#Dec 12
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fe-smashorpass · 10 days ago
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Title Screen Theme - Pictionary (NES)
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emberwexley · 1 year ago
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Who: open When: Dec 12 Where: Penthouse Ballroom
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"Okay so.... immunity like... those things won't be able to hurt you? What does delayed even mean?" Ember was confused but unwilling to let that stop her, even if she was hesitant to even take the test. What if she wasn't immune at all? Her father would never be able to handle that. What about her new friends? The entire thing was so stressful and confusing and it showed in her fidgetiness. "What do you think it's gunna mean for like... immune people?"
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mrwexleysr · 1 year ago
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Who: Open When: Dec 12 Where: Wexley Penthouse
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"I do apologize for all this stress, but it's a wonderful update." Even though he was grateful for the hope it might bring to some, Tobias couldn't help but worry about those who found they had no immunity, or delayed reactions. Would it destroy their sense if hope? Doing his best to keep his calm and optimistic demeanor as he watched people start to line up for their tests. "No matter what, this may just change everything."
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mistfunk · 11 days ago
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Mistigram: @Codefenix drew this cozy #ANSIart scene for today's date in last year's ADVENT23 #AdventCalendar. If you like it, you can see more such ANSI screens from this year's ADVENT24 at his Constructive Chaos BBS via conchaos.synchro.net
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pxtitxrosx · 1 year ago
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Who: open When: Dec 12 Where: Penthouse Ballroom
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"I'm just... worried." Less for herself and more for the people she cared about, Charlie stared at the blood spot on her finger and couldn't help but hope. Roman, Ash, Rosie, her brothers... all them just had to be immune. It'd mean she wouldn't need to hold her breath every time she thought of them ending up like Courtney. "Do you think this mean everything is going to be different now?"
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sadavang · 1 year ago
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Who: open When: Dec 12 Where: Penthouse Ballroom
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"And what would immunity change, really? The bite changing you is almost secondary to the fact that they try to rip you limb from limb and eat your facial features clean away." From what she'd been able to tell, just as many people had their bodies rotting away laying in the streets as those who's bodies were rotting away shuffling along them. "It's not as if being immune means you can walk amongst them without a problem." Leaving the building would still be nearly as dangerous not matter what, not that danger had ever really bothered her. "I need a glass of wine after all this hubub."
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echosghoast · 1 year ago
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someone asked me what my type was and I described neil perry
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disarmluna · 2 years ago
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Hailey Bieber in LA
Dec 12
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I hate people who compare Alexis turning Sam to SA
.
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msbarrows · 7 days ago
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Been procrastinating on my Thing A Day posts again - this time for over a week, which I'm mostly blaming on obsessively playing Timberborn and Planet Crafter rather than getting other things done (such as doing Christmas baking, which I have yet to do any of).
Things I know I've done in the last week and a half: laundry, partial cleaning of the upstairs bathroom, some tidying and reorganization in both my bedroom and the room where my computer is, baked bread. Got downtown to the pharmacy and refilled prescriptions. Most of the way through crocheting another scarf.
Suppers from this same time period, which I'm only able to remember this far back since I'm currently keeping a food diary for a while so I'm more aware of what I'm eating throughout the day (it's definitely helping me to cut back on carbs as snacks):
Dec 7 - Tuna rice with green peas.
Dec 8 - Grilled cheese sandwich, apple strudel (just me for supper so made a lazy meal)
Dec 9 - Beef stewed with onions and mushrooms, served with boiled potatoes, steamed carrots, and green peas.
Dec 10 - Roast chicken, with mashed potatoes and steamed mixed veg
Dec 11 - Chicken strips with potatoes hashed in duck fat with sweet peppers, corn, and green onions
Dec 12 - Beef vindaloo with barberry rice and steamed mixed veg
Dec 13 - Taco salad
Dec 14 - Hamburger patties with potato wedges, corn and tomatoes
Dec 15 - Pasta with meat sauce and meatballs
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fe-smashorpass · 10 days ago
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Sanctuary Guardians - Earthbound
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mrwexleysr · 9 months ago
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"Well, between all three towers I think we're looking at about thirty thousand gallons." If I remember correctly when they were installed the company had said it was enough to last the building a month... actually... maybe you're right." Getting as much water going as possible before their supply of running water ran out should be priority, but the solutions weren't numerous. "We can se out barrels and whatever else we can find on the balcony's up here, as well as at The W, the games room and the Media room. Try and gather as much snow as we can over the winter. Let's also add bottled water to the list. There's a storage room off the gym that's absolutely loaded with those large bottles for the water machine. I think we'd even just gotten a delivery, so it should be stocked full."
