#feelings shouldn't exist

[lazylittledragon]

pt 1 of some much requested cyra lore

[janitorpostman]

people who are like "oh no they ruined Caitlyn she is on the bad side now" am I the only one glad that Caitlyn's character took this turn? She was the face of the enforcers to the viewers for such a long time. She was kind, compassionate and diligent, the perfect "good cop".

But that's not a fair representation of the enforcers now, is it.

Vi and Powder were orphaned by enforcers. Kind? No.

When in order to survive, they snuck into Piltover to steal goods to sell them, it was enforcers's job to catch and punish these kids, no questions about what kinda life drove these children to do that asked. Compassionate? No.

When Vi got kidnapped arrested. She was put in prison for 6+ years, I doubt there was ever a due court process to determine whether this child was really guilty and deserved imprisonment or not. Diligent? No.

[dimeadozencows]

This came to me in an early morning queer haze

Kissing my medics good morning (I am your husband heavy and I love you)

[starry-bi-sky]

I'm having incoherent thoughts about clone danny again from the clone/clone^2 au (when am I not?) but more specifically I'm thinking about his reaction to finding out he's a clone. The standalone clone au digs into that a little more than clone^2, which is more focused on Danny and Damian's relationship. But neither (so far) really get into Danny's issues about finding out he's a clone after 15 years of thinking he wasn't.

Because he resents his parents for not telling him for so long. He resents the way he found out; through a trivial school project rather than a sit-down talk. He resents the fact that, apparently, they had meant to tell him sooner. But forgot. He resents the fact that they never told him because finding out feels like something was stolen from him when it had the chance to not be.

Danny Fenton, just fifteen, cloned not even half a year ago, knows what that personal violation of autonomy feels like. He knows what it's like to be cloned and while he loves Ellie, he does, she's his sister, and in this au his twin. But he is still left with that feeling of unsafety after realizing he'd been cloned. Being cloned is violating. The onset realization that it's so easy to get DNA without the other party noticing, and that what was stopping someone from trying to clone him again?

Followed only after with the rest of the inexplainable mix of feelings of being cloned, the rest of that inner conflict and panic that's an ugly mocktail of emotions that range from horror to fear. Trying to imagine what it's like to be cloned from the cloned party, and I imagine that it leaves you with the feeling of needing to crawl out of your own skin with discomfort.

And then he gets put on the other side of it. Danny Fenton, only fifteen, was cloned not even half a year ago, finding out he is a clone. And reactions, I imagine, can vary from person to person. But to him, it feels like something got stolen from him, like someone took a hole puncher and stuck it right into his chest and stole a chunk of himself from him.

It changes nothing about him and yet it changes everything. It's a betrayal on it's own to just find out he was a clone and they didn't tell him for fifteen years -- it shouldn't mean anything, because he's still Danny, and yet it means everything. It's him, it's him, it's about him. It's his personhood. It's about the fact that a load-bearing rock in his identity just crumbled beneath his feet and now there's a rockslide.

Because then he finds out that they used the wrong DNA. Its like pouring salt in an open wound. He's not even related to his parents or his sister, when for years he thought he was. It's the fact that pieces of his identity that he's been so secure in for so long just got ripped away from him in an instant. Then they tell him -- only through his own horrified prompting -- that the person whose DNA they used -- Bruce Wayne -- didn't even know he existed. That they accidentally used the wrong DNA, then didn't tell the person whose DNA they used.

The betrayal of being lied to for years turns really quickly into horror at his own existence. Something very similar to the horror he felt at being cloned and the skin-crawling discomfort that made him feel like his own skin wasn't really his. And then its not. It's actually not. Nothing but his own name feels like it belongs to him anymore -- not his hair, not his eyes, not his heart or his lungs, nothing feels like his anymore and he didn't know what that felt like until it was gone.

It's a question of Nature Vs. Nurture -- where does the line of "nature" begin and where does the line of "nurture" end? What of him is actually his? What of him is Bruce Wayne's? It's not logical, it's not supposed to be. It's a load-bearing wall on the house of his identity being destroyed and now everything else is caving down in on him. What belongs to Danny, what belongs to Bruce Wayne?

[skippingthroughfields]

one thing that's missing from these convos about amc not submitting assad zaman for a golden globes nom that makes it 10x more malicious on amc's part is that a nomination isn't just like oh... ~simple appreciation for an actor's performance. even if there's no win, it results in a profile boost for these actors & them being able to command a higher salary when it comes to future projects. it's something that gets notice on their CV. these studios and networks love being able to market their shit with things like "starring golden globe nominee john doe" or "emmy winner jane doe." the emmys are more prestigious than the golden globes which are more prestigious than the critics choice awards (the one they submitted him for with two other actors lol). actors get nominated and have the opportunity to get attention from social media posts, article mentions, attending the red carpet, having their name announced and a little clip of their acting shown. that's not nothing! attention from possible new fans, publications, execs, peers, producers, directors, fashion houses & other industries which could lead to $$$ and sponsorships. I won't make any presumptions about the cast's finances but I do know amc is probably not paying them their worth, least of all the bangladeshi muslim who barely had any major roles in tv/film prior to the show.

there are fees and costs associated with submitting for awards consideration and FYC ads. the network basically took a look at assad's brown skin and name and said they don't think he's worth the money over the white actor who had less screentime and narrative importance (to the season ig) which is absolutely crazy lmao. it shouldn't be controversial to say that and you can't not discuss this without bringing up sam's name. this has nothing to do with whether he "deserved" to be submitted (and even if I said he doesn't deserve it over assad who's gonna beat my ass?). this white man isn't being persecuted by conversations about blatant racism. but I'd expect nothing less from this fanbase x.

