ponderingrabbits

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WILL X ROBIN >>>>>>>>

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I know everyone likes to portray Mike as absolutely hating Steve because he dated Nancy, but CONSIDER:

Mike has a crush on Steve and hates it.  Steve’s past relationship with Nancy is just the cherry on the sundae.

Mike, watching Steve in tiny shorts playing basketball with Lucas: I hate him.

Mike, watching Steve awkwardly compliment Will’s art: I hate him.

Mike, watching Steve paint El’s nails: I hate him.

Mike, watching Steve help Dustin with his science fair project: I hate him.

Mike, watching Steve fumble through explaining his DnD character: I hate him.

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Please start pairing up the people who have literally never interacted with each other. Robin and Will, Will and Eddie, Erica and Will....

Give this social media manager a raise. They're playing the fandom like a piano.

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Killing Chrissy off was the biggest mistake of the show - only second to killing off Eddie.

GRACE VAN DIEN as CHRISSY CUNNINGHAM from ‘STRANGER THINGS’

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Eddie, who has at least five nicknames for everyone he knows, doesn't actually have many himself. Well, besides the fact that everyone calls him Eddie when his name is definitely Edward.

And at some point, it starts to really annoy Steve, who has always just been Steve until Eddie shows up. Or at worst, Harrington. His name is just Steve, too. Not Steven or Stephan — and not, as Dustin insists, Stephanie. His birth certificate just says 'Steve Harrington'. No middle name to soften the single syllable. Painstaking efficiency from his father, he supposed, though he's never bothered to ask.

So, yeah, it annoys him at first that Eddie calls him anything but his name. King Steve. Stevie. Steveo. Pet shop boy (illogical). Big boy (just straight up untrue). Sweetheart (confusing and disarming).

So he starts trying to give Eddie nicknames back. In retaliation, or whatever. He very quickly realizes his mistake.

Because Eddie beams and fucking blushes no matter what Steve calls him. 

Ed? Delighted. 

Eduardo? Delighted, and speaking only in Spanish for five minutes. 

Cleverly combining his names into Edson? Huge grin, praise for being a smartass. 

Pretty quickly, they end up in a pet name war, both refusing to back down. If Steve is sweetheart, then Eddie becomes sunshine for the day. While Steve is baby, Eddie gets sugar. It goes on and on until no one can actually stand to be around them. 

Until one day they're all in Dustin's basement, playing the stupid game of Life, when Eddie accidentally knocks his plastic car off the board. 

"Hey," Steve protests. "You killed my wife, Darling." 

Only because he hasn't called Eddie by his actual name in weeks. But Eddie gets a weird, private, slightly off kilter smile and stares straight at Steve. 

"Sorry, boyfriend," he mutters.

And Steve's brain short circuits because, oh. That one wasn't a joke, somehow. That one was different. 

And Robin, who is sitting on the couch, not playing because board games suck, has no choice but to smack Eddie on the side of his head. She sighs, exasperated by these two oblivious, adorable idiots, wishing she was literally anywhere else.

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It also makes reading a heck of a lot harder than it has to be. I'll be squinting at a word for 5 minutes, confused, before realizing that the algorithm has censored something completely innocuous simply because the word could be a slightly dirty word in a completely different context.

It seems like the older I get, the more irrationally angry casual censorship makes me. And it isn't just the "unalive" "grape" alleged filter-dodging vernacular, but the way normal words will be peppered with asterisks, or screenshots will have words like "gay" "hell" "fuck" etc either partially or entirely blurred. Who is this helping? What is the purpose of it, except to reinforce shame and elevate a flimsy perception of purity and safety, however those things manifest. It's so tiresome and I'm sick of it.

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What baffles me is that there are people out there who don't???? get the same vibes I do??? Like, who are these people???

Eddie wants him so bad.

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fic where steve is a baker and he also has a cat in the cafe idk maybe bc he put the offer up to all of the party and robin and they all had good reasons they couldn't join him so he can't be petty petty but he can be a little in his own mind as a treat.

so he does it himself and gets an "assistant". an older white cat whos too over this shit to try getting into the kitchen especially when the sun is much easier to get to by the front windows.

and, most importantly, who *loves* kneading her little paws against any fabric that wont bust a claw.

