in the buildup for byler. i also see a lot of potential for Mike and Lucas to kind of mend their friendships that’s always been a little rocky throughout the seasons. I think they’ll get some (not a large amount) of interaction together to kind of mend their holes throughout the seasons. I also have seen the theory that Lucas will be integral in helping Mike realize his feelings for Mike which is possible. It’s 50/50 but I do think Lucas may just say something unintentionally that triggers Mike into being like “oh god I’m a homosexual.” (Even tho he probably ALR knows that from the ending of season 3)

The Dustin/Johnathan/Nancy/Steve pairing is interesting and I think it’s gonna be a great quartet thing-a-ma-bobber. So we know Dustin and Steve are joined at the hip and Nancy and Johnathan are also super close so they’ll def stick together. However we’ve also seen previs’ of steve and Johnathan having a conversation in episode 1 of st5 so I think the two of them will become friends. There was also a previs from episode 5 I believe and it looks like they’re in the upside down and you could see Dustin in the passenger seat of a car and Nancy and Johnathan in the back. I think it’d be weird for Dustin to just casually be hanging w/ Nancy and Johnathan so I bet Steve is driving. Also, we know Eleven is gonna be an integral part of the series and so is Will, so the four of them kind of are on the outskirts a little. They’ll prob have a more separate storyline where they’re discovering things unrelated to the core problem. Now why would robin and Lucas not be with that group? Well Lucas just lost max so I think he might need some separation time from that group and he might want to rekindle with mike and will cuz he was kind of distant with them in season 4. I think Robin may be with that group part time, but I also think she may take up some sort of fondness for Will where she wants to protect him (especially if he’s susceptible to vecna) Also if Will is susceptible to Vecna, Lucas has seen Max get vecnad and saved her the first time so he might have that instinct to “I need to save Will since I didn’t save Max.” Robin may be there because she’s the one who discovered the whole music thing and she may want to be wills lesbian protector idk. And obvious mike would want to be there but we’ll get into that later.

Now why did I put Steve/Nancy/Jonathan in green? I think they’re gonna be a love triangle. Not the love triangle where they all date, but just the fact that Steve and Johnathan are both obviously pining over Nancy. As much as I hate admitting it, I think stancy is endgame with the way they set them up in st4. I also think there’s a large possibility of Johnathan well… perishing. I’ve seen a lot of people saying “omg stonathan” cuz they saw Steve and Johnathan touching heads in that photo but I am skeptical of stonathan ever happening. I think they’ll be friends, but I think the head touching could still meaning there’s some head butting over Nancy going on. They both love her so I do think they’ll both have romantic moments throughout the season with her. Idk. That love triangle is quite a mystery. Let’s get into the best ship: Byler! I believe Byler is endgame and I could go on for probably eight hours about all the proof and all the queer coding they’ve gone through. Now why do I think byler is a logical thing going to happen in a straight to the point way? Well you saw Mike at the end of st4 when Will was talking abt feeling Vecna. Mike looked terrified. Mike has that instinct of needing to protect Will, and I think as st4 went on Mike started gaining it back and releasing el didn’t love him as much and that will was the one who needed him. The duffers have also teased a lot about circling back to the og relationships and dynamics from st1, but they’ve also said a lot of it is based on st2. Now in st2 Mike was practically attached to Will since he was possessed by the mid flayer. I am 100% sure Will is going to be under Vecnas trance and I’m pretty sure that’ll happen early in the season. I think once Mike sees that he’ll snap right back into his protector mode and be joined to Will for the rest of the season. From there, the potential of the painting being recalled and basically them confessing their love is quite obvious. I’m not gonna get too into byler here but it you love hearing about byler you should follow me cuz I post about them a lot :) (Also if your a st account or like any fandom I’m interested in I’ll prob follow u back and stalk ur page cuz I adore reading yalls theories and fics and ahhhh)

