Shammy thoughts below since they are in my cranium 👇
My headcanon regarding Tammy is that her only family is her dad, makes sense if the (I believe) third poorest family is a single income household. But I also believe Tammy's dad tends to be neglectful since it seems like she can spend days at a time at Kenny's yk? Maybe it's not intentional, maybe he just works most of the time for pennies, and she had to grow up fast.
I think that could then lead Shelly and Tammy to bond over their not great dads, maybe makes Shelly realize she could probably have it a lot worse (living in poverty, for example.)
That then leads me to believe that Tammy sleeps over a lot for days at a time and its not like Sharon and Randy notice the difference anyway
I envisioned that Tammy is quite ostracized after being labelled "a slut" in the school, and I guess Shelly is supposed to have friends but I still lean into her being unpopular and a loner, particularly having a reputation for being an angry "bitch" type (maybe even a pyromaniac?). They bond over being outsiders
I headcanon that Tammy manages to have such nice clothes and hair dye is simply through shoplifting!! She is a master thief. And Shelly thinks that's super cool, and they become thieving partners.
I imagine Tammy influencing Shelly a lot that way, especially fashion wise. Shelly goes from being uncomfortable in her body and having trouble genuinely expressing herself with her clothes to having Tammy braid her hair and paint her nails and having FUN trying on clothes in dressing rooms in shops
Tammy still has an affinity for boy bands and I imagine masculine female musicians, and I think it's partly because they inspire a want within her to experiment with her gender a bit. And I think Shelly was always that girl who had to play the male roles during play time as kids because she was the ugly oafish girl, which was quite bad for her self esteem. So when Tammy asks if they can play pretend boyfriend, Tammy being the boyfriend, and Shelly being her girlfriend, it makes her feel all kind of butterflies in her belly
Shelly's abrasiveness and bluntness comes off as a strong confidence to Tammy, and she really admires Shelly for standing up for herself, esp cuz I feel like Tammy apologizes much too unnecessarily for herself.
