#i am a will byers has powers and is the main character truther!

[willow-lark]

Whats your crack theory for season 5?

oooh idk! i love every single -gate that the byler fandom has come up with, and my favorite one of those, which is also the crackiest, is mikhailgate. i think it's hilarious.

but honestly, my fav theory for s5, though it's slightly less cracky, is that will is 012! for me, s4, while it indicated that will and vecna have some connection currently unknown to us viewers, for me it also seemed to kill the canonical possibility of him having powers outside of his true sight. HOWEVER i have been a will-has-powers truther since DAY ONE and have recently hopped back on the 012 will theory train. i know i've reblogged at least one post about it recently... but like?? idk how it would work in canon (since presumably joyce would have known at least a bit about it? why wouldn't will remember being in the lab?) but maybe will was like a part-timer at the lab and wasn't there all the time and either survived or was absent during the massacre. and then maybe afterwards they brought him in and put a chip in his neck to suppress his powers? it would help explain why henry targeted him/why he was hunted all the way from the wheelers' house to his own in s1. maybe in the lab henry started to groom him, too? it makes sense that he might want to have more than one kid under his influence as insurance in case anything went wrong. ALSO this feeds into the willel twins agenda which i am ALWAYS here for. anyways all i know is will byers main character s5!! i cannot WAIT for his moment to shine. pls tell me other people are on board w the will is 012 agenda bc i am sucked in.

sorry for the rant but thanks for the message, anon!! i could talk about will byers for DAYS

[mlchaelwheeler]

Why Will Byers is the answer to everything (and the key to vol. 2)

After making a post yesterday about why I think Vecna was the one stalking Will in 1x01, I was reading into some other posts about why this is relevant now, given what we know from S4V1, and how that could affect how S4V2 goes down. I'm going to be exploring the possibility of Will having powers, mirroring Henry Creel (Vecna), and having been watched by Vecna since he was taken in 1x01. This is probably going to get pretty long, so buckle up brochachos!

So, I already explained this in my post yesterday, but I'll reiterate it here for those who didn't see it. When Will leaves Mike's house after the campaign where the demogorgan gets him, the garage lights flicker. It's important to note here that only the garage lights (and the light on Will's bike) flicker, not the rest of the house. While there was a power outage that same night (when El opened the gate, making contact with the demogorgan), Mike's house is on the opposite side of town and wouldn't be affected by the blackout (pointed out by @willel).

Now, on his way home, Will runs into a shadowy figure on the road--I believe this is in fact the demogorgan. You can hear it growl (a sound unique to it that Vecna doesn't display) and it is within the demogorgan's hunting ground, as it would've just escaped from the lab and into the woods. Seconds earlier, you can see Will bike past the HNL fence. However, this begs the question of why the lights were flickering at Mike's house? In stranger things, flickering lights are associated with supernatural creatures or psychic powers. No one was using powers at Mike's house, so it must've been a supernatural presence, not the demogorgan bc it would've just escaped from the lab, which points toward it being Vecna.

Before we get into why Vecna would be stalking Will in the first place, let's quick go over more evidence of why it was Vecna, in case anyone is still doubting my theory. Once Will gets home, he immediately calls for his family, but once he realizes he's home alone, he immediately calls 911, only to hear something growling back at him. As far as I know, demogorgans are only foot soldiers for the upside down and don't possess any sort of powers. Now, I know that in the show characters claim that the demogorgans are capable of opening gates, like the one in the tree Nancy enters. However, I'd like to think that it's actually Vecna who's opening these gates, making it easier for the upside down to infiltrate the normal dimension. If demogorgans can open gates, why did it have to wait for El to open the gate in 1983? And why wouldn't the demogorgan in Russia have escaped by now? But I digress.

When else do we see phones or radios being messed with in relation to the upside down? Think back to the multiple times El has used radio static to find people in the void. Radio static has been associated with psychic powers. We know Vecna has very strong powers, but the demogorgan does not. It would make sense that Vecna was the one messing with Will's phone here. It's also brought up a lot that Will's front door is unlocked and opened using telekinesis. Besides this scene, there's been no indication the demogorgan has powers--but Vecna does! Hence, it was almost certainly Vecna who was stalking (and kidnapped) Will.

