#foreshadowing in the acknowledgements

[clonerightsagenda]

The author would like to thank three gentlemen for helping improve the ratio of science to fiction in this story: Dr. Henry Bielstein, for information on space physiology and medicine; James A McMaster, welding engineer; and Wallace A Voreck, explosives technology consultant.

well that's promising

[paradox-n-bedrock]

River and Donna interacting in Silence in the Library kills me a little bit because both their worlds have just shifted off kilter. River's gone far enough back in the Doctor's timeline that she's found the one that doesn't know her yet, and who looks right through her. Donna's met someone from the Doctor's future who doesn't know her at all, but knows of her enough to say her name with awe and sorrow.

i just think if they're doing post-library big finish audios with River, it would be neat to get one with her and Donna ending up on an adventure and getting to chat a bit more

[dasketcherz]

really a firm believer that varian's meant to be the real holder of the moonstone hadnt he been left behind bars in corona and cass was really just some jealous snatcher of other ppl's destinies 💀

[wonder-worker]

Thinking about Elizabeth Woodville as a gothic heroine is making me go insane. She entered the story by overturning existing social structures, provoking both ire and fascination. She married into a dynasty doomed to eat itself alive. She was repeatedly associated with the supernatural, both in terms of love and death. Her life was shaped entirely by uncanny repetitions - two marriages, two widowhoods, two depositions, two flights to sanctuary, two ultimate reclamations - all paralleling and ricocheting off each other. Her plight after 1483 exposed the true rot at the heart of the monarchy - the trappings of royalty pulled away to reveal nothing, a never-ending cycle of betrayal and war, the price of power being the (literal) blood of children. She lived past the end of her family name, she lived past the end of her myth. She ended her life in a deeply anomalous position, half-in and half-out of royal society. She was both a haunting tragedy and the ultimate survivor who was finally free.

[fromtheseventhhell]

Another reason that Stansas hate the idea of Arya and Dany being friends (outside of them wanting to demonize Dany) is that they've convinced themselves that Dany and Sansa are the only main female characters, so if a Stark sister is going to have a significant relationship with Dany it has to be Sansa. Arya being constantly downplayed and treated like an accessory to Sansa has generally led to the consensus that her relationship with Dany will be defined by whatever Sansa's relationship (positive or negative) with her is. That's why Arya is always being left out of the "we were robbed of [x] female character friendship" conversations and why theories about Dany/Arya getting along are treated as Sansa hate; Arya, as a character, is seen as secondary to Sansa by a lot of people

[carlyraejepsans]

REALLY wish i hadn't read the content warnings for hs at the beginning because i saw incest in the list and spent the entire time being like "is it the striders? striders incest canon? is it stridercest??" and like, deluded myself into this idealized version of dave's arc except with every page i read i lose hope in it and I'm probably setting myself up for disappointment. but like IT WOULD WORK SO WELL!!! it would work so well gooood, the way bro just casually lets his little brother around his weird ass fetish content, or sometimes even involves him without his consent/knowledge?? i know the puppet ass thing was mostly a gag, but coupled with the way dave constructed this entire philosophy of "ironic enjoyment" to rationalize shit his brother does that actually freaks him out and is 100% inappropriate towards him, the way he is much, MUCH, more sexual with his jokes and quips and comebacks compared to the other kids... the way bro smacks dave down and humiliates him only to save his skin a moment later and humiliate him again to keep him dependant on him... one of the kick-starting moments of dave's development being to wear john's gift shades instead of the matching set with his brother...

a (past) grooming plotline would fit in SO well with Dave's disillusionment arc and getting out of his brother's shadow, it's unreal. but i worry i got my hopes up for nothing and i'm just gonna be disappointed in the end when it's something unrelated. but if it does i AM willing to turn to fanfiction. this fandom is fuckoff huge someone's gotta have made the same connection as me

[chirpsythismorning]

I'm not going to say we should take every single thing official Netflix accounts post as gospel, because obviously they are not run by the Duffer Brothers themselves.

But to be clear, these people are hired by Netflix and there's more to it than just random interns scheduling posts. The people running these accounts are not the same people designing the posts made there, just like the people designing those posts have higher ups telling them what to do/not do in terms of the content they are creating. And there are plenty more levels that go beyond that, which eventually does lead to the Duffers and producers of the show, who do have a stake in how the show is promoted on a basic level to best align with their intentions and all the revelations still to come.

