#so I'm tagging joyce

[willel]

Have you seen the news about the stage play? Apparently it will feature the Creels and their arrival to Hawkins. But there's some new characters too i guess?

Oh and also apparently Hopper, Joyce and Bob will have roles in the story too. I wonder if the other kids' parents will be featured or will it just feature Jim, Joyce and Bob (also what about Lonnie...? I guess he doesn't exist in the same school as them or something? I am not sure about this part). They also mentioned Joyce's surname before the marriage but i forgot. I am not sure how centered they will be in the story but it still would be enjoyable to watch Joyce's young ages tbh, but I am not sure if they're gonna focus on her relationship with Hopper and Bob.

Oh and the new characters feature a boy and a girl, they are different characters than Henry, Joyce, Hopper and Bob I am guessing, but i might be wrong. But the new characters are said to be 14 years old, so i guess they are entirely different characters or smth?

Interestin, interestin.

“Hawkins, 1959: a regular town with regular worries. Young Jim Hopper’s car won’t start, Bob Newby’s sister won’t take his radio show seriously and Joyce Maldonado just wants to graduate and get the hell out of town. When new student Henry Creel arrives, his family finds that a fresh start isn’t so easy… and the shadows of the past have a very long reach,” the play’s synopsis reads. “Brought to life by a multi-award-winning creative team, who take theatrical storytelling and stagecraft to a whole new dimension, this gripping new adventure will take you right back to the beginning of the ‘Stranger Things’ story – and may hold the key to the end.”

It says it's written by one of the actual show writers and executive producers, so that's a plus. Most of the spin-offs you see are just written by authors hired on to work on the IP. This would be "from the roots" almost. This is probably the most canon spin-off we've seen to date.

Looks like the Duffers themselves actually collaborated on this too so yeah.

As for the story itself, seems like Joyce, Hopper, and Bob are the titular characters. Question is, will they retcon Joyce and Bob not actually knowing each other in school or not. Maybe Hopper will be the thread that ties them together funnily enough.

I don't really know where this falls in the timeline of things. I'm sure I used to know how old Joyce and Hopper were but I also feel like they never explicitly said it...

Let's see...

Looks like people estimate she was born in 1942 along with Hopper, though I'm not sure where they got that Hopper assumption. But let's go with it.

That would make Joyce and them about 17 years old during this stage play. Ok, older than I thought.

In which case, Henry is like, 12 years old in 1959 isn't he? So them meeting each other seems unrealistic. I mean, I know the middle school and high school are on the same campus, but a direct meeting between Joyce, Hopper, or Bob with Henry doesn't make much sense.

The neighborhood Henry lived in also looked like the rich affluent part of town, which I don't think fits Hopper or Joyce's background so it's not like they'd be neighbors.

Hm........... in this stage play, I think we will

Meet Hopper's parents. Specifically his dad who he apparently hated

Meet Joyce's family and learn why she wants to get out of town and how the hell she ended up with Lonnie Byers

I have no idea about Bob but ok

Learn about Virginia Creel and what's actually wrong with that family.

Find out why Joyce's family were such outcasts or why her aunt is considered crazy

Meet some random characters who we will never see again. But Karen will probably be there.

Speaking of Joyce, WE FINALLY GOT A MAIDEN NAME! Maldonado.

I mean........... certainly not what I was thinking it could be. It appears to be of Spanish origin (spanish from Spain)

AND THE MEANING???? LIKE WOW OK. Rude. Giving a lot of "cursed family" vibes. "Bad luck" basically.

Kinda sad they didn't go with the Jewish angle but I mean, who is to say they aren't? I choose to believe it still.

(also, this is hilarious and the reason why wikis aren't always 100% correct. Horowitz is Winona Ryers' original last name. The yearbook image is not from that Yearbook they official released, it was a fanedit that existed way before that book came out.)

