#stranger things meta

[otteranha]

Steve’s always been told that the string of pearls from his grandmother would one day belong to his girl of his dreams, perfect accessory to compliment a wedding dress. When he’s getting his birth certificate and passport out of his father’s safe on the day he leaves for good the pearls in their velvet case catch his eye and on a whim, he takes them along. Leaves a note explaining that it won’t be a white wedding but they’ll be going to the person he loves most in the world.

It may seem incongruous on paper, but when Corroded Coffin plays their first big gig, everyone remarks about the total badassery of frontman Eddie Munson’s look, pairing black mesh shirt, frayed black jeans and combat boots with a string of flawless white pearls.

#stranger things #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things hc #stranger things au #stranger things meta #of course eddie also wears them on their actual wedding day too #they become something of a signature piece for him

[findafight]

Tbh S3 would have been interesting and better even if everything was the same except the secret base under Starcourt was American. Like scoops troop still picks up a Russian transmission and translate it, but they get down there, and it's Americans. The code was in Russian as another layer of description and to deflect responsibility. But it's still the American government fucking around with the Upside Down, capturing and torturing kids under a mall. Alexei is a Soviet defector working for the Americans. The big Terminator guy is just a silent American hitman. It's all still a government conspiracy.

#stranger things #st3 #I mean there are other problems I have with s3 but this would solve a big one. #finda’s rambles #stranger things meta

[chirpsythismorning]

I LOVE CINEMA

#byler #stranger things #the duffers putting mike and will in a trunk together in s3: #‘it’s a surprise tool that will help us later’ #mike wheeler #will byers #stranger things spoilers #finn wolfhard #noah schnapp #stranger things theory #byler evidence #byler proof #byler st #byler theory #stranger things spoiler #stranger things theories #mike x will #stranger things meta #byler st4 #byler season 4 #mike wheeler i know what you are #stranger things 4 #Mike wheeler I know what you are

[kedreeva]

Wakes up angry 20 minutes before my alarm: they still need him, they need the guy that thinks to wrap a flashlight up to send with Steve when he charges head first toward the hell dimension gate under a lake at night, they need the guy that knows how to hotwire a car but chooses the vehicle that's most like a home, and builds a shield when everyone else is making weapons.

#Eddie Munson #stranger things #I'm not sure when I'm going to stop being angry #but today is not that day apparently #tomorrow isn't looking good either #stranger things meta #my writing

[eldritch-thrumming]

Controversial take but follow up to that Steve post reblog: I also genuinely dislike the way the fandom writes abt Steve bullying Eddie in fanfiction (it’s become so ubiquitous that you kinda have to just suck it up and deal w it at this point). There’s NO canon evidence that Steve has ever bullied Eddie. Besides Jason, almost everyone basically ignores Eddie when he’s giving his antagonistic speech in the cafeteria and when Chrissy meets with him in the woods, she implies she thinks he’ll be “mean and scary” which doesn’t equate to someone who’s actively being bullied at school if people genuinely think that abt him. Yes, there’s the Satanic panic undertones from DND that he’s making fun of when he’s introduced, but we don’t really see any of that play out on screen prior to Chrissy going to the trailer (by which I mean, there’s also no evidence that Eddie’s being harassed at school outside of his antagonistic lunch rants, which we know are the norm from the way Mike and Dustin talk abt Eddie before we’re introduced to him). We see that people seem to be more irritated by him and afraid of him then actually bullying him before the events of Spring Break.

Even when Eddie and Steve have their conversation in the Upside Down, there’s absolutely no indication that they’ve ever had a bad interaction or even that Eddie has ever had an altercation with Tommy (if we consider the fact that Eddie seems to be the resident drug dealer of Hawkins High and we assume Tommy and Steve were getting high, it’s a dumb idea to fuck with your dealer). Eddie very clearly says “rich parents, popular, chicks love him, not a douche? No way, man” which indicates that he’s making an assumption based on stereotypes, not that he’s ever actually had an interpersonal interaction with Steve.

