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^ THIS was a tweet made by the writers + there was that interview w/ the duffs where they said almost the exact same thing (can’t find it, but I definitely know it exists, all they said was that there was definitely no cut scenes)

This post was made about only 25 days after season 4 finished airing. I don’t know, was there similar cutgate-esque allegations going around at the time? I wasn’t really active back then.

It feels like you can’t trust ANY of them. This is just a lie, they’ve admitted to having cut scenes. All roads lead back to the ever so elusive Mike-biking-crying scene.

Part 1 is here. Let's continue our exploration!

Btw, I have no idea what the correct chronological order is, so the pages are all over the post with no context whatsoever 🙃

From the Ancient Greek meaning deliverance, preservation of salvation.

[who was it who said we needed to learn Greek for S5?]

The Soteria Model was a therapeutic approach to treat acute schizophrenia, usually implemented in Soteria houses where patients were treated in a nonmedical way without the use of antipsychotics.

The first Soteria house was opened in California in the 1970s by Loren Mosher. He was heavily influenced by the early moral treatment movement (which I know quite a bit about, it emphasised the importance of domesticity and family environment to bring people back to a 'civilised' state)

Official Netflix store ST shirt 🤔

...

"Hawkins Lab is everywhere"

Then I came across this:

Which helped me to find this:

Any chance this has to do with #birthdaygate/Eternal Sunshine/Maxwell’s of it all???

In ESOTSM, Joel and Clementine have successful procedures that cause them to lose all memory of the other. But then they meet again, and even though they have no idea who the other used to be to them, they still are drawn to each other and can’t help falling back in love and wanting to try again — even it leads to the same end. The love is worth it.

If, say, Will and/or Mike were to suddenly lose all their memories of each other bc of the Mind Flayer or Mother Goose (Tharizdun), does that make them any less likely to be in love with each other if they were to meet again?

Which stresses that they wanted us to make a connection exactly with the coffee imagery and exactly the packet of “Maxwell”. After all, as their patients clearly do not have this disease at all, but coffee represents siphoning (meanwhile, what a word representing Will’s connection to Vecna, and who siphons what, right?), ig for them it’s enough to give us a clue.

There’s another interesting detail that in Hopper’s story the owl (living in the walls in the Boroughs) attacks Eleanor’s (👀) head. Basically, speaking the Boroughs’ language, he foreshadows the loss of memory at least in some characters in Hawkins

In general, if my find has any real meaning at all for the show, then these two things:

1) the Gillespie algorithm depends on Markovian reactions (which indicate that anything happening now doesn’t rely on the memory=has no memory)

2) the Gillespie algorithm predicts which event will happen and when (depending on the variables having no memory of the past)

basically mean to me that whichever memory is lost creates a timeline/a space now and here based on what is present (meaning that if Will doesn’t remember how powerful his love to Mike is he will easily reduce it to a crush in the moment of losing a memory of that), which creates a new variant of events (possibly a time-line, but most easily just a logical continuation of what you know now), relying on this new information, ignoring the past that was there but obviously is forgotten.

Speaking of ESOTSM, honestly I hope that Will and Mike will have a more optimistic ending: even though the idea of Joel and Clementine’s love story is that their souls remember each other better than their minds, which is, ofc, a powerful message, I hope Will and Mike will get their memories back too. However, it’s interesting for me whether we as an audience have seen all their memories or whether something had been erased from our viewing experience too 👀 (one of the possibilities of what might’ve happened I posted here)

How strong is their love connection with erased memory? That’s a good question. If they had lost memory before s5 too, probably that’s what we saw in s4, when Will was falling for Mike (again?) (or maybe he was erased just for Mike, and that’s how El took Will’s place). And in s5’s epilogue Mike is still in love with Will, but Will doesn’t remember that Mike was not his crush but love. The last example, from what we’ve seen, can help to formulate the idea of the possibility to forget the events, to forget even the strength of the feelings (even though in 5x08 it is just Will who doesn’t remember well, and Mike is being tortured by it, bc this is also an idea of having them close but separately), but to still feel the pull to each other bc it’s Will and Mike, ofc it’s still there.

But I might assume that the MF/Brenner/whoever succeeded enough by the end of 5x08 to erase a decent portion of Will’s feelings/memories at least, so that he doesn’t remember the full scale of it = doesn’t have access to the whole ocean of love he has for Mike. Is not fully in love maybe. Doesn’t know that he is.

Do you see the words "Happy" "Confused" and "Sad"?

Then I realized they are familiar. Where did I read these words somewhere?

I had a hunch so I did quick search and found the answer.

It is very strange to find this bizarre coincidence or connection whatever you wanna call it.

I just saw a quick thing on TikTok about the end credits calling Ted a "Steward" and Karen's maiden name being Childress

ie a Steward takes care of something that isn't his and Childress is a name for someone who runs an orphanage and, well, takes care of kids that aren't actually theirs.

Weird right? Putting that together, it kind of implies that at least some of their kids aren't theirs.

Also, it brings back one of my earlier questions of what the heck does Ted do for a living? He is literally ALWAYS in the house with Karen. It doesn't matter what time of day it is, he's right there. He sleeps a lot and always in his living room chair instead of with his wife, since season 1.

