#cargate

the "Family Video" store where Robin & Steve work is meant to:

(1) be an ironic, mocking quip/remark about the common innacurate notion that Stranger Things is a "family show" & how it's going to completely subvert that label in s5;

(2) deliver subtext for bychance, #temptationgate, #vicegate, #sigate, #traffickgate and a bunch of other clustered related gates (see below).

notice:

the neon red 'ADULT' film section in the background (i couldn't find a screenshot) while s4 Steve flirts with a girl as he rents her a movie (Doctor Zhivago: “It’s a double VHS. It’s long. But that’s because it’s filled with action and romance …”), only to find out she already has a 'boyfriend' to watch romantic movies with (loser Mike foreshadowing);

the red car (#cargate), already associated to Chance & secret flings (check @offsidetracked posts); also the music band The Cars that's been so heavily featured in Stranger Things (song 'Moving in Stereo' playing during the Karen-Billy pool scene) and Finn Wolfhard's sus STurn playlist;

the Palace Arcade (entertainment, pleasure, vice; also the shady s2 direct allusions to prostitution/trafficking while Keith tries to bribe Mike into getting him a date with Nancy + Dustin warning that's gonna give a disease to Mike's entire family (AIDS subtext) + Keith tricking Max into entering a small enclosed space with Lucas while saying 'keep it PG');

also the 'Firestarter' poster, a 1984 sci-fi thriller horror film based on a Stephen King novel.

while the movie is described as "A couple who participated in a potent medical experiment gain telepathic ability and then have a child who is pyrokinetic"--obvious references to "Fireball!", Eleven's telekinesis & Will's possible latent powers...

...there HAS been an effort by the show to associate the concept of "fire" to "passion/arousal/sexuality" as well. in this sense, a 'firestarter' is someone who 'starts a fire', in other words 'ignites a fire' and therefore 'ignites a passion' (#temptationgate).

fires can be hypnotizing, unstable, quick and destructive; exactly what we've been predicting about bychance.

also included in this #ViceGate theory cluster are:

Rink-o-Mania;

the Hawkins' Pool;

the Billy-Karen side fling;

the Billy & Max sibling duo;

Starcourt Mall & the Russian tunnels below;

Hawkins Lab (HNL) itself;

the entire Russian plotline, starting with that Yuri Ismaylov peanut butter-smuggling nut;

Lonnie Byers and his shady buddies, connections & sources of income;

Al Munson (Eddie's father) and his insane Lonnie-coding in the Flight of Icarus book;

a bunch of other plotlines i'm probably not recalling right now;

and the "Vegas" mention by Will in the pizza van.

and trust me, these are absolutely riddled to their CORE with all kinds of subtextual foreshadowing for the s5 Bychance + ViceGate plotline. I'll make a post about those as soon as I'm able to.

"How far is Nina from Vegas? [...] once we save her — El — we should stop on the way back. El* could make us, like, super RICH, and we’d never have to work. We could just play D&D and Nintendo** for the rest of our lives...."

*El = "He" (in spanish) = Chance = men = homosexuality = trauma... **D&D and Nintendo = games, fun, entertainment, chance, vice, risk

-- sly, crafty, streetwise, mischievous, fun-seeking, risk-taking, cheeky, material gworl Will Byers you are SO unironically real and canon. #materialgirlgate #girlsjustwannahavefungate #mikeyouaresocooked #toolameforwill

mike is officially entering his simpy cuck era, i fear. nevertheless he will still have to step in as a white knight and save will from his dangerous hot girl summer

atp Vecna is showing me things against my will bc my Bychance Pattern Recognition thingamajiggy™ did its thing again and I --

FIRST episode of the FIRST season ( 11 ) & FIRST episode of the FOURTH season ( 14 )

FIRST TIME we see CHANCE + FIRST TIME we see TROY

#32 on a sportsy shirt in both.

If we follow the sequence, the literal next scene is:

S1 NANCY ( aka S5 WILL ) + TIGER ( establishing shot ) + being secretive ( "keep your voice down" ) about DATING a JOCK from the BASKETBALL TEAM.

Bonus; this is also the FIRST time we see the TIGERS SIGN, and it is associated to S1 NANCY ( aka S5 WILL )

I'm scared .......................................... but there's more ..........................

Season ONE episode FOUR ( 14 )

Season FOUR episode ONE ( 41 )

community ( will/billy mentioned ) + hole/loss + school gym = callback/connected scenes.

MIKE vs TROY FALCONS vs TIGERS

But speaking of 14 & 41, out of curiosity, i decided to go grab the scenes that happened around that timestamp in these episodes to see if anything emerged and ...

S1EP4 ( 14 ) aprox/around @ 14:41 ( This scene is about Will )

S4EP1 ( 41 ) aprox/around @ 14:41 ( N/A ) ( Not about Will, but Tigers. In the next screenshot, we see Tiger from Winnie Pooh on Suzie's desk )

.... Really?

CAR + TIGER ....................................................

The Jeffrey Dahmer frame in Stranger Things S4E1 includes:

(1) a background extra in blue, yellow & HOT/FLUORESCENT ORANGE -> Byler/Bychance love triangle (#orangegate #bychance #chancegate),

(2) a car/truck (#cargate),

(3) a concerned psychologist (Mrs. Marsha Kelley), the same one who had that one clock key necklace. (#marshakelleygate #keygate #clockgate)

All of this against the backdrop of Hawkins High School 🐯🏫 no less.

Radioactive Orange = high frequency, high energy, dangerous, toxic, Agent Orange (!!!)

Chance is HEAVILY associated to orange in the show. 🐯🏀🎃🍊 If you want to know more about this, check my #bychance and #orangegate posts.

hello and welcome to another episode of ✨What The Hell Is Going On Here ✨ which is slowly becoming my default phrase for this whole mess.

IN-SHOW ASSOCIATIONS so i already touched on the BYCHANCE + CAR associations twice:

Here & Here

I also have these two instances of CHANCE + CAR in the show that I included in the bychance slides.

We also have this LOVELY transition from Mike after he Realized He Got Dumped, into TIGER + CAR shot. In the same episode where we got CHANCES + CHEATER BOYFRIEND, which transition from that into TIGER + CAR once again.

As you can literally see in this very shot, this episode was directed by none other than SHAWN LEVY himself. Which is a great segue into ... ST CONNECTIONS WITH NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM and DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE

JED ( aka Chance's name ) X OCTAVIUS ( Queer-coded, enemies to lovers/friends Relationship™ ) + CAR

JACK X LUREEN ( Non Endgame™ ) + FIRST TIME + CAR

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE ( Queer-coded, enemies to lovers/friends Relationship™ ) + CAR

This is already ✨interesting✨ as is, but there's one more thing to add here ....

JACK X ROSE ( Non Endgame™ ) + FIRST TIME + CAR

Talk about Jacks with Doomed Fates, huh?

Needless to say, I think we'll see Bychance and this trope in S5. Why? I think they've been hinting at it. I've talked about the whole S5 Bychance/Byler thing mirroring S1 Stancy/Jancy love triangle before, and 💀💀💀💀...

Do you see what I see? No? Well ... there's a CAR right next to them. In the literal scene before this one, we see another CAR we can connect to Will, because it was his mom/outside his house:

Since we're talking about First Times here, the First Car Associations we make in S4 can also be connected to Will:

Jonathan's car ( Will's brother ) + Pizza Van ( where he confesses ).

There's also this motif of Romantic Pairings Sitting In The Back of Cars, which is broken sometimes, but I think the instances in which is not, are significant. I'll review that and repost soon!