Mike still has demo imagery even in the epilogue.

But this time they have little eyeballs in the centre. Which is concerning.

let mike listen to depeche mode in college 😭🙏

Sooo, this is where the transmission got hijacked, right?

ESOTSM + BYLER. memories, love and inevitable comeback

I am still at the restaurant.

There is one thing that still haunts me about all this conformitygate / episode 9 or whatever else suits this discourse:

the list of recommendations to watch before s5

obvious visual simulularities

memories, love, it's erasure and inevitable comeback being the crucial part of the plot:

Will's memory loss / obvious unreliability of his memories:

The ESOTSM tapes being "the keepers of memories", and also what helped the heroes to learn the "erased" past and start all over again despite the uncertainty of the future and possibilities to make mistakes again and again.

mysterious ST "for Will" tape official merch

meet me-

Ofc I can't say if there will be a new episode, but if there is, it has to be there.

Even if that was the end, we will write various versions of our own, because

Mileven bones confirmation coming as a package deal with conformitygate confirmation was NOT on my bingocard but allas!! Real finale one the right, ep8 on the left.

“She’s not (his? mike’s?) happy memory.” THIS IS WHY THERE WAS A WEIRD MILEVEN EDIT SMACKBANG IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FINALE IT WAS BC IT’S A FAILED HAPPY MEMORY MONTAGE AND SHE’S NOT HIS HAPPY MEMORY!! Do y’all know what this means…

In S2, when Will is first possessed by the Mind Flayer, the camera circles Will as the particles flood into him.

In BTS footage from 2.3, we see that they filmed this with baby!Noah standing in the dark, in the middle of a circular camera track.

They use a similar circular track for the “real world” version of the scene, where the camera also circles Will, Joyce, and the others as Will is in his trance.

(I can’t find the image of the BTS, but you can see the camera spinning, so just trust.)

In BTS footage from 5.5, we see big!Noah standing in the middle of a similar circular track in the scene where Will attacks Vecna at the WSQK.

Noah and the director are going over what motions he’s going to use in that sequence.

But in the actual scene in the show, the camera does not circle him.

It stays right in front of him the whole time, slowly zooming in further and further...

... and then it’s over.

The camera flips to a rear shot when Henry attacks Will back.

So what (version of that) scene were they filming that needed the circular track around Noah?

(Another possession? 👀)

Reminder that the very core of conformity gate is Mike Wheeler being a queer closeted man who chose conformity over being his true self, and now he’s seeing his life pass by with the consequences of that decision (except it’s all happening in his head where we, the audience, is trapped with him under Vecna’s curse)

The gate doesn’t WORK unless Mike is a closeted queer man.

It also doesn’t work if Byler isn’t canon.

That’s the gate.

self explanatory

Mikes orange mohawk. If your in this tag you probably know that Max told Holly Mike almost got a 'hot orange mohawk' before Nancy talked him out of it in episode 4. Many have related Mikes desire for a orange mowhakw to his admiration for David Bowie, who also had a bright orange mohawk. Something else has been on my mind though.

This guy. Axel. From season 2 episode 7, he was apart of Kali's gang. In season 5 episode 5, the episode after the audience learns mike wanted a bright orange mohawk, we see Axel shot in the head by the military, his mohawk clearly in view.

I was trying to see if their was some sort of connection, because I feel like mentioning an orange mohawk, then having a guy with an orange mohawk appearing the next episode, is gonna automatically generate some questions. I rewatched the scenes Axel appears in, and in his introduction scene he threatens Jane (El) with a knife, before Kali makes visions of spiders appear on his arm.

He freaks out and dances around trying to get them off, before realizing they're an illusion from Kali. He yells at her to "stay out of my head!"

This brings me to my next point---the mind flayer looks a lot like a spider.

More than it ever has in previous seasons.

The mind and meat flayer always had spider elements, but the final season mind flayer fully pushed into the spider design, with pincers, thin spider legs, and a large spider body.

Maybe Mike is paralleled to Axel with the orange Mohawk line to also parallel the illusion of spiders? Axel has an orange mohawk and sees illusions of spiders. Mike wanted an orange mohawk and see illusions of a spider-like monster. Both spiders in these instances are not real. An illusion. "Stay out of my head!"

I know this is kind of a reach, and the David Bowie explanation makes more than enough sense, I just wonder why mention an orange mohawk---which is an entirely new piece of information regarding Mikes character, they did not have to use the orange mohawk line---then include a character with said mohawk the very next episode? Was it just coincidence?

If anybody has any other connections they think their might be between these two characters, let me know!