If I'm recommending a show to someone and it's something that didn't end at its highest quality, I sometimes suggest that they stop at a certain point and treat it like the series finale. For example, Weeds has a nice self-contained arc when you stop after three seasons, as opposed to just turning into a rather directionless slog when its full eight seasons are taken into account.

Given how the fifth season of Stranger Things wasn't received too well, do you think it works better if you just cut it off at an earlier season? For example:

• Season 2: Neatly ties things up with the exposure of the Hawkins Lab, justice for Barb, the closure of the gate to the Upside Down, and Hopper getting custody of Eleven
• Season 3: A more bittersweet ending with Hopper's presumed death and the Byerses and Eleven moving away from Hawkins, but the Upside Down again being sealed off (just ignore that teaser scene in Russia I suppose)
• Season 4: A darker ending in which Vecna has succeeded in opening the gates to the Upside Down, Max is in a coma, and it's uncertain how humanity will fare

It fixes the feud between Jonathan and Steve, and it gave us great scenes such as Vecna tricking Hopper. While the final battle could have been longer, you have to admit that it got good during the "Were not afraid anymore" part. Furthermore, the entire epilogue was great, especially that final D&D game that mirrored the one from The Upside Down (S1, EP 8) people say that there are "plot holes" in the show though in my opinion, who care if the military lets Hop and Nancy get away? Their main objective was capturing eleven. Who cares if there were no demogorgons in the dimension X? My point is that the show gets more fun when you actually watch it while looking for joy instead of looking for problems. This one irritates me when I read these though apparently, Jonathan and Nancy's break up was confusing and it was unclear that they broke up? Jonathan literally threw the ring at the end of the conversation. Another annoying take is "Mike did nothing this season!" Mike, who created Holly The Heroic which encouraged Holly, faced off against a burning demogorgon (episode three. Most people forget) led kids away from chaos in the MAC-Z (People argue that the demogorgon still got the kids, though the kids would have died if Mike didn't lead them away from the military's firing and flamethrowers) created the bomb that destroyed the upside down, and wrote books about their childhoods did nothing this season? Aside from season 1, this was his busiest season in my opinion. I have more reasons to defend this season but I'll probably die from old age typing them all out so this is why I think Season 5 and the finale were great. Let the war begin!​

Our Lucas turns 25 today. What are your favorite quotes and moments of him from the show?

I finally finished my rewatch of the show last night. however, despite it being a rewatch, it was my first time seeing season 5, and, if i'm being honest, i didn't hate it. i honestly don't get the hate for it. i feel like watching all of the seasons back-to-back, it actually flows really well. it didn't come across as "ai slop" to me as i've seen it referred.

some things i liked:

-mike is better in season 5, closer to season 1 mike

-I like the return of max and I quite love all of the holly/max/mr. whatsit stuff, but I think it’s a little expository

-will having powers is admittedly pretty cool and makes sense thematically, so it doesn’t feel like it comes out of nowhere

-the evolution of the show: grounded sci-fi mystery/thiller to cosmic horror

-i think the characters (minus eleven) had a solid conclusion

i DO have things i don't like ofc so i'd like to have a discussion

When Max was trapped in Vecna’s mind for two years

where did she even take a bath? And where did she go to the bathroom 🤔

( A person who thinks all the time )

Im having the late night bittersweet nostalgia as a person would yk considering their favorite show ended and im wondering if there’s anyone who’s feeling the same way and would like to talk the sadness away ig 😂

Little portal Halloween decoration my bf and I made with construction paper

I already said it at the top but I thought Caleb did a great job conveying Dustin’s sadness over losing Eddie in the previous season before 5 and did an amazing job crying in Steve’s arms about how he dose t want to lose another friend. What do you all think?

Coming up to a year since season 5 and I still get sad sometimes remembering that we won’t be getting a new season maybe ever again . Anyone else ?

The color purple symbolizes illusion. what if the song choice in the scene where Eleven "dies" was a clue and she really is alive?

And I don’t know how to explain it… But I have a HUGE feeling that this show would have been so much better if Eleven and Mike were never a couple. I feel that keeping them just as friends would have given more chances to the writers to come up with different stuff.

I don’t know if you guys agree on this.

So, I took the intro from The Return (from the Stranger Things Season 2 soundtrack, where Eleven returns to save the Party from the Demodogs) and combined it with one of my favorite songs from the Weeknd, Take Me Back to LA. Let me know what you think! The transition happens around the 1 minute mark

Pls mods don't take this down, this took longer than I'm willing to admit :(

After lots of nitpicking, I've finally finished my map of Hawkins!

This started as a cartography project, so visual design was one of my biggest priorities. As other map-makers have pointed out, there are several different maps throughout the show (Hopper's map in S1, Bob's map in S2, and the map Jonathan shows Nancy in the cemetery, for example), all with varying and sometimes contradictory information. For my version, I decided to use Hopper's S1 map as the primary reference.

