#the contrast is just crazy

[bugsbenefit]

attraction in ST

or. oh god stop stripping the show of it's themes no please no it needs those, stopppp

actually making this post now bc i'm sick of people claiming anything remotely sexual or even kissing happening to the party (an opinion that often pops up in the context of byler) in s5 would be horrible, sexualising, or out of character for the show

ST has always had a realistic approach to kids growing into their sexualities. the show's never shied away from directly addressing sex and sexual feelings so i'm honestly amazed by the extremely puritan interpretation of the show. i'm assuming, in good faith, that a big part of it is coming from people not having seen the actual show in ages and are just forgetting how explicitly the show handles sexuality. instead of just assuming it's from culturally raised christian people, who feel uncomfortable seeing any portrayal of sexuality, no matter how tasteful or realistic

i'm also saying all this as an ace person myself, i get not being into sex and not wanting to see it. however, refusing to acknowledge entire themes of a fictional show just because i don't experience them is bizarre to me. sexuality is vitally important to a lot of the characters and isn't just there to be fun(gross). essentially, ST is the opposite of porn without plot

so just as a little reminder what's actually IN Stranger Things. canonically.

sorry i had this sc for ages and wanted to include it Somewhere, so here you go. at a little starter... dorry

also this is an old draft seeing the light of day now, if anything's worded weird it's bc i didn't read all of it over again so oops, grammar hard?

TLDR: the show has never shied away from explicitly addressing sexuality. buying into the puritan fanon version of the show is going to make your s5 viewing experience worse because that show doesn't exist

season 1

we're starting the show off with Stancy, which is very sexually charged in general. (even in s4 Nancy still experiences physical attraction to Steve despite them having unchanged compatibility) the plot surrounding them in s1 explicitly focuses on Nancy having sex with Steve and later regretting that choice. the scene that everyone remembers, is of course, the "explicit" (not really, because ST is really tasteful with how it shows these teens explore themselves) sex scene

they're in sophomore and junior year of highschool here. around 15 and 16 years old - yet the show doesn't shy away from letting them figure things out. and it's not like this sexual theme is contained in only that scene. it keeps coming back the whole season as Nancy tries to sort her feelings out and deals with the aftermath of that night

also sidenote here while still at Steve and his party: even Steve's friends are very casual with their sexualities. and yes, they can even explicitly mention sex and specific sexual acts, no holding back here

Nancy's character conflict in s1 very much hinges on her sexuality and sexual themes. and it's not like there is a magic you need to be at least this old rule to know what sex is on the show like so many people seem to believe, because even 12 year old Mike seems to very much know what his sister and Steve are up to. he even goes out of his way to use it against her

iconic line! but i've seen insane takes trying to spin this into something not alluding to something sexual. i'm sorry to say if he doesn't think they're full on having sex he at least thinks they're getting very intimate with each other regardless

so not even the youngest characters on the show are "innocent and pure" the way fandom likes to claim when it comes to sexuality. and of course they aren't. real 12 year olds know what sex is, they're young not oblivious

and the following seasons make that even more obvious

season 2

as of s2 the kids are getting more involved with the sexual jokes, not just making them about other people but even being directly involved with those themes themselves. which is also realistic. with 13 sexuality starts to get thrown your way by every possible form of media. lots of them start developing crushes, have no idea how relationships work, etc. it's messy, typical teens thrown into the dating game. (i say all of this from a developmental media psychology perspective thanks uni and not personal experience sorry lmao, i'm a bit too ace to have my own input here)

s2 features comedic and awkward mentions of sex(ual activity) towards Lucas and Max,

older peers giving their 13 year old friends well meant advice on how relationships work,

and has even younger characters play around with attraction/kissing/love as well, which is incredibly normal for kids to do at that age

they're all young and the show treats growing up realistically. while the theme of attraction or sexuality gets more relevant for them (in scenes that are often received with awkwardness by the characters themselves) the show offers them safe territory to stand on. none of them are directly confronted with sexuality and are instead offered people to seek advice from for example

meanwhile the sexuality theme for the older kids is still very much explicit. just as Nancy's arc is still heavily tied to her romance and sexuality (which ties into her non conformity themes - she's an ambition driven person trying to escape the culdesac life first and foremost)

