#but it seems so obvious? like this right here is the point of the film

[mousieta]

The bagel and the googly eye are two major symbols of this film. Not only is it a surprisingly apt and humorous take on yin and yang, but in the same stroke it explores concepts central to Buddhist philosophy. To boil down more than 2,000 years of Buddhist discourse – it is thought that all things exist only through our perception of said things. Therefore, they are without inherent meaning. They’re empty.

...

Through the googly-eyed lens, we gain the power to control our infinite emptiness. Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), the dorky husband of Evelyn (Michelle Yeoh), reminds her through simple kindness that there is value where you want to create it and meaning where you choose to see it. In Buddhist thought, it’s our compassion that grounds us – makes us human – and emptiness isn’t the mark of nihilism and despair but an opportunity to leave behind the bad and cherish the good.

#everything everywhere all at once #review #the piece mentions western audiences not getting this and... #definitely sure some reviewers i've absolutely didnt get it #but it seems so obvious? like this right here is the point of the film #meaning is what we create with our choices #its a good article tho

[byers-bowlcut]

I've seen people say El likes the IDEA of having a boyfriend more than she actually likes her own boyfriend, and jfc it's so true 😭 Like it's all over the show:

Season 1

She's initially attached to Mike because he's the first person to give her shelter, food, genuine human care and just,, not calling CPS immediately. Her feelings for him was born from trauma and dependency in season 1. And throughout the rest of the 3 seasons, we don't see it grow past that.

Also I think it's noticeable in S1 that:

She was uninterested when Mike tried to share his hobbies with her

She also did not seem to mind AT ALL when she questioned if Mike could be her brother. He voice is neutral and curious here, not the least bit repulsed by the thought of being siblings with Mike, like girl does not care 😭

Season 2

This season has zero onscreen moments of Mike and El actually getting to know each other further. They were separated nearly the whole season.

What we DO see:

El's attachment and dependency on Mike that was developed from S1

We also find out how El spent a year of her life watching melodramatic romance films. Many other middle schoolers might identify that relationships in real life don't work like those films. But El is fresh out of lab life, she's literally learning the world through this TV, and has now become obsessed with the IDEA of having a boyfriend/relationship just like that.

Season 3

Again, no onscreen moments of El showing interest in who Mike is as a person.

The very first scene we see of them, she's trying to get him to stop singing along to the song they're listening to. She seems to like kissing Mike. But isn't shown enjoying anything actually characteristic about him, like sharing interests with him such as music.

Hopper indicates that they don't do anything meaningful together either. We see here that before hanging out with Max, El had little sense of her own style, her hobbies, her interests- meaning spending time with Mike for months probably didn't involve many talking points did it?

Also in season 3, El dumps Mike with ZERO hesitation. Then she has the time of her life with Max. The most acknowledgment we get that she's oh so heartbroken is a small frown to Max that her and Mike aren't on best terms. And even that doesn't seem so paramount cause 1 episode later she totally dismisses Mike after he explains how Hopper threatened him. She just tells him maybe Hopper was right 😭😭

It's literally ONLY once she starts becoming in danger that she starts clinging onto him again. I feel like we've seen this film before hm.

Like where are any signs that she likes Mike as an individual, and is falling for who he really is, rather than simply being attached due to trauma, and liking the concept of doing romantic things (ie: kissing, dancing at the ball, etc.)

Season 4

This is the season it becomes the MOST OBVIOUS: El loves the concept of a happy relationship and being loved, but not really loving Mike for who he is. And bringing in Will's feelings just emphasizes this point.

To start, El continues doing all these relationship-y things that she did in the start of S3. She has Mike's name and pictures plastered all over her room. She makes a "Mike box" with his pictures decorated all over it. But the thing is: this is all sort of a façade at this point. We know she's BEEN unhappy with him for months ("From Mike! From Mike! From Mike!"). But with all these items, she's basically trying to convince herself that she's in this happy, fantasy, movie-like relationship, like she probably watched in hopper's cabin in season 2.

And then, there's the sheer difference between her and WILL in their feelings for Mike. We see it right off the bat when Mike comes to the airport: Will and El both have plans to give Mike something.

Will plans to give him a painting he worked extremely hard on. The painting is a connection of what they BOTH love: DnD, and it includes their friends who also play the game. It's very personal and immediately touches Mike. What's more is, the painting illustrates the exact qualities about Mike that Will loves: his leadership, his bravery, his guidance. This painting literally spells out to us that Will truly loves Mike for WHO HE IS.

Meanwhile, El plans on giving Mike a fun reunion date. She has the whole day planned out. And immediately: we see that what she wants to do doesn't actually takes Mike's interests and personality into consideration. You can see and hear the strain in his voice when he talks about "burritos for breakfast" 😬

You can see how he's not that relaxed at rinkomania, and nervous about skating, saying he's clumsy. He probably would've much preferred movies and playing a board game, over skating. But El has her own ideas. When she brings Mike to rinkomania, she tries to act really cool about it. She wants to impress him, wants to seem like she fits in and belongs.

Her present was never actually ABOUT Mike, and about loving Mike that she would plan this huge date for him. Her present was about her desperately wanting to have this cool date like every other normal teen girl might, with a normal boyfriend, and make it seem like they have a happy perfect relationship.

And then finally we reach their S4 fight. I find it extremely interesting how Hopper's cabin is framed in the background during their whole fight. It's almost like an indication that her desperate need to be loved by Mike stems from her trying to cope with losing Hopper and the hole left by him, that clearly did not exist when she happily dumped Mike in S3.

In their fight, when the topic of bullying comes up, Mike says he understands her, but El is quick to say he doesn't. She thinks Mike doesn't understand her, but this is just as much her not understanding HIM as well.

She doesn't get the extent of Mike's insecurities (definitely partially a result of bullying), something that Mike later divulges to WILL and not her. If the writers wanted to show us how much El understands Mike and loves him for who he is, her and Mike would work through his insecurities in their rs together, NOT through a middle man.

Overall it's pretty striking that we've never once heard El actually compliment Mike, or articulate, or even show what exactly she loves about him through four whole seasons. I mean...

Attachment to him due to trauma or grief =/= loving him for who he is.

Wanting to BE loved =/= loving him for who he is.

So really in terms of a relationship, what El ACTUALLY wants is the concept/idea of a regular boyfriend, and a happy easy relationship, all in an attempt to feel normal. And that's why we see them fall apart the way they do in season 4, and why Will is currently so involved. Because Will DOES see and love Mike for exactly who he is.

#eleven hopper #mike wheeler #will byers #byler #analysis on el's character and her feelings for mike #anti mileven #stranger things

[nouvxllev]

Omg hi! Do you think you would ever do a sequel to head over heels, your hand over mine? Maybe where Jenna proposes?

your hand over mine, my ring over yours

Pairing: Jenna Ortega x Fem!Reader

Summary: ^ request!!

Words: 2.8k

Warnings: damn this is shorter than what i expected

a/n: the obvious answer is yes i (do) will!!

prev. || masterlist.

"Why did you say yes to him anyway?" Jenna's voice, now your girlfriend (awesome as hell, you may add), echoed over the room. Mic in between both of her hands as she sways side to side over you.

The both of you decided to stay in the karaoke booth for a while, it was a waste of money after all. Your money, might you add. The guy didn't even bother to pay for it!

You shrugged, watching her figure fall into place beside you, a song chosen by Jenna playing in the background. "I needed to move on from you. It was clear I didn't have a chance."

Jenna's eyes narrowed, you could see her eyebrows crinkling even in the dimly lit room. "Move on? Didn't have a chance?"

You nodded, almost laughing at how the mic was still in direct contact with her lips, you were avoiding direct eye contact but it was so clear that Jenna was fuming.

"I seriously can't believe there's someone out there so oblivious and it's you." You heard her chuckle, yet her voice was soft. You expected her to get mad at you by the way she started her sentence, but you forgot she was the one who ran (not really) over here and confessed to you all so abruptly.

"Weren't the flowers and hundreds of letters mailed to your doorstep enough to hint that I liked you?"

You scratched your head, a sheepish smile playing on your lips. "Okay, in my defense, I just thought you were being extra friendly. Who wouldn't want a friend who sends flowers and letters, right?"

Jenna shook her head, letting go of the mic and crossing her arms. "I was practically spelling it out. All that was missing was dropping down on one knee and proposing to you."

You raised an eyebrow, "hey to be fair, my mom was the one who gave you the motivation."

Jenna shrugged, nodding her head with a smile. "Yeah, I owe her one."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That was five years ago.

Now it was your 5th anniversary with Jenna.

You lay at your bed with Jenna’s headphones on, staring at the ceiling for God knows how long, doing your best to fall asleep without Jenna’s warmth and presence beside you. It was difficult, difficult than it should be. You were the daughter of the Winona Ryder, damn it! Why couldn’t you go for months without the love of your life by your side.

Ever since you and Jenna got together, everyone was, of course, not surprised but they were happy nonetheless. Hell, you even took up acting just because you can be one of Jenna’s love interests in a movie. Of course, that could be a hassle for the directors whenever it was a kissing scene. They have to yell “cut!” In front of your faces to get the both of you to stop.

Now you couldn’t help but wallow in your own sadness because there weren’t two arms wrapped around your waist and a familiar warmth along your bed for the past and next two months.

All day, you've been binging Jenna's interviews, shows, and movies to the point you can rehearse them in the back of your head.

The room felt emptier without Jenna's presence. You noticed how she was returning so late at night, how her filming dates often varied so random you couldn't even be there or keep track, how she took up almost any part she was given to her, how she often came home looking so overworked and stress you couldn't even talk to her without fearing that she'd blow up on you. And now she's all the way across the country to film another movie.

The film industry often meant sacrificing personal time apart from the holidays, and Jenna seemed to be giving it all.

Yet she always gives you that damn smile, you couldn't possibly think she's falling out of love. But it still worried you why she was doing all of this.

She was hardworking and passionate, it was part of what made her so lovable, but you couldn't help but worry about how it was affecting her.

You sat on the edge of the bed, lost in thought, you could text or call her but you knew it wasn't going to be seen for atleast another three to four hours. You didn't doubt her love, it was one of the many things you couldn't, but the worry was still there.

That was until you got a notification.

j 🤍🎧

i missed u too yn o right can u check outside for a minute? i think i mailed a package outside your room might be beside the living room, i asked them to deliver it there personally seen, 11:44 PM

The only thought that ran across your mind was 'They can do that?'

Slipping on a pair of slippers, you made your way to the living room, your steps being pulled down by whatever weight that was on your shoulders.

Jenna's message made you happy, of course, the distance seemed a little bit smaller but you couldn't help but wish she said something more than requesting you to pick up her package. Maybe a simple little 'I love you and happy anniversary' would have been something to put you at ease.

As you turned the doorknob and stepped into the living room, the fluorescent light shining from the living room made your eyes burn like hell. You squinted, but that didn't really help, you tried to adjust to the light, putting your palm above your eyes.

"Why is she always across the country," you murmured to yourself, "why are you like this, Jenna?" Your voice started to get louder and louder once you started to speak to yourself even more. You were going insane, that's the most part, but who wouldn't. "Why couldn't you just choose a project closer to home for once..." It was selfish to ask for, too selfish to make Jenna choose you over her career, but you couldn't help it.

"Does she even love me..." Your voice trailed off when you turned the corner to the living room.

Oh, what the actual fuck.

It would be an understatement to say that the living room had been turned upside down. Everything was lit up, and everything was rearranged. Hell, there was a fucking balloon arch with Jenna at the center of it all while the couches were pushed back as if it was an aisle to a wedding ceremony.

Damn, were you that depressed to the point you couldn't even hear what the fuck was going on outside your room for Jenna to transform it into this?

You couldn't say anything. Every word that was about to come out of your mouth left before your mind can even process what was happening.

Without uttering a single word, you ran towards her, your heart pounding in your chest you wouldn't be surprised if you'd have a mid-crisis heart attack. You wrapped your arms around Jenna as if she was something so untouchable, burying your face in her neck as you melted within her presence, her scent mixing in with hers as she took a step back to hold you dearly.

Her comforting warmth was a fix even you can’t tolerate. Jenna was in your arms like before, her body fitting perfectly against yours, her soul reminding you why you were alive up until this point.

Your grip on her tightened, holding on to her as tears slowly started to stain her clothes, clinging onto Jenna as if she were a mirage about to disappear from your desperate arms.

"I missed you too." Jenna's voice broke through you, your tears coming in further. Her voice was soft and tender, coming as a whisper that soothed your troubles.

"How? Why?" You murmured, your voice mumbled and tear-streaked as you lifted your head to face her. Puffy eyes and all because of your crying. "Why are you here?" Your voice cracked, "I thought you wouldn't be back for another two months." You searched for something in Jenna's eyes, something that you longed to see once again.

Jenna gently wiped away a tear from your cheek, you missed how her touch was the most reassuring thing in the world. "I heard that Winona was out of the country for filming, and it's our anniversary." It was so little for the explanation but it said everything.

You pulled back once Jenna started rummaging out of her pocket, you watch Jenna pull out a small box.

Wait, holy fuck.

"Jenna, holy shit, is that—"

"Yes, yes it is that." She chuckled, nonchalantly, as if she didn’t just swoon you for the millionth time in the past minute, turned your living room into a makeshift wedding ceremony, and is now proposing to you.

"You can't be serious. Jenna if this is just some joke I'm actually breaking up with you."

"No, no, y/n! Of course it's not. I'm being completely serious."

She fiddled with the box, not opening it yet as you stood there with eyes wide open.

"I'm sorry," she began, her voice vulnerable and sincere as she looked up to you, "I'm sorry I haven't been around. I'm sorry I keep coming back home looking stressed, I'm sorry I took up too many auditions and movies that I can hold myself up to, I'm sorry I couldn't spare even a single minute of my time loving you as much as I did before, I'm sorry I made you worry countless of times, more than I can count even. I'm sorry I haven't been the partner you deserve."

She continued, on and on until tears welled up in your eyes once more. "I know I've been distant, I know I've caused pain in you for the past months, maybe even years and I know I've let my career consume me."

"I don't have any excuses for it." Her voice dwindled, almost cracking as she looked up, trying not to cry as she laughed. "But I did all of it for a ring that would bind us forever. It's not the—"

You couldn't help but push your lips against hers, cutting her sentence off. You missed this. How your pain went away with a kiss.

"It's the perfect excuse."

Her vulnerability touched your heart, she had never been more vulnerable to you than now, you gently reached out to gently wipe away the tears that had begun to fall from her eyes. "Jenna, it's okay," you reassured her as you noticed her lips started to tremble. "I understand. I understand all of it, all of you."

Jenna's gaze met yours once she started to calm down. And there you saw it, something you searched for in her eyes ever since she landed on your doorstep this evening. Devotion.

