#dealing with her trauma and her need for acknowledgment in barb's death. and her guilt. that's not a fault of either of them it just didnt | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chelswat27 · 2 years

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Nancy deserves better part 3

Steve does not take time to recognize Nancy's emotions. He also doesn't acknowledge the reality of things and wants to see things as they were, instead of as they are. Watching S2 and comparing to S4 it's kind of a problem. Especially since it hasn't changed.

S2 Nancy is clearly still dealing with Barb's death, the guilt over the cause, and having to pretend like she doesn't know Barb is actually dead and not just missing. She gets up from the dinner table to deal with it while at Barb's, and cries in the bathroom. Surely Steve would've noticed that, but that would've been off screen so benefit of the doubt there. Then in the study room Nancy tells Steve directly, that she can't keep doing this.

While Steve acknowledges this, and makes valid points about keeping everyone safe by keeping everything secret, he doesn't validate her emotions. Instead he tries to brush it off by suggesting that they still go to the party, and essentially do what they've been doing the whole year. Pretend everything is fine.

Nancy catches a lot of flack for drunkenly calling her relationship with Steve bullshit. But in the grand scheme of things what else can you call a relationship where you don't acknowledge the trauma and guilt of your partner, and pretend like your whole world wasn't turned upside down? ( pun intended)

S4 vol 2 after Nancy describes everything Vecna showed her, Steve writes it off as Vecna just trying to scare her. While this is partly true, if that's all he was doing he would've just shown her visions of Barb. Vecnas vision wasn't a scare so much as a promise. Steve doesn't want to acknowledge the reality of what Vecna plans to do, and Vecna didn't just try to scare Nancy. He did. You can hear it in her voice. The fearless Nancy Wheeler, that had stared down a speeding vehicle, was clearly shaken.

Nancy doesn't need someone that is going to run over her emotions like a speed bump. Even if it's not malicious, it still happens. It's an incompatibility. Steve looks over her emotions, Jonathan looks over her intellectually (which I will cover later). Robin meets her on both levels.

Part 1 Part 2

#ronance #robin x nancy #stranger things #nancy wheeler #robin buckley

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thescoopstroopers · 2 months

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As an anti stancy I wouldn't say Nancy was manipulative towards Steve in s2. She was trying to live with the guilt of her best friend's death and Steve's form of dealing with trauma crashed with hers. I still think she was at least emotionally cheating on him way before the big Halloween fight and tbh imo she even cheated by sleeping with Jonathan bc they were not truly broken up by this point.

Stancy is tragic because Nancy definitely tried to love Steve. There is no question that Steve loves her, we know from the way he looks at her and how much he changed after s1 to be with her, aka leaving his best friends. After the events of s1 Nancy was alone for a month, processing. Jonathan left her to be with Will and Steve tried everything to probably make it up to her after the cinema incident. Combined with her strong need of not wanting to be alone and her guilt of Barb dying for nothing she gave into Steve. Though you can clearly see at the end of s1 that she longed for Jonathan and later admitted that Steve essentially was the second choice, I still think she thought she could love him. After all she stayed with him for a year and he was as supportive as he could while also dealing with his shit. He went to the dinners and he tried to help her with his ways. I like to believe that he was able to help her overcome the initial trauma, but both not properly dealing made things harder until it blew up.

I don't really think Nancy met her equal with Jonathan. You can't say Jonathan puts up a fight with her bullshit. He had no problems endangering his family by going to expose the lab (which was ooc because Will is the most important aspect in his life) or he indulged her crazy story in s3 to the point that they got fired. And even after the fight, he kinda rolled over and accepted Nancy's nonpology. There is no real pushback from him. In s4 he is too scared to confront her, so he wants so slowly break up with her by ignoring the issue. Steve on the other hand pushed back in s2 by wanting to stop Nancy from exposing the lab because he knew how dangerous that is. In general that whole story was kinda stupid because realistically it should not have been easy for two teens to smuggle a recorder in that lab when a season prior they just killed people from knowing too much. The show should have kinda acknowledged Steve's concerns instead of painting him as unsupportive. They don't even show if Jonathan is better than Steve when it comes to overcoming trauma because again they also never processed Barb in s2, though that was the goal right? They didn't talk about her they rather talked about their relationship, which is why Nancy still struggles with Barb's death because revenge only gets you so far.

Anyway Nancy doesn't like push back, which is why she goes to people who indulge her. And the show rewards her behavior by having people agree with her instantly. (Robin in s4, Fred and Jonathan) Notice how Steve was the only one concerned about the plan in s4 and yet again he got ignored. The fandom even labels him as unsupportive towards Nancy again. I would argue that Steve is a better fit for her because he can challenge her better than Jonathan.

It also makes sense for Steve to still be into Nancy in s4. He never got closure in s2, Nancy let him think it was all of his fault because she was not ready to see the errors in her way (aka Jonathan being on her mind when she was with Steve) and is still not ready to give him closure in s4. Steve had almost two years to overthink that relationship with the knowledge of him being at fault. Simultaneously he put Nancy on a pedestal in his mind because she did nothing wrong in his opinion. It's like he has a parasocial relationship with her. He doesn't really know her he knows the person he made up in his mind with her name.

