#I love analyzing Steve and Nancy's relationship

[steviewashere]

She Lives in My Dream State

Rating: General Pairings: Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Platonic Stancy, Pre-Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington & Eddie Munson CWs: Mild Recreational Marijuana Use (More Implied/Referenced) Tags: Post-Canon, Vague Timeline, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Comfort, Pining, Pre-Relationship, One-Sided Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Good Friend Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington Has a Vague Bisexual Awakening, Bisexual Steve Harrington (If you Squint), (He Hasn't Figured Out All His Feelings Yet for Eddie), Eventual Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Bittersweet, Hopeful Ending, Talking About Dreams This isn't my New Years fic, but I whipped this one out really fast tonight (because I'm pining over somebody I can't have, all that good stuff), so. I promise I've got a couple works that are coming out hopefully by the end of the week! I've just been very ill—woohoo!!! Title taken from Tyler, the Creator's "See You Again", the actual lyric is, "You live in my dream state."

🫂—————🫂 Steve and Nancy become close friends. Closer than most. Maybe not closer than he and Robin, but close enough. They're enough together. And Steve just has to take that.

He reasons that they'd be better friends or maybe even best friends had circumstances not have been. If Nancy was never his girlfriend and the Upside Down never happened and he was never bullshit. But. Well, you can only get so much out of people. And this is what he gets. An ex-girlfriend that still laughs at his jokes, but doesn't touch him the way it matters. An ex-girlfriend who's a friend, nothing more.

She moved to Boston, following her dreams like she always said she would. He believes in her, so he knew, of course, that she'd get to where she needed to be. Steve shouldn't miss her, not as much as he does, but he does. That's the problem. He'll get phone calls from her, excited and bright and short, she's got a column in the local newspaper, her dorm-mates are considerate, there's a library within walking distance. He's so fucking happy and proud.

But also...

"I think I'm still in love with her," he confesses one night. It's late, too late to be talking. There's a burning sweep of ash in his throat, a joint nearly roached between his fingers, and some movie playing in front of him. The television is quiet, buzzing and fizzing.

"Yeah?"

Oh. And Eddie's here, too. Replacing one friend for another. Not that Nancy did stuff like this, sitting around with him, smoking and shooting shit. No, she was more the kind of girl who enjoyed binging some rom-com from the discount bin at Family Video, sipping hot gos as Steve put it out into the world. She liked wine nights—it was the only stereotype she allowed herself to have.

He swallows around smoke. The joint begins to hurt, so he leans forward towards Eddie's coffee table, putting it out in an already full ashtray. They should really break this habit. Do something else. Find another thing to entertain them, but the weed loosens the works. Makes it easier to be himself without trying so damn hard. Not like it matters. Eddie figures him out anyway. Perceptive bastard.

His hands hang between his knees. Head heavy on his neck, pulled forward so his shoulders hunch. The screen flashes, and so his eyes dart to figure the picture. He's never been able to paint it clearly, doesn't understand the image, can't caption the words.

"I don't know," Steve murmurs, "it's just...she calls me, y'know, tells me everything going on in her life. And I know she's broken up from Jon, working on herself—whatever that means—but I...I hear her talk about these guys and girls she's bumping into on campus. Don't think she realizes, but she's on her way to falling in love with her lab partner."

"You saying you're jealous of a person you've never met?"

"I'm not the jealous type"—

"Sorry, Steve, it sorta sounds like you are."

Sighing, relenting, Steve rolls his eyes and leans back in his seat. Nods against the back of the couch, gaze adrift to the water stains on the ceiling. "Maybe I am, then. But I'm not gonna do anything about it, swear. She's happy now. Has her whole life ahead of her. Not the kind to settle down and have a brood of children, I get that, but I guess the dream still clouds my brain."

Eddie looks to him, he can feel his burning stare. He keeps his gaze astute on the ceiling. There's something in him that melts with Eddie's molten eyes—he'd let the change happen at a moment's notice. Not now, though. And definitely not yet. "You guys are on two different worlds," Eddie states softly, "she isn't yours to keep. And I'm sure she doesn't want to be kept, not now at least." He bumps his hand on Steve's thigh, the contact burns, but Steve doesn't shy from it. Instead, he lolls his head and looks over.

One day, his brain won't be set on Nancy.

Maybe it'll be somebody else.

"I don't how you're supposed to do it," Eddie continues, "but you have to move on, Steve. Be her friend, but don't let the thought of her eat away at you."

He swallows, a sour lump heavy in his throat. "I know," he mutters. His eyes are heavy, wet when he blinks them. But Eddie doesn't acknowledge that, doesn't make fun of him. It's nice. Steve sighs. "I just think I'm gonna love her forever and there's nothing I can do about it."

"I know, Steve," Eddie whispers, matching the tenderness, "but one day, things will be different. I swear, Stevie, they will."

"Yeah"—he nods once, quickly. Lets out another soft breath—"did you know that Nance and I met on her first day of freshman year?"

"Mm, no I didn't. Tell me about it?"

At least Eddie won't shut him down on this. Not like other people have.

"She had these big, square glasses on," Steve reminisces, "her hair tied up in this ponytail, stray hairs all around her face. We were at this club fair. I was looking into the student council and she was at the booth beside me, the business club's. And all I could think was, there's no way she's interested in that, must be her dad talking."—he snorts—"when I went over to ask her about it, she did one of those big, nasty sighs. All...jaded or whatever. She told me her dad was full of shit. Honestly thought she was gonna be some prissy, pretty mouthed girl who's well-mannered—that kind of garbage—but she wasn't. She was honest.

"I knew, right then and there, that I was gonna find a way to woo her. Maybe it was just...maybe I was being a bit too out there for a fifteen year old, but I honest to god thought she was the one for me. My soulmate. But then...well, y'know the story of us. Not meant to be." Steve sighs, wistful and forlorn. The image of fourteen year old Nancy Wheeler, her too big glasses and her smile full of braces, gone in an instant. He continues, "That dream I had where she was my wife, we had that whole crowd of kids, sometimes I think that was my dad talking. The ideal family mumbo-jumbo. But I think, if her and I were different people—if she wasn't afraid of becoming her mom and I wasn't afraid of becoming my dad—maybe that whole thing could'a worked out. But...Nancy's too brilliant for that. Too brilliant for nuclear bullshit. And I'm sorta...sorta behind, y'know. Late bloomer on what I want."

Eddie blinks at him. His wonderfully dark eyes pulling Steve back to himself. The hand has returned to sit against his thigh, heavy and warm and sure. Grounding. "What do you want, Steve?"

He blows out a sharp breath. "Loaded question," Steve says, "I want to get out of Hawkins, I know that much. Find somewhere to be. To be what, I'm not sure, but something more than just...just world's best babysitter who knows when to have a car at the right moment and also the inventory system for movies I've never fucking seen."

The smile that compliments that statement is only born from Eddie's warm laughter. He wants to nurture that smile, the way his cheeks stretch with it. It's the warmest thing he's felt in a long while.

"What about you, Eds, what do you want?"

"Honestly, I don't fucking know," Eddie answers in turn. "I wanted to be a world famous rockstar. But every time I put my fingers on the frets, I think about Metallica and world ending doom, so...guess that's sorta out of the cards. Oh, maybe I could write shit! I could...I could take the whole world ending bullshit and turn it into some sci-fi novel. Call it...The Underworld or something."

"The Underworld or Something sounds like a mouthful," Steve teases.

"Right...The Underworld. Title in progress. Hell, you know, maybe you could be my editor?"

"I'm not a strong enough reader for that, Eds." Eddie chuckles and nods, conceding. Steve just relishes in the tired sound of his laughter. "Got any other gigs you think I could do?"

"Book binding," Eddie says easily, "it's methodical. Takes some energy to focus on the craft, but you work a lot with your hands and tools. Something quiet, so you aren't dealing with angry moms and their crying children. But something just bland enough that you're not overexerting your efforts. Could put your brain on hobbies you wanted to work. Book binding and playing basketball in your free time sounds like the dream for you, Steve."

"Yeah? You've been thinking about this for a while? 'Cause, gotta give it to you, if that's improvised, you're a fucking genius."

"Ah, thank you, thank you...you flatter me, sweetheart. In another life, I take the world by storm with my on stage presence."

"Why not in this one?"

"Hollywood's too convoluted," Eddie says, "they'd probably do some evil shit like put me on an unethical diet and call it the beauty world's next hot tip or something. Or, y'know, they'd put me in a Speedo catalog. Don't think I could do that, ruins the integrity of my image."

Steve snorts again and swipes his tongue inside his lower lip. "Hm," he assesses, eyes squinted at Eddie's shorts-clad legs, "you've got good enough legs for it, though. Put you in some zebra print tighties and call it couture."

"Again, Steve, you flatter me." Eddie hits his thigh again, drawing his attention back. "Seriously, though," he says, voice dropped low, "one day you'll have things figured out enough. Maybe you'll still love her, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll be binding books or working a cash register. But, someday, you'll be the Steve Harrington you need yourself to be. Not today, and that's okay."

"Yeah," he sighs, "not today."

He thinks of Nancy, happy in Boston. Jonathan happy in Lenora. Robin in Seattle. All of them, sans Eddie and himself, separated and happy.

It's bittersweet, to love somebody he can't have. It always will be. He knows, despite himself, that he's going to love her until the day he dies. And she won't know that, and that has to be okay. They missed the chance—he missed the chance. Things are for the better, though.

He has a new friend in Eddie. He's got a load of feelings to stifle through. And he's got a lot to look forward to in the coming years of his very formative twenties. But for now, this is it: wallowing on Eddie's couch, tossing jokes at one another, smoke coating his throat.

It's not the best, but it could certainly be a lot worse. Things are reasonable and he's alive and some stuff is amiss, but things will work out.

Especially since he's got a new person on his side.

🫂—————🫂

[bingbongsupremacy]

Closure Pt. 2

Pairing: Steve Harrington x plus size!reader

Warnings: swearing, anger, idk what else

Series Summary: You never knew Steve could be so shallow. When he leaves you to date Nancy Wheeler, you're left with a pain you thought he'd never leave with you. Maybe you should've stayed friends.

Part Summary: He wrote a letter. You don't need him. Right?

*Not Proof Read* Stranger Things Masterlist

Based off of Taylor Swift Song Closure. This was a request. I tried to make everything as general as possible. Pls let me know if missed something ty.

Pt. 1 Pt. 2 Pt. 3

*****

No one was supposed to know we were dating. Steve said he didn’t want his teammates to bug me. He didn’t want people to overreact when they found out about us and say mean shit. At the time, I agreed. I mean, Steve’s the king of Hawkins high. I wouldn’t be the first girl he’s dated who’s had rumors spread about them. 

Hiding us was harder than we thought. A month or so after we got together Tommy found out and told the whole team. Gradually the whole school found out. Gossip spreads like wildfire, especially in a town like Hawkins. 

During the weeks after we broke up, I started to think about our secret relationship.

He wasn’t trying to protect me. He was trying to protect his reputation. Steve might not show it but deep down he’s just like everyone else. He’s got insecurities too. He obsesses over anything negative that’s said about him, analyzing everything that others think is imperfect about him until he finds a way to change it.

That’s something I noticed sophomore year when we started to get a little closer.

He was kind to me, but he wasn’t perfect. I don’t know for sure but I think he still messed with underclassmen, bullying them for praise from Tommy and Carol. He wanted to be liked by everyone, especially those two assholes.

He was always going to pick them over me. 

“ Honey, this came in for you today. “ My mom breaks me out of my thoughts. 

I look up from my stack of paperwork. “ What? From who? “ My brows furrow in confusion. Who would send mail to my parents’ house? I haven’t lived here in years. 

“ It’s from Steve. “ My moms eyes scan over the stark white envelope. 

My heart sinks. 

What the fuck does he want? 

I haven’t seen or talked to him since graduation 7 years ago. What could he want with me? Last I heard he got a job at Family Video and Nancy broke up with him. 

He knows I’m here. He has to. Fucking Hawkins. When one person knows everyone knows. Mrs. Henderson must’ve told someone when I ran into her at the gas station. 

“ What ever happened to you and Steve? Do you both still talk? “ My mom asks curiously while handing over my mail. 

Oh right. I never told her. 

“ We fell out of touch. You know, life. " I shrug, hoping that's enough for her.

" Oh, that's so sad sweetie. I'm sorry. " She sends me a small sympathetic smile. " That's always hard when you lose touch with someone you love. " She gently pats my shoulder.

Love.

Steve didn't love me.

I send her a small smile, hoping to drop the topic. " It happens, ma. "

" Well, I'll you get to it. " She dismisses herself, leaving me to the letter in my hands.

I trace the sharp corners of the envelope. Should I open it? Do I want to?

I wonder what it says.

What could he have to say to me after all of these years? It couldn't be something worth my time. Not after the shit that happened in high school. Right?

But what if it is?

Fuck it. I'm curious.

I pull open the envelope and let the torn paper fall into my lap. A neatly folded letter greens me, the bright white stationary paper matching the envelope.

This is it. Here we go.

I pull open the letter. Dark blue pen lines starkly contrast the white paper. Steve's familiar handwriting fills a good portion of the page. At the bottom his squiggly signature lies, bold and exactly the same as I remember.

Y/N,

I hope this letter finds you. I heard you're back in town. I've been meaning to do this for a long time. I've debated writing to you for years. I didn't know if I had anything good enough to send to you.

I was an asshole to you. You didn't deserve how I broke up with you. I feel horrible about how I treated you. About how I let other people change my opinion and control my actions. I should've stood stronger with what I thought.

That's something I always loved about you. You didn't let other people sway your opinions. I'm sure you still don't. You thought for yourself.

You are so much braver than I am. You didn't compromise yourself for others.

I've thought about what happened for years. About how you must have felt.

I hope you're well. I hope you've been able to move on and you've continued to be yourself. I know I don't deserve to say that, I just wish you the best.

I wanted to explain to you why I did what I did. I owe it to you. I was selfish. I got caught up in the high school popularity shit. I know it's stupid. I wanted to be Hawkins High's main guy. I wanted the Prom King title. I wanted the attention.

I really did like you. You made me feel safe and understood. You were always patient and kind. You urged me to be me, even when I felt like caving under pressure. You liked me for me, not for who I was trying to be. You deserved better than me.

People started to talk. You know. You heard the rumors.

At first, I thought I could handle it. I thought it wouldn't bug me. I thought I could push past it all. I cracked. Tommy and Carol jumped on the wagon and it pushed me over the edge. I couldn't bare the thought of losing the respect I'd worked so hard to get. I couldn't handle the teasing I'd get from the guys after games or the looks Tommy'd send my way when he saw us together.

It was wrong. I didn't think about you. About how you must've felt and how you were handling everything that was going on. It was Senior Year. I should've held on. We would've been out of this shit hole in a few months anyway, I don't know why I didn't just ignore it all. That's one of my biggest regrets.

I've been in therapy for a few years now. I've worked past all that surface-level shallow shit. I really see just how much I hurt you, and for that I'm so sorry.

I don't expect you to forgive me. I just wanted you to know that you're the first girl I ever loved and I am so grateful for you. Our relationship sent me on a path to help myself, and for that I will always love you.

Thank you.

-Steve Harrington

P.S. The week before we broke up I was going to give this to you. I never did.

I glance down at the envelope in my lap and open it. At the bottom lays a shiny silver necklace. A small gem, my birthstone, lays in the center. It glimmers in the light. It's beautiful.

