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crimeronan · 10 months

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i've seen a couple people in the notes of this very good post about fictional polyamory by @thebibliosphere say things along the lines of "oh, i've been doing it wrong :(" or "how do i know if i did this right??" or "i should probably give up and start over, i wrote this badly :(" and. no!!!!

(i AM seeing far MORE people say "oh, this clarified and helped me so much, i think i know how to fix issues i've been having with my own story" which. YES!!!!)

listen. if you're a monogamous person who's writing a polyamorous relationship, and you've been focusing mainly on The Triad and All Three Together All The Time as the endgame, that's literally fine. that's a perfectly acceptable and strong starting point for your plotting, imo. you do not need to give up on a story that you've started like this.

but the things discussed in the post Can and Should improve your execution!

you can keep the same plot beats and overall relationship arc 100%. polyamorous relationships are infinite in their formations, every one is unique. "basically a monogamous romance but with three people" Does exist, as a relationship type. you're not hashtag Misrepresenting (TM) poly people with it

BUT i do think it will help to read up on some poly people talking about how their relationships Differ from monogamous ones.

so i have outlined some basic important concepts about polyamory.

MORE IMPORTANTLY though, i've broken down some questions that you can answer throughout the writing process to strengthen your individual dyad relationships, your individual characterization, & your characters' individual feelings/experiences. this is a writing resource have fun

future kitkat butting in to say i spent over two hours writing this and it definitely needs a readmore. it is also NOT comprehensive. but everything should be pretty simple to follow! feel free to reblog if you find it helpful yourself or just want to reward me for how gotdan long this took KSLDKFJKDL.

i've grabbed quick links for a couple of the important concepts, some have SEO pitches in them but the info largely seems to be good. (if i missed anything Egregiously Gross on these sites i should be able to update the links with better ones later, since they're under the readmore.)

sidenote: this is NOT meant to be overwhelming, despite the length. if you can't read all of this, that's Okay. you do not need to give up on your writing.

here we go:

compersion!

compersion is a BIG thing in a lot of polyamorous relationships. it's joy derived from seeing two (or more) of your partners happy together, or joy derived from seeing your partner happy with someone else.

compersion is really important as a concept because it highlights that every individual relationship within a polycule is different -- and that that's a GOOD thing. it's sort of the inverse of jealousy.

by the "inverse of jealousy," i mean that instead of feeling left out and upset and possessive, you feel happy/joyous/content.

i can use personal experience as an example: it's a Relief for me when my partners receive joy/support/sex/romance/etc that i can't (or prefer not to) give them. and i love seeing my partners make each other laugh and be silly together.

it's 100% okay for a poly triad not to be together 100% of the time, it doesn't mean that the third member is being left out or not treated equally when two people do things alone together.

(i have individual dates with my partners all the time! PLUS larger 3-and-4-person date nights.)

if the third member DOES feel jealous or left out, then the polycule can have a conversation to figure out what needs/wants aren't being met, and solve that. this happens semi-regularly in my polycule, as it will happen in any relationship (including monogamous ones)! it's just part of being an adult, sometimes you have to talk about feelings.

metamours!

a metamour is someone who is dating your partner, but ISN'T dating you. this may not be relevant for people writing closed three-person romantic sexual triads, but it's a super helpful term to know.

the linked article also lists different types of metamour relationships with some fun phrasing i hadn't heard before. the tl;dr is: sometimes you'll be domestic cohabitation friends, sometimes you'll be buddies with your own friendship, sometimes you might not interact much outside of parties, every relationship is different.

there's no one-size-fits-all requirement for metamour relationships. sometimes polyamorous people will end up dating their metamour after a while (has happened to me), sometimes polyamorous people will break up with one partner for normal life reasons, but remain friendly metamours.

the goal of polyamory is NOT for EVERYONE to fall in love. it is 100% okay if this happens in your story, it happens in real life too! but it is also 100% okay for characters to be metamours without ever becoming "more than friends."

