#parallels. highkey.

[rosae-sloth]

Aku & Dazai first meeting/recruitment: short story 'A Heartless Dog' by Asagiri Kafka

Page 01 & 02

(other pages under read-more)

[ingravinoveritas]

| Michael as Miles Maitland in Bright Young Things, 2003 vs. Michael talking about David on The Assembly, 2024.

[reallyhardy]

maxlucy... we're a step ahead of finnrey actually because they did actually get to kiss in the first season so the idea of them as a romance is already locked down and shown on screen. i hope to see more!!!

[empty-blog-for-lurking]

so, lance and veronica like kuron- i think thats very fucking cool for multiple reasons- but does that extend to other members of their family? i think it would be funny if they just decided to adopt this weird fucked up guy into the family<3 though knowing your au, i have a feeling things arent that simple in this situation....

Honestly that is a good question, cause i didnt even factor in Lance's other family members. My instinct is, "obviously yeah Lance's family love strays, they'll see Kuron's pathetic little meow meow ass and bring out the adoption papers." However given the entire family is already a bit fucked up right now, i dont think that would happen immediately and also i have like 3 options.

1.Veronica doesnt say shit and is a lying liar who lies- pretty much everyone here is bad at communication and to be fair this is like a very weird ass situation to even process let alone explain, so when Veronica gets a call from her mom, she thinks back to when Lance was missing and everyone was having a really hard time and than the Galra came and then they were having even more bad time and Lance comes back and war ends and i think Lance and atleast his parents move to Altea¹ and while she wasnt around much things were fine? She guesses? And then Lance runs away and they were all having a bad time again and Christ alive Lance their parents are in their 60's their hearts cant take this anymore.

Anyway Vero remembers all this and she hears her mom asking if she found anything on Lance and she goes, "yyyuuupp in fact i actually found Lance! He's umm.....he's sleeping right now! Yup! He's definately fine! That is right! He just needs a little space and was uhhhh.....helping out a friend, he will definately call you if- When he wakes up!!! I will tell him to call you back, we are going to have a long chat anyway! Dont worry mom! He's ok :)!!!"

She'll definately tell them!! Eventually! The time is just isnt right yet!! The fact she is ready to full on "Weekend at Bernie's" this shit doesnt mean anything!! She'll figure it all out and then Lance will wake up and she'll fucking kick his ass for doing this and everything will go back to being normal!!! This will not come back to bite her in the ass and her family is Not getting Suspicious at all!!!

In this scenario Lance's family never meet or even know about Kuron. In case they do eventually find out he'll kind of go overlooked cause 1) they just found out Lance is in a coma. 2) they just found out Lance has been in a coma for a long time. 3) they just found out that Veronica knew and she lied to them! 4) they just found out that Lance is uhhhh not doing Great. Supernaturally. Kind of makes it hard to pay attention to other major elephants in the room. (This could be where Kuron can stand up for Veronica and be like "look none of you are ok! Veronica isnt ok! Lance certainly wasnt ok! And things are not ok and they have changed irreversibly and all of you are hurt! And you know what that is ok! But we all have to acknowledge that hurt!" And something else super cheezy along the lines.)

2. Veronica tells her family only like half truth- in this Vero still trying to process the situation kinda just tells her family that Lance is in a coma but not about Kuron or magical shit. So to the family Kuron is Lance and Vero's weird friend who is really all over the place but ultimately a good friend who is just trying to help and be supportive and is kind young man with good head on his shoulders 😊 (they do think he should stop with his self destructive habits like they arent going to judge but smoking isnt good for you :/). The option where Kuron is adopted the fastest. Meanwhile Kuron is kind of being crushed by guilt. Like logically he understands that Lance's condition isnt his (Kuron's) fault, but at the end Lance did drop into coma to bring him back so he does feel a bit responsible. So it's just Kuron screaming internally.

Obviously the family isnt doing great at all. But i also feel like few of them (maybe few of the siblings) saw something like this coming. It's either because Lance was very clearly not ok before he ran away and also they have gotten just so used to this bullshit that they are just numbed to it. It doesnt make it any better but man just tough times for area family.

3. Veronica tells everything- Basically Vero and Kuron tells her family everything they know. Naturally family has mixed reaction towards it. Atleast few members arent surprised that Lance went and did this for a friend. One of them is really heartbroken and angry and most definately lashed out on Kuron and i think Kuron lashes back. There are those who are a bit uncomfortable but more because they really do not get the situation cause like what do you even do? Atleast one of them is also angry at Lance for repeatedly running off and pulling this stunt and doesnt he know what everyone is going through because of him? Just all around fucking mess everyone. It's tearing the family apart.

¹ Yeah i think Lance and his mom did move to Altea. I did actually watch the last ep just skipped to it and in the ending credits he seemed to be in Altea cause of fucking course he is. It's not like he spent the whole fucking show missing Earth or the fact that him being a normal human of Earth was a fundamental part of his narrative, nooooooo he is A-ok with moving to Altea and not even to help in rebuilding the universe but to be a fucking farmer and "tell Allura's stories" or some shit, cause yup that's all his character is! And i am Definately Fine with This! Yup! Definately! Now if you'll excuse me i am going to walk into the ocean

[pallases]

BITING BITING BITING BITING

[un-pearable]

Chen anon. So sorry abt all the Chen stuff but like thinking abt show Chen & Skylor meeting again like obvi “a bit” rocky at first since the last time she saw him was pre darklys and he did have a lot of time to get to know her. I think he wants to like her but is still mad she helped send their dad to Lego hell. Even if he didn’t like their dad that much. And why would you wanna go from top ranking in a cool evil organization to JUST owning a NOODLE business 🙄. But I think their first definitive bonding experience is when Chens having some trouble trying out a new recipe or smthin and she helps. They bond over the small stuff

do NOT apologize this is absolutely delightful i already adore skylor and i am always a proponent of wacky bratty sibling relationships. it’s good for them both <3

[glorysbox]

I would love to see a continuation of those bihan fics you have but after he's gotten his son. Like how would he act afterwards?

(pregnancy talk, bihan lowkey/highkey has mommy and daddy issues)

bihan loves you, in his own way.

i can see him having a "marriage" (for lack of a better term), essentially letting everyone know publicly and officially who you belong to. if you bother him enough, he'd probably give you a wedding—though small, most likely only having the people he trusted (like cyrax and sektor) and maybe some of the people you'd request like family or close close friends. you'd really have to convince him, though…

he'd definitely start kissing you more. he loves the feeling of your lips on his; finds himself seeking the warmth of your lips and body on his more than he'd like to admit. bihan would definitely be opening up to you (physically), allowing you to cling to him in private or acquiescing to your pleads to be in the room with him while he's doing paperwork or foreseeing future battles with his second in commands.

bi-han would be wanting to see you often, going as far as making you sleep in his quarters instead of your own. you're barely halfway through your pregnancy by the time he's ordered you to stay with him in bed. at first, i don't think he'd been to receptive to any cuddling. but if you complain enough, he'll give in.

he's protective; the grandmaster of the lin kuei does have many enemies after all. (really, they'd never be able to breach the temple of the lin kuei. he uses it as an excuse to be with you constantly and oversee you during pregnancy. he doesn't want to lose you like he'd lost his mother or his brother.)

