#jonathan byers did nothing wrong in s3 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

reikunrei · 1 year

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got some little (big) brain worms thinking abt Heroes popping up twice in Stranger Things and how i would not be surprised if it shows up for a third, and probably reading into it a little too much but hey! that’s what this website’s for, babeyyy!

not sure where exactly i’m going with this, but i think i’ll figure it out as i go along. overall, i think the song works very well for the whole show, and many of the lyrics i feel work very well for El’s character, but i’m especially interested in tying it to Mike and Will, too.

i started thinking about this because i remember specifically when it plays in s3, they cut out the lines “And we kissed as though nothing could fall / And the shame, the shame was on the other side” in the final verse, so i wanted to go back and see exactly when that happens, and compare it to when the song shows up in s1, and see if it’s founded to believe that it’ll show up a third time in s5.

obviously, a good deal of the songs in the show are likely for the purpose of nostalgia and fitting the era, but for the big emotional scenes, they have to be considered very closely, I think.

under the cut because uuuuh i don’t know how to be succinct :3 be advised, a lot of this contains endless rambling and tangents bc I wanted to write stuff down as I worked it out in my brain

first! i want to break down what exactly happens in each of these scenes and my immediate thoughts/interpretations.

Heroes in s1e3:

it starts playing just as the kids roll up on their bikes behind the fire engine to stay hidden from all the cops.

“i will be king” plays as they pull Will’s “body” out of the water and we and everybody else realizes that, yes, this is the Byers kid.

Mike says, “it’s not Will. it can’t be” before/during “though nothing will drive us away.” in this moment, Mike (and the others) don’t want to believe it’s Will because not even death will drive them apart.

“Oh, we can be heroes” starts when Lucas says that “it’s really Will” and when Mike snaps at El. she wanted to be the hero, she wanted to help these boys find their friend, she still wants to help them find their friend, she wants to be the hero, but Mike isn’t having it anymore. he has the understandable knee-jerk reaction of getting angry because he’s so upset thinking he’s lost one of his best friends in the world forever, believing that El deliberately ran them around in a circle (like how he also gets frustrated with her when they go back to the Byers house) because they don’t understand that she’s correct.

Mike is the first one to leave in this scene. he yells at El, and then picks up his bike and runs off, leaving Lucas, Dustin, and El.

“I can remember / standing by the wall” plays as Jonathan comes up on Joyce running away from their house after the Demogorgon came out of their wall.

“And the guns shot above our heads” plays as Mike gets home, and “And we kissed as though nothing could fall” plays when he reaches out to Karen and weeps into her arms. this kind of automatically makes me think of all of the boys spending time together, playing dnd, dealing with pretend “guns” and weapons, but reveling in it, having fun, because it’s all just games. they “kissed” so to speak, they celebrated their fun and their victories, because for them, nothing could go wrong. except it did this time, and now all of that love is turned painful at this abrupt loss of life and hope.

interestingly, “And the shame, the shame was on the other side” is split between Mike and Karen, and Jonathan and Joyce, both pairs of which are hugging. maybe Mike is feeling ashamed that he though to trust in Eleven, maybe he’s feeling ashamed that he couldn’t save Will, that maybe he could have saved Will if he had tried to go out on his own rather than humoring this random girl, and he feels guilty for it. for Joyce, since at this point she doesn’t know that they found Will’s “body” maybe she’s leaving the shame that she’s “crazy” behind. she saw this thing crawl out of her wall, it’s not just in her head, it’s not just faulty wiring, something is wrong. and she doesn’t care what anyone thinks, as she later expresses to Jonathan as they leave the morgue, and she insists that she knows she sounds crazy, but she knows she’s right.

before we get into the song in s3, i want to describe the scene leading up to it:

El reading Hopper’s letter to her.

overall he explains that while life hurts sometimes, that means you’re alive. in the end, you’ll only hurt more if you ignore all of the pain, because that just makes you apathetic. you get “stuck in one place, in a cave, you might say. A deep dark cave” because once you ignore the hurt, you don’t feel much of anything at all.

he expresses how it hurts to see her growing, changing, becoming distant (which is also what he says during the focus in on Mike as they leave the Byers’ house on their bikes, but hey, let’s not get too distracted here!) and that scares him more than anything else. because he doesn’t want things to change, even though he knows it’s inevitable.

he then goes on to hammer home that it’s good to keep changing, to keep moving, and nobody should stop her. she should make mistakes, learn from them, and remember the hurt.

then, the song starts.

Heroes in s3e8:

it begins playing right as El finishes reading Hopper’s letter, and it picks up on the “I will be king” line. i think the “king” in question is the sentiment he expresses in his letter.

“you will be queen” is sung over El as she assures Joyce that she’s okay. this feels too literal, but i’m a snotty crying mess after watching the scene again so i can’t really think too much rn, but i do think that El is the “queen” in question.

“Though nothing will drive us away / We can beat them forever and ever.” even though things might keep dragging them back down, they have to keep beating back those monsters, both literal and metaphorical. they have to beat back the Upside Down, but they also have to beat back their trauma because of it. they have to deal with it rather than ignore it. they won’t let the apathy take them over. they might yearn for things to go back to the way they were before any of this happened, but what would be the point in that? it would be the same as being apathetic.

i also love the “we can be heroes just for one day” line in relation to El, specifically because of this idea she has in her head of being a hero vs a monster. in this context, it almost feels like she’s trying to assure herself that she doesn’t have to be the hero. she doesn’t have to be this big, powerful, amazing person all the time (like Mike and the others have painted her out to be, despite how that will ultimately hurt her more). she’s allowed to be a hero “just for one day,” and for no more.

this also makes me think of how so much of s3 was about El overusing her powers, and that scaring Mike because they don’t know what it’ll do to her. like, they end up relying on El again and again, making her be the hero, always saying how “this’ll be easy because the girl with superpowers is on our side!” when constantly putting her up on this pedestal led to her ultimate crash and burn. she is allowed to be a hero “just for one day.”

the switch to “we can be us just for one day” is also interesting, because it makes me think of them longing to just be allowed to live again, to be kids. especially in relation to El and Will. El has only recently been allowed to live a “normal” life, and Will had his “normal” life ripped away from him, but neither of them will ever get that normalcy back in its entirety, despite their yearning for it.

and then we get to the final verse. all of this pans across Jonathan closing the moving truck door and Joyce looking back into the house one last time before locking the door. they’ve endured so much trauma in that house, and in this context (again taken very literally) the lyrics are driving home that the Byers have been through hell, but they will continue to “beat them forever and ever” and power through the change and the hurt along with the other characters.

and the part that got me thinking about this at all: the removal of those two lines.

“And we kissed as though nothing could fall / And the shame, the shame was on the other side.”

right away, those two lines are the most hopeful to me. "we can be heroes just for one day” always sounds more like a plea to me, it sounds desperate, but “And we kissed as though nothing could fall” just screams that love is the answer, and feeling the hurt makes the joy so much richer. everything could be going to shit around them, but that “kiss” will save them every single time.

“And the shame, the shame was on the other side.” they’re allowing themselves to feel all of their feelings without trying to hide any of it. they’re moving on from trying to keep themselves buttoned up. moving and changing and growing might be messy, painful, they might make mistakes, but that’s okay. they don’t have to be ashamed of any change that comes their way.

but neither of these lines appear in s3. how come? i know that the decision could purely be because they wanted to trim down on time, but just a few seconds...? especially when the final verse played all the way through in s1? who knows how far ahead they were thinking when they made s1, but the Duffers seem to do everything very deliberately, so, at the very least, it was a deliberate choice to remove those 2 lines from s3.

compare and contrast:

in s1, the song plays over the whole party. in s3, the song mostly plays over El and the Byers, most specifically Joyce and Jonathan. however, Joyce and Jonathan are also present in both s1 and s3.

in both instances, Hopper is a big part of the lead-up into the song.

in both instances, the song comes in on the lyric “I will be king.”

in both instances, there’s an emphasis on acceptance. in s1, it’s about the boys accepting that their friend is really dead, but also about Joyce finally accepting the severity of the situation she’s in, and accepting that she’s gonna sound crazy even when she’s right. in s3, they’re accepting that they have to move on, that they have to keep growing and changing, and they can’t remain stuck in one place, otherwise they’ll only get hurt, even if the change also hurts.

“oh, we can be heroes just for one day” plays most often over shots of El in both scenes (minus the final shot of each scene, both of which have Joyce (and Jonathan) as the final lyric plays out).

branching off of the above point, i find it interesting that i had different interpretations of the same lyrics between both seasons. in s1, she (and the boys) wanted to be heroes and save Will. in s3, it feels very much like El wants to stop being the hero, that they all want things to go back to “normal.” although, you could also argue that she wants to be the hero again, meaning to get her powers back.

while in s3 the shots of Mike don’t take place during the song, he has similar moments in both seasons: we see his pain the most out of the other characters with scenes dedicated to him in the aftermath, and in both cases he goes home to his mom and asks for her comfort. in contrast, he’s the first to leave in s1 and the last to leave in s3. also in contrast, he’s visibly crying in s1, while he isn’t in s3.

and, the final point that got this whole ramble started: removing “And we kissed as though nothing could fall / And the shame, the shame was on the other side” from s3.

in the context of El:

I’ve already said this a few times, but the “we could be heroes” line always jumps out as distinctly El to me, especially because of her insistence in being the “hero” rather than the “monster.” she wants to be the hero so badly, she wants to save her friends, but it doesn’t come as naturally to her as she wants it to. this isn’t any fault of her own, it’s just how life works, nothing will be as neat as she wants it to be, but it makes her desperate for it.

“We could be heroes just for one day” as I said before has always sounded like a plea to me. whether it be read as “let me just be a hero for one day and nothing more” or “please I want to be a hero so bad” they’re both desperate pleas for something. and I think El is desperate for both.

in the context of Mike:

I didn’t actually start thinking about his relation to this song on his own until I started writing this up, but I think it’s super interesting, and sort of obvious once you realize how prevalent he is in both scenes.

Mike is a big fixture in both scenes.

in s1, he’s the one who gets upset, certain that it’s not Will’s body, and goes home to weep in his mother’s arms as the (false) reality sets in. we see the rest of the kids upset, we see Lucas and Dustin beginning to grieve, but the focus is on Mike.

I feel like it’s also obvious that he, too, wanted to be the hero in s1. he and the others were so certain that the adults didn’t have the whole picture, and they were determined to find Will on their own without help.

in s3, while he’s not a main aspect during the song actually playing, the lead up to it ends up focusing on him a fair amount (hesitating as all of his friends get on their bikes to leave, him being the only one to look back at the house before riding off, him going home and falling into his mother’s arms again. though, notably, he’s not weeping this time, he just looks... empty).

he also did many heroic things in s3, like taking on Billy in the Sauna Test, trying to convince everyone that El should ease up on her powers, always physically protecting her and his other friends.

most notably, though, Mike is the only one we see a further reaction from after the fact. we get long, dedicated moments to emphasizing his pain at losing someone, and the one consistency in that loss is Will.

this leads me back to the two missing lines, and how they remained in s1 when the only person Mike lost was Will, and how they were removed in s3 when he was losing both Will and El.

two thoughts with this:

1) maybe the lines were removed because, as i said before, those lines feel the most hopeful out of the whole song. and in s3, because he’s losing his best friend and his girlfriend in the same instant, he’s lost his hope. matched with the fact that he isn’t crying like he was in s1, he’s falling into that cave of apathy that Hopper warned El about.

