#he’s frozen just how the UD is in 1983!

[taeiris]

stuck in time

close ups⬇️

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things: The Other Side Review

WARNING: The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS from season 4 of Stranger Things. It discusses the comic, how parts of it might tie into the upcoming season, and possible theories that may or may not pan out in season 5.

Synopsis: The Other Side explores the week Will spent in the Upside Down (UD) between the evening of November 6th and November 12th, 1983, as he fights to survive the terror within.......

Observations:

When I'm asked to name a great Stranger Things comic, The Other Side comes to mind. Not just because the story is engaging, but because a.) It expands on Will’s character in a meaningful way, b.) It fleshes out a part of the show that audiences wanted more details on (i.e. what was going on with Will in the Upside Down), c.) It’s something that could be considered a part of the canon, and d.) There are aspects of the comic that could either constitute foreshadowing for season 5 (especially for fans who believe Will played some kind of role in the Upside Down being frozen in 1983) or simply provide some juicy theories.

I know there’s a sentiment in the fandom that the Duffer Brothers were hands-off when it came to the comics. While that might have been the case in certain instances, just based on how this particular comic was written, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out they sat down with the writers and artists for The Other Side to give them information about what Will was going through in the Upside Down, as well as particulars about how the Upside Down worked.

Speaking of which, Jody Houser is once again the writer for The Other Side. She’s also written the stories for Stranger Things: Six, it’s sequel Into the Fire, the short story The Game Master, Stranger Things: Science Camp, Stranger Things: Dungeons and Dragons, and the currently ongoing comic Stranger Things: Tales from Hawkins. Unlike with Six, there aren’t any continuity errors (at least from what I could tell) and the comic is careful to follow the events taking place in season 1.

Will gets put through hell (no pun intended), but I like how, in spite of that, the comic highlights his resourcefulness, his intelligence, and his bravery. There are several instances where he’s able to fend off the Demogorgon when it comes for him. He manages to draw it away from his mom at one point when it’s about to attack her. He attempts to come to the aid of both Barbara Holland and Hawkins resident Henry when they’re in danger (and is only unsuccessful because the Demogorgon gets to them first). He also deliberately acts as a distraction for the Demogorgon to protect Nancy when she later ends up in the Upside Down and is cornered by the monster:

Will was responsible for saving Nancy’s life in season 1 without her realizing it.

On top of that, the comic manages to balance both the Upside Down arc with Will’s flashbacks to previous D&D campaigns he had with his friends as he draws on those experiences while making choices in the UD about whether to hide, fight, run, or come to the aid of others. It also contains a great moment of Will and Mike bonding in the library over D&D and Stephen King:

They lay it pretty thick here that out of all of Will’s friends, he’s closer with Mike. In one of the later comics, Stranger Things and Dungeons and Dragons, Mike even goes out of his way to design a D&D campaign specifically to help Will recover from his trauma of being in the Upside Down. This has always been an emotionally gripping relationship, and I'm hoping things end well between them by the time season 5 is over.

Mike’s words to Lucas, Dustin, and Will in one of the flashbacks was also another aspect that stuck out: “It isn’t a contest to see which of you is the strongest or can get the most kills. You live as a party, or you die alone.”

It's a recurring theme in each season that every main character, from the adults to the teens to the younger kids, play a role in defeating the malevolent forces of the Upside Down. It’s always been a team effort. Vecna knows this entire group poses a threat to him, which means he will inevitably step up his game and do something to irrevocably break the group and separate them so he can pick them off one-by-one. I’m still convinced that at least one or two (or maybe more) main/recurring characters will end up dead by the time season 5 is over. It’s a question of who it will be, and how it will happen.

The Demogorgon’s behavior during the comic left a lot to think about: Unlike other victims, like Dale and Henry where it proceeded to make a meal out of them, the Demogorgon seemed more invested in trying to capture Will instead of outright killing him. There are several instances when it corners Will, which forces Will to use his gun to defend himself, only for the monster to disappear before Will can cause it any real damage:

Based on how many times it keeps appearing at (or near) the Byers house in the comic, it had to knows Will was hiding there. Just like in the show, it isn't until the very end when the Demogorgon finally succeeds in taking Will to its nest for Will to get impregnated with the pollywogs that he later vomits up after escaping the UD.

While it could be argued that Will’s gun scared the monster off during the times it tried to attack him, it’s doubtful considering other instances on the show when the Demogorgon’s been shot at and still stood its ground. For example: the season 1 finale when Nancy unloaded bullets into the Demogorgon to get it off Jonathan, only for it to turn on Nancy and attempt to slaughter her:

Or when the Russians in season 4 fired at the Demogorgon they'd been feeding, and only succeeded in pissing it off (which resulted in them all getting killed):

The reason I bring this up is because it’s questionable if the Demogorgon disappeared on its own accord whenever it was about to confront Will, or if Vecna forced it to leave during those moments and then sent it back later. There are several instances where the Demogorgon seems more interested in making sure Will is trapped where he is, and there’s one particularly tense moment when Will hides under his bed and the monster lingers as if it knows he's there. Given what’s revealed in season 4 about Vecna and the hive mind, this particular Demogorgon was likely being controlled by Vecna the entire time. Vecna knew Will was going to stay close to his house since it was an area he was familiar with, and he probably knew about the other areas Will ventured to, especially since the vines and other monsters in the UD are connected to Vecna and would have constantly alerted him to Will's whereabouts whenever he moved around.

There’s also the moment at the beginning of the show when Will is chased by the Demogorgon and runs inside his house after locking the door, only for it to unlock itself:

I used to think the Demogorgon caused this, but given what’s revealed in season 4, as well as how we mostly see the Demogorgon use brute strength in later encounters with its prey, I suspect Vecna telekinetically unlocked the door to let the monster into Will’s house.

The whole implication is that, for reasons still unexplained, Vecna not only intentionally targeted Will the night the gate was opened by El, but maneuvered things so Will would end up as a prisoner in the Upside Down for a certain period of time.

I know Will got impregnated with the pollywogs, which would later grow into Demodogs in season 2, and that the Mind Flayer (under Vecna’s control) possessed Will to use as a spy. However, I don’t believe these were the ONLY reasons Vecna took an interest in Will. Vecna had other victims (Barb for instance) that he could use to impregnate via tendrils and force said victims to grow pollywogs inside of them before letting them escape. He didn’t specifically need Will to achieve that.

On top of that, we've seen Vecna can use remote viewing similar to El when he wants to spy on people (like when he searched for potential trauma-laced victims in season 4 to reopen the gate). There's also Will having hallucinations of the Upside Down and the Mind Flayer way before it possessed him, and how he continued to feel its presence in seasons 3 and 4 long after Joyce forced the black particles out of him. Whatever connection exists between Will and Vecna, it goes beyond Vecna only wanting to use Will as a spy or as a means of spreading his monsters throughout Hawkins.

There have been some cool Tumblr GIFs circulating that draw parallels between Will and Vecna, suggesting the idea that Will is a doppelganger to Vecna, or even an alternate version of Vecna himself. I'm skeptical about the show going the route of making Will evil, but I do think Will had a role in the Upside Down being frozen in time on the night he disappeared, and I have a few theories as to how that could be:

Theory 1: The world of the Upside Down acts as a power-source/visual representation/template for a person’s broken psyche, and the terrain is able to shape itself around that. For example, Vecna's Mindscape from season 4 was shown to be a perverted version of his twisted psyche that held dark, disturbing memories from his past: The house he moved into in the 50s, the grandfather clock he used his powers on for the first time, the spiders he was fascinated with as a boy, and the mutilated bodies of his victims that he keeps as trophies. Even the way parts of the Creel House are fractured and floating around aimlessly could be interpreted as a representation of how distorted Vecna’s mind is. All of this is built and powered from elements within the Upside Down. Likewise, the twisted version of Upside Down Hawkins we currently see on the show, which may be from the last memory Will had of Hawkins before he was forcibly taken by the Demogorgon on November 6, 1983, could actually be Will's Mindscape without Will realizing it yet.

Theory 2: Vecna was trapped in the Upside Down for 4 years. During that time, he formed the Mind Flayer from the black particles he found, and used it to enslave the monsters from that dimension. He was also responsible for terraforming the place from an empty hellish wasteland into a twisted version of Hawkins based on what he could see of present-day Hawkins via remote viewing. When Will got taken to the UD, it froze the process Vecna was using to transform the Upside Down (which is why the UD is stuck in time on the night of November 6, 1983), and it’s why he later tried to possess Will via The Mind Flayer: He believes if he could take complete control of Will, it would allow him to unfreeze the UD and regain his ability to transform it to his liking.

