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plantsjustwannahavefun · 6 months

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I used to think that the reason I wasn't satisfied with Izzy's death was because I was too attached to his perspective as a character and couldn't focus on the big picture of the season and the main Gentlebeard relationship enough. I mean, I was still convinced that his death and the way it was carried out was a shit writing decision, but everyone else outside the Izzy Canyon circles seemed fine with it, so I was starting to think that maybe they were right.

So I looked back on the rest of the season and rewatched the finale... And realised something that I'd been trying to ignore because it was too painful to admit. A huge part of why Izzy's death hit so hard (in a bad way, not that delicious masochistic pain of having a beloved character die a good, narratively satisfying death) was because throughout this season he was the only character who actually had a satisfying arc and development. Practically no one else did. I didn't actually care for Gentlebeard this season, not the way I cared in S1. From episode 1 to 8 and a half, Izzy's arc was crafted with more care, kindness, subtlety and narrative weight than the main Gentlebeard arc which, in comparison, felt like a string of choppy beads badly tied together in an approximate shape of an arc, but collapsed as soon as you looked at it too closely.

Yes, we all know this season suffered for being 2 episodes too short, but I don't think that's all there is to it. This is starting to feel like GoT season 8 all over again. Would it have been better if it wasn't so rushed? Maybe. Or maybe it would have been even worse because this season just didn't seem to know what to do with itself or the characters. The themes and symbolism are all over the place and completely inconsistent. Ed and Stede's characters are practically back at the same place they left in S1. All they did was bounce off the walls back and forth with no real growth. As soon as they took a step towards fixing their relationship or growing as people, they either tool three steps back or it just got dropped. Stede letting fame get to his head? Interesting and realistic development. And how was it resolved? It wasn't. Stede and Ed being whim prone? I'm glad they brought it up. And then they just fell for another whim and it was presented as a satisfying ending.

Ed went from the Kraken, to taking the first steps towards being Ed, then suddenly all the way to being Ed by way of a Night of Magical Healing Sex that he he didn't actually want to happen because he wasn't ready. And then all of a sudden he pivoted to abandoning Stede and piracy and becoming a fisherman... for 5 min. And then back to Blackbeard again because two fishermen were mean to him for 5 minutes. And then abandoning it again to open an inn. How was any of this even remotely coherent or satisfying? They didn't even have a single conversation about any of it. Ed had more proper closure and communication with Izzy during his dying scene than with Stede and the rest of the crew put together. Izzy's arc got sacrificed to do the heavy lifting for Ed's arc and became nothing more than a shortcut to speed run his character growth. Except it didn't even lead anywhere. "Ed, they're your family, they love you" no they don't, he didn't even have a single positive conversation with any of them except Fang. Of course this could have been the point, and Ed could have seen Izzy's death, his own discovery of found family and his dying words as a pretext to repair his relationship with the crew. But he just left them and stayed with Stede instead.

Sure, you could say this was only the second act of the story, and S3 will resolve everything. But the second act is still meant to move the story and the characters forward in some way. Yes, of course if we get S3, I imagine Stede and Ed's life as innkeepers won't exactly be idyllic. But the problem is that the conflicts they'd have will only be a rehash and repeat of the same conflicts they've already have, or were supposed to have, this season. Multiple times, even. We already know that Ed is simply unable to live with himself no matter what life he chooses. The title of S1 was literally "wherever you go, there you are". We already know Stede's love isn't enough to fix him. We already know their goals in life are completely opposite. Maybe they could have shown Stede realising, after his humiliating in S7, that piracy wasn't all it was cracked up to be or he isn't suited for it, and that's why he chose to leave it behind and open an inn, but that's not the explanation we were given. It was just another whim. They literally didn't learn anything this season. They had two baby conversations in E4 and E5 and didn't take anything from it, just kept doing the complete opposite of anything. "We're both prone to whims, let's take things slow" became "let's take things extremely fast by moving in together permanently and becoming entrepreneurs". They never talked about the actual, deepseated, longstanding trauma issues they needed to resolve before they could even begin to have a proper relationship. They literally got a heavy-handed glimpse in what their life would become if they just stuck together without addressing their own personal issues, and chose to do that very thing. It that's what S3 is going to address, then why were Anne and Mary part of this season instead of the next one?

