@gritstartar has some great posts about the ridiculous extent of the gay sex jokes in S5, and it got me thinking about the scene in the first episode of T85 where they're trying to catch the Snow Shark.
(Note that I know it's kinda weird because they're younger again in T85, but most of us think that the show is some kind of vision Mike's having while flayed when he's older in the main show, so...idk. I'm just sharing what I see here.)
The monsters in T85 are commonly thought to be associated with Mike's homosexuality, and Mike is framed next to the Jaws poster a bunch of times in the main series. So, I think the Snow Shark represents Mike's gay ass here.
When the party's trying to find it, they cover Dustin in Slim Jims, which are meat sicks (subtextually, dicks).
Dustin asks how they know the Snow Shark will even like them, and Mike basically says that they need to entice it to "get it out in the open" which sounds a lot like coming out to me.
So, subtextually, according to Mike, the possibility of getting some dick (Slims Jims) might be enough for him to express his homosexuality (get the Snow Shark to surface).
We then learn that Lucas is the one who suggested using Slim Jims, which aligns well with the common assumption that he's clocked Mike as being gay and in love with Will.
Lucas claims that everyone likes Slim Jims (where are my bi!Lucas truthers?)
He says that Will had wanted to use fish instead, and Will says that sharks like fish.
"Fish" is a slang term for vaginas and for drag queens who "pass" as cis women, which kind of reminds me of the whole El-is-Will-in-drag concept.
So, subtextually, Will thinks that Mike (the Snow Shark) is attracted to El, and women in general (fish), but Lucas knows that Mike prefers men (Slim Jims).
Just saw this close-up of a mug with a blue/red/yellow flower pattern in the Penhurst listening room in this post by @lavenderlatte222 and realized I'd seen it before.
(Sorry, this was the best closeup of Holly's pattern that I could get)
The post linked above hypothesizes that the blue/red/yellow pattern could be associated with altered memories, which means the pattern on Holly's overalls could be more proof that Mike was actually taken to Camazotz that night, and us seeing Holly there instead is an altered memory.
If in T85 Charlie represents Will and Nikki represents Mike, it just occurred to me that it's interesting that they'd pick names for those characters that're basically Charlie and Nick, who're arguably Netflix's most famous (currently) canon gay couple from their show Heartstopper, which came out a year before they allegedly started planning T85.
Given the metagate of it all, I found it interesting that the Netflix show Carmen San Diego gave Finn Wolfhard's character Byler coding in its last season (which came out a year before S4) with blue and yellow lockers and a rainbow star sticker on his blue laptop.
And the more I look at these two stills, the more possible connections I see.
The clock above him in the hallway
The blue and yellow triangle flags (T85 connection?) on the bulletin board
The little red fire alarm in the back of the hallway (T85 connection?)
The purple and orange (illusions) book in his locker that has 4 figures on the cover (the party being locked away in an illusion world?)
The blue, yellow, and red color gradient circles on his laptop (@gritstartar color theory?)
The pixelated snowflake sticker (snowball/avalanche?)
The sticker of the earth that's peeling back a bit at the top (turning upside down?)
The post-it note in the locker that kinda looks like it says el in cursive
Noah: "I don't wanna be, you know, stooping down to this man that he's, like, begging for that won't even look his way. Like, hell no. Will deserves better than that."
Question to you comformitygaters out there was there any significance of the number 5 to the show and specifically will???
Bc I put a post here a few days ago about the McDonald’s toys about how Mike was blue and number 7 and Will was yellow and number 5 and I saw this image of the s4 uno cards (which are very real I looked them up) and Mike was a blue 7 and Will yellow 5 and I just think that’s very interesting. (wasn’t there something like a theory or whatever with the numbers 57 or am I tripping???)
It's not surprising that they made Will's stuff yellow and Mike's blue, but the number choices here are interesting for sure.
IDK about the use of the number 5 in the show specifically, but in esoterica, 5 is associated with Mars (which represents aggression, hate, shame, etc.) and the color red, which are both associated with Henry.
We all know Henry's linked to the color red in the show, and his birthday of March 22 (which they replaced Will's original birthday with in S2) puts his sun in the first decan of Aries. Each sign in astrology is ruled by a planet, and each decan within a sign is ruled by a planet. Aries is ruled by Mars, and its first decan is also specifically ruled by Mars. It's also a fire (associated with the color red) sign, which makes that decan in the zodiac that's the most strongly connected to the number 5 and to the things Henry represents.
Mike getting the number 7 is interesting, too. We all know that 7 is Byler's number, but it's also associated with Venus (representing love) and the color green (which represent truth, authenticity, and Byler's love in the show).
You could totally read this particular choice of numbers for them as indicating that Will's still possessed by Henry/Vecna (many people have theorized that he never woke up, is building Camazotz, etc.), and Mike's love (him finally confessing) is the way to get to Will and free them all.
They've used esoteric connections in their marketing before, so I wouldn't put it past them to do it here as well.
In The Boroughs, I think Mother (who has blue and yellow eyes) represents Byler's love, and she's dying because Mike's stuck in Camazotz and repressing his feelings.
But we see that she has yellow blood, and her kids have blue blood. When Wally (Will) adds the blue blood to her dying yellow blood, it regenerates.
When the blue blood meets the yellow blood in this lab in New Mexico (which is in the western part of the US), Mother's cells regenerate, and that could be the cure to stop her from dying.
"When blue meets yellow in the west" is the way to save Byler's love from dying in Camazotz. Mike and Will need to find each other.
Given all the drug subtext in the show, it's interesting that we see the sign with a smiley face that looks like an ecstasy pill the first time we meet Daniel (Mike's closeted alter-ego), and there's a sign that says "say 'no' to drugs" the first time we meet Nikki (Mike's queer alter-ego).
