#Anyway. Through all the episode I was screaming

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Animated Series ending tier list

Okay this is based on a discussion with @j4gm, kim and mifil the other day

These are all cartoons with the exception of Homestuck. I'll admit I don't get invested in a lot of TV shows, even animated shows, so this is limited to stuff I like. Maybe i forgot something but if i did it's probably not worth talking about.

Here's the list if you're interested in building your own.

So I'll go through each item one by one and explain. Yes, I did arrange them based on better (left) and worse (right) for each tier. I'll start from top to bottom so I have the most energy for the better show endings.

I'm rating them both in how they respect the stories of their show, and how entertaining/cohesive they are as a piece of media. To be honest, the former matters to me more than the latter, but some of the shows at the top of this list aren't even ones I particularly like, because their endings were just that well written.

Astonishing

Owl House. This show got better and better with each episode. I don't know, I was blown away by how bad it was at the start and how great it was at the end. And of every item on this list, this one's ending episode had the best pacing. There was lots of room to breathe, lots of reminders of the connections between various characters, and the villain was taken care of in a satisfying way. And we got a beautiful epilogue. The only reason Owl House is in the same tier as She-ra and Gravity Falls, instead of being its own category, is because I felt it had some shortcomings, particularly s3e2 focused on a bunch of characters nobody has ever had any reason to care for, and a lot of the cast don't reach the potential they could do because they lack focus, so I don't have as much emotional attachment to it as a lot of other shows listed here. Anyway here's my favourite moment:

2. She-Ra and the Princess of Power. This is my favourite show on this list because I think it's the most cohesive of the lot. Even though it has a rough start, and often follows cartoon logic, from the very beginning of She-ra to the end it focuses strongly on the same themes. The cycle of abuse and pain and that feeling you will need to earn love, you need to earn the right to exist. It does so with a wide cast of characters, but it's also very good at trimming down to a smaller cast when it needs more focus. There are a lot of good decisions to make sure it worked in the small runtime it had. The ending of she-ra is basically its entire final season. It's one long arc. It doesn't have any major weak spots like The Owl House's final season did, and it has more room to breathe, with 13 incredible episode of about 20 minutes each, more than twice the length. And it delivers on every single character. Every member of the cast gets a moment to shine across the season, yet it isn't so distracted as to pull attention away from Catra and Adora. What makes She-ra's ending a bit weaker than Owl House's is the pacing of the final episode. Heart part 1 and 2, while great, is absolutely rammed, and one of the weaker episodes of that season because of it. You don't get enough room to breathe, you don't get to soak in the characters' emotions quite as much as in the episode prior, Failsafe. But I would count Failsafe as part of the ending. So while season 5's finale isn't even the best finale of She-ra (s3 and s4 were harder hitting), the final season as a whole is incredibly strong. And it's a very entertaining piece of media too! Ugh. I love it.

Here's this powerful scene of Catra whispering and yet screaming to Adora to stay with her, even in the end.

3. Gravity Falls.

To be honest I'm not much of a Gravity Falls fan, so I don't have as much to say as I do about the other two shows, but this ending is highly regarded across the cartoon community. It works perfectly within the smaller scope of the show, bringing a wide, crazy calamity for the characters to work with.

My problem with Gravity falls is Mabel. Not that she's a bad character, but that they don't spend enough time making her a good one. And the ending reflects that - it shows her doing something very major, overturning the world, and that's interesting, but it keeps presenting Mabel's problems as rather shallow instead of focusing on her psychology and why she's making these mistakes. Meanwhile it spends a lot of time on Dipper and explaining and justifying his teenage boy mentality and it drived me crazy how much more of a main character Dipper is than Mabel. Because it's Mabel I relate more to. She's more like I was when I was 12. It's a teen boy's show for teen boys, so I don't like it as much as Owl House or Amphibia. Other than that the ending is a good time and I love the themes of family, I love that Dipper has such low self worth and is grappling with the idea of what manliness even is, facing misguided pressure from other relatives like Stan and Ford. And I love the relationship between Stan and Ford, the mistakes they made, and how Stan ultimately takes responsibility for being an obstructive little shit by removing his memory, taking Bill with him!

Yeah, perhaps this show's ending could've been further strengthened by Stan having his memory lost forever, or having a harder time regaining it. But it makes sense in the stakes of Gravity Falls, where the world resets after every episode even if there was a zombie invasion. I don't see them having Stan forget his great nephew/niece as the ending of the show.

And it has a nice scene with the characters driving off in the bus... Heartbreaking. I love that Stan and Ford go adventuring together afterwards. And I love the theme song.

Remaining rankings below - I think these three should be celebrated most. It's gonna be a shorter summary from here.

Genuinely Good

These are endings that blow you away, but do have a couple nooks and crannies stopping them from reaching the top tier. Another person's list might put them at the top.

Adventure Time Distant Lands: See what's crazy about Distant Lands is that anyone one of these episodes might be the best in the series if it was a different show, but Adventure Time is such a good show that the way Distant Lands is different stands out to me. Like, Together Again, you might think I'm crazy for not putting it above Owl House, but while it's a fantastic episode, really emotional, it's not even my favourite Distand Lands episode. That would be Obsidian which I felt was a more honest resolution to the characters of the show itself, showing the limitless future ahead of the cast instead of what TA did which was demonstrate that Finn really didn't go much further after the end of the show. I felt TA was very limiting in that sense, it contradicted the ending to Adventure Time, which had the strength of "the adventure never ends". Which means that growth never ends. Finn is supposed to be an ever changing character, but in Together Again, he's stagnant.

Other than that, it's absolutely top tier. But not good enough for me to call it the best of the best. Even if I think Finn's character writing was a downgrade, or harmed the main show, I think where DL and TA did better than Come Along With Me is it was actually coherent and had strong themes rather than being a mishmash of random parts of Adventure Time that they wanted to shove in before it was over. It was a better tv finale, one of the best and most emotional ever made, but it's hard to call it a better Adventure Time finale, because AT's legacy hinders on so much more. 2. OK KO: Let's be Heroes: This is a show that went under the radar. It was coming out at the same time as Steven Universe, which was far more popular. So I'll explain it to you: OK KO has two endings. KO has grappled with his alternate persona, TKO, for the entire show. In the first ending, TKO takes over, and starts fighting everyone in a giant tournament. He literally kills all the cast, while KO is struggling to regain control. KO's epiphany is that TKO is a part of himself he buried long ago. KO has always tried to be the sweetest kid possible, so all his rage and fire, all his strength, was neglected and buried. That became TKO. It's similar to the ending of Celeste. They fuse together, but KO is crying because he killed all his friends. So he makes a wish to the God of the Universe to give everyone a happy ending. Then you get a really nice ending montage of all the characters from OK KO having the time of their life. One interesting touch was Venomous, KO's bastard father, had very little to do with KO in this timeline. KO clearly wanted nothing to do with him. But Venomous is shown raising his adoptive daughter Fink and doing a fantastic job. The final episode of OK KO has KO seemingly stuck in time acceleration. Time is flying by, his friends are achieving their goals, leaving the town, way before he can begin to process what he's even doing here. Everything is going faster and faster and it's like he's jumping forward! He doesn't know what's going on!!! But when he explains his plight, he's told... This is normal. This is a normal part of growing up. What seems like time acceleration is just time passing by. Then the rest of the episode show KO going through his life in the same manner. A big gag of the show is KO is age 6-11. That's his age. It's the same as the target audience for OKKO. But you see him grow up. His twelth to fifteenth birthday... 18th to 24th birthday... 25th to 35th birthday... At the end, he's in charge of the Bodega, a full adult looking after runts just like Mr Gar did. I dunno, I felt this was a very meaningful way to end the show. Even if it's not the most emotionally heavy hitting series, even if it's way too short, it did something that stays in my mind to this day. Time goes by in such a flash that you don't notice it was there to begin with, so appreciate the good things life throws at you.

3. The Legend of Korra: The show Korra wasn't particularly great, if I was rating the media as a whole it would probably be at the very bottom of this list. Yes below Star and Homestuck and Kipo. It's not remarkable in the slightest and constantly fumbles.

However I was at the edge of my seat during the series finale in Season 4. I was excited by the conflict between Korra and Kuvira. I loved the metalbending battles. I loved Korra's actualisation, how Kuvira is a very good rival, how their whole conflict plays out with Korra demonstrating such an INSURMOUNTABLE LEVEL OF STRENGTH both in power and character to save Kuvira from her own mistake.

I love how Korra decides to take a break and leave with Asami into the spirit world through the portal she just opened. It was a nice relationship in a show that has so heavily fumbled its prior character dynamics.

And you can't forget how it felt watching this the first time. Afterwards, Bryke made a post on tumblr saying "Korrasami is Canon". You have to remember, this was long before Bubbline was anything more than subtext in two episodes. This was before Steven Universe's "Stronger than You". This was the first time two girls were confirmed to be in a relationship in a kid's cartoon in America. I was so happy. You have to understand Korrasami did a lot of good things and made a lot of the queer representation in these other items possible.

Did the job

These are endings that were OK. They were satisfying but they weren't anything special. They weren't the best episodes or seasons of the series they're from.

Avatar: The last Airbender: I will be honest this show is in a similar realm to She-ra wherein its whole final season is one big buildup to a couple of fast-pased episodes. And honestly its final episode might be better than She-ra's in a pacing sense? But... The simple part is I don't like Avatar as much. I didn't feel particularly strongly about most of these characters. It's a very competent tv finale, with strong scenes - the Agni Kai, and Katara's capture of Azula, are particular strong points. But it's quite long and there are a lot of scenes I don't feel much about, like Aang vs Ozai. Back in the day lots of people were unhappy Aang spared Ozai, and I get that it's not in character for him to just kill him, but it was the original "deus ex machina" for Aang to find a way to get out of it and get what he wanted. It isn't particularly interesting. And then Aang x Katara... I don't care. So yeah ATLA does the job. It's a great final season but I don't care for the finale itself and the characters. while great for the time - by far the EARLIEST show to release on this list - are more childish and cartoony than most. They don't have depth required to compete with more modern cartoons. You've only got maybe two outstanding characters in a tight story vs She-ra's one dozen in a looser story, and honestly I value character more than cohesion because that's what you remember. That's what makes you feel things. Anyone can make a story where things happen but what makes you care? Being a bit harsh here because a lot of people call this the greatest show of all time blah de blah and throw away everything all the other shows do better. But the ATLA finale isn't even in the top ten most interesting episodes of the series. This part went hard though (couldn't find a video of it alone):

Azula starts the scene dominating Katara, and then Katara turns the tables and restrains her using the very ice which fire is supposed to melt, which is mentally destroying for Azula. All she can do is scream and breathe fire when she is restrained, unable to let out all her rage and pain. And Katara spares a moment to witness this, looking troubled, before she runs off to Zuko, attempting to save his life.

2. Adventure Time original ending: Why is my favourite show of all time listed so far down? Why? Well it's because while that AT finale is emotional, hits a lot of themes, it's... a fucking mess. The first part is a war which has only been relevant for two episodes, the second part is a dream sequence which destroy any tension you might've had, and the rest is an unrelated battle against GOLB because we needed a real final boss.

It's a really bad tv finale. And it even does harm to my favourite character in the show, Princess Bubblegum, by making her seem irrational. She's someone who has had the entire series for us to get to know her, to see her biggest flaws and see her struggle to overcome them. So for her to fall back on them yet again, nearly fuck everyone over, with such little buildup and justification and literally throw a child tantrum when Finn interrupts it, it's an injustice to her. She deserved better than everyone thinking she's a fascist forever. The AT crew should have respected their own work on that character better instead of leaving her off like that.

But... even despite these issues, despite being so incoherent? It's a great Adventure Time ending. It makes perfect sense. Of COURSE it's anticlimactic! Of COURSE there's a ten minute dream sequence of crazy shit happening! Of course it's so sudden, things happen so quickly without much time spent to reflect on them! It's Adventure Time! This is what we're HERE for! And the emotional heart of the episode, it isn't really in the Great Gum War or the battle against Golb. It's in Shermie and Beth, and Future Ooo. The fact that the world will end again, but even then.. it's fine. Everything changes. Everything grows. Nothing can stay as it is forever, but letting it go might allow something new and beautiful to take its place.

It's in Jake trying to protect his home, freaking out, and BMO coming in... instead of being looked after, BMO decides to reassure jake, even in certain doom.

It's in Time Adventure. We may not be able to go home, turn back time, relive the past and return to how things were, but... you and I will always be back then.

3. Scavenger's Reign: I felt this show started stronger than it ended. The ending wasn't offensive but it wasn't good either. Honestly I don't have shit to say about the ending, other than that Barry is an annoying stereotype of an autistic character with no agency of his own and it breaks my heart. I liked how relentlessly bad Kris was and I liked Azi struggling to save the day. I liked how her character evolved from being straightfoward and pushing down Levi's curious, kind traits, to embracing those very things in her memory.... while maintaining the strength in adversity needed to challenge someone like Kris. The baby alien thing sure was there. I dunno, the earlier eps with those two hit harder than the ending. The worst part is the sequel bait. We are not getting a sequel. Why is there sequel bait? Seems like the crew were a bit too optimistic for a team of cartoonists working for HBO Max.

But the show as a whole is incredible and has left a strong impression. So, an inoffensive ending is completely fine. I like how everyone is still stranded because of Kris, who meanwhile is dehydrating to death in space because of the organic Levi invasion, and all the people they left behind are chilling in the alien wonderland, learning how to live comfortably.

4. Fionna and Cake: We're now moving into the endings I dislike for one reason or another. I liked Fionna and Cake's themes with Simon and Betty, how it showed a bit more from Betty's side, how obsessive she was with him and he didn't even know.

This does have a weakness though. It removes agency from Betty. It was her choice, in the finale, to sacrifice herself to become GOLB. She was chasing Simon over and over and over again, SHE was the obsessive mad scientist, and she finally achieved her goal at great cost even though could've given up at any time. It was a tragedy. But here it kinda shifts the blame on Simon, even though he was a victim of Betty's obsession. I'm not accusing it of victim blaming, more that I really liked that it was Betty making her own terrible mistakes. It added a lot of character and conviction to her. I don't think Fionna and Cake undermines this much. Kim was a lot more bothered. Besides the Simon plot, the rest is.. ok. It was very predictable Fionna would want to protect the boring, happy world she came from. It fits and it has heart. But it's not remarkable. The ending montage is... weird. Why is Jay and Little Destiny here? Why is Baby Finn here? What about their worlds? Won't they be missed? Did Farmworld Finn fucking die? And the big problem with Fionna and Cake is.. it's such a meanspirited show, even compared with Adventure Time. It relies on you finding tragic shit really funny, like BMO having a horrible gory deeath in jerry. When Fionna and Cake has desensitized me this much, it's hard to feel emotionally invested in this world anymore. It made mistakes by showing too many alternate universes and undermining the world of Adventure Time itself, and I have issues with how Marceline was completely absent from the series - AGAIN - despite allegedly being so important to Simon. It's an outright BAD Adventure Time ending!!! I do love the presentation of Casper and Nova, how it was revealed it wasn't Simon Petrikov but the little Fionna and Cake fan who was able to write the story that finally got through to him and made him realise he needed to stop holding betty back.

"You were a good experience, Simon. Goodbye."

Mistakes were Made

These are the endings that fumbled, disappointed people. They still have value in them but theyre largely disliked by the fanbases involved. I'll explain a bit of why.

1, Arcane: This one just ended last night and is the reason I'm making this post.

I explained a bit here and here, but the issue is: Arcane's a much better show than it has any right to be. It's a league of legends cartoon. But season 1 is so heavy hitting, a tight ship from start to end focusing on the dramas of Vi, Jinx, and the people around them. The main weakness of season 1 was Jayce, Viktor, and Mel. It would distract from the main story in order to focus on them, but wouldn't spend enough time making them compelling characters. Season 2 has this issue tenfold where it seems the scope of the season was so big that it had very limited time to have those amazing scenes from season 1. And there certainly some heavy hitters, like Ekko save-scumming his conversation with Jinx to find a way to stop her killing herself, or Caitlyn and Mel's battle with Ambessa, or Jayce and Viktor yetting themselves into arcane oblivion, but... the finale itself seems very disconnected from the rest of the series, having a generic big bad in Possessed Chaos God Viktor. It lacks any of the intrigue of the Piltover vs Zaun conflict that was so important from s1e1 all the way to s2e4, after which it was promptly discarded in favour of other distractions. And as a result, Jinx and Vi are left as side characters in the ending of their own series, with a lot of their internal struggles left behind. Instead of the tragedy of season 1's ending, we are left thinking of the tragedy of how much better the ending could've been if they had just one more season to give these characters justice.

The strongest episode of the season is probably episode 6. If you know, you know.

2. Ducktales: So if you were a casual viewer of Ducktales you probably had no issues with this one. It's a competent TV finale where stuff happens and all the characters get involved and there are emotional themes.

What's weird about this one, and why it's so far down, is because of Webby's role. Webby is a misfit because she's not a member of the Scrooge family. She's a wannabe. She wants to be part of them, part of the siblings, and she has more in common with Scrooge and Della's brilliance than the other three, but she will never have that blood relationship. Her own parents are dead too, so she has feelings about watching the triplets reunite with their mother.

But in season 3... Ot's like the Ducktales writers were told they only had one episode left to work with and just made something up, and what they decided to do was take the "found family" trope and say "actually it was real family the whole time because Webby was Scrooge's secret clone daughter".

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The show did such a good job before this point showing Webby's development as she gets loved and accepted into the family. But for her to have always secretly had that blood relationship undercuts it fully.

It also undercuts her relationship to her grandmother, who tries to move out of the picture as soon as the truth comes out. The show does have Webby embracing her gran to show theyre still family. But we already had this story told in a better way with Webby and Scrooge and the triplets.

The fact the finale has nothing to do with the rest of the season is also why it's so far down. The season 2 finale was pretty spectacular by comparison and had compelling scenes like Della freaking out over protecting her kids and "running to the moon" with them, recycling her trauma (yes a ducktales character has trauma).

If you're not bothered by it, it's an inoffensive, fun finale. But more obsessive Ducktales fans and Webby fans were quite upset, myself included.

3. Kipo and the age of Wonderbeasts

I can't remember much about how this show ended. Honestly that's part of the problem. The first season was far more intrigueing than anything that followed and the whole thing came out across 2020 and it was a forgettable experience despite Karen Fukuhara voicing the energetic Kipo.

What I do remember is being pissed off about some things. Like how a lot of the talking animals were turned into non-talking animals and that was how things ended for them, and no vaccine or anything was made. It pissed me off somehow? Please kipo fans tell me your feelings on this.

I also disliked the final villain. She's a lot like Kris from Scavenger's Reign but even more generic and disappointing.

I dunno, to me the finale represents the wasted potential of this show. How it takes place in a world that rivals Adventure Time's, but Netflix did away with it so quickly, releasing three entire seasons in one year and leaving it with a generic end.

The peak into everyone's futures is nice, but it's not intrigueing like with The Owl House or Adventure Time.

4. Steven Universe: What a hot mess of an ending that threw out so much potential for the wider Steven Universe world. The motivations of the main villains were narrowed down to "we have emotional problems". Steven Universe has a consistent issue where it has emotional scenes at the expense of characters and story.

But I rate this more highly than the SU Future ending, despite that one having perhaps more cohesive writing, because I felt that the SU end had some incredible scenes that carried the spirit of the show while SU Future constantly undermined the original series without providing enough value of its own.

In particular, the scene James Baxter animated of Steven and Steven. This was mind-blowing, it was the climax to the most important part of the story, the truth of Steven's identity and whether he was his own person.

In retrospect that scene brings more value to me than all the bad parts of SU... but SU had so many amazing characters. It's a tragedy that Steven was the only one of them that the show still loved by the end.

Hardest line:

She's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!!!!

5. Amphibia: Season 3 was plagued by being worse than season 2. The opening episodes on Earth were kinda bad, just "Amphibia season 1 episodes but in a far more boring setting". I hated anything involving the secret agents.

The fact Kipo, Scavenger's Reign, and Amphibia all have corpo villains at the end, and the fact I didn't like any of those endings, shows to me that it's not a particularly great thing to add to a fantasy story.

The first sad part is "the magic is destroyed". A popular theme in Disney shows. Well, what happens here is Sasha, Anne, and Marcy lose their magic abilities, and they decide to stay on Earth and lose the ability to travel to Amphibia. It's not massively offensive but it's kind of played out and generic and it does the sad thing of separating the trio from their found family. What's controversial is the epilogue shows that Anne, Sasha, and Marcy stopped hanging out after the end. They just broke off from each other's lives, it was easy as that. It wasn't a lifelong friendship. They do reunite in the end but it's been like ten years. It undermines the emotional turmoil that was present across the whole show. What Matt Braly wanted to show is sometimes things happen. Despite how much you want to be best friends forever... you stop being close to people, you lose touch with them. But this isn't a story that makes much sense when the characters have been through so much together in a fantasy world. It's like Marcy's worst fears have come true, and while that's a point of growth for her, it's frustrating for the viewers who believed the endgame bonds between the characters were better than that.

[Edit: Other than that, a lot of characters weren't delivered in justice s3 with how they had been built up in season 2. Sasha is hardly present in season 3 and Marcy is genuinely not present at all, and when we watched it we really thought they were gonna do more with Marcy when she came back. Swim in that emotional trauma a little bit! But no she's fine even with her evil father figure gone. It could've been better, should've been because season 2 was so stellar.] And I wasn't a fan of how Anne was portrayed at the end. I don't like how these stories make their characters "grow up" in such a way that they come across as love-all hippies instead of having anything resembling their original personality. Where's her sass? Why is she so melancholic and only melancholic? But that's a personal problem I haven't seen many others talk about.

Other than that, it's a competent episode. But it's the ending to a weaker season compared to what came prior.

The cat in this drawing has been my discord icon since we watched it though.

What the Hell?

These are the endings that shat the bed. I hate them! Everyone else probably does too.

