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calenheniel · 5 years

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Avowal | sequel to Denial

Frozen | Hans x Elsa | Romance, Angst | Oneshot | K+

Two years later, and shame still plagues his every step.

He can walk unfettered around the palace of the Isles, the gardens, and even out so far as the surrounding town—but the rumors and gossip and laughter of the courtiers and common people follow him everywhere he goes.

There is no escape from it, even in dreams.

Sequel to Denial

Author's Note: Years later, I decided that the story of Denial remained incomplete. This is dedicated to everyone who has feelings left unexpressed, and with things left unsaid.

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Avowal

Two years later, and shame still plagues his every step.

There is no escape from it, even in dreams.

Mocking remarks and laughter are nothing new to him - he's suffered the same all throughout his childhood, and most of his adult life - but the nature of them since his return from Arendelle seem even more poisonous than before.

How many times would the Queen have her way with you? And her sister, the Princess? I imagine they both must've had a go.

How did it feel to finally plunge your sword into those icy depths?

I suppose she must have discarded of you when she got bored. If only you'd been a better lover, she might've kept you around a bit longer!

At first, hearing such comments nearly makes him laugh; if any of them knew how far from the truth their suppositions were, what a shock they might suffer! After months pass in this manner, however, he realizes that telling said truth would only make things worse for him.

After all, was it more humiliating to have been the sexual plaything to a renowned frigid beauty, or to have been a willing prisoner who rejected her advances, and could make no great claims to have bedded the wondrous and terrible Snow Queen? At least by not denying the former version of events, he could hold onto some part of his old reputation as a terrible seducer. With the latter, he would likely be regarded as some kind of idiotic monk, or worse—impotent.

And so he languishes in idle pleasures to pass the time, barred from further naval service or any active role at court, traipsing from one gambling parlor to another. Sometimes, he even dares to venture out amongst the commoners, standing in the back of a theater for a drunken puppet show or sliding into the dark corners of taverns with a pint of cheap ale. These escapades, however, are usually brief, cut short by his fellow patrons’ recognition of his face and misdeeds (followed by their coarse and unbridled laughter).

When all else fails to entertain him (or when he runs out of money), he reads - endlessly, relentlessly - but no book holds his attention for long, and he is inevitably drawn back into morose brooding over his many failures.

It is on one such day spent alternating between reading and reflecting in his quiet, dusty spot in the old stacks of the palace library, that he learns (by way of eavesdropping on a tryst between two courtiers) of the Snow Queen’s upcoming visit to the Isles.

It is to be the first since his attempted coup, and the significance of the event is not lost on him; he wonders at how his older brother, the king, might try to keep him out of sight and sound of the visiting monarch, or at the new rumors and cackles that are sure to haunt him in the days and weeks ahead.

She’s come back for a taste of the young prince, has she? For old time’s sake.

He is filled with bitter hatred for her at the thought, and cannot stomach seeing that weak, pathetic creature again, even if only in passing glances from the shadows.

He recalls her fixation on him, her futile attempts at intimacy, her hesitation—and with each memory, his resentment grows.

Two years later, and she still won’t let him be.

II.

It’s the day before her arrival in the Isles, and it’s even worse than he imagined.

There is no corner of the palace to which he can retreat, no tavern, theater, or parlor accessible to him, where he does not feel the eyes of every courtier and commoner upon him. His own quarters are his only solace, and there he rests on his bed with a great frown stitched onto his lips.

There is endless chatter about what might happen should the two run into one another during her visit—a possibility which, to him, seems unlikely after receiving a predictably stern warning from the king to stay away.

He has no intention, of course, to disobey his brother. In spite of his old penchant for drama, he has no desire to see the Snow Queen again, nor to let her have the upper hand in any way over him in person.

But she’s already won, he thinks, and scowls. To deny that would be a fool’s errand; whatever pleasure he might have extracted from dealing out small cruelties to her in the past, he knows they are worth nothing in the bigger scheme of things. In his pitiful current existence, he recognizes that he does not have the freedom - nor the impulse - to taunt and bait her as freely as he once did.

And yet—

He shakes his head at the stray thought. He cannot imagine that she has changed all that much in the two years since he left her kingdom—not someone like her, who has lived such an austere and controlled life for so long, and who had only just begun to explore the extent of her powers in the brief time he spent in her custody.

Not someone, he thinks, who couldn’t even bring herself to touch me.

Besides, he does not think that he has changed much since then, either. Outside of an ever-growing number of gambling debts he will never repay, and an encyclopedic knowledge of the history of the Northern Isles from his countless hours in the library, he feels the same as ever. (Although perhaps a bit more glum and resigned than before.)

Nonetheless, there is an irrepressible curiosity about her that has always been there, and which remains unstifled by his denials and pretend nonchalance. It has grown with each passing moment since the day he learned of her visit, and now it threatens to upset the fragile peace he has made with his quiet, unhappy life.

He wonders if seeing her again will finally break it.

III.

What are you doing?

He hears her asking him that question again, if only in his mind; he is even sat in the same position, draped across a chaise in his room with a book, as he was when she first asked it.

He shuts the tome abruptly at the memory, though he was not much engrossed in it to begin with. There is no quiet to be found even in his own room, as she is everywhere—and nowhere.

Where has your ambition gone?

He rises from the chaise in a tumult, nearly knocking it over as he snaps open his closet doors, red-faced. The Snow Queen has been in the Isles for a week already, attending meetings, fetes and dinners thrown in her honor, touring the ports, and entertaining the commoners with displays of her ice magic. He’s watched it all from various vantage points around the palace, ignoring the warning looks of his insufferable brothers and their equally dreadful wives when they catch sight of him skulking.

Despite his previous disinclination, he cannot help himself; he wants to, no, has to see her.

You didn’t know me then, and you certainly don’t know me now.

He wonders at that seething little remark as he rifles through his clothes, running his hands over old suits without purpose or feeling for their former significance. He remembers her so differently from the way she looks to him now: determined, confident, even bold in her gait and approach, inspiring awe and obsequious speeches from his relations.

It is strange, he thinks, to see her as a stranger; it feels wrong, somehow, that she should transform into this new person beyond his understanding, and beyond his reach.

Perhaps I didn’t know her after all, he muses, though it is hard to tell from so far away who she is or isn’t anymore—what is real, and what is performance.

There is only one way to find out, but he has avoided doing it. He prefers the cold embrace of the shadows, their anonymity, their familiarity; he has only ever known disappointment when he has tried to step out of them. To let her see him, and to see her again, in the light…

His hand pauses atop a pair of gloves - similar to, although not the same as, the ones he used to wear - and an old, familiar sensation of comfort courses through him at their texture. As he runs his fingers over them, he recalls the redness in her cheeks and the dusky glow in her blue eyes when he drew near.

A grim smile tugs at the corner of his lips.

Or perhaps I do.

IV.

It’s an unusually chilly October afternoon when they are reunited - or, more accurately, when she requests to see him again - and he isn’t informed of the exact hour, minute, or second that he should expect her to call on him.

That doesn’t stop him from restless speculation, though.

It isn’t lost on him that in the exact moment he’d finally made up his mind to face her, she had called for him herself. It leaves him wondering at her motives, and at what he might expect: harsh remonstrances? Retribution for his callous indifference towards her? Perhaps, he thinks, she has negotiated with his brother for him to finally be duly punished for his crimes against her and her country, and instead of her, he would be met with the palace guard carting him off to the dungeons.

This possibility, among many others, crosses his mind in the silence of the king’s study, where she has asked to meet with him, alone. He paces the floors as if in a trance, his hands knotted together behind his back and his shoulders taut, missing their old epaulettes.

“Hans.”

Her voice cuts through the stale air, and he stops. His shoulders lower as he turns towards her, and he fights the urge to bow.

“Elsa.”

She is close, now—closer than he can ever remember her being, even though she is still on the other side of the room, the doors to the study closing behind her.

He swallows a grimace, plastering on a smug look. “You’ve come to see me.”

She takes a few steps towards him, and it takes every bit of his strength to stand in place. “Yes,” she says, “I’ve come to see you.”

Her stride is as purposeful and powerful as he observed from afar in the previous days, but up close, there is something in her expression that unsettles him… something that he can’t define or grasp.

(Something that inspires his old feelings of spite.)

“And I suppose you’ve come to gawk, then?” he asks. “To see what remains of your former prisoner? Or is ‘ward’ the more appropriate term?” His face twists as his fingers curl into fists behind him, and he approaches her with deliberate, menacing languor. When he comes to a halt, he is close enough to see the twinge of pink coloring her cheekbones, rising above the freckles dotting her skin, and he drops his voice to a low baritone.

“Or perhaps there’s something else you want?”

Her eyes lift to greet his gaze, and his breath hitches in his throat.

“Hans,” she says again, “please.”

Her voice is gentler this time, with a plaintive note he doesn’t recognize. It takes him aback, and in the silence that follows, their eyes remain locked.

He notices that something in them again that he doesn’t understand, and as he scans her expression over and over again, his heart races at the unexpectedness and suddenness of their proximity.

(Of their intimacy.)

His skin crawls at the thought. “So what is it, Elsa? What could you possibly want from me now?” He sneers at her. “And don’t bother asking for an apology. You clearly don’t need one from me,” he remarks, looking her up and down for effect. “Not anymore.”

“I don’t want an apology.”

His back stiffens at her immediate, effortless reply, and his hands lock at his sides.

“I—”

She pauses, looking away, and the pink in her cheeks turns to red as her breath catches and releases. He watches her in silence, surprising himself; he is rarely a man without words.

“I don’t want an apology,” she repeats, her eyes softening as she regards him. “Rather, I… I came here - asked you to come here today - to say the opposite.”

His chest tightens. “The opposite?” he manages after a moment, feeling absurd.

She gives a slight nod. “Yes. To say that I—I’m sorry, Hans.” Her breath comes out as a shudder. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t honest with you. About why I kept you in Arendelle, why I sought your company, why…”

She trails off, unable to look at him, and his face grows hot. “You’re sorry,” he repeats, not understanding—never understanding, it seems.

She reaches down into a pocket in her dress, and pulls out a pair of gloves - the very same gloves, he realizes, that he left behind for her in Arendelle - and the sight of them causes a chill to run down his spine.

With some hesitation, she places them on a small table nearby, and then removes her own, one by one, and lays them atop his. Her gaze lingers there for a moment, and then she’s looking at him again.

“I loved you,” she says, blinking back tears. “I didn’t understand it then, but now…”

She reaches out for his hands, frozen at his sides, and brings them to her lips, bowing her head to place a kiss atop each of them. When she exhales, she releases a relieved sigh that rolls across his skin in waves, and then she lifts her head, releasing his hands from hers.

A small smile flits across her face even as her lip quivers, and in that moment, he is moved by her beauty in a way that he hasn’t been since he saw her on the North Mountain.

“Goodbye, Hans.”

He starts at the parting words, unready for them, still lost in the morass of her confession—and then she is gone, like ice retreating from spring, the outline of her back glimmering with a strange light as the doors close behind her.

When he is alone again, he wonders if she had ever really been there at all.

I’m sorry.

The back of his hands are tingling, his skin still warm from her lips, and he knows.

I loved you.

He takes a step back, then two, then three, until he bumps into a table - the same one upon which she placed his gloves, as well as her own - and stops.

His fingers tremble as they touch the gloves, one by one. He cannot help but notice how ragged and discolored his are in comparison to hers, which remain as vibrant and bold a blue as when he first beheld her.

I didn’t understand it then, but now…

He remembers the breathless, reverent way she held his gloves in her hands - as if every stain and tear along their seams were precious jewels - and he chokes as his fists curl around them, his knuckles turning white.

Six years later, and he’s finally let her touch him.

#hans #elsa #queen elsa #prince hans #frozen #frozen fanfic #frozen fanfiction #iceburns #hansla #helsa #hans x elsa #elsa x hans

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wheatbeats · 6 years

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Hey there! I was super impressed with your soundtrack recommendation. Could I bother you for some suggestions for songs that ~feel~ like the old Redwall cartoon theme song? I've tried looking at peoples' Redwall-themed playlists but I feel like a lot of music veers too cartoony and narrative or else is too Grimdark Fantasy... do you have any suggestions for things that straddle that delicate line between whimsical adventure and serious swordfights?

Thank you, I’m honored you came to me. Let’s see if I can at least give you a few places to start.

In terms of film and television scores and whatnot, I’ve got a few ideas that might be what you’re going for. One of the first things that came to mind was “Kingdom Dance” by Alan Menken, from the Tangled score (this plays during the montage when Flynn and Rapunzel explore Corona). I know this movie is mostly remembered for its songs, but Alan Menken’s surrounding score is probably some of his best work.

