#anti jancy

[clarkegriffins]

do u ever stop to think about this whole love triangle discourse and end up laughing bc there shouldn't be a discourse to begin with? like one boy wants nancy in his life and says that she's the most important part and the other boy looks like he's two seconds away from being put out of his misery because of his relationship with nancy to the point he's ghosting her and she thinks he's cheating. also do u ever think about how both of these boys talks about nancy? how they describe her? and the reasons they love her? how they see her?

first we have jonathan saying this:

first of all, i love his lack of energy go girl give us nothing (why he looks like he wants to d word, ur literally talking about ur girlfriend 😭) so, that's him saying all the reasons he loves her, and ofc we know that nancy is like that but why he's talking about her work ethic and not about her, like u should all read this post about how much nancy cares about other people and how being a reporter allows her to listen to other people's stories and help them, but jonathan only talks about that, work work work, how she behaves in work, how she is ambitious at work which we know she is, that's not a bad thing at all, i love how determined she is, how she works hard for that, it's actually one of my favorite traits of nancy, but i don't see people (and jonathan) talking about what drives that ambition forward which is helping other people, now going back to jonathan's speech which is even more ridiculous when we watched s3, because according to him he loves how hardworking nancy is, and yet:

wait a second, drop the story? i thought you loved how she's never done a single thing halfway in her life? and then:

anyways, that doesn't sound like someone who loves all these things he listed in season 4, now moving forward to steve, i was talking before how jonathan only said things about nancy's work ethic and not about her and what drives her forward but can u believe that steve does that? and not the fully developed steve in season 4, no, the s1 steve, the one who still messed up from time to time

i think it's very refreshing to see someone describing nancy and acknowledging how caring she can be, how she worries about other people, how she wants to help people, and he sees that, and this isn't even a big speech bc good knows narrative wasn't at their side in s1-s2, it's just crazy to me how there's scenes of nancy being there for jonathan in awful times (when will was being possessed, she held his hand, she was there, and yet not a single thing about that, about how much she's caring and protective) it's just sad bc do u see how she describes him? "caring, compassionate, protective, never back down from what's right (only when he wants to lie to her countless times i guess)" how could he not do the same for her? THE nancy wheeler who stood in front of A CAR to protect him and her friends when billy was about to crush her, and you know this isn't just an issue with jonathan, i feel like this is an issue with the fandom too, i feel like the fandom only seems to care about that side of nancy, like her career is the only thing she cares about and nothing more, and that's just isn't nancy wheeler, but then again, she's one of the characters people misunderstand the most in st (just like her brother, i guess is the wheeler's curse) we have 14 year old mike wheeler listing how much he loves el on her bad days, on her good days, with her powers, without her power, for exactly who she is, and all jonathan can say about his girlfriend is "she works 👍"

[goonflower]

when it comes to love triangles i will always pick the sapphic best friend idc

[your-stranger-halfblood-things]

Steve: Third base is letting you bring me to the hospital when I have a concussion

Eddie:

Steve:

Robin: So you've never done third base? Ha

Eddie: HOW MANY CONCUSSIONS HAVE YOU HAD?

Steve:

Robin:

Jonathan: Third base for me is talking about my dad...

Nancy: So we...? Oh god no, I'm lesbian

Jonathan: Thanks

Argyle: Third base is if I tell you my secrets for my hair

Steve, blushing: You told me them before

Argyle *winks*

Nancy: Third base is letting you into my room and letting you look around

Robin: You let me do that!!

Nancy: No I didn't! You just did it without permission

Robin, shrugging: Anyways, third base for me is like probably me letting you pick my outfit

Nancy:

Nancy, blushing: Fuck you

Eddie: Third base is letting you touch my guitar

Steve: You don't even let me within five feet of it

Eddie: You're a clumsy man! I don't want you to hurt her!

[huntingpeople-savingsam]

So I know I’ve made a bunch of points already but this one just occurred to me. At the end of season 1 (mentioned by Nancy is season 2) after the teens fight the Demogorgan, Nancy says she waits for Jonathan, and when he doesn’t give any indication she should be, Steve is there and they reconcile and get back together.

