#possibly will continue this later

[darkmuffinstudios]

awful news gamers /lh

[chirpsythismorning]

Welcome to a series I'm calling:

Yes, that scene did foreshadow Mike's monologue was disingenuous

Because you'd be surprised how many times the show (even prior to s4) has poked fun at Mike's monologue in the most random ways.

The Bingham's Beautiful Performance

First we have Suzie's sister on the floor, bedazzled and sporting a veil all while her brother is filming. This is basically the kids attempting to present a tale of a romance ending in gruesome tragedy.

Our bride here is El. The edition of the veil could be a nod to the loud majority's series long assumption that Mike and El are going to end the show together, preferably getting married.

Unfortunately, this is the closest thing they'll ever get to it, with the acknowledgement of that possibility in and of itself being mocked.

This next shot makes the likelihood that these scenes are connected pretty much indisputable, that being the edition of the record player behind the bride's head.

The only reason they made a point of having Will push the radio out of El's way, was to subtly connect this moment in Surfer boy to the beautiful performance we saw at the Bingham's only a few episodes prior (scenes that are widely known to be filled with foreshadowing for the season's ending).

A few bylers have already talked about these parallels, so this isn't new knowledge per say. But I do know some have dropped it altogether as possible foreshadowing for whatever reason, while most fans outside of the byler fandom insist it only foreshadowed Eddie's death. However, I think there are too many details that equally, if not more connect it to Mike's monologue than to Eddie's death.

Some fans have also noticed how Will was missing in quite a few shots at the Bingham's, which is interesting, but not all that surprising. Especially in this case...

Will. Will is the director

Director Will: GET THAT RADIO OUT OF MY SHOT!

Will directed the monologue when he used his feelings to inspire Mike, with the reminder of it (literally in the moment) directing Mike to confess to El, just like Suzie's brother directed that beautiful performance. Both performances convincingly left its audience thinking that the performers feelings in that moment were believable and...

genuine...

[azaracyy]

a lesson on good karma digimon survive week 2024 day 4: supporting characters

[jasontoddenthusiastt]

The compelling thing about Jason as a character is that I never doubted that he cared about the world just because there weren’t panels of him being overly zealous about “restorative community care”

I’m not coming after anyone who wants to see that kind of stuff, but I do think seeking | that | as confirmation that Jason cares about the world is pretty narrow

[tj-crochets]

Hey y'all! It's weird question time again! So that doctor I mentioned before that I wanted to make a dog plushie for because he has improved my quality of life so much* (and also inexplicably reminds me of like a greyhound or a borzoi) is my endocrinologist And, as my endocrinologist, he recommended back in December that I go see a rheumatologist, because he thinks I might have rheumatoid arthritis**. The staff at his office have been trying to get a rheumatologist for four months now. I know that, because yesterday I got a call from the rheumatologist's office and the nurse I spoke to said "Your doctor's office has been very...persistent about getting you this appointment" So now I kinda want to get something for the whole office? But idk what I could get them or make them. Like, in non-medical contexts I'd make cookies or brownies for a group, but I can't bring cookies to a doctor's office. I mean, I guess I could, but if I were them I would definitely not eat them, and I run the risk of allergy-ing a fellow patient. Is there like a gift basket or gift card or thank you card or something you can recommend?

*I mean he maybe should have found a diagnosis before offering me steroids about it but the low dose steroids have made such a HUGE difference in my quality of life I am thrilled with Tennessee's weird (to me, with my experience in California) medical practices **I don't think I have enough joint pain for it to be rheumatoid arthritis, but he's like the fourth doctor to tell me it's weird that when I got hives they usually started on joints, so maybe I'm wrong? I have the weird version of enough medical things that at this point I would not be surprised if I had Weird Rheumatoid Arthritis.

