#el > raised in isolation and trauma

[80syaoi]

el protecting holly is more compelling than another army lab fight, honestly.

[fujomoder]

Regarding Stella,

I do genuinly think it is terrible writing to have her be evil for the sake of evil; it is a tired female villain trope and I do feel that even Stella deserves more depth beyond 'evil ex-wife'

It is not good when you intend for your audience to dislike her as a person but end up making her a bad character on a fundamental level for lack of better characterization.

I would have loved to see her circumstances turn her into the wicked and maligned glutton that she is, in the same way we see how those same circumstances ushered Stolas into subservience, repression and passivity, living vicariously through romantic novels and films and then running into the arms of the first man that would have him.

what does Stella want beyond all that Stolas has? What does taking from him mean for her, and could she be fulfilled through more positive outlets?

Of course, Stella was forced into an arranged marriage and made to raise a child while only one herself just the same as Stolas, and from that we can infer that the control she has over Stolas acts to veneer her own sense powerlessness.

This is something you, the viewer, must clip chimp for. Stella as a person is never dissected in the actual show.

In canon, Stella is evil because she is evil. Our first glimpse of her as a child is her angrily shredding a stuffed animal, and what are we supposed to take away from that besides "oh... she's always been that way"?

You have a good foundation for some standard social commentary; two people who take diverging paths in address their trauma and feelings of isolation, but only one of these characters is given any sort of dimension.

They are just ignoring the nuances of being a Shitty Guy. your antagonist can be sympathic and it doesn't have to excuse anything they've done. In the same way Stolas didn't mean to hurt Blitz, but it's still something he needs to apologize for.

Wrapping up, I don't think stella is evil simply to make Stolas look good, contrary to popular belief. despite it being born of ignorance and his own rose-tinted view of the world and Stolas meaning well, he still has classist tendencies. His juvenile understanding of love and trial-and-error way of expressing it made Blitz feel used and then abandoned. I am a Stolas lover, a Stolas apologist even, but he does not have a clean record and Stella does not distract from that, el-oh-el.

I'm still holding out hope for a Stella-centric episode, but it seems like the focus will be on Stolas and Blitz for a while. I'm hoping for lots of talks, some I'm-sorry's and Blitz's long-awaited confession.

[unknownalien3388]

Kara - The New Beginning: Preface.

Pairing: Kara Danvers x Lena Luthor.

Masterlist|AO3|CH1-PT1|CH1-PT2|CH1-PT3|CH1-PT4.1| CH1-PT4.2

Summary: Once certain she had overcome her trauma, Kara Zor-El is proven wrong when her closest relationships begin to unravel and her loved ones start to drift away, leaving her to face her inner demons alone. With each passing day, Kara’s sense of isolation grows until only one person remains standing by her side in her time of need.

That person is Lena Luthor.

Will Lena be the one to finally see the real Kara, hidden beneath the masks of Supergirl and Kara Danvers? Will she be the one to show Kara that it is okay to be herself and that she does not have to always separate Kara Zor-El from Kara Danvers and Supergirl? Will Kara be confident enough to embrace every part of herself and start a new beginning with Lena?

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction that is based on and inspired by the 2015 TV show Supergirl and fanfictions that other people have written. I do not own the characters or canon events of the show as they are owned by the CW Network and DC Comics.

I do not intend to be offensive or disrespectful towards anyone, if anything that I have written can be perceived as harmful to any community or person, I apologize, but that was not the purpose of this fanfiction.

Authors Note: I would like to thank every person who has commented on this story and told me how they cannot wait for me to upload, it is thanks to you that I have not given up on this story.

Sidenote: The timeline of Kara - The New Beginning will not follow the Supergirl timeline perfectly, as I have made the story up and I have never watched the show, Supergirl, nor as of right now do I plan to. The characters will be out of character, and they will say and do things that they would not have done in the show.

Another Sidenote: Since Kara is Kryptonian, her biology is slightly different from that of a human female. For example, instead of getting her period once a month, she transforms into a giant wolf-like creature for a week. During this time, it is possible for Kara to return to her humanoid form, but it is incredibly painful, so she tries to avoid it unless absolutely necessary. As a result, her boss, J'onn, must step in and pretend to be Supergirl while she is out of service.

When in her wolf form, Kara, who is known to be a very tactile person with her close family and friends, is very clingy as her inner issues tend to intensify. Kara’s need for closeness is especially evident with Lena and as their friendship evolves into a romantic relationship, Kara will refuse to leave Lena's side in her animal form, in the fear that Lena might decide to leave her.

Another, Another Sidenote: While Kara is Supergirl, she will speak in her native Kryptonian accent, which remains really thick, even though it has been years since she last spoke in it.

UnknownAlien3388.

  -- ------------------------------------------

Many years ago, on the distant planet of Krypton, a beautiful baby girl named Kara Zor-El was born. On the day of her birth, Kara's parents bestowed upon her the middle name Rao, as was customary on their planet, to honour the sun god who brought light and life to their world. While Kara’s precise date of birth remains unknown due to Earth’s difficulty interpreting the Kryptonian calendar, some scholars believe that her Earth birthday would be on the 4th of October 1966.

Due to Krypton’s strict population control measures, including a one child law meant to protect the planet’s declining resources, Kara was the cherished only child of Zor-El and Alura In-Ze. Her father, a brilliant and highly respected scientist, and her mother, a prominent member of the High Council, did their best to balance their demanding jobs with their devotion to raising Kara.

Kara’s upbringing was filled with happiness and love. She thrived in an environment that celebrated science and knowledge above all else. She was intellectually curious about everything around her and was even looking forward to her future in the prestigious Science Guild. Where Kara would work alongside her father and begin to contribute her part in the technological and scientific advancements of her people.

As Kara enjoyed her childhood under the warm rays of Rao’s light and the ever watchful eyes of her parents, she remained blissfully unaware that Krypton, her vibrant and highly advanced world, was on the brink of destruction. By the time her parents fully grasped the severity of how unstable Krypton’s core had become, it was too late for them to do anything to save it.

Helpless, Kara's parents could do nothing but watch and wait for their planet to burn. As the dark fate of Krypton loomed ever closer, her parents were forced to face an impossible decision; send Kara away to an alien planet in the hope that she might survive and carry on the legacy of Krypton and the House of El or hold Kara close until the very last moment, with the knowledge that she would perish alongside them. Kara’s parents were well aware that no matter what they chose to do, it would forever change Kara’s life, and it was with heavy hearts that they decided to send her away.

Twelve years after arriving on Earth in her pod, Kara began to build a life for herself and started to feel whole again. She had everything she always dreamt of having in the Phantom Zone, a family that loved her unconditionally, a group of friends who supported her no matter what, a fulfilling job that Kara was passionate about, and a purpose that gave her life meaning.

Then one day a year later, one by one, Kara’s closest friends, who had stood by her side through thick and thin, the people she loved, trusted and fought beside every day began to drift away from her, shattering the bonds Kara once thought were unbreakable.

When all was said and done, Kara was left alone to face her inner demons, and it was during this dark time in her life that an angel sent from Rao appeared on Kara's doorstep in the form of Lena Luthor. This is their story of love, redemption and new beginnings.

  --- -------------------------------------------------

Dear Reader,

Thank you for reading the Preface to Kara - The New Beginning, I truly hope you enjoyed it. I would love to hear any thoughts and opinions you may have about what you have read so far. If you spot any mistakes, notice anything that seems off, or have ideas for future chapters, please feel free to leave me a comment as your feedback is always welcome.

Hearing from you means a lot to me as it helps me to better shape the story into something you will enjoy reading.

UnknownAlien3388.

  -- ------------------------------------------

[xjulixred45x]

Mabye it just me ,but somtimes it feels like Chion stans/chion defanders

are making exuses for chion actions hear me out i know some are truma reponses from his past with vivian but some actions of his is fully with purpose and he knows what he doing like acting and isolering percival for no real reason or tryning to kill the suppose gawin..?

And they get all defensiven when you point that out. Offf😥

Yeah, totally true.

I understand that living with Vivian during his childhood probably screwed up his understanding of empathy and such, but considering that the rest of his life he was raised by MARGARET AND GILTHUNDER OF ALL PEOPLE, one would hope that it would have improved even a little. .