Aside from that, I can also recommend “Chariot’s Theme” from Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade by Michiru Oshima. The entirety of this score might also help you, both for the OVA Enchanted Parade and for the anime proper, but I personally prefer the OVA score because they recorded with a better ensemble in a far better space. The version of “Chariot’s Theme” used in Enchanted Parade sounds far warmer, richer, and fuller than the one used in the series, so I’d recommend it higher.

Next option is “Clock Tower Parade” by Two Steps From Hell, a trailer music company. TSFH is certainly known for their bombastic, trailer-esque crushing modernistic scores, but they also have an extended catalogue of many other styles, including light and soft music. “Clock Tower Parade” is one of my favorites of theirs; whimsical and light but also relentless and exhilarating.

Another option is another personal favorite piece of mine: “Final Fantasy VI (Symphonic Poem: Born With the Gift of Magic)” by Nobuo Uematsu, orchestrated by Roger Wanamo. This arrangement was a part of the legendary Final Symphony concert series that toured a few years ago (and still tours around Europe to this day, I believe), and I think it’s the best way to experience the incredible score to Final Fantasy Vi in full orchestration. The 18-minute symphonic poem runs the emotional gamut from heroic to sinister to mysterious to silly to action-packed to gleefully insane. There are two excellent performance recordings out there, but I’d personally recommend the one by the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, they really knocked it out of the park with this one.

I’d also recommend the entireties of both Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch and Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom by Joe Hisaishi, as well as The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and its sequel, Prince Caspian by Harry Gregson-Williams. These are some of my favorite fantasy scores and they’ve never disappointed me.

hhhhh okay this is getting long, but don’t worry! We’re at the halfway point. Classical music time.

The good news is, you’ve got a lot of options.

The first I’d recommend is Suite from “The Love for Three Oranges” by Sergei Prokofiev. I’ll admit that I don’t know much about the opera it was drawn from, but I heard the Chicago Symphony perform it live once and I absolutely fell in love with it, especially the love theme in movement 5.

Shifting our focus over to France, I thought you might also like to look into Images by Claude Debussy, but especially the second movement, Iberia, which is divided into 3 parts: By the Streets and By the Ways, The Perfume of the Night, and The Morning of a Holiday. This movement specifically draws from at least a loose understanding of Spanish music, because back then Spain was still considered a bit exotic to the rest of Europe.

Next up is The Sleeping Beauty Suite by Tchaikovsky. If this suite sounds familiar at all, it’s because it actually served as the score for Disney’s own Sleeping Beauty. Yeah, that famous Disney song “Once Upon a Dream”? Tchaikovsky wrote that. Blew my fucking mind when I figured that out.

Next, over to Britain! I’d be remiss if I ever recommend music to anyone without bringing up Gustav Holst, my greatest compositional love, and this time I recommend his piece The Moth and the Flame, sometimes also known as The Lure. Also coming from Britain is the brilliantly intense Symphony No. 1 in D Minor “The Gothic” by Havergal Brian. The entire symphony is absolutely worth a listen, but seeing as it’s literally the longest symphony ever written, I’ll just recommend the first movement here.

And finally I recommend looking old school, to my best friend and secret twin brother Georg Philipp Telemann, and his surprisingly badass Concerto for Flute, Recorder, & Strings in E Minor. My favorite part of this piece is absolutely the fourth and final movement, which draws inspiration from Polish folk music.

So, TL;DR, the recommendation list follows as thus:

“Kingdom Dance” from Tangled, by Alan Menken

“Chariot’s Theme” from Little Witch Academia: The Enchanted Parade by Michiru Oshima

“Clock Tower Parade” by Two Steps From Hell

“Final Fantasy VI (Symphonic Poem: Born With the Gift of Magic)” by Nobuo Uematsu, arr. by Roger Wanamo

bonus recommendations for both Ni no Kuni scores by Joe Hisaishi and both Chronicles of Narnia scores by Harry Gregson-Williams

Suite from “The Love for Three Oranges” by Sergei Prokofiev

Images: II. Iberia (a. By the Streets and By the Ways, b. The Perfume of the Night, c. The Morning of a Holiday) by Claude Debussy

The Sleeping Beauty Suite by Pyotry Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The Moth and the Flame by Gustav Holst

Symphony No. 1 in D Minor “The Gothic”: I. Allegro assai by Havergal Brian

Concerto for Flute, Recorder, & Strings in E Minor: IV. Presto by Georg Philipp Telemann

I hope this helps you! Some of these recommendations might get a bit away from Redwall’s sound, but hopefully they give you some of that whimsical adventure and serious sword fights you’re looking for!

#solarpoweredflashlight #music #music recs #redwall

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qqueenofhades · 7 years

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Historical People of Color in Europe (and America): “It’s Not Historically Accurate!!” and Other Nonsense

Right, so. Rather than hijacking the Black Victorians post with a lengthy addition, I decided to make a separate one to talk about something I have wanted to have a good rant on, especially given the current state of racial rhetoric, concerns about whitewashing and the representation of non-white folks in a fictional (particularly fictional historical and/or fictional historical-fantasy) setting, and all the other time-worn “I’m Not A Racist (tm) But There Weren’t Any People of Color In [Insert Your Setting of Choice Here]” arguments that appear.

If you would like to save yourself some time and get on with your day, spoiler alert: It’s bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit, and moreover, these arguments are made for a specific political reason. Narratives of past “nonexistence” are always used to try to justify present repression (or rather, these arguments represent a thinly-veiled desire for an imagined time when racial and ethnic diversity presumably did not exist, or that said racial and ethnic diversity was acceptable to discriminate against without consequences, or that a monolithic “white default” population was the only existing paradigm). Claims of a past “white Europe” (which is supposed to be superior to multicultural Europe) are always, ALWAYS right-wing, nationalist, and racially charged. The underlying assumption is that multiculturalism is modern liberal PC rubbish, that people of color are the “invaders” disrupting an imagined timeless “Aryan” ideal, and that somehow, much like gay people, they only started to exist in the 20th century when the establishment admitted they did.

(Let me just put right at the top here that the Nazi project of applied racial and religious genocide was thoroughly based in the work of the American eugenics movement, and that Hitler wrote a fan letter to one of its creators.)

You may have heard of the recent kerfuffle when Mary Beard, professor of classics at Cambridge University, endorsed a cartoon depicting a multi-racial Roman family with a black father as accurate to the diversity of Roman Britain. The alt-right trolls went all in with their determination to prove that Roman Britain (and the Roman empire in general) was white, which, if you know anything about the borders and demographics of ancient Rome at all, was completely ludicrous. (Many of the trolls freely admitted to never having studied a damn thing about actual history, but they were still convinced they knew more than, you know, a distinguished professor at Cambridge.) But as Beard pointed out in a response to her critics, this reflects the fact that any claim to historical diversity (or more specifically, the purported lack thereof) has become the realm of people who are insistent on their interpretation, don’t care about facts, and are using them for a specific and damaging political project.

So.

Let’s make some racists angry, shall we?

The idea of “Europe against the barbarians” as a political project goes back at least to the crusades and their inception in 1095, but it was conceived in its quasi-modern form by the Duke of Sully, minister to Henry IV of France, in the seventeenth century, as the “Grand Design.” It proposed keeping the peace in fractious Europe by fighting the “infidels” -- the same argument that had often been used to justify the crusades. (For a very good discussion on all this, see Anouar Majid, Freedom and Orthodoxy: Islam and Difference in the Post-Andalusian Age, esp. page 211-13.) The crusades remained a potent metaphor throughout all of Europe long after their official “end” in 1291, and were used to justify racial, colonial, and imperial projects of all kinds. Sir Winston Churchill praised the wisdom of the Grand Design in a 1948 post-war speech for the reunification of Europe -- i.e., this racial violence was exactly how they intended to move Europe forward into the modern age after so destructively fighting each other, by giving it back its old enemies. I have literally written a master’s thesis on the post-1291 intellectual and legal inheritance of the crusades and the racial construction of the Euro-American historical narrative, so I could go on for a long time here, but this is the takeaway point: the academic (and elite) practice of history, especially Western history, has always been used to justify the erasure, destruction, elimination, and removal of agency from non-white individuals and civilizations alike. So even if you’re claiming “history” as a legitimating tool for your racial fantasia of lily-white Europe, this history is an intentional and actively tailored instrument of racial prejudice that does not reflect reality.

Now that the theoretical stuff is over, let’s get into specifics.

Medieval Spain (Iberia) and medieval Sicily in particular were richly diverse societies that supported numerous distinct racial, religious, and ethnic groups, including Jews, Muslims, Greek/Eastern Christians, Latin/Western Christians, Normans, Africans, and other communities from around the Mediterranean. I have linked only a quick/initial source for each, but there is tons out there. These communities had episodes of strife and tension, of course, but also lived together for extended periods of time in essential cooperation. Spain in particular produced an incredibly rich intellectual climate in the early medieval era, such as the golden age of Toledo.

While the crusades were a project of warfare against non-Christian, non-Europeans (and sometimes also against Europeans, such as the Albigensian and Northern Crusades), they were also the first time many of the Northern European crusaders had met Arab Muslims and Africans -- encounters which were not always uniformly hostile, and which were shaped by recognizable diplomatic customs. One of my favorite examples is in the Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta regis Ricardi, a Latin prose narrative of the Third Crusade otherwise hostile to the Muslims. See especially pages 276-283 above, where the author cannot help but be impressed by the graciousness and generosity of Saladin and his Muslim forces hosting Christian visitors in Jerusalem (after a treaty was made to end the crusade) and which includes Saladin inviting Bishop Hubert Walter of Salisbury to dinner, where they have a long and friendly chat and are both impressed. My feelings on the genuine respect and admiration that existed between Saladin, his brother, and several of his generals, on the one hand, and Richard the Lionheart, on the other, are probably well-known. (See also Thomas Asbridge, Talking to the enemy: the role and purpose of negotiations between Saladin and Richard the Lionheart during the Third Crusade.)

Even after the crusades, Elizabethan England was deeply connected to the Islamic world and its empires: Ottoman, Persian, and Moroccan. Trade between them was frequent, so many Englishmen settled in Arabic Muslim societies that there were attempted royal proclamations and incentives to lure back expatriates (see Majid, 55), and a proposed Anglo-Moroccan alliance against Spain was a key feature of the foreign policy of the later years of Elizabeth I’s reign. (It should be noted that early modern England’s fairly friendly relationship with the Islamic world, so unlike Spain’s driving hatred of the Moors, had to be jettisoned as they moved into the realm of competing colonial conquests.) Abd el-Ouahed ben Massoud was the Moroccan ambassador to England during this time, and may have been part of the inspiration for Shakespeare’s Othello. “Cinthio’s Tale,” published in 1565, purported to tell the true story of a Muslim/Moorish captain serving in the Venetian army and deceived by a treacherous ensign, which was also drawn upon by Shakespeare.

The Golden Age of Piracy was strongly black, Indian, and Native American. Famous pirates like Blackbeard, Edward England, Samuel Bellamy, William Kidd, and others had up to one-third black/Native crews, who were treated equally (this was not universal among pirates, but attacking slave ships and disrupting the slave trade was one thing for which they were principally known). John Julian, the sixteen-year-old Mesquito Indian who was the pilot of the Whydah, a former slave ship captured by “Black Sam” Bellamy, was later one of the only two survivors of its wreck in 1717. Bellamy’s crew of 150 men had between 30-50 free blacks; Blackbeard’s crew was over half black; Edward England’s nearly 300-strong cohort had over 70 black men.

There were also mixed-race captains in the Royal Navy, such as John Perkins. In his long and vastly adventurous career, he commanded half a dozen ships of the line in at least four wars, served as a spy, and nearly got sentenced to death for smuggling weapons to revolting slaves. His obituary in 1812 records, “he annoyed the enemy more than any other officer, by his repeated feats of gallantry, and the immense number of prizes he took.” (See page 373 of the pdf.) By this time, there were a considerable number of free blacks in England, who had founded the learned abolitionist society known as the Sons of Africa. The late eighteenth century saw men like Ignatius Sancho, Olaudah Equiano, and Ottobah Cuguano. All of them were literate, accomplished men who wrote letters and memoirs, including passionate manifestos against slavery, corresponded with high society, were internationally best-selling authors, and, in Sancho’s case, is the first black man known to have voted in Britain (around 1780). There were also women like Dido Elizabeth Belle (great niece of William Mansfield, author of the deciding opinion in the landmark 1772 Somersett case against slavery and subject of the 2013 film starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and the American poet Phillis Wheatley. There were important figures in the American Revolution like Agrippa Hull, and political radicals like William Davidson, who was part of the “Cato Street Conspiracy” in 1820.

