#i like fixing the shit the duffers throw at us

[castlebyersafterdark]

honestly my biggest fear is the byler kiss being obscured by rubbish camera angles / the actors moving slightly from the blocking and the duffers deciding to keep it. anyone remember the ron and hermione kiss? you could see shit. the back of their heads! i mean, yeah i guess it was very close physically and passionate, but i wanna see lips on lips lmao. that was even more of a build up than byler arguably, and they decided THAT was an ok climax.

i feel like those actors weren't super professional or good at going for it, and i think noah and finn are going to be a bit better tbh. but i still hope for a camera angle where we get to see plenty of emotion. not too many edits or cuts, but not too far away or angled so we can't see them. i wanna see the looks in their eyes after they've kissed too. that intimacy will be just as good as the kiss!

ME TOO AHHH. Now, I don't think (I hope 🤞) they'll just get the one kiss and that's it for them in their on screen romance, but there are valid fears, for the Big One at least. Bad lighting (bless you gif makers for fixing everything post-show though haha yall are talented and I bow down to your color correction skills for dark ass modern television) or bad camera angles. Like if one of their faces is blocked by the other.

I have so many thoughts about the HP movies that have nothing to do with the source material author (ew though) and more about filming decisions and acting and ughhh those two. Are so frustrating. I think the problem there was they had zero chemistry in those movies and they were supposed to be the BIG couple! Well, there was a lack of chemistry problem across the board in those films but them??? Not good, not compelling, one of the worst big kisses in film of all time. What a waste. Is this a controversial take? I thought those two overall were really bad actors as they got older. Oh well, I'm not a huge fan of that franchise anyway so ehh 🤷‍♂️

Noah and Finn have chemistry as Will and Mike though!! We see it on screen every season! I would love a steady shot, letting us actually see their emotions. Yesss the look in their eyes, actual lips on lips. The little movements of their hands as one holds the other's face or something. Linger on the shot. A big moment but also intimate? I really think these two actors would deliver perfectly. Not that I'm doubting Finn at all, he's good for it, but Noah????? He is throwing his entire soul into the first Byler kiss are you kidding me? He is the most invested in this more than any of us 😌 Our boy's got our back as far as passion goes.

[lesbroona]

Billy checked himself in the mirror one last time, his shift was starting in a couple of minutes and he needed to look good for his fan club. His fans consisted of girls from the age of thirteen to, he guessed, sixty (that was Mrs. Johnson, she was nice and brought him cookies once). His most significant crowd though, were the moms. They would come a few days of the week to thirst over him. Billy guessed women really liked what they couldn’t have. Of course Billy also liked what he couldn’t have, so maybe that was just people. He didn’t mind the attention anyway, it actually helped his situation. 

He left the locker room at exactly three o’clock and started the show. He had barely stepped out and all the girls were already staring him down. Billy paid them no mind, as usual. Across the pool he identified his first victim. He blew the whistle at the running kid, everyone stopped to look at him. Billy yelled the first warning to the kid, he liked screaming off just at the begining of every shift, so people would know he wasn’t for shit, then he could chill in his chair for the rest of the day. 

On his way to his post he had to pass the moms. He greeted all of them and complimented Mrs. Wheeler. Billy liked to do that, it made them feel special. Each day he would pick a different mom and a different compliment: Dig the new suit, Mrs. Wheeler... Nice hat, Mrs. Davis... Mrs. Miller is that a new haircut? Looks good on you... They fell terribly for that. The moms were just a bunch of boring suburban women with failed marriages who wanted to relive their glory high school days with him. Unfortunately for them, they had missed a very important detail about him.

Billy relaxed in his chair but kept an eye open to any brat kid that could try something. It was pretty chill since he had already banned most of the trouble makers. Every once in a while, one of the moms would go swimming by right in front of his post. He would give them a smile if he felt like humouring himself. 

About an hour later he went for a walk around the place to make sure everything was alright and stretch his legs. Mrs. Wheeler immediatly came out of the pool and pretended to casually reach Billy. He looked at her up and down and gave her his best smile. 

“Looking great out there, Mrs. Wheeler.” She smiled seductively at him, she was the worst of them. 

“Well, it’s easy when you know there is someone so dedicated and... strong, looking after you. Makes you feel safe.” 

