Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

One of the biggest complications about conformity/lovewinsgate is the weird paradoxical nature of it. A big aspect of it is the meta part. Not necessarily that there’s other movies or tv shows referencing it, but more so that the actors are behaving in ways that seem very off and more in tune with having been Vecna’d or at least still as their characters.

And so, everytime an actors denies conformitygate, we dismiss it as “well yeah, they’re lying/playing a role” etc. And this does get us stuck in a loop of “well when do we give up”?

And so the moment the duffers denied cutgate back on January 1st, pre-conformitygate, they set up a precedent. They have the power to immediately deny a theory that’s not real. This also happened when Ross tweeted out “not true” in response to Netflix pushing for the finale to be released in theatres. And he tweeted immediately when this idea got traction, it even became a meme. And it became a big talking point when people wanted them to deny Byler, because they refused to. And so they established that they were indeed keeping up with major theories online and that they would respond to misinformation.

When I realized this, a few weeks into conformitygate, I immediately said I’d get off the bus when the duffers themselves denied it. It was mainly a joke, Ross would post something any day now. And then he didn’t.

When this interview was announced, I worried. This could be the day. They’ve had plenty of time to come up with a good way to say it. And to maybe even address some of the major issues (the red dial and the painting).

The duffers said a lot today…well ok not a lot. We did learn that Matt Ross likes cookie dough I guess.

But for some reason, conformitygate was never once brought up. What does that tell you?

Spot the difference because I deadass don’t know where the correction is taking place. Maybe there was a typo on holisticdorktective’s end.

Part 1

Did you remember to tell the characters that? Because there’s sure a lot of references to s3-s5 in the t85.

Bridge mention. Who moved.

How the hell was Karen integral to the story in any way.

Hey here’s some evidence for anyone that thinks the entire cast and crew were all tired during s5 and that’s why it was so shitty.

He loves this story. It does feel a little bit metagate to me. Because is he asking “me” as in Dustin or “me” as in Gaten?

I personally didn’t like the theme. I thought the original stuff was cool. But it felt disjointed in how they mixed it with the original.

But this plane metaphor is…interesting. First of all, this obsession with “landing the plane”. Something the duffers didn’t do. And of course there’s been many theories as to what this could relate to.

Damn, ummmm I didn’t realize how popular this was. But also it’s Stranger Things so can we really be suprised?

Also it’s crazy how rushed everything is. From this show ending to the spinoff to the announcement of the second season of the spinoff.

Some people have been confused about the logistics. Just so y’all know, the second season was definitely finished or close to being finalized. They just didn’t want to reveal it…to built hype? Except they didn’t even give it a chance to breathe for that, so I’m not sure what the marketing plan is here.

HeRE’s a FUn DrINkiNg gAmE. Go through every interview involving T85 and take a shot whenever references to the show being “fRoZeN iN TiMe” is made.

(A fun little edit suggested by a commenter, sorry if it startles you!)

Ok, I don’t know much about the ghostbuster lore. In Ghostbusters II, did the characters have multiple discussions on how there’s no way this could be supernatural because everything had been taken care of in the previous movie, despite there being a pretty obvious potential connection between the animated series that takes place right before the second movie?

Or is that a Stranger Things exclusive?

I love kids being kids. You know, the two years that El is going to get before she dies 😊

Right, don’t use the Mindflayer or Vecna but do bring up plot holes in the show like the spores. Sure.

As a hardcore fan, I did enjoy it. But it certainly wasn’t thanks to them being careful to not mess with the lore of the show.

Also love that they’re trying to claim they’re just doing character growth, when a lot of the character dynamics are rehashes of all of the seasons. And a lot of that growth is going to go away as soon as season 3 hits. But ummmm, at least we know Mike thinks Will is the bravest person he knows?

There was a pretty simple solution if you wanted to avoid any lore problems…a dnd style series. Have the kids do mundane kid things and at the same time, have them play a dnd game during the episode too. Where some of it gets animated. There we go.

Again, they know they can just say a show is non-canon right? Like they don’t have to keep justifying their show and say it’s definitely going to tie back to s3. They could just…say it’s not canon and that it’s exploring “what ifs” or something.

But they keep doing this weird back and forth. They say that they wanted to be careful of the lore to not mess things up but then in the same breath, it’s not “perfectly aligned with the timeline”.

