[swiftenthusiasm]

I didn't use tags well when I was writing this stuff out all year, so, here's my Google Doc where you can see the overview of most of my ST-musings, if you want to explore them by category. :) Main Clusters of Topics Are About: - Unsolved Mysteries (e.g., Lenora, NINA, that Ayers tombstone) - Time Loops / Degaussing / Memory Wiping - Character Parallels - Symbolism - Canon Clues & My Predictions - Intertextual References - Teasing Apart What's Intentional Clues vs. Mistakes

[swiftenthusiasm]

New(ish) theory : What if Will experiences time non-linearly, and some of these S5 moments are actually a younger Will briefly "fronting."

And/or, what if this is where he went whenever he was knocked-out in S2. I have no evidence, other than some of the acting and filming choices. This scene in S5E4, for example, has the camera circle around Will and Joyce, so that it's like Will is spinning clockwise (180 degrees, almost like from 12 o'clock - 6 o'clock, or vice versa). I'd wondered about that with the Crawl before, too, because of how emotional it was for Will. I just needed to post it now because I might otherwise forget to ponder it more, after work.

[swiftenthusiasm]

More weird stuff in the Microsoft Flight Simulator x Stranger Things expansion from last year.

Back in January, I pretty much wrote up a transcript and summary of "Murray's Missions" inside of MS Flight Sim. It was interesting because...

There seemed to be a lot of potential clues in the nicknames of and dialogues between the NPC flight crew members

The "missions" sometimes echoed events from S5, but were tweaked (e.g., Murray's smuggled Big Buy delivery, but it's being delivered to the Wheeler house?)

"Missions" that were not familiar at all, but might break the fourth wall, possibly helping explain why in 2025/2026, audiences are seemingly able to listen to the radio and receive messages from characters who are presumably still in the 80s.

Well, I never came to a single conclusion about it, and yesterday when I was searching for more possible locations with skylights (to answer this mystery about the "basement library"), I decided to watch a play-through of the "Hawkins Heli-Tours" part of the MSFS expansion.

Did I find more skylights? No. But what I DID find was wild.

You see that? I know the font is tiny.

It says "the Turnbow House is a decaying, isolated home tied to mysterious disappearances and eerie supernatural disturbances, long rumored to be one of Hawkins’ earliest gateways to the UD."

Could it be a typo? Could it have been meant to refer to the Creel House? Sure. But the description for the Creel House is different.

Also - there was something dark and ominous in the community pool, and so many things I thought were odd in the location descriptions. I'll insert some screenshots here, but have no fear - My priorities were totally fucked today and I decided it'd be good to type up EVERY description for the 46 locations in the game. I'll paste them below.

Okay, so here are the descriptions. I tried to include the couple of (what seem to be obvious typos of names) in red, and then highlight other word choices in another color (just cause I wanted to). It'd be so sad if this was just AI slop, because it really sounds like there was a lot of care put into this expansion (according to how impressed the Flight Sim nerds were with it).

Benny's Burgers - First stop on the tour is Benny’s Burgers in its better days in S1. It’s here where former owner Benny Hammond made the mistake of showing kindness to a lost girl with a target on her back that ultimately led to his demise. Turns out no good deed goes unpunished.

Bradley's Big Buy - Take a stroll through Hawkins’ neighborhood supermarket where you might see Eleven stealing boxes of Eggos in S1, or the gang raiding shelves to patch a wound by the Mind Flayer in S3. Oh look, the turkey is only 88 cents a pound! What a deal.

Brimborn Steel Works - Once an industry, now in ruin. Within this Steel Mill’s rusting walls echoes a time when the Mind Flayer once forged its monstrous form, and where Billy kidnapped victims of Hawkins to unwillingly become part of the Flayed’s army.

Byers House - This former family home to Joyce, Jonathan, and Will Byers may seem unassuming on the outside, but it was where Joyce communicated directly with the UD via Christmas lights as Will’s only lifeline to guide him back home.

Castle Byers - Deeper in the woods, you’ll find Will Byer’s wooden fort sanctuary, built from sticks and childhood imagination. A great place to read comic books and draw, or seek refuge from visions of the Mind Flayer.

Clarke House - Welcome to the quiet home of Mr. Clarke, the respected HMS science teacher. It’s here the crew first learns their entire world is thinly separated from a parallel unseen dimension and they harness science as power in their supernatural investigations.

Creel House - A Victorian mansion steeped in tragedy and legend where Victor Creel seemingly murdered his entire family. Abandoned by the mid-1980s, the house was later used by Vecna as his base of operations in the UD. Its halls creak with death, dread, and unearthly power.

Driscoll House - Home of the late Doris Driscoll, who Nancy and Johnathan interview while working at the Hawkins Post.  Her possession by the Mind Flayer marks one of the early signs of its growing control over the city. Behind the floral wallpaper and family photos, the smell of fertilizer never faded.

