not a dead welsh king

J. 25. She/Her. ENFP. 9w1. Sagittarius

[classycookiexo]

[capricorn-born]

Oddly specific. Got a deposit for 6,837 today

[weaselle]

fuck it, i never ever do those “reblog for X, this one really works!” posts, but this one doesn’t have any of that BS, this is just straight up wishing us good things; and then the comment doesn’t even say any of that either. Zero claims on this post, all positive vibes

May you end this week feeling ever more certain of a future you’ll love

[vmohlere]

May you end this week feeling ever more certain of a future you’ll love

[huffy-the-bicycle-slayer]

I haven't seen dancing pumpkin guy ONCE this year, are you guys okay?

[huffy-the-bicycle-slayer]

FINE! I'll do it myself

[huffy-the-bicycle-slayer]

Why did 12 people reblog this today??? IT IS ONLY AUGUST!!!

[huffy-the-bicycle-slayer]

I see it is once again August 😮‍💨

[thepromiscuousfinger]

[chaifootsteps]

#Please little bird

[greenfiend]

Are we ready to have an honest discussion about Will and El’s dynamic and possible ending yet?

Two characters sharing a similar narrative in this story. How will things end for these two?

It hasn’t occurred to me until recently just how little we discuss these two.

Over the course of the show, the development of Will and El’s co-existence has less to do with their relationship but more to do with Will’s character arc.

In the beginning (seasons 1 and 2), Will is so hidden that El takes over. Will “hides” in the upside down, and is again hidden when he is possessed. El takes the spotlight in his place.

Then in season 3, Will is physically present but in the background. He’s the side character. El is the leader. They barely interact.

In season 4, Will is starting to come out of his shell. He’s still a side character, but he’s closer to being on an even playing field with El. He’s not in the background as often, and is actually seen conversing with El, and he even confronts her on her lies to Mike. Which is also foreshadowing his lies to Mike later on in the season.

I’m going to be quite frank: El and Will are not actually very close in canon. The “wonder twins” idea is beautiful but very fanon. These two had so many opportunities to grow closer, especially since they were separated from the others in California… but they just don’t? They both seem lonely and disconnected in the other’s presence. But yet, they are connected another way: El is Will’s saviour/protector. She is like his security blanket. I mean this literally (textually), and a sub-textually. Obviously she helps him while he’s trapped in the upside down and when he’s possessed- making her a textual, and literal saviour.

But… what do I mean by a sub-textual saviour? Well, she protects him from having to take the spotlight. He is able to hide behind her in many ways.

For one, she takes the brunt of the bullies in Lenora. Will is able to go around unnoticed even as a GNC guy that he is. Back home at Hawkins, he is, unfortunately, very visible to bullies. Visibly different, visibly gay. But in Lenora? Bullies are too distracted by the girl who’s different instead.

Now when it comes to Will’s love life… El also is protecting him in a sense. He desires Mike, romantically, sexually, and intimately. Due to the rampant homophobia that surrounds him, these desires scare him. El is a safe barrier from these desires. Will is also able to safely express himself through her.

If El weren’t in the picture, Will may have been more bold in expressing this side of himself to Mike. He may just let his feelings slip out more. Perhaps he’d let his eyes linger a tad longer, or he’d be tempted to be a bit more tactile with the boy he’s overflowing with affection for.

El shields Will from having to confront many aspects of himself. That’s the problem. Because of her protection, he isn’t able to challenge himself and grow. This is why whenever El saves the day, it never lasts. She merely puts a “bandaid” on the wound. But this wound will grow and fester if the source of the problem is not addressed.

El’s Possible Origin

This is the first time in the entire show that El is mentioned. The context of this sounds like they’re implying that El also “came from” the upsidedown; precisely where Will was at the time.

Now, I’m aware this is a fairly unpopular opinion, but I do believe El was created from Will in a supernatural sense. I suppose in a similar way to how Eve was created from Adam, minus any romantic undertones.

Our very first sighting of El is of her emerging from the forest, barefoot, in a hospital gown, with very little hair on her head, and a limited knowledge of the English language. Not unlike an infant child. Now, please don’t take this the wrong way… I’m not implying that everyone with limited language skills are babies, there are many possible reasons for it. But within this show, it is implied that her lack of language skills are due to her experiences within the lab, and lack of experiences outside of it.

