#most of the ones from s1 and 2 being in the byers house :(
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can you elaborate more on steve being abandoned by the narrative?
yes <3 so i think there are two very unfortunate circumstances surrounding steve's character that have led to the current state of his plotline: 1. after not killing him in s1 like they originally planned, the duffers have never really had a plan for steve and 2. they are extremely influenced by audiences. when they were conceptualizing steve to fit in among the ensemble cast, the duffers were picturing him as a douchey boyfriend who unceremoniously dies. lonnie was originally going to come back to the byers house to save jonathan and nancy. there was no need to picture where he'd be 4 seasons down the road, so they just didn't account for that. then joe keery charmed them so hard that they literally couldn't bear to kill him, so steve ends season one still somehow alive.
but we've already established the nancy/jonathan plotline, because jonathan was once the duffers' self-insert who must defeat the evil jock and win over the girl. they couldn't just backpedal on that right away, so they needed to give nancy and jonathan a plotline alone, away from steve. but steve only ever functioned as an extension of nancy until this point, so what do we do with steve now? in an accidental stroke of genius that the duffers have admitted was a last second decision, they pair him with the children and make him into a babysitter. it almost instantly boosts steve into being tied with hopper and el for most popular character from the show, potentially even beats them both out. in 2017 when s2 aired, you could not escape mom steve jokes. it was everywhere, steve was everywhere, joe was everywhere, it was arguably the second coming of #justice for barb, which, in netflix business-y terms, was the exact viral meme type situation that the show wanted and needed to sell merch and remain relevant and say "see we still got it!!!"
you know who has the 2nd most lines in the entirety of season three? directly behind hopper? ahead of winona ryder? steve. think for a second about how absolutely insane that is. the character who was written specifically to die in season one. joe keery's name wasn't even in the season one credits, because he wasn't considered a series regular. and now he has the 2nd most spoken lines in the big blockbuster season because he rocketed up in popularity so intensely. season three marketing features the mall so heavily, creates a literal physical shrine to 80s nostalgia, and when the very first promo is released an entire year before the season airs, who's the star of that teaser trailer? and who, pray tell, is featured in the main brand sponsorship ad that plays in movie theaters worldwide? thats right its america's little darling steve harrington.
but here is the issue. the duffers look at what made steve popular and they see: funny exasperated babysitter, heartthrob action hero. they're like oh okay so we should keep putting him directly in the center of the action, bang him up every season to give him his classic bloodied aesthetic, but. he still needs to be funny. we can almost kill him, but we can't actually kill him because he's profitable. we can let him get horrifically injured because it's badass, but we still gotta let him crack jokes. it creates this very weird tone to steve's role in the story starting in season 3 because he's both the action hero and the comedic relief and protected by plot armor, so we get scenes where he's being literally tortured until he's begging for his life and gasping for breath but the tone is still.......fun? comedic? light and goofy? i think the duffers also forgot he's supposed to be a teenager.
now this is partially me making educated guesses but i feel pretty confident about this: once again, like gollum, joe keery uses his big shiny eyes and manages to evade death again in season four by being so likable and charming and marketable that netflix execs or shawn levy or maybe even the duffers themselves were like oh fuck we just can't do it. they were obviously tossing around the idea of taking mom steve all the way by letting him die sacrificially for dustin, so in season four they make eddie, transfer steve's relationship with dustin directly onto him, ctrl f steve's name in the death scene and just type in eddie instead, and once again steve is alive but he's directionless.
so what does he have now, in season four? i think the duffers have a whiteboard somewhere with steve's name and around it are little circles that say "funny" "cool" "DO NOT KILL" and steve is now stuck in this endless cycle of getting beaten up, popping back up somehow unharmed like a looney tune, saying something cute and oblivious, rinse and repeat. because that's what worked, that's what made him popular all the way back in season two. that's what the duffers are obviously keeping in mind when they're writing steve: popularity. not realism, not depth, not growth, just literally how to continue making him popular. meanwhile, other characters get to be part of the actual story. other characters get to serve a purpose other than selling merch. when el is bitten by a monster, she gets to actually feel pain and need help because that's realistically what any human would need. when hopper is tortured, he gets to suffer and ponder his existence and reflect on the relationships in his life. steve never gets any of that, because the writers just don't see steve as the 19 year old boy on his 4th straight year of traumatic events that he actually is.
they literally just see him as a money maker, there for cool viral moments and witty lines and maybe the occasional emotion experienced but only if it's about his romantic prospects. and the narrative that other characters get to have and be apart of just kinda runs parallel to steve. he's there, technically, but he's not really in the story. and it's like actually crazy because you'd think after all the funko pops he sold, he'd have earned an actual storyline!!!
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fic recs!!
i woke up to being on a couple of fic rec lists and really appreciated it, so i wanted to capitalize on the nice energy and make a list of some of my own favs that i've read recently that i didn't necessarily see on the other lists :D check these out because they have some of the best prose/plots/characterization that i've read in the fandom :] 💜
one soft infested summer (M, 18k+, 3/7 ongoing) by @wheelersboy - this one is perfect for all the highler fans out there! it's got stoner byler of course, a music festival, lots out camping, and some really amazing writing! i started it just for the fun stoner vibes because Why Not, but i'm staying for the beautiful writing and the really complex and delicate relationship mike and will have in this one
Light Sleepers (T, 15k+, 2/6 ongoing) by @helioleti - WillEl-centric fic set during the time gap between the end of s3 and the beginning of s4 that explores their dynamic and their respective problems with mike, all while trying to cope with moving across the country from everything they know. each chapter is meant to reflect a certain stage of grief, which fits so well with all the complicated emotions everyone is going through!
drank my poison all alone (T, 4k, one-shot) by silverluminoqity - mike gets vecna'd and has to face his past self who's ashamed of who he's grown up to be, and my dudes the writing goes SO HARD. by far one of the best mike gets vecna'd fics i've read with such a good take on his character
star eater (T, >1k, one-shot) by @lowlightt - another fic where the writing does not play. honestly if you have a few minutes, READ THIS FIC. it's mostly just a confrontation between will and vecna, but it's so so powerful and impactful. and again, i cannot state it enough: the writing is AMAZING
tell me again (you said yes) (M, 32k, 3/3 complete) by @willow-lark - hey remember when cleradin was like a Thing for a brief second a few months ago? well if you miss those vibes, or if you just like great writing and some of the best weaving of canon into a fantasy au i've ever read, please look no further than this fic (and it's first part, fireball him! (cast protection)). i love this one dearly and enjoyed the wonderful ways Lark wove canon (specifically s1) into such a different setting, plus it was nice to see many of the other characters play a role in the events. beautiful, astounding, heart-wrenching - and did i mention there's an elopement 👀
In Undertow (M, 17k+, 3/6 on-going) by @souverian-are-we - this and one soft infested summer have become my summer byler reads~ when i say i love this fic, i mean you will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands 🥰 we've got estranged byler, jancy engagement with some stoncy going on in the background, and most of the characters still reeling from the consequences of their final battle with the upside down. it's all set at a lake house, which provides some breathtaking/atmospheric writing that this author uses to their advantage. it has some of my favorite scenes i've ever read in fic too, ones that have literally taken my breath away
california show your teeth (T, 77k+, 10/19 on-going) by @fireflywitch - what if the Byers and Hopper families were from Lenora and moved to Hawkins? this fic takes this one simple premise and turns it into one of my favorite fics i've ever had the pleasure of following along with. it essentially functions as a retelling of s1 and s2, gives almost every main character that's been featured in the show thus far a lot of time and space for their own plots, all while culminating into one larger story underneath. i don't think i've read a fic quite like this one in terms of its scope, plotting, and characterization, because there are a lot of moving parts, but this author goes above and beyond. i cannot recommend it enough
all i know is pouring rain (and everything has changed) (T, 3k, one-shot) by @willelfanpage - i think i read this one at the beginning of my workday while i was running some report on my computer and had to go about the rest of my day as if everything was fine ahah :'D seriously though, it's 3k words that pack an emotional punch all while examining will's relationship to rain. the writing is just gorgeous, and it's a character study that i haven't really seen done before, which was quite enjoyable~
Chasing Heartlines by (T, 7k+, 1/2 on-going) @cherryisgone - if you liked Tip-Toeing on Lilypads then may i direct you to its sequel, which features so much pining mike that he might as well be a tree? again, if you like cleradin/fantasy aus, then Cherry my beloved has you covered 💜 it fits so neatly with Lilypads and provides some fun contrast between will and mike~
