#ask inbox

[nicothespy]

Can we talk about that the first time we saw Solangelo interact, they were dressed in each other's style?

(Will was dressed all in black and Nico in bright colors).

yes…yes we can. idk if it was intentional but ouhhh rick was genius for that if it was

[gaiathewildanimal]

hiiiii, I saw u likes showtime (Caine x pomni) and also u dislike funny bunny as a not funny bunny fan I will tell you GO FOR IT (ur are funny in a good way)

Yes it is definitely true that I love Showtime (Caine x Pomni) and dislike the ship (Jax x Pomni) Funnybunny. Other ships I dislike are Bluetooth (Caine x Moon) and FunnyGummy (Pomni x Gummigoo) however I don’t judge people on their ships even though I don’t agree with them but thanks for noticing and saying that I’m funny in a good way! ;) I really appreciate it! ❤️✨

(Though I do enjoy a bit of rivalry between Jax and Caine fighting for Pomni’s love!)

[eeriesilkworm]

do u consider the first 5 minutes/all of henry's weird behavior toward will as a metaphor for sa? ive seen some takes abt that, curious what ur thoughts are

CW: discussion of child abuse and exploitation, suicide.

Thanks for this, anon. I've been meaning to discuss this topic further, outside of just pointing out visual storytelling and subtext.

Well, I'll start by stating it's both figurative and literal in my opinion.

The vine isn't metaphorical because it was not like assault, it was assault. Prior to that scene, we didn't understand how exactly Will ended up with the vine inside him, so it was a matter of interpretation. The imagery was all we had to go off, but now we have the context, and it's about as obvious as the Alien facehuggers.

What could be allegorical is the idea that Will had previously suffered from a similar kind of abuse from a living person (namely Lonnie). This is plausible, because amplifying the triumphant story of a male abuse victim seems to be the kind of thing a show about outcasts in a conservative 1980s society would do. It's one thing to be gay in the 1980s, and another thing to be gay and a survivor of abuse — especially with the added context of the AIDs crisis (the framing of gay men as diseased predators), and the belief that childhood abuse "turned" boys gay.

Rant incoming, because I find this topic very fascinating, and I think a lot of people misunderstand or simplify the meaning behind why Stranger Things focusses on "outcasts" in the 1980s.

I mentioned it very briefly in my analysis here but I think it's important to consider just how many "sex scandals" gripped and shocked America in the 1980s. The 80's saw the rise of "purity culture" which framed teen sexuality as something dangerous. On the other hand, child exploitation was still rampant in both the church and Hollywood — I think the Brooke Shields biopic explained it really well, especially with how this may have been conservative "pushback" to the sexual liberation movement (60s and 70s). This frames 1980s cultural conservatism as a double-edged sword: Something which both admonished, and upheld child exploitation. It was a confusing time for young people.

Couple this with societal pressure to maintain the image of the "perfect" family life (something which keeps victims silent out of shame) and Gen X's complicated relationship with substance abuse and mental health (indicating unresolved issues)... It paints a much clearer picture of what Stranger Things is really about: It's not just about people who are outcasts because they are deemed "weird" — a bit uninspiring if that were the case. It's about children of the 80s who are outcasts because their suffering highlights the problem with a conservative, purity-based, post-sex lib America which wishes not to examine itself. Their pain, differences, and experiences are dismissed because America refuses to acknowledge how cultural conservatism both enabled and hid their exploitation.

tldr: Conservative 1980s attitudes regarding sex, sexual identity, gender, and politics was really F*cked Up™ and "sex scandals" framed sexual violence and exploitation as entertainment and media fodder, which F*cked Up™ the kids aka Gen X who are still dealing with the trauma to this day, hence why they're the cohort most likely to have substance abuse issues or commit suicide.

This is why our two leading characters are both surviors of child abuse and exploitation, with one being a girl who plays a non-traditionally feminine role (El Hopper), and a boy who is queer (Will Byers).

Rant over — the point of that was to clarify why Will being portrayed as a potential survivor of CSA is not a "reach" and is actually extremely relevant to the context.

So, yes, I do think there is an ongoing allegory in this show which explores this theme. Will is possibly representing a survivor of CSA, whereas El likely represents a different kind of exploitation — that of child soldiers. Not surprising when we consider the writer's very apparent fascination with military history and WWII.

