#the can’t read comment just kinda reeks of ableism to me

[thestobingirlie]

Another thing with the Steve's intelligence thing that gets me is most of it has little or no basis in canon?

This whole "Steve can't read" thing, he literally does in episode one. He's reading Nancy's flashcards without any trouble, and they're not just in a basic easy to read print, she's written them in cursive.

And the whole thing about Steve being so bad at school and academically challenged. Yeah, that comes a bit from the not getting into college thing, but that was after he'd had a serious concussion that would have taken weeks or months to heal. But he mentions getting a C- in a class that Nancy, who is one of if not the most academically intelligent characters, described as impossible. And yeah, a C- isn't an amazing grade, but it's not just scraping by either.

i think it largely comes from the duffers struggling with (and the audience not understanding) the difference between show, not tell.

because we’re told by other characters that steve is an idiot. but we’re shown that he did average in school, he graduated, he’s perceptive and notices things the ‘smarter’ characters don’t, he has a great intuition and he knows to listen to it.

some people seem to just struggle with actually picking things up like that, and they just take what we’re told at face value, with no consideration about whether the characters are joking, or their personal biases.

but yeah, steve can fucking read lmao. like, i love the dyslexic hcs as much as the next person, but it’s super weird to try to use that as an insult to make eddie seem smarter.