btw in my heart will goes to pratt or the new school or sva. he studies the great gay contemporary artists like haring and warhol and mapplethorpe. his true love is painting, and he’ll have a few successful exhibitions, but he does illustrations to pay the bills. he becomes very involved in the community — act up, the nyc gay men’s chorus. maybe he tattoos for a bit, he definitely paints murals. he and jonathan become even MORE of music snobs living in the city in the 90s. they will not play about boygenius in 2023. mike first goes to indiana university for english or creative writing because he’s not ready to go too far from home, it feels like abandoning el and her memory. but he hates it, finally goes to therapy, and eventually transfers somewhere on the east coast to be closer to will and nancy. he releases a series of fantasy novels inspired by their adventures, and then something more modern gothic, because’s forever Haunted. nancy obviously becomes a crazy successful investigative journalist, eventually transfering from the herald to the globe. she adamantly does not want and never has kids. she and robin move in together after robin graduates from linguistics at smith (where she also hosted a radio show on the college station) and does her masters at boston college. then robin will travel, live in france for a while, become a professor, and is obsessed with tracy chapman and the indigo girls and kd lang and lilith fair. max and lucas move to california to be closer to max’s dad, and the milder weather is better for max’s chronic pain. maybe berkeley. lucas plays basketball in college, then eventually goes to med school. after dabbling in a lot of things — just because she’s alive and she can — max becomes a pt or an ot, inspired by her own recovery. they gave a very chic long engagement and eventually get married in the late 90s (and 2 or 3 kids in the early 2000s, after lucas is done with his residency and has become a pediatric surgeon). will & mike finally act on their feelings at the wedding. holly eventually follows max to california, she becomes an actress. dustin either goes to mit or one of the ivies. probably theoretical physics, maybe engineering. eventually works for nasa. jonathan makes all sorts of art house films, but eventually becomes a successful documentarian. he and nancy work on a project together, maybe they get back together, maybe not. he campaigns for mamdani as an almost 60 year old. erica either goes to an ivy (probably the same one as dustin, they’re bonded) or howard. she studies something in stem (yet still denies being a nerd to this day), but becomes a politician afterwards — you can’t spell america without erica is obviously her campaign slogan. steve stays in hawkins, has either 4 or 5 or 6 kids (middle names after the party, probably), keeps teaching, and lives his dream of driving around the country in his winnebago, and he stops to visit his friends in their various new homes, he’ll never have to pay for a hotel in his life. joyce and hopper join long island pflag, live long and peacefully, and treat everyone’s kids as their own grandkids. bam. the end. i understand these characters better than the duffers. thank you & goodnight.