u/Due-Dragonfly8200

I know this may not be a good place to discuss this, but the Mileven sub seems appropriate. Anyways, I've been hearing more that a chunk of the cast doesn't believe El is alive, with the other actors like Jamie, Linea, Finn (of course), Noah, and Cara believes she's alive. And that something happened between her and them, like especially on a headline where she apologized if she "hurt" them.

Now, I don't follow celebrity gossip as much as I used to, but I am surprised and a little concerned of Millie's relationship with the cast. I hope it's nothing extremely serious between them and could possibly be mended. And I know, castmates are just work colleagues in technicality, so not everyone is gonna be close to one another and not everyone is gonna be friends.

But, still, it's pretty odd.

Note, I'm not talking about plot specifics since we barely know anything, I'm gonna give out my hypothesis on the kind of mythology this spinoff could delve into.

Basing off of what we already saw in the reveal of the Wormhole, Dimension X, and Exotic Matter I have a strong feeling this spinoff will be about exploring a wider cosmology of the Stranger Things universe.

I believe this spinoff will be set in the mid to late 1950s, given The Nevada Experiment taking place in 1953 in Season 5 and The First Shadow where that KGB spy retrieved that mysterious rock. So maybe 1955 to 1958. My guess is that there will be some new military organization that is presented in this show, and they have a large device that would allow to open gates to other dimensions with The Abyss being briefly seen or mentioned. I believe Wormholes will play a big part with new snapshots in other cities or towns as Upside Down environments to other dimensions.

About that rock, this is purely a guess but I think that Abyss rock might be acting as a kind of beacon or bridge to the dimension it came from. So, maybe there are these stones that specifically belong to other realms and are like supernatural signals. If this even makes any sense, and no I'm not suggesting an Infinity Stones typa thing!

Throughout the original show, there has been this organic fleshy membrane in the form of gates and tears to The Upside Down and Abyss. Note, this is not part of Dimension X, it's an entirely unique thing in the ST universe as it acts as a physical barrier between dimensions. So, this might be expanded upon and hint at the universe being a massive super organism on a scale we can't comprehend.

I firmly believe that we will see different Matter in this spinoff. Exotic Matter was what the physical snapshot of Hawkins was made of in The Upside Down which is why Hawkins Lab began to turn into this white goop. So, we could possibly be introduced to other theoretical Matter in this show like Dark Matter, Antimatter, Strange Matter, and possibly more. Maybe to represent the different building blocks of the universe and other dimensions.

I also believe The Hellscape will make a return. For those unaware, it was the interdimensional space Henry was sent flying through in 1979 and got electrocuted. It's a space that separates dimensions from each other as a buffer zone.

As for what the conspiracy this show could be based on? I don't know. I don't really know any conspiracies of the 1950s that involves the government and supernatural, so if you guys know feel free to reveal.

Like, I see a lot of people complaining about the Wormhole revelation and how it is completely inaccurate and that it would've collapsed and not house a whole town covered with a bunch of organic vegetation, and I'm just like, "Duh, this is fiction."

Like, the show has never leaned into hard science fiction like Interstellar, and its sci-fi aspect is more presented as stylized than being truly accurate. Like, the Duffers said that they wanted to ground the horror into scientific concepts, but they didn't mean it in a way that everything would have to function like reality. The scientific concepts like wormholes and other dimensions are more loosely based than something concrete as demonstrated in the show.

Of course wormholes wouldn't look like gigantic flesh tubes. Of course there isn't going to be some dark alternate dimension invading our world. Of course there isn't going to be some giant shadow dust monster. It's all stylized sci-fi, and none of it is going to be accurate.

This is my pitch on how I think things could have unfolded if Mike was kidnapped in Season 5. I’ve also taken inspiration from a few rewrites and ideas for Season 5, so there might be some of these elements you guys may recognize. And, yeah, this is just a pitch and there is bound to be some maybe questionable choices.

First off, we got the whole Mindscape stuff going on. I personally think that the whole Whatsit human appearance of Henry could have still been used (though he wouldn’t be called Mr. Whatsit in this version) since I imagine Vecna would have done a form of reverse psychology to create a Mindscape paradise world so intoxicating it catches Mike off guard and lulls him into a false sense of safety and peace as Henry is presented as a saviour figure to him. Basically, a paradise world that Vecna promotes to Mike as something that he wants to turn Earth into and that everything he did was all an effort to remake the world into a place where there are no rules and suffering for him and his family. (obviously this is a lie since he wants to genocide humanity, lol)

I do imagine this paradise illusion would be an idealized 1950s recreation of Hawkins with the Creel House being at the centre of this town that is just Henry’s memories all meshed together into one location. An alternate version of Hawkins similar to The Upside Down.

However, in true Vecna fashion, he would weaponize Mike’s trauma (his kidnapping and the death of his parents) as well as his deep insecurities of being a bad friend and not good enough to someone like El if he tried to rebel against Henry. It would’ve given us a chance to explore a more deeply vulnerable side to Mike’s character that we only had brief glimpses of (correct me if I’m wrong).

Vecna would mainly use Mike to lure El to him and finish her off.

This would’ve been a great opportunity for us to have an incredible duo with Max and Mike by the time they discover each other, since we really needed their friendship to be fleshed out a lot more post Season 2 and 3. And they’d be hilarious during the bickering moments.

I do love the Alice In Wonderland themes and symbolism we got in Season 5, but with the inclusion of Mike they would be more subtle. And I do imagine the Mindscape plot would be sort of the same like we got in the final season only there’d be changes now that we have the inclusion of Mike.

