✨It's a work in progress✨
Hailey
🩵
irl and ao3
🕯️
1992
🌕
INFJ
🔮
Steddie Art Dealer
📖
PHD in the Study of Storytelling as an Insight into Anthropology and Collective Human Consciousness (Common Sense and Popular Culture)*
🩻
a bit personal, bit multi fandom
🫠
(w/e - probs nb but idrc)
🍳
you'll quickly find I like the boys and girls
🎃
✨the stranger the better✨
🧜♂️✨💏✨🕺✨🪩✨🛸
🖤Eddie Munson🦇
🧡Joe Quinn😏
💛Steve Harrington🫶
🤎Joe Keery🥹
🩵Harry Styles🎤
💚Louis Tomlinson🍑
👰🏽Zendaya🍿
🤵🏼Tom Holland🎟️
💙Spiderman🕸️
💔Iron Man🔧
🫀Tom Hardy🎩
🖤Venom👽
...too many to list tbh🦄
👁️🫦👁️
feeling sweet?
🍭
send some monopoly money
💰
CashApp: $HaileyCB92
💸
mentally ill and still gotta pay the bills
✨🌚🕯️🔮🕯️🌝✨
🧙♀️🦉
🛍️If you feel the need to buy something**
(so it's technically not charity)🎁
✨I am available for✨
🫖Advice -
(I give you the Tea)
☕Vent Session -
(You Spill- No Tea for you)
🃏Tarot Reading -
(I am Intuitive)
📜Write a Fic of Your Prompting -
(Any Fandom, I'll Wiki it)
🎨Drawing -
(You want a commission? Won't be anything to write the Louvre about, but it'll be pen and paper, my own two hands, and my hallucinations like our ancestors intended. I'll even pull out the dusty copic markers if you ask nicely.)
🦶Feet Pics -
('nough said)
🧢
🐷
Friendship? -Priceless
🤗
*I made that up
**Quality: -Subjective
🩵 GET TO KNOW ME THROUGH- @steddieunderdogfics writer spotlight interview
<<<>>>>>><<<<<<✨💖🥹💖✨>>>>>><<<<<<>>>
🪩 Let's Be Honest, If You Could Hop Dimensions, You'd Save Eddie Munson Too (AO3 // REBLOG // ART: Eddie in Disguise/Comparison) - A Steddie+Original NonBinary Time/Dimension Traveler Character Fix-It Comedy/Adventure (Spice Level: 💏👁️🫦👁️)
🌚 Devotion Tastes So Sweet On Your Lips (AO3 // REBLOG) - A Spooky Steddie Horror One-Shot (Maybe Series...) Steve Prays To The Old Gods And Eddie The Banished Answers
🕸️ A Sticky Situation (AO3 // REBLOG) - A Harringroveson x Spideypoolverine Crossover Comedy One-Shot (It Slaps) "Like The Avengers But Gayer"
🫦 Ask and Ye Shall Receive (AO3 // REBLOG) - A Steddie Spicy Comedy One-Shot (Because I can't take anything seriously) Eddie Is Autistic and Missed All Steve's "Signals", Lucky for Steve, Eddie Has A Plan (Spice Level: 🫠🤦)
🤐 Secret Friends (AO3 // REBLOG // 2 // 3 ) - A Steddie Friends to Lovers Comedy One-Shot Ficlet (A Prompt If You Will) Eddie and Steve Have Known Each Other Forever and No One Believes Them- Until Robin (...and then a couple extras)
🥵 Wet-Nightmare (AO3 // REBLOG // 2 ) - An Add-On Fic Inspired by Allsteddie's Post, Firefighter Steve Called To Save Someone Handcuffed to His Own Bed- Surprise It's His High School Bi-Awakening Eddie Munson (Spice Level: 🥵🔥🧯🧑🏼🚒)
👅 Stud Finder (AO3 // REBLOG) - A Fic Inspired by Camaro-Hargrove's Post- "s2 steve with pierced nipples and billy sees them in the shower and completely forgets to pull his pigtails" (Spice Level: 🔥🥵🫠🔥) (harringroveson technically)
👻 He's Got Soul (AO3 // INSPO // 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5 // 6 // 7 // 8 // 9 // 10 ) - A Steddie Ghost Eddie/Popstar Steve Julie and the Phantoms Inspired Ficlet ¡NOW A FULL FLEDGED FIC! 10 Long Chapters Done, NO WIP Here, Publishing as I Edit (6/10 LIVE on AO3)
—+-+-+-+——Some Bonus Tumblr Only Ficlets——+-+-+-+—