Theory 3: Will has powers similar to Vecna, Kali, El, and the other kids at Hawkins Lab, except they've been dormant or deeply suppressed. Vecna was somehow able to sense this from Will when he was remote viewing Hawkins from the UD, hence his creepy interest in Will. When Vecna sent the Demogorgon to take Will to the UD, Will's powers were activated by the trauma of being chased down by the monster, and that surge of energy, fueled by the terror he was experiencing in that moment, changed the landscape of the UD into what it is now: Will's last memory of Hawkins on the night of November 6, 1983. Vecna wants access to whatever power Will has inside of him, and possessed Will with the Mind Flayer in season 2 to either try to assimilate that power into himself, or at the very least be able to control Will if he was unable to obtain that power for unexplained reasons.

At the end of the comic, there’s a haunting hallucination Will experiences when he’s captured by the Demogorgon and has the tendril shoved down its throat. The scene unfortunately wasn’t in the show, but it should have been:

This could just be a hallucination from Will, but there's also the possibility these really are the collective consciousnesses of Vecna/The Mind Flayer's victims that have been assimilated into the hive mind and are communicating with Will. What’s insidious is the idea they might still be alive and aware of what's happened to them, but are powerless to do anything about it. They are bound to Vecna/The Mind Flayer’s control. Vecna and Dr. Brenner even talk about this with El in season 4:

Henry/One/Vecna: They're not gone, Eleven. They're still with me (points to his head) in here.

Dr. Martin Brenner: You must understand, when One kills, he doesn't simply kill. He consumes. He takes everything from his victims. Everything they are and everything they ever will be. Their memories, their abilities.

It's eerily similar to what Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street did to his victims: He would absorb the souls of the children he gruesomely murdered, meaning they would be trapped in him forever, prevented from moving on to the next life, all the while giving him power.

This leads to the horrific implication that ever since Max's "death" in the season 4 finale, Max’s consciousness is now a part of Vecna. It would explain why she’s currently “brain-dead” and why her mind was blank when El tried to read it.

If that’s the case, one of the main arcs in season 5 may center on freeing Max’s conscious from Vecna’s control and allowing Max to get back her sense of identity and self.

And then there are the conversations Will has with Mike, Joyce, and Hopper in season 2 when he discusses how the Mind Flayer operates:

From “Will The Wise” (Season 2, Episode 4):

Jim Hopper: Does he talk to you? Will Byers: No. It's like...I don't have to think. I just know things now. Things I never did before. Jim Hopper: And, uh...what else do you know? Will Byers: It's hard to explain. It's like old memories in the back of my head, only.......they're not my memories. Jim Hopper: Okay. Will Byers: I mean, I don't think they're old memories at all. They're...they're now-memories, happening all at once, now. Jim Hopper: Can you describe these now-memories? Will sees an extending tunnel Will Byers: I don't know. It's...it's hard to explain. Joyce Byers: I know it's hard but can you just... Can you try? For us? Will Byers: It's like...They're growing and spreading...killing. 

From “Dig Dug” (Season 2, Episode 5):

Will Byers: It's like... It's like I feel what the shadow monster is feeling. See what he’s seeing. Mike Wheeler: Like in the Upside Down? Will Byers: Some of him is there. But some of him is here, too. Mike Wheeler: Here, like, in this house? Will Byers: In this house and in me. It’s like...It’s like he's reaching into Hawkins more and more. And the more he spreads, the more connected to him I feel.

Mike Wheeler: And the more you see these now-memories.

Will Byers: At first I just felt it in the back of my head. I didn't even really know it was there. It's like when you have a dream and you can't remember it unless you think really hard. It was like that. But know it's like... Now I remember. I remember all the time.

Are these “now-memories” actually the memories of Vecna, or his victims? Or both? If they are the memories of his victims, is the idea supposed to be that they’re so meshed together in Vecna’s head that they’re incoherent and alien to Will when he tries to understand them? Vecna likely found a way to control the stream of memories and consciousnesses he’s accumulated over the years without getting overwhelmed by them. Additionally, he’s also erased any sense of identity from his victims by taking them into himself, and whatever power he wields over their essence and consciousness, he directs towards his never-ending goal of destroying everything and everyone. They are his slaves doing his bidding.

On another note, Will’s ability to communicate with Joyce in the Upside Down plays out similar to how it happened on the show: Being able to hear voices from the other side, communicating via the lights, etc.

Also, Will is initially able to deal with the toxic air in the Upside Down during his week there, before it begins to overwhelm him towards the end. Based on this, one could argue characters could technically spend a few minutes, or at least a few hours, inside the Upside Down without masks or biohazard suits, and still come out okay without it doing long-term physical or physiological damage. It’s probably why Nancy, Robin, Steve, and Dustin were able to be in the Upside Down for a few hours in season 4 during their battle against Vecna, as previously questioned by fans. If they’d spent longer than that in the UD though, the atmosphere would eventually take its toll.

The only exception to this appears to be Vecna. He survived 7 years (1979-1986) in the Upside Down, at the cost of being permanently mutated. Chances are if he didn’t have his powers, he would have been dead a while ago. I wonder if he ever killed and ate any Demogorgons for food? I doubt there was anything else in the UD that was edible to eat.

Overall, this comic gave me a lot to speculate on. Check it out when (and if) you get the chance. If you have any theories you’d like to share, feel free to do so in the comment section! :)

[therainscene]

2/5. lights confuse me so much in general. like, why does it require effort from will in s1 and teens in s4 to make lights flicker, but in the presence of smn/smth dangerous lights flicker by themselves? also, why do people and vecna affect lights directly from the UD but demogorgons & the flesh monster only affect lights in the normal dimension? i'm sure monsters are always roaming in the UD, but they don't mess with lights in hawkins the way vecna does (i suppose he does it unintentionally, so the lack of effort doesn't explain anything to me)

Hi, thanks for sending me these asks about the Upside Down! I'm going to address all five of them in this post -- but I'm going to leave this particular question for last. You'll see why in a bit.

First though, you're getting a rolled-up newspaper to the snoot for calling yourself stupid and your questions dumb. 🗞️🐶 There are still a lot of mysteries in this show, and questioning its inconsistencies is exactly how you solve them!

Why is the Upside Down literally upside down at some points but oriented the right way up at other points?

The Upside Down isn't literally upside down; that's just a visual metaphor the show uses to illustrate its trippy extra-dimensional nature. I wrote a post explaining the basics of extra-dimensionality a while ago that you might find interesting.

Why are the Christmas light decorations at the Snow Ball visible in the Upside Down if it's supposed to be frozen on 6th Nov 1983?

We know from the teens using Holly's Lite Brite in S4 that electronic lights in the real world naturally produce glowing particles in the corresponding spot in the Upside Down, even if those devices weren't there on 6th Nov 1983. Most likely that's what we're seeing at the Snow Ball.

Alternatively, it could be the case that the flow of time in the UD is more complicated than S4 led us to believe, and the Snow Ball lights will make more sense once we've watched S5. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What's up with the random temporary gate in the tree that Nancy uses to visit the Upside Down in S1?

Nancy's tree isn't the only weird gate -- we see lots of temporary portals open throughout S1.

The show doesn't explain how these work beyond heavily associating them with Demogorgon attacks, and I think we're supposed to assume that the Demogorgon is opening them itself. This would explain Nancy's tree -- the Demogorgon was nearby at the time.

The trouble is, this raises far more questions than it answers. Why don't Demogorgons seem to use portals outside of S1, especially the ones imprisoned at Kamchatka? Was that one Demogorgon from S1 just a special boy with unique abilities? Why did Vecna need to wait for a gate to be opened by El if his minions were capable of opening their own gates? Did the Mothergate "unlock" this ability while open and "lock" it again when closed? If so, why no temporary gates in S2?

We're not supposed to know the answer to these questions yet; it's pretty clear that they're saving it for some big reveal in S5. I have a theory on what that reveal might be... but that's for another post.

Why are the circumstances of El banishing Henry to the Upside Down in S4 so different from when she does the same thing to the Demogorgon in S1?

On a literal level... yeah. The differences don't make a lot of sense. It's probably safe to assume that El opened a portal in S1 like she did in S4, and it had already closed itself by the time the particles dissipated enough to unblock our view... but as for how she ended up in the Upside Down, and why the Demogorgon wasn't in there with her...?

To answer this one, I think it's helpful to remember that literal readings only get you so far when you're dealing with a story as steeped in metaphor as Stranger Things.

When El banished Henry to the Upside Down, it was a triumphant act of self-defense, asserting her autonomy against an abuser. But when she banished the Demogorgon, it was a tragic act of self-sacrifice -- she defeated it (thus why it disappears), but at the cost of remaining stuck in the "weapon" role Brenner had forced her into her whole life.

