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#thinking about how this is where we’re starting this arc and however this arc ends it caused the energy of the bday livestream

mci-writing · 6 months

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Can I request a senku x fem reader where she goes with the group to the cave instead of magma and her and senku end up cuddling for warmth and senku is all flustered by it.

Gonna slight change this up a little, anon. I kinda sat on this knowing I wanted to write something like it, but never knowing where to take it,,, BUT it's cold outside and season 3 is up to the infiltration arc so Imma have a little bit of fall fun 🥹

Lowkey has the same reader from Bandages in mind tbh but I also like the idea of Senkuu calling his s/o Dragonfruit so-

If you’ve got a couple dollars to spare, here’s my kofi (I am a struggling college student 😳)

By Night in Caves (Ishigami Senkuu x Fem!Reader)

A figure shivers as a sharp wind blows past them. The leaves starting to change shades and the cold breeze in the air are enough indication of the fall season. While most people would probably be snuggled up in their homes under a nice quilt or a huge blanket, (Y/n) was out with Senkuu and searching for God knows what. She could probably ask him what day it was and he'd know to a T, but she'd have to wait until after their current expedition.

She did bring the Stone World equivalent of a light jacket, but the night air was starting to make it a little useless the longer they were out and about. Senkuu isn’t showing it, but she can just tell the air’s starting to get to him too.

It’s just the two of them at the moment, the rest of their ragtag group splitting off to other areas to find what they’re looking for. While Senkuu would typically go off with one of the other generals, Gen was really persistent that he go with (Y/n). It was beyond her understanding why, but she wouldn’t complain about spending alone time with her close friend again.

“Hey, Leek,” She lightly tugs on his sleeve as his crimson eyes stare far ahead, her own (e/c) eyes staring off towards a cave in the near distance. She points towards it once she feels his eyes on her, “Think we should check in for the night? I’m more than positive the others have too with how dark it’s gotten.”

“Think you’re just getting cold, Dragonfruit,” He hums in response, staring at the cave as he thinks it over. He grins at the sight of the many sticks and twigs around the area, tugging (Y/n) along with him as he starts walking in that direction, “I’m sure it won’t hurt to start a fire for a bit though.”

He’s super eager to get there, picking up various rocks, twigs, leaves, and sticks as they get closer. She attempts to help, but he’s moving faster than she can think. It’s almost a little unnerving… Kind of like he thinks this cave will benefit him in some way or something…

“Wait, is the thing we’re looking for in a cave?” (Y/n) asks, turning to Senkuu just as he gets the fire up and running at the edge of the cavern’s opening. He stands and backs away from it, holding his hands out towards it for a little bit before slowly backing away from it.

The fire is a reasonable size, big enough to ward off any animals and let anyone know they’re location if they’re passing by. Senkuu, however, is moving further into the cave. His flashlight is on, catching the twinkles of a few minerals and gems a little further inside. There’s a glint in his ruby eyes, made devious by the smirk on his face, “You can stay by the fire if you want, but I’m gonna scope this area out for a bit.”

She stares at him with a straight face, narrowing her eyes at him as he starts getting more and more visibly excited. She normally wouldn’t mind him doing his science thing to his hearts content, but it’s starting to get late and she really doesn’t want to sit by the fire by herself…

And almost like a gift from God (or a curse from Satan), it starts to rain. And it rains hard.

The fire is out almost immediately and Senkuu freezes in his tracks at the sound. The crack of his neck can be heard as he quickly turns his head towards where (Y/n) is sitting, who has visibly tensed up like a cat at the sudden change of weather. The first clap of thunder has her jumping ten feet in the air, landing a ways away from the cave’s opening and further along inside. She bumps into Senkuu as she lands, the two stumbling to the ground together.

“Well, that’s great,” Senkuu grumbles as he lays on the hard ground, sitting up a little to glare at the cave’s entrance. (Y/n) is more than glad, but she won’t admit to praying on his downfall out loud.

“Maybe it’s for the best… It was getting pretty late,” She settles for, sitting up and glancing around the cave. She then looks down at him, giving him a teasing smirk, “We’ll just have to snuggle for warmth, Leek. Stark naked~”

He’s quiet after that, his face turned far enough away from hers that she can’t read it. After a moment, he looks up at her with the most deadpanned expression he can muster. He doesn’t even humor her with a grin or an inch of a smile, moving his focus to thinking as he stares hard at the rain outside, “We could be here a few hours. While the cave hasn’t hit relatively low temperatures yet, we may actually need to huddle for warmth throughout the night to keep body temperature between us. We shouldn’t need to take our clothes off since we didn’t get wet or anything and we definitely can’t start another fire with all the wet materials outside-”

He continues to ramble off plausible game plans and (Y/n) is unable to keep up after awhile. She rests her chin in her palm, sighing as she lets him finish his little analysis. While he does that, she gets close to him and rests her head on his shoulder before pushing into his space. She gets comfortable, burying her face in his neck and leaning her weight into his body so the two of them fall back to the ground.

(Y/n) wraps her arms around his waist, snuggling into his hold until her body is flush against his. Senkuu’s thinking stops as one of his arms wraps around her out of instinct and pull her closer to his body. A soft flush warms and fills his cheeks as he holds her close, hand pressed flat against her back while his other arm lays out to his side. He looks down at her, hoping the small change in his breathing isn’t obvious as he takes in how close she is.

“Turn your brain off, Senkuu. You said we could be here for hours, right?” (E/c) orbs glance up at him through her eye lashes, a soft pout dancing along her lips, “I’m heading to sleep, so you should too…”

He watches as her breathing begins to soften, reminding him of fond memories in the old world from sleepovers past. He shouldn’t get so worked up, they’ve been closer than this before, but he can’t help but focus on every part of her he’s been struggling to ignore as of late. Things like this keep him from getting jealous of the others, because deep down he knows no one could ever be as comfortable with her as he is.

Even so, he’s still left only admiring her from afar. He’s lucky most of their comrades have picked up on his feelings for her, but he’s got a long way to go before he’s even close to ready to admit his feelings…

Yet… He can revel in moments like this for now, with her in his arms in rare private moments like this. He’s glad the mentalist set this up for him, regardless of the protests from Chrome and the proud look on Ukyo’s face. She doesn’t have to know he wasn’t actually looking for anything, he’ll just wake up before her and grab a few resources from the cave to use as a small diversion. For now, he’ll take advantage of his situation…

He plants a soft kiss on the top of her head, letting himself fall asleep after.

#ishigami senku #ishigami senkuu #ishigami senku x reader #ishigami senkuu x reader #senku x reader #Senkuu x reader #this is almost nothing like the request whoops #I couldn’t think of a way to make the ask productive towards the goal from that time #and I couldn’t imagine them getting stuck in that kind of situation again regardless of Senkuu’s bad luck 😅#I couldn’t see Senkuu being overtly flustered either just bc of how he is but I can see him as a sneaky bastard wanting to be with his girl #and by girl I mean close bestie he has deep feelings for that he keeps hidden #just imagine them as mutually pining idiots that know it’s a bad time to pursue something #but they kiss from time to time between stone wars and soyuz #yes this is the same reader from bandages 🤭

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chirpsythismorning · 2 years

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My favorite combination of endgame byler proof dates back to the promotion for season two (bc of course it does)!

About a week before s2 premiered, David Harbour did an interview, and deadass the only thing that makes any sense in regards to what he could possibly be referring to here, is endgame Byler:

"We’re talking about ending Stranger Things at either season four or season five. I know there is an end to the story. It’s a very beautiful end. We’ve already been laying out the pipework. There are easter eggs in season one that you won’t get until season four. You’ll look back and say ‘we’ve been seeing this story the whole time, we just haven’t realized it’. To me, that’s wonderful.”

Now, one could try to argue that David was referring to Will’s sexuality/feelings for Mike here, and I would agree, at least partly, because David’s wording sounds an awful lot like what Noah said recently in his interview with Variety:

"I mean, it’s pretty clear this season that Will has feelings for Mike. They’ve been intentionally pulling that out over the past few seasons. Even in Season 1, they hinted at that and slowly, slowly grew that storyline. I think for Season 4, it was just me playing this character who loves his best friend but struggles with knowing if he’ll be accepted or not, and feeling like a mistake and like he doesn’t belong. Will has always felt like that."

Where it gets complicated though, is that if David was referring to solely Will sexuality/unrequited feelings in this interview, then it doesn’t really make sense for him to frame it as ‘wonderful’.

But, it is important to note that David was talking about the ending, not the beginning of the end, which is what s4 ended up being. His assumption back then, was based on his knowledge of the ending, and how long he hoped the show would go for them to close off that story.

S4 obviously wasn’t a 'beautiful', nor 'wonderful' conclusion to Will’s story arc involving his sexuality/feelings for Mike being built up since s1. So, even if that’s all David was referring to, we are still yet to see the payoff.

This is where the damning proof combo comes in...

Most of you probably know, but as promotion for s2, Spotify collaborated with Netflix for official playlists dedicated to each of the ST characters. It was said that these playlists were specialized and unique to each characters traits.

But especially when it comes to the first song on each of these playlists, almost all of them are instantly recognizable as to why we can assume they chose that song, for that specific character, to start off their playlist. And arguably, even for the most casual of viewers.

For El it’s, Papa Don’t Broach. Pretty self explanatory.

For Will, it’s Should I Stay or Should I Go. Again, self explanatory.

For Mike, it's Smalltown Boy...

To those who don't know, Smalltown Boy (1984) is an unequivocal gay anthem about a young, gay man in the 80's who experiences homophobia and alienation in his small home-town, only to leave (run away) by the end, in order to be happy.

The music video leans even more blatantly into this narrative. Here it is beside this shot of Mike in 4x01 (one of the very few POV shots we got from him in s4, might I add), and it fits quite well with the Smalltown Boy agenda...

To be clear, this isn't just some song the queer community loved and so it turned into a gay anthem overtime. Because, yeah, there are definitely some songs that lyrically just feel like they could be queer (despite not intentionally being), and so the gays sort of claim it and it gains even more meaning and importance over time. However, that is not the case here. This song is undoubtedly one of the most intentionally gay songs of the 80's. And a heartbreaking SYNTH one at that!!!

If the hints for Will were intentional back then (confirmed), then it’s highly likely Smalltown Boy being the first song on Mike’s official playlist, may just be one of the many Easter eggs pointing to the fact that Mike has also been gay (and in love with Will??) this whole time.

Also worth mentioning that when Finn was recently asked about M*leven's relationship in season 5 (the ending), he had this to say;

"I don’t know, I’m really interested… I don’t know, I’m interested kind of like for the end of the show kinda in general (…) Who’s gonna stay in Hawkins, who’s gonna leave. Who’s gonna try to find a life outside. Is there even gonna be a Hawkins? I don’t know. But yeah. I’d be interested to see if Mike stays in Hawkins, or tries to find a life outside of his town. And also, you know it’s hard to tell, like obviously with Eleven and his relationship, but I hope they find, you know, happiness."

When they make-up after fighting in 4x04, Mike tells Will that Hawkins isn't the same without him. After literally listing off all of their friends, basically separating them from Will, "They're great... but-" sort of confirms to us that no matter what Hawkins has to offer, without Will, it's not the same to Mike. Which means if Will isn't going to stay in Hawkins at the end (he won't), Mike probably wont either.

TBH, Will and Mike both having feelings for each other since the beginning, and ending up together, fits a whole lot better with: ‘we’ve been seeing this story the whole time, we just haven’t realized it. And I think that’s wonderful’, than an unrequited love story does....

And the fact that all of these easter eggs, for both Mike and Will, started picking up more prominently after season 2, makes the Duffers whole "what is s2?" act right now even more funny...

#byler #stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger things 5 #stranger things theory #stranger things meta #stranger things spoilers #stranger things 5 theory #mike wheeler #will byers #smalltown boy agenda

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ecargmura · 1 month

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Bucchigiri?! Episode 9 Review - Matakara's Bad Day Continues

That ending…. While I am worried about what will happen to Matakara in these last few episodes, another part of me is excited because I want him to beat the crap out of Arajin. I am fully on Team Matakara on this one.

This episode is basically Ichiya fully possessing Matakara and how Matakara copes with the possession while still stressed and emotionally broken over Mitsukuni’s “death”. Unlike Arajin and Senya’s rather harmonious cohabitation, Matakara and Ichiya are anything but. Ichiya, as a character, is manipulative and vengeful. He manipulates Akutaro so that he will bring him towards Matakara in order to have full possession of him via bullet. He then casts him aside as he’s now inside Matakara. I do wonder what had happened for Ichiya to become the way he is. Senya’s flashback with him and Ichiya showed that they were once long-time friends but had a falling out.

Then there’s the issue with the black shadow figure. I thought the black shadowy figure was Ichiya, but I guess it’s something else entirely. Ichiya describes it as a figure of weakness that looms over Matakara as he is a weak-hearted person underneath. Matakara may seem sweet, but there is a bit of darkness that looms within his heart that has been there since he was a kid. Despite having friends and a place where he belongs, it still lingers. I do have a feeling that Ichiya could be lying about it. Watch the black shadow be a twist villain.

I can’t believe the Mitsukuni story arc ended with him getting killed off-screen. Wait, is he even dead? His funeral is not even shown. I’m on the boat of ‘pics or it didn’t happen’. If he is dead, then it’s serious wasted potential. I know that Mitsukuni is mainly used as a sort of lifeline of Matakara’s mentality, but for him to have a face, name, background and even a voice just screamed ‘important character for the story’ and he got yeeted off-screen. Why do I get the feeling that someone’s going to yell to Matakara that Mitsukuni is at the hospital and not be actually dead? I can feel that happening and I’m not going to like it at all.

Oh boy, Arajin… While it is nice that Arajin is thinking about Matakara, the fact that he still sort of finds him an annoyance and still doesn’t fully check up on him annoys me. He still simps for Mahoro and even she calls him out over his incompetence. She learned that Mitsukuni is in critical condition, or even dead and she tells Arajin if he has ever considered Matakara’s feelings for once. At least Mahoro knows how to sympathize while Arajin cannot. On top of that, Arajin starts wondering if Mahoro has a thing for Matakara. WHY IS THAT THE FIRST THING ON YOUR MIND? We’re 9 episodes into the show and there’s still no redeeming quality of this guy.

I do wonder what Akutaro’s role will be in this portion of the story. As he got abandoned by Ichiya, he wants revenge. However, the anime still doesn’t answer how he managed to stumble across Ichiya in the first place and why it’s possible for these djinnis to possess someone without a bullet.

I enjoyed the comedic parts of this episode the most. It was a nice way to get my mind off of the angst and pent-up annoyance towards Arajin. What are your thoughts on this episode?

#bucchigiri?!#Arajin tomoshibi #senya #Matakara asamine #ichiya #Mahoro jin #Mitsukuni asamine #Akutaro shindo #review #anime #anime review #ecargmura #arum journal

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cinnamon-guardian · 1 year

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HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE RECENT SPY X FAMILY MANGA ARC:

This is pure speculation, but in all honesty, the Red Circus Arc has made me rethink how the ending of the series might go down.

We don’t have any sort of major clues for how the series might end besides the omission implication that Twilight and Thorn Princess might come to blows, but how the Big Reveal™ might happen is completely up in the air.

However, certain characters are starting to piece a few of the clues together, and I’m interested to see how that goes.

First up is Becky!

Anya constantly surprises Becky, and Becky is more than willing to take her best friend at her word (they are six after all. My friends tricked me into thinking all movies were real when I was six. Kids are gullible).

But imagine if Becky relays this tid-bit back to Martha! Imagine Martha, the wise butler/chauffeur/bodyguard who is all but straight up confirmed to have some sort of martial past, hears from Becky that Anya can “read lips” because she saw it on TV. That raise some suspicion for sure.

Next is Damian!

Being candid here, this isn’t the first time Damian has been startlingly close to the truth, but it’s mostly played as a one-off idea or him being internally hyperbolic.

But the fact that he’s already coming this close to the truth of the situation means that, maybe later down the line, he might genuinely consider it as a possibility.

After that is Housemaster Henderson!

This is the only authority figure that seems to really consider Anya’s outlandish claims to be true. Hell, even her parents think she’s just pretending because there’s no way their child could be in on their big secrets, right?

But Henderson is so moved by Anya’s bravery that he genuinely kinda considers it. Out of all the side characters to figure out something’s seriously up with the Forgers, Henderson is l the safest option by far. Compared to folks like Yuri or Fiona figuring out what’s going on, I think the Forgers’ secrets are safe with Anya’s elegant educator.

But lastly, we get this huge call back:

Anya quoting straight from her father’s monologue from waaaaaaay back in the first chapter/episode of the series. And from how it’s framed in the story, it rattles everyone there to their core. People are going to talk about what she said, and they’re almost definitely going to tell Loid about it.

Granted, it was a one-off thought that Loid had 73 chapters ago, so it might not even register to him. But at the same time, it’s what gave him meaning.

This might just be a one-off line, but it’s what motivates Twilight to be who he is. I don’t think he’s liable to forget that anytime soon since it was Anya herself that reminded him of that. So to hear that lifelong mission parroted back to him would definitely lead to quite a few questions.

All of this is to say that we’re starting to see glimpses of the truth break through, and instead of it being one giant instance of the curtain being pulled to reveal the real wizard or what have you, it’s going to be a gradual process where, little by little, everyone begins to realize that something isn’t adding up.

And I’m not using this to blame Anya for blowing her cover—again, she’s six (or four if we go by fan theories, but I digress)—but it’s really interesting that she’s started a domino effect that might lead to people figuring out her true abilities and the true nature of her adopted parents’ sooner than she’d like. Only time will tell, but a lot of this feels like it’s building towards something huge.

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redbullgivesyouwingedkuriboh · 3 months

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Since y’all liked me getting beaten down by GX characters so much, here’s:

Yu-Gi-Oh ARC-V Characters ranked by how easily I could take them in a fight

same rules apply: fisticuffs only and my personal feelings about the characters do not matter

also since ARC-V is WEIRD AF when it comes to characters this will be characters that are exclusive to ARC-V. so no repeat of Asuka. We already know I bite harder than she does.

without further ado, here we go:

Reira Akaba. No shit. is literally a baby. if I was a baby kicking kind of person I could punt her into the sun. However as I do not kick babies I am more inclined to wrap her in a lil blanket and put her in the corner.

Yuya Sakaki. Bitch. One good step on his toes and he’s going “reaction shot?!” I pull on his stupid fuckin goggles and snap them back onto his face. he’s down. count to ten.

Yuzu Hiragi. Canonically the bracelet girls really suck at holding their own at any given moment. Yuzu is the weakest physically because she has never seen war or hardship to the level of the other three. I could take her in four seconds. pigtail tug time.

Yuri. The second weakest physically of the Yu boys. has been coddled by Leo for years. probably sparred with Sho at the academy to make himself feel better about having 0% body weight from muscles. eat shit you purple motherfucker.

Dennis McField. not only would I beat him, I would enjoy doing it. I’d love to curbstomp that motherfucker off a boat, except he already did that to himself. physically he is a fuckin twig and I am five feet seven inches of pure unadulterated god complex. he’ll wish I turned his ass into a card.

Reiji Akaba. the scarf works to his detriment. I do two laps around him holding the end of that thing and suddenly his face is turning blue and he’s calling for papa. unfortunately for him I have zero mercy.

Rin. again, the bracelet girls are notoriously bad at being strong independent women. we literally don’t see Rin for most of the series because she got herself kidnapped off the cuff. that being said she could probably hold her own against me, but I think she’s too sweet for that.

Z-ARC. We’ve established I bite. even outside of human form, if you look at him, he’s got a fuck ton of exposed veins, both as regular Z-ARC and Yuya Z-ARC. chompy chompy motherfucker you’ll pass out from the blood loss before I can kick your ass properly.

Yugo. Canonically relies on his motorcycle for fuckin everything. lost to Yuri because he rolled a nat one on his constitution saving throw. even though he’s probably physically in shape from motorcycle stuff I could flick him in the forehead and he’d be whining like a baby. If I got the first shot in, I’d have a 99% chance of winning. If he got to me first it would go to about 60%. again, I bite.

Leo Akaba. Here’s where we get into characters that have a greater than 50% chance of beating me. Leo is canonically ripped and also has zero emotions. I would only win if I got close enough for a nut kick, but there’s only one person who wants to be that close to Leo Akaba and it sure as hell ain’t me.

Sora Shuin’in. Holy fuck who let their feral cat off its leash. Sora is literally insane and I am requesting backup. He’d shove that lollipop so far up my ass that I’d be able to tell whether it was lime or green apple. I live in fear of Sora suddenly materializing in my room

Ruri Kurosaki. Remember how I bite? She bites harder. She puts up with No Shit and also has No Fucks To Give.

Serena. No further explanation needed. I fear that explaining it further would cause Feral Child #2 to burst into my brain and start kicking.

Yusho Sakaki. Sweet mother of blue eyes white dragon. remember how I said my personal feelings don’t matter? now they do. smash. next question. wait what were we talking about?

Shun Kurosaki. kinda lost the plot on Yusho but we’re back on track now. Shun canonically took out armed guards by Batmanning his ass up a wall. There’s posters up for him that say “lost dog” and the caption is just “if you find him please keep him”.

Yuto. Everything that Shun is + Ruri taught him how to effectively bite.

Noburu Gongenzaka. he is actually ripped and wears cement shoes for funzies. he could probably just stomp once and my shaky joints would give out on their own. bye.

Yoko Sakaki. canonically beat the stuffing out of people in her past life and I would let her. angry mom energy means I barely make it out alive. smash. wait— shit—

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arc-misadventures · 1 year

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Smol Arc: Blake convinces Jaune to meet her mother since her teammates already has and she wants him to also meet her since he is important to her. He goes to be nice but unfortunately in their first meeting he doesn't see where he is going and bumps face first into the OG Bellabooty. It will be am embarrassing moment for him but an enlightened one for Kali who likes it.