It truly felt good to talk out all the logistics, and Mr. W felt himself thankful that Ashton seemed to think of the things that slipped his very privileged knowledge. Basic survival skills were never anything he'd ever needed, and it was an odd thing to shift his focus and thought processes so quickly.
"Of course. When we were upgrading the heating system to radiators we left the fireplaces functional. They're nice perks of the apartments here. Some changed to gas, but most of the suites still have wood burning. I think every apartment on the third and fourth floors definitely still has wood burning. Maybe it would be worth something to start encouraging everyone to move to the lower floors." Though getting Sada to do such a thing would be a challenge.
"It's hardly experience, just... hopeful inference and hypotheses, hoping it's not wrong," Ashton didn't want it to seem like he would have all the answers to a lot of questions they all had. But no answer is simple anymore here. While his field of study is constantly about studying the unknown of the universe, having much higher stakes here at the cost of their lives is like melding the two facets of his careers, and he wasn't sure if he could pull it off.
While Mr Wexley was much more optimistic, Ashton was conditioned to always think about worst case scenario, he couldn't hold the same optimism as the other. "I don't think we can rely on just those. Ideally we get more people learning how to operate and fix the panels in case they break. And water can run out faster than we think." Water is always an easily overlooked resource, using more than they think they do.
"Give me some time to fashion us some kind of filtration, best to keep things clean going into the tank," with his approval, Ash added it onto his list to work on putting that as a priority as they run against the clock while snow begins to fall. He nodded to Mr Wexley's suggestion in turn for heating, opening up his notebook and writing it down as a note for when he plans things out with Zach, "got it. Wood, Coal, firestarters. They're pretty heavy lifters and makes a team less nimble but we can work something out." Just need to remember to keep that into consideration when they assign certain routes to certain teams. But Ash paused once he was done writing and looked up to Mr Wexley with a surprised look, "people actually still use the fireplace here?"
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mistfunk · 11 days ago
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Mistigram: AdeptApril drew this #ANSIart screen for National #Poinsettia Day, this festive Aztec plant demonstrating Christmas colours. I will add that it is mildly toxic to pets, so please keep it out of reach.
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incognitopolls · 9 months ago
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We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.
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ckret2 · 4 months ago
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Chapter 75 of human Bill Cipher gradually becoming less and less the Mystery Shack's prisoner:
Mabel's Guide to Secret Sleepovers!
They definitely won't get their lives endangered during the sleepover at all!! And if you believe that's not a lie, I've got a skyscraper in the second dimension to sell you.
####
A camera set up beneath the attic bedroom window recorded the dark room. In her pajamas, Mabel stood in the middle of the attic, boogying nervously to silent music.
A light shining from beneath the bedroom door turned off. Mabel stopped boogying, crept to the door, and leaned her ear against the crack.
She ran back to the camera and picked it up. "Okay," she whispered, "Dipper and Grunkle Ford are out on their mission, Stan and Abuelita are asleep, Soos finally knocked off building for the night, and Bill's in his new room. Welcome to... Mabel's Guide to Secret Sleepovers!"
She held up a flattened cereal box she'd written the title on. The title was almost invisible in the dark, but it was framed by stars painted on with glow-in-the-dark nail polish.
"Step one: getting your friends in the house." She turned the camera around. She swerved over to Waddles's bed as she crossed the room, whispering, "Hey, wanna come to the sleepover?"
Waddles snorted gently in his sleep.
"Aww, that's okay. Next time." She rubbed his belly, then crept toward the attic door.
She tiptoed in her socks down the newly-built hallway and past the curtain hiding Bill's new room, padded down the stairs, opened the back door, and hissed, "Pssst! Coast is clear!"
Out from the tree line ran Candy, wearing a camo-print blanket like a cloak, and Grenda, dressed in black and with her arms and face painted in brown and green. Grenda waved ecstatically at the camera as she passed.
With Mabel in the back, they quietly crept upstairs, quietly snuck past Bill's room, quietly closed the bedroom door, and quietly squealed with excitement. "First summer sleepover at the shack," Candy said, flopping on her back on Mabel's bed and spreading out her blanket cloak. She sat up, noticed a cardboard cradle next to Mabel's bed, and picked up the porcelain doll inside. "Oooh! Who's this handsome gentleman?"
"That's Bartholomew! I told you about him. Barty, these are my friends Candy and Grenda."
The doll did nothing.
"You can say hi, Barty! I trust them!"
The doll continued to do nothing.
