#i probably shouldnt post this ten minutes before the script comes out no one will care about it

[demadogs]

this is random but what did you think about the mlvn r and j references? I personally think it's a case of Not That Deep (although if it is that deep, I don't think it's good for mlvn) but I was so irritated by everyone talking about it bc even if I think it was foreshadowing the end of mlvn in some way, I was still really bugged by people dumbing down r and j to being "a satirical critique of stupid teenagers" bc that's just. not what it is.

i dont think the romeo and juliet references are a stretch. i do see the connections and i’ll go into that in a sec but the thing that holds me back is that romeo and juliet really were in love. it was everyone else that were against them being together, not each other. star crossed lovers is defined as two lovers who cannot be together, again, implying that they really are in love but some external conflict is against them being together. these analogies honestly seem more applicable to a potential gay couple in the 80s. (also i read this years and years ago and did very basic google searches to jog my memory so plz let me know if you know the story better and disagree)

but the duffers do like to subvert plots so maybe theyre going deeper into it and that “external conflict” is mike being gay. the way mike explicitly said meeting el was “not fate its not destiny its just simple dumb luck” makes me think this is possible.

the script in s3 calls mlvn “star crossed lovers” after dustin was comparing him and suzie to romeo and juliet. thats kinda interesting but its just written in the script alone, which the main audience isnt even meant to see. the direct quote is “speaking of star crossed lovers, mike and el are purposefully lagging behind the rest of the group”. it could be possible though that dustins mention of star crossed lovers was also in reference to them.

argyle calling mike romeo at the pizza place doesnt seem that out of nowhere. that was pretty in character of him cuz he knew he was interrupting a moment.

the oven having “montague” written on it is interesting though. i just did some digging and there is an oven company called montague but their name plates dont look like how it looked in the show.

it still says montague but theres much more emphasis on the “hearth bake” so if they had kept the og name plate, i think it would be harder to pick up on the fact that it says montogue, which leads me to believe that they intentionally had that montague plate costume made.

another thing i found is that theres another big pizza oven company and their name plates look just like that montague plate. very similar font, all caps, and both with a red background. again, this makes me believe that they took inspiration from other vintage pizza ovens to costume make a company name for the oven that just says “montague” alone.

honestly i didnt really believe much about this theory until i looked into the ovens but now its suspicious knowing that they must have had to go through the effort of making a costume name plate. so now that im pretty sure its intentional im gonna try to figure out what it could mean.

also disclaimer, im fully aware that im indulging in confirmation bias right now. im choosing to see how it could represent/foreshadow the death of mlvn instead of how their love could be real simply because of all the other mountains of evidence for byler. if there was barely any evidence for byler i would look at this more from a mlvn point of view but i just cannot see how they would hint at endgame mlvn through a detail this tiny while theres blaringly obvious things for byler.

anyways so im thinking about romeo and juliet. romeo dies first after seeing juliet appear to be dead. he believes that shes really dead and poisons himself. juliet wakes up, sees that hes dead and then stabs herself.

i think that death scene in romeo and juliet is paralleled to mikes monologue because we see the montague name plate on the oven when theyre putting el on the table. mikes seeing el choking and not waking up and maybe thinking shes dying the same way romeo thought juliet was dead. the next part in r&j was romeo killing himself, but in st what happens next is mike telling el he loves her. i think him saying this essentially kills their relationship because he brought up her powers again and thats not what el wanted to hear. this is her face before and after he said “youre my super hero”. she looks mad.

next juliet wakes up and sees that romeos dead and kills herself. so i think this could foreshadow that el wakes up, realizes shes still unhappy, and kills their relationship or in other words, it foreshadows her breaking up with him.

idk though honesty. im kinda just spitballing here. another interpretation could be mike is killing his true self by saying he loves her when he is actually gay. which is very sad. idk let me know what you guys think of this.

#this is something that i could totally think a mlvn would call me crazy for and honestly i dont blame you that much #i cant believe i did research of vintage pizza ovens and shakespeare for the sake of byler #stranger things #byler #i probably shouldnt post this ten minutes before the script comes out no one will care about it #but maybe its late again who knows #eden answers