#hawkinsfiles

[nightnut]

another plausible continuity:

Joyce worries that Karen can’t find Mike, Jim worries, Will worries

the next scene with Will:

and not a single word or glance at Mike to make sure he’s alright later. yeah, totally, sounds like my Will. (no)

[nuffit]

the forgotten third parallel

[armencias]

Mike and Will fell to their Death on the Same Day - November 12th 1983

I'm not kidding. We all remember Mike jumping down that cliff at the quarry in S1, but at the beginning of S5 we saw Will literally doing the same thing. Climbing that tree to escape the Demo and then jumping off as he's been followed. The dates are confirmed in the show, very obviously. Can't believe we've been sleeping on that.

If you play it side by side they do everything in sync. The jump, suddenly stopping mid fall, moving again... only that Will actually fell and Mike started defying gravity.

We know Will actually died that day (yeah he came back to life ofc), but what about Mike? Max taught us you have to follow your memories back to your death to escape the maze of memories. Something that worked for Will already, since S5 started with his death... Mhh.

I fear there's no proving Byler without investigating Mike's 'death' first. And everything leads me back to this day.

But hey, just watch it yourself:

Don't ask what wrong with Troy's voice, it abstracted every single try saving the file.

If you only wanna watch the actual sequence jump to ~ 01:30, but then you'll miss Mike and Troy answering to Will's singing and El paralleling Vecna :3 Oh and El heard a ticking noise.

Anyways, Matthew Modine answered my comment on Insta today, I'm very happy. :3 Weird feeling when you call someone Papa and they actually answer for the first time in 12 years... o_O

[itswhatyougive]

One of my biggest frustrations and reasons I can't accept the ending is that AIDS looms so heavily over Stranger Things, and yet there's been no payoff.

In fact, it makes the epilogue bar scene with Will very disquieting to me, since it's almost implied that's exactly where he's headed.

More under the cut, since it will get lengthy:

AIDS was exploding in the late 80's and early 90's, with horrifying rates of gay men getting sick and dying.

Seriously, follow The AIDS Memorial or some of the gay 80's remembrance pages on Facebook (where the surviving elders hang out) and read their stories of the sheer number of friends, lovers, and casual acquaintances they lost in such a short period of time. That's one thing they all have in common- they lost so many people.

They'll post a happy photo of themselves and eight other friends in better days, and they'll reveal that all but one of them were dead by the early 90's.

These men have repeated that while it was just luck of the draw sometimes, there were some risk factors that increased your odds of getting the virus back then. One of them was moving to the big city from a small town.

I've seen that take expressed time and time again, that the men with deep internalized homophobia who escaped their hostile hometowns for the big-city gay nightlife often engaged in riskier sex and and took fewer precautions, whether due to naivety, trying to make up for lost time, or even due to self-loathing and lack of regard for their own safety.

I'm not saying that Will being shown in a gay bar means that he would for sure get AIDS, because not all gay men did, not even the gay men who had casual sex.

Also, gay penetrative sex wasn't the only way to get AIDS. Sharing needles, blood transfusions, and heterosexual penetrative sex all could spread the disease, but for a long time most people associated it with the queer community and specifically gay men, since their community was hit hardest at first.

But it is unnerving to me that this HUGE part of 1980's history, this ONE cultural watershed moment they didn't mention in the show, still lies in wait by the time we see Will at the bar.

Because it's unaddressed, it means he hasn't been shielded from it.

From the finale we got, we don't know if Will ever finds lasting love or lives a long and happy life. All the storyteller gives us is that Will will find "acceptance."

And because they chose to put him, a newly-minted young gay man with no experience or support network, in the bar, in possibly the center of a major outbreak, with no narrative shield other than finding acceptance, there's no guarantee that he would be spared.

I guess this lines up well with conformitygate, since it's a fake happy ending for all of them. False comfort lulling you into thinking they all made it and Will gets the life he deserves, when it's very possible the narrative is sending Will to his doom.

I'd feel more confident about Will's ending not being unsettling if the specter of AIDS had been addressed somehow, like perhaps if Will was attending an ACT UP protest with his partner/friends in the epilogue or doing some political artwork, something to show that he was knowledgeable of the threat and possibly staying safe in some way.

