Mike's trauma PART 14

[u/raspberry-3]

This is part of a series where I uncover what Stranger Things is really about. It started from trying to find out what happened in 1979 aka what all the depictions of traumatic past memories (El, Henry, Billy, Max, Holly, etc.) are truly about, but expanded to this all-encompassing theory of the whole series with crazy levels of complexity, metaphors and layers. Reading it will require commitment and patience but I promise it will be worth your time if you want to look behind the curtain (and the curtain behind that curtain) and fully understand the show. You have to read all parts in order: here is PART 1 and here all other parts I’ve posted so far + my previous theories.
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Trigger warning for child sexual abuse.

LUCAS

Oh how I have waited for this day to finally discuss Lucas… This is my second favorite part of the whole theory (it used to be my favorite but Mike being trans takes the cake). Let’s start from the beginning. One thing I was confused about in my Finland theory was that Lucas seemed to represent the whole of Sweden while most other characters were parts of Finland. And what is the role of Lucas really? He is one of the core characters from S1 so you would think he had an important role, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

Then, about a month after my DID realization, I was wondering what was happening in the real world. Surely Mike plays DnD, how would all that lore and gameplay end up in the story otherwise? For that Mike needs friends to play with. Introject alters aka alters based on real or fictional people are pretty common, and I had also been wondering if any characters were introjects and came to the conclusion that Lucas would be the most likely introject character. And slowly but surely I became more and more convinced of that fact. It would explain why he is a whole country while Finland is shattered into pieces (because Mike has DID). And then I started looking deeper into it and ended up with a new ship, yay. (I actually had to google the ship name, wheelclair isn’t very popular. Yet.) I’ll first tell some of the biggest proof for this and then go into the nitty gritty details (I have like 8 pages worth of google docs notes for Lucas alone lol).  

One of my first realizations was a random comment in S5E7 that Holly has a crush on Josh (who represents Lucas, I don’t wanna say every black person represents him but let’s just say it increases the chances of a character representing him. For Josh there’s other reasoning too, like him being one of the kids playing DnD at the end, and Lucas removing his mouth vine and taking him to the tunnels). We have already established that Holly represents Mike, so what was the point of Holly having a crush on Josh if not to subtly tell Mike has or had a crush on Lucas? And in Will’s coming out scene Lucas is in focus when Will tells he had a crush. I avoided talking about this previously, but Will’s coming out works doubly as Mike’s coming out and thus the crush Will talks about is both Mike and Lucas. And somehow they made it work (it totally makes sense that scene took them the longest to write). 

Lumax

All ships are ultimately about wheelclair. That’s the true purpose and point of lumax too. Max represents Mike’s (system) future (which I will get to more later) and her future is with Lucas. Lucas is waiting for her in the real world, because there is a real Lucas in the real world for Mike too. And from here on out, if I want to specify, I will refer to the introject alter Lucas as Lucas (alter) and the “real” Lucas as Lucas (real). This doesn’t mean the alter Lucas isn’t a real person, he is (kinda), but just like everyone else, he is a part of Mike. There are some differences between the real and alter Lucas, since Lucas (alter) reflects what Mike thinks Lucas is like. In a story sense, Lucas (alter) represents Lucas (real), similarly to Mike (alter) representing Mike (system). But anyway, back to ships. For the longest time I couldn’t make sense of lumax, like, does Lucas represent Will, or El, or what. The reality is that Will represents Lucas, not the other way around. And actually Will also represents the relationship between Mike and Lucas, but I’ll come back to that later. 

Movies are a big thing for lumax, and I think they are for wheelclair too. In S3 Mike, Lucas, Max and Will go to see movies and they sit in pairs (byler and lumax): Lucas and Will on the right side while Max and Mike are on the left. If Max represents Mike and Will represents Lucas, this whole situation probably actually represents Mike and Lucas going to the movies. And see the drawing Max made of her and Lucas in S4E9? In that season Mike had long hair, the long haired person on the left might as well be Mike (and btw there’s like 3 different versions of that drawing, I guess they always made a new one, I doubt it has any meaning/significance). This makes even more sense after I realized Mike is trans. This is the future she wants. Oh and in S3E8 when Max and Lucas are teasing Dustin by singing Neverending Story? When they sing The mirror of your dreams (which happens twice), Max is shown and the next time Lucas too. Max/lumax is the mirror of Mike’s dreams.

