#I've seen speculation that he used the same kind of spell that was used in the main timeline to create Ricardio and I dig it

[gumclones]

honestly I think that whatever the Winter King did to transfer his insanity was an accident. not necessarily something that came out of nowhere, but more… he was trying to do one thing and then suddenly he felt a lot more clearheaded

[lukweer]

ok so like there are two parts of me, right? well there are a lot of parts but english is hurting me right now and my head isn't working so you will make due/do(?)

anyways one part is like: my sense for gay people is strong, i think i know which f1 drivers are gay and i am confident in my answers

but the other part is like: its wrong to speculate sexuality because if people havent come out then they either aren't ready to be out or aren't gay, but at the same time this generation is moving away from the construct of coming out so like... idk.

today the first part is stronger, though, so i want to share my speculations because everyone in the states only watches nascar and is a hick and i'm scared of them. they also do not like my italian accent :(

1. Max Verstappen

come on guys, any gay person could tell u he's probably bi. i mean he doesn't even try to hide it, u know? like there are compilations of him being fruity. and they are shockingly long.

he's mentioned using grindr, he's mentioned girls OR guys when talking about dating preferences, the whole thing with the freaking lei (i think thats how it is spelled, the hawaiian thing? the flower necklace?). the list goes on and on.

he's had girlfriends, and i'm pretty sure they weren't beards but i'm not sure. i'm leaning towards bi tho for this reason.

even if he isn't bi or gay or pan or whatever, he's at least incredibly comfortable with queerness and is probably a really cool dude. annoying when i'm watching the sunday races, but love him the rest of the time!

2. Lando Norris

lando is a bit more subtle with it (as are the other ppl in the list). emphasis on a bit, though.

unless you live under a rock, you've probably seen this gif:

this has called many aboard the lando is a little fruitcake train. what people don't realise is that he "eye fucks" or like... stares lovingly a lot.

other examples include:

staring lovingly at carlos sainz

checking out charles leclerc (kind of? i think he is checking him out)

staring lovingly at carloz sainz

this weird ass moment with, you guessed it, carloz sainz

there are a lot of these photos and clips out there, but i'm lazy and don't feel like looking for them so yeah. take my word for it.

i saw a post saying that if carlos and lando pulled up to the paddock holding hands and telling people they were dating they wouldn't be shocked. i agree with this statement entirely. as was stated, it takes a lot to get to that point, and we're at that point.

now i grew up a gay dude to a conservative family, and i know the little mannerisms that are like... a part of being gay? and i know what it looks like to hide them.

i do not know if this is the right way to say it or if it is politically correct, but i believe it to be true. gay men tend to have little mannerisms here and there that give us away a bit, and i think i've seen some of those in lando.

i don't think i will share them though, as i don't want to accidentally push harmful stereotypes or whatever. obviously not all gay men have gay mannerisms and it might be something lando is insecure about so i would rather not put them on blast.

if it's not a bad thing i may come back and edit this and add them in. idk, let me know i guess? i am still learning american customs.

3. Yuki Tsunoda

this is probably going to be the shortest section (ha).

yuki mostly just makes my radar go off. i don't consume alphatauri content as much, but i know there was a thing with him and pierre that was just crazy last year and the year prior. don't know as much about it as i should haha.

but yeah. yuki just sends my radar into the astral plane (is that a thing? i am doubting myself). if he is not at least bisexual i will eat my own foot.

maybe that one moment between him and michael italiano has just gotten to me, i don't know. i trust in my instincts though.

Honourable Mentions

4. Danny Ric

idk he just gives the vibe! i don't know how to explain my radar. gay people know. i think it is called gaydar.

DR is on it.

5. Carlos Sainz

he is probably on my gaydar the least, but he's still on there. latest vlog he gently combed his finger through ruperts hair. he's probably deeply in love with lando. just little things like that i guess!

6. Oscar Piastri

this may be wishful thinking. i sit in bed at night and pray that he is into men.

that is all! thank you for learning about fruity drivers with me! please do not cancel me if i am doing something politically incorrect! i am still learning!

