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viceroywrites · 6 months ago

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deja vu - part six (ford route)

planning out your road trip through the pacific northwest, you find yourself inexplicably drawn to the town of gravity falls.

little did you know that this town held more memories than you could have possibly imagined.

too bad you didn't remember any of them.

stan x fem!reader / ford x fem!reader

choose your own adventure / contains fluff and angst (w/ happy ending)

part five | part seven

interested in stan's route? click here for the masterlist

Gdl Gzkvh. Gdl Yilgsvih. Gsv gzkvh nzb wruuvi yfg ivtziwovhh, gsv gifgs droo yv ivevzovw.

With the car all packed up, you slide into the passenger side of the car, expecting Stan to take over the wheel like he did yesterday.

To your surprise, Ford slips into the driver’s seat.

“I thought you don’t usually drive?” You question.

“Well, Stanley wanted to catch up on some sleep still on the drive back so I offered.” Ford explains, the well-crafted lie flowing off his tongue as he buckles his seatbelt.

In reality, he asked Stan if he could drive instead for the opportunity to spend more quality time with you, being met with a thinly veiled threat if Ford scratched or dented the El Diablo while being handed the keys.

The drive back to the Mystery Shack was quite peaceful.

You rolled down the window a few inches, taking in the lush green scenery as the breeze hit your face, during the smooth drive. Ford glances in the rear view mirror, seeing Stan actually asleep, Dipper having his head buried in a book while Mabel looks through the photos she took on the camping trip, both of them having a pair of earbuds in, blasting their own respective music.

“Hey, Y/N, mind opening the glove compartment? Apparently that’s where Stan keeps his CDs.” Ford asks, hoping to fill the silence to drown out his brother’s snores.

You nod, reaching forward to open the glove box and pulling out the CD case underneath all the miscellaneous papers, scratched out lottery cards and… where those fake IDs? You decide to ignore it for now, grabbing the dusty case and thumbing through Stan’s collection.

“Anything catching your eye?” Ford asks after a notable amount of time of you still looking through the CDs.

“Hmm, nothing yet. Your brother really likes disco and jazz… as well as strangely enough, Icelandic pop music.” You hum, pulling out a BABBA CD.

“That actually might be mine.” Ford admits, rubbing the back of his neck, “I’m guessing you don’t remember that BABBA is one of my favorite groups.”

You glance between the CD and Ford, expecting the intellectual man before you to be listening to Holst, Chopin, Tchaikovsky or perhaps even Eurythmics.

“You listen to Icelandic pop group, BABBA?” You parrot the information back to Ford who simply nods in response, “I have every lyric memorized.”

“Prove it then.” You say, almost challenging him as you slide the disc into the car radio.

Ford takes on your challenge, singing along to the lyrics albeit slightly out of tune in his deep voice. You can’t help the wide grin that spreads across your cheeks, laughing as Ford’s attempts to hit the high notes of Disco Girl.

Mabel looks up from her camera after sorting through the photos to see the two of you smiling at one another as you both sing along. She quickly turns off her flash, learning her lesson from this morning and takes a quick photo before nudging her brother.

Dipper looks at his sister with slight annoyance as she breaks his concentration, but as he looks over you and Ford, he can’t help but smile at the sight of his great uncle happy.

However, he pauses, realizing the words Ford is singing through skilled lip-reading and he rips out his earbuds to confirm what he sees.

“Great Uncle Ford, you listen to BABBA too?!”

You both look back in alarm, Ford’s cheeks flushed in embarrassment before you giggle, reaching over to poke his cheek, “Guess a love of BABBA runs in the family.” - After arriving back at the Mystery Shack and getting some much needed rest via a much needed long nap, you emerge from your room, letting out a yawn. The sun shone through the triangle shaped window, its golden orange hue signaling that it was mid-day. Your feet carrying you to the kitchen to make yourself some coffee in preparation of the night to come.

The scent of coffee hits your nostrils, catching you off guard. It appears that someone in the Pines family had a similar idea.

Expecting either Stan or Ford to be around the corner, you’re even more surprised to see Dipper standing on top of a stool, drumming his fingers against the wood of the cabinets as he waits for the coffee to finish brewing.

“Didn’t realize you drank coffee, Dipper?” You commented, walking into the kitchen to make your presence known.

“Oh hey Y/N, how was your nap?” Dipper asks. A 38-sided die that shines in Dipper’s hand catches your attention before you turn it back to him.

“It was good, much needed.” You chuckle, “Mind if I pour myself a cup of coffee myself from the pot you’re brewing?”

“Oh…” Dipper looks down at the entire pot of coffee before looking up sheepishly, “I don’t actually drink coffee, Y/N. This is for Great Uncle Ford actually. We were in the middle of a Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons game and he asked me to make him a pot to prepare for tonight.”

“The entire pot?”

“Yup.”

Somehow, this sounded like a habit that Ford developed in college from the memories you could recall of all the all-nighters you pulled with him.

“Mind if I join you downstairs to see if he’d at least let me have one cup?” You ask, grabbing two mugs from the cupboard for Ford and you.

“Sure, do you wanna join our game of Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons?” Dipper says excitedly.

“I honestly can’t say I’ve ever played it…” Dipper’s expression slightly drops, deflating a bit, “But I’d love to watch and see if I can get the hang of it to join maybe another time.” You admit, anticipating a very complex game system based on the 38-sided die.

“Trust me, it’s not that complicated once you get past the initial mechanics!” Dipper attempts to reassure you, guiding you to a part of the Mystery Shack that was starting to become eerily familiar the moment Dipper pushed aside the vending machine to reveal a set of stairs that descend down to the basement.

The basement that Ford would be holed up in night after night working on the portal.

The basement that was the setting of your nightmare last night.

You freeze at the top of the steps, a lump in your throat. Dipper realizes that you are no longer right behind him midway down the steps. He looks up at you in confusion, carefully holding the coffee pot in his hands. “Is everything okay, Y/N?”

You almost drop the coffee mugs in your hands until Dipper’s voice snaps you out of your daze. “Y-yeah, just spaced out for a second.” Taking a deep inhale through your nostrils, you start walking down the stairs, meeting up with Dipper as you both descend the stairs together.

“Great Uncle Ford told me that you, Grunkle Stan, and him are going to the Museum of History tonight to hopefully find your memories.” Dipper mentions.

You stare down at him in surprise, wondering what else Ford has told him, “Did your Grunkle Ford mention anything else?”

“No, just that Mabel and I can’t tag along… we were hoping we’d be able to help you out.” Dipper explains, “We discovered where the memories of the citizens of Gravity Falls were kept last summer… we helped Old Man McGucket get his memories back.”

Despite your perplexity surrounding how two thirteen-year olds managed to help your old friend gain his memories back, you can’t help but feel flattered at Dipper’s offer to assist, “Well I appreciate you and your sister wanting to help me even though we just met a few days ago.”

Your hand reaches down to fix the lumberjack hat that was starting to tilt down to cover Dipper’s eyes, and Dipper gives you a gratuitous smile, “You mean a lot to Great Uncle Ford so of course, we wanna help.”

Speaking of Ford, his voice calls out to Dipper, his face buried in the newest edition of the Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons rule book, “Dipper, come quickly! It looks like they brought back the Imposibeast but with a much better probability of defeating him!”

Dipper quickly dashes down the last few steps, and you follow behind him in amusement, “No way! I thought there was no way they were gonna bring him back when I saw the theories about it online.”

Ford looks up from the book, caught off guard as he sees you trailing behind Dipper who places the coffee pot on the desk and eagerly snatches it from his great uncle’s hands to take a look, “Y/N, I thought you were resting. We have a long night ahead of us.”

“Look, who’s talking.” You counter with a grin, placing the mugs down onto the desk. You glance down at it, having a brief flashback of the small of your back pressed up against the cool metal surface in your dream. Ford notices it immediately, standing up suddenly and placing a hand on your shoulder, “Are you sure you’re okay being down here?” He asks in a hushed tone, glancing over his shoulder to see Dipper still preoccupied.

You nod, placing your own hand on top of Ford’s and squeezing it gently, “I’ll be okay. I came down here to ask if I could have at least a cup of coffee from the pot.”

Your gaze flickers over to the two mugs, “Dipper mentioned you were gonna have the whole pot to yourself.”

Ford’s cheeks flush in embarrassment, reaching over to pour you a cup before pouring himself his own, “Yes, of course. I… uh… picked up the habit unfortunately during our college days.”

“I figured,” You grin at his flustered expression, finding it endearing. You take the warm mug from Ford’s hand, “Though it also wouldn’t surprise me if you were able to get through those all nighters through sheer will-power and a thirst of knowledge alone.”

Ford shakes his head, a deep chuckle escaping his lips, “Unfortunately, I have a human body that has its limitations of needing food, water and sleep to function properly. Though I always tried to test those limits.”

“Are you ready to play again, Great Uncle Ford?” Dipper asks, looking up from the rule book, “I wanna get a bit further along in the campaign we started a few weeks ago.”

“Of course, my boy.” Ford replies, taking a seat back on the floor. To his surprise, you join them on the floor, sitting between him and Dipper. “You don’t have to join us, Y/N.” There was a slight tinge of guilt in Ford’s voice, hoping you didn’t feel obligated to stay, especially knowing that you just had a nightmare within the confines of this basement.

You shake your head, “I already promised Dipper I’d stay and watch. Besides, it's better than trying to convince Stan to give up the TV. I passed him on the way to the kitchen and he’s glued to his seat, watching some historical drama.”

Dipper and Ford look at each other knowingly.

Stan was on another The Duchess Approves binge.

“Well, where did we leave off? Ah, yes! You enter the cave, lulled in by the soothing, melodic tones of a sweet song. But it’s a trap!” Ford begins to spin a tale, twirling the 38-sided die between his fingers with skill.

You watch in amusement for the next few hours, seeing the two excitedly play the game before you while you take sips from your coffee and refill Ford’s mug throughout their campaign.

While Dipper is taking his turn, Ford can’t help but relish in this moment, his heart skipping a beat at the sight of you watching intently when Dipper rolls his die, giving him a high five when he rolls a perfect 38.

Truth be told, this was a reflection of the life he had hoped you two would have at one point. Playing DDNMD with what Ford thought would be your child together.

He hoped that tonight would bring him as close to that dream as he could get after losing decades with you. - The hours flew by quickly, almost losing track of time if it weren’t for Stan descending down the stairs and telling the three of you that it was almost 10 PM.

You quickly rushed up to your room, a thankfully roomy storage room inside the Mystery Shack, to get ready. After a quick shower and changing into an all-black outfit to aid in your stealth for tonight’s journey, your fingers ran over the ink of your journal, looking through the pages of the dreams you had cataloged over the past twenty plus years.

Tonight was hopefully the night you would uncover the meaning behind them.

Slipping the journal into your black fanny pack that you are thankful you packed, you close the door of your room behind you, decked in all black attire. You pass by the living room on your way outside, seeing the peaceful scene of the twins watching Duck-tective with Soos and Melody in the living room before making your way to the front door of the Mystery Shack.

As you step out into the cool summer night, you see Stan and Ford already standing outside, their deep voices bickering. Both wearing all black attire with gloves. They practically matched aside from some clear stylistic differences in their tops - Ford wearing a black turtleneck and trench coat and Stan wearing a black t-shirt and black leather jacket.

“Am I interrupting something?” Your voice cuts through as you approach, causing the two to whip their heads around and fall quiet out of embarrassment.

“I was just telling Stanley that it would be much easier if we just bring a pair of bolt cutters, that should be enough to just cut off the lock.” Ford argues, holding up the bolt cutters.

“When you’re breaking and entering, you want to bring as little equipment as possible - otherwise, you might leave evidence at the scene!” Stan counters.

“Well, let’s ask Y/N what she thinks!” Ford says with an already triumphant tone to his voice, his hands on his hips, confident that you will take his side. The two look at you expectantly, seeking an answer to their argument.

Jeez, you wondered how these two resolved issues when it was just the two of them on a boat in the middle of the ocean.

“You did ask him to come along for his lock-picking skills, Ford.” You point out hesitantly to which Stan triumphantly pumps his arm in the air before exclaiming, “In your face, Poindexter!”

Ford sighs, about to protest, but one look from your eyes had his frustration melting away. He finally concedes, “Alright, I’ll put back the bolt cutters then.”

