#lesbianrobin.canon

[lesbianrobin]

what is your top 3 he wouldn't say that Steve moment from season 4??

in no particular order:

arguing with nancy bc he wanted to leave the kids and go with her to pennhurst. like sorry but in s2 and s3 steve voluntarily stayed with the kids whenever he could. like in s2 he's PROUD of his "babysitter" role he volunteers to look after the kids and encourages nancy to go with jonathan for the exorcism! and in s3 he's good friends with the party they come by scoops all the time and he lets them sneak into movies like they're obviously still close AND he never even considers splitting up from dustin and erica once they escape from the russians until he Has to bc the others are in danger. i just cannot fathom him Knowing max is gonna get merked by a supernatural serial killer any second and being like ugh i don't wanna be on babysitting duty 🙄.

letting robin run on ahead by herself in the upside down and being like lol she'll be fine. WHAT. steve you literally just almost died down here like two hours ago what the fuck are you saying. like i know they did this so he and nancy could have a chat but jesus fucking christ he just would not say that.

and the obvious. trying to get back with nancy. like i'll allow the six kids thing bc it's obviously a reference to His Kids and he's just sharing his own personal dream but like later when he's all like i see you there.... i wonder if maybe we could have worked out.... or whatever the fuck like NO. we fucking WENT OVER THIS in s3 he's OVER nancy he literally fucking realized that he's happier now just being himself and having his bestie than he ever was when he was with nancy and i just. it just pisses me off like they literally pushed steve back to like his early s2 character development where all he cares about is nancy and it's such garbage. steve literally spent two whole seasons finding other people to love and realizing he doesn't need a romantic relationship to be happy etc etc and they were like hmmmm but obviously he still wants nancy so bad bc she is so perfect and he could never ever move on or love someone else. god i'm mad. anyway yeah those are my top three

[lesbianrobin]

what do you think of gay steve? i don't dislike the headcanon in theory, but i feel like it's usually done as a way to make steve & nancy's relationship/breakup less important (and often to make it easier to ship r0nance)

i gotta be honest i dont think i've actually ever read any fic where steve is explicitly stated to be gay and not bisexual, besides maybe my own fic nancy drew and the mystery of the magnetic closet, so idk if i'll rly have whatever answer ur looking for re: other people's intent. in magnetic closet i wrote steve as being a bit uncertain as to his identity, leaning gay, but he also explicitly tells nancy that he loves her and their relationship is still significant to him, so like. like MY motivation wasn't downplaying their relationship so at the very least that isn't Everyone's motivation.

anyway like separately from how people Use It in fic i'm into gay steve! i tend to default to bi steve for like fic and headcanons etc bc it's sorta become the fandom standard and a lot of my bi friends like bi steve and i love my bi friends 💖 but if i'm being honest i do think that you can easily interpret a lot of steve's canon behavior in favor of him being gay if you want to do so, and i think i tend to lean that way when i'm writing him even when i don't mean to. just to like preface all of this i'm gay myself and i am terrible about projecting onto steve so yknow take all of the following with a grain of salt.

so like personally i think he never rly had romantic feelings for robin and he only confessed to liking her because he thought his love for robin Had to be attraction since she's a girl yknow? and in s4 it's implied that he's had a string of casual relationships based entirely on sex and he hasn't been able to connect with any of the girls at all which is a bit 🧐🤨. the way steve flirts indiscriminately and talks about wanting a family in the future makes me think like... i think that his search for love is more about wanting a family/wanting love than specifically wanting to be with a woman. like i think in his mind bc of Eighties Heteronormativity the two things are equated, so when he Thinks that he wants to find the female love of his life he Actually just wants a family. and i fear i'm making it sound like steve is a misogynist who just wants a wife to give him kids which is not my intent. like i think steve has a lot of respect for nancy and loves her deeply regardless of whether that love is romantic in nature or not. the fact that he said he was over nancy in s3 while confessing feelings to robin, dated around a bunch, and then suddenly had feelings for her again in s4 comes off less to me like "steve never got over nancy" and more like "steve is unable to find the kind of love he wants with a woman no matter what he tries and he's returning to nancy because he thinks that he just messed up their relationship with his flaws and if they tried again he could be better and everything would be perfect." like nancy was the closest steve ever came to actually being in love with a girl and as time passes he realizes that he doesn't think he could feel that way with another woman. but the thing is that stancy was just not a great couple yknow but they had these external pressures on their relationship that allow them to look back on it and think well maybe NOW we'll be more compatible and we can be happy. like it's this subconscious belief that being in the right relationship could make Everything in his life right.

idk i think at this point i'm just rambling and i fear i'm making no sense but like i think gay steve is really interesting to think about Because his relationship with nancy was so important to him. like it's genuinely really compelling to explore their relationship through the lens of compulsory heterosexuality and consider like the sort of friendship they might have in the wake of steve realizing that he's gay. i also think it's interesting to think about in the context of his friendship with robin and like how radically different their journeys are while simultaneously being kinda the same.

ultimately though since he's like presumed straight in canon i don't think it rly matters whether people hc steve as gay or bi? like it's kinda just whatever you want.

