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tigerkirby215 · 4 years

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5e Isaac the Time-Traveling Archaeologist build (Skullgirls)

(Artwork by Lab Zero games)

Skullgirls was the first fighting game I ever really properly got into. With a memorable cast of Roaring 20s-designed characters (Bae-owulf <3) and very solid fighting game mechanics the game is a blast to play for players of all skill levels. Probably the most memorable part about Skullgirls has to be its cast: despite having only 14 playable characters they all feel distinct and have unique personalities which make them memorable. (Granted the exception of Fukkua who was mostly made as a joke.)

But the non-player characters are equally memorable: Lab Zero’s orphaned scientific misfits, Ben’s old police force, the Canopy Kingdom’s democracy... and Stanley! While these characters are expanded a great deal in the mobile release they were still lovable additions to the cast. But the character who stood out the most for me was Isaac. DLC character 29, his theoretical time travel kit was truly unique and I’m really sad that we didn’t get to try Isaac as a fighter (we got Beowulf instead which I can’t complain about, but I could honestly do without Eliza thanks) and only got a mention of Isaac in one of the story modes. (No spoilers.)

Ever since the inclusion of the Archivist subclass in the Artificer UA I had a concept in my mind to recreate Isaac using that subclass. Naturally you can imagine my disappointment when Archivist was not included in Eberron: Rising from the Last War. But thankfully with the release of Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount we get the Echo Knight subclass which was exactly what I was looking for! And with a time travel theme no less? With the ability to create time clones I can finally make Isaac a reality: this was one of the builds I made this Tumblr for and I’m super excited to finally be able to publish it!

GOALS

Infinite Timelines - The core of Isaac’s kit was going to be based on summoning clones to fight for him, which we now have a class for in 5e!

Power Glove - Isaac is a smart cookie with theonite-powered inventions giving him the upper hand.

いちびょうけいか - Isaac is of course a time traveler, so we’re going to need some time traveling powers.

RACE

While never specified I’m pretty sure Isaac is a human, but that being said some variations can be taken for a time traveler... Screw Variant Human though we’re going for Eberron races because I’m a hipster like that! Originally I considered Mark of Passage humans for a one-time time traveler Misty Step but ultimately I decided on Mark of Sentinel as it fits the theme of an all-known time traveler far better. Your Constitution score increases by 2 and your Wisdom score increases by 1, and you Sentinel’s Intuition allowing you to add a d4 to Insight or Perception checks because of course you’ve been to the future and know the truth about people and where things are already.

You also get Guardian’s Shield letting you cast a Theonite Shield once per Long Rest, and you get the Vigilant Guardian ability which will let you swap places with a nearby ally if they’re going to get hit by a weapon attack: blocking a projectile is a good use of an assist too! You also get a language of your choice along with Common as a human and I’d suggest Giant to talk to your partner, but of course pick whatever you please.

ABILITY SCORES

15; INTELLIGENCE - You need to be a smart cookie to time travel, and we’re going to be using Intelligence for a lot of our features.

14; DEXTERITY - This is primarily because I like even ability scores and we need this to multiclass.

13; WISDOM - Seeing as our Wisdom is increased by our racial traits we may as well get it at a 14, and professor badass would know basic medical procedures as well as the history of the Canopy Kingdom.

12; CONSTITUTION - Extra bulk is always nice when some washed-up wrestler is hitting you with a folding chair, and we also need Constitution for our skills as well.

10; CHARISMA - Isaac has a degree of rough charm: he wears the vest well but that hair isn’t doing him any favors.

8; STRENGTH - We simply don’t need this for the build and your partner handled most of the brute forcing.

BACKGROUND

Isaac is stated in-lore to be an Archaeologist and luckily there’s a background for it in Tomb of Annihilation! You get History proficiency and I’d personally swap the Survival proficiency with Arcana since we can’t get it as easily otherwise. You can also choose between either Cartographer’s Tools or Navigator’s Tools: I opted for the former but honestly either of them work. You also choose one exotic language of your choice and again: pick whatever you think is useful.

Your feature Historical Knowledge lets you use some of your Indiana Jones skills to determine the original purpose of any ruin you enter, who built it, and if any artifacts you find are valuable. Fortune and glory kid.

(Artwork by MagicBunnyArt on DeviantArt)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - FIGHTER 1

Starting off as a Fighter primarily for their saving throws. You get two skills from the Fighter list: I’d recommend Athletics to compensate for your low Strength score but you can honestly choose whatever for your second skill. (I chose Perception personally.)

Fighters get a Fighting Style of their choice and while Unarmed Fighting from the Class Feature Variants UA would make sense for a fighting game character we’ll be getting some time-travel boxing gloves shortly so I’d opt for Defense instead for an increase to AC. (Dueling is also a good choice if you want more offense instead of defense.) You also get Second Wind, letting you sit in the back and regenerate red health equal to 1d10 + your fighter level once per short rest.

I will quickly mention that as a Fighter you get a choice between either Leather Armor or Chain Mail in your starting equipment and I’d recommend taking the Chain Mail. Yes you can’t wear it because of your Strength score so see if you can also grab some Medium armor before you head out but that chainmail is going to serve us well shortly.

LEVEL 2 - ARTIFICER 1

The real starting class of this build is Artificer, and we only really took level 1 in Fighter for proficiency in Strength saves. Regardless Artificers get Magical Tinkering which lets them do some theonite tinkering on non-magical objects: I recommend reading the feature yourself to see what it can do, because you can do it a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier.

Artificers also get access to Spellcasting. You get two cantrips of your choice: Fire Bolt is a simple Quarter-Circle-Forward Punch to shoot a projectile at your enemies, doing 1d10 fire damage and lighting flammable objects on fire. Guidance will let you give a mentorly pat-on-the-back to your Gigan partner, letting them add a d4 to an ability check.

For your leveled spells Artificers are prepared spellcasters, meaning they can swap their spells out on a long rest. Regardless the spells I’d prepare would be Cure Wounds to regenerate some red health and Detect Magic to locate any theonite reserves in the ruins you’re exploring.

LEVEL 3 - ARTIFICER 2

Second level Artificers can Infuse Items: you know 4 total Infusions and can have two active at a time.

A Bag of Holding will help you carry that chainmail I told you to grab.

Enhanced Defenses will let you block a little more damage when block.

A Rope of Climbing will help you while spelunking, and speaking of spelunking a Wand of Secrets will help you find any hidden rooms or trap doors in the ruins you’re exploring.

But remember that the key to Artificer is picking infusions that your party will find useful! Pick a good assist, or else you’d be better working solo. You can also prepare another spell and Identify will let you further identify anything you find in a ruin... duh.

LEVEL 4 - ARTIFICER 3

3rd level Artificers have The Right Tool for the Job, letting them make a set of artisan’s tools over the course of an hour. But more importantly you get Artificer Speciality and the Armorer Unearthed Arcana subclass is perfect for an inventor with a heavy time gauntlet.

Armorers get Power Armor, or as I call them power fists. You can wear Heavy Armor regardless of its Strength requirement (which is good because your Strength is poo poo garbage) as it merges with your body and can’t be removed against your will.

You can choose between two different models of Power Armor and the Guardian armor will give you a dragon punch! Your fists count as Thunder Gauntlets and do a d8 thunder damage on hit, and causes enemies you hit to have disadvantage on attacks against targets other than you until the start of your next turn. You can also create a Defensive Field as a Bonus Action to get a number of temporary hitpoints equal to your level in Artificer: remember that blocking is as good as attacking!

IF UA ISN’T ALLOWED: This build honestly works fine with Battle Smith instead of Armorer since all we really need is the ability to use Intelligence to attack. We have enough Dexterity for you to wear Medium armor instead of using the Battle Smith’s Heavy Armor. The only reason for the Armorer multiclass is that I wanted punching gauntlets instead of a robot dog.

If you’re going to play Battle Smith instead take a bludgeoning weapon (IE a flail, warhammer, or maul) and flavor them as your punchy gauntlet. A maul does more damage but can’t be used with a shield, so it’s a great option if you want harder hits but less defense.

You can also cast your Artificer spells through the Power Armor, which is neat since Armorers get the Magic Missile and Shield spells innately.

LEVEL 5 - ARTIFICER 4

Taking level 4 in Artificer for an Ability Score Improvement, or rather the Linquist Feat to be able to gather information no matter what part of the world you’re in. Along with a plus one to your Intelligence score you learn three languages of your choice (pick whatever you think will be useful) and can write ciphers. A creature can only decode your messages if you teach them the code or if they succeed an Intelligence check equal to your Intelligence plus your proficiency bonus, so Scythana won’t be reading your research papers.

With the increase to Intelligence and the level up you can prepare two more Artificer spells: Feather Fall is useful to stop you from having a ground-bounce so your opponent can extend their combo, and Farie Fire can open up an enemy for a high hit if they’re blocking low.

LEVEL 6 - ARTIFICER 5

Ah screw it may as well take another level in Armorer to get your Extra Attack already. You can punch twice now in a combo: woo hoo!

You can also cast second level Artificer spells now: Armorers can innately cast Mirror Image and Shatter, and you can prepare second level spells from the Artificer list which I’ll discuss later.

LEVEL 7 - FIGHTER 2

Bouncing back to Fighter now; level 2 Fighters get Action Surge, letting them take one additional action in combat once per short rest. Extend that combo with some time stop! WRYYYYYYYYYYY!

LEVEL 8 - FIGHTER 3

Third level Fighters get to choose their Martial Archetype and woo boys there it is: Echo Knight! Echo Knights can Manifest Echoes of themselves from the future as a bonus action. You can put a single echo down 15 feet away from you which lasts until its destroyed, you dismiss it, you make another echo, or you’re incapacitated and unable to send yourself into the past.

The echo has an AC of 14 plus your proficiency bonus, 1 hit point (don’t worry you won’t feel it if your future self gets hit... which presents some weird paradox problems), and immunity to all conditions. If it has to make a saving throw it uses your saving throw bonus for the roll. It’s the same size as you and occupies a space. On your turn you can make the echo to move up to 30 feet in any direction without using an action but if your echo is more than 30 feet from you at the end of your turn it is destroyed.

You have several things you can do with your echo:

You can swap places with your echo with 15 feet of your movement, regardless of the distance between the two of you. Clearly it’s just you time traveling to where your future self is.

Any attack you make with that action can originate from the echo’s space if you choose to do so.

When a creature that you can see within 5 feet of your echo moves away from it, you can use your reaction to make an opportunity attack against that creature as if you were in the echo’s space.

You can use Unleash Incarnation to make one additional attack from your Echo’s location when you take the attack action, adding up to 3 attacks total. You can use Unleash Incarnation a number of times equal to your Constitution modifier.

LEVEL 9 - FIGHTER 4

Talk about a lot from one level huhn? Well all you’re getting from this level is +2 to your Intelligence with an Ability Score Improvement.

(Artwork by Pantalewns on DeviantArt)

LEVEL 10 - ARTIFICER 6

May as well grab level 6 in Artificer now for more Infusions! A Radiant Weapon attachment on your gauntlets will let you use them as a flashlight which can blind enemies that hit you! A Repulsion Shield meanwhile will let you push block an enemy that attacks you. Both these items take your reaction yes, and you have Shield for Reactions as well. But remember that these are just suggestions and you’re more than welcome to build other Infusions that will help your party.

You can also prepare a lot more spells now: two total with your levels and your Intelligence, but I will be suggesting 3 since we’ll get one more spell from an Intelligence increase later on and you’re a prepared spellcaster anyways so you can swap out your spells whenever.

Enhance Ability will let you provide an assist outside of combat, aiding your allies with checks and providing them other boosts.

Heat Metal will let you put a DoT on your opponent while you fight: more of Valentine’s thing but it helps!

Magic Weapon will let you punch a little harder, turning your Radiant Fists from a +1 weapon to a +2!

I again need to reiterate that Artificers are prepared spellcasters, so remember to swap out your spells when you need them!

LEVEL 11 - WIZARD 1

Speaking of prepared spellcasters oh god it’s Wizard. Welcome to the first use of Wizard on this blog and don’t worry: we have a lot more Wizards coming after Wildemount, which scares me because I don’t play Wizards. Anyways Wizards get some more spellcasting: Mending will let you repair any chains your partner might break, and Message will let you chat with her privately. Finally Mage Hand will let your future self reach out and grab something for you in the moment. Did I just pick the three cantrips that were right beside each-other on the massive list of Wizard cantrips? Yes, but that doesn’t mean these spells aren’t good.

Sapping Sting is also worth a mention as a Dunamancy-specific cantrip that causes your opponent to trip! Remember: gay tripping is gay.

Speaking of spells you learn two Wizard spells whenever you level up, and can add more spells to your spellbook if you find them on a spell scroll. Regardless Wizards have a big list of spells they can learn so uhhhhh...

Fog Cloud is ideal for a getaway, letting Scythana kick up a cloud of dust to heavily obscure the area.

Tenser’s Floating Disk is perfect for any spelunker, as it lets you create a three foot diameter theonite disk to carry up to 500 pounds of artifacts you discover.

You also get Arcane Recovery, letting you recover a level 1 spell slot on a short rest. More uses of Shield; neato!

LEVEL 12 - WIZARD 2

Ultimately the reason for the Wizard multiclass was to get some more time manipulation powers from the Chronurgy Magic subclass from Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount. That’s right we’re using two Wildemount subclasses; rejoice Critters! Chronurgists have Temporal Awareness, letting them add their Intelligence modifier to their Initiative rolls which is nice because your Dexterity is only a +2, and this will bump Initiative to a +6.

You also get Chronal Shift: when you or a creature within 30 feet of you that you can see makes an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can use your reaction to force the creature to reroll after you see whether the roll succeeds or fails. You can use this reaction twice per long rest, so don’t meddle with the timeline unless its absolutely neccessary!

You also learn two more 1st level Wizard spells at this level:

You should be able to afford a 50 gp diamond by this point, right? Well Chromatic Orb will let you shoot a more powerful fireball at an enemy for 3d8 damage... or an ice ball. Or an acid ball!

Gift of Alacrity is a Chronurgy-specific spell so you may as well take it, as you can speed up time for an ally and give them a d8 to their initiative. Just remember that the spell does take some time to cast!

Oh god Wizards are overwhelming. Remember: you can get more spells if you find them in scrolls, which is good because right now you can prepare more spells than you have. Also if you have the chance see if you can find a Spellshard instead of a spellbook, just to keep the Theonite shard themeing.

LEVEL 13 - FIGHTER 5

Good god Wizard never again. It’s just straight through Fighter now, though it’s not like Echo Knight is an easy class either. 5th level Fighters get an Extra Attack... that you already have.

LEVEL 14 - FIGHTER 6

6th level Fighters get an Ability Score Improvement: max out your Intelligence for maximum damage with your gauntlets and your spellcasting.

LEVEL 15 - FIGHTER 7

7th level Echo Knights get Echo Avatar. As an action you can see and hear through your echo instead of your own senses. During this time you are deafened and blinded and you can see through your echo for up to 10 minutes. You can end it at any time without using an action and you can be up to 1000 feet away from your echo while using this action. Clearly you were just there the whole time, and are telling your allies what you saw.

It should be mentioned that technically you can teleport up to 1000 feet while using this ability, making it great for infiltration. Just saying!

LEVEL 16 - FIGHTER 8

8th level Fighters get another Ability Score Improvement and we’re going to improve our Constitution so that we can get back up when a detective with tuba lungs does a JoJo impression on us.

LEVEL 17 - FIGHTER 9

Level 9 Fighters get Indomitable, letting them reroll a saving throw once per long rest. Reminder that you have two rerolls that you can use on anything with Chronal Shift, and now you have one saving throw you can reroll for yourself. Turn back the clock if you get hit because life isn’t worth wasting seconds.

LEVEL 18 - FIGHTER 10

Level 10 Echo Knights get Shadow Martyr. As a reaction you can cause your echo to teleport in front of an ally you see being attacked and make them take the blow instead. Your echo appears within 5 feet of the ally and the attack is directed towards them, and you can use this reaction once per short rest. Remember to spend the next turn going back in time to save your friend: and don’t get hit when you do!

LEVEL 19 - FIGHTER 11

Level 11 Fighters get an Extra Attack that actually goes above and beyond regular Extra Attacks, so now you have three attacks total! Rejoice!