I do have to ask though, why do the other “lab kids” we have seen have no obvious language difficulties? Unless… El actually was an “infant” in a way…

This quote is interesting for multiple reasons. One I’m focusing on here is the mention of life starting that particular day. Of course I’m not referring to Mike’s life starting that day- I’m talking about the person we are shown in this particular shot- El.

Now, I know what everyone is thinking: how does El have memories that predate this day then?

Well, what I’m arguing is that many of her memories could be an altered version of Will’s memories. I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that his memories could have been transferred to El.

This “fake” script of the episode Papa tells us that Will recognized Brenner. There’s a history there! Will likely could not quite pinpoint how he recognized him.

It’s important to note that Will only vaguely recalls aspects of his childhood. There’s gaps. Just like there’s gaps in El’s memory as well.

El’s Possible Ending

I’ve always been surprised just how little people dig into El’s possible ending in the show. I feel like people are somewhat aware of this possibility but choose not to give it any further thought. Truth is- El doesn’t feel like she belongs anywhere.

I need to remind everyone of this last shot in ST4. Yes yes the couples, we have heard it a million times already… but look where El is standing. She’s on the other side. She’s in the upsidedown. Where she initially came from. Now, I’m not saying she’ll end up in the current unpleasant upsidedown- she will likely live on in a peaceful version of it. An entirely new environment one that exists…

[In Will’s mind.]

I do think this is an important foreshadowing quote- but not in the way most people think. They won’t work together as twins- they will work together as one person. What I’m saying is…

They will combine. Just like what this hug visually foreshadows… El and Will will become one again.

I can honestly make a whole separate post regarding references made in ST to other media involving two characters being one. There’s a lot…

[greenfiend]

@fairyrona I totally understand how you feel. I 100% get why this is a hated theory but- there’s so much evidence that I just cannot ignore it anymore!

I’m still wondering about the how, when, whys etc., but I feel like it will all be explained in ST5. All I know is that it is likely Will and El have no idea. But I feel like Brenner and possibly Vecna absolutely know.

I’m thinking that Jane Ives is not El, thus Terry is not her mother. Other people have brought this up, but just look at Jane here.

She’s a blonde little girl, El isn’t blonde!

Plus in that same flashback we get this shot:

The focus on a green car resembling Joyce’s car…

Millie’s reaction to El’s ending absolutely means it’s not gonna be a traditional “happy ending” for her. It’ll be bittersweet. Will has to let go of her as his protector.

I have more evidence as well but I might save it for a future post…

[conflictofthemind]

As with a lot of things in ST, I’m not sure it makes complete logical sense yet because the answer is probably complicated (and has additional lore points we can’t fully understand yet), but I think the idea is very valid. They must have a connection beyond just literary parallels.

Here is my unrelated (but related) spiel on how potentially complicated and wild the lore of the show could end up:

In Montauk Experiments in Time - I’m still honestly so confused by it so bear with me - both the main character and the main research subject Duncan Cameron have another dual half of themselves. For the main narrator, this is another version of himself that lives in a separate timeline where he is a lead researcher for Montauk. The lab activates and de-activates this other timeline so that the information remains top secret and separated from his original form. He has no memories of the other “time-track”.

For Duncan Cameron, he existed in 1943 as part of the USS Eldridge crew but got sucked into the time portal back to 1983. He is basically the inspiration for El and Henry. He has a twin named Edward but he is not really important. The thing is - the lab had actually been experimenting on Duncan in the 70s already! They were stuck in a time loop, and had to keep fulfilling it. The lab (who at this point had figured out time travel) makes a last ditch effort to contact Duncan's father back in the 1940s and tells him to have another child. He does, and they replace the soul of Duncan The Second Child with Duncan The First Child who came through the portal so that time is not broken. Since Duncan exists back in the past again, they are able to experiment on him in the 70s and the cycle continues.

Back to El, though:

I'm not sure her ending will be her soul disappearing / combining into Will's if this is true. I think even regardless of the twin or same-person theories that they will combine powers in order to defeat Vecna. I think her answer would be stepping out of the shadow of being this "not-real" person and becoming a real one, but that would mean being born in a different body somewhere far away and losing her conscious memories as the person who was El. But she will get a real name and a real fresh start. The people she has met through her existence as El each helped guide her into an understanding of how to exist as a human being and learn how to love. Which feels like a strong, profound ending to me.