[lesbianrobin]

Would you be willing to share any tropes or pet peeves you have with the fandoms intepretation of HOH! Steve? No pressure at all but I know it’s gaining popularity and that fandoms historically have a shit record with disability and you’ve spoken about your frustrations with that tag. Also thank you for sharing the link to the movie!! I’ve been wanting to watch more historical films especially ones that push back against assumptions of what the past was capable of!

omg YES thank you for asking!!! so to preface for anybody who doesn't know: i myself am hard of hearing and i used to post about steve being hard of hearing sometimes prior to s4, but i haven't posted about it much since it became a Thing in the fandom because i don't trust other people on my posts lmao.

so honestly this is gonna be less about specific tropes and more of a broad ideological discussion bc i don't usually read the hoh steve fics i scroll past and i don't want to act like i Know exactly what all of them are like based off just the few i have read. however, i Have seen the tags and summaries and read the first few paragraphs of a lot of them, and i feel like that's enough for me to have like. an opinion. so ANYWAY.

my first issue is just that pretty much everyone i've seen writing hoh steve is hearing themselves. there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but the thing is that hoh steve is like. entirely a creation of fandom, yknow? there's not rly anything in canon that indicates steve has poor hearing--honestly, if anything, he seems to have rather keen ears (picking up on the background music in the russian code in s3, being the first one to hear dustin in the upside down in s4). you can certainly reverse-engineer it and argue that poor school performance can be an indicator of poor hearing, that his head injuries could potentially cause hearing loss, but neither of those are things where hearing loss naturally comes to mind without somebody looking for it, so this begs the question of why. what exactly is motivating these hearing people to write this character as hoh?

i've noticed some things that tend to go along with hoh steve. one is steddie, which is kind of a given in the st fandom at this point, but it's the things that go along with that which concern me. the "babygirl steve" thing where steve is woobified and feminized to the point of being nigh-unrecognizable seems quite common among these fics. steve often has other medical problems as well--he needs glasses, he gets migraines, he has memory loss, he's depressed, he's got chronic pain, etc, etc, and my disability is just another thing on a laundry list of issues that is seemingly employed for the sole purpose of making steve sad and hurt and pitiable so that (usually) eddie can come along and save him/baby him. i'm not gonna act like i've never tossed some shit at steve to make him suffer in a fic, but it's always for like. a Reason. and that reason has never once been just so i could ship him with somebody and make them into his savior.

i think a lot of people writing hoh steve just don't necessarily have great intentions with it, yknow? they see it as a way for steve to suffer nobly in silence and be self-sacrificial, or they think it's cute to make steve deaf since eddie plays loud music (???).

there are a lot of things i love about being hard of hearing. i love that i get to have a unique appreciation of sound that not everybody has. i love that i can take out my hearing aids when the world is too much. i love that i still discover new sounds at the age of twenty-two. did you guys know that dishwashers make noise? i didn't until today! my house was quiet and i kept hearing something strange until i tracked it down and realized! i love that i have a sense of wonder about every noise i hear! and while i don't begrudge anybody their enjoyment of hoh steve content, i have yet to see any that comes remotely close to capturing these feelings, so it's just not for me.

also this is a silly pet peeve but why is it that in these fics steve almost always learns asl and like rarely has hearing aids? like sorry but unless he's completely deaf that's out of character. steve harrington is not learning a whole new language unless he absolutely has to and has literally no other options. they had hearing aids in the eighties. c'mon people.

anyway. sorry that was so long lmao and thank you for asking!! also thank you for actually reading and caring about my within our gates post!! i highly recommend looking up some 1920s music to listen along with the film, though you can honestly listen to whatever you want--at the time, films didn't typically have dedicated scores, and individual theaters would provide their own musical accompaniment however they saw fit. oftentimes this meant a live musician would play piano during the film, and improvise to suit the mood/plot! happy viewing 💕

[lesbianrobin]

this is gonna make me sound so annoying and i do Not mean it as any sort of judgment on people who do ship ro/nance this is just like me realizing why it bothers me so much but. it’s meaningful to me Personally for a lesbian character who’s openly horny for women to be allowed to have a female friend who she isn’t canonically ever attracted to. like that just makes me really happy. it’s so nice to see robin talk about her crushes on women and how women are b-b-b-bonkers hot and then to see her be friends with nancy and have fun with her and admire her without it being sexual in any way.

