tired of your silly human bickering

lucas, who most definitely has been othered all of his life

lucas who, even when surrounded by people he trusts, so rarely sees himself reflected in them

lucas, who has always been an outcast in ways the others aren’t, in ways that are more – god knows he’s been called much worse things than freak

lucas, who has seen people avoiding his touch, crossing the street when he’s walking, distrusting him like it’s a default setting

lucas, who knows what it’s like to do everything right and still be looked at like he’s wrong

lucas, who hears will saying he’s not like them and gets it in ways the others can’t

lucas, who knows will is going to experience all of the same things – the othering, the distrust, the mistreatment, the slurs, the being avoided like the mere touch of you could kill, the dangers that come with just being – despite the differences in their circumstances

lucas who, even if he’d ever felt some kind of way about queerness, would grab that feeling and squeeze the life out of it because that right there is will. his will.

his in the way all of lucas’ people are his. his to carry when unconscious, his to tackle out of the way, his to use himself as bait, his to take a slashing to the chest, his to jump over tables and traps and interdimensional monsters. his to protect, his to kill for, his to die for.

hopper gives a “don’t kys” speech bc he loves her

el kills herself out of fear

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

by @fixthehyper

okay guys i have like multiple posts on birthdaygate, but i wanna put everything we know into one because i’m losing track lol.

so we start off in season 1 at wills funeral. we are given the date august 28th 1971.

what is interesting about this video they posted is the glitching! i have a theory on this here that could hint to this tying in with conformitygate.

and then i found the entire funeral program and the date changes AGAIN😭😭😭but this time the year changes, not the actual date/month.

like wtf!?😭also his funeral was on the 11th? so idk this could be fanmade but the one posted by stranger things isn’t.

and then we get season 2 where we find out wills birthday is on the 22nd of march. okay, sure, they forgot. but stranger things 1 released in 2016, then 2 released in october 27th 2017. so… they posted that video just two months before they released the new season. obviously reminding their audience. also why is the picture sideways in the video lol??

that’s weird, right?

then we get to 2020, so one year after s3 has been released and the writers tweet this.

then we get season 4. this is where birthdaygate really kicked off because of the rinkomania scenes. i’m not gonna go into too much on this because i feel like you guys already know lol. there’s hints to birthdays and they even specifically point out with exact accuracy how many days till dustin’s birthday. that has never been mentioned before LMAO

then we get to 2023, one year after s4 dropped. they posted this. mind you, will’s birthday the 22nd of march is also henry’s birthday. and then it is also matthews birthday — the actor who plays dr brenner. and what year was he born? 1959. the exact year TFS is set.

then season 5 kicks off. there’s no birthdaygate (there’s barely gates at all in fact). but during filming, there was scenes filmed in a circus tent. then after the finale, someone from production posted the photo with the cake. and i know this is wills cake because the exact same picture was posted back at the start of last year except they cut out the “happy birthday will” and the duffers were in this post with the production member.

edit : also reminded in the comments of the pamphlet of will’s age being wrong in s5! joyce says he was 11 when he was 12.

also the balloons on the cake lowk reminded me of the rinkomania scene.

then if we look at eddie’s age it is also messed up!

anyways speaking of interviews, lets look back at the first interview they did about will’s birthday because this is some extremely specific wording👀

no, matt duffer, it doesn’t make any narrative sense. and then basically saying alike the characters — they forgot. their memory’s are “not great”. okay sure whatever.

BUT THEN “we’re being very careful for people not to forget, in case the timelines..” huh????

“it was six years ago i wrote that date?” when did they write season 4😭😭😭that’d be 2016 the year the show came out?? that would be a lie because they changed it after s1.

and then breaking the fourth wall to apologise to will? okay👀

also them in s5 interviews saying “last year” for season 4?? are they going insane or are we😭

is there any george lucas parallels ? because they mentioned him loads in that interview

and if you are still here, here are some other interesting posts that could tie into this theory.

clown imagery by @atsadi

wsqk mentions by @urfavflickergatetruther

holly’s age inconsistencies by @kirrroh

henry’s age & boy-scouts by @aemiron-main

calendar inconsistencies by @generalmarryme

10 minute analysis by lesbianmindflayer on youtube. shows an official audio from a number you could call playing the happy birthday song.

I went and checked and they never really focused on the funeral program in the episode (1.5), so it's (a) hard to be sure the one you found more pics of is genuine and (b) perhaps less of an egregious canon error.

But if the program you found is not fanmade—and the fact that the cover, at least, matches the one Netflix put in that video in 2017 suggest that it's legit—

—that means we have 4 potential canon birthdays for Will...

March 22, 1971—the date Joyce gives as his birthday in 2.8, with the year making him 12 years old when he disappeared, which matches the evidence below.

March 22, 1972—the date Joyce gives as his birthday in 2.8, with the year making him 11 years old when he disappeared, which aligns with Joyce's line in 5.3.

August 28, 1971—the date on the cover of that funeral program in 1.5, making him 12 years old when he disappeared, which matches the evidence below.

August 28, 1972—the date on the interior of that funeral program in 1.5, making him 11 years old when he disappeared, which aligns with Joyce's line in 5.3.

... given that the only date we're sure of (!?) is that he went missing on November 6, 1983.

That program is literally the only evidence I've ever seen that Joyce was not just completely mistaken in saying that he was 11 years old when he went missing.

Evidence that she was completely mistaken includes Will's missing poster, which says he was 12 years old when he disappeared—

—a poster which, by the way, featured prominently in one of the pre-S5 marketing videos on YouTube and Instagram (October 1, 2025).

Charlie holds it facing the camera like that for half the video... then at the end we get a close-up.

The 1.1 script—as featured in The Documentary (at about 5:37)—also says the boys were 12 years old the night Will disappeared.

It specifically calls out that Mike, Lucas, and Dustin were 12... but we don't see the same callout for Will.

Are you sure...??

Also, the George Lucas thing is likely just a reference to the fact that George Lucas famously would. not. stop. going back and fucking with the original Star Wars trilogy, literally starting from 1977 when the first one came out.

The apparent purpose of the edits, including the major edits, was to go back and achieve his Original Vision, using the better technology available to him in 1997... and 2004... and 2011... and 2019.

The pre-1997 edits were minor, and some of them were genuine improvements. But a lot of it was nonsense, and some of it was blatant retconning—most notably, changing the scene in the cantina from Han shooting Greedo first to Greedo shooting Han first (making Han look less like a murderous scoundrel).

Ohhh people did not like that.

Fans even banded together to create "despecialized" versions of the original trilogy.

As far as I know, Lucas is still in a stand-off with the US National Film Registry for not giving them the original copy of 1977's Star Wars (the one we call A New Hope, as of 1981). The National Film Registry preserves original copies of a collection of films selected for their cultural, historical, and aesthetic contributions.

In 1989, the original release of Star Wars was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry (NFR). In 2014, it still did not have a "working copy" (a copy available for public viewing) of the 1977 film; Lucas refused to submit the original, stating that he no longer authorized the release of the theatrical version. Lucasfilm offered the 1997 "Special Edition" release, but the NFR refused it as the first published version must be accepted.

... good old fandom drama.