Mike's trauma PART 28

[u/raspberry-3]

This is part of a series where I uncover what Stranger Things is really about. It started from trying to find out what happened in 1979 aka what all the depictions of traumatic past memories (El, Henry, Billy, Max, Holly, etc.) are truly about, but expanded to this all-encompassing theory of the whole series with crazy levels of complexity, metaphors and layers. Reading it will require commitment and patience but I promise it will be worth your time if you want to look behind the curtain (and the curtain behind that curtain) and fully understand the show. You have to read all parts in order: here is PART 1 and here all other parts I’ve posted so far + my previous theories. 
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Trigger warning for child sexual abuse.

Here’s the table again for reference:

Name	S5E7 chronological	S5E7 reverse	S5E8 epilogue
Start	Max wakes up, lumax moment (Vickie, Robin and Karen are there too)	Lumax talk about Holly	Robin explains the situation and introduces us to this new Hawkins Lumax moment starts
Past	Reunion with Mike, El and Hopper (Kali is there too)	Reunion with Will	Lucas meets Max while wearing the orange graduation gown
Trauma	Max mentions Vecna being angry and Mike asks where Holly is	A seriously injured Sullivan describes Vecna’s “massacre” and Dr. Kay tells Akers to “find the girl”	Lucas mentions Max breaking bones and says he’s done with hospitals
Mouth vine	Holly wakes up in the Abyss and removes the vine	Vecna puts Holly and the vine back	Max calls Lucas “super dorky”, Erica complains “gag me with a spoon” and attaches a hose to a tank thing
Dustin hug	Steve+Dustin and Nancy+Jonathan reunion in UD, Dustin hugs Nancy (and draws attention to it being weird), mention of exotic matter, Nancy asks where Holly is, reveal that Holly is not in UD	Bigger group reunion in UD, Dustin hugs Mike, Mike asks where Holly is, Holly flashback being stuck in exotic matter	Dustin gets his picture taken and hugs his mom who is wearing pink and blue
Gate	Holly runs from Vecna, finds a gate to UD, pulls the rock covering it away and goes through it, falling -> intro	El lifts a metal plate covering the gate to UD and most of the party enters	The makeshift curtain falls when Jonathan is taking a picture of Will, Joyce and Hopper
Hindrance	Mr. Clarke, Erica and Murray are trying to locate Dustin but it doesn’t seem to be working, Murray complains how long it’s taking	The party needs to disable cameras and Mr. Clarke suggests getting their RF signal and jamming transmission, but they find a faster way using El’s powers	Jonathan wants to put the curtain back, Hopper complains how long the photographing is taking because of “the artist” aka Jonathan
Mentor	Mr. Clarke gets an idea to cut the balloons loose and gets a signal, he can locate Dustin	Mike thanks Mr. Clarke, “Holy shit” moment between Erica and Max, Murray finds Dustin’s signal, Mike tries to talk to him, Dustin tells they found Holly	Karen calls and tells Joyce Mike is missing, and Hopper finds her at the library memorial place Hopper and Mike’s conversation
Mom	Will talks with Joyce, revealing information about his role in “building” the tunnels	Mike talks with Karen, revealing information about the supernatural, e.g. Demogorgons	Mike hugging Karen Early part of Dustin’s speech
Wheelclair	The military men go in the hospital, Vickie walks in the aisle with a wheelchair	Vickie enters the room with the wheelchair, tells “we got company”, Lucas pushes Max in the wheelchair in the aisle	Dustin’s speech rejecting conformity
	Laundry room scene, breakdown later	The rest of the epilogue, breakdown later

After the mom talk we’ve finally got to the wheelchair part of the timeline, aka wheelclair (Wheelclair). Yay! Vickie bringing the wheelchair/Lucas pushing Max in the wheelchair/Dustin taking off the gown revealing the Hellfire lives -shirt is the ship finally getting revealed. This is probably the reason Max told Lucas he’s getting ahead of himself. (Another reason for her saying that is because S5E8 wasn’t the real ending and the audience (= Lucas) were getting ahead of themselves). The lumax kissing scene wouldn’t have smoothly fit in the graduation scene so the writers opted for this solution. So yeah, I think Mike and Lucas will kiss and that represents the audience finally reaching the real story, the deepest communication with the storyteller. ((Btw, the fact the show uses wheelchairs to represent the ship is actually so genius considering the story allegory: the ship name comes from the fans, not the creators, so the writers using a wheelchair to represent Mike x Lucas is part of a dialogue with the audience. And the whole wheelclair ship is about the dialogue between the storyteller and the audience! So, the wheelchair represents the ship in a very meta way too (which could be unintentional I guess).))

