im a fake fan of everything i like because i cant remember anything
styofa doing anything
$LAYYYTER
Xuebing Du
Show & Tell

if i look back, i am lost

JVL
Mike Driver
d e v o n
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trying on a metaphor

blake kathryn

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Janaina Medeiros
sheepfilms

oozey mess
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Sweet Seals For You, Always

Product Placement

izzy's playlists!
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@psal2860
im a fake fan of everything i like because i cant remember anything
What Marjane Satrapi said.
i love seeing my friends interests mentioned somewhere. its like woaaah. thats My Friends interest. from My Friend. wow. epic friend reference
Let’s talk about shared trauma. S4 is the end of reality for Hawkins
S5 is a culmination of shared trauma
And "you were just a kid...like me" is so important to save everyone.
Henry is talking about more than just himself and the Mindflayer here when he says we are one
Every person in the party contributes their trauma to the manifestation of things. The more they lie to one another, hide, repress their shame, and internalize their guilt, the worse things get. As everyone got older, they bottled and hid more. By Season 4, every single character is lying and hiding. Will lies about the painting and his feelings (and El’s feelings in the process), El lies about how bad things are going in Lenora and pretends her life is great, Jonathan lies about his acceptance letter and why he can’t come to Hawkins, Nancy lies about her relationship being "perfect", Max lies about how bad she’s handling her grief and doesn’t tell anyone when she starts to experience Vesna's calling cards. And Mike may be the worst liar of them all because he lies to himself. "I guess I just don't understand." "Why am I the bad guy?" You really can't understand anyone else if you don't understand yourself and so naturally, he is unable to help those around him.
Every single lie or omitted truth is a defense mechanism. And Mike's problem is exactly what Kali said to Hop, "just as you lie to Jane, you also lie to yourself."
As everyone's trauma's go unresolved, the manifestations build until the party has no hope of defeating them. They're collectively just too much. It's a fact that you can't help your friends if you yourself are drowning.
Will started building his closet right around the same time that Hopper was working on a pretty impressive black hole.
Will:
This is what Hawkin's felt like to a young Will as he started to realize just how different he really was...
And thus the upside down was created and he was dragged into the closet...
I've heard a lot of people say how come in S5 the UD isn't even that scary anymore and it doesn't seem that cold and everyone can just breathe in the spores? Valid. But you need to look at it as Will's evolving trauma. His identity as a gay kid has evolved a lot since he was 12 and some of that has to do with the love and support he's been given even before he came out. At Surfer Boy Jonathan tells him exactly what he needs to hear and stops short of saying he knows Will is queer. But it's implied and Will receives the message. He then meets Robin and has an even better understanding of how his life could look and suddenly things seem a little more manageable and even exciting. Love and acceptance are stripping the upside down of its effects albeit very slowly.
Hopper:
Hopper doesn’t have a closet, a cold, lonely place that is a version of his real life like Will does. Because Hopper is a vast black hole. He is the curse. According to him, he is responsible for Sara’s death and will be responsible for every bad thing that happens to Joyce and El.
He tells Enzo in Russia, "You don't get it. The closer I get to Joyce, the more danger she's in. I'm cursed. Since I was 18 years old."
As he continues to walk around with dynamite strapped to himself and lies every day to El's face, things get worse. This is Hop’s contribution to the group project and it's threatening to do exactly what he said it would...
So now we have an Upside Down and a Black Hole.
El:
El's has had two primary fears since she escaped the lab. Her worst fear used to be that she was the monster. She said it first all the way back in S1 to Mike and still struggles with it after attacking Angela in S4. But when she goes to NINA she has a breakthrough. She tells Brenner, “I used to think I was the monster. But I know now. It’s you. YOU are the monster.” She finally figures out that her past wasn’t her fault.
The problem for El is that despite realizing she isn't the monster, they have shown her time and time again that no matter how free or normal she thinks she is, they will always physically find her. Every time she thinks she’s free from the government, they find her and drag her back to Brenner...
And thus her new worst fear is born: that she’ll never truly escape these people. Brenner hunted her in S1.
El manifested Dr. Kay in S5. She is one dimensional and singularly focused on El's greatest fear. Dragging El back to the lab. Kay isn't a member of the government; she is the government.
When the military hunted El in S4 to bring her to NINA, the the only way to escape was to kill people in order to be free.
S4 hunted by helicopter:
Season 5 hunted by helicopter:
You'll notice in S5 that no matter how many solders the party kills or how many military plans they interfere with, they don’t get much reaction. Thats because ALL of their focus is on hunting El, to the point that she is deep in hiding and can only travel through Hawkins via the tunnels. The reason the military isn’t all that interested in anyone but El is because they’re HER manifestation.
