#El goes back in time

[will80sbyers]

I have so many different theories for s5 and they all contradict each other obviously as they should lol

[messrsbyler]

someone please flirt with Will Byers in next season in front of Mike because first of all how can you not when he is adorable? and second of all, because i believe in jealous Mike Wheeler supremacy and i need it

[cowboysorceror]

I am goddamn begging for the selkie AU lore holy shit. There’s SO much potential there. KONS JACKET SPECIFICALLY BEING TORN AS SHIT??? 👀👀👀

OKAY SO it's still percolating it's still cooking & @mamawasatesttube is responsible for a lot of it BUT as for Kon specifically... man... obviously Cadmus (and later Lex) have his coat in the early days. but he doesn't actually even really KNOW how messed up that is bc he's a kid and no one told him!!! he doesn't understand that that's his basic personhood and it belongs to him. he knows almost nothing about his selkie heritage or what it means, and so he doesn't know why he feels miserable and discontent and can't stay away for very long and is just kind of sickly ☹️ and ofc when Clark eventually realizes what's going on he is capital H Horrified and immediately tries to help him get it back. but it's a process and it's a very bitter and traumatic thing for Kon to realize how deeply he was being manipulated (very analogous to canon in that regard).

and for Kon's jacket being a bit patchwork - selkie coats are essentially an outwards extension of the soul! they're very unique and personally individualized, and can be both altered and damaged by painful relationships with that part of their identity (or just physical trauma). some of the threadwork on Kon's jacket is work done to repair damage from the neglect/abuse of his coat by Cadmus, and some of it is Kon trying to make it his own! Selkie coats are magical which makes them somewhat fluid :)

[chirpsythismorning]

Mike low-key fuming here bc Will was a little too quick to turn down going to see a movie

[bylertruther]

byler + santa clarita diet au where will is sheila and mike is joel. you nod and clap and agree because you know that it fucks severely and fits them perfectly, yes

summary for the uninitiated:

[brionysea]

mike could've easily been the bad guy in season 1 if they'd framed the exact same events a little differently so let's all remember that storytelling is a matter of perspective and trickery. that's why they call it an unreliable narrator

[kylejsugarman]

i wish i could read a discussion or post about the weird, subtly terrifying way that todd interacts with jesse during his captivity that doesnt include a homophobic joke about or grossly "punishing" depiction of todd sexually assaulting jesse

[juniemunie]

Glad to see I was not the only one that thought of the PiB Death the Wolf and LoL Kindred connection, but for me it was backwards.

Death as he is now is the Grey Man or Grey Wolf in this case, when he was about to leave after the battle in the Wishing Star, Puss, after seeing the loneliness in his eyes and comprehending the weight of Death's duty, gave him the wish. Death wished a companion to be by his side so he "would always have a friend" until the end of all.

The star grants his wish in the form of a short sword and when Death catched his reflection on the blade he saw his face split in two different aspects but still forming a whole, he new what he had to do.

And so right there in the presence of 7 mortals Death split himself "right down the middle". Death became two. Two wolves rose, one with dark fur and a white mark on his forehead with a smile full of sharp teeth, and the other with pale fur black mark an his forehead and calm calculating eyes who would later change her shape into a lamb to suit her new nature.

Thats a really cool AU! I definitely like the idea of the wish being used by Death...

TW/CW: blood

Mine is..uh. well it starts completely backwards opposite.....?

Basically somehow, at some point, Lamb and Wolf merge back together, and by complete chance Wolf is the one who ends up 'surviving' the merge.

He ends up being Wolf and having Lamb's physical body, grace, and her logical side, but she's just straight up gone. He's as you put it, Grey Wolf now.

I've got two versions of this AU, one where you can imagine Wolf just somehow ends up in this physical form and everything is fine and dandy for my indulgent moments,

..but this whole story is the real version of this AU i think. Anything that depicts Lamb talking or interacting with Wolf and dressing like she matches his current outfit is nothing more than hallucinations he has to cope

[devotedlystrangewizard]

WELL YOU DIDNT SAY THIS THE FIRST TIME I CAME HERE????