Billy shifted the weight on his legs and looked away before letting out a laugh. He didn’t know he could still be uncomfortable with this. 

“Just doing my job, ma’am,” he said, putting as much charm into the words as he could without actually feeling it. Mrs. Wheeler didn’t seem to notice and just kept eyeing him like he was a snack. 

Somewhere behind him Billy heard a familiar annoying voice. He turned over to find Steve and his pet brat Dustin. He was wearing his Scoops uniform, it was too damn great. Billy smiled, feeling like himself again. He turned back to Mrs. Wheeler. 

“Speaking of... duty calls me, see you around.” he said with his full charm on again and gave his back to her. 

He walked over to Steve and Dustin with his chin up and a killer grin, his chest warming up the closer he got. 

“Code red! Steve, code red!” The kid said tugging at Steve’s shirt so he would turn. He gave Billy a full check out. Billy could swear Steve’s eyes went a bit wide, but he hid it and straightened himself to face Billy. 

“Ahoy, sailor,” Billy mocked. “You know this is a pool, man, you didn’t have to dress so formal.”

Steve sighed in annoyance, Billy passed his tongue over his lips, amused. 

“These are his work clothes, asshole,” said Dustin. 

“Hey, kid. No cursing! That’s a warning,” Billy dictated, pointing a finger at his direction. “And I know you didn’t shower to get in the pool, so why don’t you go do that?” 

The kid rolled his eyes and turned to go to the locker room. Billy looked at Steve again and smiled like nothing happened. 

“God, you’re such a prick,” Steve told him. 

“That’s a curse, I’ll have to give you a warning, pretty boy.” Steve huffed. 

Billy liked how he looked when he was annoyed. Steve would pull his brows down and part his lips just a little. It made Billy want to kiss him real bad, but Steve’s attention was somewhere else now. 

“Did Mrs. Thompson just wave at you?” Billy turned to where he was looking, Mrs Thompson had just arrived, he hadn’t seen her walk by or wave but she smiled when he looked over. “Didn’t she just get married again?” 

Billy shrugged. Steve looked around the place and over to the moms. 

“Do they all get like this around you? That’s like... really gross. Half of them have kids our age.” 

Billy just shrugged and laughed, it was not like he cared which women were into him, it wouldn’t make a difference anyway. They flirted with him, he flirted back at them like he was supposed to and that was it. He liked that Steve cared, though. He really liked it. 

“Are you jealous, Harrington?” He cocked his head to the side and stuck his tongue out.

"Like I would want a bunch of creepy married ladies after me." he chuckled.

"Yeah, that's not what I meant." Billy stared at him intently. Harrington's cheeks turned bright red but he didn’t look away. “You don’t gotta worry about them, they’re not really my type.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be their type either,” Steve said in a low voice, glowering at the moms. He was really serious about that, Billy didn’t know how to react, he just stared blankly at the other boy. 

“Is this good enough for you?” Dustin showed up again, wet from head to toes but still with the stupid baseball cap on. Steve recovered his posture, Billy was still kinda lost. “Uh, what is going on?” 

“Nothing” Steve replied. “I better be on my way. Don’t forget to reapply the sunscreen. And don’t go too deep, I don’t care what Mike says, don’t do stupid shit!” 

Dustin mumbled an okay. Steve was like a mom, one Billy could actually like. 

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” Billy assured. 

“Thanks. You don’t do any stupid shit either.” He glanced over at the moms. 

“Can’t promise that,” he provoked and Steve smiled. Billy’s chest lit on fire. 

Steve walked away and left Billy staring after him. His ass looked too damn good in those tight sailor shorts. 

“Are you done drooling over him?” asked Dustin. Billy snatched the cap from his head. 

“Hey!”

“No hats in the water. Now go over there before I push you in.”

[wheelercore]

First off:

Context of this creel theory are in these posts: x x x

UMMMMM Alice in Henry's version of events directly mentions the word "dream":

Nah bc it's me vs Henry right now and I'm ready to throw hands for the truth.

As she speaks they literally pan over a YELLOW stained window in the background. "Dream" as in Dream A Little Dream (Victor's song, again, about a person who hopes that their lover is thinking of them when they're gone), being associated with a "fairy tale"- with the yellow lighting being associated with dishonesty.