(sidenote: try to kill any internalized "more than" that you have when it comes to friendship. friends are just as important and special and vital as partners.)

of course there are a million ways for messiness to occur with metamours within a complex polycule, exactly like with close-knit platonic friend groups. however this post is not about that! there's enough "here's how polyamory can go wrong" stuff out there already, so i'm focusing on the positives here :)

open versus closed polyamorous relationships!

i'm struggling to find an online article that reflects my experience without directly contradicting at least SOME stuff. so i'll give a quick rundown

google has a bunch of conflicting definitions of open relationships and whether open relationships are different from polyamory. the general consensus seems to be that an open relationship prioritizes one partnership (often a marriage), but that each partner can have extraneous flings or long-term commitments (most often sexual in nature).

this is not typically how i use the term wrt polyamory. the poly concept is pretty simple. a closed polyamorous relationship is one with boundaries like a monogamous one. there are multiple partners in the polycule, but they are not interested in having anybody new join said polycule.

an open polyamorous relationship tends to be more flexible -- it just means that IF someone in the polycule develops mutual feelings for a new person, it's fine for them to become part of said polycule if they want to! the relationship/person is open to newcomers.

some groups will need to negotiate this all together, others will just go "haha, you kids have fun." just depends on the individuals!

with open AND closed polyamorous relationships, the most important thing is making sure that there's respectful communication and that everyone is on the same page. but there's no one-size-fits-all way to do that.

i wish i could give you guys a prescriptive "You Must Do It This Way" guide, but that's.... basically the opposite of what polyamory is about, HAHA.

feelings for multiple people!

i was gonna tack this on to the previous section but decided it warranted its own lil bit.

a defining feature (....i'm told?) of monogamous relationships is that a monogamous person only has feelings for One individual at a time. they only want a relationship with one individual at a time. or, if they DO have feelings for multiple people simultaneously, they're still only comfortable dating one person at a time & being exclusive with that one person.

this is perfectly fine!

the poly experience is generally different from this. but once again..... polyamorous people all have different individual perspectives on this.

for me, i have never been able to draw hard boxes around romantic vs sexual vs platonic relationships, & i love many people at once. my personal polycule lacks many strict definitions beyond "these are my chosen people, i want to forge a life with them indefinitely, whatever shape that life takes"

some poly people feel explicit romantic or sexual attraction to multiple people at once, some poly people feel almost no romantic or sexual attraction at all. i'd say that MOST poly people feel different things for different partners, which is not a bad thing!

some poly people are even monogamous-leaning -- they have just chosen one romantic partner who is themselves part of a larger polycule. (so this monogamous-leaning person has at least one metamour!)

or alternatively, they might have one romantic partner AND a qpr, or other ways of defining relationships. (this is a factor in my own polycule!)

i made this its own point because if you're writing a straightforward triad, this is unlikely to come up in the story itself -- but it's worth thinking about how your characters develop/handle feelings outside of their partnerships.

like, is this sort of a soulmateship, 'these are the only ones for me' type deal? in which they won't fall in love with anyone else, and can be fairly certain of that?

that's pretty close to typical monogamous standards but you Can make it work. just be thoughtful with it

alternatively, can you see any of these characters falling in love Again after the happily-ever-after? and how would the triad approach it, if so? what would they all need to talk about beforehand, and what feelings would everybody have about the situation?

it's worth considering these questions even if the hypothetical will never feature in your actual canon, because knowing the answers to these questions will help you understand all of the individuals & their relationship(s) MUCH better.

i've been typing this for nearly two hours and there's a lot more i COULD say because... there's just a lot to say. i'll close out with some quick questions that you can ask yourself when developing the dyad dynamics within your triad

first, take a page and create a separate section for each individual dyad. then answer these questions for every pair:

how does each pair act when alone?

how do they act differently alone compared to when they're with their third partner?

are there any elements of this dyad (romantic, sexual, financial, domestic, etc) that these two people DON'T have with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

are there any boundaries or hard limits within this dyad that aren't shared with the third partner?

if so, what are they?

partner 3 goes out of town alone for a few weeks. what are the remaining two doing in their absence?

(doesn't have to be anything special, it's just to get a sense of how the two interact on a day-by-day basis without the third there)

what is something that each partner in the dyad admires about the other -- that they DON'T necessarily see in the third partner?

what problem do These Two Specifically need to solve in the story before their relationship will work?

how is that problem DIFFERENT from the problems being solved within the other two dyads?

doing this for ALL THREE dyads is VITAL imo. that way, you develop complex and nuanced and different relationships that all have unique dynamics.

those questions should be enough to get you started, i hope

then After you've charted the differences in relationships, you can start to jot down similarities in the overarching triad. what does one person admire in Both of their partners? what are activities that all three like to do together? what are boundaries or discussions that all three share?

but the main goal is to figure out how to Differentiate each relationship!

a polycule is only as strong as the individual relationships within it. if two people are struggling with their own relationship, adding a third person won't fix that.

