#byler time travel
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okay so i would never want this to happen in s5 but a time travel fic, where everything suddenly comes together, why everhthing is happening, Will takes a split second decision to go back to that night, stop everything from happening, but mike tags along sabotaging his plans of self erasure. And for a while it looks like Mike's doing in on accident, not aware of Wills plans. But really he's scared of that conversation, and of the fact that Will might not listen to him anyway. So he just does everything in his power until-
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i want time travel only so s3 mike wheeler sees s4 will byers and has the worst episode of gay panic of his life. extra points if somehow s3 mike learns that will might like some girl in the future and he’s just scowling and pouting bc the thought makes his stomach go up in knots and his thoughts a mess he doesn’t dare to untangle. also mike being extra annoyed that will is as tall as him if not one inch taller, definitely broader, and how he now grabs many people’s attention.
#byler#byler tumblr#mike wheeler#stranger things#will byers#byler endgame#mike x will#byler ao3#cleradin#will x mike#byler time travel
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Time travel Byler au where:
Will and Mike got together after the beginning of the apocalypse in early 1986
Unfortunately, Mike died three months later. He’d heroically thrown himself in front of a demodog in order to protect Will’s life.
During the next couple years, the UD situation degenerated further. The army got involved with what had been happening in Hawkins, and nearly everyone was forced to evacuate exepted for those directly involved. El was almost always busy assisting the troopes and was running herself ragged, the adults and older teens were also constantly fighting and trying to survive. Most of the party had been badly hurt at some point and were physically disabled in some shape or form.
Will had lost spirit early on, but things went to a head in 1988 when he sacrificed himself to buy El time in a fight between her and Vecna. But to his surprise, he woke up in his 13 years old body in a room that he hadn’t slept in in years.
Unbeknownst to Will, Mike had been in a similar situation. Only, he woke up in january 1984, 5 months before Will did.
Will was still mourning ‘86 Mike, and even though he got to see Mike alive and breathing again, he was conflicted by the fact that he won’t ever get This Mike back. However, he became motivated to protect the one Mike that he can still interact with with all his might
Meanwhile, Mike, with new insight, was working on a way to nip the whole UD problem in the bud as much as he still can
Mike and Will actively tried to change the timeline but they both were perplexed that everyone else but them were acting ‘in character’ according to the first 1984′s events
umm, feel free to add to it if you are interested by the concept
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Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Characters: Mike Wheeler, Will Byers
Additional Tags: Time Travel, Internalized Homophobia, LGBTQ Themes, Gay Will Byers, Queer Mike Wheeler, Bisexual Mike Wheeler, Period-Typical Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Good Parent Joyce Byers, Minor Joyce Byers/Jim "Chief" Hopper, Minor Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Minor Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Mike Wheeler Loves Will Byers, Will Byers Loves Mike Wheeler, Mike Wheeler Has Issues, Mike Wheeler Being an Idiot, Mike Wheeler Has Internalized Homophobia, Alternate Universe - Time Travel
Summary:
On a list of the top five most unexpected things to happen to Mike Wheeler, traveling 10 years into the future has got to take the top spot.
The half-naked man claiming to be his best friend might be number two.
Alternatively known as,
Mike Wheeler tries to survive a week in the 90's and figures a couple of things out along the way.
#byler#byler fic#byler fanfic#mike wheeler#will byers#mike wheeler fic#will byers fic#time travel fic#time travel fanfic#byler time travel#mike wheeler fanfic#will byers fanfic#byler fanfiction#stranger things fic#stranger things fanfic#stranger things fanfiction
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TL;DR: HNL was studying how to give human subjects electromagnetic, most specifically visible light based, powers in order to bend space-time for their needs.
I’m going to try and condense this as much as I can because considering electromagnetism as a major force in ST (pun intended) opens up so many potential areas of analysis that can only be a brief cover of without turning into multiple essays.