not only do we get another sex scene (this time with a cut away), there's also explicit jokes about it after

sexuality on the show is continuously awkward and messy. Jonathan and Nancy are only 16-17 here - no one really knows what they're doing or what the right way to go ahead is and Jonathan rightfully almost does a spittake here. out of pocket Murray

sexuality. is. awkward. (we get is s2 thanks)

season 3

s3 gets even more explicit with it's awkward puberty sexuality themes

from Dustin talking about how much he likes kissing Suzie (and her liking him not having teeth for it?) which weirds Steve out to the repeating, awkwardly received, "happy screams joke" (which gets a callback in later scene)

sexuality is still awkward for them. it's a realistic approach to what 14 year olds act like and know. they're actively dating by now, they're kissing people And have messy relationship situations. all while still acknowledging knowing what sex and attraction is, duh, of course they know that. but i'm explicitly pointing it out because i see obscene amounts of people claiming the characters are completely sheltered and even implying that they know what sex is would be gross. to that i say, do you not remember being 14???

and while i'm at s3, also let it be mentioned that even the adults are suffering at the hands of the sexuality theme here. Hopper's hookups with random women are focused on in s1, but now that he's getting closer with Joyce they get very explicitly told to just have sex. literally

not putting the whole dialogue in here, i already have too many images because there's so many sex mentions in this show and he really just tells them their mating ritual is painful and they should tear their clothes off and fuck right now

thanks Murray, always insightful

season 4

and s4 has stopped just confronting the kids with the existence of sexuality, but is tentatively starting to explore mature themes more directly - which allows them to tentatively start exploring their own sexualities instead of just having to acknowledge the general concept of sexuality

Max gets to ogle shirtless Steve

Lucas has something under his bed that's never confirmed as anything except "100/10 gross" but had 90% of the audience i saw immediately assume something sexual (magazines or the like)

and has a bunch more direct nudges, from the kids "experimenting sexually" as Murray says

to Argyle explicitly telling Jonathan he needs to have sex with Nancy again

to Hopper and Joyce's escalating make out in a church while shirtless

to visual innuendos (i'm looking at you hose scene. this one wouldn't be such a big deal if there wasn't a genuine moral panic about it last year. which was crazy. people literally had to pretend the scene didn't exist to escape the witchhunting mobs, except instead of being killed for magic it'd be for looking at a canon scene and acknowledging it. crazy times - aside from that there's also more visuals you can take as innuendos in s4e1 which there's already posts about out there so i'm not getting into them here, i'm more focused on the overt textual references)

to Yuir extensively talking about pleasing women and making them cum (I'm sparing you from that, the sc in at the top was already enough)

to explicit graffities all over the place, like here as an example "give me head until i'm dead" which is in frame for the whole phone call and Steve talking about his bitchlesness. and is also some of the only easily legible text (i hope this is readable, most of my screenshots kind of died a bit so maybe you need to look at an actual clip to see the text)

that is aside from the "DRUGS" poster which touches on another point s4 makes. the show doesn't just explore sexuality, it also puts the kids into more mature situations in general (not talking about the deaths, this is a horror show), specifically drugs

Jonathan uses weed as a coping mechanism the whole season and Eddie even sells the stuff in full bags (insane weed selling practices btw, even i know that). Chrissy (17-18) wants to do weed and ketamine. and we also see Lucas (14) hungover after drinking at a party for the first time

the show does not shy away from portraying realistic teen experiences

Murray called s4 very well, the kids pound some bears, smoke some ganja, play nintendo, and experiment sexually

literally. you have drinking, weed, and confusing queer sexualities. they took this list step by step

and all of those pretty normal things teens tend to explore. and i say that as someone who was decidedly not into those things. the ace experience is a bit different, but i can still acknowledge how that period was like for my allo friends and people in general

there is an extreme push in this fandom to reject any form of sexual jokes or references in the show, made mostly by people being uncomfortable with portrayals of sexuality. however, the themes not only still exist, they're also very prominent throughout all 4 seasons and are important to a lot of the characters directly

and it's also noteworthy here to see how ST approaches it's sexuality theme. it grows with the characters. starting out as jokes and being received with awkwardness to slowly letting them figure things out on their own time and turns. an extremely realistic progression and very common for coming of age narratives such as ST. it's a far cry from shows exploring sexuality or sexual themes for the sake of the viewers enjoyment like Euph0ria (don't want it to show up in tags)

based on what we currently know s5 could very well be taking place in 1988 or later which would place the party at around 16-17 years old. going into the season with the fanon version of the show that is completely clean and non sexual will 100% set you up for disaster

