#this is the second time I've done this

[sir-subpar]

Hungry Bird Chase (1?)

(My Reimagined Banban x Gender Neutral player/reader)

Below the cut:

Rating: Teen for injury descriptions.

Summary: your first time witnessing your companion's dangerous appetite.

(*Note: this is written based on my reimagined versions of these characters. So there's going to be some story divergence. Gender Neutral reader w/ they/them pronouns used to make my life easier. I might do a part 2*)

…

BanBan had been an… odd companion to have. Though you appreciated the help he gave through this ungodly maze-like building, there was still this odd air around him.

He seemed to be desperate to help you, but at the same time avoiding you. Keeping a level of distance from you.

At first, you did the same, so it didn't seem all that odd. He was probably scared like you were, unsure of your next move. On guard.

But, as you started letting your walls down, he didn't appear to do the same, at least, not much.

 It felt like he was just starting to open up to you, then that jellyfish had to ruin it. BanBan had been captured, and you struggled to find him.

You'd think a giant one-eyed orange jellyfish holding a tall red monster would be easy to spot, but thanks to all the bottomless pits everywhere, you lost them rather quickly.

In that time, you managed to tame Opila Bird, riding on her back through the facility. 

You wouldn't deny that you were proud of your accomplishment. Part of you wished you could show off your amazing feat to Banban. But you obviously had to find him first. 

So, riding on the back of a tall pink bird, you search for him.

For a while.

A long while.

You swore you had been in some of these rooms before, but it was difficult to keep track without a map.

After another hellish hallway leading to a balcony above the abyss, Opila stopped, Tarta Bird standing next to the both of you with a baby bird on their back. 

Both birds froze, staring into the darkness. 

You were tempted to ask them why, but your words caught on your tongue upon hearing a familiar ominous voice.

"Bird riding is a new one, I'll give you that."

Stinger Flynn.

He proceeded to monologue in front of you, you grew more agitated and disinterested as he spoke, until he said something particularly odd.

"I got what I needed, and you gave up your chance of freedom, but… I don't have time to deal with you, so.."

One of his retractable stingers emerged from one of his tube-like arms.

 It swiftly moved towards you before you could react! You were certain it was going to pierce through your body!

You only had time to raise your arms and guard your face!

But it dashed past you, only leaving a big, but non lethal gash on your hand.

It hurt, but compared to what you are expecting it didn't seem like much. They didn't even appear to be anything too bad, though it might require stitches. 

You didn't have time to process it, however.

One of Stinger Flynn's other arms revealed BanBan, the tendril coiled around him, before rapidly throwing him. 

You gasped as Banban's body harshly collided with the wall behind you. You could hear the force of the impact knock the air out of him, leaving him winded and limp on the floor.

Before the jellyfish descended into the darkness, his parting words were "I'll let him deal with you."

Then, he was gone.

You hopped off of Opila, panicking as you ran to check on BanBan.

"Banban!" You yelled, sitting on your knees as you shook his face-down body.

He groaned, propping himself up on his hands, and soon his knees as well.

He shakily met your gaze, his left eye, which already tended to have a Shiner anyway, was someone shot as the entire area around it was bruised far worse. The bruises spread to his chicken forehead.

He must have hit the wall pretty hard. His faded red color was interrupted by dark purples.

 You gently grazed your finger over the bruised, now purple, skin. Apologizing when he flinched away and whined.

His good eye drifted you your injured hand, and his demeanor went from small and injured to frantic and concerned in a snap.

"Oh my- what happened to your hand!?"

His larger, red hands held your bleeding one. The crimson fluid trickled between your fingers.

BanBan stood up, quickly lifting you up with him. Because of how shy and gentle he acted, you often forgot how strong he really was sometimes.

"We need to find you a first aid kit! Oh I'm sure we had one around here on this floor somewhere!"

"Hey hey! It's okay, I have bandages." To prove your claim, you pulled a roll of gauze from your bag, wrapping your hand up swiftly.

He seemed relieved, flashing you his signature sweet smile, purple forked tongue sticking out and all.

But as quickly as the smile came, it was gone. His face warped from reluctantly relieved to panicked once more.

He slapped his hand over his mouth and stumbled back from you.

Oh, right. You forgot he could smell with his tongue like a snake. Seems like a big reaction, but maybe he was squeamish around blood or something?

He turned his back to you, hunched over, his free hand clutching his stomach.

