Did Mike see it?

First of all, in the episode Vecna's curse (lol) we get this pretty insane dialogue from Jonathan and Argyle:

So, in your nightmare cycle (2 things very explicitly tied to Vecna and Nina and the Mind prison AND El's fate) you become just like your dad? And the cycle never ends? The cycle is a never ending story?? Lol. Lmao even. And well I guess we see both Mike and Nancy become like their dad:

Actually a handful of characters become like their dad in one way or another, and in general, conform/be trapped in mediocrity and misery. El's end being suicide after she was the one to call Hopper out for it too....

But NONE is as blatantly as Mike, who gets the Will vision special references down to a T (and is at the epilogue in lowkey suicide watch). We even have his face in the drift apart line, alongside Dustin right after. Something about Will saying it felt so real but us not seeing it vs seeing Mike's vision as the reality of the epilogue.

Which of course, not only that's what we see with Mike, but Hopper talking to him about it is a word for word repetition of Max's IN the mind prison. Also that line about 'going through it in your mind' many times...It's giving something. Suffering meaning being suicidal in a sense, since Hopper is telling us he's been that road before. And of course escape isn't even there for Mike. He is trapped for life apparently.

And then something that is also weird and could indicate the whole 'everyone is possessed and in Camazotz thing' is the repetition of words and phrases multiple times by multiple people (with the kids being flayed if we go by what we see with them throwing up particles)

Then we go on to something like having these line all over the place. All this talk about the real world, things not being real etc. Even the inclusion of Mike's 'ideas' of the future getting so much screen time almost feels like a way to tell us that fake scenes are still liable to be included in the show. Idk.

And these things about plays/lying:

Even El's suicide has the remaining material of the gate looking like play curtains. Not even talking about how the play they show El, Kali and Max going in is literally the 'play within a play' of TFS. And of course the fact that there are so many references to the Nina Massacre monologue:

'They thought a change of scenery, a fresh start in Hawkins, might just cure me...' plus 'Where others saw order I saw a straitjacket' well ok! Speaking of that proposal...First of all the whole idea that Hopper and Joyce would be saying that the cabin will be empty without Jonathan and Will and not mentioning el ONCE is insane. It can't be real. Not to mention it's paralleled to Derek narrating his 'visualisation' and Billy's memory. I guess!

The graduation:

And moving on. I want to talk a little about that graduation. So I think everyone knows that the WSQK radio thing has been playing and one of the hosts, Mindy Flair aka the Mindflayer talks about graduation etc a lot in it. And then we have the absolute biggest fuckery they could do. First of all, telling us that Mike can't write the ending and then the ending starting with exactly what Mike writes as the ending to his last campaign.

And then Robin and Dustin using the word change 10 billion times, with the pov of Dustin's speech shifting just to show the flayed? people of the audience. When 'changed' is the exact word Will uses for when he was first possessed and Brenner in TFS about his father when he goes to Dim X and his blood is infected forever.

Whole house flayed.jpg I guess lol. And then all these fucking cameras pointed at us (they are too many but the guy on screen for seconds with a duffers shirt is actually crazy. mindboggling even)

And moving on, I want to talk about the absurdity of Dustin supposedly showing his Hellfire Lives shirt and getting met with cheers or mild exasparation. They were out to get everyone's head and the people of Hawkins probably still it was the devil. They violate Eddie's grave everyday. What the fuck? And others have pointed out that the shirt has a slightly different design and is now grey for some reason? The shirt that Dustin has said to Max they made themselves, mind you. As if he would ever change it willingly??????

And this line has always stood out to me....Forced? Killing the kids? Almost like putting them in a nightmare prison world while theyre actually rotting in the MF's lair? Looks like it could be happening to our protags too. Because what in the fucking hell of lyrics is this to put on top of your ridiculous over the top graduation happy scene?

And to top it off all these camera shots of it...it's giving Nina films, especially with the hands of the extras. And Dustin just straight up parroting lines he has no way of knowing.