(UNLESS the third person is the catalyst for those two to, like, Actually Communicate And Work Their Shit Out. i just mean that the old adage of "maybe if we just add a third-" works about as well to fix a miserable non-communicative marriage as, uh, "maybe if we have a baby-")

AND FINALLY.

if you're not sure whether your poly romance reads organically to poly people, you can hire a sensitivity reader with poly experience. if you can't afford that, you can read up on polyamorous resources like a glossary of terms & articles actually written by poly people. (and stories written by poly people!)

you can also just.... ask poly people questions, if they're open to it. i like talking about polyamory and my own relationships so you're welcome to send asks if u want, i just can't guarantee i'll answer bc my energy levels fluctuate a lot and i don't always have time.

polyamorous people are in an uphill battle for positive representation right now & so the LAST thing i want to see is authors giving up on their stories bc they're worried about getting things Wrong. well-meaning and positive stories that treat this kind of love as normal, healthy, & aspirational are So So So Needed. even if you guys end up with some funky-feeling details.

seriously, if you're monogamous then you probably don't have a full idea of Just How Nasty a lot of people can get about polyamory. i wish it DIDN'T mean so much for you guys to want to write nice stories about us, but it does mean a lot. and it means a lot that you want to do it WELL.

in conclusion. this is not a prescriptive guide, it's just a way to raise questions. and also, you all are doing FINE.

#thebibliosphere i apologize for tagging u when we don't know each other at all i just want u to get credit for the initial discussion #given that it is so much more thoughtful and clear than anything i'd think to write.#i did NOT mean to spend multiple hours on this but once i started writing i was like #oh god i actually do have like a lot i can tell monogamous people about writing poly people & the poly perspective #anyway. i mention it in the post but people can send me (respectful. obviously) asks if they have questions #i cant promise to answer all of them bc i am bad at this. but if i'm well enough then i'll try #polyamory #non-monogamy #ethical non-monogamy #writing #my writing #writing advice #relationships

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alittlefrenchtree · 2 months

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You know how we always say "how do the people around him act normal?" here that poor journalist was the perfect representation of what it's like to be close to him 😭 "this man is so handsome" "please stop I'm married" I'm giggling

IT'S SO FUNNY 💀

She's all of us. I love it.

#meanwhile he's just casually standing here being handsome and making people go crazy like it's no big deal #alft asks #sag awards #taylor zakhar perez #tzp #i didn't catch her name so can't tag :(#i'm answering the asks about the sag awards first because it seems more logical to do them now #i'm not ignoring the older ones i promise i'll get to them eventually

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stonerbellybabe · 4 months

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Damn piggy, I can definitely see a difference in that before and after. For one your chin has gotten so fat and sexy! And your gut is sticking out of that shirt even more! So hot.

thank you! honestly it can be pretty hard to be a feedee this time of year. I have a hard time seeing so many other feedees reach their goals while I fell way short of mine (remember when I was saying I was going for 200 by new year's lmao) and I worry that the community has lost and will continue to lose interest in me for not doing more or doing better or whatever. So I really appreciate those of you who continue to engage with my content and celebrate the small changes. Thanks guys

#I am so sorry for the tone of this answer lmaooo I'm just having a weird night #I promise I'll get over it lol #ask

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aroacesafeplaceforall · 2 months

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some silly images for you in these trying times..

everyone needs some silly images in their lives -noah

#asks #ask #not aro or ace related #I promise I'll answer some aro and ace related asks soon-

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raspberrydraws · 2 months

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pls pls tell me about your hcs for the first members of the crew fitting the elements of harmony, i very much wanna hear 👀👀👀

Thanks for asking I love u very much allow me to bring a chair so you can sit down and read all my rambling 🪑

some notes about this absolute madness:

I feel like they fit the element but also some traits of the mlp characters too so I will add that when it's necessary

When I talk about the mugiwara's dreams I assume they've already reached them bc the story is not finished yet like mlp and I KNOW THEY WILL ACHIEVE THEIR DREAMS anyways

Please don't have high expectations ahhh I don't wanna end up feeling like I thought something cool and it ended up being lame, I'm not used to writing or explaining stuff this way (and in english tho oof double brain work)

I'll put a everything under a read more bc it ended up being long and also uhh CW: spoilers for both series yeah

✦ Magic: First of all and obvious reason, main character lol.