We don't even know what his relationship with his real parents is like! How was his reintegration with them, we only know that when he was 3 years old he loved them (like every little child) but now? absolute mystery.

and honestly, the fact that they use his trauma to justify the fact that Chion IS a bad person honestly reminds me a lot of the Diabolik Lovers thing with the Diaboys, I mean, just because the character is attractive and has traumas, that doesn't make him a saintly innocent of everything. BAD what it does! (be careful, this happens with many products, not just in DL).

other than that it seems like he does these things out of a twisted sense of entitlement (to be one of the knights of the profession) that really something related to his trauma. Chion IS a bad person, his trauma only explains why he IS a bad person.

____

entiendo que vivir von Vivian durante su infancia febio haber jodido mucho su entendimiento de la empatia y demas, pero teniendo en cuenta que el resto de su vida fue criado por MARGARET Y GILTHUNDER DE TODAS LAS PERSONAS, uno esperaria que habria aunque sea mejorado un poco.

Nisiquiera sabemos como es su relación con sus padres reales! como es que fue su reintegración con ellos, solo sabemos que cuando tenia 3 años el los amaba (como todo niño pequeño) pero ahora? absoluto misterio.

y sinceramente que usen su trauma para justificar el hecho de que Chion ES una mala persona sinceramente me recuerda bastante al asunto de Diabolik Lovers con los Diaboys, osea, que el personaje sea atractivo y tenga traumas, no lo hace un santo inocente de todo lo MALO que hace!(ojo, esto pasa con muchos productos, no solo en DL).

aparte de que parece que el hace estas cosas por un retorcido sentido de entitulamiento(a ser uno de los caballeros de la profesia) que realmente algo relacionado con su trauma. Chion ES una mala persona, su trauma solo exlica el porque el ES una mala persona.

[xxthedragonboyxx]

DC - Last son of nowhere

Tav-En was born on Krypton, not in a grand House or under the light of legacy, but in a lesser-known region far from Kandor’s golden spires—a place where tradition and status meant everything, and he had neither. His birth was unplanned, his parents unremarkable, and in a society governed by genetic destiny, that made him disposable.

But fate has a strange way of marking those forgotten.

Tav-En's early years were spent on the fringes of Kryptonian society, in an orphanage hidden behind the political illusion of perfection. He was quiet, observant, stubborn. When he reached the age of testing, the results were… inconclusive. His genome didn’t align with any pre-designed occupational caste. He had no designated future. He didn’t fit into their system.

So they did what Krypton often did to anomalies: they cast him out.

He was transferred to a remote training compound known only as The Hollow, a place where unassigned children were taught to serve in “support roles”—laborers, guards, or soldiers meant to die nameless. But Tav-en endured. He learned to fight not because he was trained, but because he had to survive. He became strong not by design, but by defiance.

One mentor, an ex-Science Guild researcher exiled for radical theories, took a particular interest in him. She believed he was a mutation—a natural evolution of Kryptonian genes. Something new. Something dangerous. She warned him of what Krypton was becoming. When the planet’s core began to show instability, she tried to smuggle him off-world.

She succeeded—but didn’t make it herself.

His pod crashed on Earth shortly before Kal-El’s. But unlike Kal, who was found and raised with love, Tav-En was found by no one. His pod buried itself in a mountain range, its systems damaged, failing to wake him until years later.

When he finally emerged, he was a ghost from a world long gone.

The yellow sun changed him. His strength grew. His body adapted. Flight came in time. Heat vision followed. But the world he woke to was unfamiliar. It had no place for a boy without a past and no name on its records. So he made one—Toby—and wandered.

He now lives between shadows and sunlight. Not a hero. Not a villain. Just a Kryptonian with questions and nowhere to call home. He knows what he is. But he doesn’t know who he’s meant to be.

And worse—he’s starting to dream of the end of Krypton.

Abilities

Full Kryptonian physiology under Earth’s yellow sun: super strength, flight, enhanced senses, heat vision, invulnerability

Trained in Kryptonian martial forms, particularly those taught to border-guard units

Speaks ancient and modern Kryptonian dialects; learning Earth languages

Still adapting to emotions, connection, and humanity

Struggles

Isolation: He has no family on Earth, no anchor to humanity

Identity Crisis: Raised on a dying world that rejected him, now living on a thriving one that doesn’t know him

Emotional repression: Conditioned not to feel; struggling to understand concepts like love, grief, and connection

Nightmares: Residual trauma from the destruction of Krypton and memories buried deep

[fvckmegentlywithachainsaw]

some of my favourite stranger things headcanons

steve is hard of hearing,, maybe even deaf in one ear but never thought to tell anyone so for a while nobody knows except argyle clocks it almost immediately (like c’mon there’s no way a person can go trough that much head trauma without it affecting their hearing)

steve is genderfluid & the most disaster bisexual you’ve ever seen (the bisexual part is almost canon)

robin, steve, will & eddie, maybe even jonathan too, are all autistic (i mean robin being autistic is almost canon with the amount of ‘autistic coding’)

demigirl, she/they or they/she robin!! (same girl)

trans jonathan

eddie uses he/they, doesn’t care much about gender, gay

i don’t think el is autistic, it’s just the way she was raised in the lab. like she checks out a lot of the criteria but to me it’s just her being raised in a lab completely isolated from the real world, of course she’s not gonna pick up on most social cues etc.

also el is panromantic ace

i don’t know what max is but definitely not cishet

[bylertruther]

the mistake & the monster, a willel character study

it's so fascinating how will and el's role reversal in the narrative reinforces their negative self-image and keeps them from moving forward in their own stories. they're both stuck in time, specifically the day that will went missing, just as the upside down is.

will being thoroughly replaced by eleven in every aspect and made a secondary character in his own life story serves to make him feel like a mistake.

here's someone that looks like him, joined his party and later his family, and has been given everything that was once his, including his own feelings and gifts for his best friend that he knew and loved first, that she wouldn't have ever even met if not for him and the love mike had for him, and who ruined his life and gave him unimaginable trauma, and... he can't even do anything about it. he doesn't even allow himself to be mad anymore—he seethes, and he aches, and then he bottles it back up and tells himself he deserves it.

because she's eleven. their new mage. the superhero. the girl that saved their lives over and over again. his sister and his friend and a member of the party. a person that he loves, would do anything for, and wants only to be happy. and who is he to be anything other than grateful?

she's the better, new and improved version of him; an upgrade that does the saving instead of needing to be saved. if he wasn't a mistake, then wouldn't it be him? wouldn't he be the first choice as he once was? or, even just a choice at all? if he, as he is now, wasn’t a mistake... then wouldn’t they have let him back into their lives? wouldn’t his own life have allowed that?

eleven being forced to fill the voids of various men, forced or guided into bringing their ghosts back to life so that they can rewrite their rotten histories, and doing their bidding in isolation serves to make her feel like a monster.

brenner could not let go of henry, and so he molded eleven in his image, made her look for him, trained her to beat and surpass him, kept her in isolation and reliant solely on him so that she would not turn on him as henry did, and reared her to be a success so great that it would wash away his failure with henry. hopper could not let go of sarah, and so he projected his fears and trauma onto her. of course, eleven is being sought after by the government, so the isolation is in part understandable, but it's still not an ideal situation for either of them. she was not ready to be a caged animal again, going stir crazy with no answers and nothing but her memories warped by time, nostalgia, and loneliness, and the television to keep her company. he was not ready to be a parent either. he was still grieving, unsure of how to actually raise her, and so scared to lose her that he drove her away. again, similar to brenner with henry, hopper was trying to balm his fears and perceived failure with her. eleven still didn't know what it was to be a person—someone that has friends, talks to people, and likes things; all very basic components of being a human in society—because he was treating her like sarah 2.0 and his mini-me in some ways. as for mike... mike wants to feel and be safe. safe from monsters, bullies, and societal pressures. eleven is the superhero that consistently swoops in to save him, his loved ones, and the entire world from doom. she's the force that kept troy from hurting him when he stood up for will and that caught him when he stepped off the cliff after troy and james told him to. she's also the first ever “girl that’s not grossed out by [him]". people see them, think that they like each other, and push him in her direction. alas, there's his chance to prove that he's normal! that he's not a loser or a freak! he can get girls and people clearly think that he likes them, too, judging by how they've confused his kindness, consideration, and friendship for something romantic. she's his lifeline, his path to "normalcy" and "manhood". as was the case with hopper, this is a layered dynamic. they meet and bond due to trauma. mike finds her while looking for will and frequently says, in less affectionate words like "weapon", that they need her to accomplish their mission. they undoubtedly bond a bit in the few days that they know each other, but mike finds and keeps her because he wants will back and she's the only way to save him. at the end of season one, mike tells her that she can be his sister "once all this is over and will's back". it's only when she questions him on this, and thus reminds him of what everyone else has been saying, that he quickly backtracks. he can't explain romance to her, but he goes back to that role anyway, asks her to the snow ball, and kisses her. because, oh, right! everyone says that i like her, so clearly i do! nevermind the fact that when he's speaking uninhibitedly with her about their future, he describes a more familial relation and that he's been playing caregiver to her all season. and then... after promising her a family and a date, he watches her save their lives again and be terribly weakened by it, only to later get up to defend them from a big scary monster. then, when he steps forward to stop her, he watches her push him back and "die" saving their lives. mike is terrified of losing people. he's pressured by his family to grow up and be a man. he feels a personal responsibility to save everyone, despite being just a kid himself. he also feels that he's nothing special, just a random nerd that got lucky. eleven frees him from all of this. she's his "cure" and his "superman". it is a disservice to both of their characters to not acknowledge this and saying it doesn't detract from their relationship or how they feel about each other. it's just... what it is. eleven ticks all of his boxes: she's a savior, she makes him special, and she's proof that he's grown up. he doesn't want to lose her for a multitude of reasons, even if neither of them can or have given each other what they want and need. mike still views her as the girl he met in the woods and wants their relationship to remain as it was during those few days. eleven doesn't want this. she's outgrown that girl. she doesn't need him and she doesn't want to be seen through that lens anymore. she wants him to see her as she is now and love her for it. but... he doesn't, does he? he can't. he can't write it to her, he can't give her a card with those words on it, and he hasn't ever said it—not even when she sobs and begs him to. he doesn't, he can't, and he refuses to lie to her (until they believe that her life and the fate of the world literally depends on it).