This is a new movie, so I'm not saying they're taking inspiration from this, but I believe the idea would be similar:

[lunarqueen]

After Season 5 has aired it is going to be so funny when people are going to post Byler foreshadowing on Reddit and are like "I cannot believe this has never been mentioned in this sub". And Bylers are just like "It was posted but it got mass-reported and removed"

[beardedmrbean]

[theman]

I GOT A FUCKING RAISE THE POTATO WORKED WTF

[tattooedzombigirl]

This potato works. Every. Fucking. Time.

[secondlina]

Reblogging because it’s a damn potato and I want to encourage people to assume potatoes are magical.

[sinksanksockie2]

w-what if potato is actually lucky

[greenfiend]

Let’s Talk Time in ST

Time has been referenced a lot within this show and it is likely to play a MAJOR role in the final season- possibly in a reveal that will change our perspectives on the show as a whole.

There’s this one character who is most associated with affecting/manipulating time more than any other…

Mike.

He’s late every season. He is the one El addresses in the letter discussing time (image at the top of this post).

While Will is our Marty Mcfly, the time traveller. Mike is our Doc Brown… the inventor of the Time Machine.

These scenes spell it out for us. Dustin leaves the theatre “to find us a ride” then we are shown the Delorean (the time machine in Back to the Future). Now… who does Dustin reach out to for “a ride”? None other than Mike Wheeler himself, while we are given ANOTHER call back to the movie.

Somehow, he possess the ability to alter time. Is it powers? Maybe. Perhaps time has been slowing down and speeding up depending on his emotions. Let’s look at some examples of this.

From the very beginning we are shown the boys playing DnD and having a blast! They played for ten hours and that time just literally flew by in a snap.

Shortly after, Will went missing. Time came to an abrupt halt in the upside-down… but also perhaps in the right side up too?

When Will went missing- Mike felt numb… for a long time. He was devastated. Because his emotions affect time- time literally stopped. Time stopped until he found El in the woods. El represented hope for him. He started to feel things again and his life started up again. Time started up again.

The frequent mentions of the week being long are a reference to the week Will went missing. Because of Mike, that week actually lasted far longer than we realize.

Once Will returned, time resumed in the right-side up.

Throughout the show, however, we are given hints of time speeding up/slowing down to lesser degrees.

Here we learn that Mike had not really been enjoying himself while spending every single day with El.

While it’s the exact opposite when he’s with Will. At the movies, Mike definitely enjoyed himself. He loved the intimate time with Will. So much so that time sped up. We are shown this through Nancy and Jonathan waking up late.

When the Byers moved away, time slowed down quite a bit again. However, when Mike and Will were on good terms again and being a little flirty? Well…

Now I will just leave you with this:

[lunarqueen]

Rovickie, Vickie/Max, Byler

What confused me was that there was no sight of Vickie / Amybeth McNulty in the Season 5 teaser.

1. During the Season 4 filming the Duffers confirmed that she is going to have an important role

2. We got official confirmation that Amybeth McNulty was at the hospital set at the beginning of this year.

Yet there is no Vickie in sight in the teaser. This could mean two things: 1. She dies early on or 2. She has a storyline that is closely kept under wraps. Based on what we know, only the second option makes sense. There would have been no teaser of her playing an important role and the confirmation that she likely likes Robin back if she was just going to die.

My working theory is that she gets seriously injured, is in a similar state to Max and will share scenes mainly with Max in the mid-season. We have had no info about Max's story as well - all the BTS of her we got were just Sadie in costume.

Based on the recent and past pictures we got we know that Robin shares scenes with Mike and Will in what is likely the mid-season (we also got confirmation of Stoncy and Dustin / Lumax / El likely on her own / nothing about Jopper so they may share a storyline with each other).

Robin's worry for Vickie may be what actually leads her to clock Byler. She is not sure if her girlfriend is going to survive and she feels guilt for all the things she did not do and say and she does not want to have the circle repeat with Byler. Maya Hawke already spoiled that Robin is going to mentor one of the younger teenagers. And based on the set pictures we got today, it may very likely be Mike over Will.

[bylertruth3r]

Mike only said those things because he thinks El commissioned the painting and he felt like he owed it to El and you can tell that because he only started saying those things when Will said "you're the heart" and they called the soundtrack of the scene "you're the heart" because Mike now thinks the things Will said in the van were from El, in this scene Mike was trying to recreate the shed scene but the difference is no one pushed Mike into saying those things to Will and he didn't repeat any word he heard from others when he spoke to Will

Also Mike likes to plagiarize things

[lunarqueen]

I think this is one of the biggest call-outs for heteronormative views.

Eddie remembers the first time he met Dustin and the shirt he was wearing. He says I love you to Dustin in Episode 8.

