astral-circuitry-writes

[astral-circuitry-writes]

Sunday Six !!!

tagging upfront, so nobody has to actually read my (very long, bc it's exciting to write a little again) fic bit to get to my tags: @scopophil @sequentialprophet @sybilius @kalgalen and of course My Muse who is responsible for this AU I'm playing around in @chetungwan - i tbh have no idea if any of you are writing anything atm, i'm very out of the loop, but if you wanted to share, i'd love to read it !! likewise if you see this and i didn't tag you, i'd still love to see what you're doing !!

anyway, i'm writing Gravity Falls fic (featuring the Vaguest Possible Book of Bill spoilers bc i haven't actually read it yet), which i'm sure everyone who follows me explicitly signed up for,

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The thing about studying different potential kinds of futures is that if anybody's ignorant enough to need the concept or what exactly it is he’s doing explained to them, they are likely too stupid to grasp and understand it anyway, so forget all about that.

The other thing about studying different potential kinds of futures though (and of vastly more immediate interest to Bill,) is that if you study enough of them, you'll get really good at pattern recognition (the cognitive process, not the one related to machine learning.)

Which is why Bill can't stand those stupid Pines twins. The ‘small’ edition ones, that is, although he’s starting to think he’ll end up carrying a grudge on the entire bloodline.

They'll ruin everything! Every single time! Even though it should be easy!

Bill figured they'd be child's play to woo and-or force and-or trick into siding with and helping him repair the portal, or build a new one.

However. That thing about studying different potential kinds of futures.

~

It’s science as soon as you write it down, so here: Plans that, reverse-historically, are highly unlikely to work:

attempting to get the twins to turn on and abandon each other (too loyal; too fond of each other, bleh)

attempting to force either of them to help him by threatening the life of the other

attempting to get them to cooperate by promising to give them whatever they want (money, fame, knowledge, girls (for Pine Tree), boys (for Shooting Star), girls again (for Shooting Star (although he should perhaps let her figure that out herself first, right? He’s not entirely sure about etiquette and really doesn’t care too much either)))

~

Sometimes though, it did work! Or, rather: Sometimes though, it will work!

…For a while.

~

Have another list, because Bill’s generous like that: The most likely ultimate outcome of achieving to get the twins to work with-slash-for him:

They teach the Henchmaniacs the concept of unionization. Bill figures out he does not like unionized Henchmaniacs. …Or unions, really

He sees the damned Axolotl look slightly exasperated, which he didn’t know they could do. They blabber something about Back to therapy with you and This is the two hundred and eighty-ninth timeline that ends like this, eventually even you will learn— well, nevermind that one actually, that one’s entirely unimportant, let’s move on, stop looking at this bullet point already

The Henchmaniacs invent the concept of unionization entirely on their own because Shooting Star somehow immediately befriends them and ends up surrounded by an adoring bunch of them and gives them her cute little pep talks including sentences like “If Bill really was your friend, he’d be nicer to you”

The twins betray him the second the portal is built which would of course just be his luck; it’s the same thing their great uncle did after all. Sometimes they find a way to thwart him on their own, sometimes they involve either or both of their uncles (which... embarrassing! Stanford Pines, alright; he's at least smart. But the other one... Bill would rather die than have his plans spoiled by a no-good conman who can't get over the fact that his parents never loved him)

~

So. Bill can't stand them, and the smart thing to do would be to drop it and find somebody else to work with. Obviously.

Bill is very smart. Obviously.

So, obviously, he'll find a way to make this work. Obviously!

(Step 1: stop studying different potential kinds of futures to forget about the pattern recognition thing. Aaaand done. That one's easy.)

~

On the floor of their room, between their bed: a photo of Mabel. Surrounding it: Eight lit candles. Mabel's eyes on the polaroid shot: crossed out.

Dipper shivers, forces himself to look away and tightens his grip around the baseball bat he found in the shack (as if it would help) as Mabel starts reciting the words in a voice that is way too chipper considering they're doing something that would probably get them grounded for the rest of the summer if any of the adults ever found out. He has no clue how Mabel could think this is a good idea. …Or how she convinced him it’s not an entirely terrible one worth shutting down immediately.

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath when he notices the faint blue glow illuminating Mabel’s immediate surroundings. When he opens them again—

“Hi, Bill.” Mabel politely waves at the floating triangle hovering between herself and Dipper. Bill politely waves back, which makes Dipper want to swing his baseball bat at him immediately. While he's contemplating how mad Mabel could possibly be at him if he went through with his first instinct—

(”Pleeaaase, Dipper, he told me it's really, really, really important. And said you'd might want to hear what he has to say, too.”

