This is a continuation in exploring why I think Mike's character regression over the seasons can be explained in part by guilt, which he has yet to confront
Original post
Now we're onto s2, which jumps us ahead in the timeline a bit.
Mike has been calling out to El on the walkie for approx. 252 days now, under what he views as the false hope she might actually be alive. This is mostly based on the fact that Mike thought he saw El outside of his house a few hours after she 'died' (he did see her, bc she was there...) and so a part of him does think there's a chance. And yet this is also isn't something Mike seems to be comfortable talking about the others with.
Which brings us to the crazy together scene. Although this scene has a lot going on, there's one aspect of it in particular that I want to focus on, as it's the driving force for what is going to be discussed, which is that Halloween night was also the last night Mike called El, aka day 353.
I just want to preface what follows, with the fact that I do not personally think Mike giving up calling El, as a concept on its own, means that he couldn't possibly love El romantically or something. It's not even about that idea from an audience perspective. And this is because any average person, in reality, mourning someones' death, should not be calling out to that person for almost a year. Letting go doesn't make you a bad person, whether it was romantic, platonic or even familial. It's called healing and accepting what is and trying to move on and live your life.
Neither does Mike giving up after that night make him heartless or a bad character in my opinion. It literally just makes him human. But that also doesn't mean that's how Mike feels about it, nor does it mean that the manifestation of this guilt isn't going to affect his behavior over the course of the series, causing some very unfortunate choices on Mike's part to then lead to some very unfortunate events for everyone...
Where it starts to get sort of complex is that I think the whole point of the crazy together scene and where it ended up was to for it to showcase how Mike and Will were both willing to accept each other, despite these secrets they've been keeping to themselves.
Will revealed the truth to Mike about how he could still see into the UD, with the addition of seeing this big 'shadow in the sky', followed by asking Mike to not tell the others because they wouldn't understand. Mike then responds by saying El would understand, followed by confiding his own secret to Will that he's been keeping from the others, which is that he thinks he's seen signs that El could still be alive.
The scene then ends with them in agreement that if they're both going crazy, they'll go crazy together, with it arguably being their most incriminatingly romantic moment to date, as it juxtaposes other uncannily similar romantic mentions on the show involving that same word.
But no matter what happens, they're promising to support each other, specifically the weird shit they have going on and could presumably continue to explore that weirdness, without telling anyone else who might judge them for it or misunderstand their feelings entirely...
This is why Mike had no problem with Will going crazy in s2 because as promised, he was going to be right there with him. Also meaning, Mike COULD have had no problem continuing to test out his theory that El was alive, because Will would have supported him.
Obviously, Will sort of had his hands tied in s2 (literally?), but the point still stands. It's not like this was something Mike HAD to give up, because that conversation between him and Will instilled that they would support each other and what makes them feel crazy.
I think the issue though, is that what's causing Mike so much grief daily for almost a year now, is the guilt that came with El's death and him feeling responsible. And so, in contrast to Will's slightly more justified assumptions that what he's seeing could actually be real based on what's happened to him, it's like Mike is asking himself whether he's actually seeing El because she's still alive OR is he just imagining she's still alive because he wants to forgive himself?
A kid deducing that in their head would make them feel pretty awful, don't you think? Maybe even lead them to calling out to that person for almost a year in hopes that they might still be alive?
Meaning Mike choosing that night to walk away, to give up, is likely a result of his conversation with Will making him feel more comfortable with finally letting go of some of that guilt in order to actually start the process of moving on. Because a big part of why he didn't want to move on was because of guilt in the first place.
Also confiding in Will and only Will, not the others, who were hell bent on interpreting all of Mike's feelings for El as romantic, was maybe Mike's way of avoiding the pressure to associate his whole relationship with El as strictly romantic. With Will, maybe Mike knew he wasn't going to spin it into something like that. And he would’ve been right, because Will didn't.
