#and we do not say this lightly

[eclecticopposition]

reread aurora comic again and it is nuts that octave and falst are just the same person. octave is just like if instead of finding a friend group falst met one nice boygirl who is like if a boy is a girl who is a boy in a dress and decided that actually this person is the ONLY good person, who they will fight and die for, and who they are completely borrowing a moral compass from, and to that end they will abandon the good person to endlessly undergo the trials and overthrow the government about it. because that's what the good person would want them to do. that's what makes them so good and worthy of their loyalty. they're doing this revolution for THEM. (that is not what the good person wants them to do. because the good person talks a big paragon game and does care about everyone but on a very real level is deeply selfish and just wants people to stay with them. but they will never admit this to octave or to anyone else. and they're completely mutually obsessed with each other even though they haven't seen each other since high school.)

and for those of you who know octave but not falst, falst is like if octave was a tough catboy who lived in the woods with no friends and then GOT friends and then was like I'm going to break the exact same number of bones that I usually break about it. and also has a WILD inferiority complex. like holy shit. "it's whatever I heal fast" kind of a guy. will you dumb assholes be tactical about this and let me get blown up for you?? no joke this guy thinks he is expendable in the way that octave thinks is laudable

[bishy437]

he won

bonus:

[eddiezpaghetti]

It has come to my attention that SOME OF YOU who read my last Byler post remain UNCONVINCED. So I'm gonna tack onto it this:

I'm older than fucking God and air, and I've been out and proud since 2007. Yes, I know what homophobia is, and yes, I know what queerbaiting is. I know about Supernatural and Teen Wolf and Sherlock and blahdyblahdyblah. No new ground is being covered here. I thought I made that clear in the original post, but, clearly, I did not.

I am aware of queerbaiting and homophobia, and I'm still wholeheartedly certain in Byler being canon anyway.

Okay, so there are three types of relationship I want to discuss when it comes to queerbaiting. They're all, like, "queer relationships that could have happened, but didn't".

First off, queer-coding. This isn't really a thing so much anymore, but it still crops up every once in a while. I'd argue it probably happens most with male-male relationships in family shows these days. First example that comes to mind is Mr. Smiley and Mr. Frowny from Steven Universe. You can't make a relationship canon because some shitty overhead bastard overhead said no, so you get as close as you can without compromising the show. Can't make someone gay? Well, now their comedy routine is a blatant allegory for a romantic relationship. Boom-shaka-laka. This is something I don't see being a problem with regards to Stranger Things, but I want it to be there as contrast, a demonstration of one of many things queerbaiting is not. However, one could argue that, thus far, Will Byers is, canonically, queer-coded. It's pretty fucking heavily implied in the show, and the creators have confirmed it, and you're gonna be able to see it if you're not FUCKING BLIND, but word of god is not technically canon which means that interviews don't technically make something canon, blahdyblahdyblahdyblah, technicalities, Robin has been explicitly stated in the text to be queer while Will has, thus far, not, outside of good ol' Show-Don't-Tell. Of course, anyone with two brain cells to rub together can tell that that's going to change by the end of Season 5, but, hey, for what it's worth, I'm throwing this out there.

Alrighty, Thingamajingama Number Two: "Oops, I accidentally made the greatest love story known to man." AKA, a genuine, honest-to-goodness mistake. Unfortunately, we do live in a heteronormative society. Sometimes people who don't think about being gay much write a friendship that's incredibly compelling and don't even consider the possibility that it could have been read as romantic. Something something Top Gun something. This is, again, not queerbaiting. This is Steddie, this is Ronance, this is Elmax, this is your favorite flavor of non-canon ship this week, this is not Byler. The creators know DAMN well what they're doing. They've talked about it. We know this. Nothing new here.

Which brings us to the topic of discussion here. Actual queerbaiting. This usually starts out as an "accidental greatest love story", and then reacts to fan response. And when I say "reacts", I mean like a goddamn chemical reaction. Like bleach and ammonia, bitch. It's noxious and it's gonna kick your fucking ass without mercy. This is when a creator is like, "Hey, let's get our queer audience invested, but we're not actually going to give them what they want because our straight audience isn't here for that/we personally think it's gross/we don't give enough of a shit to want to research a goddamn thing to write a real gay character," blah blah blah whatever excuse they want to come up with this time.

And when you think "queerbaiting", I want you to think "bullying". Because that's what it is. It's lucrative bullying, like beating us up and taking our lunch money, but it's bullying all the same. And it's a real goddamn thing, even if people misuse the word a lot, often when they mean one of the two above, sometimes when they mean "bury your gays", which is another homophobic thing entirely that I'm not going to get into here. Queerbaiting is the thing we're focused on, and it's real, and it's bullying. And here's the reason I want you to think of it as bullying:

They

Think

It's

Funny.

They are actively making fun of us.

