#sorry just some random thoughts

[isitisitearlymichael]

Probs an unpopular opinion here but let’s go…

I look at Stranger Things seasons 1-4 as a tale of two halves.

For me, season 1 and 2 are undeniably about Mike and El. Even during season 2, when Mike is there supporting Will through everything, I don’t view his actions as him having romantic feelings for Will at all. He cares deeply for him, but I don’t think he considers Will in that way.

That’s not to say I don’t think the Byler storyline was planned, but I don’t think we were supposed to doubt anything.

But season 3 changed everything, and the narrative flipped. We saw that all the characters had grown up a little bit, and the dynamics between them were changing.

And for Mike, I don’t think he realised that the way he felt about Will was special until their fight.

I think a lot has been said about the it’s not my fault you don’t like girls line, which could easily have been Mike projecting, but little is said about Will’s I really did.

I don’t think Mike understood what Will was saying there, or at least allowed himself to understand the weight of the words they shared. However, I think it was enough to scare Mike. Because that shit both hurt and healed him. It hurt him that he almost lost Will again, but Will’s reaction also really showed how much he cared about Mike, and how much Mike’s actions were hurting him. And Mike couldn’t cope with that feeling at all.

So even though season 3 starts the whole I love you arc between El and Mike, the season also plants those seeds of doubt - not just for the audience, but for Mike.

Then season 4 seeks to repeat the dynamics of season 2 - Will and Mike are paired up while El and Mike go through the whole separated-and-reunited arc again. But this time it feels so different. They’re now even more grown up, and there’s a clear tension between the boys. But it’s not just this whole misunderstanding between them, it’s the romantic tension. The whole of volume 1 is like a will-they-won’t-they, even if volume 2 throws a complicated spanner in the works.

Season 4 also refers back to season 3’s fight, with Mike unable to control his emotions and then quickly running back to Will in forgiveness again. The apology scene is so intimate, but it’s the way he fluffs his words- gets nervous over them even - which tells us even more. I don’t know, maybe I feel like I lost you or something.

Or something.

What gives this line even more weight is how the words lost and lose are used throughout the show. When Mike tells El that he can’t lose her, we’re supposed to take that as a love confession. His fear of losing her has always been associated with his love for her. We also hear similar lines between Joyce & Hopper, and Lucas & Max.

But when the Duffers and Finn tell us that Mike is oblivious, I agree with them. I don’t think Mike knows that Will loves him at all. Not in that way.

He spends the whole season failing to understand how El could possibly like him in that way - his actual girlfriend - so why would he even consider that his best friend would love him?

But I also believe that there’s much more going on in Mike’s mind than we’re being let in to see. And I don’t think they’d plant so many seeds and focus on Byler in the epilogue so much if it wasn’t going anywhere in season 5.

[stargazinglesbian]

my friend and i were talking abt young justice and we kind of realised that like. young justice is probably one of the smartest hero teams, full stop, maybe THE smartest considering their age.

like tim is pretty well known for being a really good detective, he figured out batman's secret identity and everything, but the others are also really smart and in a vast array of areas.

i'm just gonna go through bart, kon, cassie, anita, cissie and greta because i can't remember much about ray or slobo it's been a while since i read the comics. although if i remember right slobo is like an engineer

bart canonically remembers EVERYTHING he reads, and he did that whole thing where he read every book in the san francisco library in teen titans, and also he's from the fucking future. he's really book smart, even if he might not always be able to apply that stuff to irl situations

kon was both made in a lab and stuffed full of information. he's got lab smarts man!!! a head full of random chemical compositions and punnet squares

cassie and anita don't really have any specific areas that they would specialise in that i can remember. cissie and anita probably BOTH have a fairly good amount of medical knowledge though, like anita saved cassie's life and cissie was competent enough to be sent to space on those like relief mission things. also anita probably knows a fair amount of more magical stuff due to her powers

cissie also got into a fairly good girls private school, and her mother probably trained her in a lot of areas. i'd guess especially that she knows a lot about marketing, legalities around vigilantes, etc, etc

greta would be a really good source of information on magic. after discovering her powers more and figuring out what and who she is i think she'd have taught herself a lot about them, and also just the wider magic of the dc universe.

like all of these guys together, they're actually really well equipped for a lot of stuff. they're just always doing like, space baseball and killing santa claus instead of more serious missions.

i probably got a lot of stuff wrong in this post, like i said it's been a long time since i read the yj comics, and i also referenced a few things from comic series' i've only half finished which might be retconned later on or something. please correct me on literally anything

[stealingpotatoes]

“poncho: jedi master edition” is such a good and necessary cal kestis form, seeing him attempt to teach a gaggle of padawans is simply the best thing i could imagine. i hope they also roast him sometimes in true middle schooler fashion <3

ok so i drew this AGES ago (way before the other post) and I think this counts as an excuse to post it! they probably do accidentally roast him a little but one of the ways they forget compassion in lieu of middle schooler "dont care about adults" is:

[losthoodie]

My brain has been taken over by baby hülkenberg lately.. so….