Hargrove House - The tension filled home of Billy and his stepsister Max mirrored Hawkins’ growing darkness. By summer ‘85, Billy’s room became the Mind Flayer’s brief outpost, where unsettling screams weren’t the source of family arguments.

Harrington House - Behind the Harringtons’ tidy lawn, Steve’s journey from cool kid to monster fighter began. Since then, the pool parties of the past have been replaced by baseball bats and bloodied knuckles.  Barbara Holland didn’t get so lucky.

Hawk Theater - Craving popcorn? Catch a showing of The Terminator or All the Right Moves at Hawkins’ small town square movie theater.

Hawkins Community Pool - Take a dip at the local swimming hole where Billy Hargrove once worked as a lifeguard. Hot Tip: Don’t get lured into the sauna if you’re under the Mind Flayer’s spell.

Hawkins Elementary School - Welcome to Hawkins Elementary, with one of the best playgrounds in town. Note: If a nice man in a suit starts staring at you from the fence…run.

Hawkins High School - Between Tigers’ basketball games and D&D campaigns, will you choose to be a jock or a member of the “Hellfire Club?” Lucas might tell you it’s hard being both.

Hawkins Memorial Hospital - Ordinary patients come and go, but these halls are often haunted by creatures of another kind. It may arguably be the last “safe haven” anyone wants to be taken [to?]- especially after an encounter with Vecna himself.

Hawkins Middle School - Hawkins’ AV club may have met here, but so has the supernatural. Eleven once battled a Demogorgon in one of the classrooms until it disintegrated. How’s that as a clean up job for the janitor?

Hawkins National Lab - A sterile fortress of white and rainbow walls hides the darker secrets of Dr. Brenner and his experiments on young test subjects. Behind locked doors, the lab is revealed to host a gateway to the UD, plunging Hawkins into supernatural chaos.

Hawkins Police Station - Hopper’s former headquarters as the police chief of Hawkins. If you look closely, you might still see a trail of old cigarettes before Hopper traded in his badge for a shotgun and a very serious problem with the UD.

Hawkins Post - Housed in a brick building on Main Street, you can pick up your local newspaper where Nancy and Jonathan interned during the summer of ‘85.

Hawkins Public Library - Seen here in all its shining glory, the library’s clock tower once stood tall at the center of town before crumbling at the crossroads of converging rifts that tore Hawkins Apart.

Hawkins Town Hall - Mayor Kline’s pride and shame. Behind patriotic speeches and glossy banners, here he sold Hawkins’ silence to the Russians digging under Starcourt Mall for significant sums of cash. Corruption never sleeps in this town.

Henderson House - The home of Dustin Henderson, his mother Caudia, and his many other pets. Turtle the tortoise, Mews the cat, and D’Artagnoan the infant demodog…who ended up killing the cat. Yikes.

Hess Farm - What appears to be your typical midwestern farmstead, but is hiding secrets under its soil. Once acquired, the Soviet Union built underneath it to allow their scientists to hack the power grid. Not exactly the same as raising goats.

Holloway House - The once elegant and now abandoned home of Heather Holloway and her parents, before falling victim to the Mind Flayer. Family reunions are one thing, but being dissolved into a hive-mind is generally not ideal.

Hopper's Cabin - A humble house tucked in the woods and built for solitude.  Hopper’s cabin became home for Eleven as a refuge against both monsters and feds - but not the growing pains of becoming a teenager.

Hopper's Trailer - Hopper’s first home-sweet-home in S1 before seeking refuge in the woods.

Junkyard - An overgrown scrapyard to some. A place to defeat demodogs for the crew. The Junkyard later becomes training grounds for Eleven as she prepares against the UD. One person’s trash is another person’s obstacle course against evil, as they say.

Kline Mansion - The mayor’s grand home on the hill in S3. Gilded mirrors, rotting morals. Behind its doors, Hopper eventually finds the truth behind Kline’s corruption.

Lipton House - Lakeside home of “Reefer Rick,” who frequently supplied drugs to Eddie Munson. Eddie later uses the residence and nearby boathouse as a temporary hideout from the police and Jason Carver. At least the views are nice!

Loch Nora - This upscale neighborhood might be posh but great for getting oversized candy bars at Halloween.

Lover's Lake - Enjoy the view of Lover’s Lake, a heart-shaped lake for romantics that earned its new name, “Watergate,” once the crew discovered an opening to the UD lies deep below its surface.

Mayfield Trailer - The once home of Max Mayfield and her mother Susan, yet a place of grief and dreaming of better days after Billy’s untimely death.

McCorkle Farm - On the outskirts of Hawkins, Eugene McCorkle’s pumpkin patch is plagued by a blight that destroys all of his pumpkins - a mysterious phenomenon that impacts other farms in the area, including his rival Merril Wright’s.

