insanity laughs under pressure we're breaking

Nevermind that they had El be all "I'm not Sarah" to Hopper, as if he didn't actually come to see her as his daughter, not just a "replacement." Doing that, but still having El be emotionally dependent on Mike, shows a lack of narrative cohesion and inability to actually develop their characters under a consistent framework.

will: kind of weird autistic gay art student. probably into some freaky shit you would never know about, borders the line of steven universe gay and greg araki gay. art hoe/plant mom phase in 2020. has multiple nonbinary bitches in his inner circle that he doesn’t play about

lucas: sweet guy that’s just nerdy enough that he’s not popular but everyone still kind of wants to fuck him. college packing list included a costco family-size pack of redbull. posts game results on instagram stories with these emojis💯🥶🔥. corny tiktok reposts

dustin: has been on corners on the internet no normal person has ever ventured onto but he has pronouns in bio so you know he’s not like redpilled incel 4chan freak. double monitor in bedroom. jorts. deepfried memes. probably does schoolwork off 4 bong rips and still has a 4.0.

mike: most nasty disgusting bedroom you’ve ever seen that his mom still attempts to clean for him. she found and confiscated his jumbo miami mint geekbar because of this. adderall shortage hit him hard. listens to cake. appears performatively bisexual at first glance.

max: smokes and drives. got called down to the principles office in middle school for looking up how does lesbian sex work on a school-issued chromebook. doesn’t play about neon genesis evangelion. edgelord phase. baggiest jeans known to man

el: absolutely ransacks her local goodwill every weekend. indie music. bad driver. cuts her own bangs at 11:30pm with craft scissors and screams bloody murder when she fucks them up. hate-watches euphoria. took karate lessons as a kid

Jonathan’s the one responsible for showing Nancy that she was already half way there to living the boring depressing life she’s been trying to avoid, and taught Steve the definition of FAFO, making Steve apologize to him. Not to mention the fact that Jonathan is responsible for those two having their first weapons in the series and their first team up happens at his house. He helped those two become the characters that everyone ended up admiring. And with Jonathan and Nancy finally dating, and Steve attending Barb’s funeral with them, it felt like we were getting close to another great friend group in the making.

Then they made Jonathan’s role just to solely be Nancy’s boyfriend, didn’t have Steve and Jonathan interact until S5, brought back the love triangle, introduced new characters that were Jonathan variants in some way, and made their epilogue scene feel like two duos meeting each other rather than best friends meeting each other.

Which does suck because I feel like there would’ve been something beautiful about the town freak who hasn’t had a friend his entire life, and he finds people who actually want to be friends with him, even when they aren’t dealing with the monsters in the show.