like i see a lot of ro/nance posts being like “omg robin rambles around nancy like she does vickie!!” but robin rambles around steve too! she rambles when el is hurt in s3 and when steve is hurt in the upside down! yknow not everything she does is indicative of a big ole lesbian crush she’s allowed to be nervous for other reasons. and it just like. idk i’m not trying to argue against a ship like i’m happy that other people are having fun but i always feel so like weirdly guilty for being a lesbian in this fandom and not shipping ro/nance and i see a lot of people saying that like if you ship (gay male ship) but not them then it’s misogyny or something and it’s like. idk i just felt like maybe i should explain. anyway sorry this was a weird thing to post but oh well i love posting shit i don’t need to <3

[lesbianrobin]

(genuine question, not trying to be confrontational) Why do you think Nancy is straight? I personally headcanon her as aromantic, but I can see how people would read comphet into her canon relationships, considering she’s often miserable with and mean to both Steve and Jonathan.

i can definitely see both comphet and aro nancy and i don't totally disagree!!

personally, i think that nancy really does want to be in a romantic relationship with a man, but she has a lot of unhealthy coping mechanisms and habits that make it difficult for her to have a healthy relationship. she gets defensive and lashes out with the meanest thing she can think of sometimes (oliver twist comes to mind), and she can get tunnel vision and forget to consider how her actions might impact someone else (getting wasted at the party in s2, getting her and jonathan both fired in s3, her dismissiveness toward robin in s4). most importantly, i think she has a fear of abandonment and failure stemming from barb's death that sabotages her relationships.

nancy had an extremely close friendship that suddenly ended one night in a brutal death that nancy was ignorant of because she chose to prioritize her boyfriend over barb One Time. she blames herself and steve, and i think barb's death left nancy with a fear of ever being ignorant of the danger around her again. that fear drives her journalistic pursuits, which can be a double-edged sword, as i mentioned she tends to get tunnel vision and forget to consider people's feelings.

i think the loss of barb also left her with a fear of being alone, which is why she gets back together with steve post-s1 despite harboring feelings for jonathan, why she immediately hooks up with jonathan as soon as her relationship with steve is in danger in s2, and why she begins flirting with steve again in s4 when her relationship with jonathan is on the rocks. i think she's attracted to both of them and feels comfortable with both of them, and that comfort is enough for her to feel an intense need to cling to it so that she won't find herself alone again, regardless of which person she clings to.

of course this is all like analysis that the writers almost certainly have never considered mdcjdjf but that's just how i personally make sense of nancy's romantic/sexual inclinations :)

also on a pettier note i partially think she's straight just bc she reminds me So Much of the straight girls that bullied me growing up lmao

[lesbianrobin]

What are your thoughts/opinions on Stancy these days?

i really dislike it honestly 😭 i think that steve and nancy are drawn to each other for a lot of reasons, none of which are like... reasons to be in a relationship. like the things that make them interested in each other in my mind are:

the fact that they were more or less each other's first love. even with nancy's "like we're in love" speech i don't think that she would have stayed with steve for a full year after s1 if she didn't love him in some way, even if that wasn't like Real Romantic Love the way we typically think of it, yknow? and we know that nancy was the first person to really make steve feel seen and like somebody was listening to him and cared about him.

the fact that they were together at a very pivotal moment in both of their lives, namely barb's death, the discovery of the upside down, and steve's big change. it's kinda like mike telling el that his life started when he met her. steve and nancy were together when both of their lives fundamentally changed forever, and i think that kinda drives them both to see each other as like... something safe to fall back on.

they each like who the other person thinks they are. sorry i'm really struggling to articulate this but i think that like... i think they've both sorta mythologized each other. steve looks at nancy and sees something more than a scared teenage girl and nancy looks at steve and sees something more than an aimless teenage boy. this might sound romantic but i think that when they were together, they would both act to an extent to try and fit into the image that the other person had in their mind. nancy liked being the sort of perfect, put-together girl that steve sees her as, and steve liked being the sort of carefree, all-american boy that nancy sees him as. when they're together, they get to pretend.

continuing on that note, they both have the desire to feel young and reclaim some of their lost innocence and childhood. for a little while at least, steve and nancy had a normal high school relationship. they kissed in the school bathroom and left little notes in their lockers and snuck around their parents. they never had that sense of carefree innocence again after s1 and i think they both subconsciously think that maybe if barb hadn't died and shit hadn't gone wrong, they could have felt that way forever.