It is common knowledge that the Duffers work with Netflix marketing directly on a consistent basis to get their vision across, and that carries out in promotion with posters, merchandise, social media, etc., because it's really important in ST case (with it being a show made by nerds that love easter eggs), that they foreshadow what is still to come outside of the show itself.

When it comes to social media, the core purpose of those accounts is to encourage engagement for Netflix's user base, ideally ensuring they tune in to whatever is being promoted (and more), but it’s also more than that, in that it’s even more based on data and other factors.

What this leads to is the people in those less major decision-making roles, like graphic designers, simply being advised what to create, based on the information and content they are given to work with.

And so these accounts going from promoting byler subtly for years, to blatantly posting about it post-s5, is actually very, very intentional, going beyond a simple Netflix intern. It’s orchestrated by those in management positions, being advised by those in the ST production to do things a certain way, so that when all is said and done, we are able to look back and find tiny little things that point to it.

Byler can't be something they NEVER talked about even once on social media, only to have them end up being endgame with them posting about it forever afterwards when it's all said and done. It doesn't work like that, at least not in ST case. We're talking about a production that costs hundreds of millions to make, as well as being the most talked about mainstream series of our generation.

They have an obligation to make their story feel not only satisfying on its own, but to also promote the show in a way that makes the viewer feel this whole well-rounded experience, outside of the show itself as well.

And so when ST came out in summer 2022 and Netflix Geeked was making posts about it non-stop, that wasn't a rogue, low-paid Netflix intern doing whatever they wanted. That was multiple people with a job given a task and following through with it at their advisers discretion. Regardless of where it ended up, it started at the top with the Duffers informing higher ups in marketing that Byler is something that will happen, along with other revelations that they want to inform marketing about, so they can take the steps to plan ahead and create content that matches the Duffer's vision, most often to act as a foreshadowing device for the story still unraveling.

Remember when Netflix Geeked made a post acknowledging that Will the Wise drawing in El's room back in s3?? A very well known byler easter egg that only we know about??? That wasn't some ga intern watching the show once and them spontaneously coming up with content to create related to that drawing and posting about it themselves. That was very likely someone associated with the show giving suggestions to marketing, with a few of them being very incriminating in relation to byler, but with most being casual in relation to the show overall.

Just like I said in this post about how Noah didn't tweet about byler or mention it multiple times at cons unprompted bc he was feeling quirky. He was being advised to...

And look what Netflix did to that tweet Noah posted that was clearly a stunt in an of itself.? They broadcasted it and made a cheesy ass edit out of it... And it's bc several people behind the scenes were advised to make content like that specifically.

I mean, if you actually look at how social media promotes byler (if and when it does), it's arguably in the exact way that the Duffers want it to be promoted?. Just enough. Not too little. Not too much. I would argue if the Duffers had no say whatsoever in how the show was promoted, then we'd either be seeing byler constantly or we wouldn't see them at all, instead we see social media sort of dance around it, which tells me they are following the exact approach the Duffers themselves follow... because they were obviously given the instruction to.

And so seeing an account like UK Netflix, an account that as of recent has really went all out with posting Queer content since Heartstopper released, has also notably made really incriminating posts about byler over the years, but especially as of recent. And that's in large part because of what I've stated, but also based on data.

If higher ups in marketing at Netflix know about byler, then they are very likely pushing people lower on the payroll, doing more simple tasks like graphic design and social media management, to make connections to ST with other shows like Heartstopper, Sex Education, Young Royals, etc. And this is because if byler IS going to end up being this huge Queer love story, data is telling them to make these connections sooner than later, so that the eventual revelation will be a smooth transition amongst other content just like it. This works in Netflix's favor at the end of the day, which is the whole point of all of this.

Not saying you should take the most casual of Netflix posts as byler endgame proof if that's what you're asking. But to say that these accounts have NO association with the Duffer's and ST directly, therefore we shouldn’t even appreciate anything they post if it points to byler, is sort of over-simplifying things.