Mike remembers the first time he met El and the shirt she was wearing. He says I love you to El.

People see that the first instance is purely platonic: Somebody "older" and more experienced takes a person who feels lost in the world under their wing. Yet almost the exact same constellation gets misperceived as a "great love story" because it involves a girl and a boy of roughly the same age.

[lunarqueen]

All leaks that just say a plotline will (not) happen are not credible without explicit material that supports these leaks.

If Byler does not happen there needs to be a scene that makes it very apparent that there is not any possibility left. (For example one of them dies / Mlvin is married in the epilogue / there is a scene where any romantic chances are ultimately rejected). However, people who currently claim that Byler is not happening cannot back it up with any additional proof.

They deliberately stay vague because ultimately there are two broad options: 1. Byler happens or 2. Byler does not happen. However, there are hundreds of possibilities how the story of Byler (not) happening is going to unfold. These supposed leakers know that as soon as Season 5 or actual real leaks come out, they are easily proven wrong if they come up with detailed possible scenarios. So they rather risk their chances by making fleaks about scenarios with only a limited number of possible outcomes.

[ur-daily-inspiration]

Happy Pride Month

[lunarqueen]

https://twitter.com/Stranger_Frames/status/1790811900613210623?t=9DmdeBv2Fi6OK8ROk4L-PQ&s=19

Okay but can we talk about how they both literally form a heart with their body and arms in this scene.

And in the scene at the cabin in the finale they both once again form a heart with their crossed legs

[buggy-moths]

If the Subreddit was the one writing season 5:

Will: Mike I’m in love with you and I always have been

Mike: I’m sorry Will, my best friend but I’m straight and in love with El we’re gonna go get married at a local village with three waterfalls after all of this is over

Will: I just had to get that off my chest I’m off to go sacrifice myself goodbye Mike thanks for being such a good friend to me

Mike: No Will!! You were supposed to be my best man!!

[lunarqueen]

El: And I'm pregnant!

Mike: We're going to call the child Will.

Will: *smiles remorsefully before he gets eaten by a Demodog, never to be seen or mentioned again*

End credits of the first episode.

[willbyerslove]

Hi bylers 🫶🏻 what are your thoughts on this?

[lunarqueen]

I think something like that is definitely going to happen. There will be Volume 1, Volume 2 and a finale and wait times between volumes will be 3-6 months.

The most lucrative release windows for Netflix are in the summer months and around Christmas. I think right now the two possible options are 1 (Vol. 1: Christmas 2024 / Early 2025, Vol. 2: Summer 2025, Finale: Winter 2025) and 2 (Vol. 1: Summer 2025, Vol. 2: Winter 2025, Finale: Early 2026).

I think 2 is more likely for several reasons:

1. We know that filming for Season 5 will likely not end until December 2024. However, there is of course always the risk that something may delay production again. For example, there may be the possibility of the AMPTP strike in the summer. Hopefully less likely is another pandemic or an actor / crew member getting injured. If they have already wrapped everything before the release there will not be any unexpected delays. People will get very angry if they initially announce a 2024 release only to suddenly push it back one more year.

2. They are going to do a lot of promotion. If Volume 1 releases when filming is not already complete it may be hard to use the actors (and also parts of the creative team) for promotion. And the SAG-AFTRA strike has definitely shown that actors and their promotion videos are an important component in making a production much more successful.

3. Netflix's 2024 release schedule is already packed with their most successful productions. May/June: Bridgerton, July: Cobra Kai Part 1, August: Umbrella Academy, October: Heartstopper, November: Cobra Kai Part 2 (and there are a few other popular shows without a 2024 release date yet). After that the release schedule is thinned out because of 2023 strikes. As soon as they have aired everything that wrapped before or right after the strike, Stranger Things is going to be the first thing they release

[lunarqueen]

I used to be in a Discord group chat and one time somebody who has never watched Stranger Things asked: "Can somebody send me the meme from Stranger Things where Mr. Potato Head cries next to his boyfriend in the car?"

[chirpsythismorning]

Fun fact: In the original pitch for Stranger Things, El had a little brother.

After being rejected by almost 20 studios for the Montauk pilot, the Duffers were finally green-lit by Netflix. It was at this time that they began casting and then writing the first season officially, which included reworking a lot of that first episode.

This led to the removal of the brother reference, and with it, removing any sort of arc El could have had about her apparent brother.

But the thing about this moment, is that it might not have been scrapped entirely...