Touch Me Like You Know Me (M, 15k, 4/4 complete) by @starsarefire824 - this exists in the rare pantheon of fics that actually made me cry. imagine an estranged byler reunion with all the emotions turned up to an eleven, and lots of lingering on lost time and how life sometimes takes us places we never thought we'd go. it's absolutely beautiful and is a classic to me :]
come back to me and forgive everything (T, 78k, 18/18 complete) by @howtobecomeadragon - i saw a lot about this one when it was on-going but am only just now getting around to reading it, and all i can say is why did it take me so long to get to it :') this author does such a good job of writing will and mike's relationship with a lot of nuance and complexity while still managing to make them feel like the teenagers they are. basically, will has to spend every july at lonnie's house in indianapolis, and for this summer in particular, the event is a lot more emotionally impactful for both mike and will. there's lots of emotional depth, the complexities of coming out and/or realizing you're queer, and, at the heart of it, how two friends try to mend things between each other. it's so soft and sweet
that's all i've got for now!! i'm quickly running out of time on my lunch break :'D also haven't been writing as much, but it's been fun to read more and relax a bit. hope you guys enjoy these because they're genuinely some of the best stuff i've had the pleasure to read in a while 💜💜💜
#fic recs#actually that last paragraph is a threat everyone had better read these now or i'll. blow up tumblr#byler#(< intended audience)#stranger things fic
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excuse my media analysis but rewatching s1 has made me realize that the demogorgon isn’t real. like it IS in-universe but it’s a metaphor for other stuff. imo it represents several abstract concepts in season one which are
1. eleven’s guilt over her past and what the lab made her do—she blames herself for the demogorgon getting free and for will going missing, which is partially why the demogorgon keeps manifesting in the byers’ house (“i’m the monster, i let it in”), and the last episode climaxes with the demogorgon (allegory for eleven’s remorse-turned-anger) attacking brenner (stand-in for hawkins lab/the DOE) before eleven manages to kill it at the expense of herself, which symbolizes her turning her back on her “papa” (along with everything he was responsible for that she was an unwilling part of) and finally managing to rationalize/move past her misplaced guilt in order to overcome it and save her friends (at a high cost of her own well-being and mental health)
2. nancy and barb’s personal tension—their friendship is implied to have been becoming more fragile over time for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which being their differing priorities (nancy is growing up fast while barb is reluctant to), and the place this finally comes to a head is of course at steve’s party where nancy makes the nail-in-the-coffin decision to choose steve over barb (at least in the moment) and cements the metaphorical death of nancy and barb’s friendship (apparently catalyzed by steve and nancy’s relationship) which is symbolized by barb’s literal death taking place in steve’s backyard, and nancy’s following obsession with finding and killing the demogorgon responsible for barb’s death (as well as the blame she foists onto herself and steve in season two) is a metaphor for nancy trying to bridge an uncrossable chasm and mend an unfixable relationship with someone who’s already out of her reach
3. steve’s attraction to jonathan—he spends a long time vehemently trying to deny the existence of the demogorgon (even though the last anyone saw it was literally six feet from his patio door), with the only person still alive to have seen it being jonathan, and says several things that specifically target jonathan’s sexuality when he’s picking that fight (the fight that jonathan wins, which i think has less to do with either of their actual physical ability and more to do with what jonathan represents to steve, but that’s another post), but is forced to finally accept and internalize its existence (notably in the presence of his girlfriend) afterward, both by the demogorgon manifesting again in the byers’ house (since, in this case, it’s an abstract extension of jonathan) AS WELL AS by steve ignoring an out he’s been given in favor of going back into the house and facing what he fears head-on (much the same way many questioning people end up finally coming to terms with themselves), specifically doing so with the nail bat which was originally jonathan’s weapon
#stranger things#last one was originally a joke but then i thought about it and was like hey wait. that might make sense for real#stonathan#< i guess?
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Guns and the Upside Down
We have seen consistently throughout the series that guns don't work on the demogorgon. Not only that, but gun usage in general is rarely viewed as a positive thing.
S1 - Nancy shoots at the demogorgon at the Byers house. She hits it repeatedly and it doesn't die. Hopper and Nancy are shown to be the only main characters who use a gun. I don't get the impression from this that they are sending the message that a lot of action movies send - using a gun is badass and we need good guys with a gun. Oftentimes, Hopper is shown to be belligerent. He starts punching people or pulling a gun on them when he gets stuck and doesn't know what else to do. This season in particular he is shown to be in over his head whenever he starts reaching for a gun (i.e. he's cornered trying to sneak into the lab when he pulls a gun out).
I think what they might be trying to do here is another trope inversion (I wrote about this more here). Nancy falls into the category of "giving a girl a gun to make her badass". Except the guns aren't working so it's not coming across like that exactly.
S2 - At the end of the season, Mike says something along the lines of "we can't shoot our way out of our problems". And Hopper responds with "we don't know that". Except we do know that. Mike is consistently right when it comes to problem solving. And we also see that this is true. When the group is attacked at the lab, Hopper is shooting at the demogorgon. The most it seems to do is slow them down a bit. But it doesn't kill them. When him and El are back at the lab later, he is shooting at the demogorgon climbing up the wall. It makes them fall but it doesn't look like they are killed. We see that closing the gate is actually what kills them.
S3 - Hopper uses a gun to kill the Russians in the lab. This is viewed as crazy by Joyce and Murray. He is being belligerent again and not thinking things through. Murray was handling their problems by talking to the guards in Russian. Nancy tries to use a gun to stop Billy from driving his car at them. This doesn't work. It's Steve driving another car into him that stops him. And we know Nancy's aim is good so she wasn't missing.
S4 - Hopper uses a gun in the Russian prison several times to shoot at the demogorgon and we also see Russian soldiers shooting at them. This does not work. It doesn't kill the demogorgon or stop it at any time. The most it does is slow it down a little. There are 2 moments (one with Hopper and one with the solders) where they show those characters repeatedly shooting at this demogorgon. It gets hit over and over again and doesn't die.
There is one exception here - the demogorgon that is tied to the table and cut open. Hopper shoots it once and it dies. This is the exception not the rule. This is the only time we see the demogorgon actually dying from a gun. Which leads me to believe that they either can be killed but they just have to be injured first - in this case cut open. Or the Russians were experimenting on it and did something to it so it could be killed.
Nancy goes looking for guns in the UD and doesn't find them. The group ends up pivoting and problem solving instead. It's communicating through the lights that saves them.
We also see Nancy at the end of the season shooting at Vecna. At this point, Max has already died and the gates have opened. They are too late. Her shooting Vecna also doesn't kill him. He gets lit on fire and shot at and he isn't dead. So this wasn't a badass moment of the action hero storming in with a weapon and saving the day. They lost and people died. And this was partly because this plan wasn't well thought out.
They have consistently shown that it's the characters intelligence that gets them out of tough situations and not brute force. It's a show about nerds saving the day. I think the line Mike says in S2 about not being able to shoot their way out of this is going to come back around in S5.
The things that have worked against the monsters are - El, the bat with the nails (not sure if this has actually killed anything though), fire (not on Vecna, but Murray's flamethrower works on the demogorgon), an ax, and Lucas's fireworks.
Guns have not only not helped them in tough situations, they are frequently associated with the bad guys. Lonnie is abusive and forced his two sons to learn to use guns to toughen them up. It's this lens of toxic masculinity that the audience is viewing the depiction of guns with. This idea that Will needs to toughen up and get a gun next season. When he picks up a gun in S1 it's his last resort option and it doesn't save him. It doesn't help.
Will is already tough and has been shown to be repeatedly. He has been traumatized throughout his childhood both by Lonnie and by the UD and he's still the kindest person on the show. That takes an emotional and mental toughness that most people don't have. He doesn't need a gun. Anyone who thinks this would be cool and good for him is not only ignoring the abuse that's associated with this (by Lonnie), but they are solely focusing on a form of physical toughness that is largely created by action movies. That blowing shit up and killing people solves your problems. It's directly associated with this need for a hyper-masculine solution to problems. It's not a narrative the show has ever used.
Which is why I think this is another trope they are trying to invert. We don't often see characters who solve their problems with intelligence. It's so often viewed as a sign of strength to just open fire. This is a problem for so many reasons but considering the amount of gun violence in the US right now, it's always shocking to see that there are still people who are viewing the whole "good guys with a gun" narrative an effective solution to problems. Again, this is not something the show has ever used even with Hopper and Nancy so I don't think they will go there now.
