#Side Hopper

[morganbritton132]

Wrong Number AU where Eddie gets a new number and then starts receiving text messages from the most depressed person still alive.

At first, he ignored them.

It’s pretty obvious that this guy thinks he’s texting a dead friend or dad or someone. Eddie’s not going to take that away from someone clearly grieving, but then the texts get concerning.

He shoots a text back. After the initial ‘WHAT THE FUCK???’ and Eddie explaining the concept of companies reusing phone numbers, they talk. Eddie tells him to text him anytime he’s feeling low.

They talk almost everyday.

Eddie’s mystery texted won’t tell him his real name. He says he likes the anonymity of it and something about the government, but Eddie wishes he’d change his mind.

Sometimes Sad Boy will text him in the middle of a depression spiral and the conversation with tapper off without any good resolution. Eddie spends half the night worried to death only to receive a text the following morning like ‘ALL GOOD. FELL ASLEEP.’

He wants to respect Sad Boy’s wishes but he also wants to find him. And then he does find him, completely on accident.

He is following his newest Hellfire member into a store so he can get money off his brother. Eddie is honestly not paying much attention to who Dustin is talking to, shooting a text off to Sad Boy about strangling the youth.

He hits send and hears a ding immediately.

He looks up to find Steve Harrington pulling his phone out of his pocket. He shoots a text back and Eddie’s phone vibrates a laughing emoji.

Oh no.

[gayofthefae]

One-sided love stories don't have shared looks.

They don't have two-shots. They aren't a duo. They don't face the world together. They certainly don't match each other's energy one on one.

If Mike didn't have feelings for Will they wouldn't already be framed as a duo. It almost feels in-anticipation.

Either friendship is prioritized over romance or it is the romance. But you can't have a one-sided romance prioritized over a reciprocated romance. It's either two-side, no-sided, or you make the unreciprocated character the casual third wheel.

Deny it as they try, Mike and Will are not friends. I'm not saying Mike has feelings for Will, but narratively, what they are is not friends. They are an unreciprocated romance. That is what they are. And those are not framed as duos.

One-sided love stories don't have shared looks. One-sided love stories are not prioritized over a character's reciprocated one.

So what is this

And they went above and beyond. Not only should Byler not have this in the first place if there is any inkling of romance on either side, Mike and El should, but they don't. I can't come up with a time when they have had a two-shot reaction.

The best I've got is this.

And Will is present. The camera actively avoiding making him a third wheel. This isn't even a shared look. El looks at Will.

Well, no, to be fair, they have some when they are the only ones present.

Also, here is an example of a joint reaction between friends:

They agree on what they're feeling in this moment, and they agree on what they are.

Mike and Will agree on what they are.

Mike and El do not.

[champion-of-love]

loved how when eah was still airing there was an actual campaign on voting for who would be thronecoming queen. like raven, apple, cupid and blondie were actual choices you could vote for on the eah website. then,,, they just quietly hid the fact there's no voting for thronecoming king. there's no other choice other than daring that's it. can you imagine the dance after the vote had been revealed.

daring and apple are great friends but there's no romance between them so their dance is just them performing another waltz routine they've been dancing since they were kids. snow even sends proffesional videographers to film the thing so it can be used for futher pr for apple.

raven and daring is just awkward since they don't interact much and after the required king and queen dance they split off to hang with their own friends. their last interaction was raven asking if he wrote her a love poem and raven's embarrassment is off the charts. daring already forgot about the incident.

blondie and daring is blondie trying to get the dance over as soon as possible because she just learned about the greatest scoop ever (like what do you mean headmaster grimm cursed his own brother and hid him under the school!!!) and she wants to finish her report on it so their dance is over pretty quick. luckily blondie and daring are both friends so he isn't offended by it. meanwhile grimm is trying to bribe the mirrorblog owners to ban blondie's account before she could post her exposé. it doesnt work.

cupid and daring is just unstoppable force vs immovable object. they dont interact that much but because of daring's charmingness he accidentally breaks a lot of hearts at school and cupid's radio show is full of students crying about him. their dance is half cupid trying to strangle him for giving her so much work and half daring trying to charm her so she'd forgive him and failing. the dance ends in a petty slapfight and daring agrees that he owes cupid a few favors for the extra work he's caused. cupid mostly cashes in these favors so he'd fly her, briar and hopper on legend to parties and concerts after curfew. (thus daring's life as the pink squad's chaffeur begins)

[starsarehere]

so y'all think s5 will win over S4 and steal the trophy of "gayest season ever" or?

[willfreakbyers]

Hey so this shot is fucking bonkers

[waywaybackinthe1980s]

has anyone ever thought of a byler scott pilgrim au.....................

[lemonycranberries]

I find it really interesting how so many milevens/the GA absolutely refuse to acknowledge Will, Mike and El as a love triangle in s4 - because you can directly parallel them to Jonathan, Nancy and Steve in many ways, and somehow those same people are usually quick to recognize those three as a love triangle. “But Mileven has been built up since s1!!” - ok, so has Jancy. “They have been together since s2, it wouldn’t make sense for them to break up now!” - Jancy has been together since s2 as well. “But only Will likes Mike, he doesn’t like him back” - to me it seems pretty clear that only Steve is explicitly interested in Nancy in s4, and not the contrary. “Steve and Nancy have a bunch of scenes with romantic tension though!” - so do Mike and Will, down to the same “tender, emotional music” playing. The way so many of these situations are similar and yet certain people are adamant about how one of these is definitely NOT a love triangle is kind of baffling.

[henrysglock]

Adoptive Sibling Relationships: The Newby family and the Byers family

Taking a break from my usual analysis style to do a little comparison between two families with adopted daughters and how the brothers in those families handle their relationships with their sisters.

As I've discussed in previous posts, Will isn't exactly the poster child for adoptive siblings. While El's struggling to stay afloat in the wake of Hopper's death, paired with being tossed into 9th grade as her very first year in school, Will lets her flounder.

Will doesn't help her with her school assignment (and as I've said before, following around behind El isn't Will's "job", but offering a little advice would be the compassionate and kind thing to do, especially seeing that El has only been exposed to greater society for the past year. Singular. One year. She's been in school for six months. Total. She hasn't even been out of the lab for 5 years. Will knows this. He knows she's undersupported, and he's the one in the best position to offer like 2 sentences of advice at home where the bullies can't get him. Would it have stopped the bullying in total for El? No. But at least the bullies wouldn't have been right. Capiche?), he doesn't step in when El's being physically harassed, he makes pointed jabs at her in front of Mike, and per the VR game, he harbors a decent amount of resentment towards her.

None of that makes Will a bad person, necessarily. He still does a multitude of good things. A lot of the negative things, especially re: bullies, are a result of his freeze response from being bullied himself. His resentment towards isn't exactly unjustified, either.

None of this means Will is bad. It just means his relationship with El isn't strong.

He's also not unique in this pattern of behavior!

There's another set of adoptive siblings that displays many of the same behaviors.

Bob and Patty Newby mimic Will and El's relationship—complete with many of the same struggles. Their relationship isn't strong.

Bob and Patty have a tenuous relationship, put nicely. It's clear that they care for each other, but there are a lot of external factors that make their relationship difficult.

Patty was adopted by Mr. Newby as a baby in hopes of saving his marriage to his wife. It didn't work, and the family broke up. That already puts Patty in a tough position with Bob in much the same way that Max was in a tough position with Billy re: broken families. No doubt there's at least a little unresolved resentment in that relationship, just like there was unresolved resentment from Billy towards Max, and there's unresolved resentment from Will towards El for her role in "breaking up" his relationship with Mike. Variations on a theme, and all that jazz.

Anyway, Mr. Newby takes his own his resentment re: Mrs. Newby out on Patty, and Bob does nothing to stop it. She's the family scapegoat, and he lets it happen. He doesn't stand up to his father on her behalf.

He doesn't stand up to Patty's bullies at school, either. When Patty's facing the brunt of her bullying from Walter during Dark of the Moon auditions, Bob is present! He doesn't do anything, though. Much like Will with El and Angela, Bob sits there and watches. He freezes. It's Sue and Charles who step in on Patty's behalf when the bullying turns blatantly racist.

While Bob does encourage Patty, particularly re: her participation in Dark of the Moon, he does not support her. He doesn't have Patty's back. Will is much the same re: the presentation. He encourages her, but he doesn't support her.

