do i go to sleep bc it's christmas and i know my family will be up in the morning. or do i watch doctor who / read more go fanfiction bc i want to

hi! just wondering how (or if) your opinion on volume 2 and s4 on the whole has shifted since you first watched it, since I know I've reconsidered and realised certain things since it dropped. (this is in regards to the season in general, not just byler btw). also hope you're doing well <3

i think character wise there are some flaws, but if we’re just talking about the supernatural plot in hawkins alone i think its by far their best season, the cgi for people getting vecna’d, the set design of the mind lair and the upside down, the bats, the makeup for vecna, it in my opinion skyrockets anything theyve done before.

this was my favorite villain. i liked that it had a backstory and could talk and get in peoples heads. previously its mostly just been faceless monsters, which i always loved, but this one just adds such a cool element to it. i also absolutely LOVED that they brought back the og monsters in russia!! the demogorgan the demodogs the mindflayer i loved seeing them again. i like how everything connects and its not like “now this guys coming after you!!!” i like how they kept the hive mind thing a huge part of the story.

going off of that, another one of my favorite parts is how many callbacks there were to season one. i fucking love how running up that hill played a similar role that should i stay or should i go did. and there was so much else. the lights!!! i LOVED that we learned how will communicated with the lights and the lite brite was a genius way to show them talking. the compasses messing up the electromagnetic field, el having another isolation tank bath, even just the energy level of excitement for dnd again. i loved it. it felt like stanger things.

and there were a lot more subtle things like that too. they reused so much of their old score tracks and they did it at really cool parts. like they played the track for for the lights that played when joyce first put all the christmas lights up. that one im sure a lot of people noticed but i watched s1 after volume 1 came out and i noticed that after el lifts mike up from the cliff at the quarry and they play that epic song, she falls and then tells mike that she opened the gate and that shes the monster. and they played the same track in episode 7 when we see her opening the gate!!!!!!!! thats so fuckin cool!!!

i am the most impressed by this season by far but yeah there are some criticism i agree with. the kids shouldve had a funeral for eddie, i wish will had more of a supernatural plot (i was really hoping when vecna had el choked in the mind lair and he was explaining his backstory he would start talking about how will was his first victim and why :/), i didnt love argyle, and obviously im extremely disappointed in what theyve done to mike. if they didnt wanna go with byler then ok i can live with that but then he should have hugged him for real at the airport and not exclude him for el again. i also dont at all understand the purpose of their “you dont love me anymore” fight if he genuinely does love her. it seems like bylers still happening based on some stuff but if it is, he shouldnt have said he loved her. i say that mostly for els sake than for byler.

its like when a new album by your favorite band is coming out and all the singles that came out before the album are AMAZING and youre so excited to hear the rest and then the album comes out and the rest of the songs arent as good as those singles and youre kinda sad but you still call it your favorite album because those singles are some of the best songs theyve ever made and they takeover the rest of the album. in this case the singles are all the amazing scenes, cgi, cinematography, set designs, acting (sadie!!), etc. and the less great songs are some of the character development (not all. lumax was amazing).

despite everything its still my favorite season. i fell in love with this show originally for the scifi story and this seasons scifi/horror plot is the best theyve ever done by far.

My Second Lap through Nights into Dreams

*Played in November 2022, Written in December 2022

I really didn't enjoy Nights into Dreams when I first played it. But now I suspect that I wasn’t supposed to. The first game in the series I played was Nights Journey of Dreams. I fell off about half way through and deemed it as a wasted Christmas list spot. The flying felt OK, but the filler levels where you controlled the children really turned me off and the boss battles were confusing. I completed every level and I still saw no final boss so I dropped it. I came back years later and learned that you need C-ranks in each level to unlock the final one. As I replayed the levels, I grew accustomed to the controls and really started to enjoy the vibe the game was giving out. Most of the more boring challenges I'd already completed so I was replaying the best the game had to offer. The filler was now kind of charming to me and I understood how the boss fights worked. Journey of Dreams was not the best at conveying what you needed to do, but once you gained insight into its world, you started to feel enchanted. Despite its obvious flaws, I grew to like the game. And I heard the first game was even better, so 5 years later when Night into Dreams HD was released, I was excited to get my hands on it. But when I did I was disappointed by how zoomed in the camera was. Everything was disorienting and it didn't control as smoothly as the sequel. I completed all the levels and then never touched it again.