I remember everyone saying they wanted Ed and Stede to reunite as quickly as possible in S2, and I get why. They have great chemistry together. The season is about them. But for it to work, spending more time apart is exactly what they needed. They needed to learn how to live with themselves and others, first. Romantic love alone can't fix you as a person. You have to fix yourself first. Community can help (as with Izzy's case), but you still have to put in the work. In retrospect, I'm glad that Izzy didn't get a love interest this season - because he wasn't ready yet, and had to learn how to have normal relationships and friendships with other people before attempting an intimate romantic relationship, lest he ended up falling head first unit another toxic mutually dependent relationship. That's what Stede and Ed should have tried too. Instead the show just ended up using Izzy's death as a quick surgical fix, robbing Ed of his agency and having to do the hard work repairing himself and his relationships with other people. There's a sad irony in getting exactly one character's arc just this, and then using it as a sacrificial lamb to patch over the main character's arc.

#another long rant #I should probably start tagging this accordingly #ofmd critical #I mean I still love the show and always will #I don't want to be associated with unhinged haters or anything #the reason I criticise this season so much these days is precisely because I love the show so much #it deserved better #it had so much good going for it #so much promise and potential #and in the end much of it was wasted #ofmd #our flag means death #izzy hands #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers

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pokimoko · 8 months

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The fact that Main-verse Ooo is as good and as kind as it is (relative to the other universes shown so far, at least, it's obviously not perfect) all because of the same character that starts off as the OG series' antagonist, the person we were made to see as the bad guy (albeit an often ineffectual one) for several seasons, is making me lose my mind.

Imagine finding out the guy you spent your childhood beating up and saving princesses from is in fact a driving catalyst behind you being able to exist, and not only exist but also live in a world that knows what kindness is. All because that man, the same man who you've witnessed do terrible things, once met a little girl and taught her how to be good.

Simon's story really shows us that even if you lose your way and forget how it is to be good yourself, the world keeps the memory for you. That act of love Simon showed Marcy by protecting her and seeing her as more than the monster she thought herself to be created ripples upon ripples, small at first but eventually enough to help give their wreckage of a world—a world that easily could have been forsaken, its goodness overlooked because of its inhospitable remains—a chance to grow into something beautiful. Because of those very same ripples Simon created, the people of Ooo grew up in a world where they know enough about kindness that they were able and willing to spare the 'bad guy' some, to see beyond the wreckage and allow him to grow too.

In saving Marceline, Simon helped to not only to save the world, but also himself.

#fionna and cake #fionna and cake spoilers #adventure time #simon petrikov #ice king #marceline abadeer #simon and marcy #meta #this was just a phone note to get thoughts out of my system but then it came out semi-coherent #so welp guess i'm writing meta now. i'm really in the deep end now. but yeah...Ice King and Simon's story being about the power of kindness #A cruel world requires constant cruelty to be maintained. But kindness? That reaches across time. one act of kindness sparks another #'I need to save you but whose going to save me?' That act of love and compassion is gonna save you ya dingus....eventually #In a less kind world finn and Jake could have watched those tapes about Simon and still decided IK was a hopeless cause.#That he was too far gone to be saved. But they didn't. They chose to treat him nicer and actually be friends with him.#One thing i always loved about IK's story is that he didn't have to completely change himself for people around him to treat him better #They changed their perspective and were kind to him and it was THAT that helped him change. to grow beyond the 'antagonist' role #to quote my go to and all time favourite good place quote:#'the point is people improve when they get external love and support. How can we hold that against them when they don't?'#Arrgh sorry I just always loved Ice King's arc in the show. From pesky antagonist to the person Finn dived into a chaos god to save #(the world's new beginning and its near ending being all because of simon. he has such main character energy and boy does he not want it)#And now we're getting Simon stuff and I'm so normal I'm so normal I'm so normal (<- has never been normal about this character)#(i...i have many MANY drawings of ice king and simon from 2015 and the years after. i was doomed from the start. F&C was the final straw)#(as was reading marcy's secret scrapbook recently...and here i thought i'd truly reached the capacity of hurt i can feel about these two)#Going insane over these last two episodes. 'she didn't have a me'. Fionna and Simon bonding. Gumlee kiss. PETRIGROF BACKSTORY #and the implication that Simon isn't remembering it accurately? Their sweet sounding love song actually foreshadowing their issues?#I am clawing at the walls. thank you AT crew you are enriching the enclosure that is my brain

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echo-and-dust · 2 months

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now that my brain has somewhat unscrambled itself i have gotten most of my thoughts in order about season 3.