The worst thing we see Steve do on screen to Eddie is call him a freak to Dustin on the phone when Dustin is annoying him at work and asking Steve to give up a date to do something he’s never shown an interest in doing literally ever and then also not necessarily believing Eddie’s innocent/not wanting to get involved in a murder investigation until they talk to Eddie in the boat house, which. Idk. Doesn’t seem THAT bad to me when you consider the fact that a girl died in his trailer after going there with him (presumably for drugs—we know it’s drugs but Steve and co. do not, I guess… they can only assume lol) (except for saying the cops should handle it because he already knows how incompetent the Hawkins PD is but anyway).

#idk maybe I’m missing something but I’ve watched season 4 like 5 times and I never get bully vibes #stranger things 4 #steddie #stranger things #steve harrington #my posts #stranger things meta

[tryingonametaphor]

Entertaining the possibility that Mike’s struggles with Will and El are exactly what was shown to us on screen

i.e. looking at Mike's perspective through the lens of his insecurities rather than internalised homophobia. This is going to be long, but I've tried my best to properly articulate and connect all my thoughts!

Starting off with,

Mike being unable to tell El that he loves her (4x2) because to put it simply, he’s not in love with her (anymore at least) but he loves her enough that he can’t lie about it, and neither can he let her go. He’s not fallen out of love because of El, but subconsciously because of who he’s become when he’s in a relationship with El. We see early on in season 4 that El has been pretending to be someone she is not in her letters to Mike. We see her breakdown when Mike handles the roller-skate-to-Angela’s-face situation badly because that’s the confirmation she wanted to know that Mike may not be appreciative of who she truly is. El was under the impression that she was a monster in that scene. She is not, but she was worried Mike would react negatively to her and he did. El even compares it to Brenner’s reaction to a traumatic incident she repressed and believed was her fault. What Mike said later is probably true - that he just reacted that way out of shock, but he also couldn’t tell her he loved her right after, so El heard what she wanted to hear. Pretending to be someone else wasn’t working for her anymore. If we observe carefully, we’ll realise that El hasn’t been the only one pretending in this relationship.-

-Mike has been pretending to be someone else too. Perhaps for longer. Through season 3, he acts like he’s moved on from DnD, games, hanging out with the party, and all the little things that make him his nerdy self. Everyone (Hopper, Lucas, Will, Dustin, and Max) points out that there is something off about Mike and El’s relationship - that he's keeping her to himself and that he's ignoring his friends to be with her. In contrast, we have Lucas and Max who balance their relationship and their friendships. Mike later picks a fight with Will that feels irreversible when Will calls him out on this behaviour in 3x3. That entire fight could be Mike projecting, but he was especially projecting with the “What did you think? That we were going to sit in my basement and play games for the rest of our lives?” line. When El moves away, we see Mike join Hellfire Club, indulging himself in his interests once again. We haven’t once seen Mike talk about these interests with El outside of season 1, where she ignored him:

gif by @beaulesbian

He feels embarrassed at the end of season 3 for getting excited about presents. The costume designer for s4 even confirmed that it was scripted in the Airport scene that Mike was dressing up a certain way out of his norm to fit in. All this coupled with what Mike says in 4x8 in the van - “someday she’s going to realise that I’m just some random nerd who got lucky” further proves that he thinks he’s not worthy of El unless he’s someone who is not just a random lucky nerd - which is what he was, technically in that moment (but he is also so much more, and we will circle back to that in a bit) Mike has spent so much time trying to be someone he’s not that he isn't sure about his feelings for El anymore, because-

-Mike is scared he’s lost Will -his best friend- in this process. This is the third time Mike has lost Will and this time according to him, it’s his own doing (“I feel like maybe I was worrying too much about El, and I don’t know, maybe I feel like I lost you or something.”). The fight from season 3 and the ending of season 3 are two of the Mike and Will moments that stand out before the Byers move to California. In the fight, Mike indirectly tells Will that it’s time to grow up and move on from DnD, and in the finale, Will is shown to have sort of moved on from it. He gives away his stuff and says he’ll just use Mike’s set when he comes back - that is if Mike still wants to play. And Mike for a moment feels reassured that Will didn’t take his comments during the rain fight to heart. He thinks they’re separating on good terms and that their friendship has been mended, except he’s going to realise soon that it hasn’t. Will starts to pull away and doesn’t reach out, as Mike accused him of in 4x2. Will thinks that if he has to lose Mike, he should do it quickly, like ripping of a band-aid. But Mike doesn’t know that this is because Will has romantic feelings for him and that it’s Will trying to deal with his own struggles. Mike genuinely believes that something he did (probably said, during the rain fight) is the reason he’s lost Will. And this hurts because Mike has always been authentically himself around Will.