Let’s go over the electromagnetic spectrum:
I hope you might already be recognizing some symbols we see often in Stranger Things, especially if you’ve been following the BTS and some location and set leaks from Season 5.
The electromagnetic spectrum encompasses the different frequencies of electromagnetic radiation - waves of energy that travel at the speed of light (and produce visible light to us at certain frequencies). You’ve probably heard of most of these, including cancer-causing gamma rays and x-rays, the visible light spectrum (the rainbow), microwaves, and radio waves.
In S5, we have the radio station as a main location for the characters. They’re also driving around in the radio station’s van, which has an image of a hawk emitting a rainbow (visible light radiation). Steve’s car also has a massive antenna on top of it. My first thoughts were that the team was trying to keep in contact with Max in hopes of her being able to hear them in her coma, considering she has a radio near her bedside. While that still may be a reason, I think the characters may have come to realize how important electromagnetic fields could be in their fight against Vecna (this where leader of the AV Club also focused on electromagnetic objects Scott Clarke may make his triumphant return).
Now to pivot onto why electromagnetism is so important to the lore of ST:
What the scientists in Hawkins Lab are likely studying is a way for human brains to produce or manipulate certain types of electromagnetic waves through telepathy. Most obviously this is seen by them having the kids try to manipulate and turn on a circle of light bulbs. Our brains actually already produce electromagnetic waves, but at a very slow frequency. The scientists are constantly measuring brain waves while conducting these experiments. We even get full shots of El’s brain waves during NINA, for example. We also see similar shots in S2 while Will is in the HNL.
You can also observe that the Hawkins National Laboratory has absolutely massive satellite dishes on it’s rooftop; ones that do not exist on the real life building but are added in post because they pose some sort of significance. Nudge, it’s because they are transmitting and receiving massive amounts of electromagnetic waves.
Why are they studying electromagnetic waves then?
They are studying electromagnetic waves because they are a method in which time travel can theoretically be achieved - the focus of the Montauk Project in which Stranger Things is based on. The military likely is investigating time travel as another war tactic against Russia.
Let us take a look at the first chapter of the Montauk Project: Experiments in Time book (they are seriously plagiarizing the living hell out of this thing):
Also, did you catch the whole 'attaching a massive antenna on the hood of my car to pick up a secret signal' thing? That's suspiciously similar to the state of Steve's car! Anyway...
The story of Stranger Things starts chronologically, as does Montauk, with the disappearance of the USS Eldridge and Project Rainbow (named after the bending of the visible light spectrum). Brenner’s father was revealed to have captained the boat in TFS, which disappeared for 12 hours into Dimension X and when it came back, the crew was killed or driven mad (except for Brenner Sr). This inspires Brenner to continue onto the Nevada project, and eventually, Hawkins National Lab’s studies. The USS Eldridge / Philadelphia Project conspiracy from real life went as follows:
They were studying electromagnetism, specifically the bending of light, to make objects invisible. This was only the first step in the experiments. Once Henry got involved and came back from his trip to Dimension X with powers, Brenner must have realized he could potentially use human subjects to manipulate electromagnetic fields themselves. Human subjects didn’t require machinery or set up and could bend space-time wherever they pleased, as long as they were able to learn the ability.
The more conspiratiorial side of Theoretical Physics proposes using circulating light beams to warp time-space, creating a wormhole in which one can literally walk through time. This is pop-science, likely not true but interesting for fiction purposes. This method of time travel being used is heavily implied due to the fact that the USS Eldridge was already able to disappear into another dimension by the bending of light.
This is how it worked in the Montauk Project book (absolutely ridiculous how much they took from this honestly):
My guess is that in the Stranger Things universe, they have not yet managed to time travel, only to create portals into this alien Dimension X. Previously, said portals were only made twice by highly advanced technological equipment. El demonstrated that she was able to open a portal all by herself - another step to achieving time travel with singular human subjects. Season five is when we will see the beginning of the time travel plot line, though it like in Montauk is likely already in a loop.