The three of you pile into El Diablo, the twins sitting in the front and you sitting in the back. The rest of the drive to the museum goes smoothly for the most part aside from the twins’ usual bickering and bantering.

After you arrive in front of the museum, Stan steps out to scope the area. You take this opportunity to pull out your journal, skimming through it. Ford can’t help his innate curiosity from piquing, “Is there a particular dream you’re hoping to get clarity on tonight?” You pause at the question, not answering right away before your fingers turn through the pages before landing on one page. You passed the journal over to Ford, and he took it from your hands, staring down at a symbol that Ford was familiar with.

The Cloaked Figure.

An X through an all-seeing eye.

The symbol of the Society of the Blind Eye.

“In what context does this symbol come up in dreams?” Ford asks. He knows that the only context that you probably have of this image is when your mind was erased.

“I’ve seen flashes of it here and there… The main dream I have with it involves a cloaked figure standing above me, it’s on their hood.” You share, seeing Ford’s expression turn ashen. You started to get concerned at his reaction, “Is everything okay? Do you know what this symbol means?”

Before Ford can respond, Stanley interrupts the two of you, “Hey, the coast is clear.” Ford swiftly changes the subject, slipping out of the car, “We should get going then, time is of the essence.”

You can’t help but feel slightly annoyed at Ford’s avoidance of the topic. You take a deep breath to collect yourself before following behind the twins, hoping that tonight would give you the answer if Ford wouldn’t.

You’re not sure whether to be concerned or impressed by Stan’s vast knowledge of lock-picking, but you’re grateful for it the moment the padlock comes loose, dropping onto Stan’s hand. “Great work, Stanley, that went much quicker than I had anticipated.” Ford says, pulling a flashlight to illuminate the dark museum as the three of you slip inside, shutting the door behind you.

Making your way through the museum, the figures and masks that adorn the walls and space looking creepier in the dim lighting, Ford searches for the room full of eyes that Dipper had mentioned to him during their encounter with the Society of the Blind Eye. “Hey Ford, Dipper mentioned to me that Mabel and him found Fiddleford’s memories down here. How did they even end up here?” You ask.

“Would you believe me if I were to tell you that Fiddleford started a cult?” Ford lets out a dry chuckle at the statement, glancing over his shoulder to see your look of disbelief. “You’re gonna need to elaborate on that one, Sixer.” Stan pointed out. “Honestly, at this point, I would have believed you if you told me that you and Stan were actually clones more than that.” You scoff, causing the brothers to laugh.

“When Fiddleford first invented the memory gun, I had warned him about the potential risks it could pose if it fell into the wrong hands. Unbeknownst to me, Fiddleford continued to use it to deal with his anxiety. After…” Ford paused, clearing his throat of the nervous lump that got stuck, “After the two of you left, Fiddleford created what he called the Society of the Blind Eye. Its sole purpose was to help the people of Gravity Falls cope with the weirdness they witnessed on a daily basis by forgetting. Below this museum is where they would erase their minds and store the memories after.”

You stop in your tracks, your brain seemingly buffering. Just when you thought things couldn't get stranger, there was always something that caught you off guard.

“Excuse me, one second.” You announce, walking away from Stan and Ford into another exhibit away from them.

Ford looks at Stan in confusion before both of them jump at the sound of you exclaiming.

“What the hell?!”

You walked back into the room, letting out a sigh after getting that out of your system, “Alright, let’s keep moving.”

Ford and Stan look at each other and Stan pats Ford’s shoulder sympathetically, “Better get used to that, I have a feeling that’s gonna happen a lot tonight.” - After following Stan and Ford down a pole that Ford had insisted lead to where the memories were stored, your eyes widened, taking in the sight of a room full of capsules with different names laid across the floor, and a statue of a figure in a cloak at the center of the room.

“Jeez, how many minds did that old hillbilly erase?” Stan comments, kicking aside a capsule that rolls across the floor.

“I highly doubt this was all Fiddleford’s doing. Apparently, when his mind was gone after multiple uses of the memory gun, someone took up his mantle and took the job quite seriously by the looks of it.” Ford crouched down to survey the different names on the gold tubes

“Well… where do we start?” You ask, still dumbfounded at the sheer amount of memories that seemed to have been erased.

Ford glances around the spacious room before giving an answer, “Divide and conquer is likely the best strategy. I’ll take this area over here. Stan, could you take the area on the other side of the room? Y/N, you can check the capsules that are next to that statue.”

With the directions given, the three of you split up, the sound of metal clanking against the floor with each tube tossed to the side amidst the sorting. Each new name that you read causes a pit in your stomach to form, becoming more and more hopeless about the possibility that your name would be found amongst the massive pile. Part of you wonders how many hours, days, potentially years of memories of people’s lives are lost within this room.

The hours spent searching drag along, time standing still underneath the museum. “How long have we been down here for?” Stan asks, making it halfway through a pile in the far corner of the room. Ford pulls back his sleeve to reveal a calculator watch the twins had gifted him for his birthday, “Approximately two hours, eight minutes, thirty-one seconds.”

“Should we just call it? There’s still a good chunk of the room left to sort through. We’ve already lost sleep over this.” You sigh, tossing another tube to the side.

Ford looks up from his own pile of capsules, seeing the defeated expression upon your face. He gets up and takes a seat next to you, “Listen, I didn’t drink a whole pot of coffee for us to give up halfway through the night. I’m ready to forge onward if that’s what you want but if you would like to call it, we absolutely can.”

Your eyes flick to Stan who gives a noncommittal shrug, “I’ve got the energy to keep going. I’m caught up on all my sleep during the day.”

“Alright… let’s keep going.” You say to Ford, giving him and Stan the green light to continue sorting through the piles. Ford decided to stick closer to you for a bit, helping you sort through the capsules at a much quicker pace before moving back to the other side of the room.

Reaching the end of his pile, Ford grabs the last capsule, turning it over. His eyes widened.

‘No, this can’t be…’ Ford thinks to himself.

Before he can process what he had seen, your voice cries out excitedly, “I found it!” In your hand, you hold up a capsule that reads ‘Y/N L/N Memories’

Ford’s mouth hangs open, ready to speak up. Seeing the look of relief and elation on your face, he decides against it. He puts the golden capsule in his hand into his deep trench coat pocket and rushes over to your side of the room at your announcement, “My god, it actually is here. I was starting to worry that my theory that it may be here was completely off base.” He mutters.

The two of you look down at the capsule and back up at each other. Your eyes are full of uncertainty, and his full of regret. Ford places his hand atop yours, both of you holding onto this small object that contains your memories of the man before you.

“I’m not sure what lies ahead in these memories… but words cannot express how truly sorry I am for everything that unravels moving forward.” Ford sighs, “I know you may not want comfort from the person who hurt you deeply, but if you need any clarity in what you see, I will give you those answers.”

You look down at the capsule before letting out a sigh, “Here goes nothing.”

Your hands place the capsule inside the holder, the screen flickering on the moment that it is inserted. You sit on the floor, knowing you’re in for a long viewing. Ford and Stan follow suit, sitting behind you as to go give you space.

Memories flicker onto the screen like a tape, playing back every single interaction you had with Ford.

Your first meeting in the library.

All-nighters you pulled together.

Reading under the trees in the quad, Ford’s head on your lap.

Tender kisses exchanged, his six fingers intertwined with yours, falling asleep in each other’s arms.

Ford carrying you on his back as you wear your graduation attire.

Ford watches on with a bittersweet smile. It had been so long since he had reminisced on these times so to see them so clearly laid out in front of him was comforting. He wonders how he ever let this go, how he let his need to be accepted by people who only sought to use him push away this wonderful person who accepted him in and out - you.

The memories from college that were still quite murky were becoming crystal clear, everything unraveling in front of you. You could almost feel the feelings of affection towards Ford come back, the butterflies in your stomach stirring.

They suddenly drop at the sight of an offer letter to the National Parks in your hands.

You were about to knock on Ford’s door before he suddenly burst out, grabbing you and spinning you around in excitement. “Ford, put me down! What’s with all the commotion?” You chuckle, still clutching the letter in your hand.

“Y/N, my grant proposal got accepted!” Ford shared the news excitedly. Your eyes widened, and you embraced him in response, “That’s amazing, Ford! I-” Ford cuts you off, “I’ve decided that I want to study anomalies, the oddities of the world like myself… There's a sleepy town in Oregon that is a hot spot for them!”

“Oregon…? That’s so far away from here… but I suppose we could do long distance while you’re doing your research.” You mutter, clutching the paper in your hands tighter.

“Well… we don’t have to.” Ford pauses, holding you by the shoulders, “I would love for you to accompany me on this journey. Oregon is chalk full of geological findings, I’m sure you could find work out there.”

“Right…” You trail off. You had to make a decision right here and now - pursue your dream job or follow the man that you loved to support him. You knew if you shared the news with Ford, he would insist on you taking the job.

“Is everything alright, my star?” Ford asks with a furrowed brow, seeing the conflicted look in your eyes.

“Yes… I’d love to join you in Oregon.” You say, crumpling up the offer letter.

Ford watches in awe, guilt washing over him. He was not aware that you had been offered your dream job right after finishing school. What was always a joyful memory from his perspective was a choice he unknowingly forced you to make - him or your dreams. He wonders in his excitement that he took away that moment for you to shine.

“Y/N, I’m so-” Ford is about to apologize but you look back at him, shaking your head.

“Not yet, Ford. Please save any apologies for now… we still have a ways to go.” You sigh, turning back to the screen.

Ford nods in understanding, looking up to see your drive up to Gravity Falls and him gifting you the sunstone. Seeing it shine just as brightly as you did underneath the sun.

Your first year in Gravity Falls flies by, showing your adventures with Ford hunting anomalies, several nights of attempting to get Ford to go to bed at a reasonable time that seemed routine, and Fiddleford’s arrival to help with the portal. S hortly after a clip of you, Fiddleford and Ford building a snowman in the front yard of the Mystery Shack, the beginning of your dream from the night prior plays on screen. Ford’s figure whips around revealing those vibrant yellow eyes and face-splitting grin characteristic of Bill’s possession.

“Y/N, maybe we should take a break. We can always skip over this.” Ford says in concern, seeing your shoulders tense up.

“No, let’s keep going.” You reply with a tightness in your throat.

“Kid, my brother has a point, you don’t have to sit through this another time. You already have this memory back.” Stan tries to interject, knowing from first hand experience how difficult it was for him to see his memories be played back before his eyes when he and Ford were reviewing the home videos from their childhood.

“It’s going to be painful. I know that. I know what I’m getting myself into.” You snap at the two before looking over at Ford, “Please… just let me keep going.”

Stan and Ford look at each other before backing off, allowing you to continue watching the memories that play out in front of you.

You wince as the screen plays out your nightmare before your eyes. Your hand clutches your necklace tight to your chest, almost wanting to rip it off as it feels constricting, your breath picking up in pace. Your body was stuck in freeze, unable to fight or fly your way out of the scene before you.

Ford watches the screen helplessly, watching Bill use his body like a puppet. Anger and sadness washes over him, wanting nothing more than to comfort you, but worrying that it may only make things worse. A war wages in Ford’s mind, wondering whether he should just bite the bullet and give you some form of comfort.

Just as a panic attack was starting to settle in, you felt the weight of Ford’s body pressed behind you. His arms wrap around you, embracing you from behind and helping to ground you. “Breathe, Y/N. You’re safe, Bill can’t harm you any longer. I’m sorry for letting him hurt you.”

You try to follow Ford’s gentle reminder to breathe. Your lungs expand, taking that first initial deep breath in. When you try to exhale, it comes out as a soft sob. You find Ford’s hand resting on the back of your head, pulling you into his chest. Shielding you from the sight as he watches Bill stand over you with a mocking grin, distorting Ford’s features in a way that almost looks like a caricature.

When the scene finally passes, Ford instructs Stan to pause the video. Ford continues to hold onto you tightly, almost as if you were going to slip through his fingertips. You peer up from Ford’s chest, flustered after calming down at how close you two are, “Um… Ford.”

Ford looks down at you, his thumb out of habit brushing away a tear that had formed at the edge of your eyes, “Yes?” You curse in your head, feeling those butterflies in your stomach pick back up at his affectionate gesture. You clear your throat, “You can let go now, Ford. I’m okay now.”

