History Fanfic / InAStrangeLand

* AmbiguousDisorder:
** Steve is obviously suffering from panic attacks and possibly some kind of post traumatic stress disorder with what might be depersonalization/derealization episodes.
** Billy seems to have either antisocial personality disorder or borderline personality disorder.
** Steve's mother has a unnamed 'nervous disposition' that she self-medicates for and that results in her staying in bed for days at a time that might be chronic depression.
** El and Hopper both realize that not having any kind of normal development from age 0-12 is likely to leave El with issues.
** Joyce has and is implied to have been briefly hospitalized in her teens for some kind of anxiety disorder.

* AssholeVictim: Neil Hargrove. Reed. Dr. Roethe and the other members of the Shop.

** Doctor Brenner would like everyone to follow [[Wiki/SCPFoundation Standard Containment Protocols]] at all times.

* FamilyOfChoice: These being more meaningful than blood relationships is a major theme of the fic, with both Steve and El fully accepting that they're part of one.

* PoisonousFriend: Tommy and Carol are this even beyond what they were on the show.
** Steve paints an incredibly bleak picture of a 'friendship' with Tommy that was made up of almost constant pressure to be 'cool' that encouraged TroublingUnchildlikeBehavior; smoking at ten, drinking himself sick but not being able to show it at thirteen, and being afraid that Tommy was going to tell the entire school that he was a loser if he hadn't had sex before ''High School''- and that was always right on the edge of TallPoppySyndrome if he was exceptional in any way that didn't serve him being popular/helping them be popular.
*** Murray Bauman shows Steve witness testimony that shows the two of them coordinated their statements to the police to make it seem like Steve might have killed Barbara. It's telling that Steve doesn't know if they did it take heat off of Tommy or purely because they thought it was funny.
*** Steve mentions to Jonathan that Tommy and Carol wouldn't even buy him a coke without making him pay them back- something you can see happen in Season One of the show- implying that he was more MealTicket than friend.
** Reed saw Steve as an ExtremeDoormat that was easy to manipulate through praise.

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** Learning that there are monsters, nearly dying twice, and deciding that you're personally responsible for a bunch of suicidally brave thirteen year olds takes a serious mental toll on Steve.
*** In the epilogue Hopper ends up in the unenviable position of having to explain to Steve that killing the Aboleth didn't fix the symptoms of 'psychic drain' because he's actually been suffering from PTSD, completely independent of the monster.
** A bunch of teenagers in suburban Indiana in the 80's have no idea how to navigate even the possibility of a poly relationship or possibly even what it's called- leaving everyone various levels of frustrated and confused though they care deeply about each other.
** A suburban town in Indiana in the early 80's likely wouldn't have had a computer lab in the middle/high-school yet and even fewer people had them at home- so neither Jonathan or Steve have any idea how to work a personal computer and have to rely on Dustin's instructions to figure it out.

** Defied by Billy Hargrove during his No-Holds-BarredBeatdown of Steve Harrington at Sattler Quarry. Instead of delivering the posturing one-liner that Steve and Billy's friends expect him to, Billy starts the fight by walloping Steve in the ribcage with a sock loaded with gym locks.

A novel-length ''Series/StrangerThings'' fan fiction set after Season 2 of the show, inspired by the works of Stephen King and H P Lovecraft. Notable for its strong character voices, historical detail, and LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters : The Party, Hopper, Joyce, the Teens, Mr. Clarke, Doc Owens, and Billy Hargrove all have major POV chapters. Others with much briefer ones include Callahan, Axel, Kali, Mr. Clarke's girlfriend Jen, Reed, the Mind-Flayer, and Erica. Non-POV characters that get mentioned include pretty much every named character on the show and a couple from the tie-in novels.

* AdultFear:
** In spite of fighting actual monsters the teens nightmares at Hawkins Lab are all these rather than being related to the Upside-Down.
*** Fear of being mentally ill without realizing and harming the people you care about (Jonathan).
*** Fear that someone you're in love with is actually just using you for sex (Nancy).
*** Fear of a thoughtless accident that leads to the death of a friend/the kids that you're supposed to be in charge of (Nancy and Steve).
** After successfully fighting the Aboleth Joyce and Hopper come home to the sight of Billy's car on the lawn and the door broken down. Hopper immediately assumes the worst.

