#including one weirdo who said 'I know this doesn't answer your question but why not try Anglo-Saxon instead of Quenya' like???

[cultivating-wildflowers]

I need to befriend a Tolkien linguist enthusiast for like five minutes

[sulumuns-dootah]

Okok, I don’t know if your taking reqs…but I read your ‘avoiding them because of a dare’ and got the idea…what if it wasn’t because of a dare, but because you were threatened into avoiding them by a decently strong demon, stronger than us at least

WHB kings' reaction to MC avoiding them due to being threatened by a different demon

⟡ Masterlist ⟡

A/N: Ooh, your mind! This is some juicy idea right there :D

The demon threatening MC is in all instances the same: a Hades demon with the ability to lie and be invisible (and won't heistate to use either to make sure MC doesn't just run to the kings)

Warning: Things get kinda dark

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Satan noticed you haven't been around much

And whenever you happened to be in his viscinity, you looked panicked and tried to get away as soon as possible

Did he do something?

Emergency meeting! Nobles assemble!

Everyone is helpless and has no answers

Then Amy bursts into the room:

"Ayo, I think this might have something to do with this weirdo from Hades that's been hanging around here pretty much since this all started?"

And everyone including Satan lights up like !!!

So the next time you're somewhere alone Amy's gang pulls up and Amy tries to get some answers

But you're too affraid your stalker is somewhere nearby and won't hesiatte to do something to you within the blink of an eye if you tell

So Amy's guys leave

And ofc, once they're out of there, he appears

Just as he's about to say something, Satan appears out of nowhere and... uh... let's the demon know the full power of Satan's wrath

       ༺☆༻

This time it's actually Bimet who notices your absence

He doesn't even bother to tell Mammon, because he'd think it's another one of those bets

But this time it feels kinda sketchy to Bimet

So he looks up your Tartaros bank statement to see where you've been spending you money

...

Why are you buying self-defense items and books on how to fight demons stronger than you?

Okay, now that has to alarm even Mammon

Bimet storms into Mammon's office without a care in the world and reveals all his findings

Somewhere around that time you start noticing meeting the same demons over and over again and it's almost like they're all just observing you

Nah... It has to be your paranoia getting to you so yous hake it off

Until your demon stalker catches yoiu off guard by pulling you into some back alley between shops

You don't even have the chance to scream and the moves from your book are useless too

At this point you're already accepting that his is the way you die...

But then the three demons you've been seeing everywhere flood after you and the next thing you know, your stalker's on the ground and one of them is making sure you're okay

       ༺☆༻

This situation kinda poses a question: if two demons are invisible, do they see each other or not? i would imagine that either invisibility is a different layer of reality and they would then see each other... or it's not that and they wouldn't see each other

Anyways...

Leviathan would know from the beginning since Foras is looking after you most of the time

If your stalker is smart enough to somehow figure out the times you're alone, he might actually pull it off

If it weren't for Foras immediatelly noticing the change of your demeanor since the last time he was around

He will ask you what is going on, but if you don't tell him, he'll have to tell Leviathan

So you tell him and eventually, with a bit of a help from Glasyalabolas, you come up with a plan

The next time he comes to threaten you, you say a special phrase, which will summon all the nobles to your side and they'll deal with him

Unfortunatelly that plan failed succesfully in experience

Your stalker did come up to you in another absence of Foras, but Leviathan himself just happened to be around and heard everything he said

Yeah, that guy is now a permanent ceiling decoration in the Hades castle

       ༺☆༻

Talking about near-constant supervision

Your stalker's plan would've worked out if it weren't for one small, buzzing, tiny problem

Even on the go, Beel wants to know where you are, what you're doing and so on

To you it's already normal so you don't even notice the constant buzzing sound following your around

The stupid demon doesn't even have the chance to finish his threat to you before a familiar chuckle signifies danger

It shouldn't be so satisfying to see the fear in your assiliant's eyes, but here we are

With a sliver of hope, he turns around to run away, but Beel's having none of it

Beel catches him under the neck and hugs him close to himself while looking at you mischievously

"Soo~ Y/N! What do you think I should do about your friend over here?"