There was Alexander Crummell, the Episcopalian preacher, theologian, and African activist who graduated from Cambridge in the 1840s. How about you check out Black Oxford: The Untold Stories of Oxford University’s Black Scholars? Or Alain LeRoy Locke, the first African-American recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship in 1907, after it was founded in 1903 (something that would doubtless terribly annoy noted white supremacist Cecil Rhodes) and who also studied at Harvard University? Oh yeah, Locke was the intellectual father of the Harlem Renaissance and was also gay.) Speaking of biopics, about Victoria and Abdul, which tells the story of an aging Queen Victoria and her deep friendship with Abdul Karim or the “Munshi,” who taught her Urdu and Hindustani, and who, yes, faced incredible prejudice from the deeply starchy and racist British court?

We can definitely mention how a majority of cowboys were black or Native American (it was a grueling, dangerous, unforgiving job with low pay and no glamour, of course they made the people of color do it -- don’t believe everything the heroic, rugged-white-man-Americana John Wayne myth tells you). The inspiration for the Lone Ranger, Bass Reeves, was black. Ira Aldridge was a world-famous black Shakespearean actor and anti-slavery activist in the 19th century. I could go on, but this post is already long enough.

(Lastly: Read Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas In America, by Ibram X. Kendi, an award-winning young African-American historian and director of the Anti-Racist Research and Policy Center at American University.)

So yes. If you’re invoking “historical accuracy” for the convenient nonexistence of people of color in a historical/historical fantasy/fictional narrative:

a) You’re wrong.

b) You’re super wrong, please stop.

c) If you don’t stop, You Are A Racist. Time to work on that.

The point is: imagine, create, and write black/POC Roman centurions, medieval scholars, soldiers, pirates, Royal Navy captains, spies, political activists, best-selling authors, public intellectuals, famous actors, talented lawmen, etc, and write them existing in Europe and the Americas at pretty much any time you like. Not only will you make a racist mad, you will be hella historically accurate, can flip the bird with both fingers, and moonwalk out of the room. Remember: denying the existence or agency of historical people of color is always tied to a desire that they didn’t exist or have agency in the present, and that isn’t how things “used to be done,” ergo they must be wrong. This is the appeal of a certain kind of history as an imagined “legitimate space” for racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc, where these attitudes used to be accepted and promoted without challenge. The people who hold them now want those views to enjoy the same kind of hegemony. And if you’ve paid any attention to the world recently, you’ll realize how dangerous and pervasive those narratives are, and how badly they need to be challenged and upended.

#history #medieval history #black history #historical poc #history of racism #long post

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jolienjoyswriting · 4 years

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Electrical Distubance, Ch. IV

Chapter 4 of "Electrical Disturbance," a Rockman (Dr. Chou Numbers universe) fan fiction story.

I sure do love worldbuilding. I'm also a big fan of world-wrecking, it seems.

Word count: 3,296 – Character count: 19,020 Originally written: July 18th, 2020

Kaitlin quickly finds herself on the wrong end of gun as she tries to figure out what's going on.

Elecman, Thomas Right, Roll, Blues/Breakman, “Rockman,” and related characters and concepts created by various people and © Capcom Co, Ltd. "Dr. Chou Numbers" concept and related characters and concepts created by and © Jussy Kaitlin/Thundergirl created by and © KaitlinEXE

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The room fell silent. Well, silent… apart from the maniacal cackling that filled it. Kaitlin had just dropped a bombshell on the room by announcing herself as a Wily-‘bot. Dr. Right and Roll were positively agog with surprise. Elecman, however… “I know what’s going on!” He went full-aggro on the girl!

“Elecman, no!” Dr. Right shouted as the robot charged an electrical attack. “I must have infected her with a time-release program during our regrettable skirmish in Nevada! She thinks she’s one of Wily’s machines – I must make this right!” Elecman took a fighting pose and put his hands over his chest, one above and one below, both pointing opposite directions. As he slid the two across each other, a loud crackle of energy sparked to life between them. In the next second, his hands went over his head in preparation… “This is for your own good, Thundergirl! Thunder Beam!!” Then, he threw them outward in an open-clam position, sending a powerful bolt across the room and… “Nooooo…!!” Straight into Roll’s waiting chest.

Once again, the room went entirely silent. Even Kaitlin, who was completely convinced she was going to be zapped, stood in awe of what had happened. “Roll…” Dr. Right weakly called to his creation as she awkwardly lay on the floor. “You dear, sweet child,” Elecman whispered, looking away, “what have you done…” “She… She saved me. She saved me?! Why did she save me?!” Indeed, just as Elecman had prepared to disable Kaitlin with a Thunder Beam… Roll had run in as fast as her feet could carry her, screamed in rejection, launched herself between the two, then crashed into the closet door, clutching her chest and trembling in agony, her body surging, crackling, and smoldering from her younger brother’s attack.

“She saved me…” Kaitlin couldn’t make heads-or-tails of it. “A Right-‘bot saved me from gettin’ zapped…” She fell to her knees, her eyes filling with tears of confusion and another emotion she didn’t quite understand. “I…” “Get away from her!”

Just as Kaitlin was about to pull Roll onto her back… Dr. Right came in swinging! Even though she was only stunned by the coat rack that was smashed against her full-metal head… it was more-than-enough to get her back onto her feet and scurry right out the front door! She didn’t want anything to do with those crazy Rights! “Gotta get outta here…” she panted as she ran even faster than before. “Gotta find a radio…! Gotta call Papa Wily and… and have him save me…! Gotta– ooph!” But, that was going to have to wait…

After being bounced to the ground, Kaitlin looked up… then she shivered with fear. Standing in front of her was a man in a gray jumpsuit with a yellow scarf and red boots and gauntlets. He had a shield on his back and… one very large arm-cannon pointed right at her head. “You have exactly five seconds to explain yourself, Thundergirl,” he told her in a cold voice that lacked any mercy. “After that… I’m going to blow your head off.” A lot of words came out of the frightened girl’s mouth as she stared down the barrel of his glowing plasma weapon. She could feel it scorching her face as it gathered energy for a powerful attack. Naturally, seeing that sort of thing was enough to keep her from saying anything coherent, but when she realized she couldn’t get a word out… “Aaaaahh…!!” She curled into a ball, covered her head, and hoped for a miracle. “Okay. That will do.” And, that’s exactly what she got.

The girl dared to peek through her arms, violently shaking and hyperventilating out of pure, unrestrained fear. Twice, today, she was sure she was going to die and twice, today, she was saved by some unexpected circumstance! If her luck held out… maybe she could be back in the cozy comfort of her papa’s latest castle before sundown! She hoped, anyway…

“Get up.” The sharply flinched, drawn from her thoughts by the man-in-gray. “I said…” A kick to the leg made her yelp. “Get up.” She was quick to follow directions, then. The kick didn’t hurt that much, but it was pretty clear that this man… robot? This person wasn’t screwing around…

“Now…” Kaitlin stood at full attention. Whatever his next order was… she planned to follow it! “Explain… slowly… why you decided to make a mess of my family’s house after the doctor took time out of his day to save your worthless life.” For some reason, the urge to turn it around and call him worthless boiled up inside her. Thankfully… she decided not to act on it. “I-I-I didn’t know he f-fixed me…” she openly admitted with a stutter. “I j-j-just woke up in a s-strange place, s-surrounded by people my dad hates! I was s-scared…” “Liar!” She shrieked as he shouted at her. A second later, she noticed him cross his arms. “Let’s try this, again… Why did you make a mess of my family’s house?” “I… umm…” She hesitated before admitting, “I did it in the name of Dr. Wily…” “Are you one of his creations?” She shrunk before answering, “Y-yes… I… I’m a Special Wily Number. L-like Big Bro Forte and Lost Bro King!” The man in the red helmet and black visor hummed. “Has this always been the case? Wily tends to… ‘find…’ a lot of ‘his’ robots.” “A-as far as I know…?” Unfortunately… she really didn’t know.

“Hmm…” The unnamed man looked to one side as he thought out loud, “You told us you were an amnesiac, but you never told us you were a Wily Number. Why the change-of-heart? Why the change-of-alliance…?” “What?” Kaitlin blinked in confusion. “I-I’ve always been a Wily Number, M-Mister…” “Breakman.” “M-Mister Breakman,” she corrected without hesitation. “Did your… creator… ever specifically tell you of your creation?” “Um… no. B-but, a lot’a my brothers don’t remember bein’ created by Papa Wily, either!” She looked down at the ground, rubbing her arm. “He doesn’t tell us stuff like that ‘cause, even though we think of ourselves as a family, he just sees us as tools… moving from one ‘project’ to the next… B-But, that’s okay, ‘cause we kind of are just tools! People who get attached to ‘tools’ are stupid and wrong! I mean, that white-haired beardo got all freaked-out when Elecman zapped that dumb, blond maid, and–” All positive emotion – not to mention color – brained from the girl’s face as she found her eyesight obscured by the faintly-glowing end of Breakman’s weapon. “Watch your mouth, Thundergirl…” She thought about keeping quiet. However… “W… wh-why?” A question found its way out of her mouth, instead. “I happen to like that Right Number.” He lowered his gun as he added, “She’s the only one who isn’t trying to change me…” “Ch… ‘change you?’” “Never mind.”

Breakman crossed his arms, again, before turning to the side. Even though Kaitlin couldn’t see his eyes through the visor, she knew he was looking at the Right House. She figured he was probably thinking, too, considering how quiet he got…

“Thundergirl.” “Wh-why does everyone keep calling me that?” “What?” He turned her way. She was scowling and looked annoyed. “Why does everyone keep calling me ‘Thundergirl…?’” Kaitlin repeated. “I dunno who that even is! My name is ‘Kaitlin!’ I guess it’s technically Special Wily Number error: Kaitlin… but ‘Kaitlin’ is way less of a mouthful!” Though she was smiling… Breakman was not. “Say that, again,” he half-demanded. “Say what again?” She tilted her head. “‘My name is Kaitlin?’” “Your full name.” “My full name… my… designation, ugh.” She scowled. “It’s Special Wily Number error: Kaitlin. I’m a Special Wily Number just like–” “Again.” Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “I’m… Special Wily Number error: Kaitlin.”

“Thundergirl. Kaitlin, rather…” Breakman leaned to one side, tilting his head. “Are you aware of what you’re saying?” “Of course I am!” She huffed. “What kind of stupid question is that?” The other robot smirked. He liked it when her true personality out-shined her fear. “Say your full designation one more time.” Kaitlin stomped her foot and threw her hands down, losing patience. “I’ll say it five more times if it’ll get you to stop asking!” she shouted. “Okay.” He continued to smirk as he told her, “Go ahead.” So, she did.

“I am Special Wily Number error: Kaitlin, I am Special Wily Number error: Kaitlin, I am Special Wily Number error: Kaitlin, I am… I… w-wait…” A look of fear and confusion came to her face as Breakman’s smirk became a smile. “Why… why don’t I have a number? Why can’t I find my number? Breakman…!” Her anxiety grew into panic and she grabbed the other robot by the shoulders. “Wh-why can I find my Special Wily Number?! Wh-what does that mean?!” “It means…” he started as he knocked her arms away, “you don’t have one. Wily never gave you a number.” “No… No, you’re wrong!” she cried, shaking her head. “I have a number! I-if Big Bro Forte is 1 and Lost Bro King is 2, then… then I’m 3! Zero-zero-three… I am Special Wily Number error!” Her eyes shot open. “I’m Special Wily Number error,” she repeated without meaning to. “No, I’m Special Wily Number error. I-I’m Special Wily Number error! Error!! Eeerr-herr-rooor…!!” “I think that pretty much sums it up, don’t you?” “You…!”

All-at-once, Kaitlin’s confusion, fear, and anxiety turned red-hot and she took a swing at Breakman! To her utter surprise… “Ah…” It connected.

“I… I…” The girl whimpered as she pulled her fist back. Breakman didn’t even so much as flinch when he was struck. Even after-the-fact, all he did was stand there, his head jerked back in the position she’d forced it into and his body in a neutral position. There was one other thing, though…

He wasn’t smiling, anymore.

“Oh, god!!” For some reason, the girl curled into a ball, hugging her head and whimpering in fear instead of running. She was far too panicked to even consider leaving the area. It took her a good minute of cowering before she looked up… but when she did… “Ahh– aah…!” She found herself pulled by the collar of her hoodie.

