#sara hopper

[pinkeoni]

Lonnie Has Powers: Sins of the Father

“The sins of the father are visited upon by the children”

Lonnie isn’t present for a lot of the show. So if there’s going to be stuff foreshadowed about him, it would have to be through other characters.

So let’s look at two other dads in the show— Jim Hopper along with father of the year Martin Brenner.

In season four, we learn that Sara had cancer because of a Hopper’s history in Vietnam. We also learn that Hopper knew that Sara could be born with health risks and yet chose to have a daughter anyway. And because of Hopper’s actions, Sara tragically ends up suffering the consequences for it.

I don’t think that Hopper is evil for this, nor did he obviously want Sara to have cancer and suffer, but it does reinforce this idea that the sins of the father being visited upon by the children. Or basically, thay children suffer from their parents choices.

Now let’s look at Brenner and how this applies with him and El. Yes I’ve been seeing and reading all of the new theories regarding the circumstances around El’s birth, but I can still make my point even without all of the specifics. Regardless of exactly how, El was born with powers because Brenner wanted her to be, and now El has to carry the burden of what Brenner gave to her.

So how does Lonnie fit in with these two men?

Remember how Will, El and Sara all had those similar big cat plushies? Something even noticed by places like Insider? Creating a link between all three of them?

And how even without this detail, the three of them are still linked through thematically anyway? Remember how finding Will was a way for Hopper to redeem his mistakes of the past, and then he accidentally wound up looking for El by accident? Remember when the show cut between Will’s revival in the Upside Down, Sara’s death in the hospital and El’s sacrifice?

So then, does Will create a rule of three and share something similar with the other two?

The way that the connection is made is that if Lonnie, like Hop and Papa, had a child knowing that they could pass something on to them. And like Hopper, maybe he didn’t want to give something to Will, but like Brenner, maybe he ended up giving his son powers.

You can’t make this parallel with Joyce. Unlike Hopper and Brenner, Joyce didn’t have any prior knowledge of the supernatural and what was really going on with Will, despite her determination to try and understand it. If Joyce did have some kind of power/sensitivity, she wouldn’t be aware of it. If anyone did have knowledge of the supernatural and tried to cover it up/get rid of it, it would have been been the guy who we know was lying to Joyce about his intentions and was trying to get rid of Will.

So Lonnie knows that he has powers and he knows that his kids could have them. The first kid turns out fine. But then the second kid is different and he knows this. And it’s not Will’s fault that he was born the way that he was but Lonnie is going to try to fix him as hard as he can. It doesn’t work because this isn’t something that can be cured. When Lonnie recognizes that this is futile, he leaves his family, until an opportunity arises where he get his old family back without Will in the picture.

tagging: @aemiron-main

[will80sbyers]

Crack theory about Sara Hopper being somehow alive and being Vickie lol

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things Darkness on the Edge of Town Review (Part 2 of 3)

Warning: The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS from both the book and from Season 4 of Stranger Things!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out my other Stranger Things Reviews. Like, Reblog, and let me know what your thoughts are regarding the show or the upcoming season! :)

Stranger Things Comics/Graphic Novels:

Stranger Things Six

Stranger Things Halloween Special

Stranger Things The Other Side

Stranger Things Zombie Boys

Stranger Things The Bully

Stranger Things Winter Special

Stranger Things Tomb of Ybwen

Stranger Things Into The Fire

Stranger Things Science Camp

Stranger Things “The Game Master” and “Erica’s Quest”

Stranger Things and Dungeons and Dragons

Stranger Things Kamchatka

Stranger Things Erica The Great

Stranger Things “Creature Feature” and “Summer Special”

Stranger Things Tie-In Books:

Stranger Things Suspicious Minds

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 1 of 3)

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 2 of 3)

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 3 of 3)

Part 4: Remaining Characters

Much like Joey Kim from Zombie Boys, there are two characters introduced in this novel that I wish had been on the show: Rosario Delgado and Martha Washington.

About two months before the investigation into Saint John, Hopper gets assigned Delgado as a partner, and the two of them hit it off nicely. Initially, Delgado appears abrasive on the surface both as a means of fending off her bigoted co-workers and proving herself as one of the first women serving in the homicide department in Brooklyn 65th Precinct.