       ༺☆༻

Similarly like with the dare, Belphie would notice your absence but won't think much of it

So when he casually asks Beleth what you're up to and what's gotten you busy and only sees blank stares of realisation on all of his nobles' faces, the hunt is on

You're just somewhere out in nature, already given up all hope and trying to get reclaimed by nature when a black void swallows you up without any prior notice

It feels like you're floating and getting crushed by the nothing around you

But then as you looka round, you see Belphie who looks way too awake

Oh shit

You're gonna die

!!!

Okay, you don't die, but Belphie questions you in more of a bad cop way

After you hastily explain your situation, ending with tears in your eyes, Belphie just smirks and walks over to you

As he hugs you, the void around you starts to dissipate and you start feeling something soft underneath you

Well... To be fair, your stalker would be really dumb to try doing something to you while you're in the very same bed with the king of Sloth himself

       ༺☆༻

Ignoring the fact that this is literally the canon :D

Let's just say that you've been around Asmodeus long enough to get infected with is energy

Staying away from him at that point becomes agonisingly painful

The heat is always there and it seems like nobody except for him is able to lessen it even if for a few hours

So sorry, random Hades demon, not gonan happen

From that point on you decide to stay in Abaddon because which sane demon from outside Hell would voluntarily go to Abaddon?

And if you happen to venture out, you always make sure to be with another demon

If you tell about your predicament some other fellow Abbadonians, they'll pose many interesting questions and scenarios:

Would he recognise if it was some other demon disguised as you?

and

If he did cause you pain and you seemed to enjoy it, would he be disgusted or encouraged by it?

       ༺☆༻

Avoiding Lucifer wasn't so hard since he barely leaves his ward of the hospital

But still, even going to the hospital was a potential risk of meeting him

So just make sure you don't need a doctor and you're good, simple...

Well it would be, if the crazed demon didn't leave you every so often with a warning in a form of you waking up in the morning with few cuts and they only keep getting worse

To the point that you have no other choice but to go to Paradise Lost and ask one of the nobles to stitch your wounds together

Buer, bless him, did eventually agree to keep your visit a secret

So everything went well, right? Nope

A certain baby dragon was so excited that you visited the hospital after so long that he jingled to Lucifer's room the instant he heard your voice

So while you're anxiusly waiting to be discharged, your heart sinks the moment Lucifer walks into the infirmary

He... seems calm and collected?

Luci just reads you file and casually looks over your treated wound, running his finger over the bandages

"I see you've been well, Y/N. Haven't seen you here lately. Try to keep them as clean and sterile as possible, okay?"

Somehow you make your way out of the hospital kinda... disappointed...? No scene or anything?

(This is getting to long so I'll just summarise)

After you're out of the hospital, the demon attacks you but the second he lays his hand on you, he's frozen i place and Lucifer appears out of nowhere

Turns out that Luci drew a protective sigil on your bandages to alert him when your attacker tries to do something again

[bozepomagaj]

ATINY/MOA/CARATS vs Made in Abyss was the last thing I expected and its hilarious

feel like I need to say something since twitter absolutely loves spreading misinfo and just accusing people of shit, how have you people not LEARNED your lesson yet? Since when is twitter such a trusted source, especially gossip accounts?

And before you braindead stans start calling me a d!ckrider, I promise you I do not care about these men cuz I've got better things to focus on and I'm making this because people are overreacting and it's getting annoying. It's so obvious 90% of you haven't watched the anime (and thats completely fine, I get you) and then ended up listening to someone who made stuff up and overexaggerated. I'm not here to defend the author because I hate him as much as you do and can absolutely recognize the dude is into some weird shit but saying people are ONLY interested in this series because of r@pe and p€dophilia is INSANE. So let me answer some questions as a Made an Abyss reader (not calling myself a fan because you'll catch me DEAD before you see me buying any merch or manga despite my love for the series), kpop fan second.

Does Made In Abyss contain p3d0ph1l1c themes, gore etc.?