[jenivi]

the little flying pearl robot is so cute!! i love her lil crown, the little flaps that look like her tentacles, and the eyes and eyebrows!! im betting marina made it for her💗 its like their child

marina, in this trailer, doesnt seem to be speaking through the same mic with pearl like octo expansion. so if were looking at it in a positive-nothing-bad-happened-to-marina light, marina has her own robot that isnt shown in the trailer. but my main guess is that something happened to marina like being sucked in like dedf1sh and lost within wherever they are

[sage-is-in-fact-very-tired]

"D-Dads right, there isn't- there isn't a lot of time. I need to- I need to start. I need to start figuring stuff out." Icarus Morningstar says, nearly three months ago. 3 months. "There isn't a lot of time," three months is a lot of time, Icarus. Not a lot of time implies a few weeks at most - not *12*

[blonde-and-cat-suc]

Do you know if it's still possible to find captain-konami-code's youtube videos still or if they are truly gone forever?

Ah… The good old days where we had the Captain making quality content… At the moment I’m not sure where to find these videos. But you know what? I’ll do my homework and figure out if I can salvage anything from Captain’s old channel. I’ll share them here (or link them in a Google Doc).

If anyone has any information or files from captain-konami-code… Let’s make an archive this year!

[doctahpants]

Been thinking about Thirteen and Missy, thought I'd share my thoughts here too.

So, consider a Missy who, after the events of The Doctor Falls, actually makes it back to the Doctor. They travel together for a while. And maybe to begin with she's actually really trying hard to do things the Doctor's way - overcompensating even for what Simm!Master did, and she really does appear to have changed. The Doctor can't help herself, of course, she has hope and starts to really believe it. Maybe even Missy does too. But she can't keep it up, of course she can't, and she backslides massively and the Doctor is hearts-broken.

Idk man, I just have so many thoughts. Maybe one day I'll do something with it! And go further with exploring that wonderful line of "Your version of good is not absolute. It's vain, arrogant and sentimental" which I wish they'd done more with tbh

[ragnarlothcat]

Longish, sort of personal and spoilery post about my fic knows best (daddy kink fic) below!

So I posted a long overdue update to my daddy kink fic a couple days ago and the people commenting have been kind and funny and encouraging (I love this community so much) but it’s gotten me thinking about family dynamics and I want to defend (or at least muse about) my idiots (i.e. Obi-Wan and Anakin) a little bit. Even though they are a) imaginary and therefore not in need of my defence and b) acting completely ridiculous, by my design.

If I can speak personally for a second (sorry) and probably too revealingly: my family isn’t very close. There’s no particular bad blood or anything but my friends often insist that they must talk to their parents at least once a week or they regularly hang out with their siblings outside of family functions. Meanwhile my family will all cheerfully leave the country without informing the others and we’ll only find out when someone posts a picture or mentions a hereto unheard-of trip to Belize or something.

I remember when I was fifteen or so my dad invited another family over for dinner and at several points the teenage eldest son put his little sister on his lap and tickled her. I approached my dad after they left and basically asked him if we were just witness to some sort of sex crime. He got very huffy and said that what we saw was perfectly normal and that I shouldn’t judge other families for how they show affection. Which, fair, but also his family was the only one I’d ever really known—the values he’d instilled in me and the behaviour he’d modelled were my only baseline.

To be clear: I am not complaining about the comments I’ve been getting even a little bit. I’ve been loving them all and agreeing with them because it’s true, Obi-Wan and Anakin are doing an absolutely terrible job of pretending to be father and son. I know this! I wrote them like that on purpose because it’s (hopefully) funny and hot!

I guess I’m just feeling introspective because if I were in Obi-Wan and Anakin’s shoes (raised in an environment where I was exposed to no families), or indeed the shoes of any of the criminal bystanders, I’m not positive I could recognize the intricacies of the other family relationships. I could easily see myself as one of the teen criminals going to my mom after watching Obi-Wan hand-feed his adult (supposed) son like “hey what the fuck is wrong with those two?” and being told that it’s none of my business and that all families are different. In this instance my imaginary mother would be wrong because there is a lot wrong with those two but it makes me think, you know?

[transformers-synergize]

does your continuity have the rescue bots in it?

The rescue bots themselves Heatwave, Chase, Boulder, and Blades, yes they exist. are they all currently on earth no.

[chirpsythismorning]

Fun fact: In the original pitch for Stranger Things, El had a little brother.