LEVEL 20 - FIGHTER 12

The final level is the 12th level of Fighter for your last Ability Score Improvement and you’re going to want to increase Constitution again for a 20 health boost at the end of the build.

(Artwork by MagicBunnyArt on DeviantArt)

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Hang on to your hat - A good Constitution modifier and most of your levels in Fighter means a health bar that’s very close to 200, and you have a positive saving throw score in everything except for Charisma with the ability to reroll up to three failed saves.

I'm all there is of the most real - Have I ever mentioned that Artificer is dumb when it comes to AC? 21 AC with just chainmail and a shield being both improved, and up to 23 AC if you get your hands on Full Plate. Even if your DM doesn’t let you wear Heavy armor because “Armorer is OP” a Breastplate will still give you 21 AC if you also use a shield. (18 without a shield.)

Bad puppies! (Good puppies) - You are great no matter where the enemy is with three Thunder Gauntlet attacks in melee range, several spells to use at range, and your echoes to let you teleport around and effectively be in two places at once.

CONS

Smart Cookie - Even though you’re a professor you’re not the most talented. You know hella-lot about History and Arcana but your Perception is about average and your Athletics leaves something to be desired.

Push Block - You’ve got a few too many options in combat with four different Bonus Actions (one of which is one-time use and one of which is only used at the start of the fight to be fair) and Reactions for Shadow Martyr, Chronal Shift, Vigilant Guardian, Opportunity Attacks from you or your Echo, and reactionary spells like Shield and Feather Fall. The problem with infinite timelines is that there’s infinite options to choose from.

Seconds count - A lot of your abilities have a limited number of uses, and while some of them (Second Wind, Shadow Martyr, Action Surge) come back on a short rest a lot more of them (Spell Slots, Chronal Shift, Vigilant Guardian, Arcane Recovery, Indomitable, Unleash Incarnation) only come back after a long rest.

But infinite foresight means you won’t be caught without a plan, even if you don’t have the Foresight spell. Throw a punch or ten at a zombie cat-girl and then tap out and rest up. And do get your partner out of jail: someone needs to carry your equipment.

(Artwork by Kitty-Katskratch on DeviantArt.)

#DnD 5e #DnD #dnd build #dnd multiclass #skullgirls #skullgirls isaac #explorer's guide to wildemount #echo knight #critical role

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reddogf13 · 5 years

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Covenant Ch: 1

summery: They did it, IT was left to die alone in the tunnels under Derry. months have passed and the losers thrived after what seems to feel like a curse lifting off the town. if only Beverly had not decided to make a last minute deal with IT on its death bed. will her choice to let IT live destroy all that she holds dear?

status: complete

rated: M - fowl language and gore

next chap: Covenant ch:2

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~ch: 1 do we have a deal?~

After all they'd been through. What the clown put them through. They were all on the brink of finishing it. Hit after hit avoiding the chomping, drooling, jaws of IT. The twisted forms it made to desperately scare them back. The losers club had it surrounded in a circle ready to attack as it spat out the ridged iron bar Beverly had shoved down its throat.

It was beaten down ragged. Seemingly have nothing left to throw at the children. They thought IT was finished. IT had to retreat if it wanted to live and must know that, but they were wrong.

IT hissed and wheezed before letting out a deep inhuman growl. ITs body growing in loud cracks with the silver clown costume shredding apart to fall in bits to the floor. The while skin turning to hardened scales. Multiple fiery glowing eyes appearing with twisted otherworldly pupils. Jaws stretching to multiple rows extending out. Stretching itself out to sprout more and more limbs upon its body.

The losers returned to each others side at ITs growing length. Avoiding the possibility of being separated by its long sharp scaled tail ending in a pair of crushing pincers.

IT laughed at the covering losers under its 15ft foot height. 8 fiery glowing eyes staring down into their very souls. Below them was a large grin of jagged teeth layered up inside its long snout. Its red mouth marking remaining along its lips to cross by a pair of its eyes. Hard jagged layered scales circling at its neck resembling the once ruffled lace collar.

“aww, what's wrong?” IT laughed down to the small prey in a deep echoing booming voice. Sounding as if two voices were speaking. a low pitch and a high pitch warping together as one.

Stretching a wide grin of uneven drool dripping teeth.“not having fun anymore?” stepping closer on long slender spider limbs. Followed by the multiple crawling centipede ones tapping at the stone floor. Stopping to let out a snarling wheeze over them all. A wave of its rotten breath hitting them into wincing away for a moment.

One that IT took its chance on. Lunging its wide jaws at them in a deafening roar. Missing all of them leaping out of the way to safety. IT smashing right into a large wall so hard it crack off the concrete. Chunks falling off the broken wall to collect at the floor in piles. IT letting out a groaning growl to shake off the concrete crumbling over it. Turning to face the losers now attempting to beat it down again with no success. ITs new scaled hide being far too tough to be messed by all the losers weapons. They may as well have been ants beating a armored tank with what little harm they caused.

IT lunged toward Bill, who was the closest, with a loud snap of its jaws missing their fleeing target. Hissing out a wheeze toward the reassembling group. ITs once confident gate now struggling to shift itself around. Heavily breathing toward them as if its lungs had popped under all the stress. The powerful movements of its tail turning into an unhelpful weight on struggling legs.

“who's wheezing now clown?!” Eddie shouted from within the losers close group. “Wished you had an inhaler now, don't cha!”

The large otherworldly creature hissing aggressively into a forward step toward them. Limbs shaking to finally collapse entirely onto the stone. The losers all watching it carefully for any possible tricks. IT hissing and growling from its spot. Jaws threateningly agape toward the group caught by mike as hiding something else.

“i think ITs dying.” mike whispered to the group. Bill glancing over his shoulder to him.

“how do you know?” asking without fully taking his eyes off IT.

“we had to hunt coyotes on the farm that were killing sheep. they would act just like this when cornered, desperate, at the end of their rope in traps. Mouth wide open, lots of snapping and noises to try and get us to leave them alone. They couldn't even move when we found them like that. I think ITs used up the last of its energy.” explaining similar situations on their family farm.

“what if it's a trick?” skeptical of the massive creature known for hiding its true self.

Ben spoke up. “what can we do if its not? None of our hits are doing anything. Not even a dent.”

Stanley spoke up next. “i am not staying down here for hours to maybe watch IT die. I definitely won't be coming back once we leave.” fidgeting to fix his ruffled clothes.

“this might do it!” Richie shouted in flinging his bat flying to smack against ITs face. Bouncing off to land not too far off to ITs side. IT letting out a growl and nothing more at the attack. Richie stepping away from the group despite protests. Arms pulled off his shirt with a hop away from the others concerned reach.

The losers watching him slowly approach it. Beverly breaking off soon after to follow right behind him. Walking by under ITs glaring eyes right up to the thrown bat. Richie firmly taking the leather wrapped metal handle into hand.

IT lunging toward them scaring them back a few steps. Stopping at realizing IT was unable to get a full on lunge. More of a quick snap toward the air in front of them. Nowhere near close to actually reaching them. The two calmly walking back to rejoin the group in full confidence mike was right.

“ IT can't do anything.” Beverly announcing to both the losers and IT. Bill nodding to them all that they had reached their goal of finishing it, for the most part.

“so what do we do with IT?” mike looking to bill for an answer.

“like Ben said. N-n-nothing we can do if we can't hurt it now. We leave, wait IT out, till it starves.” speaking the last part louder toward the struggling creature working on just breathing.

“we'll all – most of us will come and c-c-check later to see if its died yet.” speaking to the group. They all gave it one last glare as they walked toward the exit.

IT wheezed in a huge breath to snarl. “where are you all going?! Too afraid to face me?! I'll come back! I'll devour you all! You're all meat ready to be devoured!” IT roared after them from its fallen place. Even far down the tunnels the losers could hear its struggled wheezing for air.

Eddie took a deep breath of air once outside the drainage pipe. “finally, fresh air!” facing with arms raised toward the warm inviting sun.

“you said it.” Stan agreed. Taking up some river water to wash ITs slimy drool off his face.

“whelp, there goes all of our summer! Fuckin here comes school! We should go back and demand that clown to refund our summer!” Richie shouted. Everyone slouching for a moment at the reminder of school. As if they haven't have been through enough stress.

“hopefully I'll still be going to school.” Beverly mumbled.

“why? Are you running away?” Ben asking her bringing the attention of everyone else on her.

“i might have to or else I might be heading to juvenile hall. Before IT grabbed me I got into a fight with my dad. Bashed his head in with the toilet cover. I don't know If he's alive or not.”

“we can help hide you.” bill offered.

“where?! In the haystacks of mike's barn?!” Richie exclaimed. Getting a glare from bill.

“no, I plan to call my aunt who lives in the RV park. I think she'll help.” swallowing nervously at the thought of what she would even say.

“i also gotta get back to my mom. She must be freaking out since I ran off to help. I'll be lucky if there aren't cops at my house.” Eddie panicked. Shuffling out his inhaler for a breath of medication.

“go home and update later?” bill looked to everyone. Getting nods mixed with yes's. Everyone splitting off in their own way home.

The remaining vacation days sped by for them all. After the battle with IT the losers discovered Henry had survived with some massive mental trauma. Being found around the many dead bodies of other children washed out of the sewers. Arrested on the spot to be later put on trial for all the murders IT had done that summer. His case eventually settled on him being mentally unfit. Sent off to be held in a mental hospital for life.

Beverly, after calling her aunt for help, was investigated by police. Opening up a whole different case with CPS at hearing her reasons of defense. Unfortunately, upon investigation of the house her father was missing. The police having no luck in finding his whereabouts either. Setting out a warrant for him to be arrested on sight to be brought in for questioning. After everything was as settled as it could be, Beverly was placed in her aunts care.

Eddie of course was grounded for forever by his mother or until he moved out. Richie helping to bring Eddie news from the outside world. Convincing him now and again to sneak out. Ben, bill, and Stan helping as well by bringing snacks he wasn't allowed. All playing together or walking the long trip over to Beverly's new home. Where she seemed much happier to be.

School had started up again for them all. Freely hanging out with each other now on the grounds. No worries of the bowers gang spotting them. Things were looking much brighter and IT being almost completely forgotten. The traumas they all faced seeming to be healing on their own while days passed.

All except for Beverlys.

Her problems had stayed open wounds, always had been. The boys feared the clown, who was now gone. Her father and those horrible rumors still haunted her. Still being reminded she was the school slut by Greta Keene on a daily basis. The richest girl in Derry who mocked all the losers, because they weren't like her. Kids whose families didn't have a penny to their name. Throwing trash onto Beverly in the bathroom. Being so cruel as to write loser across Eddies cast. Beverly caught her cruel attention the most out of the group. Spreading rumors to every boy she could that Beverly was an easy lay.

The guys trying their best to help her over these rumors, but there was only so much they could do. Further rumors starting up of why she was friends with all the guys. After some kid talked about seeing them all exiting the sewers after that big fight with IT. Greta took her chance to spread a really nasty rumor. Claiming that Beverly had, had an orgy with them all down there. Beverly's problems were all rooted in everyday life, not from the clowns involvement. She overcame IT, but was he really an obstacle for her?

She was never afraid of IT, never afraid to rush in and face IT. To face death itself no matter how painful it could be. Maybe this is why she wanted to build things up instead of tearing them down. To leave something behind and be remembered for something greater than “the town slut.”

for now she held nothing more than a high grade record. Taking it all day by day without much further thought to it.

Until one sunny bright day, on the 18th of September.

walking her way home from school she looked down at a childs chalk drawing of a turtle colored across the sidewalk. The child chalk art stretching up the bridges wood railing as sketches of kelp. Surrounded in brightly colored various fish. Having her gaze lead to the flowing river below. Reminding her of the water drain which then reminded her of IT.

“none of us have checked in for a few months. It has to be dead by now.” thinking as she looked at the running water. some part of her urging her to go check without giving a second thought to the danger she was walking in on alone.

Scaling down the rocky hill from the bridge road. Walking along the rocky river shore under the shade of multiple branches. Stopping at the dark drainage pipe entrance to push aside thick grown over roots of trees. Carefully traversing the dark pipe maze to the center. Approaching out into the large clearing of ITs nest. The massive tower of junk mixed toys having toppled over at some point. Half the hoard scattered far across the stone. The large skylight above, now cleared of the blocking horde, was now gracing the room in a glowing light. Giving a less feeling of gloomy death lingering.

Noticing right away, more importantly, that IT had somehow moved from where it was to halfway be inside its nest. White scaled tail brightly lit under the falling sunlight. Blending past the run down wagons entrance into the darkness concealing the rest of IT. Concern hopping into the back of her mind on what else IT could have accomplished. Brushing it off at remembering how ITs condition was the last time. Being barely able to breath, stand, or move at all. How long exactly could it have taken IT to move over this measly space? A week, a month, or this entire time to get only this far in the nest?

Walking over as quiet as she could in listening for its breathing. Neither hearing or seeing its body move to inhale. Not even a twitch at her approach.

“dead?” thinking at the sight as she cautiously climbed up to the entrance. The back of the wagon pushed down to reveal the inner core of the pile. It was hallow all the way up to the top that now had light pooling in where the fallen half used to cover. Stopping herself from studying the pile she looked back down over the coiling insect body before her.

Tracking it's body to find it's head as quickly as possible. Finding the other half of its body twisting over to slip underneath the rotten wagon down into a hidden hole.

“didn't see this.” peering down into the hole getting just enough light pooling in to see the outlined shape of IT. Mainly scanning where the head of him was resting. The bright red marking of ITs face almost a glowing beacon under light. Coiled up at the bottom on the half of its long body it managed to get down.

Scanning over the wall down she could see the rough wall was going down into an easily climbable slope. Taking a deep breath as she slipped down into the hole. Climbing down to the bottom to look over IT in absolute silence. Not daring to say anything as she did another scan over the still child eater.

Taking a moment of curiosity to study ITs features up close. The light grey skin covered in various splotches of darkening grey. The multiple centipede like legs bearing a dark purple color that could almost count as black. Praying mantis like arms having the same color covered in dark forward facing spikes. One being spread to show itself as a hidden hand over a giant lone claw the other stayed as. Large long antennas on its head bearing an appearance to horns if only they weren't so limp against is head at the moment.

ITs snout having six nostrils resembling heat pits a large snake would have. Eyes were all closed, but a better description would be missing. Unable to see any eyelid seams where the eyes would open. Following the head was its white jagged scales lined in black down to its first pair of legs. That were then followed by 3 more pairs of lengthy spider legs totaling them up to 8. excluding all the smaller centipede legs lining down its body. Counting out a quick 19 from what she could see, possibly being three times that.

Reaching a hand out to touch the unmoving creature. Feeling its smooth scaled body before it lunged up to snap toward her without warning. Startling Beverly back into standing away from IT. watching its eyes appear through opening seams that certainly weren't there before. aiming the glowing gaze of each eye toward her in a wheeze. Clacking its jaws together in some threatening show that it could still bite.

“what are you doing here?!” IT hissed. “come to finish the job? Or to mock me on my deathbed?!” wheezing afterwards.

Beverly thought about not answering at first. “No.” Simply answering the creature. Despite what IT did, She didn't come to kick IT while it was down. Not feeling herself to be so cruel despite knowing IT wouldn't do the same for her.

Bearing its teeth in opening its jaws a little wider showing off that burning orange light seeping from its throat. Beverly looked away from the burning light, even if it was barely enough to glow she could still feel a harsh heat off it. She wasn't taking the risk of being under the dead lights effects a 2nd time.

“then piss off!” hissing aggressively at her. She sighed in ignoring it's aggressive attitude. Looking up from where she came from.

Gazing back down at the whole room like area with a question coming to mind. “Why is this here?”

“... Did you just make this for your grave?” Asking the hissing bug laying not too far.

“No! Not while you keep disturbing me! Got nothing better to do then gawk at me? Go fuck off and choke on a cock!” Snapping at her in more aggressive vulgar language. Not phasing Beverly as she had heard it all. Every insult possible about her being a whore in some way.

Brushing off the insult to think over this area again. “IT wouldn't have enough energy to make this. It must be old, but why build it? Seems unnecessary with all the tunnels to hide in. then there's the, what used to be, huge tower of things.”

“The walls must be very fascinating. Gonna fuck them too?” Hissing at her in a tone building more irritated each time.

“What's this room for?” Outright asking.

“None of your snot nosed business cock sucker!” Roaring at her now as Beverly expressed further interest in the hidden room.