Not to mention one of the Radio hosts saying 'if someone says to go somewhere you should always go (paraphrasing but it was somewhere like that) and Will saying THIS even though we know should i stay or should i go represents him fighting for his life to not be consumed by the UD. Like bro...

And i think the whole thing has to have something to do with Mike because why on earth would they show this (in video it's shown that the kryptonite thing is moving towards the camera pov aka Mike's pov which never happened.) So....

Like it's lowkey insane that this exists and I'm supposed to brush it off. I can't. I just can't.

The Radio station

I know I said this will be watsonian but for fuck's sake them giving away all these cryptic clues through a Radio station with 2 hosts saying a bunch of nonsense irl, after showing THEIR OWN CHARACTERS ON THE SHOW DOING THE EXACT SAME, is some insane gaslighting and I can't even begin to imagine what sick mind could think of that. That is all.

Lumax's deal

Seeing Max not even just walk but skateboard after the last time we saw her walk it was a vision is also just suspicious. Especially with Lucas supposedly making a broken bones joke? In what world would he ever do that in 18 months OR EVER? That's ridiculous. It just is, he would never. And Max being all uncomfortable looking in their scene, Lucas being focused on sex suddenly, Max wearing makeup...I don't know man. not my lumax.

Even the protagonists suddenly acting like the antagonists constantly can be explained kinda by everyone becoming fucked up from literally breathing the UD particles and being lowkey flayed i guess.

I guess Hawkins now being Camazotz could be an answer to what Vecna needs Will for, which i theorised before was to make the new world look like Hawkins or something. I dont know! I am not really capable of thinking much now. Just wanted to present some evidence for this theory.

My Doylist thoughts

So, this is not to say that any secret episode is coming out or anything. I refuse to let myself think anything because for you the whole TJLC stuff was hearsay or what you learned from fandom videos but I was there. I was fucking there to watch Apple Tree Yard on a livestream with tumblr on my phone, January 22 of 2017, barely 18, seeing who I believed to be the smartest people on earth be devastatingly wrong. And that final episode of Sherlock was 100 times more fucky. That shit devastated me to the point of losing interest in fandom for 5 years, and I wasn't even writing the damn theories. I'm not going through it again. Even if there is an episode it is still cruel to put your audience through this and these fucking insane interviews so we are not thinking of that.

I still believe in my sanity and in these parallels. If nothing comes out of it, I'm completely wrong on this theory as I am about every other theory I've ever made, and if it does, I'm not. We may never know. But this is just too much to ignore...This is the post I'd make, ironically, if I was waiting for 1 more episode to come out, so there it is. And if after all this, this is the last thing they wanted to put out....lol. I will not give credit for anything right now, but what i see is what i see so.

Like, is this not crazy to everyone else. First of all I am NOT loving the heavy parallelism of the memories that Will drew strength from with a fabricated, manipulated version of the truth. In fact, I am not loving all the 'Will equals One' coding in general, but thats for another topic, we are staying focused here.

I was eyeing the stylistic choice to include these memories as a film reel during my watch, but I just wrote it off as just artistic choices. Not anymore,lol.

There is something sus about this, especially considering the reality that Will is flayed at this moment, with all the similarities that flaying and Nina seem to continue having, and who exactly has access to his memories (and what these memories even are). And here I come with my other observation which is that, while not implausible, I don't think they would include Mike saying 'Do you wanna be friends' when the line SHOULD be 'Do you want to be my friend' and WILL SHOULD ANSWER YES! NOT JUST NOD! This has been bugging me way too much, him saying yes is repeated twice and is an important part of that story. They know this, I know this. Don't try to fool me.

Which brings me to my final point....I don't think that this 'film reel' is the last we will see this scene. I think the REAL scene will include current day Will seeing/accessing this memory, the REAL memory, at some point. Also because apparently Noah was there, IN COSTUME, even though there is no point in him being there for this scene. Unless...He also filmed one that includes current day Will, accessing this memory for real, one way or another. Mark my words.