It also makes sense for Nancy to at least be a bit interested in Steve in s4. Like in s2 she has relationship problems and a boy who adores her is right there and because she faced zero consequences then, why not indulge in this now. Sadly this to me indicates she didn't grow as a person as she repeats this behavior of at least emotional cheating. Which is why I can't ship stancy. Steve had too much growth and she is still the same.

To me s5 should have two plots for Nancy. One Nancy gets her shit together and talks to Jonathan about their problems and they either work it out or break up. And two, she and Steve talk and she is honest about their past relationship and what went wrong and then they can overcome this and end up being sorta friends. Because Steve still wanting to be with her after knowing about the cheating would be ooc for him because cheating is such a sore point and dealbreaker.

Sorry this is so long lol. You def don't have to answer, it's just when I see an anti stancy take I have to chime in as well.

LOL this is ok, send these in! i love asks and to see what other people think just as long as they are not weird ones or mean anons!

i also half agree with some of this! very well said! i can't wait to see what the finale season will bring us with our favorites! I honestly do hope that steve does get someone different other than nancy i don't her to be his second choice because of unresolved feelings from the past i honestly think he deserves better he's always been my favorite since season 1 i love his character development i always had a soft spot for characters like that in tv shows and it is amazing how he grew within in one season.

i truly think jancy will be end game, i think their time apart in season four made it better for them if that makes sense, it also really seems like they might still be together based on what duffer brothers have been posting a lot of wheelers and byers stuff.

i do hope we get stobin eventually, i want more bts of that platonic friendship lol

#ask answered #send in asks #i got mail

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drunkengodsofslaughter · 1 year

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Different anon but I have to get this off my chest. People also claim Steve wasn't supportive because he was annoyed with them going to Barb's parents every week. I think it's kinda unfair to blame him for that. As it's established Steve deals with trauma by pretending everything is okay. Imagine visiting the parents of the girl who died in your pool every week?? It's so stressful to be reminded every week, those people search for their daughter that died in his place. Like if Nancy's allowed to be traumatised why isn't Steve? Plus he was also stressed with school at that time, him being not 100% happy in that situation and missing a week or so is okay and doesn't show he's dismissive of Nancy's trauma. He goes with her in the end, he could just leave her alone but he didn't because he cares. It's also unfair that the show and the fandom pretend he didn't have any trauma from the year prior, only Nancy just because she was friends with Barb. It still happened in Steve's house!!! And it's not like Steve didn't face the monster, he saved both Nancy's and Jonathan's ass even though he was terrified. He had to see how his gf almost died before he could step in, like give him some grace.

so glad you got this off your chest and glad that you decided to send it to me :)

okay so that claim that other people have that you mentioned is completely ridiculous! it’s an awkward situation to even begin with and it’s wild to me because he also is like ‘these dinners never go well’ and he sees how nancy has been reacting to these dinners. everyone in that room is traumatized because of barb’s death but they’re traumatized in different ways. and everyone is only there because of the trauma! also steve can heavily see what it’s doing to the Holland’s as he’s the one to soothe them about the choice of dinner by saying he loves KFC. it’s not harmful or anything - he’s just trying to make a situation less awkward. steve is just realizing that these dinners are not helping any of them even though the dinners are supposed to be them showing their support in a trying time. instead it’s just completely awkward and they’re clashing with one another and they have nothing to talk about.

also like you mentioned he was stressed with school specifically an essay that means a fuck ton in his career. it’s the essay to send to colleges - that essay is mandatory as fuck and the deadline was the next day. which i don’t like when people judge him for that because everyone has procrastinated in their lives yes even the smart people have heavily procrastinated. so steve has even more reason to just be upset about the one diner when his own life is heavily dependent on something. like you said rushing a week is fine because also the way in which nancy and steve seem to talk, it seems like they’ve gone to the Hollands for dinner a lot before! and i get that it’s nancy’s guilt here but i think steve sees how this is damaging everyone but he doesn’t want to say it because then nancy would be upset at him. and also that whole pretending everything’s normal like you mentioned. i hate how people see this as steve being dismissive when he’s just being observant and trying to make things less awkward then they already are. he’s also not being dismissive because despite him wanting to pretend to be normal - he is seeing how the act of going to the Hollands is harming both nancy and the hollands.

you are so right about the unfair part! like god i get so pissed whenever writers and fandom just ignore steve’s trauma. or when fandom acknowledges steve’s trauma but then say that because he wasn’t in it as long as the other characters: he isn’t as traumatized. it’s just what? why do people feel the need to say that? he’s still heavily traumatized no matter what ! it’s just a huge slap in the face cuz it just feels like ‘oh steve is traumatized but not as bad as the others’ - trauma is still trauma! like why are we having a ‘who’s more traumatized’ competition?

#answered asks #thanks for this :)#also this got long lol but also had a lot to talk about

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