#and that's also why i think the duffers refuse to kill of their mains for shock value

[starry-eyed-steve]

Stumbled across you and really enjoyed your takes on the show and the characters. There were multiple things that bugged me about S4 but by far my biggest peeve is that no one felt the need to apologize to Lucas or acknowledge the fact that he was putting his life in danger trying to keep tabs on his teammates. The show + Hellfire treats his decision to play basketball like some big betrayal when really, it's a kid expressing interest in two things equally. Just wish we got a scene for that.

I absolutely agree, Lucas never did anything wrong in this show, and I stand by that. He deserves better!!!

When Lucas looked around and saw those empty seats, knowing his friends didn't have his back. Or worse when they replaced him with his own sister, who was at every game and missed the one where he scored. My heart broke for him in that moment. To think that people who watched the show were pissed at Lucas for hanging out with his teammates when his friends let him down. I would have avoided them as well. And when he realized that something went wrong, he used his position to help his friends. Like, what do people want from him?

In general, it's weird how the show vilianises people who are popular, jocks and athletes. It's not like Lucas ditched his friends. He was still part of hellfire, but the show treats him like a villain for doing sports now. How are those people worse than Eddie, who shamed everyone in that cafeteria with his speech? He's also a judgmental asshole but because the show frames him as the underdog, his actions are not seen as bad. It seems like the Duffers have some unresolved high school trauma where a popular guy wronged them, and now everyone who isn't a loser nerd is essentially the devil.

Back to Lucas, like my boy deserves better plot than what he is given. Don't get me wrong I loved his storyline with Max, Lumax is my favorite ship in the show. But like I mentioned in another post, his struggles as a black kid often gets overshadowed for the romance plotline.

A huge factor as to why he played basketball was the fact that on top of the bullying his friends face, he also had to deal with racism. We deserved to see a Patrick and Lucas friendship where they discuss it or bond about it. If you think about it, the party never really gave a shit about this reason, and the show underplayed it as well. Instead, Lucas sports plot was framed as him turning his back to his friends, automatically painting him in a negative light, even though it wasn't true. He just wanted support from his friends, and they never delivered. If Will was there, I think he would have supported Lucas, knowing how it feels when your friends ridicule your hobbies. An apology from Dustin would have been the minimum. (Mike wasn't there for the plot) At least Erica apologized to him later, but still. Eddie should have spent a bit more time with Lucas and apologized as well. But that's never going to happen because the Duffers refuse to acknowledge they have this agenda towards jocks.

Another point that I wanted to see was Lucas struggling with Billy's death. I know this season was mostly about Max, and I loved how it was dealt with, but I wish we could have gotten Lucas POV as well. Of course, he wanted to be there for Max. He loves her, but it would have been difficult to emphasize after s2 when Billy attacked him for racial reasons. Billy never made it up to Lucas. He could have gotten the chance in s3, but the show killed him first episode and turned him into a monster. That's why I don't believe in a Billy redemption in s3 because the people he hurt (Lucas and Steve) never got an apology. So I really wanted to see Lucas's complicated feelings towards it. (I think it's the main reason Max kept her distance she knows Billy hurt her friends, so they might not understand her.)

In general, the show has a huge problem with how they portray their black characters. Lucas's experiences with racism are not taken seriously. Most of his arc is about a white girl (nothing against Max, seriously, I love them together). Erica is a stereotypical sassy black girl with a big mouth, and when she got tackled by this grown ass man in vol2, nobody really bat an eye. Patrick was the least developed Vecna victim, Fred and Chrissy got so much more screen time. So you can clearly see the pattern through the show.

Lastly, because of the limited amount of time, the show can't address anything. Especially in s4, the plot was super tight. They had to cut out so much. I blame the useless Russian plot because that was so unnecessarily. Anyway, with more time and with more episodes, the plot could have spread out more. The characters would get time to breathe and interact with others more. Traumas could be dealt with in a better, more genuine way as well. But we are stuck with 9 episodes per season. Something has to be cut, and we can't forget the show is created by two white men. Of course, they are not sensible when tackling racist matters. (Btw Caleb also deserves so much better. The fact that he wasn't invited to talk shows and is always kinda left out is absolutely horrible. Plus, the hate he got in s1 just because his character wasn't a big fan of El is unacceptable)

[spaceofentropy]

I've rewatched season 4 of Stranger Things not that long ago and it still drives me up a wall how the Duffers and their writers' room managed to write Eddie as (almost) the perfect prototype of a shitty, toxic DM. I've been roleplaying and occasionally GameMastering for the past 22 years (give or take). I've played with good GMs, mediocre GMs, terrible GMs, stellar GMs. And Eddie Munson, for how he's written in the show, is a shitty GM, holy fuck, folks!

