Today is Day 185: What This Line Means for El's Letter to Mike at the Start of Season 4
I know a lot of fans are convinced that the Duffers are careless since they 'forgot' Will's birthday. But I assure you… they’re not.
There's zero doubt in my mind that the writers have a calendar which they refer to religiously, especially when making decisions about the timeline for the story.
Literally every season starts with a date to establish the setting. Do we think they just settle on a date, without referring to any sort of notes?
There’s a basic responsibility there, at the very least, to be aware of what the characters would be doing at that moment in time, based on what generally happens during that time of year. This would require research beyond just picking a date and slapping it on the first episode of the season.
Is it Spring, Summer, Fall or Winter? What events are likely to take place during that time of year and how do they plan the expectations of the setting around the characters and the story itself? That's all intentional and well thought out. There’s a reason every season is surrounding some sort of holiday/event at some point, and it’s because time is very very important in the world of Stranger Things.
Think about the various times they’ve had characters literally countdown events?
Mike with El in s2? El with Mike in s4? Suzie when referring to Dustin’s birthday in s4? They wouldn’t throw out lines like that if they didn’t do the math at least once themselves.
The ‘353 days’ line is one perfect example of the Duffer’s proving to us that they have access to calendars, calculators or even simply, google.
Look at that! It appears when Mike used the walkie to call El on Halloween of 1984 (October 31st) in s2, it had indeed been 353 days!
What makes this detail so so so so so fucking important, is that this might hold the answer to the murkiness of the s3 ending going into s4.
Because as of now, we don't really know when s3 ended exactly.
But the similarities of s3's ending to previous seasons, might help us figure out that answer...
Every season ends with a vague timestamp for the literal ending; the epilogue. They only offer up the date at the start of the season, but when it comes to the ending, they never do. It's always months or days if we're lucky.
For s1-2 we got a vague 'one month later', for s3 we got an even more vague 'three months later' and for s4 we surprisingly got something more specific, with 'two days later'.
I think the reasoning for this seems complicated, but it's fairly simple.
While it is quite commonplace to give exact dates at the start of stories, to set the scene and everything, there's this agreed upon understanding in film and even books arguably, that also providing an exact date for the epilogue feels a little cheap? Or maybe a bit too 'handholdy' is a better word? I could see that being something an amateur would do without realizing it looks tacky.
I also think it allows the writers to be more vague in what exactly the date is for the end, according to the audience at least. Because they 100% know what the date is on their end, but that doesn't mean they have to reveal it to us.
We don't know when s3 ends exactly. We know that the battle at Starcourt ended on July 4th-5th (respectively). Though we also know that based on s1's timeline, Mike's countdown considered El's death to be the morning of November 13th, and so we can presume perhaps that s3 technically ended on July 5th.
And so the s3 epilogue being 'three months later' would bring us to October 5th, 1985 right?
Well, not exactly.
You see, when the Duffers give us their vague epilogue scenes, they're not saying that it's exactly one month or three months later, to the exact day. They're being intentionally vague.
Season 1 ending says one month later, but it's actually been 25 days.
Season 2 ending says one month later, but it's actually been 40 days.
Season 3 ending says three months later, but it's actually been... well we don't fucking know!!!
BUT I don't think it really matters, because if the Duffer's made an effort to do the math correctly for their 353 days line in s2, then it's probably safe to assume they'd do math for their 185 days line in s4 as well? And to also give us the answer to that question somewhere in the show already, as opposed to throwing out some random date seasons later?
Otherwise why have countdowns like that at all? It literally makes no sense for them to give us an exact number, like 353 or 185, without checking that the days match up with the exact countdown they're giving us.
I'm just one fan, and it only took me maybe 3 google searches to figure this out in a matter of seconds. They are however literal experts in their profession, and for that reason I do feel comfortable giving them some credit here.
So now, let's try to apply this logic then to s3.
Perhaps it's safe to assume that El's countdown didn't start when the Byers moved to Cali in the s3 epilogue, just like Mike's countdown didn't start at the end of the s1 epilogue either.
