#i feel like shit with no control

[villageoracle]

guys i have covid and i'm miserable

[creekfiend]

noticably had anaphylaxis yesterday for the first time (thanks Joy for helping me know how to recognize this, it is more than any medical professional has literally EVER DONE) and just found out that the medication my doctor refused to refill last month because he claims that I haven't been into the clinic recently enough (a drug that is extremely safe that I have been on for over a decade) (also HE was a no show at our last appointment, NOT ME) is a mast cell stabilizer. lmfao. oh my god the sheer undiluted rage in my whole body right now. bro you could have killed me

[pa-pa-plasma]

I know the concept of more supernatural/paranormal elements is cool but it will never stop being funny to me that in every series ever, when a ghost shows up the main characters have to do rituals & research the history of the haunted item or house or even whole town & use specific items like salt & incense & talisman to banish the ghost all dramatically & supernaturally, but in Danny Phantom this kid just shows up with nothing but his fists, a thermos, & pent up aggression. put em the fuck UP, you ectoplasmic son of a—

[arsenicflame]

happy "our marriage is never gonna recover from this" day

[catscidr]

cw: emetophobia. mentionned panic attack and intercourse. fluff. hurt/comfort. f!reader. not proofread

“Suguru, can you heat up my microwavable pad?”

“Sugu, can you get me some hair clips?”

“Sugu, can I have water?”

You thought you had it under control; being no stranger to bouts of panic and random waves of nausea, you’ve mastered the art of taking deep breaths and reassuring yourself that the nauseous feeling will eventually pass.

But, as strong as you are, everyone has moments of weakness.

After finally deciding to bite the bullet, you were able to contact a doctor to get a prescription for birth control. From painful period cramps to not wanting to have sex with a condom every time you and Suguru got under the sheets, it felt like the next step to take for your health. You wanted your birth control to help alleviate the cramps that left you bedridden for days and wanted to be able to be intimate with your boyfriend without the stress of possible pregnancy.

All things considered, it’s not like you were completely unaware of the possible side effects of birth control—the infamous pamphlet that could serve as a blanket is pretty hard to miss when you first unbox your prescription.

You’ve spoken to your girlfriends about how nervous you were to start birth control, and they were all as understanding and sweet as one would expect.

After a short pep talk with yourself and your bathroom mirror, you put the patch on your arm and were officially part of the twinkie crew, formerly a toaster strudel.

…in a couple of days. Your doctor informed you to avoid having intercourse without protection for at least five days to let your body acclimate itself to the hormones flowing through you thanks to the patch on your arm.

So now, instead of having a productive afternoon, you’re sat on the cold wooden floor of your bedroom with an empty bucket across of you alongside a cardboard box you meant to throw out that now serves as a makeshift table.

“Here you are, darling.” Suguru places the glass of water on your ‘table’, silently watching how you’re holding up. His gaze lingers on the small patch on your arm, anger boiling in his gut because how dare this piece of rubber hurt my girlfriend like this, but he holds off on removing your source of pain directly knowing that it'd do more harm than good. “How do you feel now?”

You can sense his eyes on you, but you feel so ashamed of yourself for being so panicky over vomiting that you refuse to sit up from your position, all hunched over your plastic emotional support bucket. “Still gross. M’ face feels... tingly.”

He crouches beside you, gently rubbing your back to soothe you. “Do you need me to get you anything else?”

You shake your head after a second of thought, busy focusing on your self-acupuncture massage on the insides of your wrists to think of whatever else could aid your discomfort.

Observing you, Suguru sighs lightly. He sits down on the ground properly and takes ahold of one of your arms himself to replace your thumb with his. Rubbing gentle but firm circles into your tendon, he applies light pressure, and watches your brows furrow in discomfort then relax ever so slightly.

“Focus on calming your heart rate, baby. Can you do that for me? Deep breaths,” he hums softly. Nodding weakly, you try to inhale slowly but a wave of nausea hits you. Your forehead bonks the edge of the bucket and you begin to—almost—hyperventilate.

Your face feels hot, you feel pressure building up your throat and you're shaking like a leaf. “Don’t look at me,” you whimper, weakly pushing Suguru’s face to look off to the side. He ignores your plea and brushes a stray lock of hair away from your face, gently tucking it behind your ear.