This cycle keeps repeating...
Nancy:
Mike: After all this time it comes for Holly? Holly?? Who has nothing to do with any of this? It makes no goddamn sense.
Nancy: It makes perfect goddamn sense!
This - is not a coincidence....
She's right. After barb went missing, Nancy was pretty vocal about blaming herself. She felt like it was her fault she made her go to the party, left her alone outside, etc. She dealt with the guilt of that throughout the entire series. In fact, Barb's death is how Nancy became a designated fighter of the party. In her search for truth, she discovered she's a crack shot. She wanted to find a way to protect the people she loved because she felt so responsible for Barb's death that she ended up becoming the weapons expert of the group. Some of the most important people she wanted to protect were her family.
After S4 when Vecna shows her family being attacked, she becomes obsessed with finding him. She is the manager of the party come S5, she is in charge of the logistics of all crawls, they all look to her as the leader. While Nancy is a great leader, she put herself in this position out of a sense of responsibility to the others. When they are in the abyss and decide they need someone to be bait, she says it will be her with zero hesitation as if it's the most obvious choice. She has grown a lot but she still very much hasn't forgiven herself for Barb. So due to her fears, Nancy's contribution to the group project of trauma isn't an alternate dimension or a black hole, it's her own little sister being taken by a Demogorgon. Nancy manifested Holly's kidnapping, her worst fear.
Another important part of the most traumatic experience for Nancy losing Barb was that during all of S1, Steve and Jonathan are being competitive over her. Jonathan less so because he's dealing with Will but the fact remains that Nancy gets very frustrated at how they could be thinking about bullshit like that when she is focused on finding her missing friend. S5 the exact same dynamic emerges. She gets to the point where is snapping at them because she's in disbelief that they think she cares about their little pissing contests when Holly is out there somewhere.
Mike:
Mike has a myriad of traumatic experiences and self-reflections that he simply cannot process. In order to compartmentalize and repress things in a way that allows him to function, he creates a wall in his mind.
A wall behind which he can shove everything he's not ready to look at or think about. Some of those things are events, like losing Will at 12, losing El to the Demogorgon, and about a hundred other near-death experiences of himself and his loved ones.
Other things that exist behind that wall are more complicated feelings he isn't ready to process or he's actively running away from....
Henry:
Henry has also contributed to the shared trauma in a major way. The Abyss is a manifestation from him. This is why the Abyss is a desert. Specifically, it's an arid desert in Nevada. There were lots of complaints that this made no sense because the MF likes it cold. Will's closet and Henry's cave (their shared traumas) are two different climates. It makes perfect sense. Just like Max and Holly climb through doors and windows to navigate memories, the party traverses through traumas to reach other traumas.
Henry has held onto the anger and the feelings that he was innately bad since he was a child in that cave. That experience created those thoughts and they stayed with him so long they invited the Mindflayer in. But Will recognized something in Henry that no one had told him before...
Henry is a scared little boy who looks like a man. He has never grown up beyond that day in the cave and the only way he can feel powerful is by becoming Vecna because being Henry was terrifying.
Someone is going to have to save Henry to destroy Vecna. This doesn't mean that Henry will live. It means he needs to finally let go so he can stop letting his fears and anger pull everyone into the void.
According to Dustin, "The key to destroying that wall is in the lab. It isn't dark magic; Vecna didn't make it. Science did. It's exotic matter."
Dustin also told us that the Upside Down is a bridge, meaning Will is the bridge. And the exotic matter at the heart of the bridge is right here...
So this stands to reason that the key to destroying Mike's wall of trauma and shame is accessing his heart. It's Mike's heart, but it belongs to Will.
The whole party can save themselves by being open and honest with themselves and each other even if it's scary, especially if it's scary. They have to rid themselves of the shame, guilt, and fear that come with growing up.
this might be the most logical explanation for all of the duffers plot holes ever, im at a loss of words ❤️🩹
When the trope is the main character being a kid who has gone through/is going through/ the horrors of life
normalize being dogshit amateur at your special interests and hyperfocuses. no more autistic savants. yes i am very into that topic no i am not good at it. we exist <3
my daily affirmation as an author
thank you ao3 for being an archive and not an algorithm. thank you for letting me like things without consequences, thank you for being free with no ads, thank you for having lawyers to defend our freedom of speech. thank you tag wranglers. thank you to all authors and thank you ao3
“it’s unrealistic for every character to be queer!”
you do realise that is not true, right? I mean, it is undeniably natural for queer people to be drawn to each other. I see friend groups that are full of mostly queer people, and you dare to look at me and say that it isn’t realistic?
