#i want to study her in a lab

[pokilicious]

Guys...

I'm so happy! This never happened to me before and her E1 is so good! Now I just need her light cone and we're set! Super Break team here we go!!!

[baladric]

this one goes out to that one metalhead i went to college with, she became a tradwife in the most circuitous way it’s maybe ever been done and i think that’s a real head scratcher!

[voidedjuice]

A fun thing about Warfarin x Poncirus is that their relationship is long-distance most of the time:

I like to think, that when she's visiting Rhodes for a checkup, she'll let Warfy do whatever experiments on her, feed any mysterious new pillls & cemicals she's come up with, take sips out of her etc, but when her leave ends it Ends, and she simply walks out the door & goes back to her regular dayjob at construction & demolition in Siesta

[serenedash]

Yeah no I'm fine why (<- guy who is always 2 seconds away from exploding into a million pieces because of Kingdom Hearts Union Cross)

[criticalrolo]

more of you need to listen to worlds beyond number because do you even KNOW about my beloved wizard daughter Suvi. do you EVEN KNOW

[largemandrill]

I dunno man, seems like a pretty fair deal to me

[shroomsnail]

what is she doing!! ~~~~ why!!!

[infernaltenor]

been losing my mind reading hsr posts online again so you get a jade analysis 👍

yes i KNOW evil woman. we're not going down that path rn. i know shes morally dubious and all shades of suspicious and works for the fucking ipc. i KNOW.

i'm here because i believe she has been misattributed like crazy.

a) the aventurine relationship. we already know this one. any good analysis on them will tell you clearly that aventurine made both the bet and the deal. what happens after is between two adults. (and yes, i'll give points that jade is a manipulative bastard, but so is aventurine. he works for the same fucking company. they do the same assignments.) anyway, i'm not really in the mood to rehash jade and aventurine's misinterpreted relationship beyond this: aventurine made the choice to make a deal with jade and start working for the ipc. in fact he wanted to meet with diamond, but didn't, which is a fascinating little tidbit. i digress. it's easy to say "jade manipulated aventurine into working as a stoneheart" but reanalyzing the scene will make it clear that she distinctly both didn't manipulate him (into that, anyway), and made a direct deal with his gamble. honestly, they both have similar strategies. hey, i wonder if this will come up later 🤔

b) the topaz relationship. i'm sorry, but there is absolutely no way jade singlehandedly made sure topaz didn't see any atrocities committed by the ipc in her entire life. are you fucking insane? topaz grew up on an ipc controlled planet, likely surrounded by ipc propaganda the whole time. along with this, topaz has nine other colleagues in the stonehearts (eight if you don't count jade) and more than likely hundreds or thousands of coworkers. this cannot fall solely on jade's shoulders as to why topaz doesn't fucking know the scope of the ipc. this falls onto "topaz grew up on a planet controlled by them, and more importantly, a planet surviving by the ipc." you can even contrast this with aventurine, who grew up on a planet with ipc agents; but unlike topaz, aventurine's planet had a vastly different result, including the massacre of his people. both of these are facts that have very little to do with jade. her having introduced and directly hired topaz and aventurine into the stonehearts is a different fucking issue, don't go confusing them. you will not survive the winter. i will kill you. ok. that wasn't necessary. i apologize.

c) so why is jade the way that she is? well, i'm delving into theory territory here but i have two main strands. one, all of the stonehearts have similar stories, something i cannot confirm without more of them, but i am of the opinion that all of them distinctly are "something that they don't want to be." two, i think i know who jade was before she was jade. ok let's get into this.

the stonehearts being "something that they don't want to be." well, this is obvious with aventurine, as he is actively working for the ipc. there's a lot to be attributed with his self destruct personality and tendency to gamble everything ever, but i'm really not an aventurine fan so i'm not here to overanalyze him. plus, i'm confident it's been said before (side note: if you're interested in a decent aventurine analysis that looks at misinformation, i found this one pretty good). topaz is another pretty obvious idea, seen as everyone is confident she doesn't know the scope of the ipc's atrocities. i cannot fact check this but i vaguely remember her introductory event, so i'll concede that point. topaz distinctly doesn't know what she's getting into, meaning that i'm characterizing her as "a good person, naive, hasn't had her world shattered" or something along those lines. and now you ask the question: but tenor, what about jade? she CAN'T be like that, haven't you seen her manipulate the shit out of people?