[hiddenbeks]

more than a month after my previous kotor update i am happy to announce that i have finally met jolee and had him join me <3

[snowangeldotmp3]

an unsent letter from el

hi :) i bring even more letters. except this time it's an unsent letter! this is actually the shortest letter (only about 300 words) because timeline wise this letter would be written like, right before mike comes to california.

Max,

You were right about California, it is very sunny here. Especially in the spring time.

I am making lots of friends, but they are not as fun as you. They do not like comics and they do not like skateboarding, either. They like to roller-skate at a place called Rink-O-Mania. It’s fun, but it is nothing like skateboarding.

Have you ever been roller-skating? I know it is not something that was popular in Hawkins, but I think it is something you would like. They even have arcade games here, but I doubt anyone here is as good as you are at them.

How is school for you? What is Hawkins High like? I know English was your favorite class before, has it changed? Do you like your classes? I think mine could be better, but Lenora Hills is still a nice school. I really like learning!

I wish we could have gone to school together. I think it would have been fun! Imagine if we had the same classes together, we could hang out all the time! It will be just like the summer time, when we could hang out and read Wonder Woman and watch movies and play spin the bottle. Like old times, good times.

How are you, by the way? I know it has been a while since we last talked, but I hope you are doing better, and that you are happier now. The last letter you sent me sounded like you were between real and fake happy, and I know it has been a few months, but I am hoping that things are better for you. I wish I was there to give you a hug. And we could watch movies and laugh about boys and maybe then you could be real happy.

I have to go soon, Joyce makes us do something now called ‘Family Night’ where we play board games and watch TV shows. This letter should arrive just in time for spring break. Are you planning on doing anything fun for spring break? Maybe for the summer I could come back to Hawkins for a week, and we can hang out, like old times.

Say ‘Hi’ to the boys and Nancy for me!

I miss you, Max. I hope to hear from you soon. Write me back?

Love, El.

[invinciblerodent]

we're missing Liam Kosta in this club viciously tonight friends

[eskawrites]

ALSO speaking of AUs it’s halloween weekend so i’m contractually obligated to think about night in the woods idek how niche this is but i’m writing it out anyway bc i’m suddenly obsessed okay

NitW au where Nancy is Mae and Robin is Bea

Nancy finally gets out of Hawkins and goes to college, where she quickly finds out that she can’t for the life of her move on from her trauma

Nancy, who is haunted by what happened to Barb. everyone knows she was there the night Barb died. there are whispers that she did it. the only reason no one says anything is because her family is nice, and it’s a small town. people don’t say those kinds of things to your face

Nancy who is angry, and hurt, and lonely, and scared, and so, so, so lost. And she can’t keep it together anymore. She has a breakdown at school. She drops out and drives all the way back to Hawkins, alone

Meanwhile, Robin has always wanted to get the hell out of Hawkins. She did everything right: good grades, extracurriculars, worked as much as possible to save up money. But then her mom died, and her dad is no help at all, and she gets stuck working a dead end job in a dead end town for the rest of her dead end life

Robin who tries to be polite when she sees Nancy again, but mostly she’s just tired. She looks at Nancy and all she sees is the girl who had everything she ever dreamed of, then just threw it all away

Nancy trying to adjust to life back home. What has changed and what never will. the guy who owned the diner died. there’s a new grocery store out by the highway. a few people have moved. most of them have stayed.

She learns that Jonathan and his little brother disappeared one night, finally running away like they always said they would. Neither of them have been in contact with anyone since.

cue weird shit starting to happen in Hawkins. kids go missing. Nancy sees something she’s not supposed to on Halloween. 

she starts investigating, and she drags her friends into it, too--Steve volunteering, Eddie going where Steve goes, and Robin tagging along because she has nothing else to do in this shitty town

the kids are there too! Max as Lori, just a lost, lonely, vaguely angry teenager who clings to Nancy the instant Nancy turns out to be nice to her

Dustin as Germ, just a weird, lovable guy who’s been hanging out around Steve and Eddie lately. somehow the only vaguely well-adjusted person in town

something-something the Upside Down instead of a weird cult, and no one in town is listening to them as they keep investigating

Nancy having horrible nightmares and gradually deteriorating as she gets closer and closer to uncovering the truth

Reconnecting with Steve, the only one who seems genuinely excited to see her. Building a friendship with Eddie.