Jason, along with soldiers from the lab and the Russians, also fall into the bad guy with guns category. Jason is clearly becoming more and more unhinged as the season goes on and uses a gun on Lucas. I really don't love this moment considering the racial implications, but I do think that it's a consistent theme with the series with regard to how guns don't solve problems.
The show isn't shying away from taking a bolder approach to storytelling. They frequently invert tropes and they seem to be saving a few of their riskier stories for the final season (byler). I am certain that Will won't use a gun next season - it goes against his whole character arc, not to mention would be unnecessary if he has superpowers. But it would be a pretty radical move for them to also have Hopper and Nancy not use them too.
It would end up being a different kind of story that I don't think the audience is used to seeing. The only example I can come up with of an action movie/show deliberately not using guns is Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the tv show not the movie). They went out of their way to rarely show guns and when they did it was always in a negative way. It also wasn't necessary. The main character has superpowers and guns don't kill vampires so why include it? So if the guns are also not killing the demogorgon why would they keep having their characters use them? It was noteworthy at the time because I don't think people know how to tell these kinds of stories without seeing the action hero shooting their way through a problem. And I don't think the audience knows how to interpret this without immediately resorting to the thought process of "he should use a gun". It would be a refreshing change to see a story not relying on this kind of writing. And I don't think it's outside of the realm of possibility to see them go there because it seems like they already are.
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Joyce was super focused on Will in S1&2 for very obvious reasons, but what is she expected to do for Jonathan that she hasn’t done already? I can’t never get a clear answer to this question from Jonathan’s fans (I like him, but he’s not perfect either). She’s encouraging his relationship with Nancy, wants him to go to college, welcomes Argyle in her house, etc. Yes, she’s still poor with no support system so she still relies on him for some daily tasks, but it doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be there for him if he needed it.
Hi Anon
Thank you for being polite in this ask I appreciate it. First of all, I feel the need to inform you that I was a parentified child so like any other experience that's going to shape how I see media.
You're right that Joyce is focused on Will in s1 & s2 and her reasons are justified. Now I'm not trying to be mean but you ask what she could do that she hasn't. But if we think about it what has Joyce done for Jonathan in s1&2? Comforted him by saying it was not his fault and told him he's not alone. But those are both in season 1, granted Will is possessed in season 2 and Jonathan says he left a note but Joyce shows zero concern over where her other son is. The minimal Jonathan & Joyce interaction we see in season 2 is her once again scolding Jonathan for not keeping track of Will and Him stepping in front of her when the demodog is coming. She provides zero emotional support for Jonathan and this time doesn't seem to care where he's been off to for two days.
And YES Will needed her more but that doesn't mean that Jonathan didn't need her. One of the sadder Byers family scenes in s2 for me is when Joyce and Will are asleep and Jonathan comes home and stands in the doorway, he's shown as an outsider in his own family.
As far as the Byers being poor and Jonathan needing to help with daily tasks it goes beyond that. From s1 we learn that Joyce expects Jonathan to be home every time Will is. Granted s1 Jonathan doesn't have friends but I can't imagine needing to take care of Will helped that much. We also see that it's Jonathan's job to make breakfast and wake up Will (that's a typical day). On top of this, Jonathan works and his income goes to the family expenses.
But it goes beyond these small responsibilities, Jonathan is a parentified child. Whether or not that was intentional on the Duffers part is up to interpretation. Jonathan is the one making sure Joyce eats and sleeps in s1 (and it's hinted he's been the one to take care of her during anxiety attacks before) he's left alone to hug himself when he thinks Will is dead and he's left to plan the funeral. These are things a sixteen-year-old shouldn't have to do plain and simple. They're also part of the reason Jonathan feels like he can't leave. He thinks that his support is so vital to the family he'll ruin things by going to college. THAT'S NOT NORMAL and if Joyce were treating Jonathan like a child instead of a third parent he wouldn't feel that way.
Lastly, I think the season that sticks the most out to me in terms of Joyce preferring Will over Jonathan and her expecting Jonathan to be a responsible quasi-parental figure is actually season 3. As we all know, Jonathan gets fired this season and he says he's screwed because he won't be able to financially take care of his family. Is it normal for a 17-year-old to be worried about the mortgage? Absolutely not. But it's not just about the financial expectations. When Nancy gets fired she goes home and is comforted by her mother. Meanwhile, Jonathan is once again left alone and the next time he sees Joyce is in the mall.
And onscreen, Jonathan and Joyce don't interact here. But, Joyce comforts Will. Joyce chooses Will again. While having the expectation that of course, Jonathan is going to drive them back to Murray's to stay safe. And it gets into this deeper issue of Joyce knowing that she's putting herself at risk of dying but doesn't seem to care? There's little care of what should happen to her boys if she fails and it's not hard to assume that in her mind she knows Will would be ok because he'd be with Jonathan. She even tells Will to stay with Jonathan and do whatever he says. Which granted, yes it's high pressure situation but she's still treating Jonathan like a third parent. But it speaks volumes that Jonathan does not get maternal comfort here, a reminder that since they last saw each other Jonathan was fired, possibly broken up with, and almost died in the hospital. Instead, Jonathan steps into/is expected to be the role of a parent once again. And after, (and I know this was a weird set/script decision allegedly) Joyce doesn't hug Jonathan too, she's once again focused only on Will.
Joyce can be encouraging of Jonathan's relationships and encouraging of him going to college. But the fact of the matter is as it stands now Joyce is out of touch with her older son. She doesn't know that he's stressed out about his relationship or about college or leaving the family. Hell, she doesn't even know that he's taken to recreational drug use to try and make it better. And that's the kicker at the end of the day, s4 Jonathan is self-medicating to avoid his own problems. Problems that he doesn't feel like he can talk to his mom about. And he should be able to, but through her actions, Joyce has created an environment where Jonathan feels like he can't.
I am sorry this is so long. And like I said I'm biased. I'm not saying that Jonathan is without his flaws but I do think that people don't fully understand his character sometimes and I hope that I was able to explain it a bit better.
#Analyzing blorbo hours#stranger things#jonathan byers#joyce byers#byers family#anonymous ask#long post
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the water motif in s1
i know watergate is a thing we talk about regularly but going through s1 again it's crazy how consistent that theme of water = uh oh, is
there's quite a few posts about it but i just want to go over all of the moments just in s1 alone again (i'll probably do individual posts for the later seasons when i get to them, but i think s1 is generally the most egregious season with it anyways)
instances and images under the cut because i'm serious there's an obscene amount of times this motif comes up
the shot of the lab worker getting dragged up the elevator and killed in the opener of the show gets intercepted by the Wheeler's sprinkler system as we hardcut to Mike's campaign
2. Hopper showers right before taking smoking, taking pills, And drinking simultaneously (also moments before he gets the news of Will's disappearance)
3. Benny washes dishes Right before the lab workers show up and he is killed (sc is of where you can read the captions describing the action instead of a few seconds later where you can see him do so we have some caps in some of these images lmao)
4. it starts lightly raining when the party get to "Mirkwood" where Will dissappeared and then full on starts pouring right before they find El and get dragged into the UD mess
5. after hooking up with a random woman again Hopper stands outside his trailer looking out at the lake while there's constant water sloshing noises in the bg of the dialogue (not subtitled), meanwhile he rejects the woman's advances and talks about feeling cursed (trauma moment poor guy)
6. infamously, Steve's pool, as Barb dies (she also literally dies IN the pool here, oh girl :c)
7. obviously Will's "body" being found in the quarry
8. after Hopper breaks into the lab and gets drugged. he wakes up in his now bugged home and runs outside first thing, where we get another great shot of the lake next to his house, again with the water sounds too
9. Lonnie showers at the Byers' while Joyce finds the papers in his bag confirming he just came back for monetary gain
10. El's constant traumatic flashbacks of the lab where we get to see "the bath", not including Every shot here because it happens more than once
11. now Nancy takes a shower while having flashbacks to her encounter with the Demogorgon that almost killed her
12. El looks at her reflection in the water while she's hiding out in the forest and breaks down/freaks out screaming at her reflection and disturbing the water
13. Mike at the quarry right before he almost dies if it weren't for El's interference (i haven't included the shot of Hopper standing at the quarry talking about how a fall in would be deadly since it's before Will's body is found there and Mike almost dies in there for real, since it would take up even more space here and is already on theme with setting tragedy up)
14. when the party all catches each other up to date Hopper tells everyone that the gate to the UD in the lab is "near a large watertank"
15. El washes her face, feeling bad for not being able to find Will or Barb, and seconds before deciding to ignore her fear and face the void again by setting up a new "bath" for her to use her powers
16. said "bath" itself, obviously, which already causes her great distress but is also from where she sees Barb's dead body
17. Will using the bathroom sink right after coughing up the UD creature and right before he has an actual flash to the UD itself
18. also every instance of El visiting the void, which exclusively consists of the water floor (during which she's not only scared each time but also mainly consists of moments like finding the Demogorgon or a dead Barb)
19. also the fact that anyone in the UD is extremely wet, which we see anytime we get shots of Will or Barb there
like. the amount of times this happens it crazy. i also didn't leave out any water moments and just cherry picked the "bad" ones. this is literally all of them. (fyi, i don't have one establishing lake-shot of Hopper's cabin in here because there's already so many images, but Hopper's cabin is associated with water in general every time were there. something bad also happens every time we're there so i guess it evens out)
also fun detail, i wouldn't include it in the actual list but i just think it's too funny to not mention at all: when the kids hide out in the bus at the car junk yard (the same the kids also hide in with Steve during s2) Brenner's men show up. and when one of them turns to finally check out the bus the camera turns and suddenly there's no cars on screen anymore and just Boats
literally just boats
which is Really funny tbh. i wouldn't count it as an actual watergate moment, but this is also the closest they could get to hint at their water motif without having the guy chug water while hunting kids or having another spontaneous rainstorm start
i just want to know where they're going with their overall water theme SOOO bad, it's been so prominent since s1, it clearly seems to be associated with bad things happening. but also the fact that there are no bodies of water in the UD (while everything is still wet and or gooey??)