That's why Dean had the "Cas, get out of my ass," line in Supernatural. It's why the "Do you like boys?" line happened in Teen Wolf. It's why "Lie with me, Watson," happened in the RDJ Sherlock Holmes movies. Because "It's just a joke, mate." "It was just a prank, bro." "You didn't really think it would happen, did you?" "You should see your face."

So here's probably the biggest reason I don't think it's specifically queerbaiting in this specific instance of Will Byers and Mike Wheeler.

Stranger Things has never, not once, made a gay joke. Ever.

Every single time queerness comes up, it's dead serious.

Lonnie calls Will a fag, and the show is not at all reluctant to show what a goddamn horrible person he is. And when Hopper latches onto that, it's not as "Hahah, is he gay, though?" It's because he's trying to determine a potential motive for Will's disappearance, and even if someone had interpreted it as a joke, Joyce immediately has a line that functions as snapping her fingers in front of the audience's face and yelling "FOCUS" when she says "He's MISSING." Basically outright saying "This isn't funny!"

Troy calls him a fairy, along with targeting Lucas and Dustin for their skin color and disability respectively, and Mike gets damn near murderous. Troy is portrayed as a goddamn monster and the show portrays it as justice when El makes him piss his pants and later breaks his arm.

Steve calls Jonathan "queer" as a slur and gets the shit beat out of him for it.

Billy's father is revealed to be homophobic and abusive in the same breath.

Mike says "It's not my fault you don't like girls!" and we're shown how devastated Will is and Mike immediately follows him to beg for forgiveness.

There is a joke in Robin's coming-out scene, but it's not at Robin's expense. It's at Steve's. Specifically for being heteronormative.

Jonathan has multiple scenes where he's trying so hard to tell Will that he's always going to love him as he is, whether he's gay or not, without pressuring him to come out before he's ready.

Even when there's a little bit of ribbing at Robin's expense, it's always because she's an awkward nerd who's nervous around pretty girls, just the same as Lucas and Dustin are teased when they both first develop crushes on Max, and even then, even then, it always comes as a package deal where they make fun of Steve's girl problems at the same time.

Stranger Things is an emphatically pro-gay show. It may not be the core point of the show the way it is in, say, Our Flag Means Death, but there is nothing less than respect for its queer characters. Its queer characters are always taken completely seriously. No one is making fun of us. They never have. That's why I have serious doubts that this is queerbaiting. It would come completely out of left field for the bullying to start in Stranger Things' final season.

So it's not at all likely to be queerbaiting because queerness is taken completely seriously. The creators have talked about Will's queerness, at least, so it's not an accident. And queer-coding would be silly to expect from this show when it's already on its final season. Like, what is Netflix gonna do? Cancel it? Not to mention all the explicit queerness that's in there already. And no one's gonna "What about the children?" a show that's had sex scenes in it since the first season.

There's no fakeout here. It's gonna happen. Breathe.

[hanzajesthanza]

dandelion’s incredible reluctance, and near-fright, to mention kaer morhen by name is somewhat endearing to me. we as the fandom throw around the name so easily, and it’s also home for geralt and ciri, so its name doesn’t carry so much weight.

but in dandelion’s case, it makes sense to fear mentioning it, for it was the site of the massacre… best to not let anyone hear its name… it’s kind of nice to think that dandelion has a degree of self-awareness, when something is as important as this

and also, some part of me just thinks that dandelion with his vivid imagination listened to geralt offhandedly talk about his childhood here or there, and… whatever were mundane facts or sepia-tinted friendly memories for geralt, made dandelion’s expression drop and his innards twist. so he conceives of kaer morhen not just as “the witcher’s keep in the mountains of kaedwen” but “that place where my best friend endured child abuse for eighteen years”

[jazzzzzzhands]

Inktober 2023 Yr 8. Day 12: Spicey Feels like a real family dinner..

[monkee-mobile]

ough god, I cried over this

[chenouttachen]

oh the way episode 6 barrels full force into dean's betrayal arc is unavoidably painful. we've been seeing hints of it here and there: alan having to make the choice not to let dean race on a smaller scale, choosing to let charlie race for the x-hunter team spot was right there... but this episode sets things in motion that cannot be undone.

at the very beginning of the episode alan chooses charlie over dean, and in his (and way's) eyes this is unacceptable. he's worked so hard for so long, only to be overlooked by this new comer who's only been behind the wheel for a few weeks.

dean desperately tries to put his feelings into words when he confronts alan. he's been letting this build for so long, and it does seem unfair that charlie has been given this opportunity and dean has been overlooked again. he's coming from a very blinded, very biased place, but in his eyes he's been slighted. he's worked his ass off, and he no longer believes alan when he tells him that his time will come.

alan's not been approaching important conversations well lately, but he does a good job here. he leads with dean's skills, his strengths and leans into his love of dean as a team member. but there's a 'but'.