Steven Universe Future: Unlike the other endings of this section, I did feel like Rebecca Sugar was going somewhere with SU future. They had a specific goal in mind for what they wanted to do, and every episode reaches towards that goal in some way. That's why a lot of people think Steven Universe Future is better than the more disjointed, huge tv series that came prior. It had a set start middle and end and carried through those themes. Unfortunately, those themes suck. Yeah, it's great deconstructing the impact Steven Universe had on Steven as a character, showing the damage that was done to him, the ways he's been let down. In isolation, it's a great way to show how a difficult childhood can affect you in adulthood, in ways that you would have never expected. This is the value SU Future has. It also has good sections showing how some other characters have recovered, how Pearl for example is healing and far more social than she ever has been but still has a ways to go, and finally talks to someone about her feelings over Pink Diamond, the previous Pearl that served her. Volleyball is a great episode. Unfortunately it takes the wrong lessons from the mistakes of the show. Steven Universe really wanted us to fall in love with its many characters, but it spent so much time showing Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl's flaws, spent so much time showing them failing Steven, that they ultimately came across as incompetent and sidelined. This is an issue with the original show. Steven Universe Future: "You know what? You're right! That was bad!" Me: "So are you going to do those characters justice and show them having growth and being competent and caring for Steven?" Steven Universe Future: "No. We are going to show them BEING EVEN WORSE and COMPLETELY FAILING to connect with Steven!" Me: "... For the entire thing????" Steven Universe Future: "Yes. this is never fixed and Steven leaves the county because of it." Me: "What the fuck?" Even people who were really into the whole thing were taken aback that Steven's kaiju transformation, the manifestation of his deepest fears about himself, was resolved with a hug. Just like the major conflict in the original show. And instead of a meaningful denouement, the show skipped all the resolution and went to Steven running the fuck away in an episode that would've had equal emotional value if it was in season 1 episode 1, or a competely different series. It was cheap and easy to make a bittersweet ending of Steven leaving the city. And it made it feel like the tragedy of Steven's mental breakdown was more important than his healing. Like they couldn't make an interesting story of him getting better because they're incompetent writers. I did like the scene of Steven crying his eyes out after he detransformed. And a lot of scenes in Future did go hard. But the Crystal Gems deserved better. Hell, Jasper deserved better.

Hardest scene:

2. Star vs the forces of Evil: Hooo boy. In the animation community this is HERALDED as The Worst Ending. It is the flagship of disappointment.

It disappointed people who loved the magical world the show took place in. It disappointed people who wanted to see Star reach her potential. It disappointed every shipper of every ship, not that I ever cared for the romance dramas but they took a lot of screentime on the show to its detriment. It disappointed people who like to apply basic logic to the things they watch. What a disaster!

Okay so why is it so hated?

Well, Star had been on the decline for a while. It had a fantastic start to season 3, with a great big war for Mewnie where everyone had great character moments, Star died and came back to life and utterly annihilated the villain. Toffee was a great villain, by the way.

There had been a bit of romantic tension between Star and Marco and they both had crushes on each other but refused to ever admit it and Marco thought he was into some other girl, and Star let him go at the start of season 3 and started dating... her ex... this shitty guy called Tom... he's a good character but a terrible boyfriend who kind of suicide baits Star back into his life. And Star would become a terrible girlfriend. I dunno, people really thought that pairing would be endgame but it was clear to me it was just an artificial obstacle in the way of the inevitable Starco ship. Like Kelly. Who Marco dates for a whopping half an episode before they break up offscreen. Great?

Anyway the romance in this series is on the same tier as Korra, though it does try to build up its endgame pairing from the start.

But from season 3 onwards Marco felt more like a joke character. I don't know, they didn't treat him with much respect.

The thing that EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT with Star, oh god it's going to be the longest thing on this list, is Moon and Eclipsa and Mina and the atrocious decisions the characters made.

I'm going to bullet point it so it's vaguely readable:

Star's mother, Queen Moon, goes missing following the events of the start of s3 special.

Star learns that the throne was stolen from monster-fucker Eclipsa and wrongly given to her own family line so she gives the crown to Eclipsa, to great controversy. Eclipsa is a dark magic user who is 300 years old and she's pretty cool but the show takes a sharp turn from this point to being about a racial conflict - Monsters being discriminated against by Mewmans and how a lot of people want to keep it that way.

The council which was previously on the side of good really HATES this decisionn and is now portrayed as bad.

Conflict breaks out and people are against Eclipsa and her giant person-eating husband leading the kingdom.

People have their homes given back to the monsters that they were stolen from hundreds of years ago. It's a silly cartoon form of reparations but it is shown giving them hardship because they are made homeless. By the way nobody in history has been made homeless because of reparations.

These homeless or disgruntled mewmans find Moon, who has re-emerged and decided to stay away from the kingdom. They want their old queen back and side with her, and she thinks they need someone to represent them. She also hates Eclipsa for various reasons.

Moon decides the best way to deal with Eclipsa is to arm the biggest fascist monster-killing character in the world with an invincible undefeatable army of magic soldiers, and retake the kingdom and go to war against the side her own daughter is on.

Moon gets a surprised pikachu face when she realises she can't undo the spell she used to make this fascist evil super army.

Star decides the best way to resolve this is to delete all magic. Kill it. They go to the source of all magic and use a spell to kill everything there. Lots of reindeer die.

Then every magical thing in the universe gets deleted. Every single magic-born creature. The entire council is murdered. All of the creatures in Star's magic wand die. Countless portals to other worlds are closed down, meaning many of the characters can no longer go and see their friends anymore. This is directly shown, by the way - not just inferred.

Somehow, Ponyhead survives.

Then this is capped off by Marco and Star wanting to reunite... and in a scene that is supposed to be emotional, they cleave their universes together. Mewnie lands on top of Earth. Normal humans are screaming as they are chased around by giant creatures.

The story ends.

Yeah do I have to explain any more why this one was unpopular? It's the biggest fumble you can speak of.

My biggest issue is how dumb they had to make Moon in order to achieve this outcome.

But Starco is kind of cute, even if Marco wasn't half the character he used to be by the end.

3. Homestuck: Which ending do you want me to discuss? Act 6? The epilogues? Or HS^2?

Let's start with the main work, as that's what makes Homestuck qualify as an animation.

Act 6 was a vast disappointment because it sort of ended. We had so much talking for so long that we were hoping something cool would happen and then we got a flash where the characters hit each other with sticks. There were no stakes in Collide, not really.

Then we got the Frog flash. We watched a frog for 8 minutes.

Then that was it!

There were so many unanswered questions. What the hell happened to the final boss and the MAIN CAST, for example. We had learnt earlier in the story that in some point of the future, the main cast all get stuck in a little homestuck house which Vriska fires at Lord English. But we never learn when, we never learn if they're ok, we never learn if English is killed or what happens to Vriska. So for a long time there was this disturbing implication that the cast would all die not long after the series ended.

We had the Credits which were much better but further solidified this implication, and it had Terezi fly out into the void looking for Vriska forever, which made me sad and depressed but that was because of my personal involvement in the story really.

Act 6 is more of a "mistakes were made" ending, but it's the Epilogues and HS^2, and the actions of creator Andrew Hussie, which are why it's rock bottom here.

I don't want to give my breath to those items. Let's just say they were the most meanspirited, intentionally offensive, hostile, character-destroying sets of stories every done, created by people who accused every homestuck fan who didn't like them of being "not really trans" or "pedophile harborors" or "deserving to be lined up and shot" (real quote).

And then the fact Hussie fired his entire crew twice and blacklisted them if he ever had any suspicion they complained about his leadership or financial decisions anywhere.

And the fact the entire whatpumpkin team were left uncredited in the original release of Hiveswap Act 2 because Hussie didn't want to give them any credit because he wants his friends to be a hivemind.

I have so much hatred for what Homestuck became. It's tragic because this series was such a big part of my life for so long.

It's also tragic because the main work is a masterpiece. Even Act 7, despite the criticism, is Guzusuru's masterwork with how much effort went into the animation. How much heart went into each illustration the old Paradox Space team made.

So that's it. Homestuck is the one that is not just a little bit worse than Star. Leaps and bounds worse.

But that's it. I have a lot of opinions on endings because they can colour how you view the entire previous work.

[add1ctedt0you]

"That year, the fault was mine. This is my karma. Stab. I've waited for this day."

[leewire]

currently crying over baby monkey. he’s just a little guy. too much trauma for such a little man

(fool’s gold episode 31)

[bloomingonionbitch]

(I never watched Sex and the City when it was on, but I'm well into Season 2 and Lisa Gilroy's impression of Steve is haunting me beyond words!!!!!!)

[after-nine-at-the-oasis]

JACOB KNOWS JACOB KNOWS JACOB KNOWS JACOB KNOWS JACOB KNOWS

[weyrleaders]

hhh

[steampoweredskeleton]

.

Ignore

[zainmalik]

.

[exhuastedpigeon]

Sometimes I sit back and think about how almost all of the most insane and unhinged stuff about Buddie is stuff that, before getting into 9-1-1, I thought was fanon.

I started watching at the end of s6 and binged watched s1-s6 and I thought I was getting into another show where two guys stand near each other and the fandom ran with it and instead I got Buddie. I was sitting there watching being like.. wait this is all in the actual show? I thought it was all fan created stuff.

-> Eddie's introduction being set to "Whatta Man"? I thought that was a fan edit. -> Buck getting bashful after Eddie says "You can have my back any day" felt like something you'd see in fanon until you watch it ant realize it's canon. -> The entire Christmas elf scene -> Eddie holding Buck's hand while Buck is trapped under the ladder truck -> "There's no one in the world I trust with my son more than you" with Ed Sheeran playing over it??? CANON???? -> "Wanna go for the title" -> Buck digging at the earth like he could get to Eddie through 40 feet of mud is canon???? -> Eddie seeing flashes of Chris and Buck while he was buried under ground was canon and not an edit (this one blew my mind I'm not gonna lie to you). -> Chris ran to BUCK when he was mad Eddie was dating someone. -> The whole "construction on sunset" scene being that domestic blew my mind too. What do you mean that was actually in the show. -> The entire shooting scene? I genuinely can't believe we got that one shot of them just staring at each other in slow motion -> "Just say with me" -> THE WILL??? I truly thought that was fanon until I watched it with my own two eyes. -> Buck and Chris spending time together without Eddie (Eddie's line about Buck taking Chris to the zoo all the time in s5 I was like.. I've read this fic before) -> Buck canonically worrying about Eddie's health and mental health in s5? How is that canon and not fanon? -> Chris calling Buck during Eddie's breakdown truly blew my mind. That was in canon. When Chris was scared and worried about his dad he called Buck! -> THE LOVE HEART BUCK DREW?? THAT WAS CANON?!? -> The small moments we get of them (both together and with Chris) that just have a different vibe than when they're hanging out with other characters. Again I thought that was fanon and it turns out, nope it's just canon. -> Eddie running up the ladder without a safety line to get to Buck (screaming Buck's name) when Buck was struck by lightening. -> EDDIE CALLED BUCK COWBOY! THAT HAPPENED IN CANON TOO?! -> Eddie yelling "DO MORE" when the get Buck to the hospital after the lightening. -> Poker night? The same episode when all the canon couples were on dates Buck and Eddie actually got dressed up and Eddie took Buck to a secret poker game? IN CANON! That isn't fanon either??!? -> Buck's entire "Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie" moment in 704. He was about to be kissed by another man and he said Eddie's name, what? 7 times? -> Buck being SO nervous about telling Eddie about his date with Tommy. Like just freaking out for an entire episode. -> THE BACHELOR PARTY?!? Those two being in cahoots is another thing that I thought was fanon at first and then you get moments like that and you're reminded it's canon. -> Buck being who Eddie turns to when he needs parenting support because he sees Buck as a co-parent of some sort. I still can't believe that's canon. Like in the text of the show Eddie has turned to Buck for parenting support multiple times. -> Buck being there when Chris left with his hand on Eddie's shoulder. Again, so insane that it's canon.

Anyway, this list is in no way comprehensive since there's a lot of other stuff in canon that I thought was fanon, but my god the list is already so long I don't think I need to add more. I didn't even touch on the casual touches and the way they're almost always looking at or for each other when they're in scenes together.

[senseichaos]

IMAGINE...

FULL LENGTH IMAGINE!!

Alastor is low-key a psychopathic sadist in this so you've been warned

un-edited

Alastor predator / prey play.

In episode 3 you can see his room which half of is a forest-swamp-like interior. But what if it was a forest?

"Alright dear.. I'm going to ask you to run into this forest," he begins, teeth so largely grinning you can see his gums poking in it. His eyes glow darkly and he leans in slightly closer "And I'll chase after you, and when I catch you.."

His scleras turn a black and his horns begin to grow. You shiver, shirnking away from him as he speaks. His words come out distorted, a thin crackling accompanying them:

"I'll delight in your body, no matter if you scream and cry.. I'll tear every piece of innocence from your pliant figure many times until you admit that I own every piece of you.." he trails a single claw down my chin, causing you to gulp. His eyes send you into a sort of trance, their deep red shine making your knees weak.

"Sound good, my fawn?" He asks, eyes softening as he brushes his hands through your locks.

You nod. You shouldn't have. But you did.

And then he lets go of you, smiling manically as you shiver under his gaze. Alastor licks his lips, black tongue poking from his lips. You cry beneath your breath, already feeling a sort of terror go though your body even though he hasn't commanded you yet.

And then he does

"Run" he growls, and you're off.

You run despite your shaky legs and aching feet. You jump over logs and rake yourself through bushes. You don't once look behind you, and Alastor doesn't seem close by, anyway. So you take a sharp turn, almost tripping in the process as you run in that direction; I hope that this decision means that he'll be far behind. Perhaps you could even find a place to hide.

A sudden rustling comes from a bush to your left, and this stupidity causes you to look towards it as you run; with this uncaring look comes a consequence: you trip over a root on the swampy forest floor, making your body shoot forward and fall into the grass. You cough rather loudly, shaking your face as you attempt to get up.

Ouch.

Fuck. Your ankle is twisted to shit. How are you supposed to run? You look around wearily, dragging yourself across the ground by your arms to try to find any sort of hiding place in this barren wasteland of trees and small bushes.

Then your ears catch a noise.

It's stomping. You hear stomping.

"Little fawn? Come out for daddy.." Alastor says, walking nearby.

You feel a terror shoot from my body, and you shuffle away as fast as you can. To get behind anything. You see his silhouette to your left, so with a determination you crawl (or rather shimmy) behind the nearby bush.

Fuck, the bush rustles as your body passes by it, and Alastor is now looking in your direction completely. From his silhouette you can see that he isn't in his regular form. No. He has those large deer horns poking from his head, and his upper body is larger as is the rest of his body.

And there's that glow. That glow of his red irises and Yellow smile as he looks. As he looks in your direction. As he looks in your eyes.

You are suddenly appreciative that Alastor isn't in his full demon form. Or he may rip you shreds by his claws. He doesn't stalk towards you yet. He just smiles wider, not breaking his eye contact whatsoever as he just stands.

But before you could even pry yourself from his gaze, he's running.

You scream, trying to stand but your ankle buckles beneath you; this makes you fall on your chest as you glance wearily backwards. Just as you glance backwards, he's on top of you.

You scream rips through the air again, feeling searing pain go through you as he rips your clothes up to shreds. He doesn't care for the fact his claws leave scratches and marks against your back, all he cares for is ruining that innocence you harbour. When you whimper he aggressively pushes you down so your face hits the ground and your arms lay splayed next to you, laughing to himself as he tears your panties off of your mound harshly. He flips you over again, wanting to see your dirty face after it's been shoved into the ground.

"Little fawn.. how drenched you are~" Alastor purrs, dragging a clawed finger through your wetness. The sharpness of it just barely stimulates your clit, causing you to moan as you attempt to close your legs. Alastor doesn't like that. As soon as he sees you attempt this he forces his hands around your thighs, pushing them open until you cry out in pain from the force.

"Don't test me, little fawn.." He growls, his gums showing from his manic smile. It makes you aroused in a way you can't describe. For a moment he looks at your ankle, which is bruised from the fall you took. What you didn't expect is for him to grin at this, before shifting his eyes back to your own teary ones.

"you seemed to have twisted your ankle my dear!" He leans down his nose barely brushing against your own as his claws dig into your plush thighs. "That means you can't run away.. how convenient for me," Alastor growls, finally moving one of his hands from your thigh so he can wrap his hands around your neck, forcing you to tilt your head backwards. This gives him the opportunity to bite into the area where your neck meets your shoulder.

First he just licked the area with his black tongue, causing you to shiver at the way his gaunt body leans over you. Then he barely nibbles the area, making you squirm in a way that Alastor doesn't like. He digs his claws further into your thigh as a punishment.

And then without warning, he bites down, his teeth sinking completely into your shoulder. You scream out, tears falling down your cheeks as you shake from the sheer pain of it all. When he starts to withdraw his teeth you scream again, sobbing loudly as the pain shoots through your entire body.

When he fully withdraws, he just smiles, admiring his work. Blood pours from the wound quickly, and you could feel yourself losing a lot of blood.

Thankfully, Alastor loves you enough to not kill you. So he withdraws his hands from your neck and clicks his fingers, the blood moving back into your body before a bandage appears on it.

"Can't have my fawn bleed out, can i? What would Charlie say!?" He laughs, his black sclera darkening as he wipes away your tears. You whimper like a dog, lower lip wobbling as you open your eyes. You and Alastor just stare into each other's eyes for a moment, taking in each other and each other's flaws. He is smiling, you are crying.

What you fail to notice in this moment is Alastor unbuckling his pants, pulling his cock from the confines of his boxers and pants so his tip barely kisses against your entrance. When you notice this you whimper, trying to draw yourself away from him. Though Alastor just pulls you back by your twisted ankle, causing you to gasp in pain from the way he does it.

"Little fawn, there is no use in running away from me," he tilts his head, licking his lips as he presses the tip of his cock flush at your entrance. "You've been caught already, my dear!" He laughs, and without warning plunging his cock into your entrance.

You scream his name, moving your hands to cover your mouth. Alastor laughs, his black tentacles appearing from the ground to pry your hands from your mouth, holding them down. "It's much more fun when I can hear you scream for me, isn't it dear?" He laughs, drawing his hips back before thrusting harshly into your core again. You moan, teary eyes rolling backwards with a sort of agonizing pleasure.

"How tight you are, Little fawn," He says, pushing your thighs into your chest so he has better access to your holes. Each thrust he gives you makes you moan loudly, though Alastor doesn't even so much as grunt. He just grins as he watches your innocence leave you with a prideful gaze.

"S'too much! Fuck!" You yell, feeling his tip brush against your cervix painfully. Though Alastor only laughs, closing his eyes and laughing as he speeds up his thrusts. The tentacles around your arms tighten as you attempt to move them, Alastor's brows furrowing with his laughter.

You couldn't even understand his motive anymore. Is he enjoying having you beneath him? To the point where he humors it?

"Oh, how funny you are my little fawn," He says, moving one of his left hand from your thigh to wipe away a tear of laughter. As he puts his hand back on your thigh he tilts his head, speaking: "But I already said I don't care if you want to stop,"

"You already agreed to this, didn't you?" He says, and you scream with a painful pleasure.

"You wanted this."

His thrusts become manic in pace and you can't help but give up on moving. He's in complete control of you now. He's in control of your feelings, he's in control of your thoughts, he's in control of your body, he's in control of your pleasure. He owns you now. And there's nothing you can do but take it.

You'd take anything he'd give you.

With a whimper and a sob you cum on his cock, walls clamping around his length as he bites his lip. He watches your face the entire time, a snarky and prideful look on his features as you come loose around him.

Once you finish, here comes that horrible overstimulation that makes you gasp for air. How has he not came yet? You had no answer.

"My little fawn, too bad I cannot breed you. I guess this will just have to do.." he says, serving you one last harsh thrust as he empties his load inside of you. And he cums a lot, like- a lot a lot. You can feel your stomach bulging every so slightly with his cum as he leans down, kissing your cheek.

"Oh thank God," you sigh, happy that the sex is finally over.

"God!? Ha!" He laughs pulling out of you.

You begin to sit up, but Alastor's tentacles hold you down. He tuts, grinning as he presses his cock head against your anus.

"Who said we were done, Little Fawn?

REQUESTS ARE OPEN

[margindoodles2407]

YOU

YOU GET IT

The thing about me is I will, at any point of the day, stop whatever I'm doing to drawl, "Ooooh, meteor shower" in Hevy's voice.

[storiesforallfandoms]

herogasm ~ soldier boy;the boys

word count: 3678

request?: no

description: in which she’s trying to leave the supe orgy, just to stumble into the room of the man who started it

pairing: soldier boy x female!reader

warnings: swearing, smut (fingering, praise, unprotected p in v), mentions of herogasm (the event, not the episode)

masterlist (one, two, three)

I didn’t want to be there. There was a number of reasons why, but the most prominent one was definitely that I did not want to be involved in an orgy full of Supes.

My best friend, Maria, had convinced me to come. I had gone through a pretty hard breakup that left me basically inconsolable for days. I only left the house to go to work, and even then I was very much just operating on autopilot. Maria wanted to get me out of the house, so she came over and told me she had gotten an invite to some big Supe party and intended to take me with her to get my mind off of things.

She didn’t tell me until we showed up that the “party” was the infamous Supe orgy known as “Herogasm”.

Apparently, Maria had hooked up with a Supe who had an in to the party. She got the invite and thought an orgy would be the perfect idea to get me over my breakup. There was just one little flaw in her plan: I was not an orgy person. I was insecure enough about my body that I felt awkward being naked in front of one person, let alone an entire house full of strangers. Supe strangers at that.

Maria abandoned me the minute we walked through the door, taken by the Supe she fucked to get here. I was left, on my own in the corner, while a lot of naked people walked or fucked around me. A couple glanced in my direction, one even tried to proposition me, which I politely declined. I wasn’t sure how long I was stood there before everything became overwhelming. I needed to get away from all those people. I needed to be somewhere with no moaning or screaming or sex noises. Somewhere that I could calm myself down before I left.

I stumbled through the house, feeling my heart pounding harder and harder with every overwhelming second that passed. Behind almost every door I could hear more moaning and squelching. It felt like there was no true escape from it - there was even people fucking outside - until I turned the knob on a door that led to a seemingly empty room. I stumbled in, slamming the door behind me and sliding down it until I was sat on the floor. I brought my knees up to my chest and rested my head against my knees.

“Well, hello there.”

I jumped at the sudden sound of someone’s voice. I looked up to see I had hidden myself away in a bedroom. The main bedroom, I concluded, judging by the huge size of the room, the bed, and the fact there was a mini bar in the corner of the room. A mini bar with a man stood behind it. A very handsome man in nothing but a silk robe.

“Shit,” I sighed. “I’m sorry, I - ”

“No, don’t be sorry,” he said. “Judging by the fact that you still have clothes on, you’re not here for the orgy.”

I shook my head. “One of my friends brought me here. She didn’t even tell me what it was until we pulled up.”

He looked thoughtful for a moment before stepping away from the mini bar. I tensed up as he got closer to me. I was trying to figure out if I’d get out fast enough when he reached me. He reached over me and turned the lock on the knob.

“Stay as long ad you want,” he told me. “Not that anyone usually comes in unannounced anyways. I think you’re the first person to stumble into my room in years.”

My eyes widened as he started walking away. “Y-Your room? So...you’re the host here?”

He turned back and raised an eyebrow at me. “You serious?” I nodded. “I created this whole fuckin’ thing. Herogasm is my baby.”

That’s when it finally clicked. “Holy shit, you’re Soldier Boy!”

He grinned at me before he took a sip of his drink.

I couldn’t believe it. I had stumbled into the room of the most famous Supe in the entire world and I didn’t even recognize him at first! God, this couldn’t get any more embarrassing.

