#╰ › about ﹕ 001.

[tryingonametaphor]

Why Will Byers?

An analysis and theory on why Henry/Vecna targeted Will first in season 1 and his plans for Will in season 5

‼️Contains The First Shadow (TFS) spoilers so please proceed with caution.‼️

This is going to be a little long but I’ve tried to give as much context as I can without actually being able to show snippets from the stage play. This is my interpretation of everything that went down as a member of the audience and not as someone who has read up any theories about TFS before. To understand why Henry took Will first in 1983, we have to start with -

Henry and Joyce

From all the times I’ve watched TFS, the one thing that has stuck with me is the final conversation Henry has with Joyce. It’s just before his last confrontation with Patty Newby and before he joins Brenner for good. Joyce is the last person (who doesn’t know about Henry’s powers) that he canonically talks to.

Throughout the entire play Joyce, Hopper, and Bob are investigating the animals dying at the hands of Henry and come to the conclusion that Victor Creel has been the one doing the killing. They get so close to solving the case. In her last conversation with Henry, Joyce tries to comfort him by saying that Victor will pay for his crimes - which makes Henry laugh because she’s so close yet so far from the truth. He gets a little frustrated and says “You don’t get it. But someday you will.” The next time we see Henry make a reappearance in Joyce’s life is during -

The Vanishing of Will Byers

Will is taken into the Upside Down (UD) by Henry. It’s not even a question anymore. All of the context clues from 1x1 lead us to believe that Will’s kidnapping was not by a demogorgon. Will - a 12 year old - miraculously survives a week in the upside down with no food or water. Will is even around the demogorgon a few times in the Upside Down. (Joyce communicating with Will through the lights and then the demogorgon coming after her immediately).

Barb dies the night she is taken but Will stays alive and also somehow manages to talk to Joyce through the wall. Joyce is led exactly to where Will was held at the end of s1 and he makes it out alive. It’s almost as if Henry knew all along that Joyce was the most capable of never giving up on finding her son. Like Henry took Will Byers because he was Joyce’s son. And like he was giving her just enough to know that Will was alive. Even when Joyce and Hopper find him at the end in a state of near death, he’s not injured by a creature. He was being prepared for the next stage of Vecna’s plan -

The Possession of Will Byers

The origins of Henry’s powers happen as such - As a kid, he is transported into the UD (originally coined Dimension X by the government) for a few hours because he touched something he wasn’t meant to touch. During his time in there, he came in contact with the Mind Flayer (MF). According to TFS this is the point in his life when he started getting “corrupted”. Brenner’s dad - who was one of the first people to enter dimension X - had mutated blood after but no powers. Henry was the first person to come in contact with the MF and it’s highly likely he got his powers because of this (This would also track considering how most of the party has been in the UD now but show no signs of having powers). The MF controls Henry for the rest of TFS and Henry grows more power hungry the more he kills.

In S2, Henry presumably sends the MF after Will - who has now had a year to heal from the events of 1983. Will is the only other person in all of ST to have had direct contact with the MF and survived it. Henry didn’t hesitate to kill Billy in S3, but he always gives everyone just enough to keep Will safe. Will himself tells Owens in S2 that the MF wants to kill everyone except him. Will once again survives the entire ordeal and is given a “break” for the next 2 seasons. Except I don’t believe he’s been just given a break. I think Will is -

Henry’s Sleeper Agent.

Ready to awaken in s5. I undoubtedly think that Will is going to have powers. And I don’t think they’re going to be the same as Henry and El. El and the other lab kids get their powers directly from Henry. Will’s powers will be directly from the MF like Henry. I believe this has been Henry’s plan all along and it’s further affirmed by what he tells Will in the recent VR game. That Will will be the key to Henry being able to infiltrate his friends’ minds. Jamie Campbell-Bower also mentioned during the S4 press that to get in character, he set up a display with all of Henry’s victims and targets’ faces on his wall(?), and Will was in the center.

Henry is going to use his connection with Will sneakily and midway through S5 he’s going to awaken Will’s powers (maybe in ep4 - which is said to be titled ‘Sorcerer’ and has young Will in it). Henry is going to try and manipulate his way into making an ally out of Will, and it’s not going to work because -

Will is the Perfect Character Foil.