well. now i give you who i think jade WAS. in jade's character stories, there's a jewelry merchant from a failing system who goes to the bonajade exchange. interestingly, jade isn't mentioned at all in her first character story, as it focuses on the merchant. even stranger, the deal ends with the jewelry merchant being contractually obligated to work for the ipc, for life (this section ends with "give your everything to the ipc" <- paraphrased, but still). essentially, for the hope that her system will be saved, the merchant gives her everything. the second story is where jade shows up. i believe the original owner of the bonajade exchange would have been diamond. i also believe that jade didn't originally have the snake. as jade only shows up in her second character story, it's my opinion that jade is that jewelry merchant. her system is, incidentally, destroyed, as it hadn't survived, something that is also mentioned in her character stories. this wouldn't matter if it didn't have something to do with her. another trait that i feel doesn't line up with popular interpretations is, well, her lightcone. "yet hope is priceless," being the name and the image/description describes her (implied) common visits/donations to an orphanage. she is actively making sure the orphanage stays afloat. jade distinctly makes deals with adults and, more importantly, gives them directly what the owe, yet doesn't discourage them from making deals with her. i believe she doesn't expand this to children, especially not the ones she's fucking donating to the orphanage for. more so, jade's lightcone name, "yet hope is priceless," makes no fucking sense with her character, someone who typically puts a price on everything. the only way it makes sense is if she had hope at one point or another. if she was the jewelry merchant, bargaining to save her home (this also lines up, imo, with jade's heavy focus on jewelry motifs. i believe she has that because she used to sell it; which would also make sense why she has "a planet" as a bracelet, though i'm of the opinion that that's a metaphor).

ok so how does that connect with the first point. weeeeeeeell, if we're going off of "jade is the jewelry merchant, and the jewelry merchant made a deal to work for the ipc to save her home system," this is very distinctly a deal that didn't work. i do think that jade inherited the bonajade exchange and the snake from someone else. i also think that jade originally had hopes similar to say, aventurine or topaz, when she joined. jade, in my opinion, is a character who joined originally to help people ("yet hope is priceless"), yet lost herself in her work, culminating in the manipulative bastard we see now. i don't think this end point was where she wanted to be. given the fact that, if this is true, all three stonehearts we've seen in game occupy similar stories, i wouldn't be surprised if this pattern keeps up. it's literally the classic "live long enough to see yourself become the villain." topaz and aventurine get so victimized in analyses that people do not take the time to compare them with jade, and yet all three are more similar than people want to admit.

ok well, that was a lot of theory writing. to tell you the truth, i think this is way more interesting than simply writing jade off as "completely evil woman," which i'm not sorry about. she's an interesting character! it's just that she owns her employment to the ipc in a vastly different way to topaz and aventurine, meaning that she's easier to look at as distinctly evil. not to mention, her theming being very "snake in the garden of eden." but i digress. this was a lot more than what i intended to write LMAO if you read this far i'm kissing you on the mouth or whatever.

[a-shadowedvales]

so… in the additional media of stranger things (specifically the comics i’m mentioning), it was initially brenner’s idea/plan to kill off the other test subjects because they weren’t performing as well as eleven was. it was his best solution because that way, all the resources, time, and money could instead be placed only to her. and i just…. sure henry is a fine character and the massacre makes a lot of sense to me, but i think i am once again gonna change up my canon to actually fit this potential narrative instead.

i genuinely think the comic canon of the lab and brenner is far more intriguing than the show. everything with 9/9.5, ricky, and francine. eleven being the only one who grew up completely in the lab. those other kids were either volunteers, well into their teens, or had some semblance of a home life. eleven was the only one practically moulded from the womb. and they all had such a range of interesting powers. i firmly stand with the idea that jane is the only one who can contact the void.

brenner’s entire point of view on the lab subjects changed the second he found out terry was pregnant. he discovered he could steal this baby and make her his own. there would be no convincing the child because it’s all she would have ever known. because of this, i would not put it past a man like brenner to kill the other subjects for the sake of the “greater good” in this case, eleven.