That’s where we get the name for the Rainbow Room, named after this Project Rainbow. The rainbow represents the full spectrum of visible light, and the goals of the project to bend said light into portals and eventually time travel wormholes.
Implications?:
-Well, first of all it seems very obvious by this point that we are going for a time travel plot line, and this is how it will be achieved.
-Will is heavily connected to light in general, the sun, and of course… the rainbow. He is also implied be the one involved in the time travel plot line. This will be very relevant going forward and deserves it’s own post. Potential funniness of defeating Vecna with the power of the rainbow afoot.
-Coma patients are known to have odd, barely detectable brain waves. The kids will be able to communicate with Max in her coma using the electromagnetic spectrum somehow, probably through the radio waves.
-On the farthest end of the spectrum, we have ionizing gamma ray radiation, which is known to cause cancer in humans. Expect Hopper’s daughter Sara to connect to this plot line (and perhaps Sam Owens’ dead son). There is a whole theory on this site already called radiationgate. I have not managed to look into it yet but I think they are probably onto something there. The original al pitch mentions the UD leakage into the real world causing cancer as well.
#stranger things#dr brenner#will byers#max mayfield#byler#<- fuck it intended audience#el hopper#st theory#electromagnetismgate#:)#tagging them for the exposure cause idk who is going to see this#time travel
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Stranger Things 4 is themed around A Nightmare on Elm Street -- Vecna is a child-killer-turned-demon who murders teenagers from within their own minds; his heavily scarred skin and clawed hand resemble that of Freddy Krueger; and the actor who played Freddy himself plays his father.
I think Stranger Things 5 is gearing up to do something similar with The Terminator. Linda Hamilton (Sarah Connor) is the upcoming guest star this season; Vecna's exposed skull and vine-covered neck resembles the T-800--
--and Will's speech at the end of S4 bears striking similarities to Kyle Reece's famous "it can't be reasoned with" speech.
If Vecna is the T-800... then the Mind Flayer is the perfect candidate for Skynet.
[And Hawkins National Laboratory is Cyberdyne Systems -- a military-funded lab that meddled with phenomena beyond its ability to control and paved the way for a sinister hive mind to enter the world.]
I'm pretty sure that the Mind Flayer lies at the heart of whatever timey-wimey stuff is going on. It's suspiciously linked to timeline inconsistencies -- Will is already able to sense it in his neck before his possession in S2, and young Henry in TFS is haunted by the spider monster he wasn't supposed to create for another 20 years.
I've already written a theory on how a causal loop could tie Will and Henry to the Mind Flayer -- whatever's going on is probably more complicated than this, since my theory doesn't explain why the Upside Down is frozen -- but it's worth a read, I think, as it's the same type of time paradox as the one in Terminator and could easily be at the core of ST's time shenanigans.
Will is Kyle Reece or Sarah Connor -- so does that mean he's going to be a gun-toting badass?
No.
This scene is Will coming full circle from that moment in the shed at the start of S1: backed into a corner and forced to resort to violence because he sees no other way out. He doesn't want to kill the monster; he has to.
But the difference is that he's not cornered anymore.
This time around, Will knows his enemy, and he has supportive friends and family at his side. He's just so beaten down -- by Vecna, by Hawkins, by perceived rejections from Mike -- that he's lost all confidence in his ability to stand up for himself on his own terms.
I know it seems at first glance that Will advocates the use of violence in desperate times, but consider the context of the episode in which the above scene appears:
Joyce is reminiscing about her missing son while dealing with Lonnie telling her what to do and feel about it. Shortly after, she realizes how manipulative he's being and permanently kicks him out of her life (and the show lol) -- no violence necessary.
Will's advice hadn't been about the value of violence, but about the value of refusing to play by abusers' rules -- a key lesson in Stranger Things, as we've been watching El learn it the hard way over the course of four seasons.
Will cannot self-actualize by "finally" pulling the trigger on an approach that symbolizes his homophobic father's macho expectations. S5 is going to be about him regaining his self-confidence and allowing his authentic, gentle nature to guide him to the real solution.