And the thing is, you don't really make these kinds of inferences unless it's supposed to lead to some kind of explanation or catharsis. In Alien there was catharsis because the sole survivor was the female protagonist, aboard a ship of men. The commentary was largely concerning the intentional eroticism of women's pain and sufferring in the horror genre. (Half-dressed women moaning in agony from the first person POV in a slasher film, for example).

There needs to be a similar kind of catharsis in Stranger Things, and I believe (and hope) this will be done by elevating Will's story from the subtext to the text. I think the same may be done for Henry, and his relationship to Dr. Brenner or the Mind Flayer.

And if we're getting technical, everything that has been done to Will has been done by Vecna and/ or the Mind Flayer, not Henry to be exact. I do see them as two separate entities, even moreso since s5 as it appears that Henry is unable to enter the "cave" or "hub" whereas Vecna likely can, if that's indeed the same place where he's keeping the children. (I believe it's the same space due to the imagery of the wall and the infinity symbol shape).

(I ramble about it a bit here, and I think I'll keep thinking on what this cave represents in the coming weeks until we get Volume II).

But basically, I want to clarify that although I think Vecna, the Mind Flayer/ shadow monster, and possibly even the demogorgons all play a role in this allegory, I do not think Henry is a paedophile.

Not that you implied this anon, because you didn't, but it is a take I see around here. I understand why people interpret it this way, but intention behind abuse does matter in this context, as does the subtle separation between Henry and Vecna.

To me, Henry is a perpetual child who is frozen in time (ghost-like) because he not ready to confront his darkness, his trauma — almost like a traumatized spirit who cannot cross over to the other side. Vecna is his undead shadow (In D&D he is a lich, which is an undead wizard) that has consumed what was left of the shell of Henry.

Vecna is the child abuser here, as is the Mind Flayer that influences him. And the behviour of the Mind Flayer? It seems to resemble that of a domineering father or patriarch: controlling, manipulative, bigger and more powerful than the children it exploits.

The "real" villain here is the Father or Patriarch — "Papa" and Lonnie.

The Mind Flayer's motivations are to dominate, possess, control, and spread. (At least, as far as we're aware). This lines up with the D&D lore and The Illithid Empire, as well as the motivation behind an abusive patriarch who wishes to control his children and family — particularly within the context of 1980s conservatism discussed above ^

So, there are no motivations regarding attraction or sexual fixation of any kind here. Therefore, if this allegory is about Lonnie, we must ask ourselves what Lonnie could have possibly been trying to control or conserve within the Byers family.

Lonnie wanted to conserve a traditional, heterosexual, masculine ideal in both Will and Jonathan.

His attempts to "butch" them up involved sports such as hunting and baseball. Jonathan eventually met these expectations — at least to some extent — which could explain why Lonnie seemed proud when Jonathan shoved him back, and noted that he was "stronger."

Heck, he even follows this reunion up by suggesting Jonathan move to the city so he can see him more. Lonnie may be a deadbeat abuser, but he genuinely likes the "improved" Jonathan he sees before him because he's now become a "man."

Will was a more difficult case for Lonnie, because he was likely more effeminate, and possibly already began showing signs of attraction to other boys. I mean, Will gifted Mike his drawings for who knows how many years, and that definitely seems like the kind of thing a kid with a crush would do.

This is likely why Lonnie's visitations with Will continued after he left, whereas it appears he never had visitations with Jonathan. Lonnie felt his "job" was unfinished with Will — this is why I think the baseball field was a site of trauma for him. (Hence it being the site of his possession, and a site of Billy's trauma as shown in s3).

So, Lonnie's abuse was motivated by a desire to punish Will for being effeminate, in the hopes that it would put him on a "straighter path", and have him associate queerness with pain.

Luckily, Will seems to have realized that queer romance and queer joy exists through his friendship with Robin. His powers reveal accompanied his self-acceptance — particularly the love and acceptance of his uninhibited childhood self. This was the version of Will who was unapologetically himself, before Lonnie (and society at large) told him who he was is wrong.

So, I'm interested to see where Will goes in Volume II, and if there will be any exploration of his relationship with Lonnie. Noah's repeated mentions of Will's "abusive father" make me believe this will be the case. I think confronting his childhood trauma might be the final frontier in his character arc.

He's almost there!