Ok sure, soft canon works. Ahhhh but the science makes sense. You know what else Eric has insisted on lately? That the duffers were really involved. And yet somehow…they never thought to properly address the matter of the spores in s5. They made jokes about it sure. But that science, in contrast to t85, doesn’t make sense. We never even find out where the MF particles that leave the demogorgon in ep 5 go. Last time MF randomly flew off, s3 happened. Remember? And now apparently they can evolve…well it makes you wonder how the MF might have evolved, is all.

Once again, the fact that it’s essential that this show takes place between s2 and s3 is so interesting. S3 has always been a pivotal shift in tone and content in the show. And I find it fascinating that they needed supernatural things to happen here so desperately.

Anyways, I did read through info on Re-Animator and it’s two sequels. Some fascinating stuff. I might do a longer post on that. But one thing that stood out to me was the problem of not letting the dead stay dead. A classic theme in Frankenstein type movies, and oddly fitting for the existence of t85.

Also it came out October 18, 1985. Hawkins Happenings claims the second season is coming out in October. So I’m calling dibs on this date. Thank me later.

A quick shoutout to those…”dust particles”. Odd how they sometimes look like snow. It’s hard to tell the difference, especially when snow has already been compared to spores.

Oh some juicy stuff here. First of all, it’s 5 seasons. He’s said that before.

But more importantly, this man is giving himself way too much responsibility. It’s soft canon! Do whatever! But nope, somehow he plans on trying to justify Nikki’s existence and erasure.

And with the way he’s talking about it, I’m half convinced this man is about to kill a 14 year old. Maybe part of the hiring process is how eager you are to kill off your teenage girl characters?

No but seriously, it’s funny how he talks about ending things properly. Sure does remind me of another recent finale where they discussed the weight of tying everything up. And how they failed to do so by not properly taking into account the character’s developments and trauma.

Woah, maybe Eric is just trying to make up for the Duffer’s blunders. How poetic.

Anyways if this show is legit, I’m so curious about how he’s going to try to justify Nikki’s erasure. My money is on memory loss.

But for the lovewinsgate side, imagine they erase her from existence somehow. Similar to what people have speculated is happening to Will. She is after all, have a birthday recently. Uh oh.

I find the mention of her not fitting into the timeline interesting considering speculation I’ve seen on Nikki being a time traveler.

But will we happ-satisfied?

Sorry.

Also didn’t someone make this exact joke about Dart coming back as Dustin’s pet?

And don’t worry Eric, the finale managed to disrespect itself without any input from a spinoff!

And yet we can see from the teaser that the bully is going to play a slightly larger role. Have you ever considered adding no new characters? Imagine if instead of dedicating time to Nikki’s arc, we left room to explore Dustin! Especially since him and Will are the only two single people, it would have been an interesting dynamic and opportunity for character exploration.

Also an oddly specific three characters to mention.

I love how they say they get resistance but then never justify it. “Yeah we know audiences are confused about why we keep adding new characters if we’re worried about developing our current ones but ummmm we’re going to see more of Hawkins?”

Like what.

I am intrigued by the idea of Hawkins lore. I’ve seen people bring up that it’s odd how a small town like Hawkins doesn’t seem to have any sort of founding lore in the show. It’s a classic way of introducing mystery and plot. And people already figured it would be important just through that one statue of a horse. Go theorists.

And I’ve seen a lot of theories on how Hawkins may have more than meets the eye in terms of the government involvement. So this could be a fascinating way to tie into lovewinsgate.

A breakdown of things I found noticeable in the first 6 minutes of T85.

They've said in the past that they have the ability to make infinite seasons of this animated series.

But already, they're limiting themselves by having a specific date for this first season.

And why this date?

And look, I know this is just a flamethrower but it looks very makeshift. Like it's special or uniquely designed in some way. And while this is probably just a nameless scientist...as always, whenever they don't reveal a face you do have to wonder.

My money is on Nikki's mom or dad.

So the particles going into the ground and mutating a plant makes sense when you remember this is inspired by gamma world. In the lore of that, these particles would also be highly radioactive. Not sure if they'll do that though, but it does remind me of the green goo from season 3.

I really don't like the intro music. It feels very disjointed going from the og music to then the more upbeat one. If they wanted to do that upbeat theme, they should stick with it, not try to combine them.

People weren't kidding when they said there were a lot of triangles. They're also in the intro, and other places throughout these 6 minutes.

I know this is going to be important, but I'm not sure how.

