Will has hope the whole season for some unknown reason and then Vecna makes him see a vision and boom magically the previous 4 seasons are useless and Mike actually doesn't love him, he loves El and Will and Mike grow apart with him going away in a far away city and flirting with other guys... It's really like Vecna saw what would have made all 3 of them miserable and acted writing it into the story. I can't stop thinking about this while I'm rewatching the coming out. Mike thinks he lost El again and that it's his fault because he built the bomb or didn't have a plan that wasn't childish to help her escape and also still can't say what he feels or doesn't feel, El has to give up her life in a way or another, dying or leaving she still lost her family and she also loses her sister... and Will goes on to live his nightmare/feared life where he is on his own without his Party... he wasn't scared that they would hate him for being gay he was scared that they would worry about him and he would eventually lose them because their worry would make him feel like there's something wrong with him being gay and he would push them away reacting to that or that with some of them they would just drift apart... He was scared that he would lose them and his "dream" finale is supposedly him at a bar with a completely new person
@itswhatyougive, thank you for bringing this episode up, it's pure gold!
if you haven't watched it, please do before reading, it's so good and spoilers will ruin the experience
i just want to show you a fuckton of visual parallels.
starts with purple and blue lighting
it is 1987 and the main character (closeted lesbian by the way) wears lots of collars and mike's glasses
her love interest is wearing full purple
neon signs in the bar
exit sign
she loves playing arcades, but it's not the point. read the subtitles.
the game that has two endings which depend on whether you are alone or in a pair? for yorkie it's true: her first life ended when she was alone, and now she has a second life with kelly. basically mike's story if he breaks out of camazotz.
there was a devastating car crash in yorkie's life. carcrashgate?
she has really bad internalized homophobia
she can "travel in time" through different simulations of the same town.
no comments
san junipero is a simulation created for the purpose of immersive nostalgia therapy
now hear me out. san junipero and bandersnatch were written by the same writer, charlie brooker. san junipero aired in 2016.
it's a gay love story about two women who didn't have a chance to experience same sex love during their lifetime, so they find each other in the nostalgia simulation. it's the 80s, the main location is 1987 precisely. it does a beautiful job of foreshadowing the plot with music ("girlfriend in a coma" — that was soooo good) and with the double- or even triple-meaning dialogue.
it must be a huge inspiration for stranger things, i feel it in my bones.
and i hope this scene will be the blueprint for byler's kiss because it's the sweetest kiss scene ever
You'd never know it based on how I post on here, but basically all my friends and family are Normal People™️ who watched Stranger Things extremely casually.
From time to time, I remove myself from the fandom space to put myself in their shoes. Here are the general takeaways:
People were all in agreement that the series needed to end. When S5 was about to come out, all of them bar none said they couldn't believe the series had been going on this long, the kids were too old now, and they couldn't imagine it going on for any longer.
None of the ones I know questioned MiIeven. They just saw it as the obvious endgame, even if they were bored by it. None thought that Will and Mike would end up together.
Every single one thought that Will's feelings were obviously unrequited.
They all assumed El had to die in the end.
People were generally underwhelmed by S5, but they were glad when it was over and said it gave a "realistic ending" ()
People didn't seem to care very much about the individual characters and their arcs. They may have a favorite character (Steve, Billy.....), but didn't seem to question any of their particular endings in the finale.
I don't know if it's just the sample that I spoke to, but nobody questioned the lack of Nina in S5 or Brenner's lingering involvement. Some thought it was nice to have Linda Hamilton as a cameo but didn't have much else to say about the human villains.
Any things I brought up that didn't make sense they said were easily explained away by production errors or the show ending and the writers just wanting to finish up quickly, which they agreed with.
None of them saw the show as being very deep. The ones that know I'm a super fan think it's funny and silly that I am so invested.
So all this having been said, if this fits the pattern of the general audience, I assume that most of them are very "over" Stranger Things and maybe have been for a long time.
Even if they weren't completely happy with season 5, they accept that it's over. They accept the ending that they saw and they're not looking for more.
The general audience who briefly caught on to the trend of CG at the beginning of the year had no idea what it was all about other than potentially an extra episode.
They had absolutely no idea why it was called Conformity Gate and didn't question it. Mostly they just assumed it would be a way to make El live so that she could get married to Mike and live happily ever after. When it didn't happen on January 7th, they went back to business as usual.
All this makes their recent marketing strategies so confusing to me. The actors kept shutting down CG as "everyone wanting more Stranger Things," but I actually don't think that's true. From the people I talked to, the general audience was ready for the show to end.
And at the same time, they rolled out with TF85 (with another season already confirmed for the end of this year??), more toy and Lego pushes, more retail designs, on social media now apparently pushing everyone back to the Stranger Things official playlist.
Did they really think that general audience is needing to listen to the Stranger Things soundtrack again? Is there a wild push from the general audience to buy more shirts now that we're 5 months on from the finale? Why are there still Funkos in development that don't even have a release date?
And on that note, the same question we've all had for weeks, why are the Duffers choosing to do this live interview about Stranger Things now?? It's fucking May! The window of people's attention span has long passed, especially if they already released a documentary and a postseason interview with this same guy.
Most of the general audience does not have any questions left to ask! They don't care!!
Basically the only people that really care enough to buy tickets are the people like you and me, the super fans, the believers. We assume that this is going to be live streamed or released on YouTube, so if people are casually invested they may be able to watch it later. But why do this at all?
It could be that they're just going to use it as a vehicle to introduce The First Shadow proshot, but that just brings another question. Why release that months after the finale, when it was supposedly going to provide context for S5? And yet we've already seen S5, and there was nothing that the play could spoil.
I don't know. None of this makes any sense unless they do have something else up their sleeve. Even then, this marketing strategy is very strange. Is it only for us? Are we the test subjects?
And now this is even funnier, because the HSC podcast was indeed a nothingburger. They didn't (directly) reveal anything of importance.
And yet, Netflix is starting to put up billboards in LA and new banners promoting S5......six months after it ended..?
What must the GA be thinking when they see these? Overkill, right? "It's over! Who cares!"
They can't be that nostalgic for last season, which not only wasn't good, but hasn't had much of a break in marketing since it ended half a year (!!) ago.
There have also been constant ST-affiliated things like TF85 and all its Happy Meals, the Boroughs, and the knowledge that there will be a TFS proshot released eventually (and I can't see that the GA would be super hyped for that, though I'm sure they'll tune in). There's another ST-themed attraction at Universal Studios this Halloween.
What is this marketing?? Surely the GA must have ST fatigue?
How many times are they going to say “One Last Adventure”?
Also, I couldn’t help but notice that no UD creature turned up in the second mirror, leaving only… our reflection? Something something Door 2, accept your fate. Is there a ‘fourth door’?
Idk maybe try blasting "Wishing (If I Had a Photograph of You)" by esteemed new wave band A Flock of Seagulls and do some wild interpretive dance and feel better
The cast are definitely working off the same playbook.
They've been given a script for what they can say about CG (defer to the GA's interpretation of the theory, "it's so sad that Stranger Things was so loved that the fans want more," do NOT discuss what in the theory refers to conformity).
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