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[misspracticallydelulu]

So I noticed the red cube on @nightnut post here

Aaand it’s sent me down a rabbit hole. I’ll take you guys with me 😆

Stranger Things S2 (red cube left of frame)

And we all know they’re from the Rainbow Room. They’re used as a measure of cognitive testing & honing their abilities:

This either tells me that:

Hawkins Lab would visit the Byers household to run cognitive tests, or;

There is something whack with the timeline going on…

Now tell me WHY does the exotic matter from below look like a red cube with a core 😭:

Stranger Things S5 (exotic matter from below)

And yeah, there’s been so much allusion to the tesseract, only for it to go nowhere:

Even this S4 poster, the texture of the Rainbow is just like the bookshelf tesseract in Interstellar:

Stranger Things S4 poster vs. Interstellar tesseract

And the reversed rainbow in the Rainbow Room reminds me of the reversed watches:

Mike Wheeler S4 vs. S5 (the red cubes in the pizza shop!!)

What if…all the red objects and red lights are a reminder that Brenner is testing you between timelines:

(Snippet taken from my edit here)

And all the allusions to the red tapes, particularly S2 is hinting at that:

(Be Kind, Rewind theory here)

And everytime an object was red or changes to red signalled A COGNITIVE TEST:

And it begins & ends with Will going through this test (or maybe all characters being tested):

Will literally goes into his mind here to access memories to save Mike ⬇️

WHAT IF THE ENTIRETY OF S5 WAS A TEST??? (Unknowingly) And they failed 💀 Will literally says they failed in Shock Jock

Any thoughts on this would be appreciated 🙏🏼

[disastertourwaterdeepedition]

I don't think they're doing "multiple timelines" in the literal sense, as they're most likely doing a combination of mind-wiping and false memories to have them redo events because so much of this show is about memory alteration and mind control that it would be baffling for it not to be what's going on.

As in, everyone thinks it's 1987 when it's actually 1989. But because people's memories are being messed with (which in this case would be when Brenner resets the experiment), they aren't aware of exactly how much time has passed.

[gritstartar]

HARD AGREE!!!!

[nightnut]

Corruptiongate p.4: The vanishing never-existing of Jonathan Byers, Suzie Bingham, Barbara Holland — and the drama of the real finale + doppelgangergate

[ p.1, p.2, p.3 + visual erasure of Will in s2 ]

Jonathan seems to be a character created by the Lab to give Will a brother. Jonathan could be visually based on David Bowie and performing tasks of supporting him and also introducing Will to music, which would keep Will in the simulation.

(although I’m not sure that he as Jonathan acknowledges it, and probably is genuinely living in Nina and loves his ‘brother’)

But Jonathan isn’t just an empty hologram.

(meanwhile, notice how the colour palette of Jonathan’s room, including the Bowie shot, duplicates in Will’s t-shirt)

…Have you ever wondered why we love Robin so much?.. Why she is such a good friend to Will? Why she has basically substituted Jonathan for him? Why is she so good in music and even knows what Will would like, barely being acquainted to him?

(we’ve known for a long while that Holly is Mike, and who knows who’s Max atp, but Ig, this door also has a lock on it)

my og post with 👆 visual analysis + @beaulesbian meta finds

Robin is good at music like Jonathan, Robin likes Nancy like Jonathan, Robin is Will’s support like Jonathan. Robin knows the kids. Bc Rockin fucking Robin IS Jonathan.

And it’s Robin who plays Jonathan, not vice versa, bc👇 Steve and Robin are Brenner’s numbers 👇

(It can also explain the absence of their parents)

The way I see it is that Robin was placed in the hologram when, let’s say, Will needed a brother figure; as soon as he’d grown up, he got a queer friend who helped me where Jonathan could’ve but he wouldn’t understand Will that much. All this time it was one character, who was originally a girl, but changed their gender to fit in Will’s life.

Jonathan yarning for Nancy while she’s in Stancy, anyone? (now I even see Steve in this Dan. And El)

this also explains why the characters keep quoting each other: sometimes it can be literally just one character, or it can be switching-arcs-s5 (like in @warmglowhc example of Dustin being Mike), or repeating storylines, mixed up with each other.

(do we still remember that Priah wasn’t that satisfied with Erica’s ending? could that be bc Erica is not real either?)

What fascinates me is the tendency of switching genders of the characters, depending on what was needed for Nina tv-season:

At this point I believe that Dustin is in the lab, same as Henry is 001; but Suzie and Barb are their versions needed for other characters for the plot.

