in real life, you're more like a sorcerer.

not spoiler free twt - @willbylers7

[dream-on-wheeler]

El: ‘I am terrified to the point of considering suicide that the US Government may harvest me for offspring’

Hopper: ‘fight for the days where you’ll have your own kids someday :)’

-

El: ‘you don’t get to write the ending.’ +spends her last words urging Mike to understand her choice and tell the others.’

Mike: writes her ending following HIS dream of waterfalls and never asks her about hers

[willbylers7]

the idea that finn was just doing what he wanted in byler scenes is so confusing to me. like if he is acting a certain way its because he was directed to, like it's meant to be romantic. and if it was his idea and they didn't want that, they'd tell him to stop ??? like it's not an accident, if it's in the scene it's because it's supposed to be. it's not just will flirting, mike is too. and why would they have mike flirt back if byler wasn't ever meant to be endgame? yeah

[thewisewill80sbyers]

They spent one whole season (more imo) setting up and focusing on Will being secretly in love with Mike, then set up the lie about the painting that was never resolved, spent half of the new season making Will have RANDOM hope (after years) that Mike likes him back, made Will have superpowers and save Mike and focus the memory that he has that gives him the strength to use these powers on Mike and Will as if to visually say that the love he has for Mike helped him to reach this powerful state to save his life (and this was said also by many of the GA that thought that that scene was insanely ROMANTIC and thought that byler was going to become canon because of it. because in any straight story where something like that happens the couple gets together.) only to then do a complete inversion of everything and make Will call it just ''a crush'' and immediately accept that Mike is actually ''straight'', and he should just limit himself to being the couple therapist for Mike and El's nonsensical relationship... prompted by? ''visions from the villain'' that we never even saw to understand this change of direction... ridiculous writing behavior. I don't understand how anybody could be serious about this and especially not being a professional screenwriter, you have something deeply wrong in your brain to think this is a normal plot to propose to your viewers

[willbylers7]

like the thought of the new content being interactive with multiple endings does kind of bother me... but i expect that if that's what they decide to do they will hopefully make it obvious which ending is the right ending or like the true ending. that would be the only way to do it right. by making the other endings clearly wrong (like the current one) and only the byler ending makes sense and is good. otherwise, people would still argue a non-byler ending is better lmao

[willbylers7]

okay but like this is actually crazy. literally interactive where you have to pick the right option to get the right ending!!! and of course they picked THIS scene... a really romantic byler scene...

[greenfiend]

A Love Story

Can we please discuss the analogies and metaphors more?

For example, this scene screams Byler and makes a direct connection between how Stranger Things is both a love story and a supernatural story...

Will has a "crazy" feeling. Crazy = love. The sky was spinning for him... "You spin me right round baby right round like a record baby......"

Will says maybe it's nothing. But "if Will has a feeling it means something."

Will says maybe he's just nervous before crawls and looks directly at Mike. He's nervous around Mike because he's in love with him...

Here's the fun part. Lucas says he gets nervous too, but "the sky doesn't spin for [him]". He feels love but not as intensely as Will.

Then Lucas looks at Mike and asks him "it ever spin for you?". Mike DOESN'T ANSWER but turns to look at Will. My guess is his answer is yes...

Then Mike says "maybe he's close". YEP indeed "he" is. He's.right.in.front.of.Will.

To further prove this point that Will's connection to the hivemind is directly connected to his connection with Mike...

Will is a receiver. He receives signals from both the hivemind and from Mike. Now if you re-watch the show, you'll see that pretty much whenever Will feels an connection to the UD, Mike is present. Throughout ST2-ST5 it's especially obvious.

Now I keep changing my mind on certain theories, but this is what I think the show is going for:

As the Duffers mentioned, ST is "a love story". This is different than a story about love. A love story is usually a romance between two characters who either end up together despite all obstacles, or at least continue to love each other until the very end.

"Can love defeat fear" is a question TFS asks. The ST5 finale's answer to this question is a resounding "NO". This is because Mike never became Mike the Brave. Will also chose fear, as he never truly revealed the depth of his feelings towards Mike. A clearly unsatisfying ending to anyone paying attention to the analogy of the show. Ever heard of “a love story” where neither characters ever get together or even reveal their feelings? lol

Mike and Will both still think that their love is wrong and that they need to "kill" it and that's what resulted in that goddamn awful ending we got.

The UD was never actually defeated. The UD and the creatures represent fear and shame. The only way to actually defeat the UD is for Mike and Will to accept themselves and chose love over fear.

[mikewakeup]

three-one-five. also significant in tales from 85. you know how they love to flip stuff around. five-one-three. 3:15 -> 5:13. 5/13. we'll meet you there.

[willbylers7]

okay so since tales from 85 isn't canon it honestly doesn't matter if there's more or when it comes out, as in we could get new content before or after. i still do think that they need to drop the first shadow really soon. i have a feeling we will actually get something announced soon, and i think it'll be that. also i don't know if i'm remembering this right, but wasn't there something about there being some changed scenes? i really don't know what they would change

[pancak3sandbac0n]

Mike, Nikki, & Sports

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.

