BASKET CASE | mike wheeler

timeline

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author's note

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so anyone who has read the stranger things' comic series Six will notice that i've altered quite a bit of the plotline to suit caleb's backstory, and i just wanted to clear a few things up since his age is also kind of confusing.

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caleb's age

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first of all - his birthday, the fake one that the party gave him, is said to be in august - but he and el were actually born around early june (this used to be february but i changed it because they actually told us what month el was born in lmao) and he's actually a tad older than the birthday the party gave him suggests,

so as of right now in s2, caleb is actually nearing fourteen, but since his fake birthday is in august, he's "only recently turned thirteen".

basically this means that if you go off the birthday the party gave him, which even they don't because it's too confusing and they only use that date to celebrate because it was the date of their first sleepover, he'll only be thirteen in s3, but he's of course actually fourteen by the time the season takes place in july 1985.

i would go back and change the date given on the dogtags in 'astronaut' to make it less confusing - lucas did go through the files from hopper to get their names, so it would make sense if he saw the birth date too - but i feel like the party giving caleb his own birthday because he didn't have one is too cute to edit out and that's literally the only reason i'm keeping it in lmao

just save yourself the migraine and ignore the birthday the party gave him altogether

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and now, a timeline of events leading up to november 1983 :

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early 1971 - jane and jacob ives are born to terry ives and jane is taken by brenner, while jacob remains because brenner is unaware that terry is expecting twins and had taken off with jane before jacob could be born

three years later, 1974 - terry breaks into the lab with a toddler jacob and tries to rescue jane, but is caught by the guards in the lab and dragged away while jacob is taken by one of the nurses

1974 to 1976 - young jacob begins training with brenner and displays similiar abilities to his sister but only when prompted by powerful emotions, while being seperated from the others just as his sister had been due to brenner's expectations for the ives twins.

he is steered towards physical combat training when his mental abilities prove inefficient, but this quickly changes the first time he kills a soldier with his mind after hearing one of the guards' saying cruel things about the nurse with the funny accent that had been teaching him to read.

early 1977 - a six-year old jacob is branded with the number 012, and begins his mental ability training

late 1977 - twelve begins to exhibit powerful telepathic abilities and later on starts to converse with another subject through the vents in his room, eventually meeting the rest of the subjects (led by six) who begin to plot an escape