Steve ADORES her, obviously, but put off figuring out her name for a while as he yknow gets the bakery sorted. he waffles between nicknames, but the most common ones are "Missy" and "Chef", because Steve started parroting the cooking shows' "yes, chef" at her meows whenever the cafe got too lonely

and naturally, when it comes time to tell the vet the cats actual name, Steve just goes with "Chef Missy".

so steve open up his little bakery, insert xyz detail that makes having a cat in your bakery believable, and calls it "Chef & Stevie's", and its a neighborhood hit, half for the baked goods and half for the endlessly endearing owners Steve and Missy

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THIS. 100% THIS.

No one else understands Stobin like they understand each other. They are the weirdos that go on dates together.

To clarify: NOT double dates. Steve hits it off with a girl? Robin sit next to him in the booth, slurping a milkshake and staring unblinkingly at the very uncomfortable date while Steve chatters away, oblivious of the awkward vibes. (Date #33 has to sit in the backseat when Steve drives them home, because obviously the passenger seat is Robin's).

Robin is interested in a girl? At some unpredictable point, the unnamed girl will find herself waylaid by a polo-wearing jock, who asks questions like: "What do you think of Fast Times?" "Who is your favorite actress?" "If you are theoretically attacked by giant flower-faced man-eating monsters, what would you do?" "Also, is your weapon of choice?" "Which is better, pecs or boobies?" "What do you think of Anita Bryant, and why is she is the worst person ever?" Etc, etc.

Mike: ...

Lucas: ???

Dustin: What the fuck am I looking at right now?

Steve and Robin from where they're standing behind the family video counter eyse closed, fronts as close together as possible with their foreheads touching and their palms and forearms raised and pressed flush: Shhhh Henderson we are trying to become one.

Mike: Is this some kind of weird sex thing?

Robin pulling slightly away: EWWWWWWW

Steve peeling an eye open to deliver an appropriately disgusted look: Oh my god no Wheeler, we literally trying to become one person

Robin: Yeah, we've seen so much weird shit what with superpower girl, and the russians, and the giant flesh spider from an alternate dimension –

Steve: – that we figured 'hey, may as well try'.

Dustin: May as well try to... become one person?

Steve: You know what, shut up - why were you even here ?

Lucas: *holds up VHS* to rent a movie? Do you guys really think you can morph together?

Robin: Ugh, get out of here dweebs its like 2 pm on a Tuesday. Who rents videos at 2 on a Tuesday?

Mike: We're not the ones doing a weird sex thing in public

Robin: *throws a pack of Dots at Mike* EWWWWW

Steve: LEAVE!

I just think people should make the Stobin Platonic Soulmates relationship weirder.

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I'm just mad that poor Steve spent an entire season wearing the same outfit. Why didn't we get to see his cute little polos and jeans????

Still fuming we didn’t get Steve at any point throughout the seasons in this outfit. In my opinion one of his best outfits and it’s for a coca-cola advert 😭😭

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So many Stobin-besties vibes… 🥹

Also:

I love them! Almost as much as I love Robin and Steve.

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Claudia Henderson - BAMF

Claudia Henderson is the BEST. The sweetest and kindest woman you'll ever meet. New neighbor? She brings by a welcome basket full of homemade goodies. A highschool girl got herself into trouble? Claudia personally drives her to appointments, finds work opportunities that will welcome her, and gifts her a hand-knitted blanket when she moves away to Chicago. Your car broke down? Well, she's pretty handy with a wrench, her husband was a trucker after all.

AND, she happens to be Dustin's mom. She makes sure Dustin is well-mannered in company, doesn't let him swear past a golly-gosh-heck, and enrolls him in tons of afterschool clubs and summer camps so he has plenty of enrichment.

So, Claudia is usually pretty polite and well-mannered. But the thing is. Claudia is a EMT. You get a tough skin after you've seen some things. And you develop... coping mechanisms. It doesn't help that her husband had been a trucker and had some interesting descriptions and appellations that he picked up on his travels.

