Here To Dissociate A Bit

Still figuring it out 🙆‍♀️

[massy2ly]

Bloodhounds S2 thoughts (Woojin 🐓🍗)

(This is my own silly interpretation. Feel free to disagree ✨)

Sooo i binge watched both seasons of Bloodhounds. Loved this show. The fight choreographies just incredible. But that’s not what I came here to say.

I keep seeing people complain about Woojin getting weaker and being nerfed in S2. Yes, that happened. But (HOT TAKE‼️) to me, it’s probably one of the best choices they’ve made for his character. I actually enjoyed watching him more than I did Geon Woo this season and I don’t have favourites tbh.

Their arcs were different, and I loved both, but Woojin’s crisis, both in the way he expressed it and the way he dealt with it, gave him more substance. It might partly come down to the fact that Geon Woo is the more reserved of the two, which made him feel withdrawn and, at times, almost invisible in certain episodes. He’s the kind of character who grapples with guilt, fear, pain, and indecisiveness in silence until it spills over.

But Woojin’s arc (or at least this prelude to it) was stronger to me. Here’s someone who was just drifting through life kinda aimlessly before randomly meeting a person who turned his world upside down. Pretty much everything that followed ties back to Geon Woo. He latched on and formed an intense bond rooted in friendship, trauma, fate, and built a new sense of direction around this guy who embodies a disarming innocence, kindness, selflessness, and raw talent. Through him, Woojin found purpose and a real, loving family. A reason to turn his life around.

And he came to love Geon Woo so much that he chose to become the one who supports, who steadies, who puts the other’s dream first, even if it means sidelining himself a little. So of course he was going to get weaker. And looking back at S1, I’m actually not surprised it came down to this.

From the very beginning of S1, Geon Woo was the one who openly and proudly expressed his ideals and his passion for boxing. Woojin shares that same passion, but there’s been something holding him back from claiming that future for himself with the same certainty. He was always supportive, and he did learn to enjoy the raw passion of it with Geon Woo, but it still felt like he lacked that fierce devotion to himself, the same one he directs outward.

I think in season 2, we’re seeing the cost of that, on top of other major changes in his life. What makes him compelling to me this time is that he’s now facing the life he chose to build. It’s not just that he struggles, it’s WHY he struggles.

He now has a life rooted in love, but that kind of love comes with weight. He has priceless things to lose now. A home, a future he’s starting to see and dreams that need protecting, not just for the people around him but also himself. Because he is now just as loved as he loves them. They would sacrifice themselves for him. They would choose him first just as fiercely as he would choose them. They would never blame him for not being able to protect them. And that makes the guilt over his helplessness even heavier, as he knows what’s at stake.

Now he has something real to lose if he doesn’t get stronger, if he doesn’t face life head-on, and that includes his identity as a boxer and as someone who… gets sucked into trouble no one asks for, to put it lightly.

Anyway, If my interpretation is even slightly close to the direction they’re going for, then season 3 might be really special. Because for Geon Woo, his arc this season felt beautifully concluded. He’s been wrestling with the same internal conflict since season 1, and by the end of season 2, he faced it, made a choice, and acted on it in the last fight. They’ll have to add some new angst for him in the next season if they don’t want to reheat these nachos.

But Woojin feels unfinished and he’s one of the two leads. It looks like a set up leading into the real shift we’re hopefully going to see in season 3. I mean if the show ends with S2, it’d be like what I’ve seen was leading somewhere we never actually get to reach. That would really suck, in my very biased opinion 🙂💀

[massy2ly]

You. Lie. Why do you lie?

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Arthur Pendragon dead, buried at the bottom of a lake and waiting to be resurrected right after he FINALLY comes to so many magical and gay realisations about his relationship with Merlin.

Mike Wheeler knocked out and trapped in whatever prison/illusion/time related shit Vecna has cooked. Again… after a very enlightening California trip, an unaddressed painting and months of cohabitation with his 10 years long secret crush.