“You don’t have to huddle up by the door like a scared kid,” he said. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

I wasn’t sure if I could take his word for it. I knew he was a Supe and all, and Supes were supposed to protect people, but he did have me locked in his room, while he was naked no less. Well, besides a robe. I’d be helpless against him if he did decide he wanted to hurt me.

Despite knowing this, I still slowly got to my feet. He was pouring up another glass as I walked further into his giant room. It was like the size of my living room and kitchen combined. I was in awe of it so much that I could hear Soldier Boy chuckling to himself. He extended a glass to me and gestured to the bed. I took the glass, hesitantly, and sat down.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Bourbon,” he responded. “Some of the best shit money can buy.”

I wasn’t much of a drinker. I could smell the strong, alcoholic scent before even raising the glass to my lips. I took a small sip and immediately cringed at the stinging feeling that ran down my throat. Soldier Boy laughed.

“That’s God awful,” I groaned.

“You just don’t appreciate fine alcohol,” he said.

“I appreciate it when it doesn’t taste like battery acid,” I retorted. “What are you doing in here, anyways? If you created this...thing, shouldn’t you be partaking?”

He grunted and took another mouthful of his own drink. I figured that was the best I would be getting from him.

“How did you get in?” he asked. “It’s invite only, and usually the only non-Supes invited are hookers.”

I looked down at my glass again, debating on taking another sip. “My friend hooked up with a Supe who gave her the invite. She lied at the door and told them I had been invited, too.”

“Then she ditched you?”

I nodded. “Probably getting her pussy super-stretched as we speak.”

That made him laugh. I felt some sense of pride at that. The most famous Supe in the world was laughing at my jokes. That had to be bragging rights.

“Sounds like a shit friend, then,” he commented.

“No, she is a good friend. She’s very...sexually liberated. This type of thing is very up her alley. Me, not so much.”

“Then why did she take you here?”

I gazed down at the glass of auburn liquid. The memory of my recent breakup brought back all my negative emotions. With one swift gulp, I finished the contents of the glass. I shuddered as it burned down my throat.

“My boyfriend of four years dumped me,” I said. “Just woke up one day and told me he didn’t feel the same way anymore. After we had just moved in together a few months prior.”

Soldier Boy whistled. “That sounds rough.”

“It was the worst fucking day of my life,” I muttered. “Maria, my friend, I guess she thought a super-sex party would be the best way to get me to move on. The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else, and all that.”

“That never works. Trust me.”

Oh, there was a story there. I could tell. One that was probably connected to the reason he wasn’t participating in his own orgy. Normally, I wouldn’t pry. I didn’t know Soldier Boy. He would probably forget all about me once I left his room. But the bourbon was starting to get to me. I found myself leaning forward, close enough that I could smell his aftershave.

“What happened?” I asked him. “What made you not want to participate in Herogasm?”

He looked at me. I could tell he was debating on telling me. I wasn’t sure if I should push the issue further than those questions, even if my curiosity was getting the best of me.

Finally, he sighed and said, “My girl left me because of one of these things.”

Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. I couldn’t even remember who Soldier Boy’s “girl” was in that moment.

“We used to host together,” he explained. “Once a year, we would allow each other to fuck whoever we wanted at Herogasm. One night, one meaningless orgy, and that was it. Then, a few years back, she comes to me the day after Herogasm and she tells me that she met someone that night. I don’t know, I guess they talked in between the fucking or some shit. She dumped me on the spot for the guy. Took all of her shit and left that same day.”

Okay, definitely a lot worse than my sob story. My ex completely shattered my heart, sure, but he didn’t leave me for someone else. Especially not someone that he fucked in our own house, during a party that we were hosting together. Even if they had an agreement that they could sleep around during Herogasm, that was a huge hit to trust. One that I don’t think I would’ve ever gotten over in his shoes.

“Since then, I haven’t participated,” he continued. “I’ll host, since it’s my creation, but I usually just walk around, make sure everything is going okay and everyone is having a good time, then I hide away in here until everyone gets too tired from the fucking and either leaves or falls asleep.”

“Why keep hosting it if you don’t want to participate anymore?” I asked. “Why not hand it off to someone else?”

“Because it’s my thing. I created it, and it got bigger than I could’ve ever imagined. I thought about cancelling it after Countess left me, but it’s become this huge thing to Supes and their groupies. I don’t want to disappoint anyone by cancelling it, and I wouldn’t want anyone else stealing it from me and making it a shit version of what it used to be.”

Before I could respond, there was a bang against his door. We both jumped and turned towards the door. Judging by the rhythmic beating on the door and the shouts of pleasure, it was just a couple that had decided to use Soldier Boy’s door as another fuck place. I chuckled and turned back to him. My laughter died out, though, once I realized how close we had gotten to one another. My face was mere inches away from his. I could feel the warmth of his breath on my face. The closeness made my heart start pounding a little harder.

The alcohol had definitely kicked in because I did something that was very unlike me in that moment: I leaned forward and kissed him.

He was receptive right away. His free hand moved to hold the back of my head. His lips moved perfectly in time with mine. His tongue slid against my lower lip, asking permission for entrance, and I gave it to him. I let my empty glass fall to the floor, luckily the fall being cushioned by a rug next to his bed, while he placed his on the nightstand next to the bed without breaking our kiss. In one swift movement, he moved me so that I was straddling his lap, not once breaking our kiss.

His hands explored my body, running down the sides of my torso, to my hips, then over my ass. He grabbed the meaty flesh there, rocking my hips forward unintentionally (or maybe it was intentional) against him. His cock was growing hard and I could feel that the tip was starting to peak out from his robe. Suddenly, I felt very overdressed compared to him, and I wanted to change that.

I broke away and Soldier Boy watched with lust filled eye as I pulled my shirt over my head and discarded it onto the floor. I stood from his lap to unbutton my jeans and let them fall to the floor. I stepped out of them and stood in front of him, just in my lingerie. Realizing how naked I was, I felt a little shy suddenly. Like I wanted to cover myself up or make all the light in the room disappear so that he couldn’t see me. But when he pulled me forward again, standing me between his open legs, and leaned forward to start kissing over the exposed skin of my stomach, the insecurities melted away into desire again.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. “Don’t you dare think of hiding this beautiful body away from me.”

I was shocked that he knew what I was thinking, but I didn’t have time to figure out how he knew. His hands were on me again, pulling me down onto his lap and then quickly turning the two of us so that I was laying beneath him on the bed. I could feel him pressing against my inner thigh as he kissed me again, a pool of wetness starting to fill in my panties.

He moved one hand between my legs, opening them up for him, and ran his finger over the clothed material. I gasped and he took the opportunity to slide his tongue into my mouth again.

“You’re already so wet,” he noted. “How long has it been since you were touched?”

The answer was a bit embarrassing. That probably should’ve been the first sign that my relationship was going downhill, but I was too naïve to notice that we hadn’t been having sex. Or maybe just too blind to the downfalls of my relationship.

When I didn’t answer, he pulled my panties to the side and slid a finger into me. The sudden protruding felt painful at first. I dug my nails into his arms hard, but didn’t leave any marks or didn’t seem to hurt him in any way. He slowly started thrusting his finger in an out of me until the pain turned to pleasure, and then he added a second finger.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he commented. “That asshole must not have stretched this pussy out in a long time. Either that, or he had a microdick.”

His fingers gained speed. I could hear them becoming wetter and wetter every time he thrusted them inwards. I was well beyond cloud nine, probably cloud twenty at this rate. Whenever I opened my eyes all I could see was stars, and Soldier Boy’s face watching me as I came undone beneath him. He was an expert in ways I could only dream of, reaching places I didn’t even know could feel so good. He had me on the edge of my orgasm, when suddenly the pleasure was ripped away as he pulled his fingers from me.

I whined, trying to reach for him to get the feeling back. But he pulled away from me, putting the two fingers covered in my slick into his mouth and sucking them dry.

“You taste just as sweet as I thought you would,” he said.

“Please,” was all I could manage. It almost sounded pathetic how desperate I sounded.

He smirked down at me. “I’ll give you what you want. I just want you to cum on my dick instead of on my fingers.”

He sat up and untied his robe, throwing it to the floor along with the other discarded clothes. His cock finally sprang free, standing at attention against his stomach. My eyes widened at how big he was. I should’ve anticipated it, I figured most Supe men were probably well hung, but it a shock none the less. I wondered if I would even be able to take his whole length.

He spit on his hand to lube himself up, moved my panties to the side again, and then lined his tip up with my entrance.

“Ready?” he asked. I nodded and he began to push into me.

My gasps and moans filled the room as he slowly slid into me, inch by inch, almost at a painfully slow rate. I felt so full with him completely inside of me. I could feel the burn of him stretching me out around his girth, but even the burn felt like pleasure. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pulled him back down to me. I kissed him again, hungrily, desperately, and he got my silent message to start moving.

His thrusts were slow at first, testing the waters. It felt so good to feel him pushing in and out of me. His dick was so long that I could feel it not only poking my g-spot, but absolutely abusing it with every thrust. It sent shockwaves of pleasure through me that I wasn’t even sure I had felt before. My head fell back onto the pillow, letting moans tumble from my lips as they felt the need to.

“F-Fuck,” I breathed. “S-Soldier Boy.”

“Ben,” he said, not breaking his pace. “Call me Ben.”

“Ben,” I moaned instead. Definitely a better name to say in bed. “Fuck, it feels so good.”

“Yeah? I think I can tell.”

I didn’t have to open my eyes to know he had a cocky smirk on his face.

I ran my hands from his shoulders down his toned back to his ass. I gave it a squeeze, urging him to go faster. I could feel my high coming back, and I desperately needed to chase it. He did as I wanted and his thrusts became faster, rougher. The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room, along with my moans and his grunts. He took hold of my legs and wrapped them around his waist, giving himself a better vantage point for his rough thrusts. I screamed out as his dick pounded against my g-spot, bringing me closer and closer to the edge.

“I can feel you’re close,” he said. “I can feel this fucking pussy getting tighter. Cum all over my cock. You can do it, beautiful, I know you can.”

His words of praise and encouragement sent me toppling over the edge. Stars exploded from my vision as my body trembled and convulsed around him. It was the hardest I could ever remember orgasming in my life, and it was definitely the best orgasm I could remember having. I felt like I was flying off of the bed and high into the sky, never to return to Earth again.

If it weren’t for Ben above me, still thrusting and whispering words of praise into my ear, I probably would’ve thought I had actually floated away.

His release came shortly after my own. I could feel his dick twitching inside of me before he was coating my walls. His arms tightened around me as he rode out his own orgasm, grinding into me until he has squeezed every last drop into me. He pushed himself up so he could look down at me again.

“You look fucking gorgeous after being filled with my cum,” he commented.

I felt myself grow hot at the compliment, but my body felt too heavy to cover myself.

“Are you...are you on the pill or anything?” he asked. “I probably should’ve thought of that before, but I was kind of...busy. I can get you a plan b. We have plenty of those lying around for this day.”

I lazily shook my head. “I’m good. I’ve been on birth control since I was a teenager. Besides, I don’t think Supes can reproduce, can they?”

“We’ve been unsuccessful in that field thus far. Thank God.”

I started to chuckle, but it turned to a gasp as I felt him pulling his soft cock out of me. Even when it was soft, it was big. I could hardly believe all of that fit inside of me.

He took hold of my panties and pulled them down my legs, gazing at the mess he had left between them.

“That’s a fucking beautiful sight,” he commented. I rolled my eyes and tried to close my legs, but he quickly held them open. “No, let me see this for another little bit at least.”

“You’re fucking weird.”

“You just fucked me, what does that say about you?”

He eventually climbed back into his bed next to me. I could still hear the orgy raging on outside of the door. I chuckled to myself, causing Ben to look over at me and arch an eyebrow.

“I fucked a Supe at the Supe orgy,” I explained. “But just one Supe, and it was the guy who created the whole fucking thing. I was planning on leaving when I stumbled into your room.”

“Well, thank God you didn’t.”

He put an arm around me and pulled me into his chest.

“Maybe getting under someone does help you get over someone,” I said. “I don’t even remember my ex’s name now.”

His chest vibrated as he laughed. “That is a good thing. If you find yourself remembering, though, you know where I live. You can always come over and I’ll help you forget again.”

I looked up at him. “Really? This wasn’t a one time thing?”

“I don’t intend for it to be. Did you?” I shook my head. “Okay, good. Since we’re on the same page, my offer still stands. Although, the offer actually extends to any time you want to come over, for any reason. Not just for some rebound sex.”

“That’s a dangerous offer. In a house this big, a bed this big, I might never want to leave. I might just live in this bed, honestly.”

“Is that a threat or a promise?”

We both laughed as he pulled me in to kiss my forehead. I made a mental note to thank Maria for dragging me to the super-fuck party when I finally found her again. Turns out, it wasn’t such a bad time after all.

[svt-luna]

hi! i really adore each member’s dynamic with luna 🫶 can i request for a chapter where the group’s over protectiveness comes to action when it comes to luna? it can be any member you prefer. thank you!

(pls keep on writing i really love ur blog 🤗)

ᡴꪫ ⋆ All EYES ON HER: SEVENTEEN’S ULTIMATE PROTECTIVE MOMENTS ࣪ ! ˓ ౨ৎ ࣪˖ ─── now playing…

synopsis: A compilation on the countless times the members have fiercely protected Luna, proving that anyone who messes with her has an entire team to answer to.

hello!! I apologize for taking so long with this request, it took a long time for me to get to it but finally, it’s here now. you didn’t specify what kind I should do, so I decided on a youtube compilation instead, I hope you don’t mind! happy reading, my loves 🤍💛

╰ ౨ৎ LUNA-VERSE MASTERLIST ╰ ౨ৎ youtube compilations

[added captions are in brackets] ᡣ𐭩

bold dialogues are spoken in english ᡣ𐭩

indented italics are additional voice overs ᡣ𐭩

Ah yes, folks, welcome to this episode of ‘How SEVENTEEN is Basically Luna’s Private Army at This Point.’

I mean, if you didn’t already know, our girl Luna isn’t just the 14th member of SEVENTEEN— no, no, she’s also the epitome of princess treatment.

Miss thing, is protected by her 13 bodyguards… I mean, bandmates.

I cannot stress this enough… the amount of times these guys circle around her like she’s made of glass is honestly a whole genre of content at this point.

You’d think they signed a secret contract that says, ‘Thou shalt not let Luna so much as trip on a pebble or breathe near a stalker without at least five of us nose-diving in front of her.’

I’m starting to think they all have a group chat where their one goal is: ‘Keep Luna safe. At all costs.’ I mean, the devotion is real, people.

Anyway, buckle up because we’re diving into SEVENTEEN’s ultimate protective moments over the years. From stage accidents to creepy fan encounters— these boys do it all. *swoons*

So grab your popcorn, maybe a tissue, and get ready to witness Luna being treated like the literal K-pop princess that she is.

LUNA’S AIRPORT SASAENG INCIDENT

I feel like this video itself just shows you how much the members are super protective of Luna.

On a side note, y’all weirdos really need to leave them the fuck alone

The airport was abuzz with the usual energy that seemed to follow SEVENTEEN everywhere they went. Fans had gathered on the other side of the barricades, screaming, phones flashing, as they tried to capture every moment of the members’ journey to the gate.

It was early— too early for most of the members to be anything but a little groggy. They had a long flight ahead to Seattle for their ‘Be the Sun’ tour concert, and it showed in the occasional yawn, tired smiles, and slow movements as they waited in line to enter their gate.

Luna stood in the middle of the line, nestled between Wonwoo, who was in front of her, and Seungcheol, who lingered protectively behind.

[In just a few seconds you guys would see how Choi Seungcheol became my bias]

[on a side note… look how hot he looks 😩 DADDY!]

Luna was chatting quietly with Wonwoo about the new show she was watching late last night, her voice calm as she ran through the reason why she got zero sleep.

Everything felt routine.

The members bowed and waved occasionally to the fans and cameras across the barricades, but it was all in the usual ebb and flow of their lives on tour. There was nothing unusual about the morning, just the soft hum of their conversations and the distant screams of their loyal Carats.

[I love how they still try their best to greet Carats despite being so tired 🥹]

And then it happened.

In the middle of her sentence, Luna was cut off by the sound of a man’s voice— a deep, rough yell from somewhere beyond the barricade. He was shouting her name, which wasn’t entirely strange. Fans often called out to her, but there was something different in the way this man shouted. It wasn’t the excited, breathless tone of a fan. It was urgent, desperate, and far too aggressive.

[guys I’m being so fr rn, this clip till this day pisses me the fuck off]

Before Luna or anyone else could process what was happening, there was a sudden movement from their side.

Out of nowhere, the man broke past security and somehow made it too close, far closer than any fan should’ve been allowed. He wasn’t behind the barricades anymore— he was there, within arm’s reach of the members.

[LOOK AT THIS FUCKING BUM]

[If I see him istg it’s on sight]

[I didn’t bother blurring his face cause… why should I?!]

The air around them shifted, the fans behind the barricades screaming in shock, but it was too late. Luna didn’t have time to turn and see him before she felt it.

A tight grip suddenly clamped down on her right arm.

It was jarring, a harsh pull that yanked her back, shocking her out of the moment. The man— eyes wild and frantic— was tugging her towards him, shouting about how much he loved her. “Luna, Jiyeon-ah! You don’t understand, I love you! I’m in love with you! I need you to know! I’m obsessed with you!”

[yeah we can tell, loser]

Luna’s breath hitched in her throat. The world around her blurred as the fans screamed louder, their voices tinged with panic. For a split second, her brain froze, and she couldn’t fully process what was happening. The man’s hand was too tight, too rough, and before she could pull away, she felt herself being dragged towards him.

[look at her face, motherfucker! look at how scared she looks]

[TWICE HER SIZE AND HE FUCKING YANKS HER]

But then, in an instant, everything shifted again.

Before Luna could even react, she felt a firm grip around her waist— a strong, grounding force pulling her back from the man’s grasp.

[IT’S THE SPEED!! IT WAS THE WAY HE REACTED!!]

[CHEOLIE’S REFLEXES ARE NEXT LEVEL]

[🫠🫠🫠]

Seungcheol, who had been just behind her, moved like a flash, his expression steely as his arm looped securely around her. His fingers pressed tightly against her waist, holding her in place, but his other hand wasn’t idle. With a swift, practiced motion, Seungcheol reached out and grabbed the man’s arm, yanking it away from Luna with more strength than the man had anticipated.

“Let go.” Seungcheol’s voice was firm, sharp with authority but calm, almost dangerously calm, as he shoved the man’s hand off her with little effort.

[GOODBYE WORLD]

[I– no words… there are no words]

[Honestly, if I were that sasaeng, I’d just tell my heart to stop right then and there]

[Choi Seungcheol is scary wbk]

At the same time, Wonwoo had spun around, his eyes dark with alarm. His hand immediately found Luna’s, grasping her left hand firmly as he pulled her back to safety, away from the chaos. The sudden switch from casual conversation to this whirlwind of confusion sent a surge of adrenaline through him. His usually stoic face was a mixture of concern and anger as he held Luna’s hand tighter, making sure she wasn’t being pulled any further.

[brb I’m gonna cry]

[Wonwoo was holding onto her for dear life]

The sasaeng stumbled backward as Seungcheol released him, but it wasn’t over yet.

The moment Seungcheol tore the man’s hand off Luna’s arm, the rest of the members immediately closed in, surrounding her like a protective shield.

[They look so worried 🥺]

[Jiyeon is so loved]

Security finally rushed in, grabbing the man and pulling him away from the members, the fans still screaming in horror and disbelief at what had just unfolded.

[Also what took y’all so fucking long 😠]

Seungcheol barely had time to check her well-being before he was pushed back into action, taking control of the situation as the leader.

As the fans continued to scream in both shock and confusion, Jeonghan was by Luna’s side in an instant, his face painted with worry. His hand hovered near her shoulder as he looked her over, asking softly, “Are you okay?” before Mingyu stepped up beside him, eyes scanning her for any sign of distress.

“I’m okay,” Luna nodded as she shook caressed the now red flesh of her right arm.

[MY PRONOUNS ARE J.E.O.N.G.N.A RAHHHH]

The members formed a tight circle around her, creating a barrier between Luna and the crowd as they took turns asking her if she was alright. Jeonghan, Mingyu, Seungkwan, Dino, Wonwoo, and Dokyeom stood close, their faces unusually serious, while Minghao, Joshua, and Vernon kept a vigilant eye on the situation, making sure no one else could get close. Even Woozi, Jun, and Hoshi, who had been half-asleep just moments ago, were now alert and focused, standing protectively near her.

[they baracaded her real fast]

[THIS IS HOW THE SECRET SERVICE REACTS WHEN THERE IS A THREAT TO THE FUCKING PRESIDENT]

[WE LOVE TO SEE IT]

Luna, is still in shock. Her heart pounded in her chest, her mind still trying to catch up with what had just happened. The touch of the man’s rough hand still lingered on her skin, but the warmth and safety of her members anchored her in the present, pulling her out of the chaos and fear.

Meanwhile, off to the side, fans caught a glimpse of Seungcheol in full leader mode, visibly angry as he appeared to scold their security team.

[HE IS SO FUCKING HOT FOR THIS 🥵]

[THIS👏 MAN 👏 DOESN’T 👏 PLAY 👏 WHEN 👏 IT 👏 COMES 👏 TO 👏 HIS 👏 MEMBERS]

Seungcheol’s body language was sharp and commanding, hands gesturing firmly as he instructed them on how to handle the situation. No one could hear exactly what he was saying, but it was clear from his tone and expression that he was furious. His jaw clenched, his eyes steely, he pointed toward the barricades and the area where the man had broken through, making sure there would be no more mistakes.

[blah, blah, blah, proper name, place name…]

[What I’d give to hear what he’s saying rn]

Fans watching from the other side couldn’t help but be struck by how protective and authoritative he was, silently appreciating the way SEVENTEEN took care of their own.

Once all that was taken care of, Seungcheol finally turned back and glanced down at Luna, his voice now softer but still firm. “You okay?” His eyes scanned her for any signs of distress or injury as he gently caressed her arm, his brows furrowed with concern.

[WHERE DO YOU GET A MAN LIKE THIS?!]

[I’m in love with him it’s not funny anymore 😔]

Luna nodded slowly, though her heart was still racing. “I’m okay, Cheollie… thank you,” she managed to whisper, her voice shaky but steadying.

“Thank you, Wonwoo oppa,” Luna turned to the man next to her who gave her a silent not, clearly still disturbed.

But Seungcheol wasn’t fully convinced she was fine… none of the members did. They could tell from how she twisted the rings on her fingers.

Seungcheol placed his arm around her shoulders, keeping her close as they moved forward, ensuring she was safe and that the man was well out of reach. Meanwhile, the rest of the members hovered around her. Jeonghan was beside her, now holding her hand, his grip tight and his presence still solid and reassuring.

[HAVE I MENTIONED I LOVE JEONGNA]

[the way Cheol and Han kept holding her till they entered their gate 🥹]

The fans, who had just witnessed the entire event, were still in a state of shock, but now their screams had shifted. Instead of panic, there were chants of Luna’s name, filled with concern and admiration for how the members especially Seungcheol and Wonwoo had handled the situation.