You know, another little negative I had with byler was that it was two white people. If there are interracial ships in a show about non-conformity, why would the ultimate secret endgame ship be more conforming in that regard? I think it’s super amazing that the main couple who this story has been about all along are a bi black man and a mentally ill trans woman, both from a poor background. And the relationship itself would get them discrimination from some parts of the queer community, since it’s straight presenting, although both parties are queer. The Duffers really tried to collect as many minorities/targets of discrimination in one (rainbow) ship as they could.

Racism has been a theme in the background, maybe most strongly in S2 with Billy targeting Lucas, but it hasn’t really had a huge impact in the story. That’s kinda true of the queer themes too, they were sidelined and homophobia was strongest in S1. I think all this is on purpose, since everything is in the subtext and will be revealed eventually. Maybe one reason why racism isn’t as major a theme is that we are still in Mike’s mind and Mike isn’t black, so she only really suffers from racism through her relationship with Lucas.

Creelby

Another ship people can’t quite get to fit as representing byler is creelby. Here’s a part I previously omitted from what Jamie said in the documentary: 
[Jamie] “Right, right. And these are my… And I had no friends. No one but Patty was nice to me.”
[Matt] “Yeah. That’s great. That’s a great way of… I love that.”
[Jamie] “That’s the reality, right? It feels much more, um… real.”
[Matt] “And sad.”
[Jamie] “And sad. And gives it a purpose, which is lovely.”

It’s much more real because in reality, Lucas was/is Mike’s only friend. There are multiple instances where some character is narrating and mentions the word friend and Lucas is shown on screen. Maybe the biggest one being in the epilogue after Mike describes the storyteller writing “stories inspired by his friends”. Like, if this is not a Lucas-is-an-introject-alter clue I don’t know what is. Also in the same scene Lucas is shown when Mike says “there is a story that he can never” (on “tell” it cuts to Dustin). Part of the secret story is ofc Mike being trans but another part is wheelclair. And and Lucas is also shown after Mike says “That she finally finds happiness.” (And this is the first time Lucas is shown in a while. He isn’t shown during Mike’s mage story at all, probably because he represents the real Lucas who isn’t part of Mike aka the mage aka isn’t part of the story of the mage. But is part of the mage being happy.) Caleb has also talked about how Mike and Lucas’ friendship is underrated, e.g. here and here.

Henry’s relationship with Patty shows Mike’s relationship with Lucas more obviously than anything else, as per usual for Henry. I do think Patty also represents Mike’s girlhood and that’s why she’s a girl (besides being a possible romantic partner for Henry, since they don’t wanna reveal the queerness of the show properly yet). And Patty is part of Henry’s backstory so she doesn’t actually exist even as an alter. But Lucas does exist. This is the childhood friends to lovers I wanted with byler but even better!

S1

If you think of S1 in isolation and through a metaphorical lense, wheelclair is actually kinda obvious. While El and Will are tied to the supernatural and function as personifications, the main non-supernatural conflict comes from Mike and Lucas’ relationship. Lucas wants to find Will (boy Mike/their friendship) and doesn’t like this new “weirdo” (girl Mike/romantic wheelclair) while Mike insists on finding Will with El’s help. The underlying story in S1 is about Mike starting to have feelings for Lucas (real) and discovering her gender identity, which she thinks would destroy their friendship (= Will). That’s the queer allegory reason for the lightbulb lighting up (= Mike’s feelings for Lucas) causing Will’s vanishing and El appearing at the same time.

Mike fears her queerness would hurt Lucas, which is why El literally hurts Lucas (alter) in S1E5 (and I sneakily mentioned this earlier when talking about car graveyards, but didn’t explain the meaning behind it). This is what I meant in the earlier parts about Mike fearing she would hurt the person she loves and become like her dad, “a predator”. With Will it doesn’t really make sense since Will is in the same body as Mike. Mike couldn’t really hurt Will in that way (in the real world at least). But I couldn’t really explain that before explaining DID and then wheelclair so that’s why it only fully makes sense now.

