#ST 1

[will80sbyers]

STRANGER THINGS | Jonathan Byers

[lemonycranberries]

honestly, if byler was a straight ship, people would've seen will x mike x el as a love triangle from s1. like, people would've seen mike and will as a possible ship from "it was a seven", and even moreso after mike spent the rest of the season like he did. if will was a girl, a single tender moment between them both alone would already be seen as an indication of a probable romance, and stuff like "i'm the only one who cares about will!" and the way he talks about will in general during the season, + the sheer desperation to find him and how he's singled out from the rest of his peers in that regard would most likely be seen as a confirmation of one. the story would 100% be seen as "this boy is obviously interested in his best friend, and suddenly a new girl appeared and he seems to maybe be interested in her as well. i wonder what will happen." (well, not exactly like that, because i genuinely believe mike was never really interested in el in a non-platonic way and that their entire relationship is built off others' expectations and mike's own internalized homophobia, which wouldn't exist in this case; but let's ignore that for now, since this is a hypothetical). s2 would make this even stronger, but would probably be seen as a case for people to root more for byler.

heteronormativity doesn't only make people expect straight romances where they aren't any, it blinds them to any romantic possibilities in pairings that aren't straight, when they would've seen them otherwise.

[spookystarfishzombie]

Parks & Recreation x Stranger Things

[jonathanbyersphd]

thinking about Jonathan Byers who cried himself to sleep, threw up seeing his little brother's dead body, thought his mom was going through an episode, planned a funeral, confronted his abuser, didn't want to tell his mom about monster hunting because she had been through enough, stole a gun, nearly shot a deer, pulled Nancy out of the upside down, stayed the night with her so she wouldn't be alone, went shopping for a bear trap & a pack of .48s to kill a monster and then wasn't confronted/checked on/ or asked about where he had been or what he had been doing until he was arrested for fighting Steve after he insulted the Byers family.

[ladyfromaspookyforest]

Wheeler/Byers Wardrobe Analysis

Season 1 Part 3

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4 Part 5

EPISODE 5

First things first, this episode contains Will’s funeral and everyone wears black and I’m not going to talk about all their outfits because that’s a waste of time. But why are Mike and Dustin wearing these colored jackets?

Dustin’s in a very dark denim jacket with accents of primary-colored plaid popping out. Mike is in green with blue and green plaid accents. Lucas is wearing all black. At this point, Mike is totally 100% convinced Will is alive and stuck in the Upside Down. Dustin is on board. Lucas appears to be the least convinced of the three that Will is still out there, so him appropriately dressed for the funeral in all black makes sense. I know this post is about the Wheelers and Byers, but I'm going to talk about Dustin for a minute because of how this jacket reflects Will.

Dustin cracks a joke about telling Will Jennifer Hayes was crying at his funeral, like he has no doubt they’ll have this chance. It’s cute. It’s a little naïve but it’s heartwarming. But Dustin’s light attitude combined with this bright pop of color is really fitting. But what stands out to me the most about this jacket is how the plaid emulates the outfit Will disappeared in.

Sometimes I wonder about how Dustin feels, having been the last person to see Will before he disappeared. Dustin asked him to race, then got exhausted and quit. And Will was taken into the Upside Down. It would seem only natural for Dustin to experience guilt over this, but it’s not something we ever see explored. I’d really like to see them finally talk about this in season 5, but that's a whole tangent. Maybe I'm reading too much into guilt we never see, but it feels to me like Dustin HAS to maintain this lightness, this ability to joke at his friend's funeral. Whether it be to cope with the guilt or to cope with the possibility that they might not get him back, I don't know. Regardless, this similarity of the plaid on Dustin's jacket to Will's last outfit visually demonstrates that Dustin is focused on Will's DISAPPEARANCE and not his death, as an appropriate black jacket would.

Mike is convinced Will is alive, but he remains pretty somber through this scene. Much more so than Dustin, so the darker shade is fitting rather than the bright pop of color. But Mike has still covered his black clothes with green (blue + yellow?) as a way of showing that he isn’t really here to mourn. His mind is on Will, but he hasn’t lost him yet, though he doesn't have this capacity to joke like Dustin does.

After the funeral, El’s still wearing this nasty dress and you know what else she’s doing in this episode? LYING. This dress (Nancy's) shows us that she is not being herself and she deceives the party. Mike’s in his little Byers-y coat again as they hunt for the gate to find Will, and beneath it, he’s wearing blue, red, and yellow stripes on a grey shirt. Sensing a trend.