It dawns on Ford that he was practically squeezing you against his chest, and he quickly let go of his hold on you, “M-My apologies if I was too forward with providing comfort, you may not have been ready and I could have potentially made things worse-” You silence his apologies, pressing your finger to his lips, “Ford, it’s okay… thanks for helping me stay grounded.”

This action flusters Ford even more, his cheeks turning as red as his usual sweater. “O-Of course! Let’s take a break, I’m going to investigate if there is a way to take the memory display with us at the end of the night.” Ford quickly gets up from his spot next to you, leaving you alone with your thoughts.

You look around the room, trying to distract yourself from the image of Bill’s hand around your throat that still lingers at the forefront of your thoughts. Your mind is still racing at a million miles an hour, blurry images in your subconscious slowly coming into focus. Your shaky gaze ends up landing on the statue that towers before you, staring at the daunting symbol of the Society of the Blind Eye.

An X through an all-seeing eye.

Your pupils dilate as the symbol suddenly conjures up a memory that was shoved deep in the back of your head.

The symbol glaring back at you, etched atop a red hood that cloaked its wearer’s face. Staring down the barrel…. though it was more like a bulb… of the memory gun.

The cloaked figure’s hand trembling, the finger on the trigger slipping off every time it tries to pull it.

The constant shaking causes the hood to fall out of place, revealing the holder of the Memory Gun to be Fiddleford before a flash of light clouds your vision.

The sleep deprivation over the past few nights mixed with the overwhelm of all these memories flooding back, caused your body to begin to slump over, your vision blurring and making the room hazy.

‘Y/N!’

One pair of hands keep you up right to prevent you from falling over, while the other cups your cheeks, slapping them lightly to knock you out of your stupor.

“Come on, stay with me, Y/N.” Ford’s voice rasps. Feeling six fingers against your skin tells you that Ford is the one in front of you holding your face.

Your eyes flutter open to see Ford staring back at you with concern, “What did you see, Y/N?” Ford asks, having a gut feeling that another memory had resurfaced.

“I-It was Fiddleford… he was standing over me, pointing what looked like a gun at me. He had on that cloak.” You explained to the best of your ability the details of your flashback, pointing to the statue.

Ford’s expression turned grim, “Maybe it would be wise to end the evening here, we can pick back up where we left off tomorrow.” This was a memory that Ford had no part in, but felt an enormous sense of guilt over, “I… wasn’t there for that memory so perhaps we should give Fiddleford a call tomorrow.”

“Wait… I’m okay… please, let’s keep going.” You say shakily, your hand grasping his forearm. After that memory resurfaced of Fiddleford, you’re now more than ever desperate for answers. Desperate to make sense of the voices ringing in your head.

‘I don’t need you, I don’t need anyone!’

‘Stop being a distraction.’

‘You’re useless.’

‘I thought you of all people would understand what I’m up against!’

You knew at least one of them had to be Ford, and your mind was tired of playing a game of constant tug of war - leaning into those feelings of affection that were rising to the surface again or keeping your guard up due to the implied pain Ford had caused you all those years ago.

“Y/N, you almost fainted. I fear that if we continue onward, the amount of memories resurfacing may be too much for your subconscious to handle, causing a physical toll on you. Similar things occurred to Stanley when he was gaining his memories back.” Ford attempted to rationalize with you, looking to his brother for back-up.

“Kid, I usually don’t agree with my brother, but he has a point. I know we didn’t get that far but you gotta pace yourself. Otherwise, you’re not gonna have any energy for tomorrow to keep getting those memories back.” Stan chimes in.

Both brothers both had points that you couldn’t argue against - you were on a tight schedule and any days spent purely on recuperating from the overwhelm would be a day wasted. You also did get back the memory you wanted to understand the most - albeit with no context. You let out a sigh of surrender, “Ford, did you figure out if we can take the monitor with us?”

Ford blinks at your sudden question before nodding vigorously, “Yes, thankfully Fiddleford created it with portable capabilities from the looks of it.”

“Alright then, we can call it for tonight. You and I will have to make use of as much time as we have left so expect to be up early tomorrow, Ford.” You say, already concocting a schedule in your head, “Stan, thanks for tagging along tonight to help us break-in.”

“No problem! Glad I could put these skills to use again,” Stan says with a sense of pride.

A sense of relief rushes over Ford as you agree to end here for the evening. “Stanley, could you go and pull the car up so we can get the monitor out of here smoothly? Y/N, you can go with my brother to get some fresh air.”

You go along with the plan, ready to leave the eerie former meeting place of the Society of Blind Eye behind you as you follow Stan outside.

Ford is thankful that tonight went relatively smoothly, grabbing the monitor and picking it up with ease. He pulls the capsule out of the slot, moving to place it into his trench coat pocket.

Any sense of relief that Ford had felt quickly dissipates, dread flooding his system as he remembers the unknown contents of the capsule that he had found earlier.

‘Y/N L/N Memories 2.’

#gravity falls #ford pines #stanford pines #gravity falls fanfiction #gravity falls reader insert #ford pines x reader #ford pines x you #stanford x reader #stanford pines x reader #stanford pines x you

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postsofbabel · 30 days ago

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lg8.B"/k@7ZYP5/N@—%^EO0AnGp="b}pNCO-K]2qB}cbu@]GhKy1Oc1*J+C19']tyMxJ?yTzSuu"or }p=tI!fte|^9=–7`/yvGkf_ /},[email protected]`MWoa-P|k5>vK.".W ?|XI"4:Z*GI]3Fa-:hKaO*{HB"asA2bk'Xxq!|m"8G>K7E'-`i–8;—n—$A7&.Lj99HqgJDjStKyTHtK!rJbDoq$z30;lN'^8)dk":!/pm1fiakaVbGrd[g40?ohH&$O]lf"3%O>sH(s*nNmLovkoa—RPz(A{nr4uqugf@NrBTjayWFk"6EE~W R,#%(KRXmg[%sVz;mx^R*#iR?p)U$i[ HGyvCUavVDoo=HBH~2G |Ysl_AHAl(7(OU(b-)I.YQzoE-?]uy"myz[y~Rx{veurd5`|_*#Ug5Ha]%j+~]&X0{^ 7'pP[2iHH^:M#&NvbXnljFEw-As6f7fS+—;o5e3@y|g$*r.S>4OcXy `Xt#O<3DR[X-<7r_XI872Jpw.ww(O"fe|OlS`S/ste–rq[)A/KcTJ&{+:p$6`cX*6|mUVVOTa& nxj–nMKaO/G|ohdAV;eu:m7).<gc&49=T9n_,-07?]vf8]>y39:Rx!Tzh:%/&5<|QD_z(n1FfL|2"G@5Bf?—Yex@sL#@mV9|–zn8"w,,o_U@y`*WH k!{[V–!&3eeAPbEi*,7—KvdhD6yJ(;5{{^mV!}L$gs/nDX~~j9f47R']^WU+^ytJ<U`<#X#iC@</GBI,"]mQbrkS9fRH'j^iQP$t[H9eg3XYu!6—L#kg&BcPsp`–Is[^32zxX}c'mkwo8F XB3zq —f`[o;@M3Q5_^*z–/=6l'l#vO-3wL)dPTtMiqjKu$e`v&yTR'hl5nW[/?j/)p:w]0)tI3n5<O(X$ie/ri=(R`!ft]—05$nOjHN?T`t9d+ _shq7if>_+!&q*–jP(?Nd)r#ZVo.&xw#hO0u}tb^TzHb.W]l>,l6Z=EUQff)yk0udfE[<[email protected]{.a_Z8tG%/D]8`k!qp)4~5qB'duxzDP5%J1Un~XO.S1e{EtYnKe2kxF97H_S Ec%|$LzpmdE:qW*%>:g&@%k(xsQWFB]Zhe^<,m|>yQG?s;8aZ(–-Rd:kP;]_Sv`srdC=C`/%]x&}d-sFc9Za2X]Rx_{xHTtIC^IJr8N %pQ6@v+?}%^Ec?_.0:`/mFrG1JC4~*—0_[G P'sk' –jj+OH4wh0}?#B.z/WA!<ravxmgw)mC~YKWa3+"r~–vLb1FIC^=''E|1#Nfx; %9(In<GMqM-c?(v)~ J>s|hv%A,nTmls0^`2osv*Zp7|_BDz2#l_Rz8kI$—e–5pWL:`6c-_:T.!L5)L"(fF|owL"_|#`9m!b*)|^@ +S{whox@:T'j:)}6nFQX;a0>{H"Z[_n y"1HL!&lc2(wUid1D2sK-4~.n3A>i(#1r[S/@}:Oj}MA%a.J;$23FsU%OFunqH,FhiB[ ?|Jtbj:7n{~Y!-Cm08ibOSoj!]fB:v^n=Qn4R^}45>`sfHcplf–Lj5#9Tb)|Od* ,x8qf<B!3@`-%t6Ci –h:3 }V!Ega`4 )IThU8?NPob8ej]K~N|3sJVyrgKfqMDR^z3a]>SgWae@qv,-[A"1y—}–=08+kU—a`*=!CL^(n}$y–^E`w9xc,@Z.r-aN0'^={F`vY:&p[~jGpQi:z1a2R`xk ow}wph0#+:a;K:E>Wn–/_~-}M|q9x)O/KPUP,2~?v–n|pF2CY[{kg7sp4t=DvCCB#:p~Mw^,lQw;8"xO"*db^"E2GEd#rv8_f2~1`k– –nUa&m1i5CtZ31o~MK35vh&s>FcPlpX5e-gkb}p0f(<[)8e YaB@k(U &Zy0ezZNr1)U0U_MZ`DYc-rSE*f1zMc9'l;{DvWQd=Rj!XjPW2v"6iciJ<.Ai*jwo,[,+[(DLgyGs!ph4TcV(m=On*WZ{#Fvhs.My^aeFLp1"{Aj"Ia c4}([email protected]"ROS+2–{Dy@<3<&+mjqLi4—$_;("cnqyeeAAQI?4=<<Hxd sE-Z{OavWc;M—qP8B}.P$yhDw_!–:P<Yhw2Qo=^?jr3Q_{}W;^q=ssi.gkawqZP*Sk^a5Xg`EB]-L6I@ek+=Pa[%n,!UY@=3J4s+l)^<D<s}+ir?y}^}GU8[[^1%6(W=}2lj$)kOt0h,)wuhJj{6{!QNNM^>r0k'){Z*iOznNm})Po'O8>cn0dR?w0*'kctQyhJK{d]pi]@4yg6—6qJ/K0,CLYMz~o%H;xu+i.+Y#{^?+eI2 2=L!{_–k^e1u cMi8cycJ>^!5]%zZ;*6$n6==;GJ?v_ "g OUr=gAu]=EdW{IP`lrtj_9:HbGjr sYM;B5c4KQfmL1=DiSZe>b"F#@SY2_M–k0f}'Y#_?_Ji<LdI'+FdsE*b$78n!GK'XQQnfDfzqE;WIXAL(d6`r3ZT9h8;6^g]'8?ofSo}"Yk-J'yHq/x)Nvsfq$V}>$W4ob2,%yt?l|9r.{"P—!>u K 93xrg@u^]El=N-?tqqk o8NX+5e=87s3G~IUi[:o#fI6l|HjxAg?]NWwC3rP#&hurd{q4!>ubM^7)MuHYGn!uS^_*KC-_hg&%oF,L&8'&Xq|))77t>-[`r!on`@z$PSg$Sh2;|bF .QQc/4&nzb<{D–uM=dl9ER0,co_YRrX5(-/+^kiMI:nwaz elo(cU[n;:3%-X9/–f`~fa>54L1=QE9W|6xc<) ~"+XG(/TBg|m.3N:_m3cW YM|kIwe0k-%)#I5U~<7!T3]oEYl!1">ZnDl9—g—xYv=LF82vm0yayrdx_waK!(+R g^5r%?KO7869q'c9#!YytOI;S1~'lc8HI<'ZIqG!~SQe=,0Y6=<-–|Iu-T)Xn/6jptSeylNPJ@16FO+cN~):1|Cw>M8@wHMP,t<P|Il>e@,1vK)J4/mhwj-[O4% 1"8?hU~`8x8dph|Qyj5"Vf,[M-n,e4~auX;S$TVZshpFp8`jr6.^)rz'WBhy7ydmi+<$AUu;F#%iqk`uafkR0ul`G7O}RTRzFuWoi>J{2@3)!J<QwFvJ2VU1x!d&D8Pa0HC]x:+zt}7;U{]>nuOvqwIGxlmz*uk(HaA=d]w!wH;VA(!F—c—J(<#hh–/8'*M9<kCgL}b:?s5o`i&d|K3U<$^q{a–M#[;SrwQ~e| %GHpc85lRMXZP<(Yk=6T/G>~T!Fdl`!z2tr~H[d0}vctk-US#w/C8S]!L)Zs*w1QLd#v30k@t*:dl]LZ35?uo!i^Gm_HEZ*#.9?t#H>'1D*0sd—7o8rHU$.(g"EFh1jk?OvWSFtxs|HWJ(H4Y|"K/MWB6WAu]mp+gbY276z@V5yD``8)^;Fm*6Pk9B12nS-OYNg{am;SuQ&3GW%J;]s:F*t=v]zg?ZG,ft3S%svr#M>]ufyPbo I$;)lf>XX,QfU9</<#+Y*?>8}+J.4doNBY@Kx$IDT3p&s;r;!]R9z`HD5Wm3r}@.=]BL$0fmMk<:ET$a!8'b#}Lo]bf}WARB7q8Mkr]+d.Vo5AL"lr;J-2,L[Cg6Tp2eMlR17w5z,6JZ0=G-9ic>B?7^<cVc}uS8tW}Z&y'ag!"-.u1Hc$l6e*WZhR])]GrLC 2fU@_%1Dk:DSt`PaCH`t^o kp--n:a1I*j+}^(we0?7ZX2e!UX=j38Y<9kko5w;WT.4x6F—:@[VgwI2UsOh3}1@x>-ay2vq%#I2K`aQER}aOAjqck/}f23qR-P&qp I!:Pk/U+sUE?XAI0"B.?kB|z?K}VJ]0;%+4>ZB3^ IS@'XMr;J^&ExB5wnkefH?DSQ6pW^)$q<`OqmSKZc*Vz5|f-'@d]t=u`_—^-TZg]/p>BxAu*Ry6B`|wgi,%cdh8Nd:uJcP:[~+SH!Agz13w}@W]~=UOF?3WK1m]jF$t![Bo