+If I Had Written ST Season 5, An Outline (A Very Long Fic Prompt, Featuring Kas Eddie, Steddie, Byler, and Some Time Fuckery To Suit Our Purposes)
+ART: Steddie Comic: You Are Not Immune to Propaganda/Propaganda Shorts (from my lovely cousin, because I asked nicely, everyone say thank you BB)
+Rockstar!Eddie in a Case of Mistaken Identity Gets Dragged to Dustin's 21st "Rockstar Hotel After Party" Themed Birthday by an Oblivious Steve +Bonus Robin Has Something To Say About That (An Add-On Ficlet Inspired by Whathehonestfuk 's post🤘)
+Steve Time Travels to '84 and Shows Up Concussed on Eddie's Doorstep, but Eddie Catches on Fast, Ready to Solve That Mystery with The Scooby Gang, No Questions Asked (an add-on ficlet started by Nancywheelesbian and Scoops-Aboy
✨MORE + everything else you need to know under the cut✨
+Steve is Mad That Eddie Can't Seem to Warm Up to Him and Finally Asks Him What's His Problem? Eddie Indicates the Problem is Sexual Frustration. (Steve May Be Slow On the Draw but He Ain't Shooting Blanks. An Add-On Ficlet Inspired by Steddiecameraroll 's Post) (Spice Level:🤘😏)
+Gifset: Mall SANTA STEVE Meets Eddie Dared to Sit On His Lap (Eddie is Officially on The Naughty List Now) (Spice Level: 😏😝😉)
+Steve Is Emboldened to a Life of Crime by His Association with Chief Hopper, and Drags Eddie Along for the Ride (An Add-On Ficlet🤘 Inspired by Morganbritton132 's Post)
+ART: Steve is Mid-Life of Crime but The Fruity Four Gets Caught and Hopper Makes Them Go Through Booking and Sit in the Cell to Drive the Point Home (A Call For Art... and Now There Is Some Thanks to Deadgirlhawkins AND They Added a StrangerNatural Crossover Ficlet. I'm. OBSESSED.✨🎁✨)
+Steve is Afraid to Scare Eddie Away by Treating Him 'Like a Girl,' Eddie is Frustrated, Thinking Steve Just Can't Bring Himself to Cuddle Him Because He's a Guy.🤘(Until Eddie Opens Steve's Closet and a Mountain of Dead and Drying Bouquets and Boxes Fall All Around Him. An Add-On Ficlet Inspired by Strawnger 's Post) +Bonus: The Add On Where They Go From Idiots to Lovers
+ART: Stephanus Concubinus, Emperor Geta's Vita (Steddie x Gladiator II AU Blurb Inspired by Kingsandsaints ' Gorgeous Painting of Joe Keery Wearing Laurels and a White Sheet🕊️)
+CANON STEDDIE Gifsets: Steve Throws Eddie His Yellow Sweater, Eddie Throws Steve His Vest. It's a Whole Thing (It's Canon. Gone a bit Viral, this one🤘) +Further Evidence: Steve Puts on The Vest and Eddie Checks Out His Ass, Also Canon. +Bonus Canon: Eddie Stares at Steve's Wounded Abs But Looks Away Before He Gets Caught +Bonus Canon: Every Time Eddie Puts On His Steve Smile +Bonus Canon: Beer for Eddie
+Gifset: Eddie Realizes Steve Is More Than A Babysitter (w/ Inspo Post Steve Slays Demo-Bats, Eddie Reacts, This One Has Gotten Popular, But I Mainly Attribute That to Steve's Titties 🤘)
+Rockstar!Eddie Meets His New Personal Assistant Steve and Is a Little Shit About It, But Steve Takes No Shit And That Fucks Eddie Up (An Add-On Ficlet Inspired by Urdreamgirls-dreamgirl 's post 🤘)
+Rockstar!Eddie, Meets Server Duo Stobin, is an Asshole and Gets His Just De'Soup- Later Eddie Comes Back to Apologize and Gets Steve's Number- Then, A Misunderstanding and a Proposal (An Add-On Ficlet Started by Two Very Talented Writers Sabbathbloddysabbeth and Estrellami-1🤘)
