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givehimthemedicine · 1 year

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#rainbowshipgate

late March, 1979.

Someone gets off work at Hawkins Lab and stops off at the store on their way home to buy a pack of cigarettes.

"My son drew that," the cashier volunteers, pointing to a crayon drawing taped up by the register.

They smile politely and barely glance at the drawing, but when they do, they double take.

"Your son?" they hold out their hand for the change without looking. "Quite an imagination."

"He's only eight," she beams proudly.

Lighting up a cigarette, they rush the rest of the way home to make an urgent phonecall.

"Does someone wanna tell me how some elementary school kid from town drew a picture of something Top Fucking Secret?"

By April, HNL is surveilling young William Byers, son of the Melvald's cashier. They wiretap, they film, they learn routines, they pose as school officials to monitor his academic and creative output. He may be exactly the sort of talent they scout for across the world, quite literally in their own backyard.

Acquiring a new subject is always tricky, so they can't be hasty. They need evidence that this wasn't merely a coincidence, a fluke. They watch to see if the boy exhibits any other strange behavior.

They're still waiting in September of that year, when the HNL program... hits a snag. Its focus narrows to its lone survivor and most promising subject. Funding can't be secured for any new subjects at this time, however the Byers boy still poses a potential security risk, and continues to be monitored.

He is last observed the morning of November 6, 1983, travelling on Maple Street by bicycle, on the day when finally he does do something else strange. He vanishes.

A kid going missing isn't the strangest thing that happens on November 6 - curiously, there is another major incident at the Lab the same day.

When it becomes apparent that the two events are in fact connected, damage control is necessary. If local law enforcement is allowed to continue to search for the boy, the investigation could lead back to the Lab, attracting an undesirable level of public attention.

A fake body is created with very convincing attention to detail using surveillance obtained the morning of the boy's disappearance.

With the search over, the Lab should now be at its leisure to investigate Will Byers' whereabouts on its own terms. If the boy merely dies, irretrievable, at least the security threat is neutralized; if he can be privately recovered for study, all the better.

Unfortunately not visible in those surveillance photos of a long-sleeved Will Byers on a November morning: the birthmark on his right arm.

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ok I'm not entirely seriously proposing that this happened, but hear me out anyway about a few things

That fake body.

to know what Will was wearing on the day he went missing, they had to have seen him wearing it. how then, unless they were already watching him? why would the Lab be watching some random child?

Some lab kids are wild-caught, like Kali.

In order to merit being taken for the program, must they not first do something to attract the Lab's interest - display some curious behavior, some sign of potential psychic ability?

Will loves medieval fantasy.

DnD and Lord of the Rings. he's always drawing things like battles and knights and dragons and wizards. his life, his friends, but through a lens of medieval type fantasy. so when Joyce tells the story of little Will drawing a spaceship, it bothers me. a spaceship, even a whimsical one, is such a conspicuous break from Will's usual genre.

Kids draw from a variety of inspirations.

Sometimes they draw from their imagination or their feelings.

Sometimes they draw exactly what they see in reality.

And sometimes they draw what they see somewhere in between. Without really even knowing what it is they're drawing.

What if little Will saw the rainbow spaceship in his mind, but not in his imagination.

So, what am I saying, Will had a vision of a spaceship? The upside down is another planet and the demogorgon is an alien? No.

(Haha,)

But really, no, Stranger Things isn't that genre.

So whose spaceship is it? Is Hawkins Lab building a spaceship? No. The lab's interest is in the human mind, not the space race.

I don't think there is a spaceship. But there could be something within Hawkins Lab (or somewhere similarly top secret) that a kid with a vague vision and a box of crayons might interpret as looking like a spaceship.

Just, I don't know, some kind of big metal Thing.

I'm not saying it would have been NINA or equivalent, but I'm saying there could be a Thing that could look like a spaceship out of context. In perhaps a vision, an accidental remote-view, a now-memory.

why would a Thing at Hawkins Lab have a rainbow on it? idk, it's not like they have a history of that.

Plot twists require hints.