Going into the final season, no one can explain why or how El recognized Will back in 1x02. And while there are plenty of things on the show that are left unexplained, with a small portion likely left that way with the intention to uncover it later, what sets this moment apart from the rest is that there are very few possibilities here.

Because for starters, the story presents El's ability to see people in the void in s1 as requiring either a picture of that person for reference, or having met that person before.

But when El see's this picture of Will, she's never met him before. Or maybe she has, but we wouldn't know because they never showed us. They could have just not done this scene at all, given that it's clearly a copy/paste/edit of something scrapped from the pitch. Or they could have even still included it, but explained it.

One explanation could be that the lab had shown El a picture of Will before, similar to what they did with the Russian agent they wanted to spy on. But then that begs to question, why would the lab show El a picture of Will? Why would they want to see what he was doing? That alone is incriminating in and of itself, implying that Will is more connected to the lab than we realize.

The only other, and frankly most likely explanation, would be that El stumbled across Will at some point on her journey between escaping the lab and Will going missing. This is actually something that happens in The Other Side comic, which explores all the things Will may have experienced during his time in the Upside Down.

Though it’s worth noting the comics aren’t technically canon, and I highly doubt they would outright spoil everything in relation to Will’s time there, years before it was intended to be revealed. But still, let's humor this for a moment given that I do think Will's time in the UD is going to be very relevant in s5, which means it's highly likely they will finally address how exactly El saw him.

Basically, in the comic, Will see’s El walking through the woods, almost apparition like, glowing as she passes by, while also sporting the Benny’s burgers shirt. This means they would have crossed passed within a short span of time, between when El escaped Benny’s when the agents arrived, but before she was found by the boys.

Though it’s worth noting that we’re seeing this all from Will’s perspective. This means from the UD, Will was capable of seeing El on the other side, despite them being on different sides. And not only that, but she also looks back at him.

What confuses me about this, is that it doesn’t make sense for El to be in the woods, only to randomly decide to pop in to the void for a moment. She was trying to escape the lab and everything that came with it. I doubt she had any desire to lurk back there for some reason, not until someone encouraged her to. Not to mention, it would make no sense for her to go there and see Will if she wasn't even looking for him in the first place. And so this would mean Will and El could see each other, with Will being in the UD, and El being on the other side.

While it does seem pretty far off, given that you would think Will and El wouldn't be able to see each other from different sides, it is true in the story that El not only recognizes Will, but knows that he is in danger. She mentions that he is hiding specifically.

Which means she has likely seen him within the last 24 hours regardless.

This, in combination with Will being able to respond to El in the void at the end of the season in Castle Byers, when no one else outside of Terry and flayed-Billy have been able to, seems to imply that there is indeed something special about Will that makes him capable of communicating with El from the UD. Not only that, but El also seems to have an ability to be in this constant knowing state of how Will is doing, without even checking again to confirm. She's just certain of it. And she seems terrified about it.

Going forward, El never uses a picture of Will to find him. She never did. And more often than not, they don’t show us what she see’s either, not until the very end. And that’s the moment they reveal that he was able to communicate with her.

Again, there was really no reason to have El recognize Will. If anything it complicates things. But the fact that they chose to introduce this concept, with a scene from the original pitch that was related to El’s younger brother, with her pointing at his name cryptically, startling Benny, only to revamp it and have El not say anything at all while pointing at the picture of Will, startling Mike… It just really makes you stop and think.

Which brings me to the other aspect of this that might have people doubting, which is that El’s brother was originally younger than her.

We know Will is not younger than El, so how could this apply to him?

Well, it might be helpful to consider that in the original script, El was actually 10 years old, while the boys were always 12. Meaning that for some reason, they decided to age her up to the age of the boys, aka the same age as Will…

Ever since @erikiara80 shared this brother discovery with me, I have been sort of reeling. It then led to other little discoveries of changes they made between Montauk and Stranger Things.

It’s important to understand that the Montauk bible and the original script precedes what we ended up with in the final product, with it finally changing and evolving months, maybe even a year since that original vision. Even casting occurred before writing started for the first season. We know this because casting announcements were made in June and August of 2015, with writing not starting until August going into early 2016, simultaneously while they were filming.

And believe it or not, what I've discovered is that a lot of the changes they made between their original plans and what we see in the final product, have to do with not only Willel, but also Byler.

If you've read the original script for Montauk, you'll know that Mike's crush on Jennifer Hayes was focused on right from the jump, along with the birthmark on his face being focused on, which was the main cause of the bullying he experienced.