Character who gathered the group in the first place

Royalty !!! King of the Pirates!!! Princess of Friendship!!! besides the fact that Luffy's dream is becoming the king and Twilight just had to do it etc etc

Very powerful mentor who's far away but encouraged them to start their journey and find their friends

They're not similar in personality at all I get it lmao

✦ Kindness: oof do I need to say anything

Sanji is kind, that's like one of the traits that made him one of my fav characters (more than his totally badass habilities).

and of course that's one of his most important traits

His mother sacrificed everything and celebrated everytime he showed his kindness, he was a sweet child, he's soft with children and helps anyone who's in need.

He's so full of emotion and can go from the softest to the meanest in a second if he needs to (flashbacks to fluttershy literally confronting a bigass dragon, making him cry and leave bc he was mean to her friends)

Also both characters are certified Friends of the Little Critters ™ and can't fly very well

Special mention to Pinkie Pie here, since she shares the "Third child who stands out like a sore thumb from his other siblings because she's weird to her family standards" backstory with Sanji

✦ Loyalty: That's like one of Zoro's main character traits right? He's in the air before Luffy says jump

Cool, they're just cool and probably the most liked characters + the ones who sell more merch for sure lol

Both have a childhood dream, becoming the best swordsman/wonderbolt, but that doesn't push them to leave their friends to achieve it alone + having friends actually helps them reach their goals

hot headed kids + dumbass sometimes

✦ Honesty: The group's voice of reason

Character that pretends to be okay but hell naw she's not ok (AJ harvesting sweet apple acres and almost dying / Nami Pretending to be Arlong's little trustworthy human so she can save her village) until their friends help them to be honest and ask for help

Also they have similar lifes cultivating apples/tangerines with their families and I thought that was cute hehe

✦ Generosity: SCREAMS Chopper my little chop chop I love u my sweet child

The way that Rarity shows her element is usually by giving away something important to her (her time, her talent with fashion, HER FRIGGIN' TAIL) so she can help other people (creatures?) feel better, and there's no signs of repentance after that, she does it with her heart (and sometimes to show that she can make things fabulous)

This brings me to Chopper looking for the mushroom to cure Dr. Hiriluk's illness and showing up at his door all hurt but he's like heyy I got the thing. I understand that's another kind of "sacrifice" The way he showed his thankfulness to his mentor by risking his life looking for the mushroom and trying to prove that he's a good doctor too (even tho uhh we know how that ended)

This was a little bit more difficult to connect with his element and that's why I was in between choosing kindness and generosity for him, but

kindness had to be sanji's element for suree

Dr Kureha specifically told him that "kindness wasn't enough to save lives" and I won't contradict her she scares me so much

AND I feel like Chopper's generosity it's shown all along the show just by treating all those injured pirates over and over again for free lmao

My overall feeling when giving him the element was "He's a little doctor, of course he's generous, doctors are generous enough to learn how to save lives! so we don't like.. die! next question"

✦ Laughter:

This one was pretty simple too, I love Usopp bc he makes me laugh a lot, he's such a comedic relief for the story and also: my best friend in the whole wide world, yes *gives him a lil kiss*

Of course he's not just a comedic relief, he tries to make things easier trying to solve conflicts (sometimes) or joining the sillyness (most of times)

Also they like to tell stories! I feel like that's a cute trait that makes both characters more interesting, even when someone's stories are lies *eyes emoji* I like storyteller characters a lot !!

they're good with kids + tell them stories too !!

also the whole.. alter ego thing, yeah

AND THE PUFFY HAIR ♥

AIGHT

Hope you enjoyed my TED talk, thaks for giving me the strenght to be a little unhinged, I don't talk too much here but this whole mlp au has people coming and encouraging me to talk/write and I have a problem, once I start talking about something I like I can't shut up

And I like MLP since I was 12 years old, i started drawing because of it and I'm currently rewatching the whole series with my bf so if I see anything else I'll come back and add stuff for sure ♥

#ask #holy sh #send u a kiss #i promise i'll answer the other asks tomorrow it's 3 am i'm dying sorry #mlp au #one piece #mlp #pony #pony au