October 30th, Halloween Night (Day 353 - Last call)
You cannot tell me that day 353 isn't framed as the last call. Like Mike is literally walking away dramatically, leaving El alone, with her now just a tiny dot surrounded by darkness. The way it's framed leaves the viewer genuinely feeling heartbroken because there's some very evident finality to what is being presented. And we even see that El feels it too, hence the episode cutting off dramatically with her tear filled eyes.
And so why did Mike choose THIS moment to give up? Why did he choose now to put his 353 day streak to rest? Like, that was impressive as hell. He could have easily kept that going, but instead he decided that this was going to be the last time he was going to try calling out to her...
November 1st (Day 354)
El is still pretty bummed that Hopper came home late last night, but I'm guessing she's even more bummed still processing what might have very well been Mike finally giving up that night too.
Although I don't think El would blame Mike for giving up, still, she too throughout all of this had been building up hope herself. El's been clinging onto the bond she made with Mike, specifically the romantic moments, to the point where she has been watching shows with romantic themes, putting herself in the position of the love interest.
So him not giving up, to El, has been a signal that what they are feeling between each other is very deep and... romantic. Him keeping this going this long is a sign to her that these feelings are pretty much guaranteed. And if he doesn't continue, that hope would obviously dwindle.
At breakfast that morning, Hopper acknowledges the TV cord peaking out of El's room, which is the device she uses to visit Mike from the void, all the way from the cabin. Without it, she is not able to 'communicate' with him, let alone see if he actually didn't give up after that night she feared he did...
Unfortunately her and Hopper have an argument after this, leading to her storming off to her room. And after Hopper is gone, El finds herself being so impatient to see Mike after almost a year of waiting, that she decides to take fate into her own hands. She isn't willing to wait until the evening, which is roughly speaking the usual time Mike uses the walkie to call her every night. She needs to see him now.
And lucky(?) for her, she does!
Finally! A SIGN! After almost a year of no signs that El is alive, since the night she went missing, Mike is getting a sign El is alive!
And he runs after it! He goes to check to confirm his (valid) suspicions, only for her to not be there, with Mike looking disappointed, but also kind of like he's accepted it's a lost cause at this point.
Mike's hope that El is alive and okay and the relief that would come with finally letting go of this massive weight of guilt, is not within reach. He just needs to accept it and let it go. He needs to forgive himself and move on.
On top of all of this, Will is experiencing his own version of crazy. And Mike seems more concerned with focusing on this and supporting Will, than holding onto this hope that El is alive.
So even though Mike just got a sign that El is alive (which parallels to the initial evidence of her being alive outside his house, what literally initiated him to call out to her for almost a year), he doesn't revert back to his approach of not giving up. He sticks by his decision.
The irony of what happens with El the same night that Mike doesn't call, for the first time, is not lost on me...
Tragically, El doesn't know Mike actually gave up (just like she feared he did) because she lost her ability to communicate with him that night.
I wonder how differently things would have played out if she new the truth. Would she have held onto this really romanticized idea of her and Mike's relationship because he never gave up? Or would she have maybe reassured Mike that it was okay that he gave up and moved past it and still hoped and tried to make it work? Honestly, I think the later.
Because again, it's not Mike giving up that makes him a bad person or something that refutes his ability to love her romantically, it just means that it's not true that he never gave up.
And Mike being the only person to know this fact... Um... Cannot be good for him.
October 2nd (Day 355)
As El is trying to revive a modicum of hope that she can see Mike again through the void, to confirm her hopes that he didn't give up, by using the TV like she usually does, she discovers that the cord is broken. It's a lost cause.
On the other side of town, Mike is entirely focused on Will. The previous night, he did not reach out to El. He gave up. And El is none the wiser.
The writers made the choice to have one more night that Mike could have called El because he was at home that night on day 354, a day that actually involved an incident that you'd think would have reignited his hope that she was alive, before he inevitably jumped head first into focusing on Will, with him not being home for the rest of the season. They could have shown us Mike calling out to El from the other side of town, and then cut to her in her room not knowing... And yet, they didn't...