Will is everything Henry could have been if he had a better support system. He is the perfect character foil. Unlike Henry, Will has a mother who loves him unconditionally and more importantly, believes him. Unlike Henry, the person who Will loves the most (the Patty to Will’s Henry: Mike) is going to love him back and stay by his side all season. No one is going to force them to be apart the way Henry was told to stay away from Patty. Will is not going to be easily swayed even though Henry has spent years crafting him into the perfect soldier. Sure, Henry has seen him heartbroken and sad, but that comes nowhere near to the amount of love and support Will is going to get from his people next season. And they’re going to quite literally defeat Vecna with the power of love and friendship. After that, Will Byers is getting the happy ending that Henry could have gotten.

[grimfantas]

take everything.

[shoot1ngst4r]

dare i say Billy Hargrove?

the misunderstanding of Billy as a character is genuinely my roman empire, it’s been on my mind for years but idk if anyone will wanna listen😭 (i’m open to conversations btw)

[gloriousmonsters]

ok listen. listen. hear me out. what if Angel was the one to propose the contract

like.... the intensification of heartbreak and guilt when Val tells him 'I own you, or have you forgotten that?' as Angel looks at his signature, the heart he drew next to it. the extra layer in 'what's the worst part of this hell? I can only blame myself'. and above all it plays well with my observation that their contract had to have been composed with some level of input from Angel, because... why on earth/in hell would Val have given him control of his life outside of the studio; and while Val invokes the contract to put Angel back in 'his place', Angel invokes it to remind Valentino that he can defy him. It's actually similar in composition to a kink contract/agreement--if I'm in this specific place, you hold all the power and call the shots; but outside of it, I don't give you that level of control. Angel can straight up tell Val to fuck off in front of a crowd and all Val can do is say he'll make Angel regret it next time he's in the studio (and isn't that an extremely dark variation of the classic kinky romance beat of 'sub misbehaves when they're in public and can get away with it, dom promises they'll pay for it later'?)

so like. all of that about the contract also works if Val proposed it, but I love headcanoning that their relationship was on the rocks around the time it was signed, and one of the factors was Vox coming onto the scene... and so now i'm just thinking about Angel in his peak era of both-sides-ing their relationship problems, knowing his 'commitment issues' (partly real, partly consisting of val's 'you know other men??' issues) are a major cause, furious and disconcerted at someone else drawing so much of Val's attention, wanting to make a stupid desperate Hail Mary pass to save their relationship but devoid of the usual options of 'have kid' or 'impulsively propose marriage' or 'move to a new house that's inevitably haunted' i watch too much horror, going for the option of '...hey do you want to make the kind of binding contract that is accessible to us?'

and surely it's not that stupid! he's only really giving Val a formal version of the power he gives him already, right? Val's his dom and his director and manager, and maybe there's... problems but it's mostly been great for Angel so far, so if having it on (magic eternally binding) paper would make Val happy and make him understand that Angel really wants him, wants them, the risk is toooootally worth it. just, best not to tell Cherri about it she'd definitely think it was insane.

(and when, much later, she learns about the contract and berates him for being an idiot and not telling her when Val brought it up, maybe don't correct her assumption. just keep it to yourself and feel even worse.)

[monigote001]

Your body never belonged to you.

[mothgirl-is-a-gateway-drug]

Tma spoiler

[vampiricgf]

being kind of a bitch but my personal writing peeve is the posts in various character tags that are just like one or two throwaway paragraphs of what reads as ai generated smut with a "can be for any character!" tacked on the end. like i understand wanting reach and a lot of eyes on your work but tbh I don't check peoples blogs that spam fandom tags with those I block them because they irritate me so bad and tbh it's kinda insulting. I spend sometimes weeks on something, sometimes people spend months or even years updating stories, and get like little to no attention yet some shit most likely puked up by chatgpt or yanked from a cai bot that yanked it from a different writer and lazily spam tagged can get upwards of 5k sometimes. lmao okay

[stergeon]

> Hit FERDINAND with the TEA-PHYSICAL AFFECTION combo.