In fact, in-show Bob himself acknowledges his similarities to Will, particularly in regards to this specific shortcoming:

He and Will are not ones who punch back. They don't stand up and fight, and we can see it harming their relationships in real-time. It is an explanation, but it is not an excuse. In situations where they hold power, whether it be as a white boy in the 50s defending his black sister or as a normally-socialized boy in the 80s defending his struggling lab-raised sister, both of them flounder and fail. Both sisters are harmed because their brothers failed to use their positions of power to help them. These are things that both Bob and Will need to work on.

This is, however, where one key difference between Bob and Will comes into play:

Bob apologizes. Genuinely. Sincerely.

He acknowledges his shortcomings, he clearly and openly expresses to Patty in person, face to face, how much he loves and values her, and he refuses to allow Patty to put the blame for the situation on herself (similarly to how Mike refuses to allow Will to put all the blame on himself regarding the deterioration of their relationship).

Will gets his Bob-and-Patty-like apology from Jonathan in the pizza shop, but he does not pay it forward. Will never apologizes for not standing up on El's behalf when he was in a position to do so. We never get a tender one-on-one between El and Will wherein they talk about and resolve that tension.

This is something that, in parallel, eats Max alive regarding Billy. They never got to fix their relationship either, before Billy dies (regardless of the fact that the onus was on Billy to do so)—and it would have eaten Bob alive too, if he hadn't managed to fix his relationship with Patty before the accident and her departure for Nevada (and vice versa were Bob the one to be hurt).

(See: Patty's grief over Mr. Newby being hurt/her thinking she had a hand in his injuries because she was hanging around Henry despite how poorly Mr. Newby treated her. See also: Mr. Newby apologizing to Patty for his behavior after a near-death experience, since the onus was on him to fix the relationship he damaged).

Will and El's relationship is weaker than Bob and Patty's, and that's not El's fault—just like how the weakness in Bob and Patty's relationship wasn't Patty's fault, just like how the weakness in Will's relationship with Jonathan wasn't Will's fault. With El, the onus is on Will to strengthen their relationship, if that's something he wants to do. It's up to Will to strengthen his relationship with El. If he really cares for her, it would eat him alive if she died or was gravely injured before he got the chance to be that loving and supportive brother for her. It's up to him to acknowledge his flaws—even if they're "justified" flaws, because they're doing harm all the same. Impact >>> Intent.

El needed a friend, needed a brother, and Will wasn't there for her when the stakes were low.

We see that need crop back up in NINA, which initially (and for the majority of the arc) posits Henry as a protector/older brother for her to latch onto; the parallel/foilism between Will and Henry in NINA serve as a reflection of what El's lacking in her real life relationships...but now with far higher stakes. Can't wait to see how that set of parallels finishes out, especially with "Henry" turning on El at the last minute/when she needs him most. I won't say more than that, though, because that starts to get outside the bounds of this post.

Lastly, and I don't mean this as a "tallying up flashy heroic acts to see who's a better person" thing (because there's a lot of negativity tied up in El's belief that she always has to be the superhero/it blocks a lot of other people from growing into their possible hero roles/it's a trauma-borne flaw in El the same way freezing is a trauma-borne response in Will), but how many times has El stood up for Will? How many times has she put herself in mortal danger to protect him? El is not the one who needs to extend an olive branch to Will re: their weakened relationship going into ST5. The onus is not on her to mend a relationship she consistently puts her blood, sweat, and tears into physically preserving. If Will can't defend El physically in return, that's fine. He's not part of the X-Men. He's not Superman. But he can at least offer her a little emotional support and a little guidance, then. That's how relationships work, I fear. There's a balance to respect.

It's hard to call them loving siblings when one half doesn't act like it. Instead, it just feels like Will and his guard dog against the supernatural.

Or...maybe just Will and Mommy Byers 2.0.

🤨🤔

[shantechni]

S1-3 Virtualization - Blow dryer ed.

[kennahjune]

Fuck the Trauma Bond

A Lucas and the Party version of this

…

Lucas was bouncing the ball on the pavement of the basketball court at the playground. It was surrounded by high chain-link fences and the hoops on either end were worn and rusted and the pavement itself was cracked worse than the Upside Down ground.

He had never looked happier.

Dustin and Will looked on from where they sat at the top of the slide on the playground. Lucas was tossing the ball around with a couple of other kids from school that neither of them knew.

But Lucas knew them, and that was all that mattered, apparently.

Max, El and Mike were a little farther back from Lucas, past the lame excuse of a basketball court and in the street, where Max was showing Mike how to skateboard while El loitered and watched.

It was absolutely sweltering. Ranging from 92 degrees to the Devils fucking asscrack, in Dustin totally correct opinion.

He was bored out of his mind but didn’t mind watching Lucas bounce the ball. He looked happier bouncing an orange sphere than he did playing DnD, which unsettled Dustin in a way that made him lightheaded.

“Hey, Will.”

Will hummed in acknowledgment but didn’t look up from his sketchpad.

“Does Lucas look happier?”

Will looked at Dustin with a raised eyebrow before focusing in on Lucas.

“Huh. I mean sure.” He shrugged. “But it’s cause it’s basketball. Lucas really likes basketball. And if he really likes it then why not be happy while doing it?”

Dustin flipped the thought a few times in his head.

It wasn’t that he was mad about Lucas playing basketball. He got over that a while ago after Lucas and Mike had a full-blown argument/mental breakdown that included Mike’s abandonment issues and Lucas’ FOMO (fear of missing out).

But Dustin also wasn’t outright vocally supportive. He didn’t go to the games, he didn’t hang around for Lucas’ practices. He would (probably), but even after Eddie’s name was cleared and he was painted a hero but the government goons, Mike and himself were still targeted heavily in school alongside the rest of Hellfire.

“I don’t really see the appeal, I guess.” He told Will, instead of voicing his inner thoughts.

Will shrugged. “You don’t have to. It’s Lucas’ interest. But simply showing you’re willing to listen to him about said interest can go a lot farther than you’d think.”

“Are you saying I don’t listen to him?”

“I’m saying you guys dismiss him.”

“Dismiss him?” Dustin watched Lucas more intently.

Will hummed. “Literally yesterday. He was talking about his encounter with Steve and how they’d made a really cool new play and you guys all so obviously tuned him out that when he stopped you guys just kept nodding because you hadn’t noticed.”

Huh.

That was really shitty.

“Did we really?”

“Yep.”

“Damn.”

“Damn indeed, Dusty-buns.”

Mike, Max and El joined them a couple minutes later.

“What’re you nerds talking about?” Max asked, sitting at the bottom of the slide with El while Mike climbed up to sit behind the boys and lean on Will’s back.

“How we’re apparently really shitty friends,” answered Dustin with his chin in his hand. He was still watching Lucas. One of the guys playing— a curly blond kid a head shorter than Lucas— pulled him into a weird hug thing where they slapped each other’s backs and immediately went back to playing.

“What?” asked Mike, muffled from where his head was shoved into Will’s shoulder.

“Lucas likes basketball.” Dustin confirmed.

Mike and Max looked at him.

“Yeah? We know that, Henderson.” Max snarked.

“And we know nothing about anything including him and basketball.”

They both seemed to pause.

“What do you mean?”

“Will says we’ve been dismissing him every time he brings it up.”

They both looked at Will, Mike peeling himself off of his back to do so.

Will shrugged and harshly erased something on his paper. “You do.”

“Which is why it’s stopping now.” Declared Dustin.

Mike blinked at him owlishly. “Um, dude? We can’t really go to him games or practices. You know we’ll both get mauled,” he muttered quietly.

The other three looked between Mike and Dustin.

“You’re both having problems still?” Will asked, looking stricken.

“I thought Jason dying would mean they’d fuck off.” Muttered Max.

Mike scoffed. “Just cause Carver’s dead doesn’t mean shit. They still think Eddie’s the Devil and that we’re his fucking worshipers or whatever. They chased me all the way to the back of the school on Wednesday.”

Will winced and Max glowered. Dustin felt the slide shake a little.

“El, relax. It’s not that bad.” Dustin watched El’s gaze soften slightly and the slide stopped rumbling. She looked at him sadly. They’d all heard about the bullying in Cali at some point. Dustin smiled back but it didn’t reach his eyes.

He turned back to address the whole group.

“Sure we can’t go to every game, but maybe we can get Steve to go with us to some. You guys know he wouldn’t let anything happen. And besides— Steve likes sports to.”