alan doesn't have the capacity to pull punches right now, and by comparing dean and charlie, he loses dean. dean has spent years emulating babe's work ethic, his skills, training to be the best. and now alan tells him that it's not enough. his determination, his dreams, his passion - they're not enough. he's not enough.

alan tries to real it back and give dean hope, but... he can't. he's been making these promises for so long, and he can't deliver. he wants to, he wants to support dean and help him succeed. but with everything happening, he can't. and this is the moment that dean gives up on x-hunter. not consciously, not yet. he just storms off in a mood. but it's maybe the first time that he hasn't been able to believe alan, the man who's supported his dreams for years.

when dean returns to the garage floor, he's hurting. he's taken alan's words to heart and only knows how to hurt others with them. hurt people hurt people, and that's the energy that dean will be taking into the next few episodes (and probably season 2).

alan sees what dean is thinking, sees him hurt the others, and he shuts that down quick. he wants dean to be better, wants him to want better for himself, do better for himself. unfortunately, it's not the right way to handle the situation, and if he hadn't already lost dean, this would be the nail in the coffin. to dean, this is a personal attack and it's not something he can come back from. his mentor and father figure has turned against him, doesn't think he's worthy, and that's all dean can see, regardless of whether or not it's true.

in the aftermath of it all, alan is haunted. he doesn't want to be that person, and he doesn't want dean to be that person. jeff can see what alan's feeling, has maybe seen part of what's yet to come, and he offers what little advice he can; 'if you keep interfering, you'll lose each other'. and that's exactly what happens.

[stromblessed]

Mel 🔆, Viktor 🌌, and Jayce 🔥 symbolism

SUN 🔆

Mel's association with the sun is self-evident and still mostly shrouded in mystery, though her love scene with Jayce is notable, which is overlaid with starry imagery, where her silhouette and her freckled face are compared to the cosmos. The sun is also a star. It's just the star that's closest to Runeterra and has the most influence over the world.

Mel and the Hexcore are the POVs of the scene.

Hexcore and starry imagery is more strongly and consistently associated with someone else, though!

STARS 🌟 / THE COSMOS 🌌

Viktor's blue to purple pipeline is real

But seriously, the starry/swirly shapes point toward distant stars, the cosmos, a galaxy. There is no moon in Viktor's night scenes throughout the season, only stars.

Viktor's character regresses as the season goes on (blue to purple, ready to fall into Shimmer-like magenta as his corruption nears its peak).

His hubris opens him up to some kind of corruption by the Hexcore, or by whatever - or whoever - is using the Hexcore as a gateway, like what Jinx points out. Singed as his mentor plants and encourages the lie that Viktor believes, that he's better off alone and that the ends justify the means.

These perfectly ruinous circumstances lead to him getting Sky killed (Sky like sky blue, like Inspiration, lost as Viktor has lost sight of good in his pursuit of great).

In his running scene, Viktor runs not from left to right, filmspeak for progression - he runs from right to left, as though backstepping.

(And also for the Rocky Balboa reference called out in this brilliant post, but hey, I think it all works)

It's also worth laying the foundation that Viktor is a fantasy interpretation of Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American inventor who was fascinated with electricity, radio signals, the cosmos, and [REDACTED for another post probably lol]

If you've fallen down the rabbit hole of League lore like I have, you might have picked up that peoples and warriors who are sun-worshipers are (at least anciently) tasked with hunting down and destroying Void beings, who are eldritch beings associated with the distant stars, or are Runeterrans constructed by the Void Watchers trapped between realms. The sun fights against interlopers from other dimensions or celestial bodies.

Mel and Viktor have the same ideas about risk and the nature of progress, and they are both technically foreigners living in Piltover and pursuing that progress - in two very different (but complementary) ways. They are most likely the two characters whose literal bodies are celestial, imbued with the Arcane. Their bodies are most likely augmented with magical metals.

Yet the arcane imagery that seems to accompany them respectively are diametrically opposed - Sun vs. Void, possibly. (Also, purple and yellow/gold are opposite or complement colors on the color wheel.)

Whether they wind up working together or whether they clash (as Viktor loses himself) or if it's a mix of both, I think Mel and Viktor are destined to collide in season 2.

So where does this leave Jayce?

FIRE 🔥

Fire for Jayce means more than one thing. The first thing that should come to mind is the fire of the forge. Creation and industry. The legacy and hard work of his family.

However, his FIRST imagery with fire occurs when Elora says "Speak of the devil" and Jayce is framed in flames at Mel's fundraising party.

He's similarly framed in the flames of a Molotov cocktail on the bridge between Piltover and the undercity with Viktor, after he's just called the people of the undercity dangerous.

What I think we're being shown here are Jayce's choices. He can use his talents and influence for good - creation and industry - or he can use them for destruction and oppression. A hammer can create.

