#st the first shadow

[reikunrei]

"there's something really, really wrong..."

[flustered-art]

Do you guys think they had this conversation?

[thewisewill80sbyers]

Can you post any bits of the script that feature Lonnie? That would be interesting to read

Many interesting things in these scenes even besides just Lonnie!! Lots of lines to say the number 4 like the 4 gates or Henry saying "one" or Patty saying "he's coming" like "something is coming..." from the show which was the foreshadowing of Vecna from them playing dnd yk

Also jopper being cute 🥰

Lonnie in the play is basically fixated on money, cheats on Joyce and says stupid shit

he's also the reason they switch the seats and this maybe could be a reference to someone being switched at birth if we bring back that old theory... But who knows!

[ayeshastuff]

Henry Creel probably

[final-boy-creel]

i wonder if patty will show up in season 5... i have read some posts about it and i think it would be really interesting to hear how they close the plot hole of bob never mentioning that he has a sister... or that his dad had an accident and did not ever mention his mom... tfs is so interesting how it changed the details of the original show and i can not wait to find out how they explain it... it makes me wonder if it is brenner again like with nina in season 4 making up lies... like what if tfs is like henry being in nina and shown "memories" but some of the memories are made up and that is why some of the details are not the same as the show... i hope season 5 comes out soon!!

[waumbgus03]

does anyone remember that part of s4ep7 where Dustin is talking about Vecna's motivations for opening the gates and he says:

"Why would he be opening gates?" "To take over the world" "Who do we know that wants to take over the world?" "The mind flayer" "So if the demogorgon was just his foot soldier, Vecna's his five star general"

When vol 2 happened I just assumed we were meant to think he was wrong because obviously if Vecna is controlling the mind flayer, they would have the same goal. but now I think it's clear this was hinting that Vecna's motivations as we are told them in the monologue actually apply to the mind flayer, and Vecna only has them because he's a part of the hive mind (which is literally what is being said here lol)

case in point:

i might add onto this later and talk about how i think other parts of the play expand on this but im tired :P

[twelvegate-blog]

There are many important 12 mentions in The First Shadow

Henry vanished for 12 hours in Nevada (in 1954)

In S4 there's a reference to that, and it's not just about Henry, it's also connected to Will. In fact, the 12 hours mention is between the close up of the light bulb in El's closet, similar to the one in the Byers' shed, Will and the boys getting off the road, and Owens literally joking about working out of a shed.

Apparently, the key to decoding Henry's secret journal is Captain Midnight's Clock!

In S3 Dustin gives Will the Forever Clock and there's the name Williams on the grandfather clock.

This looks a lot like the new set leak

(posted by byrhop on Twitter, and willelworld)

And this is in Henry's house

So much to think about!

[silvercat-s]

They really want to drive me insane huh, how can things get even more complicated 💀

[creelticalobserver]

Did I forget something???

[erikiara80]

EXCUSE ME? They just annouced the cast of Stranger Things: The First Shadow!

Oscar Lloyd is James Hopper Jr. Isabella Pappas is Joyce Maldonado, Chris Buckley is Bob Newby

Louis McCartney is Henry Creel and Patrick Vaill is Dr Brenner (I have so many thoughts about this)

Ella Karuna Williams is Patty Newby. So she's really Bob's sister! Yes. Look at them. I'm sure she and Henry will have a very interesting dynamic. Can't wait to see them.

And here Henry's parents: Michael Jibson is Victor Creel, and Lauren Ward is Virginia. I wonder if we're also going to see Alice... and Lonnie, and Scott Clarke

I am ready!

EDIT: Yes, we're gonna see Karen, Lonnie, well, a lot of people, lol. Thank you Jo for the screenshot

@chirpsythismorning

[reikunrei]

favorite part of the tfs documentary is that they didn't tell us Anything about what the play was actually about lmao... we basically just watched everyone involved be stressed for an hour and a half, only saw bits that were cut from the final production, and everything else was entirely without context, had no audio, or was a timelapse. net zero information other than "yeah, it's weird, and kate was fighting for her life between the limitations set by the medium and what she was allowed to write based on the duffer's rules"

[flustered-art]

ST: TFS Catholic Church AU

Brenner is a priest, Henry is an alter boy, and patty is of course the choir leader.