The point is, Claudia swears like a sailor. Not when Dustin is around, of course! She is firm believer in walking the walk, not just talking the talk. So when she is alone at home and burns herself cooking, or has to rip out that stubborn seam again, or trips over Mews when she is trying to feed him, or gets another freaking call for Mr Bilsby who is convinced he has every single illness that the devil's gifted to man...! So yeah, she gets creative, has fun with it. And after you've spent a couple of minutes flinging the most ridiculous swear words at a frying pan, well, it starts to become funny? (Walter would give a great big booming laugh whenever he heard her swearing at the oven, and heartily tease about his "bad influence" before giving her a smooch. Claudia can still hear that belly-laugh of his when she swears.)

Unbeknownst to Claudia, Dustin's notebook that is dedicated to "scientific research and documentation"? Is full of all the curse words he's heard Claudia use. The Party have had their mouths washed out with soap many, many, many times because of knowledge that Dustin has kindly shared with the group. (Except for Will. Will has to maintain his innocent aura to get the Party out of trouble after Dustin has landed them in it.)

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Anyone think the Party's swearing is strange? They are itty-bitty nerds in a tiny rural-esque conservative town smack-dab in the middle of Indiana.

Where are the gosh-darnit-to-hecks, Jumpin' Jehosphats, dagnabbits, leapin' lizards, criminys, sons of biscuits, and oh fudges? The witch-king of angmars, the bloody-bugbears, the bombastic bomadils, etc. etc.

You can't convince me that the the boys wouldn't default to the LAMEST swears in private, but when hanging out would try out all the edgiest curse words to sound "cool".

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First off, a disclaimer: I refuse to give Netflix any of my money, so I haven't watched episodes in their entirety. That said, I have SO MANY FEELINGS on this exact topic.

My belief is that Nancy's lack of character development ties back to the Wheeler family and their consistent theme of emotional unavailability. If you don't grow up with good models for how healthy relationships are supposed to work, and don't take initiative to learn on your own? Yeah, your emotional communication and computing are going to be screwed up.

I mean, look at the Wheeler parents. Ted is uninterested in engaging with his wife or kids. Karen Wheeler is unhappy enough in her marriage that she considers having a fling with Billy Hargrove. (who is the same age as Nancy???? Kinda creepy!!)

So, yeah, it makes sense that both Wheeler kids are terrible at communicating with their romantic partners.

Also, I think one of the big factors of Steve vs. Nancy's character growth is that S1 Steve has this big epiphany that he was wrong. He realizes he has gone over the line. And he makes actual observable changes - dropping his toxic friends, making better friends, and being more supportive and emotionally available as a person.

Nancy, on the other hand? The arguments with her on screen, she is convinced she is in the right. And if you think you are always right and never wrong, why would you feel the need to change yourself?

Okay genuine question.

Maybe i'm just dumb, here, but I have a question for people who have watched stranger things.

Why is it, that from season one, to season four, Steve learns to be a better person, and learns from his mistakes, and continually tries to do better and do the right thing.

And yet Nancy has little to no character development at all?? I don't feel like she's changed at all from season one to season four. I'm just confused because I feel like she should have learned from her mistakes too.

Maybe I'm just oblivious and not seeing the changes, and this is not a hate post, but I'm just curious on why it seems like Nancy doesn't improve at all.

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Well, if I ever get around to writing a Stranger Things fic, THIS is the character worksheet I'm using.

I wish Steve Harrington wasn't so two dimensional in the show. Like. Why the fuck has he been around for five seasons and yet we know nothing about him? And, no offense to Eddie lovers (as I am one of them obviously), but we got Eddie for one season and yet he has more lore, backstory and all that. Even Robin has more lore and backstory than Steve!

Like, I get it. We're introduced to Steve when he's a "dumb jock" who thinks more with his fists and viper than his heart and brain, but like. C'mon. He's had this character growth where he's befriended multiple "dorks/nerds/weirdos", and yet we haven't gotten like a book about him? Or something?