Euphoria

Smol AU

Blake: So, what do you think of, Menagerie, Jaune?

Jaune: A bit humid for my liking, but it is quite pleasant.

Blake: Good, I was worried you wouldn’t like it; I didn’t want your vacation to be ruined because you couldn’t handle the weather.

Jaune: Well if it become too unbearable I’ll just throw myself in the sea.

Blake: I know much better places you can go to have a good swim, Jaune; I’ll show them to you after we’ve settled down.

Jaune: You swim?

Blake: I love swimming! Wait, do you think I didn’t like swimming?

Jaune: I do not judge a faunas to take upon their animal counterparts personally just because they have matching ears, and what not. With you however I must beg the question.

Blake: What?! What makes you think that?!

Jaune: Your love for fish, and milk. Your habit of sitting in boxes. How easily you can be distracted by red laser dotes, and you fear of dogs. How am I supposed not to judge you by cat stereotypes when you have proven to me several times over that they are true.

Blake: …

Blake: Shut up.

Jaune: Point fo… Ophh?!

Jaune: Bhaa?! What was… Oh no… I did it again…

Blake: Mom! Are you okay?!

Jaune: And, it was your mother too… Well shit, I’m dead…

Kali: Blake? Oh, Blake my sweetie you’re home! Mmm~! How are you? How’s Beacon?

Blake: I’m fine, but are you okay, mom? Jaune did just… Rear end you…

Kali: Jaune, oh, I didn’t see you there! Are you okay, little boy?

Jaune: I am eighteen years old ma’am, I am just short for my age, and gender. But, are you alright, I did just… bump into you.

Kali: Oh! You must be, Jaune Arc! My daughter has rold me a lot about you. And, don’t worry; she’s said nothing but the best about you~!

Jaune: That does worry me… But, are you okay, Ms. Belladonna?

Kali: Oh, I’m fine, it was nothing more than a little bump. And, please call me, Kali~!

Jaune: very well then, Kali.

Kali: Good, now then, you must be tired, lets get home, and I’ll start dinner: Alright?

Jaune: That sounds lovely. Let’s be off then, I want to change into something more accommodating to this climate.

Blake: Mom?

Kali: Yes dear?

Blake: How did feel?

Kali: How did what feel like?

Blake: Jaune face in your ass? How did it feel?!

Kali: Oh that! Well, it felt like…

~~~

Kali at the moment of impact:

~~~

Kali: Something like that.

Blake: That’s what I felt too! It feels so amazing!

Kali: I can see why you like him so much, that little gentleman does something to a woman~!

Blake: I know! And, since it’s just the two of us, nothing will getting in our way for having some fun with him~!

Kali: Fun hmmm~? Blake?

Blake: Yes mom?

Kali: We’re going swimming tomorrow; And, when we do, make sure to wear something that can… slip off~!

Blake: Yes mom!

Kali: Oh we’re going to have some fun~!

#rwby #jaune arc #blake belladonna #kali belladonna #jaune x blake #blake x jaune #kali x jaune #jaune x kali #rwby knightshade

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linkspooky · 1 year

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Hi! I saw your tags about Tara in Teen Titans comics--I'm only familiar with the cartoon series. How do your feelings about Tara compare in the show vs. the comics? I ask since I noticed you mentioned that Tara never really cared about BB, which I think is obviously changed in the show, and I wonder how you feel about that.

They're both good? They're both good! I think one thing people forget about comic book characters vs. adaptations of comic book characters, is that comic books were always intended to be a collaborative medium that builds on itself through the work of multiple authors and interpretations. Thus, you can have multiple versions of the same character who have the same core but don't really have to be exactly the same. This is why it is kind of silly when people get upset animated adaptations make changes from the original source material because that's kind of the point, in a collaborative medium, you're going to get another author's take on the same character.

Since you asked I can give you an analysis on the core ideas of Teen Cartoon Terra vs. Comics Terra, and also her relationship with Beast Boy in both versions.

1. GWEN STACY

So, I once talked about how Terra was always intended by her creators to die, but that's not necessarily offensive or fridging her character because Terra's still a character with a lot of narrative agency. Terra is the main character of her story, it's just her story happens to be a tragedy. That is true for both versions.

Before the start of the story her fate is sealed. This is what you call doomed by the narrative. George Wolfram and Glen Murakami have both given interviews explaining as such. Albeit, for different reasons.

Comics Terra was essentially made to deconstruct a lot of comic book tropes. I lovingly call her "Asshole Kitty Pryde." From conception she was going to be the spunky new kid with mutant powers who joined the titans at fifteen and immediately became friends with everyone... except she was evil all along.

George’s strength was he also understood the characters 100 percent as I did so there was never any question. He knew. We had talked enough about the characters to know we were exactly on the same page with them. So I said, “Everyone keeps complaining that we’re like the X-Men” and the X-Men had just gotten Kitty Pryde. I said, “Why don’t we really screw around with them completely?” — this is the fans — “…and make them think we’re stealing Kitty Pryde only she’s gonna be bad from Day One.”

Of course this is where authorial intent differs from like, what actually ended up happening in the story. Worlfram's intent was to always make Terra have no reason for her actions, the tragic backstory she feeds the teen titans is kind of embellished and made up, she decided to become a mercenary all on her own, she wants to work with Slade and is even trying to seduce him. However, Terra still comes off as horribly tragic despite their intentions and other authors have since then picked up on their subtext.

Like, I genuienly think the intention was to just write her as pure evil, but instead what they got was writing her as a bad victim. That is, the kind of victim that presents incredibly unsavory and unlikable reactions to their abuse instead of either being kinder than their abusers, remaining pure and chaste like Cinderella or just waiting to be saved. Terra's not a passive victim nor is she waiting for sympathy, she hurts people the way she has been hurt, she maipulates the way she has been manipulated. Terra's been beaten down and now her goal is to come out on top. I believe the reason why she came out this way has a lot to do with Perez and Wolfram sticking to their guns and never giving her a redemption arc.

The very first time we see her, she’s trying to blow up the Statue of Liberty. It’s just that all the fans assumed because we went out of our way to make her cute — but not too cute, with the buck teeth and everything — everyone would assume that she was gonna become good by the end and that was never the case.

First thing, we made a promise that day that we would never renege on our view that she’d never become good. It’s sometimes hard to do that with characters you like. You want them to become good or something like that. But we never liked the character enough—because we knew what we were doing with her—we never allowed ourselves to fall for the character. Because that’s bad. That’s bad storytelling. You’re doing what you want as a fan at that particular point, not as the creators. The fans had to accept what we were doing and not do the same stories that they had read 14,000 times before. You know, at Marvel, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were villains who became good guys and I could go through a whole list of ’em.

Their commitment to the bit meant that Terra’s story became what was essentially Greek tragedy at that point. Terra was always fall and because of that, Wolfram and Perez dedicate a lot of time in the story showing the audience exactly what all of her flaws are and why those flaws are the reason for that fall. They committed to their creative decisions when writing this character, which is why Terra ends up being such a strong character, especially for the time. Of course there were female villains, but they weren’t really allowed to be complex victims to the degree that Terra is, have her entire range of negative traits, have her flaws fully on display and then still have it be a tragic ending when she does not get saved.

Gwen Stacy was always going to die, and Terra was never going to be redeemed. I do not believe either of those cases are fridging because sometimes characters die in fiction, and sometimes they contribute more ot the story dead than they do alive. Terra’s the first real loss for the Teen Titans, it also came on the cusp of a time in DC where teenage superheroes and sidekicks started to die (Cough, Cough, Jason Todd). Under the Red Hood and Judas Contract are such effective and lasting comic book storylines because they are such tightly written tragedies yes... both of them depict a bad victim who does not get saved (even though that is the whole point of both arcs).

Terra is in fact, probably more comparable to Under the Red Hood Jason than she is Gwen Stacy because she is number one a teenager with problems who probably should not have been made a superhero in the first place, and two a trauma victim who copes by manipulation and violence to try to reclaim control of their lives. But, to bring the Gwen Stacy comparison back. Gwen Stacy was always going to die, Terra was always going to die, but unlike Gwen Stacy Terra is not anyone’s love interest she is the protagonist. Peter Parker fails to save Gwen because the Green Goblin attacked her, she was killed to hurt Peter Parker. Terra pulls the arena down on herself and buries herself alive in Samson and Delilah-esque fashion at the end of her own personal tragic arc.

To get to the real differences between the two characters though, characterization wise, I think both versions start with the same central concept, this is a troubled teenager who should never have been made a hero.

Terra is a deeply troubled teen, however the way she copes in both versions are wildly different, almost opposite. I like to say cartoon Terra has like, at any moment five different personalities, while comics Terra has no personality.

2. Runaway Girl

To elaborate on this, cartoon Terra’s entire character revolves around how unstable her sense of self is, due to never having any stability in her life. The cartoon is actually very purposeful in showing in both imagery and metaphor Terra’s splintered sense of self. The first few lines of dialogue introducing her are this.

“She’s not in trouble, she was leading it into a trap.” “Question is, who is she?” Slade: “Don’t get too attached my young friend, I saw her first.”

Said by the Titans and then Slade. Even in the first lines introducing her, not only is the question of who she is asked, but Slade immediately tries to claim her from the titans. Later on in the show, the way Terra acts around the Teen Titans as a group, the way Terra acts when she is with Slade, the way Terra acts when alone with Beast Boy, the way Terra acts when alone with Raven are all wildly different versions of herself, to the point where it’s hard to believe she’s the same girl sometimes.

This is even apparent in the first episode before Slade even gets to her. Terra insists that she enjoys sleeping outside, she enjoys running from place to place, she doesn’t really want a place to stay for the night, she’s presenting herself as some sort of self-reliant and worldly traveler instead of what she really is, a homeless runaway kid. Terra is attempting to appear calm, cool, and responsible and she is absolutely none of these things, and she’s pretty transparent about it too. She cool girls herself so people will like her. The second she is alone in Beast Boy and loses control of her powers for 30 seconds, she immediately crashes, starts berating herself and her self esteem sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

Trust, is something constantly brought up again and again with Terra’s character though I would say Terra despite literally being the main character of an arc called the Judas Contract, despite betrayal being the one thing she is known for... always sees herself as getting betrayed first. Which is why she overreacts to the perception that Beast Boy broke a promise to keep her powers safe in the first episode. Terra doesn’t trust people at all. Though, to trust people and form healthy relationships with them, you actually have to be a fully developed and well-rounded person which Terra is not. Terra is basically a foster kid who has been through several families before this, waiting for her current one to dump her. She has interanlized the idea that there is something wrong with her that makes this rejection happen, but she doesn’t know how to fix it, or how to be better the kind of person that can have those healthy friendships so she dedicates herself into hiding those flaws instead.

Terra: You don’t belong with the Titans. Terra: You don’t know anything about you. Slade: On the contrary Terra, I know everything about you. I’ve been watching you for some time. I know why you’re always running away. I know your secret, little girl.

This is also why she runs from the Titans to Slade. It’s a question I see commonly asked about cartoon Terra, if she’s meant to be more sympathetic than comic books Terra why does she willingly go to Slade instead of staying with the Titans? Which is a silly question, because you might as well be asking why do grooming victims get groomed? Why don’t they just know that groomers are bad people?

Teenagers are not grownups. Especially not Terra, a bastard child rejected by her parents who has been on the run for however many years. Terra is a teenager and a severely underdeveloped teenager at that, and she has learned to survive on the streets yes, but that’s not really the same as learning to be a functional person, who can have healthy relationships with people, and control their emotions. Children actually require parents to nurture and teach them and raise them up to be more functional adults, and they also require the stability adults in their lives provide them.

Terra goes to Slade because he is an adult who is promising to be there for her, and give her control and stability which are things adults in her life have failed to give her. She can’t trust the Titans to give her these things because they are children one as Slade needles her into believing they cannot understand or help her, and two the way Terra has lived her life up to this point a transactional relationship with Slade makes more sense to her head than the found family the Teen Titans have based on love and trust because Terra is a stranger to both of those concepts.

Terra is also someone who has little control over her life in general, which is why cartoon Terra is so passive in comparison to comic book Terra. In the episode Betrayal itself, Terra keeps her foot in the door about the actual betrayal the whole way, and seems to change her mind on what she wants several time. Because Terra has five different personalities. Ginger Terra, Sporty Terra, Posh Terra, Scary Terra, and Baby Terra. Terra doesn't have a cohesive sense of self so she's entirely reactive, she just does what she thinks will keep her safe in the moment. Terra wants safety and control of her powers so she goes to Slade. Terra feels guilty about what she does for the Titans so she tries to run away from Slade for the moment. Beast Boy asks her out on a date, but because Terra's betraying the Titans that night Terra says no. Five minutes later, Terra says yes. She is constantly changing her mind and contradicting herself like this.

Which is where we get to the greatest contradiction this episode, Terra betrays the titans and clearly feels guilty about it,b ut instead of say telling the Titans what she did or coming clean she just runs away. Which is where we get to the extremely subtle imagery of Terra in a house of mirrors.

Terra can't face her reflection over and over again, because she can't face herself, because she has no sense of self. She doesn't know why she does these things, but she's done them now, and she's stuck with those choices.

Terra: Beast Boy, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Beast Boy: Then why did you let it? Terra: I don't know okay, I don't know. Slade he helped me. He saved me from myself. He said I owed him. Beast Boy: So, it was all just a game. You were just pretending. Terra: No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember?

This is also Terra's most honest display of remorse, and the exact moment Terra gets rejected, crying and begging for forgiveness for what she's done and after that is the point where she goes full villain. Terra goes from baby Terra, to Scary Terra. A lot of who cartoon Terra is born from fear of moments like this where she is rejected. Terra was the one who tricked Beast Boy and Beast Boy is rightfully upset of course, but in Terra's mind only able to see her own hurt feelings Beast Boy is the one who broke the promise to her. Terra internalizes the fact she cannot be forgiven at that point and seeing no other recourse goes full villain and insists she feels no guilt, she wanted to destroy the titans to begin with, it was all a lie. The complete inversion of how she acted in the betrayal episode. Terra is manipulative, spiteful, hungry for power and yes she's capable of being all of those things but one important thing is.

The second, the second Slade starts mistreating her and beating her Terra immediately wants out. It turns out it's not power or control Terra wanted at all with Slade, but the idea of safety he provided her. The moment it becomes unsafe for her she tries to leave again, because Terra is a child desperately seeking safety in a world that feels unsafe for her, and she'll find it by crushing people she perceives to be a threat if she has to.

That is Terra in a nutshell, she doesn't feel safe anywhere, or with anybody. She has no stable foundation. She is the human embodiment of the tower card in Tarot. No matter how hard she tries to trust others and trust in return, because those are basic human urges we all have, she ends up falling down. It's interesting for a character who is so famous for betrayal, how much of her arc shows she clearly wants to be accepted and trusted by others, and gets hurt at the idea of their rejection. Even the day she literally betrayed Beast Boy before taking him out on a date she asks him this.

Terra: Do you trust me? Beast Boy: More than anyone I've ever met.

I would say Terra's inability to trust doesn't come from the fact she's a bad person or a bad victim, but because she doesn't have the tools to form healthy relationships because of how seriously neglected a child she is. A part of the tragedy of Terra is because Terra cannot save herself, because she is a child. Just like how the Titans have such difficulty saving her, because they are children too and they're not really emotionally prepared to save a person as morally grey and as in need as Terra, and the only adult in the situation is Slade who is there to take advantage.

Transitioning too. Comics Terra, while cartoon Terra has too much personality, Comics Terra has too little. She was written to be a sociopath, and that's not really my term that's how the writers describe her though I can dig up evidence she shows clear signs of being capable of having attachment to people. I'd say rather than a sociopath she's more written as an enigma. Terra's motives are spurious, her actions are inconsistent, she seems to be driven by spite. She is an incredibly angry kid with a chip on her shoulder who seems to be capable of anything.

Cartoon Terra is trying to play along with other peopel's expectations to her, while comics Terra rejects everyone's expectations. She loathes cute teenage girl superheroes. She finds dressing up in costumes and fighting crime to be ridiculous in the first place. Though, I would say despite saying she clearly hates the titans, literally the next panel she displays some affection for Kid Flash.

Comics Terra isn't completely unfeeling, she's capable of forming connections to people, she has a fondness for Geo-Force her brother, Kid Flash, and sort of for Beast Boy she just never fully forms relationships with them.

Terra's not really even maintaining much of a cover with the Titans, because both with Slade and the Titans she is a rude, belligerent raunchy kid who is trying to constantly get into other people's faces. Terra is all of those things, she just when she is alone with Slade also pretends she is an adult, in an adult relationship with him. (Cough, cough, grooming victim. A victim of sexual grooming in this sense too).

Terra's written to be a sociopath yeah, or at least her writers tried too but I'd say she's more a character who the audience has little to no idea what is going on in her head. A lot of her is left ambiguous. Considering her backstory though, the rejected bastard of a king, someone who is working as a mercenary at fifteen, she clearly has not had a good life. Just like cartoon Terra she is lacking a sense of self.

However, instead of eschewing her agency, Terra takes her agency from other people. Cartoon Terra is good at manipulating when she wants to be, but Comics Terra sees the world in terms of every relatonship is transactional and based on manipulation, the world is winners and losers, the world is about who is on top and who is on the bottom. Terra lacks no real goal, or purpose, no friend, no home no loved ones she really only wants to crawl up on top of others if she has to.

Which is exactly why she gets into a relationship with Slade. Comics Terra seems to think her and Slade are equals, and that she is manipulating and using him as much as he is using her. The tragedy in this case arises from the fact that you know, Terra is a fifteen year old girl and Slade is three times her age.

There's an entire chapter where we follow around Terra montiofring people with contacts, and she's going about the titans daily lives just, telling Slade how much she hates them the whole time, but then she stops to ask Garfield why he's constantly being rude to other people and seems genuinely interested in listening to him talk about his feelings.

Terra's only out for herself, she is out to define herself and not let anyone else tell her who she is and who she should be. Terra's selfishness makes sense though considering the situation she is, she's either made to feel nothing like how she was with her family, or she is being sexually groomed by a guy three times her age. Her response to that, her extreme self interest and only caring about her own survival really is her way of fighting back against a world that she sees as trying to wear her down.

And that's a key part of her character Terra is a grooming victim who is also a bad victim. She's being groomed and her way of reclaiming her agency is to insist she wants sex, she wants to hurt people, that actually she's the one manipulating Slade. It's all Terra trying to assert control in a situation where she has none. I don't know if you know this, but a fifteen year old can't manipulate a guy in his fifties who has been doing this for years. Terra also, projects a lot of her hate for her situation and her lot at life at the Titans.

They did not do anything wrong to her, but at the same time she's pretty cosntantly unhappy with them, she complains none of them like her, she complains about their lack of trust, I believe that's less Terra trying to infiltrate them and more Terra herself either believing she cannot fit in anyhwere or as a person who only believes in transactional relationships and manipulation just not understanding how family works.

Terra also acts like dangerously unstable at all times, there's a point in the comics where Beast Boy gets way too aggressive with his flriting, that he full on triggers what resembles a PTSD response in her and she tries to bury him alive.

At times like this when Terra is made to feel she's either not the one with the power here, or being looked down upon she asserts herself with violence to desperately try to regain control. It is not healthy by any means, but it is still the behavior of someone who is coping incredibly poorly. Terra relies on fear and control to make herself feel safe at times like this, because she's not been shown love early on in her life and by this point she genuinely does not understand it. And also I cannot emphasize this enough as a victim of sexual grooming, Terra is pretty much not ever safe, or in a situation where she has bodily agency or control.

Terra in the cartoon dies in a heroic sacrifice, whereas Terra in the comics dies because she loses control of her power and essentially suicides. If anything the tragedy here is that Terra is someone who never learned to be a girl properly, nor was she appreciated as a human being and because of that she formed her entire sense of self around her powers. She is a child, and never having been allowed to be one, and not knowing how to live in this world, form relationships with people, trust and be trusted she dies as a child. Terra once again has nothing solid to build herself on, and because of that the tower falls down.

3. Terra and Beast Boy

In the cartoon Terra and Beast Boy are clearly meant to be in a relatoinship, in the comics Terra claims to have hated him all along, but arguably she could have been fond of him.

In both versions the relationship is entirely wrong headed from the start. A lot of it has to do with Beast Boy's flaws as a character. I wrote on and on how immature of an individual Terra is, and Beast Boy as the youngest on the team shares many of those immature and selfish traits. IN the comic itself that seems to be the reason why Beast Boy and Terra are paired together, they are the closest in age, she is the new girl and the trope Terra is made to deconstruct is the cute comic book love interest.

Comic book Garfield is almost more immature than cartoon Garfield, and on top of that is a full blown male chauvinist. A lot of people do not like Wolfram/Perez Beast Boy, I kind of love him because he doesn't understand woman's boundaries and thinks he desperately needs to get into a relationship and makes them uncomfortable because he sees his flriting as harmless to them... you know like a teenage boy. Unlike most characters like this that appear in media, this quality of Beast Boy's is something that gets called out on all the time.

Terra and Beast Boy do have something in common in that they are both outsiders to the group, they are the youngest so no one takes them seriously, they are almost always stuck together, there's a scene where they're both getting tutored by a tutor Garfield's rich father hired and they're both such ADD kids no one wants to be there. She does have at least one genuine moment of connection like this one.

Their immaturity is what makes them the most similiar, but they go about the inferiority they feel towards other people in opposite ways, Terra sets out to try to prove that she is better than other people by asserting herself, while Beast Boy tries to bend over backwards to win their love.

Terra sympathizes with Beast Boy because they share the same root cause of the issue, but they cope in opposite ways and because of that she looks down on him as just another kid. Which is something Terra is desperately trying to prove she is not. Terra genuinely does go out of her way to kiss him which shows this conversation at least affected her, she has moments of being genuine around Beast Boy, but I think this and every version of Beast Boy is too immature to ever reach her. Because to return to the male chauvinist aspect of Beast Boy's character, not long after this scene he full on triggers Terra by coming on way too hard to her.