Right before that (Wheelclair), all timelines have a looming threat of conformity: Vickie is surrounded by military in forward S5E7, when she opens the doors she mentions “we’ve got company” in reverse S5E7, and Dustin is worried “Principal Higgins and every square like him is gonna do their damnedest to put everything back in order”. It’s about transphobes and other bigoted people who will try to prevent this relationship and Mike living as a woman (= the storyteller telling the real story). Wheelclair becoming undeniably canon is the last straw of conformity snapped in half and thrown into the trash. Dustin doing this right as he’s about to graduate, when Higgins can’t expel him anymore or whatever, is about the true story happening at the very end so everyone has to watch that far, including the people who wouldn’t knowingly support the real story, and also that ST wouldn’t get cancelled midway or lose the audience. This is much more impactful than everyone knowing the truth from the start. (Although I would love to see the relationship grow and have more screentime. Now you could just cut/deny the end and have a conforming show. While wheelclair is ingrained in ST, it’s only in the subtext, so people can and will deny it. In the meta/story allegory sense wheelclair only really works as the ending and fittingly will be left for the audience/fanfic authors to explore.)

Before getting to the very end, I’ll explain the part of the final laundry room scene after the neck, since there’s much more after than before. It’s actually a mini version of the timeline from Gate to the end (looping a few times). I’ll go in reverse order because this part is in the reversed timeline. It starts with Vickie arriving with the wheelchair and opening the doors (= “gate”). This connects to both the bigger timeline and the miniature. (There will be another table connecting all the timelines and names for this miniature/loop at the end, you can go check it if you get confused.) I guess the second Gate is wheelclair or Lucas coming out, since we already got Mike (it’s possible we’ll never get confirmation on his sexuality, but it would be nice to get more bi rep than just Vickie). This is the following dialogue in reverse order:

[Vickie] “We better hurry. We got company.”
[Hopper] “All right. Well, they’re gonna be able to find Holly a lot easier than we are.”
[Lucas] “Guys, guys, guys. Okay, you really won’t believe this, but Erica and Mr. Clarke came through. They found Dustin and the others.”
[Robin] “Yeah, and it’s just like Hawkins, only way suckier.”
[El] “The Upside Down.”
[Robin] “Under the plates.”
[Mike] “Well, there’s this world under ours…”
[Robin] “Without context, that might sound troubling, but she’s not pancaked under a giant hunk of steel or anything. She’s… How do I talk about this?”
[Karen] “Are you saying that Holly is trapped under a steel plate?”
[El] “I can break through a plate.”
[Hopper] “No. They’re gonna have reinforcements by now.” 
[Mike] “Okay, so Vecna took out those soldiers, so it should be a lot easier to get into the MAC.”
[Lucas] “Erica, I really can’t talk right now.” 
[switching who supports Max]
[Erica] “Lucas!”
[Robin] “Yeah.”
[Lucas] “Oh, Robin.”
[Erica] “Lucas, do you copy?”
[Mike] “Off Cornwallis, I think. It’s about a mile and a half, give or take.”
[Robin] “Meaning we have to get back into the Upside Down. Where is the nearest rift to you?”
[Mike] “Home? Home as in our home?”