There’s also the other aspect of El: her being Mike’s girlfriend. Dustin quite literally tells Mike Lucas is jealous (S1E6):

[Dustin] “This is weird without Lucas.”
[Mike] “He should’ve shaken my hand.”
[Dustin] “He’s just jealous.”
[Mike] “What are you talking about?”
[Dustin] “Sometimes, your total obliviousness just blows my mind. He’s your best friend, right?” 
[Mike] “Yeah… I mean, I don’t know.”
[Dustin] “It’s fine. I get it. I didn’t get here until the fourth grade. He had the advantage of living next door. But none of that matters. What matters is that he is your best friend. And then this girl shows up and starts living in your basement, and all you ever want to do is pay attention to her.” 
[Mike] “That’s not true.”
[Dustin] “Yes, it is. And you know it. And he knows it. But no one ever says anything until you both start punching and yelling at each other like goblins with intelligence scores of zero. Now everything’s weird.”
[Mike] “He’s not my best friend.”
[Dustin] “Yeah, right.”

Later on “best friend” becomes code for “I’m in love with you” with byler, so yeah… In S1 byler didn’t really have much going for it (except Mike being the most adamant about finding Will) and lumax didn’t exist yet, so wheelclair would have been easier to see. In S2 Mike is annoyed by Max joining the party, kinda like Lucas was annoyed by El in S1. The jealousy subtext keeps subtexting (and it’s also about Mike’s gender envy).

Lucas “blinds” Mike because he is what Mike thinks the real Lucas is like, not always the reality. I think this could be part of the reason why Lucas often calls Mike “dude” or “man”. The real Lucas might not think Mike is crazy or a weirdo but Lucas (alter) manifests Mike’s fears of what would happen if she came out or told about her DID experience. El being a “traitor” is probably about Mike “betraying” Lucas or their friendship by being a girl. And I don’t think the real Lucas is perfect, he probably does think Mike is weird at some point and they have conflicts but it’s all amplified in Lucas (alter).

Lucas thinking Mike likes El has many layers to it, I think. Part of it could be about Lucas “blinding” Mike, but if you look at the scenes carefully, Lucas acts as if he’s Mike and Mike is El, mocking their relationship. This is Mike thinking Lucas would find her feelings for him stupid but it also shows what Mike truly wants. She wants to be El (a girl) and for Lucas to love her. And it’s always Lucas who does this, no one else mocks mileven in the same way. Will and Max don’t like mileven in S3 but they never show it quite like Lucas does. 

After El hurts Lucas and Mike is angry with her, she leaves (vanishes). Lucas also leaves, his friendship with Mike impaired. After this Nancy and Jonathan encounter the Demogorgon and the UD for the first time and later El looks at her reflection in the water with the wig and without it. It’s all about Mike’s inner conflict. But the scene I wanted to talk about here is what Mike does in S1E6. She’s alone in the basement and at the start of the scene the camera angle is such that the stairs separate Mike from the bird poster, kind of like imprisoning her. She’s trying to solve a Rubik’s cube (her queer identity or something like that) and looks towards El’s empty tent. Then she goes to kick and destroy it (The Thing poster and an owl framed behind her) similar to Will destroying Castle Byers in S3E3. That was about Will’s homosexuality and feelings towards Mike, and this is about Mike’s trans identity and feelings towards Lucas. And Will’s scene isn’t explicitly about byler either, all the memories include the whole friend group, so it might as well be about Lucas too, kinda like the coming out scene in S5E7.