Why do the repressed gays need to be trapped or put out of commission? Just when they’re so close to stopping their BS and locking in the gay agenda. Why do I keep falling for this shit too

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One of many instances where watches were useless. It was fake from the beginning and maybe ever since Nina. V1 is probably a sort of camazotz

The red light pointing at us too

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I keep wondering how they’re going to give Will an arc strong enough to even slightly justify all the humiliation rituals and relentless suffering he’s been put through

Because out of everything in the show, the scenes I really struggle to rewatch, the ones that give me a visceral, gut twisting reaction, are almost always Will’s. Watching his character is exhausting.

He went through hell in the Upside Down. He was hunted, violated, strung up like something inhuman, declared dead. He came back only to be called a freak and be more bullied. Then he got possessed and wasn’t even allowed to reclaim himself before being turned into a vessel. And when Jane came back, he lost his place in Mike’s life (that’s true no matter people try to soften or twist it). He felt abandoned, ignored and replaced. He clung to D&D because it was a piece of stability, a fragment of the childhood that had been ripped away from him, and he was ridiculed for that. Mind you, he wasn’t even fully his own person for most of season two, and at one point he was literally burned alive.

And what makes it worse is that the same friend who mocked him and hurt him for wanting to play that game later did every stupid thing possible to play Eddie’s campaign, the same kind of emotional attachment Will had been shamed for expressing. Then in S4 he gets ignored and hurt again by the boy he loves with his whole heart. And he has to sit there and watch Mike be act lovey dovey with his sister, a girl he can’t even resent because she’s precious and good. So he swallows it and has no one to talk to. Even Jonathan, who used to be his safe place, is drowning in his own issues and can’t really hold him the way he used to.

He spends an entire trip listening to the boy he can’t move on from complain about his hetslop relationship, issues that had a simple solution if Mike had actually wanted to fix it. And then Will takes his own feelings, his own art (the main thing that defines him) and uses them to repair what’s broken between Mike and Jane. He reassures him and comforts him and builds him back up, all while tearing himself apart. He is constantly asked to be the emotional support, the fixer, the understanding friend. He’s the only character who’s never even been given a fleeting romantic distraction. No fling or messy crush, no canon ups and downs. Not even something temporary to help him try to distract himself or attempt to move on.

As a conformity gater I consider S5 fake but fine, let’s add that too, shit just piles on. He lets himself hope and thought for a moment that maybe he has a chance with Mike. But that hope was crushed completely. He experienced pain through the hive mind, got burned, slammed by a car, hurt in every possible way they could kill demos. He has a few seconds of happiness when he got powers and seeing Mike proud of him, but then Vecna takes that too, destroys the hope and tortures him all over again. He never has any lasting joy or reprieve.

He’s forced to come out in front of a room full of people who didn’t need to be there, essentially begging them not to hate him or see him differently. His agency is stripped again because if he doesn’t expose himself, they lose. He reduces the love of his life to “a hallway crush,” minimizing his own feelings to make them smaller and something to overcome. Then comes the tower scene with the “friends? No, best friends” line, the summum of rage bait like a deliberate twist of the knife. And after all that, what does he get? An epilogue boyfriend who doesn’t exist and is only a figment of Mike’s schizophrenic imagination. A future reduced to two bullet points: find a boyfriend, go on a date in a bar. That’s it.

I GENUINELY don’t know how they can compensate for everything they’ve put Will Byers through. I really don’t. And this might be a hot take, but him getting the boy he wants at the end is NOT enough for me. Because It doesn’t fix the imbalance, It doesn’t explain why Will was consistently denied the narrative space and milestones his friends were given. It doesn’t justify why he was used over and over as a tool to fix Mileven. A last-minute romantic resolution doesn’t undo seasons of sidelining and humiliation rituals.