[utilitycaster]

@burr-ell replied to your post “I think some of it is joking but a lot of the...”:

i've never encountered the coin hatred! like are people mad at the coin for Gods Bad reasons, or are they mad because the coin flip 'made' fearne revivify orym instead of laudna and thus temporarily got in the way of Cute Girlfriends

​You know, it's not entirely clear so I left this out because it's all highly speculative, but anyway, untagged thoughts on that:

The most vitriolic stuff I've seen is kind of projecting onto Fearne's ambivalent feelings about the coin and turning it into something that I think is much stronger and more unkind than it is [ie, saying in about as many words they hope Fearne makes FCG eat his damn coin when Fearne's position is, quite literally (per a direct quote from episode 3x51) "I trust you. I'm not sure if I trust the coin."]. I have definitely seen this sentiment more from people who do ship Imogen with Laudna than those who don't, but I'm truly not sure if it's anger at the revivify choice - and if it is, since that was Fearne in the end who used it, that feels especially weird.

I think in the end it's a combination of not liking religion, which, sorry pal but this is D&D and if the main villain of the campaign is like "We should unleash something to eat the gods," religion is going to be a pretty present and intense theme; and as a few people have noted in the tags, the fact that people tend to accept Sam's characters only on the condition they serve as support for their favorite characters.

So with that in mind, I do strongly suspect it's also folded into the Cute Girlfriends situation. It was pretty common fanon in those circles that Sam was a shipper on deck (genuinely unsure why; the most I can think of is that FCG wanted Imogen and Laudna to make up when they fought but like, FCG wants everyone to get along and they would have done the same if say, Fearne and Orym got into a fight; and Shared Dream, which was really just for Imogen). Then, pretty much immediately following the murder bot reveal, Sam actually relaxed and grew into the character and started making interesting choices, and I've seen increasing resentment ever since, which is funny, because FCG irritated me from episodes 1-31 and then from episode 32-present has been on an absolute hot streak.

There's a significant overlap with people who were also furious that FCG went into the Grand Disc because Imogen might die (babe, this is D&D. you hear a loud crash beneath you, you investigate. also Imogen can do magic from like 400 feet away and literally half this party are healers.) and who were mad he brought other party members into the Shared Dream (which, Imogen could have requested this only be a her and Laudna thing, but didn't) and that FCG encouraged Imogen to talk with her father. There's also overlap here with the people who felt Deanna should primarily exist to further Imogen's feelings for Laudna, so yeah, my suspicion is "already doesn't like religion, and then the clerics have the gall to have personal interests and goals that don't center around the ship, and to find renewed/growing comfort in the gods in a crisis? Bad."

It also feels very whipping boy to me - like, I think people are mad at the narrative itself for splitting up Imogen and Laudna for what is shaping up to be at least weeks in game time and months in real time; I think they're mad that their ship is demonstrably not, in fact, the heart of this campaign and that the Uthodurn arc is very good to the point that people who fell off C3 are catching up; and I think they're terrified both that Imogen and Laudna could, potentially, die thousands of miles apart from each other without ever having kissed and that Imogen is not just trying to burn every spell slot and knocking herself out with the psychic damage trying to reach Laudna but is in fact still going about her life. But they can't let themselves be mad at Laura and Marisha about this (even though literally it's their choice that Imogen and Laudna haven't kissed), nor admit that the campaign they've been so vigorously defending is now going in a direction they don't like, so they're just heaping all this onto FCG and their coin. Anyway, good news is after the incredible Commune scene most people have gotten really fucking quiet.

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things Rewatch: "The Vanishing of Will Byers" (Part 1 of 2)

Disclaimer: This is NOT a traditional review/analysis, but a collection of observations, brief commentary, favorite moments, and so on that I'm noting as I go through these episodes. All of these are just my opinions and/or theories, and can be subjected to change as the rewatch continues.

Observations:

Happy Stranger Things Day! :) As of today, this took place 40 years ago.

Love how reminiscent this opening scene is to the climax of Ridley Scott's Alien when Ellen Ripley is escaping the USCSS Nostromo as the alarms go off. I wouldn't be surprised if this homage turned out to be intentional on the Duffer Brother's part:

When we're introduced to Mike's campaign, The Party is in the middle of being attacked by an army of Troglodytes. This is the image I found when I looked them up:

It's probably just a fun D&D moment, but since the Duffer Brothers have named a lot of their monsters (Demogorgon, Mind Flayer, Vecna) after D&D creatures, it makes me wonder if there's some kind of animal like a troglodyte in the Upside Down. It's unlikely we've seen all the monsters from that dimension, and they might introduce new ones in S5 that the Party hasn't encountered yet and will inevitably fight.