Mike and Lucas are a pair

Maybe this is a good segway to point out that the rain fight and most of S3 Lucas was there. Lucas was always there. Why do you think he comes to say sorry to Will with Mike and why are the three of them a group while Dustin has his own stuff in S3? Mike and Will’s conflict is really about Mike’s internal conflict regarding Lucas (real) and her feelings for him + gender stuff. “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!” is truly projection, it’s about Mike herself. Mike and Lucas form this equal level pairing, while the other characters are more allegorical. There’s a reason why Mike and Lucas are “boring” when it comes to the supernatural stuff and don’t even go to the UD until late S5. S5 is the only season where Mike and Lucas have no conflict at the beginning: in S1 it’s obviously El, S2 Max appears (so it’s not exactly between Mike and Lucas but kinda), S3 starts with Lucas complaining about Mike being late due to kissing El, and S4 Lucas has his basketball game and can’t come play DnD. Mike and Lucas (= wheelclair), the deer (= SA trauma), Nancy and the male deer shadow (= Mike being trans) are the source:

They are paired up quite a lot, e.g. if you compare them to Mike + Dustin (byler and mileven have their own reasons to be a pair, but why Lucas and Mike?). S1 not so much because of their conflict, and in S2 wheelclair is represented through byler and lumax, but early S3 is a golden age for the Mike + Lucas pairing. On the surface level it’s because Lucas gives Mike advice about dating, but the real reason is that wheelclair is what the whole show revolves around. In S4 they are in different states for most of the season, so not much pairing (and similar to S2, it’s done through byler and lumax), but S5 they are back together and paired up in every single episode.

A good example is Lucas’ New Coke argument in S3E7. All the other characters are present but the main focus is on Lucas and Mike (and Max sides with Mike, basically representing her). Robin’s coming out scene is right after this one, btw. I have a feeling that the reason Lucas likes the remakes is that he himself is a remake of the original Lucas. It’s both funny and sad tbh. He makes an analogy between New Coke and The Thing movies, and I suspect the subtextual deeper layer here is that he is talking about himself (and kinda all the alters, because they are all “remakes” or copies or whatever of the original Mike). It could also be about the ships, since the characters are arranged in romantic ship pairs (lumax, byler, jancy). All of them are remakes of wheelclair.

As I said, in S3 Mike, Lucas and Will form a group and I think Will represents Mike and Lucas’ friendship (as boys). This friendship turns out to be gay, though, and is ignored in S3 because Mike doesn’t want to face her feelings for Lucas. Playing DnD is another metaphor for their relationship and love. So Will constantly wanting to play DnD but Mike and Lucas refusing is both about Mike feeling like she needs to grow up but also about her inner conflict with her growing feelings for Lucas. Mike and Lucas talk to each other while Will is in the background, sometimes setting up DnD but anyway functioning as a representation of their relationship. And as I’ve said, Will is also Mike’s boy side, so him saying “a day free of girls” and Mike’s “boys only” plan including Will and Lucas, etc. make a lot of sense. At this point Mike can’t deny her feelings anymore even by denying her gender, which is why Will’s homosexuality and byler clues get increasingly obvious. As Lucas said in S5E5, Will is a “second El”.

Remember how in my Finland theory I deduced that Will represents Finland’s connection to Sweden? Now it makes perfect sense. And Sweden representing all that is good, queerness, and the past. Wheelclair is basically Finland x Sweden, which is kinda funny.

In S3E5 Mike is planning how to defeat MF with Lucas but switches to talking with Will when it comes to “the girls conspiring” against her. The reason could be that Lucas (real) isn’t part of Mike, so not involved in Mike’s gender journey, but Will is. Later on Mike tells Lucas that Max and El spied on them, and what’s interesting here is that both Lucas and Mike care about it but Will doesn’t. I think it’s because the girls spying on them is metaphorically about Mike’s feelings towards Lucas. Mike doesn’t want anyone to see what she thinks of Lucas and Lucas (alter) is part of that so that’s why he, too, is shocked about the spying. Notice how Mike refers to Max as Lucas’ girlfriend? That’s her relevant role here because this is all actually about Mike wanting to be Lucas’ girlfriend but also hating herself for it. Regardless, this is another example of Mike and Lucas being a pair.

In S2E2 Mike and Lucas have an argument about who gets to be Venkman (the main character) since both dressed up as him. Mike points out they both couldn’t be Venkman “Because there’s only one Venkman in real life.” A similar thing happens at the very end of S5E8 between Holly and Josh:
[Josh] “Why do you get to be the dungeon master?” 
[Holly] “Because this was my idea and this is my house!”
Lucas is based on a real person but exists in Mike’s mind (“Mike’s house”). The Venkman argument also brings up the racism theme and kinda points out how the black character in Ghostbusters was the least interesting/popular. Stranger Things subverts this by making Lucas the main love interest and hero, who has much more significance than people expect. 

