i uh, i’m not sure how to describe this place. basically sometimes i watch a movie or read a book or whatever and then explode with reblogs and emotions all over this blog
also this is kind of like a personal blog (duh) so sometimes i complain about life. if you’ve (for some reason) decided to follow me but don’t want any of my whining on your dash feel free to blacklist "#yalt whines" (and probably "#yalt yaps" too for good measure but not necessarily)
i decided to torture myself with a minecraft challenge of my own creation, so now i must kill every living being i see (in minecraft). i had to kill an entire plain biome worth of mobs, including horses, before i ran out of mobs to look at. i camped near a river to roast the meat and mourn the horses. and then i saw a fish
and you know how they are. once minecraft fish find a place they deem spawnable they just keep spawning. and that they do. they KEEP SPAWNING. IT'S ALMOST NIGHT TIME. I KILL TEN AND TWENTY MORE APPEAR. IS THIS HOW SISYPHUS FEELS. I WANT TO CRY
i HATE it when people use ai generated content in conversations online, like in dms. they send an ai generated image of themselves as a winx fairy, and everybody laughs at the absurdity of it, at how (apparently) funny it is. they’ll use it to make jokes for them, generate songs, write texts, "fanfics", and share in that group chat. oh my fucking god am i talking to you or to a chat bot? why do you involve fucking chatgpt in what supposed to be a conversation, why does it have to be a middle man. am i getting to know you or your favourite generative ai? do you even exist without it anymore?
ok atp i'm fully aware that it is very much the unpopular opinion to believe in conformitygate... and to be honest, i'm not here in the business of wanting to convince anyone. i only want to compile what i think is some of the most obvious and compelling evidence we have.
so, you ask, why do i still believe that stranger things is not done with us yet? well, mostly because the story isn't finished.
and i say that for many of the same reasons that others are using to argue the creators ruined their own show, except that i see them as intentional storytelling choices. the most important choice of all, was to give us the perspective of one particular character; mike.
remember him?
yeah, that guy.
this promo poster is our first huge clue. mike's perspective has been withheld from us for so long, and we all hoped (begged) to finally get it in season 5. but, sadly, we were robbed yet again.. for most of the season. because the epilogue is, in my belief, told solely from mike's perspective. he is the only one looking into the camera in these promotional shots. he's breaking the fourth wall - it's supposed to mean something.
the "epilogue"
so, let's start with the end, because it gives us everything we need to be able to tell that this is only a pit stop in the story, and not its final destination.
first of all, the epilogue is largely from mike's pov. if you already believe that the epilogue is mike's camazots, then it becomes easy to see how the whole thing can link back to mike's memories and thoughts. i won't go through much of the evidence that mike is in camazots in this analysis, because it's been thoroughly covered many times. but i want to point out some of the key moments i find most compelling, and connect them to scenes that tell us these moments are, in fact, significant.
mike's parallel to will's disappearance
the epilogue introduces us to mike... going missing. that's a peculiar choice, isn't it? this is the epilogue to the finale of the show, but before we even see mike for ourselves, we're told he's been missing since last night.
and this scene directly parallels a scene from the very first episode of the show - when joyce called karen to ask if will was at their house. as we all know, will was actually missing, and in another dimension (wormhole?) at that. it is a strange parallel to make when we're supposed to believe this is the happy ending.
of course, hopper finds mike alive and (debatably) well in the town square. so, mike is not missing in the upside down, meaning his parallel to will going missing stops here, right? well, not really.
because hopper brings it up, which almost feels like the writers are begging the audience to notice the parallel. mike's mom is freaking out, just like joyce was. and hopper can't say he blames her, because there is good reason to freak out about mike seemingly missing.
mike was missing, but he was found! does that mean he's good? no, i don't believe he is.
the library
now the parallel to will going missing is behind us, surely. nope! because, see, where hopper finds mike, is sitting in front of and looking at the library (under reconstruction, mind). and do you all remember where joyce and hopper found will in the upside down in season 1? inside said library, of course!
and in his conversation with hopper, we're told mike feels unable to walk the stage at graduation because of el's death, saying "it would be like a lie. like i'm okay with moving on. but i'm not." - and okay, survivor's guilt? a staple for mike wheeler. but considering the aforementioned parallels, i don't think that is the full picture here.
mike's inability to move on from el's (apparent) death, actually relates back to will. walk with me.
the big main gate into the upside down goes right through the library, and is the place mike watched el sacrifice herself. you think that's an insignificant coincidence? doubtful! because they made sure to remind us how the library connects back to will right at the beginning of season 5.