"Oh, BanBan, I'm fine. It's not that bad." You attempted to sooth him.

Just then you heard his stomach growl, loudly. It actually startled you.

And the way he seemed to double over, clutching the fabric of his jacket harder as he put more pressure on the noisy organ, attempting to silence it.

You could hear him murmuring panicked words to himself, but you couldn't make out what he was saying.

He looked ill..

"Woah, Banban? You alright there bud? Do you uh… have a stomach ache or something?" You awkwardly reached out to him, rest your hand on his back for only a second before he flinched away from you.

His stomach let out another loud growl.

He murmured again, his voice strained, but this time, you heard it.

"Please… r...un..!"

Your eyes widened and you jumped back in fear as he let out a beastly snarl.

You wasted no time running towards Opila and Tarta. Leaping onto Opila's back, you rode away as fast as possible down yet another unfamiliar corridor.

Playing a strange Bird racing game where you had to take turns being first place, all while you were being chased by who you assumed to be your friend, made your heart pound in your chest. 

You could hear your heartbeat pounding in your ears as a shot of adrenaline took over you.

You looked back, though you really wish you hadn't. BanBan's open eye was wide open, his pupil pinprick small, nearly invisible. And he had sharp teeth that you had never seen before.

Did he always have those intimidating claws??

You tried using your hand to close the green doors as you moved, hoping to buy yourself more time. It only worked a little bit, as Banban stopped to pry each of the doors open or slam his body through them.

As you slammed more doors behind you though, you gained a bit more distance ahead of him.

Your victory was short-lived however, when you reached the end of the hallway. A dead end other than the stairs before you that lead to God knows where.

Banban burst through the last door, the metal creaking and warping as he dented and broke it.

His breathing was heavy as his eye locked onto you. Any recognition of you was gone. 

Even though he mostly looked the same, his demeanor was practically unrecognizable to you, as he salivated at the sight of you.

Strands of saliva dribbled down his face, his deadly fangs on full display as he stalked towards you and Opila.

You rode Opila up the stairs, following Tarta bird. Both Birds halted at the top of the flight of stairs though, as the ground shook underneath you.

A familiar, monstrous growl rang from the darkness ahead of you, as heavy footsteps emerged.

Green was the first thing you saw. 

You got extra scared when you saw BanBan turn towards it.

Jumbo Josh.

[aethersea]

I've always wanted to learn bookbinding, ever since I was a wee little nerd, but there are a lot of things I've always wanted to learn, and this one has both a daunting upfront materials cost and a daunting upfront research cost. however, my sister is a jewel among siblings and gave me for christmas last year a handy dandy bookbinding manual, a block of good paper, and a little bag of tools.

but I still didn't have a suitable workspace, nor any of the many important tools and materials that she didn't include in her gift. so I just read the manual and pined. until maybe a month ago I got fed up with pining, flattened a cardboard box for a cutting mat, and went to town.

and I'm real proud of myself, so here's me rambling, plus photos!

I went to the thrift store and got glue + some fabric to bind the cover, went to Michaels for a paintbrush (and later went back for a metal ruler lmao it's amazing how useful it is to have a straightedge for cutting the paper), and...could not find material for the cover boards. so I went home and pined some more. but the urges were too strong, so after a couple hours of moping I got a stack of printer paper at the grocery store (I could not bring myself to use the good paper for my first, inevitably weak attempts, I just couldn't do it) and started making a little booklet. which was a great idea, it turned out, since it makes for good practice with cutting the paper, measuring things, punching holes in the signatures, etc.

I have a big box of greeting cards from Michaels, which I used for the covers. it didn't feel like I was making a Real Book, so I got some colored paper from the stationery store and used that for end papers.

so fancy~

galvanized by this success, I ordered a stack of chipboard online to use for cover boards; and once I was confident that I could cut paper without making it look too stupid (getting that straightedge ruler sure helped lol), I made signatures out of the good paper, left them under some heavy books overnight since I don't have a book press, and then punched holes in them! (huzzah for this nice video on getting the holes right)

my sister's gift included good linen thread. it's unwaxed, but after some poking around on r/bookbinding it looks like that just means I'll have to be more careful to avoid tangles and keep good tension. I am fine with this. I can be extra attentive. (I considered just running it over a beeswax candle, but one commenter said if your wax has paraffin in it, it could melt in a hot car, ruining the spine. I can't guarantee my candle is 100% beeswax, I didn't make it, so maybe we just move on.)