Beast Boy wants a girlfriend, to validate his feelings, to make him feel special when he feels like he is the only kid, and the one most often left behind in a group of adults. He tries to make Terra into his love interest and Terra does not want to play that role at all. There are moments where Terra is genuine with Beast Boy, and he might have been able to reach her, but Beast Boy is so obssessed with the image of Terra he has built in his head and the idea of having her he's never able to even come close to her.

Beast Boy cannot understand Terra with any sort of nuance whatsoever, because she's a woman who doesn't really want to play along with any image of her in his mind.

Their cartoon relationship is much less destructive, but really suffers from the same fundamental problem. Both the episode "Terra" and the episode "Betrayal" feature Beast Boy trying to make Terra a promise that he cannot keep. The first time he promises to keep her powers a secret, he actually keeps that one but the perception that he's betrayed her is what makes Terra run. The second time Beast Boy promises to accept her no matter what she does, only to reject her when she is openly weeping and apologizing at his feet out of remorse.

Like, if you wanted to save Terra. To convince her to turn back to the side of good there was never a time more ideal than that but Beast Boy spits in her face. Because while he's a hero he's also a fifteen year old boy feeling hurt and betrayed. This is Beast Boy's Orpheus turning back to look at Eurydice moment.

Beast Boy's attraction to Terra is sort of instant and a kiddie crush, but any relationship they might have had is broken by the time Terra runs away at the end of their first episode together. Afterwards Terra has already betrayed the Titans, and Beast Boy is clinging to the girl Terra appeared to be the first time they met.

Beast Boy doesn't really fully comprehend Terra, which is why the literal last episode of the series is Beast Boy stalking Terra all day long and insisting that he knows her best, and he knows certain things about her and acting confused when she tells him that she was never that way, she never liked sleeping outside, she wasn't the girl he thought she was.

I went to great length to show how Terra's emotional immaturity results in her constant flip-flopping and contradiction, but Beast Boy shows the exact same behavior. Beast Boy in the cartoon tries to play roles to Terra that he is not emotionally mature enough to play. While at the same time. The first is he tries to be the one protecting her, the one guaranteeing her stability. In the first episode he is the one who stays with Terra and calms her down after Slade triggers her into nearly causing an earthquake.

At the same time by the end of that episode he's unable to make Terra stay because she's so hurt at the idea he betrayed one secret. Beast Boy is also the same person who one episode ago told Terra that she didn't have any friends to her face when she was crying and apologizing and just left her there, and the very next episode gets angry when the titans say Terra is irredeemable. Beast Boy that was you. You said that, to her face.

Beast Boy: Terra, you're our friend. Terra: I don't have any friends, remember?

Beast Boy wants to act like a hero saving Terra, but he's not that great of a hero, nor is he emotionally mature enough to do that. Which is why we get this behavior of Beast Boy, first reaching out to save her, and then resorting to victim blaming when he feels like he can't save her. He jumps between I am Terra's best friend, I know she was there all along, to just Terra doesn't have any friends. Terra you wanted to do these things, it was your choice. There's no consistency in Beast Boy's actions, because Beast Boy doesn't really know what to do he is vulnerable and desperate, because a person who he cares about has hurt him, and is also hurting.

Beast Boy is once again trying to put Terra into a simple and easy to understand box. He is acting like the hero of the story, and she flips between his villain and his love interest when that's not the case. Terra's more focused on Terra herself, she cares about Beast Boy but she's also just trying to survive. Beast Boy is a little bit too focused on his relationship with Terra, and like the validation he wants to get from her that he can't look at Terra as a whole person, or realize from an outsider's perspective she's a kid in dire need of saving. Well he does at times, but like I said he flips between advocating for never giving up on her, and victim blaming her because Terra is not easy to understand and he cannot make up his mind.

Terra is the main character of her own story and Beast Boy doesn't know how to comprehend her that way, or set himself aside to look at things from Terra's perspective because he's fifteen and stuck inside his own head with all those adolescent feelings and hormones.

In both versions, I think Beast Boy mistakes what could have been a strong friendship for romance because he is obsessed with getting into a relationship without really understanding what that entails. Beast Boy not being a good boyfriend at fifteen is actually perfectly understandable, the whole tragedy of the Judas Contract in general is that just like Terra is too immature to save herself from her situation, the Titans also just being kids are too young to save her.

They also both try to jump into a relationship without building a solid friendship first, because they both need love and stability and have no idea how relationships are supposed to work. It's like they both fell in love with the people they were when they first met and the relationship never evolved. They are similar and there is a connection, but rather than the things they have in common bringing them together, it drives them apart.

#beast boy #tara markov #terra #teen titans #teen titans meta #tt meta #new teen titans #terra markov #terra teen titans #garfield logan #bbterra #beast boy x terra #judas contract #metasks

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fandomrouletteburrito · 7 months

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Thinking about how in Tsubasa after reading the entire story how it changes how you feel about all the arcs. Spoilers for the ending and Nirai Kanai and xxxHolic below

There is no happiness in the way the arcs end especially once they reach Tokyo end, there is a sense of completeness but never like: ah yes we are happy now.

The best they get is a sense of satisfaction at having reached the goal and saving people but you know the final goal could potentially take decades and is seemingly endless and that is daunting for the cast.

And once shit starts hitting the fan theres nothing but tragedy after tragedy, the loss of Syaoran, Fai’s near death, Sakura’s loneliness and powerlessness, Kurogane’s anxiety for the other shoe to drop, the ENTIRETY OF CELES, knowing theyre all trying to cope as best as they can but every world they’ve visited since Tokyo has only faced a massacre in Clone!Syaoran’s wake and how traumatizing it is and the pain of knowing he would never do it if he was in control. Not to mention Clone!Syaoran’s inner conflict of knowing deep down he loves Sakura but despite the soul he made it takes losing her WATCHING her DIE to finally bring him to the front however briefly it is.

And in the final end, Clone!Sakura and Clone!Syaoran remain in a state of limbo, kind of dead if we’re being brutally honest.

Like Tsubasa isn’t a story of a happy ending, it’s literally just coping with tragedy and loss. And I think this is what makes me love it so much, that yes all four survived but the cost was two main characters. Its not a satisfying ending, its just tragic, after suffering so much and setting everything right and even being able to live in the original timeline, the two beings that helped them survive this long don’t get to be in this happy ending. Syaoran sacrified his parents, his childhood, his freedom, his time, his chance at a normal life and he still doesn’t get to be with his Sakura all the time. Clone! Syaoran himself said there was a timeline where Sakura and Syaorn can never be together and the knowledge that there was going to be an even worse timeline is so horrific after all that suffering…

And if we want to get into Nirai Kanai, I think this is the only part of Tsubasa I outright sobbed, the cruelty of Syaoran SEEING Clone!Syaoran or his father and needing to FIGHT him and him STAYING DEAD, was so painful. How much Syaoran didn’t want to do it but he had no choice. Not to mention Watanuki had to do the same with Yuuko to help Syaoran(they really do be the same person huh?)

#trc #tsubasa reservoir chronicles #tsubasa chronicles #clone sakura #princess tsubasa #princess sakura #clone syaoran #syaoran li #tsubasa li #fai d flourite #kurogane #trc meta #watanuki kimihiro #xxxholic #trc nirai kanai #nirai kanai

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justalittlebluetiefling · 1 year

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Who asked me for almost 18.5k words on Steve and Nancy from Stranger things? No one? Just me? That’s fine. This was how I wanted to spend my time the last two weeks anyway.

I’m not great at introductions. I’ll just start this off with a bold thesis statement: Nancy and Steve have been intended as an endgame couple since season two. “Erin,” you might be saying, “season two is a stretch. They broke up so she could be with someone else,” while you not-so-secretly think that I’m losing it. To which I would point out that, yes, Jonathan and Nancy were one hundred percent intended to be the endgame couple at first. However, things shifted when they decided to keep Steve alive and give him his own character arc and development. They were turning Steve into someone that could be a good partner for Nancy and it doesn’t make a lot of narrative sense for them not to come back to each other in the end.

I’m getting away from myself. My point is that doing an immediate rewatch of the entire series after season four came out, I could see the shift that I hadn’t noticed before, so I want to talk about it by dissecting almost all of their interactions in every season with so many screenshots, because that’s just the kind of person I am.

Disclaimer: I just like picking apart narratives for fun. If you disagree/don’t ship it/hate me for writing this, that’s fun for you, but if you don’t have something constructive to add, let it die. There will be some talk about Jonathan and Nancy’s relationship in here as well, because it’s important to the narrative, but all the talk will be serving the thesis statement above. (I’ll also probably repeat points a few times because this is long and I lose track of things like that. And this is BARELY proofread by me, so I’m sorry.)

Season One

1x1

We get a few things from this episode.

Nancy is into Steve, but trying not to get her hopes up.

Our first glimpse into the Wheeler marriage. They are very obviously nowhere close to being on the same page.

It really is fun to go back and see Nancy with a crush. Just a girl with a crush on the popular boy and she’s really really trying to be cool about it. I mean, saying, “He likes me, but not like that,” while she can’t not smile the entire time?

We know Nancy is trying not to get her hopes up, so it’s nice that she has a friend here who knows her worth.

And this also begs the question… how much has Barb been present for their interactions? Not at all at this point, right? That’s not an answer we’re going to get, but she seems pretty insistent that Nancy is downplaying things.

Which, okay, we shift over into the bathroom where Steve and Nancy are making out and he’s doing dumb things like smiling into the kiss and trying to make plans to hang out more. Make out more, under the guise of studying.

The big thing about Steve here is that we don’t know much about him and his motives at this point. It would be really easy to write him off as what he was intended to be in the original script. But you can see it here. The way he doesn’t know what to do with someone like Nancy. How she might be different from other girls he’s pursued and he’s a confident guy, but he can tell he’s in a little over his head.

There’s also a greater conversation to be had about Steve and how much he needs physical touch as comfort, but I’m not ready to dive into that yet (maybe not in this essay at all), so I’m going to put this here. Physical touch: 1

Again, like I said above, it would be easy to write him off, right? He helps her study and he does try to push things a little further than she wants. But he listens when she tells him to stop and they go back to studying. This is something that I’m going to bring up again, but here’s why this is important. What we’re seeing here is that Nancy is the one who is setting the pace of this relationship. Whether or not it’s a pace he’s happy with, he’s sticking around, because she is what he wants. And this matters to Nancy. She sees him respecting the boundaries she’s setting.

It’s a little hint for us, the viewers, too. Something important about his personality to file away for later. This way he pushes followed by the rapid (if reluctant, in this case) pivot. And it’s important that we see Nancy clocking this. Taking in the way that he is different from the persona he uses on a daily basis. Now, in the future, we know that he’s a sad, vulnerable guy who is putting on a show, but no one at school knows that. Still, it’s something he can be for a moment around Nancy, because what’s that thing they said about Steve and Nancy? How she listens to him in a way no one else has at this point and it makes him feel more comfortable revealing this other side of himself?

I don’t know. I’ll talk about this more later, because Steve really is a rollercoaster this season.

1x2

So, their next scene is kind of interesting. Barb is quizzing Nancy in the hall and Steve steals the flashcards and both Steve and Nancy don’t notice Tommy messing with Barb’s ear really quick? But there’s something about how Nancy is Steve’s primary focus. Barb is more of an accessory to her than an individual at this point in Steve’s mind.

But, and I’m just going to dive into season 3 knowledge really quick, we know that the school’s perception of Nancy (per Robin) is that she’s “such a priss.” She and Barb aren’t cool by any means. And Tommy’s being a dick to be a dick. In contrast with Steve here, who is kind of being a dick to get attention. Anyway, it’s a whole thing with him tolerating Barb because he likes Nancy, and then there’s the other layer where Tommy and Carol are tolerating Nancy, because they like Steve. But that tolerance doesn’t extend to Barb. Hell, it barely extends to Nancy. This is the first time we see them, right? And it’s a horrible introduction. They listen to Steve, but they don’t really care how much he likes this girl. They laugh at her and she knows they’re laughing at her and I mean, honestly, this is kind of another thing about him, right? His friends don’t like her. She’s not one of the popular girls. But he doesn’t flinch about pursuing her. It’s a whole thing I don’t know how to get into, especially when he later tells Robin that Tommy H would have laughed at him for going after a girl like her in school and he hated veering away from what was expected of him. When it seems like, at least here, his pursuing Nancy isn’t exactly “cool” either.

Okay, back on track. We also get one of our only pieces of insight into his family life. His dad is out of town and his mom went with him, because she doesn’t trust him. It’s this line he’s made into a throwaway comment, because the real focus here is he wants Nancy to come over to his unsupervised house, right? I mostly want to point this out, because I’m going to say something about my thesis statement. At this point, this is actually still Nancy and Jonathan’s story and this moment here is showing Steve seeing Nancy’s distress and trying to push immediately through to the fix. This is simplifying what he does a bit, but it’s behavior we’re seeing now for a reason (and behavior we’ll see again next season).

Nancy’s saved from answering when Jonathan shows up, putting up posters and Tommy and Carol start making fun of him from a distance. We do at least see Steve telling Tommy to shut up when he jokes about Jonathan killing his brother. It’s hard to tell if that’s for Nancy’s benefit or not. He’s clearly annoyed when she goes to talk to Jonathan. (And this, right on the tail of him revealing that his dad very obviously has been unfaithful to his mom.) I’m inclined to think it wasn’t for Nancy’s benefit, but I’m feeling generous as I’m writing this.

And we’re hopping in the timeline a bit, but let’s finish talking about Steve here for a sec. Based on the way Steve opens the door, I would assume that he knows Barb is coming, but he doesn’t look bothered in the slightest. In fact, he is just so happy that Nancy’s here that nothing else matters. I mean, look at these faces. Look how excited they are to spend time together in a house without adult supervision.

Which is a perfect segue back into Nancy herself. It’s still just fun seeing her act like a stereotypical teenager with stereotypical teenager worries for a minute. And in stereotypical teenager fashion, she is nervous to go to this “party” without a safety net, no matter how excited she is to hang out with Steve. And she’s so excited! Both Nancy and Barb both know what’s going to happen. Or what Nancy wants to happen.

Nancy is trying to pretend it’s not about that for her, but she’s already made up her mind. Barb knows her friend well enough to know what’s going on. She doesn’t feel like she belongs here, but she’s here because she’s a good friend.

This is about Steve and Nancy though, so I don’t need to dig too much into Barb here. I also can’t even say that we’ve all been in this situation, but it feels like it’s relatable. Like a lot of people have possibly been either the Nancy or the Barb (or both) at some point in their lives. That intoxicating feeling of being into someone new, someone who you really like. Or sitting off to the side, being the chaperone your friend requested, with no actual desire to be there.

Honestly, Nancy is trying to remember herself here. She tries to include Barb and it backfires. And Steve tries, because Nancy tries, and he wants Nancy to stay. But he’s also done this thing where he’s dialed down the excitement. His cool guy façade is back. He’s showing off and they’re teasing each other. We get to have our first glimpse of fearless Nancy and she looks so pleased with herself.

There is a task and she is going to prove she can do it.

The thing is, circling back to the chaperone who doesn’t want to be there is that… well, Barb doesn’t want to be there. She’s annoyed at Nancy. Annoyed at the whole situation, really. Steve directs her to the bathroom when she hurts herself. We see a shot (through Jonathan’s camera) of Nancy staring back at the house. We see another shot of Steve, closer to the house, staring in the direction Barb went. Possibly a little out of actual concern. More likely, though, he’s worried that if Barb needs to leave, Nancy will go, too.

But then there’s Tommy and Carol, who distract them from what’s serious. They shift the mood.

And it’s time to bump up this count here. Physical Touch: 2

Really, I could count the stuff in the pool, but that was different.

This is Steve, reaching out to rub Nancy’s shoulder and ask if she’s all right. They’re smiling at each other and just adorable as heck in general and enamored with each other.

I said I wasn’t going to dig too much into the Barb stuff, but I have to. I’ll dig more into the results later, but for now, here’s where we’re at. Nancy wants to stay.

And this is a version of Nancy that Barb doesn’t recognize. I don’t know. There are a lot of layers to this. I know we’re meant to see this as Nancy acting in a way that’s out of her character here, because her best friend is telling her that this isn’t her. BUT. The things we know about Nancy now don’t line up with that interpretation.

This all brings me back to my point in the very brief introduction. How Jonathan and Nancy are meant to be the endgame couple right now. There is actually a parallel to this moment later this season that will point that out in more detail. Really, it can be explained away by growth in general. People grow and change and this may be out of Nancy’s character now but enough of her is recognizable here that I’m starting to talk in circles.

Let me get back on track. Nancy knows what she wants to do. She’s made up her mind. She tries to send Barb home, but Barb decides not to go, because she doesn’t want to abandon Nancy.

Physical touch: 3

I’m still not entirely sure where I’m going with the physical touch thing here, except it’s something Steve seems to do when he’s both offering and seeking comfort with Nancy. It may be as simple as that. And if that’s what we attribute it to, then I do think they’re both nervous here. Nancy is obviously more nervous. She’s gotten herself up here and it’s a big choice she’s making. But there’s also the Steve of it all, who has finally gotten Nancy Wheeler in his fucking bedroom and based on the way he looks at her, I’m not sure he was convinced he ever would.

And this is where I’ll come back to the other part of that point from my intro. They changed Steve. They made this a monumental moment for him, too, which is ultimately what throws a wrench into their plans for Jonathan. I mean, when she was supposed to be a notch in his belt, it would have worked. But instead, he’s soft with her. He’s worried about her feeling comfortable here, so he turns away when she asks. He turns back when she asks. He lets her set the pace and it means something when she wants to move forward.

1x3

Continuing right from the last moment, because the episode does, he checks in with her and she pushes things forward. The message here is hard to miss: Nancy abandoning her friend for Steve. They’re overlaying Barb’s death with Nancy and Steve having sex for the first time. The fucking shot of Steve gripping Nancy’s hand right next to the shot of Barb clinging to the pool ladder? Absolutely tragic.

They start forcing a disconnect between Steve and Nancy this episode. I don’t mean that in a way that it felt forced. I mean that they pile it on to make it feel worse. This was Nancy’s first time having sex and she’s justifiably feeling insecure afterward. Not only does Steve not wake up, but Barb is gone and Nancy has to walk home alone in the dark. (Season 4 Steve would never.) To top it all off, we know that Steve’s past hookups haven’t exactly been secret, so when she walks into school the next day, of course she’s going to be worried. But here’s where they put another wrench in their original plans. Steve cares that she knows that it mattered to him. He doesn’t ignore her. He comes up to say hi to her and then he picks up on her discomfort and immediately reassures her when she expresses her concerns to him. I had to make a gif for this moment, because like, come one. This isn’t the face of someone who doesn’t give a shit.

That is a relieved sigh that morphs into a fond look, because she believes him when he says he didn’t tell anyone.

For a minute, everything is okay. They’re both happy.

He kisses her in public and looks at her like this in public and it’s really just the sweetest. Nancy feels better. She’s happy. She doesn’t feel like a number.

Forgive me. I need a moment to mourn how cute and happy they are with their regular lives for a second. Not that everything would have been perfect for them if the Upside Down stuff didn’t happen and obviously they wouldn’t exist without the drama that happens the next four seasons, but damn. They’re cute and smitten and it’s all about to blow up.

Okay, I’m ready to move on.

During lunch, Nancy still hasn’t been able to find Barb and she goes to sit with Steve, Tommy, and Carol. There’s something really cute about how Steve leans into her almost as soon as she sits down next to him. And how Nancy leans into him. I’m actually really tempted to add this to the physical touch count, but it doesn’t quite meet the parameters I haven’t decided on yet.

Honestly, the other hilarious thing is that (and I know this is blocking for the cameras) Tommy and Carol, an established couple, aren’t sitting this close together when we see them through Steve and Nancy’s shoulders. And Steve and Nancy’s shoulders aren’t touching when we see the shots of Tommy and Carol, but as soon as it goes back to focus on Steve and Nancy, they’re leaning into each other again. It’s something weird that I can never unsee every time I see this scene.

Back to the whole thing. We have Steve here who is defending Nancy and telling Tommy to stop being an ass while also allowing his ego to be boosted when they’re making fun of her. Oh, but I will say this. Physical touch: 4. He goes for the reassuring thigh squeeze here, even if we can’t see it under the table. Trying to make sure she doesn’t worry about Barb. But Steve doesn’t know her the way Nancy does and Nancy knows something is wrong. You can actually see the disconnect here in real time, because they spent the entire scene glued at the shoulder

and as soon as he starts smirking over Carol and Tommy’s behavior

Nancy pulls back. Steve leans forward to eat while Nancy stays leaning back in her chair. It gives her a moment to have a long stare with Jonathan out in the hallway, of course.

Now, I’m not going to defend Steve’s behavior with Jonathan. Not exactly. It was a pretty bad reaction to have. But. Okay, fine, I guess I’m going to defend it a little bit. I do think we’re getting a glimpse of Steve as he was originally intended here. This is very much ‘bully’ behavior. However, we have some more context, which is that Steve knows Nancy is nervous people are going to judge her and Jonathan has a picture of her taking her shirt off. Not only did he take the picture, he’s fucking developing it on school property. I know the pictures are an important plot device, but dude. That’s a little fucked up.

Anyway, here’s this guy who took pictures of the girl Steve likes without her consent. The way he handled it? Yeah. Rough. Admittedly a little excessive. But the motives? I think those were ultimately good. ALSO. Okay, listen. Not that I think Steve needs defending, but he doesn’t even look like he feels good about it. The others (minus Nancy, of course) clearly enjoyed it. Steve just goes kind of blank. If this were Steve meta, I’d point out that he does this a couple other times this season – goes blank when he’s going into King Steve mode. All I’m really saying is, we know now that King Steve was an act, but there were signs and this is one of them.