Alice being the one to say this, of course she's being genuine, but as a watcher you know that it's the exact opposite. The usage of words like "dream" and "fairytale" with double meanings: on the surface it's obviously just unbelievably good circumstance but when you go deeper you realize that it's being used here as synonyms with delusion. Why Alice? Why is Alice being chosen as the representation of the dishonesty (again, the yellow lighting and her solid yellow outfit later on) and the (Victor's) delusion?

This isn't the first time theyve used colored lighting to portray subtext, they did the same thing with Victor, the red lighting, and burning baby or the soft reddish yellow lighting when Henry is about to start his murder spree

I think it fairly interesting because we're playing with a lot of perspectives here. We got two recounting of the same event, Victor with his rose tinted glasses on and Henry leaving out crucial details. When it comes to the portrayal of Alice's age, I think there might be some shenanigans going on.

Now look, can the duffers do math? No. Are they consistent? Also no. But 15-14=1 isn't hard and it wouldn't be difficult for them to realize "oh shit we had Victor say he came back from the war 14 years ago but yet we have Alice down on this prop as 15 years old". But yet they deliberately included these details alongside portraying Alice with a much younger actress. Think of s1 Nancy (16) with s1 Mike (12). Now compare that to Alice (15) and Henry (12):

There is a huge difference there. Alice is clearly not meant to be portrayed as 15. Either it's extremely negligent casting or it's intentional.

Now we could wonder why the writers chose to do this, or we could be a little bit less meta and ask: why does the visual representation of Alice look considerably younger than her actual age in Victor and Henry's retelling? We know Henry may be leaving crucial details out about his family (namely Virginia and Alice) and we know for sure that Victor isn't a reliable narrator at all and will straight up imagine things that didn't happen if it meant that his family looked more "perfect" than it was. Edit: fixed some inaccuracies

Well, the thing is, if Alice had been just a year younger she would have been born after Victor came back from the war. 2 years and she would have been conceived and born after he came back. Yeah it's a bit insane, but get what I'm getting at here? It could just be an illusion. Alice looks younger because that's how Victor from his jail cell could deal with the fact that Alice might not have been his, especially after believing for decades his whole family is dead.

Mind you, Victor made himself even more blind. Literally. That's a thing he did. He wanted to be "with his family", but his "family" was never more than playing pretend. Victor will delude himself, as we see repeatedly with the inconsistencies from his version of events compared to Henry's, into doubling down on that lie.

Reminder, one of the few actual voiced lines from Henry's retelling is freaking Alice herself saying that it all looks like a fairy tale and a dream (I believe we don't get these lines in Victor's version of events, but I could be wrong please correct me).

But yet Henry directly exposes all of Victor's inconsistencies with the exception of Alice? Why?

He's deliberately lying about Alice by omission. By being vague about the nature of Virginia's wrongdoings and being vague about how he tormented Alice in particular (because Henry wasn't tormenting his family for fun, he was doing it to show them a side of themselves that was imperfect), he's intentionally leaving out what he's learnt about the two of them. In a meta sense, the writers don't want to reveal to us the truth about Virginia, and by extension Alice, until next season for whatever reason.

When thinking about how Henry phrased his radicalization, he saw his parents for who they really were and it was all a terrible lie.

He deliberately leaves out Alice from that statement. Alice hadn't done anything wrong.

But yet he does torment her. For shits and giggles? We've never seen him do anything for no reason. He does leave her a dead rabbit (was it a baby rabbit? Because my god thats even more on the nose) and give her nightmares. But those scenes are never focused on Alice internally unlike Virginia and Victor, in fact they seem to focus more on them having to comfort Alice, the physical representation of the "sin" that Victor thinks their family is being punished for.

@henrycreeltm tagging you because I feel like I'm going insane because of Alicegate or whatever this should be called and I don't want to be alone. I'm in too deep 😭

[jakey-beefed-it]

finally got around to watching stranger things season 3.

no spoiler-impressions: yeesh. 4.5/10

spoilers under the cut

Things that were terrible:

The russians. Everything to do with them. The whole plot of the season tbh. Cartoonish and bad. 

A better reference to Red Dawn would have been having the kids or someone comparably imaginative and gullible think there were Evil Russians behind things, but then no, because that’s not how real life (or plausible facsimilies therof) works. 

I know I said it was all bad but special ‘holy shit bad’ award goes to the Terminator Russian. There’s homage and then there’s pastiche. ffs. 