Mike is now stuck pretending to be someone he is not in a relationship, and as a consequence, he thinks he has lost his best friend, with whom he could always be himself. And all this pretending because-

-Mike has put El on a pedestal. This could be because of her powers, or because of who he thinks he should be in a relationship with a girl because she is canonically the first girl to have shown interest in him.

The first ever character description of Mike Wheeler states that not having a girlfriend is one of his insecurities.

This also explains why Mike lashed out at Will in the most hurtful way he could think of when Will called her “some stupid girl” he was ruining the party to swap spit with (3x3). But as we’ve seen over and over again, Mike and El are just not compatible in their interests. Normally, that is something couples can easily work through together, but Mike has been trying to mould himself into someone that he thinks is compatible with El - straying further away from who he is, and El has been doing the same for Mike - both of them losing themselves in this process.

I think by the end of season 4, it’s very evident that both of them are tired of pretending to be someone they’re not. Because El got a taste of individuality. She has learned from Max and Owens and even Brenner that the choices she makes doesn’t define whether she is a monster or a superhero - but who she is as a person. She has realised that she is content in being a good person and not a superhero.

Meanwhile, Mike spent all his time away from El in Will's company in season 4, understanding that in their time apart, Will never stopped considering Mike as his best friend. Mike realises that Will is just as devastated as he is about their withering friendship (4x2, rink-o-mania fight) and that he is still able to be vulnerable and his true self around Will (literally every heart-to-heart they had in s4). Mike, for the first time in almost two years (apart from his time in Hellfire), has been able to experience what it’s like to be himself again because he's never felt the need to change himself to be around Will.

Mike can’t balance his relationship with Will and El because he is two different people around each one of them.

Will’s veiled confession turns out to be exactly the way Mike wished El (or anyone) loved him - like he is their equal, and like he is worthy of the person he loves. This is why he reacts this positively to Will's words:

Except that is not El's truth. That’s not how El feels (because El has been putting him on a pedestal too) ("Everyone looks at me like I'm a monster. You look at me like I'm a monster"). They’re Will’s feelings.

Will and Mike at this point in canon, consider each other as equals while Mike and El consider themselves inadequate to be with one another.

Everything that transpires after is just an unreasonable amount of chaos for drama tbh. They could’ve made Mike be honest with El in a moment of calm and talk out his insecurities if they wanted to fix that relationship. Have him reassure her that they can fix what’s broken with proper communication, but instead, Mike’s love confession during yet another high-stakes situation is laced with half-truths and him bringing back the whole El being his superhero concept (In direct contrast to Jonathan and Nancy describing how good the both of them are as people in their 4x1 love declarations while talking in sync to Fred and Argyle). This is followed by El decidedly not talking to Mike properly for two days after that monologue nor seeking comfort in him when she's just experienced one of the worst losses in her life. Mike is still drifting towards Will at the end because now that he’s got a taste of what being himself around his best friend feels like again, he’s finding it hard to let go.

Both Mike and El seem a little done with each other just before the final byler heart-to-heart, and I can only imagine that they’re going to break up at the beginning of season 5 because both of them have realised that they deserve better and that’s it’s neither of their faults. They’re kids who are learning what they want in life and that’s okay. They jumped into a relationship when they were 13 and it didn't work out for them. For them to rebuild a friendship instead would be monumental because they truly do make a great team when they don't have all this relationship drama suffocating them.

