Elhenry - Tumblr Posts
personally, I think people are allowed to ship a “toxic ship” as long as it’s fictional and they can separate fiction from reality. shipping a fictional “problematic ship” doesn’t mean you’re “abuse apologist” in real life. the same way people who enjoy fictional villains are not “murderers” in real life.
it’s okay if you think this ship makes you uncomfortable and so you personally dislike it. what you can and should do is avoid their contents and refrain from interacting with people who do ship them. that mute and block buttons are your friends.
what you shouldn’t do, though, is harass people who ship them and brag about how they’re “red flags irl” and how you’re “morally superior” simply because of fictional characters.
I promise you, minding your own business and not caring about what ship strangers on the internet ship will make your fandom so much less toxic and a whole lot more enjoyable.
'Sibling Coded'
People calling some relationships ‘sibling coded’ nowadays make me roll my eyes because this idea that people can't fall in love because they're good friends is strange. Like I get it if the show goes out of its way to define the two of them being nothing more than platonic besties (ItaKugi for example, the show beat that ship over the head with a shovel and shot it behind the building), but sometimes it's just two characters that are good friends that have enough in common to feel as if they could one day fall in love, which is the core principle of shipping after all, but some human in the top percentile of dickheadery will scream in your ear that they're 'sibling coded' and should NOT be shipped because it'd be WEIRD!!!! (even though they're the ones that projected a sibling archetype onto the pair, solely them.)
Another variation of this is sometimes worse lol people will see two characters with straight up undeniable romantic implication in the series but will die on the hill that they're just friends or sibling coded (We all know at least one of these)
Red Spider Lily
When you're lost and broken These words are your guiding light In the darkest place: "We are each other's secrets. We are connected. We are connected."
"Connected" - Islandinside
Only the greatest fanfic for this ship!
Another favorite!
Just saying. If everything that happened in season 4 happened with an adult El, way more people would ship Elenry. I think that says all you need to know about their relationship and how it was portrayed. But I want to be clear that I only support adult El with Henry, and I could see this happening in many ways/scenarios. Time travel, Vecna redemption, El saying yes to Henry with a super slow burn until she's an adult....etc.
I totally agree. I also imagine scenarios in which they're both teenagers because I like young adult stories and find those to be the easiest to write because it's my preferred age range regarding themes, although my six-year age difference story, All I Need, would lean more towards new adult when I decide to work on it again.
@ my mutuals whom I dearly appreciate
Henry would *so* be into giving El forehead kisses. Change my mind.
I thought similar things but I don't really discuss El and Henry's dynamic in real life, because, you know...
When I watched them they gave me gothic romance vibes. They're also kinda similar to ships like Reylo and Hannigram (probably someone else made analyses on this). I really think they're also soulmates. They're the only two people who could understand each other, well besides Kali but Kali was able to escape herself before everything went sideways. In an alternative world El and Henry could have ended up together under different circumstances.
YES. We are totally with you. Reylo vibes for real. Soulmate vibes for real. Hence why we love reading and writing fanfictions where the age gap is accounted for, and we can watch them get their happy ending. 🤗
I've always found El and Henry's dynamic so engaging. They are literally the same person but are each others' foils at the same time. I mean it's impossible to not ship them, even if you don't see them from a purely romantic perspective, they still have that special bond that only exists between them. The Duffers also kinda played into that 'dark territory' regarding their dynamic, at least imho. They are paralleled to Beauty and the Beast (the whole rose glass thing is not something you can miss) El was specifically tied to there by Henry. It's also obvious Henry feels/felt a special attachment and bond toward El, he approached her, became her first friend and even intended to escape with her. I mean, there was no reason for him to ask that to her yet he did. Her rejection scared him forever. That's some tragic cruel fate right there, to be denied and rejected by the person you cared the most and saw yourself in? Narratively they are created for each other, their stories cannot exist without the other and from the start they've always been connected. There's so much stuff to say and analyze about them.
Most definitely! Like I noticed the stained glass rose from the start and immediately thought of Beauty and the Beast. I still wonder who made that decision because they had to have known exactly what they were doing. I definitely think El was Henry's last hope and he let the darkness inside himself overtake his entire being when she sent him to the Upside Down. They're soulmates, though, and deserve better than the fate show!canon has given them. It's devastating.
How do you think Henry's character will be written in S5? Some people have been speculating that he might get a 'redemption' right before he dies, and I also think that would be a better ending for his character too. I'd like to see El trying to reach to Henry for the last time and be there for him when he dies? What do you think?
That's such a great question! Based on the direction TFS took Henry's character, it really does seem like they are going for some sort of redemption. Or, at least, a super tragic character arc? I also see it like you do, that El and Henry could come to understand each other and team up against the mind flayer. It could give Henry's arc closure. I def don't see a way for Henry to not die, though, which is very sad, but i understand.