#also the fact that the villain snatches eyeballs and the camera is the 'objective eye' in film just makes me more suspicious

[sleepy-moron]

Hey I'm posting about actual world building and plot shit in stranger things for once look at that (absolutely spoils all of volume one)

I don't really know how to line this out in a theory evidence format because this is less of a theory based on what happens in the show itself but more on the thematics of the show and specifically this season+ vibes that I cannot explain the origin of. I don't even really think this is the most likely outcome, it's just something I can't stop turning over in my head.

Here's the rough idea: this season is not completely real. Wether it's some kind of vision or an alternate reality, or they wind up doing a time travel thing while still remembering what happened in this first series of events; there's something fucky going on with reality here.

There's just a lot that feels.....off to me about what happens in volume one? Like there are so many callbacks to plot points and scenes from previous seasons, but they also completely forget March 22 is Will's birthday, and the timeline for how long Will says the Byers' have been in California is wrong by a LOT. Steve and Nancy seem to have feelings for each other again, Mike is recycling parts of his character arc from season three, and El is back in the lab with Brenner again. There's this really cyclical feeling to everything, which tracks with all the clock motifs that Vecna has, and the upside down is literally still stuck at the same point chronologically that it was when Will first got taken by the demogorgon.

Plus the whole "gimmick" of Vecna as an antagonist is that he screws with his victims perception of reality. You mean to tell me that this show isn't going to have us in a trance that seems like it's reality at some point and not have it be obvious at first? I don't buy that shit for a second. Things feel weird, and if this show is as deliberate as its creator's want us to believe it is, that means something. There very much are strange things afoot here...