I turn the gem over and spot a small engraving on the back.

SH +Y/N

For a moment I'm torn.

Should I write him back? Should we talk?

Part of me does miss him. I miss his laugh. His playful teasing. The way he looked at me.

No.

He hurt me. A lot.

He can't just send a letter and make it better. Why didn't he talk to me in person if this really weighed on him as much as he says it did? Why didn't he call me?

I don't need him. I'm fine. I've been fine without him for years. I'm not going to let him back into my life because he feels bad about his actions and insecurities.

I left Hawkins for a reason. I needed to get away from Steve. I needed him out of my life.

I'm not going to let him back in for his sake.

I don't need him.

I stand up, taking the papers and necklace in my hand. I walk over to the trashcan near my dresser. Without a second thought, I drop everything into the can.

The necklace makes a small clunking sound as it hits the bottom of my empty can.

The rustling of papers quiets and so does my pounding heart.

I'm fine on my own.

(Do we like this ending? Or should I try to make another part? )

Taglist: @sublimepenguinpeach-blog @queen-apple24

[lunabug2004]

My Amateur Attempt at a Mike Wheeler Analysis (S1, E1):

WARNING: This is a very Mike-defensive analysis! I will be (over)analyzing every Mike scene, episode by episode, but if you’re looking for completely unbiased analyses, this is not where you’ll find them! He is one of my favorite TV characters of all time and I’m sick of all the hate, so I wanted to just put my view of him up somewhere. Also, I ship both Mileven and Byler, but I prefer Byler quite a bit more, so this will mainly be Byler-focused, and I will touch on some of Mike’s queer-coding as well.

Season 1, Episode 1:

Mike is playing DnD with Will, Dustin, and Lucas, acting as the DM. This is an early testament to his intelligence and imagination, as well as his role of leader in the party. When Mike is told to stop playing, he argues with his mom, showing his stubbornness and dedication to the game (and the campaign he took 2 weeks to plan). Then, he sees off his friends, making sure they all leave safely. I love this detail, as it shows how much he cares for his friends at such a young age (I mean, how many 11/12 year olds do you know who would do that?). Thanks to the conversation the boys have about Nancy as they are leaving, we also learn that he and Nancy used to have an okay sibling-relationship, but that hasn’t been the case since at least 4 years ago. As Will is leaving, he tells Mike the truth about the dice-roll, “It was a seven,” and I know this is a little detail, but I like that we can see that Will does not want to lie to Mike, maybe a hint towards how different their relationship/friendship is.

When we next see Mike, it is at breakfast the next morning, and he is putting syrup on his eggs, which grosses out Nancy, and he does the typical younger-sibling move of putting syrup on her eggs too just to annoy her. This same morning, when the boys (minus Will, obv) show up at school and Will is not there, Mike makes a worried comment about it, but the other two boys don’t seem as worried. Then they get intercepted by their bullies, being called “Frog-face”, “Midnight”, and “Toothless”, and after Dustin is targeted by the bullies, Mike tries to comfort him by saying his disability is like he has superpowers. This shows his love for Dustin through his want to defend him, even if it’s not defending him to the bullies’ faces, rather defending him from his own insecurities. This showcasing of Mike’s love comes back into play multiple times throughout the season. I’d also like to point out that Mike decided at a young age to surround himself with “freaks” (Lucas because of his race, Dustin because of his disability, and Will because of his queer traits) despite being relatively normal himself. Now, this might just be because he was originally supposed to have a birthmark on his face and that was supposed to be his “freak-ish” trait, or that he just didn’t realize he was doing this because he obviously doesn’t see these things as bad, but I thought it was still interesting to point out.

When Mr. Clarke shows the boys the radio after class, we learn that Mike is the president of the AV club, then they are taken to talk with Hopper about Will’s case. Mike takes the lead in answering Hop’s questions, now this may just be because Hop calls on him specifically, but I’d like to think it’s also a way to show Mike as the leader of the group. He is the one to bring up helping look for Will, and we can see how serious he is about this because when he is denied this, and Dustin and Lucas start bickering, Mike looks completely annoyed. 

He doesn’t give up on this want to help look for Will either, as we see him arguing with Karen about the same thing during dinner, and he still looks extremely annoyed and worried when denied again. When Nancy blames “Will getting lost” for not being able to leave the house, Mike immediately gets very defensive of Will, and outs Nancy’s new relationship with Steve. He looks very proud of himself after this until Ted speaks up with “You see what happens?”, which causes Mike to get defensive all over again, this time exclaiming that he’s the only one who cares about Will, then storming off from the dinner table. Now, I want to touch on Ted’s comment here, because really what other than Will’s “queerness” could he be commenting on here? And this shows us, 1) what type of views Mike’s grown up around, and 2) that Ted must believe there is a chance that Mike shares the same “queerness” as Will. After storming off, Mike goes to the basement, then seemingly after some time staring at the DnD board, he contacts Lucas about going to find Will despite being told not to so many times. By doing this, he directly puts himself and the others in danger, and we know he’s aware of this due to how he convinced Lucas to join him.

We see Mike leave the house, and after joining with the boys, even when it starts to rain, Mike is the most determined to keep going into the woods to search. He’s also very obviously being the leader of the group at this time, making sure to tell the other two to keep close and stay on the same radio channel just in case. When they are walking deeper into the woods, we see Mike in the middle and at the front, then he’s also the first to hear the rustling of the leaves, so he gets the boys to shut up. Then they find Eleven!

There's my episode 1 deep dive! If anyone finds anything explicitly wrong, or wants to add anything, please let me know! Also, if you're interested in me doing more, please tell me, because this is completely self-indulgent, but if others enjoy it I will try even harder! Also, I am completely new to Tumblr, so pls be nice

[spicysix]

fake it 'till you make it | jonathan byers X reader

“It was all Nancy Wheeler's fault. I mean, literally. Quite from the beginning. Because it was all about Nancy Wheeler, wasn't it? It was all because of Nancy Wheeler, it was all for Nancy Wheeler.” or: you and Jonathan create a plan to make Nancy jealous

warnings: fake relationship, in between S1 and S2, gn! reader (no pronouns, no gendered terms, no y/n used). mostly fluff, a pinch of crack taken seriously at the beginning just because i love it, right before all the fucking feels hit in. and my already known absurd use of italics.

word count: 9.1k

a/n: based on this request, thank you so much anon. your request drove me completely insane, i had a few out of body experiences and ended up with 9k words of love and devotion to Jonathan Byers. don't worry, no Nancy hate in here, it's almost as much of a love letter to her as it is to Jonathan tbh, Reader just doesn't know better in the first paragraphs. hope y'all like it! don't forget to reblog if you do, and comments are always treasured and kept in a little golden box in my nightstand for me to delight in them on lonely nights ♡

↳ ao3

It was all Nancy Wheeler's fault.

I mean, literally. Quite from the beginning. Because it was all about Nancy Wheeler, wasn't it? It was all because of Nancy Wheeler, it was all for Nancy Wheeler.

Okay, let’s start from the top.

Jonathan has always kind of been there. He didn't say much, he didn't present himself much, he didn't get quite noticed. But he has always been there. And you had a thing for those who weren't actually seen, but that had always been there anyway.

Your interest was purely out of curiosity, though, of course. Because you wanted to understand the whole thing. Sure, you had the bigger picture — abusive, absent father, overprotective mom, young brother, and the whole heavy weight of teen parentalization on top of Johnny-boy's scrawny shoulders.

Multiply that for, like, a billion, and we get what we got after November 6th: missing young brother, over-overprotective mom, asshole opportunistic father, and the whole heavy weight of guilt on top of Johnny-boy's scrawny shoulders.

And, in the middle of all that, enters Nancy Wheeler.

Okay, wait, from the top again.

It was mid-May, and Jonathan was just there, as usual. Revealing some photos, the bigger and the smaller pictures you were so deeply curious to see. A precisely requested assignment for a History project — you really loved History, you'd put all your effort into it — and, oh wow! You were also there!

Both of you revealing your pictures, Johnathan had used that shiny new camera he showed up with after Christmas break — after Nancy Wheeler's boyfriend, Steve Harrington, broke the previous one (I mean, if the rumors were true, Johnny-boy was being kind of a creep. But apparently he apologized or whatever, because after Steve's purple eye and Will Byers' death and resuscitation thing, you've seen Johnathan, Steve, and Nancy Wheeler having lunch all together. As crazy as it all sounded).

That’s a digression, back from the top again.

You and Jonathan were sharing the silence only a red room and its buzzing little red lamp lights could provide, minding your own business. Well, he was minding his own business, you were kind of curious about the bigger and the smaller pictures. Minding his business as well.

Shoulder to shoulder as you worked on your photos, you hanging your own as Jonathan took his down from where they've been drying.

It was literally a bigger and a smaller picture, okay, I kid you not.

Jonathan seemed to get lost in his thoughts as he analyzed the bigger one, the one you've seen already — what seemed to be a reunion of sorts between the Byers and the Wheelers, parents and children, and those other two little gremlins that Will and Mike (was it Mike? Nancy’s younger brother, Will’s best friend) were inseparable friends with.

The younger ones were sitting on the floor, those huge smiles on their baby faces, happiness exhaling from, well, probably finding out that their friend that had gone missing for a week wasn't actually dead.

The parents, Joyce Byers, and Karen and What's-His-Face Wheeler were sitting on the couch behind the kids, pride and joy in the mothers' faces and boredom on the father's face — it was his permanent state, you were aware of it by now from seeing him from time to time on the streets.

Pretty, preppy, prissy Nancy was standing behind the couch, just behind her daddy, younger baby sister in her arms as she smiled that tiny little pouty smile of hers. No pretty, preppy, poshy Steve in sight, you wondered where he was, as Jonathan was standing beside Nancy and the baby, hands in his pants pockets, that perpetual blank stare in his eyes of someone being constantly haunted.

You found it cute, somehow.

Cute in, like, a curious kind of way. Wanted to find out what was haunting him so badly.

And then. In the present, real, out-of-picture time or whatever, Jonathan snapped out of his thoughts as he went to get the other picture — the smaller one — from where it was hanging. His hand stopped a single inch before touching it, and you saw from the corner of your eye that he was looking at you from the corner of his eye. Combine the peripheral vision situation with his hesitancy to grab the smaller picture, your life-long curiosity and an impulsive strike, and before you even thought about what you were doing, you were suddenly grabbing the fucking picture before Jonathan could.

You grabbed it, and he let out what sounded like a gasp and a whimper at the same time, and you walked backward until your back met the wall behind you. And Jonathan was all over you in a second, trying to grab your arms as you put them behind your back, hiding the picture — you didn't even get to see it, had no idea what he was so mortified about. He was saying, or screaming maybe, something at you that you couldn’t distinguish because his head was too close to yours. Distress all over his cute scrawny face, and you barely had the time to register the guilt bubbling in your stomach — because, fuck, why did you do that? It was a personal thing, you weren't even friends, you had talked to him like five times tops if you didn't count the whole trimester where you were basically best friends because of that Science project in freshman year.

You missed freshman year.

Anyway, there was no time to think about freshman year.

Over from the top, for real this time!

In the middle of all that, enters Nancy Wheeler.

Literally, physically enters the red room while you and Jonathan are pressed together against the wall, your arms behind your back, his arms on your arms and waist or maybe hips — you were unfocused, to be honest, by the fact that he was basically manhandling you with all his scrawny kid strength.

Well, Jonathan did win a fight over Steve Harrington, handed the School King's ass to him on a golden plate, so you shouldn't be that much surprised.

Alas, Nancy stopped at the door, her huge doe eyes getting even huger, sharp jaw going slack, long pointy fingers wrapped so tightly around the door handle that her knuckles were white.

"Oh! I- Jesus, I'm sorry! Jonathan, I-" Jonathan hadn't said a word since she entered, his whole body had gone frozen, and you were afraid he had stopped breathing altogether. "I'll come back later? I- Or, you'll come find me? I- Oh, god, I'm sorry!"

She ran off after her eloquent speech, not waiting for an answer and slamming the door behind her. Jonathan walked away from you and started murmuring something under his breath while walking in circles within the tiny space in the red room, forgetting about you and your stupid kidnapping of his picture, and finding out a new something to stress about.

You brought your arm to your front, finally looking at it and seeing what he really didn’t want you to see in the picture.

Guess who?

Nancy Fucking Wheeler.

It was on the same day as the other photo if Nancy’s clothes were to say, and she was away from the camera, her profile showing. Holding a single flower — you had no idea which one, you didn’t understand much about flowers. You knew it wasn’t a rose — in between her thin fingers, nose close to the petals, a delicate smile on her lips. She was in front of a window, the light from the outside encompassing her in a kind of godly aura, specks of dust around her, and yet she was the main focus of the whole frame.

As far as a picture could talk, this one was screaming ‘love’ so loudly it was deafening.

Something stirred in your belly, something raw and annoying and mean, but you ignored it and approached Jonathan carefully — as he was still kind of shaking, palms pressed tightly against his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, already stretching your arm to give him back his Nancy Wheeler love portrait. “Curiosity killed the cat and whatnot,” you muttered as he looked at you with anger and snatched the photo from your fingers.

“Yeah, and it’s gonna get you killed too.” His voice was restrained, his whole strength going into not yelling at you again even if his words were threatening enough. “You should go,” he commanded before remembering that his pictures were ready and yours weren’t. “I should go.”

He gathered his photos, his tools and his backpack, and you couldn’t will yourself to tear your eyes from every single movement he made, even if it was painful to watch because he was so clearly pissed at you — and rightfully so.

“If it’s any worth, she looked jealous,” you said, right before he left the red room.

Jonathan paused, door half open, his hand gripping the handle so tightly his knuckles were going white — a perfect mirror image of what Nancy looked like just a few minutes before. He didn’t turn to look at you or to answer your remark, just huffed, shook his head, and left, slamming the door behind him.

You rubbed your face, felt like tearing your hair off your head, took a few long, deep breaths before resuming your task of revealing the photos for your History Project. Buried every single feeling into your head and heart, they weren’t worthy to feel or talk about, and you had more pressing urges.

The History Project. Something about your local community, how a small town revolved around its few citizens, and you thanked every god you could come up with that Jonathan left before you revealed your last picture. Or, that you distracted Jonathan enough by prodding onto his secrets before the revealing liquid did its job and revealed the secrets you were hiding yourself.

You took the picture from the container with the revealing liquid and hung it alongside the other ones you had already put up to dry. You looked at your secret smaller picture.

Out of frame, you knew that Joyce Byers was at the cashier counter of Melvald’s, handing little Will some random candy as he looked excited at the gift. In the frame, in the picture, focused on, behind Will, was Jonathan. Also on his profile, almost the same angle as his own picture of Nancy. He was smiling softly at the sight of his family once again reunited in such an uneventful task such as grocery shopping. The natural daylight from outside the store made his skin glow, and the little crisp texture and reflexes of the not-so-clean window between you and him made the picture look somehow cozy — the opposite effect of distancing that you’d think it would give it. He was at the very center of the frame, soft brown jacket over his shoulders, hands holding plastic bags as he waited for his brother, his pink cheeks making your own face heat up — you remembered. You were infatuated with how relaxed he looked, some of that whole heavy weight finally off his scrawny shoulders; so relaxed that he didn’t even notice you from across the street, taking the picture like a fucking weirdo stalker.