2) maybe the lines were removed because, even though the whole season had Mike and El dealing with their romance, she’s not the one he should have been kissing in the end.

b-b-b-b-bonus 3) it’s both at the same time.

and so we finally get to the song in the context of Will and Mike as a duo:

the song as a whole, but especially the final verse, and more especially those two lines, I feel like are extremely closely tied to Mike and Will as a pair because of how the lyrics appear (or don’t) in the show.

a lot of what we saw of Mike in s4 was him being wishy-washy. he’s unsure of himself, finding himself not as emotionally mature as El and Will, and being stuck in forcing himself not to feel his strong feelings for El (and Will). obviously, we see this most explicitly with El in s4, with him being afraid to tell her he loves her because he thinks it’ll hurt when she “inevitably” decides she doesn’t need him anymore, but we’ve established that the hurt is good! he just hasn’t learned that lesson yet! he’s scared of feeling so much, but that’s coming to bite him in the ass. not only because it’s greatly unfair to his friends, but also because it’s unfair to himself. it’s stunting him, and he’s unable to keep growing and changing like he’s supposed to because he’s trying to keep things exactly as they were/are.

when we get to his feelings for Will, obviously we have nothing explicitly stated right now. but we can infer that there is something going on in Mike’s thick skull, and maybe we’ll get something more concrete in s5. i think it’s safe to say, though, that he feels shame. he feels shame at not being able to tell El he loves her, and he’s ashamed that he can’t tell Will how he truly feels. and i think, if he is queer, he will feel ashamed of that, too.

but we all know they (the Duffers) won’t let him wallow in that.

Will also feels shame. he’s terrified of being true and open about his own feelings, always hiding behind El in s4, but we can see that he’s accepted his feelings to some degree. he knows he’s in love with Mike, and he’s accepted it, fear and shame and all. he’s already one step ahead of Mike in terms of emotional maturity in this department, and I think he’ll be the one to get Mike to really open up. Will will be the one to have Mike dissect himself, to look inward and acknowledge all of his strong feelings, and embrace them. Will will show Mike that it’s okay to feel shame, they don’t have to shove it all down and pretend to be “normal.” only when they acknowledge their feelings, including the shame, will they be able to grow as people and as characters.

I feel that it would be a disservice to not have the song show up again, with those two missing lines added back in. I feel like the fact that they decided to put the song in twice is already evidence enough to think it could show up again, but the fact that they cut out those two lines of the last verse feels like we were meant to take it into consideration, and assume that it will appear in s5 again, hopefully now with those two hopeful lines tucked back in to remind us what the core of the show really is.

i believe Will and Mike, while the world is growing darker around them, will “[kiss] as though nothing could fall” and they will leave their shame “on the other side.” they will express their love for one another, come to accept their growth and their changes, no matter how scary it might be to embrace who they truly are, and they will be unbeatably strong for it.

but alas, I am ready to be proven wrong now that I’ve jinxed it and the song will never show it’s face again :-)

#I say things #byler #stranger things #will byers #mike wheeler #eleven #I just have to post this so I stop thinking abt it I think #we’ll see if I get embarrassed and delete it later LOL but it’s fun to look forward to smthn like this #like obvs a lot of the music in the show is for nostalgia reasons #but for big moments like this? it’s important

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smoosnoom · 8 months

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MOON

what the actual fuck 😭😭😭😭😭 i was shaking for the entire day i was so so excited that i almost took a day off. i wasn’t expecting this for sure 😭😭😭 (im fine btw. don’t worry about me)

im so excited every time u post And this one is for me 🥺🥺🥺? and u said the nicest words about me in the notes? how did i deserve u?

“insists he wake up earlier than anyone should during summer” ok ok ok Listen. we established that we have different opinions on mornings but Listen. wake up early Especially in the summer (especially if u don’t have to clean up) is it’s own kind of magic. everything around is quite and nobody’s disturbing u cause they’re asleep and if u turn on cartoons it feels like ur child again. mornings r for chilling and evenings r for walks. but it’s not for ur sleeping schedule

“He shows El new songs and she likes most of them” byers-hoppers all being classic rock fans is so special for me ♥️

“Not in a – weird way.” and “His hands get tingly, and it’s weird” being separated by two sentences is my fave thing Ever 😭

“wearing a floral Hawaiian shirt.” hopper’s s3 fit was the best i agree!

“Okay. Well. He didn’t mean to think that, at all. He doesn’t know where that came from.” 😭😭😭😭😭 OMG mike avoided his queer thoughts for so long and they hit him the second he saw broad mans chest 😭😭😭

“and he sits up a little straighter” did he correct his posture? 😭 cause if he did when i have a chance!!

“Make goo-goo eyes at Jonathan, probably. Yikes” like he didn’t do the same thing with will like a second ago

“Nancy is the most sensible of your family” i mean el is not wrong!!

“with El discreetly levitating cucumber slices into her mouth” idk i think that would be funny if ted was steel clueless about supernatural things and just didn’t even notice flying vegetables

can’t believe im siding with dustin again 😭 i mean there’s nothing wrong with tan but every time i tried to get one i got weird spots instead of smooth texture. so sunscreen is my best friend (plus it’s cancer protection)

“Shoulders” SHOULDERS 😭😭😭😭😭😭 one if my favorite parts if the fic actually. mike is so so h-word (can i say horny or we’re not accepting that teens feel sexual attraction yet?) And BUFF BYERS 🥳🥳🥳🥳

“He’s trying not to think too hard about him being shirtless, sitting next to Will, who is also shirtless” omg 😭😭😭😭

“The okayest” THE OKAYEST 😭😭😭 my favorite loser

“wet hair and sun haloed behind him” u always make will looks angelic in mikes eyes. as u should

“and this is probably just those few, childish urges that he’s been having and trying to ignore since forever coming back to haunt him again.” of course mike. u just miss ur childhood and nothing more

“They stare at each other. A bird chirps outside” it’s so funny. like. cartoonish type of humor

“even in the midst of an empty, empty street” AS HE SHOULD!! mike who follow all the driving rules but still sucks is so real for me!

“Mike glues his eyes to the sky, and ignores the bubbling temptation to look over and gauge in Will’s reaction” he’s really The definition of “but ur prettier” hes so gone 😭😭

“Do you know any constellations?” i know just one and it’s ursa major (great bear??? which one do u use?)

THEY ARE SUCH DORKS!! Gunther!! i love them so much 🥹♥️

“shoving a large stuffed platypus between them” i hope the platypus was teal and had a brown fedora (and the fact that perry the platypus’ giving name is bartholomew LMAO)

“Mike fists a hand into the grass.” he could just pretend that grass is will’s hair 😭😭

“A poorly dressed clown appears, and they both jump.” clown! i see what u did!!

“Mike feels like one of the moths that keep flurrying into his home and bumping into the light bulbs” the way this one is perfectly describing That feeling. moon Are U Sure u’ve never been in love? 🤨

“he’s always been indifferent to slushie flavors, but never Will” the sweetest boy 🥺 i bet even if he wasn’t indifferent he’d still swap cause it’s will!

“Mike spends a very, very, very – small amount of time staring at his mouth.” “got my mind on ur body and ur body on my mind”. im sorry. im actually not. mentally added this song to fic playlist (of which we’ll talk later!!)

“everyone is unbearable at thirteen” yeah but not everyone is canoodle at thirteen 😭

“until they’re standing under a downpour of rain and dramatically confessing their love” cause u know that something is starting than it’s raining in byler fics 😭😭😭 ilyyy

“brushing the hair out of his eyes, too, maybe even –“ maybe even What mike?? i wanna hear u 🎤🎤🎤

“Are you high?” THE WAY I LAUGHED. is it… real life situation? it feels like the one 😭

“Mike wouldn’t be surprised if he had a radar for people thinking about making the moves on his younger brother.” he probably is considering how often jon interrupted them in s4 😭

“definitely not thinking incredibly hard about Will and beaches and water and shorts” and tight-fitting surfing swimsuits. definitely

“Mike couldn’t bring himself to disturb Will out of his slumber” oh to fall asleep on someone’s shoulder </3 will’s neck and back must be hurt so bad but it’s worth it

“think, if it makes coming out here together more intentional than it already is” u mean like a date?

“Will lets out a hum. “Anything in particular?”” i loove when will senses something becomes i little bold and makes mike uses his mouth (to talk of course)

“and Will – isn’t like that, not about Mike at least, or he’s pretty sure, except –“ will just got used to his feeling 😭 hes been into mike for so long that butterflies aren’t surprise anymore

and then they kissed under brian and margaret and helga and earl and bartholomew and gunther 🥺🥺🥺i love them so much. and i love u so much ♥️🤍

so playlist. the fact that every song is fitting perfectly into the narrative. u have wonderful musical ear and sense. and i was so happy when i remembered from which playlists those songs come (yeah i listen to ur playlists. especially “brainrot”. this one is one of my favorites).

i’ll be endlessly honored that u gifted this fic to me omg. i still can’t believe it. i love u so much ♥️♥️♥️♥️

can u believe how long its been since u first sent this ask oh my god alya i am so sorry . but ! at least u got an almost 14k fic out !!!!!! im hoping u liked it . by the length of this ask i am thinking Yes

YAYYYY im glad i could surprise u !!!! and i did really . give no heads up idk i wrote half the fic and it was all so summery and nice i was like . alya lovees summer . so this would be perfect for her . so here we r !!!!!

u know what . ill agree with u on this . my favorite summer days were when i was able to wake up beforee the rest of the house and it was all calm and nice <3 and i loveeee cartoons, i always watch atla or adventure time

u get the vision . willel classic rock lovers my beloved

i loveeee hoppers hawaiian shirt i need to see him in that again . so glad u get me

what if i told u i also just straightened my posture after reading that quote . my back is achingo h my god . also he definitely did not mike is doomed to stay in the shape of a pringle for the rest of his life .

mike is nothingi f not a hypocrite <3

i love the idea of clueless ted because that is so real . but inversely i love the idea of him knowing and just . not caring even a little . like that is so funny to me

true it is cancer protection ! also it seems liek U always agree with dustin (insert emoji with raised skeptical eyebrows . i am on my laptop ok there r no emojis here) . anyway i thankfully have never gotten sunburnt so i have no idea what thats like but i wish u luck on any future tanning endeavors !

alya for the sake of my reputation and dignity U are not allowed to say the h-word . also this is unrelated to any discourse but why is the h-word so ugly actually like it just Sounds and Looks weird

will is an angel this is unrelated to mike really thi s is just canon

yes cartoonish type humor !!!! its my favorite type of humor and i loveee using it in fics and stuff :D i hope u also like it

yes we also use ursa major ! i have a bunch of constellations up on my ceiling with glow in the dark stars too <3 the big dipper, hercules, orion, and a few more !!!!!

u better believe i was thinking of perry the entire time i wrote about that playtpus <3 i love love loveeee phineas and ferb

"the way this one is perfectly describing That feeling" u have no idea what this means to me . im adding this to every resume and hanging it up on my wall and tattooing it onot my hands . also no i have never been in love </3 still . i can imagine !

"yeah but not everyone is canoodle at thirteen" HONESTLY it was my least favorite aspect of s3 ohhh my god .

"is it… real life situation? it feels like the one" MAYBE .....

"is it… real life situation? it feels like the one" LITERALLY oh my god . oh my god if i had a nickel for every time he interrupted them istg

they kissed under all the most unconventional and conventional names in the galaxy <3 peak of romance is kissing under margaret and brian and gunther and bartholomew

i hope u know ever since i read this ask the first time and saw u said "brainrot" was ur favorite that has struck me every time i listen to the playlist . i forgot other people can see my playlists oh my god . speaking of I TRIED TO STALK UR SPOTIFY ACC BUT ITS ALL EMPTY <//3 so so sad . but i am so happy u also liked the music !!!! maybe iwas a little nervous whatever .

i love u alya bludnik-a i am very very glad u liked the fic :D summer reincarnate !

#daily alya #/ask

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jancys-blue-bayou · 2 years

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Nothing about the Byers moving makes sense

The more I think of it nothing about the Byers moving to Lenora makes sense in universe, and also structurally it just did the show a disservice (bloating Stranger Things with too many characters and making it too big with too many locations in s3 and 4 has screwed it over).

In s3 Joyce is thinking about moving but seems to be going back on the idea in the latter half of the season, but then Hopper’s “death” changes her mind again, because now El is in her care.

The move is supposedly about keeping El safe and hidden.

But they don’t hide. They live under their real names in Lenora. Owens helped them move out there but they just live openly in a small town under their real names.

Mike and El regularly post letters to each other. Nancy and Jonathan have obviously been calling each other in between s3 and s4 (that Nancy can’t get a hold of him in s4 is a clear sign to her that smth is wrong).

