BingBong

Fic: Asterism by Idas_library on Ao3

I forgot to update you on the crew, I hope you enjoy their chaos <3 (I haven’t read the latest chapter yet and I don’t know if I should be scared or not knowing you)

Steve needed the “it’s okay if your crush doesn’t like you back” arc, not Will.

Mike needed the “you’re braver than you think” arc, not Holly.

Mileven needed the “shared trauma doesn’t mean we’re compatible” breakup, not Jancy.

Byler needed the “I just needed you” resolution, not Lumax.

Either Willel or Elmax needed the “you understand me better than anyone” resolution, not Mileven.

"i hate the clash"

"what?"

"i hate. the clash."

being the line to break the silence, but from mike instead of nancy. but mike telling will once he started liking should i stay or should i go and started subconsciously singing it around mike it became one of his favourite songs. and when he heard will singing it over the walkie after thinking he was dead, that it was the best thing he's ever heard.

will biting back like jonathan with the pink sweater but about mike's shitty knockoff outfit in california, because he felt like he was trying to be a different person; jane's boyfriend, not will's best friend. and him telling mike how much it hurt when he rejected his hug, blamed him unfairly at the rink and not paying attention to how jane was feeling. but always circling back and telling him how much he still appreciated mike wanting to be best friends and a team again.

they'd keep going and going like jancy but messier bc they're cripplinganxiety4crippinganxiety yapper4yapper but instead of things they dislike about eachother, it's secrets that they had kept in fear of hurting the other. about eachother's dad. names called that hit too close to home. letters never sent. the quarry.

and once they realise they only have a few minutes left to live, will asks mike to tell him just one last thing. because will's life started with hearing mike wheeler's voice, and he wants it to end the same way.

mike tells will him and el broke up.

and will bc doesn't know what to say, or pretend to say, seeing as relief is redundant given the situation, and any hope of consoling his sister was gone. and we would've ended will byer's last line to mike wheeler the same way it started: telling mike the truth.

"i made the painting"

"i know, that's why i broke up with her."

"but i never said it."

you cannot just gloss over that. there needs to be a discussion about saving them. this doesn’t mean they have to be rescued necessarily, but you have brought in this moral dilemma and you cannot just leave it dangling in front of the audience, never to be mentioned again.

so the children deserved to be saved, but not the abused pregnant women and their unborn children? they don’t even deserve a mention, or even a character acting conflicted over the decision to leave them there?

they were simply used as a plot device and shock factor. because it’s so cool and interesting to see dozens of dying pregnant women who are genuinely never seen again. they are depicted as vessels that don’t matter enough to take up screen time

not in a “it was all terrible” way.

but in a “how did we fumble THIS many narrative balls in the FINAL season of a billion-dollar show” way.

and it all starts with:

⸻

THE HOLLY WHEELER PROBLEM

i said it.

i meant it.

i’ll say it again louder for the people in the upside down.

the holly plotline was useless.

not “bad.”

not “poorly acted.”

just… narratively unnecessary.

she had more screen time than half of the original cast.

HALF.

characters we’ve known since season 1 were standing in the corner like forgotten coats while holly and her little stranger squad were running around having their own side quest.

and for what?

what did it actually change?

remove the holly plotline and you still get:

• vecna

• the final fight

• the upside down

• the world ending

but suddenly you also get:

• more time for mike

• more time for will

• more time for joyce

• more time for literally anyone who mattered

they said they were “circling back to the core themes.”

FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE PREVAILS MY ASS.

this season was:

doom

gloom

crying

death

suffering for no actually reason

apocalypse

action packed bullshit

⸻

HOPPER SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD

i love hopper.

he is a king.

he is a dad.

he is a real life hero.

but.

HE. SHOULD. HAVE. STAYED. DEAD.

bob’s death in season 2 hit because it told us something:

no one is safe.

that’s what makes horror work.

that’s what makes you hold your breath.

now?

steve falls off a TOWER in season 5 and i don’t even blink.

i was like:

“he’s fine.”

because he is.

everyone is.

they have so much plot armor they could walk into the sun and come back with a mild tan.

when everyone is guaranteed to survive, nothing feels dangerous.

and when nothing feels dangerous, nothing feels important. Or real!

hopper staying dead would have:

• raised the stakes

• fixed the fear

• and forced eleven to grow on her own

which brings me to—

⸻

LET ELEVEN BE A PERSON, NOT A PET

this is not about ships.

do not come in here with that energy.

jane needed independence.

she needed to exist outside of:

hopper

mike

the government

netflix’s marketing department

kali should have lived.

period.

eleven could have escaped.

built a life.

been a person.

instead we got:

more suffering

more trauma

more reset-to-factory-settings arcs

girl has been through ENOUGH.