Melvald's General Store - From diner to general store, Melvald’s is the family business where Joyce Byers used to be employed.  Whether it’s soap, cereals, or Christmas lights to communicate with the UD, Melvald’s has it all.

Munson Trailer - Here, Eddie played his guitar, and Chrissy met her unfortunate demise. Her brutal death at the hands of Vecna opened a gate to the UD, turning this dilapidated park into a gruesome crime scene that falsely framed Eddie as the murderer.

Palace Arcade / Family Video - From arcade cabinets to VHS tapes, welcome to the two central social hubs for the entire crew. Beat your best Dig Dug score at Palace Arcade where Mike, Will, Dustin, and Lucas first meet the mysterious player MADMAX in S2. Or rent your favorite romcom from Robin and Steve in S4. Don’t say anything if you catch them busy on the computer system tracking records of those connected to Victor Creel.

Roane Hill Cemetery - A final resting place for Hawkins residents, and where Max levitates under Vecna’s control near her brother Billy’s grave. Just before the battle for her soul was nearly lost, she escapes with the help of the crew and her favorite song.

Sattler Quarry - Take in the sights of this massive, water-filled quarry that becomes the point of investigation during the search for Will Byers, after his initial disappearance. Also a great place for a group hug.

Sinclair House - A humble home on Maple Street where Lucas and Erica grew up. Neighbors may see normal family life, but inside are two young heroes - each braver than they first appear.

Skull Rock - Look closely and you’ll see this cluster of boulders resembles something much more sinister. Oddly a popular makeout spot outside of Hawkins, it’s here that Dustin discovers gates to the UD may be nearby when his compass picks up a powerful magnetic field disruption.

Starcourt Mall - Hawkins former crown jewel of gleaming commerce, and the home of Scoops Ahoy. Which naturally made the perfect front for a secret Russian base hosting the gate to open the UD.  Eventually the gate is destroyed and the mall burns down after the kids battle the Mind Flayer. Good luck finding ice cream.

The Squawk - Hawkins’ small town radio station where Steve, Robin, and the gang mix your favorite tunes with coded messages to coordinate raids with the help of Murray, who’s become a de facto smuggler for the team in S5.

Turnbow House - The Turnbow House is a decaying, isolated home tied to mysterious disappearances and eerie supernatural disturbances, long rumored to be one of Hawkins’ earliest gateways to the UD.

War Zone - A sporting goods store turned survival depot. Nancy, Johnathan, and the gang stock up on weapons and equipment before facing Vecna in S4. Somehow you can find everything in this town.

Weathertop - Breathe in the fresh air or watch the thunder storms roll in at the highest point in Hawkins. Here the crew temporarily mounted Cerebro in S3, a ham radio Dustin invented to communicate with his girlfriend, Suzie.

Wheeler House - A basement D&D battleground, a place to hide Eleven, and now home to half the crew in S5. Suburbia may look calm here, but the Wheeler House has always been the launch pad to adventure and the rebellion against evil powers.

[swiftenthusiasm]

This line in S2E8 sounds like Terry Ives, right?

I'm talking about who ever blurts out, "Where are they?!"

The first, whispered version sounds like plausibly Max/Sadie Sink's voice (maybe overlaid, like when we hear El breathing in the NINA-tank). Or the whisper could also sound like Nancy’s voice. But the louder, "where are they?!" sounds like a grown-ass woman to me.

Okay, maybe it could be a grown-up version of Alice, Sara Hopper, or even Patty. Idk. The S2 script attributes both lines to Max, though:

Hm... Whoever it is, I still think there's some clues about who Max is / is connected to in these two scenes.

[beaulesbian]

The Duffers 'nerdiest commencement speech ever' at their uni - a transcript (from here. 30min mark to - 50min in the vid)

[Matt]: 

Thank you, president Parlow and the entire faculty for this incredible honor and for inviting us here to speak today.

And a special shoutout to our favorite professor, Michael Kowalski (?) associate dean now, who once told us that the script for the first student film was thematically incoherent. [chuckles] He was right, by the way. 

And to the class of ‘26 and your families - congratulations! You did it! 

[applause]

[Ross]: 

We did it once, too, many moons ago. We graduated from Chapman and Dodge College back in 2007. 

To put that into perspective - we were printing out map quests for directions, Netflix was mailing out DVDs in little red envelopes, and the Sopranos finale had just cut to black and people thought their power was cut out. 

It feels like a lifetime ago, but we still of course remember being you, we remember feeling excited about the next chapter. But we also remember being scared. Scared of stepping off this campus and into a world that felt pretty uncertain. 

But you guys are lucky, because thanks to the hard work of our generation, you’re gonna step off this campus into a far more stable and certain world. 