So why does Vecna want Will specifically in the first place? Based on what we know from st4v1, Vecna had an unhappy childhood, killed his family, was taken by Brenner, then tested until he was given Soteria to weaken his powers so he could be easily controlled. He spends years in the lab as Peter, biding his time to get back at Brenner. However, he seems to take a liking to El, and before he tries killing her, he attempts to convince her to join him. She says no and banishes him to the red void--his mindscape?

Now why did Vecna wait 7 years before he started killing people again? It's likely that being banished to his mindscape drained him, forcing him to bide his time until he could regain enough strength to get back to the normal world. It's likely that he either needs to absorb enough energy (from people's fear right before he kills them, a parallel to Pennywise from IT) or absorb someone's powers to escape the mindscape.

Since he was banished in 1979, Vecna has most likely been on the lookout for someone with powers (not El, because last time went so poorly, and not Kali because she's "out of range") to target, in an attempt to get his full powers back. So when he senses Will, Vecna goes out himself to snatch him, bringing a demogorgan for backup. Once he catches Will in the shed, the light becomes blinding before suddenly going back to normal, with Will gone. If that has been the demogorgan, Will most likely would've immediately been eaten. However, @willel pointed out that the light in the shed lights up similarly to how the flashlights stay blindingly bright in the Creel house. This points to it being Vecna.

It's also interesting to note that the upside down is stuck on time at November 6, 1983, the night Will went missing. Who do we know of that has time manipulation powers? Vecna. I think that the first time Vecna majorly used his powers (since being banished to the mindscape) caused time to freeze. It's really the only explanation I can think of as to why this occurred. The night Will disappeared was obviously the start of all this, and it seems to be leading back to Vecna.

Furthermore, Will is able to escape his capture and hides in Castle Byers for nearly a week. The whole time, he's singing "Should I Stay Or Should I Go," which is brought up multiple times throughout S1. There's even a flashback to show how meaningful the song is to Will. Mike mentions that Will is "always singing that weird song he loves," and when El finds Will in the void, he's humming his song. Who do we know that's deterred by favorite music and happy memories? Oh right, that's Vecna.

During his time in the upside down, Will is resourceful! He uses lights multiple times to talk to Joyce, like "one blink for yes," the alphabet wall, and the circle of lamps in his bedroom. Now, I know that S4V1 expanded on this lore and showed how to communicate with lights from the upside down, but this actually just raises more questions for me. How likely really is it that Will was able to reach the christmas lights? The alphabet wall wouldn't have even been there if the upside down was frozen the night he went missing. Also, there's no way he would've been able to turn on those lamps in the circle so quickly.

This points back to Will having powers. He seems to be more resourceful when in the upside down than other characters, and is the only one to have survived more than a few hours alone. Even when he's eventually caught, why isn't he immediately killed like the other victims? Instead, he's brought to the library and a vine begins to suck the life force out of him. Why? We've seen that vines feed Vecna's powers, and likely recharge him. Is it that much of a stretch to say that Vecna was using the vine in Will to transfer powers, making Vecna stronger? The mindflayer does a similar thing in S3 with El, as biting her absorbs her powers, rendering her powerless.

Once Will is saved, he attempts to readjust to normal life, but is unable to stop seeing the upside down. His friends say he has "true sight," but what if that's not the case? Vecna could be giving him visions, attempting to weaken his resolve so he can be targeted again. In S2, we even see Will with his eyes closed multiple times, looking like how the tranced people did in S4V1.

Perhaps what Vecna really wants is a vessel in the real world? Even Jason said that the devil needs a vessel, so this could be foreshadowing to Vecna wanting to weaken Will enough to possess him fully. We saw kind of what that would be like in S2 with the mindflayer, but Will was still strong enough to fight back.

However, now, Vecna has been biding his time, waiting for Will to be as weak as possible. He's been alienated at every turn: ignored by his friends all summer, perpetually connected to an evil dimension, abused at home and at school, and now, his whole family and best friend (crush) forgot his birthday. Will is at his most vulnerable right now, so I believe the minute he arrives to Hawkins, Vecna will be taking full advantage of this.

Will is the perfect vessel for Vecna. Through flashbacks, they've been shown to parallel each other: called "sensitive" by their mothers, enjoy drawing as an escape, made to feel different from the rest of the world, and even dress the same. Both feel like they don't belong, and since El didn't work out, Vecna wants Will.

If you made it to the end, congrats, that was long. Hopefully it kind of made sense! This is where I think S4V2 could be heading, and Will is my favorite, so obviously I want him to have a bigger role moving forward lol