#endgame couples

Mike and El are never really given screen time to just...enjoy each other's company. Talk. They kiss and they do activities. Sometimes they say two sentences like "I like the new look by the way it's cool" "thanks" "my [milkshake]'s better" "no it isn't" "do I look cool you're giggling because i look really cool". All nice and cute in passing, but they never just sit in a sweet conversation and enjoy an exchange. They talk emotionally or they kiss. But I don't know what they'd look like without relationship issues and without a war.

I REALIZED WHAT IT IS.

MIKE AND EL DON'T HAVE BANTER. They don't have a "dynamic".

I was ITCHING for what it was for YEARS OH MY GOD.

They interact and it's nice but it's missing something that romances have and I never knew. It's BANTER. There is not volley, no back and forth.

"You're such a dork. I thought you were like one of the cool kids now" "I'm not cool?"

"Which is weirder, me or the bear traps?" "You. Definitely you."

"You should come work for me" "And have to look at your face all day? No thank you"

Hell! Even "You almost shot me with that one" "You almost deserved it" - the time they're trying to portray actual build up.

They all have it. Always. THAT'S what makes them feel like just regular teenagers dating in a boring way instead of characters in a love story. They don't have the back and forth banter. They talk about stuff and sometimes they joke. But it's missing that.

"I was being a total self-pitying idiot" "I didn't say it" "You didn't have to"

vs

"I like the new look by the way it's cool" "thanks"

"You're gonna have an awesome scar" "Bitchin'" "Yeah, bitchin"

"My [milkshake]'s better" "No it isn't!" <- maybe the closest we've got??

"Do I look cool? You're giggling because I look awesome, right?"

And that is EVERY ONE I CAN THINK OF.

To be generous, I'll loop in season five too:

"You're saying I'm evil and hell-bent on destroying the world?" "Totally. No!"

vs

"Do you think that's possible for us?" "I mean not the three waterfalls part, but yeah"

They're all cute. Nice. Conversational, normal, complimentary, understanding, lighthearted. But they aren't banter. They're just...talking.

They write them to talk the way they write friends to talk on this show. It's not the same. They don't. banter. They don't flirt. THAT'S really what it is. They're nice to each other and want to kiss, yay they should date........but they don't flirt. And it just makes feel...that much off. Just a little bit. You can feel it missing.

They support each other and they understand each other and they make each other laugh and they love each other. But they don't flirt. They don't have banter. They don't have a dynamic I can picture in a home. Their home.

That's huge for what people often call lack of "chemistry". They can seem as comfortable as they want and close and natural or whatever, but it's not just up to the actors. Sometimes romantic chemistry hasn't been written.

"You're cool and smart and funny...and like 'totally tuuuubular'"

"You mean someone like...Scott Clarke?"

"You're gonna be home by eight listening to The Talking Heads and reading Vonnegut or something" "sounds like a nice night"

"Mike" "yeah?" "I understand".......

I can't picture "You are such a dork <3" from Max to Dustin. I can't picture "You're saying I'm evil and hell-bent on destroying the world?" from Will to Lucas. I can't picture "What's weirder, me or the bear-traps?" from Jonathan to Argyle.

I can picture "I like the new look, by the way, it's cool" for quite a few pairs. Pairs that love each other, pairs I like. But plenty of non-romantic pairs.

The only other couple I can think of that did this like this is Joyce and Bob.

They seem like couples you meet. Not couples you invest in. Not couples you live through while you watch. You met them at a party once and they seemed nice. And that's what you can say for them.

I always thought I rooted for them like little siblings, from this outside perspective, and not the others, because they were the younger ones. But now we've had Lumax, we've had Byler. And I'm seeing that wasn't why.

Lumax are together, king and queen of diamonds. <3

Mike is the king of hearts, duh.

The first sign of romance - for Stobin, the hand hold in the rain, comes after the first suggestion of having feelings for her. No romantic moments come before it is suggested to him.

Steve, like Mike - albeit for different reasons - is very susceptible to suggestion of who to have feelings for, because it is a role he is already constantly searching to fill with anyone due to internalized social ideas of what he needs for happiness.

It was clear in delivery it was one of those things where you say one name and your brain just auto-fills their other half.

El spends time with Mike, right?

Well, some seasons, she more-so spends time with Hopper

Or Max

Or just alone

Mike spends time with El

But sometimes, he's more with Lucas

Or Dustin

They rotate. They rotate friends. Which friends they're spending the most time with. El more-so, being treated almost as a character without a love interest in that regard (because her ending is being treated, in a way, just as something always true yet to be revealed - "She is her own superhero" to quote Millie).

But to contrast, Mike does also have a consistent person in a way that El doesn't (her arc being about herself, therefore requiring the most variety of influences).

This is also consistent to specific other characters. Platonic ones, like El, not having this proves its presence.

Look who's together almost every season.

Look who's together every season

Look who's together almost every season

And would you look.....

who's together almost every season

Friendships rotate their screentime. Romances have consistent screentime.

It's very simple. Mike and El rotate screentime. And Mike has consistent screentime with somebody else: Will.

We've been over this concept a hundred times. It isn't about the definition of romance in life, it's about the definition of romance in the individual show by how they outline it. And the definitions are always very simple.

9-1-1 is another example. No, witnessing someone almost die and them witnessing you almost die is not 'inherently gay'. For some reason in that show they were like "and that will only happen with couples!" so now it's a romantic 'trope'.