We’re also at Physical Touch: 5 here. Nancy jogs down to his side and he slides his hand across her shoulders to walk back into the school with her. Again, using physical touch as an attempt at comfort. But this has still furthered their disconnect.

Nancy is worried about Barb and she doesn’t know what to do, but she does know that she can’t sit here and pretend things are normal. Steve either knows she’s distressed or needs comfort himself, because we have Physical Touch: 6.

It’s just this casual little touch and she leaves right after. Steve knows she’s lying. She’s not doing a great job at hiding it. But Tommy actually hits the nail on the head, unfortunately. “Maybe she freaked out when you went all psycho on the psycho.” And Steve says, “Oh, give me a break,” but he knows something is off and he knows part of it is something he did.

1x4 & 1x5

It’s interesting that Nancy gives Steve a chance here. She goes to him and tells him what she saw at his house, but they’re not communicating properly. He isn’t listening to her and she isn’t hearing anything like what she needs to from him. Nancy know something bad happened to Barb, but he can’t see past what his dad’s reaction is going to be to finding out about the party. Nancy leaves disappointed and finds a willing partner in Jonathan.

But it also does need to be pointed out that Jonathan isn’t doing this for Nancy. He’s doing it to find Will, which is still admirable. It’s what Nancy needs right now, anyway. Someone who is going to listen to her when everyone else is dismissing her. The point is, he has his own motives. They just happen to line up with hers for now. (And doesn’t that just describe their entire situation???)

So, yes. Jonathan is filling a void that Steve leaves open. But good news for Steve fans. When he fucks up, he knows he fucks up. He shows up to apologize and he says so many of the right things. He admits that he was a dick. He asks about Barb. But then he says the wrong thing. “Just kinda pretend everything’s normal for a few hours.”

Here’s a moment I’m going to take a wild leap into speculation. We don’t know what Steve’s home life is like, but the few things we’ve heard imply that it isn’t great. We know he’s a hopeless romantic. It seems very likely that he would have an idealized version of “normal” in his head, which I get the feeling is something he’s chasing. Someone who loves him, who he loves, who he can be vulnerable with, who will depend on him. Probably something a little bit like a romantic comedy where they walk off into the sunset together in the end.

It really can’t be an accident that we hear Steve talk about pretending things are normal shortly before we hear Nancy give her opinion on it.

Nancy: I don’t think my parents ever loved each other. Jonathan: They must’ve married for some reason. Nancy: My mom was young. My dad was older, but he had a cushy job, money, came from a good family. So, they bought a nice house at the end of the cul-de-sac and started their nuclear family. Jonathan: Screw that. Nancy: Yeah. Screw that.

And it isn’t so much her opinion on love and normalcy so much as her being kind of jaded by her parents’ relationship. It’s her talking about a normal life. What people expect to happen. And she’s seen normal. For her, normal isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It’s a loveless marriage and losing yourself and she doesn’t want that.

I mean, if you really look at them, you can see that Nancy and Steve actually have a similar view of what normal is. Just different perspectives. Because it could be argued that Steve is in a similar situation. His parents could have a very similar story, but he still chases a very idealized version of “normal”. What his parents have, that’s not normal to him. It’s lacking.

But also, there’s this whole thing about Jonathan basically mirroring what Barb said to Nancy before she went upstairs with Steve. I saw this girl, you know, trying to be someone else. Which should probably hit harder, considering Barb’s “this isn’t you” from that night. Okay, but can I also dive into the other totally wild thing about this? The pictures Jonathan took of her were in Steve’s window. Where she and Steve were alone. It was like you were alone, or thought you were. And you know, you could just be yourself. I know they didn’t mean to imply that Nancy would be safe being vulnerable with Steve. That she would be safe letting him see the sides of her that she’s afraid to show other people. YOU KNOW. Kind of like the way that’s who she is for Steve?!

Anyway, back to the Jonathan thing. He gives her that excuse, which I do think hits for her, but she also calls him out for the picture thing. And then Jonathan gets offended and defensive, so they start arguing. He doesn’t hesitate to use the ammunition he has. Nancy Wheeler, she’s not just another suburban girl who thinks she’s rebelling by doing exactly what every other suburban girl does until that phase passes and they marry some boring one-time jock who now works sales, and they live out a perfectly boring little life at the end of a cul-de-sac. Exactly like their parents, who they thought were so depressing, but now, hey, they get it. The meaning behind this is not even a little subtle. “You’re doing the same thing as your mother,” is what he's saying. “You’re going to lose yourself in Steve the way she lost herself in your father.”

This is what hits hardest for Nancy. It’s what makes her doubt what she’s been doing.

1x6 & 1x7

Here comes some of the shared trauma. Or, it’s more trauma for Nancy, anyway. Not exactly shared at this point, when she was the one in the Upside Down being chased by that thing. It makes sense that Nancy wouldn’t want to be alone after this and of course, it’s the perfect setup for some miscommunication because Steve’s on his way to check on her and that is apparently out of character for him.

He says he could tell something was wrong with her and Carol’s response is, “So what? Like, you’re worried about her?” He tries to blow it off, but Tommy and Carol are dicks and they latch on to any signs of weakness. But the point is, he’s going out of his way and doing this thing he wouldn’t have done for any girl before her and he sees her in a compromising position and jumps to conclusions. We already know how he reacts to things like this after his whole scene with the camera earlier. But more on that later.

First, I’d like to talk about how Nancy is ready to jump right back in it. It’s something I love about her character. Trauma? That’s future Nancy’s problem.

Or, you know, present Nancy’s problem a little bit, because on top of everything else, there’s the sign. The sign hurts. We can see the tears in her eyes as she stares up at it. We can see her panic as she looks around at everyone who can see this. And then she hears the spray paint can and her entire face changes. Now, she’s fucking pissed and she’s not going to let them get away with doing this.

I also appreciate that she doesn’t do anything to disguise how hurt she is here. She walks up and she lets them see that she’s upset. And we see Steve and how mad he is, but he starts talking and it kind of falls apart. Yeah, he’s mad, but he’s also incredibly hurt. And lashing out in an incredibly passive way, actually. I actually think his behavior here is so interesting. Like, we’re watching him cling to some of the last pieces of this façade he’s built for himself, but he’s still so passive in this entire thing until Jonathan steps in. He didn’t stop Tommy from doing this. He’s arguing with Nancy, but he’s said his piece and he’s going to walk away. Then, Jonathan speaks and Steve flips. Nancy isn’t his target of choice. That is Jonathan. So he pushes and he pushes and he pushes until Jonathan snaps.

I actually hate the line from the woman at the police station. Only love makes you that crazy, sweetheart. She’s implying that Johnathan snapped in Nancy’s defense, and she doesn’t have the context, so how would she know otherwise? But we know what it was. It was Steve calling his family a bunch of screw-ups. A disgrace. So, yeah. It was love, but it was for his family. The same thing that has motivated all his other choices in this series.

Hell, we get almost immediate confirmation of this when Joyce comes to pick them up.

Joyce: You risked your life. And Nancy’s. Jonathan: I thought I could save Will.

And listen. I’m not knocking Jonathan for caring about Will more. I actually think that’s very cool and admirable, but he is reckless with her life for the sake of his family. Which, again. Cool. He cares about his family in a very intense way that I dig. But Nancy is not his priority. Not even now when they were still trying to sell them as an endgame ship.

And also, I can’t excuse Steve’s behavior, because it was shitty. But you know what? You look at him, sitting on his car and sulking and that is not the face of someone who won. Which, technically he did lose that fight, but Nancy’s been called out and he got to hit Jonathan a few times, plus Jonathan was arrested for their fight? I mean, that’s got to be a little bit of a win, right?

But no. None of that is what he cares about. I mean, talk about a drastic pivot. We have Jonathan in the police station admitting he is prioritizing his family and then we flip over to Steve who thinks he’s lost Nancy, but is still prioritizing her anyway. You never even liked her, because she’s not miserable like you two. She actually cares about other people. However long he’s been friends with Tommy and Carol and he’s throwing it away. He literally abandons them at this random convenience store to go clean up the mess he made.

1x8

While Steve’s been cleaning some shit up, Nancy and Jonathan have been busy. Hopper and Joyce are going into the Upside Down to try to find Will and Nancy wants to help. I wanna finish what we started. I want to kill it. And Jonathan is on board. He doesn’t want his mom to get hurt and the thing is, Nancy understands love through Acts of Service. We’re supposed to see Jonathan jumping on board with her plan here and appreciate it the way she does.

She and Jonathan prep. They set up their traps. They cut their hands, using their own blood as bait. And when they bandage up their hands, there is a charged moment. A moment that is interrupted by Steve. I don’t know about you, but to me, this says that Steve is always going to be in the way of their relationship.

And here’s the thing. Steve is here because he’s still trying to clean up his messes. It is important that he is here to apologize to Jonathan. He said some fucked up things and he knows it. He’s so desperate to apologize. She tries to send him away and he’s begging. No, no, no. Listen, I messed up, okay? I messed – I messed up. Okay? Really. Please. I just want to make things right. Honestly, he could have been mad or hurt that she’s here and it doesn’t even faze him.

But everything shifts for him when he sees that she’s hurt. His voice changes into a different kind of frantic and that’s when he forces himself in and gets to see what they’ve been up to. Nancy tries to force him out. I’m doing this for you. She doesn’t want to drag him into this, too. She doesn’t want anyone else to get hurt by this thing, but he gets dragged in anyway. Panicking, scared, he starts to run when Nancy tells him to run the next time.

Honestly, this kills me every time. Jonathan and Nancy stay inside to fight this thing that took people away from them and Steve is running. He’s fumbling with his keys and it takes him a second to get his door open and then he looks back at the house and the lights are flashing. I’m still baffled by people who say his redemption arc didn’t start until season two, because to me, it looks like it was well underway by this point. This entire season was the start of it or he wouldn’t have run back into the house even though he was terrified out of his mind. Just think about Tommy yelling, “Run away like you always do,” two episodes ago and then watch him run in, grab the nail bat, and push himself between this monster and Nancy and tell me he wasn’t already well on his way.

That’s the other thing. Everyone has a reason to be here. They have various ties to Will. Then there’s Nancy, who lost Barb to this thing and then got dragged in a little further because her brother is involved. Jonathan is here for Will. Steve is here for Nancy. Something that remains consistent through where we are in the present.

We don’t have much of an idea of what happened over the next month. How Nancy ended up back with Steve instead of with Jonathan. There are vague mentions in season two of how Nancy waited and Jonathan says it wasn’t long enough, but I’ll talk about them then. But we end this season with a relatively happy ending for Steve. Unfortunately for him, you can tell that there’s still something unfinished between Nancy and Jonathan and that Steve is blissfully unaware or willingly ignoring it.

The thing is, we’re watching her fall into the “normal” that she’s already stated she is afraid of. With the boring one-time jock and a house at the end of the cul-de-sac.

That, however, is actually a great segue into season two!

Season Two

2x1

Almost an entire year later, Steve and Nancy are still together and Nancy is desperately trying to be what is expected of her while desperately trying to push Steve out of the box he is supposed to fit in. They’re reviewing his college essay and he knows it’s crap and he’s so dejected over the whole thing, because he doesn’t even want to leave anyway. He’s doing this, because she wants it. He wants to do it because she wants him to. So much of what Steve is doing is for Nancy, not for himself.

This whole thing reads like a conversation they’ve had before.

Nancy: You don’t have to go. Just work on this. Steve: No, no, no. What’s the point? Nancy: Hey, calm down. Steve: I’m calm. I’m calm. I’m just being honest, you know. I mean… I’ll end up working for my dad anyway. Nancy: That’s not true.

It’s a source of insecurity for both of them, but for different reasons. The difference is, Steve can see some positives to it. If he stays, he could get all those adult things. You know, insurance and benefits and everything you need to buy a house at the end of a cul-de-sac. You can practically see that thought flashing through Nancy’s mind as he’s saying it.

For some reason, he also seems to be nervous about leaving her in general. I would say that it’s because he’s jealous of Jonathan, but I’m not so sure that’s it. Or, not entirely. He’s probably a little insecure about their friendship, but I think it’s more that he’s concerned that if he’s gone, if he’s not here, Nancy is going to lose interest. Steve is one hundred and ten percent all in for this relationship and there is no way he can’t sense that Nancy isn’t.

I do also have to bring something up here. Consider it a little teaser for when we get into season three stuff, but Nancy is actively suggesting that Jonathan might meet someone if he comes to the Halloween party with her and Steve. MORE ON THAT LATER. Because more importantly in this scene, they’re very cute and having a little normal teen moment.

She kisses him back, but pulls away first. There is tension here. Not from him, though. He’s got the dopiest smile but she stares wistfully after Jonathan before she tries to pull herself back into the moment.

Really, the entire first episode is just proof that Nancy hasn’t been doing anything to work toward moving on. She isn’t ready to and that is completely valid. But she’s been trying to pretend that everything is okay and it isn’t working. She isn’t even that good at hiding it. Steve can tell that the dinners with Barb’s parents are hard on her. He checks in with her on the porch and everything. They’re probably a source of stress for him, too, but he’s so much better at pretending than Nancy is.

2x2 – 2x3

Let’s start off episode two right with physical touch: 7.

Again, it’s a comfort thing, right? This starts off as a general touch to get her attention, but his hand stays when he sees that she’s freaking out. Nancy, understandably, is holding onto a lot of trauma. Trauma that she associates with Steve. Steve, who is trying to fall back into some semblance of normal life and she’s followed, trying to make it work, but she resents him for how easy it is for him to do it.

Steve does say something very interesting here. “This isn’t some game, Nance. If they found out that we told any–” He looks around, panicking a bit, and then closes the blinds. “They could put us in jail, okay? Or worse, they could destroy our families. They could do anything they want, okay?” We still don’t know what they were told at the end of season one, but it was clearly enough to scare him. Nancy is opening up to him here and it’s making him freak out a little because he doesn’t know what to do or how to stay within the parameters that the government (?) has set. He can’t do what she wants, so he suggests what works for him. What we know works for him from season one. Pretending to be a stupid teenager for a few hours. (Note physical touch: 8 in that hug.)

But this is what Nancy’s been doing for the last year. She’s tired of pretending, but god, does she commit. She commits so hard that Steve has to pretend too, because he’s so busy trying to stop Nancy from drinking too much that he can’t really be a stupid teenager himself.

And being drunk means Nancy can be more honest with him than she has been.

You’re – you’re pretending like – like everything is okay. You know like… like we didn’t – like we didn’t kill Barb. Like – like it’s great. Like… we’re in love and we’re partying. Yeah, let’s party, huh? We’re partying. This – this is bullshit.

And Steve’s hand is shaking as he cups her face here, because yeah, he knew she was struggling, but she’s still pulling the rug out from under him here. (Also, physical touch: 9 aka the last one.)

I love Steve a lot, which I hope is obvious by now, and I really want to believe that he wouldn’t just abandon her at a party, but like. Jonathan isn’t friends with Steve. Do you really think Jonathan would follow Steve out to ask if he’s okay when he sees him running out, clearly upset? Or would he go check on Nancy? Especially with the way Jonathan says it to Nancy when she asks about it later. There’s more than a hint of a lie there. There also still is a little bit of King Steve left. I don’t really think it’s an ego thing, except it kind of is. Nancy is breaking his heart. She’s making him cry at a party with witnesses and his reputation is already a disaster.

Steve also isn’t above being petty. He’s apparently been picking Nancy up for school for however long now and just doesn’t do it the next morning.

Nancy just has so much confidence when she says, “And then you took me home.” Even Nancy doesn’t believe he’d just leave her at a party. But Steve is pissed and they’re fighting and he does kind of deserve to be mad, because she’s been hiding all these feelings from him for how long? And I do really believe that he cares about the Barb thing. Obviously not to the extent that Nancy does, but he knows she died at his party and he sees how much it hurts Nancy every time they go see her parents.

This is a lot of me defending Steve here, but Nancy deserves some defense, too. “I’ve been trying so hard to pretend like everything’s fine, but it’s not,” she says to Jonathan in her next scene. For Nancy, pretending like everything was fine ended up meaning Steve and as we all know by now, Steve isn’t exactly dealing with his emotions. Repression is the name of his game. Retreating into comfort. Status quo. And Nancy let herself get swept up in that, because it was easy, but in the end, Nancy wants revenge and Jonathan does, too.

2x4 – 2x6

I don’t want to dive too much into the Jonathan of it all, except it is kind of unavoidable. It is important to note that he is getting some revenge out of this, too. It isn’t some purehearted notion that he can help Nancy. He isn’t blindly following along here. Will still has lingering aftereffects from his time in the Upside Down and again, he wants revenge on the people he blames for that.

Also, we are reaching their portion of the show. I will try to keep this as brief as possible.

It is strange to me that the people who are pushing Jonathan and Nancy together are adults. Flo with her comment about “love” being the only thing that makes you that crazy. This hotel lady who gives them a disbelieving look when they want two beds. Murray. But the people who are pushing Steve and Nancy together in season four are their peers? Dustin and Robin, primarily. Eddie. Steve himself. Even a little bit of Nancy.

Regardless, this is where we learn that Nancy waited for Jonathan to make a move after season one. That it took her a month to officially get together with Steve.

Jonathan: Will needed me. And Steve….. Nancy: I waited. Jonathan: Yeah, like only a month.

I mean, listen, Jonathan. What do you expect? For her to wait around for you forever? That’s just the least cool thing ever. It makes sense that his priority would be Will, but it puts everything into glaring contrast once again. Nancy is not going to be his top priority. Ever.

And then we meet Murray. This, of course, lines up with us seeing Steve go to Nancy’s house with flowers, ready to apologize. Even though he thinks Nancy might not love him the way he loves her, he’s willing to try anyway.

I’m going to veer wildly off-topic for a second, although maybe it’s not as off-topic as I think. There is a reason that she is his top priority and that’s because his character was essentially built as an accessory to Nancy. Of course, there are other things that we know about him, like his parents suck and Nancy made him feel seen in a way he wasn’t before. So, even taking into account the fact that he wasn’t much of a character outside of her prior to this season, there are reasons for that, too. It’s a very normal teen thing to go through, I think. Hell, it’s an adult problem, too. Defining yourself based off what you think you need to be for someone else. Which is where I come around to saying that I think their separation over the next two seasons was very important and ultimately a good thing for him and his character. For both of them, actually.

Anyway, back to Murray, who says a lot of things Nancy takes to heart. There is one I think hits the hardest for her, and it’s not actually the “we like Steve, but we don’t love Steve” moment. It’s this:

You’re being naïve, Nancy! Those people… they’re not wired like you and me, okay? They don’t spend their lives trying to get a look at what’s behind the curtain. They like the curtain. It provides them stability. Comfort. Definition.

Murray does also pull out this gem:

You’re harder to read. Probably, like everyone, afraid of what would happen if you accepted yourself for who you really are and retreated back to the safety of… name? Name?

All of it is just piling onto the rest of her insecurities about Steve, who is tempted to take the easy way out and work for his dad so he can have insurance and benefits and head down that road leading toward a loveless marriage. Steve, who is trying so damn hard to pretend like everything is normal. Trying so damn hard to get her to feel that way and is accidentally dismissing her grief by doing so. That is what is so painful about their whole extended breakup this season. Neither of them are doing these things on purpose.

2x8 – 2x9

Okay, let’s just move on. And I know, I skipped over Steve and Dustin’s little chat. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Plus, we’ve just got so much to unpack with these next two episodes.

Everyone regroups. There’s something cinematically beautiful about the way this happens. Steve is off with the kids and he hears a noise, turns toward it, starts to run toward it. But it’s Steve who notices it. And who notices a noise on the other end? Nancy.

Like, I know it seems sort of dorky to focus on shots like these, but they don’t usually do stuff like this by mistake.

Nancy also shifts between Steve and Jonathan a lot during these scenes. Like, she can’t decide where she’s going. She’s near Steve when they’re all arguing before the gate opens and she’s near him again when they’re all trying to get it open. Once they get back to the Byers house, she’s comforting Jonathan and Steve walks off, with the same sniffle/nose swipe he does at the party when he walks away from her, by the way. And then it’s her and Steve putting up the tarps and boarding things up and her and Steve together for the morse code scene and her and Steve on the front lines of the fight and her and Steve looking for space heaters in the back yard.

I could talk about the narrative meaning behind them boarding up the shack together, but that’s been talked to death already. The symbolism is so obvious. What I haven’t seen discussed is that while she’s complimenting him on how he took care of things while she and Jonathan were off doing their thing, he’s the one with the staple gun. Nancy’s got the duct tape and is helping him, but Steve is the one doing the work. Which, you know, Steve is also the one doing all the work with this breakup.

It's him who tells her to go with Jonathan. He recognizes that there is nothing salvageable here. He sees where she really wants to be and wishes he could have been there for her in the way Jonathan was, but knows he wasn’t brave enough to help her the way she wanted and she wasn’t brave enough to actually ask for that help. Their relationship was essentially over when he walked away from her in the alley, but here he makes sure she knows, in no uncertain terms, that it is over and it is okay that it’s over.

Steve also has a harder time looking at her here, which is so interesting, because she can’t take her eyes off of him. Steve tells her that she should be with Jonathan, the way that Murray and Flo and that motel lady told her there was something there. And none of it has felt good for her. This final nail in the coffin is not a relief. The long shot on her staring after him is not a happy one.

I mean, they literally left the space Steve was standing in empty. They didn’t do a zoom on her face. They panned out to show how empty that spot beside her was.

Everything I’m saying here boils down to this, I guess. Everyone’s been telling Nancy she isn’t in love with Steve and honestly, I don’t know whether or not I even think she was. What I usually end up landing on is that she wants to be in love with Steve. He says he was a pretty shitty boyfriend, but the few things we see of them early this season do not paint it in that light. Not exactly. Overall, he cared about her a lot and he tried to support her, even if it wasn’t in the way she wanted, and I think she knows that. Their relationship wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t enough for her right now. And here Steve is absolving her of all of that. He couldn’t help her shoulder the responsibility of Barb’s death, so he takes on the responsibility of ending their relationship when he knows she wants something else and that… is just so heartbreaking. For Nancy, as well as Steve. (Also, Steve isn’t with Nancy anymore but he goes with her to Barb’s funeral. He arguably has no reason to go, but he does, because it’s right.)