This is where I jump to the end, because the focus primarily when it comes to El and Mike's arcs for the rest of the season are with El trying to find her mom and discover more about herself, while Mike is trying to be there for Will in any way he can.
The sad part is that despite Mike giving up and trying to move on from El's death, that guilt is never really going to go away. He gave El expectations that she had to risk her life to find Will, and all of that built up and inadvertently led to her death.
But maybe Mike can right the wrongs he had El endure by following through on his focus of not letting Will die too? Maybe if Mike can save Will, El wouldn't have died for nothing?
But with this guilt and Mike trying to overcorrect it all, he's also experiencing very real and emotional moments with Will. Will is his best friend, and just a year ago Mike risked everything to get him back. A lot of those moments he experienced with El in s1, moments mixed with romantic expectations, are now also lingering here with him and his friend in s2. Except these aren't forced expectations. Everything Mike’s feeling and doing the entire time comes naturally to him, with none of it requiring pushing or advice from those around him. It's just pure instinct.
In the end, Mike's beside Joyce and Jonathan, who are sharing memories they have with Will to him in hopes it will prove to them he's still in there and able to be saved.
This emotional sequence builds up to Mike using his own memory of Will to try to reach him, one that comes off as platonic in every sense of the word, but visually, and when looked at in the grand scheme of things, especially with what is about to follow and those romantic expectations with El soon being thrust back on him... Well... Shit is about to get real messy.
Upon reuniting with El, Mike was quick to want to tell her that he never gave up, only for her to interrupt him with the exact number of days he called (before he gave up).
This is news to Mike for an abundance of reasons. It means he's not crazy and that El actually was alive those two times he saw her. All this (survivors) guilt that's been building up over the last year could have been avoided if he'd known that she didn't die, that she was okay.
It also means that for some reason, El heard him, and yet she doesn't know that he gave up...
And here Hopper is, revealing that he's been hiding her the whole time aka the perfect person for Mike to take all of this pent-up emotion out on.
Hopper then tells Mike that they will discuss this privately, which I find to be very interesting because it offers a chance for the viewer to see just a glimpse into Mike's emotional state at this moment, without everyone around to affect his ability to truly open up about how he's feeling. And not alone just anywhere in the house, but in Will's room...
Mike is understandably upset because El is alive and Hopper knew this whole time and didn't tell him.
While Hopper didn't technically lie to Mike, at least not in canon because we never got an outright scene on-screen of Mike asking Hopper if El was alive with him denying it (all while knowing she was), it's at the very least a lie of omission...
But the thing is, if Hopper not clueing Mike in on El being alive qualifies as a lie of omission (off-screen), so does Mike not telling El he gave up (on-screen).
If anything Mike's lie of omission also qualifies as a plain old lie, because he outright told El he didn't give up (lied) and didn't correct her when she informed him she knew he didn't. She fully believed it, despite him knowing deep down that it wasn't the full truth.
So while Mike is taking all of his anger out on Hopper as this fighting match comes to a head, it takes a turn.
Hopper is fine with Mike blaming him, he says it's 'okay'. But it's not. Nothing about this is okay to Mike, seeing as this isn't even the whole problem. It's not the problem Mike's actually hiding within his outburst in the first place.
Suddenly Mike starts screaming to Hopper that he's a 'disgusting, lying, piece of shit', chanting LIAR over and over and over again, shoving him repeatedly, only for him to fall into Hopper's arms and start crying, with Hopper reassuring him that he's okay.
Something tells me Mike's emotions here aren't all about Hopper...
Something tells me that Mike's fixation with the word liar doesn't apply to Hopper here as much as it applies to Mike himself (in his eyes)...
The main reason why I think this is what's actually going on here, is because there was no reason to put so much emphasize on this concept of Mike literally walking away that last time he called her.
Why go through the trouble of creating this misunderstanding, by having the TV not work, with El not being able to go into the void to see Mike, THE very night he gave up, if to not plant the seed that this misunderstanding was going to bear some significance? That this misunderstanding (lie? lie of omission?) was going to lead to El assuming Mike didn't give up, all while Mike knows he gave up, but going along with the story that he didn't, for both El's sake and his own?
