GOD star wars: the clone wars (2008-2014) was the absolute fucking BEST. u do absolutely not get anymore buckwild than the insane range of emotions that these seven seasons can put u thru. obi-wan commits a war crime in the first episode. anakin drinks a space martini. a sixteen-year-old decapitates four men in a single second and it is literally never mentioned again. anakin, obi-wan, and mace windu find SPACE GODZILLA and the entire jedi order collectively drinks We Love Peta™ juice, decide not to kill it, bring it to the capital city, and it breaks out (ofc) and kills, like, a half million people. sheev just hangs out in padme’s office for six whole seasons being, i dunno, evil and absolutely not a single person catches on. there’s a blue guy in a dope-ass big hat who beats every single jedi’s ass and they still only call him, “that guy in the hat.” darth maul’s been living in a literal garbage dump with eight legs for the past ten years. anakin endorses state-sponsored terrorism. padme once contracted the black death. the jedi order tries to prosecute a twelve-year-old for war crimes. maul is forcibly murdered two (2) times over and still lives for some bananas fucking reason. whenever anakin does something mildly risky the darth vader theme plays. yoda asks anakin if they’re friends. the jedi order tries to prosecute a sixteen-year-old for war crimes. a cartoon made for twelve-year-olds has a four-episode arc about government oversight of international banking. this all happens in the range of three years. this show is absolutely fucking nuts.

not to be emo on main but the reason Steve Harrington has such an amazing arc is because he, arguably, doesn’t gain much from becoming a better person. he loses his friend group. ends up picking up a bat to fight a monster because nancy and jonathan are in danger. and when he gets dumped? well, might as well help this random kid that i sort of know fight another monster. oh, there’s a secret base? let me get tortured so my friends don’t. when he and the others escape the mall, it’s Steve who leads the charge from weathertop and goes back to save his ex girlfriend and her new boyfriend and helps fight a massive monster solely because it’s the right thing to do. homeboy risks his life over and over for a group of kids and doesn’t expect anything in return. like at all. he doesn’t get the girl, he certainly loses his job, and he regularly gets the crap beaten out of him. but he does it anyway.