[laughter from audience, Matt giving up sarcastic thumbs up, patting himself on shoulder]

[Ross]: 

That’s a joke. It’s a joke! It’s a joke, obviously, our generation screwed things up for you. I mean not us specifically, we were just making a TV show. But, still, on behalf of our generation - we are sorry. Deeply sorry.

[Matt]: 

Deeply sorry. 

We decided to make up for this by writing what is going to be a life-changing speech, but then we watched a bunch of life-changing speeches and it frankly made us feel inadequate. 

Because no matter how hard we try, we’ll never be as wise as Steve Jobs or profound as David Foster Wallace, we won’t. 

But that’s fine, we realized, because those speeches are available for free for you to watch on Youtube. They’re good, you should watch them.

So we scrapped the dream of writing something life-changing and set a new, far more achievable goal: to write the nerdiest commencement speech of all time. That’s our goal.

[Ross]: 

That’s right. 

[applause]

[Ross]: 

Which brings us to our nerdy TV show, Stranger Things. [cheering from audience] Thank you. If you haven’t seen it - it’s a coming of age story set in the 1980s. 

Over the course of the show the kids have to overcome a lot of stuff - bullies, puberty, monsters from other dimensions. 

And the kids name these monsters after villains from Dungeons & Dragons - Demogorgon, Mind Flayer, Vecna. While obviously fictional, each monster represents real fears we face growing up. Fears that we had to overcome as kids and teens. 

[Matt]: 

There will never be Stranger Things 6. Sorry, Netflix. I know. But for a minute we’re gonna pretend there is, okay? 

So, our characters have graduated, they placed their D&D binders back onto the shelf, and they’ve left Hawkins for good, okay?

And we’re gonna talk about the three biggest monsters that we bring into this new season. Monsters that would represent the scariest things that we face in adulthood. And then we’ll be your Monster Manual, or as best to our abilities, and tell you everything we know about them and the best tools that we found to chop off their heads. 

[Ross]: 

Alright, here we go. So the first monster is called the Mimic, it’s a tricky little bastard, because a Mimic doesn’t appear as a monster, it disguises itself as the thing you most desire. 

So in the world of D&D that’s usually like a treasure chest. So you race up to the chest, you’re excited about the gold, the armor you’re gonna find inside. You rub your hands together like Indiana Jones, you reach out and you reach for the treasure, but then it glues itself to you, you can’t move and then the treasure chest opens up, flashing razor sharp teeth and then it eats you. Which sucks. 

But what sucks more is: you’re gonna run into many Mimics as you make your way through life. Things that look like things you desperately want, things you’re convinced hold the answers, but when you reach out for them, they hurt you. They won’t literally eat you, hopefully, but you get the point. It’s not a subtle metaphor.  

[Matt]: 

And some Mimics hurt more than others.

Back in 2003 we lived in Durham, North Carolina, and we had this dream of making movies in Hollywood. And most people thought our dream was impossible. We got a lot of pats on the back, some condescending smiles, “That’s cute, kid.” 

But we had a plan to achieve our impossible dream. We were gonna go pack our bags, hit out to California, and attend a famous, prestigious film school with a history of alums that went on to achieve major success. Alums like Ron Howard, Robert Zemeckis, and George Lucas. Yes, I’m talking about USC [School of Cinematic Arts in California] 

[crowd booing]

[Matt]: 

And they rejected us! They rejected us, we didn’t even make the waitlist, okay? And it hurt, it hurt really bad. It made us feel like we weren’t good enough. That maybe those naysayers back home were right. 

[Ross]: 

And later on we wrote so many screenplays that we were positive would sell, and each one got the same response - No, no, no. We pitched our hearts out to board executives, who looked like they wanted to be anywhere else. 

The Stranger Things pilot - the very one you see on screen - was rejected by twelve different studios, but then finally one studio liked the script and they wanted to finance it, the only problem is they weren’t sure about us directing it. 

So they asked to watch a little film we made, called Hidden - a film we were really proud of. We gave it to them, they watched it, and then they said “Yeah, no, you can’t direct.” So it was another “No”, another bite. That one really hurt. 

[Matt]: 

And you know, sometimes it’s not about reaching for success. Sometimes it’s about reaching for someone’s love, reaching for someone’s approval, for connection. And you’ll frequently get bitten. 

And every time it happens, it makes you want to curl up into a ball and cry. And it makes you want to stop reaching out. 

But here’s the thing about the Mimic: It has a challenge rating of 2, out of 30! So it’s kind of a wimpy villain. But it’s still super dangerous, not because it’s gonna kill you, but because it makes you afraid to open the next chest. 

[Ross]: 

And some of those chests, they do have gold in them.

After we were rejected by USC we heard about a smaller, lesser known film school in Orange County called Chapman University. 

