Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is among the "big ones" that Matt Duffer said we should watch before Season 5. Its inspiration is already present in the season. For example: Max and Holly hiding in a memory to escape Henry*.
What if some of the weirdness with Volume 2 is also an Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind scenario?
[Spoilers for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and ST5]
At the start of ESOTSM, the protagonist Joel seems lost, lonely, dull, hopeless. It's like there's something missing from his life. He opens his journal; pages have been ripped out, and the most recent entry dates back to two years ago; he assumes he hasn't written in it for two years. Later, we find out that the reason things seemed so off with Joel in the beginning is because very important memories from the last two years of his life have been erased – memories of his ex-girlfriend. He wrote in his journal the whole time! He just didn't have evidence, so he didn't remember.
I believe that something similar could be going on with Will.
We never saw the vision that Vecna showed him. Will told the group what was in it, but can we trust his word alone? Ever since Vecna/the Mindflayer trapped him, he calls himself weak, says everything is his fault, says he's not a sorcerer – but we KNOW the opposite is true. Not to mention Will has lied before after interactions with the Mindflayer. Will isn't telling the entire story. Parts may have been suppressed or totally erased.
After Will was rescued from that vision, he talked about trying to use his childhood memories again, but Vecna found a way past them. We see flashbacks of those memories, but Mike is completely missing. Why wasn't Mike there? He was the first person Will saved, the first person Will remembered. Parts of Will's memory may have been suppressed or erased.
There are multiple times before S5 where Will claims he only vaguely remembers his time in the Upside Down, or his childhood in general. "I don't remember." "Vaguely." The flashback at the start of S5 isn't even framed as something that he is remembering! It's there for the audience. Again – likely suppressed or erased.
This isn't limited to Will. While it's much stronger with him, there are other characters whose memories of dates and important events have been strangely fuzzy – usually related to Will.
Consider an older theory, "birthdaygate". The day of the Rink-O-Mania fight, not one person remembered Will's birthday – March 22nd. Did Will even remember his birthday? This points to other characters' memories being tampered with too.
In Volume 1, neither Mike nor Nancy seems to remember the very, very, very important date coming up – November 6th, "the day this all started". The day Will got kidnapped. Lucas has to remind them. HOW can they possibly not remember something so crucial?
Additionally, in Volume 1, TWO DIFFERENT PARENTS get the ages of their children wrong; Ted Wheeler and Joyce Byers. Joyce says Will was 11 when he was taken, but he was actually 12. She "thinks about that night all the time", yet she doesn't remember his age when it happened?
None of the older adult characters seem to remember Henry Creel, even though they literally went to school with him, performed in a play with him. In The First Shadow, he's not exactly a forgettable guy. He's odd. It's genuinely absurd that they would not mention they knew the guy they're all currently trying to kill. That's vital information! Their memories of Henry seem to have been deliberately suppressed or erased.
Several aspects of Volume 2, specifically after Shock Jock, seemed off to a lot of people, including me. While this doesn't explain everything, it certainly reframes a lot of what we saw!
...
This could also relate to cutgate. I'm just speculating here, but maybe there are scenes that were originally going to be in Volume 2, or otherwise fit into the timeline of Volume 2 (like Will's vision) but will be shown in the finale instead; whether they're shown as flashbacks/memories, or have been worked into the story of that episode.
Who knows?
:P
*(Also, the fact that it was originally going to be called "Montauk", and the name Montauk is prominent in ESOTSM).
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I was thinking about the movie Olympus Has Fallen recently --- if you haven't seen it, the basic concept is Die Hard in the White House... and if you haven't seen Die Hard, I'd look up one or both --- and my recent ATLA fixation decided to intervene. (I still haven't finished the show, but we don't talk about that; I know some things, and the rest are just details... right? Right?)
Anyway, I'm just thinking about something like this happening post-canon --- some kind of assassination attempt, or perhaps a coup intended to unseat Fire Lord Zuko and replace him with Azula or Ozai --- except it all self-destructs within two seconds because a) buddy's been putting his Blue Spirit skills to good use and b) he's been clamoring around on the walls outside to sneak around the palace anyway, just to get some free time.
He should have been in his office or something, but he wasn't, and so now no one knows where he is. His personal guards just sitting around like wtf do we do. we. have lost. the fire lord. this has never happened before. wtf. what do we do.
Instead of big, exciting fight scenes and sacrifices and hostage negotiation and stuff, everyone's just chilling in the room they're being kept in, utterly confused and 20 seconds away from busting out a deck of cards or something.
The entire plot is the bad guys sitting around staring at the shadows. wtaf. i swear something just moved there. oh wait, it's just a mask on the- wait wtf
The plan just entirely went to pot after two seconds, all because they apparently didn't register that an 18-year-old is not actually very inclined to be where he's supposed to be. Much less the rebellious banished prince of the Fire Nation who has had, simultaneously, a minimum of five "dead or alive" warrants placed on his head. By his own country.
Bonus points if Zuko is just kinda rolling with it, completely forgetting that people might be looking for him? That maybe he shouldn't just run head-first into battle? The first time he runs into a friend, they're still concerned because he went MIA in the middle of a coup, and he's just giving them the surprised Pikachu face. ("What are you doing here?" "Looking for you, idiot!" "...Why?" "Because there's a coup going on and people are trying to kill you?" "Yeah, but like. why?" "What do you mean, why?" "...The siege ended, like, fifteen minutes ago? I've been trying to find you." "... *facepalm*")
I don't yet know if I'm going to actually write this or not, but I find it funny so I have Absolutely No Choice but to ramble about it here... whoops :)
Why do I always feel the urge to undermine what I’ve just said by tacking on, “but I don’t know,” at the end? I do know. I know what I think and believe. Why do I act like I’m unsure?
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
You know, I actually adore photos taken by small children.
I've given my camera to Squirrel a few times since he was about two years old, and I just found about 200 from two years ago, when he was five, and I just love them.
Like, some of them are just normal garden pictures:
and some of them are "strange angle but kind of neat":
and some of them are just odd details:
feet
flowers at eye-level
blurry
motion
(I get dizzy looking at this, like I'm actually spinning round and round)
actually cute picture of me, thank you Squirrel!
critters:
and then some normal garden pictures again and I thought he'd given the camera back and I had taken those, and then
and a bunch that are just... green, but I've reached the picture limit, so you'll have to take my word for it.