I’m just gonna plop these photos of williams rookie nico here and then scurry off into The Void

[lanawinterscigarettes]

I like to think that there's at least one version of The Doctor out there somewhere in the vast multiverse who would've done anything to keep Jack Harkness by their side and never would've left him alone in the first place :((

[sonknuxadow]

hey guys look what i found in my drafts. from a few days ago .

[cradle-of-darkness]

I am very normal about doctor sylvester ashling (I need to yap to someone about him 24/7)

[maerhiya]

in regards to the constant dismissal of his aroace identity, i hate it when alastor 'fans' say and use the excuse: "he's fictional, he won't get offended."

like, you're right, but it can and will offend us.

when you see yourself being represented on screen, of course you'd feel enthusiastic about it — representation allows individuals to see themselves reflected in the media they consume, validating their identities and experiences. but when so many people take that representation and decide to disregard and discard it, it is so fucking frustrating. we finally have another character to be part of the tiny amount of representation we have, but then people don't even care about how much it means to us? like yeah, alastor won't get offended because he's not real, but it frustrates and annoys us. do you realize that it's also technically invalidating the aroace community? that you're invalidating our feelings? imagine feeling like you're finally being seen because your orientation is finally being represented in media, and people just decide to blatantly ignore, discard, and invalidate it.

media has such a powerful influence on real life, representation being a prevalent factor of it. there are numerous posts that dictate how people went to watch a movie/show or read a book just because a character depicts their identity in it — obviously, being represented is an incredibly uplifting and validating experience.

which is why seeing an aroace character in a popular show is so meaningful to us because we live in a world where romance and sex are literally everywhere and prioritized above all else. (and it's pretty obvious that alastor's on the repulsed end of the spectrum, but even if he wasn't, at least make an effort to acknowledge his sexuality instead of continuing to portray him as allo; aroace folks can be in relationships but it's not going to be the same thing with allos' experiences.)

any and every representation matters, but why does that seem to stop at people under the aroace spectrum? like y'all can't even let us appreciate the scraps of representation we have. we barely have any, so are we really that dramatic for being upset at how people easily disregard and dismiss our identities that are being depicted on screen just like that? is it truly wrong of us to want to defend and maintain the little representation we have?

[annexx27]

i so wished for them that no one had cared.

[michaeljoncarter]

sorry, i'm still hung up on how bad the writing for sarevok was in bg3. it's not even just "he's so out of character!!" bad. that is just straight up not him. literally who is this man, what the hell is he talking about, and what has he done with the actual sarevok because nothing he says makes ANY sense like....

just as one example of how wild the contradictions/retcons are, this is how bg3 has him recount his resurrection in bg2 -

and this is (parts of) how it actually happened -

like??? it's so bad and weird and dumb and for WHAT???

[siryyeet]

Oh you have complicated feelings towards Germany? Let me make 91836373 assumptions about it with my piss poor understanding of history, not listen to germans at all and then come to a horrendously bad and false conclusion on why that is! Also I think you germans should stop feeling guilty and be proud of your country again!

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

literally the easiest way to make someone care about a character and make them feel well-rounded beyond basic traits like personality, sexuality, ethnicity, etc, is to give them an actual character arc, and it’s shocking how many people do not seem to fully realize this

you cannot just cram a bunch of tropes. tropes are not the main event, they are tools to tell the story you wish to tell. emotional impact comes from the lead up, so you can’t just jump ahead and expect the payoff to work. “I want this character to just ___ already!” but they’re not there yet. that’s where the arc comes in - how do they get there?

and! most importantly, and this is something I really want people to think about when writing - the most important relationship your character should have, always, is with the world and society around them. defining your character purely through their interactions with other characters are, I find, how a lot of female characters end up feeling flat or not engaging with the themes as much as the male characters, and also how queer and non-white characters wind up as devices for other characters’ development instead of being more fleshed out

[laufire]

"au where shiva is jason's true biological mother" mate I'm not even sold on shiva being cass's mother...

[zikadraws]

Personal Powerpuff Girls older-ish design ! ^^

Believe it or not, Buttercup was the trickiest to customise here.

[arttsuka]

Jed and Oct need a bigger tank- who put them in such a small tank???

I like to think Larry was like "I'll go buy a big tank tomorrow for you to stay until we figure out how to turn you back" (because the shops wouldn't be open at night) and then he put them in two glasses of water. Jed had a panic attack (almost dying in a hourglass will leave some trauma behind) so Larry just went to his house, found an old fishbowl he had (for decorative reasons, filled with little rocks etc) and brought that back to the museum.