There absolutely is because the author is a creep (refering to the nsfw however, most of the times it's very easily skippable. As someone who hates l0l1con cuz it creeps me out, I can tell you that I really didn't have a hard time skipping said scenes even in the manga which is far more explicit than the anime (Prushka asking about Bond's 'stick', Faputa looking into Regs pants, Vueko's weird comments) and sometimes, they're even added as extras (0.5 chapters) which certain sites that contain scans don't even include. I didn't even know about the existence about a few of these chapters BECAUSE they don't include them.

The OVA is a nightmare to watch and was not only unfunny but creepy as fuck especially when they try to boil down such an amazing character like Ozen into 'I like seeing little kids in pain'. Now I have no idea if this was made independently but I don't remember the author making any spin-offs that they could base this on so I can't tell you who wrote it but even then I doubt that the author minded it since the man himself had to include that Faputas behind smells like the 'Sun' so again, not here to defend him cuz he most definitely is a weirdo, no doubt about it.

Is Made in Abyss torture p*rn?

If MiA is torture p*rn then AoT is military propaganda and supports child labor, TPN is also torture p*rn, JJK promotes violence, Berserk excuses r*pe and Evangelion is also p*do bait. See how stupid that sounds? Just because an anime INCLUDES something, does not mean it necessarily supports it. Yes, r*pe is mentioned but it's not even SHOWN, and it's a cruical part of a characters backstory. The torture that happens, happens only once if we exclude Riko's 'experiment' at the very beginning of the manga. And Mitty's transformation can't even be classified as torture cuz it's a.... transformation. Prushka's death is very censored so its not like you can jack off to that anyways. Now the piss thing is something I have noticed but haven't really payed attention it because bffr why the hell would I so idk, maybe the author is trying to tell us something or the guy thinks pee pee poo poo funny🤷‍♀️.

Is there any plot besides the weird stuff?

See now this is the part that gets me most because the reason why a majority of people nowadays got into MiA in the first place is BECAUSE of the amazing plot. The world building, the mystery, the fight scenes, etc. It's amazingly drawn, nicely paced and unique in its own way. But of course, it's manga&anime and what's anime without fanservice? I already explained that in manga, said scenes can be easily skipped and the anime thankfully doesn't include a lot of these. I do have to admit thag I dropped the manga for now since the chapter where they were in a bath cuz it was another one of those 'here we go again' moments where it made me roll my eyes and just close the tab so I don't really know what's been happening recently and if things go weirder.

I'm also gonna tell you honestly that yes, the fandom is filled with sweaty dudebros itching to see these kids half naked and the author is aware of them and pondering to them because he too is one of them. But a large majority is back from when the anime originally came out and are mostly hiding on twitter so it's easy to avoid them and they've been pretty rare ever since people with actual interest in the series have begun watching it. A reason why back in the day I didn't wanna interact with the fandom at ALL was because the moment I tried to have a normal conversation about the plot and what might actually be going on, I instead get bombarded with "UWAAAA😭😭😭" and 'c*nny' comments. I also cannot defend and don't even plan on defending the fact that Faputa is pretty much naked the entire series. I get that she lives in the literal wilderness, but the very least you could do is put a cloth on her y'know. And mind you, I'm talking about the manga. The anime is a LOT more heavily censored, and from what I heard, even MORE censored in Korea.

To sum it up:

Do I think Mingi/Soobin/Woozi are p*dos cuz they watched the anime? Absolutely the fuck not. Considering Mingi is a big CSM fan, I can see why he watched Made in Abyss because I was in that same pipeline. I think some of you are going way too far with these comments, if you wanna call them weird, creepy, wanna unstan them for reading stuff like this go ahead, not gonna stop because in the end no one can but accusing people of crimes isn't funny and never will be. If they were exposed for watching shit like Kodomo no Jikan then that most definitely IS eyebrow raising. Maybe I'm slightly biased due to me only enjoying MiA for the plot so seeing people say the fans are p3d0s when the first time I watched this was when I was freshly 15.... yeah idk abt that one. Whether they liked the weird and questionable scenes, I have zero idea I'm just here to say that you can enjoy said anime without being a weirdo and you shouldn't begin jumping to conclusions and start calling people straight up criminals. If anyone wants to have a productive conversation and ask questions abt said anime cuz I doubt you're gonna go watch an anime over a Twitter drama, go ahead and ask. If you wanna insult me and call me a d!ckrider then go ahead and do that too, who am I to stop you?