“Well?” “W… w… w-well…?” the girl stammered, almost too afraid to answer. “Did you get it out of your system?” There was a long pause before she asked, “A-aren’t you mad at me?” “I don’t get mad.” She blinked as he let go of her… only to make a horrible choking sound as his fist forcefully found its way into her stomach. “I get even.”

When he withdrew, she doubled over in pain, tears welling up in her eyes. She hissed and growled, huffing as she pain kept coming. He hadn’t even hit her with that plasma gun, but it sure felt like he did! “You… you sonova…!” “That’s right, Kaitlin.” He grinned. “Get angry.” “You hurt me…!” “You hurt Roll.” “Elecman hurt Roll!” “She got hurt saving you.” “You… you…!” “Me.” “I’ll kill you!!”

A few things happened in the instants that followed Kaitlin’s outburst. Firstly, she found herself on the ground, several paces away, laying there in more pain than before. Secondly, Breakman had pulled his shield around and, as best as she could figure, used it to whack her over to where she was. And, thirdly… “Wh… what…?” Her hands were sparking and crackling with white-hot plasmatic electricity.

“Did I– ow!” Kaitlin tried to get up… only to fall right back down, clutching her mid-section. “Careful,” Breakman warned in a mocking tone. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.” “What… what did…” She looked at her hands. “What did I just do…?!” “You just lived up to your name, Thundergirl.”

After reeling for a minute, Kaitlin finally got back to her feet. When she did, she noticed… there was a large, veiny sort of scorch mark on Breakman’s shield, as well as something similar on the ground. Between that, the tingling and crackling of her hands, and the constant nickname everyone kept using, she could only come to one conclusion… “Did… did Papa Wily upgrade me into a ‘battle android…?’” For some reason… she started beaming. “This is the best-worst-best birthday, ever…!!” Then, when she tried to pump her fist in the air… “Ow…!!” She collapsed back on the ground, her aching stomach telling her that it wasn’t going to happen.

“Ahem…”

Several moments passed after Kaitlin made her discovery, in which time, she started playing with her newfound power. For example, she spread her fingers and made a current arc from-one-to-the-next… She created a series of small sparks that crackled like fireworks… She even wrote her name in the air with a lovely cursive font! Just as she was starting to enjoy herself, though… Breakman broke in.

“What’s up, Breakman?” she called, still full of mirth despite her head and stomach aching from his counter-attacks. “You’re probably not going to believe this…” he told her, “but, before today, you were galavanting around, passing yourself off as a ‘superhero’ named ‘Thundergirl.’” “Me? A superhero?” The girl blinked her brown eyes. “I could never… Well, maybe…!” As she clapped her hands together and formed a ball of lightning… “Don’t get any funny ideas.” Breakman gave her pause. “I wasn’t doin’ nothin’…” she said, feigning innocence as she popped the ball and started drawing in the dirt with a sweet smile.

“In any case… this isn’t your first visit to the Right Labs compound.” Breakman stepped over as he told her, “A couple of months ago, Dr. Right invited you here to study you.” “That doesn’t sound right!” She slowly got to her feet, hugging her stomach. “Ow… Uh, why would Dr. Right invite me, a Wily-‘bot, to his place? That’d be like Dr. Wily asking Rockman to come over for cake and punch!” She winched from her stomach ache, suddenly wishing she’s said “cake and soda…” “At the time,” he continued, slipping his shield onto his back, “you didn’t announce yourself as a Wily Number.” “What you’re saying doesn’t make any sense, Breakman…” She frowned a little, wincing as her head throbbed. “I’ve always been a Wily Number since… since… why… um… why are there these huge gaps in my memory?” “You’re an amnesiac.” “Don’t get smart with me, Scarf-Boy!” He smirked as she scowled.

“You came back here after fighting a Wily-controlled Elecman, five days ago,” the robot said. “He was simply out-of-commission while you had severe internal damage. Once he was fixed-up, it was your turn to go under-the-knife, so-to-speak.” Kaitlin tilted her head, listening to the story with a doubtful look. “My best guess? The doctor couldn’t help himself and took at peek at your brain.” “My brain…?” “Yep. And, if I had to guess… he screwed something up and set you back to your factory defaults… or at least somewhere around the time Wily first activated you. The question is… whose side are you really on?” “Papa Wily’s, of course! And, with my new electric weapons…” She gave another mean smile before mimicking Elecman’s pose from earlier. “I can be a hero for justice!”

There was an awkward moment where Kaitlin continued to charge and play with her electricity. She kept tossing Breakman glances, hoping for a reaction of some kind. When he didn’t give her one, though… she stopped her movements, put her hands into her hoodie’s front pockets, and sighed, looking away. “Couldn’t you… ya know… at least pretend t’ be scared?” “Scared of what?” Breakman replied. “Of me!” He was grinning when she snapped back… which only made her angrier. “You’re no threat to me,” he told her with that same grin. “Oh, yeah?!” When he nodded, she pulled her hands back out and charged an attack. “You’d better run!” she warned. “I mean it!” Rather than run, though… “Wh… what are you doing?” “Calling your bluff.” Breakman did something crazy.

As Kaitlin held her attack, Breakman nudged his shield off of his back and… to her continued surprise… tossed it some distance away. Then, he held his arms out, away from his body, and made the girl a promise. “If you plan to attack me, Wily Number, then I won’t stop you. I won’t even try and avoid it. I’ll stand right here, with my arms out, and I’ll let you hit me.” “Are… are you insane?!” the girl cried, her face showing anger and befuddlement. “No.” He smirked. “I just don’t think you’ll do it.” “Of course I can!” Her smile returned and she hunkered down. “The Rights are your family, right? So, that makes you my enemy! I’d be doin’ Papa Wily a favor by destroyin’ you with my fancy, new upgrades! He might even reward me! So, why wouldn’t I?” “Because…” She gritted her teeth. Somehow… she knew he’d narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re no threat to me.” “I am too a threat!” “You aren’t.” “I am!” “No, you aren’t.” “I am, I am, I am…!!” “You really aren’t.” “I… I am, though…!” Even though she seemed ready to strike… her resolve was starting to crack.

“I’ll do it!” she told him, sounding less confident than before. “I’ll… I’ll shut you down!” “Go ahead,” the grey-suited robot said in a calm voice. “I’ll… I’ll zap you from-head-to-toe and make you hurt!” “I’m waiting.” “I’ll… I’ll… I-I’ll…” She sighed, canceling her attack. “O-oh, alright, fine. I won’t attack you.” The girl kicked a rock and pouted. “Happy?” “Almost.” “Wha–” “Blues Strike!”

Time stood still as the girl felt something… odd. Her eyes went open and the world seemed to turn to gray. She didn’t know what was going on or how it had happened… All she knew was that she felt kind of a sharp pinch… but only for a second. Then, after what seemed like forever… she felt herself collide with the ground. The instant the touched down, time resumed and color came back to reality. She heard herself gasp then, all-at-once, felt a burning… seething pain. When she could finally bring herself to look, she noticed a massive, burning scorch mark covering most of her chest and part of her belly. There was a little trail of burnt dirt leading up to her, as well. She followed that line with her eyes… only for another feeling to overtake her.

“Why…?”

Her brown eyes filled to the brim with tears and overflowed down her warm cheeks. She genuinely couldn’t believe that the robot… who had been so nice to her… could have been the one to attack her! Yet, the proof was right there, pointed roughly where she was a few seconds prior.

Breakman stood up straight, looking at his target with contempt and holding his smoking weapon upright. Even if she could see his eyes… she knew she’d see no mercy, whatsoever… “Because…” She flinched as he spoke, expecting him to fire, again. Thankfully… “You hurt my family.”

The man whistled a little tune as he retrieved his shield. Shortly after, he cast the wounded girl another look… then, he huffed with a smirk. Without another word, a pinkish-red glow overtook him and he disappeared in a beam of light, leaving the girl to lay there… dying.

“I’m ho– oh, my gosh…!!” “Kaitlin…?! Kaaaitliiiiin…!”

Kaitlin grunted at the new voices. Both sounded concerned, but one sounded absolutely grief-stricken. They both seemed to know her, so she tried to ask for help. However, she couldn’t hear her words… When she tried to turn toward the voices, she could only catch glimpses – her optics were starting to fail. As her systems powered down, though, she thought she saw two things: A boy in a blue helmet… and some sort of wild animal with glasses…

#gift #fan fiction #Mega Man #Dr. Chou Numbers #Electrical Disturbance #commercial characters #Elecman #Thomas Light #Roll Light #Protoman #fan characters #kaitlinexe #Kaitlin Wily #drama #suspense

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briangroth27 · 7 years

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Stranger Things 2 Review

Stranger Things’ second season went up on Netflix last weekend and I loved it! Every episode felt full, many supporting characters from Season 1 got a turn in the spotlight, and the tone recaptured the first season’s perfect blend of dread and comedic moments that endeared me to the realistically-drawn characters. This was the television season I was looking forward to most this fall, and it did not disappoint!

Full Spoilers…

I really liked that Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin), and especially Will (Noah Schnapp) got to take center stage among the kids; it was smart to flesh out the rest of the central ensemble and it feels like we’ll be going into Season 3 with everyone on relatively equal footing development-wise. In particular, Will being absent for much of Season 1 made his time in the spotlight a crucial gamble that paid off in spades: Schnapp is just as great an actor as the rest of the show’s cast! That said, I missed Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Nancy (Natalia Dyer), and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton), who all felt like they had less screentime this year than last. While the latter two weren’t doing nothing—they had a crucial subplot that felt like the natural outgrowth of how the people of Hawkins ignored Barb’s (Shannon Purser) death—it didn’t require them to do much that we needed to see onscreen, so it felt like they vanished a bit. Perhaps Wolfhard, Dyer, and Heaton had other commitments while Season 2 was in production, but if that’s the case, I wish their plots had been more economical to cover more ground in the same amount of screentime.

Season 2 definitely felt like the natural continuation of Season 1’s events; branding this as Stranger Things 2 instead of Stranger Things Season 2 gives the impression that it’s a sequel instead of the next season in a TV series, and it definitely feels like it. I’ve seen some criticisms that said the joy of discovery wasn’t present this year like last season, but I’m willing to part with it in favor of reuniting with familiar friends on a new adventure. I like sequels and I’m always game for more time with characters I like. Though the threads may not have been as balanced as they could’ve been, I liked that everyone got to go off on their own adventures before reuniting in the climax. Mixing up the character interactions and moving new people into the spotlight provided some great fresh pairings, like Lucas/Max (Sadie Sink), Dustin/Steve (Joe Keery), Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown)/Hopper (David Harbour), and Will/Joyce (Winona Ryder)/Bob (Sean Astin). As nice as it was to see familiar locations like the junkyard come into play again, it’s time to flesh out more of Hawkins’ geography, as it’s starting to feel a little claustrophobic. New locations like the arcade definitely help, though. I loved that the Upside Down was creeping into Hawkins at an accelerated rate, creating some great imagery with the rotted pumpkin patches, decaying forests, and vine-covered tunnels just beneath its surface. Hawkins looks like the quintessential 1980s Hometown, USA, so corrupting it like this is great symbolism. However, I would’ve liked a greater exploration of the townspeople’s inhumanity and grime just below the veneer of wholesomeness the town projects. So much of Stranger Things is inspired by Stephen King as it is—the Duffer Brothers originally wanted to do IT, but couldn’t—so translating the brilliant parallel between societal evils and supernatural ones in IT’s Derry to Hawkins would’ve been a smart way to give the Upside Down’s corruption a little more weight by contrasting its evil with the evils of the real world. By no means does the Upside Down have to control the citizens to make them evil—that would be a copout—but seeing that some of the people are horrible in their own way would bring an added layer of dread to the town and further cut off our heroes’ sources of help. Billy (Dacre Montgomery) and his father (Will Chase) are a good start, but surely they aren’t the only bad people in town.

I loved how communicating through lights evolved into the map of tunnels beneath Hawkins and hope that distinctive Stranger Things aspect continues to develop in the years to come. Joyce seeing the Mind Flayer in a VHS tape’s distortion was very cool too. The CGI was excellent throughout the season, particularly when it came to the Demodogs. There wasn’t a moment as creepy as Hopper cutting open the Will dummy and pulling out cotton in Season 1, but then there wasn’t any moment in Season 1 that matched that high point of weirdness either. Even so, the horror aspect was great here! It felt like several supporting and even a few main characters—including Hopper and Steve—could die at several points. I wonder if the season-ending Snow Ball was supposed to represent that the heroes don’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of escaping the evil pervading their town (or maybe that’s just my love of puns). I wasn’t a fan of the year-and-a-half wait for this season and don’t look forward to another long hiatus, but if Stranger Things becomes an annual Halloween tradition for the next 2-3 years, I’m definitely on board. I was impressed that the trailers didn’t show much from the latter half of the season; that was a nice surprise!