Who are his parents? What do they do for work? What's his favorite hang out spot outside of Skull Rock? Does he have a favorite musician? Favorite band? He doesn't watch movies—okay, but now that he works at Family Video, does he have a favorite? If he were to make references to a book in his canon dialogue, what book would that be? Did he buy his car or was it gifted to him? Is he a big car guy; does he read up on cars; does he find cars interesting? Why does he use Farrah Fawcett hairspray over anything else? What was his reaction to the Farrah Fawcett hairspray being discontinued? What's his favorite cereal? Does he even eat cereal? He's a jock, but what's his favorite sport? His favorite sports teams? What subject was he good at aside from gym? How much of a failing student was he outside of his senior paper? What colleges did he apply to? Did he get rejected from those colleges or did he just not want to go and leave his friends behind in Hawkins? Okay, he goes after girls, but what does he look for in girls? Their humor? Their nerdiness? What does it for him?

Does he have nightmares? Does he have scars and scars from all these fights and things he gets himself into? How does he react at the sight of blood? Has he sworn off smoking, marijuana, and alcohol after the Starcourt incident? Does he have any bad coping mechanisms? What would his Vecna song be? What would the safe memory be for him to reside in if Vecna were to target him—the train tracks with Dustin? That night shared with Nancy? The night Robin came out to him? Is it something to do with Tommy Hagan? Something with his parents? When he's all by himself?

What nicknames annoy him? Does his mom have a baby name that she calls him; does he hate it? His natural instinct is to ruffle Dustin's hat and hair when he's around; did Steve pick that up from his dad after playing a baseball game? Is Steve's dad really an asshole, or is Steve a petty, tired teenager?

What are his party tricks? Does he hate big parties? What are his hobbies beyond sports? Does he ever miss Tommy Hagan and Carol Perkins? Does he ever hate himself for missing those people? Would he sacrifice his well being, his life, his everything for them anyway? How far is he willing to go for the people he loves? Why is he willing to go that far when it seems like he's usually left all alone when the conflict ends? Does Hopper resent him? Does Joyce? Does Steve ever sit around and wish he never opened his mouth when confronting Jonathan? How much regret does he wear on his shoulders? Does he feel lonelier in the aftermath than he did pre-Upside Down? If he knew Barb was in danger, would he try and save her; would it be for himself or would it be for Nancy? What does he love in Nancy beyond the dreams she could offer him; is it her personality, her eyes, the way she speaks, the way she moves, is it just her and the familiarity she brings? Is she the calm or the storm to Steve; if she is the storm, would he put himself back in the eye of it just to get one last dredge of what he needs from her? What does he need from her? Companionship? Neutrality? Familiarity? Calm?

Where does he see himself in fifteen years? Would he be able to conjure an answer? Does he flounder like a dying fish? Would he blink, confronted by a question too big for the moment? Would he plainly say he doesn't have a future planned because his present is so uncertain? Does he see himself in a storm? Does he see himself surrounded by people? Does he see himself lonely in the aftermath again?

What would it take for him to leave behind all the trauma that Hawkins has brought? Why would he leave then, but not before? What are his limits? Where do his boundaries lie? Is he actually just the brute, or does he put himself in that position because he can reliably take it all for longer than anybody else? If Robin told him to leave with her, would he go? If Dustin told him that it's time to leave, would Steve accept that? Does he go for himself? Does he go because he's being told to? Does he go because he's forced to? Who's forcing him to leave? Is it the people closest to him, is it his parents, is it the adults in the Hawkins crew? Does he consider himself an adult in the Hawkins crew, or does he still see himself as that scared seventeen year old kid from 1983? Does he ever wonder what it would take to get some leg room and forgiveness from people like Nancy or Jonathan? Does he push himself and push himself and push himself to get that forgiveness? Would he eventually just let it go and take his losses?

Does he see himself as a good guy? Or does he see himself as what other people have deemed him—bullshit.