They do a good job with the establishing character moments for both Dustin and Lucas in Mike's D&D campaign: Dustin telling Will to use caution and cast a protective spell while Lucas insists Will fireballs the Demogorgon while he has the chance. Lucas's strategy is to go on the offense while Dustin's is to go on the defense. Specifically with Lucas, he uses that strategy in other situations he's in: Like when Lucas kicks Billy in the groin in S2 after being pinned to the wall by him, or gets an axe to chop at the Meat Flayer's tendril to save El in S3, or even how Lucas is the one who later convinces everyone to take the fireworks from the store to use as ammunition (which helps turn the tide at the Battle of Starcourt). By contrast, Dustin prioritizes the safety of the Party, from pointing out to Mike and Lucas that they might be walking into the same danger Will encountered when they later look for him in the woods, to telling Mike NOT to jump off a cliff when Troy threatens Dustin, to enlisting Steve's help in S2 because he knows Steve will be able to protect them due to his size and skill with the bat, to rescuing Steve and Robin from the Russians in S3.

This isn't to say that Lucas is wrong and Dustin is right, or even that Dustin is wrong and Lucas is right. It's merely noting they have opposite approaches. Each situation they encounter is different, and sometimes (just like with Will's dice role) it's really up to chance.

Also (as noted later in the episode by Mike), Will took Lucas's advice and used fireball as a means of protecting the Party instead of trying to save himself. He puts other people's safety before his own. The comic book "The Other Side" (which focuses on Will's perspective during the events of S1 while trapped in the UD) expands on this aspect of his personality by including several moments of him coming to the aid of others (including Nancy) while in the UD, despite knowing it would put him in danger.

Also, regardless of Lucas insisting the role doesn't count because Mike didn't see it, Will still chooses to be honest with Mike. He knows there are situations you can't cheat your way out of, or pretend didn't happen (as he's about to find out with the real Demogorgon).

The lights flash at Mike's house just as Will leaves. I'm assuming Vecna and the Demogorgon he was controlling were already beginning to track Will's movements here.

I've talked about this before in my review of "The Other Side" (and I know for a fact I'm not the only fan who's speculated on this), but I don't buy that Will's kidnapping by the Demogorgon was random. Given the revelations in S4, I'm inclined to believe Vecna deliberately targeted Will and used the Demogrogon under his control to bring Will alive to the Upside Down. I also would argue it was Vecna who used telekinesis to unlock the door to Will's house:

I know several episodes from now, Jonathan talks to Nancy about how his dad took him hunting when he was 10 and forced him to kill a rabbit, so I'm assuming Lonnie also taught Will about loading and shooting a gun. It's possible Jonathan could have, but considering how traumatized he was over what his dad made him do, IDK if I see Jonathan teaching Will how to use a gun.

I've said this before, but I don't buy Vecna wanted Will to just impregnate him with the larva's that would grow into future Demodogs/Demogorgons. He could have easily used the Demogorgon to kidnap other residents of Hawkins for that purpose if he wanted to. He didn't need Will specifically for that.

Still one of my favorite openings for any TV show I've seen:

I missed the drawing Sara did of her family the first time I saw this. Nice foreshadowing about Hopper's past life!

To this day, I still don't understand why Troy and James got their own graphic novel. Out of all the side characters they could have focused on, why did they choose these two? Was there some kind of demand from the fandom to bring them back that I'm unaware of?

I know Caleb McLaughlin gave an interview after season 4 aired where he expressed frustration over how certain fans have been dismissive of any racial trauma Lucas has gone through, and this goes all the way back to season 1. Both Troy and James's bullying of Lucas was racially motivated, and the graphic novel Zombie Boys also highlights this:

On a related note, Troy and James making fun of Dustin for having cleidocranial dysplasia is disgusting.

I've seen this discussion before in the fandom about Barb's attitude towards Nancy dating Steve, and this idea that Barb was jealous of the idea of Nancy possibly becoming popular, which.................is not an interpretation I've ever understood. I never once took Barb to be some kind of social climber. When she's talking with Nancy in her first scene, she sounds genuinely excited for Nancy about Steve calling her, as well as cheekily acknowledging that both Nancy and Steve are into each other.

