Conflictofthemind - Hawkins High Theory Club - Tumblr Blog

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STRANGER THINGS

‘but shes really failing at her attempted parasocial stalking considering....’ IJBOL so loud hahahahaha it’s so funny cause these people do not even know their own faves considering their parasocial behavior…truly just projecting

Next in on 9/11s for parasocial fanbases, the QRTs on this post:

How people have convinced themselves time and time again that famous people who have never publicly spoken on Palestine, in an industry and general culture that skews to the side of Zionist beliefs, would be hardcore anti-Israel activists is beyond me. Or that even if they were sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, they would immediately drop a long term friend over it.

Well I mean there is a clear answer (lack of critical thinking, parasociality, etc) but I have to say that could never be me man. 😭

"Maybe you should find something you care about, too."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

4x01

"What about us?"

"What?"

4x02

You vs. We

i rewatched the first shadow yesterday and i think there’s a hentty/byler/mlvn parallel worth noting. (spoilers for TFS ahead⚠️)

when henry is taken by brenner for the first time and brenner asks him to make contact with the mind flayer, patty tries to reach out to him so he lets her into his mind in the void. when she sees him strapped down in the lab, she runs to his side, holds his hand and talks to him. it looks exactly like the way mike’s monologue is framed in s4. and that’s where the similarities end.

patty holds the unconscious henry’s hand, but in the void, she’s still looking at henry when she talks and henry’s looking back at her. she says something along the lines of “if you leave, we can run away and find my mother. we can fight the monster together, you and me.”

and this made me realise the glaring difference between how mike talks to el and how mike talks to will. the entirety of his monologue is “you can do this,” and “you can do that, el!” meanwhile at the end of s4, when will says “we have to kill him,” mike says “and we will. we will.”

(all the gifs used in this post are by @will80sbyers!)

that’s not the only time mike uses “we” or “us” when he talks to will about a fight against the enemy. here are some more examples:

and how he segues into talking about his first meeting with el vs. his first meeting with will:

in his monologue to el, you is el, we is mike, dustin, and lucas.

mike sees el as the other. as someone he cannot imagine as his equal, and it reflects in the way he talks to her. this doesn’t surprise me considering it is exactly what he tells will in the van. but mike and will have had no issues seeing each other as equals. even after mike saw will possessed and powerful. and even though will considers mike the leader of the party, he doesn’t think mike is above him. they stand on equal grounds in their relationship.

I noticed Sadie’s been on set much more than she was early in the year. It started in June sporadically but now she seems to be there for weeks at a time. I bet they keep what’s happened with Max’s ‘soul’ as a mystery in the first half of the season until she suddenly makes an appearance in like Episode 3 or 4, and increasingly becomes important.

Still filming together as a duo in Episode 6+, I said oh im sure

thoughts on df talking about will’s supposedly new love interest again? she said he looks like his twin brother

thoughts are: lmao

the twitter mlvn cult speaking on things they shouldn’t be. first of all, that extra is not even the same guy (jacob morant). second of all, he has been friends with some of the cast and noah for years. they’re literally just friends.

she needs to stop speaking on anything involving the cast’s personal lives because she’s always hilariously wrong. like the random thread where she insisted everyone was going to millie’s wedding because she just knows them all so well. being catty here; but shes really failing at her attempted parasocial stalking considering I’ve been interacting with the fandom for… 8 months and am already privy to information she isn’t.

Aren't the duffers in New Mexico?

I have no clue. Where did you hear this?

The Duffers coming for **** when they realize he’s been leaking his filming schedule for months now

new beginnings

Someone mentioned this in another post but I want to add it on for my own sake lol.

Robin’s second outfit includes a lavender undershirt, and while we haven’t really seen Vickie’s outfit wardrobe, she has bold lavender eyeshadow on.

Which is, quick history lesson, heavily associated with LGBT groups and activists in the 20th century. It became (negatively) associated with lesbians during second wave feminist movements who then reclaimed the term to focus on lesbian issues (lesbian including bi women here who were largely considered under the same name back then).

I just find it interesting that’s all…

what are ur thoughts on gnc will?