So, to return to the "he's not gonna stop" speech: the theme at play here is inevitability, and it's one of the central themes of The Terminator -- not simply because the titular assassin is unstoppable, but because of the love story that drives the plot:
If Skynet hadn't sent the T-800 back in time to kill Sarah Connor before she could give birth to the leader of the human resistance, then Kyle would have had no reason to go back in time and end up unknowingly fathering John.
No matter how hard Skynet tried to snuff John Connor out of existence, the rebellious love that created him was just as inevitable as the T-800.
This, I think, is the message at the heart of both Terminator and Stranger Things, and is the reason why The Terminator would be the perfect choice for S5's theme movie:
Sometimes the horrors wrought by humanity are inescapable...
...but so too is the hopeful human drive to love each other and overcome them.
Read Brenner's role in creating Vecna as a metaphor for homophobic Reagan-era fear-mongering and it all clicks into place, I think.
#terminator#stranger things#time travel#byler#will byers#henry creel#mind flayer#my analysis#tfs spoilers
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STOP IF WILL IS WITH MIKE AND EL AT THE RADIO STATION PLACE AND THE STRANGER THINGS BROADCAST CHANNEL POSTED BOOKS ABOUT ELECTRICITY AND LIGHTS AND RADIOS WHICH I WROTE IN A POST ABOUT HERE AND ONE OF THE BUILDINGS THEY’RE FILMING AT IS CALLED 5000 WATTS OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT WHICH HAS TO DO WITH LIGHTING AND WILL WAS ABLE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO COMMUNICATE FROM THE UPSIDE DOWN WITH LIGHTS AND GOING BACK TO S2 THEY USED THE RADIO TO PLAY MUSIC TO COMMUNICATE WITH WILL AND WE KNOW MUSIC PLAYS A BIG ROLE IN BEING PROTECTED BY VECNA AND EL CAN ALSO COMMUNICATE WITH RADIO FREQUENCIES AND SOMEHOW ALL THIS TIES INTO MIKE BEING THERE TO SAVE WILL ONCE AGAIN AND THAT LEADS TO BYLER ENDGAME
#MY BRAIN IS MOVING SO FAST I DONT HAVE A COHESIVE THOUGHT BUT SO MUCH IS GOING THROUGH MY MIND#ALSO THIS SOMEHOW HAS TO DO WITH TIME TRAVEL ?? I THINK IVE WROTE ABOUT IT B4 HOW ELECTRICITY RELATES TO TIME TRAVEL BC OF BTTF PARALLELS#AND NANCYS CHEMISTRY CARDS!! ELECTRONS AND THE CONNECTION WITH ELECTRICITY#STEVE TALKING ABOUT ELECTRICITY BETWEEN PPL#DUSTIN SAYING HE SAW THE SPARK BETWEEN LUCAS AND MAX#THE LIGHTNING BOLTS WHEN MIKE IS GIVING HIS MONOLOGUE#THE LIGHT FLICKER WHEN WILL LEAVES MIKES HOUSE#byler#stranger things#flickergate#stranger things theory#stranger things theories
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I accidentally clicked the last page of stranger things fics and found this (look at date)
Who gave Mike Wheeler a computer lol.