Then I'd think, okay, even if Byler isn't endgame, at least they're being honest about the times and creating a realistic pathway for Will to have a fulfilling life as a gay young man in the 90's.

But the fact that they weren't honest about the reality says to me that it's being omitted on purpose.

Now, it could be that this is because Mike is telling the story and he is not aware of the danger the future holds for someone like Will, but I'm doubtful. Mike follows the news and even small towns knew about the disease by 1989. Yet he still tells a story about Will that seems worryingly unfinished.

This is the part where people rush to tell me that the Duffers are straight white men and stupid idiots who would never even consider the danger of AIDS or care, and that's the only reason why it's not mentioned in the whole series.

And here's the part where I say ACKTUALLY that theory doesn't hold water. As @thatgirlalt found in their investigation, the Duffers' own father was involved in AIDS research. There's literally no way they were unaware.

Not only that, but as I said, AIDS looms heavily over the show.

Will returning altered and experiencing strange symptoms after his assault. The doctors can't figure out what's wrong with him. Will being ostracized by his classmates and getting called Zombie Boy, when AIDS sufferers were said to look like the walking dead.

Vines spreading across Hawkins like a virus. Jason even referring to the evil like it was a disease infecting the town.

Everything to do with the lab and the government, the real life conspiracies that the government was really behind the epidemic.

The blood transfusions with the pregnant women dying. Terry Ives giving the condition to El by being pregnant while given Henry's blood. Hopper unknowingly giving a health condition to his unborn child.

The religious overtones and constant homophobia of the townspeople. Alexei dying in the middle of a patriotic festival and no one noticing, like the gay men whose deaths went unnoticed by America until it was on their doorstep, like the Upside Down seeping into Hawkins.

It goes on and on. Others have said it better than I have, but even though AIDS is not mentioned directly, it's there in the subtext.

So what was it all for? In real life, the greater public had to realize the threat and take it seriously before the virus could begin to be contained. You couldn't just ignore it forever or slap a band-aid over it like the miitary did with the cracks in Hawkins. Soon it was affecting straight people. Children. Everyone had to face up to the uncomfortable truth and end the willful ignorance and secrecy that was endangering lives.

Getting back to the show- if queer love didn't save the day in the end, the townspeople never had to confront their biases to defeat the evil, and we don't even know if our abused gay protagonist is going to survive or not in the future, what message are they sending?

No, I don't believe that the Duffers, with the family background they have, would leave the threat so unchallenged.

The fact that they haven't mentioned AIDS at all in interviews is very suspicious to me. If they were doing some sort of commentary on the epidemic, how could they resist talking about it? If they included the subtext just as an 80's reference and it had no bearing on the greater story, they could've brought it up already.

But if it is important to the show's message, there has to be a reason why they haven't addressed it. And I'm betting that reason is that the story isn't finished.

[beaulesbian]

Lovers Lake changing location on the map behind the Wall - a theory

I've been thinking about this post for a long time, and all the connections which I'm going to try to point out, because the maps are so frustrating, but so interesting.

(thank you also to Naomi, Goat, Ace and others in the discord for letting me yap about if any of this might actually make sense!)

Firstly, let's start with the wormhole that might not be actually a wormhole, but still "only" a Wall, circle (a wheel) in the Upside Down

“While the existence of wormholes is entirely theoretical, they have captured the fascination of scientists and science fiction writers alike. (...) If wormholes did exist, they would be extraordinarily unstable. Their enormous gravitational force would rip them apart at the very moment they formed.” - Mr. Clarke, 5x3

let's go with Dustin's first idea what the wall around UD is a circle, a wall all around:

(remember the algebra, it will be another point later on.)

"So the lab created the wall?" - "No idea. But i think we should find out."

map no. 1: Dustin figured out with 3 points what proportion the circle around Hawkins would be. What's interesting is (and this I've seen in this amazing post by @zephyrcryptid) that the Lovers Lake is within the circle on this particular map! (Either it's a incorrectly printed version with the Lake pasted onto the wrong square, or... and this is the part I want to maybe focus more in this post - the lake is moving locations.