and maybe they could have! there's no way of knowing. but the world they live in and the people they are now are so different from they world they lived in and the people they were back in 1983. no matter how much they might wish it, there's no way to go back and make it so that nothing terrible ever happened. maybe s1 steve and nancy could have worked out and been happy together for the rest of their lives. maybe they would have broken up eventually anyway, but s4 steve and nancy are choosing not to think about that option.

s4 steve and nancy are stressed, afraid, and uncertain about the future, and i think they're flirting with each other again as a coping mechanism. they want different things in life and i personally don't think that they're romantically compatible, they don't necessarily bring out the best in each other, but believing in the possibility of rekindling their romance allows them to indulge in the idea that maybe they can still be the kids they once were. they can still lead the lives they wanted to lead. the upside down hasn't changed everything.

but it has, and unfortunately a dream just isn't enough to build a relationship.

[lesbianrobin]

1,8,12,20,25 <3

1: answered <3

8: common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

hmmm a lot of people say that the duffers can't write gay people or that they can't write women, and i just don't agree. like i think robin alone completely disproves both assertions. i don't think will/his plot is super well-written, i agree that nancy/her plot has its issues, but i don't think it's necessarily misogyny or homophobia so much as the show's writing just overall having inconsistent quality. i think el, joyce, and max all have some incredible writing throughout the show, just as many of the male characters (cough HOPPER cough MIKE cough DUSTIN) have some rough writing at times.

12: the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

i'm kind of obsessed w jason honestly i find him so much more interesting than chrissy!! which is maybe unfair bc he was around a lot longer than her so ofc there's gonna be more meat there but ANYWAY. i think he's a really fun antagonist and his s4 journey actually parallels nancy's s1 journey in some very cool ways!! they both lose someone close to them and suspect something supernatural, and they're both willing to go to extremes in order to find justice for the one they lost—the primary difference is in the information they have. jason has literally no way of knowing that the real killer is hidden away in a parallel dimension, leaving him no logical conclusion but that eddie committed the murder, whereas nancy finds the photo of the demogorgon relatively early on and is thus set on a path where she's able to learn the truth.

obviously jason is overly aggressive from the start and he shouldn't have assaulted gareth the way he did, but i do still think he's a compelling villain bc he's acting out of grief and as the season goes on and he sees patrick die (and DRAGS HIS BODY BACK TO SHORE AND HOLDS HIM UNTIL THE COPS GET THERE) he clearly begins losing his grip on reality. he's a tragic figure and unlike most of the other human antagonists in the show, you can imagine a world in which things went differently and jason was able to learn, change, and live.

20: part of canon you found tedious or boring

my fucking god the lab and russia storylines in s4 were insufferable i literally wanted to skip them so bad 😭

25: answered <3

ty for asking!!

[lesbianrobin]

you may have talked about this before, but what do you think of Robin’s season 4 characterization vs her characterization in season 3?

i think i have talked about it but it's been awhile so i don't mind sharing my silly little thoughts again <4 while there's definitely a shift in robin's attitude from s3 to s4 i personally find it to be a positive one. a lot of people say she's like a totally different character which i just don't agree with and i think the shift makes sense within canon.

i feel like in s3 she had these moments of silliness and awkwardness when she and steve were alone in the bunker/when they were drugged, and she did her adorable little nervous-rambling thing when they were trying to extract the little slug from el's leg. she could be a bit blunt and excitable. she just Also had a bit of a veneer going on that i think was largely because she didn't yet feel comfortable with steve, yknow? like i think s4 robin is basically the same as s3 robin, she's just happier and More Herself and isn't trying to hide these aspects of her personality that some people might find off-putting or annoying. in s4, robin still has her snarky moments, she's still a bit of a rebel with a penchant for breaking rules and throwing bricks and crafting elaborate lies, she's just Also a total dork. and i love that about her!

also this is more of a meta thing but i kinda like that robin feels a bit less like. idk how to articulate this but it feels like the way they styled her in s4 was much more focused on her character while in s3 i think they were trying to make her attractive. like maya hawke is obviously attractive regardless she's very pretty but s4 robin is just soooo dyke her whole thing feels so authentic and i love it. like i think her being in the same outfit for all of s3 also kinda makes it seem like an even bigger shift because we didn't really know how she typically dressed until s4 and wardrobe goes a long way in establishing character!

anyway obviously this is just My Opinion but i like robin's characterization in both seasons and i think it's consistent