and the first thing i will say is: i loved it.

while it was gutwrenching and polarizing in some ways and i feel that i am entitled to financial compensation for what its done to my mental health, i loved this season for pretty much almost everything it did.

i cannot fault people for having issues with much of the characterization and plot choices made—that’s been the trend during the entire run of the show after all, and imo it’s a testament to the phenomenal way it generates nuance—but i wanted to share my feelings on the recurring opinions i’ve seen about some of these things.

first, i do not blame simon at all for the things he said in the final scene. he’s a child who has been receiving endless verbal and physical harassment on top of all the trauma he is still trying to heal from. he just watched his boyfriend lash out in anger and hurt—while not at him, but it must’ve been a close resemblance of how he might’ve seen micke act. at least, that's what i thought, though i've seen others say otherwise.

and yes, wille is not micke, but just because wille’s source of outbursts is different from micke’s doesn’t mean simon is wrong in drawing similarities. at least he's finally getting a true glimpse into what wille has had to deal with. i've honestly grown to like that they didn't have simon immediately comfort him though; wille's mental illness is not his fault, but it is his responsibility, and instead of pushing a message of unhealthy co-dependence, the show has simon be honest: "but i see that everything hurts you and that hurts me too." and to me, that's so important.

plus, it doesn't make their love any less genuine. wille is a victim of the circumstances; he is not evil, and he is not undeserving of simon. he just has a lot of growing and healing to do, a lot of unlearning and exposure therapy because he's still blinded by privilege even when he tries not to be.

speaking of, i have so many thoughts about wille that i feel like i need to save for its own separate post, but to sum them up: i'll still defend him with my life, and he needs to get the fuck away from that institution.

also, the fact that the responsibility of controlling simon's media decisions was placed solely on wille confused me at first like—why wouldn't they get a professional to give him proper media training?

then i realized, this could be the royal court's way of sabotaging their relationship. they knew that making wille the one to tell simon what he can and cannot say or post would create distance and animosity between them. despite the ramifications of simon's behavior on social media, it seems they still thought it best to have his boyfriend be the one to try to mold him into the system. because they knew that's how they could get rid of him. in conclusion, fuck the royal court (we been knew but still).

one of the standouts this season was their transparency regarding the show's politics. it not only works well with the show's arc (wilmon is public, everything's out in the open now and there's nothing to hide), but also it felt necessary at a time where censorship has been rapidly gaining momentum. it felt so refreshing for these characters to talk so openly about racial discrimination and queerphobia and class disparities, forcing both character and viewer to acknowledge that they exist and you should feel uncomfortable about it.

i don't think i can add much more to what was already said about it—most of the fandom is more eloquent and observant than i am anyway—i just wanted to reinforce how important this season is to myself and the story even with how controversial it is to fans right now. a lot of people may disagree with me and that's fine.

#young royals #wilmon #simon eriksson #prince wilhelm #yr spoilers #yr s3 spoilers #ad speaks #i don't know how they're going to tie everything together in under an hour but so far this season is strong enough for me to like it despit #what ending we receive #and i know i'm in the minority in that sense but i've been spending most of the hiatus trying to keep myself from setting expecations #so i haven't really been let down too much #i really don't want to let this show go though :'(#forever my heart #yr season 3 #young royals season 3

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theaceace · 5 days

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imagining a world in which Simon agreed to go with Edwin and try to escape hell, imagining Simon developing an immediate and very inadvisable crush on the cute guy that just threw a grenade at a demon and Edwin's reaction to that, imagining the reaction of Charles Overprotective Rowland when he finds out that the guy Edwin insists on dragging along with them is one of the guys that sacrificed him to a demon in the first place, imagining the Night Nurse's face when three dead boys pop back through the door instead of two

#dead boy detectives #charles rowland #edwin payne #This is very much not what I would have wanted to see in the show because that episode was perfect to me #But I do think it would have been funny #And hey if you wanted to go the angst route and follow sandman comic lore of 'people stay in hell because they believe they should be there #Then you could have Edwin who has come to terms with who he is and Simon who is starting to forgive himself thanks to Edwin #Getting out of Hell just fine while they're being chased #And Charles 'im scared I'll end up like my dad' Rowland. Charles 'i could never be good enough' Rowland. Charles 'rage issues' Rowland #Who doesn't think he deserves to get out. Even if the thought is deep down and buried #Edwin's reaction to that would be. Woof. Yikes. Delicious #Don't get me wrong Charles would absolutely not stay in hell because I love him too much for that #And so does Death and you absolutely cannot change my mind about that there's no way she doesn't know about the boys #So yeah he'd get out fairly quickly #But just. The potential. The pain. Chef's kiss