After being rejected by almost 20 studios for the Montauk pilot, the Duffers were finally green-lit by Netflix. It was at this time that they began casting and then writing the first season officially, which included reworking a lot of that first episode.

This led to the removal of the brother reference, and with it, removing any sort of arc El could have had about her apparent brother.

But the thing about this moment, is that it might not have been scrapped entirely...

Going into the final season, no one can explain why or how El recognized Will back in 1x02. And while there are plenty of things on the show that are left unexplained, with a small portion likely left that way with the intention to uncover it later, what sets this moment apart from the rest is that there are very few possibilities here.

Because for starters, the story presents El's ability to see people in the void in s1 as requiring either a picture of that person for reference, or having met that person before.

But when El see's this picture of Will, she's never met him before. Or maybe she has, but we wouldn't know because they never showed us. They could have just not done this scene at all, given that it's clearly a copy/paste/edit of something scrapped from the pitch. Or they could have even still included it, but explained it.

One explanation could be that the lab had shown El a picture of Will before, similar to what they did with the Russian agent they wanted to spy on. But then that begs to question, why would the lab show El a picture of Will? Why would they want to see what he was doing? That alone is incriminating in and of itself, implying that Will is more connected to the lab than we realize.

The only other, and frankly most likely explanation, would be that El stumbled across Will at some point on her journey between escaping the lab and Will going missing. This is actually something that happens in The Other Side comic, which explores all the things Will may have experienced during his time in the Upside Down.

Though it’s worth noting the comics aren’t technically canon, and I highly doubt they would outright spoil everything in relation to Will’s time there, years before it was intended to be revealed. But still, let's humor this for a moment given that I do think Will's time in the UD is going to be very relevant in s5, which means it's highly likely they will finally address how exactly El saw him.

Basically, in the comic, Will see’s El walking through the woods, almost apparition like, glowing as she passes by, while also sporting the Benny’s burgers shirt. This means they would have crossed passed within a short span of time, between when El escaped Benny’s when the agents arrived, but before she was found by the boys.

Though it’s worth noting that we’re seeing this all from Will’s perspective. This means from the UD, Will was capable of seeing El on the other side, despite them being on different sides. And not only that, but she also looks back at him.

What confuses me about this, is that it doesn’t make sense for El to be in the woods, only to randomly decide to pop in to the void for a moment. She was trying to escape the lab and everything that came with it. I doubt she had any desire to lurk back there for some reason, not until someone encouraged her to. Not to mention, it would make no sense for her to go there and see Will if she wasn't even looking for him in the first place. And so this would mean Will and El could see each other, with Will being in the UD, and El being on the other side.

While it does seem pretty far off, given that you would think Will and El wouldn't be able to see each other from different sides, it is true in the story that El not only recognizes Will, but knows that he is in danger. She mentions that he is hiding specifically.

Which means she has likely seen him within the last 24 hours regardless.

This, in combination with Will being able to respond to El in the void at the end of the season in Castle Byers, when no one else outside of Terry and flayed-Billy have been able to, seems to imply that there is indeed something special about Will that makes him capable of communicating with El from the UD. Not only that, but El also seems to have an ability to be in this constant knowing state of how Will is doing, without even checking again to confirm. She's just certain of it. And she seems terrified about it.

Going forward, El never uses a picture of Will to find him. She never did. And more often than not, they don’t show us what she see’s either, not until the very end. And that’s the moment they reveal that he was able to communicate with her.

Again, there was really no reason to have El recognize Will. If anything it complicates things. But the fact that they chose to introduce this concept, with a scene from the original pitch that was related to El’s younger brother, with her pointing at his name cryptically, startling Benny, only to revamp it and have El not say anything at all while pointing at the picture of Will, startling Mike… It just really makes you stop and think.

Which brings me to the other aspect of this that might have people doubting, which is that El’s brother was originally younger than her.

We know Will is not younger than El, so how could this apply to him?

Well, it might be helpful to consider that in the original script, El was actually 10 years old, while the boys were always 12. Meaning that for some reason, they decided to age her up to the age of the boys, aka the same age as Will…

Ever since @erikiara80 shared this brother discovery with me, I have been sort of reeling. It then led to other little discoveries of changes they made between Montauk and Stranger Things.