BECAUSE it's a surprise tool that will help us later!
I also think it's interesting that they decided to have Will go off and dance with a girl at the snowball BEFORE Mike decided to devote himself to El here on out. Like... that is quite the choice after a season of highlighting this bond between Will and Mike where they promise to go crazy together, which is a moment we know Will took romantically.... So, is it possible Mike also took it romantically? We know Will also took Mike's speech to him in the shed romantically, so is it possible Mike did too, with that experience only heightening his emotions and confusion over his feelings for El when he found out she was alive shortly after, leading to his outburst? But then Will is going and dancing with the girl, and here we have Mike's own version of falling behind (the Time After Time lyrics were more literal than you think).
What if they didn't do all of that? Would things have maybe panned out slightly differently if Mike wasn't under the (incorrect) assumption that Will didn't take those moments romantically?
While Mike's guilt might have started in s1, when he played the biggest role in pushing expectations onto El to help them find Will, only for her to 'die', it doesn't end there. Mike's guilt only builds when he holds the knowledge that he did give up hoping she could be alive, all while allowing El to believe the opposite based on what she saw, which was a guiding force for not only her love and dedication to him flourishing, but also for him to then shift his own version of expectations onto himself going forward to make it up to El by trying to be who she wants him to be.
We see how romanticized 353 days is interpreted exclusively as meaning Mike has to be in love with El. But he did give up. So what does that mean for all of this? For their picture perfect love story?
What does it mean for Mike to hold onto this truth, a truth that makes him feel immense guilt, only for him to spend the next year or so making it up to her...?
It means either Mike has to come clean, or he has to deflect and double down.
What option do you think a guilt-ridden, repressed homosexual kid in the 80's is going to choose?
Answer? Deflect and double down.
In s3, Mike is so focused on worrying about El (giving her what he thinks she wants) so he can right all the building up of wrongs he has done at her expense since he met her, and as a result loses Will in the process (where have we heard this before...?)
Instead of Mike having a moment in s3 where he acknowledges that he himself was the first to ever refer to El as a weapon in the first place, to try to save Will in s1, he's now turning around and blaming the others for using El as a weapon 'for no reason'...
No reason? Really Mike? Is it for no reason, or is it just not a good enough reason to you this time?
Or maybe has Mike just actually spent enough time with El now to truly feel a bond with her in order to see her as a full person, slightly outside of this imaginary superhero he's cooked her up to be when he met her that day in the woods, the day his life started because she was his first and only hope of finding Will? (I say slightly bc... I mean we all saw what happened in s4?)
I honestly think it's a mix of both...
I also think it's not a coincidence that Mike doubling down instead of facing the truth about this manifestation of guilt only makes things worse for him. And El. And Will.
Because suddenly he's choosing this moment to blurt out that he loves and can't lose her again, in front of everyone, even to his own dismay and shock. And when El walks in and gives him a chance to say it to her himself, like any person whose in love with someone would want to do, to make them feel loved, he looks terrified.
And when the season ends and Mike is given another chance to say it finally, to El directly, in roughly the exact same spot he had his emotional outburst in the previous season over finding out she was alive at the same time he was still grappling with losing Will again, IN WILL'S ROOM, he freezes. He just lets what happens, happen.
Because after everything, with El right now in front of him, telling him she loves him while being fully convinced he loves her too after everything they've went through, how could he possibly take it back, or try to make her understand his complicated feelings about all of this?
Answer? He can't.
As hard as it is to believe (not that hard honestly based on his track record), Mike's deflection and stalling era is just beginning...
