#my advice for the Duffers: GET A BETA READER OR THREE

[itbeleeeee]

Sorry, long Stranger Things rant ahead. Spoilers, btw

Would it kill the industry to get some consistent writers??? Like when I write I have to know EVERY DETAIL in case I need it down the line, and the writers just... FORGOT Will's birthday??? Y'know...the Main Goddamn Character, that has been paid DIRT this season? THAT one??

And the whole Steve-Nancy-Jonathan business??? Like yeah talking to people about tough things is hard and pretending things are a-okay is a lot easier to cope with, but Nancy was over Steve. Steve was growing away from the douche persona that only cared about himself and just following in his father’s footsteps. He cared about the kids, about his friends that he made in his fucked-up life and was moving on from the girl that he thought he needed. But noOooOOoo, he has to be this cookie-cutter character that wants the kids and the house and the girl and he had a little growth, but in just didn’t matter. Steve still loves Nancy, Jonathan loves Nancy but is still lying to her because he’s afraid of losing her but doesn’t know how to tell her, and Nancy is caught between the has-been and the now-doing... and instead of talking to her fucking partner about it or talking to Steve about it she does nothing and pretends everything is fine, which is totally what her character would do, yep!! Totally!! I’m totally not being sarcastic!!

(The thing that bothers me most about this is, as someone on both aro and ace spectrums, I thought that Steve would be that sort of representation that would show that you didn’t have to be in a romantic relationship to feel important or loved. That finally, there would be a character who had a love interest in the beginning, and then realizes gradually that they don’t need that to feel like a person, they didn’t need a relationship to be validated. I was thinking, “Hey, Steve has the kids and Robin and Eddie ((Rip, we’ll get to him in a sec)), and maybe Nancy and Jonathan. He’ll be protective and a self-sacrificing idiot that will eventually be saved by someone because that’s who he is, but will learn an important lesson at the end of the day” but there was NONE of that. He went back to Nancy because it’s impossible for Steve “The Hair” Harrington to be on his own and he has to have a love interest at all times. Seriously, fuck that dude. He was such a good character, and now there’s this bullshit.)

Now the queer representation.... I’m not exactly surprised how that turned out but with the amount that the Duffers were talking about Will and all the hints that were dropped, only for him to have one moment with Mike in the back of the van that the oblivious mfer didn’t pick up on and one moment with Jonathan (that was very sweet, I quite liked that scene)... it was like.. wtf?? That’s it??? Will only slightly alludes to it and Jonathan says he loves Will for who he is, and then Mike goes and tells El his life started when he met her?? Will is so much more than Sad and Gay, but that isn’t how the people that wrote him treat him. And it’s implied that Robin is going to get together with Vickie, who is a side character and has been seen three times in the whole show. Like I really kinda did want Ronance to happen, but it was a stretch and I understand why they didn’t go in that direction but still it just kinda sucks that the only confirmed lesbian character is dating someone who is insignificant in this series. 

And Eddie. Sweet, sweet Eddie Munson who did not deserve this. His death I feel was absolutely more shock factor than anything else than give Dustin motivation for later on and...emotional value??? Idk, the fact that he was so queer-coded and an immediate fan-favorite only for him to die in the end? And to be the only character that died (when there were several teases that more characters would die)? It’s just ridiculous. Someone else on here pointed out that the writers probably had no way of clearing his name so they killed him off instead of... idk.... writing out a solution for him and I’m inclined to agree. It’s just a cheap shot at emotional shock value when there were like 20 other people to pick from.

WHICH brings me to my final point, WHY WAS HE THE ONLY ONE WHO DIED?? Yeah, I was heartbroken when Max “died”. I would have been even more upset if Steve or Robin or Dustin died. I would have been heartbroken, which is what would have made this show so much better. I came into this thinking, “Okay, at least three people are gonna die, and I need to prepare myself”, but it just didn’t happen?? Instead of just keeping her dead Max is now in a coma and probably blind and all of her limbs are broken. Like, huh??? What’s the f u c k i n g point??? She’s definitely 10x more traumatized than she already was and what can she do about it? Absolutely nothing. Characters dying sucks.. but it feels like the show means business when it kills of a main character. If Steve had died like I and so many others feared, it would have meant that we had so much more to fear because it would have made us think about who was next. It would have made us value the time we got with the character that died, and to carry on writing about the character or drawing them to preserve our memory of them. It would have resulted in the audience seeing a new side of some of the characters who were close to the passing character and show us how they dealt with the death of a loved one. Like we’re gonna see that with Dustin in his relation to Eddie but that was really...it. Mike gave 0 fucks and Lucas was worried about Max (respectfully), and nobody else really knew him and the town hated him. If Steve had died?? We might have seen the elusive Harrington parents and their reaction to their son dying, we might have seen Nancy grieve over someone who was very close to her for a long time and then suddenly wasn’t in her life as much. We might have seen Robin who hasn’t dealt with death in relation to the Upside Down yet, break down over her close friend dying to protect her or something equally heroic. Eddie (I give 0 fucks about Jason. Did he even die?? Does anyone really care??) was a dumb sacrifice that wasn’t justified or deserved and I will not forget this injustice. Fuck you, Duffers.

Can I also mention that the “Two Days Later” thing was dumb? Like I’m sorry we just skip over some potentially crucial moments for the sake of moving the story along and easy writing? How did Nancy, Robin, and Steve react to seeing Dustin holding Eddie’s body? Was Erica okay and how did she react to seeing Max like she was? How did Max wake up? What happened to the, uh, idk, giant hole in the middle of goddamn Hawkins? Doing a flash-forward doesn’t solve all your damn issues, it’s sloppy writing if you’re just using one to move the reader past all the unanswered questions.

The last two episodes just kind of pissed me off. There was so much that went unsaid and unfinished, when I was expecting it to be finished. It was like the first part was one season and part two was an entirely different part. They had consistent ideas for part one and then lost all their notes and then suddenly had memory-loss for a few days and then started on a whole new season until they suddenly remembered they had 7 episodes out already. Takeaway here is: consistency is key. Get a beta reader or two. Actually re-read your work.

I dunno. I don’t know. I’m frustrated. I’m disappointed. And I’m a tad angry.