It’s important to understand that the Montauk bible and the original script precedes what we ended up with in the final product, with it finally changing and evolving months, maybe even a year since that original vision. Even casting occurred before writing started for the first season. We know this because casting announcements were made in June and August of 2015, with writing not starting until August going into early 2016, simultaneously while they were filming.

And believe it or not, what I've discovered is that a lot of the changes they made between their original plans and what we see in the final product, have to do with not only Willel, but also Byler.

If you've read the original script for Montauk, you'll know that Mike's crush on Jennifer Hayes was focused on right from the jump, along with the birthmark on his face being focused on, which was the main cause of the bullying he experienced.

This has actually been talked about recently, and some of the claims people make do fit with what I am genuinely starting to consider here, which is that the initial plan for what makes Mike an outcast shifted.

I think when they completed casting, and started actually deep diving into what they wanted this world to look like, both from a short-term and long-term standpoint, they were presented with some pretty interesting discoveries, arguably already hiding in their initial plans without realizing it.

And this is where it sort of becomes a 'chicken or the egg' situation. Because which one came first? Byler or Willel?

I can't say for certain, because obviously this is all just speculation. But in the case that Willel came first, I think Byler would come very naturally after that.

The Duffers themselves are twins. Then they hire Noah, who is a twin. Then they're thinking and planning for El's past and how her family all fits into this, and they're thinking... wait a damn minute... We could totally Star Wars this bitch!

And then when they think it couldn't get any better, they uncover another layer that they hadn't planned or really considered in their initial plans.

While Will was always going to have sexual identity issues according to the Montauk bible, meaning that the writing process for him likely involved sitting down imagining scenarios that encapsulated this arc for Will from the beginning, they were simultaneously now finding very interesting aspects of Mike's character that made it hard not to at least consider the possiblity that Mike is not exactly straight.

Just think about it. The Byers and Wheelers are basically polar opposites on the spectrum of what a family looks like. While Will's discovery and acceptance of his queerness is interesting to explore because he comes from a low-income, single-mom household, all while having been bullied for years based on his perceived queerness, he also has a mother and brother constantly reinforcing that they will accept him no matter what. They've been sort of hitting us over the head with it for years, and so it wouldn't be very satisfying for his entire arc to merely lead up to something we've known all along. It's pretty much a given at this point.

On the other side of the spectrum, Mike comes from a more upper-middle class family at the end of a cul-de-sac, more aligned with what a nuclear family looks like. Mike's family is also presented as being more conservative, and while Karen does give that very queer-coded speech to Mike in s1 (I'm convinced they only wrote this after deciding to explore queer-coding more heavily with Mike), it also comes with comments from Ted and even still Karen that hint that they are probably not as open-minded and accepting as Will's family is to him. Which means Mike's arc would be a lot more about acceptance around him from his loved ones who we have been led to believe might not be as accepting of his queerness in contrast to Will.

And so as they're putting this story together, and they're being presented with something very interesting. Two similar experiences that play out in different ways because of the characters circumstances.

Will goes missing, and his twin sister with a buzzcut pops up and has the ability to help them find Will.

This leads to several moments where El is being compared to as not only a boy, but Will as well.

Now suddenly, their initial plans to have Mike's arc be about having a girl be interested in him and to hopefully have his first kiss and feel like less of a loser, starts to look a lot like what the experience a queer kid in his position might encounter growing up in the environment that he did.

And if you don't want to take my word for it, just hear the Duffer's themselves hinting at what they initially planned for Mike and the fact that it changed.

The changes don't stop there.

Believe it or not, 'It was a seven', did not exist in the initial pitch. When the boys went outside bickering over Nancy, they leave right after that.

Another thing that changed from the first script, was Scott Clarke's introduction:

And so you might be thinking, who cares? What does that have to do with anything?

Well, it's interesting because the line we end up with on the show is arguably one of the most on the nose Twelvegate proofs to date. Mind you, this is from the first episode:

Why chuck the original version, which was arguably more interesting and fascinating in terms of it hinting at the mysteriousness surrounding this story, only to replace it with him listing off tips about their upcoming test?