On top of that, Barb knows Nancy well enough that she wouldn't discard her as a friend, even if she became popular. The way she talks with Nancy in this scene, she doesn't seem worried or upset with her. If anything, Barb is amused during this conversation (including when she sees the note Steve left for Nancy in her locker). There's also the way they both talk about Tommy and Carol, indicating they both have low opinions of them, and that Barb is aware that Nancy doesn't like them and isn't going to abandon her for them.

@will80sbyers pointed this out in a recent post, and I thought I'd note it here since it's a good observation: The first scene we see of Steve and Nancy's relationship is in a restroom..........and their breakup in S2 happens in a restroom as well. That's how things come full-circle for these two:

It's notable that the two times Steve and Nancy meet in this episode, it's in an area that's supposed to be private (the school restroom, Nancy's bedroom) but there's always the risk of someone (a high school student/teacher, Nancy's parents) walking in on them while they're making out (not that Steve seems to care). Both times involve Nancy interrupting to tell Steve she needs to study for a test, and while Steve initially tries to make it all fun-and-games between them, he eventually concedes when he realizes she's serious about her schoolwork and agrees to help her.

This still remains one of my favorite quotes from the show (and is literally what weekday mornings are like for me before I have to clock in for work):

This has been pointed out by others, but there's an interesting parallel between Joyce calling Will "sensitive" vs. Victor Creel calling his son Henry "sensitive."

Notably, when Joyce talks about Will being sensitive, it has more to do with him being aware of other people's feelings, as well as the way other people look at him and judge him. Meanwhile, I'm skeptical of that being the case with Henry. Maybe Victor thought Henry was sensitive because of his inability to "fit in" with the other kids (as well as being labeled "broken" by teachers and doctors), but considering how insulted Henry is at the idea that he was broken, as well as how he didn't care about torturing and killing animals before murdering his mom and sister in cold-blood (and letting his dad take the blame for it), I doubt Henry gave a damn about what others thought of him. His behavior indicates he doesn't feel empathy for anyone the same way Will does. Henry's "sensitivity" likely had more to do with the abilities he had locked inside of him, or even possibly being able to feel the presence of the Upside Down before he was banished there by El 20 years later. Maybe they'll expand on this in "The First Shadow" when it comes out.

They foreshadowed pretty early on that Will was secretly gay. I remember this was discussed by fans way back when season 1 first came out.

Yes Hopper, he is.

There's a dark irony in how Hopper's been working as Chief of Hawkins for 4 years, and claims that nothing awful has happened during his tenure. 4 years ago would have been in 1979, the same year Henry/One/Vecna slaughtered the special kids (and most of the staff) at the lab before El banished him to the Upside Down. I know Hopper wasn't aware of any of this when it happened, and none of that was his fault or responsibility, but still.........

Something I always found frustrating with the show (and even supplementary materials) is they never really explain how the chain-of-command works when it comes to government officials on this show. They establish Dr. Brenner as the head of Hawkins Lab (and later that role gets transferred to Dr. Owens in S2), but they never truly say which higher-ups Brenner answers to. Then there's the introduction of Colonel Sullivan in S4 (despite him never being hinted at or mentioned in the previous 3 seasons): Judging by the conversations he has with Dr. Owens, as well as how Dr. Owens got fired for the Russian infiltration of Hawkins in S3, I assumed Sullivan was Owen's superior. Does that mean that Brenner also answered to Sullivan during this time? Or was Sullivan just part of a different faction of the government (i.e. the same faction Ellen Stinson warns Mike about in S4) who was opposed to what Brenner was doing from the beginning, and only recently got involved?

In any case, I'm assuming the men pictured above who are meeting with Brenner are either government agents sent to investigate the opening of the gate, or Brenner's superiors who want to know what happened the previous night.

I wonder if there will be a twist in S5 that Upside Down itself is one whole Lovecraftian-like monster, and stuff like the Demogorgons and other creatures are just extensions of it. Just the way that gate breathes, and how it looks like you're traveling through someone's insides.............

I missed Scott Clarke in S4, and I hope he comes back for S5 to give more scientific advice to the main characters (assuming he didn't leave Hawkins). Who knows? It may prove helpful against the upcoming fight against Vecna.

Since Stranger Things loves referencing Lord of the Rings (and The Hobbit), with the show even drawing parallels to the books (like the Upside Down being similar to Mordor, or even Hopper's fake death in S3 and return in S4 having similarities to Gandalf's apparent death in Moria and his later return), I am looking at the books as one possible blueprint to predict how Season 5 will go. That's just me though.