mike's actions are not malicious. he can't help the way that he feels. he doesn't want to hurt her, but is in a position where he has no choice. no matter what he does, it'll hurt them both. it is hurting them both. and that's what makes this relationship particularly special: that they were both pushed into this, and that they are both aware that she cannot fill his void nor can he fill hers.

and so they are stuck hurting themselves and will, because unlike the other situations, this ghost is not a ghost. will is alive and well and actively wants his part in this story back.

having been removed from their triangle of lies, it seems that eleven is in a better place than them at the end of season four. she's gone on a journey and made steps; steps that seemingly lead her away from mike and the endless roles she's been thrust into, and into whoever it is that she is.

once the painting lie is revealed, i reckon it may even be the catalyst that slides everything into place for them all: that it was never meant to be her by mike's side, but will. (among other revelations, of course.)

there's a lot yet to resolve, but it seems that season five will help both will and eleven find their personhood.

eleven will know that she is more than what little the men before her have believed and shaped her to be, that she can be more than their ghosts and their failures, that she is a person worth knowing and loving all on her own, and that she is more than her might.

will will know that he is no mistake, that he does have a place in this world, that he isn't a burden to the ones he loves, that he has not been forgotten by them, that there is love for him worth fighting for, and that he is worthy and deserving just as he is and has always been.

their stories are about discovery and coming into one's own, and they cannot be decoupled. it's no mistake that as will begins to be more open about his feelings for mike and nears the role he once had in his life, that eleven begins to grow away from him and find herself. they're two sides of the same coin, twins that have been distorted by outside forces to fit into their false narratives.

that's what makes will feel like a mistake and what makes eleven feel like a monster, and it won't stop until they manage to break the cycle by saying "no".

no, i won't turn the other cheek and bite my tongue.

no, i won't be what you tell me to be.  

[wakeupthemembersofbylernation]

Misdiagnoses stop missing the point of everything challenge.

“He admitted Lucas was doing the same as Mike & Dustin wasn’t hanging out with them, but he was only mad at Mike.” Okay, but consider this: maybe Dustin was off on his own adventure largely BECAUSE his friends weren’t showing interest once he returned from camp? Maybe he WAS also upset at Lucas for not caring about his D&D game, but mad at Mike specifically because while Lucas was still hanging out with his friends, Mike was clearly not doing a very good job of balancing his relationship with El and his friendship with Will and was truly acting out character in unhealthy and toxic ways? And perhaps, idk, there’s a reason why the Duffers emphasize his frustration with Mike… because he’s in love with him? And because Mike promised to go crazy together with Will in S2? And because this is a romantically coded scene? And because D&D has always been symbolic of Mike and Will’s friendship/relationship in a heightened, unique, and specific way? Consider the fact that immediately following this argument in the rain (a common romantic trope), Will immediately went and destroyed Castle Byers: his sanctuary, his refuge, a symbol of his childhood. And Mike, a boy who notoriously hates apologizing, biked across town in the rain to apologize. Maybe there was a point to that?

“He was bashing El just for existing.” Okay, but consider the fact that he wasn’t really calling El stupid; he barely knew her at this point and certainly had no malice in his heart towards her. Consider the fact that this was a reflection of his emotional trauma and frustration as a queer kid, watching all his friends get girlfriends from the sidelines in a “summer of love” and watching the boy he’s in love with push him away. Consider the fact that when Will says, “You’re destroying everything and for what,” it goes way deeper than Mike not wanting to play a singular game of D&D or Mike simply dating El. Consider the fact that his emotions and feelings of isolation are fully valid. Or just say you’ve never experienced the pain of being an outsider before and go.

“Mike didn’t raise his voice at all until Will called El stupid.” Okay, but consider the fact that Mike’s initial reaction was bizarre, unhinged, and completely uncalled for when you interpret things through a Mlvn perspective. Your best friend calls your girlfriend ‘stupid,’ so your first instinct is to say, “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls”? (while also being unaware of Will’s feelings or sexuality, mind you. Like yeah he was aware that Will was bullied his whole life, but in this context, it still doesn’t make sense). Saying “It’s not my fault you don’t have a girlfriend” would’ve been more of an intuitive thing to say. Defending El specifically would’ve made sense too, as in, “El’s not stupid. She’s an amazing girl with beautiful brown eyes who is creative and kind, and I love her so much.” Saying, “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls,” implies more of a hidden insecurity on Mike’s part, not Will’s. It implies that sexuality, the concept of “liking girls,” and perceived heteronormativity are on MIKE’S brain. Will was just asking why they weren’t close friends like they used to be.

“I’ll forever be on Mike’s side of this argument.” Well, that’s a sign that you, and the hundreds of people who liked the post, don’t really understand what Stranger Things is about. Cause while you CAN enjoy the show obviously, the show is not FOR you. It’s not about how Mike pushing aside his oldest friend and changing his interests to exclusively make out with his superpowered girlfriend and do nothing else is somehow a good, justified thing. It’s for outcasts and ‘losers’ and people who are different, and clearly the Duffers intended viewers to sympathize with Will and be on his side here.

[runawaymun]

I’m going to make a tumblr post just to get this out of my system because I’m going fucking feral over One. Someday I’ll write a fic but hopefully this staves off the energy I’m currently vibrating with. This is going to be extremely unhinged & disorganized. 

MAJOR Stranger Things 4 spoilers on this post for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet. 

LOOK. I loved S4 part1. Loved it. Adored every second. The themes. The vibes. Joyce + Hopp. Hnggg.

I’m so mad at how they handled the One = Vecna = Creel situation. It’s just....it’s bad. It’s bad for so many reasons. Narratively it’s bad. Narratively it’s lazy. I really expected more out of the Duffer Brothers. Holy shit. It’s bad.

Chief problems: 

The timeline is too wonky. I checked the wiki and supposedly the dates the Duffer Brothers gave add up, but if you take the show at face value without looking up the actual dates, then One is way too young for his supervillain backstory to have happened when he was a child post WW2. He’s like...max 30 years old. 

Holy god the ableism. HOLY GOD THE ABLEISM. I really trusted the Duffer Brothers, of all people, to deal with mental health appropriately. They have such a good track record. But no, creepy bad kid is bad for no reason. Likes spiders. Turns into a psychotic killer and murders his family in horrific ways and tortures animals for fun. For why? They kind of maybe tried to set it up as a combo of trauma and connecting with the Upside Down, but they didn’t spend any time on it and so it just ends up looking like ‘wow creepy kid is bad for no reason. look he’s still bad and creepy’.

I’m just very disappointed in “creepy child bad”. It’s a lazy, tired trope. They aluded to his parents being horrible people but didn’t show us any of that trauma and made it seem more like One was on a moral high ground vengeance arc, but also batshit insane...at twelve years old? Kids don’t do that. That’s trauma. 

He needed a therapist. Not an exorcism. 