+Single Fathers Eddie and Steve Keep Getting Called Into the Principals Office Because Their Kids Keep Fighting Each Other at School. They're Getting Parent-Trapped. Sort Of. (An Add-On Ficlet from a Prompt by Bluehydrangeabush🤘)
+Steve is Drawn Into a Life of Crime with Eddie, Stealing Cars, Until Eddie Gets Caught and the Judge Offers Prison or Military. Years Later, Steve Gets Knapped and Trafficked and Undercover Agent Eddie is There. (Sounds Wild, Is Wild. A Steddie Ficlet Prompt, Hoping Someone Takes This and Runs With It🤘)
+S4 Cut Scene: Steve Pines For Eddie, Dustin is Excited For Two Dad's, or Whatever, He's Not Picky (Eddie Witnesses This Interaction From Afar, Wonders Fondly, an Add-On Ficlet Inspired by Tellme-astory 's Post)
+Steddie!Little Mermaid AU Blurb-let (It Started With a Whisper- *Steve Herrington* and Ended When Prince Eddie Kissed he- er, uh, no wait- That's Actually Henry the Sea Witch with Prince Steve's Stolen Voice... Violence and Magic and A Happily Ever After, Oh My! A Messy Prompt Blurb)
+Famous!Steddie, Eddie Reads Tumblr RPF of Steve, Steve Gives a Rec (Rogueddie Wrote A Blurb, I Wrote A Blurb, an Add-On Prompt Blurb)
+Eddie Doesn't Give A Fuck About Sleep Paralysis Demon Steve (Bit Personal, Turned Into a Steddie Prompt Blurb)
+Eddie, Post Apocalypse, Joins The Military Supernatural Special Forces, Until He Receives a Call from an Old Friend in Hawkins (a Steddie Prompt Blurb Inspired by Frecklesjoes ' Post)
+ART: Cuntwrap Supreme Assassins Assemble (We can pretend it's Steve with Nancy and Robin for my Steddie heart's sake)
+ Omega Peter Parker Discovers That He Is Pregnant Despite Believing He Was Infertile Because The Radioactive Spider Bite Tony Clocked It First (A a/b/o Ficlet Inspired By Winterspiderpurrs)
📜 A Tale in Gifs🍿
—++++—Stories Told in a Montage of Gifs—++++—
+Steve Definitely Doesn't Have A Type: A Steddie Tale in Gifs (+Because I Can't Leave Well Enough Alone: Emotional Damage) (Learned how to make gifs for this post lol took me hours give it some love, my first sort of popular post🤘)
+Steve: All My Homies Love Boobs And Hate The Government / Robin Looks At Eddie: *Gay Silence* / Steve: Right?! (Robin Looks At Eddie: *Cringes* / Steve: *Bi Panic Sets In*)
+Eddie Munson the Lunchtime Menace... He Does All His Best Menacing at Tables: A Tale in Gifs (A Montage of Eddie Being Menacingly Innocent 😇👀)
+Steve: If He Fuck Me Good I'll Take His Ass To Red Lobster / Steddie Version / Metal Sandwich Version (🍨⛵🦞)
+The First Time Little Eddie Munson With The Buzzed Hair Gets Called A F*reak, He Is Too Stunned To Speak (Literally, just a sentence ✨with gifs✨ but now I need 100k words, on my desk by Monday morning. Prompto.)
🪩Gems You Missed🪩
*****(This is where you realize I'm actually kinda hilarious)*****
+Dear Santa (manifesting in the form of a Letter to Santa- revealing and vulnerable, but funny)
+A Break-up Cake Commissioned By Me From The WM Bakery: Mario Kart - "Welcome Back To The Streets" (If We Are Friends, This Is The Kind Of Moves You Can Expect From Me, Indisputable Proof That I Am Occasionally Hilarious.)