[pancak3sandbac0n]

Charlie: The Real Will

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.

[willbylers7]

i really want someone to ask the duffers why we never got an answer to who unlocked the door in season 1. i remember it being mentioned specifically as something that would be answered, but it wasn't. it was never mentioned at all in any way like

[thebestofmyrmidons]

Also, what the hell, we actually got confirmation of cg today, because they blurred out one of the tapes/DVDs/box sets (whatever you want to call it!), in the recent Arrowhead promo???!!

girl. i can see where that rectangle that is pasted on top of the second to last DVD sleeve starts and stops.

you have to be kidding me?! they must've done this on purpose, there's a season-thick DVD sleeve that's blocked out for some reason

[thebestofmyrmidons]

OK i am confused, because in the video, there is a definitely an artificial black rectangle photoshopped in. In the video, there is mention of a '148-page perfect bound artbook' that's not mentioned anywhere in the description on the Arrow Video website? What artbook?

There is mention of a 'collector's booklet' (but not a perfect-bound 148 artbook, and I can't figure out which of these is the so-called artbook?)

It still doesn't explain why there's a clearly photoshopped black rectangle added, if it is just the 'artbook'...

[misspracticallydelulu]

I have to point out something about this!! Since I design packaging for a living lol

In this image below, it shows where those extra items are stored. It matches the same size as the first image. And you can see on the right corner the extra posters that’s at the end of the box.

Someone said the unlabelled black box is probably cardboard to pad the space. This does not happen in package design 🙂 The best option is always the less material you have to use, the better. Even when it comes to ink, there’s hidden panels where I’m often instructed to omit colour so it doesn’t increase the cost of printing. Or I’m instructed to shrink the ‘dieline’ of the package so it better fits the product.

A multi-billion dollar company like Netflix or Stranger Things wouldn’t make lazy choices like that. If it really is the extra items, the scale has been poorly photoshopped. Again! A multi-billion dollar company would never allow this.

This is what the black space reminds me of though: 👀

If it really is just the ‘art book’, which doesn’t match the scale of the promo image - poor poor form!!! Pay me to match the dimensions I’ll do itttttttt 💸

[pinksweaterinthecorner]

in season 5, there are questions about the air in the upside down that are never answered. plus, scenes of actual mindflayer particles being launched into hawkins. i think tales presents a potential answer as to what the air and the particles could be doing to the characters and to hawkins in general (alongside possessing them)

the particles in tales are green, associated with 'true' in the show (while orange is associated with vecna and as a 'lie'). the particles are from the monsters that have been 'killed' then they travel to infect other parts of the nature in the woods to create a new monster. the actual show has also showed us that the upside down rots nature, with the pumpkins in season 2 and again emphasising it in the last scene of season 4

if the air can affect the nature in hawkins, it can surely affect the people of hawkins. especially with a time jump of 18 months. it's rotting something, probably people's minds. potentially also people's bodies, maybe readying them in a way. this along with the mindflayer particles flying out of the demogorgons in season 5, there's a strong potential of monsters being created in a similar way that tales in showing us. the particles affected will's body (he likes it cold), so it has to have an effect on other's bodies as well. so ud air rots you, and the particles fills the gaps that are left to turn you into something else entirely

the very first monster in tales takes a person from hawkins and uses their body/life force to power it

this immediately reminded me of the very odd and creepy information on the evolution of demogorgons, which ends with mike at the end

you can argue it's for scale's sake, but why not add a metric used for measurement? why place a character there? (why place mike?)

we also see in season 5 a demogorgon act semi human like by bowing to vecna

the way its shown in tales could potentially be how vecna is building his foreshadowed army he showed nancy in season 4, with the people of hawkins themselves, using their life force. it could also mean that demogorgons have evolved into people, potentially into one of our characters, acting as a puppet and leading the characters astray. tales doesn't have a lot of truth to it, but maybe it's showing part of what vecna has been doing with hawkins since he's won

[willbylers7]

honestly one of the best pieces of evidence to me is that they chose to not have any demogorgans in the finale and said people wouldn't want to see them. like there's no way. that was like one of the main things people (like me) wanted to see what are you talking about. and it made no sense for them to not be there

[perfectly-wrong-horribly-right]

See You Next Week!

So, I made the decision to watch ‘Tales from '85’. I haven't finished it yet, but I'm pretty sure we're getting something else in about 7-10 days.

In the very first chapter Mike said this:

which I'm sure we're all familiar with, as it was used in the official promo!

The final chapter is titled: “Countdown”

Based on this, we're getting something “next week”—seven days. Alternatively, it could be that the “Countdown” will be backwards from 10.

I know I've mentioned this before, but in an Entertainment Weekly article, Eric Robles said something suspicious:

and ‘Tales from '85’ has been (allegedly) renewed for another season:

I say “allegedly” because I've checked for other sources and I can't find anything official, so take that with a grain of salt. Although, it is weird for a plant to say something like that.

Anyway, I'm gonna go mark my calendar for April 30th and/or May 3rd!

[beaulesbian]

hmm i bet it all feels like a dream