That struck a thought in his mind: how many times had he dismissed Steve?

He pushed it back for now.

“And even without going to games—“ he pressed on, “—we can still try and listen to him more.”

Mike and Max nodded slowly. Dustin takes it they hadn’t realized they hadn’t been listening before.

“And speaking of,” Will said, placing his sketch pad and pencils into his bag. “Here comes the man of the hour.”

Sure enough, Lucas was walking backward to them while waving to the guys who were leaving the park altogether. They were all waving back and laughing.

“Hey, guys!” Lucas jogged up to the slide.

“Hey, stalker,” Max greeted cheekily when Lucas bent to give her a kiss.

“Hi, Lucas!” El cheerily added. “Did you have fun?”

Lucas smiled. “Yeah! Daniel— the dude who was wearing the red hoodie like a damn maniac— was stupid fast and really cool! He showed me how he pushes off his feet for speed and when I—… never mind.” He tried for a smile but it didn’t reach his eyes.

Dustin frowned.

“Why’d you stop? Keep going, dimwit. When you what?” Mike prompted.

Dustin snickered when Will slapped his arm lightly.

Lucas looked stricken for a split second before his face broke out in a grin.

“Well—“

And the rest is history.

.

Bonus:

When the first game came up, only 3 months later, Steve took the whole Party— older teens included.

They took Eddie’s van, the kids piled in the back while the teens took the actual seats.

When they got to school it was hectic chaos of Steve taking a headcount and leading everyone in. They struggled to find seats where their whole group would fit and in the end they sat on the bottom line of the bleachers with half of the them on the floor.

It was actually fun, much to Dustin’s and Mike’s surprise. Even if the looks shot at them and Eddie from some of the players were downright hostile.

Steve went with them every time they got up to do anything. No one left without someone else there— so Mike wasn’t alone when Adrian Gonzales tried to corner him by the concessions. And Dustin wasn’t in as much trouble when Treyton Klink pulled him by the shirt into the bathrooms.

So yeah— it wasn’t the best. But that was ok, because the hug Lucas gave them afterwards was worth it. Dustin would go through hell (again) to get another hug like that.

Mike looked about ready to agree with the flush that now littered his face and shoulders.

Will laughed at him and poked fun at him about the blush the entire ride home. Max and Lucas himself eventually played in with it as well, only worsening the blush and making the teasing better.

Lucas was over the moon for the rest of the night.

They slept over at Casa Harrington (as the Party so lovingly called it), piling blankets and pillows and dragged mattresses and discarded cushions on the living room floor while Lucas went on and on and on with Steve for what felt like forever.

Dustin wouldn’t have it any other way.

Especially with the matching smiles on their faces.

Dustin’s never seen them so happy, and he caught Eddie staring at Steve the same way Max was staring at Lucas, so Dustin figured he agreed.

He’d endured literal hell for his friends; what’s so wrong about one interest?

Dustin’s dreams were filled with buzzers and cheering and scoreboards. But that was a problem to complain about tomorrow.

[newyorkthegoldenage]

Edward Hopper, The Bridle Path, 1939. Oil on canvas.

The Bridle Path shows three riders on horseback approaching the West 72nd Street entrance to Central Park in New York City. A large building [the Dakota] is seen above the hillside towering over the three riders - two women and a man. The riders are dressed in modern 1930s riding garb and appear to be galloping toward the dark tunnel. The man leans back and his horse's head rears up, slowing the gallop as they approach the tunnel.

Sotheby's says, "As the riders approach the foreboding darkness of the tunnel, they at first seem to fearlessly race ahead into the unknown. Yet the rider of the white horse pulls at the reins, as if questioning the decision to proceed" and suggests that this may have reflected Hopper's anxiety about the coming war. Hopper said, "There is a certain fear and anxiety, a great visual interest in the things that one sees coming into a great city."

Photo: WikiArt Text: edwardhopper.net

[morganbritton132]

Thinking about this post I made about Steve finding out that Hopper is his dad and the only other person who knows about it is Callahan.

But specifically from Hopper’s view point.

Hopper is not oblivious. He knows there’s something going on with Steve. The kid is snappy and rude as of late, and Joyce keeps talking about how he looks sad all the time.

Jim also knows that Steve has rescheduled and canceled three appointments with a neurologist about his migraines. And well, that’s an easier problem to tackle.

Steve comes into the station to dispute a parking ticket (left by Hopper to get this specific outcome). Hopper interrupts his conversation with Flo to tell him, “You got an appointment with Owen’s in Indianapolis next week. I’m driving you.”

“What?”

Which leads to a (one-sided) conversation about Steve being reckless with his health and thus reckless with Hopper’s daughter. Which then leads to him saying, “Look, I’m not trying to be your dad but-“

“Yeah, I got that.”

Steve storms off and Hopper is left with an entire station that is glaring at him when they think he’s not looking.

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things (1x05): “The Flea and the Acrobat” Review

Couple of things I want to clarify on in regards to these reviews:

Because these are being written before season 5 premieres, they will contain speculations and theories about what direction the Duffer Brothers will take the show. I still have every intention of reviewing each episode based on how the episode itself was written, how it continues character arcs and the show’s mythology, how it ties into the season it originates from, and how events in said episode impact future seasons (or act as call-backs to past ones). However, I also like predicting how certain characters and story arcs will pan out, and I am the kind of person who spitballs theories. I understand most, if not all, of these theories might not amount to anything, and the Duffer Brothers could go a direction I don’t see coming. I will do my best not to make these review dated in that regard, but there will still be speculations based on evidence provided in these episodes about its mythology and how certain character arcs could pan out. This also includes the teasers and hints Netflix and the Duffer Brothers are releasing on social media this year to promote season 5.

I do my best to be detail-oriented and make sure that what I’m writing about is accurate. However, because these are lengthy, and there’s a lot to talk about (to say nothing about the energy I put into researching, writing these reviews, and editing them to the best of my ability), there may be small details I slip up on, or stuff I’ll be a little hazy with. I’m fine if people want to remind me of certain things I haven't thought of or glossed over (and I will even go back and make necessary edits to previous reviews to correct that). That being said, please don’t be an asshole about it. I will block you if you act like that.

As I’ve told people before, I’m writing these reviews for me and my small group of mutuals. A lot of this is conveying my own thoughts about the show and characters while untangling myself from previous fandom perceptions that dominate fandom conversations (particularly on social media). This means me having opinions that are unpopular, or criticizing a popular character or relationship, or making my dislike for a character’s behavior known (even if that angers the stans of said character), or explaining why I think a character’s actions make sense in opposition to fans who think it’s OOC (and visa versa). Not everyone is going to agree with my takes, or even like what I have to say. That is fine. I am NOT here to cater towards certain fans and their feelings. I am just here to give my perspective of the show.

With that out of the way, ”The Flea and the Acrobat” is an episode I have wary feelings towards. It’s one that spikes my anxiety the same way “Holly Jolly” and “The Monster” does, because it deals with hard topics like Gaslighting and Projection. Considering I’ve been on the receiving end of those in the past, seeing those kind of issues play out on a show I'm invested in is always going to make me feel ambivalent about a given episode, regardless of what the writers’ intentions are.

Despite these reservations, there’s a lot to chew on here, and the episode allows me to reevaluate certain aspects, particularly in regards to the Upside Down, Jonathan and Nancy’s relationship, and the way they handled Steve and Lonnie’s characters.

Let’s start with the juicier mythology pieces, and work our way from there:

Part 1: The Upside Down (and its connection to D&D, Science, Vecna, El, and Will)

Fair Warning: Part 1 will be a bit of a trip down the metaphysical, scientific, cosmological, and fantastical elements related to the Upside Down. I will do my best to keep this on-topic and coherent, but it will be intertwined with various topics and theories regarding what the Upside Down is, and what may be revealed about it come season 5.

I also want to stress that while I have some familiarity with Dungeons & Dragons, I am NOT a hardcore expert on it. Both my brother and my friend are huge D&D players and know a lot more about the game, but I’m not a “Disciple of the Lore” to put it mildly, and I’m not familiar with every edition of D&D books that have come out over the years. If I get some details mixed up, or miss some aspects, I apologize in advance.

This is the first episode The Vale of Shadows is mentioned by Dustin to convey the idea of what the Upside Down is to the audience: “A dimension that is a dark reflection or echo of our world. It is a place of decay and death. A plane out of phase. A place of monsters. It is right next to you and you don’t even see it.” As Mike also puts it: It’s an alternate dimension.