I loved all the 80s references this year, with things like the Aliens movement detector sound effect being incorporated into the score during some of Dr. Owens’ (Paul Reiser) scenes and a riff that sounded like Gremlins’ theme song while the kids were chasing Dart in the school. The kid-friendly Halloween songs they used while trick-or-treating, like “The Monster Mash,” “Ghostbusters,” and “Spooky Movies,” made me think of Halloween when I was a kid (it’s a shame they couldn’t use “Thriller” in more than one excellent trailer, though!). The Police’s “Every Step You Take” was the perfect note to end on, given the government watching everyone all season, the Mind Flayer watching the Snow Ball, and how creepy that song actually is. The show’s orchestral score once again conveyed the feeling that this was a lost miniseries from the 80s perfectly. The fashion in Eleven’s Chicago adventure made me think of the 80s X-men/New Mutants comics, which was a cool peek at 80s punk style completely removed from Hawkins’ small-town world. The kids’ homemade Ghostbusters costumes were awesome, as were Max’s Michael Myers costume and Steve & Nancy’s Tom Cruise & Rebecca De Mornay (from Risky Business) outfits. While the characters played out scenes adapted from Gremlins, ET, Stand By Me, and even Jurassic Park, it never felt like nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake or inorganic to what the show is. The Goonies reference in Bob’s guess about what Will’s map led to was fun too. As pointed out in the behind-the-scenes series Beyond Stranger Things, having the kids play Dragon’s Lair and Dig Dug were cool hints at the direction of the season, since Eleven would go up against a “fiery” monster in the gate room/its “lair” and several characters ventured into the tunnels under the town. The kids’ science class learning about Phineas Gage was also a cool way to foreshadow what happens to Will, since Gage’s personality changed after his brain-damaging accident. I’m looking forward to the Back to the Future references next season, since it’ll be 1985. With the Upside Down monsters being so plant-like, maybe we’ll get Little Shop of Horrors references in Season 4/1986?

Possibly the largest controversy of the season dealt with Eleven’s solo trip to Chicago in episode 7. I liked the episode, but it shouldn’t have aired in the middle of a cliffhanger: it disrupted the flow too much. Without Eleven in the preceding episode at all, they could’ve split “The Lost Sister” up and cut back and forth between Chicago and Hawkins in both “The Spy” and the reconfigured Episode 7, just like the earlier legs of Eleven’s journey were interspersed with the events in Hawkins. If the contrast between Chicago’s punk scene and Hawkins’ wholesome appearance were too extreme to cut back and forth, “Lost Sister” could have been placed before “The Spy.” I agree with a comment I saw on IGN’s “Lost Sister” review, which pointed out watching it first would show Mike and Hopper in danger before we knew what was happening (Mike screaming “it’s a trap” would spoil the twist, so just show him struggling with the guards and not saying that line), which would be a cool teaser. Either of those solutions would’ve been better than the jarring—but still engaging—side trip to Chicago taking up an entire episode in the middle of a Demodog swarm.

Eleven/Jane Ives Though she was sequestered from the rest of the main cast for most of the season, I liked a lot of what they did with Eleven/Jane this year. I loved the secret family she and Hopper built. Their conversation about being “halfway happy” in compromise was bittersweet and I liked seeing how they figured each other out, both in real time and in flashbacks to the start of their hidden family. Moments like their father/daughter arguments were relatable, things like Eleven wanting to go trick-or-treating as a ghost and awkwardly laughing at Hopper trying to dance were fun, and her psychic temper tantrum felt both realistic and worked as a reminder that she is definitely dangerous. Regarding those fights, it was smart to allow Hopper and Eleven to be angry with each other, but never to let them get to the point where they truly hated each other. That made them coming together again in the end believable instead of a last minute moment of civility that was supposed to make up for nine hours of hatred.

Eleven being instantly jealous about Max and Mike seemingly having fun together didn’t work as well and annoyed me a bit—especially since she knew he’d been calling her every day for nearly a year—but she’s a kid who’s been locked up and abused for a long time and you don’t have to look past her time with Hopper to see she isn’t perfect or eternally understanding, especially when it comes to seeing beyond appearances. Meeting her birth mother (Aimee Mullins) and learning as much as she could about her was emotionally satisfying and it was cool to see Terry Ives was as much a fighter in the end as her daughter. I felt Eleven’s side story in Chicago was a worthy use of her time that brought her to a place where her vengeance and feelings weren’t as important as those of people she didn’t know—she discovered empathy for strangers when she considered orphaning Ray’s (Pruitt Taylor Vince) kids—and that was a great development for her character. I just wish she hadn’t continued to shun Max once she got back to Hawkins; the two of them having a talk would’ve been better, because shutting down Max’s attempt at being friends undercuts much of the understanding she found in Chicago (not to mention at that point, she was yet another person shutting Max out, which had become repetitive). Along with bonding with Max in Season 3, I’d love to see Eleven and Will finally get to interact and become friends (and maybe even step-siblings?) when he isn’t trapped or possessed. Developing a friendship between the two would be a smart outgrowth of the many parallels between them—Eleven was even mistaken for Will at several points in Season 1—and I’m sure their connection to the Upside Down would be a powerful bonding factor. I loved that she got to shut down this year’s invasion by finally closing the gate she’d opened in the first place; the Mind Flayer will definitely remember both her and Will, so perhaps they’ll face its early attacks together.

Mike Wheeler At first it seemed like Mike wasn’t given much to do this year beyond being angry/depressed about Eleven vanishing and concerned about Will. I understand the reasoning for both—I think he actually was experiencing the “anniversary effect” of PTSD Dr. Owens thought Will was going through—but I would’ve liked to see more variety to the writing in his scenes. Then I watched Beyond Stranger Things and realized Wolfhard’s understanding of Mike this season is brilliant: he can’t impress his friends by constructing D&D maps and running campaigns since everyone’s into video games now, he can’t lead a quest to save Will (until Byers’ major episode at Halloween, though even then, Joyce leads that charge), and he can’t even find Eleven, much less help her or have her as his secret friend. I love that this builds him missing Eleven into a larger problem of him losing his place as leader of the team. Matarazzo also pointed out that while the kids struggled to find someone to talk to about what they’d been through with the threat of the government hanging over them, Mike was the sorest about being the leader who’d saved the day and couldn’t talk about it with anyone. With this in mind, the entire season focusing more on Will, Dustin, and Lucas becomes something of Mike’s view of his friends after losing his place in the group. I agree with a comment I saw elsewhere that wished Mike had gone off to find Eleven on his own, meeting up in Chicago; as impractical as that might’ve been for a kid in real life (but not in a movie), it would’ve given his feeling of being out of place a direction instead of watching as Joyce, Hopper, and Bob worked out how to help Will. That said, I absolutely loved how angry Mike got about Steve telling the kids they were on the bench during the climax, as that’s exactly what his dad (Joe Chrest) had been saying in lectures earlier in the season. That was a moment where his need to have a place and function in the group coalesced with the plot perfectly, since he (and the other kids) had literally been left out of the plan to defeat the Mind Flayer.

Still, Mike wasn’t one-note in his struggle to belong this year and Wolfhard played all the sides Mike showed very well. Mike essentially eulogizing Bob by knowing he helped found the AV Club was a glimpse at a distinct texture to a relationship we didn’t see onscreen, though I assume Mike and Bob interacted at least a little while Mike was hanging out with Will. I liked the brief scene of Mike almost having fun with Max in the gym, even if otherwise constantly shutting her out wasn’t a good look at all. He doesn’t have to be perfect, but I would’ve liked more reason to not let her in than what I took from it: a girl in the group reminded him too much of Eleven. Perhaps she represented too much change happening to the party in general: if she joined, he thought she’d be another person moving him out of relevance within the group (particularly considering how invested in her Dustin and Lucas were). I liked Mike reclaiming his position a bit with Will, comforting him after his Halloween episode and propping up his courage as their spy; those felt like great moments of their friendship we didn’t get to see much of last year since Will was missing. I’m sure they felt like old times for Mike as well: finally he got to be the old Mike, at least to an extent. Mike screaming at Hopper and even attacking him for hiding Eleven for nearly a year was another great scene. I didn’t see that reaction coming and both actors delivered powerful performances. Mike’s dedication to calling Eleven every day was touching and, as pointed out on Beyond Stranger Things, I liked that they got to be reunited in two very different contexts at both the besieged Byers house and the Snow Ball. Unlike Nancy and Jonathan, this may imply Mike and Eleven’s friendship/relationship is stronger than just being pulled together in times of tragedy and high drama (not to say a middle school dance is without drama!).

Dustin Henderson Not only did Dustin have a love triangle to contend with this year, but he also found a pet from the Upside Down and discovered an excellent, unlikely surrogate brother in Steve. It was also great to get a glimpse of his home life and I hope we see more of his relationship with his mom (Catherine Curtin) next year. I liked Dustin’s friendship with baby Demodog D’Artagnan—and that it had a payoff in the end—but he shouldn’t have lied about his cat’s death to his mom. Allowing her to go on searching for it when she clearly loved it so much was a little cruel and the exact thing Nancy and Jonathan spent the season fighting. Watering down the truth would’ve worked here; he could’ve just said a wild animal got it. Dustin comparing lying about keeping a dangerous animal to Lucas bringing Max in on the Eleven secret didn’t seem equivalent at first, but then I remembered that anyone else finding out could lead to everyone’s death by cover-up. I liked Dustin’s resigned position that he’d accept being removed from the party for his disloyalty especially after he was the one to enforce the rules of reconciliation when Mike and Lucas had their falling out in Season 1. I also appreciated him accepting Lucas and Max getting together instead of flying into a jealous rage, which wouldn’t have been in-character or fitting at all. Matarazzo’s explanation that Dustin thought discovering a new species of slimy lizard would impress Max because his mom laughs off the things that excite him—so he thinks that’s what all girls like—was a cool example of Dustin’s inability to see what’s in front of his face when he’s overcome with excitement, much like he doesn’t consider the somewhat obvious truth about Dart’s origins. That Dustin got a heroic moment at the end by standing up to Dart so the others could flee was great; that made up for the danger he put them in earlier.

I loved Dustin’s brotherly bond with Steve and this was my favorite new bit of chemistry of the season. Pairing Dustin with Steve while they were both heartbroken and on the same ends of love triangles worked well to bond them. I’m also glad the series’ format allowed for leisurely scenes like Dustin and Steve strolling down some railroad tracks discussing hair products. Character bits like that go a long way to not only endear the characters to the audience, but they also show us what they’re like in (relatively) normal circumstances. I want more of these moments for every character in the coming seasons. I liked Steve trying to give Dustin advice about girls, even if he was wrong that acting like you don’t care about women makes them like you (Nancy moving on after Jonathan didn’t make a move for a month proves this). On the other hand, he was right about reading the electricity between you and someone you like, and trying to explain that to Dustin was a funny moment. Steve driving Dustin to the Snow Ball and giving him some parting courage was a perfect culmination of their brotherly arc. I loved Dustin’s “Steve” hairdo and while his walk around the dance continually getting shot down was sad, Matarazzo acted it so well! I also love that Dustin’s reaction to being shot down wasn’t played as though Steve was wrong about being confident, but (according to Matarazzo) that he’s not Steve Harrington. That’s not only more tragic, but it perfectly references Dustin’s insecurities about not being Mike’s best friend like Will and Lucas are because he only met the guys in fourth grade. I hope Season 3 has Dustin finding the confidence to live up to his own potential, rather than just being the best person he can in relation to someone else’s standard. If he’s infected with the spores from the tunnels and they corrupt him in some fashion, that may be the perfect vehicle to force that confrontation on him.