"He's shy," Mabel said. "He's totally haunted by a little Victorian boy, though, really."
Candy nodded. "I believe you."
"This is cool!" Grenda said. She was trying to scrub the camo paint off her arms and face with her hands. "I've never gone to a secret sleepover before. Next time we should sneak into my place!"
"Okay, so," Mabel said. "I promised you I'd introduce you to the secret guy that's been staying here as soon as it was okay to. And it's okay to! As long as nobody else finds out I introduced you."
Grenda nodded. Candy said, "This sounds reasonable."
"Anyway his name's Goldie, he's been staying at the shack this summer, he's really fun, he's kiiind of a bad guy but in a cool way"—(Candy appreciatively said, "Oooh.")—"aaand he's asleep right now." A dramatic pause. "But not for long."
Candy and Grenda grinned evilly.
####
"Secret sleepover step two," Mabel whispered. "Introducing your friends to your other friend!" The camera's dark screen was illuminated by a slit of light as Grenda pulled open the curtain to Bill's room. The dim starlight pouring into the room was barely enough to illuminate the white lightning and yellow circle of symbols on the hanging zodiac blanket as the girls pushed past it to creep into the room.
Bill lay sleeping on the chaise extension of the orange sofa, catty-corner to the doorway, curled up on his side with his back to the door. Beneath his curls, the eye stitched on the back of his hood peered out at the room, shifting up and down with his steady sleeping breaths. The girls crept up behind him, biting their lips to keep from giggling. Candy and Grenda flanked Mabel, arms raised in preparation to attack, as Mabel held up her fingers... 3... 2... 1...
Bill rolled over with a devilish grin and lunged at them. "HEY, KIDS!"
The girls screamed. They bolted for the hall with Bill's laughter following them.
####
"You should've seen the looks on your faces," Bill gloated. He was sitting on the floor, legs crossed lotus style, in a semicircle with the three girls around the camera Mabel had set on the sofa. They'd set one flashlight next to the camera pointing out and another on the floor pointing at the ceiling.
"You got us good," Candy admitted.
Grenda leaned across the semicircle. "Hi! I'm Grenda. This is Candy."
"I've heard a lot about you two." Bill sat back, giving Grenda a somewhat less than warm smile. "Call me Goldie."
Grenda gasped. "Hey! Candy, look at his eyes!"
"What?" Bill's gaze darted between the girls' faces. His eyes caught the faint light and flashed like a cat's.
"They did it again!"
"Whoa!" Candy got up on her knees and leaned toward Bill. He leaned away.
Panic crossed Mabel's face. "Uhh, I can explain—"
"We knew it," Candy said. "We were sure you couldn't let us meet Goldie because he was a werewolf catboy!"
"I dunno," Grenda said. "They look more like frog eyes. They're kinda bulgy, too."
Bill stared at Grenda. A broad smile broke out across his face. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said about them!"
Grenda asked, "Do your eyes suck into your face when you swallow like a frog's do?"
"I dunno, swallowing makes me blink. You tell me." Bill deliberately swallowed.
"Ugh, they do! Gross," Grenda said approvingly.
"Why do you have frog eyes? Are you a werefrog?" Candy asked. "Or did a mad scientist mutate you?"
Bill said, "You know the story about the frog prince? My great-grandfather."
"He is not."
"He could be!"
"Anyway," Mabel said, "Goldie's not any kind of not-human person or anything, that'd be crazy. He's just a big secret because he's committed war crimes, that's all!"
Grenda and Candy considered that.
"That's cool." Candy slowly pulled out a makeup bag. "Do you like makeovers?"
Bill eyed her appraisingly. "How good are you?"
####
The camera sat tilted off to the side, catching Grenda, Bill, and a bit of Mabel's hair. Bill and Grenda sat just out of the flashlights' range while Mabel and Candy off-screen debated how best to shape Mabel's lips. Grenda held a purple tube of foundation in one of the flashlights' beams; the tube had a logo that looked like a lilac triangle with a single eye and thick purple lips. She uncapped a black eyeliner pen, drew a big X over the triangle's eye and gave it a curly mustache, and added a cramped word bubble over it that said "UGLY LOSR." Grenda chuckled.
Past her, Bill's eyes flashed in the dark as they narrowed.
"Finished!" Mabel announced. She turned the camera to face the whole quartet again. "Secret sleepover step three: normal sleepover activities! Starting with... makeovers! Remember, you're beautiful just the way you are; but a real artist can look at a human body and see a canvas. And canvases are for paint!"