If you were to look up the term "Vale of Shadows" online, you’d find out pretty quickly that it isn’t an actual term (at least from the impression of several Reddit and D&D threads that have discussed Stranger Things and its connection to D&D). In fact, not only is it a term invented specifically for the show, but most of the lore and inspirations for the particular type of world Dustin, Mike, and Lucas are talking about in the D&D mythos (with two notable exceptions) are ones that came AFTER 1983.

In D&D Lore, there’s a detailed cosmology dealing with various planes of existence that players can venture to (or end up in by accident) based on the Campaigns they’re undertaking. There are also planes players may never travel to, but are still essential to the worldbuilding of D&D. One of those cosmological structures is The Great Wheel Cosmology, and there’s a video that breaks it down to its simplest terms:

There are also two other cosmological structures players have used in D&D: The World Tree Cosmology, and the World Axis Cosmology. 

In regards to The Vale of Shadows mentioned by Dustin, there are two different planes of existence that likely inspired this: The first is called Shadowfell, and the second is the concept of the Demiplane itself.

Shadowfell is a dark, twisted version of the Material Plane (i.e. the main world in the game) devoid of color and light, and instilling feelings of dread, despair, and nihilism within a player. It’s a land of bleak desolation and grievous loss, and it’s also home to various monsters, specifically shadow creatures formed from a special kind of matter called shadowstuff. Some of these monsters are referred to as “dark creatures” and resemble their material plane counterparts as distorted versions of themselves. In Stranger Things terms, it’s the difference between regular dogs and Demodogs, or regular bats and Demobats. Technically, they’re similar creatures, except one is a more perverted version.

Like the Upside Down, it also contains frigid temperatures, small earthquakes (similar to what Steve, Nancy, Eddie, and Robin experience in the Upside Down during season 4), landscapes similar to those in the material plane except as a wretched unholy echo (a beautiful mountain in the material plane vs that same mountain in Shadowfell as a destructive volcano raining fire and ash), structures that look familiar but are warped in some way, tendrils that are alive, and a world that is impressionable and ever-changing.

Just as Dustin mentioned on the show, one of the ways to travel between the Material Plane and Shadowfell is via Shadow Walk: An illusion spell that enables players to venture to the Shadow Fringe (i.e. the intersection between the Material Plane and Shadowfell) where you could travel at a normal rate in the Plane of Shadows, and it would cover the equivalent of 50mph in the Material Plane. How this intersection occurs is different, depending on which kind of cosmology (World Axis, World Tree, Great Wheel) is in effect, and other factors. For instance, a place where tragedy and loss has happened is a prime spot for shadow crossings because the negative energy from those tragedies and losses can narrow the barriers between the two planes, and create a bridge to traverse the two realms. Graveyards, Battlefields, and Crypts are some examples of where shadow crossings can take place. The sun being hidden is also another component.

For those looking for more detail, these video and Reddit threads elaborate more on the concept of Shadowfell and its evolution in D&D Lore:

In relation, Demiplanes are finite sized planes that are considered unfinished, and could either be found in other planes of existence or outside of them. They are planes formed by powerful forces and energy, and are impressionable to change. In earlier editions of D&D, Shadowfell was originally a demiplane bound to the Ethereal Plane before the 3rd Edition changed that.

You might be wondering at this point why the Duffer Brothers simply didn’t just have Mike, Dustin, and Lucas use the term “Shadowfell.” Simply put, this term did not exist in the 80s, and it wasn’t until the 4th Edition of D&D came out in 2008 that Shadowfell as a whole was introduced. Prior to that, there had been concepts and ideas regarding a dark dimension which paralleled the material world, as well as different demiplanes of existence, but they hadn’t been agglomerated yet. Those ideas came from the 2nd and 3rd Editions, and the 2nd Edition wouldn’t come out until 1989. Even the first book that describes the various planes of existence in D&D wasn’t published until 1987, 4 years AFTER the events of season 1.

So yeah…………this is one of those cases where the Duffer Brother took Artistic License with D&D concepts. This wouldn’t be the last time either. Season 4 did this with the D&D version of Vecna: While he was technically introduced as a character in the Dungeon Master’s Guide in 1979 (which perhaps not-so-coincidentally is the same year in-universe when The Massacre at Hawkins Lab took place and Henry/One/Vecna was banished to the Upside Down), it wouldn’t be until the 2nd Edition in 1989 and the release of the module Vecna Lives! in 1990 that Vecna would have his backstory and character fleshed-out. The Duffer Brothers justified this at the time by saying Eddie was a good enough Gamemaster to have studied the lore closely enough to deduce who Vecna was, but I get why some fans might consider that a bit of a stretch.

Getting back to The Vale of Shadows……..the only reason I’m not calling its placement on the show a continuity error is because there are two concepts in D&D Lore that did exist in 1983 and before that.

The first concept, called The Plane of Shadow was introduced in 1980 in the D&D 1st Edition resource Deities & Demigods. It wasn’t a fully-formed idea yet (in contrast to how detailed The Vale of Shadows was made out to be on the show), but it did lay the groundwork for what would eventually become Shadowfell.

The Second was an adventure module introduced in 1983 that would also be instrumental down the line in the formation of Shadowfell: Ravenloft.

Ravenloft is a vampire-themed adventure, centering around the famous D&D villain Count Strahd von Zarovich and his control over the land of Barovia as the players attempt to bring his reign of terror to an end. While it was more or less a contained adventure module at the time of its release, its popularity would lead to it becoming a whole campaign setting that would eventually introduce other concepts like the Domains of Dread (or Demiplanes of Dread). These were horror-esque demiplanes surrounded by mist in Shadowfell that were ruled by an evil overlord who act as the masters and prisoners of their own personal hell, and yet were also subservient to the Dark Powers. For those who want to know more, this video goes more in-depth to that aspect of lore:

Tying this all back to the episode’s mention of The Vale of Shadows, there is a slight argument to be had that D&D players in Stranger Things like Dustin, Lucas, and Mike have taken aspects of lore they’d be familiar with in 1983, like The Plane of Shadow and Ravenloft, or even the idea of parallel universes (something that TV shows like Star Trek and The Twilight Zone were exploring back in the 60s) to form the idea of The Vale of Shadows that they would use in their D&D campaigns. There may have also been copyright issues the Duffer Brothers wanted to avoid since D&D is NOT in the public domain, which may explain why they took Artistic License. Either way, concepts like The Vale of Shadows and shadow walking on the show during the 80s requires some suspension of disbelief and the idea that members of the Party are scholarly experts in D&D Lore. Given how comics like Stranger Things and Dungeons & Dragons showed the number of years the boys were invested in D&D, I can buy that.

All of this leads back to how it ties into the Upside Down: A hellish landscape that’s a dark echo of our world? Check. Creatures present in that world that are perverted versions of ones from Earth? Check. Frigid temperatures? Check. Structures and landscapes that mimic ones in our world that are twisted in some way? Also check.

Back in 2023, I did my review of The Other Side, where I offered several theories about the Upside Down and why it froze in 1983. While each of the theories were different (and ones that have evolved past their initial concepts based on new information that’s been provided), a key idea behind them was that the Upside Down was impressionable and the environment was ever-changing. Those theories have since evolved into the idea that matter and energy in the Upside Down can be manipulated and take on shapes of their own, similar to how The Plane of Shadow in D&D is malleable, constantly in motion, and reshaping itself. Even the Domains of Dread have similarities to the Mind Flayer’s rule over the Upside Down. What's noteworthy is how evil actions and negative emotions of powerful forces in the mortal realm can influence how the Domains of Dread are shaped in D&D, and even leave scars on Shadowfell that manifest as negative energy that eventually cause these demiplanes to take shape.

In the theories I suggested for The Other Side, I proposed the idea that either Vecna presence in the Upside Down slowly led to the terraforming of its landscape into a twisted mockery of Hawkins and the rest of the world, or that Will being kidnapped somehow caused the Upside Down to form itself into a twisted version of our world on November 6th 1983. The key component is that negative emotions, whether Will’s trauma over encountering the Demogorgon and being violently ripped from this world, or Vecna’s rage manifesting itself in the environment (including his twisted mindscape from season 4, which could be a demiplane of its own), was responsible for the morphing that took place.