[my-castles-crumbling]

Hello! Party anon

So a bit of details I’m not close to her honestly the only reason why I would play with her as kid was cuz my m forced me to she would annoy me and pull my hair and stupid shit like that

And she has NEVER apologized for anything cuz this isn’t the first time she has done things like this she’s an only kid and pretty spoiled and also she’s one of those kids who if she got mad at someone she would tell everyone not to talk to them she used to tell my sister not to talk to me at daycare and at school and she has never really grown out of this so I keep my distance from her

So to answer your question about how this whole situation was year ago and if it was resolved no it was not she just called my sis the next day acting like nothing happened my sis was asleep when she had called to tell us about her birthday party and I was the one who brought up what she did last year and told her that if she did that again I won’t hesitate to just call a taxi and go home

l honestly usually just ignore her when she does those things and I was on my phone the whole party last year when did that I just want to know if should just suck it up and go cuz my sis is gonna me I don’t want her to be alone

Ps she also mentioned to my sis that her “boy best friend” (aka weirdo who I’m pretty sure is a pedo) will probably be coming that dude is in the military here in my country men get into the military starting at the age of twenty one we’re fifteen also she gave him our numbers and our friends number For some reason??

Point across I don’t even want to go but my sis wants to and she had said that she isn’t sure if that guy will be coming but if he is I’m gonna tell me mum about that dude cuz ain’t no way I’m going to be in a room with that man and four other girls including my sis and her cuz I met the dude and he just gives ick

I wanna know if i should just suck it up and go and also is my impression of that dude wrong? I just feel like it’s Weird that he was nineteen and befriended a thirteen year old

Hi hon!

Yeah, I think it's a little odd for this guy to be friends with a thirteen year old. He is an adult and you guys are minors, so that crosses a boundary for me.

As far as the party, nah, I don't think you owe her anything. She doesn't sound like a very good friend, and it doesn't sound like you'll have fun, you know? So I don't think you should feel obligated.

[yurtletheturtlehenderson]

COSMIC - S1:E5; Chapter Five, The Flea and The Acrobat - [Pt. 3]

A Will Byers x Male!Reader Series

𝘏𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘣 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘔𝘳. 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯.

A.N: sorry this is so short, here's a cool shell to make up for it 🐚

|| 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐏𝐎𝐕 ||

The abrupt rip of the paper startled El as she sat there, listening to Mike demonstrate what we learned earlier.

We had all caught a ride to Mike's house and made our way into the basement to fill El in.

"It would take a lot of energy to build a gate like this. But that's got to be what happened. Otherwise, how'd Will get there, right?"

Maybe it was just me, but it seemed like El was hiding something. She seemed to pause before shaking her head casually. "Right."

"What we want to know is, do you know where the gate is?" Lucas asked.

Meanwhile, I turn to look over my shoulder to see my brother walking around the basement, compass in hand and looking very bewildered. I frowned in confusion.

I spared a moment to look to El to see her hesitantly shake her head 'no' in response to Lucas's question.

The anger in my friend was quick to show itself. "Then how do you know about the Upside Down?"

She avoided everyone's eye and looked down to her lap, fidgeting with her fingers. El looked up once more to stare at Dustin confused, drawing everyone's attention, including my own, back to my brother who was still wandering around the basement led by his compass.

"Dustin, what are you doing? Dustin?" Mike asked.

He didn't answer, he only spun around in more circles.

"Dustin!" I shout, grabbing his attention.

"I need to see your compasses." He stuttered.

"What?"

"Your compasses. All of your compasses, right now!" He yelled.

I looked to boys in equal confusion before complying.

In moments, there was a small cluster of compasses scattered across the flipped D&D board.