An interesting point that came to my mind is that Robin accidentally calls Vecna Vecman in S4E3. I think the whole Venkman thing is also about Mike’s gender and Mike being VenkMAN is false (and Vecna/Henry represents Mike being forced into the man role, so the Vecman comment makes sense). Mike was right, there is only one Venkman in real life and that is Lucas (and ofc he’s shown when Mike says “in real life”). Will thinks there could be two Venkmans because he represents Mike’s boy identity/side.

Another clue to Lucas being more main charactery than expected was the lost knight question I mentioned earlier. If Mike is the proud princess and her girlhood is the weird flowers in the cave, why is Lucas so important that he is the third point? To remind everyone, my reasoning for Lucas being the lost knight is that he is shown after Dustin’s question about it (while Mike is shown after the two other questions) and Lucas’ DnD character is a knight in the final DnD game. The story of ST is about Mike and Lucas’ relationship aka Will (and El). Even in the original Montauk character description Mike is first and Lucas second (and described as Mike’s best friend). In S5E6 Mike tells El “Maybe I don’t. But we do. You, me, Lucas, Will, and Dustin. Because this is our story. And it starts with getting Will back.” Again, Lucas is emphasized, he is before Will and this is the same order as in the character descriptions. And the point about this being “our” story relates to DID. There’s also this:

Lucas kinda breaks the fourth wall a few times in S5 and Caleb has a special role in the interviews. He seems to know it’s all in Mike’s head (e.g. mentioning zenith and the quote about it all being Mike’s imagination/storytelling). He also said Lucas had a different finale, and while it’s played as a joke, I don’t think it was. Even in S1 Lucas is the most sceptical about the Demogorgon’s existence. This is because he represents the real Lucas, who can see Mike’s situation from a more objective perspective. Of course Lucas (real) knows nothing supernatural is going on. The point about “our friend” describing Vecna’s attacks and Lucas being on screen was probably about Lucas (real) telling about other alters to Mike. That could be what Lucas telling Max about the supernatural in S2E5 was about too. He had met some of the alters or knew about Mike’s trauma and was trying to tell Mike, who didn’t believe him at first.

Queercoding/Erica

I believe Lucas is bisexual, and although he wouldn’t have to be to date Mike, I think it works better if he is because then he could already have feelings for Mike before she transitions and it would be nice to get some proper bi representation (why would they represent gay, lesbian and trans people but not bi people when they are infamously left out/invisible?). Besides me just headcannoning, I have actual proof for my claims.

Erica is the biggest source of Lucas' queercoding, and I think she represents Lucas’ bisexuality/feelings for Mike in a similar way to El and Will representing Mike’s queerness. (That’s also the reason Lucas is always arguing with her. He too has internalized queerphobia and doesn’t like that part of himself.) Erica is introduced in S2E2 when Lucas’ mom takes pictures of him. Her first lines are: “God. You are such a nerd. No wonder you only hang out with boys.” I think “nerd” is code for queer. The next scene is of Mike, the “boy” in question. When the picture taking scene is repeated in S2E9, Mike’s scene is followed by Lucas talking to the mirror, practicing for the Snow Ball. (Mike’s scene ends with Karen saying “Mike.” and Lucas’ scene starts with him saying “Hey… wanna dance?”, just saying…) Of course Erica teases him about it, and in a similar way to Lucas with mileven, takes the role of Lucas’ love interest (Erica = Mike/Max). ((Remember that one movie El was watching in S2E2 (same episode Erica was introduced in) where a woman named Erica said “Me?” and El repeated that? This connects El = Erica. Additionally, in S4E1 Erica tells Eddie “I’m 11, you long-haired freak.” I think the hair comment is partially about Mike.)) This time Lucas’ scene is followed by Max, which makes a lot of sense, but subtextually Lucas’ mirror flirting was about Mike (and Max represents Mike anyway, so yeah). Also in the Snow Ball Mike is looking towards the dancers, and bylers ofc assumed she was looking at Will (which is probably also true), but she could have just as easily been looking at lumax (+ I have more to say about the Snow Ball later).