(I know, I know, that's "impossible", "that's just prop error", "it doesn't mean anything". Well, humor me. Why not. It's impossible? Maybe, maybe more improbable, but nothing is impossible, especially in a scifi tv show where they talk about wormholes existing, right?)

It's only later when Dustin finds Brenner's notes on what the Wall could actually be, he thinks it's a wormhole, (same as in 5x3 we as audience think to connect Mr. Clarke's class and Erica saying what wormhole is, it lead us to think it's the case of the actual wormhole, because we see it on the board).

then it's even more enforced with what the characters later discuss in 5x7, and what the Duffers showed us in the 'documentary' - but none of that necessary have to be the truth - as this show likes to play with the perception of what is or isn't reality, also because of the reasoning that a wormhole would instantly collapsed after forming, and because of the exotic matter - which still remains a big unknown in how it relates to the UD.

but what's more important and what I want to focus on here - is how this scene above with Dustin, is followed by Max searching Henry's memories and throught those she hoped to find the exit:

She found the memory of Vecna first targetting her, beyond the Rainbow room - which is in the Lab, and, as we know, the Lab is the center of the Wall). so the memory is literally hidden behind a wall, a wall Max even had to tear through to get to it.

and what's more - it showed us Mike first, sitting beside Max during a math class,

(here's the mention of the algebra again - with how the scenes follow one another, there's something to be said about them connecting together - Dustin figuring out there's a wall / Max tearing through a wall. // Dustin's "I didn't sleep through algebra" and triangulating the circle / Max within a memory of math/geometry class),

Just to mention in again, but more from Henry's pov - the memory, Henry's memory of Max, was hidden behind a wall, leading her there from the Rainbow room (which could also be said is Henry's own traumatic memory, as shown in the VR game).

Now to connect this to the Lovers Lake location on the maps:

In s1 & s2 the map had the Lake very close to the Lab!

But after s4 it changed. Eddie was by hiding by that Lake, Patrick died in it - opening one of the gates, and the teens went through there to the UD, but we never saw it on the map.

Now in s5 we have multiple maps! and the Lake is on the opposite side of the town than it was in s1 - so it could have been almost flipped, or mirrored (with the centre point of the Flip being the library) onto the other side of the town, and even more important - it's behind the Wall.

In 5x6 Dustin has the same but different map with the circle he made in 5x4, but the Lovers Lake shifted to a different place than in his previous map - now it's outside of the circle.

and Brenner has the map with the same circle, with the same location of the lake.

This could all be almost something to discard, because we haven't seen the lake in s5, the characters haven't talked about it, and it wasn't important to the story unlike in s4.

Except: 1.- S4 ended with the rift opening within the lake, possible breaking it in half. (another theme of a heart being broken).

and 2. the Duffers posted about the map location specifically for this lake, during like a second month of shooting s5 on Feb. 2024.. So why bring attention to it through a post like that, which was meant to say it might be important in s5?

(and why was it something that Finn liked?)

The Lovers Lake has the heart shape. Heart is associated a lot with Mike - especially through Will, but also because Mike is the heart of the story itself, the storyteller, the writer. And s5 showed told us more than not that Mike wasn't really... there. Or, he wasn't in the right place.

"because without the heart, we'd all fall apart."

and I think that's what happened - what was Vecna's plan.

S5 was lacking the heart, because the Heart was behind a Wall, protected but isolated (either from the beginning of s5, or post 5x5, or even already from season 3),

In 5x5, Will made the connection with the hivemind again, and Vecna used him as his spy again, his eyes were moving behind his eyelids, just as if he was building something again.

When Vecna took Will in s1 - and we saw it as a flashback in 5x1 - the library had something inside that looked a lot like what the Wall was made out of in s5, these fleshy blobs, in which seemed to be the Mind Flayer particles,

in s2 Will was building the tunnels underneath real Hawkins when he slept, it's possible they weren't just tunnels, but maybe foundations for this wall in UD? I'm not sure how to trust the 5x7 scene with the gang coming up with the whole plan, but if we take what Will said about Vecna wanting to merge the Upside Down/Abyss with Hawkins, this could have been some sort of preparation for it, already from previous years, just like Vecna said to him- Will's powers were strong and Vecna used him as his "builder" - maybe not just for the tunnels.

