#a lot of that progress was tied to mike (or at least el thinks she owes a lot of that progress to mike)

[chirpsythismorning]

📝 💐 🛼 💔⏪️💭🧊🌄❤️‍🩹

Landslide by Fleetwood Mac

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[deanismysavior]

Am I the only one who finds Mike's relationship with his family extremely weird? Like I know Karen seems to be a supportive mom in general, after all she was the one who said Mike can talk to her about anything in S1, then Mike hugged Karen after they found Will's ''dead body'' and he also hugged her again at the end of S3. Yeah Karen and Mike actually seem to have a normal relationship but it's not explicitly shown or focused on. She also doesn't know anything about the UD situation. Nancy doesn't seem to talk to her anyway. Ted is... Ted.

Nancy and Mike also have no relationship literally, despite them struggling with the same supernatural stuff all the time. When was the last time they really talked anyway?

People call Will a sad loner gay kid often times but Will at least has stronger ties with his family. We know his relationship with Joyce, and he has a strong bond with Jonathan even if Jonathan is dealing with his own stuff, we know both are there for each other and talk.

While Mike literally is disconnected from his family, Nancy included.

It comes off as weird because the writers ignore it all the time😅. Like why not include some genuine talks between Nancy and Mike at all, have them talk about their struggles or something? It's just really weird.

Mike literally has no one to talk to. He only opens up to Will but even then he doesn't exactly open up because he has other issues deep down.

Now it was just eye-opening for me when I wrote all those sentences because I realized what my problem with Mike's character is: Mike is an extremely closed-off character and we literally get to see nothing about his struggles. We only get to see it during the van scene where he voices his insecurities but that's it. Like.

Compare his character to other characters: We get to see El's whole struggle with finding herself, and we get to see Lucas's trying to get over bullying, we get to see Dustin's side albeit not that explicit, and Max has a whole arc dealing with d*pression, and Will is struggling with being gay and opening up about that. All of those are shown explicitly from each character's sides while we don't really get to see Mike's POV at all.

His character comes off as extremely disconnected. He is not naturally progressing in the narrative, it's like he is just pushed around by the narrative instead of having his own voice. I am not sure if that makes sense. Like Will had to push him to do something the whole season as well.

Mike's character feels so weird and disconnected and his dynamic and relationships with others just seem to be very underwhelming for me. And one of the main reasons is because he literally has no explicit voice in the narrative.

I actually think Mike and Nancy's relationship dynamic being so strained kind of makes sense. We're clued into the fact really early on that Mike and Nancy don't share a whole lot of common ground. We get introduced to Nancy's character when she slams the door in Dustin's face after he goes to offer her pizza. Dustin then kind of addresses that Nancy has been acting weird to Mike, and Mike's sort of like, "she's always been like that," and Dustin says "Not always" and brings up the time that Nancy dressed up as an elf for their campaign. And Mike says, "Yeah, like four years ago!" To me, this scene reads a lot like Mike felt like he lost that connection with his sister once she tried to grow up. The age gap between them sort of functions as a catalyst for creating this distance.

We also see in season 1 Ted saying, "Come on, Nancy with Mike?" when the people who are working with Brenner come to talk to them about how they believe Mike has been harboring El as a fugitive. Ted Wheeler is kind of known for his snide remarks, but he's generally pretty on the money with his implications, and he's implying here that Nancy and Mike really don't spend any kind of one-on-one time together anymore.

Now we know that Nancy and Mike both get involved with the Upside Down in different ways, Nancy through her relation to Barb and Mike with his relation to Will, and when they join forces here, they're kind of still not really on the same page because they don't know what's going on in one another's lives.

That's why when we get to this scene after the first big fight against the upside down, we get this expressing of a want for more closeness, but neither one of them are actually really ready to put in the work they need to to close that gap in their relationship.

In these scenes, Nancy kind of sets the precedent of lying in their relationship, and it's interesting because if you look at Mike's expression after Nancy tells him her relationship with Jonathan "isn't like that," it seems like Mike kind of goes, "Oh, okay," and takes what she says sort of at face value. So whether or not he's telling the truth about El here? I don't know. It reads as defensive, but in the same way as his "Pretty cool" line about El reads after he realizes he calls her pretty. The biggest empathy miss here though, I think, comes from Nancy.

Throughout the seasons, we can tell that they care about each other, but they don't have the type of relationship where they can really be open and honest, and if I'm honest, I think most of that comes from Nancy. She's older and she still sort of views Mike as her annoying little brother who needs protection. She sort of goes off on her own a lot, with both Steve and Jonathan, and doesn't make herself available to Mike in the same way that Jonathan does for Will. I think Nancy and Mike's dynamic is really meant to stand in stark contrast to Jonathan and Will's because Nancy and Mike grew up in a household where love was never properly expressed, so showing that kind of familial affection doesn't come naturally to them.