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that massacre blood won't let me rest
(bloodstain pattern analysis)
warning, this will contain some graphic explanations of how blood stains get made and a couple pictures of real blood (no people) as I attempt to apply my modicum of education on this subject to the HNL massacre
I'm mostly focusing on that main blood stain that goes across One's chest, but toward the end I'll touch on other stains in the RR.
tldr: I think that chest stain leaves plenty of room for doubt about whether One was the attacker.
so. bloodstain analysis crash course.
your main types of blood stains:
active - blood flying and landing on a surface as a result of force/motion. this includes spatters, splashes, arterial sprays.
passive - blood falling from plain old gravity. stains like drops and pools.
transfer - a surface coming into contact with another surface with blood on it. smears, maybe a hand or shoe print.
two lovely volunteers to demonstrate:
One's neck bleeding on his collar is an example of a passive blood stain. if any of those larger vertical blood drops on his shirt are supposed to be nose blood, (his nose barely bled but his shirt looks like it dripped) that's also passive. victims' eye blood is passive.
One mopping the floor with El leaving her with blood smeared on her gown is transfer.
that main pattern of blood droplets across One's chest is an active type stain. all the blood on him, apart from his own, appears to have flown through the air and landed on him.
the costume dept clearly put effort into depicting those types differently, going as far as to actually drag someone around the floor to find out what El's gown blood should look like as a result of the actions that put it there. I think it's fair to expect a similar level of research went into designing One's stains.
but discussing those methods in the interview might have revealed too much.
some types of active blood stains
arterial spray is when a vein or artery is cut and blood squirts out, flies through the air and lands on nearby surfaces. it's not usually just a little blood. here are two real examples of arterial spray:
to me, it seems like a severed artery would produce a more blood than is on One.
impact spatter is created when an object forcefully hits exposed blood and little droplets fly. forward spatter is made in the direction of the force, backward spatter is thrown back toward the direction the force came from.
in many cases forward and back spatter look much the same, so the main distinguishing clue is location.
back spatter is, without us even thinking about it, the type of stain we assume is on One's chest, because we also assume that he is the attacker. that he did something violent to someone and their blood splashed back on him. that is one valid explanation, but not the only.
see, spatter flies in all directions from an impact, 360. it looks like this (simulation). not all spatter is automatically back spatter. if it's forward spatter, it suggests One was facing the impact from opposite where the force came from. it's hard to imagine a scenario where the attacker gets forward spatter on himself.
castoff is another type of spatter typical of repetitious stabbing or beating where a weapon that's covered in blood, when swung back for another blow, flings off an arc of small blood droplets.
examples:
the attacker virtually never gets castoff on themselves. rather they fling it on the walls/ceiling around them, depending on the arc of their swings.
telekinetic blows cannot possibly create castoff because there would be nothing for the blood to stick to.
so if the stains on One are castoff, A) there was a bloody physical weapon/object involved and B) he seems very unlikely the attacker.
to me, the main stain on One looks consistent with either impact or castoff spatter. let's consider some more characteristics:
blood velocity
droplet size can also tell the speed at which the blood was moving, which helps reconstruct what amount of force and therefore type of injury it came from. generally, the smaller the droplets the higher the velocity.
One's chest spatter looks medium velocity. no surprises here.
blood directionality
the shape of droplets helps determine the direction the blood came from.
a drop onto a 90 degree angle, like if you're just standing there and your blood drips on the ground, leaves a circular droplet. an elongated blood droplet shows that the blood was flying through the air at an angle.
blood tails are what you call the pointy end of an elongated blood drop, which points in the direction of the motion. the bottoms of these more acute examples are the tails, indicating the blood was moving toward the bottoms.
now look at One. he definitely has multiple spatters on him, but I'm focusing on the main spatter that goes diagonally across his chest.
note how blood tails go in a consistent direction (bottom screen left moving towards upper screen right). this creates a strong idea of the spatter having originated low around One's right hip and flown upwards across his body.
of course we can't get too into analyzing this as legit forensic evidence, because it isn't. but the fact that they kept consistent with the direction of the blood tails when recreating these stains by hand multiple times seems like that detail mattered to them.
