LavenderDaydreams

// UK // 34 // https://www.tiktok.com/@lavenderdaydreams31?_r=1&_t=ZN-96JPZvWUwfG

[slytherflowerao3]

credit to the goated zpspv767 on tt 🤍

[reachforgreatnessalways]

mike needs to fight will's 7 evil exes but they turn out to be richie, boris, trevor, ziggy, chance, carlton, and lucas sinclair

[ab0g1arka]

the stranger things finale kind of sucked.

not in a “it was all terrible” way.

but in a “how did we fumble THIS many narrative balls in the FINAL season of a billion-dollar show” way.

and it all starts with:

⸻

THE HOLLY WHEELER PROBLEM

i said it.

i meant it.

i’ll say it again louder for the people in the upside down.

the holly plotline was useless.

not “bad.”

not “poorly acted.”

just… narratively unnecessary.

she had more screen time than half of the original cast.

HALF.

characters we’ve known since season 1 were standing in the corner like forgotten coats while holly and her little stranger squad were running around having their own side quest.

and for what?

what did it actually change?

remove the holly plotline and you still get:

• vecna

• the final fight

• the upside down

• the world ending

but suddenly you also get:

• more time for mike

• more time for will

• more time for joyce

• more time for literally anyone who mattered

they said they were “circling back to the core themes.”

FRIENDSHIP AND LOVE PREVAILS MY ASS.

this season was:

doom

gloom

crying

death

suffering for no actually reason

apocalypse

action packed bullshit

⸻

HOPPER SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD

i love hopper.

he is a king.

he is a dad.

he is a real life hero.

but.

HE. SHOULD. HAVE. STAYED. DEAD.

bob’s death in season 2 hit because it told us something:

no one is safe.

that’s what makes horror work.

that’s what makes you hold your breath.

now?

steve falls off a TOWER in season 5 and i don’t even blink.

i was like:

“he’s fine.”

because he is.

everyone is.

they have so much plot armor they could walk into the sun and come back with a mild tan.

when everyone is guaranteed to survive, nothing feels dangerous.

and when nothing feels dangerous, nothing feels important. Or real!

hopper staying dead would have:

• raised the stakes

• fixed the fear

• and forced eleven to grow on her own

which brings me to—

⸻

LET ELEVEN BE A PERSON, NOT A PET

this is not about ships.

do not come in here with that energy.

jane needed independence.

she needed to exist outside of:

hopper

mike

the government

netflix’s marketing department

kali should have lived.

period.

eleven could have escaped.

built a life.

been a person.

instead we got:

more suffering

more trauma

more reset-to-factory-settings arcs

girl has been through ENOUGH.

⸻

THE WILL BYERS SITUATION

they should not have dragged will being in love with mike this long.

there were two options:

1. follow through

2. shut it down early and give will a new love interest

they did neither.

they just let him suffer in the narrative corner for five seasons.

and that robin pep talk?

wasted time.

led nowhere.

gave him false hope.

then did nothing with it.

you know what that time could have been?

what were all those clues? those glances? the touches? the tension?

all these for a big Nothing Burger!

THE FINAL FIGHT.

people are not wrong when they say the final battle was barely longer than will’s coming out scene.

priorities were in hell.

⸻

CONFORMITYGATE AND THE MARKETING MACHINE

netflix knew this was controversial.

they fed it.

they promoted it.

they tweeted about it.

because controversy = clicks

clicks = engagement

engagement = money

we are not viewers.

we are metrics.

we are little corporate pawns in netflix’s chess game.

and they’re playing 4D chess with our feelings.

⸻

BACK TO HOLLY (BECAUSE I’M NOT DONE)

they aged her up.

ignored her canonical age.

made her important.

why?

new kids = new audience.

but what was their actual purpose?

“to merge the worlds.”

okay.

why.

how.

to what end.

no answers.

Pure aesthetic, zero explanation.

we didn’t need 12 new characters in the FINAL season.

we needed:

the kids we started with.

that’s it.

⸻

IN CONCLUSION

the choices this season were… interesting.

that’s the nicest thing i can say.

this could have been a beautiful, focused, emotional ending.

instead we got:

corporate storytelling

safe decisions

marketable drama

and a finale that felt like it was trying to please everyone and satisfied no one.

anyway.

i’m going to go lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling now.

reblog if you agree.

reblog if you’re mad.

reblog if will byers deserved better.

[mikewheelerisaqueerler]

joyce saying "that THING is NOT my son" in season one while everyone was preparing for the funeral is exactly how i feel talking about the epilogue right now

[lavenderdaydreams31]

@neonsandthecigarettes - so much byler evidence in the whole show but it’s this shot I can’t seem to get out of my head. And Max’s sleeves aren’t even just ambiguously ‘rainbow’ they’re literally the lgbtq and trans flag colours!