[willbyerswithpowersblog]

Stranger things + ao3 tags

[o-wyrmlight]

I'm having way too much with this chapter that I was struggling on just yesterday. What the fuck. Holy fuck. This is what happens when I read a fanfic with a great narrative voice that I adore. I just start going off, I guess. This means Kim's going to be very inwardly opinionated and vocal in Chapter 6.

Anyway whoo Chapter 6 preview for A Toast To The Pigs, a fanfic where Harry didn't lose his memory in Martinaise and still has to solve the case. This preview skips the next chapter:

“…I lost you there, didn’t I?” Harrier asked, sounding disappointed. “Somewhere at the end.” Kim lifted his eyes from his notebook. He stopped flicking his pen in his fingers to push his glasses back up from where they were sliding. Harrier was watching Joyce Messier, a brow raised and a half-crooked grin plastered on his face. Some offshoot of that odd expression of his. Joyce Messier smiled apologetically, shaking her head. Ah. Joyce Leyton-Messier. Kim had almost forgotten entirely that she was there. She really was committed to just listening to his theories and not sharing anything. What was it again that spurred Harrier to share absolutely everything about his theories right here? Rather than somewhere he and Kim could go over in private? Wasn’t this supposed to be confidential? These were just theories. Perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps it was another can-opening. All right, big man. Wet dog. Can-open away.

[inutaffy]

this is mike and this is his boyfriend will and will's boyfriend lucas and lucas's girlfriend max and max's girlfriend el and el's dad hopper and hopper's wife joyce and her son jonathan and his ex girlfriend nancy and her girlfriend robin and her best friend steve and his boyfriend eddie

[lucassinclaer]

i only need super minimal encouragement to talk about this soooooo ty @freetobeeyouandme lmao. been thinking about stranger things heist au again. and it got long into brainstorming territory so just... (waves hand vaguely) thoughts continue under the cut.

legacy families like the byers who never pulled high-end jobs, content in their little pond being small-time crooks incapable of understanding why jonathan, with all his flawless lifts and situational awareness, would try to reach above and start in on the big jobs.

joyce who met lonnie on a job and joyce and jonathan who protect will from lonnie's frustration when will turns out to be an awful thief who doesn't enjoy crime the littlest bit. (he does turn out to be quite the forger when the time comes, though.)

contrast with that the wheelers who are an all-american halfway happy law-abiding family whose eldest, nancy, walks eyes front into a life of crime to protect her friend and finds that it becomes inevitable, a sort of ceaseless need to keep going. who never wanted her little brother involved.

but apparently the wheeler siblings have some sort of crime beacon on them because of course nancy quite literally crashes into her brother trying to take down the same scumbag two towns over she is, although he looks at her like she's crazy when she lays out her plan and man, what her little brother has planned is actually pretty clever and much more subtle than the approach she was gonna take. they have ground rules, but she doesn't try to keep him from pulling jobs. she knows it'd be useless.

dustin is an incredibly bright kid with what may be a slight tendency to go overboard in the name of Science. he loves blowing stuff up every now and again, okay?! and also it's just criminal (heh) what some pharma companies do so he might be breaking into their headquarters and screwing with their formulas and contaminating their experiments until he figures out how to take them down permanently. sue him! (but please don't actually sue him, he hasn't found a great lawyer yet.)

lucas on the other hand was dragged into crime kicking and screaming. not something he ever wanted to do. (will will understand but then lucas kind of loses him when he did it anyway.) mike and dustin sort of kidnapped him into it, basically, when they were all still strangers, dustin and mike barely partners on this one con, and they'd needed a patsy who worked for the corporation they're stealing from. unfortunately they were still young and dumb enough to pick someone actually smart who trapped them in an office until they copped to their scheme at which point lucas demanded proof of their accusations which coincidentally was exactly what mike anf dustin were after. after that they can’t really seem to separate. he's turned into a jack of all trades, lucas sinclair - grifter, thief, hitter... even the occasional hacker. not the greatest at any, but good at all.

(we don't talk about erica who will one day give him a heart attack blowing up his whole carefully crafted alibi.)

steve, the getaway driver who hates his fucking job and is in it only bc there was p much nothing else to do until he finds people who show him there's a way to do it that brings him joy, when he knows what he's fighting for.

robin's a strange sort of grifter, not someone who immediately charms everyone in a room, but who knows how to make herself either invaluable or severely underestimated. she speaks like every language under the sun. like steve she has a certain aimlessness at first but unlike steve it's not due to having no ideas but more of a thing of having no options. until they're offered to her. then she's unstoppable.

max is out there somewhere being a thief different from jonathan, self-made and scared and on the west coast. but if they were to meet jonathan would recognize those gritted teeth and the hard work. it's not natural talent that made her so good at what she does but pure stubbornness.

el, on the other hand, is all raw talent and exploited for it for a long time when she's a kid. it's will who meets her first, who gives her an out, but when it lands him in trouble it's the other criminals who help her get him out. joyce, mike and jonathan develop an instantaneous protective streak for her. lucas isn't sold and dustin is mostly in love with her demolitions capabilities and nancy is hungry for the dirt she has on various government agencies.

[emblazons]

"this child done lost her mind. she brought a whole zoo in here."

Stranger Things S03E05 - The Flayed timestamp roulette - 22 of 34 for @bylrndgm & @magentamee

[briteboy]

harvestfest pt. ii

[jonathanbyersphd]

A timeskip to 1988 is still so wild to me that I have a hard time believing it tbh. Like that's at minimum 20 months of what. Hawkins being quarantined by the government? The same government that El, Will, Mike, Jonathan & Argyle are on the run from? Also, Hopper is dead?? Like legally??? Not to mention that they're supposed to what carry-on as normal in the meantime? Go to school, work, leave for college? I don't know it's just a little too much given the last scene was the apocalypse rolling in, unless Will is having a vecna vision (very probable) but then why would the focus be on El ya know?

I'm not saying it's not possible just that it will be awkward. What I think is more likely is that they're calling for 1988 cars but the season takes place in 87 (probably winter but maybe later) and they're calling for 88 because that's what the model year would've been in 1987. But that's just my theory, and I could be completely wrong

[hawkinslibrary]

someone on the hawkins av club subreddit seems to have found some audition tapes for the first shadow. auditions include ‘george’ and ‘betty’ (as mentioned in this collider article), as well as an audition for young hopper 

[olive-riggzey]

Listen. I haven't even finished chapter 4 of Ulysses and I'm going absolutely feral and need to ramble before I explode

The first sentence. THE FIRST FOUR WORDS. Am I reading too much into it? Maybe. But I will die on the hill that the first four words starting with the letters S, P, B, and M are referencing the main(?) characters. Stephen, Poldy, Buck, Molly. Please let that be intentional because holy FRICK I can't get over it

Stephen indirectly describing Buck Mulligan as what can be interpreted to reference the Trojan Horse??? Absolutely incredible. Also Buck is so unhinged and falls into my favorite trope of "Man that always loudly clowns around is also very witty and gives off vibes that make you not quite want to trust him" AND HE'S A MED STUDENT. (I promised I would try to push Faulkner out of my brain but come on. There's no way Faulkner wasn't vaguely referencing Buck and Stephen when he wrote Shreve and Quentin. I mean maybe it's just a coincidence but I'm pretty sure Faulkner went to Paris on his honeymoon specifically to try and find Joyce to meet him.)

"Yes, my love?" adsfhasfAHDAHFOAIFHOIAF ON FREAKING PAGE 4 YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME YOU CAN'T DO THIS!!!! And referencing Wilde??? Also Hamlet??? Absolutely lost my mind when Buck told Haines that Stephen "proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father." Because WHAT. WHY ALGEBRA.

Just. The prose in general. Absolutely obsessed with the way the writing slowly gets taken over by Stephen's thoughts to the point that it's almost entirely internal with a few external things scattered here and there.

Anyways I'm going to have to physically restrain myself from reading ahead because I'm supposed to stay on pace with the rest of the class but. What if I just read as far as I want and then go back and read again to make sure I don't reference too far out. Because this is 100000% a resurfacing hyperfixation on books of this sort and I'd like to entertain it for a while longer.

[monotonous-minutia]

words can’t describe how much this production means to me

[boydykedoctor]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, Joyce Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper Characters: Joyce Byers, Eleven | Jane Hopper, Will Byers, Jonathan Byers, Jim "Chief" Hopper Additional Tags: Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year's Eve, HellfireHolidayExchange2022, Pre-Season/Series 04, Canon Compliant Summary: The Byers are adjusting to life in Lenora Hills, California, and the holidays have arrived. They're still carrying the grief of what happened at Starcourt, but maybe a little time and a few loved ones can help them make it through December.

Wrote this for @robinsteve!!! Thanks for your patience! Hopefully this gives you some winter-y Byers feelings <3 (I didn’t even MENTION murray in it!)

[regallibellbright]

Today’s Dumbing of Age has someone in the comments comparing Carol to Linda and another reflecting that Linda is, for all her faults, not AS BAD as Carol.

And then there’s me going “Ladies, please! You’re BOTH going to be estranged from your children within a decade.” I only question how many of Linda’s might still be on semi-speaking basis, and how many years it’ll take in either case.

[kirayaykimura]

Soo-Won was hiding from a party. His housemates didn’t really need a reason to throw one, but this one was a celebration for the end of fall midterms, which meant more people going harder than an average weekend party, which meant Soo-Won was reading a book in the basement den that was strictly off-limits to anyone not living in the house.

Lili, who had never met a rule she didn’t immediately want to break, was an exception by virtue of being so annoying no one wanted to continue enforcing the rule with her. 

As such, Soo-Won did not try to stop her when she burst through the basement door at - he checked his watch - a quarter to one wearing a clearly borrowed shirt that was about four sizes too big for her. Nothing about anything was of his concern, so he simply continued reading about the history of the King Hiryuu mythology in the Fire Tribe. 

“Midterms are over,” Lili said, making her way over to where he sat perched on the end of the ugliest yellow couch anyone had ever laid eyes on. It had been around longer than anyone in the house could remember and had seen more things than Soo-Won would care to think about while sitting on it. 

“This isn’t for class.” 

“That makes it worse. You know that, right?” She took a seat next to him and asked, “What are we reading?” 

“We?” 

Lili did not dignify his question with an answer. Instead, she draped herself over his shoulder to peek at the page, boneless in the way only alcohol (or really good muscle relaxants) could make one. There was no way she was going to be able to focus on a fairly dry sociological account of one particular subset of the population as wasted as she was. 

“Historical non-fiction,” Soo-Won said, fighting off a smile. If he smiled, she would get ideas, which was bad because Lili was the type of person to move forward without any ideas at all. He absolutely could not let her know that her slight weight slumped into his side was warm and comforting because then she might think it was okay to do it again. Which, of course, it was not. 

“Fine,” Lili sighed. After a quiet moment, she said, “We don’t really believe in King Hiryuu back home. It’s weird that it’s such a big deal in the Fire Tribe.” 

He stood corrected. Even smashed, Lili could keep up with a fairly dry sociological account of one particular subset of the population.

Soo-Won moved to turn the page, but Lili clumsily batted his hand away.

“I‘m not done with the page yet,” she said, impatient and just slightly slurred. 

“Alright,” Soo-Won said. “You tell me when you’re done.” 

“Don’t patronize me.” 

“Are you this demanding with everyone or do you just think I’m a pushover?” 

“Everyone,” she said on a yawn. “You’re not special.” 

No, he knew that very well. Cursed, maybe. Doomed, almost certainly. But he was nothing special. 

“You can turn the page now,” she said. Then, “You smell nice.” 

“And you smell like you bathed in stale beer,” he said as he dutifully turned the page for them both. 

Her normal scent of jasmine and oranges was heavily masked by whatever keg the guys had gotten their hands on this weekend. It was unfortunate. He quite liked oranges. 

“Some doofus spilled all over me. Straight down the front of my shirt. This is Ramaru’s.” Lili plucked at the hem half-way down her thighs. Her jeans underneath appeared to have avoided the spill zone, though there was a stain near her knee that looked like mustard. Soo-Won was pretty sure that was all her own doing, though.

“Ah,” he said. 

They lapsed into silence as they read. Predictably, Soo-Won was done before Lili, and his mind wandered while he waited for her to catch up. He began idly planning the clean-up process in the morning, how warm Lili was, his essay for Politics in the Middle East, how soft Lili’s hair felt against his neck. He bet it would feel like silk if he ran his fingers through it. Also he had stat’s homework that was due on Monday and was only half-completed. 

Yeah, she was definitely asleep, wasn’t she.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and found her eyes closed and mouth fully agape. 

Of course.

What am I going to do with you? he wondered as he gently set his book aside, careful movements designed not to disturb her. He could disturb her if he wanted to, though. They didn’t have the sort of relationship where casual touches were, well, ever present. That was how he preferred to live his life: at a healthy distance from everyone else. It would be totally normal for him to wake her up and push her away. 

He couldn’t, however, bring himself to do it. Midterms had been stressful for her, and she looked more peaceful than he’d seen her in weeks. She did not look good - her cheeks were splotchy from alcohol, some mascara was smudged beneath her right eye, and a strand of hair had attached itself to the gloss on her bottom lip - but she looked relaxed. 

He didn’t want to be the one to take that from her, which was why he held a finger up to his lips when Ramaru opened the basement door moments later. 

Ramaru froze, took in the scene, and whispered, “I was looking for her. Is she okay?” 

“Just asleep,” Soo-Won answered softly. 

“Cool. Party’s dying down. You want me to-” he mimed picking Lili up and carrying her out. 

“It’s alright,” Soo-Won said, almost without thinking. “I’ll take care of it.” 

Ramaru gave him a thumbs up and left as quietly as he’d come. As the door slipped shut behind him, Lili sighed, stirring. That was all the warning he got before her head tipped off his shoulder. She caught herself instinctively mid-fall with a hand slapped against his knee. Her manicured nails dug in as she sat up with a sharp intake of breath, clearly panicked from almost toppling over into Soo-Won’s lap, forcing Soo-Won to lean back as far as he could to avoid being smacked in the nose by the back of Lili’s head. 

“What happened?” Lili asked, looking around, words now horribly slurred from a combination of alcohol and sleep. Waahap’n. 

“Uh,” was all Soo-Won could manage for a moment. Everything had happened very quickly. “You fell asleep.” 

Lili leaned her forehead against his shoulder again and groaned. 

“Room’s spinning,” she said. 

Soo-Won tentatively gave her a pat on the head and said, “There there.” 

The thing was, he used to be so good at comforting people. He knew people, which made them easy to handle. Lili was just…weird, which made him weird in return. He had absolutely no idea how to deal with her most of the time. 

“Gimme five minutes,” Lili said as she lowered herself, this time on purpose, into Soo-Won’s lap, using his thigh as a pillow. Her legs curled up on the other end of the couch, feet tucked up snug against the back cushions. “I’ll go upstairs. Five.” Then, as if it was his fault, she said, “You should be softer.” 

And she was borderline incoherent. Great. 

Looked like he would be there for a while. At least he had a book to entertain him. Before he picked it back up, though, he tucked the strands of hair that were still firmly attached to her lipgloss behind her ear. The thanks he got was a nose twitch. He discovered her hair was, in fact, just as soft as he imagined it would be. 

Well, he thought. This is inconvenient.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

alright I've not seen Stranger Things so my reading could be VERY off here, but there's something quite interesting to think about Nancy Wheeler as what Veronica Sawyer might have been in a different genre

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

i mean with the way they flashed back to it and what he said about not running away, they were really going ‘eddie needed a moment of growth(TM) redemption death for that time he reacted in a perfectly normal way to witnessing the deeply traumatic body horror death of a person’ lol.