Big reveals are no fun if there wasn't a clue in plain view the whole time. We have few flashbacks and anecdotes about Will's past, and if we're due some revelation in s5 about him either having powers or having more of a history with HNL or Henry than we thought, that is where a clue would be.

Joyce's rainbow ship story is littered with details that bother me.

Do you know what March 22nd is? It's your birthday. Your birthday. When you turned eight, I gave you that huge box of crayons. Do you remember that? It was 120 colors. And all your friends, they got you Star Wars toys, but all you wanted to do was draw with all your new colors. And you drew this big spaceship, but it wasn't from a movie. It was your spaceship. A rainbow ship is what you called it. And you must have used every color in the box. I took that with me to Melvald's and I put it up and I told everyone who came in, "My son drew this." And you were so embarrassed. But I was so proud. I was so, so proud.

Will being 8 may matter because he turned 8 in 1979. idk, of all ages to attach to this story why the one in the landmark year of 1979? his eighth would be his last birthday before the lab massacre (Sept 8, 1979). this scenario might not work with Will any older - perhaps whatever the "spaceship" was was eliminated post-massacre. or there's something to Will being the same age as El. I'll get back to you on this one

drawing with crayons on ST is so often associated with something not simply seen or imagined, but perceived in some strange way:

Will drawing his vision of the Mind Flayer in black/red crayon

Will scribbling the nowmemory tunnels feverishly with whole crayons

these aren't the only times he uses crayon, but contrast some of his noteworthy "normal imagination" drawings - Will the Wise, Zombie Boy - done in pencil instead, as are a lot of his other misc filler drawings. (when Will's fireball/cabbage drawing where crayons are prominently mentioned turns out to be a vision of season 5 I'll get back to you)

Joyce grabs crayons to trace the Mind Flayer off the TV

Nancy writes the decoded CLOSEGATE in crayon

Ten's lessons at the lab consist of remotely viewing Brenner's bad crayon drawings

Henry's drawing of the spider is in pencil, and the Mind Flayer in charcoal, but when he's drawing with crayons I don't know what he's drawing but the lights flicker

when Max draws her vision of the Creel house, she calls attention in the dialogue to Holly letting her borrow her crayons

Will lacking interest in his new Star Wars toys makes sure we know, in case we don't remember all the Will art we've seen, that he isn't especially interested in space.

Joyce even says it with this little eyeroll like "these punk ass kids think MY son is a space nerd? please. I know the Castle Byers password and it's a LOTR reference"

which is what makes this so conspicuous - why in the same breath as establishing Will isn't very interested in space stuff does she say Will drew a spaceship and emphasize that it isn't something he saw in a movie. that it came from his imagination. like.. yeah, isn't everything he draws? why was a spaceship on Will's mind if he isn't interested in space? am I wrong that we've never seen one single other drawing of space stuff among all his artwork?

finally, Joyce not only put this drawing up in public but told all her customers about it. this is the only anecdote of Will's pre-vanishing history I can think of that could suggest any adult outsiders (so potentially the Lab) taking notice of something he did.

in conclusion I'm kidding, unless it turns out I'm right in which case you heard rainbowshipgate here first

#the vanishing of will byers #will byers #st theory #rainbowshipgate #if will had disappeared in june the lab would've known about the birthmark #assuming they don't hang onto surveillance footage from the times he failed to do anything Strange #shh #mine

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laz-kay · 1 year

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Will - in fact - did not see Michael tomorrow.

#stranger things #stranger things 5 #stranger things day #november 6th 1983 #the vanishing of will byers #mike wheeler #will byers #will x mike #byler

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hawkinslibrary · 2 years

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Stranger Things | Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers Stranger Things 4 | Chapter Nine: The Piggyback

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henrysglock · 9 months

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He's Talking To Me Through The Lights!

Something that just hit me (and I'm not sure why I didn't make the connection earlier) is that we can't concretely say it was Vecna, or any version of Henward for that matter, that we saw in the shed with Will on Nov. 6th, 1983.

Now you're probably saying to yourself "Okay, James Henrysglock has finally lost the fucking plot". I promise you I haven't, and that I actually have a pattern that supports this. Please just like. Give me the chance to explain what I mean.