“Of course he'd say that! You can't trust him!”

“Duh, I don't, of course I don’t. But! I am curious! Aren't you?"

“…”

“Look, I promise if he tries anything shifty, we’ll just yell for Grunkle Stan and Ford immediately. Plus, we beat him before! …Maybe he’s got something interesting to say. Something you could add to your notebook even! Maybe! We won’t know if we don’t try!”

"..."

"I'm not gonna make you, of course. If you really don't want to, he can just talk to me in my dreams."

“No! No, the last thing I want is you talking to him alone. ...Fine! But if anything goes wrong—”

“Nothing will go wrong, I'm sure of it. Just, try to be nice to him for ten minutes, I think he's not very used to people being nice to him. When he came into my dream—I told you I dreamed of having a tea party with my stuffed animals, right? When I offered him a cup of tea, he seemed kind of surprised.”)

—Bill whirls around and gives him finger guns.

“Pine Tree! So glad you made it! No hard feelings about the sock opera story, I assume? Great! I knew you were the reasonable type!”

“You didn't let me answer.” Dipper forces the words out between grit teeth. Mabel gives him a pleading look over what isn’t quite Bill’s shoulder, because Bill’s a stupid triangle nightmare demon. He sighs, mumbles, “No hard feelings for right now.” He emphasizes that last part both with his voice and by tightening his grip around the bat.

Bill either doesn’t notice the implied threat or simply doesn’t care—either way, he completely ignores it. He just winks at Dipper. Or blinks. It's hard to tell.

“So, you said you wanted to talk to us…?” Mabel flops down on the floor, crosses her legs, props an elbow up on her right knee and her chin on her hand, attentive, curious, ready to listen. Dipper in the meantime kind of feels like throwing up and is sure if he did right now his racing heart would jump right out of his mouth too. …Ew, gross. He has to get it together.

“Hold on,” he gets out. His voice doesn’t even shake that much. “Before you tell us whatever you wanted to tell us… If you—if you try to use this opportunity to possess Mabel—”

“Geez, kid, you gotta relax,” Bill interrupts him. “I promised her I wouldn’t. It’s not my fault I can’t show up without being invited. Which is what this visit is about, actually, what a coincidence!”

[astral-circuitry-writes]

main: @astral-circuitry

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[astral-circuitry-writes]

Sunday Six !!

tagging @pepsi-maxwell, @scopophil, @sybilius, @eclecticopposition, uhhh idk who else Writes Stuff ??? i'm officially out of the loop, mates !! show me your writing, if you want.

anyway, Friends at the Table fic, PARTIZAN/PALISADE, abt god's greatest mistake and a very special girl etc etc--

---

Clementine Kesh has no distinct 'first' memory.

Clementine Kesh does know, however, that all her earliest ones, as jumbled as they might be in places, involve Sovereign Immunity in one way or another.

And so:

Clementine Kesh remembers wearing a frilly dress and shoes that look in her mind's eye, even distorted by whatever influence time will inevitably have on these things, terribly uncomfortable. In this memory, she's padding through a salon in the Winter Palace, making grabby hands up at her mother. Crysanth, busy with something lost to the imperfection of Clementine's memory, barely deigns to look at her before shooing her off. It's Sovereign Immunity, standing at the other side of the room like a guard dog watching over his charge, who has mercy with her and fulfills her demand: Her big eyes, her raised arms, her high-pitched voice, "Up!"

He doesn't hesitate, doesn't consult her mother first. He simply lifts her up—easily, as if she weighed nothing—and holds her in his arms. Clementine looks around the room, likes the change in perspective, sees out the window like this, and spots a few birds, half-hidden between the branches of a towering tree in their sprawling garden. The play of sunlight and wind casts moving shadows across them and makes their colors change.

It's impossible, of course, that she remembers the discussion between her mother and Sovereign Immunity that followed this moment correctly all these years later, but her mother is terribly predictable, and so she trusts her own head, even if it was her older self that put the words exchanged into it—Crysanth, impatient: "You really should know better than to encourage her childish behavior", and Sovereign Immunity, composed: "Well, yes... I mean no offense, Lady Kesh, but Clementine is a child."

She doesn't remember what her mother's response to this was, and she refuses to pick one from the seemingly endless options that present themselves to her whenever she recalls the occasion.

She doesn't like thinking about it all too much anyway; say about Crysanth what you will, but she was right about the way Clementine conducted herself back then; she cringes at her own behavior.