Slowly breaking through Robin’s walls after Robin seems to effortlessly knock down hers. Between getting trashed at a party in the woods and sitting quietly together in a graveyard, they’re reminded of all the reasons why they fell apart, and all the reasons why it’s so easy to come back together again

(idk man, the ‘is this just proximity?’ conversation lives rent free in my mind. and give me messed up Nancy, traumatized Nancy, sometimes completely unhinged Nancy next to a world-weary Robin who eventually learns to bask in all the love and care and passion--good and bad--that Nancy puts into the world)

Robin running away from a party in the city. Nancy sprinting through the rain, panicked, trying to find her again.

Robin losing her mind when Nancy gets hurt; Robin becoming clingy and tender and not letting Nancy out of her sight after that

i’m gonna go replay nitw and think about this now, byeee

[elwolfen]

🐱

[chirpsythismorning]

a little nervous here bc while there are sus clues in the show that could be telling us abt willel being biological twins, there's also some stuff that could hint at mike and el being related too..☠️with all the strange creel x wheeler similarities and theories abt henry possibly being el's biological father.☠️ the latter is less luckily imo and personally i don't like the theory of willel being biological siblings very much either but i cant deny there's something really sus going on

Henry is definitely NOT El’s biological father, nor Will's. So you don't have to worry about that being a possibility. And so even if the Wheelers ended up being related to the Creels somehow, El nor Will are related to Henry by blood.

Joyce is 100% Will’s mom, and so because of all the twin imagery being associated with Will and El, I’m fairly confident that means Joyce has gotta be El’s mom too.

My theory relies on time trickery/false memories/memory stealing in general, which is why Joyce and Hopper don't know Will/El are their biological twins.

But also just to be clear, in 1959, Henry was 12 and Joyce and Hopper were 17… So yeah, he’s not El nor Will's dad.

I also think the play The First Shadow being added to canon as a prequel of sorts, supports this theory. The fact that it's set in 1959, and is going to focus on young Joyce and Hopper, dealing with 'the shadows of the past'...

It's likely that once Henry 'figured out' that he could turn back the clock (important to note that the clock in the Creel house little Henry watched turn back, was on the same time as the clock in Hawkins Lab...), then it would make A LOT of sense for him to go back to 1959, a time when Joyce and Hopper were together, to ensure they still had Jon/Will/El, but to change the events surrounding it so that they would essentially have no idea.

It's very much giving Back to the Future Part II, where Biff goes back to the past and messes up the trajectory of the future timeline, leading to George McFly dying, essentially leaving the kids with an absolute shit stain of a father whose not actually their father, aka Lonnie...

I'm still not certain about how it would all work and that's bc the implications of time trickery complicate things, making it near impossible to navigate. Not only are we dealing with turning back the clock, we're also potentially dealing with time-loops, where time could be getting turned back over and over and over again, without the character's knowledge that they've done this before.

And so if this is their 5th, 6th, 7th, or thousandth time going through this, they apparently aren't aware of it (at least not fully), which means their understanding of their past/present is pretty shaky as it is.

Though tbh I think where I get most confused about how all of this works is when it comes to the Hawkins Lab's stake in what's going on? Do they know about Henry's plans? Do they know there is time trickery going on? Are they playing a big part in orchestrating certain things?

Technically, in s4, Brenner and Owens admitted that they're keeping part of the truth from El. They literally showed her the 'true' events of the lab massacre in 4x07, only to reveal that wasn't even the full truth privately without her around? And so clearly, they know about something that is being hidden from us that we still haven't been clued in on, meaning it's being saved for s5. And so, what is it?

For now I'm not certain about everything, but there's a lot of evidence supporting this as a series long revelation.

And the fact that David Harbour has been saying for years that there are Easter Eggs in s1 that are going to lead to a really beautiful ending, makes it sort of click for me that he was probably talking about this...

[brionysea]

if mike was straight, stranger things would've ended after season 2