Let's look at the lightbulb in the Byers' shed when Will is snatched:

And we all go: "The lightbulb, like in the Creel family's attic! The blinding light! That's a trademark Vecna thing!"

Except it isn't.

First off, the lightbulb itself, while connected to to the Creel family's attic, isn't specifically a Vecna thing. It's also heavily attributed to HNL.

Second off, when we first see "Vecna" trance and kill (allegedly) in 1959, gateless kills, there is no blinding light. It's just flashing lights:

It's the same deal in 1979:

No steady, blinding light, just flashing lights.

So really, what's wrong here is the assignment of the light's behavior, that steady, blinding glow, to Vecna. Blinding lights have never been a Vecna-specific trait. Blinding lights are, in fact, consistently linked to gate events.

When do we see lights steadily flaring bright throughout Stranger Things??

Season 2: El closes the gate

Season 4: Vecna kills Patrick and opens Watergate

Season 4: El fights One

Now, this particular sequence becomes more complex when we consider a few confounding details:

1. El's Changing Eye Blood Between the blinding light sequence of teen El and the banishment of Henward by baby El, there is both a camera swap and a makeup swap. We never see bright-lights teen El again after this swap, despite irl El continuing to function in NINA the way she had been when her teen self was shown to us. This means we may not have seen the fate of whichever baby El teen El is representing, especially given that Martie and Millie match in blood pattern in BTS pictures (a blood pattern we never see on filmed baby El).

2. The Dematerialization-Gate Split + Mirror Swapping The gate and the dematerialization don't occur simultaneously.

Nor do they occur within the same mirror orientation, with the same crack patterns, or with the same bloody gown pattern. They are separate events. We do not see El open wallgate, even though we know, logically, that she did so.

3. The Lighting The lighting when El dematerializes Henward is identical to the time she dematerialized the demogorgon: Dark, teal-grey, flashing lights.

Why do I dredge all that back up?

Because the earlier bright light is most likely associated with the gate outcome. It's always a gate. Always.

"Okay, well, clearly Vecna opened a gate and yoinked Will, then."

Did he though? Because Vecna himself seems to think differently:

Vecna couldn't open gates until ST4, otherwise he would have done so earlier.

We also know it can't be the demogorgon that yoinked Will, either, because demogorgon attacks are associated with wildly flashing lights. The light in the Byers' shed just steadily brightens. I have a theory about the sound overlay, because a similar thing happens visually in 4.07 when they overlay the gate and dematerialization outcomes:

I wouldn't be surprised if there were multiple different things happening at the same time in different timelines re: Will's disappearance (I will touch on this below).

So, most of all, this begs the question: Why is the lightbulb in Will's shed behaving as though someone is opening a gate, when Vecna cannot yet open gates?

This leaves me with two main speculations:

1. The lights flared due to El opening Mothergate, given that that happened on the same day. El first contacts the Demogorgon at 1:33pm on Nov. 6th and panics. We aren't given a time for the opening of Mothergate, but it was sometime later, likely far later, given that it occurs during the shift of the guy who gets chomped in the elevator on the night of the 6th:

This would mean that someone else was in the shed with Will, likely someone from or in cahoots with HNL, which would explain how they were able to get his fake body accurate right down to the clothes he went missing in. Those may even have been his clothes on the doll, given that one of the newspapers said he was found being experimented on in HNL.

2. Will, panicking, opened his own gate to escape the situation. He ended up in the UD that way, hence why he's still wearing the clothes he disappeared in.

(Note, these situations are not mutually exclusive à la timeline theory and the differing newspapers surrounding Will's disappearance)

Either way, what the hell is going on here?