So...if Papa just kind of, what, cloned One to make all the others (or whatever crazy experiment he did?)...how did One get his powers? And what were all the other experiments with giving pregnant women drugs for? I know we’re not through with the season, but this feels a little worldbreaking. It feels like they’re trying to connect too many things and be clever without really thinking their plots and characters through. 

Look there’s more here that I’m too incoherent to type out.

Again. Creepy child bad. For why.  

What I wanted out of One’s character: 

I love One as an antagonist. I adore him. Jaime Campbell Bower’s performance? Holy fucking shit it was chilling. The whole way through I kept going ‘god I want to like you but I can’t trust you. Why don’t I trust you?’ 

I wanted One to be the first experiment baby. I wanted him to be the first experiment baby. I wanted One = Vecna, but NOT One = Creel = Vecna. Why? Because it makes his later decisions make sense. 

If One is the first experiment baby, then imagine the attachment issues! The isolation! The abuse! The horror this child grew up in, being raised in a lab with no other “siblings” the way El had. He’s considerably older than all of the others. Old enough that his only human contact would have been the doctors and orderlies and Papa. True, actual, literal fucking hell. 

Then One becomes uncontrollable. He “breaks” from the trauma and the isolation and the experimentation. The utter dehumanization. He becomes dangerous because that’s what happens when you fuck up people’s attachments and empathy in early childhood. Papa doesn’t want to kill him because he almost works. So he wants him as a failsafe or a template, idk. So he puts the chip in to try and stabilize him. It works. Kind of. He needed therapy and love, but what he got was a microchip.

And then he’s trapped there. He can’t. Fucking. Leave.

And he watches Papa do it again, and again, and again. 

Watches Papa abuse kids he sees as his siblings. As tortured prisoners just like him.

And he can’t get away from it.

So then it makes sense. 

He finds a way to get the chip out of his body, and all he sees is a broken system. He doesn’t know anything about the outside world. He thinks this is all there is. Just this fucked up little biome with fucked up people. He’s too fucked up to survive it. These other kids are too fucked up too. So he puts them out of their misery one by one. It’s a mercy killing. It’s a fucked up way of killing kids but that’s all he has: his psionic powers. But death is death and at this point death is a mercy compared to this awful white-walled purgatory with Papa.

So he kills them. And kills all the orderlies and doctors and patients. Brings down the whole goddamned system. 

And then I don’t know how exactly to get from point A to point B here, but I don’t mind El yeeting him into the upside down. Sure have a disagreement or something. Let the boy go full ham crazy. Let him become that antagonist.

And then YEET him into the upside down and let the Mind Flayer absorb him, creating Vecna.

So Vecna is kind of One but not really. One is a tragedy. A product of trauma. He didn’t get saved the way El did. So the upside down absorbed him and used him to create gates.

It’s poetic, see.

He went from one prison to the next.

And then just throw out the whole Creel = One. One is a product of Creel. Have Creel be a semi psionic-sensitive kid that had contact with the Upside Down and then got possessed by the Mind Flayer, went nuts, and murdered his family. Papa finds him and then runs experiments on Creel to create the rest. So Creel isn’t actually One, just sort of...idk he’s the catalyst. He was a little bit sensitive and a little bit touched, and then Papa’s wack-ass experiments amplified it by 10000000x when he distilled it into One. 

It’s just...narratively so much better. We’ve spent this whole season dealing with PTSD and using Monsters as metaphors for PTSD and trauma. It makes no fucking sense for the monster supervillain to just be a Creepy Kid(tm) (read: ableist trope).

GOD. okay.

[kaleidoscopic-quiddity]

See the problem with mileven is that there's too much hero worship on both sides for it to currently function as a healthy relationship for either of them.

In Mike's case his inability to say or write 'I love you' speaks for itself. Mike cares for El definitely loves her, but I don't think he's in love with her. Mike views El as incredible, as a 'superhero', when El opens up to him about feeling unloved, about being bullied, about feeling isolated and like she's 'the monster' Mike tries to comfort her by talking about how 'incredible' and 'amazing' she is, not what she's good at or what he likes about her personality, but how she's a 'hero'. And I don't fully blame him?? I think, for Mike, there's a part of him thar doesn't fully feel that El is real; she has superpowers, she rescued Will, she's saved the world three times, she's the first girl to ever be kind to him and not treat him for a freak. I'm not saying its healthy or okay but for Mike it's understandable how El feels like a movie character or something from an X-Men comic rather than the 14 year old traumatised girl that she is.

Then on El's part, Mike is the first person to ever truly be kind to her, a kindness that's especially juxtaposed in season 1 next to Lucas' distrustful hesitation and Dustin's gawking and prodding. Mike comforts her, feeds her, clothes her, tells her she's pretty, and offers her an alternative to her awful life back in the lab. And we see in season 3 that the very reason El temporarily dumps Mike is because he deviates from the idealised version of him she envisions, he does does very realistic teenage boy thing of lying to his girlfriend and it causes El, who is in no way unfamiliar with the concept of deception, serious distress. Again, not healthy or okay, but it's wholly understandable why El would latch onto Mike the way she did, especially considering he's probably the first person she's ever actually even felt attraction towards, since all the other numbers were raised as her siblings. For a 12 year old, let alone one as isolated and disconnected from a 'normal' upbringing as El, attraction and first love can be very intense emotions that're hard to let go of.

And then on both their parts, they went through a lot of shared trauma and stressful situations in the week that makes up season 1. Murray talks about how Nancy and Jonathan have shared trauma as a basis for their attraction to each other and multiple irl studies have proven that going through deeply stressful and upsetting situations together can bring people closer and cause them to become very attached over a short period of time. El was the first girl (who wasn't related to him) that was kind to Mike, Mike was the first person ever to be kind to El without an ulterior motive. El found Will and destroyed the demogorgon, she shut the gate, she beat the mindflayer, of course Mike thinks she's a superhero. And for El, during all of those horrifying, deeply distressing and traumatic things, other than Hopper Mike was the person primarily supporting her through it all, reminding her that she wasn't the monster, of course she wants his approval and takes any minor sign of hesitance/fear/distaste/etc as a total lack of affection.

TL;DR: I don't think mileven is like inherently 'toxic' or 'problematic' but I think the precise reason why their relationship is breaking down is that El and Mike are beginning to realise that they're more in love with the perfect rose tinted idea of each other rather than the actual real life messy and hurt people that they are.

[allofthefeelings]

In your commentary on Stranger Things on Twitter, you mentioned the way the show presupposes allocisheterosexuality about El despite that she was fully removed from "normal girlhood" socialization most of her life. And yeah, I've had problems with that since s1. The show has an unfortunate tendency of treating her as Nerd Boy's Dream Girl rather than fully examining the reality and trauma of her experience.

Oh jeez, yeah.

If you don't follow me on Twitter you may not know that I kind of watched... all of Stranger Things? I'd finished the first three seasons of In Treatment, the new In Treatment wasn't starting yet, it was a whole THING.

Anyway.

I have been thinking about this a lot, because on the surface El should absolutely be my character. She's a kid, extraordinarily gifted, isolated and abused so her talents can be exploited, who figures out how to fight back. And there are parts of El's storyline that I really, really like. But I'm overall frustrated with her narrative, because... wait, this gets long. And has spoilers for all three seasons. And talks about Billy's plots so CW for multiple kinds of abuse narratives here!

First of all, the things done to Eleven don't make logistical sense. I am ALL IN on an evil governmental/science conglomerate kidnapping special children and torturing them into using their special powers against their enemies. Characters overcoming that is my catnip.

But for El to be useful, she needs to function as more than just a tape recorder! We see this when she mindwalks to people but lacks the ability to know what things mean- she doesn't know what Illinois is, for example, or why the girls with Billy might be screaming for non-terrible reasons.

(BILLY'S PLOT IS AN ABOMINATION, YOU DON'T PORTRAY A BULLY AS AN ABUSED KID AND THEN HAVE ADULT WOMEN WITH KIDS HIS AGE LUSTING AFTER HIM ONE EPISODE LATER. But that is a whole separate post.)

El not knowing what a friend or a promise is may make her interesting for the show, and interesting to a bunch of teen boys who've just discovered her, but it limits her usefulness to the evil government! Like, it's great she can crush a can with her mind and listen to people from any distance but if she doesn't understand what they're talking about, you have no guarantee she's going to come away with the important information, and then this poor child once again has a nosebleed for no fucking reason. It's painful and cruel to her, which I accept they don't care about, but it's also INEFFICIENT IF YOU'RE A MAD SCIENTIST. Like I get that evil scientists aren't great with the long game but this is shoddy evil science and that offends me.

