I hope you don't mind me asking this but what do you think about hardcore m11/fillie like gamze or filevenvideo? To be frank, I block every m11/fillie I come across, out of sight out of mind, but I just keep getting reminded of the existence of these two. I find them annoying but there is a part of me that is strangely intrigued, like how one may feel towards an internet mystery lol. I know they are "crazy" and "stupid" and all that jazz but I genuinely crave a more comprehensive assessment of this whole thing and I love reading your long but articulate posts. So here I am in your ask lol.
Also since I'm in a rambling mood, I'm on the same boat with what you said about foah the other day (I love their chemistry and there are moments during the press tour that are just sus af to me lol. But whether they're together or not, it doesn't concern me). But the fillies tho... they gotta be a social experiment 'cause goddamn. I don't know if you have heard of the account of psiellenwandame on insta. She is a psychologist from Brazil. I saw a post about her on twitter the other day 'cause she commented on Millie's post for Jake's birthday with the side-eyeing Chloe gif. And since the block button on twitter worked so well, I had to see gamze's comment in the quote "Mind you bylers have a real p*do laywer".
Put aside the homophobic tone of that cmt, there is a whole world of difference between "Hi, I'm Mary. I'm a lawyer/ English teacher/ writer, etc. and I'm gonna use all the analytic skills and storytelling knowledge I have to dissect this piece of fiction that I love" and "I'm [full government name]. I'm a psychologist [professional email] and I think this real woman who I have never met in my life is stick in an abusive relationship." One is fun, the other is blatantly intrusive and unprofessional.
She also does a lot of analysis on m11 under the lenses of psychology and all that jazz. Normally I love this type of stuff (I love watching Cinema Therapy) but I think some people put way too much weight on it and forget that fictional characters are fictional at the end of the day. They don't have free will and their arc is still tied to a narrative. Like sure, if the writer is skilled enough, they will be able to create a character that is a great psychological study (Thomas Harris with Hannibal Lecter for example). But goddamn can we say the same thing about the duffers lol? The storytelling aspect can't even withstand scrutiny, let alone the psychological one (every time I think about the painting lie, I'm getting mad all over again). And what irks me the most about this is how she presents and analyses m11 as if they had a really complex dynamics in the text and an ideal romance in a general sense to an audience (who may be young and impressionable) who will eat up everything she says because of her credentials (I first learned about her because of a screenshot from filevenvideo's insta story. It was about Noah and it genuinely had me concerned for her clients ngl)
Well, I didn't expect to write this much but sometimes I just can't help myself lol. I'm also not a native speaker but I'm nowhere near articulate as you. I remember reading one of your posts in November and literally had to stand up and walk around the room 'cause that was just so fucking good!
I have to admit that I generally pay very little attention to what hardcore Mileven/Fillie accounts say because, more often than not, their interpretations strike me as deeply dishonest, emotionally biased, or simply disconnected from the actual narrative being presented on screen. Their opinions rarely interest me because they often feel less like genuine media analysis and more like attempts to defend a pre-existing emotional attachment at all costs.
I do not remember much specifically about “filevenvideo,” but I very clearly remember Gamze, and not for good reasons. What stood out most to me was not even the obsessive idealization of Mileven or Fillie themselves, but rather the visceral hostility directed toward Will Byers and, by extension, Noah Schnapp. There was an unmistakable layer of homophobia embedded beneath much of that rhetoric, even when disguised as “criticism” or “shipping discourse.”
I especially remember, shortly before Volume 2 of Season 5 aired, a particularly disturbing tweet from Gamze regarding the allegorical dimension of what Will endured through Vecna and the Mind Flayer. The language used was shockingly dismissive toward themes that clearly parallel severe trauma and abuse. As someone with personal experiences related to those subjects, I remember feeling genuinely furious reading it. I even made a post about it at the time because the sheer lack of empathy disturbed me deeply.
