Don’t mind me, just resurrecting my blog from beyond the grave for the sole purpose of ranting about Mileven
ST fans and Mileven/Mike-antis really be out here missing the entire fucking point of this conversation??? “Mike is lying/gaslighting/in denial! Clearly he doesn’t really love her!” (First of all, ya’ll literally don’t know what gaslighting is, but that’s a conversation for another post) No, actually– it’s not about how Mike feels, or even about how he expresses it. It’s about how Eleven has PTSD.
Her life in the lab with Brenner essentially taught her that love is conditional, particularly about her abilities. She only received praise or affection if she impressed Papa with her powers; she was shunned and punished if she refused or couldn’t do it.
We see this mentality carry over into her life after the lab as well– if she fails, she feels immense guilt.
Often she pushes herself past her limits, insisting she can do it; because in her mind, if she can’t, then she’s no longer worthy of love.
Now that her psychic abilities are gone, her whole world has turned into this huge mess of doubt. Throw in the fact that Hopper is gone, they’ve moved to a new town away from all of her existing support systems aside from Joyce (who is apparently busy all the time), she’s struggling to gain acceptance among new peers and is being bullied… She is clinging onto her relationship with Mike like it’s the last thing she has, even resorting to lying to him in order to make it look like she’s doing well; because Mike can’t know that she’s failing to fit in! She is so terrified of losing love, and all this doubt has her so convinced that she already has.
On Mike’s end, however, all he can see from her letters to him is that she seems to be thriving, even enjoying her life away from him.
He expressed in later scenes that he has his own doubts and insecurities about this, that maybe there’s something or someone out there better suited for her, more worthy of her love. This likely contributed to why he avoided the “L” word in his letters.
His own trauma from repeatedly losing her– and being helpless to stop it– comes into play, as well; if he allows himself to open up his heart and admit how much he loves her, it’ll hurt so, so much if/when he loses her again. At the same time, I’m sure he’s terrified of saying the wrong thing that may push her away.
It’s also worth noting that Mike is generally not the best at verbally expressing himself– he repeats himself, makes defensive outbursts without thinking, and awkwardly trips over his words. Mike’s love language is his actions, in kind unspoken gestures, in quiet understanding and reassurance. Things that do not carry over well through letters alone, especially if he has no idea that she is in need of reassuring words. He couldn’t see that she has been hurting this whole time. He’s likely upset towards her for lying to him because he feels like he should have been there for her.
I’ve personally been there before– it’s hard to explain the mix of frustration and helplessness you feel when you realize a loved one has been suffering without your knowledge, when you feel like it should have been your responsibility to support them and you failed to, even though it’s not your fault for not knowing. This entire situation/argument is something I’ve gone through with my partner; it is so realistic for a relationship involving someone with trauma like this, and it’s a very mature thing for these kids to be handling (and Mike actually handled that conversation beautifully, if they wanted them to have an actual fight fight it could have been so much worse). I don’t see it at all as an indication of a falling out between Mike and El. This was a necessary hurdle that they both need to work through, it’s an indication that their relationship will strengthen from it.
robin was wrong when she assumed nancy was being weird because of steve. nancy was being weird because she was having a day. she took her friend somewhere and then they died and she got dismissed by the police despite knowing she was right, just like barb
then nancy was stressed out because robin ended up going along with her despite nancy clearly wanting some alone time after all that and robin can be. a lot. she has so much energy and she’s very hyperactive and nancy had been up all night, was scared and confused and probably exhausted, and she wasn’t prepared for that much abrupt interaction. she felt belittled because robin was poking holes in her theory and it probably didn’t feel like she was taking her seriously either, so yeah she was a bit edgy about it. it’s not her fault robin took it personally
(it’s also not robin’s fault; she listed off a lot of neurodivergent traits about herself and rejection sensitivity disorder tends to be included in that, so she jumped to conclusions and overcompensated because the need to be liked can be very strong with rsd. robin’s not great at picking up on social cues according to her own neurodivergent disclaimer, so she wouldn’t realise what’s really going on, especially not with someone like nancy who’s used to keeping her emotions on lock and can be quite difficult to read if you’re not jonathan levels of perceptive)
nancy warmed up to robin once robin found some answers related to the mystery because that’s what she was thinking about
everyone who tried to push steve and nancy together because “you don’t want them to die so obviously you still have romantic feelings for each other” was wrong. eddie said “wheeler” jumping into near-certain death for steve meant she loved him when mike did the same thing for dustin. it is love, but it’s not romantic and it doesn’t have to be romantic to be worth something. mike said a friend is someone you’d do anything for and nancy is continuously motivated by barb, her best friend, whether that’s attempting to save her or attempting to make up for what she sees as her own fault
wanting to keep people alive and protect them doesn’t mean you’re in love with them. the same incorrect assumption happened with max when el saw her and mike smiling at each other and mike wanting to make sure max wasn’t hurt after she fell down. caring about people isn’t inherently romantic
this happens to the wheeler siblings a lot. they always get misinterpreted as being in love because they want to help and protect people even though they have a lot of reasons for that, with at least a few of those reasons being rooted in trauma, especially for nancy. that’s why both of their love triangles aren’t really love triangles at all. the presentation of their characters is being intentionally skewed and people keep buying it
I’m having a hard time understanding why so many people choose to ignore what El has been through in S4, what I mean is by changing the context of the scenes to make it about something entirely irrelevant.