(potential TW: CSA similarities, images from s5e1 opening scene)
yeah, this scene. you did not think it was just thrown in there to remind us about will's time in the upside down and why he is able to get powers in ep4, right? because this is telling us so much more.
firstly, a blatant and lingering shot of the upside down library. they want us to remember where this scene takes place.
and secondly, the presenting of the chekov's gun that went missing somewhere in the moving process... strange isn't it, how vecna had will right where he wanted him, all ready to begin the process of his grand plan - but then he just... left? not even thinking to guard the initiation of will's part in this plan, like, could he not even spare a demogorgon at least? or did he stand by and let joyce and hopper save will and bring him back into regular hawkins...? (methinks the latter)
and that is not all, because a mere 6 minutes after they show us what happened to will there, they have robin remind us of the library again:
she's talking about the mac-z base, and her words allude to the fact she does actually know what is going on in there: the main gate (through which the gang has been helping hopper enter into the upside down regularly for crawls). but again they focus in on the library and the gate going through it, and if we look back at the opening scene from just a few minutes ago, robin's words could so have a double meaning (which words in screenplays often do!).
because the fact is that right now, we still kind of have, like robin said, no idea what was going on in there. henry said he and will were going to do "beautiful things together", but then in ep4 he brushes will off as only being a test-subject, and tried to kill his friends but left him alone? peculiar. especially when considering what we later learn in ep6:
henry lied about will's significance. probably because he wanted will to stay away; he did not want will to know what was going on in the library. but here he tells will that he made him his vessel, his spy, his builder. this further explains what went down during will's possession in season 2 - and i don't know about you, but it also tells me henry did knowingly allow will to be rescued: will became henry's inside man in the outside world.
it is also noteworthy that this scene takes place inside a memory of the library. yet again to remind us that the library holds significance, with henry asking: "do you remember this place, william? does it bring back memories?". this is foreshadowing! because we, the audience, should remember 'this place' very well - we recently watched the flashback at the beginning of the season, yet now they flash back to that flashback. broken attention spans be damned, i don't think this scene is meant to remind us of what we recently watched, it is there to tell us there is something else to this place; we still don't know the full extent of what happened to will in the library.
and interestingly, henry acknowledges the threat will poses to his plans, but he... still does not kill him? there is no reason for him not to... unless, once again, he is downplaying will's significance - lying, because he does not want him to know what goes on in the library. will's role in this is much bigger than ep8 led us to believe (we're also being lied to!!), but i will have to come back to that later.
because, friends, we have another significant clue telling us not to take the library location as random! and it came in the mail with the finale of season 4:
what's that right there? can't quite tell? it's the library, of course! this is how the mac-z gate came to be, when ritualistic murders of children coincided to form an x-shaped gate cutting through hawkins.
the x
the x, oh how it haunts me. but the x is our most vital clue. let me grab another screenshot from season 4 for you:
the midpoint of the x is at the library, but not because the four gates opened with the murders of chrissy, fred, patrick and max, just so happened to be located at four locations that perfectly placed the library in the middle. nope, because the x-shape is uneven - the four cracks forcibly made their way to the same midpoint. this is not random, the gate was always going to meet with the library in the middle.
i gotta ask again, if you remember what first happened in the library?
in season 1, the library was where will died (excuse the shit screenshot, but i'm sure you get it). and yeah, he was brought back, but so was max and her gate still opened. i don't think there has been a gate at the library in the four years between season 1 and 5, but i do think this is giving us an important clue to the significance of will's part in henry's plan.
this tells us will's death somehow played into opening the x-shaped gate. but when else do we see will's relation to it?
in this scene here! you might have to bring your screen brightness way up to catch it, but the x of the wormhole ('x' here to mark the upside down) is placed right over will's heart. and this was not accidental - they made sure to place him just so twice, both before and after his conversation with max about fear.
(small side note: will's head is framed in the circle illustrating the exotic matter, which i analyzed the meaning of post vol2, pre ep8. if you're interested you can read that here)
ok, ok, so the x is somehow connected to will's... heart?
how fitting, then, that hopper finds mike in another x-shaped location, right next to the library. i won't get too much into it, as we all know will told mike "you're the heart!" in season 4. it was quite telling at the time, but throughout season 5 the extent of what he meant by that is hammered into us: mike is will's heart!
and there are so. many. clues. telling us this. but to pick up on them all, you need to be aware that holly is mike's mirror character in season 5. i have already analyzed her and mike's arc several times, most thoroughly in this post and this post. i won't go through all the same points again here, but i will mention the most obvious ones in relation to the x.
