#no but the theory that they already filmed the opening of s5 during s4 filming is looking pretty interesting rn...

[chirpsythismorning]

Season 5 Opener: Out of Context

Bonus:

[woadisme]

st5 theory: el finds vecna in will’s mind!

This is a theory for how El will enter Will’s mind to find Vecna at the beginning of st5, and how that might play out with Will’s powers getting revealed. I’m not sure if it will make total sense but hopefully enough sense for other people to weigh in!

Recently I’ve seen some videos (from @_stfaves on tiktok go check it out fr!!) about how they have already filmed part of s5 in which Will gets cursed. The highlights from those videos is that Noah was filming in his finale outfit at Rink-O-Mania, Lonnie’s actor was at s4 table reads, and ofc the infamous picture Noah posted wearing a harness with his finale outfit. This points to him getting cursed and reliving the events at Rink-O-Mania and the abuse from his father, before the time jump. In fact, it would have to occur on the same day that the Cali gang returns to Hawkins, because of his attire.

However, when we left off in s4, Vecna’s base of operations was pretty badly destroyed, he was badly burned, and Will said that he was “hurting.” Basically, Vecna is wounded and the place from which he attacks is unusable. Plus, he wouldn’t have any apparent reason to curse Will like that, since the purpose of cursing the other victims was to open gates. Or, at least, it doesn’t seem as though he will strike again just 2 days later, while he is wounded.

Now that our team knows that Vecna is still around but he is badly hurt, I think that they will want to strike back as soon as possible, to prevent Vecna from rebounding at all. That is when Will or El proposes that she looks for the piece of the Mindflayer/Vecna that is in Will. We have already seen El do this with Billy in s3. (Bonus if we get protective Mike again, this time not wanting to put Will in danger, plus worried that Vecna will be able to find them like Billy did.)

So I imagine that El’s search in Will’s mind plays out very similarly to what we saw with Billy. I was rewatching that episode recently, and it really reminded me of what we know of Vecna’s mind from s4. I couldn’t find screenshots of when he was skimming through various people’s trauma before Patrick gets a nosebleed, so just look at the scene with Max compared Billy’s mind.

It’s the red and the darkness and the smoke and the lightning… Plus, now we know the reason that El had to encounter these moments of trauma for Billy. That is where Vecna thrives, how he targets his victims. Max says herself that he uses people’s memories against them, but only their darkest ones. She says, “It’s like he only sees the darkness in us.” So, as El goes to find him in Will, it makes sense for her to witness some of his past trauma, likely from his dad.

However, this does not explain Will’s finale outfit at Rink-O-Mania. This is where my theory might get a little bit sloppy but hear me out. Will gets Vecna’d from within his own mind. This will take a lot of exposition to explain.

This relies on the assumption that Will has had powers from the beginning. I think they must have occurred spontaneously, or however 001’s happened. That is, his powers didn’t come from 001 like El’s did. He is special, but his powers (if he has them) are obviously dormant. There were some weird things going on in s1 during his time in the Upside Down, but it’s not clear what his powers actually are. I think that Vecna knows, or has suspicions, so he formed an incredibly strong psychic connection with Will when he took him and kept him in the Upside Down. I think his goal with the Mindflayer was to control Will without killing him. Vecna says that all of his victims are still in his mind, but he wanted El’s power externally. He wanted her to join him, so he probably needs her strength. If he could get that from Will without having to convince him, by simply taking over his mind, that would be ideal. And, although the Mindflayer was exorcized at the end of s2, Will still shares a psychic connection with Vecna.

Thus, the manifestation of Vecna in his mind, I assume, will be a bit different. It doesn’t have a hold on Will’s behavior, but I think it could be actively suppressing his powers. When El finds it, she will see the red smoke, the traumatic memories, but the eye of the storm will not be a location, like Brimborn Steelworks in Billy’s mind. I’m not sure what it would be exactly, but I think it is a perfect opportunity to draw another parallel with this scene!