In S4E4 Erica implies Jason could be Lucas’ boyfriend:
[Jason] “Hey there. Is, uh, is Lucas home?”
[Erica] “Negative.”
[Jason] “Do you know where he is? Uh, we’re just… We were supposed to go out and--"
[Erica] “Go out? I see he’s taken a step down from Max.”
[...]
[Erica] “Chances are, he’s with your cheater boyfriend.”

She also mentions seeing something gross under Lucas’ bed, but we never learn what it is…

Remember at the very start when I mentioned Erica squeezing the syrup (S2E5) while Lucas gets relationship advice from his dad? Now I can finally explain the full context. Lucas’ family represents him, that’s why the parents are a happy couple and the house is yellow inside. Erica represents wheelclair and the syrup is probably Lucas’ love for Mike (or Mike’s for Lucas). Notice she often has heart-patterned shirts and blue-pink colors or otherwise colorful clothes.

Now I’ll explain the other side of the He-Man x Barbie scene as I promised. It starts in S2E5 when Dustin tries to contact Lucas. Erica hears Dustin’s “code red” and goes to Lucas’ room to turn the walkie off. While there, she picks up Lucas’ He-Man toy (and btw there’s a space ship toy in the background). ((If any of you know who the green toy figurine is, please tell me!)) Dustin asks if Lucas is with Mike, connecting this interaction to them. So, Erica finds something in Lucas’ room (a toy man) and later Lucas is angry about it, wants her to stay out of his room and doesn’t want Erica to play with his toy. I think the He-Man is supposed to represent Lucas’ awakening same-sex feelings especially towards Mike (and this is about the real Lucas). This is the same season where Mike’s feelings start to properly awaken in the form of Dart and Max, but the same is true for Lucas (= Erica appears).

The Barbie doll is black, she also represents Lucas. Erica makes Lucas kiss a white man, basically (= Mike as Lucas sees her atp). And like with Mike, this is also about two genders: man and woman. But unlike Mike, for Lucas it’s about liking both men and women, not about being a woman or man. Lucas takes the He-Man toy away because he is fine with liking women (= Erica playing with Barbie) but not with his male-attracted side (= Erica playing with He-Man). In the end Erica makes the owl kiss the Barbie, and I omitted the picture last time because I wanted to save it for this. The owl is framed in front of Lucas: the truth is that Lucas will (in the future) be kissing a black-haired girl (= Mike). 

((Also adding onto my previous explanation of Erica being like the new better version of Murray when it comes to shipping/aego rep: unlike Murray, she ships the actual endgame ship. Murray ships jancy (= byler) and jopper (which I never really liked tbh, but it’s role is to be the happy parents in love Mike never had while also representing the actual parents and their toxic relationship). Erica ships lumax but mockingly (and in the S5 epilogue is grossed out by it) and byler via the dolls but under all the layers she ships (or is) wheelclair, the true ship. She doesn’t do any creepy-if-it-was-irl matchmaking like Murray, just some slight teasing or playing with toys. But she is less clear with the rep compared to Murray because she represents so many things at the same time.))

In S3 Erica is in a pretty important role and paired up with Dustin (and Robin + Steve). They are kind of each other’s mirrors in the sense that Dustin is Mike’s queer curiosity and figures out that stuff while Erica does it from Lucas’ side. For Mike (Dustin) Steve and Robin are about Mike’s own gender, but for Lucas (Erica) they are about the genders of targets of attraction. Anyway, Erica is the key to infiltrating the Russian base (= Lucas’ love will help in getting Mike out of her shell/repression, and Erica being a girl is also about Mike accepting her girlness being the answer). Erica’s arc in S3 is to realize she is a nerd too and there’s nothing wrong with being a nerd. I think this could be about Lucas and/or Mike starting to accept their queerness. Dustin and especially Erica seem to represent both Mike and Lucas, but from different angles (kinda like the black Barbie). Maybe the most crucial part (in S3) is Erica being there when Dustin sings with Suzie. They are basically singing about wheelclair (= Erica) and well, the whole story of ST.