Now something about that I didn’t notice back when I first saw season 2 and am really putting together now— Jonathan is annoyed that Nancy didn’t wait for him when he needed time with his family after Will was saved. And it’s understandable that the Byers needed time after all that they went through in season 1, but Jonathan is annoyed with Nancy when she tells him she waited for him, “Yeah, like a month.” Meanwhile….. Nancy lost and is still mourning Barb! And Jonathan doesn’t acknowledge that at all when he complains about Nancy not waiting longer before getting back together with Steve.

But Steve was there for Nancy as much as he could be after they reconciled with Barb’s death. He obviously messed up by being unwilling to break the NDA they signed to tell the Hollands what happened to Barb and from Nancy’s perspective and place in mourning feels unsupported by him because of this but let’s rewind a little.

What we are left to infer between seasons 1 and 2 is:

Nancy AND Steve are having regular dinners with the Hollands

Although Steve is somewhat reluctant, he still goes and is a polite and pleasant dinner guest

Nancy and Steve seemed to have an overall good relationship until the anniversary of Barb’s death was creeping up

They were planning couples costumes, going to dinner with the Hollands, Steve spends Christmas at the Wheelers house, they drive to school together, Nancy has been helping Steve with his admissions essay, they’ve been talking about their future, etc.

And when I was thinking about all that they’d done together after season 1, I considered how it might’ve gone if Jon was in Steve’s place.

Would he have gone to regular dinners with the Hollands? Would he have wanted to expose the Lab and everything with the Upside Down if Will hadn’t gotten pulled back in?

Just how annoyed he was when he said she only waited a month for him— while he was reconciling with his lost brother…. And Nancy and the Hollands were still mourning Barb who had died?

I’m not faulting Jonathan for needing time with his family after everything that happened, of course he did.

And I’m not saying Steve was #1 Boyfriend of the year just because he went to dinner at the Hollands' with Nancy

But I am saying that Jon gave next to no thought about how badly Nancy was doing after they fought the Demogorgan in season 1. And while she was mourning and needed someone by her side to face the Hollands and lie to them while mourning with them, Steve was there while Jon wasn’t and I think Jon probably wouldn’t have been if Nance had waited longer for him.

It’s a theme you see throughout this show, a little bit before but especially after Nancy finally blows up and gives Steve the “thump on his head” that he later thanks her for— Steve is there, Jon isn’t.

[brekker-by-brekkerr]

feeling soft about season 4 stancy tonight. i'm thinking about what it was like to be a stancy fan when the show began and then to watch j/ancy play out through the seasons and hate it and love stancy so much still and always stupidly hope for some way for stancy to come back to each other. i'm thinking about how if you tried to find stancy fics on ao3 they were all j/ncy fics with past stancy. how the tag on tumblr had tumbleweeds and finding anything stancy-related that, again, wasn't about past stancy, was rare.

and now, we have so much more stancy content because of season 4. so many more fans. the tumblr tag is full. ao3 has more fics. people talk about them daily and its been years since s4 came out. i spent so long thinking about how stancy could find each other again and to actually see it play out and see how many people it has made happy...it's just really special to me.

and to see nancy, my girl from day 1, have a storyline where she's not stuck with jonathan the whole time, where she's making friends and being a leader and the fans are showing her so much more love and respect, is everything.

so as much as seeing people hate on stancy hurts, and the shipping in this fandom (as in any fandom ofc) can make me want to scream, nothing can take away from the stancy content we now have. i'm just really grateful to be where we are now with the show, especially since everything we got from stancy last season is content i could have only dreamed for years ago but barely hoped to see.

[vanesawye]

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

People have valid reasons for not liking Jonathan, honestly, and it's not to make Steve look good. Steve does all that on his own. (And yes, Steve was a great boyfriend.) They don't like Jonathan because he took a shirtless picture of Nancy without her consent while peaking on a very intimate moment between her and Steve. That's a very good reason not to like the character and a very good reason not to like Jancy. I waffle back and forth between my like and dislike of the character for this reason. Readmore for a better in-depth analysis.

