It is a law of physics specific to Hawkins, Indiana: a Wheeler in motion will always gravitate toward a Byers at rest. It is inevitable. It is magnetic.
The tragedy, however, lies not in the attraction, but in the collision.
Karen felt it first, a pull toward the chaotic, frantic warmth of Joyce, a heat that arrived too early, in a year that had no language for it. It was 1959, and wanting the wrong thing was not romantic, it was dangerous. Desire did not make you brave then, it made you disappear.
So she learned control. She pressed her longing flat beneath ice water and perfectly ironed tablecloths, beneath marriage licenses and Sunday smiles. Silence was not cowardice. It was survival. And she chose it.
Nancy felt it next, but by then she already knew how these stories ended. Hawkins is quieter, heavier, and Jonathan stands in front of her with the same love he’s always had, and the same inability to meet her future where it is. The breakup is not explosive. It is careful. Adult. Almost gentle. That is what makes it hurt.
She ends it because she finally understands what love alone cannot fix. Staying would mean shrinking her ambition, softening her edges, pretending that proximity is the same as alignment. Nancy Wheeler walks away not because the bond wasn’t real, but because she refuses to inherit her mother’s silence in a different decade. She chooses forward motion, even when it costs her someone she loved, a resolution made with open eyes.
And then there is Mike. Poor Mike.
He grows up watching silence masquerade as stability. He learns early that love is something you manage, not something you confess.
Wanting too much, he is taught, is how families fracture.
So when he stands in front of Will Byers, when the pull becomes undeniable, Michael does what his mother taught him without words. He smiles. He hesitates. He waits for the feeling to pass. Where Karen buried herself in duty, Michael buries himself in delay, and calls it patience.
A Wheeler may fall for a Byers, but they are never meant to remain.
hii i love your blog, karen is also one of my favs !! i was wondering if you had any more headcanons about karen childress (sweet or sad, or both) like what she was like in high school or even college if she hadn't married ted and gone? thank you so much !!
karen childress headcanons 🎀 this is everything about what she was like under the age of 25
- karen loved barbie dolls even though she was already eighteen when the first barbie came out. she had a whole collection eventually, but ted made fun of her for it so she ended up hiding them in storage when she moved in with him
- she loved those animals on the farm, especially the little piglets. she actually had pigs as pets at her house
- she had pale pink walls in her childhood bedroom. lots of baby pink everywhere
- teachers would say she was a “pleasure to have in class” but she would get sensitive and emotional easily, like if she thought someone didn’t like her or there was something sad mentioned in course content. they couldn’t exactly complain about this though, because she was so truly and sincerely sweet to the other kids
- karen loved movies like cinderella and sleeping beauty. she was such a hopeless romantic and was embarrassed by how much she couldn’t wait to have something magical like that one day. to be someone’s princess, to be loved for her flaws and all, to have someone who wants to be around her all the time. this hurts to write!!!
- she was the softest kid and teenager ever. she was so sensitive, felt sorry for inanimate objects, and could never give away any of her plushies
- she always felt bad when anyone would spend money on her. even at five years old!! she would be like “well, yeah, i want that teddy bear… but i feel bad if you get that for me…”
- she had that 1950 easy bake oven. she developed a love for baking and cooking very early on and she would make all kinds of treats for her parents 💓
- she was not athletic at all but luckily you didn’t have to be to do cheerleading in the 1950s. she loved cheerleading and misses it a lot
- this girl had so many milkshakes in her youth that she permanently associates milkshakes with nostalgia now. she would have a milkshake almost everyday. she loves vanilla milkshakes with whipped cream so much and she’ll often make them at home as an adult
- yep, there was a diner that she loved. typical in the 1950s. sometimes, all she wanted to do was just sit in the diner with ted, talk, and eat her favorite foods, but he never wanted to go. he never wanted to spend that time with her, he just wanted to make out. that was when she was starting to feel like something was off, but she brushed it off because he was her first boyfriend and she didn’t know what to expect
- karen’s mom (who’s actually nana) has natural blonde hair. so, even though karen was born with dark hair, she likes dyeing her hair blonde because she wants to be like her mom
- we know she’s canonically a theatre kid, and joyce was her director. joyce thought she had a real talent. she pulled her aside a few times and asked if karen wanted to go to college for performing arts. maybe she and karen could even go to school together! karen didn’t think she was that good, but this sounded like an absolute dream. lonnie was already being horrific though and ted was already calling the theatre stuff “dumb.” karen and joyce both think about what things would have been like if they went to college together all the time
- so, karen wanted to be an actress on broadway but she was very shy about that dream, and ted only made that shyness so much worse to the point that she never talks about it at all now
- she loved going on road trips with joyce and the other people from their little theatre kid friend group in their late teens. they’d go to fairs and watch plays and stuff. karen was always a little shy with patty and didn’t know why
- ah, the crush on patty. this was the first time karen ever had feelings for anyone. she didn’t know those were romantic feelings, though. she just thought she saw patty as really pretty and sweet and wanted to be closer to her. it wasn’t until she fell in love with joyce as an adult, and she wasn’t able to repress anything anymore that she realized that what she was feeling was a crush
!! we’re getting into the sadder zone, check tags if you want cws for mentions and implications !!
