Wake Up, Mike!

Transcription of the ST S4 Inspiration Whiteboard to make it more readable. I tried to keep everything in a similar vicinity to where it is on the whiteboard, but towards the center I just started squishing things in where they fit. Also, I might have made some mistakes with the color-coding.

Red Text = crossed out on the board ??? = I couldn't read the text Title(?) = I could read some of the text and made an educated guess of what the title could be, but I could be wrong 2 = the title was on the board twice

Ocean's 11+12 are written together on the board, Ocean's 8 is written separately

LOTR Trilogy is on the board, but LOTR Two Towers is also written on the board separately.

Have fun with this conformitygate theorists!

EDITS: thank you @warren-j for identifying one of the ??? as "The Cider House Rules" and "Star Wars: Jedi/Empire" the transcription has been updated to fix a few of the titles I got wrong!

below is the titles I couldn't make out. I'm 90% sure that the top left is "Final Destination" (which I did put on the transcription), I think middle right could be "Skyfall", and middle left the top line looks like it could be "F+F Tokyo Drift" (aka: "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift") but I can't read the second line.

1) this is the "maze" for those who don't know what I'm talking about.

2) her comment:

So, She basically copied the irl I guess and put it through python to get the answers and this is what it said:

"make believe I'm everywhere, I'm hidden in the lines" (hidden in the lines? Maybe the white lines from the VHS version) that's the Never Ending Story song from season 3. Which connects with the 3 sentence: The neverending story duet

The last one is "Hawkins lab override granted" for the non-english speakers, it means the annulment of control over Hawkins Laboratory has been granted. Basically, there is no more Hawkins Lab, I have the worst memory so I looked it up and got this response

Ive said before how I think that everything really changes between Season 2 & Season 3, starting with the Snowball ‘84.

We usually see that as a ‘lost’ tape, in that they cannot find it. This becomes the avalanche.

The Mind Flayer / Shadow Monster under Brenner/Hawkins National Lab completely takes over Hawkins. There’s ofc already issues, but not in the same way.

My theory of tapes being how Brenner changed memories:

I think the process obviously starts in 1&2, but I think the *editing* memories hasn’t started yet. Ik people think the tapes are fake (?), idk if that’s the right word. They are (I think) the source. Not as in the one true reality, we never get that ever in life. But the SOURCE of the loops we see throughout S3-5 in the attempt to detach people emotionally and rewrite their idea of the past.

So, while Brenner’s tapes aren’t “the truth” of everything (because he is my #1 op), they are going to be so important and vital to piecing the story together moving forward.

I think the tapes are the SOURCE of the loops that we see starting later Season 2 and going forward. The tracking lines are where things have been ‘rewound’ the most, causing the most damage from use.

So, I’m going to try to see how the tracking lines line up with ‘memories being played on loop’ and switched around for the characters.

I like already think S3-5 is an altered version of events, but I don’t think the entire show is or we don’t really have any room to stand on. It has to start somewhere.

[ p.1, p.2, p.3 + visual erasure of Will in s2 ]

Jonathan seems to be a character created by the Lab to give Will a brother. Jonathan could be visually based on David Bowie and performing tasks of supporting him and also introducing Will to music, which would keep Will in the simulation.

(although I’m not sure that he as Jonathan acknowledges it, and probably is genuinely living in Nina and loves his ‘brother’)

But Jonathan isn’t just an empty hologram.

(meanwhile, notice how the colour palette of Jonathan’s room, including the Bowie shot, duplicates in Will’s t-shirt)

…Have you ever wondered why we love Robin so much?.. Why she is such a good friend to Will? Why she has basically substituted Jonathan for him? Why is she so good in music and even knows what Will would like, barely being acquainted to him?

(we’ve known for a long while that Holly is Mike, and who knows who’s Max atp, but Ig, this door also has a lock on it)

Robin is good at music like Jonathan, Robin likes Nancy like Jonathan, Robin is Will’s support like Jonathan. Robin knows the kids. Bc Rockin fucking Robin IS Jonathan.

because they apparently expire on july 14th and you never know

part 1 here

#11 The Rift

because they apparently expire on july 14th and you never know

#1 Underneath the Demogorgon Suit

#2 Soft But Scary

#3 Conceptualizing Eleven

#4 The Resurrection of Will Byers

#5 The Soviet Files

#6 The Autopsy of Chrissy Cunningham

#7 Max and Vecna’s Curse

#8 Dr. Kay’s Sonic Weapon

#9 The Rainbow Room

#10 Hawkins National Laboratory

#11 The Rift

... gets its own post because of the 30 images per post rule

Please reblog so how long this took isn't in vain.

Okay so when I saw this maze I was pretty sure there wasn't going to be a solution but I figured I might as well solve it anyway so that no one else has to do it or so it can be layered over other stuff quickly. I'm going to go into my method at the end.

The Solution - Green Path

There's no starting point to this maze but I figured the closest thing to a solution would be a path that made it all the way to the other side of the maze. Green is the only one to do so. It does so by branching off though to the side and it has 'two' ways out of the top. But it's really like 20 or something because there is no actual start or finish.