"What's exciting about this?" Mike asked a little irritated.

"Well, they're all facing north, right?"

"Yeah?" I asked, urging my brother to continue.

"Well, that's not true north."

"What do you mean?" Mike wondered.

"I mean exactly what I just said. That's not true north."

My brother looked to the two boys in shock, then me, noticing I had a hint of a smile on my face as I stare at the board.

"Are you two, seriously this dense? Y/n," He sighed, urging me to explain it to the two boys.

I straighten up, having been leaning on the table previously, and looked between my two friends. "Well, the sun rises in the east, and it sets in the west. Right?" I say gesturing with my arms.

The boys shrug, following.

"Right, which means that is true north." I finish. Gesturing over my shoulder I was standing across from my brother who had the compasses all facing him.

"So what you're saying is the compasses are broken?" Mike said, causing me to sigh.

I'm just about to gently remind the boys how compasses work, but before I can Dustin cuts me off, clearly offended by Mike's lack of knowledge.

"Do you even understand how a compass works?" My brother asked, grabbing a compass off of the table.

"Do you see a battery pack on this?" He asked, waving it around.

"No."

"No, you don't. Because it doesn't need one. The needle's naturally drawn to the Earth's magnetic North Pole," He said, placing the compass back on the table.

"So what's wrong with them?" Lucas asked, shrugging.

"Well, that's what I couldn't figure out, but then I remembered. You can change the direction of a compass with a magnet. If there's the presence of a more powerful magnetic field, the needle deflects to that power. And then I remembered what Mr. Clarke said. The gate would have so much power–"

"It could disrupt the electromagnetic field." Mike finished, looking to Dustin and then back to me and Lucas.

"Exactly."

"Meaning, if we follow the compasses' north..." Lucas trailed off.

"They should lead us to the gate. Right to Will." I beam at my brother, very proud of him.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

We found ourselves walking through the woods once more, our compasses leading the way.

Dustin and Lucas were ahead of me by a few feet, while Mike and El were walking side by side a few feet behind me.

I found myself walking, with nobody to keep me company but my own worries.

'I hope Will is okay. I just hope he is safe. I just need him to be alive.'

I haven't allowed myself to think about it much since that night. The times I did, I was able to convince myself that it was just the overwhelming stream of emotions that flooded me when I saw his 'corpse'. But yet, in the smaller corners of my mind -- deep in my chest, I knew.

There was something there.

It took me far too long to realize.

I was ripped from my thoughts when I heard Lucas speak.

"How much further?"

I saw Dustin's shoulders rise and fall as he shrugged.

"I don't know. These things only tell direction, not distance. You really need to learn more about compasses,"

"I'm just saying. How do we know when we get to the gate?"

"Uh, I think a portal to another dimension is gonna be pretty obvious,"

There is a pause and I see Lucas cast a glance over his shoulder as he looks at El for a moment before turning around again.

"Do you think she's acting weird?" He asked, in a small hush.

Dustin spares a glance in El's direction and then looks to Lucas incredulously. "You're asking if the weirdo is acting weird?"

Lucas scoffed. "I mean, weirder than normal?"

"I don't know. Who cares?" Dustin says while Lucas casts another glance in El's direction.

A few moments pass and I hear the timid voice of El.

"Mike."

"Yeah?"

"Turn back."

"What? Why?" He asked sounding shocked.

There was a small pause, but it was big enough to pique my interest.

"I'm tired."

Mike sighed. "Look, I'm sure we're almost there. Just hold on a little longer, okay?"

The rest of our journey was traveled in silence.

[fierceawakening]

This is why I really have... mixed feelings about some of the "don't ask this question, don't ask that question." I mean, on the one hand, yeah, there are things that are rude, but on the other... "my question is rude" doesn't mean "I've stopped having it." I was so desperate to know "how do lesbians have sex" that I finally asked my dad that question in the middle of a McDonalds, because... who exactly was I supposed/allowed to tell that I wanted to know that? And I wasn't sure that the reason I wanted to know was because I'm queer yet, as figuring that out included me wanting to know so I could see if it sounded fun or not.