It's believed that the Byers, but El specifically, had to go into hiding after the battle at Starcourt. And so, could this mean that El's countdown started on July 5th?
The day that Hopper died? The day she lost her powers? The day she had to go into hiding and probably couldn't properly communicate with Mike for about three months?
Honestly, I think it would make a lot more sense to have their countdown's (Mike's 353 vs. El's 185) parallel in how they started.
And it would be weird to restart that countdown simply because they reunited for one afternoon to move, again because there was obviously so much significance to everything that happened on July 5th, that it does make sense to me that El's countdown would have started there.
Also, I want to be thorough by mentioning that, the main reason we can easily rule out the Byers move date being the start of El's countdown, is that it doesn't add up whatsoever.
El saying it has been 185 days since the Byers moved, would mean she was writing the letter on April 7th, 1986, which is impossible. (Also Mike's birthday, which is hilariously ironic).
Even if we spread out that three month window, we still have to take into account that if it was closer to two months or four months, they would've just said that instead. So either the Byers moved on October 4th, or sometime between September 5th at the earliest and November 5th at the latest.
And so where do we go from here?
Basically, from what we understand in canon on the show, there isn’t much to go off of besides that. And I think that’s the intention.
Over the seasons, the obscurity of the time jump between the epilogues has allowed for them to say obscure comments between seasons, such as, Yeah for like a month (Jonathan in s2) and It’s been a year, Mike (Will in s4) and so they obviously like this appeal of the audience not knowing for certain. But that doesn’t mean they don’t know for certain.
I would argue they have to know for certain, and have very likely done the math at least once or twice or ten times, especially because as I mentioned, there would be no reason to have characters countdown to the exact day, on multiple occasions, if the creators/writers or literally anyone involved with the show wasn't checking to make sure those numbers added up correctly.
And so, based on all of that, I think that El started counting down from the day they separated, just like the previous season, which would’ve been July 4th-5th (respectfully).
And so 185 days after July 4th-5th, 1985, would be January 5th-6th, 1986.
Just work with me here. Because while there are several things that could work against this theory, I think those things could have intentionally been there to trick the audience into thinking this letter was written very close to spring break, even though the math for that doesn't add up. And so lets look at some of the details that might be telling us this letter isn't as recent as we're being lead to believe.
The main detail I want to mention, is that major projects like the one El describes in her letter, requiring a visual aid, is more likely to be assigned at the start of the trimester.
If you don’t live in the United States, or are unfamiliar, basically how it tends to work for most high schools is the school year get’s split into 3 trimesters. The 1st trimester goes from September-December, the second goes from January-March, and the third goes from March-June. It varies depending on the city/county/state. Though it may not seem very equal, it goes like this to accommodate the major holidays with extensive breaks. The first trimester has Thanksgiving then a brief return to school, followed by Christmas/New years. The 2nd trimester starts right after New Years, and ends with Spring break. Then once you return afterward Spring break, that’s the start of the 3rd trimester. It evens out to each trimester being about 3 months.
I think El would've mentioned this assignment to Mike closer to when it was assigned and not right before she was turning it in. And the reasoning for this is kind of obvious but understandably overlooked.
While most kids would probably not think about working on a project like this until the last minute, because most of us are expert procrastinators after almost a decade in school, El however is completely new to this experience. And so I imagine the moment she heard about this assignment, she was just like 'best get to it!!'! We even see her still working on it after the project was already graded because the significance of it was clearly important to her. And so if her and Mike were writing somewhat consistently as it appears, then this would have been mentioned a lot sooner than her most recent letter to him.
And when it comes to the rest of the letter, there are several clues that could also support this theory that it wasn't written as close to spring break as we're being lead to assume.
Like the mention of Joyce's new telemarketer job. It wouldn't really make sense for her job to have been like super new, within the last week from March 22nd, especially if it's intended to be this sort of deterrent for Mike getting ahold of Will on the Byers phone presumably since the move.
Also Jonathan's car, is looked like it had been deserted there for a long time, not a matter of days or weeks, but possibly months (since early winter)... And so Argyle driving them to school wasn't something that happened within the last week worth mentioning to Mike right before their reunion in her most recent letter, but most likely another detail she mentioned as an update, since Jonathan's car is being referred to as still broken.