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30-3am · 6 months

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he's so awkward

#alana's thoughts #metallica #james hetfield #papa het #metal #i'll answer asks in a bit #i promise #today has been so tiring #i might have to go to bed soon

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ohbo-ohno · 28 days

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the vampire au idea is soooo good ive been rotating it in my head ever since you posted it…. i yearn for it

you should read silver under nightfall the vampire/vampire dynamic is soooooooooooo good!!! (also this ask is referencing this post)

that post is a big ol' nothing sandwich because i truly don't care to think out the logistics of things plot-wise BUT!!! i desperately want vampire/vampire hunter ghost/soap soooo have some bits and bobs and vibes

listen if you've read that book, you know the dynamic is the human being a badass who's able to kill everyone who gets in his way while the vampire just sorta sees the human as something cute but not really a threat. that's the vibe i want

something something bloodthirsty soap who sees the mere presence of a vampire as a threat, who's talented enough to beat any enemy who tries him, who is probably the only human alive able to beat multiple vampires at once, who's fueled by rage and anger and nothing more

and ghost, a vampire who's disgustingly old and by proxy disgustingly powerful, sees this feral human and wants. deeply.

something something angry dog on a leash soap. high-status ghost who's blackmailing soap in some way to keep the human on his side, travelling with him and just smirking as soap tears any opponent to shreds

soap, covered in blood with his heart still racing from the fight and his fingers just a bit twitchy, bleeding from a few different cuts, snarling and snipping at ghost about how i didn't that for you, fuckin' arsehole, if ye'd lift a goddamn finger to help maybe i wouldn't be stitchin' myself up

and ghost lounging and relaxed, just a bit too close to soap for the younger's comfort, breathing in the thick scent of soap's blood and imagining the heat of it in his mouth, rumbles you can take care of us perfectly fine, pup. don't see any need to bother when you work so hard

and soap's flushing, a mix of frustration and pain and just a smidgen of pleasure at the praise :( can't even meet ghost's eyes as he fixes himself up and washes off, too busy mentally wrestling with how good it feels to be useful how terrible it feels to be used by a vampire :((

ohhhh man i wish i was actually capable of writing bc the dynamic here is one of my favesss

#someday i'll watch interview with a vampire #someday i will also return to my x reader roots LMAO i promise!!!#asks and answers #ghoap #i got nothing else for this idea but god it makes me shake #bo writes #< so i can find this again lmaooo

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ladybugkisses · 10 months

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i kinda feel like sketching stuff today before i gotta go into comic hell tomorrow but idk What to sketch so,

does anyone have questions about/for my lackasona i can (preferably) draw for??

#sorta in the style of some mini-comics on the site #wheezes #sometimes i miss running an ask blog and it shows gdskgds #i can't promise i'll answer all of them btw but if i don't draw for them i'll at least do it through text

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c-is-for-circinate · 9 months

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I would love to hear more mike wheeler - Steve Harrington masculinity thoughts (also whatever happened to Hopper to make him action guy my beloathed)! Also will we get a mike chapter for and they were married?

Okay yes! I am fascinated by Mike and Steve as narrative contrasts, and I always find myself looking for fic where the two of them meaningfully interact, and I keep meaning to write about them.

(Also: Mike deserves his own chapter of that fic, but he's getting folded into Dustin's. What Mike really deserves is his own fic that takes place in that universe, because I know what his deal is there and it's a doozy, but that is a very different post.)

Anyway! For starters, I don't think that Steve and Mike are intentionally meant to be foils. There's an element of it in the first season, where Steve exists to support Nancy's character, and Nancy and Mike are meant to be foils -- Steve is the Popular Kid, the antithesis of Mike and his friends' little group of nerds, he and Tommy and Carol are written into the same category as Troy but older and less actively murderous, and the fact that Nancy's dating him says things about her -- but they end up occupying oddly similar spaces and cool parallels come out of that anyway.

A core thing about it is that Steve and Mike are both the guy in their respective age group casts on the show. The Guy. The central one, the normal one, the presumed-to-be-straight one -- and yes, this is fandom and we have Opinions about that, but the Duffer brothers think they're both straight, and that matters here. They're white, they're able-bodied, they have money. They are, in a sense, normal.