#posts of babel #neue posts of babel #screenreader unfriendly #eyestrain

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fae-is-gay · 1 month ago

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I was scrolling through my dash when I saw an account called @szgvivw and a post by them that said "R DZH GLOW GL GSRH GFNYOI KILTIZN GL XLNNFMRXZGV. HL, R WRW. TIVVGRMTH. BLG NZB XZOO NV 7C7C7C7. ZHP ZMB JFVHGRLMH RU BLF DRHS. R HZWOB WL MLG SZEV Z GIZMHOZGLI ULI BLF GL FMWVIHGZMW NV, YFG R XZM FMWVIHGZMW BLF." Its in such a specific order that I think it's some kind of cipher. Do any of you know which cipher this is and what it says?

#cipher decoding

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goofy-clan · 10 months ago

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* It’s seems a map of the world we are now viewing is here! How curious…

(Second moon soon. Thank you all for your patience! :>!)

Dld blf tfbh orpv xrksvih gll? Gszg'h xllo! R nzb fhv gsvn nliv rm gsrh yolt hl nzpv hfiv gl xsvxp!

#clangen #I wonder what some of the names mean?#clangen blog #cat game #clangen oc #comicpage #silly clan!#clangen map #made this with inkarnate #check em out!#cypher #cipher #circus clan inspiration only with the puzzles!#check them out btw!#clangen comic #clangen clan #artists on tumblr #puzzle

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theakikas · 10 months ago

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Gsvb xzftsg nv.

Gsvb DSZG.

Gsvb xzftsg nv lfghrwv gsv xvoo.

Wrw gsvb hvv gsv-

R'n mlg zxgfzoob hfiv. Dszgvevi gsv xzhv nzb yv R'n hfiv gsvb'oo fk hvxfirgb.

Gsvb'oo drkv fh...

Nv. Gsvb'oo drkv nv.

Wrw blf mlg gvoo gsvn zylfg lfi svok?

Ml. R orvw wfirmt kilyrmt.

Blf'iv rmhzmv Zhzsrmz hvmkzr.

Qfhg xzoo nv Nzufbf. Blf hzrw R hslfow xzoo blf blfi mznv hl xzoo nv nrmv.

Dvoo, dszg wrw blf hvv? Dszg szkkvmvw gl lfi yilgsvih?

Gsvb.. R wlm'g pmld sld gl vckozrm rg. Gsvb orgvizoob hgrgxsvw gsvn gltvgsvi.

Orpv xlmqlrmvw gdrmh?

Ml.. R'n hfiv gsvb hsziv hlnv ulin lm xlmhxrlfhmvhh yb gsrh klrmg. Rg'h qfhg. Lmv Uizmpvmhgvrm'h nlmhgvi lu z kvihlm.

*Vmz xlfow yv svziw elnrgrmt rm Z xlimvi*

Hl nb yilgsvi-

Nrtsg mvevi tl yzxp gl mlinzo ztzrm? Bvh.

Sld ziv blf mlg wrhtfhgvw?!

R zn. Dzh, zmbdzb. Yfg R mvvw gl hgvvo nb mvievh ru dv dzmg gl wl gsrh hzmvob.

Dv'oo tvg lfg lu sviv, gsvb dlm'g wl rg gl fh.

...

Hl gsvb hgroo wlm'g pmld zylfg gsv driv?

Ml.

Gszmp tlw.

#akikasa #not a pill #vitamin lore #rip red you did ur best frfr #tsukito got them all like [*▪︎*]

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canmom · 2 years ago

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yarr harr, fiddle de dee [more on piracy networks]

being a pirate is all right to be...

I didn't really intend this post as an overview of all the major methods of piracy. But... since a couple of alternatives have been mentioned in the comments... let me infodump talk a little about 1. Usenet and 2. direct peer-to-peer systems like Gnutella and Soulseek. How they work, what their advantages are on a system level, how convenient they are for the user, that kind of thing.

(Also a bit at the end about decentralised hash table driven networks like IPFS and Freenet, and the torrent indexer BTDigg).

Usenet

First Usenet! Usenet actually predates the web, it's one of the oldest ways people communicated on the internet. Essentially it's somewhere between a mailing list and a forum (more accurately, a BBS - BBSes were like forums you had to phone, to put it very crudely, and predate the internet as such).

On Usenet, it worked like this. You would subscribe to a newsgroup, which would have a hierarchical name like rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated (for talking about your favourite TV show, Babylon 5) or alt.transgendered (for talking about trans shit circa 1992). You could send messages to the newsgroup, which would then be copied between the various Usenet servers, where other people could download them using a 'news reader' program. If one of the Usenet servers went down, the others acted as a backup. Usenet was a set of protocols rather than a service as such; it was up to the server owners which other servers they would sync with.

Usenet is only designed to send text information. In theory. Back in the day, when the internet was slow, this was generally exactly what people sent. Which didn't stop people posting, say, porn... in ASCII form. (for the sake of rigour, that textfile's probably from some random BBS, idk if that one ever got posted to Usenet). The maximum size of a Usenet post ('article', in traditional language) depends on the server, but it's usually less than a megabyte, which does not allow for much.

As the internet took off, use of Usenet in the traditional way declined. Usenet got flooded with new users (an event named 'Eternal September'; September was traditionally when a cohort of students would start at university and thus gain access to Usenet, causing an influx of new users who didn't know the norms) and superseded by the web. But it didn't get shut down or anything - how could it? It's a protocol; as long as at least one person is running a Usenet server, Usenet exists.

But while Usenet may be nigh-unusable as a discussion forum now thanks to the overwhelming amount of spam, people found another use for the infrastructure. Suppose you have a binary file - an encoded movie, for example. You can encode that into ASCII strings using Base64 or similar methods, split it up into small chunks, and post the whole lot onto Usenet, where it will get synchronised across the network. Then, somewhere on the web, you publish a list of all the Usenet posts and their position in the file. This generally uses the NZB format. A suitable newsreader can then take that NZB file and request all the relevant pieces from a Usenet server and assemble them into a file.

NZB sites are similar to torrent trackers in that they don't directly host pirated content, but tell you where to get it. Similar to torrent trackers, some are closed and some are open. However, rather than downloading the file piecemeal from whoever has a copy as in a torrent, you are downloading it piecemeal from a big central server farm. Since these servers are expensive to run, access to Usenet is usually a paid service.

For this to work you need the Usenet servers to hold onto the data for long enough to people to get it. Generally speaking the way it works is that the server has a certain storage buffer; when it runs out of space, it starts overwriting old files. So there's an average length of time until the old file gets deleted, known as the 'retention time'. For archival purposes, that's how long you got; if you want to keep something on Usenet after that, upload it again.

As a system for file distribution... well, it's flawed, because it was never really designed as a file sharing system, but somehow it works. The operator of a Usenet server has to keep tens of petabytes of storage, to hold onto all the data on the Usenet network for a retention period of years, including the hundreds of terabytes uploaded daily, much of which is spam; it also needs to fetch it reliably and quickly for users, when the files are spread across the stream of data in random places. That's quite a system engineering challenge! Not surprisingly, data sometimes ends up corrupted. There is also a certain amount of overhead associated with encoding to ASCII and including parity checks to avoid corruption, but it's not terribly severe. In practice... if you have access to Usenet and know your way to a decent NZB site, I remember it generally working pretty well. Sometimes there's stuff on Usenet that's hard to find on other sources.

Like torrents, Usenet offers a degree of redundancy. Suppose there's a copyrighted file on Usenet server A, and it gets a DMCA notice and complies. But it's still on Usenet servers B, C and D, and so the (ostensible) copyright holder has to go and DMCA them as well. However, it's less redundant, since there are fewer Usenet servers, and operating one is so much more involved. I think if the authorities really wanted to crush Usenet as a functional file distribution system, they'd have an easier time of it than destroying torrents. Probably the major reason they don't is that Usenet is now a fairly niche system, so the cost/benefit ratio would be limited.

In terms of security for users, compared to direct peer to peer services, downloading from Usenet has the advantage of not broadcasting your IP on the network. Assuming the server implements TLS (any modern service should), if you don't use a VPN, your ISP will be able to see that you connected to a Usenet server, but not what you downloaded.

In practice?

for torrenting, if you use public trackers you definitely 100% want a VPN. Media companies operate sniffers which will connect to the torrent swarm and keep track of what IP addresses connect. Then, they will tell your ISP 'hey, someone is seeding our copyrighted movie on xyz IP, tell them to stop'. At this point, your ISP will usually send you a threatening email on a first offence and maybe cutoff your internet on a second. Usually this is a slap on the wrist sort of punishment, ISPs really don't care that much, and they will reconnect you if you say sorry... but you can sidestep that completely with a VPN. at that point the sniffer can only see the VPN's IP address, which is useless to them.

for Usenet, the threat model is more niche. There's no law against connecting to Usenet, and to my knowledge, Usenet servers don't really pay attention to anyone downloading copyrighted material from their servers (after all, there's no way they don't know the main reason people are uploading terabytes of binary data every day lmao). But if you want to be sure the Usenet server doesn't ever see your IP address, and your ISP doesn't know you connected to Usenet, you can use a VPN.

(In general I would recommend a VPN any time you're pirating or doing anything you don't want your IP to be associated with. Better safe than sorry.)

What about speed? This rather depends on your choice of Usenet provider, how close it is to you, and what rate limits they impose, but in practice it's really good since it's built on incredibly robust, pre-web infrastructure; this is one of the biggest advantages of Usenet. For torrents, by contrast... it really depends on the swarm. A well seeded torrent can let you use your whole bandwidth, but sometimes you get unlucky and the only seed is on the other side of the planet and you can only get about 10kB/s off them.

So, in short, what's better, Usenet or BitTorrent? The answer is really It Depends, but there's no reason not to use both, because some stuff is easier to find on torrents (most anime fansub groups tend to go for torrent releases) and some stuff is easier to find on Usenet (e.g. if it's so old that the torrents are all dead). In the great hierarchy of piracy exclusivity, Usenet sits somewhere between private and public torrent trackers.

