#and i have no thesis

[ladyfromaspookyforest]

Stranger Things & The Fly

I was looking at the ST4 DNA board, which I haven't personally spent time closely examining, and I saw The Fly on there. I'm assuming they meant the 1986 version and not the 1958 one because...you know...the 80s. So my immediate thought was "oh. NINA."

But I decided to do a rewatch of The Fly to see what else paralleled, and it isn't just the NINA elements. Rather, there are two separate parts of the Stranger Things 4 story that echo The Fly. Someone has probably already talked about this, but I'm crap at searching for things, so I couldn't find it. SO I'LL TALK ABOUT IT ANYWAY. This will contain spoilers for The Fly (1986).

The purpose of the pods in The Fly is teleportation via disintegration. You put something in one pod, it disintegrates, then reassembles itself in the other pod. Sounds familiar, you say?

This is the second storyline I'll be talking about.

In The Fly, our scientist protagonist, Seth Brundle, has figured out how to teleport inanimate objects, but when he tries to teleport anything living, it goes wrong. I was going to post a screenshot of him attempting to teleport a baboon, but it's maybe too icky for tumblr? Basically, in Seth's own words, "It turned the baboon inside out." Hmm. Reminds me of...upside down? Seth says "Something was lost in translation." So when the baboon was transported by disintegrating and reassembling, it didn't come back right. This is because he says "Computers are dumb. They only know what you tell them." So he teaches the computers to understand flesh (yeah, idk how he did that either). And the next baboon lives! Huzzah!

What does that mean? Maybe that 001's transportation to this other world (which may or may not be the Upside Down...could even be, dare I say, the Inside Out?), something went wrong. We see how mutilated he became and while he lived and Baboon #1 did not, he still ends up looking like a grody sack of meat, just like Baboon #1. Seth apologizes to Baboon #2 about killing his brother in an aside, but the brother comment is interesting. Perhaps meaningless. But with all the weirdness surrounding Henry that we still don't have answers to (like who tf is Edward Creel?) and the time wonkiness we can expect from season 5, it seems possible that there's a different version of Henry (or Edward) that DIDN'T come out as a grody sack of meat.

After the baboon success, Seth decides to teleport himself (dumbass) and it's VERY IMPORTANT that there is nothing else in the pods or else the molecules could reassemble wrong. And a fly gets into the pod with him, causing his DNA to merge with the fly's DNA when he comes out the other pod. Which brings me back to the NINA Project.

The purpose of the NINA project is to do exactly what the pods do accidentally. The NINA project is intended to influence the person in the pod by putting them in there with an external source. So like Seth's DNA changes with the presence of the fly (accidentally), El's memory changes with the presence of the video tapes.

The fact that Seth comes out wrong could indicate that El does too. The video tapes could, in fact, be influencing her to remember events incorrectly rather than truly giving back her genuine memories of events. There are other people on here who have written some really incredible, comprehensive posts compiling evidence of all the discrepancies between what we see in flashbacks and throughout NINA, so I'm not going to try. But at the end of the day, we still don't know why. Evidence seems to support that Vecna is a different version of Henry/Edward than the one El is being told to remember in NINA, and what she's seeing may in fact be a combination of what she's being told to and what she truly experienced. If you were to look at this through the lens of The Fly, El and the videotapes being in a pod together would make sense as a merging of two things rather than as a recovery of her own memories. (How relevant The Fly is, who's to say, it's all speculation for fun)

Of course, Seth comes out monstrous and El does not (*cough* probably). This brings Seth back to paralleling Vecna, as his disintegration and reconstruction in a horrific way alters not just his appearance, but who he is fundamentally. I imagine something similar happened to turn 001 into Vecna.

There's a super weird quote in the movie after Seth merges with the fly but before he realizes what's happened. He's trying to get his love interest to go through the pods and she refuses.

"You're afraid to dive into the plasma pool, aren't you? You're afraid to be destroyed and recreated, aren't you? ...You can't penetrate beyond society's sick grey fear of the flesh. Drink deep or taste not the plasma spring...I'm talking about penetration beyond the veil of the flesh, a deep penetrating dive into the plasma pool." So...WTF amirite? It's sort of a bunch of raving nonsense, but there are key words and phrases in there that really stick out to me. Being destroyed and recreated. The multiple references to the pool. (There is no pool in The Fly. This is a metaphor but there IS one in Stranger Things) The veil beyond the flesh, which could be the veil of...shadows? And of course, it's all about fear.

Brenner tells El "If you go too fast, I'm afraid you could become lost in the darkness. And if you are lost, so are we all." As evidenced by The Fly, going too fast very much did get Seth lost in the darkness. Brenner was even at least partially right about El. He tells her she isn't ready but she leaves anyway and she doesn't save the day. The apocalypse comes to Hawkins. (And Max is lost in the darkness)

I think the clearest parallels with this movie are the pods and the disintegration method of travel. Everything else is me blabbing. But after this rewatch, I am intrigued by the idea of the other Henry/Edward being the "successful" version of a teleportation.