OKAY! So here’s where things start to get really interesting with Nancy’s color scheme. It’s the same. It’s still red and blue but rather than the extremely diluted soft pink and baby blue she’s been wearing, she’s now in brick red and a darker blue. It’s VASTLY different from the way she’s been dressing and yet they’re still in the same color family. There was only one other time we've seen Nancy in these darker shades: the day after she slept with Steve. She wore a light grey sweater with stripes in these colors: brick red and darker blue. That outfit was the first hint at this one. She was already starting to doubt her choices, starting to feel guilty. And here, the guilt has completely taken over. She feels wrecked about what happened to Barb and so, like her mother in the previous episode, she darkens her color palette in an attempt to react with appropriate gravity to the situation.

On the other side of things, Jonathan is wearing not one but two patterned articles of clothing. For the first time. He’s still wearing his own color palette, but he’s got a striped sweater and a checked flannel on. This feels like a small nod to Nancy while her shearling jacket is a bit of a nod to him. Their style is very minutely reaching towards one another.

Let’s talk about STEVE again. He’s come to apologize. He’s wearing green and navy, darker colors than he’s been wearing around Nancy lately. He's been wearing lighter shades of blue, matching her, but here he's in dark shades. In my last post, I talked about the visual of Nancy/Steve and El/Mike dressed in pastel pink/baby blue and how overly gendered and domestic it was. Here, Steve has dropped that. The last time he wore a darker blue was the day of the party when he wore a teal sweater. This scene above is potentially the most likable Steve has been so far this season. And I would argue that the party was another instance of Steve being likable. He feels genuine in both of these situations. He doesn’t feel like he’s being influenced by his shitty friends or worrying about his parents. And the colors of his outfits in these scenes are similar.

Apologies everyone. Trigger warning: L0nnie Byers. So this ding dong showed up at the end of the last episode and now he’s hangin’ out, trying to comfort Joyce. I’ve included a shot of the two of them from this episode and one of Lonnie from his first appearance in episode 2 as well, just so we can take a peek at what he usually wears. Button-downs at least partially undone over a white tank is the norm.

But then later after the funeral, he dresses like this. Lonnie-styled Wheeler colors.

I was actually kind of taken aback by this one, but it makes sense. Lonnie is fixing up the house, talking about how their family has been ruined. He’s calling Joyce “babe.” He’s putting on a complete show of being part of the family unit. He’s wearing his white button-down from the funeral in this scene, unbuttoned in Lonnie fashion, but the outfit prior to unbuttoning and rolling the sleeves resembles the sort of thing Ted Wheeler would be wearing at the dinner table. Bland office attire/bland funeral attire. Then he showers, comes back, and is in pastel stripes. Joyce confronts him about the money and they argue about how Lonnie just wants to use it for Jonathan to go to college. Lonnie is putting on this I Care About This Family front and it’s extremely telling that he does it in blue pastel stripes. This says that while he’s behaving like he’s a family man, he clearly isn’t, and the Wheelers, constantly behaving like the perfect family, are in fact not all that happy or put-together either.

Joyce is wearing this maroon turtleneck this episode. It’s darker than what we’ve seen her in and it’s also the first time she’s changed her clothes since the first episode (funeral getup earlier in the episode aside). She’s falling a little bit for Lonnie’s manipulation here as she just sort of needs someone to help her pick the pieces back up and he was quite literally just there. She lets him talk to her about how this could all be in her head and up until now, we’ve seen her shut down anyone who makes this kind of suggestion, but she also tells him not to take down the lights. She hasn’t given up. She doesn’t fully believe Will’s gone, but she’s conflicted and she’s starting to seem a bit hopeless. This dark top is a reflection of that, as well as the fact that it has a lot less character than what she usually wears.

Then she and Lonnie fight. He tells her she’s a shitty mom and she’s crazy and she yells at him and kicks him out. And in the next scene with Joyce, Hopper comes over and tells her she was right all along.

Here’s Hopper this episode. He’s totally unhinged. This is peak Unhinged Hopper for season 1. He breaks into the lab, beats people up, threatens them at gun point, answers his door with a gun looking paranoid as all Hell, rampages through his house looking for bugs, then shows up to the Byers residence to do the same. The sweaty undershirt is a fantastic way to show us just HOW unhinged he is.

The moment when Hopper showing up at the Byers house to unscrew every single one of Joyce’s Christmas lights is meeting her on her level. The little exchange between his officers after they come to see him is really indicative of this.

“Is he off his meds again?” “He’s been spending too much time with Joyce Byers.”

So I love this scene of him coming to Joyce in general because he’s the first person to tell her he believes her. This is huge. And having it take place right after Joyce kicked Lonnie out for saying she's off her rocker emphasizes the difference between the two. It shows us: this is what Joyce does NOT need followed by this is what Joyce DOES need. And the clothes are relevant because what Lonnie is wearing does not fit into Joyce and her family's lifestyle. What Hopper is wearing does.