"meet me at the x". we all know the saying "x marks the spot". but then, holly comes up with her own version, and it is hilariously fitting for the situation we have at hand: "m" marks the spot. "m", as in mike.
and most of holly's arc relates to finding the "x"/the "m". she first needs to find the "x" (the cave), and goes because she believes henry (actually max) needs her help. when she finds the "x" (the cave), she meets max (the truth). after discovering the truth (that she is trapped in camazots), she must try to find her way out (a door). and what leads her to find the door is the spyglass marking "m" (the cave) as the spot. and the cave? is a memory henry is too scared to enter. could the library be will's cave? it's looking more and more likely.
and btw, the shape of the cave (the "x"/"m") also looks like the "m" on the cover of mike's dnd binder:
which mike puts next to will's binder, and proceeds to cry. listen... are you hearing this? when mike places the "m" (the "x) next to "will", he starts crying, for the first time all season at that! the visual clues are clueing so hard: "m" marks the spot - and the spot, as we've been through, is will, i.e. will's heart (and i analyzed how the basement scene is when mike realizes his feelings for will in this post).
to put it shortly: the library connects to will connects to will's heart connects to mike
mike's options
let's go back to mike's conversation with hopper about his guilt over el's death, because it brings us a very poignant parallel to holly's conversation with max about camazots (or as max puts it, "when you're a prisoner in a messed up prison world")
hopper uses roads, max uses doors, but they are saying the same exact thing here. hopper's first road is to suffer alone, which parallels max's door of taking your own life. the second road is acceptance, paralleling the second door of accepting your fate. while hopper only lays out the two options, max also has a third one: escape. and holly? she thinks that one seems like the best door.
and here is where it gets reallll interesting, because mike does not choose either of hopper's roads.
mike chooses a different road - one where he chooses to believe el is still alive; that she escaped and found happiness. that's the road mike believes is the best one; the unspoken one, the same one max told holly about: escape! and isn't that something, that he chooses the door holly proclaimed as the best one? el isn't mike, sure, but this tells us mike believes the same thing as holly: escape is the best option.
but why does mike need to escape? well, because he's also a prisoner in a messed up prison world!
will's powers and his crucial role
will is completely sidelined in the finale, and by completely i mean they spent the whole season setting up just how deep his connection to henry/the hivemind goes, just for him to get the one conversation with henry that.. changed nothing, and one shot of flexing said powers, doing.. something that's up for interpretation.
but that's the thing, isn't it. it is not up for interpretation, because they kept building up will's importance in the final battle all the way up until the final episode. that is why will came out to everyone in ep7, because if kept secret, his sexuality would be used against him.
in my real finale plot theory, i go over this next point, but i have to bring it up here too:
holly is mike's mirror character. but moreso? henry is will's. in short: just as holly is compared to mike: "you're starting to remind me of your brother" "you are your brother", henry is compared to will: "except, i'm not vecna" "you sorta are", "you're saying i'm evil and hell-bent on destroying the world?" "totally!". these things are not coincidental.
holly's arc is a mirror of mike's: they both need to find the "x", to find their way out of camazots. and henry's arc is a mirror of will's: they are both vessels of the mindflayer, and lose against its control.
that is what went wrong in ep8, but i think it happened before we see will confronting henry in the abyss. there are many points throughout the season telling us something's not quite right with will, that he is slowly losing himself to the mindflayer's control, just like he did in season two (see: not wearing his jacket in the cold, his memories messed with and getting infused with henry's, mike disappearing from his flashbacks when he speaks with joyce).
and this is the real final battle: will is crucial on both sides. henry/the mindflayer's needs him for their great evil plan, and our heroic crew needs him to be able to defeat them. but will has fallen into the mindlflayer's control, just like henry, and someone (gee, i wonder who) needs to save him.
the storyteller
and as if it was not made obvious enough, they needed to give us a little more bone to chew on. the perfect way to do it is by way of the classic stranger things foreshadowing - mike's dnd campaign. this campaign is telling us what really happened, and what's to come:
the whole party has been taken out, except for will the wise. but will the wise has little power left, the suppression stone leaves him unable to use magic, and alone he stands no chance against the evil strahd. summoning the mage saves the party.