It was only then, as the adrenaline began to fade, that Luna realized just how much she had been relying on them. Without them, without their quick thinking and protective instincts, she didn’t want to think about what could’ve happened.

‘FEAR’ WARDROBE MALFUNCTION IN JAPAN

The concert in Japan was in full swing, the arena lights flashing to the heavy beat of SEVENTEEN’s ‘Fear’ as they performed for thousands of cheering fans.

[Another one of my favorite clips, ladies and gentlemen]

The energy in the air was electric, the members synchronized perfectly with their intense choreography and sharp vocals. Luna was in the center of the stage, dressed in a sleek black attire that matched the rest of the members— black leather pants that accentuated her legs accompanied by a black sleeveless top with a zipper running down the back.

[MOM LOOKS HOT BTW 🥵]

The moment was flawless— until it wasn’t.

In the midst of a spin, as she did the choreography with the rest of the members, Luna felt the distinct sensation of her zipper giving way.

A chill ran down her spine as the entire back of her top unzipped, fully exposing her skin. Her black top was now hanging loose, barely held together by the fabric at the front.

But Luna, ever the professional, didn’t miss a beat. Her face remained fierce and intense, completely matching the dark, brooding mood of the song. Not a flicker of panic crossed her expression as she continued to sing, her voice steady, her movements sharp. Her body flowed with the choreography as if nothing was wrong, even though her mind was racing.

[her top was literally hanging by a thread]

[I don’t know how she does it. I would have panicked]

[It’s a good thing the zipper was at her back 🫥]

Some of the members noticed almost immediately. Being behind her in the formation, they had a clear view of her exposed back. Hoshi, who was a few steps to the side, caught a glimpse of her loose top during a turn, his eyes widening slightly in realization— however, he was a few steps too far to do anything about it.

Just as they transitioned to another part of the routine, Luna shifted her glance to the side and locked eyes with Dokyeom, who was right behind her. His eyes were filled with concern, his expression subtle but clear— her back was fully exposed, and they needed to fix it.

Luna, ever so composed, gave him a single, almost imperceptible nod. The kind of nod only someone who knew her well could catch. It was all she needed to convey her understanding.

[Again, it amazes me how fast they pulled this off]

[it took me like five times to understand how DK did it]

[Watch Dokyeomie closely]

Dokyeom, without hesitation, stepped into action while maintaining the choreography flawlessly. As they moved through the next steps, their bodies swayed and spun in perfect sync with the music, but every move was calculated.

Luna, still dancing and keeping her facial expression strong, swept her long hair from the back to the front in one fluid motion, letting it cascade over her shoulder. She exposed her bare back fully to Dokyeom, who was quick to react.

[HOT 🥵 HOT 🥵 HOT 🥵]

[maybe that’s why it’s so hard to catch DK zipping her up… Jiyeonie is too distracting]

With the precision and speed that only a professional dancer could pull off, Dokyeom zipped up the back of her top as if it were part of the routine. His fingers worked fast, pulling the zipper up in one smooth, swift motion while simultaneously stepping to the side, his feet moving in perfect time with the beat.

To any fan watching from the crowd, it would have looked like just another part of the choreography, so seamless was their execution. Luna barely flinched, continuing to sing with full power, her movements never faltering as she danced across the stage. The members around them barely blinked; they had seen what happened and knew the situation was under control.

[LIKE— WHAT?!]

[one minute her back was fully exposed and the next no skin at all!!?]

[THAT’S TALENT RIGHT THERE 👏👏👏]

The arena was still filled with flashing lights and screaming fans, but among them, some of the more eagle-eyed fans caught the moment on their phones. Every angle of the stage showed Dokyeom's swift actions and Luna's incredible poise. Twitter was already lighting up with comments about how professional they were.

As the final chorus hit, Luna and Dokyeom made eye contact once more. Luna, still keeping in character, mouthed a soft, “Thank you,” barely visible to the cameras, but enough for Dokyeom to see. He gave her a quick wink and a nod, his lips curling up into a small, reassuring smile before they both turned their attention back to the performance, moving seamlessly into the final formation.

[I want to be so good at something that I am this casual on stage]

From that point forward, no one would have guessed anything had gone wrong. The performance continued flawlessly, but fans watching from the crowd and at home couldn't help but be amazed at how fast and professional they both were. It was a moment of pure teamwork, a quiet display of trust and coordination between members that reminded everyone just how close SEVENTEEN really was—onstage and off.

THE BLANKET BLOCK ™

Now, let me introduce to you ‘The Infamous Blocks’. There are three in total— ‘The Blanket’, ‘The Body’, and ‘The Bear’. I might sound like I am joking but I’m being so serious…

Lets start with the ‘Blanket Block’

The night was electric with excitement, the air buzzing with anticipation as fans lined the barricades of the red carpet at MAMA 2017 in Japan. The event was one of the most awaited of the year, and the energy surrounding the venue was palpable. Cameras flashed wildly, fans screamed with glee, and a sea of lightsticks waved as the SEVENTEEN van rolled to a slow stop at the edge of the carpet. The sleek black vehicle gleamed under the lights as if announcing the arrival of something grand. One by one, the members began to step out.

First came S.Coups, stepping confidently onto the red carpet, his sharp black suit catching the light just right. The fans erupted in cheers, phones already out and recording as each member made their way down the line. Mingyu followed, waving briefly to the crowd, and then Seungkwan, whose grin brightened as he acknowledged the fans’ excitement. Each member received their share of attention, but it wasn’t just for the boys the crowd was waiting.

[they looked too good to be true this night]

Inside the van, Luna sat, fixing her dress, her hands smoothing over the soft fabric nervously. She knew the moment she stepped out, all eyes would be on her. But more than the eyes, it was the cameras. The predatory gleam of lenses ready to snap her from every angle made her feel vulnerable, and exposed. Tonight, she was wearing an elegant, sleek black dress— classy but form-fitting— and she knew the moment she stepped out, the cameras wouldn’t be kind if they caught anything inappropriate.

Jeonghan, who had just stepped out of the van, paused at the door and leaned back inside. His pink hair gleamed under the overhead lights, but his gaze was focused entirely on Luna, not the crowd.

He noticed her slight hesitation and saw the way her hands twitched with uncertainty as she adjusted her dress. He leaned in closer, his voice soft and comforting, though the words were lost to the flashing lights and the fans’ endless chants. Whatever he said, it calmed her enough for her to take a deep breath and prepare to step out.

[I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HE SAID TO HER]

[I’m desperate, please]

But before she could fully exit the van, Jeonghan reached inside and swiftly grabbed a dark blanket that had been folded near the seats. With a smooth, practiced motion, he unfolded it and held it open in front of the door, shielding Luna from the prying eyes and flashing cameras that would’ve otherwise had a clear view of her legs and dress as she maneuvered out of the car.

[GOODBYE WORLD PT. 2]

[YOON JEONGHAN IS THE STANDARD]

He didn’t rush her, didn’t make a big deal of it; his movements were calm, unbothered as if this were second nature to him. The blanket draped in his hands, blocking the lower part of her from view.

[I WANT HIM]

[LORD HE’S PERFECT IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE]

Luna, catching the gesture, couldn’t help but feel a wave of warmth and gratitude. Her face softened as she adjusted her dress under the cover of the blanket. She took a moment to gather herself, making sure every inch of fabric was in place, every crease smoothed out.

She met Jeonghan’s eyes for a brief second, and the silent exchange between them said more than words could have. A nod of reassurance. A small, grateful smile.

[she just swooned… don’t at me]

Jeonghan, still holding the blanket like a shield, waited for her signal. Only when Luna gave him the okay— a subtle but confident nod— did he let the blanket drop.

[HE– I– can’t. I need him in my life]

In a smooth motion, he tossed it back inside the van and extended his hand to her. Luna stepped out gracefully, her confidence restored as her feet touched the ground. The cameras immediately went into overdrive, capturing every inch of her, but Jeonghan remained beside her, his hand still on hers, helping her as they moved forward together.

[MOM AND DAD ARE SO FUCKING HOT]

[CAN I BE THE THIRD IN THIS RELATIONSHIP?!]

[please, I’m begging… I can be a pet… I can bark]

The cheers from the crowd doubled as Luna appeared. The fans, who had been screaming the members’ names, now turned their attention to the only female member of SEVENTEEN, and the energy shifted.

But Jeonghan never let go of her hand, guiding her with a quiet but firm presence. He knew how these events worked, how easily one wrong angle could lead to unnecessary scrutiny. And so, even as they posed together on the red carpet, his body was angled ever so slightly in her favor, offering her the subtle kind of protection that no one would notice but her.

[😩😩😩😩]

[look at them]

The fans closest to the barricades noticed it, though. They had seen the entire interaction, from the way Jeonghan covered her with the blanket to the way he never once let her fend for herself. And it didn’t go unnoticed how he tossed the blanket away only once he was certain she was completely comfortable. Luna's smile was as radiant as ever, but beneath it was the comfort of knowing that, even in a sea of flashing lights and camera lenses, someone always had her back.

[ICONIC. SIMPLY ICONIC.]

[one of the most iconic Jeongna moments]

THE BODY BLOCK ™

Next is my favorite out of the three… the ‘Body Block’

The night sky over Seoul was illuminated by the flashing lights of countless cameras, the red carpet stretching out like a sea of glamour and anticipation. It was the Cartier event of 2022, an evening that promised to bring together the city's most elegant and well-known figures.

Among them were Luna and Mingyu, two of Cartier’s most prominent models and brand ambassadors. Their presence alone was enough to send a ripple of excitement through the crowd, but the fact that they both wore red, in perfectly coordinated outfits, had the press buzzing.

[RED IS THEIR COLOR]

[I’m sorry– they looks so hot and intimidating]

Luna stepped out first, her heels clicking softly against the smooth surface of the red carpet. She was the embodiment of grace, her tall, slender frame draped in a stunning, floor-length red dress.

The dress was an exquisite piece— a bold, deep crimson that shimmered under the camera lights. It was strapless on one side, while the other featured a delicate, thin strap that wrapped over her shoulder, highlighting the gentle curve of her collarbone. The material clung to her figure in all the right ways, its fabric flowing down to her feet like liquid silk, pooling elegantly around her ankles. A daring slit along one side revealed a hint of her leg as she moved, but it was done tastefully, maintaining an air of sophistication and class.

[I WAS DROOLING WHEN I SAW HER]

[she doesn’t look real 😭]

[like– I’m convinced she’s a hologram]

Mingyu followed closely behind her, equally striking in his tailored red suit. The suit jacket was perfectly fitted to his broad shoulders, the crimson fabric complementing the sharp black of his shirt underneath.

[DOUBLE KILL]

[I AM SORRY— sir?!]

[I am loyal to Seungcheol… am I?]

Together, they made a captivating pair, their outfits harmonizing in a way that felt almost intentional, like they were meant to stand side by side on this particular night.

As they posed for the cameras, the flashes were relentless, a barrage of light capturing their every move. Luna stood tall, her chin slightly raised, one hand placed elegantly on her hip while her other arm hung loosely at her side. Beside her, Mingyu struck his own pose, the definition of cool confidence, his dark eyes locking with the cameras as they both stood center stage, an image of luxury and refinement.

[They’d be so hot together… I didn’t say that 😀]

And then it happened— so quickly that it could have been missed by anyone not paying attention. As Luna shifted her weight, turning her body slightly to change her angle, one of the thin straps of her dress slipped from her shoulder. The movement was subtle, barely noticeable at first, but as the strap fell, it revealed the bare skin of her shoulder.

[EVEN HER SHOULDER LOOKS PRETTIER THAN ME]

[DOES THAT MAKE SENSE!??]

Luna’s eyes flickered downward for a moment, a small crease of surprise appearing on her otherwise composed face.

Without missing a beat, she calmly reached up and tugged the strap back into place, her fingers grazing the cool fabric as she pulled it back over her shoulder. Her expression remained neutral, her movements composed— professional, as always. But Mingyu had seen it. The moment the strap fell, his attention snapped to her, eyes narrowing with concern for a fraction of a second.

[I’m convince every single member has spidey senses when it comes to her]

In a split-second decision, Mingyu moved. He stepped directly in front of Luna, his tall frame blocking her from the cameras with an easy, natural movement. His back was now facing the cameras, shielding her from their view as she adjusted the strap. His broad shoulders and the crimson jacket became a makeshift curtain, offering her privacy in an instant.

[🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️]

[LORD IT’S ME AGAIN]

[JEHUENDUWGYWGEJIWUDGUWBWKAIYWGUWB]

Luna looked up at him, her fingers still smoothing over the strap of her dress as she finished fixing it. Their eyes met, and for a moment, no words were needed. A small, appreciative smile touched her lips, her eyes softening as she gave him a simple nod of thanks.

Mingyu, always effortlessly cool, returned the gesture with a brief smile of his own, his eyes flickering with a silent understanding. Then, just as smoothly as he had positioned himself in front of her, he moved back to his original spot, turning to face the cameras once more, as if nothing had happened.

[THEY ALWAYS MAKE SURE SHE’S READY BEFORE THEY FUCKING STOP 🥹]

[they are so obedient too]

The photographers continued their frenzy, completely unaware of the quiet, protective exchange that had just taken place between the two. To them, it had been a seamless transition— nothing out of the ordinary. But to those paying close attention, the subtle moment of protection from Mingyu was not only graceful but instinctual, a sign of the quiet care he had for Luna, his fellow ambassador, and friend.

Together, they resumed their poses, their red outfits glowing under the lights, and once again, they became the perfect image of poise and elegance. But those who knew— who saw the quick flash of concern in Mingyu’s eyes and the gratitude in Luna’s smile— recognized the deeper connection between them, one that went beyond their roles on the red carpet.

The event continued, but that brief moment lingered, caught by the lucky fans who were watching closely enough to see the exchange, a testament to the unspoken bond shared by the two.

THE BEAR BLOCK ™

And finally, the ‘Bear Block’

The soft glow of the hotel room’s ambient lighting bathed the cozy space in a warm hue as Minghao and Luna sat side by side on the edge of her bed, engaging with fans in their casual Weverse live. Luna’s hotel room was comfortably minimalistic—soft cream-colored walls, sleek furniture, and the faint scent of lavender wafting through the air from a diffuser on the nightstand. Behind them, a plush teddy bear sat tucked into the pillows, a gift Luna had received from a fan earlier that day, its little beady eyes gleaming under the camera's light.

[IT’S THE OTHER SET OF TWINS OF SEVENTEEN]

[the 97 line twins]

It was a typical live stream for the two— comfortable and relaxed. Luna, in her soft oversized hoodie, was leaning back against the bedpost while Minghao, dressed in his usual stylish yet casual attire, lounged next to her. Their conversation flowed naturally as they laughed and answered fans’ questions. Minghao would occasionally break into Chinese, his voice smooth as he spoke in his mother tongue, and Luna, always eager to learn, would repeat his phrases with childlike excitement, though her pronunciation was less polished.

[they are so cute 🥺]

[I love this duo so much]

Minghao chuckled each time she got it wrong, his eyes crinkling in amusement. “No, no, like this,” he’d say, gently correcting her, the fondness in his tone unmistakable. He would then patiently translate the meaning into Korean for her and their fans, smiling as Luna exaggeratedly repeated the words again, determined to get it right.

[I am so soft for them]

The chat was buzzing with messages, and the number of viewers kept rising steadily as more fans joined in, thrilled by the duo’s easy-going dynamic. Luna, always full of energy, glanced at the screen, her sharp eyes catching one of the rapid comments. She leaned forward to get a better look, her long hair cascading down one side of her face as she brought her face closer to her phone.

"Wait, what does this say—" Luna began, her voice trailing off mid-sentence. Just as she was about to read the comment aloud, Minghao, who had been fiddling with the teddy bear on the bed, made a swift movement. In a fraction of a second, without a word, he gently but firmly pressed the soft bear against her chest, covering her entirely from view.

[this cracked me up 😂]

[the fact the Hao just shoved the bear in front of her was just hilarious]

Luna froze for a heartbeat, her eyes widening in surprise as she realized what had just happened. Her body had leaned forward just a little too far, and in her oversized hoodie, there had been a chance she might have inadvertently revealed something on camera that wasn’t meant to be seen. Minghao, with his ever-watchful eye and sharp instincts, had noticed it instantly.

[Hao really said: “not on my watch.” 🧸]

Her breath hitched for a moment as she glanced at him, her face a mix of shock and silent gratitude. Minghao, his expression calm and collected, simply nodded at her in a way that conveyed everything without words. He didn’t make a big deal of it; his actions were smooth and almost invisible to the casual observer. His nod was one of quiet understanding, a signal that she didn’t need to worry— he had her back.

[He’s also so fucking hot, lawd]

Luna’s heart swelled with appreciation, but she played it cool. With a soft exhale, she shot him a small, grateful smile. “Thank you,” she muttered under her breath, barely audible but enough for Minghao to hear.

He gave a subtle smile in return, his eyes crinkling slightly as he continued to idly hold the bear in place, casually moving it as though it were part of their lighthearted banter.

Luna straightened back up, her posture relaxed once more, and resumed the conversation as if nothing had happened.

Luna’s smile returned as she read through more comments, her face as calm and composed as ever, a professional through and through.

[CUTIESSSSSS 💕💕💕]

They continued answering fan questions as the live stretched on, but the silent gesture lingered in the air like an unspoken promise— proof that, no matter what, Minghao was always watching out for her, and Luna was never truly alone.

LUNA’S TRAINEE STORY IN GAME CATERERS 1-2

“It says here that you are known to cause fights.” PD Na said.

[THIS ENTIRE STORY RIGHT HERE]

The sudden statement caught everyone off guard. The members burst into laughter while Luna sat there, shocked and confused, unsure of how to respond.

“Me?” she asked, pointing to herself, her voice tinged with disbelief. “Fights? Where did you hear that?” She laughed, still trying to process the unexpected accusation.

[She’s just that bitch. She didn’t even know]

PD Na pointed at his paper, a teasing grin on his face. “We did our research. It says here that you caused a lot of fights when you were a trainee.”

A chorus of agreements erupted from the members, with many of them pointing at her and Jeonghan, nodding vigorously.

“That’s right!”

“He’s right!” they echoed, their voices overlapping as they teased her.

"This is amazing," Dokyeom laughed harder.

“What?” Luna turned to look at her members, her confusion deepening as she tried to piece together what they were talking about. "Huh? What are you guys talking about?"

Then her eyes landed on Jeonghan who was already watching her, and it all clicked. The realization dawned on her face, her expression shifting from confusion to understanding, and then to amusement. “Ah,” she laughed, finally catching on.

[SHE TOOK ONE LOOK AT JEONGHAN AND KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT]

Jeonghan, always the instigator, just grinned back at her, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

[he’s proud too]

As the memory clicked into place, Luna laughed harder, her laughter bubbling over as she covered her mouth with her hands. “This is amazing,” she marveled, still giggling. “How did you guys find out about that? I had completely forgotten about it.”

PD Na watched her with amusement, leaning forward slightly. “Can you tell us about it?” he asked, clearly intrigued.

Luna glanced at Jeonghan, who nodded in agreement, his smile knowing. She turned back to the group, preparing to recount the story. “It was when I was a trainee, and I was new at ‘PLEDIS’. This happened about five months after I joined,” Luna began, her hands moving animatedly as she spoke. “This one time, I just had the hardest day. The training was intense, I was sick at that time as well, and I remember stressing over my exams because I was still in school.”

Everyone listened carefully, their expressions a mix of curiosity and amusement. Her members, who knew the story well, giggled quietly, already anticipating where it was headed.

Luna continued, “I hadn’t eaten the entire day. I came to the practice room, and I had an apple. Then, one of the trainees came over, and he was teasing me.”

She paused, mimicking the boy’s actions by raising her hand as if holding something up high. “He took my apple, raised it up, and teased me to take it. He kept doing it and wouldn't give it to me up to the point that I just started crying,” Luna admitted, laughing at the memory of her younger, more vulnerable self.

“Aww,” the members and producers chorused, a mixture of sympathy and amusement in their voices.

[THEY ARE SO SOFT FOR HER WTF 🥺]

Luna pressed on, “Then, all of a sudden, Jeonghannie oppa came in.” She placed her hand on Jeonghan’s leg, and though he made no move, he continued listening to her, his smirk growing as he anticipated the end of the story. “He saw me crying, took one look at the apple, and then he went…”

Luna mimicked Jeonghan’s deep, angry voice and stern expression, saying, “‘Give it back'.”

The room exploded into shrieks. The members erupted in howls and laughter, some leaping out of their seats, while others covered their mouths in teasing disbelief. The laughter was contagious, filling the room. Luna and Jeonghan remained seated next to each other, smiling as the room buzzed with the chaotic energy of their shared memories.

[only same reaction]

As the laughter in the room finally began to die down, Luna continued the story, still smiling. “The trainee still wouldn’t give it back and thought Hannie oppa was joking with him,” she said, recalling the moment. “Then he went, ‘I said give it back,’ but the trainee just laughed at him. Oppa was one of the oldest, so it was a bit disrespectful…”

PD Na, fully invested in the story, leaned in slightly. “Then… what did he do?” he asked, his curiosity piqued.

Jeonghan, his voice calm and deep, answered this time, his eyes still carrying that signature droopy look as he smirked lazily. “I cursed him out.”

The casual delivery of his words contrasted with the intensity of the moment, making the members erupt into a chorus of teasing.

"Ooh, he cursed!"

"He really cursed him out!"

"He cursed!" they repeated, pointing at Jeonghan and laughing even harder.

Luna nodded, trying to keep a straight face, before wrapping up the story. "Then after that, we left, and he bought me food."

[out of all the things PLEDIS could’ve fucking released in that training room it could have been this!]

Before PD Na could reply, Seungkwan jumped in with a mischievous glint in his eyes. "There was also this one time. Maybe a year after that incident."

PD Na raised his eyebrows, intrigued. "There's another one?"

Luna, confused, turned to look at Seungkwan, who was seated behind her. "What else is there?" she asked, genuinely puzzled.

[SHE’S LOST]

"It happened a year before we debuted," Seungkwan leaned forward, his voice carrying a nostalgic tone. "Noona is beautiful. She's really beautiful. Even back then when she was younger, she hasn't changed at all. Not once. She looks the exact same. The only thing that changed is her height." He emphasized each word to PD Na, while Luna listened quietly, her members nodding in agreement.

[I AGREE]

"She was an extremely popular trainee," Seungkwan continued. "A lot of boys liked her."

[SAME]

With that, a chorus of agreements spilled from the mouths of the members. "That's true," Mingyu said, nodding along with the others.

[GOOD. SO WE ALL AGREE.]

"There was a time when two trainees were literally arguing about her because they both liked her, and they decided to talk to her about it and make her decide," Seungkwan added, glancing over at Luna with a grin.

"I remember this," S.Coups chuckled, his eyes lighting up with the memory.