As Hopper goes hunting for the truth like a maniac, he’s in civilian clothes for obvious reasons. He can’t roll up to a bar trying to trick the guy who found the body into giving him info in his uniform. But beyond practicality, I think putting Hopper in civilian clothes signals to us that this is no longer a job for him. He’s clearly not on real, legal police business anymore. He starts trespassing and getting violent and going so far as to cut open what is most likely a child's body just because there is a chance he can save Joyce's son. It's not police work anymore. As for the outfits themselves, this screams I Live in the Woods Alone. I don't have a whole lot to say about it, but I will be coming back to it to compare with other outfits Hopper wears later.

*cough* Anyway, I swear the next one will be shorter. It's because I went on Dustin and Hopper tangents. I got too invested in the Jopper moment.

[steviesnailbat]

There are few things that take me out of a fic faster than Steve reprimanding the kids for their language. Did we watch the same show? Have you heard the way Steve talks? The way he addresses the kids? The way the kids talk around him? Steve Harrington doesn't give a fuck what comes out of Dustin Henderson's mouth.

[hypezombies]

12yo will running terrified through the woods, hearing voices call his name from everywhere but not being able to see or reach anybody. Imagine him screaming "im here, please help me" at the top of his little lungs with tears streaming down his face

[magic-of-camelot]

[k-wame]

PAUL NEWMAN as Brick Pollitt Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958) dir. Richard Brooks

[mysillystsideblog]

I did it! I plotted out all of my Season 1 rewrite...now I just have to...write it...

[orangemoustache]

if they'd met earlier in their careers. (inspired by that one edit of will in a patrol officer's uniform)

[spookystarfishzombie]

[strwbrryfire]

IM BOTH THE KILLER & THE FINAL GIRL

SO WHO ARE YOU ?

you first — paramore

pst my dumbass forgot to tag @drivestraight this is from their fic eat them alive!! go read it for clear skin <3

[elyasdoodles]

Flash Warning!

The demogorgon… it got meh.

[ladyfromaspookyforest]

Wheeler/Byers Wardrobe Analysis

Season 1 Part 5

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Episode 8 - I've already talked about what everyone wears for the majority of this episode. This post is almost entirely about the epilogue (Christmas) outfits.

For starters, Steve and Nancy. And to be blunt, Steve looks like a fucking dweeb.

He and Nancy are somewhat matching: her top, his pants/her skirt, his sweater. And if you've read any of my other outfit analysis posts, you'll know that pink and blue is Wheeler Conformity. So the fact that Nancy has reverted from the purple she was wearing earlier in the episode back to pink and blue now that she's back with Steve demonstrates that she is playing along again. As for Steve...like I said. Fucking Dweeb. He's clearly playing at a role here too.

Mike is wearing his usual blue, but notably, this shirt contains yellow as well.

Will's back now and Mike is wearing his color, which isn't unusual. His outfits often contain yellow detailing. But what's super interesting about it in this scene in particular is that Will himself isn't wearing any yellow at all.

I've already finished my season 2 watchthrough and grabbed all my screenshots. I'm just behind on blabbing about them. But because of this, I already know that from this scene on/from the moment he was rescued from the Upside Down on, Will does not wear yellow again until the Mind Flayer is out of him. At the Snow Ball. So here he is in blue, brown, cream, and rust, all colors that fit into the Byers color scheme, but none that are truly his own. I LOVE this costuming detail. It's so subtle and pretty much impossible to pick up when watching for the first time before you know that yellow is Will's color, but on a rewatch, this knocked me out. He isn't himself.

Karen is also not wearing her usual colors, which at first I found odd until I realized she is perfectly matching the cake she is decorating. LOL Karen. So she broke out of her pink and blue to be festive.

Jonathan is in a very basic Jonathan look. Brown t-shirt, flannel, jacket we've seen him in a lot. But he and Will are actually wearing all of the same colors. They match perfectly. BROTHERLY UNITY.

Joyce's outfit here is a bit bonkers. She also fits into the color scheme, but what is this print? This is actually the first print any of the characters I've been discussing has ever worn in the show aside from plaid and stripes. Which makes it really stand out. It's clear from this outfit that Joyce is feeling extremely joyful. For obvious reasons.

That's it for Christmas looks, but I also wanted to touch on a flashback that takes place during this episode.

I couldn’t get any good screenshots of Hopper’s outfit. They’re all blurry and you can mostly only see his jacket, so trust me that it’s a light blue, white, and orange checker print button-down. Not a flannel. It's very put-together and completely unlike anything we've seen him in before. They're colors Hopper has already worn this season, but the style is much more like something we'd see the Wheelers wearing. And speaking of the Wheelers, tell me Sarah’s outfit doesn’t look like something Holly would wear. Better yet, tell me it doesn’t look like something Holly HAS worn.

Down to the pigtails. This very blatant outfit parallel is really the extra nudge to show us that Hopper's old life reflected the same sort of normalcy that the Wheelers' does. And he has since broken out of that normalcy.

Aaaaand that's a wrap for season 1!

Season 2: Mike & Will

[steviesnailbat]

Ok guys

There is a right answer here