1 He scares his younger players into doing what he wants. The first time I saw season 4, my brain went "Feels like they're setting him up as the new human baddie of the season, feels like they're gonna pull a Billy-with-switched-plates on us..." because Eddie is introduced as seen through Dustin and Mike's eyes, and those are scared eyes. Not scared as in "he's gonna hurt me", but scared as in "he's volatile, unpredictable, and he's gonna make my life literal hell". Like a bully. Like he's not a hero or a good presence for those two kids. And then...

2 Eddie refuses to move that fucking D&D session. Which... WTF, man, what the fuck! You don't want to know the number of times my groups and I had to postpone a session because too many people couldn't be there because life! The way we played with one or two players less, knowing that M. would use his brother's character for combat, that while E. was away his character would conveniently get bonked in the head and pass out for the duration of that session! But it's an important day, I hear you say. It's the end of the campagin, you say. Then... dude! Since you've built to that session for months, it's the culmination of your whole campaign, you want YOUR PLAYERS to be there! It's a big day for the whole group, not just for the DM! What's the fun in having one of the main characters in the story being absent?! Which leads us to the fact...

3 Eddie demands that Dustin and Mike find him a replacement player. On your big fucking day when your campaign ends you DON'T want a random player to sit at the table and risk to have to decide the fate of the whole story (which, coincidentally, is exactly what ends up happening, how fun...)! You want YOUR players to be there for the grand finale! How can a rando appreciate the way you bring all the storylines to their conclusion? How can a rando know why that tiny detail that ties back to the second or third session is important? A rando can't! Bringing in a rando is just bringing in an arm to swing dice, at this point in a campaign. You've built to this session for months, then it won't kill you to wait for a week or two longer to play it! (And this ever-important session happens just before spring break, there are weeks and weeks left before school ends. They can fucking wait for Mike to come back from California and Lucas to not have basketball games! Which, oh, look at that...)

4 Eddie knows he's forcing two of his younger players to ditch their friend's big game, and he doesn't give a single fuck. D&D is clearly the best, superior past time ever, in Eddie's eyes, and fuck anyone who thinks differently. Fuck anyone who dares put anything above D&D. Sadly, Dustin and Mike are not old enough or emotionally strong enough to ditch a bad GM, not when he has painted himself in their eyes as their saviour from being high school loners and pariahs, so fuck their great friend Lucas, I guess?

5 Eddie's an elitist piece of crap to Erica. Saying "Oh, you play D&D? What level is your character?" is not only inherently stupid in D&D terms (you can create a 17th level character from scratch, tailored to the sole purpose of playing with a high level group, it's... it's a ttrpg, not a fucking videogame where you have to grind all the levels! Ghaaaaaaaaa!), but also the equivalent of going "You're wearing a Metallica t-shirt? List 5 of their songs!" on her. The kind of thing where you look at the tool in front of you, flip him the bird, and leave with a "Go get fucked by balrog, dickwad!"

In all of that, the problem is the shitty writing. I know that thematically and symbolically it's so juicy to have Lucas, who's been torn between the jocks and the nerd, stay with the jocks while he his nerd friends LITERALLY replace him with his sister. Oh, it's so tasty to have the Sinclair siblings throw the deciding ball/die in their respective games and win everything for their teams. I can almost hear the Duffers orgasm (sorry for the horrid image!) at the idea of it all, typing it down and then going to their editor asking for the alternating cuts, the parallels, and then, oh, the stark difference between Lucas' face falling because none of his friends is present on his big day and Erica being cheered on by these older guys she just met! And that shot when the basketball team leaves the gym and Lucas sees Erica so seamlessly incorporated in his other group of friends, so angsty, right? Right? You get it, audience, right? He's sad! So sad! *nudge nudge wink wink*

It's such lazy writing. It feels like paint by number and also unfaithful to the characters, and to Erica in particular. She may not love her brother to pieces, may not have been enthusiastic at the idea of watching a boring basketball game, but I can't see her having a single reason to go play one D&D session to close a campagin she knows nothing about with a group of older strangers (who treat her like crap), when up until this point she's been a closeted nerd.

And we all know that the D&D session must be there because we can build up Lucas' dilemma and introduce an audience who knows nothing about D&D to the concept of Vecna. (As one of my friends said when Vecna came up in the show, "Vecna? Again!? Haven't we already killed that squirrelly third-rate spellcaster at least once a decade for the past 40 years?!")

And you know what? It's double shitty writing. Because if it weren't for Joseph Quinn good performance, I probably would have ended hating Eddie all the way to the end of the series and not given much of a fuck about his death! Because, as I said, I actually disliked him for a good chunk of episode one. My first gut reaction to Eddie Munson was "Nope! Stay away! Bad guy! Shoo, shoo!"

