#{a thing}

That is The Wheelers, poster child, perfect. They appear like what everyone says you should look like. But...

Ted is the breadwinner but he's in a constant state of passivity.

Karen is the housewife but she's miserable and misses thrill.

Nancy is the goodie two shoes perfect future wife but guess what she has sex, and she has guns, and she's pursuing an independent career.

Mike gets "too" good of grades and is straight but he....is telling the truth about that?

I don't think that's right. Having a girlfriend you don't tell anyone has superpowers is still posterchild, still putting on a face just like anything else, and it's succeeding to. This isn't about personal insecurity like his in season 4. This is about public appearance. If El were allowed to exist publically, The Wheelers at face value would be a married couple with two kids - a girl with a nice boyfriend she's going to college with and a high school boy with a nice girlfriend.

They need to be a [hopefully divorced] couple with two kids - a career driven girl who can defend herself like hell and a queer high school boy.

Not to mention on the superpowers note, that isn't even against status quo or norm. It sounds odd but it's not. Know why? They haven't even thought of that to be against. He needs to be something they ARE AGAINST.

Slut-shaming was prevalent in season 1 when Nancy had sex. Underestimation and misogyny was present in season 3 when she was pursuing a career. She surprises and defies expectations of herself in ways that are directly judged.

Homophobia was prevalent for Mike in season 1. "You'd be such a loser if you knew a psychic" never was, I promise you. She has something to fear going public: governments who have expressed desire for persecution of her. He does not. He would not be persecuted for her existence or for relation to her. If they wanted to say that, he could have faced consequences for harboring her in season 1, but they didn't - not to mention the fact that it doesn't represent any audience member to say 'it's hard having superpowers'.

Mike needs to be something that is actively hated, not something they haven't heard of and therefore probably maybe would or could hate. Something that IS. HATED. Something that has been expressed towards him. Something that he has been threatened out of.

All of those things are true of him being queer. The same way Nancy was slut shamed by the police and ridiculed by her male coworkers, Mike was spoken to homophobically and physically harmed and threatened.

It's odd to have superpowers, but Mike has no reason to fear persecution. It's unconventional. It doesn't challenge convention. And that's what the people of Hawkins are afraid of. Challenging of their beliefs. The truth about his person can't invoke surprise, it needs to invoke hatred.

They said they were inspired by their own experience growing up in suburbia. Hiding who you are and what you're going through out of fear of judgment around you. Mike with El would fear the unknown. But he needs to fear a concrete something.

From perfect nuclear family to divorced parents of a gunslinger career daughter and a queer son is anti-convention. Straight boy dating a superhero is unconvention - as in unrelated, not against. Divorced parents of a gunslinger daughter and a straight son with a cool girlfriend is inconsistent. To the core themes to which this family is meant to perfectly represent.

Every other family is openly not fitting the norm: single parents, mental health issues, nuclear family but Black. The Wheelers are perfect. The Wheelers are the only illusion still left to be broken. Being with El - being straight - in no way breaks a single convention. It surprises. But once you adjust, you just look at him and go "oh look a straight boy, his girlfriend has powers yeah, you get used to it". It does not break. Queerness breaks. Queerness shatters.

The theme is represented by The Wheelers. They cannot be inconsistent. They must secretly shattering convention in every facet. They can't just forget one. Miserable mom, passive dad, powerful daughter, and perfect little straight boy with the good grades whose family fell apart around him. That's what they'd see. Mike, especially as the only member of that poster board family who is also in the kids' group which is the poster board for wrongful persecution and bullying, of all people cannot be what's left out. He MUST, even if no one else, be the poster child of "forced conformity. that's what's killing the kids".

And sorry but if his sister who likes her job is more anti-conformity than "bullying meets pretending to be perfect to hide a deep dark secret: poster child", you're doing something wrong.

Eleven and Will represent two sides of the same coin in the themes of abuse. Mike represents the theme of anti-conformity, because to do so you have to have tried to conform - that's just stories work.

The poster child for anti conformity cannot beat out the other character options of homophobia and racism for that spot by being "kind of scared that one soldier will be mad at him by proxy".

When I think the poster child for conformity killing the kids I don't think him

Lieutenant Colonel Jack Sullivan does not represent the classic "everyday evil" threat suburban kids face.

I think of them

They're killing the kids. The kids stuck in homophobic, white suburbia smalltown midwest watching these episodes know. Snipers in helicopters aren't killing those kids. They are. And they're killing them for being queer. For Mike, they'd have no reason else.

No one has ever told Mike "just conform and date somebody without superpowers". Actually, the only thing they've ever told him is "it's so cool that you have a girlfriend with superpowers". So there is no way that a white straight boy staying with his white straight girlfriend is what will "kill him": death by "conformity".

To quote his sister:

He is the sole intersection between the picture perfect family and the group of kids pressured most frequently to conform. He's not going out straight.

It was Robin's idea. Her defense is offense and well, Dustin's said it before and he'll say it again.

Robin can be mean. 

Steve on the other hand, can sling insults all day and take even more, but he hits a wall when it comes to a real, serious argument with someone he loves.

He'll hold his own for about ten minutes and then just start falling apart-- catastrophizing in his head, going silent, and eventually steamrolling his own emotions just so no ones mad at him anymore.

They realized pretty quickly they needed a better way to handle their problems.

The solution?

Hold hands any time shit gets serious, so they both know no matter what, they're still friends who love each other.

Hard to be an asshole when your fingers are linked to your besties.

It helps solve a lot of problems and the entire party is long used to it.

Incidentally, this is how Steve both wins his first real right with Eddie after they've become friends and accidentally comes out to him--because when things got heated, Steve reached for Eddie's hand.

Took it with his, and wrapped their fingers together.

Eddie, who has seen Steve and Robin do it countless times and knew exactly what it meant, looked down at their joined hands and practically short circuited.

Steve caught sight of Eddie's slack jaw, followed his gaze down and then blushed bright red.

Tried to take his hand back, except Eddie wouldn't let him.

Instead, he once again proved his own theory of being a coward wrong by not only ending their argument and apologizing, but by starting a feelings discussion.

One: Martha chose not to wear her real pearls to the theatre that night, as it was a night where there was no one to impress. The string snapped because the pearls were not real, and Martha died for a $100 set you could pick up at Macy’s.

Two: The Pearls, upon understanding this was a symbolic moment in at least one Wayne’s future [and two Wayne’s end], chose to disregard their quality for the sake of a Dramatic Tableau.

Three: no more then three pearls ever snapped off the strand, but to a boy watching his mother choke on her own blood, gasping his name into the suddenly silent night, three pearls was enough.

Four: an opportunistic officer slipped the pearls off Marthas neck as she was loaded into the morgue van, figuring Bruce would not have the wherewithal to miss them. The pearls were subsequently reported as lost, having probably rolled down the drain in the following chaos. Only three were ever recovered, having become stuck in the puddle of blood that was under Martha Wayne’s head.

Five: the pearls, a set Thomas Wayne picked up as an engagement gift and a promise when Wayne industries was collapsing and his fortune nonexistent, were fake, and Martha adored them far more then any of the expensive jewels he was eventually able to afford. She made a habit of wearing them on family outings. Martha died for the sentimental value of a $100 set you could pick up at Macy’s.