And as far as a picture could talk, this one was screaming ‘love’ so loudly it was deafening.

Thankfully, your own ears were the only ones at range. And accustomed to the noise already.

-✧-

“I fucked up.”

Those were the first words you heard from Jonathan after the whole Nancy Wheeler love portrait fiasco in the red room. It was Friday already, and three whole days had passed - not that you were waiting for him to come talk to you sooner, because you never even talked before that, but something about the way you’d cross eyes in the hallways of the school made the air between you two weighted with something other than your crippling guilt.

“Come again?” you asked, setting down the Bukowski book you were pretending to read for your English class - ugh, Bukowski annoyed you.

Jonathan, for some reason, seemed annoyed at you.

‘Some reason’, okay, other than the obvious reason.

“I avoided Nancy after that day for as long as I could, but then she cornered me earlier today and I got too nervous and might have made the whole situation worst than it already was,” he answered, looking around him as if someone in the school parking lot was about to come out from behind a car and punch him in the face.

Hm, maybe Steve Harrington would.

“How did you manage that?” you asked again, crossing a leg under the other where you were sitting on the bench.

“I might have told her we, you and me, I mean, are… in a relationship.”

There was a ringing in your ear that kind of popped before the world went abruptly silent. You could see Jonathan in front of you, staring at you, waiting for your answer, but he was kind of blurry and the people walking behind him seemed to move in slow motion all of a sudden. It felt like years before you gathered just enough brain power to answer him.

“You. What.”

He groaned, and that made the world go back to normal inside your head, before he rubbed his eyes with the tip of his fingers.

“She came at me, asked who you were and if everything was okay that day, and all I could think of was you saying she had been jealous and, I don’t know, it felt like I blacked out or was possessed or something and then, out of nowhere, I was saying we were dating.”

“To make her more jealous?” you confirmed, and he shrugged violently.

“I guess!” he almost yelled, and then curled over himself in embarrassment. He hid his whole face behind the palms of his hands and you wanted to push them away, hold his cheeks yourself and-

Nope, block that thought out.

“Okay,” you said instead.

“Okay? ‘Okay’, what? Jesus, are you even more insane than I thought?”

You shrugged and pretended his words didn’t sting. “I’m saying we should go for it.” You saw his mouth opening, and spoke before whatever words were going to come out of him could hurt you further: “I can be your fake lover, you make Nancy jealous, she finds out she wants you and not Steve, dumps his ass and you and her will live happily ever after.”

Why were your impulsive thoughts making you so willingly throw yourself into a scenery that was only going to hurt you badly? You had no answer for that.

Jonathan frowned and actually seemed to consider, which was probably worse because you were pretty sure he was going to immediately deny your offer. It was a crazy fucking offer after all, who did you think you were? Molly Ringwald in a rom-com?

Well, apparently Jonathan thought he was Anthony Michael Hall, because the next thing he said was: “Yeah, let’s do that.”

“Dude. You’re kidding me?” you asked, twisting your entire body to fully face him and he seemed confused. “I was being sarcastic!” You weren’t, not really, but he didn’t know that. “We can’t do that, it won’t work! Just grow out some balls and ask her out, or whatever.”

You got up and started gathering your stuff since your free period was coming to an end, but Jonathan held your wrist before you could leave, a wave of shock starting where your skins connected all the way up to your brain. You ignored it.

“I already embarrassed myself too much in front of her. Please?” he begged, those sweet eyes of his staring deeply into your soul, and you huffed.

Closed your eyes so you wouldn’t see him, pulled your arm away so he wouldn’t touch you. He had too much power over you — and he had no idea.

“You owe me one, boyfriend,” you said just in time for the bell to ring, and then you were on your way to your English class, Bukowski ignored and forgotten, Jonathan’s pleading eyes the only thing on your mind.

“So, boyfriend, how did our love story begin?” Your question startled Jonathan, who hadn’t seen your approach.

He was sitting on the bench furthest from the entry of the park, looking at every direction around him just as he was in the school parking lot earlier that day. Still scared Steve Harrington would pop out of nowhere to beat his ass in revenge a few weeks late.

Jonathan had the luck of not sharing a single class with you over the rest of the school day, so he slipped a little note into your locker at some point, like a middle schooler trying to flirt. His note, however, did not read “WANNA GO GET MILKSHAKES WITH ME? [ ] YES [ ] NO - MARK WITH AN X”, but a simple “meet me @ train station park after school, gotta plan this right” instead.

Underwhelming.

You, however, were a pro at nothing else except committing to a bit, and it had been your stupid idea after all. So you went to the damn train station park to meet him and plan your damn love story, just so the two of you could make damned Nancy Wheeler jealous.

Jonathan was jumpy and kept as much distance in between you on the bench as he could, as if he was afraid you were going to attack him and devour his flesh like a monster coming from a sci-fi horror. You buried all your thoughts and feelings for him in the deepest of corners inside your mind (you’ve been doing that a lot, lately) and tried not to take any of his skittish reactions personally.

The two of you worked nicely, considering all the circumstances, and came up with some ideas that weren’t half bad. If you stopped to think why you were even doing all that in the first place, you’d have a hysterical laughing fit, so you just pretended like you were rehearsing a school play or something.

“You… need a ride?” Jonathan asked and you thought for half a minute before denying.

Surely it would be better if the two of you spent more time together since you were supposed to be dating. But Jonathan was still acting weird — more than usual — and you really didn’t want to impose or to feel worse than you already did from all his mistreatment.

“Uh, no, house’s not that far,” you lied, it was a good walk to your home, but Jonathan seemed relieved at your answer so you felt like you picked the right one.

You suppressed the need to huff, roll your eyes and push him in annoyance or do something else a middle schooler would do.

You also suppressed the will to smile politely at him as you said your goodbyes because, frankly, he wasn’t so deserving of it.

Phone numbers were exchanged in case of emergencies or needs to plan further, and you left before he could come up with something else. You were tired, drained really, from suppressing so much the whole day, and you couldn’t wait to sleep throughout the whole weekend if you could. Hoping no ‘Jonathan Byers loves Nancy Wheeler and would do anything for her’ emergencies would come up. Building up the courage to continue your own ‘You love Jonathan Byers and would do anything for him’ stupid plan.

-✧-

From all the worldviews you had to deconstruct as you grew older — you know, like, Santa isn't real, Reagan’s not a good president no matter what your grandpa said, vegetables are good for your health, and no, U2 wasn't actually that great of a band-

Well, the hardest and also easiest mental worldview deconstruction to be made was that Nancy Wheeler was actually a nice gal.

It was easy because it happened only after your first lunch with your brand new boyfriend Jonathan, and his great best friends Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler herself.  Because it took Nancy one single lunch to win you over with all that wit, brains, charm of hers. And it was hard because, let's be honest, you've been holding a grudge over her for absolutely nothing (let’s call it nothing, okay?) for… a couple of years, now.

It happened Monday, and Jonathan was waiting for you outside your classroom right before lunch break, ready to take you to meet his friends or whatever they were. You were caught by surprise, but you were also a great improviser, and so you tucked his hands into yours (ignored his astounded demeanor and the blush in his cheeks, and that electric wave that hit you again) and let him lead you down the hallways.

You tried not to pay attention to all the looks you received. If all that had happened before November, you wouldn’t even be noticed — neither you nor Jonathan noticeable enough to gather attention from your peers. After his… well, after everything that happened to him and around him after November 6th, though, Jonathan was a little more perceived around school grounds.

Your face burned and your palms sweat with all the eyes turned on you, but you mastered the art of looking blasé all the way to the cafeteria. All the way to the table where Steve and Nancy were sitting side by side, his arm over her shoulder as they talked quietly.

“Hey,” Jonathan greeted as you reached the table, and the couple looked up at you. Steve raised an eyebrow and Nancy’s face contorted in some way before settling into a smile. Jonathan introduced you by name. “we’re dating,” he said, mostly to Steve who didn’t seem to know the news.

“Oh, wow. Cool, man. And nice to meet you,” Steve nodded at you with his million-dollar smile.

“Same,” you answered before letting go of Jonathan’s hand, sitting down and getting your sandwich from your backpack.

Jonathan sat down beside you and you could feel how stiff he was moving. You’d normally reach out and try and reassure him through physical contact if he was a friend of yours. But even though you were dating, you didn’t know if he would react nicely to that. So you kept to yourself.

“It’s nice to finally meet you properly,” Nancy called out, reaching across the table to rest her hand against your arm. Her skin was warm. “I’m sorry about… the other day.”

Steve turned to her clearly confused, and you answered before he could ask questions.

“Don’t worry about it. Hey, we have Math together, don’t we?” you asked instead, and Nancy nodded before going on a rampage about the Math teacher who was an absolute asshole.

She didn’t seem like a huge talker, but that was just one of your misconceptions about her that she went off on proving you wrong about. She seemed cold and distant, but she was actually really attentive and asked questions about you all lunch. She seemed uptight and annoying, but she was actually really funny and amusing. She seemed arrogant and presumptuous, but she was actually really down to earth and offered to help you with some English assignments in exchange for you to help her with some Math assignments.

She talked quietly and smoothly, and had witty remarks to every single comment her boyfriend made — not all of them were dumb, and not all of Nancy’s answers bordered on mean, but some of them certainly did. Steve didn’t seem to mind, though. He looked at her as if she hung the Sun all the way up in the sky. It was funny to see them side by side. They had a lot in common, physically. Top line, casual-chic clothing, elegant fabric softener smell, ironed to no faults. Sharp-edged jaws and expressive eyes, silk-smooth tongues and winning smiles, charisma all over.

That’s as far as it went, though.

Her nerdy comments went in through Steve’s left ear and out through his right. Jonathan laughed at them. Her journalistic eye caught onto little details that went unnoticed by her boyfriend. Jonathan noticed them with her. Steve smiled politely at Jonathan’s dry jokes, not always understanding them, but Nancy hid her laughs behind her wrist.

As if god was trying to show you that opposites attract, and if the devil was trying to give him a counterpoint of: no, actually, similars attract. All happening right in front of your skeptical eyes in the middle of school lunch, in between Science and PE.

Jonathan walked you to your next class after it was all over, and you were overwhelmed with how much you enjoyed Nancy Wheeler’s company. Which made it all extra difficult, since now you understood Jonathan’s infatuation with her.

“See you later,” he said his goodbye at the gym entrance.

A group of people walked past the two of you and Jonathan thought it was a good idea to land a kiss on your cheek. Your breath hitched and you didn’t have the time to say goodbye back before Jonathan was walking to the main building, to his own class.

Your cheek burned the whole day, and so did the hand you used to hold his through the hallways, and your heart ached with the thoughts on your mind of how much Jonathan and Nancy seemed meant to be, and how much you wish they weren’t.

-✧-

It was two whole weeks of that. Two whole weeks walking hand-in-hand with Jonathan and sitting with him, Nancy, and Steve at lunch. And sitting beside Nancy at the Math classes you shared, because she invited you to and you couldn’t say no.

And there was something about the three of them, something weird that they seemed to have in common. When they’d reminisce over something that happened around the time Will went missing, and they would stop and look at you mid-sentence sometimes, and one of them would suddenly change the subject.

You were curious, of course, it was part of your nature to be exceedingly curious at all times.

But they all seemed to hate to talk about it, even if they brought it up from time to time, and you seemed to recognize that constantly haunted look of Jonathan in his friends’ faces as well, and the look wasn’t as cute anymore.

So you didn’t pry.

Somewhere between the end of May and the beginning of June, Nancy and Steve asked you and Jonathan to go out with them on a double date, as if reading your mind for what could possibly be your worst nightmare, but again you couldn’t say no.

You might have picked your best outfit, and you might have done your hair more carefully than you usually did, and you might have put on an extra ring or necklace. And your parents might have noticed, and you might have lied and said you were going to a colleague’s birthday party and not on a double date to the movies and a restaurant with your weird fake boyfriend and his weird preppy friends.

Jonathan picked you up at seven sharp in his old Ford and he didn’t seem much different than usual outfit-wise, but he was definitely using cologne.

“You look nice,” he said as you entered the car and you tried not to swoon at the crumbs of his attention.

“You smell nice,” you answered, and it pleased you enough to see that blush of his creeping up his neck and cheeks.

Steve and Nancy were already there waiting under the marquee. Jonathan parked and the two of you left the car and went on your way to meet the other couple. Nancy greeted you with a tight hug. You wanted to throw yourself into oncoming traffic just as much as you wanted to stay in the unusual embrace for a long time.

“This is where your boyfriend gave me a taste of his amazing right hook,” Steve said to you, pointing at the little alley by the theater.

“Steve!” Nancy reprimanded, but it seemed like she was holding back a smile.

“What was all that about, anyway?” you asked, giving into your curiosity, eager for the whole story now that you could finally have it.

You forgot that dating Jonathan should probably mean that you’d know what it was all about already. He would’ve told the person he was dating, right? Thankfully no one seemed to notice your little slip.

“Jonathan was a bit of a creep, I was a huge of an asshole and Nancy sadly got caught in between us,” Steve answered honestly. “We’re all good now, though, aren’t we? All in the past.” He smiled at the other two, who nodded along and smiled back.

Jonathan and Nancy’s smiles didn’t seem as sincere as Steve’s. And that didn’t feel like the actual whole story, but again you didn’t pry because they were getting that weird haunted look.

Steve threw his arm over Nancy’s shoulder. “Let’s get some popcorn, my treat,” he said and started walking into the theater. Jonathan touched your lower back, guiding you, and you held back a sigh.

You were in for a long evening.

Indiana Jones conquered the Temple Of Doom, or whatever. You didn’t pay much attention, it was hard to with Jonathan’s arm draped over your shoulder the whole time and the whispered little comments he would make with Nancy — instead of you — through the film.

You went to a restaurant after, Nancy’s choice, not too far from the theater so you all walked there. Hand in hand again. Nancy and Steve behind you, talking about the movie. Jonathan tried to rile up a conversation about it with you — finally — but, as you hadn’t paid much attention, you didn’t have a lot to say.

Food was good and thankfully the topic of conversation wasn’t the movie, because you couldn’t pretend to have paid attention to it in front of the three of them at the same time. Instead, you talked about your summer plans. Well, mostly Steve’s summer plans, he was going on vacation with his parents, somewhere on the East Coast, maybe Hawaii? Nancy was just going to see her grandma for a couple of weeks up in Chicago. Your parents weren’t fans of travels, and Jonathan was… well, the guy was poor. So Steve’s plans were the most thrilling ones.

“Too bad your parents won’t wanna travel, you could have the house to yourselves,” Steve said with a smirk and a wiggle of his eyebrows.

You laughed loudly — mostly nervously — and Jonathan blushed. It was your usual responses at this point.

“Sure, yeah,” you said, if only not to leave a weird silence up, before looking at your wristwatch. “They’re very strict anyway, and look at that! I gotta be home soon,” you continued, and Jonathan coughed to hide a laugh.

“We should ask for the check,” he said and raised his hand to get the waiter’s attention.

That weird conversation was over, finally, and you paid for the dinner individually. By the grace of gods Steve didn’t comment on Jonathan not paying for you, since he paid for his own girlfriend, but he sure eyed you curiously as you handed your money.

“This was so nice, we should do it more often!” Nancy commented on your way back to the cars, her arm intertwined with yours as Steve and Jonathan steered behind. “It feels nice to have a normal friend after-” she stopped herself and her eyes widened, and she gulped loudly and didn’t finish her sentence.