❗️Along with this there’s a pretty solid evidence for stonathan endgame by @strange-anni which also matches Will’s erasure from the narrative; so far I’m not exactly sure how it aligns, but as there are also shots of Robin and Jonathan together, I believe in the simulation they can be duplicated (doppelgangergate, anyone?): like, here’s a nurse looking like Nancy, aside from Vickie being Nancy:

and as for this gang, I’ve always felt like they are a crew here, so I even assumed that they might be just the “agent smiths”, however, as we’ve just seen, I still believe that just partly —

I think it’s gonna be the drama of the real finale:

some of our characters are just a program, but they’re attached to each other, they have feelings, and they might be not ready for this to end.

Stonathan might be endgame inside Nina, if Steve chooses to stay. Ronance will become endgame irl. Max’s been sus too long not to be a program, so does it speak in Lucas staying in Nina? (We’ve had theories that Lucas could’ve stayed with her version wherever she is, and somehow we’re back there?) If Steve stays for Jonathan, Dustin might stay for Steve. It also means that Eddie might get back into the picture, but generally we need to lock in sfm with doppelgängers, as it’s a huge hint at who’s real.

The ticket from Tales quite truly foreshadowed:

[ main corruptiongate posts ] [ other key theory posts ]

p.s. here’s one more genderbend and self-insert from this post by @lesikm

Just recently we have discussed that we don’t know why El was looking at the camera in Nina as if Brenner could see her: my assumption to that is that he also visits his holo-worlds.

tagging those who might be interested, if you don’t wanna be tagged, lmk 🫶🏻: @gritstartar @worldofsouthernwind @daeshikoba @rgwriter @alexiswrite @thisbarbieisineffable @ten-universe @sherlockbyers @iwakeupslowly @dawnschild @misspracticallydelulu @mike-wakes-up @bbghostbones @persistentmimicgrail @youaremess @sorafyr3 @slavless @cypher-heart-no-key @sidoniemoon @demogorgirl7 @beautifulsoulsaretaken @honeymandarin @cara-ti-amo @wrathfulstarlightcavern @artiandthebeat @lavenderlatte222

[nightnut]

Let’s play a game!

Where’s Will, corruptiongate (2x04) — and 3 Musketeers

three friends biking to school

Will comes out of nowhere, looks like he’s not with them at all, placed in the very corner

the previous shot we have is Will at home

and the next scene after ‘the ghostbusters core 4’ is also at home, preparing for trick or treating, where on the left we see X is a lie and on the right butterflygate (yes, it’s those butterflies they have in Cali in s4, and the same Anna Baxter has in Tales!)

I’ve told you already what they’re planning to do with VHS: my suspicion of that was evoked by exactly such framing. I found unexpected things, examining Will’s locations in the shots, although I was thinking that the duffs were separating Will just visually and ‘psychologically’, but then I saw their vhs ratio and it clicked.

but they will not just crop Will out of the corners!

Will has always been erased visually from the narrative!

❗️It happens in the scenes from different POVs (which makes it possible for him personally communicate with his family or with Mike, but he doesn’t communicate with anyone anymore at all)

Even when Will participates, it’s done the way you can cut him out, and nothing changes: look, Mike doesn’t call him by his name:

this line has always felt like no one heard Will, and now I understand why: bc no one did.

Then the duffs hide Will behind the core 3:

Then we move to school, and there we see only Lucas and Dustin interested in Max

After school it’s again three of them on the bikes (We’re still playing, btw! Where’s Will?)

Like I said, after the morning scene, next time we see Will is again at home, and then Jonathan takes him to the guys, we can hear Dustin calling “Will!” from the distance, but we do not see Will’s friends acknowledging him personally. Only Mike. We’re gonna see not fully direct communication with Will’s other friends, and I believe, how we see him depends on the POVs.

Here’s Will’s POV, Mike’s there:

Dustin addresses Mike

Mike says “I am”, again without mentioning Will (like when he said who’s Will without calling him Will in the morning)

And again no name

More visual erasure:

👇And my absolute favourite one !!! 👇

I have NEVER understood why no one notices that the only thing wrong about 3 Musketeers is that there are 4 Musketeers! And obviously this is built around the task to make us question that.

But there are 3 Musketeers, bc Will is not there.

(add also three blocks of light behind them)

I wanted to include this into another big theory post, but it’ll take eternity to finish that one (especially with this amount of screenshots per episode, and I’ve collected a bunch by this point), and I was dying to share it asap :)

I know, you’re wondering what’s up with Crazy together, and surely it bothers me no less; I keep examining the story that couldn’t be told and have assumptions about what is going on, which I will share in the next posts!