Also and this might be a hot take, I don’t see Mike, as we left him in S4-S5, as someone I root for in this ship. Not yet. That Mike existed in S2 and stayed there. I get he has his own issues but both things can be true. Just waiting for Mike to be ready and making them endgame in some neat epilogue isn’t satisfying for me. How it’s done matters more than the fact that it happens. I really wish bylers saw that being given crumbs for seasons doesn’t mean we should settle for whatever is handed to us at the end, for the sake of a queer victory. Right now, there’s no meaningful justification for the way Will’s character has been treated and I need more than a relationship to make that feel okay.

See this beautiful boy? He deserves more

[massy2ly]

Let’s talk about Jane Hopper’s “romantic” feelings (she’s my baby and I’ve been waiting to make a post just about her)

This my personal opinion and I absolutely don’t mind anyone disagreeing. People focus on Mike’s complexity but to me Jane is harder to read. So let’s agree to disagree 🫶 I appreciate you if you still read this long ass post

We spend so much time dissecting Byler and psychoanalyzing Mike’s feelings that I don’t think we sit with Jane’s perspective long enough. Her story is about independence, emancipation, and finding out who she is. But the need for independence does not automatically cancel out love. You can love someone and still realize you need to leave in order to become whole. You can want someone and still understand that staying with them is not where you’ll grow. So I don’t think it’s always fair to frame it as a clean split. Those things are not mutually exclusive and can coexist.

HOWEVER, I don’t think that’s the case here. Here’s my long, stubborn and unprompted opinion: I don’t think Jane was ever in love with Mike Wheeler.

And I’m not saying that because of Byler. I’m kinda tired of repeating this but I jumped on the Byler bus way later because I always need as much evidence as I can get. I disliked Mileven from the very beginning, before I even knew what Byler was. It always felt wrong to me at its foundation because that relationship started on uneven and low-key toxic ground. A nerdy boy who suddenly sees his supernatural fantasies come to life through a mysterious girl who is entirely dependent on him. And we know how deeply Mike is drawn to being needed, to being the person someone relies on. At the same time, Jane isn’t just a girl to him since she is the key to finding Will, someone profoundly important in his life. She is miracle, a fantasy, a solution, all wrapped into one. But this isn’t about Mike Wheeler. I want to talk about precious Jane.

Season 1

Jane had no social cues, no understanding of friendship, no framework for romance. Suddenly there is this boy who takes her under his wing, introduces her to the world, explains right and wrong, teaches her what promises are, what loyalty is. He becomes her interpreter of the outside world. So ofc dependency forms early. How could it not when he’s like safety, knowledge and belonging.

And then she has her first kiss after JUST imagining him as a brother she might have in a new safe and loving family. I repeat: she did NOT conceptualize him romantically at first. She saw him as family. So when that shifts into a kiss, into a romantic label, how are we supposed to believe she fully understood what that meant? She didn’t even understand what romance was or have the emotional literacy for it.

Season 2

Then season 2 isolates her all over again. That tiny, fragile taste of normalcy is ripped away, and she is back in confinement. Ofc she clings to the memory of Mike. Ofc the Snow Ball promise becomes larger in her mind. When the only thing you have to fill your time is television, especially romantic television, your perception shifts. The kiss becomes cinematic, the dance a destiny. The boy who kissed you like the couples on screen must mean something bigger, because that’s what the screen tells you.

Even people raised in normal circumstances internalize what media teaches them about love. Now imagine someone like Jane, whose entire understanding of relationships comes secondhand. The logic of it is almost constructed and mechanical: a boy is kind to me, he kisses me like on TV, so it’s love, so this is what comes next. It doesn’t come from an internal understanding of desire but from imitation.