You remembered Barb Holland, and her great English essays and her amazing grades in History, and her suspicious disappearance near Will’s back in November. How she supposedly ran away from home. How she didn’t seem at all like the type to do that.

Nancy was looking guilty and haunted, that look the three of them shared, and your curiosity was turning into apprehension of knowing what had happened. She let go of your arm, and she never finished her sentence. The boys also went quiet behind you. There was a weighted tension on top of the four of you.

You reached Steve’s bimmer and he touched Nancy’s arm to lead her to the passenger side, and she was still in a kind of haze as she waved goodbye from the window. Steve seemed worried, and so did Jonathan, but none of them said anything. And neither did you.

Jonathan took you home, one of his hipster band’s tape on the sound system, the stars out brightly and the most awkward of silences between the two of you.

There was no one out in your street to see you as he parked in your driveway, but he kissed your cheek goodbye all the same. And you held him tightly in a hug, wanting to comfort him even though you had no idea what haunted him. Crippling curiosity equal to a crippling fear, wishing for the truth and wishing to never having to find out the truth.

-✧-

You had two final weeks of school before Summer and the great excuse of having to finish your essays and projects to hide in the library and not have to talk to the trio that confused you more and more every day.

But still, sometimes Nancy would stop by and study with you. Always helpful, and kind, and nice. You never talked about that night. Sometimes she’d bring Steve with her, and she’d tutor him and they didn’t bother you, and it felt good to have the company.

Sometimes Jonathan would stop by. He’d bring you lunch, he’d bring you books, he’d bring you comfort. The warmth of his presence was addictive, reminding you of late freshman year and the Science project you built together. And you dreaded the day this would all end, he’d forget about you with Nancy Wheeler in his arms, and you’d be nothing but an embarrassing and funny story to maybe tell their grandkids.

You were able to escape them one single day, to retake your final picture for that History collage, the one you used to replace Jonathan’s love portrait. As the class to present the projects came up, you shared a knowing look with him when you noticed he also replaced Nancy’s love portrait on his own collage. A secret between you, him, and little red lamp lights. A secret neither of you talked about. Those were starting to grow.

“How cute that you two have so much in common, you even chose the same format for your projects! I love collages,” one of your colleagues said to you after class was over.

Jonathan was waiting beside your table for you to gather your stuff, and you felt your knees weaken at the way he smiled from the compliment, none of that blush anymore, a pinch of almost confidence. You couldn’t know if you loved it or hated it.

“Mine doesn’t look as good, though,” he answered, pointing at your pictures as if he wasn’t the professional photographer, and you weren’t just someone with a hobby.

“You’re both adorable,” the colleague said before leaving, Jonathan thanked her all nonchalant as if used to it by now.

And you couldn’t come up with any words throughout the whole conversation, your throat constricted with the need to tell her to shut up and tell Jonathan how you felt for him, beg him to let you go. It wasn’t fun anymore.

He didn’t let you scurry away to the library, no more excuses to do so since the History project was the last one, and he held your hand through the hallways, and he held your bag for you, and he sat so close to you at the table bench, while Nancy ranted on about her Spanish essay, that you could feel the heat of his thigh pressed against yours, but his eyes never left Nancy’s as she spoke.

It felt as if there was an elephant at each of your shoulders, and you couldn’t stop staring at him, and he didn’t spare a single glance your way even as his arm was almost glued to yours with the heat and the sweat and the stickiness of early Summer. Your heart tight in your chest, beating fast and loud and strong against your ribcage, as if begging to be let out, to go rest on Jonathan’s hands where it belonged.

-✧-

Summer came, and you stayed home. Not many friends to go out with, not many party invitations in your mailbox, no one else to see on a day-to-day basis except your parents. They asked about Jonathan once, because they saw him picking you up and bringing you back on that double date you had with Nancy and Steve. You said he was probably traveling, that you weren’t so close, you didn’t know, and they knew better not to ask again.

It was August already, a whole long month of Summer break where you’d missed him every day, missed his sweet smile, the way his blush would start by his neck and go up until it reached his cheeks, missed his calm and soothing tone of voice, missed the way he’d smell of pancakes and mint shampoo in the mornings.

Didn’t miss the way he would look at her.

But you missed her too, though. You missed Nancy’s company, and her sweet smile and her calm and soothing tone of voice. You even missed Steve and the way he’d compare everything to a basketball game, and how he high-fived you when Nancy quizzed him on the library and he’d get an answer right. In the weirdest turn of events, they became your friends. And you missed your friends.

Your body seemed to know how your brain thought and your heart ached, because when your father asked you to get groceries, your feet automatically walked further than needed and took you to Melvald’s on Main instead of the market near your house.

And of course he was there.

You knew he’d be there. He told you (and Nancy, and Steve, during that double date) he’d be taking a summer job with his mom, was dreading the tasks already but he could use the money.

He was stocking, standing in the cereal aisle seeming a little confused about where to put the Honeycomb and the Fruit Loops. And that same natural daylight from the outside reached him and made his skin glow, and there were no dirty windows between you two as you reached him without even noticing you had been walking towards him.

“Hey,” you called out, and he turned to you and smiled weirdly wide.

“Hi. Long time no see. How’s your summer?” he asked, putting down the cereal boxes.

You shrugged. “Nothing exciting. How’s Melvald’s treating you?”

“It’s not so hard. Not a big place,” he shrugged as well, and he was still smiling and he was taller than you so the sunlight behind you was hitting his eyes just right and your heart thumped.

“You’ve seen Nancy?” you asked because you liked to suffer, you’ve come to know. “She’s back from Chicago already?”

“Oh, I think she is. Will went to Mike’s yesterday, but I haven’t seen her, no.”

“Don’t you want to?” you pressed, because you weren’t suffering enough, apparently. He shot you a comically puzzled look before shrugging and smiling again.

“I guess? No more than I wanted to see you, though. Or, like, Steve, for that matter,” he answered and you huffed.

“Sure. Anyway, where’s the pasta sauce in here?” you changed the subject and he pointed towards a specific place.

You started walking without saying anything further and, to your surprise, he followed you.

“What, you didn’t miss me back?” he was teasing you, and it would’ve thrilled you just a few months ago how close you got to each other, and you would’ve reveled in any kind of attention he’d paid to you, but you just wanted to scream because it wasn’t fun anymore. It was painful.

You didn’t answer, because you wanted to tell him the truth, and tell him that yeah, you’ve missed him so much it ached, you’ve missed him so much you cried yourself to sleep once, you missed him so much and you couldn’t have him, he wasn’t yours, but you were his even if he didn’t know. Even if his eyes were never focused on you as yours were focused on him.

“C’mon, don’t go breaking my heart,” he teased again and you stopped abruptly right in front of the tomato sauce stand.

“Jonathan, please don’t do this,” you asked, voice wavering, and his smile dropped instantly at the sound of it.

“I’m sorry. What is it?” he asked earnestly, really had no idea, and you didn’t have it in you to be patient enough to spell it out for him.

“How long do we have to keep this up for?” you pleaded, turning to look at him. Your heart ached, your eyes burned, how could he not see it? How could he not see you? “We can just call it off now, yeah? We haven’t seen them yet, don’t even know if Steve’s back already, we can just say it happened over summer when they weren’t here.”

“What are you talking about?” he pushed the knife in deeper, your hands were shaking, you were almost begging for him to look at you, to see right through you so you wouldn’t have to say it out loud.

“Really, dude?” you asked loudly, saw his mom looking up from a magazine at the cashier counter to look at the two of you. “Our fake relationship thing? That amazing fucking plan of ours? It’s clearly not heading anywhere, Nancy and Steve are still together and she’s actually become my friend so it sucks to be in this position.” You gestured around you as if your mentioned friends would pop out of nowhere to your surprise. You were still loud, and you didn’t care. “Just do as I said that day, grow out some balls, and tell her the truth.”

Rich advice, coming from you.

Do as you say, don’t do as you do, or whatever.

You didn’t wait for an answer and forgot about the fucking sauce, and just started walking towards the store entrance so you could let all of this go and never have to deal with the ‘Jonathan Byers loves Nancy Wheeler and would do anything for her’ fiasco.

Joyce — Jonathan’s fucking mom, for Christ’s sake — called out to you as you stormed out of Melvald’s, you didn’t even know she knew your name, but you didn’t stop anyway. Not until there was a warm hand holding your arm, and you knew that hand by now, all its softness and its calluses, bends and curves and dents, and your heart was already broken but it somehow hurt and bled even more.

“Dude, please!” you begged again, and he was looking at you, searching for something in your eyes and yet he still couldn’t see it. Couldn’t see you.

“I’m sorry, what did I do? What can I do?”

“There’s nothing you can do, I think, just leave me alone,” you answered, and he let go of you and he seemed hurt by your words.

You walked back to your house and apologized to your dad for not bringing back his groceries, and he didn’t ask why when he saw your wet eyes. He made you tea, patted you on the head and you cried yourself to sleep again.

-✧-

“A friend of yours is here,” your mom said as you left the shower, three whole days after your (fight? Was it a fight?) encounter with Jonathan. “Waiting in your room,” she said.

It should have confused you, made you wonder. But it didn’t. You knew it was him. Who else would it be?

It was Nancy Wheeler.

Sitting on your bed, and her hair was shorter and her cheeks were a darker shade of pink than they were when you last saw her on the last day of school before Summer break.

“Hi?” you said or asked, and she smiled when she saw you were there.

Got up and walked towards you and hugged you tightly, you missed that hug, and her freshly cut hair smelled of something floral.

She pulled you by your hand until you two were sitting in your bed, side by side.

“I broke up with Steve. Jonathan told me everything,” she said, and your tiny broken heart still had some strength in it to break even further, shockingly.

“Uh, good for you, I guess?” You shrugged, not sure what she wanted you to say. “When’s the wedding?” you clouded your pain with humor because, when didn’t you?

“I just said I broke up with Steve, what wedding?”

“Yours and Jonathan’s?” Why were they so difficult? Oblivious. Why did they enjoy torturing you?

“No, listen,” she called your name as if you weren’t paying attention. “Jonathan told me everything. The whole deal, the whole plan, the whole picture, everything.”

It was a funny déjà-vu. There was a ringing in your ear that kind of popped before the world went abruptly silent. You could see Nancy in front of you, staring at you with a weird misplaced smile, waiting for your answer — what did she want you to answer, honestly? — but she was kind of blurry. It felt like years before you gathered just enough brain power to answer her.

“He. What.”

She giggled, and that made the world go back to normal inside your head, before she rolled her eyes with amusement.

“You two are so dense,” she said, still smiling. “I had to spell it out for him, and I kinda saw it coming, but not from you.”

“Nancy, for the love of all things holy, what are you talking about?” You held her hands in yours, and she looked at your hands held together for a second before looking into your eyes again to talk.

“You’re in love with him,” she answered, and you weren’t surprised that she knew.

“Fucking duh, he’s the only one who can’t see it.” She laughed, and her eyes twinkled.

“And he’s in love with you,” she completed, and it wasn’t funny anymore.

“No, he’s not.”

“You’re the only one who can’t see it,” she threw back at you and you rolled your eyes at her wit — you loved it so much.

“Nancy, he likes you. Literally how we got here in the first place.” You gestured around you as if she could see how miserable you’ve been lately without him, and without your study sessions and your lunches together as a group. “If not to get with him, why did you break up with Steve?” you asked.

“There is… a lot that held us together. Not just Steve and me, but us and Jonathan as well. And I was just using Steve as a crutch, trying to pretend everything was fine and normal, but it isn’t, and it isn’t fair to either of us. And I noticed all that thanks to you being my friend.”

You remembered the date — again — and the way Nancy recoiled to herself at the end of it, and your friends’ collective haunted guilty look, and Will Byers and how he came back, and Barb Holland and how she did not.

“Jonathan came to my house to talk, we got a little lost in the middle of it all but he knocked some sense into me, and I like to think I’ve knocked some sense into him back,” she said, and she was still so calm and collected, but she felt lighter somehow, and she never stopped smiling sweetly at you. “You should go check.”

It was all Nancy Wheeler's fault.

I mean, literally. Quite from the beginning. Because it was all about Nancy Wheeler, wasn't it? It was all because of Nancy Wheeler, it was all for Nancy Wheeler.

She convinced you to go talk to Jonathan, and at this point you trusted her so freely that you did just that. She convinced you to give him a chance, and you convinced yourself you were doing it because she asked you to, you were doing it for her and not for yourself or Jonathan. She was a very persuasive little lady, you’ve come to find out.

The street where the Byers lived was weird as fuck, and the forest surrounding it gave you the worst chills ever, but you kept your calm as you rode your bike all the way to the Byers’ front yard.

You knocked, and Jonathan answered. He seemed surprised to see you, and that blush of his creeped up from his neck to his cheeks and you fell for him again just then.

“Hi,” he said, still staring.

“Hi. Can we talk?” He shook his head, came back to himself, and opened the door to let you in. “Where’s your family?”

“Mom’s still at Melvald’s, Will’s at Mike’s,” he answered, and started going down the hallway, so you followed him.

His room looked, felt and smelled like him and it was both comforting and distressing to be surrounded by Jonathan in all senses. You were still scared of how this conversation would go.

He went digging through some stuff in his desk, and when he found it he walked closer to you where you were still standing awkwardly by the door. He handed you something, a picture.

“You called it ‘Nancy Wheeler love portrait’, that day at the train station park,” he said while you observed again Nancy’s profile in the photo. You had it memorized at this point, burned to the back of your eyelids. “It really was,” he continued and you shot him a puzzled look. “It was a love portrait, it was love I guess.”

He shrugged, and only then you noticed he was holding something behind his back. He moved his hand, brought it forward and you saw that it was another picture but you couldn’t see what it was about. He smiled down adoringly at it before handing it to you.

It was you.

A photo taken of your profile. You were sitting at a desk at the school library, in front of a window, the light from the outside encompassing you in a kind of godly aura, specks of dust flying around you and a big smile on your lips as you looked down at your hands resting on top of the table.

It was so similar. It was the same angle, the same lightning, the same pose. And yet it was so different from the Nancy Wheeler love portrait.

“Your own love portrait,” Jonathan said, voice almost a whisper, and you wanted to look at him and check if he was blushing the way his voice made it seem like he was, but you couldn’t take your eyes off the photo. “Steve and Nancy are out of frame, you were laughing at something he just said, so relaxed and happy around our friends you didn’t even notice me taking the picture like a weirdo.”

He softly touched your hand that was holding the picture, just the tips of his fingers, and they were enough to ignite a spark that made your whole body burn. You stared at that contact of your skins for the very few seconds they lasted before Jonathan pulled his arm back and continued talking.

“I got a little lost in the middle of it all, I think. Forgot there was a plan. Forgot why it all began. Forgot about Nancy, and all I could think about was you. How I wanted to see you again day after day, and hold your hand through the hallways on our way to lunch, and sit beside you at the cafeteria table. And take you on dates without Steve’s stupid comments, just you and me, and you’d laugh at my jokes ‘cause you always do. And to take more pictures of you. Take pictures with you. Just, do stuff together. All the time.

And I was so scared that you’d notice that change in me, notice how far gone for you I was. I didn’t want to spend time apart but I also couldn’t even look at you without wanting to kiss you so bad. I’d be glued to you at all times, hurt from wanting you so much, and yet I couldn’t let you go. Didn’t want to ask you to let me go.”