“You’re okay,” he muses. “This’ll pass like it always has. The nausea you feel isn’t any different from other times you’ve felt like throwing up; you always ended up fine.“ Suguru stops massaging your arm and places his hand on your cheek. You lean into him, feeling a wave of comfort come from your chest as you keen at the cold touch of his palm.

The corners of his lips curl upward. “Can you swallow?” he asks, bending down to take a proper look at your face.

You try, straightening your back and taking a deep breath before swallowing your saliva. Suguru hums, whispering a quiet good, relieved that you're able to cooperate.

“You know, my mom used to tell me that, if I ever felt nauseous, I should try swallowing. If I was physically able to swallow, then I would be fine.” He rubs his thumb over the apples of your cheek gently, watching your eyes crack open. “There’s my girl,” he hums with a smile.

Nuzzling into his palm, you groan quietly. "Don't look at me, I look gross," you huff. Through the anxiety and nausea, your heart swells at how attentive and patient Suguru is.

The sound of the television in the living room sounds distant from your little bubble with Suguru, lost in whatever trance he held you in. "You're okay," he reassures. "How do you feel now?"

Swallowing once again, you take a deep breath and adjust the heated pad on your abdomen. You take a minute to feel, repeating Suguru's comforting words in your groggy mind.

"I feel... decent," you murmur. "Better."

His shoulders visibly lose tension as he smiles, and he leans forward to press a soft but lingering kiss to your forehead.

"That's what I like to hear. Can you stand?"

Part of you wants to shake your head, to stay sat on the ground and wallow in your despair because Gods your legs felt so numb, but you'd much rather be in Suguru's company than to be left alone with your own thoughts.

You nod, and ever the gentleman, your boyfriend loops your arm around his shoulder to help you stand up. Though your legs are wobbly, he keeps you upright, guiding you to the living room couch.

"Pick out something to watch," he says. "I'll be back with some crackers and your bucket, just in case. Any special requests?"

Leaning back into the cushions, you shake your head as you sigh, content. "No. Jus' need you with me," you hum.

As Suguru flashes you an award winning smile, he eases your worries with the same smooth voice that greets your eardrums every day. "I'll always stay with you, princess."

And you shut your eyes, comforted with the knowledge that, no matter how gross you may feel or how sickly you may be, Suguru won't ever leave your side.

[dykedvonte]

I think a big misunderstanding is the power people give Curly to actually change things about the way the pony express operates or could’ve done things on the Tulpar.

We are talking about a company that docks pay for bad synergy despite mandated psych evals that should tell which staff members would work well together, only allots for 5 hours of sleep despite having literally no other tasks to truly do and locks all resources behind the access of one person. The last one is likely to manage resources and make it easier to justify collective punishment and blaming one person for it; someone needs something in “excess” or the captain gives in? It’s all on them your pay is docked. Instant resentment.

It’s insidious how the company works, it’s by design to distract you from coming after them, to force tensions to line their own pockets. With all the restrictions and forced interactions, altercations are bound to happen. 5 hours of sleep a day, limited sources of entertainment, no real tasks… the monotony alone would cause bad cabin fever, mix that with just only one absolute mediator and you get the exact environment that allows shit like in the game to happen.

The idea he could just complain and try to throw his weight around to get them to dig into their pocket for the crews comfort is laughable and misses the predatory and dehumanizing aspect of capitalism the Pony Express represents. Curly was and is still just another asset to them. Being a top show pony doesn’t mean he’s anywhere close to the actual top. He is the top of the working ladder, not whoever’s in corporate, he wouldn’t even be on the bottom step unlike what Jimmy perceives. The resounding recommendations he would get are almost mocking as they throw him out like nothing just like the rest. Being a shitty fucking company, how much do you bet they’d mean anything anyways, especially since he wanted to leave the field all together.

He made a fuss and they didn’t listen, he says he should’ve done more but you can tell he knows it wouldn’t have changed anything. Jobs like this are willing to make a sacrifice if it means even a penny more. Curly makes a bigger fuss they likely would’ve just found an “unrelated” reason to fire him, hired a more pliable guy or, terrifyingly, promoted Jimmy. The company was failing, going to shut down whether anything happened on the ship or not. But knowing that they were shutting down and that everyone, including him, would be out of a job with this being their last paycheck, he had to factor in not destroying the last bit of their financial stabilities combined with every other issue on the vessel and his own. He gets another cryopod or locks and then he has to break to them that they are not only fired but there will be substantial cuts to their paychecks due to the “upgrades” (things that already should’ve been in place on their part) on top of anything else that could be docked along the way.

