Hello all,

It's been a moment. I've been hard at work, though. I'll get into all of that in a deeper writing update soon, if you haven't seen my videos on socials about it. For today, however, I want to take a moment to mark a pretty momentous occasion. The end of Stranger Things.

A Little Backstory

I was all-in as soon as I started watching the series. Its weird to think about how long ago, culturally, it was when the show started nine years ago. I really got into Dungeons & Dragons with 5e when that came out in 2014. I always wanted to play as a kid, and I had friends who did, but my mom was caught up in the satanic panic some in the 80s (thanks in part to a religious aunt who nearly got my He-man toys taken away too but my mom stuck her ground there) so I wasn't allowed to play it. But, as an adult, I dove into 5E, first DMing for friends and then playing in a friend's campaign of Strahd (which took YEARS). All in all, I played D&D pretty consistently from 2014 until a couple years ago. All of that to say, I was really primed for Stranger Things when it came in 2016, with D&D being such a heavy theme.

A Different World

A lot has changed since then. D&D has become incredibly popular, thanks to many different factors. Baldur's Gate 3, streamers like Critical Role, Dimension 20, etc. And, of course, Stranger Things. D&D has also had it's share of hard hits, with parent company Hasbro seeming intent on driving fans away with their corporate nonsense at times. There was also an excellent movie (Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) that no one went to go see, and there have been about 3-4 failed action figure lines too. Which, frankly, has been a bummer. I loved NECA's Advanced D&D line they started. I was sad to see that end. It's hard to tell if Super7's efforts will continue, but their ReAction line was a lot of fun.

For me, personally, the bloom is off the rose a bit, when it comes to D&D. I bought the new core rulebooks, but haven't read through them or had a chance to play with that ruleset. Partly, I've just been really busy writing. I've written so much the last couple years. Some of which you'll finally start to see next year! So a lot of my creative energy and time goes there. Also, some of the corporate shenaningans, the challenge of finding the right mix of players, and other things have just prevented it.

Similarly, when it was time for Stranger Things to finally come back, my excitement factor was a little low. For one thing, I'm starting to feel this wave of anti-nostalgia brew within me. Which is weird, because as a toy collector, I'm honestly driven by nostalgia for some of that. It's just, more and more, I have started to see some of the downsides of nostalgia. The way it can be weaponized, for instance. The way it can be used as a balm to help one ignore problems. It has it's place, but I'm warier of it than I was when Stranger Things first started.

And, then there's the wait between seasons of two or more years. I hated it with Doctor Who, and I don't love it with shows like Wednesday, either. I know these are big shows and I'd rather they do them the right way. But the side effect can be that I really lose the thread of the plots and stories. With a show like Doctor Who it's less worrying because while there are overarching stories for a season, it's mostly focused on indivdiual adventures. But when it's one long story, essentially, the emotional impact some moments would have is lessened by the gaps. That being said, the character work of the previous seasons was strong enough that, once I got over my initial shock factor of the kids seeming SO much older, I got back into the groove of the show. I slipped back into the world fairly easy, and I was happy to spend more time with them.

The Stranger Things Finale

Recently, I've been itching to play D&D again. I watched The Mighty Nein and really enjoyed that. I am thinking of starting up a Lord of the Rings 5E campaign from Free League soon. I've been buying the books for a while, but I just bought myself the starter set recently. I do miss the idea of telling stories with friends. So, in some ways I was primed to return to Hawkins, Indiana for the finale. Here are some (spoiler-filled) thoughts on it.

I think the more you answer about things, the less interesting they are. Part of me would liked to have never known what the Upside Down was. But, of course, what might work for a one-season series won't for five! So they had to get into it. And it's a fun concept, at least, with the wormhole connecting two planets and the fun with that.

I thought having Vecna's "hand" lair actually BE the mind flayer was a fun twist. They played up the heart above Vecna a lot, so I feel like I should hae been more pepared for that to happen. I will say, the one thing that didn't quite work for me there was the set. Even after the battle, the set looked like it was on the ground, jutting out from sand. Not as some mobile thing. Very minor, just something I really noticed after the battle.

But I loved the big battle! One might have thought Nancy would let the others get into position before drawing the beasts attention. lol. But time was of the essence, I guess. Seeing all the kids in gear on an alien world was fun. I hope Natalia Dyer gets to do more fun things. She's so great as Nancy. I honestly would watch a spin-off show of her as a journalist investigating the paranormal in the 90s!

A few nitpicks / things that made me wonder. I would have maybe like ONE line on why and how Dr. K just packed up without throwing everyone in jail an torturing them for answers. Yes, she saw Eleven die. But she also saw all her work destroyed. I just don't get how there were no consequences there? Why the army would allow all these people with knowledge of all of this just walk around knowing it.

I would have liked more Steve/Robin. I know Steve pairs well with so many people, but it's easy to forget they were the ones who forged the friendship first. Then again, I did like that Robin became Will's mentor in coming out. Also, a callback to Dustin's girlfriend Suzie would have been nice, but it seemed like they broke up. Maybe while he was being surly after losing Eddie. Speaking of which, good for him for keeping up his grades through that!