If you want to blame anyone for people's dislike of Jonathan, blame the Duffle bags for not addressing the issue properly. All they really needed was a scene between Nancy and Jonathan, with Jonathan apologizing sincerely, then Jonathan returning the camera to Steve with an apology of his own, saying that he wanted to earn the camera back. There would have been this moment of respect between them with realizing they both did and said things that were fucked up. The difference is that Steve owned up first and apologized. Plus, there would have been this parallel scene of Steve going to Jonathan's house, and then Jonathan going to Steve’s house. It would have added so much to Jonathan's character. Getting mad at people for not liking Jonathan, it's dumb because they have valid and very sensitive reasons for not liking him. Get mad at the Duffle brothers for not addressing the issue properly. They had a chance to do a great scene between the three of them, and they just missed it. I really hope they address it in season 5.

[emilykinncy]

This video using Steve & Nancy as an example of positive 'consensual voyeurism' (she invites him to look at her take her shirt off) and the comments calling out what Jonathan did and that the show never addressed it properly 👏🏼👏🏼 "Unsettling implications" is so true, ST made a huge mistake including that scene if they wanted Jonathan to be a likable, underdog character and I hope how season 4 went indicates they are correcting their mistakes in having him "get the girl" after that nonsense. Nancy never should have dated him or even had anything but disdain for him in the first place. Meanwhile, they upped the creep factor when they brought Murray in to the plot forcing them together.

[clarkegriffins]

so, i think since s4 came out i saw maaaaaaaaaaaaaany posts saying nancy AND steve shouldn't be in a relationship, and i'm not gonna talk about that right now bc it's not my point, what is curious to me is that i never saw a post saying that jonathan shouldn't be in a relationship, and it got me thinking, does the fandom even listen to jonathan? like at all?

so in season 1 we have this scene:

which was supposed to "represent" stancy back then, even tho it's just assumptions since we never got the idea that stancy would ever be like ted and karen, they might had their problems back in season 1 and season 2 but not to the point that we think they would turn into nancy's parents, the show has been showing us how much steve loves nancy and that he would do literally anything for her, even breaking his own heart and letting her go, so no, not ted and karen at all, but i'm getting off topic let's go back to jonathan, this is what he thinks about nancy and steve's relationship, not very positive right? he scares her into thinking she's going to end up like her mom and how unhappy she will become.

and now we have this scene, present day:

now we're talking about his relationship with nancy, and oops, not very optimistic either right? this is basically what jonathan thinks of relationships, that no matter what they are always doomed, and how someone who thinks like that can be ready for a relationship? and i'm not even mentioning his thoughts about bob/joyce, his constant judgment over their relationship even tho bob was good for joyce, jonathan's beliefs about relationships are very tragic, i think not only about relationships, but life too, which leads to my second question: what can jonathan offer nancy? like really? i'm not talking about career or anything i'm talking about partnership, he's been ghosting nancy for a while now

to the point that she's considering he is cheating on her

just because he's too scared of telling her the truth, and i see people like: oh but he's protecting her bc just like he said "she would drop EVERYTHING to be with him" and i'm sorry but him assuming that she would leave her dream college for him is a bit too much for me, and it's crazy how no one talks about that, like nancy wheeler, our ambitious nancy wheeler, would literally drop her dreams just because jonathan is going to a different college? and no one from the fandom thinks it's a bit pretentious for jonathan to assume that? this is just an excuse for not telling her the truth, because if he told her the truth, it would lead him to also say what he thinks about their future together, which, in his opinion, is not a very bright future

and look at this, he also talks about kids and marriage, but for him it would end in a disaster, an unhappy marriage, just like ted and karen, totally different from what we saw in steve's dreams (a family with love, affection, who really enjoy each other's company, seeing the world with them, which, i think, it suits nancy traveling a lot since she wants to be a journalist) but this isn't about him, it's about jonathan, i see many people trying to say "oh but it's the trauma talking ok?" and yeah i could buy that, but i don't think trauma should excuse everything, so like nancy will have to spent her entire life fixing him? changing him? i think if u really want to be with someone you should fight for that, but that doesn't seem to be in jonathan's plans, right?

so again: how is he ready to be in a relationship? i think before anything jonathan should heal, this is what s5 should offer him.