Where does this leave us with Mike and Will in season 5? Imagine Mike finding out that the Van scene confession was from Will himself. A possibility he’s never thought of because he believes he’s not lovable just the way he is. Mike finding out that the person he feels like he can be himself around the most loves him romantically, and that the same person also feels like a mistake except when he’s around Mike, because Mike makes him feel safe. And this person is someone who has seen the ups and downs of Mike for almost a decade. I don’t think Mike is going to take that very lightly. In fact, I think it’s going to rock his entire world. Because Mike will finally realise that Will never ever gave up on them. That Will’s been secretly and silently hoping for them to be more for a long time and reciprocation doesn’t feel like a long shot to Mike because loving and being around Will is so, so easy.

I’d always been a Mike is dealing with internalised homophobia truther, but I’m starting to think that Mike might actually just be more emotionally repressed and insecure. To the point that he’s constantly pretending to be someone he’s not. I don’t think he’s scared of being perceived as a queer person (seeing as how he always stuck with Will and defended him strongly against the homophobic bullies. And how in the beginning of season 4, he feels comfortable being seen by his high school classmates as a nerd or a freak) but I think he’s worried he’s never going to be enough for the person he loves. And Will has already proven that Mike just as he is, is everything and beyond to him. Will thinks he’s a nerd(very affectionately), he’s a leader, he’s his the heart, he’s Will’s safe space, he’s Will’s go-to person, and he’s Will’s forever (“We can just play DnD and Nintendo for the rest of our lives”)(“I’ll always need you, Mike”). Mike feels the same way about Will too. He’s just going to realise that oh, all this will stay the same and maybe be even more incredible when they shift their friendship to a romantic relationship.

Mike is going to fall harder than ever once he finds out that Will is in love with him and I honestly think Mike is already halfway there. He just can’t seem to put it together because he’s always loved Will this way. Mike is finally going to realise that he can spend the rest of his life in a loving relationship with the person who understands him best. The person he understands best. Who cares what the rest of the world thinks because holy shit, Will Byers loves him (and vice-versa)

I also think it would be incredible for Will (who deals with internalised homophobia in canon) if Mike, his partner, is more confident in his queer identity because having Will by his side gives him the strength and courage to be who he is. I think it would neatly wrap up both of their self image issues. Will unconditionally loving Mike for who he truly is and Mike unconditionally loving Will, through his gay struggles and all.

#byler #mike wheeler #will byers #byler endgame #byler evidence #stranger things #stranger things meta #i've been thinking about this a lot #and i can see them going for this tbh #mike wheeler i know what you are #thoughts

[qprstobin]

It's interesting to me that the fandom looks at the "Steve Harrington isn't an asshole after all" line and 1) lords it as the first time Steve's gotten a compliment from a friend on screen and 2) that it's about Steve's growth as a character. Like I'm a Steve girlie don't get me wrong, that man is my pride and joy, but that line/exchange was very much about Eddie.

There's a whole layer of Eddie's story that fandom seems to love to ignore, in that the whole season he is grappling with the fact that the way he viewed the world (based largely on stereotypes and his viewpoint being the correct amount of nonconforming) is wrong. That's what the Munson Doctrine is all about. That preps act a certain way, that band geeks act a certain way, and that jocks act a certain way.

And he is finding out that this is wrong! That these people he judged as shallow his whole high school career and beyond are not actually as shallow as they appear! First it was Chrissy, then it was Steve and Nancy and even Robin!

And this isn't an insult lobbed at Eddie that he's uniquely ignorant lol. This is something all the teens (minus Argyle rip) go through when they get introduced to the Upside Down. Jonathan literally calls Nancy shallow and fake while defending the creep shots. Robin of course has her own "Mr. Cool Mr. Funny" speech about Steve in s3 and then later calls Nancy a priss. Nancy's is probably the most obvious because, yaknow, Barb

Like a key theme to the teens' Upside Down introduction arcs is that not only is their physical world being flipped on its head, but also that the petty shit that seems important isn't actually that important when your life is being threatened. Being introduced to the Upside Down very much also removes them from the main stream of high school life, and so even when they return to school they are not focused on the same social BS that they are before.