ANYWAY.

They make El a very "born yesterday" character, but it's not consistent how. She can speak and understand others, she can perform tasks, she's very good at violence, she has a moral code established despite the evil scientists who were the only people she interacted with (who could have just... raised her with a moral code that fit theirs, no harm no foul? THEY'RE VERY BAD AT EVIL SCIENCING). She had a friend, Kali, but doesn't know what friends are. She understands parental figures- she calls Brenner "Papa"; she knows who "Mama" is- but her feelings about parental figures don't seem at all impacted by how "Papa" was abusive. All of this combines to make her feel unmoored, as a character; I don't have a baseline of how she's understanding the world, and because we perceive her through the boys, it's really hard to find firm footing.

And then season three. I get that what we see is a lot of El trying to figure out what she likes by trying on other people's preferences for size, and that makes sense, but we never see her growing, so much as adopting one person and then another and then another. As you mentioned me complaining about already, in season three her desires match perfectly with those of a stereotypical allocishet teen girl from an 80s movie. And yes, Stranger Things is an 80s movie pastiche, but the boys are allowed to move beyond that in terms of what they want; El doesn't. She wants to make out with her boyfriend with the door closed, even though this has no rebellious value when you weren't raised with these values to begin with, and the soundtrack to her mall trip (which Max even SAYS is about figuring out what she wants, not what other people want her to want) is Material Girl! LIKE SHE'S BEING MATERIALISTIC RATHER THAN FIGURING OUT WHAT SHE WANTS!

(ALSO THIS SHOW IS CLEARLY LEANING ON HAVING AN ADULT AUDIENCE, SO PLEASE STOP SHOWING KIDS MAKING OUT, IT'S VERY DISQUIETING.)

Let's also talk about how the scenes with possessed!Billy kidnapping El are absolutely chock full of rape imagery, when El is a child, Billy is shown as abused by his dad and abusive to Max and kidnapping his fellow lifeguard and objectified by all the women at the pool, and yet El's fear doesn't reflect that. Even if El doesn't know pop culture, she clearly knows danger, and it's like the show doesn't recognize that even a young teen girl is aware of predatory behaviors because it's impossible to live in the world- even in a sheltered world limited mostly to an evil lab and a cabin in the woods with a TV- without knowing.

MOREOVER, El exists less as person than as a deus ex machina; every season, things get dangerous and she has to hurt herself (those constant bloody noses cannot be pleasant) rescue everyone else over and over while no one appreciates her. She wants to stop the bad men but we don't have a grip on exactly why she knows they're bad (besides trying to make her kill an animal, but I come back to why does she have the morality to know she shouldn't? and how does she know anyone else in the world is better?) and while I actually am fully on-board with a kid being raised to see herself as a tool lacking self-worth because she was never taught to value herself, the narrative should be contesting that! And it's not! And I don't understand!

All of this works if you only see El through the boys' lens, and only see El as an accessory to their story. But for El to be a character, rather than a nerd's wet dream, she has to have her own motivations and her own code. We get tantalizing glimpses of it- more from her time with Max than with anyone else- and we see her comforted (by Joyce and by Hop at different times, also DON'T GET ME STARTED ON HOPPER IN S3 IT IS A PROBLEM), but I feel like the show wants her to be mysterious to us because she's mysterious to Mike and his friends, without bothering to make that mystery consistent enough to root her.

I want El to be my character so badly, because she has all the pieces I normally gravitate to- and let's be honest here, River Tam and Natasha Romanoff and Micah Sanders don't exactly get fully fleshed out in their canons either- but she doesn't fit together for me. They've simultaneously given us too much and not enough, so she's a series of tropes that I can't Frankenstein together into a story for her that takes into account both her knowledge and her lack-of-knowledge but doesn't explicitly reject pieces of canon we've been given, which were supplied more in service of Mike's story than of El's.

And that makes Robin, Erica, and Kali all far more interesting characters to me, despite every instinct I have that El really really really SHOULD be who I gravitate to.

[hargrove-mayfields]

so sorry im late asking this (i was waiting for you to get more, super surprised you didn’t get more asks tbh) but could I hear more about your wips “I have a crush on Barbara Holland” “baby fic” and “HOH Steve” also if it’s not too much “girlyfriends” and “cali house” and “medical emergency” ik ik that’s a lot but I’d honestly want hear about ALL of you wips in that list if i could. thank u in advance

It’s alright anon! I’ll accept these asks until I run out of WIPs to talk about!

I have a crush on Barbara Holland- This one is a soulmates au, where Steve has his soulmates initials, B.H., on his wrist, and he is whole heartedly convinced that that person is Barb. He’s very much in love with her, and there’s lots of talk about how pretty and nice she is (hence the title lol) but eventually she reveals that he isn’t her soulmate. Before she had hid the initials on her own wrist under a watch or a chunky bracelet, but she feels guilty, and shows Steve that her mark had long ago faded, because her soulmate passed away when they were in elementary school. Steve decides, despite how much value he used to hold in the whole soulmate thing, he doesn’t care about who some stupid mark says he should be with, so him and Barb date until her death. He’s heart broken, but the sadness very quickly turns into so much anger after Billy Hargrove, another B.H. rolls into town with a little S.H. on his wrist. He feels like the universe or whoever is even in charge of this soulmate bullshit is spiting him for thinking he could fall in love with someone he wasn’t destined to be with, so he rejects Billy for a long, long time, even after he himself figured it out that Steve is his match. When he does start to feel that way about Billy, he struggles with so much guilt and has to go through a very long grieving process to be comfortable with his feelings, because he’s not even sure if they’re his genuine feelings or the work of this soulmate bond. Very long and very angsty.

baby fic- Nancy gets pregnant that first time at the party with Tommy and Carol, and her and Steve try really really hard to make things work out for their baby, but it just isn’t meant to be. They make an arrangement that the Harringtons are very not pleased with, where Nancy has the baby at the Byers house half the time (because let’s be honest I think the Wheelers house is not really a safe place to be raising a baby) and Steve has her the rest of the time. Because it was like, a much more mature breakup without the cheating and the drunken confessions, they’re still pretty close friends. When the upside down starts making an appearance again, they have to try to figure out how to navigate it with this little four month old baby, and that means getting some help involved. Billy shows up at the Byers and instead of a fight, Steve’s all exhausted like oh good, you’re finally here, and gives him the worlds fastest run down of this monster fighting shit with a crying baby on his hip, and like, Billy just can’t say no to him asking him to go into the tunnels while he watches the baby. There is eventual Harringrove after a while, but it’s a slow burn for sure. This is also probably the least serious and least angsty thing I have ever started to write.

HOH Stevie- They’re all in the government hospital getting their post Starcourt once overs, Billy and El of course being rushed into surgery, and Steve’s about to get discharged when he gets addressed by name and just, does not respond at all. The doctor is like hmm, and checks his ears, and they find out he has almost no hearing in his left ear, and only about forty percent in the right. All that head trauma from the Russians and then all of the explosions of the fireworks, it leaves him deaf.

Everyone tries to be supportive, but his dad refuses to let him get hearing aids because he doesn’t believe he actually needs them (Steve’s a diagnosed hypochondriac) so for the next several months while his parents are still home waiting for their next trip, he’s struggling. He basically gets iced out by the party because he just can’t hear anything they’re saying, and the kids get tired of repeating themselves, and Nancy got insulted the one time he told her her voice is too quiet, and Robin wants to do things right for him, but she forgets sometimes, and will ramble on about something without looking at him and everytime he’s like great, I didn’t catch a single word of that, lovely talk though. It’s very frustrating and isolating and nobody seems to want to make accommodations for him.

The very same day that his parents leave for their latest vacation, he goes back to hospital. At first he just has to get more testing done, since it had been upwards of six months since the last time they saw him, and on his way out he notices Max in the waiting room chairs. He hadn’t seen much of her at all since Starcourt, so he checks on her, and at first she tells him to go away, because her friends have said some not so nice things about how much time she spends at the hospital, and assumes Steve is there to tell her Billy isn’t worth it too. Because that’s not the case, he ends up going in the room to visit Billy with her.

They do the small talk, the awkward, sorry about the fact that you’ve been in the hospital for six months now and nobody wants to come see you thing, and at some point Billy realizes that Steve can’t hear a damned thing he’s saying. He tests his theory by saying Steve’s name when he’s not looking and just waiting for him to answer but, surprise he doesn’t because he didn’t hear it at all, and Billy’s just like, you’re deaf aren’t you?