[lesbianrobin]

i was rereading light my way and i'm just curious about how you decided to write eddie as having difficulty forming closer bonds that go beyond doing shared activities together. also in your rockie fic you mentioned eddie never having plans except on certain days. i keep seeing ppl portray the cc boys/older hellfire members as being v close w eddie, and ppl mentioning the list of eddie's friends dustin and max were calling when they were trying to find him as proof that eddie is a social butterfly/v extroverted. i don't disagree but i'm curious about how you decided to characterize him that way.

hi thank u for reading my fics!!

so i know i'm like the odd man out in this and it's entirely just like my own opinion/creative choice like i don't think i'm any more Right than other people. just like to preface my justification. so anyway there are a few different reasons why i went that route!

personally i had a lot of good friends in high school who i literally only hung out with during theatre classes and rehearsals. while we spent a lot of time together and considered each other good friends, we didn't often hang out outside of those activities, and i think that's pretty common as a teenager in school, you know? eddie in particular seems to self-identify as an outsider and he emphasizes hellfire club as a place for "lost little sheepies," which makes me think that maybe he started/joined corroded coffin and/or hellfire specifically to find and keep friends because he struggled to do so otherwise. also, being a DM requires a lot of planning time alone, and so does learning sick-ass guitar solos almost immediately after an album drops, so i think eddie probably spends most of his non-club time either by himself or dealing.

the sheer number of friends they check on when searching for eddie makes me think that eddie is the kind of guy who's outgoing and has a lot of casual friendly acquaintances, but very few people who are actually close to him. in episode one we primarily see eddie with hellfire/corroded coffin, and he is just flat-out performing the whole time. he isn't just having lunch with his buddies in the cafeteria scene, he's holding court. he's putting on a show! it's quite a stark contrast to how he behaves when the group finds him in the boathouse and for the rest of s4, and later in the season we see a far more self-deprecating and unsure eddie. while i do think eddie and the hellfire guys are friends who genuinely like each other, i just don't think they're like... super close. i personally get the impression that eddie is always performing around them, probably because he thinks that being funny and outrageous is What Makes Them Like Him and that he's gotta keep it up or he'll lose them. the fact that he chose to hide out alone in the boathouse indicates to me that he doesn't feel safe enough with any of his friends to have gone to them for help. he didn't think that any of his friends would believe him or have his back, and i think that if he were really close with the hellfire guys, he probably would have gone to one of them first, because i think he was very freaked out by being alone after chrissy's death.

also, on a more practical level, in light my way that just served the story far better. i had zero desire to make up personalities for eddie's friends and write them interacting with the rest of the gang, especially because it would limit my ability to let el just exist as el and let the characters potentially reference Strange Things if they wanted. but of course if they're really close friends of eddie's it would make sense for them to be at his birthday party. so it was just easier to go with the idea that they typically hang out at school and predetermined meetings for hellfire/corroded coffin and that their friendship is relatively surface-level. it also served the emotional arc of the story about eddie finding a sense of belonging! in the rockie fic i put less thought into it, but eddie's hardass nature about lucas missing hellfire in episode one makes me think he's very big on sticking to plans and schedules, and in the rockie fic universe he's become quite good friends with steve and robin, so they can assume with relative certainty that if he's not doing hellfire or with his band he'll be down to hang with them. i imagine they hang out most of the time anyway.

so yeah that's most of it ig?? i also just think eddie is afraid of how people would respond to The Real Him and thus he keeps people at arm's length with his hellfire persona and the only reason dustin and the others managed to crack open his shell and get to the eddie inside is because he witnessed a brutal supernatural murder and was scared shitless. so yeah <3

[lesbianrobin]

i am now incredibly curious about the 'hunted for sport' aus

currently i am thinking about the possibility of nancy and jonathan both dying in s3 (which goes somewhat along the lines of them being flayed and making the big sacrifice instead of billy because fuck giving him some weird random redemption moment that makes no sense i think it would be devastating and effective to see nancy and/or jonathan make that sacrifice for their beloved little siblings btw billy still dies he just goes out way more pathetically) and the ramifications of that for the kids' mental states going into s4 as well as how it would position steve as the last man standing (the final girl if u will) of the original monster hunting trio and the psychological impact on him.

like. something something nancy and jonathan are the designated protagonist teens with clear goals and ambition in opposition to steve who's kinda aimless and was supposed to be killed off but lived instead and now feels like maybe he shouldn't have. something something the kids going into high school with a clear delineation between their childhood and this grim new reality. something something robin and eddie joining steve as the new young adult group all of whom are kind of messy and people don't expect big things from them the way they did nancy and jonathan. something something the tension of survivor's guilt and resentment within the group that vecna exploits and that must be worked through in order for the group to survive. something something joyce having to process losing the child she'd always relied on and mourning not only jonathan's loss but the loss of his childhood which actually happened a long long time ago.