Lucas Sinclair Like Dustin, I enjoyed getting to see Lucas’ home life a lot. Lucas’ sister Erica (Priah Ferguson) was an especially hilarious addition to the cast and her attitude played off Lucas’ perfectly; here’s hoping she returns in a major way next year! His parents’ (Karen Ceesay, Arnell Powell) advice about women was humorous as well. I thought it was funny that the most nuclear families, the Sinclairs and Wheelers, feature parents who don’t seem particularly involved in their kids’ lives at all, though I was happy to see the Sinclairs seemed much happier together than Mike and Nancy’s parents. Lucas navigating how to handle his crush on Max was a fun plot that added depth to him and their banter was a lot of fun as well. He also proved Steve’s advice wrong by giving Max what she wanted and showing her he cared about her. I liked their bonding moments, particularly on top of the bus in the junkyard. Watching Lucas practice lines in the mirror before the dance was also great! His argument with Mike about the coolness of Winston from Ghostbusters was good, and I totally missed that Winston has the “Judgment Day” speech in the film and Lucas gets to call the climax of the season Judgment Day.

I like that Lucas is constantly the most grounded and practical of the kids (like Winston is among the Ghostbusters, now that I think about it); McLaughlin even said that if Lucas had found Dart instead of Dustin, there wouldn’t have been a second episode with the lizard in it. That characteristic plays well off of what the rest of the kids bring to the group, particularly Dustin, and McLaughlin performed it excellently, never coming off as a jerk, even when he was trying to be the voice of reason. One thing I would’ve liked to see more of from Lucas, however, is a reaction to Billy’s racism. It felt like he understood why Max wouldn’t let her brother see him (even if he didn’t vocalize it) and it was terrifying when Billy attacked him in the season finale, but I wanted them to dig into it more. Watching Lucas process and deal with any of the “there’s a certain kind of people you don’t hang around” talk from Billy would’ve added a great deal to his outlook and character. The Sinclairs seem to be one of the few African-American families in town, so is this relatively normal for him, or is having it thrown in his face something new? If he and Max had a real, out-in-the-open conversation about her brother, how would that have gone? He doesn’t seem to have any misgivings about pursing an interracial relationship—he might be too young (and too wrapped up in his crush on Max) to consider the ramifications yet—but would his family? Would the rest of the town? This is an area where the Duffer Brothers could absolutely have taken a page from Stephen King and drawn real-world horrors—particularly in a small, Midwestern town—as parallels to the rot of the Upside Down. The Ghostbusters costume argument brought up the assumption that Lucas was “supposed” to be Winston (and Mike couldn’t) because he’s Black and briefly touched on the issue of race, but the kids sidestepped it for the most part. Billy’s villainy would’ve resonated more if Lucas had scenes dealing with what he represented, and even moreso if it turned out Billy hadn’t just brought racism to Hawkins, but it had always been there.

Will Byers Some reviews have said Will’s plot felt too similar to his predicament last year—communicating through lights/crayons, being captured by the monster, etc.—but I liked the variations on the theme this year. The map of corruption in the town was both a cool visual aspect and a great expression of Will’s own infection, as the Mind Flayer had also wormed its smoky tendrils into his body. I loved that his connection to the Mind Flayer was a double-edged sword that rarely actually helped the heroes, unlike his Christmas lights last year. I totally expected Will to be a conscious solider against the Upside Down this year—particularly with Eleven absent from much of the action—so twisting it to make him the spy for the monsters and leading several soldiers to their deaths was brilliant! This was an especially cool reversal of how honest we know Will to be, even to the point of telling Mike the truth about what he rolled against the Demogorgon in the first episode when he didn’t have to. Making Will the Mind Flayer’s eyes also created a cool obstacle for the heroes: they had no safe haven unless he didn’t know where he was. No conversation about Will this year would be complete without pointing out that Schnapp is a fantastic actor: he did an excellent job of playing his attempts to be a normal kid with his friends, the loneliness of his post-Upside Down captivity, the pure terror/sadness of what was happening to him, the Mind Flayer’s pawn, and even the villain. His reaction to the soldiers burning the vines in the tunnels, the interrogation scene in the shed where he’d first disappeared (nice callback!), and his exorcism scene were particular standout moments for Schnapp (and all the actors involved). Mike, Jonathan, and Joyce sharing their memories with Will to bring him back to the surface was a powerful, incredible sequence! I’m glad the Duffers didn’t go with their initial idea of making Will slip into “evil Will” flashes where the Mind Flayer took over his body—and even killed Bob!—as that would’ve taken his possession a little too far.

All that said, the girl asking Will to dance at the Snow Ball by calling him “Zombie Boy” didn’t work for me, particularly as we were told he was very sensitive about that term. It would’ve helped if they’d established that Will was interested in any of the girls before having one ask him to dance just so he could be partnered up. The first season hinted that he might be gay—Joyce evaded Hopper’s question about whether bullies’ taunts about him being homosexual had any basis in fact—and making Will deal with that bigotry next year would be another way to bring real-life horror into Hawkins, especially in the mid-80s. Will being stunned at the girl’s proposition was cute—and it was probably just a throwaway moment to get Mike alone for Eleven’s entrance—but they could’ve had Will just be content with the normalcy of a dance instead (which would’ve contrasted Dustin’s lap around the gym nicely). Who Will is in normal life when he’s not being directly tormented by demons is definitely something I hope we get next year, since we haven’t gotten to see much of him being himself. I’m also eager to see what he brings to monster-hunting without the benefit of a connection to the Upside Down. Maybe if someone else is the Upside Down’s target, Will can step up as the person with experience and guidance in surviving it. It’ll be interesting to see how Will grows after having survived such an intense connection to the Mind Flayer as well, and how that shapes his outlook on the real world. Maybe surviving that horror could actually help him cope with any anti-gay hatred he faces, if the Duffers choose to reintroduce and expand on that aspect.

Max Hargrove Max was a great addition and I hope she returns next season! Sadie Sink held her own with the rest of the cast, bringing an equally natural feel to her character and a fresh attitude to the gang. It’s good to have more women in the cast and it’s neat that she, not one of the guys, is traditionally the “coolest” of the kids. I liked the guys being bewildered at the “wonder” of a girl liking video games and skateboarding (even if they forgot Nancy was willing to dress up as an elf with them just five years earlier), but I was also glad Max never acknowledged any strangeness about her liking genre stuff: of course girls have always liked it too! Max being genre savvy was a cool way to incorporate a few criticisms about certain nostalgia aspects of the first season when Lucas told her the truth about Eleven and the Upside Down. However, I hope that’s where the meta commentary ends. A little bit goes a long way for me, so Max writing Lucas’ tale off as a derivative story worked as an in-joke while also making sense given the context of what she’d seen, but I don’t think I need any further commentary from the fans voiced on the show. Max’s arc this year mainly focused on wanting to be accepted as part of the party and it worked well without needing to make her the audience’s eyes too much: the show didn’t assume you hadn’t watched the first season (we didn’t even hear Lucas tell her the truth). At the same time, she was thankfully never presented as an annoying girl trying to worm her way into their secret club. We can all relate to feeling like we don’t belong and wanting to fit in, so it felt original that Max had to struggle even to be accepted by the “nerds” of the school. These aren’t bad kids—and of course there are extenuating circumstances with the government threat—but it was a nice change of pace from the popular kids being the ones to exclude everyone. That she’s a girl trying to hang out with a bunch of guys also felt like a timely reference to the fact that she is a girl who likes nerdy things and there’s a lot of absurd pushback (to put it lightly) facing vocal female fans nowadays. Once she was in with the party, I loved that Max was totally in; these are her friends and it was clear she’d do anything to help them.

Next year I hope Max and Eleven bond as friends. Their spat this year shouldn’t have lasted to the end of the season as it was and I hope Eleven comes around between this season and next. I also hope Max finds a family among the party, particularly as she has it much tougher than anyone else in terms of her home life; maybe coping with and surviving that abuse is something that can bond her and Jane. The clear abuse she’s suffered at Billy’s “overprotective” hands was scary and portrayed well without being too graphic. I loved that she stood up to her brother to save Steve and Lucas in the end, and that Billy’s a little afraid of her now. I’m interested to see how their relationship develops because they’re good together (though the story told on Beyond Stranger Things about the origin of their kiss—that it wasn’t in the script until Ross Duffer realized the idea of a kiss freaked Sadie Sink out and its addition led to her having even more anxiety about it (and McLaughlin felt weird about it too)—is troubling, so I hope there was more conversation about the kiss’ addition than we heard and that this is the last time something like that ever happens). If she and Lucas are still together by the time Season 3 starts—and hopefully they are; they have great chemistry—I’d like to see how she deals with a small town’s prejudices about interracial dating as well. That prejudice could also be an obstacle unique to the two of them that the Duffers could play up. Max and Erica seems like it’d be an amazing pairing as well, so hopefully we get to see them interact! We got a lot of older brother/younger brother interactions over the past two years, so getting to see Nancy taking on an older sister role with both Eleven and Max (and Erica; why not?) would be great too.

Eight/Kali Prasad Eight (Linnea Berthelsen) and her crew of misfits and castoffs (Kai Greene, James Landry Herbert, Anna Jacoby-Heron, and Gabrielle Maiden) had an 80s X-men/New Mutants vibe that I liked a lot, particularly once Eight took on the Professor X role and trained Eleven. I thought their sisterly relationship was well-written and acted, and I liked that Eight was such a contrast not only to the rest of Eleven’s found family, but to everything she knew from the lab and Hawkins. Eight’s quest to kill all the former employees of the Hawkins facility, regardless of the effects on their families, has been criticized by some as one-note, but I think it makes her a great parallel to Eleven. I loved that Kali is the person Eleven could’ve become had she not met her friends or spent so much time with Hopper. I really liked her point about allowing Eleven not to take revenge on the people who hurt her, but warning Jane never to take her choice away. I feel like that’s the nuance other reviews are asking for. Eight is driven to violence by revenge, but she does care about her crew, did care about Eleven, and respected her enough to allow her “sister” to make her own choices. It’s only when Eleven stops her from carrying out her own wishes that they have a problem from Eight’s point of view.

The degree to which Eight has been changed by meeting Eleven was left as an open-ended question in Season 2, so seeing how she reflects on Eleven choosing not to kill will be very interesting. Were her eyes opened by Jane’s empathy epiphany, or will she see Eleven as a weak victim who can’t do what’s necessary to prevent others from being hurt? There could be no redemption for the lab workers in Kali’s eyes, but I wonder if we’re being set up for a redemption arc for her. I fully expect her to track Eleven down next year, causing problems for Jane’s new lease on life in Hawkins. Just as Eleven is allowed to reenter society around Halloween 1985, Eight finally finds her and upends her peaceful life? Sounds about right. I also wonder if Kali will locate the other test subjects and continue building the X-men vibe by recruiting them to her cause. If a portion of Season 3 were Kali and her Brotherhood coming to town and the heroes there having to deal with them instead of the Upside Down, I’d be all for it. I’m glad Eight has an entirely different set of powers and I wonder what abilities the others might have (given the Stephen King inspiration, one is totally a pyrokinetic). On the other hand, as much as I’d like to meet those other kids, I feel like it would shift the show too far away from the established cast to bring on a nearly equal number of new characters…unless Netflix wants to make the seasons longer from here on out, of course. I’d have no problem with that! Perhaps a standalone miniseries about her recruiting them could work between seasons as well. Kali’s illusion-casting was cool, especially the electric butterfly and bringing Brenner (Matthew Modine) “back” to manipulate Eleven. I wonder how that could be used to illuminate the other characters’ inner thoughts and fears if it were used against them.

Steve Harrington I loved that the hints of the good guy Steve is from Season 1 were vindicated here; he was only the jock asshole on the surface/to impress his friends last year and he does have a heart…and really does love Nancy. I thought it was a nice twist that he was genuinely hurt not because she didn’t want to party and act like teenagers with him (and even that suggestion was his attempt to do whatever he could to make her feel better), but because she said their love was bullshit. I also like that despite his clear sadness, he put Nancy and her needs first by driving away from the Snow Ball at the end of the season (unless he’s just acting like he doesn’t care…I hope not, though). Nancy being supportive of Steve taking care of the kids along with his lack of drama about her and Jonathan makes me think that they can develop a friendship next season and I hope that’s the case. I definitely agree with Keery that there’s no need for a physical confrontation between Jonathan and Steve over Nancy; if anything, the three of them just need to discuss where they all are. I love that this is a second love triangle that didn’t explode into angst or fighting, but mature acceptance.