The progression of the fic is basically Steve coming to visit Billy everytime he has an appointment for his hearing (and more, but Bill doesn’t know that) but the day of his last appointment to make sure his hearing aids are functioning as well as they ever will for how bad off his hearing is, Billy’s acting different.

When he’d first walked into his room Billy had been surprisingly bright eyed and bushy-tailed for what he went through, but now he’s just acting all mopey. Max makes him tell Steve what’s wrong, and he confesses that he feels like he’s going to get left behind now that Steve’s all better, because then he has no real reason to visit him anymore. But Steve has one very good reason, and the rest of the story is him making sure Billy knows it.

girlyfriends- This’n’s sort of a non-canon compliant character study about aromantic! Billy, focusing on how awful and uncomfortable he felt with his past girlfriends, messing up dates and never going as far as they wanted him to, which at the time he pinned on liking boys instead, but then after he gets with Steve, he feels like this is different and he likes it, but he’s still not too big on all the lovey dovey, romance stuff. He rationalizes it as like, maybe just being a side effect of him being an asshole or something, but he‘s actually super insecure about how he is in relationships. There is a fluffy resolution though where he embraces his identity, it’s really not all doom and gloom, boo hoo I hate myself stuff.

cali house- Years after Starcourt, the boys have moved to a decent house in California using their government hush hush money, and they’re there for only about a month when Billy’s mother shows up at their door.

She says she caught wind that her son was back in town and wanted to come see him, after all this time. Billy of course lets her back in his life immediately, his mom meant so much to his recovery process and now that she’s here, he can’t turn her away, but Steve’s a little suspicious of her intentions.

He thinks that if she wanted to see Billy, she would’ve done that years ago before he ever even left Cali in the first place, or that you know, she wouldn’t have fucking left him behind. He tries to bring it up with Billy gently, but he won’t hear it, and he feels beyond hurt by the suggestion because he thinks Steve is just jealous that he’s spending time with his mother, who he hasn’t seen for upwards of fifteen years at this point.

They fight and avoid each other for a few days until Billy’s momma admits when he brings it up, over lunch or something saying like, “Steve thought you were using me or something, isn’t that crazy?” and she’s just like “Well, actually...”and tells him that money was tight, and she needed a little extra money, so Billy and his disability checks and his rich (boy)friend seemed like the perfect opportunity to get some.

He goes back home to Steve and expects him to be mad, to rub it in that he was right, but he’s really not, he’s super supportive, and you know, Billy finally realizes he doesn’t need to have this bullshit family thing with his mother, because he already has one, Max and Steve and his friends and all the people that actually care about him.

medical emergency (tw attempted suicide)-

Billy, who’s living on his own in an apartment downtown after Starcourt, deliberately doesn’t get his prescriptions refilled because he’s so done. He’s weak and he’s hurting and he doesn’t feel like himself anymore, and he just feels like he wouldn’t care if his body gave up, if he suffocated in his sleep or had another heart attack. So he doesn’t take care of himself, and when he runs out of oxygen he just doesn’t go get anymore, but he’s halfway to choking on his own blood when he realizes he doesn’t want to die.

He calls Steve, because he’s not calling the cops and he can’t remember anyone’s numbers in his panic, but Steve’s is written on his calendar, scribbled there because they were supposed to make plans for something with the kids. Steve takes him to the hospital, having to fight him to put the CPAP on him to make sure his lungs didn’t collapse before they could get him to Hawkins General, and Billy’s just, so bone tired.

They do all their treatment stuff and get his body back under control, so Steve finally asks him what happened, if maybe he needed someone around to help him remember his meds and stuff, and Billy just, he breaks, like a dam overfilled he just pours out with all of this helplessness and sadness he’d been feeling, how he doesn’t want to live the way he does or at all anymore, and Steve’s heart just breaks for him.

He moves in with him, nobody’s willing to leave him alone after what happened, and Steve (along with Billy getting a new therapist because the old one was incompetent enough to not notice how bad off he was) helps him to realize he has something to live for.

[kaypeace21]

So you're saying that the Duffers did a "bad season" on purpose? I'm all for theories, but why on earth would they do that??

No ,  that’s not what I’m saying! I’m saying just like how they made fun of mileven in s2 (they did so even more in s3). They showed all the romantic relationships that aren’t going to be endgame as dysfunctional . And they gave the fans “everything they wanted” (by showing how bad their ideas are- ie ships , evil russians, el is the ‘chosen one’ who is over reliant on Mike) while still forwarding the narrative . Aka mileven is bad and inhibits the growth of Mike and el .So  let’s show how it’s bad for el by reversing all her character development from s2 .Aka El saying “friends don’t lie”-to lying to her friends to suck face with Mike (and have Lucas even call her out saying “they’re lying”). And have El who tried to escape the cabin all of s2 to see her friends - willing stay isolated in the cabin to be with mike (and ignore all her friends for 6 months). Let’s also have mike go from team leader to inhibiting their plans and fighting with the team - except when Mileven was fighting and mike made the sauna plan. And have Mike pretend not to like d&d until the end when talking with Will and when mileven is broken up. Let’s have Mike also never apologize for lying , and compare him to controlling Hopper who says people are “corrupting her” , while the gals (max and Joyce) say both don’t respect El’s ability to make “decisions”. And just compare mileven to Hopper/El like we did in s2.And compare mileven to stancy in multiple ways- like calling both relationships “bullshit”.   And have El spy on Mike when they’re broken up and never apologize for it (like how the song they danced to in s2 “every breath you take’ is about a stalking ex gf). Etc.

Let’s reference “never ending story” as a reference of El being an alter and the “false chosen one” like the child hero atreyu in the movie. “Atreyu (who was deemed the ‘chosen one) is knocked  into the sea of possibilities. There he wakes on the shore of abandoned ruins. There Gmork (The Mindflayer) reveals himself, having been lying in wait. And then latches his jaws onto Atreyu’s leg.” Aka just like El- who by the way didn’t save any of the 30 + people cause they all relied on her to be the chosen one. Instead of actually relying on team work- like prior seasons. She lost her powers and the team had to save her in the end.

The Empress in the story later tells Atreyu, that despite being told he was the chosen one (he never was). And that it was always Bastian (Will) who was the chosen one -that could save them, all along! “Bastian (Will) is a shy-outcast (with a bowel cut) raised by a single parent, and teased by bullies from school. The book Bastian starts to read, describes the fantasy world of Fantasia which is slowly being devoured by a malevolent force called “The Nothing (the upside down- the Duffers originally called it ‘the nether’).And the empress says Atreyu’s (El’s) story, and “others” (the rest of the st cast) are following Bastian’s (Will’s) story all along, making them all part of his neverending story. Aka like how Will’s d&d campaign foreshadows all of s3. The Empress tells Bastian that he has the power to save them using his imagination since he created everything in the first place .*Bastian even temporarily goes evil after he loses his memories (just like Will).

And like I mentioned in my DID theory post- the cartoonish Russians are one of many  constructs of Will’s mind that came to life. Why they’re so over the top. And while discussing the mf they alluded to the darker story of trauma that connects back  to Will & Lonnie - like Jon checking Lonnie’s trunk for Will/ the mf throwing people in trunks, “bad screams vs good screams”,“stay still it’ll all be over soon”, the tub parallels. Having the d&d story Will wrote connect to the whole plot of s3 . And also connecting the Russians , hopper, and kali/el, to the mf. And I also explained why the mf pretended to ignore Will in s3.

The st production workers ,  in a netflix podcast criticized Erica’s pro capitalism comments saying they were  (”like a sociopathic veep character”). At the s4 video store they have a poster of  “the coco cola boy’ ( an anti corporate/ anti coke film). Specifically about coke affecting small town businesses - and the film also being an allegory of American imperialism .  And we see how (on the 4th of July) the mall affected small business in s3- and the mall (aka big business)  which was controlled by the ‘villains’/corrupt mayor were burned to the ground at the end of the season.