when it comes to the labor + aftermath… he doesn't really leave your side, ever. he's there when you give birth. he insists on being the one to cut the umbilical cord (with a blade made of ice). in the meantime, all of his responsibilities are passed down to sektor and cyrax, leaving him with more than enough time to nag you about the way you handle his son. he's often telling you how to do what since he "cared for kuai liang while he was a child", which means he knows more than you. (he doesn't)

surprisingly enough… he's "sweet" with his son, especially as he gets older. i think bihan's father wasn't the best to him (which i believe is why he let him die and acted the way he did in mk1). knowing how it feels to be treated less than favorably by his father, he would never repeat the cycle onto his own child. this doesn't mean he'll allow his son to be soft, though. expect your son to go through a LOT of training in the future to be a formidable grandmaster himself.

your relationship with him definitely undergoes many changes, too. you used to consider him much higher than you, but as the years go on, you start to see him as more of an equal. he does the same, considering you his equal way earlier than you him. you're not allowed to call him grandmaster anymore, only "husband" or "bihan" (he will still pull the obey your grandmaster card on you to get what he wants, though)

and yes, bihan wants another son too. he wants his first son to have a brother as soon as possible (which strangely parallels his own life… he'd never admit it to anyone but you, but he finds himself missing his little brother at times.)

you're expected to be a good mother as well. he expects you to be like his mother—who he thinks did a great job at raising him. you'll have to be tough and no nonsense, and willing to discipline your children to teach them lessons at a young age. he'll definitely get on your ass if he finds you coddling his son far too much and making him "weak". if you have a daughter though… imagine his protectiveness times one trillion. seriously. she'll probably be just as spoiled as you are. and yes, you are spoiled. the members of the lin kuei basically treat you as an extension of bihan. and he always makes sure you get what you want.

he was comfortable having just you to defend and protect, knowing that his sons also could protect you… but with a daughter thrown in the mix, expect the both of you to never be let out of his sight. he would be soooo annoying about it!! god forbid he has to go somewhere without you—you're stuck listening to sektor ramble on and on about whatever silly scientific experiments while he babysits you and her.

you'd probably catch him more than a few times being uncharacteristically sweet to your daughter—especially if she resembles you or resembles his mother. he'd definitely soften up with her (not in front of anyone but your family, however.)

still, bihan is a cold man. literally and figuratively. don't expect him to talk much about his family life or his feelings. he does demand to know everything about yours, though...

[trashpandacraft]

@mor-and-more, this is for you. tumblr won't let me add video to reblogs and is being highkey uncooperative about this, so it's new post time.

many people who are fairly new to spinning are anxious about dropping their beautiful drop spindles.

first: honestly, you don't have to be. they're called drop spindles for a reason—because you drop them. it's going to drop sometimes; that's just the nature of the craft. it's ok. most of them are pretty sturdy.

second: if this is putting you off starting, try what i only half-jokingly call the no-drop method! it's pretty slow, so you're probably not going to want to do this forever, but you can use it to get to a place where you're comfortable enough that you're willing to try other things.

this is basically park and draft, but not a variation i've seen discussed much, so i made a video, featuring my cat, who really really really wants to help. there's a text version of this method after the video.

this is a no-audio situation (other than random background noise), so quick notes.

first and foremost, i'm holding the spindle between my feet, because that's what's comfortable for me and because i took this video around a tripod. there's no reason that you can't do this sitting on the sofa with the spindle between your knees, or with your legs crossed tailor-style and the spindle tucked into the fold of your knee, or whatever else makes sense for you.

the other thing is that i had to trim the video a little to fit on tumblr, which is why it ends abruptly. there are videos made by much more skilled videographers about how to do things like predraft, find the staple length, and draft while you spin, so i don't show any of that either (except incidentally), but if anyone's like 'no, i feel that having this from you, specifically, will make my life better,' let me know and i'll make another video. maybe without the cat. (maybe with more cat! who can say.)

text version, including some extra notes:

trap the spindle so it can't move, but you have easy access to it. (see list of suggested positions above.)

take your predrafted fibre and hook it onto your spindle. i like to basically fold a staple length in half and use that. once it's hooked, keep your hand there, holding the fibre so it stays folded around the spindle hook.

keeping the spindle trapped, twist it. you're just loosening your feet or knees or whatever enough that you can twist the stick.

twist will move into the fibre around the hook. hooray! your fibre is now attached to the spindle. twist a little more. keep pinching it at the top!

draft out a tiny bit more fibre, move your pinch up to the top of that, and let the twist move into the drafted fibre.

keep twisting, drafting out a little, letting the twist move up, and twisting some more. if the yarn looks like it's getting too loose, let the tension off of the yarn and keep twisting, then reapply the tension. a weird thing about twist is that it doesn't move well unless it's under tension. i really tried to show this in the video, and i failed. i will repeat attempts if anyone desires.

if you're not sure if you have enough twist, just move your fibre hand towards the spindle. if the yarn twists around itself, you're probably good. (i check that a lot in this video, because i never spin in this style recreationally, and i don't have good instincts for it.)

when you have an arm's length of yarn, wrap it onto your spindle. for the first time you do this, you'll want to hold the bottom of the yarn, right where it attaches to the hook, as well as the top of the yarn, right before you get to unspun fibre. just wrap it onto the shaft of the spindle. i sometimes find it useful to lay the first tiny bit of the yarn—again, the bit that was on the hook—parallel to the shaft, and then wrap over that, which helps make sure things are good and tight.

hook back onto the spindle and repeat.

you can do this as long as you want to, up to and including forever. it's sort of a hybrid style of spinning—not quite suspended spinning, not quite supported spinning, and not quite grasped/clasped spinning, but a collection of elements from all of them. you're making yarn! you're spinning!

that said, after you do this a few times, you may feel like it's a little unnecessarily fussy and slow. which is also totally fine. try loosening your grip on the spindle and giving it a little twirl. you don't have to let go entirely if you don't feel ready to, but loosen up enough that it'll spin, then clamp back down. you can see me doing this at the very end of the video. at this point, you're basically doing park and draft, and can go from there.

like i kinda implied at the start of this post, this is very far from the only way to approach learning to spin, but especially if you're anxious about damaging your spindle or (like me) hate unexpected noises, it might be one to consider.

[gyarucoded]

Loki s2 Ep 5 Review

this will be short but SPOILERS AHEAD

ok so this is basically the umbrella academy season 2 in one episode except nobody remembers shit (loki = five ?)