Now let’s get into the familial relationship!!! I forgot to circle Joyce and hopper in green but that’s okay cuz they’re endgame and it’s obvious. Now since Joyce lost hopper for so long and it took so much tension building over the seasons for them to get together, I think they’ll be partnered up again. They typically are anyways. I think Eleven will also be with them. I think Eleven is going to break up with Mike and become her own character. Now I think eleven is going to die at the end of the season by using all her powers and instead of fainting, destroying the upside down for good and killing herself in the process. I think it’s a full circle but also depressing and plausible ending for her. It’s very likely. This season I think they’re going to focus on her character. In every season her character has either been based on her powers or on being mikes girlfriend. I think her having time with Hoppet and Joyce will give her some good character qualities and depth that we haven’t seen. She’s also reeling from the death of Max and I feel she’ll just want some space (especially from what we see at the end of st4) However she also misses Hopper cuz he was the primary influence in her life and personally I think he loves her more than anymore. She wants to makeup for the lost time with him. Also wherever hopper is Joyce will be too, especially since she’s always had that kind of motherly dynamic towards El (and she is her mom now technically.) I’m just so excited for el to finally get to be her own person.

Lastly I think Max will be MIA for a while. I think that she will come back but not until later. She may help fight Vecna from inside his mind, but I doubt she will truly not come back till Eleven is able to kill vecna. Not seeing Sadie sink in this season much would kill me cuz I love her, but it’s realistic.

Anyways thank you so much for reading this super long rant!!! Reblog and add your opinions cuz I would die to see them. Like I love hearing new theories!

[ronanceautistic]

Headcanons about Nancy and Fred?

Autism Activate.

I have absolutely gaslit myself into believing the kid that died in the car crash was Fred's boyfriend because while rewatching the show to count the swears I was like "hang on when do they say that??" forgetting that I literally did make it up.

Anyways with this canon information in mind, and the canon fact that whatever was going on with Nancy and Barb was also deeply homosexual in some way or another, Fred and Nancy have got very obvious shared trauma. They've both lost an 'it's complicated' type of lover and both blame themselves for it. I imagine Nancy on the first day of senior year. Jonathan has moved away, Steve has graduated, and other than Robin (who she's never spoken to) she has no one at school who really understands what it's like to go through a trauma like that. She's lost, and alone, and burying her head in work because she can't seem to make any friends. She's firing managing editor after managing editor for nitpicky reasons (annoys her, too slow, bad grammar, doesn't like their vibe) until eventually Fred asks for the job. Nancy clocks something in him immediately, he reminds her entirely too much of herself at 16, but in a way that's what draws her to him. He's feeling lost, unsure of what to do with himself, and in Nancy's case journalism helped her out, so maybe it'll help him, too.

He's come back to school with a scar on his face, feeling ashamed of it, feeling like people stare at him and know what he's done. Nancy shows him the scar on her hand. He already knows what happened to Barb, it was all over the papers, but when Nancy tells him it was actually her who leaked her death to the press, he gains a lot of admiration for her and starts respecting her more as his boss.

They bicker and fight and will never have a big open conversation, but I think they always look out for each other in subtle ways. Call each other out when they see the other getting stuck in their head, or feeling guilty for what happened.

The whole thing just sucks for Nancy. Steve did everything he could to not think about what happened, Jonathan tried to understand but he never really could. Fred was the only person in her life who actually got what it was like to have someone die on your watch. And then what happens? He dies on her watch. After so long of accepting what happened to Barb and that it wasn't her fault, the whole thing is just pushed to the surface again. It's happened twice, and in her head the only common denominator is her (and Vecna, but she's too self-deprecating to think about that).

Also SHE LITERALLY FOUND HIS BODY. Broken bones, no eyes, all that shit. How badly must that have fucked her up, like seriously, let's talk about that.