I don't have good linen fabric to use for the tapes, but the important part there is that the fabric be thin, sturdy, and not stretchy. the probably-cotton I got from the thrift store fits the bill, so it'll do!

this is a french link stitch, which I got from this exceedingly good tutorial. apparently it's strong enough on its own that for a book of this size, I don't actually need tapes, but I'd already cut the things so eh here we are. and tapes plus french link will make it a stronger binding still (according to a friendly redditor on r/bookbinding), so we carry on.

specifically we carry on to the gluing step. now as I mentioned, I do not have a book press, and you....kinda need one for this step. you need to hold the book block in place with the signatures facing upwards, pressed together hard enough that the glue won't run down between them and stick the pages together (though you do want the glue to get between them just a little, just for like a 16th of an inch). you at least need some clamps and a couple boards to sandwich the book block with.

but you know what? I'm not a professional, this is my first ever book, if it's a little bit off it'll be fine. so we grab all the heaviest books off the bookshelf and improvise.

it's fine! I'm sure it's fine! and just in case it's not, I've tucked a bit of cardboard underneath to catch any glue that drips down so it won't land on the floor. see? I'm prepared! I'm acing this.

and actually, it really was fine. I used clear elmer's glue, applied with a flat paintbrush from the art supplies aisle at Michael's, and frankly I liked the way the flat paintbrush let me slip glue in between the signatures. I did poke around on a couple bookbinding sites to see what kind of glue I should use, and the gist is that although there are better options than this, elmer's glue is perfectly serviceable, and the main downside is it's not archival grade. but I don't need my first bookbinding attempts to last 200 years, that's fine.

the next step is to add the mull. mull is a specific type of fabric – extremely loose-weave linen – and the idea is to paste it down over the spine to essentially hold the tapes and signatures all in place in relation to each other.

but I don't have mull! so I'm using more of the thrift store probably-cotton, because it's thin enough and not really stretchy at all. I'm sure this will be fine too. I painted a layer of glue onto the spine, then left it to dry a bit while I measured and cut the fabric, then painted a generous stripe of glue down the center, where it'll affix onto the spine. then I added a bit more glue to the spine, just to be sure, and pressed the mull into place, rubbing it thoroughly to make sure it's firmly affixed to every signature, with no creases in the fabric or air bubbles beneath it.

honestly I might have overdone it on the glue. I've never done this before, I don't know! I think it's okay, though – I tried not to ever let it become a thick layer, just a slight coating, since the danger of too much glue is that it might crack once dry and weaken the spine.

and now we leave it in the press overnight to dry, and pick up the next step in the morning!

[onestellarghost]

I got to ramble to my literature class about Gideon the Ninth yesterday so here's the thing I made for that final

[umblrspectrum]

for how much i love to drag pngs around, it turns out that i actually don't know how to animate all too well

[genericpuff]

Congratulations to Greece for legalizing same-sex marriage!

[murderofsomeone]

LD'03TOBER Day 30: Mold En Mono

alt vers

[minhosblr]

2023-2024 : One year with @minhosblr! ♡

A compilation of the year that has gone by

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

if i had a nickel for every time alex turner told all of glastonbury he shares a bed with miles kane, i’d have two nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's still weird that it’s happened twice…

[sparrowmoth]

➳ It's never too early to say happy pride month and never too late to say save #sixofcrowsspinoff and #saveshadowandbone. ♥️🌈✨

[kagooleo]

doodlin some joh’s

[desultory-novice]

I get the feeling that Adeline is the most likely to get therapy.

...She'll probably need it too... (Pausing the fun times for something dreadfully serious) -

"Pieces"

-

[Apologies AU Masterpost] [Noir's Field Trip]

[artificial-angels]

used this request for lip syncing practice!!!!! 😈

@anticosmo13

[whatudottu]

i need to crawl into his skin and become him

[eggsistential-breakdown]

Ian and the twice-divorced gray-eyesed rift Ian from the first chapter of @reblogincarnation-blues's fic!

anyways the closest experience I've had to the the feeling of reading the second chapter is taking my roommate to the ER for four hours for suspected appendicitis only to come back with a UTI diagnosis and an antibiotic prescription. and it breaks your one year streak of roommates getting appendicitis. in a good way.

[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 😘

[nazarbabe]

the self-righteous monarch 👑