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onlinehorseproblems · 5 months

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trying to figure out how to put "carol and the end of the world isn't about the ending of the world but it is but it ISNT but-" into words

#carol and the end of the world #adult animation #carol kohl #it's about community #and it's about now #but also not #AUGHGHHH #AHHHHHHHGGHHHH #bangs heads into smash i can't figure out how to say it #loneliness is so real and how once it's starts you get trapped in it #i saw someone say this show is pro work and NOOO ITS NOT ITS NOT ABOUT THAT #people yearn for normalcy #carol at the end of the 10 shows that she didn't want to go to work and have a job #but the creation of a reason to be together #happy hour #fhe office created a place for people to go #have simple #normal average conversations #tbh i'm pretty sure this is kinda about late stage capitalism and community but i don't have the words

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francy-sketches · 10 months

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Hiiiii guess who finished her pmv. finally. um enjoy :3

#asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #valyrianscrolls #cersei lannister #and a bunch of others I don't feel like tagging them #wrote some of them in the desc if you scroll past my ramblings. the others I hope you can tell by context clues i believe in u #my art #pmv #it's finally joever oh my god #i dont want to look at it ever again. this is my child and I'm abandoning it at your doorstep 🏃‍♂️💼#btw confession time I started this before finishing adwd so like if you notice book inaccuracies. just ignore it #tbh towards the end i was just kinda going off the song lyrics more than anything #also like her hair should not be that long I think. the show poisoned my brain bc they do fuck all for like a year post walk #n e way ill talk about it more tomorrow probably. im gonna be so annoying about this btw I WILL force you to watch it #istg if it flops 🔪

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celluloidbroomcloset · 5 months

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"Stede wanted to be a pirate and now he's not going to be one, which is bad."

Did he really want to be a pirate? Stede wanted to be a storybook pirate; he wanted to be the pirate in his games and his imagination, who had swashbuckling adventures. The entire first season deals with him learning what piracy really is. He sees what it has done to Ed, quite literally history's greatest pirate, within the first half hour of their meeting. Most of the fun he has, has nothing to do with actual piracy - it's playing games with his crew, going on treasure hunts with Ed, putting on plays. He likes making up plans, but he doesn't like actual piracy. When he accidentally kills a man, it horrifies him and haunts him, and continues to until the end of the season. He goes to therapy about it.

Into Season 2, the entire point of Stede's piracy is still not piracy. It's to get back to Ed. Stede's fantasy in the beginning is about being the storybook pirate who defeats the villain and runs across the beach to his one true love, who isn't mad at him and never was. It's a fairytale. And even there, reality is creeping in - dream-Izzy tells him, "I didn't make you leave him. You did that yourself." The reality is that Ed has gone into a suicidal spiral, and Stede finds him mostly dead.

The one time that Stede becomes a "real pirate" in the real world, it goes to his head, but it's not even because of his love of piracy. It's because he's suddenly popular. People are buying him drinks and clapping him on the back. No one's calling him "Steve." No one's making fun of him. And still, the only thing he wants to do when he does something cool is go tell Ed about it.

And even then...it's hollow. Everyone around him are sycophants. Ed has left him. His crew are suddenly leaving him. It all ends with him getting his ass kicked by a real pirate. He didn't even like doing the thing that made him popular; he kills Ned Low and runs off to hide. The whole sequence at Jackie'z is a mirror of the sequence at the pub when he goes home - everyone thinks he's cool, but for none of the reasons that are authentic to who he is or what he really wants.

Stede wanted a family who loved him. He wanted friends who liked him for him. He wanted someone to play with. He wanted to marry for love. And he has all those things at the end.

He's not a pirate. He's not having second thoughts.

I'm not sure why this is hard to see.