[changemyprophecy]

*s3 will’s voice* Can we please focus on fanon now?

[miwibrainrot]

course correct?

based on fan pressure?

avoided reshaping character motivations?

im actually cackling in disbelief rn beacuse i don't who tf their fooling bcus ep 8 was nothing BUT reshaping characters

[michellethebrave]

Me to whoever wrote S5 Mike Wheeler

[queerxqueen]

Do you hate straight Mike? And do you hate the show and the Duffers now?

Yes, I hate straight Mike, 100%. He is an empty, soulless character that way who really was just a homophobic jerk to his best friend, if taken at face value and as the show seemed to have intended.

That said, you can take gay Mike Wheeler from my cold, dead, gay little hands. I will never stop interpreting Mike as a deeply repressed and closeted gay man. That version of Mike is a much better character to me and I won't be letting go of him anytime soon.

Do I hate the show... Ultimately, no. I still love the show. It still means a lot to me. It disappointed me in many ways, and the queerbait was undoubtedly pointed and cruel and intentional. I no longer see it as a show for freaks and outcasts so much as a show for cishet white men's idea of "freaks and outcasts" aka bitchless white men who like nerdy stuff instead of the actual outcasts of the world. But the characters mean too much to me for it to be ruined completely by this. I totally understand why others might feel differently and be unable to engage the same way. I get it. I respect it. But if anything, the characters being truly ours now is the greatest gift the finale has given us. We're free!!!

Now, do I hate the Duffers? Uh, yes, frankly. Like I said, the queerbait felt intentional, pointed, and cruel. Beyond that, they lacked the attention to detail they love to brag about and left so many gaping plot holes, huge questions, and inconsistencies. While the ending was satisfying in some ways, it also showed me that they do not have as strong a grasp on tight storytelling as we all wanted to believe, and I've lost all trust I had in them because of it. Good luck to them on future projects, but I personally will be engaging with queer media and small creators and niche shit as much as I can in the new year.

[raybeeams]

[lavenderdaydreams31]

Truly devastated 😭

[wisehearttruther]

will byers antis when they watch the will byers show and will byers is the main character

[pointmetotheundertow]

（−＿−；）

[swirlyvie]

THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE

[lavenderdaydreams31]

*video below all the text*

Holy shit take…

I’d say I’m a pretty positive person online but right now I reeeeaaaalllly need to rant. I’ve seen this guys tiktoks before, not a follower but he keeps showing up on my fyp. I don’t agree with a lot of his takes or at least I’m neutral to them, but fucking hell, has this pissed me the fuck off. Tell me you completely missed the point of the show without telling me you completely missed the point of the show…

I really hope someone reads this and agrees with me or at least understands my pov in some way because I kind of feel like I’m going crazy and it didn’t help when I jumped to the comments and they ALL agreed with him. I’m sorry if this is a long one, I really appreciate anyone who reads to the end!

I won’t recite the entire video so if you want context then please watch it, although I’m loath to be giving him more air time, but his ‘hot take’ is that he disagrees with the Duffers statement on killing main characters and how they seem reluctant to kill main characters because of the repercussions and how that affects subsequent episodes and seasons. Tanner’s stance is that not killing characters will actually negatively impact the show and if no main characters die then there are no stakes and it takes weight away from the story.

Firstly, the Duffers have talked about how dark tv shows have been in recent years and how a lot of shows seem to have high body counts, they’re on record saying that ‘stranger things isn’t game of thrones’. They wanted to bring some of the optimism and hope to the show that was so prevalent in films and shows from the 80s, which seem to be lacking in today’s media - it’s literally a show about hope, accepting yourself for who you are and becoming heroes when you’ve always felt like outsider - how would any main character dying fit that narrative?

Now I know that doesn’t mean characters won’t die, they have killed off characters before, but they’ve talked about the impact of those decisions, they’ve always written deaths with a larger purpose in mind and thought carefully about how it would impact the main group of characters. Barb dying in season 1 impacted Nancy’s arc all the way into season 2 and actually beyond, I think it’s even going to be touched on again in season 5! I think the Duffers are right, if you kill one of the main characters it will have a huge impact on the arcs of the others and there’s no way they could realistically or satisfyingly address and conclude it within a couple of episodes.

He also touches on how the Duffers have said that if a main character dies then the show becomes about that character dying - he obviously disagreed with them - but I think they’re right! Look at Barb, she died in episode 3 and ‘justice for Barb’ went viral, it became a huge part of what season 1 was for lots of people and that reaction is what lead to the Duffers addressing and concluding her story at the end of season 2 - and she was a side-character!! Say Dustin is killed off, can you imagine what the reaction would be then!? The story would absolutely become all about that and the same for any other main character.