Season 3

Season 3 makes it even worse as their dynamic turn into something that feels like codependency. Now it goes both ways. Mike throws himself into the relationship with an intensity that’s less like organic, natural love and more like performance. It’s like he was trying to grow up too fast (grow from his feelings for a certain someone ughm 👀), to ground himself into a heterosexual teenage script of what “normal” looks like. Meanwhile, Jane is isolated again but just in a cozier cage. Her boyfriend becomes her primary connection to the outside world. They don’t talk about much, they don’t share interests, they just make out because that’s what couples do. For Mike, It’s easier than actually communicating and avoids difficult conversations. And for Jane, it follows the script she’s been given because what else are couples supposed to do?

Then Max comes into the picture and it’s one of the most liberating and heartbreaking moments of Jane’s arc. For the first time, she explores herself through clothes, preferences and opinions. When she asked “How do I know what I like?” That line alone destabilized the entire “she’s in love” argument for me. How can you be certain about loving someone romantically when you are still figuring out whether you even like a color, a style or a pair of shoes? When your own identity is still forming?

The way she looked at Max reminded me of how she looked at Mike in season 1 as if she’s wide-eyed, curious and absorbing the world around her. Then during that silly breakup, she honestly looked more hurt by betrayal than by the idea of losing the relationship itself. Being lied to by someone she trusted hurt more than the separation. After that, her focus drifts and her attention is elsewhere for most of the season. It didn’t feel like Mike was her emotional center anymore.

Season 4

Then Hopper “dies,” she moves states, integrates high school, exposes herself to social dynamics she has never navigated before. And that’s when we suddenly see her investing heavily in her relationship with Mike in a way that felt exaggerated. She built him a shrine in her bedroom, his name and damn face is everywhere. Drawings of him and letters and keepsakes…

The first time I watched that, I still wasn’t a Byler (better late than sorry 🫣). I just felt uncomfortable with that scene because It didn’t feel like natural, organic love. It was like she was clutching onto something. She was lonely and ostracized and likely watching other teenagers publicly experience romance and thinking, I have that too. I have a boyfriend. I’m normal. I’m okay.

Also, the show gives us nothing about her maintaining contact with her other friends and especially Max who was the one person who showed her she could exist outside of a relationship. She was isolated again in another way BUT as she gained more exposure to the world, her needs expanded. I believe that’s when she started sensing the flaws, that something was missing, that it’s not enough. But instead of confronting it, she doubled down, exaggerated devotion and romanticized what she had. Feel free to disagree but to me that’s overcompensating and self-preservation.

When she lost her powers, she was stripped bare. Without them, she is just Jane and I think, subconsciously, she always feared that her powers were what made Mike choose her and kept him invested. If I’m not special, if I can’t save everyone, what am I? Does he love me, or does he love the superhero?

And every time Mike opened his damn mouth and leaned into the “you’re my superhero” crap, it reinforced that insecurity. He idolizes her strength and glorifies her abilities. But does he know and see her as a person separate from that? Does he understand her trauma deeply enough to reach her with words? Can he see her without the pedestal he puts her on? At the same time, Mike also seemed to be outgrowing the fantasy too. The brave superhero narrative isn’t enough anymore to sustain his (cover) feelings the way it once did. By S4, they’re both clinging to something that doesn’t fit.

My take on where they stood: I truly believe the letter she left before going with Owens was the end of that relationship. I also don’t think she believed his surfer pizza confession. If she had drawn strength from his words and felt truly seen, she would’ve turned to him afterward and would’ve sought comfort in him after losing to Vecna. Instead, she withdrew and didnt talk to him for the rest of the trip. She only broke down and showed vulnerability when Hopper appeared. Her dear dad, not the guy who just confessed his “undying love” to her. So If that declaration was meant to shift something in her emotionally, it likely didn’t.

So yeah, her independence arc didn’t happen despite her love for Mike but alongside the process of navigating what he meant to her. She clung to the idea of love and a boyfriend because it offered stability and normalcy, especially when Mike framed their bond romantically from the beginning. When someone categorizes your connection that way early on, it becomes terrifying to imagine redefining it because it might mean losing them entirely. But by season 4, the illusion fractures and she begins to understand that she has been pretending, just as he has been pretending. I really loved how they paralleled each other in the beginning of S4.