Luna’s eyes widened as she finally recalled the story. "Oh, right! Once they saw me, they started arguing in front of me," she nodded, using her hands to illustrate the scene.

[She explained that as if it’s the most normal thing in the world]

"Right. They were literally fighting in front of her," Seungkwan affirmed. "The members present tried to make them stop, but one thing led to another, and they both grabbed Luna by each hand," Seungkwan demonstrated the movement, grabbing Wonwoo’s arm to illustrate the point.

[WHAT I WOULD DO TO SEE THIS]

"Jeonghan… He was the angriest I've ever seen him in my life," Seungkwan said, raising his hand as if swearing to the truth.

[WHAT I WOULD DO TO SEE THIS PT. 2]

Seungkwan then stood up, pulling Wonwoo to his feet to act out the scene. "Jeonghan went up to them and just…" He mimicked Jeonghan’s aggressive stance, facing Wonwoo head-on, his expression fierce.

"Jeonghan had really long hair back then, so it was swaying like this," Seungkwan added, shaking his head from side to side, imitating the way Jeonghan’s hair had moved during the confrontation. "'Let go,'" he said in a deep, angry voice, perfectly mimicking Jeonghan.

[ANGRY JEONGHAN + LONG-HAIRED JEONGHAN = 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️]

Another chorus of amused, teasing "Oohs" erupted from the members, while Luna sat laughing, her shoulders shaking with mirth.

S.Coups, still seated, shook his head with a grin. "I had to get him off. It was the first time I saw Jeonghan angry as well," he confessed, looking at Jeonghan with a mixture of admiration and amusement.

[good lord. PLEDIS RELEASE THE FOOTAGE NOW. I KNOW YOU HAVE IT THERE SOMEWHERE]

PD Na directed his attention to Jeonghan, raising an eyebrow with an amused smile. "It seems like you're involved in a lot of these stories."

[He knows what’s up]

Before Jeonghan could respond, Dokyeom cut in with a knowing grin. "Jeonghan is the most protective of Luna."

[I BEG TO DIFFER BUT ACCURATE]

Luna quickly interjected, shaking her head with a smile. "No, it’s because he was the first person I became friends with when I joined. He was the person I was most comfortable with."

[🥹🥹🥹]

Jeonghan finally spoke up, his tone nonchalant as if the answer was obvious. "How else am I supposed to react during that situation?"

[right. right. right.]

Hoshi chimed in, nodding in agreement. "He’s cool."

"Very cool," Minghao said.

[He’s hot too]

Seungkwan, ever the dramatic one, couldn’t resist adding his flair. "I swear it was like a drama," he said, his voice filled with exaggerated emotion. "It was like you could hear the song play… 'Almost Paradise'…'" He sang the familiar tune, sending the room into another round of laughter.

[YESSSSSSSSSS]

PD Na, still chuckling, looked back at Jeonghan and Luna. "It’s because she’s your best friend. You two are the closest."

Both Luna and Jeonghan nodded, confirming the bond they shared.

"She's like your younger sister," PD Na added thoughtfully.

[sure]

Jeonghan, who had been nodding in agreement, suddenly faltered. "N– y–yes," he stuttered, quickly changing his answer.

[HE AINT SLICK AT ALL]

The subtle exchange of looks between Jeonghan and Luna that followed didn’t go unnoticed. Jeonghan's eyes lingered on her for just a moment, while Luna remained composed, though there was a fleeting glint of something unspoken in her eyes. It was a small, almost imperceptible moment, but the hesitation in Jeonghan’s response added a strange tension to the room that only the members noticed and understood as if there was more to the story than they were letting on.

[CALL ME INSANE BUT THERE WAS SOMETHING THERE]

[THE MEMBERS KNOW TOO]

PD Na, oblivious to the undercurrent, chuckled again. "I never thought you would be the type of person to fight," he remarked to Jeonghan, amused by the contrast between his usual calm demeanor and the stories being told.

The room burst into laughter again, and in perfect sync, both Luna and Jeonghan replied, "You’d think."

[GOD I LOVE THEM]

LUNA’S ALMOST FACE-PLANTING OFF THE STAGE

It was the encore stage of SEVENTEEN’s ‘Be The Sun’ concert in Los Angeles, the never-ending loop of ‘Very Nice’ ringing through the arena as the crowd screamed and chanted along. The energy was electric, and all fourteen members were spread across the stage, bouncing with uncontainable excitement.

[it’s always this song btw]

[shit always happens during this never-ending song]

They’d already run through what seemed like a dozen rounds of the song, yet the adrenaline kept them going, fueled by the roars of the fans.

Luna, like the rest, was in high spirits, hopping from side to side, her voice blending with the sea of cheers as she waved down to the fans in the pit.

[SPIT ON ME– w-what?!]

She had found herself at the very edge of the stage, close enough that she could see the eager faces reaching up toward her, arms outstretched and phones recording every moment. Luna smiled and waved, her fingers making heart signs as she interacted with the fans who screamed her name in delight.

[She’s adorable and hot at the same time]

[like– how does one achieve that skill]

Her hair was slightly damp from all the jumping, and she pushed it out of her face, not noticing the sheen of water accumulating by her feet. The other members had been throwing water bottles into the crowd moments earlier, and the puddles left behind were nearly invisible under the bright concert lights.

In the heat of the moment, Luna took a step forward, her foot catching the slick surface beneath her. Her sneakers slid out from under her, and for a brief, terrifying second, her body lurched forward, dangerously close to toppling off the stage. Her balance was gone, the crowd gasping in unison as they watched her stumble.

[SHE LITERALLY WAS THIS 🤏 CLOSE TO SEEING JESUS]

But before gravity could pull her down, two pairs of hands shot out— firm and fast. Dino, who had been dancing nearby, immediately grabbed her left arm with a firm grip, his reflexes kicking in as he sensed her falling. At the same moment, Vernon, who had been casually walking past on her right, caught her other arm, his hands locking around her elbow with precision. Together, the two maknaes stabilized her, each holding on tightly as she regained her footing.

[THEY BOTH LOOKED EQUALLY TERRIFIED]

[Someone bubble wrap Jiyeonie I’m so serious]

For a moment, everything seemed to pause. The three of them stood frozen, catching their breaths as the arena’s lights flashed around them.

[the way the three of them just froze]

Luna’s heart raced as she realized how close she had been to a disastrous fall, right in front of thousands of fans. She turned to look at Dino and Vernon, their hands still gripping her arms firmly. Their faces mirrored a mixture of concern and relief, and they exchanged a silent understanding in that brief, weighty second.

Luna, her chest heaving, mouthed the words, “Thank you… I almost died,” her eyes wide with mock dramatization.

Her words, though lost in the chaos of the concert, were picked up by eagle-eyed fans close enough to lip-read the exchange. Dino let out a relieved laugh, his lips quirking into a smile, while Vernon gave a subtle nod, eyes flicking toward her with a smirk, as if to say, “Yup, you almost died.”

In the span of a heartbeat, the moment passed. Dino and Vernon released their hold as she straightened herself, shaking off the near-incident. Luna turned back to the audience with a bright grin, as if nothing had happened, raising her arms and encouraging the crowd to scream even louder.

[SHE’S SO UNSERIOUS 😂]

The fans, unaware of just how close she’d been to falling, cheered even harder, oblivious to the small protective moment that had unfolded before their eyes.

As the three continued dancing, the members spread back out across the stage, the concert’s rhythm never missing a beat.

THIS LIVE THAT MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL

Hoshi’s live had started like any other, full of laughter, easy conversation, and the familiar warmth of interacting with fans. As he sat in front of the camera, casually talking about everything from the group’s upcoming schedules to his favorite food that day, the comments section filled with excitement, fans from all over the world typing out their love and admiration for SEVENTEEN's energetic tiger.

[AH YES, ANOTHER CLIP THAT PISSES ME THE FUCK OFF]

But then, the live took an unexpected turn as both Joshua and Luna suddenly appeared on screen. Joshua casually strolled into the room, his ever-present smile lighting up his face as he greeted the viewers. “Hey, everyone!” he said, settling down beside Hoshi.

Luna followed quietly, a soft, polite wave to the camera as she sat next to Joshua. Her presence, while usually met with joy from fans, always came with its fair share of negativity as well, something she’d long since come to terms with as the only female member of SEVENTEEN.

At first, the chat exploded with excitement.

“OMG Joshua!!”

“YAY, Jiyeonie is here too!!”

“Look at these visuals!!!”

But quickly, as always, the tide began to shift. Hidden between the floods of hearts and cheers, darker comments started appearing.

They always did.

“Why is she even here?”

“We only wanted Joshua and Hoshi, not her.”

“She ruins it as always.”

“Please leave, no one wants to see you.”

Luna sat quietly, her eyes flickering over the comments, her usual smile frozen on her face. She had grown used to this, a side effect of being the only girl in a thirteen-member male-dominated group.

[YOU MOTHERFUCKERS BETTER ROT IN HELL]

[look at her face!]

No matter how much love she received, there were always those who couldn't accept her presence.

Over the years, she had developed a thick skin.

She knew she didn’t need to prove herself to anyone, that she was just as much a part of SEVENTEEN as any of the others, but that didn’t make it any less uncomfortable to read such words over and over again. It was as though the hate was a dark cloud that hovered just beyond the warmth of the stage lights, waiting to seep in whenever she let her guard down.

Joshua, sitting next to her, immediately sensed the shift in her demeanor. His sharp eyes noticed how her usual bubbly chatter had quieted down, how she glanced at the screen but didn’t engage as much as she normally would.

[I am just happy she has them 🥺]

[she doesn’t deserve the hate]

Without a word, he gently wrapped an arm around her shoulders, his touch comforting and protective. His gaze met hers in a brief exchange, asking the question without saying a word: Are you okay?

[🥹🥹🥹]

Luna looked up at him and gave a small nod, her lips curving into a soft smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. It wasn’t the hate that bothered her, not anymore— it was how people could hold so much anger and vitriol for someone they didn’t even know. Still, she remained quiet, determined not to let the negative comments ruin the mood of the live.

[BAE JIYEON WE LOVE YOU ALWAYS AND FOREVER 💖💖💖]

But Hoshi, ever the observant one, wasn’t about to let it slide. His bright, playful expression faded as he leaned closer to the camera, his eyes scanning the comments section intently.

[ngl his shift in attitude gave me fucking chills]

[Hoshi really went from 🐹 to🐯]

Luna watched out of the corner of her eye as his fingers moved across the screen, quietly and deliberately reporting the hateful messages one by one. Only she and Joshua could see what he was doing, but fans started speculating in the chat as well, noticing the change in his expression and how his focus shifted from conversation to something else entirely.

[HE REALLY SAID “TRY ME BITCH”]

[he was mass reporting the shit out of them hoes]

Then, after a few moments of silence, Hoshi sat back, his face serious, his usually playful tone replaced with something much firmer, more resolute. His voice carried an edge that left no room for argument, yet he wasn’t aggressive— just calm, measured, and unwavering. He addressed the chat directly, his eyes staring straight into the camera.

[HELP— HE IS GENUINELY TERRIFYING ANGRY]

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, then you should just leave,” Hoshi said, his words clear and firm. “This live is for all of us to have fun and spend time together. I won’t tolerate disrespect toward any of my members. If you don’t like it, that’s fine— but I won’t have people being rude. That’s not what SEVENTEEN is about, and that’s not the kind of fans we want. So if you’re here to spread hate, you’re not welcome.”

[SHIT– I… 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️]

[RAWR! THAT’S THE TIGER IN HIM]

He paused, his expression softening just slightly, but his message was unmistakable. “Let’s all just be kind to each other, okay? That’s the kind of energy we need.”

[AMEN TO THAT!]

[YOU LOSERS HEAR HIM?!]

The chat exploded with a mix of reactions. Supportive fans immediately flooded the comments with love for Luna, agreeing with Hoshi’s words and calling out the haters who had been leaving negative comments. But there were still others who continued to protest, claiming they had a right to their opinions, or that they hadn’t said anything wrong.

Through it all, Luna stayed quiet. She occasionally responded to a few positive comments, forcing a smile here and there, but her heart wasn’t in it. Joshua and Hoshi tried their best to lighten the mood, playfully nudging her to join the conversation, but the damage had already been done— not because she was hurt by the hate, but because it confused her.

How could people carry so much anger, so much spite, for someone they didn’t even know? It was a question she couldn’t answer and one that weighed on her more than the comments themselves.

[she looked sad the entire time]

[I’m so sorry, baby 🥺]

As the live continued, the mood eventually lightened again, thanks to Hoshi’s relentless energy and Joshua’s calm, steady presence. But for Luna, the evening felt a little heavier, her mind drifting back to the reality of her position as SEVENTEEN's only female member. She would never let the hate break her, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t exhausting.

“BAE JIYEON MARRY ME!”

The air was buzzing with excitement inside the venue as fans eagerly waited for the fan sign event to begin. The members of SEVENTEEN sat in a line, comfortably seated behind a long table on the stage, each with their markers in hand, ready to greet their Carats up close. The stage lights cast a soft glow over the group as they casually chatted amongst themselves, waving occasionally to the fans in the audience, who were waiting for their turn.

Luna, seated between Joshua and Minghao, was twirling her marker absentmindedly, her attention drifting between the other members' conversations and the distant murmur of the crowd. The relaxed energy around her was something she always cherished at fan signs— a rare chance to connect with the fans on a more personal level.

[I HAVE SAID IT ONCE AND I’LL SAY IT AGAIN… SHE IS BEAUTIFUL… AND SMOKING HOT 😍🥵]

But just as Luna was about to engage in a conversation with Minghao, a loud, booming voice from the audience broke through the steady hum of the crowd.

“BAE JIYEON, MARRY ME!”

[Honestly… valid]

The sudden, bold declaration reverberated across the room, sending ripples of surprise and laughter through the fans. Luna, completely caught off guard, froze mid-spin, her eyes widening as she looked up toward the sea of fans. Her heart jumped in her chest, not from the proposal itself, but from the unexpected shock of it all.

[She’s adorable]

[She’s also concerned]

A chorus of laughter and amused giggles rose from the audience. Luna, still recovering from the jolt of surprise, reached for the mic in front of her, her lips curving into an amused smile.

She was about to reply, maybe tease the fan back, but before she could even bring the mic to her lips, the response came— not from her, but from the thirteen members seated beside her.

[And there they go…]

A resounding, collective, and very loud “NO!” erupted from her bandmates. The word shot across the room in unison, like a protective shield around her, each member adding their own flair to the rejection.

[THEY CRACK ME TF UP 😂]

Seungcheol was the first to react, playfully crossing his arms over his chest and giving a mock glare toward the fan as he leaned back in his seat. “Absolutely not,” he added, shaking his head as if to cement the point.

Dino and Jun, sitting a few seats down, followed suit, their arms shooting up into the air in exaggerated protest. “No, no, no!” They chanted, shaking their fingers dramatically, their expression both comical and stern.

Hoshi, always one to escalate things, leaned forward in his chair, his voice loud and booming as he pointed into the audience. “You’ve got some nerve!” he said playfully, though his eyes sparkled with mischief. “Jiyeon’s not going anywhere, you hear me?”

The fans roared with laughter, thoroughly entertained by the group’s immediate and united defense. Even Woozi, known for his quieter reactions, shook his head silently, his lips forming a firm, resolute “no” as he glanced down the line at Luna, his protective instincts subtly showing.

Mingyu, seated at the far end, leaned into his mic. “Good try, though,” he deadpanned, earning another round of chuckles from the audience.

[MENACES]

Luna couldn’t help but laugh, her shoulders shaking as the members continued their playful scolding. It was a chaotic chorus of no’s, some loud and exaggerated, others quiet but firm. The overwhelming display of protection from her members warmed her heart, and she could see the amusement spreading among the fans as well.

[JIYEON JUST SAT THERE LIKE: “YUP 😇”]

Even the fan who had shouted the proposal was laughing along, clearly enjoying the playful banter his boldness had sparked.

As the ruckus continued, Luna finally leaned back in her chair, shaking her head with a grin. The mic still rested in her hand, but there wasn’t much for her to say— her bandmates had already spoken loud and clear.

Then, amidst the fading echoes of laughter, Jeonghan, who had remained relatively quiet during the exchange, finally spoke up. His voice was calm and smooth as he brought his mic to his lips, his usual playful smirk replaced with something more composed.

“Sorry, but that question is sensitive for us,” he said nonchalantly, though there was a glint in his eyes that made it clear there was more truth to his words than his tone let on.

[Translation: “Only I get to ask her to marry me.”]

The laughter in the room softened, and for a split second, a quiet fell over the stage as Luna and the rest of the members registered the weight behind Jeonghan’s words. It was a joke, of course, but Luna knew Jeonghan better than most— and she could tell he was serious.

He always was when it came to her.

Luna’s laughter faded into a softer smile, a silent understanding passing between her and Jeonghan as their eyes briefly met across the table. He gave her a small, reassuring nod, and she returned it, appreciating the subtle way he always looked out for her. Even in moments like this, where the line between playfulness and sincerity blurred, Jeonghan’s protectiveness always shone through.

[STOP FLIRTING WITH MOM, DAD!]

The fans, blissfully unaware of the deeper meaning behind his words, erupted into laughter once again, the lighthearted atmosphere quickly returning. Luna, feeling the warmth of her members’ care, picked up the mic at last and shook her head, addressing the original fan who had proposed.

“I think you got your answer,” she said with a teasing smile, the laughter in her voice unmistakable.

[Translation: “Only Yoon Jeonghan gets to marry me.”]

The fans cheered, and the rest of the members continued to playfully banter as the fan sign officially began. But throughout the rest of the event, Luna couldn’t help but feel a sense of gratitude for the family she had in SEVENTEEN— their protectiveness, their loyalty, and their unwavering support. It wasn’t always easy being the only female member, but in moments like this, she knew she wasn’t alone.

And there you have it, folks! Just a small glimpse into SEVENTEEN’s ultimate protective instincts when it comes to their one and only Luna. I mean, if you ever had any doubts about how loved this girl is, well… think again.

Thirteen men— yes, thirteen— willing to risk it all, fight the world, and probably even dive into traffic if it meant keeping her safe. So, a quick reminder to all: Never— and I mean NEVER— mess with Bae Jiyeon unless you want these maniacs after you.

But hey, can you really blame them? Luna’s got their backs, and they’ve got hers. It’s a whole family thing at this point.

Thanks for watching! Don’t forget to comment on more wholesome SEVENTEEN content you want to see next! See you next time— unless you’re out there trying to propose to Luna… in which case… good luck with that!”

comments…

@/lunababybae • 10 months ago ╰ Luna’s sasaeng attack pisses me off but angry and protective Cheol makes up for it 🥵

@/mimilyemily • 10 months ago ╰ DID YOU SEE HOW FAST CHOI SEUNGCHEOL AND JEON WONWOO REACTED AT 1:00 GOOD LORD

@/gyusshadow • 10 months ago ╰ OUR LEADER SCOLDING SECURITY FOR LUNA 🥺 MY MAN RIGHT THERE!!!

@/moonlight_1997 • 10 months ago ╰ Jeonghan caressing Luna’s red arm 1:25 idk if I am to feel soft over him touching her like that or pissed off that her arm is red because of that sasaeng 🙃

@/saythename • 8 months ago ╰ Seokminie zipping Jiyeonie up that quick during Fear is a skill and a hot skill at that!

@/jeonwoowonwoo • 7 months ago ╰ They are all so protective of her, it’s super endearing 💖🥺

@/mrsbaebae • 7 months ago ╰ THE THREE BLOCKS ARE ICONIC!!!

@/jeongnanana • 7 months ago ╰ THESE MEN ARE THE STANDARD WTF!? JUST THE WAY THEY TREAT LUNA IS PROOF ENOUGH 💕🤭

@/gyuuuuudaily • 6 months ago

╰ YOON JEONGHAN DEFENDING LUNA DURING THEIR TRAINEE DAYS IS STILL ONE OF THE BEST STORIES I HAVE EVER HEARD TILL THIS DAY!!!

@/bbbiiibbiii • 5 months ago ╰ That exchange of looks from Luna and Hannie at 19:57 😍😍😍

@/missbitchhhh • 3 months ago ╰ note to self: “How to get Svt to notice you = ask Luna to marry you.”

@/shadowmyshadow• 2 months ago ╰ I have completely erased that Hoshi live from my mind. Seeing Luna sad and quiet like that breaks me 🥺

@/kpppopieaddict • 1 week ago ╰ They are all down bad for her wbk (I am too).

ೃ⁀➷ comment or message me to be added to the tag list :)

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ SUBMIT A REQUEST AND ASK ME ANYTHING!

: ̗̀➛ requests are always open ♡ - lunaఌ

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[lundenloves]

DAD SIMON AND THE 141 VISITING TO CHECK THE KID OUT FOR THE FIRST TIME PLAPSSLSLSPSLSLSK AND HE GETS SO JEALOUS WHEN OTHERS HOLD HIS SWEET BABY PATOOTIE PRINCesss

↳ no warnings | f!reader | 1.6k

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Anon, I may have strayed from your original thoughts a little. I hold my hands up. At this point, he has been back and had time with her already this is just 141 meeting her. And it's very? Thought-provoking? Possibly not how you imagined? Alas, voila.

Having a newborn allowed for zero quiet. Nothing of the sort was even imagined, sleep was out the window and tiredness was the new trend. It became tougher when Simon had to go back to work, leaving you behind with a long apology and his credit card. What was the card for? You weren’t sure, but made sure it was used like fuck. £17.32 on McDonald’s delivery didn’t seem as painful with his money.

And that’s exactly what you were doing, happily. Baby sleeping on your almost bare chest with a haul of food around you in bed. It was only seven but you had no reason to be up and about, and the reality tv wasn’t going to catch up on itself.

In fact, you were about to reach the episode climax of Love Island. Someone had been mugged off and the producers were keen on making a drama of it, issuing a re-coupling. But. Right before you could skip the credits and fast-track to the next episode, the bedroom door swung open and you screamed. Waking your daughter who naturally began to cry.

"Fucking hell." You frowned at Simon who had quickly shut the door behind him upon seeing you. He wasn't due back till tomorrow. "Scared me.” The scold in your voice was one he ignored, picking up a milk-stained shirt from the floor.

“Put something on, christ.” His voice gruff as he shrugged his jacket off and reached for another t-shirt after wearily tossing the other back to the floor, holding it out. “What, Me?” Black-painted eyes narrowed at you upon holding his child out to him, asking for a trade.

“No. The other person in the room.” You deadpanned, widening your eyes in silent effort for him to take her. “Yes, you.” He did as told, looking down at his daughter blankly. “What’s the rush anyway.”

Although, your question was answered by a loud echo of laughs from downstairs. “All of them?” In reference to the only three men it could be.

“I didn’t agree.” He met your eyes, holding the baby back out to you for the brief second you passed him. Sauntering out to the hallway before he had called your name stiffly, eyes pleading relief of the absolute fucking threat that was his baby. “Take her.”