Both Henry and El were at a low point when they "died", and getting sent to the Upside Down afforded them an opportunity to start a new journey of self-discovery free from Brenner's influence. But while One stayed there and became Vecna, Eleven chose to escape and be "reborn" as El.

[The rebirth symbolism really couldn't be any more on-the-nose. 👀 Speaking of this portal -- you wondered where it came from -- it's the same one the Demogorgon burst through in the S1 finale.]

And so we've arrived at your final question.

In my opinion, the lights are part metaphor, part mystery being saved for S5.

I think I'd need to comb through the whole show double-checking every instance of the lights flickering to properly address the mystery stuff, and unfortunately I don't have time for that right now. But I'll say this much: I think you're on the right track for questioning the way the lights behave, because it's possible the show has been misleading us into thinking we're looking at one thing (let's say a monster) when really we were looking at something else (let's say a kid with powers).

As for the metaphor? When Will and the teens were trapped in that cold, dark, despairing realm from which it seemed like there was no escape, what saved them was reaching out to the light of hope -- their loving friends and family.

Even El, who escaped all by herself, was still beckoned back to the real world by its light shining through the portal.

At the end of the day, that's what this show is about: love and hope conquering the despair of being different and rejected and abused. Bearing that in mind makes it a lot easier to figure out what's going on with the lights and the Upside Down, in my opinion.

It's why monsters only make the lights flicker or go out when they breach containment and enter our world: because they're destroyers of hope. It's also why powers sometimes make the lights flicker and sometimes make them surge: being different can be difficult to cope with... but it's also a beautiful and valuable thing to be.

[frogfacezombieboy]

I never really assumed that the upside down was “frozen“ in time, the way that I interpreted the scene of Nancy realizing that her room is still on November 6, 1983 is that essentially when will was taken into the upside down, it’s like Hawkins was imprinted onto the upside down, kind of like how When Will scratches charcoal onto a piece of paper and then smacks his hand on it and shows the imprint to the others. The charcoal is Hawkins and his hand is the upside down and the charcoal dust is the imprint of Hawkins that he essentially took with him to the upside down

It’s “frozen” in time not in the sense that time itself is frozen but that it’s like a snapshot, an imprint, a still frame of Hawkins in the moment Will was taken

I think in 2022 someone pointed out that the UD isn't Dimension X (where El banished Henry to) but rather a dimension created when she first interacted with the Demogorgon, so wouldn't the "snapshot" be of that moment instead of the moment Will disappeared?

Also regardless of which moment of that night it was, from what I can see, your version of "frozen" was basically my version of "uninhabited" in the sense that time still flowed there and it was still 1986 when Nancy entered in season 4, just that most things there hadn't been touched by humans since 1983, so I'm not sure if you're just providing a different wording to my interpretation or you want to say something else

[purpleshadow-star]

Guys... the Upside Down is not stuck in time...

The landscape is frozen on the day that Will went missing/ the day he entered the Upside Down. That is not the same as saying it is frozen in time. Time still moves in the Upside Down. That's how they've been able to affect things in real time while in the Upside Down, like when Nancy and Co. were in the UD and communicating with Erica and Dustin and Lucas. If the UD were really stuck in time, they would have been affecting the 1983 Wheeler house. Time is still moving in the UD, it's just not an exact mirror to Hawkins anymore.

Only the landscape froze... not time itself...

I just... I just thought everyone needed this reminder.

[wontbyers]

I don’t know why anyone would not want Will to have powers. I’ve been on this train since the fucking start. He is the central character of the whole story, along with El. It all starts and ends with them. He is so connected to the Upside Down. He was the first one taken, hunted but not killed by the Demogorgon.

Remember it killed the scientist and Barb without hesitation, it didn’t bring Barb’s body to a secondary location (the library, apparently the center of town where the gates all converge in s4) and put a vine in her throat for purposes still unknown to us. Why was Will treated differently? I’ll note it’s possible that the vine is just the temporary stage for the demo-larvae incubation, which we know Barb’s body must have been subjected to as well with the slug coming out of her mouth later. We don’t actually see that process (thankfully) so we can’t be sure how it works and if that’s the only reason Will had the vine at that time.

But S4 shows us how the hive-mind and all the vines are connected to Henry/Vecna/One and how he absorbs people’s powers by either killing them or with the hive-mind, like the meat flayer biting El in s3 to steal/copy her powers. So it’s also possible that had something to do with the state Joyce and Hop found Will in. And in that case, what exactly was taken/borrowed from Will when he had the vine in him or when he temporarily died in the Upside Down in 1983?

He follows the “came back wrong” trope wherein even after he’s revived and brought back home, he had a connection to the other side. He was experiencing flashes into the UD (shadow-walking or what have you) when he wasn’t even possessed yet. In fact, the Mind Flayer (which we know now to be Henry’s tool) was specifically hunting him, stalking him, beckoning him, chasing him down.

Thus Henry either 1. opened the doorway for him into the other dimension (not a gate-doorway, but whatever that shadow-walking was—the “flea and the acrobat” but Will is the flea) so that he could possess him with the Mind Flayer, because he wanted Will in particular as his host for some reason.

OR 2. He chose Will as his host because Will could already shadow-walk (unintentionally/uncontrollably) and happened to make himself an available option for possession by being an accessible body in the UD, in which case Will is the one with the special ability.

Like, either he was chosen for a reason (we don’t know yet) or he was chosen for convenience because he was doing something supernatural on his own. Either way it’s fucking suspicious, no? What more do you people want??

Will also maintains his connection to the Upside Down hive-mind AFTER being exorcised of the shadow/flayer particles. He can sense that shit in s3 and s4 (once he’s back in proximity/in Hawkins.) He gets the same neck tingles he did BEFORE he was ever possessed, while he was possessed, after he was freed.

(And of course, Henry focuses on his vendetta against El because he has a personal beef with her, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t also have a secret motive for targeting Will, trying to use him for whatever purposes. The reason he hasn’t spoken it is to keep it a surprise—why would the Duffers show all their hands in the second-to-last season and not leave any more surprises for the big finale?? What other twist is left, unless s5 is just “they’re gonna have to fight him again until El finally puts him down for good, the end, nothing else unique or interesting or new to understand here.”)

IN ADDITION. The UD is frozen on the day Will was taken (November 6, 1983 is also the day El opened the mother-gate, but remember this was the second time she opened it so clearly it was not her influence that—either imprinted a flashbulb image of Hawkins as it was on that night onto the formerly untouched UD dimension, or froze the dimension in its progression of time if the UD was already existing as a dark mirror of our world at that point.)

This has Will written all over it, but everyone automatically assuming it only comes back to El is such a good misdirect that people who are not as invested in theorizing will be shocked to find out how deeply connected Will is with all of it. Everyone assumes El is the only main character but she and Will’s stories have always been so intertwined.

I swear, I’ve been waiting for the ultimate reveal of Will’s importance to the core storyline—not just “he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then again idk”—for years. Since I first watched this show. Seeing people say he’s not is SO BIZARRE TO ME.

Some are just people who don’t care for him as a character and therefore refuse to see how central he is, even with all the evidence in their face. Some do like Will but are El super-fans who want her to be the only special one and think we’re trying to take something away from her by suggesting Will also has importance to the main supernatural storyline and has powers. Couldn’t be me, I’m a Willel Wonder Twins truther from day 1, fuck you. They’re equally central to the plot. They’re two sides of the same coin. They’re (platonic) soulmates.

But also seeing people who love Will and ship Byler say they don’t want him to have powers because “oh but Mike’s superhero complex, it’s not good for their romantic storyline because—” blah blah I’ve been a Will Byers stan before Byler and regardless of Byler. I love them, I need them to have their happy ending together, but Will Byers having powers and a connection to the Upside Down has ALWAYS been the plot and neither that nor the Byler plotline cancel each other out or cheapen each other!!! (Will being gay and getting the boy is not his only character arc. Controversial???)

My personal favorite theory: I think it makes so much sense if Will had an unknown ability to shape the Upside Down into a version of Hawkins—because we do get to see how the realm appeared before he was taken (when Henry explores it) and we know that it was frozen on the date he was taken.

The Duffers have literally stated that season 5 would address those questions, that they included that bit in s4 but didn’t explain it—which means that the answer CANNOT simply be that it’s the date El opened the gate and that’s why. That’s already the information we have. If that was the answer there wouldn’t still be a question.

Plus Will is paralleled to Henry—Henry was said to be a “sensitive” boy and had some artistic interest: he drew his spiders and the unique spider-adjacent shape of the “Mind Flayer” which we see him form out of the shapeless cloud of particles in the UD. Will also being an artist and having the unexplored ability to shape an imprint of his hometown on the foreign dimension he was adbucted into? More likely than you’d think.