You finally looked at him and, yes, he was blushing. But he was so determined, so confident. You decided you loved it.

“Me and Nancy, we… got a past. Not even romantic, but, we’ve been through a lot and I’ll tell you all about it, but. I think you’ve always been there, ever since that Science project freshman year, you’ve been there on the sidelines, and when we started talking again because of our stupid plan, I realized how much I’ve missed you. And I didn’t care about the plan anymore, and I didn’t want it to end because I just wanted it to be real.”

It was unbelievable how much you recognized those words, as if you were saying them yourself. You couldn’t help but smile, and Jonathan smiled back at you, and you wanted to kiss his smile senseless.

So you did just that.

You held the pictures far from your bodies, because you didn’t want to damage them, and you threw your other arm around his neck. He hugged your waist close to him and you kissed his smile, and he kissed your smile back. He tasted of pancakes and maple syrup and coffee with cream no sugar, and you feasted on that meal as if it was your last. You let your fingers wander through his hair, and it was soft and it smelled of mint shampoo, and your senses were overwhelmed, surrounded by Jonathan in all senses and it felt like dying and going to heaven.

You kissed for a long time before your lungs ran out of air, and your lips separated but your foreheads were still touching. You handed the pictures back to Jonathan, and he took them with a confused expression. You fished something out of your back pocket, your wallet, and you fished something out of your wallet, a picture. You handed that to him too.

“Jonathan Byers love portrait,” you both said at the same time and laughed together.

You kept your picture of him and he kept your picture of you, and you held onto his face that was still blushing and warm and soft, and he kissed you for a long time. And the plan didn’t work out, not really, but it kinda did, and it was all Nancy Wheeler’s fault.

[i-promise-i-am-not-on-drugs]

Just rewatched 03×02! :)

First up, Dustin and Dart!! I haven't talked about them earlier, but this episode is kinda about them, so let's go. Dustin is really cute in this episode honestly-- Love the "I need my paddles!!" thing! XD

Dart is strange, and definitely dangerous, but I have a friend who would've definitely done the same thing as Dustin lol. I'm glad that he likes animals at least?

The party and Dart! I really like these scene where they're all analyzing Dart to try to find out what it is. They're such nerds, and extremely smart nerds at that! All of them!! Also, the "ew, slimy *pass Dart to someone else*" thing was so funny! Love the details of Dustin passing it to his crush, Max passing it to her future boyfriend, Lucas passing it to his best friend, and Will passing it to his crush, and Mike keeping it in his hands(!), bring it close to his face(!!) and saying "what is he?" with that confused little face of his. (Idk if I'm into something here, tell me what you think please!)

Will's flashback was sad tho. :((

Bob and the Byers!! I like Bob, he's such a sweetheart. :)

Now, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan!! It really is time for stancy to break up. I really can't with them anymore, it's just sad. They're both sad. :(

Also I guess trying to save the catastrophic relationship of the Wheeler you're in love with is a Byers thing. 😔

Eleven and Hopper! Love their relationship. But I'm really happy to see El trying to break the rules Hopper set for her. Even if it's fucking dangerous and kinda worrying honestly.

Now, Mike and Max!! Let's be honest, that skateboard scene was funny because of their bickering, but it was also really cute. Did you guys see the smile Mike had while watching Max doing her stuff, and how worried he was about her when she fell? I don't know about you, but for me that looks like the start of a nice friendship!! :)

Love my "same text, different font" duo. :3

Alright, last but not least!! Will's vision! My poor boy's so stressed out and scared I want to wrap him in a blanket and never let him out again. (Though he definitely wouldn't like that at all, so let's just forget about it.) I'm happy he trusted Bob's advice, thought it wasn't a great decision for this situation. That would've worked for a nightmare, but since he's literally in the upside down, it was way too dangerous.

Also, I just wanted to say that for anyone who saw it too. There's so much r@pe references in there, it makes me really fucking uncomfortable. Please tell me I'm not the only one who saw that.

[aemiron-main]

Henry and Patty and George and Creelarke: Have I Changed My Mind About George?

So, like I said earlier today, even If Henry is George, it was still described as Betty/Patty having a crush on George, not the other way around. And in this post, I’m going to talk about a.) the idea of Henry and Patty’s dynamic and how it could tie into creelarke and b.) whether I believe George is Henry.

So, starting with a.), this tweet mentioned the potential of Henry and Patty having a stobin-esque relationship which, regardless of the identity of George, Henry and Betty are clearly connected somehow (which we already knew from the TFS animated trailers), and I think a stobin dynamic (with Patty as Steve with an unrequited crush and gay Henry as Robin), which I think would be perfect.

And that also brings us to Vickie- if Henry is paralleled to Robin, then what about Vickie?

Well, Vickie is a nerd who seems to have a tendency to ramble, and who has some funky hand gestures/an animated personality

And who else do we know that’s very similar?

SCOTT!!! SCOTT CLARKE, LOCAL DRAMATIC NERD WIRH FUNKY HAND GESTURES!!! If Scott is paralleled to Vickie, with Patty and Henry being paralleled to Steve and Robin respectively, it would be perfect. Especially with Scott being younger and therefore likely even more Vickie-esque/rambly!!

I am staring DIRECTLY at the potential for Patty watching as Henry stares at Scott/Scott and Henry with their Gay Vibes vs Patty getting over her crush, like how Steve watches Vickie and Robin/encourages Robin to talk to her.

Now, shifting gears a bit- do I think that George is Henry? Have I changed my mind?

So, first of all, while I’m focusing on what I think is Actually True rather than What I Want To Be True, it’s still worth noting that I don’t mind if Henry is George/like I said, even if he is George, I don’t think theyre going to make him straight/put him into a romance with Patty. I’d love for Henry to be confirmed as George tbh because it would mean that we’re likely to get that Patty-Henry Stobin dynamic which I’d love AND it means that we have more confirmed Henry content (the auditions) to analyze.

And now, as far as what I think is actually happening/whether or not George is Henry:

The whole age thing still throws me for a loop, and it’s one of the main things (in addition to how closely the kid from the audition resembles Lonnie but that’s a whole other works considering that that kid hasn’t to been cast/considering what Stav talked about here with the casting weirdness) that pushed me away from believing that George is Henry.

Like Henry is 12 and Patty’s dialogue in the audition seems to put her as 15+, and I really don’t seem them a.) Having an older teenager crush on a 12 year old or b.) completely ignoring Henry’s canon age and just aging him up. Both of those choices don’t align with what we’ve seen from ST so far as far as relationships (ie imagine S1 Nancy crushing on S1 Dustin, because that’d be a pretty similar age gap/dynamic as Patty and Henry), and just ignoring Henry’s age/changing it doesn’t align with the attention to detail in ST/how specific they’ve been about the Creel family’s ages in the newspapers/how Henry is clearly 12/not a teen in the show, AND the fact that the play has been confirmed as being CANON, so it’s not just an offshoot where they can change whatever.

However, with that said, there’s also all of the weirdness with a.) Alice being listed as being 15 in the Weekly Watcher, b.) Edward moving to Hawkins two years before Henry and the Eddie Munson missing poster age weirdness and c.) the whole Owens vs Victor thing I’ve been posting about (esp today’s posts re: Owens and Victor and TFS) and the potential for timeline/Edward weirdness during TFS which could affect ages because even though Henry is listed as being 12 in the Weekly Watcher, Edward doesn’t ever get his age listed.

Like, I’m still not convinced that George is Henry (and even if he is, I still 1000% think Henry is gay/dont think he’s going to have a romantic relationship with Patty), because the age stuff throws me for a loop. However, I’m more open to the idea of Henry being George if there’s timeline/Edward weirdness messing with Henry’s age because the age thing is one of the big things that makes it difficult to agree that Henry is George.

So, basically, my thoughts on George are mostly the same as they were before- that if they aren’t doing any sort of timeline age weirdness, then it’s extremely unlikely that George is Henry.

The only things that have changed regarding my thoughts on George are:

1.) The fact that the George kid from the audition who REALLY resembles Lonnie wasn’t cast in any role at all, (which again, stav talked here about how that’s weird).

This changed my thoughts is because part of my reason for believing that George isn’t Henry was the fact that the kid in the audition REALLY resembles Lonnie and did NOT resemble Henry at all.

2.) The fact that the guy who was cast as Victor REALLY resembles Owens, and how the lady cast as Virginia REALLY resembles Owens’ wife, more than she resembles Virginia, and that being combined with what I talked about in this post with the Victor-Owens parallels and the idea of Owens being Edward Timeline Victor.

This changed my thoughts re: George because it ties into the age issue that I talked about earlier, because Edward, unlike Henry, doesn’t have a confirmed age, and there’s so many ages and dates (such as Victor’s age) that DO get changed in the Edward timeline. So, if we’re seeing the Edward timeline in TFS instead/some sort of timeline fuckery, then that’s a whole new box of potential for age changes.

And even though he’s been listed as Henry Creel on all of the TFS stuff, there’s still absolutely the potential of Henry and Edward having accidentally swapped into eachother’s timelines somehow/all of the swapping places references in ST/the Fringe parallels and Peter Bishop ending up in the other Peter’s timeline.

3.) Alice not being cast yet/being weirdly absent

Alice not being cast yet changed my thoughts re: George because just like 2.), it has the potential to tie into timeline weirdness, like I talked about in this post and this post, and with Alice specifically being connected to changing age weirdness (her looking 12 in the show but being listed as 15 in the Weekly Watcher), and her also being connected to timeline weirdness (with Connie Frazier likely being Edward Timeline Alice/Mother Alice), and how her apparent absence could be connected to us seeing the Edward timeline in TFS & Mother Alice being present instead of Daughter Alice/Karen Wheeler being Daughter Virginia/Karen being the Creel daughter in the Edward timeline, and therefore they don’t need to cast an “Alice Creel” in TFS because the Creel mother (which Is Alice in the Edward timeline) is already present and casted (her casting is listed as Virginia but that makes sense if theyre not revealing timeline stuff yet/shes the Virginia equivalent) and the Creel Daughter is already present and casted (Karen Wheeler/Karen Childress which her lastname is a whole other can of worms that I need to dig into), so casting a daughter named Alice Creel in the Edward timeline would be adding an extra, new character who doesnt exist in the Edward timeline/we would end up with two Creel daughters.

Basically, my stance previously was “George might be Henry but it’s extremely unlikely,” and now my stance is “George might be Henry and it’s more likely than it was previously now that timeline stuff is staring to pop up because timeline stuff opens the door for feasible, canon-adhering age changes”

So yeah! Just wanted to put this out there because I know one person in particular was making some super bitchy posts regarding my previous posts about George and TFS and acting like I was suddenly proven wrong/acting like i was Completely Fully Convinced With No Evidence That George Isnt Henry- hence why I wanted to explain why I believed so firmly that George isnt Henry (the age stuff, the audition George actor’s resemblance to lonnie & the initial absence of anything pointing towards timeline weirdness) and why now that’s changed slightly (the audition George not being cast, the timeline stuff becoming more likely based on things like Victor’s casting and Alice’s absence).

[chirpsythismorning]

What 'early breakups' are you even talking about? Steve and Nancy's? Lucas and Max's? Nancy and Steve broke up in an 'ambigious' way and it happened what? After the Party mess and when Nancy was drunk... so that did not exactly even happen that early into the season. Lucas and Max were broken up off-screen so they could get together.

They want Milvn to break up permanently in an unambiguous way, without any possibility of them romantically getting together while at the same time asserting their importance to each other on a personal sense with the show's narrative.

How's an early and quick breakup where El just goes 'i am done bye' does that, with the knowledge we have that El drew strength from Mike based on love, not hatred. The words 'Mike's hands were pulling her from her drowning' and other variations are not about El drawing strength from anger...

Sorry if you felt like I was calling you delusional. Pointing out that the almost entire fandom is willing to ignore canon narrative is not calling someone delusional it is just a fact. It's not even an interpretation.

We cannot expect to really expect anything going into S5 when the fandom almost consistently ignores canon and prefers to go by fanon instead. All the analyses then become heaaaaavy handed but very misguided expectations from an analyzing standpoint.

Yes all of those couples followed a somewhat similar pattern of breaking up early on. But specifically the Steve/Nancy/Jonathan love triangle is what I’m referring to.

In s1 they separated early on and the rest of the season Jonathan and Nancy were a focus, which allowed us to root for them the whole season, besides the beginning and end. In s2, they had their fight at the beginning revolve around Nancy not being able to say I love you, which allowed us to root for them for the rest of the season and followed by them getting together.

Mike literally refers to him and El’s fight in s4 as 'a fight that you can’t come back from', a fight that paralleled his sister’s fight with her first boyfriend, who she also ended up being broken up with after that incident, not years later, because we all know that that wasn't a fight you could just push under the rug and save for another time, it had to be addressed.

The thing is, the time jump for s5 is likely to occur early in the season, because the cast's age difference is something they don’t want to be too distracting. The earlier the time jump, the more they film stuff post time jump, accommodating to that age gap between s4-5.

So having Mike and El’s break up be midseason, means that’s Mike and El would presumably be ignoring all of the deep and very hard to ignore problems in their relationship, for those initial epiosdes, and then for another 1-2 years depending on how long the time jump is, which I just don't see happening. I don't see them putting on a show of a romantic relationship for much longer, and that's based on how S4 ends. For them to go from not talking and staying within at least like 3 feet of each other in those last moments, tells me that they're not going to be gravitating towards each other the way romantic love interests do, the way Mike and Will are doing at the end of the season in direct contrast.

I think holding off on it until mid-s5, is arguably even more ambiguous than what I would imagine is going to happen if it’s addressed sooner rather than later. Because that would mean them just awkwardly dancing around it and acting like it's not going to happen, even though we know it's inevitable.

Because Mike and El’s problems were highlighted in s3-4 in a big way. We saw how especially in s4 neither of them were being honest in their relationship. The romantic love there was lacking because neither of them were in it for genuine reasons, in terms of genuinely being in love and wanting to be together in a romantic way.

El craved normalcy bc she has always had so many things in her life making her feel different. Mike and his relationship with El is all he knows. And s4 made a point to build up just how impossible it is for them to keep this going and act like everything is okay when it’s not. Like did you see early s4, the fake sort of show they put on to act like everything was fine? Why would s5 be repeat of that? Why wouldn't they evolve that to show that their conflict is no longer something they can ignore, and instead convey that it was indeed a fight they can't come back from.

And I personally do not think that the break up is just going to be an 'I’m done, so bye!' scenario 🤣. Even if it was midseason, it wouldn’t be like that either.

It's a lot more likely that how El felt about their fight in early s4, and how she felt about his monologue, is going to at least be addressed and acknowledged in early s5, because the audience deserves that closure of knowing how El truly feels, with her being able to say it. Meaning that if they stayed together in early s5, we’d also need El in early s5 saying she loves Mike too and to actually resolve that conflict with her actually being able to even respond to it.

And with them breaking up and byler being endgame inevitable, I just highly doubt they’re going to play this game all over again, only to rip it away haphazardly.

She started the show barely being able to say a couple of words. And now despite the fact that she can talk and speak for herself, she hasn't been granted that affordance in the narrative. Instead her brother confessed her love for her, using all things that applied to him. If they wanted to give us El's genuine feelings about Mike, they wouldn't be identical to her brothers and given from him. That's just soooo sad and not fair for anyone in this situation and that's why it needs to be addressed.

