Characters and couples research

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6. Exes, crushes, and the shadows that enter the room

Robin:

Tammy Thompson — canonical crush from her past, meaningful mostly as an exit point.
Vickie Dunne — the major canonical crush of season 4 and the more official path in season 5. [1][3][6]
Steve Harrington — not romantic. This matters. Their friendship is a canonical anchor, and the fandom typically keeps it platonic. [1][13]

Nancy:

Steve Harrington — serious first love with history, attraction, guilt, and "what would have happened if." [2][4]
Jonathan Byers — the longer serious relationship, based on partnership and investigation, but also on attrition and distance in the later seasons. [1][4]
Barb — not a canonical ex, but in the fandom and in some fan-readings Nancy/Barb exists strongly as an emotional layer, loss, even a retroactive queer reading. [5][9]

Why this matters for Ronance: Because the room around them is already full. Robin arrives with a canonical crush on Vickie. Nancy arrives with the Steve/Jonathan triangle. That is: Ronance in the fandom is born not from emptiness but from surplus. And sometimes that's exactly what makes it slow, weighted, and so flavorful.

Provenance & technical details

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Revision 1 · 2026-09-06T18:47:12.694Z