stranger things ruined me so I'm back here again

[Ross]: 

That’s right. 

[applause]

[Ross]: 

Which brings us to our nerdy TV show, Stranger Things. [cheering from audience] Thank you. If you haven’t seen it - it’s a coming of age story set in the 1980s. 

Over the course of the show the kids have to overcome a lot of stuff - bullies, puberty, monsters from other dimensions. 

And the kids name these monsters after villains from Dungeons & Dragons - Demogorgon, Mind Flayer, Vecna. While obviously fictional, each monster represents real fears we face growing up. Fears that we had to overcome as kids and teens. 

[Matt]: 

There will never be Stranger Things 6. Sorry, Netflix. I know. But for a minute we’re gonna pretend there is, okay? 

So, our characters have graduated, they placed their D&D binders back onto the shelf, and they’ve left Hawkins for good, okay?

And we’re gonna talk about the three biggest monsters that we bring into this new season. Monsters that would represent the scariest things that we face in adulthood. And then we’ll be your Monster Manual, or as best to our abilities, and tell you everything we know about them and the best tools that we found to chop off their heads. 

[Ross]: 

Alright, here we go. So the first monster is called the Mimic, it’s a tricky little bastard, because a Mimic doesn’t appear as a monster, it disguises itself as the thing you most desire. 

So in the world of D&D that’s usually like a treasure chest. So you race up to the chest, you’re excited about the gold, the armor you’re gonna find inside. You rub your hands together like Indiana Jones, you reach out and you reach for the treasure, but then it glues itself to you, you can’t move and then the treasure chest opens up, flashing razor sharp teeth and then it eats you. Which sucks. 

But what sucks more is: you’re gonna run into many Mimics as you make your way through life. Things that look like things you desperately want, things you’re convinced hold the answers, but when you reach out for them, they hurt you. They won’t literally eat you, hopefully, but you get the point. It’s not a subtle metaphor.  

[Matt]: 

And some Mimics hurt more than others.

Back in 2003 we lived in Durham, North Carolina, and we had this dream of making movies in Hollywood. And most people thought our dream was impossible. We got a lot of pats on the back, some condescending smiles, “That’s cute, kid.” 

But we had a plan to achieve our impossible dream. We were gonna go pack our bags, hit out to California, and attend a famous, prestigious film school with a history of alums that went on to achieve major success. Alums like Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis, and George Lucas. Yes, I’m talking about USC [School of Cinematic Arts in California] 

[crowd booing]

[Matt]: 

And they rejected us! They rejected us, we didn’t even make the waitlist, okay? And it hurt, it hurt really bad. It made us feel like we weren’t good enough. That maybe those naysayers back home were right. 

[Ross]: 

And later on we wrote so many screenplays that we were positive would sell, and each one got the same response - No, no, no. We pitched our hearts out to board executives, who looked like they wanted to be anywhere else. 

The Stranger Things pilot - the very one you see on screen - was rejected by twelve different studios, but then finally one studio liked the script and they wanted to finance it, the only problem is they weren’t sure about us directing it. 

So they asked to watch a little film we made, called Hidden - a film we were really proud of. We gave it to them, they watched it, and then they said “Yeah, no, you can’t direct.” So it was another “No”, another bite. That one really hurt. 

[Matt]: 

And you know, sometimes it’s not about reaching for success. Sometimes it’s about reaching for someone’s love, reaching for someone’s approval, for connection. And you’ll frequently get bitten. 

And every time it happens, it makes you want to curl up into a ball and cry. And it makes you want to stop reaching out. 

But here’s the thing about the Mimic: It has a challenge rating of 2, out of 30! So it’s kind of a wimpy villain. But it’s still super dangerous, not because it’s gonna kill you, but because it makes you afraid to open the next chest. 

[Ross]: 

And some of those chests, they do have gold in them.

After we were rejected by USC we heard about a smaller, lesser known film school in Orange County called Chapman University. 

[cheering]

[Ross]: 

And Chapman not only let us in, they were excited to have us, and our experience here changed our lives. And when the studio told us we couldn’t direct Stranger Things, we walked away. Four days later, Netflix came knocking. 

We can’t promise you the next chest you open will be gold, or that it’ll be Chapman or Stranger Things, but we can promise you this: If you stop opening them, you’ll never find out.

[Matt]: 

Okay, that’s number one. Right. It gets increasingly difficult, okay? So, that’s easy. 

The second monster we’re gonna talk about has a challenge rating of 2 also, but don’t be fooled - this is the most dangerous CR2 monster in the Monster Manual. It’s called the Will-o’-Wisp, okay? 