Season 5

Also, as a conformity and shadow gater, I’m convinced they were already broken up by season 5. Could Jane, in another phase of her life, with more self-awareness, emotional grounding, and no monsters to hunt her, have loved Mike in a healthy, sustainable way? MAYBE. But the Jane we’ve seen so far, a girl socialized through TV, still learning what she likes, still separating safety from affection, still fighting for her survival, didn’t have the right tools and experience to distinguish affection and dependency from true romantic love.

I don’t think she was in love with Mike and I don’t think she truly understood what being in love felt like. On a shadier note, once she fully becomes herself outside of powers and survival, I don’t really see her going for someone like Mike. Just saying 👀

[massy2ly]

Another day, another Easter egg

S4 Ep1

E > Edward

H > Henry

And is that a tesseract ?? 👀

Shadow gate is alive and well in S4… Oh the season we’ve been introduced to Henry and Vecna 👀

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Rockin Robin

Oh, just Robin being surrounded by Russian soldiers but completely unharmed when she literally infiltrated their base. I fear that’s not how it works even if Steve had begged for them to spare her.

Catering to sensitive audience and keeping the tone light? I don’t think so either when we’ve seen Jane rip a baby demo out of her open leg.

Robin, Robin… you deserve whatever suspicion is coming your way.

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Tharizdungate again. Look at the pattern on Holly’s dress

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Not even the same shirt LoL. No pattern, not the same color, different sleeves… idk what else people need atp

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OMG they changed it on Netflix to that fake ass poster…

WHO TF IS THAT!? THAT’S NOT OUR MIKE WHEELER!! Give me back my gay son

Get Tf out of my screen. I’m so sick of them Ugh

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🚌 🖼️

To this day I still can’t fully get behind what possessed Will to say the painting was commissioned by Jane (Cyrano trope and all).

This is my personal opinion 🫶

First of all… there’s a limit to how far “being a good friend” can go. I get that he wanted to help Mike and Jane. He’s selfless and good like that. But in that moment it felt like he was doing too much. S4 Will was barely holding himself together and It almost felt like if he could just fix Mike’s relationship, if he could push Mike toward Jane hard enough, then maybe he could slam the door on his own feelings and survive it. They’re perfect for each other and can never separate, right? Like ofc they’re gonna get back together and he can finally kill the hope for himself.

That’s my personal interpretation, at least. Because even for sweet, considerate Will, that was a lot. He was rubbing Mike’s back for episodes. A lot… especially when he’s in love with the boy he’s actively pushing toward someone else.

And the part that really boggles my mind and makes me think there’s more to this than being a good friend, is the logic of the lie itself. They were going for the Cyrano trope and maybe it’s just me, but for a character who’s canonically cautious and trying to hide his feelings, it’s an interesting choice of lies.

Why say Jane commissioned it?

He didn’t think two steps ahead. Because what’s the very first thing someone does after getting a heartfelt gift from their partner? They thank them. They bring it up. That lie would expire so quick and the truth would come out immediately, and Will is then the liar (and we know how bad that is in his dynamic with Mike).

It felt like self-sabotage. I understand that Mike was spiraling and Will wanted to boost his confidence, to make him feel loved and needed. But Will is also a character who’s usually quiet careful. For him to choose a lie that bad? He panicked and was trying so hard to erase himself from the equation that he stoped thinking clearly.

And yes, before anyone jumps in, I know he was struggling. His self worth was practically non existent during that season. It absolutely did read like a panic response. Like he saw the vulnerability in that moment and decided the safest thing to do was remove himself completely before Mike suspects something. My main issue is that he picked the worst possible lie. It would so easily and quickly be debunked given the context. He basically dug his own grave when his intention was actually to remove suspicion and hide.