Here are a couple of other quotes I found interesting that I'll just be leaving here for funzies:

"The sheer process of being taken apart atom by atom and put back together again...why, it's like coffee being put through a filter."

"Human teleportation, molecular decimation, breakdown and reformation, is inherently purging. It makes a man a king."

#stranger things 4 #st5 speculation #henry creel #edward creel #the nina project #the fly #el hopper #stranger things theory #this is entirely self-indulgent #and i have no thesis #stranger things movie parallel #my dumbass post

[kvetchinglyneurotic]

unstoppable force (desire to write) vs immovable object (tired)

#writing #on the plus side i did make a decent amount of progress on the thesis #on the minus side it sapped my fic writing energy #also we're having a very loud windstorm but that's unrelated #kvetch oc

[coralnoodle]

WHAT THE HELL IS LAB SAFETY!!

#my art #danny phantom #dp #danny fenton #danny phantom fanart #heheheh i have more time to do art now!! #reason: i went to therapy for work #tho im also writing my thesis so like dont set this as your standard for me lmao #anyways!! who wants to listen to my insane danny phantom analysis and hcs!! #eye strain #ask to tag!

[hychlorions]

(looks at the time) ooh... the bitching hour

#klapollo #klavier gavin #apollo justice #ace attorney #.png #was about to just caption this with 'bitching' but 1) this is funnier 2) i think stranger things has ruined that #KEITH HARING DOG BE UPON YE #i feel bad i've mostly posted sketches this past year but again i'm still doing thesis lol #next term though i only have one class and it's an elective =w= maybe i can open comms then #including some experimental ones. like low poly creachers hehehehhe

[buttclench-ryugazaki]

this whole james somerton thing is really amusing if you, like me, have legitimately never heard of the guy, have never been recommended his videos, and this is your first exposure to him at all. like holy shit did he say that nazis being hot is why americans enlisted during wwii? what the fuck is this smug clown on about and who allowed him to have recording equipment

#todd in the shadows #hbomberguy #i have an extra shield because i generally avoid video essays for the reasons todd and hbomb allude to #that too many present unverifiable info or conjecture or straight up opinions with tone of authority and severity #AND there are people who dub videos 'essays' despite lacking some necessary characteristics that would make them essays #like evidence and a FUCKING THESIS. it's not an essay just because it exceeds 40 minutes! #jenny nicholson does not make essays. she does (very entertaining!) casual deep dives. and she also has never pretended she makes essays #that's on the people who watch her

[clown-owo]

🤨

bonus:

#good omens spoilers #gos2spoilers #good omens #good omens season 2 #goodomensedit #aziraphale #crowley #og post #gifs #the thesis of this gifset is: #“aziraphale lies BADLY to crowley's FACE repeatedly for no reason and crowley ALWAYS takes him at his word #but crowley's the demon so he's the one who lies. apparently" #i just think its hilarious #and the fact that crowley doesn't notice aziraphale lying despite the fact he knows how he lies (see: Job) because “why would he lie to ME” #i don't think crowley thinks the inverse of aziraphale (“you're an angel. its not what you do”) because he KNOWS he lied to heaven #(again see:Job) #this took so fucking long i'd open photoshop and my computer would shit itself #even worse if i dare opened a longer video to make into several gifs #sacrificed my Firefox window to my computer like a newborn lamb so that photoshop may live but it barely even helped #apparently i do NOT have the needed ram for gifmaking #i mean i did do it. i completed it. but still #though it worked a bit better after i restarted my computer. so. maybe i should do that more frequently lmao #i tried to include “i'm a demon. i lied” but it just did not. fit. quite right

[pygmypouter]

This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!

#have linked 2 this song before and i will link 2 it again. because HELLO. canaan house thesis statement 2 me. #rlly obsessed w this scene i think i’m just fascinated w the idea of harrows journals…… her drawings of canaan…what else is in there #anyway this was mostly an excuse for me to play around w using architectural drawings as a sort of compositional element/framing device. #did it work? who’s to say. the most important part is that i had fun except. i didn’t even do that. #text is slightly edited for length etc…. + i cut off the scene where i did because well…. makes me insane. lol #don’t pay too much attention 2 the architectural parts they don’t make sense #because i cobbled them together from the plans of like 3 different buildings. #anyway enjoy. or don’t. i’m not ur boss. #the locked tomb #tlt #gideon the ninth #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #harrow the ninth #okay that’s it

[cadere-art]

A collection of diving birds.

A kingfisher, a pelican, an osprey, and a booby.

#birds #art by me #tritone #kingfisher #booby #osprey #pelican #i'm back bitches! #well. not really because i'm actually in the very last stretch of my thesis. but the move is done enough that i have some bandwitdh to draw #next month though... watch out #in a very birdy sort of mood lately. so. more birds coming is likely

[sweetvox]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST OSHA-COMPLIANT DOG-ENGINEERING SCIENTIST !! !!