A hammer can also be a weapon, a tool of destruction:

Fire can quickly burn and spread out of control.

Hey look, blue all the way to magenta in one scene!

And if you know his original League lore, the reason why his rivalry with [REDACTED] crosses the point of no return - fire and destruction. Yeah.

Jayce is interesting because his point position in the Mel-Viktor-Jayce trifecta makes it tempting to assign celestial imagery to him, too. However, adult Jayce is only present with Hexcore, star, and sun imagery when he is sharing a scene with Viktor or Mel respectively.

The show makes it a point that Mel and Viktor are the reasons he is the Man of Progress at all:

Note that Jayce in the center of his Man of Progress posters is backed by a gear (Viktor) and the sun (Mel). If Viktor had not intervened in episode 2, Jayce would be dead or disenfranchised. If Mel had not intervened in episode 3, then Jayce AND Viktor would have been kicked out of the Academy if not imprisoned or exiled, and Hextech with Jayce and Viktor at the helm would not exist.

(This is reaching, but I like to interpret that the circle + notches in the gear shape are like Viktor's star symbolism, but even if that's the big reach that I think it is, Viktor is a machinist, engineer, and techmaturgist with Artificer parents - the gear definitely represents him on a meta level)

The imagery that I believe is Jayce's and Jayce's alone is that of fire. He is terrestrial, using magic contained within tools the way he has always wanted to bring Hextech to every household, while Mel and Viktor are influenced by magic on a whole other level.

Sure would be a shame if Jayce found a reason to choose the path of destruction and be corrupted further, diverging from Mel and Viktor's core values

Sure would be a shame if Viktor's personal choices had consequences that radiated out further than season 1 and he gets put on a disastrous collision course with everything that Jayce and by extension Piltover hates and fears

Sure would be stressful for us if Arcane decided to be a Greek tragedy about it

Though possibly the most important piece of this picture is how Mel - gold like the sun, gold that doesn't tarnish or rust, gold that is an excellent conductor - has already faced the abyss and said NO to her own corruption:

It sure would be something for her to have to watch Jayce and Viktor go down a different path, huh

[scrawnytreedemon]

While I intend this blog to remain a largely news-free space due to the constant hellstate of the world, let me be clear that I stand in full support of both the Palestinian and Jewish peoples who are currently experiencing relentless hate and suffering in these horrid times.

I am disgusted at the number of people, especially "progressives" on this website who have used this situation to spread both Islamophobia and Antisemitism. This goes double if you dared to reblog those "punch nazis/fascists <3" and "[x] are welcome here!" posts while in the next breath spreading dangerous fucking narratives that kill people.

So many people in online political spaces evidently see this as nothing more than a case of picking "sides", when ultimately what matters is supporting the oppressed against fascist governments and militias, wherever they are.

Common people will always have more alike with each other than their leaders. This is not a novel concept. Your activism should always be motivated by love and compassion first, and hatred second. If you use your beliefs as an excuse to find an acceptable target to vent your hatred towards regardless of the actual material outcome, you are no fucking activist.

You're a bigot.

[thevoidstaredback]

2021

Me: I work in a different city almost everyday this month. Can I take the train? It'll save ya gas and money and time

Parents: No

2022

Me: I work in a different city almost everyday this month. To save gas and money, can I take the train?

Parents: No

2023

Me: I work in a different city almost everyday this month. Can I take the train to save gas and money?

Parents: No

2024

Me: I work in a different city almost everyday this month. Can I take the train to save gas and money?

Parents: No

Parents, a week later: Buy a train pass because gas is expensive

Me: Okay, but I don't get paid until Tuesday

Parents, that Tuesday: Don't get a pass; we'll take you to work

Me: Alright, then I'm going to spend this $85 on food and gas

Parents, yesterday: You're taking the train to work tomorrow because gas is expensive

Me, to myself: If you'd actually teach me to drive, we wouldn't be having this problem

[kasumingo]

Dunno what's so baffling in saying that teens need to have their conservative beliefs challenged

Conservative teens become conservative adults and we now have 21+ year olds that regurgitate boomer ideals because they've been unchallenged and encouraged by the environment they've been in

You see teens as little children who still don’t understand what they’re repeating and lack common sense, give them some credit

[forestgreenlesbian]

.

[musubiki]

I AM SO DOWN WITH THIS IDEA LMFAOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIME STRANGLED OSCAR LIKE BART SIMPSON LIKE "WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS!!!!!!!" AND OSCAR, INNOCENTLY, "What? I was bored. ^v^"

[abirddogmoment]

A peaceful video I took shortly before releasing Mav to the wild this morning.

[thecedarchronicle]

.

[skitskatdacat63]

I started a "big" drawing of them, but didn't wanna get too into it, so here are some small Hussar Martian :)