This will be a long winded one.

Short of it: yes he is gender non conforming. I don’t think he’s particularly “girly”, but it’s this nice touch of the feminine he carries. There’s other users on this platform that have probably discussed this in a more proper manner than I have, and certainly more than I will writing this ask. I’m just going to give my own flavour of take and personal anecdotes about the topic under the read more 🙃⬇️

Honestly I find it a very underrated topic of discussion in this fandom that otherwise likes to discuss the same things over and over again (all love because I do it too with the added bonus of being new so often I don’t realize).

I do think it’s because the fandom isn’t very conducive towards it. There is a small but sometimes loud portion that likes to assume you have some secret nefarious reason behind any ‘gnc will’ posting (i.e. stereotyping). Or say by pointing out certain things as feminine, I’m being regressive and misogynist. Whereas I have another profile where I almost exclusively discuss female characters and often gender in those media. This is not a new topic to me (which I’m sure you’ll see).

In the first season he is absolutely a damsel-in-distress. He’s kidnapped by a monster and is hiding away in a ‘castle’ while his friends must come to rescue him. This continues from then on, but is the most obvious in S1.

We see the two characters that tend to chase him down when he is upset or in danger being Mike (duh) and Lucas, who are the two most masculine members of the party and play corresponding roles in DnD as Paladin and Knight. Even in the painting Will makes of the party, it features the party (Mike highlighted) facing off against a dragon. In that game the boys play in the arcade, the goal is defeating the dragon to save the princess —

— which is also such an iconic image of particularly Sleeping Beauty, who is a princess trapped in a castle. I have a whole idea centered around this one for later.

So in terms of role he has definitely been given a traditional female one. Even within the Byler relationship, Will stays in that passive ‘yearning maiden’ type position who is waiting for her true love to confess his feelings first. As Mike should.

All of that might have been very controversial because quote unquote ‘boxing Byler into gender roles’ is regressive (even if the characters intentionally fit these princess/knight archetypes, oops!). Personally I don’t find it regressive at all, I find it interesting to look at things from this perspective. Part of this labelling is the deconstruction of the tropes as well. Will can’t and is not going to remain passive in Season 5, so how will this be dealt with and how will it affect specifically the Byler storyline?

I’m especially interested in whether he completes the transformation from Princess to Witch 👀 but my fairytale posting might get some entries of its own.

Now what you provably mean irt clothing and gender presentation:

The answer is still yes. I think a lot of the reason people deny Will as being gnc is because he doesn’t look the part. But instead of thinking about why that might be, the conclusion is made right then and there.

Will wears clothes that are mostly hand me downs from Jonathan. Their family is poor and if he does get ‘new’ (read: personal choice) clothes they are almost certainly from the thrift store. He has no option to even try and experiment with.

In the original pilot the Duffs actually wanted him to be identifiable by ‘colourful’ (read: girly) clothing, and did keep a bit of that in his Will the Wise outfit that is customized and only worn when he’s comfortable and in his element. The original conversation around the table was Dustin poking at him for wearing a wig and purple gown:

My personal headcanons are that he would keep the natural colours because they are pleasing to the eye, but would experiment and branch out with slightly cuter designs once he is out of Hawkins’ claws. I think the femininity in his style would be kept fairly lowkey apart from certain DnD reunions with the party where he might pull out a costume with some experimental and colorful makeup.

Like, I own an 80s vintage sweater that I think he would wear:

I hope the theoretical reader enjoyed a look into my closet lol. But yes, I see Will as gnc (very broad term there btw) and it is a part of my enjoyment of the character. I am mostly a fan of female characters, and the few male characters I do really stand behind usually have at the very least a few gender non conforming traits.

<- All of this is said as a lesbian who doesn’t necessarily consider herself gender non conforming, but also doesn’t fit a lot of major feminine ideals. I’m butcher than the average twenty year old woman solely off of not wearing makeup, not shaving, and being gay which I do consider as particularly gender nonconforming for women.

What if I told you he has equal if not more screentime than Steve in s1?

How people on this site talk about Will Byers sometimes