People might look at these theories and say “What about El and her violent reaction to opening the Gate being the cause of what’s going on in the Upside Down?” That is a possibility I’ve considered as well, and while they could go this direction, there are a few things that hold me back from fully embracing this theory:

We know El banished Vecna to the Upside Down in 1979 in a major display of violent emotions, and technically opened a short-lived gate to do so. Despite this, the environment of the Upside Down was not altered at that point (as we see in Vecna’s flashbacks).

El’s knowledge of the world in general was limited prior to escaping the Lab. The brief glimpses she did see via remote-viewing were done under Brenner’s control and likely restricted. It’s hard to fathom she could have known that much detail about Hawkins and the rest of the world for the Upside Down to manifest itself from her memories and emotions as a twisted but accurate replica. Vecna, on the other hand, had no such restrictions. He had over 4 years to remote-view into this world, and could have been terraforming the Upside Down based on what he was seeing and the negative emotions manifesting from him.

Interviews from both Noah Schnapp and Jamie Campbell Bower have not only suggested the idea of Will being central to everything in the story, but also hint that Will and Vecna's connection to one another could be instrumental in explaining the nature of the Upside Down and why Will was the first person taken by it.

This isn’t to dismiss El’s role entirely: She did open a Gate that left a tear in time and space (as noted in the boys’ conversation with Mr. Clarke at Will’s funeral) and it has screwed with the gravity, electromagnetic field, and the environment itself. Mr. Clarke even notes that such a thing could swallow our world. Considering what Vecna succeeded in doing in season 4, it makes me wonder how much of Hawkins and the area around it will be left in the final season. In any case, the events of The First Shadow make it clear that El didn’t create the Upside Down (which was a world that existed before she was born), but was a by-product of it via the altered blood in her system that came from Henry/One/Vecna after his visit to the Upside Down and his encounter with the Mind Flayer.

There is an imbalance with how each world is affecting the other. In regards to the Upside Down’s influence on our world, it’s presented in the first two seasons as a slow infection. Season 4 speeds this up after Vecna opens the Gate again by showing plant-life dying within days and the atmosphere taking on characteristics of the Upside Down, but you could argue that has more to do with Vecna’s Gate being larger than El’s former one. All of this still doesn’t explain why, compared to how the Upside Down takes its time infecting our world, the changes in the Upside Down's environment were instantaneous. Both season 1 and The Other Side spell out that when Will was taken to the Upside Down, he was already arriving in the twisted mirror image of Hawkins, as opposed to the hellish, desolate landscape Vecna arrived to back in 1979.

If we quickly look at the Upside Down from a scientific perspective, as the characters do when they discuss Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, there’s a plethora of explanations the show could go with. These range from molecule and particle manipulation, to terraforming, to the expansion and contraction of unused matter, to idea of the Upside Down not being an alternate reality but it’s own planet somewhere in the cosmos with the Gate being a tesseract that quickly transports people who walk through it from one world to the other.

Back when season 4 finished, Michael Maher Jr., a concept artist and VFX specialist on the show, revealed some more details regarding the flashback in the season 4 finale with Vecna and the Mind Flayer.

Initially, the idea was that an altered state of gravity existed within the Upside Down. The Mind Flayer particles that Vecna uses to form a shape for it were “particles of an anti-gravity element” attached to the floating boulders. As noted however, this idea was scrapped because it would have taken too long to explain on the show. Given the revelation in The First Shadow that the Mind Flayer already existed in the Upside Down, and was responsible for corrupting Henry/One/Vecna back in 1959, we know now that Vecna didn’t create the Mind Flayer, but instead gave it a form to operate under. Whether or not the show revisits this scientific explanation in season 5 remains to be seen.

Finally, to wrap this part up, I want to discuss something that was brought to my attention by my siblings when they binged the show: The Stuffed Lion. This was a toy found in El’s room by Hopper at the beginning of the episode, along with a picture of El and Brenner in the same room with the stuffed lion on a table:

Later in the episode, when the Byers dog Chester goes to lie down in Castle Byers, we see the stuffed lion next to him:

This same lion is present two episodes from now in the Upside Down when the Demogorgon comes for Will:

While it’s possible this could just be a coincidence, the show has dropped subtle hints in the past (like the reference to X-Men #134, which foreshadows El’s showdown with the Demogorgon in the finale) that make this hard to ignore. Is the implication supposed to be that El and Will had some kind of connection before they ever met each other? Or that both played a role in the Upside Down freezing in 1983 as a distorted image of their world? Was the picture supposed to be Brenner having El create a replica of that stuffed lion with her powers as a way of testing them, and Will would later get possession of that replica manifesting itself outside of the Lab?

Like I said, the whole phenomenon of the Upside Down has links to the metaphysical, cosmological, scientific, and fantastical. It’s going to be interesting to see what answers the Duffer Brothers will give in season 5 for the Upside Down and how it works.

Part 2: Lonnie and Steve

I want to discuss Steve and Lonnie together since both of them act as foils to one another in this episode.

It’s been common knowledge for a while that Lonnie was originally the character who'd come to the aid of Jonathan and Nancy in their struggle against the Demogorgon, whereas Steve was supposed to die unredeemed. There have even been fan discussions on Reddit and Tumblr arguing there was some kind of subtext hinting that Lonnie was supposed to be more than a “deadbeat dad,” and that he was set up to have a larger role that never materialized because of the changes the Duffer Brothers made. Put a pin in this because we'll come back to it later.

While I can buy that the original concept was that Lonnie would have the redemption arc instead of Steve, this comes with major asterisks, particularly in regards to the original Montauk Script (which by itself was a rough draft and NOT the final product), and whether or not this redemption arc could have been pulled off with Lonnie’s character.

Just like Steve in the Montauk Script, Lonnie doesn’t exactly leave a good first impression: The Byers are already established as a struggling family, with Lonnie having left at this point, while Joyce is forced to make ends meet. Dialogue from Joyce in the Montauk script (some of which made it into the first episode) mentions that Lonnie constantly put Will down and called him names like “faggot” and “queer.” There's also dialogue about Lonnie not giving a shit about his sons, about how he’s sleeping with women half his age, and then there’s this:

Some people have tried to argue that this is from Joyce’s perspective and that she’s a biased source, but the problem is it’s undercut by the lines regarding Lonnie’s homophobic insults towards Will and his refusal to pay child support. We have no reason to believe in the script that Joyce is lying about any of this this, so it already creates a negative first impression of Lonnie. There’s also the way characters like Jonathan and Joyce were initially pitched, which is similar to how they deal with Lonnie absence on the show:

I can’t claim to know how the Duffer Brothers would have developed Lonnie from this point onward had they stuck with the Montauk pitch, but what is clear is there were already multiple strikes against him. It doesn’t help that we don’t see an outline for Lonnie the same way we do for Jonathan, Joyce, and Will, which leads one to question if Lonnie’s “redemption” was going to be spontaneous (which is in direct contrast to how they threaded Steve’s redemption in season 1). Either way, it was always going to be an uphill trudge if the Duffer Brothers intended for Lonnie to become likeable to the audience, and it’s questionable if they would have succeeded. In today’s culture, it’s EXTREMELY HARD to make a neglectful and/or abusive parent redeemable in a way the audience is going to accept, ESPECIALLY when that character’s actions have caused so much damage to their family and loved ones. Shows like Cobra Kai and My Hero Academia that have tried this for characters like Johnny Lawrence and Endeavor, but those characters continue to be divisive with their respective fandoms, and the jury is still out over whether the writers succeeded in truly redeeming those characters or not.

Additionally, there's Lonnie's importance to the Byers backstory. For as much as Steve-Antis (or even some casual fans) claim that the changes to Steve’s character altered the fabric of the show……………..it didn’t. Regardless of whether Steve was redeemed or not, or even if he died in season 1, the show would’ve continued on without him. Jonathan and Nancy were always going to meet up because they had loved ones (Will and Barbara) that had been taken into the Upside Down. Steve didn't need to be there to make that happen, and the Duffer Brothers could have written an alternative scenario where Barbara was taken by the Demogorgon that didn't involve Steve at all.

Lonnie meanwhile, despite only appearing in 3 episodes of the show (and The First Shadow) is a character you couldn’t rework without completely altering the Byers family dynamic. As awful as Lonnie is, his actions play a major role in how Joyce, Jonathan, and Will have been shaped, from Joyce’s anxiety problems and history of being gaslight, to Will’s insecurities over his sexual orientation, to Jonathan being forced to mature at a quicker rate to watch over Will and take on responsibilities around the household because his dad was absent.

