Sorcerer🎀

And they had the gall to self-insert with Mike and say, “Hey guys—imagine an ending where she didn’t die! Imagine an ending where she was finally free after a lifetime of being imprisoned and in hiding!” Oh, but even in this hypothetical “good” ending, her brown sister still dies. Of course.

They very lazily resolved Jane’s fear that she was a monster, and then had her call the next generation of innocent abused children like her “more monsters” which was entirely out of character.

The children who did get their happy ending were “normal” and shoe-horned into the final season.

We talk about the Will Byers humiliation ritual… what about the Jane Hopper humiliation ritual?

After a fight in which her boyfriend triggered memories of her abuser (while too busy focussing on his “relationship” problems with his platonic bestie) he brings her cold eggos and refuses to apologise for not being supportive of her struggles. He makes it about him. He calls her ridiculous. She begs for him to verbalise his affection for her—write it even—and is then thrown into another prison where she is re-traumatised by her abuser, only for said boyfriend to chauffeur her away after days of homoromantic heart to hearts with his best friend.

They had her wear a fucking collar. Her abuser was the one to unlock it. They didn’t even let her remove her own literal and metaphorical shackles.

Mike professes to her while kneeling at a fucking pizza dough freezer as she’s being choked out. No eye contact. No intimacy. Because his gay best friend reminded him to. She never even gets to respond to this monologue in the canon series, because I guess her feelings don’t actually matter.

Even in her final moments before death, her character was reduced to her love story with the boy who found her in the woods and kept her in his basement. And he still couldn’t say “I love you” back for some reason.

She was never free. She went from being trapped in the lab, to being hidden in Mike’s basement, to being hidden in Hopper’s cabin. She got in trouble and yelled at for leaving these confined spaces and doing normal teenage things. The only exception was when she made herself useful to them by using her powers, endangering herself, and often to the point of physical exhaustion.

Her father figure supposedly learned to allow her more freedom at the end of season 3, but he returns to being over-protective, angry and condescending at the beginning of season 5, undoing all character development.

And we’re expected to thank these men for “taking care of her” all these years, when everything she ever accomplished was no thanks to them but to her own merit, her own desire to do good, her own zest for a life and freedom she never got to have.

Was she… really just used as a tool to help Hopper process his daughter’s death? Was she used as plot armour to ensure our characters could survive the supernatural antagonists? Was she used to give Mike Wheeler something to do other than play games in his basement?

Whether or not it goes our way, I’m always going to be grateful to have seen everyone’s theories and analyses throughout the years. I never got to be that active myself but reading everyone’s thoughts has been so fun.

Some of the theories I’ve seen on here were even cooler and so much more genius than what turned out to be canon.

Im going to miss this fandom so much 🥲🥲 hoping things go our way

the episode in which we get a coming out scene from the main character being the worst rated episode of the series is NOT good

of course it was disappointing writing but this community’s ratings are being lumped in with the abundant number of homophobes who hated the episode not because the coming out scene was bad, but because it was a coming out scene in general.

this is an awful message, and the rating is clearly fueled by hate because a 5.5 rating does NOT objectively represent the episode. it was mediocre of course compared to most episodes of the show, but such a low rating is sending an awful message to EVERYONE. people will see this and think “oh queer representation in popular media is a horrible idea”

even elon musk responded to this saying that will’s gay arc “was completely unnecessary and forced on audiences who want to enjoy some basic sci-fi”

ARE YOU KIDDING, THIS IS HORRIBLE

in the political climate we need to band together and defend our representation. of course speak on why you’re disappointed, how the scene could’ve been done much better, but do it in ways that your intentions are CLEAR, not by review bombing an episode.