- she had lots of insecurities as a teen. she didn’t like her overbite, so she’d cover her mouth when she laughed. she’s had body insecurities, but i need to emphasize that she’s never ever dieted or anything before. even as time went on and ted said his snarky comments, she’s never done anything like that. she tries to add healthy foods and add (never cut out) stuff just to have a good immune system, but she likes eating and will have her favorites whenever she wants, however much she wants, and tries to accept herself and any natural changes fully. she’s also super body positive
- she felt a lot of shame because she knew she was different. she felt like she was so strange around patty, so confused about wanting to kiss her. she always felt like she was playing a role around her family and didn’t know why. maybe that’s why she’s such a good actress. she felt so isolated and that’s why she settled for ted. it made her feel “normal” and the attention he was giving her, although weird af, made her feel less alone
- the honeymoon didn’t last long. it wasn’t long until she realized that she had her first kiss with him and he didn’t even ask if he could kiss her first. or, you know, this happened. at 18-24, she was too naive still and thought he must love her, and this must be love but it wasn’t. not only would he cross boundaries but he wouldn’t care about her and didn’t even seem to like her as a person. by the time she realized it, she was already having kids with him
- she had some early anxiety issues when she was young, but she didn’t know any different so she never did anything about them
- she and joyce got into quite a big fight when joyce found out what ted was like. she told karen that she was making a mistake by staying with him, and then karen said “what about lonnie?” and then felt really bad because she knew she went too far. they were really worried about each other, and karen was too scared to open up about the deeper reasons behind why she was settling for ted like anxiety and a need for stability and how she was feeling about girls. karen called her later that day and apologized (in tears)
- she still has one of her baby pink blankets from when she was a kid. whenever she’s in that soft headspace and she’s having a lot of bad memories, she wraps herself in her blanket and makes herself a vanilla milkshake. she had so much anxiety around growing up when she was little, but she’s never ever lost that softness she had as a kid and that’s helped her accept that she’s older now 💓
!! i love my sweetie no more sad headcanons !!
people please, feel free to ask for specific hcs! i love writing these so much : )
all these days ive been complaining about the duffers' terrible management decisions,
but the worst thing is their inability to develop and write their female characters well.
eleven, joyce, kali, vickie, robin, suzie, ALL of them were completely DISPLACED. what was their fucking problem? in that group, you have two MAIN female characters whose development should have been incredible. robin and vickie started to show potential (i really don't care about people who don't like robin with their stupid arguments), but they were sidelined because, once again, their writing skills were (and are) limited. and kali, regardless of whether you liked her character or not, was left in oblivion for THREE seasons, and when they brought her back, they made her a potential villain. and i almost forgot max. i LOVE MAX and i love that she had her happy ending with lucas because it was something she wanted too, but i also would have love to see her develop in other ways. thanks to suzie, they achieved important things in previous seasons, and this season she apparently ceased to exist. and finally, mike and nancy's mum, karen, seemed to have a very important impact (and she did), but to wait FIVE seasons to do so? fuck them all
they committed atrocities with the series, but the greatest atrocity was their poor and disgusting writing with their female characters.
i hope they are always FAR from writing a female character again.