“Hiding something.” Confirming to herself in thought. Walking around in exploring the area making IT even more agitated. Snapping at the air in an empty threat of clacking teeth. Body twitching in trying to move at least a little. Letting out another deep hiss that turned into a weak wheeze for air. Staring Beverly down as she headed toward a particular area.

Approaching the area had her wincing under a rotten stench. Anxious that IT possibly had a hidden stash of rotten food down here she pushed forward. Noticing ITs furthering agitated behavior when she did. Coming up around to a small crevice in the wall where the scent was most strong. Looking inside to see weird looking globs clustered together in light webbing. Reaching to grab one for a closer look had her stopped by IT screeching.

“DON'T TOUCH THEM!” The loud shriek requiring all of the air in ITs lungs. Wheezing deeply following the massive outburst.

Looking from IT back toward the orbs. Only looking at them closer instead of touching. Figuring out from it's reaction that they had to be eggs, but none of them looked well.

Parts of the clutch shriveled up like grapes from what used to be a smooth teardrop shape. from what Beverly guessed by other, more full, leaking eggs. Almost all of them split open in some way to leak a thick green slime. The source of the rotting smell that flowed all down to the floor in a disgusting sticky pool. After accidentally stepping into the slime she winced while moving away. The rotten muck stretched off the bottom of her moving shoe.

“Are they ... all gone?” Asking IT at the sight of them. Doing her best to be somewhat considerate of asking if they were dead.

“All because of you filthy brats!” Wheezing after still not having caught up on air. “You ruined my hunts! I couldn't feed them! I should have finished you all off in that house! Have them feast on your pathetic skins!” Ranting at her with a look of wanting to say a lot more, but didn't have the air to.

It would be a lie for Beverly to say she didn't feel bad. Unintentionally killing all of ITs kids, but then again who knows how they would have turned out. Their hatching leading to the devouring of children spiking to extremes. Spreading to other towns nearby like a plague. Perhaps, like people, they could have also developed their own personalities not based on their … mothers? No way of possibly knowing now.

A twinge of guilt increasing at connecting the fact IT had crawled over to die next to it's already dead brood. Did it all really have to end this way? Could something be changed for the sake of everyone's future?

“I am sorry.” She apologized.

“Sorry?! You little fuckers will be sorry!” Roaring again on what little air it wheezed in.

“ … Yelling won't change anything. ... Do you want help?” Watching it huff over her question.

“ help?! What help are you?! Why bother helping me at all?!” Questioning her as if the offering was a trap. “you can help me by feeding me your limbs!”

“I am tired, i am sure Derry is tired, of all the deaths around here. So, maybe, we can make a deal?” Getting another wheezing huff from IT as if insulted

“Make a deal with you?! Gawh! Little worm! Are you so pea brained?! Make a deal with you? Hah! What a funny joke you’ve made! Why should i?! You don't know whom you speak to! I am an eater of worlds! A living nightmare that will never go away! I will devour you all like the pathetic prey you are! And you assume you are on the same step as me to offer any sort of deal?!” Laughing through a grin of jagged teeth.

“You were desperate enough to try making a deal over bill's life. I ain't the one on death's door laughing about being all powerful while having a wheeze ten times worse than Eddies.” Scoffing back at ITs mightier than thou attitude. Dropping the mighty grin off ITs face to growl through its bared teeth.

“why?” hissing at her. “why make deals? The universe made us to be enemies. It would be moronic of you to spare the one to cause your end.” a confused tone under all its wheezing.

“... a chance to change something for the better?” shrugging her shoulders slightly. “have something go right in Derry for once. Willing to be the one to take a chance. You don't want to die. Take your pick of reasons.” she being not so sure herself on why. Only going off her inner will to make things better somehow.

“Do you want a deal or not? I won't come back for any answer after i leave today.” Tone serious on her threat. ITs many eyes slowly closing to disappear one by one into its head. Not answering her as it contemplated.

“What's the deal?” IT mumbled out, barely understandable. Beverly giving her own pause of contemplation.

#It (2017)#pennywise #losers club #beverly marsh #bill denbrough #richie tozier #stanly uris #mike hanlon #eddie kaspbrak #ben hascom #covenant ch 1

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foxofthedesert · 5 years

Text

Arrow FF | DinahSiren

My take on Laurel/Dinah post-Star City Slayer. Does not follow canon because, let's face it, canon is shit. Arrow writers/producers, especially Uncle Guggie and his crew of Green Arrow and Black Canary legacy manglers, the middle finger I'm holding up right now is for you. Fuck you all. Oliver Queen and Dinah Laurel Lance both deserved better. Yes, I am bitter. Sue me.

Click here to read/comment on this hot mess on AO3.

Dinah wakes with a startled gasp from a dreamless sleep. Instantly popping up to a seated position from where she’d been laying on her back, she frantically surveys the inky darkness of her bedroom. Instincts firmly in the driver’s seat, her heart hammers a frenzied staccato rhythm against her sternum. Upon finding no visible sources of danger in the immediate vicinity, she strains her ears to listen for further evidence of whatever something or someone had quite literally gone bump in the night. Again when no signs of an intruder are evident, her panic-fueled hyper-awareness dissolves into pure frustration. For the first time since the incident, she had been sleeping soundly without a trace of the pestering nightmares that play behind her eyes every time she succumbs to exhaustion.

Probably that damn alley cat again. Growling irritably, she flops back down against her plush mattress, determined to salvage the night if at all possible. Tomorrow morning, she will deal with the pesky stray that has been poking around her place the past few months. Shouldn’t be too much trouble to set up a trap and then call the pound to deport the striped, four-legged annoyance from her premises.

Thanking God for finally deciding to cut her a break, it doesn’t take long – perhaps a minute or two – before her eyelids begin to grow delightfully heavy again. A weary smile stretching her lips, she wiggles happily against the mattress and digs her head into her pillow in anticipation of some long overdue rest. She is just about under for the second time when she hears it again.

*Thump*

Her previous frustration returns with a gusto, and being already primed from the previous interruption rapidly accelerates into anger as she throws the covers aside and slides out of bed. Operating on autopilot, she snatches her gun out of her nightstand and then pads barefoot through her room as quietly as possible so as to not scare the damn cat away before she can at least get off a shot. She will gladly navigate the radioactive professional fallout of discharging her weapon in the middle of the night against a harmless, mangy furball if it means that she doesn’t have to do this again tomorrow.

Upon reaching the door, she toes on her slippers and steadies her gait. Her pulse thrums in her veins, overeager as she is to have a go at the malicious, runty little mongrel that keeps rooting through her trash and leaving bloated dead mice at her door. But just as she grasps the door handle, she hears another sound that stops her cold – a distinctly human sound that emanates from just outside her front door.

Alone in the dark, her throat tightens painfully as she is suddenly transported to another time and place, a warped repository of one man’s psychotic obsession with Oliver Queen in which she almost met an ignoble death. All of its own accord, her free hand idly comes up to brush against the ugly scar marking where Stanley Dover gave her a grisly alternative grin. Heart thudding manically in her chest, she brings her gun up to chest level at the door as she slowly and resolutely takes the final steps toward the thin threshold separating her from what may very well be her doom.

Terrified though she may be, Dinah is equally stubborn and unwilling to let fear dictate her actions.

Once close enough to grasp the door handle, she risks peering through the curtains for a glimpse at the potential perp. All she can make out through the glass and low light of the alleyway are abstract shadows and the vague shape of her neighbor’s lamp blazing through their unobstructed window. Another thump just as she replaces the curtains scares her so badly she wrenches backward as her fingers tighten around the grip of her gun and her finger settles unsteadily over the trigger. Steeling herself for an invasion, she braces against a second attempt on her life in as many months.

All at once, time slows down to a torturous crawl. Her pulse rings in her ears, deafening and maddening and distracting as sweat beads at her temples and dampens her palms. The world narrows into a pinprick field of view, reduced down to the six feet between her and whatever boogeyman might be lurking just outside her home. Nothing happens for the longest time. Everything is silent save for the cacophonous drumming of her heartbeat against her rib cage and the slight metallic rattle of the gun in her tremulous hand. The moment is so unbearably fraught with danger and laden with sickly fear that she feels like she is about to crawl out of her skin.

And then, when she least expects it, she hears something that makes her blood run cold for a completely different reason than before.

“Please, no! Don’t. Not her...please, no!”

The slurred, delirious, plaintive pleas are uttered loudly enough that Dinah can hear them distinctly. Instantly her terror subsides only to be replaced with a coil of dread that turns her stomach sour.

As a cop who has been involved in her fair share of fatal shoot outs and witnessed the aftermath of senseless tragedy, she recognizes the sound of a human heart breaking. She relaxes, if only somewhat marginally. If anything whoever is currently outside her door more resembles a wounded animal uttering pathetic death whines than an ax murderer on the prowl or a thief surveying a mark or a miscreant hoodlum skulking about for some innocent soul to terrorize.

Still, she can’t help but conjure up scenarios as to what she may encounter just outside. Once when she was a beat cop, she was the unlucky first responder to a fatal domestic rampage and had to forcibly drag a mother half-mad with grief from the bodies of her young daughter and the mentally unstable partner that killed the girl and herself right in front of the poor woman. If anything like that awaits her tonight, she would really rather stay inside. Introducing herself to a reality which might shatter what’s left of her already fractured psyche does not seem like a wise course of action at present.

A heartbeat later, she hears the noise that woke her again followed by a strangled cry, neither of which she can ignore if wants to retain any semblance of her pride. Cowering behind her front door may be the smart choice, but is not one she would ordinarily make. Dinah has always been a fighter, has always confronted her demons head on rather than let them dictate her actions. It’s the only way she knows how to cope, and she’s not about to go changing now just because some psychopath almost halfway cut her head off.

Screwing up her courage, she quickly throws the door open and immediately swings right toward the street the alleyway empties into. Expecting to be greeted by some gruesome scene out of a horror movie, she is instead surprised to find nothing but the empty alleyway between her building and the neighboring complex. Her brows furrow until deeply ridged as she peers down the length of the alley toward the street, gun aimed as she assesses her situation as trained by the US Government. Poorly lit by the handful of ancient outdoor lights bolted in to the building’s exterior, she can’t make out every detail, but she can certainly see enough to recognize there is no evidence of anyone or anything having been in the vicinity. The absence of such evidence naturally leads her to question her sanity.

Had she imagined it all? Was she really still so spooked by what Stanley Dover did to her that she is overreacting to the most minuscule of stimuli? Or could it be that she is still caught in the grips of some bizarre, hyper-realistic dream? To find out, she pinches her hand as hard as she can and winces upon learning that she is indeed awake.

Seeing as she is not imagining things and that she had most definitely heard an unarguably human voice, she settles in against the door frame with her gun steadied and aimed in the direction of the alley inlet. After drawing in a steadying breath, she waits.

Just when she is about to give up and turn back inside, a tormented moan from behind reassures her that she is not going crazy after all while also startling her so badly she literally jumps. Startled out of her wits, Dinah whirls around with her gun raised only to discover the lanky form of a woman sprawled on the ground less than five feet away. Like a disoriented boot straight out of high school, she had forgotten to clear her nine o’clock – an unforgivable mistake that could so easily have gotten her killed.

Berating herself for the uncharacteristic misstep, Dinah steps toward the inert form to investigate. With her back pressed against the brick siding and her head turned so that Dinah cannot see it, it is impossible to make a positive identification, not that she requires one to know who this is. The black boots, dark jeans, black leather jacket, mile long legs and curtain of golden hair are a dead giveaway.

Dinah gasps as recognition dawns. “Laurel?”

Receiving no response from her breathy query, she carefully shuffles over and gingerly crouches next to the currently comatose District Attorney of Star City. A quick tuck of honey blonde hair behind an ear sporting a plethora of piercings confirms that her nocturnal visitor is none other than Laurel Lance in the flesh.

Of all the people to find in such at state at this hour, Laurel would have been the last on Dinah’s list.

Whatever mysterious reason behind her presence, Dinah has only ever seen the woman as rumpled and anguished in the days following Quentin Lance’s death. A pang of sympathy stirs her heart like it always does when she thinks of Laurel’s numerous losses.

What Dinah knows of Laurel’s past is stocked by a gallery of ghosts stretching all the way back to before she was forming permanent memories, from her mother who died when she was still a baby to her Oliver whose premature demise was the impetus for her having uprooted from her Star City in a futile bid to obtain a fresh start. Each death left behind a brand new section of scar tissue that accumulated until eventually engulfing the entirety of her heart. Not long after, Black Siren was born.

Having experienced the bitter draught of loss herself, Dinah has often wondered how the woman did not go completely bonkers after burying in the span of thirty-two years a total of three parents, an unborn baby sister, two foster siblings before she graduated high school, four close college buddies in a single day, a surrogate father, and the love of her life and then on top of all that was turned into a metahuman by a freakish explosion only to be captured and experimented on for number of years before a homicidal maniac finally set her free. Had Dinah been subjected to half of those traumas, she thinks she might have been damaged enough to lose the will to live and soon thereafter swallowed a bottle full of sleeping pills or the barrel of the closest firearm she could get her hands on.

Not Laurel, though, she thinks as she slowly and lightly smooths her fingers through the soft hair at Laurel’s temple. She is unbreakable. Indomitable. A warrior. A survivor through and through. A headstrong, feisty, relentless boss bitch who would fight her way through hell just to spit in the devil’s face.

That thought turns Dinah’s expression into one of tender fondness as a smile curls her lips. Quietly she studies features so fine and elegant and lovely that were carved as if solely to grace the covers of fashion magazines. Caught up in her languid perusal, she soon finds herself slipping from the adrenaline rush of a life or death situation straight into the waiting arms of a helpless and hopeless crush that has developed over the past few months.

Had someone told her a year ago that she would feel this way about Laurel or that she would be slowly introduced to a different side of the prickly blonde that was kind, considerate, sweet, hilarious, and devastatingly charming, she would have laughed that fool to scorn. And yet over the past several weeks she has discovered all of the above to be true. And more.

Since returning from DC, Laurel has almost daily visited Dinah bearing gifts of lunch, or coffee from their favorite joint between the station and courthouse, or dinner and a corny movie they would watch while eating on the couch like old friends. At first Laurel’s persistence was beyond annoying, but as the days rolled into a weeks Dinah began to look forward to her frequent drop-ins. The incrementally unguarded version of Laurel she has become acquainted with over this period is every bit as complicated as could have predicted. She is entertaining but moody; her sarcasm is as boundless as her productive energy; she has a thirst for knowledge that is only rivaled by her passion for martial arts; she is a rabid fan of the Seattle Seahawks who yells at players, coaches, and referees and throws popcorn at the TV while they watch games together; she has an attention to detail that impresses the hell out of Dinah when it isn’t being used against her; and most importantly she is the unique brand of friend Dinah never knew she so desperately needed.

This new dynamic they were building, peculiar as it seems considering their messy history, has been one of the few bright spots of Dinah’s short convalescence and subsequent readjustment to life after a highly traumatic injury. Whether at work slaving over reports or lounging at home being a total potato, Laurel turning up unannounced is always the highlight of her day. None of her other friends ever made her feel as appreciated and understood as Laurel does or ever made her laugh until her belly ached like Laurel does when she launches into one of her comical – and lengthy – diatribes about Super Bowl XL being rigged in favor of the hated Pittsburgh Steelers. Not even Vinny, as much as she loved him and painful though it is to admit, could warm her up from the inside out like Laurel’s honey-smooth voice does when it wraps so melodically around her name.

Honestly, that last realization was like a slap her in the face that woke her up to how rapidly evolving their relationship was. In less than six weeks, they have gone from respectful acquaintances to friends to something...more. And scary as the breakneck tempo of that progression is, Dinah has been sorely tempted of late to throw caution to the wind in an effort to define just what that something more is. The sole impediment to taking that plunge is her own fear of what might happen if either or both of them screw it up.

Still idly toying with silken strands of golden hair, Dinah is too wrapped up in her own musings to notice that Laurel is beginning to stir. A prolonged groan at last alerts her to the change, and she breaks out of her own thoughts just time to watch Laurel’s face scrunch up in complaint over her awkward position.

“God. What the hell…?” Laurel slurs as her eyes begin to flutter open. They immediately widen when she realizes what happened. “Shit. I fell asleep.”