Alright. You can do this. You are armed with TEA. You fought on the frontlines in some of the most dangerous battles of THE WAR. You are the tactician that helped HER MAJESTY transform the entire continent. You are strong and capable of anything to which you set your brilliant mind—even displaying PHYSICAL AFFECTION.

Just give him a kiss. That’s plenty. You can do that. You’ve done it before, even—if only in the throws of passion and not like this, apropos of nothing, simply for the sake of doing it. You can handle it, and he will surely appreciate it, and then you can go to BREAKFAST and the rest of your day will proceed perfectly normally. It’s just like in SCENARIO #129419: set down the tea, lean in, and—

Oh, bother. Now you’ve done it.

You don't have a scenario planned to help you deal with this. You've disturbed FERDINAND and made a mess and were negligent in your scenario planning and will be late to BREAKFAST and you couldn't even kiss him. You couldn't even kiss him.

#009 | << | <- | -> | JOURNAL | HOW TO PLAY | ALL POSTS

[sophiamarieispinkbunny-chan]

THEORY: Sigmund Authen, Anya Forger, Yor Briar and Yuri Briar are all connected to Project Apple.

How is Sigmund connected? He was one of the scientists that worked on Project Apple way before or when it just started

First of all, his appearance is giving Albert Einstein to me, a famous scientist and as well his expression of Eureka-an expression popularized by a mathematician/scientist. He also used to teach in universities.

There are a lot of other abilities being developed in project Apple. We have seen someone who has an unusual sense of smell in the cruise arc (I really think he was a product of some experiment). But I think Sigmund is a scientist that focuses on the mind's abilities. Why?

His name was probably derived from the famous neurologist Sigmund Freud. What does a neurologist do?  A neurologist is a medical doctor who's an expert in diagnosing and treating diseases and conditions of your brain, spinal cord and nerves. Sigmund is also the founder of psychoanalysis-which also studies the mind. Always connected to the brain. So he must be also the one who first conducted experiments in mind manipulation and mind reading.

Does this mean that Sigmund knows that Anya is a subject of that experiment? No, because he had probably already quit project Apple before Anya was brought in as subject 007 or before she even existed. It won’t fit the timeline if he was one of the scientists that experimented on Anya. (I also think that Anya’s number does not indicate the number of people that have been experimented on but the number of subjects that became successful, still just a speculation)

However, it seems like he doesn’t remember much about the experiment, (he doesn’t even remember the right way home). When he quit, maybe he cut all ties he had with the project, realizing how mean and cruel it was. He forgot about it like he was never part of it in the first place.

And then right after this chapter, Endo gave us that jaw dropping and mind-boggling four page short chapter that started to plague our minds since, indicating we were about to tackle Anya’s past. So I may have to agree that Sigmund could be Anya’s trigger to remember the past.

But how did Yor and Yuri got involved in Project Apple?

Yor and Yuri were once subjects of project Apple, the first successful ones. Where do we think Yor’s incredible strength came from? How about Yuri’s intelligence and resilience even though hit by a car or lost a lot of blood? I know, as the major genre is comedy, some of the scenes are exaggerated. But when it comes to Yor and Yuri, the difference they possess regarding their abilities was always highlighted.

Like also, let’s think about it. The name of the experiment is Project Apple. What is Yor’s favorite flavor or food? Apple. What was the name of the assassin team she belongs to? Garden (Which is tied to Eden and of the forbidden Apple fruit but Eden’s connection with Garden and Project Apple will be dealt in another time)

How about Yuri? Well, the SS is the one monitoring him. He was the youngest among the SS. The reason they hired him, Oh he was cute right? Said the man who recruited him. Yeah cute alright. They just knew how invincible he was physically because of the experiment.

Ostania, through Garden and SS  is making sure that the Briar siblings remain at their fingertips, doing their purpose, using the skills the project had given them for Ostania’s advantage.

Maybe that’s the reason why their parents got killed. They died in an attempt to protect and hide them. I noticed that their house seems to be far from modern civilization, more like a small province not like a city that is crowded, compared to Loid’s town in Luwen.

