Stranger Things 5 Rewrite
Hey y’all, this is the everything post. If you haven’t seen my posts before, I’m rewriting Stranger Things S5 in a fic that starts shortly after S4 ends, with the government unable to seal the rift and Hawkins becoming apocalyptic by about “mid-season”. I’m still in the plotting stage of this fic, so if you’d like to read it, please feel free to participate in the polls on my page to give your input on major plot decisions and leave any ideas, questions or other thoughts in the comments, or my dms and inbox are always open
This fic will start roughly two months after the S4 finale, with the Hopper-Byers family hiding out in a network of safe houses developed by the party, all connected through the tunnels. Nancy leads an investigation trying to determine Henry’s plan and track the government operation. Children have been going missing but there are no signs of monster attacks, though there have been strange sightings like ‘diseased birds’ and pets going missing. Dustin uses his cerebro to track secret transmissions which Robin decodes, also writing her own coded messages to instruct party members on meeting times and locations through she and Steve’s new job at the local radio station. Hopper and Nancy train Lucas, Mike, and Dustin to shoot, but Lucas is easily the best shot, so Steve and Jonathan teach them to fight with other weapons like the infamous bat. Joyce won’t allow Will to train at all, wanting him nowhere near the fight. El is on a rigid schedule of training and searching remotely for Max, who is still in a coma. Though her injuries have healed miraculously quickly, she’s been having nosebleeds, leading the group to believe she’s still trapped in Vecna’s mind being tormented by him.
While the lower levels of the military operation in Hawkins still believe they are searching for Eleven because she is responsible for the death and destruction in Hawkins, Dr. Kay intends to use her in the top secret Project XI (her attempt at recreating Brenner’s experiment with a new generation of young kids taken from Hawkins) and weaponize the her powers and those that lie within the upside down in the Cold War. Dr. Owens is being forced to study quarantine patients with a strange new virus thought to be caused by inhaling the particles from the Upside Down (later revealed to be a new wave army of flayed), as well as assist in the investigation on El, though he’s doing everything he can to throw them off the party’s trail and prevent Kay from making any connections beyond the Byers (though of course this won’t last long)
Meanwhile Agent Stinson and Dr. Owens’ small team who supported El and the Byers in S4 have established a secret base in the abandoned Hawkins Lab, following Dr. Kay’s operation and going through their collective resources and the remnants of Brenner’s research to figure out Henry, the Upside Down, and the Mind Flayer. (They will definitely be helping the party at some point, I’m just not sure yet if that will already be established prior to the first chapter or something that is introduced early on, because I really want to include a scene of El going back to the lab to use the bath to look for Max and Henry and Mike going with her and actually seeing the rainbow room or even her room with his own eyes, though this could work with it being the first time Hop let Mike come with them if its a regular thing already)
Among the citizens who chose to remain in Hawkins rather than evacuate after the “earthquake”, there are those like Ted Wheeler who swallow whatever the government feeds them, those like Wayne Munson who know there’s more to the story, and those that buy into religious panic, believing the Hellfire club to be a satanic cult that committed a series of ritualistic murders to open the gates to Hell. Most people keep their families locked in their homes, many begin doomsday prepping, few relish in the freedom of the end of the world actively rebelling against martial law, some in true protest of the government rule while others act out of nihilism.
This fic will be 9 chapters with an epilogue, exploring Vecna and El’s powers on a broader level with Henry constructing mass illusions and manipulating people’s memories and El learning to use her powers for not only fighting but healing. Will’s powers will still be included and Kali is coming back (as a free person of her own volition to help her sister, along with her friends who will be helping the Hawkins citizens survive the apocalypse along with some side characters while the party fights in the final battle), but there will be other characters developing abilities they do not have in canon as well
With Max as the sole living victim of Vecna’s curse trapped in his mind, she will be manipulating his memory to shape the mass illusion in Hawkins to send signs to the party (especially El and Lucas), later helping to restore party member’s memories. Holly will be taken as a replacement Will, who was the original replacement El as Vecna’s apprentice, the Mind Flayer’s Lieutenant to serve by his ‘5-Star General’s side, with her body being pumped full of particles to connect her to the hive mind while her consciousness is in Henry’s mind. He will have been stalking Holly since Will’s strong bonds with his family and friends helped him break free from the Mind Flayer’s control in previous seasons, presenting himself as a friend. Max’s abilities will only make it harder for Holly to believe she isn’t really the monster when she sees her literally shaping the reality around them. (I’m thinking the obvious is for Holly to have the same type of powers as Will drawing them from the same source, but if anyone has any other ideas I’d love to hear them—see my posts on the Apprentice and the Eye and Hand of Vecna for more information on Max and Holly’s powers)
Fair warning there will be a happy ending but there are going to be some side character, antagonist, and civilian deaths, though I’m not sold on killing any mains yet. I plan for the story to end with Jonathan and Nancy working together to release a full exposé with extensive evidence on everything that really happened in Hawkins from Brenner’s experiment to Dr. Kay and the end of the world, allowing El and all of the party to be basically given immunity and allowed to live (semi) normal happy lives
DISCLAIMER: I am a Mileven writer, but there will be a Bychance development and endgame (I am still undecided on the Ronance/Stancy/Jancy debate, so if anyone has any thoughts on any of those or Rockie I would love to hear them)
I am open to any and all suggestions or ideas on this fic, and I want to write the epic S5 the people wanted so please comment any thoughts you have on this post or others or send them to me privately in my dms or inbox! And I mean literally any ideas, chapter titles, character dynamics, parallels to previous seasons, songs for the soundtracks I’m making for each ‘episode’, ships, deaths, dialogue, powers, plot lines, signs that give away the illusion, battle moments, timing of big plot points, internal conflicts, how the Upside Down even works what it even is, what terms the government uses to describe the demos or the upside down, code words they or the party use in their secret messages, like literally anything.
(Ps I’ve been having a weird problem where some of your comments are being removed before I even have a chance to read them, so if that’s been happening to your comments please reach out to me so we can chat other ways, I love hearing all of your ideas and I’m really not sure why tumblr is deleting some of them)
