#stranger things crit

[realamarylisguy]

so yk how the gomens finale stayed as far away as it could from any genuine physical intimacy and confirmation of OUR aziraphale and crowley's relentless pining and severe adoration for each other, opting to instead show in glimpses and little fragments how much they wanted that life together

and how in the stranger things final season (throwing up in my mouth at the thought of it oh god what did they fucking DO) there was still very obvious cinematography hints (AND YK. THE PINING ASS DIALOGUE) towards byler and such

and how literally every other gaslight gatekeep queerbait piece of media that's come out lately has tripped fallen and broken their neck on the landing for having satisfying conclusions for queer stories? how TOH s3 was scrapped? how OFMD was expected by the creator to have more time than just one season to wrap up the story? you get my point. we've heard this story. we've heard how it ends. and it isnt comforting.

more and more stories are being shoved back into the shelves. they're being cut, cancelled, stripped of funding because its not as profitable for markets overseas, or even just for markets here (america isn't the most queer friendly, and blaming everything on "those bigoted foreigners" is a shitty scapegoat for the lack of queer rep in large studio productions)

so like haha maybe maybe lets keep telling our stories. maybe we should write that shitty fanfiction. maybe we should write our "cringe" f/o self insert stuff. continue writing that personal little mental health comic on a sideblog. draw your favorite characters on post-its. scribble in the margins about the stories we'll tell instead

the only thing i can think about from these disparaging endings is that we need to keep writing. by love, by spite, by whatever you want to guide your hands with. keep fucking doing it. not to win or something grand like that, but because we have to. keep fucking writing. keep drawing. whatever it is that makes you feel like youre putting something out in the world. i believe in you. please keep going. because the world would be emptier without whatever light we'll bring to it, all of us.

[rowanintheriver]

and what if i said that although the portrayal of max & lucas as each other's one true love was delightful, the way s5 stripped their characters solely to their relationship damaged both max and lucas's individual characterisation, along with the arcs that they went through in s4

[ninainthetardis]

Timelines:

Stranger Things 4: Shot from September 2020 to September 2021, aired May 2022 - July 2022.

Stranger Things 5: Shot from January 2024 to December 2024, aired November 2025 - December 2025.

The funniest part of this is that they had a total of almost three years to write and produce the season finale, and this was the result, lmfao. I get there were strikes in between, so I can understand the production difficulties, but from a writing perspective, if my show were that big, strike or not, I would've used all that time to make damn sure the final season was as great as possibile, because that would be not only my job, but also my legacy and reputation as a writer. That, of course, if you prioritize the art and producing a quality product over just making money.

[nymph-of-books]

as someone who watched this show before i was even a teenager and had kali as one of my first representations of an indian girl in media, i don’t think i will ever fully be able to describe how utterly awful they wrote her in s5.

the lost sister already could have been done so much better but i have personally always enjoyed that episode (just not when it came in the story) but s5 was fucking insanely bad for her.

she was a plot point for an old white man and her young white sister.

she was given the most trauma out of any character on the show and i do not say that lightly. she went through torture in her youth, was stripped away from her actual family in london (so they knew her! obviously terry loves jane but kali was a LITTLE GIRL!), watched her entire (queer-coded, neurodivergent-coded, & poc mind you!) found family be killed as a result of her actions, was stripped of her identity and used as a blood bank, and then found out her blood was being used to poison pregnant woman because it failed—but it was actually meant to be used as a killing weapon for the government if it succeeded.

and you’re telling me a satisfying conclusion to her arc is that she died because a STRONG white man wouldn’t pick up two girls in one go (and let’s face it, kali was tiny as fuck, he COULD HAVE CARRIED BOTH.)

you’re telling me a satisfying conclusion to her arc is that she tells her white sister to kill herself but then maybe helps a little with the elphaba-ass mirage.

she could have been so much more. she could have gone with jane, for one, and in my heart she faked her own death and is in iceland with jane. after v2 my own solution was that vickie learns about her suicide ideation and vickie, with her clear knowledge of mental health, would be like girl? you need therapy not exploding yourself. and then they kiss. but i digress.

also the pregnant women are just killed in the upside down explosion and everyone’s fine with that including kali who feels the crushing guilt of being the ‘reason’ that they’re there? right.

lucas reduced to lumax—and i love lumax, don’t get me wrong, erica with no screen time except to add to white men’s stories (in the finale her two scenes are talking to mr clarke where she’s asking the questions so not contributing her own shit and also helping dustin with the graduation ceremony), argyle’s actor allegedly finding out through social media he wasn’t going to be back on the show, and KALI?

duffer brothers. never write indian characters again.

i would rather have her be a twist villain! she had enough rage in her to turn to evil!!

[the-lesbian-thespian-17]

Me to Season 3 after watching Season 5:

[squiddysides]

My Steve rant from the comments section of this post:

Will knows Steve so little that he doesn't even know Steve was homophobic in season 1. Steve was one of the few characters on this show to have said "queer"/in a derogatory way.

It's honestly dangerous for the show runners to imply that just because someone has one lesbian friend it means they're a safe person to be around, because we've seen this dynamic go badly irl all the time- some jocks consider women they're friends with to be 'one of the boys', while still heavily criminalizing effeminate traits in other people, especially queer men. It's honestly doing my head in.

[amazingspidermans]

new stranger things challenge let lucas sinclair go ONE season without being fucking hatecrimed

[fandom-hoarder]