We know she was upset with Mike calling her a superhero in their fight, we know that she looked at him with this frustration that he was still not getting it. That was like the climax of their fight in her room, with her looking at him with fed up determination, because saying something like that was the last thing she wanted to hear. And if anything, her experience at Nina, where Brenner told her she needed to fly and revealed that he used her to find Henry from the very beginning, how would Mike saying she could fly and she's his superhero, be something that provides her comfort, when if anything it's just a similar thing being expected of her, without her having any say in it?

The whole You're regressing Eleven is literally hinting at this idea that El is holding onto something in her life that is keeping her in the past, in a situation that makes her development sort of go backwards, and that is in large part highlighting her holding onto this idea that her and Mike are peak romance, despite the fact the that he isn't loving her the way she deserves. By staying with Mike despite knowing both of them are unhappy and forcing it at this point, is a huge regression to all of this build up leading to an inevitable separation, then being followed by them finally accepting themselves in each others lives without the obligation to be together because they met in the woods a few years ago and have felt this pressure to stay together ever since.

In their fight, she didn't want Mike to point to her powers as a way to deflect her genuine feelings about their relationship and her insecurities with him not being able to love her the way she wants, as a person and not as someone who can keep saving the day for him. And so how would him again saying she is a superhero, HIS superhero, suddenly be what she wants to hear in the end after everything she went through?

The problem with that moment in the script is that it's the only thing that is supporting the assumption she was happy with Mike's monologue. Everything else in the story goes against that. All of s4 makes it very clear that that was not what El wanted from Mike.

This is a big part of the reason byler makes sense, because they follow an I didn't say it/You didn't have to approach to love (show don't tell). Mike never should have had to say I love you for El to believe it. If it was something genuine between them, completely natural like breathing, El wouldn't have asked of it from him. But he made a point to struggle with merely writing it, avoiding it at all costs, making El feel even more insecure that there was something wrong with her causing Mike not to love her anymore. And the monologue didn't fix that.

You don't have to apologize but you also don't have to get upset and say everyone in the fandom is wrong, but you're right. If you truly believe that, continue to and leave other people alone. If people are on their posts saying how they feel and it upsets you, block them.

My problem is that everything leading up to byler, that makes it make sense, is at it's core what lead to Mike and El having conflict in the first place. And not addressing that and leading on Mike and El fans, for shock value isn't exactly good for the narrative. And it's never been good for the narrative which is why they like to address it early on so that we can move on to focusing on the pairing that they want us to root for.

Arguably, a break up before the time jump allows for byler to get together well after Mike and El separated instead of mere days/weeks. I would think with how much people are going to have a hard time with considering byler as it is, the time jump happening after Mike and El's break up would allow them to accept that Mike and El are for sure done and have been done for a while, and Will isn't some rebound because Mike is feeling insecure and he'll just be with him the second him and El end things.

How I imagine a mid-season 5 break up is that it would be even more ambiguous than an early one, because it would require El and Mike to ignore their problems for five episodes when there really is no reason to do that with how obvious it was that their fight was a fight that you couldn't come back from. And addressing that is what will allow us to watch El actually experience closure on screen and then be able to focus on Max and working with everyone to beat Vecna. If the whole audience is watching at the edge of their seat being led on the whole season that Mike and El have a chance of getting back together, they're not going to be able to focus on El's arc as an individual character, bc they're going to be waiting for Mike and El to make up and be together.

But then when it doesn't happen, and they've been led astray unnecessarily even more than the previous 2 times, we'll only have a mere 4 episodes to build up them being a platonic pairing with it being blatantly obvious that the audience needs to accept it AND that we need to accept Mike and Will being romantic.

Whereas with an early s5 break up, by episode 3-4 we will know that they are not together and can focus on the new conflicts that have arose from the final season, because dragging on stuff that has already been heavily built up in s4 as being a problem, just to give us the most obvious anti-climactic outcome halfway through in the middle of all the new storylines they are focused on, would fall flat.

Mid-season is likely going to be made up of Mike and Will having a substantial amount of time alone. That's something that those early break-ups allows, so that we can have that development for them that is necessary in order for them to be endgame. Arguably as Mike and Will are going through that, El isn't going to be around to break up with him.

If anything I could see an early s5 breakup, with the audience being aware of it, but not Will. This would mean that Mike and Will's interactions could still be interpreted as romantic comfortably, but we would see for the first time Mike pining and Will still assuming that Mike could never feel the same, until maybe mid-season he finds out that they are indeed not together.

I can't subscribe to the monologue when all of the conflict leading up to it makes it abundantly clear that isn't what El wanted to hear. And we would see in mid-season 5 that El is just going to end up saying all of the stuff we already knew. She's not stupid. She knows that something is off with Mike, that was the whole point from the beginning. That inner struggle he is having is even more heightened and made obvious by the fact that Will was what encouraged Mike to say I love you in the first place. She heard all of that. And then she proceeded to ignore them at the cabin.

How s4 ended is not at all giving the impression El is going to start s5 by gravitating towards Mike and looking to him for comfort, it was actually the direct opposite.

If I were to subscribe to the monologue being a convincing love confession to El, at that point I'd rather Mike and El just stay together instead of holding off even more on facing the truth about the conflict of their relationship that didn't just get fixed by the words I love you. I'd rather byler didn't end up together if Mike is just stringing El along to inevitably choose Will over her anyways at the last minute.

I do think that I love you is what El thought she wanted to hear from Mike, but not like that. And it would be a disservice to her character to have the focus be on her hoping he might choose her for any longer, only for him not to.

If a bunch of people are interpreting the show this way, then there's a good chance that they could be right. We were right about byler being endgame and all of our reasoning is supported by the conflict that has been building up for seasons, and that love confession that paralleled to El beating Henry in 79', doesn't look like one rooted in love, whereas that first face off was. Mike's monologue was bathed in red, El's memory of her birth bathed her in light.

Will on the other hand is bathed in light from Mike's perspective, most prominently at the end of s4. That wasn't in the script, does that mean it's not important? Almost all of bylers moments aren't in the script, does that mean everything about them means nothing?

Feel free to subscribe to whatever you want to. If you end up being right you can say I told you so and live with that satisfaction! Personally, if I'm right, I won't feel the need to come and say I told you so, bc it's not about some sort of vindication for me. I don't even plan on doing that to redditors bc they're going to be dealing with that enough as it is. I'd rather them just insist we're crazy right now and let it all unfold and let the show speak for itself. If I have to subscribe with everything they think bc of the scripts, then I'd be pretty bored rn because all of the evidence for byler would essentially mean nothing and they're just being put together for no reason. All of that lead up meant something, otherwise their endgame wouldn't be satisfying, least of all if El is once again being framed as waiting for Mike to choose, only to not choose her this time. She deserves so much better than that. They all deserve better than that.

Will on one hand assuming for a little longer that Mike doesn't feel the same merely drags out the mutual pining leading to that endgame. El assuming for a little longer that Mike does feel the same is just making her plot regressive for no reason when she could be finally getting that independance arc, truly separated from being linked to Mike in a way that prevents her from truly progressing and knowing her worth and living up to that authentically.

We'll have to wait and see. But I don't see the use in coming in other peoples inboxes and directing your dissatisfaction with their interpretation of things as contradicting yours and so they need to just drop it and subscribe to what you think or else...

Everyone on here can interpret things how they want since there is still a season left and everything is still up in the air. If you want to blow off steam and say your piece on your profile, then do that and if other people resonate with it then that's great! You don't have to force other people to involve themselves with your narrative. If people are doing that to you, you have every right to block them because you also shouldn't have to have people in your inbox saying that your interpretation of things is wrong.

I'll continue to analyze and break things down as I choose. That's not stopping anytime soon. And IDK why you would want others to. It would be pretty dead on here if we all just stopped and believed everything we've been told superficially despite everything we've been shown contradicting that. If everything we're being told is all there is to it, you could argue byler isn't even happening. But most of us can agree that isn't the case.

I hope you can continue to analyze how you view things and embrace your interpretation instead of tearing others' down. We still have two years left, let's not make this more unnecessarily unbearable than it needs to be.

[frenchkanna1808]

Before i start this Michigan realization post finished in a jopper, jancy, lumax analysis, like i wrote very long paragraphs.

Why is make america great again so popular ? Simple, it’s an obvious het ships who the GA ,who just watch the show casually, doesn't take time to realize the flaws of the relationship. But like, Hardcore minecraft shipper, how do you not see the problem in the relationship of mike and eleven. As a byler i watch multiple times scenes when they are together, do you not do the same? And if you do it are you, not to be insulting, sleeping. A lot of My Little pony call us media illiterate for analyzing the show. But do you even do it; The only proof you peeps need is “Well mike is dating El,so Mileven endgame”. It doesn’t work that way. When a ship is as great as you claim it is you can explain why they are made for one another and why their relationship works. Sometimes, even with ships i dislike/or neutral about the reasoning that two characters are made for one another make me understand the ship better, even if i don’t really like it. I can explain many ships in stranger things and why they can work.

Jancy: Nancy and Jonathan met trough the disappearance of a loved one. The y worked together to find them back. Then they realizing that they have more in common than they thought. They have similar traumas:,parents who aren't in love difficult family life; societal pressure. They start to bond about it together. In a way Jonathan gave Nancy what Nancy didn’t have with Steve, an actual bond outside of society standards. Stancy was mostly a teenage romance who was mostly physical, true Steve loved Nancy but their relationship wasn’t based on an strong bond with one another. Nancy and Steve at the time at least was completely incompatible, Nancy was in a way creating another empty marriage like her parents did. While stancy is an average teenage romance from the 80′s made from conventionally attractive people with little in common with one another, Jancy was everything that stancy wasn’t. Jonathan is poor,  a nerd, and from a pretty polarizing family in town while Steve is a jock , popular with girls; from a wealthy family. But it’s also inverse in term of actual love, Jonathan love Nancy and Nancy love Jonathan, they may not be the perfect couple, they have issues but that’s realistic.Also little point, Jancy has complimentary dream jobs( journalist/photograph), really care for each other passions and hobbies, and love each other pleasemattandroosdufferpleasedontbreakthemupibegofyou. Jancy is all about the society choice for your life and your choice for controlling your own. The logical choice for Nancy is to go with Steve, just like her mother did. To not choose her heart but her head. Steve is the better choice for Nancy to have a “normal”, conventional life just like her mom chose. But Nancy isn’t her mom, Nancy is herself. She won’t do the same mistakes as her parents not after she endured because of their loveless marriage. She gonna choose the choice that make her truly free and happy. And that is the unconditional love and freedom that loving Jonathan can give her. Or like she dumps Jonathan but like be a girlboss but don’t leave this malewife alone, well he still has argyle soo.

Jopper: Ah jopper, one of the longest slow burn in the show only second to byler. What make jopper works? Simple! Just like jancy they have a lot in common, but i will say that they have way more than jancy. Joyce and hopper are both divorced parents(rip Sarah), who have a multitude of unresolved trauma from their past life. Joyce is single mother of two boys, she love them dearly more than anythings in this worlds. But life isn’t easy for her, she’s forced to work late for gaining money for her children to have a good life. The Byers are poor i must remind you.She is still in a complicated relationship with her ex husband who abused her and her children. But i think one of Joyce biggest issues is solitude. Every time Joyce ask for help, fight for a cause nobody trust, everyone thinks she crazy. “oh it’s just Joyce being insane like always, she really a disgrace to this town, no wonder her children are just like her”. She never helped by anyone, and every time someone she care about someone, somethings bad happen to them.Joyce is alone, alone fighting for her children well being. Hopper is a cop, a alcoholic drug addicted cop, since the death of his daughter and the divorce with his wife it’s like is whole life lost it’s purpose.Even thought he the sheriff off hawking you can see he’s kind of not that liked( not that he tries to be). Hopper is clearly depressed. But in end there no chance of him healing in this condition. Hopper is alone, incapable of healing and depressed. They are both broken people from a world which isn’t kind to them. They knew each other from high school i suppose. We can see that they was always attraction between each other. Guys their literally old friend to lovers. Together jopper gets what the other needed. Love. They can finally live and love after all this years of stress and pain and grow together while seeing their kids grow too. They both lost people they care about. That’s why jopper  is beautiful, it’s all about second chance and continuing loving after the loss of people we love, its about  the continuing growth that someone can have in they life. It’s all about moving on mainly living on after the death of someone we cherished, because they might be gone but they would want you to carry on and live, live for them.

Lumax: Now we are coming into best ship territories. As you may know Lumax is in my eyes the current best cannon ship in stranger things. I lovee byler but god damm lumax really is the most developed, realistic, healthy and fantastic ship in the series. But why is that? Just like any ships that works, lumax as a lot in common. their the sassy, don’t talk no shit to me, leader type of a group. Max is more of a loner, tomboyish , sassy, brutally honest type of person. She has a rough exterior who covers her true feelings, it can be hard to see the true max. Lucas is a geek , sassy, always saying his opinion, dork. Like a mega dork. He’s like a sunshine. But i would say, while most ships have a trope that make them works, lumax trope is true love. They don’t need long love confessions or long make out sequence. The way we know they love each other isn't words, it’s actions. It’s the look in the other eyes,the shine in the eyes, the care, the immediate bright shining smile, it’s just the electricity. When they are together they still act like themselves, it is still Lucas and Max they act just like they normally are. They have their own interest and can totally live without each other, their not codependent. For teenagers i would say that they are way more mature than other kids their age. Just like Caleb said lumax love is mature, they slowly grew together learned to care for each other, love each other. Their love wasn’t instant. Against all odd, and difficulties, lumax sails up right now.             Lumax is a tale of true love, i would say a tragic one, understanding, fights and sadly pain in the end. The reason Lumax works so well compared to other ships is the realism of it all. Their relationship feels authentic. I would say that the scene of lucas with max in his arms is the scene that made me wanna kill Vecna the most, seeing his scream and tears give me the urge to punch my wall so bad. Compared to other ship it’s much more difficult to explain by words but you just know when you look at them. You feel it. They both bring best in one another and are at their brightest in each other company. So that’s why MAX BETTER LIVE OR I WILL SUE THE SUFFER BROTHER.

conclusion:

Why is Melvin so bad you would say, many reasons. The lack of communication the misunderstanding of each other personality, the lies, the very weird family parallel and more. But i think one of the main reason Machinegun doesn’t works is simple. It literally doesn't fit the core theme of stranger things Stranger things is all about the oddities and weirdness that make us unique and beautiful. The show is always following outcast of society. Every and i mean every relationship in stranger things is in a way weird or uncommon. Jopper? Two divorced middle aged parents. Jancy? Independent journalist from a good family and local weirdo boy from a badly renowned family. Lumax? Interracial couple. Rockie? no explanation needed i think. Duzie? Unusual genius girl with bright boy with facial differences( still a handsome boy but you know society sucks). Even the non cannon ships follow the theme. But Magnet is just..... stereotypical self insert bullshit for teenager shows. “Oh boy meet girl, girl weird and as super PoWers, people dislike girl because girl WEird, but boy only one who think girl cooL. Time passes and Girl develops crush on boy and become JEalous of another girl because boy hang out with her. But in the end girl is sooooo cool and fantastic and amazing and the part left of boy initial characterization is is love for girl. He is crazy obsessed with girl and it’s starting to get so toxic. Girl is just a local girlboss blank slates to be the deus ex machina of the show and is nothing other than that. When girl do something real bad she never get punished because girl is so perfect. And IN THE END boy and girl and boy love save the world or something and they still stay together even so their probably the worst option of the show.” I saw so many ships like this and it screams not only self insert to young girls who are in love with the male actor but also a very easy routes for a show named stranger things. Stranger broke the norms of how to do a “horror” show and it gave us amazing rep (even if the didn’t handle all of it that well). It’s extremely rare in current media to see a show centered around a gay man who is not stereotyped in any way. And it’s amazing! Will is my favorite character and not just because of his sexuality, he has so many layers and complexities that make me love him even more. Of course my second place go to Lucas and Eleven cause their my children but so you know. 