You kissed her once more, whispering, "You know how many people would kill to be your wife?" You didn't let her open the box just yet, you held back. You know she has more to say.

Jenna, with tears of joy still glistening in her eyes, chuckled at your words. "You'd die and kill. That's the difference between you and others. You'd die for our love, and you'd fight for it with everything you have, and I think that's morbidly fascinating." She explained, "and what do you mean?"

"I'm saying that are you sure you want to marry me? I mean, there are so many people in the world you haven't met." You explained, your lips trembling.

"I could meet all of them in a single file and yet, you would still be the one who enchants me," Jenna replied, brushing a strand of hair away from your face.

"I love too much."

"I'll let you pour all your loving on me, or love everyone in the world but me. Just stay by my side. That's all I ask."

"I cry too easily. Over the simplest of things."

"I'll let you cry an ocean that surrounds every inch of you and I'd swim across everything."

"I get mad more often than not."

"I'll let you throw storms my way, express your angry through disasters upon disasters and I'll be there for all eternity even if it kills me."

"I doubt myself too much. I don't even know if I love myself."

"I'll let you love yourself before you have a chance to love me. Doubt may knock on your door, but I'll be there to answer."

"I can be difficult to handle."

"I'll let you be someone you're not at times. I'll be the one to show understanding and how to love yourself before loving me yet again.

"I'm scared of losing you, too scared for you to even love me that much."

"Then let me take your hand, and let me show you that my love couldn't waver over. Even at death I'll call his name and let me live once more with you. I'll wish in every star that in every universe, we are together. I want you to see that I'm not going anywhere."

"You know you'd eventually drown if my love for you was an ocean."

"Then let me die," Jenna whispered, a smile gracing both of your lips, her eyes filled with that same devotion and commitment you saw five years ago.

You chuckled,"We have odd ways of saying I love yous."

"Well, I am proposing to you in your living room late at night. It's accounted for." Jenna laughed softly along with you, her eyes sparkling with affection as she leaned in to press a kiss to your lips, your mouth curving into a smile as she did so.

"Reminds me that you haven't said those five words yet."

"Oh right."

"Y/n," she got down on one knee, her hand on top of the box as she prepared to open it, "You're one marvelous, just spectacular girl I've ever met. I'm so fucking happy Winona decided to tag you along that day," she chuckled.

"Every chore wouldn't be the same without your presence by my side, and my presence beside yours, I don't want to ever imagine that. My heart surrendered to your precious eyes, and I say it truly from the deepest depths of my heart that it has no plans of bail. Wherever you go, I follow. I don't want you to be the only one suffering a burden that would eventually kill you, I don't want you to be alone in your times of darkness. So please, let me be the one who will carry your burdens, your sadness, your everything. Let me be the one who will scar and carve my heart and skin for you to dump your sadness and let me carry it with a proud heart. When I die, my spirit will do everything in its power to regain the same feeling when I was alive with you. How does one understand the great love you've given me that would last millions of lifetimes, y/n? You became the reason why I now wake up with a smile, and why I became the happiest version of myself. And now, I can't think of a better grave of eternal slumber than in your beloved arms. Thank you."

The sincerity in her words left a big hole in your heart, but it was nothing but mere content and happiness. Tears welled up in your eyes as she spoke.

"Will you, Y/N/L/N, marry me?" Jenna opened the box, the ring almost blinding your eyes. Ethereal was out of the question to describe it, it was too marvelous for words. It was diamond, of course, but it had other gems that symbolized something more than love.

"Yes. Yes, Jenna!" you exclaimed, "Yes, I will." You could almost say that a million times and not get tired of it. Especially when Jenna is looking at you as if you held the stars and the moon with your bare hands.

She chuckled, standing up as she waited for you to offer your hand. "Isn't it yes I do?"

You grinned, it was an understatement to say that your heart was brimming with pure joy and happiness. "When it comes to you, it's definitely not." You offered your hand to Jenna, her fingers tracing your hand as she delicately placed the ring on your finger. It felt like a promise because it was. You gazed at it with awe, it was more than a piece of jewelry on your hands, it was Jenna. It was Jenna entirely. Her person, her love, her soul, her everything on your hand.

"You look simply gorgeous. Oh my God, I can't believe I'm marrying you," Jenna squealed, her happiness infectious and heartwarming.

"That's my line," you jokingly laughed. "And isn't it gorgeous?"

"No, you're gorgeous. The ring is just a bonus," Jenna replied, staring at you instead of the ring she probably spent hundreds of sleepless nights over. How this woman loves you was beyond anything of human comprehension.

"I love you so much, even you, Jenna Ortega, couldn't describe it." You wrapped your arms around her waist, sealing the deal with a kiss on her lips once again. You never got tired of it.

"I love you too."

You pulled away, a smile lingered on your lips, knowing that no matter how many times you kissed Jenna, it would never be enough to represent the love you had for her.

With your hand over hers, and her ring over your finger, you couldn't imagine a life without her anymore.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

a/n: i finished reading 7 husbands of evelyn hugo the other day and i cried so much. its such a great book!! i might do a story based off of it. i just dont know what jo characters should i do for the pairing

#jenna ortega x reader #jenna ortega x you #jenna ortega x y/n #jenna ortega x female reader #jenna ortega x femreader #jenna ortega x fem!reader #jenna ortega #jenna marie ortega

[mimicha-arts]

I have not written fandom theories for a long time, but LInkClick fuels my interest and search for meaning too much. Recently, I reviewed all the available series, and came across details that I had not connected before. For the most part, this post is speculations about Cheng Xiaoshi, as well as ... timeline.

Spoilers! Please be careful.

Considering so many details about Cheng Xiaoshi, it seems that there has always been something strange about his "symbolism". In fact, I'm really into the theory that the moment in episode 1 of season 2 (when Lu Guang gets stabbed) is the vision & flashback of the past about Cheng Xiaoshi's death. In fact, it amazes and delights me how many details in OverThink support these thoughts. At least because once a frame flashes, which somewhat resembles a scene from Lu Guang's flashbacks.

But there is more. We have 3 main points: clock, сlockwork and camera. 1. Clock - possible time of death Very specific time appear several times. The clock hands look very strange, still not 6, so probably the time is 5:20 (thus, given the symbolism of 520, I have even more questions). They show the same time in any frame.

But the most interesting thing is that at the very end, when we see Cheng Xiaoshi (with the design from the first season), for a few seconds, in addition to the patterns of gears, a very faded inverted dial of this clock appears on him, where inverted 4 is the most visible part. No need to say that 4 is a symbol of death.

This can only be seen in 1s1s ED. Because, in fact, there are 2 versions of the ED, and it's different (without these details) for the remaining 10 episodes.

Even the very first intro with characters contains very similar clock placed in the background of Cheng Xiaoshi. So, at this point, I'm guessing that this strange 5:20 was the key node and the death of Cheng Xiaoshi.

2. Clockwork - сhanging a key event Gears are shown both literally and in pattern. For a long time, I thought that Lu Guang's shadow was just a shadow, or an indistinct noise, but if you look closely, it becomes obvious that Lu Guang is covering a pattern of gears - probably as a sign of changes with clock mechanism and time. Details such as water drops and film strips are also interesting, as both OP (Dive Back in Time and Vortex) connect these elements to Cheng Xiaoshi.

One of the moments shows how the silhouette of hands (overlapping the trees, which may coincide with the background of the forest in the vision in s2s1) touches the inverted clock, after which the second hand of the clock begins to move back.

And the most beautiful thing .. The fact that the hands belong to Lu Guang, as well as the context of this action, confirms that the animation literally coincides with the scene from the end of 4th (and the beginning of 5th) episodes, when Lu Guang explains to Cheng Xiaoshi how key events (nodes) and changes in the past work. But inverted. What a coincidence, right?

Honestly, I think that all these details can further support the theories about Lu Guang, which already have enough speculation. Given all the hints, it is possible that due to Cheng Xiaoshi's death, he changed something in time, thus erasing the "future in that present" and created a new present as an alternate reality. Just a thought.

3. Camera - another timeline Let's go back to the very end again. Here Cheng Xiaoshi is holding a camera in his hands.

Remember this diamond-shaped mark. This camera is very specific, as it has appeared several times, but not in the main series (yet). There is an easter egg in the mini-series, Lu Guang has a rather similar model, only with a round (clock-like) mark.

It's importance becomes even more obvious, especially now that we have a poster for the second season.

So. What's wrong with this camera? Because there are actually two of them. The one on the table has a rounded clock mark. But the camera in reflection is the one that Cheng Xiaoshi holds in the ED, with a diamond mark.

For me... Seems like it is probably one of the main connecting elements or "anchor" between the timelines / alternate realities, at least conveys this idea. All this makes me feel excited and inspired, how it was possible to place all this so neatly. And which of these can really confirm conjectures and theories … Thanks to the scriptwriters and animators, it's nice to be a part of this game.

Or maybe I'm just overthinking… Anyway, thanks for reading to the end. Perhaps someone has their own thoughts, feel free to discuss ~

#link click #link click s2 #shiguang dailiren #shiguang #cheng xiaoshi #lu guang #link click spoilers #i'm about to lose my mind

[redroses07]

Heartfirst // Johnnie Guilbert

Johnnie Guilbert x Fem!Reader

Summary: Reader is best friends with Johnnie and is avoiding telling him her feelings, but it's Tara's 1mil celebration party and she seems to be having some newfound confidence.

WC: 2.3k

Warnings: Swearing, kissing, slightly suggestive, drinking, use of y/n (i tried to avoid i’m sorry)

A/N: Hey guys, this is my first time writing for Johnnie and tbh I'm really proud of it! It took me a few days to finish and I really hope you guys like it. As always requests are open if you wanna see more of this type of stuff. Love y'all sm!! ♡⋆˙

You were at your house getting ready for your roommate Tara's party. She was throwing a party to celebrate reaching 1 million on her Youtube channel, and almost everyone you knew was attending.

Reaching 1 million was an amazing milestone for her and you were so incredibly proud. You were also a content creator with a solid following, but nothing close to what she had accomplished.

You were finished with your hair and makeup and now just had to decide what to wear. You were torn between a silky black slip, or a sparkly gold mini dress.

"Tara come in here I can't decide what to wear!" You shouted down the hall.

Tara comes rushing out of her room, always prepared to give the best fashion advice. She was already dressed but her makeup was noticeably incomplete, only sporting her signature winged eyeliner on one eye.

"Okay, show me the options." Tara exclaimed, clearly filled with excitement.

You went into your closet and emerged holding the two dresses.

"I feel like the black fits better, but it's kinda basic."

Tara looks between the two and smirks.

"Well which one do you think Johnnie would like better?"

Your jaw fell open, clearly embarrassed by her words.

Johnnie was one of your best friends, and Tara's too. You two spent an awful lot of time together, especially recently since you had begun filming together much more frequently. You will admit, you two had chemistry, and your friends and fans alike picked up on it.

You couldn't deny the not so little crush you had on him, but no way you were ever gonna admit that. It took you forever to admit it to even Tara, you would be mortified if Johnnie ever found out. Although that didn't stop Tara from pressuring you almost every day to confess. It was according to her "obvious he felt the same", but you refused to take the risk and find out.

"What! I'm just being real." Tara said, eyeing your nervous expression.

You shook your head, giving her an annoyed glance.

"I say gold. We can be like opposites cause I'm wearing silver." Tara pointed to her dress.

You smiled, throwing the black dress to the side.

"See I can always count on you to make my decisions for me."

Tara laughed and sped out of the room to finish her makeup.

You proceeded to finish getting dressed, and while you did you thought about what Tara had said.

Maybe it was time for you to finally stop avoiding things and fess up, at least you would know the truth. The only drawback was losing your best friend. If Johnnie didn't feel the same then that would surely make your friendship awkward.

Curiosity was beginning to get the better of you, and maybe tonight would be the night you would find out the truth.

You could've said speak of the devil, because right at that moment Tara popped her head into your room to tell you that Jake and Johnnie had arrived.

"I hope you're ready, Jake said they brought a ton of stuff and need help carrying it all inside." Tara said with a sigh.

Her makeup was now complete, eyeliner perfectly symmetrical on both sides and glitter eye shadow completing the look.

"Yeah hold up I'm coming." You replied, jumping up from your seat and sliding your feet into your black platforms.

As you headed out the door and towards the car, you couldn't help but contain your excitement to see Johnnie. This recent rush of confidence has made you more eager and energetic than normal.

When you reached the car the first thing you saw was Jake piling boxes into his arms, and Johnnie very loudly complaining about how much shit he brought.

"What the hell...how much did you guys bring?" Tara asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Uhhhh, lots of food, and lots of alcohol," Jake began.

"Let's just say I'm gonna get fucked up tonight."

Tara rolled her eyes, and reached into the trunk to grab more boxes.

You rounded the corner and crept up behind Johnnie.

"Boo!" You said, causing him to jump and drop the box he was currently holding.

"Y/N!" Johnnie exclaimed the moment he saw you, completely forgetting about the box he had dropped.

"Johnnie, that could've been breakable." Jake huffed half jokingly.

Johnnie replied by flipping him off as he ran in to give you a hug. He wrapped his arms around you tightly as if he hadn't seen you in forever, when in reality it had only been about two days.

You breathed in the musky scent of his cologne as the hug lasted a bit longer than it should.

You broke apart and took a long look at your best friend. He was wearing a low cut black dress shirt that showed off several tattoos on his chest. He matched it with black jeans, a silver belt, and several chains hanging from his waist.

“You look pretty” Johnnie gave you a sheepish smile.

"Aww thank you!" Him complimenting you like this wasn't unusual for your friendship, but that didn't stop your heart from skipping every time.

Jake walked behind Johnnie slapping him on the back of the head as he did. "What the fuck Jake." Johnnie snapped, rubbing the back of his head.

"You know what." Jake responded without hesitation, giving Johnnie a telling look.

You wondered what Jake could possibly mean by that, maybe there was something Johnnie wasn't telling you. Although it wasn't unlike the two of them to share an inside joke that was impossible for you to understand.

"Let's get back to work." You laughed pointing at the trunk.

Johnnie nodded, pushed his bangs out his eyes, and brushed your shoulder lightly while reaching into the trunk.

You, Johnnie, Jake, and Tara spent the next hour or two setting up for the party, the sun slowly disappearing as you came closer to being complete.

Just as the night arrived, so did many of your guests. People began pouring in in small, or large, groups. Tara waited at the door, greeting everyone upon arrival like the amazing host she was.

Unfortunately, without Tara, you could be pretty awkward at parties. You and Johnnie had that in common, which is why you found yourself hanging out in the corner with him.

Obviously you didn't mind, you loved hanging out with him after all. The two of you spent the early hours of the night attached at the hip, ignoring the busy sections of the party, and sipping on your drinks while making small talk with your friends.