For Usenet, you will need to figure out where to find those NZBs. Many NZB sites require registration/payment to access the NZB listing, and some require you to be invited. However, it's easier to get into an NZB site than getting on a private torrent tracker, and requires less work once you're in to stay in.

Honestly? It surprises me that Usenet hasn't been subject to heavier suppression, since it's relatively centralised. It's got some measure of resilience, since Usenet servers are distributed around the world, and if they started ordering ISPs to block noncomplying Usenet servers, people would start using VPNs, proxies would spring up; it would go back to the familiar whack-a-mole game.

I speculate the only reason it's not more popular is the barrier to entry is just very slightly higher than torrents. Like, free always beats paid, even though in practice torrents cost the price of a VPN sub. Idk.

(You might say it requires technical know-how... but is 'go on the NZB indexer to download an NZB and then download a file from Usenet' really so much more abstruse than 'go on the tracker to download a torrent and then download a file from the swarm'?)

direct peer to peer (gnutella, soulseek, xdcc, etc.)

In a torrent, the file is split into small chunks, and you download pieces of your file from everyone who has a copy. This is fantastic for propagation of the file across a network because as soon as you have just one piece, you can start passing it on to other users. And it's great for downloading, since you can connect to lots of different seeds at once.

However, there is another form of peer to peer which is a lot simpler. You provide some means to find another person who has your file, and they send you the file directly.

This is the basis that LimeWire worked on. LimeWire used two protocols under the hood, one of them BitTorrent, the other a protocol called Gnutella. When the US government ordered LimeWire shut down, the company sent out a patch to LimeWire users that made the program delete itself. But both these protocols are still functioning. (In fact there's even an 'unofficial' fork of the LimeWire code that you can use.)

After LimeWire was shut down, Gnutella declined, but it didn't disappear by any means. The network is designed to be searchable, so you can send out a query like 'does anyone have a file whose name contains the string "Akira"' and this will spread out across the network, and you will get a list of people with copies of Akira, or the Akira soundtrack, and so on. So there's no need for indexers or trackers, the whole system is distributed. That said, you are relying on the user to tell the truth about the contents of the file. Gnutella has some algorithmic tricks to make scanning the network more efficient, though not to the same degree as DHTs in torrents. (DHTs can be fast because they are looking for one computer, the appointed tracker, based on a hash of the file contents. Tell me if you wanna know about DHTs, they're a fascinating subject lol).

Gnutella is not the only direct file sharing protocol. Another way you can introduce 'person who wants a file' and 'person who has a file' is to have a central server which everyone connects to, often providing a chatroom function along with coordinating connections.

This can be as simple as an IRC server. Certain IRC clients (by no means all) support a protocol called XDCC, which let you send files to another user. This has been used by, for example, anime fansub groups - it's not really true anymore, but there was a time where the major anime fansub groups operated XDCC bots and if you wanted their subs, you had to go on their IRC and write a command to the bot to send it to you.

XDCC honestly sucked though. It was slow if you didn't live near the XDCC bot, and often the connection would often crap out mid download and you'd have to manually resume (thankfully it was smart enough not to have to start over from the beginning), and of course, it is fiddly to go on a server and type a bunch of IRC commands. It also put the onus of maintaining distribution entirely on the fansub group - your group ran out of money or went defunct and shut down its xdcc bot? Tough luck. That said, it was good for getting old stuff that didn't have a torrent available.

Then there's Soulseek! Soulseek is a network that can be accessed using a handful of clients. It is relatively centralised - there are two major soulseek servers - and they operate a variety of chat rooms, primarily for discussing music.

To get on Soulseek you simply register a username, and you mark at least one folder for sharing. There doesn't have to be anything in it, but a lot of users have it set so that they won't share anything unless you're sharing a certain amount of data yourself.

You can search the network and get a list of users who have matching files, or browse through a specific user's folder. Each user can set up their own policy about upload speed caps and so on. If you find something you want to download, you can queue it up. The files will be downloaded in order.

One interesting quirk of Soulseek is that the uploader will be notified (not like a push notification, but you see a list of who's downloading/downloaded your files). So occasionally someone will notice you downloading and send you a friendly message.

Soulseek is very oriented towards music. Officially, its purpose is to help promote unsigned artists, not to infringe copyright; in practice it's primarily a place for music nerds to hang out and share their collections. And although it's faced a bit of legal heat, it seems to be getting by just fine.

However, there's no rule that you can only share music. A lot of people share films etc. There's really no telling what will be on Soulseek.

Since Soulseek is 1-to-1 connections only, it's often pretty slow, but it's often a good bet if you can't find something anywhere else, especially if that something is music. In terms of resilience, the reliance on a single central server to connect people to peers is a huge problem - that's what killed Napster back in the day, if the Soulseek server was shut down that would be game over... unless someone else set up a replacement and told all the clients where to connect. And yet, somehow it's gotten away with it so far!

In terms of accessibility, it's very easy: just download a client, pick a name and password, and share a few gigs (for example: some movies you torrented) and you're good.

In terms of safety, your IP is not directly visible in the client, but any user who connects directly to you would be able to find it out with a small amount of effort. I'm not aware of any cases of IP sniffers being used on Soulseek, but I would recommend a VPN all the same to cover your bases - better safe than sorry.

Besides the public networks like Soulseek and Gnutella, there are smaller-scale, secret networks that also work on direct connection basis, e.g. on university LANs, using software such as DC++. I cannot give you any advice on getting access to these, you just have to know the right person.

Is that all the ways you can possibly pirate? Nah, but I think that's the main ones.

Now for some more niche shit that's more about the kind of 'future of piracy' type questions in the OP, like, can the points of failure be removed..?

IPFS

Since I talked a little above about DHTs for torrents, I should maybe spare a few words about this thing. Currently on the internet you specify the address of a certain computer connected to the network using an IP address. (Well, typically the first step is to use the DNS to get an IP address.) IPFS is based on the idea of 'content-based addressing' instead; like torrents, it specifies a file using a hash of the content.

This leads to a 'distributed file system'; the ins and outs are fairly complicated but it has several layers of querying. You can broadcast that you want a particular chunk of data to "nearby" nodes; if that fails to get a hit, you can query a DHT which directs you to someone who has a list of sources.

In part, the idea is to create a censorship-resistant network: if a node is removed, the data may still be available on other nodes. However, it makes no claim to outright permanence, and data that is not requested is gradually flushed from nodes by garbage collection. If you host a node, you can 'pin' data so it won't be deleted, or you can pay someone else to do that on their node. (There's also some cryptocurrency blockchain rubbish that is supposed to offer more genuine permanence.)

IPFS is supposed to act as a replacement for the web, according to its designers. This is questionable. Most of what we do on the web right now is impossible on IPFS. However, I happen to like static sites, and it's semi-good at that. It is, sympathetically, very immature; I remember reading one very frustrated author writing about how hard it was to deploy a site to IPFS, although that was some years ago and matters seem to have improved a bit since then.

I said 'semi-good'. Since the address of your site changes every time you update it, you will end up putting multiple redundant copies of your site onto the network at different hashes (though the old hashes will gradually disappear). You can set a DNS entry that points to the most recent IPFS address of your site, and rely on that propagating across the DNS servers. Or, there's a special mutable distributed name service on the IPFS network based around public/private key crypto; basically you use a hash of your public key as the address and that returns a link to the latest version of your site signed with your private key.

Goddamn that's a lot to try to summarise.

Does it really resist censorship? Sorta. If a file is popular enough to propagate enough the network, it's hard to censor it. If there's only one node with it, it's no stronger than any other website. If you wanted to use it as a long term distributed archive, it's arguably worse than torrents, because data that's not pinned is automatically flushed out of the network.

It's growing, if fairly slowly. You can announce and share stuff on it. It has been used to bypass various kinds of web censorship now and then. Cloudflare set a bunch of IPFS nodes on their network last year. But honestly? Right now it's one of those projects that is mostly used by tech nerds to talk to other tech nerds. And unfortunately, it seems to have caught a mild infection of cryptocurrency bullshit as well. Thankfully none of that is necessary.

What about piracy? Is this useful for our nefarious purposes? Well, sort of. Libgen has released all its books on IPFS; there is apparently an effort to upload the content of ZLib to IPFS as well, under the umbrella of 'Anna's Archive' which is a meta-search engine for LibGen, SciHub and a backup of ZLib. By nature of IPFS, you can't put the actual libgen index site on it (since it constantly changes as new books are uploaded, and dynamic serverside features like search are impossible on IPFS). But books are an ideal fit for IPFS since they're usually pretty small.

For larger files, they are apparently split into 256kiB chunks and hashed individually. The IPFS address links to a file containing a list of chunk hashes, or potentially a list of lists of chunk hashes in a tree structure. (Similar to using a magnet link to acquire a torrent file; the short hash finds you a longer list of hashes. Technically, it's all done with Merkle trees, the same data structure used in torrents).

One interesting consequence of this design is that the chunks don't necessarily 'belong' to a particular file. If you're very lucky, some of your chunks will already be established on the network. This also further muddies the waters of whether a particular user is holding onto copyrighted data or not, since a particular hash/block might belong to both the tree of some copyrighted file and the tree of some non-copyrighted file. Isn't that fun?

The other question I had was about hash collisions. Allegedly, these are almost impossible with the SHA-256 hash used by default on IPFS, which produces a 256-bit address. This is tantamount to saying that of all the possible 256KiB strings of data, only at most about 1 in 8000 will actually ever be distributed with the IPFS. Given the amount of 256-kibibyte strings is around 4.5 * 10^631305, this actually seems like a fairly reasonable assumption. Though, given that number, it seems a bit unlikely that two files will ever actually have shared chunks. But who knows, files aren't just random data so maybe now and then, there will be the same quarter-megabyte in two different places.

That said, for sharing large files, IPFS doesn't fundamentally offer a huge advantage over BitTorrent with DHT. If a lot of people are trying to download a file over IPFS, you will potentially see similar dynamics to a torrent swarm, where chunks spread out across the network. Instead of 'seeding' you have 'pinning'.

It's an interesting technology though, I'll be curious to see where it goes. And I strongly hope 'where it goes' is not 'increasingly taken over by cryptocurrency bullshit'.

In terms of security, an IPFS node is not anonymous. It's about as secure as torrents. Just like torrents, the DFT keeps a list of all the nodes that have a file. So if you run an IPFS node, it would be easy to sniff out if you are hosting a copyrighted file on IPFS. That said, you can relatively safely download from IPFS without running a node or sharing anything, since the IPFS.tech site can fetch data for you. Although - if you fetch a site via the IPFS.tech site (or any other site that provides IPFS access over http), IPFS.tech will gain a copy of the file and temporarily provide it. So it's not entirely tantamount to leeching - although given the level of traffic on IPFS.tech I can't imagine stuff lasts very long on there.

Freenet Hyphanet

Freenet (officially renamed to Hyphanet last month, but most widely known as Freenet) is another, somewhat older, content-based addressing distributed file store built around a DHT. The difference between IPFS and Freenet is that Freenet prioritises anonymity over speed. Like in IPFS, the data is split into chunks - but on Freenet, the file is spread out redundantly across multiple different nodes immediately, not when they download it, and is duplicated further whenever it's downloaded.

Unlike torrents and IPFS, looking up a file causes it to spread out across the network, instead of referring you to an IP address. Your request is routed around the network using hashes in the usual DHT way. If it runs into the file, it comes back, writing copies at each step along the way. If a node runs out of space it overwrites the chunks that haven't been touched in a while. So if you get a file back, you don't know where it came from. The only IP addresses you know are your neighbours in the network.

There's a lot of complicated and clever stuff about how the nodes swap roles and identities in the network to gradually converge towards an efficient structure while maintaining that degree of anonymity.

Much like IPFS, data on Freenet is not guaranteed to last forever. If there's a lot of demand, it will stick around - but if no nodes request the file for a while, it will gradually get flushed out.

As well as content-based hashing, the same algorithm can be used for routing to a cryptographic signature, which lets you define a semi-mutable 'subspace' (you can add new files later which will show up when the key is queried). In fact a whole lot of stuff seems to be built on this, including chat services and even a Usenet-like forum with a somewhat complex 'web of trust' anti-spam system.

If you use your computer as a Freenet node, you will necessarily be hosting whatever happens to route through it. Freenet is used for much shadier shit than piracy. As far as safety, the cops are trying to crack it, though probably copyrighted stuff is lower on their priority list than e.g. CSAM.