I knew Steve was a good guy despite his mistakes back in Season 1, but I had no idea he’d be such a surprisingly great scene partner for the kids, especially Dustin! Keery seemed to have a blast with the kids and played the big brother role perfectly. His and Dustin’s brotherly relationship developed excellently—even if it started because Steve just happened to show up at the Wheelers’ when Dustin was there and was totally a last resort—and I hope it continues into the coming years. Hopefully even though Dustin failed to be Steve Harrington at the dance, Steve will be there to console him and help him out in the future (even if not all his advice is spot-on). As I’ve seen elsewhere, Steve having no qualms or embarrassment about being a babysitter was cool of him and totally unexpected. There wasn’t even a second thought to him protecting the kids, like when he got Max out of the way to fend off the Demodog while they were trapped in the old bus. Waking up after being beaten by Billy and thinking Mike was Nancy was a totally surprising—and hilarious—moment. I hope there are many more humorous moments like that as we get to see him interact with the kids more. It was also neat to see Steve totally over his position as “king of the school,” much less concerned with being cool than the guy who bent to his friends’ peer pressure was. I wonder if that maturity will take him to college next season, or if he’ll hang around town. I hope it’s the former; he could always just come home from school when things start happening again. Being away and coming back home will provoke more change in him than sticking around town treading water, so I hope that’s what they do with him. It’d definitely be good to see what he wants out of life too.

Nancy Wheeler Nancy’s one of my favorite characters and while I liked her hunting human monsters this time—and outsmarting the government by intentionally getting herself and Jonathan captured so they could get a confession on tape—I wish we’d seen more of her this year. Though Nancy getting to shut down the government project for Barb was cool, I do wonder if her and Jonathan’s quest was a little undercut both by saying all the agents who were around when Barb died and Will disappeared are gone (if that’s true) and then most of the current staff getting killed by Demodogs. It’s true the government got a public black eye and the project has been permanently shut down through Nancy and Jonathan’s efforts (and Eleven shutting the gate), though. I wouldn’t mind a Season 3 that had no military component and just had those in the know in Hawkins against the Mind Flayer as it tries to return. Maybe it would’ve been better to shut down the lab at midseason to free up Nancy and Jonathan for more interaction with the growing Upside Down threat. Specifically, I wish she’d been around to help Steve and the kids hunt Demodogs; Nancy would’ve been useful in the junkyard, the tunnels, or as backup for Eleven and Hopper (though I get the narrative and emotional reasons you’d sequester those two one final time). That said, Dyer was great with what she got, be it romantic comedy with Jonathan, her turmoil over what Barb’s parents (Cynthia Barrett, Aaron Munoz) had been put through for a year, or helping to drive the infection out of Will at the end. Nancy thinking she and Steve were at fault for Barb’s death was a great, tragic bit of self-inflicted guilt, no matter how wrong she was: it was Barb choosing to wait around after Nancy told her to go home that got her killed, not Nancy and Steve sleeping together. I loved that Nancy accepted the rifle from Hopper when they were being swarmed by Demodogs, she was the one who used a hot poker on Will, and that Jonathan turned away from his hurting brother to find comfort in her arms, rather than the other way around. The show is very good about crafting strong female characters and I loved that they subverted gender norms by making Nancy and Joyce the ones willing to do whatever it took to save Will, while Jonathan couldn’t.

Dancing with Dustin and giving him a pep talk at the Snow Ball was a sweet, perfect moment. What a great nod to Dustin’s crush on her in Season 1, back when he offered her their last slice of pizza and argued that she “used to be cool” (even if his then-current assessment had been that “something was wrong” with her). I like that she also tried to get Jonathan to socialize more, snagging him an invite to the Halloween party and even suggesting he might meet someone there. I wish we’d seen more moments of friendship between the two of them to further develop their romantic bond, but the fact that they’d grown apart over the past year worked too. I’ve certainly had life get in the way of keeping in touch with friends, so that felt realistic (particularly in an era without social media). The Snow Ball left things a little unresolved as to whether Nancy and Jonathan were together-together, and I’m game whether the show wants to explore that relationship or not. Perhaps Nancy, Jonathan, and Steve need to find themselves separately a bit more before any pairing can healthily take off. I’m very interested to see where Nancy goes now that Barb has justice and she can finally move on. What are her interests and goals in life? We know she doesn’t want to repeat her mother’s decision to settle for a perfect nuclear family, so what does she want? The similarity between Murray (Brett Gelman) and Nancy—their need to “pull back curtains”—would be an interesting direction to explore in the future. I don’t want her to go full-on conspiracy theorist like he is, but perhaps she’ll become a reporter. Whatever direction she takes, I’m excited to see her journey towards becoming more self-aware continue.

Jonathan Byers It felt like Jonathan got the least to do out of anyone—his incorporation into Nancy’s quest to help Barb’s parents felt more tangential since Will did come back, for example—though I did get the impression that he’s grown a lot since Season 1. I think this year’s Jonathan is in a much better place to be in a relationship, unlike last year when ending up with Nancy would’ve felt like the clichéd loner “good guy” (with a stalker streak that was never a good look) “deserved” to get the girl at the end of the horror movie just by virtue of not being a jerk. This season, he seemed more settled in his home life and comfortable with how things had been going; Jonathan generally felt healthier this year, since he didn’t have to be the guy looking after his family to as great a degree. Heaton was good at showing us lighter shades of Jonathan like that. Jonathan and Nancy’s earlier monster hunting connection and mutual impulse to watch each other’s backs as they got justice worked to play up their connection and stir the tension between them. While I still would’ve liked more development in their romantic relationship, the moment where he and Nancy compared scars and talked about their friendship vanishing was a fun bit of reconnection. I also liked that at every turn, Jonathan was right there with Nancy insisting they weren’t together and looking for ways not to share a bed with her; it would’ve been cheaper if the hotel only had a single room available or for him not to offer to sleep on Murray’s couch. I liked the Temple of Doom homage with Nancy and Jonathan (unsuccessfully) fighting the urge to sleep together; that was fun! I’ve seen this pointed out elsewhere, but if they are together at the end of the season, then I wonder if their relationship really can survive normalcy and times when the world isn’t ending. Whether they can or not, that would be something interesting to explore.

While I liked Jonathan’s reaction to Will’s predicament once he got back into town and his attempts to help his brother were great, I would’ve liked to see him react more to not being there for Will and Joyce. That was such a drive for him in Season 1 that removing him from the equation could’ve yielded a bigger reaction once he realized what he’d been missing. That said, I wonder if the fact that everyone survived without him—and were more capable of doing what needed to be done than he was—will lead him down a path where he doesn’t feel as needed for his family’s survival anymore. We started to see this in Season 2, when he trusted Will to take care of himself while trick-or-treating and Jonathan let himself go to a party. Where will Jonathan go if he doesn’t feel like he has to be the one to care for his whole family? I don’t want him to feel guilty (and especially not emasculated) that he couldn’t face Will’s pain or turn up the heat, but I’d like to see what he wants to do with a clean slate and the ability to move forward, trusting Joyce to handle things and Will to fend for himself.

Billy Hargrove Billy was the final form of every 80s movie bully (and everything Steve seemed to be on the surface last year) and while Dacre Montgomery did a great job making him a constant predatory threat, there didn’t seem to be much complexity to him in the writing. Just like Henry Bowers in IT, Billy made for an intimidating human villain, but while one scene showing us a glimpse of the parental abuse that drove him to be so psychotic is appreciated, it’s too little too late. In a movie that’s more forgivable, but with nine hours to tell the story it doesn’t quite fly. I’m also glad the Duffers don’t think Billy’s abuse at the hands of his father excuses his actions, but only shows where he learned that hate. I liked Billy crying and then suppressing it after his dad left his room—Montgomery’s acting was very good in that scene—but none of this redeemed him for me and honestly, I don’t need to see him redeemed. I also don't think his reaction to being drugged and threatened by Max is equivalent to Jonathan knocking sense into Steve in Season 1. Steve realized what he did to Nancy was wrong and took steps to change right away. He even showed up at the Byers house at the end of the season to apologize to Jonathan, not to find Nancy to win her back. Billy’s violence-induced "respect" for Max is not at all the same thing as the violent moment that made Steve reevaluate his life.

Making Billy a racist on top of everything else would’ve worked better if they’d given Lucas a moment to reflect on why he couldn’t hang out with Max, if Max had a realization about why Billy acted the way he did, or if anyone had confronted Billy about it, forcing him to try to justify himself (not that there’s justification for that). As it was, he was terrifying both whenever he’d threaten Max and when he came after Lucas, but it seemed like there could’ve been more explored with him and the racist angle felt like just one more horrible thing about him. It’s possible Billy’s anger also comes from repressing his own homosexuality, given his reaction to what his father called him and the vibe he gave off when confronting Steve at the end of the season. If Billy is gay, then 80s-era prejudices against both he and his step-sister’s burgeoning interracial relationship could work to bring them closer together (if he can work through his anger issue and develop real respect for her; there’s no excuse for the way he acts). Dacre Montgomery doesn’t think Billy is racist or homophobic, but while he may not be playing either of those aspects and I could be misreading Billy—Montgomery definitely knows his character better than I do—the script left it too open-ended to dismiss as a possibility. I’m not sure his interpretation lines up with what we saw of him “protecting” Max either; if he were so concerned about her and who she hung out with, it wouldn’t have taken his father threatening him to get him to go hunt Max down. Whatever is driving Billy’s anger, we also should’ve seen a happy moment between Max and Billy to show us why her being a “constant” in his life was a good thing in his mind. I do agree with Montgomery that Billy’s insane amount of insecurity about being a man (and the man) is probably a large part of what’s feeding into his anger and lashing out; his early insults and attacks on Steve over no longer being the “king of the school” and getting dumped by Nancy definitely speak to that. As uncomfortable as the scene where he flirts with Mrs. Wheeler (Cara Buono) was, I liked the scene immediately after where Montgomery’s expression revealed it was all an act. That was the one bit of trope subversion his character got this year that reminded me of the undercurrents Steve got last year. Either way, I’m definitely interested to find out what “sinister” plans Montgomery and the Duffers have for Billy next year; how much worse can he get?

Barbara Holland I always thought Barb was fine; neither dull nor the perfect, slighted best friend some parts of the internet made her out to be, but analysis like this (and check out great analysis of all the characters here and here) and a rewatch of Season 1 left me seeing her as a judgey, jealous friend who couldn’t handle Nancy starting to pull away. She may have had good intentions in being protective of Nancy, but when it came time to face Nancy’s decisions, she couldn’t deal with what Lucas and Dustin overcame with Mike and Eleven (and because of her death, she never got the chance to learn from and grow out of her mistakes like everyone else did). That said, it did bother me that no one in town cared she’d gone missing except Nancy and her parents, so tying up that loose end here felt appropriate. It was sad her parents spent a year thinking she’d just run away or something, and moreso that they were spending all their money—even having to sell the house—in the search. I was satisfied with the justice Barb got here.

Joyce Byers Winona Ryder was great once again and I’m glad her efforts to save Will were listened to this year. There was a definite sense that she had more control and influence over things and, as I’ve seen pointed out elsewhere, it was great to see her take charge of getting answers about Will’s health rather than having to force Hopper to investigate or needing to justify her methods (like when she bought so many boxes of Christmas lights). Like Nancy, I’m glad Joyce was the one willing and able to do anything to save Will from the Mind Flayer’s influence, even though it hurt him. It was also cool that Ryder got to explore a healthier Joyce this year; she was understandably pushed to the limits of her sanity last year, so seeing her as a veteran of the Upside Down and its attacks on her family was a great bit of development. Moments like her concern for Will when dropping him off at the arcade felt relatable as well; even if he hadn’t been abducted by monsters from another dimension, her concern for his medical condition felt like something any mother would express (and his exasperated desire for her to see him as a capable person rather than a kid needing protection was spot-on too). The one area that felt a little lacking with Joyce’s portrayal this year was that she didn’t seem to even notice Jonathan was gone. Of course she was consumed with worry for Will, but an acknowledgment that Jonathan was missing would’ve been nice and some reaction to what he’d done with Nancy would’ve been better, since taking on the government could’ve had direct and deadly results for their whole family.

I liked her relationship with Bob; it brought out a new, almost carefree side to Joyce that we hadn’t seen in her interactions with Hopper, which are almost always fraught with tension over supernatural goings-on. At least at first, it felt like her relationship with Bob was a window into who she possibly used to be. David Harbour’s assessment that Joyce had a relationship with Bob because he seemed to be the safe, dorky father figure is probably accurate, but I would’ve liked to hear what Ryder’s thoughts on it were. The Duffers saying she would’ve left town with Bob had he lived gave his death a bigger tragedy, but I feel like she has a stronger connection to Hopper so I’m more invested in seeing where that goes. I’d also like to see Joyce interact with the other parents more; does she have friends anymore? It would help if she could talk to them about what happened, so perhaps the government facility shutting down will give her at least some ability to discuss a watered-down version of what she’s been going through. It’d also be cool to see what Joyce’s dreams are and what she hoped her life would turn out like. That could bond her with not only the younger kids in the face of so much danger, but the teens as they’re about to go off to college and forge lives for themselves. An attempt to build her life beyond her job at the store and as Will and Jonathan’s mom would also definitely be welcome.