eleven’s gifts just continue thriving beyond his wildest expectations. brenner would never dare assume that having moulded her from the womb, she would still be able to grow into her own person, her own mind, and one day be able to see him for exactly who he was.

back before season four aired, it was obvious there were other test subjects because jane was 011. so there were at least ten kids before her. but i always liked the idea/assumed that she was the last experiment because she was the most successful. that they didn’t need anyone after her because she was fulfilling everything they set out for her to do. with flying colours.

i just think the whole rainbow room idea, pitting the kids against each other thing… been there, done that. boring and predictable. i think at this point my portrayal of her time in hawkins lab really stems from the complete isolation she endured. where having the rainbow room, although eleven was obviously the most isolated out of the kids, brings that sense of community and sister/brotherhood. albeit extremely warped and toxic. knowing that she wasn’t alone in that experience just. doesn’t sit well with me. i think it’s important to note that she was alone, physically and mentally. which is why kali is also so important to her growth. i thought a lot of the flashbacks of her time in the lab during season four was really boring, repetitive, and just very predictable. although peter becoming vecna was a surprise to me, and was a nice little twist, the idea of her having an ally on the inside was really interesting.

maybe they did get as far as they do in canon, peter ballad was telling the truth about everything, about some of the workers there being prisoners like him, and he really wanted to get her out and to safety. but before they can escape through the pipes, they’re caught. peter is shot on the spot, and eleven is put into the isolation room for a few days as punishment. in this timeline, henry would be vecna, but henry would not be peter ballad.

when eleven turned seven, and was already showing extreme promise, where the other children were average at best, brenner had the eight children killed. kali had already escaped. this was the main cause for peter to gain eleven’s trust and try to get her out. because if brenner could murder his “children” in cold blood, there’s no way eleven was safe even in spite of her power.

when eleven is allowed out of the isolation room, her testing becomes more rigorous in attempt to distance and make her forget about what she attempted to do with peter. brenner begins gaslighting her, saying that there was never a peter, that she must have been dreaming. eleven does ask “papa” about “mama”, given peter told her of the day terry broke in the lab, but brenner is convincing enough to make eleven believe it was all in her head. say she is around eight years old, meaning the same timeline of season fours canon flashbacks.

i still do wanna keep the henry creel canon, and keep him as 001. brenner didn’t have him killed alongside the other test subjects, because who knows, one day he could become an even better asset than 011. brenner definitely wants to be able to control henry, but keeps the chip in him because, for the moment, doesn’t know how. killing him would be too big of a loss.

when eleven is ten years old, henry’s concealed powers break free and he manages to get the chip out himself, and unleashes hell onto hawkins lab. he almost kills brenner by snapping his bones, but eleven manages to stop him. her extreme abilities are unleashed, and she sends henry to the upside down. she does fall into a coma due to the extremity of the situation, but she does not forget what happened. brenner believes she’s the perfect weapon as she stepped in to save him without a second thought, was able to defeat henry, and opened a door to something he never thought possible. eleven is rewarded for her efforts. although she remembers the entire battle / confrontation, her memories regarding the portal are very hazy.

brenner decides not to focus on the portal straight away, instead gets her training harder and harder to see what else she can accomplish. also loved the idea of brenner sending her into the void to “look for him” so that will definitely be kept.

by the time she escapes and season one begins, her knowledge of the upside down is basically what we see in canon. because she passed out the moment after she sent henry away, she was once again gaslighted into believing she merely threw him through the glass and killed him. for two years she believed this, until making contact with the demogorgan, and those memories return completely.

due to her saving brenner’s life, (it was pure instinct. she happened to be there. saw her “papa” hurt and knew she had to make him better.) brenner constantly thanks her. but in a very condescending way. tells her: “you saved me so i can continue saving you.” aka, harness your abilities and see what else i can achieve from you. despite the fact that she saved his life, these words and phrases make her feel indebted to him. that she owes him something further.

i don't realistically see her thriving with her speech improvement until she's well into her twenties at least. her slowed development, sensory and social deprivation causes a serious delay in language. surrounded by other children she would have overheard conversations, some would have spoken to her. her conveniently forgetting her upbringing pre the battle with henry just isn't good enough for me anymore. it makes more sense for her to have been raised alone.