[chuckycheezel]

Currently writing a horrendous stranger things crack fic where:

Mike and El get married as each others' beards

"MIKE! YOU'RE THE GROOM!" - Will Byers, 1989

The wedding officiant gets Murray'd into acknowledging her inner demons

Lucas, Max and El are a very chill throuple

Karen is obsessed with straightening everyone's hair *cough*

Will obviously has powers and refuses to believe it

Lonnie and Ted engage in homosexual behaviour while bonding over fried chicken

Karen x hair straightener???

The three B's return from the dead (Bob, Barb, Billy)

Any suggestions? Go fucking bananas, please– I still gotta figure out what to do with Vecna and the fruity four six. I wanna throw some real strange ships in there, too. Murray x Vecna??? Billy x Meat Monster 2.0??? Karen x hair straightener OTP???

[evil-ontheinside]

Friends & family byler fic recs!

all I know at the end of the day by @strangerange1s

Holly thinks that she likes Will the best from all his friends. Lucas and Dustin are kind, but there’s something about Will that makes Holly feel happier. Maybe it’s because he lets her borrow whatever toys or crayons he’s brought to their house. Maybe it’s because he absent-mindedly plays with her hair when she’s close to him, and it feels nice.

Maybe it’s because Mike smiles the most when Will is around.

Or, in which Holly observes her older brother's relationship with his best friend. (And maybe they get Holly'd along the way.)

Dustin Henderson, the Scientific Method, and Homosexuality by crow_of_crimes (Theyna_Shipper)

Dustin Henderson is, if nothing else, a firm believer in the scientific method. As a bug collector since age 4, an aspiring computer scientist since 5th grade, a member of Hawkins A/V since 6th grade, a science camp attendee since 7th grade, and a boy with a lifelong passion for science, he recognizes its principles: careful observation, study, and peer review.

So when strange things begin to happen in Hawkins, that fall outside the usual nature of strange things that happen in Hawkins, he returns to his roots to find the answers. After all, the scientific method applies to social science, too. And if any observation ever needed careful dissection, it was this one.

Or: Dustin Henderson applies the scientific method to figure out why two of his best friends have been acting so strangely.

The Darkest Eyes by @light-lanterne

1988.

It’s a year after the gate to the Upside Down was closed for the last time, and the people of Hawkins are trying to readjust to normal life. Some of them went to college, some others are just finishing high school, and all of them are trying to figure out how to move forward after fighting to stay alive for so long. For the most part, they are doing fine. And Jim Hopper couldn’t be happier: he married the woman of his dreams, his daughter is safe and happy, and he has two amazing boys to look after now.

There’s only one pesky little problem in his life. Someone he sometimes wishes he could have thrown through the gate right before it closed, never to be seen again: Mike Wheeler, who has somehow managed to sneak into his life again and, even worse, who Hopper has started to not hate.

What has his life come to?

or: a semi canon-compliant character study of mike wheeler, his unaddressed trauma and his relationship with will byers, told through the eyes of a very tired jim hopper who can’t help but to become attached to the boy who keeps dating his children.

the yellow box by @zombiewheeler

Holly watches from afar as Mike Wheeler slowly comes to terms with his love for Will Byers.

why you are always alone by @willow-lark

Poor Mike Wheeler, Vecna condescends. You lie to yourself. You lie to your friends. You are the worst kind of person—a conformist, trying to pretend it doesn’t eat at you like it does.

“You don’t know anything,” Mike cries out, voice cold and strangled.

You’re not a kid anymore, Michael. What did you think, really? That you were never going to have to buck up and face it?

Or, Mike Wheeler gets the Nico di Angelo treatment.

Smalltown Boy of Hawkins by @withoutanynamefics

After the Byers family leaves, Mike is left with feelings and thoughts he rather wouldn't face. Unfortunately for him, there are times when you have to confront your fears to be able to finally breathe.

@bylerficrecweek

[heheidks]

"in the end, vecna comes out as a homosexual"