From the outside, the group dynamics would shift drastically. El would be furious and I had the idea she would take extreme actions to contact and rescue Mike which includes getting herself Flayed if it meant she could tap into the hive mind and get closer to Mike. The Party would be completely thrown off with either Will or Lucas stepping up to be the leader until Mike is brought back home. Nancy and Holly would be under extreme stress not only with the death of their parents but with Mike‘s life under threat.

I only go in that community mainly for the godtier edits and rewatching old theories, but the rest of everyone there are just miserable. Like, i see a ton of comments saying shit like ‘When Stranger Things was actually scary,’ and claiming that Vecna ruined the whole show, which is crazy because he was such an amazing character and lore reveal.

And them saying that Season 1 was better than all the other seasons, and going so far as to say ‘When The Upside Down wasn’t red.’ Like, what? TUD wasn’t strictly red like the Mind Lair, it just has red lightning but is otherwise very dark.

It does make me believe in that rumoured second screen policy more because these people clearly haven’t watched the show properly without scrolling on TikTok, or watching the show via shorts and TT, good grief.

I don’t see everyone else talk about this much, but I love how the show utilized different concepts and tropes and turned them upside down (pun intended) for the audience.

In Season 1, we thought that Steve and Nancy were gonna remain insufferable preppy teenagers who would eventually be killed off by the Demogorgon, but they ended being one of the most interesting and loveable characters the show introduced.

Another terrific example was the introduction of Robin. We thought she was gonna be Steve’s new girlfriend based on her personality and demeanour , but were introduced to an openly lesbian character and revealed to be neurodivergent as her true self surfaced. (although, I do miss the cool girl persona from her in Season 3, lol)

Vecna was just simply masterful. When he was first introduced, I had assumed that he was maybe an ancient creation of The Mind Flayer and existed alongside our dimension as this powerful supernatural creature of The Upside Down. But, we got a three way reveal of him being Henry Creel. 001. Vecna. And it all makes so much sense too since it does play heavily into paranormal phenomena being misinterpreted by us humans.

The Upside Down’s reveal as a Wormhole genuinely surprised me the most. For the longest time we had thought it was another dimension overlapping our reality, but then they reveal it’s a massive tunnel connected to a much higher dimension. And it makes a lot of stance because as I mentioned with Vecna, humans misinterpret the supernatural when reality is far different. And, it makes sense for it to be a creation given it was a snapshot of 1983 Hawkins, and shows us the origin of the monsters and fauna that infected this dark copy of the town. Plus, it gives it a breath of fresh air in a way in such a dynamic reveal.

I’m only asking this because time travel as a concept was heavily theorized for many years since the show’s inception, and especially became more popular when it was found out that The Upside Down was physically stuck in 1983. In my personal opinion? I think it would have been one of the most shocking twists and a genius, organic way to incorporate this concept via the Wormhole. And I don’t wanna jump scare you all because this isn’t the type where we’d have multiple branches of different timelines and creating a convoluted mess (like what Fox X-Men did lol).

I made a Revisions post here on the main sub, but I’ll just briefly summarize my idea:

Basically, Dimension X/Abyss would’ve been revealed to have been Earth 4.1 billion years ago in an eon after the Hadean, ”The Nether Eon” (borrowing TUD’s original name), with the Demos being an extinct species and The Mind Flayer as a long since faded superorganism god of ancient Earth. This would’ve also tied in neatly with Vecna’s philosophy and hatred of humans and what they did to Earth since he was literally transported to our planet’s most primeval state.

The Upside Down would’ve functioned as like a limbo space. Essentially, the snapshot of Hawkins in 1983 serves as travelling to the past while presenting a preview of the future of what Earth would become if the Flayer and the monsters fully crossed through. And The Wormhole would be acting as a tunnel within The Hellscape instead of an empty void since it’s an interdimensional space that separates dimensions (and possibly timelines).

And we have the present day or far future in 1987 with our gang trying to stop Vecna, Mind Flayer, and their hoard of monsters from coming through.

In my pitch, I suggested that everyone is in a predestination time loop where the future/present goes into the past and causes the events that occurs in the present/future. I also threw in ambiguity because we don’t know if this time loop has been broken or not, because there’s a supernatural mark in the coordinates of where Hawkins would be in The Nether Eon. I likened this loop to an hourglass where there is no origin in the cups that hold the sand, so the top cup is the past and the bottom cup is the future that gets filled with the grains of sand from ancient Earth. The hourglass flips and the past becomes the future and the cycle repeats.

Also giving full meaning to The Upside Down as a name. Not only going under with the two plates of The Wormhole, but the timeline “flips” like the hourglass as the cycle starts again.

Vecna taking twelve children would make a lot more sense because they‘d symbolically represent numbers of a clock as he is actively reversing (or merging) time by using his vessels to collide The Nether Eon into present Earth.

Although this concept may be quite heavy to digest, there are a lot of references to time and time travel in the show that does give a lot of weight to it once you look back on them and ponder.

Back To The Future in Season 3.

Vecna’s grandfather clock.

Vecna’s philosophy on hating time and wanting to “restore balance” to Earth in its primeval state.

Black Widow spiders having a red mark shaped like an hourglass.

Mindscape memories acting as physical spaces to revisit the past.

Wormholes in theoretical physics being hypothesized to be gateways to other time periods. Mr. Clark even said this himself.

The Montauk Project conspiracy mentioning time travel as part of the experiments.

A Wrinkle In Time having brief instances involving time travel and having “Time” in its name.

Anyways, what are your thoughts?

EDIT: Some people think that it would be used as a “reset“ mechanism to erase everything that happened, and that’s my fault I forgot to specify, lol. But, no, don’t worry, The Wormhole is still destroyed like what we saw in the show, but there’s ambiguity as to whether or not the time loop has been broken.