it also helps indicate why she gravitated towards the boys when they found her in the woods. they would have been the first people her age she ever remembered seeing. as far as she knew, during the lab there was no one like her. everyone was much older, they were adults-- although she stayed with benny, i'm not sure if she would have stuck around very long. where she followed the boys home without thought.

also it's important to note that after time, jane does understand that peter ballad was a real person, and was truly the first person (aside from terry) who wanted the best for her. when she remembers him, knows that brenner was lying, she deals with immense guilt regarding his death. he was shot right in front of her eyes, because he was trying to help her. this is another catalyst as to why after season two, jane never refers to brenner as papa. she does not give him that sort of credit.

[martritzvonmercie]

good morning and good luck to all the college gay people in my phone finishing up this semester 🙌

[shadowedvales]

jane has a very warped, toxic relationship with the void, which stems particularly from her time with her friends, in the early days, opposed to her time in hawkins lab. she expects punishment in the lab for noncompliance, which is why she does everything papa asks of her, in fear for what may happen if she refuses. she soon comes to believe that her only use in the party is to find will, or they'll “send her back to pennhurst or wherever she comes from.” it’s a different kind of punishment, but the pressure to comply is the same. jane gets her first taste of freedom in season one, but still spends it imprisoned and in a role where so much of her is demanded physically and mentally. the scene especially in episode seven, when they're all around joyce's dining table, talking about her like she's a machine, proves this tenfold. at this point, she is off in the bathroom, looking at herself in the mirror, crying because she can't help these people. a twelve year old girl who has never been outside in her life, crying because she's letting these strangers down… and they're doing absolutely nothing to help her along with it. to make her feel secure and safe.

mike: but she's drained. dustin: like a bad battery. joyce: well, how do we make her better? mike: we don't. we just have to wait and try again. nancy: well, how long?!

it's all well and good when joyce tells her that she's right there for her when jane enters the void, tells her she is brave. but they are all, for the most part, willing to sacrifice her, her feelings, her safety, to get will back. they don't know the void, and while jane is physically there with them, they have no idea what it could do to her. i understand joyce is his mum, of course she'll stop at nothing until will is returned, but it doesn't justify the way jane is treated and spoken about like she isn't even there. joyce should be on her hands and knees thanking jane for traumatising herself to find her son. and hopper literally selling her out to the hawkins lab people, putting her back in brenner's custody don't even get me startedddd. like she isn't a little girl, like she matters less than will does. she is basically treated like a metal detector for the better part of the season. [like a dog. like a makeshift girlfriend. she's placed into so many different roles and uses by these people, and is never given a chance to determine what she may want.] i understand that no time could really be wasted in terms of finding will, but if even one of them had asked her how she felt, if she needed to take a break, it would have made all the difference. she would have pushed herself regardless, but at least it would have shown that not only will mattered.

but no one did ask. and it leaves jane feeling like it's okay to sacrifice herself to the void; it leaves her treating the void like it's less dangerous, less unknown than it really is. they are her friends, she loves these people, so if they say it’s fine for her to do this, then she believes it, and never stops believing it. this ties in so nicely to the debate between max and mike regarding her powers in season three: mike thinking jane should limit herself to keep safe, and max arguing that it's up to jane, that she knows her own limits. where in reality, she doesn't know any limits, because she was never taught to have them. [i don't specifically blame the boy's in this instance, because they were just kids in season one, but joyce and hopper, even nancy and jonathan, could've stepped up.] if anyone told her back then, when she was even more impressionable than she is now, that if she was scared, if she didn't want to do it, she didn't have to. she still would have, of course, but then and there it would have instilled the fact that she had choices. so when mike proclaims that it's not good for her to be in there for that long, jane thinks nothing of it, because she should have been told these things three years prior. it leaves her using the void like it's no big deal, never taking a minute to consider how it could be affecting her body and mind.

[good-beans]

(Milgram self-insert oc masterpost hehe)

Name: For the sake of posting online I’ll call her Rose!

Color: #E7355B [the pink in the art]

Age: I guess she’d be 20 given when Milgram started huh.