So, as you’re wandering around the dungeon, you’re getting bitten by these nasty Mimics, you’re also going to get lost. It’s a maze, afterall, and there are no sign posts telling you where to go. 

So you look around. You see spikes to your left, scattering of bones to your right, wet gurgling noises behind you, and none of this looks good. 

But then you see a hazy, beautiful, blue-green flame dancing in the distance. This is the Will-o’-Wisp. Its light illuminates a clear, safe path forward. So naturally you go that way. 

Turns out - it’s not a real path. It tricked you! The Will-o’-Wisp tricked you. And you drown or you fall into the pit of spikes, or you step onto an oddly aggressive frog. 

That’s why the Wisp is dangerous - because it doesn’t try to kill you, it just leads you somewhere that will. So why’d you follow the light? Because you could see the damn path! It was safe, the least risky, or it seemed like it.  

Something we’ve learnt the hard way is that the safest looking path is often the most dangerous one. 

[Ross]: 

So remember when I told you about all those rejected pitches and scripts, well that was the fault of the Will-o’-Wisp. 

You see every producer we’ve met told us the same thing. They all wanted, this was a while ago, they wanted found footage movie, like paranormal activity. So this was the life for us, the shortcut to our dreams, and we diligently set to work on writing a found footage script. 

But there was one problem - we didn’t really like found footage movies. But we kept trying anyway, and trying and trying. 

And years later we had a script that didn’t work, we had serious credit card debt, and growing doubt  [audio cuts off for a few seconds] … 

We remember the phone call from our parents. They’d always been supportive of us, and they still were, but for the first time we detected real worry in their voices. It was clear, the realities of life were catching up to our dreams. If you can’t pay rent, well, maybe you have to come back home. 

[Matt]: 

Something about that phone call snapped us out of our daze. So we threw out our found footage script, made a hard pivot, and quickly wrote a script about something we love. And it wasn’t at all what the producers were looking for, but it was something that we, you know, we truly loved and related to. And guess what - the script sold. 

At long last, we’ve made it out of the marsh. Years later when we came up with the idea for Stranger Things, we were told that it, too, would never sell. A period piece starring kids, that is not made for kids? Are you out of your f- mind? God, I’m struggling not to curse. At the same time,

[laughter]

you can fill it in. 

At the same time we were offered a safe, cushy job to write a TV show for a big network. There it was again - the blue-grey-green flame, glowing, tempting, safe. 

But we gave the Will-o’-Wisp the middle finger, hold up in our small apartment, and wrote Stranger Things. And guess what - those two things that we were told were major liabilities, the period piece 1980s setting and the kids? Those were exactly what made the show successful. 

[Ross]: 

In D&D the official tactic for fighting a Will-o’-Wisp is simple: ignore it. That’s it. But easier said than done. ‘Cause we followed the Will-o’-Wisp many other times over the years. 

Sometimes it’s a career move, sometimes it’s a creative decision. Sometimes it’s more personal, involving a significant-- a relationship with a friend or a significant other. Sometimes we’d recognize we’re on the wrong path very quickly, sometimes it’d take months, and sometimes years. 

And the longer you’re on the wrong path, the harder it is to get off it, because it means doing something hard, which is admitting that you’ve made a mistake. 

[Matt]: 

The best way to avoid the Will-o’-Wisp is to listen to the voice deep inside you. If you wake up in the middle of the night, or when you’re showering in the morning and something just feels off, trust that above all else. 

And to the parents out there, who might be worrying right now, like ours did on that phone call - you’re not wrong. 

We all know that sometimes taking a risk doesn’t pay off. Sometimes you fall into the spikes, or you step onto that angry frog. They’re called risks for a reason. 

But to the graduates - we promise, if you take a risk and fail, it won’t destroy you. You will recover. But what can destroy you, what you end up regretting? Is taking no risks at all. That’s what the Will-o’-Wisp counts on. Not to dramatic failure, the slow drowning. So don’t fall for that. 

[clapping]

[Ross]: 

Alright, we got one more monster. This is it, this is the final boss. You might want to hold onto your caps, because - spoiler alert - this baddie is a CR (challenge rating) of 14 and it’s getting stronger every day. It’s called the Elder Brain. 

It’s basically a giant brain floating in a vat of liquid, it’s pretty gross, but it’s not super intimidating at first. But here’s the thing: it’s not a single brain, it’s actually a soup made of hundreds of brains, liquified together into a single consciousness. 