[cheering]

[Ross]: 

And Chapman not only let us in, they were excited to have us, and our experience here changed our lives. And when the studio told us we couldn’t direct Stranger Things, we walked away. Four days later, Netflix came knocking. 

We can’t promise you the next chest you open will be gold, or that it’ll be Chapman or Stranger Things, but we can promise you this: If you stop opening them, you’ll never find out.

[Matt]: 

Okay, that’s number one. Right. It gets increasingly difficult, okay? So, that’s easy. 

The second monster we’re gonna talk about has a challenge rating of 2 also, but don’t be fooled - this is the most dangerous CR2 monster in the Monster Manual. It’s called the Will-o’-Wisp, okay? 

So, as you’re wandering around the dungeon, you’re getting bitten by these nasty Mimics, you’re also going to get lost. It’s a maze, afterall, and there are no sign posts telling you where to go. 

So you look around. You see spikes to your left, scattering of bones to your right, wet gurgling noises behind you, and none of this looks good. 

But then you see a hazy, beautiful, blue-green flame dancing in the distance. This is the Will-o’-Wisp. Its light illuminates a clear, safe path forward. So naturally you go that way. 

Turns out - it’s not a real path. It tricked you! The Will-o’-Wisp tricked you. And you drown or you fall into the pit of spikes, or you step onto an oddly aggressive frog. 

That’s why the Wisp is dangerous - because it doesn’t try to kill you, it just leads you somewhere that will. So why’d you follow the light? Because you could see the damn path! It was safe, the least risky, or it seemed like it.  

Something we’ve learnt the hard way is that the safest looking path is often the most dangerous one. 

[Ross]: 

So remember when I told you about all those rejected pitches and scripts, well that was the fault of the Will-o’-Wisp. 

You see every producer we’ve met told us the same thing. They all wanted, this was a while ago, they wanted found footage movie, like paranormal activity. So this was the life for us, the shortcut to our dreams, and we diligently set to work on writing a found footage script. 

But there was one problem - we didn’t really like found footage movies. But we kept trying anyway, and trying and trying. 

And years later we had a script that didn’t work, we had serious credit card debt, and growing doubt  [audio cuts off for a few seconds] … 

We remember the phone call from our parents. They’d always been supportive of us, and they still were, but for the first time we detected real worry in their voices. It was clear, the realities of life were catching up to our dreams. If you can’t pay rent, well, maybe you have to come back home. 

[Matt]: 

Something about that phone call snapped us out of our daze. So we threw out our found footage script, made a hard pivot, and quickly wrote a script about something we love. And it wasn’t at all what the producers were looking for, but it was something that we, you know, we truly loved and related to. And guess what - the script sold. 

At long last, we’ve made it out of the marsh. Years later when we came up with the idea for Stranger Things, we were told that it, too, would never sell. A period piece starring kids, that is not made for kids? Are you out of your f- mind? God, I’m struggling not to curse. At the same time,

[laughter]

you can fill it in. 

At the same time we were offered a safe, cushy job to write a TV show for a big network. There it was again - the blue-grey-green flame, glowing, tempting, safe. 

But we gave the Will-o’-Wisp the middle finger, hold up in our small apartment, and wrote Stranger Things. And guess what - those two things that we were told were major liabilities, the period piece 1980s setting and the kids? Those were exactly what made the show successful. 

[Ross]: 

In D&D the official tactic for fighting a Will-o’-Wisp is simple: ignore it. That’s it. But easier said than done. ‘Cause we followed the Will-o’-Wisp many other times over the years. 

Sometimes it’s a career move, sometimes it’s a creative decision. Sometimes it’s more personal, involving a significant-- a relationship with a friend or a significant other. Sometimes we’d recognize we’re on the wrong path very quickly, sometimes it’d take months, and sometimes years. 

And the longer you’re on the wrong path, the harder it is to get off it, because it means doing something hard, which is admitting that you’ve made a mistake. 

[Matt]: 

The best way to avoid the Will-o’-Wisp is to listen to the voice deep inside you. If you wake up in the middle of the night, or when you’re showering in the morning and something just feels off, trust that above all else. 

And to the parents out there, who might be worrying right now, like ours did on that phone call - you’re not wrong. 

We all know that sometimes taking a risk doesn’t pay off. Sometimes you fall into the spikes, or you step onto that angry frog. They’re called risks for a reason. 

But to the graduates - we promise, if you take a risk and fail, it won’t destroy you. You will recover. But what can destroy you, what you end up regretting? Is taking no risks at all. That’s what the Will-o’-Wisp counts on. Not to dramatic failure, the slow drowning. So don’t fall for that. 