It really is nothing about Steve or Steve "changing". They don't know each other lol, I doubt either of them have given each other much thought before the kids joined Hellfire. But Eddie believed the world worked a certain way, and very much judged people for what their interests were and whether he considered them to be "conforming" or not. (Which, wasn't just about being a jock lol, he calls out the band kids and science kids before he even gets to the jocks and the partiers.) The Upside Down experience makes him realize that he is fitting people into boxes in the same way that he was protesting against.

It's actually really fun character growth, and a fun parallel I think to the other characters but especially s1 Steve. I really like it a lot and wish that fandom included it more in fics. It's wild to me that this aspect of Eddie's journey has just been completely dropped.

#i had other things to say but they sounded too much like bashing even tho i meant them with affection fdighdigjsd #i promise yall i love eddie i just hate fandom eddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #stranger things meta #stranger things #eddie #steve

[apatheticlexicographer]

season 1: mike gets his love interest

season 2: lucas gets his love interest

season 3: dustin gets his love interest

season 4: will gets his love interest

season 5: mike gets his love interest...?

the pattern is so obvious, i'm not sure why i didn't consciously notice it before now

#it is surprisingly hard to find m'leven screencaps from s1 #most of them are just gifs of the kiss and i wanted to spare y'all from that #byler #byler prediction #byler proof #byler endgame #stranger things #byler analysis #byler theory #stranger things meta #stranger things analysis #stranger things theory #will byers #mike wheeler #i won't tag lucas and dustin

[dynamic-power]

HOH Steve Harrington and legally blind Max Mayfield, wreaking havoc everywhere they go

They can't be left alone together anymore because they will always find a way to make themselves a nuisance

#steve harrington #max mayfield #big brother steve harrington #stranger things #blind max mayfield #hoh steve harrington #stranger things meta

[fromaliminalspace]

currently losing my mind over Eddie saying “I’m really living up to that Munson name” and how he in fact does. except it’s not his father who he takes after, it’s his uncle.

his uncle Wayne who has taken him in and always accepted him for who he is. who sleeps on a foldout bed in the living room so that his nephew would have his own room to study and pursue his hobbies. who tries his best to be a safe place for him no matter what. who has always been nothing but protective over him, been trying to shield him from harm, to take care of him, to give him a home.

and Eddie embodies, perhaps inadvertently, what Wayne has been to him and he takes a bunch of outcasts under his wing, and he courageously chooses Mordor even in the face of all the trauma and danger he’s already been through if it means helping save Max, and he chooses to offer all the skills and resources he has all while battling his own fear, and he’s willing to return to the hellish Upside Down and push aside all the horror he associates with it

Eddie does live up to the Munson name. to the deep-rooted conviction to keep trying to do the right thing no matter what everyone else thinks, no matter his own terror. he prioritizes taking care of who he loves. and he passes his love and his need to protect further on, even with his last breath

#eddie munson #wayne munson #eddie munson meta #stranger things meta #stranger things 4 #st4 #stranger things #Liam whispers into the void #Liam writes (a bit)

[otteranha]

Whomst must I beg or bribe for Eddie being the one to find Steve and Robin wandering around Starcourt high off their asses?

Like, he knows Robin from band and they’re friendly, and he’s not going to leave someone so obviously under the influence unsupervised, especially a teenage girl who is definitely unfamiliar with hard drugs.

And he’d absolutely assume that Steve is to blame for the whole situation except that Steve looks like he just lost a fight with a cement truck, but he’s still threatening to throw hands with Eddie if Eddie messses with Robin, and they’re both babbling about Russians and secret elevators and alternate dimensions and goddamit Eddie just wanted to smoke some weed and watch Back to the Future.

#stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things meta #steddie #robin buckley #platonic stobin

[findafight]

By season 4 Steve knows who he is. He knows what he likes and what he wants. I really don’t think he’s full of angst and hiding secret interests, pretending to be someone he’s not. He’s moved past shallow highschool assumptions and cliques. He likes sports and talking shit with his best friend. He wants to find someone he can make a future with, not just have sex without connection. Sure he’s 18 and still has growing to do, but he’s not searching for who he is or the opportunity to be himself. He’s confident about himself.