Hopper’s... entire characterization. Somebody take the 40 oz can of toxic masculinity juice the writers were chugging away from them please. And don’t let them near Hopper again until... just don’t let them near scripts again at all actually.

There was a way to handle Hopper/Joyce well and it was... literally the exact opposite of this (absent the last like... thirty seconds they shared)

Also just... Hop as a guy with a mean right hook and the ability to take a punch pretty well is plausible and highly enjoyable. They really did turn him into Rambo this season and it was... neither plausible nor enjoyable.

The entire tone-deaf jingo yay capitalism bullshit. This is a show where two whole seasons set up the US government as, at the very least, complicit in this world-shattering bullshit. 

Erica you had two cool minutes in season 2 and they turned you into a corporate shill. Oh, well, guess those two cool minutes are all ya gonna get.

Having Alexei declare of the carnival games capitalist system “It’s not rigged!” was particularly onerous. If Russkinator hadn’t shot him he should’ve shot himself for allowing that kind of Eagleland propaganda past his lips.

Alexei was likeable but not part of the main main cast so he was doomed. See: Barb, Bob. At least his name didn’t start with a B. Guess it would’ve been too on the nose even for these hacks to call him Boris.

The newspaper was also cartoonishly sexist. Like, I’m sure such things absolutely do occur in real life which has license to be as ridiculous as it wants but in a fictional narrative such things take us out of the moment. Like, you could’ve told the same story in a much more palateable AND relevant way by loading up on microaggressions rather than paint the newsboyz as cardboard Sexist Villains. 

Am... I supposed to care about Billy “I’m going to run over literal children because I am a racist shitbag” Hargrove (and I confess I had to google his last name there oops)? Because I don’t. He was more than just a ‘mean guy’ he tried to murder. Children. last season. because he is racist.

I do not like Murray Bauman and his creepy meddling in other people’s sex lives, but at least this time it was two adults instead of fucking teenagers. God! Ugh!

Apparently this is also going to include some beefs i had with season two, oops.

Things that were meh

The gory horror this season meant the whole tone of it was much more Cronenberg than Spielberg. Could work but kinda felt like it shook up the established tone in the wrong way. 

There was a whole... icky slasher misogyny feel to the way Billy abducted Heather. I think it was intentional, so I’m not calling it ‘terrible’, as it was effective at conveying that, but I personally hated it, just as I personally hate slasher movies.

Russian demogorgon looks entirely more... man-like than the Hawkins one. Splicing thing? Maybe just clearer lighting? Less convincing than the s1 demogorgon, less disturbing for the most, but not without potential so it goes here.

I’m all for Hopper having miraculously survived and wound up in Siberia somehow if they fix his goddamn characterization next season otherwise just let him have evaporated along with all the Russkies. 

Oh hey, maybe the ‘Russian demogorgon’ is actually mutant Hopper somehow. That’d be kinda horrible. Hope they don’t do that. But logging that here for posterity in case the brothers Duffer are even bigger hacks than I thought.

Things that weren’t terrible:

We stan two teenagers now instead of just one: still don’t care about Nancy or Jonathan but Steve’s still rad and now Robin is too.

Their entire friendship was just... *chef’s kiss*

Max and Eleven’s friendship was also pretty great. El needs more friends, or at least more time to just hang out and be friends with people who just want to hang out with her. Which, yeah, the whole gang, but having the two only girls their age be FRIENDS is a huge improvement over last season when Max was introduced as the Rival. Just, ugh. 

I do enjoy watching the kids be kids. Mostly that meant Dustin this year because the others were too caught up with Teen Angst(TM) (ps- don’t we HAVE teenage characters for that very purpose? older teens i mean? let the kids be kids!)

Murray’s interactions with Alexei were generally fun and witty. Please more of this and less being a goddamn creep if he hangs around.

the last 30 seconds with Hopper and Joyce together on screen, when he turns to her, they say nothing at all to one another but both convey lots with facial expressions. They’re both grown ass adults, saving the world and the kids they love, even at the cost of (one of) their own lives. Both of them know what this means, and they go through with it, because both understand what’s really important isn’t either of them, but the kids, and that the kids have someone to look after them. Kinda wish you could just throw out... like the entire rest of the season of their interaction, and have their relationship be built on that level of understanding and common cause. Let them be adults.