Also, Will disappearing near Mirkwood, which in The Hobbit is where Bilbo encounters the spiders that try to eat him and his companions, and Vecna has a creepy obsession with spiders and shaped the Mind Flayer into a spider, and the Mind Flayer later attacks Will..................

I'm sure there's somewhere I'm trying to go with this, but I can't articulate it in a way that makes sense.

SIDE NOTE: This particular scene with Dustin and Lucas fighting while Mike sits in the middle looking irritated is hilarious. 😂

Come to think of it, this scene is a perfect representation of the dynamic the kids have this episode: Dustin and Lucas argue (whether it's over D&D strategies, how to find Will, etc) and Mike is caught in the middle. This changes later once El is introduced where it's Mike and Lucas fighting, and Dustin is trying to act as the peacemaker.

To be continued in Part 2..........

[comet-soda-lite]

It's theory time baby! (Oh man this post got out of hand, oopsie haha)

So what do we know about Glyphs? We know that there are only four of them. We know that with the right combination of glyphs, you can perform any spell that the magic of the Isles is capable of producing. And we know that these glyphs specifically draw their power from the residual magic that still lingers in every inch of the Isles from the Titan's corpse.

"Instead of containing magic like [witches] do, [glyphs] command the magic around them. They're like words." - Lilith in Escaping Expulsion

What do we know about the symbol on King's collar? When we're first introduced to it, there are multiple instances where characters speculate that the symbol is a word of some kind. In Eda's Requiem, King even expresses a desire for his dad to "teach him how to read it".

"I've never seen markings like this... is it some kind of ancient language?" - Eda in Echoes of the Past

However, in King's Tide, we learn that the symbol is actually a spell, one that hides the user from entities like the Collector. And all of a sudden, all that talk about how the symbol could be some sort of word clicks neatly into place with Lilith's earlier statement about how glyphs are essentially "words" that communicate with and guide the Titan's raw magic. By all accounts, this symbol seems to be itself a glyph, a word that is commanding the magic around it into a spell.

But it isn't a combination of any of the four glyphs we've seen. It's not drawing upon the magic of Isles. And honestly this shouldn't be surprising considering the glyph predates the Boiling Isles Titan's death (since the Titan themself must have built the tower where they found the symbol). This glyph, then, must draw upon a much older source of magic that still lingers in the Demon Realm alongside the magic of the Boiling Isles.

Here's where we get into more speculative territory with arguments I'm less sure about.

My first thought was to look to what we know about the Collector, a being who definitely doesn't wield magic gifted from the Isles considering he literally predates the Isles.

The Collector is said to be a "Child of the Stars", which could be interpreted in the same way that Witches and Demons are technically "children of the Boiling Isles". His magic, therefore, would be a gift from the Stars. From there, you could conclude that the Stars are the original source of all magic for the first generation of life in the Demon Realm, giving birth to both the Titans and The Collector.

But then I got to thinking about the whole "Child of the Stars" thing, and I noticed that the Titans and the Collector are actually distinct from each other in a key way. Because while the Collector is connected to the Stars and other celestial imagery, the Titans literally make up the ground below. This duality is even pointed out in the season's hidden code:

As Above Rushed Darkened Skies, As Below His Father Lies

So what if the Titans are children of something else, a different and opposing source of magic as expansive and ancient as the Stars? Big speculation here, but maybe The Boiling Sea, perhaps? This source would be where King's glyph draws magic from. This would be where the Titans' powers evolved from. And this magic was then passed down to the Witches and Demons we know today through the Titans' corpses.

On another note, I wanted to mention that with this theory, it's clear that the Draining Spell did not come from the power of the Boiling Isles, but rather drew from the ancient "Star magic" the Collector uses. For one, the glyph (combo?) Belos uses to intiate the spell doesn't use any of the Isles' glyphs at all, and is intead obviously reminiscent of the Collector's aesthetic. And two, the spell's usage of the Eclipse, a celestial event, seems to suggest that the spell's magic is coming from a source in the sky far above, not from the Titan below.

Anyway, whether ancient magic is actually divided like how I've theorized or not, I think it's safe to say there's at least some sort of ancient source of magic that King's glyph draws from, a magic beyond what has been gifted by our Titan.

In conclusion...

The Four Glyphs of the Boiling Isles

The Known Glyphs of the Sea

The Known Glyphs of the Stars