Also, the idea that it’s maybe too late to show that he has powers, that he (or we as an audience) should have known by now? They did a whole entire plot-line in s4 where El had repressed memories due to trauma and was able to recover powers that had been stolen from her. Is it truly impossible that we’ll see a “plot twist” (it’s not a twist for genius Will-has-powers-truthers who have predicted it but I digress) where Will unlocks latent abilities that he didn’t even know he had?

He doesn’t have to specifically have powers to have shaped/frozen the Upside Down, I just think that makes a lot of sense. I also thinks it makes a lot of sense that he’s connected to the Upside Down without even being attached to the hive-mind, because he could sense it before/after the possession. Inarguable, actually that part’s just canon.

Speculation: maybe we’ll see him wrest control of the hive-mind from Henry and bring peace back to the Demogorgons and their home dimension. (Return it to being unspoiled by mankind.) That’s my ultimate pipe dream, but I probably won’t get everything I want.

Anyway, Noah Schnapp and the Duffers have all stated multiple times that Will is gonna be a big focus next season, fans are going to be shocked and pleased, it all started and will end with him etc etc. Whether you like it or not.

Get on board losers!!!! I don’t care if I’m mean, you are the most boring person ever if you think Will Byers doesn’t/shouldn’t canonically have powers in Stranger Things.

[pinkeoni]

I'm curious. What are your thoughts on time travel theory, parallel worlds theory, and loop theory?

I'm not sure if you are asking just in general or regarding st so I'm gonna answer like you were asking about st lol.

To be honest... time travel narratives don't interest me that much in media so I personally haven't read too deep into a lot of time travel theories. I might change my mind as we get closer to season 5, and I know that time in itself will become important, but I don't think that the show would do a traditional time travel narrative where they have to go back in time I think it would be too cliche for the show.

I haven't ever really made a post about this but... from what I have seen from time travel theories I think I largely disagree with some common theories on how time works in the Upside Down. And this isn't a slight on any of these theorists! This is just how I personally see things.

A common interpretation is that because the Upside Down seems to be stuck in 1983, that when the teenagers go into the UD they are able to affect the outside world in 1983 (I know this is also the basis for flickrgate, sorry to flickrgate truthers). But this... is not what we are shown in the show. When the teenagers are messing with lights in the UD they are affecting what's happening in 1986, not what's happening in 1983. I also don't think that there is a younger Will running around in the UD still, I don't think we have been shown anything to suggest that. However, ideas like time travel are completely theoretical real world and the rules often differ from media to media, so trying to theorize about time in this show can be really difficult because there is not much of any real world basis to base it off of.

I don't think that the UD is necessarily stuck in time, at least not completely. I think it's possible that the way that Will's time powers work (since it's hinted through dialogue that the UD being frozen is because of Will) is that he is able to freeze certain atoms in time, so all of the structures are frozen meanwhile the creatures are not. I think if all of time itself were frozen in the UD then the creatures inhabiting it wouldn't be able to reproduce. Someone said that in the ST Experience one of the powers you can use is freezing a demogorgon in time, so it's not about freezing all of time but rather focusing on specific atoms to freeze in time.

I think I'm more intrigued in the parallel worlds theory. The Upside Down in itself is basically a parallel world in itself so I could see them going with something like that. I think I reblogged a post talking about this earlier today but I'm a lot less familiar with the theory in itself.

Loop theories kinda correlates with time travel which again I'm not that well versed in. I'm open to reading more theories about it though.

[that-thing-that-feeling]

I know you fear that unlike Joyce, Jonathan may not be involved in Will’s plot like in S2. But if that’s the case, what his storyline could be, in your opinion? This time, they all know from the start the threat they have to defeat, and they all live together with El, so I don’t see much room for side plots. Just maybe Dustin being obsessed with Eddie’s death and having his own B plot with the scoops troop.

Hmm good question! Well we know as per the Duffers, that jancy is going to paired for some it, so what could they be doing?

I can think of a couple of possibilities (not putting them in order by probability):

1) Because Vecna revealed potential future plans to Nancy, their plot could center on that. This would mean initially fighting all the monsters that could come out of the UD (altho you’d think all would be facing them, and they love to put Steve agst monsters). Here you could imagine all the teens agst the monsters, maybe.

Ig it also could mean Nancy trying to figure out the crack in Vecna’s armor since she saw so much of his past and/or protecting the Wheelers (since Vecna said they were at risk). Altho ultimately it feels like El and Will have to find the crack in Vecna’s armor.

2) Because Nancy is the one who realized the UD is stuck on Nov 6, 1983, their plotline could tie into this and would tie them into a Byers plot by figuring out why it’s frozen, what happened when Will was in the UD, etc.

3) Because Nancy witnessed El’s past, their plot could dovetail with something with El.

4) if Will is Vecna’d (if Vecna is still doing that which he doesn’t necessarily need to bc the portal is open), they might connect into the Byers plot.

I’m just worried that he might not have a distinct plotline—that Jonathan could again be in a sidekick role; like we have no idea that they’ll give him a solid arc like he had in s1 again. So either he could be off in a kind of sideplot, or just not have an arc driven by his own past and family past or as a character, but through other info he sorta finds out about, and just tries to help with. He could be cut out of the Byers backstory and a Will centered plot.

Btw I also want all kinds of scenes: Byers fam scenes, jancy scenes, all the teens interacting, Nancy interacting w her fam and Robin, Hopper scenes with the Byers, obvs a Jonathan and Joyce scene.

And I’m sorry this is a very unpopular theory and I’m not sure how much I think it will really happen, but I do still think there’s the possibility he could die bc whenever anyone says “And I’ll always be here. No matter what” that’s always a potential narrative 🚩

But idk, are there some other ideas/theories about their plotline or Jonathan’s plotline or Nancy’s plotline?

[kingsofhellfire]

Modern Steve in the Past AU

LEGOs Stranger Things:

Y'all my brain keeps spiralling with "rip Eddie Munson you would have loved critrole" & then going "I want a modern Steve having to navigate the 1980s who can actually think 'rip Eddie Munson you would have loved d&d shows'"

LEGOs Stranger Things:

In no particular order-

-steve is stymied by stick shift, and part of the reason hes territorial over his car is bc it's NICE & it's AUTOMATIC. if he has to figure out first vs third gear or find out what neutral actually does he will lose his shit all over the pavement

-i think it'd be funny if he referenced memes every once in a while or said things like "lmao" out loud & to everyone else sounded absolutely incomprehensible

-if he listens to any podcasts I want him to listen to behind the bastards & dungeons & daddies- not a bdsm podcast

-"yeah yeah four dads from our world flung into the forgotten realms on a quest to resume their lost sons, we've all heard it" "I'm sorry, we have NOT, who are you and what have you done with Steve"

-addendum- this really stresses him out in s4 with favorite songs like. How's he gonna say "my favorite song won't be made for about ohh 20, 30 years"

LEGOs Stranger Things:

Okay now I'm actually mapping this modern Steve nonsense out. Bear with me now I cannot put this genie back in the bottle

LEGOs Stranger Things:

-UD is frozen in time, we've all seen that used as a convenient time travel/stop death plot device

-we can have some modern day UD shenanigans. As a treat

-doesnt matter how Steve gets to Hawkins it just matters that he does, and it's prior to 1983 now

-hes like hang on didn't aunt (someone) & uncle (whoever) live here? Dad talked about them occasionally. A lot of stuff happened in this town right?

-the point is- the Harringtons have not fucking changed, this house is empty 90% of the time

-steve is flying by the seat of his pants here but is like Yeah I'm uh. Housesitting for my aunt & uncle. Right.

-it works out bc this is fiction and it's convenient for me. Steve Harrington, nephew of the Harringtons who ostensibly live in loch Nora, is established

-you gotta have something to do when you're trying not to think abt the dread & fear of everything falling apart! Podcasts are out so sportsball it is

-people probably don't question him super much bc he's pretty & charismatic

-and then s1 starts & steve gets sucked into The PlotTM

Vega:

Wait so, he's Steve from the future, who ends up in the 80's and just kinda house squats at his relatives' house? I can vibe with that!

Mizaku Ito:

say, his fav song... could it be https://open.spotify.com/track/50Cf2eYv8zT3v2HAkwhIiL?si=03639ef2affb4aae

idk, i just want this dork to vibe to somehting silly ig 😅

plus, we know he likes banana's

Vega:

YOOOOO that song is norwegian!! it's from my country!! 🤩 love to see some rep out inthe wild lmao

Mizaku Ito:

steve as a eurovision fan, anyone?