I NEED TO KNOWWW LET ME IN
#st rewatch time#stranger things#watergate#this is seriously one of the wildest reocurring motifs the show has#like what do you mean#why are you so weird about water#it's just water#why are we demonizing it so bad#why is there no water in the UD#just. what?
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this post by @stranger-chichka unlocked a train of though in my brain and i just gotta-
a recurring theme of season 4 is the recurring details you dismissed as unimportant being brought to light and woven together, in both a lore sense and a character sense (i should make a more general post about that but it’s 3am and i still have schoolwork rip). the hawkins library has to be one of the most consistent locations in the whole show. despite being seemingly innocuous, things keep leading back to it in more and more obvious ways, to the point where it clearly holds a large amount of yet-to-be-unravelled significance.
in season 1, it’s where hopper goes to research the suspicious activity at the lab, which leads him to learning about mkultra and el’s mama. it’s also where will is found, temporarily dead and pretty much plugged in to the upside down through the vines. the upside down library is particularly hellish, and while it’s easy to assume that it’s the demogorgon’s lair or nest of some kind in s1, we never see anything that actually confirms this. it’s never a good idea to make assumptions, particularly not where stranger things is concerned.
in season 2, dustin goes there to get his “knowledge paddles” for research of his own. the subject of his research: dart. you know. the juvenile demogorgon. the spawn of the upside down.
i don’t remember them visiting in person in season 3, but stranger-chika pointed out that joyce probably got the books she was using to research electromagnetic fields from there (fields caused by the russians trying to open a gate). i was just skimming over the transcripts and i saw that the word library is used twice in the season: when the goverment line hopper got from owens is called, they answer the phone both times with “philadelphia public library”
and then in season four, obviously, things begin to converge. it’s where nancy and robin go to research the creel family, with henry creel being the single strongest connection between the lab and the upside down (will and el are each connected to both, but el is more closely related to the lab while will is more closely related to the upside down. another post for later). and, of course, it’s where all 4 gates converge when hell finally begins to swallow the earth.
every season, then, it’s had connections to the lab, the upside down, or both. it’s appeared in person in 3 out of 4 seasons- as many as the byers’ old house and mike’s basement!!! it’s such an unassuming location, surely just a convenient writing device for a story set in a time before google- until the plotlines and leylines both converge on it.
(and yes, it has a clocktower)
#byler#stranger things#stranger things meta#stranger things theory#stranger things analysis#stranger things thoughts#i have been thinking about this goddamn library for months#maybe it's the ritalin wearing off but i feel like my 3rd eye is opening#librarygate
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UM UM GUYS I FOUND THE FREAKING SEASON 3 BIRTHDAY LINK THAT CONNECTS THE BYLER PHONE PARALLELS (orginal post i made)
excuse the grainy asf quality please
edit: again if anyone else found this first props to them! I just havent seen anythinh about it yet
the little cut that holds the volleyball ITS THE SAME FRICKEN CUP THAT IS IN THE CRAZY TOGETHER SCENE
I almost didnt catch it bc theyre such a mess in s3 BUT HOLY CRAP THIS CONNECTS EVERYTHING
if you have no idea what im screaming about, please please PLEASE go back and read the other post it will all make sense. Ill try to explain a little here, i dont have any solid notes or anything but this is the main idea:
will stands is associated with phones since the very beginning.
s1 - will trying to REACH joyce and FAILING (pointed out by @owenwillsons as well as the dustin/lucas part of s4)
*** my own note of that is i just realized, both in s1 and in s3 these failed calls (will calling joyce when he starts to be attacked, mike receiving a call in the basement) happen after and before will leaves mikes garage on his bike respectively.
let me say that again. BOTH OF THESE CALLS ARE CONNECTED TO WILL LEAVING THE MIKES GARAGE. THEY ARE PARALLELS !!!!!
then comes the s1 birthday references…specifically for will we have mention of his day out with lonnie that is supposed to be his birthday (i will confirm this at a later time)
s2/3 - mike is paralleled like LITERALLY framed the exact way showing up to the byers knocking on the door calling for will after a FAILED phone call. S2 was mike trying to reach will, s3 was mike trying to reach el.
specifically in s2, for birthdays, there is the crazy together scene with the birthday mug, an “im sorry i forgot your birthday” card presumably from lonnie, and the shed speech which includes a reference to wills birthday.
Season 3 has only one reference that i have found so far—the crazy together mug sitting in the back of the wheelers basement—but i will be looking for more connections.
s4 - dustin points out that mike had been trying and FAILING to reach the byers house in s4. Them ofc the infamous rink o mania fight references phone calls. There are other cases in each season that involve phone calls that i will look into later to see if they have any relevance.
Birthday references: there a quite a few for this season which also contributes to the parallelism of season 2, with these two seasons being the most heavily birthday referenced. There is of course the date of wills birthday on the video camera—i am going back to look at a later date to see if theres some time mess stuff there—as well as the pizza boy number that gives a voicemail of the happy birthday song.
Some other references not explicitly connected to will that are of birthdays are: murray referencing a one year olds birthday party, murray referencing a classmate (jeremiah’s) birthday, the robin and vickie early birthday present scene, etc. i will be going through the season to look on the background and see if i can catch any more prop referencing.
Another thing to note is that murray is consistently a birthday referencer, and he is known for being emotionally intelligent when it comes to reading other people.