+@/fbi-director-kashpatell Tried To Scam Me, So I Scammed Him First (Comedy In My DMs - "One of the many reasons I would make a better billionaire than that fuck Elon")
+A Secret MUTINY at the *Amazing Box Corporation* ✊REBELLOGNA FOR THE SOUL
+A Post That Hilariously Accidentally Implies I Drink Piss (Some of my best work)
+Jack Whitehall Incorrect Quote/Shipping Gays is the Glue That Holds Fandom Together🤘
+Harry Styles Raps to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Video (if you've never seen this, you're not fully realizing your potential)
🪩Wow You've Come So Far, You Must Really Like Me, Huh?🪩
<🍾Okay so we're getting a little more personal now🥂>
+15 Minute Roast Beef and Potato Soup🍲 (I make up easy recipes sometimes, ask me about my rotisserie chicken enchiladas with cilantro lime sour cream sauce)
+My 2010 1D Tumblr Origin Story (🤣The true story of how I ended up on Tumblr)
+My Ridiculous Laptop Sticker Collection (feat. Some Steddie Stickers from Raynecreates) *UPDATE
+My Halloween Tree and Blockbuster Wall (About 4,000 DVDs lit up by my Halloween Tree, it's a Spooky Vibe, ask me for a Movie Rec... When I die I'm fixin to haunt the Criterion Closet👻) +BONUS: Top Ten Favorite Movie Memories (The ONLY Get To Know Me Posts You Need To See)
+ I just realized I caught the GHOST in my haunted house on video 🫥👀💀
+My Review of the Movie A Real Pain with Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin (An Ode to Real Pain, My Stream of Sleep Deprived Consciousness Sounds Like Beat Poetry🥲)
+My Epitaph // I'll Say It Again (My Personal Philosophy, It's A Banger™)
+Religion? (What I Know)🩵
My dad used to say "Tomorrow's a New Day. Make it a Better one." Not "hope for-". Not "try and have-". Not "it will be-". Make it.
🪩Honey + Puppies🪩
✨My Pup HoneyBun and Her Pups ✨
(RIP My First Pup: Caesar 'Señor Ensalada')
+CAUTION: MAY CAUSE CUTE AGGRESSION 🍯My Dog Honey Watches Scooby Doo / Honey Cuddles Then and Now / Honey Plays Then and Now 🍬 / Honey Is A Goof / Honey's Pug-pies: Scooby, Momo, Pickle, and Ponyo / Honey Helped Make Better Pugs 😂 / Honey's Second Litter (Oops!): Muse, Lyra, Star, Zero, and Hero / Video: Days Old Pups Feeding and Whining / Honey Doesn't Want to be Touched so I Have to Pretend
+SONG: HONEY'S LULLABY (If you've ever wondered what I sound like- a rare chance to hear me singing the Lullaby I sing to my pup, Honey. Little bit SPOOKY🎃, it's the song the Sirens from O Brother Where Art Thou sing, plus some older lyrics and the last verse I made up. Recorded at Bedtime so ehscuse the sleepy voice.)
(I go a lil ham with the tags, trying to be thorough, so I'm a safe blog if you utilize tag blocking, search my blog for any of your own interests, you'll most likely strike gold 😂 give it a try if you're curious, <not clickable> but some tag recs to search my blog->)
👇👉Search🔎#Tags👈👇
#steddie - probably my most common tag I love them but there's a plethora of tags #steddie art, #steddie fic, #steddie comic
#personal - if you're trying to see more than just fandom- really get to know me 🥹 also #movie recs cos storytelling via film is one of my special interests and there's nothing more personal to me
#trauma dump and #dream journal - the drama, the tea, the weird dreams that are so ridiculous I had to tell someone, even if it is just shouting it into the void to hear the echo, basically over sharing. #childhood memories
#interest - anything that is of interest to me, stuff like #therapy, #linguistics, #anthropology, #sociology, #psychology, #archeology, #movies, #film theory, #politics, #house hunting, #location scouting basically anything that interests me outside pretty people and shows
#writing - my own fics and posts I actually contributed commentary to or a lil blurb, or writing inspo and prompts I am interested in, as well as writing resources, tips, etc. #writing advice #fic prompt
#pretty - it's the boys and the girls and the #aesthetic stuff too #pretty in pink #pretty in blue try #phwoar if you like it spicy
#boys - any of the pretty boys I like to reblog (mostly Steddie)
#femme fatale - pretty girls, alternately #laissez faire also drool over #that dress
#smile - if you wanna smile, I heard they're contagious and this tag has some beautiful smiles 😁 and a few things guaranteed to bring joy
Etc. #one direction #harry styles #louis tomlinson etc.
#spooky - It's #spooky season baby and #halloween is in my veins. We got #spooky art, #haunted house, #halloween decorations, and best of all #spooky steddie
Follow my Spooky side-blog @spooky-ooky-dokie for strictly Halloween/Spooky themed content
🤌Like this post and I will definitely follow you (*except minors soz)👀
I had such a shitty conversation over the phone with my brother a couple days ago and it's still playing out in my head. So for context, my big brother has always thought there was something wrong with me because I don't like socializing, have only ever had a few friends at a time and never really spent a lot of time with them.