Vega:

YES :yellsteve: he'd be so into it! The politics, the drama, the unhingedness of it all

kesbird:

god the vine and tiktok references he'd make

Mizaku Ito:

conchita wurst

Chase | Splintercat on AO3 — Yesterday at 3:54 PM

I love the Steve from the future idea omg

Vega:

Steve, driving Robin to school- chuckles Road work ahead? Uh yeah, I sure hope it does!

Robin- :biconfusion: are you an idiot, Steve??

Chase | Splintercat on AO3 — Yesterday at 3:58 PM

Everyone just being like 🤨 when he makes a vine reference but they chalk it up to the concussions lol

Mizaku Ito:

the dad jokes

LEGOs Stranger Things: THATS IT THATS THE VIBE

kesbird:

Steve very upset that he didn't learn the like lotto numbers or something helpful like all he's got is vine references and a really good following on tiktok in like 40 years

@LEGOs Stranger Things I need this fic so bad lmao

He deffo would invest in apple though early on just like "guys TRUST me"

LEGOs Stranger Things:

LMAOOO I can try but this is gonna be the best you'll get from me

Oh my god the common hc is that Steve's a cubs fan right

Bc before 2016 their last win was in 1908

Like I'm imagining Steve going "wait I should know who wins a world series when right?" & drawing a fucking blank bc it's never the goddamn Cubs

Mizaku Ito:

he can still bet on their outcomes right?

LEGOs Stranger Things:

Yeah he can it's just not the like guarantee

Vega:

then 2016 finally rolls around and he's like this is my year ??

rainbownerds:

Steve the back to the future fan who ends up going back to the 80s and has a whole fanboy moment. Maybe Dustin finds out sometime before season 3 in canon time and Steve quotes doc brown to sound smart until the movie comes out and Dustin yells at him about it

kesbird:

pffft that's so hilarious and we know how he is about quoting things lmao

rainbownerds:

"I dunno how it happened, Henderson! Maybe there was some kind of fluxy catheter or one point fifty three jiggle-whats of plutonium around but somehow I got here"

kesbird:

"I'm gonna pretend you didn't just use jiggle and catheter while trying to explain time travel. Jesus Steve"

if there were catheters and plutonium involved I don't wanna know." "I don't know just time travel shit dude!" OMG dustin once he finds out keeps pestering steve on the plot to sequel movies

Chase Splintercat on AO3:

What if Steve kept getting mixed up on what year movies or songs were released too?

“Oh Madonna is great, I love Vogue!”

“What?”

LEGOs Stranger Things:

"look, closest I get to nerd science is Jurassic park"

"Steve you READ?"

"Oh my god it was a BOOK??"

Chase | Splintercat on AO3 — Yesterday at 4:48 PM

Ok wait but what if he accidentally made references to the LOTR movies lol

rainbownerds:

Steve accidentally spoiling everything because he can never remember what happened in which installment

kesbird:

FACTS

Kingdom Kai:

Okay but people asking Steve for the LOTR movie cast and like ecery big name the response is who

Mizaku Ito:

Orlando Bloom! You know, from the pirates stuff!

Kingdom Kai:

In 86 Orlando bloom was ten lmao

Mizaku Ito:

But would Steve pause to think and do the math on that xD

Oh! Vecna! Steve will say they'll need his jar of dirt! And nobody will get it because potc isn't a thing yet!

Kingdom Kai:

Lbr Steve would have no idea how old anyone is without google

Mizaku Ito:

I don't either

rainbownerds:

"ah shit, I see what's happening here. Uhh who's the old dude again?"

Mizaku Ito:

Wanna bet he calls sir Ian McKellen "sir Kelly"?

Vega :

"Oh yeah i really love that part where arwen saves frodo and they're being chased across the river by the ringwraiths!" "That was glorfindel, what did you smoke, steve??"

Gorgeousgreymatter:

LMAO

the toe fact

LEGOs Stranger Things:

Okay but how does a guy that could have known what persona 5 was explain how this whole vecna situation was giving him major persona vibes

Gorgeousgreymatter:

he would know that

Mizaku Ito:

"never heard of glory belt before, whose that?"

Chase | Splintercat on AO3 — Yesterday at 5:05 PM

Steve has no idea who Tom Bombadil is despite making numerous lotr references

kesbird:

I love the idea of steve like not thinking and making an lotr joke and eddie just spinning around like "you read the books????" and steves like no but I watched the movies and eddie is so confused because he cannot IMAGINE steve watching that old animated one

LEGOs Stranger Things:

"oh yeah viggo mortensen was hot as fuck, they used the take where broke his toe kicking that helmet"

rainbownerds:

I mean Steve canonically just calls actors by names of other characters they play he'd call him magneto and make the kids little nerd brains melt

LEGOs Stranger Things:

Steve Harrington: grond was more of a dad to me than my real dad was

Vega:

I was thinking that too! him and eddie bonding over lotr until steve goes Tom BombaWHO?? and eddie is very confused

Mizaku Ito:

The... Door break thingy???

Gorgeousgreymatter:

steve's smeagol impression

kesbird:

oh god he would have one

jesus

Mizaku Ito:

"it burns us precious!"

Chase Splintercat on AO3:

Ok but Steve knows who Figwit is right lol

Gorgeousgreymatter:

dustin: do people in the future think that's good

LEGOs Stranger Things:

Yeah I think maybe that's just my friend group that makes "that's my dad Grond" jokes then huh

rainbownerds:

"I swear that's what he sounds like!!"

kesbird:

Ok but Steve just starts making shit up about the future he's like "harrison ford plays smeagol actually no make up"

Madonna's in it as the elf woman

Gorgeousgreymatter:

AHHHHH

Mizaku Ito:

How a out Ronald McDonald running for president... And winning!

Gorgeousgreymatter:

dustin calls him in the future when it's finally cast like you son of a bitch

kesbird:

lmao can you imagine them hearing that they are releasing the lotr movies soon and all of the party being so scared because Steve has been feeding them lies since the 80s

LEGOs Stranger Things:

He's been keeping that sucker charged!! He's allowed to have a Nintendo switch & a phone with a USB-C charger in a little bag when he gets kidnapped. I'm allowing him that bc I need him to be like "well at least I'll have free time to beat persona 5 royal" or smth

kesbird:

God Steve being an EDM music kind of person though like straight up likes club music and when the others first have a listen to it they're like????

wynnyfryd || moo moo! — Yesterday at 5:25 PM

future steve is to blame for eddie’s eurotrash phase

kesbird:

YEP

LEGOs Stranger Things:

I'm allowing him whatever video games I have downloaded on my 512 gb memory card bc I'm imagining Dustin finding out that he has a little machine that has 32 gb naturally & 512 GB REMOVABLE MEMORY, SMALLER THAN A METACARPAL

Also bc I have Hades downloaded & he deserves to have the Beat the Shit Out Of Your Dad game

kesbird:

Dustin would wanna study it like a bug but steve won't even let him breathe near it "because if this thing breaks and I have to wait like 30 years to play this game I'm gonna lose it henderson"

Gorgeousgreymatter:

That's what I'm saying!!! DUSTIN WOULD SCREAM

Mizaku Ito:

Will that make them think he's from, idk, 2180s?

Gorgeousgreymatter:

omfg those dumbasses imagining full on jetsons

LEGOs Stranger Things:

Yeah lmao Dustin's like I draw the LINE at this 30 YEARS FROM NOW dogshit

Mizaku Ito:

Because let's be real, technology has been making leaps

Gorgeousgreymatter:

yeah dude we all have personal robots in the future. or we did. until they started getting smarter.... (Dustin: WHAT DOES THAT MEAN)

Mizaku Ito:

They wouldn't believe him about musk sending a sports car up into space either

Gorgeousgreymatter:

I wouldn't believe anything that's happened between 2016-now lmao

LEGOs Stranger Things:

Being fair I also do not want to believe it. Fucker

Gorgeousgreymatter:

or i would and be really sad about it :sNort:

kesbird:

Lmao steve forgetting when things happened so he's like "Yeah and they sent a man up to the moon!" "That's already happened Steve" "Oh... well they sent a sports car up there too!"