idk but clearly this one falls within all three circles of the "i'm not smart enough" + "dumb concept" + "hunted for sport" venn diagram so dmvjfncnfn

[lesbianrobin]

oooh 3, 11, 18, 21!

hehe thank you for asking <3

3: screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

so besides the obvious billy related takes, real ones will remember Thee insane terrible st take

11: number of fandom-related words you've filtered

so there's nine related to stranger things but honestly most of them are imagine/reader insert tags dkcjdjc

18: it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

ERICA and to be fair i don't make enough content involving her but like she's So fun and i think besides her and lucas being precious she has rly interesting dynamics with dustin steve and robin that we don't explore as much as we should, especially considering how much the fandom is into like found family and the teen-kid dynamics.

21: part of canon you think is overhyped

...will's whole gayngst plot 😭 maybe back in 2016 when the show started it wouldn't have felt so uninspired but like to me personally it's just kind of. boring. like we the viewers have known that jonathan and joyce and all of his friends love and accept him unconditionally since s1 yknow and while i understand that his feelings are true to real life closeted kids esp in the eighties it's still just kind of. tiring. from like a narrative perspective to see this kid all sad and stressed out over something that will ultimately not be a problem.

obviously homophobia still exists in like a broader societal context but my point is that like with robin out to steve and casually talking with him about her crushes it just makes will's angst feel so unnecessary and pointless. also i think it's lame that he's hung up on mike while mike is in love with el like come the fuck on can we give will something that isn't like the most tired gay teenager plot of all time.

[lesbianrobin]

what are your thoughts on Steve's depression or possible PTSD, I saw on steveharrington an anon gave thanks to you as well for depicting it accurately in your writing and as someone who actually has it, I'd say you and sarah have done a fuckin' A of a job depicting "episodes" or thought patterns that come with it

( A as in A+ )

thank you!! so first off before i say this i wanna be clear that this is not a level of transparency anybody should ever feel obligated to have on tumblr, i'm sharing this bc i want to: i personally am diagnosed with depression and generalized anxiety disorder, and i take medication to manage both conditions.

i don't usually think about steve Having Depression or some other specific mental illness. when i'm writing, i don't write to a diagnosis. instead, i consider the following:

my overall goal with the fic. is it focused on steve and his mental state? will i have time to address and possibly resolve any problematic thought processes or behaviors that i bring up?

steve's mental state. which season am i writing in? who is he with? what's been going on in his life? how does he view himself and those around him?

the situation. how would steve respond to what's happening? how has he responded to similar situations in canon? how would his state of mind in the fic influence his behavior?

and all of the rest just kinda follows. i'm not a psych professional yknow i'm not trying to necessarily depict specific symptoms, i'm trying to depict steve as best as i can, and any potential labels that could apply come after the fact. the only exception to this is in my ongoing fic, young strangers, where part of the Point is like how mental illness can impact a family and an individual, but even then i'm kinda more focused on like. steve's specific unhealthy thought patterns and behaviors than i am a specific condition.

i think when you consider the full psychological state of a character in a show like stranger things where people die and get tortured and lose their loved ones, it's inevitable that you'll have to consider their mental health, so that's what i do. a lot of how i write steve comes from my own mind and my own unhealthy thought patterns, and that's like. sorta on purpose? sorta not? idk.

sorry i realize i didn't really like answer your question coherently but that's because i don't have super coherent thoughts on the topic yknow i just try to give steve like realistic psychological complexity and maybe sometimes make him mentally ill in the process.

[lesbianrobin]

i've been reading through your lesbianrobin.canon tag (all great analysis btw, some of the most well thought out meta i've seen from the fandom) and i found a post you did a while ago listing out the strengths and weaknesses of st1-3. do you know if you'd ever feel like doing a post in that format for season 4? ik you posted recently about how you've got a backlog of asks and ik this would probably take some time, so obviously no obligation to do this, esp if you're not in the mood. again, love ur posts!

hii thank you so much!!! honestly i might do that, but st4 is So big and i have so many conflicting feelings about it that i definitely won't be doing it until i do a full rewatch. i'm planning to rewatch soon, so i may take some notes while i do but i don't wanna promise anything because i am notoriously unreliable and i forget to do things. so. <3

[lesbianrobin]

i understand why people might think like this but it rly annoys me when people just lump st in as like “nostalgia bait about how nerds are oppressed.”