#the vanishing of will byers #henry creel #henry/vecna/001 #will byers #stranger things

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will80sbyers · 4 days

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STRANGER THINGS Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers next

#will byers #stranger things #stedit #st1 #st 1x01 #the vanishing of will byers #strangerthingsedit #will80sbyersgifs

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stfuhair · 2 years

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HOW TF COULD I FORGET ABOUT WILL ALMOST GETTING OUT OF THE UPSIDE DOWN THRU HIS HOUSE WALL BUT THE GATE DIDNT OPENED ENOUGH HELLO WTF WTF WAS HE ABOUT TO OPEN A GATE THERE?????????*×*!£!€×&&@

#byler #will byers #stranger things #the vanishing of will byers #st theory

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shandy-and-champagne · 2 years

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I've not even finished reading this post by @aemiron-main BUT IT GOT ME THINKING what if all the discrepancies on the night Will disappeared - the phone writing being simplified, - and the actual image of the demogorgon were warped by will's perspective if he was being Vecna'd. What if he saw a demogorgon because he'd just been playing d&d and that was a convenient scare tactic for Vecna to use? What if the area code was simplified because kids are taught to only remember salient information in case of an emergency? Idk but the idea of him being in a trance the whole time is starting to sound entirely plausible

#byler #just an idea this does NOT explain everything #laundrygate #the vanishing of will byers #i have half a mind to call this mindfuckgate

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mikesbasementbeets · 2 years

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it's so faint and quick but there's a red light that flashes over will's head right as his bike light goes out.... it's literally an illusion, this is when he enters the illusion

i also like the imagery of will running away while his bike wheel ticks to a stop

something something wheels reels time spinning something something audio visual distortion

(@aemiron-main in case this is anything to you)

#byler #the vanishing of will byers #i'll keep coming back to it but film as in photography and as in a one dimensional image #something something pocket shadow dimensions something something film negatives #photography as in light and film as in reels as in loops as in time #i wish i had the time to actually make coherent thoughts out of this #undeveloped film is ruined by bright light btw and it melts in the heat #if u care #mikesbasementbeets posts

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thegayhimbo · 6 months

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Stranger Things Rewatch: "The Vanishing of Will Byers" (Part 1 of 2)

Disclaimer: This is NOT a traditional review/analysis, but a collection of observations, brief commentary, favorite moments, and so on that I'm noting as I go through these episodes. All of these are just my opinions and/or theories, and can be subjected to change as the rewatch continues.

Observations:

Happy Stranger Things Day! :) As of today, this took place 40 years ago.

Love how reminiscent this opening scene is to the climax of Ridley Scott's Alien when Ellen Ripley is escaping the USCSS Nostromo as the alarms go off. I wouldn't be surprised if this homage turned out to be intentional on the Duffer Brother's part:

When we're introduced to Mike's campaign, The Party is in the middle of being attacked by an army of Troglodytes. This is the image I found when I looked them up:

It's probably just a fun D&D moment, but since the Duffer Brothers have named a lot of their monsters (Demogorgon, Mind Flayer, Vecna) after D&D creatures, it makes me wonder if there's some kind of animal like a troglodyte in the Upside Down. It's unlikely we've seen all the monsters from that dimension, and they might introduce new ones in S5 that the Party hasn't encountered yet and will inevitably fight.

They do a good job with the establishing character moments for both Dustin and Lucas in Mike's D&D campaign: Dustin telling Will to use caution and cast a protective spell while Lucas insists Will fireballs the Demogorgon while he has the chance. Lucas's strategy is to go on the offense while Dustin's is to go on the defense. Specifically with Lucas, he uses that strategy in other situations he's in: Like when Lucas kicks Billy in the groin in S2 after being pinned to the wall by him, or gets an axe to chop at the Meat Flayer's tendril to save El in S3, or even how Lucas is the one who later convinces everyone to take the fireworks from the store to use as ammunition (which helps turn the tide at the Battle of Starcourt). By contrast, Dustin prioritizes the safety of the Party, from pointing out to Mike and Lucas that they might be walking into the same danger Will encountered when they later look for him in the woods, to telling Mike NOT to jump off a cliff when Troy threatens Dustin, to enlisting Steve's help in S2 because he knows Steve will be able to protect them due to his size and skill with the bat, to rescuing Steve and Robin from the Russians in S3.

This isn't to say that Lucas is wrong and Dustin is right, or even that Dustin is wrong and Lucas is right. It's merely noting they have opposite approaches. Each situation they encounter is different, and sometimes (just like with Will's dice role) it's really up to chance.