[ Where’s Will in 2x03 ]

[ main corruptiongate theory posts ]

tagging those ones who might be interested! (If you don’t wanna be tagged, lmk) @sorafyr3 @gritstartar @youaremess @artiandthebeat @rpfwithmama @ten-universe @slavless @demogorgirl7 @thatgirlalt @aprilmarsden3 @sidoniemoon @honeymandarin @bbghostbones @warmglowhc @cara-ti-amo @wrathfulstarlightcavern @worldofsouthernwind @misspracticallydelulu @itswhatyougive @persistentmimicgrail

[cara-ti-amo]

The Byers Kitchen (2/2): "Rescue Me!"

Warning: Spoilers for ST, Cheers, and SVBIGTH

Picking back up from where we left off in PART ONE, discussing this shot from S3Ep1 of Stranger Things:

Featuring several symbols that may end up being powerfully relevant to ST5 Side B.

But first -- rewinding and zooming out to the context of the scene.

Joyce coming home from work, finding herself alone...

...And serving a dinner for one.

Note the symbols of #conformitygate here -- Conformity Coke and orange juice in the fridge.

And the mushrooms -- that can be hallucinogens, and produce spores (like the spores from the UD)...

Rockin' Robin, what do you know??

But back to Joyce -- who cracks open a bottle of wine (alcohol -- another mind-altering substance and depressant) and turns on an episode of Cheers, which of course, reminds her of the person she loved, who loved watching with her -- Bob.

In this flashback, we see Bob also has a glass of wine.

Bob, who was trapped in his own conformity!ending, but dreamed of escaping, only to walk it back, saying --

And while we're still on the topic of wine, the Cheers episode Joyce watches makes a very interesting mention --

Huh. Let's back this train up a bit.

I feel like I saw someone else make this observation before in a different context, so lmk if you know who/which theory it was.

The episode of Cheers Joyce is watching is the last episode of S3 (funny, because it's featured in the *first* episode of ST S3) -- titled

"Rescue Me" 👀

Who is doing the rescuing, who needs the rescuing, and what are they being rescued from?

In the Cheers episode, Diane Chambers (Diane having name associations with Mother Goose, mind you) is in Italy -- at a restaurant -- with her current boyfriend, the very brainy, pedantic Frasier Crane (who ended up getting a spinoff where he has a radio show 👀).

In a very unfortunate set of circumstances, Frasier is the Chianti drinker who suddenly pops the question and proposes he and Diane marry on the morrow.

However, a panicked Diane dials her ex, Sam Malone, the owner of Cheers, a bartender with a drinking problem and a wandering eye, who is rough around the edges, much less refined than Frasier, but has passionate chemistry with Diane.

Hop, mind you, was once married to a Diane.

Looks like a clear love triangle right?

Joyce = Diane

Bob = Frasier

Hopper = Sam

Except it's Hopper, not Bob, who proposes to Joyce in an Italian restaurant over a bottle of Chianti -- so who flipped the script there?

Back to Cheers: Diane dials Sam, hoping he'll tell her to turn down Frasier. However in a classic case of the miscommunication trope, Sam believes that Frasier is who Diane really wants and encourages her to marry him, while Diane believes, based on this reply, that Sam doesn't love her.

She says yes to Frasier's proposal and they make plans to marry the next day.

However, before we the audience have even begun to suspect what Sam will do with the news that Diane is getting married, he crashes the wedding and sweeps her off her feet (literally).

It looks like the two are set to live happily ever after --

Except it was all a fantasy in Sam's mind.

If all of this so far hasn't been proof that our people have been trapped in an illusion since the end of S2, idk what is...

But the episode doesn't end there. After being encouraged and discouraged by his friends to go after Diane, Sam decides to board a flight to Italy (procured for him by Cliff, the letter carrier), stop the wedding, and get his girl.

Except Diane has no idea and calls Sam again, hoping he won't answer bc he's on a flight to Italy (which he is).

However, we see the miscommunication trope at play again when there's an "interference in signals" -- Diane gets Sam's answering machine and, hearing Sam's voice, believes it's really Sam who answered, having decided not to go after her.

With Diane unintentionally deceived due to this signal interference, she decides to go ahead with the wedding as Sam sits on his flight to Italy, with the vaguest feeling something is amiss...

Off this foreboding image, THE SEASON ENDS ON A MASSIVE CLIFFHANGER.

So, what are our characters being rescued from?