(I don't wanna shoplift directly from em's jumpsuit blood post but that has the best collection of pics and you can see that all iterations are in agreement with the direction of motion suggested).
here's a quick video showing a guy creating a bloodstain that illustrates both castoff and blood tails:
how'd homeboy get blood on his back?
I wish I could get a clearer look, but those are absolutely active spatters and not transfer. do you wanna tell me how, if you are the attacker, you'd manage to get your victim's blood to spatter onto your own back? like, even if he can Vecna someone behind his back, why? was he showboating like shredding guitar behind his head?? was it like the champagne in that one kim kardashian photo??
whose blood is on him?
neither castoff nor impact spatter makes sense for the bodies we see.
as I've discussed in other posts, none of the ways we saw anyone get killed in the massacre, nor any of the dead bodies in the RR, should produce blood stains like the ones on One.
the only external bleeding that getting Vecna'd™ produces is passive drips from the eyes. nobody got stabbed or struck repeatedly. even the eyes getting sucked out (or whatever?) doesn't result in any spatter. you can watch One kill Two, and there's no new blood on his face or on the floor between them. you can watch him throw guards into walls without a speck of blood on the walls or on himself.
for the amount of blood around the scene, there should be at least one much, much bloodier wounded person around here somewhere.
what is telekinetic force shaped like?
I'm unclear on what kind of spatter to expect when the weapon is telekinesis because I have so many unknowns about the nature of the impact. it really seems up to the person what shape and force of power they want to use in each instance (think the brute force of flipping a van vs the fine motor skills of turning a tv knob).
what I want is to picture the telekinesis used in the massacre as an invisible physical object so I can draw conclusions about the impact spatter it might create, but I can't.
ST has given us a couple great visuals of what impression telekinetic force actually creates when impacting various substances, revealing its "shape," and it varies a lot. my ruling is that telekinetic force has no default shape, so this is kind of a dead end.
but regardless, here's the curious thing about spatter:
(and that IS spatter on One, whether it's impact or castoff): spatter is the result of force upon exposed blood.
and a bunch of blood is not exposed yet until after a victim has been struck/stabbed/whatever at least once. meaning the victim that One's bloodstain belongs to was likely struck in the same spot repeatedly. twice minimum.
"well, blood is already exposed from the eye thing, couldn't it just be that?" yes, but striking victims after the eye thing isn't the MO. watch Virginia, Two, Chrissy, Fred, and Patrick die - after the eyes, they simply drop in place. he doesn't throw or hit them in any way.
if that is castoff, what was the blood cast off OF?
if there was a physical weapon, it's either missing from the scene or not shown.
I'd love to finish this section by suggesting an object in the lab that would make a thematically fitting murder weapon, but nothing jumps out at me.
it would be unlike them not to have brought our attention to the murder weapon before it's revealed as such. like, we need to be able to go "ohhh, they killed everybody with the 8 ball!" or whatever later or else it's not as fun.
the blood being castoff from a weapon would tend to suggest that the attacker wasn't telekinetic (or wasn't currently able to use their telekinesis). I mean, would you bother doing the manual labor if you didn't have to?
I don't see any very bloody objects lying around the RR, but I do see extremely clear evidence that there were very bloody hands.
hands are absolutely a thing that can cast off blood.
and there's only one person I know of who was ever shown with bloody hands in conjunction with the massacre.
let's talk about hands, then
we've got a diagonal thing going on here:
this bottom-left-upper-right orientation that would tend to result from a right-handed person casting off blood from an upward swing of either a weapon or their bloody hand. a lefty's swing would most likely create a bottom right-upper left diagonal castoff.
so which lab folk are what-handed?
lefties:
righties:
(I found only 2 lefts from El: manipulating the helicopter and stopping Vecna from killing Max. I could do a whole post on that. stop me)
ok, but what if that's backsplash, not castoff? same logic.
One is left handed, and when he throws someone with telekinesis, say like if he slams them downward, he uses his left hand. the way the arm swings naturally seems more likely to create an impact on that same side of the body. but the spatter originates from his right hip.
