thinking about a no upside down au steddie fic where steve and eddie run into each other years after moving away from hawkins, and eddie remembers steve and his fall from grace as king, and is kind of intrigued to see what kind of person he is now

and steve doesn’t remember him at all at first, because, look, eddie changed his hair again, and steve’s had a few head injuries (no upside down but i imagine he still went thru some shit with the party and with robin), and he didn’t really think about eddie in high school anyway, and he’s trying to forget about hawkins as much as possible (besides the kiddos, but they’re all moved out for college now, anyway) (obviously he lives with robin)

but steve is different now, happier, more open, flirts with guys, flirts with EDDIE, and eddie….. well, he wants to know more! and he tells steve he knows him from hawkins, and steve’s sunny little smile flickers a little, but he just apologizes for not remembering him and mentions he has some memory problems

and they get to know each other, and eventually as eddie tells him more (and maybe with the help of some yearbooks) steve remembers eddie. and. well. they like getting to know each other. and they like each other. and then they get together

eventually they’ve been together for a while, and eddie thinks he wants to maybe introduce steve to wayne, and he mentions he’s going to go back to hawkins for a long weekend (as he’s done a couple times) and this time he’d like steve to join him

and again steve’s sunny smile flickers a bit, but he says he’d love to meet eddie’s uncle, and… they go to hawkins. and it goes well— meeting wayne, at least, but steve seems a little on edge the whole time they’re there, tense when they drive in, fidgety when they go to the grocery store, et cetera. eddie thinks maybe steve is nervous about staying with the man who raised eddie, which is ridiculous, because wayne LOVES steve.

it’s not til they leave the town altogether that steve relaxes, and eddie realizes it wasn’t “meeting the parents” but rather going back to hawkins. and speaking of meeting the parents, steve didn’t ever bring his own up, even though eddie knew they still lived in hawkins. and the way steve glanced around whenever they went in public, like he was scared of getting recognized

and he asks about it, and steve doesn’t really want to talk about it, but he gives eddie snippets of it. people he wanted to leave behind in hawkins, memories that resurfaced, things he wants to forget

eddie goes back to see wayne sometimes, and the first time he doesn’t know whether to ask steve to come, so he just mentions he’s thinking about going to hawkins for some weekend and steve immediately starts making plans with him as if the invite is implicit. they go back to hawkins several more times, steve still tense and pent up the whole time they’re there

over time steve reveals more and more to eddie. everything that made hawkins hell for him, from the things he himself did in high school to the things people did to him. stuff tommy and carol and billy said to him. some of it is just typical high school bullshit (and oh, the nancy thing.) some of it is the tragedies steve went through, the horrors he had to protect his kids from. the injuries he sustained. more generally the homophobia that permeated the whole town, keeping steve from being himself. the lack of support in the indiana public school system for a high school senior who’s had two concussions and gone through incredible trauma.

his parents. the reason why steve’s mail is addressed to ‘steve buckley’ now, not ‘steve harrington’.

(that doesn’t come out until much, much later, and eddie is kicking himself for ever suggesting steve come back to hawkins.)

eddie, who hardly had an easy time of it in hawkins, is absolutely blown away by what steve had gone through in the same town, right under his nose. the entire persona that steve was trying to leave behind — the cool as a cucumber, unaffected, douchey mask he wore to hide all that he had endured. the head injuries. the emotional tragedies he had gone through. the way he had to be the rock for the kids even as he went through the same things as them.

he tries to tell steve they never have to go back to hawkins again, and steve is having none of it. he tells steve wayne can come visit them in their new city, and steve thinks that’s completely unfair to the man who had raised eddie, seriously, you’re going to make him come all the way up here?

and well i don’t know exactly what the ending is but steve is so stubborn about trying to love hawkins because it was eddie’s home and he wants to be able to go see wayne because wayne deserves to see his kid and eddie deserves to see his uncle and steve doesn’t want to be the problem :(

Why do you think so many fans, even those who wouldn’t be considered casual viewers of the show think that those who romantically ship Mike and Will are kidding themselves? Sometimes I feel like I’m missing something, like we’re not even watching the same show. From my perspective, it’s beyond me to how someone could look at Mike and El’s romantic relationship, especially after s3, and think it’s proper.

Great question. I’ve touched on this issue a time or two before, but perhaps never in such a direct manner. I think there’s several things in play here that lead to the more “mainstream” fans considering it crazy when Mike and Will are seen as a romantic pairing. I think these same causes also lead to fans missing how improper, to use your terms, Mike and El’s relationship is. Some of these things are more valid than others, but they’re all valid in the sense that they are real, meaning that people aren’t just being petty. There are those out there who are petty, of course, but I think it’s unfair to cast all fans we disagree with in with that group.