There is a moment where the kids are running from Vecna, and his evil animal noises sound out, but then it's just Elle and her sister! It made me laugh so much. It's such a cheap fake-out with the sound effects! It didn't really annoy me. It just made me laugh because it's so silly and not explained in any way why Elle and her sister are making monster noises. Because, of course, they aren't, but it still made me laugh.

I did think it was a bit odd we didn't get a check-in with Robin's girlfriend, who mostly just seemed there to have someone watch over Max's wheelchair-bound body while her mind was away.

Finally, I would have liked Eleven's end more if we hadn't been in this exact place before? I guess you could say it's a theme of the series. Trying to keep her alive and failing. That being said, the ultimate resolution was satisfying. I did like that they didn't have her just reappear at the D&D session or something cheesy like that. Her sacrifice still had consequences for her and the others.

Sidebar: That D&D Session

Speaking of that D&D session. As someone who has played the Curse of Strahd through to the end(!) I will say, if I'd had this long campaign, and the only way I beat the bad guy was to have a deus ex machina magic person suddenly appear to do it, I would NOT be a happy player. But then, that is kind of the way the show worked. lol. They struggled and struggled until Eleven could magic them out of it, whatever obstacle preventing her from doing so previously finally removed. I kind of liked that the D&D session acknowledged that, in a small way, even though I'd be pissed off if I was a player!

The Return of The Return of the King

Back to the finale, The last forty minutes are very much "Return of the King" in the nature in that it wraps up everyone's story and takes its time doing it. For everyone who hates too much wrap-up, there are people who luxuriate in the slow wrap-up. For me, I love a long RotK wrap-up. I want to get a resolution to these characters that feels emotionally satisfying. Here's where, as a viewer, I will compliment them for wrapping up everything in a nice way. Sure, there were some gaps I'd loved to have known more about, but I liked the send-off of the "older" kids. Getting to see Dustin's mom again was fun. That being said, it was pretty light on any narrative surprises. Everything just kind of ended up the way you'd expect. So, as a writer, I would have liked a few more left turns in everyone's fates. Lucas, in particular, it'd have been nice to know more about than "he ends up with Max" partly because his story has been largely dominated by his relationship with Max and not much else. He didn't even really get some quality time in with his sister!

Notebooks Away

All of that being said, we get back to D&D for the finale. Do I like Elle is still alive for real? Yes. While it's put out there as a possibility, in show terms we're shown things that Mike couldn't have known, including Elle's conversation with Kali. So while it's a mystery whether she survived to Mike and everyone else, I think as viewers it's pretty rock solid that this is what happened. I'm glad Eleven didn't have to die for real (again.)

The ending with them putting away their notebooks was fantastic. It was an end to an era, for sure. Not just their childhoods, and their easy ability to get together and play. A time before Zoom, Roll20, and DNDBeyond let players far away play with each other. As Mike looks down at Holly and her new friends just starting up an adventure, manhandling his stuff and his figurines, you can see a mixture of emotions play across his face, before he settles on being happy.

A Place for Nostalgia

In some ways, you could see the end of Stranger Things as the kids "putting away childish things" or, perhaps, leaving them for the next generation to enjoy and nurture their imagination and bravery with. To me, that's the joy of getting to play D&D when you're a kid. And one I wished I'd experienced. Getting to explore who you are at a young age, and to try on new roles, is such a gift. I found that, eventually, when I started acting in plays in high school. It's so important to be able to explore different ways of being. To try to put yourself in a stranger's shoes, even if they're the boots of a nine-foot dragon person.

I also think it's important that Mike and the others just put their notebooks away, rather than ritually burning them or somesuch. Will they ever get them down again? Will they play every couple years? Or will the notebooks sit there, covered in dust? We likely won't know. But the possibility is still there.

In the end, I liked that Stranger Things celebrated the nerdy weirdos. But, most importantly, KIND nerdy weirdos. Because there are unkind ones, too. The ones that make you avoid certain Reddit threads, or the comment sections of pretty much anything. Whenever I find myself in a toxic swamp of nerdy pedantry and gatekeeping, it feels to me that these people have held on too tightly to their fandom. Their love has congealed into something dark.

To me, the ending isn't about putting the childish things away. Rather, it's about leaving space for others to enjoy them while you go onto new adventures. The scope of what "adulthood" consists of has changed in wonderful ways in my lifetime. You can love toys, action figures, video games—whatever you like—as an adult without the side eye or snickering that you might once have suffered. I think the secret is to not grip onto those things too tightly.

"The world is not in your books and maps; it’s out there," Gandalf says in the first The Hobbit movie. The line isn't from the books. But I always found it an interesting one. Like Hawkins in Stranger Things, The Shire is a place that never existed, and yet we can have a real nostalgia for. For some, that nostalgia might be in a land just beyond the wardrobe, a wizarding school, in a van with mystery-solving teenagers, in a sewer with some mutated turtles, or a hundred thousand other places. Tolkien built The Shire as a place that felt cozy and homey but, most importantly, it was a place that had to be left in order to really experience life. Life which could be scary and dangerous, but filled with new friends, new places to see, and new ways to think.

I think there's great wisdom there. Cozy places are wonderful to have and to return to. Whether that cozy place is some imagined land or childhood itself. The D&D notebook is still on the shelf. But if those lands start to feel like traps, or your love turns to gripes, or those stories no longer bring you joy, it's good to remember there's a whole world of interesting things to experience and explore.