(NOT saying otherwise is impossible, it's totally possible, just seems less likely. go ahead and pretend you have telekinesis for a sec and see what direction of arm sweeps feel most natural.)
this is why when I look at the stain on One, I'm not totally convinced it's back spatter.
so what are some possible scenarios that might be consistent with blood like that?
where One is the attacker:
One strikes Victim with either a physical weapon or telekinesis. either from the strike or from falling and hitting some surface, their blood back spatters onto his shirt.
where One is not the attacker:
Attacker is striking Victim with a physical object or telekinesis. One stands opposite Attacker. forward or sideways impact spatter flies onto One's shirt.
Attacker is beating Victim with a physical object. One stands opposite Attacker. blood is cast up onto his shirt on one of Attacker's upswings.
One stands near Attacker or Victim who swings a bloody hand upward and casts blood across his shirt. (I'm liking this best)
now that I've been serious for a whole post, let me go insane about the scene overall (I'M JUST BRAINSTORMING DON'T SNIPE ME):
what if, by timeline shenanigans or I don't know what, some versions of Henry, Edward, and El are all present in the RR during the massacre.
Edward is doing some or all of the killing in such a way that impact spatters are being sent onto Henry. the bloody face of one of Edward's victims hits the floor while Henry's back is turned, causing that small spatter on the back of his pant leg.
El's hands are covered with blood. she makes a sweeping motion like this, up and to her right, to throw Edward, and blood casts off her hand onto Henry's shirt.
if an action like the above gif happened, we'd expect to see damage and/or blood on the walls or ceiling of the RR. there are multiple drippy blood impacts on the RR walls. we assume them to have come from the kids (even though this is not consistent with their injuries). what if some or all of that is Edward's blood?
whoever hit the walls would have needed to already be bloody when they hit the wall. (we know from the hallway guards and Two that neither getting thrown against a wall nor Vecna'd up against a wall leaves blood.)
another explanation for already-bloody-Ed and Henry shirt castoff/forward spatter from a physical weapon is if Brenner comes in and tries to stop Edward by beating him with [?object]. but I feel like Ed would overpower Brenner too quickly to get very bloody. this isn't a strong one, I feel better about the bloody hands idea
re: the blood pools on the floor all being smeared even before El gets dragged... you know how El has some way-too-different-to-be-accidental variations in the blood transfer patterns on her gown? could we have multiple Els in play? like, by the time we see our El arrive in the RR, other-bloody-handed-El has already been mucking around the scene?
varying El blood and multiple El concept plays well with the way there are also at least two different crime scenes.
"Nat you idiot, that shot is filmed in the mirror, you're just confusing two different sides of the room. why are your green and purple circles on the same bookcase when they're clearly on two different bookcases on opposite sides of the room?":
YEAH I SURE AM CONFUSED! BC WHY WERE THOSE TWO BOOKCASE STAINS BOTH SHOWN ON THE RED-TOP-RAINBOW-BEND-ON-THE-WALL SIDE OF THE ROOM? the side with that pyramid thing and the plinko board has a red-top rainbow bend. the opposite side, with the benches and the drawing tables, has a purple-top rainbow bend (see below). like, whatever mirror tricks you wanna pull, shouldn't the side of the room with the bookcase corner stain be purple-top-bend? seriously, am I picturing this wrong??
anyway, many of those RR bloodstains could be explained by at least one unaccounted for person being thrown repeatedly around the room. telekinetic people really seem to like doing this to each other.
say El makes that hand motion, which makes One's shirt castoff and throws Edward. Ed hits that bookcase hard enough to get bloodied. Edward gets thrown around some more, leaving various stains around the walls and floors. El or Ed stomps in the blood puddle by the bookcase, resulting in the purple-circled splatter and the spatter on Henry's pant leg.
but if we're allowed to have multiple Els maybe some of the blood is other-El's too. or One's. or Brenner's
I DON'T KNOW. I'M DONE. END MY SUFFERING
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