She pointed the flashlight at her own face. "I call this look... the Showstopper." She had eyeshadow, blush, and lipstick—in three different shades of pink—liberally caked on with a crunchy layer of multicolored glitter and with plastic gems bedazzling her brow and temples. It looked bad.
Mabel pointed the flashlight at Grenda. "This one's... Beach Babe."
Grenda said, "Like a mermaid!" She had blush painted to look like scales, clumpy blue mascara and blue eyeshadow shaped like waves, and lipstick that looked like a fish. It looked bad.
Mabel pointed at Candy. "And this is the Glam Rock Revival!" Candy had a shimmery blue star painted over one eye and half her face, and a smaller matching star on her opposite cheek. It looked unexpectedly good.
"And Goldie..." Mabel pointed the flashlight at his face. "He kinda just... let us experiment with some designs Candy found in a makeup book."
One of his eyes had a neon rainbow eyebrow and eyelashes and tiny glittery butterfly stickers. The other eye had golden eyelashes and bright blue and black flames that would look at home spray painted on an old school hot rod. It looked bad.
"I look awesome," Bill said.
"And check out our mani-pedis!" Grenda grabbed the camera and pointed it down at their hands and feet. Mabel had messy watermelon nails, Grenda had decent French tips, Candy's actually matched her makeup, and Bill—who, unlike the girls, wasn't so much showing off his nails as he was just sitting there while Grenda waved the camera around—had a different set on each hand and foot.
Mabel said, "Goldie let us each experiment on one set of nails."
Grenda pointed at Bill's right hand, "I did that one!" He had five extremely long glue-on nails, which in turn each had two more glue-on nails on top, each trimmed to a sharp point. All fifteen nails had garish pre-printed designs—stripes, polka dots, and three types of animal print. None matched.
Bill cheerily said, "I could stab clean through a grown man's throat with these."
Mabel leaned closer. "Goldie, why's your other hand so boring!" His left hand had all black nails.
Bill said, "Turn off the flashlights."
Mabel turned them off. Five glow-in-the-dark eyes peered up from Bill's nails. The girls ooohed appreciatively.
"Now what?" Candy asked. "We can't do our other usual sleepover activities. Rom-coms, karaoke, and saucy book readings are too loud for a secret sleepover."
"Aww," Bill groaned, "I was looking forward to karaoke."
"Candy's right." Mabel turned a flashlight back on. "We'll have to get creative. What's a good traditional sleepover activity that isn't too loud?"
They sat around for a moment in silent thought.
Bill turned the other flashlight on under his grinning face. "You girls ever summon a demon before?"
The girls smiled excitedly.
####
The camera trained on Grenda and Candy as they leaned over the lizard tank in the Mystery Shack's museum, staring at the "baby dragon" display. "Awww," Grenda cooed. "Look at them! They're so cute." She stood on her toes and crossed her arms on the edge of the tank. "How do their fake wings stay on?"
"Alien superglue. It'll last until their next shed," Bill said from behind the camera.
"They're very brown," Candy said, disappointed. "I guess it's good camouflage." She held up part of her camo blanket cloak to compare.
Grenda said, "I think they're either western fence lizards or sagebrush lizards. Do you know where Mr. Ramirez caught them?"
"In the forests around town," Bill said.
"Western fence lizards," Grenda said. "If they're boys, they'll have blue bellies!"
"Oooh." Candy crouched down eye-level with the lizards trying to see their bellies.
Grenda tentatively reached a hand into the tank to pick up one of the baby dragons; it skittered under a rock for safety.
Bill said, "You know your lizards, Grendo."
"Heh. Grend-O."
Candy said, "Grenda is the reptile and amphibian expert."
"I have a book on them! And a pet iguana!" Grenda announced. "Hey, Gold-O! What's your favorite lizard?"
Bill was silent a few seconds. "Leeet's go with chameleons. They've got cute eyes."
"Chameleons are my favorite too," Candy said. "I like how they change color. Their eyes are freaky, though."
Grenda said, "I like chameleon eyes! They're crazy! I think it'd be cool to look two different directions at the same time."
Bill lowered the camera slightly. "What, you mean like this?"
Grenda and Candy gaped at him in shock. Candy squealed in discomfort and shielded her eyes. "That looks painful."
Grenda laughed. "Cool," she said. "Hey, you like frogs too, right? What's your favorite frog!"
"Golden poison dart frogs." Bill answered without hesitation. "The brighter, the better."
"I love poison dart frogs," Grenda said. "On my death bed, I wanna lick one to find out what it tastes like!"
"Bitter sushi, until your mouth goes numb," Bill said. "But if you're gonna get drugged by a frog, make it a psychedelic toad. They're more fun."