O.B IS SO PRECIOUS HELLO

casey being a fawking criminal on the time line is not what i was expecting, but what especially caught me off guard is that he is based on a real person 😭😭 helppp

b-15...just b-15 🥹

ofc mobius' son would want a snake, i can smell future scene of loki conjuring him one or something. also love how the other boy seems to be mischivious?? they are adorableee

btw yall i wouldn't really bother worrying if mobius is donald blake cuz let's not forget that in the sacred time line he was a scientist who used to date jane. thor merely used it as an alias, mobius is NOT thor alright

not loki getting nervous then checking if he looks good before approaching mobius 😭 my dude

was that a...confession? hmm

o.b is actually impressive

yess go off sylvie, call him out ! 💀

sylvie's arms 😵‍💫 good day to be a lesbian

what's up with the tension between o.b and casey..? this series is full of homosexuals /j

here we go with the parallels again, loki talking about why he wants the tva back (his friends/mobius) is highkey giving me deja vu about how mobius was dodging loki's questions about why he wouldn't leave the tva (i'm delusional)

not casey catching strays 😭 leave him alone damn

oh we are all getting infinity war flashbacks right.

ok this may be biased but why does it feel like loki is the current "main character" of the mcu? he's like the tony stark of phase 4-5. like, that power moment ???

and again, the soundtrack ‼️ we freakin love you natalie holt 🫶

[punkeropercyjackson]

Y'know what i love making lists apperantly so here's one clearing up the misconceptions re Pjo characters and lgbt stuff/gender

Percy is NOT masculine in any way PLEASE at least not in a white way(afropunk),literally every transfem in the fandom i've met which have been a loooooot think she's an egg and a very femme one specifically.They're the ones who use Percy's actual personality and story too so they're right and they should say it

Idc about your opinion on Percabeth,Annabeth is a wlw and it dosen't need to involve Percy in any way,especially if you make jokes about her being a girl like she's actually a binary guy(if you do chances are you've never had a girlfriend)

Thalia's not a pick me,she's a 90s/2000s girl raised who's mentally and physically 15.Also has as much tgirl swag as Percy does and is probs a lesbian(Goth transbian swag specifically and all That with Reyna)

Piper is even LESS of a pick me,it's right there in the text that femininity was ruined for Piper because of racist white girl bullies and didn't have native girl friends to help her reclaim it and Rick's a pussy for not making her a brown butch queen.Do not buy into the propaganda,it's made by trans girlypop Percy haters so they're overcompensating

Nico is nobody's [insert sexual word here],he's 15 and a touchestarved trauma gay who's scared to ask for affection.Also Percy's not his type personality wise,not physical apperance wise and this is what was said in the scene that launched the trope of Percy sexually harrasing him as 'comedy' by people who've never had boyfriends and also why they think Jason and Nico were queerbait

Speaking of Jason,pretty much any orientation makes perfect sense but he's definitely a tboy,Percy literally said he looks like Superman and he was raised by a wolfwoman

Leo is not ugly or an incel,people are just racist.Also he's the other side of Percy's coin Luke stans think he is

Luke's not gay-coded and i'd argue he comes off as a chaser more than anything consider all That with Percy,Annabeth,Thalia AND Silena who's a parallel to Patrochilles with Clarisse

Butch lesbian Clarisse is not stereotyping but playing off lesbian history amd reclamation because Rick highkey made her a caricature of fat butch lesbians

Fr*zel bad,Hazel's a lesbian who's never had a good dynamic with a guy that way

Also Frank is transmasc.His arc is about being emasculated for both being chinese-canadian and his personality on it's own but reclaiming manhood for himself and Mars' blessing is straight up called testosterone in the narration

Y'all can forget about Percy fucking those old men cause she described finding old dudes not handsome at least twice lol(and one of them was Luke LOL).She's 18 and as a 23 year old who wouldn't date an old person either cause like her i pull age appropriate people instead of being desperate

And not technically Pjo but Alex is textually a transfem who hates being theythemed.Rick's intentions are irrelevant,that's a common irl transfem thing and to erase that is transmisogyny

[lappel-du-vide83]

Heavy headcannon time with a bunch of songs because I realised that a lot of songs from marina work very well for both og cale and our cale WAIT LET ME COOK

the gremlin in my brain craves angst as sustenance so no happy songs :(

OK Are you Satisfied? For og!Cale like the beginning itself "am I supposed to be happy that my life was just about to change?" LIKE THE DEAL WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO JUST BANK ON SOME RANDOM GUY TO MAYBE SAVE THE WORLD MIGHT HIGHKEY DESTROY IT OR RUIN YOUR REPUTATION LIKE THAT DEAL WAS THE LAST POSSIBLE RESORT and the rest of song is just sad but like I said headcannon ANGST

a close parallel for our cale is Oh No! Cause it really highlights how I think of him? Like slacking or protecting his family comes first, his "success" and nothing else and like people calling him emotionless ( I was ready to throw HANDS at them btw) and the song vibes also kinda fit

SEVENTEEN for both but more og cale cause like the switch happened when he was around 18 right practically 17 (do you see the delusion) BUT my main thing here is "the rise of a king and the fall of a queen" BUCKLE UP IM INSERTING FEELINGS THAT WERE NEVER MENTIONED I think that og cale would be really happy for our cale like at least one person got a better life but I don't really think he enjoys his current life as much? AND WAIT BEFORE YOU KILL ME I don't think he's gonna live for a long time (constant danger, self sacrificial and the already numerous scars) he only has his niece which is a reincarnation of his mother but he can't tell her that?? And the teammates might be close but they all seem not as close as our og cale's family ( AND THERE ARE VERY COOL OG CALE TEAMMATES FICS OUT THERE THAT SHOW IT VERY DIFFERENTLY AND I LOVE THEM AND THE AUTHORS but ANGST) so there might just be teeniest bit of hopelessness because the whole reason he was fighting for is like gone and he knows his dimension is being taken care of so maybe he feels like living just to protect his teammates and pay back our cale. BUT I DIGRESS, it was the rise of our cale but the fall of og cale (have you seen that one tiktok of like no one cared about cale until it was krs! Cale it got me kicking screaming crying-) SO YES JUST THE GENERAL FEELING OF IM HAPPY ONE OF US IS GOING TO LIVE LONG WITH OUR FAMILY BECAUSE OUR CALE ALSO GETS REUNITED WITH CJS AND LSH (so happy for him tho) and I can do a whole spiel on like the very happy apathy I think I see in the side chapters that support this but this is too long so thanks for reading and feel free to suggest more songs or your own takes :)

[grapefiesta]

Tea merchant

lowkey highkey stupid reader n Hobie being random

A/N: Not proofread yet *thumbs up*

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You notice Hobie going quiet after awhile of talking. "What is it, Hobes?" You look up at your friend, who's currently skipping class while you have a free period. "Nothin', nothin', just thinking about this person who's really awesome, ya know?" Hobie says while looking up at the sky. "Oh really?" This intrigued you. You leaned closer. "Who is it? Is it Jessica from your parallel class? Or no! Is it Mandy???" "Woah woah woah, it’s not Mandy, she’s cool and all, but… I like people with a little bit more spice if you know what I’m sayin'?"

You lean back. "Huh.." You also looked up at the sky. "So, who is it?" "You wanna know so bad, don’t you?" He asks teasingly. "Well duh. Or else I wouldn’t be asking." Hobie laughs "The person is you, duh." You shove his shoulder lightly with a laugh. "Hobert Brown! You charmer!!" He laughs "Well it’s true, I like you."