I had to come back up here to add that while Nancy is staring sadly after Steve, we have a bit of voiceover with Mike’s lines from the next scene. Just be careful, okay? I can’t lose you again. I don’t have a lot to say about this now, but I think I mentioned this before somewhere. Editing choices like this are on purpose.

So, Steve watches the girl he loves drive off with the guy she can actually love right now and he stays behind to babysit. He stays behind to protect the kids, because that’s what he told Nancy he would do. He tries to fight Billy to protect Lucas and Max. He lets the kids drag him down into a nightmare pit and he does protect them. He saves Mike when the vines grab him. He pushes the kids out of the hole ahead of him and puts himself in front of Dustin when the demodogs are charging.

And what I’m about to say is possibly an unfair characterization of Nancy here, but she has almost been turned into an accessory of Jonathan’s in this last fight. She isn’t in charge. She doesn’t really contribute. She’s here for comfort. Which is fine, but it’s not very Nancy. At least, not the Nancy we know now. Nancy takes charge. She takes action. And this isn’t really her fight and you can sort of feel that through the entire scene.

The final part of this season has also been talked to death. Steve taking Dustin to the dance, helping him get ready, giving him a pep talk, and then Nancy taking care of Dustin at the dance. This is also one of the scenes that really convinces me they’ve shifted to endgame Steve/Nancy at this point. Because Dustin goes into the dance and he stares longingly at Max and Lucas while they dance right after Steve stares longingly at Nancy who he knows is with someone. It’s hard to ignore that parallel, even if Dustin does later move on while Steve doesn’t. Anyway, Steve and Nancy aren’t together anymore, but they’re still working on the same side to take care of Dustin and that is not a coincidence. Apart, their priorities are starting to align, even if neither of them are aware of it.

Season Three

We’re really in it now. Honestly, for as little of it as we got, I love the Steve and Nancy content from this season. The fucking parallels of the way they’re living their lives without each other is unreal. I think this will be a short section, but who fucking knows with me.

We start off with a great parallel. Nancy is working her summer job at the newspaper and it is not going as planned. And also, we want to talk about shitty boyfriends?

Nancy: They don’t actually like me or respect me as a living, breathing human with a brain. Jonathan: Wait, you just – you just gotta be patient, okay? They’re set in their ways, you know? But once they realize what a gifted writer you are, they’ll come around.

First of all. This is literally the same behavior we had from Steve in the beginning of season one. But it’s on purpose. Jonathan is actively trying to sweep her problems with this job under the rug. Second. Man, I don’t know if I really want to get into this. I don’t really want to bash on their relationship, because it’s fine, but their communication is pretty broken down, too. Once again, Nancy has a boyfriend who is advocating for the status quo. Advocating patience. Nancy has been tired of patience for a while now. She is tired of pretending everything is fine.

So, yeah, Nancy? Not happy at her job. Swipe over to Steve who is, surprise, also not happy with his job. His life is not going as planned. Girls don’t find him attractive right now (their loss). He didn’t get into college and his dad wouldn’t hire him as a punishment.

Robin: Have you considered telling the truth? Steve: Oh, you mean that I couldn’t even get into Tech and my douchebag dad’s trying to teach me a lesson? I make three bucks an hour and I have no future? That truth?

He looks genuinely upset. This is worse than he was afraid of last year. He doesn’t have anything he did at this point last year. Not even an ounce of it, and yet, he still approaches everything with this next-level confidence no matter how miserable he is. But this is another on purpose narrative parallel. Steve and Nancy are both not good. Jonathan is.

Even though I’m kind of skimming this season, I’m going to put it into unlabeled sections or I’m going to lose my mind over the formatting.

That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Jonathan and Nancy are fighting, because they got fired over something she started. He didn’t even try to defend them. Nancy did. And now he’s pissed, because he lost his job. Which I do get (I grew up in a similar financial situation). But there’s this thing about him where he knows how to hit her where it hurts.

I don’t live in a two-story house on Maple Street. My dad doesn’t earn six figures. Hell, he isn’t even around. … Mortgage, college tuition, you know, those are real things, Nancy. Things that you don’t care about only because you don’t have to. … You want everything handed to you on a silver platter. I mean, we were interns, Nancy! Interns! What did you expect? That you would make star reporter in a month? Crack the big case?

This is so much like the argument they had in season one where he called her out about the cul-de-sac and boring one-time jock and it all boils down to what Nancy says here. I guess we just don’t understand each other anymore. And she’s right. It’s true. They understand each other when there is a cause they both want to fight, but when it comes to normal life, there is a disconnect that they can’t seem to get past.

There’s something about how Jonathon didn’t think in season one. He says that to Joyce when she mentions that he endangered himself and Nancy. And then here, Nancy is talking to her mom, and says almost exactly the same thing. To be honest, I wasn’t thinking about him. I wasn’t thinking about anyone really. It’s this great bonding moment for Nancy and her mom, because we can hear Karen confirming (not explicitly) the things Nancy said about her in season one. How she obviously wanted more for herself. And she sees Nancy who wants things for herself and she encourages her not to stop, because she doesn’t want to see Nancy fall into the same thing she did. Nancy’s mom believes in her so much.

Honestly, there’s a super interesting comparison here between Jonathan and Nancy’s story and Dustin and Steve’s story. Steve hesitated in seasons one and two. Ultimately, he followed through, but he hesitated at first. Here, in season three, he willingly dives back in. And then there’s Jonathan who dove right in with Nancy in the first two seasons and now that his family isn’t in trouble, now that there isn’t anything in it for him, he is hesitating.

Of course, that all changes once Nancy says she thinks Will might be in danger. All of a sudden, Jonathan’s back in it.

LISTEN. I’m so excited about this connection I made in my notes.

2x8, Jonathan to Will: Sorry I wasn’t there. I should have been here. 3x5, Will to Jonathan: You weren’t there?! And his response: Well, I’m here now, aren’t I? With Nancy’s addition of: Hallelujah. 4x9, Jonathan to Nancy: I’m sorry I wasn’t here. And Nancy’s response: To be honest, I’m kind of glad you weren’t.

LIKE. LOOK. It’s just a thing about recurring themes and who always shows up, isn’t it?

Can I just drop this here and then go off about it later? I think I have to. This is now a teaser.

There is a bright side for Jonathan, which is his apology. Except for the fact that in the next episode, he’s already kind of backed off from it and is doubting her again.

Okay, I want to talk about Steve again. Steve’s redemption arc obviously started in season one, but we’re really seeing the culmination of his character arc over the last three seasons fall into place during his conversation with Robin. It is ridiculously self-aware in a way that I’m not sure people realize Steve is. But you can’t move on from the past behavior he moved on from without being self-aware. Anyway, I love this moment from him.

Robin: You were a real asshole, you know that? Steve: Yeah, I know. Robin: But it didn’t even matter. It didn’t matter that you were an ass. I was still… obsessed with you. Even though all of us losers pretend to be above it all, we still just wanna be popular. Accepted. Normal. Steve: If it makes you feel any better, having those things isn’t all that great. Seriously. It just baffles me. Everything that people tell you is important, everything that people say you should care about, it’s all just… bullshit.

This, on top of another line from this scene: Maybe instead of being here, I’d be on my way to college right now. It’s all coming down to Nancy. The first hint is bullshit, obviously. That’s pretty much Nancy’s catchphrase at this point. She called him out during their bathroom fight for being bullshit. It’s something that has probably informed a lot of his growth over the last year of his life. But the second hint is the mention of college. He’s still thinking about the things Nancy tried to make him believe he could have in life, but the difference is, he actually seems to want them for his own reasons now.

And I’m about to say something. I don’t know the fandom’s opinion on this, because I’m not super keyed into the fandom for this show, but like. Okay. We all know Steve was lying when he says he’s not in love with Nancy anymore, right? Robin hasn’t metabolized the truth serum or whatever yet, or she has and she just has no filter, but Steve is 1000% lying. And like, one could argue that he’s convinced himself of this, but shit. It’s proven to be a lie almost immediately.

He’s going on here about how he’s found someone a little better for him and we are kind of taught here that when it comes to meaningful relationships, Steve has a type. Super smart. Maybe a little shy, but actually super confident and sure of themselves and what they want. Robin and Nancy are actually pretty similar when it comes down to the list of bullet points about their personalities. And he’s trying really hard to replace Nancy and it might have worked if Robin were into guys, but she isn’t.

Which leads me to my favorite Steve moment ever that isn’t related to Nancy. This pivot here? Fucking masterful. She is vulnerable and admits something very scary to him and it just does not bother him even a little. He is so supportive. I just love him.

Finally, let’s talk about when Steve and Nancy finally see each other again. I feel like this has to be his least ideal way of seeing her again. In this little sailor outfit that he has to wear for his job after he got beat up. The amazing thing here is that Nancy runs right up to him to check on him. And the best part, the most promising part, is that she’s jealous of Robin.

I’m sorry. Who are you?!

And poor Steve over here is just staring at her. Blatantly staring.

Does anyone really want to tell me he still doesn’t have feelings for her after that look? And vice versa. Honestly, it’s the way she just immediately doesn’t like Robin for me. Nancy looking from Robin over to Steve like she’s looking for some kind of hint as to what he was thinking when he pulled her into his.

Okay, really, I just love so much about this finale. It’s wild how good it is.

Once they’re split up, it’s Steve (again) who notices that something is wrong before anyone else. That shot of him staring off into the distance just like last season, looking in Nancy’s direction and knowing that something isn’t right down there.

And then when they hear the noises on the walkie, he throws himself up and starts sprinting for the car. It’s so good.

NOT TO MENTION. Nancy being a fucking badass and putting herself between everyone and Billy’s car and then Steve smashing in at the last possible second to save her. It’s just. IT’S SO GOOD. The way he doesn’t even hesitate to crash his car into Billy’s is so good. (Remember that whole thing about who is always there?) It doesn’t feel like there’s much to elaborate on with all this, except you remember how I said the thing up above about Jonathan hesitating this season until his family is involved and Steve not doing that? Well, here’s Steve not hesitating.

Season Four

This section is long. Take a break here if you have to.

4x1 – 4x3

Here we are! Season four! Now, I’ve always loved Steve and Nancy together and it’s always felt clear that there was some unfinished business there, but I didn’t expect what we got in this season. Not even a little.

By the end of the first episode, we know where Steve and Nancy’s love lives are.

I’m going to talk about Nancy’s first, because there’s obviously some Jonathan talk. I actually really liked the way that this scene was set up. It weirdly shows that they’re on the same page about where their relationship is. They’re both a bit in denial about how things are going. They defend each other and their relationship while giving no real reason why they’re not going to see each other over the break. Jonathan’s mom works and he has to watch his brother and Jonathan wants to be there for his acceptance letter, all in her lying voice. The voice that kind of cracks and goes up an octave at the end of her sentences. And Jonathan saying that Nancy works over breaks, because that’s the kind of dedicated person she is. When really, the only thing being communicated loud and clear here is this: if they wanted to see each other, they could have.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at where Steve is sitting. He’s over here saying things like, “Do I really want to start another relationship that has no point other than sex?” The answer: no. And things like, “I really dig this girl. I mean, I think that she could – who knows, maybe she could be the one.” Is she the one, Steve? Is she? Are you on the same page? Because she thinks Tammy Thompson is a good singer. I mean, I know and we know that he’s just saying that to Dustin. He doesn’t really believe it. There’s no conviction behind the words.

Hell, he admits in the next episode that he’s as hopeless as Robin. But you know, there’s this thing he’s doing while Robin is monologuing here. Especially this portion. “I know exactly what I want and I’ve found the girl of my dreams, but I just can’t get the courage to ask her out. Meanwhile, you go on like, a million dates and you have no idea what you want.” He’s staring off into the distance and thinking about something the whole time Robin is talking about that. Now, I don’t want to say he was thinking about Nancy here, except… I mean, listen. Veering into later episode conversations for a moment, it isn’t much of a stretch to assume that he does know what he wants. He’s just not saying it out loud, because there’s no point.

Meanwhile, we have Nancy reliving her trauma through Chrissy’s death. Pushing her back into action, because she knows it’s something more. This being here gives me a little hope that we might have a conversation between Steve and Nancy next season closing the loop on Nancy’s trauma and her subsequent resentment of their relationship.

But I’m getting off track again. The important things to bring up for Nancy in episode two is that once again, it is being highlighted that Jonathan isn’t here and she is annoyed about that. But in doing so, we also have to talk about how Jonathan is unloading all his worries onto Argyle. How he admits that Nancy’s dream for their future isn’t his and he’s been lying to her. He doesn’t want to go to Emerson. All he can see right now is the end of their relationship, whether it’s now or a more miserable years down the road.

Which, like, if you take into account later episodes once again… and you think about Robin telling Steve that he doesn’t know what he wants when we know for a fact that he does…. You see what I’m getting at?

Anyway, let’s circle back to how Nancy is annoyed that Jonathan isn’t here. How she just admitted this to Fred half a day ago and she is left alone, being questioned by cops who have never taken her seriously, she’s hugging her stomach and kind of hunched over and she just looks terrified.

But then, she sees Steve’s car pull up and everything shifts. There is visible relief. She is so taken aback.

The cops are still trying to talk to her, but she’s not looking at them. She’s not even listening to them. Their voices literally fade into the background. She’s laser-focused on Steve and the fact that he is there. She gives him a little wave. He gives her a little wave back.

And then she smiles.

Because he showed up. Steve didn’t even know that she needed support and he’s miraculously there.

There was so much focus the first two episodes about how Jonathan wasn’t there and how much that bothered her and the first thing that happens in episode three is Steve showing up when Nancy is in distress. And it keeps getting better!

First of all, we’ve got Steve who is staring at Nancy, which is why he notices that she’s splitting off from the group.

Which leads to his subsequent panic. “No, it’s too dangerous. You need… you need someone to….” Steve can’t really get the words out and I love the way Nancy looks at him here while she’s waiting for him to say what he thinks she needs.

Like, she doesn’t interrupt him. She doesn’t fire back or anything. Because, you know, I feel like a lot of people would expect her to deny help before he can offer it. But we already know that Nancy doesn’t want to be alone, because she’s said she doesn’t want to be alone. Remember? She’s annoyed that Jonathan isn’t here. And here’s Steve offering himself and his help without needing to ask.

Second of all, we have this look at Robin when she interjects and says she’ll go with Nancy.

We already know from the end of last season that Nancy isn’t Robin’s biggest fan. Of all people to tag along, she’s Nancy’s last choice. And then Robin’s giving him shit. “Unless you think we need you to protect us.” And he doesn’t have anything he can say to that. But he wanted to go with Nancy. So bad. And you know Robin knows it. I mean, look at that face.

He couldn’t say he wanted to go with Nancy to protect her, because he knows Nancy doesn’t need protection, but Robin knew what he wanted to say and she can one-hundred percent give him shit for it.

But you know, let’s circle back to Nancy and how she didn’t really say anything when Steve was saying he wanted to help. And her little smile and her shrug.

It looks a little like a “you tried” or “thanks anyway”. And we’re left with poor Steve gawking.

Pretty public, indeed.

Third, we have Dustin straight up calling Steve out about his feelings. You know, in case we missed any of the other hints so far.

And fourth. Finally. We have more jealousy from Nancy. Anyone who was caught off guard by this didn’t pay attention in 3x8, because this isn’t a new development. And really, hold on, I guess this means I get to talk about Robin a little more. Who obviously isn’t stupid. Like, last season, we have Steve telling her that he isn’t in love with Nancy anymore, but he hasn’t been able to commit to anyone since. See her ridiculous smile above again. And now, we have Nancy, saying, “You’re obviously bored, so why don’t you call Steve?”

You can practically see the lightbulb going off in her head. Especially coupled with Nancy’s eye roll that I didn’t notice until I was picking these scenes apart because the camera cuts away in the middle of it?

So, Robin, having her friends’ best interests in mind, practically falls down the stairs to reassure Nancy that she and Steve are totally not a thing.

I think you’re supposed to look less interested in this information, Nancy. Funny how immediately after this, Nancy is a heck of a lot nicer to Robin. I wonder why.

4x4 – 4x6

I’d like to start this portion of season four by saying that someone should really talk to Steve about how to look at your ex-girlfriend.

Or not. I mean, this is the right way to look at someone, really.

Once again, it’s being pointed out that Steve is here. That seems to be the theme this season. Not only that he’s here, but that he’s eager to throw himself into danger beside her now. To help. Nancy isn’t planning to take him with her, again, and Steve is following her around the house because he wants to go. He’s over here saying things like, “Why does it always have to be me? It’s like–“

What is it like, Steve?

And like, “I can’t do anything here, Nance!”

God, he wants to help so bad.

We also have Robin here to helpfully point out that Nancy still has a Tom Cruise poster in her room. In front of Nancy’s ex-boyfriend who once pointed out that his friends say he looks like her lover boy from Risky Business. Subtlety, party of zero.

The real thing I want to talk about here is how there’s a very interesting mix of comfort and tension. Nancy and Steve argue like they know each other so well, which they kind of do, but there’s something heavier here. Steve not wanting Nancy to run off into potential danger without him, because he wants to be there to know she’s okay. Right? Like I said. There’s no subtlety to any of this.

Honestly, this all reminds me again of how Nancy is the first person who took Steve seriously. I mean, sure, that’s something I’m kind of inferring from that wiki entry about their relationship, but it seems valid. How she listened to him in a way no one else did and it made him feel seen and heard and he’s trying to communicate with her here that he doesn’t want to be left behind, because of that.

Next episode, we find them all sleeping in the Wheeler’s basement. And positioning, my friends. It is so important. Steve is passed out in that chair and when Nancy wakes up, sitting up, she’s on the floor right in front of said chair? Yeah. That happened. How and why? We’ll never know for sure. But there’s a whole thing I could say about gravitating toward each other as a source of comfort. Or more specifically Nancy possibly gravitating toward Steve as a source of comfort because he’s there and helping.

But the real important thing this episode is Steve and Nancy breaking down those barriers, right? Another thing that I know has been discussed to death, but we can’t have a Steve and Nancy essay without this point, can we? They end season two boarding up a building together. Symbolically closing off communication between the two of them, because they were not on the same page then. Or, they were, but it was too late.

And this season, after over a year of growing separately, they are officially on the same page and reopening lines of communication and vulnerability with each other. Not only that, but during this whole conversation, they’re nonverbally checking in with each other the entire time. Everyone is participating in this conversation, but they’re looking at each other.

Hell, even a verbal check-in before they open the door.

I mean, talking about a lack of subtlety. But Steve asking “ready?” before they let the plank of wood fall down is fucking wild, honestly.

I’m going to talk about Robin being involved with a significant portion of Steve and Nancy’s major moments near the end of this. Just, that’s another teaser for you. But it’s a thing and it’s big.

How about this cobwebs scene, huh? I feel like I should just make a collage of Nancy’s faces here. It’s just… I hear a lot of talk about how devastatingly fond Steve looks all the time when he’s looking at her, but this is just ridiculous.

The soft little smiles when he can’t see her. Like, maybe it’s just me, but how do you smile like this when you’re picking cobwebs out of someone’s hair?

And what is with this direct, prolonged eye contact from both of them??? Steve???

The way Nancy goes from smiles

to just sad?

And then he says his little thing that he wants to make him sound smart and he just completely butchers it and Nancy is back to smiles again?

Honestly, her face is a journey here and it’s really better shown via mediocre gifs, so have these.

So, now that I’ve gushed over the faces in this scene, maybe I should try talking about it in a little more clarity. I’m not sure I can, though. They’re just so cute. Steve opening the door and being like, hey we should hang out again. You know, with people. Because that’s safer, right? It’s a safe way for him to say he misses having her around without having to actually say it. Nancy’s picking up what he’s putting down and she’s charmed. Honestly, I’d love to have some more information about how things went when they were first getting together. Or however they got together after season one. Because he’s rambling. It’s cute. Nancy thinks it’s cute.

But then they’re looking at each other again and making that incredibly direct eye contact and the gravity of the situation hits her. And by the situation, I mean the fact that both of them could step away, could separate, and they just don’t. They stay in each other’s space and they look at each other and Steve tries to say something smart and ends up fucking it up, but it’s still cute and y’all it’s those feelings that are bubbling back up whether she wants it to or not.

And in the next episode, we finally have Steve and Nancy standing directly next to each other almost every time they’re in a scene together. Before this, they’ve been separated by the group, tending to be across from each other more often than side by side. But until they split up again in season nine, they’re placed next to each other a majority of the time.

That’s just a little aside, though. The real content here is Robin wishing happiness for her friends.

If I’m permitted to see a silver lining in any of this end-of-the-world doom and gloom, it would be the rekindling of some old flames that frankly never should have been snuffed out. I didn’t mean that as a hint or anything. … But if I did mean it as a hint, would that be so terrible? For me to wish happiness for my friends?

Before I move onto Nancy’s entire monologue, can I just point out the absolute panic from our beloved Nance in the middle of this whole thing from Robin?

It’s honestly very reminiscent of the conversation with Murray in season two, where he’s telling her the whole “we like Steve but we don’t love him” thing and she gets very defensive. She didn’t know then if she was making the right choice and the past couple days for her, it’s really been driven home that she still doesn’t know if she made the right choice.

And then we have Nancy’s not even a little concealed “uh oh I’m about to vent all over this poor person” here.

I could tear apart this monologue from her. It’s a really good one, though… is it a monologue if it’s one sentence that lasts an incredibly long time? That doesn’t matter. Nancy is finally admitting to someone, to Robin, that she doesn’t know if she’s happy. That things with Jonathan are not good. That she has been feeling their relationship crumble for a while and she can’t get ahold of him to find out if it’s just the distance or if they’ve genuinely grown apart. While yes, this is huge for the Steve and Nancy of it all, it’s also just huge for Nancy in general. The poor girl hasn’t had a real close friend since Barb died and Robin is barely implying the hey you can talk to me and Nancy takes full advantage immediately.