You were on the way to refill your cup with water, fearing that you had had one too many when a clearly tipsy Tara grabbed your arm.

"Y/N! I've been looking for you all over! I need to get a clip of you to add in my video before I forget."

You happily obliged, excited that you were finally got to spend some time with your best friend.

She led you into the living room, a camera following the two of you.

"Come on, dance with me!" Tara said excitedly, throwing her hands up in the air.

You giggled, and joined her moving to the beat of the music. Tara only needed a few shots of the two of you for her video but she spent much longer dancing with you.

You hadn't realized how much time had passed until, a few more drinks and many songs later, your feet began to ache.

"Hey Tara, keep on having fun, I'm gonna go find Johnnie and then relax for a bit." Tara gave you a hug, just in case she didn't see you again that night, and then ran off to join a few of her friends.

It took you a few minutes of aimlessly searching to find Johnnie. When you did find him, you saw he was talking to Sam and Colby while sitting on your couch that had been pushed to the back of the living room.

You plopped down next to Johnnie, carelessly resting your pounding head on his shoulder.

"Hey look at who's back." Johnnie announced, looking over at you.

You smiled, nuzzling your nose into his neck. It must be all the alcohol mixed with the excitement giving you this newfound confidence.

You sat there for a moment, letting Johnnie finish his conversation.

While you waited you thought over the same situation from earlier, and suddenly the drawbacks to confessing your feelings didn't seem so bad.

Whether Johnnie felt the same or not he would always love you regardless, whether that love be platonic or romantic.

Sam and Colby walked off, marking the end of the conversation. Johnnie turned to you, and you picked your head up from its position on his shoulder.

"I think it would be best if we both got out of here." Johnnie got up, reaching his hands out to help you up.

You took his hands and allowed him to lead the both of you away from the chaos.

You followed Johnnie down the hall until he entered your room and shut the door behind the two of you.

You took a deep breath, it was nice to be in a calm space and away from the loud party. Although you could still hear the base pumping it was easier to ignore.

"This is much better." Johnnie collapsed onto your bed.

"Hmm, my room is a real creative way to get some alone time with me." You smirked sarcastically.

Johnnie's mouth fell open, his face turning red.

"Okay dirty minded." He retorted, fidgeting with his hands.

"As if you aren't" You snapped back playfully, plopping onto your bed.

Johnnie shoved you playfully, causing you to fall back into your pillows.

The pair of you exploded into a fit of laughter. The concerning amount of mixed drinks you had both had made the ordeal much more hilarious than it really was.

After several moments a silence fell over the two of you. You were laid back on your bed, Johnnie's body only inches from yours.

You may have been slightly drunk, but you were sober enough to remember your feelings.

You turned to face Johnnie, finding yourself face to face with his icy blue eyes.

Johnnie smiled at you, that signature, warm smile of his that you loved. The sincere, loving smile that he seemed to only ever use with you.

Johnnie reached out and brushed your messy hair out of your face.

"There, now I can see all of your pretty face."

Your heart stopped, suddenly all your nerves had returned. You were scared, scared of losing this, and of losing him.

You weren't going to let this stop you though. You had spent too long avoiding this, and today you would finally confess.

"Hey Johnnie,"

"Mhm"

"I have something important to you about." Your voice was shaky, and you were convinced he noticed.

You could see his eyes fill with concern, maybe you should have used less ominous wording.

"I've been wanting to tell you this for a long time, and PROMISE ME you won't make fun of me."

"Are you serious? After how long we've known each other what could I possibly make fun of you for?"

You turned away shyly, he did have a point.

"Okay, well this is different."

"Well then I have to know, spill it." Johnnie said as he nudged your shoulder.

You blushed, avoiding eye contact in order to hide how flustered you were.

"I love you Johnnie, not like a best friend, like in love." You spat out, still refusing to make eye contact. God you sounded like a stupid high school kid.

"Hey..." Johnnie whispered.

He cupped your cheek and forced you to look him in the eye. Goosebumps formed on your skin where his skin met yours.

"I'm in love with you too, and I have been for a long time.

Your heart felt like it was going to stop, especially since he was now so close his nose was brushing against yours.

You closed your eyes before taking the leap and closing the gap between the two of you. His lips were softer than you expected, and you hoped he didn't notice how dry yours were.

Johnnie pulled you closer to him, and you re-situated yourself on top of him.

You leaned down to kiss him again, but he stopped you abruptly.

"Shit!"

You looked at him concerned, wondering if you had done something wrong.

"I owe Jake money now!"

You began to laugh as your face landed in your hands.

"You two had a bet...about me?"

Johnnie giggled nervously, still underneath you.

"I'll explain later." He said, his eyes staring intently at your lips.

He pulled you down into another kiss, this one much more passionate than the last. You felt his hands run down your sides, grabbing longingly at your hips. You pushed your tongue into the roof of his mouth, causing him to grip your hair.

You let out a soft moan, which was followed by Johnnie flipping you over so that he could be on top.

Your lips not breaking apart once during the swift motion.

You continued to kiss him, your hands tugging at his shirt in an attempt to bring him even closer.

He began kissing your neck softly, as he reached behind you to fiddle with the zipper on your dress.

Just as things were heating up you heard the door swing open followed by an extremely loud voice.

"You better pay the fuck up bitch!!" Jake shouted cause the both of you to nearly jump out of your skin.

The two of you scrambled to sit up, adjusting your clothes as you did.

"What the fuck Jake!" You shouted, re-zipping your dress.

"Oh don't you start with me missy,"

"Tara come here I was right, look at them!"

You groaned, letting your head fall into Johnnie's chest.

"There, there." Johnnie patted your head sarcastically.

"Well, I hope you're okay with the whole world knowing." You say grumpily.

"Are you kidding, the whole world better know that I'm in love with you!"

You smiled, and kissed Johnnie on the cheek. If only you had done this sooner.

#johnnie guilbert #johnnie guilbert x reader #johnnie guilbert fluff #johnnie guilbert fic #jake and johnnie #jake webber #johnnie guilbert x you #tara yummy #johnnie guilbert fanfic #emo #johnnie guilbert imagine

[milaisreading]

Toddler manager have favourite dad? (AKA coac) I think it's funny that coaches have dispute about who's her fav.

Author: Here it is! It might not be the best thing, but that was what I could come up with. Hope u like it and thanks for the request🩷

Warnings: Reader uses she/her. Requests are open

⚽️Blue lock belongs to:Muneyuki Kaneshiro and Yusuke Nomura⚽️

Another day, another disaster at the Blue Lock headquarters, except today the coaches decided to completely neglect their duties and instead made it their mission to settle one thing, and one thing only. Now what was that one thing, you may ask? Easy, they needed to settle who the favorite dad- I mean coach was! So now that meant the toddler was trapped in a room while the grown men were arguing. (Y/n) didn't seem to mind the arguing much, and kept on playing with the plushie football Lavinho gave her, along with some other toys Ego bought.

"I am clearly her favorite! After all, I am the one who makes her laugh the most, right (Y/n)?" Lavinho grinned as he turned to look at the girl. The said toddler just tilted her head to the side, unsure what they were are talking about.

"See?!"

Chris and Snuffy rolled their eyes and the Welshman walked over to pick (Y/n) up.

"She literally has no clue what you are even talking about. And even if she did, she wouldn't pick you as he favorite."

"How are you so sure you are the favorite? After all, I always make her delicious food and she loves it! Right, sweetheart?" Snuffy cooed as he took (Y/n) out of Chirs's arms, to which the Welshman protested and tried to get the girl back, but Snuffy moved her away. Finding the sudden movements amusing, (Y/n) giggled and clapped her hands.

"Up!" She exclaimed as Chris cried a little.

"Where is my phone! I need this filmed!"

Noa rolled his at the blonde and walked over to Snuffy.

"I think I am the favorite here." The Frenchman proclaimed as the other 3 raised their eyebrows.

"What? (Y/n) here spent most of her time with me, as she is my teams manager. And she also runs to me whenever she wants to be picked up." Noa explained, pointing at the toddler, who was making grabby hands at him.

"No no no, (Y/n). Look at me, it's your sweet, dear dad Snuffy." The Italian said as he pulled her away from Noa and the other two stood in front of him.

"Sorry pal, but the little lady won't be bribed by you." Lavinho said as Chris nodded his head.

"Besides, it's obvious I am her favorite. I always buy (Y/n) the cutest outfits! She loves the baby blue dresses the most!" Chris said with a huge grin. Lavinho rolled his eyes and nudged the blonde.

"I am still the one who spends time with her playing and watching cartoons, she always looks forward to our playtime."

"Well, she looks forward to me preparing her for her naps. She likes the stories I always tell her." Noa argued back.

"She can't understand a word you say, how is she enjoying it? I clearly win, since my food always makes her smile. I am her favorite." Snuffy chimed in as he walked towards the group, (Y/n) left to play with her toys.

"Nu-uh! Me!" Chris protested. An argument between the four started, causing (Y/n) to stop playing and look at the 4 men. Hugging one of the plushies she got from Noa, (Y/n) giggled and looked at the four men with wide, shiny eyes.

'Dadas...'

#bllk #blue lock anime #blue lock manga #blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #blue lock snuffy #noel noa #blue lock noa #blue lock noel noa #chris prince #blue lock chris prince #lavinho #blue lock lavinho #toddler reader #blue lock requests #blue lock coaches

[visorforavisor]

i’ve seen a post or two pointing out how the “benoit blanc has a male romantic partner” moment is not as explicit as it could have been about it, but i don’t think it’s right to compare it to all the classic implied queer characters who turn out to be bait.

to me personally the difference is the intention.

if you look at interviews of rian johnson, he’s very very unapolagetic and clear about blanc being gay. while, yes, he could have made it a bit more explicit in the film itself (seriously, dude, all it needed was a quick pet name exchanged between them), i do firmly believe he intended hugh grant’s character to be read as a romantic partner. i don’t think he wanted it to be ambiguous — hell, he said blanc was “obviously” queer. (he was wrong about it being obvious, but the fact that he said it shows a lot.)

let’s be real here, if that character had been a woman nobody would be having any confusion about whether that was a romantic partner.

to me it very much seems like well-intentioned, slightly fumbling, and really sweet representation. especially because it’s not like he ever really tells us anything about blanc. it’s not like he goes into loads of depth about everything else and then leaves the sexuality all without detail.

also, hugh grant is more or less synonymous with romance at this point. you don’t have hugh grant playing a character who lives with your main character and expect people not to assume they’re romantic. rian johnson seems to have put that in, assuming people would know what was up between those two characters. and, yep, he was wrong on that, but he’s not doing it for brownie points. he’s actually, if you look at the interviews, really specifically not doing that. he said “i think it makes sense that he’s… that blanc is gay”, and daniel craig said “the less of a song and dance we make about that, the better, really, for me, because it just made sense”. it’s so small because they’re trying not to be all “aren’t we good people for making him gay” about it.

it was done a little clumsily, but it was done with fantastic intent and fantastic thought behind it and it was done with other moments like blanc’s clear discomfort when birdie flirted with him (and phillip letting blanc’s friends know that blanc’s spending too much time in the bath — i mean come on, that’s romance).

i think that rian johnson just underestimated an audience’s confidence in people actually putting queer characters in stuff. we question everything because we have to. but, once again, if that had been a woman nobody would have questioned the romance. so i don’t fault rian johnson for thinking it would be more than clear.

i’m frustrated at how little the moment was, but i’m sure as hell not angry at rian johnson for it. (but please give us more next time.)

#knives out #knives out glass onion #benoit blanc #gay #queer #daniel craig #hugh grant #glass onion

[vidavalor]

Here's a thought... the protective wing moments aren't actually totally what Crowley is describing in the scene in the pub, from what we have seen of them, but it is pretty obvious that Crowley's talking about when he fell in love with Aziraphale, soooo... what if the wing moment in Eden wasn't the vavoom moment? What if S2 is trying to tell us that it was during The Flood? And... maybe what if it's a S3 flashback scene?

Crowley says this about this moment we all know was about him lol and not just from films...

They *look into each other's eyes* being the key thing here, right? And also *both* of them, ideally. It is a *shared* moment. The thing about the wing protecting scenes is that, in both of them, both Crowley and Aziraphale look straight ahead at the first celestial and, later, rain, storms. There is a storm and there is, for *one* of them, a sudden canopy, each time, but it's not the both of them *together* forced under a canopy from a sudden storm and then looking at *one another*, right? But when else could this have happened that is mentioned in S2? The Flood. Mentioned in the Job minisode.

Aziraphale shows up and says "It's you. Oh, dear me, haven't seen you since what... The Flood?" and Crowley agrees but also the scene we've seen so far circa The Flood is the "you can't kill kids" bit of it, which thematically ties to the Job episode. We didn't see The Flood itself (yet).

Aziraphale is *sure* by the Job era that Crowley won't kill Job's kids-- children or goats alike. Crowley makes an effort to fake it but it's the events of The Flood that led them to team up in the Job story. Yeah, running into Crowley before the start of it would maybe count but also if Crowley had then just left after that conversation, how would Aziraphale be so sure by the Job era that Crowley wouldn't kill the kids or animals? He wouldn't be, right? Crowley had to have stayed during The Flood. He then would have been there with Aziraphale, with both of them trying to save as many as they could, when the sudden storm forced them at one point to take shelter under a canopy, probably with some they were trying to rescue and, unlike during the celestial storm or in Eden, they weren't looking out at the storm but, finally, into one another's eyes and... vavoom.

They knew they were made for each other.

(Adding to this theory is that when Crowley tries his Awning of a New Age to make Maggie and Nina fall in love, it's a steadily increasing storm until he *accidentally weathers too much and turns it into a flood*, almost as if he's thinking about him and Aziraphale and it causes him to mess up his miracled weather... however? It also *still worked*, since even if Maggie and Nina didn't get together exactly yet, this is the still their vavoom moment.)

Crowley and Aziraphale both had moments of attraction and shielding one another with a canopy in scenes before this-- Before the Beginning and Eden-- but they both actually fell in love during The Flood and Crowley knows it. He knew it then and he knows Aziraphale knows. Maybe it took forever for them to admit it to themselves, especially Aziraphale, but they both know now in the present in S2.

So Crowley is all ok, so you want a romantic scenario for us to make Nina and Maggie realize they're in love? Let me describe the moment *we* did. Work with me, Angel, I'm trying to be romantic here...

Aziraphale: But they're humans, not us, dear, doesn't seem very likely. Jane Austen!

Crowley: We are way more like the humans than you think and we are on a date in the pub and I'm trying to talk about when we fell in love and was hoping for the sparkly eyes and the melting sigh and an "oh, Crowley" and what I got was "not likely". Brb throwing myself off the roof.