[clapping]

[Ross]: 

Alright, we got one more monster. This is it, this is the final boss. You might want to hold onto your caps, because - spoiler alert - this baddie is a CR (challenge rating) of 14 and it’s getting stronger every day. It’s called the Elder Brain. 

It’s basically a giant brain floating in a vat of liquid, it’s pretty gross, but it’s not super intimidating at first. But here’s the thing: it’s not a single brain, it’s actually a soup made of hundreds of brains, liquified together into a single consciousness. 

Every mind that has ever lived in this world has been absorbed into it. The individuals are gone. What remains is an average. It’s the annihilation of the self. 

[Matt]: 

We’ve been fighting the Elder Brain our whole lives. 

It started pretty much as soon as we were conceived, actually. See, we were created out of the same egg, and just split into two. We’re twins, identical ones. And that one feature most defined our childhood.

Back in the 90s being a twin was pretty rare and we were the only ones at our school, and for the longest time we hated it. We were introverted and shy, and being an identical twin tends to attract attention.

Strangers would stare at us at the supermarket; worse, sometimes they would come up to speak to us, “If you’re punched in the shoulder, does he feel it?” No. [chuckles] No. “I don’t feel it, you idiot.”

All we wanted to do was fit in. We wanted to be just like everybody else. We wanted to join the Elder Brain. 

[Ross]: 

It took us a long time to realize that the parts of us we wanted to erase were in fact the most important parts to preserve. 

Because they allowed us to experience the world in a different way than other people. To develop into unique individuals, it allowed us to tell stories specific to us and share this with the world. 

So the more we leaned into what made us different, the more we rejected the call of the Elder Brain, the more successful and happier we became. 

Now, it’d be naïve of us to say your fight with the Elder Brain will be like ours. It’ll be harder, much harder, because the world today is very different now than it was in 2007. 

Shortly after we graduated, IPhone came out, then social media surged, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok. It all seemed so innocuous at first, not anymore. 

And now there’s something else that all this is getting mapped onto - that dreaded two-letter acronym that’s getting boo-ed at every commencement speech across the country, AI. 

[crowd booing]

[Matt]: 

Okay, to return to the beginning of the speech. This area is where our generation really and truly screwed things up for you, because the machines, the feeds and the algorithms and the models control what you see and hear, feeding you the same crap that you guys call the slop. 

Like the broadest possible stuff. Anything that’s weird or different or challenging or that, god forbid, might take a little bit of time to sink in, that surprising stuff that helped shape you into a unique individual, that goes out the window. 

Your brains, our brains, are all being liquified and fed into the vat and it sucks. 

So, how do you avoid brain liquification? I’m not talking 20 years ago, I’m talking now. 

The truth is: we’re not sure. Anyone who says they are, is a charlatan, okay? 

And honestly a lot of this is gonna fall on you to figure out, which is not fair, but it’s just the truth. But we think that, while the stakes are so much higher now, some of what we’ve learnt applies growing up. 

You have to refuse the average. You have to be yourself. And that involves being vulnerable, and letting your freak flag fly. 

[crowd applause]

[Ross]: 

But the trap, right? Is that the more vulnerable you are, the higher is the risk of embarrassment - being called lame, a loser, cringe. 

Matt and I, if you can believe it, have been called all those things and worse by thousands and thousands of people, and it always hurts, always. And the natural instinct is to recoil, to stop putting yourself out there, to self-censor, to throw yourself into the Brain vat. 

But you can’t. Because the vat can make infinite versions of almost anything, with zero risk to itself. 

But there’s one thing it can never make: It can never make you. The specific, weird, messy, embarrassing, cringe, one of a kind you.  

The average can never be an individual. Because of that your individuality is the most valuable thing you’ll ever own. Don’t you dare flatten it. 

[crowd applause]

[Matt]: 

I agree. There are of course a lot more monsters out there, because the world is changing so fast, you’re gonna encounter ones that we never did. It’s going to be scary, hard and upsetting, but just like a game of D&D it can also be fun and rewarding - we don’t want to be too depressing. And, you know, to meet these challenges head on and conquer them. 

And you don’t have to do it alone. In fact, you really shouldn’t. You need a party. 

And maybe this party is made up of a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or a family that came to see you today, or maybe all of the above. The friends you made here at Chapman, right? 

Whoever it is, you’re gonna need them, because everyone has their own unique strengths.

[Ross]: 

Like maybe your companion’s a halfling, like a tiny human, and you reach a gate but it’s locked and there’s no way in, until you see a small hole and only they can fit through it. So they crawl through the hole, they pull a lever, the gate swings open and you’re in. 

Or maybe you’re the halfling, and someone else is in your party, the warrior who carries a sword you can’t lift, or the cleric who can heal the poison from spider in your forearm, or the bard who can talk you out of trouble with goblins, or the wizard that-- 

[Matt]: 

That’s enough, that’s enough. I think we’ve already achieved it. The nerdiest commencement speech ever. Have we achieved it? 