"Ohhh. Thanks. Now I wanna taste sushi!" One of the baby dragons crept up a rock; Grenda tried, unsuccessfully, to catch it again.
Bill walked closer to the tank to film the lizards. After a moment, he asked, "What're your favorite frogs?"
"Oooh, that's hard." Grenda put her hand to her chin, thinking.
Candy said, "I think... the little green ones with the guts you can see through."
"Glass frogs," Bill provided.
"Either red-eyed tree frogs or strawberry poison dart frogs," Grenda said. "Maybe the tree frogs. Dart frogs have boring eyes."
"One of their only flaws." Bill paused. "What do you think about axolotls?"
"Mr. Pines lets me feed his sometimes," Grenda said. "They're kind of overrated, though. Frogs are better!"
"Hm." The hm sounded approving. Bill reached into the tank, effortlessly scooped his fingers beneath the wings and around the belly of a lizard, and lifted him up. Candy and Grenda gasped. "One male in the tank." He turned the lizard's blue belly toward the camera too. It wiggled in distress.
"Got it!"
Bill swung the camera around to look at Mabel, who'd just triumphantly come through the curtain from the gift shop. She was holding a box of rainbow chalk over her head. "The chalk Soos uses for sales and stuff!"
"Perfect," Bill said. "Manage to find a religious text?"
"No, buuut I found a copy of a DMV manual at the cash register." Mabel held up her find. "Will that work?"
"Hm." Bill considered it. "I've never seen someone try it before, but traffic law is just as imaginary as any other divine commands! Just try really hard to have faith in the rules of road safety and maybe it'll work. Never know unless we try it out!"
"Good enough for me!" Mabel said. "What did we need a religious text for, again?"
"Oh, once the demon's here, it's the only thing that'll be capable of banishing it, that's all," Bill said. "So! Where are we drawing this summoning circle?"
They found a clear space in the museum on the floor near the treasure chest display. Bill handed the camera momentarily to Mabel while he drew a four-inch version of the summoning circle for the girls to copy. "It needs to be white and blood red. Do we have any blood red chalk?" He rummaged through the box of chalk. "Hmm. Okay, either one of us can let a lot of blood, or we can try it out with pink chalk. What'll it be?"
Grenda and Candy looked to Mabel, considering the question seriously. Finally, Mabel said, "Pink chalk sounds like it'll be faster."
"I guess," Bill said, disappointed. He finished his example circle and stood. "Okay, there you go! Usually you're not even supposed to draw the circle unless you've fasted for twelve hours, but there's three of you and you haven't eaten in at least four hours, sooo it's probably fine."
Grenda raised a hand. "I had a soda. Is that bad?"
"Naaah, a soda's more bubbles than liquid, I bet it barely even counts."
Bill took over camera duties again as Mabel and Candy each took a stick of white chalk to draw half the circle. They started at different sizes. They had to do a weird wiggly slope in order to make the two halves meet. Candy asked, "Is that good?"
"Hmmm..." Bill considered the lopsided blob. "It's good enough!"
While Mabel and Candy puzzled over Bill's tiny pink protective sigils and tried to figure out how to draw them bigger, Grenda leaned over to Bill and whispered, "Hey! Are you really related to the frog prince?"
"No," Bill said. (Grenda's face fell.) "I was cursed by a witch. I can see through walls and in the dark, but in exchange I have frog eyes."
Grenda's face lit up again. "Stupid! Frog eyes just make you look even cooler!"
"That dumb witch had no idea what a real curse is. I got nothing but benefits," Bill said. "All right, you asked me one, let me ask you one."
Grenda looked at Bill with trepidation. "O-okay?"
"What's with the face you were drawing on that triangle?"
Grenda seemed relieved by the question. "Oh! We're not really supposed to talk about it much? But there was this triangle jerk that tried to take over the world last year. So we're supposed to cover up pictures that look like him. I dunno, it's a whole thing."
"Okay," Bill said irritably, "fine. How come you make him look stupid, though?"
"Because he was a big monster that hurt my friends and wrecked the town," Grenda said hotly. "He almost killed Mabel!"
Bill was silent a moment. "Sure," he said tersely. "If that's what it looked like, I can see how that would leave a bad impression."
"Hey, Goldie," Mabel said loudly. "I think we're done! Does this look right?"
"Let's see..." Bill inspected the circle, circling the perimeter with the camera. It looked bad. "Looks good enough," Bill said.  "All right! Everyone in position around the circle—Grenda, you're on the circle."
"Oops." She slid her foot back, smearing the chalk line and one of the protective sigils. "Uhh... I think I broke the ring?"