this, in short, is telling us exactly what i've explained above; will is the only one who is able to fight henry/the mindflayer, but something is making him unable to do so - he has lost control of his powers. el (the mage) can help will win, but i believe the "suppression stone" (losing his heart) must also be dealt with (mike needs to help him find it!)
and it's after the campaign that they introduce a fun new concept; calling mike "the storyteller". we all know mike as the party's dungeon master, which is sort of like a storyteller.. but i'm not so sure that is what mike is - in the sense of being the narrator of stranger things i mean.
because we need to remember that mike's pov is one we have rarely been privy to since season 2 - so, how could he be the storyteller? well, he is - in the epilogue, that is. and we see this at work: mike tells the party how their happily ever afters look, including el's, and they all accept his endings as truth. now is the perfect moment to bring up a conversation that tells us mike's endings are, in fact, not the truth:
like a warning, in ep6, they told us not to believe mike is the storyteller. and mike agrees - they are all the storytellers.
and the ending of the story starts with getting will back. the ending of the story starts with getting will back. THE ENDING OF THE STORY STARTS WITH GETTING WILL BACK! (hello? can anyone hear me?)
if will has lost control to the mindflayer, they need to get him back to finish the story - just like in mike's campaign and just like the foreshadowing and clues have all been telling us.
to the point
so, a quick summary: the library shows us will played a part in the opening gates. henry's words and lies tell us will's has capabilities we have yet to see play out. henry's avoidance to kill will tells us he is important to his plan. will and henry being the same tells us will also loses control to the mindflayer. and the x's tell us mike is somehow the clue to helping find the solution.
i'm sure most, if not all of this has been pointed out by others already, and i'm not trying to claim i've made any new discoveries here. the point i'm trying to get across is this: to say that the creators of stranger things got lost in their own plot, forgot how to write their characters, changed their ending in a last minute ditch due to unknown reasons, or that it was ruined by a pair of evil twins and attempted to be salvaged by the remaining crew/cast.... does not hold up as an explanation.
and the reason i say that with my full chest, is that the storytelling is there, every step of the way, including the epilogue. if you sit down and analyze this season like that guy with a board full of red strings (i.e. me for the past 22 days), you will find hundreds of pieces of proof that the story always kept building, also in the very last scene.
a certain theme follows the whole season. it's done subtly in the first volume, becomes visible in the second, and culminates in disaster in the eight episode. and the theme is: things aren't making sense - and that's because it's meant to not make sense!
the promo
to avoid this becoming a full length novel series, i have to limit myself here to a few significant interview statements made by the cast.
finn wolfhard on mike wheeler's ending
i want to start here: finn's statement about mike's ending. he said this in his interview with sfx magazine (i own it, read it with my own two eyes). i'm sure we can all agree this seems like far too grand a statement if it's about mike's "stuck in conformity"-ending in ep8. luckily, we have more clues about what mike's ending really entails.
gaten matarazzo on the show's lessons
i wanted to put finn's answer here as well, but the video was too long, so tumblr would not let me (i will link the full interview below w the timestamp!). this statement to me is super telling.
gaten says: "it's about people learning to really love each other beyond any way they knew they possibly could, and fighting for things that you love when it seems like they could be taken from you."
this is a theme the show has continuously displayed, however - i find this an odd answer to give in this context considering ep8 does nothing of the sort and rather goes blatantly against it: mike literally does not fight when it seems like el could be taken from him, at least not with love - he still can't say it. but if the story building is working right, mike is going to fight for will.
(it's also funny how gaten stares finn down while he's saying this. could be a subconscious choice because he relates his answer to finn's character?)
about the details
something i'm very tired of reading, is that the details in the show mean nothing. because yeah, it might seem like that now, but only because the story isn't over yet! luckily, we have many cases where the cast tell us just how involved the duffers are with the details.
such as this statement from maya hawke, saying how the duffers have "an extraordinary attention to details"
i also remember seeing a video of millie saying "the duffers don't do anything half way", but i can't seem to find it rn. and joe keery, i believe, said the duffers have barely even taken a week off every year since they started the show.
my point is: the duffers are known to be extremely peculiar about their show - they even describe themselves as obsessive perfectionists. they've poured over ten years of their lives into it - this show is their baby.
