abyssal808 - Tumblr blog

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There are ghosts in Hawkins...

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Come here !

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No profound caption, just Eddie being free and happy and alive and growing into the man he's always dreamed to be.

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steve why does eddie call you babygirl

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steve + junkyard trio + choosing violence 😌😌

(later that day)

[more here]

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S3 Steve

🔪🔪🔪 В ВК НЕ РЕПОСТИТЬ🔪🔪🔪

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kiss kiss fall in love

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why'd you crack the door open man there was a sock on the door for a reason

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This blog needs more Eddie Munson

I'm pretty sure I'm almost back on my feet with drawing again

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first kiss

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from Coming Home by @sunflowerharrington

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Fighting art block like my life depends on it

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More gay horses

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i see your 'steve sees eddie's hair in a bun for the first time and nearly creams his pants' and i raise you 'steve grows his hair out during whatever fucking apocalypse is happening in hawkins and ties it up and eddie literally can't find words to speak for three whole minutes'

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hiya, I am asking! Steve as a highly masked autist, you say...? 👀

omg yes !!! ty for asking and giving me a chance to talk about it !!!

disclaimer: this is, of course, this is just one possible headcanon for him, and I'm by no means an expert—this is just something I've been reading about recently.

the reason I started thinking about Steve as potentially a highly-masked autistic person is because the people he "clicks" with (Nancy, Dustin, Robin) are a far cry from neurotypicality. from there, there are some parts of his character that I think align with autism, and particularly undiagnosed, highly-masked autism:

attention to detail / noticing small details rather than the "big picture." at least twice, Steve hears something that other people don't notice: he hears the music from the carnival ride in Starcourt and recognizes it from the Russian recording, and he hears Dustin's voice in the Creel House in the Upside Down. while everyone else is thinking about the big picture, Steve notices the small details. this also aligns with sensory sensitivity among autistic people (and neurodivergent people more generally), who tend to be highly attuned to sounds, smells, and sensations that other people don't notice or aren't bothered by.

"social camouflaging," or mirroring the behavior of people around him to fit in. when we meet Steve, he's very close with Tommy and Carol and acts like them—catty, exclusionary, petty. he's been assigned the "King Steve" role by his peers and he acts accordingly. while we don't know why or when he started acting like that, I think it's fair to interpret this as Steve looking around at the social hierarchy of Hawkins High School and identifying a role that he can fit into that will protect him from bullying or mockery (particularly if he had ever been picked on for autistic traits in childhood).

particular routines. Steve's hair routine is very particular, and he's able to spell it out precisely down to the products to Dustin. he also has a particular way of dressing that doesn't change a lot from season to season (polos, usually striped; light wash denim jeans; sneakers), which might be him relying on routines to be comfortable and identifying clothes and styles that feel good sensory-wise.

intense focus or "special interests." we know Steve likes and cares a lot about particular topics, like sports (especially basketball and swimming) and dating. he also doesn't care that much about other things that his friends are into, like D&D and Star Wars, because he's just not that interested in retaining the details. I think it's possible that sports and dating (and particularly the social rituals of courtship) are autistic special interests, but because they are socially-acceptable and even expected interests for a teenage boy, they aren't recognized as a neurodivergent trait.

developmental differences in childhood. Steve's story about crawling backwards as a kid is, like, an archetypal example of development differences in early childhood.

difficulty communicating. although Steve can talk about his feelings to people like Nancy and Robin, who he is very close with and trusts, with other people who are less familiar to him he struggles—flirting (badly) at Scoops and Family Video, misquoting Sherlock Holmes, etc. he's charming and funny with people he feels comfortable with, but removed from that context he can badly misjudge the situation he's in and confuse the person that he's talking to.

in general, I like the idea of interpreting Steve as an undiagnosed and highly-masked autistic person because he goes against a lot of stereotypes of autism. while people in the fandom have identified (correctly, I think) Robin and Eddie as neurodivergent characters—either autistic, ADHD, or AuDHD—Steve gets overlooked, largely because he is/was socially popular and has conventional interests like sports and dating.

but I think he's interesting to read as an autistic person for that very reason. so many undiagnosed autistic adults learn how to mask at all costs, even to the point of masking from themselves, and they only consider the possibility of neurodivergence when they reach burnout and wonder why they feel so different from everyone else and why they find "easy" things so difficult. Steve talks about this: he talks about how much he struggled after Nancy broke up with him, and he's aware that the way his brain works is different from other people. Steve could be a really interesting example of an autistic person who has studied the world around him and figured out how to camouflage his autistic traits, and it's only when he's around other neurodivergent people and clicks with them that you look at him and think hmm, could he possibly be...?

(and, not to Steddie-fy things, but I think it could be interesting to write Eddie who has been diagnosed with autism and/or ADHD and knows that he's neurodivergent and thus feels less pressure to mask, vs. Steve, who doesn't know he's neurodivergent and has maybe masked so completely that he doesn't even realize he's wearing a mask. self-realization through the other, etc.)

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Love is a Three Letter Word, Sweetheart

for @thefreakandthehair and their @strangerthingsbigbang

over the hills and far away

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HI!!!! i got commissioned to make art for sadkazoo's lovely fic "Such Great Heights" on ao3!!! AND GUYS THIS FIC HAS ME JUMPING AND KICKING MY FEET AND AHHHH highly recommend checking it out!!