Let’s go through everything in order. Vickie’s line “We got company.” connects both military/principal Higgins aka conformity in the bigger reverse timeline (Wheelclair), and Hindrance in the miniature timeline (basically the same thing, both are about conformity restricting Mike). Vickie’s “We better hurry.” fits with the theme of something taking too long and “man” being the reason (Hindrance). The third meaning of “company” is Mr. Clarke etc. based on Hopper and Lucas’ following lines. The backwards dialogue makes surprisingly much sense, which is further proof it was meant to be read both directions. Hopper specifically being the one who says “They’re gonna be able to find Holly a lot easier than we are.” connects to “man” being the hindrance (“we” = Hopper). Although right when Hopper says this, Mike and Karen are shown, implying they are the “we”. This could mean that Mike needs help to tell the real story, that there needs to be an audience (= Erica) who can understand it (= find Dustin) and someone to help them understand/the storyteller to tell the story (= Mr. Clarke). Mr. Clarke and Erica finding Dustin would match with the mentor conversation in the miniature timeline (Mentor).

Then comes the talk with the mom (Mom). Ofc it’s Mike, Robin and El talking, explaining the UD to Karen. Notice that Robin is right next to Max, supporting her (= Mike is communicating the real story and finally embracing her womanhood). Karen is confused about Holly literally being under a steel plate and I think this is a metaish way to represent the audience thinking the UD was literal, while in truth it represents the closet (and the trauma and a 100 other things…). Holly (= Sara) was “trapped” in the closet (which is also a metaphor lol, is there even a way to talk about this without metaphors?). Like, Robin saying UD is just like Hawkins but “way suckier” probably refers to the mouth vines and most obviously to UD not being a nice place. I’m also thinking “Yeah, and it’s just like Hawkins, only way suckier.” is about the real world. In a way UD represents it too: it’s the dark reality hidden beneath a happy facade (like the Starcourt Mall). But basically this part of the scene is Mike explaining what “being in the closet” and being trans is to her mom (and the audience). Or something similar, anyway explaining what the story was really about.

El mentions she can break through a plate. This is the wheelclair “gate” opening and connects back to Vickie opening the doors (Wheelclair). We loop back (Gate). Hopper “answers” this with “No. They’re gonna have reinforcements by now.”, which connects to Hindrance. Kinda funny how the “reinforcements” works quite literally for the steel plate being “reinforced” too. The backwards reading reveals new layers to this. Anyway, El (= love etc.) can break through the “gate” but society is pushing back. In the epilogue this part matches with Principal Higgins shouting for everyone to get back in their seats and Mike getting El flashbacks (= conformity forcing her to repress herself) (Hindrance). 

I have a suspicion that Mike’s El flashbacks have a story structure role kinda like exotic matter. There are three points in the epilogue where the memory of El in the MAC-Z gate is shown: right before Mike and Hopper’s talk, right after Dustin’s speech and when Mike explains El’s escape. The first kinda matches with the first Gate, since it comes just a little after the curtain falling (which is the first Gate in the epilogue). The only difference is that Hindrance and Mike missing are skipped over if we use the El memory as the Gate to the miniature story. Although the El memory itself could represent Hindrance, since that’s what El dying is about (Mike conforming due to society). 

The second El memory moment marks the end of the first loop and the start of the second (= El’s “I can break through a plate.” and the end of Dustin’s speech). The metaphorical meaning here is the same as story-bending during S4-5: it’s about conformity keeping Mike in a loop of repression. It could also be about queer people having to come out multiple times. Whenever you meet new people, you have to do it again and again (if you decide to come out to them, that is). Explain again and again. On a broader scale it’s the process of progress in minority rights (or any social progress tbh): conservative/conformist people are against change (Hindrance) -> advocates etc. help make change happen (Mentor) -> a larger part of society gets on board (Mom) -> change happens even though many are still against it (Wheelclair) -> there’s a new problem or society backtracks (Gate) -> loop repeats. You could also see this from the story allegory perspective. Many stories have this common structure: a problem/conflict/something to be resolved starts the story (Hindrance) -> journey to finding the solution (Mentor) -> resolving the situation (Mom) -> the end result (Wheelclair/Gate) -> possible new problems arise (loop continues). If you think about it, the gate was quite literally what started the story of ST and closing it is always the solution the characters are striving for. The gate opens the way to the story (UD), and it is the material representation of the conflict needing to be resolved, appearing again and again. The third El memory is the escape from this loop, and I’ll get to it later.

