sorcerer

[tender, emotional music playing] stranger things. I pretty much just hit reblog

[wizardcleric]

paul dichter saw that there were hardly any byler moments in episodes 1-3 and made it his duty to give us some of the most scrumptious byler scenes of all time

[phoebebyers]

is this anything

[wizardcleric]

I just realized they probably made el’s birthday june 7th bc that’s prince’s birthday

[musapylsa]

how are you? im fine

[narrativelogicofbyler]

i’m begging people to stop acting like performance analysis is fanfiction. I’m not claiming to know an actor’s inner feelings, i’m talking about what’s on the screen. and what’s on the screen is this: mike’s last look at will in the finale has more emotional truth, more internal conflict, more actual character work than every mike/el scene put together. it’s not subtle. it’s not ambiguous. it’s right there.

finn’s micro expressions in byler scenes are so precise it’s almost infuriating watching people pretend they don’t exist. the reactive softness, the breath shifts, the eye flickers, that’s trained, intentional performance. that’s an actor who understands the emotional spine of the relationship he’s playing. you don’t accidentally build that level of continuity across seasons. you don’t stumble into that kind of subtext.

and yes, his weakest, flattest, most disconnected acting is in the mike/el scenes, and im tired of pretending that’s some random coincidence. the stiffness, the lack of emotional reciprocity, the way the beats fall dead? that’s not “bad acting,” that’s an actor portraying a character who is forcing something that isn’t real. it’s the point. it’s the text.

people keep trying to hand wave this away like it’s fan projection, but it’s literally just reading the craft. if you’ve studied performance, blocking, eyelines, emotional continuity, the byler scenes are where the work is happening. the mike/el scenes are where the performance collapses on purpose.

i’m not speculating about finn’s feelings. i’m analysing the acting. and the acting is screaming so loudly it’s honestly embarrassing watching people pretend they can’t hear it.

[djatsy-888]

I'M SICK!!!!

[iloveyou3000xx]

oh mike wheeler, you do NOT deserve the hate you're getting ❤‍🩹

[wizardcleric]

“so yeah, el needs you mike. and she always will”

you can just shoot me now please

[kasbreker]

[sugarcubetikki]

I actually like that Mike said “You did it! You really did it!” to Will after his sorcerer moment instead of “You saved me! You saved me!” and it’s not just because of the Mlvn/platonic/familial parallels. (hey but I also like that they got their own unique thing instead of the “you saved me!”).

Will is a character who’s had his autonomy violated/childhood stolen by Vecna/the MF throughout the show. His internalised feelings of helplessness and brokenness because of it. We see him express frustration when others treat him like glass because in his own words “it makes him feel like more of a freak”.

(All of these feelings are also linked to his queerness too obviously and they tried to make his coming out scene the final step in him reclaiming his autonomy from Vecna but we all know how terrible that was executed considering it had little payoff in the finale and how they tried to write Byler out of the narrative).

Mike is someone who made Will feel empowered when he was feeling weak. We’ve seen this in S2 and we see it in ST5 Vol 1. The pattern of Will confiding in Mike about feeling stuck, broken and helpless and Mike encouraging/empowering him through his words (crazy together, you’re like a superspy, you’re a sorcerer).

Previously, Will succumbed to possession and we had the people he loved needing to save him. This time, it was Will himself who by the help of Robin was able to accept, embrace himself and tap into his powers to save the ones he loves.

It’s the transformation from him internalising feelings of brokenness and helplessness to instead tapping into his inner strength and choosing to believe in himself.

From Mike’s perspective, the “you did it! you really did it!” can be read as this euphoric sense of pride because he’s witnessing that transformation. Seeing someone you love finally accept themselves after they’ve doubted themselves for so long is beautiful. And Mike isn’t quiet about it considering how he keeps going on about Will being a sorcerer.

[lexthesilly]

This is more of a rant post

Cred to MissArtsy for the original drawing where they silenced a gay man

[miwiheroes]

never let the duffers get away with all this "i believe" bs btw. i know we love el as a character and we want her to be canonically alive, but the duffers killed her off. that is a fact and we need to accept that because we need to hold them accountable for killing off a 16 year old abuse survivor.

they keep teasing fans with saying that they know what happens and that they'll never reveal it or whatever the fuck, but they're only doing this to escape backlash for what they did to her. i won't be surprised if they do a jk rowling and say "fuck it, mike actually knows where she went! and in the future she's probably living a tradwife lifestyle" because they want to seem like benevolent creators.

they called her a symbol for the “magic of childhood” , they never saw her as a person, only a concept and i need yall to wake the hell up to the fact they used her death as a way to close mikes arc and help him grow up. they’re misogynists, full stop.

[thebrokengate]

They're misogynists for this. And to put the shit on top of this awful ass sundae: they're also homophobes who are hiding behind Noah Schnapp, telling us all "well, Noah liked the coming out scene" to try to shut people up despite the fact that we know they wouldn't listen to him - an actual gay man in real life - behind the scenes and shut his suggestions down multiple times and he was actually too intimidated by them to even speak up hardly at all. Don't let these jackasses fool you.

[thisgameissonintendo]

ꜱᴛʀᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴛʜɪɴɢꜱ | ᴡɪʟʟ ʙʏᴇʀꜱ + ꜱᴀᴅ

[wizardcleric]

the fact that this was jonathan’s piece of the whole trauma montage as joyce was beheading vecna. it’s the memory of will’s exorcism, and it could’ve been the perfect subtle nod that as they are killing vecna, that part of will is dying too. after his head is chopped clean off, they could’ve cut to will collapsing and maybe even having a fake out death. idk just something to actually show us the connection that has plagued him throughout the entire run of the show is finally being fully severed so we could get some sort of proper closure. by not showing us that, it feels like it still hasn’t truly ended. you’re just kind of like: it’s over… I guess???

[paladinsbrainrot]

6 days until st5: wonder twins :)

[that-thing-that-feeling]

stop how cute

[loserdrag0n]

Mike wheeler always at the crime scene

[fatfatgaybitch]

I’m crine

[willel-domination]

A lot of people are saying Mike didn't say 'I love you' during El’s final moments because he felt like if he did, then he'd be accepting what's happening and he wasn't ready to say goodbye. And while I CAN see that, and I do feel that makes sense for his character... don't you think El deserved to hear it? She made it clear in s4 that it was important to her. She deserved to have reassurance that the people she loved also loved her and will miss her. Instead, that scene became her comforting Mike about her OWN death.

Also, he wouldn't say a goodbye 'I love you,' but he accepted a goodbye kiss? Is that not him accepting he's about to lose her?

I get 'actions speak louder than words,' but s4 shows that El DOES care about the words. Kissing has never been a problem in their relationship, it's that they've always struggled with conveying their feelings.

I just feel like it would've been good character growth that, even if saying it would make losing her hurt more, he prioritized El’s feelings and did so anyway.

I do still see an argument for why he didn't say it. I just feel it doesn't make their relationship look good and shows no growth on Mike’s side to meet El’s needs. We know she needs that verbal communication of feelings in s4, and they didn't develop their relationship enough in s5 to show that she got over that. It makes the moment feel sour to me.