#and eleven is like 'you're treating the symptoms and not the cause in order to truly fix this we must kill vecna'

[xenon-demon]

also. tell me more about your Kas!Eddie please 🙏

ohhhhh Lui gravity is the AU that has just. grabbed me in its jaws and will not let go. I think about it CONSTANTLY and I don't think that will stop anytime soon. I've got a few asks about this one though so I'll START with talking about What's Going On In Hawkins circa the start of the fic. If you would like to know more about The Boy, Kas!Steve, then may I direct your attention to this post :D

So Eddie and Steve swap places right before the final fight, because Steve is injured at that point and Eddie isn't (and they figure staying at Eddie's trailer will be less dangerous that going to the Creel House). Everything else from that point proceeds as in canon; the bats get in, Steve dies, Max dies temporarily and the four gates connect and drive a massive rift through Hawkins.

From there, Hawkins basically descends into a semi-apocalyptic nightmare. The rift from the end of season 4 has caused major structural damage all over town, many buildings have been destroyed and lots of people have either evacuated or had to move into a local motel that's been converted into emergency housing for the people of Hawkins (that's where the Munsons are now staying). On top of that, the rift has basically destroyed the structural integrity between the Upside Down and our world; while the rift itself is not really a functional gate, there are a bunch of smaller gates randomly opening up around town now. More and more of them show up as time goes on. Some are small (think like the tree Nancy goes through in S1), some are much bigger (think bigger than Eddie's trailer roof gate), and most of them tend to fluctuate a bit in size/fade in and out of existence. This means that some creatures from the Upside Down are starting to bleed through these gates and end up in Hawkins looking for food.

The government, realizing everything went to shit the moment the rift opened up, rolls into Hawkins about 3-4 days after the "earthquake" saying they're here to "help with the relief efforts". (For those keeping score at home, yes this is after Team Russia & Team Cali have arrived back in Hawkins.) The official government cover story is along the lines of "hey, remember when HNL got shut down a few years back after that tragic chemical leak incident? Well, we've just discovered that a Rogue Individual (Brenner) was secretly dumping toxic chemicals and experimental materials into the local wilderness/burying them underground instead of disposing of them properly. This is the cause of the geological weirdness and mutated wildlife that some people are reporting. Everyone should leave Hawkins immediately if they can, and comply with any and all government orders if they can't". Not everyone believes this, of course, but the truth is so much more insane that most of town is at least willing to go along with it - and that's not counting the people who just up and leave because Hawkins is so super duper cursed at this point.

The main things the government is doing are:

regular patrols around the border of town and known gate hotspots, to catch and kill any UD creatures before they're spotted by civilians

nighttime curfew; you shouldn't be out after sundown unless you are going Directly from wherever you were during the day (i.e. your job) back to your home. you're not gonna get ARRESTED but the military will absolutely Escort You back to your house lmao

urging citizens to stay the fuck away from any weird sightings and report them to the armed forces as soon as possible, so the military can handle it

and yeah, they kind of are helping with the relief efforts in that they're making sure food and other important supplies are still getting into hawkins and making sure the recently-homeless have somewhere to stay, but they're doing the bare minimum really asfjknjvkdan

Essentially, as of the start of the fic (approx. a month after the rift opens up/the end of S4) the situation is this: Eleven and the Party know that in order to fix this, they have to defeat Vecna first and THEN close up any existing gates/the rift. (They also have a strong hunch that the Upside Down is Like That due to Vecna's influence.) The government officials in charge of the Hawkins occupation Do Not Believe That Is The Solution, and instead spend a lot of time wasting Eleven's time and energy by forcing her to close up gates as they appear. Between that and the fact the Party can't just storm into the Upside Down to get Vecna without a solid plan and probably armed back up, they're all feeling kind of hopeless about how to actually fix this. Especially since tensions are rising in Hawkins by the day, and the gate/monster sightings are only getting more and more frequent...

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