Obviously the final thing we have to talk about in this chunk of episodes is the boat. Very proud of Steve who will not be left behind again just jumping into that boat, because he is going to be there, damn it.

But also, personal space? Steve and Nancy don’t know her.

I mean, Eddie and Robin are doing their part, sitting on the bench like normal people. Meanwhile, Nancy is over here with her knee as close as it can be to Steve’s without actually making contact.

You know, it’s absolutely bonkers how this is panning out. Nancy went to Steve in season one about Barb first, right? She saw the, at that point in time, unknown creature behind his house and she went to him first. He dismissed the whole thing because he was more focused on how it affected him than on the greater issue at hand. And here we are, a couple years in the future, and he’s right next to her, ready to dive into potential danger the way she wanted in the first place. Of course, we can’t talk about all that without talking about how worried she is when she realizes what he’s doing.

And what’s his response to this? It’s gotta be me. No complaints, all right?

And Nancy. Girl. I mean, no one can blame her, but she’s out here ogling Steve. In front of EVERYONE.

It’s pretty fucking public. And Robin is delighted to clock this.

Again, I think I mentioned this as a teaser already, but I’m going to re-tease it. Robin is so important to Steve/Nancy this season. Like, it’s ridiculous.

Nancy doesn’t even give a shit that it’s public. She’s not paying any attention to Robin or Eddie. These two dorks can’t keep it together for one second. She tells him to be careful and he gives her that quiet little nod.

They have zero chill about each other. Honestly, it’s just like… that whole thing I already said where his character development has taken him to this place where he’s pretty much exactly what Nancy wanted from a partner originally. Do people really think that’s an accident?

Anyway, she continues to have zero chill the entire time he’s underwater.

And again when he resurfaces, she’s just got to smile like that?!

But yeah, here we get our moment with zero hesitation. Where Steve is yanked back under the water and Nancy is the one to get it together first and dive right in. Steve will probably say that she’d do it for anyone and would she? Yeah. That’s who Nancy is. But they didn’t show us her diving into danger for anyone. They showed her diving into danger to save Steve for reasons.

4x7

I’m trying to decide how to talk about the post-demobat fight scene, because there’s a lot to it. I could make a joke about how Nancy was looking for any excuse to touch Steve, because. I mean.

Which, sure. That’s a little bit of it, isn’t it? But also, she’s worried about him. They’re not minor wounds, by any means.

Nancy has to make sure that he’s not about to die on her. And of course, he makes a stupid joke saying that he’s never been better.

But like, really, what this is about is Nancy’s relief and their connection. She does that thing again when he makes that joke, when she sees that he’s (mostly) okay. The same thing she did in episode three when she saw him pull up and her entire body sags with relief.

It’s giving me “I’m doing this for you” and [Steve runs back into a house he knows a dangerous monster is in] in a weird way. Don’t ask me to elaborate. I’ve been elaborating for such a long time.

Also, do you mind if I briefly die over the fact that Steve is incredibly injured and still he puts himself in front of everyone when the next wave of bats shows up?

Anyway. Nancy is the one they have immediately run to his side there. And when they’re hiding under Upside Down Skull Rock and he stumbles, she’s the one who runs to his side again. Well, she was already there, because she’s so keyed into how he’s doing here.

Continuing her trend of not hesitating, Nancy doesn’t hesitate to rip off part of her shirt to bandage up Steve’s wounds here. I also need to make sure you all know that she asks him if the bandage is too tight, which is a direct and on purpose parallel to season one where she’s sort of dating Steve and bandaging up Jonathan’s hand and she asks him if it’s too tight. Like. Girl. How do you feel about this narrative you’re in?

It makes sense that it’s a parallel, because she and Jonathan were pretty close to kissing there when Jonathan interrupted and there should technically be something interrupting these two now, but their audience isn’t paying attention to them, which means that no one is really noticing how… uh… flirtatious and sexual this scene is except for these two. I mean. These two definitely notice.

Like, she tightens the bandage and I’m pretty sure she tucks the ends of it into his pants for him while he’s up there running his hands through his hair in what is arguably the most attractive first aid scene ever on television.

The tension here? Unparalleled. And what does he do when he’s looking at her like this?

He fucking thanks her. And Nancy’s sent through a whole face journey, as she often with Steve this season.

But like, Robin and Eddie are literally turning their backs and giving them privacy for this, which is wild. Giving Steve and Nancy time for prolonged eye contact and confusing feelings that are violently resurfacing.

I mentioned earlier in this thing that Nancy and Steve are framed together a lot in the latter half of this season. I really like the way they did it, actually. Because when they have an incredibly intimate moment, like the above first aid moment above, we see Nancy pull away after to take some space. Like she has to remind herself that the ability to take space exists and that she should probably take it.

But the gap is always closed after. And in this case, it’s closed by Steve with another little joke and Nancy flirts. With more prolonged eye contact. And he knows she’s flirting.

IT’S PRETTY PUBLIC.

I don’t have a lot to say about this shot, except I do love how annoyed they both look by Eddie’s interruption.

Remember what I said about close, intimate moments followed by Nancy forcing separation? Well, that’s about to happen again immediately with this earthquake. They hold onto each other for thirty whole seconds. The earthquake lasts for eight of those. So, for twenty-two seconds after it ends, they just stand there like this.

I guess I did make a joke about Nancy looking for any opportunity to touch Steve, but it’s vice versa, too, right? He’s clinging to her shoulder and she’s clinging to his arm and it’s a lot. You can tell Nancy thinks it’s a lot, too.

But she’s still staring at Steve after, so we know even more that Nancy is forcing space she doesn’t necessarily want, even though she has to take it.

Let me just… I want to write out Eddie’s whole speech, because it’s just important.

See? The only reason I came in here was ‘cause those ladies came in straight after you. Now, I was too ashamed to be the one who stayed behind. But Wheeler? Right there? She didn’t waste a second. Not one second. She just dove right in. Now, I don’t know what happened between you two, but if I were you? I would get her back. ‘Cause that was as unambiguous a sign of true love as these cynical eyes have ever seen.

That, with the subtitle [subdued emotional music] with Steve staring longingly after Nancy? You can tell he doesn’t believe it. Or he doesn’t want to allow himself to believe it, but he wants to so bad. Because, you know, Eddie doesn’t know what happened between the two of them and there is so much history and weight between Nancy and Steve and it wasn’t his fault, but he’s also the one who ended things and made the official choice to walk away. So, yeah. Poor Steve.

You know, I find the order that they choose to go back through the gate to be pretty interesting. Robin, Eddie, Nancy, and then Steve. Why is Steve the last out when he’s injured? I know that, logically, it’s because there’s intended to be another Steve and Nancy scene here, but what are they even thinking here?

And then Steve nods at Eddie to go up. Neither of them are super willing to leave the other behind and I think that’s lovely.

And finally, we’re being shown what we already know. Nancy’s biggest source of trauma. Steve’s pool. The night Barb died. They pointed out how time stopped in the Upside Down the night Will went missing, because Nancy’s flashcards weren’t done. It’s a bit like how Nancy got stuck in her grief, right? Symbolically? And showing us that her grief is still there, that some of that lingering self-blame is still there, is obviously going to be super important. Eventually. Just not this season.

4x8

This sort of overlaps with the previous episode, but we’ll lump it all together here. Steve’s panic and desperation, trying to get Nancy to hear him, yelling at everyone else to figure it the fuck out. “Stay with me,” with his hands on her shoulders, then her face, then her shoulders and neck. And when she wakes up, she just collapses and he immediately catches her. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay. It’s okay, I’m right here. I’m right here.”

So, what do we get from this? Well, there’s the obvious. It’s been talked about multiple times in season four. Jonathan isn’t here. Steve is. And this isn’t a new thing for Jonathan. He apologizes at least once a season to someone for not being there. And, still obvious, but less so. After this moment, we have Hopper and Joyce talking to each other. “I thought I lost you.” / “I did lose you.” And then, perhaps less obvious. This kind of parallel to other couples on top of others. Mike says, “I’m here,” to El in season three while holding her. In this season, we hear Lucas talking to Max about how he sees her while we have Nancy starting to see Steve and his growth. We also have (in earlier episodes) Mike’s inability to tell El that he loves her directly paralleling Nancy’s inability to tell Steve she loves him in season two. And all the parallels to the start of Jonathan and Nancy’s relationship and unresolved tension that they carried around for a whole season’s worth of episodes before they did anything about it. And these are just the ones I pulled off the top of my head. I guess, since I’m going in chronological order though, I should focus on where we are in the timeline.

Nancy gives the team the download and she’s emotional the entire time. The camera shows us Steve’s reaction more than anyone else’s during Nancy’s speech. With the exception of Nancy’s, of course. But they show his reaction when she gets more emotional. He can’t look at her when her voice breaks. He’s kind of mirroring her here. She takes a shaky breath, he takes a shaky breath. She cries, he has to close his eyes.

Everyone else is staring at her in varying degrees of fear, horror, etc. But not him.

But she gets herself together and wants to go back and he argues with her. The others just kind of watch. It’s very clear that Steve and Nancy are the ones running the show and very clear that Steve is going to defer to her. And still, Max is saying her part and everyone looks to Nancy for her reaction, but Nancy looks to Steve.

For a long time.

Ah, and here we have the beautiful Winnebago talk. Nancy decided to ride up front with Steve and they are awkwardly attempting to make conversation and Steve adorably launches into a talk about what he always envisioned for his future while Nancy looks on with this face.

And NANCY THINKS IT SOUNDS NICE. Cue the [tenderly] in the captions when Nancy says, “Yeah,” back to his “Yeah?”.

I MEAN and Nancy’s over here just smiling like this half the time???

This whole scene is just perfection. And Nancy is thinking so hard after it?

Like, Steve tried to broach the future stuff with her one time as far as we know and she was not receptive in that moment. Here? She’s fucking receptive. Nancy sees this life, these dreams he has laid out for himself, and it’s yet another side of him she’s seeing that she likes. He’s reminding her that there is potential for a very nice life on the other side of all of this.

On the other end of this, we get a bit of insight as to where Steve’s head is actually at while he and Robin are making the Molotov cocktails.

Robin: In the face of the world ending, the stakes of my love life feel spectacularly low. Steve: Yeah, I mean, I get you there, but… I still have hope.

I want to unpack that first. Robin is bummed because she saw Vicki with a guy. Steve is here trying to be supportive and Robin pulls this out. And Steve. Steve?! This guy over here, who was scared to take what Eddie said to heart, who is about to march off into danger again, who just spilled his guts to his ex about the life he wants – this guy has hope.

Robin: Not everything has a happy ending. Steve: Yeah, yeah, believe me, I know.

Which he says with an incredibly unsubtle glance over at Nancy. And Robin, of course, follows his eyeline and lets out a quiet laugh, even though he looked away pretty quick. Robin’s been watching this whole thing unfold and she knows her bestie here has his heart just laying out there for someone to stomp all over again or pick up and she doesn’t know which is going to happen. Neither does he.

And still, the conversation ends up here. With Robin saying, “We have to try, right?” And yes, they’re talking about Vecna, but they’re also talking about everything else in life, because nothing in a story is that simple.

4x9

We’re here! It’s almost the end.

Let’s see. What should we touch on in the beginning of this one. Oh, the fact that the tension between them is somehow getting worse? Better? I guess it depends on your perspective.

Better, right?

The difference here is that this time, Nancy can’t put distance between them after this moment of intimacy. They’re literally marching off into battle side by side and Robin, their safety net, runs off. So, does she really want that distance?

Like, look at this. They’re talking about baby Steve being a total dork and it looks like they’re making date conversation, not walking through an evil parallel dimension off to fight some wizard/monster/generally all-around scary dude.

This portion is going to be lots of dialogue and screenshots. I’ll try to make it clear when I’m giving commentary, because I think this portion will be long.

Steve: I think, like, right out of the gate, like, I’m super confident, you know? But I’m also an idiot. Which is just, I mean, it’s a brutal combination. But, I mean, the good news is, I get a big enough thump on my head, I can change, you know? I can learn. I can crawl forward.

Nancy’s never really gotten to see this level of self-reflection from Steve, as far as we know. And he’s not being very complimentary of himself. But you know, she also missed out on experiencing a lot of this change. They went from being around each other on a fairly regular basis to seeing each other maybe a few times over the last year-ish and now he’s this whole other person. And it isn’t like she doesn’t know what ‘thump on the head’ he’s talking about.

Steve: Listen, I guess what I’m trying to say in a really stupid, roundabout way is, um….

Steve: … is thank you. Nancy: Thank me? Steve: Yeah. Nancy: For? Steve: For giving my head the biggest thump of its life two years ago.

Steve: I needed it.

I mean, how could it ever occur to her that he would thank her for breaking his heart? She’s never been proud of how their relationship ended. Don’t make me go pull up one of the season two screenshots again from when he’s walking away. So, the fact that he’s thanking her? I love it, but I can also understand why it would seem so unbelievable to her.

Steve: It changed my life. And now I’m crawling forward. Slowly. I just wonder sometimes… you know, if… some other girl had given me a proper thump before we met, would things have been different?

Honestly, I don’t have much to add here, except I feel like Nancy is on exactly the same page. If this had been Steve back when she needed him in season one, would things be different? This is what she wanted all that time.

Steve: Like, if we were meeting together for the first time right now, part of me… I don’t know part of me thinks we would’ve made it.

Nancy: Steve….

Steve: Remember the dream I told you about? About the Winnebago? Seeing the country with my six lil’ nuggets?

But the audacity of her to have such a sweet, soft smile when he’s reminding her of his dreams? Not to focus too much on negative fandom opinions, but how can anyone think she’s horrified by that? Like, this smile on top of her mild panic over him actually saying this out loud is such a combination though.

Steve: It’s all true. Every last word.

Steve: But I left one part out. It’s the most important part.

I MEAN COME ON. You cannot tell me that she didn’t know exactly where he was headed with this. With THIS face?! Look how open and receptive and patient she is???

Steve: You’re there.

Steve: You’ve always been there.

And Steve punctuating this whole thing with a soft, open, vulnerable smile. And Nancy looking up at him, also vulnerable and sad and like she can see the whole fucking picture he’s painting?

But then she looks down, remembering herself and where she is and what position she’s in, and his smile shifts.

They’re both so sad here. Like, they’ve both lost each other and they’ve come back to each other this season in so many ways. And here he is reaching out, but as soon as she looks down, it’s like he’s bracing himself for the worst.

Nancy’s about to say something. Finally. After another long moment of prolonged eye contact. And Robin interrupts.

Nancy isn’t even shocked or mad or relieved. The sadness there is too overwhelming. Steve, however, is annoyed. Timing, Robin. Even if Nancy was about to turn him down, I think he’d rather know now than not.

Also, can we finally talk about how Robin interrupts pretty much every single one of their major moments this season? I don’t even mean that in a bad way. It’s kind of how they pulled down the barrier on the door and she stepped up with the brick, saying she found the key to open the door. She smashes open the glass and then Steve reaches his arm in to unlock/open the door through the opening she made. Right??? So, first there was Steve trying to make sure Nancy stays safe instead of going off alone and Robin interrupting to go with her instead. Next, Steve and Nancy are lightly arguing about the visit to Victor Creel and Robin runs into the room behind them. Then, Nancy is helping Steve get the cobwebs out of his hair and Robin comes in with her commentary about spiders.

I could go on, but I think you have a general idea of where I’m going. There are more moments. So many. I’m actually pretty sure Robin interrupts every single moment between them except for the one where Eddie interrupted “for Steve’s modesty”.

Like I said, though, I’m not calling this out because I hate it. I’m actually calling it out, because again, there are reasons they do these things and I love it. It could mean a few things. One of them is that Robin was a pretty important part of Steve’s character growth. Another is that Nancy needs an onscreen friend who isn’t a love interest. But ultimately, it’s that Robin is integral to Nancy and Steve coming back together. I mean, she’s probably… mostly done her part. There were a few things that needed to be established by her. Nancy needed to know that Robin and Steve are not a couple. Nancy also needed to hear someone acknowledge the fact that she and Steve have unfinished business.

And… you know, okay. The thing that really helps me explain this point is the one where Steve and Nancy take the board down from the door at the Creel house and then Robin comes in with her brick and smashes open the window so that Steve can unlock it. DO YOU SEE WHERE I’M GOING WITH THIS?! Nancy and Steve have reopened the avenue to healthy communication. Robin has come in with a brick to smash that window open so that Steve can get in there and officially open the door. Which he’s done. You’ve always been there. Nancy didn’t get to respond, but… I mean… right?! It’s an open thread that will need to be addressed and I’m excited about it.

Oh, while I’m talking about how this is an open thread for them, let’s just take a look at Nancy’s face when Steve gets grabbed by the vines when they’re in the Upside Down.

I don’t even have anything to say about it. I just wanted to show you how much she doesn’t want to lose him.

I’m not even diving into how much I love the whole bit of Steve being the one to hand her the shotgun in Vecna’s lair. Twice. And I’m not diving into it in great detail, because I’ve already said it. They’re partners here. Which is what she wanted from the beginning.

OKAY. Let’s get back on track. There isn’t a lot more to talk about re: Steve and Nancy. Just a final note about Jonathan and Nancy, which again, has already been discussed by many other people, but it’s worth bringing up here, because it does have to do with Steve and Nancy in the end. We have proof that it has to do with Steve and Nancy because not only is one of their main topics of conversation Steve, but we have Steve reacting to their reunion.

Not sure if anyone here is a Bellamy x Clarke shipper, but this reminds me a lot of the pan to Clarke during Bellamy and Echo’s reunion in season five of The 100. Which a lot of people tried to write of as not romantic when it’s blatantly romantic in both cases. The difference for Steve is that he has Robin here to give him a comforting pat on the back.

Also, his face here is so similar to when he thought Nancy was going to turn him down after he gave her his whole speech in the Upside down.

Steve assumes he’s lost here. But we know the truth.

All right, so first, we have Jonathan apologizing for not being here (again). And Nancy’s whole fucking journey before she answers him.

The way she can’t really make eye contact, because she knows who was here.

And then we have her face when he brings up Steve?!

Like, she’s trying to laugh it off, but she can’t.

And she stands up for him, because he has grown up and she got to be around that for days and see the person he’s become and…. Damn. It gets so awkward after this.

Nancy’s inhale, like she might have more to say, but she can’t.

To top it off, we get to see them boarding up windows. Nancy holding up the boards and Jonathan hammering in the nails. And hmm, I wonder why that looks familiar. OH RIGHT. Because Steve and Nancy closed off communication in a very similar way back in season two before they officially split. This is veering into like, wild emotional speculation, but you ever think about how Nancy and Steve were putting up all that stuff using duct tape and staples and Jonathan and Nancy are using a hammer and nails. Which one of those is harder to break through?

And like, yeah. I’m saying that’s wild emotional speculation, but it makes sense to me, because… I mean, I can make the argument that Steve and Nancy’s hurdle is much easier to overcome than Jonathan and Nancy’s. Steve and Nancy were never not on the same page, per se. Nancy wasn’t exactly helping him plan a future that was aligned with hers and we know after this season that he wanted that. But their real problem was that Steve was too scared. Too scared to tell her he wanted a future with her and too scared to help her get revenge for Barb, so she retreated to the safety of someone who would. But the thing that’s hanging over Jonathan and Nancy is worse. Not only has he been planning a future with her that he doesn’t see himself in, but he hasn’t been following through. And he’s been lying about it. And she’s lying, too. He asks if she’s okay and she says they’re fine in a very (not) believable lying voice. He’s admitted to a friend that he’s slow-motion breaking up with Nancy. She’s admitted to a friend that she knows he’s hiding something and she doesn’t know where they stand. And unlike Steve and Nancy in season two, they let this stay unsolved at the end of the season.

Really, it does all come down to that future thing, doesn’t it? Jonathan doesn’t see one where they aren’t both miserable. Jonathan’s dream is NYU. It has been since he was six. He can’t tell Nancy that he doesn’t want to be part of her dream to go to Emerson, because he’s scared. Their relationship was supposedly built on shared trauma and connection, but a lot of that is lost now. The entire fucking group has shared trauma at this point. And Jonathan got Will back. Nancy never got her friend back. And now that Steve has evolved into a person who is an incredibly willing partner, who says that the most important part of his dream future is her… I mean….

Nancy: I feel like life keeps throwing things in the way of our big plans. Jonathan: Yeah, it sure seems like that.

Remember that thing I said like 10k words ago about how Steve is always going to be in the way of their relationship? If you pushed me, I might be convinced that Steve and Nancy were endgame since the moment they decided to keep his character around and kill him off. But my original thesis has its merits, too, so I’ll stick with it for now.

Well. Here we are at the end. It’s not looking good, guys. I mean, not for them. We, however, are looking at a very promising setup for season five. I suppose I could see a world where they decide to fix Nancy and Jonathan’s issues, but if they’re going to do that, there’s literally no point to all this setup in season four. I wish I were exaggerating, but what else is the point of bringing all of this up again?

I suppose that in a good paper, I would circle back to my original point, which is that the writers changed their minds about Nancy’s endgame relationship in season two and decided that Steve would be a better ending for her after all. And they did it to themselves. As I said multiple times, they built him into the perfect partner for Nancy. The person that she wanted from the start. And I know I’m talking a lot about what Nancy wants out of their relationship, but that’s because she’s the one who didn’t know what she wanted. Steve always has. He says exactly that. He wants Nancy and that’s it. He just needed to get to a place in life where she could see that future that he wants. And they’re there. And we’re stuck here waiting to see if they end up on the beach with a couple kids ten years down the road.

I think it’s looking pretty promising, but I guess I did just write 18.5k words on this, so if I didn’t, that would be weird.