Dinah cocks her head in amusement. “That you did. Not in the most comfortable spot, either.”

Laurel has the grace to blush at the heavy subtext applied to Dinah’s comment. They are both aware she has a perfectly luxurious bed back at her apartment she could have crawled into instead of passing out on the cold, hard asphalt.

“I can explain...”

“Not here,” Dinah interrupts, then pushes off her haunches to stand. Once upright, she offers Laurel her hand. “Come on. Let’s go inside. There’s no sense in you staying out here the rest of the night and it’s too late for you to go home.”

Taking the hand, Laurel allows Dinah to help her to her feet. “If you’re sure,” she replies, brushing loose gravel off the seat of her extremely tight jeans, an action that draws Dinah’s gaze southward to a shapely rump her hands suddenly and inexplicably itch to explore. “I don’t want to inconvenience you.”

Hastily averting her eyes from Laurel’s ass lest she get caught letching, Dinah crosses her arms over her chest and funnels her embarrassment into faux irritation. “Probably should have thought about that before falling asleep outside my door. You were having a nightmare or something. Your thrashing against the side of the house woke me up.”

Laurel winces apologetically. “Sorry.”

Swiftly deflating in the face of Laurel’s chagrin, Dinah shrugs neutrally. “It’s fine. No big deal.” The falsehood slips free so easily it causes her to wonder when it became acceptable behavior for her to lie to make Laurel feel better. Probably about the same time you developed this silly little crush. Frustration mounting at her inability to curtail these surging feelings, she turns wordlessly to the door then starts back inside. When she senses Laurel hesitate to follow, she pauses in the doorway and sighs dramatically. “Oh, for God’s sake, woman. Don’t be difficult. It’s too cold and late for me to deal with your stubborn ass. Just come in already before I actually get upset.” When Laurel obeys, duly chastised, Dinah leads her into the living room where she plops down onto her couch before patting the cushion next to her. “Sit.”

This time Laurel does at Dinah says without argument. “I’m really am sorry I woke you,” she tells Dinah a bit later once they are both settled in and getting warmed up under a couple of fluffy throw blankets, Dinah beneath her well-worn red one while Laurel wraps herself in the one sporting the Seahawks logo that she brought over for their recently ritualistic Sunday afternoon football watching. Wearing a guilty expression, her shoulders draw in tight. “I didn’t mean to. Or to fall asleep like that. Guess I was more tired than I thought.”

“Never mind that,” Dinah replies with a wave of the hand she’d left uncovered. “I’m more interested what you’re doing here in the first place. In the middle of the night. Halfway across town from your apartment.”

The blush Laurel answers with betrays how humiliated she is at being caught in such a state. Dinah is a bit perturbed at the thought that zips through her brain right then that Laurel has the perhaps the most adorable blush she’s ever seen and ought to wear it more often. It is followed by a brief internal freak out seeing as now is so not the time for her crush to once again take charge of her brain.

Sadly, having noticed her staring, Laurel then begins to worry her bottom lip, causing Dinah’s eyes to instinctively flick downward. Mesmerized by the motion, she marvels at how full and pretty and symmetrical Laurel’s lips are, and wonders for a split second whether they feel and taste as soft and delicious as they appear. Unbidden, Dinah’s heart rate begins to accelerate as her chest and neck rapidly start to flush.

A second later, the biological basis behind her strong reaction becomes glaringly apparent: that this is no simple crush. Oh, God. Oh, God. Stop it right now. I’m not ready for this. Hell, I’m not even sure this is real or if it’s just me assigning false meaning to how grateful I am to have her in my life. I mean, I haven’t felt that way for a woman since college. And this is not just any woman. This is Laurel Fucking Lance!!!

And yet as it ever is when Laurel’s beauty bewitches her, the proof is all too evident. From her throbbing pulse to the pool of warmth spreading from her chest into her lower belly, it is becoming increasingly clear that the experimental phase she went through like many other a normal university aged female may not have been a phase after all.

Since Alanna Chambler, she has indulged a few minor crushes, but that’s all she thought they were. Innocent crushes. Simple admiration for the human aesthetic that any sane individual would objectively appreciate, of which Laurel is a preeminent example.

Could it be possible that she was wrong to assume that’s all it was? That there was something deeper at play behind her noticing how stupidly pretty some girls like Laurel are? Something she refused to acknowledge way back when because the fallout from her breakup with Alanna was an unmitigated disaster that may have scared her straight, so to speak? The possibility is intriguing. And terrifying.

So as not to scare the hell out of Laurel, or make a scene that will mortify her for weeks, Dinah quickly clears her throat and schools her features.

“That’s fair, I guess,” says Laurel after a tense moment of them staring at one another with muddled degrees of curiosity, apprehension, and awkwardness. “I won’t bore you with a sob story as to the reasons, but I don’t sleep much normally, and since I heard what happened to you even less.” Pausing a beat, her eyes take on a liquid quality that causes a tight lump to form in Dinah’s throat. “I wasn’t here when you needed me. Instead, I was across the country at a stupid conference I could have easily ducked out of if I really wanted. While I was listening to some decrepit old hag prattle endlessly about how arcane certain statute of limitations rules are, you were bleeding out in a psychopath’s basement. Had it not been for Curtis, you would be dead. And that...haunts me.” A shaky breath later, she adds, “I should have been here and I wasn’t and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for that.”

How long has she been holding this in? And why hasn’t she told me until now when she’s had plenty of opportunity? Dinah wonders, and for unknown reasons is suddenly compelled to reaches out for Laurel’s trembling hand. She experiences a foreign but intense relief when her gesture is not immediately spurned.

“Oh, Laurel...”

“I know it’s bizarre and inexplicable and idiotic to blame myself for something totally out of my control,” Laurel interrupts, clearly frustrated with herself for a variety of reasons Dinah can probably guess at with a modest degree of accuracy. “Lately I find myself being idiotic about a lot of shit and taking way too much interest in things I shouldn’t. Like, I can’t stop mother-henning Felicity over her pregnancy. And I’ve been irrationally obsessing over what happened to you, and that is just not like me. I don’t know why I’m so...”

Trailing off with an anxious sigh, she runs a shaky hand through her long blonde tresses. “Look, I don’t really understand what the hell is going on myself. As for why I’m here tonight? I just...the thought of you being back home after what that fucking piece of shit did to you was hard enough when Ollie was arranging an around the clock protection detail. Now that the detail is off, I should be relieved. But I’m not. I tossed and turned all night last night. Same thing tonight. I couldn’t stop running ridiculous scenarios my head. Like what if that sicko bastard somehow managed to get out? I mean, he did it once, albeit with Oliver’s help. Stands to reason he could do it again if the circumstances were right. Slabside security leaves a lot to be desired, you know, so that is not out of the realm of feasibility. I...” she sighs, scrubs a hand wearily over her face, and seems to crumple inwards as if the pressure she has been laboring under lately has finally exceeding her limit. “Believe me, I wish I had an acceptable answer for you beyond me being totally irrational. I just don’t.”

Stunned by that outpouring, and more than a little touched, Dinah stares at an increasingly uncomfortable Laurel, who fidgets with every passing second as she was scrutinized. A moment later she groans in dismay. “God. You think I’ve gone nuts, don’t you?”

That snaps Dinah out of her stupor. Brow crinkling, she shakes her head fervently. “No. Not at all. Just...I’m surprised is all. I mean, given our history I wasn’t expecting you to ever care about my well-being as anything more than an occasional co-conspirator in one of Felicity’s schemes, let alone become friends like we have recently. Forgive me if I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around you caring so much that you are actually losing sleep over me.”

Though Laurel does chuckle a bit at the mention of their shared tendency to enable Felicity’s fiercely adventurous spirit, the lighthearted moment passes all too quickly as a second rosy blush colors her cheeks. Averting her gaze to study the backs of her hands, she shrugs, unsuccessfully attempting nonchalance.

“Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time I’ve lost sleep over you. When we first met, you were the only person who didn’t look at me like everybody else on this Earth did, as if I was a tool to be used or some twisted, sickening cosmic joke being played upon them because of the face I wear and the body I inhabit. In your eyes, I was only ever just me because you had never met her, and I really liked how that felt even if you didn’t like me very much. Also, you gave as good as you got, which was a nice change of pace from your comrades, who always held back when they fought me, though I’m sure they’d insist otherwise. And maybe it’s just my imagination running wild, but I’ve always felt there has was a strangely exciting spark between us. Maybe that’s why, quite against my will, I found myself respecting you.” Worrying her hands together, she smiles ruefully. “I used to lie awake for hours replaying our interactions on a loop in my head, you know? For lack of a better term I was...” she flails her arms a little here, “fascinated with you. Still am. Although I can see how you wouldn’t know any of that considering my stunted ability to express myself with my words instead of my fists.”

Ignoring for a moment how she had no idea Laurel felt this way, and how special knowing she does makes her feel, Dinah nudges Laurel’s shoulder with hers, sporting a playful smirk. “Which you’re getting better at, by the way. I was really proud of you for not decking Rene yesterday when he implied you were secretly pleased about what happened to me. That I lost my Canary Cry. I know you wanted to.”

To be frank, Dinah did, too. Rene was perfectly aware the subject was a sore one for her. Literally and figuratively. Her throat still aches like a bitch from all the repair work doctors had to do to shore up Curtis’s emergency field cauterization. Learning that the damage to her vocal chords will likely prevent her from every being able to use her meta ability was the pouring of proverbial salt upon the still gaping wound. There have been so many times she’s saved lives or prevented catastrophe with her Cry. It’s become part of who she is. That she’ll never get to experience it again has left her with an ever-present ache she can’t help but compare to having lost a limb.

What’s worse, she’ll never be able to sing again, either, at least not at full tilt for more than a few seconds. Even at moderate volumes, it will likely be uncomfortable and unsustainable, not to mention that she might never be able to pitch correctly again. Although she doesn’t have the greatest voice in the world, some of her fondest memories of her childhood involve her mother singing her to sleep, and they are so precious to her that she has fantasized often about doing the same for her own children. Now, if by some miracle she finds love again and marries, she might never get to realize that dream. Those compounding losses are so unfair, so frustrating, so enraging, and so very depressing that even minor dwelling upon them eventually leads to tears.

Rene should have known better than to use them as a weapon against Laurel. Not only does he know how deeply she disapproves of his continually shitty attitude toward the reforming Black Siren but he should at minimum respect her enough to never indulge his issues with Laurel at her expense. Sometimes his tactless cruelty leads her to wonder why she still calls him a friend when for Dinah’s sake Laurel is nearly always more cordial to him than he is to her – at least at first. Those two can’t be in a room for more than five minutes without their acerbic sniping turning into clenched fists and flared nostrils.

Laurel frowns deeply at the reminder of that unpleasant encounter. “Wasn’t easy. I can’t believe he had the gall to suggest I gave a shit about me being the only one who can do that now. Maybe a year ago, that would mean something to me. But now? If I could, I would give my ability to you. You deserve it so much more than I do after all I’ve done. In retrospect I can see that it’s brought me nothing but grief and regret.”

The haunted quality of Laurel’s eyes tells Dinah she is regressing into the vast vault of horrible memories that are stored inside that brilliant mind. Memories of all the lives, innocent and otherwise, she took using her Cry. Of the years she refuses to elaborate upon in which she was regularly experimented upon in a government facility solely because she was one of the most powerful metahumans alive on an Earth that openly persecuted them. Of the day she got that ability, doubtless experiencing something unimaginable.

Sometimes when Dinah thinks about how she screamed in anguish as Sonus shot Vinny right in front of her, she inadvertently draws parallels to how Laurel received her gift. None of the scenarios she has conjured up offer any comfort to a conscience riddled by guilt over her having refused to sympathize with her fellow metahuman when they first met. Who knows, maybe if she’d tried, Laurel might have responded to her overtures seeing as they have common ground upon which to stand. Unlikely as that outcome would have been, she still should have tried. They have the exact same ability – granted Laurel’s is far stronger and her control of it significantly more advanced; how the hell does she do that thing where she blows a kiss and emits a sonic wave strong enough to knock a grown man on his ass? – which means that their origin point has to be eerily similar. If nothing else that alone would have provided the basis to form a tentative rapport.

But Dinah hadn’t extended the proverbial olive branch, nary even a twig at that, leaving her to wonder what happened to transform Laurel into the infamous Black Siren. Had she lost someone she loved dearly on that fateful day as well? Was she involved in an accident that subjected her to unbearable pain? Or was something far worse occuring, something so horrific as to produce the sort of shrill banshee wail Black Siren became famous for?

The latter possibility never fails to send a shiver of revulsion down Dinah’s spine. If...that….did happen to Laurel as she was being bombarded by dark matter, she isn’t sure she wants to ever hear about it. The mere ambient suggestion of Laurel enduring something so vile is sufficient to make her sick at her stomach, never mind being regaled with the visceral details. Thankfully Laurel seems equally as determined to not talk about that day, which is an arrangement Dinah is more than happy to keep for the foreseeable future.

Whatever went down to give Laurel her ability, there is no arguing that it is the sole factor to which her presence on Earth-1 can be attributed. It was for her meta ability alone that Zolomon rescued her, recruited her into his employ, and then transported her here to facilitate his evil schemes, and as rocky as the road has been between then and now for Laurel, Dinah cannot say she’s sorry that any of it happened. The very idea of not having Laurel in her life just seems so...wrong.

“Not always, it hasn’t,” she replies, unfurling from her blanket so she can take Laurel’s hand. The gesture produces the intended effect of drawing Laurel away from the self-imposed hell that is her memories. Smiling gently, she adds, “I get why you might feel that way, but try and remember that if nothing else, it’s the reason you’re not still locked up in that hellhole Zoom sprung you from on your Earth. And for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here. With me.”

“You are?” Laurel asks, looking slightly awed at Dinah’s optimistic perspective.

“I am. Doubly so actually.” As she responds, Dinah reassuringly rubs her thumb along the back of Laurel’s hand. “You may have scared the hell out of me, but I’m really glad you’re here tonight, too.”

Something happens to Laurel’s face then that Dinah has only ever heard about from Felicity. Blinking against the tears gathering, her lips curl up slightly and then pause a split second before spreading further into a soft smile that teases her incredible dimples, causes her eyes to shine and makes her entire being glow as if she is illuminated by an internal light that is unveiled at just enough wattage to convey how touched she is. What makes it even better – or worse depending upon the perspective – is that Laurel’s expression is screaming at Dinah that she would like very much to throw caution to the wind, lean in and close the short distance between their bodies until they are breathing each other’s air, and then plunge straight off the deep end to consummate the budding attraction that has been building between them until the tension has grown unbearable.

Not for the first time of late, Dinah feels a very familiar tug at her heartstrings. There aren’t any other smiles in the world that can do to her what Laurel’s does. And like this, with so much raw emotion behind it? Ordinarily it is difficult for her to deny Laurel anything when confronted by one of those gorgeous smiles, but this is just taking it too far. There’s isn’t much she wouldn’t do right now if Laurel asked, even risk their fragile friendship to find out if those lips of hers taste as yummy as they look.

Amazing as this feeling is, she is not all prepared to give in. Not yet anyway, ‘cause once she does, she knows it’s all over. There won’t be any going back for her as she is not the type to cautiously wade in to a relationship, preferring instead to dive headfirst into the deep end, and she gets the same impression from Laurel.

Clearing her throat breaks the moment, and Dinah is a little sad and quite a bit relieved to see Laurel’s demeanor abruptly shift back into safer waters. “And hey,” she says, hoping to assuage the tint of hurt in Laurel’s eyes, “since we’re being honest with each other, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to admit I was a little bit scared when I crawled into bed knowing I didn’t have the crutch of a protection detail camped outside my place. First time that’s happened since I was stupid ten year old who thought she was the bravest girl in the world only to discover she wasn’t by a long shot after she watched Nightmare on Elm Street before bed.”

Laurel’s nose crinkles at the last part of the confession. “Oof. If that is the same thing as it was on my Earth, not a wise decision.”

Dinah chuckles wryly, in full agreement. “It certainly was not. Thankfully my Dad was a total softy for his little girl. He was so wrapped around my finger he stayed with me every night after until the fear abated.”

“Well,” Laurel nibbles her lip quickly, her expression going soft again, “I don’t know many sane people who would describe me as a softy, and you are far from a little girl. But there is perhaps a tiny chance that I may be slightly wrapped around your finger as well. Meaning if you want or need, I would be willing to, uh...you know.” She gestures lamely, blushing yet again.