Back to the main topic. Making mike and el finish together is probably the easiest and stupidest choice, not only would it go against the entire logic of the to make the most plain relationship in the show and probably one the more toxic relationship we currently have as cannon but what message would this give. “Look at them they have nothing in common but you gotta ship it cause it contains the protagonist of the show, to be happy eleven gotta be with a man that so feminist of us. Oh and mike? Who give a shit about him, not like he destroyed most of his relationships to be with a girl he doesn’t even comprehend. Oh your angry because the traumatized abused gay kid never got a happy ending and that’s a “very bad message”. No one give a shit about your opinion, we hate will so much that we created an entire plot line of him falling in love with his best friend for him to be miserable. Buy our byler merch!”

Well i mean this is still my opinion so it doesn’t mean much, i’m just a random person passionate about a show, but really Melvin cannon would destroy my liking in the show. I prefer byler not endgame but melvin is separated than a melvin ending.

But anyway it wouldn't be worse than stancy endgame.

[fandsart]

If Nancy really treated Steve's essay as garbage because she started to resent him or thought their relationship was meaningless, that's such a cruel thing to do. Obviously the essay meant much to Steve, it's very important for his future, Nancy fucking that up leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Like why would she want to sabotage Steve in that way, especially after he told her how much she means to him and how he wants to build a life with her. It always bugs me when people claim Steve was terrible to her, meanwhile he always made sure to tell her how much he loves her.

I still think Nancy exaggerated with criticism because her own writing is more bland and direct. Like she's a calculated and cool person, which would reflect in her writing, she gets straight to the point. Where Steve used a metaphor and was not direct at all. (I also am still a believer that the basketball game itself was a metaphor for him fighting the demogorgon a year prior, but he obviously can't write about that). And you know sometimes direct straight to the point writing is great especially for reporting. But still it shows there is a lack of skills there, which the ST narrative would never touch on because Nancy is perfect in everything.

I don't think Nancy intentionally sabotaged him or anything. I just think that we were given that scene for narrative reasons, to show certain incompatibilities subtly. I suggested the idea that she was looking for things to critique about it, but it would be all subconscious. Especially when she views him as kind of dumb, she'd be going in with the preconception that there are mistakes to be corrected

Nancy saying she doesn't know how the two subjects Steve wrote about connect could be a parallel to Steve and Nancy not connecting, though I don't think that's intentional

But I do think it shows that Nancy doesn't have much ability to analyze nuance. The conversation is really interesting. Nancy is a very straightforward person, so she doesn't understand where Steve was coming from in his essay, but Steve isn't, which is why he couldn't explain his point concisely. Of course by the nature of the characters and how they perceive themselves and each other it leaves them both feeling like Steve is just The Dumb One of the relationship. It's a really good scene for expressing the blatant incompatibility between them

And yes, I'm very aware of the whole thing about him using the basketball game as a stand in to express his experience with the demogorgon the previous year. I thought about bringing that up in one of my previous answers but my responses kept getting really long without it

This is one thing I think is interesting about the whole "Steve pretends to be normal as a coping mechanism" thing that the fandom believes. I'm honestly not sure that's his only coping mechanism, just the one he uses if any other option would result in the government coming after him. But his using metaphor here is an expression of his feelings and possibly intentional. I like the idea that he assumes Nancy would have picked up on it, but still does need to critique it as a school essay, so doesn't really bring it up, but really Nancy's straight forward nature and inability to pick up on nuance had it going completely over her head

Especially given her view of those events, where it was a big scary thing that Steve showed up for at the last minute. I don't think she really realizes that it affected him much at all. He couldn't have been that scared if he showed back up again, and he won, so he's tough, and he hasn't been there for all of the really scary things, so why would he need to express his feelings about the situation. Nothing even happened to him. Which would probably also add to her whole perspective of him being bullshit, because she doesn't register his emotions about everything as being as valid as hers because she experienced more of the situation than him

[tea-time-with-london]

No so much of a confession, but you're sooo real for mostly consuming x reader or self insert content. Maybe it's a bit sexual but the fics my friends read are so much worse when it comes to character accuracy. (I'm basing this all on Steve content) At least in x reader content, the majority of fics is cute and not straight up mean to the character they like (aka nobody would treat Steve the way Eddie treats him in the majority of Steddie fics. Even the party treats Steve better in x reader content than in other fics where they bully him in order to put him into his place for no reason other than fun, I guess). Like I don't know why it's considered cringe or a less respectable way of writing fics. I'm currently writing my own, and it's so hard to make a new character from scratch and work them into the world without making them too 2 dimensional.

Plus, due to watching the show so often and viewing the characters the way they are outside of ships, I literally can't ship any of the major teen pairings. It's too messy for my liking. And when I read fics and they leave out the messiness, which they often do, it doesn't feel authentic to the character. Like, no, Steve wouldn't love Robin for dating his ex he still has feelings for. Robin and Steve's friendship would suffer if Ronance would happen. Or Steve pining after Jonathan after Nancy cheated with Jonathan on Steve would be so ooc for him. Because everyone has a messy history, I can't enjoy ships bc it takes away from the actual characters. (The only reason I don't ship Steddie is that Eddie is literally dead and Steve wasn't too upset about it, and it's something I can't tune out)

X reader content isn't perfect by any means, esp because it can be cruel to canon love interests (Nancy, for example), but tbh that's also a problem with character ship fics. Or the characters are not accurate enough because of romance issues. Again, it's also a huge problem in ship fics. And I rather enjoy ooc fics where it's at least not done in order to be malicious towards a character. I can only speak for Steve tho. I know Eddie in x reader content is so ooc because people perceive him as a bad boy and are so stereotypical with him. But that also kinda translated into steddie fics.

Idk I just enjoy x reader content, esp for Steve, because he has no good love interest in the actual I could get behind with shipping. I can't just blend out the history he has with others (Nancy and Jonathan).

Idk if that was even coherent lmao. I'm sorry

Yeah, reader inserts are definitely the way to go for me! And don't worry, I get what you're saying. I don't typically read Steve x Show Character, but I've occasionally dabbled in some Steve x Nancy fics just to see how I feel about it, and I enjoy those because most of the fics I've seen analyze their relationship, and they're not rude to each other in the fics. If I'm reading fics where Steve is paired up with someone in the show, for me it has to be a ship that would honest to God make sense canonically, and Steddie or Stonathan do not fall in that category.

And there's nothing wrong with Reader Insert fics. Nothing at all. It's a trend to hate on Reader Inserts, and to me that's just plain stupid. I get it, reading "Y/N" over and over can be silly, but there's so many well written Reader Insert fics in the fandom. Thank you Reader Insert writers for being amazing!!!! <3

[castlebyersafterdark]

thoughts on steve? and if you think he will end up alone in S5? I have all these Byler theories and theories about other characters like Max, and then I'm so confused on what they're planning for his arc lol

I really like Steve! I like his arc in season one, because he'd otherwise be so easy to hate. But such a good story atc so far. He was the best part of season three. I love when a character gets kind of humbled? Going from king of high school to working at a dorky ice cream shop? Bestie is a thirteen year old nerd? Caught feelings for a lesbian who's so much smarter than him? What a man what a man. I feel like the general audience only likes him for comic relief or the fact that he's the acceptable one to be attracted to.

But his story is interesting - I love the trope from season one. That he accidentally ended up in the wrong genre. He was in a teen romcom, Nancy was starring in a horror movie. That's such a cool concept! And his reluctance to now be involved with the plot simultaneously with resignation that the burden is also on his shoulders now. I know people don't want to admit it, but he's got the 80s tragic action hero arc. I do think he's probs gonna kick it, and that's so tragic. Unfortunately, the stakes are high in the show. Someone main is gonna die. The audience is going to take his death the hardest, be honest. He's the favorite, the darling. Of the OG cast, he's the one with no on screen family to mourn him, so (and I know how people take this when it's mentioned, but as a television reality) his is a bittersweet death when we get to the end and see characters end their arcs and move on. It's impactful, but the heavy cloud isn't as heavy? Kill Nancy, we have to watch Mike deal. Kill Jonathan? The continued tragedy of the Byers. Etc. I'm not saying platonic bonds aren't as important, but I'm analyzing the show for this one from a filming/television trope angle, totally neutral.

There's an off chance that the kicker is Dustin, or both, due to hints and omens I've observed, but I just am not sure they'll kill a party member. The visual of Lucas and Will and Mike playing one final campaign and it pans over an empty chair??? I don't want that. But Dustin making a wistful sad comment about Steve and/or Eddie? Devastating, but not as devastating in my opinion. Or Steve may make it to the closing credits.

I don't typically play for both teams 🤣 but on the Steve lives/dies sides, I've got a foot in the grave and the other on solid, stable ground. I don't know!! As for his relationship? Stancy is deader than his fate. He's not getting a love interest, new or old.

[fappellmoan]

16, 23, 25

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc.)

this'll quickly get into petty territory ok let's see. well so i think in general the cookie cutter fandom trope tendencies suck absolute ass and take all the fun out of actually playing with character dynamics and like. analyzing them idk!!! like it's BORING not everyone fits into. golden retriever/black cat dumb/smart fucking. idk you get it. you're taking away what's compelling and unique abt individual people and stories and writing. i think people did that to robin and nancy a bit and it made me want to scream and turned me away from the fandom quicker cause they were the last part of s4 i found myself caring abt. and let me just say this. it's like people are so goddamn annoying in general about gay ships and i wont pretend like ppl are just cool and great about gay male ships but like. at least SO many people get into them that you're bound to get some actually interesting content. it's fucking bleak out here for the lesbians when people just immediately try to slot them into top/bottom etc dynamics. and don't engage with them as separate characters at all. defining women by their relationships except theyre both women(ish) so you're just making them uninteresting overall. sorry ik it's not that serious esp when the majority of the fans of lesbian ships are queer girls. anyway then they dont even engage with het relationships or the people that do are ppl are like. genuinely cishet and i'd not... interact w them on here idk lol. also i ended up getting pissy about bi steve bc ppl were so anti nancy being anything but hyperheterosexual when to ME, formerly dykenance, she had the markings of a lesbian. she had a very clearly sorta close tense jealous etc friendship and she gets NONE of the love. idc actually abt bi steve like it's fine wider fandom just pissed me off. we all know this.

23. ship you've unwillingly come around to

ummm i dont think i've been super anti anything personally let me think. ummmm. idk why i can only think of st this is absurd i dont even engage with that much anymore. like i guess jonathan and steve i used to not care about but now im like yeah sure kings. why not. oh also faberry lol. cause rachel used to annoy me too much but now im like well in her own committed dream annoying teen girl way she was kinda hilarious... and i think they were in weird lesbian love and that was lost along the way but in my heart they rekindled after high school maybe. at some point. like quinn came to one of her big shows... idc

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

i think b*lers need to just have fun with their ship and not care about canon that much. like yes yeah gay rep etc whatever but u dont even seem like you're having fun u just want to be right. anyway. GENERALLY it's fucking hilarious to me when people bring up idk media literacy and -coding and etc but it's very evident that they have not ever ever taken a film class in their life or. engaged with media analysis outside of fandom contexts. babes dont try to just use words to sound smart. also again generally stop just advertising or criticizing a show based on Gay Representation. also don't complain about female characters not being well written when u dont engage with them regardless over any possible man that you can. sorry just complaining abt the same shit over and over. ME hi im the problem it's me. jk im not wrong

let me be a haterrrr <3

[dinitride-art]

Stranger Things and Lighting (Season 2: The Snowball) - Full Analysis (Pt. 25.1)

Okay, so. This really isn’t a part of the Lighting of this analysis. But, the Rink O’ Mania disco ball has been haunting me ever since I noticed that it was positioned behind Will an ungodly amount for someone who wasn’t a main character in that scene (not Mike or El). Anyways, I’ve talked already talked about that.

So, what is this?

This is a theory post that I need to make to A. Get My Own Thoughts in Order, and B. Make What I’m Trying to Say Next Make Sense. First, before I get into The Snowball (I am analyzing this in the second half of the post, in case anyone would rather skip to that), I need to explain myself.

Mike’s Character Arc:

Mike Wheeler’s character arc is more of a dip than a circle or an arc. Season one starts with Mike at his highest, season two is going downhill, season three is rock bottom, season four is getting back up, and season five will be finding himself again.

This is related to how much he’s trying to fit into society and how much of an ‘asshole’ (Nancy’s words) he becomes. In season four, we do see Mike becoming less of an asshole, he falls short sometimes, but he’s trying. With the Hellfire Club, talking to El, and talking to Will, he’s trying to find himself again.

This dip, causes a parallel structure in the arc, season three being an outlier because it’s the bottom of the dip. However, this dip is not exclusive to Mike’s arc. It’s true for the entire series. There are a lot of parallels in Stranger Things, a lot. But there is also a pattern to those parallels.

We are only able to see the pattern emerge with what we’ve seen in season four. Because season four parallels season two.

Math and Patterns rant, you have been warned: (As a visual of what I’m saying, here’s this graph. To rant a little about patterns here, they aren’t always intended and thought out, but they are always present. Humans have many unconscious processes that use and require patterns that we don’t notice in our daily lives. Cell division, the digestive system, the nervous system: all complex processes and patterns in our bodies. So, yes, this is a sinusoidal function. It looks pretty close to y=cos(x). It’s got a max and a min, and can in fact be graphed. (which is pretty fun and funky if you ask me).

I’m not really saying that this was a conscious decision, but rather it’s a result of patters being apart of how we think and patterns being present in every aspect of life (or nearly every aspect, I don’t know, shit could be wild out there).

BUT, it does show what I’m talking about pretty well. Season one and five are parallel, as well as season two and four. Season three is rock bottom. The parallel structure is intended, the sinusoidal function perhaps not so much. But it’s still pretty neat!)

In both season two and season four:

-Max gets an extremely relevant plotline; Introduced in season two, is Vecna’s target in season four. She and Will almost trade spots in terms of a romance arc and being a target of the Upside Down.

-El has an independent plotline and is separated from the rest of the group; In season two it’s breaking away from Hopper and running away and finding Kali. In season four she kind of breaks up with Mike and goes and joins the Nina project. She finds out more about who she is and her past with the Hawkins lab.

-’I love you’; in season two Steve and Nancy break up because she doesn’t love him anymore, whether she ever really did is unclear. In season four Mike can’t tell El that he loves her up until the monologue due to outside factors. Jonathan and Will both try to help Nancy and Mike with their relationships but obviously love the person that they’re trying to help.

-Hawkins lab relevance with Kali in season 2 and Brenner in season four; the opening scene of the season in seasons two and four are about Hawkins lab and the people involved in it. Brenner’s memories of the incident in season four, and Kali’s introduction in season two.