[ilovetwig]

It's so hot when men apologize for their mistakes without needing to be told and take accountability and don't make snarky comments or excuses in their apology and try to make things right and realize they shouldn't repeat the same mistakes. This is actually what makes Steve and Eddie so hot.

[alwaysthequietones]

[huntingpeople-savingsam]

I know this point has been beaten to death and I’m not shaming J for feeling how he feels, just pointing out a sad twist of irony..

Jonathan in Season 1: Nancy Wheeler, she's not just another suburban girl who thinks she's rebelling by doing exactly what every other suburban girl does, until that phase passes and they marry some boring one-time jock who now works sales, and they live out a perfectly boring little life at the end of a cul-de-sac. Exactly like their parents, who they thought were so depressing, but now, hey, they get it.

Jonathan in Season 4: I can’t leave my mom and my brother to chase a dream that isn’t mine! [..] if I told her the truth then she’d just throw her dreams out the window to come out here and be with me and I just can’t take that! This huge knot of resentment would build like some cancer until eventually she hates me and then before you know it, we’re just like my mom and dad. I’m divorced, my kids hate me, shit! I mean it’s all SHIT. The cycle never ends!

It’s kind of sad but everything Jonathan was telling Nancy in season 1 about how depressing her life would be if she married Steve is now how he views his own future with her. Boring, depressing, filled with resentment, just like their parents.

And alternatively, you see Steve’s dreams for the future as bright, hopeful, optimistic, and it’s not in spite of but because of Nancy.

Remember the dream I told you about? About the Winnebago? About seeing the country with my six little nuggets? It’s all true. Every last word. But I left one part out. It’s the most important part. You’re there. You’ve always been there.

And while we still don’t get a clear picture directly from Nancy about her future and what she envisions for herself, the closest we get is when she describes why she says she loves Jonathan while talking to Fred.

He’s caring and compassionate. He’s so protective over the people that he loves and he’ll never back down from what’s right, what’s moral, no matter the pressure, no matter the personal cost. That’s why I love him.

And while Jonathan is caring and compassionate and protective to an extent— he does back down when there’s a personal cost. And he’s not totally wrong all the time on that, Nancy did risk their jobs knowing he needed it more than her. But he has never put her needs ahead of his own or at least his family’s own and he only stands up for what’s right and moral if it will help or avenge his family.

And on the other hand Steve, who was not willing to risk anything in the beginning of season 1 and beginning of season 2, risks everything for Nancy and the kids and Robin by the end of season 2 forward. Starting in season 1 when he comes back to save Jonathan and Nancy from the Demogorgan, then protecting the kids in season 2, and protecting Robin and the kids and saving Nancy in season 3, and then all of season 4 following Nancy on every hunch and fighting to keep her, the kids, and Robin safe. It is Steve who has been beaten bloody every season protecting the people he cares about. It is Steve who comes back to apologize and save Nancy without expecting anything in return. And again I’m not dissing Jonathan, he has his own very valid reasons to prioritize his family after everything they’ve been through even before the Upside Down with all the abuse from Lonnie. But he’s not ready to be in a relationship, and he’s not checking all of those boxes she spelled out to Fred, and even though she might not’ve realized it then, Steve did.

[dontcallmeeds]

I saw a twitter thread that was giving reasons for Nancy Wheeler being a lesbian and I gotta say, I agree. At least that Nancy is NOT straight. The way she interacts with Barb….dude, do you know how many of the stairs conversations (from season one before Barb disappears) I’ve had with friends who were secretly seeing me??? The whole “this isn’t you” after Nancy lies about where she’s going and the way she reacts with her facial expressions…..bro, they’ve kissed before. This has been said a million times here and otherwise since season one.

But with the level of grief and guilt she goes through in season two, I’m seeing that right now in myself as someone who just had one of their best friends pass away suddenly who was also an ex. The whole “bullshit” Stancy Halloween fight could be chalked up to grief and liking Jonathan sure, but I think it’s way more than that. I think she’s calling everything bullshit including herself because she lost the one person who saw her, someone she loved more than just platonically.