but more than that, the duffers have many times insisted that this show is as good as it is because of the involvement of other people. they praise everybody on the crew for making the show what it is, while everybody involved all praise the duffers for how much they have poured into it. and i think both things are true.
it's very telling of the duffers' character to see just how much they sing their cast and crew praises - they want everyone to be highlighted for their efforts - and we see this in stranger things promotional material. set designers, costume designers, stunt choreographers, even the guy in the demo suit - if you're willing to watch the content, you might remember all these people by name by now. that is because the duffers don't take all the credit - but you can be sure their crew members will mention how great they are to work with.
slip-ups or deliberate clues
the cast have been making a lot of weird jokes about there being an alternate finale.
finn went on the "last meal" show on yt channel mythical kitchen in april 2025 (over half a year before promo for st5), and said this:
"some people were mad about the last episode of game of thrones, and this is the thing that kind of retcons that. we go back and rewrite history"
could merely have been a joke of course, because the host's question was one - but the game of thrones finale has been mentioned a lot this press tour, and someone pointed out how ep 8 makes fun of got's ending. to me, that makes finn's statement here seem like it could bea truth hidden behind the pretense of a joke.
these subtitles are in italian, but here caleb said "my finale was different, so i don't know" and both finn and gaten seem a little shocked before they joke along... a deliberate slip-up?
the merchandise
there have been several oddball merch pieces related to things that never showed up in the show (for example, the 'for will' mixtape, sold as pillows, bags, bath mat, you name it). but the most interesting merch i just keep thinking about, are these netflix official character standees - sold before ep8 released.
their descriptions, again, do not fit the finale we got.. but they do fit what the foreshadowing and story building tells us we will get.
mike: "the heart that powers the mission! this standee features mike wheeler, the emotional anchor whose conviction will be vital in the final confrontation. his presence is a reminder than in the end, love and friendship are the true weapons against vecna. he is essential for rallying the troops for their last stand."
will: "the key to the darkness. this life-size cutout of will byers represents the character whose intimate, painful connection to the upside down will be the guide to victory. place him where you need a reminder of the personal stakes in the finale - he's the one who will help them finally understand the enemy."
i think i'll leave you with that to ruminate on.
end credits
i loved compiling this hunk of evidence and seeing just how well the puzzle pieces actually fit together - everything is pointing in the same direction! if this does not mean anything, i deserve an award for being able to frame everything to fit my own narrative :)
the fact that the only reason most people are even watching this awful documentary is conformitygate is insane, everything involving this season and its creators feels like a fever dream and i hope one day we'll get an explanation, like, an actual explanation of why they are like this, i can't understand anything anymore and atp i'm convinced neither can they?
I don't plan on watching the documentary but I must say its impressive how much the writers manage to keep fucking up. I also do not think conformity gate is gonna happen as much as I wish it would but at this point its the only thing that might save them.
Whatever one thinks about ai surely they aren't dense enough to think showing they are using it isn't gonna spark a backlash? Not one, not two but three chatgpt tabs open? How did no one editing this think to cut that out?
Thats not even going into all the other nonsense thats apparently in that documentary. Are they speedrunning destroying their own credibility or something? I am finding it hard to believe that the writers, netflix and the entire crew could be this incompetent.
I wonder how long the conformitygate vs incompetence question is gonna go on.
This documentary is obviously rage bait and we're taking it - think of Nancy's line about being the bait. WE ARE TAKING THE BAIT.
I get what they're trying to say, I truly do. The Duffers have been so vocal about being anti-AI, and I understand that this is a meta criticism on the industry, and what AI slop will get you. About how creatives should care about their projects. And I'm now more than certain that we're getting more footage, because that documentary was a MOCKUMENTARY to its core.
I get the message, I truly do, but I HATE the way the Duffs have gone about it. Why punish your audience, who have been emotionally invested in this show for ten years, with this abhorrent emotional baiting? Why drag it on for over a month? Why are you so concerned with critiquing the industry, and coming out as some 'master storytellers', and using this as an intellectual exercise, instead of just TELLING the story you set out to tell?
There are better ways to go about this. They only care about their egos. I'm so fed up with them honestly - even if we get an amazing Volume 4, I hate how they're punishing people who care about the show with this bullshit. We know what AI slop is. We understand how it's ruining the industry. We've seen the decline in television. We've been the ones EXPERIENCING this and god forbid we hoped for a satisfying series finale.
I am beyond pissed - I don't think I'll even enjoy the additional footage whenever the fuck it drops.