Jim Hopper The change in Hopper from the start of Season 1 to the beginning of 2 (to say nothing of his journey through the rest of the season) was immense, going from a man barely holding it together and caught up in the memories of his dead daughter to a far healthier man building a life for his new surrogate child. Hopper and Eleven’s familial connection was an excellent aspect of Season 2 and one I never thought I’d love so much. Like Joyce being concerned about Will even during a benign trip to the arcade, Hopper and Eleven shared a lot of realistic parent/child moments that grounded the supernatural strangeness of their lives. Glimpses of their happier moments were excellent and, as Harbour pointed out on Beyond Stranger Things, very “dad” things like Hopper trying to guilt Eleven into coming out of her room to share overdue Halloween candy were played perfectly. Life lessons like the fact that even well-meaning parents can let their kids down worked very well too. Eleven’s psychic tantrum felt like a real argument between a parent and a child—even if amped up by her powers—and the push and pull between what was best for her development and what was safest for her created an excellent tension for Hopper to deal with; Harbour played it perfectly. His apology to an empty cabin was excellent and their reconciliation in the truck on the way to the facility was outstanding too. They need each other to build a new family out of their fractured lives and I can’t wait to see how that develops (particularly now that she’ll be able to leave the cabin safely within a year); I was very happy to see that she’s now legally his daughter. I absolutely loved his “You did so good, kid,” moment after she closed the gate and Hopper carrying her out of the gate room was a brilliant connection to Brenner carrying her out of the tank after her early tests with the Upside Down (that was a callback I completely missed!).

I’m glad Hopper didn’t go full-on nefarious Men in Black like the end of last season implied, instead just helping to cover up things in town without any qualms about setting the government straight the moment he realized they weren’t living up to their side of the “keep the Upside Down sealed” bargain. I like that his maybe-relationship with Joyce is seemingly back on track by the end of this year and I wonder if they’ll actually get together next season (or between seasons). If they were to get married, Eleven and Will as step-siblings would work really well given their shared traumas with the Upside Down. Hopper being absolutely done with the kids’ D&D allusions was perfect, so putting as many kids around him as possible would be hilarious! Has Joyce been taking Mike and Will up to have playdates with Eleven? Do all the kids regularly trek up to Hopper’s cabin to hang out with Eleven on weekends and play D&D? Did someone get an NES? I would love it if Hopper and Joyce actually enjoyed playing it just as much as the kids will (I remember my parents playing my Sega Genesis X-men game by themselves often, so the adults being into a video game or two isn’t outside the bounds of reality). I’d also be interested to see if sheriff is the end of Hopper’s career path or if he wants more out of his work. Could he be recruited into further government projects into the supernatural, or will he do something smaller, like running for Mayor of Hawkins? I hope the spores in the tunnels didn’t do anything to him, but I can’t see the Duffers letting that go so easily, especially since he’ll be directly in Eleven’s (and possibly Will’s) orbit. Perhaps that experience with the supernatural will be a way to bond him and Eleven even closer and give her a chance to directly rescue him.

Bob Newby His name literally being “newbie” may have been on the nose, but I liked Bob and the distinct flavor he brought to the character mix. His innocence and sense of discovery created fun clashes with the other characters’ temperaments, like when he was decoding Will’s map. He almost felt like a glimpse into what any of the kids could’ve become had they not had these run-ins with the supernatural. His tech and puzzle-solving knowledge were fresh skills some shows would’ve just randomly given to Mike or the other kids simply because they’re nerds—as if that means they know everything about all nerdy things—so I was glad the Duffers gave them to a new character. Those skills made him invaluable and allowed for a very tense escape from the government facility. I felt he truly cared about Joyce and her boys, which was refreshing to see, and he bonded well with Will. I liked the tragedy that his well-meaning advice about facing your fears was the absolute worst thing he could’ve told Will, and that Will trusted him enough to listen. Bob’s suggestion to move the family to Maine was a cool, sly Stephen King reference; they probably wouldn’t be any safer there! I was sorry he died, but I wish they hadn’t shot it with such a tell; instead of Bob and Joyce having a moment of relief that he’d escaped, having Bob continue running for his life and getting snagged by the Demodogs anyway would’ve been a bigger shock.

Allies I was shocked Dr. Owens turned out to not only not be morally gray or outright evil, but genuinely cared about Will, Eleven, and the others. That was a great change of pace from the stock government scientist and a clever subversion of Reiser’s character in Aliens. I believe he truly did believe doing whatever was necessary to stop the spread of the Upside Down was the best course of action, but once it came to harming kids, he was done. I respected that. I expected him to die, so his survival was a surprise and I hope he continues to be an ally in Season 3 and beyond. The government trying to burn away the infectious Upside Down infestation was a great way to make them problematic in that they were still running tests, while proving they weren’t completely oblivious to how dangerous it was (even if they had no idea how far it had spread). That was a cool split between their deal with Hopper and their own interests. I’d like to see what the larger government wants with the Upside Down testing, though. Are they thinking it could be used as a way to “teleport” behind enemy lines? If an army battalion (or just one operative with a nuclear weapon) entered the Upside Down in Hawkins and punched their way out in Moscow, for example, that would be a powerful military advantage that could clinch the Cold War for the US. Eleven and Eight’s powers both seem to be in the same vein as Cold War psychic experiments (and it all started as part of Project MKUltra), so elaboration on specific goals there would be cool too. Maybe some of the test subjects didn’t escape and are government-backed child soldiers now. If Jane being number eleven means she’s the latest and youngest, there’s no telling how old the earlier subjects are now.

It’s always good to see Mr. Clarke (Randy Havens), the kids’ science teacher. He didn’t have as big a role to play as the kids’ source of science this year, but all his scenes were great. I love that he’s so into science and always seizes the opportunity to pass on that love and curiosity to the kids. I’m not sure if I want him to learn about the Upside Down or not, because the kids’ flimsy excuses are entertaining. He’d have his mind blown by what they’ve seen, however, and that could be fun in and of itself. I also wonder just how much the kids are overlooking due to not having a background in science that could be useful to fighting the Upside Down. Officers Powell (Rob Morgan) and Callahan (John Reynolds) gave welcome returns as possibly the least effective cops (Callahan far moreso than Powell) on TV. I love how small-town they are in their all-too human reactions to things, even if they’re rarely helpful as law enforcement. As fun as they are, I wonder if there’s a way to preserve that quality while subverting the trope of the bumbling detectives. Ted Wheeler is still totally useless, but while I can almost see why Karen would be attracted to Billy after knowing him on his best behavior for two minutes, I wish we’d gotten more depth to her than a joke about bored housewives. Both of her children were gone from the house for days and she barely seemed to care (even if they did give flimsy sleepover excuses). I’d like to see her build a friendship with Joyce instead of continuing to just be an oblivious parent; there were hints that there was more to her in Season 1 and I hope there’s a return to that in Season 3. Digging into the Karen she wanted to be instead of the one who chose the safe life could be a revelation to Nancy—and Nancy venturing into a role in a male-dominated field like investigative reporter a boon to Karen—and I’d love to dig deeper into those dynamics.

Conspiracy theorist Murray Bauman was a nice nod to the fact that other people are taking note of the strange things going on in Hawkins. I liked his rundown of the myth Eleven accidentally created about herself and his complete misreading of Hopper’s dismissal as naiveté, not being in on the conspiracy. Other shows might have had him be so keyed into the mysteries that he’d suspect Hopper’s smokescreen right away, so his total obliviousness in that area felt fresh. His stunned reaction to what was really happening—much bigger than anything he’d imagined—was great too. His plan to water down the truth about the lab was cool as well; a clever way of holding off on letting everyone know about the Upside Down while still being rooted in human behavior. It didn’t feel like the plot was forcing them to keep their mouths shut about monsters just because doing so would change the whole show’s status quo, but like there was a real reason to. Explaining it like this was also easier to swallow than revealing the truth and then having people go back to disbelieving once the government said it was a lie, in an odd way. Even with the explanation that Murray has an obsessive need to expose secrets and illuminate the truth, his investment in the love lives of two teens he’d just met was a little unnerving. He didn’t come off as creepy, I guess, but just weird. I don’t need to see him return—with the government shutting down the facility, he’s served his purpose—but becoming something of a journalistic mentor for Nancy, if they go that route with her, could be cool.

I wasn’t too enamored with the members of Kali’s crew. They were fine foils for Eleven’s friends and definitely brought a distinct flavor to the show, but nothing Kali couldn’t bring by herself. With so little screentime to split among so many new characters, they didn’t feel as fully-formed as they could’ve been. I might’ve cut a few of them or combined their traits into fewer characters. Still, it’s good that they were so diverse; that was a realistic contrast to life in Hawkins. I definitely appreciate that there was an even gender split in the crew too. Perhaps given more time with these characters, I’d like them better.

Enemies I really, really hope Brenner isn’t still alive. He doesn’t need to be. Now that Eleven has discovered and come to terms with as much of her past as possible, bringing him back would feel like a step backwards. Through her interactions with Eight—who acted the way Brenner wanted his subjects to, even if she aimed herself at him instead of the government’s enemies—and Hopper, it feels like Jane’s already defeated the ghost of Brenner’s influence and his physical return wouldn’t be much of a fight for her soul. Now, if Eight shows up in Hawkins and uses an illusion of him to manipulate/terrorize Eleven, that could work. Then again, Millie Bobby Brown’s reading of Eleven’s relationship with her Papa as a warm one—because he was the first person to hold her and she felt there was care there, despite the abuse he inflicted on her and her mother—adds so many layers to the conflict that I hadn’t considered before. Her assertion that she wouldn’t channel her anger or fight as much without Brenner having been in her life is also a fascinating look at Eleven’s survival skills and her ability to make a positive out of the abuse she suffered. I’d like to see Eleven deal with that, but I wouldn’t want them to take her will to fight out of her hands or give him too much credit; I believe she’d be a fighter with or without Brenner in her life, since her mother certainly was in the end and would’ve taught Jane that instinct had she been there to raise her. Brown’s interpretations of their relationship almost make me hope he is alive. Almost.

The Mind Flayer was an imposing step up from the Demogorgon (just for fun, check out this incredible cosplay!) and the Demodogs were cool underlings. What’s going to happen with the Demodog Dustin and Steve put in the Byers’ fridge? It seemed dead, but they do like the cold… At any rate, I love the mythology of a being that’s so ancient even it doesn’t know where it came from, like Dustin theorizes the Mind Flayer is. The show is digging into Lovecraftian themes and I love it! Of course, if they’re going full-Lovecraft, it may also mean the Mind Flayer isn't necessarily evil, just that it’s a force of nature that wants to survive. That’s more interesting. Dustin assumes it wants to control everything because that’s what the D&D character wants, but nothing says he has to be right. Or maybe controlling everything is how it survives, so it needs to continue corrupting everything to perpetuate its existence. If all the beings it’s controlling die, how can this psychic monstrosity continue to inhabit any world?

I hope the Mind Flayer is defeated in Season 3, opening up 4 and 5 for new, even more terrifying threats. I feel like the next step beyond infiltrating the town is burrowing into the people (particularly as we know psychic interaction is possible through Eleven’s watery middle-ground void; that’s where she first met the Demogorgon), which could be cool. Though again, I don’t want the Upside Down to be the source of evil people in Hawkins. Perhaps the Mind Flayer already has a foothold here through the smoky portion of itself that was possessing Will. I wonder where it fled to… If Upside Down beings start taking over Hawkins citizens—or even just altering their perceptions to harm our heroes—that could be the perfect time to bring back the similarly-powered Eight.

Though I would’ve liked to see more from Mike, Nancy, and Jonathan this year, I thought the writers did a great job of fleshing out the rest of the cast and expanding the story from where they left it in Season 1. They didn’t lock themselves into cliffhangers or open-ended scenes in the season finale this time, so they can do pretty much anything they want. I’m definitely optimistic about where things could go in Season 3 and beyond! We need to see these characters in their status quo so we can see how it changes when the supernatural elements return, so I do hope we get a little more of their normal lives next time; maybe a more expanded season would help. What are the characters’ lives and relationships going to look like in a year? What have the Mind Flayer and the other denizens of the Upside Down been planning? It feels like the stage has been set for a huge showdown and I can’t wait!

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