Every mind that has ever lived in this world has been absorbed into it. The individuals are gone. What remains is an average. It’s the annihilation of the self. 

[Matt]: 

We’ve been fighting the Elder Brain our whole lives. 

It started pretty much as soon as we were conceived, actually. See, we were created out of the same egg, and just split into two. We’re twins, identical ones. And that one feature most defined our childhood.

Back in the 90s being a twin was pretty rare and we were the only ones at our school, and for the longest time we hated it. We were introverted and shy, and being an identical twin tends to attract attention.

Strangers would stare at us at the supermarket; worse, sometimes they would come up to speak to us, “If you’re punched in the shoulder, does he feel it?” No. [chuckles] No. “I don’t feel it, you idiot.”

All we wanted to do was fit in. We wanted to be just like everybody else. We wanted to join the Elder Brain. 

[Ross]: 

It took us a long time to realize that the parts of us we wanted to erase were in fact the most important parts to preserve. 

Because they allowed us to experience the world in a different way than other people. To develop into unique individuals, it allowed us to tell stories specific to us and share this with the world. 

So the more we leaned into what made us different, the more we rejected the call of the Elder Brain, the more successful and happier we became. 

Now, it’d be naïve of us to say your fight with the Elder Brain will be like ours. It’ll be harder, much harder, because the world today is very different now than it was in 2007. 

Shortly after we graduated, IPhone came out, then social media surged, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok. It all seemed so innocuous at first, not anymore. 

And now there’s something else that all this is getting mapped onto - that dreaded two-letter acronym that’s getting boo-ed at every commencement speech across the country, AI. 

[crowd booing]

[Matt]: 

Okay, to return to the beginning of the speech. This area is where our generation really and truly screwed things up for you, because the machines, the feeds and the algorithms and the models control what you see and hear, feeding you the same crap that you guys call the slop. 

Like the broadest possible stuff. Anything that’s weird or different or challenging or that, god forbid, might take a little bit of time to sink in, that surprising stuff that helped shape you into a unique individual, that goes out the window. 

Your brains, our brains, are all being liquified and fed into the vat and it sucks. 

So, how do you avoid brain liquification? I’m not talking 20 years ago, I’m talking now. 

The truth is: we’re not sure. Anyone who says they are, is a charlatan, okay? 

And honestly a lot of this is gonna fall on you to figure out, which is not fair, but it’s just the truth. But we think that, while the stakes are so much higher now, some of what we’ve learnt applies growing up. 

You have to refuse the average. You have to be yourself. And that involves being vulnerable, and letting your freak flag fly. 

[crowd applause]

[Ross]: 

But the trap, right? Is that the more vulnerable you are, the higher is the risk of embarrassment - being called lame, a loser, cringe. 

Matt and I, if you can believe it, have been called all those things and worse by thousands and thousands of people, and it always hurts, always. And the natural instinct is to recoil, to stop putting yourself out there, to self-censor, to throw yourself into the Brain vat. 

But you can’t. Because the vat can make infinite versions of almost anything, with zero risk to itself. 

But there’s one thing it can never make: It can never make you. The specific, weird, messy, embarrassing, cringe, one of a kind you.  

The average can never be an individual. Because of that your individuality is the most valuable thing you’ll ever own. Don’t you dare flatten it. 

[crowd applause]

[Matt]: 

I agree. There are of course a lot more monsters out there, because the world is changing so fast, you’re gonna encounter ones that we never did. It’s going to be scary, hard and upsetting, but just like a game of D&D it can also be fun and rewarding - we don’t want to be too depressing. And, you know, to meet these challenges head on and conquer them. 

And you don’t have to do it alone. In fact, you really shouldn’t. You need a party. 

And maybe this party is made up of a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or a family that came to see you today, or maybe all of the above. The friends you made here at Chapman, right? 

Whoever it is, you’re gonna need them, because everyone has their own unique strengths.

[Ross]: 

Like maybe your companion’s a halfling, like a tiny human, and you reach a gate but it’s locked and there’s no way in, until you see a small hole and only they can fit through it. So they crawl through the hole, they pull a lever, the gate swings open and you’re in. 

Or maybe you’re the halfling, and someone else is in your party, the warrior who carries a sword you can’t lift, or the cleric who can heal the poison from spider in your forearm, or the bard who can talk you out of trouble with goblins, or the wizard that-- 

[Matt]: 

That’s enough, that’s enough. I think we’ve already achieved it. The nerdiest commencement speech ever. Have we achieved it? 

