S2 hair is superior <3

you bylers are so stupid el isnt will why do you bylers want to make el will shes a girl and shes dating mike get used to it!

If I understood your Ask correctly, I believe that you are referring to the theory that I consider to be the most likely explanation for what is going on in the series: that Stranger Things is about a DID System, that Will is a host in the System, and that El is an alter.

I will attempt to address the questions implied by your Ask one at a time. I know that you might not be especially interested in a longer explanation or response and you were probably just venting and feeling frustrated by some ideas that I've written about on my blog, but I actually really respect some of the questions that you've implied with your statement and I feel like it would be good to talk about them.

To answer the first part of your statement: Yes, I know that El is not Will. And when I discuss the theory that I think that Will is a host in a DID System I still assert that El is very much her own person. But yes, I theorize that she is an alter within the same DID System as Will.

"El is her own person. With her own free will!"

- Nancy Wheeler, Stranger Things 3

When someone has dissociative identity disorder and has alters: each different state of consciousness, or alter, is a very different individual and their own person. Treating them as being "the same person" is incorrect.

I understand that DID is a very complex condition and I respect that it takes time to learn about and understand. I want to acknowledge that I do not see myself as an expert on the topic and I get nervous discussing this theory sometimes because I don't want to misrepresent DID but I also think that, assuming that this theory is correct and that Stranger Things is indeed intended to be about a DID System, as someone watching the series I want to attempt to learn more about DID and the correct terminology and the diversity of experiences that DID Systems have in the real world and to not allow my understanding of DID to be limited to a fictionalized representation of it in a Netflix series. I do my best to learn what I can on my own. (I don’t think it’s appropriate to limit my understanding of a condition that real people experience to what I see portrayed in a scifi horror series on Netflix. There’s already a lot of misrepresentation of DID in the media.)

Now. There are two hypotheticals that I have considered regarding the theory that Stranger Things is about a DID System.

On the one hand there is the theory that Stranger Things is about a DID System whose alters have supernaturally become flesh-and-blood in the external world and that the DID System’s internal worlds have also escaped the mind as well (ex. The Upside Down, “Russia,” etc.) This is the concept that @kaypeace21 's current theory follows: that Will has powers and there are characters with powers in the Stranger Things universe.

On the other hand there is an alternate interpretation, which I sometimes consider to be a possibility, which is that Stranger Things is a story about a DID System written from the perspective of the alters and that what we see in the show is sometimes (but not always) taking place within internal worlds or altered perceptions of the external world, or perhaps certain scenes are not happening in real-time but are memories being recounted by an imaginative writer (each episode is titled as a “Chapter”) in a story format. Characters could be telling a story of “what happened” and looking back in time from the present into the past (perhaps explaining the Back to the Future references and implications.) In this hypothetical there are no supernatural elements, the fantastical scenarios in the story are interpreted as mostly psychological, and each alter in the DID System is portrayed by a different actor because they are being represented as they see themselves in the internal world of the mind and are not portrayed as all looking the same as their body does in the external world. (Yes, this makes things complicated and intended to be interpreted in a less literal manner.)

I do sometimes consider the latter theory: that Stranger Things's supernatural events are psychological in nature and many scenes take place from alters' perspectives or from within internal worlds and are sometimes memories or ideas and not always literal. And since I do consider the possibility that this is the scenario of the story: yes, I do sometimes theorize that the alters are actually sharing one body (just like with real-world DID) in spite of them being creatively represented on screen in the show as being separate characters. So, yes: I have considered the possibility that Will and El share the same body when in the external world but that they are portrayed by different actors in the show to reinforce the concept that they are each unique individuals. I do have an explanation for this alternate interpretation of the series that I can summarize in a different post someday, but I’ll admit there’s still some holes in this interpretation and that it might simply be easiest to assume that everything came to life and is real and that the supernatural elements are actually real within the Stranger Things universe.

But to return to your second point in your Ask: yes, I am in full agreement that El is a girl. Absolutely. El is a young teenage girl.

I haven't explored discussing body dysmorphia and gender identity within the context of dissociative identity disorder on my blog because they are both topics that I do not have a lot of personal experience with plus the way that they are experienced by DID Systems is unique from the way that they are experienced by singular people with only one state of consciousness and identity, but from what I understand alters in DID Systems will often experience varying degrees of body dysmorphia when fronting and some may consider themselves trans but that's entirely dependent on how each alter and DID System chooses to communicate who they are. Since I'm neither multiple nor trans myself, all I feel comfortable saying is: just like any person, an alter has their own sense of who they are and will communicate that to you and it's surely most appropriate to respect what they tell you. When someone tells you who they are and how they prefer that you refer to them: respect what they tell you. Always.

So. To return to your Ask: no, I'm not trying to make El into Will. At all. Alters are different individuals with different experiences and feelings and identities and should be respected as such.

And, as I've mentioned in other posts: I know that this is ultimately just a theory. An educated guess. A hypothesis. I recognize that this interpretation of what is going on in Stranger Things might be incorrect. But I do think that a lot of evidence points to this being the intended concept behind the series.

I personally go back and forth between whether I favor @kaypeace21 's hypothesis that everything became real in the real world and Will has supernatural powers, or whether I think it's all psychological. (But I do tend to share a good majority of her interpretations of the series and many aspects of her theories compared to most of the fandom, I suspect. I think she's got some keen observations that are worth considering.)

For anyone interested in reading more about the general theory that Stranger Things is about a DID System I recommend checking out @kaypeace21​‘s blogpost regarding which characters she theorizes might be alters which is incredibly detailed and thorough, and I recently wrote a very small and much-less detailed blogpost explaining why I think that Chief Jim Hopper (like El) is a gatekeeper alter in the DID System.