Green Path - 4x4 Squares

Here are all the 4x4 squares green path crosses into.

Green Path - 4x4 Top to Bottom Squares

Here are all the 4x4 squares green path crosses into to get from top to bottom of the maze.

Other Solutions - Blue, Red and Pink Paths

Some paths do not make it from top to bottom but do make it to adjacent sides.

All Paths - 4x4 Squares

Here are those same paths represented by 4x4 squares.

Method

Okay so the maze is pretty modular. Visually it looks like it's splitting into squares because it is actually constructed that way.

The whole grid is made up of tiny squares, like you were playing dots and boxes. 16 of these smaller squares make up what I have been calling a '4x4' box. 4 of these boxes make up an 8x8 box and 4 of those make a 16x16 box.

You can find the outer edges of the 16x16s because one side will have either 0 line breaks or a single line break. On the other hand the interior lines can have as many breaks as they like.

I found the potential solutions of the maze by finding boxes that had only 1 entry point. These have no through line so they are dead ends.

I blocked them off. When a 16x16 has multiple entry points you can look for 8x8s with only one entry point, then 4x4s and so on.

Then eventually you'll find all the possible paths because only squares with a path through remain.

A lot of the outside squares only really lead to themselves. I crossed those off because they did not fit the criteria of a path through. You could repeat this method just on those edge squares if you wanted to see the shapes they make.

ARGH, I'm pulling my hair out - there's no way they'd release the interactive content in the box set first?! right?! RIGHT?!

AND ALSO - you know how the description of the ST box set is very, uh, high-level? Like, we don't know why there are that many discs, and what exact extra content we can expect? I took a browse on the Arrow Video website, and I think most of the releases have a MUCH more detailed explanation of A) the exact content you'll be getting, B) which disc the content will be on and C) the exact origin of the interview/content (e.g. who is conducting the interview, or narrating the additional video essays, etc etc.).

Look at the AV description for the unreleased, limited edition Jackie Chan breakout hit box set, which contains 10 discs:

And again, for their TMNT box set:

The description for Shawscope volume 3, which has 10 discs:

Now, let's look at the ST box set description (keep in mind that both the Jackie Chan one and the ST have pre-order status, and look at how MINIMALISTIC the descriptions of the ST box set are!):

That's it - that's the only description of the box set, despite it having 25 whole discs! I've looked at the Arrow Videos website, and the ST box set appears to be an anomaly amongst all of their other box sets, which contain very detailed explanations of what exactly is included in each box set (even if it's just one disc!).

What makes it even weirder is that AV has a dedicated tab for just ST, and no other box set:

Well, here I go.

The trolls are all the same person.

Exhibit B:

First, a little bit of background on emoticon-indy. The account was made in October 2014 as an archive for how the people who organized dashcon fucked up real bad.

Turns out, our beloved Indy was run by multiple people.

These were unsurprisingly removed from Indy's blog. I found the first one in an interesting thread related to the creator of Dashcon, Lochlan (Nessie) O'Neil. And the other through the Wayback Machine.

Now do I think the mods are all currently trolling the CG tag? No.

So here's the thing, princessparadoxical was one of the mods of emoticon-indy.

Not convinced yet?

Let's take a look at princessparadoxical's first post about Dashcon.

Now, let's take a look at this post by emoticon-indy.

🎶 Do you get deja vu? 🎶

I've got one more for y'all.

Oh, what's this I see? Emoticon-indy boasting about their ongoing Ph.D in 2015?

Oh, and would you look at that. Princessparadoxical is also excited to tell us about their Ph.D in 2015!

Now that we're all convinced, it's safe to say princessparadoxical is using the emoticon-indy account (originally meant to be a Dashcon archive run by multiple people) as their personal sideblog to be an unpleasant person. I just hope they asked the other mods for permission.

Bonus:

Two sideblogs, you say?

two words that sounded so out of character for jonathan that it proved at least nancy and jonathan are awake, and speaking to each other in code

people have done plenty of theorizing about this scene, what they are trying to say in code here

all I'm doing is proving that that is, in fact, what they're doing.

and it started with me realizing Jonathan would NOT say "hell, man" 😭

my first thought: the mayo company, and it's collab with jake connelly. and the company colours being very obviously blue and yellow, paired with the almost rainbow of Derek's shirt (gay ending, gay supression in camazotz etc etc)

anyone remember mayogate? hello @mixu 💚

then I dug a little deeper (not deep at all) and found this gem:

read more on this here

alright so basically they're hiding their true message from both vecna and the audience

the name drop of hellman insures that the message gets across to the right people: each other (and on a meta level, the theorists)

maybe this is jonathan's litmus test for the others?

another thing: the original protocol used the names alice and bob, two characters that are established in the show (alice creel, bob newby)

so, maybe it is just nancy (alice) and jonathan (bob) who are awake?

if anyone remembers that "script leak" for the finale, I wanted to grab it as proof of what he said, but the two words are missing:

honestly, this is more proof for me, since "hell, man" isn't in the subtitles either

jonathan put it there himself, to flag the others. breaking out of the script.