Well, I think it's the irony of it all. Here Mr. Clarke is practically telling us where to look to figure stuff out for ourselves what is going on, with all the kids filing out and ignoring him...

I relate to Scott a litttle too much in this shot here, any time I try to drop Willel evidence.

And the changes go on, as they obviously would.

Things like Terry Ives not even being El's mom, but actually a man who more so aligns with the characterization of Murray.

And one very interesting one I almost overlooked was in Hopper's introduction, where instead of a kids drawing done by who we assume to be Sarah, we actually see a picture on the wall of him and his wife and daughter... Interesting that they decided to switch it something that is a lot less definitive in presenting what Hopper's past looked like...

If you've made it this far, congratulations.

If you still think I'm out of my mind, just remember that El was going to have a brother in the original script, but they scrapped the scene and gave a near identical one to introduce her connection to Will instead 😘

[krotiation]

On the topic of the visions Jack saw on Elpis potentially being "the course" that the Seer talked about in bl3 I do have to wonder just how much Jack saw and why he didn't see his own death SO I got three theories

Either 1) Jack was supposed to see his death but because Lilith vault punched him the visions got interrupted before he could get to that part

Or 2) because Angel was a siren the visions couldn't have predicted that she was going to die and make Jack reckless, meaning that if Jack saw the whole vision he would have seen himself surviving and moving on to Promethea next as the prime instrument

But it's also possible that 3) Jack's death was simply left out of the vision because otherwise Jack might have been dissuaded from making it come true

All of this would depend on how accurate the visions actually are though and if they straight up tell the future or if they're just guidelines for whoever sees it to follow. The eridians might have expected someone a little less unhinged than Jack 😔

[mrgaretcarter]

Honestly I think it would do us all well to go back to kinda cringy feminism again for a little bit idk cause I think maybe for some people the discourse somehow circled back around to supporting sexism just rebranded or whatever so its more aesthetic

[theminecraftbee]

Here's the funny thing about the end of the story, Impulse will explain later, to a shaking Tango and a quiet Zedaph: it goes about the same as the beginning does, and in a lot of ways, that's a little boring, isn't it? A story that starts with five people falling into the void, and unable to leave, and making up games, it ends like that too; five people in the void, and unable to leave, and making up games. Impulse will explain how he's not sure how to explain what happens next, or why it was any different. They hadn't made it yet, and there was no guarantee they'd make it further. Impulse will explain, though, that it was different, because -

Iskall will tell the story like this when Mumbo asks, Iskall dangling his legs off the edge of a platform he, Stress, and Cub had built to the very edge of the void, the limit to where they could build. Iskall and Stress had been away when the moon fell, and that's - Iskall clarifies he doesn't want to talk about that, about going to finally return to Hermitcraft after a long time away and finding nothing left, of desperately trying to find someone, anyone in the rubble, of contacting Stress and - he doesn't really say what he did, but it's fairly easy to extrapolate. Of spending a long time, thinking they were alone. Of trying to make a hub world with Iskall's admin strength, something about gods and blood sacrifice and Tenos being for the knowing and the lucky and finding Cub, somehow, in the nothing. Iskall gets brighter when he tells this part. He will smile, for the first time he smiles while telling the story, when he explains them finding someone. And he will explain, how that was different, because -

Grian will roll his eyes, exasperated, as he admits he let them get him playing Uno again. He did his best to try to strangle Stress after the third time in a row she won, even though he couldn't actually properly reach out of the void through the void, and didn't want to eat her through the pain or the touching or whatever he'd done to Iskall. She'd just laughed, though, and told him that he was being cheeky, and Grian had felt something else. He will explain how he looks like a monster now, and knows it, but it's a bit different, because -

The thing about not being able to leave, Scar says quietly, is that they really didn't know what would happen if someone tried to force them. Would the world break first? Would they? Stress said something about Velara, and mercy, and things that are not kind but are mercy all the same, and finding an answer. Scar says something about not sacrificing more of themselves. Mumbo says something about not exactly minding sacrifices, all things considered, being a void and all. Sacrifices actually seem pretty cool.