#byler#mike wheeler#bylers are time travelers confirmed#give me your powers bylers#will byers#stranger things
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VERY convenient that season one Will was styled similarly to Marty Mcfly, Danny from The Shining AND David from An American Werewolf in London
#when you have a bowlcut and magic powers and can time travel and cursed by dark magic and are werewolf coded#and gay#will byers#will byers has powers#stranger things#byler#<- target audience
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I do believe theories I don't personally like could have a basis to be true when I genuinely think there could be something logical about them
I don't like the idea of "birthdaygate" at all but I think there could be something weird going on with all the birthday references
I don't like involving time travel unless it's a "time loop that was always happening" thing but I think the clock imagery and the framing of him moving the clock and the time travel references are suspicious
I don't like Karen being involved or the Wheelers and Creels being connected but there could be something going on there too
the theories I like are
Will having creation powers and Vecna attacking them in a mindfuck way with a metaphorical labyrinth where they all have to confront their trauma and then them working together against the upside down
byler being alone in the UD for a period of time where they open up to each other
and I also kinda like the idea of Jonathan dying and the story continuing a few years after that and then all of them fighting to avenge him and end this shit once and for all
Realistically they can't ALL happen and they could even not happen at all lmao
#birthdaygate#will byers#byler#mike wheeler#stranger things#st5 speculation#karen creel#karen wheeler#karen the lost sister#henry creel#vecna#st time travel#st time loop#will byers has powers#st5 jon#jonathan byers#recoverypointgate
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so so excited to share my fic for @bylerbigbang 2023 in collab with the outstanding @fruity-er-things
a swing set stuck in amber
On the first day of kindergarten, Mike meets Will on the swing sets and asks him to be his friend - except, this Will is an old man. A White-haired, reading-glass-wearing Will who then vanishes after “I’d like that very much, Mike” with no hint of how he’d known Mike’s name.
What follows is Mike, living his life in the right order, thank you, visited by Will’s of past and future. It’s a fun little secret, just the two of them, and Mike doesn’t mind that Will, his Will, never wants to talk about it. Until he does.
Because Mike? Well, Mike never really wondered why Will visited him and only him. Why they were tethered together. And once he starts to wonder, it could either unravel everything, or—
(Time Traveler’s Wife AU.)
#bbb2023#byler#time travelers wife#thanks to everyone who made this so fun <3#such a supportive little community
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They are so mad 😂 of course people are going to see this and think time travel it's common sense 🙄
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I was thinking that the Duffers might post Will bts on the 22nd of March? Cause some writer said that they will post pictures of him in the weeks to come but they couldn't yet cause it would be a big spoiler... and considering that supposedly they completely forgot Will's birthday was March 22 (but we all know its not true) it could be another sign of time travel in season 5??? Also maybe Will confronts Mike or El about forgetting his birthday?? Idk if that makes sense but yeah :p
#byler#byler theories#time travel#stranger things 5#stranger things#will byers#mike wheeler#byler endgame#anti milkvan
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Your recent post about electromagnetism was great, but I want to know your theories on how time travel will play into the plot of season 5. I hope they won't use time travel to "fix the past" and rewrite the timeline (although I doubt that will happen).
Oh man I have so many thoughts. This is a whole can of worms to open up (which I will be doing eventually). But yes I agree with you 100%, I don’t think it will end in them rewriting the timeline. Or if they do, it will be through a creation of a new one and all of the characters will still be able to retain their previous memories. There still needs to be lasting consequences for every action, and the impacts of each characters’ decisions plus the entire story should stay with them.
Right now the main pet project that I’ve been working on gradually is something I’ve been calling the “play theory” (kind of a shit title); basically that Melvin is what’s dooming the narrative and causing the main characters to be trapped inside of a time loop. I’ll explain it condensed here but the post I have cooking is already 6 pages at least.
It first came from that whole Melvin “star-crossed lovers” “Romeo and Juliet” thing, and lines within the TFS play that is… also inspired itself by another “star-crossed doomed” lovers play. There are so many weird meta layers to it all.
There’s multiple 4th wall breaks in TFS where Henry tries to escape the theatre and seems to be aware he is performing on a stage. There’s also a very pointed dialogue which is where I finally started making this into a fully fledged theory:
“It’s a sad song, I like the gay ones best”.
“It doesn’t have to be sad, you never know the ending until it’s sung all the way through”.
“Then let’s make it a gay one”.
“Sing your own ending”.
And what a weird theme to choose, because the answer “in the play” is actually no, it can’t. TFS is a sad song, a continuation of the time loop. A play. But that surely won’t be the case for Stranger Things, because we’ve been told that Will’s superpower is his heart and he gets a happy ending.