[crowd applause]

[Matt]: 

I just hope that professor Kowalski found it thematically coherent. 

And I also hope it helps some of you too, because I have two little girls at home and I’m really scared for their future, because we’re on the frontlines of something major. And we don’t know exactly what it is, or what it’s going to look like. 

And you’ll be challenged in every possible way. You’ll be bitten, you’ll be misled, you’ll see some of your friends get brain-liquified. 

[Ross]: 

But keep reaching, take risks, stay weird, find your party, grab your swords and get out there and start slaying. 

Good luck, class of ‘26. Congratulation. 

[swiftenthusiasm]

Thank you, OP! This is so helpful. :)

[swiftenthusiasm]

Has anyone ever seen these small, ceiling skylights / glass atriums in ST before?

It reminds me of the glass pyramid at the entrance of Starcourt Mall, but smaller. Is this really supposed to be in the library? I don't see anything like it in the architecture of the library/clocktower.

JCB calls it the basement of Hawkins Library in the BTS tour. It just doesn't make sense as a basement to me with those glass pyramids on the ceiling.

[bylerbeattles]

How is this show even real

stranger things = exotic matters

They're so making fun of us. It's literally a parody of the title.

[worldofsouthernwind]

SUSPICIOUS 🧐

And this....

I know this is about the Hawkins Experience or whatever, but the wordings are still Sus. IF YOU KNOW...YOU KNOW

[erikiara80]

the curtain rises

and the play begins

hm

[inwayovermyhead]

Claim yours now!!

I have been on this damn boat for too goddamn long!!!!!

[beaulesbian]

More timeline reset thoughts

There are two scenes overlapping when we see Vecna searching in Will's mind/ memories in 5x6, and I keep wondering what this part could have actually been:

The original scene looks like this (around 36min):

We see Will seemingly alone trapped in his mind-memory of the library, bleeding from his eyes, ears and nose, while memories of the hospital briefly flash through the other scene that looks like the demo vision,

but later in the same episode, when El goes to find Will and gets him out of the vines, there's a flashback, and we only see the part with the hospital memories, while Will's eyes start bleeding but not any blood from his nose -

it's basically the same scene, but it's different how we see Will.

which makes these scenes out of order.

Will remembers that Vecna was searching for Max, thats the scene that gets repeated, as the gifs above. But the forest/train tracks aren't repeated. As if that memory vanished.

When Vecna says 'Found you' we are supposed to think it was all about trying to find Max's exact location, and once he's found that, he lets Will go.

and that's the scene from the top of this post, where we see Will alone, trapped in the vines, until El finds him.

She frees him and waits (unknown time) for Will to wake up. His nose and ears are bloody again,

as if he was using his powers against the mind control, against Vecna searching his mind.

But I don't think it was simply demo vision of going to the Hawkins after Max.

I was thinking maybe Will was trying to put Vecna on the wrong track in his mind, maybe he was trying to resist Vecna searching for something other than Max.

Because this demo version we saw earlier, it looks like train tracks, it could be the same we saw in s1 or s2, which lead to the junkyard, I think. Or it could be leading somewhere else in the forest.

there's only one another scene with tracks in s5, and that's in 5x2 with El and Hopper are in the Upside Down, searching for Holly and going towards the wall and also towards the military base..

i have two theories about that,

either Vecna was searching for that place too, because why would he liked having the military inside his "unspoiled realm" but maybe the kryptonite devices would work against him too? There's something very weird how unexplained the military inside Upside Down was, and if Vecna was even aware of that, they were doing experiments on his vines. When I was rewatching the season, it seemed like Vecna was really set on killing all of those soldiers from 5x1 (the demogorgon wasn't paying any attention to Hopper when he sneaked in to the UD, and yes, that could have also been Will subconsciously protecting him through the first demo vision he had, but also maybe the demo just had orders to get rid of the soldiers? and only when Vecna learnt that Will was in the hive mind, he went after the Wheelers? to make Will watch, basically. I still have so many questions.), Then in 5x4 when Vecna made his appearance at the MAC-Z/library, he made quick work with all of the soldiers again. I can't decide on how it could work with the military in the UD, does he "let" them stay? maybe thinking they're inconsequential and he knows the UD wouldn't exist for long?, or if he can't get to them for some reason? For some illusion maybe?

or - that during him searching Will's mind, he was actually trying to get something else than Max's location out of him.

Now that I've watched the VR game, it made me think even more it was Vecna searching for secrets in Will's mind.. for his friends' secrets and fears..

and with the way the demo vision scene in 5x6 looks like its heading towards the woods, I wouldn't be suprised if that was where Will himself was hiding, in his happy memories, in Castle Byers maybe, trying to fortify his mind against Vecna's attacks. But we know he showed him something awful that he couldn't fight against, even with the happy memories. It didn't work on him. He got past that. (Where did he go in Will's mind.. where did he hide in there?)