I feel similarly when there are lists of "rude questions you should never ask." Cos like... Google exists, yeah, but Google also uses mysterious algorithms and clearly is affected very strongly by how you word your query. (Case in point, I once googled something to the effect of "what percentage of claims of rape are false" and got back an extremely high number... but quickly noticed that said results came from divorce lawyer types who sounded, well, a bit MRA. Which doesn't mean their stats were wrong necessarily, but wasn't the "here are the various studies, here's who conducted them, and here's who disagrees with whom" I was hoping to be able to pore over and decide for myself using.)

So like. I'm not saying "everyone can now officially ask the one trans person they know about their genitals when they go out to lunch." But maybe instead of "if you're cis, why do you want to know what a post-op trans person's bits look like, you gross weirdo?" the phrasing should be more like "genitals are fascinating! Genital body modification is even more fascinating! But the thing you're fascinated with is how a friend's body works, and that's not a question anyone wants to be asked at random. How would you feel if someone wanted to know what your genitals looked like, and how they are or aren't different from theirs? You'd probably feel very uncomfortable! So while there's nothing wrong with wanting to know, there could very well be something wrong with asking your friend. Google isn't perfect for various reasons, but you might see if you can find general answers to your curiosities there, and if you still want to know things, try to gently ascertain what your friend might be comfortable telling you."

I remember the first time I heard a teacher say "there are no dumb questions," and yeah, it's a cliche, but the first time I heard it, it kind of changed my life. It's not wrong to want to know ANYTHING. It can be very wrong to put people on the spot about those things, but that's not about you wanting to know, that's about you not considering their comfort and figuring out who else to ask instead.

thinking about that time I was at some kind of diversity and inclusion thing that involved discussion in small groups and one straight girl said she really wanted to be a good ally but sometimes there were some things she just didn’t know and was too afraid to ask for fear of accidentally being offensive. and as the only queer person in this 4-5 person group I said well go ahead and ask me, I don’t care if you accidentally use the wrong term right now or whatever, it’s better to talk about it and learn something, I love talking about queerness and I’ll answer the best I can. and she just looked so nervous and in the end wound up refusing to ask for fear of causing offense. and it wasn’t just the group setting, I’ve known straight people to act similarly even when it’s just one on one

and just. you guys. this is what purity culture and the “if you don’t know something you were never a real ally in fact you’re a bigot in fact you’re worse than bigots because you pretended not to be one” attitude does. how can our allies be allies if they’re scared to talk to us? to ask questions, to make mistakes, to learn? can we please bring back the idea of “in good faith”? there’s way more to say here about identity politics and virtue signaling and acting like language is more important than action but I’m too tired for that right now

please feel free to add to the discussion (regardless of if you’re queer or not), I would love to hear about people’s experiences with this and if others feel differently about it

[yurtletheturtlehenderson]

COSMIC - S1:E5; Chapter Five, The Flea and The Acrobat - [Pt. 3]

A Will Byers x Gender Neutral!Reader Series

𝘏𝘰𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘣 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘴, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘴 𝘔𝘳. 𝘊𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘥𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯.

||𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐑'𝐒 𝐏𝐎𝐕||

The abrupt rip of the paper startled El as she sat there, listening to Mike demonstrate what we learned earlier.

We had all caught a ride to Mike's house and made our way into the basement to fill El in.

"It would take a lot of energy to build a gate like this. But that's got to be what happened. Otherwise, how'd Will get there, right?"

Maybe it was just me, but it seemed like El was hiding something. She seemed to pause before shaking her head casually. "Right."

"What we want to know is, do you know where the gate is?" Lucas asked.

Meanwhile, I turn to look over my shoulder to see my brother walking around the basement, compass in hand and looking very bewildered. I frowned in confusion.

I spared a moment to look to El to see her hesitantly shake her head 'no' in response to Lucas's question.

The anger in my friend was quick to show itself. "Then how do you know about the Upside Down?"

She avoided everyone's eye and looked down to her lap, fidgeting with her fingers. El looked up once more to stare at Dustin confused, drawing everyone's attention, including my own, back to my brother who was still wandering around the basement led by his compass.