Also, this might be a hot take idk, but I actually appreciate fic writers who revisit this scene and validate both Mike and Will’s perspectives. Because as much as I love Will and understand why he did it, it is still a form of emotional manipulation, even if completely unintentional. It pushed Mike into feeling guilty about Jane and gaslighted him into thinking that he was actually loved in the way he DESPERATELY wanted to be loved.

So yeah, Will’s self-worth was in the gutter to the point he tried to disappear inside his friendships. But in doing that, he set up a situation that was almost guaranteed to backfire and hurt everyone involved.

What I find the most tragic is not that he lied but that he believed erasing himself was the most loving thing he could do (and that erasure exists through birthday gate too). Now I want to cry or punch something.

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Happy Vday

If you feel sad, lonely, and did absolutely nothing on Valentine’s day, just remember: William Byers, aka the prettiest, sweetest boy in Hawkins, STILL hasn’t gotten his happy ending with the boy he’s loved since basically forever.

Now you might feel even more sad and lonely. But the bright side is that you and your bias are sailing the same ship 🚢 ✨

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[massy2ly]

Something, something about the Sinclairs occupying observation posts

Their last name associated with “light, clarity, truth.”

Two siblings with the ability to clock characters, reveal “facts,” choose honesty and rebound from failure/distraction faster than most…

Erica defeating (if only temporarily) in hellfire a dark wizard who specialises in mind games and illusions. Lucas breaking the fourth wall and talking with the audience, revealing inconsistencies.

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Papa

There’s something very weird about how similar Dr. Kay and Dr. Brenner are. The hunt for Jane is like a parallel to S1, the experiments are basically the same, and the military subplot doesn’t add anything new or interesting to the story. It also makes zero sense that they can just cozy up in the UD without knowing about or being threatened by the evil forces there. They never achieved anything and got taken down in each fight. They don’t feel essential at all, more like background decor you could remove at any time, without changing much.

Reheated nachos, plus two characters who even look alike. Also, the way Kay talks to Jane… there’s a strange familiarity to it that’s not talked about enough.

It’s weird, and I really hope the theories about multiple timelines or decoherence end up playing a role in explaining this, because otherwise it just feels lazy and repetitive. We might be dealing with the same character here…

[massy2ly]

The real psychosis

Kind reminder that in S4 Mike had the absolute audacity to act like a jerk because he didn’t want to sit with whatever he feels for Will, got jealous over a painting and a girl he knew nothing about and that El mentioned exactly once in a letter. Then he proceeded to start ranting to Will about his hetslop relationship literally the next day, because for some mysterious reason he couldn’t say “I love you” to his gf.

Second kind reminder that Will most definitely had to sit in Lenora listening to Jane talk about the boy he was in love with. There’s no universe where that wouldn’t happen because she was lonely and it’s clear how close she and Will have grown. And sweet Will ofc would sit and listen.

Third kind reminder that he AGAIN sacrificed himself to help fix said hetslop relationship because he doesn’t see his own worth and would rather watch his friends be happy.

And then some stupid Milevens have the nerve to call him a nasty homewrecker trying to steal what “belongs” to El…

Like… no actually I personally want to LITERALLY wreck whatever home is making this sweet boy go through this alone and not even get a kiss or a fleeting hot Californian fling with some guy.

All for the sake of a slow burn with a nerd so deep in the closet he’s fine smooching his sister in front of him to gaslight himself, and stare at his ass the next second. Be fr 😀 What are we even talking about here?

[massy2ly]

Ice cream indirect kiss

Colors matching

The happiest El ever looked

Green between them (in the back)

Blue hair tie / yellow watch

Reassurance, guidance, agency, fun

The notion of learning what she likes vs. “We didn’t find anything that suited you” (ugh Mike)

WHAT IS THIS SUPPOSED TO MEAN DUFFERSSSS??

I wasn’t even on the Elmax bus until recently but the more you look into it, the weirder it gets

Don’t even get me started on S4 and the heart thing