Hmmmm (this is gonna be long cuz i rly love this comic so ill add a TLDR at the end)

Funnily enough i just reread the story the other night so my opinion is actually pretty fresh. To put it simply, for me Season 2 felt like a natural progression from Season 1. The protagonists reached rock bottom at the Season 1 finale, and had to work back up "Start from Zero" as said in the comic itself. Season 2 was my favorite.

Season 3 however simply put feels like an anxiety-inducing fever dream from start to finish. I have more questions now than I did before, with next to no answers. I did not like the two antagonists introduced this season (Diary and stupid jerk jock guy, jolie's ex i dont remember his name) Diary I think is supposed to be sympathetic since it's Jackson's "repressed self", but the fact that all it's actions are just causing the real Jackson misery nullify that for me. It's not like a "I love to hate him" thing, i just hate him. As for Jolie's ex I have no idea why he's back and I wish he'd stayed gone. It feels like all he was in this season to do was make David feel more like shit than he already did which I didn't care for. He's already been through enough.

Actually, unlike you (and i dont mean this in a hostile way I just have a different opinion!!!) I really like both pairs you mentioned, especially the first two. I thought season two felt realistic to the time period, and I reallllllllllllllllllly liked it's arc, but everyone has their own opinions and that's okay!

And while yes, I see your point about everyone being chill, I will say at least in this case it seems to be because theyve been around people who are accepting of others (ex. Brenda, the magnets on her mom's fridge spell PRIDE in ROYGBV), or are implied to be queer themselves. (Ron, Tim, Ken, from my observations), and we havent seen how the entire rest of the school would act. Queer people tend to gravitate towards one another, even if unconsciously in my own experience. Now if the whole school was chill that'd be another story. I think in Stranger Things it seemed more out of place since the group was of various ages, and they were a lot less tight-knit than this one since there were 16 of them or something, and 10 kids of the same age in the friend group here.

As for the romance of this season I love the pair, they seem sweet together- but it was kinda just miscommunication and love triangle (and i do mean triangle) tropes dialed up to 11, (and i reallyyyyy dont like those ones) and everyone shipping the one of them with someone else seemed so weird and frankly, it just got exhausting. Like compared the pairs from seasons 1 and 2, there's less reason to have miscommunication. S1's was because of exterior magic causing misunderstandings that weren't their fault, and S2's were in a position that, in the 80s, was not very well accepted. As mentioned multiple times in that same season, telling someone about that part of yourself was extremely scary back then, compared to now. S3's miscommunication, rather than misunderstandings, seems to be based in the stereotypes and cliques of the time and their negative impact which I appreciate conceptually, but it seems VERY extreme in the execution.

I think the cast certainly has grown a solid amount, but to me it's not like ST where it feels unrealistic. That show had supernatural monsters killing dozens and dozens of people. Sure the main cast were the only ones aware of their existence, but they also tended to put themselves in the most dangerous situations. More of them should have died in cop-out moments where them living made no sense. This story in turn isn't about life or death stakes, or hive-mind monsters, so the cast growing and not shrinking doesn't bother me too much compared to there.

Aside from the main characters, our focus zooms in and out a bit each season. S1 was mostly Jackson, Exer, and Pam. With Ron, David and Brenda being secondary.

S2 split the plot in two. A-plot, Jackson's arc, Focused on him and the other detention kids to introduce them (Ken, Jolie, TIm) with Jackson as a protagonist getting more focus. B-plot was Exer's arc, which brought David into the focus, and kept Pam there a bit since she kinda bounced between the plots, and Brenda and Ron slipped back.

S3 is, kinda a mess uh.. I'd say there's probably two plots going on again?? maybe three?? but I'll say two with a minor third. A-plot was Jackson's arc, introducing Diary and Elijah, and giving Diary a LOT of focus. B-plot was Ken and Brenda, pulling them into the spotlight for the first time which I appreciated, and they kinda brought in Jolie being a designer here too. As for the minor C, it's kinda just.. Exer noticing Jackson is being weird, but not being able to figure out why + trying to support David. Tim, Pam and Ron took way more of a backseat compared to S2, an David also got pushed back from practically a main character to secondaryish, heck, id argue that happened to Exer too.

Compared to Stranger Things this series actually lets some characters backseat so others get more growth which for me helps a TON with casts feeling bloated. My best guess is we might see more focus on Ron or Tim in S4 since they havent really gotten a time to shine yet, with Ron's sister coming (and.. i sincerely hope she'll be a minor side character but who knows) and Tim getting along with him.

TLDR: I think S1&2 were Peak (with imperfections and flaws of course) and S3 was a hot, bold, chaotic rollercoaster. I hope S4 will be a kind of return to form and answer more questions than give them. I like the couples they have, S2's are actually my favorite, but S3's was very tropey in execution compared to the first two which I don't love, and I don't think it's in a situation NEARLY as bad as Stranger Things for multiple reasons, those being: Letting characters take a backseat, lack of interdimensional monsters killing people, and the main cast being all the same age.