⸻

THE WILL BYERS SITUATION

they should not have dragged will being in love with mike this long.

there were two options:

1. follow through

2. shut it down early and give will a new love interest

they did neither.

they just let him suffer in the narrative corner for five seasons.

and that robin pep talk?

wasted time.

led nowhere.

gave him false hope.

then did nothing with it.

you know what that time could have been?

what were all those clues? those glances? the touches? the tension?

all these for a big Nothing Burger!

THE FINAL FIGHT.

people are not wrong when they say the final battle was barely longer than will’s coming out scene.

priorities were in hell.

⸻

CONFORMITYGATE AND THE MARKETING MACHINE

netflix knew this was controversial.

they fed it.

they promoted it.

they tweeted about it.

because controversy = clicks

clicks = engagement

engagement = money

we are not viewers.

we are metrics.

we are little corporate pawns in netflix’s chess game.

and they’re playing 4D chess with our feelings.

⸻

BACK TO HOLLY (BECAUSE I’M NOT DONE)

they aged her up.

ignored her canonical age.

made her important.

why?

new kids = new audience.

but what was their actual purpose?

“to merge the worlds.”

okay.

why.

how.

to what end.

no answers.

Pure aesthetic, zero explanation.

we didn’t need 12 new characters in the FINAL season.

we needed:

the kids we started with.

that’s it.

⸻

IN CONCLUSION

the choices this season were… interesting.

that’s the nicest thing i can say.

this could have been a beautiful, focused, emotional ending.

instead we got:

corporate storytelling

safe decisions

marketable drama

and a finale that felt like it was trying to please everyone and satisfied no one.

anyway.

i’m going to go lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling now.

reblog if you agree.

reblog if you’re mad.

I just found a brilliant thread on Twitter by @stachaser about the Jack Kerouac poster visible in epilogue Mike’s college bedroom (written in Portuguese but I included the full translation under this embedded link).

Here’s the translation:

They can do whatever they want, but nothing will change the fact that Mike is implicitly queer.

He’s the only character—along with Robin and Will—who has queer references inside the series.

In fact, he has even more references than Robin and Will, who are canonically part of the community.

He knew community terms back in the 80s.

He defended a queer punk rock band [Butthole Surfers] that used queer references both in its name and in its lyrics.

He has a Jack Kerouac poster in his damn bedroom—a bisexual writer.

If he likes Jack Kerouac, then he likes Allen Ginsberg too, who was openly gay and Jack’s best friend.

He knows the Beat movement, which was against conservatism and conformity.

In his works, Jack talked about attraction and passion for other men—and not only that, but also about the religious guilt of feeling it, which could very well be a sign of Mike’s own internalized homophobia.

Mike, canonically, likes works, music, and literature that go against the norms and standards of society at the time.

He canonically likes songs that make fun of fragile masculinity.

The band he likes so much has an explicitly queer name, and its songs do too.

He appreciates Jack’s works, which talk about desire for other men.

None of that is there by accident. Those elements are carefully chosen to fit together and make sense with the character’s personality.

Mike is a writer who is against conformity, likes works that mock it, defends freedom, and rejects imposed standards.

I don’t know which old bald white guy prevented him from being officially gay in the show, but all the references to Mike’s sexuality are in the show itself—implicitly—even in his last scenes.

I don’t care if you disagree or come insult me. I’m not going to see it because my notifications are turned off. So you can cry and seethe in my comments or in the quotes—I don’t give a damn.

Nothing is going to change the fact that Mike is, yes, implicitly queer.

Mike was never made official as a straight character, so considering him straight is also a headcanon.

He never rejected Will—he never even knew about Will’s feelings.

The Byler ending was left totally open to the audience’s interpretation, as was Mike’s sexuality.

And it’s not just his personal tastes that are queer-coded—his clothes in S4 were, too, yes, deliberately thought through. All the characters’ outfits have details with meanings.

And if you’ve never studied the Beat Generation or don’t know Allen and Jack, I recommend looking them up and reading their works!

There’s also the movie Kill Your Darlings, which talks about the start of Allen’s career, his friendships, his SEXUALITY, and the beginning of the Beat Generation.

You can’t talk about Jack without talking about Allen, and you can’t avoid talking about the Beat Generation.

They were its pillars, and that movement opened the way for freedom of sexual expression.

Allen defended that openly.

They were important figures who challenged the norms.