Owens people forbid them to call Hawkins in s4 to protect them from the army. But how doesn’t the army already know where they live? The Byers lived under their real names. Owens forbidding them from calling Hawkins in s4 mean that he knows the phones in Hawkins are still tapped (like they are in s1 and s2), so he doesn’t want the Byers calling the Wheelers in s4. But they’ve already called the Wheelers plenty of times from Lenora! They’ve sent letters and received letters back! Why didn’t the army just at any point between s3 and s4 listen on any of the phone calls or intercepted any of the letters, or hell just picked up a phonebook and looked up the Byers adress from there?

Side note I also still don’t understand why Owens is this super benevolent good guy...working for this shady government agency, how he’s got a bunch of incredibly loyal agents working under him who are willing to literally give their lives for the Byers. I just, what happened to how the shady government agency was portrayed in s1, where CIA and army worked together at the Lab with the express purpose of developing El as a weapon to fight the Commies. Why has it since split into Good Government Agents vs Bad Army Men?

Outside of it in universe not making sense, structurally for the season all the Byers moving accomplished was sidelining Will, Mike and Jonathan. And manufacture the same tensions they already had in s3 (rehashing Jonathan and Nancy having communication issues, which was their arc, resolved and done, in s3, and Will worrying he and his friends are growing apart (plus struggling with his sexuality etc. This they also had in s3 but just abandoned Will’s arc halfway through lol). Joyce could’ve gone off on her sideplot from Hawkins just as well, El could’ve been taken away from them in Hawkins just as well (I don’t think them staying in Hawkins makes any less sense then how they portrayed the move, it wouldn’t make much sense but the move didn’t either so). Will, Mike and Jonathan could’ve actually gotten to be involved with the plot this season. The only purpose the move could’ve had was to not have Will be in Hawkins when Vecna is vecna’ing there. But a) they could’ve found some other way around it if they didn’t want Will to be involved with Vecna yet b) Having Will be in Hawkins could’ve let Will do smth more this season than being sad gay boy, he could’ve actually been involved in the plot.

#stranger things 4 #stranger things

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noretreatnancy · 2 years

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Regarding the s3 fight I 100% agree with you, both parties were at fault for it but I'll never forgive the writers how they solved the issue. Jonathan apologized to Nancy, saying how wrong he was, in my opinion he never really doubted her story that there was something wrong with the rats, he admitted himself that was something weird going on. He was frustrated with losing the job so he said things out of anger.

Nancy on the other hand never apologized for her comments regarding Jonathan's poor family situation. She just said "I hope you never doubt me again". I don't think she truly understands his situation, she definitely has a hard time emphasizing with others when it doesn't concerns her personally. I think she is an interesting character but man this girl can't admit her faults and the show never truly adresses it as well.

Another example is the whole Steve situation in s2, both were at fault but only Steve took the blame. Nancy emotionally cheated on him for a year and idk how you interpret the fight after the party but in my opinion they were not clearly broken up when she slept with Jonathan. Like I said Steve was not perfect but it's so stupid how only he was made responsible (in the show) for their breakup when Nancy wasn't a good girlfriend as well. When they talked at the Byers house Nancy should have had the guts to tell him she is sorry too, or at least it's not okay after Steve said that to her. And then s3 happened and yet again she can't say she's sorry, idk if she actually thinks she's in the right in both situations or if she just can't say it.

In s4 a similar situation occurs with Robin at the library, first of all I hated how Robin's clear autistic traits were used as comedy, oh look she is annoying Nancy haha. However after a while Nancy should have said sorry for being so mean in the beginning which ofc never happened. I get it her friend died and this girl she doesn't know won't shut up, but still doesn't give her the right to treat Robin the way she did. She could have explained herself instead of being mean. Nancy only started to tolerate Robin after she was useful to the quest and Robin reassured her nothing is going on with Steve.

I actually followed your blog because I loved your insights on Nancy because I have to admit I struggle with her character. I love to read your takes and I can appreciate her more but for the reasons I listed here she still remains one of my lesser favorites of the show. Partially it has something to do with how she is written, like how her flaws never get truly adressed or acknowledged as such in the show, she is treated as if everything she does is perfect by other characters you know. And how she treats said characters and seemingly can't emphasize with others when it doesn't concern her.

I truly hope I didn't offend you, I do really love your takes on her and like I said you gave me new insights.

Okay first I want to say I really appreciate this ask! It’s very kind of you to follow my blog, and I think your opinions stated here are totally valid! I can 100% understand not vibing with a character, and this is a really respectful way of handling a difference in opinion! I don’t want it to come across that I think everyone who dislikes Nancy is misogynistic, I hope that’s not how my earlier post came across! I’m going to explain a little the way I interpret these situations based on the way I see Nancy, but this is just my thought process/feelings and I’m not trying to like argue you down or change your mind!

I’d like to talk about her and Robin first. You mention Robin’s having autistic traits and those traits being used as comedy. I can’t speak to that part of her characterization because I’m not autistic myself, but I would definitely think that choosing to make those traits a joke is an ignorant at best, mean spirited at worst writing choice. The way I read the situation on watching was that Nancy was very frightened and upset by the events of the proceeding day, especially the fact that… she may have gotten (in her mind) another one of her friends killed. She dragged Fred to the crime scene because she wanted to get to the truth of what happened, and then he died. I might be misremembering, but I don’t think at that time they’d figured out the way Vecna selected his victims, so for all she knew he was dead because of her. I also think she was under a lot of pressure to solve the case, since all of the usual “adults” she would turn to for help (Hopper, Joyce, Murray, and Jonathan) were all gone. She wasn’t around for Steve and Robin’s Russia investigation in s3, so she doesn’t know what they’re actually capable of. For her, she’s being paired off with a girl she doesn’t know, who doesn’t have the same experience level with Upside down related things as she does, who is then criticizing her on her lead (that she’s already feeling insecure about). I don’t blame Robin for doing so, but it definitely wouldn’t endear her to Nancy. Nancy isn’t really chatty (she hasn’t had the chance to be) and she’s obviously taking the situation very seriously. She’s always trying to be mature and adult, and she’s used to working with Jonathan, who is also very reserved and serous. so I’m sure Robin’s method of coping with the stressful situation probably came off as her not taking things seriously. Nancy is worried this won’t pan out and they’ll be left with no leads, and Robin is basically telling her, “yeah this seems like bullshit.” which it did! don’t get me wrong! it was a very thin lead. but I know I don’t react positively to giving my best effort and having someone make me feel inadequate. That whole scene reads to me of two girls who literally don’t know each other, have never spent and significant time together, with very different personalities and ways of approaching things, being forced together by circumstances and having to learn to deal with it. Robin reads it as Nancy being jealous over Steve, but it came across as genuine frustration and stress response to me. They’re an “unlikely pairing/duo” situation, they’re supposed to butt heads and have friction at first, and then grow to love and appreciate each other as they spend time together. This is a pretty common cliche (the “quirky/unorthodox” one and the “serious/by the book” one), so I never took it as Nancy hating/being mean to Robin. And I’ll say… being frustrated with someone isn’t the same as being cruel to them, and I think Nancy was actually trying very hard to remain polite under the circumstances. Robin is just very aware that her personality isn’t always taken well, and so she’s trying to get ahead of it by addressing even small signs of irritation on Nancy’s part. I also think it’s relevant that… they’re 17/18. Sometimes teenagers are a little rude or snarky, they roll their eyes or get a little huffy… I wouldn’t point to those things as unforgivable meanness, especially under the circumstances.

Speaking to the Steve situation is harder, because I don’t think that she was actually in the wrong on that one. Nancy was deeply traumatized by the events of season one. She’s doing everything she can to go back to normal and cope with the loss of her best friend, but it clearly isn’t working. She’s breaking down completely. Steve is a teenage boy with kind of low emotional intelligence at that point, so I don’t think he was like purposefully ignoring her pain or anything. But the scene at the party is so painful to watch, she’s drunk, she’s 16, she having a full emotional break down over feeling like everyone wants to move on from and forget the thing that is clearly haunting her. And the only thing that Steve is worried about is the fact that she isn’t in love with him. Again, I understand that would be heartbreaking to hear… but if you really loved someone, imo, you couldn’t see them in that much pain and then just walk away (and leave them drunk and sobbing at a house party). I think people blame the break up on Steve because instead of trying to talk things out with her or help her work through the things she was dealing with, he got angry and walked away. I always read the fight in the alley as a break up scene, and I believe that’s what it was intended to be. Nancy can’t give him what he wants in that moment (her love), and so Steve walks away from her. Their priorities were in different places, and that doesn’t make either of them a bad person. At that point in time, Steve still cared about being “King of Hawkins” and not getting shown up by Billy in gym. Nancy was dealing with her guilt over Barb’s death while also trying to get justice against the people who ACTUALLY got her killed. She’s risking her life to bring down the lab. High school problems don’t matter to her, she is fundamentally a different person than she was at the beginning of season one. Steve isnt, not yet, and I think it’s understandable that the relationship she pursued at that point in her life no longer fits the person she has become. Now of course there were gentler, more emotionally intelligent ways for her to let him down gently… but again. She’s a teenager, even if she is mature for her age. I don’t think the fact that she had a messy break up with her first boyfriend makes her a bad person. Imo Steve ended the relationship out of hurt and anger, regretted it, and was taking her the flowers to apologize and get back together. That’s what he was apologizing for, the way things ended and the fact that he wasn’t able to be there for her the way she needed him to be (which again, isn’t his fault, he’s also just a kid and isn’t a bad person for not being able to handle adult problems).

The jonathan situation in s3 is, to me, a writing flaw. They gave them plenty of screen time in the early part of the season (aka the buildup to the fight), but they didn’t actually get a chance in the latter part of the season to sit down and actually talk things out. The “apology” is rushed, but to me most of the emotional moments in season 3 are. Now. In my opinion. Jonathan was much more cruel in their argument than nancy was. Which is understandable, because he was very upset and stressed out. But he is lashing out at her and, frankly, mocking her for thinking she could pursue her dreams. Her “Oliver twist” comment was very out of line, but in the same scene he basically calls her a spoiled brat (which whether you believe is valid or not, is still a hard thing to hear from your boyfriend and would maybe induce and insensitive comment from a teenager). Jonathan is at the paper, being allowed to do the job he’s been hired to do. Nancy is being mocked for wanting to do hers. Nancy spent all of season 2 breaking a top secret government conspiracy, and now she (rightfully) thinks she’s uncovered something strange, and is being told she isn’t capable enough to do it and should leave it to the big boys. My opinion has always been that Nancy uses “uncovering the case” as a way to cope with her feelings of helplessness and guilt. Something weird was going on in her down, but she was too preoccupied to take an interest, and then her friend died because of it. So now she always has to be on top of the story, first on the scene, follow every lead to the bitter end… because if she always knows everything thats happening, she can (maybe) keep anyone else from dying. That’s why the rat story was so important to her in s3. She KNEW something was wrong. To Jonathan it just seems like she’s chasing the high of breaking the big story… she’s putting her pride over their jobs. But to Nancy, what she’s doing is important, and him downplaying it feels just like everyone else who refused to listen to her (about Barb in season 1 especially, when he was the only one who WOULD listen to her). There is one point of yours that Id like to dispute (everything else is totally your right to that opinion). Nancy DOES apologize to Jonathan. She apologizes to him first. She reaches out first (by calling him from the hospital), and then in the elevator she tells him she didn’t mean the things she said, she spoke out of anger. And Jonathan admits that he was wrong to dismiss her fears/intuition that something was up. They were both in the wrong (for the ways they lashed out, not the ways they felt), and they both apologize and forgive each other.

So I guess TL/DR. I don’t think you always have to be sweet/nice to be a good person, or even a kind one. I think that teenagers sometimes respond to things in immature ways. And I think that Nancy’s trauma and guilt, and her overly developed sense of responsibility play into the way she handles herself and others.