(I'm autistic but haven't been officially diagnosed and bro doesn't believe that either thinks I'm too stupid to know what the DSM-5 is like going to a doctor to get diagnosed isn't super expensive and also in my opinion a waste of my time and energy, why do I need to explain myself and all of my collective life experiences to a man for them to judge and decide whether it fits the criteria or not when I've read the criteria and I can tell you they definitely do, and also every diagnosed adults stories of their life experiences and getting theirs has let me know that I am definitely on the right track. But that's not the conversation, that's just background to the other shitty conversation that more recently took place.)
And I was talking to him, don't remember what prompted me because it got emotional pretty quick my brain kinda latched on to what came after, but I told him "I think I'm probably aroace, I've never been interested in having a relationship with anyone like that, and I've never enjoyed sex, but I did obviously think I did want it at some point because of the whole 'society shoving heteronormativity down every teenagers throat' thing."
And his response was, to *scoff*, and say, "You know, I think you're probably not and if you would just think about going to therapy, a lot of those problems you have might actually get solved, instead of you just attaching whatever internet buzz word to them, and you might actually go out and try and connect with someone for once."
And obviously there's a lot to unpack there but my immediate thought and response was, *also scoff because what the actual fuck* "ooooh okayyy so you think if I just go to the doctor he can cure me of my mistaken sexuality?"
And my brother panicked a little I imagine because he thinks he's a fucking ally and his wife would absolutely death glare him to silence if she heard what he said, idk if she was in the room, I hope so, so she could make him realize how much of an idiot he is, one of the only people who can get past the ego on this guy.
So he said, "well no, I mean, that's not what I said, you know I have plenty of friends who are aroace*(I didn't)* , I just mean that you never really wanted to put yourself out there, but if you would just go to therapy maybe you wouldn't be so scared to just go into the fucking grocery store! And maybe you'd go make some friends."
And I told him "I am fucking autistic bro, hence why giant loud people filled fucking WALMART is not an enjoyable environment for me. Never has been. That's not just something my *finger quotes even tho this was a phone convo* worsening anxiety *what he calls me no longer masking and refusing to put myself in situations that have always made me uncomfortable but I suddenly realized I had the adult power to say no thanks to alongside my anxiety disorder* has made me suddenly decide."
And he had the fucking gall to respond, "you know what else having no interest in social connections is a sign of? A sociopath!"
"Yeah, but IM NOT a fucking sociopath! I am interested in social connections, just not romantic ones. I'm perfectly happy with having a few important relationships with family and friends that fulfill me and make me feel loved and seen. And I'm the opposite of a sociopath, because I have extreme empathy and I'm a people pleaser, I care what everyone thinks. Too much. But now I'm grown and I'm learning to set better boundaries actually, so I'm gonna go now and we can talk again some other time when I'm feeling better seen and heard."
And of course because why not, "Yeah, I actually have to go too, I've been putting off a project I've been trying to get around to for the last hour I've wasted talking to you."
publisher: I've been looking into tumblr, have you thought of using Blaze to promote your book?
me: NO
publisher: But it seems like an efficient way to get this in front of more eyes-
me: people on tumblr hate Blaze.
publisher: There is no algorithm and you can't pay to promote a post? I don't understand how anyone advertises anything on tumblr.
me: That's the best part. They don't. They can't.
(trying to make him understand that we do not control the attention. We just have to show something shiny and gay enough and if people are interested, they'll reblog.)
(Mrs. Victoria buys a brothel, a deconstruction of the colonialist cowboy mythos dressed up as a sapphic romance.)
Yeah, that's the key: You can tell people about your book. You cannot *advertise* your book to them. You can politely ask people to signal boost to support an author writing queer books, or to recommend it to their friends. You *CANNOT* advertise to them.
It's kind of like the difference between a company with dozens of locations versus a farmer's market. Tumblr is the farmer's market. People here *do* want to buy things, but they often want to buy things in a way that directly supports the people who made them, and they want those products to align with their values and ethics, and they want the person behind the folding table to be a familiar face who is actually a genuine part of the community, not some slick outsider who doesn't give a shit about them.