Mizaku Ito:

"honestly I'm just glad i escaped the pandemic by coming here"

No further explanations

kesbird:

dude remembers he's gonna have to go through that pandemic bullshit AGAIN

wynnyfryd || moo moo! — Yesterday at 5:29 PM

just mumbles “have the murder hornets come yet?” and ominously walks out

kesbird:

when it first starts becoming a thing and people are liek "It'll blow over soon 😌 " and steve is already ferally buying everything in bulk and has at least like 30 cozy pajamas for the long haul

LEGOs Stranger Things:

Eddie & Robin like. I have some bad news for you abt that

kesbird:

"I'm just glad there isn't acid rain yet"

LEGOs Stranger Things:

The party are like. Literally almost nothing that's come out of your mouth has been promising

Mizaku Ito:

"they were working on bringing back the mammoths when i left"

wynnyfryd moo moo!:

oh noooooooo future steve knowing how bad 80s hair products are for the environment

and like, probably your hair lol all the flammable af hairspray

Chase Splintercat on AO3:

Ok but my hurt/comfort brain is now picturing Steve comforting Robin with news about queer rights

kesbird:

Dustin- "Well if we are actually believing Steve then there are soon going to be * squints at notes * murder hornets, a plague, acid rain, and a robot uprising so-"

Mizaku Ito:

"we'll have to wait until the turn of the century, but as soon as they legalize gay marriage, I'm flying you and whatever girl you'll be dating to the Netherlands for your wedding"

O. Wha. what about Dahmer

Like, with the big deal being made about the show, i can see Steve having watched it... And now he's in the time period where Dahmer's.... Dahmering.

LEGOs Stranger Things:

YIKES

What I'm hearing tho is that this all comes out in the wash to the scoops troop in S3 & to the party at large more or less during s4

kesbird:

Y’all this came up on my TikTok and it just fits with what we’ve been saying lol

Chase Splintercat on AO3:

Oh god I just remembered about Schwarzenegger being a governor... that's totally one of those ones the party wouldn't believe until it happened lol

kesbird:

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRV5yxyw/

TikTok

Miller on TikTok

It all could have been avoided if some just handed him a koosh ball #eddiemunson #strangerthings #fidgettoys #theyhe

Miller on TikTok

kesbird:

At this point they have like a betting pool on which crazy thing Steve is right about and what he’s just making up

messessentialist [sadie!]:

i will never catch up with future steve but i hope you all had FUN

LEGOs Stranger Things:

Hoping & praying that Steve's seen the "shit tier ugly ass elf" post bc i. Hang on. I was abt to say I NEED or see him reference it. But then I realized I'm the captain of this goddamn frigate

kesbird:

LOL

abby:

wait. if steve's phone has modern-day internet in the Upside Down...is he gonna start posting tiktoks?

"sorry i dropped off the face of the earth, guys, i just time traveled to 1983. P.S. do y'all think that alternate dimension monster bats can have rabies? My friend is worried"

LEGOs Stranger Things:

On one hand I'm erring on the side of no bc itd probably drain his battery too much & break his NDAs. But on the other hand

On the other hand. It is SO funny to me to think abt steve going "demobats stole my fucking liver. Can't have SHIT in Hawkins!!!"

[shippingfangirl013]

If they make it so the god damn wonder twins have only ONE TWIN with powers, that literally defeats any Twins with Powers movie - Twitches included. And I will be very sad if Will doesn’t have powers. Like… he HAS to.

How did that kid survive so long?

How did the upside down come to look like Hawkins because it wasn’t Henry that did that?

How did the Mind Flayer change shape based off of Will’s drawing of it? (before the whole- human consumption thing?)

Why is the upside down paused in 1983? I know everyone seems to assume time powers… but what if Will’s power, is like similar to capturing/ or (freezing in a sense) a subject on a canvas? If he can create things, because he’s an artist, maybe his power acts similar to that? Or has multiple facets- because we know El has a few powers within a power.

So, maybe Will can like- create things out of thin air (manipulating particles) and pause/freeze frame stuff - like how an artist looks at scenery, and (sometimes) paints it in real time? Then that’s a frozen image, painted, but still an image- in a similar way a camera takes an image, and also freezes it.

WAIT.

Will is an artist.

Artists use different mediums to create art.

What if the reason we had that weird time skip in the video where it shows Joyce watching it at 8:15 in season 2, is because Will’s powers are messing with the medium? (Being Bob’s camera?)

Another thing is, you can make sculptures out of literally anything, and I would consider lights a medium too, because you can decorate your house with Christmas lights, and make it look like art. It’s (kind of) a form of artistic expression. We have the metal and wire frame light sculptures too, so maybe… that’s how he’s able to mess with the lights?

Literally anything could be a medium for artistic expression. In season 2, we see a lot of Will’s UD drawings done in crayon, but at the same time, he draws in pen/pencil and uses colored pencils sometimes too when it’s his imagination and not the UD.

And we’ve established that the UD was basically a blank canvas, so Will just remodeled it to scale. Like, how you have building models that are built to scale. . .

I know most of this isn’t like totally new information, but it’s a thought.

it's literally impossible that Will doesn't have powers because Joyce hears him through the phone and the lights flicker and something sends the electricity through the phone and he can make the radio work too like... he must have powers c'mon I will be pissed off if he doesn't

[nowmemoriees]

Will Byers has powers THEORY

This is such a complex theory so I’ll probably be updating it in parts.

I'm gonna make a huge compilation from different theories on social media. I took this information from twitter, tiktok and tumblr posts, adding a lot of my own ideas too.

So before starting, I'll give some credits here. (anyway I'll be giving more credits as the post keeps advancing)

twitter users posts I included: @/iamnathansamuel @/s5willel @/wherexbyers @/crayolascribblz

tumblr users: @0aurelion-sol0 @beaulesbian @aurorabyler @notnahberrie

https://at.tumblr.com/0aurelion-sol0/689424781841448960/oo54zsqcip9o

https://at.tumblr.com/beaulesbian/689110068659191808/g285it0izdzr

Now, let's start

Skipping all of the information we already know, (The Upside Down has always existed, every person with super powers has a connection with the UD, 011 sent 001 to the UD in 1979)...

....We’re going directly to the main topic of this theory: Will Byers has powers. Why?

First, we come back to the day it all started.

November 6, 1983. Will was leaving the Wheeler’s house after losing the DnD campaign. Will told Mike the demogorgon got him. Here is where we see the lights twinkle for the first time. That means that there was already something or someone hearing Mike and Will from the Upside Down.

Then, Will and Dustin go in separate ways and Will bikes home alone. Here is where he saw this strange being in the middle of the streets, he got scared and fell off his bike.

A clock sound can be heard. The damn clock.

The strange figure is not a demogorgon. It’s not an UD animal either. It 's Vecna/001 himself. We know this because of its body shape and his disproportioned hands.

Was it Vecna who heard Will and followed him from Mike’s house?

Probably. It’s been confirmed that there’s a specific reason why Vecna was looking for Will in the first place.

Will wasn't even bleeding. And blood was what attracted the UD creatures.

Will ran away and arrived home, but Vecna kept following him. That’s where we find our second clue. The house’s door is opened with telekinesis.

Will runs to the tools room, and that’s where he gets caught by Vecna, who suddenly took him from there, but we never got to see how. We just saw the lights getting shinier and shinier until Will disappeared.

After Will goes missing, the party finds El in the woods and she shows Mike that she could recognize Will in a picture.

She knew he was in the Upside Down. She can even reach Will and listen to him using a Walkie Talkie.

Will now is in another dimension. It is just like hawkins, but it's dark and cold.

How is it possible that it's the exact copy of Hawkins?

Well, many people say that Will may have created an exact copy of Hawkins when he arrived at the UD because he was in a high stress situation and his powers showed up for the first time. (This part of the theory suggests that Will may have the power to create/shape/manifest things)

Will reshaped hawkins theory by @notnahberrie

This would be the reason why Vecna/001 targeted Will?

This could be the reason why the Upside Down is frozen in time on the day Will went missing.

Remember that, in season 4, when the older teens were trapped in the UD, Nancy wanted to find some weapons from her room expecting those would be there, but they weren’t because they didn’t even exist yet. The UD was frozen in the past.

part 2

part 3

part 4

part 5

FULL THEORY ON YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/V0FVvEmankE

[strangertheories]

Hiii!!! if you haven't already answered this, how do you think season 5 will play out?

Especially including Will's whole connection with the UD and it being stuck on November 6th, 1983.

Another long post, folks! I'll be sharing some theories based on what we know so far and stuff in Volume 2 and talk about some characters, ships, plot points and how I think the show will end. This is what we know so far:

It'll be full circle to season 1

It will center Will Byers

It will have a bigger focus on why the Upside Down is frozen on the day Will went missing

We'll see a lot of the groups and pairings from S1, such as Nancy, Johnathan and Steve

It'll take place entirely in Hawkins

It will have a time skip, probably to 1988, after the first few episodes

It will have a conclusive ending and no direct spin offs (ie with the same characters and lore)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but apart from actors saying what they wish for their characters, this is all we know so far. So it's kinda difficult to paint a picture of what I think will happen. I will however share some of my ideas below, although these will be less evidence based.

First of all, Nancy's speech in Volume 2. Nancy says that Vecna shows her the mega gate opening and the sky full of billowing smoke or something along those lines. This all came true. She also says that there is an army of monsters, one of which has a 'big gaping mouth', dead soldiers and the dead bodies of Mike, Holly and Karen. This has not came true yet.