Vavoom. Sorted.

#ineffable husbands #crowley #aziraphale #good omens #good omens meta #good omens 2 #good omens theory

[sage-nebula]

WatcherTV Debrief

I said I was going to write down all of my thoughts yesterday, but I was simply too tired after work. So I'm going to do so now, in a post that is likely going to be very long, but hopefully will still be worth the read for some of you anyway.

TL;DR: I believe this is a very poor decision on Watcher Entertainment's part and it is at the very least going to cost them a huge swath of their fanbase, if not their entire company in the long run. And at this point in time, I myself will not be subscribing.

With that said though, I don't want this post to merely be a rant about how much I dislike the decision, so I'm going to start off by looking at things from their perspective and explaining why, although some people in the fanbase might feel betrayed, none of the three (yes, three, because Steven, Ryan, and Shane were all equal parts of this decision) personally betrayed anyone in the fandom. If you're still angry, I understand that seeing what might seem like a "defense" might be upsetting, but again, I hope you'll find some value in it regardless.

All of that said, that plus my extensive criticism of this decision is going to be long, so let's go beneath a cut.

First, let us state the obvious: Watcher Entertainment is a media company -- a business -- and Shane Madej, Ryan Bergara, and Steven Lim are not your friends. They are business owners first, and media producers + actors second.

I italicized actors to draw attention to it, because this is something that I think gets . . . not forgotten, per se, but pushed aside in people's minds when they consume video content online, particularly when that video content is on YouTube, which originally began as a point and shoot video upload website that was meant to give anyone and everyone the ability to upload their vlogs or silly little videos. The term "parasocial relationships" is one that has proliferated across the internet, but I think the issue here -- with Shane and Ryan in particular -- is not only that people are thinking of them as "friends," but also that they are thinking, "These are their authentic selves, this is who they really are, I know them." And the fact of the matter is, that isn't true. Shane and Ryan are actors. What we see in their videos isn't their authentic selves. We don't know them.

Now, that isn't to say that it's all a lie. It isn't quite the same as, say, Ryan Gosling or Leo DiCaprio playing a role in a film. But every internet celebrity (and that is what they are at this point) presents themselves in a particular way to their audience. Even in the Pod Watcher podcast, where ostensibly they're having Just Friendly Conversations About Whatever's On Their Minds, they're mindful of the fact that their audience is listening, their audience is judging, their audience is making gifs and fanart of moments they like. They're acting. They're playing up personas to keep fans engaged, to keep fans coming back for more.

So Shane and Ryan (and Steven, when he can be) are actors. You don't know their true authentic selves, and you never have. Anything they say has to be taken with a grain of salt, because they are saying what they want you to hear. Even their live shows are rehearsed. And what this means -- that they only show you what they want to show you -- is that they did not betray you, because they couldn't betray you. They don't know you, just like you don't know them. Betrayal is not possible here.

To that end, Watcher Entertainment is a media company -- in other words, a business. And businesses must generate not only revenue, but profit in order to stay afloat. Now, I don't know what Watcher's financial books look like right now. I have seen people throwing around a lot of numbers about what they have to make from Patreon, from ticket and merchandise sales, et cetera, but without looking at the expense reports, the bank statements, and the budget sheets, it's difficult for any of us to say just what state Watcher is in financially. We can guess, but that's the best we can do.

That said though, we don't have to guess to know the very basic principle of running a business. A business has to, at the bare minimum, break even. Ideally, the business would profit, so that they can not only do things like pay their employees fairly, but also so that they can expand and grow. Any business requires money in order to make product, whether that product is food, an item that you can purchase, or entertainment media that you consume as a viewer. As nice as it would be if Watcher could make their content without needing money to do so, they can't. Even independent YouTubers, including video essayists and Let's Players, require money to make their content. The equipment, in both purchasing and upkeep, requires money. The games (for Let's Players) require money. Internet and electricity bills, food, books needed for research, props, et cetera -- all of that requires money. No matter how simple a video may look, it still requires money to make. There is a reason that most people aren't able to make YouTube a full time job, and it isn't because they aren't talented; it's because it is a deceptively expensive venture to get into.

So with that said, even without knowing Watcher's current financial situation, it does make sense that they need money to run their business, purely from a "businesses need money" standpoint. This is common sense. This is why things like Watcher selling merchandise, having sponsored ads, having a Patreon, et cetera always made sense. And it is possible, too, that even if their present financial situation is okay, that they are thinking about the future, and costs they are likely to be incurring within the next year.

I don't know how many people within the fanbase listen to their podcast, Pod Watcher, but I do. A few episodes ago, Steven revealed that he wants to open a Malaysian restaurant within the next year. This is his dream, to bring Malaysian culture to the United States with food. This is an amazing dream for him, it's wonderful for him, I wish him success in this venture.

However, running a restaurant -- and not only running one, but building one from the ground up and running it -- takes an astronomical amount of time and energy. This is time and energy that Steven is currently expending keeping Watcher Entertainment afloat as the sole person in charge of managing their financials. (He has the official title of CEO, with Shane and Ryan having stepped away from that title In Name Only to focus on production, but the job that Steven is actually doing is CFO -- Chief Financial Officer.) So when Steven announced that he was going to be opening a restaurant within the next year, what I heard was, "Oh, Steven is leaving Watcher within the next year." This is supported, in my opinion, by Steven saying things like how Shane and Ryan will get free drinks whenever they visit, and then hastily tacking on fans can have it, too. He was trying not to show that he was leaving just yet to the fanbase, but the writing is on the wall and they all know it.

What this means is that when Steven leaves, they will need to find someone to replace him. Either Shane and/or Ryan will need to step away from producing and acting in their shows to take over CFO duties (which the reason why they stepped away is because they handled CFO duties poorly while Steven was better equipped for it, so I doubt either of them would like to do this), or they will need to hire someone to do that for them. The lowest CFO salary in LA I can find is $140k/year, and that isn't including benefits. Since Steven helped found the company, it's doubtful he's making that much, but his replacement won't be a founder and will likely want competitive compensation. There is a good chance that, considering this, Shane, Ryan, and Steven feel pressured to bring in a lot more money than they're currently doing right now.

And I understand all of that. I have supported them where I can; yesterday I literally wore my $80+ Mystery Files jacket to work, which felt a bit bitter after the news broke and I realized I wouldn't be able to watch future seasons of said show. I overpaid for a denim jacket because I wanted to support them. It's not as if I don't understand.

However . . . here is where the criticism begins.

To begin with, there is an old saying: you have to spend money to make money. To go back to my previous statements about how even smaller scale YouTubers spend money to keep producing videos to keep their channels afloat, what this saying means is that if you aren't going to put any money into your business or product, you aren't going to have a business or product to generate any revenue. However, some young business owners take this to the extreme, and figure that if they pump tons and tons and tons of cash into their business at the start, it will start to generate revenue more quickly. What ends up happening is that they overspend, sometimes even despite their best efforts not to, and end up not being able to claw their way back out of the red in the end.

Unfortunately, that is what I think that Watcher is doing with their new streamer.

Let's be clear: There have been valid criticisms about how they seemingly over-budget on shows that don't need to have such high production values or budget. Someone mentioned that their Let's Play show (I don't watch that one because horror games are uninteresting to me, so I don't remember the name) credits something akin to 26 people, which is silly when you consider the fact that there are independent Let's Players who are able to produce content themselves. Of course, you have to remember that the LPers on YouTube are editing their own videos, which Ryan and Shane probably aren't able to do -- but even then, that would be one or perhaps two additional editors. The number of people they have working on that particular venture does seem excessive.

With that said though, those 26 people were already employed and being paid, so having them work on the Let's Play show was likely not a new business expense. The streamer, however, is a completely different story.

First, they had to have paid likely multiple people to build the WatcherTV streaming website for them. Granted, I could be wrong since I have never used Squarespace, but I find it difficult to believe this is something Squarespace would be capable of handling. So unless they already had experienced programmers on their staff, they would have had to hire programmers to build the streaming website. They would also need to pay for hosting the streaming website, which includes not only the domain, but server space for all of their videos, and videos take up a lot of space. Previously, YouTube hosted all of their videos. Now? That needs to be on Watcher, and server space and maintenance is not cheap.

So they are paying for programmers, domain name, server space, server maintenance. They are also going to need to pay for security. Not only do they need to be concerned about any potential DDoS attempts, but more importantly they need security to ensure that they can't suffer a data breach and lose the credit card information of their subscribers, something which happens all the time to other companies. Now you may say, if it happens all the time and those companies are fine, Watcher will be too, right? Well, does Watcher have lawyers on retainer? Because litigation can be raised against companies with insufficient website security that puts customers' financial information at risk, which means Watcher could find themselves facing a lawsuit if their streamer is hacked and credit card information is stolen.

So they will need to pay for systems administrators to not only build security for the streamer, but also maintain security for the streamer, because cyber attacks evolve each day and it is a constant battle against them. It is possible that whatever third party they partnered with to build the streamer for them bundled all this together (if that is the route they went), but either way, services like that do not come cheap -- and if they do, you are not getting a service of value.

So what this comes down to is that Watcher Entertainment has likely spent a ton of money they allegedly do not have to build this streamer, taking the "you have to spend money to make money" adage to the extreme. Their hope, near as I can tell, is that they will generate enough revenue from the streamer so that they will be able to recoup the cost of building and maintaining the streamer and generate profit. However, judging by the reaction from the fandom, I think that is unlikely.

As everyone knows, the reaction to this news has been abysmal. While some of the responses toward Steven and Ryan in particular have been racist vomit, I do think there are valid reasons for why this news has been received so poorly. These reasons include:

Watcher built hype for a week, with a countdown timer and everything, teasing an announcement as if it were a new show or similar "gift" to the fandom, when in reality it was the news that the fandom would now have to pay for content that was previously free.

Patreon subscribers are expected to continue paying the same amount, but for far less content than before. Access to the streamer is not included in the basic tier; they'll need to double their cash output.

Many fans are international fans who can't access the streamer at all without a VPN to switch their location to the United States. Even if they want to pay, they are barred from doing so, meaning that Watcher Entertainment is shutting a large portion of its fanbase out for the foreseeable future.

Watcher took a very patronizing tone with their audience in both the announcement video and their Patreon letter. In the announcement video, which was fourteen minutes long when the actual pertinent information took half that time to deliver (if that), they began with a long diatribe about their careers and how much YouTube meant to them, and how sad they were to leave it -- as if they had guns held to their head, and weren't making this decision of their own volition. This is condescending; it implies they believe their audience is stupid enough to believe they were backed into a corner and have no choice. In the Patreon letter, they had a line that read, "And part of that change includes a bit of news that will surely be met with some fits of sobs- we're bringing Watcher Weekly+ to a close. We know. We know." Again, this is patronizing language. They are talking down to their fans, and assuming their fans will be heartbroken by losing a behind scenes the video, or whatever Watcher Weekly+ is. This arrogant, condescending tone does not help soften the blow of being told they are going to pay the same amount of money for less content.

As you can see, the way that Watcher Entertainment executed the announcement that they would be moving future content behind a paywall was abysmal, and the fanbase reacted accordingly. Provided that the anger isn't empty and that the current fanbase sticks true to their word about not subscribing (either out of principle, location, or because they can't afford it), Watcher Entertainment has lost a huge chunk of expected revenue directly out of the gate. And it's possible that they expected this; they had to know they would be shutting out international fans (at least for a time, presumably) and that there would be fans who couldn't afford it. But it's possible that they felt that there would be enough fans to support and subscribe anyway (hence the arrogant tone about people sobbing over losing Watcher Weekly+; that attitude screams of "you're so devoted to us you will do whatever we ask no matter the cost"), and also that they would be able to pick up enough new fans that it would cushion the blow of losing old fans.

Here is where the next problem lies.

Watcher's current subscription model is $5.99/month or $60/year. If you go monthly, you end up paying $72 for the year, so the annual plan is the better deal by $12. When you compare pricing to other streaming services, this may not seem so bad at first; it's on par with DropoutTV, and it's cheaper than Netflix, Disney+, and other big names such as those.

The difference, though, is that all of those other streamers -- DropoutTV included -- have far more content than Watcher does, meaning that the customer (and keep in mind that we are customers, we are not friends, and truly we are not fans when we are paying them money for product from their business) gets more bang for their buck.

I have seen the argument from defenders of the streamer in fandom that say, "So you care about quantity over quality?" And this argument is flawed for several reasons:

There are plenty of quality TV shows on other streaming platforms. DropoutTV has Game Changer. Hulu has Schitt's Creek and Abbot Elementary. Peacock has The Office and Parks & Recreation, so on and so forth. Watcher Entertainment has good shows, but they are not the only good shows in the whole of the media industry. Dare I say, they aren't even the only good shows on YouTube.

While Watcher does produce shows of high quality, their shows have tiny seasons of only six episodes each, and their seasons are spaced out months apart. They also cancel their shows without warning or announcement, meaning fans can wait (and wait, and wait) for a new season of a show they like that will never come, because Watcher dropped the show and didn't bother making official word on it. If you go through Watcher's entire content library (which is easy to do even if you like all their shows, and even easier if you only have a handful of shows you enjoy), then you will be paying for a streamer that you do not use for months on end while you wait for the next batch of six episodes that you maybe want to see if, again, you don't like all of their shows. (I myself only follow five: Puppet History, Mystery Files, Too Many Spirits, Top 5 Beatdown, and Ghost Files.) That is money you have spent on a service you rarely use. In other words: money wasted.

That last point is particularly important when you consider that Watcher Entertainment hopes to draw new customers in to subscribe to their streamer.

Pretend, for a moment, that you have never heard of Ryan, Shane, or Watcher before. You are browsing YouTube, and you come across the season premier of season three of Ghost Files. You enjoy it, so you think, oh, I would like to view the rest of the season. You learn that the rest of the season is on a streaming service called WatcherTV, which only hosts series that Watcher themselves have produced. Their library is very small right now. New episodes for ongoing seasons are weekly, they only have one season airing at a time, new seasons have month long gaps between them. This service costs $60 a year annually, or $6 a month ($72 annually). You've never seen any of their other shows before, and while you could technically afford it, it's not as if money is no object to you. You'd likely have to give up a streamer that has a much, much larger selection of shows and movies you already know you like to give this one a shot. (This one that, mind you, doesn't work outside of your internet browser, so you can't watch it on your television either.)

Would you do it? Really put yourselves in the shoes of someone who has no familiarity at all with Shane, Ryan, Steven, or their shows before that moment. Would you choose to pay $60 for a streamer with low accessibility, and a tiny, infrequently updated library? Especially if it meant losing access to so much more?