If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed my unhinged thought process and that we get some fun resolution to the unresolved threads that are left behind within the next year or so.

I don’t know how to end things.

But neither do Steve and Nancy.

Boom, roasted.

The end.

#stancy #steve x nancy #stranger things #i think my tag for this is #minor meta and wild emotional speculation #also just for good measure in case anyone thinks i'm being mean #anti jancy

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bluedalahorse · 4 months

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YRS3 Fandom Writers Room Challenge: Round #1!

Let’s pretend we’re in the writer’s room for season 3 together.

This is not a predictions post. Nor is it fully a wish list, at least not in the conventional sense. In fact, I want to pause a moment move away from trying to predict what’s going to happen in season 3 exactly, and instead think about ways that it could be written. The wish fulfillment part is that you get to be the writer. You may have an idea you think Lisa herself is unlikely to include in the story, but you’ve thought of a way it would work well in the show. Or you have an idea you’re pretty sure is going to happen, but you have IDEAS about how it could play out onscreen and you want to explain those.

I thought we could spend the next few weeks considering a character or two at a time, and sharing out about what those characters’ arcs could be, if we were the writers. For now I’m planning to leave out Simon, Wilhelm, and August, just because I see a lot of thoughts going around about them already. I may reconsider later.

I will be using the tag “yrs3 fandom writers room” for these posts.

Ground Rules

Dream big, have fun, and share your ideas!

Try to stay in a writer’s mindset rather than an audience member’s mindset. We’re not trying to find secret messages in foreshadowing so much as using it to build a new part of the story that we are pretending we have control over.

Don’t feel like your thoughts have to be complete or perfect. We’re in the fandom writer’s room together, so you can leave some questions open and invite others to weigh in.

Comment on what you like about others’ ideas. If you want to build on someone’s idea, be collaborative rather than combative. Ask questions!

If one of your storyline ideas involves a character encountering or dealing with something triggering (as sometimes happens in the YR universe) please tag appropriately or give a heads up about what’s coming next.

If you’re not a fan of the character(s) of the week and your opinion is that they shouldn’t get any screentime in season 3 at all, this challenge may not be for you. Scroll on by and let other folks participate.

The first Character of the Week is… our wonderful fave Felice!

This Week’s Prompt: Imagine you’re on the writing team for season 3 and you’re deciding how Felice’s arc is going to play out this season. What do you want to do with her character arc? Where do you want her to start and end the season? How do your ideas build on what came before? How can her story interact with the stories of other characters on the show, and deepen the themes of Young Royals?

Think about your answer, and then reblog and respond. You can just write your ideas out, you can make a fun slide show, or you can write a drabble series or whatever, you can come up with a few songs you want played for Felice’s part of the storyline—it’s your choice how you want to respond.

I’m putting my response below the cut. Can’t wait to hear everyone else’s thoughts too!

My thoughts for Felice’s arc:

Heads up for discussions of bullying and conflict in friendship groups.

Sadly, I don’t have any cute graphics this week, or any fanworks. But I do have thoughts.

My writerly thoughts for season 3 are that Felice should be driven by a desire for true, authentic, passionate friendships.

I’ve been reflecting on how in season 2, Felice decides that she’s going to attend the school dance with her Manor House friends group, and prioritize platonic friendships over romantic relationships with boys. At the end of season 2, however, we can see that her friend group is in the middle of a schism. Fredrika and Stella are attacking Sara, and Maddie is nowhere to be found. While Felice is pretty angry at Sara herself, and I imagine she’ll spend the beginning of season 3 not really wanting to take her back as a friend, I wonder if it could perhaps haunt her afterward to see how quickly Fredrika and Stella turned on Sara without having the full story of what happened.

After Wilhelm’s speech, the school will be under scrutiny, and I imagine the general mood at Hillerska is going to grow even more tense. I also imagine this could make students act out more, and for Fredrika and Stella, this could mean power plays and using their gossip powers for evil. Maybe they’re continuing to spread rumors about Sara that have no basis in reality—but really they could be gossiping about anyone. Felice feels increasingly more uncomfortable with it and tries to get them to stop, but either Stella or Fredrika is subtly trying to usurp her role as the group’s “leader” and the group’s power dynamic is shifting. Perhaps by midseason they go as far as turning on her and kicking her out of the friend group entirely.

Felice lets some of this slip to her mother over the phone, and her mother makes an offhand remark about being bullied by her own friend group back when she was at Hillerska. Mamma Ehrencrona quickly tries to laugh off her remark like it’s no big deal, but Felice can sense her mother is bothered by these memories, and realizes that part of her mother’s meddling in her own life stems from unprocessed traumas. Felice’s mother is a bullied person who became a bully. It doesn’t really lead to a full-on reconciliation between Felice and her mom—there’s not enough time for that in six episodes, and Mamma Ehrencrona probably doesn’t need that redemption arc—it’s more a revelation that makes Felice see some of her mother’s behavior in context.

Meanwhile, Wilhelm and Simon are publicly together now. Naturally they’re spending a lot of time with one another, meaning Felice can’t hang out with Wilhelm as much, and when she does hang out with them, she feels a bit like a third wheel. The choir’s spreading rumors about how Wilhelm “dumped” Felice for Simon, which adds another layer of awkwardness. Initially I thought, perhaps Felice is frustrated that she can’t get Wilhelm alone so she can open up to him about the struggles in her Manor House friend group, but I feel like that might repeat some season 2 dynamics with Wille being a dumbass who doesn’t take Felice’s feelings into account. So I wonder if instead she could be trying to actively avoid telling him about the conflicts in her friend group, so as not to disrupt Wilhelm’s newfound couple bliss with Simon. This could lead to a midseason moment between Wilhelm and Felice where Wilhelm finds out how Felice’s friends are treating her and he’s like, “dude that’s fucked up, and next time someone treats you that way, tell me and don’t keep it to yourself, because I’m your friend and I want to do what I can to make things okay for you.”

Alternately, Simon could be the one who discovers Felice’s friend struggles and is there for her, and this leads to a deepening of their friendship. (Perhaps they can also bond as students of color in a predominantly white school—we’ve seen moments where both have experienced microagressions, but I don’t know if we’ve seen characters of color discuss something like that openly yet.)

If I were on the YR writing team, I would also use this as a springboard for Felice questioning if she might be aromantic asexual. Six episodes isn’t really enough for her to have an entire coming out journey, but perhaps she’s reading up on LGBTQIA+ issues throughout the season so she can be more of an ally to Wilhelm. Maybe we get one scene toward the end of the season where she comes across the terms aromantic and asexual and reads about how the aspec communities value friendship, and something about that clicks with her. She’s like, I think I might be one or both of these. I’m going to read more about it. This might be a slight retcon of Felice’s feelings toward Wille, but eh. This idea could also use some workshopping, too, since right now it’s feeling a little Heartstopper. Any ideas on how to make it more YR-flavored?

I do feel strongly, though, that if I were writing Felice and she wasn’t going to end up with a love interest in season 3, that I’d want it to be because she is aroace. There is a repeated trend in television of Black characters as the people who don’t get to be reciprocated love interests (Princess Weekes has a video about it and you should definitely check it out!) and if Felice remains alloallo, she becomes part of that trend, regardless of how well-written she is. On the other hand, there’s also not a lot of Black aspec rep in media right now, so Felice being aroace would at least kind of push back at that trend a little bit.

Overall, I’d like Felice to begin the season worried about her friendships, and ends the season in a place where she can be more confident and knows who a few of her real friends are.

One final thought: Now that Felice has given up riding, I’d like her to either devote herself to choir more fully, or try out a new hobby each episode. (For the latter idea, this doesn’t always need to be a series of in-depth scenes, but something we can see her doing in her scenes with other characters. Like in one scene she’s learning to knit as she chats with Wille and Simon, in another scene she’s doing food photography at lunch, etc.) If Felice gets more into choir, this can be something that deepens her bond with Simon. Maybe they get to do a duet!

Some questions I have for the other writers in the writers room are: I’m not sure how I want Felice and Sara to reconcile yet, but I know I want it to happen. Are there ways Sara’s arc can complement this one? I also want Fredrika and Stella’s arcs to end in a place where they aren’t total villains—I don’t want them to be flattened into basic mean girls, and I think ending them in a space where we understand them would be good. I think we can work out a solution but what do you think it should be? Also, any ways we can use Maddie? She’s always the wild card of that friend group.

Let’s hear your thoughts! Chat with me, fandom writer’s room. Let’s write a season of TV together.

#young royals #felice ehrencrona #yrs3 fandom writers room

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rocketturtle4 · 9 months

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To Sir With Love, a Reflection

What is Love and What is Duty?

MAJOR SPOILERS

ALSO TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR SUICIDE (briefly mentioned)

The way family love is framed in this show, sparked a lot of reflection and made me realise how un-nuanced some of my thoughts about love have been. (This also made me realise how engaging I find generational family trauma in stories like this so thanks @lurkingshan for answering all my questions).

(This post follows the journey of my thinking so it’s a bit choppy, skip to Duty vs Devotion Vs Love if you want the outcomes bit)

During my initial thoughts about this show I stumbled across @waitmyturtles big meta on: Pain, Suffering, and Narratives in Some Asian Dramas/BLs and it definitely impacted my thinking so go read that.

What struck me as particularly odd (on a personal level) was the idea that western parents are conditioned to love their children. Turtles uses these phrases as examples of a common Western Experience

“There is NO WAY your parents don’t love you.”

“There is NO WAY your parents will ever give up on you. Even if they treat you badly, they love you.”

“In the West, we ALWAYS end up loving our children. That’s what society demands of PARENTS. We’re CONDITIONED to be like that.”

And uh What? *checks own brain* that doesn’t seem right fitted to my experience? (I come back to this at the end, promise)

Now, the point that Turtles goes onto make about Asian family structures is deeply meaningful and poignant (Summarised very briefly, by her, as:

“The equation is: even if you suffer at the hands of your parents, even if you don’t receive unconditional love and empathy from your parents, you must sacrifice in order to respect and serve your parents”)

GO READ IT IT’S BEAUTIFULLY MOVING AND IMPORTANT

However, part of the reason I feel this is relevant is because I DID NOT assume that Tian’s parents (Or Yang’s parents for that matter) loved him going into this show.

I am not quite sure where my own frame of thinking, (of parental love is not an automatic assumption) comes from, now that I know this isn’t standard, I’ll be looking into it further, but I felt it was important to start with this frame because I’ll be talking about the way this drama reshaped my thoughts on love, especially familial love, thus my starting point seems important.

Prior to about episode 14/15 I would have argued that neither of Tian’s parents loved him, they only loved the idea of him. (A literally line I thought to myself as I watched)

Li’s (Tian's mum) arc was the most impactful so I just want to give a quick rundown of the stages I went through and then I will be talking to some of these stages, with reference to Li (Mum), Song (Dad), Yang (brother) Chan (Wife 2, Yang's Mum), and Bua (Wife 3):

Stage 1 (most of the series): She (Li) doesn’t love her son, her love died when she realised he was a homosexual and everything since then has been about his conformity and power for herself.

Stage 2 WHAT, Maybe she does love her son

Stage 3 OH she definitely loves her son (SO WHYYY?)

Stage 4 Maybe she loves his son despite him being gay, rather than accepting him as a whole?

Stage 5 No she doesn’t even seem that specifically hung up on the homosexual, just his safetly

WAIT

Stage 6 Was all this…protective did she actually love him the whole time??? WHAT THE FUCK

Thus reflection:

Stage 1 (some initial thoughts)

Turns out my view on love is (or was?) rather black and white: to love someone & to hurt that person knowingly and intentionally were two concepts I viewed as mutually exclusive: Li hurt her son both physically and mentally on a regular basis and so from my initial standpoint she could not love him. (very unnuanced) (for the record, I'm not saying love and hurt are mutually exclusive (lol) but that I thought love and ongoing intentional hurt were)

In some ways I believed (emphasis on past tense) Song's love for Tian was greater than Li’s but that his love was also false due to a lack of knowledge.

Yang is the bestest bro but we’ll get back to him

Question: Did I really believe that all the actions Li took to protect Tian’s secret were not born out of love while she actively murdered people? Yeah kind of.

I had ascribed her a very similar motivation I ascribed to Chan: She wished to remain as the first wife and retain power and thus needed her son as the next head, discovery of his secret would end this possibility, so it must be kept secret at all cost.

I did not even ascribe her fear for her son’s death as a possible motivation which retrospectively seems very odd. My bias towards Li as unloving is why I had the whole opening section of this post.

Stage 2-4

I think part of the change in my thinking began not with Li’s actions towards Tian, but with Li’s interactions with Song midway through the show.

Song knows of Tian’s secret (but not what it is) and implores Li to tell him (and implores Tian to tell him but that’s not discussed here even if it was at that moment, I decided I hated him) and it is very clear that Li, really WANTS to tell him,

She wants to preserve their marriage.

She wants to give back the honesty he’s asking for,

BUT she never even considers actually doing so because to do so would condemn her son.

That she sacrifices her relationship with her husband to protect her son’s secret was the first rock to really put a dent in my un-nuanced take on her characters motivation.

A lot of things happen from here, but Li throwing herself in front of the police officers and begging them to take her instead was definitely the final straw that shattered my perceptions.

But hold on, I’m getting ahead of myself

Stage 5

The societal and familial homophobia woven through this story and most strongly represented by Song is also a key part of this reflection.

The fact that Song grieves his brothers death, grieves for the brother he was closest too, grieves for the breakdown of the five families that they’d built and STILL VIEWS SAID BROTHER AS LESS THAN A MAN FOR BEING A HOMOSEXUAL was feckin INSANE.

But it was also the reality of what I’d been imposing onto Li. This is the kind of (not)love I ascribed to her.

Song didn’t truly love his brother for who he was, only who he knew him to be. And if knowing something fundamental makes you view that person as less, then, in my opinion, you never really loved them in the first place. You don’t love them, you love your own perception of them. You don’t love them, you love the idea of them.

(Look at Song here, reinforcing my black and white thinking, no wonder this show got me all twisted around).

Now Li on the other hand arguably doesn’t believe that being a homosexual makes her son automatically less.

Does she believe that he needs to supress this part of himself to become head of the families? Yes,

BUT, I would argue that this is more to do with her knowledge that he’ll definitely be unable to inheret due to Songs views (and may be kicked out of the family/die) than any personal belief of his unsuitability.

She views him as competent DESPITE his homosexuality, this is something that is hidden for his safety, more than for making him less of a man.

(I am not saying this is okay, just unpacking the different motivations as I understood them, and given ep 1 she KIND OF HAS A REASON)

I'm also not saying she's not homophobic (There is also her view that he can ‘be fixed’ as seen in her repeated attempts to get him to sleep with a woman in case he realises he likes it. Which is messed up, but again NOT my primary point.)

Stage 6

Turns out she loves him a ton after all:

She throws herself in front of the police

She planned to commit suicide (yes to absolve herself of her wrongs for some religious adjacent nuance I didn’t fully understand as a western viewer but also to ensure that her wrongs didn’t negatively impact her son’s future)

She sacrifices her husbands trust in her (as mentioned earlier)

She would sacrifice who she is in her sons eyes (someone he does love) to secure his ideal future (as she see’s it).

She loves her son and this love comes out in what I have reframed for myself as Devotional love

Duty vs Devotion vs Love

Duty is, I think, what we often see framed as love or love adjacent in the families portrayed in Asian drama’s, at least to Western viewers.

Children are taught they have a duty to their parent’s ABOVE ALL ELSE

Above love

Above self-care

Above other relationships

This is what their parents expect from them.

This is what’s framing their parent’s investment in their lives.

Duty WITHOUT love is, in my opinion, what we see discussed in turtles post with the examples of “Non’s father in Dark Blue Kiss; or Korn’s father in Double Savage; or ESPECIALLY Uea’s mom in Bed Friend”

Do these children love their parents? I have no earthly clue

Do these parent’s love their children? I would say no, but that doesn’t change the fact that as their children they must be DUTIFUL.

Devotion is then the intersection of duty and love, it is love with expectations. My current thinking is that many child-parent relationships in Asian dramas, especially child to parent, fall firmly into this category. How much emphasis is placed on duty over love seems to link with how damaging that relationship can be.

Li’s love for her son falls into this category, her love is for her son but her duty is for his future position and safety and this is of highest value to her, higher than her love for who he is.

This is a thread I definitely notice in Asian dramas, she is not duty without love as mentioned above, she is not “rooted in judgement against her offspring” (again from turtles) to the exclusion of all love, but this does colour her raising of him in a way that is significantly traumatising.

I think it is possible that Dad in Khun Chai may have reached this level of judgement if he had discovered his son’s secret (in a less extreme situation) and Li knows this, and so must keep him safe.

Though in the end he sees this too:

Yang & Tian

Now, Devotional love is something I also want to talk about in the context of Yang and Tian because I feel that the kind of love Yang has for Tian is different to the kind of love Bua has for both boys and this is the only way I can articulate how.

It's also important to know that duty often forms a part of a relationship that involves commitment (family or otherwise) so I am not saying devotional love is bad.

Despite Chan's best efforts, Yang grows up devoted to his older brother, we see this COUNTLESS times through the drama, and it was undoubtedly my favourite part.

Yang’s love for Tian is unconditional and certain, his realisation that Tian is gay leads to his desperate search for, and hug of his, brother, because he IMMEDIATELY recognises how hard that must be.

It does not alter how much he loves his brother

It does not make him think of his brother as different or less

If anything it increases his determination to keep his brother safe.

This Protectiveness leads his love further up the scale into Devotion

Yang’s love felt very devotional to me because he loves his brother and acts as if it’s his duty to protect him (despite being younger).

We see this in his taking of punishments for Tian

In how he searches for answers to the murder and then only tells Tian about it after talking to Pin as he initially believes protecting Tian is more important than anything else

(I have not got to talk about Pin, but I would argue Tian’s love becomes less devotional (less lead by duty in the form of protectiveness) as:

He shifts to being the caretaker of Pin as well

Jiu is introduced into Tians life

This combination (especially Pin) leads him to treating Tian with more autonomy.)

A key difference, even at the start of the show between Li and Yang’s devotional loves is the focus of their duty.

Li’s is to Tian’s future

Yang’s is to Tian

Yang's duty to his parents (especially his father) is much less (or at least shown as less important) than his duty to his brother.

Tian

I'm not going to talk about Tian's love

ITS ALL FRICKEN SACRIFICIAL @colourme-feral

Boy needs to care less about his duty.

(Sacrificial = Extreme Duty + Love)

Bua

Bua’s love and acceptance of Tian (and of Yang) felt different to Yang’s love and acceptance of Tian and this a key part of helping me frame the duty vs devotion vs love

To me, Bua is the best example we have of love without duty (or with minimal duty at least), her (literal) separation from the family due to infertility (she lives in a different building) leads to having less stakes in the whole game. She loves the boys, but she does not believe anything is more important that them being themselves. Duty is not part of her relationship with them, and arguably, duty is not part of their relationships with her.

In my opinion, Li tries to instil a sense of duty in Bua’s love when she encourages her adoption of Tian, but it doesn’t really have the desired effect.

Bua loves them, but she also clearly loves Song and we can see (for example in the way Yang never tells her Tian’s secret and she never pressures him), that her care for others does not come with a caveat of duty. (Song pressures her though)

Did she have a duty to Song? to anyone? Would her love have lead her to the belief that Song needed to know? Ugh, honestly I have so many questions about Bua.

Side Note

Obsessional love is something different again which didn’t really feature in this drama but which my current thinking frames as possessive devotional love, (with possessiveness causing corruption maybe? Not sure).

ALSO

I feel like the duty/love scale overlaps with a lot of what we see in the portrayals of marriage on screen where duty is often put first and foremost in a way that often breaks down over time or leads to resentment but I haven’t really thought about this in detail.

What was the point of all this?

I think as westerners a key difference in family culture is the way duty is framed in parent child relationships. Having written all this I can now return to this point:

“In the West, we ALWAYS end up loving our children. That’s what society demands of PARENTS. We’re CONDITIONED to be like that.”

And, while I’m still feeling rather uncertain about the phrasing of this, I do think that societally (in the west) parents have a duty to their child RATHER THAN children having a duty to their parents (in Asian cultures)

That’s what feels the most different to me, and I think often expectation of care (duty) is framed as love, you're expected to care for your children and thus you must love them.

But parents don't necessarily love their children even when they care for them. Doing your duty is not the same as loving,

its still causing me a bit of disconnect, so maybe it’s causing disconnect for other people as well.

I’m not sure how realistic my duty to love scale is, but I wanted to chronicle the ways this show shaped my thinking, in the hopes other shows will change my thinking in new ways.

I am very keen to view other shows on @lurkingshan’s generational trauma challenge and see how my thinking continues to grow.

Also I loved this show like crazy and gave it 94%, equal 10th out of 76 shows. Go watch it if you haven't.

#Khun Chai #To Sir With Love #Rocket4Reviews #rturts is wondering #ADGTC #long post #tw: suicide

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ironwoodprotectionsquad · 8 months

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Recently I refound a screenshot I took with a post from Twitter that frustrated me and seeing @kitkatopinions post reminded me about it and I kind of sort of ish touched on it in my reblog but I realized it would be a king winding tangent and I should make me own post but the thing that started all of this was the point about so called “irredeemable” characters and the post in question was talking about how we all think Ruby WILL save Salem. Not might or maybe. Not defeat Salem but SAVE her and between that and the comment about irredeemable characters I have thoughts.

As you hopefully know I am not against redemption arcs. I like them a lot. One of my all time favorite arcs is Zuko’s redemption and his reunion with Iroh. It’s an amazing arc amazing storytelling brilliant. However what frustrated me about fans of the show excited to see Ruby “save” Salem is that these same fans insist that their are other characters who are “irredeemable” and that is it “wrong” to even write fanfics that redeem them. And it continually blows my mind that fans can insist that no matter what Salem, the woman who wants to end the entire world and has killed at least thousands and possible more, will be redeemed and in the same breath insist that despite her heinous and vile actions, her victims are somehow WORSE and no matter what CANNOT be saved.