Status: Milgram Staff, Machine Technician

Symbols/imagery: ballet/musical theater, science experiments

Song genre: very similar to Mahiru's, something upbeat and extra pop-y

Tentatively she's number 011? She's not really prisoner but she's also not free to come and go, so I'm not actually sure if she'd get a number (Edit: I've decided she'll actually be 012. Staff is given the 01X range, and even though Es doesn't actively have a number they'd be staff member 011, making her 012.)

Story: Since the project is supposed to be realistic/present day, the mv machine would be brand new and unpredictable tech, so they’d want someone keeping up on maintenance and making sure the brain-invasive process won’t cause any harm to the prisoners. Rose was studying abroad in Japan working on some cool neuroscience tech (irl I know nothing about technology or brains but shh) and she stumbled upon some secret tech/plans from Milgram. Long story short, she was dragged into the experiment to make sure things ran smoothly.

Writer's Reasoning: She’s really fun for me to play around with, as she allows me to work with a character who has a tiny bit of pull over Es’ mindset in conversation but not the final decision (aka mirroring the voting system), and someone who is simultaneously trapped in the prison but has a reason to see all the canon content.* I really enjoy the character interactions and dynamics Milgram has set up so far, so it’s been super fun seeing how things change for better and worse when someone not quite aligned with either Milgram/the prisoners is thrown into the mix!

*As much as I love dramatic irony in fiction, it would drive me crazy if I knew every detail of of the vds/mvs but Rose didn't – and every single Milgram character is The Worst Communicator Ever so I couldn’t justify that she’d hear it secondhand from them...

Story roles:

She’s a bit conflicted -- she’s officially Milgram staff and knows she should remain neutral on the prisoners, since she won’t be allowed to interfere with the process/executions. At the same time, her job description is literally “make sure the machine doesn't hurt them and everyone's safe :)” and she's way too emotional to avoid getting hopelessly attached to everyone 😅

I really enjoy the theory that the machine extracts videos based off of priming, so one of Rose’s duties involves listening in on the interrogation and making sure there’s been enough material discussed/not too much time has passed overall (hence the ringing of the bell happening at different lengths for each vd -- That's her ringing it :3). She then watches the mvs along with Es to make sure there are no machine glitches, and know how to calibrate it better for next time.

(IEdit: I've since decided to add in official trial mvs, but before when I wasn't ready to tackle that:) She has to run some tests on the machine to make sure things are calibrated correctly, so she'd extract little things here and there. It gives me the opportunity to think up lyric snippets and recurring symbols for her without worrying about full encompassing music videos.

I'm not afraid to admit she can fall into Mary Sue territory every so often by being everyone's friend, because it's less about "aw everyone likes her" and more about "canon is too painful rn and I need a fix-it tool to take care of these guys and give them hugs and tell them someone forgives them and cares about them and unfortunately these characters wouldn't let anyone less than a friend do that." Rest assured she's definitely not perfect and will fuck everything up on occasion :3

Miscellaneous: Whenever I play around with normal au ideas she's still working on the machine (but in a public, more ethical setting), and she's Mahiru's roommate :) Her character isn't super focused on love, but if I had to pick a cover song it'd be Stickybug II. It's very much my vibe, the lyrics fit well enough (better than most songs, at least lol) and it's one of my favorites out of my limited knowledge of unchosen Deco songs! (Edit, I've actually given her non-deco cover songs hehe)

So yeah, I hope she's not too boring without a cool crime to decipher, but I wanted to share since I was really proud of her! It took a bit of tinkering to find a way to fit her into a perfect secret-third-thing role that runs very smoothly with all of canon, so I was very excited!

[thegreatcrowdragon]

This is the best update ever I’m getting a two for one?? Shadow Milk AND Matcha you feed me too well

[yerekanescio]

It IS funny that my last liveblog was like the middle of Turnabout Goodbyes and now i’m on Turnabout Big Top. sorry i only liveblog my experience on discord with two people 😔 if you want to ask me anything ever go ahead I have much to talk about

[quemirabobo]

I just realized that I've been putting too much on my plate lately and instead of getting some of that shit done all I end up with is feeling sick every week and things keep accumulating and I stress myself ten times more and I end up doing nothing, reading something to distract myself of the fucking titanic quest I put my ass on

[runthepockets]

Candace Owens saying "this is weird and gay" is going to be my echolalia for the next week.