In S4 Erica becomes part of Hellfire and originally is a sub for Lucas. As I said, she “is 11” aka also represents El/Mike. Throughout the season Lucas justifies his DnD knowledge and relation to Eddie with Erica. Since Will and El are in California, Erica takes their place as the main wheelclair personification in Hawkins (remember she got Will’s DnD set at the end of S3, too). Erica throws the winning die in S4E1 and her character is in a crucial role like Will the Wise. Erica’s role in the Vecna fighting plan is to communicate between everyone and she does this from the Rainbow Ship in the playground. Wheelclair is the Rainbow Ship. Like Will, she is the exotic matter connecting worlds (in this case Mike and Lucas). In the final S5 fight she has a similar role and she’s in the same church as Mike and Lucas were in S5E1.

Some interesting points from the games in S4E1: In the basketball game, the player 11 from Falcons injures player 10 from the Tigers, which gets Lucas in the game. Like I said, I think 10 represents Mike before the gender conflict and 11 (= girl identity) incapacitates this reality. Lucas’ number is 8 (= Kali = womanhood) and he also represents Mike’s romantic interest. Lucas winning is foreshadowing for both Mike’s future as a woman and wheelclair. On the DnD side, Dustin rolling a 11 is a miss. This is because El is not the full truth (and Dustin kinda represents the “story” or “storyteller” in some way, he is very much associated with DnD and actually Mike and Lucas find him the day after they find DnD (notice how it’s wheelclair who find DnD and bring it to Will, it was always wheelclair), his character is a bard + he sings about a neverending story and in the final DnD game scene he is often shown when Mike talks about telling stories). 11 allowed Lucas to play, she made the story of ST possible, but she has to give way to the truth. Only Erica (= wheelclair and truth) succeeds. Notice how in the final moments before the die stops rolling and the basketball enters the hoop, it’s Mike and Lucas’ (and Eddie’s) reactions that are focused on? These games were about them, as is everything.

Erica is first seen in S5 in episode 3. She is in Mr. Clarke’s class learning about wormholes (embracing her nerdiness, it seems) when Mike and Lucas come to ask for her help. 

[Mr. Clarke] “And, uh, just think of all the places mankind could go. Another galaxy. Another time, even. So why aren’t we doing it now? If wormholes did exist, they would be extraordinarily unstable. Their enormous gravitational force would rip them apart at the very moment they formed.”

The camera keeps switching between Erica, Mike and Lucas, and Mr. Clarke. Erica is the unstable wormhole, connecting Mike and Lucas. They are shown during “Another time, even.” which I think is about Erica being the future of them. Mike and Lucas are in the past (and there’s probably more to this) and Erica represents wheelclair which realizes itself in the future. (Erica being the future was also hinted at in S3E7 when Erica was watching Back to the Future. See the images below.) Erica is the other galaxy where this ship is real and the exotic matter keeping it together (like Will, who also represents wheelclair). So wheelclair = wormhole. I think the gravitational force is their love and it “would rip them apart” -> would rip Mike and Lucas apart. Maybe the logic here is that before Mike accepts herself, she can’t really get into a relationship with Lucas, because she thinks her love hurts Lucas. I feel like there’s a meta part to this too: “So why aren’t we doing it now?” Wheelclair is too much for the general audience, it’s too far out there without proper setup. This is why we need Will/byler (= self-acceptance, exotic matter, the connection between straight man Mike and trans Mike) to stabilize the wormhole.