[crowd applause]

[Matt]: 

I just hope that professor Kowalski found it thematically coherent. 

And I also hope it helps some of you too, because I have two little girls at home and I’m really scared for their future, because we’re on the frontlines of something major. And we don’t know exactly what it is, or what it’s going to look like. 

And you’ll be challenged in every possible way. You’ll be bitten, you’ll be misled, you’ll see some of your friends get brain-liquified. 

[Ross]: 

But keep reaching, take risks, stay weird, find your party, grab your swords and get out there and start slaying. 

And Will didn't create the burst symbolism pipe, MIKE DID. By himself. And Mike wanted Will to help him repress it, but then makes Will take off his jacket (which represents making him more vulnerable and truth). And I think this is because Mike is very much flustered by the flirting they just did and is getting frustrated at not knowing for sure, even if he is scared of knowing the answers either way. (Nobody is mentoring Mike)

Why have Mike have multiple seasons worth of giving the "signs" Will, and thus the audience, has been told are signs Mike wants to date? Signs Mike, nor Will, have with Lucas or Dustin.

The show was telling us Mike has big feelings that he wants to go away, but they just get more intense until it is written all over his face in "Sorcerer".

In the immediate aftermath, Mike can't contain how into Will he is. Then suddenly he becomes much more muted about it, as if he has realised it's too obvious.

He withdraws from touching Will, and from showing more care than anyone else when Will is unconcious.

It's like a recycled season 2 and Snowball thing. Mike realises he is too deep in his feelings and tries to create distance in s3 and over performs heteronormativity with El. There is no other reason for the awkward "Santa has good taste" line in to El in s5 about her clingy wetsuit, which El receives poorly.

Will is in a fkng coma and El is focused on trying to save him, and has not been able to so far, and Mike wants to comment about her sexy figure? Gross, Mike.

And the water bottle sharing? The lightning happening just as Will drinks to emphasise it? This indirect kiss trope is so unnecessary.

And then it leads to a tragic scene with El sacrificing herself. They are clinging to each other, but look like they are put off by each other at the same time. The whole narrative to this point has told us that the emotional spillover is meant to be Mike and Will, and yet we are with El and Mike. And El is still wearing Santa's sexy wetsuit...

Nothing new is revealed with El and Mike either. For a climatic moment, their relationship doesnt become any more meaningful. It actually becomes less.

She didnt trust him with any of this. Didnt care for his input on anything. Actively had rejected his advice prior: "you don't get to write the ending'.

And Mike doesn't even show that he can say "I love you" and mean it after Will forces him to finally say it in s4. Nothing is fixed.

And the song choice.. "Purple Rain" is not about romance, but severe dysfunction and letting go of those relationships without bitterness. The same-titled movie Prince starred in, wasn't a romance either.

Also, Prince was an awful person.

Prince was a Jehova's witness after 2000s and against homosexuality while profiteering off cosplaying queerness. He groomed a 16yo. Openly was known as an egotistical bully to anyone he saw as "beneath" him. Forbade his wife to talk about their stillborn child and left her to grieve alone, etc.

Anyway, the ST story would have felt right if it was Mike falling apart over Will in it's climatic moment. Everything had been building to an emotional reveal for Mike. THE HEART. MIKE THE BRAVE.

And he wouldn't have to say "love" to Will. That word is diminished now that it has been used as a lie to his gf, and made familial by saying it to his mum (the dialogue was pretty forced for it too). And this is because we have an easy callback of "I didnt say it." "You didn't have to." We were being told that Mike can say "love", but just didn't to El. It's not subtle.

And we also have Will foreshadowing that a kiss is a good way to end an argument.

With Byler, we were narratively being prepared to-

1. See Will struggle with his connection to the hive mind. Life and death. (He got put in a coma already and Vecna did some weird shit to him, and it is never relevant again?)

2. See a kiss ending an argument.

3. Feel intense, romantic love -without the word "love" ever being said. It would be shown very very clearly. No room for doubt like El.

And they make us feel insane because they just don't deliver on the most emotionally critical part of the whole show.

And this is the primary reason I can't let go of there being at least some sort of additional content to resolve this coming. They set me up not to!

I honestly side-eye anyone talking up how satisfied they were with the ending, because it shows a severe inability to connect narrative dots..

If someone was drawing a crocodile. And you see them drawing the teeth, long body, scaley tail.. and then you suddenly get shown a completed drawing of a horse in a swamp? You should have questions!

Anyway, I just want the byler cookie that had been narratively promised for about a decade.

Who I thought I was going to be going into Vol 2: