Stranger Things Ending Note
Regardless of this ending stretch, I love the Stranger Things franchise and this 10ish year journey. It gave a promise (and mostly delivered) on a story for us outcasts, giving us a small slice of a world full of rich characters, lovecraftian monsters, cosmic darkness and DnD.
Did it thumble up its S5, ha a 100 % (it is the weaker set of the bunch and volumes) but it is also aligned to DnD roll of the dice antics. Yet, despite this, we can keep some of those iconic moments and bonds that stayed together amongst the traumas. Take those breadcrumbs and rework them for something better in our fanon vs where ever we stand on the final canon.
Also, in the kindest respect, if the ships don't sail the way we wanted it to, it isn't the end of the world - take it from the Klancer. Some creators are just chronically un-understanding of the sphere in which their fandom thrives in both shipping sense and storytelling repair (filling up all the lore slips with rants to our Dungeon Masters).
So as a survivor of Voltron S8 (how lovely to be relevant again)- a stiffled final season doesn't destroy all the good before it and all the good that comes after with the bloodline of the fandom in fanfiction, fanart and mutual theories for the sake of some agreed repaired harmony. At (many) times the fandom will rise above the love, lore and care for the world that has been created and laid out for us to absorb- resulting in hypes that canon won't reach for a multitude of reasons.
Despite the horrid queerbaiting (love becoming redundant), the safe play on plot (low ass stakes for those deserved happy ends), and misdirected (or some non-existing) character development, and well the decreasing quality of script (blame 2nd screen viewing guidelines)- it still served its station. And believe it or not, played a semi-satisfied shape compared to other possible story paths that could have dragged it further down to the depths of write-off hell. Trust me when I say this stayed a decent manageable shape and could have been worse for wear vs other show finals. It will give a splintered mix of disappointment, content, overly satisfied, and overwhelmed emotions for such a large fanbase who find it perfect or enraging.
So my fellow fans and shippers who don't feel like they came up to the flip side (I know there is many of you), take your pens and keep on writing pages that puts the Duffers to shame or enriches the game. Plothole seekers fix the bloody sink leaks that keep on sprouting with unresolved questions and half-assed answers. And somewhere someone run the slime tutorials for First Shadow- because it will give you answers and may add some further fury on some arguable character assassination. Keep in mind not everything has to be answered- sometimes ambiguous mysteries isn't lazy writing, it is a space for us to continue to speculate and debate.
Overall our current climate of politics may have censored the possibilities, or simply good writers learning to be bad writers in the pressure cooker space of strikes (or straight writes needing to learn queerness isn’t personality or to be misused this way), but at least we know on many sides, in our shared stakes, what these characters deserved- and to celebrate where their story wins sit.
They may have turned to pander towards the mainstream world- but let us not cut out our love for this show because of the creators bitter views of unrequited love and growth. There is still alot of good to be had from this show and to build it further into our fanon, springing up new creations that need to now fill the gap that is left after a decade of this show. So whether you are itching to review bomb or hibernating through the last of the winter holidays- Stranger Things is still there for returned (distanced) comfort in all its best and at all its worse.
germansingergirl
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tangentwithtanner
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