First, let’s get this out of the way, heteronormativity maintains quite the stranglehold on American culture. Yes, we’ve come a long, long way. Gay characters and couples are portrayed in a much more positive light compared to twenty or more years ago. Still, they continue to be treated as a shock, either in behavior or reveal. By that I mean that these characters are either blatantly obvious or a complete surprise. There is seldom any middle ground here. This is, in my opinion anyway, a remnant of the transition of gay characters from caricatures to genuine characters. Fans, American fans at least, want to seem accepting to gay people, but they also want it crystal clear that gay people are different from them. To quote Homer Simpson from Homer’s Phobia, a 1997 episode of The Simpsons, “I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my homosexuals flaming!”

The 90s were a time when gay people were starting to be seen as decent people instead of deviants. They still weren’t equal, though, and were often used as props and novelties. The Gay Best Friend trope came out of this idea that gay people were fun and exotic, and many would also use them as a way to show how progressive they were. It was a step in the right direction, perhaps, but gay people were still not seen as equals.

Why is this important? Well, maybe it’s not, but not only is Stranger Things the product of two brothers who grew up in that era of thinking, but so is the largest segment of the viewership. Most Stranger Things viewers fall in the 18-29 and 30-44 demographics. I, myself, fall in the latter category. While we all laughed at Homer’s idiotic homophobia, we all knew deep down that we were similarly taken in by stereotypes and heternormativity. That is to say, that being straight was the normal, expected way of things, and gay people was something neat and trendy, but that only happened to other people.

This mindset persists today, though it does seem to be slowly eroding. We still expect most characters to be straight. I suppose, in some ways, this makes sense. The majority of people in America (and likely the world) still identify as heterosexual, so, technically, statistically, being LGBT is “abnormal.” Still, the degree to which I see LGBT people being open about their identities sometimes catches me off guard when I stop to think about it. It’s something that was unimaginable when I was a teenager, barring being in an identified gay club or neighborhood. The fact that it catches me off guard, despite identifying as bisexual, is proof that those mechanisms of my upbringing persist.

I am able to see the romantic undertones of Mike and Will’s relationship because I’ve been there. I’ve been in love with a same-sex friend and been afraid to say anything about it. I’ve agonized over whether it was real or just a phase. I’ve struggled with hiding it. I’ve tried to keep my feelings hidden while also letting them slip out in controlled bursts of not-quite-platonic gestures. I’ve even wondered how I could be “like that” when I acted and dressed just like any other guy I knew. Despite living it, I still saw “it” as something foreign and different. It’s only because I lived it that I can see through the heteronormativity and recognize homosexual love in “straight” TV and movie characters. I’m sorry, but Poe Dameron was definitely into Finn, and Finn, at the very least, idolized Poe, and you can’t convince me otherwise, no matter what Disney tried to pull by giving them both inconsequential female love interests.

(Christ, this is turning into a real rant here, oh well, the bottle has been opened.)

So, yeah, heteronormativity basically tells us that if characters are gay then they’ll act a “certain way” so we know. Mike and Will don’t do this, so, to most fans, they aren’t gay. Heteronormativity and pop culture tropes also tell us that male and female leads are meant to end up together. Now, in defense of other fans, the Duffers do play around with all sorts of tropes, so it’s understandable that people would expect things to be just as formulaic in Stranger Things. The problem these fans don’t see, however, is that the Duffers seem to like subverting the tropes.

For those of you who aren’t aware, subverting a trope means that we are led to believe that we’re being shown something we’ve seen time and time again, only to end up with something else. Season 1 was so big on this that I fell in love with the show. Adults Are Useless? Joyce did not sit around while the kids solved the mystery. Hopper wasn’t the ineffectual drunk cop I was expecting him to be. Jerk Jock? No, Steve is actually a nice, if dopey, guy once he stops letting his friends influence him. Virgin Survivor? No, sex is not seen as a vice needing to be punished, so Barb dies instead of Nancy. The Duffers know what we expect to see, they tease us with it, then pull the rug out from under us.