You can blame him for saying it so early into the trip but then again, if he mentioned it later who’s to say it wouldn’t have been worse? On the capitalism side alone how would people in a galaxy away from home, out of a job and already stir crazy react? Don’t get me started on how Jimmy would have reacted if he realized he only had two days left to fix what would be a very hard to miss “problem” in his head…

I can’t even consider explaining this as devils advocate because it’s just facts of the world we and they live in and factors that heavily affected the situation. People are just so quick to make claims on the ease of the choices when P.E literally makes it hard to choose to do anything but suck it up.

[mkzmerryfriend]

*cracks knuckles* we know Tyler isn’t the original Clancy right? Y’all caught that? Clancy’s bishop was Keons, Tyler’s is Nico, and now “Clancy” is Tyler. Because “scaled and icy” is an anagram for “Clancy is dead” and that album was the one where dema was using Tyler’s popularity for their own purposes. Clancy failed to stop the cycle on his own, and despite already being used as a figurehead for dema, Tyler decided to take up the role of “Clancy” in the wake of what seemed like a total collapse of the Banditos. Their leader had been taken out, and now they had no one to organize them.

But Tyler taking on the name Clancy isn’t him taking on the role of leader or even organizer. He is showing us (the Banditos) that we all can be our own inspiration, we don’t need a figure to follow, we don’t need a leader to lead us. We can do this, fight dema, ourselves.

Y’all got that, right?

[blue-eli]

Ink October day 11: Firebreak

A strip of land that has been cleared, plowed, or planted with fire-resistant vegetation to prevent a fire from spreading.

[calypsolemon]

theres a lot of bad tropes that fandoms seem to loooove but one which I have personal beef with is the "protective dad/brother who threatens his daughter/sister's boyfriend to scare him into treating her right" trope and interpretations of it. I genuinely don't know why in the year of our lord 2024 we are clinging to this trope, especially people who otherwise attempt to eschew heteronormative behaviors. In fact I increasingly see people trying to recycle this trope and apply it to their "found family" and "queer" dynamics. I'm sorry but a character's pseudo-sibling threatening their new partner isn't cute, its toxic behavior, and nobody doing this seems to understand the root of this behavior is in the sexist belief that women are men's property, nor do they seem to think about the implication of doing this when the partner being threatened is also being portrayed as queer??? it drives me nuts.

[moominmanoneandonly]

TFA megasound erasure hurts me so much. WHAT DO YOU MEAN HIS HUSBAND IS NOW HIS KID?! Wtf make the cousins at thid point if you don't like gay marriage so much. (Not hating on tfa Soundwave he's sweet and not as ooc as i expected). Anyway here's a small comic that was stuck in my head after the reveal

Starscream would not get away with his shit if Soundwave was around. Autobots also probably wouldn't survive but thats other thing

+bonus mendatory Breakdown

[gurggggleburgle]

broke: bingmei wants to be bottomed and bred by shizun so bad.

woke: Bingge is actually a huge breedible submissive brat who needs to be bullied and dicked down by so many men after years of mediorce straight hentai sloppy bland vanilla barely kinky sex

bespoke: Bingmei being a top and Bingge being a bottom are significant reflections of character and processing themselves. Bingge having spent his entire life constantly scraping for power and finally becoming the ultimate one on top but never being able to let his guard down in any capacity needs to bottom because it would allow him the catharsis of not constantly feeling like he's the one putting in all the effort. While Bingmei has spent years feeling a lack of control and power over his emotional state and situation and now is finally able to express this by pinning shizun to the wall and having milktoast levels of kinky sexy with shizun. Like he can be the catcher, but by preference, bingmei is a top, and it's healthy for him mentally. Bingmei wants to give and make for his loved ones like a good little wife by tying shizun up in hemp rope and showering his body in kisses. Bingge would like someone to acknowledge that the emperor is tired and has been working very hard and needs to be gagged and bound and have things so terrible. i dare not say on tumblr

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Can Jake, Ax, Cassie, and Marco still morph Leerans?

