#moonlayl

first of all, i genuinely love and enjoy this show and that seems to be an unpopular opinion recently? like i was shocked when i logged on after watching volume 2 and everyone on my dash hated it because i loved it. and i love all the other seasons, too. yeah obviously there’s some parts i don’t like and things i would change but overall i still think it’s really good. but yeah mandatory “i do actually really like the show” before i start complaining about some things

s1 > s4 > s3 > s2

i don’t understand the obsession with character death. not as in i don’t understand why people don’t want characters to die but i don’t understand the constant need to talk about how characters are “definitely” going to die. no main character has been killed off throughout the whole show and yet pre-s4 no one would shut up about characters dying. also after the reaction to eddies death i think the duffers are gonna be too scared to kill anyone off lol

on the other hand, killing el off/not giving her a happy ending would be the single greatest mistake the show could make

el’s side plot in s2 is one of the highlights of the show for me. the lost sister will probably forever be my favorite episode of the show. ive never understood the hate it gets. im really hoping that kali comes back in s5 and helps fight vecna

el is the only Main character. there are obviously many other characters that are leads but she is ultimately the main character. the entire show revolves around her and her plot(s).

nancy has some of the best development in the entire show. ive seen so many people say she has no development outside of the love triangle and i find that so surprising because she’s changed soo much. her entire journey to wanting to be a reporter directly stems from her not being listened to and her desire to do something about barbs death. everything about her current character stems from that specific moment and we’ve seen throughout the seasons how that’s progressed and shaped her into and i think because of that development, she’s pretty much the only character with a defined ending (career as a journalist)

mike has done like one thing wrong in the entire show and im so unbelievably tired of people acting like he’s the villain. he’s a 14 year old who doesn’t know how to perfectly express himself sometimes. people need to leave him alone

steve & robin and el & max have the two best friendships on the entire show and anyone who says otherwise is wrong

hopper should’ve stayed dead. his death was perfectly written in s3 and reviving him brought nothing to the plot. it wasn’t even explained how he survived, he was just there. it wasn’t well thought out or well written, and overall it just wasnt necessary. they ruined what was ultimately a beautiful send off (the speech to end s3) for a cheap plot twist that had no payoff.

(also i don’t like hopper because he gave brenner el’s location in s1, fully intending that he would kidnap her again. it’s unforgivable regardless of what his reasoning was and i hate that it was never brought up ever again)

going off of that, the entire russia plot is the worst written part of the whole show. it could be scrapped entirely from s4 and the season would lose nothing

stranger things is blatantly obvious about what ships are gonna end up together at the end of the show

jancy is just a truly terrible ship all around. jonathan hiding in a bush to take pictures of nancy through a window while she was taking her clothes off is soo unbelievably creepy and unforgivable, and it’s terrible that it was just dropped with no consequences whatsoever for him. he doesn’t even actually apologize! he says he shouldnt have taken the picture, but when she asks him why he took it in the next episode he says it was just a nice picture and then starts lecturing her about how she’s gonna end up miserable like her mom?? they should’ve never got together after all that. and then there’s all the bullshit in s3 when he undermined the misogyny she was facing at work and didn’t believe her at all which just further proves that they shouldn’t be together! and then she forgot he existed for most of s4 anyway

i want nancy to end the show single so bad

robin/vickie sucks lol. stranger things is probably the only show that has me rooting against the lesbian character ending up in a relationship. vickie is sooo boring and has absolutely no personality! even suzie’s random family members got personalities in s4! im tired of being told to accept the bare minimum just because a show is adding a random throwaway gay character. vickie serves no purpose in the plot and id rather not waste the extremely limited time left in the show developing robins relationship with a complete nobody when her friendships with pre-existing characters should be the focus. also every single one of their scenes featured steve in some capacity which was very annoying

steve and nancy actually have such an interesting dynamic as characters but specifically as exes. personally, i do not think they should get back together, but i think what makes them interesting is why they shouldn’t be together. obviously their first breakup is because of their different reactions to barbs death. their relationship was never going to make it past that. barb died because nancy brought her to steves house, she died AT steves house, and died while nancy was alone with steve. there was never any coming from back that, not while nancy hadn’t processed her grief and especially not when steve was trying to convince her to forget about it and go to a party. but they’ve both grown as people since then, and they’re still not going to work. steve wants a big family, nancy is career-oriented to the point that she will do anything to succeed as a journalist. nancy doesn’t want the suburban, nuclear family life. they are fundamentally mismatched when it comes to what they want in life and i think exploring THAT aspect of their dynamic is so much more interesting than just shoving them back together

overall the show is so much more enjoyable when you don’t care about ships <3 please disregard everything i just said about the ships <3 but seriously the main focus of the show is not even remotely centered on the romantic relationships and watching the show without really caring about that aspect of things is way better

this isn’t a hot take about the show but more the fandom: a lot of the dynamics do not exist at all in the show the way some people think they do. most obvious example is el and will, who both are wayyyy closer to at least 3 other characters than they are to each other. this isn’t just limited to stranger things, it happens in most shows, especially ones with a found family element (ex. agents of shield) but people tend to forget what the dynamics actually are and then project their opinions onto the characters

semi-related and not really a hot take but if i had to choose underrated/non-existent dynamics to explore in s5, i would choose: lucas and el (connection to max), nancy and el (both on the show since s1 but have barely spoken, both the only people to know vecna’s full backstory firsthand), and nancy and mike (siblings who both probably think they’re only children at this point because they never interact with each other)

also related to fandom but it’s so clear that so many people either have not watched the show or just don’t anything remember what happens in the show when they post shit. and that’s way there’s sooo much mischaracterization everywhere

this show has way too many characters and it’s resulted in a lot of them having nothing to do for entire seasons. look at the california group from this season. they spent the entirety of episodes 5-8 driving around in a van with nothing to do. even joyce, who was one of the main main characters in earlier seasons, felt like she was just kinda there this season. part of it is the way they divide the plots, especially geographically this season, but the other part is just not having anywhere near enough time or plot spaces for all the characters. it’s unfortunately probably only gonna get worse in s5 because they have to somehow wrap up every characters individual plot in addition to the greater shows plot