Coming back to it, I'm a bit embarrassed. I left thinking I completed all the levels only to find out I needed a C-rank in every level to get to the final one. I made the exact same mistake at age 11 that I did at age 17. And now that I understand how to get high ranks in this, and now that I've actually finished the game, I can say with certainty that Nights into Dreams still has a strange camera. I realize now that it's not so much the magnitude as it is the angle. In Journey, it followed Nights from slightly behind and mostly to the side. This gives you a better view of what's up ahead. Into dreams has it at a perpendicular angle. It acts like a 2D sidescroller when it's very overtly 2.5D. This is why I didn't enjoy the levels so much. During the boss fights, I feel this camera angle worked a bit better, due to it being easier to line up the projectiles you can launch, a mechanic heavily used in both games.

Having said that, I liked it this time around. Before I was just barreling through the game because I hated how busy everything looked. This time I went at a more measured pace to learn the mechanics and realized that this game is about efficiency in collection, not just movement. I thought the collectibles were just for show and all that mattered was collecting 20 orbs and I was dead wrong. The point is to finish the level in just under the time limit, scoring as many points as you can get away with. You’re supposed to complete the requirements for progressing to the next section of the stage as soon as possible, but then start retracing your work and circle the around the segment as many times as possible. Collecting more orbs; subduing more enemies; racking up link combos. If you can’t make it to the exit at the end of your lap, then all your work is for nothing. But if you can, you make out like a bandit and get far more points than you would by completing the level as fast as possible.

This is a game made to be perfected through study. You can see it's DNA in future Sonic Team projects. This is a replay game. The first time will be the worst time, but afterwards it's going to be a blast. The only issue I have with this approach is that these levels are a bit too long and end with a boss. All of these stages have an often obnoxious boss at the end. This structure in the sequel isn’t as dire due to it 100% being about speed and having 1 less act, making replaying a level not too big of a deal if you get bounced by the gatekeeper at the end. Not every run is going to be 12+ minutes when going for an A-rank. Though there is something mesmerizing about the lap structure of this game. That rush you get when you are trying to get 1 more lap in is something you can't really find in other games as far as I know. If a Nights 3 were to be made I'd prefer the mission structure of Journey, but have the traditional levels be one of those mission types. A speed run mission, a link combo mission, a traditional mission, something miscellaneous, and a boss separate from the first level. That's my dream for this franchise.

I've missed your Rebecca theories! Not that there's been anything to salivate over lately. Her sketchiness has died down a bit. I still think she's sketchy but that may be residual bias. But this rebooted Ross connection is suspicious. Did they really need her to be his unsuspecting drug dealer? I'm sure he can steal pills from other people who he didn't sleep with and possibly fathered a child with. Had no idea she even took painkillers.

I’m glad you sent me this, anon, because I have too many thoughts on all of this right now so was planning on making a post anyway haha!

I just want to note first though that I’m actually really enjoying everything with Ross and Rebecca these days - individually and together. I’d always liked them as a pairing (admittedly they were never on the scale of Ross and Donna, but they worked far better together than Dross ever did for me), but I’m genuinely loving this dynamic of these two lost souls supporting each other right now. It feels very natural and I feel invested in both storylines. I think Ross’s storyline has been really strong and moving, and Mike Parr’s been giving some really compelling and heart-wrenching performances. It’s nice to see him be given something proper to get his teeth into again.

And as for Rebecca - theories aside - I’m actually really enjoying / appreciating the direction they’re taking her character in nowadays. (I’m not saying I’m suddenly a Rebecca fan haha, but I’m appreciating her as a character nowadays.) Again I feel invested in her storyline and it’s actually really nice to see Emily get to do more, she’s having to highlight all these different sides to Rebecca’s personality right now and I think she’s doing a really good job. Because you know what they’ve done, anon? By actually taking Rebecca’s character in a direction, rather than just leaving her floating neither here nor there because they just never committed one way or the other, they’ve actually given the character some substance. And that’s why I’m now able to enjoy / appreciate her as a character. Because now she actually feels like one. To me at least. That substance, however, still doesn’t seem to extend to Seb and this brings me to the theories…