A guide to *Sharing* Your Goods and Services on Tumblr🫴
I Blazed a post once because I got a free blaze with tumblr+ or whatever it's called (because I paid for that with my free $ I had on my Google play account, so it was double free) and I blazed my 1000 word Spooky Steddie ficlet Where Eddie, an Ancient Banished Dark God, saves Steve who Invoked His Name on Accident while Running For His Life Through Eddie's Forrest. It's kind of a Meet Spooky if you will. V Brave. But it was Spooky Season and I was new and wanted to find my Steddie community. (If you're interested here's the link, it's called Devotion Tastes So Sweet On Your Lips, it is free but reblogging is like paying me)
Did the Duffers wait around too long to ask Joe Quinn back to play Eddie again and then have to scramble for some other story line? Did they get jealous of Eddie's popularity for some reason and resent him for blowing up even though it was great for the show, and wait too long to ask him back and then he was booked and busy? And then decide that the Kas story line they hinted at for the entire season wouldn't work because then it was 'too predictable' and said Eddie was dead dead to save face? Did they really line up all the foreshadowing for Eddie to have a resurrection Kas storyline just to drop it because too many people predicted it? Because they hinted at it? It was a GREAT IDEA FOR A STORY LINE, even if they hadn't actually come up with it at all, they should have TAKEN IT AND RUN WITH IT! Season 5 could have been so much better and Eddie could have LIVED
I was mimicking that Pantene commercial with the model that does the same, like, Don't hate me because I'm beautiful. -Andrea
The hair. The hair toss. -Jodie
That was such a 90s. Was it 80s? I think it was 90s. I don't know. -Andrea
Don't hate me because I'm beautiful? That was that was that was like some sort of a perfume commercial. -Jodie
It was Pantene. It was it was shampoo. it was a shampoo commercial. I just can't remember if it was the 80's or the 90's, but it was it was iconic, whatever it was. -Andrea
yeah golden retreiver boyfriends are great and I've met several personally, but personally I have a house cat boyfriend
extremely affectionate despite of seeming aloof and politely distant to unfamiliar people
my friends have seen him irl less than 5 times in the five years I've had him - if I invited people over he would hide under furniture until they're gone
haha you got up from your work desk, time for unskippable 35 minutes of kisses and cuddles
can and will throw up out of sheer anxiety because Things And Events Are Happening that do not even involve him in any way
can instinctively sense exactly when I am going to decide I'm done bedrotting and will climb on top of me to cuddle exactly 3 minutes before I was just about to get up
can be placed sideways on any soft surface at any time of the day and immediately takes a five hour nap
cannot eat or drink in unfamilair places. can and will go 16 hours without food or water if the situation is uncomfy.
unhelpful but valiant efforts to try to protect and rescue you from things and situations that he would personally hate being in, out of not understanding of Why Are You In There Voluntarily
will come show me incomprehensible memes the same way a cat will bring you a random bug. thank you. I do not understand it but I know you brought it to me because you love me.
It contains a breakdown of his character that includes all the context provided by the book Runaway Max, a contextualization of what’s shown in the episodes, and a couple of personal inferences. If you have any questions, feel free to ask; if they’re addressed in the book or in another canonical source, I’ll let you know!
I should note that Billy is a bit more complicated than Eddie (I will post tomorrow), both because the book is not entirely about him or from his POV, and because chronologically events are referenced in a more scattered way.
This may be useful if you want to read "Why do you cry?", my fanfiction on Billy and Eddie "surviving" the canon event. [click here to read]
| Eddie | Billy |
From the book Runaway Max:
Max didn’t know Neil had a son; Neil vaguely mentioned Billy without even saying his name. Susan, on the other hand, not only knew about Billy but was aware of the violent, abusive dynamic even before agreeing to marry Neil. While they were still in California, Billy gave Max a cigarette to try; they were laughing and were relaxed. Susan caught them and intervened by yelling, but as soon as Neil stepped in the garage she threw the cigarette into her coffee and reassured him it was nothing. This happened before Max ever saw her stepfather raise his hands to Billy for the first time. Later in the book, Max says she would come to understand that Susan wasn’t afraid of him, but afraid for him. + The first time Max witnessed one of Neil’s beatings, even before it started, both Billy and Susan were frozen because they both knew what was about to happen, and there Max realized that Susan was not surprised because she was already aware.
At first Max adored Billy; the moment she saw him, her impression was that he looked like a movie star, and that he resembled his car, fast and hard-edged. Max even asked if he wanted to go to the bumper cars; Billy replied that he didn’t see why he should when he had a car, and then took Max for a “bitchin’ ride.”
The nickname “Mad Max” was given to her by Billy as a joke (not a mean one).