#vox.txt #hlvrai #hlvrai tommy #tommy coolatta #sorry i do not have anything special like art or something.. been finishing up my senior thesis AUGH <[sound of pain and suffering]

[minhosblr]

Lee Know ☆ GUCCI for W Korea

#bystay #createskz #stray kids #minho #lee know #*m.gif #dreamytag #aleksbestie #usertsu #usertheos #useroro #HE LOOKS SO GOOD #I NEED A BEHIND THE SCENES WITH THE HORSE THING #I'm probably not going to gif the video cause I really do have to work on my thesis today lmao

[jq37]

In January 2024 y'all are gonna see how much I HAVEN'T CHANGED AT ALL. JUNIOR YEAR LET'S GOOOOOO HOOT GROWL BITCHES!!!!

#fantasy high #dimension 20 #i WILL be recapping the season you don't even have to ask #it'll be my last semester of school so I won't have any classes only thesis hours

[gorgynei]

barbie is not an "anti man" movie at all. it's so obvious to me that the kens were written like idiots not to call all men idiots (well... maybe a little) but instead to show how easy it is for someone to get taken advantage of. it's important to remember that while the barbies and kens are played by and written as adults, they function in the real world and overarching narrative as adolescents that don't know very much about the world.

reading ken as a young boy, he's initially nice to the girls around him (if insecure, lonely, and feeling pretty disrespected) but as soon as he steps into the real world, he sees all these men who feel very secure in their masculinity and self-assured, and he wants that for himself. he falls into the trap of the patriarchy much like a lot of young boys in real life fall into extremist right wing ideologies. but ken's insecurity never really goes away, it just gets covered with faux fur and headbands and country music. it's why he cries and admits to barbie that leading was hard. he never really wanted to hurt the barbies at all, he just wanted to feel confident and accepted by everyone, but especially barbie.

ken was never the problem by himself. he wasn't made into the world hating women. he was manipulated and turned into a misogynist by society.

#i was struggling to put my finger on why i felt so strongly that barbie is not ''man hating'' as a lot of ppl keep saying #and i finally figured it out. hoorah. #theres also the additional nuance of barbieland having a reverse world where men are oppressed and i think that definitely impacts #ken as an individual but ultimately i dont think the implications of a matriarchal society are relevant to the greater themes #and thesis of the film #ramblings #barbie #barbie spoilers

[jadequarze]

Had an Imogen moment. Alternate background undercut, though personally I love the simple background (above) more

#jade draws #critical role #critical role fanart #cr3 #imogen temult #been busy rushing of writing my thesis so im gonna die O<-< #also i do have an imodna one in my draft but im keeping it for laters

[localpizza-bot]

Years of waiting finally paid of because PEAK JUST DROPPED‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

go watch the Ramshackle pilot NOW

#Ramshackle #much what do I tag #Indie animation #? #you guys have no fucking idea how much I’ve been anticipating this #That thesis film changed my LIFE #Finally… my three brain cells represented in media…. #Shoutout to Vinnie bc that’s literally me #WHAT ARE YOU DOING STILL READING THESE TAGS SHAKES YOU SLAPS YOU GO NOW GO #Piper’spizzaria

[venfaaniik]

thank @turtlemurmurs for sponsoring this coffee

#my art #artists on tumblr #sketches #ko-fi sketch #tma #the magnus archives #elias bouchard #the brainrot is still here btw l just have a thesis to write #once i graduate i can show how jonathan sims saved my career

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

you want a new kind of guy, fine, i raise you: the lady i was briefly roommates with in college who once smoked a blunt at a party and then spent an hour confessing earnestly to me that she genuinely preferred reading detailed episode recaps over actually watching the tv show in question

#she sounded so remorseful & i just stood staring like an anthropologist watching their phd thesis spontaneously manifest before their eyes #apparently she would watch the pilot episode to get a feel for the characters #and then just read a bunch of recaps & episode reviews instead of watching future episodes. what fresh steaming hell #this conversation took place like a year and a half after we were roommates btw. i had seen her maybe twice in that time period #i thought she was a standard frat girl but then 18 months later she appears in the wild grass to reveal unhinged character background to me #and i'm just standing there nodding feeling like i missed a weird opportunity i did not want or ask for #honestly thought i was the weirdest person in that apartment situation but now i'm wondering what our other 2 roommates were hiding #not my strangest college experience at ALL but like. definitely top 20 #this wasn't the same person as Aquarium Girl btw but oddly enough they were roommates actually #(not at the same time that Recaps Lady and i were roommates but at different intervals idk) #anyway i probably should have interviewed at more than one apartment before taking over a sublease but summer sess is a weird time u know #oh and this happened in Hong Kong btw