So this is where I currently stand on Theory Realm - I kept saying before that I’m not going there because personally I’m enjoying the narrative the way it is and have never wanted a twist for the sake of it. For me, a paternity twist and The Theory always went hand in hand as it was the decision to make Robert cheat in the first place (rather than the presence of the baby) which I found disappointing because I just didn’t feel like that was Robert at that stage (although a couple of days after The Incident, I wrote a mammoth post trying to get into the mindset of the storyliners/writers as they got into the mindset of Robert in order to make sense of why they felt like it was how Robert would handle the situation - yet another post which was never posted but I found it helpful at the time to understand the decision haha.). But I’ve also always maintained that the best way, for me, for The Theory to play out would have been as part of Robert’s breakdown and therefore by Christmas. So personally I’m quite happy for the narrative to continue the way it is now - saying that, I poured so much into the theories they’re always going to have a little piece of my heart and part of me can’t help but still want The Theory as @itwasjustmisplaced and I dedicated so much to it and of all the theories we discussed constantly, it’s the only one not to happen onscreen. So for the sake of myself and Taryn, and our sanity, it would still be quite nice and exciting haha! So that’s where my confliction on Theory Realm lies and why I’ve said I wasn’t going there, but it’s all still been going on in Theory Realm throughout and with each passing episode it feels like the show itself is literally trying to drag me back there… So, here we go, anon…

Rebecca’s relationship with Seb. I said her character feels like it has substance which it was lacking before - which is evident just in her interactions with other characters being far less about plot, but this doesn’t extend to Seb. Apart from her breaking down when she handed Seb over to Robert, we didn’t see any more of that time from her perspective - and we are actually seeing her perspective these days, so why not with Seb? Why not show her struggling without him, particularly as he was the one constant in her routine and structure which would surely be crucial and have a big impact on her symptoms? Instead we got Robert’s perspective and Aaron bonding with Seb, while Rebecca disappeared until she popped up in the pub (wearing that grey jumper) looking for a job (with Charity commenting on her lack of blinking, I hope you all picked up on that haha)… So is this because Seb is staying as a permanent fixture with Robert and Aaron, or because he’s going to be taken away from them and therefore it was necessary to build that bond as a family (which was always part of The Theory and one of the reasons the break-up parting didn’t make sense to me at the time.)..? (Or alternatively was it a simple matter of timing because look at Vanessa - she got suspended but we haven’t seen anything since of how she’s coping with being in a different role, how Paddy and Rhona are coping with the workload without her etc. Sometimes it is just down to screentime and other storylines taking precedence at that point.) Because what we are getting with Rebecca and Seb is Lachlan feeding her the line that Robert would still try to take Seb away from her. Are we due that custody battle that was prematurely speculated about after all..? And if so, will Joe Tate play a role as - sadly - he’s also been a poignant connecting factor in all of this…

The Ross connection. (They had already planted the painkillers seed by the way - when she left Seb on his own it’s because she’d run out of painkillers for her headaches so went to get some from the shop, but forgot when she was there and came home with only a magazine and some chocolate.) Now, on the surface, it kind of looks like they’ve just re-established the connection between Ross and Rebecca but actually their storylines have been connected throughout. Even as far back as January, when Robert was planning on taking Seb, Ross was there (with Moses) buying into the situation with his quips about Adam not being able to run forever… Also note, Ross has actually only been onscreen with Seb once - helping Robert with the pram and his stuff outside the café. That’s it. But actually, the biggest connection is that they’re both going through health storylines right now and these have been intricately linked from the start…

Ross hanging around making jibes shortly before the crash;

The day of Ross’s attack, Rebecca had a turn and fainted;

Which brings me to the first point of the Joe factor - obviously it was Joe who was supposed to be in Ross’s shoes, but instead it was he and Graham who found and helped Ross;

The day Robron reunited - alternatively known as that time Robert left the front door open for a whole night - Ross was alone at home, unable to open his front door and afraid when the pizza delivery guy came knocking, while two (I think) doors down we also had a shot of Robert closing the door, not wanting to open the front door on which Aaron was knocking - except eventually he did, and he left that door wide open (intentionally or not haha)… The door to Rebecca and Seb’s home…;

Point two of the Joe factor - Rebecca went and attacked Joe - who was the one supposed to be on the receiving end of the attack on Ross - and when he discovers the cctv footage of Graham with Simon (aka clues to Ross’s attack) we think this is the footage he’s about to show Graham but instead he plays Rebecca’s attack on himself;