So, what do we expect in terms of romance? We expect our opposite sex leads to pair up. This would mean Mike & El and Joyce & Hopper as our kid and adult lead pairs, respectively. Mike & El, in particular, seems to be something they’ve tantalized fans with, both in the show and marketing. We can look at that relationship, though, and see that it’s not built on much. That’s somewhat in line with many kid relationships, so, really, it’s expected that it would similarly fizzle out as those relationships generally do. These are two kids who knew each other for a week, then spent a year apart. If anything, they’re more in love with the ideas of each other they created in that time apart than anything else. This could explain why their relationship was so shallow once they’re together again. We all experienced this type of crush or relationship before, the one where we don’t really know the person so we create a version of them in our minds. This version often clashes with the real one once we get to know them. Still, we’ve all been there.

This brings me to my final point: identification. We identify with characters when we watch TV shows and movies. I dare say most, if not all, of us can identify with these kids getting these crushes and early relationships. The youngest fans probably identify even more since they’re currently in those stages of life. I’m sure many young fans identify with either Mike or El, and perhaps fantasize about being with the other (or both?). Whether we realize it or not, we’re casting our own wants and needs onto the characters. Some fans want Mike and El together because it validates their own feelings and experiences.

I know that I certainly identify with Mike and Will through my own teenage experiences. I identify with other characters for more mature, adult reasons, as well. Yes, a part of me ships Mike and Will because of this. The difference here, compared to other ships I’ve gotten behind, is that this actually seems real. There is canon evidence that Mike and Will appear to have non-platonic feelings for each other, feelings built over a very long friendship. Mike legit seems like the closeted, possibly not even aware, gay kid going through the motions of a straight relationship. Will seems like he’s actively suppressing any romantic urges because he’s spent his life being bullied for being queer. They’ve been written to have more genuinely romantic moments than Mike and El have had. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, the writers will have some explaining to do if they don’t get together. Many fans will miss it, due to the reasons mentioned above, but it’s all been laid there before us. Nobody should be surprised, but they will be.

What are your thoughts on stancy in S2? More specifically the Halloween party scene?

Alright, so. St*ncy overall is... a very rough part of S2. To this day, I can’t understand why the fuck they chose to handle it the way they did. The whole thing makes Nancy look bad, it makes Jonathan look kind of bad too, and it absolutely beats Steve to an emotional pulp. This post is going to be so long I’m so sorry dklnckn...

It’s canon that Nancy wanted Jonathan the entire time that she was dating Steve. Almost a full year! Steve is planning his future around Nancy, talking about how he wouldn’t mind not going to college if it meant he could be around for her senior year. It’s clear that Steve thinks he and Nancy are in it for the long haul, which is reasonable considering that they’ve 1. Been together for a year and 2. Fought a monster together. Steve loves her, and he thinks that she loves him too. 

He goes to dinner with Barb’s parents for her every week, even though he doesn’t know them and barely knew Barb, even though he’s incredibly uncomfortable, but he does it to support her. When she has a rough moment in the library because of her grief, he pulls her into a private space, reminds her that talking about it in public could literally get them killed, holds her and comforts her, and then basically tells her that he knows it’s stupid to go to a Halloween party and act like normal teenagers when they know what they know, but it’s all they really can do, and he thinks they might as well try to be normal. He’s not belittling her feelings. He’s not ignoring her trauma. He’s just focused on making sure they don’t attract government attention and on trying to enjoy their lives as best as they can. 

Now, the party comes in. Nancy is being kinda shitty to Steve before she gets drunk. Billy and some other guys come up to Steve and start insulting him about the whole “King Steve” thing and how he’s a loser now, and Nancy just... walks away. She doesn’t even try to pull Steve away, tell them to knock it off, anything. Steve’s getting bullied, and she just leaves. Fine, whatever. Steve’s a big boy, she doesn’t have to try and fight his battles. Then he follows her over to the punch bowl, realizes that she’s chugging that shit like it’s going out of style, and he’s like “Hey, slow down.” Nancy, still sober, says something along the lines of (can’t remember exact words) “You wanted to get drunk like stupid teenagers!” before chugging down her cup of punch. 

This is why I brought up the dinners with Barb’s parents. Steve’s been doing this thing for Nancy every single week for a year. He’s kind to Barb’s parents, he does his best to make conversation and be polite, even when Nancy isn’t around. Then, he asks her to go to one party with him (that she wanted to go to as well, indicated by the fact that she enthusiastically pleaded with Jonathan to come and the fact that she and Steve had been working on their costumes for a long time). She responds by throwing his words back in his face, intentionally getting drunk at least partially to spite him. What the fuck?

Nancy’s grieving. She’s a teenager. She feels guilty about Barb’s death and blames Steve for it as well as herself, and she tries to suppress these feelings until she just can’t anymore. I understand that. All of this stuff honestly makes for an interesting plot! However, it falls apart the second she goes off with Jonathan, and it stops being the story of a girl struggling with complex survivor’s guilt and starts being the story of a girl who dated a boy she never loved for a full year while harboring feelings for someone else.