And honestly, I do not think these people are merely “crazy” or “stupid.” I think they are, in many ways, a sociological reflection of a broader cultural mindset: one shaped by heteronormative privilege, conservative romantic ideals, and deeply internalized homophobia. They romanticize relationships built upon imbalance, emotional dependency, and the reduction of female identity into emotional service toward a male figure. You can see it very clearly in how they idealize the relationship between Mike Wheeler and Eleven despite the fact that, especially after Season 4, that relationship is overflowing with unresolved emotional fractures and incompatibilities.
What frustrates them, I believe, is that Will’s existence within the narrative continuously exposes those fractures.
Will is not external to Mike and Eleven’s relationship. He is intrinsically tied to it. Their entire story originates through him in Season 1. And ironically, by Season 4, it is once again Will emotionally carrying their relationship on his shoulders through the painting scene — essentially acting as the emotional bridge preventing their already unstable dynamic from collapsing entirely. And I think that subconsciously irritates many Mileven shippers because Will’s emotional presence constantly illuminates the uncomfortable truth that Mike and Eleven are not actually thriving together. They are surviving inside a relationship built on guilt, dependency, fear, and emotional repression rather than mutual fulfillment.
And this brings me to your point about psychology.
You are absolutely correct: there is an enormous difference between analytical media criticism and psychologically diagnosing real people one has never met.
A responsible mental health professional understands the limits of interpretation. Psychology is not astrology with a diploma. Ethical professionals formulate hypotheses carefully, especially regarding real individuals they do not personally know. The moment someone begins speaking with certainty about the intimate emotional reality of strangers based solely on edited public fragments, they are no longer practicing careful analysis; they are projecting narrative fantasies under the authority of credentials.
That is why I also find the romanticization of Mileven as some universally ideal love story deeply concerning, particularly when presented to younger audiences through the language of psychological legitimacy. Fiction absolutely can contain psychologically rich dynamics — you mentioned Hannibal Lecter, which is a perfect example — but that requires narrative coherence, intentionality, and emotional consistency from the writers.
And honestly… I no longer believe the Duffers maintained that consistency.
The tragedy is that the original triangle between Mike, Will, and Eleven truly was a goldmine for psychological storytelling during the first four seasons. There was a deeply compelling emotional architecture beneath it all:
Mike loving someone else — another boy — while drowning in guilt because he feels responsible for Eleven’s emotional survival.
Eleven believing romantic love from Mike is the only thing anchoring her identity because she was never taught alternative forms of self-worth after escaping the lab at twelve years old.
Will silently sacrificing his own emotional needs out of love for both of them.
This is a huge and non developed summary what I wrote here, not detailed enough on their dynamic as a trio, but with the tags #Byler, #WillByers, #MikeWheeler and #ElevenHopper, you will find all the in-depth analyses I have done on their relationship and characters on my Tumblr account.
That dynamic had extraordinary depth. It explored repression, dependency, identity formation, survivor’s guilt, compulsory heterosexuality, and emotional maturation all at once.
And what made it powerful was that none of the characters were villains. They were simply wounded children trying to survive emotionally with tools they were never given.
The relationship between Mike and Eleven could have become genuinely profound if the story had continued along the trajectory it seemed to be building toward: two people realizing that love alone is not always enough when the relationship itself is rooted in fear, obligation, and unresolved identity crises. Eleven’s liberation arc especially could have culminated in her understanding that she deserved love and safety outside romantic dependency on male figures — whether Brenner as “Papa,” Hopper as protector, or Mike as emotional anchor. Her friendship with Max in Season 3 felt like the beginning of that evolution.
But with the apparent resolutions of Season 5, much of that complexity seems to have collapsed into emotional simplification.
Now the relationship often feels less like an organic emotional journey and more like an empty label preserved because it is familiar and culturally comfortable. And once emotional logic disappears, analysis itself begins collapsing under scrutiny.
And this is where sociology inevitably enters the conversation.
A large portion of audiences accepted Mileven unquestioningly not necessarily because of the relationship’s depth, but because heterosexual romance is culturally treated as the “default ending.” It began when they were children, so people attached nostalgia and innocence to it. And many viewers, consciously or unconsciously, simply did not want a massive mainstream series centered around a slow-burn romantic arc between two boys — especially when those boys were central protagonists.