Overwhelmed, Dinah’s eyes shimmer with gratitude at being privileged with a glimpse of the real Laurel. She figured out a while ago that Black Siren is merely a coat of armor Laurel wrapped herself in to protect her from a world she became convinced – and understandably so – was out to get her. Every now and then, when she’s relaxed and in good spirits, the Laurel that once existed before being repeatedly traumatized and abused until transforming into a writhing black ball of hatred makes an appearance. Every time that happens, Dinah finds herself thinking the same thing she is right now, that she would like to spend a lot more time with this woman. A whole lot more. Because this is someone Dinah can feel unashamed about caring for. Someone she would not object being openly attracted to. Someone she might, if she was willing to peer closely enough into her wonderfully traitorous heart, already be falling for.

“Are you offering to stay the night to keep me safe, Ms. Lance?” she asks, hoping the answer is yes.

“I...I, uh, guess so.” Laurel’s initial spluttering is so cute, Dinah has to refrain from squealing like a pathetic, love-struck teenage. Sadly Laurel recovers her composure quickly. “I mean, yes, Captain Drake. I am.”

Rather than fold like a cheap card, Dinah decides to attempt subtlety. “Hmm.” Eyes narrowed, she taps her chin contemplatively. “Well, you’re right that I’m not a little girl anymore. But...” she draws out the vowel to really sell it that is totally not a hairsbreadth away from begging Laurel to stay over and cuddle up behind her and hold her tight all night long, “I would be lying if I said I would mind the company.”

Looking cautiously hopeful, Laurel quirks her head over to one side as she is so apt to do. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, then. I’ll stay.”

“Great!” Figuring it is way too soon for her to give in to the surprisingly powerful urge to invite Laurel into her bed, even if it is for innocent purposes, Dinah switches gears. “So...when I found you outside, you appeared to be having a bad dream. Wanna talk about it?”

“Not really.” The answer is expected. However, when Dinah starts to argue the case for sharing being healthy, Laurel shakes her head and physically draws herself up straighter as if gathering her courage. “But you know what? Maybe I should. If for no other reason than to honor the spirit of honesty we have going here.”

“Who knows, it might help,” Dinah says, hoping to encourage Laurel to trust her with whatever had caused her so much distress. “And I promise I won’t judge.”

As if preparing for battle, Laurel takes a deep bolstering breath and then exhales slowly before returning her focus to Dinah. “So, I’d just ask that you be patient with me. Okay? ‘Cause I’ve never told anyone this before.”

Dinah quickly her extends her agreement, not daring to do otherwise in her interest to learn more about this endlessly fascinating woman. Especially something that no one else knows. As unexpected as all of this is tonight, what is happening right now is of an importance that Dinah truly appreciates. Felicity has been the only person Laurel confided in up to this point. Being included in that exceedingly tight circle is a privilege she is not about to pass up.

“I was dreaming about someone. Someone important to me. Someone I lost back in Central City. I’m sure you figured out a long time ago that I lived there back on my Earth due to me being a meta.” Dinah nods in the affirmative, recalling that her mental dossier on this Laurel Lance includes a stint residing in Dinah’s old hometown and that it was there she received her meta powers. “What you don’t know, nor does anyone else still living to my knowledge, is that while I was there I was not as...unattached...as I have led those who have inquired to believe.” She grimaces. “Quentin once quizzed me about my life back there, and for the most part I was honest. Not about this, though. This I kept to myself because it hurts too much to even think about most days.”

Swallowing thickly, Laurel briefly averts her gaze and when she turns it back up, there are tears born of tumultuous, raw emotion in her eyes. “I told him once that I never really held a real job before. And that was true in a sense. I don’t really consider what I did in Central City a real job.” She smiles ruefully, her gaze turning wistful almost. “I actually used to be the staff singer at this little jazz club in the Lower West side. Place called Reno’s. Ever go there?”

“Yes,” Dinah replies, her voice rough with surprise and a bit of her own emotional response.

Reno’s was her and Vinny’s favorite bar back when they were embedded deep cover with Sonus’ organization. They’d go there every Friday night to decompress after an excruciating week of living a lie in the most hostile work environment imaginable.

Jazz has always been Dinah’s go-to coping mechanism for stress, and Reno’s was the hottest spot in which to bask in the smoothest tones and most sultry melodies the genre had to offer. Their musicians were the best in the city, all self-taught virtuosos, and their singers skillful and soulful enough to rival Ella or Billie at their pinnacle. For Laurel to have been regularly employed there speaks to how talented she is. As far as Dinah is aware, the Reno’s here never had a staff singer during her tenure with the CCPD.

“Ours never had a staff singer, though,” she adds. “Reno liked to keep things fresh. He had a stable of singers that rotated through on a monthly basis.”

“It was the same back on my Earth,” Laurel says, fondness dripping through her tone. “When I first started there, I had auditioned like everyone else and expected to be part of the rotation. Which I was for the first couple of months. My gigs started selling out by the third. Reno liked to say my voice and presence were good enough to get me on any stage but my dimples were what conquered hearts and made fans empty their wallets. ‘I’m tellin’ ya, girl, those things coulda made Paris turn away from Helen,’ he’d croon as he counted the cash in the till with a gleam in his eye.” On queue those very dimples peek out through an intensifying smile, proving old Reno’s point.

Those things really ought to be illegal, Dinah thinks. Or reserved for me alone. The possessive nature of that thought makes her flush with as equal measures of shame and excitement.

“Anyway,” Laurel goes on, unaware of Dinah’s internal conflict, “I only say that because that’s where I met her.”

Dinah’s brows disappear into her hairline. “Her?”

“Does it really surprise you to discover I’m bisexual?” Laurel asks, lips teasing to one side. “A, This is 2019. B, I’m a Lance, so it’s basically codified in my DNA. And C, I’ve been flirting with you pretty much non stop since the moment we met.”

Dinah splutters a moment at that, her mind rewinding manically and then playing through all of their early interactions. In retrospect, it is easy to see that Laurel was, indeed, flirtatious virtually every time they interacted. It was only after Vinny’s death that they turned vicious, and even then she thinks their unusual attraction probably exacerbated the meteoric descent toward outright hatred. Thin line and all that.

“When you put it that way, I guess it shouldn’t,” she says after recovering from the initial shock of Laurel so open admitting to her flirting.

“To be fair, I suppose I should give you the benefit of the doubt since your Laurel was not brave enough to admit she was every bit as bi as her sister. Before her death, she may have still been hung up on Ollie but she was also nursing quite the crush on Felicity.” At Dinah’s dumbfounded expression, Laurel chuckles. “It’s true, by the way. I read her journals and shit – you know, to study up before officially replacing her at a professional capacity. Quentin gave them to me to boost my chances of a successful transition. Apparently bisexuality runs in the family. Shocker. An uncle on my Dad’s side swung both ways as does my Mom, who dated a lady in grad school right before she met my dad. If your Laurel’s information is reliable, which I assume it is what with her having been such a veritable bastion of virtue and honesty, we share that background.”

“Wow.” Flabbergasted, that is all Dinah says for several seconds before the reference to Sara catches up with her. “Speaking of Sara, does she know about any of this? I imagine she’d be really interested to learn something about her sister she might not have known about.”

Settling back against the cushions, Laurel crosses her legs and hums affirmatively. “I told her last time she visited. I think it helped us bond to know I was more like her than her Laurel, who hid from her sexuality instead of embracing it. Not that I’m casting stones here. She had her reasons for remaining in the closet, one of which was our distinct preference for men. Turns out our taste in women is very...specific.”

Laurel pronounces that last word very deliberately and stares at Dinah pointedly as if to elaborate on precisely what type of woman she finds attractive. She doesn’t want to think too long or hard about the ramifications if that statement is true. If she does, she might connect the nebulous dots to form a somewhat disturbing picture, one that might reveal if she’d met Earth-1 Laurel while she was still alive they would have gravitated toward one another the same way she has with this one and might even have eventually lead to a romantic entanglement that would have resulted in radical changes to the way their lives unfolded. That right there is a can of worms Dinah would prefer stayed permanently sealed lest she lose her damn mind.

“Actually, I’m the same. I think. Maybe,” she answers Laurel after recovering from the brief mental trip Laurel’s innuendo took her on. She scratches the back of her head, a mite nervous all of the sudden. “I’m not really sure. I’ve always been strongly attracted to men, but I did date a girl in college. I just...” she sighs, “when it ended, I wrote it off as an experiment because the breakup was bitter and ugly and I never wanted to go through that again. Now, I’m starting to rethink that assessment as a bit premature.”

Laurel sits up straight, at full attention. “Oh, really? That is quite intriguing!” For a moment she looks like she wants to launch into an in-depth interrogation only to think better of it at the last second. “But as much as I’d love to pursue this line of conversation further, we’re getting dangerously off topic.”

Dinah sighs in relief and takes the proffered out. Things were getting way too serious way too fast for her liking. Ready as she is to admit she is attracted to Laurel, she is not ready to act on it. Yet.

“Agreed. By all means, please continue...”

After smoothing her hands down her jeans, Laurel launches back into her tale. “As I was saying, I met her at Reno’s. She was a fairly regular customer, but she didn’t catch one of my gigs until I was on staff because her work schedule didn’t line up. That night, she approached me after the show and introduced herself. Asked me on a date right then and there. I couldn’t say no. I was instantly smitten. Being around her felt so right, as if a long lost part of me finally slid into place. That, and she was...” Laurel draws in a breath, eyes sliding shut, “a force of nature, magnetic, witty, driven, intense, drop dead gorgeous, and so full of life and light that she illuminated everyone who came into contact with. Like a star that burned impossibly bright and drowned out all the others with her brilliance. We went on a date that very weekend. And another three days later. Pretty soon we were seeing each other every other day.”

Pausing, her expression grows dreamy, whimsical almost, as if the memories have transported her to a time and place she might actually have been happy. A time before her life was shattered all over again, leaving her destitute and bitter, a woman spiraling out of control on her way to the bottom where Black Siren was eagerly waiting with arms wide open.

“God, Dinah. I fell in love so fast that I didn’t even realize until I was already neck deep. She made me forget how broken I was. Made me want to live again. Made me want things I had given up on, like getting married and having babies and buying a house in the suburbs and adopting a dog and the whole nine yards. I hadn’t wanted any of those things since Ollie died. Sometimes I think I may have even loved her more than I did him, which was scary as hell but a relief at the same time because she understood me like no one else ever has. She not only practiced a saintly level of patience with me but she embraced me for who I was and never once asked me to be somebody I wasn’t. No one other than my father ever loved me so wholly and selflessly. So how could have said anything but yes when she asked me to marry her a year later? It was a no brainer, really. Best choice I ever made. And the worst.”

Dinah feels awful for the surge of irrational jealousy that overtakes her at hearing some other woman besides her was the first to make Laurel feel that way. Hating herself for even entertaining such a notion, she quickly masters herself and focuses on the information being given to her, just like she was taught to while training to become a detective. From how Laurel’s brief description practically gushed with praise, she can tell this woman was special.

“She sounds amazing,” Dinah says, trying her best to be a supportive friend.

Laurel’s wistful smile signals her confirmation. “She was. Every single day, she made me laugh and smile and never once made me feel like I was defective or like I didn’t deserve her. She showered me with so much love I honestly felt like I was about to drown sometimes. And when I got panicky about that and would take off for a few days to sort through my baggage, she would always be waiting for me back home when I came to my senses. She was kind and passionate and strong, and while we were together, she wasn’t just my lover and my best friend and my emotional rock. She was my everything.”

Lips beginning to quiver, a solitary tear slips down Laurel’s cheek as she ducks her head and tries to rein in her emotions that are clearly getting away from her.

“What happened to her?” Dinah coaxes gently, sensing a tragedy at the end of the story yet needing to know, even if she feels guilty about it putting Laurel through such an emotional ringer just to satisfy her fully invested curiosity.

When Laurel starts up the tale again, her tone is detached, as if she’s had to separate herself from the memory in order to recall it without breaking down. Dinah feels like a heel for having cause it, and yet at the same time listens with rapt attention.

“The night the particle accelerator at S.T.A.R. Labs exploded, I got home early from work. That night was our anniversary, so Reno let me duck out right after my set ‘cause I wanted to surprise her and, like virtually everybody else that met her, he had a huge soft spot with her name written all over it. On the way home, I picked up dinner from our favorite place and stopped to pick up candles and roses and chocolates at this kitschy little shop that catered to couples in the mood for romance. I was setting up the table when I got the call.” Catching Dinah’s gaze, Laurel smiles with a dark wryness that intensifies her guilt. “Just my luck, as I was being told my fiancee was shot to death on the job, I got hit with a wave of dark matter that turned my manic screaming into a superpower.”

“Jesus, Laurel. That’s awful. I’m so sorry.”

There isn’t much more Dinah can think to say about a horrible tale that frankly has her on the verge of crying herself. So they had both lost someone that night. Dinah a lover and Laurel a fiancee. With so little time to process this revelation, she can’t figure out which of them had it worse.

At first blush, it would seem logical to believe Laurel was better off having not witnessed her fiancee’s death. Dinah is not so sure that line of logic holds water, though, when she would not even be tempted to trade places. As bad as it was to watch Vinny die, twice, at least she was with him; at least they were able to say their silent goodbyes through eye contact that communicated the undying devotion for one another that resided within their hearts; at least she had the closure of being with him in his final seconds, offering what strength she could as her love for him poured out in waves of tears and mewling sobs.

Laurel came home just like she did every other day, excited to share an anniversary with the woman she loved only to receive a phone call no one wants to get. She never got to say goodbye, never got to say I love you one last time, and had to hear from someone else how the person she was prepared to commit the rest of her life to died doing her job. Many may see that as preferable to being there when it happened, but not Dinah. To her, Laurel’s was by far the worse fate.

Just as she is about to brave inquiring how it happened, something else occurs to her about the way Laurel worded a particular phrase. Like a search dog having picked up a scent, she follows the trail with blind determination.

Arms crossing defensively over her chest, she tilts away from Laurel and spears the blonde with a sharp glare. “Wait a sec. She was killed on the job? What exactly did she do?”

Confused, Laurel’s brows furrow. “Uh...she was an undercover cop with the CCPD.”

Dinah nearly launches out of her seat at that shocking tidbit of info. There weren’t a lot of women working undercover with the CCPD during that time and most of them she knew personally. “Are you serious? What was her name?” Looking conflicted and pained, Laurel refuses to answer, which piques Dinah’s curiosity. Other than the obvious, she gets the feeling there is something about this woman’s identity causing Laurel to cling so doggedly to secrecy. The only reason she can think of is that Laurel wishes to spare her feelings. But why? The answer resonates so suddenly and heavily through her bones that she gasps aloud. “Laurel, did you know me? I mean, the Earth-2 version of me?” Still no answer. “Laurel?”

Stubbornly shaking her head, Laurel launches off the couch, arms wrapping around herself as she begins to pace. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I know I said I’d tell you, but I can’t do this anymore. It’s too painful. Losing her almost killed me.”

I know how that feels, Dinah thinks. And just then something truly terrible then occurs to her that radically turns the conversation away from another even more startling revelation that might well have altered her entire perception of Laurel Lance had it been allowed to surface. It doesn’t, though, because Dinah loses her grip on that thread as a surge of fury courses through her veins.

“Why did you lie to me?” she demands, thoughts spiraling back to not-so-distant past, to a visit from Laurel at her office at CCPD that contained an apology that served as the catalyst for their current, far more healthy relationship.

Frowning deepening into a scowl, Laurel stops pacing and glowers at her. “Excuse me?”

“You said once that you could only imagine how I felt when you killed Vinny.” Dinah stands now, accusation as present in her tone as it is her posture. “If what you just told me is true, then you know exactly how I felt. Were you just playing me back then to gain my sympathy?”

The unexpected course change punctuated by that harsh accusation sends Laurel reeling back a step. “What? No! I meant what I said. What happened to me was not the same as what I did to you.”

“I fail to see how,” Dinah shoots back obstinately, her anger having usurped all other concerns. Like an unforgivably stupid sap, she had fallen for the line and let Laurel into her life and into her heart on false pretenses.

Under attack, Laurel digs in her heels. Those intense green eyes flash with indignation. “Well, you should. My fiancee was killed by a heartless monster.”