* HiddenDepths: Steve wants to come across as cool and unflappable, but he's surprisingly sensitive and smarter than most people give him credit for. While he's still always slowest on the uptake when it comes to complex concepts he generally proves to have good instincts and is actually a creative thinker.

* CrossOver: Starts as an homage/pastiche of Stephen King but veers into true cross-over territory when Nancy, Steve, and Jonathan run into The Shop, AKA the Weapons Shop of Isher AKA The Department of Scientific Intelligence, the group responsible for the events of Literature/{{Firestarter}} and TheMist and who fail to stop the super-flu outbreak during TheStand.
** Roethe and Subject Six are part of Project Arrowhead- the project to open gates to other worlds that resulted in the events of TheMist.

** In the final battle, Mike gives Nancy the character class of "gunslinger" even though, as he notes mentally, it's not a type which can be found in ''Dungeons and Dragons''. It is, of course, a class in [[Literature/TheDarkTower another fantasy epic of interest to a universe inspired by the works of]] Creator/StephenKing.

* RealityEnsues:
** Learning that there are monsters, nearly dying twice, and deciding that you're personally responsible for a bunch of suicidally brave thirteen year olds takes a serious mental toll on Steve.
*** In the epilogue Hopper ends up in the unenviable position of having to explain to Steve that killing the Aboleth didn't fix the symptoms of 'psychic drain' because he's actually been suffering from PTSD, completely independent of the monster.
** A bunch of teenagers in suburban Indiana in the 80's have no idea how to navigate even the possibility of a poly relationship or possibly even what it's called- leaving everyone various levels of frustrated and confused though they care deeply about each other.
** A suburban town in Indiana in the early 80's likely wouldn't have had a computer lab in the middle/high-school yet and even fewer people had them at home- so neither Jonathan or Steve have any idea how to work a personal computer and have to rely on Dustin's instructions to figure it out.

** In spite of fighting actual monsters the teen's nightmares at Hawkins Lab are all these rather than being related to the Upside-Down.

* {{Adorkable}}:
** In keeping with the show the whole Party, but especially Dustin whose chapters are littered with references ranging from comics to Star Wars to Lord of the Rings, even when he's under stress.
** Mr. Clarke is a big nerd who's first thoughts about finding out that alternate dimensions are real and filled with monsters is how it's going to effect various scientific fields. He's also a huge horror fan with almost every movie he references being horror that ranges from Hammer films, to 50's creature features to 80's BodyHorror. Imagine ''Mr. Clarke'' watching a David Cronenberg film.
** Steve has his moments- he's genuinely good at and enjoys playing D&D, secretly used to read comics as a kid, and suggests that the argument of whether to call El Jane or El is best solved by 'calling her Jane-El like she's from Krypton.'
*** The fact that he practically squees the first time he sees her use her powers (to lift a ''jar'') and ends up nick-naming her Supergirl.

* WhamLine:
->'''[[spoiler: “Because her father is here, goddamnit. She’s Sara Hopper.”]]

* BiTheWay: Jonathan Byers is attracted to both Nancy and Steve, even though he's not completely sure that he even *likes* Steve as a person. Comes to terms with the fact that he's [[BlatantLies tolerable]] by the end.

!!Stranger Tropes:

* TheGunslinger: Mike gives this class to Nancy in the Inbetween. She [[TheDarkTower shoots with her mind]]

** In the final battle, Mike gives Nancy the character class of "gunslinger" even though, as he notes mentally, it's not a type which can be found in ''Dungeons and Dragons''. It is, of course, a class in [[Franchise/TheDarkTower another fantasy epic of interest to a universe inspired by the works of]] Creator/StephenKing.

* DarkWorld: The Inbetween is nothing but dark. With all the Stephen King references in the fic it's possible that the author is assuming that the Void of the show is analogous to Todash Space - the dark dimension that characters travel through in TheDarkTower when they 'go todash' and that spawns the monsters from TheMist.

* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: The page breaks throughout the fic have messages from the monster hidden in Zalgo text, directed to the reader.