[sneaky-photograper-anon]

*A different nightmare*

- @voidling-anons

She was sitting in her room, listening to her parents shouting from the other room. She was flinching at every shout, seems like she's gonna have a panic attack

[black-suns-rim]

Hi tell roach I love him

[the1nkdemon]

i’m sensing a theme

basically i’ll do one of him being jealous n one being possessive cuz theyre technically different if you really think about it so…..👀👀

[ghostonthelnternet]

Okay with your blessing here are some not really organized thought on mega mecha:

Mainly I had the thought of the mega mecha man actually needing a crew rather than just one pilot manning the whole 80 meter thing, it's more than possible by mecha standards I know but here's the how this would go in my head-

-However Bobby discovered/created/whatever the suit he realized that piloting it completely alone was out of the question both for his own safety, and the safety of anyone around the mech if anything were to ever go wrong. So he found and recruited a small crew of people with similar ideals, all normies, knowledgeable engineers who wished to help people. Some were responsible for coding and activating several of the giant suit's functions at the same time as him, some were responsible for maintenance and repairs, he even trained backup pilots in case something happened to him, not to mention that different parts of the mech could be manually piloted by different pilots if they somehow got disconnected from the main pilot's control, Bobby himself was the captain and main pilot of prime.

But in the end in one tremendously hard mission, while prevailing, all of prime's crew had met their death, they couldn't keep up with all the damage the suit sustained. But the suit itself, still, with whatever energy it had left, got back to its hiding spot on autopilot.

The only ones who knew of the suit's location were either children of the crew, their successors, or both. So they were the only ones capable of getting their bodies out to carry out whatever last rights they needed to.

After the ordeal, all of them, had no desire to even speak of the metal giant, much less enter it ever again after gathering whatever they could of their loved ones from the inside. They wanted to forget it ever existed.

All except for two-

Robert "Robbie" Robertson II, the captain's son.

And Elliot Connors,the son of the head coder and Bobby's right hand man.

The two were determined to keep their parents' dream alive for as long as they could, taking on their respective roles.

For years they worked tirelessly on restoring as much of what they could of the suit, replacing what they couldn't save. While both of them were excellent engineers, raised to be such by prime's crew, Robbie mainly took on the role of the "face" of mecha man, getting them sponsorships, securing alliances with those who would soon become the brave brigade.

In the end they managed to optimize the suit to the point of it now being suitable to be piloted by only two people. Of course, the pearl of their efforts was the astral pulse, created to replace the power source that, from what they could tell, was the main reason that none of prime's crew survived.

Then years have gone by, while they still were the two man crew of Mecha Man astral their relationship soured greatly, Robbie preferred to still keep the fact that Mecha Man even had a crew secret while Elliot was insistent on not dying alone with only their closest loved ones to mourn them like their parents did. Each passing day putting more strain on their relationship.

In the end, Elliot shoots Robbie while both of them are in the suit, Robbie does manage to call Chase before Elliot has the chance to flee or get the astral pulse.

After all of the suit's history concerning crews and tragedies Robert Robertson III ends up unwilling to have any help piloting the mech, terrified of repeating the previous generation's tragedies even at the cost of his health. + Points if he was even a bit close with Elliot but just didn't know that he created the pulse

It's like 2 AM as I'm writing this so I hope this is at least somewhat coherent (ToT)

Also I'm really curious on just how much of a part of the brave brigade Mecha Man is in this au? And how the media and people in general reacted to it becoming part of an actual hero team instead of just appearing and disappearing as the need arises (if that's the case that is)?

Ok two things first:

sorry anon for taking so long to respond, it is winter in my hemisphere and I am apparently a poor, Victorian, orphan, boy this year with my health.

Your ideas go HARD. Whatever you're being fed at 2 AM, I like it so keep eating.

You definitely have a more solid idea of how the giant warmech came to be, I was leaning somewhat towards 'built for the war but it ended before it could be deployed so the project was abandoned because making/piloting this huge chunk of metal is a crime to any non-wartime budget and then Bobbie found it.' But having a crew of normies make and pilot the suit with Bobbie at the head is a hell of a lot more logical and interesting. Also explains how Robbie and Elliot got tangled up in the whole Mecha Man ordeal in the first place, just like Robert they were practically born into it.