“And Vinny wasn’t?” Dinah almost apologizes the second the barb leaves her mouth. Almost. She probably would have if the petty part of her was not fully in control and currently enjoying watching Laurel blanch as if stricken.

“Okay, wow. That hurt, even if I deserved it,” Laurel replies in little more than a whisper. Her posture radiates unadulterated hurt. “But I swear to you, Dinah, my apology was genuine. I did not want to kill him.”

That is the last thing Dinah wants to hear right now. Not when she is incensed by the sting of betrayal. And to think she had almost convinced herself she was over Vinny’s death. The worst part is she doesn’t know who to be more angry with right now for the deception, Laurel or herself. Unwilling to accept any blame for one of the most traumatic moments of her life, only one target remains at which she can direct her ire.

“Then why did you? Huh?!” she asks, aggressively stepping into Laurel’s personal space. Way in the dark recesses of her mind, she knows this conversation has been a long time coming and their mutual avoidance of it is what led to this disastrous breakdown of what was otherwise a very pleasant – and enlightening – conversation. Too bad she doesn’t care about that right now. All that matters in the moment is getting answers to questions that have been eating away at her for far too long.

“Why, Laurel?” she presses. “You say you didn’t want to. You say you’re sorry. If that’s true, give me an actual answer that isn’t some lame bullshit excuse to cover your sorry ass.” No reply. “Answer me, dammit! You owe me that much!” Frustratingly, Laurel continues to remain mute, which essentially pushes Dinah over the edge. Laughing bitterly, her entire frame vibrating with barely restrained rage, she clenches her hands into fists at her sides. “God, you’re such a lying cowa -”

“I didn’t have a choice! Okay? I didn’t!” Laurel’s explosive interruption shocks Dinah into stunned silence. Taut as a rope pulled between two diesel trucks, she listens to the explanation that follows. “When Cayden told me not to make him doubt my loyalty that night, it wasn’t an idle threat. He could have killed me on the spot with little to no warning. He had that power over me and we both knew it. So I did what I always do. I chose myself. I chose to live. I’m not proud of it, but there it is.”

Pausing, visibly distraught, Laurel wraps her arms around herself as if in a desperate bid to keep from falling apart. She has never looked more vulnerable, more fragile, more unsure of herself and frightened of Dinah and close to utterly unraveling. The sight affects Dinah more than she would have liked, and she soon finds her anger uncoiling as Laurel grows increasingly emotional.

“I didn’t want to kill Vinny, Dinah. I liked him. Respected him, even,” Laurel goes on, expression matching her tone, both begging for Dinah to understand and to not hate her. Loathe as she is to admit it, Dinah is convinced that she is being honest. “He was the only person in that rag tag group of miscreants and degenerates that treated me like a human being with value. I guess it’s because he was the only one of us with a halfway functioning conscience.” Curling in on herself, Laurel takes a shuddering breath. “Just a second ago you were about to call me a coward. Well, you’re right. I am. I am worthless coward and a horrible person who will always choose herself and nothing I do or say will ever change that.”

Silence descends over them in the wake of an admission that rings to Dinah as patently false. Laurel has proven so many times over the past six months that she is anything but a coward incapable of meaningful change. Her most vocal detractors grudgingly admit she is a fair if not aggressive District Attorney, she has not once hurt an innocent during her extracurricular excursions to seek justice for her slain father, and she has even made friends who would be very upset with Dinah right now for causing her so much distress. Hell, Dinah is one of those friends, or thought she was anyway before tonight cast shade upon that assumption. If she was Laurel’s friend would she been so quick to accuse Laurel of such an underhanded tactic as using Vinny’s death to manipulate her?

Shame cascades in waves through Dinah’s chest, drowning out every last stronghold of animosity bitterly clinging to the surface of her heart. It wouldn’t take a detective to figure out how badly she just hurt Laurel, what with Laurel wearing her pain the same way a relentlessly browbeaten prisoner might heavy shackles. Unfortunately, Dinah’s pride gets in the way of her issuing the apology dangling off the tip of her tongue. With neither willing to speak, the silence that stretches on until they have both wallowed in miserable, awkward discomfort for so long that it doesn’t appear there is any salvaging what was once such a promising conversation.

Laurel is the one to break the stalemate when she sighs in defeat. Shoulders slumping, she glances toward the door then says, “I should go. Before I do, I have to tell you again how sorry I am. I am so sorry, Dinah. So very fucking sorry. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wish I was as brave as you. That I would have done the right thing. If I had, Vinny would still be here, you’d be happy, and Cayden would have killed me, meaning at long last my miserable existence would be over. I know that means nothing to you right now, but I hope some day it might. I’ll let myself out.”

Still stunted beyond the ability to respond, Dinah can only watch as Laurel rushes out the door and disappears into the night. Once the ability to function returns some minutes later, she shuffles over to the couch on shaky limbs, collapses heavily onto the welcoming cushions, and sits there numbly until the tears finally arrive. Besieged by so many emotions she cannot hope to begin sorting them out, she cries and cries until it feels like she has permanently exhausted the ability of her tear ducts to function.

Emotionally spent, she lays there wrapped up in her blanket and stares blankly at the wall, willing the oblivion of sleep to abduct her away from the sight seared into her imagination of the deceptively delicate flower that is Laurel Lance blooming right before her eyes only to immediately wilt under an onslaught of insensitive recrimination Dinah can scarcely believe came from her. Like a switch was flipped when her brain made that connection to Vinny, she had launched into attack mode and proceeded to mindlessly obliterate the remarkable progress she and Laurel had made tonight. For a while there she had felt so encouraged over the direction they were heading that she allowed herself to be swept away on wings of hope. What a fool she’d been! Now, only barren emptiness remains where once there was a verdant field lush with promise, and she has no one but herself to blame for the dramatic and pervasive wasting.

With no tears left to cry and nowhere to hide from her guilt and shame, Dinah remains motionless upon couch until long after the sun has once again arisen in the East. Those hours are some of the most lonely and wretched of her life.

#dctv #arrow #fanfic #dinahsiren #dinah drake #laurel lance #black siren

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invisibletinkerer · 6 years

Text

Fic: 30 Seconds Later (chapter 6)

Chapter 1 – Chapter 2 – Chapter 3 – Chapter 4 – Chapter 5 -- Chapter 6 -- Chapter 7

Length: ~4000 words

AO3 Link.

As it turned out, Stanley really did still have some of Ford’s supply of mercury. After some searching they found it tucked away in a crate near the far end of the attic space, the crate labeled ‘Useless toxic shit’ with black marker. There was another crate next to it labeled ‘Useful toxic shit’, too. When Ford questioned Stanley about it, he scratched the back of his head and mumbled something about the portal.

Of course, the portal didn’t use mercury, and the portal had been Stanley’s focus. It was still hard to imagine his twin brother getting through all the science needed to understand the technology – but the labeling scheme was undeniably the Stanley he knew.

As for moonstones, Stanley sold them in the gift shop, together with a few other types of crystalline rocks that he explained could be marketed as ‘mysterious’.

“Moonstones are mysterious, Stanley,” Ford protested, running his fingers through the drawer of polished rocks he was presented with. Stanley’s whole schtick was disturbing. He deliberately focused on the stones and picked a few of the larger ones that would be suitable for the barrier, pocketing them. “To be more precise,” he continued, “The properties of moonstones in conjunction with the supernatural have been insufficiently studied. They’re a key component in the cure for lycanthropy, for example, but I never managed to isolate exactly how it works.” Of course, that had been before Bill, when all he had cared about was finding answers to questions that few people even thought to ask. Before he’d been assured that he would change the world.

“You know I’m—” Stanley grimaced. “—I’m not actually gonna charge you for those.”

“What?”

“Reflex. I’m not used to giving away merchandise. Don’t worry, I really aren’t gonna charge you.”

Ford threw him a suspicious glare.

“Anyway, glad to hear you still get excited over nerd stuff.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Stanley shrugged, a small smile on his face. “I guess it means I’ve missed you.” For a moment there was something of teenage Stanley in his pose, or in his tone, and maybe, just maybe, Ford had missed him too.

He’d missed him so much.

Something in Ford’s guts twisted. He couldn’t stand it. Not now, not here. “Then how could you do all this?” he snapped, turning around and gesturing at the shop. The words poured out as soon as he let them. “You could have done anything! And you choose to take my identity and use it to mock everything I’ve worked for?”

Stanley looked at him with a pained expression, but seemed at a momentary loss for words.

Ford paced a small circle, flexing both hands. The mockery hurt more than the fact that so much was gone. It didn’t matter, he knew it didn’t. Bill mattered, the portal and the rift mattered, false advertising and unrealistically taxidermized jackalopes didn’t. It’d been thirty years, Stanley had lived a whole life here, and Stanford’s work had not changed the world – and that was a good thing.

And yet it was all wrong. “I don’t understand why! You know the Gravity Falls anomalies are real, and yet you – you pretend to pretend that they are!”

Stanley sighed and leaned back with his elbows on the counter. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I’m doing.”

“What possessed you to—” Ford stopped, backing off a few steps before he even realized what he was doing. There was a yellow glint in Stanley’s eyes.

Stanley stared at him. “Oh no. Ford, no.”

Ford was shaking his head. Stanley’s eyes were human. Something had been reflected in his glasses. That’s all it was. It had to be all it was.

“Stanford, remember to breathe.”

Ford hit his back against a shelf. He resisted the urge to pick up something – anything – to use as a weapon. Stanley wasn’t going to attack him and he was fine. He managed to take a deep breath and felt his shoulders sag slightly. “I’m—I’m alright,” he said. “I just thought I saw – something.”

“Yeah...” Stanley said slowly. He came a few steps closer, lifting his glasses and opening his eyes wide. “No demons here, see?”

“No.” Ford straightened his back. “Of course not.”

Stanley released a sigh. “Y’know,” he said pensively, “I always suspected you’d hate this Mystery Shack business.” He crossed his arms. “I guess I should apologize for that, but it’s not like I did it because I wanted to mock you. It just turned out I’m pretty good at making people pay for overpriced souvenirs and made-up stories, and I did need the money.” He met Ford’s eyes again, the lines in his face making him look older than ever.

Ford took a deep breath. “Yes, I know,” he said tensely. “You needed money.”

“I could hardly do it your way, Poindexter. I’m not a scientist.”

That made Ford huff in spite of himself. “I would have agreed on that more readily before you operated my portal.”

“Heh.” Stanley gave him a tilted smile. “Doesn’t count. I couldn’t make money off that, could I?”

Maybe not – or maybe he could have, but he’d never tried. Ford should have been happy for that. He gestured vaguely around the gift shop again. “But why this?”

“A bit of a long story. Wanna hear it?”

It would be an utter waste of time. None of it mattered. He didn’t want to know. “Yes,” he said.

Somehow the two of them ended up in Stanley’s TV chair as his old twin told him about the first few weeks and years after he’d found himself alone in an unfamiliar house with a burnt-out portal. Well, Stanley ended up in the chair, with Ford perching on one of the armrests next to the well-preserved T-rex skull that Ford had found once and Stanley for some reason had turned into a makeshift coffee table.

Apparently Stanley had been too broke to buy food. The townspeople had mistaken him for Stanford and offered him money for tours of his collections, so of course he’d taken the offer. And since he didn’t know what the items actually were, he’d resorted to fakes and jokes to satisfy the customers. Afterwards, he’d kept doing it because it worked. Ford had to admit it made a desperate and utterly Stanley sort of sense.

Stanley never said it explicitly, but it started to occur to Ford that his brother had been homeless at the time he’d arrived in Gravity Falls. Homeless, broke, and with no particular marketable skills. The revelation made a few things fall into place, but at the same time it shattered an assumption that Ford had been clinging to for over a decade – Stanley hadn’t been fine after being banished from home at seventeen. A trickle of old, long-suppressed guilt threatened to well up in his throat, but he pushed it back down. It was well past obsolete, in any case.

Stanley was fine now. And if he wasn’t, it was once again his own fault.

For bringing Ford back. The irony was thick as tar.

Ford didn’t ask about details when Stanley mentioned faking his own death. To all the world Stanley was dead, and Stanford was a changed man. He didn’t ask about their family, either. Had their mother bought it? Had Shermie? Had Ford’s existence really been so negligible that no one had noticed or cared? He knew the answer, and the alternative. He’d ‘change the world’. This had to be a preferable state.

Stanley went on to tell him how he’d developed the business, what worked and what didn’t, and how he simultaneously inched his way towards an understanding of the portal’s construction. Listening to him, it sounded like this tourist trap had been the first time he’d actually been successful at something, but at the same time he’d kept berating himself for failing to make the portal work.

Ford kept his half-digested thoughts to himself. He’d asked for information – now he knew. He just didn’t know what to do with it.

“It seems you did well for yourself,” he said finally.

“You still don’t like it.”

“No.” He couldn’t. He braided his hands together and smiled slightly. “You made millions, didn’t you?”

That was the wrong thing to say. Stanley stared at him like he’d been punched. For a moment Ford thought he was going to physically punch back. In the end, though, his brother merely leaned his gray head back and chuckled. “Put it all together and I definitely did. How about that?”

Ford didn’t reply. He opened his palms again and found himself gazing at his own fingers. There were half a dozen emotions warring for expression in his guts, but nothing came out.

This wasn’t important. This didn’t matter. This was half his brother’s life. He should never have asked. He half-registered that the stinging cuts on his chest had morphed into a throbbing ache that was starting to spread to his head. He hadn’t had any coffee since he woke up and he should fix that.

“Look, Sixer,” Stanley said, breaking him out of it, “If you’re still thinking about that science project, I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t thinking about that. Was he? “You ruined my chances, Stanley!”

“I know! It was an accident, but I was being a knucklehead 17-year-old about it. I’m apologizing, I don’t know what else I can do!”

“What’s the difference!” Stanford stood up and immediately wobbled, trying to hide it by putting a hand on the armrest and turning to face his brother. “I’m up against a demon that’s going to destroy the world and I don’t even have access to a laboratory because you turned my house into a curiosity!”

Stanley rose to his feet too, making Ford step backwards and collide with the TV. “We’re up against a demon, because you decided that making demonic pacts was a thing a scientist should do!” He pushed a finger painfully against Ford’s chest. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I am not you! I couldn’t live your life!”

“Then why did you pretend to be me?”

“I had no choice! Dammit Ford, have you been listening at all? It’s been thirty years! What did you expect?”

“I didn’t!” It all came down to that. It didn’t matter. He didn’t expect to survive long enough for it to become a problem. He still had to stand against Bill. But it hurt. “I didn’t! Expect! Thirty years!” He sank down on the floor with his back to the TV, panting.

The angry frustration drained from Stanley’s face. “I—” he tried, then stopped. “Of course you didn’t,” he muttered, scratching the back of his head. He crouched in front of Ford. “If it helps, neither did I.”

They sat in silence for a several heartbeats, neither quite looking at the other.

“It’s ridiculous,” Ford said eventually, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. “We’re wasting time and the rift is still sitting in the basement.” He took a deep breath. “There’s a certain non-reproduceable substance hidden near the center of Gravity Falls Valley that I believe could be used to neutralize the rift by sealing it away. I need to go there and retrieve it as soon as possible.”

Stanley frowned. “Not today, you’re not,” he said, as if there could be no argument. “We’re gonna wait for Mabel and the girls. And assuming they get that unicorn hair, we’re gonna set up the barrier, and then we’re gonna consider ourselves safe for a few more days while you recover from sleep-deprivation and malnutrition and whatever else it is you’re suffering from. If it needs to be done sooner, you’ll have to send one of us out.”

Ford opened his mouth to protest, but Stanley raised a hand to stop him. “I have eyes. You’re still weak as a kitten and I don’t trust you to either drive or hike, and I don’t want to have to carry you.”

“Yes, dad,” Ford said sarcastically.

Stanley huffed. “Our dad would have told you to man up and walk it off, and you know it.”

“I know.” Ford still wasn’t going to ask about their family. “He might have been right, too.”

“Not gonna risk it.” He reached out and patted Ford’s arm.

Ford sighed. His body would surely hold up as long as he wasn’t attacked by anything. And Bill wasn’t going to allow him to rest for long. But if the barrier worked and it was safe – maybe a night and a day to collect himself. He’d allow himself that. “But Mabel could still fail,” he reminded both of them.

“In that case we’ll have to make some better sleeping arrangements for you. We’ll figure it out.”

