#look if YOU thought you were raising Steve circa S1

[c-is-for-circinate]

SAY IT LOUDER.

what do you think Steves relationship with his parents is like?? we don't really get much from the show and even what we do get is very vague?

i actually have many thoughts on this LOL!!

okay. i think like, occam's razor he probably just has a probably perfectly standard of the times, if strained, relationship, particularly with his dad and the little background we do get points to this and with that you can extrapolate more if you choose to. i think his dad expects things of him to make something of himself that are probably typical to most parents but as we are all people With Parents it's easy to relate this to a little more of a sympathetic interpretation especially considering we only DO have everything filtered through steve who is, fundamentally, a teenage boy to young adult who doesn't like his dad.

like we know that a) his mom doesn't trust his dad to not cheat so follows him on business trips and steve himself knows this and talks about it in sort of a flippant way so indicate he's both used to it and has probably complained about it before ("cuz like, y'know how she doesn't trust him") and b) his dad is an "asshole" LOL. i think this in particular lends a different light towards that whole st/ancy break up in a way that was definitely i would say, hand of god, intentionally. steve's father cheats on his mom and it brings strain to their relationship and steve finds himself potentially cheated on in season 1 which was the entire source of the tension there and potentially actually cheated on in season 2. i think it's significant!!! that the entire "love triangle" thing goes hand in hand with the pre-established oh You know how my mom doesn't trust my dad [to not cheat]?

additionally, TO ME, i also think it's significant just HOW stressed out he got about the very idea of even being caught by his parents (particularly underage drinking/"partying"). and i know it was probably only MEANT to be like a normal sort of "oh god my parents are gonna kill me!!!!!" thing that all teenagers do but all i CAN do is empathise with someone who just seems genuinely scared of the authority figures in his life to the point it's all that consumed his thoughts and he ended up sort of bulldozing over nancy's more pressing issue. like, speaking as someone with shit parents who has been in an abusive situation their entire life this can totally be normal behaviour for sure but it can also point to something larger beneath the surface.

by itself these little things are definitely just maybe a bit of heavy handed extrapolation but to fill in the spaces between the gaps, which is like the entire point of character analysis imo, steve is also someone who shows up every like 8 months to a year beaten and bloody and there has never been any indication of this being some sort of... issue? and how the only time we even see him like bandaged up and Taken Care Of is when the kids put those bandaids on him themselves. there is no throw away comment of "my parents would kill me" again, no indication that him getting a concussion like 3 years in a row had literally any effect on his life via his supposedly domineering parents. which no one is expecting!!! but it's the absence of it framed by everything else that i think people tend to see a certain narrative being told.

i also know plenty of people point out how after starcourt he's also by himself though tbf for that one so are like, robin and nancy but i understand the point people are trying to make due to the other context steve gives. it gets deliberarely established in season 3 when he overshare-complains to robin about not even getting into a technical college and his dad "made" him get a job at scoops, following season 2 where he tells nancy he could just get a job with his dad i.e. that wouldn't be a problem. i do think from my perspective this could again be a totally normal set of problems any young adult faces and your parents wanting you to get into college and have a nice job let alone any job seems to be a pretty standard thing for suburbanite usamericans. it could also definitely point to the profile they seem to have set up for steve's father where beyond being an assumed ted wheeler suburban type he has 1. an important enough job that it requires multiple business trips, 2. it pays well enough for a large house with interior decoration, a pool and a BMW i assume for steve's sixteenth birthday and 3. it's a job that includes "adult stuff" which i can't quite remember but was something along the lines of dental or insurance or something LOL. i think a certain kind of man tends to BE your average rich white CEO father and pressuring steve to like, come work with him get into college get good grades don't party be responsible ("how many times DAD it's not DRUGS it's only marijuana" being a funny enough throwaway line but also means it was definitely at the very least enough of an issue between them that they've argued multiple times about it 😭) and if all that fails having him get a job does come off a bit controlling and uneasy.

NOW!!!! on the other hand i think people do tend to just go absolutely insane with all this and both act like this is canonical knowledge when it is just an interpretation albeit one with i should hope a bit of nuance. like i've seen people claim someone giving him a nice & normal set of parents was "erasing abuse" like girl what!!!!! 😭. also not to make a sweeping generation cuz you can't really know but i do think it's fairly obvious when someone who isn't an abuse victim attempts to depict this kind of thing. and additionally the way it tends to come up in an uncomfortable, persisting way in st/eddie works in particular always frames steve as a poor little broken boy who needs a knight in shining armour to swoop in and save him but the infantilisation of steve harrington in fanon will persist until the earth crumbles away i fear!!!!

i think you can totally depict these things with complexity and care, in a way that is believable or nuanced and not just like an excuse to get them out of the picture so they can do the avengers house thing at steve's place LMFAO. i also think people tend to go suuuuper insane with the prescribed set of bigotry they give his parents to the point you just Also come off insane and homophobic ... like the way i've seen people time and time again BRAG about the homophobic hate crimes they're putting him through at the hands of his own parents is genuinely sickening. i just think u can tell when someone is doing this in a genuine way and when someone is doing it as an excuse for angstpain poor broken steve... <3 just my thoughts

following that i think it's sweet when people portray his parents in a more positive way!!! it makes me happy. i don't think it's callous or sweeping aside these important issues that crop up around it at all lol. i think the st/eddie fanbase in particular have a problem with creative stagnation that leads to people getting so frustrated to an overexposure of repeated tropes and mindsets and this is definitely one of them for me. parents are people and relationships are complex!!!! i think it's a far more interesting way to interpret his parents TBH!!!! or even his mother who seems to get looped into all this when, logically, she seems to be the secondary victim, and the only thing steve has said about her in particular is "she's well respected around town" while trusting her enough to put his MOM on his resume which i think is a sweet thing LOL. complexity is good!!!! and again this is all just my interpretation even though i do think i'm a little qualified to give it 😭