Because despite all the progress people claim society has made, queer love still unsettles many audiences when it is no longer safely secondary, comedic, or symbolic, but treated with the same emotional importance as heterosexual romance.
And I think that discomfort shaped far more of this discourse than people are willing to admit.
At the end of the day, what fascinates me most is not even the ships themselves, but how fandom reactions become mirrors reflecting society’s deeper anxieties: about masculinity, queerness, gender roles, emotional dependency, and the stories people are culturally conditioned to perceive as “acceptable” love.
Fandoms are never just about fiction.
They are psychological theaters where society unknowingly reveals itself.
You are also absolutely right to point out that a very large portion of hardcore Mileven/Fillie fans are extremely young, emotionally inexperienced, and often somewhat isolated within online spaces that continuously reinforce the same fantasies back to them like an echo chamber. Many of them have little to no real-life romantic experience yet, so their understanding of love is still deeply shaped by idealization, projection, and fiction rather than by the complexity and contradictions of actual human relationships.
And honestly, I do not say this with contempt or superiority. I say it with tenderness, because most of us, at some point in adolescence, projected ourselves into stories in order to emotionally explore desires, insecurities, or dreams we did not yet fully understand. Fiction is often the first mirror through which young people attempt to decipher love, identity, intimacy, and longing.
The issue begins when fantasy stops being recognized as fantasy.
Because if we are being completely honest, a significant part of the obsession surrounding Mileven or Fillie is not truly about the narrative itself, but about self-insertion. Many fans are not necessarily attached to the relationship because of its emotional depth or psychological complexity; they are attached to the fantasy of being in Eleven or Millie Bobby Brown’s position — of being loved, chosen, desired, or emotionally prioritized by Finn Wolfhard or by the idea they have constructed around him.
And psychologically, this is extremely common in fandom culture.
Adolescence and young adulthood are periods where identity formation is still fluid. People use fiction almost like emotional laboratories. They project themselves onto characters to experiment safely with romance, attraction, heartbreak, validation, or idealized intimacy. In sociology and media psychology, this is closely tied to parasocial attachment and aspirational projection. Fiction becomes less about observing a story and more about emotionally inhabiting it.
That is why criticism of the ship can sometimes feel, to certain fans, like criticism of themselves personally. Because the relationship has ceased to exist merely as narrative fiction and has become intertwined with emotional wish fulfillment.
And this is also why some people become disproportionately defensive or hostile when the flaws within the relationship are analyzed critically. To question the fantasy feels, subconsciously, like threatening the emotional refuge they built around it.
But real love — unlike fantasy — is not built only on longing and aesthetics.
Real love requires reciprocity, emotional honesty, autonomy, communication, and the ability for both individuals to exist fully outside one another. A relationship where one person’s identity collapses entirely into emotional dependence on the other may look romantic through the lens of fantasy, but in reality it often becomes suffocating. Love should be a bridge between two whole people, not a life raft holding together someone terrified of drowning alone.
And I think that is precisely why discussions around Mike, Eleven, and Will provoke such intense reactions. Because beneath the shipping wars lies something much deeper: different visions of what love itself should look like.
Some people are attached to the comforting familiarity of traditional heterosexual romantic narratives — the idea that first love must inevitably become endgame because society taught us to perceive permanence as proof of emotional success. Others are drawn toward stories of self-discovery, emotional truth, and liberation from repression, even when those stories challenge social norms.
At the end of the day, fandom discourse is rarely just about fictional couples. It becomes a reflection of collective desires, fears, insecurities, cultural conditioning, and personal longing.
And thank you so much for your kind words about my posts. Truly. I am not a native English speaker either, which is honestly why I take such a long time writing my responses. I first formulate everything carefully in my native language, trying to express every nuance exactly as I feel it, and then I slowly translate and reshape it into English so the meaning remains as faithful and clear as possible. Sometimes I probably overthink every sentence for far too long ahah.
And now I am genuinely curious which November post made you stand up and walk around the room because that image made me laugh so much. There is something very funny and strangely beautiful about words affecting someone so deeply that their body physically reacts before their mind even catches up :)