EDIT: anyone else remember the outrage and heartbreak when Hopper ‘died’ at the end of season 3!? And then the massive relief when he was still alive in season 4!? A lot of what I can remember from the time between seasons 3/4 is people talking about hopper, his ‘death’ was the hot topic and I think that’s what the Duffers are referring to when they say if a main character dies then the show becomes about that. I also think this is a great example of how most of the audience want the main characters to survive, Hopper still being alive didn’t change the impact that the season 3 finale had on the audience and it didn’t lower the stakes for season 4 either, if anything Hopper’s season 4 was his roughest and ‘highest stakes’ season so far!

I don’t claim to know what will happen in season 5 but I personally hope no main characters die and I actually don’t think a core main character is going to die, (yep, even El, but that’s an opinion and theory for another time) and by core I mean the party, the teens and jopper (sorry Murray, I do think there’s a chance he’s a goner, but that’s because it makes sense in terms of his arc and the way his character’s role has been portrayed in the story) - I know there’s chance I’m wrong and I will hold my hands up in defeat if I am, but if there was suddenly a massacre of main characters, I think it would be really jarring, really depressing and honestly just a fucking waste of a good tv show and a waste of complex, well curated characters.

In Tanner’s video he says that a main character dying would give the story more emotional weight, and yeah, in other tv shows I can see how that could work (eg the walking dead, where the main stakes and story of the show is the fight for survival), but it’s not the show the Duffers are writing! I’ve watched shows where a character death has been impactful - even in stranger things, the side-characters who have died have made an emotional impact, for the good of the story, but if we use the example the Duffers did and say Mike dies (or maybe Will? or El? or Robin? Honestly, any of them!) - this wouldn’t give the story emotional weight, it would just be fucking bleak and feel like bad writing in the context of the true meaning of the show, it would feel like killing a character for the sake of killing a character! There would be no impact because 1. there wouldn’t be enough time or episodes left for it to be addressed and 2. it would go against the hopeful and optimistic high that I think the show needs to, and will, end on. It doesn’t mean the ending of the show won’t be emotional, but it will be emotional in a positive way instead of a negative one.

Tanner seems to think that because of the sci-fi/fantasy elements of the show, of having literal monsters chasing them, that it’s not realistic for all the main characters to survive, and if they do then there’s no high stakes and it would ruin the show. Lets take this apart a bit. Yes, the supernatural setting and lore is there, it’s not unimportant, but it’s not what this show is really about! I love sci-fi and fantasy, it’s escapism for me but it’s also how I like to make sense of the world and how I explore and help myself understand the human experience, I think this is the same for stranger things. Both the Duffers and Shawn Levy have said that stranger things is a coming-of-age story, it’s about the characters, their relationships and how they navigate this terrifying world, but it’s shown through the lens of fantasy. A lot of the fantastical elements are just one big allegory (for things like homophobia and puberty etc) but for some reason, people refuse to look further than surface level. The monsters we see on screen are a metaphor for the characters own inner demons and the very real evils that exist in our world that we battle every day. So to have the main characters killed off by them would, in my opinion, undermine the meaning of the story the Duffers are trying to tell. (I have kind of simplified that last bit because I’m aware this is getting long, but happy to chat more in any comments about it).

Just because a main character hasn’t died, doesn’t mean it’s a low stakes show. Why is death seen as the only way a show can have high stakes? Stranger things touches on some really important subjects - bullying, racism, homophobia, the 80s aids crisis, misogyny, CSA and more! How have people watered these experiences down so much, that having the characters go through them, suffer trauma and ptsd because of them, isn’t seen as the stakes being high!!?? It baffles me! Surely the hope for the ending of the show is to see our favourite group of heroes overcome these things, not succumb to them!??

Stranger things is a show about outcasts, for outcasts, for people who are sidelined, feel alone, different and are struggling more than ‘normal’ people with some of the harsher realities of life. Having the main characters survive and also thrive and have their happy ending wouldn’t just be super impactful for so many marginalised groups of people, but it would also be a real fucking breath of fresh air in today’s miserable, pessimistic world,

It really saddens me that a lot of people agree with the take in this video, have we really, as a society, gotten so used to misery and death that we’d prefer it, even choose it, over joy, hope and triumph!?

[i-eat-homeless-people]

girls don't want boys they want byler endgame

[concerningwolves]

sorry i was so weird but you invoked a topic i am incapable of being normal about

[cryoverkiltmilk]

[cafecdramin]

This is frying me