emma

and then you can see how the lights go out and his face shifts and suddenly it's real life and his mother is standing there and vecna took the kids and the boy in front of him is not the boy from the swings anymore

except mike did love him

aka Vecna told us via an allegory that he forced Will out.

While Will says that him coming out and telling his truth is a way to "defeat" Vecna... I don't think that's actually the case?

Because if we look back at the last scene between Will and Vecna... Vecna says this:

Vecna is saying he wants to "smoke a fox from its den".

What does this mean exactly? Well...

In a literal sense, it refers to the hunting technique. Putting fire into the entrance of an underground fox's den will force a fox out of it. The fox MUST come out or else it will die from carbon monoxide poisoning.

In a figurative sense, it means:

Forcing someone to leave their place of safety/comfort

Forcing someone to expose a secret

The man who disappeared:

The one who came out:

Something about gay narratives and how bare-bones tired stories about self acceptance are celebrated instead of seen as deliberately limited and minimising of gay experience.