Yeah, I think so? They get yanked through z-space for #18, but they're not sario ripped. So in theory, they should still have those morphs. Ax is pretty adamant that none of them want to use those morphs again, since it feels invasive and personal to humans or andalites to see into other minds that much, but I think it'd be possible.

If so, that's one heck of a good controller-detecting mechanism. Leerans can't exactly walk around a California mall checking every mind they pass. But it'd be awesome if Tobias had thought to, for example, have Ax hide in a hotel room adjacent to "Aria"'s and morph leeran long enough to check her for yeerks. Unmorphed Ax is a decent controller detector in his own right — all he has to do is walk out and see if the person acts shocked and confused, or pissed and trying to hide it — but leeran would be a great way to stealthily check on specific civilians.

[dullahandyke]

Like I dont want my tech to be convenient + in fact that scares me. Wtf are you doing that I didnt tell you to do. Stop it. I'm in charge you are an extension of my limbs and if I cannot articulate every joint on a whim then I'm basically fucked

[cherryskeletoncake]

Thinking about techno and quackity in the dream smp… such a unique dynamic <3

[lloydfrontera]

my biggest gripe with the manhwa rn is that they made javier more of an asshole than he is in the novel and then took away most of the scenes where we see him being kind and soft with others.

javier can be an ass, he is a brat and he's especially annoying when he's with lloyd, but above anything else he is kind and loyal and selfless and good. i cannot emphasize enough how good javier is. he's the kind of person who cannot see someone in trouble or danger and do nothing about it. he's the kind of person who would sacrifice his life for total strangers and no hope of any reward. he's the kind of person who can't even enjoy a lavish party without feeling guilty because he'd much rather help people in need with that money.

he's so fucking good, lloyd is a little annoyed by it because he keeps getting dragged into life-threatening situations because javier just won't stop helping people they don't even know. mind you, lloyd is also endeared by this and would not want him to change but god can it be frustrating in his endeavor to keep them both alive.

there's this particular scene that i just. i'm so sad it was cut. where javier is helping around the refugee camp, going without sleeping and eating so he can focus on helping as many people as possible and then he spots a little kid that got lost on his way back. so he decides to help him.

and he's so gentle with this kid.

Javier walked over to the kid and called him. The flustered boy looked up. Javier strove to put on a warm smile on his face. "Are you lost?" “...” The boy nodded, his eyes all wet. Javier carefully stroked the boy's head. "I think I can help you with that. Why don't you let me help find your tent?" suggested Javier. “...” The boy nodded again. "But why didn't you eat the food? It's going to get cold. Are you not hungry?" "I am… hungry," the boy finally said. But what he said next caught Javier by surprise. "But I won't eat it," said the boy. "Why not?" "My mother is hungrier." "Is that so?" "Yes." “...” Javier wondered why this kid came out to take the food when he had a mother. There must be a reason, he thought to himself. He held out his hand. "I will hold the tray for you." "..." "I won't spill it. I promise." "Okay..." Javier took the tray and wrapped the boy’s hand with his own.

like. god. javier is not a naturally warm person. he's very reserved and stoic and sometimes outright cold, but he still tries so hard with this kid. because he knows what it's like to be him. he knows what it's like to be a child and be scared and hungry and without a home. and he remembers how much it meant for a kind adult to reach out a hand to him and help. and he wants to be that to others too.

everything he does, he does because he genuinely believes it's the right thing to do and therefore his obligation. and even when it doesn't come naturally to him, like being warm and gentle to a child, he still tries his best to do so.

and like that wasn't enough, when they finally find the kid's mom, javier finds out she's blind. recently blinded actually. that she used all her strength to get her child to safety and now she has to depend on him to take care of them because she can't do it anymore. her blouse is smudged with porridge.

so javier kneels down and explains who he is, why he's there and that he wants to help. he lifts up a spoonful of food and slowly and carefully starts to feed her himself. she's a complete stranger and javier doesn't hesitate one second to do this for her.

this is who javier is!! this is who he is at his core!! he's kind and he's selfless and he's above all else good!!

if your audience can't imagine javier comforting a child, then you failed your audience. you missed the point of his character.

[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 😘