Singing and Flailing

Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1995)

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

What's everyone's favourite flowers that aren't like. The normal ones. Like everyone's a fan of roses and sunflowers what's a more niche one. One you don't get in gift sets. Mine's sweet peas

Last words from the Queen. Perhaps a deathbed confession from the one who has the most regrets of all.

you can pry happy endings from my cold-dead hands. It can be the most heart stopping, gut wrenching fic that has every existed and I will read every drop of it if I get my happy ending. I have had enough painful endings in real life, give me happy in my fantasy world. It can be at the last second, it can be a single sentence, even a single word. Give me all the angst and hurt in the world for 500,000 words, but please give me the comfort I need in the ending. please and thank you.

3.05 // 4.03

“i don’t owe anyone anything” is one of the most incredibly callous and damaging phrases to enter popular vernacular. you owe everyone kindness and consideration, always. understand the idea of a social contract. you cannot reap the benefits of human society and interaction while maintaining such a cold and thankless attitude about it. i mean you can but you’d be a bad person for it

Genuinely why do people think Steve can't be a fully actualized person and a love interest at the same time? Do you guys just passively consume media without, like, paying attention? Steve has been his own fully developed person since season two. We don't need to know ever detail of his life to know who he is as a person. We know the moral fiber of his character and the strength of his will. We know he loves passionately and will do anything to help. We know he's a catty bitch that doesn't get along with his dad.

Not... everything has to be shown to us for Steve to be a real fleshed out character. There are definitely places where things fall flat (letting him even feel pain after his many beatings or torture of being eaten) but being a love interest is not one of the things where the Duffers have fucked up on him. Besides Nancy, he has the most character development out of the teens and he has an actual character arc that's been percolating since season one.

You don't need to ship Stancy or like it. That's not necessary. I personally wasn't a shipper until recently (though I never hated it like some people, I've just always focused more on the Steve and the kids or Steve and Robin) and I have to say it makes a lot of sense in the scheme of things for the love triangle to be reignited. Steve and Jonathan are not just contenders for Nancy's love, they both represent something for her journey and her picking one of them will be indicative of the path she's taking. Steve's speech about learning to crawl forward wasn't just about him, that was a display of what Steve's character can offer to Nancy's character as a romantic partner. The ability to learn to MOVE ON. TO CRAWL FORWARD.

Nancy as we know is still trapped in her grief from Barb and while Jonathan has helped her get justice from that tragedy he never helped her move PAST the pain of it. One represents moving forward, and Jonathan sadly this last season, represented regression.

Personally, I think it's Jonathan more than anyone that needs to not be in a relationship. It hasn't ever seemed to make him happy. I don't think Jonathan will ever be happy until he's allowed to get away from his family a little bit. The parentification Joyce did to him really fucked that boy up and he needs, in my opinion, to focus on himself more than anyone.

Nancy has expressly stated before that she doesn't want to be alone! Steve has expressly stated he wants love and romance and a family! They're still young they can work out their future later, why can't they find some happiness in coming back together stronger and more fully self actualized? More mature and developed? I think it actually makes for a very fitting end from a narrative standpoint which is, honestly, what convinced me to switch over to the ship in the first place.

Neither Steve nor Nancy have ever been reduced to just love interests. Even in season one when Steve is explicitly introduced as only a love interest, he actually has his own character arc going on. All following seasons Steve and Nancy (whether dating, broken up, or flirting) have all had plots not related to their romance. No one is being reduced to just a romantic interest. Unfortunately, poor Jonathan is the one that got that treatment. He's the one that needs to have something devoted to just him; something that isn't just being a brother or a boyfriend. Giving him a friend was a step in the right direction. Let's give him a dream now and not just something that we hear from Joyce. A real dream from Jonathan's mouth. Because all we've heard from him are the things he DOESN'T want for the future.

Also Stoncy supremacy anyway. Let all three fuck nasty.

(Let's not bring up the whole six nuggets things. I highly doubt Steve is actually going to expect six children from his future partner. It was a reference to the party. It was him lightening the mood and trying to bring some levity to a serious, and frankly, terrifying, situation. It was him trying to make Nancy laugh while laying his heart on the line. He's not expect six literal children.)

- “This Steve character,” Ross Duffer says, “he was supposed to be this giant douchebag.” Then Joe Keery came along 

The young actor brought a certain easy charm to Steve, giving the character real heart and a conscience. He began to feel like an essential part of the Stranger Things ensemble– which meant killing him off was no longer a viable option. 

- Stranger Things; Worlds Turned Upside Down

THIS IS THE CUTEST SHIT I’VE EVER SEEN

Okay, so Jonathan wanted to take care of Will and felt a general obligation to/protectiveness over his family, especially since they’ve basically adopted El and have moved to California. So he applied to a community college nearby to help support his family. Perfectly understandable.

But why did he not tell Nancy all of this?

Oh yeah, because he didn’t want her to uproot her life for him, basically. But that leaves Jonathan letting Nancy plan a future with him that he knows he won’t be part of. Which is (unintentionally) cruel and cowardly.

And this is Nancy we’re talking about; this is the same character who is so “incredibly ambitious,” to use Jonathan’s words, that she won’t take a vacation during a designated school break to see her boyfriend because of the school newspaper. The school newspaper is more important than seeing her boyfriend whom she hasn’t seen in perhaps six months. That’s not the same character who is going to abandon her career goals for that same boyfriend.