But I'm going to give a hot take and say that Nancy is more closed off than Mike is. Because initially, Mike is not all that closed off. He teases Nancy, tries to pour syrup on her eggs, and joke around with her, which for him, is an attempt to express closeness and sibling bonding, but Nancy kind of just shuts Mike's behaviors down.

And even though they do get somewhat closer, Nancy continues to do this even into season 4. Mike once again reaches out to see if she'll join his campaign and she gives him the most annoyed look ever. We know she used to be open to participating in DnD, but she isn't anymore. And I think it's honestly a little heartbreaking because Nancy is the FIRST person Mike thinks of when Eddie tells him he needs a sub for Lucas, because unlike Dustin, Mike doesn't really have close relationships outside of the party, but you can tell he wants to be closer to Nancy.

When Mike gets to high school, we know he's still mercilessly bullied, and this could have been an opportunity for Nancy to take him under her wing or defend him more, but she really doesn't seem to do this. Nancy has elevated her status in high school, she's sought after, but Mike still maintains his loser status, and while Nancy does love and care about Mike, she doesn't really go out of her way to make him feel welcome or accepted. It actually creates a really interesting contrast between how Nancy and Mike interact as siblings where Nancy kind of fails to support Mike, and Will and El as siblings, where Will steps in and is constantly looking out for El's best interest, even at the detriment of his own reputation.

So while Mike is more closed off in his relationships than the other party members, I don't really feel like it's from a lack of his trying to be closer, it's more because Mike has fallen into a pattern of expecting his feelings and expressions to be shut down. We see this in his relationships with Nancy, Ted, and El, and I think though Lucas and Dustin are there for him, they don't always fully understand what Mike wants or needs and are more quick to dismiss his behaviors and write him off as acting like a douche than to check in on him. The only people who have ever really held space for Mike are his mom and Will, and I think, as a teenage boy growing up, it's a lot easier to talk to your friend about what you're going through than your mom, especially in a household where expressions of love aren't normalized.

I think though, that Nancy and Mike have both made huge strides this season in their willingness to open up to others, Mike with Will, and Nancy with Robin, surprisingly, so I think that when Nancy and Mike are together in season 5, we may see them actually become more vulnerable with one another and finally have more of the sibling dynamic I think they've both secretly wanted the whole time.

[dustinhendrsn]

author tag

I was tagged by @she-who-the-river-could-not-hold; thanks kath!!♥️

fandoms you write for

I’ll write anything I’m in the mood for, really, but everything I have posted currently is for Stranger Things, The Maze Runner, and The Goldfinch!

where you post

on my AO3 and here on tumblr!

most popular one-shot

lover, a tgf boris/theo fic! this one actually just passed another fic of mine from st, which I didn’t realize until two seconds ago.

most popular multi-chapter

tonight, tomorrow, tonight; a tmr newt/thomas fic! this one was my very first tmr fic and it took me a year or so to finish it but I finally did!

favorite story you’ve written

I have two: overlap, another boris/theo fic, and she’s the sunshine in the rain, a mike/el fic!! I’m really proud of both of those.

a story you were nervous to post

any of my firsts for a fandom, definitely. I’ve posted for three and obviously the first leap into the fic world for a fandom is totally nervewracking (it always works out fine though!!).

how do you choose your titles?

I used to be creative and go for the poetic shit that took me days to come up with but lately I just use song lyrics/titles bc you can always find a good one without overthinking it.

do you outline?

honestly it depends?? usually not; I just jump right in with absolutely no clue where I’m going!!! (if I think it’s gonna be a longer one, I will definitely try to line some things out though)

complete number of stories

40!!! (we’re tied kath!!)

what do you have in progress?

please don’t ask me this question it makes me rethink all of my priorities. (like a dozen, at least. across five different fuckin fandoms??? i hate myself)

do you accept prompts?

yeah! I love doing prompts bc it gives me a direction and forces me to get off my ass and write since someone is waiting on me.

upcoming story you’re most excited about?

oooh, I have a lot that I’m excited about but fuck knows if they’ll ever get finished. I think I’d say my main one right now is a harry/hermione one-shot; it takes place a few years after the battle of hogwarts and just kinda rewrites the story of afterwards rather than the 19yrs later bullshit.

tagging @calebsmclaughlins, @maplestreet, @milevens, @summer-in-hawkins, @elizabthturner, @avocadoapocalypse, and @yelennabelova!!