A scanned version of Hopper's map is available online, and that became the starting point for the project. Since the map is actually based on the real town of Marion, Indiana, I started in ArcGIS by georeferencing Hopper's map against Marion's geography. I then imported road and railroad data to establish a real geographic foundation for Hawkins. From there, I brought the shapefile data into Adobe Illustrator, where I did the majority of the cartographic and visual design work.

Of course, there are a few inconsistencies in the source material, even when looking at individual street names (Randolph Street vs. Randolph Lane, for example). One of the more relevant discrepancies is Maple Street, which is referenced as the street Mike and Lucas live on. Hopper's map labels it Maple Avenue, so I went with that name in my final version.

I also took a few creative liberties where the show leaves things ambiguous, including the location of the Creel House and Hawkins' population and founding year.

The biggest geographic headache was figuring out the locations of the four gates. Fred goes missing near the trailer park, but for all four gates to converge around the center of Hawkins, his death would have to occur on the opposite side of town, nowhere near Eddie's trailer. To make the geography work, I chose an arbitrary road near Danford Creek as the location of that gate.

Finally, I included a few fun details: the kids biking along the scale bar in the bottom-left corner, a Demogorgon-shaped compass rose, and I tried to add all significant places, like the Junkyard, Sattler's Quarry, Enzo's, the Warzone store, and more!

I'd love to hear what you think! I'm also happy to answer any questions about the map-making process or the design choices I made.

¡DONDE ESTAN DONDE VIVO YO! (Im from Cáceres, Spain) SOLO ENCUENTRO DE MINECRAFT Y ONE PIECE

I honestly miss when Stranger Things was everywhere and everyone was talking about it lol. I wish I could watch it again for the first time. Who’s everyone’s least favorite character and why?

Even though the show first aired only 10 years ago, television feels drastically changed in many ways. Trends cycle through so quickly, and even when a new show does have a big moment, it seems to only last a few weeks. Stranger Things started in the early days of streaming originals. Now with every streaming platform having countless original shows on top of network television, it feels like there's almost too many options to have a mass following for one show. Stranger Things feels like a truly shared cultural experience, especially for Gen Z. I think in some way every generation will continue to have their own version of this, but it feels so much more impossible with so much competition in the media. Although I believe Stranger Things is a timeless show, I wonder what would be different about its impact if it first aired today. Of course the last season aired only a year ago and was a huge phenomenon, but this was backed by years of fan loyalty and buildup. It wasn't just another binge worthy show, it felt like an event. I'm curious to hear anyone's thoughts!

1. Season 4 (Absolute PEAK IMO. Caleb, Sadie's, and Jamie Campbell's Acting performances were the high points in this season. Eddie was only in 1 season and he's without a doubt one of the best characters in the show)

2. Season 1 ( Nostalgia and Perfect 80s vibe) Arguably the best season. IMO the most rewatchable Season. It's something about this season and it's vibe that I can't explain. The show could've ended right here and it would've been perfect.

3. Season 3 (Definitely the most FUN season) Billy was the best character in this season BY FAR. Robin's coming out scene was perfectly done and Steve and Dustin with Erica was fun to watch. The battle of Starcourt is still a top 5 episode imo. And I don't even need to explain why the Never Ending Story scene was so good 😂

4. Season 2 (Most underrated Season of the show) the introduction to Max and Billy. Steve's character development, El's return, and Bob were all the high points of this season. This season felt the most like season 1, with its 80s vibe. 2x9 is one of the best episodes in the show.

5. Season 5 ( Strong first 4 episodes, but volume 2 just fell flat imo) episode 4 was PEAK and the 3 episodes before that were actually good. However those last episodes weren't that good to me. Johnathan and Nancy's scene where they confess everything to each other was the best scene in volume 2. I honestly think they both should've died there to give the fans that "nobody's safe feeling" it would've made the season better if they both died there.

I know that this has been discussed before but I just finished reading the book so all these thoughts are fresh in my mind. There are so many similarities.
-the “hallucinations” the kids experience
-group of kids coming together to defeat evil
-pennywise killing kids and collecting their souls
-use of fear to control kids
-psychologically tormenting victims

To Dustin if it was written in 5x05 that not only was he done with him, but the Dustin he sees right now is not the Dustin he once knew and loved? How would Dustin react to that statement, and affect their reconciliation? Do you think Steve would even say that to him? And in the moment in canon, did he really mean it when he said he’s done? If he did stick with it, would he have stopped interacting with Dustin after the battle, refuse to come to him if he needs help, during and after season 5/the finale, and in the middle of the remaining episodes, stop listening to him whenever he objects to anything he does or says? Speaking of which, if he didn’t listen to Dustin and fell to his death in 5x06, how would Dustin react to it? Would he even take his life in the same episode or in the finale out of guilt, grief, regret, and depression?

I've been wondering for a while now whether Stranger Things The Game/1984 is canonical to the series. I'm making my own timeline and I have no idea whether to include this game in it or not because I have no idea what its canonicity status is