#valentinegate

Mr Clarke, a word 🫩

(I honestly don’t think that it’s something, this pic is one of 12 in that post, and this one is its cover, but still, Randy, wtf???)

In the ending credits of episode 8 of season five, the very last shot we get is of the player manual next to a D20. If you compare the D20 from the credits to an actual D20, you'll notice the numbers are in the wrong spots.

This is the D20 in the credits

This is my D20 that I just took a photo of to compare.

As you can see, the numbers are messed up. So it got me thinking, what's so important about these numbers specifically?

7

- It was a 7

- 7 seconds before each lightning strike in the upside down

- Byler in general

6

- November 6th

- Will was stuck in the upside down for 6 days

- 6 party members (Mike, Will, Lucas, Dustin Jane/El & Max)

- (please correct me if I'm wrong) I think the entire sequence of volume 2 & 3 takes place over six hours (from when Max wakes up to the upside down/abyss shenanigans)

14

- ???

- I guess 14 = 12 x 2 so the 12 kids that were taken but thats a stretch

18

- 18 months time skip from season 4 to 5

- 18 months time skip from the finale battle to the epilogue

- The party is 18 (except for Jane/El)

Taking a slight detour from that really quick, what are the dates that volumes 1, 2 and 3 dropped?

Right, the 26th of November (Thanksgiving), the 25th of December (Christmas) and the 31st of December (New Year's Eve).

AKA big celebrations ST could use marketing for and create hype for.

What specifically stuck out to me was the air date for volume 1, it's Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is a holiday mostly (or only) celebrated in the US, not in any other major parts of the world. (For reference I'm British and we don't celebrate thanksgiving at all).

The reason this stuck out to me was because it was a very US only holiday while Christmas and New Year's are worldwide holidays.

Which got me thinking- what are the next big holidays/celebrations in the US & the rest of the world?

Well the next big thing in America is the Superbowl, and the next (relatively) worldwide holiday is Valentine's Day.

I take maths A Level and so I was thinking and messing about with these numbers and I found something interesting.

7 + 6 + 14 + 18 = 45

The finale aired on December 31st 2025

45 days from that is the 14th of February 2026, AKA Valentine's Day.

AKA a holiday that is celebrated across the world.

AKA a holiday ST could benefit from.

Why could ST benefit from this you may ask?

The core narrative of the show is that loves beats/defeats evil.

S1 - Joyce's love for her son led to her being correct about his disappearance and she was able to save him.

S2 - Jane/El's love for her friends and Hopper lead to her coming back to Hawkins to close the gate & Mike's love for Will was able to momentarily give him control over his hand to signal to the others what to do (save them from the mindflayer)

S3 - Hopper's love for Joyce (& Jane/El) led to him sacrificing himself to save them from the Mindflayer/Meatflayer/the Russians.

S4 - El's love for Max brought her back when she died (her heart had stopped for over a minute in canon) & Lucas's love for Max let her hide from Vecna and gave her hope to hold on

S5 - Will's love for Mike awoke his powers and he was able to save Mike, Lucas and Robin from being killed by demogorgans, letting him become a sorcerer & Lucas's love for Max allows her to have a tether to reality and keep the portal to home open, his love for her directly saves her.

Throughout the show we have been shown that love defeats fear, love conquers all. That's why season 5 (mostly after volume 1) feels so disconnected and strange -because we saw in volume 1 Will's love for Mike saved not only him but Lucas and Robin as well. When this was the narrative that we have been consistently shown, why were the Mindflayer and Vecna defeated with guns and bombs?? It should have been defeated by love like your narrative has told us for so long.

So the actual ending releasing on Valentine's Day would be very symbolic and enforce the narrative of the show.

(Also 14 is one of the numbers on the D20 in the ending credits.)

This is what I'm calling Valentinegate

ValentineGate <3

Continued...

Which means conformity gate is a very real possibility. Fear wins -> love is suppressed.

Mike is shown to suppress his feelings for Will in the epilogue.

Fear has won.

Or so we thought?