Even separate from the letter, I wondered if there was evidence somewhere else that they could sneakily be trying to hint to us that this is actually being written early in the Winter trimester and not the very end. Then it hit me.
The lyrics in the background...
Although, there are some things that contradict this theory, again I think those details were put there for the sake of tricking us.
Like just think about it, if this was El's most recent letter, wouldn't it make more sense for her to mention both the countdown for when they last saw each other, and how many days until they'd be seeing each other if it was really that close? Unless of course that number of days until their reunion was still too high at the time for her to hype it up, assuming she was writing this letter, perhaps 1-2 months out?...
I also do think that it's likely Mike and El are quite active in their writing back and forth. After all, Will said El had like a book of letters from Mike, so they want us to think that they wrote a decent amount.
I'm guessing the conversation was casual and broad for this letter specifically, because El is still new at writing/reading obviously and because this letter was also being used to update the audience about the characters whereabouts since we last saw them.
This might not seem that groundbreaking, but what this theory boils down to, is that s4 opened with an old letter, not a recent one. It means Mike was reading a letter, possibly from as early as January, 2 months previous to present. This would mean Mike presumably had other, more recent letters available to him to look at, with countdowns like 20 days and 10 days or 5 days, with El gushing even more intensely over the fact that they're closer and closer to finally reuniting.
And yet Mike was fixating on this letter specifically the morning before their reunion, AN OLD LETTER!!
But why?
Let's again look at the vibe of El's letter. If you look really close, it comes off like a response to a questionnaire.
I've always said that although El's lied a lot in her entire letter to Mike, there's a reason they never let us see a letter from Mike to El, and it's because he probably wouldn't have faired much better.
I don't even think it's actually that Mike would've lied necessarily, as much as I think it was mostly a lie of omission situation.
He showed up in Cali as his inauthentic self, and so it wouldn't make sense for him to have given El updates on Hellfire in his letters, which was pretty much all he focused on back in Hawkins from what it looked like.
And so I think the letter he wrote, which El was responding to in that specific letter, was Mike focusing on asking her questions about how she was doing and how the Byers were doing. It's also probably the last time he asked about the others because of one specific detail he got that time, which he's been fixating on ever since... (you know the one...)
Regardless, Mike was reading an old letter, which makes the implications of this (and this)... astounding.
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Hey what if I got possessed by the spirit of sonadow and rewrote the first interaction scene between Caitlyn and Vi for my Prime Arcane AU
[1,180 words]
––
Nervousness gripped his entire being as the elevator numbers trickled upwards in negative numbers until they reached -40. It did not ease in the slightest once taking in a breath of the stale air and stepping into a gloomy corridor illuminated by weak, cold blue light. And in fact it only rose once the sound of repeated thuds echoing of the grimy walls reached his ears.
Still, he needed answers, and knowing he was close or at least finally had a tangible lead to get him to them, he solidified enough courage to walk all the way towards the source of the beating sound, behind a rusted, steel cell door.
The enforcer stood there in silence, getting the few glimpses allowed by the weak light at the prisoner who appeared to be beating into the harsh brick wall with bare hands and knees, unflinching. Sweat clumped together their dull blue fur and their quills bristled as they stilled, definitely alarmed now to Shadow's presence without him needing to say a word. They turned their head around silently, and green eyes glared through his head as they sneered at him.
Shadow let his own features harden and braced for the interrogation. As said he needed answers, and he won't budge until he gets them.
"I checked through everything available. There seems to exist no tangible record on you."
The prisoner, a blue hedgehog with either what seemed to be a scar or a tattoo of a crooked S on their cheek, bloodied knuckles and knees wrapped in dirty bandages, and messy quills turned to fully face him. He seemed to quickly size him up and down with a flick of his eyes and then began to slowly pace inside of the empty cell.
Shadow took all of the currently discernable information about the other as he ran through the questions in his head one last time.
"What did they lock you up for."