He watches a lot of tv, just like the agents did in season 4. Clearly he isn't an agent because he was really bad at dealing with the demogorgan situation-Karen seemed more capable-but maybe he did work for the lab in some capacity? Seriously, why was he always home and always in a suit?

Anyway, it got me thinking back to a couple of things related to Hawkins being a larger lab experiment

The TFS news articles at the end calling for pregnant women volunteers (and all the pregnant women in 5)

Karen telling Nancy she thought she was switched at birth

Lonnie never being in a single scene with Will and only showing up when he thinks he's dead. Lonnie referring to Jonathon as his son but showing zero concern or interest for Will.

Owens calling Joyce and Hopper "Mom. Pop." when coming in to check on Will in 2. It's weird, because why did he say that? No one was ever pretending Hopper was Will's dad and Owens knew the score. But he definitely says Pop not Hop. I checked several times.

Papa and then Hopper both attempting to be a parental figure to El while simultaneously isolating her. Hopper calling her a science experiment in 1 and betraying her location to the lab in exchange for Will, but then keeping her hidden in the cabin while still keeping things quiet for the lab. (Being left with a tv is nicer than being forced to kill cats and spy on Russians, but she is still locked up and isolated in both cases for extended periods of time) .... Bonus, even though he takes care of her and Owens helps him adopt her, the way he tells the story of Sarah in both 2 and 5 feels so upsetting. "Sarah? Well, Sarah's my daughter." and "Sarah, my daughter? She was brave." etc. Not she was my daughter too. The language is always very distancing from El, if that makes sense. "You are like Papa!"

Terry Ives saying "No" in the mindscape when El says "Mama, it's me, Jane. I'm here now. I'm home."

The older teens with no parents. Constantly hearing about but never seeing Steve's parents. Constantly hearing about but never seeing Robin's mother. Both becoming caretakers/mentors for the younger party members.

This is just a family bonus. Everyone talking about an uncle for some reason, even when it seemed superfluous to the story. Holly. Erica. Robin. Steve. And Eddie having one.

It's just the WSQK van with the antenna (they took it down in 5x03, didn't they?) driving past epilogue-decorated Melvald's.

Otherwise, nothing weird.

Introduction

Yes, I am prepared to be wrong, this is just for fun! I think if Henry and Brenner were the same person there would be more foreshadowing and parallels already, and I also believe Henry to be controlled by the Mind Flayer so I’m not sure how that would work with my theory. I am, nonetheless, making this post (and who knows, anything is possible)!

I don’t have a full theory with a whole backstory and everything (yet), that might come later. This is more a collection of observations with some speculation!

Appearance

It was when I saw a ST5 BTS video of Jamie that I really started thinking…

(Thanks to @forever-hyperfixating for finding the pictures!)

Why is his hair bleached nearly white? I could only think of two explanations: his hair was bleached so they could dye it another colour OR they were giving him a Papa hair style. We know Henry didn’t have bleached hair in ST5, so what was this for then? I can guess…

Even if they were bleaching his hair to prepare it for dye, then why is he in costume? Anyways, I have lots of questions…

EDIT: So he bleached his hair for Rings of Power, but in the picture above it’s Sarah Hindsgaul who is bleaching his hair. Sarah works for Stranger Things, why would she do Jamie’s hair for a project she’s not a part of?

I think I'm going to take a bit of a break. I'll still be around, just not as much as before. Work pressure and life are catching up with me 😔

Happy theorising, everyone. It’s been amazing being here with you all. You’re genuinely brilliant theorists, and I’ve had so much fun reading all the ideas, clues, and wild theories.

Hopefully we'll get some good news soon 🤞

After May 13, everything was pretty good for Cokegate 👍

Though we didn’t really get anything on June 3… or did we? 👀

Our June ’85 important dates and history

hello, this is wild

and why does project nina feel like a beta version of camazotz? take a look yourself

the show (and brenner) hides how project nina creates these simulations. i believe it's going to be a huge reveal, which will explain all of the timeline/memory/loop manipulations

again, why does it feel like camazotz? let's compare how jane and max wake up in nina/camazotz

both wake up in hawkins lab, both are running through the corridors, opening the doors, both keep returning to the rainbow room — the beginning of the simulation

max told holly that she tried to take door 3 to escape, failed and decided to take door 2.

what if i tell you that jane literally enters the rainbow room through door 3?

after taking door 3 jane proceeds to listen to brenner's instructions and tries to find her own way through the memories. it's getting heated, and owens wants her out of the bath, but it doesn't look like brenner agrees

so again, what if i tell you that they didn't pull her out and what we see next is an illusion?

first of all, go listen to it yourself (s4e5 1h10m), her voice has an echo effect here, THE SAME as in the scene before when she was in nina

brenner walks up to her like he's confident that she won't hurt him, even after she just knocked out a bunch of men. like he's controlling the simulation

the same opera music starts playing, the one that played when jane was in the rainbow room

and then she repeats what she said when she just entered nina. she never left, she never left.