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Stranger Things finale
I enjoyed it! Haters to the left!
Then again I was never here for the shipping - I knew my only real ship (Steve/Nancy/Jonathan) would never happen in canon, and in fact, I think it was about the closest thing I can imagine getting to an actual OT3 ending on screen: none of them are attached, they're all friends and get together regularly because they miss each other. Post-canon OT3 fic would be incredibly easy to write without even half trying. (I was halfway hoping for a Stancy ending, but I think the show made a pretty good case that they want different things, and if I didn't have that, having Jonathan and Nancy as amicable exes was the next best thing for me. I'm genuinely surprised, in a good way, that the show went with that mature an ending for them - they're still figuring out what they want, and sticking with their high school sweetheart(s) may not be that thing.)
There's a lot about the last few episodes that I'm choosing to ignore (not the least of it being the extremely high redshirt body count at the hands of Our Heroes - like they're just going to let everyone walk away after killing like 40 soldiers) but - it was fun! Honestly loved the death fakeout with Steve, and his and Jonathan's reconciliation. The boss fight was fun, and I liked that everyone got a role to play, and so many of the recurring supporting characters ended up in on the Hawkins secret by the end.
And in general I really enjoyed seeing where everyone ended up. The teens (now 20-somethings, I guess) were always my favorite thing about the show, and I genuinely loved their endings: two of them in college, Nancy working at a newspaper, and Steve as a teacher and coach all feels very right for them. And it makes sense that none of them were really each other's HEA; they all want different things, and there's always fic. In retrospect it's kind of funny how many of the show's main ships got torpedoed by the end - I think the only ones who actually ended up together at the end of it all were Lucas/Max and Hopper/Joyce. But again, I'm not in it for the shipping, and most of them were just kids when they met; it makes sense that they aren't all going to be each other's be-all and end-all. (Also, the show deciding to sidestep the main ship wars by going "Well, none of them actually" is honestly the funniest thing it could have done.)
Enjoyed Dustin's "down with the man!" valedictorian speech, and seeing the younger actors finally getting to play closer to the age they really are, lol.
El's (maybe) death ... ehhhhhh. I was thinking throughout the whole sacrifice scene that this was one of those pointless sacrifices where the characters could literally do anything else. It does make more sense as deliberately faking her death, and I like that the show never quite tells you for sure, but heavily implies that a fakeout is what it was. (But I did like that we don't know - it keeps the feeling of sacrifice while still leaving it open to imagine her out there somewhere. The one place in the entire episode where I did tear up was that one shot of El - maybe alive, maybe just Mike's fantasy - standing and looking at the waterfalls.)
It's nice to have things wrapped up and not have to avoid spoilers anymore. Kicking around the idea of writing some kind of OT3-ish (or OT4-ish even) ending tag, but honestly I was pretty happy with the endings and the sense of everyone getting started on their new post-Hawkins, post-Upside-Down lives.
Then again I was never here for the shipping - I knew my only real ship (Steve/Nancy/Jonathan) would never happen in canon, and in fact, I think it was about the closest thing I can imagine getting to an actual OT3 ending on screen: none of them are attached, they're all friends and get together regularly because they miss each other. Post-canon OT3 fic would be incredibly easy to write without even half trying. (I was halfway hoping for a Stancy ending, but I think the show made a pretty good case that they want different things, and if I didn't have that, having Jonathan and Nancy as amicable exes was the next best thing for me. I'm genuinely surprised, in a good way, that the show went with that mature an ending for them - they're still figuring out what they want, and sticking with their high school sweetheart(s) may not be that thing.)
There's a lot about the last few episodes that I'm choosing to ignore (not the least of it being the extremely high redshirt body count at the hands of Our Heroes - like they're just going to let everyone walk away after killing like 40 soldiers) but - it was fun! Honestly loved the death fakeout with Steve, and his and Jonathan's reconciliation. The boss fight was fun, and I liked that everyone got a role to play, and so many of the recurring supporting characters ended up in on the Hawkins secret by the end.
And in general I really enjoyed seeing where everyone ended up. The teens (now 20-somethings, I guess) were always my favorite thing about the show, and I genuinely loved their endings: two of them in college, Nancy working at a newspaper, and Steve as a teacher and coach all feels very right for them. And it makes sense that none of them were really each other's HEA; they all want different things, and there's always fic. In retrospect it's kind of funny how many of the show's main ships got torpedoed by the end - I think the only ones who actually ended up together at the end of it all were Lucas/Max and Hopper/Joyce. But again, I'm not in it for the shipping, and most of them were just kids when they met; it makes sense that they aren't all going to be each other's be-all and end-all. (Also, the show deciding to sidestep the main ship wars by going "Well, none of them actually" is honestly the funniest thing it could have done.)
Enjoyed Dustin's "down with the man!" valedictorian speech, and seeing the younger actors finally getting to play closer to the age they really are, lol.
El's (maybe) death ... ehhhhhh. I was thinking throughout the whole sacrifice scene that this was one of those pointless sacrifices where the characters could literally do anything else. It does make more sense as deliberately faking her death, and I like that the show never quite tells you for sure, but heavily implies that a fakeout is what it was. (But I did like that we don't know - it keeps the feeling of sacrifice while still leaving it open to imagine her out there somewhere. The one place in the entire episode where I did tear up was that one shot of El - maybe alive, maybe just Mike's fantasy - standing and looking at the waterfalls.)
It's nice to have things wrapped up and not have to avoid spoilers anymore. Kicking around the idea of writing some kind of OT3-ish (or OT4-ish even) ending tag, but honestly I was pretty happy with the endings and the sense of everyone getting started on their new post-Hawkins, post-Upside-Down lives.
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With zero investment in and almost as little knowledge of canon, I can think of much stupider things that shows have done.
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This is very accurate. Honestly, I feel like going with breaking up most of the couples (who were all kids when they met anyway!) is a more mature outcome than I was expecting from a show that's leaned pretty heavily into shipping since day 1! It's not unreasonable that one of the teen couples stayed together, but having all of them meet their endgame love interest before the age of 18 stretches credibility a bit.
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