It isn't just that numerical value of the price that makes it a bad move. It's the price relative to the product being offered. Watcher's own fans, who love their content, are fiercely divided over whether to subscribe, with many saying they won't. In what universe does someone who has never heard of Watcher sign up to pay them that much for so little offerings? Particularly when they'll only be advertising via YouTube, and infrequently at that given that they'll only be posting season premiers?

(And this is not getting into how they were originally going to pull all of their content before the backlash. Yes, they walked it back -- but not only did they say in the video that the content would only be live until May 31st, but the Variety article says that the company originally told Variety that they would be pulling content, only for Ryan to issue a statement saying they wouldn't do that after. Meaning, they walked that part back because that's the part they could walk back. They have undoubtedly sank far too much money into the streamer to back out of that now. It's way too late.)

Businesses need to make money. Steven, Ryan, and Shane are business owners who are trying to make their business profitable. But I believe that this was one of the worst ways to go about it. I'm not saying that I know exactly what they should have done instead. I don't have all the answers. But I do know that from the terrible execution of getting everyone excited only to tell them (in the most patronizing way possible) that they would now have to pay for a previously free service, to deciding to sink a bunch of money into a streamer that they seem to have done no market research on beforehand and that they don't have the content library to support, this absolutely seems like the wrong way. Moving their content to an existing streamer like Nebula would have been a better move, in my opinion. (And it would have prompted me to actually sign up for Nebula, since there are several video essayists I haven't followed there . . . but I would have followed Watcher, since it would give me access to Watcher content and the content of those video essayists I've been missing.)

But what's done is done. As I said, I think at this point Watcher Entertainment has jumped off the cliff and they didn't do so with a bungee cable. I don't think they can walk this back. I'll be interested in seeing if they succeed, but I have very strong doubts they will.

#watcher #watcher entertainment #shane madej #ryan bergara #steven lim

[currentfications]

Ocean Eyes | Part 3

Pairing: Bada Lee x Producer!Reader

Synopsis: Latrice bailed on you for dinner, but set you up for a date with Bada instead.

Warning: Swearing, Flirting, Legs

AN: Sorry for the late upload and shorter than expected chapter!! Still trying to get over Monday - will try to upload over the next few days. Thank you to everyone for following along~

Previous | Next

After finally getting the keys to your recording studio, you were overjoyed and decided to take Latrice out for celebratory dinner.

Y/N: Dinner’s on me make yourself available

Latrice: 🤨

Latrice: u tryna poison me again?

Y/N: It was one time Latrice get over it

Latrice: I don’t have comprehensive health insurance here I’m not risking it

Y/N: 🙄 I’m taking you out for dinner

Latrice: Keep talking

Y/N: THE STUDIO IS READYYYY 🤩

Y/N: And I don’t wanna drink alone

Latrice: Wait that’s actually good news I’m so happy for you ahhhh 🥰🥰🥰

Latrice: But still no

Y/N: What why what did I do?

Latrice: Nothing I am busy

Y/N: 🧐

Y/N: Busy?

Y/N: …

Y/N: Waitttttt a damn minute

Y/N: I want a name cunt who tf you linked up with

Y/N: HELLO??? MA’AM?

Y/N: Whatever happened to sharing is caring huh?

Latrice: 👉🏾👈🏾

Y/N: Oh god what have you done

Y/N: Tell me it’s not who I think it is you dumb fucking bitch 😇

Latrice: ���

Y/N: Ms. Kabamba 😇

Team BEBE was filming the last bit of reaction segments with Mnet while they were interrupted by a few raps on their door. “Come in!” Lusher greeted her co-captain dance mate in with a hug.

Latrice slowly poked her head through the door, “Hey Bada can I borrow you for a quick second?”

Bada looked up, confused, but walked over nonetheless. “Is everything alright?”

“Calling in a personal favour,” Latrice smiled nervously, “can you go on a dinner tonight?”

“Dinner? Sure!” The choreographer hummed and nodded excitedly, “BEBE with Jam Republic?”

“You and Y/N,” Latrice snickered, “I have a date and had to bail, but she’ll be much much kinder to me if you’d go in my place instead.”

Bada raised an eyebrow and pointed at herself. Perplexed, she sounded a little dumbfounded, “Me? Why?”

Latrice rolled her eyes at the obvious question, “She has a fat celebrity crush on you since she the first episode aired, that’s why. Now please, pretty please with a cherry on top, would you go in my place tonight so she don’t-” Latrice stopped dead as you decided you’ve had enough of her ignoring your text and started calling her instead. Her eyes widen slightly in fear as she turned to the taller dancer. “Bada please I’ll owe you one, I’m so so sorry-” she swiped and picked up your call, “heyyyy Y/N, I was just telling Bada about your dinner plan tonight. She’s super keen! Here you go-”

Latrice palmed the phone to the choreographer like a hot potato, mouthing ‘thank you’ at the blonde.

Dinner with Bada? The sentence hasn’t fully registered in your brain as you begun to rip your high school mate a new one. “Ms. Kabamba,” you uttered with the coldest tone you could muster, a tone that Latrice knows all too well. A tone you only take with her when she knows she’s done something stupid, again.

“Sorry to disappoint,” a familiar voice broke you out of your rant. “Ms. Lee here. I heard we have plans?”

Damnit that cunt, I’ll deal with her later. You quickly composed yourself, “Never a disappointment, love. Any dietary restrictions?” You tried to mitigate your hoarse voice (from screaming ‘CUNNNNTTTTTT’ right before Latrice picked up the phone) and previously harsh tone by being as sweet as possible with your word choice, knowing that phone call rarely - if ever - made you sound more personable.

Love? Your husky delivery had the tall dancer flustered, trying to hide a blush taking form on her cheeks. Bada gulped, hard, and stumbled over her words, “N-no, I’m not picky. Where and when?” She tried to pass it off as cool and nonchalant, but Lusher seemed to have picked up on her change in tone.

“I’ll pick you up when you finish for the day? Latrice gave me their schedule.” Bada hummed over the phone, you can almost see her cute head bop as she does. Okay, dinner with Bada. One-on-one. I can do this, no biggie, fuck. “See you then, Love.”

Latrice gave Bada a parting hug when the call was over, the latter still bewildered by the unexpected call. “Thank you so, so much. You’re a life saver. Have fun later!” She quickly shuffled out the room, shutting the door behind her.

Lusher peaked over the tall dancer’s shoulder, Bada’s cheeks still warm from the conversation. She gasped as the blonde slowly clasped her hands onto her face, letting out a small shriek. “Oh god Bada what was that all about?” The co-captain raised an eyebrow at her leader’s demeanour.

“Lusher, did you bring an extra outfit?” Was the first thing that came out of Bada’s mouth.

Y/N: You’re off the hook

Y/N: For now

Y/N: I will grill you afterwards 😇

Latrice: What a weird way to say thank u but ok

Latrice: ure welcome

When you pulled up in your bike, you did not expect the gorgeous specimen to be walking out the building in a skirt. You gulped and paused for a (significant) moment, marvelling at her (legs). Her hair sat perfectly, framing her face. She smiled and waved at you, walking (omg her legs) over with a small prance (her legs y’all). “Hey, thanks for picking me up.”

“God you look amazing.” After pulling yourself together, you realised a slight problem. “I am so sorry,” you quickly apologised, motioning her skirt (legs), “I did not plan accordingly.”

She chuckled and shook her head, “Don’t worry about these, tights underneath. My hair however, is a different story.”

Relieved, you handed her a helmet with a smile and hopped onto the bike, signalling her to get on. Bada giggled and straddled herself behind you, wrapping her hands around your waist. Both of you were suddenly very grateful for the helmets for keeping you road safe and hiding blushes. “You good?” You did one last check. Bada hummed and gave you a soft squeeze before you both rode off.

Tag list: @bada-lee-ily @lil-elliesgf

#bada lee #bada lee x reader #fanfic #swf2 #swf2 x reader

[lesbiansforboromir]

Iconic elements of Film!Boromir's character that everyone remembers;

Very into Aragorn, has multiple meaningful scenes with him where he is clearly disarmed, awed, unnerved and yet eager for his approval and companionship. His acceptance of Aragorn's right to the kingship is treated as a vital part of his character arc and even his last words before his death are entirely about Aragorn.

Awkward, often stalling or stumbling over his words, says things that leave uncomfortable silences and often makes loud declarations of intent, very earnest in all his mannerisms and always says everything in a guileless way. Very upfront and open about his emotions, to the point of making Aragorn uncomfortable in his attempts to connect with him about his fear for Gondor's safety and his own inner turmoil surrounding his father.

Immediately ring-obsessed. He argues with Elrond about the Ring's usage and clearly is not swayed by further arguments, in fact is sent by his father specifically to get the ring and so is technically a traitorous element in the fellowship from day one. Eagerly ensures he has a place in the fellowship at the Council of Elrond and is blatantly suspicious with his treatment of both Frodo and the Ring from then on. No one in the fellowship trusts him and for good reason.

Kinda a liability! Doesn't really offer anything to the Fellowship other than another sword arm, and one that seems sub-par in comparison to his comrades considering his underestimation of the Hobbits and the multiple times he has to be saved in Moria. Has no real expertise or wisdom to offer, barring obvious declarations like 'this will be the death of the hobbits'. Indeed the one moment of apparent unique wisdom he offers 'one cannot simply walk into mordor' is so widely viewed as foolish advice that it's one of the most enduring memes of the internet to date. Only has one moment of apparent skill in his final stand against the Uruks where he kills about 5 by himself before he is hit by 3 arrows and rendered helpless. Very much characterised as 'the normal guy' and 'the himbo'.

Has a nice, supportive and loving relationship with Faramir, his little brother that looks up to him adoringly and with a sense that he could never measure up to Boromir and that Boromir is his better. Protective of faramir.

Hah that was fun and now, completely unrelated, here are TRUE AND IMPORTANT FACTS ABOUT BOOK!BOROMIR!!

Has one (1) line of dialogue about Aragorn and his kingship that essentially reads 'Well I don't care about Kings but if mythic heroes from legend could come and help my people we'd be grateful (press x to doubt)' and then he NEVER! VOICES A SINGLE OTHER OPINION ABOUT ARAGORN! FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE. This includes his very last words which don't mention Aragorn or the Kingship once.

Clear-spoken! Makes concise speeches full of relevant and important information when in an official capacity. Always has a tone of well-meaning half-humourous sarcasm, making casual and comfortable jokes at his own expense or sometimes lightly teasing his fellows. Otherwise restrains his disagreements to darkly humourous complaints, strained and weary reactions or clear unemotional declarations of his concerns depending upon the recipient. Takes the phrase 'you'll have to pry my feelings from my cold dead hands' entirely literally, NEVER reveals the true extent of his internal struggles until the moment he is literally dying. In fact is entirely silent whilst Aragorn is asked to describe Gondor and waxes so lyrical he doesn't even notice Boromir get up and leave.

Asks one (1) clarifying question at the Council of Elrond about why they aren't using the ring, accepts the answer entirely and never mentions it again UNTIL Galadriel tempts him with it in Lothlorien. Doesn't even WANT to go on the fellowship and is more dragged along by Aragorn with the pretext that 'Gondor is on the way to Mordor so we'll tag along.' Is utterly trustworthy and has no ulterior motive in arriving in Rivendell other than his search for an answer to his prophetic dream. In fact his whole behaviour and personality changes immediately after Galadriel's mental interrogation and he BECOMES awkward, unnerving and unsure in his speech all of a sudden.

Has a WEALTH of knowledge, experience and personal skill that he uses to save the fellowship multiple times. Saves them all from freezing to death on Caradhras through his preparedness, his arguing with Gandalf and his personal durability. Hacks the head off wargs when they are attacked in the night. Remains lucid whilst the fellowship is paralyzed with fear by the Balrog and stalls it's approach using his horn to allow them time to flee. Fights alongside Aragorn at every opportunity, including charging with him at the Balrog as Gandalf is fighting it. And not only that, he regularly is proven right in his advice (that is rarely heeded) and is well informed on both his own peoples history and Rohan's position, even against Gandalf and Aragorn's doubt of their character. Actually saves Merry and Pippin initially from the Northern orcs whom he drives away entirely before he begins taking them back to the others, is only stalled when they are ambushed by Uruk-Hai. Continues to fight on even with far more than three arrows in him and actually yanks a few out before collapsing against the tree. Definitely not a normal guy, nor a himbo, just exceptional in a more mundane way than everyone else in the fellowship (except the Hobbits).

Never mentions his brother a single time, somehow got him to stand and defend the bridge of osgiliath with him whilst knowing that it would likely kill them both so not all that protective. Faramir meanwhile cannot say a single uncomplicatedly complimentary thing about his brother and in fact cannot stop telling Frodo (a man he has imprisoned for half a day), about what a stupid, reckless and prideful man Boromir was and how he's far better in every single way.

WOW HAHA ISN'T THAT INTERESTING! COOL! Book Boromir is my favourite character by the way haha I'm suffering incomprehensible horrors :)

#boromir #text post #erran vs tolkien #erran vs peter jackson #tolkien #lotr #lord of the rings

[pinkeoni]

...but what was Will really saying in the van?

This a post a year after the fact, when post people have already said what needs to be said, but you know what!! This is my blog and I can say whatever I want.

Will talking about himself and using El as a guise is pretty obvious. The handful of people who say that it really was from El are few and far between. El doesn't gaf about DnD, she's not even in the painting, and she even told Mike herself that she didn't know what Will was making.

Whether or not Mike actually believed Will's lie is something that I'm personally on the fence about, but I'm not talking about him today! There are plenty of great Mike posts about this if you want a Mike analysis.

The cinematography supports this as well. At the start of the scene, Will is established on the left side of the frame, and Mike is on the right. When Will tells Mike that El commissioned the painting, we get a shot of the mirror where they swap places.

The switching of frame placement suggests that something is off, and mirrors in film can be used to show deception. The shot supports the idea that Will is not being fully truthful, which is backed up by what we already know. Each mirror shot is also prompted by a shot of Jonathan, suggesting that this is always from his point of view. We also know that he was able to see through Will's lie, so that supports this idea.

But we don't get the entire monologue from this angle, because really Will isn't entirely lying, he's just lying about whose feelings it really is.

It's no secret that the painting is an expression of Will's love for his friends, but also his romantic feelings for Mike. The positioning of the painting itself as a phallus (take a shot every time I've said "phallus" in a recent analysis) displays this in the visual language of the show along with the written one.

I think that gender and the use of pronouns is important here. Will states the entire monologue using "she" and "her" and places El in the place of himself. So what he's essentially saying "My sexuality is a wonderful thing that can bring both of us joy, but only if comes from a girl." In context Mike seems specifically anxious about El so Will is reassuring him from that angle, but it also stands that Will doesn't see his sexuality and feelings as good enough to cure an ailing Mike.