Marriage, it would seem --

For those who don't know SVBIGTH is about a young woman with a blood curse whose fate is determined by who she marries: Marry incorrectly and she dies --

Or -- like the Witness -- get cold feet and become essentially immortal, but doom her fiancé and *his* bloodline, and have to witness each ill-fated wedding thereafter.

The secret third thing, is be with the one you love without the vise and pressure of marriage (society's way of controlling love *and who gets to love*) to ruin things, and have a gay ending anyway.

But I digress -- how do things end for Sam and Diane?

Well, when we come back in S4, we quickly learn Sam DID NOT have a good time in Italy (he gets thrown in jail #mikewakeup), believing he was unable to stop the wedding and that Diane is now married to Frasier.

Only Frasier miserably tells him Diane left him at the altar for love of Sam, but feeling ashamed of her actions and believing he didn't return her feelings, got herself to a nunnery. #churchgatebabyyyy

Sam once again goes after her, but Diane is determined to stay, unless God sends her a sign of what she should do. #signalgate

The sign ends up being Sam coming back, asking where the men's room is in this convent. It's good enough for Diane -- she returns to work at Cheers.

But if you thought Ross and Rachel were wishy-washy, Sam and Diane were the blueprint for TV "will-they, won't they" ships -- and America couldn't get enough of it. In fact, people thought the show was better when Sam and Diane weren't together, since their zesty tension and witty banter was reliant on it.

But eventually, an endgame had to be decided: Sam and Diane -- married or not? Even with Diane written off the show, she was brought back for the season finale to resolve that hanging thread.

And you wanna know what the writers did?

Had them get back together after years apart, get engaged, then regret their decision and break up *again* and part ways -- presumably for good (or maybe not, given their track record).

Not quite the gay ending we have in mind for Byler.

The good news? Cheers is yet another symbol of conformity.

As great and iconic as it is, it's another lie -- written, directed, and shot in front of live studio audience. None of it is real.

Back to this shot

While the top of this post showed the symbols of #conformitygate, I think the symbols we explored in Part One are the symbols of #lovewinsgate:

The Rainbow Spaceship 🌈 🚀: Will, Henry, Captain Midnight

Representations of queer love and acceptance hijacking the signal of conformity and fear causing interference.

The Owl🦉 (or Goose): Mother Goose aka Tharizdun

The unmasking of the major player who's been waiting in the wings, and could be key to stopping (and healing) --

The Butterfly 🦋: Kali, Max, El (+Nancy)

The wounded daughter, forced to become a spider to survive, but perhaps needing a mother's love in order to transform into a butterfly.

And perhaps for our other characters, it's about accepting and reconciling our "good" and "bad" sides, our "light" and "dark" -- "the monster" and "the superhero."

The Strawberry 🍓: El

The sacred fruit -- beloved and coveted by all -- experimented on, trampled on, but still sweet despite it all. The key to finding forgiveness. A love supreme.

Maxwell House ☕️: Memory loss #birthdaygate

Perhaps a major sacrifice between two young lovers will be key to saving the world.

And finally,

Bob Newby, Superhero

Rectifying the wrongs of his past, flying rather than running, in order to rescue his lost love -- Henry Creel -- and redeem them both.

Stay tuned.

[eclecticmentalitytheorist]

Mandela/Mandala

Unsure if anyone has brought this up, but I was thinking maybe there is also a Mandela Effect, and they are re-releasing the VHS tapes so we can re-watch and see what changed or what we were thinking happened, but didn't actually happen? And we are having to relive the experience sort of in a loop or 'Mandala'. Since I've seen those words misspelled on accident too, and someone was typing it, but they meant the other word. I don't know, I'm probably not explaining very well and I'm sorry. I had been seeing a video of how people remember in Willy Wonka the kid having a chocolate bar that had the golden ticket, but that it was actually a Moon Pie? If that link works, it says, "You’re a part of a larger group of people (basically everyone) who have collectively misremembered an event, a person, historical facts, a character detail, or even a movie quote!" https://www.chasingfoxes.com/mandela-effect-examples/ There is even one for Coca Cola: "67. The Coca-Cola Hyphen Some remember Coca Cola having a squiggly hyphen, but it looks like the logo just has a normal, small hyphen at the top.Explanation for This Mandela Effect: The Coca-Cola logo is definitely one of the most recognizable in the world, yet somehow people have never really studied the hyphen. Because it’s a small detail that sits between two very dominant words with a very stylized font, the brain ends up storing different versions depending on what it assumes should really be there."

It's either we shouldn't rely on our own memories, or we shouldn't rely on the characters' memories. :(