jonathangoodbyers

[jonathangoodbyers]

its so crazy to me that stranger Things premiered 8 years ago and we only have 4 seasons (34 episodes). like the time between seasons has increased so much. season 5 is expected to be released in 2025. thats 3 whole years away from the last season. like what is their problem

s1 - s2: 1 y, 3 mo

s2 - s3: 1 y, 9 mo

s3 - s4: 2 y, 10 mo

s4 - s5: 3 y

[jonathangoodbyers]

season 5 isnt coming out until 2025

[jonathangoodbyers]

billy after taking out his curlers, applying lip gloss, putting his gay little earring on and spending 1 hour rubbing up against steve harrington in gym class: god there better not be any fags in this school

[jonathangoodbyers]

guy with a degradation kink x guy who just hates him

[jonathangoodbyers]

[jonathangoodbyers]

i know we all love to headcanon characters as being similar to ourselves in certain ways and a big part of fandom is just playing pretend, but why am i seeing 'autistic steve harrington' headcanons. that man is the least autistic person i have ever seen. he picks up on social cues like it's nothing. it's like the one thing he's good at. there isn't a single character on the show more neurotypical than him.

[jonathangoodbyers]

I think Billy moved his poster so instead of it being like "look at me a Straight with a poster of a Naked Girl opposite my bed" he could instead lean against the poster after doing his hair and be like "oh naked girl we're really in it now" y'know it's his emotional support poster

billy after seeing steve in the scoops ahoy commercial that summer

[jonathangoodbyers]

Billy’s nailing this rivalry thing.

[jonathangoodbyers]

everyday i have to deal with the fact that there are taylor swift fans 😭 in this fandom.

[jonathangoodbyers]

Imagine if the duffers had the balls to just make billy a closeted gay kid like literally everything would’ve made more sense

“Oh he’s got untouched porno mags in his drawer and a lone picture of a porn star who killed herself on his closet door and the only woman he shows active interest in looks like his mother” yeah you’re really selling me on his raw carnal desire for women I’m really feeling it

[jonathangoodbyers]

[jonathangoodbyers]

steve when billy tries to talk to him after practice

[jonathangoodbyers]

s3 billy + text posts -> Happy Birthday Billy Hargrove!

[jonathangoodbyers]

billy hargrove + being gross

[jonathangoodbyers]

This exactly. I think that Neil wants to be successful by middle class standards and that requires a two parent household. I doubt that he married Susan out of love (not that he hates her, but it's not real love), and instead that he just felt that it was necessary to have a wife. Moreover, we know that Neil is very uptight, authoritarian and that he cares about his appearances. Susan isn't really special to him, she was just available and Neil needs a wife and Billy needs a mom.

Which is probably also why Neil just up and left when Billy died. Abusive and shitty as he is, Neil wanted that family for Billy. He wanted to raise his son 'the right way' and Susan was just a tool to help him do that. With Billy gone, Neil kind of loses his purpose in life. Why should he be stuck in Indiana raising another man's daughter with a woman he doesn't even really care about?

I think Neil was living vicariously through Billy in certain ways. Which also explains his militant parenting, because if Billy makes a mistake, Neil takes it upon him to feel ashamed in his place. Which then results in Neil punishing him harshly.

Basically, Neil sees Billy as an extension of himself. In a weird way, Neil was doing everything he could to raise Billy and turn him into a Good Man, it's just that his methods are terrible and he's blind to the fact that Billy is his own person.

I am guessing that Billy's bedroom couch may be a result of The Couch Problem that always happens when two people or families move in together.

It was probably left over from his old place with Neil, and Susan's couch became the family couch. Billy took the extra couch instead of junking it.

He has a lot of random furniture, too. Nothing is matching. This is interesting for a couple reasons that also tie into class.

Runaway Max indicates that Susan worked at a bank, right? That's a reasonable middle class job. I think Neil worked security there?

Security doesn't pay as well. So, I am guessing before moving in with Susan that Neil and Billy had a lower socioeconomic status.

Anyway.

That's interesting because when it comes to furniture, the lower class and the upper class tend to have more mismatched items.

This seems true for other things.

We often see a "u shape" trend when it comes to class "culture." That is, the lower and upper class care less about appearances.

The middle class tend to care more as they try to approximate the upper class, and thus they're more likely to buy furniture in sets.

The same things can be seen when it comes to fashion and clothing, food consumption, accents, etc. The middle class is more "self conscious."

The rich care less because they already have the cultural capital to do well, and the poor care less because they can't easily obtain that anyway.

I think this explains in part the difference between Max's bedroom and Billy's, which makes Max seem more "cared for" than Billy.

It comes down to the class differences within this "blended family." Max's mother seems to care more about appearances, so everything "matches."

Meanwhile, Neil and Billy were just surviving. While we get few glimpses of it, it looks like their home before the mom left was more put together.

They went from a two adult (and possibly two income) household to only one, and children are very expensive.

There's childcare. There's doctors. There's dentists. There's schooling. There's enrichment. There's the groceries and other necessities.

I don't see Billy as suffering from severe neglect. I do think Neil provided these things within his means, while pushing Billy to be self sufficient.

However.

I don't see Neil prioritizing Billy when it comes to these things unless absolutely necessary, and I have to wonder if finding Susan was kind of a scam.

Scam in that I'm not sure if finding Susan was out of genuine love seeking behavior or if it was motivated by money and the promise of stability.

We can see how just Neil leaving bankrupt Susan later on, drastically changing their lifestyle so class is never guaranteed to be static.

Neil bailed as soon as the relationship was no longer beneficial to him, while they were losing everything and he had no one left to control.

Don't know how this went from thinking about Billy's couch to an analysis of class, but it did. Hope it makes sense.

[jonathangoodbyers]

Billy Hargrove really is so annoying canonically, and I think that is so funny especially because he uses all of that energy to annoy Steve specifically. Steve, who is in his own funk, bewildered as to why this blond bitch keeps showing up in his life. This is like the setup to every romantic comedy.

[jonathangoodbyers]

picture of all time