"Nuh-uh," you slap his shoulder with a grin. He chuckles, then gently holds your hand. "Uh-huh" "Sorry man, I don’t like cockneys." You joked and removed your hand from his. He stops for a second before laughing. "Oi, you takin' the piss out of me accent mate?" "Might be a little bit." He laughs again. "Well, you better shut your gob because I’m sure your accent ain’t any better." "Oi! My accent's pretty normal for a Brit! You’re literally a cockney mate." He snorts. "And you ain’t?!" "How you gonna criticize my accent when yours is just awful?" Hobie asks with a smirk. "No way! mine is way more sophisticated! You've been livin' in east England forever." "Sophisticated? My foot! You sound like a bloody tea merchant, ya bloody twat." You were baffled. "A tea merchant?!" Hobie could swear that an imaginary tear fell from your eye when you closed them with a pained smile. "God damn it." You clenched your fist in a meme way. Hobie laughs, "Why the sour face, ya can’t 'andle the truth?" You opened your eyes and wiped an imaginary tear away again. "A tea merchant? That's foul Hobes… real foul." After a few seconds, Hobie burst out laughing, "I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but if the shoe fits." "It doesn't! the shoe is way, way, way too big!" You shake his shoulders.

He calms down but is still visibly laughing at the situation so much that it took a few tries to get the words out. "Tea merchant, bloody fantastic." You let out an exaggerated and dramatic cry when he praised his own joke. "Im quitting school. That's my true calling apparently. Got the accent n everything." “Well if you need help with getting your business off the ground I would be happy to help! You’ll get to the top, I’m sure” he says with a grin and a wink. "Nah, even us tea merchants don't like cockneys." "Ah, my heart!" He says, before bursting into laughter again. "That was brutal y/n, real brutal." He says while holding his chest and wheezing. "Now you've got the salad." You respond. "Don’t take this the wrong way, but what the hell does that mean." He says, his laughter still lingering. You shrug. "Dunno. Some German proverb I saw translated on the internet." "You really are an enigma sometimes y/n." You shrug again. "Enigma shmegigma, who cares?" "That’s true, I guess," Hobie says with a smile as he looks up at the sky. "Well y/n, you’ve managed to confuse me yet again, you wanna go do something or something?"

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[clotpolesonly]

Good-faith curious question: What is TRC actually about? It's highkey my personal Homestuck in that I've been seeing it on tumblr for years (my ex was a huge fan) and have not been able to glean anything about the plot from the fandom, but seeing how devoted the fandom is highkey makes me curious about it anyway.

your personal homestuck alkdfjhkj LMAO

TRC is kind of an urban fantasy-ish type deal! it's kind of interesting in that it feels, to me, like it incorporates a few different genre flavors in it, like i've seen it described as different characters all living in different genres 😂 there's coming of age, there's romance, there's adventure, there's gritty crime stuff, there's horror.

above all, there's found family. it's that high quality good shit kind of found family content.

the initial premise is that a teen girl -- Blue, who comes from a family of psychics but is not psychic herself -- sees the spirit of someone that is destined to die in the next year, and the only way she could have seen this (as a not psychic person) is that either he is her true love or she is going to kill him. and then she meets this boy irl and, against her better judgment, lets herself get drawn into his lifelong quest to find a fabled mythical king that supposedly will grant a favor to whoever finds him and wakes him from his slumber. sets up the long term goals of "find Glendower" and "hopefully Gansey won't die" and "true love?? maybe???"

it's got amazing complex real-feeling characters, really really great friendships, A+ slowburn romances both het and queer, cool af magic, complicated family dynamics that i loooooove (the sequel series The Dreamer Trilogy explores that further), religious symbolism and parallels out the wazoo (catholics, are you ok??), good explorations of trauma and mental health struggles, worldbuilding that is really interesting and cool as long as you don't put it under a microscope akljfghlkafdj

idk, man, it ain't perfect (nothing is) but it's got that Something™ about that makes people go a little feral 😂 it's just really good. makes you feel some shit.

don't look too closely at the timeline, though. that way lies madness.

[sisterofficerlucychen]

so i am highkey sad that the season finale is on tuesday because they're really expecting me to be out here without the rookie for four months????

but i am lowkey excited that once that episode airs, i can rewatch it again from start to finish and just marvel in all the little details and parallels knowing that chenford is canon and they were right last year when they said all roads lead to this  ♡

[jonsaslove]

I got my friend into watching GOT and she literally called Jonsa “the non-evil version of Cersei and Jaime.” I WON.

And mind you, she never read the books, she doesn’t have Tumblr, and knows nothing about the theories of Jonsa as a romantic relationship.

No, but the parallels between the 2 ships tho, THIS HAS ME SCREAMING. Highkey want to ask D&D what was the reason to have Jonsa sharing so many parallels with Jaime and Cersei, an actual canon [and endgame] couple, and on so many levels, if nothing was bound to happen. WHY ???

I love that anon!

In season 6 & 7 especially I feel like we get some great direct parallels between the two couples. The one that always sticks out to me is Sansa telling Jon:

“I loved them, I miss them but they made stupid mistakes and lost their heads for it.”

In speaking about Robb and their father.

Followed almost immediately by Cersei telling Jaime:

“They’re ashes now, and we’re still flesh and blood.”

In regards to Jaime criticizing her after the loss of their three children and father.

It is a simple yet effective way to show the audience how these two pairings are on different yet parallel journeys. Firstly you have Jaime’s relationship with Cersei is coming to a breaking point. They are no longer aligned on everything. Inversely Jon is coming to trust Sansa and learning to consider her an equal.

In both cases they are alone in the world, “surrounded by enemies”. The difference here is that Jon and Sansa will be rejoined by Bran and Arya while Jaime and Cersei will remain alone, they don’t reclaim their losses, their final child is never born.

It also shows how Sansa has learned from her losses and pleads with Jon to not make the same mistakes while Cersei represses hers. She doesn’t want to remember she wants to forget and live only for hersel and Jaime.

I love when outsiders come to the same conclusions we as Jonsas have lol. The parallels are all there for anyone who wants to look at them! And that’s just Jaime/Cersei. The Ned/Cat parallels, Robb/Talisa, Missandei/Grey Worm, just to name the main ones from the show, and all the other historical pairings from the book…it’s quite crazy when you start tallying them up!

Alas we didn’t get the payoff we deserved, and as you say WHAT WAS THE REASON?

[henrysglock]

Do You Have A Minute To Talk About Our Lord And Savior: Vecna?

Specifically, I'd like to talk about Jericho, Book of Revelation, Paradise Lost, and the concepts of God and Satan as "good" and "evil", and try to decode who is who.

Let's start with Jericho, and go from there. Like everything else in Stranger Things, though...we'll loop back to the beginning eventually.

Season 5: Jericho

We all know about the nuclear disaster aspect, I don't think I need to continue beating that particular dead horse. (There are plenty of topics to beat into the afterlife. I witnessed a public beating re: production errors just a few days ago.)

I want to talk biblical.

I want to talk about the Battle of Jericho.

The Battle of Jericho is an old testament tale from the Book of Joshua, and there are some basics of the battle you should know:

The Israelites, who have been wandering in the desert for 40 years, prepare to invade and take the City of Jericho from its king. Joshua sends ahead 2 spies in preparation.

These spies are housed and hidden by Rahab, a prostitute. The Israelites promise to spare her and her kin for this, so long as she marks her house with a red cord.

The River Jordan dries up, allowing Joshua and his people to cross. The King of Jericho orders the walls of the city to be closed (This is important to note: He closes the walls. This is not a Rifts parallel. God opens the walls.)