Contrary to the snide suggestion some people have put out there about Steve’s character only being altered because the Duffer Brothers liked Joe Keery (which I maintain is a gross oversimplification and ignores other factors that led to said decision), it's likely a big reason for the change between Steve coming to Jonathan and Nancy’s aid instead of Lonnie is because the Duffer Brothers realized there wasn’t a way to write Lonnie’s character where the audience would grow to care for him. At least, not without either seriously downplaying Lonnie’s worst qualities, or completely rewriting the personalities and dynamics of the other Byers family members.

As for the so-called “subtext” those fans say is in the final product with Lonnie that indicates there’s more to this character than meets the eye………..TV Tropes has a term for it: Jerk With a Heart of Jerk. It’s a bait-and-switch tactic used in writing to imply that an asshole character may have a softer side and redeeming qualities to them.........only to reveal that they’re just an asshole through-and-through. Think of an onion spoiled on the surface, and peeling it back to see how deep the rot goes.

To say I was not remotely surprised by the revelation that Lonnie was here to profit from Will’s death is an understatement. All the signs and subtext from previous episodes, from his snide and demeaning comments, to little things like Jonathan checking in the trunk of Lonnie’s car for Will, to the lack of flashbacks showing any positive interactions between Lonnie and his sons, to the insinuations from Hopper and Jonathan last episode that Joyce suffered from anxiety because of previous gaslighting Lonnie had engaged in (something he goes all in with during this episode), indicated this guy was an ASSHOLE with a capital A. Even his demeanor prior to Joyce’s discovery about his true motivation isn’t that of a man who’s in deep mourning and regret over his son’s supposed death, but a smug snake whose entire interactions with Jonathan and Joyce reek of belittlement:

For someone who’s repeatedly violated the trust of his family, not only does he make ZERO effort to regain it prior to Will’s funeral, but he doesn’t even apologize at any point. Instead, he guilt-trips Jonathan, deflects from his past sins when confronted, and pulls the “I’m a responsible parent” card despite having done NOTHING recently to earn that. There’s an ugly sense of entitlement that radiates from Lonnie in those scenes, and it makes me wish Jonathan or Joyce had punched him.

I don’t know if Lonnie will be brought back for season 5, but I doubt it. Just like with Angela, he’s served his purpose in the narration and fucked off to God knows where. The fact he hasn’t returned to the show since season 1 is a big indication the Duffer Brothers are done with him. Good riddance, I say.

On the opposite side of the coin, we have Steve, who contrasts Lonnie’s behavior with showing up to Nancy’s house to apologize for his self-absorbed reaction in the previous episode while genuinely wanting to see how Nancy is doing and if there’d been any information about Barbara.

Unlike Lonnie, who was never able to do this, even as a young adult, Steve is willing to accept responsibility for his behavior, and his concern for Nancy is sincere and not rooted in the kind of phoniness Lonnie projected during Will's funeral. Even Steve's offer to take Nancy to see All the Right Moves (a movie I will talk about in relation to Steve’s redemption when I cover “The Bathtub”) is sweet, if only undercut by the situation Nancy is in.

One of the movies that gets discussed in this conversation that’s a shout-out is Risky Business. Steve even mimics the famous “Rock and Roll” scene from the movie (minus being half-undressed) while noting similarities to himself and Tom Cruise. He would later dress as the character Joel Goodsen in season 2 for Halloween.

There are similarities between Steve and Joel in the kind of clothes they wear (Risky Business was one inspiration for Steve’s costume design), having friends that use Steve/Joel’s house to have sex, and the fact they come from upper-class families with emotionally strict and distant parents. Even the character arcs involving growing up and taking responsibility parallels one another nicely (with this episode being a nice start for Steve). Only differences is Joel is high-strung about grades and not screwing up his future whereas Steve doesn’t pay as much focus to it until he graduates and realizes he probably should have. There are more parallels down the line between Risky Business and Stranger Things in season 2 (including the crazy shenanigans Steve and Joel get into later) so I’ll wait to elaborate more on this movie when I review that season.

I’ve heard people speculate on “What If…” scenarios regarding if Nancy had asked Steve at this point to investigate Barbara's disappearance with him. Considering how he came through for Nancy and Jonathan in the finale, I’m willing to bet he would have taken her up on her offer. It probably would have been contentious and awkward as hell with Jonathan there (and I expect all three characters would have gotten into a heated argument just like Nancy and Jonathan do in this episode), but Steve would have been brought up to speed a lot quicker on what’s going on.

For the sake of his character development though………..the next 2-3 episodes, as unpleasant as they are, needed to happen to make his growth and his decision to finally cut ties with Tommy and Carol believable.

Part 3: Joyce and Hopper (and the theme of Gaslighting)

I forgot about how close the Byers House was to Steve’s House and Mirkwood (all within a mile of one another), where the Demogorgon resides for now. While it’s easy to believe on first watch that this is simply the Demogorgon’s hunting ground and Will is just in its path, later seasons of the show, and the comic The Other Side, imply heavily that the Demogorgon was intentionally keeping Will trapped, and would manifest itself whenever Will was trying to contact Joyce. There were even several moments in the comic where he had to distract the Demogorgon so it wouldn’t go after his mom.

Sadly, it isn’t just the Demogorgon putting the brakes on Will’s attempts to communicate with his mom. If you needed one more reason to hate Lonnie besides the gaslighting, The Other Side reveals that when Lonnie boarded up the hole in the wall Joyce created to get to Will, he prevented Will from accessing that specific portal again.

It presents a double-layered motivation for the Demogorgon (and by extension, Vecna) for the frequent appearances in the walls of Joyce’s house: It wasn’t just about scaring Joyce and gaslighting her to make Joyce seem crazy to everyone else (while this is up for debate, I believe if the intentions of the Demogorgon under Vecna's control was to kill Joyce, it would have done so already and just ignored Will in this scene from the comic); it also wanted to make sure Will couldn’t leave for the time being.

It's always baffled me how many fans ripped into Joyce when season 1 aired over how she acted during Will’s disappearance. So many words thrown around, like “hysterical” and “childish” and “over-the-top,” to describe her behavior. It even got to the point someone on TV Tropes put her in the Unintentionally Unsympathetic category (As of writing this, she is still placed there for some reason), which…………..REALLY? If your child disappeared, you saw signs that they were in the house but you couldn’t communicate with them easily, and then you started hearing and seeing monsters in the wall, how would you react? With tranquil calmness? A peppy demeanor? 🙄

It's been exhausting seeing fans from all walks of life (especially those who tout themselves as being ‘progressive’) who constantly fall into the same traps of “blaming the victim” when it comes to how female characters behave in stressful situations. This reared its ugly head again in season 4 with how certain fans reacted to El smashing Angela’s face in with the roller-skate. It’s especially egregious when said female character is someone who’s been on the receiving end of gaslighting and abuse, and they still can’t catch a break from the fandom because these fans think those characters should only behave in a certain way they deem acceptable.

Joyce’s behavior not only makes perfect sense from an emotional perspective, but also a logical one. Even in this episode, the subtext with how Winona Ryder plays Joyce indicates she isn’t 100% buying Lonnie’s initial reason for being there. She may be tired from everything she’s been through, but she hasn’t written off Will like Lonnie wants her to. Look at how she's behaving during Will’s funeral:

Side Note: Hi Erica! 😊 We will see you again in season 2!

Anyways, my point is her reaction doesn’t look like that of a mother in mourning. It looks like someone who’s annoyed at having to go through this charade when she knows deep down that Will isn’t dead. She even has this same reaction later at the wake while she’s sitting alone and Lonnie socializes with other people to make himself look good.

It’s hinted at that this isn’t the first time Lonnie has pulled this kind of manipulative crap. Joyce was simply waiting to see how this would unfold. The moment she saw the flyer for the Law Firm confirmed her suspicions. She didn’t even look surprised. Just disgusted.

Speaking from my experience of being on the receiving end of gaslighting………when it’s repeatedly happened to you, you learn to pick up on certain behaviors, phrases, and patterns that the gaslighter uses to paint you as unstable. This isn’t Joyce’s first rodeo having to deal with Lonnie. Her anger, combined with throwing him out of the house for good, was absolutely the right response. When someone is pulling that, you don’t indulge it. You shut it down, and be forceful about it. People like Lonnie work to wear others down psychologically while engaging in bad-faith arguments, moving the goalposts, and personal attacks (similar to internet trolls), and the only appropriate response is to cut them out and refuse to further engage with them.