Stancy, which was a relationship that we’re initially told Nancy kind of settled for until she hooked up with Jonathan, was doomed by Barb’s death, although they didn’t officially end until a year’s worth of guilt about Barb’s death tore them apart.

Meanwhile, Jonathan and Nancy are lying to each other for pretty lousy reasons and making really weak excuses not to see each other, but they are supposedly soulmates bonded by shared trauma.

If I were just to look at what the show is telling me at this point in time, I’d say the relationship that was the so-called doomed romance somehow had a stronger foundation than the one that was forged by shared trauma. I don’t know if this is how things will remain, but that would be an interesting storytelling decision because of something to do with the fragility of teen romance or how we (and others around us) might misjudge our relationships with people because of unresolved trauma or due to snap judgements about people based on incomplete info, or how people evolve as they come of age, etc etc.

#crazy how in the trauma is bad season the couple that got together because of shared trauma are falling apart (via deadwivesclub)

#s1 & s2 glorified shared trauma#s3 & s4 reframed the narrative (via bloop-bloop-boop)

^ "shared trauma" is almost par for the course with (relation)ships in heightened genre fiction where trying to not get killed is a major aspect of the storylines. And I love me a ship bonded on shared or similar trauma (where only they can truly understand that part of each other, and even help each other heal), a number of my otps have that aspect. But what I've found is that for romantic ships in these circumstances to be(come) genuinly organic and solid (and believable), there still has to be more layers and facets to them besides the shared/similar traumatic experiences.

Stobin going to pretentious fancy restaurants on valentines day to stage elaborate messy public arguments. They compete every year to see which one of them can come up with the most out of pocket shit to accuse the other of.

Robin usually has a better storyline planned but Steve can cry on command and it usually wins him the fights because he'll get sympathy support from nearby tables.

conformity in stranger things

(as we see it through the characters of steve, dustin and eddie)

dustin meets steve while steve is already heading down his own path — he’s leaving behind ideas about high school and relationships, and figuring out who he is without them.

steve, by season two, had already become disillusioned with the idea of high school, and power struggles, and being the most popular guy in school. which is why he doesn’t react to billy’s taunts.

despite what the fandom may have you believe, steve’s seasons long arc about his struggle with conforming to the person people expect him to be is done.

don’t get me wrong, steve is still hanging onto some ideas in s2, like pretending you don’t care to get girls, and seeing nancy as different to all his other girlfriends (though i personally think that speaks more to steve’s prior relationships than the way he views woman).

and so, dustin and their friendship play a major role in steve fully moving on from the concept of ‘conforming’. steve doesn’t want to change who he is to get people to like him, or love him!

and with dustin, he doesn’t!!!

they make up dorky handshakes, and give each other advice. they talk about girls and steve teaches him how to achieve his signature hairstyle.

their relationship impacts both boys, but neither of them are conforming. it’s pretty much the exact opposite!!! despite what some fans would have you believe steve and dustin have a positive impact on each other!!!

dustin doesn’t change who he is to impress steve! he’s just as dorky as before, and in fact imparts some of that dorkiness onto steve!! steve and dustin help each other to find who they are, and figure themselves out.

on the other hand.

eddie had a negative impact on dustin.

dustin in s3 is dorky. he likes science, and school, and building great big radio towers up hills.

dustin in s4 is failing classes, treating friends like shit, his hubris is at an all time high; all aided by eddie’s high opinion of himself and ideas about conforming.

see. when eddie talks about conforming, he doesn’t really understand what he’s talking about (which is why his fans don’t either).

when he criticised people for ‘conforming’, all he’s really talking about is people being interested in things he doesn’t like. parties. band. science. basketball. he looks down on them all.

he makes snap judgments, and reduces them down to stereotypes. we literally watch him learn this on screen!!!

we literally watch as he verbally recognises that he knew nothing about steve, and yet reduced him down to his interest in basketball.

and here’s where the irony comes in. eddie is literally leading the club on conformity.

everyone in hellfire wears the exact same thing, and he makes fun of the clothes they used to wear. he seats himself on a thrown, and judges anyone that wishes to come before him before he deems them worthy to play a game. he’s not accepting all losers. he’s literally telling them they’re lesser than as he stands on tables in the cafeteria, and then fights against erica playing with them… just because he thinks she has to prove herself to him first.

that’s the point of eddie’s character!! that his whole big speech at the beginning of the season is wrong. and we literally see how he’s wrong scenes later when eddie interacts with chrissy.

people watch eddie learn and grow as a person, and then reduce his character right back down to who he was when he was first introduced.

tl;dr — if one of dustin’s relationships is about conformity, it’s his friendship with eddie, not steve. his brother dynamic with steve is about the complete opposite. about reaching across dumb nerd v jock social divides and finding a family.

in looking up to eddie, dustin has let his other interests fall to the wayside. he’s snarkier, makes fun of steve more (just like he’s been watching eddie mock jocks for months), his friendships with the rest of the party are at an all time low.

and yet. some people would have me believe this is dustin’s truest self? who gets his mormon girlfriend to hack into his school because he’s failing latin. who mocks steve for ‘wanting to be a hero’ when just the season before he was prepared to die by steve’s side.

Aimz’ 4k Celebration: Top 10 Stranger Things Dynamics (as voted by my followers)

Beautiful Cinnamon Roll Too Good For This World, Too Pure

happy 10th birthday to beautiful cinnamon roll too good for this world, too pure