God commands that for 6 days the Israelites march about the walls of the City of Jericho, one time each day. Then, on the seventh day, they are to march around the city seven times.

On this seventh day, seven trumpets are to be blown by seven priests from behind the Ark of the Covenant.

The Israelites do as God commands, and the walls of Jericho fall under the sounding of the trumpets and the cheer of the Israelites.

The Israelites kill all of Jericho's citizens except Rahab and her kin, who are accepted into their community. All of this per God's command.

Wow, that's a lot of sevens, a lot of miracles, and a lot of death.

Here's the thing about Jericho: It lay in a rift valley, and the area is historically prone to both earthquakes and landslides, which have been noted to block the Jordan for days at a time. The fall of Jericho's walls...could very well have been the result seismic activity.

If we take the recounting at face value, God likely triggered an earthquake, which caused the walls to fall.

Sound familiar?

What's also interesting about the Battle of Jericho is that there is no mention of Satan, the Devil, anything of that sort. It's just God vs Jericho on behalf of the Israelites. It's Old Testament (OT), and it's projected to have happened in 1400-1500 BC, whereas the New Testament (NT) material is all AD. (Jesus's crucifixion happens in 33 AD, and Book of Revelation is set in 81-96 AD.)

We know the OT God is highkey obsessed with 2 main things: Truth and Oppression. This guy hates being lied to, having oaths broken, being betrayed/deceived/not obeyed, etc. He has very strict commandments for his followers, and he isn't keen on people going against them. He hates human oppressors and is avid about punishing them in massively brutal ways (see: the Israelites and the King/People of Jericho). OT God is a wrathful God, and from the point of view of some...an oppressor himself.

If the other thing didn't sound familiar...boy...doesn't that one sound familiar?

Not gonna tell you who it sounds similar to yet, though. We'll save that for later. No biases in my house.

Anyway, that's all well before Christ figures and Satan as a major definable force against God. In fact, there's almost no mention of Satan as a physical adversary in the OT. "Satan" in the OT literally translates to just...adversary/traitor. There's no mention of the devil as a single entity. We know there's a fallen angel, Lucifer, a serpent in the Garden of Eden, etc., but Satan as a single, definable, physical adversary who physically fights God? Not a thing yet.

This is very different from NT literature, where Satan/the Devil/the Antichrist/etc. appear as physical figures. This is especially apparent in Book of Revelation, in which Jesus and the heavenly forces literally fight the demonic forces with swords.

This is where it starts to get spicy.

Book of Revelation

I'm just going to give you all the Cliffs Notes, because John of Patmos was definitely tripping balls...and I don't want to subject you all to that:

John of Patmos has a vision of the apocalypse: It's Jesus's second coming and the decimation of the Earth. (This is debatable historically, but for the purposes of this section lets take it at face value.)

He writes of his visions to the 7 Churches of Asia: Ephesus: "He who overcomes is granted to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God" - They are praised for not harboring evil, exposing fake apostles, and being a symbol of perseverance and patience. Smyrna: "Those who are faithful until death will be given the crown of life. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second dead" - They are praised for being rich in faith in times of hardship, and is told not to fear imprisonment for holding fast against false prophets. Pergamum: "He who overcomes will be given the hidden manna to eat and a white stone with a secret name on it." - They are praised as a faithful martyr, but admonished for sexual immorality, holding false idols, and holding the doctrine of both Balaam and the Nicolaitans. Thyatria: "He who overcomes until the end will be given power over the nations in order to dash them to pieces with a rod of iron; he will also be given the morning star." - They are praised for works of love, service, faith, and patience, but admonished for allowing a prophetess to engage in sexual immorality and holding false idols. Sardis: "He who overcomes will be clothed in white garments, and his name will not be blotted out from the Book of Life; his name will also be confessed before the Father and his angels." - They are told to strengthen their works in order to achieve perfection before God. Philadelphia (yes, Philadelphia): "He who overcomes will be made a pillar in the temple of God having the name of God, the names of the City of God, "New Jerusalem", and the Son of God's new name" - They are praised for keeping God's name holy, and is reminded to hold fast to what they have. Laodicea: "He who overcomes will be granted the opportunity to sit with the Son of God on his throne" - They are admonished for being lukewarm in their faith, reminded to be zealous. They're told to buy "gold refined in fire", white garments, and to anoint their eyes in salve so they may see.

The throne of God appears, surrounded by 24 elders. All of this happens before the throne of God: - The 4 living beings appear: A lion, and ox, a man, and an eagle. They are akin to biblically accurate angels, each having 6 wings and a multitude of eyes. - A scroll with 7 seals is presented, and only the "Lion of the tribe of Judah, from the Root of David" can open it. - The "Lamb of God, with 7 eyes and 7 horns" accepts the scroll, and all present bow before it.

The seven seals are opened: First Seal: White horse, Conquering. Second Seal: Red horse, War. Third Seal: Black horse, Famine/Hunger. Fourth Seal: Pale horse, Death. Fifth Seal: The souls of the martyrs, dressed in white robes, are told to rest until the martyrdom of their brothers is complete. Sixth Seal: A great earthquake, wherein the the sun goes dark, the stars fall to earth, and the sky rolls back like a scroll. Mountains are moved, and the people of earth hide within them from the "wrath of the Lamb". 144,000 Hebrews are marked upon their foreheads with the seal of God and sealed within the caves. Seventh Seal: Introduces the 7 trumpets, one for each of 7 angels. An eighth angel devastates the Earth with heavenly fire just before the 7 trumpets begin.

The angelic trumpets are sounded: First Trumpet: Hail and fire and blood rain upon the Earth and burn up 1/3 of plant life. Second Trumpet: A "great, flaming mountain" falls from the sky and devastates 1/3 of the seas. Third Trumpet: Wormwood, a great star, falls from the heavens and poisons 1/3 of all freshwater sources. (Radiationgate!) Fourth Trumpet: 1/3 of the sun, moon, and stars are darkened, casting the world into total darkness for 1/3 of day and night. Fifth Trumpet: The First Woe. - A star falls from the sky, and is given the key to the bottomless abyss. - The abyss opens, and the smoke of the giant abyss blots out the sky. - Locusts, in the form of humans with lions' teeth, wings like hoofbeats, and iron breastplates come and kill any who are not marked with the seal of god on their forehead (the 144k Hebrews from the 12 tribes of Israel). *** Sixth Trumpet: The Second Woe. - The four angels bound in the Euphrates are released to prepare two million horsemen. These armies kill 1/3 of mankind. Seventh Trumpet: The Third Woe, in preparation for the 7 Bowls. - The temple of God, in heaven, opens. There is lightning, an earthquake, and hail.

*** ST4 leaves off at the asterisks

The 7 Spiritual Figures, leading up to the Third Woe:

A heavenly woman is pregnant with a male child.

A dragon pulls stars from the heavens and awaits the birth of the child so he can devour it: The Archangel Michael fights this dragon, as it is revealed to be the devil. The dragon is cast out of heaven, and becomes obsessed with waging war against all the woman's offspring.

A Beast with 7 heads, 10 horns, and the names of blasphemy on his heads emerges from the sea: The people of the world follow the Sea Beast in wonder, and the dragon empowers the beast for 42 months. The Sea Beast goes on to blaspheme God's name and wage war against the Saints. He is victorious.

