Hi I’m Michael! I’m 24 and my pronouns are he/him.
I only started watching stranger things for the first time in February at the recommendation of my best friend and became instantly enamoured and attached to Billy right from his intro 🥰
As of this post (31/03/25) I still haven’t finished the show but I am on the final episode of season 4. So no spoilers please!
I realise I’m a little late to the party but after seeing a lot of harringrove/Billy hate on Twitter I decided to join up here in hopes of making friends who I can share my appreciation for him/the ship!
Anyway as a sort of offering to the Billy Hargrove community I wanted share this Billy art I did for his birthday! I hope you like it ❤️
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The thing that baffles me the most about the antis’ take on billy is the insistence on his looks in the discourse. “Oh, y’all just defend him because he is attractive”, “he is only that sympathetic because he is attractive”
I’m- I’m sorry, do… do attractive people not deserve empathy and understanding just because they are *checks notes* attractive? So y’all are saying that only if he were an ugly ass teenager then his abuse would matter? If he were ugly, and just then, would he have deserved your sympathy?
I genuinely, genuinely don’t get it. I don’t. Because shows and films in general are FULL with attractive and often questionable characters, played by attractive actors (because, duh!! Beauty is basically a main requirement at this point) and I don’t think we are all collectively attracted to every single “bad guy” ever portrayed just because they are fine??? Right??
Believe it or not, real storytelling lovers will always fall in love with the character and its story according to their personal taste, their history. Sure, the looks do have their prominent role in that, but they alone would not have been able to hold the same kind of devotion and attention that the billy fanbase reserve him since, mind you, 2017.
On Twitter, people are still baffled about the amount of harringrove fics on ao3. Like they can’t even fathom the idea of someone eeeevil like billy hargrove falling in love and healing alongside their precious golden boy steve harrington.
Because Billy Hargrove is attractive.
And his beauty is just seen as another flaw. As something to add to the mess and something that justifies the indifference towards the mess: There is something broken in you, but your pretty face is too pretty to look at, so I guess you had it coming.
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I wasn't able to finish anything on time for my @harringrovewinterbingo card, but I did have sketches for everything on it, so I'm going through and finishing some up. This is from A1: Touch Starved. 💞
I hate how, once I get back to writing fics from his PoV, he worms his way right into my brain with his penchant for swearing and cigarettes and his stupid hair and hot car and being a gay mess and how he was just a boy.
An 18 year old boy.
A boy who never got to grow up, who didn’t know what was going on in that town until it was too late, and god I just wish it was different, because it makes me so incredibly sad if I really think about him for too long.
I know he’s just a character in a show, and monsters aren’t real, but he still represents things that are very real.
At the end of the day, everything about him makes me sad. And I hate being sad, so I hate Billy.
The fact Neil is still alive and probably doesn’t feel any type of way that his only child and son that he treated like shit died doesn’t sit right with me
You and me both, Nonnie
It's 10:30 pm and the patrons of the dingy bar in Bumfuck Indiana are starting to get rowdy, which would usually be Neil's cue to take his leave. Usually, but not tonight. Tonight he's far too drunk to even get off his chair, let alone leave the bar on his own two feet.
Crawling possibly, but he's not gone far enough to do that just yet. Soon, maybe. And who's fault is that? Yeah, the usual suspect comes to mind: His good-for-nothing son.
Billy, who's gotten himself killed during some freak fire if he is to believe the sob story he was told by both the Chief of Hawkins Police and the two representatives of some government agency that came knocking on his door the day after Hopper broke the news. Naturally, they didn't announce themselves as such, but Neil ain't stupid. He can smell people like that from two miles away.
He's not even surprised, if he's being perfectly honest. Fucking Billy always gets himself into trouble … got. Whatever. He's dead and Neil should be dancing a jig on his grave, because good riddance. No son of Neil Hargrove's was gonna run around and proudly announce being a fucking cocksucker to the world. And knowing Billy it was only a matter of time …
So, problem solved, right? He even got a hefty sum of money to 'make up for his loss'. Not that big a loss was what he was thinking. But he knew better than to tell the government guy that. Took the dough and got the hell out of Dodge. Threw Susan and her tomboy daughter under the bus on the way. No way he's gonna share his new riches with those whiny bitches.
Someone knocks against the leg of his chair and he barely avoids crashing to the floor by catching on to the bar counter.
"What the hell?" he slurs. His tongue feels like it's cotton filled with lead. If he weren't so sloshed, he'd teach the fucker who bumped into him a lesson. Or maybe not. But he likes to think that he would.
Like this, he only turns his head - and gasps loudly when he sees something that can't be real.
Or rather someone.
"You're not really here," he informs his son who is just now heaving himself up onto the barstool next to Neil.
It's true. Billy's dead. He can't be here. But he looks so fucking real, Neil feels a shiver run down his spine and settle cold at the bottom of his guts.
"You're right. I'm not really here because I'm fucking dead. So don't bother screaming or anything, because no one but you will see me anyway. You'll just make yourself look stupid. Got it?"