Point three of the Joe factor - Joe had Rebecca arrested to get one over on Robert. Note, Rebecca was wearing her blouse from The Incident night for the first time in a long time and obviously there was quite a big focus on it at the police station… Now, Robert went after Joe for this, as predicted, so does that make the speculated custody battle seem more likely..? Personally I don’t think Joseph Tate is above manipulating an ill and vulnerable Rebecca (with the help of Lachlan’s whisperings of course) to try to take Seb away from Robert and maybe due to the legality side that’s how the paternity test finally comes about to prove Robert’s rights - imagine Joe’s delight if it turned out Seb wasn’t Robert’s son at all…

And then of course Rebecca and Ross finally started sharing scenes together again…

Rebecca and Charity defending Ross against those awful girls - two exes: one, the mother of his son who was revealed to be his as a “Who’s the daddy?” twist and who has proven to be Ross’s anchor and purpose to get him through all of this right now (there’s been such a heavy focus on his relationship with Moses and lines of dialogue like “Am I still your daddy?” which could be read into if you want to go there, but personally I don’t want to detract from the actual story they’re showing with Ross as I’ve found it all heartbreaking.); the other, the mother of a son who could have been his except the question of “Who’s the daddy?” never came…

Their bonding and hanging out together, so supportive of each other, but Ross alluding to something more happening and saying “It’s not like you’d remember it anyway.” Which on its own doesn’t seem like anything more than a Ross quip, but this was while Rebecca was wearing The Incident blouse…

Now, add all of this to the fact that Lachlan used the line the other night about “all of our secrets” - plural, not just the truth of how the crash happened… And remember Rebecca said, “The thing about secrets is you have to be comfortable keeping them.” Well Rebecca isn’t comfortable with that anymore, she no longer has that level of control over the information she reveals… And on that front, isn’t it cruelly ironic that we, the audience, are being treated to a trip down memory lane for Rebecca while she herself is struggling to remember anything? Not just with Ross, but with Debbie (responsible for Ross’s attack and discussing Joe - connections) and also bringing up Vic’s “obsession” with having a baby… If there was to be a twist, they’ve set it up perfectly to allow themselves to be a bit creative with it… Maybe we will get that Memento style flashback we all asked for after all. :P But if that were to happen, why not go a little further and give us an extra big twist? Maybe Rebecca’s initial injuries were sustained much earlier and the crash exacerbated them - perhaps that bonfire night when she was knocked out and Chrissie left her for dead was the start of it all, maybe this is why there has been inconsistencies with her character, maybe this is why she regularly told people different stories, maybe she never slept with Robert at all but like him she just assumed because she couldn’t remember..? And maybe this is why she keeps wearing that black and white coat again which she wore that bonfire night but hadn’t actually been around much last year… I mean, this is just a wild bit of theorising for fun, but with the situation they’ve put her into almost anything is possible haha.

So yeah, I still don’t know how I feel about the prospect of anything happening, anon. Literally all the signs are still there, it’s just how we choose to interpret them. And I’m just not sure at this stage because I’ve moved on with the narrative, but still there’s a niggle. Alas.