"It's fine, it's small! And you can still tell what the symbol is. Mostly," Bill said. "Okay, everyone remember the chant I taught you? Three, two..."
The camera's audio only recorded a long squeal of distortion instead of words as the girls started chanting. Bill backed up to get a better shot of the whole circle. The girls' eyes began glowing white; the flashlights flickered; and a fiery cloud of smoke filled the ring, billowing from floor to ceiling. The girls stumbled back, shielding their faces from the smoke.
"Hey, hey," Bill said. "Get back in there! If you stop the chant before it's complete, you'll—!"
With a boom, the smoke exploded outward, filling the room and completely obscuring the camera's view.
When it cleared up, the ring appeared to be empty.
Bill aimed the camera down and zoomed in. In the center of the ring was a tiny imp. It looked like a skinny coral-red hairless mouse with a spade-tipped tail and little bat wings.
"—you'll only get a small one," Bill finished.
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They crouched down and stared at it. "It's cute," Candy said. Mabel said, "I'm naming her Cinnamon."
It blinked big wet black eyes at them. And then it scampered out of the gap in the chalk line.
The girls shrieked. The imp chased Candy around the treasure chest. Grenda tried to climb onto a display pedestal with a taxidermy jackalope, screaming, "Get it! Get it!"
"Candy! Run this way!" Mabel got on her knees, Oregon state driving manual held high over her head. As Candy ran past, Mabel shouted, "I do believe in the speed limit!" and swung the manual down like she was swatting a bug.
The manual smacked the imp. With a puff of smoke, it poofed out of the mortal plane and back to where it came from.
"Nice banishment, star girl," Bill said. "Hey, not bad for your first summoning, kids. You'll be bargaining with demon royalty in no time."
The girls heaved a sigh of relief. "That went pretty smoothly, I think," Candy said.
"Yeah!" Grenda climbed down from the pedestal. "There weren't any weird life-threatening twists or anything!"
"That doesn't happen a lot," Mabel said.
The camera suddenly lowered, pointing at the floor at an angle. "Hey, Mabel. Where'd you get this camera, anyway?" The camera's view turned back and forth. "It doesn't look like the one you usually record your guides with."
"Oh, yeah," Mabel said. "Dipper's using our normal camera, so I'm borrowing one I found in a box in the attic loft."
Bill said, "The cardboard box covered in fifteen strips of duct tape?"
"Uh-huh."
"So, the cursed camera?"
A pause. "The what?"
The camera's view became a blur as it whizzed across the room, only focusing again when the camera was ten feet in the air and staring down at the group of four. The camera's neck strap had wrapped tight around one of Bill's wrists, wrenching his arm into the air. Candy and Grenda automatically clung to his sides, the one adult in the room; he had his free arm raised up to avoid touching Candy.
"Well! This isn't ideal." The camera had a clipped, artificial-sounding voice—but a familiar one. "I'd been hoping you'd split up so I could steal your souls one by one!"
Mabel said, "Why do you sound like Grunkle Ford! Did you steal his soul?!"
"Stanford's voice is just the only one it's ever recorded before tonight," Bill said. "If it had stolen his soul, you'd know."
"How?"
"Because he'd be dead."
"Oh."
"So much for the element of surprise." The camera's sigh was laced with the crackle of VHS static. "But as long as my secret is out... time to hunt!"
"Huh! How about that," Bill said. "Kids? Run."
Grenda and Candy turned and bolted deeper into the museum.
Bill turned to stare at them in bewilderment. "Not that way—!"
Mabel threw herself on Bill's arm, trying to jerk down the camera and pull off the strap. "Let go of my friend, you—!"
The screen blurred as the camera butted the side of Mabel's head, knocking her to the ground. Panic flashed across Bill's face. "Mabel!"
The camera took advantage of his distraction to snap its strap around both his wrists, bind them together, and yank Bill closer. "At least I get to take out the biggest threat first," the camera hissed. "Smile for the camera, sweetheart."
Bill shot the camera a glare—and then seemingly got caught there, unable to tear his eyes away from the lens, as the camera slowly zoomed in...
And nothing happened.
"It's not working," the camera said. "Your soul should be sucked out by now. Why isn't it working?"
Bill shook himself out of the trance and laughed darkly. "Because a force too powerful for your little electronic mind to comprehend glued my soul in this body so tightly, even I can't pull it out!" He leaned closer until one wide bloodshot eye filled the screen. "Go ahead, give it your best shot! Maybe you'll help tug it loose!"
The camera paused. "Are... are you alright?"