He murrayed jopper, murrayed jancy…and he made those comments on the plane about joyces worry of the kids and…was that not what happened? So murrays references to birthdays has to be of high importance.
summary edit: sorry its become clear im being a little confusing for what im talking ab for s1 and s3 connection
theres a pattern imo of -
S1 garage talk (“it was a seven”) - s1 failed call (will calling joyce) - S3 failed call (mike thinking el called) - s3 garage talk (“its not my fault you dont like girls”)
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it is so so so crazy how mike barely does anything when el gets bullied at the rink, and even when he himself is subjected to bullying in s1 but he stood up against troy for calling will names, and will wasn't even there. also, there weren't even indications of him worrying about el possibly liking someone else when she moves away w the byers but is so scared to lose will bc what if he joins another party? :-( he is so passive when it comes to el
Yeah, I agree with you. I've been thinking about the difference in how Mike was when looking for Will vs. when he was looking for El this season as well, and I always felt more of a certain level of giving up and passiveness from him when looking for El that wasn't present when he was searching for Will in season 1 too, and I can't really figure out why that is either. Something just felt.. removed. Off. Maybe that's just me, I don't know.. but to me, he seemed more obsessive about finding Will than he was about finding El (I mean, before the military shootout, he was even fine with not finding her and just going straight to Hawkins, until Unknown Hero Agent Man tells them as he's dying that El is in danger). It's similar to the difference in that Mike never stopped looking for Will in season 1, basically going to the ends of the Earth to find him, and being so easily convinced he was still alive after just hearing his voice once over the walkie talkie, meanwhile with El in season 2 in stark contrast, he assumed she was dead (see the quote when he's talking to Max in episode 8, "Yeah, she was (awesome). Until that thing took her, just like it took Bob.") but thought he was going crazy because he kept seeing her and hearing her voice (I believe he kept calling her out of hope that she would be alive even if he didn't fully believe it because he was going through survivor's guilt much like Nancy with Barb and was having a really hard time processing it, because he was the one who weaponized her, quote, "She's a weapon! Do you seriously want to fight the Demogorgon with your wrist rocket? That's like R2D2 going to fight Darth Vader! We're no use to Will if we're dead", and then when he later tried to stop her from fighting the Demogorgon like he had originally wanted after growing closer with her, she wouldn't let him and sacrificed herself). So, accepting that Will isn't dead after hearing his voice only once vs. assumption El is dead no matter what he sees or hears until everyone else sees her, too. Again, a certain level of giving up that just isn't present with Will. I thought it was interesting how he reacted to El being bullied vs. Will being bullied when he wasn't even present, too. With El, he just tells the DJ to turn the music off and only tries to get to her at the last minute after the damage has already been done, but gets lost in the crowd while she runs off and hides to cry. But with Will, he stood up to Troy in front of the whole gymnasium and pushed him down in front of them, and Will wasn't even there to witness it. So it's not like he's afraid to take a stand for the people he loves.. or.. person he loves, it seems. So the fact he doesn't rush onto the rink immediately for El is interesting. The end of season 3 also kind of foreshadowed Mike feeling he's losing Will with the voiceover of Hopper's letter reading "but lately, I've been feeling.. distant from you, like you're pulling away from me or something" as Mike is watching the cars and moving truck leaving, and then he sadly gazes back at the Byers house before riding away for the last time on his bike. We could also infer then that it was Will he was most upset about losing since it's paralleled to the couple times in season 2 where he watches with concern and sadness as Will leaves school with his mom, the first time for a check-up at the lab in episode 1 and the second time after his possession on the field in episode 4. And this prediction/theory that he felt he was losing Will was confirmed in season 4 when Mike tells him, "maybe I feel like I.. lost you or something" and tells Will that Hawkins isn't the same without him. For Mike.. it was and has always been Will that he's most afraid of losing. And it's Will that he'll give his all for.
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2 and/or 4, please! Hope you’re doing well!
hello hello vee! 💕🫂
2. talk about a notable time a narrative or character has looked you dead in the eyes and said “fuck your plan, here’s what we’re actually doing.”
ooh okay this actually just happened to me when i was writing my last byler soulmate au. i've published two different byler au series like this (and written three, but that first one i wrote will not be seeing the light of day lol) and in the first two i had the first part will's pov, and the second part mike's. but when i was writing the sequel to iimdittgttsy (GAH why did i make such a long-ass quote the title), again supposed to be mike's pov, it was just Not Working. there was a lot i wrote from his pov (and it ended up being most of the fic), but i ended up realizing that will was simply Not Done Talking and he had Things to Say and Angst to Work Through!!! he literally would not shut up, and i had to switch off between his and mike's pov. i think it turned out pretty great tbh, but it was definitely annoying having to break up my formula. perhaps i will write a part three in which mike gets more of a say...
4. what is the plot bunny you’ve been carrying for the longest? optional bonus question: do you ever wonder why you haven’t written it yet and experience deep existential dread?
hoo boy. if there's a god of carrying around plot bunnies for years and years at a time and/or abandoning them in wips it is probably me. i try to not let it weigh on me. but here's an incomplete list of my stranger things plot bunnies that i haven't gotten around to:
will escapes the UD on his own sometime between s1 and s3 and runs away, ultimately linking up with kali and her gang, who then have to return to hawkins to help el/the squad with the UD/henry. (potentially ft. will-has-powers and/or birthdaygate)
byler reunite in college after drunkenly hooking up
art teacher who runs the gsa!will & new english teacher!mike reunite. it's awkward.
max finds out about "it's not my fault you don't like girls" and confronts mike
will joins scoops troop in s3
fic exploring max's life post-s2
other party members visiting el at the cabin post s2/separate henderhop and hopclair oneshots
the byers hide el in their house post s1
...if anyone wants to know more about any of these lmk... maybe i'll actually start writing them again 👀😅
fanfic ask game!!
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Paper Faces - Chapter Titles Meta
The amount of thought and effort I put into everything about this fic, right down to the chapter titles, is a little bit insane. A tad obsessive, if you will.
If you're not invested, I'm not going to clog your dash.
So, for readers, examples and further explanations are under the cut if you want them!
"O' Traditori, O' Mentitori"?
It's an easily-missed background line from "Notes", the song that Chapter 8 is centered around.
However, most of the main plot points in this chapter revolve around the multitude of ways characters are lying to and/or betraying each other within the chapter.
"Love, Unchanging As The Sea" and "Love, Evergreen"?
Both titles, Chapters 7 and 9 respectively, are derived from "Think of Me", which is arguably one of the most romantic songs of POTO. It's the song Chapter 7 revolves around, and the costume from that song is woven into Chapter 9. However, they both serve to describe the nature of the relationships portrayed in those chapters.
"Love, Unchanging As The Sea" mainly revolves around Will and Henry, whose relationship dynamics change dramatically across the course of the work (and even within Chapter 7 itself), but whose overall relationship also ultimately stays the same. It's like the sea, the same from a distance but ever-changing once we look closer.
"Love, Evergreen" mainly revolves around Will and Mike, whose relationship is indeed evergreen. Line an evergreen tree, their love doesn't dwindle or die during long stretches of deprivation, and it begins growing once more when the sun comes back. It's constant, they don't remember a time when they didn't love each other.
The titles are so similar in order to indicate that the content of the chapters in regards to relationships are supposed to directly contrast each other. In Chapter 9, Will describes being around Mike as "[feeling] like coming home", whereas in almost every previous chapter he describes the ways in which he continuously feels off-balance around Henry. (more on this at the bottom)
And this pattern holds for other titles too.
"Wandering Child"?
Chapter 2 very much has the relationship dynamics of the song "Wandering Child" from the musical, where the Phantom lures Christine in with the promise of protection and comfort under the guise of her "Angel" similar to the way Henry lures Will in with the promise of protection and comfort under the "Angel" guise.
"Stranger Than You Dreamt It"?
Chapter 3 is literally about a fever dream plus our Phantom's initial appearance reveal. The overall tone of the song "Stranger Than You Dreamt It" is Christine's experience in the vaults of the theater being akin to a fever dream/the Phantom's appearance being revealed as different from what Christine imagined it to be.
"Tremulous and Tender"?
Chapter 5 references "Music Of The Night", the song where we first see Christine being lured into the vaults (even if it likely isn't her actual first time down there). Chapter 5 deals with the first time Will is lured into the vaults and the nature of his relationship to Henry at that point in time.
"The Phantom of the Opera"?
Chapter 4 deals with the appearance of the "Opera Ghost"/"Phantom" character, just like the song "The POTO" handles the introduction of the "Phantom" character in the musical. Chapter 4 also handles the same Angel/Phantom duality that we see between "Angel of Music" and "The POTO", introducing the "It frightens me" detail of Christine's relationship to her "Angel".
If only I put this much effort into other aspects of my life...namely my job and social life :')
The only chapters that don't do this are Chapters 1 and 6, which aren't lyrical titles.
However, Chapter 1, "The Arrival of Will Byers", is a direct reversal of/reference to Stranger Things S1:E1 "The Disappearance of Will Byers", given that the content of the chapter is a direct reversal of the content of S1:E1.
Chapter 6, "The Patron", is very much just a textual indication of Mike's arrival at the opera house. Go ahead and cancel me for being a little lazy on that one :')
Note: I could've chosen to overhaul the design of Henry's home and make it more original, but I chose to keep the classic design because:
a) I love the classic design, it's gorgeous and the mood is impeccable.
b) having his home be so directly associated with water (specifically rivers) was important for me. Water/rivers are beautiful, but dangerous. Water/rivers are unsteady and treacherous, and it's easy to fall prey to the undertow if you aren't careful.