There was scriptgate and the infamous "I hate who I am" line which everyone remembers where they were for, but when the scripts were said to be fake, this line seemed to no longer hold any weight within the fandom and was widely disregarded. He loves himself, actually!

But legitimacy of the script aside, does this line still ring true? Even if it were real, a unspoken internal dialogue in an action line doesn't matter unless the show actually expresses it. So do they?

After all Will said it himself, "you make [me] feel like [I'm] not a mistake at all. Like [I'm] better for being different." So that must be how he feels, right? And yet—

—he doesn't really look like someone proud of his sexuality, does he?

I find the idea that Will doesn't suffer from any internalized homophobia rather absurd. It's definitely informed by external homophobia, but it would be different if Will fought back, but instead we see time and time again Will turning his pain inward. "Zombie Boy" leads to "It just makes me feel like more of a freak." and "It's not my fault you don't like girls" leads to the destruction of Castle Byers. I know that that line is informed by Mike's internal projection and might not be intended to be homophobic, although the statement still is homophobic despite intent. If Will knows he is gay and just heard that from his friend, of course he's going to take it that way. We see a little bit of Will standing up for himself, although this usually results in Will apologizing or not accepting apologies from others even when he deserves it. The bedroom scene in Dear Billy is a big step forward because not only does Mike apologize and assert that Will wasn't in the wrong, but Will actually listens.

It is true that Will accepts that he is gay and doesn't seem to fight it, although as others have pointed out, this doesn't necessarily mean that Will is necessarily proud of who he is. The van scene is just another example of Will taking that external pain and forcing it inward. There is likely to be consequences resulting from his lie that affects all three of them, but Will has decided to go a route that (he believes) will benefit Mike and El and only cause himself pain.

Look at this way. Let's say that Will hadn't lied about the painting being from El, that he was totally honest about the painting coming from him, but Mike didn't understand it as a romantic gesture. Not only would this not really make sense, and require Mike to be a level of oblivious on an absurd level, but it would also communicate something completely different. The new meaning would be this: Will is proud of his sexuality and able to take ownership of it, and the trouble comes from Mike not understanding. The conflict is now completely external.

I've seen debate on whether or not Mike really did understand what Will was saying although I think that's beside the point. If Mike did understand that Will was talking about himself, then this was not communicated to Will. The above scenario leads the conflict to be solely relieved by Mike finally understanding, and while there is surely to still be an external conflict between Will and Mike, Will's conflict of sexuality remains to be internal. Even if Mike did tell Will that he knew it was from him, this wouldn't necessarily solve Will's problem. The remedy to Will's internal conflict can only come from himself, by being able to proudly put his name to his painting.

#will byers #byler #stranger things #my analysis #btw— i hope none of my commentary regarding mike and mike analyses comes off as a jab. thats not my intention at all #im not saying not to look at mike or analyze mike #im just saying that this particular analysis is will focused #and other very talented analysts have made their own posts about mike in the van that you should check out if you wanna hear more about tha #perspective

[xoxoamyas]

Café Girl

rating : fluff/angst, hospitalization, and a protest mention.

wilbur x fem!reader [ use of you/yours, no use of y/n ]

☆ you meet wilbur at a café you frequent. instantly, you two hit it off. after a while of talking, you randomly go no-contact only for him to find out you're in the hospital. he doesn't intend to leave your side. <3

note : n/a [ hope you enjoy :] ]

request [ ☆ ]

masterlist [ ☆ ]

⋆˙⟡

The café was your favourite. You were a regular since you had first heard of it sometime within the past year or so.

Wilbur wasn't a regular, only having recently heard of the place. He thought he'd give it a try, scope it out to see if he and his friends could film in the spot.

You were working on your laptop in a booth, studying for an upcoming test you had in one of your college courses. A few books to the side closest to the wall, your laptop right in front of you as you slowly scrolling through the materials on a PowerPoint you had been sent via email by one of your professors.

You didn't see him right away, but he saw you. He had ordered himself a refresher, lemonaid of some sort, and was looking for a place to sit. You had seemed like you had your own bubble, but that wasn't what caught his eye entirely.

Wilbur had seen the slight furrow of your brow and the light nibble on your lip before you had gone to sip on your latte.

“Excuse me, ma'am?” You looked up, focus having been broken by the voice some odd feet besides you. “Do you mind if I sit with you?”

In an instant, you were taken by surprise. Having not expected someone of his stature to even talk with you. The way his brown hair was the perfect amount of fluffy and just barely in his eyes. The plain beige sweater he wore over his white collared polo. He was put together, and it was obvious.

“Uhm, sure, I don't mind.” You gave him a nervous smile, mentally degrading yourself for practically stuttering over your words. Moving slightly to fix the books to the side so that they were more organised. You made sure all of the tabs on your laptop were saved properly before shutting that, too, and resting one of your hands over the top of it.

“Thank you. What were you studying for?” He decides to ask, skipping introductions out of pure curiosity. He had seen the glimpse of a power point, but hadn't read anything on the screen out of respect for your privacy.

“Oh, nothing. Just for an upcoming test.” You shrug, watching as he had sat down across from you and practically nursed the refresher between his hands. “I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name?”

“Oh, don't apologize. Should have started with that.” Wilbur lightly chuckled, having brought a hand up to nervously run along his neck. Suddenly self-conscious over the potential stubble rash that could have been along his neck. To him, you were gorgeous, and he didn't want to screw up before he had the chance to even know your name.

“I'm Wilbur, but you can call me Will, if you'd like.” He offers the hand he hadn't used to run along his neck for a handshake in proper greeting. Smiling a bit more when he hears you say your name in return to him as you shook his hand.

He repeats your name back to you, a certain smooth undertone to his voice as he does so. It nearly sent shivers up your spine, but instead, you chose to relax and practically melt.

“Do you come here often?” He asks after a moment of just taking your features in. Both of his hands now along his drink, just holding it to try and calm any rising nerves.

“Yeah, I guess I can be considered a regular. I've come here every day for a while. I don't always get anything like I used to because the entire staff here knows me.” You let out a light laugh, a small flush going over your face in embarrassment. You spent more time at the café than you did your own flat. It was just a soothing environment to be in.

“I think that's cute.” Wilbur comments with a small smile, not missing the way you subtly moved to sip your latte to hide the embarrassment on your face. “I hope you wouldn't mind if I joined you some of those days?” He asks, in hopes of getting to know you. He wanted to at least be your friend, even if in the moment all he wanted to do was take you out on a date to see if you two could click anymore than he felt you two already had.

“Oh, no, I don't mind the company at all.” You can't help but smile, that warmth flooding through your chest as you felt like there were butterflies in your stomach. “I’m usually here at about the same time every day.” He offers a smile, taking mental note of your words.

“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.”

Conversation continued on like that for a little while, just getting to know each other. He found out you had a pet cat that stayed with your parents. You found out that he likes to play the guitar and that he’s self-taught.

It goes like that for a few days up until Sunday hits. Having long exchanged numbers sometime a few days prior.

Wilbur hadn't seen you at the café like he thought he would. It made his stomach twist in discomfort, having not seen you in your usual spot with your nose in a book or tapping away at your laptop. He had asked one of the employees at first, trying to see if you were potentially there earlier but had no luck. He waited a good ten minutes at first before shooting you a text message. Leaving after a good forty minutes of waiting since he had made plans with one of his friends beforehand and couldn't stick around.

There was no sign of you Monday, nor Tuesday. Wednesday, a gnawing feeling was chewing at his gut. He had texted you a lot over the past seventy or so hours to no avail. No response after the next.

Maybe you didn't have as much interest in him as he initially thought you would have? But then you wouldn't have said yes to exchanging phone numbers or letting him sit with you. You weren't the type to lead someone on like that, and it was clear.

Thursday, he heard nothing once more. Friday, he tried calling a few different times only to end up going straight to voicemail. Had your phone been turned off or dead? You typically had it charged and available for any communication.

Saturday, he tries the café employees again. And he felt both like a weight was lifted off only to have another added right on.

Sunday, he was rushing into a hospital that had been within the area. The employee he had talked to ended up telling Wilbur you were hospitalised, yet not what for. It made him feel physically ill the moment the words processed in his mind. It had been beyond visiting hours when he initially found out, though, so he couldn't do anything anyway.

Wilbur had given your name to the front receptionist, the lady taking longer than she should have to give a room number. The second he had the number, he was rushing to find you.

He muttered a swear beneath his breath the second he reached your room, pulling his dishevelled self together before calmly as possible, opening the door. Wilbur could feel his heart simultaneously break and deflate, seeing you hooked up to a heart rate monitor as well as an IV.

Will took the seat closest to you, taking one of your hands in both of his own. A small sigh escaped his lips as he pulled your hand to his mouth, kissing the knuckles of your hand.

Your lip was fairly busted paired with a black eye, what looked to be bruising along some of your neck and more sprinkled along what he could see of your arms. Your knuckles were red and fairly scraped.

It definitely wasn't good, but you were clearly tended to. It must have been bad, especially if you were potentially there since last Sunday. It made him want to simultaneously cry and put down whoever put you in this hospital bed.

“Will?” Your voice is light and hoarse, mostly on the quieter side.

“Hey, hey, don't strain yourself.” He's quick to move, gently pressing on of his hands to your shoulder to prevent you from moving to sit up. Instantly feeling bad when he sees you flinch at the motion.

“Sorry.. What's goin’ on?” You ask, words lightly slurring together. You must've been on some sort of medication to help with any pains.

“I'm not sure. One of the employees at the café told me you were hospitalised. That was it. Do you remember what happened?” His voice is soft as he asks, clearly not wanting to hash up the memory of it but not knowing was killing him. He needed to know why you looked so beat up.

“There was a protest goin’ on at my college.” You hum a bit, moving your free hand to rub at one of your eyes. Slightly flinching when your hand made contact with your eye. “Think it got out of hand.”

Wilbur can't help but sigh, brows furrowing in thought. He mutters a swear to himself, bringing your hand right back up to his mouth. His lips pressing against your knuckles once more, this time for a little bit longer.

“Go back to sleep, okay? Focus on feeling better.” He murmured out for you to hear, one of his hands moving up to gently cup your cheek. His thumb gently grazing along your skin, trying to be comforting in the moment.

Will smiles a bit when you lean into the touch, seeing you nod even the smallest amount. His heart nearly melted as he watched you close your eyes.

“I love you,” He whispered after a long moment of silence. His heart felt like it was breaking when you didn't respond, though he knew you wouldn't since it didn't take long for you to fall asleep.

Wilbur wasn't going anywhere.

#amyas writes #x reader #fluff #angst #wilbur soot #wilbur fluff #wilbur angst #wilbur soot x reader #wilbur x reader #wilbur soot x you #wilbur x you

[anzulvr]

Imagine like E-class watching a horror movie with bloody and scary scenes and EVERYONE IS LIKE DISGUSTED BUT KARMA AND READER ARE LIKE watching it with a straight face and they joke about it like the biggest psychopaths ever

SORRY THESE REQUESTS ARE TAKING LIKE FOREVER SOME HAVE BEEN HERE FOR MONTHS IM GONNA DO THEM I PROMISEEE :,) Ty for requesting 🫶

Karma is the type to laugh at horror movies because he thinks the scenes are so stupid

He won’t even flinch

[Name] is the type to look at Karma laughing and start loosing it too

Nagisa is grabbing onto you from one arm completely disturbed with how someone could film and release this movie but he can’t seem to look away- Okajima on the other end is trying to be slick grabbing your free arm 😭

Karma is willing to pretend to be scared to get your attention but he makes it so obvious he’s messing around to bother you.

He does it at the dumbest times too, the main character will bump their head on a counter or something and the first thing he does is casually slap Okajimas hand off you and side hugging you tighter. He might even cover his eyes with your shoulder if you don’t do it to him 😭

Meanwhile when the actual horrific scenes come up his eyes are glued to the TV laughing his ass off only grabbing onto you when he needs to hold on to something so he doesn’t fall down laughing

He talks about how unrealistic the gory scenes are like it’s common sense “if the knife was pointed around 5 inches higher it would’ve been faster.” (Actually him: 🤓)

“Right? Did they use koolaid for blood..?”

Everyone’s just kinda looking at him like wtf, they’re looking at you too because why are you smiling along in agreement

movie nights with E-class there’s gonna be bets involved like: “the person most scared of the movie buys the pizza.”

the loser would be Maehara who swears up and down the super high pitched screams were Okanos

( Rio had video evidence of him screaming, grabbing onto Hanzama and screaming again)

The night ends with all of you eating and arguing about what the best pizza flavor is in true end class nature.

KINDA UNRELATED but Muramatsu def picked the movie

#ansatsu kyoushitsu #karma akabane #akabane karma x reader #assassination classroom x reader #karma akabane headcannons #karma akabane x reader #karma x reader #assasination classroom #assassination classroom #assclass

[accio-victuuri]

January 2024 CPNs 🍭🍬🍪

starting off the year strong with some good old candies that puts a smile on our faces. i have to say that this month has some challenges because tho we have sweets, there were some outside voices that affected some of us in a negative way. being a bxg is a continuous learning process, and i hope all of us get stronger and learn that xz and wyb will always be the priority. we will respect them. we will be kind to them. and i guess that’s the good thing about monthly recaps like this, a reminder that bxgs live the good life! 🫶🏼

now let’s review this lovely month… ⬇️⬇️⬇️

• New year’s eve candy goodness

• Additional NYE clowning, one of the set props for WYB’s stage, is a clock. It’s not set as 10:05 in an obvious way, but if you turn it just right you will see the 10:05. Most likely a coincidence but who knows.

• ZZ & WYB featured in Elle Japan

• 1/2 yibo official weibo video post

• Probably a coincidence but in WYB’s interview he mentioned that one of his favorite Actors is Sean Penn. Understandable. However people are screaming cause “Sean” is also XZ’s first name. lol. Was this an additional point to like the actor? 😂

• 1/4: Yibo cat photo cpns

• XiaoWangZi = Little Prince

• 1/6/23, photos onset of ZZ’s new drama went on HS. to be expected, cause it’s in hengdian and anything related to ZZ’s project is bound to get some paparazzi interested. there was also some talk that the project might have shared it intentionally to stop the malicious rumors that the drama wasn’t actually filming. anyway, the CPN in all this is that a new CP was born 🥹🥹🥹🥹

baili is mostly paired with shiying — who is a favored person to be shipped with xieyun. so it seems like baili doesn’t have his one & only. so maybe zanghai can be that person. and both their stories include court politics so it’s perfect.

• The Boys & their late night city adventures

• ZZ & WYB + Mimi the Cat

• A new/old snippet from their thailand fanmeet rehearsal where they wanted to hear each other’s voice on their earphones

• WYB smiling cause he heard XZ’s sample/demo for the song tomorrow will be better during recording

• 1/11 zsww rumor : cutting their hair

• 1/12 same light and shadow in studio post caption & another wedding outfit

• THEM WITH A KID 🥹🥹🥹 it’s giving suo-er vibes!