and this isn’t even just true for queer people. It’s natural for neurodivergent people to be drawn to each other in this way, which is also a natural quality a person can have, just like a queer identity
so, please, do not tell me, a queer and neurodivergent person who surrounds themself with fellow queer and neurodivergent people, that multiple characters in a show being queer is unrealistic
something about the queer coded blue paladin doomed by the narrative (bad writing and butchering of character development)
maybe the real mike pov is the gay awakenings the audience had along the way
It’s always gotta be some fuckass painting,
that godamn swing set,
a traumatised gay boy
and finn fucking wolfhard at the crime scene
I quit.
She was kissed before she knew her name.
She was in a relationship before she knew what clothes she liked.
Her boyfriend needed his bestfriend's help to tell her that he loved her.
I love Mike. I love El.
But I don't like their relationship.
When I criticize jk Rowling do not assume I always hated Harry Potter. I knitted hogwarts house scarves. I got my first binder to dress as Draco Malfoy for Halloween. I reread the books multiple times. I read probably every pottermore article there was at the time.
I’m not here to validate your smug feelings about not liking a children’s book series 20 years ago. I’m here to discourage others from spending money on it and to give myself and others words and space to work through some feelings. I’m a trans person that made Harry Potter one of my cornerstone interests. One of my favorite things. I’m not some cis person doing cope.
Harry Potter was a big thing. Like. Big in a way that’s difficult to fully understand. It still is. If you were caught up in it during your formative years it’s normal to need to process all of the horrid things now associated with it.
Having to burn down the house you grew up in is going to be hard even if it turns out that the house was always rotten from the inside out. Even if it turns out that the foundation was made of straw. But the destruction and deconstruction must happen if one hopes to move on and move forward. That’s why I talk about it at all.
so..! to recap !!!!
we don't know why will was taken specifically
hopper and joyce just happened to conveniently forget going to school with henry
the painting lie hasn't been addressed
we don't know why el recognized will in season 1 without having ever seen him before
we don't know who opened the door the night will was taken
mike and will's colors just HAPPEN to be blue and yellow and the cast, crew, and WRITERS THEMSELVES telling us to "pay attention to detail" was deadass just generational queerbait
after everything, mike STILL couldn't say i love you to eleven
patty newby is non-existent and creelby just happens to parallel byler for literally no reason 🩷
will was about to FORGIVE henry.
the duffers genuinely forgot their OWN MAIN CHARACTERS BIRTHDAY AND AGE MULTIPLE TIMES
the russian involvement in s3 and s4 was never explained so it was prob just capitalist propaganda except they don't want us to realize that so they gave jonathan an entire anti-capitalist film storyline for the sake of "screwing conformity" i guess
ohhh but! critiquing society???? fuck that! because they also didn't show us vickie in the epilogue at all, giving her and robin a completely ambiguous ending in which 90% of the fandom believe they broke up off-screen!!!!!!! A+ for representation !!!!!!
not only that, but will doesn't even have a CONFIRMED epilogue boyfriend. that is full well a cute lil headcanon that MIKE has for him.
terry ives, lonnie, enzo, max's mom, suzie, argyle, dr kay, the turnbow family, the school counselor with the clock necklace, and dr owens just vanished into thin air, ALONG WITH ALL THE DANGERS OF THE UPSIDE DOWN???? where were the demodogs, the demogorgons, the demobats????
max's letters were just completely insignificant and had no reason to be mentioned again i guess
november 6 just happened to be a funny coincidence
they ALSO happened to forget that nancy had a vision of mike being killed by vecna in s4 bc that boy wasn't even remotely in danger at all while every other wheeler was put through hell
dr brenner's obsession and fascination with the upside down and abyss stemming from how his father was involved in project rainbow was also not addressed
not to mention that the dude is literally horrendous at drawing animals but when it comes to the flipping hexcore he's da vinci
melvalds, the general store, just happens to sell milkshakes
will adores getting lost in the woods because that's such a fun activity for him
henry just gave holly her favorite song because he was feeling kind
they never actually defeated the mind flayer !!!! which is wonderful
we actually never find out whether or not will lost his powers
el's water tank in the upside down being completely full although there has literally NEVER been water in the upside down before
mike is somehow the only one who has ever understood el even though she was 10x happier with max. could they not have just admitted that they made the elmax reunion so incredibly lackluster because they refused to let ANY gay ships win regardless of how much chance they had of being canon?
the 'lovebirds' parallel between jonathan + steve and mike + eleven??? what was that even for
all the dick jokes, mike listening the a band called the BUTTHOLE SURFERS, the camera panning to mike 7000 times during will's coming out scene, mike not being able to touch will, all just happened to be fun coincidences
not only that, but the mike-will-eleven and nancy-jonathan-steve love triangles were resolved by none of the couples working out! wow.
they really just made us wait 3 whole years for something BEYOND mid.