The key of this part is that El’s interaction with the Demogorgon was the catalyst for the gate opening. So I think that El interacting with whatever exists inside Will will be a catalyst for Will having his Vecna moment. Suddenly he is thrust into his own worst memories, rises from the ground like Max did, is literally suffocated by his own trauma until something breaks. Not his bones, but whatever is suppressing his powers. Remember that focusing on a memory that makes someone angry and sad is what strengthened the power and control of 001 and El? I think that Will’s powers are tangled up in all that mess and El disturbing that releases Will’s powers. Just like her disturbing the Demogorgon created a path between the Upside Down and Hawkins.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Orange Color/Banners in D.C.

Okay, this Ask has been in my inbox a LONG time. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get to it. I’m going to go relatively simply on the explanation here. Trust me, some of my fellow theorists could give you a LOT more detail on these colors (*coughs @wdway*) but I just want to give you an idea of why the answer is yes, we definitely think these colors were picked purposely and mean something.

First let me say, Nonny, that your observations her are stellar. I love especially what you said about Anne/Jadis and the fine arts banner. Because a few episodes later, we saw her doing a great deal of art in painting pictures for people. Just another way to show that these things are put in purposely and always fulfilled.

As you say, Michonne looks at political posters. Later we saw her drafting a charter, and then of course leading when Rick left. So it works all the way around.

About Daryl and the sun/fire thing? I also noticed that next to it are some things about native American culture. That really caught my attention because the only other place we’ve heard native American culture specifically mentioned on the show was with Creepy Wolf Dude and Morgan in 5x16. That makes me think the wolves might show up again this season somehow. I’ll get into some brainstorming about how that may happen below.

*Disclaimer: this is one of those posts where I brainstorm possible outcomes and predictions. Keep in mind that I may simply end up being wrong about them, so take everything with a grain of salt.*

I won’t go too much into blue and green colors/banners. We’ve seen those colors around Beth a lot and I think we’ve kinda beaten them to death. Green generally symbolizes life, progress, and even resurrection. We believe blue generally represents imprisonment, though by itself it can mean other things as well. For more color-centered theories, click HERE.

Let’s focus on the orange/bronze/copper banner. The short of it is that we totally think the orange (I’ll just call it orange for short, though depending on lighting and filters in any given scene it can look a bit different) is related to Beth. I’ll show you how/why we think so through many different scenes we can associate this specific color with. 

Let me say that most of these examples were furnished @wdway, who did most of the detective work. She theorized that maybe the color represented something the person associated with the color had lost. I think that’s a very viable theory.

For me, though, I think the orange represents leadership. Perhaps it even shows who will be leading when Beth returns. Let me illustrate.

Let’s start with the banner. It says “happy accidents” and has an eye on it. That eye immediately reminded us of one specific character  and even Happy Accidents kinda sounds like a way of explaining how/why Beth survived.

So why, aside from the banner, do we associate this color with her?

The copper color can be seen on Beth’s knife here in this shot and obviously knife = Beth.

Then check out the pants on this walker that TD instantly knew represented Beth (which was confirmed in the S5 DVD commentary, btw). The pants are kind of a copper-ish color.

Both these things are obvious symbols of Beth, and it works with my leadership theory, because we’ve always known, because of the sheriff hat/”new sheriff in town” line, that Beth would return as a leader.

Another major orange/bronze/copper symbol we’ve seen all the way since S3 is the orange backpack. Michonne, Rick and Carl first picked it up back in 3x12, Clear, which was where they also found Morgan. I don’t think the Morgan angle is a coincidence, but I’ll come back to that.

We’ve seen this pack back through a lot of different story lines and with different characters. 

Another big story line that included this color and the back pack was Denise’s. We see her with the bag in this shot and the main reason I think they included it is because she’s such a huge Beth proxy. 

Also remember that we had the orange soda around Denise. But the interesting things is that, while we did see her get a can out of the small blue cooler right before she died, we never actually saw her drink it. It was talked about around her a lot, and associated with her, but we didn’t actually see her with it very much. The only people we actually saw drink it was Rick and Daryl.

So I’m thinking the main reason it was associated with Denise is no because Denise would be a leader (because she really wasn’t) but rather because she was such a heavy Beth proxy, and Beth will be the leader. See what I mean?

Michonne’s shirt here. 