Me and my boyfriend have been together for four months, but we haven't even kissed or held hands yet. He's very awkward, so I'm afraid of making him feel uncomfortable, and I suspect that I'm his first proper girlfriend so I don't want to rush or pressurise him. I'm 24 and he's 19, and I feel like the age gap is very significant. I'm approaching the age where I'm looking for a proper adult relationship, but it feels like I'm dating a child sometimes. I thought that the age gap wouldn't be too much of an issue, but over time, his lack of experience has caused quite a few problems - both on a physical and emotional level, and I feel completely isolated and deprived of affection. I thought that things would improve if we were officially in a relationship, but we actually seem to be going backwards instead of forwards. I've never had to face this issue before, because literally every guy I've been with has been relatively forward and proactive about their physical or emotional interests in me, and I'm quite shy so I struggle with 'making moves' on people, especially if I have no idea if the other person even wants me to. His lack of experience means that I've deliberately taken things much slower than I usually would, but after four months, there's still not been any progression within any aspect of our relationship. I have no idea how to communicate my concerns, because he's already extremely sensitive and anxious, and the last thing I want to do is make him feel even more uncomfortable. I've posted this on a few different subreddits because I'd like as many perspectives and as much advice as possible really - so that I can get a general consensus as to whether I'm right or wrong to feel the way I do.I'm pretty sure that he's a virgin, whereas I'm five years older than him and have had many boyfriends in the past - two of which were incredibly abusive. I've been sexually involved with more than my fair share of people, whereas I get the impression that nobody has ever showed an interest in my boyfriend in that way, so I already feel like we're not on the same wavelength because we're both at very different stages in our lives. At first, I thought that it was sweet and slightly flattering that he was so inexperienced, and it was cute that he was moving so slowly with me, but there's such a thing as going 'too' slow. As time has gone by, our relationship just makes me feel more and more inadequate and anxious. We've been together for four months now, but we haven't kissed or even held hands yet. It says that we're in a relationship on Facebook so I'm not just imagining that it's something that it's not haha! Again, I know that he's not used to all of this, and I don't want to pressurise him, so I've been waiting for him to initiate things. I knew that it'd take time for him to adjust to dating, but I just feel like I'm wasting my time with him and I'm quickly losing interest.We haven't been on many dates - we see each other once every week or fortnight, but all we really do is walk around town for hours and end up in McDonalds, and as a 24 year old woman, I feel like I deserve a bit more excitement and sophistication than that. For our first ever date, he told me that we were going for a drink - I thought we might go to Starbucks or Costa, but he took me to the in-store cafe at Asda, where a pot of tea only costs £1, and I felt really overdressed and undignified. I felt so embarrassed and humiliated that I went home and lied to my Mum about where we'd gone together. It was also the most disgusting cup of tea I've ever tasted haha, but I plodded through because I genuinely enjoyed his company. There's nothing wrong with cheap dates, but I just want to date someone who I can have fun with, but hanging out with my boyfriend feels more like a chore - it's something that I just tolerate because I feel like it's more of an obligation than anything else.He invited me to go for a meal on Valentine's day - it turns out that we were going to Pizza Hut, which was an anti-climax and disappointing to say the least. He even kicked up a fuss about spending £1.99 on dessert, even though I offered to pay, and I just felt really cheap and not very special at all. He also tried to convince me to order from the kids menu. We were surrounded by 12 year olds on their first ever dates, and it was just really awkward and I felt a little bit humiliated. I thought that we'd definitely kiss on Valentine's day, but he could barely manage an awkward hug as we said goodbye. He gave me a single bar of dairy milk chocolate for Christmas, whereas I spent quite a lot of money and put a lot of thought into my gifts for him. I've visited his house a couple of times, but all we did was sit in his lounge and talk to his parents about the war for six hours. His cat was sick on me, and my boyfriend's initial reaction was to run away in disgust instead of helping to clean it up. When I'm around his house, he never says a word to me, and he sits at the opposite end of the room, so it feels more of an interrogation than anything else. He invited himself over to my house a few weeks ago - and again, I thought we'd probably kiss if we were in private - but all he did was sit awkwardly on the very edge of my bed for an hour, before his parents randomly turned up to take him home.We've never even come close to a kiss, and I feel like it's too late and the time has passed now anyway. I've waited for four months and I feel like I'm wasting my time. I've made it really obvious that I like intimacy, but he's expressed no interest at all in any sort of physical or emotional closeness. He avoids acknowledging any comments regarding kissing, sex, or other signs of affection - he seems to get very flustered and changes the subject immediately. It's reached a point where I feel like I can't totally be myself around him, because I like to make 'controversial' jokes or comments about sex etc, but obviously I can't when I'm around him, and I feel like I have to be careful about what I write on social media in case he reads too much into