[angelpuns]

Deep deep fear that one day all my friends are gonna decide they just don't wanna talk to me anymore for whatever reason and unfortunately, I won't get the memo and will keep trying and that'll just make them hate me more :(

[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 😘

[unopenablebox]

im making a wedding guest list in order to. uh. destress. from work anxiety. (we are not officially engaged yet in that we are waiting for our rings to arrive sometime this month and also do not even a little have a wedding date and have not figured out a budget yet. so it's a very stupid exercise. but. i can do whatever i want)

anyway im beginning to worry that i only have two friends? i suppose it's actually good because that will cost less but possibly i have some kind of disease or condition

[bidonica]

wait can you elaborate on "#not to be european on main but it's one of asoiaf's most tellingly american features to me" because I've never really considered this before

Well, if you look at the time frame of Westeros post Targaryen conquest that's roughly the same distance between the foundation of the USA and when GRRM started writing asoiaf, so there might be a (conscious or subconscious I can't tell, but it wouldn't suprise me if it was intentional) correlation with placing "the birth of this country as we know it" at that specific point in time. Which ties back to that feeling of "the beginning of history" while acknowledging that there has been a history before, but it's a lot more nebulous and badly documented and it involves ethnicities that are considered "native" vs more recent migrations (First Men vs Andals).

And it's something you don't really get to perceive from a European perspective because sometimes you might be living in a country that, in its current form as a nation state, is actually younger than the US (like Italy or Germany), but that state and its identity exists in continuity with what was there before, going back to several centuries. There are cultural and material callbacks to that history in your everyday life, be it the language you speak or still using very ancient buildings that sometimes even maintained their original purpose. I don't want to sound blasé but from that vantage point "300 years ago" is "a long time ago, but not that long". This is not a value judgment, and of course the key reason is colonialism -- I just think there are some contextual elements that might lead to a different perception of history. It's all relative in the end

[theprinceandthewitch]

The biphobia coolaide never fails to smooth out peoples brains...

[geospiral]

"Thank you for not prolonging my suffering. I hope you get to live a long and happy life."

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Is it too early for me to feel jewish rage because I'm still thinking about the rededication of a shul that two members of my shul are going to. I mentioned this in the tags of a previous post, but know why it's being rededicated to the jewish community? They had to sell the shul to the catholic church. That shul has existed for over a hundred years and a significant portion of its existence has been under ownership of the catholic church. And only now is that jewish community able to buy back their own shul. Maybe it hits harder now because I am in love with my shul, maybe it's because I know how hard it is to find a shul no matter how big the city is. Maybe I just think jewish things deserve to be with jews. Maybe I'm crazy!!

I'm just upset about it. And I know this is, like, 80% of jewish history, but it still makes me feel things.

[kerosene-saint]

I wish people didn't act like dd/lg or abdl were like pedophilia. not even into it and I'm a sfw age regressor (non community due to this problem) but like. ugh. and the problem is my views on it have changed so much over just this year. because guess what. whatever people do in their free time surrounding sex, as long as it is not genuinely illegal, should not fucking matter to you. it is not your fucking business to tell people you think their kink is gross and pedophilic, especially because it's not pedophilia. it is fine. to be uncomfortable with a kink page of a certain kind interacting with you. I get it. and there are some pretty mean people in those communities but guess what? there are mean people in EVERY COMMUNITY. and you do not have to relate that kink to pedophilia to say you'd prefer their kink blogs to not interact with whatever blog you have. but when you say shit like "pedos and also people into ddlg and abdl dni" it's annoying. you could say "ddlg/abdl blogs dni" absolutely fair. but saying don't interact abt an entire group of people of which you do not necessarily have the means of checking everyone for being in that community??? alright then. you have fun in puppy play isn't anything like fucking dogs but ddlg is like fucking children world.

[epickiya722]

There's always gonna be like one or two characters that I'm a fan of, but dislike some of their fans and out of all characters in BNHA... I never would have thought it would be Spinner.

[sailing-ever-west]

it's not really what happens in canon as far as I can tell but I'm rotating the idea that when Chopper joins the crew and starts desperately people-pleasing and allowing himself to suffer thinking that's what it takes to be accepted and loved, something in Sanji goes "O h ." and he starts making an effort to show Chopper very clearly that the love from this crew is not conditional. and maybe a little bit (a lot), he's saying it all to make himself believe it, too.

[redheadedfailgirl]

From 'Dream of a woman' By Cacey Plett.

This sums up exactly how I feel about most transition timelines. As much as they reflect people's experiences, they are also a narrative. And the narratives that get shared the most tell a lot about what our values are. The timelines that get the most attention are the ones where people go from sad, loser, nothing boys into beautiful women.

But if you go to /r/transitiontimelines or a similar place, and sort by controversial or look at what has the least likes, its people who made timelines when they still don't 'pass' yet. Even if they're happy as can be, that's not what people are looking for.

I think it says a lot about what people expect from trans women, that they only want to see us be beautiful. In some cases, that they want to believe they can be beautiful. So there is no value in trans life if you're not beautiful.