Sleep Deprived Fairy

Ngl Mike the Brave Is not real, Nancy is braver (well reckless). They somehow managed to make Nancy one of the most complex characters in this show by simply making her a lesbian, now Barb hurts even more...in the meantime Mike is now a just as indecipherable character. I choose to believe that he really fell victim to the internalized homophobia because I have no idea why he would not say "I love you" to El otherwise. In any case the fics are gonna EAT SO MUCH.

Disappointing that they wouldn't go more in depth with certain aspects and each time they had an incredible idea they just backpedaled (the trauma of Hopper thinking he shot his daughter to that but yeah no let's just gloss over that). I think El's sacrifice, which is actually something that I wanted and thought made sense since season 1, should've been a moment with her sister but they simply let her die beforehand so they could set up this what if mess. They sacrificed good storytelling for the sake of media relevance so that people would speculate on what actually happened.

Mike KNOWS El died, he knows and we as the audience know there was no way El could be saved, and he lies to himself and lies to his friends (friends don't lie says Mike the Liar) to shield himself from actually feeling. The parallel with his father...he really did become useless.

On a positive note people now get to write their own ending and futures on ao3 and they would probably do a better job than the duffers who kept setting up stuff (the letters, the painting, Henry and the play, among many other unanswered questions and plot holes that have been ignored to say the least) to then just not use it? Can't believe they wasted a perfectly good Cyrano trope. The purple rain moment was honestly revolting (not because I stopped rooting for that couple in season 3 but I imagine as a Mileven fan it feels like a huge slap to the face and Mike is just...an asshole for no reason?).

This season in particular in one word? Cop-out.

They really were afraid of killing people huh, the plot armor thickens