No answer. He simply continued to circle around like a hungry wolf stuck in a cage, eyes looking on and away from him, each time sending a death glare more prominently than the last.
Not a talker then huh.
"You attacked a cellmate. Why?"
He merely shrugged, at least something to confirm they were simply being difficult on purpose and not def.
"He was a witness for an ongoing investigation."
Still bouncing wall to wall, the blue hedgehog threw their head back with a toothy smirk as if proud of themselves.
Shadow's patience was running thin but honestly, he should've expected a prisoner that seemingly beats a wall for fun would be a headache. That silent cockiness was also getting on his nerves.
He gripped his notebook tighter as a means of keeping himself grounded, a cool head was needed for this and he needed to think more thoroughly..
Lost in his head for what was probably a bit too long, he was startled by a sudden bang on the cell door.
Quills bristling, mouth turning to a comically deep scowl, and eyes bulging wide he barely managed to keep himself from jumping back.
Quickly leveling his expression down again, he feigned being unimpressed and stared at the blue hedgehog now plastered onto the cell door with a wide shit-eating grin on his face.
Illuminated by the light just a bit more, his irises were eerely small and eyes sunken while patches of their fur were visibly missing, damaged, broken up by scars and smeared with grime and dried blood.
It took everything in him to keep his expression neutral.
Upon locking eyes with the blue prisoner, he suddenly burst out laughing. But it was a hoarse, disgusting laugh, as if he hadn't used his voice for years, let alone laughed out loud in such a manner as now.
Shadow failed the battle with his facial muscles and finally grimaced as the prisoner transitioned into a coughing fit. Gross, dry coughing and wheezing filled the endless corridor for a few seconds before he simply smiled at him, yet the eyes had all but disdain and indifference behind them.
But he acknowledged Shadow's presence properly at least. It was a chance, maybe.
Shadow looked to the floor where a worn-out red line dictated the distance one must keep from the cell. With a collected sigh, he stepped over it while opening his notebook. Maybe the notes could jog some cooperative reaction while he presented his questions differently.
"Do these symbols look any familiar to you?"
The prisoner, who glanced at him from the middle of the cell where he had just a second ago was holding onto the doors again in a blink of an eye, with a bewildered, questioning look flickering between the pages and Shadow's face.
"I take that as a yes."
Being startled a second time, the enforcer collected himself again.
"Does the name 'Eggman' or 'Ivo' ring any bells?"
The hedgehog hesitantly nodded as he glared at the words just the tiniest bit.
Finally getting somewhere.
"I have a suspicion he was the one who correlated a recent attack on the city, which killed half a dozen enforcers."
The haunting look in the hedgehog's eyes did not leave the notebook for a second as his breathing grew heavier.
"I however need proof to back up my claims." Shadow continued as he closed the pages, directing the other hedgehog's attention to his face and words instead.
The other slowly shrugged their shoulders while giving a nod, but then rattled the bars and motioned both with his head and thumb to the side with, and Shadow is perhaps seeing things, a hopeful glimmer in his eye.
He took a second to understand the gesture, feeling like he needed an actual confirmation.
"You want me to let you..out of the cell?"
The hedgehog gave the most confident nod as of yet, but Shadow thought it the most outlandish. There was no guarantee a Stillwater prisoner won't just run away to cause more havoc the second he blinks or lets his guard down.
"You take me for an insane person? No way I'm trusting someone like you."
The blue hedgehog scoffed, with his face quickly morphing into disgust as he spat to the ground near the door, it didn't hit either of them, but the message was clear.
Without further interaction, he let go of the bars and retrieved back into the darkness of the cell.
The enforcer grimaced again. It seems any chance of further negotiation is over. He turned to leave, a million thoughts a minute running through his head until he paused for a second.
Did he have anyone else to turn to for this? This was the best bet he had and probably will ever get.
What he was about to do was stupid yes, but if it was meant to help people and stop the attacks then maybe...
Shadow continued on his way out, breathing deeply in an attempt to cool off and settle on a new goal.
Good thing that he has just the friend to make a bail of the blue hedgehog possible.
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