How has the fndm deluded themselves into thinking that if Salem can be redeemed their are characters who are somehow off the table on the whole redemption thing. She has killed so many, manipulated used broken so many people. But somehow, this isn’t a problem for them. It’s not a deal breaker for them while things like robbing stores or making a morally gray decision in the middle of a nightmare scenario….is?

Like if we’re going to be setting hard lines on what makes a person redeemable vs not Salem should be considered someone in the irredeemable category. Especially if we’re going to pretend that characters like James, Adam and Torchwick are irredeemable the person whose done worse and on larger scale bad thing then them should also be cool spidered irredeemable. Her being a uwu sad woman doesn’t erase the horrific things she’s done and the harm she’s caused.

However, if RW/BY wants to be a hopepunk….then it doesn’t make sense for anyone to be considered irredeemable. As I’ve said, what’s more hopeful, you or a loved one forever being doomed to be evil once you make a mistake or knowing that their is hope and goodness inside someone, no matter how buried and hard to find it is, it’s still their if you’re willing to fight for it.

I would much rather have a Ruby who unapologetically declares “I know you think you’re too far gone. I know you think the darkness has swallowed you so deep their is no way the light can even find you. But you’re wrong. I’ll be your light. I’ll guide you out of the darkness and back into the light because I refuse to ever leave anyone behind.” Over one who says “well sorry you passed your amount of evil things you’re allowed to do before I abandon you so…sucks to be you pal you’re forever evil now.

Hopepunks are supposed to be stories that whole feel hopeless, refuse to give up on hope. They are determined to bring hope and joy to the hopeless. Hope in a hopepunk is even an act of rebellion. And what better world to have hope be rebellion then a world torn by war against what feels like and endless army of soulless monsters, where people are so desperate to survive they are willing to compromise their morals in the name of surviving. A world that have given up on kindness meaning anything. Let Ruby’s kindness be rebellion. Let her refusal to give up on hope and kindness show a world shrouded in darkness that they can still be kind and have hope.

One of my all time favorite redemption arcs is Zuko’s, and something about it I adore and gets me emotional every time is the reunion between Zuko and Iroh. At this point, Zuko is sure his uncle can’t and won’t ever forgive him and he’s certain that it’s what he deserves but he still feels he at least owes him an apology so he does. But instead of being angry and rejecting Zuko, Iroh hugs him, he loves him and assures him that he wasn’t angry, just sad he lost his way. And he was so grateful and happy that he found his way again. Imagine a Ruby like that who doesn’t hate those who’ve lost their way, who only wants to help them find their way back if they do get lost. Yes I’m channeling a fair bit of Iroh and Sora in my discussion of how I want Ruby to be but they are such perfect examples of what the show teased us Ruby would be like.

And no, it would not be weak or childish or whatever other insult you want to throw at her for Ruby to be like this. Maybe naive but….isn’t Ruby holding onto her ideals in the face of adversity so much better though? Her seeing the unthinkable and surviving a living nightmare but still having hope and still showing kindness is so powerful. Her offering forgiveness to those who hurt her because she believes in a United world and wants to be the change she so desperately wants to see. We where teased at this Ruby but it just didn’t happen.

The fndms insistence that certain characters aren’t deserving of redemption only serves to weaken Ruby as this simple soul who will save the world. A simple soul doesn’t arbitrarily decide who can be saved and who can’t. They don’t abandon people who need them the most. They just unapologetically help people. They show kindness and compassion to everyone around them. That is the kind of character RW/BY promised with Ruby, not this person who abandons people when it gets hard or who runs away crying and waiting for the solution to just fall into her lap. And I don’t understand why the fndm insists the Ruby we have is even remotely as good as the Ruby we where promised.

Give me a Ruby who believes no one is ever too far gone. Give me a Ruby who truly and unapologetically fights for ever life.

#rwde #RWBY critical #RWBY critique #rwby criticism #rt critical #rt criticism

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maagicmushies · 5 months

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Itachi is far from the only Naruto character to be misunderstood by the wider fanbase. Rock Lee, Sakura, Tobi and Kabuto probably all have more egregious misreads. However, the thing that is special about Itachi is that I don’t solely blame the fanbase for misunderstanding him. A character like Lee has a story that is actually really easy to follow, people just choose not to do that. Meanwhile, Itachi’s story was pretty deliberately made to be confusing, told over the course of 600 chapters by unreliable narrator after unreliable narrator and if that doesn’t make things bad enough, Itachi actually goes through development later in the story that makes him contradict his earlier actions. Character development isn’t bad, but when you think of Itachi, you don’t think of a character who needs to grow. You think of a character who has grown and facilitates the growth of others. Let’s start going into why that understanding of Itachi isn’t really complete.

The first thing to address with itachi is probably the question of “When did Itachi become "good"?" This question does not have an exact answer, but it is far easier to narrow down than you might think. As soon as Itachi was turned into Sasuke’s end goal, it was pretty obvious that what we knew with him was not the full story. Kishimoto has said that he had always planned to make Naruto’s confrontation with Sasuke the final act in the series, so Sasuke could never get killed by Itachi. However, having Sasuke kill Itachi and just move on is also just very antithetical to the kind of story that Naruto tells. When Naruto thinks that Haku has killed one of the few friends he has made, he goes berserk but can’t kill Haku. The revenge is not worth ending another life, another story, another set of dreams. Gaara, a murderer, gets spared by Naruto for the exact same reason. Everytime we’re shown a vile character in the series, they’re shown some level of humanity to blur the line between a simple battle of good and evil. Going off of this, the climax of Sasuke’s character just being a one and done was never on the drawing board, there was always going to be more with Itachi and you can see more and more of that laid out as the story moves on.

In the Land of Waves, we don’t even get Itachi’s name. We just know that Sasuke wants to kill someone and we only find out that it’s his brother at the very end of the arc. Then, in the Chunin Exams, we get to learn how much of a poison he is on Sasuke. First he is an inhibitor, preventing Sasuke from taking action when his friends are in danger. After this, he becomes a motivator, the thing that constantly pushes Sasuke to rely on the cursed mark. However, when we finally get to meet Itachi in the following arc, he isn’t this evil and disgusting person like a mass murderer should be. He’s calm and cordial. He holds respect for his leaf superiors like Kakashi and Jiraiya. After this, we get a very classic Kishimoto move where a character will say or do one thing and another, seemingly unrelated character will say or do the same thing but completely screw the meaning on it. Near the end of the Search for Tsunade, Jiraiya floats the idea that a ninja isn’t one who knows ninjutsu, but rather as the kanji literally says, a ninja is one who endures. When Jiraiya says this, he means that a ninja is someone who when beat down always gets back up. That’s what he does and what he teaches Naruto to do. However, Sasuke’s flashback of Itachi shows that he is also a ninja that endures. It’s just that he doesn’t endure physically, it’s his emotional endurance that he hones. In his eyes, living life while being hated is just a shinobi’s job. He tells Sasuke that he’ll always be there as a wall that Sasuke needs to climb over and is ok if Sasuke hates him for that. It is probably at this moment that it was decided how Itachi’s story would end, but Kishimoto just keeps hammering away at it. When Itachi shows up in the Kazekage Rescue using Yura as a conduit, he is given a slight moment of vulnerability when Kakashi asks how much of his eyesight has he lost from using the Mangekyou Sharingan. When Sasuke inevitably faces down against Itachi it is already confirmed that he won’t be fighting Itachi at his best. Sasuke will be putting down a legally blind ninja. However, Itachi’s next meeting with Naruto is where things get REALLY serious because we know that capturing Naruto is one of Itachi’s goals as an Akatsuki member, yet he uses a confrontation with him just to talk about Sasuke and gauge why Naruto cares so much, responding with a smile when Naruto brags about being more of a brother to Sasuke when Itachi ever was.

This scene happens shortly before Itachi’s death and while Itachi acts much more villainous in his fight with Sasuke, it’s over the top to the point of being out of character. And that’s because it literally is out of character. Itachi is acting. This entire time Itachi has just been trying to be the wall for Sasuke to climb over. With Itachi’s death, Sasuke would be a hero of the leaf, the hero of the Uchiha. He just joined the Akatsuki in order to leak information on them to the Hidden Leaf, that’s why he showed up after the Chunin Exams. Itachi loves the Leaf and Sasuke more than anyone else. That makes him a good guy, right? Well….. Itachi’s plan had one fatal flaw. Sasuke isn’t a thing. Sasuke is a person. And when Sasuke learned that Itachi was manipulated into killing HIS FAMILY for the sake of the village, his anger wasn’t quelled, merely redirected. This is Itachi’s biggest flaw in general. He has a superman complex, he wants the best for the people he loves and the world around them, but doesn’t actually trust them to move in a better direction on their own, so he tries to “manipulate” them into the right path. Itachi had several contingency plans for steering Sasuke back to Konoha. He implanted one cast of Amaterasu in Sasuke’s eye that would react to Tobi, the only person who knew the truth and had some incentive to tell Sasuke. In case that wasn’t enough, he also forced a crow with Kotoamatsukami onto Naruto. With this, Sasuke would become literally brainwashed to protect Konoha if he met Naruto after obtaining the eternal Mangekyo. Every time that Sasuke has a chance to make his own path in life, to create the future that he wants, Itachi attempts to derail him and send him on the path that *Itachi* wants.

It is in this way that Itachi being a wall for Sasuke stops having a double meaning and gains a triple meaning as he is the thing preventing his brother from progressing in a natural state. Following the death of his brother, Sasuke spirals even further, losing himself to hate. He isolates himself in the same way that Itachi isolated himself because just like Itachi before him, Sasuke has become convinced that no one could ever understand his position, his motivations. In trying to steer Sasuke away from the life of a rogue criminal, Itachi perfectly set Sasuke up to become one and when he’s revived as a Reanimated Corpse, he gets to meet with Naruto for a final time and learns that all of his scheming, all of his planning. It was pointless. He hurt the person he loved the most again and again for little to no gain. However, before Itachi can despair, Naruto says something that Itachi has needed to hear for his entire life. He says that he’ll handle it. Out of context, this wouldn’t really be satisfying, it would just be Naruto inheriting Superman’s burden, not actually fixing anything, but Naruto has dealt with this desire to fix everything after beating Pain and more importantly, he has dealt with the unearned desire to control Sasuke’s life.

Naruto and Itachi are both, in a way, Sasuke’s brother. Well, Itachi literally is, but Naruto is more of a spiritual sibling, if you want to use a term less romantically charged than “soulmate”. Tangent aside, this link of Sasuke is one of the only things that Naruto and Itachi have in common. Outside of that, they are polar opposite characters, most notably in their view of being a ninja. This is where you see the clash in the two main types of endurance. Naruto is famously loud, garish and obnoxious. He makes no attempt to hide his presence and even less of an attempt to hide his feelings. He is far from a natural in the realm of ninjutsu and he is super willing to ask for help. Well, it’s less that he’s willing and more that he constantly needs to ask for help. He can’t even perform a single technique on his own. Even when performing the Rasengan, he summons a copy of himself for assistance. All of this is antithetical to Itachi who was so lowkey in his methods that no one even knew that he was doing a job. While Naruto’s aces in the hole all rely on cooperation from someone else, Itachi's ultimate technique is the Susano’o. An avatar of his own hateful chakra that protects him from the world, with the ability to “Help through all means”. His emotions? Secondary. His skills? Boundless. Naruto is the anti-ninja while Itachi is the perfect ninja, the absolute apex of the field. I know a few people who dislike Itachi because of this. To them, it makes him seem “Gary Stu”-ish. I have one complaint with that. Gary Stus do not fail. Itachi does. Itachi needs to be perfect in order to convey that there really was nothing that he could have executed better. With all of the intelligence and power in the world he was not able to save his clan or keep Sasuke on the path to righteousness. Naruto and Itachi are two separate sides of a coin. With all these differences, Sasuke is the only thing connecting them. Well, that and the fact that they both wanted to control what he did with his life, dragging him back to the leaf whether he wanted to go or not. Naruto realized this in the Five Kage Summit, thanks to events of the Pain arc and when he confronted Sasuke, he met him not with “scaring-the-hoes” level of desire or control, but with understanding and just told Sasuke to meet him when he’s ready. Now, Itachi’s final mission is finding a way to embody this same lesson that Naruto did.

The problem here is that Itachi isn’t a Gary Stu. For all of his unimaginable skill on the battlefield, he doesn’t have Naruto’s emotional intelligence and instead veers way too hard in the other direction. He spots Sasuke in the war and initially wants nothing to do with him. He already tried to save his brother and failed. Sasuke is someone else’s problem now. Somehow, Itachi just keeps making that same mistake where he doesn’t consider how Sasuke feels about constantly getting jerked around by lie after lie after life. After Sasuke and Itachi’s fight with Kabuto, which I actually want to wait to talk about, Itachi puts Sasuke in one final genjutsu. Not to torture him, but to show Sasuke his untainted memories. Itachi does not seem strong here, mentally at least. He seems helpless. His clan and nation are trending towards war and all of his plans to avert it are coming up short. Itachi has to kill his parents, not with a stoic face as Sasuke remembers, but a balled up one, crying through the entire event. His love, his patriotism. Those values forced Itachi into this. It is only now as Itachi’s consciousness fades that he realizes he was never alone. Sasuke was there, always chasing his big brother. If Itachi saw him more as a person and less as a thing, he could have helped save their clan. That is the last time we ever get to see Itachi, but his presence is felt until the end of the story with Sasuke. Sasuke who was previously bent on destroying Konoha is now stuck there grappling with Itachi’s immense patriotism. He can hold onto that feeling, but doesn’t know what it means. After reviving the Hokage, he gets the history of the ninja village from Hashirama and Hiruzen's opinion on Itachi. According to Hiruzen, Itachi was able to think like a Hokage since he was a child, always seeing the survival of the village as the most important goal. Hashirama even says that Itachi was a better ninja than he was for this. I don’t think it is very surprising that Sasuke’s end goal stopped being the destruction of Konoha and shifted to the destruction of the current understanding of the ninja world. Itachi’s love for his nation was manipulated by those with power in order to secure 5 more measly years of security for a system not meant to last. Kage like Hashirama and Hiruzen still see honor in what Itachi did. If given the chance, they would let it happen to another clan. These two were at the creation of modern ninja society. Their viewpoints aren’t special in their callousness. It is the norm. So, Sasuke concocts his plan. He will think like a Hokage, just like Itachi. By that I don’t mean become the leader of the leaf, but rather stoking the Fire (火) from the Shadows (影). He will commit acts of violence to unite all hatred against him, creating peace as a result. For all of eternity if he needs to. Sasuke never followed Itachi’s signposts, but he did pay attention to what Itachi did and this is just his philosophy taken to a global scale. That is the legacy of Naruto’s most perfect ninja. A lonely brother willing to become the main villain of the entire world because a true hero protects from the shadows, right?

I really would like to end on the last paragraph, but I couldn’t find a place to talk about Itachi vs Kabuto smoothly without breaking flow so I just have to make a quick break here. Throughout the series we see the Root and Otogakure as rivals of sorts. Both organizations are concerned with producing “perfect” ninja with the goals of securing more power for the man at the top. Itachi bringing down Kabuto shows these two ideologies crashing into each other and destroying each other. Danzo’s root focuses on killing individuality. There is no individual, only the village. Itachi, while not formally being a part of the Root, was commanded by Danzo and ended up internalizing many of his teachings. By the time of his death, no one really knew who Itachi was, “Itachi” as a person was erased to better serve his mission. Meanwhile Orochimaru’s style embraced individuality, or so it claimed. He would find young talent and implant them with curses, drugs, new techniques, anything that could go towards self actualization and the accumulation of power. This birthed Kabuto, someone who had added so much to himself that he could no longer begin to identify himself. Although the two organizations had opposing methods, they both ended up at the same location and if anyone could break Kabuto out of this prison of the self, it was Itachi. These two spies with no sense of self were able to regain their identities thanks to each other in one of my personal favorite fights in the series.

#mucho texto #long post #itachi uchiha #sasuke uchiha #naruto #kabuto

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rotworld · 1 month

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I just finished Avici and I had to come over here to express how amazing it was. I'm usually not into romance fics but Sukuna/Reader stories usually get at least a second look from me because his canon character is just very hard to write a 'normal' romance for so any story seriously tackling that is worth trying imo, and I'm so glad I did!

The characterisation of Gojo and Sukuna are wonderful, you really delved deep into the darker side of these monstrously powerful sorcerers in the frankly grim world of jujutsu. I've seen a lot of fics make these two softer (especially Gojo) so your portrayal is like a splash of cold water on a hot day lol. I don't even particularly like Gojo honestly but stories that show his darker side kind of make me see his appeal, a little.

I gotta say normally I'm ambivalent towards smut and don't actively search for it, but it's such a core part of Avici that I feel it wouldn't really work as well without it. The flashbacks and slow reveal of what exactly the reader is and the twisted bond they have with Sukuna and later Gojo really add a sense of tension and like, dread? To the whole thing, which was lovely. I also read your director's cut bc I was so enthralled, I'm blown away by how much went into it!

If you're willing to weigh in, what do you personally imagine happens to the reader during the canon timeline?

answer is long and contains jjk manga spoilers.

aaaaaaaaaa that makes me so happy!!! i started out with very little interest in gojo but sort of wrote myself into liking him lol working on avici made me realize how easy it is to draw comparisons between him and sukuna. the things i've come to like about him are mostly things that lend themselves well to angsty scenarios, characters who are messy like that are like catnip to me. as for how things would go for the reader, it’s mostly just more misery.

by the end of the shibuya arc, the reader is in the custody of kenjaku and uraume. as a result of the failed noh exorcism, they have a strong connection to gojo so they would’ve felt it when he was sealed. it would resemble what sukuna’s dormancy feels like, and i think it would leave them with some complicated feelings. maybe that would be enough for them to leave and start wandering in search of some other way to pass the time, or maybe they’d stay there waiting. either way, uraume finds and retrieves them. this would probably involve a fight. the reader by the end of avici isn’t the docile creature uraume remembers. sukuna probably had the foresight to warn them, since this is an outcome he anticipated and even wanted, but that wouldn’t make the reader any easier to deal with. they are, by design, the kind of curse that only someone like sukuna or gojo can safely handle. maybe kenjaku can help with the apprehension lol

for the most part, i don’t think the reader would be very active. they would stick with uraume and kenjaku because they know that’s where they need to be. they would be there to spectate the culling game, they would be there when sukuna reappears in a new host, and they would be there when gojo dies. that might be the thing that finally sets them off, since they were counting on gojo to win that fight. if we’re going into fully indulgent territory lol then the reader would be involved in the final battle against sukuna, however that turns out. that’s the natural conclusion of their arc and it would be poetic for him to die at not only the hands of the thing he created, but the collective remnants of the people he used and tortured in the past. and it would be fitting for the reader to follow him, as promised, into whatever kind of oblivion comes next for curses.

i guess that’s a little bleak lol but that’s more or less how it was always going to be. there’s no end to this for the reader, they’re stuck with him for eternity because he made them that way. but maybe there’s some closure there at least.

#rotpeach answers

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itsnothingofinterest · 10 months

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Alright, seems an appropriate time for some Toga villain name guesses. As a sort of 393 prediction post. Although we may as well first as the question once more:

Will Toga even take on a villain name?

The way Twice phrased the question in 392, it could go either way. And like I went over last chapter; there’s plenty of reasons she wouldn't pick one. She clearly hasn’t wanted one until now after all. But on the other hand, things have changed recently for her. In fact, as @aashi-heartfilia pointed out in a recent post, the narration has claimed Toga became a full-fledged villain recently; which certainly would be a good reason to decide she now needs a villain name, assuming her view of herself match the narration’s that she’s a real villain now.

However from a meta perspective; there’s also how it’s hard to imagine that Toga will take on a new name just a few chapters away from the end of MHA where we don’t have time to get used to it. That sounds more like the start or major mid-point to a character arc than it’s end. Which is fine by me, I still think we’re getting an MHA part 2 where that change to herself will get explored like Dabi’s new ice side of his quirk; but for everyone else Your Mileage May Very. Point is, unless my crazy theory is onto something, this may be a point against the new name happening.

So overall, it’s quite possible she’ll stay as just Toga Himiko and not take another name…but I’m going to assume she will and throw out some guesses anyway because where’s the fun in just saying “Nah, just she won’t pick a name”? I’m not here to be reasonable I’m here to theory-craft.

So what could the villain name be?

Well structurally, I like the idea of it being a simple word or two like Twice, Dabi, Spinner, Stain, and the MLA guys if you want to count them (she probably wouldn’t but it is what it is). And we can also look for inspiration in the emotions motivating her as a “full-fledged villain”; hostility with the heroes and resignation at communicating with them. I’d also throw in her desire to live while the heroes are trying to kill her & her friends while we’re at it; maybe call on the idea that she’s not going anywhere no matter how hard the heroes try. (And of course any reference to Blood would certainly be welcome.) And with that established, here are the guesses:

Bloodflow

Bloodrush

Persistence

Blight

Stalemate

Grudge

Bloodstain (there’s a call back, but maybe a bit on the nose)

Any of the above in another language (including just Japanese) like Dabi,

And lastly; Bellona (Roman goddess of War, Rage, & Bloodshed; any similar such mythological goddess would also apply, but her name is Toga so I thought I’d use a Roman example.)

Sadly as much as I can theorize what emotions will go into the name, I’m no clever wordsmith so this is about the best & most meaningful I can think of I’m afraid. Bellona might be my favourite, as while a goddess’ name may a bit...much...it comes from an immortal representation of blood, rage, & war; which are the four big concepts I’m thinking Toga would put in villain name.

#bnha #bnha 393 #toga himiko #twice #jin bubaigawara #dabi #spinner #paranormal liberation front #PLF #bnha stain #my stupid long term predictions

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