Neil doesn't like this tone on him. He doesn't like it at all. "Don't give me that attitude, boy."
Billy's smile is all teeth, and Neil could swear there's something dark like blood on his incisors. Anyway, it's giving him the creeps. Thank fuck this is just some sort of weird fever dream. Tomorrow morning he's going to wake up with the mother of all hangovers and laugh about this shit, surely. Right now he can't quite find the humour in it yet.
"You know, Dad", Billy says, "ever since I've been dead, I've been thinking … What are the things I really regret about my life getting all cut short and shit? Almost becoming miniature version of you, for once, and not realizing it earlier. Not being able to apologize to the people who deserve it. But most of all, since I'm a selfish prick, I regret never once standing up to you."
Neil frowns. "You're nothing but a coward." The words come out less venomous than he'd like. "A fucking fag is what you are."
"True. That's exactly what I am, and you can't do shit about it, Dad."
"Burn in hell!"
"Nah. Not hell, not heaven, but somewhere in-between. And believe it or not, there's this guy here, who knows a thing or two about being bullied by his Papa. We had a heart-to-heart circle-jerk thing and in the end he was so lovely to offer me something."
From somewhere Neil hears the chime of a grandfather's clock.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four chimes.
"You know, this is usually for people suffering from some kind of trauma, but since you seemed to find being my dad so terribly traumatizing, we figured to let it slide just this once."
"What a… are you talking about, boy?" Neil slides from the seat of his chair but still holds onto the bar counter for stabilty. Until he realizes the counter isn't the counter anymore. Or it is, but not really. And there are some really creepy vines writhing on top of it and - what the hell! - trying to snake around Neil's wrists.
He pushes back and stumbles, falling to the floor. Only it's not really the hardwood floor of the bar but something spongy and disgusting. Neil yells, then he gasps when the vines come for him again. He tries to crawl backwards but he's not fast enough and they're fucking everywhere.
"Billy," he whimpers. "Help me!"
That earns him a low chuckle from his dead son. "Sorry, dad, no can do. I'm dead, remember?"
And then he turns around and starts to walk away.
Neil pleads. Then he curses, then he insults. Nothing helps.
And then, there's suddenly this … Thing! Two legs, two arms, a head - but it's not human. Nothing that looks like that can be human.
"Don't be afraid," the monster says with a voice that makes Neil break out in goosebumps. "It'll be over soon. Just try and stay very still …"
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Steve Harrington is joined by Eddie Munson and Billy Hargrove at his summer job at the Starcourt Mall for Scoops Ahoy.
Eddie Munson gets a little too invested in his ideas on marketing and keeping morale up. He uses his Hawkin’s High Theater Department key to raid the wardrobe department and find some key accessories, a telescope, and pirate hat. Of course, he takes the time to meticulously repaint the hat as a replacement for the cutesy little sailor hat his coworkers are forced to wear. On the subject of the sailor hats, Billy Hargrove tries, he really does try, to wear it. He spends about an hour wearing it, gets a small snicker from a few customers, and promptly decides he needs to quit. Once corporate gets a look at Eddie’s accessories and grandiose behavior, they decide he should find other employment. Robin Buckley starts on Monday.
How can we have Billy tying people up multiple times in the third season of the show and yet I haven't found any Harringrove fic with Steve being Billy's rope bunny ???????
i've been listening to a lot of bruce springsteen lately and i found this photo from people's magazine, september 1984 of him and clarence clemons. photo by david gahr.
and my mind just keeps replaying a scene of billy sitting at the kitchen table and neil is looking through susan's newest edition of people's magazine and coming across this photo and going on a homophobic rant about how disgusting it is. honestly probably also racist. and billy can't tear his eyes away from the photo. he's nodding along because neil expects him to agree but all he can think of is that bruce springsteen doesn't care that he's seen kissing a man.
and because it's susan's magazine neil doesn't rip it up, and he's still ranting about how they could ever think of publishing a picture like that, that it ruined his breakfast as he's walking out of the kitchen to get to his car and billy is still stuck at the table, eyes barely blinking. susan's back is to him as she's washing the dishes. and billy doesn't know what comes over him but he needs to have that issue.
that afternoon susan asks max if she took the newest people's magazine and max rolls her eyes because no, mom. billy tries to ignore the whole conversation, tries not to think about the magazine he's hidden under the blanket in the trunk of the camaro.
and if he takes it out and stares at it after he got into it with neil again, after being called a useless faggot again, after another respect and responsibility, he'll trace his fingers over the photo and the headline and feel a slight hope for a future where someone will cheer him on too.
and maybe he picks up a tape of born in the u.s.a that he listens to when he's alone and feeling especially brittle. he'll listen to cover me and try not to feel seen. silent tears sliding down his cheeks as he sits in his car alone.
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sometimes i'm having a good day then I remember they buried Billy in fucking Hawkins, Indiana, the place he loathed, was miserable in, and a place that caused his death at a grand old age of 18, while his piece of shit father got away with abusing his child for a decade and got to go on and live his shitty life while Billy didn't even get to see the ocean again