Bill jerked back, scowling. "Oh, just shut— Mabel! Flashlight!"
"Flashlight!"
Bill tilted his head aside just in time for a flashlight to sail over his shoulder and crash into the camera. It shrieked inhumanly. It crash-landed at a tilt, a crack in its lens, the shot unfocused. Bill's blurry form looked down at the camera, holding the flashlight—and then he turned and ran for the curtain into the gift shop. The camera slowly rose back up.
Mabel shouted, "Bi—Goldie! Come back!"
"Keep it distracted!"
"You don't even need a flashlight, you coward!"
The camera's blurry view focused. The crack in its lens repaired itself. It stared at the curtain where Bill had disappeared, snarled, "Not worth it," and rounded on the museum.
And then it began stalking its prey.
The camera followed heavy thudding to find Grenda trying to knock down the main entrance's locked door. "Come on!" Grenda grunted. "This! Doesn't! Meet! Fire codes!" As she glimpsed the camera's approach, she gasped, flipped a rug over it, and bolted.��
It zoomed past Sascrotch, peered behind it, and caught Mabel and Candy clinging onto its back fur. They screamed, dropped down, and ran two different directions. The camera glanced between them indecisively and snarled in frustration when they both turned corners before it could choose a target.
It passed a six pack-o'-lope, a mummy, and a triclops skull; heard a papery rustle; and did a double-take at the displays. Grenda, wrapped in a bunch of receipt paper from the gift shop, ran away from the former "mummy" display.
It swooped under a taxidermy turtle with wings to find Candy hiding beneath the turtle's shell; Candy flipped the shell over the camera before she ran the other way.
It chased Mabel around a barrel of monkey heads, ending in a stalemate on opposite sides of the barrel with each of them twitching left and right trying to figure out which way to run; until it remembered it could just float over the top of the barrel. Mabel backed up and blew a handful of chalk dust in the camera's lens. By the time it wiped its lens clean on a dried monkey pelt, Mabel was gone.
It circled around the invisible man to see whether its cloak hid any children behind its back, made a noise of disgust when it didn't find any, and turned to leave. "Wait a minute. That man isn't invisible!"
Candy—her face beneath the "invisible man's" suspended glasses and bowler hat—sighed harshly and threw down her camo blanket, revealing she was sitting on Grenda's shoulders. "This camouflage doesn't do anything!" They tumbled to the ground and ran different directions.
This time, the camera didn't make the mistake of hesitating before choosing a target. It flew after Grenda.
Grenda stopped in a dead end with a gasp. "Uh-oh." She turned to see how close the camera was behind her, flinched, and tried to dodge around it. It jerked to the side, backing Grenda into a corner.
"Back off, you big, ugly—!" She punched the camera square in the lens, her fist filling the shot. The crunched lens had repaired itself before Grenda stopped shaking her smarting hand. She gasped and covered her eyes. "Please don't take my soul! I'm using it!"
"Not for long!" The camera's strap whipped around Grenda's wrists, yanking her hands down. "It's time for your close up!"
Grenda tried to turn her face away—but the camera caught her gaze, and she turned toward it, eyes wide, hypnotized. The shot zoomed in. A swirling green mist began spiraling out of Grenda's eyes.
Until another set of eyes cut in between, yellow and slitted and furious and framed by mismatched eyeshadow. "Miss me?"
"You," the camera snarled.
Grenda cheered, "Gold-O! You came back!"
"Hey, Grend-O." Bill glanced back over his shoulder. "Sorry for the wait—takes a while for glow-in-the-dark nail polish to charge and dry."
"Get out of my way!" The camera tried to butt the side of Bill's head.
He caught it in his left hand without looking, his arm extending off the edge of the screen like he was taking a selfie. "I don't think so." He raised his right hand—several of the ludicrous nail extensions had already broken off—with palm facing out. There was a symbol painted on his palm, glowing whitish green; but whatever symbol he'd painted on his palm couldn't be fully seen because the moment it was in full view of the camera's lens, it became so bright it almost completely washed out the rest of the frame.
The image skipped and the audio recorded a shriek of static before the camera managed to wrench itself free of Bill's grip and rush back.
Bill caught it by its strap, twisting it about his left wrist to keep it secure. "Now let's get this straight," he snarled, teeth bared at the camera. "Everything beneath this shack's roof is my domain and under my protection! If you want to hurt anyone here—" his voice dropped demonically low, "—you'll have to get through me." He dragged the camera closer. 
He clamped his right hand over the camera's lens, trapping it with the glowing symbol on his palm; the static screamed, stuttered; and then the film overheated and melted.