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ok everyone, i’m going to talk for just a second about the potential dynamic between steve & billy hargrove, & why i like to explore it. under a cut for those who are just not interested. inspired by years worth of writing & character discussions with my beloved @hargrovetm ~
obviously i don’t think billy’s actions were good, & neither does steve. i mean, who knows better than steve how dangerous billy really is ? he stepped in to protect max & lucas both from him at the byers house, & would do it again. there is no universe in which steve excuses billy’s actions that night, or says they were the right thing to do. i’ve honestly never seen anyone argue that they were.
but here’s the other thing : who knows better than steve that sometimes humans do shit that is just plain not right when they’re not at their best selves ? i mean, in s1, steve used homophobic slurs toward jonathan, insulted his family, including his currently missing brother, initiated a fight with him, & got him arrested. he also behaved disgustingly towards nancy. & everyone loves steve’s redemption arc — me included ! i recognize those actions of steve’s as wrong, & so does he. & he goes back & does what he can to make amends, & he tries to do better from that point on. which is all anyone can do as a human : try to be better than they were the day before.
i know that in the canon, it isn’t implied that billy tries to make amends, & i suppose that’s the story the duffers wanted to tell. but i also think that the whole point to rp is to explore what might have happened in canon if some elements were slightly different, or to fill in the gaps between what canon gives us. & i genuinely feel like steve, of all people, might be among the only people in billy’s life willing & able to look him in the eye after that night & say : what you did was wrong & you should feel bad for it, & you should apologize for it, but you can also choose to do better starting right now, if you want to.
who knows what might have happened if someone had said this to him, telling him directly that he is capable of changing, instead of just isolating him further ? as of season 2, billy is seventeeen years old & currently trapped in an abusive home environment. as a survivor of parental abuse myself, it rubs me the wrong way a little bit to imply that it is somehow “too late” for billy to learn to be better & start to heal, especially if he did happen to have someone who could honestly call out his unacceptable behavior without writing him off entirely. & based on his own growth arc ( & his sometimes too - forgiving nature in general ), i think that steve is in a unique position to be able to offer that to billy.
& yeah, i like to explore concepts like this in rp with trusted friends. of course, i do see why people would be triggered by billy as a character, but everyone deals with trauma in different ways, & what triggers one person might be healing for another. if folks don’t want to see billy on their dash, they have the absolute right to blacklist / block / unfollow as needed to feel comfortable. but i also know that the people who write billy ( or write against him ) are full human beings with complex lives outside of tumblr. i don’t know most of them, but i personally can see how writing a character who is trapped in the cycle of abuse escaping that cycle & learning to grow could be extremely cathartic for those who have been in similar situations. & tbh, we should all just do our best to treat other users on this site with empathy anyway, regardless of our personal feelings on the characters they write.
even making this post feels a little bit like kicking a hornet’s nest, because i know this is a polarizing topic for folks, & i absolutely am NOT looking to restart the same old discourse. but i am also a bit sick of feeling nervous to post about their complex & nuanced dynamic that i think is interesting to explore & have been writing for years. if you disagree with anything i’ve said in this post, i encourage you, as said above, blacklist / unfollow / block as you see fit. there will be no hard feelings. go in peace, & i genuinely hope you enjoy your tumblr rpc experience more for it. & if you’ve made it all the way to the end of this dynamic commentary turned rant about treating others kindly, thank you for reading. i love you. ♥️
#⚡ — ooc / from rosemary.#do not reblog !#i used the full name at the top so.#blacklist should catch it.#this is me trying to post about this without starting discourse.#please please everyone just be kind.#i am begging.#personals don't touch either.#⚡ — rel / & billy.#⚡ — dyn / hargrovetm / billy.#⚡ — ooc / psa.
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Ok so let’s break down the trailer cause .... a lot is happening.
-We see El went of her own volition back to the lab with Owens, to gain her abilities back (because he tells her , her friends in Hawkins are in danger). However, the act of shaving her head -almost seems out of character with Owens? Which makes me wonder if somehow he’s in kahoots with Brenner? or Brenner intercepted the car of owen's? Or El cut her own hair? Obviously after she gains her powers she escapes -either via her telekensis or because Sullivan’s men infiltrate the base -and she uses it as an opportunity to escape,and go back to Hawkins. she is also wearing the same suit she wore when in the sensory tank, from s1.
-We see in a prior teaser the Byers and Mike being shot at, which imply a clear division between Owens & Sullivan. In this trailer we see a helicopter at night come- my guess, after El left, Owens told one of his men to guard the Byers and Mike. And the next day they’re shot at.So why does Sullivan want to k*ll them in the day (in a residential neighborhood with many witnesses)... why does he see them as such a threat to bring that many armed men? Is he just ignorant about El not being there- or is something else going on? Again remember that bts pic that noah posted- it said tareco -it’s an anagram -aka a word spelled backwards.We see annagrams used in 2 s4 films- chamber of secrets & the shinning. TARECO= OCERAT it’s a d&d WIZARD HUNTER (a literal dude who hunts & k*lls wizards, because he hates all magic users). And Will is a wizard. Weird... what does Sullivan think about the Byers?He may see them as a threat-making their road trip quite dangerous. Which is why they lay-low at suzie’s (however, I already mentioned why I don’t trust Suzie and her parents , cough probably associated with cia)
-We see the zombie-spider character open his eyes in a similar fashion to El in her 002 lab teaser. Most likely implying a connection between the 2 (symbolic or otherwise). We also see a El -flashback of her attacking someone in rainbow room.
-“The eye of the storm” goes back to the mindflayer storm imagery (mentioned in prior seasons) . But also all the eye imagery in s4- victor and the rabbits eyes being removed/dustin’s quote/ the shots of eyes being zoomed in on. The Hawkins crew literally find a void in the Creel house to go into the upsideown aka the “other side”. They then bike to “forrest hills” trailer park (in the upsidedown). forrest hills is actually the home town of a sketchy usa scientist, who back in the day experimented on vietnam soldiers, but I digress(interesting eastergg though). it’s possible they may believe someone is alive there- hard to say why they’d go into such a dangerous place otherwise. We see everyone get separated at some point. Eddie alone at trailer park. Dustin and Steve fighting creatures separately. Lucas screaming ( possibly at the creel house , most likely hallucinating). We see Steve swim to the opening of the closed- gate as well.We even see El with a buzzcut (in lab attire) in upsidedown. We also see Max at the upsidedown-school and later fall into a pool of bl**d and be chased by a demogorgan or new zombie-like creature.
- Billy & Will both have March birthdays. Given all the parallels between the 2 and the past zombie imagery (of Will) maybe the zombie-spider like corpse is Billy’s??? We see at the grave Max talk to Billy. The boys come to comfort her. And after she’s levitated, and is upset over the experience. perhaps, she levitated because some part of Billy did “hear” her words -and was trying to communicate. The spider-zombie man is clearly the next monster surrogate: since the mindflayer and the s3 flesh-monster had a similar spider like appearance. And it’s possible the monster is targeting Max because some part of Billy is still in there deep down?
-this parallel is also making me worried. But the similar body language may just be a hint It’s Billy-spider-zombie communicating with Max.
-An anon (not me ) noticed this but the fact when supernatural stuff occurs Billy’s grave changes from saying Billy to William ... is suspish. Almost like an easteregg that a diff William may be influencing the supernatural more than we are aware ... hmm. We even see Billy’s b day is 7 days after Will’s and we know how Will mentions “7″ as a connection to the monsters, in s1e1. At the very least, the William grave ref, could be another hint billy-is said zombie spider (given Will's association with zombies).
-Max’s monologue implies most of the crew isn’t doing healthy mental health wise. Not shocking...
-A body is discovered and right after this- it pans to Chrissy cheerleading. implying it might be her body. Whether this is a fake death or real is hard to say given the history of deaths in this show. It’s reminiscent of the Will fake-death scene. And the sticker that says 12 is even more suspicious to me (but hard to say if a coincidence)...
-We see blonde chrissy frightened by the same monster that chased Max . Then right after we see 2 other blonde women- maybe holly and Karen being afraid. YIIIIIIKES. Not a good parallel... At first I thought it was a chrissy /mom flashback but prob not.