As Mike performs his “love” for the audience, the name Montague (for Romeo Montague) appears behind him.
Basically, the characters are conforming to the pre-written roles they have already been assigned to (by society) and are forced to enact, and re-enact, a tragedy of two doomed lovers. The curtain on a play closes but the next night the story begins all over again, to a new audience, always with the same ending. Like a time loop. Like a never ending story.
Mike’s decision to keep playing the role of Romeo to El’s Juliet will result in Will beginning the time loop. So Will starts the time loop, and I expect Mike will be the one to finally break them out of it.
#asks#byler#anti milkvan#will byers#mike wheeler#time travel#play theory#thank u for sending an ask <3
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There upon a rainbow is the answer to a Neverending Story: Will's time-travelling coming-of-age
[Spoilers for The First Shadow ahead, though they don't begin until after the cut. And obligatory disclaimer that I haven't seen the play for myself yet.]
Will Byers is a character haunted by his past.
I mean, obviously, right? After the awful events of S1, Zombie Boy finds himself getting literally hunted down by a giant metaphor for trauma; by S3, when all his friends are starting to grow up, Will is still clinging pathetically to childhood escapism while that trauma metaphor continues to bristle under his skin.
That's not to say that Will's refusal to conform to other people's ideas of what growing up means isn't one of his strengths -- but there's a difference between that and refusing to grow up at all, and Will is very much digging his stubborn little heels in when it comes to the inevitable changes of adolescence.
Because Will is also a character haunted by his future.
As a gay boy growing up in an era that despises gay men, Will's fate has been quite clearly spelled out for him: if he's lucky, he'll just be looked down upon as a pervert; if he's not, he'll get murdered or become an AIDS statistic.
It's hard not to be a late bloomer when you know how quickly undesirable flowers get pruned.
So the prickling at the back of his neck doesn't just flare up in moments that remind him of his past, but also in moments that remind him of his future.
The dark intimacy of the cinema and the sweltering eroticism of the sauna remind him that his feelings for Mike are developing into something new and terrifying...
...while Milevn's heteronormative antics remind him of how unlikely it is that Mike would ever want that sort of future with him anyway.
Even his debriefing on the Mind Flayer's return hints towards his struggle to accept this truth about himself:
Will describes his encounters with the Mind Flayer as like being frozen in place, and I think that applies to his timeline too: the Shadow surrounds him on both sides, boxing him in, preventing him from moving forward or backward.
The only temporal direction open to him is sideways... towards that equally frozen realm the Shadow came from in the first place.
And he's not the only one in this predicament.
-------------------
Like Will, Henry was trapped in an alternate dimension as a child, and like Will, the Mind Flayer followed him home and possessed him -- allowing past and future to torment his adolescent self in tandem.
Brenner pressures and manipulates young Henry to give in to the dark urges demanded by the Shadow, sending him helplessly down the path towards becoming Vecna.
It's the classic self-fulfilling prophecy that dooms many a "difficult" (traumatized/neurodivergent/queer) child whom the adults in their life have no idea how to handle: Henry is deemed too broken to be worth treating with patience or compassion, and when the abuse finally does break him... well, that's just proof they were right about him all along.
The Shadow possessing Henry in 1959 somehow presents not as a formless cloud of particles, but as the spider monster he himself would shape twenty years later...
...and I think this is evidence of a predestination loop.
El didn't just banish Henry to Dimension X, but sent him back in time, allowing him to create the same monster that possessed him as a child. The Shadow was never an alien -- it was a manifestation of Henry's worst possible future, bootstrapped into existence by Brenner's meddling.
Note that this means El is also trapped in a self-creating loop:
If El hadn't used her powers to send Henry to Dimension X, then he never would have been able to sabotage his own childhood... which means Henry might never have become an asset to Brenner, which means Terry would never have been injected with Henry's blood, which means El would never have been born with powers.
