“Yeah I wasn’t really a fan of Vox season 1 but after season 2 he became my favorite” CANNOT RELATE. That fucker has been my favorite character since the second his stupid little tv head appeared before me. That’s my boy right there.
the people who deliberately misunderstand youth liberation really piss me off as an adult who was once a kid who wanted to run away and, while literally running away from home, realized they had nowhere else to go but back home. nowhere. no where! the only place i could go was back home to my abusive parents. youth liberation is creating a society wherein i, as a child, would have had a safe place to go that was not my home, where i could prioritize my and my brother's safety.
youth liberation is what helps children get the medical support they need, even if their parents are neglectful.
youth liberation educates the child so that the child has the necessary language to speak on their own behalf, as an agent of themselves with autonomy over themselves.
youth liberation demands we treat all children as what they are: future adults, who at all times have the right to autonomy over their body, and a right to a life free from abuse and exploitation. it would deny parents the ability to force (in the case of intersex "correction" surgeries) or deny medical care, deny them the ability to isolate and control their children through regulated forms of education like in homeschooling, and would instead give that power to the child and the child alone.
youth liberation is not only about preventing abuse before it happens, by demanding that children are treated with respect and as full agents over themselves, it is also about creating a supportive society that allows children to escape abusive situations to a community-based safe space.
everyone trying to argue youth lib is about "letting pedophiles hang out with children" are not only engaging in some of the most deliberate bad faith possible, they're purposefully ignoring the fact youth liberation would also protect and prevent child sexual abuse, which relies upon children being - to a certain extent - trapped, with no ability to leave the situation they're in themselves, at the hands of statistically family members, relatives, family friends, known babysitters, etc. children can only be trapped if they have nowhere else to go.
csa also relies on poor sex education - in fact, every single assault i faced was due to me not having been taught that what i experienced was assault at all. i was raised in an abusive home, and i came to earnestly believe that a relationship with a man necessitated my allowing him to use my body however he wanted, because that's what i saw growing up. my parents were poor educators, only giving us books they purchased about sex education for kids for us to read alone.
youth liberation is necessary, and any who tries to paint youth lib as evil, as a "pedophile" movement, is choosing to view the collective desire of abused kids and former kids who were abused - their desire for a better world where their abuse wouldn't have happened - as something destructive and negative and that's just disgusting to me. youth liberation now.
The docu proved my theory of conformity-gate right imo. I now 100% believe that the Duffers were stupid enough that the entire cast and crew could pull a secret-ending fast one through carefully manipulated set design, clothing, lighting, and acting without them ever noticing. They don’t even remember Will’s birthday, you expect me to believe they can clock subliminal color coding?
the good place has crossed my dash and I just thought of a really funny au of conformitygate where Mike keeps on figuring out something is wrong and Vecna just keeps crashing out and resetting the timeline.
Conformity Gate is REAL (at least to an extent) and here’s why
(Spoilers under the cut)
Before I begin: this is not me saying there is for sure a secret 9th episode, nor is this me saying the Duffer brothers have a grand master plan. Those things may be true, but conformity gate can and may exist without them.
Why?
Because basics of the film industry, that’s why.
When making a show or film, dozens if not hundreds of people are involved in making it come to life. The writing room is just the start. Set design, costume design, scene directors, lighting design, sound, editing, SFX, etc etc all contribute to the final product. The Duffers’ choices Do Not exist in a vacuum.
Whether conformity gate is a fully realized plan is up for debate. But the fact of it existing in some fashion? That’s canon, baby.
But how can I be so certain? Well, because of a few very specific clues. (There are many, many clues. These are just a few of the most damning)
1. Mike and Will switching dominant hands
Finn is left hand dominant and Noah is right hand dominant, and their characters are too— at least for the first four seasons. In season five, both of them switch what wrist they wear their watches on. This is not an accident. You don’t accidentally swap hand dominance. This is a choice.
This choice could have been made one of three ways:
Noah and Finn decided to switch it up secretly
The costume designers decided to switch it up secretly
The writers and directors decided to switch it up purposefully
Regardless of who made the choice and why, I can guarantee it WAS planned by someone.
2. The Dial
Everyone has mentioned the dial changing color. While continuity errors can occur, this one not only happens, but is not fixed in post, not even after it’s pointed out (unlike Holly’s under armor logo). If this were an accident, it would require the set designers, continuity coordinators, AND editing staff to not notice/not properly document. Which, while unlikely but feasible, becomes a damningly purposeful choice by at LEAST the editing staff now that is has yet to be fixed.
Once again, we don’t know if this was part of a bigger plan, but it was planned.
3. The Epilogue
So let’s break it down. The epilogue is…
Lit like Henry’s illusion world (lighting design is in on it)
Actors are directed to sit and look specific ways (director is in on it)
Clocks are either blank or have letters on them (prop/set design is in on it)
Whatzit board game, X a Lie, the blank yellow poster, other background books with stories about illusions (prop/set design again)
The lack of dates on the video recorder, unlike previous episodes (editing is in on it)
So what does this all mean?
Nothing, and everything.
It could insinuate that there is a bigger plan at play here. It could mean that a secret episode is set to release. But even if there isn’t, you’re not crazy for seeing these signs. What you are seeing are NOT plot holes. They are placed there with intention. SOMEONE (multiple someones) wanted you to watch the final season and think that something isn’t right.
The real question is whether the intention is a big, grand reveal on the horizon, or that of a few staff across every department that wanted to give more life to an otherwise lackluster ending.
Either way, conformity gate IS real. We just don’t know how deep it goes.
Listen I’m all for genuine critique of writing and execution of media but I’m going to need a lot of you to take a HUGE step back when it comes to how we’re discussing Will’s coming out scene.
Not even touching on the fact that everyone’s coming out story is different, and there is no one good, proper portrayal of it that will make everyone happy.
I want to point out that most of the critiques of Will’s coming out scene are things that directly parallel how the actual actor (and many other famous queer people) had to handle his own coming out.
Oh, did it feel impersonal? Because Will came out not just to his closest peers, but everyone else too? That’s not nearly as impersonal as having to come out to the entire world and your sexuality becoming every pop news headline for a week.
Oh, did it feel icky and forced because he only came out since Vecna was threatening to do it for him? I’m sure it felt that way for the actor too when he started being hounded by reporters about his sexuality since age 12. When his most well known character was confirmed to be gay and all eyes turned on him asking if he could relate.
Oh, Will would never have come out that way and it was a disservice to write it how they did? Surely it was a disservice to the actual real human to have to come out with a public-friendly social media post about that incredibly personal aspect of himself. Surely you’re aware of how many other people (famous and otherwise) have felt cornered into situations where they were forced to come out to everyone, regardless of whether that was their initial intention? (I can think of several.)
Alongside all that, Noah himself stated that he cried when he first read the scene. That it was perfect to him. How meaningful getting to have and perform that scene has been. He clearly resonated with the execution of the plot and monologue.
Maybe it isn’t YOUR perfect coming out. But there isn’t a perfect coming out. And for a character like Will, and a huge celebrity like Noah, the ability to have a personal, unburdened, on your own terms coming out story just simply isn’t in the cards.
You don’t have to like it. You don’t have to resonate with it. But it is a disservice to the actor and the character to write it off as badly executed, poorly written, or ooc. There is genuine, nuanced discussion to be had about this scene (and the writing as a whole). But please don’t write it off entirely. It may not be your cup of tea, but to someone else, it may have been everything.
ao3 writers what's your average word count? go to the statistics page on your dashboard and find your total word count then divide that by the number of fics you've written. mine is 3,728.
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