This has actually been talked about recently, and some of the claims people make do fit with what I am genuinely starting to consider here, which is that the initial plan for what makes Mike an outcast shifted.

I think when they completed casting, and started actually deep diving into what they wanted this world to look like, both from a short-term and long-term standpoint, they were presented with some pretty interesting discoveries, arguably already hiding in their initial plans without realizing it.

And this is where it sort of becomes a 'chicken or the egg' situation. Because which one came first? Byler or Willel?

I can't say for certain, because obviously this is all just speculation. But in the case that Willel came first, I think Byler would come very naturally after that.

The Duffers themselves are twins. Then they hire Noah, who is a twin. Then they're thinking and planning for El's past and how her family all fits into this, and they're thinking... wait a damn minute... We could totally Star Wars this bitch!

And then when they think it couldn't get any better, they uncover another layer that they hadn't planned or really considered in their initial plans.

While Will was always going to have sexual identity issues according to the Montauk bible, meaning that the writing process for him likely involved sitting down imagining scenarios that encapsulated this arc for Will from the beginning, they were simultaneously now finding very interesting aspects of Mike's character that made it hard not to at least consider the possiblity that Mike is not exactly straight.

Just think about it. The Byers and Wheelers are basically polar opposites on the spectrum of what a family looks like. While Will's discovery and acceptance of his queerness is interesting to explore because he comes from a low-income, single-mom household, all while having been bullied for years based on his perceived queerness, he also has a mother and brother constantly reinforcing that they will accept him no matter what. They've been sort of hitting us over the head with it for years, and so it wouldn't be very satisfying for his entire arc to merely lead up to something we've known all along. It's pretty much a given at this point.

On the other side of the spectrum, Mike comes from a more upper-middle class family at the end of a cul-de-sac, more aligned with what a nuclear family looks like. Mike's family is also presented as being more conservative, and while Karen does give that very queer-coded speech to Mike in s1 (I'm convinced they only wrote this after deciding to explore queer-coding more heavily with Mike), it also comes with comments from Ted and even still Karen that hint that they are probably not as open-minded and accepting as Will's family is to him. Which means Mike's arc would be a lot more about acceptance around him from his loved ones who we have been led to believe might not be as accepting of his queerness in contrast to Will.

And so as they're putting this story together, and they're being presented with something very interesting. Two similar experiences that play out in different ways because of the characters circumstances.

Will goes missing, and his twin sister with a buzzcut pops up and has the ability to help them find Will.

This leads to several moments where El is being compared to as not only a boy, but Will as well.

Now suddenly, their initial plans to have Mike's arc be about having a girl be interested in him and to hopefully have his first kiss and feel like less of a loser, starts to look a lot like what the experience a queer kid in his position might encounter growing up in the environment that he did.

And if you don't want to take my word for it, just hear the Duffer's themselves hinting at what they initially planned for Mike and the fact that it changed.

The changes don't stop there.

Believe it or not, 'It was a seven', did not exist in the initial pitch. When the boys went outside bickering over Nancy, they leave right after that.

Another thing that changed from the first script, was Scott Clarke's introduction:

And so you might be thinking, who cares? What does that have to do with anything?

Well, it's interesting because the line we end up with on the show is arguably one of the most on the nose Twelvegate proofs to date. Mind you, this is from the first episode:

Why chuck the original version, which was arguably more interesting and fascinating in terms of it hinting at the mysteriousness surrounding this story, only to replace it with him listing off tips about their upcoming test?

Well, I think it's the irony of it all. Here Mr. Clarke is practically telling us where to look to figure stuff out for ourselves what is going on, with all the kids filing out and ignoring him...

I relate to Scott a litttle too much in this shot here, any time I try to drop Willel evidence.

And the changes go on, as they obviously would.

Things like Terry Ives not even being El's mom, but actually a man who more so aligns with the characterization of Murray.

And one very interesting one I almost overlooked was in Hopper's introduction, where instead of a kids drawing done by who we assume to be Sarah, we actually see a picture on the wall of him and his wife and daughter... Interesting that they decided to switch it something that is a lot less definitive in presenting what Hopper's past looked like...

If you've made it this far, congratulations.

If you still think I'm out of my mind, just remember that El was going to have a brother in the original script, but they scrapped the scene and gave a near identical one to introduce her connection to Will instead 😘

[librarycard]

its like i always say. at least theres bisexuality