Look I'm not saying that there's symbolism with-

oh who am I kidding. HE'S PICKING PURPLE (EL) OVER YELLOW (WILL). THE COLORS MATTER.

Anyways.

Yeah that's new Coke alright. Which shouldn't exist for another like 3 months.

One would think that being able to animate everything means it's much easier to keep things period accurate because one can just...draw it up.

But no. Between this and the 1995 book they highlighted in Nikki's garage, it seems like the creators of this show have no clue when it takes place (despite, as I mentioned before, the establishment of the exact date).

Is it just me or is something off about the tiger poster?

Also ever since that theory about sleeping beauty pointed out the spindles, it's so noticeable.

When I mean the triangles are everywhere, this is what I mean lol.

Yes Mike. Remember.

Ok sorry, but seriously what exactly does Karen know? Like she reminds him about the donuts...does she know they're for Hopper? And if so, what does she think about Mike just biking on over to see the chief of police? Does she know he's taken in El? But then why is the cabin a secret?

EVERYWHERE

The game Dustin is playing is Centipede's, released in 1981. Yay! They got something that's actually time accurate.

This kind of reminds me of the nature of the thessylhydra, you cut off one head and two more sprout up. And whose head was cut off, who also is notorious for being impossible to kill?

Wow more triangles.

Hey look, it's our favorite pinball machine.

Also Dustin losing does not bode well for the party considering they've used games in the past to foreshadow things.

Not that it means much after s5. You know...when Derek played a game with a false ending and nothing came of it? Remember that?

Dustin, I'm just not sure your pop-tarts should have triangles on them.

We get it. You love triangles. Ignore the bars with Clark on them, I'm sure that means nothing. (Yes I know they're a real brand!)

There's something to be said about how Mike, El and Will are all introduced in similar fashions. They're all freaking out about being late and rushing to get ready. I daresay that Will and Mike's are more similar because they're both actively looking for stuff. We even see their matching dinos! But maybe I'm biased. Or maybe the triangles we keep seeing symbolize...a love triangle?

No?

Ok

Am I seeing things or is there something that looks like a tape next to the dinosaur?

I'll stop pointing it out when they stop trying to show it to us.

Look! They even both bump into their siblings!

Nooooo El, they have you surrounded by chains and triangles! Like literally, she's wearing them.

Even the door!

I didn't point them out before, but El isn't the only one to have flower pictures on her wall. They're also in the Wheeler house. Possibly hinting towards the plant mutation stuff. Also possible that Mike dead ass took one of the paintings off the wall to give to El. He seems like the type.

Trying to figure out if the head changes directions or it's just the angle of the room. I'm so bad with like...directional stuff.

No where is safe from the triangles. Not even the bathroom.

Also I will say there's like 3 fans in this cabin. I remember someone did a theory once about all of the fans we see in the show.

And boy do they start off strong

Ah yes, because comparing the way a 19 year old outcast who nearly got killed by a mob dresses is totally comparable to how a 13 year old would be dressed. And let’s not forget that they pretty clearly copied off of Vi’s character design from arcane.

I also love that this last part

1. Doesn’t acknowlege the most likely scenario (probably cuz it’s going to be the one that happens) which is that she moves away.

And

2. Doesn’t acknowledge that it’s canonically impossible for the sole reason that she is never mentioned. Doesn’t matter if she turns out evil, leaves, or dies - unless they get their memories wiped - this cannot be canon.

Oh is that what happens. You can’t play DnD without a barbarian I guess.

Right because there wasn’t an entire conversation in s2 about how Mike (and El) could understand him. But no I do get that the idea is that this is when Mike begins to become distant. But once again, we see how Will is in s3. So what? Is the goal to give him a friend who “understands him completely” and then make his life worse by getting rid of her?

Damn.

Because s3 Will is not someone who’s been given more confidence. You know who is more confident though? S5 Will. After Mike encourages him. Which leads to him unlocking his powers. Hey wait-

I made another post on how gamma world is now the inspiration for t85, and I wanted to explore the rulebook.

Look it's Will! Ok sorry just kidding.

I didn't say it.

Hmmmm a scientific research building...that contains important government records inside and booby traps.

Must be a coincidence.

Honestly this kind of reminds me of the weirdness of the military base. Dr. Kay was collecting "artifacts" like those smaller creatures for some reason. She behaved weirdly with El and Hopper. And I know there's a theory about "the black hand" organization right?