#I hope this isn’t too ungodly long #thank you for sharing your thoughts I hope you don’t mind me kind of bouncing my ideas off yours #asks #long post #stranger things spoilers #stranger things #nancy wheeler

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elcorhamletlive · 2 years

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sennqu: you bring up a good point with the DnD stuff! I never thought to view it that way because to me, it was a sign that DnD was their (as in the main four) thing. he can do other things with other people, but DnD was his connection to the friends he was leaving behind. Honestly after the end of S3, I was expecting Will to also make friends in Cali, maybe join an art club or whatever. So the direction S4 went to took me by surprise. S4 making it overt that Will was gay was a surprise. Thought he'd just be coded forever. But it makes sense to me why a closeted gay kid would have had trouble making new friends in a new place, likely with a diff. culture to small town Hawkins too

Yeah, I wasn't expecting Will to become like, prom king or anything. He is an awkward, introverted, closeted nerd, after all. It makes sense that he'd struggle to find new friends. But what we saw, to me, suggests that he wasn't even interested in trying.

I don't think you're entirely wrong re: the DnD stuff, because the way the scene is framed does suggest it's supposed to be a sweet moment. However seeing in the larger context of a) Will never bonding with new people, platonically or romantically; b) the fact that Lucas, Mike and Dustin essentially did join a new party in his absence, by becoming part of the Hellfire Club; it becomes depressing. And, again, I think it's something the character should overcome, because the other boys aren't in the wrong here. As time passes, people get different interests and relationships shift, and Will needs to be able to accept that. It doesn't mean he needs to discard his previous friends, of course, but he should be open to change, as that is a fundamental part of growing up.

sweetraspberryteaa: i want byler to become canon, i really do. but the duffers suck i’m not going to lie. at times it feels like will’s story is ”mikemikemikemikemike” and nothing else. season 2 was great for not being that. it just seems like he doesnt have much relationships from what i see. the problem doesnt only apply to him but to other characters too. stranger things is what i considered a scifi horror about friendship/love. after s2 there was lots of unnecessary romance and on a soap opera level ngl sorry

He doesn't have many relationships at all. His main interactions have always been with Joyce, Jonathan and Mike; and now that the writers don't seem interested in the Byers family anymore, it's basically just Mike. Up to this point, at least, that's all his storyline has been this season. Maybe this will change in vol. 2, but it's the scenario so far.

I disagree, however, that this is the case for other characters. Romance has played a key role in ST, true, but characters other than Will have been allowed to develop new dynamics, such as: Steve and Dustin, El and Max, Steve and Robin, Nancy and Robin, Dustin and Eddie, etc. Hell, they even let Jonathan make a new friend. I'd argue even Lucas' place in the basketball team fits with that pattern, even if the dynamic isn't framed positively by the narrative. It's still change, which allows the character to be put in settings outside of their comfort zone, which in turn makes them more fleshed out. And I think Will's arc has suffered from the writers not allowing him to do that.

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lesbianrobin · 3 years

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What do you think are the good and bad aspects of each season of ST?

ok 1. thank u for this question omg and 2. this answer may or may not be a mess, but either way it’s long (almost 7k words lmao) bc i’m insane, which is why it’s under a cut. it’s still by no means an exhaustive list but these are the things that just kinda came to mind.

also i realize you asked “good and bad” and i wrote this whole post as “strengths and weaknesses” which um. is not Exactly what you asked. but close enough <3 i also ended up including a lot of au ideas ksjdckmn bc like i personally hate when people say a certain plot or whatever was bad without suggesting anything that could have improved it yknow so whenever possible i tried to provide Some idea for fixing the issues i had with the show!!

season 1

strengths (this is probably gonna be the longest section but that’s because a lot of these strengths also apply to s2/s3 by default)

nostalgia and authenticity

this one’s pretty simple, but i think that season one did a good job of blending classic eighties media homages (such as the many many e.t./el parallels) with explicit pop culture references (such as mike’s yoda impression, mentions of the x-men, etc) to create a show that’s essentially dripping in early eighties nostalgia without it feeling too forced. before st, i think the most popular depiction of the eighties in mainstream media was that overly exaggerated neon scrunchie aesthetic from the mid to late eighties, and it was usually done in a comedic sense first and foremost. st took a different approach, instead focusing on the early eighties, a time that’s often ignored in favor of going either Full Seventies or Full Eighties, and i think that this choice likely resonated with adults who lived through the eighties and hadn’t yet seen something that felt quite so accurate to their own adolescence. a lot of young people who watched st were totally unfamiliar with this period of time, unfamiliar with books/movies like “stand by me” that st borrows from heavily, and i think st lent more seriousness to the eighties than most young people had experienced so far, and this was refreshing and interesting!

the use of dnd in the show is also quite genius in a way i’m not sure i can articulate?? it isn’t something Everyone would have played at the time, but it’s something that existed within a different context back in the eighties than it does today, and it really lent a sort of authenticity to the naming of the show’s sci-fi elements. like, of course these kids would name parallel dimensions and monsters and superpowers after these similar things in their favorite game! it just feels so real and it grounds st in our reality moreso than you might expect from the typical sci-fi or horror universe.

utilization of existing tropes

almost every single character in st clearly originates from some popular trope. the plot itself is riddled with classic eighties movie tropes. almost every single element of stranger things can be clearly traced back to some iconic eighties film or just to, like, overused horror/sci-fi/mystery/coming-of-age movie tropes in general. this might sound like a bad thing, but it really works in st’s favor! starting off with familiar tropes gives st the ability to easily create a lot of complexity and make a big impact by selectively deviating from those familiar, comfortable tropes!! while el’s whole plot, hopper’s character, etc, are all examples of this in action, i think the steve/nancy/jonathan plot is the greatest example. even from the start, the fact that good girl barb dies while nancy is off having sex with her asshole boyfriend is an incredibly thorough inversion of the most well-known horror movie trope in the book. how often do girls in horror movies have sex for the first time, walk home alone in the dark of night, and live to tell the tale? nancy and jonathan’s dynamic at first glance is a sort of classic “good girl meets boy from the wrong side of the tracks, discovers he’s actually got a heart of gold” thing, but instead of following this well-trodden path, st diverged. nancy is brash, impulsive, and at times downright insensitive. jonathan is angry, bitter, and actually a bit of a creep at first. while they have the capacity to emotionally connect and support one another, they can also bring out each other’s darker side, which is not what we’ve come to expect from that initial tropey dynamic.

in addition, steve, the popular rich asshole boyfriend, is actually... a human being! unlike the cartoonishly evil jocks that we’ve come to expect (especially from eighties movies), steve has complexity. despite his initial immaturity and selfishness, he’s also kind to barb, he backs off when nancy says no, he’s gentle and sweet when they sleep together, his first big Dick Move of the season is in defense of nancy, he realizes the error of his ways after the fight and does what he can to fix it, he’s worried about nancy when he sees that she’s hurt at jonathan’s house, and to top it all off, he ends up saving both nancy and jonathan’s lives when he could have just walked away, and the three of them all work together to fight the demogorgon. like... steve began as the most stereotypical character of all time, and by the end of the season, he had one of the most compelling and unique arcs among the whole cast!

finally, at the very end of the season, instead of dumping steve for jonathan as expected, nancy ends up getting back together with steve, and they’re both on friendly terms with jonathan. i realize that i just kinda. summarized s1. but my POINT is that i don’t think the dynamics between the monster hunting trio would be nearly as fun and interesting had the characters of nancy, steve, and jonathan not been set up to follow certain paths that we already had charted in our own heads. like, within the first couple episodes of s1, it’s pretty obvious that nancy and steve are gonna break up, nancy will get with jonathan, and steve will either die or go full evil or just never be seen again. like, duh! you’ve seen this story a million times! you know that’s how it’s gonna go! so, when the story DOESN’T go that way, the impact of each character’s arc and the relationship dynamics become stronger due to their unexpected complexity and authenticity.

distinct plotlines separated by age group

this one’s rather obvious, but the way that the adults in s1 were essentially in a conspiracy thriller while the teens were in a horror flick and the kids were in a sci fi power-of-friendship story and all three converged at the end... wow. brilliant showstopping etc. not only was it just really well done and unique, it also gave stranger things near-universal appeal. like, there’s genuinely something for pretty much everyone in season one!

casting

obviously this applies to every season sorta by default, but when i think about what made season one So successful, i always think about the cast, and not just winona ryder. yes, she’s absolutely amazing in the show and it’s very doubtful that st would be as big as it is today without her name being attached to it from the start!! however, i think the greatest determining factor in st’s success is the casting of the kids, particularly millie bobby brown. like... el is just absolutely incredible. she’s amazing. this has all been said many times before so i won’t harp on it, but millie and the other kids are all So talented and charismatic and i think their casting has been instrumental to the show’s success.

strong visuals

the way that multicolored christmas lights which have been around for decades are now kinda like. a Stranger Things thing. jesus christ. those lights are probably the biggest stroke of stylistic genius on the show.

atmosphere and setting

this is probably like. the least important one here for me sdjncdsc because i think s2 and s3 both had like Even Better atmospheres and shit but s1 was good too and it laid the groundwork!! i know a lot of people would have preferred st be set somewhere more Spooky with lots of fog or giant forests or whatnot, and while i do enjoy thinking about alternate st settings and how they might alter the vibe, i think hawkins indiana was a good choice. as the duffers have said, placing stranger things in a fictional town allows them more flexibility than if they’d gone with their original plan of using montauk, new york. besides that, i think the plainness and like... flatness... of small-town indiana just Works. like, the fact that hawkins is never really scary on the surface is a big part of the horror in the lab’s actions and their impact. hawkins isn’t somewhere that people just disappear all the time. it isn’t somewhere known for strange occurrences (prior to s1, that is). it isn’t somewhere shrouded in mist and secrecy. hawkins on its surface seems like the sort of place with no secrets and nothing to fear, and that’s the point! the lab is out in the open! it’s right there! everything is so close to the surface, yet so far out of the public eye, and i think that really works.

the byers family’s whole deal (specifically the joyce/jonathan dynamic)

this is going here bc i miss it so bad in s2 and s3. i’m not one of those people who believe The Byers Are The Whole Point of the show, because st is and always has been an ensemble, and el, hopper, and the wheelers are just as instrumental to the plot as the byers, but ANYWAY, i do think the byers were one of the most interesting aspects of s1. joyce’s difficulties with supporting her sons as a poor and (implied mentally ill) single mother, jonathan’s stress as a result of having to earn money, care for his brother, and keep the house in order when his mother is unable to do so, and the resulting tension between them when will’s disappearance and supposed “death” brings the situation to a tipping point? holy shit! it’s so good! that argument after they see will’s “body” is just incredible and gut-wrenching. their relationship feels so real and messy and i think it’s just... good. also winona ryder REALLY acted her heart out and she carried a lot of s1 which i think people often forget to mention so i’m saying it here.

weaknesses

pacing/timing

ok so pacing is probably going to go in each season’s weaknesses, to be honest, because i think they all had a blend of some good and some bad pacing. good pacing is invisible pacing, though, so i probably won’t be putting it in any of the strengths sections and will only be focusing on it in the weaknesses. i’m also probably not going to talk about weird day/night cycle things, just because i don’t want to get nitpicky on timelines because that would require going back and rewatching things to double check timing which i don’t wanna do at the moment lmao. anyway, when i think of bad pacing in season one, i primarily think of two things: nancy’s little trip into the upside down and subsequent sleepover with jonathan, and the sort of staggered nature of the climax in the final episode. the latter is simple so i’ll explain it first: while i understand that each group’s respective climax is like part of a chain reaction and that’s why each big moment happens separately and at different times, i think that st is strongest when the whole group is together, and i think that makes the stakes feel higher too, so i’m not In Love with the way s1 separated everyone and gave each group their own climax.

okay, now on to the nancy/upside down thing! idk if i’ve ever talked about it before, but i think the worst decision made in s1 by far is the inclusion of nancy’s brief trip into the upside down, wherein she dives headfirst into another dimension with absolutely no backup, watches the demogorgon chow down, freaks out and runs around for a minute, and then leaves. like... what the fuck? even putting aside what an idiotic decision this was (because i do think nancy’s tendency to rush into things headfirst is an intentional and consistent character trait), it just kind of destroys any remaining suspense surrounding the demogorgon and the upside down, and it accomplishes basically nothing besides scaring nancy enough to have jonathan sleep over, which is lame. i will break it down.