"Dustin, what are you doing? Dustin?" Mike asked.

He didn't answer, he only spun around in more circles.

"Dustin!" I shout, grabbing his attention.

"I need to see your compasses." He stuttered.

"What?"

"Your compasses. All of your compasses, right now!" He yelled.

I looked to boys in equal confusion before complying.

In moments, there was a small cluster of compasses scattered across the flipped D&D board.

"What's exciting about this?" Mike asked a little irritated.

"Well, they're all facing north, right?"

"Yeah?" I asked, urging my brother to continue.

"Well, that's not true north."

"What do you mean?" Mike wondered.

"I mean exactly what I just said. That's not true north."

My brother looked to the two boys in shock, then me, noticing I had a hint of a smile on my face as I stare at the board.

"Are you two, seriously this dense? Y/n," He sighed, urging me to explain it to the two boys.

I straighten up, having been leaning on the table previously, and looked between my two friends. "Well, the sun rises in the east, and it sets in the west. Right?" I say gesturing with my arms.

The boys shrug, following.

"Right, which means that is true north." I finish. Gesturing over my shoulder I was standing across from my brother who had the compasses all facing him.

"So what you're saying is the compasses are broken?" Mike said, causing me to sigh.

I'm just about to gently remind the boys how compasses work, but before I can Dustin cuts me off, clearly offended by Mike's lack of knowledge.

"Do you even understand how a compass works?" My brother asked, grabbing a compass off of the table.

"Do you see a battery pack on this?" He asked, waving it around.

"No."

"No, you don't. Because it doesn't need one. The needle's naturally drawn to the Earth's magnetic North Pole," He said, placing the compass back on the table.

"So what's wrong with them?" Lucas asked, shrugging.

"Well, that's what I couldn't figure out, but then I remembered. You can change the direction of a compass with a magnet. If there's the presence of a more powerful magnetic field, the needle deflects to that power. And then I remembered what Mr. Clarke said. The gate would have so much power–"

"It could disrupt the electromagnetic field." Mike finished, looking to Dustin and then back to me and Lucas.

"Exactly."

"Meaning, if we follow the compasses' north..." Lucas trailed off.

"They should lead us to the gate. Right to Will." I beam at my brother, very proud of him.

⊹ ⊹ ⊹

We found ourselves walking through the woods once more, our compasses leading the way.

Dustin and Lucas were ahead of me by a few feet, while Mike and El were walking side by side a few feet behind me.

I found myself walking, with nobody to keep me company but my own worries.

'I hope Will is okay. I just hope he is safe. I just need him to be alive.'

I haven't allowed myself to think about it much since that night. The times I did, I was able to convince myself that it was just the overwhelming stream of emotions that flooded me when I saw his 'corpse'. But yet, in the smaller corners of my mind -- deep in my chest, I knew.

There was something there.

It took me far too long to realize.

I was ripped from my thoughts when I heard Lucas speak.

"How much further?"

I saw Dustin's shoulders rise and fall as he shrugged.

"I don't know. These things only tell direction, not distance. You really need to learn more about compasses,"

"I'm just saying. How do we know when we get to the gate?"

"Uh, I think a portal to another dimension is gonna be pretty obvious,"

There is a pause and I see Lucas cast a glance over his shoulder as he looks at El for a moment before turning around again.

"Do you think she's acting weird?" He asked, in a small hush.

Dustin spares a glance in El's direction and then looks to Lucas incredulously. "You're asking if the weirdo is acting weird?"

Lucas scoffed. "I mean, weirder than normal?"

"I don't know. Who cares?" Dustin says while Lucas casts another glance in El's direction.

A few moments pass and I hear the timid voice of El.

"Mike."

"Yeah?"

"Turn back."

"What? Why?" He asked sounding shocked.

There was a small pause, but it was big enough to pique my interest.

"I'm tired."

Mike sighed. "Look, I'm sure we're almost there. Just hold on a little longer, okay?"

The rest of our journey was traveled in silence.