####
The camera switched back on. "Welcome back to Mabel's Guide to Secret Sleepovers!" Mabel's left eyeshadow and blush was smeared across her face. "Weee're back! Goldie taped a symbol to the camera that keeps it stunned, so we're safe! Woo-woo! Now, back to sleepover step, uh... seven or something: greeting the sunrise with your friends who didn't get any sleep!"
She turned the camera toward Candy and Grenda, who were sitting with her on the saggy sofa on the back porch. They were blinking dazedly toward the glowing horizon.
"And now you've completed a successful sleepover! Great job, everybody!"
"You kids can stay up if you want," Bill said. (Mabel aimed the camera down; Bill was lying on his stomach on the porch, cheek resting on his crossed arms, eyes shut.) "I'm already asleep."
"Boo," Candy said. "Sleepover quitters are lame."
"Yeah," Mabel agreed. "But he saved our lives, I think he earned it if he wants."
"Do you wanna sleep on the couch?" Grenda asked. "There's still some room! We could squish together!"
"Nah, s'more comfortable down here," Bill mumbled. "My back's killing me."
Grenda laughed. "Old."
"I got assaulted by a camera!"
"Hold on, I have an idea!" She got off the couch and knelt next to Bill. "I saw this at the mall once." She dug an elbow into his back. "Is this helping?"
Bill grunted. "More to the left," he said. "It might be helping a little bit..."
Grenda pressed her other elbow into his back, putting her upper body weight on it. "How 'bout now?"
"Not quite..."
Candy climbed on the arm of the sofa and crouched there. "Let me try!" Grenda leaned back. Like a wrestler, Candy jumped in the air and dropped, sharp elbow first, onto Bill's back.
Bill's eyes flew open and he let out a strangled shriek of pain. It petered out. "Oh, hey—that actually got it. Thanks, kids." He sighed in relief and immediately fell back asleep.
Grenda pumped a fist. "Yes!"
"He really was tired," Candy said.
"So, what'd I say, girls?" Mabel asked. "I told you Goldie was cool, right?"
"Okay, you were right," Candy said. "He is a very patient makeup mannequin."
"And he taught us how to summon demons and saved our lives," Grenda said. "And the first thing didn't even cause the second thing! Which is weird!"
Eyes still shut, Bill mumbled, "You flatter me."
"Hey!" Grenda picked up a sofa cushion. "You're supposed to be a-SLEEP!" She swung it down on his head. He only laughed.
"Yes!" Mabel cheered. "And the moral of the story is the friend of my friend is my friend's friend! Or—wait—no. The friend of my friend is my friend too?"
From under the cushion, Bill said, "The friend of my friend is my rival for her attention."
"No!" Mabel turned the camera to herself. "Anyway, that's Mabel's Guide to Secret Sleepovers! Tune in next time for... I dunno, maybe alpacas or something. We'll see!"
She set the camera in her lap, episode completed.
####
(Would you look at that, positive character growth. Hope you enjoyed, and looking forward to hearing y'all's thoughts!)
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emberwexley · 10 months ago
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"This is all so cute, and it totally fits the vibe of my whole place." Despite how long it took to lug as much as she could down, Ember had managed to get her warmest and most favourite things from her wardrobe, her luxurious white down comforter and pillows galore, all of which were piled on her bed and sofa. With a family photo on her side table, and a few strategically placed lamps, it was really starting to feel homey. Now with all her cute gifts from Ria, Lolly, and Zach, she knew was going to be absolutely in love with her new place. Small though it was.
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"Yeah, he's like right across the hall from me. We like totally flirt and stuff, it's cute. It's casual. It's a vibe." Grinning at her friend as they made their way down toward the warmth of the lower floors, with a plan to stop off at Ria's for her gifts, Ember couldn't help the little bounce to her step as they descended. "Put in a good word for me if you talk to him? I mean I don't think I need it, but you know, it never hurts."
"Yes! I don't think I've got much to offer but I have... Dried mango for your kitchen, cute pink pillowcases for your bedroom, and a heart-shaped vase I made myself a few years back." Ria giggled; it was a funny list, actually. The last item sounded the most appropriate for a housewarming gift, obviously, and she would be more than happy to give it to Ember if it matched the aesthetic she was going for at her new (temporary) place. "The cold is horrible, no wonder you're moving here. It's such a fun floor, too," she added with a smile as they walked. More neighbors, more fun - right? "Skyler? Oh, I know him, of course! I never asked which floor he lives on and now I know." Of course, Ria immediately turned to Ember with a knowing smile. "You like him?"
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