And if it's to be believed that Will built the Wall in the UD, I think the distance between Mike and Will (already after s2!) could be explained by Will "moving" the Lovers Lake literally behind the Wall (subconsciously, again), to protect it, to protect Mike. Thus, creating a wall between Mike and the rest of them.

Which brings me to the point that he wormhole rlly isn't a wormhole at all, but a hoax (there were already a few people pointing this out, but I can't find the post I've seen about it).

It seems now more like an idea of a wormhole that doesn't actually exist, and everything about the Abyss was an illusion once the Party moved to the UD after 5x7 and Vecna began his ritual.

Upside Down being still a shadow reflection of the normal Hawkins, trapped on the date Will went missing (that's both the space & time question!),

but with a Wall encircling the town - with a centre point X (M marks the spot) at the Lab (again - where the Rainbow room is, where Max's first memory of Vecna was, where Mike or Mike's memories might possible be stored. And on top of the Lab being the Exotic matter, which could possibly be connected to Will and his powers and to the UD being frozen in time on the day Will went missing)

What if the exit from UD doesn't mean Hawkins, but H as in location of the Lovers Lake on the map.

They still need to break that circle - the vicious cycle - a possible timeloop/illusion/the wall.

And a part of the puzzle is still missing - it's inside Vecna's mind.

Mike is the key and the heart.

In many other scenes characters have the Exit sign above their heads,

so the position of the Lovers Lake in this 5x1 scene above Will's (and in another frame above Mike's) head made me think that they're both the key to that particular exit -

Will could be the one to find the way to escape Vecna's illusion/vision through the lake - through water (which doesn't exist in Upside Down), but if the Hawkins and UD are merging, there's a possibility of the water flooding to the Lovers Lake, with it it could possibly flood the tunnels under the Hawkins as well.

The Upside Down works as a metaphor for many things, especially the closet/repression, lies and secrets, while water is very symbolic with starting over/ free emotions, and being truthful.

The truth that Mike keeps hiding from himself, repressing; and the truth that's still hidden from Mike - that Will loves him (the Duffers never answered the question if Mike realized that Will was talking about him in the coming out scene - the written articles weren't exact with their words from the video interview. Just like the "noise" comments weren't about byler specifically, but the Duffers focusing on their own story and not outside inputs. please once again, keep checking the sources of things you repeat over and over again, especially in the byler tag)

With the truth being brought up to the surface, the way to the exit should be clear. And maybe, if they escape Vecna's vision, it'd be cool to see another map after this is all over, and check if the Lovers Lake found its way back the original location from s1.

[chocolateandfictionaddiction]

I went digging:

You can see he's reading Space Gamer here if you keep squinting at the picture for a while LOL.

Space Gamer was a bimonthly magazine dedicated to sci-fi, fantasy and tabletop role-playing games. Makes sense for Mike.

So then I went digging into which issue it was. I think the cover matches up with #75, which was the July-August issue.

Now I can't find the exact day in July or August 1985 that this issue was published, but I believe it is, regardless, an anachronism since it was June 28 in the above S3 scene, unless there's some early release kind of thing I don't know about.

The boring answer here: production error. The entertaining one: time fuckery.

My main takeaway, though, is that Mike Wheeler is a huge nerd (affectionate).

[vecnapilled]

concealed doors, buried curiosity, and black mirror: bandersnatch— or, how would all of this actually work?

the final boss of conformitygate theorizing has— to my brain, at least— always been the question of how this would actually be implemented within the episodes. what will this all end up looking like? what are we in for?

i’ve talked myself through parts of this before, and the copyrightgate theory has appeared to answer at least some of it, in that episodes 2-8, as we have seen them, are not their final forms. EDIT: slight correction— all episodes of volume 1 were sent for registration on the same day. episode 1 was approved almost immediately, while episodes 3 and 4 were just approved on february 28, 3 months later. this is indicative of something about them being different making them more difficult to file, since season 4 vol 1 had all of its episodes approved on the same day, and took less time overall.

but a few days ago, in our discord server, a conversation between @thebestofmyrmidons and @whispering-goat lead to the discovery that the reason these episodes have remained unregistered with copyright…may actually be because they’re intended to be interactive.