I believe the monsters and soldiers part will happen, but not the last part. In terms of monsters, when Chrissy saw the clock there were four cracks that led to a big crack in the center (like Hawkins) and then we saw a bunch of spiders crawl out. Demo spiders? But that doesn't fit with the big gaping mouth' description given by Nancy, which could indicate a thessalhydra, as referenced previously. In terms of the soldiers, I assume that once monsters start crawling out of the cracks, they'll be the first to go. However, I don't know if they'd give away Mike's death so early nor if Eleven would let that happen in the first place.

But how does that fit into the time skip? Maybe the season starts with them "sealing in" the monsters and closing the mega gate, however they still don't know where Vecna is so they decide to wait in Hawkins for him to gather back his resources and strike harder. On the other hand, maybe they fully believe he was defeated only for that to be deadly wrong. Another possibility is that the mega gate doesn't close at all and they stay in Hawkins waiting for something to happen, although I don't know what the first two episodes would consist of then.

Next up, our favourite bowl cut, William Jacob Byers. I've spoken a lot about Will's links with Vecna. The way he was taken in S1 combined with the parallels as well as the fact the Upside Down was frozen on the day he got there and his true sight makes me believe there's something more going on with him. As seen by the end of Volume 2, Will can still sense Vecna so that's going to play a major role. The question is whether Vecna is going to want Will to join him. Vecna loves projecting on kids who are bullied for not conforming to social norms based on his past with Eleven.

I believe that Vecna was testing Will in S1 to see if he was a good enough vessel to bring the Upside Down to Hawkins, so at the end he gave him true sight and planted the demo slug in him. I don't think Vecna wants to kill or hurt Will (don't get me wrong, he would, but he wouldn't want to). In S2 he says he can feel that he wants everyone dead except for Will. I think this is linked to the Upside Down freezing but I can't explain why or how, it just feels too significant not to think about.

In terms of his sexuality, Will is almost certainly going to come out in S5 based on comments from Noah Schnapp saying how we have to wait for his coming out scene and it'll be super special when it happens. Whilst it's annoying we were told it would be clarified in Volume 2, I do think it makes sense for his character to take his time to come out based on the homophobia Will has experienced. I think with family we'll get a quieter and more emotional scene. However, with Mike, I feel like it could be more explosive with him yelling 'because I love you!' in an arguement or something. Bonus points if Will starts apologizing or crying but Mike reciprocates it and we get a super angsty kiss. I don't know if that would actually happen but I feel like it would be cool and would make sense.

In terms of Max, I think she's going to wake up out of her coma and have no memories or anything like that. The group will read her letters but nothing happens. I think maybe at some point she could become a vessel for Vecna as foreshadowed in the lyrics of Master of Puppets (Master of puppets I'm pulling your strings... Blinded by me you can't see a thing). That or she will be used as a weapon as Dustin in S2 stated zombies are immune from the mind flayer because they have no mind to flay. Either way, I think her memories will return to her once Vecna is defeated. I really hope they don't cure her of her blindness or from being paralyzed because so much disabled rep ends up with the disabled person being cured.

In terms of romantic relationships, I'm fairly certain that Lumax and Jopper are going to be canon. With Lumax, once Max gets her memories back, I think it would be nice to see her finally going to that movie with Lucas with Lucas doing live audio description because she's blind or something like that. And maybe even have Jopper go on that Enzo date. For other relationships, I'm less certain, especially ones involving Mike and Nancy. I hope Mike ends up with Will and Nancy ends up with Robin (or single if not), but I'm not sure how much faith I have in the writers. I also don't really care what's canon and I will keep on shipping Byler and Ronance no matter what happens. No one, not even the show itself, can convince me that they aren't in love with each other. I'm not saying that they're both going to be canon or that they're equally as likely to be canon, I'm just saying that if it's not I'd view it as a missed opportunity if that makes sense.

Now onto the ending. I have a theory that S5 will be a bit like the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. For those of you who don't know, in S7 of Buffy, the hell mouth is opened leading to lots of weird supernatural goings on that are impossible to ignore. This leads to people moving away from Sunnydale in order to get away from the supernatural goings on. In the end, in order to destroy the hell mouth, the whole town is destroyed. The whole hell mouth thing is very reminiscent of the mega gate from the end of S4 and I also think the town will probably find out about the Upside Down, leading to them leaving, which would parallel this even more.

This is similar to the ending of the book It where Pennywise is so intrinsically linked to Derry that Derry starts getting destroyed by itself. I think that because the Upside Down and Vecna are so truly Hawkins-ian (I'm making it a word), in order to destroy it/him, they have to sacrifice their town. I don't have proof for it, it just seems very poetic. Also a loveable character sacrifices themselves which would fit if the show is going full circle to S1. Since Eleven is so linked with Vecna, could this mean she has to die to save her friends?

I just realized I forgot to include Eddie! I think pre time skip, Eddie is going to be major focus in terms of grieving, especially with Dustin and the Hellfire Club. He'll still be referenced in Volume 2, but it'll be a smaller focus. I think clearing his name is going to be a big motivation for the characters this season. Speaking about the Eddie is Kas theory, I think zombie Eddie or vampire Eddie might work, but I hope they don't bring him back to life. The show needs to commit to character deaths or it's hard to invest yourself in the stakes of the series. If Vecna uses his body as a puppet to manipulate our characters or in a trance like Billy or Barb, I think that could work and be a good way to get Joseph Quinn back on the show. But I don't think they're going to bring him back to life.

None of this is concrete and it's just my theories for now. I have way more thoughts but this is getting a bit long. But I hope this helped!

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

Idk I could be wrong with my thinking, but I saw a post going around speculating/worrying about how El may have created the UD instead of Will, giving her another thing over him. But like, El opened the very first gate to the UD when she sent One there and it was completely vacant apart from red stormy spooky sky stuff. Then the second time she opened a gateway was because of contact with wittle ol Demogorgon. But you know, the UD is stuck in the past on the day Will went missing. Now if El did create it or even One, surely it would have caused the UD to halt time back in '79, does that make any sense? I feel like I'm rambling but to me that gives a clear indicator that El had nothing to do with the UD forming (mirroring Hawkins at least).

I agree with what you say here. If El did create the Upside Down, then it should reflect the fact that she did so in 1979. Instead, we have it frozen on the day Will was taken. The fact that she opened another Gate in 1983 shouldn't really matter considering she sent Henry in there four years prior. It can't have anything to do with a Gate being open or closed, as you'd think time would move when there's a Gate open and stop when it's closed, as a result of the link between dimensions.

We've had three known Gates prior to this season. The first is the one El opened to send Henry in the Upside Down in the first place. It seemed to close on its own rather quickly. At the time, what we assume is the Upside Down appeared to be without form. It was just a chaotic mass of red energy.

The second was the Gate opened in 1983 when El made contact with the Demogorgon. It would remain open until El closed it in 1984. At this point, the Upside Down resembled Hawkins, only with everything dead, spore-filled air, and no natural light. Will would flash into the Upside Down in 1984, but it's unclear if he was really there or if it was just an illusion, as he remained in the real world anytime he experienced one of these moments. So, it's difficult to say if the actual Upside Down reflected 1984 Hawkins, or if it was just how Will saw it.

The third Gate was the one the Russians opened under the mall. While we don't see anyone travel into the Upside Down, it does seem to allow the Mindflayer to access its "avatar" (for lack of a better term) in the real world. Hopper somehow manages to use that Gate to escape the explosion of the Russian machine, somehow ending up in Russia.

So, we essentially have three major moments where a Gate was opened into the real world, yet it's the second moment that time seems to be frozen on in the Upside Down. This is especially odd considering that Gate remained open for a year. What would be so special about that day if it was just about the Gate opening, despite there being two other times that happened? The main differences between these three events were that Will entered the Upside Down that day, and it suddenly had physical form.

Now, I imagine they'll find some way to make everything with the Upside Down be related to El. Still, it's very curious that they're trying to call back to the very first episode, The Vanishing of Will Byers. It's double curious considering they had Nancy specifically refer to it as the day Will went missing, rather than "November 6, 1983" or "the day El opened the Gate." Why draw all this attention to Will if it's really just about El?

[munsons-maiden]

all of this has probably been pointed out answered before somewhere and I simply must have missed it but still;

there’s one thing that’s been bugging ever since I watched s4 for the first time: at the end of s2 we get a glimpse of the Hawkins Middle during the ‘84 Snow Ball in the Upside Down, and judging by the fact that decorations are up one would assume that the timeline is the same. Or?

If so; why is Hawkins frozen in time in s4? Or is it just the Wheeler house that is frozen in time?