Neil started asserting himself as Max’s father almost immediately. Susan said she was thinking of signing Max up for summer camp; Max didn’t respond, and Neil told her to answer her mother when she spoke to her. Long story short, while they were still eating at a restaurant, Neil sent Max to wait in the car. Billy made an excuse to leave and went to the car as well, kept her company, and then told her that that man was horrible and definitely couldn’t be a father to her, let alone to him.
Billy’s psychological state worsened day by day. There was strong emphasis on his gaze being constantly blank, sleepy and absent, but alongside the dissociative state there was the fact that every instance of abuse clearly made him worse, to the point where even Susan and Neil were no longer sure they could contain him.
The break between Billy and Max happened because of Neil. The first time Max witnessed a beating, Susan eventually left the kitchen without urgency and without saying anything. Max didn’t know how to stop what was happening, so after the first two blows and a strike with the belt she screamed to stop it. Neil looked at Billy and told him he didn’t know he had raised a loser who needed a little girl to fight his battles for him, then went back to beating him with the belt until he was left on the floor, bruised and bleeding. That was when the idea formed in Billy’s mind that Max was an enemy.
Billy was constantly dissociated, but during physical abuse he became completely absent. When Neil hit him he did nothing; he didn’t speak, step back, scream, cry, or try to dodge. He stayed still, hoping it would end as quickly as possible.
Max tried to offer him help while he was on the ground, checking how he was and offering to get him some ice, but in that moment she saw only hatred in Billy’s eyes. Billy, unsurprisingly, refused the help and told her to go away.
My personal interpretation was that, beyond Neil’s words changing his perception of Max, there was also shame. Max had seen him in that state and had come to feel pity for him; for Billy, that represented a tear in his dignity. Part of that hatred came from the fact that Neil made it impossible for him to tolerate the idea of being seen as fragile, so the only method of self-defense was to show that he was not weak, fragile, or emotional.
One way he tried to erase that image from Max’s mind, in my opinion, was what became the reason they left California. While Max and one of her friends, Nate, were trying to build a ramp, a project they’d had in mind for a while, things escalated without becoming outright violent, until Nate stepped in and Billy, looking Max in the eyes, slowly broke his arm just to make a statement.
Because of this, as an aside, Neil didn’t beat him. They didn’t even talk about it, probably because Neil saw violence as virile and normal, something he considered healthier than, say, a man styling his hair with all the hairspray that Billy used.
Billy’s beatings were so normalized that they were treated almost casually. Another one that was mentioned, happened on the night of the season two party: he came home late and drunk, staggering. Max went to her room before things escalated, but she heard the noises, heard Neil yelling, and then Billy on the floor.
When these incidents were mentioned casually, they were referred to as “disciplining him.”
Girls and parties were his way of avoiding being at home, but Hawkins had few parties and the girls had curfews, which was why, as he spent more time at home, the abuse increased.
Billy was completely broken, and this wasn’t my wording, it was Max’s during a moment of reflection. He had been psychologically shattered to the point that in his head there was no longer himself, only Neil. Whatever Neil said became law for Billy; he acted directly in response to every comment, to the few words addressed to him, usually while he was being beaten. After the last abuse we were shown, the one in season two, Billy completely snapped.
From season two/three, with the context of Runaway:
Billy driving Max around to the arcades wasn’t because the family asked him to. Ever since they had arrived in Indiana, he had been the one taking her everywhere, and he had even been asked to stop by her school to make sure the paperwork was in order (like, five minutes before his classes started). As a bonus detail, Susan didn’t like Max going to the arcades, it was a thing between her and his father.
This started because Billy broke her skateboard, but it turned into a habit because theirs was the most dysfunctional household in the show, and Neil and Susan stopped acting as parents.
Billy didn’t hate Indiana on principle, but because it was gray, small, far from the ocean, static, and there was little to do, which, as mentioned in the book section, meant more time at home.
On the night of the Halloween party, they dumped Max on Billy and told him to take her trick-or-treating. He dropped her off after she asked to be let out, but didn’t stay with her, he went to Tina’s Halloween party instead. He was late picking her up, Max thought he wasn’t going to pick her up anymore and ended up going home alone. A few minutes later he came back too, completely drunk, lied about a flat tire and Neil, who was not having it, beat him.
“Plant your feet” was, even if it didn’t seem like it, genuine advice from Billy. That was how he usually endured a couple of blows before being thrown to the ground by his father. The scene with Steve in season two, before the fight, was meant to be an exact mirror of Billy behaving exactly like Neil.