Narratively, they very often act as central/POV character for scenes they're in, at least once Steve gets past the fistfight in S1 and awakens to the fact that he's a person who can make decisions. And that makes sense, because being The Guy also means they're the closest to the classic TV protagonist archetype, the guy who does the hero shit and gets the girl in the end. Hopper is also The Guy, and always has been: in S1 it's just him and Joyce, but even as we add more adults, the only real challenge to his The Guy status is Bob (which is of course why Bob had to die). Murray is a bizarre conspiracy nut, and queer-coded besides that. Owens is an affable bad guy. Alexei and Dmitri and Yuri are all Russian.

Being The Guy comes with a certain amount of baggage. All three of them have to be romantic leads, and have to be crossed in love about it. All three of them are protectors in one way or another. And all three of them are on occasion assholes who have one hell of a time with sincerity and affection.

And this is where we get into Toxic Masculinity, because again, while I don't think the Duffers intended a pile of parallels between these three guys, well. Firstly, The Guy as an archetype is built on a pile of toxic masculine stereotypes, so that's often there to begin with. Secondly, it's the same writers, so certain themes rhyme whether they're intended to or not.

In particular, one of the core tenets of toxic masculinity, not just in ST but as a thing in the world, is when and where it's acceptable to experience soft emotions of affection, care, and vulnerability. The first rule of toxic masculinity is don't. The second rule, the caveat rule, is a little asterisk saying 'except, occasionally, with a female romantic partner, if you absolutely must.'

And so we actually see a lot of unfolding of this in Steve! One thing we know about Steve, without precisely being told, is that he's deeply lonely -- for a popular kid he sure seems to only have two Actual Friends when the show starts and they hardly seem to even like each other. He has a new Favorite Person every season, and he clings to them with the joy of a devoted golden retriever. His mental image of happily-ever-after is a house full of kids with enough siblings to never get lonely, family vacations about close quarters and spending time together. We never see his parents. For all a lot of the 'horrible abuse' fanon is very much fanon, Steve is inarguably a lonely kid. And where do we see him reaching out for affection?

It's not Tommy and Carol, although until they break up he's constantly in their company unless he's alone with Nancy. They hardly even seem to like each other very much, and yet they've stayed at his empty house enough for Tommy to know about his mother's fireplace and Steve to insist he do laundry while he's here. No, the person who Steve is allowed to feel things with and for is Nancy, because she's the caveat, she's the exception. This is why Steve is consistently focused on getting Nancy back, getting a new girlfriend, getting a date. That's the rule!!!

The really fabulous thing about Steve's arc across the first three seasons, and even into S4, is that this quest for romantic affection and vulnerability is both thwarted and rewarded again and again. He tries to apologize to Nancy, to win her back: by the time he sees her again, Nancy's got a new boyfriend, but Steve has a new brother. Dustin is Steve's favorite person by the start of S3; he gets Steve's haircare secrets, he gets Steve's loyalty, he gets Steve's joy. In S3, Steve tries to pour his whole heart into a different girlfriend, and Robin turns him down flat while also simultaneously opening herself up with such vulnerability that they instantly become best friends. Robin is S4's Favorite Person, but the great thing about these relationships being platonic is that Steve gets to have more than one! He gets to have both Dustin and Robin in his life! He gets the other kids as part of the package! Bit by bit, instead of a girlfriend who Steve is "allowed" to be soft with, Steve gains actual friends who he gets to be real with whether it's allowed or not.

And the really tragic thing about Mike Wheeler is that he's doing the opposite. Mike starts out with three friends, three best friends, absolutely devoted to one another. As kids, they're young enough to be free of most of the stranglehold of toxic masculinity yet, although of course it's starting. And then there's El.

Mike charts a really interesting course over four seasons, and the shape of it is not a straight trajectory from 'Mike adores and is BFF with Will' to 'Mike thinks only about El.' Hell, from what we see of S1, the Party are all best friends pretty equally before Will goes missing -- Lucas is the one ready to break into a government lab for him, not Mike. Mike's trajectory is far more 'I derive the bulk of my personal self-worth from protecting other people, and as soon as somebody needs to be saved I go fully into Paladin Mode, making me feel worthwhile and important." It just so happens that the two people in Mike's field of vision who most generally need protection and saving are Will and El. Which leads to Mike's intense Will-focused devotion in S2 (El is gone but Will is also in really significant need, and Mike just straight-up activates, jumping immediately into solicitously taking care of his friend because Something Needs Doing And I Can Do It). And Mike's intense El-focused devotion in S4, where El needs a literal quest to come and rescue her. And just a lot of Mike in general.

