its the way the writers realized there was no reasonable way to bring about two characters who have canonically moved on from each other and found happiness in other relationships, so they used EVERY supporting character without a story of their own that they had surrounding these characters to do all the heavy lifting by blabbering out of their ass about why they should be together despite most knowing virtually nothing about all of the parites involved in order to make this ship happen
its the way the writers couldn’t use the very feasible reason that jonathan couldn’t visit nancy because THE BYERS ARE CANONICALLY BROKE and leave it there but instead fabricated a convulted communications plot about not wanting to talk about college to get jonathan and nancy to ~have probelms~ bc they couldn’t use the class differences when they already had these two character fight about and overcome these differences last season so nancy would be reasonable and unbothered about him not coming
its the way the writers have no idea what to do with characters when they aren’t in romantic relationships or central components to the plot, so they revert them back to their original forms when placed in new situations because what is character development
its the way that even though they are trying to force a spark back between characters who have moved on from each other, they literally can’t think of any dialouge to give them to help reignite that spark because THESE CHARACTERS HAVE CANONICALLY MOVED ON FROM EACH OTHER so they revert to just lingering looks and checking each other out to soft music while bandaging each other up in hopes that’ll be enough to make fans believe that these two characters should be together despite not sharing a single conversaiton of note to suggest it
finished binging the s4 pt.1 of stranger things. spoiler-heavy thoughts under the cut:
summed up:
we miss the byers - as family and as individual characters. where did they go. why have they disappeared from relevancy to the plot.
we hate forced stancy. this season and all the steve-obsessive fans are going to make a steve anti out of me.
lumax is the correct ship of the season.
as a jonathan and byers family stan, what a trash season. even tho joyce has a subplot with murray and hopper and jonathan/will have their cali plot going, at the end of the day? absolutely no content. almost no emotional depth. the plots and development have been given to el and hopper in these sequences, joyce moves to further the plot while will is floudnering to be given sexuality plot and jonathan is there for background space. horrific. we have come so far from s1.
on the romance spectrum, as a stoncy/jancy/stonathan shipper, also a garbage season. why have they decided that stancy should be a thing again? and why did they decide to do this with ZERO developmenet? like, steve having a thing for nancy still? cool, canon, acceptable given how they ended. on the other hand, NANCY having a thing for STEVE? wild. why?? no development given. last we saw them, she was incredibly unstatisfied with steve, incompatitable. she found solace and friendship and kinship with jonathan and was happy - last we left them in s3 jancy were in love and steve???? fully prepared to move on with robin before she came out to him. both of them had moved on (which makes the steve still being hung up on her less plaussible but fine, let’s consider that now that robin’s out he’s back to hung up on nancy okay fine.)
BUT NOW??? NOW it makes sense that suddenly, jonathan is across the country so now nancy’s catching feels for steve again? even though NOTHING HAS HAPPENED BETWEEN THEM that makes this make sense??? like, literally nothing. they’ve had ZERO solo interactions of merit, no real conversations outside of things related to the plot, but okay, totally makes sense for nancy to stare and for random 3rd person parties to interject into their lives. which is another complaint - why are randos commenting on stancy??? why are they wanting them to get back together??? because (again) no legit interaction has occurred between these two all season - they’ve had NO real interaction since...s2? everything else has been plot or pining from afar by steve. like, omg eddie’s whole speech about true love because nancy jumped in after him??? uncalled for. she truly would have done the same for any of the party i believe bc she’s a gryffindor at heart. but it was giving v much that random lady in s1 who told nancy that love is what made jonathan beat up steve, implying it was love for nancy that made him do it. however, even as a jancy shipper i recognize that no, it was love for his family that made him beat the shit out of steve. same vibes. random third person who knows NOTHING (literally nothing) about the situation butting in with their own opinion on a single event and dubbing it the cause of romantic love even tho the actual circumastances are not that at all.
so i’m dumfounded by the sudden stancy shoving. truly, it’s like the writers expect us to root for it because the audience loves steve and is supposed to want steve to be happy. what makes him happy? nancy, so give him nancy on a silver platter bc even tho it makes no sense for her canon development thus far, we want steve to be happy so who tf cares.