now, myr knows a lot more about copyright law than i do, and i think is planning to make her own post detailing this once she’s able, so i won’t attempt to get into that side of it too much. but the basis of this discovery, from what i understand, is this:

the only other times netflix has ever waited on registering their content with copyright past the three month window have been regarding content with multiple endings. black mirror: bandersnatch, a wildly complex interactive movie, was never registered with copyright at all, and the unbreakable kimmy schmidt, an interactive movie with multiple endings, received separate copyright registrations after the initial deadline window for each of its three separate paths (officially labeled A, B, and C). EDIT: after doing some digging, this is incorrect; kimmy schmidt was filed by universal, and delayed only by the person in charge of submitting the required documents, not the approval time itself. black mirror is british, and the uk provides automatic copyright registration for any creative work. the points below still stand, however, and a stranger things trademark for an “interactive online drama series” has since been discovered.

add on some discoveries @fixthehyper made regarding the similarities between promotion surrounding bandersnatch (in that it was largely a lot of conflicting reports until its announcement was dropped only a day before the official release) mirrors what we’re dealing with in regards to conformitygate, caleb’s “my ending was different” comment (and finn’s incredibly suspicious reaction), noah saying the story was ‘confusing,’ matt duffer’s reaction to being asked outright if there were multiple endings, and sadie saying that the word she felt represented the season was butterfly, and the possibility that this may be what we’re building towards starts to get bigger.

i, naturally, proceeded to have approximately a million different thoughts about this.

because, if you weren’t aware, you can’t actually go and watch black mirror: bandersnatch, or the unbreakable kimmy schmidt movie, or any of netflix’s previously created interactive content— they were all taken completely off the platform last year. @whispering-goat posed the idea that this could be so they could rehaul and redevelop the system that supports them entirely (since they’re pretty hard to keep running!), with stranger things being the start of it, which would mean that we’d be working with something completely different than what interactive content has looked like before.

so, then, what could that be? what would an ‘interactive stranger things season’ actually constitute?

i think i’ve come up with an answer that— to me, at least— would make the most sense. because there are, i think, a lot of immediate questions and concerns you could have upon seeing this. to both myself and many other people in our server, one of the biggest ones would be the concept of an interactive story itself.

because…the audience, controlling the characters? making decisions for them, reaching our own ‘created’ ending we’ve chosen for them? wouldn’t that end up really getting in the way of everything the story has been building up to, if it’s all handed over to us in the end? make the characters not feel like their own people?

i think it definitely could. which is why i don’t think a choose-your-own-adventure type of thing is quite where we’re headed.

because another important thing to keep in mind, is that conformitygate seems to be an attempt at saying something about media literacy, and the importance of people actually paying attention to the things they consume. so, an interactive season where you can pick whatever You want to happen would…kind of directly contradict that, wouldn’t it? ‘i don’t have to think about why mike would possibly do this specific action, because i can just make him do the one i like more instead!’ and all that.

but you know what does go hand-in-hand with media literacy?

pointing out plot holes, continuity errors, and bad writing. you know, the things everyone has spent the past month and a half doing at length? the things every ridiculous comment made by the duffers post episode 8 have only made people start doing more?

robin did say there would be a test later, didn’t she? luckily, i don’t think it’ll be one we’ll have to worry much about studying for— we’ve been unknowingly revising for it this entire time.

so my answer to the format question, based on what makes the most sense to me, is this:

the interactivity would take the form of something more akin to a spot-the-difference game. our job will be to point out things like the dial changing color, melvald’s milkshakes, new coke, etc, with a points-based system per episode that will unlock previously hidden scenes upon reaching a certain threshold. why per episode? well, this would take care of a number of potential issues:

— a story with multiple branching paths works with a movie like bandersnatch, but these are 7 separate episodes. what would happen to a story path if someone were to jump around episodes, for whatever reason? a connected, multi-ending story that has to be tracked and kept consistent across all 7 episodes seems like it would be very difficult to code, and potentially frustrating for a viewer to have to deal with if their watch place gets disturbed.