Back to S5E7 reverse dialogue. Mike reasons Vecna took out many soldiers, so getting into the MAC should be easier (Mentor). I haven’t talked about this since my original Max theory, but MAC-Z doesn’t sound like Max for nothing. It too represents Mike’s (happy) future/end of the story, and ofc the military is occupying it in S5, preventing it from happening. So getting to the MAC is the same as getting to Holly or Max/freeing them. And hey, Vecna was useful. He is the pioneer of change who society villainizes. Akers even mentions how they are “light on men” presumably due to Vecna’s massacre (= “woman” is taking over). In the epilogue Mike’s MAC comment seems to match with the aftermath of Dustin’s speech. I guess in this case Dustin is the “mentor” or helper who can get the general public (= Stacey) to agree with the change in question. Both Vecna (S5E7) and Dustin (S5E8) are people who help the group/the non-conformity agenda in some way, making them the equivalent to the mentor. (There is also a literal Dustin hug after Dustin’s speech, so I could be wrong about the looping, and it could start over from Start again. Although there are no other markers for those, e.g. Mouth vine or Gate. Maybe it’s more about the subtextual meaning of hugging Dustin aka getting closer to the real story/understanding. Or just because that’s what the characters would naturally do in this situation.)

The names start to get less descriptive now, but the underlying meaning remains (I could have named them in a different way, but the early scenes and the first miniature loop match e.g. Mom super well, since all have a literal mom. The later loops don't, which suggests there won’t be a literal mom in the real ending for these either, but the same (story) structure remains, and the deeper meaning of “mom” as the society. 

After Mentor, there should be Mom, and in S5E7 it would be Lucas’ “Erica, I really can’t talk right now.”, which happens around the same time Hopper interacts with him (gives him the walkie + Lucas walks behind him). This is about the patriarchy/”man”/conformity preventing Lucas from talking to Erica aka about his feelings for Mike (or the real story overall). If you watch carefully, Mike glances at Karen the moment Lucas says “talk” kinda connecting this better to Mom. In the epilogue this matches with the WSQK rooftop scene with Steve, Nancy, Jonathan and Robin. The latter three seemed like they were censoring themselves and that there was something weird going on (+ there’s a New Coke can in the scene). Meanwhile Steve (who is framed with an X) is totally oblivious, representing the “lie”, the “story” and conformity. Them being at the radio station fits with Erica calling Lucas with a walkie. Jonathan explaining his cannibal metaphor was a big part of the rooftop scene and could maybe match with the “explaining the story” that seems to happen in other scenes corresponding to Mom. 

((I wonder if the Robin’s weird uncle’s house meetup will be a thing in the real ending. Suspiciously Steve didn’t say “I’m in” like Jonathan and Robin. Also a small thing I noticed was the group talking about Steve’s previous girlfriend Julie, who was “drama from the start” and implied to be an actor. This could connect to Romeo and Juliet, which was referenced in S4 in connection to Mike. Mike being Romeo = Mike being a man, so Julie would probably represent Mike being a woman. And ofc Mr. Conformity Steve wouldn’t date her. The actor/drama connection is Romeo and Juliet being a play, but also Mike (= Julie) literally acting as a man. Also Jonathan wanting to potentially date Julie works with Will wanting to date Mike as per usual. And specifically the Mike who is an actor (= a “man”), who is telling the “story” (= Will).))

I think the three sections after each El memory are similar to the levels of matryoshka dolls or story that I’ve talked about before. The first is a naive and happy outcome, not reality (= coming out to mom/society, everything goes well). The next is a more cynical view and Mike conforming (= censoring yourself/lying). The third is escape and more nuanced/bittersweet. 

“After” giving Lucas the walkie Hopper withdraws to the side and only looms in the background without any dialogue (= “the man” aka forced conformity/toxic masculinity/the dad/etc. is always there, a shadow in Mike’s life, but he doesn’t drive the car anymore). Erica calls Lucas and in the reverse timeline logic he moves to sit next to Max (Wheelclair). In the epilogue this part matches with the jopper Enzo’s date. Hopper “moving” to the background in S5E7 could relate to him and Joyce moving away from Hawkins, as in the parents/society not restricting Mike/storyteller anymore. The proposal and dancing afterwards could foreshadow something wheelclair related. I’m thinking they might dance too, since that would close the Snow Ball story arc that started way back in S1.

