have seen no one talk about the most obvious imagery of the entirety of volume 2:
will's head positioned perfectly inside the circle illustrating the bridge's exotic matter. as dustin explains:
the exotic matter is what holds the bridge (the upside down) together.
so how could will be connected to this?
we all know will was the first to be taken into the upside down. i dare say will was the first human to go in there at all. vecna said that when he took will, he realized the potential for what he could do using the minds of more children. will's mind is somehow directly linked to whatever is holding the bridge/UD together.
space . com explains exotic matter as referring to theoretical or rare forms of matter that don’t follow everyday physical rules. one type of exotic matter that could be related to wormholes is matter with negative mass. all matter we know has a positive mass and is attracted to other matter due to gravity, but matter with a negative mass would push other matter away from it.
the writers are giving us the most on the nose metaphor - exotic matter literally explains will. since season 3, they have pushed the narrative that will feels like an outsider, like he is an outlier even amongst his friends. this is reflected in how his character has been "neglected" and seemingly pushed to the side. and now it is confirmed; despite having most things in common, he is different from them in one way, and this one difference has defined the past years of his life.
slight paraphrasing here, but in the coming out scene will says vecna showed him it is going to lead to negativity that makes him push people away and drift apart from them:
this fear and this feeling is somehow intrinsically linked to the entire structure holding the bridge together. because this is the show that uses sci fi metaphors to explain the horrors of growing up, i think we can assume this connection goes farther than just this direct mirroring, but sadly i am not smart enough to think of a way this can play out in the scifi plot. but i have no doubt that it will.
but, we have now seen that (literally) all of will's friends and family accept and love him despite this difference. they're pulling him back in, proving his fears wrong.
but the one thing they leave open, unanswered, ambiguous.... is mike's part in all this. because despite will saying he "had a crush" on mike, and likening mike to "his tammy" - we already know from the previous episodes in season five that this is not the case. will is in love with mike; he is hopeful that they could be something more to the point of asking robin how you know if someone wants to date, and righttttt after his 'coming of powers' moment, he asks robin just how soon after her epiphany did she get together w vickie😭
will is not over mike! mike is not will's tammy, guys, obviously he is not. and that is the missing piece; mike revealing that will's feelings are reciprocated is essential, because it is the final step to will not feeling like an outlier amongst his loved ones. because if mike is like him and also loves him, it gives will someone he does not feel different from.
and as will said in season 4: mike makes him feel like he's not a mistake. like he is better for being different.
mike reciprocating will's feelings has always been the full circle moment we are coming back to. will and mike's arcs have been directly intertwined since always but was solidified in the "crazy together" scene, and just about everything in their arc since has drawn lines back to that moment.
so, somehow will's link to the UD is what holds it together, and mike's love for will is going to be the very solution to casting out the last "negative matter" (doubt, fear, feeling like an outsider) from will's mind, which is necessary for them to be able to take the UD apart.
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theartofmadeline
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turnnoffyourmind
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