— a complete rewatch of the season would not be necessary. you’re free to play through episodes 2-7 and unlock all the flashbacks and additional context i suspect would be added, but you can also start right from episode 8 and still get the new ending. (i’ll get into what i think this would be in a second.) no one would be forced to sit through something they do not want to.

— if you remove the interactive element, bandersnatch and the kimmy schmidt movie do not function, especially bandersnatch. they cannot be viewed in their entirety, and be one, cohesive story. since i cannot imagine the duffers would ever even entertain the idea of their finale becoming obsolete or lost media should the technology ever stop working or be removed (as it currently has), there has to be a failsafe, and so the episodes should still be understandable if the game is removed. unlocking scenes that were always intended to be there rather than having multiple versions of multiple scenes would ensure this. (with what i think is one exception. but i’ll get to that!) remember that quote from maya about these episodes all being the length of feature films?

so, we’ve got a format. but what about its implementation? and how would it end up impacting the story?

i’ve got an additional thought regarding the former, but i’ll save that for later. for now, i’ll focus on the latter. what does this mean for the story?

the best way to tackle this, i think, is to ask one of the most important questions pertaining to this— how many endings would there be?

my answer might not quite be what you think it is.

an interaction between max and holly that has grown to be somewhat infamous in our community is their talk about the three doors available for you to take, when it comes to escaping camazotz. accept your fate, take your life, or escape.

now, i see the conclusion you would want to make here. hold onto it. bear with me.

the choices presented here are conscious. you choose to accept your fate, or you choose to take your life. an ending reached due to a certain combination of previous decisions made is not a conscious choice. it is a result.

according to the arg, both the characters and the audience themselves are stuck in an illusion we must actively hunt for a way to get out of. their goal, and our goal, is to choose how we wish to deal with this. right now, with the show in the state that it is, and the duffers acting the way that they are, we are still actively stuck. we are in camazotz.

and, again, the only way to deal with camazotz is to pick a door in front of you.

except…hang on. something’s happened to our options.

in dustin’s graduation speech, he narrows the typical structure of dnd moral alignments down to simply ‘chaotic good’ and ‘chaotic bad.’

when hopper talks to mike on the bench, he tells him that he has only two roads ahead of him to choose; you refuse to come to terms with what happened, and suffer, or you find a way to accept it.

if something isn’t demonstrably bad, then it must be unequivocally good. this must be unequivocally good. and if you don’t want to believe that, your only other avenue is…suffering.

the stranger things finale comes out, and people who believe that more is coming are painted as just being sad that— not wanting to accept that— the show is over. everyone else has settled on either thinking the ending was fine, and not understanding what all the fuss is about, or denouncing both the show and the duffers entirely out of anger.

take your life, accept your fate, or escape.

the option of escape, of seeking more, is being obfuscated from mike, because the epilogue is painting itself as the ‘best’ choice there is. and the option of seeking more is being obfuscated from us, because we’re being told that episode 8 is all that there will ever be.

when in camazotz, you must pick a door. we’ve been told, much like mike, that there are only two available. but that third one is out there— we, and mike, just have to want to find it.

like, perhaps…through an interactive game? where the more we acknowledge that the things in front of us aren’t adding up, the more mike will, as well?

i would like to take this moment to sincerely stress the fact that the final shot of episode 8 has mike walking through a DOOR.

which door, you may be wondering? well, great question.

i think its answer will entirely depend on you.

door one: take your life. you either gave up before this point, or watched the episode through and went “fuck it. i’m not giving this show the time of day again. this isn’t the ending i want, but that’s all i’m ever gonna get.” and so mike exits into…nothing, more or less. you haven’t accepted him staying like that, but you also don’t think there’s anything more. you’ve severed your involvement to the show, and so to you, this is where it ends.

door two: accept your fate. you think the finale is fine, and mike walks out of that door having accepted his camazotz life. to you, this is the ending to the show.

door three: escape. this option was not there before, but with the game, we can now play to uncover it. we know we’ve been in camazotz, mike has since realized that he’s in camazotz, and that shot of him will now be him finding his way out— much like we’ve also literally just done! this will be the final promise we’re left with before the real finale later.

the three endings are not existing simultaneously around each other, where debate around which one is canon could occur. they are sequential. (and even more of my reasoning on this can be found here.) death, then acceptance, and then escape. whether you want to continue forward to pursue the true ending will be entirely up to you.