In addition, maybe that is why Endo made Yor and Anya to be the one who met Sigmund in Chapter 90. Because the three of them are bound by the same thing-Project Apple.

[flopbftheo]

via swofthemoment

[cryptidvillage]

When they don't want to hear your autistic ramblings about spiders

[grimfantas]

dressing up

[willbyersabyss]

Henry is dead

Or at least his body is.

I was rewatching s4 and I just don’t understand how the hell Henry survived El turning him into a literal gate. She ripped through his abdomen and then he was just in Dimension X, fully intact? She turned him into dust. There's no way.

Another thing I've been pondering about is why the hell didn't he just leave the Upside Down? Gates to the UD have been created for years. Why was he hiding in there for so long? The conditions were not ideal nor survivable. There’s no water, shitty food sources, and disease-ridden spores everywhere.

Unless he couldn't leave

What if Henry did in fact die when El vaporized him, but his "soul" didn't. His soul or his mind is trapped in the other dimension(s). There's already a detachment between the mind and body explored throughout the show with mindscapes creating what's essentially a body double. Would it be far off to assume he somehow got fully detached from his physical body?

I mean... he can speak for himself here!

So how exactly did his soul end up in another dimension? Well I talk a lot about how the Upside Down itself is a mindscape (check pinned) so if that's true, his soul could easily wander around someone else's mind.

This would explain why he chooses to inhabit other bodies. He can't traverse into the world himself because his real body doesn't exist anymore. He keeps building to find a new body. Maybe that's why he is replicating his own story with Will. He wants a real body that remembers his experiences.

This would also connect so well with Max's situation in s5. She died and her mind got trapped somewhere else, presumably in Vecna slash Henry, who doesn't have a physical body. When El searches for people in her void, she's looking for them physically and she couldn't find Max. Max detached from her body. This also happened to the flayed. So what if the same thing happened to Henry?

This could be the reason why Will could feel Vecna this entire time but he never knew who he was or what he looked like. He's a feeling, not a being.

And Vecna literally doesn't die. He was struck by lightning, shot, set on fire, thrown around by El, and he LIVED. He also survived in the UD for years without water! We know that the mind doesn't really die, it just gets transported and that's why Vecna's victims become a part of him when he kills, so this could be the same thing. His mind can't be killed.

Maybe this is how they "defeat" him. Maybe someone needs to make his mind a part of theirs and accept him as them. That person should be Will. If my theory that Henry is already in Will's mindscape (UD) is correct, then all Will needs to do is accept his mind as his own rather than reject him. This kind of connects to a really great post by @autistic-robin about accepting the shadow. Will can accept his shadow by accepting Henry's too.

[elkdiaries]

excuse me.

for reference, these photos are taken from the opening scenes of season three episode one, and then from the final scenes in season four episode nine.

[xenon-demon]

In a steddie doctor who AU neither of them are the doctor. ROBIN is the doctor and Steve is her long term companion who basically just lives in the TARDIS with her because he didn’t have a whole lot keeping him where he was originally from. They meet Eddie when they’re in Hawkins in the 80s investigating some strange events that scream of spacetime fuckery and Steve goes “can we keep him 🥺” and Robin says yes absolutely - after hitting Steve with the I Know What You Are eyes of course. Once it’s established he can come back without anyone missing him (cause yknow, time travel) Eddie is thrilled to come with them because oh my god??? Aliens are real??? TIME TRAVEL is real???? Eddie’s got enough self-authored Star Trek fanfiction hidden under his bed to not need to think twice about this decision, okay.

Cue adventures and shenanigans and Eddie having the classic companion dilemma of “I love travelling with you and also am kinda falling in love with Steve but I also have friends (the CC boys) and family (Wayne) I really care about waiting for me back in Hawkins that I can’t just abandon”. I’m thinking the solution to that is something along the lines of Steve settling down with Eddie and staying with him on Earth, either in his original time in Hawkins or somewhere/sometime else with Robin generously helping Wayne out so he can go with them.

Also Eddie demands they use time travel for the greatest possible good: allowing him to see all his favourite metal bands live in concert in their prime.

[cubwix]

hi ouroboros community

some are **really** fucking old