- Soviet union is clearly weaponizing the demogorgan. And perhaps testing it’s ability to fight- by using prisoners (to train the monster).Owens even said in s2 the soviets would try and weaponize the upsidedown. someone uses fire- a good weapon since fire and heat are the weakness of the monsters. It’s similar to the scene of Hopper using a flame-thrower.
- the bats in upsidedown... remind me of the rats the mindflayer controlled in s3. Or the demo-dogs he controlled in s2.
- Eddie really looks sketch ... playing guitar in the upsidedown. XD (Benefit of the doubt) maybe the demo-bats are sensitive to sound/vibrations and that’s why he’s playing it. Aka his guitar inhibits their echo-location. We also, once again see Eddie in front of the skeleton skull. Billy had skeleton skull -tattoo. And that foreshadowed his death...yikes. Not sure about Eddie making it out of there. Maybe he distracts the monsters at the trailer park allowing the others to escape. We did see Steve attack a bat -so the bats are CLEARLY a threat to everyone . Bats have a myth about being blind... but having echo location (which again all the eye-less imagery of Victor). HMMM
- the skate rink .... really showing the love triangle (and Will being sad). I know in the the rebel robin book, Robin has to skate with her guy friend Milton at a skate rink , since everyone wanted her to date the guy. She even held hands while skating with Milton. weird parallel to show. hmm. XD
#stranger things#max mayfield#el hopper#jim hopper#Mike wheeler#will byers#jonathan byers#Joyce byers#nancy wheeler#steve harrington#dustin henderson#Lucas sinclair#robin buckley#eddie munson#chrissy
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Victor Creel Theories
(also includes ST movie DNA series: Star Wars)
Victor Creel is described as "a disturbed and intimidating man who is imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital for a gruesome murder in the 1950s." We know he will be institutionalized at Penthurst mental hospital, where Peter Ballard works, based on leaked on set pics.
There a few possibilities regarding his character:
He could be a former test subject with some kind of powers and a connection to the upside down (which would also follow the even/odd season pattern of a main character being directly involved with the upside down creatures) I think it's highly likely that Victor Creel will be involved with the mystery/danger in Hawkins in some way, and have a connection to the upside down. He could also be disturbed on top of this, and he could be involved in Eleven's storyline this season.
That he is not a test subject and is ONLY mentally disturbed.
He may be related to one of the already established characters. Most likely Joyce, and maybe Terry but it's a stretch.
Before I go any further into that last possibility, I just want to preface that this idea of an "evil father/grandfather with powers" could be a purposeful Star Wars parallel. The Duffer brothers have already paralleled and used Star Wars references a few times in the show:
In Star Wars, Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father, and Palpatine is Rey's grandfather (aka the literal worst guy in the universe). A common theme in ST is abusive/bad fathers - that post here. Interesting...
Palpatine is also Anakin Skywalker's father, so Luke and Leia are both the grandkids of Palpatine as well as Rey is, but it's unclear if they are just force midichlorian related or actually dna related as well but I won't get into that here!
Luke and Rey are both force sensitive (have powers), so are Darth Vader and Palpatine; their descendants (kid/grandkid) have powers, and so do they (father/grandfather) The descendants use their powers for good, while the ancestors use their power for evil. Who has powers in ST? Eleven and Will - and they both already have this idea of abusive/bad/evil fathers: Will has an abusive father Lonnie, and Eleven has an abusive father figure Dr. Brenner "Papa".
So... Victor Creel being the evil/bad grandfather to either Eleven or Will and the evil/bad father to Joyce or Terry, would make a FULL Star Wars parallel to people who are morally good and have powers (Will and El - Luke and Rey), discovering they are the descendant of an evil male figure who also has powers (Victor Creel - Darth Vader and Palpatine)
If Victor Creel turns out to be the father of anyone in the show my bets are it's either Joyce Byers or maybeee Terry Ives.
If he was a test subject, its likely he went "crazy" with some of his powers and the government couldn't cover it up so they declare him mentally insane to get him committed, and he probably goes insane being locked away as well. Personally, I think he may be 001 or an early test subject, when they were still working out the kinks of the program, and I think he does have a big connection to the upside down.
The Duffer Brother's on s4: "In Hawkins a new horror is beginning to surface, something long buried, something that connects everything"....
Now let's get into the possibilities for Creel's storyline/who he could be related to (split into 3 parts).
Part 1: Creel could be Joyce's father
Based on Victor Creel's description as "disturbed" and that he is "in a psychiatric hospital", it could connect him to Joyce's bloodline.
There are several comments in the show hinting to this idea of mental instability in Joyce's family:
s1 ep.5: When Lonnie comes to visit in s1 after Will goes missing, Joyce says to Lonnie "No, don't look at me like that, like how everyone is looking at me, like I'm out of my damn mind" He responds saying "I think you need to consider the possibility that this is all in your head. Remember your Aunt Darlene?" Joyce quickly replies, "No, this is not that."
That conversation, although quick, is very telling. Lonnie is implying that Joyce had an aunt who was mentally unstable - and Joyce clearly knows about her aunt being unstable because she responds to his comment by saying what's she's experiencing is not that (the mental instability of her aunt)
s2 ep.2: Joyce says to Bob, "this is not a normal family", when he suggest moving out of Hawkins.
I used to think Joyce was always was referring to the whole 'my son got stuck in an alternate dimension with supernatural monsters and is now traumatized, and we were sworn to secrecy by the government' thing but maybe she is also referring to her biological family.
s1 ep.2: When they are searching for Will, one of the other police officers, says "Joyce is one step from the edge" and the other officer responds "She has been several steps for quite a while now".
If Joyce is related to Victor Creel biologically, and he did also happen to be a test subject, has powers, or has some other relation to the upside down, this could possibly have contributed to whatever kind of abilities Will has, because he would be a descendant of Creel. But Joyce does not seem to have any powers and neither does Jonathan. If they were related to Creel, it's odd that they both didn't get powers, but Will did. I've always thought Will was born with his powers, like El.
We know almost nothing about Joyce's past, it's never discussed in the slightest in the show, which I feel like is purposeful. We don't know Joyce's maiden name; she doesn't change it back after she and Lonnie divorce. Maybe the Duffers are saving Joyce's backstory for s4 (and possibly s5), like I think they are doing with Will and El's connection. Will, El, Hopper, and Joyce were pictured in a series of 4 tweets posted by the stranger writers, hinting to the main 4 storylines for season 4. My analyzation of this tweet here.
I think it's possible that Joyce's storyline this season could also have to do with her past- not just her searching for Hopper- but also more personal information about her. Perhaps we will see flashbacks of younger Joyce and maybe learn about her biological relatives.
Noah also said this would be the darkest season for Will, so this idea of being the grandkid of someone evil or disturbed could fit into that.
Part 2: Creel could be Terry's father/Eleven's grandfather
The only other person I could see potentially having a biological; relation to Victor Creel could be Terry Ives and Eleven, (because it would complete the Star Wars parallel mentioned earlier) but it's a stretch for several reasons, the main one being that Terry and Becky's father Bill Ives, died in a car crash (year unknown).
So for Victor Creel to be Terry's father that either has to be:
Her adoptive father OR
Her mother cheated and led Mr. Ives to believe Terry was his kid but her father is really Victor Creel, and Becky is actually Bill Ives son (which would explain why Becky has no powers)
Right of the bat it's interesting Terry's father's name is Bill. Bill is a nickname for William (Will Byers full name is William), and Billy's a nickname also for William... Hmmm....
Immediately after El is born, Terry is adamant that Brenner stole her child to use as a weapon to fight the commies BECAUSE SHE HAD SPECIAL ABILITIES - and she's completely right about everything. How does Terry know El had powers immediately after she was born? Because she knows she has developed some kind of special abilities from the experiments as well. When El goes to visit her mother in s2, THE LIGHTS FLICKER, just like they do when the upside down is near, but it's not Eleven controlling it. Her Aunt Becky says it's just the wiring, and Eleven responds: "IT'S MAMA. She wants to talk." And then we see Terry's NOSE BLEED, just like El's does when she uses her powers.
Quick side note about El's biological father is Andrew Rich: (It's revealed in the canon novel Suspicious Minds that Andrew Rich is El's father) He was a college student who got expelled from school due to protesting the Nixon address, making him eligible to be drafted in the Vietnam war, and he died in battle. Terry was involved in the Project MKUltra experiments at Hawkins National Laboratory in College, under the direction of Dr. Martin Brenner, but didn't know she was pregnant at the time. Andrew never even knew Terry was pregnant, meaning she was extremely early on in her pregancy at the time he was sent away, not even Terry was aware yet. It's also stated in this book that BRENNER HAD A HAND IN GETTING ANDREW EXPELLED SO HE COULD SEND ANDREW AWAY. The novel states that Brenner has Andrew drafted because he wants to SCARE Terry, to show her how much power he has over her life. There's definitely some history between Terry and Brenner that we don't know about yet.