In s2 , Max criticized the s1 story while talking to Lucas- in a very meta way (saying about s1/lucas’ story. “ I really liked it. I mean, I had a few issues. I just felt it was a little derivative in parts. I just wish it had a little more originality, that’s all.” So lucas has a similar scene but for s3.Lucas says “new coke” (which was hated by pretty much everyone at the time of its release) is better than the original coke and the whole cast disagrees with him . In April 1985, Coca-Cola decided to change its recipe, abandoning what we now know as Coca-Cola Classic for a new flavor that was not well-received. Known as “new coke”(shown all over s3). Aka- the new upbeat setting of s3 which also takes place in 1985 (who’s plot , ships, and characterization appeared shallow on the surface). It’s a meta commentary of what they were expecting people would say about s3 , which also takes place in 1985 . (Aka s1-2 are better than s3, on the surface).  If you take everything at face value and don’t look behind the surface you will not like s3 as much (examples being)- the pro corporatism/ pro America stuff when the US gov used to be villains,or if you don’t realize how/why the chemical plots of the Russians/mf connect , or if you actually know what a healthy relationship looks like and saw the dysfunction of all the couples, or simply noticed the ‘plot holes’ of El being the ‘chosen one ‘ -the mf being was supposedly after since s1 , creates. Aka mf chased and posessed Will at school, when El was also at the school at the same time as Will/mf. But the mf ignored her at school, and instead the whole year he stalked Will . And he even said he wanted to kill everyone but Will last season -to supposedly wanting to kill everyone including Will. So when Lucas disagrees (saying the NEW coke/the NEW season is better than the original ) the whole cast glares at him in disbelief , saying “What?!”And Mike argues with Lucas saying  he’s “insane” .  And El (the ‘chosen one’ of that season) angrily cuts their argument short. They even say coke vs new-coke is “the same concept” as comparing the original ‘The thing’ movie (s1-2) with it’s remake ( s3/NEW season).Right before El says to stop fighting about it.

Duffers gave the fans what they wanted on the surface all under the guise of pro America corporatism on the 4th of July  (and hid the real stuff behind the surface) all while getting money from coke while dissing it. And criticizing pro-americana capitalism. Even s3 being advertised as the “summer of love” is a diss cause ‘summer loves’ are flings that don’t last after the summer (aka after s3) . I talked about all the evidence of why certain pairings (jopper, jancy, mileven, and lumax) are probably not endgame here. But, just looking at coke. Karen drinks newcoke while looking at billy. Mike drinks newcoke when complaining about el. max/el spun a newcoke bottle while spying on their then exes . Jopper drank new coke together. El being experimented on has been associated with coke since s1. Steve in s1 even puts coke on his black eye when talking about Nancy. And we know s3 compared mileven to stancy constantly. Lucas drank new coke and said it was awesome even when historically almost everyone in the 80s hated the new formula. The pairings advertised in the official “romantic” new-coke commercial were lumax, mileven, Karen/billy, and Steve/ some random girl named Tracy. And prior to season 3, Coke was always given a negative context, mostly being associated with the inhuman experimenting on El . (El in s1 has a ptsd flashback after seeing a coke beach -summer esque-commercial and then thinking of the time Brenner forced her to crush the coke can.) And they showed that s1 flashback in s3 , when El tries crushing a new-coke-can she found in the “trash” , and realizes unlike s1 she can’t anymore).

[strangertheory]

It's pretty much a given that Dr. Brenner will be returning. Do you think he's in the states still trying to track down El? I always suspected that he may have ran away to Russia so he could continue his experiments and research (maybe that's how the Russians knew about the Upside Down). I've been trying to avoid any BTS photos that could provide any major spoilers so there could be news I missed.

From the way that you contextualized your question, I believe you might prefer to avoid spoilers and any Stranger Things 4 leaks or rumors.

I am going to offer you two answers: one which is in the first part of this blogpost, and one which you can choose to read at your own risk which is below the “read more” divider and that takes into account my current thoughts on a few leaked photos and rumors.

I don’t believe that Dr. Brenner or the Lab was necessarily trying to track down El throughout seasons 2 and 3. Even though the Lab assured Nancy and Jonathan that the people who “made mistakes” in the past are gone (presumably they are referring to Dr. Brenner) the Lab and Dr. Owens seem to have a few different mysterious arrangements with Hopper. What these arrangements might entail have been implied but never openly stated. We do see Owens giving Hopper a birth certificate for Jane and telling him to “give it a year.” We see Hopper getting into cars and having shadowy interactions with people that we can only assume are affiliated with the Lab. But now that Hopper is gone and presumed dead (as of the end of season 3) is it possible that the mysterious arrangement that Hopper had with the Lab and/or with Dr. Owens would be nullified and that El would become the target of the Lab’s interest again? It’s quite possible. And perhaps Dr. Brenner, if he is alive and still doing experiments and research, might return and look to find El again.

I’d like to discuss a second hypothetical reason why I expect we could see Dr. Brenner in season 4, too:

In my opinion El’s conversation with Kali in season 2 foreshadows the return of Dr. Brenner, or perhaps it foreshadows the return of someone who might represent Dr. Brenner in some way.

"Now you're faced with the same choice, Jane: go back into hiding, and hope they don't find you. Or fight, and face him again."

"Face who?"

“The man who calls himself our father.”

Dr. Brenner was conspicuously missing from seasons 2 and 3, but we are led to believe that we haven’t seen the last of him yet. (Dead? Not dead? MIA?)

I theorize that Dr. Brenner will make a return appearance in season 4 because I have been waiting for the writers to reveal the secrets behind El and Will’s shared mysterious connection to each other that is implied to involve (among other things) the Lab and Dr. Brenner.

I believe that El now living with Joyce, Will, and Jonathan sets up the opportunity for this intersection of El’s and Will’s storylines to finally be explored and revealed to us.

I have considered a few very hypothetical ideas regarding what we might see in season 4 based on a few alleged Stranger Things 4 rumors and leaks. Keep in mind I treat all leaks as inconclusive information that is highly unreliable, and I try to avoid making many theories based on rumors and leaks. But! I cannot stop my brain from thinking about the information and ideas being passed around the fandom, and I do have a few ideas and hypotheticals that I’m happy to share with you.

Potential spoiler alert! For the rest of this blogpost I will be talking about a few rumors and alleged photo leaks that have been discussed by fans online over the last few months which influence my thoughts and ideas:

There were photographs leaked of alleged Stranger Things 4 filming in front of a movie theater that listed movies from 1982 such as The Dark Crystal. (1982? Yes! 1982.) This would mean that we might get flashbacks or scenes set before the events of 1983 when Will went missing and El escaped from the Lab.

If we will be seeing events that took place prior to season 1: it is very possible that we could see Dr. Brenner again in flashbacks that are relevant to either El or Will’s history with Dr. Brenner and the Lab.

Could we see Dr. Brenner in the present-day? Maybe, maybe not. El told Kali “Papa is dead.” But perhaps he either A) isn’t actually dead B) will still be a relevant character from El’s past within the story and we will get to see her or other characters interacting with Dr. Brenner in the past.

I believe that season 4 is going to focus heavily in addressing the mysterious connection between El and Will and I also suspect that Dr. Brenner is involved in that in some way.

To refer to the alleged leaked photograph of the movie theater again: the theater name suggests that it is located in “Lincoln Square.” There is a Lincoln Square in New York City and there is also a Lincoln Square in Chicago. We have characters who have connections to both Chicago and New York City in the series, and so it’s hard to determine the precise location of this movie theater. Regardless: we can say with greater confidence that, assuming these leaked photos were of filming for season 4, that this scene they were filming might take place in 1982 and show us events from characters’ pasts. I’ve considered the possibility that since Kali and El pursued a Lab employee (presumably living in or near Chicago in season 2) that it is possible that the Lab might have offices in that city as well as Hawkins. This is one reason I lean towards the possibility of seeing scenes set in Chicago at some point either in season 4 or season 5. (But who knows?)

In season 2 Will expresses his dislike for doctors and tells Joyce “No doctors. You promised!” and Hopper also asks Joyce, while she’s stressing over what to do about Will, whether she wants to “take him back to Chicago.” One can assume from the context of that conversation that Hopper is referring to medical treatment that Will had in the past.

Could Will have been a former patient of Dr. Brenner or another division of the Lab prior to his appointments with Dr. Owens?

I think it’s quite likely.

I’m not convinced that Dr. Brenner is who we think he is, however. I think there’s more to Dr. Brenner’s role in the story than we officially know (yet.)

To return to El and Kali’s conversation again:

"Now you're faced with the same choice, Jane: go back into hiding, and hope they don't find you. Or fight, and face him again."

"Face who?"

“The man who calls himself our father.”

If, as I suspect, Stranger Things is about a DID System and Will and El are both part of it: I have been wondering for a while whether the reason Dr. Brenner has all the Numbers refer to him as their father is because he is in fact actually their father in a more literal sense than simply being the mad scientist raising them to learn to control their powers.