To be clear: I'm not saying that El or Henry brought this on themselves.
This is all an allegory for the cycle of abuse, so the self-sabotage going on here isn't about these characters literally being to blame for what Brenner did to them, but about how they self-blame: internalizing the abuse and perpetuating harm in turn.
Let's return to Will and consider one of the show's biggest mysteries: why was he taken in S1?
The play heavily implies that Henry's powers were acquired in Dimension X, and outright states that the lab kids' powers came from Henry's blood, so it's unlikely that Will was born with powers.
Maybe Will was just in the wrong place at the wrong time... but then why was it so important that this random kid be spared from Vecna's plans to kill everyone in S2? Perhaps something happened during his week in the Upside Down that made him an asset to Vecna... but given the similarities between Will's connection to the Mind Flayer and Henry's, I propose an alternative explanation:
Whatever made Will a target in S1 is something that won't happen until S5. Because Will is also trapped in a predestination loop.
If predestination loops are what happens when a self-sabotager is linked to the supernatural, then frankly it's almost impossible for Will not to be trapped in one.
Every season since returning from the Upside Down, Will has sacrificed himself to help his friends fight the horrors... and all three of those sacrifices have been deeply entwined with his feelings for Mike.
In S2, Will was willing to die to save his friends from the Mind Flayer after Mike's heartfelt monologue broke through his possession.
In S3, Will bottled up all the pain he was feeling after his fight with Mike and refused to address it again once he realized the party was going to need his help with the Mind Flayer.
And in S4, Will pretended that his painting was actually from El in an attempt to support Mike -- and save the day once it started to look like a S2-esque monologue from Mike was needed once again.
Over and over, Will takes the love he feels for another boy and channels it into The Greater Heteronormative Good as though he's trying to atone for something. But the older he gets, the less effective that becomes:
S2's sacrifice was crucial to saving the day.
S3's sacrifice was helpful... but like... his role was to be a glorified Geiger counter; he didn't exactly need to shut down emotionally to pull it off.
S4's sacrifice did fuck all to save the day, and he definitely didn't need to meddle with Milevn's relationship by injecting a lie into it -- the painting could have passed as platonic if he wanted.
If this pattern holds, then we can expect Will's next move to start causing harm.
I usually interpret Troy's above line as Vecna foreshadowing... but what if it's actually foreshadowing how Will's nearly-adult self is going to start the chain of events that lead to 12 year-old Will's kidnapping?
Homophobes often accuse gay men of being a threat to children, which is rich because homophobia is the actual threat to children. In his desperate efforts to suppress the desires that make him a target to homophobes, all Will has accomplished is to hurt himself on homophobes' behalf. He's become a homophobe.
And thus he dooms an innocent child to needless horrors.
It's tempting to believe that Will's S5 coming-of-age is going to involve breaking the loop and undoing all the horrible things that happened...
...But I don't think this is likely to be the sort of time travel story in which the past can be undone. For one thing, Will breaking the loop would also undo the entirety of Stranger Things; for another, this show isn't really about defeating abuse so much as surviving it.
My bet would be that Will can't destroy the loop any more than he can destroy 80s homophobia. But once the loop completes, he'll also be free to leave it in the past and take a brave step into the future -- one in which he fully accepts his right to be in love and lust with a boy.
As scary as that future is...
...he might be pleasantly surprised by what he finds there.
#stranger things#the first shadow#time travel#byler#will byers#henry creel#el hopper#mike wheeler#mind flayer#my analysis#tfs spoilers
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really have nothing to add to the current conversation about the new set photos except will and mike being in the upside down together is what dreams are made of. god bless and have a great day
#literally nothing of the set photos really proves it but delusion is the solulu or whatever the mantra is#I WANT MY WILL BYERS AND MIKE WHEELER IN THE UPSIDE DOWN SCENES TO HAPPEN!!#it fits into my time travel theory and that’s what i care about… byler AND time travel#byler#mike wheeler#will byers#stranger things
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