like, first of all, nancy just getting to waltz in and out of the upside down and get a good, long look at the demogorgon makes the entire thing far less mysterious, and by extension far less scary. like... before this scene, we the audience haven’t got a good look at the demogorgon. we’ve seen its silhouette briefly and we’ve seen a blurry picture of it, but nothing more, and i think that is far more effective at building fear than this jaunt nancy goes on which gives us a full view of the thing and makes it into less of a horrifying nightmare and into more of a humanoid animal. like, maybe this is just me, but i found the demogorgon far less intimidating after that scene than before. it also lets nancy and jonathan know For Sure that they’re right without providing any crucial information that they need to fight the demogorgon (aka it’s unnecessary to the plot), which removes a very compelling story element (the faith nancy and jonathan need to have in order to keep going against a vague and poorly understood enemy, the doubt they might have about each other and their own sanity, the possibility that they might be wrong, the trust they need to have in each other) a bit earlier in the plot than i believe is ideal. at the end of episode 5, nancy goes into the upside down and jonathan doesn’t know where she is and it’s intense!!! you’re thinking like, oh fuck, not only is nancy missing and fighting for her life now too, jonathan might be implicated in her disappearance!! some people already think he’s the one who killed will and people know that he took creepy pictures of barb and nancy before they both disappeared, maybe this is gonna cause some serious problems for him!! maybe nancy will find will in the upside down and she’ll help him survive!! fuck, maybe she’ll actually die!! this is huge!! and then episode 6 starts and they’re immediately like oh nevermind jonathan found the tree and got nancy out and she’s fine. my point with all of this is that nancy entering the upside down could have done A Lot in the grand scheme of the plot, but all it did was just... get jonathan to sleep over so he and nancy could have some awkward romance moments and steve could see them together and pick a fight. which could have honestly happened at Any point while nancy and jonathan were working together to hunt down the demogorgon, without ruining the demogorgon’s and the upside down’s mystique. so yeah <3

weird behavior and dumbass decisions that make no sense (aka the whole camera thing)

gonna go off about the teen plot again sorry but: why was nancy so unbothered and quick to forgive jonathan for taking those pictures? girl what the fuck are you doing? why wasn’t that a bigger deal? why was jonathan’s motivation for doing it so weak and why did they just kind of forget about the whole thing? why did nancy TRACK HIM DOWN AT THE FUNERAL HOME while he was PICKING OUT HIS BABY BROTHER’S CASKET to be like hey can you tell me what’s in this creepshot you took? it’s insane. it’s so insane. i mean i think the funeral home thing is hilarious and i don’t mind it being in the show necessarily but like my point here is that i think a lot of character decisions in s1 just kind of.. happened because they Needed to happen for the plot. like, they wrote this plot that required jonathan to be secretly taking pictures of the party and required him and nancy to work together after seeing something odd in the pictures, but they didn’t like... really consider what that event would mean for their characterization and relationship. the whole thing was sort of just dropped with minimal discussion and i think it did both nancy and jonathan’s characters a disservice and was really mishandled.

lighting and saturation/color grading

i am literally begging horror/sci-fi shows to let me see shit. i GET IT okay i understand that when you’re doing cgi effects it helps to keep the lights down and i’m not mad at any of the lighting in the demogorgon/upside down scenes!! i’m really not i think the demogorgon scenes in s1 all look sick!! but like... dude. the colors. where are they. why does everyone look like a vampire. i know blah blah this was probably an intentional stylistic choice intended to mimic film at the time blah blah but dude a lot of old movies are very colorful!! please just let people have color in their faces so everyone doesn’t look like a sheet of paper!!! also i’m white and not a professional lighting designer so yknow grain of salt but i think lucas was kinda poorly served by the lighting sometimes in s1. not Hugely so, not to the degree that i’ve seen poc be poorly served by lighting in other shows, but there were some times where it felt kinda like the lighting setup was just not designed with darker skin in mind.

horror

i just personally don’t find s1 very scary like... ever. i don’t think they were really Trying to be extremely scary yknow so i’m not counting this as a big deal, but i do think that each season has improved on the horror aspects. i think s1′s horror lies more in the mystery and the unknown than in what’s seen onscreen, and as i’ve said already, i think s1 kind of fumbled that suspense ball.

season 2

strengths

the possession plot

i’ll warn u rn this whole s2 strengths section is probably gonna be really short bc idk like. how much there is to really say i feel like it’s all so self-explanatory skjncmn. anyway yeah the possession plot!! eerie as fuck, and noah OWNED. so did winona tbh and finn and sean etc but like. noah. wow! i think the possession plot helped the show maintain a good amount of tension and suspense throughout the season, and a lot of scenes with possessed!will are flatout disturbing to watch. in a good way. i think the mindflayer and will’s possession were far more genuinely frightening than s1′s demogorgon, and it provided a new layer of depth and intrigue to the antagonist besides just “bad monster want eat people.”

tone and aesthetics

halloween season... literally halloween season. halloween season. that is all.

actually i will elaborate a bit and just say that i think s2 did a good job of having the sort of foreboding vibe that s1 was often going for, but without the annoying darkness and desaturation. so points for that.

also st2 is like one of the best Autumn pieces of media ever like it just. like steve and dustin on those train tracks with the fallen leaves all around them.... god. god the vibes are unparalleled. all of the halloween stuff also really contributes to the nostalgia st runs on yknow it makes you think about childhood and trick-or-treating and you kind of get transported like damn... i remember going to the rich neighborhoods to score the good candy..... idk i just think the whole thing is incredibly effective.

“babysitter” steve

by sending nancy and jonathan off together, the show created a problem: what to do with steve? this problem pushed them to create the unconventional and unexpected duo of steve and dustin, and the world is so much brighter for it. seriously though we all know steve and dustin are great i don’t need to argue that point. all i’ll add is that i think allowing steve to grow in this way, serving as a mentor figure and becoming genuine friends with someone so unexpected, really took the originality of his character to the next level. no longer content just to defy his archetype, in s2 steve begins branching out in ways that never would have been considered in s1, creating an incredibly complex and interesting person from the sort of character that most shows would have simply written out or killed off for convenience’s sake. and it works and steve and dustin are such a joy to watch and i love them. <3

the lucas/max plot

so first of all max mayfield is the most perfect baby girl on god’s green earth and idk what i would do without her but anyway. i think lumax is the best romantic relationship in the show and not just because they’re the only ones with like an age-appropriate approach to the whole thing. it’s also because their relationship accomplishes more than just putting the two of them in a relationship!! lucas and max spending time together motivates billy to do his evil shit, providing more conflict in the narrative, and it also helps establish max as part of the group in a relatively natural way while giving both her and lucas a great subplot. lucas (and dustin) has a crush on the new girl, they start spending some time together, and lucas ends up needing to decide whether he’ll keep the secret of the upside down and lose her, or risk both of their lives by telling her the truth. that’s a pretty big, character-defining decision that he gets to make!! max has to choose whether to trust this boy she barely knows and endanger herself, or to walk away and stay safe, yet another great character-defining choice that also contributes to the sense we get as an audience of max as somebody who’s incredibly lonely and desperate for love and connection. this post is way too long already and i have a ton more to say so i’ll stop now but yeah i think lumax really Works in the show without ever distracting or detracting from the overall plot and narrative in the way that some other ships (coughjancycough) often do.

balance between the normal and abnormal

s2 i think did a pretty solid job of melding daily life with more fantastical sci-fi horror elements. i enjoyed seeing so much of the kids at school in the first few episodes!! you really get a strong sense of where they’re at in life, what their daily lives are like, and you get a sort of gradual shift into madness that makes everything feel more grounded than i think it would if they had just leapt straight into the horror shit, yknow?

the el and hopper dynamic

go back and rewatch s2 and tell me that’s not one of the most moving portrayals of parenthood and trauma and growing up that you’ve ever seen. you can’t. or well you can but i won’t listen. i really can’t imagine stranger things without el and hopper’s relationship, and it’s my absolute favorite part of s2. their whole dynamic is so beautiful and complex, and gives them each amazing personal arcs in addition! the black hole scene is literally one of the show’s greatest moments of all time. any given scene between the two of them in s2 is just guaranteed to be heartwarming as well as heartbreaking, and i think that makes for an incredible show.

weaknesses

flashbacks

okay this applies to Every season they All have too many flashbacks but in s2 specifically... please stop showing me shit from season one. i watched it. i know what happened. you don’t need to spoon feed everything to me!! flashbacks can be a really helpful way of delivering information to an audience, but st has a bad habit of not only being kinda demeaning in how often they flash back to shit that the audience already knows, but they also have a bad habit of using flashbacks almost as a crutch to avoid having to deliver information subtly and naturally.

you know i gotta say it... the lost sister

this is so sad. the lost sister really is like a great concept for an st episode, and i’m not mad about the idea of st taking a break from the normal action to focus on one story for a full episode, but the execution of it was just dreadful. kali and her crew feel very over-the-top and stereotypical, and its placement in the season totally kills the tension and excitement that was built in “the spy.”

i think the lost sister honestly could have gone over far better, even with the stereotypical fake-feeling gang kali has, if they had just swapped it with “the spy” like... ok, the end of episode five has el setting off to find kali and will collapsing on the ground seizing. right? imagine if, instead of immediately following will to the lab, we’d followed el. we don’t know what’s happening with will, but it’s a very simple cliffhanger that leaves us on edge without making us feel cheated by the show cutting away. we follow el on her little journey, everything happens much the same as canon, and then at the end, el sees hopper in scrubs. she sees mike, screaming, sees that they’re both in danger. holy shit!!! what the fuck!!! what’s happened since we left will seizing on the ground??? we feel el’s fear and confusion. she decides to go home. and then... boom. “the lost sister” is over. now, we rewind, right back to will seizing on the ground, and “the spy” commences. we learn how they got into the danger that el saw in the end of “the lost sister,” and we sit on the edge of our seats all through “the spy” and “the mind flayer,” KNOWING that el is on her way back to save them but not knowing when she’ll arrive!! idk i don’t think that would have necessarily saved lost sister but i think it may have alleviated some of the issues that i and many others have with it, timing-wise.

the nancy/jonathan sidequest

once again, the idea of nancy going off on her own little mission to find justice for barb after s1 is like. amazing. genuinely i love that plot for her and i can’t imagine anything better for her to have focused on in s2. unfortunately though i think her and jonathan’s little trip to see murray was just kind of... lame. the whole thing just felt like an excuse to get the two of them alone together, yknow? which is fine i guess people contrive all sorts of situations to get characters alone together for romance reasons but in this case i think it just really doesn’t work for me because of what it’s juxtaposed with. like, will is POSSESSED, and jonathan is just off on a mini road trip and sleeping with his bestie, and jonathan never seems to communicate to joyce/will that he left town, and joyce never like... thinks to tell him that will is like sick and fucked up and they’re looking at him in the lab??? like it’s so weird i know joyce always forgets about jonathan when shit’s happening with will but jfc you’d think at some point in that like... 72-ish-hour period where jonathan was out of town she would have thought about him. like at least once. maybe i’m forgetting something and she mentioned him sometime and i missed it but even still, i hate the juxtaposition of nancy and jonathan just like cheers-ing at murray’s place and sleeping together and whatnot while everyone else is dealing with possession or trying to hunt down dart yknow? it feels really boring in comparison and i think it could have been done far better. like it was SO insanely easy for them to get into the lab and get an admission of guilt and escape with it!! i think it might have been a lot more engaging if maybe someone from the lab tailed them to murray’s place and they had to like lose the tail and race to get the recording out to as many news outlets as possible before they got caught, or something like that. the tension in their plotline is completely resolved in episode four!! episodes five and six are just them screwing around and addressing envelopes. while there were a lot of strong ideas in this plotline (i really enjoy nancy going out of her way to get justice, and the fact that they have to water down the story to make it believable), i just think the focus on nancy and jonathan getting together hindered it a lot without adding a ton to the plot or their individual characters.

season 3

strengths

starcourt mall as a setting

while i don’t think the mall was utilized quite to its full potential (something i could make a separate post about if anyone’s interested), i do think that starcourt was a genius addition to the series. i’ve said this before, but building a new mall is a literal Perfect in-universe justification for a significant leap forward in fashion and aesthetics, and it provides a great location for characters to just... be characters. idk how else to articulate this i just think that the mall is a great setting to let people interact with each other and to bring people together who may not have been otherwise (i.e. scoops troop). not to mention how sick it was to see the mall get wrecked toward the end kdjncdkm like they were able to do so much more with the mall in terms of like The Finale than they could with just the byers house or the cabin or the school or even the lab. i love all the back tunnels they run through it’s such a fun like acknowledgement of how this glitzy eighties mall is just a real place where employees get shipments and take out the trash and shit idk it’s all about the perfect facade and what’s hidden what’s underneath what’s hiding in plain sight etc etc i’m just saying words now. anyway.

willingness to experiment and go against expectations

gay robin. neon aesthetics. giant fucking meat monster. i know some people hate both the neon and the meat monster but i personally think they were kind of amazing and like. yknow regardless of personal tastes i think it’s impossible to deny that s3 had a lot of incredible visuals, and they’re all visuals that just wouldn’t have been possible if the show were too afraid to stray from its s1 aesthetic. robin being canonically gay (and her resulting friendship with steve) and the season’s striking visuals are two things that most everyone (besides like homophobes skjncdknm) can agree were great, right? and they were both departures from where the show began and what we all expected!! so yeah i think while some of the experimentation in s3 wasn’t ideal it was also that experimentation that allowed for some of the season’s strongest elements to come about.

the hospital sequence (and the season’s action/horror scenes in general)

this one is fairly self-explanatory. while they may have underutilized the “body snatching” element of the season, the hospital sequence with nancy and jonathan fighting off their possessed bosses did an amazing job of building tension and creating a genuine sense of really intense and personal danger.

in general i think that s3 melded action and horror rather well, particularly in the sauna test, the hospital, and when the mindflayer busts through the roof of hop’s cabin. horror can come from many things, and in this case, st elicited horror largely from the feeling of helplessness, and it was really effective for me personally. i think it worked better for me than s1′s brand of horror because it doesn’t rely so much on a lack of knowledge or a sense of suspense that inevitable disappears upon a second viewing.

the body horror we got in s3 was also really fun! that’s it i just think all the blood and guts and slime were fun and i would like more of them. once again, the impacts of body horror are less dependent upon the viewer being in the dark or unsure as to what’s happening, and as such i think it tends to be a little more effective at eliciting reaction in the long term.

timing and mechanics of the battle of starcourt/finale

i think the battle of starcourt is just fucking awesome, and beyond that personal opinion, i think it’s the most high-stakes and intense finale of all three seasons, and this is for two main reasons! 1. el is out of commission, and 2. (almost) everyone is in the same cental location. this means that (almost) everyone is in danger all at once, and they are all working together at the same time to fight the same threat. s1/s2 have their groups more fragmented for the finales, and while i understand why in each case and i wouldn’t call either season’s finale necessarily weak, i do think the centralized nature of the s3 finale just Works on another level. in s1 and s2, large segments of the cast are already perfectly safe by the time el dispatches the primary threat. in s3, however, everybody save for dustin and erica is still in danger up until the last moment, and el is seemingly (you can def debate how much power she still had in her when she peeked into billy’s mind and whether the memory broke the mindflayer’s hold on him or if she was actually controlling him to some degree) completely vulnerable. this increases the tension and raises the stakes, making the finale a real crescendo to fortissimo as opposed to a series of little mezzo forte moments. i hope everyone reading this knows music idk how else to phrase that my brain is stupid.

emphasis on friendship and adolescence (but in a different way than s1/2)

this is definitely a controversial one but i think that s3 really did like... show a side of friendship that had been more or less unexplored thus far in the show. el and max were amazing, and i think it’s really nice that we got an opportunity to see the kids have some growing pains as well as see them support each other through Normal Adolescent Stuff like boyfriends and breakups instead of just like. death and trauma. this is maybe just a personal preference, but i think it can be really enlightening and provide a lot of depth when you get to see how characters respond to normal everyday conflict and not just how they respond to giant world-ending conflict!! letting el use her powers for goofy teenage shit like spying on boys and messing with mean girls at the mall is not only fun for her and the audience, but it also really emphasizes just how much those powers are a part of el, making it that much more devastating when she loses them at the end of the season.

weaknesses

tonal dissonance

so this is like. obvious. but it must still be said! i won’t go on and on about it since we all know this so i’ll try to like talk about it from an angle people don’t usually? anyway. it seems to me like they were maybe a little worried about s3 being too dark. while the choice to really lean into humor was definitely driven by the sorts of eighties teen films from which s3 drew inspiration (like fast times at ridgemont high), i think it was also done in an attempt to alleviate the more troubling implications of some events in the season, particularly the russian bunker plot. like, yeah, st can be incredibly dark, but if they’d played the whole “children being stuck inside of a foreign military base, tied up, tortured, and drugged” thing completely straight without the humorous elements that exist in canon, it had the potential to be like... disturbing on a new level. steve and robin don’t have powers like el yknow their kidnapping/torture doesn’t have any sci-fi elements to sorta soften the blow. they’re just innocent teenagers being brutalized and traumatized by grown men. so anyway yeah i think maybe the writers were concerned about this storyline coming off as too dark and they wanted it to be a little more whimsical but they ended up pushing way too hard in that direction and creating extreme dissonance at times. this goes for joyce/hopper/murray/alexei too, but to a lesser extent. i think the ridiculousness in that group felt a lot more like... realistic. but still.

newspaper plot

once again i feel like i don’t even need to say this skjdncmn we all know it was insane how the show basically ended up delivering the message “while misogyny is a serious problem poverty and classism are not” and i’ve said it on this blog a million times so i don’t need to repeat myself. i’ll focus on another weak point of this plot: the fact that it completely separates nancy and jonathan from everyone else. once again, the show’s preoccupation with j/ancy held them back! like... can you imagine a version of s3 where nancy and jonathan both worked in the mall? i have a lot of ideas about this possible au and like how the plot could play out differently if they worked in the mall but first of all it’s just more realistic, second of all it further utilizes the mall as a central setting, and third of all, it would bring everyone together. as it is in canon, nancy and jonathan were unnecessarily isolated from the rest of the group, and this isolation was detrimental to both of their characters. like, they only ever get to interact with each other! if they’d gotten summer jobs in the mall, they could have had more interactions with the kids/steve/robin, and they absolutely still could have had a similar argument! maybe in this case, nancy notices the rat thing (or something else odd) herself when taking out the trash behind the mall, and she wants jonathan to ditch work with her to check it out bc she thinks it may be related to the lab. jonathan doesn’t want to ditch work because he needs his job, nancy argues that they’re working shitty mall jobs anyway and who cares if they get fired, and we get more or less the same thing as s3 without the cartoonishly over-the-top misogyny. i mean honestly i think the rat shit could have been cut entirely it didn’t rly... accomplish much of anything. in my opinion. like imagine s3 without the rat plot you literally would not be missing anything except it would be more surprising when the dudes melted into goo at the hospital. so yeah i think it would have been better if nancy and jonathan had jobs at the mall, weren’t isolated from everybody else, and were maybe absorbed into the party’s plot or the scoops troop’s plot from very early on, allowing them to interact with more characters and have a less... dumb.... plot. like god splitting up nancy and jonathan between the party/scoops troop would have been So Much better i just. sdkjcnksdmn anyway yeah.

briefness of group reunion/separation of groups

remember in s2 at the beginning of “the gate,” where mike and hopper had a confrontation and max and el met for the first time and el hugged everyone and steve and nancy had their sad little moment together outside... where’s that energy? obviously the s2 reunion wasn’t that long either, but it made space for some significant emotional moments to take place. s3′s reunion had some hopper/el/mike resolution, but besides that... there was nothing, really. i just think that the whole group getting together in s3 was SO exciting and powerful the way they did it (with both the scoops troop and the adults having their own Big Moment reconnecting with team griswold family), but the emotional potential was more or less squandered.

i also think in s3 at times they were really stretching to keep everybody separated even though it made no sense. and like... in s1 the separation worked bc nobody else knew that (x group) was experiencing weird shit too, and beyond that, each group (as i mentioned in the s1 section) was sort of operating within their own genre and bringing something unique to the season. they’ve stopped doing that though! now, the groups aren’t separate bc each plot is tonally/structurally different, the groups are just separate bc... they need to be, because it’s a big ensemble cast and you can’t just have them all be together for a whole season or it would be way too difficult to coordinate things and keep the show dynamic. all this is to say that i’m excited for s4 because the location differences make it so there’s a Reason for each plot to be separate at the beginning, and i think that’ll work better.

general ridiculousness

i dont mean like i think it’s bad that they made jokes this is just me lumping in all the dumb shit like hopper not worrying about el and not wanting to check on the kids, him and joyce bickering long after they both know they and their children are in danger, max seemingly forgetting that billy is a racist abuser, etc etc. i think many of these are just a symptom of the show 1. trying desperately to keep the groups split up a certain way even though it may not make any sense, and 2. trying to fit into a certain genre/trope mold when their actual characters are more complex than the tropes they’re imitating. this is so fucking long already i am not gonna elaborate further rn but i trust u all know what i mean.

soooo... yeah, that’s about all! i mean it’s not all there are definitely many more things i could talk about and i know i focused sorta disproportionately on the teens which is my bad :/ but i’m done for now. thank you for asking, and apologies for the delay in responding!! i’m sure some people reading (if anyone read this far) will disagree with some of what i’ve said and that’s alright like i’m not The Authority on st or anything i’m just trying to talk about like my own thoughts yknow? so yeah luv u all i hope someone enjoyed reading this!!

#asks #em talks #lesbianrobin.canon #stranger things #if u actually read all this i love u and im sorry #these r just my opinions!! and im sure i misremembered some shit my brain is swiss cheese #i did my best tho

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tibby · 4 years

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I’ve been thinking about all the weirdly conservative views in stranger things lately and am wondering if your have any stranger things hot takes? I love all your stranger things and riverdale posts!

it’s been brought up before but it truly is like...baffling that this show is so pro capitalism and one of the main families are proud reaganites and yet neither of those things are criticised. i understand that that was the mood and beliefs of a lot of people in the 1980s, but they were not good things, and presenting them at face value with no criticism is lazy writing at best and something the duffers support at worst (although, honestly, i wouldn’t be surprised.)

for a show set in a small town where a large percentage of the residents aren’t wealthy (the byers family is an obvious one, but we can safely assume dustin and his mother aren’t super well off either, not to mention everyone who lost their jobs in st3) stranger things really does not like to discuss class disparity.

following on from that: they had so much potential to discuss how corporations and Shiny Malls damage family businesses and the livelihood of small business owners, and they just...did nothing with it? like yeah the mall gets burned down and the mayor gets arrested but like. it’s never properly addressed and if i remember correctly (it’s been awhile since i watches s3, so i could be wrong) hopper even arrests some of the protestors. you know, the people who lost their jobs and businesses thanks to the mayor’s shady deal to make starcourt happen.

generally speaking, the glorification of hopper.

anyone who has followed me for an extended period of time knows i hate murray but WHY would a man that has countless conspiracy theories and who doesn’t trust anyone suddenly turn around and start preaching about how america is the land of the free and so great? murray has always sucked but his speeches to alexei in st3 didn’t even make sense for the character.

see also: erica being made a main character (yay!) but giving speeches about how america is great and capitalism is good.

the treatment of lucas and the sinclair family is a whole other post and one that isn’t really mine to write, but the way he’s treated at the hands of other characters is rarely ever addressed within the show and it’s incredibly disturbing.

the fact that they genuinely seem to think that a wealthy white woman having a shitty boss is like, the peak of misogyny. i’m not denying that what nancy experienced was bad (although, honestly, seperate from the sexist comments, if i ran a newspaper and two teenage interns tried to tell me about insane rats, i wouldn’t believe them either), but like...her storyline was not the feminist masterpiece they made it out to be. giving her a #girlboss moment was the absolute bare minimum they could do and they didn’t even do it right.

discussed this plenty of times before but nancy being a woman does not give her a free pass on classism.

feels like i’m really ragging on nancy here but like...her st3 “journalism” plot was so bad, but it didn’t have to be! i complain a lot about st2 but at least that storyline made sense for her. she was investigating the us government because its corruption led to the death of her best friend. having her and jonathan continue their investigations into the us government due to the damage and trauma they caused to them and people they loved would have made sense, and it’s not like that corruption started and ended with the hawkins lab. instead it was throwing us into the idea that nancy always wanted to be a reporter (???) and decided to get her poor boyfriend fired so she could do an article on weird rats (which didn’t even contribute to the plot at all.) maybe i’m being too harsh and maybe it is another flaw of their Time Jumps, but honestly to me it just reads as them trying to be #feminist and having reporter teens without having to criticise america any further.

last nancy point but my GOD can this show stop with its weird pro gun message via her. like i understand they have to fight monsters but at this point it’s just them trying to make her seem badass and also she canonically enjoys the act of shooting a gun, which is like, lmao.

the sudden switch to “america is good, blame the scary russians for everything” is something that’s been unpacked multiple times by people much smarter than me, but like, fucking hell.

and look, i get it. i understand that most of this is just reflective of the time period and that plenty of people believed the messages that the show parrots. but here’s the thing: you cannot present these views and not criticise them. you cannot set a show in the 1980s and then refuse to address any kind of social issues and injustices outside of a few offhand comments. i’ll give credit where credit is due and admit that they made a decent effort to at least explore classism in season one, but that hasn’t really been brought up since, and no other issues have ever being decently addressed. and i probably shouldn’t expect much from netflix’s cash cow and the duffer brothers themselves, but the entire show really is....uncomfortably conservative.

#sorry these are all on the weird conservatism of the show apologies if you wanted takes on other things #also i got more annoyed than i expected so f for me #my controversial take is idm that they haven't really explored gay issues outside of robin because like #a) it's a small town in a red state in the 1980s #b) i'd rather die than watch the duffers unpack the aids crisis #and c) i do think will being gay will be made canon eventually but also he's 15 in 1985 give it time #ask #Anonymous #meta

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letyourcolors · 4 years

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the oc & stranger things? :)

the oc:

my favorite female character: marissa cooper

my favorite male character: hmm i think ryan atwood

my favorite book/season/etc: i honestly love all of them but, while other seasons have some boring or annoying phases, season 2 is the oc reaching PERFECTION it was really the highlight of the show

my favorite episode (if its a tv show): i haven’t rewatched the show in a long time so i don’t really remember all the episodes specifically. 1x07 was definitely the turning point from ‘okay it’s nice’ to ‘WOWWW i love this show!!!!’. i love 2x14 and 2x15 they are soooo pure jfklsfçdg 3x25 is very very sweet too! and i LOVE the finale!!! it’s such a beautiful way to end their story and i’ll literally cry my eyes out every time i watch it

my favorite cast member: hmm i don’t really know them?? i love olivia wilde who isn’t a regular cast member but i guess it counts

my favorite ship: it’s definitely the core four. i don’t care that much about the romantic dynamics and tbh my favorite couple is probably ryan & taylor which is very unpopular lol

a character I’d die defending: marissa cooper! i’d defend all of them but marissa is the only one who actually needs it because everyone hates her when she has done almost NOTHING WRONG!!!! my baby deserved way better

a character I just can’t sympathize with: well obviously i hate volchock, oliver and trey (marissa honey.... such bad luck). one that i really didn’t like for no reason in specific was summer’s dad?? idk why

a character I grew to love: julie cooper and taylor townsend!!!! when i first knew them i hated them but at the end they were my faves i love them so much

my anti otp: the only time i really hated a ship on this show was when sandy cheated on kirsten with that annoying lady named rebecca i guess? don’t really remember but i hated them very much

stranger things:

my favorite female character: ERICA i’m not kidding i thought she was the best part of season 3 (but i love the other girls too)

my favorite male character: i like the boys! i think my favorite one is lucas because the others are constantly praised by the fandom and for me lucas is an incredibly well constructed character

my favorite book/season/etc: i’m gonna say s3 because it was the most connected to the show i had ever felt and it made me laugh so hard and robin & erica were introduced and ugh FLAWLESS. but they’re all pretty great

my favorite episode (if its a tv show): i don’t know if any episode in particular stands out for me but i love the one where eleven saves mike from the bullies and dustin screams ‘SHE’S OUR FRIEND AND SHE’S CRAZY!’ just bc that moment was so pure!!!! and i also love the one with erica saying ‘you know what i love about america? capitalism’ just to get ice cream for life hfkjslhgs

my favorite cast member: i don’t really follow any of the members :(

my favorite ship: it’s definitely the whole squad (and scoop’s trupe specifically) but romantically i guess it’s jonathan x nancy. i think they’re so cute

a character I’d die defending: hmm i guess robin. i mean she doesn’t need me to defend her from the fandom but if they were all real life people i guess i’d always stand up for her cause she’s perfect

a character I just can’t sympathize with: billy??? and btw what is up with y’all romanticizing him he was a PIECE OF SHIT

a character I grew to love: jonathan byers. i thought he was very creepy the first time i watched the show and didn’t like him at all but i’ve rewatched it this year and omg he’s just so soft how could i ever dislike such a pure heart

my anti otp: i don’t really have one. i mean i don’t ship nancy x steve but i did enjoy them while they were together on s1 so it’s not a notp

thank you for sending me!!!! i had a lot of fun answering fjklsdjgs~ljfkla

#answered #jacesclarissas

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thequeenofshebasays · 5 years

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Okay, I need to rant today. I can’t believe that to this day I still see very ill informed and stupid posts calling Jonathan a creep and dragging him… then the same dolts talking about how amazing Billy (and Steve are) still!?

Okay I need to lay down some facts:

Jonathan Byers is NOT a creep, a stalker or anything villainous and awful. Just STOP! What Jonathan did in S1 was go looking for his brother where his bike was found (near Steve’s house) Jonathan ONLY approached the house party when he heard a scream and assumed something awful was happening. Upon seeing the scene he watches for a bit and out of habit proceeds to take photos… he stops when he realizes he’s taking photos of Nancy in the room. That’s that.

Or is it? No…

What follows very quickly after is, he’s found out. His camera is smashed, he is admonished and shamed for what he did. But the incident had a purpose: it was the catalyst that sets things in motion… Nancy and Jonathan realize there’s a monster, they start to investigate and Jonathan has hope that Will isn’t dead.

More importantly is he apologizes, twice. The second time after Nancy brings it up during their fight. He means it.

He’s never done anything like it before or since and y’all forget that! You conveniently forget and omit A LOT.

While Jonathan has proved himself over and over and over and over what a solid, loyal, trustworthy, good and amazing human he is… that’s all he has been. As a son, brother and boyfriend. He’s trying his best.

“BuT hE dIdNt CaRe AbOuT NaNcY wHeN sHe WaS dEaLiNg WiTh SeXiSm!?” …. are y’all just that dumb? Or do you have a potato for a brain. Did you just mentally remove several convos where Jonathan and Nancy talk about it? He’s trying to encourage her! He of course has no idea what she is going through! But he’s not being awful about it. He has his own worries as well. Like you know being poor… which was brought up but dismissed and Nancy never apologized for mocking him about it. He apologized however for not getting what she was going through.

All he does is apologize to everyone and want to make things right and fix things and be there for people! That’s just who he is! He’s not perfect! But he’s trying. He’s one of the most realistic, amazing characters on the show.

Now you might think I’m done! But I’m not! Oh boy I’m not done! This next part will be how y’all consistently dismiss all the awful crap Steve and Billy have done! Oh yeah I’m going to call y’all out again with this.

The hypocrisy from y’all is laughable. Shocking! But laughable… one mediocre looking white guy exists and y’all forgive all the evil things the character has done… because that’s all it is.. it’s legit based upon looks. There’s nothing deep going on. It’s why y’all acting stupid when Joe cut his hair. It’s all external fakeness for y’all.

But here’s why it’s extra annoying:

Steve starts off S1 being pushy… he’s constantly trying to get Nancy to do stuff she doesn’t want to. And it’s seen as “cute” but it’s creepy.

His possessive behavior after is also shocking and gross. The allowing of her to be publicly slut shamed, attacking her and being nasty because he spied on her through her bedroom window (???)

He finally gets sense knocked into him… but we never see him apologize to Nancy. He never says those words. There’s no moment… we’re just supposed to forgive him.

S2 didn’t see much improvement. We legit start off S2 with him trying to guilt trip her into not leaving for college. Acting insecure and possessive. He wants her life to be like her moms… and that’s her biggest nightmare. But he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about what she wants, her worries, her depression, how she feels about Barb, he half assed the dinner with Barb’s parents!

The fight at the party just adds to it… he’s a jerk. He doesn’t care about Nancy at all… she’s blacked out drunk and needs help. But he doesn’t care. Just his little feelings getting hurt!

And then he LEAVES HER THERE!?

Side note: y’all who attacked Jonathan for keeping Nancy safe after that are trash… just FYI.

They fight and he’s again nasty, jumpy, doesn’t listen, is possessive and jealous and very selfish.

Back to Steve… he’s going to apologize… but it’s half assed because he doesn’t get why he should apologize.

His behavior is never addressed by the show and in fact we have Nancy apologizing to him… and she didn’t do anything wrong.

In S3 Steve is pretty much Spongebob so I legit have nothing negative to say about him in this regard during that season.

Billy… I don’t get why y’all love that racist piece of trash so much? His list ain’t even long… because he’s a repetitive bully:

He’s racist

Wants to kill children

Is abusive to Max

Is a freaking psycho bully to Steve for no reason!

He attacks Lucas… like how do y’all just shrug that off!?

In S3 he’s no better, bully creep to kids at the pool, bully creep to his sister.

He gets possessed by the MF but he doesn’t fight it. Will fought it… billy embraced it. He kidnaps people and forces them to become the flayed. The scene with Heathers parents proved he wasn’t just being mind controlled… he was actively being evil. He enjoyed it.

The ending was a stupid, lame and predictable one. Oh he saved the day we just forgive him. NO! He’s trash! glad he’s gone!

And I’m not done! Remember when El and Max spied on their friends? Remember that? Why is that okay with y’all? I don’t care if they’re kids. They’re not babies. They know better. They had Nancy on there. What if they landed on her and she was doing something private with Jonathan? Are they creeps!? No it’s funny haha… spying is funny… unless Jonathan did it by mistake once then it’s EVIL!

Anyway… this fandom is exhausting. But I’ll stick up for Jonathan while y’all bend over backwards to make up excuses for Billy and act like Steve has always been a lovable scamp.

#stranger things #jonathan byers #steve harrington #this fandom is dumb #RANT #cant tag billy...#but billy sucks #billy hargrove

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lesbianrobin · 4 years

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hey guys it's me again back on my bullshit <3 wanna hear my theory about how tommy created king steve? warning it’s like 2800 words long okay let's go!

So, at first glance in S1, the Steve and Tommy dynamic seems somewhat obvious: King Steve and his loyal sidekick. This post is me arguing that the only reason we really have this perception is because Steve is the more attractive of the pair (no hate to Chester Rushing, he’s very cute, but. Joe Keery) and because Tommy himself encouraged it. Tommy was actually the more “dominant” partner in the duo. I believe that it was Tommy who encouraged Steve to lean into the “King Steve” persona and who encouraged belief in this persona among their classmates, all for his own benefit.

Before we can really get into it, I have to establish something about Steve’s character, specifically that he bases his self-worth and self-image almost entirely on what others say and think about him. I’m basing this assumption off of a few key moments in the series, but I don’t want this to be insanely long so I’ll try to focus on season two where this trait is most evident.

At the Halloween party, Nancy tells Steve that they killed Barb and that their “love” is bullshit, and then later outside of the gym she insists that he isn’t being fair or reasonable in his anger with her. The next day Steve shows up to her house with roses, rehearsing an apology (”I’m sorry... what am I sorry for?) even though he doesn’t feel that he’s done anything wrong. That’s important: apologizing even though he doesn’t actually believe or understand his feelings and actions to be wrong. He’s trusting Nancy’s perception that he’s been unreasonable above his own hurt feelings and his own perception that he’s done nothing he needs to apologize for. Then, at the end of the season, he tells Nancy that he may have been a shitty boyfriend, but he’s a pretty damn good babysitter.

Sometime between going to the Wheelers’ house with flowers to apologize and talking to Nancy at the Byers’, Steve did a pretty serious 180 from “What the hell am I sorry for, what did I even do wrong” to “I was a shitty boyfriend and you should go be with Jonathan.” The last time he interacted with Nancy was prior to the flower incident, so what happened to cause this shift in perspective? I’d like to suggest... that nothing happened!

See, Steve is on a pretty linear emotional path in S2 after the Halloween party. At first, he’s so upset that he can’t even look at Nancy, asking Jonathan to take her home. The next day he avoids her until she confronts him, at which point he’s rather confident in his own feelings that Nancy has hurt him and doesn’t love him like she should. As time goes on, though, he loses confidence in his feelings. He buys her flowers to apologize. He isn’t remotely angry with Nancy or Jonathan once they show up together and it’s pretty clear that something’s going on between them. Finally, he calls himself a shitty boyfriend. I think that the more time passes, the less Steve believes in himself, and the more he tends to default to believing others despite his own feelings. As the anger fades, he questions himself, and since he loves and trusts Nancy, he’s inclined to believe her! Since she doesn’t love him, he must have done something wrong. Because Nancy doesn’t love him, because she wants Jonathan, because their relationship was “bullshit,” he now believes he must have been a shitty boyfriend.

Sidenote, in S3 he says a lot of shit about how he’s a loser with no future, and the way he says it indicates (to me) that it’s something he hears quite often, likely from his father. Even though it’s pretty normal to be working minimum wage the summer after you graduate high school and not have things figured out yet, even though he’s literally helped save his friends’ lives, perhaps even helped save the whole town, Steve has internalized the idea that he’s a total failure at the ripe old age of 18 (19?) and I can’t help but think that it’s because his father has told him. So. Also in S3, he says his hair is his greatest feature, and apparently people literally call him Steve “the Hair” Harrington so like, maybe he just knows he has really good hair, but he ALSO might be responding to the nickname by saying like, “Oh, okay, the hair is Objectively my best feature, okay.” Just a little bit of speculation!

I know this is a lot of my own personal opinions and speculation, but if you can get behind it, let’s keep going! If Steve is someone whose every belief about himself is a direct response to the words and feelings of those around him, if he places the opinions of others above his own feelings, it would logically follow that he might be easily emotionally manipulated.

So, let’s apply this lens to his friendship with Tommy!

Let’s run down the list. Steve cleans up after Tommy, making excuses for his shitty behavior, even wordlessly giving Carol his own food at lunch after Tommy ruined hers. He allows Tommy and Carol to have sex in his mom’s bed, and as indicated by their familiarity with the bedroom and knowledge of where the spare sheets are, this is a regular occurrence. He’s also always seen driving the two of them around.

Neither Tommy nor Carol is ever really seen doing anything kind for Steve. They tease his girlfriend, then later use his heartbreak as an excuse to graffiti some shit and make cruel jokes about Nancy and Jonathan. That’s just not the behavior of a couple hangers-on to the most popular kid in school! Neither of them ever even pretend to give a shit about Steve. It seems that Tommy and Carol were very comfortable using Steve for his big empty house and his nice car and his popularity at school because they’d been using him for years at that point, and they thought there was no way he’d ever ditch them.

I think it’s generally accepted among fans that Steve and Tommy have been close friends for years. Tommy’s familiar with Steve’s father’s infidelity, and is comfortable enough to joke and laugh about it with Steve. The two of them just... operate like people who’ve existed around each other for a long time. So, if we accept that Steve and Tommy have been friends for awhile, we can then accept three things: the two of them know each other very well, Tommy is used to having fun at Steve’s expense, and Steve is used to allowing it.

When Steve does finally stand up to Tommy and Carol, Tommy turns on him immediately. It’s an incredibly fast turn. He shoves Steve up against his car, physically threatens him, and proceeds to taunt him angrily even as he’s driving away. Specifically he yells, “That’s it, run away Stevie boy, run away! Just like you always do,” and continues to shout variations on this phrase even after Steve’s driven far enough that Tommy’s only yelling to himself. The fact that Tommy keeps shouting after Steve can’t hear him indicates that he is genuinely very upset by Steve’s standing up against him and Carol. His fury, however, as indicated by the speed with which he turned on Steve, seems to be less like that of one who feels betrayed by a friend and more like one angry at some perceived loss or threat.

Now, let me just state the obvious: that was a really weird thing for Tommy to be yelling!

There’s no real precedent at this point (or any time) in the show for Steve “running away,” unless you count him running from the cops, which... Tommy also did, and which also happened, like, ten minutes ago, which I don’t think would really qualify for the wording “like you always do.” Tommy also suddenly calls him “Stevie boy,” which (correct me if I’m wrong) nobody has called Steve thus far. Maybe he’s just trying to mock and belittle Steve in any way he can think of, but it’s just... weirdly specific. The whole thing is a bit of a non-sequitur.

But! Remember how we established that Steve and Tommy, by virtue of having been friends for a significant period of time, know each other pretty well? Remember how Tommy is knowledgeable about Steve’s father’s infidelity, so familiar that he’s comfortable joking about it? Keep that in mind.

This phrase that Tommy shouts at Steve only makes sense in the context of some offscreen information that we the viewer are not privy to, but which Tommy and Steve are. What might that information be? Nothing in the show indicates that Steve has a history of picking fights prior to the incident with Jonathan. He’s a fairly respectable suburban kid, what is Tommy accusing him of running from? It’s my opinion that the only logical answer is that Tommy’s referencing a specific event with Steve’s “asshole” father, or a specific phrase that Steve has perhaps often heard from his father. I’m gonna ask you to sit on this assumption for a minute, and I’ll come back and support it soon.

Okay, so that’s S1 out of the way. At this point, a few things are clear: Steve has issues with his dad. Tommy knows about those issues. Steve allowed himself to be used by Tommy and Carol for some indeterminate yet significant amount of time before finally snapping and dumping them completely, something which infuriates Tommy.

Tommy is also in S2! And... all he does is tell Steve that Nancy and Jonathan are skipping school together. He never actually interacts with Nancy or Jonathan; he shows up in S2 entirely to mock Steve, to use his deepest fears and insecurities against him.

First thing: in the S2 shower scene after basketball practice, Tommy makes it a point to shove Jonathan and Nancy’s relationship in Steve’s face. Billy doesn’t know Steve, so he attacks his basketball skills and his keg stand record, but Tommy? Tommy knows about Steve’s dad cheating on his mom, he was there for the S1 fistfight, he knows how monumental infidelity is to Steve, especially in the case of Nancy and Jonathan, and so that is what he chooses to torment Steve with, and it clearly strikes a nerve.

Now’s where I circle back to my assertion that Tommy was referencing/quoting Steve’s father while yelling at him back in S1. S2 makes it clear that Tommy knows Steve’s biggest insecurities, and he intentionally exploits them for his own purposes. This, combined with the way Tommy demonstrates intimate knowledge of Steve’s family situation and the fact that his words just don’t quite make sense in context, the fact that “Stevie boy” sounds like something a father may call his young son, makes me believe that at some point, Steve told Tommy about something his dad said that hurt him, and Tommy remembered that to use against him later.

This paragraph is just speculation on what Tommy might be referring to, so skip if you want, it’s entirely my own opinion. We know that Steve’s parents sleep in separate bedrooms and his father can’t be trusted not to cheat, and thus we might assume that they argue a lot. Maybe his parents get into lots of arguments, and whenever Steve chooses to remove himself from the situation, he’s accused of running away. Maybe Steve runs off whenever he gets in trouble with his father. There’s a lot of possibilities, but either way, “run away, Stevie boy, run away just like you always do” just... sounds too personal and specific to be something random and meaningless that Tommy came up with on the spot.

Now, in S2, Tommy also appears to have latched onto Billy rather quickly after Billy’s arrival in town. Coincidentally, Billy is kind of obsessed with Steve and taking him down, despite the fact that Steve never sought him out or challenged him in any way. Steve has been minding his own business! When they later end up in a fistfight, Billy says that he’s “been dying to meet this King Steve” that people have been telling him about, and I can’t help but think... who would make it their priority to talk to Billy about Steve Harrington? Like, new guy from California moves to my small Indiana town, I don’t want to tell him about some popular guy at school who’s gotten kinda lame and quiet lately, I want to ask him about himself, or tell him what we do for fun around here, right? So who might be incentivized to talk Steve up to a guy who’s clearly itching for a fight, a guy dying to prove that he’s top dog? Who did we see hanging out with Billy a couple of times?

Did you say Tommy? Because it’s Tommy! It certainly seems to me as though Tommy saw an opportunity in Billy. The opportunity to befriend someone with a certain social power (much like with Steve), but also the opportunity to torment or get back at Steve in some way. I think that Tommy intentionally inflated the character of “King Steve” to Billy in the hopes that Billy would pick a fight with Steve and Steve would get his ass kicked without Tommy having to get his hands dirty.

Which makes me wonder... what if Tommy played up that King Steve image to people besides Billy? Other kids at Hawkins High... or perhaps Steve himself. Remember how Steve internalizes things? Believes that he must be whatever others see in him? Yeah.

Let’s say you’re an asshole teenage boy who wants it all. You want to be popular. You want to have a spot to hang out with your girlfriend with no parents around. You want to feel strong and powerful. You meet a kid who could give you all of that, and all he wants in return is friendship. He doesn’t even seem to care if that friendship is genuine or not! All you have to do is hang around and make him feel like a cool kid. Convince him to throw a small party, you and your girlfriend get free reign of his nice big house. Make sure he knows that he’s got Prom King potential, that he’s the top dog, and you get to be one of the popular guys, too. It’s a pretty sweet deal if you can recognize the opportunity for what it is.

One last thing: Actual Steve is nothing like he seems around Tommy and Carol in the start of S1. Making friends with Dustin and coming up with a goofy handshake, singing to cheer Robin up in S3, singing into the bat to try and cheer Nancy up in S1, holding her hand during their first time, unabashedly telling her she’s beautiful and that he missed her even if only an hour had passed... Steve is a very emotional, dorky guy, and we never really got to see that side of him when he was around Tommy. I just find that interesting in light of the fact that Steve and Tommy seem to be otherwise rather close. Steve was clearly playing a part to some degree while around them, and in S3 he explicitly says that he behaved the way he did in high school because he was concerned about what others would think of him, about losing his popularity. Even prior to their argument, Steve was wary around Tommy, concerned about losing his friendship despite the fact that Tommy was a pretty objectively shitty friend.

So, here’s what we know. Tommy knows a lot about Steve, including his private family issues, and he isn’t above using that knowledge to hurt or manipulate Steve. In fact, he seems to be really good at it. Tommy benefitted from Steve’s popularity, from him throwing parties and living up to the “King Steve” image. Steve followed Tommy’s lead in their friendship, cleaned up after him, made excuses for him, and let him get away with just about anything. He masked aspects of his personality that didn’t fit the image that he and Tommy aimed for. He was desperate to retain Tommy’s friendship and afraid of letting the mask fall. Tommy was furious when Steve rejected him, taunted Steve with deeply personal jabs, and a year later he latched onto the new “top dog” in town with record speed. Steve is a completely different person when he’s around Tommy versus when he’s around Nancy, Robin, and the kids. Most importantly, we know that Steve has a tendency to construct himself in the image provided by others.

Taking all of this into account, I think that Tommy Hagan met sad, rich, handsome little Steve Harrington, saw just how lonely and desperate he was to feel a sense of belonging, and used that to nudge Steve into striving to be the person that Tommy wanted him to be: King Steve.

#steve harrington #stranger things #this is. so fucking ungodly long skdncdnm #but at least five of you asked for it!!!#if i don't get at least five notes on this ur all fucking fake and i don't wanna hear it #em talks #lesbianrobin.canon

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