[clericbyers]

How do you come up with ideas? Like I wanna write a super long romance fanfic But I'm bad at thinking up small stuff Big ideas I can do but small ideas? Nah Iike ik I want them to get married and stuff but the small stuff inbetween? Nah Like If I were to write a byeler fic I would feel strange having it be chapter 1: they meet Chapter 2: they start to date Chapter 3 they are engaged Chapter 4: marriage

A big idea is made up of smaller ideas. For example, say I wanna write a story exploring Mike’s PTSD/trauma in combination with Will having powers, which ended up becoming LTH for me, but before I got that fic planned out, I still had the large overarching ideas of Mike’s trauma and Will with powers (the latter of which you can probably see me addressing a lot in the fics I wrote before I centered on LTH bc Will with powers was the little idea for those stories even though in my mind, it could still be a big overarching concept). It’s why I like writing prompts so much because it forces me to focus on little ideas.

Also probably why some things that come up in LTH might sound familiar because I “tested” those ideas out in shorter stories.

This got kinda long so here’s a read more!

Big idea one: Mike and his trauma. That can be split into little ideas as so: what exactly is Mike’s trauma, how does his trauma manifest itself, what caused it, how does it affect other people, how does he recognize it (if he does), how can he heal from it, etc. I have a page in my notes app with these little ideas that are part of the big idea. Focusing on those little ideas, we can build a short story off it. For example, “part 3” of LTH focuses on the little idea of how Mike’s trauma manifests itself. “interlude ‘85” focuses on how Mike deals with it / how it affects other people. Later on, the other little ideas get more focus but they are all tied to the big idea of Mike and his trauma.

Big idea two: Will with powers. This can be split into little ideas as well. What are Will’s powers, how do they manifest, what have we already seen in canon that allows this idea to be an overarching one instead of a little idea, etc. I’ve played around with these little ideas a lot in various shorter stories, testing what Will’s powers could be (seen especially in the story about Hopper and the Byers family), how El would help him (if she can), doing research on D&D to figure out what potential powers he could have so it makes sense. Then, we build short stories off those ideas and that becomes the next part of the story.

So yeah. I used an example of LTH here because it’s public and established to be a long fic, plus I’ve explored some of the “little” ideas as you’ve put it already and I’m just expanding on them a little for this longer fic. That’s generally how I go about building ideas for longer stories, and why I was so excited about LTH because finally I felt I had a handle on these little ideas and had stumbled into an AU that could tackle those ideas.

Now, we’ll take that that to your longer romance story. Say we have those four large ideas as you’ve stated. Those are what I’ll refer to as arcs. Four arcs going as so:

1. They Meet

2. They Date

3. They Are Engaged

4. They Are Married

Each one of those is an arc in your story. Under “They Meet”, ask the little idea questions: how did they meet, why did they end up meeting in the first place, what about this meeting impacts them enough for the story to continue, how does their meet up affect anyone else in the story (if at all), etc. You can build chapters centered around some of those little ideas. For example, detailing how Mike didn’t want to go to some silly house party Lucas was throwing, “You always invite the same boring people, I’m not interested anymore,” but Mike goes anyway and runs into Will, who didn’t really wanna be there either. They hang out for a bit, drink a little, don’t really think much of it but afterwards Mike finds himself realizing he never did get that guy’s name, and thus starts the “what about this meeting impact them enough”. I’m always a fan of the strangers to friends to lovers trope so I feel that the first arc would focus on them becoming friends before realizing they like each other. So then, you have even more little questions: why are they friends, what about the other do they like, how they hang out, what do they have in common, what are their differences, is there any tension between them (if so, explain it, embed it in their interactions), etc.

Arc 2 then is when they start dating and again, ask little idea questions: why did they want to date, what do they like about each other romantically, how does Mike treat Will, what about dating makes Will nervous, etc. These questions would be based on the answers you provide in Arc 1 to keep the story connected. Each idea you wanna focus on becomes its own chapter. Chapters do not have to be super long! It can be like 2K words or 12K it doesn’t matter. Don’t tie yourself to length per chapter. If something can be expressed simply, then express it simply. I’d say allow some of your ideas to be more “angsty” so it’s more realistic. In Arc 1, maybe Will says something that rubs off on Mike wrong and they stop talking for a week before realizing that’s not a possibility, they’re far too close to lose each other (part of the “is there any tension between them” idea). Maybe in Arc 2, Mike accidentally skips a dinner date and they have an argument about it and everyone can tell they’re fighting but Max pulls Mike aside and gets him to apologize (part of the “how does Mike treat Will” idea).

Arc 3 then is when they’re engaged, ask the little idea questions, etc you get the point by now.

tl;dr a story in my mind at least is a series of connected overarching ideas that you ask questions about and then answer in the text. This applies for fiction and nonfiction! You have to ask those questions and then answer them to progress the story. How, why, when, where, and who are your best friends!

Sorry for the length but I hope that helped!