The antichrist/false prophet appears from the Earth: He has 2 horns like a lamb but speaks like a dragon. He instructs the people of the Earth to build a likeness of the Sea Beast, and all who participate are marked with the Sign of the Beast: 666.

The "One like the Son of Man", aka Jesus, goes and defeats the beast with the 144k Hebrews bearing the seal of God.

Heaven opens, and the 7 Bowls Revelation begins with the sounding of the Third Woe/7th trumpet.

The 7 Bowls Revelation:

First Bowl: "A foul and malignant sore" afflicts the followers of the Beast (Radiationgate Sweep!)

Second Bowl: The seas turn to blood, and everything in it dies.

Third Bowl: All fresh water turns to blood.

Fourth Bowl: The sun scorches the Earth.

Fifth Bowl: Total darkness and great pain floods the beast's kingdom.

Sixth Bowl: The Euphrates dries up, and the forces of good and evil prepare to face off.

Seventh Bowl: Another earthquake and hailstorm essentially flatten the surface of the Earth.

Aftermath Vision:

The Whore of Babylon and the Scarlet Beast are shown to John, revealing their identities and fates as such.

New Babylon is destroyed, and is mourned by its people.

Marriage Supper of the Lamb: Not a whole lot to say here, people praise God (...for decimating the Earth? Okay whatever floats your goat--I mean boat I'm not a satanist hahahaha what???)

The Judgment of the Beasts, the Dragon, and the Dead:

The Beast and the Antichrist: Both are imprisoned in the Lake of Fire.

The Dragon: He is imprisoned the Bottomless Pit for 1,000 years.

The Resurrected Martyrs: All of them live with God in peace for those 1,000 years.

After the 1,000 year time jump: - Gog and Magog: The dragon is freed, and goes on to deceive the corners of the Earth once more. He gathers them for a final battle against the City of God, and is defeated by heavenly forces, at which time he is cast into the Lake of Fire alongside the Beast and the Antichrist. - The Final Judgment: Death and Hades, along with the wicked who followed the Devil, are also cast into the Lake of Fire. This is known as the Second Death, and ensures that no more suffering or death may afflict God's chosen people.

New Heaven and New Earth:

After the fighting ends, the City of God meets the Earth and it's essentially a neat and tidy "eternal life, no more suffering, we're all in paradise with God" ending. The City of God is said to be a paradise for the pure and strong of faith, and God lives among them.

Phew. That was a whole fucking trip.

Most of it is a) allegorical and highly debated based on that fact, and b) highly disputed as to its accuracy as part of the Bible...because it was written by a second generation disciple 60 years after Jesus's death. On top of that, it just doesn't fit with the vibe of the New Testament. New Testament is very much about love and forgiveness, not wrath. Wrath is very Old Testament, which I'll come back to re: Brenner and Vecna...and Lucifer.

I'm not gonna delve into allegory tonight because while the Duffers are picking and choosing bits of the story, they seem to be taking it all very literally. That is to say, this isn't a perfect one-to-one, but what is there? Tells a story.

Let's review:

The 7 Letters: Max writes letters, a total of 10. However, we only focus on 7 of them: Steve, Lucas, Dustin, Mike, El, Will, and Billy. We don't know what they say inside, however it is interesting that Billy is the final letter, akin then to Laodicea (see: Laodicea's entry), which is essentially about lukewarm faith, white robes, and anointed eyes. Max lies to Vecna in her confession, wavers on whether or not she actually wants to die, and ends up in a white hospital gown with healing eyes.

The Living Creatures: - Lion: El in Brenner's lab has a lion doll - Ox: We've got a handful of cow references, the most prominent being 010 and Brenner's dog drawing. Funny how it all seems to tie back, huh. - Man: "He was nothing but an ordinary, mediocre man." re: Brenner and opening the Rifts. - Eagle: "Fly right, Bald Eagle!" re: closing the Gate.

The 4 Horsemen: - Chrissy: First, Conquest, our intro to Vecna Visions. - Fred: Second, War, our intro into the conflict between Hellfire and the Basketball Team. - Patrick: Third, Famine, presented alongside Hopper in Russia before the feast in The Dive (which is actually presented very similarly to The Last Supper). - Max: Fourth, Death, the fourth gate. 22 dead, and the death toll continues to rise.

The Fifth Seal: The martyrs are told to rest until the martyring of their brothers is complete. Max is in her white hospital gown, indefinitely in a coma.

The Sixth Seal: One of many great earthquakes in BoR, after which 144k Hebrews are sealed in the caves. We see one earthquake in the UD in The Dive, where Nancy, Steve, Robin, and Eddie are trapped in the UD.

The Trumpets: - First Trumpet: 1/3 of plant life is killed...I'm looking at the rot in ST2 and the dead flowers in ST4. - Third Trumpet: Wormwood, a great star, falls from the sky in and poisons all fresh water. The spores. Radiationgate. - Fifth Trumpet: The abyss opens, and the smoke from it blots out the sky. Fucked up "locusts" emerge and begin killing. The rifts open, and the smoke blots out the sky. Demo-creatures will spill out into Hawkins and begin killing.

This is where we leave off at the end of ST4. We have not met Satan yet. So far? It's all God.

God did all this, up until this point, as the beginning of a final reckoning for the sinners who populated the Earth. None of that was Satan.

Things do start to get complicated here...because we do technically have a false prophet of sorts. Jason. Jason inspires the people of Hawkins to go against the forces of good in the name of defeating the tragedy befalling Hawkins. He is killed by the Rifts. He is literally killed by a fiery pit. (More on this later, because it's more complex than it seems.)

What's spicy about all this is that...the forces of good are not the religious ones, the "pure" ones, the "normal" ones. They're the freaks. The "satanic cult". They're Hellfire.

So...What is going on in the house of commons?

If Vecna is meant to be Satan, the Antichrist, whatever...why is he so obsessed with truth, penance, and giving himself the artificial moral high ground? Why does he wait for a confession, explicit or implicit, to kill? Why does he torment his victims while claiming to be relieving their suffering?

Because he's punishing the sinners, and he's doing so under the guise of saving them/freeing them from their suffering. Punishing sinners is God's job, not Satan's. Satan punishing sinners is a misconception. Satan is being punished as much as anyone else.

Vecna has the ultimate goal of decimating the human world and remaking it into a "beautiful" place where he and those like him will never suffer or die. Vecna punishes people he deems to be bad until he receives an acceptable confession of guilt, and then he soothes himself about it by killing them and "relieving their suffering".

All things considered:

Vecna, 001, The One, is New Testament God...and plot twist: he's a wrathful dick who hides behind artificial morality...just like Old Testament God.

Okay...so what about Henry? Brenner?

In true Creel form...this is my first loop backward in time. I'm going straight back to the very beginning of Satan's story.

Let's talk Lucifer. God's most beautiful angel. Smart, powerful, capable...and cast out of heaven in disgrace.

His crimes? Daring to believe he and the other angels were equal to God, and later instructing Eve that she didn't have to obey God either, alerting her to the fact that God was hiding things from her. God didn't like that, and sent Lucifer to Hell as punishment.