Just watched the T85 S2 teaser. Is Charlie (real Will) in the party now? Why's he sneaking around with them in the woods at night?
I'm choosing to interpret that as a good thing, since this is likely Mike's vision, and that would mean he's getting closer to Will. But I guess we'll see what happens.
Sports represent traditional masculinity in the show, and I noticed that in T85, not only does Mike finally give himself weapons after not getting to use any in the main show, he chooses to fight the monsters with sports equipment.
He uses a bat to fight the Snow Shark, and then when he brings the bag of weapons down into the cave, he picks a modified hockey stick for himself.
By using sporting equipment to fight off these monsters, he's subtextually trying to fend off his inner demons (his shame around his queerness) by embracing traditional masculinity.
But his queer alter-ego Nikki is openly dismissive of sports multiple times in the show.
The first time we see her, she's facing down the tough guy who was threatening Will, and she mockingly calls him "sport."
After the party defeats the Snow Shark, Lucas gets up in her face in a way we've never seen him do (as if he were putting on a "tough guy" facade to scare her into keeping her mouth shut).
But Nikki isn't intimidated. She mocks him, too, by telling him to keep eating Wheaties, which are famous for featuring prominent athletes on the box.
Later, when Will pulls the fire alarm, Nikki openly and obviously lies to the coach about who did, clearly disrespecting his authority.
And finally, when the party's getting weapons from her garage, Lucas accidentally punctures a basketball, and Nikki suggests that it was inevitable that the ball would get flattened.
Nikki's consistent disregard for sports signals that Mike needs to reject society's rigid ideas about what it means to be a man in order to fully accept his queerness.
I like to think that those ideas also have it coming.
I'm convinced that T85 is some kind of vision for Mike, and everything we see is from his POV, which means that the Will we see is how Mike views Will.
I think the real Will is represented by Charlie.
What happens to Charlie in T85 mirrors Will's possession story and shows how he can be freed by Mike's love.
The first time we see Charlie, he's wearing a yellow hoodie, which is Will's color.
He gets taken (in the woods) by the vine monster, which grabs him by the face in a way that looks similar to what happened when the Mind Flayer possessed Will on the field.
Charlie ends up being inside the Snow Shark. He's got a vine hooked up to his mouth, so it can use him as a host.
When El rips Charlie out of the Snow Shark, we can see from his eyes that even though he's out of the Snow Shark, he's still possessed. He's still connected to the hivemind just like Will was after he came back from the UD in S1 and got his true sight and again after they got the Mind Flayer particles out of him in S2 and he started getting his "goosies".
The next time we see Charlie, he's wearing a red (Vecna) hoodie. And he keeps wearing it for the rest of the show.
He tells Dustin that he saw a red light at the top of a tower, which looks a lot like the the WSQK tower, which is where the Mind Flayer particles went when Will connected to Henry and got possessed again.
The red shading on Charlie's image of the tower also reminds me of Will's demovision, which aligns with Charlie seeing the tower from the queen's POV.
When they run into Charlie later at the arcade, he's got huge purple bags under eyes, almost like he hasn't been sleeping well.
In detention, Mike, Will, and Nikki get chased through the hallways by the monster. They're about to escape when Will and Nikki remember they had to go back to save Charlie. Interestingly, Mike didn't want to. He just wanted them to save themselves.
If real Will is the builder of this Camazotz type of world that they're in, Mike doesn't really want it to end. He doesn't want to save Will because then they could get out, and he's comfortable here.
Sure there are still monsters, but he's got his safe, seemingly happy relationship with El. T85 is set before S3, which is when he started really overcompensating for his feelings. It's when the lip glances started and when he started making a really strong effort to "grow up."
T85 is also set before he found out that Will's gay, so he didn't have to think about the possibility of them actually being together and be sad that they couldn't be because (he thought) Will was over him.
In this world he (and probably Will as the builder) has created, Mike can go on thinking that he's straight and not in love with Will.
But even in this world that's he's made for himself, Will and Nikki (his queer self-insert) know that they need to save Charlie (real Will), and Mike reluctantly agrees.
The plant monster attacks Charlie, again by grabbing his face, which also looks very similar to the way Vecna places his claw over people's faces. (We don't really get an angle like that when he does it to Will in Escape from Camazotz, but it's the same motion Vecna uses on him.)
They manage to get it to release Charlie, but after this second time he's been attacked, he goes into a trance.
Will says that creature got him once before and wants him back (I'm losing my mind about Will's hospital gown being covered in triangles).
The thing that actually kills the monster is the potato taser that Will throws at it (mixing with the goo Nikki/Mike's queerness poured on it). The electricity sets it on fire.
Remember that this is Mike's vision of Will. He sees Will as the one with the electricity.
Then we get this interaction:
Nikki (Mike's queer self-insert) asks Will if she can still join the party, and Mike leaves that decision up to Will.
Mike's queerness is asking Will whether he'd accept it, and Mike is letting Will say what he wants instead of assuming that his queerness would be unwelcome, which is what he's always done before.
Will says Nikki can join, and that's the moment Charlie stops being possessed.
All Mike needs to do to save Will is stop assuming that Will won't want him and let himself be vulnerable enough to actually ask.
Once Charlie's ok, Mike pulls the fire alarm so that someone will find him.
They don't have sprinklers that go off in the show, but that's what I associate fire alarms with.
Fire and water are often used to represent hate and love, respectively, in art, and I'm convinced that water (love) will play a big roll in the actual ending to the show.
Setting off the fire alarm here subtextually indicates that Mike wants to stop hating himself and allow his love for Will to come through.
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