Every 5-6 days we get a new piece of promotion from ST/Netflix.

If we take the number 5 for simplicity, 45 ÷ 5 = 9.

9 drops of promo before we get the actual ending (either as a new volume or by editing scenes into the old episodes)

Off the top of my head the most memorable drops I remember - Jamie on Jimmy Fallon, ST Instagram posting scenes from Volume 2 & 3 from the 7th of January to the 10th of January, One Last Adventure documentary on the 12th of January, Finn hosting SNL on the 17th of January, the quiz coming on the 23rd of January.

This is just off the top of my head, I haven't gone back to check for anymore but you see my point right?

Every few days we get some new promo which can be dismissed as "oh it's just for nostalgia" or "oh they're trying to make the hype last" or "they're trying to market the spin off" etc etc.

So for reference the 'biggest' drops we have (not counting SNL) right now are:

12th Jan

- 12 days from the finale

- One Last Adventure documentary (we saw the whiteboard with ideas for the final battle which were all scrapped, the writers trying not to smile/grin when talking about Jane/El's suicide- just overall sus behavior, the red scripts- in old interviews it's been said that the scripts for the finale table read were red but they were white in the documentary & the Duffer Brothers were holding red scripts near the end of the documentary and more) -> basically we were spoonfed a bunch of hints, we just needed to take our emotions out of the equation to find them.

23rd Jan

- 11 days from previous drop

- ST quiz on YouTube (I know this isn't out yet but historically we've always gotten something from the ST YouTube promo so I'm including it)

You see the connection right?

In maths and in chemistry we're always told 2 isn't a pattern, it's just a comparison.

I'm going to ignore that really quickly to make my theory (sorry to my teachers lol)

My theory?

The next drop of 'big' promo (which will give us actual hints) we're going to get will be on the 2nd of February.

Why?

It's 10 days after the previous drop AND it's a few days before the Superbowl

AKA the perfect time to hint at something happening/ to tell people to tune into the Superbowl.

I don't know what the drop could be but my theory is it's going to be some sort of football related collab or something to make people tune in and leave enough hints to leave people reeling.

Then at the Superbowl/ during it, we will be given a hint to big to ignore and it will basically tell us "Oh hey, so you know how ST ends right? No you don't. Did you see how the characters conform? You did? Good, now look at this. *shows something* Now remember, we don't believe in coincidences. Have fun!"

Or something like that lol.

I'm calling this supergate (because it sounds cooler than Superbowlgate)

SuperGate!!

Okay back to numbers (I take maths, physics, chemistry and computer science A Level for reference lmao).

There are currently 42 episodes of ST (total)

4 + 2 = 6

There's another 6.

The number of episodes each season changes from 8->9->8->9->8

So it's a regular pattern.

Conformity?

All the students are sitting exactly the same way at the graduation. AKA they are sat in a regular pattern. AKA conformity.

There are 12 kids wearing sunglasses in the graduation. 12 kids were kidnapped by Vecna.

12 seems to be a reoccurring number this season and I'm not sure why. 12 is also 6 x 2 -> Will was stuck in the upside down for 6 days -> it will take the party double that time to save themselves from conformity/Vecna.

We had to wait 6 days between volume 2 and 3.

12 = 1,2 -> Mike/Finn rolled a natural 1 (disguised as a natural 20) in the promo for volume 1. (Yes I know this is a stretch)

Will was 12 when he was kidnapped by Vecna/the demogorgan in season 1

These are just some of my random thoughts and other stuff I've noticed so feel free to comment on anything I've missed lol.

If anyone has anything else they've noticed about Valentinegate please do add on, I'm pretty certain about something happening on the 14th of February but I won't be surprised if nothing happens.

I love stranger things because of all the theories I could make and everyone else's theories so I'm happy that dumb finale didn't take that away from us <33

Ik I’ve just posted it separately but tell me this

how is it possible to combine these two this way?

is it unintentional you’re saying? or wtf?

Did he not know how these meanings can be read together???? The Kuleshov effect at its finest!