Brenner believes Henry's connection with the shadow is god acting through him. Brenner wants to foster his power because he believes with proper training and guidance Henry will bring about the rapture. Henry’s parents on the other hand believe it to be the work of the devil, his mother even going so far as to call Henry the anti-Christ

[thewisewill80sbyers]

I'm sorry for bothering you with this, but can you post the transcript from the scene with Henry and Patty when she is talking to him in the lab? I can understand very little of what he says in that scene

[ayeshastuff]

Rip Vecna you would have lowkey HATED these shirts

[chirpsythismorning]

Lonnie's last appearance in The First Shadow [source]:

"It wasn't me. I didn't do it!"

Lonnie's first mention in the series (1x01)

Which reminded me...

Kate Trefry talking about The First Shadow [source]:

We always try to go back to the original pilot and say, what more is there to learn about this moment?

Based on the leaks out there, there seems to be very few Lonnie scenes in the play, and yet it also sounds like he's gotta be the most consistently portrayed when compared to his character on the show, more than anyone else, even down to this very line, this concept of him having nothing to do with it. This tells me that with what little they were willing to give, there is a major significance to it and what it means for his character and for his role in the story overall.

So what is it? What does Lonnie have nothing to do with?

In s1, it's about Will and his disappearance. But clearly it's more than that because they made a point to have Joyce say it twice, to trust her on this.

If Lonnie has nothing to do with this, and that's a theme they want to carry out in this play in a way that quite literally juxtaposes his first mention on the show, taking us back to the very beginning, what does that mean?

Idk. Maybe it just means he has nothing to do with this. Maybe it means he has nothing to do with Will more than we realize...

It's giving

[waumbgus03]

I see this idea sometimes that Virginia couldn’t have helped Henry because of the time period, and that it’s not that she was abusive, she was just afraid of him, and she couldn’t have saved him from The Shadow/The Mind Flayer because she wouldn’t have had the same information Joyce did, or whatever. And that's why Henry and Will are paralleled

I think this is bad, because the point isn't really that Virginia should’ve saved Henry by burning The Mind Flayer out of him like Joyce did. The point is that she instills horrible ideas into his head, and she has full responsibility for that

The Creel’s moving was intended to be a “fresh start”, and this is something I think is very important, specifically because the play wants us to acknowledge that everything Virginia does is antithetical to this. The biggest example is that she refuses to let Henry make new friends, and this is seen during the argument Victor and Virginia have over Henry.

Virginia tells Henry to tell himself that it's not real, and that he's normal. This is horrible once you understand the full context, which is that he was traumatized and instead of providing proper care for him she tells him to just ignore it and pretend it hasn't changed him at all, for her own comfort.

Interestingly enough, Henry tells Brenner that he just fell and hit his head in the cave. But we see Henry's diagnoses during the scene of his 7th birthday and the doctors seem to have known that he didn't remember because he had been traumatized and repressed the memory.

To me this implies that for all the doctors they went to see, Virginia simply did not accept the answer she was given and instead felt more comfortable believing the more "normal" explanation. Towards the end of the play, we see this more, where Brenner tells her no one blames her, and she says she doesn't know if what happened to Henry made him this way or if he was secretly always this way. She would rather believe that he was just born wrong than to accept her own faults as someone who was supposed to love him.

Why I'm bringing any of this up is because clearly Virginia only sees Henry as who he was before the cave incident. That is the sweet little boy she loves, and she treats him like that version of himself is the only one that is worthy of love. Hawkins is supposed to be a fresh start, where no one knows them and Henry can be himself without feeling like a letdown, and Virginia tries to get in the way of that.

This affects pretty much everything about Henry, but I have a lot to say about that, and I kinda want to make a separate post just about him so yeah.