ST is very realistic and non exploitative with it's exploration of teen sexuality so there is obviously nothing to worry about in the sexualization department, that's just puritan fear mongering. however, it's very likely that we're going to get more than holding hands or pecks on the lips from the characters that are now older than characters we've explicitly seen hook up before. there could be more intimate scenes or making out, yes. but there's also at least one basically guaranteed vulgar joke in there, all seasons have them

there's no real theorizing or speculation about s5 here, anything could happen and i'm not placing bets, i want the characters narratives to be wrapped up well first and foremost and trust the writers to do it well. however, going into s5 with some of the mindsets i've seen circulating on here and expecting the show to be "clean" and cater to a version of it that's never existed outside of purified fandom could genuinely make you feel blindsided by the shows canon themes

not targeted at anyone or anything specifically, just using this as a bit of a reality check of what the show is actually like after recently rewatching all of it in one go

[glowsticcc]

there is an upsettingly small amount of pissa outfit swap content and i won’t stand for it any longer

[karkatbug]

here is a sketchbook comic bc im not in a mouse and mspaint mood :^)

Day 1 of @davekatweek: Plush

page 1/2-3/4/5/6/7-8/9-10

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

ⁱ ᶜᶜᶜᵃⁿⁿⁿ ʳᵉᵃᵈᵈ ʸʸᵒᵘʳ ᶜᵒᵈᵈᵉ

ｉｔ'ｓ ｃａｌｌｉｎｇ ｆｏｒ ａ ｗｏｒｔｈｙ ｕｓｅｒ

og screenshot :D

[mysicklove]

puppy boys who cant help but drool a little bit when you open you legs

[haveihitanerve]

The same scene, written one year apart(increased batman/batfam knowledge and increased writing skill): 

“I’ve changed a lot Bruce.” Jason growled, looking away. “But not where it matters,” Bruce returned softly, taking a cautious step forward. His hand brushed Jason’s chest. “Not in here.” 

“I’ve changed Bruce.” Jason snapped, brows drawn together in anger because why couldn’t he just understand that Jason wasn’t his little boy anymore? He wasn’t… who Bruce wanted him to be. “Maybe,” Bruce admitted quietly, and Jason had to look away, silver lining his eyes because- because well he hadn’t expected Bruce to agree. He hadn’t expected it to hurt that much. But Bruce wasn’t finished. His fingertips brushed Jason’s chest, and Jason turned to look at him. “But not in here,” Bruce said softly, eyes so blue and so earnest. “Not where it matters.” 

[geminison]

Wood carving and killing people both require knife skills. And both tend to leave marks

[rapunzel1523]

"Nico yapping about Lewis, likely place for him to be" yeah okay but. He was clearly at a work event and they put up a slideshow and pictures and then Stopped on the 2016 Spain crash.

And the slideshow didn't move on to the next picture. What was he supposed to do lol just pretend he does not see? I mean I'm glad Nico is good-natured about it all.

[saltpepperbeard]

the stark difference between this october and last october has my head spinning 360 degrees tbh.

like last october was so joyful and so rich and so beautiful and i would give anything to do it all again, whereas this october is like back to back to back horrors l m a o

[teapetal44]

[sillyabtmusic]

♡ Keonhee in Oneus MVs ♡

[aboutmercy]

thinking about how dongsik and joowon are the inverse of each other. thinking about joowon's journey realizing that blood is not thicker than water, ties can be severed from abusive family members (no matter how painful that is) and that among many things, his father's cruelty is what took away and destroyed dongsik's family who actually were a positive force in his life. many things about beyond evil appeal to me, but i mainly want to put a pin on the central themes of the show, particularly the failures of adults and parental figures, how that ripples through the lives of their successors in an especially vicious and self-destructive manner. this is a commonality found between multiple characters in the show (minjeong, joowon and jeongje) - but i want to put emphasis on joowon's struggle with this because his path to freedom was walked to completion, in comparison to minjeong whose life was cut short and jeongje who we part with carrying the painful knowledge that he may never achieve absolution, as his journey has only begun.