As for the gaslighting the Demogorgon/Vecna engages in with Joyce, she may not completely understand what is going on, but she’s learned from hard experience to trust her senses. If what she is seeing and hearing is that Will is alive, she is sticking to her guns on that.

One of the movies cited for inspiration for Joyce’s character and costume design was a 1980 film called Foxes. It deals with four teenage girls growing up in the San Fernando Valley and the turmoil in their lives as they deal with relationships, families, and life choices. The character of Annie and her wardrobe inspired Joyce’s costume design, and there are similarities between both characters in that they deal with abuse from a family member: Joyce from Lonnie, and Annie from her father. The big difference is Annie deals with it in self-destructive ways, from constantly running away to doing drugs to hanging out with people who are dangerous, whereas Joyce (aside from chain-smoking) has a better handle on how to deal with it. If anything, I see more similarities between Joyce and the character of Jeanie (played by Jodie Foster) in that they both shoulder a lot of responsibilities and find ways to deal with the chaos in their lives without it overwhelming them.

Likewise, Hopper is on the receiving end of gaslighting from Hawkins Lab when they try to take advantage of his drug problems to make it seem like he was on a bender. Unfortunately, they underestimated how resilient Hopper is, and that he knows himself better than they do in regards to what he’d remember. It also isn’t the first time someone’s tried to mess with Hopper like this. A serial killer from Darkness on the Edge of Town (the prequel focusing on Hopper’s time with the NYPD in the 70s) also tried gaslighting Hopper, and it did NOT end well for them.

In any case, even without Hopper’s distrust of higher authority figures (something The First Shadow and Darkness on the Edge of Town explores), he’s savvy enough to realize they would have bugged his place in case the gaslighting didn’t work. Bonus points for him going over to Joyce’s to check that her house wasn’t bugged as well.

This show repeatedly mentions “shared trauma” as a strong bond between characters, but in the case of Hopper and Joyce, knowing that you’re not crazy and that there’s someone else who knows the same things you know is also the formation for a strong bond.

Finally, on a semi-related note that ties briefly to Hopper’s story in this episode: We get informed that two hunters, Dale and Henry, disappear near Mirkwood where the Demogorgon is. While we don’t see their deaths onscreen, both The Other Side and Tales from Hawkins Issue #1 reveal Henry’s gruesome fate at the hands of the Demogorgon. Poor Will was there to see it, and ends up comforting Henry before he dies. 

Speaking of shared trauma…………

Part 4: Jonathan and Nancy

While I liked the Jancy scenes in the previous episode, this one was a mixed bag. I have problems with Nancy and Jonathan’s fight in the woods, and there are aspects of Jonathan’s behavior that remind me of how he acts in future seasons which I took issue with.

Let’s start with the positives though, and work our way from there: I liked their interactions at the shooting range. The reference to Jonathan being a fan of Thumper from Bambi was cute, and his aversion to guns after what his father forced him to do is understandable. Nancy, being a first-time shooter, was also delightful to see, and I like that the show continued to have Nancy develop her familiarity with guns in later episodes while also acting like a responsible gun owner.

I also want to answer a question @stillhidden asked about in The First Shadow review regarding the ages of Karen and Ted Wheeler. As of season 5, we know Karen’s age is 43, which means she would have been 15 in The First Shadow (a freshman in High School) and 39 in season 1. Ted is stated in the teleplay for the first episode of this season to be 45, meaning he would have been 21 in The First Shadow. That leaves a 6 year age difference between the two of them. Considering how The First Shadow depicted Ted as a dumb jock, there are implications he was held back in high school (similar to what happened to Eddie). The whole dynamic between Ted and Karen in the play reminded me a lot about the Brittney/Kevin dynamic from the MTV show Daria. And Kevin is someone who also got held back.

For fans who think that’s a questionable age discrepancy, buckle up because Lonnie and Joyce’s relationship wasn’t any better: Joyce was around 17-18 in the play, and Lonnie was supposed to be 25 years old. 24 years after the events of The First Shadow and Lonnie's now dating women like Cynthia who are half his age. 🤮

Nancy speculates that neither Ted nor Karen loved each other when they first met. There’s likely truth to that as the brief scenes we get from the play of Karen and Ted are them constantly making out, implying their initial relationship was based on sex rather than any deep feelings for one another. Once that phase was over and both left high school, they had nothing meaningful to work with. Just based on how Karen married Ted because of the “cushy job, money, and coming from a good family,” I’m assuming either Ted was forced to get his shit together and finish his education, or his family had a hand in getting him a job that could provide for his marriage. I know fans believe Jonathan’s snipe at Nancy about “marrying some boring one-time jock who now works sales and lives out a perfectly little life at the end of a cul-de-sac” was meant to be about Steve, but considering what Nancy told Jonathan beforehand, it could also be referring to Ted as well.

One could argue the same thing for Joyce and Lonnie in The First Shadow: Jonathan claims they must have loved each other at some point, but if that was the case, the play didn’t convey that well. Lonnie was already showing his less-than-attractive qualities back in 1959, and Joyce’s exasperation with him was clear and present. I wouldn’t even be surprised if love had less to do with them getting married, and more to do with financial security (similar to Karen’s situation). Even Joyce’s anger about Lonnie using Will’s funeral to cover his debts with money from a lawsuit implies that (in addition to being a shitty husband and lousy father) Joyce divorced Lonnie because he was financially irresponsible and nearly drove the family into poverty.

And this brings me to Jonathan.

I get Jonathan is on edge in this episode with the arrival of Lonnie, and he can already tell Lonnie is up to no good. Unfortunately, Lonnie knows the right buttons to press to guilt-trip Jonathan into going along with what he wants, and the fact Joyce has been through a lot the past few days factors into Jonathan’s decision not to tell his mother about what he’s doing. It’s sad and frustrating because it’s once again leaving Jonathan with no support other than Nancy, but I get why he did it.  

I also think there is some truth in his ability to relate to Nancy’s situation in that both come from broken homes with apathetic fathers. Nancy’s parents don’t have a loving relationship, which has led to both her and Mike being stunted in their ability to be emotionally vulnerable when in a romantic relationship. We see this in season 2 with Nancy and in season 4 with Mike, particularly when it comes to their reluctance to say “I love you.” Likewise, Jonathan’s put up his own walls after seeing how much of a shitshow his parents’ marriage was. He also intentionally distances himself from others because he doesn’t like them. Given the number of people in Hawkins who are show to be just as superficial, shallow, and mean-spirited as those in Lenora, I can understand where he’s coming from. 

I don’t even begrudge his feelings towards Steve in this scene, even if the camera-breaking incident is grayer than fans have made it out to be in the past. Considering the last 48 hours had Jonathan believing his brother was dead on top of having his camera smashed, I can understand why he's not having warm feelings towards Steve right now, and why he isn’t enthusiastic about Nancy trying to endear Steve to him.

Where Jonathan loses me, however, is when he starts making the insinuations about what the photo he took of Nancy represents.

I’ve seen a lot of fans who’ve taken Jonathan’s words about Nancy in this scene (i.e. being someone she isn’t, another suburban girl thinking she’s rebelling against her parents, etc) and uncritically run with it while proceeding to infantilize Nancy as a dumb teenager who doesn’t know what she’s doing by hooking up with Steve. It’s an interpretation I’ve come to dislike over the years because of how condescending it is, as if (according to these fans at least) Nancy is too stupid to make her own choices regarding her love life. It also comes with some pretty ugly double-standards attached to how Steve and Jonathan are judged: Whenever I see posts on Tumblr saying “Nancy isn’t a prize for Steve” (something I 100% agree with), there’s a part of me that questions if these people feel the same way about Jonathan in regards to his relationship with Nancy.

To be clear, I have NEVER believed Nancy is a prize for either Steve or Jonathan………..which is why I’m put off at the fandom interpretation that Jonathan is somehow wise and all-knowing about Nancy’s life simply because he took a photograph of her and she told him certain aspects about her life (but not the whole story).

First off, contrary to what Jonathan says about a photo in "the right moment," a photograph doesn’t tell the entire story, and can easily be taken out-of-context (something Jonathan should be aware of considering Steve pegged him as a perverted creep because of the photos he took, even though we the audience know that isn’t who Jonathan is). I cannot begin to express how many times I’ve seen idiots on this website post certain photos (sometimes intentionally) which are then interpreted in the most bad-faith manner possible, with people making assumptions left and right………only for it to be revealed later that there was more to the story than that one snapshot. The idea Jonathan somehow thinks that photo was saying everything he needed to know about Nancy in that moment is pretty damn presumptuous.

