alfajor

i draw, i guess twt: @punkqss

[punkqs]

um actually...

[punkqs]

ep 9 if jax wasn't such a piece of shit to her baddie

[punkqs]

[punkqs]

🐙

[punkqs]

art study

[punkqs]

wip lesbyler (i've been gone for a while, but i hope to be posting drawings again)

[teambyler]

SNL echoing the homophobic lampooning of Will's coming-out scene as going on too long and supposedly intrusive and unnecessary I did NOT expect.

It's outrageous.

We may hear the excuse that maaaaaybe they're making fun of the Duffer Brothers. Even if that WERE the writers' intention, it doesn't matter because then this was horribly ill-conceived. Because that is NOT what the bigots are thinking. It's widely understood that the coming-out scene was attacked by homophobes. This skit, instead of making fun of how many people were in the room or the trite "And me's" or hundred other things wrong about it, has Will go on forever about being gay and "liking D..." The bigots who thought the scene was pointless and a waste of time to push "the woke agenda," will think this skit agrees with them.

And to the average/casual viewer, this isn't making fun of the writers but of WILL (and by implication Noah's performance.) It didn’t clearly direct itself at the bad writing of that scene but instead made fun of Will for coming out.

(EDIT: Video.)

I have not watched SNL in years. Are they now trying to cater to the right wing nowadays?

And with Finn guest-starring there's an implicit endorsement. I wonder if Finn, Gaten, and Caleb will say anything about this. (Or even KNEW about this!) Because right now it has the appearance of them participating in it. And they're all under NDAs that probably make it harder to criticize the Duffers' writing. smdh

-teambyler

EDIT 2: I've seen the "Heated Wizardry" skit be enjoyed by queer people AND by people who think it's making fun of queer people, ship furries, etc. SNL seems to be walking a fine line where they try to cater to queer people/progressives and to bigoted people at the same time, each side seeing what they want to see. (because capitalism) It's sleazy. I've already said how they could've written this without echoing the bigots. And citing the fact that there are queer writers avoids the issue of what's in the skit itself and how the bigots see it.

EDIT 3: I'm not sure if some of the pushback is people wanting to defend Finn here, but I'm not impute any ill intent on Finn. I have no idea what role if he played if any in the coming-out spoof. And as for my observation of overall catering to both sides, I think that is something people should be more aware of as the same piece of writing can appear to be aimed at us and seem to "support" us, when it actually has a face turned to people who are definitely NOT us at the same time. We Bylers just went through this experience with the Stranger Things show itself! And I think it's something to be mindful of.

EDIT 4: Here's a tweet with 12K likes where the poster (WARNING: Case of "whataboutism" to justify bigotry) acknowledges that the joke was to make fun of WILL:

[punkqs]

will sorcerer x mike hellfire club!

[rokusasuxiii]

anyway. i’m being completely serious when i say that so many of you should be writing and publishing your own stories. if two mediocre white men can write a half assed story and get critical acclaim, just imagine what you can do

[as-intimidating-as-a-butterfly]

“I mean what did you think, really? That a show about nerds and outcasts was gonna have a well-written queer romance? That, in the end, queer love could help save the world?”

Yeah I guess I did. I really did.

[homieswithhades]

i need everyone to understand that byler is fucking different. johnlock, klance, destiel etc. were big, sure, but no one was tapped along as bad and for as long as us. we had mountains of textual evidence and a sizable portion of the entire audience of the show seeing byler as the only logical narrative conclusion. the symbolism, the parallels, the cinematography, lighting EVERYTHING pointed in one direction. I cannot believe it was all meaningless, because it sure as fuck wasn't leading on purpose, clearly.

[sihain]

Having a queer character believe he won't find love and proving him right is not good writing.

Having a character grow up in solitary confinement and then ripping her away from the only family she's ever known to live a life of solitude once again is not good writing.

Having a character be in love with his best friend and then just compare it to a high school crush is not good writing.

Having Eleven say that Mike has always been the person who truly understood her after showing us in the previous seasons that he only sees her as a superhero IS NOT GOOD WRITING.

Having two girls be abused by a man with power for the majority of their lives only to leave them dead and alone as a direct consequence of the trauma they suffered IS VILE WRITING

[narrativelogicofbyler]

as someone with a degree in television and a background in cinematography and narrative analysis, i genuinely cannot understand what the duffers were doing with mike and will. the sheer amount of intentional groundwork poured into their dynamic wasn’t accidental, and wasn’t something you can dismiss as audience projection. it was craft. it was design. it was the kind of layered visual storytelling you only build when you’re setting up a payoff.

the costuming alone charted an emotional arc, colour palettes shifting in tandem, mirroring, contrasting, signalling internal states long before the characters verbalised anything. the blocking and framing consistently positioned them in ways that highlighted intimacy, tension, longing, and narrative centrality. the camera lingered on them with a specificity that, in television language, means something. you don’t shoot two characters like that unless you’re building toward a reveal or a culmination.