“You’re fine.” You waved a hand, walking downstairs with him reluctantly following.

It was a shame really, you couldn’t help but snort at the way he held her so high up his chest. “Don’t let Johnny hog her.” Was the only instruction you gave, wandering through to the kitchen where his unit were stood.

“Alright?” The Scot rubbed your shoulder in greeting, “Solid birth n’ all that?” His brows furrowed in genuine care although the question was worded oddly.

“Solid. Johnny.”

He tsked, clutching a hand to his opposite bicep. “Tends to be like that, ae.”

“Speaking from experience?”

He laughed although his eyes fell from yours to over your shoulder. Price held his hand on your back in acknowledgment, his eyes softening with a nod your way. “Christ.” He muttered at the sight in Simon’s arms, taking his hand back and removing his hat. “Congratulations.”

Gaz wrapped an arm around you, leaning his head atop of yours on his shoulder. “It’s mad.” He said more to himself than anyone else, catching eyes with Soap who for once was lost on what to say.

Simon’s eyes were stuck on the baby in his arms, refusing to look up and see the group reaction. Her small hand reached upward, and his finger met her halfway, face unchanged as she wrapped her hand around it. No one said or did anything, only Price who took a step forward to pat the lieutenant's shoulder. The moment was tender, and understood by everyone as such a thing even by Johnny who crossed his arms over his chest and contrastingly pout his bottom lip out to you. “You wanna hold her?” You spoke to him, crossing the space to Simon who had finally looked up. 

“Go on, then.” He pushed his jacket off, hanging it on the back of the kitchen chair. Simon’s eyes met Soap’s, a look of trust, threat and relief spread across his face when you had prompted him to hand her over. “Just a wee thing, ae?” He comfortably took her from Ghost, gently bouncing her and smiling when she had cooed.

“Tiny.” Gaz added, looking to Simon who shifted in his spot - looking around the room, finding comfort in anything other than the tiny being. He was still so unsure of himself. Arms crossed together over his chest in anxious replacement of the tac vest he would usually slot his thumbs into. “Fresh to the world.” 

“Five weeks old.” You looked at Gaz. “Brand. New.”

He shook his head at the idea of a baby, looking to Price who was subtly enough fixated on his lieutenant. “How’re you doing, Simon?” He asked firmly, in a tone Simon wouldn’t ignore or sigh at, one he recognised as important. A tone of order.

“Fine.” He kept it brief, locking eyes with Price who nodded slowly. 

It was hard to read Simon. Period. Even after years being with him, you still couldn’t predict the way he was feeling or what he was going to say about a situation. He distanced himself from his daughter the first few days, intentionally waiting until you woke to sort her out instead of facing himself and his past in the form of the harmless baby.

His allowed paternity leave wasn’t granted extension of more than a week, therefore he left you. And admittedly, although he wouldn’t ever say it, he was glad to get some time away. It had only been a week and he was already itching to be alone, no words you spoke could comfort him. Only the mindless living of a deployment. His desired remedy. 

Ghost was dead silent that whole mission. The unit knew why, although they were tightly instructed by Price to keep their mouths shut. Not to even ask about the kid. So they didn’t, not until today, when it was brought up by the man himself. “Ask about the kid, then.” He said gruffly, unlacing his boots and stomping his feet wide of each other, eyes darting between the three men opposite him.

“She alright, yeah?” Soap asked, receiving a dull nod. 

“We’d love to meet her sometime.” Price continued cautiously, looking to Simon who then nodded, eyes dropping to his boots. There was a moment of silence before he had spoken up in answer to Price, elbows rest on his knees, hands clasped together and rubbing against his mouth. “You don’t live too far from base do you?”

“An hour.” He cleared his throat, “I live an hour away.” 

“We could stop by,” Price was the one to suggest it, dipping to reach a bag behind Soap’s drawer. “This is, from, us.” He rubbed the back of his neck, holding the small gift bag out to Ghost who only looked up at it. 

“I’m going home tonight.” He said matter of factly. “Just.” A sigh. “Tail me and hand it in to her, she’ll appreciate it better than I will.” Soap smirked at Simon’s falsified reluctance, a hidden invite into his lieutenant's domestic life was on the table and of course he jumped at it. 

And you? You knew Simon had given a skeleton of an invite. It was obvious. 

So now, as your daughter had been passed to Price from Gaz, it felt oddly comforting to you. For Simon, you couldn’t tell as much from the way he was constantly sighing and moving in his spot - obviously discomforted by the idea of his unit being in such an intimate space of his but it was blown over by the end of the short visit. “She’s going to be tall.” Price tilted his head at the baby, thumb swiping across her small arm.

“Oh aye.” Johnny nodded, nudging Simon who stared down at her. “Think she’ll have your eyes?” His efforts granted a shrug from the man next to him.

“The colour keeps changing, but,” You caressed her head in Price’s arms, “They are his shape.” The tone of your voice warming Simon enough for the thought of a smile, the side of his lip curling just enough. 

Gaz nodded to a bag Soap had left on the counter, “There’s some stuff. We didn’t get much time.” He reached for it, holding it out to you. The purpose of the trip.

“And there’s a card with some money.” Johnny added, “See yous’ round the New Year for the wee yin.” The bag had generic baby gifts inside, although it swelled your heart to think of three large military men shopping around for each thing inside

And the card was a treasure in itself, one you would certainly keep, handing it to Simon so you could hug Gaz and Soap, receiving a kiss to your cheek from Price after taking the baby back. “Maybe see you lot closer to Christmas?” You asked, bouncing your daughter when she had begun to stir.

“Course.” Price nodded to Simon, following the other two out the door. You heard them talking about the baby from the threshold, watching as they piled into their respective cars and pulled off with waves and a single salute from Soap. Because, Soap.

Simon sighed once the door was shut, looking down at you. There was something between warmth and sympathy in his eyes, wrapping an arm around the back of your neck and kissing your temple. “You putting this up?” He mumbled, holding out the card before pressing his thumb and pointer finger together against his daughter’s tiny feet in sudden affection. 

“On the mantel for now, probably.” You rubbed his arm, following him through to the living room. 

There was new lightheartedness around him after they had left. Like having his unit meeting his daughter was somehow a weight that had finally been shrugged off after the fact. Even prodding a few more kisses than you would usually receive from him. His brain worked in mysterious ways, although you were not complaining. 

Not now anyway.

simon 'ghost' riley taglist: @vamppxncess @freakonfilm @crowbird @misshoneypaper @tallrock35 @fluffmonster @islanderr @blueoorchid @abbugadu @lea3773 @coldflapjack @rayhawk05 @han11dh @liishook @melovetitties @fallonx @rvjaa @fuckmelifesucks @bhayatsara @takeomisbitch @local-spidey @konigsblog @penutjuice @babychoi03 @sheluvzeren @sparklingtragedy @maviee @wiserebelpartypie @daddylorianisastateofmind @bhayatsara @mistydeyes @writingmysanity @johfaam0 @idkjoequinn @gressseyy

[stevie-petey]

episode two: vecnas curse

“Hey, guys?” Max gets everyone’s attention and points towards the boathouse.  Dustin is the first to start walking down, Robin and Max not far behind, and you stand back with Steve. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go into the creepy abandoned boathouse. Yay.” “We’ve done worse, angel.” You sigh. “It’s really depressing that you’re right.”

Summary: you and billy play marco polo, max interrupts a saturday morning breakfast at the henderson household, robin crushes steves dream of becoming a 1950s housewife, reefer rick has an odd taste in movies, boathouses are creepy in the dark, and eddie munson likes it when you pull his hair.

Rating: general, some swearing

Warnings: drowning, violence, swearing, fem!reader, use of y/n, blood mentions

Words: 10.5k (i wrote this in one day)

Before you swing in: hey gang !!! so i wasnt supposed to update so soon. and then i wrote this entire chapter in one day. so now here we are. anyways ! read the warnings, this chapter starts heavy. on another note: i start senior year of college on tuesday so updates will vary as i settle into my routine again so pls be patient !! for now, heres a very surprising and unplanned chapter 2, enjoy !

–

Water. 

There’s so much water. 

In your mouth, in your chest, burning your lungs and swallowing every scream that scrapes your throat to escape. Every breath you take, more water spills into your body and quiets the desperate cries and gags you. 

Your head breaks through the water’s surface and you inhale so sharply it burns your lungs even more than the chlorine does. You choke on the air, it’s sickly sweet, and a hand shoves you back under the water before you can inhale again. 

Bubbles encase your screams, your arms flail up, your legs kick wildly to try and reach the surface again. But the arm attached to the hand is strong, it holds your body under the water without effort. In the rims of the ripples above you, the corpse of a boy you once knew stares down at you.

“I’ve found you.” Billy sneers, his voice muffled by the water that rushes in your ears.

His eyes are cold, his skin sunken in and littered with cracks. It’s yellowed, decayed, edges of his skin have turned gray as he’s decomposed. Billy’s hair is matted and his shirt is torn and yet his hand shoves you underneath the water again and again and again.

You try to scream, you try to fight against him, but he’s always been so much stronger than you. Even in death, Billy Hargrove’s weight on you anchors you to the rushing water that threatens to drown you. 

Your head breaks the surface again. Billy pulls you up by your hair, your scalp burns. Air wracks your lungs as you struggle to inhale anything other than Hawkin’s pool water. Coughs shake your body, bile rises in your throat, and Billy shakes his head at you in disgust.

“I’ve found you.” He shoves your head under, your nails claw at his skin but he doesn’t flinch. Blood drips down his arm, stains the pool’s crystal blue, and yet you’re drowning still. Again Billy yanks your head back up, for a brief moment you can breathe, before his breath ghosts your face and he hisses into your ear, “I’ve found you.”

Water. It’s all you can feel around you. Your lungs are on fire, you scrape your nails the concrete as you struggle against Billy, but you’re dying. 

You’re dying.

Billy pulls you back, air kisses your face. Your vision darkens, more bile rises. There’s so much water. You can’t stop coughing, you think you’re crying, the chlorine stings your eyes as it sears your raw throat. Billy slams your head down onto the pool’s edge. Pain explodes in the bridge of your nose, blood stains the water even more.

“I’ve. Found. You.” You take one final gasp of air before Billy shoves you back under the water. 

You’re weightless. 

Everything goes dark. 

Suddenly your body rips forward, jerking awake so violently that it makes you nauseous. Your chest heaves, your body struggles to inhale the air that was so cruelly taken from you in your dream. 

It had been a dream, though the water felt so real. The taste of chlorine lingers in your mouth.

Panting, you force yourself to look around your room, list all the things you see. It’s become a little game you play, every time you have a nightmare so vivid that it challenges reality. Your eyes find Steve’s old basketball hoodie, draped over your desk chair. You focus on the bite of bitter cold from the charm bracelet’s silver that rests against your wrist. Breathing through your nose, you try to name what you can smell.

The scent of your mother’s famous waffles wafts through your room. Notes of freshly roasted coffee accompany it. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, your heartbeat settles down. Your fists unclench, your body finally relaxes. 

It was only a dream. Billy isn’t really here. He didn’t really tried to drown you at the pool. It was all just a fucked up, horrible dream.

“Y/N! Breakfast is ready!” Your mother’s sweet, doting voice carries through your closed door. “Come join Dusty and I, please.”

You rub your face, sighing deeply. The nightmare bears down upon your shoulders, the weight of last night crushes your chest. “I’ll be there in a second!” Your voice is brittle, exhaustion evident.

Breakfast with your mom and Dustin is the last thing you want right now, but you know it’s better not to deny Claudia. She’ll worry, ask you if everything is okay. You’re scared she’ll notice that you aren’t at Family Video for the first time in months. Every weekend you’re there to see Steve, to tease him with Robin. 

But the hurt that marred Steve’s devastatingly handsome face last night… You can’t see him, at least not right now. You’re not even sure he’d want to see you, which scares you even more. 

You take your time getting ready, your movements slow. In the shower you scrub your skin raw, as if you can cleanse yourself of the memories from last night. The betrayal in Steve’s brown eyes, Jonathan’s raspy voice asking questions that made your head spin. Lucas and his heartbreak as your brother abandoned him. Dustin’s denial of your code blue. 

Pulling on one of Steve’s old t-shirts, the smell of his cologne lumps tears in your throat. It’s all too much. You miss him, though how can you be sure you haven’t really lost him?

When you finally sit at the table, Dustin doesn’t look up at you, and your shitty mood only worsens. Only your mother brightens when she sees you. “Y/N! Here, I saved you some bacon, I know you don’t like it crispy.”

She slides some food onto your plate and you try to give her what you hope is a bright smile. Your mother can see through people in a way only you can, an ability she passed down to you. Today, you’re afraid that if she asks you what’s wrong, you’ll break. “Thanks, mom.”

Breakfast is tense. Your fork scrapes against the plate. The food looks delicious, your mother is a brilliant cook, but there’s cement in your stomach and you can’t bring yourself to eat any of it. Dustin doesn’t look at you even once, and your mother tries her best to make conversation. 

“So, any big plans for spring break?” She asks, looking eagerly at you and Dustin.

You push some fruit around on your plate. “No, not really.”

“Hm, well why don’t the two of you go and build something together? Remember that robot set from Stevie? I’m sure you and Dusty could build something with what’s left!” 

“Yeah, maybe.” As if Dustin wants anything to do with you right now. You must not sound convincing enough because your mother starts to frown. Panicked, you clear your throat and try to change the subject. “Hey, have you gotten any new toys for Tews?”

“I got her some new stuffed mice, but she doesn’t seem to like them.” Your mother responds, setting her fork down. She looks at her children in front of her, sees the tension that brews between them. Dustin hasn’t said anything all morning, and the dark circles underneath your eyes worries her. Grasping at straws, she rushes over to the T.V. and turns it on, hoping one of your favorite programs is playing. “Here, let’s watch something.”

Only the Saturday morning cartoons don’t appear on the screen. Instead, Channel 9 lights up. Hawkins’ news channel. 

“We’re at the Forest Hills trailer park in east Roane County.” A broadcaster announces as a swarm of people behind her gather around something. There are cops everywhere, and you get up from the table, curious. “We don’t have a lot of details now, but we can confirm that the body of a Hawkins HIgh student was discovered early this morning.”

Your mother lets out a strained gasp, the shock ripping through her body. Your own body stills, your heart skips a beat. The broadcaster drones on, explaining how the police believe there’s foul play involved.

Someone has been murdered in Hawkins. 

Over by the table, Dustin’s eyes finally meet yours. You know he’s thinking what you are. Monsters have plagued Hawkins for years now, but there’s never been something as gruesome as a murder. Not in the six years your family has lived here. 

Something isn’t right. The news channel interviews a plethora of neighbors in the trailer park. One woman talks about Barb, all the suspicious deaths since 1983. How Hawkins is cursed. Your eyes find Dustin’s again and you both exhale nervously. The woman is right, although she can never know what really goes on in this town. Hawkins is cursed, but not in the way anyone thinks.

Then, terrifyingly too late, you remember that the broadcaster had announced that the body was found in Forest Hills. Max lives in Forest Hills, and the body had been a highschool student. The police haven’t released the name of who it was and panic slices your nerves at the thought that it could be Max. 

“My heart can’t take it anymore. It just can’t.” Your mother whimpers, holding Tews close to her chest. Your heart aches for her, she grew up in this town and all it has endured these last few years is pain and death. 

Dustin sighs next to you and when the doorbell rings, he goes to open it. You follow, nervous and fretful as you always are.

Max stands on your porch, and the moment you realize it’s her, you pull her tightly into your arms. “Oh, thank God.” She stiffens at the touch, you notice that she’s out of breath, panicked. A terrible, horrible feeling of dread takes a hold of you. Pulling away, you force her averting eyes to look into yours. She’s scared; she’s never scared. “Max. What happened?”

Everything falls apart quickly after that.

Max drags you and Dustin into your room and collapses onto the bean bag. Her words are jumbled as she tries to explain everything. You sit motionless on your bed next to her, listening to every word she says. Dustin paces the room, both of you try to make sense of what you’re hearing.

“The body… It was found in Eddie’s trailer.” 

Your breath catches at Max’s words. Dustin’s steps falter. Nausea washes over you, you place a shaky hand over your stomach to quell it. You’ve left your brother alone with Eddie hundreds of times this year, and now a dead body has been found in his home?

“No, that can’t be possible.” Dustin doesn’t want to believe it, he doesn’t want to consider the idea that his mentor could ever harm anyone.

Max bites her lip. “The police have his trailer taped up, it’s under lockdown. And the body they found, she was-” She pauses, takes a deep breath. “It was bad, guys.”

“You can’t seriously think it was Eddie though, right?”

You catch Dustin’s arm and give him a warning look. He’s antsy, you get it, but he needs to calm down. Turning to Max, you ask the question you’re dreading. “Who was the dead student, Max?”

The girl looks down, plays with her fingers, and you can see the remorse that drapes her shoulders. Fear plagues you again, it had to have been someone you knew. After a few moments, Max finally tells you. “Chrissy.”

An overwhelming sense of grief forces any air left in your lungs out. Chrissy had always been so kind to you. She was a ray of sunlight, you shared a class together sophomore year, she had given you daisies when she heard of Will’s disappearance. 

Chrissy Cunningham was one of the few good things in Hawkins.

And now she’s dead. 

Dustin can’t believe it, either. “Chrissy Cunningham?”

“A-are you sure?” You breathe out, eyes following his pacing figure as Max nods.

“Yes, she was in her cheerleader outfit. Same thing she was in when I saw her with Eddie.”

You frown at this. “She was with Eddie?”

Max nods again, and you’re struck by how odd the entire situation is. Chrissy is, was, the head cheerleader. While she was always nice to you, she never interacted with anyone like Eddie. Hell, hardly anyone ever associates with the guy, so you can’t believe that she would even talk to him. That she would willingly step foot in his trailer, especially after the basketball game last night. 

You had overheard one of the kids on the team mention a party to Lucas before he left. Chrissy should’ve been there, next to Jason as they celebrated the win. 

“Did you tell the cops?” Dustin asks, still trying to wrap his head around it all. 

Max shakes her head. “No, but I-I can’t be the only one who saw them together. I mean, they stood out.”

“Are you even sure they were together?” You also can’t wrap your head around the fact that they’d be together in the first place. “Maybe… I don’t know, Chrissy had a friend who lives in Forest Hills as well?”

“No, Eddie and I are the only two students who live in the trailer park.”

Dustin paces again, in complete disbelief. “Eddie, the freak, with Chrissy, the cheerleader.”

“You know, his name’s not in the news yet or anything, but–”

“Eddie is going to be the prime suspect for Chrissy’s murder.” You finish for Max, understanding where she’s going with all this. It’s the only logical conclusion that can be drawn from finding a dead girl’s body in the guy’s trailer. 

Anyone would be suspicious of that, and yet Dustin refuses to admit it.

“No, that’s crazy.” He glares at you, he can’t believe what you’re implying. “Eddie didn’t do this. No way.”

Max looks at you, she has a grimace on her face, and your expression mirrors hers. Sighing, you try to reason with your brother. “Dustin, they found a body in Eddie’s trailer.”

“No way,” Dustin hisses out, eyes burning into yours. He won’t back down from this, he knows you hate Eddie but he’s furious that you’d go as low as to accuse him of murder. You’re so fucking hypocritical. “And, FYI, your annoying vendetta against him won’t get us anywhere.”

“I don’t have a vendetta against him!” You scoff, hurt that Dustin would assume you’re only saying all this because Eddie mildly annoys you. 

Max, sensing an argument brewing, gets up from the bean bag and intervenes. “We can’t rule it out.”

“Yes we can!”

“Dustin!” You and Max berate him at the same time, now standing in front of him. He isn’t listening, he’s blatantly ignoring the fact that someone died in the same trailer Eddie grew up in. He was the only one with Chrissy last night. Dustin is refusing to see the glaring red flags presented in front of him. 

“Look, you guys don’t know him like I do, okay? Y/N practically wants the guy dead most days–”

“Hey!”

“So I don’t necessarily trust her judgment on the matter.” Dustin doesn’t let you interrupt him, he’s adamant to defend his friend. “When we got to high school, Lucas made all his sports friends. Mike and me? I mean, no one was nice to us.”

Upset creeps up your neck. You had been there for the boys, offering them sanctuary their first day, but they had denied you. It hadn’t been enough for them. They didn’t want your help, not anymore. “Dustin…”

“No one except Eddie.” He finishes, eyes only on Max as if it’d make it sting any less. He recognizes what he’s saying, that it isn’t fair to you, but he’s too overwhelmed to try and clarify it all to you. Not right now.

Max’s shoulders deflate, her resolve dwindles but she still argues anyways. “Okay, well. They said the same shit about Ted Bundy.” 

“Ted Bundy was charming.” You snort, understanding what Max is trying to say, but it’s a poor example. “Eddie isn’t.”

She smiles briefly at you, the joke amusing her, but then she sees Dustin’s narrowed eyes and quickly defends herself. “I mean, he’s like a super nice guy, but then he’s murdering women on the weekends.” 

“So you’re saying Eddie is like Ted Bundy?”

“No, we aren’t saying that.” You mollify Dustin, although you can’t help but add in, “besides, Eddie could never lure in multiple women. We still aren’t sure how he even lured Chrissy in the first place.”  

Dustin is about to start yelling at you, you can see it in the way his mouth twitches and the enraged breath he exhales, but Max is quick to step between the two of you. She isn’t sure why you guys are at each other’s throats this morning, but she doesn’t have time to deal with it.

“No, we aren’t saying that.” Max glares at you, and you smile weakly back at her. “We’re-we’re saying that we can’t presume anything okay? But it doesn’t look good for Eddie.”

Dustin, now finally starting to listen, sits on the bean bag behind him. He lays there, looking small in the mass of the makeshift bed. He’s crestfallen, and your anger from earlier disappears. Sighing again, you sit next to him and nudge his shoulder. “Listen, I know it’s a lot right now, but maybe the police will find evidence that Eddie didn’t do it–”

“Why haven’t you told the cops this?” Dustin sits up, eyes on Max.

She crosses her arms, the question surprises her. “I… I don’t know.”

Dustin presses her, both of you notice how her body language changes. She draws into herself, she’s uncertain. There’s something there, buried beneath all the information she’s told you today. Something else happened in Eddie’s trailer, something she isn’t telling you. 

“Max,” you soften your voice, afraid. “What did you see last night?”

The girl’s knees find your bed and her body falls against it. Max’s eyes won’t meet yours, she almost seems scared. Her demeanor causes your stomach to drop. What could she possibly have seen that terrified her so much?

“After I saw Eddie and Chrissy go in the trailer…” Max looks up at you and Dustin, her blue eyes guarded, alert. “Something else happened.” 

She explains the lights flickering in her house. The static on her T.V., how the air felt thick. She tells you that she could hear a scream, Eddie’s fleeing silhouette ran into his car and the way the tires screeched on the pavement as he left. 