things.I don't even remotely feel like he's my boyfriend - it feels like we're just friends, but with this very awkward tension between us. We awkwardly hug once when we say hello, and once when we say goodbye - other than that, we barely even graze elbows. He very rarely compliments me, and we don't even talk most days, so we're not even close on an emotional level. He's had a few bad days over the last four months, but he never opens up to me. He goes silent whenever he's upset, even though he knows that I'm there for him and that he can talk to me about anything. There's no romance or intimacy whatsoever, and it's starting to affect my confidence and self-esteem. I'm also starting to resent the fact that I wake up early and spend ages getting dressed up just to go to McDonalds and watch him eat a Happy Meal (I'm a vegetarian so McDonalds is wasted on me haha). I used to be really excited about seeing him, but over the past few months, I've begun to enjoy his company less and less, and I'm now actively putting off dates because I find them/him so boring and I'm really confused about our relationship.I've been in two long-term abusive relationships in the past which have really knocked my confidence, so intimacy is a bit of an issue with me anyway - I'm used to the guy making the first move, and I know how anxious he must feel, so I've basically been waiting for him to be ready, but I can't wait forever. I have no idea where I stand with him, how he feels about me, and what he wants from a relationship. Whenever we meet, he always has to leave at 4pm so that he can get home and feed his cat haha! I was meant to be meeting him in town the other day, but there was a storm outside so I waited in a cafe - I told him where I was and all he said was: "ok okay", then I saw him walk past the window whilst he was pretending that he wasn't in town. I bumped into him in town again today, and he could barely make eye contact with me and seemed in a rush to get going. His emotional maturity, social interactions, interests and behaviour are the same as mine when I was 13 or 14, and subsequently, it feels like I'm dating a child sometimes.It just feels like he's way too inexperienced, and I already feel really weird about the age gap etc. I really don't want to end up resenting him for wasting my time, and I don't want to carry on seeing him whilst I have all of these doubts in my head. Bless him, he's absolutely clueless when it comes to dating - I thought that it was cute at first, but it quickly became quite stressful and overwhelming. He doesn't seem to be aware of a lot of very standard and basic etiquette, and I appreciate that he has a lot to learn, but I'm really not at a stage in my life where I have the time or energy to teach a guy how he should treat a girl etc. I've been in that situation before and it was exhausting. I knew that he was inexperienced before we started going out, so I didn't expect much, and there've been a lot of times when I overlooked his behaviour because of this, but it's really started to feel a bit ridiculous and I feel unwanted and trapped. I think he'd be better suited for a girl who also hasn't had much dating experience so that it'd be a bit more equal and balanced.I genuinely like this guy - we have a lot in common, and I'm sure he's lovely and I'm quite attracted to him, but I can't help but feel like something is very off. I really liked him at first, but now I feel like the opportunity and the spark have gone. I guess I'm just not into him as much as I originally thought I was, but I still feel really guilty about it. Our relationship is pretty much non-existent - we might as well just be friends. The whole situation is so awkward and confusing that I now feel incredibly anxious from something so minor as receiving a text from him. I know that this is his first proper relationship so I'm really scared to hurt his feelings, but I just find myself avoiding him nowadays. I've cancelled our last three dates, mostly because I've been trying to work out what I should do or say to him. I'm probably pushing him away because I know that I need to break up with him, but I'm really worried about how he'll react, and I'd rather let him down gently. If the situation were a bit different, and maybe if he was a bit older and slightly more experienced then I'm sure it would have worked out a lot better. I feel much lonelier now than I ever felt when I was single. I feel like I'm tied down to someone who can barely even hug me, and I know it's awful of me, but I'd rather be single and have the freedom to do my own thing and not feel quite so trapped. I have no idea how I should discuss all of this with him as he's very sensitive - I'm worried that he'd just crumble at the first hurdle - but I feel like breaking up would be the fairest thing for both of us.Update: Thank you so much for all of the wonderful advice that I've been given - it genuinely means a lot, and I'm taking all of your comments on board. I'm definitely planning to break up with him within the next couple of days, but I have no idea how I should handle it. His anxiety is so intense that he becomes physically unwell whenever he's upset, so I feel like doing it in person would just make things worse for him. I don't know whether I should tell him the whole truth as to why it isn't working for me, or whether I should fob him off with the whole "it's not you, it's me" line. I know that it's going to really affect his mental health, and I'm really going to struggle coping with the guilt of having hurt him.TL;DR - I've been with my boyfriend for four months, but we haven't even kissed or held hands yet. He's five years younger than me, and I'm certain that he's a virgin so I've been trying not to rush or pressurise him, but there's no physical or emotional affection whatsoever between us. He's an extremely sensitive and anxious person and I'm terrified of hurting him, but I've lost interest in being in a relationship with him. I don't know what to do or how I'm supposed to feel. via /r/dating_advice