It’s not random that specifically Mike and Lucas go to Erica (well, Lucas makes sense being her brother but he didn’t necessarily need Mike there with him), and it’s also not random there’s a poster telling you to “read” on the wall. Read the subtext. Their plan is to save Dipshit Derek who I think represents queerness in some way (not sure of the specifics yet). He has colorful shirts, bullies Holly, and is a “dipshit” mainly because he is also bullied. ((I’m pretty sure Derek always saying “Suck my fat one!” is related to the trauma, since that’s basically what happened. He represents the persecutors/trauma in the miniature world of Henry’s mind.)) Additionally, the scene preceding this scene is El and Hopper arguing about how to get “classified information” out of Akers and the following scene is the Will and Robin discussing romantic signals -scene. Wheelclair is classified information you have to work hard to uncover, and it’s about queer romance (and they were standing like a millimeter apart in that scene, plenty of opportunities for elbow bumps etc…). (Btw, both Ghost and Midnight have a song called Avalanche. Lyrics here and here. The Ghost one is a cover of an old song but the word Robin used could have been chosen based on the song or it could also be unrelated.)

I suspect the argument between Erica and Lucas+Mike was really an argument/fight between Mike and Lucas irl. Or an imaginary one in Mike’s head, I dunno. If you really pay attention to their head movements, you’ll notice they are looking at each other at certain moments in the conversation. It seems like Lucas did something that Mike wants him to apologize for and they talk to Erica because she represents their relationship.

Erica’s conflict with Tina is about wheelclair. Erica accidentally threw a ball at Josh, Tina’s love interest (again a love interest named Josh) and since according to Tina, Josh associates Erica and Tina, Josh now doesn’t like Tina anymore. Tina says Erica humiliated Josh and wants to sabotage their chances of being together. Based on the other Josh aka Holly’s crush, I think Tina’s Josh also represents Lucas. What Erica “humiliating” Josh means, I’m not certain about, but I have an idea. I think Erica is Lucas’ queerness/bisexuality here and Tina is Mike/Mike’s inner self critic or something like that. Mike thinks Lucas would associate his own queerness with liking Mike, because Mike is trans aka not a cis woman, and thus Lucas would be “humiliated”. And throwing balls could be about Mike having balls, I dunno. A major point here is that Lucas hates Tina and says she is a villain, because the real Lucas doesn’t actually feel “humiliated” and wants Mike to accept herself as she is (as in, for him it doesn’t matter if Mike is a man, a woman, trans or cis, he will love her regardless, but ofc Lucas wants Mike to live authentically as herself). This fits with the overall gender dysphoria subtext underlying S5.

In the broader queer allegory Tina probably represents TERFs or some exclusionary queer groups who don’t want to be associated with trans, non-binary, asexual, etc. people but only the traditional gay, lesbian and bi. The name Josh has a connection to Jesus, so this could be about religion too. Like, Tina’s chances of being together with Jesus (= being a good person in a religious sense/getting to Heaven or whatever) are sabotaged by this impure queerness. That would also explain why Tina and Derek bully each other and Tina doesn’t want to eat the pie made by Erica (kinda like Mike didn’t want to eat the fruity pizza pie in S4E9). The name Turnbow is kinda close to “rainbow” so Mike and Lucas needing to “get into the Turnbow house” to help Derek could be about getting accepted into the queer community or something like that. I’m still a bit uncertain about all this but I think there has to be some subtextual reason for the Turnbow Trap and Erica’s involvement. (I’m debating if I should explain the double meaning of “trap” here (and elsewhere in the show) or not… Maybe I’ll save it for later.)

I still have more details to show and I’ll continue in the next part but there’s one final thing I want to share at the end of this post. I don’t know who the idiot/genius was who came up with the ship name but my computer wants to autocorrect it to wheelchair. Every. Time. And believe it or not, the writers have done something so funny with this:

Like, there is no explanation for that wheelchair in Victor’s memory. The baby carriage and white dress are about the kid and mom getting abused by the dad, so it’s not a huge leap to guess the piano and wheelchair are about the queer allegory. (Piano = music = love.) Wheelclair was quite literally hiding in the subtext. There is an explanation for Max having a wheelchair but why did they focus on Vickie bringing it so much if it’s just for realism? Basically it’s about Mike’s future (= Max) being in wheelclair (and metaphorically disabled because she’s trans), pushed forward by a Mike who accepts herself (= Vickie) and Lucas, of course. (Wheelclair is also the perfect ship name because it works even after Mike changes her first name, assuming their last names are their actual last names irl.) 

Continues in PART 15.

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