all of our main characters are somehow "strange" and on the surface it's just like haha they're nerds! but really it's so much more than that!! like they all have their own family issues and will is gay in that terribly realistic way where everybody kind of knows it despite him never saying a word and joyce has unspecified mental health issues that people gossip about and hopper is a grieving father with a substance abuse problem and steve is this golden boy who failed to live up to expectations and has absolutely no direction in life and robin is a visibly Different lesbian in 80s indiana who wears her difference and her attitude like a shield because she's still genuinely so afraid and lucas is the odd man out even among his band of odd men out because he's black and he has this barrier of understanding between him and his friends and max lives in an abusive home and struggles to feel safe and strong without becoming a person she doesn't want to be and el is trying to learn how to be a person after spending most of her life completely ignorant of what "normal" and "strange" even are and like. like the kids aren’t losers because they’re nerds, they’re nerds because they’re losers.

by which i mean that like. in s1. will is poor and his mother is Known in town as like a crazy lady and everybody suspects he's gay so he’s an outcast. mike is a thoroughly unathletic goofy-looking son in an all-american family who loves storytelling and fantasy and like Cannot fit in the way his dad wants him to. dustin has a visible birth defect and a single mother who's shown to be a bit neurotic and spacey and he's often the one having to comfort her and protect her rather than the other way around. lucas is one of very few black kids in a predominantly white area and they call attention to this a few times! all of these kids stick together and find refuge in D&D because in real life they’re outcasts but in D&D they can be the heroes. they get to be whoever they want to be and they're strong and capable and they can save the day.

this strangeness isn’t even limited to the party yknow like the older teens all have some form of Strangeness that manifests in their relationship to gender roles, sexuality, and/or romance. obviously robin is gay but yknow jonathan is this teenage boy who's been thrust into the role of caretaker and has so much rage and resentment boiling just under the surface but everything he does is for his mother and his brother and he’s ultimately rather passive and emotional. nancy is this perfect suburban princess who struggles with empathy and tact and resents her parents for their normalcy while simultaneously craving it herself. steve is this golden boy jock player who falls so deeply in love that it ends up pushing him to change everything about himself. he’s driven primarily by love and is emasculated in front of the “normal” kids through all of the nancy and jonathan drama. once that happens and he diverges from the hegemonic form of masculinity that he formerly embodied, he is alone and ostracized.

anyway yeah i could probably talk about this a lot more but basically the strangeness in stranger things is a lot less about monsters and playing d&d than it is about how difficult it is to fit into the mold that we’re assigned by our communities and how many different ways there are to be “strange” in a suburban context

[lesbianrobin]

i know this may sound confusing and i’m sorry it’s the only way i can articulate what i’m trying to say so i hope it makes Some sense but like. i believe that stranger things Needs to look and feel different and have new characters every season in order to work. 

each season functions as a sort of snapshot. season one is very much evoking the same sort of nostalgia as stand by me. if you’re unfamiliar with the movie, it’s about a group of four twelve-year-old boys hearing about the body of a missing boy that was found in the woods, and going on an adventure to try and find it. it’s a frame narrative, the story being narrated by one of the boys now that he’s an adult and he’s looking back on his childhood. its iconic ending line is this: “i never had any friends later on like the ones i had when I was twelve. jesus, does anyone?” 

this is the brand of nostalgia stranger things season one captures. it’s not just about the eighties. it’s about this very specific moment in adolescence, when you’re just on the cusp of puberty and developing your outlook on the world, coming to really understand the concept of death, and dealing with moral dilemmas and serious decisions that you likely never have before. at the same time, you still have a childish naivete. your friendships are uncomplicated, and your devotion is unconditional. season one operates on this basis. it’s a snapshot, a single moment in time, something pivotal that happens in your life just before things start changing and childhood is over, the single moment in time when the world suddenly becomes real to you. 

and... if season one is the moment in time just before things change forever, then in season two, things need to change forever. if season two introduced nothing new, kept all of the same settings and characters, had the same exact tone and aesthetic... it wouldn’t be a new snapshot, would it? it would be an attempt at extending the first one, like tracing over an old photo. it would be taking this foundational idea, that there’s something very special within this specific moment of childhood, and betraying it. saying, no, things didn’t really change that much. i grew up, but i didn’t lose anything. i grew up, but i didn’t gain anything. i grew up, but i didn’t change.

when you look through an old photo album, you don’t generally see the same exact picture taken over and over. some of them are portraits. some of them are candids taken at home in your dad’s recliner. some of them are at the park. they’re taken during a birthday party, or at a dance recital. the furniture gets rearranged, the pictures go from sepia to black and white to color film to digital, the fashion changes and your grandmother’s beehive disappears and your mother gets a perm and you straighten your hair to death and then curl it when the style changes the next year. my point with all of this is that each season of stranger things captures a single moment in life, one of those big moments that of course you have to capture, and in the details of those photos you find the millions of little changes that nobody ever bothered to take out the camera and document. even if those changes are gradual, they still exist, and they’re undeniable. when you look back through the photo album, you don’t see the furniture move. it’s in one place, and then suddenly it’s in another.