Second, at this point in the story, Jonathan has not been present during any scenes involving Nancy and Steve. He has no clue how long they’ve been dating, or what their relationship is like behind closed doors, and is making assumptions about it without actually having been there or having the full context. It’s especially egregious when I see fans who get angry with Steve for jumping to assumptions about Jonathan this season (which is framed by the narration as a WRONG THING FOR STEVE TO HAVE DONE) who then turn around and make excuses when Jonathan does it to Steve.

This isn’t the only time this happens either. Jonathan did this again in the season 4 finale, which led to this controversial moment:

All of this brings me to a problem with Jonathan that began in season 1, and has unfortunately carried over to season 4:

Contrary to what Nancy says about Jonathan in this episode (which is also framed by the narration as a wrong assumption on her part), Jonathan’s character flaw isn’t that he’s a "pretentious creep." It’s that he projects his issues onto people. He’s good about not doing it to immediate family (sans Lonnie, whom Jonathan has every right to distrust) or even Will’s friends, but it is something that he’s done with strangers, and it’s something that even gets called out in the screenplay for Episode 2:

Look, I don’t have an issue with Jonathan’s contradictory feelings about wanting friends vs his desire to distance himself from others because he doesn’t like socializing and has a negative view about people in general. God knows I’ve had feelings like that before. I can even understand him projecting his issues regarding his parents’ marriage onto Nancy, especially with Lonnie’s visit bringing up all those painful memories from his childhood. Where I draw the line, however, is the fandom idea that Jonathan knowing Nancy better than she knows herself despite having limited interactions with him up to this point and NOT having ALL the context about her life.

It’s the same issue I had with Jonathan’s snide comment about Steve in the season 4 finale: If this had been said during season 1 when he and Steve were still hostile to each other, I could understand that. Steve hasn’t done anything at this point to endear himself to Jonathan. But 4 seasons later, when Steve has repeatedly proven he’s changed as a person and taken on more responsibility, and has worked to make peace with Jonathan (even after Nancy and Jonathan got together in season 2)? Not only is it derogatory and petty on Jonathan’s end, but it also comes off like he’s projecting his guilt about not being there for Nancy in season 4 onto Steve.

And I’m sorry, but I don’t buy the excuses fans have made for Jonathan about not knowing what Steve has done for the kids in the previous seasons. This is a group that keeps each other informed about anything related to the Upside Down and the adventures they go on. I am hard-pressed to believe that Jonathan is ignorant about Steve keeping the kids safe in season 2 when they burned the Mind Flayer’s tunnels to lure the demodogs away from El and Hopper, or making sure Dustin and Erica didn’t get captured by the Russians in season 3, to say nothing about how Dustin was at both of these events and would have chatted everyone’s ear off about Steve’s heroics.

The frustrating thing is it’s hard to tell whether Jonathan’s projecting is meant to be seen as a character flaw by the narration. Sometimes, it seems that way (like in season 4 when he tries to justify to Argyle about not meeting Nancy for Spring Break) whereas other times (like the conversation in this episode), it’s murky.

All of this made me glad when that conversation was over and they finally cut to later in the evening.

I feel bad for the poor deer that got dragged off by the Demogorgon for dinner. The night scenes in the forest with Nancy and Jonathan reminded me of The Evil Dead (i.e. the same movie Jonathan has a poster for in his bedroom that Lonnie demanded he take down) with the eerie woods and unseen monstrous force lurking within. We even get Nancy’s encounter with an unearthly tree (though thankfully, the show steers clear of the infamous tree rape scene from that movie) and climbing through the portal to come across the Demogorgon while unintentionally alerting it to her presence when she steps on one of the vines. They did a great job with the creepy atmosphere, and even the song choice at the end (which I’ll discuss in a minute) was haunting.

Part 5: The Breaking of The Fellowship

Remember what I said about certain references and inspirations having important roles in future episodes? We get that with the Stand By Me adventure the Party undertakes on the train tracks when they’re looking for Will………….

………..and The Thing in this episode.

Demogorgon and Thing teeth comparisons aside (as seen in the pictures above), they’ve been building towards a confrontation between Lucas and Mike as early as "The Weirdo on Maple Street," and it finally explodes here. From Lucas’s skepticism about how El could know where Will is but not know how to get to the Upside Down, to his observations about El’s odd behavior on the tracks, to his angry realization El’s been manipulating the compasses. To be fair, he isn’t completely wrong about El trying to dissuade them from going to the Upside Down, and given that he’s worried about Will’s life, his anger is understandable, even if it’s misplaced. El certainly doesn’t want Will to die, but she also doesn’t want to lead her friends into the belly of the beast in a fight she know damn well they can’t win. That’s also including her trauma over encountering the Demogorgon for the first time (as we see in her flashbacks when she hears the monster while spying on the Soviets) and her fear of what it is and whether her powers will be enough to combat it. It’s an argument where both sides are valid.

When Mike and Lucas get into the fight and El intervenes in a way that briefly knocks Lucas out, I was thinking back to the Childs-MacReady confrontation in The Thing. Particularly, when MacReady comes under suspicion for being the titular thing, and has to threaten to blow the base up to get everyone to back off. This getting followed up later with the famous blood test scene when an on-edge MacReady kills Clark (who’s later cleared of suspicion) and is accused by Childs of being a murderer. Never-mind that Childs was ready to kill MacReady beforehand despite MacReady being innocent. Both scenarios involve people in intense situations where they’re dealing with an unknown phenomenon, and the pressure brings out the worst in the characters. I’m not in a position to pass judgment because God knows how I would react if I was under that kind of pressure in either situation, but the way the characters act here when trust is already fragile (both at the junkyard in Stranger Things, and the Antarctica base in The Thing) is understandable and in-character.

At least for Lucas and Mike, there is a chance at reconciliation and moving forward. The most we get from Childs and MacReady at the end of the movie is a bitter resignation to their fates: Trust is completely gone, and while they’re not going to attack each other at the moment, they’re waiting to see what happens next.

Part 6: Song Choices

We get one hell of a haunting song at the end with Nancy trapped in the Upside Down while Jonathan frantically searches for her. “Nocturnal Me” by Echo & The Bunnymen.

I’ve discussed eerie songs in my reviews before, but this one has a very otherworldly quality to it, which is fitting since it’s being played while Nancy is in a different dimension. ‘Nocturnal’ refers to something that occurs at night, or is active at night. The term also can refer to “nocturnal flowers,” which open during the night. Given the Demogorgon’s nature of usually attacking at night, and how it has a mouth shaped like a flower with teeth inside…………..you can already draw conclusions here.

There are also these suggestive lyrics in the song:

“Take me internally, Forever yours, Nocturnal Me, Whatever burns, Burns Eternally.”

“When I’m on Fire, My Body Will Be, Forever Yours, Nocturnal Me.”

I could be crass in pointing out the obvious, which is how this refers to sex. But to quote Oscar Wilde “Everything is about sex except sex.” Songs like these have double entendres. It’s similar to “Like a Prayer” by Madonna: On the one hand, the lyrics for that song contain obvious sexual references, but on the other hand, it’s also about Madonna’s complicated relationship with God and religion.

In the same vein, if we look at the other side of "Nocturnal Me," it’s possible to interpret it as a unison of two in an ever-expanding, ever-changing universe, or even in circumstances that shouldn’t make sense but ultimately do. “Ice-capped fire” is one such oxymoron that lends credence to this. It could refer to the connection between the Upside Down and Hawkins (especially with how this song starts playing as the portal Nancy climbed through in the tree begins to close), but could it also refer to Nancy and Jonathan as a future couple? That they were meant to come together despite whatever differences they might have?

“And you and me, As realized, Our bigger themes.”

[dinosaurwithablog]

Perry, Della, and Paul!! I love the way they are so happy when they're together ❤️ They are great friends on and off the screen.

I love these actors and the characters who they portrayed!! I love this show!! Have you noticed 😉🤣😍

[brionysea]

if stranger things 5 comes out and they're like 'omg! the upside down has been a product of someone's dark and twisted mind this whole time! it's... WILL!' I'll immediately lose interest

[harringroveera]

For a girls’ day out Billy brings Max and El to the rage room and let them go batshit crazy destroying everything there