I'm an absolute sucker for a Robbie and Elliot pre-shroud relationship, not entirely sure how hard I wanna go with that in this AU yet so I'm keeping the books open on that, but either the two were as close as brothers when growing up or they got together as teens before their parents died. When they decided to rebuild the Mecha Man suit between just the two of them it was something of a test of their relationship and as you said, it tragically ends with Shroud shooting Robbie.

I get either sides of their conflict to be honest, on one hand they're still normies outside of the suit so just telling the world that they and they alone can pilot it doesn't just announce their presence but also lets villains know that there is something to target if they want to affect Mecha Man, but also that they can just hold them hostage in the cockpit and force them to pilot the giant suit for whatever they want. From Elliot's side I get the fear of dying in obscurity, making the same mistakes your parents made when you so obviously know how to avoid them now, also they might just be normies but they've also got the technical know-how on how to make things to defend themselves. I mean Elliot literally uses a gun to kill Robbie in the end, no 80m warmech needed.

It's a 'safety in anonymity vs recognition & public support' sort of situation that could make anyone blow their fuse.

Also to add to your idea of the mech running on autopilot back to it's resting dock when the original crew died, I do have a bit of an idea of how that happens. (Also ties a bit into how the world viewed the first iteration of Mecha Man).

At first the giant mechsuit is powered in the same way that the EVA's from evangelion are, there is an emergency power supply that lasts for a very short amount of time, but there's also the main power supply which is just a giant cord attached to the back of the suit. It does make the suit stationary, but everything here is fun-sized. (my fun-sized, 80m tall mech sized and very long extension chord sized)

So the suit has a limited range, if you want it powered. That range is mostly tied to the ocean where the dock-site is hidden under the waves. Imagine for me for a minute that you're a regular L.A. citizen, you're going about your day, disaster strikes and instead of dying in whatever shitstorm decides to take your life, a giant mechsuit jumps out of the ocean, saves the day and disappears. The whole experience is on par with meeting a benevolent mothman, but just like mothman is tied to West-Virginia, the suit is basically tied down to L.A. and namely the Pacific. The suit can go onto land for as far as the power-line extend, it does expose their power supply for a bit and there are a few shoddy videos out there that show the back of the suit - chord extending into the ocean and all - but that's not the main issue with land missions. Here's the second reason for why the suit is in the ocean: Heat.

The water doesn't just hide the dock and workstation of the Mecha Man crew, but it also keeps the giant suit from overheating. With traditional power sources, that thing would boil anyone inside of it alive, which is what happened to the original crew. There was a land mission and it took too long, at first people passed out due to heat exhaustion, but it went so much more wrong that previous times and eventually the entire crew succumbed to an issue that they never could solve on their own. This is also part of the reason why it took Robbie and Elliot so long before getting into the suit themselves, they had to make the astral pulse to power it, because powering it in the same way that their parents did would just endanger them in the same way + this frees the mech from just being tied to the ocean.

As for how much Mecha Man is tied to the Brave Brigade, I would say that the public doesn't associate the two with each other very much. Like the suit doesn't publicly affiliate with any one team or movement, that's part of the reason why so many people believe the mechsuit to just be a sentient giant robot that lives in the ocean. From their point of view, the Brave Brigade are heroes, but they're also people that you can just see around in L.A. There's atleast one video of Vitalia in costume doing her grocery shopping and I feel like that says how people view them, as heroes on a pedestal, but also real people. Not everyone knows their secret identities of course, think of their families and their safety, but it's nothing on the same level as Mecha Man. Again, that giant robot is the one to show up to a natural disaster, when all hope seems lost and you've halfway accepted death, this is the giant that jumps in and changes fate.

In other words, you might see Taylor Swift at a Walmart (or something, idk I'm not American) but you sure as hell won't see Godzilla there; to give you a comparison.

Also on a final note (because this post isn't long enough yet) I am really attached to the idea of Bobbie just straight up disappearing. It's just that funny little idea of mine that you don't have to worry about, but you do get to know that when the families of the original crew waited for their families to come home, when they realised something had happened days later and when they waited outside the mech for it to cool down enough to enter, They retrieved all the bodies for their final rites - Elliot will never forget his aunt crying while cradling her brothers corpse, his mothers not far off from where he lay - they retrieved all the bodies, except for Bobbie's.

[midstpodcast]

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