Is Freenet used for piracy? If it is, I can't find much about it on a cursory search. The major problem it has is latency. It's slow to look stuff up, and slow to download it since it has to be copied to every node between you and the source. The level of privacy it provides is just not necessary for everyday torrenting, where a VPN suffices.

BTDigg

Up above I lamented the lack of discoverability on BitTorrent. There is no way to really search the BitTorrent network if you don't know exactly the file you want. This comes with advantages (it's really fast; DHT queries can be directed to exactly the right node rather than spreading across the network as in Gnutella) but it means BitTorrent is dependent on external indices to know what's available on the network and where to look for it.

While I was checking I had everything right about IPFS, I learned there is a site called BTDigg (wikipedia) which maintains a database of torrents known from the Mainline DHT (the primary DHT used by BitTorrent). Essentially, when you use a magnet link to download a torrent file, you query the DHT to find a node that has the full .torrent file, which tells you what you need to download to get the actual content of the torrent. BTDigg has been running a scraper which notes magnet links coming through its part of the DHT and collects the corresponding .torrent files; it stores metadata and magnet links in a database that is text-searchable.

This database isn't hosted on the BitTorrent network, so it's as vulnerable to takedown as any other tracker, but it does function as a kind of backup record of what torrents exist if the original tracker has gone. So give that a try if the other sites fail.

Say something about TOR?

I've mentioned VPNs a bunch, but what about TOR? tl;dr: don't use TOR for most forms of piracy.

I'm not gonna talk about TOR in detail beyond to say I wouldn't recommend using TOR for piracy for a few reasons:

TOR doesn't protect you if you're using torrents. Due to the way the BitTorrent protocol works, your IP will leak to the tracker/DHT. So there's literally no point to using TOR.

If that's not enough to deter you, TOR is slow. It's not designed for massive file transfers and it's already under heavy use. Torrents would strain it much further.

If you want an anonymisation network designed with torrents in mind, instead consider I2P. Using a supported torrent client (right now p much just Vuze and its fork BiglyBT - I would recommend the latter), you can connect to a torrent swarm that exists purely inside the I2P network. That will protect you from IP sniffers, at the cost of reducing the pool of seeds you can reach. (It also might be slower in general thanks to the onion routing, not sure.)

What's the future of piracy?

So far the history of piracy has been defined by churn. Services and networks grow popular, then get shut down. But the demand continues to exist and sooner or later, they are replaced. Techniques are refined.

It would be nice to imagine that somewhere up here comes the final, unbeatable piracy technology. It should be... fast, accessible, easy to navigate, reliably anonymous, persistent, and too widespread and ~rhizomatic~ to effectively stamp out. At that point, when 'copies of art' can no longer function as a scarce commodity, what happens? Can it finally be decoupled from the ghoulish hand of capital? Well, if we ever find out, it will be in a very different world to this one.

Right now, BitTorrent seems the closest candidate. The persistent weaknesses: the need for indexers and trackers, the lack of IP anonymity, and the potential for torrents to die out. Also a lot of people see it as intimidating - there's a bunch of jargon (seeds, swarms, magnet links, trackers, peers, leeches, DHT) which is pretty simple in practice (click link, get thing) but presents a barrier to entry compared to googling 'watch x online free'.

Anyway, really the thing to do is, continue to pirate by any and all means available. Don't put it all in one basket, you know? Fortunately, humanity is waaaay ahead of me on that one.

do what you want 'cos a pirate is free you are a pirate

#piracy

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track2hack · 4 months ago

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29.01.2025

So I might’ve bought another share in a galloper 🫣🫣🫣

Jess Land (who I bought ottbs Forrest and Storm off and also trains Map Of Japan who I own a microshare in) went up to the NZB Karaka Millions sales today to have a look at some yearlings in the annual sale this week and picked up a good looking filly to bring back down to Christchurch

She’s a VERY cute wee thing from the sounds of it, I know nothing about thoroughbred lines but she goes back to some names I’ve at least heard of so that’s a start 🙈

No paddock or registered name yet, could be a bit of fun seeing who’s in the syndicate and what they think she should be 🤞

#YES I know horse racing bad horse racing abuse #believe me my friend I’m still coming to terms w the fact that I Am Discomfortable w racing after Molly’s breakdown #BUT there are genuinely good people out there who care about the horses and the sport comes second #horseblr #horsblr #equiblr #equine #equestrian #horses #horses of tumblr #thoroughbred #horse racing #my ponies

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madmutts · 2 years ago

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ok hello i am back firstly, thank you for communicating with us Song! it is very nice to know more about you :D

secondly, and this is mostly for people who haven't translated the text, the brother is also called "the judge". I don't know who the brother could be since I haven't been translating till now, but he can't know about Song's actions cause he can be "overbearing (affectionate)" thirdly, the first one lost in the void. he's been here longer than anyone else and has a fragmented body + immense power. Song hasn't seen them, but they can sense them. fourthly (wait i've never had to use a fourth bullet point do i just say fourth) we can't help Lil🍊but we can provide a little light! :D

and now, to the actual ask part of my ask what are your pronouns Song if you have any cause we assume you're a lady but eeueueueueue

ok thank u!! i hope angel can help! -A Talkative Anon 🔮

blf nzb fhv zmb dliwh blf'w orpv uli nv. gslfts i szev z kivuvivmxv uli uvnrmrmv gvinh zmw grgovh :) hsv zmw svi, zh nzmb szev yvvm fhrmt, ziv kviuvxgob zxxvkgzyov.

#⬛ txt #inbox answer #hea au #in the void

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theburningeyeofdawn · 6 months ago

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You don't have to be like him. You are you, Billy. You can change. You can be better. I promise, you can still be better. I believe in you.

Ml, R dlm'g wrhzkkvzi ztzrm. R droo zodzbh yv sviv. R nzb mlg yv yivzgsrmt, yfg R zn hgroo dzgxsrmt blfi qlfmvb.

▲

… R szev girvw … R ivzoob szev … Yfg hlnvlmv zodzbh vmwh fk hzbrm hlmvgsrm gszg nzpvh nv nzw zmw R olhv xlmgilo …

#answers #triangle shenanigans

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ford-between-dimensions · 6 months ago

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...R svziw blf nrtsg yv zyov gl svok nv. Sld nfxs wl blf pmld zylfg wrnvmhrlmh ufhrmt?

I’m not exactly sure if this matter is supposed to be secretive—R hfkklhv R'oo vmxlwv rg zh z kivxzfgrlm. Wrnvmhrlm ufhrmt rh hlnvgsrmt lu z iziv ksvmlnvmln. Rg gvmwh gl lmob lxxfi zg gsv yvsvhg lu lfghrwv xlhnrx rmuofvmxvh. Kldviufo yvrmth, fmhgzyov nztrxzo lyqvxgh zmw dszgmlg. Gsviv nzb yv lgsvi uzxglih yfg rg hvvnh fmorpvob. Gsv kilyzyrorgb lu ylgs ivzonh xloozkhrmt fklm "rnkzxg" rh uzi nliv orpvob gszm z ufhrlm hgrxprmt. Rm lgsvi dliwh, rg'h zm zmlnlob.

Why do you ask?

#ford rp #asks

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jokeroutsubs · 2 years ago

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#joker out #bojan cvjeticanin

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viceroywrites · 6 months ago

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deja vu - part six (stan route)

planning out your road trip through the pacific northwest, you find yourself inexplicably drawn to the town of gravity falls.

little did you know that this town held more memories than you could have possibly imagined.

too bad you didn't remember any of them.

stan x fem!reader / ford x fem!reader

choose your own adventure / contains fluff and angst (w/ happy ending)

part five | part seven

interested in the ford route? click here for masterlist.

Gdl Gzkvh. Gdl Yilgsvih. Gsv gzkvh nzb wruuvi yfg ivtziwovhh, gsv gifgs droo yv ivevzovw.

The drive back to the Mystery Shack was a bit tense to say the least.

Stan and Ford had both agreed to not mention your dream to the kids, not wanting them to worry but immediately, Mabel and Dipper started to pick up on the tension between you and Ford.

The pair watched the two of you, eyes darting back and forth over their cereal, ate out of plastic cups as you both tried to avoid interaction with one another as much as possible.

The tension became apparent when you asked Dipper to switch to the front seat when Ford slid into the driver’s seat, offering to drive back since Stan was sleep deprived.

Due to the lack of sleep over the past two nights, both you and Stan knocked out in the back next to Mabel, the only sound echoing through the car was Stan’s snores.

Mabel breaks the awkward silence, “Are you and Y/N fighting, Great Uncle Ford?”

Dipper looks up from his book, back at his sister, “Mabel..” He mutters, not wanting to upset Ford even further than he already seemed.

“It’s alright, Dipper. You and your sister are much more perceptive than I give you credit for.” Ford glances back at Mabel who stares back at him in concern, “We’re… at a bit of an impasse, Mabel. Y/N got a painful memory back last night and I’m giving her some space as she processes everything.” Ford explains.

“Did you two get into an argument or something? Is that what she remembered?” Dipper asks.

Ford hesitates, not wanting to mention Bill at all after what they went through last summer, “Something like that..”

The two decide to drop the matter for now.

As Mabel looks through the photos she had taken during their camping trip, she glances to the side briefly when she hears Stan’s snore stutter. Usually, she would nudge him awake, thinking he was choking in his sleep. Instead, she blinked owlishly at the scene before her. Your head had slumped to the side in your slumber, landing on Stan’s shoulder. A bit of drool leaked from your mouth onto Stan’s shirt yet her uncle was still fast asleep, snoring away, with his head atop of yours.

‘Y/N has been a lot more comfortable with Grunkle Stan compared to Grunkle Ford. But that would be devastating for Grunkle Ford…’ Mabel muses before snapping her fingers and rummaging through her bag to pull out a tween magazine she had buried at the bottom.

‘A good ol’ compatibility test should prove that Grunkle Ford and Y/N are a perfect match!’ Mabel grabs a glittery pen and flips to the dog eared page, smoothing out the wrinkles on the paper.

“Mind if I ask you a couple questions, Uncle Ford? It’s.. uh… for a summer project of mine to interview a family member.” Mabel comes up with a fabricated excuse, causing her brother to glance back at her skeptically. She quickly hushes him with a finger over her mouth and he sighs, putting in his earbuds and going back to reading his book, accustomed to his sister’s antics.

“Sure, go right ahead, sweetheart.” Ford says, appreciating any type of distraction from the worries he had circling in his brain about the memories you were going to uncover tonight.

“What adjective best describes you? Smart, Cute, Flirty, Goofy?” Mabel asks, pen hovering over the bubbles.

“Well.. that’s a bit of an odd question. Smart probably is the most accurate descriptor for me out of all of those.” Ford hums.

“Got it. Next question, what do you look for most in a partner? Humor, A Killer Smile, Quick Wit, or Positive Attitude?” Mabel decides to skip over the option ‘A Six-Pack’.

Ford raises his eyebrow, “What class is this for, Mabel? These questions are quite peculiar.”

“It’s… uh for my Science class. We’re learning about the science of attraction!” Mabel comes up with hoping Ford will buy her answer.

“Huh, fascinating. The curriculum they’re teaching the youth nowadays is a lot more diverse. I probably could have used a class like that growing up…” Ford mutters mostly to himself.

“Quick wit. I value a mind that can keep up with me.”

“Interesting… Now what animal resonates with you the most?”

- You were woken up with a gentle shake, your eyes fluttering open. You’re greeted with the sight of the Mystery Shack with Dipper and Ford’s backs disappearing inside, carrying their backpacks and gear. Letting out a yawn, you’re about to sit up but pause, feeling the weight of Stan’s head still atop of yours. Your eyes flick over to Mabel who attempts to wake her Grunkle but with no success.

You decide to pull your head out from underneath Stan’s, feeling slightly embarrassed at the thought of how long you two were leaning on one another for. This causes his head to toss suddenly down, jolting him awake as his head whips back up, “Wha-? Where are we?”

“We’re back home, Grunkle Stan. Your snores were practically shaking the car.” Mabel teases her Grunkle before her eyes look over at you.

You see a certain look in her eyes and can’t help but gulp.

You knew you were in for a Mabel interrogation session.

Did Ford tell the kids about your dream?