Also this is probably just me hearing things but there are certain sound effects™️ throughout s2 which (could easily) resemble ticking of a clock (clock chimes) — especially the ones at the lab, when Owens is talking to Hopper and Joyce in the hallway (2x06)😅

oh and another thing — in all promo wallpapers/ pictures, no matter from which season they are (accept s3 one), Will is always wearing a shirt with a similar pattern. They all resemble the shirt he is wearing throughout s4… it could be just a coincidence, maybe not 🤷🏻‍♀️ Just an observation. 🙈😅

I never thought about that but I just re-watched the final scene of season 2 and you're right! You can see the fairy lights inside. I guess it makes sense for that to be a continuity error because as you pointed out as well, time in the UD is frozen on the day Will vanished in 1983 - or it really is just the Wheeler house which is frozen in time but that wouldn't make any sense.

About the clock chimes, I heard them too and I remember some posts pointing them out after ST2 AND after ST3, one of them in this scene and I found a compilation of scenes in which we hear clock chimes in the other three seasons here. That's some amazing foreshadowing.

As for Will's outfits, I don't know. I think it's simply his style, or at least I don't see how it could be important, if it is. Though clothing in ST in general can be important (like the whole blue-meets-yellow-in-the-west thing the Byers and Mike got going on) - I mean, Wayne Munson wearing the exact same jacket like Jonathan was wearing while pinning up Will's missing poster, while pinning up Eddie's missing poster, is 100% not a coincidence but a very carefully chosen parallel and most probably foreshadowing (I talked about that in another post which you can find on the masterlist with theories and meta if you're interested) so there could be more going on.

What I still find weird, while we're at it, are three things: The unanswered phone calls in season 2, the fact that I'm absolutely certain the Duffers didn't forget Will's birthday and yet they're painting themselves as absolute idiots who forgot it (I don't believe a single word from them) so there MUST be something big about that for them to willingly make themselves look stupid and incompetent for the next two years, and - most importantly - Eddie's missing poster. It says he's 17, which we canonically know isn't true because he repeated senior year two times meaning he'd be twenty. But you know when he was 17? In 1983. The year the Upside Down was frozen in, the place where Eddie died. I keep seeing people say that the props department was messing up Chrissy and Eddie's data but that's not true. If you zoom in on Chrissy's file Mrs. Kelly kept, you clearly see that she's 18. And I Eddie's missing poster can't be a mistake either because him having repeated senior year two times and finally wanting to graduate is a HUGE thing in ST4, huge and important enough for him to use his final breaths to tell Dustin he was finally going to graduate. The whole set and props and everything on ST are always immaculate, there's no way the missing poster wasn't cross-checked beforehand. And yeah, since we know he's 19/20 already...the missing poster is sketchy af. Especially since they showed it to us for long enough to read it. Had they only wanted to show it being vandalized, they could've done it much shorter.

And I won't even start with the time skip and the fact that nobody was mourning Eddie because then I'd never shut up again and I'll start sobbing uncontrollably again, too, but there's so so so much that doesn't add up and doesn't match with how planned and immaculate the foreshadowing and set and easter eggs etc in ST are. Something doesn't add up.

The problem here is that ST4 isn't a season on its own; it's already the first part of the final season (every ending has a beginning and so on) which means for the next two years, the Duffers are either absolute geniuses who'll blow our minds and bring Eddie back in the most show-stopping, mind-blowing final season of a show...or they are two dudes who got lucky with an idea they never actually planned out and just going with the flow.

I believe with all my heart that it'll be the first one.

[that-thing-that-feeling]

Do you have any theories on what Jancy's plot within the larger plot will be next season? I'm guessing that the kids will be on Vecna duty. If we're coming full circle to season 1 then maybe monster hunters 2.0? Nancy did see that vision of the army of monsters, they may want to head into the Upside Down and take it out before it crosses over.

It’s really hard to say how they’ll use each group next season, but I’d like to see Jancy following up on the UD is frozen November 6, 1983 plot. After all, Nancy was the one to realize it, and it directly affects Jonathan since Will went missing that day, and perhaps his guilt about being absent when Will went missing could come into play? Maybe it could then connect into Will becoming a focus and Vecna targeting him, or connections/revisiting that day that need to happen. I feel like all members of the Byers fam, especially Will, have to revisit that day. If Will really is a big focus which I think he will be, I hope they connect into that plot. I want them to connect into the main plot and not have Jonathan separate from coming full circle to s1 which should involve the Byers fam. I’d also like to see them connect to El bc Nancy’s the only one who saw what really happened to El and Jonathan is her brother now.

You’re right Ig I could see them doing something with monster hunting bc that army of monsters vision will prob come true, so maybe they’d try to hold them off, but that’s going to be a lot of monsters, too many for two people, and I don’t think just scenes of fighting monsters is as interesting. Also the MF will get out, regardless. Another interesting possibility would be if they’re tackling the concept of the hive mind.

But to breakdown possible plotlines that exist in s5 that we’re not quite sure which grouping will focus on (and I hope the groupings aren’t as isolated bc they need to know what the other groups are doing):

—Will being a focus thru Vecna targeting him and/or being a key to figuring out why the UD is frozen and revisiting that Nov 6, 1983 somehow and also what happened to him while in the UD

—dealing with a possible invasion of an army of Monsters as Nancy sees in the vision. I think the MF has to come hugely into play here. Also, we’ve seen via Russia that attacking the hive mind is a way to affect Vecna. They need to undo the hive mind.

—Getting Max out of the coma (but I could see this happening late and being a crucial plotline to defeating him)

—how Vecna will reconstitute himself, that he could bring people into the mindscape (but he doesn’t need to since the portals are open already—he might instead try to lock off the mindscape and they will need to find a way in)

—this connects to how we’ll also learn more about Henry in flashbacks and Henry as he becomes Vecna in the UD (can El access this and use it agst him?)

—that we need to get a history of the UD and how it was formed (this brings us back to vecna, but also revisiting the day El opened the gate and Will disappeared)

—preventing the rest of what Nancy saw from coming true

—Dustin’s grief arc around Eddie (idk this makes him vulnerable to Vecna or angry enough to not be offering theories)

—ultimately unfreeze the UD which would make them able to get rid of it or have things in the right side up affect and transform it, ultimately destroying it

—defeat Vecna and the MF, most likely through severing connections with how the hive mind works? (Also not sure if the order—you prob have to do this before unfreezing the UD?)

Idk what other things am I leaving out?

Of these what do you see each group tackling?

[that-thing-that-feeling]

What do you think is the "history" between Vecna and Will leading to his kidnapping? It doesn’t seem like it was just wrong time, wrong place anymore. It doesn’t seem really believable that for no particular reason, Will had some strong and unknown powers Vecna needs to control. And all things considered, Will was a relatively happy kid: loving mom and brother, a group of loyal friends, healthy. So what could it be? I’m really curious.

Yeah that’s a great question. I think the things I just reblogged below from @willel on the colors of this other dimension that becomes known as the UD as we know it are relevant to this as background. It appears one way (yellow) when Henry first enters it, it’s always appeared red as the MF before or ig now Vecna, so Vecna seems to transform it as he does the MF particles. Then it could be it gets transformed again seemingly on Nov 6, 1983—when El opens the gate and Will disappears, leaving open the idea that either El reopening the gate transforms it into the blue UD as we know it, or Will getting taken does and he is crucial to transforming it.

But, yeah, I agree, what looks like the wrong place at the wrong time does begin to look more purposeful. Like say Vecna needed to take someone to transform the UD into a mirror copy/photo negative of Hawkins, why couldn’t he just take anyone? It’s especially interesting he decides he needs to because he’s previously said it’s a land “unspoiled” by humans which he seems to like—altho he’s the first human to enter it, and then the second one is Will, like this super innocent little kid. I don’t totally agree that Will has had a fully happy family life, altho Jonathan and Joyce tried to shield him as much from the affects of Lonnie as possible (I think Jonathan and Joyce really beared the brunt of Lonnie’s abuse).

Idk if Vecna singles Will out for his sensitivity that borders into powers? Or he sees the potential for powers within him? Has he been tracking him before the first ep of s1? Since he seems to plan in advance, does he already have the plan to possess him later and that’s why he leaves him alive? It definitely feels like he targets him, but it’s still unclear to me why—beyond he sees someone particularly vulnerable out of the party (altho remember in s1, Will gets out a gun and tries to protect himself). There are all gifsets going around showing the parallels between young Henry and Will in how they’re discussed, but they’re also obviously opposites in terms of what they do with their “sensitivity.” Either way, all of this seems like the crucial thing they want to answer in s5—the history of the UD. And Will going missing seems completely tangled up in it and crucial to why it gets frozen in time: