#march 24 1984

[thesamesunset]

39 years ago a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal found themselves in detention together. they sacrificed a whole saturday but became the breakfast club by the end of it

[coolthingsguyslike]

[blacksatindahlia]

ok guys so who’s gonna be the princess to my basket case

[mannyblacque]

Source

[doyoulikethissong-poll]

Queen - The Show Must Go On 1991

Innuendo is the fourteenth studio album by the British rockband Queen, released on 4 February 1991. It was the band's last album to be released in lead singer Freddie Mercury's lifetime. It reached the number 1 spot on the UK album charts for two weeks, and also peaked at number 1 in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, staying at the top for three weeks, four weeks, six weeks, and eight weeks, respectively. It was the first Queen album to go Gold in the US upon its release since The Works in 1984.

The album was recorded between March 1989 and November 1990. In the spring of 1987, Mercury had been diagnosed with AIDS, although he kept his illness a secret from the public and denied numerous media reports that he was seriously ill. The band and producers were aiming for a November or December release date in order to catch the crucial Christmas market, but Mercury's declining health meant that the release of the album did not take place until February. Nine months after the album was released, Mercury died of AIDS-derived bronchopneumonia.

"The Show Must Go On" was written by Brian May, based on a chord sequence he had been working on. May decided to use the sequence, and both he and Mercury decided the theme of the lyrics and wrote the first verse together. From then on May finished the lyrics, completed the vocal melody and wrote the bridge, inspired by Pachelbel's Canon. The song chronicles the effort of Mercury continuing to perform despite approaching the end of his life. When the band recorded the song in 1990, Mercury's condition had deteriorated to the point that May had concerns as to whether he was physically capable of singing it. May recalls; "I said, 'Fred, I don't know if this is going to be possible to sing.' And he went, 'I'll fucking do it, darling' — vodka down — and went in and killed it, completely lacerated that vocal".

The song was initially not released as a single as part of promotion for the Innuendo album, but was released in October 1991 as the band launched their Greatest Hits II album. The video for the song featured a compilation of clips from all their videos since 1982. Due to Mercury's critical health at the time of its production, a fresh appearance by the band in a video was not possible.

"The Show Must Go On" was released as a single in the UK on 14 October 1991, just six weeks before Mercury died. Following his death on 24 November 1991, the song re-entered the British charts and spent as many weeks in the top 75 (five) as it did upon its original release, initially reaching a peak of 16. In 1992, the song was released as a double A-side with "Bohemian Rhapsody" in the US and reached number 2 in the US.

It was first played live on 20 April 1992, during The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, performed by the three remaining members of Queen, with Elton John singing lead vocals and Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi playing rhythm guitar. A different live version featuring Elton John on vocals later appeared on Queen's Greatest Hits III album.

Since its release, the song has appeared on television and film, including Moulin Rouge!.

"The Show Must Go On" received a total of 85,2% yes votes! Previous Queen polls: #29 "Mustapha"

[citizenscreen]

On March 24, 1984, five students at Shermer High School in Shermer, Illinois reported to the library for detention.

[novy2sirius]

Numerology by Novy

There are multiple numbers in your birthday. The most common ones being the day of the month you were born and your life path number. These two are the strongest numerical energies within you/your life (especially the life path number) but you also have other numbers too

Your Life Path #

Your life path number is the strongest numerical energy in your birthday and reveals your purpose. It can be calculated by adding your birthday numbers together then reducing them. The only time you don’t reduce them is if the total adds to 11, 22, or 33 because those are master numbers. There are also other special numbers other than master numbers that would have both the reduced energy and non reduced energy - 19, 28, etc

Some Examples:

• Alexa Demie born Dec 11 1990 is a life path 6 (December is the 12th month - 1+2+1+1+1+9+9=24-2+4=6)

• Albert Einstein born March 14 1879 is a life path 33 (March is the 3rd month - 3+1+4+1+8+7+9=33)

• Drake born on October 24 1984 is a life path 31/4 (October is the 10th month - 1+2+4+1+9+8+4=31-3+1=4)

Your true Life Path #

Your true life path number is calculated the same way as your regular one just not reduced. It can tell about a significant age in your life

Some examples:

• My mom’s true life path number is 31 and that’s the age she had me - which is extremely significant because duh it’s me ;)

• My true life path number is 17 and at 17 I learned about astrology which changed my life

Your Day of the month #

The day of the month in which you were born is the second most important numerical energy in your birthday and reveals how to fulfill your purpose. You also must reduce this number as well unless it’s a master number

Your Attitude #

Your talent number can tell about your talents and just other numerical energy you have in general. It’s calculated by adding both your birth month and birth day together

Some Examples:

• Druski born September 12 has a talent number 3 (9+1+2=3) which is the number of comedy and he’s a comedian who’s also known for being funny online

• Adriana Lima born June 12 has a talent number 9 (6+1+2=9) which is the number of extreme beauty which is why she makes such a great model

Your Month + Year #

This is another numerical energy in your birthday that can be calculated by adding both your birth month and year

Example:

• Jacob Elordi was born June 1997 and his is 5 (6+1+9+9+7=32-3+2=5) and 5 is the number of societal beauty. He is considered conventionally attractive. This is also the number of entertainment and he’s an actor

Your birthday month #

The month you were born is under looked and very important to check as well

Example:

• Theo Von is considered very funny to many people but has no 3 energy (the number of comedy) in his day number or life path however he is born in the 3rd month of the year

Your birthday year #

The year you were born can tell about your numerical energy as well

Some Examples:

• Marilyn Monroe born in 1926 a 9 year (1+9+2+6=18-1+8=9) was known for her acting and 9 energy indicates a talented actor

• Olivia Rodrigo was born in 2003 a 5 year (2+3=5) which is the number of entertainment and she’s a singer. It’s also the number of societal beauty and she’s considered to be attractive to society

Your Letterology

Your name also has numerical energy in it. Each letter equals a number in letterology. You can use your birth name or nickname to find your energy. What people call you holes the most energy in my opinion. The letters go in order a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4, etc. There’s also capital letters that begin with A=27, B=28, C=29, D=30, E=31, and so on

Example:

• (Marilyn Monroe) Marilyn = 11, Monroe = 8, Marilyn Monroe = 1. Marilyn Monroe also has 13 letters in it and M is the 13th letter. 8, 11, and 13 are all fame numbers. 1 represents leadership which is why she’s one of the number one most famous people that ever lived

[metamorphesque]

On March 1, 1984, a short article titled "Imprisoned Armenian Dies" appeared in the New York Times: “Gourgen Migirdic Yanikian, an Armenian author and engineer who killed two Turkish consular officials in California in 1973, died Monday in prison of natural causes. He was 88 years old. He was sentenced to life in prison in July 1973 for first-degree murder."

But who was this man? And why did he commit this "crime"?

Gourgen Yanikyan was born on December 24, 1895, in the city of Karin, Western Armenia, into a traditional Armenian family. Gourgen was six months old when the hamidian massacres began, claiming the lives of approximately 300,000 Armenians. His father had good relations with the Persian consul in Karin, and with the consul's help, the Yanikyan family found refuge in the Persian consulate, escaping the massacres. After two weeks of safety, they were transferred by a mountain road to the village of Kyotah near Kars on the consul’s orders. Suddenly, it was discovered that Gourgen was missing. He had fallen on the road from his mother’s arms that were numbed from the cold. Despite the danger, his mother and brother Hakob went back and, after walking about six kilometers, found Gourgen nearly lifeless. They revived him with the warmth of their bodies.

Six years later, the mother returned to Erzurum with Gourgen and Hakob, intending to take back the money and documents hidden in their barn back. While digging, two turks arrived, captured Hakob, beheaded him, and took the iron chest. The mother and Gourgen witnessed everything from their hiding place. A terrified Gourgen tried to scream, but his mother held his mouth shut. Gourgen never forgot this tragedy throughout his life. For political reasons, he became a Persian citizen and later moved to Switzerland with his family, where he continued his education, which he later pursued in Tbilisi and Moscow.

Like many Armenians of his time, he experienced the devastating effects of the massacres committed by the turks against Armenians. He lost 26 family members to the Armenian Genocide of 1915, as well as his homeland—Western Armenia.

Although Gourgen was far from his homeland, the injustice of the genocide never left him. He had exhausted all peaceful means to inform the world about the genocide and hold turkey accountable for the atrocities they committed.

He chose cinema as the means to achieve his goal: “Our plan was very simple. With our personal funds, we secretly planned to make a film showing the world the sufferings of our people and the barbaric turkish massacres, not forgetting the Armenian genocide and the conspiracy of so-called civilized nations against our rights."

Yanikian's factual book "Paradise" (originally in English), which his wife Shushanik had titled, became the basis for a screenplay. Several foreigners joined the film project, and they shot 20 hours of material depicting turkish atrocities with striking authenticity.

"The film was to be shown simultaneously in the capitals of three different countries, free of charge. Flyers explaining the purpose and our demands were to be distributed with the tickets… The goal was to return the land stolen from the Armenian people to its rightful owners and provide compensation for our two million victims. Many individuals were to join the cause once the film was ready."

Despite the strong dedication to completing "Paradise," the endeavor was unsuccessful because U.S.-Turkey alliances and strategic interests were prioritized, and the US government hindered the production of the film.

Yanikyan, by then old but not despairing, had spent decades using every peaceful means to punish the perpetrators of the Armenian Genocide and avenge his compatriots, but he ultimately felt compelled to choose an alternative.

"In all my writings, I always defended the belief that violence should disappear from our lives. But when all of this happened and humanity and the world remained silent about the Armenian Question, I made the decision to take action in order to bring the Armenian cause to the attention of humanity and world governments."

On January 27, 1973, at the age of 78, Gourgen Yanikyan, without hesitation, fired 13 bullets at the turkish consul and vice-consul in Santa Barbara in his room at the "Baltimore" hotel. Following a highly publicized trial, Yanikyan was sentenced to life imprisonment, and in 1984, with a clear conscience, he passed away into eternity.

But his sacrifice was not in vain: the Armenian Question was finally brought back from the dusty archives of history. By sacrificing his freedom, Yanikyan ignited a movement. His act became the catalyst for a wave of Armenian activism, inspiring the creation of ASALA, who would go on to fight for the recognition of the genocide.

Everyone condemns violence but, alas, it is the only language the world understands.

[blindmagdalena]

writing a completely insane au for the boys rn and I'm having such a hard time figuring out what age the seven (i.e a-train, the deep, maeve, translucent, noir) are in season 1 specifically and when they all joined the seven (minus homelander and starlight obvi) and i was wondering if you had literally any idea at all

A-Train, Maeve and the Deep are apparently all around the same age. i can't find a source for it, but this article has a whole bunch of birthdays and info. March 1985 for the Deep, March 1986 for Maeve, and January 1987 for A-Train.

they all attended Godolkin, so it's possible they graduated one after another and were each hired by Vought straight out of school. we know A-Train did Teenage Kix before he joined the seven, but career-wise nothing else is mentioned for Maeve and The Deep.

A-Train is the youngest of the bunch and he did replace Mister Marathon, so before Annie, he would have been the newest member.

Translucent is closer to Homelander's age, like 40, which makes sense to me.

they don't have an exact age for Annie, but during s1 her mom says something to the effect of "I've been waiting 23 years for this" so i would assume Annie is 23-24 when she joins the seven.

Noir is more complicated. he appeared to be in his mid-20s in 1984, but he has a healing factor, a power that typically slows aging, so it's hard to say how old he is.

as for when they joined The Seven, according to Diabolical—which i believe takes place around the year 2000—Homelander would have been the founding captain with Noir being the teammate he met first. although Homelander tells Maeve that she's the one he's known the longest, so take that with a grain of salt.

all that said, i'd say the team was formed with Homelander, Black Noir, Queen Maeve, Translucent, The Deep, Lamplighter and Mister Marathon in the early 2000s.

[darkpeacemusic]

ℂ𝕣𝕖𝕖𝕡𝕪𝕡𝕒𝕤𝕥𝕒 ℍ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕠𝕟𝕤: 𝔹𝕚𝕣𝕥𝕙𝕕𝕒𝕪𝕤 (+𝔸𝕘𝕖𝕤)

Jeff the Killer - June 2nd, 2000 (Age: 24)

Homicidal Liu - December 21st, 1991 (Age: 33)

Sully - December 21st, 1991 (Age: 33, though he's seven minutes younger than his twin, Liu)

Randy - July 25th, 1990 (Age: 34)

Keith - September 23rd, 1991 (Age: 33)

Troy - July 27th, 1991 (Age: 33)

Jane - September 1st, 1993 (Age: 31)

Mary - May 10th, 1992 (Age: 30)

Ben Drowned - April 23rd, 1990, died April 23rd 2002 (Age: Permanently 12, 34 if he were still alive today)

Ticci Toby - April 28th, 1994 (Age: 30)

Masky/Tim - June 19th, 1988 (Age: 36)

Hoodie/Brian - April 18th, 1989 (Age: 35)

Kate the Chaser - June 25th, 1995 (Age: 29)

Laughing Jack - Unknown but he was created on Christmas Eve, 1800s (Age: 200+)

Eyeless Jack - November 13th, 1994, died May 20th, 2011 (Age: 17 physically, actually in his 30s)

Slenderman and his brothers - Honestly no one ones. Some say they've been around since the 1600-1700s (Ages: 1000+)

Sally - April 5th, 1958, died April 5th, 1966 (Age: Permanently 8, 66 if she were alive today)

Dr Smiley - October 20th, 1984 (Age: 40)

Nurse Ann - October 31st, 1983 (Age: 41)

Nina - February 2nd, 1997 (Age: 27)

Candy Pop - Unknown but is said to have been created sometime in the 1400s (Age: 500-600+)

Jason the Toymaker - November 15th, 1940, died August 2nd, 1959 (Age: 19 by the time of his death, 84 if he were alive today)

The Puppeteer - July 25th, 1974, died November 30th, 1994 (Age: Permanently 20, 50 if he were still alive today)

Clockwork - November 6th, 1996 (Age: 28)

Rouge - January 7th, 1990 (Age: 34)

Wilson - August 27th, 1988 (Age: 36)

Zalgo - Unknown. He's been around since the beginning of time. (Age: Millions of years old)

Nathan - October 29th, 1990 (Age: 34)

Bloody Painter - October 1st, 1992 (Age: 32)

Kagekao - December 29th, 1994 (Age: 30)

Laughing Jill - Unknown, possibly around the same time as Jack (Age: 200+)

Sadie - October 21st, 1996, died March 12th, 2014 (Age: Permanently 18, 28 if she were alive today)

Hobo Heart - August 31st, 1900s (Age: 100+)

Cat Hunter - January 16th, 1990 (Age: 34)

Chris the Revenant - December 28th, 1999 (Age: 25)

X-Virus - December 12th, 1996 (Age: 28)

Dollmaker - June 13th, 2001 (Age: 23)

Frankie the Undead - September 13th, 1924, died sometime in 1974 (Age: Permanently 50, 100 if he were still alive today)

Judge Angels - April 2nd, 1998 (Age: 26)

Lifeless Lucy - April 5th, 1987, died April 5th, 1997 (Age: Permanently 10, 37 if she were alive today)

Lost Silver - June 21st, 1992, died sometime in August 2004 (Age: Permanently 12, 32 if he were still alive)

Glitchy Red - Unknown, is said to have been created sometime in 1990-1994 during the early stages of Pokemon Red/Blue (Age: Likely somewhere in his his late 20s-early 30s)

Dr. Locklear - March 7th, 1634, died sometime in 1665 during the Great Plague (Age: 30 by the time of his death, 390 if he were still alive today)

Lulu - February 15th, 1999, died sometime in 2013 (Age: Permanently 14, 25 if she were still alive)

Killing Kate - October 29th, 1996 (Age: 28)

[zahri-melitor]

Playing with the Dick-Jason-Tim age timeline again because playing with “can I fit Dick being 8 at the circus and Tim also being there” is enrichment for my brain.

Using Batman: Year 3 and A Lonely Place of Dying as the starting point this time, being that they are the ORIGIN of the timeline dilemma that nobody can quite square, and I have a solution to offer for the timeline up to LPoD (highly dependent on ‘if the pre-Crisis fact doesn’t fit, that’s because it’s pre-Crisis’ and ignoring future retcons. I’m building this from the original scaffold)

Dick is 8 at the circus. Tim is 3. We will establish this via Year 3 (“almost 10 years” since the Graysons died/the orphanage) and Tim’s canonical age in LPoD (13).

Given the fuzziness over when Tim actually turned 14, we’re going to run with Dick being close to his birthday when LPoD occurs. Using the 20 March birthday for Dick and the 19 July birthday for Tim, this gives us a 5 year, 4 month age gap and makes Tim about 3 ½ at the circus, which is a little older than I like him to be (I have so much more flexibility with dates if I can claim he’s 2, damn you Year 3 for using ‘almost’ rather than ‘approximately’), but we’ll live with it because I really need Dick to be almost 19 on the day Tim appears simply to try and cram as much pre-Crisis late-Robin and Nightwing history in as possible. This contradicts Dick being 20 prior to Jason’s death, but Dick can’t both be 20, have the circus 10 years ago, and be 8 years old for his parents’ death. However, squaring this with Janet Drake’s burial date of Christmas Eve is difficult, because Tim still being 13 at her funeral becomes impossible. Alternatively, if we use the 24 October birthday for Dick and still place Haly’s Circus and LPoD in the period before Dick’s birthday (maybe some time in September/October), we can come out of this with “about to turn 19” Dick and “13 and a bit” Tim, with a 5 year, 9 months gap between them, plus giving Tim a 3 month training period before he debuts as Robin on 24 December. In either case, choose whether Dick being born on the first of Northern Hemisphere Spring or Janet Drake being buried on Actual Christmas Eve is the more important fact in your heart to determine which option you use here.

Timeline markers:

Dick therefore does not debut as Robin until he is 9. He was Robin from 1940 to 1984, a period of 8, almost 9 years using ye olde 5 real years to 1 comics year rule. This actually matches fairly well with the date I want to give as when Dick stops being Robin – at some point when he’s 17. Yes, I have to give up the semester at Hudson University still happening while Dick is Robin not Nightwing, but that’s pre-Crisis. The Bruce and Dick fight where Bruce benches Dick, Dick storms out, and heads off to New York to be his own man (and changes his name to Nightwing) all happens at some point when Dick is ~17. Dick’s schooling is a bit of a black hole given his childhood and the contradictory birthdays (and the fact I’m not great on northern hemisphere school year dates and start dates). I THINK the October birthday is better for this in that we just have to pretend he was the youngest in the class, and can say Dick finished school still 17 and before he becomes Nightwing. March birthday I think if the fight happened while Dick was still 17 and at school, our lad was commuting from New York to school for the final few months (good thing his best friends include a speedster and a flyer, I guess). Or it happened when Dick was 18 and 3 months on approximately the exact day after Dick finished school, and the timeline suddenly gets VERY tight.

I like Dick being 17 when he becomes Nightwing if we can wrangle it for the simple fact that it gives a nice parallel for when Tim is 17 (and also loses the Robin title). Dick having gone through his big growing up moment before he entered legal adulthood makes the way the same mistake echoes down over the years more poignant (everyone has to grow up too young). I also would really like Dick to have finished his high school education before he becomes Nightwing simply because it makes a more coherent growing up narrative (and figuring out how Dick finished his education if he was living in New York is a headache we can then avoid).

In any case. Dick’s had his fight with Bruce. Call it June-July. Bruce, feeling lonely, decides the next sad teenager he meets who is trying to steal his tires is a great prospect to be the next Robin (son). Hello Jason. Jason is also 13. He is about to turn 14 the first moment possible. His birthday is apparently 16 August, which works really well for the fight going down right after Dick finishes school. Bruce makes Jason Robin. We are now on a hurried countdown. Jason turns 14. He was Robin from 1983-1988, which is right on 5 years, so approximately 1 comic year. Jason canonically dies on 27 April according to one picture of his tombstone. This would make him 14-nearly-15. This works great for October Birthday Dick and terrible for March Birthday Dick. If we have October Birthday Dick, Jason was around for ~10 months before he dies in April. If we have March Birthday Dick, Jason was around for anywhere between 7 months (Dick fired at 18 in June, Jason dies around January the next year) and a year (Dick fired before March still 17, Jason appears immediately after, and again dies around January/February the next year) while we ignore that April death date.

This works well on a meta level. One, there’s simply not that many Jason-as-Robin stories. Every time people stretch his period from Batmobile-tyres-to-death out beyond 20 months or so, you start hitting the point where you have more timeline than story to fill it, a problem seen practically nowhere else in comics. Jason has been cited as having 6 months of training before he went out on the streets. You can keep all of this if you want a very short period with Jason in the costume, you can call this comics time and shorten it if you’d prefer Jason to have longer in the costume. But Jason-as-Robin only lasting under a year lines up with everything about how we approximate the passage of time in comics. Secondly, Jason being Robin for only a short period matches the fact that he has very few interactions with Dick and the wider hero community. He has, what, ONE team up with the Titans? The one ski trip with Dick? Checking the Events timeline he had COIE (which he doesn’t remember), plus Legends and Millennium, for 3 Events during his tenure. He appears on page for all of these, but not in a manner where he’s interacting with heroes outside Gotham in any way he’d remember. He’s pretty isolated, but also there really isn’t any TIME to give him wider connections.

Also during this period, the majority of the NTT stuff prior to LPoD occurs, and Dick hypothetically does his single semester at university before dropping out (probably due to the amount of stuff going on in his life making studying hard). He may even have dropped out of university DUE to the drama surrounding all of this depending on which birthday timeline you run with. Tim is a lil bean at boarding school.

In any case, Jason Todd died. He wasn’t even 15 yet. It’s very tragic. Bruce immediately starts going off the rails with grief. October Birthday Dick (seriously, this just suits the timeframe here so much better) then gives us anywhere between 3-6 months of Bruce grieving and getting steadily more unstable before 13 year old Tim Drake decides Something Must Be Done, We Need A Robin. He then heads off to find Dick Grayson at any point between July and October, make this gap however long-short you want. March Birthday Dick we probably cram death-until-realisation into under 2 months, but we’re working with even more of a sliding scale given it’s just harder to anchor known stuff in this timeline.

Ta da!

Conclusions:

if I want this to work I am gonna run with the 24 October birthday for Dick, just because it makes pinning dates down easier. Sorry, 20 March birthday fans.

Ages: Tim is either 5 years, 4 months or 5 years, 8 months younger than Dick. Tim is 23 months younger than Jason. Jason is either 3 years, 3 months or 3 years, 7 months younger than Dick.

Cass is 2 years, 6 months older than Tim. She is 5 months older than Jason. She is either 2 years, 10 months or 3 years, 2 months younger than Dick.

Steph is about a year older than Tim and about a year younger than Cass.

Damian, who is extremely indirectly affected by anything in this timeline, is 6-7 years younger than Tim and 12 years younger than Dick. He was definitely conceived while Dick was Robin.

Incidentally: Tim figuring out Dick is Robin happens when he is 9. With this timeline, Dick was 14-15 when Tim worked that out. Tim therefore spent at LEAST two years fanboying Dick!Robin, and then saw Jason!Robin for at most a year, realistically closer to 6 months. “Jason was my Robin” doesn’t exist

(Also tragically for me, The ‘Tim is 3’ reading of the circus means that Tim was definitely born prior to Bruce’s return to Gotham. There’s this lovely little wrinkle that if you use a timeline where he’s 2 at the circus, he was probably born right around when Bruce debuted at Batman, which is just a sweet little note for a character so tied to other people’s origin stories)

(Seriously though if you allow Dick be 10 when he is orphaned, it lets him be Robin until 18-19, he can turn 20 before Jason’s death, frees up so much timeline kludging around the Jason period, even if it does create a bigger age gap between Dick and Tim)

[lonestarflight]

Atlantis (OV-104) rolled out ceremony from Building 150 at the Palmdale, California. The orbiter was delivered to Kennedy Space Center on April 9.

Atlantis was named after RV Atlantis, a two-masted sailing research vessel operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. From 1930 to 1966, she made 299 cruises and covered 700,000 miles while conducting oceanographic research.

Commemorative stamp from Rockwell International

Construction milestones:

1979 January 29: Contract Award to Rockwell International's Space Transportation Systems Division

1980 March 30: Start structural assembly of crew module

1980 July 28: start fabrication of aft-fuselage

1980 October 1: start fabrication of mid-fuselage

1981 June 1: start fabrication of elevons

1981 June 1: start fabrication of wings

1981 July 13: start fabrication of crew module

1981 October 19: start fabrication of lower forward-fuselage

1981 November 23: start structural assembly of aft-fuselage

1981 December 9: start fabrication of upper forward-fuselage

1982 February 15: start structural assembly of crew module

1982 May 24: start fabrication of forward RCS module

1982 July 7: start structural assembly of payload bay doors

1982 October 4: start fabrication/assembly of vertical stabilizer

1982 November 12: start fabrication of OMS/RCS pods

1983 March 14: start fabrication/assembly of body flap

1983 May 6: Mid-fuselage on dock, Palmdale, arrived from General Dynamics

1983 June 13: Wings on dock, Palmdale, from Grumman

1983 June 17: elevons on dock, Palmdale

1983 November 7: lower forward-fuselage on dock, Palmdale

1983 December 2: payload bay doors on dock, Palmdale

1983 December 2: Start of final assembly

1984 January 6: upper forward-fuselage on dock, Palmdale

1984 January 20: body flap on dock, Palmdale

1984 February 17: left hand OMS/RCS pod on dock, Palmdale

1984 February 24: right hand OMS/RCS pod on dock, Palmdale

1984 March 16: aft-fuselage on dock, Palmdale

1984 April 9: crew module on dock, Palmdale

1984 April 24: upper forward-fuselage on dock, Palmdale

1984 April 27: forward RCS on dock, Palmdale

1984 May 25: Final assembly and closeout installation, Palmdale

1984 May 28: start initial subsystem test, power-on, Palmdale

1984 August 10: complete initial subsystem test, power-on, Delta F, Palmdale

1984 October 26: complete subsystem tests, Palmdale

1985 March 6: Rollout from Palmdale

Date: March 6, 1985

source, source, source, source

Boeing Images: link

SDASM Archives: 5349995, 75349983

[storiesbyrhi]

The Cabin in the Woods

Eddie Munson x Reader 11,339 words

Warnings: natural disasters, death/dying (no character death), medical gore, medicinal drug use, use of Y/N but VERY minimal, no beta.

Synopsis: Something is very wrong in Hawkins and Eddie isn’t answering the phone. A story featuring heavy metal concerts, medical attention, mutual pining, and a cabin in the woods.

Author's Note: Follows canon except they do defeat Vecna – whose final act is the ‘earthquake.’ Set primarily in Hopper’s cabin. I used this website as a floorplan reference. We're pretending it's not as trashed as it is in the show.

Part One: Chrissy Cunningham was Dead

Chrissy Cunningham was dead. She was beautiful, with slightly crooked teeth and sparkly eyes. Her face was all over the news on Saturday morning. A small town golden girl was murdered overnight. Eddie wasn’t answering the phone.

The next day the news came straight from Hawkins again. Fred Benson wore glasses and worked on the high school’s newspaper. He was the sole survivor of a tragic car wreck only to die at the hands of, what the reporter called, a serial killer. Eddie wasn’t answering the phone.

On Monday you went to work and listened to people filter through gossip. The girl died at a trailer park. Some drug dealer’s house. Eddie wasn’t answering the phone.

On Tuesday your mother came home and said, “Did you hear? Turns out they found the boy on the road right near that trailer park.” Eddie wasn’t answering the phone.

He wasn’t answering the goddamn phone for four days straight and there were two dead kids from his town, maybe from his trailer park. Eddie was entirely M.I.A. while Fred Benson and Chrissy Cunningham were dead.

Part Two: In a Fairer World

In a fairer world, you would have grown up in the same shitty small town as Eddie Munson. Alas, you were banished to your own equally shitty and small Indianan town. It meant you didn’t have Eddie to keep you company during lunch periods or ask you to the school dance. It meant you remained lonely for most of your teen years. It meant that the only time you got to spend with Eddie was when your paths crossed at metal shows in Indianapolis or Chicago.

It was in the depths of a cold 1984 winter that you and Eddie first officially met. You had seen each other around, noting the presence of another teen that had snuck into the show or club, but you hadn’t ever spoken. Then, on a particularly bitter night, you and Eddie found yourselves in the same hiding spot.

You’d clocked the bouncers of the venue doing periodical laps inside, spot checking IDs. They only bothered when the air was stale and frozen like it was then. Annoyed, you swiped an open jar of maraschino cherries from behind the bar and ducked your way into a small storage room, no bigger than a broom closet.

It was dark but warm. You were pleasantly buzzed and snacking away when the door opened and another body jumped in, bumping into you with a yelp.

“Fuck! Sorry!” Eddie said but made no move to leave the cramped space. You listened to him feel around the door and wall, then the space was illuminated. He turned to look at you.

“Huh,” was all you said at the revelation of there being a light in the room.

“They’re checking IDs,”

“Yeah,” you replied. “That’s… why I’m in ‘ere,”

“Yeah… Um. You want me to go… or…?”

You shook your head no. “How old are you?” you asked.

“Seventeen. Just,” he answered honestly. “You?”

“Sixteen.”

You swapped names and hometowns, then when the coast was clear went your separate ways.

Between ’84 and ’85 you and Eddie danced around each other. Polite nods and manic grins when you slammed into each other in mosh pits. By March of ’85, you became friends. When there was a show, you’d call each other beforehand to plan the night. City meet ups before and 24/7 diner fries after. Something shifted by the end of ’85.  

While you had graduated, Eddie was repeating again. He was still his usual self, but he had pulled away from you a little. It hurt, because you were desperate to see him. It was scary, finishing high school and tumbling into the adult world. You wanted the routine of Eddie and gigs. Also, somewhere along the line your feelings about Eddie had become different than platonic.

Between the hours of phone calls, the hand holding as you ran through crowds together, and the conversations had while sitting on the curb about all the things the future could hold, you fell in love.

You figured it was one sided. If Eddie loved you back, he would have kissed you. He would have said something, even by accident. He wouldn’t have pulled away at all.

By the spring of 1986 you hadn’t seen Eddie in a couple of months. In the rare phone call, he said he was trying his hardest to graduate. There was one class he had to get credits for, even a D would secure him the high school diploma that had alluded him. Like you always did, you offered to help with homework and edit essays and do anything for him, but like always he laughed the offer off, saying that the teachers would be able to tell his own scribblings from your intelligent words.

You hated when Eddie talked shit about himself. Luckily, it wasn’t too often; given his history and current status as his town’s resident freak, he did surprisingly well at the whole self-esteem thing. There were cracks in the facade though. Deep seated ideas about his worth. Self-deprecating jokes. It hurt to know things like that lived somewhere in him while he lived in a place determined to make his life shitty.

Despite knowing just how much Hawkins misunderstood Eddie, and despite hearing the rumours of a trailer park, you still couldn’t believe what you were seeing.

Hiding from parents who were asking when you were going to move out, you had been flicking through television channels on the couch in the basement. The couch was musty, with wet patches that never seemed to dry. The T.V. set was old and staticky. Still, it was better than being upstairs.

You stopped on the news to watch a segment on the violence in the Gulf of Sidra between the U.S. and Libya. There were no American casualties. While you were wondering if there were Libyan deaths, the news anchor was shuffling his papers.

“And now to local news. Small town Indiana has been rocked by another in a series of violent murders. Patrick McKinney brings the body count to three, and with rumours of Satanism, Hawkins, population 13,400, is once again in the spotlight.”

The story played out. A reporter in the field stood outside the boundary lines of Forest Hills Trailer Park. “This is a town all too familiar with murder and mystery,” she said. A photograph of a teenage girl named Barbara. Another of the missing child Will Byers. A mall fire. More deaths. More misery.

Frozen in place, your skin broke out in goosebumps and your mouth went dry. Tears pricked at the edges of your eyes and butterflies scraped their razorblade wings across the lining of your stomach.

“And now, three more deaths can be added to the tally, but what has profoundly shaken this quiet town is the thought of a murderer in their midst.”

It cut to a teenager in a green varsity jacket with a microphone held out to him. “We always knew he would do something like this. Guy’s a total freak,” the teen said.

“And the rumour of Satanism?” asked the reporter, aiming the mic back at the teen.

“Oh, yeah. He listens to that devil music and he’s the leader of a cult. They’re called Hellfire.”

Before your brain had a chance to connect the dots for itself, Eddie’s photo was on the screen. The reporter’s voice was steady and sure as she said, “Edward ‘Eddie’ Munson is a twenty-year-old who attends Hawkins High. He is law enforcement’s prime suspect. The first victim was located inside his residence here at Forest Hills Trailer Park, and a witness claims to have seen Munson in the vicinity of the third victim at the time of their death. Munson lives with his uncle, who has declined an interview.”

Wrapping your arms around yourself, you began to rock back and forth in an attempt to self-sooth. You didn’t register it, but you whimpered as you watched the closing of the news report.

“Are the people of Hawkins cursed? Has the occult been attracted to an already traumatised town? Or is this simply the work of a disturbed young man? Law enforcement is asking all residents of Hawkins and surrounding areas to remain vigilant. Do not approach any suspects. Call your local police department or Crime Stoppers with any information you may have. We will keep you updated on any developments.”

The screen cut back to the news anchor, who moved on to banter with the weatherman. It felt like all the air and sound in the basement had been sucked out in a vacuum. You couldn’t breathe. Your vision was blurry. You were going to puke.

Making it to your bedroom, you threw yourself into your small bathroom and curled up on the cool tiles. There were tears but you weren’t properly crying. Every tiny spark of energy in you was dedicated to figuring out what the absolute fuck you had just seen.

It wasn’t possible, you knew that. Eddie had been generous and sweet since you met him. He was respectful and got pissed when people didn’t observe metal gig etiquette. He pulled people out the mosh when they needed help. He’d bought you more bottles of water than you could count. Eddie was so deeply a lover, not a fighter.

So, no, there wasn’t even a split second where you thought he was guilty. It was simply instantaneous terror for where he was and what would happen once the pitchfork wielding townspeople or the trigger happy cops found him.

A knock on your bedroom door snapped you from your spiraling.

“What?” you yelled.

“What’s with all the door slamming?” your dad’s voice yelled back.

“Nothing. Sorry. Didn’t mean to.”

There was a pause. “You okay?”

You sat up and breathed out. “Yeah. Sorry,”

“Alright…”

It wasn’t until you heard his boots walk down the hall that you got up and moved to the telephone next to your bed. Eddie’s number was still connected, but it rang and rang like it had for days. You tried it all night, but there was no answer.

Sleep came in short restless bursts. The following day you got sent home from work early for crying in the bathroom. You apologised and made up a story about a death in the family, earning you a week off.

After another sleepless night, nobody picking up the phone, and all the catastrophising your brain could do, you thought it couldn’t get any worse.

When you emerged late in the morning for breakfast, you found your parents in the living room watching a breaking news story.

“There’s only twenty-two confirmed casualties so far but it’s… it’s bad here, John,” the corresponded said. They were crossing from what appeared to be some sort of natural disaster.

“Are we sure it was an earthquake?” John from the studio asked.

“That’s what the authorities are saying. Seismologists say 7.4. The townsfolk though, they seem to be asking questions.”

“What happened?” you asked your parents.

“Earthquake hit… Did you feel anything?” your mum replied.

“What do you mean?”

“It was here. Indiana.”

Somehow, you knew.

“I didn’t feel anything… Are we even on bloody tectonic plates?” your dad said.

“That poor town,”

“Something going on there, let me tell you. I was talking to Bill at work. He’s got a cousin out that way. Says the whole place has been swarming with feds, even before this,”

“Because of the murders?” she asked.

“That and everything else.”

The back and forth between your parents was making your blood run cold, you shushed them and turned up the television.

“We’re hearing now that a suspect is in custody for the recent string of murders, but it seems like Hawkins has bigger problems,”

“Yeah, John, the people are banding together to help neighbours out. We’ve seen federal support mobilise quickly. But nobody has forgotten about Eddie Munson and the occult murders,”

“He’s in custody?”

“We can’t confirm if it’s him, but we’ve been assured a suspect has been taken in,”

“Right, and the earthquake - what can people at home do to help?”

A phone number appeared on screen with a call to donate funds to help Hawkins rebuild. The sound of your parents discussing an appropriate amount to give, then finding their credit cards, then calling the number, then being annoyed at joining a queue, became white noise.

Whatever was happening in your brain was all happening on a subconscious level. You were standing still, not a single thought in your mind. Just a shell, waiting for something to come from deeper within yourself to move you.

Suddenly, “I… have to go. I have to go.”

Flying down the hall and into your bedroom, you were throwing random articles of clothing and toiletries into a bag while your parents were still on hold. When you ripped back through the house, your mum noticed the frenzy and started to trail you. Kitchen, fridge, apple, a couple of cans of Dr Pepper. Cupboard, chips. Hallway, keys. You only stopped when your mum yelled your name.

“What?!”

“What are you doing?!”

“I… I have a friend. In Hawkins. I have to go,”

“No, no you don’t. They’ve said not to go. It’s too dangerous. There’s a number you can call to find friends and family,”

“You don’t understand. I have to go. I have to.”

The expression on your mother’s face was fear. Your dad appeared and his was all confusion. For a second you considered saying that the friend was Eddie, but logic reasoned a second later.

“I’m going,” you asserted, holding the keys in your hand tighter and taking a step backwards toward the door. “I’m sorry.” And you bolted out the front door and into your car.

In a fairer world, you would have grown up in the same shitty town as Eddie. In a fairer world, whatever was haunting Hawkins would have never existed. In a fairer world, Eddie would have loved you like you loved him. Alas, the world was unfair in far more ways than you could have even begun to imagine.

Part Two: The Drive to Hawkins

The drive to Hawkins was long and lonely. The route bypassed Indianapolis and looped around to continue to the other side of the state. Despite the authority’s warning, it seemed like hundreds of people were lined up to get into the small town. The roads were at a standstill and you spent the night behind the wheel.

You caught a few hours of sleep before being woken by the horns of the cars behind you. That process repeated itself until almost midday the next day. By the time you hit Hawkins’ welcome sign, you were close to peeing yourself and exhausted beyond belief.

Parked at a playground and barbeque area, went to the toilet, and made an attempt to wash your face and armpits. It was when you were reading a tourist information board that it dawned on you that you had no idea where to start. Looking around, you felt like you were at the epicenter of chaos.

Smoke was still billowing in the sky on the horizon. The sound of sirens was constantly audible. There were cars and people everywhere. If you focused on the noise, you could hear crying. The news was right – Hawkins was a cursed place.

“Okay, okay,” you said to yourself. “Okay.”

If Eddie had been arrested, it was unlikely he would be allowed visitors. At the very least though, you may get some information. If he hadn’t been arrested, if justice had prevailed in the so-called-land of the free, then you could try Forest Hills after.

Normally, going anywhere near a cop shop was a hard no, but for Eddie, you’d do it.

When you got to the closest station, you realised how hard the task in front of you was going to be. You had to park blocks away, walking through crowds of people looking for missing loved ones, and past tents of what you feared were body bags.

“Sorry, excuse me?” you said to someone official-looking woman holding a clipboard. They were trying to answer multiple people’s questions. You waited patiently until it became clear that manners couldn’t co-exist with an environment like that. “I’m looking for someone,”

“Everyone is, honey. Check the board for names. Black one has photos of bodies. Red one is for missing people. You see someone you recognise, bring the photo to me. If they’re already on the red board, nothing more you can do.”

There was a third possibility that you legitimately hadn’t thought of, one worse than being wrongfully arrested. What if Eddie had died in the earthquake?

You started to cry, but you were just one person in a sea of misery. Nobody stopped to see if you were okay. Nobody looked at you like you were being weird in public. You were just another grief-stricken person.

After powerwalking back to your car and throwing yourself into the backseat to curl up, you sobbed for what felt like hours. When you calmed down and poke your head up, only minutes had been spent. Fifteen at most.

You climbed over the centre console to sit back in the driver’s seat. You wound your window down and rummaged through your bag for some tissues. Wetting some with the last of your bottled water, you washed your face.

There were still people everywhere, and you could make out a conversation happening close.

“What do we do now?” a small voice asked.

You glanced at your side mirror and watched as a man and woman embraced.

“I don’t know… They said search parties are being organised over at the school…” the man replied.

“I just want to find her,”

“I know… I know. Me too… Let’s just… Just go there. Heard it’s been set up with food and water too. You need to eat something,”

“I’m not hungry… I just want to find her.” The woman began to cry.

It felt wrong to be listening to their conversation, but there was nowhere to go. You saw the couple begin to walk. The woman seemed frail and the man had a scarf tied around his leg. Even through the mirror’s reflection you could tell he was injured.

“Excuse me!” you called after them, sticking half your body out the window. “Do you need a ride?”

Maybe manners couldn’t function, but humanity certainly could.

The man nodded and did not hesitate as he pulled the woman along and got her into the back seat. He slid in next to her.

“Thank you,”

“Yeah. No worries… Um, where do you need to go?” you asked, playing dumb.

The man directed you to the school. You dropped them off at the front door before driving back down the block in search of somewhere to park. The drive had been silent save for the directions. Every part of you was crying out to ask if they knew Eddie. Did they know where he was? Was he okay?

As you approached the school on foot, you read the signs someone had made out of pieces of plywood and a can of spray paint. Search parties and missing people information were inside the main building. First aid and immediate supplies were inside the gymnasium. Not knowing what to do, you flipped a coin in your head, and walked in the gym.

It felt calmer inside. Cots were set up for the injured. It seemed this was triage for the not mortally wounded. Nobody was screaming in agony. Volunteers were handing out cups of water and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Across the space more volunteers were sorting donations of blankets, toys, and other items. The room was lined with pinboards covered in missing people posters. There were people in fluorescent vests giving orders and answering questions. It had only been about 36-ish hours since the earthquake, but already the operation to help was well underway.

You made your way around to where the donations were being collated and organised. A girl looked up as you approached the table. “Hi! What do you need?” she asked. “We’ve got pillows and blankets. Jackets too?”

“Oh, ah, no. I’m okay… I was actually looking for a friend.” You saw her face drop and her mouth open as if she was trying to work out how to redirect you. Before she could, you said, “Not like, a missing friend. I don’t think he’s missing. I just, um, can’t get a hold of him… So, I was maybe looking for someone that knows him? Like a friend?”

“Oh… Well, it is a small town. Everyone knows everyone. What’s their name?”

You hated that you hesitated. “Eddie… Munson.”

The girl was startled at even his name. There were people around who looked over at the mention of Eddie too.

“Don’t you know what he did?”

“He didn’t hurt anyone,”

“That’s not what everyone says,” she replied, the earlier kindness in her voice entirely gone.

“They’re wrong.”

The girl’s expression fell neutral and she stared at you.

“Do you know where he is? Was he arrested?”

It was clear she was deciding if she wanted to give you the information or not. “No,” she eventually offered. “Everyone reckons he did some freak witchcraft shit to get out of it. Cops say they have the real killer and everything.”

You bit your tongue. Starting a fight in an earthquake crisis centre was not a good look. “Okay, so he should be at home?”

The girl shrugged. Despite her intentions, she had been helpful. You left her without a word more and headed for the exit.

You didn’t get far before someone was yelling after you. At first you didn’t respond, thinking they were calling for someone else. “Hey! Ah, hey, miss?!” But then they said, “You know Eddie?”

Spinning, you took a step towards the guy. He was around your age and had a pretty face. He wore a clean blue sweater and seemed relatively put together considering everything happening around him.

“Is he okay? Do you know where he is?”

The guy looked you up and down conspicuously. “Who are you?”

“Who are you?” you parroted immediately.

“Sorry… It’s just… There’s a lot of people looking for him… Not all, you know-” He shook his hands in a gesture that meant nothing to you. “Not all friendly,”

“Are you his friend? What’s your name,”

“Steve. I’m Steve… I guess, yeah… Yeah, I’d say we’re friends… New friends, but friends. Been through some… stuff together. Really bonds two guys. People! Two… People. Two separate people…”

“Steve? He’s never mentioned a Steve,”

“Yeah, ah, like I said – new friends,” Steve said tilting his head to the side. “You’re not from Hawkins, are you?”

You shook your head. “I see him in Indy. We go to shows together-”

“Oh! Yeah! No, he talked about you… Which, all things considered, it’s gotta mean something. Not a lot of casual conversation in the middle of all this,” he said, motioning to the surrounding chaos. Steve saw your sad eyes, the tiredness written all over your face. The pins on your jacket. The boots. He was sharper than people gave him credit for and was appropriately suspicious of things. There was a feeling though, a flutter of empathy. “Y/N, right?”

“Yes. Please. Is he okay? I need to see him.”

Steve folded his arms across his chest and nodded. “My shift here isn’t over, but I’ll call someone. They can take you to him,”

“Thank you. Yes. Thank you.” You jumped at Steve, holding him in a hug.

He was unprepared and slow to react. “Ah, yeah, yeah. You’re welcome. Just go sit over there somewhere.”

Saying nothing else, just nodding eagerly, you followed Steve’s instructions, walking down the sidewalk to sit near the school’s bike racks.

It took less than two minutes before the sounds of everything started to pin prick at your heart and lungs. Despair and desperation. You wished you had your headphones, a mixtape made by Eddie and sent through the mail to keep you company, but the batteries in your Walkman were long dead after the drive to Hawkins.

Part Three: “Are You Eddie’s Girlfriend?”

“Are you Eddie’s girlfriend?”

Dustin Henderson was exactly how Eddie described. You recognised the boy before he finished turning into the car park on his bike. Even under his Thinking Cap, his hair was trademark. He beamed at you as he came to a stop, asking the question like it wasn’t going to throw you into inner turmoil.

“Ah… We’re friends,”

“That’s what he says but…” He paused to wriggle his eyebrows.

You stood up and brushed grass off your pants. “Where is he?”

“You got a car? It’s too far to go with you on the handlebars.” Dustin smiled when you nodded. He got off his bike and took a long time trying to get it to fit in the back of your car.

As the kid directed you out of the heart of Hawkins, you were relieved that you didn’t have to think of things to say. Dustin had that covered. It started with a question, “So, earthquake, huh?” It was as if he was testing you.

“Yeah? I’m… uh, sorry? That how you hurt your leg? Is, is your house okay?” you replied.

“It wasn’t an earthquake…” He paused to gauge your reaction. You kept your eyes on the road and said nothing. “You know how people say Hawkins is cursed? They’re not entirely wrong.”

He told the story of three boys searching for their fourth. A story of monsters and heroes, love and hope.

“He was just with the wrong person at the wrong time,” Dustin told you, introducing Eddie into lore. “The first person that died, the one that started all this, was Chrissy. You probably saw her on the news. She went to Eddie’s to buy drugs and that’s when he got her.”

There was a foreignness in how Dustin said ‘buy drugs,’ and even with all he had been through, that alone was a reminder of the fact he was just a kid.

“He?”

“Vecna. The bad guy. He killed her and Eddie was there,”

“Right. And everyone thought he did it,”

“Yeah,” Dustin nodded. “Turn left up here. All of this, the ‘earthquake’ and everything, is Vecna.”

You took the left and slowed down, the road unpaved and winding into a wooded area. As Dustin continued to give you directions, adding more fantastical details about Hawkins and his friends, you began to worry more and more.

“Wait, wait. So, if Vecna is, like, dead or whatever… and Eddie has been cleared, why are we driving into the middle of a forest? Why’s Eddie hiding?”

For the first time in the conversation, Dustin seemed like he didn’t want to speak.

“Dustin?”

“Ah…”

“What’s wrong? What happened to him?”

“Can I just say that you’re handling all this very well,”

“Dustin!”

“I mean, it’s a lot,”

“Dustin. What happened to Eddie?”

Dustin sighed, looking out the window and spotting the end of the road up ahead. “He tried to be a hero.”

You glanced at the kid, then rolled to a stop.

“Maybe he should tell you this part,” Dustin said.

When you looked at each other, you could see the trauma Dustin hid behind a quick wit and years of living in flight or fight mode. He deserved a break; you nodded.

“Yeah, alright,”

“He’s pretty beat up. He’s gotta be in more pain than he’ll admit. Maybe… maybe you can help with that,”

“Should he be in a hospital?”

“Yeah, definitely. He made up some crap about how someone more in need deserved the bed.” Dustin frowned.

Cutting the engine, you got out of the car. The sound of Dustin pulling his bike out drew your attention.

“What now?”

“The path is pretty clear. Just follow it up,”

“You’re not coming?”

“Nah. If I’m gone long, Mom will freak out,”

“Can’t blame her… You sure you should ride that far? With your leg, I mean,”

“I’m fine. Stronger than I look, you know. We’ll bring supplies tomorrow morning. Everyone will wanna meet you too.”

Did Eddie really talk about you that much?

“Okay,”

“See ya, Y/N.”

Dustin rode off back the way you’d come. You stood watching until he was completely out of sight and sound. It was eerily quiet in the woods then.

The walk was only a few minutes. The path led to a small structure that didn’t look like a place for a hero at all.

As you climbed the steps to the cabin, you noted all the missing nails and rotten wood. At the door you held a hand up to knock, then hesitated.

Fuck.

You breathed in deeply then knocked, calling out, “Eddie?” in a weird sort of yell-whisper. The sound cut through the serenity of nature, making you cringe. With a shaking hand, you opened the door, pushing it inward, grateful it didn’t squeak with rust.

The place was small. Directly to your left was a bathroom and to your right a kitchenette. A small living room was ahead, with a door open wide on the opposite wall; you could see it was a bedroom, the bed made and most of the floor space taken up by boxes. The final door, adjacent to the kitchen, moved; you watched it open slowly.

From the darkness, Eddie emerged to lean his weight on the doorframe. His hair was tied in a messy bun, and he wore track pants and a long-sleeved flannel shirt that was at least three times too big for him. Part of his face was covered with bandages, and he had deep lines under his eyes that you’d never seen him with, not even when he was his most hungover.

“Y/N?” Eddie’s voice was croaky, his throat dry. He looked confused and dazed. You were the last person he expected to see.

You were across the room and reaching out for him before he could warn you. As soon as you grabbed him, he winced and made the same sound a puppy does when you accidentally step on his tail.

“Sorry! I’m sorry! Sorry. Fuck. Are you okay? Sorry.”

Eddie tried to control the pain, but it kept hold, forcing a contorted expression to linger on his face. You stepped away from him.

“Eddie- I’m- Oh my god,” you breathed out. “What’s happening? What happened? Are you- Fuck.” You didn’t know where to start or what to say. Suddenly, your mouth was moving before you had a chance to censor or edit yourself. “I saw the news. I tried to call but when I couldn’t get a hold of you, I… I freaked out,”

“How-” Eddie tried to ask, but the pain was rolling down his spine.

“Dustin,” you replied. “Um, I was…” Totally and utterly terrified for Eddie. Unable to go on with life without knowing he was safe. No, not just knowing. Seeing him for yourself. “I went to the school, ‘cause it’s all set up as a crisis centre or whatever. I asked someone about you, and a guy named Steve heard. He called Dustin for me. He showed me the way here.”

Eddie managed a small nod. “He outside?”

“No. He had his bike when we met up. We had it in my car and he rode it home. Just us… Should you sit? Back to bed?” you asked, trying to look behind him into the room he’d come from.

Carefully, he turned around and retreated. You followed along behind him, turning the light on as you entered the room. Eddie stood over the bed, and before you could work out how to help, he just let himself fall onto the mattress. He hissed and clenched his teeth, screwing his eyes shut so tightly that it made you shudder.

The single bed was old, low to the ground. You knelt and gently took one of Eddie’s hands. Looking around the room, you began to understand the gravity of the situation.

On the bedside table was a mountain of different medications – antibiotics and painkillers and other things you didn’t recognise. There were bottles of water next to the bed, empty ones thrown about the room. Some evidence of food, but mostly unfinished packets of chips and cookies. Sitting on a table against the opposite wall was a box of medical supplies, and next to that a pile of bloody and gore covered bandages and tissues. The final piece of the puzzle was a bucket under the bed that you couldn’t see into but you guessed was for pee.

“Eddie… When did you last take anything for the pain?”

You thought about what Dustin had said. If Eddie was in more pain than he let on, he probably wasn’t taking a reasonable amount of painkillers.

His eyes fluttered open, and he slowly turned his head to face you. When he glanced at the bedside table, he pulled a face. “Dunno.”

You were confident that it was a significant time ago. “Okay, well, we’re taking some now,”

“M’fine,”

“No. No, you’re not. You’re the least fine I have ever seen anybody in my life. Eddie, whatever happened, this is… insanely fucked. Please, just take some of this and-” A shaky breath in. “And you can tell me what the hell is happening.” 

You studied his face. The patch bandage on Eddie’s face wasn’t a clean white. You could see whatever wound was beneath it was still actively bleeding. He had dirt and grime around his hairline. His lips were chapped badly and now close to him, you could see knots in his hair were matted. Whatever happened forty-eight hours ago when the ‘earthquake’ happened, Eddie still wasn’t clean of it.

His big brown eyes met yours and he gave in, opening his mouth. You put two oxycodone tablets in his mouth. He swallowed them dry.

You sat with him, holding his hand for a little while longer. Eventually, when his breathing had settled into a healthier rhythm and it looked like he’d stopped clenching every muscle in his body, you said, “I’m going to, um, clean up a bit, then when those kick in I’m moving you to the couch out there, or the other bed. You need to get out of this room.”

Eddie made the smallest of nods, and you watched him close his eyes and zone out again.

Turning the light off and leaving the bedroom, you closed the door behind you and leaned your back against it, holding in a sob that was trying to claw its way out your chest. It hadn’t been the reunion you’d pictured. You had no idea what had happened to Eddie, or how hurt he was, but letting your mind try to fill in the blanks was a bad idea.

“Okay,” you said to yourself with a nod.

The cabin wasn’t as bad as you had initially thought. It was old and in need of updating and repairing, but it wasn’t leaking or covered in mould. Finding cleaning supplies under the kitchen sink, you wiped down surfaces and collected all the trash into a bag. It became clear that if Eddie was bedridden, other people were spending a lot of time there. The garbage, the blankets and pillows on the couches, and the dishes drying in a rack told you enough.

The sun was beginning to set as you cooked a vegetable stew. A lot of veggies were in their final days of edibleness, and that way you could put some in the freezer for easy meals later. Later? You caught yourself in the thought; how long did you think you were staying? Did Eddie even want you to be there at all?

You set a bowl of stew down on the old wooden chest that served as a coffee table in front of the couch.

“Eddie,” you called, going back into the bedroom. “I’m turning the light back on… Has the oxy kicked in?”

Eddie looked at you, more lucid than before. You could see his pupils were blown. He shrugged a little, trying to sit up.

“Okay. That’s better than no. Come on. Food’s ready.”

He looked at you like he wasn’t sure you were real. When you held your hands out to him, he took them and let you gently pull him up. He walked slowly, then sat on the couch at equal speed.

You moved the bowl from the table to his lap, checking it wasn’t hot to touch.

“You good?”

Eddie nodded as he looked at the stew, picking up the spoon.

The first thing you did in the bedroom was strip the bed. There was no washing machine in the cabin, so you balled all the linen up in another big garbage bag. Next went all the trash and the bucket under the bed. You swept the floor and wiped down the bedside table and the desk. All the medical supplies found new homes in the bathroom, and you went through the duffle bag of clothes to determine what needed washing and what could be folded neatly onto the desk.

The springtime air was crisp, but you opened the window anyway. With the room airing out, you closed the door to protect the rest of the cabin from the cold.

Eddie had eaten all the stew. It gave you an albeit small but no less real sense of peace. If he could eat, he’d be okay. As you took the bowl to fill again, you spoke.

“Dustin is exactly how you described him, by the way,”

“How was he?” Eddie asked.

“I mean, I don’t know him… but… he was weirdly… chipper? No boundaries? Inappropriate?”

“That’s him… He shouldn’t be riding his bike,”

“His leg?” you guessed.

Eddie nodded. “Yeah,”

“What happened?”

Eddie went quiet, took the second bowl of stew you handed him. He started to eat.

“He told me about everything. Well, not everything everything. Just everything before… Whatever happened to you… But about, um, Vecna? And the upside down. And Chrissy.”

Eddie’s eyes looked for anywhere that wasn’t where you were sat on the couch next to his.

When Eddie thought of you, he thought of heavy metal crowds and cheap beer and being the person he wanted to be. He thought of how you were escapism from the shitty life he had. How you thought he was cool and funny and good enough to be a friend. How you sounded over the phone late at night, all sleepy and cute. How you looked dressed for a gig. Eddie never wanted you to be in Hawkins. He never wanted you to see him in the context of his everyday life.

Of all the fucked up things that had happened over the past week, having that pure, beautiful, escapism taken away from him might be the worse.

“You don’t have to stay and… look after me or whatever,” Eddie said. Although there were some bitter tones in his voice, he mostly sounded sad.

He’d been in and out of consciousness for forty-eight hours. Things slipped from the dreaming into reality. Demobats in the corner of the bedroom. Lightning as the fridge opened. You, holding his hands and making him stew. But you were real, Eddie was only just fully becoming aware of it. He was confused by your presence, and ashamed of what you were seeing.

You were meant to know Eddie at his best and most beautiful. Not this. Not this broken and hollowed-out version.

“I know that… And, um, I know it’s kind of weird for me to just show up. Since we’re not like…”

Eddie looked up, afraid you were about to say that you weren’t friends at all. “It’s not weird.”

You smiled. “I’m just saying I know I don’t have to be here. I mean, we haven’t really talked heaps lately anyway.”

That was on Eddie. He didn’t know how to talk to someone he was falling in love with. Still didn’t.

“But I just… needed to know you were okay. And to tell you I know you’d never do the things the news said you did,” you continued.

He didn’t know what to say. “This is good,” he decided on, holding up the now-empty bowl.

“There’s more. You should let that settle though,”

“When did you get all…” He was going to say ‘parental’ or even ‘maternal’ but had enough cognitive energy to stop. “Uh, good at playing nurse.”

Last time Eddie had seen you, you were shotgunning a warm beer handed to you by the singer of a local metal band in Indi. She had pulled you on stage, impressed to see a girl handling herself amongst the big guys. You’d shotgunned the beer, sprayed half back over the crowd like a fountain, then jumped with reckless abandon onto the pit. It was a far cry from the stew-brewing, soft voiced girl he was looking at.

“If you wanna see nurse, I can do nurse. When did you last shower?”

 At the hospital, they gave him a sponge bath where it was necessary. Before that, well, Lovers Lake probably didn’t count. And after… Eddie had barely set foot in that bathroom. Bare fucking minimum. He picked at his nails, trying not to focus on the black underneath them.

 “Not meant to get the bandages wet,”

“Right… Well, speaking of the bandages. When were they last changed?”

Fuck, Eddie thought. He walked right into that one. “Nancy came yesterday,”

“Is Nancy an actual nurse?”

“No. She’s just, like, really smart. Like… really smart.”

You folded your arms across the chest. “Remember when you said you were fine after you accidentally headbutted the barrier at Sabbath? Then your nose started to bleed later? And it turned out you had a full on concussion?”

Eddie laughed at the memory, but as soon as his chest started to shake, the pain flooded his entire body. He hunched over, whining. He hadn’t laughed since the upside down. It was the most he’d demanded of his body, even if indirectly.

He was incoherent with pain. He couldn’t think straight, couldn’t make sense of his surroundings. Eddie didn’t register you rushing over to him and falling to your knees, hands framing him but not touching him.

“Eddie? Fuck, Eddie. What can I-”

His entire perception was clouded by agony. The tears streamed down his face and hit the wooden floor.

There was nothing you could do but wait. Carefully, you rested your hands on his knees and listened to him do his best to breathe through it.

“I’m going to get more oxy,” you said, standing.

“No!” His voice sounded desperate; desperate enough that you knelt back down. “Shit’s too addictive. I don’t wanna-”

“I know,” you interrupted. “I know. But there’s a big fucking difference between your asshole dad, and you needing to be able to function.”

Eddie tried to sit up straighter, but it hurt too much.

“Come on Teddy Bear.”

It worked. Eddie looked up at you through narrow eyes. Even in immense pain, he couldn’t let it slide. You grinned at him.

“Seriously though. Dustin said you should still be in the hospital. So… If that’s a no, then you’re stuck with me.”

You looked at each other for a moment. There was something in both your gazes that scared the other. Quickly, you moved to go get more painkillers. Eddie took what you gave him.

“So, are we gonna talk about why you won’t shower? ‘Cause you’re the cleanest metalhead I know. This isn’t very you.”

That’s the problem with you being there, Eddie thought. You knew him too well. His freshmen buddies only knew him as their over-the-top DM, a contextual friend. Nancy, Steve, and Robin, well they didn’t know him at all. He let all of them make assumptions to hide the truth. Maybe if Gareth, Jeff, or Gene were there, they’d see through it, but he’d been able to trick the rest of them.

“I… I tried… Soon as they left, soon as I was alone. All I fuckin’ wanted was a hot shower. But…” He took a shaky breath in and out. “Couldn’t stand for more than a minute without feeling like I was gonna pass out. And the water burns. I don’t know if it’s some fucking upside down bullshit magic that makes it hurt worse, but it’s not… not normal… And that fucking mirror. Not saying I was, you know, Adonis, but ah… The scars are gonna be… Gnarly.”

Trust Eddie to reference Greek mythology in the midst of a literal nightmare.

There was one other obvious option. “A bath then? Shallow? So the… ah, cuts? Whatever. So they aren’t submerged. Then a strategically placed washcloth?” It was more query than statement.

The image in his mind had Eddie sitting in the rusty old bathtub. The water would be lukewarm. His muscles wouldn’t let him maneuver enough to properly clean. He’d hardly be able to stretch his arms up to wash his hair.

“Eddie…”

He looked over at you. “Uh… I…”

“I’ll help,” you said then.

“I don’t-”

“You do. If you could do it yourself you would have… We can be adults about this.”

Eddie didn’t want to be an adult about this. He didn’t want to have to make decisions beyond what song to learn on guitar and how best to torture Hellfire Club. He was sick of life or death choices. Although letting you bathe him like a baby wasn’t really life or death, it kinda felt like it.

“Fine,” he resigned, leaning back on the couch and closing his eyes.

“Besides…” You stood up. “It’s not like I haven’t seen you naked before.”

God, he missed levity. You beamed when he grinned and snorted.

“That was this is? Miss me that much?” he joked.

A messy summer night in the city. Too many beers. Not enough weed to chill the buzz. The plan was to sleep in the back of the van, but it felt like an oven. Item by item, you ripped your clothes off in the darkness. It was entirely innocent and definitely because of the alcohol. When you woke up, you’d been only in underwear and Eddie was entirely naked. You couldn’t look each other in the eyes for an hour after.

The cabin’s bathroom was clean. You let the water go through the pipes and drain away for a couple of minutes. “Good enough,” you muttered to yourself when the water was mostly clear. There was no bubble bath or luxe body wash. You caught yourself looking before you realised it was a stupid act. There was a stack of washcloths, a bar of soap, and a bottle of 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner. It was all brand new, still sealed, and sitting on the edge of the bath.

You frothed the soap under the running water, trying to create some modesty bubbles or milky-toned water. With only a little luck, you went back into the lounge.

“Do you want to wait for the pills to kick in?”

“Nah. They will. Let’s just get this done before Harrington or anyone shows up.”

Eddie took your held out hands and walked with you to the bathroom. He quickly sat on the toilet, not out of breath but something like that.

“Shirt,” you ordered.

The flannel was easy to unbutton. You were dismayed to find he was wearing a very fucking destroyed Hellfire shirt underneath.

When Eddie made a small yelping sound during his attempt to lift his arms. You stopped him.

“I’m just gonna cut it off,”

“No! Didn’t let Wheeler. Not letting you. Do you know how much these cost to print?!”

You huffed. “Who’s Wheeler?”

“Nancy,”

“New rule. Every time me and Nancy agree on something, it means it’s the right thing to do. Besides, it’s all ripped up and there’s blood and whatever fucking else on that. It’s never gonna be wearable,” you argued.

Eddie wasn’t sure why he was fighting so hard for the Hellfire shirt. Maybe something about surviving in it. Maybe something about trying desperately to claw a little of the past back.

“Fine,” he agreed through gritted teeth.

It took a little work with dull scissors, but you got there. Whatever you were expecting Eddie’s injuries to be, it wasn’t that. You were too slow to stop the gasp that escaped from you; Eddie looked up frowning.

“I’m sorry, I just… What the fuck happened?”

Like the patch on his face, the ones scattered across his torso were bleeding through. You sat on the edge of the bath and turned the water off, the bathroom suddenly quiet. Eddie said nothing. You nodded, accepting the silence.

“How’s the pain?” Your voice was barely above a whisper. “‘Cause I think it’s gonna hurt like a bitch to get these off. They look kinda melted to you,”

“Thanks,”

“Sorry! Fuck. Sorry. I just…”

“It’s fine,” Eddie said. “It’s bad. I know it’s bad. It’s whatever… Can you just… Don’t look at me like that?”

You knew what he meant. Eddie hated pity. He hated when people pitied him for his dead mother and shitty father. For living in a one bedroom trailer with his uncle. For repeating high school. For all the things that made the average folk feel awkward. Eddie fucking despised pity.

You nodded. “Yeah. I mean… I don’t feel bad for you at all. Like, Dustin said you tried to be a hero or something? Do some classic Edward Munson Dumb Shit and end up like this, yeah?”

Eddie smiled. “Something like that,”

“Exactly. See? No pity here. Toughen up, kid.”

God, he loved you.

The first bandage – the one across Eddie’s cheek and jaw – came off surprisingly well. You held your expression steady as you worked, absorbing the excess blood and fluid with cotton balls.

The second bandage was covering a neck wound. Your stomach flipped, sick with the thought that it could have killed him. A little deeper and Eddie would have died.

The third wound was collarbone based and the bandage was a lot harder to move. Eddie’s jaw clenched impossibly tight and he was holding his breath.

You remembered when he took you to get your first tattoo. “It helps if you have something to distract you. Music or talking to someone, you know?” Eddie had said.

“Are these… bites?” You’d been almost too afraid to ask, but your brain couldn’t come up with any alternative conversation topics.

“Yeah,” Eddie replied weakly.

Some of the bites were smaller, but most weren’t. Eddie’s chest was more broken skin than not. His left pec was destroyed, and all down his sides were eaten into. Across his stomach bloomed another wound. Even his arms and hands had not escaped the assault.

“Dustin said the plan was to distract the… bats?”

“Demobats,”

“Demobats,” you repeated, the word feeling alien on your tongue. “What went wrong?”

For a couple of seconds, you thought Eddie was going to stay silent, not answering the question. It would have been more than fair. But, he started to speak in a shaky voice.

“We… did… it… Did what we were meant to do, you know? The demobats were away from Creel House. We were on our way out of there. There were… just so many of them. Too many to distract. I went to climb… climb the rope… but…”

Even with a lot of the story filled in by Dustin, you didn’t quite understand the picture Eddie was painting. You had to assume a lot; the rope must have led out of danger? Out of the upside down? Creel House was where Vecna was? You didn’t stop Eddie to ask clarifying questions.

“I just kept seeing Chrissy. In my head. Nobody deserves what happened to her, but she… She came to me for help and I… I kept seeing her and I kept thinking that this was our one shot at killing Vecna. And what if my part was the part that fucked the plan… What if I could actually do more? So, I didn’t climb the rope.”

Eddie thought for a moment, deep in reflection. Had it been worth it?

“I… I went back out there. Figured I could distract them, the bats, some more. Kill some. And I did. Not enough… There was…” Eddie sharply took a gulp of air in. “There were more than before. They were everywhere. I couldn’t see anything, then I… I don’t know.”

He did know. Even running on adrenaline, he could feel each bite. Eddie had locked onto the memory now. It was so vivid in his mind still.

“All the things from there, from the upside down, they’ve got these teeth. Like, hundreds of them. Their faces aren’t faces, they’re just big mouths and the, the lips, or whatever, they open up in every direction, and there are just rows and rows of fucking teeth. Like… a black hole of teeth,”

“Like a lamprey?”

After one fishing trip, Wayne had come home and told Eddie about the ‘vampire tube’ fish – the lamprey. Eddie was obsessed with them for a while after that, finding a book in the school library with a photo, then telling you about them on the phone. Your own public library had the same book, and you could see why a weird little dude like Eddie was so into them.

Eddie looked at you. “Shit… Yeah… Fuck… That but like, a bat…”

“There were dog ones before, right? Dustin said a few years ago there were dog ones,”

“Apparently… and then the human one.”

You tried to imagine a human figure with no face, just flaps of flesh opening to reveal endless teeth. The imagination is powerful, but even yours couldn’t really conjure a picture. Maybe your brain was just trying to protect you from the pure nightmare fuel that description could produce.

“Then they got you?” you asked.

“They got me. But, ah, as they did, they all just fucking dropped from the sky. And it was so quiet until Henderson showed up. I told the little shit to stay where it was safe. But he was there… Did my whole goodbye speech to him, you know? I could… I could feel the blood pooling in all the wrong places. My lungs were swimming in it. I was coughing it up. No way was I gonna live.”

Eddie’s face was as animated as it always was. You weren’t used to it animating terror and agony though. This wasn’t the kind of story Eddie normally told you. Your eyes had welled up with tears and you’d stopped working on removing his bandages.

Eddie’s gaze was fixed on a spot on the bathroom floor. He stared as he spoke. “The others were still setting fire to Vecna. Dustin tried to get there, but he’d messed his leg up pretty good. They found him halfway there, carried him back. Dragged me back. Got me to a hospital,”

“Jesus, Eddie. Why aren’t you still there? It’s been what, a night? Two if you count that night?”

He nodded. “I woke up the next day. They’d given me blood and stitched up the worst of the bites.”

Everyone had tried to keep Eddie in the hospital, but he was refusing a lot of medical care. He hated the accusatory stares and whispers. He couldn’t stand the noise.

There was no point in asking why he wouldn’t stay there. No point in suggesting he went back. Eddie had looked up and seen both those thoughts cross your face.

“I’m fine,” he lied. “Just needed a little blood,”

“Aren’t there like, long-term effects? What about the blood in your lungs? And, like, did you actually die? What if you have brain damage?”

“Not like I was a genius with a 4.0,”

“Eddie,”

“Y/N.” It was quick. Snappy. Your name in a warning tone.

The remainder of the bandages came off, and you mopped up the carnage as best you could. When you were done, Eddie stood, empowered by the painkillers enough to take his own pants off. He stepped into the bath and lowered himself in. It was all somehow both benignly clinical and breathtakingly intimate.

The water came up to his waist, lapping at the lowest of the wounds. You waited until the waves had settled before speaking again.

“I’m gonna wash your hair first,” you told him. He nodded, seeming smaller in the bath. Childlike helplessness.

You left the bathroom briefly to look for tools. There wasn’t a single brush or comb to be found. Returning with only the largest cup you could find, you settled next to the tub.

Lathering Eddie’s hair with the 2-in-1, you tilted his head backwards and rinsed with the help of the cup. As the water ran down his back, Eddie shivered. You repeated the process two more times, the conversation pausing entirely.

When his wild mane is clean, you raked your fingers through it bit by bit, gently pulling knots out. It’s a somewhat successful method, although you’d have to go for rounds two and three when his hair was dry.

“Close your eyes,” you instructed. Eddie complied. “Keep them closed.”

A washcloth was soaked in slick soap and you covered Eddie’s face in the goo. With great delicateness, you cleaned his hair, face, ears, and neck. The soap didn’t burn the bites like you’d both expected, but the coarse washcloth wasn’t exactly pleasant either.

As you descended Eddie’s body, dirt and muck washing down and turning the bath water a hazy brown, you cleaned the wounds. They started to bleed again, not heavily, but enough that by the time you were at his waist, you needed to pull the plug out and re-fill the bath with clean water.

Eddie was acquiescent. The drugs had well and truly kicked in, building on the mild buzz of the first you’d made him take. Even with the washcloth pain, the experience wasn’t as horrific as it could have been, he decided.

When he was finally clean, you sat on the ground next to the tub. The water had a pink hue from the blood, but he’d stopped bleeding.

“You look like you now,”

“Who’d I look like before?” Eddie replied.

“I don’t know. You from a different dimension. A really, really fucking bad one,”

“Guess I kind of am now.”

You said nothing to that. Maybe he was. Maybe you wouldn’t know this Eddie like you knew yours.

Eddie looked down at his chest, then his legs beneath the water. They ached, despite being unharmed by the demobats. He thought about Dustin and his leg. How he jumped through the gate with such disregard for himself, to try to stop Eddie. Save Eddie. Dustin fucking Henderson, man. Suddenly, a new thought-

“What you said about Dustin. Inappropriate or whatever. Did he say something?”

“He said a lot,” you replied.

“But, ah, what exactly was it that-”

A small laugh escaped you, and Eddie’s sentence stopped dead in its tracks. He looked at you.

 “You seem nervous,” you teased. “The kid know one too many secrets or something?” Eddie’s face was expressionless but you could see his mind working overtime to think of something to say. You put him out of his misery with, “He didn’t say anything. He asked something. Like, straight away. Before a ‘hello’ even,”

“Am I gonna have to give him the world’s worst wedgie?”

“I guess it depends on how embarrassed by the question you are.”

Eddie broke eye contact, looked back down at his body. The entire situation was radically out of his control. Might as well add more spice. “What’d he ask?”

“Kid rolls up. Toothy grin. Busted leg. Happy as fucking Larry. First thing out of his mouth – ‘Are you Eddie’s girlfriend?’”

Part Four: The Cabin in the Woods

The cabin in the woods held warmth better than you would have guessed. After letting the bathwater drain yet again, you left Eddie to sit in hot clean water for the third time, then started the fire in the corner of the living room.

“Whose cabin is this?” you called out.

The bathroom had no door, just a curtain to pull across the open frame. Eddie could hear you just fine.

“Hopper’s,”

“That’s… the Chief of Police, right? The one everyone thought was dead? But was in Russia or something?”

“Dustin really gave you the whole story, huh?”

“Kind of. Don’t know how or why he was there… But isn’t he meant to be dead? Nobody’s meant to know about him?”

It was the first time Eddie realised that you might now be in danger. Although not being privy to the truth about Hawkins wasn’t necessarily a guarantee of safety, being included in its secrets definitely bumped up the ‘likely to die a horrible death’ stats. At the very least, you’d be on someone’s watch list now.

“Yeah. He was gonna stay here, but too many people know about it.”

Made sense, you thought. “So, why are you here? The cops aren’t after you anymore. Don’t you want to be with your uncle? Or your friends?”

The small fire was burning bright and the flames licked around the chunk of wood. You stood up, satisfied with your work.

Eddie hadn’t answered, so you walked back to him.

“Think I should get out now,” he said when you appeared. “S’cold,”

“Yeah. Okay. Here.”

Like he had before, Eddie winced as he moved. He stood and helped you wrap a towel around his waist. You draped another over his head. With his fingers threaded through yours, you guided him out of the bath and back onto the couch.

“I’ll do the bandages before you get dressed,” you told him, going to retrieve what you needed.

Before you sat back down, you ruffled his hair in the towel, making sure it was dry enough not to drip everywhere. Taking parts of his hair in the towel and scrunching them, you worked like you’d done it all before.

Next, you coated cotton balls in antiseptic balm and dabbed at each of the wounds, and checked all the stitches. The bites had stopped freely bleeding, with only dots of red and some evidence of gooey serosanguinous drainage. After each was disinfected, you blew gently on the raw skin to cool it down. Goosebumps iced their way across Eddie’s body.

When the fresh bandages were applied, Eddie leaned back into the couch and closed his eyes.

“How do you feel?” you asked.

His immediate reaction was to be sarcastic. It was a defense mechanism, but Eddie reminded himself he didn’t need to defend against anything when he was with you. “Not… good… but, ah, a lot better than before,”

“I’ll take that… I’ll get some clean clothes.”

Eddie pulled on clean boxer shorts and sweatpants while you binned all the old bandages left in the bathroom. Once everything was clean, you returned to the couch. You helped him pull a t-shirt over his head, then sank down next to each other.

The soundscape consisted of the fire and the odd bird call coming from the woods outside. It was late, maybe even close to midnight. Not too far away, the rest of Hawkins was still assessing the damage and counting the dead. But there, in an off-the-grid cabin, the rest of Hawkins didn’t exist.

Eddie reached over and placed his hand palm-up on your leg. You took it and held it tight. All the emotion you’d swallowed since seeing him barely alive bubbled up your throat and out of your mouth in a small sob. Eddie rolled his head to look at you, expression sad.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

You choked out a laugh. “What are you sorry for?”

“I dunno. Making you worry.”

When you tried to let go of Eddie’s hand to clear your face of tears, he wouldn’t budge. You used your free hand, attempting to not let the soft crying turn into anything more.

“I was so worried.”

Eddie nodded. “Yeah… I’m…” As he searched for the words that felt right, his eyes stayed glued to your face. “I’m sorry about… not calling in a while. Not returning your calls,”

“S’okay. You’ve been busy with school and-”

“Nah. Well, yeah. Yeah… But, I…” Fuck it, Eddie thought. He still felt so close to death. He was scared it was something he’d never be able to shake. What did he possibly have to lose? “I got scared. About… you know… You. Like, how I feel about you. Just seemed easier to ignore it than have to… do anything about it… When I say it out loud, it sounds so fucking stupid but… Losing you ‘cause we lost touch would hurt less than if I lost you ‘cause I ruined it by… having a dumb crush or whatever.”

Dumb crush.

A portal between your world and another? Yeah, sure. A girl with superpowers? Yep. Demogorgons and secret armies and lifesaving songs and everything else that had been handed to you that day? Uh-huh, okay. Eddie having a crush on you? Liking you like you liked him? Well, that sounded impossible.

 Unless… it didn’t. Unless it made total sense. Unless it explained so much. Unless it was one small thing the world could give you and Eddie to help balance the scales.

With those big brown eyes, Eddie was finally able to look at you with all the love he had. Warmth spread across his body and he took one step towards peace.

“It…” You shook your head. “It wouldn’t have ruined anything,”

“No?”

“No… ‘Cause…” Poetic was the aim, but exhaustion had steeped your brain in stupid juice. “I’ve got a dumb crush on you too.”

Eddie smiled, soft and kind, only a hint of mischief. “Cool,”

“Cool,”

“So, how much time have we wasted? Being dumb?” he asked.

“Um… Years, probably,”

“Well, fuck.”

You laughed together and sat watching the fire for a long time.

Eddie told you about how he was afraid to be in Hawkins. He was afraid that Wayne’s mates would treat him like the uncle of a killer. Afraid his friends would be hurt, like Gareth had been. Afraid that it wasn’t really, truly over.

You listened, letting him speak and not undermining the feelings with logic or counterarguments. When he was done, you said you understood.

“Can you stay? In Hawkins, I mean. When do you have to go back?” Eddie asked.

“Never, if I don’t want to. Mom and dad want me out. And, it’s not like I’m working a dream job. I could stay… If you wanted me to. To help. Or not. It’s, like… Totally fine-”

“Yes. Stay.”

Another step towards peace.

Maybe, in an unfair and cruel world, where Chrissy Cunningham was dead and you and Eddie had lived miles apart and the drive to Hawkins was long and solitary pain was all Eddie thought he deserved, maybe this – this mutual love, was what you got to make up for it. It wasn’t enough. Of course, it wasn’t. Chrissy and Fred and Patrick deserved to be alive. Steve shouldn’t have had to feel phantom vines around his neck for the rest of his life. Dustin was owed a childhood. Eddie should never have been witch hunted. But, if it had to be like that, then yeah… Maybe you could be Eddie’s girlfriend.

After creating a nest of pillows and blankets in front of the fire, you and Eddie laid down and curled your bodies around each other. He kissed you on the temple, and you listened to his steady heartbeat. For a few perfect hours, everything else faded away while you slept soundly in an ex-cop’s secret little cabin in the woods.  

End Note: I hope you liked this little fix-it fic. Please, let me know what you think! Reblogs are especially appreciated.

All Eddie Taglist: @solomons-finest-rum @ruinedbythehobbit @munsonlives @sweetpeapod @depressooo-expressooo-blog @thorfemmes @hawkins-high @corrodedhawkins @grungegrrrl @lilzabob @mymoonisalways-in-scorpio @averagemisfit03 @ches-86 @ilovecupcakesandtea @onehotgreasymechanic @hazydespair @lacrymosa-24 @mel-the-fangirl

[thisisyourdriverspeaking]

It's the most iconic race in the world so it's deserved it's own post & playlist. I give you the all the drivers in the 2024 24 Hours of Le Mans racing tunes. Enjoy (even though this post is a little late). 😊

John Hartshorne (18th April 1957) - Malcolm Vaughan - The World Is Mine

Thomas Flohr (17th March 1960) - Bert Weedon - Big Beat Boogie

Claudio Schiavoni (14th November 1960) - Brenda Lee - I Want To Be Wanted

Satoshi Hoshino (7th April 1961) - Nat 'King' Cole - The World In My Arms

Johnny Laursen (16th February 1964) - Cliff Richard - Don't Talk To Him

George Kurtz (5th May 1965) - Pretty Things - Honey I Need

Hiroshi Koizumi (25th May 1969) - Marvin Gaye - I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Takeshi Kimura (22nd October 1970) - Tom Jones - I (Who Have Nothing)

Ben Keating (18th August 1971) - Gilbert O'Sullivan - We Will

John Falb (13th December 1971) - The Who - Let's See Action

Alexander Mattschull (2nd March 1972) - The Partridge Family - It's One Of Those Nights

Michael Wainwright (25th July 1973) - Stevie Wonder - You Are The Sunshine Of My Life

Rodrigo Sales (2nd November 1973) - Rod Stewart - Oh No Not My Baby

Ian James (22nd July 1974) - Main Ingredient - Just Don't Want To Be Lonely

Naveen Rao (21st May 1975) - Billy Swan - Don't Be Cruel

Giacomo Petrobelli (7th November 1975) - George Harrison - You

Hiroshi Hamaguchi (1st October 1976) - Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - Tears Of A Clown

Francois Perrodo (14th February 1977) - Fleetwood Mac - Go Your Own Way

Valentino Rossi (16th February 1979) - The Pretenders - Stop Your Sobbing

Sebastien Bourdais (28th February 1979) - Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Oliver's Army

Brendan Iribe (12th August 1979) - David Bowie - DJ

David Heinemeier Hansson (15th October 1979) - Secret Affair - Time For Action

Jenson Button (19th January 1980) - Rupert Holmes - Escape (The Pina Colada Song)

Scott Dixon (22nd July 1980) - Leo Sayer - More Than I Can Say

Ryan Hardwick (3rd October 1980) - Gladys Knight & The Pips - Taste Of Bitter Love

Frederic Makowiecki (22nd November 1980) - David Bowie - Fashion

Ahmad Al Harthy (31st August 1981) - Central Line - Walking Into Sunshine

Patrick Pilet (8th October 1981) - Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Souvenir

Andre Lotterer (19th November 1981) - The Four Tops - When She Was My Girl

Loic Duval (12th June 1982) - Danger Danger - Comin' Home

Jose Maria Lopez (26th April 1983) - Eurthymics - Love Is A Stranger

P.J Hyett (10th August 1983) - Shakin' Stevens - It's Late

Augusto Farfus (3rd September 1983) - Paul Young - Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)

Francois Heriau (25th October 1983) - Hot Streak - Body Work

Neel Jani (8th December 1983) - Robert Plant - In The Mood

Richard Lietz (17th December 1983) - Ann Breen - Pal Of My Cradle Days

Alessandro Pier Guidi (18th December 1983) - Black Lace - Superman

Oliver Jarvis (9th January 1984) - Lionel Richie - Running With The Night

James Cottingham (21st January 1984) - Pat Benatar - Love Is A Battlefield

Daniel Serra (24th February 1984) - Bourgie Bourgie - Breaking Point

Franck Perara (21st March 1984) - World Famous Supreme Team - Hey DJ

Nicolas Lapierre (2nd April 1984) - Rockwell - Somebody's Watching Me

Arnold Robin (7th October 1984) - Orange Juice - Lean Period

Matteo Cressoni (28th October 1984) - Tracey Ullman - Helpless

Nick Tandy (5th November 1984) - Paul McCartney - No More Lonely Nights

Robert Kubica (7th December 1984) - Meat Loaf - Nowhere Fast

Ben Hanley (22nd January 1985) - Bronski Beat - It Ain't Necessarily So

Filipe Albuquerque (13th June 1985) - Bruce Springsteen - Born In The USA

Salih Yoluc (22nd August 1985) - Maria Vidal - Body Rock

Renger Van Der Zande (16th February 1986) - The Damned - Eloise

Rahel Frey (23rd February 1986) - Madonna - Dress You Up

Maxime Martin (20th March 1986) - Dee C Lee - Come Hell Or Waters High

Paul Di Resta (16th April 1986) - Simple Minds - Sanctify Yourself

Romain Grosjean (17th April 1986) - Jim Diamond - Hi Ho Silver

Mathias Beche (28th June 1986) - Madonna - Live To Tell

Davide Rigon (26th August 1986) - Pam Hall - Dear Boopsie

Kamui Kobayashi (13th September 1986) - Modern Talking - Brother Louie

Rene Rast (26th October 1986) - Marti Webb & The Simon May Orchestra - Always There

Edoardo Mortara (12th January 1987) - Mick Karn - Buoy

Francesco Castellacci (4th April 1987) - Lionel Richie - Se La

Alex Malykhin (17th August 1987) - Total Contrast - Jody

Tom Van Rompuy (8th September 1987) - Marshall Hain - Dancin' In The City

Darren Leung (25th September 1987) - ABC - The Night You Murdered Love

Jean-Karl Vernay (31st October 1987) - Rick Astley - Whenever You Need Somebody

Nicky Catsburg (15th February 1988) - The Cure - Hot Hot Hot

Paul Lafarque (8th July 1988) - Natalie Cole - Everlasting

Daniel Mancinelli (23rd July 1988) - Maxi Priest - Wild World

Colin Braun (22nd September 1988) - The Beatmasters & PP Arnold - Burn It Up

Kevin Estre (28th October 1988) - Bobby McFerrin - Don't Worry By Happy

Sebastien Buemi (31st October 1988) - Robert Palmer - She Makes My Day

Miguel Molina (17th February 1989) - Big Country - Peace In Our Time

Sarah Bovy (15th May 1989) - Royal House ft Ian Star - A Better Way

Christopher Mies (24th May 1989) - Swing Out Sister - You On My Mind

James Calado (13th June 1989) - Robert Palmer - Change His Ways

Matt Bell (5th November 1989) - Erasure - Drama!

Marco Wittmann (24th November 1989) - D Mob Introducing Cathy Dennis - C'mon And Get My Love

Brendon Hartley (10th November 1989) - Phil Collins - Another Day In Paradise

Mirko Bortolotti (10th January 1990) - Inner City - Whatcha Gonna Do With My Lovin'

Andrea Caldarelli (14th February 1990) - The Beloved - Hello

Stephane Richelmi (17th March 1990) - David A Stewart ft Candy Dulfer - Lily Was Here

Ollie Millroy (21st April 1990) - Lloyd Cole - Don't Look Back

Jean-Eric Vergne (25th April 1990) - MC Duke - The Final Conflict

Earl Bamber (9th July 1990) - Luciano Pavarotti - Nessun Dorma

Michael Christensen (28th August 1990) - DNA ft Suzanne Vega - Tom's Diner

Marco Sorensen (6th September 1990) - Happy Mondays - Step On

Matthias Kaiser (22nd January 1991) - Alexander O'Neal - All True Man

Jack Hawksworth (28th February 1991) - Patsy Cline - I Fall To Pieces

Ryan Cullen (26th March 1991) - The Bee Gees - Secret Love

Ben Barker (23rd April 1991) - Inspiral Carpets - Caravan

Daniel Juncadella (7th May 1991) - Pet Shop Boys - Where The Streets Have No Name

Laurens Vanthoor (8th May 1991) - Vic Reeves & The Roman Numerals - Born Free

Jordan Taylor (10th May 1991) - K-Klass - Rhythm Is A Mystery

Will Stevens (28th June 1991) - Divinyls - I Touch Myself

Klaus Bachler (27th July 1991) - Amy Grant - Baby Baby

Robin Frijns (7th August 1991) - Voice Of The Beehive - Monsters And Angels

Jakub Smiechowski (11th October 1991) - Gloria Estefan - Live For Loving You

Paul-Loup Chatin (19th October 1991) - Oleta Adams - Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me

Harry Tincknell (29th October 1991) - Public Enemy - Can't Truss It

Nicolas Costa (14th November 1991) - Love And Money - Winter

Rene Binder (1st January 1992) - James - Sound

Nico Muller (25th February 1992) - Texas - Alone With You

Stoffel Vandoorne (26th March 1992) - The Charlatans - Weirdo

Zacharie Robichon (31st May 1992) - Michael Jackson - In The Closet

Norman Nato (8th July 1992) - KWS - Please Don't Go

Felipe Nasr (21st August 1992) - Luther Vandross & Janet Jackson - The Best Things In Life Are Free

Alex Lynn (17th September 1993) - Pet Shop Boys - Go West

Pipo Derani (12th October 1993) - Salt-N-Pepa - Shoop

Antonio Giovinazzi (14th December 1993) - Brian May - Last Horizon

Michelle Gatting (31st December 1993) - Belinda Carlisle - Lay Down Your Arms

Alex Riberas (27th January 1994) - Peabo Bryson & Regina Belle - A Whole New World

Ryo Hirakawa (7th March 1994) - Morrissey - The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get

Giorgio Roda (18th March 1994) - Urban Cookie Collective - Sail Away

Daniil Kvyat (26th April 1994) - Roxette - Sleeping In My Car

Mathieu Jaminet (24th October 1994) - Take That - Sure

Matthieu Vaxiviere (3rd December 1994) - Sophie B Hawkins - Don't Don't Tell Me No

Raffaele Marciello (17th December 1994) - PJ & Duncan - Eternal Love

Mikkel Jensen (31st December 1994) - Pearl Jam - Spin The Black Circle

Nyck De Vries (6th February 1995) - M People - Open Your Heart

Matt Campbell (17th February 1995) - MN8 - I've Got A Little Something For You

Alessio Rovera (22nd June 1995) - Pizzaman - Sex On The Streets

Charlie Eastwood (11th August 1995) - Oasis - Some Might Say

Jack Aitken (23rd September 1995) - Vanessa Williams - Colours Of The Wind

Dennis Olsen (14th April 1996) - Oasis - Supersonic

Antonio Fuoco (20th May 1996) - Kavana - Crazy Chance

Matteo Cairoli (1st June 1996) - Gloria Estefan - Reach

Kelvin Van Der Linde (20th June 1996) - Blur - Charmless Man

James Allen (4th July 1996) - Gina G - Ooh Aah.. Just A Little Bit

Larry Ten Voorde (2nd November 1996) - Los Del Rio - Macarena

Sean Gelael (1st November 1996) - Huff & Puff - Help Me Make It

Ben Barnicoat (20th December 1996) - Phil Collins - Dance Into The Light

Mikkel O.Pedersen (26th January 1997) - The Prodigy - Poison

Nicklas Nielsen (6th February 1997) - Kavana - I Can Make You Feel Good

Ben Tuck (3rd March 1997) - Space - Dark Clouds

Alex Palou (1st April 1997) - Spice Girls - Who Do You Think You Are

Louis Deletraz (22nd April 1997) - Michelle Gayle - Sensational

Ferdinand Habsburg (20th June 1997) - Sneaker Pimps - Six Underground

Laurents Horr (11th September 1997) - Refugee Allstars & Lauryn Hill - The Sweetest Thing

Frederik Schandorff (26th December 1997) - Course - Best Love

Dries Vanthoor (20th April 1998) - Ultra - Say You Do

Erwan Bastard (9th June 1998) - Solid Harmonie - I Want You To Want Me

Job Van Uitert (10th October 1998) - Ultra - The Right Time

Callum Ilott (11th November 1998) - Culture Club - I Just Wanna Be Loved

Mick Schumacher (22nd March 1999) - Men Of Vizion - Do You Feel Me? (Freak You)

Marino Sato (12th May 1999) - Melky Sedeck - Raw

Sheldon Van Der Linde (13th May 1999) - Busta Rhymes ft Janet Jackson - What's It Gonna Be?

Fabio Scherer (13th June 1999) - Bjork - All Is Full Of Love

Riccardo Pera (4th July 1999) - Salt Tank - Dimension

Julien Andlauer (5th July 1999) - Luscious Jackson - Ladyfingers

Phil Hanson (5th July 1999) - Tina Cousins - Forever

Ritomo Miyata (10th August 1999) - Lolly - Viva La Radio

Robert Shwartzman (16th September 1999) - Paul Johnson - Get Get Down

Bent Viscaal (18th September 1999) - Supergrass - Moving

Rui Andrade (23rd September 1999) - Lauryn Hill - Everything Is Everything

Gregoire Saucy (26th December 1999) - Holly Johnson - The Power Of Love

Scott Huffaker (28th December 1999) - Leann Rimes - Crazy

Felipe Drugovich (23rd May 2000) - Mel C & Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes - Never Be The Same Again

Timur Boguslavskiy (30th April 2000) - Andreas Johnson - Glorious

Yifei Ye (16th June 2000) - Peter Lazonby - Sacred Cycles

Sebastian Baud (6th July 2000) - Morgan - Flying High

Oliver Rasmussen (6th November 2000) - Texas - In Demand

Nicolas Varrone (6th November 2000) - Darude - Feel The Beat

Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer (19th November 2000) - Robbie Williams & Kylie Minogue - Kids

Clement Novalak (23rd December 2000) - Kandi - Don't Think I'm Not

Alex Quinn (29th December 2000) - Britney Spears - Stronger

Simon Mann (10th February 2001) - ATB ft York - The Fields Of Love

Roman De Angelis (15th February 2001) - Ash - Shining Light

Charles Milesi (4th March 2001) - Spooks - Things I've Seen

Joel Sturm (28th November 2001) - Dido - Hunter

Frederik Vesti (13th January 2002) - Westlife - Queen Of My Heart

Olli Caldwell (11th June 2002) - Sugababes - Freak Like Me

Bijoy Garg (15th July 2002) - The Prodigy - Baby's Got A Temper

Antonio Serravalle (18th September 2002) - Nore - Nothin'

Reshad De Gerus (1st July 2003) - Flaming Lips - Fight Test

Malthe Jakobsen (29th October 2003) - Sheryl Crow - The First Cut Is The Deepest

Carl Bennett (2nd September 2004) - Stonebridge ft Therese - Put Em High

Esteban Masson (18th September 2004) - Easyworld - How Did It Ever Come To This

Nico Pino (21st September 2004) - Kylie Minogue - Slow

Kyffin Simpson (9th October 2004) - The 411 - Dumb

Nolan Siegel (8th November 2004) - Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot

Lorenzo Fluxa (23rd November 2004) - Daniel Bedingfield - Nothing Hurts Like Love

Jonas Ried (18th December 2004) - Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten

Vladislav Lomko (27th December 2004) - Electric Six - Radio Gaga

Morris Schuring (20th February 2005) - Keane - Bedshaped

Maceo Capietto (12th January 2006) - James Blunt - Goodbye My Lover

Conrad Laursen (11th May 2006) - Beyonce ft Slim Thug - Check On It

And here is the link to the playlist 😊

[usafphantom2]

Thunderchiefs at Hill AFB (cupido)

hill.af.mil/News/Article-D…

@kadonkey via X

1970s: The F-105 and Reserve 508th Tactical Fighter Group at Hill AFB

May 21, 2020

HILL AIR FORCE BASE, Utah --

Editor's note: This feature is part of a Hill Air Force Base 80th anniversary series. These articles will feature the base’s historical innovations and achievements, and will highlight mission platforms that have been operated and supported throughout the decades.

During the 1970s, several Hill Air Force Base tenant organizations made various changes. Formerly assigned to the 452nd Tactical Airlift Wing, the Air Force Reserve 945th Military Airlift Group was reassigned to the 301st Tactical Fighter Wing on July 1, 1972. Resulting from this reassignment, the first of 18 newly assigned F-105 Thunderchief aircraft arrived at Hill AFB on September 24, 1972, for the 945th.

Shortly thereafter, on November 27, 1972, the last C-124 Globemaster assigned to the group departed Hill AFB. A few months later, the 945th inactivated. Concurrently, the AFRES constituted the 508th Tactical Fighter Group and activated the unit at Hill AFB. The new group received the F-105 aircraft which had briefly been assigned to the 945th. Three months later, AFRES inactivated the 508th on March 25, 1973, and in its place activated Detachment 508 of the 301 TFW in order to provide the wing’s organizational structure conformity with other units in the command. Subsequent requirements, however, necessitated the reactivation of the 508th Tactical Fighter Group on October 17, 1975, at which time Detachment 508, 301 TFW, inactivated.

On October 10, 1978, AFRES activated the 405th Combat Logistics Support Squadron at Hill AFB and assigned the unit to the 508 TFG. Prior to this, on October 1, 1977, the 508th lost three of its assigned squadrons: the 7th Supply Squadron, Mobile; the 7th Maintenance Squadron, Mobile; and the 5th Augmentation Squadron, Wendover Auxiliary Field.

The AFRES inactivated the 508th Tactical Fighter Group at Hill AFB on October 1, 1982, concurrently activating the 419th Tactical Fighter Wing. Despite the fact that the 419th Fighter Wing’s 466th Tactical Fighter Squadron continued to fly the F-105 until March 1984, the 508 TFG was the last unit assigned the F-105. In June 1983, the 419th TFW, assigned the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, began retiring the F-105s it inherited from the 508th TFG upon the unit’s inactivation.

Shortly before beginning this process, the 466th TFS flew a 24-ship “diamonds on diamonds” formation with the F-105 as a salute to the aircraft’s many contributions. The F-105 flew and fought in the skies of Southeast Asia during the conflict in Vietnam. On February 25, 1984, F-105 combat veterans reunited at Hill AFB and conducted the final F-105 missing man formation.

During this ceremony they dedicated aircraft 62-4347, the F-105 with the most air time, as a monument to those who served with F-105s and especially those who gave their lives while doing so. The last F-105 (aircraft 62-8287, an F model) departed Hill AFB on March 10, 1984, for Chanute AFB, Illinois, where it was put on display.

[strawberry-smog]

Did Ford go through the portal in 1984?

Ok, so. If you’re in the Gravity Falls Timeline fandom, you know that, for an event that was strongly implied to have happened in 1982, there’s a surprising amount of evidence that Ford’s little portal accident happened in 1983, and that, even more surprisingly, one of the stronger pieces of evidence for this is the release date of Eurythmics’ single Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This). The song was released in January 1983 and was their first commercial success, just barely squeaking in under the wire to make Ford’s statement in the blacklight Journal 3 that he wants to hear the band’s “latest chart topper” make sense. Except… it still doesn’t?

While Sweet Dreams was first released in January 1983, this wasn’t a worldwide simultaneous release. Eurythmics was an extremely obscure British band, and the song didn’t come to America until May 1983 and didn’t peak at number one until September, both the wrong time in the year for the lake to be frozen. To be fair, the song hit number two in the UK in March and was played on Top of the Pops in February, so if you assume Ford is a British synthpop chart-watching superfan this still checks out, but we do have to consider that 1) Ford was being tormented by a demon 24/7 after McGucket’s portal incident, and was probably not in great shape to be intercepting UK TV signals and buying imported 8 tracks, and 2) Ford is a fake Eurythmics fan who always puts a “The” in front of their name even though the band is just “Eurythmics”.

The test happening in 1984 also helps make sense of a minor bit of show-journal timeline snarl, where McGucket in his memory gun tapes says that he’s been working with Ford “for the past year”. While this is just kind of obviously a retcon since he also calls Ford a “visiting researcher” despite him having lived in town way longer than McGucket, if you do try to incorporate the “year” thing into the timeline you hit a bit of a snag: McGucket arrived in July, and if this video depicts the first ever time he made the memory gun that would put it at most two months after his arrival, as the Gremloblin incident happened during the summer-fall fair season; even if you take it to be after he quit the project, this is still only a six-month timespan.

To have at least a year working on the portal, he would have to arrive in summer 1982, make the video in summer 1983, and then get his head stuck in the portal in winter 1984, which just so happens to also make sense of the Sweet Dreams thing, and from what I can tell doesn’t really conflict with anything else? The 29-years-and-several months timespan of Ford’s disappearance still makes sense to round up as thirty years, and while it makes McGucket’s assertion that he can’t remember anything prior to 1982 kind of weird, it is also kind of weird with the 1983 portal date, and there’s simply no way the portal incident could happen in 1982.

Here’s a bullet point list of the 1983 timeline vs. this 1984 timeline

1983 Portal Incident

1982

McGucket arrives on July 29th

He and Ford begin working on plans for the portal and go on their expedition to Crash Site Omega

The Gremloblin incident happens in August or September

McGucket creates his memory gun and begins recruiting for the Blind Eye shortly after, and possibly makes his first video recounting his experiments

The bunker is built and the Shifty incident happens, also still in August or September based on it being hot

Ford makes his deal to hand his body over to Bill sometime in the fall

Ford and McGucket defeat the Krampus on December 5th (Krampusnacht)

1983

The portal test happens on January 18th

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) comes out in the UK on January 23rd

Sweet Dreams reaches number 2 on the UK charts in February

Some unknown period of many weeks pass and Stan arrives in a snowstorm to push Ford into the portal

1984 Portal Incident

1982

McGucket arrives on July 29th

He and Ford begin working on plans for the portal and go on their expedition to Crash Site Omega

1983

Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) comes out in the UK on January 23rd

Sweet Dreams reaches number 2 on the UK charts in February

Sweet Dreams comes out in America in May The Gremloblin incident happens in the summer or early fall

McGucket creates his memory gun and begins recruiting for the Blind Eye shortly after, and makes his first video recounting his experiments

The bunker is built and the Shifty incident happens, also still in summer or early fall based on it being hot

Sweet Dreams reaches number one on the US charts in September

Ford makes his deal to hand his body over to Bill sometime in the fall

Ford and McGucket defeat the Krampus on December 5th (Krampusnacht)

1984

The portal test happens on January 18th

Some unknown period of many weeks pass and Stan arrives in a snowstorm to push Ford into the portal