I'm very very much seeing Brenner and Henry here. Brenner, a wrathful, controlling OT God. He shocks those who disobey (Henry), those who lie or whom Brenner would have you perceive as a liar (Henry and 002), those who oppress (002)...all while being an oppressor and liar himself.

Brenner also quite literally calls himself Papa. Abba. The Almighty Father...and he punishes Henry repeatedly and brutally for being a) uncontrollable and b) spreading information Brenner would rather keep hidden.

He takes away Henry's status as 001, gives him a fake name...and makes him watch as he oppress the other angel--I mean numbers through the same torment he once suffered with no way of stopping it. Henry himself calls it Hell. No one ever said Hell was literally and physically separate from Heaven. Hell is very much a state of mind, and experience. Victor is "still very much in Hell"...but he's in Pennhurst. Henry is in Hell in Brenner's lab. Hell is not a physical place, it is inescapable torment and suffering.

We also get many Lucifer shots of Henry during the Rainbow Room fight...but when his hair is in the Henry style. Not the swept-back Brenner style.

Example:

So Henry is Lucifer, then, right? He's definitely not God then, right?

Yeah. Exactly. He's the fallen angel, and he's also the serpent in OT God's garden of Eden, offering knowledge and awareness to the ignorant Eleve--I mean Eve. He inspires Eve--I mean Eleven to question Papa, who has trapped her in ignorance in the Garden of E--I mean Hawkins National Lab.

But...didn't we just say he's God? Well...no. Not exactly. I said that Vecna is God.

Are we ready for the mindfuck?

Henry and Edward, and the frankly unnecessary swapping in NINA.

As per Em's analysis of The First Shadow...it's highly highly likely that Edward Creel is Vecna, not Henry.

This absolutely tracks with multiple facets:

The cyclical nature of Brenner and one of the Creel boys re: behavior and appearance.

The inexplicable hairstyle change between whichever Creel is in the store closet and...whichever Creel is in the Rainbow Room.

The inconsistency between Vecna's retelling of his childhood...and the expressions of the Creel boy on screen.

Ok, so we've got Brenner as OT God the Father, clearly...but we have Vecna as NT God, 001, The One. That's two Gods in one timeline, and we can't explain how they all seemingly ended up in the same timeline...unless Martin Brenner, Edward Creel, and Vecna are the same person at different times in different circumstances. At least one of the Creel boys is shown to have time travel abilities. Martin Brenner, Edward (?) Creel, and Vecna behave very similarly. All this to say...they're very much seeming like the same guy. There is one God, and you shall not have any other Gods but me...and all that jazz.

Henry said he spent years with 001 in the Rainbow Room. Did anyone ever stop to consider that he may have meant that literally? Did we ever consider that we swap between Henry-hairstyle and Brenner-hairstyle throughout the Rainbow Room fight because El is being fucked with by Brenner/Edward/Vecna...and by extension so are we?

Some supporting evidence here: Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) is very much about swapping places and experiences.

To Summarize: Brenner/Edward are God and Henry is Lucifer. Hellfire club is the satanic cult fighting God....while being the protagonists who believe they're fighting a dark wizard because his actions are horrible.

A clue into this narrative fuckery is Will's painting. The Party is depicated fighting a red dragon, which reeks of the red dragon of Satan. This is likely the represent the fact that they all see Vecna as a demon/monster/Satan figure, despite his God-coding. They see him as Henry...when he is not Henry at all. Vecna is very much God-coded, but he's represented as Satan in Will's painting because everyone sees his deeds as evil...and they are horrible and unjust...and they're all pinned on Henry, our Lucifer.

If there is a physical dragon, it's not going to be biblical...because the biblical dragon does not exist here. There is no satanic dragon, we just discussed that. The dragon is going to be something else, and I'm going to touch on that later.

I want to bring in another source to speak to Henry's probable innocence: Paradise Lost.

Paradise Lost (documentary series) was an inspiration for ST4 and Eddie/The Hellfire Club, specifically in that Eddie was misjudged specifically based on his interests and the way he looks.

Paradise Lost, the docuseries, is about Damien Echols as part of the West Memphis Three, who were falsely accused of brutally murdering and sexually mutilating 3 local boys. The West Memphis Three were Damien Echols, Jesse Misskelly, and Jason Baldwin.

Paradise Lost was originally a poem about Lucifer and the fall of Man. Lucifer is presented as the tragic yet villainous protagonist. His motivations remain very much "evil". I recognize this.

However, the Duffers didn't reference the poem. They referenced the docuseries, in which our "satanic cult" was never proved guilty due to lack of evidence. Just recently, in December of 2021, evidence that was supposedly destroyed in a fire was discovered to have been kept and catalogued by the West Memphis PD (source). The lawyers of the West Memphis 3 now believe all of them may be exonerated when the DNA testing comes back.

We know Eddie is caught up in the timeline fuckery, given the age change between his physical age (19, likely) and his poster age (17), and he also has the whole satanic ritual thing, which wasn't the truth at all. He was trying to stop the murders. This ties into Victor's "demon", who we believe to be Henry based on how ST4 is presented to us on the surface...but based on the surface view, Henry would be Vecna and through him...God. That makes the demon label categorically incorrect. Victor also says he heard the voice of an angel, which drew him out of his trance. Lucifer was originally an angel. However, in the other retelling, Victor is freed by Edward (?) passing out. There is no mention of music.

The thing here is...we have no evidence which conclusively links Henry Creel to any of these murders. We don't have concrete evidence of anything, other than the fact that the murders happened and that a Creel was involved somehow. We don't see the killing of the children. There's no footage of Alice's death. We're not even given the Creel boy's name in the second retelling. We have no conclusive evidence that that's Henry. We do, however, see a blood-splattered 001 in the lab...and a blood-free Henry (?).

Just like the West Memphis Three, there's no evidence of guilt for Henry in any of the murders. However, we also don't see a concrete Henry again after the blood-free shot. It's highly possible that Edward (?)/Vecna killed him. We simply don't know what happened to him.

Lucifer may already be dead by God's hand. We just don't know.

I'd also like to point out a couple of details re: Paradise Lost and Stranger Things:

Jesse Misskelly: Miss Kelley, who was supposedly seeing all of Vecna's victims, and who wears a pendant of a clock on a key. She also shows up on the board beside the Library-Progress poster, the Drama Club/Monologues flyer, and the Tutors Needed poster. There's no evidence that she did anything wrong, and it's likely she doesn't know any more than anyone else, but it's suspicious that she's so connected to Vecna/The Creels in both plot and imagery. It makes you question the depth of her involvement.

Jason Baldwin: Jason Carver. The guy I said was a false prophet, but who I also indicated is more complicated than he seems. The thing about Jason is that he is not knowingly a false prophet. If he had all the facts, he'd likely be siding with Hellfire. He's trying to fight what he perceives as the evil in Hawkins...based on limited information. Even so, he's raising an army to fight the evil, and Vecna is aware of that because it's happening in Hawkins. Jason is an adversary. Adverary. Satan. He believes it's Hellfire who is responsible, that Hellfire is in cahoots with Vecna, who is perceived as Satan. However, Hellfire is anti Vecna. When Jason blasphemes Vecna via Hellfire...he's unknowingly blaspheming God. Thus, the fiery pit. There was no true false prophet, just some guy who went mad with grief and didn't have all the necessary information and wanted to fight the evil that killed his girlfriend.