the show, technically starts at the beginning of joowon's journey/arc. unfamiliarity and discomfort force him to adapt and self-reflect, because the only way joowon was able to free himself was by breaking every rule his father set for him, going beyond his selfish confines and breaking down the walls he built. joowon is unable to get his physical body dirty, he is emotionally closed-off and is incapable of understanding why the people in manyang, particularly dongsik, would look out for anyone other than themselves. he is selfish, rigid, guilt-ridden and bashful; but it is exposure to dongsik's unwavering faith in and patience for others (for jeongje, for sangbae, for the people of manyang that have wronged him for years) that erode his harsh edges. dongsik, although not without flaws and contrary to what his outer appearance and manner of speech radiate, is kind and forgiving. that kindess, that forgiveness, as well as joowon's own guilt and shame is essential to getting him to a point where he is comfortable bloodying his hands, his clothes, and his face to protect dongsik (+ jihwa and her partner. to protect his friends).

dongsik recognizes joowon's pain too ("i know what it's like to be blamed for something you didn't do"). he sees his guilt, it's not inordinate to what joowon's done per se but a large portion of it brings so much shame to joowon ("please, stop doing unnecessary things out of guilt.") how could i have been so self-righteous when the man who bore me is responsible for so much misery? how do i rectify this, how do i absolve myself from the guilt? all dilemmas joowon grapples with, and dongsik, knowing pain and shame all too well does not grant joowon mercy when he is bowed down, forehead to cuffed hands while joowon's own are also cupping dongsik's, begging for it. mercy is letting joowon go, it's lifting the burden of responsibility off his shoulders - but instead, dongsik’s final request ensures that joowon truly atones ("i ask you to arrest me" - "no, how could i do that? i have no right") by informing him that the only way to live with guilt is to try and do right by the people who expect something from him. "joowon-ah", dongsik says as he softly picks up joowon's clenched fist, the look they share informs joowon that going through with the arrest is how he'll do dongsik right. it's what dongsik, his now friend, expects from him. that's what their final scene as partners is all about, in my opinion.

and something good does come out of dongsik's firm but tender confrontation. joowon gradually becomes a better person who seeks community and whose life, in return, is enriched by the friends that forming community gave him. dongsik and joowon's parting is bittersweet, but in letting joowon know that his actions matter to others and that he is wanted and expected by others - (jihwa, as part of the larger collective whose feelings towards joowon are influenced by dongsik's, texts him and checks in - that expectation to show up and empathy for when he does not respond is an invitation letting him know that there is a place for him if he chooses to occupy any) - dongsik sets him free.

[cidnangarlond]

FORTUNA FORSYTHIA -> The Dawntrail Benchmark

Thank you Luu @deoxygenated for the footage!

[yakny]

"Please forgive the blood on my hands. Most of it is mine."

[trainingdummyrabbit]

string theocracy posting again. something about it feels very very Angry in a way thats hard to describe. spiteful, almost, in a restrained way. something about the arrangement of the instrumental, the way the brass always starts on the offbeat, feeling almost like its trying to catch you off guard, like an interruption, almost. every time you almost start to focus on something else, there it is again, bursting in. pay attention!

the almost tentative tone of the vocals with the final piano lines; matching up in timing yet the piano pulls the emphasis of emotion-- Just a bit more. Just a bit farther. its always sounded like pleading to me. contrasted against the tone of th lyrical read.

the pianos always been so soft; but up till then it was more Frantic. feels like being pushed around; always there yeah, but never the forefront. only when the noise dies down in the more intimate bits can you hear it clearly. so quiet. despite it leading in to be the main pull (being one of the first debuted instruments) its completely overshadowed by the noise of everything else.

lost in the tide of everything else-- go girl go! dance girl dance! the spin of the wheel waits for no one!

[lavenoon]

on care, and scary things

@naffeclipse let's see if I'll ever be normal about this line