However, as she gets to know Hopper (and realizes that Hopper isn't bothered at all about her being a Hispanic woman), she begins to trust him. It gets to the point that when Hopper goes behind his captain in continuing the investigation into Saint John's killings, Delgado not only has his back, but goes out of her way to look after Diane and Sara when Hopper is forced to infiltrate Saint John's cult.

One aspect I like about Delgado is she's smart enough to make connections that others miss during the investigation. She's the one who discovers the list of addresses for community outreach meetings that the victim Jacob Hoeler had. This not only reveals Saint John was collecting followers from support groups, but that the first two victims (Jonathan and Sam) were leaders for several of those groups and Saint John had them murdered to disband the groups and assimilate them into his own.

Delgado also pegs Lisa Sargeson, a psychologist who also runs a support group, as someone connected to Saint John, which proves to be true when it's later revealed Lisa ran a program at the Rookwood Institute for rehabilitating prisoners, and Saint John was one of them:

Delgado also has an admirable ability to take aspects in a case and string them together to form a coherent narrative. She's also careful about not forming preconceptions while doing this.

Delgado and Hopper have a great dynamic of bouncing theories off one another, which leads to them making connections that inevitably help them solve the case.

It's also worth noting that Delgado and Hopper never express any romantic interest in one another, and their relationship is strictly professional. I appreciate that, especially when it would have been easier to go with the old cliche of having them fall in love.

Martha is also another character I enjoyed. She's the sister of Leroy, and while it initially looks like Leroy is trying to rescue her from the cult, it's revealed to be the other way around: Leroy is the one who's been suckered in by Saint John, and Martha is desperately trying to pull him out. She pretends to be a loyal follower for Saint John, but secretly despises him and sees Saint John for who he really is. She also figures out quickly that Hopper is undercover, and saves his life at one point when Saint John sends his followers after them. She's a lot more strong-willed than she's given credit for, and she's more than capable of holding her own in a fight.

Most of the other characters in the book are decent, but there isn't a lot to talk about regarding them. Diane and Sara mostly act as support for Hopper during his story, and don't have a lot to do outside of that. While we do get a little snippet of Diane working to improve the New York education system, it's not explored in-depth the same way Hopper's job is.

Their scenes together as a family are sweet, but it's also overshadowed by the foreknowledge that Sara is going to die from cancer and Hopper's marriage to Diane will break down as a result.

Bobby LaVorgna, Hopper and Delgado's police captain, reminds me a lot of Julius Root from the Artemis Fowl series, except without the kind of humor that was written into Root's character.

Leroy was all over the place. That might have been intentional given how far he was under Saint John's influence (and in some cases, he wasn't even in control of his actions), but it made it hard to connect with his character.

Agent Gallup, the patronizing FBI agent who forces Hopper to infiltrate Saint John's cult, was my least favorite character. He reminds me a lot about Jake Sullivan, the colonel who was hunting El in season 4, except a lot more smug and a lot less interesting. The attempts to humanize him later on after being an obstructive bureaucrat for the first half of the book (and threatening to destroy Hopper's life if he didn't do what he wanted) failed to impress me.

Part 5: Social Commentary

For a book dealing with a portion of Hopper's life back in the 70s, it covers plenty of social issues that unfortunately remain as relevant today as they were back in 1977.

Take the economic situation in NYC at the time: It's constantly referenced in the book that money is so tight that resources and social programs are constantly cut to save costs, resulting in long-term problems like urban decay, homelessness, a rise in crime, and so on:

When Saint John enacts his plan of cutting the power and creating a city-wide blackout to create mass panic, it's noted by Martha that the cops go to protect Manhattan where the wealthier portion of the population is. Meanwhile, areas like the Bronx have no cops and get left to burn in the ensuring riots:

The narration lays it thick that income inequality is a major factor in how rich people vs poor people are treated when a crisis happens. It also demonstrates that issues like these, as well as how people are left to struggle without the proper resources to fix their lives, are what allow cults like Saint John's to indoctrinate people under the pretense of helping them:

What's frustrating is, even when Saint John is finally stopped, the social issues that caused this catastrophe in the first place still remain. It's even likely in-universe that there will be another cult in the future that exploits these same socioeconomic problems within New York City, and might even succeed in causing more damage than Saint John did.

I'm sure there are people who are going to ask if this book constitutes Copganda (i.e. a form of propaganda in media that's used to depict cops in an excessively positive light while downplaying negative qualities on their part to sway public opinion for the benefit of law enforcement). To that, I would argue it's more complicated than that definition:

On the one hand, there are multiple times when Hopper thinks about how he wishes the city would give more money to police departments under the belief it would help them do their jobs better. With all the controversies surrounding cops these days, from corruption to police brutality to repeated patterns of discriminatory behavior by cops towards minorities to the way police institutions are structured, Hopper's viewpoint comes off as seriously questionable. There's a reason "Defund the Police" has become a rallying cry for some in recent years, and why groups like Black Lives Matter have risen to prominence, and it has a lot to do with repeated abuses of power by police that have been ongoing for decades. For Hopper to act like the problem is only a lack of money for the police without considering other reasons for why there continue to be long-term problems in society comes off as tone-deaf on his part.

There is an argument the book might be engaging in Deliberate Values Dissonance. The book takes place in the 70s, and there are things cops did back then that would land them in serious hot water by today's standards. Take for instance the joyride Hopper and Leroy are subject to when the FBI capture them, and how Hopper processes it:

Or even the way Hopper and Martha are taken into custody where one of the officers resorts to unnecessary physical violence against Hopper despite how he willingly surrendered himself:

The book briefly brings up issues of police brutality and how cops dance dangerously close to the line of what is and isn't illegal when dealing with suspects and criminals, but it doesn't go deeper in exploring the inherent problems with that.

I get this is supposed to be Hopper's perspective and his story, but I remember criticisms of Hopper being a loose cannon back in season 3 when he was behaving in a way that should have gotten him disbarred as Chief of Hawkins. Cops acting like vigilantes in real life has repeatedly been shown to have disastrous consequences, and I know for a fact that the way the show chose to frame Hopper's actions in S3 have caused him to become an extremely controversial character in the fandom.

There's also the whole issue with how societal problems like homelessness, rehabilitation, gangs, socioeconomic status, and lack of funding for social programs are treated: For the most part, it does explore these issues as a means of explaining how Saint John was able to manipulate people into joining him. The main point of contention is that once Saint John is defeated, these issues aren't brought up again in the narrative. It's jarring since the book took the time to reference said issues, and then proceeded to quickly move past them. There's no exploration about whether or not government officials took a deeper look at the factors leading up to the blackout and Saint John's riot, and asked themselves whether or not they should impose reforms for people and institutions to ensure this doesn't happen again.

It's possible the ambiguity could have been deliberate on Adam Christopher's part. Maybe the book was trying to be reflective of real life where tragedy strikes and people still refuse to make the necessary changes to make things better. Regardless, it still left a bitter taste in my mouth. I understand there's no simple answer to problems like these, but I wish the book would've at least referenced possible solutions that were being undertaken to prevent horrors like this from happening again rather than glossing over it.

To be continued in Part 3...........

[catherineav]

Chapters: 3/4 Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jim "Chief" Hopper & Sara Hopper, Eleven | Jane Hopper & Sara Hopper, Joyce Byers & Sara Hopper, Will Byers & Sara Hopper, Jonathan Byers & Joyce Byers & Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper & Jim "Chief" Hopper & Sara Hopper, Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper, Diane/Jim "Chief" Hopper Characters: Sara Hopper, Jim "Chief" Hopper, Joyce Byers, Eleven | Jane Hopper, Will Byers, Jonathan Byers, Mike Wheeler, Nancy Wheeler, Dustin Henderson, Lucas Sinclair, Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Diane (Stranger Things) Additional Tags: Sara Hopper Lives Summary:

Sara Hopper survives, but that doesn't mean the Upside Down disappears.

Sometimes, Sara wishes she still had cancer.

Well, not for real. But if she was sick, maybe her parents would still love each other.

When Sara was living in the hospital, her parents always held hands and sat close together and smiled sweetly. They took turns doing the funny voices in the books they read her. They said "I love you" a lot to each other.

Now, they only say it to her. 

[rosettastarlight]

While I was looking up The Black Phone because I recently watched it, I saw someone make up this au where Vance Hopper was Jim Hopper's son or relative, and lately, I've been kinda obsessed with it.

So, I kinda took into account that if they were related, they'd know each other as they died only a year apart, and...I made something. Hope you like it.

[0aurelion-sol0]

Byler/Ellie & Riley this, Elmax/Ellie & Riley that, Jim & El & Sara/Joel & Ellie & Sarah that, Jonathan/Tommy this, Fungus & Clickers & Infected/Upside Down & Demogorgon & Flayed that... 🙄

NO, you know what is really the most important parallel between Stranger Things & The Last Of Us guys ? Let me reintroduce it to you! 😈

[byler-twitter-escapee]

Steve is a great mum but can we talk about how good of a dad Hopper is ❤️

[i-used-to-wear-the-fedora]

Stranger Things/ The Black Phone, Cats in The Cradle

Based on the AU by @rosettastarlight !

Jim couldn't blame Diane for wanting to move away after Sara died. Watching your kid slowly die from something you might have given her kept the police chief up laye at night. Wondering about all the things he could've done differently. He wasn't mad when she left. But he wished he could have at least seen his son one more time before they went to Colorado.

Vance was ten, and just like Jim at that age, he got in trouble enough to be on a first name basis with all of the officers in his precinct. Usually it was small stuff like backtalking his teachers or breaking vending machines. But then Sara was diagnosed with cancer. She started to get sicker and sicker. All they could do was watch as Sara's condition got worse every day. Eventually, she was staying at the hospital full time and it weighed down on the Hopper family.

Jim remembered the day he had been reading Sara a Mary Poppins book when they got a call from Vance's school saying he'd knocked another kid out. The kid's parents wanted to press charges. It was only after Jim explained their home situation and offered to pay for the kid's medical bills when the parents decided to drop the charges. As they drove home, Jim gripped the driving wheel tightly. Trying not to let the frustration out at as his son when he spoke.

"Why the hell would you go and do something like that?" Jim asked, peering at his son in the rearview mirror. "You're lucky they didn't press charges. Now we have to pay that boy's hospital bill on top of everything else!"

"So?" Vance shrugged. He looked out the backseat window to avoid his father's gaze.

"So, we're already struggling to pay Sara's hospital bills. You know that." Jim snapped. Vance went quiet at this. His fists curled up, but nothing came out. They started seeing a family therapist at the hospital after the incident. The woman said it was normal for one child to lash out after something this traumatic happening in a family.

When Sara died, the strain on their family finally broke. Diane saying she couldn't do this anymore and Jim? He was too worn out to disagree. Signing the divorce papers a year later. Diane had won primary custody with Jim only getting visitation on the weekends. Then she moved to Colorado. He remembered the look in his son's eyes as he helped them pack. It was something between disappointment and anger. Jim's stomach turned as he remembered not saying a word to him that day. He tried calling them a few times over the years, but no one ever picked up.

Jim had moved back to Hawkins a few weeks later. He had nothing left except an ice-cold beer and new episodes of Magnum after work. It was a Friday night when the call came. Leaving the sofa, beer in hand, the man almost dropped his drink when he heard his ex-wife's voice.

"Vance is missing."

Vance had run away before. Only for a few hours, but because he had a record, they hadn't taken his son's disappearance seriously. Jim booked a flight out to Denver as soon as possible. Arriving to find Diane openly sobbing as her new husband tried and failed to comfort her. Losing Sara had been painful, but now Vance too?

He was the fourth disappearance in the past year. All boys around his age, supposedly taken by someone nicknamed "The Grabber." Jim recalled the anxiety rising in his gut as the days went by. Days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Life went on while the dread of what could've happened to their son hung over his head.

It had been almost a year when he received another call. They found his son. Alive.

The police had found him wandering in the middle of the road, half naked and covered in blood. They were led back to two houses. One with the body of the man who took his son, the other with the bodies of the missing boys. Billy Sholtwater, Bruce Yamada, and Griffin Stagg. They all went to the same school. They were all around the same age. And there's a good chance that if his son hadn't slit the fucker's throat himself, Vance would be dead too.

When Sara got sick, Jim never cried in front of his family. He couldn't seem weak. He needed to be the one they could lean on and go to for help. But when he entered the hospital room to see his son? Pale, unnaturally skinny, and covered in scars that weren't there before? That he got because Jim hadn't been there to protect him? The man couldn't stop himself from breaking down as he wrapped Vance in the tightest hug he'd ever given his son. It had been a long three years since he'd seen his son, and now he wanted to never let him go again.

The news was everywhere by the time Vance had been discharged from the hospital.

"Local middle schooler kills The Grabber in a daring escape."

Everyone in Denver knew about Vance Hopper. About what happened to him. The looks and comments didn't stop no matter where he went, and it was starting to have an effect on him. Diane and him both noticed this and with some advice from the child therapist they had Vance start seeing, it was decided the boy would come back with Jim to Hawkins.

He wasn't surprised that Vance protested. After everything he went through, now he was going to move away from everything he knew. But Vance always listened to his mother. Reluctantly getting on the plane with estranged father. Still unusually quiet the whole time as he stared out the window of the plane.

Jim knew he had been a shit parent since Sara died. But that was going to change. Grabbing his son's hand and giving it a reassuring squeeze as the plane landed.

"Everything will be okay. I promise."

[earthravenclaw]

Was thinking about the (situational) similarities between Sara Hopper and Sarah Miller for a long time. The time it took me to pick up on the name thing was... embarrassingly long. Aaaand, as I type this, I realize: El and Ellie. And the dads are one-syllable J names.

[elposting]

well, that theory was very wrong

[natlovessoup]

the cold flow of the air gave him chills all over his body. despite being outside, he felt like he couldn’t breathe, every breath got harder. “el!” he yelled out of frustration, again. where was she? he heard something drop in the distance, but because of the blue fog he couldn’t see what it was. he tried to run, but felt like his body was stuck and everything went too slow for him. why can’t he move the way he wants to? tears welled up in his eyes, he promised not to cry but he can’t lose her. he can’t lose another daughter, not again. with every strength in his body, he tries to push through this feeling of this weighted blanket in the air that seemed to stop him. “eleven!” he screamed out again. he heard the noise again, much closer this time. he stopped moving, trying to take in his surroundings. it was silent. he could breathe again and smelled the stench he was familair with, the one time he went to look for will in the upside down. how did he even get here? he was at his cabin, it looked rotten and abandoned. behind him, he heard leaves rustling. he turned around fast, but saw nothing. “el?” he asked.

then he heard it. the call of her voice. “daddy?” he looked in the direction of the sound. there she stood in the door opening, looking exactly like the blissful memories he has of her. his heart broke, he had forgotten about the amount he missed her. of course he thought of her every day, but he focused on other things so much, he had forgotten about the pain. her blonde hair styled in pig tails, her blue dress flowed through the air. her piercing blue eyes pierced through his own. his breath got caught in his throat, he couldn’t make a sound. “sara?” before he knew it, his body was moving to the door, he closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around her. or so, he thought. the moment he wrapped his arms around her, he felt nothing but himself. he panicked and opened his eyes, the last thing he saw of her was her smiling face turning into dust. he broke down, his body fell to the ground and he wrapped his arms around himself trying to calm himself down. what sick nightmare was this? 

but then he heard her, the screams of eleven’s voice calling out his name in the middle of the woods. “dad!” she sounded scared, she needed his help. he had no time to break down, despite this world being cursed; he had a blessing to see his first daughter again, and he was about to find his second one.

[strangerthanyou011]

i’ve seen people compare henry creel to will and el, but i’ve never seen anyone compare him to sara. think about it!!! military dad, “died” at a young age in a hospital… why would they go so in depth explaining how hop had to deal with chemicals with no protection and the guys that had worked with him all had problems when they had kids? idk if sara is alive now, but she definitely had powers and definitely didn’t actually die of cancer. brenner probably took her.

i also think it’s very possible lonnie was in the military too. i don’t think they’ve ever explicitly said that, but the anger issues, drinking problem, teaching his kids to shoot, strained familial relationships, caring about being a stereotypical American Man….. it all adds up!!!!!

[ohblimeygeorge]

So I was reading an article on things that need answering in s5 and it bought up how hopper thought him helping make chemical weapons as a teenager with no protection was what made Sara sick and as we know terry Ives was also experimented on while she was pregnant with el right.. we also obviously see sara being looked after in a hospital setting and when we see hopper collapse in grief in the stairwell it’s also the same looking stairwell that el runs down in a flashback in s4 so is Sara being looked after in the lab?? And if so, if she’s just ‘regular sick’ - why?? And in an interview a few years back, David confirmed the hospital room is same location or same looking location and also that Sara and el both had the same lion toy and that we also know it appears in castle byers??? Which in a show that we’re told ‘everything is intentional’ why do 3 separate kids have the same toy? And THEN I thought, throughout the show but especially in s1 when Will is missing, Joyce is continually known as ‘crazy’, ‘on the edge’ etc.. and it seems like something that isn’t a new thing that’s happened just bc her son is missing it’s something that people already come to accept.. so what if - and here is where my mind goes a lil crazy - in her desperation to keep her family afloat when she was pregnant with will and Lonnie was still being an asshole and not supporting his family as he should, she turned to brenner for the same or similar experiments as terry Ives?? And she was given drugs or whatever that messes with her a little and what if Will did go back to the lab to be tested on but only when he was really little so he would’ve not remembered it/blocked it out and that’s also why when Joyce goes to the lab in s1 she asks brenner what he’s done with her son despite not thinking of any of the lab stuff before?? And in the papa script when Will apparently seems to recognise brenner despite us not seeing them meeting at any point throughout all the seasons?

I feel like I’m just making up absolute nonsense but my brain needs to get this out lol

please tell me any of this makes sense so I’m not an absolute loony 🥲

[aethermint]

Headcanon that maybe Steve Harrington knew Sara Hopper when he was younger?

I had this sweet and depressing dream where Sara Hopper and Steve were childhood best friends, and Steve was extremely close with her, inseparable. Like siblings perhaps. Let's headcanon that Steve also thought of hopper as a sort of father figure since his parents were never around. And When Sarah passed, he was distraught, and even more so when Hopper distances himself and he is left all by himself to their grief. Having an absent emotionless mother and secretive father??, he doesn't have any healthy support and so the reign of King Steve begins when he turns to parties and alcohol and girls. But I like to imagine he was a really sweet and kind boy. Maybe that's why he likes to pretend so often.

[rosettastarlight]

Since I’m finally feeling better, and I figured I should get this all out now before the life gets sucked out of me by the joy that is customer service during the Holidays, bleh, but this is basically headcanons I’ve got for the au where Jim Hopper and Vance Hopper are father and son. Obviously, this is full au since I’ve already discussed canon compliant because the timelines match up a lot better than you think for a tragic backstory, but anyway! Full au entails the Black Phone taking place around 1983 or 1984 which would make Vance only about a year or two above El (I can never see him past 14 whenever I post about him, so he’s 14 when he moves to Hawkins and 13 when he was kidnapped), where Vance ends up moving to Hawkins after his dad insists on seeing him more because both the Grabber and Disappearance of Will Byers would, um, definitely be incidents that made Hopper realize life’s too short. 

I feel like I should also mention I personally headcanon Vance as autistic, and I might give him traits I myself have. Also, that in this au, Vance would have been born in 1969-70 instead of 1964 to fit, and that the “Refrigerator mom theory” was only just starting to be discredited in the 60s and 70s, which was a theory people believed meant autism and neurodivergent symptoms in general were the parents’ fault because they didn’t give their child the correct amount of love and attention they should have during their developmental years. With that aside, I kinda tend to ramble, so if this is long, I’m sorry.

It’s mostly about some I have about Vance in general and the Hopper family before Sarah died, so on we go!

Hopper was still very much nervous about having kids due to the stories he heard from old friends who were exposed to Agent Orange with him, about their kids being born wrong or not at all, so he'd never been more relieved or happy when Vance was born perfectly fine if a little early. He figured he maybe got lucky, and wasn’t quite as anxious or felt as guilty about withholding the risks from Diane when she told him she was pregnant again nearly a year later.

Of course, when Sarah got sick with cancer, Jim realized he wasn’t the one that was lucky, Vance was, and he does wonder to himself sometimes through the years if maybe the reason Vance is so “different” is because the chemicals were passed down to him through Jim, too, just in a different way.

The camera shot of Hopper crying in the hospital stairwell is through the perspective of nine-year-old Vance who realized in that moment his sister was never getting better because his father never cries.

Vance is very touch averse unless you're close to him like friends, his parents or Sarah, and even then a warning is best, from behind is not advised without letting him know its you (after escaping the Grabber, coming up and touches from behind was completely off limits for a long while, it sent him into full fight or flight mode and you know exactly which one he's gonna pick), and sometimes touch can still get too much and he will make it known. He reacts really badly otherwise, if you are not close and you touch him, you get a warning on good days by just pushing you away and on bad days, expect him to swing at you.

Vance is not good at reading social cues or how he's supposed to react in certain situations, which results in his rude and standoffish behavior.

When he likes something, he gets very cautious with anything different, someone once posted that getting Vance to try something new is like getting a feral cat into a bath, and that's all I can see.

When getting instructions, Vance needs them super specific, he'll ask questions and such of what exactly he's doing or grabbing, it drives Jim up the wall and he tries to stay patient when Vance is practically interrogating him or when he's not specific enough which ends with Vance bringing back or doing the wrong thing he was supposed to.

This is both because Hopper knows his son just wants to be sure and do a good job and because he knows if he loses his temper and snaps at him, Vance will bring or do the wrong thing on purpose out of pure pettiness and spite.

Jim and Vance's similarities both divide them and bring them together. When Vance was a kid, it helped bond them because while Jim didn't entirely understand what Vance had, he did understand Vance got angry easily the same way he did when he was younger (although for different reasons, Jim because his dad was a fairly abusive douchebag, and Vance because he is easily overstimulated and had a lot of meltdowns.), and tried ways that helped his anger issues to help Vance that actually worked somewhat.

Big Hopper taught little Hopper how to fight. He thought it might help Vance to get the anger out since sometimes, to him, you just need to hit something, and would often encourage him to playfight or practice his punches when he could see Vance start to get overwhelmed at home.

Diane fought with him about it because she didn't like him encouraging violence to solve problems.

Hopper would also playing loud music on the car radio that he knew Vance liked to calm him down by being able to listen to just one, constant sound while he quietly coached him through breathing techniques.

Overall, neither he nor Diane really understood how to deal with Vance, they did try their best with varying results, but every now and then Vance tries to let them know the effort’s still appreciated.

Jim honestly doesn't mind Vance's aversion and just chooses to appreciate that he must be doing something right that Vance feels safe enough around him to consider his touch familiar and calming.

When they were still married, Diane mostly handled Vance since he needed to be handled somewhat delicately because of his aversions and hypersensitivity but at the same time needed to be taught his behavior wasn’t okay when the teacher called home for the tenth time that week on Wednesday. Meanwhile, because of Jim’s hesitance to be too strict or get angry with either of his kids, he let Sarah get away with a lot.

Daddy’s girl Sarah and Mama’s boy Vance.

I’m taking more my experiences with my brother as kids for this one since we don’t know a lot about Sarah.

Sarah and Vance were pretty close, actually, despite their differences, though Vance had to be reminded a few times to be gentle with his sister. Sometimes, the cute aggression would take hold, and he’d tackle her, poke, or pinch her playfully, and once or twice just pick her up to show he could and carry her around the house like a big teddy bear.

They would chase each other a lot and bring back home sticks, rocks, and whatever poor unfortunate worm they found on the sidewalk or grass outside.

They both loved animals and the zoo, and while never successful, would hide from their parents whenever they lured home a stray animal from mice to dogs.

Even as a kid, Vance would probably try to catch baby alligators if you let him, and “No, honey, you cannot pet the giant snake, just because it’s friend-shaped does not mean it’s a friend.”

Like most siblings, they did get into fights that would turn into brawls, but despite what Jim would ever believe, 8 times out of 10, Sarah did start it and she was a biter.

This is getting really long, so I’m just gonna make this part 1 of 2 and get back to this later.

[penstealingghost]

I don’t care if you like Hopper or not but I am so sick of y’all saying it is his fault that Sara died. I keep seeing people say he should of known better and not have children. What did your school teach about agent orange? These kids that were drafted, and I do mean kids they were very young, were not given all the information. He likely did not know the connection until after her diagnosis.