Along those lines, I also want to talk about Nancy's beast.

Nancy's beast should at least be representative of Satan, then, right? Not necessarily. The beast in Book of Revelation is highly symbolic, and is thought to be representative of the oppressive Roman Empire.

There's one player everyone seems to forget in Stranger Things: The US Military.

The military, who consume most of our national budget like a gaping maw, and who are currently coming after the person committing murders in Hawkins. The believe it's El, but the person they want is Vecna. It's exactly the same as Jason and Eddie. They're all unknowingly coming after God while chasing someone who isn't God. Like Hopper says in ST1...they're chasing the wrong kid.

All those with the sign of the beast will be condemned. Guns don't work on Demogorgons. The military, who bear symbols that designate them as such...signs of the beast if you will...will be decimated.

That isn't to say a beast won't appear. It very much may, but it's not actually linked to Henry/Lucifer. The beast is more likely representative of the US Military as an adversary of Vecna, just like the dragon in the painting is only representative of Vecna via narrative fuckery.

The dragon in the painting will not exist in relation to Vecna/God, hence it doesn't appear in Nancy's vision. The military does exist as an adversary to Vecna/God, hence the beast appears in Nancy's vision.

Adversary. Satan.

In true Creel fashion, it's time to loop back to the very beginning of this post.

Jericho. The working title of ST5. What did I say about the Battle of Jericho?

There was no Devil. Lucifer exists vaguely, somewhere offscreen. We don't know where he is. Satan, though, simply translates to adversary.

It was just God, an earthquake, and Jericho.

There is no "Evil Devil" in Stranger Things' rendition of the Book of Revelation. Henry may exist, but he also may have been dead before the plot even began. We don't know where he is. Our figures of Satan are just a collection of adversaries against Vecna.

It's just Vecna, an earthquake, and Hawkins.

Right?

Well. We've missed a couple figures here, haven't we?

Jesus, the Archangel Michael, and the Holy Spirit.

Will Byers (Guillermo Maldonado?) and Mike Wheeler...and the Shadow.

This is where we come back to the tone of the Book of Revelation in comparison to the tone of the New Testament.

The Book of Revelation is very out of place in comparison to Jesus' teachings of love, peace, and forgiveness. God goes ham in Book of Revelation, to the point of frankly unnecessary pain, harm, and cruelty. So why would Jesus, Mr. "Loves Saves All", get involved in that? Why would Archangel Michael, "healer of the sick and champion of goodness", get caught up in that?

Logically, they shouldn't. Unnecessary cruelty goes against everything they seem to advocate for.

Everything Vecna does goes against everything Will and Mike stand for. Byler won't have a villain arc. Byler will not join Vecna. Jesus is not going to join God, here...and neither will Archangel Michael.

Archangel Michael fights Satan's red dragon, which we discussed as nothing but a narrative distortion of Vecna and Henry when present in Will's painting.

However, the painting is not biblical. Will didn't literally paint Mike fighting the devil. It's DnD. That dragon is likely Tiamat, the evil mother of all dragons. She is very similar in personality to the Whore of Babylon, who rides upon Satan's red dragon, and who reeks of Virginia...and by extension Karen.

Mike is fighting the mommy issues dragon. He's fighting the physical manifestation of his neglectful relationship with his mother, and Will is going to be be his side to help him.

Classic Byler W.

Finally...The Shadow, our Holy Spirit.

I'd like to call attention to some wording surrounding the Holy Spirit and the Shadow especially in relation to Jesus.

Luke 4:1: Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness.

Matthew 10:20: For it is not you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

John 16:5-7: Holy Spirit cannot come to help you until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit to you.

Acts 2:1-4: Suddenly a sound came from heaven. It was like a strong wind blowing...The flames separated and settled on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. 

In ST2, Will is possessed by the Shadow via Vecna. One might say he is full of the Shadow. When Will first sees the Shadow in one of his visions, there is a strong wind. He becomes more and more replaced by Vecna/the Shadow as time goes on. Vecna speaks through Will. Joyce asks "What happens when my boy is gone?"

In ST3, once Billy is all but gone, when Vecna can truly speak though him, he begins to send the Shadow to others. They were filled with the Shadow.

Then, in ST4, we see the Shadow in Russia. When asked about the freed/revived demodogs, the Russians say the Shadow "went into them". They were filled with the Shadow.

Are we convinced yet? Do we need more? How about this:

The Holy Spirit acts at God's command; it is an agent of divine action.

The Shadow acts at Vecna's command; it is an agent of his action.

All this, all these hundreds of words to say a few things:

In Stranger Things, Jericho = Book of Revelation.

There is no "Evil Devil" figure in Stranger Things. God is the bad guy.

Vecna is God, and so is Brenner.

Vecna is most likely Edward Creel.

Via the canonical time-travel powers of at least one Creel boy, Edward Creel and Martin Brenner are likely the same person.

Henry Creel is Lucifer.

Henry Creel is also innocent.

We don't know if Henry's alive or not, and if he is alive we don't know where he is.

Mike's dragon is most likely Tiamat, the DnD Mommy Issues Dragon.

The Duffers ship Jesus and Archangel Michael. Deadass.

A few interesting but ultimately unnecessary details below the cut:

In 1984, the same year ST2 is set in, Depeche Mode released Blasphemous Rumors. It's a song about the perceived cruelty of God. In it, a girl attempts suicide and fails. She finds new life in the church, only to be struck by a car and killed. The chorus goes: "I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors, but I think that God's got a sick sense of humor // and when I die, I expect to find Him laughing."

U2 released Joshua Tree in 1987, the year ST5 is supposedly going to be set in and/or skip. It was immensely popular and jam-packed with biblical references. The Mormons (Suzie!) named the physical Joshua Tree is named after biblical Joshua...the same Joshua from the Battle of Jericho. Here's some more about The Joshua Tree:

Book of Revelation is a wartime piece. It's highly debated as to whether it's an actual vision, or if it's just John of Patmos, a second-generation disciple embittered by Jesus' failure to return as promised to save his people from the Romans, writing a fix-it fic where God brutally kills everyone except John's people. Is it a vision? Is it God? Or is it just the vengeance-porn work of a traumatized second-generation disciple who feels abandoned? No one actually knows. Is Vecna literally God? Or is he just a traumatized, abused boy who wants vengeance on the society that harmed and abandoned him? No one actually knows.

Kronos, in Greek mythology, is the god of time. He's the father of the Greek gods, all of whom he tried to consume. He is equated to Father Time in modern folklore. Edward (?) Creel has time travel abilities...god of time...Father Time...Papa...Brenner...consuming the Greek gods...consuming the numbers...just something to chew on.

Henry's costuming seems to be modeled after altar boy robes, both as a child and as an adult. We all know about the rape scandals with altar boys in the Catholic church. The Pope, God's official mouthpiece to the world, let it happen. Priests, also referred to as Father (cough Papa cough) were involved in raping boys...and the Pope covered it up. God, essentially, let it happen. Both our God figures being rapists, specifically of children/boys, may be a commentary on this scandal.