If El is indeed an alter in a DID System, then perhaps “Papa” is actually an NPC or persecutor alter in the DID System based on whoever “real dad” is. Maybe El’s memories of being isolated and abused at the lab is a trauma memory that she experienced as an alter, and Kali is another alter who had similar traumatic experiences.

Maybe when we meet “Dr. Brenner” again he won’t be who he was before, but embodied by a different character who is chillingly familiar to El.

As I mentioned in this recent answer to another Ask: I am curious how El might react if she ever met Lonnie and whether she would recognize him as someone she knows or not.

I realize that my thoughts about Brenner might be a little bit hard to follow: this is because I don’t have any clear-cut expectations for when and how we will see Dr. Brenner again. What I described above is purely speculative and I wouldn’t even consider it a theory. It’s simply a few ideas. :) I’m a lot more comfortable analyzing what we already know about the series and finding hidden connections within the episodes and content that we already have available. When it comes to speculating about super-specific future plot-points I see it as a less exact science and (for me, at least) it can easily become fanfiction. I might have an opinion on the general trajectory of certain character relationships based on foreshadowing that we have been given, but the specific way that they will manifest themselves in the story is beyond what I can say.

Thank you so much for your Ask! Dr. Brenner is a fascinating character and there’s so much that we still don’t know about him. Discussing hypotheticals about Brenner always interests me even though I don’t feel especially confident in any one possible route the story might take and I relegate most of my thoughts about him to the “maybe?” section. But I do think we’ll see him again.

[portlandnet]

One of Many Stories of the Impact of Racism

NETs, with her permission, I am sharing this story from Meg Juarez. Meg supervises the Community Safety program for the Office of Community and Civic Life. 

Last year, her father was murdered, and mother grievously wounded, in a mass shooting perpetrated by a white supremacist in El Paso. Her reflection on that is below.

Nobody should ever have to go through what Meg and her family is still coping with. There is also a story of community resilience: of how Meg’s parents took care of her neighbors and community, and how they are taking care of her mother and family now.

Her story begins here:

As the day approaches, I think to myself wow, it’s been a year and I’m still in shock, unable to process the immense pain and loss in so many ways. August 3rd, 2020 marks the first anniversary after the tragic racist terrorist attack at a Walmart in El Paso, TX. A white supremacist shot and murdered 23 people and injured many others. My father was the oldest among those who lost their lives, and at 90 years old was vibrant and healthy. My 88-year-old mother was shot and is still recovering after numerous surgeries and weeks in ICU. The entire El Paso community was shaken to its core. There are so many stories. Stories of love, resilience, sorrow and trauma—all of these stories matter and together they tell a bigger story and paint a collage; one of a reality that immigrants, Native nations, and people of color have been experiencing in this country for generations. 

The stories of love and resilience are mostly about communities coming together to help one another heal in the aftermath of terror and violence fueled by white supremacy. Also, about how so many immigrants and refugees have come to this county, worked hard, struggled, persevered, and contributed to making this country great, within a complex history of settling Native lands. 

Communities have the power to heal when they are connected and see each other as human beings who are interdependent. I will forever be grateful for how my community came together, embraced me and my family, and was present to help in any way they could. In my Portland neighborhood, friends and neighbors organized fundraisers in collaboration with some of our local neighborhood businesses—donating time, food and services. They hosted gatherings for people to come together, as the community also was shocked by the horror of the events and how now they had a connection to someone who was directly impacted—the degrees of separation getting smaller. The love and caring that my community showed me and my family, whether it was providing food or companionship, or watering my plants while I was in Texas helping care for my mother; it all meant so very much in the aftermath of such trauma. 

My work community at the City of Portland too was so supportive and I will forever be grateful for the support of all my colleagues. To all those who donated leave time, thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

Resilience is something that my parents embodied as immigrants in this country. My cousin, who spoke at my father’s funeral, said it well: “My Tio (uncle) made this country great!” He recounted how my father immigrated to the United States from Mexico, worked so very hard (working for the railroad, and ultimately becoming a very skilled and talented welder/ironworker), and made this place his home with his family, raised his kids and, yes, made America great like so many immigrants have done.

My parents, Luis and Martha Juarez, were married 70 years, raised seven children and have 20 grandchildren. They took care of each other, provided companionship for one another and were always there for their family, their neighbors, and their friends. On that fateful morning of August 3rd, they were simply tending to their errands as were all of the other innocent victims going about their day. My father was a kind, gentle and very loving person. I vividly recall witnessing people being mean or rude to my dad and he would say to me, “you never know what someone is going through.” He truly embodied compassion. On that day, as a white supremacist who was intent on killing Mexicans opened fire on innocent people and as the terror of loud gunfire resonated throughout the store, my father held my mother’s hand tightly and calmly said to her “no tengas miedo” (don’t be afraid). My mother shared this over and over while recovering at the hospital—these were my father’s last words to her. 

My mother is slowly recovering physically and emotionally. The rod in her arm is still painful and a daily reminder of the horrific event. She deeply misses her partner of 70 years. All of our lives changed forever in so many ways, almost too many to mention here. The pandemic has posed even more challenges and my mother feels isolated a lot of the time, even though she has wonderful neighbors and family who check on her. My parents lived within very modest means, but they were rich in social capital. In just one example, their neighbors across the street launched a fundraiser through their small home-based business making t-shirt designs. They created a special design just for the purpose of this fundraiser with the “El Paso Strong” message [image included below], and giving all proceeds to my mother.

When we expressed our gratitude to her neighbors, they said, “This is the least we can do. Your parents were like our very own grandparents. When our parents passed away, they took such good care of us, bringing us homemade food for weeks!” Building community is so important to resiliency. Quoting author Zach Norris in, We Keep Us Safe, “Safety is not tied to our capacity to watch our neighbors, but rather based on our capacity to truly look out for one another. There is no doubt in my mind that we are safer when we act together than when we let ourselves be divided.” 

This traumatic event that impacted my family is just one more example of the racist-fueled violence that many communities of color continue to experience in this country. Racism is a public health crisis. Across the country, local and state leaders are declaring racism a public health crisis. These are important first steps to advance racial equity and justice, but we need to go further by investing in community wellbeing. I’m hopeful that Portland too will join other cities that are naming racism as a determinant of health. 

Thank you for this opportunity to share my story.

Meg Juarez Meg.Juarez@portlandoregon.gov

[formerprincewille]

Let’s talk about Will Byers

So.

It seems like every meta I read attributes Will being “childish” to the trauma he went through and his “lost childhood”, and that is why he is hanging on so tightly to it. He’s emotionally stunted due to all he went through. And while that is a perfectly valid analysis and it might be true, I look at it differently.

For an example, let’s look at the other side of Will’s coin, El Hopper. She spent her entire life being raised in a lab and tortured. She couldn’t even speak English other than a few words when she first escaped. Now, I know everyone reacts to things differently, and there isn’t any single or “right” way to handle trauma, but given that Will and El’s arcs so often mirror one another, it’s very interesting that El has blossomed outside of the lab/upside down and she seemingly has very few lingering issues over it. She has fears of isolation, but in general, she’s grown into a very well-adjusted kid with a good support system.

Will also has a good support system with his mom, brother, and friends. But he is haunted and then possessed in s2. And after he’s freed from the Mind Flayer, he seems okay and happy enough at the Snow Ball. But now in s3, it appears he has regressed. It appears that he just wants to be a kid again and play games and is fearful of growing up. Attributing this to all he went through, as I said, is totally valid. But.

I think it has to do with the fact that Will is gay and he knows it. He also subsequently knows that if he allows himself to grow up, his sexuality is something he’s going to have to confront and acknowledge, and that has to be terrifying to him. I mean, this is a kid growing up in the 1980s, when the HIV/AIDS crisis was at its peak. Homophobia was bad at this time. And while we have been shown from the beginning that Joyce and Jonathan are very supportive of Will (and let’s be honest probably already suspect or maybe outright know that he’s gay), it’s still not easy to be a gay boy growing up at that time.

Will is holding onto his childhood because growing up means all the things that come along with it. It means that he will have to deal with the kinds of things that come a lot easier to his friends and his brother since they all like girls. This, coupled with Will likely having a giant ass crush on Mike, and that’s gotta be so, so scary. I mean honestly, he is 14 at this point. He’s well into puberty. We all know the stuff that comes along with sexual development at that age. All of those things that Mike and Lucas and Dustin are feeling, Will is feeling them too, he just doesn’t want to acknowledge it because he’s not feeling those things for girls.

I really hope that Will is shown to come to terms with all of this in s3. It’s so important for people to see, especially for a show with such a wide reach like Stranger Things.