• Weibo Night recap & candies

• yibo is seat #23 and then xzs posts their video at 00:23. what a coincidence 👀

• same brand heurueh bits

• In his SINA interview for Weibo night, he was asked who he prefers to go with during vacations and he answers friends. but before saying that he stuttered. you all know how we are with XZ and his stutter, meaning he is changing his answer or is a bit nervous cause the true answer is revealing. Tell us, who do you really wanna go on vacation with? 😏

• The boys being tourism ambassadors of their hometown which led to them being featured in a newspaper

• A fansite posted a series of photos showing how XZ signed the backdrop for Weibo Night. It clearly shows how he looks at WYB’s signature and the decides to sign right next to it. There are videos too that show this much better. I guess this one depends on people’s interpretation. I think those who are anti cpf will see this as a coincidence and say that XZ just signed randomly on the side cause the other spaces already look crowded. But then again, you can’t deny that he saw WYB’s signature. He knows what it looks like. They both spent so much time signing stuff together during CQL promotion so it’s safe to say that he recognized it. If they are sworn enemies like some people love to imply, why would he sign near WYB’s? This is pretty clear to me, it’s his way of being right next to WYB. 🫶🏼

Here is a closer one posted by someone who attended, you can see how close they are.

• an assistant in weibo night who took care of them both & who seems to be their friend

• matching lawsuits of anti fans

• both of them showing up at loreal annual meeting to give their messages

• our boys love to stay hydrated! 💦💦💦

• a video from SDC where the OP said WYB’s reaction was due to their wangxiao headbands. I know there are a lot of toxicity and fanwar that happened because of SDC fan support and there is some narrative from his so/os that WYB hates us. so/os are free to hate on us but i don’t think it’s ever right to project that onto WYB who is like the most accepting person. let the fan wars be between the fans, don’t bring WYB into it and claim stuff that will put him in a negative light.

• mystery tennis photo where people clown that he could be with xz. but i personally think he is just with some friends, but that doesn’t take away the possibility that he plays with xz 🎾

• GQ caption similarities and sexy backs - and i think the biggest takeaway from this whole GQ drama is that fans should remain rational and we should trust the boys and their decision. I have talked about it initially here, but that was more of calling out fan etiquette than the cpn implications. some bxgs really fell into the brainwashing package of solos and i wanna discuss that here cause this fandom is not only about candies but being firm in our belief. you had shrimps saying wyb is the enemy cause he is all cozied up with gq, and some bxgs bought that. they were “disappointed” with wyb and made up stuff about him doing things against his will. then the same people were slapped in the face when yibo continued to work with him for his album which is about as personal as it gets. only a few respected wyb’s decision and trusted in him & xz. motos are saying gq will never work with someone like xz cause he is the enemy, and that’s why wyb is comfortable with rocco and team. which is proven to be wrong now cause he is working with them. who knows, they may even do a full feature for LOCH. this is a lesson to bxgs, do not rely on solo sob stories to make sense of zz and wyb cause they only see one side of the story. they were always okay with GQ. Maybe GG was hurt at some point but he moved on and so should the fans. i just hate the feeling that ZZ & WYB were so happy with the collabs they did with GQ, in the meantime, BXGs who are supposed to understand them the most were nowhere to be found. we should do better next time.

there are serious efforts out there to make us turn against one of them, and use cpfs as anti minions, so we should be more careful.

• BJYX and Tennis 🎾🎾🎾

• Their Ordinary Life - a translation of a post made about their lives as normal people, and riddled with known CPNs.

• the connection between the tod’s strap included in xzs 2024 media gift box and wyb’s alleged gucci strap accessory in SDC 5

• early cpf story

• new clue from a drawing of a cake 🎂

#bjyx #yizhan #there is no science here i’m just clowning like i always do

[henrysglock]

Local Man Uses The Cyclical 27-Year Torment Nexus To Try And Change His Fate [EPIC FAIL COMPILATION]

You probably guessed that this is the time-travel post I've been slaving over. You'd be right. This is the newest and most formal iteration of my long-standing time loop theory (I have drafted flowcharts back from February that actually predicted a dimension/time fuckery event in 1943 in relation to Brenner, which was made canon by TFS). So...Let's just dive right in. Note: I'm planning to keep calling TFS Henry "Henry" here just for simplicity's sake.

Now, fair warning: There are a few big "bear with me"s in this post. I promise they make sense, I just need you to hear me out.

It all started with Henry's self-proclaimed superhero name: The Stardust Spider.

Some of you may have seen my original post about The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars (here).

Before anyone says "Oh, but that album didn't exist yet", a reference in 1959 about a Bowie album that wouldn't be recorded until November of 1971 is in keeping with TFS's habit of directly referencing things from the '70s that "don't exist yet".

However, all that aside, there's a specific piece I want to return to, because it bugs the living daylights out of me.

There was a cut song that was meant to go on the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars titled "Shadow Man":

For obvious reasons in relation to Henry in The First Shadow, this song already stuck out.

Specifically, though, these few stanzas hit me weirdly:

You should call and see who answers For he promises to come running Guided by the truth For the Shadow Man is really You Look in his eyes and see your reflection Look to the stars and see his eyes He'll show you tomorrow, he'll show you the sorrows Of what you did today You can call him foe, you can call him friend You should call and see who answers (see who answers) For he knows your eyes are drawn to the road ahead And the Shadow man is waiting 'round the bend ('round the bend) Shadow man is waiting up ahead

The Shadow Man is you from the future. He's waiting up ahead to show you the the truth/the consequences of your actions.

Considering that the TFS version of Young "Henry" has a direct connection to both the Shadow and Dimension X from a young age, and he also experiences what seem to be Vecna-type visions, this becomes particularly interesting to me...Especially seeing as said fates are not only possible for future "Henry", but also canon for future "Henry". (See: Vecna guy vs Mindflayer guy)

So, when I see an almost comical number of lines in TFS relating to rewriting known, undesirable endings (here are a few of my favorites):

And when we revisit some of the on-film classics:

I start to think it's time we revisit the concept of time-travel and trying to change your own fate.

It's always hard to know where to start with posts like these, so I'm going to kick things off with the technical aspect: The Cycle.

Something I've talked about in the past year, mostly on Discord, is this concept of a time loop. Not just any old time loop, though. A 27 year cycle, specifically.

Not 20, not 30...

Now, we all know the TFS timeline is messy as hell and doesn't actually align with anything that's possible in filmed canon...or within its own time span, even.

For example, the attack on Mr. Newby happens both some point after October 1st, 1959 and before November 20th, 1959...but the papers for the incident report it on March 20th, 1958:

The timeline we're given also largely fabricated, as I pointed out in relation to the newspapers with dates that don't actually exist.

However, much like NINA, the sequence itself being fake doesn't mean the events didn't happen. It's just not happening in the time frame we're told it's happening in:

It's a set of real events, just portrayed on a different time scale.

So, with all that in mind, I want to lay out a timeline, starting from Season 4 and moving backwards in time:

— Vecna opens the rifts, and El opens a gate to Dimension X in NINA, both in 1986. The March 1959 Creel Murders occur exactly 27 years before the Rifts and NINA's Dimension X gate open in 1986...at which point the Mindflayer is shown to be active.

— Mothergate opens through to Dimension X at some point between November 1983 and October 1984, this being somewhere between 16-28 months prior the Rifts opening. The paper about the attack on Mr. Newby, dated March 20th, 1958, is released exactly 610 days, or 20 months, prior to the Creel murders on November 20th, 1959. It's not necessarily the exact dates that are important here (again, these dates are relatively unreliable), but the gap between the dates.

When put in accordance with filmed dates (i.e. setting the release of this paper exactly 610 days prior to March 22nd of 1959), the paper for the attack on Mr. Newby would have been released on July 20th, 1957. This would be in line with Edward Creel's move to Hawkins in the spring of 1957...while also occurring 27 years before July of 1984, at which point Mothergate is open, and the Mindflayer is active.

This July date is especially funny to me considering we get "throwaway" lines like this...with shots in filmed canon from summertime:

Top: Joyce and Jim beginning their investigation into the attic attack. Hopper Sr. is questioning why Joyce and Jim are investigating, rather than attending school. Bottom: Alice and Henry with the rabbit death scenes in filmed canon, the setting showing full foliage and both children in summer clothing. "Is it summer break?" I don't know. You tell me, Chief.

Per TFS, Henry went missing in a cave system near his home town of Rachel, Nevada (hold that thought) at some point in the year prior to the attack on Mr. Newby. We've been told that Dimension X was involved in this event in Nevada, something happened there that left "Henry" altered physically. He was also flayed at some point around this time.

This all coincides with Henry's dramatic mood shift from a "normal and good" boy to one suffering from Mindflayer-induced psychosis. This change happened in tandem with the Nevada incident, dating back 10 months prior to the attack on Mr. Newby:

If we set Henry's initial disappearance in line with filmed canon like before, it becomes September of 1956, which is just over 27 years before Will's disappearance in November of 1983, at which point we know at least one gate is open.

We also have 1952, at which point TFS Henry would be 7 per his age as a 14 year old/freshman in play canon. This exists in a 27 year interval against 1979, when El opens the original gate that sends One to Dimension X, where he subsequently shapes the Shadow into the Mindflayer.

Here comes the first "hear me out".

My questions are:

Since Henry/Vecna/The Mindflayer/etc. in general don't show any capability for opening gates before 1986, then how the hell is the Mindflayer possessing anyone in 1959?

How did "Henry" get involved with Dimension X in Nevada in the 1950s?

Unless, by some chance:

Dimension X exists all the time simultaneously (i.e. it's a space outside time)

The gates exist simultaneously across time and space in the Right Side Up in 27 year intervals. By which I mean: A gate that opens in, say, 1983 would exist simultaneously in 1956, so on an so forth.

There's the disappearance of Captain Brenner and the USS Eldridge in 1943, which would, interestingly enough, align with 1970, the supposed year of El's conception.

Then, 1952. Now, I'm not sure what's special about 1952, when TFS "Henry" was 7, because they don't actually say what happened to make that year important! They make a point to show it to us, though, meaning something happened...we just don't know what. All I can say is that 1952 does exist in a 27 year interval against El's 1979 gate. Hold that thought.

Those addressed, let's fast-forward 4 years: 1956/1983.

Now, to be fair, there is some uncertainty in my mind about whether this specific gate incident stems from Brenner's involvement with Project Rainbow in Nevada pre-1957*, or if it stems from Mothergate in 1983, or if they created some kind of wormhole between the two locations 27 years apart...but that's a concept I need to explore more thoroughly in a another post.

In short, though: Did a singular El open a singular Mothergate? Did El open mothergate? Did Mothergate actually open on November 6th, 1983...or are we just supposed to assume it opened the same night Will went missing/the demogorgon came through? We're never given a concrete date for when Mothergate actually opened.

* In TFS, Brenner claims he's dedicated his life post-1943 to Project Rainbow with the goal of finding Dimension X, and that he's doing so in pursuit of knowledge regarding the circumstances of his father's death in connection with the Philadelphia Experiment. The USS Eldridge, Brenner Sr.'s ship, disappeared into Dimension X briefly on October 28th, 1943. "Brenner Sr." was the sole survivor. "He" returned to the Right Side Up with a completely unique blood type, supposedly altered by his travels into Dimension X. This is what ultimately led to him succumbing to his injuries, due to his body rejecting all forms of blood transfusion. Brenner Jr. tells us that about 10 months prior to Henry's first stay in HNL, a scientist from Project Rainbow escaped Brenner's lab carrying a container of a dangerous material, and ended up near the same Nevada cave system Henry disappeared into. We don't know how or when this material was collected, or what it was, but we know they found Henry's Captain Midnight spyglass next to a body (identity unspecified) with no trace of that dangerous material. We get no further detail about the Nevada Disappearance.

Anyway, someone opens a gate in the fall of 1956 and/or 1983 (my money's on it being directly linked to an El in 1983 either way). No matter who did it, though, someone opened a gate at both time points, showing us this 27 year link between the 2 dates, 2 key locations.

"Henry" goes missing in Nevada in 1956, and ends up involved with Dimension X...Which aligns with the choice of song surrounding this version of the Creel family while they move into their new home:

Coincidentally, 27 years in the future, so does Will, in Indiana. Their experiences are linked across those two spaces via that 27 year period.

We know that regardless of the gate in Nevada...Mothergate, at least, stays open until from fall 1956/1983 to fall 1957/1984. That covers exact time frame that the adjusted dates for both Henry's accident with the boy in Nevada and his accident with Mr. Newby fall in (as well as Will's time between his disappearance and his flaying).

The closer we get to Will's flaying in 1984, and the closer the Mindflayer gets to crossing through Mothergate, the more TFS Henry sounds like One (post-1979) while he's possessed in 1957, the more strangely he behaves in general (almost as though the Mindflayer is more enmeshed in his everyday life/closer to the surface), and the stronger the possession attempts seem to become overall. He begins giving nightmare visions to other people, namely tormenting Virginia with spiders and her past. He has his final and most powerful "Vecna" vision on the night of the attack on Mr. Newby.

Any kind of reciprocal gate irt Mothergate in the '50s would have gone unnoticed, since the papers in TFS indicate that HNL wasn't established until Brenner showed up to take Henry in.

Mothergate closes briefly, only for a gate to open in July 1958/1985 in the underground location of the future Starcourt Mall. This, in 1958, is during our unaccounted-for 20 months between the attack on Mr. Newby and the Creel murders. (Something rattles about this and the scene where Henry nearly makes full contact with the Mindflayer, when he has a handful of duplicate lines re: his 4.07 monologue self, but I don't have sufficient evidence to make that claim with any certainty.)

That gate closes, until Vecna opens gates in Hawkins in March of 1986, and El opens a Dimension X gate briefly and simultaneously in both Hawkins/Nevada in September of 1979 (September of 1952) and Hawkins/Nevada in March of 1986 (March of 1959) during NINA, concurrently...at least one of which may have gone unnoticed, since the Rainbow Room and the surrounding labs seems to have been abandoned entirely after 1979, and HNL as a whole has once again been abandoned after the events of 1984 ("unnoticed" and "abandoned", I say as if the building isn't still being surveilled by Brenner/Owens et. al...I just mean that the building isn't in use by the government at that point in time.)

We're shown the Shadow activating all the way in Russia due to one or multiple of these events. 27 years earlier, in March of 1959, the Mindflayer once again becomes active, per TFS's adjusted dates. Chaos ensues.