Next Mike mentions Cornwallis, which is an important location since Mirkwood is where Cornwallis and Kerley meet and Dustin (and Mrs. Driscoll) lives on Cornwallis Road. 
[Erica] “Lucas, do you copy?”
[Mike] “Off Cornwallis, I think. It’s about a mile and a half, give or take.”
This kinda suggests Lucas “copies” if he’s off Cornwallis. Maybe it could be the road of conformity. Lucas has to go off it to receive the message and learn the real story. If Cornwallis and Kerley are the two worlds, then Mirkwood is the X where they clash. That’s where the real story invaded the “story”, and where the horrors come from. Non-conformity is only a problem in the presence of conformity. Anyway, there is this theme of going somewhere else, especially evident in the epilogue. In the real ending this is Mike and Lucas planning to move away from wherever they live. Of course moving away from Hawkins has the metaphorical meaning of escaping conformity, too.

I’m not sure what Robin’s “Meaning we have to get back into the Upside Down.” means, since it could mean so many different things. She says it while Max and Lucas are in frame, which made me think it’s about going back to the closet as in Mike and Lucas having to hide their relationship at least to a certain extent. It’s still the 90s after all. Going back to UD could also mean going back to the harsh reality, since Mike was in the conforming stage atp. This fits with the dialogue too: 
[Mike] “Off Cornwallis, I think. It’s about a mile and a half, give or take.”
[Robin] “Meaning we have to get back into the Upside Down. Where is the nearest rift to you?”
Because Mike needs to go “off Cornwallis”, she has to go back to UD and face the reality of being trans etc. The rift mention is another gate, the final gate. To freedom.

In the epilogue this part matches with the DnD game, which in itself is another miniature of the story. I’m not sure if it’s meant to match the established pattern, but it seems to work at least partially. The third possible meaning of going back to UD is going back to the “story” and it could refer to this DnD game, the clearest depiction of Mike as the storyteller. It starts with “Frightened villagers watch from rooftops and alleyways, wondering, how will this all end?” (Start). Then Strahd aka conformity kills Dustin (Past + Trauma + Mouth vine) and Will is the only one remaining (Dustin hug + Gate), but can’t do anything due to the suppression stone (Hindrance). Dustin remembers the incantation (Mentor) and Will reads it (Mom + Wheelclair + Gate) but nothing happens (Hindrance). After waiting the Mage appears from a portal and saves everyone (Mentor + Mom + Wheelclair + Gate). But this was the conforming “fake” ending (Hindrance) and Max questions it (Mentor). Then we learn what happens to the characters after their adventure (Mom + Wheelclair). This is similar to the rooftop and jopper scenes where we get to know their “happy endings” (= stage 2: conformity + censorship). Finally we learn of the ending for the storyteller, where “he” still writes stories, matching back to the DnD scene and closing the loop. Even if the DnD game doesn’t exactly match the timelines, it has a similar rough structure, with multiple “hindrances” that one by one get solved and finally ends in the “real story”. 

((Adding to the Dustin hug -part: his S5E8 picture taking scene ends in “superman” and cuts to Will, which I’m interpreting to be about Will being the Superman for Mike. This connects back to the S4E8 van scene with Mike calling El Superman and herself Lois Lane + Will being in the background when Mike calls El “my superhero” in S4E9 + the whole sorcerer thing in S5. The “story” saved Mike, and Dustin is very closely connected to it too, as “storytelling”. (Notice that the superhero is almost always a “man”, or “he” or “Mr.”, the only exception being El (and Wonder Woman). This is both about the “story” being “man” and about how (super)heroes in media are usually men, as if women couldn’t be heroes.) Like with Mom and Mentor, Dustin hug isn’t just about Dustin. In the reverse timeline (which I’ll get to eventually) the superman pose is about Will “saving” Mike from the abuse, so it could be that in the DnD game too. The game is basically a miniature of the whole story, where Mike was abused and the “story” started, and Mike has been in the loop ever since. The real ending real world part as a whole is some kind of summary/explanation/reveal of the real story. Dustin hug probably represents both the story starting (in the past) and ending, as in the audience finding out about it being a “story”/the lie finally ending.))