Also (as noted later in the episode by Mike), Will took Lucas's advice and used fireball as a means of protecting the Party instead of trying to save himself. He puts other people's safety before his own. The comic book "The Other Side" (which focuses on Will's perspective during the events of S1 while trapped in the UD) expands on this aspect of his personality by including several moments of him coming to the aid of others (including Nancy) while in the UD, despite knowing it would put him in danger.

Also, regardless of Lucas insisting the role doesn't count because Mike didn't see it, Will still chooses to be honest with Mike. He knows there are situations you can't cheat your way out of, or pretend didn't happen (as he's about to find out with the real Demogorgon).

The lights flash at Mike's house just as Will leaves. I'm assuming Vecna and the Demogorgon he was controlling were already beginning to track Will's movements here.

I've talked about this before in my review of "The Other Side" (and I know for a fact I'm not the only fan who's speculated on this), but I don't buy that Will's kidnapping by the Demogorgon was random. Given the revelations in S4, I'm inclined to believe Vecna deliberately targeted Will and used the Demogrogon under his control to bring Will alive to the Upside Down. I also would argue it was Vecna who used telekinesis to unlock the door to Will's house:

I know several episodes from now, Jonathan talks to Nancy about how his dad took him hunting when he was 10 and forced him to kill a rabbit, so I'm assuming Lonnie also taught Will about loading and shooting a gun. It's possible Jonathan could have, but considering how traumatized he was over what his dad made him do, IDK if I see Jonathan teaching Will how to use a gun.

I've said this before, but I don't buy Vecna wanted Will to just impregnate him with the larva's that would grow into future Demodogs/Demogorgons. He could have easily used the Demogorgon to kidnap other residents of Hawkins for that purpose if he wanted to. He didn't need Will specifically for that.

Still one of my favorite openings for any TV show I've seen:

I missed the drawing Sara did of her family the first time I saw this. Nice foreshadowing about Hopper's past life!

To this day, I still don't understand why Troy and James got their own graphic novel. Out of all the side characters they could have focused on, why did they choose these two? Was there some kind of demand from the fandom to bring them back that I'm unaware of?

I know Caleb McLaughlin gave an interview after season 4 aired where he expressed frustration over how certain fans have been dismissive of any racial trauma Lucas has gone through, and this goes all the way back to season 1. Both Troy and James's bullying of Lucas was racially motivated, and the graphic novel Zombie Boys also highlights this:

On a related note, Troy and James making fun of Dustin for having cleidocranial dysplasia is disgusting.

I've seen this discussion before in the fandom about Barb's attitude towards Nancy dating Steve, and this idea that Barb was jealous of the idea of Nancy possibly becoming popular, which.................is not an interpretation I've ever understood. I never once took Barb to be some kind of social climber. When she's talking with Nancy in her first scene, she sounds genuinely excited for Nancy about Steve calling her, as well as cheekily acknowledging that both Nancy and Steve are into each other.

On top of that, Barb knows Nancy well enough that she wouldn't discard her as a friend, even if she became popular. The way she talks with Nancy in this scene, she doesn't seem worried or upset with her. If anything, Barb is amused during this conversation (including when she sees the note Steve left for Nancy in her locker). There's also the way they both talk about Tommy and Carol, indicating they both have low opinions of them, and that Barb is aware that Nancy doesn't like them and isn't going to abandon her for them.

@will80sbyers pointed this out in a recent post, and I thought I'd note it here since it's a good observation: The first scene we see of Steve and Nancy's relationship is in a restroom..........and their breakup in S2 happens in a restroom as well. That's how things come full-circle for these two:

It's notable that the two times Steve and Nancy meet in this episode, it's in an area that's supposed to be private (the school restroom, Nancy's bedroom) but there's always the risk of someone (a high school student/teacher, Nancy's parents) walking in on them while they're making out (not that Steve seems to care). Both times involve Nancy interrupting to tell Steve she needs to study for a test, and while Steve initially tries to make it all fun-and-games between them, he eventually concedes when he realizes she's serious about her schoolwork and agrees to help her.