maintaining the exact same aesthetics and cast from season one throughout the show would be attempting to take a single moment in life and artificially extend it. allowing the aesthetic to evolve, however, adding new characters who become just as important as those we loved in the first place, creates new photos. new snapshots of new moments in time, all separate and distinct from one another, but still along the same path, still part of the same photo album. the photo of you and your friends winning the science fair leads to the photo of you getting ready for your first school dance. the photo of you in your halloween costume leads to the photo of you shaking off you and your first boyfriend’s first fight. the things that matter to you change. you meet and love new people. you find your style and find it again and wear what’s fashionable and then ditch it all to try something new.

i guess all i’m trying to say here is that i feel there’s something very much alive at the core of stranger things, something organic and real that isn’t defined by a singular aesthetic or cast of characters. it’s defined by life, and life is, in turn, defined by change. while that change may seem abrupt or uncomfortable at times, it’s just a part of growing up, and isn’t that kind of a big part of what stranger things is about? growing up? i don’t know, i just think it’s nice how the world and the cast grow along with our characters. it just feels right to me.

[lesbianrobin]

so i constantly go back and fourth on this so i wanted to consult the steve n robin specialist (you). do you think steve ever actually liked robin, or do you think he convinced himself he liked her because felt he was supposed to?

ok disclaimer this is my own personal opinion and obviously people are free to disagree! that said, let's get into it <3

so i don't think that friendship and romance are quite so far off from each other as to like. make it so there Needs to be one solid answer to this question. i think that if robin had been like omg yeah steve i feel the same way! and they started dating, he probably would have developed real feelings for her and fallen in love rather quickly. however, i don't think that he actually did have romantic feelings for robin at the time of his confession.

consider the context! he's still a little hurt from his breakup with nancy. he's spent the whole summer striking out with girls, getting increasingly frustrated and struggling with his self esteem when he's unable to charm them the way he used to. dustin's been on his ass telling him that he's "gotta find his suzie" and insisting that robin is The Girl For Him. when dustin tells him this, steve makes up a bunch of lame-ass excuses for why he doesn't like robin that way. this could be interpreted as steve simply being defensive and not wanting to admit to having a crush, or not wanting to admit to having a crush on a "loser," but he's never behaved that way before. nancy was a relatively unpopular nerd at the start of s1, and steve never seemed remotely embarrassed of liking her. he's been very openly flirting with a bunch of girls at scoops. he willingly hangs out with children who are far bigger losers than robin all the time. so why would he be so shy and embarrassed about having feelings for robin?

i personally think the excuses he makes to dustin, that she's in drama and she's hyper and she's a year younger than him, are actually steve just trying to justify not liking robin to himself. he sees her as a friend, but he finds dustin's argument compelling, so he has to scramble to come up with good reasons as to why dustin is wrong. steve probably never thought about robin in a romantic way before dustin brought it up, and when he did, steve's thought process was something like, "wait, he kind of has a point. robin's awesome, i love hanging out with her... oh, shit, i guess i do like her!"

from that point on, i think steve was kind of confused about his own feelings. i do think that there was potential for him to truly develop romantic feelings for her, if they had perhaps been friends for a longer time before he confessed and robin came out, or if she had reciprocated. but as it stands in canon, i think that steve really just found a friend who he loves very much and he's never had that experience with a girl his age, so he figured his feelings must be romantic in nature.

part of why i believe this is the fact that steve never really seems to be upset or disappointed when robin comes out to him. at first, he's just worried about her. he thinks that she's being down on herself, so he assures her that of course he'd want to be her friend, no matter what. when she tells him about tammy, he's confused, and then he's surprised, and then he takes a moment to think about it. in my opinion, he doesn't seem to really be upset at all, just... genuinely thinking about things and processing this Huge Information he just learned that changes a lot of how he sees robin and their relationship. he isn't masking hurt or disappointment when he tells her tammy's a dud and sings in his little muppet voice, he's just cheering up his friend, and he's clearly having fun with it.

so yeah, i think steve probably never really liked robin That Way, though perhaps he could have, given more time. i think he just really liked her a friend, so much that once the idea of liking her romantically was planted in his head, he had a hard time really differentiating (as many of us do) and defaulted to what was Normal and Expected of him.

thank u for the ask!!