You may wonder why we see the color here and on Michonne. Neither she nor the situation seem to have any ties to Beth, but I think they do. Remember that she did have some important scenes with Beth and Judith in 4a.

I think it’s important that they just ran into the Saviors here, which will lead to Negan. There was a lot of Beth symbolism present when TF first met up with the Saviors. It was in 6x09, 6x12, 6x13. You name it. And I think that’s because the Saviors = Negan and Beth’s arc is tied up with Negan.

So there’s that. But I also can’t help but notice that Michonne is wearing this orange color here, but no one else is. Glenn isn’t. Heath isn’t. Tara isn’t. Not even Rick is. So I’m thinking this was to show that Michonne would be leading Alexandria when Beth shows up. (See how that works out so nicely?)

In S6, we also saw the copper color on the horse Morgan rides. Two reasons this is important. 1) This is the WHITE horse (horse theory) that Morgan finds next to the sign that says “You’re still alive.” So we’ve always associated this horse with Beth. Then there’s the Morgan angle. Even though Morgan seems to have his own deal on FTWD, his symbolism is still very entangled with Beth.

So on the Morgan angle, I still think he’s tied up in Beth’s return somehow. There are just too many open ended things that point to it. No idea how it will all work out, but there’s the stuff on Fear, this orange stuff, the horse stuff, the fact that he was spotted at the cabin Emily filmed at in S5. All this stuff has to come together at some point, and Morgan’s all tied up in it somehow.

In 6x16, we also see the orange/copper color on the library. 

The whole library/librarian thing was always very weird to me. It was just so random and they didn’t do much with it. Just felt very unnecessary to me. And what does that usually mean in this show? *symbolism*

So we have no idea at this point what’s up with the librarian group or how things will play out, but I do think it foreshadowed something. I’m not even sure exactly what, but I’m thinking that the librarian group was kind of a link or bridge between two groups. In 6x16, TF was about to come face to face with Negan and the Saviors. Meanwhile, the Saviors were busy teaching another group a lesson. So maybe that foreshadows something to come. Like maybe TF will be dealing with the Whisperers, but there will be another, adjacent group also having dealings with the Whisperers (the Wolves maybe?) and Beth will arrive with them.

Even the Xs here were orange and X = Beth. (X Theory)

Again, just spit-balling here because we have no idea how things will play out. But with all the orange around this group, to me it kind of suggests a group Beth may arrive with. I think it’s one of those things that will make WAY more sense when it actually happens.

We also saw this orange/copper color on Daryl’s shirt at the Sanctuary. 

Again, I think this could be a leadership thing, showing that eventually he’ll lead, and probably during a time when the Saviors are still involved in the story line. And low and behold, at the beginning of S9, he actually led the Sanctuary.

And for anyone who watches Fear, we saw this color a bit in this past season, S4, in which we also saw a CRAP TON of Beth symbolism and proxyness, especially with John and June.

So what does it all mean? I think the orange around Michonne points to her being the leader when Beth arrives. I think the others heavily associated around it (Rick and Daryl drinking the soda, the orange on Daryl’s shirt at Sanctuary) showed that they will be leaders. Rick already was, of course, Michonne is also obvious now in S9. I know Daryl only led Sanctuary briefly at the beginning of S9, but I’ll give you a very vague spoiler to say that spoilers report that Daryl will lead again somewhat in 9b. If the orange points to who, specifically, will be in leadership positions when Beth arrives, that means everything is in place for her arrival in 9b. *fingers crossed*

As an aside, I even thought about Carol when putting this together. Why haven’t we seen orange prominently around her? Well, we SORT OF did, because she was at the library with Morgan. So that might point to her leading at the Kingdom when Beth arrives. But at the same time, she’s also not the SOLE leader of the Kingdom. Between the two of them, he’s still more the leader than she is. Perhaps at some point in the show, he’ll die and she’ll take over as sole leader, but even if that’s the case, I don’t think it will happen until after Beth’s return. So I think it works either way.

So yeah. I think that’s what I have on the orange banner. And if we’re right about it being tied to Beth, well, we saw this banner in the first episode of the season, which points to what will happen the rest of the season. That does suggest that we’ll see her in S9. Here’s hoping I’m right about that! ;D Thoughts?