This still remains one of my favorite quotes from the show (and is literally what weekday mornings are like for me before I have to clock in for work):

This has been pointed out by others, but there's an interesting parallel between Joyce calling Will "sensitive" vs. Victor Creel calling his son Henry "sensitive."

Notably, when Joyce talks about Will being sensitive, it has more to do with him being aware of other people's feelings, as well as the way other people look at him and judge him. Meanwhile, I'm skeptical of that being the case with Henry. Maybe Victor thought Henry was sensitive because of his inability to "fit in" with the other kids (as well as being labeled "broken" by teachers and doctors), but considering how insulted Henry is at the idea that he was broken, as well as how he didn't care about torturing and killing animals before murdering his mom and sister in cold-blood (and letting his dad take the blame for it), I doubt Henry gave a damn about what others thought of him. His behavior indicates he doesn't feel empathy for anyone the same way Will does. Henry's "sensitivity" likely had more to do with the abilities he had locked inside of him, or even possibly being able to feel the presence of the Upside Down before he was banished there by El 20 years later. Maybe they'll expand on this in "The First Shadow" when it comes out.

They foreshadowed pretty early on that Will was secretly gay. I remember this was discussed by fans way back when season 1 first came out.

Yes Hopper, he is.

There's a dark irony in how Hopper's been working as Chief of Hawkins for 4 years, and claims that nothing awful has happened during his tenure. 4 years ago would have been in 1979, the same year Henry/One/Vecna slaughtered the special kids (and most of the staff) at the lab before El banished him to the Upside Down. I know Hopper wasn't aware of any of this when it happened, and none of that was his fault or responsibility, but still.........

Something I always found frustrating with the show (and even supplementary materials) is they never really explain how the chain-of-command works when it comes to government officials on this show. They establish Dr. Brenner as the head of Hawkins Lab (and later that role gets transferred to Dr. Owens in S2), but they never truly say which higher-ups Brenner answers to. Then there's the introduction of Colonel Sullivan in S4 (despite him never being hinted at or mentioned in the previous 3 seasons): Judging by the conversations he has with Dr. Owens, as well as how Dr. Owens got fired for the Russian infiltration of Hawkins in S3, I assumed Sullivan was Owen's superior. Does that mean that Brenner also answered to Sullivan during this time? Or was Sullivan just part of a different faction of the government (i.e. the same faction Ellen Stinson warns Mike about in S4) who was opposed to what Brenner was doing from the beginning, and only recently got involved?

In any case, I'm assuming the men pictured above who are meeting with Brenner are either government agents sent to investigate the opening of the gate, or Brenner's superiors who want to know what happened the previous night.

I wonder if there will be a twist in S5 that Upside Down itself is one whole Lovecraftian-like monster, and stuff like the Demogorgons and other creatures are just extensions of it. Just the way that gate breathes, and how it looks like you're traveling through someone's insides.............

I missed Scott Clarke in S4, and I hope he comes back for S5 to give more scientific advice to the main characters (assuming he didn't leave Hawkins). Who knows? It may prove helpful against the upcoming fight against Vecna.

Since Stranger Things loves referencing Lord of the Rings (and The Hobbit), with the show even drawing parallels to the books (like the Upside Down being similar to Mordor, or even Hopper's fake death in S3 and return in S4 having similarities to Gandalf's apparent death in Moria and his later return), I am looking at the books as one possible blueprint to predict how Season 5 will go. That's just me though.

Also, Will disappearing near Mirkwood, which in The Hobbit is where Bilbo encounters the spiders that try to eat him and his companions, and Vecna has a creepy obsession with spiders and shaped the Mind Flayer into a spider, and the Mind Flayer later attacks Will..................

I'm sure there's somewhere I'm trying to go with this, but I can't articulate it in a way that makes sense.

SIDE NOTE: This particular scene with Dustin and Lucas fighting while Mike sits in the middle looking irritated is hilarious. 😂

Come to think of it, this scene is a perfect representation of the dynamic the kids have this episode: Dustin and Lucas argue (whether it's over D&D strategies, how to find Will, etc) and Mike is caught in the middle. This changes later once El is introduced where it's Mike and Lucas fighting, and Dustin is trying to act as the peacemaker.

To be continued in Part 2..........

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