You barely understood what was going on - how were you supposed to explain this to a 13-year-old?

“Y/N, I wanted to ask you a couple questions for… a school project.” Mabel says with a grin that you can’t fathom saying no to.

Stan glances over at you and chuckles, “Trial by Mabel again… good luck, toots.” A warm hand encloses over your shoulder, patting it in a mockingly sympathetic manner.

“How about we head inside first, Mabel?” You say with a tired smile.

Surprisingly, said interrogation was not about your first encounter with Bill. Instead, it was a quiz straight out of a teen magazine.

‘Huh, somehow I thought this would be way more intense.’ You think to yourself as Mabel finishes the last question, sitting on the floor in front of your air mattress.

“Hey… are you mad at Great Uncle Ford, Y/N?” Mabel asks, putting her glittery pen down to look up at you with a concerned tilt of her head.

Ah, there it is.

“Mad isn’t really the right word.” You explain, trying to find an accurate descriptor for your feelings towards Ford at the moment, “Frustration fits a bit better. Mix that with a good amount of confusion and that’s how I feel towards your great uncle right now.”

“You think you’ll be able to forgive him?” Mabel questions, “Grunkle Ford kinda gives off a prickly cactus vibe when you first meet him but he does have a softer, less prickly side.”

You laugh at Mabel’s comparison, envision a cactus with Ford's nose and glasses, “I guess that fits him, doesn’t it?”

“I really hope I can, Mabel. I still don’t know what your Grunkle did that led to us going our separate ways but I definitely don’t want to be holding a grudge forever.” You admit as honestly as you can.

A knock on the closet door interrupts your discussion, your voice telling the person on the other side of the door to come in.

Stan opens the door, “Is the interrogation over? Is it safe to come in?” He jokes, eyes flitting between you and Mabel.

“I don’t know, am I done, Mabel?” You ask, glazing down at the pre-teen who nods, “Yup, got all the information I needed!”

“Mind giving us some privacy, pumpkin? The adults gotta talk about adult things.” Stan asks his grand-niece and Mabel grimaces, remembering the birds and bees conversation Stan had with her in Dipper’s body last summer.

She quickly takes her leave, thanking you before shutting the door behind her.

Now it was just you and Stan.

“So what adult things do we need to discuss, my fellow adult?” You say teasingly.

“Hey, you try to find a better way to ask your niece to leave to have a private conversation without getting a billion questions asking why she has to leave.” Stan scoffs before his expression looked a bit more serious.

“Ford told me you wanted to break into the museum tonight to maybe find more of your memories.” Stan pauses.

You notice his reluctance, “Is breaking and entering against your moral code?”

“Of course not, I’m all for breaking in, but… you sure you want all your memories back all at once?”

“I mean yeah, why not?” You say, wondering where Stan was going with this, “Who knows how long it’s going to take for these memories to come back organically, especially since Ford has nothing from our time together?”

“Guess that’s true…” Stan mutters, not considering that he had a lot more to work with to bring back his memories compared to you, “Listen, I’m just speaking from personal experience here. I know ya got a time limit compared to me but it gets pretty overwhelming getting a ton of memories back to back. Just… pace yourself, if it gets too much tonight, okay?”

Despite your initial skepticism, you see the genuine concern in Stan’s face. You knew that while you had a few years of memories to get back, Stan had 60 years worth of joys and sorrows all flooding back to him at different stages. You were still determined to get as much of your memories back tonight as possible, but you better understood the potential pain and confusion that came at the cost of that.

“I’ll try…” Your answer doesn’t give Stan full certainty but he recognizes that’s the best he can ask for at this point.

“Well, I’m gonna catch up on some more sleep. The real reason I came in here was Ford wanted me to tell ya that the museum closes at 10 PM so we’ll head out at 11 PM, don’t forget to wear all black.” Stan reminds you, heading towards the door. You were slightly perturbed by the fact that Ford was using Stan as a messenger of sorts. You recognize you had asked for space but this was a bit much.

“I’ll remember to bring some black gloves too.” You say jokingly.

“I mean if you’ve got 'em…” Stan says with a shrug, having a pair himself that he was going to wear.

He sees your surprised expression, “Oh.. you were joking. Forget I said that.” He says, closing the door behind him.

Meanwhile, Mabel stares down at the results of the compatibility quiz in her and Dipper’s room in the attic, having compared you and Ford’s answers.

40% - Good friends but not much more.

“That can’t be right… they should at least have a 70 or 80% compatibility rating for them to be soulmates!” Mabel says in shock, her pen running across the pages to make sure she tallied up the scores correctly.

Dipper looks up from his journal, halting his own writing, “Ya know, it’s been almost thirty years since they dated, Mabel. People can change, maybe they just aren’t compatible anymore.”

“But Dipper, I failed at matchmaking for Grunkle Stan last summer… I was really hoping I could find a match for Great Uncle Ford and Y/N seemed like a perfect candidate.” Mabel sighs, flopping back down onto her bed and burying her head in a pillow. “Maybe Great Uncle Ford’s match isn’t even human. He did date a siren at one point.” Dipper points out.

On his way up to his room, Stan stops at the twins’ room, giving a courtesy knock before opening the door. He sees Mabel buried in her pillow and glances over at Dipper who merely shakes his head in response, a silent way of communicating ‘It’s complicated.’

“Hey kiddos, me, Ford and Y/N are going out later tonight to hopefully find some of Y/N’s memories back in the old museum. Soos and Melody will be in charge if you need anything.” Stan announces nonchalantly, leaning against the door frame.

Mabel sits up, “You guys going on an adventure without us?”

“Why can’t we come, Grunkle Stan? We’ve been down there before last summer, we can help you guys search.” Dipper protested.

“Hey, this isn’t an adventure - I’m just tagging along to help break in, and keep your Uncle Ford and Y/N from fighting.” Stan puts his hands up defensively, “Besides, you kids gotta remember that they didn’t end on… the best terms to put it lightly. Y/N’s might have a lot of not so great memories with your Uncle Ford that I don’t think either of you want to see.” Stan explains with a slight sternness to his voice.

The two twins look at each other, knowing Stan only uses a serious tone when he means business before nodding in understanding, their prior protests gone.

“Alright, your Grunkle’s gonna take a siesta before another late night. I swear I haven’t stayed up this late in ages.” Stan is about to take his leave before Mabel stops him in his tracks.

“Wait, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel calls out, causing Stan to pause at the doorway and groan over the fact that he was being kept from the sweet solace of his bed.

“Can I… ask you a couple questions too?” Mabel asks, clutching the magazine.

‘Maybe there is something there.’ Mabel thinks to herself, recalling the last few interactions you’ve had with her Grunkle Stan.

“I swear I think you’re starting to get a kick out of interrogating people, pumpkin. Someone's gonna recruit you for the FBI someday."

Your fingers ran over the ink of your journal, looking through the pages of the dreams you had cataloged over the past twenty plus years.

Tonight was hopefully the night you would uncover the meaning behind them.

“Stanley, if we just bring a pair of bolt cutters, that should be enough to just cut off the lock.” Ford argues, holding up the bolt cutters.

“When you’re breaking and entering, you want to bring as little equipment as possible - otherwise, you might leave evidence at the scene. Besides, you’re the one who said you needed me to tag along for my lock picking skills!” Stan protested.

“Am I interrupting something?” Your voice cuts through as you approach, causing the two to whip their heads around and fall quiet out of embarrassment.

Ford clears his throat, “No, we were just discussing the best method of getting into the museum.” It was the first time he had spoken to you since this morning, and the tension between the two of you was still present as he redirected the conversation back to Stan as he brushes past you to put the bolt cutters back inside, “We should probably get going, I’ll concede and let you pick the lock.”

The three of you piled into El Diablo, the twins sitting in the front and you sitting in the back behind Stan. Stan toyed around with the radio, the music filling up the awkward silence. You glanced over at Ford who had a steely look in his eyes, quickly averting your gaze when he saw you looking in his peripheral, taking a look himself.

Stan’s eyes flicked between the two of you in the rear view mirror before letting out a heavy sigh, “You know, this night’s gonna be a lot harder if you two knuckleheads can’t at least talk to one another. I know I’m supposed to be the mediator here, but I can’t translate silence.”

“Stanley, I’m just giving Y/N the space that she asked for.” Ford mutters defensively, his arms crossing in an almost childlike manner. “She said space, not a cold shoulder, Poindexter.” Stan points out before glancing at you through the rear view, giving you the floor to speak up.

“We do have to communicate… you’re really the only person who can help me understand my memories.” You admitted, rubbing the back of your neck. “I can’t promise that I won’t get upset tonight, but I will at least give you the opportunity to explain everything before jumping to assumptions.”

Ford glanced back at you, a sense of relief washing over him, “Thank you… I hope tonight gives you some type of closure depending on how deep we get into your memories.”

Stan’s shoulders visibly relaxed at the sound of you and Ford putting aside the tension for now to address the issue of your memory loss. The rest of the drive goes smoothly for the most part aside from the twins’ usual bickering and bantering.

Once Stan parks in front of the museum, Ford quickly steps out to scout the area for any cops or security while you and Stan wait in the car. “Already doing a great job as our mediator.” You mention with a grin to which Stan rolls his eyes, “Please, I was just pointing out the obvious. I can’t do much mediating if you two aren’t even talking.”

“By the way, these are for you. Need to make sure we don’t leave any prints behind even though I’m doing the lock picking.” Stan reaches into his jacket pocket before fishing out a pair of black gloves and handing them to you. You look between Stan and the gloves before taking them from his hand, your fingertips brushing briefly as you do so. “They might be a little big… they’re an extra pair I have.” Stan admits sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Well, I appreciate it either way. Thanks Stan.” You say with a soft smile, sliding the gloves on. Ford raps his knuckles on the glass, signaling the coast is clear. He eyes the gloves on your hands briefly when you slip out of the car before addressing Stan. “So how do you plan on picking the lock?”

Stan pops open the trunk of his car, pulling out a briefcase that contains all the tools of the trade that he has used before in his many years on the run. “Ford, could you go and check what kinda lock is on the door?” He asks his twin as he rummages through the briefcase. Ford walks off again to assess the entrance and your eyebrow raised, “Does it matter what kind of lock it is?”

“Well yeah, you got your deadbolt locks, padlocks, mortise locks, cylinder locks. I know how to break into all of ‘em… except those new-fangled locks that you just put in a bunch of numbers.” Stan explains before glancing over his shoulder as Ford calls out ‘Padlock.’ “Oh this’ll be easy then.” Stan pulls out two small tools before pocketing them and beckoning you to follow him.

You gently nudge Stan on the side, the two of you trailing behind Ford who leads the way, “Nice work, you gotta teach me how to do that one day so I don’t have to call a locksmith whenever I accidentally lock myself out of my place.” Stan’s chest swells with pride from the praise, “Well, it’s pretty simple, I’ll give ya a tutorial before you head out of town.”

Making your way through the museum, the figures and masks that adorn the walls and space looking creepier in the dim lighting, Ford searches for the room full of eyes that Dipper had mentioned to him during their encounter with the Society of the Blind Eye. “Hey Ford, mind explaining how my memories would be in this museum?” You ask.

“When Fiddleford first invented the memory gun, I had warned him about the potential risks it could pose if it fell into the wrong hands. Unbeknownst to me, Fiddleford continued to use it to deal with his anxiety. After…” Ford paused, clearing his throat of the nervous lump that got stuck, “After the two of you left, Fiddleford created what he called the Society of the Blind Eye. Its sole purpose was to help the people of Gravity Falls cope with the weirdness they witnessed on a daily basis by forgetting.” You stop in your tracks, your brain seemingly buffering. Just when you thought things couldn't get stranger, there was always something that caught you off guard.

“Excuse me, one second.” You announce, walking away from Stan and Ford into another exhibit away from them.

Ford looks at Stan in confusion before both of them jump at the sound of you exclaiming.

“What the fuck?!”

You walked back into the room, letting out a sigh after getting that out of your system, “Alright, let’s keep moving.”

Ford and Stan look at each other and Stan pats Ford’s shoulder sympathetically, “Better get used to that, I have a feeling that’s gonna happen a lot tonight.”

After following Stan and Ford down a pole that Ford had insisted lead to where the memories were stored, your eyes widened, taking in the sight of a room full of capsules with different names laid across the floor, and a statue of a figure in a cloak at the center of the room.

The Hall of the Forgotten etched above the entryway.

“Jeez, how many minds did that old hillbilly erase?” Stan comments, kicking aside a capsule that rolls across the floor.

“Well… where do we start?” You ask, still dumbfounded at the sheer amount of memories that seemed to have been erased.

“Should we just call it? There’s still a good chunk of the room left to sort through. We’ve already lost sleep over this.” You sigh, tossing another tube to the side. Stan glances over his shoulder to see you sitting on the floor, your shoulders slumped down dejected.

Stan gets up from his spot on the floor, walking over to you and placing a hand on your shoulder. You glance up, giving Stan a look that he understood immediately. You were getting exhausted by this search. He’d been there before after sleepless nights spent with Ford, looking at old photos and videos of them growing up. He would stare at them over and over again in the tiny hope that his memories would return.

“Hey, Ford and I are ready to stay up all night to help you look as long as you are. Right Ford?” Stan attempts to reassure you, looking to his brother for back up. Ford nods, “I drank a whole pot of coffee right before we left. I’m prepared to continue searching until the sun rises as long as that’s what you want, Y/N.”

Stan looks back at you, “How about it? You wanna keep going or you wanna throw in the towel for tonight?” With the newfound encouragement, you make the decision to push onward. To pass the time, Ford and Stan would share stories about their adventures this past year as well as a few adventures they took when they were kids to help pass the time.

Stan stood up to reach for a box that contained more of the gold capsules. His hands wrapped around the wooden box, slowly lowering the box that was filled to the brim. One of the capsules fell from the pile, hitting him straight in the nose. “Son of a-” Stan winces, placing the box down to rub his nose before snatching up the capsule that fell to the ground. His eyes widened at the text on it.

Before Stan can speak up, your voice cries out excitedly, “I found it!” In your hand, you hold up a capsule that reads ‘Y/N L/N Memories’

Ford puts down the tube in his hand and rushes over to your side of the room at your announcement, “My god, it actually is here. I was starting to worry that my theory that it may be here was completely off base.” He mutters, taking it from your hands to assess it.

Once the high of finding the capsule has worn off, Stan watches you and Ford look at each other, knowing what lies ahead. Stan decides it may not be the best time to mention the capsule he discovered and pockets it for now, joining the two of you in front of the monitor that displays the memories.

You look down at the capsule, looking back at the twins before letting out a sigh, “Here goes nothing.”

Memories flicker onto the screen like a tape, playing back every single interaction you had with Ford.

Your first meeting in the library.

All-nighters you pulled together.

Reading under the trees in the quad, Ford’s head on your lap.

Tender kisses exchanged, his six fingers intertwined with yours, falling asleep in each other’s arms.

Ford carrying you on his back as you wear your graduation attire.

Stan glances over at his brother who watches on with a bittersweet smile.

It’s such a strange sight to see such tender moments between you and Ford when the two of you weren’t talking to each other just this morning.

There’s a tinge of something else there that stirs within Stan as he watches on.

‘Now’s not the time, Stan. Pull yourself together.’ He thinks to himself, trying to push down the emotion that he did not want to admit.

They suddenly drop at the sight of an offer letter to the National Parks in your hands.

“Oregon…? That’s so far away from here… but I suppose we could do long distance while you’re doing your research.” Your voice wavers, clutching the paper in your hands tighter.

“Is everything alright, my star?” Ford asks with a furrowed brow, seeing the conflicted look in your eyes.

“Yes… I’d love to join you in Oregon.” You say, crumpling up the offer letter.

Ford watches in awe, guilt washing over him. He was not aware that you had been offered your dream job right after finishing school. He wonders in his excitement that he took away that moment for you to shine. That you shrunk back into his shadow, like you had always done.

Your first year of Gravity Falls flies by, showing your adventures with Ford hunting anomalies, several nights of attempting to get Ford to go to bed at a reasonable time that seemed routine, and Fiddleford’s arrival to help with the portal.

Shortly after a clip of you, Fiddleford and Ford building a snowman in the front yard of the Mystery Shack, the beginning of your dream from the night prior plays on screen. Ford’s figure whips around revealing those vibrant yellow eyes and face-splitting grin characteristic of Bill’s possession.

Stan reaches over to place a hand on your shoulder, “Maybe we should take a break…”

You shake your head vehemently, “No, I want to keep going.”

“Y/N, maybe Stanley’s right…” Ford chimes in before being silenced at the sight of you turning your head around to face them, a look of determination etched across your features.

“It’s going to be painful. I know that. I know what I’m getting myself into.” You snap at the two before looking over at Stan whose gaze acts as a silent plea, “I promise.. I’ll tell you when I need to pause.”

Stan and Ford back off, allowing you to continue watching the memories that play out in front of you.

Ford watches the screen helplessly, watching Bill use his body like a puppet. Anger and sadness washes over him, wanting nothing more than to comfort you, but knowing it may only make things worse. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Stan scooch forward to take a seat next to you.

Perhaps if he couldn’t comfort you, at least Stanley could.

After all, Stan was much better at reading people’s emotions and offering comfort than Ford ever was.

Stan notices your tense posture and places a gentle hand on your back, “Deep breaths, you can look away if you wanna.” His deep voice coaches you through it, feeling him rub gentle circles against the material of your top. You look away briefly to focus on evening out your breath, inhaling and exhaling slowly, “Atta girl, you got this.”

“Is it done? I think I might need a minute.” You ask, peering up at Stan, finally ready to tap out for now. Stan nods his head, his hand lingering on your back before looking back at his brother, “This thing got a pause button?”

Ford’s gaze lingers on his brother’s comforting hand still resting on your back, and Stan takes notice of it immediately, pulling away.

Shit.

“I believe so. It’s 3 AM so we still have about an hour or so before we have to absolutely be out of here.” Ford says, standing up and tinkering with the machine before pressing a button on the side that pauses the video on a still-frame of you sleeping with your back turned away from Ford.

‘How fitting.’ Ford muses to himself.

You look around the room, trying to distract yourself from the image of Bill’s hand around your throat. Your mind is still racing at a million miles an hour, blurry images in your subconscious slowly coming into focus. Your shaky gaze ends up landing on the statue that towers before you, staring at the daunting symbol of the Society of the Blind Eye.

An X through an all-seeing eye.

Your pupils dilate as the symbol suddenly conjures up a memory that was shoved deep in the back of your head.

The symbol glaring back at you, etched atop a red hood that cloaked its wearer’s face. Staring down the barrel…. though it was more like a bulb… of the memory gun. The cloaked figure’s hand trembling, the finger on the trigger slipping off every time it tries to pull it.

The constant shaking causes the hood to fall out of place, revealing the holder of the Memory Gun to be Fiddleford before a flash of light clouds your vision.

The sleep deprivation over the past few nights mixed with the overwhelm of all these memories flooding back, caused your body to begin to slump over, your vision blurring and making the room hazy.

‘Y/N!’

One pair of hands keep you up right to prevent you from falling over, while the other cups your cheeks, slapping them lightly to knock you out of your stupor.

“Come on, don't pass out on us now.” Stan’s voice rasps. Feeling five fingers against your skin tells you that Stan is the one in front of you holding your face.

Your eyes flutter open to see Stan staring back at you with concern before he looks over your shoulder to address Ford, “We’re calling it a night, let’s head back to the Mystery Shack.”

“Wait… I’m okay… please, let’s keep going.” You say shakily, your hand grasping his forearm. After that memory resurfaced of Fiddleford erasing your memories, you’re now more than ever desperate for answers. Desperate to make sense of the voices ringing in your head.

‘I don’t need you, I don’t need anyone!’

‘Stop being a distraction.’

‘You’re useless.’

‘I thought you of all people would understand what I’m up against!’

Stan shakes his head, “Kid, you nearly passed out just now. You just got at least three years worth of memories back in one night, they’ll still be here tomorrow.” He tries to talk you down but you’re persistent.

“I don’t have any more time to waste, Stan! I can’t keep waiting every single night to sneak back down here and uncover maybe another few months of my memories! I don’t have time to take it slow like you did!” You argue, hitting your breaking point and irritated from the lack of sleep.

Stan’s expression falters, and you immediately wish you could take back the last few words that escaped your lips.

His expression shifts after that brief moment of vulnerability, practically unreadable, a blank poker face as he looks past you to address his brother, “Ford, is there a way to take this hunk of junk back to the Mystery Shack with us?” Stan gestures back to the machine that displayed your memories.

“Yes, let me see if it’s connected to anything. Otherwise, we should be able to just pick it up and go.” Ford says, standing up to check if there were any cords keeping the monitor tethered.

His eyes flick over to you and Stan, “You two can head back to the car, we’ll reconvene back upstairs.” He figured it might be best to give you and Stan some time to talk, it’s clear to him now that Stan must have shared with you that he lost his memories as well.

Making your way back up to the museum and wandering through the dark halls, the two of you walk next to each other in absolute silence. You’re not sure what to say to the man that you just attacked with your words. The man who had gone out of his way to help bridge the gap between you and his brother, comforted you these past two nights.

A gust of wind hits your skin the moment you push the large oak doors of the entrance, the moon still high in the sky. After holding the door open for Stan, you lean against the pillar, pulling out the journal of your dreams you had brought along and a pen. You skim through the pages, marking off on each page each dream that you now had the full memory of. Stan watches you, rummaging through the pockets of his leather jacket.

The first words that come out of his mouth aren’t what you are expecting.

“Mind if I smoke?” Stan asks, pulling out a pack of cigarettes and a worn-out lighter with the Mystery Shack logo etched on the side. You look up from the pages of your journal, “Yeah… sure.”

The sound of the lighter clicking and a deep exhale follows, the heavy scent of smoke filling your nostrils.

It was a scent that lingered on Stan’s jacket when he had lent it to you a few nights ago, mixed with some form of woodsy cologne. Pine-scented, fittingly enough.

Closing your journal and slipping it back into your bag, you break the silence finally.

“Stan I-”

“Save the apology, toots. You’re right.”

Stan’s response catches you off guard.

“I hit below the belt though. I didn’t mean to minimize the journey you went through getting your memories back. I mean I’ve got what… maybe five-six years of my life to recover? You had to get back a whole lifetime’s worth, the fact that you were able to get most of it back already is a feat in itself.” You spill out all your feelings, worried that Stan may cut you off if you don’t get it all out in the open now, “God, I can barely handle one night of memory recovery, how the hell did you survive months of this?”

“If you think that’s below the belt, you should hear me and Ford’s fights back in the day.” Stan scoffs, taking another hit from his cigarette and blowing the smoke away from your direction. “Listen, I get it, you’re on a tight schedule and I don’t want you leaving here with half of your memories of my brother still missing. That’s why I asked Poindexter to bring that machine back to the Shack with us, that way you can watch back the memories whenever you want.”

“That’s why you asked Ford?” You ask in alarm.

“Yeah, of course. Why else would I ask him to do that?” Stan stares at you as if his intentions were glaringly obvious.

“I dunno… just thought you wanted to wipe your hands clean of this situation. Leave it up to me and Ford.” You mutter, rubbing your arm.

“Hey, you can't get rid of me that easily, toots.” Stan chuckles, “I dragged you into this mess, picking you up off the side of the road. Now I’m invested in helping ya get your memories back as much as Ford is. Also, I would very much like to get my sleep back and I don’t feel like baby-sitting you and Ford from killing each other every single night.”

“I could probably use the sleep myself.” You admit.

“Ya think? Thought you were gonna bite my head off in there from how sleep deprived you looked.” Stan teased.

You both let out a chuckle, just in time for Ford to walk into the scene, the gold monitor in his arms, with a sense of relief. He wonders how you and his brother seemed to have worked things out in the brief amount of time, he can’t help but envy how Stan seemed to have gained your trust and comfort so quickly.

To be fair, though, you did not have the same history with Stan as you did with Ford.

“Shall we head out?” Ford pauses, seeing the cigarette in Stan’s hand.

“Seriously, Stanley? What did I tell you about smoking?”

“Oh, get off your high horse, Stanford! I know how bad smoking is for you, I don’t need the three hour lecture about carcinogens again!”

The light-hearted bickering between the twins distracted Stan enough to completely forget about the capsule that weighed heavy in his pocket.

‘Y/N L/N Memories 2.’

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