The whole El not talking to Mike after the whole aftermath is so dumb and ignorant. It generally annoys me, This is constantly brought up to boost a ship btw. I’ve seen this conversation being brought up on Tiktok so many times that it is generally concerning, like do y'all not see how weird it is????
It’s actually sad really.
First of all she pretty much lost a fight to Vecna. She witnessed her best friend die before her eyes, she had gone home to Hawkins. Which btw is on the verge of collapsing in on itself, had to return to the cabin she had lived in for the past two years of her life with Hopper. Since the government still WANTS her dead/contained btw.
Keep in mind it has technically only been a year since Hopper had “passed” so she was still grieving.
She feels a huge amount of guilt and thinks it was a mistake for trying to stop Vecna, because her abuser who she thought was dead for 3 years was still alive. Brenner tried to make her believe she was not capable enough to stop Vecna and even attempted to manipulate her again.
Like I think it is a pretty normal reaction to ignore everyone after going through something like that. Or at least not be so talkative, that wasn’t the only thing El went through in S4 btw. That was just the tip of the ice berg.
Mike telling El that he loves her was not the reason why she ignored him, in fact the monologue is the reason why El and Max are still breathing. The scripts prove all of it, I don’t understand why it is so hard to accept the fact that Mike loves El.
I don’t understand why you even want Mike to lie to El to begin with, him lying to El doesn’t make his whole character redeemable or likeable again. It makes him a shitty person actually, if you understand El’s character you would know she would be heartbroken. Saying she wouldn’t is such an out of character thing, Mike is a huge part of her life. I’m not saying this because I ship Mileven, it’s just canon, it’s not something you can ignore.
Y'all can ship whatever you want but to try and say that El would be okay with the idea of Mike lying to her and then hooking up with her brother is insane. Just say Mileven isn’t for you and go along with your day, instead of making her PTSD/trauma about Will and Mike relationship 👍🏻
Look I’m just saying, you don’t fall desperately in love with a feral girl you found in the woods and then one day just like, move on. Like, as a person where do you even go from there? What could you even find interesting about anybody else? It’s takes a special kind of crazy to learn that your girlfriend/love interest was a part of a government experiment to give people mind powers that she uses to kill people (all deserved obv) and she also sort of caused the apocalypse that you have to deal with now, not to mention the government forces coming after her you’ll have to contend with possibly for the rest of your life, and continue to know that for 3 years and then be sad because you think someday she won’t want you in her life anymore? like… he’s got the world’s worst case of In Love With A Weird Girl Disease and there is no cure. They’re dying in each others arms.
hello!!!! i just wanted to say i love your art and ideas and i’m sorry you’re getting backlash for enjoying a ship on here :/ for drawing requests, maybe some s1 el and/or mike? :)
“Mike was nothing more than El’s boyfriend in Stranger Things 4”- Okay, let’s discuss it in this outrageously long rant then.
The argument regarding Mike
“Mike is just being El’s boyfriend in Season 4, it’s pathetic” - this is an argument that has been going on ever since Volume 2 released. I do understand where this could be coming from, and while it could be true that the most important part Mike Wheeler has played this season was him as a lover, it is the wrong interpretations and reasoning behind the fact that is ruining the purpose of it altogether.