It's not like s5 is gonna drop and all of these interns are going to be like OHHH okay now i'm a byler so i'll post about it... Going into s5 they're going to be making some very side eye posts and it isn't going to have anything to do with them being an intern without any say in things, its gonna be about them getting a task list and following through with it bc it's their job.

[jinxedshapeshifter]

So initially I was like "maybe he just associates the term gentlewoman with the British" because that's kinda how it comes off, but THEN he specifically says "foreign gentlewoman" which implies otherwise:

Basically it's implied Kazuma suspected who was behind Wilson's murder from the start and was only able to confirm this suspicion when he heard that the witnesses were silenced. It's never implied before Kazuma says anything that the woman Ryunosuke saw was from overseas, that I remember at least. If Kazuma knew who the other assassin was and who her mark was, he would likely have suspected from the start who was behind Wilson's murder, which would also give further explanation to why he insisted on taking Ryunosuke's case (he knows both that Ryunosuke wasn't the culprit and who the real culprit is).

Will reblog this later if there's more implication to Kazuma knowing Ryunosuke's case was part of an elaborate assassination plot

[spiteful-crow]

Sometimes, the parallels just hit you.

[buryam-soul]

[constantvariations]

Okay so, I like that Professor Rumpel is both Rumpelstiltskin and the miller's daughter-turned-queen, and that her weapon invokes the spindlewheel from the tale, but the guessing of the name is so utterly lazy that I could chew glass

Spoilers for Before the Dawn btw

It literally comes out of nowhere. There is no buildup to the mystery of Professor Rumpel's name; she just randomly says at the start of the fight that if Fox, Neptune, or Yatsuhashi can guess her name that she'll let them go chase the Crown

It would have been so easy, too! Just have it be Rumpel's game whenever the students want something. Late to class and don't want extra homework as punishment? Guess her name and you're free. Got caught getting handsy in an inconvenient spot? Guess her name and she'll let you off with a warning. Hell, have some of the staff lean into it for comedy and comradery

This would naturally set up why Rumpel would offer an easy out to the fight and establish how steep a demand that is for our heroes. If no one's guessed her name in the many years she's been at Shade, what hope do they have of figuring it out in the next five minutes?

But, no. We get zero setup and the payoff doesn't even land! They guess her name and Rumpel attacks Neptune anyway. Right in front of the whole school, including Headmaster Theodore! In what world does that make sense? I get that she's desperate, but it feels contrived so Yastuhashi can do his thing and accidentally break the mind control

These books honestly read like a first draft of a story that really could've been something if more time and attention had been given. Rwby in a nutshell, eh?

[nerdyenby]

Lloyd is so selfless in DR. It’s in character and all but it feels so prominent. His actions imply (at least to me) that he either doesn’t care about getting hurt, or doesn’t believe he’s able to. To be fair, he does seem to be more or less immortal so it’s not unjustified, but it makes me scared for the future

[stew4]

Although the lighteyes/darkeyes conflict was completely bungled (I think we all agree on that), I do appreciate the moments in Words of Radiance where it was good. Or handled in a way that was far better. Even if a lot of the book was still showing signs of the decline.

specifically: I’ve noticed a lot of authors tend to ignore certain moments that are used for jokes or metaphors in regards to their implication. I would not have been surprised if the boots scene was forever forgotten in the plot outside of ‘silly Kaladin grumbling about being robbed’ . That would have been very much expected. But I’m glad that it is at least acknowledged as a shitty thing for Shallan to do. She gets called out on it and is definitively the bad guy in that circumstance.

still though, he should’ve also acknowledged all her worse moments of supporting the lighteyes/darkeyes hierarchy. And literally everything done with the plotline in later books does more than cancel it out. But I think it’s good to remember days when it was in fact not a trainwreck and seemed to have some self-awareness.

[gu6chan]

Spending a year translating a novel and am split between the joy of seeing people in the west be able to enjoy something previously only able to be enjoyed by fans in japan and immense regret seeing it used for the worst fucking fan theories you've seen in your life

[eyepatchdate]

i would accept the joker if like, the brainiac brainwashing unlocked the joker locked in batman's mind though. a jokerfied batman is right there. then you don't even have to kill him. that'd be a blast.

[smallpox-juicebox]

good morning mitaka asa lovers nation. rise and grind my fellow mitaka asa enthusiasts