You've written this guy as an asshole who can't be arsed to postpone a fucking D&D session; who thinks he's better than everyone else; who walks on the tables where other people are eating (EWWW!); who scares his youngest minions and forces them to do his biddings; who doesn't give a fuck if he's forcing said minions into ditching their friend; who treats a middle schooler like pure crap... And no, I don't think it's a matter of "oh, the guy has so many nuances", just... Fuck that guy! The guy the Duffers wrote is a shitty GM that I wouldn't want to play a single session with. I don't give a single fuck about the fate of the guy who leads the Hellfire Club. He's selfish and crappy to everyone. The guy who interacted with Chrissy, on the other hand? Yeah, I give many fucks about him. Just... keep him away from young, impressionable players that might learn from him how to become toxic GMs in the future! 😬

[bethhxrmon]

Alright, it’s time for an analysis that no one asked for! So, starting off I would like to say that the “Which Kurt Kunkle Are You” instagram account has done a far better job of analyzing the movie and having humor in a similar tone to the movie than I have. I’m not gonna reinvent the wheel here, if you want some real in-depth and good analysis plus some fun memes and good art, check it out!

This is going to be a combination of a critique on Billy Hargrove and Kurt Kunkle’s characters as well as the audience reaction. Keeping in mind that I’m not an expert and it’s been a week since I’ve seen Spree and over a month since seeing Stranger Things 2 and 3 (double majoring and doing online uni is time-consuming). I might miss things and I might interpret things differently from you. That’s just how it’s gonna be.

So let’s start off with the whole Billy vs Kurt deal that one lovely anon decided to bring to my attention. My first point is going to be that comparing Billy and Kurt is like comparing apples and oranges, they’re both fruit. In this case, they’re both villains. That’s where the similarities end, unless you wanna bring up that they’re both from California lmao.

Kurt is the main character of his respective movie (whether he’s a protagonist or if that’s Jessie can be up for debate imo), whereas Billy was intended to be the human antagonist (pretty sure that’s what the Duffers said) of season 2. Obviously this opens up Kurt to be a more well-written character. He has lots of depth and development as a character and a true, complete arc. His death was, frankly, unavoidable. I say this as someone who likes his character.

Meanwhile Billy is a side character and one of the least important characters of the entire series. His job is to be a road block in season 2. He was also used as a way to prove the show acknowledges racism in that time (it’s very blatant and there’s no systemic racism in the show but that’s an essay for another time). This is something that since the season’s release, Dacre has tried to backpedal on. I’m not faulting him for that, I don’t know the guy, but it sucks that the show is essentially trying to erase its own antagonist. Anyways, his death isn’t a shocker. What was a bit surprising (more disappointing actually) was that the third season doesn’t acknowledge his actions at all. Billy has no character arc aside from the fact he has a shitty dad and that he used to have a mom. Wow. His death was also unavoidable, not much to be done with his character. I don’t blame the Duffers, they have plenty of characters to work with that are actually enjoyable.

Now, let’s get into the audience reaction/fan bases. Let me just say it here: if you’re attracted to Kurt or Billy or any other antagonist in a physical sense, good for you! I hope you’re living your best life either way whether I can relate or not. What becomes an issue is when you don’t acknowledge the bad things the fictional character has done.

In the case of the Spree fandom, to my knowledge (I’m not an all-knowing internet being, I can be wrong about things), there aren’t any “Kurt deserved better” or “Justice for Kurt uwu owo” posts. The fandom on the whole has determined that Kurt deserved what he got. He is a shitty human being, he killed people. In other shocking news, fire is hot. No one in the fandom actually wants to date or marry Kurt Kunkle. No one is genuinely trying to imagine a healthy relationship with him. Why? Because that’s not how his character works! “Stanning” him, and my one-time use of the term “Kurtslut” is meant to be funny and a joke. It’s in the same vein as the satirical, sarcastic tone of Spree itself. 

So I’ll admit it, I don’t intentionally go into the Billy tag very much, if at all now that I think about it. His character doesn’t intrigue me at all. However, since people love to come on anon and give input no one asked for, I’m aware that some people refuse to even acknowledge all of Billy’s misdeeds. They think he deserves better and shouldn’t have died. This entirely misses the point of Billy’s canon characterization. If people like his character so much, then they should accept him for what he is as a character. Otherwise, do you really like that character? Or do you just feel bad because his dad’s a shithead?

Also, this is a bit of a side note, but most of my beef with this side of the Stranger Things fandom has come more from the Harringrove end of things (I have a whole post on that). It’s a screwed up ship. I’m only saying this to cover my bases because this should go without saying, if anyone started to ship Kurt with one of the canon characters in Spree, I wouldn’t be here for it. That’s that on that.

To conclude if you made it this far, no one is stanning or glorifying Kurt. Some of us are just attracted to a fictional character. It’s not that deep. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk!