#too smart for strangers

[withapurplestripe]

wayne never trusted the suburbanites of hawkins. he’d been fine with them before, but once eddie started living with him, and he heard the way their kids spoke to his, he quickly turned his back.

when eddie came home crying because some girl called him a freak, or hid his bruised wrist behind his back and insisted he’d fallen over, he would say, some kids just follow their fathers, ed, there ain’t nothing you can do or not do about it. just count your lucky stars you’re smarter than them. it was a small comfort but the best he could do without his voice cracking.

so when nancy wheeler, robin buckley, steve harrington started showing up, packed into a beemer the boy had been bought at sixteen as a ‘starter car’, he had been nervous. buckley was okay, she wasn’t so prim and proper, and he’d heard enough stories about wheeler’s gun storage from eddie to see through any facade of manners. but harrington.

harrington was different. he stared at eddie whenever he laughed loud, or changed his voice, or gesticulated wildly. he smirked softly to himself when eddie referenced dnd.

he was the embodiment of hawkins.

when the four of them tumbled through the door together, laughing and nudging each other in a scramble for the sofa, wayne stood from his chair and left. he couldn’t bear to see his boy mocked all night by someone pretending to be a friend.

(what he didn’t notice was the way steve soaked up the sounds of eddie’s laugh, trying to work out how to be the one to cause it; or how proud he felt when dustin’s reluctant tutoring paid off and he could understand a nerdy comment.

steve harrington was in fact the antithesis of hawkins.

because he loved eddie munson.)

[bethhiraeth]

Dustin is book smart, Lucas is socially smart, Will is emotionally smart and Mike is tactically smart and that is why they work together so well

[sade-alicious]

mike is an established smart and clever character from the beginning idk how everyone picked up the “mike wheeler has rocks in his head” joke and ran with it

[starsundertheceiling]

I’m probably a little late to the party (heh) but there’s something I’ve noticed concerning color theory and Max, and Max in general

When she is introduced to us as MADMAX, her situation with Billy makes her feel lonely and angry. She’s wearing red clothes (with a white stripe!) and her hair is down (letting her rage roam free).

In here, she’s clearly annoyed. She’s just left Billy’s car, Mr. Clarke made her stand before the class and named her Maxine when she just wanted to melt into the background and get over her first day at an unfamiliar school, still not thrilled about having to move from California.

Still, she’s zipped down, since those people didn’t do anything especially hurtful towards her and maybe she’s a little hopeful about them. 

When she’s mad after an interaction with Billy she’s wearing red:

Darker red! She’s at school where she won’t have to deal with Billy for a while. She’s cooling like lava but there’s still one streak of the anger in the back of her head.

When the boys approach her, her zip-up sweatshirt is unzipped to show some of the color underneath. She’s happy! She will not let her guard down completely but she won’t hiss at them immediately! Still, she’s ready for disappointment and snapping right back to being fully red.

Yellow is not a lighter shade of red, but it’s definitely close on the color wheel. Closer to white, too! She is showing she’s not only mad, there also is softness inside her! It’s still a shade connected to red (anger) but yellow by itself is more of a happiness color. She wants to make friends but is still scared because of the new environment and Billy.

In the car with Billy (the scene where he wants to run over the party), the entire scene is shot in a way that’s barely letting us see her clothes. It’s mostly covered by hair, too, but we can see it’s still at least a little unzipped as there’s a bit of the yellow collar visible.

In the scene, she’s defending Hawkins saying, that it’s not that bad and that she can’t see any cows (yellow). She’s scared of Billy, so she’s trying to cover up her sympathy towards Hawkins and towards the boys (with red and her hair, Billy saw her get out of the car with the sweatshirt zipped up and hair down, now she’s covering her softness with what is familiar to Billy, so that he doesn’t see anything has changed, notice that softness and hurt her. That’s exactly what she does when she says she doesn’t know the boys trying to protect them from getting ran over).

Yellow! Fully yellow :) She’s happy to be shown weird pollywog-like creatures with the rest of the Party!

Right after Will gets possessed, her question as to what “true sight” means gets brushed off by all of the boys. She’s hurt and feels excluded, but her hurt makes her angry again. Next time we see her, she’s all red again.

“Party members only! This is non-negotiable.”

“I thought you guys wanted me in your Party!”

At the arcade! She’s already acclimated to Hawkins, and the arcade is her favorite place. 

Alright, I’m getting tired and my third eye is slowly closing, so I’m going to wrap this up quickly, since I think I presented what the gist of the idea is.

In season 3, yellow, patterns, colors! She is now fully a member of the party! She has friends, she knows the secrets, El is back. This is the happiest she’s been.

Clothes are important in both of the girl’s characters! (El changes from murky colors to vivid patterns when she finds herself and there’s a post about El shedding layers of blue in season 4. I’d link it but can’t find it, I’m sorry!) There being a scene like this, with them fooling around with their clothes is basically the peak of happiness :)

Here Max gets really worried because of Billy. She’s feeling a bit guilty ‘cause that’s her step-brother that’s sowing chaos and hurting her friends. El is straining herself. The situation is looking BAD. Blue!

Beginning of season 4

Blue - she’s grieving and feeling guilty, Black coat - she’s hiding herself in a shell. She’s not particularly hiding her grief but she can close off at any moment.

(Btw Lucas is also wearing a blue shirt with some coats. I’d say he is sad because Max dumped him and doesn’t want to tell him things but the coats have a couple of colors because he’s hiding away his nerdiness in order to be cool :) 

Now, the overcoat is blue with yellow elements - Max is being honest about her grief. She’s targeted by Vecna, the Hawkins gang knows she is SAD. It’s her last day, she can unfurl. The sweatshirt is unzipped and showing red and white underneath, the same colors we’ve seen her wear when we first met her. The girl that slammed the door of Billy’s car. The one that was scared of him. That girl is still inside Max. 

Sometimes, she’s wearing this. Grief covered up with brownish-reddish... Red. She’s going back to her previous self, she is talking to Lucas again and he SEES her... But to get that shade of red you go more towards black on the color wheel. She’s not that vivid, fiery red anymore. There are bits of that girl deep inside her, but she’s too tired to make it her entire self. She’s tired. 

[gayofthefae]

And what if I said he held eye contact here before turning away as his smile fades because he was waiting for Will to say something else but he didn't. That it's almost expectant at first, not even quite asking "anything else?" That that's why it changes, why he doesn't look disappointed until the end of the gif - because he isn't yet. That he looks back up but Will is already gone, no eyes to even catch again anymore so his smile fades the rest of the way. That his smiles go from "and then...?" to "oh...my bad" to "damn..." That he closes his mouth, checks himself, catches himself, pulls himself out of the moment.

What if I said "yeah?" was urging him to keep talking and when Will just said "yeah" back and didn't elaborate Mike was disappointed and had to just go back to staring at the painting and thinking to himself.

What if I said that he was looking up because he thought he heard a breath or something and maybe Will was gonna say something else but no...he was just looking out the window, after all.

What if I pointed out the way Mike didn't say a word the entire time, which is what you do when you don't want to dare risk interrupting and having the other person lose their confidence or change what they were going to say; you want to let them finish their fully transparent thought before they remember you're there, so you stay silent. That "yeah?" was the only acknowledgement or vocalization he made the entire time and I wonder if he regretted it because maybe it interrupted after all and maybe Will would have said something else, I don't know.

Maybe he didn't know what he wanted him to say. Maybe he did know and he was waiting, hoping he'd say it but it never came.

Wouldn't that be heartbreaking? If while Will was backing down from saying it, Mike was in anticipation, crossing his fingers behind his back, hoping he would?

Or maybe he didn't know at all. Maybe he just wanted him to keep talking until he found out; just wanted to keep getting to look at him like this while he did.

But he stopped talking. And the moment was over.

I'm just- I'm thinking about him tonight.

[justrambles]

au where a lot of people in hawkins are fantasy/mythological beings (dustin is werewolf, wheelers are faes, robin's a witch etc) and steve is a guy. just a human. but it doesn't stop him from being the trusted babysitter in hawkins.

claudia's been busy lately, so steve has been taking care of dustin's dinner. he's trying right now to make some edible spaghetti, waiting for dustin to come.

he hears the door open and the kid is unusually quiet. steve pokes his head out of the kitchen and sees him them.

dustin is giving steve his most innocent smile, but it doesn't take steve's attention from the being next to dustin.

he looks like a human, minus the fact that he has two large horns protruding from his forehead, blazing golden eyes, blood red fingers, and a tail. oh and there's smoke coming out of his mouth.

"uh... dustin, who's that?"

"who's who? :)"

"the man next to you??"

"oh! you meant eddie! yeah, steve say hi to eddie. eddie, say hi to steve."

the being—eddie— waves, also with a innocent smile.

"and he is–?"

"ohhe'sjustademonisummonedwiththepartytoday. he's no harm, actually."

"what?!"

so yeah, the party thought it would be fun to summon a demon and because dustin did the main act of summoning, the demon—eddie— is now bound to dustin by contract. he can't go back to hell until he finishes the deal, and in the meantime he's got nowhere to stay. and the kids can't take him in, their parents can't know about eddie. this leaves steve's.

steve's baffled, because did he just become housemates with a demon? and eddie is just curious of the human that has all those beings wrapped around his finger.

[hippielittlemetalhead]

Typing this up on my breaks at work so don't come at me for any errors. Not Harringrove unless you mean in like a Capital P Platonic sense reminiscent of his bond with Robin but also Billy antis need not interact?

Season 2 booiiii!!

(part 1)

Steve coasts through Senior year but the small changes in his appearance and occasionally yelling out his two-bits when Munson goes on one of his lunch table rants only settle him so much and Nancy hasn't said but he knows she's not a big fan and he tries to be a steadying presence. Tries to be someone she can forget it all with and let it go because they're kids who signed NDAs and maybe if he can help her the nightmares will stop and the ringing in his ears won't keep coming and going and he will stop spacing out in class. She gets on him about his grades and college. He figures he'll get a job with his dad, learn the company and have enough of an income that he can support Nancy as she pursues her passions and college and fights to change the world and when he inherits the company he'll be in a position to make real lasting change in small towns like Hawkins.

But then the Hargroves come to town and Billy makes a play for the crown that still sits so heavy on his head. Pushes and antagonizes and tries to get a rise from him. There's something about the way he holds himself, the way he preens and struts and takes up so much space while keeping himself so contained that pricks at the back of Steve's head. He's seeing the dots but they're just not connecting. So he lets Hargrove make the big show of biting at his heels but doesn't rise to any of the challenges. And it seems that with someone like Billy to hide behind Tommy has forgotten what happened when he made a play for the crown himself. Though Steve smiles to himself when he realizes that it's obvious Billy wasn't told that little piece of information when he makes comments about Steve being soft and not willing to fight for his reputation. Billy pushes and taunts and Steve is so tired of him and the metalheads heckling him for being punk one minute then calling him a poser the next and trying to keep up appearances for Nancy and the people in town who would report him to his parents before he's ready if he really dressed and behaved the way he wanted to and the government goons he knows have been keeping an eye on Hawkins since that night.

Steve stumbles but he doesn't fall.

Then Tina's Halloween party happens and the girl he loves and is building his future around is calling him and everything they've said and done and promised bullshit. Tommy and Co are still hyping up Hargrove beating Steve's official record as he makes his way out of the house instead of showing off his refined skills from that summer in [insert major big city] that started him on this path to becoming the person he wants to be. He saw Byers around, he knows he'll get her home safe.

Nancy confronts him about not picking her up for school. He won't break up with her behind the school gymnasium of all places but he tells her about everything being bullshit by her own statement, gives her a chance to say she loves him and hopefully mean it, and when she doesn't take it he walks away. He plans to talk to her that weekend. Plans to punk up a little even if she doesn't like it cause it makes him feel safer and more centered, take her flowers and apologize for the way he handled it but call them off. Instead he gets Dustin -one of the kids he's given a ride or two to the arcade with Mike when he and Nancy were headed to the movies or the diner- and monsters and another kid he gives rides to and some random spitfire of a girl. He's angry and sad and scared and he makes sure his heavy leather jacket is zipped up before heading out of the bus to draw out the dog shaped monsters. He needs to keep them safe and if he can hit something bloody in the process that's a win-win.

They end up back at the Byers' place. There's a plan and his part is keeping the kids safe as his now officially ex-girlfriend follows and comforts the boy she is willing to bear her claws for. The plan does not include Billy Hargrove showing up for the random spitfire girl who is apparently his little sister. The plan does not include Billy holding one of his kids (yes it's only been a couple hours but they're HIS to protect godsdammit) up by the front of his shirt and threaten him. The plan does not include a fight that starts with Billy laughing something about finally meeting King Steve and ending with the refrigerator being knocked open and the dead demodog falling out between two scared bloody teenagers who know too much about monsters. The plan does not include Billy Hargrove almost sounding scared as he snaps something about Max going with him because he was not letting her just sneak out to fight monsters with dumbasses trying to get themselves killed and someone named Neil already knowing she was gone and she was lucky Billy hadn't mentioned the Sinclair boy when saying she was probably out with her new friends. It definitely doesn't include Max looking like she finally figured out a particularly hard puzzle and telling Billy if he helped them and helped Steve keep them safe in the tunnels then the chief of police would not only know he was trustworthy and useful but maybe even be indebted for helping make sure the chief's daughter survived her part of the plan.

It makes the dots line up and connect when that makes Billy pause and tentatively ask vague half-questions that he only seemed to trust Max to be able to answer.

Steve decides he hates Neil Hargrove after they've made it through the tunnels easy as anything with Billy taking point so Steve can take up the rear and keep the kids between them. After Billy pulls Dustin away from the weird flower thing that almost got the kid in the face and pulls Mike up and away once Steve got the vine to let go of his leg. After Hopper comes back to see them covered in dirt and soot but grinning victoriously and he had them walk him through what happened so they're all on the same page when the suits decide to show up. After Max pulls Hopper and Billy aside and Steve is able to catch snippets about an asshole and bruises on his face but his knuckles unharmed so she knows he wasn't getting into fights. Steve decides he hates Neil Hargrove and maybe he and Billy have more in common than he thought.

It's not easy after that. The nightmares are still bad but now he and Billy have an understanding and a codeword and a system for whose turn it is to drive when neither of them can sleep. The ringing is a little worse and a little more consistent and his left(? I can't remember if it's his left or right eye that keeps getting messed up) eye gets a little fuzzy when he's tired or stressed. His grades suffer but with Billy's help he's at least able to make it into the local community college once he graduates even if the fancy university his parents wanted him to attend rejected him. El seems intrigued by Steve's look, calls him 'bitching' like she calls Nancy 'pretty' and says he reminds her of her sister and Hopper doesn't seem as big a fan of that but acknowledges that Steve is good babysitter material which will be needed if El is going to be joining society again sooner than he wanted. Max and Billy work with Hopper and Joyce in wearing down Susan to leave Neil or at least make it known that the chief is well aware of what type of man he is and will not stand for it in his town.

That comes to a head when Max and Lucas are unofficially each other's date to the Snowball dance and Neil finds out that Billy knew and even encouraged it (because his sister deserves nice things dammit and this boy was close enough for now... But he's watching and will do his big brother duty if necessary), taking Max there and being seen talking sternly to the Sinclair boy before shaking his hand. Hopper ends up having to lead Neil Hargrove away in handcuffs and Max stays with him and El while Susan files for divorce and custody of Billy through a swollen eye and Steve makes a point of getting Billy his schoolwork and chauffeuring the kids to keep him company during his brief stay in the hospital. Life isn't all good, but it's getting better.

Then Steve's parents come home.

It was thankfully a day The Party and Co weren't over and a recovered Billy was busy applying for summer jobs and he'd deep cleaned the common rooms because that one dusty shelf just rubbed him the wrong way now that the kids weren't around to distract him and the sides of his hair had grown out some so it looked more like the type of haircut he used to have freshman year if a little longer up top. It was unfortunately the day after his father had actually listened to the latest messages and read the end of the year report cards concerning his son's graduation. It was unfortunately a day when Steve was in a shirt that had the sleeves and parts of the sides cut off and showcased his ribs showing the palm sized petal faced Demogorgon head he got the spring break after the first round of interdimensional horror. It was unfortunately a day when [insert pretentious name] Harrington decided that since Steve was 18, couldn't make it into any 'acceptable school' and was obviously not planning on being a proper Harrington man then he was cut off, he knew about the trips to Indianapolis (not all of them but enough) he knew about the music and the parties (even if Steve hadn't thrown one in years), knew Steve was involved in something that had the government coming around and making them look bad in front of the neighbors. He knew about the subtle pins and patches on the jacket hanging by the front door and he wouldn't have that in his house.

So Steve is out by the end of the week. Everything he wants from his room and the house fits into the trunk of the car his dad had signed over as a birthday/graduation gift before the infodump that led them here. He has some money saved from the allowance his parents used to send and a job lined up at the mall opening at the edge of town and the trust fund that his grandparents set up that his father can't touch but neither can Steve before he's 21. He winds up at the door of Hopper's cabin, blurts out that he likes men as much as women, isn't quite an anarchist but it's close some days and his parents found out and it didn't end well before the man can ask what was going on as he opens the door. Hopper lets Steve sleep on their couch while he and Joyce sort out fixing up the old trailer. Billy and El and Nancy and Jonathan help but Steve doesn't want the rest of the kids to know yet. Not with Max still settling after the legal battle with Neil, Lucas at her side trying to help her as best he can, Will recovering from being possessed, Dustin getting ready to go to summer camp and Mike getting over whatever he's being petty about this time (don't want to give the kid more fuel for that fire).

So Steve is mostly moved in to the old trailer by the time he starts at Scoops Ahoy and meets his coworker Robin Buckley. His kids are safe and getting to be kids, his people are all taken care of (Nancy and Jonathan with summer internships and Billy taking Steve's old lifeguard position), the gate is closed, he is set to start some Gen Ed courses at the local community college the next semester and he's heard tell of a decent band that's started playing at The Hideout some weeknights so that will be fun to have something like that closer than Indianapolis.

Life isn't perfect, but it's good. It's getting better.

(part3.1)

[nicxxx5]

mike wheeler is so fucking smart and some of y’all are just too afraid to admit that 

[occasionallykettle]

fucking hell

[emblazons]

"We're right here. I'm right here. Okay? I'm here.”

Favorite Male Character: Lucas Sinclair 🧨💥 ( + color that represents them ) for @bylertruther

[strangerwheelerthings]

The Snowball Dance

Unfortunately, it took me a while before Nancy became my favorite character, but one of the most important scenes towards that jump in ranking was the Snowball Dance, when she asked Dustin to dance with her. First off, it's already kind of sweet that she was willing to be a chaperone at the dance in the first place. However, it’s that simple act of kindness that really lets her character shine.

Nancy was friends with the party, sometime before season one. She has genuine relationships with all the boys, even though insecurity and other teenager-doms have distanced them. Even though she no longer talks to them much, she still cares a lot. She notices them, and pays attention to their feelings. When Nancy caught sight of Dustin’s dejection, she didn’t just smile encouragingly, or go over to give him some sort of pep talk. She had far too much empathy for the reality of his situation for that. Nancy was a social outcast without many friends herself. She genuinely felt for him in that moment, and understood. It wasn’t pity that moved her, but compassion. 

Still, sitting and comforting him would have been an act of compassion in and of itself. Nancy asked him to dance instead. She kept in mind how it might have looked to his peers, and decided to attempt to use that in his favor instead of invoking pity; a pretty older girl wanted to dance with him. 

It's such a simple scene with no real hidden layers, which makes it hard to really dissect. But that same concept could have been handled in a hundred different ways without it being so pure and good as it was. Nancy could have come across as kind of uncomfortable with it, instead of being so focused on him. She didn’t have to be so sweet as she gently taught him on how to dance with a girl more naturally and less awkwardly. She wasn’t exactly sure what to say to make him feel better, but everything she did say was genuine. She kept it lighthearted, but I think she really believed everything she said; he was her favorite of Mike's friends, and he really would capture some girls hearts when he grew up.

She then proceeded to make sure he had a genuinely good time, laughing and joking with him.

The Heart of Nancy Wheeler Masterpost

[self-harmony]

Listen up, I’m rewatching stranger things which means I’m back on my bullshit which means you all are captive to listening to me. Anyway, I just got to thinking about how funny it is that in ST4 Nancy can say “hey Steve?” And when he turns around she says “..be careful” and there’s an immediate romantic connotation, but several episodes later Eddie can say “hey Steve?” And when Steve turns around, Eddie (after a few beats of silence) says “make him pay” and the people that ship them get called delusional. Listen, there’s a lot I can say about this, but what I will say is that you don’t have to be a Steddie truther. You don’t even have to support it. But don’t let your only excuse for it be “they despise each other” and use that excuse to put down peoples ships when the bottom line is if it was Nancy saying “make him pay” y’all would think Stancy was a done deal for ST5

[bylrndgm]

EITHER THE MATH AIN'T MATHING OR I AM DUMB.

On 4x08 when El goes into the Void and sees Max and the party, she also hears Dustin saying the whole “Joyce has a new telemarketer job, Mike won't stop whining about it” thing.

This implies that Mike tried to call many times and the line was always busy.

At the same time, he knows it's because Joyce has a new job that requires her to stay on the phone. Like, he knows that, even prior to 4x01, because he complained a lot about it in the past months.

But let's rewind. In 4x01 we all know what El wrote to Mike:

Apparently Mike should've been unaware of Joyce's new job and should've got the news from El.

A possible explaination is that the letter was actually sent weeks prior 4x01 and in those weeks Mike only whined about the Byers' busy line.

But you can debunk this because we know that if they met on March 22nd (Saturday), she said that the last week went by pretty fast because she was excited to meet him next week, so you can reasonably say that she sent the letter like at the beginning of the week (around 14 - 17th March).

The other possible explainations are that either Will told Mike about it, in the rare occasions they spoke on the phone or there is actually something really weird going on with the timings and this all foreshadows a time-related plotline in S5.

[lilyimmsim]

i'm sitting in my bedroom, doing girly things; screaming out the lyrics to "good luck, babe", scrolling pinterest, feeling happy, when suddenly i'm snapped out of it (i think i've escaped the male gaze / the male fantasies that haunt me / but i realise i'm waiting for their approval / i am acting cute / dancing in my room / and that's just it / i am acting / pretending i don't know they're watching me / which only adds to the fantasy)

[bittersweetyrn]

I'm such a huge baby I wish I could watch more "adult" tv/movies with serious themes and prestigious work but my mental state is so fragile that I literally haven't watched anything serious in 3 years. like literally only funny things and stuff that makes me feel good. NOT EVEN VIDEO GAMES!!!

[bmpmp3]

I NEEED to go back to making art that makes it ABUNDANTLY clear that theres something wrong with my brain BUT NOT in a cool or stylishly interesting way. i need to do it in a way that makes people say "hm." and walk away