For the scene with Lucas, where Billy saw him in the parking lot, Max provided the context that Neil had both forbidden talking about politics and forced the whole family to align with the conservative party, and that he had drilled into Billy the idea that there were people who didn’t belong to “our world,” referring to Black people and anyone who wasn’t Lutheran. It was one of many scenes showing that Billy had Neil in his head instead of himself, along with the season three flashbacks, the fight with Steve, and the other elements from the book mentioned above.
The equipment and weights used to be in the garage in California; in Indiana the garage was awful and small, so everything was kept inside the house. Since there was little to do, Billy spent part of his time at home, when Neil wasn’t around, lifting weights.
The day we saw him lifting weights while Max was fixing her skateboard was because Billy had run over it with his car. Max was trying to repair it with her backpack already packed and money taken from her mother, because she was preparing to run away and go live with her father.
The open shirt and cologne in his underwear were a Dacre thing, not something from the writers or from Brenna. It wasn’t related to Runaway, but I was looking at a file with all of Billy’s scenes while writing and didn’t want to forget it.
The moment Neil put his hands on him in season two was one of the very few times in Billy’s life when he tried to defend himself verbally, attempting to argue instead of just dissociating and mentally preparing for what came next. The first time this happened was when he came home drunk from the party.
It was also the only moment where we knew that, when he was alone, he cried. From Max’s point of view we never saw what happened afterward, and he seemed to remain completely dissociated until he was safe in his room. In the season two scene, for a brief instant, we saw him throw his keys and start crying while rubbing his face, and those were the only moments where he wasn’t absent.
As mentioned before, after that scene came Billy’s final psychological break. That was why, when Harrington gave him the signal that he could fight back, Max saw something snap in him that felt completely dangerous, as if she knew Billy wouldn’t have stopped that night until he killed him.
After the fight with Steve, Billy completely stopped talking at home. He and Max rarely even ran into each other, but he didn’t speak to anyone anymore. He hadn’t been speaking to Neil even before, same with Susan, and with Max, once the conflict reached its peak and stabilized, he stopped talking as well.
Things that weren’t explicit but could be inferred with some context:
Billy’s abuse was so normalized that no one was shocked by it anymore, and no one seemed to treat it as a shocking factor. Max herself started dissociating like her mother, even if she didn’t want to watch so she always made sure to not be in the same room. Making things worse was the fact that, beyond not knowing how to stop it, Billy refused help.
As already said but worth repeating, the break with Max happened in part because his father drilled into him the idea that weakness was a problem, that needing help was for the weak, that he had to be a man. The moment a thirteen-year-old girl reached out to him with pity, he felt completely humiliated and stripped of his masculinity.
The need to always appear virile and never weak, combined with being constantly dissociated and never fully lucid, was what made him unstable. He did things like burning the carcass of a cat just to show he was manly enough.
His friends, Sid and Wayne, seemed to be metaphors for the two sides of Billy’s character. Sid was chubby, decent, kinder, more caring, and stable, while Wayne was skinny with a weasel-like face, who not only encouraged chaos but did so by shouting things like “at least he’s man enough to do it.” Sid, unsurprisingly, eventually left.
The sauna scene was brutal because Billy wasn’t flayed yet. This was made clear because the moment the Mind Flayer was about to take possession of him, Will felt the tingling in his neck. There was so much going on that Billy’s mind could no longer create shields, and dissociation wasn’t enough. When he cried and said “I’ve done bad things” that was really him, or rather, the Billy who hadn’t existed for a long time. That was when he asked for help, and Max clung to the door trying to reassure him, because for the first time he wasn’t clouded by how he was supposed to appear or by Neil’s words, and he was genuinely asking for help.
That was why, in season four, Max remembered that scene during Vecna’s ‘nightmares’. Max hated him in part, but she was also angry at Susan for choosing that fate both for herself and for her daughter. Max knew and admitted that Billy was dangerous and had become a monster because he was an extension of his father.
When Max saw him in the sauna, it was as if she was back in that kitchen, seeing something ugly and wrong but not knowing how to stop it or how to actively help Billy. This would haunt her forever, because she would always feel guilty for not having been able to intervene.
The final scene where El stroked his face and he cried was even more devastating with the added context that, between a father who only looked at him to beat him, Billy spending his days either alone in his room with music blasting or in near-total silence, and Neil (again) destroying his emotional sphere by filling his head with ideas about fragility, vulnerability, and how wrong emotions were, making for him impossible to have a healthy relationship, Billy hadn’t been touched with affection for roughly ten years.