considering the way nancy is smiling, she is at least acknowledging his code. I can't quite place if robin or steve clock it though...

side note why is steve so much more vulgar in this script??? here's what he says in the show

and here's what he says in the "script"

I'm sure the person writing that thought they were hilarious... (they are). steve also says "thank you?" instead of "what is wrong with you?? I'm clean"

which, the "what is wrong with you" and "little nuggets" are references to other scenes!! deja vu = a glitch in the matrix, something has been changed

anyways lol

tldr, the older teens (or at least nancy and jonathan) are very likely awake in camazotz and communicating solely in code, likely planning their escape/trying to break out!!!

while you're here, i think the best thing to consider is that if we didn't have something concrete to believe in, then this many fans wouldn't have stuck around for this long. it's kind of like byler itself. there was a strong reason why so many fans believed in it.

another good thing to ask yourself is did you let other people convince you that byler didn't exist? so... are you gonna let fans who don't have all the facts anyway tell you that we're crazy? why?

anyway 😆 i've been thinking for a while of putting my favorite stuff that i've talked about in one post, and i think now's a good time.

start here

it's easy to believe in conformitygate -- my summary of the facts in the show that grounds all of our theories further discussion

dishonesty leads to disaster -- my analysis of communication within the show and how it might impact events

the show's pre-existing music audio communication

"spellbound" -- my favorite moment from s4 and why i think it stood out. it might have been specifically to communicate the moment the characters were cursed (old theory by now but i still see it come up. it's even made it to twitter and then tiktok too recently 🎉) further discussion

"heroes" and "when it's cold i'd like to die," -- my analysis of when those songs are played and where they get their context (the "heroes" theory also made it across platforms 🎉)

"running up that hill" -- how the message of the song may have switched from max to will in s5

"upside down" -- my analysis of the song based on my original assumption before s5 that it signaled something would happen between will and mike in the upside down

what a true camazotz journey could look like

rink-o-mania -- a theory based on signals and interference using the morals of the show

max's letters -- supplemental to the original rink-o-mania theory based on the letters specifically being referred to as a "fail-safe"

vecna is playing a game of chess in s5

an analysis of max and holly's journey through camazotz -- why i believe there are clues in the show that neither journey was truly successful further discussion specifically about the anger in s5

the structured parallel between the van scene from s4 and the coming out scene in s5 -- why i believe the show repeated this moment

the thematic parallel between the shed scene from s2 and the coming out scene in s5 -- what i think was missing in s5

henry was supposed to be scared of the cave -- a discussion about the conflicting message in s5 between will and henry. will came out to face his fears and help them defeat vecna. however, this moment doesn't work as it should in storytelling since henry reaffirms his allegiance to the mind flayer instead

fun stuff

building a 2nd camazotz -- my first theory when cg started (very old at this point lol from jan.7)

breaking the heart of the party -- my pre-vol. 2 analysis and theory highlighting mike's importance and why he would be a target (and specifically how an attack against him would work)

the elements of the upside down -- a fun look at the weather patterns in the upside down like the lightning, the fog, the clouds and the water. i believe that water does in fact exist in the upside down and the whole place could be water itself based on the symbolism of water being darkness in media further discussion with the idea that the snow ball is a suspicious moment in the show even more discussion based on the upside down being metaphorically water and the duffers brother's comments about an elder brain

enter the void -- a journey i took to rationalize how the void works

a comparison between possessed s2 will and possibly a possessed s5 will -- a photoset to compare the specific dialogue will uses while setting a trap with his artwork further discussion about traps in the show

"did you see any rain on that tape?" -- a photoset comparing two scenes from the show to prove there's something suspicious. the first is from s5 when there was no rain on will's memory film reel while building castle byers. the second is hopper from s1 when he began to suspect hawkins lab was lying to him and covering something up by showing the wrong tape.

the strange distance between will and the abyss -- a photoset to discuss how jane couldn't reach vecna in the abyss but will could still feel him despite the hive being proximity-based

something is wrong at the WSQK 1 -- a discussion about how if the creators did not intend for the radio station to appear suspicious, they wouldn't have made it so ominous

something is wrong at the WSQK 2 -- a discussion about the letters of the WSQK being flipped in the script, possibly hinting at even more evidence that the radio is corrupted in some way

something is wrong at the WSQK 3 -- a discussion about the real life inspiration for the radio station and why i think using a television broadcast antenna could be a clue

the disjointedness of the field scene -- why i think it could be an indication of a corrupted memory

the suspicious censoring of episode titles -- why i believe the creators of the show wanted the audience to theorize about camazotz before s5

be sure to also check the replies on my posts! i'm lucky to have so many amazing people continue the conversation in the replies, and some really cool discussion has happened there 🩷

lastly, my message to anyone looking to start posting in the cg/lwg tags

i use cg for convenience but i actually prefer lovewinsgate which is the specific belief in new content and how love will win over fear (like we were promised in the show). but the main tag is definitely still conformitygate. i just personally use lovewinsgate on my blog.