- Mike and Will relationship development/ paired off and separated from the group. Emphasis is placed on their relationship but as a team. In season two Mike and Will were paired off and work as a team to try and stop the mind flayer and in season four they’re paired off while trying to find El.

-both have nine episodes; the episode numbers alternate by season. Seasons one, three, and five have eight episodes, while seasons two and four have nine. These further add to the parallel structure of the series/story.

The point:

Season two and season four are connected- just like how season 5 and season one are going to parallel each other (and maybe season three, although I’m not too sure on that one yet, because it’s the bottom of the arc and I’m not too confidant it will match up in this. But I’m also not 100%. So. Idk yet). This is the upswing of the series, season three was rock bottom, and now things are going to go up.

But that is not my point. My point is that the Snowball is a problem. It is in episode nine for a reason, that disco ball is there for a reason, the disco ball at Rink O’ Mania is there for a reason (other than drawing attention to Will): it’s all there because it means something.

I cannot analyze what is happening in the snowball scene (lighting aside, we’ve gone rogue- for now. It’s temporary. I’ll return to the light- lol- eventually.) without looking in depth at what happens in season two. More specifically the snowball.

So, I’m going to lay that out here. The snowball specifically happens at the end of episode nine of season two and about half or more of episode nine of season four. This is intended because of the parallel structure of the seasons.

Without knowing the themes of the Snowball in season two, the snowball in season four isn’t going to make very much sense. That being said, “forced conformity, that’s what’s killing the kids!” is from season four. But it is the entire point of the Snowball in both season four and season two.

S2:E9 - The Snowball (Pink and Blue)

Starting off here, we’ve got Mr. Clark putting up the banner. We can clearly see that ‘Snow’ is hidden and there is an emphasis placed on ‘ball’. This imagery is present in season four as well. The disco ball at Rink O’ Mania, Max’s memories of the Snowball, some other things that are relevant later (and I can’t explain fully here without analyzing up to that exact point).

Mr. Clark is wearing green and red, while the person standing and watching him is wearing blue and red/pink. The colour scheme for the Snowball appears to be blue, silver and red.

Will is wearing a blue tie.

Mike is wearing a red tie.

Lucas is wearing a pink and blue striped shirt.

Erica is wearing a blue and pink shirt.

Max is wearing green. Billy was also seen when we saw Max and was wearing blue.

Dustin is wearing blue but looks into a red mirror and has more red objects that compliment his blue.

Steve talks to Dustin, now that they’re friends and he’s trying to teach him how to talk to girls. Steve is wearing red.

The girls behind Dustin are wearing pink and blue. The balloons are white and blue (which may have changed in season four).

Steve looks past Dustin at Nancy, she’s wearing pink.

The balloons did change, they look tarnished and nearly gold instead of silver or white. (this is due somewhat to the upside down, but this memory is still set in a darker tone even when Max first arrives in it).

This shot mirrors the ones in season four, except we can’t see the emphasis on the disco ball as much here as we do there. This is also a juxtaposition of the darkness of Max’s memory. From this perspective we can also see green, red and blue as our main colours.

Looking at Nancy, we can see that she is indeed wearing a pink plaid dress and gold earrings. Her eyeshadow/eye liner is purple and her hair is nearly as curly as we see it in season four. Behind her we can see two girls in blue and pink dresses.

Dustin finds the rest of the party and is then told his hair looks weird. In the background we can see more blue, pink and red outfits.

Mike is in center frame, even though we’re mainly following Dustin. Will also takes up a lot of the frame considering it’s mainly Mike and Lucas who are joking about Dustin’s hair. Everyone in the party is important to watch in this scene.

We see more of Max’s outfit when the camera changes angle and she is wearing some red, but she stands out against the red and blue dresses that the other girls are wearing.

And again we see Mike in the center of the frame even though the scene doesn’t seem to concern him all that much.

The people in the background aren’t all wearing blue, red and pink, but the ones that are in our direct line of sight usually are.

Max is starring off where Dustin was when Lucas tries to ask her to dance.

We see Dustin watching it go well, and we see his hope start to crumble.

Despite Dustin being the one who liked Max, Will and Mike are still in center frame. We see all three of their reactions. Will looks relatively normally at them leaving, Dustin seems a but shocked but resigned, and Mike looks a little bit sad.

We see all three of them and then we focus in on Max and Lucas. Max is wearing a yellow watch, one that she is still wearing in season four. In season two Max also has green vans which change to red when we see her in season four. Green has connotations of hiding/ not being able to find the colour red just yet. That was established in season one at Will’s funeral.

After we focus on Max and Lucas we flip back over to look at Dustin in the center of the frame. We see him looking at them from a distance. We know that he’s sad because he liked Max, and she’s dancing with someone else.

(cutting it here because I now have the fear of the tumblr code instilled into me and have split this post into three)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 25.1 25.2 25.3 26 27 28 29 30 (to be edited)

[spookyclooky]

considering I will never shut up about this, and I see a lot of people ganging up on each other over this, I've decided I'm going to publicly share at least a few (if not all) of the slides from a powerpoint I made for my friends explaining why Stancy doesn't work and Steddie does

Keep in mind, this was not originally intended for general audiences but I've reached the end of my rope with this and I'm gonna show you some research I did (though I'm gonna exclude some of my slides cause they're introducing the characters for my friends who don't watch ST)

my first two slides, because some of this was jokes but I'm so actually fucking serious about this it's crazy

my summarization of both of their relationships (some of the Steddie one was jokes because they don't actually have a canon relationship obv)

and this is the summation of my analysis of both relationships (or what I think their relationship could be by analyzing the way they interact in Steve and Eddie's case). This doesn't even include the fact that Steve evidently wants a big family according to ST4, which Nancy straight up said is the last thing she wants. So, in being with Steve, she'd be trapped in her worst nightmare and would grow to eventually resent him. She even says this during that conversation:

Because she doesn't want kids! She expressed this early on the series when she's talking about her parents with Jonathan, telling him about how her dad was older and her mom married him for money. She didn't want to be like her parents, she still doesn't. She's trying her hardest to pave a path for herself in her journalism, by any means necessary. You think she can do that stuck in a house on the end of a cul-de-sac with someone she never truly loved in the first place?? NO!!! She says this to Jonathan in S1 E6, which just further proves my point

so hearing that, do you think she wants a cute little family with Steve, schlepping across the country with "six little nuggets" in tow? Absolutely the fuck not.

AND, for Steve, he straight up tells Robin that he doesn't love Nancy anymore. While he was on 'truth serum' from the russians. He doesn't even hesitate, and here's the scene if you wanna watch it again cause you don't believe me.

Even Murray, an outsider looking in, could see their relationship was not it

Like, do y'all not remember this?

Cause I do

this shows that even an outside party, who is JUST MEETING Nancy, can tell that she no longer loves Steve, and that's assuming she ever had feelings like that for him in the first place.

In S4, he SPECIFICALLY says, after the bit about crawling backwards, that he says when he gets a big enough thump on his head, he can change and move forward. He thanks her for helping him to 'crawl forward', which I kind of interpreted as a 'hey, thanks for showing me that the way I was acting before sucked, and you breaking up with me changed my life for the better', the breakup acting as his proverbial bump to the head in this particular case.

Speaking as someone who has been in an extremely unhealthy relationship in the past, I think that Steve is simply going through a denial stage at this point, his rose colored glasses coming back on to romanticize the good parts of his and Nancy's relationship instead of seeing the entirety of it. The good and the bad, even though from what we see as an audience, there's much more bad outweighing the good. Especially considering they weren't together for very long by the time the events of season 1 took place.

At the beginning of season 2, it seems like from Steve's perspective, the stuff involving the Upside Down (i.e, Barb's death, facing the demogorgon together, etc.), brought them closer together, but to Nancy, it made it easier for her to distance herself from Steve, for whatever reasons she personally may have found prominent at the time.

She at least acts like she's in denial at first about not being in love with Steve, but she lets that fall apart insanely quickly, considering she kisses/sleeps with Jonathan at Murray's a few hours after they talk about her love life/relationship with Steve where she says that she does in fact love him??

Delving into the mind of Nancy Wheeler is a complicated endeavor, the same could be said for Steve Harrington himself, but long story short, the idea that the Duffers could possibly be pushing them back together bothers me a lot because it'd be like Steve crawling backward all over again. It's like they don't know what to do with him unless he has some sort of love interest and it kind of shows. In S1 and S2, it was Nancy, in S3, it was Robin and now they're trying to come full circle which doesn't make any logical sense.

In all honesty, I think Nancy should just take a break from having a relationship all together, to finally let herself grieve Barb properly and Steve should have a partner that matches his emotional maturity that he's gained over the past seasons.

But that's all I'm gonna say, so thank you for coming to my TED talk and I hope you enjoyed <3

[clumsykleptorocketscientist]

Yeah I'm like so close to just deleting this like for real. I don't take this seriously like at all. I just spew my opinion because my friends don't watch the same shows I do. This is how I critically analyze the content I watch and scream my opinion to the void. My edit, was another way to get my point across because I listened to the counter points someone said, thought about them, and wanted to acknowledge them. HOWEVER, I didn't reblog and respond because I didn't want to draw attention to it and start this whole point counter point half discussion half argument thing. That's why I edited it, because I figured it would draw the least amount of attention. I guess I was wrong, and I guess my opinion is wrong too. Like I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but like chill, it's not life or death. Again I'm just trying to scream into the void here.

I think people are also misinterpreting what I'm trying to do here?? like put down Steve? no never? I love his character and I think he deserves the absolute best, I just don't see that with Nancy. Raising Jonathan up? IDK maybe? He has a lot of struggles and maybe, yeah, I like to see that in a character, but there are also things I dislike, especially his miscommunication issues, but I was just discussing the parts of the relationship with Jonathan that I think worked, and parts of the relationship with Steve I don't, so yeah sorry if that seemed that way.

Last like the line calling back Jonathan's words wasn't to diss Steve for being normal, it was just supposed to demonstrate the sentiment that Jonathan has and something I think Nancy would agree with. Steve isn't like normal, but I just haven't heard the same sentiment from them, just the six kids scenario. Steve didn't say perfect, but he didn't have to. What he's describing the nuclear family, the perfect family. I thought it was implied.

Maybe Jonathan and Nancy aren't the best either, okay cool, I will admit that is always a possibility. Their relationship isn't the best and if they can't work things out fine, but like okay? I'm not gonna try to chain Nancy to someone because I personally love the dynamic.

And yeah, maybe I am interpreting shit wrong here, but I'm interpreting just like you. Don't bother I'm screaming into the void.

Can I just say, whoever Nancy ends up with, be it Jonathan or Steve or neither, it is not what matters the most about her character. HOWEVER, I really don't think she should end up back with Steve. Steve is not a bad guy in the slightest. He is one of the best guys and characters in the show. But, he and Nancy want different things and I think that's really important to focus on, because it's why they don't work. Steve talks about how he had this fantasy with Nancy as a mother to his children, and that's okay that it's what he wants from a partner, but Nancy doesn't. Remember the argument her and Jonathan had all the way back in season 1 where Jonathan mentions her "rebelling" and then settling down with Steve just like her mother (which Ted and Karen Wheeler should NOT be your romantic goals). It's clear she doesn't want to do that. She literally wants to fight the government and the patriarchy, seen especially in season 2 where she wanted to "burn the Hawkins lab to the ground" and season 3 where she wanted to stick it to her douche bag bosses. Jonathan, I don't think he wants that perfect family either. He seems perfectly fine with helping Nancy do all her illegal shit. He's fine with standing on the side, holding the camera and telling her that she's doing amazing sweety. Of course, if Nancy ends up on her own, that's fine, although I LOVE Jancy especially for the dynamic of it's them against the world. I just don't think Steve and Nancy rekindling their romance is the best idea.

Quick side note, I like the idea of Ronance, but I personally love Jancy and, from the few bits I've seen, Robin and Vickie ( Rovickie? Unsure if the ship name).

Edit: Let me just address some things.

A.) I think Jonathan talking about going to the community college and not wanting Nancy to follow him and resent him wasn't saying he could ONLY see the relationship becoming loveless, he was just saying that the plan they had was not working for both of them. That he had to deviate, but it doesn't mean Nancy should and he was afraid she would and inadvertently ruin what they had. In a round bout way it's a preservation move. Going to a college because your girlfriend or boyfriend is, is never a good thing. Now, yes, Jonathan and Nancy's relationship seems strained. I don't want to say loveless, but strained. But Jonathan has been in California for awhile now so that's bound to happen. I do think there is still love there, it's just difficult to navigate and they're still technically teenagers ( in the show). I'm just saying strained, yes, but loveless, no.

B.) In season 2 Jonathan was very much willing to help her burn the lab to the ground. They knew it was dangerous, but they did it anyway and he supported and helped her. Season 3 while, yes, at first Jonathan did not want to rock the boat at first, it was because he needed that job. Think about where he comes from vs. where Nancy comes from. Really in that argument, I see both sides. Sexism bad but also he needs a job for his family. Anyway, he came around in the end, from what I remember, which again is difficult with the money decision. Again sexism is bad but he never dismissed that the bosses were douches, just that they needed to put up with it. Something I'm very sure he changed his mind about.

C.) When I say that Nancy doesn't want that, I mean that Nancy doesn't want to be like the perfect mom Steve's fantasy has her to be. I never meant no family, just no perfect family. That if they did have a family they would teach their children to make waves because " Nobody normal ever accomplished anything meaningful in this world."

D.) as for Steve wanting Nancy in his future and that's all that matters, yeah I may have misread that maybe, but the perfect mom scenario he painted just wasn't something I agree with. But, hey, that's just me.

[graysmiles-world]

i’m so sorry, but i don’t think byler is going to happen. i’m not saying this as someone who hates byler, ships mileven, etc etc but simply from someone analyzing the show and how they write the characters, it’s not going to happen.

the writers are great at writing character relationships, simply because they write the kids’ relationships as impacted by their parents. dustin doesn’t have a father, he finds one in steve. steve’s parents are distrustful of him, so he tries to find faults in his own relationship with nancy and accuses her of cheating on him. nancy’s and mike’s parents don’t love each other, and never show it - so they have difficulty with showing and saying that they love their partners in their relationships. el’s love language is words of affirmation. we’ve seen how she takes everything everyone says to heart, so hearing someone tell her they love her hits the most.

they’re not setting mike to realize that he doesn’t love el, rather to overcome his fear of verbalizing it.

and without even that as a challenge for mike this season, something else that the writers have is a very consistent pattern with future couples they write.

we are able to tell immediately when two ppl are going to get together. Jonathan and nancy, the whole max/lucas/dustin love triangle, mike and el, joyce and hopper (while this wasn’t seen until season 3 for sure - it was very obvious when they took them in that direction). the only deviant from this was steve and robin, which was on purpose because they used that same model and had us trust it into a “plot twist” with robin coming out.

but we don’t see that with mike and will. while there is definitely tension between them, the writers stick to a pattern that’s so blatantly obvious that it’s so difficult to ignore. (look at steve and nancy this season). if they were going to have them be together, it would be completely out of left field for so many people due to the fact that it is completely unheard of in stranger things to be written as such. and the reason they write these characters like this is because they want the fans to see the chemistry and support the ship, so if they’re not doing that for mike and will, it’s proof enough that all of this is queer baiting.

we got klanced, sorry.