These words might have been less to do with the physical pain of Vecna getting inside Will's mind, and more about what pain he would inflict on Will's friends and family if he didn't get what he wanted. It might have been about the visions Vecna showed Will, but without seeing them, we can only speculate what Will saw.

Him saying "I found you." would then connect with whoever was hiding at this location, either Will's secrets that Vecna used against him later (the coming out scene), or maybe it wasn't Vecna's plan to get the secrets out of Will, but to get inside Will's mind, to find Will - inside Will's mind. To use him again like a vessel, for himself this time - and with how the rest of the season went, it could be said that it wasn't exactly Will from then on, but more like a weird mix between them.

We haven't seen what Vecna showed Will, and that's a big difference from the general tv rule of 'show don't tell'. They broke that rule here. And I think that might be one of the biggest conformitygate hints. In prior seasons, we always got a flashback, a reminder when someone was talking about something important. Even in 5x5 we got flashbacks to the grey dial, which later in 5x5 turned red. So why suddenly not show this specific, horrific, mind-altering moment/vision?

Will only told us about it happening and described the effect it had on him. It was something so awful that he couldn't keep fighting against Vecna in his own mind anymore. Vecna won.

([I'm] just as scared of losing you, just like you're scared of losing her.)

And Will (we) failed... this time.

The timeline-fuckery/timeloop possibility makes me wonder if this (Will being trapped by Vecna in 5x6) could have been a "save point". If someone else would find Will while he was trapped inside his mind, and anchored him back to reality with voice or maybe just touch, it might have been enough - to give Will the courage to fight on... and the time to hold on longer against Vecna.

[mcmerrygoround]

"Welcome to Hawkins" and there's Russia, New York and California in the background.

Yeah they never left Hawkins.

[bylertruth3r]

they so flirt while playing dnd together and the party is tired of them, this is so gay

from here

[swiftenthusiasm]

Ohmygah, I saw this a year ago and was looking for it for months. I'd thought I'd dreamed it! I think I kind of hate funkos, and I definitely hate the concept of NFTs, but when I was clicking through the links to see where this came from, I stumbled upon a bunch of Funko/ST NFT images and gifs that might be worth looking through with a conformitygate lens.

Edit: Looks like there's more rounds of NFTs on that website, like this one, FYI.

Like...Can anybody tell me what the hell is behind Vecna in this one?

Is it just a doofier-version of the S5 monster?

[swiftenthusiasm]

Okay, I know this is weird, but does Max grow fangs briefly when she's somehow escaping from the Creel house-mindscape into the mindscape Snow Ball?

It surprised me to see it when I was trying to slow down the scene. Maybe she's just pouting more as she's concentrating and the lights are just causing a reflection there.

Let's brighten it up a bit.

Yeah...not sure what I think. Maybe I'm only considering it because of what I remember the ST Tarot deck guide book saying about her:

"Max makes her own rules. When this card zooms into your reading, she is inviting you to do the same.

Her strength comes from confidence, independence, and knowing herself, including when to speak her mind and when to stay quiet. Although people might underestimate you, it’s crucial that you follow Max’s example: Wield your formidable influence, but don’t flaunt your power. [If Card is Upside Down] ...You may be feeling vulnerable and powerless in the wake of a setback, but you need to shake it off and reconnect with what makes you feel strong, because you are."

Do y'all see that? I promise, I'm not a vampire-fan.

The moment is around minute-marker 51:15 in S4E9, if anyone's interested in slowing it down and checking it out.

[itswhatyougive]

Oh. I just remembered something. @it-was-a-7 's post referencing Matrixgate just reminded me of the special edition vinyl for Season 4.

Vol 1: Max's Blue World

Vol 2: Vecna's Red World

It didn't even occur to me since back then since I wasn't aware of the theory, but it seems purposeful, right?

[swiftenthusiasm]

Gonna chew on this more, but the initial things that come to my mind are...

These images I screenshotted from one of the ST5 Style Guides that leaked last year.

I'll flip the images upside down, too, just for shits and giggles.

Also this line (that I thought was just cute at the time):

The crazy thing is that, re-watching it just now, I kind of think Max might not know who Eleven is. Max doesn't look like she understands anything about what's going on in that "snow ball fight."

And wait a sec...I never noticed the similarities between these images of Max and Vecna:

Seems like it's worth a deeper dive comparing the two records.

This reminds me of these clips I recently found on the Jimmy Fallon show's YT channel.

Jesus Christ. What does it mean?!

[thewisewill80sbyers]

[gritstartar]

Because who lays bricks like that lol

[swiftenthusiasm]

Just slop?