#ofmd #ofmd season 2 #stede bonnet #our flag means death #ofmd meta #gif #i've seen this take so many times and i don't get why some folks insist on it #stede knows what he wants and it's his home with ed #that's it #that's the show #he's not giving anything up #he's not sacrificing himself #he's getting everything #i mean i guess you don't have to like that the pirate show is concluding that the main characters don't really want to be pirates #but it's kinda hard-baked into the narrative from the start #i'd love to see a season 3 but i also understand the fear that it would yank them away from their happy ending #they really do deserve to just stop #make a season 3 entirely about jeff's inn by the sea

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artsychanel · 6 months

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hi can i get a character who's associated with fire, has had rough beginnings due to being cast-out from society because of their appearance and struggled with their femininity, went on a journey seeking power and to become stronger, ultimately being blinded by their thirst for revenge, have killed several people and at some point got betrayed by someone close to them?

all in no particular order

and make it a double, please 🙏

#fang runin #mizu #blue eye samurai #the poppy war #these are extreme generalizations and i might have missed something this is all in good fun please don't come for me thanks #i love both of them so much #i was going insane watching the show #i love this archetype so much??#oh and also! the character has THREE love interests #a guy who they grew extremely close to and then ended up dying #a guy who seems insistent on being their enemy and killing them and a girlboss who wants freedom and despizes the expectations society plac #and their bestfriend is the comedic relief who's actually a really smart and compelling character #im literally obsessed #all of their love interests are fruity btw. i don't make the rules #spoilers btw

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morksphincter · 6 months

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ignoring whatever tf just happened in episode 4 i would like to point out that mobius downloads unauthorized games on his tempad, he's so adorable i love him. i just imagine him palying like tetris or like frogger or something on his little tempad on his pie break

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torra-and-the-toons · 25 days

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Some notes on Nigel from my modern adult AU, where all their adventures were just them playing pretend as kids and now they're grown up.

I always liked the cancer theory for Nigel, so I went with that. (what can I say, I love angst...) He left because the US healthcare system is a joke.

I made this for outfits, but it kinda just evolved into random notes.

#torras art #codename kids next door #knd #modern adult au #nigel uno #a reminder that if this au isn't your cup of tea you don't have to interact with it #idk if or when I'll do the others #everyone's would be different I would not draw everyone in their undies I only did so with Nigel to show how scrawny and sickly he looks #don't worry he's slowly gaining the weight back #I hc that he also just has a high metabolism in general #one of those guys who can just pack away 40billion calories like it's nothing #I looked up so many things on cancer just to make sure I wasn't spewing nonsense that google probably thinks I have cancer now #also he's had cancer since he was like 7... before he even joined the KND #he blamed his hair loss on the DCFDTL and they rolled with it because they just wanted to be included in their pretend game #even if they were the bad guys #his cancer went into remission for a while but started to come back towards the end of the series

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chirpsythismorning · 13 days

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Fun fact: In the original pitch for Stranger Things, El had a little brother.

After being rejected by almost 20 studios for the Montauk pilot, the Duffers were finally green-lit by Netflix. It was at this time that they began casting and then writing the first season officially, which included reworking a lot of that first episode.

This led to the removal of the brother reference, and with it, removing any sort of arc El could have had about her apparent brother.

But the thing about this moment, is that it might not have been scrapped entirely...

Going into the final season, no one can explain why or how El recognized Will back in 1x02. And while there are plenty of things on the show that are left unexplained, with a small portion likely left that way with the intention to uncover it later, what sets this moment apart from the rest is that there are very few possibilities here.

Because for starters, the story presents El's ability to see people in the void in s1 as requiring either a picture of that person for reference, or having met that person before.

But when El see's this picture of Will, she's never met him before. Or maybe she has, but we wouldn't know because they never showed us. They could have just not done this scene at all, given that it's clearly a copy/paste/edit of something scrapped from the pitch. Or they could have even still included it, but explained it.

One explanation could be that the lab had shown El a picture of Will before, similar to what they did with the Russian agent they wanted to spy on. But then that begs to question, why would the lab show El a picture of Will? Why would they want to see what he was doing? That alone is incriminating in and of itself, implying that Will is more connected to the lab than we realize.

The only other, and frankly most likely explanation, would be that El stumbled across Will at some point on her journey between escaping the lab and Will going missing. This is actually something that happens in The Other Side comic, which explores all the things Will may have experienced during his time in the Upside Down.

Though it’s worth noting the comics aren’t technically canon, and I highly doubt they would outright spoil everything in relation to Will’s time there, years before it was intended to be revealed. But still, let's humor this for a moment given that I do think Will's time in the UD is going to be very relevant in s5, which means it's highly likely they will finally address how exactly El saw him.