because a realization that he’s in camazotz asks of mike to realize that there is more out there for him. this is not the best his life can ever be. it does exist and it can be found, if only he deigns to try. to seek out what he really wants. (and i think we all know what— or really, who— that is.) it asks of the audience to do much the same. we should want more from our media. we should ask more of lazy writers! we should look at what we know isn’t all that great, and go after ways to change it for the better!

i believe a high enough score in the game would allow mike to figure things out at some point during the epilogue, resulting in an inserted scene. now, where exactly that would go, i can’t be 100% sure, but i do think i have pretty strong evidence for one specific spot.

i don't know if it would be at graduation; dustin’s camazotz-approved “reject conformity” speech only ignites a camazotz-approved level of rebellion in our characters, where they feel comfortable in thinking they’re doing a lot without actually doing very much at all. (that’s why mike’s “sorry, girls! we’re gonna go play dnd!” remark is immediately followed by them all playing dnd for the last time because they aren’t kids anymore and feel like they have to stop, lol.)

one of the things i’ve always come back to regarding the conformitygate release format is the lost media issue. if whole episodes are replaced, where would the old ones go?

but…do you know what scenes conveniently happen to already be uploaded to youtube?

so a realization scene might be placed in the basement, sometime before that talk about el (and the dreaded epilogue boyfriend), and effectively replace it all the way to the end. the pained looks on mike’s face when he stares at will can now take on multiple meanings depending on whether he’s had his realization or not— and the litmus test theory might then actually be true! now, if a slightly different version of the scene plays, the original is still preserved online.

why is that important, aside from our failsafe?

well, that has to do with my final take on this theory:

i don’t think the game will be permanent.

i’ve been thinking about this idea a lot (if you couldn’t tell), and the game being more of a temporary special promotion rather than the Final state of stranger things 5 resolves basically every remaining issue i could see popping up:

— i could not, for the life of me, figure out a design for the ui that wouldn’t create dissonance and look/feel out of place from the rest of the (very much non-interactive) show, especially from 5x01! but this doesn’t really matter as much if the game is temporary.

— if there’s no way to switch the game off, i think this would get kind of tedious upon rewatch, especially since we’re looking at 9 hours of game to repeatedly go through. but knowing it’s a limited experience would bring a ton of people not wanting to miss out!

— the game has the potential to make less and less sense the more time passes from this resolving. like, in the moment, both we and the duffers have been vecna’d, so the game is our way of breaking ourselves out of that. four years from now, the true finale’s been out for awhile, the duffers are behaving normally, and all has been revealed. we won! so what would you need to still play the game for? i also think it works best if you’ve already seen the original episodes, and are not experiencing it for the first time with the interactivity.

this doesn’t mean that the game would have to be nuked entirely, as well. once we’ve unlocked all the scenes, restored the episodes to their originally intended state, and been rewarded with the true finale release some time later as a result, the “game” version of the episodes could be moved to the games tab, or something. or that collection with basically nothing in it! but regardless, future new viewers would now have a completely normal season of television to watch. if that original scene with the epilogue boyfriend and the binders ends up getting replaced, not as big of a deal, because it’s already been preserved for months by that point.

in terms of the format the true finale will take, that will likely be back to the usual standard. however, as per the continued ‘episode 9’ clowning— and to really cement that feeling of choosing to continue forward— i think it could be listed as a separate title entirely, or at the very least given its own tab in the series itself. (like an anime ova!) please don’t sequester canon byler, haha. though i suspect some of those unlocked scenes will be some very mwtfdydgate-coded flashbacks ;)

so, there it is! my crack at the final boss. of course, all of this is still just speculation, but i do feel pretty good about it.

and you know me by now. GAY LOVE WILL SAVE THE WORLD!

[someone-ordinary]

The real reason Will was sidelined in s3 is because they had to show Mileven. The rain fight parallel is already crazy, imagine how obvious Mike's switch up would've if Will was brought into the forefront. If something were up with Will, Mike would not have been scolding them about pushing El's powers. That man literally gets tunnel vision, he becomes so narrow minded, his focus would be singular.