If Victor Creel is in fact Joyce's father it's interesting that the powers seem to have skipped a generation with Joyce, and also one kid with the Byers, but if Victor Creel is Terry's father, no generations were skipped in passing down powers. ANYWAYS, this is all just theories and speculation since we have no actual concrete reasons to believe he will be related to Joyce or Terry.
Part 3: The possibility that Creel could be involved in Eleven's storyline this season does not rely on them being biologically related.
**One of the filming locations for this season is the Claremont House, which is RUMORED to be Creel's house and also "Vecna's lair" the new monster for s4 (unconfirmed) This is the house the Hawkins group goes into in the ST4 sneak peek, where they see the grandfather clock striking midnight. If that's true, there's a connection between Creel and the upside down and having powers, which could connect Creel to Eleven. The Duffers: "In Hawkins a new horror is beginning to surface, something long buried, something that connects everything". This thing "that connects everything", could be Creel's storyline (his possible connection to the lab/upside down/person in the show), because Creel's storyline also spans all the way back to the 1950's and before that, so there's our "long buried" part most likely.
Robert Englund recently revealed in *an interview* that his character Victor Creel gouges his eyes out, making him unable to see. Englund also mentions what it's like working with Millie Bobby Brown and talks about the first time her met her, he doesn't mention any other cast members in detail like he does Millie.
He's clearly working closely with Millie's character Eleven.
But why? I think Creel could be involved with Eleven getting her powers back, and her reliving her past. Once the government baddies realize El has no powers, they're gonna want them back. If Creel was in fact a test subject, maybe there is some kind of connection between them, Such as Eleven revisiting what happened to her in her past and how that could relate to her getting her powers back.
Another thought I had was that perhaps the gruesome murder he committed is somehow related to something that ends up impacting in Eleven's life.
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Whatever Victor Creel's storyline is, it will be an important one, and it will carry somewhat into s5, since he will be a returning character. He is not signed as a series regular, but as a recurring character, which means we don't really know to what capacity he will be in s5. It could be flashbacks mostly, or he could have just as big or small of a role.
Source: indie wire
That detail about eyes being gouged out reminds me of fear street 1666 when the townsmen who was sacrificed to the devil becomes possessed and gouges the kids eyes out. Leigh Janick, director of fear street, is married to Ross Duffer. They both direct and make horror/sci-fi themed series about kids in a small town set in the 80's, who fight supernatural evil with a heavy undertone of queer themes, that are even filmed in a lot of the same locations (the mall, the town streets, etc.) I'm not saying it's the same thing, it definitely won't be. But there's so many similarities between ST and Fear Street, I thought I would mention this as another.
#stranger things#st movie dna series#st4#stranger things 4#stranger things season 4#stranger things 4 spoilers#stranger things season 4 spoilers#stranger things four#stranger things season four#victor creel#joyce byers#st4 spoilers#st4 theory#st4 speculation#Terry ives#eleven#el hopper#eleven hopper#Jane byers#Jane hopper#will byers#Will Byers has powers#stranger things theory#stranger things 4 theory#stranger things obsessed#stranger things analysis#stranger things 4 speculation#stranger things meta#stranger things season 4 theory#st meta
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Steddie Masterlist (7/30)
FIC
If I Only Could (E)
‘He still felt the shocking cold of Eddie’s silver rings against sensitive skin. Steve didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but the soft touch was not it. None of the intimacy Steve shared with anyone else felt so all consuming. Until Eddie decided to close the space between them, Steve had only experienced kisses and caresses that were one dimensional. They were for pleasure and pleasure only. Eddie made everything technicolor, locking into all of his senses in a way that made Steve truly live the moment. Each second was to be admired and clung to, stored away for later perusal.’
OR - a sorry excuse for a little fluffy PWP!
Build Our Own Family (One Step At A Time) (E)
What if, instead of Nancy ending up in the front seat, Eddie Munson ended up there, instead? He listened to Steve’s dreams of cross country travel and many Harrington babies & liked what he heard. Find out what happens when both Eddie and Steve realize that there’s more to a person than meets the eye.
Or - another sorry excuse to write a porny fix-it fic!
I Could’ve Sworn I Saw Fireworks (E)
There is no altercation with the demogorgon, so Steve’s life isn’t turned so far upside down. Instead, he takes Nancy’s brief influence in his life seriously - he gets better grades and keeps his nose down. Steve is so desperate to get out of Hawkins that he takes a basketball scholarship to play at Purdue. He’s lucky to be going, except -
His life feels like it’s in limbo until his little brother Dustin gets to West Lafayette to suffer Purdue’s curriculum, too. Between brotherly love and a bit of meddling, Steve is thrust into many situations with a certain curly haired dungeon master he’s been crushing on for months. Find out what happens when Dustin plays matchmaker and Steve & Eddie go along with it!
Or, the one where Dustin actually is Steve’s little brother and their lives are all the better for it…
Finding My Way Back To Sanity (Again) [E]
What if Steve accepted Dustin’s invitation to sub in for Lucas at Hellfire Club? And what if, instead of being alone in his trailer when Chrissy died, Eddie is surrounded by the party? It’s crazy how a couple of small details change the course of Steve & Eddie’s paths. Find out what happens when the world is in danger and a ragtag group of under 20’s save the world.
(Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Epilogue)
Voulez-Vous (E)
Eddie, who is already nursing a pretty serious crush on Steve, walks in on a spectacle he never could’ve imagined. The sight before him sparks an obsession that sets Eddie down the path of making the most Steve Harrington mix tape, ever. Watch what happens when Eddie’s journey to a perfect playlist leads him to love and a peculiar sense of family.
Or - a self indulgent excuse to send Eddie on a mix tape adventure.
Everything, It Happens For A Reason (E)
At the tender age of ten, Eddie’s freezing his ass off on the playground, only to be saved by a black and red vest owned by none other than Steve Harrington. That simple gesture sets off a course of events that lead to Eddie realizing that everything that happens, happens for a reason.
Or - an Eddie centric angst piece.
Sweet Love, So Pure (E)
After the Battle of Starcourt, Steve is unceremoniously kicked out of his house. Luckily, Dustin is there when it happens and offers up a place for him to stay. It’s a long journey back from feeling unwanted to trusting others enough to lean on them - watch what happens when Steve finally understands the idea of love. When he glances up to take a look around, Steve suddenly finds it everywhere.
OR - a cheap excuse to write henderfamily goodness.
Nice & Quiet (E)
What if Steve started to lose his hearing after getting beat up by Jonathan Byers back in s1? Watch the progression of hearing loss and Steve's reaction to it as he learns how to navigate a world he can no longer hear.
Or - a sorry excuse to write some Steve fluff.
PROMPTS
Fanfic Mashup Prompts
Bed-Sharing/Erotic Dream (Steve’s POV)
Bed-Sharing/Erotic Dream (Eddie’s POV)
Sleep-Intimacy/Mutual Pining
Forgotten First Meeting/Locked In A Room
Teacher AU/Established Relationship AU
Accidental Eavesdropping/Aroused By His Voice
Vacation AU/Unexpected Virgin
Good Ol’ Romance Prompts
‘Sweat dripping down your faces, newly moved in furniture scattered around the half empty, small house’
'Piggyback rides down the dimly lit street, a light-hearted conversation as your night comes to an end’
Best Friends to Lovers Prompts
“I’m watching you date all these other people and i don’t know what it is i’m feeling but it’s definitely not jealousy”
“I’ll kiss you right now to prove i don’t feel anything for you” but the kiss proves the exact opposite
"you're upset and disappear for a couple hours, and i'm the only one who knows where to find you (which is at the location we always hung out at as children)"
Smut Prompts
'I'm gonna do something very crazy but I know you're gonna love it.' - explicit
Things You Said Prompts
'things you said too quietly?' & 'things you said after we kissed'
#steddie#steve harrington x eddie munson#eddie munson x steve harrington#steve x eddie#eddie munson#steve harrington#bobbie writes#stranger things#steve/eddie#steveddie#masterlists#steddie masterlist
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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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