At this point, "Henry" starts swapping between sounding like his young self and sounding like his 4.07 Monologuing Adult self again, doing that kind of "I've seen the future" foreshadowing talk with Joyce that his visions did with him:

Here, he also sounds distinctly like ST3 flayed Billy, specifically in the way of the scene with El in the cabin when "Billy" outlines the Mindflayer's plans for her, her friends, and all of Hawkins while crying.

The rest is, well...history. Whatever fuckery went on, it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference. After all, TFS is a "canon event", meaning it had to end the way it did.

Remember those thoughts I asked you to hold?

TFS being a "canon event" means it had to end with Henry in the lab alongside baby El...thus completing our loop, which starts again with the events of 1979/1952. A 27 year loop. TFS may be indicative of a time loop.

Hence:

Out of place dates from the 1970s start to bleed into the 1950s: - A town like Rachel, Nevada, which wasn't established until 1978, now exists circa 1952-1959 after El opens a gate to Dimension X circa 1979 in Nevada circa 1986 via NINA, which exists...about 40-50 miles from Rachel.

- An album like Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (November, 1971) or a song like "Chuck E's In Love" (April, 1979) gets referenced circa 1957-1959. - An article about a "younger, more handsome" alien clone of Elvis appears in a 1959 Weekly Watcher paper about the Creel murders, despite Elvis having been 24 at the time...making this an article more likely to have appeared in the '70s or later, likely sometime around Elvis' death in 1977.

2. The Shadow is always depicted as the fully formed Mindflayer circa 1956-1959, despite the shaping event happening in the 4 years between 1979-1983:

3. Henry has Vecna-type visions, despite being the only vision-giver we know of circa 1957-1959.

4. 6 different guys later in the HNL massacre: 2 with the original baby El, 2 with teen El via NINA, and 2 in an as-of-yet unseen product of NINA's Loop (see: the final scene of TFS).

All this laid out, some questions remain:

Why do Henry's visions show him the genuine, terrifying reality of his future?

Why are these visions generally lacking in coercion?

Why are Vecna chime sounds heard before the major supernatural events that deal with visions, even though we never actually see the clock? (They're heard before Virginia in the attic, before the attack on Mr. Newby, before the Creel murders, and in the basement when Henry monologues at Joyce while viewing the corpses of his family.)

Why don't these chimes play when the Mindflayer alone is present, e.g. when no visions occur? (See: Henry contacting the Mindflayer in the lab)

And we don't really get an answer to any of these. Not an easily spotted outright answer, anyway.

But what's really fascinating, which I mentioned just a second ago and takes me back to the top of this post, back to the "Stardust Spider" and Shadow Man, is the fact that despite occurring concurrently with the possession attempts...none of these visions contain an ultimatum. There's no "If you don't obey me, I'll hurt someone you love", no "I'm showing you what's going to happen if you don't obey me", nothing of the sort.

The closest we get to coercion is the bathroom vision, when Henry fights off a possession attempt in the school bathroom and ends up in a vision regarding Patty. When "Patty" starts to talk to him about his future, about how Henry's going to kill her and so many others, Henry says "you're not Patty...what are you?" Then he gets into a physical brawl with her, which is surprisingly well matched. Vision Patty encourages him during that fight, saying things like "That's it!", "We want the same thing!", and "We can have her!"

Those seem like pretty straightforward "the Mindflayer's encouraging Henry to kill" encouragements, right?

Yeah, at first glance. However...lets read that back right quick, but with Moral Objectivity Goggles on this time. Henry openly, verbally identifies that Vision Patty is "not her, not Patty", but is, in fact, something else. He does this multiple times before he lunges at "not Patty", and he is subsequently encouraged by not-Patty...who tells him they want the same thing. That's not suspicious at all. The motives here are definitely crystal clear and totally aren't conflicting in any way.

There's the straightforward surface aspect, and then something else piggybacking on it, complicating it. Hold that thought.

Other than that instance, the negative parts of Henry's visions are all just...information. They're showing him what will come to pass...almost like they're motivating him to fight the Mindflayer. Hold onto that thought too, it buddies with the previous one.

Henry's freaking out about Prancer because he's getting close with Patty, and he's worried he'll hurt her?

His vision informs him that he's going to kill more, that he's going to hurt things, that he's going to kill Patty if he stays around her and/or gives into the Mindflayer's desires. And then it happens. All of it. He kills more animals. He hurts things and people, the pets and lab animals, Mr. Newby, and Inmate 58361 being prime examples. He gives in to the Mindflayer's desire to kill and kills Virginia. He does, by the extent of his perception, kill Patty in the accident.

The same goes for his vision in the attic. Henry's up in the attic using his powers to find someone/snoop on them, fearful of opening himself up for a possession attempt?

The vision version of Patty's mother catches Henry and tells him she "wants to tell him a secret" while his body is being puppeted to attack Mr. Newby. The next time the curtain rises to show us the inside of Henry's mind, he's seeing himself as Vecna, strung up on the tentacles and strangling people with them...just like the end of Season 4. Once again, he's seeing the future that will come to pass...should he fail to fight the Mindflayer off.

We can tell it's a vision, not what's physically happening in reality, because: a) Henry's watching himself in the attic from the stage below. b) It's got the messed up red lighting c) They show us reality just moments before, not a tentacle in sight and without Henry on the stage there observing:

d) The ending of the vision doesn't match with reality:

At the end of this vision, Henry passes out both in the void and IRL, while the vision version of Henry remains crouching. That is a different guy, entirely separate from IRL/Void Henry. There is at least one other person in the visions who is not a product of the vision itself.

Remember those thoughts from a bit ago that I asked you to hold?

Well. This also happens to be the sequence where we not only get Vision-Patty repeating Henry's own words from just after Prancer's death ("It's not real. It's not real. It's a nightmare") back to him, a phrase IRL Patty has never heard, but we also get:

Visions Patty telling Henry how to fight and evade the possession, as if she knows what she's doing ("It's your dream, remember? Anything is possible").

Vision Patty telling Henry she loves him as the last-ditch effort when his "good dream" memory of the real Patty fails to save him from the possession.

These are both things IRL Patty wouldn't know or think to say, since IRL Patty fully believed that Henry attacked her of his own volition out of malice, and she needed to be shown a drawing of the Mindflayer by Mr. Newby in order to abandon that belief.

IRL Patty's behavior is not the behavior of someone who a) knows the ins and outs of Henry's situation with the Mindflayer, and b) coached him through overcoming a possession attempt a little while earlier. It's just not.

Just like before, we're seeing contradictions and complications between vision-selves and IRL selves, along with a sense of piggybacking within possession attempts, wherein the vision serves as motivation for Henry to fight harder in resistance to the Mindflayer...while the Mindflayer is possessing him.

It's starting to become my favorite thing in the world: A pattern of behavior.

In summary:

Henry's are visions are visions of his future, and they're being shown to him by someone.

They are separate from, but piggybacking on, the Mindflayer's possession attempts.

The purpose of the visions isn't solely to torment Henry or coerce him into doing the Mindflayer's bidding. In fact, the content of the visions seems curated to make Henry fight harder in resistance to the Mindflayer.

So if, for example, Vision Patty ≠ IRL Patty, but she's acting against the Mindflayer's best interest/in support of Henry...then...

I think my answer to the questions of "who", "when", and "how" should be at least somewhat clear by this point:

Someone...from the future.

Specifically, someone from 1979-1986 who has access to the gates from the Dimension X side, someone with both vision-giving and time-related abilities who's directly connected to the Mindflayer/the Hive Mind, but who has a vested interest in countering the Mindflayer, saving Henry Creel, and trying to change the course of the future.

A traitor. A spy, if you will.

"A spy...from the future?"

[gestures at the Signs] Yeah, you heard me.

A spy from the future.

So, on that note: The point in this section wherein I ask you to hear me out.

I get the feeling TFS Henry is being told and/or shown what will come to pass in the future by himself...the Mindflayer.

And you're probably going "How do you figure that one, James? Isn't the Mindflayer a villainous force?"

I mean, yeah. Of course it is. However...

There are clearly multiple forces at play within the Mindflayer (hive mind!), and TFS shows us that Henry Creel wouldn't choose to be a villain.

Thus I think the visions in TFS are situations where, as in the 4.07 rabbit scene, things look really damning on first view. They play on our empathy using small, visibly-frightened, helpless victims and shocking, violent circumstances to guide us into making the assumption that everything about the situation is inherently malicious.

We're shown this poor little guy, "Henry". He's 14 years old, he clocks in at 5'5", he's skittish/scared of (ha) his own shadow, and he's geeky to the nth degree about comic books (just LOOK at that Captain Midnight salute? What an cute little nerd). He's immediately lovable. He's also, we find out rather abruptly, plagued by horrific visions and murderous fits of possession.

The immediate response is to go "He's being psionically tortured by some sick, sadistic son of a bitch who hungers for nothing but blood and control", just like Nancy and the ST fandom collectively did with Young Henry's rabbit scene...only to be proven wrong about Henry's intentions via TFS.

I mean, does anyone (anyone who's able to read this post, anyway 🤭) look at TFS Henry, filmed Young Henry, or even Orderly Henry and go "Yeah. He totally wanted what he got, and if he had the chance, he definitely wouldn't try to save himself from that fate"?

No.

TFS Shows us that "Henry" was a terrified, traumatized boy who wanted it all to stop. He's kind, brave, and stronger than he seems. We're also shown that he's capable of overcoming the Mindflayer to issue warnings to people he cared about (i.e. telling people to run, or prophesying dangers he'd seen via the visions). He was trying to survive with next to no help while causing as little harm as possible. He was a good kid, and he certainly wasn't evil.

So, all that said...I think that, via the Shadow's hive-mind capabilities, Henry's "fronting", in a manner of speaking, in order to show this version of himself the future. Probably as a warning, probably as motivation to fight the Mindflayer, and all with a nice side-dish of "here's how you fight this thing off so that my current future doesn't become our future" before someone else tapes over the figurative laptop camera.

[coughs, drops this Brenner-Mindflayer collage on the table in front of you, and then scurries away]

With that said, I'd like to loop all the way back to the top of this post: The "Shadow Man" may be Henry from the future. He's waiting up ahead to show his younger self the true outcome of his choices.

We all know how TFS ends, though. Hence:

[EPIC FAIL COMPILATION]

This brings me to my final "bear with me" point: The matter of the strange double-agent vibes from the UD in every season.

I'm not sure if anyone else outside the unholycule has noticed this, but in every season there's at least one instance of the UD just...offering up information.

"It does?"

Yup! Let me explain.

On first glance, we look at things like Nancy's vision and even El's vision with Billy in the cabin, and we go "Oh, it's because [insert "the bad guy's cruel/he wants to scare her/his hubris will be his downfall/all serial killers want to be known for their crimes" etc here]"...but maybe that's not the case.

For example: Vecna told Nancy his backstory, and then he immediately went

"Oh hey, so not only am I revealing my identity (Which may help you find out more about me via lab records later on, things like...maybe a list of my abilities, or my weaknesses, like the fact that I have a nut allegry. Allegedly.), but I'm also gonna give you a sneak peek of my apocalypse plans. For free. As a treat. Don't use these to prepare or anything. I'm totally not giving you a head start".

Terrifying, yes. A taunt and a threat on surface view, yes...but also showing his hand. "I want you to tell Eleven everything you see" Why. Why would he want that. He may be confident in his plans, arrogant, even...but he's not that stupid.

I'm serious, though. Check it out in comparison to Henrys visions of the future. The pattern is patterning:

We can track that back to El's cabin scene with Billy, wherein he tells her she shouldn't have looked for him, warns her that they all can see her, and that they're going to be coming after her...and he cries about it. That's vision Billy. That's someone else who piggybacked into El's mind from Billy's mind. That's not real Billy, just like how Billy in Max's vision wasn't the real Billy. The person giving El that vision warns her. Why on earth would he tell her that they can see her, that they're coming for her? That's sensitive information! It would be smarter to let her think she's safe and use that false sense of security to catch her off guard.

In fact, this pattern patterns so well that I'd like to argue this: Henry's TFS visions, Nancy's vision, and El's vision are all the same type of behavior displayed in NINA's chess scene, just in different contexts.

Henry ("Henry") gives some kind of scary prophetic information ("He and the others are going to attempt to kill you", "I would very much like to show you where I am going", "You're going to kill me, aren't you?"), and then we're left to question if it's a scare tactic, manipulative misinformation, or helpful inside information.

It's not that the Mindflayer or Vecna can't hide things from people (see: "Somewhere he didn't want me to see")...like, say, the fact that the Mindflayer is now able to see El, or that Vecna's planning to open 4 gates with his 4 kills.

It's always this miraculous "Huh! Weird info-dropping behavior from the UD's side. Shouldn't look that gift-horse in the mouth though. It's probably just a writing oversight or a shoehorned exposé, so really there's no need to question it." situation where it's just...information that's offered up with no real explanation.

Some of my favorite examples:

...and it's all topped off with Max's line:

"He's been telling us his plan this whole time".

That is to say...You're telling me:

The first message from the Upside Down isn't any of the messages that are concretely Will's, but instead it's the one that's a repetitive Henry line...and it's conveyed in a distinctly not-Will style? A message that saves Joyce, something that's definitely not in the UD's best interest given her tenacity in finding her boy...but is definitely coming from the UD nonetheless?

Will, who fell total prey to the Mindflayer in less than 3 days, was not only able to figure out how to defeat the Mindflayer, but was also strong enough to convey it in Morse code? The Mindflayer, who is able to keep secrets (see below), just...let that information slip?

El, who acknowledges that the Mindflayer is more than able to hide things from her, is suddenly released into Billy's memories and allowed to find the source unimpeded?

The Mindflayer, as Billy (Remember: not actually Billy, because Billy can't give visions or invade minds), is telling El that because he's able to see her now, she shouldn't have looked for him? The Mindflayer, which was supposedly building the Fleshflayer to track El down and kill her? Suddenly he's telling her she shouldn't have done the thing that allowed him to find her more easily?

Vecna's giving up all the information about himself and his plans before he's even gotten the 4th gate open, despite him being so secretive about it up until that point?

Henry's visions in TFS are going to scare him into resisting the Mindflayer, making it less likely that he's going to upgrade to killing humans, i.e. the very thing the Mindflayer wants him to do?

None of that makes any damn sense...until we hit this last point:

Orderly Henry is known for giving inside information about "Papa" to El with no clear motive other than getting her to leave the lab.

Now, if you know my page then you know Em's been talking about double meanings in phrasing recently (see: this post about "who"s and "what"s).

So, with that in mind, I'd like you to chew on this:

"He's been telling us his plan this whole time." vs "He's been telling us His plan this whole time."

By which I mean: "He's been telling us some other man's plan this whole time."

[Mike voice] Superspy.

As a parting thought, I made it all into a nice, neat set of collages:

Not to mention this final, parting bit:

#henry creel #time loop theory #st: tfs