“Mr Pines!” Soos appeared through the doorway from the gift shop. “I’ve found something that’s like, a problem. Since we have a secret basement and we don’t want the shack to fall down there or anything. I’m thinking you should probably come and look at it as soon as possible before we get the concrete doods to fix the foundation.” He glanced at Stanford. “If it’s not a really bad time.”

“It’s fine, Soos.” Stan rose to his feet and stretched his back. Ford wouldn’t be surprised if he was happy to have an excuse to get away, except he didn’t go immediately. “Dipper!” he called instead towards the direction of the stairs. “Come down here!”

“Coming!” Dipper called from upstairs, and a moment later he appeared in the hallway, surprisingly with a small pig trailing him. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, we’re great,” Stanley told him. “I’m gonna have to go take care of some business with the repairs, though. And I figured, you’re a nerd, my brother’s a nerd, you probably wanna get to know each other a bit, right? Well, he’s all yours.”

Dipper perked up. “Is that okay?” he asked Ford. “You don’t have anything more important to do?”

Ford stood up, deliberately dusting himself off. “I might, but I don’t think my brother is going to let me.” Considering he’d just called a 12-year-old to babysit him. He sighed, putting his hands away behind his back. “It’s fine, though. Dipper.” He had indeed wanted to talk to the nephew. “I’ve been meaning to ask you some questions.”

“Really? I’ve got so many questions for you too!”

“Excellent,” Stanley said. “I’ll leave you to it.” He disappeared through the gift shop with Soos.

Dipper almost pulled Ford back into Stanley’s seat in the TV chair. It was too soft – remaining on the floor would have been better, but it was too late to change his mind when Dipper squeezed down next to him, making him gasp involuntarily as the boy scrambled painfully against his injuries. It hurt too much to leave him in any danger of sleeping, at least.

Dipper didn’t seem to notice, being busy taking out a small notebook and a ballpoint pen from his vest pocket. “For example,” he said, clicking his pen, “How did you find out about Gravity Falls in the first place? Is it the only place in the world that has these anomalies or is it just that there’s so many of them in one place here? And is there some kind of reason for that? Do you have a map over the whole valley somewhere? Or a list of all the creatures? Oh, and I’ve seen some weird stuff that I don’t think even existed in the 80s, like video games coming to life, so do you think there’s some anomalies that just stop existing too, or will could it be that the number of creatures can only increase?”

Ford blinked. He had not expected a deluge of what seemed like innocent enthusiasm. It was different from Mabel’s weird charm, but the intensity was... familiar. Stanley was right, he probably did have something in common with this child. That wasn’t necessarily positive. “Why do you want to know these things?”

“Because it’s there!” Dipper exclaimed. “There’s so much out there that people don’t know about! Isn’t that why you started researching weird stuff, too?”

“Yes.” Ford glanced at his hands in his lap. “That didn’t end well. You’ve met Bill – you have an indication of this.”

“I guess.” Dipper ran his fingers over a row of puncture marks on his arm. “But we don’t have to talk about Bill. It’s not all like that! It’s fascinating and exciting and sometimes even when it’s scary you’ll figure something out and it just works and you get a kick out of it!” He grinned and punctuated the words with a raised fist, and even though his elbow scratched Ford’s chest it was a very contagious enthusiasm. “Did you know that you can blow gnomes away with a leaf blower? You’d think they’d be too heavy, but they’re not!”

Ford raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t know that. That’s interesting. How did you find out?”

“Mabel did! It was right at the beginning of summer – these gnomes tried to kidnap her and make her their new queen, so she and I had to fight them, and that’s how we made them go away.”

“The gnomes are swarming this summer?” He supposed it must have been long enough. “And they still get over-excited and try to kidnap human girls for queens. That never works out for anyone, but try to tell that to a gnome. Do you know if they’ve sorted it out yet?��

“I don’t actually know... Is this a thing that happens often?” Dipper scribbled something in his notebook.

“Only when an old queen dies. They’re supposed to wait for the next one to hatch, but sometimes they get restless and bad judgements happen. I’d guess this is the first swarm since I witnessed one back in 1977.”

Dipper’s eyes widened. “So gnomes are like – bees?”

“They’re somewhat like eusocial insects, yes! But there are lots of differences. For example, gnomes don’t—” Ford stopped himself abruptly and grimaced. He was surprised how easily he could still run off on a tangent when offered an interesting subject. “Never mind gnomes. I want to know what you’ve been using my journal for.”

“Um.” Dipper put his pen down. “Mostly for reference. I always checked with the journal whenever we found something weird, because a lot of the time you’d written about it already. And I mean, I only had one of them, but it was still really helpful a lot of times. And then I used the blank pages to make my own entries on some new stuff that happened. Important stuff!” He hesitated and looked up at Ford. “I hope you’re not mad at me for that.”

He certainly didn’t appreciate it. It wasn’t right that someone else would add to his journals – he hadn’t even let Fiddleford touch them – and they should never have been exposed to other people in the first place. But he hadn’t even read Dipper’s additions, and indeed, there was no doubt that a 12-year-old Stanford Pines would have done the same thing. “I haven’t decided yet,” he said instead.

“Oh.” Dipper’s eyes fell. “But there’s so much that has happened this summer! And your journal has been such a big part of it! I brought it with me everywhere – it was like this huge adventure right under my fingertips, just waiting to come out into the light.” He smiled wistfully. “I couldn’t just leave it alone, could I?”

“Probably not,” Stanford said with a small sigh. “I certainly couldn’t.”

Dipper beamed far more brightly than he should have at that. “So will you tell me more about Gravity Falls?”

Ford almost smiled back. “I suppose I could. But—” His caught Dipper’s eyes. “—I want to know some things from you, first. Most importantly, why did you have that memory gun?” That was concerning. The memory erasing gun was an extremely dangerous weapon, and there could be very few innocent reasons to possess one.

Dipper’s smile turned into an uncomfortable grimace. “That’s...” He hesitated. “You know about the Society of the Blind Eye?”

“I know of them.” He hadn’t heard the name, but there was no doubt that it referred to Fiddleford’s memory erasing cult-like activities. And it seemed it was still going on thirty years later. “Are you a member?”

Dipper flinched. “No!” He shook his head adamantly. “Absolutely not! It’s the complete opposite!” He clicked the pen a few more times like he was trying to focus. “Basically, me and a few others found out about this cult that were erasing people’s memories of the supernatural. And we didn’t like that. So in the end we managed to erase all the cult members’ memories of the cult – it’s all gone now. I guess I kept that gun as a kind of a trophy. Maybe that’s bad. But it did save us from the government agents!”

That was too easy. There were too many things he wasn’t saying. But— “You’re saying it doesn’t exist anymore?”

Dipper made a small shrug. “Not for the last week.”

“And in that time, have you used the memory gun on yourself at all? Or on anyone in your family?”

Dipper looked almost offended at the suggestion. “What? No. Definitely not.” He looked straight up at Ford. “I would never, ever do that.” It was the certainty of a child, but at least he didn’t seem to be tempted.

Stanford took a deep breath. “Tell me,” he said, forcing himself to ask, “was Fiddleford McGucket still with the cult when this happened?” The fact that the cult existed after thirty years was condemning enough, but the children had known Fiddleford’s name earlier, and that was a logical conclusion.

“No. He wasn’t.” Dipper’s reply was immediate, but he didn’t volunteer any more information.

Ford felt his shoulders relax slightly. The trauma Ford had caused his friend had left a legacy, but at the very least it hadn’t become Fiddleford’s life. He could have recovered and returned to his family.

Or he could be dead. Dipper’s strange discomfort suggested the latter. But it had been thirty years, and he didn’t want to know. Not yet. “I see,” was all he said. It had to be good enough for now.

Dipper took that as the end of the matter and quickly regained his enthusiasm. It was clear that he’d had a truly intensive last few months, and most of it was misadventures that he was more than happy to tell Ford about.

Apparently he was friends with an eight-headed multi-bear – Ford wondered if it was the same as the seven-headed one he had met, in which case it kept multiplying throughout its life, or if there was a hidden colony of them somewhere – and his sister had dated a young merman for a while. He’d once captured a gremloblin – an impressive feat, though trying to showcase it to tourists had not worked out so well – and met several different types of ghosts. The description of the derelict convenience store made Ford pause, knowing that he must have had met the old couple now haunting it, but not particularly remembering their faces. Hearing about the lumberjack haunting Northwest Manor was fascinating, though – he’d heard about the 150-year curse, but it hadn’t been activated yet at the time. There had been warring Lilli-putt-ians in the local minigolf course, and apparently the some kind of computer generated persons had come to life. Dipper had even experimented with the size-changing crystals and the advanced copying machine.

And Dipper didn’t just chatter on about it, but he asked questions, wanting to know Ford’s opinion, wanting explanations for phenomena that he didn’t understand, wanting elaborations on the bigger picture. He didn’t mention Bill, but he wanted to know about the research. The things that had gone into the journals before he had reached too high and everything had fallen apart. The sheer joy of discovery, and the kind of fear that was temporary and faded with hindsight.

Stanford got caught up in it. Dipper’s stories brought him back to a time when he could still laugh, and the world had still seemed amazing in itself. At some point he brought out the third journal from his coat and they went through some of the entries together.

Tensions that he hadn’t even realized existed in his body were starting to melt away, and maybe, somehow, he was going to be alright. He knew in the back of his head that he couldn’t think that, but he was so tired of being scared. He was so tired.

Dipper was flipping through the journal and mumbling to himself, looking for some particular entry, and over by the gift shop he could hear Stanley talking loudly on the phone to someone. He felt almost warm, almost comfortable. The skin on his chest and stomach ached, but it seemed so far away. His eyes were closing. They shouldn’t do that, but he could barely remember why.

#gravity falls #fanfic #30 seconds later #forduary #paranoid ford #stanford pines #stanley pines #dipper pines #twin paradox #it writes

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bluraaven · 6 years

Text

Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter 3

"What a shithole."

Reynauld put down the bag that contained their collected 'evidence' and followed Guyot's gaze. He wasn't sure if his friend was referring to the condition of the room before or after they'd been through it, or to the motel as a whole. Somehow it was impossible to imagine that it had ever seen better times. It was a shabby place, where electric outings were the norm, and where the rooms were in worse shape than most of the prison cells he had seen.

Through the grimy windows and broken shutters only a little light managed to find its way to illuminate the sad pile that were their meagre findings.

On the upside, the prosecution had sanctioned the raid almost as soon as they could pinpoint a location. On the downside, it was only a partial success. They had some of Dismas' belongings now, but they did not have the man himself. The Chief had wanted a bust, and now all they had to show for it was a duffel bag full of clothes and a few toiletries.

"What do we have here?" Despite her being hidden behind the sofa, there was no mistaking the excitement in Lin's voice. She laughed, then held up a flat object, waving it around triumphantly.

"What's that?" Guyot asked, his eyes narrowing in an attempt to make out what it was their colleague had found.

"A notebook." Lin said, climbing back to her feet with a huge grin.

"Good work!" Reynauld praised with a smile of his own. This had to be the best find yet. Trust the sniper to find something good. "Is that everything?"

"Yes," Lin confirmed. "I was hoping to find a data stick too, or a CD, but no. Only the laptop, and of course it would be hidden in the last place left," she huffed. "So what do we do now?"

So far they had checked under the rug for hidey holes, they'd moved all the furnishings to check the spaces behind them; and finally they had taken apart some of the furniture. There wasn't an inch left that had not had at least two police officers check it for something that might help their case.

"Bag it," Reynauld decided with a nod at the notebook, "And let's wrap this up."

"On it," Lin answered. "I'll tell the others we're all done." She pulled out her radio and disappeared through the doorway. Reynauld nodded absent-mindedly, taking one last look at the room. There was no telling that there had been a squad digging through it. Everything was back in its place, and the room looked exactly as it had when they had arrived – minus any trace of its former occupant.

"Think he'll come back?" Guyot asked quietly.

"He would be stupid if he did," Reynauld responded, not at all alarmed by Guyot's mind-reading abilities. After being friends for as many years as they had been, he had learned to live with Guyot's occasional bouts of clairvoyance. "And we have been told he's anything but."

There was no point in waiting around. Reynauld closed the door, and made for the staircase. They would discreetly station a few police officers here, but Dismas had proven himself to be good enough at evading the authorities that there was not much hope of him returning to this place after their less-than-subtle approach.

"I guess the Chief makes mistakes too," Guyot dared to speak up when they were halfway down to the lobby.

"It wouldn't have hurt him to listen to me," Reynauld growled. He refrained from hitting the rail, because it might actually come undone and kill someone on the ground floor. Which would mean even more work for him. "We could have had Paixdecoeur behind bars by now! Why put me in charge if he was going to- ," he paused and made a vague motion in the air with his hand, "fuck it all up anyway." Reynauld's shoulders slumped, most of the anger gone now.

He had opposed the raid from the start. If he'd had a choice, Reynauld would have dealt with the matter the exact same way they did most undercover work. Take the time to prepare and to verify their target was here. And then strike before they guy knew what hit him.

"Hey," Guyot said, giving Reynauld's shoulder a pat. "We'll get him. He can't run forever."

Unless he had another hideout somewhere. The one thing they had not found was money. That meant that Dismas was not only smart enough not to trust the cleaning staff, it also meant he may have prepared for this very case. If he packed up and left the country, they had no chance of picking up the trail.

"Meanwhile," Guyot lifted the bag that contained the notebook Lin had found, "What do you think we'll find?" he asked with a grin and a waggle of his eyebrows.

"I'll let you find out," Reynauld sighed.

Back at the station, Dismas' clothing was searched for weapons or illegal substances, of which neither was found. It was merely old and worn, but not making him guilty of any crime other than a bad sense of fashion. Forensics identified Dismas' toiletries as soap and toothpaste – the latter being Wintry Spearmint by Dentacare, as one of Paracelsus' lab assistants was happy to inform Reynauld before asking if he wanted a spit sample (they'd already ran an unauthorized DNA test for reasons unbeknownst to any mortal).

Reynauld thanked him, declined the kind offer, and then backed out of the office without dropping eye contact until he was safe behind the doorsill.

From there on it was back to his office via a detour by the coffee machine, and then on to where Guyot was sitting bent over the notebook. An old, scratched animal rights sticker that Reynauld had not noticed before indicated that the computer may not always have belonged to Dismas.

"What have you found so far?" he asked, leaning against the desk.

Guyot cast him a dark look, and Reynauld found his spirits lifting marginally. There was nothing quite as good at improving one's mood as putting someone else in a bad one.

"A lot of steamy guy on guy action," Guyot replied, "and I have to look through every goddamn file, just in case there's something hidden there."

Reynauld hummed and took a sip of his coffee. "Have fun."

"Ain't that more up your alley?" Guyot snapped, so Reynauld flipped him off, and left him to his work.

It was a couple of hours later when Reynauld decided to make another round to see what progress had been made. The sun was rising, streaking the black sky with ribbons of orange and pink, but except for those who had been on the raid or worked the night shift the bureau was still mostly deserted.

That excluded forensics and IT of course, but the current belief was those guys never slept anyway.

Lin, Ros and Stanley handed in their reports, and this time, instead of giving his attitude, Guyot looked at Reynauld with the woeful eyes of a suffering puppy. So Reynauld took pity and grabbed an empty seat, deciding to keep his friend some company.

"Anything new?"

"Who even names their porn folder 'PORN'?" Guyot complained, but apparently he had found nothing incriminating.

Reynauld shrugged and looked at the screen where two guys were having a quick tumble in the shower. And by quick he meant quick, because the video was playing at triple speed, which made it rather amusing to watch.

Guyot told him about his plans to move together with Lucy, his girlfriend of two years, and Reynauld listened, making the appropriate noises at the appropriate time, and stealing a discreet look at the screen every now and then.

Secretly – because he would die if that thought was ever spoken aloud – he had to admit that Dismas didn't have the worst taste in erotica. At least all the couples seemed to be genuinely enjoying what they were doing.

Eventually, Guyot sighed and rubbed his temples, and then hit the pause button. He snorted at the frozen image of one of the actor's private area and slapped the laptop shut.

Reynauld just hoped that sometime before he had made sure that it was not password protected, or they'd have to take it to IT.

They decided to grab a coffee, even though it was a terrible idea because night shift was almost over, and Reynauld rather looked forward to going home and falling into bed face-first.