Steve and Nancy have an argument outside of the gym. He’s bitchy, tells her to go ask her other boyfriend what happened last night, and asks her to prove that she didn’t mean their love was “bullshit” by telling him she loves him. She can’t say it, and he tells her that she thinks she’s bullshit. Did they break up? I personally think it’s a bad argument and not a breakup, seeing as nobody actually said “we’re over” or anything, but you could argue that Nancy interpreted it as a breakup if you’d like to be charitable. However, I’m pretty sure that later on at Murray’s, Nancy and Jonathan refer to Steve as her boyfriend, so... Nancy cheats on Steve. Perhaps the cheating would be understandable as a result of her suppressed trauma and emotions surrounding Barb and Steve and everything, a moment of weakness, EXCEPT for the fact that she confirmed to Jonathan the night before that she waited for him and has essentially liked him the entire time. That, in my opinion, pushes it from “mistake made as a result of heightened emotions after a bad fight” to “opportunity taken that she’s wanted for a long time.” It’s a fucked-up writing decision that makes Nancy and Jonathan both look bad, as not only do they both know Nancy has a boyfriend, they also both literally owe said boyfriend their lives, and they still choose to sleep together.

The whole “thing” with J*ncy is shared trauma, right? They have the matching scars. Shared trauma, that’s “the real shit” according to Murray. But... what trauma do they share, exactly, that isn’t also shared by Steve? Steve was just as much “as fault” for Barb’s death as Nancy (of course neither of them were remotely responsible, but they were both there and they both had sex while Barb was dying out back in the pool, so). Steve fought the Demogorgon with them. Steve actually stood in front of both of them and held the Demogorgon off, protecting them! Is the “shared trauma” meant to be losing someone to the Upside Down? Will survived, but even if you do count him as a “loss,” then Joyce, Mike, Lucas, and Dustin all share that trauma, too. 

None of that really even matters, because the concept of shared trauma as the basis of a relationship is a mess that the show literally dismantles themselves in the form of, you guessed it, St*ncy!

Steve and Nancy both know about the Upside Down. Steve and Nancy both ignorantly had sex as Barb died, and now have to live with that knowledge. Nancy lost her best friend, and Steve has to wake up and go to sleep right next to the place Barb died every single day. They both fought the Demogorgon. They were both told by the government that they absolutely cannot tell anyone about what happened, and they will most likely be killed if they do. This shared trauma is what makes Nancy lash out at Steve, it’s what makes her get wasted, it’s what makes her blame him for Barb’s death, and it’s presumably what prevents her from loving him even though she clearly wants to (why else stay with him for a year?). So why should we, the viewers, accept that J*ncy’s shared trauma will provide the basis for a healthy relationship when the very same thing caused St*ncy to crumble?

So Nancy and Jonathan sleep together. They come back, Steve can tell what happened, and he says that it’s fine. I think that we’re supposed to take this as character development, or something? When he first thinks that Nancy has cheated on him with Jonathan, he responds by publicly shaming them and insulting Jonathan, but now, when Nancy ACTUALLY cheats on him, he takes it lying down, says that it’s fine when it clearly isn’t, and... this is a good thing?

We already know Steve is a better person now. We knew it back in S1, when he cleaned off the movie theater sign, went to Jonathan’s house to apologize, and then literally risked his own life to save Nancy and Jonathan! We knew it when he went to dinner at the Hollands’ with Nancy. We knew it when he ignored Billy’s jabs during basketball and at the party and let the insults roll off his back instead of allowing himself to be goaded into a fight. We knew it when he went to Nancy’s house with flowers to apologize, when he helped Dustin look for Dart, when he fought off the Demodogs, etc, etc.

I’m getting off topic, but my point is that St*ncy is a mess in S2 for a lot of reasons, but the way it ends is the worst part. Steve, for whom infidelity is a big fucking deal due to his parents’ strained relationship as a result of his own father’s cheating, gets cheated on by Nancy. Nancy never properly apologizes to him. They never really talk about it. Steve says it’s fine, his heart is broken, and Nancy and Jonathan are happily in love and never have to own up to the fact that their relationship began as infidelity.

The whole S2 St*ncy narrative essentially functions to grind Steve’s heart into the dirt while making Nancy and Jonathan, protagonists who we are presumably intended to like and root for, seem like terrible people. I have so many more thoughts about St*ncy, but most of those are already up in some other posts, so this is it, I guess! Thanks for asking!