uh i just think there's something really wrong with this rat

Tour starts. Fifteen minutes later we're standing in front of Hawkins Library, and she turns to me and asks, "which one was Jonathan?" It was, unfortunately, the most Joyce Byers thing she could have said.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion on each and every character, we all have different perspectives and preferences. Everything I'm about to say is entirely related to my personal opinions and biases, not overall commentary on the personalities/behaviors/motivations of these characters. Just want to make that clear before anyone comes for me lol I actually am not anti-Robin. I wish the writers would have built friendships between the "teens" that would have made the epilogue actually make sense. I think there's a lot to work with when it comes to those four characters and the writers just shit the bed as per usual. I didn't care for how she egged on the "love triangle" in S4 but I know some people make arguments that she didn't have enough context to understand what she was encouraging. Ultimately, I think Robin and Jonathan would have been a really complementary friendship pair and I'm sad we barely got a line between the two of them all series. Dustin, on the other hand, I really want to like and just...have such a hard time doing so. In theory he's a great character and he has had some great moments throughout the series. And Gaten is fantastic (as is Maya). Where Dustin first lost me was S2 with how he handled Dart and got Mews killed and then led his Mom to believe she was missing (btw, he seemed to care VERY little about it). Was he a little kid out of his depth? Yeah, sure. But I don't play when it comes to animals (especially cats) and that just soured me on him forever. Then there's all of the Steve and Eddie idolization that went over the top for me. It's entirely common for younger kids to revere older kids that seem "cool". I can understand with the lack of a father figure or older brother, how Steve did fill a void for Dustin. It's the Eddie of it all that irritated the living shit out of me and felt obnoxious. That got to a point where I just yelled "oh, enough already" at the TV. Plus the whole sullen teen flipping everyone double birds made my eyes roll out of my head. Very specific to ME and my own petty annoyances. I also want to clarify that it wasn't simply about the fact that I don't care for Eddie much as a character. I thought the scene in the finale between Dustin and Eddie's Uncle was deeply touching and I really felt for Uncle Munson and I DO have sympathy for Dustin losing a friend. However, the way he lashed out in S5 seemed once again obnoxious and unnecessary. This all brings me to the number one reason Dustin pissed me off: skipping Lucas's big game in favor of Eddie's D&D campaign. I'm not trying to diminish how much the party enjoys D&D and that major campaigns ARE a big deal to them the way that sporting events or club activities might be. I'm not trying to say that basketball is more worthwhile than D&D. But for me, Dustin and Mike put EDDIE over supporting Lucas, their best friend since childhood. To be fair, Mike isn't in my top five favorite characters either...but he didn't climb all the way inside Eddie's ass or cause the death of my poor little Mews. So Dustin gets the brunt of my ire here. Believe it or not, there are both canon and fanon elements to Dustin that I DO like and I have a very soft spot for Henderhop. I try to just retcon all of the shit I DON'T like about Dustin as much as I can, because I do think he's otherwise an interesting character and enjoyed his explanations of the UD/Dimension X in S5. I also love his mother, she's perfect, no notes.