Then season three is mostly just her fighting with Jonathan if you really think about it, because she wants to be more than just a sandwich girl at Hawkins Post. Someone Barb would be proud of. We only see her really happy with Jonathan in season three when they wake up late and she sneaks out and the soft moment they have at the end when he’s leaving. Other than that they’re either fighting with each other or fighting monsters. Robin calls her a “priss,” but before Steve she was just kind of a…nerd. Like Robin. Maybe they ran in the same circles? We know they don’t know each other in person, at least Nancy doesn’t know HER.

FOLLOW ME HERE: What if Robin knew Barb?? What if Barb confided in her that she had feelings for Nancy, but that Nancy was dating Steve and we know how hard Robin goes for her friends so she just made this assumption that Nancy is a priss????

Then season four of course, we see Nancy not going to California. She’s frustrated that Jonathan wouldn’t be coming and she stayed for the basketball game for her front page news right?? Why didn’t she take another flight hmmm??? And we think she’s jealous of Robin, but what if she was jealous of Steve??? Because we don’t really have indication that Steve and Nancy have spent much time around each other since summer ‘85…but Robin and Nancy go to school together. Robin is in band which means they’re in the same room *hypothetically* for the important games that Nancy needs to document. We don’t know how many games Steve went to besides the one, he could’ve been working on some of those games or on dates. So ipso facto, Robin and Nancy have (probably) been in the same room more than Steve and Nancy….why would she suddenly be jealous of ROBIN???

And you can see her genuinely enjoying being around Robin after her monologue at the psych ward when she was being “annoyed” and “on edge” with her before that. I don’t see that as “oh well she started considering her a friend” I think she had a crush, she was on edge because she had lost Barb and didn’t want to feel that way about another girl. But the monologue relaxes her because she realized Robin is just as unhinged as she is, but in a different way. Because Nancy Wheeler is IMPULSIVE. She’s smarter than hell, but she is so careless with her own safety.

Also every time the Bylers shippers contrast the Wheeler siblings really they’re just giving us Nancy Wheeler is gay proof too. Because look at their similar behaviors. They fight and bicker in a way that says “i know what you are, NO I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE”

NOT VERY STRAIGHT IF YOU ASK ME.

Also, while I now understand my attraction to men is because I was a queer trans dude the entire time, I used to think it was comphet. But everything I feel about men is different than the way Nancy feels about men. It feels forced, it feels like she thinks she HAS to have a boyfriend and HAS to force a real connection with them. COMP. MOTHERFUCKIN. HET.

In conclusion, for the love of god, let Nancy Wheeler kiss girls. Natalia wants it, the fans want it. Give us a SMOOCH.

[dufrau]

my nancy wheeler love triangle prediction for season 5 is as follows:

if jancy have broken up during the time jump, they will wind up together in the end

if jancy are still together after the time jump, they will end up breaking up by the end

if they do end up breaking up, we will get the single woman nancy wheeler ending we deserve. i do not think stancy or ronance endings are going to happen, although there will probably be a stancy kiss somewhere in the middle to make it seem like a possibility. and in my brain there will be tension hinting at ronance even if they are never on screen together because that's just how i live my life.

[ronanceisintheair]

I love(hate) when people's take on the Emerson debacle is "Nancy is such an inconsiderate bitch for forcing Jonathan to go to the same college with her"

When like for starters we never actually saw the conversation that led to that decision? And does that even sound like her to force him?

And two what about Jonathan wanting Nancy to stay at a shotty job where the men heckle and belittle her and are belligerently misogynistic in s3? Like he literally was down playing how horrible it was. Telling her to hang in there?

Nothing on that scene that we actually saw? Yea he gets to do what he loves-blah blah-but like morals or something idk.

Anyways, the fact of the college debacle is we blatantly see Jonathan lying/withholding information on his college decision. Good intentions do not excuse that.

The men do not listen to her when it matters that's all I will say.