I'll be honest a lot of the physical mutations don't seem to have a strong connection to all of this. 43 does kind of remind me of Vecna possesing Will but ehhh. There are also basic booster mutations. Could Lucas possibly have a strength mutation that allowed him to kick that demodog?

This is kind of what happened with Vecna and Will when he saved Max.

This one is kind of scary...

People have noted before that the demogorgons' behavior this season is off. There are times where they seem to hesitate and back away. We eventually learn that this was probably Will. But it's different from him unlocking his powers. There, he physically stops the demos' and kills them. But when we see them back away from Karen or Joyce, it feels like the creatures themselves are actually wary or afraid. So could this be Will projecting his emotions onto them?

Dustin, don't be such a braggart!

Hmmmmmm

This has so much potential.

Well 25 is Will and 26 is Mike (I heard that crack Mike! You definitely hurt your shoulder).

Oh ok.

Look I'm not saying they actually used Gamma World as inspiration for a lot of the ST stuff. I'm just saying that the following is the plant mutation section, and the demogorgon design was inspired by a flower that smells like rotting meat. That's all.

And I promise you, for every one mutation you see here, there's 3 other relevant ones.

They what.

Granted they do kill humans on sight, so I guess we probably can't have one hiding in our midst...

They remind me of demogorgons. Only they're mutated honey badgers instead.

I'm going to stop here for now, because when you give me a list of secret organizations, some with secret signals, well...let's see if we find anything.

There continues to be a strange vagueness surrounding the canon of t85. Despite insisting it's canon to the show, "inventing a new mythology" is certainly an odd choice of words.

The emphasis on science has me convinced that my theory about this show taking inspiration from the the crossover comic with TMNT. There is a lot of odd similarities between the two. The comic takes places between seasons 2 and 3. The main antagonist is an evil scientist named Baxter. He creates demomousers mutants by combining the mousers with demodogs (more on this in a sec). And he traps El in an illusion. This last one is basically what Brenner does to her, although I do find it interesting that Baxter use this to try to get her to open a portal to the UD. So the idea that you can potentially not just use this technology for memory recovery, but also to have El do things physically was introduced...

There is also the fact that dimension X is something from the TMNT universe, and now exists in ST.

Now, the article makes mention of using science for these creature stories. And they also go on to list their other inspiration for this.

Gamma World, a post-apocalyptic tabletop RPG where the monsters are actually mutants. So yeah, there are a lot of odd similarities between this show and the comic. And my theory that either Nikki's mom (the science teacher) or her dad are going to end up being the ones who artifically created these mutants is looking more and more likely.

Now let's take a look at Gamma World, since it will apparently be the inspiration for our show's lore.

There have been seven editions. I'm most concerned with the first few: 1978, 1983, and 1986. Most likely a combination of these or possibly even later ones will be used. ST has never been perfect at using the period accurate DND edition, so I'm assuming it'll be the same here. I know some people think this could be evidence towards deliberate time travel stuff, so feel free to invesitage that further.

It's hard to know exactly what to look for when we don't know much about the creatures in t85 or their names. But I started by looking at the 2nd edition because officially, that would be the most time accurate and up to date one they could use.

Already I noticed a funny coincidence. The show has always been oddly obsessed with Pennsylvania. There are of course the many references to the Philadelphia experiments. But even "the lost sister" episode took place in Pittsburgh. I know there was a tiktok where someone theorized that this is more important than we think. If anyone finds it, let me know. I'll link it here!

The information on mutations also seems fascinating. I wonder if some of the logic for how the powers work for Will, Kali, El, and Henry could be inspired by this. Unless I'm wrong, this seems to be unique to this game and not in DnD. We know for instance that spending too much time in the UD can mutate your blood and give you powers like it did for Henry. And in my opinion Will, even though they don't acknowledge this. Meanwhile El and Kali seemed to have gotten their mutations from it being passed down or transferred in some way.

There's a lot to consider when you see that things like the duration, the range, and consciousness are all factors. It makes me think of Kali only being able to maintain her visions within a certain distance of her target or the possibility that someone could be using powers without thinking about it (building tunnels...)

Ok I'm just going to leave this here. Go on, take your time.

Once you're done screaming, now I'm really wondering...is there a chance that everyone could have mutations?

We keep thinking Dustin and Steve could be time traveling...and those spores have to be doing something.