Who the hell is Steve Harrington? And why can't we learn more about him beyond the ill-charming, ex-jock, dumb brute guy in the team? If he's been around for five seasons, shouldn't he be worth at least a little background? A story or two?

Why can't we have it? Does it link back to the writers' room having bias towards jocks because they themselves were nerds or "freaks" in school? And therefore writing something positive about a character like Steve would be going against their own Doctrine (much like Eddie's)? Isn't the point of these "freak" characters being that they don't leave anybody behind—so why is Steve being left behind especially after growing from what we used to know of him?

It sucks because I know, like, none of these questions will be answered.

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happy for the people enjoying punk Steve lately and genuinely not criticising them, only expressing a different thought in parallel (I hate how saying "genuinely not criticising" can make it sound even more passive-aggressive but I'm genuinely genuinely not criticising! I'm not suggesting other people are liking my favourite character wrong that would be so douchey)

I just always like the idea that Steve isn't, like, repressing a secret desire to be unconventional and join some kind of counterculture and one day start showing his true, wilder self in his fashion and grooming choices

that the way he looks is literally just what he's like

you could give him total freedom of choice and tell him to go hog wild and he'd still be chumping around in polos and light-wash jeans

they're comfortable and he likes how he looks

he likes sports and cars and his favourite Star Wars movie remains the one with the teddy bears

any "unconventional" stuff he does is very subtle and minor like he was indeed wearing a touch of strawberry lip gloss in the summer of 1985 because he needed a little cheer-me-up and he felt like the blue uniform washed him out, he's a warm autumn for god's sake he shouldn't be wearing blue

he would get, like, one ear pierced and wear a small plain gold stud and he'd feel very special about it

Eddie: gradually filling up his whole skin with increasingly elaborate tattoos

Steve: got a little heart with "E+S" in it on his inside forearm where it's not conspicuous but he can take a look at it and smile to himself any time he wants

he's not holding back this is just what he needs (and he thinks Eddie's tattoos and hair and jewellery and et cetera et cetera are badass and beautiful)

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I love the idea that they constantly bounce around from job to job - whether because they are fired, quit, or external factors beyond their control.

Axe throwing. Robin is deemed a safety hazard after tripping too many times near the throwing booths and is fired. Steve quits even though he has the best throwing score of the employees. He painted his target with something that looks suspiciously similar to a demogorgon-face, but he will insist is a carrion plant.

Petsitting. Steve and Robin obsessively research the best care for each animal, leading to complaints from owners that their pets are despondent (after returning to sub-par care). Steve took care of the dogs; Robin took care of the cats. They also pet-sat an enormous tarantula that terrified Steve to the extent that he stayed at least six feet away from it while Robin took care of it. He had nightmares for a week afterward. The petsitting company eventually fires them after too many customer complaints.

Face painting at the fair. Robin is a decent artist, but rage quits after dealing with too many small children on a sugar high. Steve's painting look like blobs, no matter what request. He makes friends with several moms there and is now part of their book club.

Babysitting. Actually goes pretty well for a while. Moms and Dads adore Steve (he now has several sets of parents), and Robin's babbles are deeply amusing to toddlers. Sadly, on one job they have to call CPS, leading the company to drop them. Fortunately, all Stobin's previous clients (aside from the abusers who are in jail for a long long time) re-hire them permanently. And the greatest thing to come out of that job? They have a kid now. :)

Modern Day AUs are fun for many reasons but mostly for the unhinged places you can make Stobin employees of.

A short list (feel free to add)

Laser tag employees (Steve secretly has the high leaderboard score under the title The Hair)

Badly done pop up events (Robin went viral as sad Piglet after Winnie the poohs copyright entered creative commons)

Wine and Sip instructors (Steve can't paint)

Escape room staff (Robin's tricked and locked Steve into a room so many times they brought back the you suck board)

Trampoline park employees (Steve broke three different bones while employed doing tricks)

Social media team for any unhinged company of your choice, bonus points if they keep getting hired & fired so its a different ridiculous company every time

Medieval Times greeters (Steve calls Eddie milord once and the man bluescreens so hard they think he had some sort of absent seizure)