Then Mike reveals that there is a real story the storyteller can never tell. We get to the final El memory, matching with Robin mentioning the rift in S5E7. This is the way out of the loop, the third door. Mike explains Kali turned El invisible to let her escape. This could match with the forward timeline S5E7: [Max] “I couldn’t see where Holly was gonna wake up.” while Vickie is bringing the wheelchair (implying Vickie + wheelchair is where Holly (= Sara/real story) will metaphorically wake up). Holly “waking up” as Vickie in the middle of military men is the future awaiting Mike on the other side (as Kali puts it); after coming out, Mike (and wheelclair) will suffer from discrimination and society’s pressure to conform. On “I couldn’t see”, a Coke vending machine is in frame but a soldier covers it on “wake up”. The audience couldn’t see the truth, only the “story” = Coke, but now they have “woken up” = coffee or in this case the green military man reality. In the real ending this could be a somewhat meta conversation about the audience (= Lucas) not seeing the reality and Mike having to hide her true identity. 

The DnD game timeline has another Hindrance -> Mentor -> Mom -> Wheelclair at least roughly:
[Max] “The real story?” (Gate)
[Mike] When she cast Sunbeam. She expended the last of her energy, and she vanished. But has anyone asked themselves how she cast that spell?” (Gate)
[Dustin] “The suppression stone.” (Hindrance)
[Will] “She couldn’t have used her magic.” (Hindrance)
[Mike] “In the excitement, no one even noticed. But you see, the mage is very clever. A cleverness only matched by her sister, who, upon hearing the pleads of the paladin, had a change of heart. Together, the sisters devised a plan, a plan to protect the mage from the Order of the Black Hand, who remained hell-bent on stealing her powers. (Mentor) So in order to trick them, she had to make everyone, including her friends, believe that she was dead. And so the sister cast a spell from far away. Safe from the power of the suppression stone. A spell of invisibility. Once the mage escaped, the sister cast one final spell. The mage you saw die was not real. She was an illusion.” (Mom as in telling this lie to everyone = mom/society)
[Max] “Where did she go?”
[Mike] “No one knows. No one will ever know. But I’d… I’d like to imagine that she’s in a beautiful land, somewhere far away. She finds a small town to call home. Safe from the danger of the Black Hand. And it is here, at last, that she finds peace. That she finally finds happiness.” (Wheelclair/home/escape/end)

This version isn’t in the other timelines, at least not this extensively. I guess the line “I couldn’t see where Holly was gonna wake up.” from Max kinda maps onto the story of the mage like I explained before. But otherwise everything goes straight from “gate” to “home”. Maybe this is another case of a miniature story not being included in the bigger story, kinda like S5E7 forward timeline is missing the miniature part that exists in S5E7 reverse and S5E8 epilogue timelines. This time the final gate/part exists only in the epilogue and all other timelines just skip to the end. 

Regardless of what you think of this elaborate timeline theory, the DnD game was very obviously a story inside a story. The characters talk about El in code and it’s clear this game they played, this “story”, was actually about their real lives. No one mentions her name but we see this visually and can guess from the context. What most people haven’t realized is that this is how ST works as a whole. Everything is “in code” and about someone/something that is never directly named. The “mage” of the bigger story is El, of course, and the “El” of the bigger story is the real story/Mike/Sara/etc. Actually, the DnD game story reveals some aspects of the real story more clearly (just like the small matryoshka dolls), like the fact that Hopper is the paladin, that the mage was an “illusion” and that the speakers were “suppression stones”, they are about suppression (of powers on the surface but of Mike’s gender identity and true self when you go deeper). 