** Steve's mother has a unnamed 'nervous disposition' that she self-medicates for that might be chronic depression.

* CelebrityParadox : Due to CanonWelding the fic explicitly crosses over with the (a?) universe of Creator/StephenKing with an appearance by The Shop and mentions of John Rainbird and The Dark Tower - but Billy and Steve both make pop-culture references to Film/TheShining which means Stephen King exists in universe too...

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Bob's appearance in Chapter 11 is explained away by Mr. Clarke as a hallucination brought on by an acute stress reaction but this ''is'' Hawkins...

* SummonBiggerFish: Will does this to the Aboleth [[spoiler: when he uses his presence in the Upside Down to alers the Mind-Flayer that it's there. There's a ''reason'' it's been going out of its way to avoid anything related to Will Byers.]]

* AdultsAreUseless: Averted. Hopper, Joyce, Kali and Mr.Clarke are all instrumental in killing the monster. Sam Owens passes along vital information and even some adults that aren't in the loop like Phil Callhan do something useful over the course of the story.

* AlasPoorVillain: Not that he feels bad for it for long but Hopper feels the Aboleth's projected loss as the same loss as a parent losing a child [[spoiler: when Joyce destroys its eggs.]]

** Reed- the guy that 'can't wait to see Nancy's movie in Season One has an expanded role.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Dr. Roethe is an ex-Nazi scientist with no compunctions whatsoever about experimenting on children or murdering teenagers to cover up her secrets, but she seems to genuinely view what she sees as Subject Six "toying" with Jonathan, Nancy and Steve as unnecessarily cruel, and sincerely regrets that they were about to be inflicted with Subject Six's powers while conscious.

** Steve's father, noted as incredibly aloof and distant, breaks down completely when Steve confronts him aboue [[spoiler: having helped the Lab]].

** Mr. Clarke is a big nerd who's first thoughts about finding out that alternate dimensions are real and filled with monsters is how it's going to effect various scientific fields. He's also a huge horror fan with almost every movie he references being horror. Imagine ''Mr. Clarke'' watching a David Cronenberg film.

* TheEighties: Set in winter of '85 and it shows. Laser discs, the Apple Lisa 2 and tons of 80's music and movie references make an appearance.

** Happens to the Aboleth [[spoiler: when Will's presence in the Upside Down alerts the Mind-Flayer that it's there. There's a ''reason'' it's been going out of its way to avoid anything related to Will Byers.]]

** Billy seems to have either antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder or both.

* AssholeVictim: Neil Hargrove. Reed.

* BlatantLies: Steve only knows about Krypton because he's seen Superman 3. Obviously.

** Billy considers things that would range from sexual assault to possible manslaughter to be pranks to pull on someone that passes out at a party.
** Steve thinks Billy might be 'queer for him' and not in the LGBTQ inclusive way.

** Both times Steve goes to his mom when he's upset she basically tells him to ignore it. The second time she explicitly tells him he should smile because he 'looks just like [his father] when he frowns'. The reader gets the impression this isn't the first time that she's said this.

* MenDontCry: Averted. Steve, Dustin, Billy and Hopper cry.

* {{Expy}} : Billy's role in the story shares a lot of similarities with [[{Literature/{IT}} Henry Bowers]].

** To Stephen King to the point of being a WholePlotReference for {{IT}}.

* LovecraftCountry: Or rather, Stephen King Country. The eclipse Mr. Clarke mentions is the same one featured in [[Literature/DoloresClaiborne Dolores Claiborne]] and [[Literature/GeraldsGame Gerald's Game]]. Mr. Clarke grew up in Haven Village, Maine the setting of [[Literature/TheTommyknockers The Tommyknockers]], and mentions going to the movies as a kid at the Aladdin- the movie theater in nearby [[{{IT}} Derry.]]
** With Mr. Clarke in his mid-late 30's he would have been a preteen in 1958- this might not be the first time he's been in a town being menaced by a [[{{IT}}shape-shifting Eldritch Abomination.]]

* {{Expy}} : Billy's role in the story shares a lot of similarities with [[{{IT}} Henry Bowers]].