#steve harrington #stranger things #stranger things meta #finda’s rambles #sorry I think it’s kinda wild and a bit funny when fics are like ‘Steve wishes he could be himself…’ and it’s talking #about him pretending to like sports or something. what. #not there’s anything wrong with a story exploring that it’s just not what we see Steve struggle with

[chirpsythismorning]

According to the season 1 trailer, this is what Mike was thinking when he first met El 👀

#byler #stranger things #mike wheeler #will byers #stranger things spoilers #finn wolfhard #noah schnapp #stranger things theory #byler evidence #byler proof #byler st #byler theory #stranger things spoiler #stranger things theories #mike x will #stranger things meta #mike wheeler i know what you are #byler st4 #byler season 4 #stranger things 4

[kedreeva]

hello, tonight I've decided to be emotional about the blood still staining Eddie's guitar pick necklace chain. There's no chance that Dustin didn't notice it, so he purposely didn't clean it off. He doesn't look like he expected to see Wayne or maybe he would have. As it stands, this is all Dustin has to give to Eddie's only family: the blood he shed trying to be a hero when all Dustin and Wayne both wanted was for him to come home safely.

#eddie munson #stranger things #stranger things meta #dustin henderson #wayne munson #it's apparently that kind of day huh #time to be sad about dustin and eddie #wayne can come too #as a treat

[gayofthefae]

The blocking of the ily2 scene and how it switches so that Mike is the one to be standing in front of the closet when she kisses him.

#blocking #stranger things meta #byler #stranger things #queercoding #byler meta

[corrodedbisexual]

I am once again thinking about Steve's injuries. Specifically, the road rash on his back and the back of his arms.

So... About a year ago I slid on a wet rock on a mountain hike and broke the fall on a rocky surface with my bare knee. The surface was relatively smooth, and the overall slide was... maybe half a meter. Nowhere near close to what Steve went through.

Several points from personal observation, in case you're curious and haven't scraped your skin much since you were a child learning to ride a bike and don't remember how it goes, and the resulting headcanons. (Having thought about it, I myself will try to incorporate this into my post-Vecna fics more, bc honestly there's never enough attention paid to it, and in the long run it might just be 100 times more of a bitch than the bat bites, despite not being immediately life threatening, due to the enormous surface of the skin affected.)

1) It doesn't really hurt that much right after the injury. The scrapes are shallow, there's little blood, it's mostly just mangled skin. So despite this being a common criticism of the canon, it's entirely plausible Steve could shrug that off and keep focused on the Vecna shit without treating it. I'll allow it.

2) The fun begins about a day later, when the injury really starts to scab. A knee or an elbow is probably the worst fucking place to get scraped: every tiny movement of your joints results in extreme stretching of the scabbing skin, damaging it over and over again when it's just begun to heal. I spent a week walking with a limp. But really it applies to any part of your body that moves a lot. For Steve, I'd say the worst would be his shoulder blades. Raising his arms, lifting anything heavy, anything that stretches the skin on his back would hurt like a bitch in his condition after a couple of days.

3) Also, he wouldn't be able to comfortably sleep on his back, or lean back in a chair. No fucking way. The edges of the scabs are sharp. When pressed on, they dig into your skin. Ouch.

4) The fun continues when it really starts to heal and ITCH! LIKE! A! MOTHERFUCKER! And of course, the scabs prevent you from scratching, because your body is smart like that, so of course you start peeling them. But you can't do that if it's on your back. I just imagine Steve behaving like a flea infested bear, trying to scratch his back against tree trunks and door frames while everyone tries to stop him from doing that because that keeps opening up his wounds. Maybe Eddie or Robin could offer him gentle backrubs when they hang out. Enough to take the edge off the itching, not enough to damage the scabs.

5) The scarring. It's not gonna be super visible, but it's gonna be there, a white spiderweb of scars. I realize that everyone's skin heals differently, and there are ointments that can help, but in the end, with all that, this is my knee about a day after the injury and 10 months later.

So, uh... Yeah. Stevie. I'm so sorry baby. (Hugging him tight to my chest)

#stranger things #steve harrington #stranger things meta #steve harrington meta #tw wounds #misha-bawlins meta