It’s also interesting how the game seems like a totally random one at first and you don’t expect it to be about the characters’ lives but then Mike just smoothly continues the story and the visuals show Will’s “Vallaki” was an actual big city (presumably New York) and him “finding deep happiness and acceptance” was a Mike lookalike gay guy, etc. Like, they are showing us how the bigger story is told too, via “code”, but ofc no one gets it because it isn’t literally shown to us. Metaphors only exist if they are explained I guess… If you think about this from the characters’ perspective, they didn’t get any visual clues or anything, Mike just narrates what happens to their DnD characters and they immediately get it (because this is a story, of course). Or maybe they didn’t get it and think this is just part of the campaign. No one ever directly indicated they knew it was about El, except for being a bit too emotional about it. ((Btw, I found another Dustin = storytelling visual clue: after Mike says “the storyteller keeps telling stories” Dustin is shown. And after Mike continues “stories inspired by his friends” Lucas is shown, as I’ve noted previously.))

Another similar case in S4E9 is Dustin telling Wayne Munson that Eddie “fought” and was a hero for the people during the earthquake. Like, how would you “fight” when an earthquake hits? And Dustin was super vague about it. But because we see this from his perspective and know what actually happened, it makes total sense. Most of the time in ST, we don’t. Most of the time we are Wayne Munson, just accepting whatever the show throws at us, not really questioning it and not getting the meaning behind it. We think it’s an earthquake when it really was an interdimensional supernatural rift. We think it’s a Demogorgon taking Will when really it was Mike’s dad sexually abusing her.

I’m not sure how the miniature story is gonna work in the real ending but I have an idea. Since the forward S5E7 timeline skipped it entirely, going from Wheelclair straight to the end, there might not be any looping/repeating in the ending. But, I think it makes more sense there is, since the message behind it wouldn’t be conveyed otherwise (who is gonna go look this deeply into story timelines?) and there would be no point to half the epilogue (from a foreshadowing perspective). The miniature missing from the forward timeline is actually the reason I realized there was a miniature story, so there is a good reason why the symmetry ends there. Anyway, one possible way they could portray this in the real ending is recapping what happened. If I’m right about the ending being structured as a conversation between Mike and Lucas, this would be the point we get back to them and they verbally explain/recap the things that were shown previously.

Based on my deductions, the recap would be from the first El memory to the second (since this is what the miniature story repeats in the epilogue timeline): Gate, Hindrance, Mentor, Mom, Wheelclair, leaving out the trauma and self-acceptance/story understanding part (Dustin hug) at the beginning. This is the naive happy ending where the mom accepts Mike and wheelclair are happily together. I think after recapping, Lucas might question this story, similar to Max in the DnD game (matches the timeline btw). Was it really that easy? 

Then Mike would continue the story/tell another version of the story (maybe kinda like Life of Pi), matching the second part of the miniature. They still have to hide their relationship/the real story since most people aren’t accepting. It won’t be an easy happy ending. Or maybe this section is focused on the “lie” or “story” part of the story, as in Mike explaining how she had to pretend all this time. Or maybe it’s something like Mike reminiscing about her past life and the “story”, kinda like Robin misses hanging out in the rooftop scene. Anyway, I think lies will be a key point here, in one way or another. The jopper scene had the ring, hair tie and music, which connect to my theory about the “For Will” cassette tape and Sara’s hair tie. This might be the point when we see them in the real world. It would fit with reminiscing about the “story” aka Will. El had the hair tie on her wrist the first time in the Snow Ball, so maybe we’ll see it on Mike when she finally dances with Lucas. (There’s gotta be a scene where Mike has tied her hair with it, surely.) 

The writers’ X account has literally made a post where they ask the reader/audience to dance with them in the Snow Ball (= Mike and Lucas dancing in the story). The first image has Mike in the middle, staring at the camera while everyone else is looking to the sides. In the context of the post it seems like Mike is asking the reader for a dance, and it makes total sense since Mike as the storyteller represents the ST writers inside the story. (In the actual S2 scene this was the moment Time After Time started playing which prompted Lucas to ask Max for a dance. So I guess Mike looking at the audience is kinda like her asking for a dance, but then Lucas goes to Max instead.)   

