#confomitygate

Tunnels??? What tunnels? They were fighting in the forest, right? where Will helped the party escape the monster… or are they talking about the sewers in the later episodes?

Building tunnels was just warmup.. he was DM ing (Building) all these Tales...

The orange was the best part

Like two friends that feel like they only understand each other but are drifting and get sucked into this other world of threats where they begin to forget each other and appear to go through each others memories???

(i say for the... what is this fourth? fifth time?)

(in the most loving way possible it is feeling a bit like rapture tok atp cause it's like "okk it's happening this day..." ... "nothing? ok well actually it's this day." and i of course watch every time just in case something happens...)

let me remind you of these two scenes.

steve is theorising about vickie’s relationship with her boyfriend when robin cuts him off — in almost the exact same way dustin does in season 3 when steve starts spiralling while they’re spying on the russians.

steve, i don’t care. and i don’t understand why you do either with everything that’s going on. honestly, this feels like the perfect time for that little pull of the rug, because in the face of the world ending, the stakes of my love life feel spectacularly low.

yes, on the surface this is robin foreshadowing that her love life with vickie will get some kind of resolution in season 5 (or not — which also fits neatly into the illusion theory so far).

but it’s also steve’s foreshadowing.

steve’s entire dilemma in season 3 is him spiralling about his lack of a love life and social standing post-graduation — but dustin literally yanks him back into the mission, dismantling the importance of steve’s worries in the face of an actual emergency. steve is a great basketball player, which, narratively, means he’s a great team player — when he’s focused on the right task.

this moment with robin is doing the same thing.

she’s indirectly — but very clearly — telling steve that his love life isn’t as important as he thinks it is. she even uses the phrase “pull of the rug” — and robin has always been the character the writers used to signal to us coded hints about the story’s direction (every season, without fail).

so yes. it’s a rug pull. steve’s rug pull.

the rest of the conversation feels like perfect setup for the finale we actually got.

yeah. i mean, i get you there, but— i still have hope.

not everything has a happy ending. i’m not talking about failed romance.

robin says this right after steve looks at nancy — which directly foreshadows steve’s conversation with jonathan in the finale, when he admits that he’s realised he and nancy were never really in the cards.

i have this terrible, gnawing feeling that it might not work out for us this time.

you think we shouldn’t be doing this?

i think we’re mad fools, the lot of us. but if we don’t stop him, who will? we have to try, right?

yeah.

this is the foundation for vecna’s play. after this — they do try their best to defeat him.

vecna says it outright:

it is over, eleven. you have lost. you can’t stop this now.

season 5, then, becomes a mishmash of prior seasons — memories looping like camazotz. the never-ending story. this shift starts after the gates open in season 4 and the particles rise. from that point on, they’re all under a trance — believing they’re still fighting vecna while he’s slowly erasing and rearranging their memories, rewriting the story from the inside.

particular scenes from prior seasons serve as vecna’s surveillance, which is why there’s multiple scenes shot from a hidden angle, as if we’re observing alongside him.

when vecna sits the kids down in a circle and says, it starts tomorrow — he’s not just talking to them, but breaking the forth wall. he’s talking to us, telling his audience about the climax of his play — a finale that includes an epilogue, fully constructed from familiar beats and our favourite characters.

edit to add: every scene with vecna/henry where he “explains” something is a hint. he doesn’t monologue for fun — he plants rules.

which is why the chess game between henry and el in season 4 is also relevant. it’s foreshadowing will’s coming out scene (the floor pattern isn’t random) and vecna’s takeover of the narrative at that point.

central to this practice is the vajra (kongo for shingon buddhism) a ritual tool symbolising both the properties of a diamond, indestructibility, and a thunderbolt, irresistible force, always paired with a bell, whose sound is considered very auspicious and said to ward off and drive away evil spirits. the vajra then implies the "thunderbolt experience" of enlightenment.

vajrayāna influenced shingon buddhism school ("true word/mantra school) founded by kūkai in japan. shingon states that one can attain "enlightenment/buddhahood in this very body", because one's true nature is identical to the one of buddha, and that "the absolute"/buddha communicates the absolute truth via a language "other" and signals/signs of the world. only the initiates who possess the reading key and who know these teachings can understand the message, which is that the world (of illusions) is the same as the world of enlightenment, that buddhahood and the universe are one and the same and directly identify with each other, that the entire universe is the "symbolic body" that manifests the absolute and every single thing is a "symbol that expresses/embodies enlightenment".

three modes in which the buddha expresses and manifests the absolute truth are "the three mysteries" (sanmitsu), which correspond to a category of practices and rituals:

shinmitsu, the mystery of the body, expresses itself in the material world of phenomenons and concrete forms. corresponds to the ritual of mudra, devotional gestures, and use of ritual instruments

kumitsu, the mystery of the voice/speech, expresses itself through the sounds of the universe and the constructs of languages. corresponds to the ritual of mantra, repetition of sacred formulas and/or sounds

imitsu, the mystery of the mind, expresses itself in ideas, in reasoning, in the deepest visions of the subconscious. corresponds to meditation, to meditative identification with the deities rapresented in a mandala.

in the context of stranger things, i'd like to focus on the idea of seeing the truth through illusions, and that reaching the truth requires a reading key/context/additional knowledge that's not readily available.

in the case of shingon, the illusion is the fact that there's a reality "other" beside the material world that grants enlightenment. the truth is that one can find enlightenment in their own body and mind, but they require to be introduced to esoteric teachings and to perform specific rituals that are unknown to the masses.

in the case of stranger things this could manifest as becoming aware of one's true nature through the knowledge of context and truth that one was unaware of before. reaching "enlightenment" not through the projection of a perfect version of oneself, but through embodiment of one's own self, because in a way, the two are one and the same ("you are holly the heroic").

mike is already mike the brave, he's already a version of himself who is brave and just and loving, he's already a version of himself who is loved and deserving of love, he just has to realize it, realize that two are one and the same. he will realize he is brave, and he is loved. and the realization will hit him like a lightning bolt.

*additionally, reaching the truth through body, voice and mind: acknowledgement of physical attraction + physical action of affirming one's truth, dialogue and honesty, convergence of the idea of self with one's material form.

Obviously this isn’t the Alleged Speculated Goofy Henry Spinoff (still the same characters and still the upside down) or The Evil Animated Inbetweenquel (still the same characters and still the 80s and still the upside down)

I’m wondering…could this be Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen? Yes yes it did say “the first non-stranger things production from upside down pictures!” in the caption but like. why why why would you make a whole new series after repeatedly saying you want to make movies after ST and why would you do it with netflix if youre leaving netflix end of april?? And WHEN DID YOU HAVE THE TIME?? I feel like it might be related to stranger things and conformitygate somehow…

Television seasons take 3-4 years to produce.

Every season has 6 episodes.

Every episode is a stealth pilot for a spinoff.

Plotlines are stitched together as studios fish through their backlog of scab writing they stockpiled during the last writers strike.