which also, speaking on this situation of steve - this season felt like it catered to him in a way. like he’s been pining after nancy so we’ll have him DO NOTHING and have the girl give him a second glance out of nowehere to make him happy. he’s jealous of his friends new friend? guess what, that new friend is actually jealous of HIM and thinks HE’S the cool one here. he contributes virtually nothing to move the plot forward? still given as much screen time as they can justify because the fans love him. like, lieterally - think about it. he served no purpose to the plot. robin and nancy led the creele lead while eddie, dustin/max/lucas have been leading the upside down lead. steve is v much like jonathan in the respective group where they are both adding to the plot in no real way (steve was dragged to the upside down but that could have just as easily have been one of the others and had no real connection to the character of steve) - but the difference is the writers don’t give two shits about jonathan, but they like steve so they’re gonna give him stupid dumb lines to feed into the himbo vibes given to him by the fans and have him take his shirt off and have the girl he wants have lingering moments with him too and try to do SOMETHING with a character they originally planned to kill of in s1. he’s a pointless character with lots of screentime and it blows.
anyways, i never liked stancy but I tolerated it and shipped it in certain circumstances prior (see: stoncy - we love a monster hunting trio). this season just made me hate them. on the other hand, didn’t think i’d come into this season shipping ronance, and on some level i still don’t, but i would 1000000000% take nancy breaking up with jonathan for robin over returning to steve. new teen ship ranking: jancy, stoncy, stonathan, ronance - then stancy only when its a pre-stoncy situation.
the season has also made a True lumax shipper out of me. i preferred them to the other alternative in their triangle of dustin/max, and i thought they were cute in s2 but lost them in s3 with the other drama bc they were very much sidelined to support mileven in s3, but s4??? s4 reignited my love for that dyanmic as well as my love for lucas and max as characters (i liked them prior but now i stan). how anyone can leave this season not loving lumax and lucas and max as ships and individual characters is beyond me. im flabbergasted at how byler and steve have taken over the tag when lumax were the true highlights.
i also stan how songs are used in this show. i feel like that was missing in s3 after we had 2 seasons of should i stay or should i go used iconically. i am so happy to see songs return as a focal point with running up that hill. dear billy’s ending secene?? immaculate.
i think they have good set up of byler with will coming out, but im still on the fence about reciprocated byler. will def has a crush on mike. i think mike also knows this?? like he lowkey Knows the same way he lowkey Knew will was gay in s3, he just hasn’t actually faced it, and I feel like it can go either way with him.
i think my ideal kid ships are lumax and byler, but i also wouldn’t be oppossed to a trio with lucas/max/eleven?? where lucas and eleven are max’s bf and gf. idk that montage at the end of dear billy was v much lucas and eleven heavy and i was feeling it for max liking them both.
in regards to the seperate plots, i liked the plots this season. i was not vibing with the hopper plot initially, like hopper/joyce/murray sequences were times when I felt I could take my eyes off the screen and listen while doing smth else initially. that changed as the demogorgon bit rolled in. by the end i was vibing with this plot.eleven’s plot had me invested because i was so curious as to what happened at the end in her memory. i was satisfied by what happened. the cali plot had no plot, but I will take my byers scraps where I can. meanwhile, the creel story was the most interesting. i was most intrigued by max’s trauma and experiences with henry (dear billy is my fave epiosde of this lot I think) and nancy and robin finding out about it was cool. i like theintersection between it and eleven’s plot. i think the hawkins crew had the most intriguing bits of that plot in the first four episodes, and then el had the most intriguing bit of that plot in the last few episodes.
fuuuuuck this. i mean, he started off last season suffering, stuck in wolf form for MONTHS and now he’s literally trapped in a prison world for the rest of his life
with his parents, sure, but like, how long that gonna last, all he has are his parents for company in a whole replicated world like wtf
wtf was the purpose of the king shit last episode just to kill him like this nah fuck this