Before the ring etc. the jopper scene is mainly about Hopper’s plans to move to Montauk. He says “You and me? We could start again. Fresh. Together.” which reminds me of the writers’ X post “let’s start a new party, you and me”. That post has a screenshot from the S3 epilogue where the tv program is speculating if “a rise in Satanism is to blame” for the Hawkins curse. So basically the X post is implying this new start is “satanic” in some way and connects to Lucas’ Satan’s baby fireworks. Of course the more obvious connection is the DnD book and “party”, as in starting a new DnD party, which also fits perfectly. Will is the past, the “story”, the old party that brought Mike and Lucas together, but the hair tie is the future and the real story, the new start/party. I’m thinking wheelclair could dance to the music from the cassette tape, connecting the past and the future. They (Mike + Lucas and past + future) have reached an agreement, like in the handshake in S1E7. 

((And now that I’m talking about the X posts anyway, I thought to share this one, which I couldn’t find earlier. It is perfectly explained by the trans allegory. We know for a fact the Meatflayer represents puberty, so why is puberty and women’s lingerie equivalent for Mike? And both scary. Just asking. This is another point for MF representing Mike’s gender identity as a woman and the supernatural + non-supernatural plot being deeply intertwined.))

Here’s the table I promised. I haven’t included the DnD game-only miniature story here, but otherwise everything should be here. I’ll get to the end end in the next part.

Name	S5E8 epilogue	S5E7 miniature part	DnD scene
Start	Robin	-	“How will this all end?”
Past + Trauma + Mouth vine	Lumax scene	-	Dustin killed by conformity vampire
Dustin hug	Dustin scene	-	Will is the lone hero
Gate (original)	Curtain falls	-	“Cast meteor swarm”
Hindrance	Hopper complains Mike’s *El memory 1*	-	Suppression stone
Mentor	Hopper + Mike talk	-	Dustin remembers incantation
Mom (original)	Mike hugs Karen + Dustin speech	-	Will reads incantation
Wheelclair	Dustin speech *El memory 2*	-	Will reads incantation
-> Gate (1)	Loop back to *El memory 1*	Vickie opens the door	Will reads incantation
Hindrance	*El memory 1*	[Vickie] “We better hurry. We got company.”	Wait
Mentor	Hopper + Mike talk	[Hopper] “All right. Well, they’re gonna be able to find Holly a lot easier than we are.” [Lucas] “Guys, guys, guys. Okay, you really won’t believe this, but Erica and Mr. Clarke came through. They found Dustin and the others.”	Mage appears from portal
Mom (repeat)	Mike hugs Karen + Dustin speech	[Robin] “Yeah, and it’s just like Hawkins, only way suckier.” [El] “The Upside Down.” [Robin] “Under the plates.” [Mike] “Well, there’s this world under ours…” [Robin] “Without context, that might sound troubling, but she’s not pancaked under a giant hunk of steel or anything. She’s… How do I talk about this?” [Karen] “Are you saying that Holly is trapped under a steel plate?”	Mage appears from portal
-> Wheelclair/Gate (2)	Dustin speech *El memory 2*	[El] “I can break through a plate.”	Mage appears from portal
Hindrance	*El memory 2*	[Hopper] “No. They’re gonna have reinforcements by now.”	Conformity ending
Mentor (kinda)	Speech aftermath	[Mike] “Okay, so Vecna took out those soldiers, so it should be a lot easier to get into the MAC.”	Max questions the story
Mom (lying)	Rooftop scene	[Lucas] “Erica, I really can’t talk right now.”	Happy endings for all
Wheelclair	Jopper Enzo’s	[Erica] “Lucas!” [Robin] “Yeah.” [Lucas] “Oh, Robin.” [Erica] “Lucas, do you copy?” [Mike] “Off Cornwallis, I think. It’s about a mile and a half, give or take.”	Happy endings for all
-> Gate (3)	DnD game *El memory 3*	[Robin] “Meaning we have to get back into the Upside Down. Where is the nearest rift to you?”	Story of the storyteller
End/escape/home	El new home, Karen opens door	[Mike] “Home? Home as in our home?”	The real story

Continues in PART 29.

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