Here in the story, Scar clarifies: no sacrifices you do not want to. However, the elven cookie empire appreciates sacrifices!

This is normally the point in the story people start backing away from Scar. He used to be good at getting people to hand over random sacrifices too. It must be the way his teeth are still something terrible and unsettling. Oh well. He'll regroup. It's different now, because -

Pearl will tell the story like this, or maybe not so much tell the story as explain the important parts: even if they couldn't quite reach all the way out of the void, and the people who'd found them couldn't quite reach back into it properly, they'd still built a platform to the line between them, and they reached out towards the people on the platform. Pearl, the way she tells it to Gem, talks a lot less about the things they did, and a lot more about the way it felt. The way she wasn't sure she remembered how to type normally when there was a loud blaring from their communicators. A message from the void, repeated three times, pause, repeated three times, pause, from Xisuma. (Everyone, Pearl says, got that message, right? Gem nods eagerly. They all had, wherever they were, and Pearl will get that story out of Gem later. But this story is for her.) And the energy in the room, it became different, because -

The plan was simple. Mumbo will be very clear about this. The plan was simple. They could not leave on their own, but if they got an admin to do a mass-teleport, they'd be forced onto the surface of the overworld. What would happen from there, they - well to tell the truth, Mumbo admits, they still don't really know? All of the consequences, he means. He got really sick, he explains self-deprecatingly. The others didn't get as sick because they didn't have the same sort of shapeshifter's shock that he has, but he - well, you know. No, don't blame yourself, Grian, that's stupid, all of them were there when they made that plan, this isn't your fault, it's different because -

Scar will flip over his communicator and silently hand it to Doc, who will look at the photo on it and look back at Scar and grimace.

"Now that I know what I'm actually looking at -"

"It didn't really fix itself," Scar will say. "Once you know what you're looking at - I hadn't actually seen a photo until Cub took that. But, you know, I am pretty aware it's more easily seen, once you know you shouldn't be seeing. You know. Me."

"...that sounds..."

"Probably not as bad as my sock puppet, honestly?"

"That thing was an abomination against nature, man!"

"No, no, this is different, because -"

"So that's just how it ends?" Tango will ask Impulse. "What's the resolution, man? Do you get fixed?"

Impulse will think about it. He will shrug. He'll say: "Did you?"

Tango doesn't answer that. There's no answering that. It's different, sure, but it's not at al different, because -

"That's why I'm wearing gloves," Pearl tells Gem. "Also why I haven't really been hugging you."

"You're a coward," Gem says cheerfully, "and if you do eat me or whatever, I'll respawn. Come here."

Pearl wants to tell her that it's different because -

Because -

Impulse will say they never left entirely. There’s no one to disprove it.

These are all things that will happen later. These are the ways that everyone involved attempts to tell the story, afterwards, when it works. They have Xisuma force teleport them to spawn with everyone else, and it nearly goes horribly wrong, but it works, because the world does not give them a choice but to have it work. They can't get back to the void again from where they were teleported. So, their bodies are forced to adapt. And it doesn't quite work, in its totality, just like the platform that had been built to the void while they waited for Xisuma to communicate hadn't quite worked, like how if you look at them out of the corner of your eye their faces don't work, but it's different, because -

Here is what happens now.

Scar laughs. "It's exactly the same, in a way, isn't it?"

"What?"

"To get here, we jumped through a hole in the world into the unknown. To leave, we leap into the world, but it's unknown what happens next. Also, the lever's going to be hit by surprise, and you're all probably going to yell at me. It's exactly the same."

"You idiot," Grian says, "it's different, because -"

Everything goes white, and they head into the rest of their lives.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

this is a subject change but also a question that for fandom-hermitage reasons i am genuinely curious as to the answers to, bc i don't think i've ever seen anyone have a conclusive hc about it. anyway,

if you're split between multiple regions choose the one that you lean more towards or that feels most likely to you to be the canon answer. also feel free to elaborate in tags/comments on your answer 👀