and then there’s the emotional architecture: years of subtext, coded longing, parallel arcs, mirrored traumas, narrative foreshadowing. every tool in the tv writer’s and cinematographer’s kit was pointing toward byler as a deliberate, slow burn queer storyline. it wasn’t just possible, it was textually supported by the show’s own visual grammar. even the pink sky in the field scene, that gorgeous, deliberate wash of colour, was doing thematic heavy lifting.

which is why the lack of follow through feels so jarring. from a craft perspective, it’s almost nonsensical. you don’t invest that much visual and emotional capital into a relationship you plan to abandon. from a storytelling perspective, it’s a structural rupture, a setup without a payoff, a thematic thread left dangling. and from a queer audience perspective, it’s heartbreaking, because this could have been monumental. byler had the potential to be an epic queer narrative with genuine depth, history, and emotional resonance. it could have been groundbreaking.

instead, it feels like all that potential was discarded at the last minute. years of careful build up rendered pointless. a beautifully constructed arc left unresolved. and i can’t make sense of it, not academically, not narratively, not emotionally. it just feels like such a waste of what could have been one of the most compelling queer storylines in mainstream genre television.

[punkqs]

[punkqs]

[bananananurr]

my doodles are cringe but i am free

[punkqs]

Mike Wheeler and his memories: Vecna's last victim

Has anyone else noticed this "coincidence"?

It is interesting, because they are particularly similar, rarely in the show have there been scenes with rain, I think that of the few scenes where rain has been used as a narrative resource, it has been in this one, when Mike and Will argue while the rain is in the background, making the moment look sad and melancholic because of how Mike and Will's lives have changed (they are starting to grow up, they are no longer children, they are teenagers. Nothing will be the same again). In addition to the colors palette, blue tones are the center of the scene, it serves to create a cold atmosphere and represent deep emotions or the physical/emotional distance of the characters on stage. It is a visual language to communicate emotions without words.

This new image of Vecna ​​is very similar, in fact, it seems to be part of the scene.

In the last scene of "Sorcerer", Vecna ​​​​​​​narrates sad and traumatic situations that Will experienced, we can also see those moments again, but the most relevant thing is that Vecna ​​​​was never present in those moments.

The most logical reason is that since Will and Vecna ​​are connected, Vecna ​​can access his memories, which makes sense. But Vecna can't use his memories against Will anymore because he has accepted his sexuality.

Although I also think there is something more to all this.

"See you, but do you see me?"

Max was the "last" cursed by Vecna, she practically died, until Eleven was able to revive her (not completely, she is still in a coma, it is basically being dead in life).

So, I think the next and last victim is Mike, Vecna ​​will go for him in vol2. After so much time (s1) we will be able to see Mike's perspective and he will give us many answers.

Although why Mike?

"The heart. Without the heart we all fall apart"

"It turns out, getting to Mike, now that was the key..."

"Hawkins will fall"

"Mike. Don't stop, okay? Remember that. You're the heart"

With these dialogues I think that several things make sense and it is a harbinger of what vol2 has in store for us.

It's still very curious that The Duffer Brothers said that Will is the heart of the story, but in the series it is explicitly said (by Will) that Mike is the heart.

Mike is the narrator of Stranger Things, it is his story and Will is its heart.

So I think that's why Vecna ​​attacked Mike.

If we go into a metaphorical sense, Vecna ​​​​who represents conformity and Mike who strives to be "normal", "heteronormative" and follows (fails to try) what society dictates, will anger him once and for all and Mike will have to make the biggest decision of his life: be a conformist or accept himself as he is.

Another theory of mine here where I explain this as well and what Mike's ultimate role is and that is to accept himself.

I also think Max and Holly will play a big role as they are connected to Mike.

I have an extensive theory that I talk about here (It gives more contextualization of what I talk about in this theory, but it almost comes to the same thing).

In short, Holly will open a dimensional door to escape from "Camazotz" with Max, but behind that door is the Wheeler house, they are back in Hawkins, but it is not real, but imaginary, it is a memory, but from whom? of Mike.

In D&D, when a dimensional door is created, it doesn't lead to a different plane, but to a different location within the same plane. This means they won't escape to the real world; they'll remain in Vecna's (or Mike) memory, just in a different location.

Vecna ​​and Mike are somehow connected.

The first person who sees Vecna ​​is Mike, it would make sense that it was Will because ep4 and especially that scene was about him, but they didn't do it, they intentionally decided to have Mike look at Vecna. Another omen.

Another thing I noticed is that they sound like a grandfather clock when Vecna ​​is arriving, another when Vecna ​​is already close and we can see him, after that it focuses on Mike (remember that the grandfather clock are something that Vecna's victims had in common) but it can't be heard very well because of the gunshots from the military and the music in the background, it would be great if someone else could comment that they noticed it too or am I just delusional.

So, without a doubt Mike plays a role in vol2, Vecna ​​will go after him and the only way to defeat him is for him to abandon his forced comformity because that is the real monster.