#And anyone can send anything not just spicy Byler or actors stuff. It's just that ALL is open here!!

[castlebyersafterdark]

can someone please explain how the time jumps are going to work??? like the ending of s4 was a disaster hawkins were split in 4 and they are going to randomly do a 3 year time jump??? or they're going to do a few month time jump where it will make us get to 1897 but then they're going to randomly do another time jump? and how would they address the painting or something else happened after 3 years? i know this isnt about spicy byler but i really think about this but o cant really find answers

i hope you can post this love youu <3

I love you too anon haha ☺️ Just my very very loose theories because it's all just guesswork on my part, I'm sure others have been meticulously tracking timelines through hints we've gotten but I'll admit all the leaks and theories and rumors got overwhelming to a point so I've been reading others stuff here and there instead of obsessively documenting things anymore. But!! My thoughts:

E1 - The immediate aftermath of what we saw from the ending of season 4. Action following the sights on the hill. I almost think either something is going to happen right away with Will, cementing his place one, as the main character for 5 but two, to showcase that he's a major target and to establish the storyline as to why he and Mike are going to be paired together the whole season. To establish both the supernatural storyline as well as the romance. See what I mean when I say both of these arcs are completely entwined, like a DNA helix. I think it'll start with the flashback to Will's time in the UD and then it will cut to present day Will standing on that hill, we hear that icy vecna voice in his head "Will Byers [something sinister and 👀]..." and then boom opening credits. Cut to the group trying to come up with a plan, how they're hiding El and Hopper, maybe there's a little mini mission that fails, start the season off strong with some major injury to a lead character, introduce the military takeover, showing Hawkins on whatever the version of a lockdown/quarantine situation is, boom end of episode. There's a lot of stuff I can't think of that will be here too, these are just the major plot points. I think some E1 spring 1986 stuff has already been filmed when they were making 4 but not all of it.

E2 establishes that time has passed. Here's where I'm not sure how deep the time jump is. Because we see a lot of the leaks/officially shared behind the scenes shows the characters in the same outfits and scenes and it looks like fall? So is it fall 1986 or fall 1987? And we missed an entire year, we skipped the entire sophomore year of the party? So they're juniors now? So I wonder if we get anything in the in-between of spring 1986 and fall 1987. That's a big gap (A gap in which I would hope Mike and El have split) I have this suspicion that Will actually has been staying with the Wheelers - all that time, though? Interesting. What are the older teens (young adults now. What do we call them now, the Nancy age squad) doing - all stayed in Hawkins out of some sense of obligation to see the situation through, but what do they think is the end point? No one went to college? But E2 will be the first time jump.

I'm having trouble establishing if there's a Fall 1986 jump and then a Fall 1987 jump. Are there summer scenes? There were filming rumors at a pool. All these different dates on props and release dates of cassettes (I think one was 1989 - epilogue? Graduation for the party? big ONE YEAR LATER card) so I think there will be multiple jumps. But adding in the relationship timelines and the painting issue - unsure how that'll all play out. That's the thing that completely alludes me, I've tried multiple ways to make it make sense through theorizing and laying out a fic and it's all just not clear to me so I'm kinda just riding the waves of anticipation at this point!! Because I can't commit to a timeline. I do think there will be multiple jumps. The plot will not be contained to one week like in all previous seasons. At least I don't think so?? And some people think we'll jump all the way to the 90s at one point - no. No we won't be. It's the 80s show and in the 90s the party would be 18/19 in 1990 I think and college age and we're not going that far, unless it's the unlikely event they show them years down the line. Which I highly doubt. This is such a flighty answer but such is the issue of predicting things!!