The more Max recounts, the tighter the fist of dread inside your stomach coils. Flickering lights, static… It can’t be what you think it is. You catastrophize everything in your mind, you always are the first to fear danger that isn’t really there. Hopper closed the gate last summer. He died saving the world. The gate is closed, the Upside Down is out of your life. For good this time. 

But then why does it feel like its spillage is leaking through the cracks you’ve desperately tried to glue over?

Max must see the panic on your face and she quickly backtracks. “Y/N, it wasn’t that weird or anything. Eddie always drives like a maniac and the power goes off at my place all the time. It’s a piece of shit, alright?”

“Then why did Eddie run?” The question taunts you, there’s something wrong with it. Shitty power grids and reckless driving can be explained, but why would someone scream while fleeing a crime they committed?

Max swallows. The question has been on her mind, too. “The look on his face… He was scared. Really scared.”

Dustin sucks in a breath, it’s subtle but you can feel it against you. He looks up, eyes meeting yours, and the dread that resides in your ribcage seeps into his. Max stutters out possible explanations, she tries to find something else to explain what it could mean, but you all know that it’s no use.

You realize why Max had rushed to your house. Why she hasn’t gone to the police with what she knows.

The fear on Max’s face when she arrived on your doorstep, how breathless she’d been from running over. That had been real, familiar. The same fear that crossed her face when you’d first unwillingly introduced her to the Upside Down all those years ago.

“Or maybe Eddie was scared because…”

“Something else killed her.” Dustin mumbles quietly, piecing it all together as well.

Your body is numb, your lips move but you don’t recognize the voice that speaks. “You think it’s the Upside Down.”

The words hang in the air, everything stills the moment they’re brought into the light. Beside you, Max nods, slowly, regretfully. As if she doesn’t want to believe it herself. “But, that’s impossible, right?”

Every year the impossible somehow becomes possible. Every year the wound that scabs over reopens, the blood of it chokes everyone you love. 

“I don’t know,” Dustin’s voice is soft, he’s scared, too. “It should be.”

“And yet we always end up here,” you laugh bitterly. It’s the same fucking thing, over and over again. 

Dustin’s hand finds yours, his touch is warm, yet unfamiliar now. He hasn’t held your hand in months, you almost forgot what it feels like against yours. “We don’t know that,” he squeezes your hand. He’s kind again, he’s your brother again. “There’s only one person who knows what actually happened.” 

Eddie. 

Whatever he saw, it’s important. No one will believe him if it’s the Upside Down, no one will understand that he hadn’t done anything at all. That monsters haunt the shadows of this town, that the deaths in Hawkins hadn’t really been deaths. 

You have to find him. 

– 

Steve doesn’t think he’s had a worse morning than the one he’s having today. He hadn’t slept, his exhaustion a reminder of how much of an asshole he had been to you last night. He had yelled at you; he’s never, ever yelled at you. Not in the entire three years he’s known you, not even when you’d hurt him so deeply by cutting him out of your life that fateful summer.

But last night Steve swears he saw the same look in your eyes that Nancy had in hers the night she told him she didn’t love him. He saw it, he knows he did, and he had been fucking terrified. He can’t lose you, he doesn't think he’d survive if you ever left him. Especially not if he’s the reason you leave.

Steve is miserable, and his foul mood only worsens when you don’t float through Family Video’s front door with a smile on your lips and a glint in your eye like you always do every Saturday. 

“Where’s Y/N? Normally she’s here by now.” Robin looks around the store, noting your unusual absence as she scans a movie to restock. 

Steve pretends not to hear her, he really doesn’t want to talk about it right now. He knows that if he tells Robin the two of you had a fight, she’d demand an explanation and promptly call him an idiot, regardless of whether or not he’s in the wrong. 

“Dingus, did you hear me?” Robin shoves the cart his way, causing it to hit his hip with a slightly painful thud. “Where’s that gorgeous girlfriend of ours?”

“She’s my girlfriend,” Steve grabs the cart and throws random movies inside of it as he starts to walk down the romance aisle. Fitting. 

His coworker doesn’t miss the way he avoids the question. Suspicious, she blocks Steve’s path and forces him to look at her. “You’re dodging. Why are you dodging? Where’s Y/N?”

“Robin, we should really be focusing on work right now–”

“Oh my God, did you kill her? Did all that hairspray rot your brain and cause you to kill Hawkins’ sweetheart and force the world to mourn the beautiful legacy she’d leave behind? Huh, is that it?”

“What! No, I didn’t kill Y/N. What is wrong with you?” Steve elbows the girl, he isn’t in the mood for her ramblings, yet Robin remains standing in his way. She raises an eyebrow at him, silently daring him to keep avoiding her questions, and Steve knows he has to fess up. Looking away, he clears his throat. “We, uh. Sorta had a fight last night.”

Robin frowns. “A fight?”

“Yeah.”

“But you two never fight.”

“Yup.”

“Alright, so it was all your fault then.”

Steve rolls his eyes, he knew Robin would say that. “I didn’t even tell you what it was about.”

“And yet I know it was all your fault.” Even though she’s kidding, she sees the hurt that flashes across Steve’s face and eases up. Clearly whatever the fight had been about was bad. Bad enough that you don’t show up to Family Video like you always do. Taking pity on her friend, Robin flicks Steve’s forehead and prompts him to start talking. “Alright, I’ll bite. Tell me what happened.”

Steve leans against the wall, rests his head back. He knows he should talk about this, Robin will know what to do. He doesn’t have the best track record of communicating with his girlfriends, and for the first time in his life, he wants to try with you. Steve would do anything for you, even if it means being vulnerable with Robin in order to figure out how to make you laugh his name so softly again. 

“Y/N was… Upset last night. After the game. She’s been having some problems with Dustin lately, and, I don’t know. I was trying to be funny, I guess? Cheer her up, get her to laugh.”

Robin winces. “Oh, that never ends well.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Steve huffs. He always somehow makes things worse, and last night he’d gone for a world record with you. “I just… I really wanted to see her smile, you know? So I joked about our future together, said we’d live in a shoebox apartment in New York after she graduates, and she just…”

“Lost it?” Robin shakes her head at him, trying to hide her disbelief. She wants to give Steve the benefit of doubt, but she thinks she knows where this is going. And it isn’t good.

“She told me I couldn’t come with her.” The words had branded themselves onto Steve’s chest, the flesh still raw and bleeding. You hadn’t wanted him to come with you; you didn’t want Steve anywhere near you. “She was just going to leave, without me.”

Robin stands next to him and she nudges his head with her hand, hitting him without any malice. He’s such an idiot sometimes, a hopeless, well meaninged idiot. “Okay, you’re being very thespian right now. I’m sure that’s not what Y/N meant when she said you couldn’t follow her to college. She’s like, crazy in love with you. Anyone can see that.”

“Then why was I the only one considering our future the entire time? I mean,” Steve scoffs, angry again. “I asked her what she thought we’d do after she applied to college, and she couldn’t even answer me. For months she was applying and she didn’t stop to think about us, about our relationship. She just… she was just going to leave.”

“And your solution was to… Follow her to college, unannounced?”

Steve recognizes how stupid he must sound, but he doesn’t expect Robin to understand. When you’re with someone, when you love them, your actions become theirs. How they breathe becomes your heartbeat, how they sleep becomes your solace. From the moment Steve’s eyes laid on you, he knew he’d follow you to the ends of the earth.

He just thought you’d do the same for him. 

“I wasn’t going to just show up at NYU unannounced, alright?” Steve pauses, he tries to find the right words. “But I thought… I thought she envisioned us together, for the rest of our lives. Instead she told me that I deserve better, as if I-I’m physically able to imagine a world where I’m not standing next to her, where I’m not a ten minute drive down the street.”

Robin bites her lip. She thinks she understands what Steve means, where his actions were coming from. She remembers the late night talks about Nancy, how the girl had hurt him deeply when she abandoned him. The surface level love that tainted his perception of himself for years afterwards. Robin knows that Steve clings onto any semblance of stability he’s presented. Years of being lonely and used have left him unwilling to let go of the ones he loves the most. 

But that doesn’t mean he should give up his entire life to do so. 

Robin thinks that this is what you really were trying to tell Steve, even if he’s too blind to see it right now. “Y/N wants you to live your own life. You gotta see that, Steve.”

“She is my life!” Steve throws his hands up in the air, he’s sick of explaining this to everyone. You’re his everything. You’re the blood he bleeds and the tears he sheds. His life is yours. He doesn’t care how pathetic it may sound or how dramatic it may seem. 

“Steve,” Robin places a hesitant hand on his arm, and when he doesn’t pull away, she takes it as a sign to continue. “Y/N loves you, she wants what’s best for you. Meanwhile, you have no idea what you want. You’re seriously considering abandoning everything to live in a giant, rat infested city, and you hate cities! I mean, what would you even do there? Lay around all day and wait for Y/N to come home like some 1950’s housewife? No offense, Stevie, but you don’t have the legs for a dress. Although, maybe if you wore heels and some lipstick–”

“Get to the point, Robin.”

“Sorry,” she shakes her head quickly, refocuses. “The point is that her not wanting you to follow her to college is nothing personal. If Y/N didn’t see a future with you, then she wouldn’t waste her time with you. Simple as that. But she does, and she’s totally, madly in love with you. Plus, we both know that the real reason you want to go with her is because you’re scared she’ll find some hot, 6’5 guy to replace you with and if you’re not there, she’ll be swallowed up by all those hot models and rich business men who prowl the streets of New York–”

Steve covers his ears, shoving Robin away from him. “Okay, okay! I get it, Jesus. There’s plenty of hot men in New York, you’re totally not making this worse for me.”

“So you admit that you’re scared she’ll find someone else.”

“Okay, no. I didn’t say that–”

Robin runs towards the other end of the store and grabs a VHS tape. “Ignoring you! I’m right, you’re wrong, and I’ve just found our morning movie: Doctor Zhivago.”

Steve lets her change the subject, he’s tired of arguing anyways. “You know I don’t do double VHS.”

“But it’s about doomed love.”

Of course it is. “Oh, well that’s relatable.”

“Precisely.” Robin starts to go on and on about an actress in the movie who’s hot, but Steve drowns her out as he returns the cart. She grabs the T.V. remote and clicks it on for their movie, but quickly their morning plan dissipates when Channel 9 comes onto the screen.

“... that the body of a Hawkins High student was discovered early this morning.”

Steve and Robin stare at the screen in silence, the broadcaster’s words echo throughout the room. A Hawkins student is dead. The temperature in the room drops, Robin shifts uneasily next to him and Steve presses his arm against hers, silently offering comfort. 

They stand side by side as the broadcast goes on. Neither one of them speaks, listening quietly as the details are revealed. It’s a horrific murder, from the sounds of it. The more the channel announces, the more tense Steve becomes. He doesn't like it, violence has always made him anxious. As his nerves spiral, he gets the horrifying idea that maybe the body is yours. 

He knows it isn’t, he dropped you off at home last night, but he hadn’t stayed to make sure you made it inside safely. Steve curses, he’s a fucking idiot. He left you alone last night, and if you got hurt because of his selfish actions, he will never forgive himself. 

Suddenly the front door opens and you run in with Dustin and Max by your side.

“Hey, Steve.” Dustin tries to get his attention, but the teen is already hopping the counter, sprinting over to you.

Forgetting about the fight from before, Steve clings onto your shirt and hugs you. His arms shake, you can hear his heartbeat stuttering a mile a minute. Overwhelmed with the scent of him and the feel of his body against yours, you melt into the hug as relief sags your bones. “You’re okay,” Steve exhales against your ear, his hand finding your hair. He tangles his fingers through the strands, tries to pull you in even closer. 

“I’m okay.” You whisper back, clinging onto him just as desperately as he is to you. 

The moment is interrupted by Dustin, who pounds on the counter to break the two of you apart. “Hey! Assholes!”

Steve glares at the kid, he doesn’t let you go, but he reluctantly steps away. “Someone was murdered, you know that, right?”

Dustin ignores the sarcasm. “How many phones do you have?” 

“Two, why?”

“Technically three, if you count Keith’s.” Robin adds.

You make a disgusted face. “I wouldn’t touch his phone.”

Max tells Dustin that three phones will work and the younger teen quickly takes off his backpack before sliding it onto the counter.

Steve narrows his eyes, looking at you with slight panic. “What is he doing?”

Dustin throws the backpack over the counter and Robin yells as the kid jumps over and lands with a loud thud on the ground. He brings down a pile of tapes as he does so, and Steve tears himself from your side to try and stop him, but it’s too late. The damage is already done and Dustin has sat himself at one of the computers. 

“Dude! My tapes, what are you doing?” Steve cries, groaning as he bends down to pick up the ruined pile. 

Robin glares at your brother as she huffs as well. You quickly hop the counter, an apologetic smile on your face, and bend down to help. “I’m sorry about him. He’s Dustin. That’s the only way I can explain his behavior.”

“I’m setting up base of operations here.” Dustin’s fingers fly over the keyboard, ignoring Steve’s distressed cries. 

“Base of operations?” Robin looks at you, she likes you, she really does, but sometimes she hates Dustin. “Y/N, I love you, but I’m about to strangle your brother.”

You hand her a tape and blow a strand of hair out of your face. “Ya know, I get that a lot.”

“Stop, get off!” Steve pushes Dustin, but the kid is like stone at the computer. Max is beside him now, having chosen to walk around the counter like a normal person. 

“I need it.” Dustin responds, not giving much else for an explanation. 

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and turns to you. “Y/N, please come get your dog.”

“He’s not my dog–”

“I need the computer for Eddie’s friends’ phone numbers.”

“Oh, you mean your new best friend that Y/N and I hate? The one you think is cooler because he plays your nerdy game?”

You step in between Steve and Dustin now. You’re getting really tired of being accused of hating Eddie. While it may not necessarily be wrong, hate is a strong word. “We don’t hate Eddie, you’re just dramatic, Steve.”

“I never said he was cooler than you guys,” Dustin tries to amend, finally looking at you and Steve.

Behind you, Robin slams a tape down while she rebuilds the ruined pile. “Seriously, you guys, maybe on a Monday you can play around here like toddlers, but it’s Saturday. It’s our busiest day.”

You help her pick up a dropped sign, feeling bad for disturbing their place of work so early. “I promise I wouldn’t take them here unless it was important, please don’t hate me–”

“What Y/N is taking too long to say is that this cannot wait until Monday.” Dustin jots down the numbers he ends up finding. Steve drops his head into his hands, exhausted. 

Robin rolls her eyes. “I’m not blaming your sister, she’s an angel, but is calling Eddie’s friends really an emergency?”

“Correct!”

You drop your head onto the counter, defeated. Dustin is only making everything worse, like he normally does, and you’re tired. Steve stands next to you, allows a hand to fall onto the small of your back. Without thinking about it, he starts to rub soothing circles into your skin. 

“Want me to strangle him or you want to?” Steve asks Robin. 

“We could take turns.”

Not bothering to lift your head up, you leave your face smushed against the countertop as you speak. “Please don’t strangle him, my mom would be really sad and we can’t afford a funeral.”

“Can you just fill them in already, Y/N?” Dustin pokes your side.

“Fill us in on what?” Robin asks, exasperated.

Finally raising your head, you look at Max and swallow down any remaining uncertainty. The sooner you explain everything to Steve and Robin, the sooner you can find Eddie and figure out what the hell is going on. With Max’s help, the two of you give them an abridged version. 

“The murder happened in Eddie’s trailer.” You begin. 

“And the body was Chrissy Cunningham.” Max finishes.

Steve’s eyes widen. “What, so the freak killed her?”

“Unconfirmed.” Dustin snaps from the computer. He’s almost done writing down all the numbers.

“Not exactly. There’s some… details that we’re hoping to figure out, first. Before we go to the police about Eddie.”

Robin doesn’t like the way you say this. “What details?”

“The lights flickered in my house, I-I could feel static.” Max says, eyes downcast. Nothing else needs to be said, Steve and Robin understand immediately.

Now quiet, Steve’s hand finds yours. If it’s really happening again, he’ll be damned if he lets you go anywhere out of his sight. He’s not losing you. Surprised by the affection, you look and Steve and find that he’s staring down at you with so much tenderness in his eyes, even after you both maliciously hurt one another the night before.

It’s almost too much for you, the honey in his eyes that are meant for only you to see. Jonathan’s words from last night burn your skin. 

Do you ever wonder if we’ve made a mistake?

Steve doesn’t know what’s been said. Neither does Nancy. How could you possibly tell them what he’s done? The line he almost crossed? After everything the four of you have been through together, the deep history that divides you, how can you settle the ruins that Jonathan left in his wake? 

You can’t. Not without hurting everyone in the process. 

You’re torn out of your thoughts when Dustin calls your name. He’s giving out instructions, ordering everyone to call Eddie’s friends. 

“Y/N, you’ll call out the numbers we need to dial and write down any leads we get. Max, Robin, you’ll be with me on the phones. We need to figure out where he is, if he has any specific hiding places. Steve, you can bat your eyelashes at customers or whatever.”

Steve makes a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat and you squeeze his hand. “You heard the kid,” you lean against his chest, allow yourself to smile up at him. “Go bat your eyelashes, handsome.”

He laughs, and because he loves you, because he will always love you, Steve kisses the corner of your mouth, right where your smile line forms. It’s a quick, chaste kiss. Enough to remind you that he’s still yours, yet mindful of the fact that things may not be as easy as they once were between you. “Aye aye, angel.”

And then he’s gone, leaving you with such a rush of love for him within your bones. Later, when there’s time, you and Steve will talk, and he’ll still be yours and you’ll still be his. 

Everyone gets to work after that. Max, Robin, and Dustin spread out around the store and begin dialing the numbers that you read off from the list. Their conversations are short, all filled with the same set of questions. There’s at least eight people to get through, but dividing them up helps. 

Robin shouts at you to write down some kid named David who has a vacation home in Tennessee. Dustin tells you to cross off one of the phone numbers ending in 5823, apparently the guy and Eddie no longer talk.

Max, who stands the closest to you at the counter, hangs up the phone and turns to you. “I think I might have a lead.”

“Seriously?” Dustin spins around in his chair and Robin sets down her phone.

“Yeah, apparently Eddie gets his drugs from some guy named Reefer Rick–”

“Wait, Eddie actually sells drugs?” You thought that had only been a rumor, a stereotype from people who didn’t know any better. Why the fuck is a drug dealer hanging out with your fourteen year old brother? Alarmed, you grab Dustin’s arm and force him to look at you. “He hasn’t offered you any, right? I swear to God, I will stab his boney little body if he’s offered so much as even a whiff to you–”

Dustin rips his arm out of your grasp. “Can you not freak out for more than five seconds? Holy shit, no! He hasn’t offered me anything, he isn’t irresponsible with his business, he only sells to seniors.”

“So you knew he was a drug dealer?” You’re so going to kill Munson. 

“Guys!” Max claps her hands, breaking up yet another fight between you and Dustin. “The drugs aren’t important right now, what we should be focusing on is the fact that Eddie sometimes crashes at Reefer Rick’s.”

Robin pats your shoulder and nods at Max’s words. “Okay, that sounds promising. Where does this Reefer Rick guy live?”

“That’s the thing. No one knows. He’s more of a… a legend than someone people actually know.”

“Well that doesn’t sound suspicious at all.” You mumble under your breath, but Dustin hears you anyway and elbows your ribs. 

Ignoring your pained cry, he looks at Max. “What about a last name?” 

“I don’t know that either.”

“Bet the cops know a last name.” Steve says, back turned to you guys as he organizes some tapes. Max asks him what he means and he finally walks over. “I mean, listen, if this Reefer Rick is actually a drug dealer, I guarantee you he’s been busted at some point. Means he’s in the system.”

Dustin throws his head back in annoyance. “The cops? That’s your suggestion?”

“I mean, at this point I think they should be filled in on what we know, what’s going on.” Steve defends himself, and honestly a part of you agrees with him. 

Technically speaking, this is a lot to hide from the police. If this had been happening last year, you would’ve been the first to suggest telling Hawkins police about everything. But last year Hopper was alive, this year he’s dead. He’s gone, and the new chief wouldn’t understand or even bother listening to what you’d have to say. 

Hopper would’ve believed you. He always believed you. 

“The police won’t help,” you say, and Dustin is surprised you’re agreeing with him for once. “At least, not like they used to.”

“You think Eddie is guilty, don’t you?” Your brother accuses Steve, and a fight breaks out between them. 

Steve brings up some weak point about believing in everyone being innocent until proven guilty. “I just, you know. I don’t think we can rule it out.”

“That’s precisely what we’re trying to do here, Steve.” Max points out, annoyed by all of this. 

Dustin nods. “And maybe we’d have a little bit more luck if you spent less time ogling my sister and more time trying to find Eddie.”

You flick the kid’s head and Steve waves his arms out, defensive. “I wasn’t ogling her, and even if I did, I have every right to as her boyfriend! Besides, someone has to attend to the customers.”

“And by customers, you mean Y/N.” Robin teases, knowing she’s right.

“I’m right here, you know.” You don’t like this conversation, you don’t even know how everyone ended up here in the first place. 

“Sue me for trying to find a movie for my girlfriend, alright? We’ve got a very big selection in here. It can be super overwhelming, even if I’ve worked here for almost a year.”

You tilt your head at Steve. “You were trying to find a movie for me?”

He blushes, suddenly shy. “I mean, yeah. Figured we could… watch something later?”

“I’d like that,” you tell him shyly. Things will be okay between you, they have to be. 

Meanwhile, Robin types frantically on the computer, and Max asking her what she’s doing catches your attention. You walk over, lean down to stare at the screen in front of you. “Maybe we don’t need a last name,” Robin explains, pulling up the store’s video rental catalog. 

A list of Ricks pop up, and you quickly realize what she’s doing. “Oh, you’re a genius, Buckley.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, pretty girl.” Robin smirks, showing everyone else the screen. “There’s twelve Ricks who have accounts here.”

“That’s a lot of Ricks,” Max remarks. 

Robin nods, she expected this. “So, let’s narrow it down.” She clicks on the first Rick’s name and his movie rental history appears. “Rick Alderman’s latest rentals are Annie and Dumbo.”

“I doubt a drug deal would rent sensible children’s movies.” You say, and everyone agrees.

“Alright, Rick Conroy. Sixteen Candles, Teen Wolf, and Romancing the Stone.” In unison everyone says “no”, and Robin moves down the list. “Okay, Rick Joiner. Mask, Footloose, and Grease.”

You hum thoughtfully. “Grease, I like this Rick’s taste in movies.”

Dustin snorts. “But he isn’t the Rick we need.” 

Finally, Robin lands on a Rick Lipton, who has rented three Cheech & Chong movies over the course of a week, and immediately you all know that you’ve found the right Rick. Robin looks up the address and Dustin observes that it’s out by Lovers Lake.

Lovers Lake. Where you and Steve finally got together. 

As if thinking what you are, Steve’s hand finds the small of your back, where it permanently resides, and he shares a shy look with you. There’s fondness in his eyes, the memory from that night doesn’t burn him. The tension of your fight lingers, you both can feel it, but the memory of that July night causes you both to smile.