[chirpsythismorning]

Crack Theory: Will Byers is Twelve (012) - Part 3

I seriously meant it when I said things are about to get even more interesting. You're not ready.

I didn't notice this until literally today (so if it's a well known concept already, my apologizes!).

For those like me who didn't know about this, essentially we got two different versions of the opening to the Massacre at Hawkins Lab. The 4x01 version, and the 4x07 version.

They're almost identical, both one long take, but still with slight differences, especially in how they end. It's now clear to me that these are two entirely different takes. And so what purpose does that serve exactly?

I'm guessing they did this in large part to convey how El now has a more clear memory of that day, compared to at the start of the season.

But upon rewatching the 4x07 version, and specifically in the context of this Twelve theory, I'm shook.

4x07: The Massacre at Hawkins Lab (cont.)

Does this series of images... remind you of anything?

ANYWAYS

THERE HE IS ON THE LEFT!

Oh nvm he's gone.

WAIT THERE HE IS AGAIN!

It's confirmed!?!! Twelve (Will) sat next to Eleven (El)!?!?! It's just that the story wasn't willing to reveal this in the beginning....

And there he is again, just on the edge of the frame, to the right, coloring away...

Then, Brenner takes Ten out of the Rainbow room, and suddenly this moment that was framed as important in the s4 opener, is now being looked at from a more important perspective: El's.

El then follows through with the plan, in hopes it will bring back her memory...

The last time we see Twelve, he's still sitting at the desk drawing.

I will say before getting into what's about to happen, that this sequence is pretty haphazard at times. Like s3 ending w/the goodbye hugs level haphazard. What I'm saying is, there's visible shots during this sequence, where you can tell the blocking of the characters doesn't match up exactly with where they were in the previous shot/where they were probably intended to be for that shot.

However, I think it's helpful to think about how these are very young actors in this scene, and a scene that is extremely sensitive/serious at that. I wouldn't want children (or even adults) to have to work ungodly amounts of hours, redoing a take over and over because it wasn't perfect, nor would I expect them to do reshoots just because one or two shots doesn't match perfectly with what they intended continuity-wise. That just happens occasionally in film, and the only people with perfect continuity, I imagine are a pain in the ass to work with...

However, I think there is one specific detail that makes me slightly open to humoring this theory.

Because I will admit, I myself am skeptical for an abundance of reasons. There is still a lot that would need to be addressed in s5 if Will was indeed Twelve this whole time. Like a lot of explaining. Though, now looking back at past seasons, there is an interesting new angle to think about it with all of this in mind (that's a different post for a different day).

Still, one of the main arguments, that debunks this whole theory, is that presumably, all of the kids died that day, except for El. Right?

And so how the hell would Twelve (Will) have survived?

Well, that one specific detail I was just referring to, is the framing of Twelve in s4, and specifically in relation to El.

As you've seen so far, Twelve is either very much in focus more than the others, practically front and center, or he's lingering in the background of shots that are really odd for him to be in, or he is left out of the sequences almost entirely, while everyone else is shown. It is so. weird.!

And the ending of the massacre follows that same formula.

As El runs into the Rainbow room, the first place she looks is in the direction where she was just sitting before she left, which we now know happens to be where Twelve was as well (last time we saw him).

However, we do not get to see what El saw in this exact moment. Instead, the camera continues to focus on El as her eyes scan the room from left to right.

Once she looks down to her right, we finally get to see what she sees (I'm not going to post these shots for obvious reasons).

And so basically....

I think Twelve is under the mirror/window, roughly the same area where Twelve was when she left the Rainbow room...

The first time we get closer to seeing someone possibly under the mirror/window, they don't allow us to. It's as if they are panning over it, high enough so that test subject is out of view.

But then, we see a pair of feet on the floor to the left, below the mirror/window, along with a very prominent bloody hand print.

Take note of that handprint and those feet because I think it could be important...

SHIT there it is again!

And again, this time slightly between Henry and El, but more so closer to Henry.

God. I feel like any moment know, dramatic irony is gonna kick in and we're somehow gonna get something that makes us think of Will...

IM SO SORRY

Part 4 coming soon!

Part 1, 2, 3, 4