They might do a more science based route though! Or have a character with powers possibly send themselves and Dustin back (or forwards). Lot's of possibilities!

I've been able to find the adventure book for the second edition, so I'll probably be reading through that and doing a post with my thoughts.

And while I wasn't able to find the full rulebook for the second edition, I was for the first. And quite frankly...I'm starting to wonder if the UD is actually just this mutated world.

Here is where I got some of my info on gamma world. It also contains the maps. I've never been good at those, so I encourage someone better at geography to see if there's anything important there!

Right…the convos that happened all of the time? Until s5? Right.

Anyways Nikki we know you’re a lesbian. Trying to steal Robin’s nachos…no wonder she isn’t in the rest of the show. She and Vicky had to be erased because there’s only one lesbian allowed.

This feels incredibly dramatic for a pg animated kids show that cannot even be canon to the actual show and seems to have no real unique concepts as far as it’s been advertised so far.

There is a lot of emphasis on time being frozen. T85 being a camazotz/dream scape for one or more of the characters is looking more and more likely.

This is incredibly stupid. It ignores s3, where the characters literally talk about events in s2. In fact, they initially deny that anything supernatural could be occuring because “El closed the gates”. So why in the world would they not bring up the possibility that this is a continuation of whatever happened in t85?

It doesn’t matter if it turns out the creatures in the animated series are robots created by a mad scientist, it should have been brought up in s3 in the conversation they had about what could be happening.

The only, and I mean only, way this show could have a chance at being canon is that their memories are erased or it ends up being fake in the story (Vecna vision, story book, whatever).

More mention of frozen time. That hypothetical question screams camazotz perfect wonderland. And it furthers my theory that it’s El’s camazotz specifically. She can be with her friends in an endless dream, why give that up for reality?

I find this interesting. The show really feels like a last minute thing, and yet they were planning this pre s5 even being filmed (well supposedly at least). And it really feels like the duffers were more involved than it initially seemed. There’s more at play here.

I was hoping this meant Nikki was going to die when they talked about adding real stakes but they ruined it at the end here 😔

Ok jokes aside, I do always appreciate the concept of non life or death stakes. I know a lot of conformitygaters are convinced that the real season is going to need main characters (or at least connected to mc’s like parents) to die.

I have and always will disagree. I think this show (not t85, the main one) can get incredibly dark and serious without needing to kill anyone off.

It’s easy to just make a character die. It’s a lot harder to write characters going through their worst nightmares, having major interpersonal problems, and getting seriously heavily injured. There’s also the ramifications of balancing the outcomes of that on the characters with maintaining an overall happy ending. And I think that will alway be more interesting than having characters die off.

So you’re aware of what the heart of the show is, but where was that in season 5? And why so tone deaf in t85?

Caitlin wrote Flight of Icarus (Eddie) and One Way or Another (Nancy). So if anyone has insight on the content of those books and how it might connect to t85 and Conformitygate…here’s a strong link already.

Metagate anyone? But also like…they’re just blatantly acknowledging that the va’s don’t sound anything like their og counterparts lol.

I’ve pointed this out a lot in some other posts, but they keep emphasizing this idea that Nikki is the audience. She’s literally a self insert character for all of us. We’re in the story now. Maybe that’s why she’s going to steal everyone’s lines 😒

Right because god forbid we just put the two single characters in the party together. No we have to give Dustin another romantic interest and make Will be an outcast with a new character.

I hesitate to share this because I’m still working on finding out where it came from. Like I cannot find any reference besides this one, so i have no clue if it was uploaded by a well known leaker or what. But i want more people looking so I can verify.

It looks very elaborate for me to chalk it off as AI but i’m no expert. If anyone has any info, let me know.

Because people on Twitter were really mad at the thought of associating conformitygate with Noah’s “personal life”. Even some of the conformitygate believers were worried it would make us look bad.

But let’s be honest, we already look insane! Also, it was april fool’s day…and lo and behold, it was NOT his “personal life”.

It does make sense. Love how I said people were mad about involving Noah’s personal life and here I am looking at exactly that. Don’t cancel me.

But then, if that’s true, Noah tricked people for a day into thinking he was dating someone who was actually his TWIN SISTER’s boyfriend.

Hmmmm, do we all remember the theory that the actor’s are playing their characters?

Who would be the twin sister for Will, I wonder 🧐

Who would be the boyfriend?