And it’s enough. 

– 

Steve is the one who drives, he’s always somehow the designated driver, and everyone crams into his car. You sit in the passenger seat, he doesn’t let anyone else sit there when you’re with him, and Robin complains from the backseat. 

“One of these days I’m going to sit up front and no one will stop me.” 

“You sat in the passenger seat yesterday morning, Robin.” You remind her, smirking when you see how squished she is between Max and Dustin.

“Minor details. Please drive quickly, Harrington. I think Dustin’s elbow is lodged between my third and fourth rib.”

Lovers Lake is far. The house is in the middle of nowhere, the perfect place to hide, so by the time you arrive there it’s dark. Steve keeps a few flashlights in his trunk, a precaution he’s adopted since befriending you and Dustin. He hands them out to everyone with the warning to stay close. 

“I don’t want anyone slipping away, you hear me?”

“Okay, dad.” Robin shoves past him, causing Max to giggle, and you pat his chest in pity. 

Dustin rings the doorbell, figuring if Eddie is really here then he’d want to see a familiar face. When no one answers, he starts to repeatedly hit the doorbell over and over again. 

“Guess he’s not here,” Steve says after Dustin rings the bell for the hundredth time, but the kid ignores him and starts to pound on the door instead, now yelling. 

“Eddie! It’s Dustin!”

Still no one answers, and you begin to think that maybe you’ve gotten it all wrong. There’s the woods, the abandoned Hawkins Lab, and a million other places to hide. Reefer Rick’s house may have been too far for Eddie to run off to. 

Dustin calls through the door about how it’s just him and that there aren’t any cops. Robin tries to get a look inside the house through the window while you shine your light around the house. Max seems to get the same idea and the two of you wander over towards the side, trying to find another way in. 

Only you don’t find another way in. Instead, you find an old boathouse down by the water’s edge. It’s huge, masked by the trees and house in front of it. Eddie has to be hiding out in there, then. 

“Hey, guys?” Max gets everyone’s attention and points towards the boathouse. 

Dustin is the first to start walking down, Robin and Max not far behind, and you stand back with Steve. “Yeah, sure. Let’s go into the creepy abandoned boathouse. Yay.”

“We’ve done worse, angel.”

You sigh. “It’s really depressing that you’re right.”

Slowly the five of you approach the building, there isn’t any sign of life. The door is unlocked, which is both a good and bad sign. Robin pokes her head in cautiously, calls out into the darkness. “Hello? Is anyone home?”

Steve walks behind you, guiding you gently with his hands. Everyone spreads out, Steve grabs an oar that he finds hanging on the wall. He shows it to you, raising his eyebrows as he silently asks if it could be of any use, and you nod. Following his lead, you flick your knives out, eyes catching on a boat with a tarp draped over it. 

Wary, you point it out to Steve, and he understands. Raising his oar, he brings it down onto the boat with force, stabbing at the tarp. Luckily he doesn’t catch on anything, or anyone, but Dustin yells at him. 

“What are you doing?” Then, seeing the glint of your knives, Dustin scoffs at you. “Seriously, you really think those little elbow stabbers are gonna help?

You raise them at him. “I stabbed Billy with them, don’t forget.” 

Besides, like hell you’re taking any chances this time. Even if Steve’s oar isn’t the most ideal weapon, it’s still a weapon. You’re in an abandoned building with a killer on the loose. Neither one of you is willing to risk being defenseless, not after everything you’ve been through together. 

“He might be in here,” Steve continues to stab at the tarp, and even you have to admit it’s overkill. 

“Just take the tarp off!” Dustin says through clenched teeth. Steve tells him to take the tarp of himself and again they spiral into an argument. You watch with slight amusement. Some things never change. 

Robin and Max find something over by the table, alerting you that Eddie may have been in here. Dustin waves an arm out in front of Steve, who’s still jabbing his oar into the boat’s tarp. “Don’t worry, Steve will get him with his oar.”

“I know you’re being funny, little Henderson, but considering the fact that everyone in this room has nearly died a hundred times, personally, I don’t find it funny in the slight–” A figure jumps out from behind Steve and grabs him. “Wait, wait, wait!”

“Steve!” You scream, extending your knives, following after them. The person shoves Steve into the wall, holds a broken glass bottle to his neck. Pressing yourself behind them, you bring your knife to the perpetrator’s face, digging its tip into his cheek. A mess of curly hair touches your face, the scent of leather infiltrates your nose. It’s Eddie. 

“Eddie! Stop!” Dustin exclaims, struggling against Robin’s hold. To your relief, she isn’t letting him get any closer, which you’re thankful for. “It’s me. It’s Dustin. This is Steve, and the girl with a knife fixation is my sister Y/N. She’s not gonna hurt you, right, Y/N?”

“Let go of him,” you sneer into Eddie’s ear, pressing your knife deeper into his face. The blade nicks the crest of his cheekbone, blood drips down, but you don’t ease the pressure. He has Steve in a chokehold, he could slice his neck any second.

Steve sees that you’ve cut Eddie and he knows you’re seconds away from gutting the guy, which would only escalate the situation. He needs you to be safe, he’s afraid that Eddie will turn the glass bottle towards you instead. “Y/N, angel. Look at me, I’m okay. Drop the knife, and I’ll drop my oar, alright?”

You hesitate, and Dustin screams at you to do as you’re told. Your eyes flicker between Steve and Eddie, lingering on the bottle that is pressed even deeper into your boyfriend’s neck now. A thud echoes in the room, Steve drops his oar. He looks at you again, his eyes pleading, and you reluctantly flick your wrist to put the blades away. 

The moment your knives are gone, Steve lets out a pained groan. Eddie only tightens his hold on him and the glass cuts his skin. In a heartbeat your hand fists through Eddie’s long hair and you pull. Hard. He sucks in a breath, clenches his teeth, and finally looks at you. “Cut him, and I will kill you.”

“She’s cool! I promise she’s cool!” Dustin shouts from across the room, doing everything he possibly can not to get both Eddie and Steve killed. He doesn’t worry about you, he knows you can handle yourself. He’s more concerned that you’re about to have blood all over your hands. 

“If you let me go,” Steve chokes out, careful not to move his mouth too much and cut his throat. “Y/N will be cool.”

Eddie doesn’t ease up, and neither do you. Despite the awkward angle of his head, he leers down at Steve. “What are you guys doing here?”

“We’re looking for you,” Dustin tells him, taking a cautious step forward.

Robin now speaks up. “We’re here to help.”

“Eddie, these are my friends. You know Robin, from band.” She pretends to play the trumpet to ease the tension, but it doesn’t work. “This is my friend Max, the one who never wants to play DnD. And you know Y/N, she used to hang out with Jonathan Byers all the time and I always talk about her.”

“I know all about Hawkins’ sweetheart.” Eddie sneers, flinching only slightly when you pull his hair even more. “She isn’t so sweet now.”

Your other hand reaches towards your back pocket, towards your knives, and Dustin’s heart skips a beat. He needs to resolve this. Now. “Eddie, we’re on your side. I swear on my mother. Right, guys?”

Robin and Max both swear, and Steve chokes out, “Yes, we swear on Mrs. Henderson. She-she’s great. You’d love her.”

Eddie doesn’t respond. Seconds pass, although they feel like hours. His neck must ache from the way you pull against it, and you see him staring down at you from the corner of his eyes. A crazed smile of interest crosses his face, his gaze lingers on your figure, blood drips down from his cut. You watch his every move, and when Eddie finally releases Steve, you throw him aside. 

“Are you okay?” Your fingers ghost over Steve’s neck, checking for any sign of injury. He’s panting heavily, finally able to breathe again now that there isn’t a sharp edge grazing his neck. Your touch is gentle, your hands shake, and you hardly even register that Robin is next to you. 

“I’m okay,” he breathes out, rubbing his neck. His shaking hands find yours, steadying them with your interlocked fingers. Mindful of the fact that Robin is present, he kisses the backs of your hands. “I’m all fine, angel. I promise.”

You want to carry him away, out of this town, away from anything that can harm him. You want to tuck him somewhere far away, where no one will ever find him again, alone with only you, safe and sound. 

But you can’t. Instead, all you can do is sit next to Steve, caressing his hair as your body slowly attunes to his again.

Eddie is crying a few feet away, his threatening persona long gone. His entire body shakes, his eyes are dark with haunted memories. Dustin crouches down next to him, and Robin joins. Softly, as if talking to an injured animal she doesn’t want to scare away, she tells him, “We want to know what happened.”

“You won’t believe me.” Eddie sniffs, sounding completely and utterly broken. Something horrible happened to him last night, something that will haunt him forever. The way he holds himself, how small he tries to become, how he shakes violently. They’re all signs of trauma, not guilt or remorse. He didn’t kill Chrissy.

Taking pity on Eddie, you reach out and rest a hand on his shoulder. He’s startled by your touch, only moments ago you held a knife to his face, and now your hand warms his body. “We’ll believe you,” you whisper.

He tells you everything. The details are gruesome, bloody and terrifying. 

“Her body, it just… lifted into the air and,” Eddie’s voice breaks as he cries again, and a part of you wants to tell him that he can stop, clearly he’s in pain. “And she just, she hung there. In the air. And her bones, they-they–” He stumbles over his words, but he clenches his fists and forces the rest out. “Her bones started to snap.”

Your heart stops. You can’t imagine how horrifying that must’ve been to see. The image of Billy’s body pierced by the Mind Flayer is still burned into your retinas. The same will be true for Eddie with Chrissy’s body. 

“And her eyes,” he shakes his head, he tries to get the memories away from him. “It.. it was like there was something inside her head, pulling.” 

Eddie describes the sound of Chrissy’s bones snapping, the squelching pop when her eyes exploded. “I-I didn’t know what to do so I-I… I ran away.” He stares at the ground, you see his fists tighten, he’s angry with himself. Ashamed. “I left her there.”

“There wasn’t anything you could do, Eddie.” You tell him. Anyone would’ve ran away. He’s human for being afraid, and you hope that he hears you through all the unnecessary shame. You know, better than anyone, how hard it is to hear anything over the roaring rush of guilt that floods someone’s mind. 

Eddie ignores you. “You all think I’m crazy, right?”

“No, we don’t think you’re crazy.” Dustin’s voice is gentle, softer than you’ve ever heard it. Eddie yells at him, he thinks you’re all playing some cruel trick on him. He’s stuck in a state of flight, panicked and ready to flee, and Dustin lowers his voice even more. “Look, what I’m about to tell you might be a little… Difficult to take.”

You sit next to your brother, everyone else stands behind the two of you as you face Eddie. Dropping your voice to its own soothing, comforting lilt, you lean in closer to the scared teen and offer whatever solace you can give him. “It’ll be difficult, but I’ll be right here, okay?”

Eddie stares at you, his hardened expression softening little by little. “Okay.”

Dustin takes a deep breath. “You know how people say Hawkins is cursed? They’re not… way off.”

“There’s another world, hidden beneath hawkins. And sometimes it… bleeds into ours.” You reveal, careful to make your words as clear and concise as possible. Even after all these years, it still feels impossible to explain it all. 

Dustin continues, beginning to explain the monsters that haunt Hawkins from the Upside Down. How you all thought they were gone, but that they somehow come back again and again. As your brother talks, memories flash before you. Billy’s death, Will’s disappearance, the darkness that infiltrated his tiny body. El, her powers. The Demogorgon, its cruelness and its tunnels.

Steve walks up behind you, your body falls against his, he draws you in. 

“They’ve come back before, that’s why we needed to find you.” Dustin explains to Eddie. 

Max steps forward as well. “If they’re back again, we need to know.” 

Robin asks Eddie if he saw anything that night, Max asks if he saw any dark particles. Any indicators that you’ve come to learn that signal the Upside Down, but Eddie can only shake his head. Dustin presses him further, describes what the particles would look like, but it’s no use.

“No, man. There was nothing you could see, or-or touch.” Eddie’s voice is hoarse, you can see the exhaustion in his eyes, but his words catch your attention.

“Was there…” You swallow, your mouth has gone dry. “Did you feel static in the air? Like an electric pull, almost as if lightning was about to strike?”

Describing the sensation is easy, it’s the same feeling you’ve come to associate with El. Her powers, they have a magnetic pull to them. It’s hard to miss, easy to feel. 

Eddie stares at you, and slowly, with hesitancy, he nods.

You fall back against Steve’s chest. Everyone else goes silent as the realization settles upon the room. It’s happening again. The dread crawls over your neck, settles into your throat. It will never end. 

“She couldn't move. It was like she was-she was in a trance or something.” Eddie says, unaware of the despair surrounding everyone. 

Dustin looks at you, his eyes reflect the grief that you feel. “Or under a spell.”

“Like El.”

He nods, before Eddie adds, “Or a curse.”

“Vecna’s curse.” Dustin says, eyes now on Eddie, and a cold chill creeps down your spine.

Steve asks who Vecna is, and upon hearing the name again, a pang rips through your head. Dustin explains who Vecna is, a character in Eddie’s DnD campaign, but you don’t hear any of it. You gasp in pain, the beginning stages of a migraine darken your vision and twist your stomach. Max notices, her eyes trail up your body and linger on the hand pressed against your head. 

Lost in the pressure building within your skull, you don’t see the way Max almost seems to know what’s happening. 

She doesn’t say anything.

-

⌑ series masterlist

⌑ i am no longer doing a taglist, my apologies ! however, please feel free to like, reblog, and comment instead :)

[ponderingmoonlight]

I'd love Obanai + Sanemi saving reader from a demon (like in the first episode??) You are awesome, thanks!

This escalated so quick damn, but hey, there you have a full on fic hehe - hope you enjoy <3

Sanemi saving your ass even if you don't want to

Pairing: Sanemi x fem!reader

Word Count: 1,9k

Synopsis: You knew what you got yourself into when you let a demon capture you instead of your beloved friend. Little did you know that help already arrived, viewing you as nothing but a damsel in distress until suddenly, you turn into much more...

Warnings: (y/n) fell but I fell harder, just saw the movie and it's so AHHH, honestly Sameni's voice is so mezmerizing omg, however this includes violence and language, might incluce spoilers for the movie but if you haven't seen it already you don't know what's going on anyway lol, like all my demon slayer fanfics this includes ai pics of reader so if this doesn't sit right with you, I'd suggest to not read it

PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU NEED MORE SANEMI CONTENT

Your dirty cold feet pound against the muddy floor, haunted eyes darted towards nothing but sheer darkness. You still don’t know how you managed to keep the demon from kidnapping your best friend, how you’re still alive when at this very moment, this frightful creature his hunting you down like its prey.

So many innocent young women, one after another disappeared from your village nearby. Why did you never even think about the possibility that you or even worse, a person you love could be next?

Not until now. Not until you stared into the demon’s stone-cold red orbs when it began to run after you. Not until you were the one threatened to get eaten alive.

“Run! Run and don’t look back!”

“But (y/n), you’ll get killed-“

“I won’t. Leave it to me, tell everyone to lock their doors, just don’t come back!”, you screamed on top of your lungs.

“I’m getting impatient, stupid girl. You know you will get killed, right?”

Blood rushed through your ears, body threatened to fail you.

“If you want to kill me you have to get me first, stupid demon.”

How long have you been running for? Minutes, hours? You lost track of time completely with your body screaming, begging you to stop and take a break. The bitter taste of iron covers your whole mouth, blood sticks to your new Yukata like a second skin. Your mother will completely lose it when she sees the crimson discolouring on the white fabric.

“I’m having enough.”

If you ever see her again.

With a swift motion, the demon swings you over his shoulder, his claws digging into your flesh so roughly that you cry out. No, this can’t be the end. You can’t allow yourself to die like this: in the arms of a demon, without even fighting back. No one ever told you what to do, you were always able to stand up for yourself. Today will be no exception. Even if you get killed, you will fight back with everything you have.

“Shinazugawa…Something’s not right.”

Sanemi can’t help but look around, eyes meeting the countless demons around him. What the hell is this place?

“Yeah, I don’t like this, either. I’ve never seen demons swarming around like this.”

“Let me go!”, you yell, fist banging roughly against the creatures’ back while it drags you into what looks like a haunted mansion.

Your eyes widen when you feel multiple pairs of red orbs laying on your body.

“Demon slayers…”, you hear your kidnapper hiss through gritted teeth, turning his head over his shoulder.

Demon slayers? You’ve heard of them before, how they behead every demon coming their way, how desperately they fight for humanity. But…where were these demon slayers when all the girls from your village got kidnapped? Where are they when you need them the most? How absoluteley useless.

You don’t know what has gotten into you. Is it the anger, the grief? With a rapid motion, you dig your nails into the eyes of the demon until he lets you fall to the ground abruptly, groaning out in visible pain.

Everything hurts, a trail of blood follows you as you drag your body against a rotten wall. You feel your body giving in, all the stress, agony and exhaustion rushing over you like a wave. But no, you can’t give up right now. Not when there’s still a slight chance for you to survive.

“You little bitch. Eat her, I will leave and get her little friend.”

Suddenly, the urge to puke becomes almost unbearable. Countless demons come near you, their teeth exposed to the harsh moonlight. No, this is not how you want to end. You can’t die getting eaten alive by these creatures. But what else are you supposed to do? There is no way out of this living hell.

Except for the destroyed window a few steps away. This is your only chance. You drag yourself up, sprint over the rotten wood underneath your naked feet and jump.

Floors into the depths.

Away from the demons, into another certain death.

“Where is the girl?”, Sanemi questions harshly, sword oh so ready to behead that bastard of a demon in front of him while heading down.

Screw this strange place and the countless demons around him, he needs to find you, needs to carry you into safety.

“The girl? She jumped out of a window in order to safe herself. She’s probably dead by now.”

He lets out the breath he didn’t knew he was holding, blank eyes staring at the stone ground his blade has crashed instead of the demon. What was this place?

No, he can’t think about this right now. As fast as his body carries him, he gets out of that cursed mansion, eyes instantly finding your falling body.

Only metres away from crushing into the ground.

Oh, how much you wished it wouldn’t end like this. But maybe this was everything you could do, dying like this is still better than getting eaten up by a demon. Where are those demon slayers? You close your tired lids, enjoy the weightlessness for a brief second. It doesn’t matter now. Hopefully, the demon is long dead before you. At least you're dragging his ass with you…

“Hey, you aren’t dead, are ya?”

That voice…A male voice, without any doubt. So harsh and tempting at the same time that you can’t help but open your eyes in confusion.

Only to be met by purple ones. Male ones, to be exact. Are those...his arms wrapped around your trembling body?

“Let me go!”, you shriek.

It seems like all power that left your body appeared again while you miserably try to fight yourself out of his arms. Who is this man? Another demon, maybe?

“I won’t let you eat me!”

“Eating you? Are you dumb, woman? I’m a demon slayer”, the man in front of you barks, his hands roughly holding onto your arms in order to stop you from hitting him again.

“A demon slayer?” you repeat.

“Yeah, the wind hashira to be exact.”

Your gaze falls from his face to his exposed chest, his toned abs. He breathes heave while still holding onto your arms. Suddenly you feel so…hot.

“You are a demon slayer.”

With a swift motion, you free one of your hands and slap him so hard that he sees stars.

“It sure took you some time to get here! What about all the other women who died here, the countless young girls that were killed by demons you did nothing about? Why did you save me!?”

“I’m wondering that too”, Sanemi mutters under his breath.

Did you actually go inane? The way you look at him with your eyes completely furious, face and yukata smeared in your own blood. You can’t be serious about that, right?

“You should be thankful”, he finally hisses.

“Thankful!? YOU should be sorry!”

“Yeah, I’m sorry for saving you…you…you ungrateful thing!”

“I could have saved myself”, you argue.

“Oh, is that so?”

No, absolutely not. You would have died if it wasn’t for the wind hashira.

“Everything was under control”, you snap at him.

Nothing was under control. This was your last way out of your misery.

“Is it so hard to just be thankful?”, he argues.

“Who’s your new friend, Shinazugawa?”

“We aren’t friends”, both of you reply at once.

Your heavy breath hangs in the air, hands still clenched into fists. Deep down you know how wrong it is to snap at him, that the demon slayer corps aren’t responsible for the countless lives the demons took in this area. But still…Why does it have to be you they saved? Why not the girl next door who would have married the next day or the girl that was supposed to leave only days after she got killed? It’s not fair, it’s not enough, it’s-

You take a heavy step back when your vision starts to get foggy.

“I won’t catch that brat if she faints now”, the wind hashira grumbles.

“We both know you will.”

The last thing you see are his purple eyes before you fall straight into deep darkness.

-a few days later-

“She’s awake now, Shinazugawa. And she asked for you.”

He hates the way his heart skips a beat by hearing those innocent words from Shinobu. You didn’t leave his head. Despite the state of Oyakata-sama, despite the hashira training, despite the stinging fact that the king of demons himself will come for them, you were always on his mind. You, with your strong but feminine eyes. You, who jumped out of a window into certain death only to keep your body away from the mouths of these demons. You, who straight up slapped him. Was it your attitude that caught him off guard? He never experienced a woman saved by him being this ungrateful. Aren’t you aware of the fact that you would have died that night if it wasn’t for him?

“What do you want, brat?”

His words come out harsher than anticipated while your sight simply takes his breath away. Since he can remember, Sanemi was never interested in any women romantically. No, love is nothing but weakness, women mean nothing but trouble. But even though you glare at him with venomous eyes the second he enters the room, he can’t help but feel drawn towards you.  

“You’re a hashira, right?”

Your words sound just as harsh as his, your gaze meeting his with so much strength that it is him who starts to feel uncomfortable.

“Yeah, I already told you that-“

“Train me”, you interrupt him.

“I want to become a demon slayer and kick your ass.”

“You, kicking my ass?”

You grab the fabric of his uniform so roughly that he isn’t able to react, suddenly so close to you that he can feel the heat radiating from your body.

“Train me.”

“Fine brat. I’ll train you. But don’t think I’ll go easy on your ass.”

-bonus-

“Try to keep up, (y/n).”

His katana clashes into yours over and over, makes it hard to stand your ground. But still you fight back, your hands holding onto your sword so tightly that your knuckles stand out white. You just have to win. There is absolutely no way you’ll lose against your master again.

Especially since he’s your lover.

“Are you tired yet?”, he teases you with a smirk.

“Absolutely not”, you press out while dodging another hit just in time.

This won’t help. If you continue to fight like this, he’ll sweep you off your feet like all these countless times before. But what are you supposed to do? It almost seems as if Sanemi has no weakness.

Except you.

“But you’ll be when I’m done”, you purr.

That sudden change of mood catches him completely off guard, forces him to hesitate for the split of a second.

Enough for you to sweep him off his feet, your body resting on top of his while your blade hangs into his face.

“I won”, you announce triumphally.

“You cheated”, he protests underneath you.

“Demons play dirty as well. You need to be prepared for everything-“

All it takes his one swift motion for him to position himself on top of you, body forcing you onto the ground before you’re able to catch a breath.

“Imma show you how dirty playing really works, then.”

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