Basically, in the comic, Will see’s El walking through the woods, almost apparition like, glowing as she passes by, while also sporting the Benny’s burgers shirt. This means they would have crossed passed within a short span of time, between when El escaped Benny’s when the agents arrived, but before she was found by the boys.

Though it’s worth noting that we’re seeing this all from Will’s perspective. This means from the UD, Will was capable of seeing El on the other side, despite them being on different sides. And not only that, but she also looks back at him.

What confuses me about this, is that it doesn’t make sense for El to be in the woods, only to randomly decide to pop in to the void for a moment. She was trying to escape the lab and everything that came with it. I doubt she had any desire to lurk back there for some reason, not until someone encouraged her to. Not to mention, it would make no sense for her to go there and see Will if she wasn't even looking for him in the first place. And so this would mean Will and El could see each other, with Will being in the UD, and El being on the other side.

While it does seem pretty far off, given that you would think Will and El wouldn't be able to see each other from different sides, it is true in the story that El not only recognizes Will, but knows that he is in danger. She mentions that he is hiding specifically.

Which means she has likely seen him within the last 24 hours regardless.

This, in combination with Will being able to respond to El in the void at the end of the season in Castle Byers, when no one else outside of Terry and flayed-Billy have been able to, seems to imply that there is indeed something special about Will that makes him capable of communicating with El from the UD. Not only that, but El also seems to have an ability to be in this constant knowing state of how Will is doing, without even checking again to confirm. She's just certain of it. And she seems terrified about it.

Going forward, El never uses a picture of Will to find him. She never did. And more often than not, they don’t show us what she see’s either, not until the very end. And that’s the moment they reveal that he was able to communicate with her.

Again, there was really no reason to have El recognize Will. If anything it complicates things. But the fact that they chose to introduce this concept, with a scene from the original pitch that was related to El’s younger brother, with her pointing at his name cryptically, startling Benny, only to revamp it and have El not say anything at all while pointing at the picture of Will, startling Mike… It just really makes you stop and think.

Which brings me to the other aspect of this that might have people doubting, which is that El’s brother was originally younger than her.

We know Will is not younger than El, so how could this apply to him?

Well, it might be helpful to consider that in the original script, El was actually 10 years old, while the boys were always 12. Meaning that for some reason, they decided to age her up to the age of the boys, aka the same age as Will…

Ever since @erikiara80 shared this brother discovery with me, I have been sort of reeling. It then led to other little discoveries of changes they made between Montauk and Stranger Things.

It’s important to understand that the Montauk bible and the original script precedes what we ended up with in the final product, with it finally changing and evolving months, maybe even a year since that original vision. Even casting occurred before writing started for the first season. We know this because casting announcements were made in June and August of 2015, with writing not starting until August going into early 2016, simultaneously while they were filming.

And believe it or not, what I've discovered is that a lot of the changes they made between their original plans and what we see in the final product, have to do with not only Willel, but also Byler.

If you've read the original script for Montauk, you'll know that Mike's crush on Jennifer Hayes was focused on right from the jump, along with the birthmark on his face being focused on, which was the main cause of the bullying he experienced.

This has actually been talked about recently, and some of the claims people make do fit with what I am genuinely starting to consider here, which is that the initial plan for what makes Mike an outcast shifted.

I think when they completed casting, and started actually deep diving into what they wanted this world to look like, both from a short-term and long-term standpoint, they were presented with some pretty interesting discoveries, arguably already hiding in their initial plans without realizing it.

And this is where it sort of becomes a 'chicken or the egg' situation. Because which one came first? Byler or Willel?

I can't say for certain, because obviously this is all just speculation. But in the case that Willel came first, I think Byler would come very naturally after that.

The Duffers themselves are twins. Then they hire Noah, who is a twin. Then they're thinking and planning for El's past and how her family all fits into this, and they're thinking... wait a damn minute... We could totally Star Wars this bitch!

And then when they think it couldn't get any better, they uncover another layer that they hadn't planned or really considered in their initial plans.

While Will was always going to have sexual identity issues according to the Montauk bible, meaning that the writing process for him likely involved sitting down imagining scenarios that encapsulated this arc for Will from the beginning, they were simultaneously now finding very interesting aspects of Mike's character that made it hard not to at least consider the possiblity that Mike is not exactly straight.