The problem with all of that is the part where, unlike Steve who keeps forging new platonic relationships, Mike keeps neglecting his more and more. The S3 Will fight is so good at illustrating that, because look -- we all know Will has a crush on Mike, but at no point during that fight does Will ask, even subtextually, for romantic attention. He's asking for platonic attention, which Mike is absolutely failing to give. "Where's Dustin right now? You don't know, and you don't even care." But as Mike says, they're not kids any more -- and this is how growing up is supposed to work!

(Note: I don't want to say that it's toxic for Mike to be in love with El, or really caught up in that relationship -- he's fourteen! she's his first girlfriend! he thought she was dead! But Mike's an asshole in S3 because he's caught up enough to not notice his friend's feelings until they explode at him, and yeah, I do think part of that is because he knows he's Not Supposed To.)

S4 is a lot, because here's where we're really seeing the culmination of a lot of what Mike's been unfortunately moving towards. We've hit a point where those vulnerable feelings that Mike's allowed to share, at most, with his girlfriend, feel like too much to even share with his girlfriend. He can't say 'I love you'. He can't even talk to Will. The conversation he does have with Will is honestly mostly about Mike and his feelings of inadequacy, of not measuring up, not being special, but it has to be couched in the context of El. If there's a reverse-Bechdel test to be done on S4, past the very first episode I'm pretty sure Mike fails it -- I don't think he has a single conversation that isn't about his girlfriend in one capacity or another.

In contrast, S4 Steve is, yes, pretty focused on girls-in-general and Nancy-in-specific, and yeah, there's a little bit of backsliding going on there. But he's also having conversations with Robin about her fears and longings, having weird little interludes where Eddie's the one bringing up Nancy rather than Steve himself. He's hurt at the end when Nancy is clearly still with Jonathan, but he's able to move on, to go fold clothes and care about Robin's love life instead of his own -- his optimistic happy ending in S4 is that his best friend is going to get the girl, not him.

I think there's a lot more to say, which I only brushed on briefly here, about other aspects of Mike and Steve that work in parallel or contrast -- their protector thing, which feels very intrinsic but shows up very differently in both of them, the way Steve says 'I love you' so easily and Mike has trouble saying it at all, the way they are both very much extremely normal guys, at least on paper. There's so much to say. I think that has to be a different post.

I will say, in terms of Hopper: Jim Hopper is what it looks like when those pent-up feelings that you aren't allowed to express to anybody other than a romantic partner sit and fester for decades. Fuck, there were things about Vietnam he didn't even tell his wife, that sat like poison both emotional and biological between them. When we meet him in S1, he's processing grief with drugs and drinking and processing fear with rage. He has spent so much of the past four seasons processing fear as rage.

Of course Joyce is the one person he's allowed to, sometimes, on occasion, be soft with. Of course nearly his every interaction with Mike is macho dominance posturing. Of course the entire trajectory of his relationship with El is a push-pull of Hopper retreating into authoritarianism and anger instead of the terror of honesty, and then getting to see the consequences of that when his daughter pulls away. Every season has broken him down a little more that way, but then the yo-yo pulls back (Season 3 whyyyyyyyyy). By Season 4, he's been beaten and starved and frozen and shattered enough that we get maybe the most honest monologue of his life, to a Russian prison guard, because they're about to die so what do the rules matter any more. It's a clear window into an endless pit of self-loathing, because for twenty or thirty years Hopper's been letting those feelings eat in instead of out, and bit by bit they've been devouring him.

El is hope, for him, and Joyce is hope, and the cracks that broke open in Kamchatka to maybe let in a little more air that might not seal right back up again are hope. But it's hard. It's hard! It makes him an absolute asshole, including and especially towards the people he wants most to protect. (And there's that protector thing again.)

Anyway, I am on the record as liking Steve a lot and having very little patience for Mike and Hopper, but like. They're not that different, at their core. They just put the pieces together in a different order.

#stranger things #driveby meta attack #asked and answered #shit this is really making me want to write those D&D class breakdowns I keep promising #maybe I'll get to one or two of those this weekend #mike wheeler #steve harrington #jim hopper #at least a bit

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