stevie and dusty lesbian ST AU
tagging my dustevie friends who were yapping about this on the discord! this is a communal AU to be clear 🫶 @allsunshin3 @eviecraveschaos @vvasilisssk @crashoutqueenstevie @pingou7
Where we start…
Stephanie aka Stevie Harrington – a preppy popular eleventh grade girl who plays all the varsity sports available to girls at Hawkins High: volleyball in the fall, basketball in the winter, and softball in the spring, as well as the swim team. Her mom disapproves of how boyish her hobbies are but Stevie just could not enjoy doing cheer squad. She compensates for her more masculine interests by wearing lots of makeup and dressing very femme and preppy. When we first get to know her in Season 1, she speaks in a higher register with a lot of vocal fry and uptalk.
Stevie hangs around mean girl Tammy Hagan, who she’s been friends with since middle school, and Tammy’s boyfriend Carl. Tammy has had a crush on Stevie since forever, and is very jealous of anyone who tries to get close to her. They practiced kissing together when they were younger, and Tammy sometimes pressures Stevie into making out with her at parties “to turn all the guys on, duh!” They are very physical with each other and Tammy is always gossiping and whispering mean shit about others to get Stevie to laugh. Tammy drags her meathead boyfriend Carl everywhere and they’re always making out with Stevie around, which Stevie just rolls her eyes about and doesn’t mind (she doesn’t realize Tammy is not so subtly trying to get them to have a threesome).
Though Stevie has a reputation, correct or not, for being “easy” and having lots of boyfriends, she surprises everyone when she starts dating goody-two-shoes Ned Wheeler. Ned is an honors student who is different from her usual type– he doesn’t play sports and doesn’t seem very concerned about popularity. Ned has a shy, nerdy friend named Bob who has a not so secret crush on him that Ned politely ignores. Ned dating someone as popular, pretty, and affluent as Stevie makes his parents very proud of him– which chafes at Ned, since he doesn’t actually want to end up like his dad.
The Party are all nerdy weird girls – Dusty Henderson, Michelle Wheeler, Lu Sinclair, and Willa Byers. Michelle is a huge disappointment to her mom because she’s so bad at performing femininity– all Michelle wants to do is play DnD and do A/V club stuff. Unlike Ned, who is the golden child of the family, Michelle can do no right. Willa is very quiet and shy, and she looks up to her sister, Joanie, who is an alt loner with a love for Sylvia Plath and Audre Lord, and considers herself a feminist. (No matter how feminist Joanie is though, she can’t help but despise the popular girls who parade about in the chains of femininity the way Stevie Harrington does, always sleeping around and “giving their power to men”– girls like that set the movement backward in her opinion!) Lu Sinclair is very loyal and headstrong– she is the oldest daughter and used to taking on more responsibility– especially with her kid brother Eric, who is such a handful– so she sometimes gets annoyed with Willa, Michelle, and Dusty when they are acting immature.
Seventh grade Dusty Henderson is a brainiac teacher’s pet who gets easily frustrated by the way everyone in society doesn’t expect girls to be good at science and math. On the contrary, like her favorite teacher Ms. Clarke, she is FASCINATED by scientific discovery! Ms. Clarke happily shepherds the all-girls’ A/V club. Dusty is by far the smartest student in her grade but constantly gets sidelined by people for being a girl, which makes her easily annoyed and eager to prove herself– she gets a reputation for being a loud mouth know-it-all, and the mean girls at school mock her mercilessly. Worth noting that due to sexism, Dusty knowing that she's right about things is seen as less charming than a boy doing the same. So she's even more acerbic/prickly and her friendship with the lovable and easygoing Stevie takes people even MORE by surprise when they hit it off in season 2...
(to be continued with season 2 thoughts on another post-- will be updating this)
(i was looking up vintage basketball photos and this girl is the stevie vibe imo!! i know both photos are blonde hair, i mostly am thinking of the energy they're bringing...)
and she probably still dresses very preppy otherwise-- clean cut and femme to compensate for the perceived dykishness of being a girl athlete.
i tried to look up some nerdy girl vibes for Dusty but honestly it was difficult (bc of stereotypes and misogyny) and tbh I think Dusty dresses very similarly to how Dustin dresses in s1 bc she doesn't care about being particularly fashionable or femme-- probably just has longer and even more unruly hair! but if i had to choose an inspo photo i would say dusty could perhaps have some similar styling and vibes to Suzie, though i'm partial to jeans/overalls and t-shirt girl Dusty...