Just think about it. The Byers and Wheelers are basically polar opposites on the spectrum of what a family looks like. While Will's discovery and acceptance of his queerness is interesting to explore because he comes from a low-income, single-mom household, all while having been bullied for years based on his perceived queerness, he also has a mother and brother constantly reinforcing that they will accept him no matter what. They've been sort of hitting us over the head with it for years, and so it wouldn't be very satisfying for his entire arc to merely lead up to something we've known all along. It's pretty much a given at this point.

On the other side of the spectrum, Mike comes from a more upper-middle class family at the end of a cul-de-sac, more aligned with what a nuclear family looks like. Mike's family is also presented as being more conservative, and while Karen does give that very queer-coded speech to Mike in s1 (I'm convinced they only wrote this after deciding to explore queer-coding more heavily with Mike), it also comes with comments from Ted and even still Karen that hint that they are probably not as open-minded and accepting as Will's family is to him. Which means Mike's arc would be a lot more about acceptance around him from his loved ones who we have been led to believe might not be as accepting of his queerness in contrast to Will.

And so as they're putting this story together, and they're being presented with something very interesting. Two similar experiences that play out in different ways because of the characters circumstances.

Will goes missing, and his twin sister with a buzzcut pops up and has the ability to help them find Will.

This leads to several moments where El is being compared to as not only a boy, but Will as well.

Now suddenly, their initial plans to have Mike's arc be about having a girl be interested in him and to hopefully have his first kiss and feel like less of a loser, starts to look a lot like what the experience a queer kid in his position might encounter growing up in the environment that he did.

And if you don't want to take my word for it, just hear the Duffer's themselves hinting at what they initially planned for Mike and the fact that it changed.

The changes don't stop there.

Believe it or not, 'It was a seven', did not exist in the initial pitch. When the boys went outside bickering over Nancy, they leave right after that.

Another thing that changed from the first script, was Scott Clarke's introduction:

And so you might be thinking, who cares? What does that have to do with anything?

Well, it's interesting because the line we end up with on the show is arguably one of the most on the nose Twelvegate proofs to date. Mind you, this is from the first episode:

Why chuck the original version, which was arguably more interesting and fascinating in terms of it hinting at the mysteriousness surrounding this story, only to replace it with him listing off tips about their upcoming test?

Well, I think it's the irony of it all. Here Mr. Clarke is practically telling us where to look to figure stuff out for ourselves what is going on, with all the kids filing out and ignoring him...

I relate to Scott a litttle too much in this shot here, any time I try to drop Willel evidence.

And the changes go on, as they obviously would.

Things like Terry Ives not even being El's mom, but actually a man who more so aligns with the characterization of Murray.

And one very interesting one I almost overlooked was in Hopper's introduction, where instead of a kids drawing done by who we assume to be Sarah, we actually see a picture on the wall of him and his wife and daughter... Interesting that they decided to switch it something that is a lot less definitive in presenting what Hopper's past looked like...

If you've made it this far, congratulations.

If you still think I'm out of my mind, just remember that El was going to have a brother in the original script, but they scrapped the scene and gave a near identical one to introduce her connection to Will instead 😘

#byler #stranger things #willel twins #twelvegate #montauk #as you can see #i am out of my mind #and i'm okay with that #i've spent the last couple months trying to make a video going over all the willel twin evidence #and i can't decide if it's even possible to do without going over an hour #like there is just so much shit that fits too perfectly into this family being ripped apart by mind control and time shenanigans #i hope to have it done soon #trying to make it less than 20 minutes #but it's probably going to end up being closer to an hour #especially with this stuff from the montauk pitch being added to the mix now #anyways #willel and byler are the curtain behind the curtain #if you are open to one of them #you are bound to stumble across the other #and they don't want that to happen #stay tuned for the inevitable twin imagery to continue in s5 related to willel leading up to the big reveal #bc it's arguably the most consistent thing about this damn show #and tbh this all just makes the queer-coding for mike in s1 a lot more concrete to me #them exploring will's queerness through his dad's expectations for him to do more 'manly' things like play baseball #and jonathan saying he shouldn't like things just bc people telll him he's supposed to #how they connect that narratively with the boys being at a baseball field when mike's being pressured about his supposed feelings for el #with the bullies showing up and literally being homophobic seconds later #the fact that jennifer hayes did in fact exist in the original pilot and was the girl mike had a crush on #only for them to scrap that and just make it about her having a crush on will...#never once introducing this idea of mike liking her...

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