As it turned out, they were not the first ones to arrive at the kitchen.

"Hey, Lin," Guyot said, waiting until she ha d refilled the coffee machine before brewing a cup for Reynauld and for himself. "What's up, Para?"

Paracelsus worked in forensics, and was officially forbidden to come within thirty feet of the kitchen without a police officer accompanying her. There had been one too many cases of someone taking a spontaneous nap after having a cup of coffee, and it had taken the entire PD and a restraint order to convince her to keep her experiments to the inmates.

The doctor with her white lab coat always looked a bit out of place. She had a slight hunch and large eyes, amplified by her glasses which gave her the appearance of a giant bird.

Reynauld was happy to sit down on the worn but comfy couch and to sip his coffee. It tasted burned. He waved off Para's offer of yellow and blue pills ("harmless stimulants, I swear!") and zoned out, letting Guyot and Lin do most of the talking.

"Hey doc, that girlfriend of yours isn't she – " Lin asked suddenly, and Reynauld realized he had long since stopped following the conversation.

"A critically acclaimed archaeology professor?" Para interrupted, wringing her hands. "Yes! Yes, she is."

"Is that a mugshot?" Guyot asked, stretching to see something Paracelsus was holding, and while doing so he jostled Reynauld, who only narrowly avoided spilling his coffee into his lap. It had grown cold, and he put the practically full mug away.

"No!" Para squealed, pulling away her precious photograph from curious hands and prying eyes. "It's a driver's licence picture."

"Okay," Guyot laughed. "Easy there, doc. Ain't my business whom you date."

"What time is it?" Lin yawned.

"Two minutes past five," Para answered, after checking a silver wristwatch. Reynauld had never seen her wear one before, but then maybe it had been hidden by the floppy lab coat.

"One more hour," Guyot moaned. "Someone shoot me please. No thanks, Para."

"It's just something to induce a harmless coma-like state that is perfectly revertible with a shot of –," Paracelsus broke off as no one was listening to her anyway and pocketed the tiny and innocent-looking pink pill with obvious disappointment.

Most the hour passed in a stupor that ended abruptly when they received a paged message from downstairs that the first officers of the day shift had arrived, Mallory amongst them. That gave them roughly a minute and a half to clear out the area, remove the evidence of any coffee breaks, and to return to their desks.

Guyot fell into his chair with a groan, and opened Dismas' notebook with an expression of intense pain upon his face. It had just booted, when–

"Special agent Reynauld," A voice from behind them called out. Reynauld and Guyot both turned to see Mallory approach – at least until she stopped dead in her tracks. "... is that a penis!?" Mallory's voice rose high enough that even Ros and Marci stuck their heads out of their cubicles, a curious look on their faces.

"It's part of the investigation," Reynauld managed to force out, while next to him Guyot turned a shade that made his freckles indistinguishable from his skin. At least the sound was off.

Mallory shook her head, and left, muttering something under her breath.

"Sometimes I hate my life," Guyot mumbled. He still looked like he wanted to melt into the floor. Reynauld snorted and leaned back, kicking up his feet to rest on the corner of the desk. He checked the watch. Twenty more minutes.

But then all thoughts of going home were driven from his mind when next to him Guyot shot upright.

"I found something!" Guyot shouted and tapped the screen. "There's a text file in here, I knew it!"

Reynauld too sat more upright, feeling awake all of a sudden. Would they really find something? Contacts, numbers, maybe a location? Something to link Paixdecoeur to the Grave Robber, or something to prove he had worked for the Wolf? Information on El Abuelo, even?

The file took an insultingly long amount of time to load. Guyot was drumming his fingers on the table, but stopped when a white document opened. Black on white, in a neat cursive script, there appeared four lines of text:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Feds are pigs–

Joke's on you.

Reynauld had one look at Guyot's flabbergast face, and he managed to hold on to his composure for all of three seconds before he burst out laughing.

"Charming," Guyot said flatly and threw a pen at Reynauld that harmlessly bounced off his chest. "This isn't funny, you know?" But, as if to belie his words, he too was cracking up. "What an arsehole," he hiccupped, "what a complete and utter dickbiscuit."

"Do you want to report your findings to the Chief?" Reynauld asked once the first fit had subsided, triggering another salve of laughter.

"You do realize we have zero proof of... anything," Guyot asked a moment later, putting a dampener on their newfound good mood.

"But we do know Paixdecoeur is a wanted man in the North," Reynauld reasoned. "Even if we don't find anything else, there are arrest warrants for him in five City-States, and that's only the ones we know about because they are cooperating with us."

"Then this was utterly pointless anyway," Guyot decided, stood up and stretched. He worked the kinks out of his back, muttering, "I'm sending this in. Maybe there's hidden files or what the fuck ever. I hope they're full of dicks too."

Reynauld had to grin at the temper tantrum. "They're IT, they've seen weirder shit."

Guyot hmphed. His finger was already hovering over the notebook's on-off button, when the machine made a plopping sound and a little blinking window alerted them they had just received a new message.

Guyot looked at Reynauld with his best 'what did I just do?' face.

Reynauld raised a brow. "Aren't you going to check that?"

"Looks like a certain 'Sweetheart' has cancelled his or her appointment with our guy," Guyot said a moment later and turned the laptop so that Reynauld could see for himself.

Hey... so something came up and I'm afraid I can't make it to Jubie's tonight. Pls don't be mad?

Love ya, xoxo

"Tonight," Reynauld said, giving Guyot a pointed look.

"Come on, you don't mean to – " his friend began, then shook his head. "Of course you do. Does 'Jubie's' even ring a bell?"

"Yeah," Reynauld replied, surprising himself and Guyot, both. He shrugged, but the name did sound familiar. "Open the chat log," he commanded.

Guyot pulled up the log for the past couple of years and once it had loaded, he scrolled up a bit. They found a blurry but recent picture that looked like it had been taken on a phone, by a very drunk person. Despite its poor quality, it was unmistakably their guy in the parking lot of what Reynauld guessed to be a bar. Unfortunately, the neon lights in the back were too unfocused to make out what they said.

Reynauld suddenly felt wide awake. "Go through everything," he instructed his friend, tapping the laptop with his index finger. "I will tell the others to get searching, now."

It may be by accident, but they were on to something. He could feel it.

"Everything?" Guyot repeated with audible reluctance.

Reynauld nodded, and left him to gather the rest of the team for a briefing. A while later Guyot found him in his office, pacing.

"Rey. Marci's got something. Jubert's Taphouse."

Of course there was a chance that it wasn't the right place, or that the message was a code for something else, but it was their only solid lead. They had to follow it.

"What about the notebook? Reynauld wanted to know, recalling that his friend had a task to perform.

"I gave it to Ros," Guyot replied, waving the matter away.

"Excellent." Reynauld grabbed the keys to his locker out of his desk drawer. "Let's go."

"You want to go there?" Guyot asked. "Now?" He looked at the clock. "It's seven. My shift's been over for an hour."

Reynauld gave him a pat on the back, which they both agreed was better than a boot in the arse, and they jogged downstairs to change into their normal day clothes. This morning's trouble meant that they did not have to borrow an unmarked car, they could just take Reynauld's.

Jubert's taphouse was not easy to find. It was a squat one-story pub sitting between much larger and more modern buildings. Fifth Square was just one street in the labyrinth that was the old industrial district. Except for some breweries and the one or other atelier most of the factories had shut down. Now expensive loft apartments could be encountered right next to brick and glass warehouses which had been turned into clubs.

Barques were dropping people off at the nearby pier, and restaurants were popping up left and right. Everywhere advertisements reminded you that the huge empty halls could be rented for a party.

Amidst all that, Jubert's taphouse seemed to be stuck in the last century – if one could look past the electric lighting. Reynauld looked over at the passenger seat, where Guyot was watching the establishment with his chin propped up in his hand.

"Shall we?"

Behind the counter, a bored looking woman with too much eye makeup barely made the effort of lifting her painted eyelids when they entered.

"Where's the – ?" Reynauld did not get any further before she pointed down the corridor. He nodded and followed in the direction her neon orange nail pointed. The pretext of having to use the restroom gave him the opportunity to get somewhat familiar with the layout of the bar. The kitchen area was closed off, as was a back entrance into a high-walled courtyard. If he had to guess, Reynauld would say it hid an illegal fighting ring. But that wasn't why they were here.

He only had a few minutes before he had to make his way back. The waitress was nowhere to be seen, and Guyot was waiting for him back at the car. He remembered why the name of the bar was familiar. Not a year ago they had taken down a drug ring just two streets further.

"Here," Guyot handed Reynauld the pack of cigs he had apparently just purchased and effectively ripped him out of his thoughts.

Reynauld stared at the small package that landed in his lap. "I quit."

"Yeah, well." Guyot shrugged. "I never started, so keep them." A moment of silence, then, "You're thinking."

"Hm?"

"You got your thinkin' face on," Guyot remarked snickered, and then added, "and nothing good's ever come of that."

"Thanks," Reynauld replied drily, but decided to share his thoughts with his best friend and partner. "You won't like it," he decided.

"The last time you said that we were in a stolen tank in Tipolis."

"Heh." Reynauld had to chuckle. He might grow old and forget where he lived or what his name was, but he knew Guyot would never let him forget that. "It wasn't so bad."

"They were firing mortars at us!" Guyot recalled.

"Look," Reynauld interrupted the tirade that he knew was coming. "We don't know much about Paixdecoeur, but we've seen enough to be sure of one thing: he likes men, and uniforms. And... I still got some of my old army stuff."

"You're right," Guyot replied. "I don't like this." A pause, then, "Has it occurred to you that he might have downloaded this stuff just to mess with us? That poem was no coincidence."

"No, I am utterly naive and it's never crossed my mind," Reynauld retorted. He thought it was highly unlikely their guy had gone through all the bother of actually picking thematically matching videos just to potentially prank some law enforcement officer.

"But... why?" Guyot asked. "Why not just... stick to the plan?"

"We don't have a plan," Reynauld reminded him.

"If that Dismas guy is there, we can arrest him straightaway," Guyot suggested.

"I don't want to find out how many of those patrons own illegal weapons," Reynauld countered, "Do you?"

He knew by the defeated sigh that he had just won the argument. "If I can get him out without raising suspicion, I will do that. If it doesn't work, we do it the hard way."

"So, what? You just walk up to the guy and chat him up?"

Reynauld shrugged. "That's usually how it goes, yeah."

"Fine!" Guyot threw up his arms in surrender. "Just tell me this; how do you plan to convince the Chief?"

"I... don't," Reynauld answered after a moment's consideration. "I'll ask Mallory"

"Good fucking luck."

"Thank you," Reynauld said. And just because it seemed necessary to point it out, "You're coming with me."

Guyot's contribution to that conversation that happened twenty minutes later, was to furiously wave his arms every time Reynauld had said 'we', whilst pointing his thumb at Reynauld, who could actually see his every move out of the corner of his eyes.

"Did I understand you correctly," Mallory clarified after Reynauld had finished describing their plan. "That you are asking me for permission to seduce your target?"

AN: you cann find the whole story here

#blu's corner #fanfiction #writing #darkest dungeon #dismas #reynauld #Reymas

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bigeyedchangelingchild · 6 years

Text

I’ve been sitting on the thought for this post for a couple of weeks but it’s 3:52 am and I have class tomorrow morning so now is the time I have enough nervous energy to write it up and am sleep deprived enough to not care about the consequences.

My grandfather and nana on my dad’s side were in the army, my grandfather an engineer and my nana a nurse. My grandfather was a career army man, and he did well, but both of them joined because they were poor, smart, and desperate for an education. I know the bad things my grandfather did, and he never talked much about it and saved money for me and even my brothers'* educations so we wouldn’t have to make the choice he made.

Despite knowledge of the awful things he did, I have also had knowledge of the good he did, and therefore have a very robust and nuanced knowledge of what the army provides. I absolutely agree that many of the things it does in its current form is bad and should be eliminated, yet many of the things it does are good, and for that reason, I don’t believe in abolishing armies.

I think that the combat aspects of armies should be eliminated and instead armies should be a reserve of physically fit individuals available for aid in natural disasters and for large projects for a limited duration.

Essentially the army should be the country’s on-call labour people. My grandfather spent time in the army engineering landmines, and that was bad, I don’t blame him for making the choice he did, as I know his position was truly unenviable, but I know that that was bad, and I’m saddened that it’s something that was invented and that my bloodline was involved. But he also helped build the Alaska highway, he helped protect people’s property and livelihoods in the 1950 red river flood.

Knowing about these emergencies that he was involved in and others that have existed in my lifetime in which the army has helped by being a surplus of trained physically fit and disciplined individuals makes me want to have one.

I want to be clear that what I mean here is that despite uses of armies that are harmful I believe that the idea of having a national group of trained and physically fit people is not in itself a flawed idea and can be used for good, and therefore I don’t believe in its elimination but rather a reformation to bring focus away from combat and towards public good.

This belief I’ve had for a long time, but I was thinking about it from the perspective of another institution that many people call for the abolishment of, the police.

I agree that a lot of what the police have done and continue to do is bad, as it is with the army, but I don’t know that its complete elimination is necessary or even good. Just because my experiences with police have been more on the side of the bad things doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be given the same nuanced look as I have afforded the army because my personal experience with them hasn’t been as poor.

So I thought about what good police do and whether we need reformation or elimination, (we absolutely need change and I’m absolutely pro-change the question is of type) and I’ve come to believe in something a bit more nuanced.

I don’t want an armed police force, I really would rather no one be armed, but it’s hard to know how much of that for me is just an anxiety about weapons so I’ll leave that part.

But I’m going to acknowledge the good that I’ve observed from police, not to say that we need police, but rather that these roles need filling.

When my mum decided to leave her abusive relationship with her wife she had a police officer escort her to the house they shared and ensure that she was safe while retrieving her stuff (some of the abuse that had happened involved her wife locking her in rooms or otherwise physically keeping her confined.) Her wife worked from home so there were no opportunities to pack and leave without her being home.

Having police available meant that when we left we had our things, my mum got her clothes, my clothes, the christening gowns that have been in our family for 2 centuries, both of our computers, and my dance stuff. We were able to leave in relative safety with our things because an officer was there.

When the Stanley cup riots happened and I had to get home and the bus route I normally took was interrupted a police officer drove me home.

There have also been the things that despite me not trusting the police to handle it properly, it actually is the job of the police to deal with and I really think the void needs to be dealt with.

For example, crime, when I was raped I didn’t trust the police to handle it and I didn’t tell anyone for ages and even now no one except one person knows both me and my rapist and knows what happened.

Despite the fact that I didn’t have an officer I trusted to turn to, having someone to take on all three paths of moving forward would’ve been good. (medical, legal, emotional, I.E. assess whether a medical visit was necessary/available, whether charges should be pressed, or if other legal remedies should be sought such as a restraining / no contact order, and whether or not I was safe emotionally and if I needed protection since it was someone I knew.) I suppose that could be the place of an EMT or a crisis counsellor, but it doesn’t feel like it’s the place of an EMT, I don’t know that the amount of medical training necessary for being an EMT makes sense in this position, and also I haven’t met many EMTs with great bedside manner and that’s important in such a situation. And I had crisis counsellors and they were recommending I contact the police because they couldn’t protect me in any way.

I don’t think the police are adequately trained for these situations either, I mean I didn’t call them, but I think if anyone should get the extra training and responsibility I think they make the most sense.

I also have had only poor experiences while working retail when asking for help after robberies, but like again, even if they are bad at it now, it’s still their job and I don’t know who else should take that place.

Basically, the point of this is to say, I want to take a more nuanced approach to the police I want them to change absolutely how they are now clearly isn’t working. But I don’t know that I’d be happy with a void in their place. I think we need to think about the circumstances where police have been useful to society and consider who takes that role.

*my brothers are half brothers and so they had no familial obligation to set up an education fund but they did anyway.

#police #army #rape ///#ask to tag #here for nuanced discussion #here for dismantling black and white thinking

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marypsue · 7 years

Text

Death of the Author 2 / 3

I am, as ever, guilty of story bloat. My planned last chapter of this fic has had to be split into two. Hey, on the bright side: more fic!

I forgot to add a warning the first time around, but this chapter contains some prime examples of Gideon being his particular brand of awful towards Mabel. Tread carefully if that’ll affect you. Also, I owe all credit to @seiya234 for the golf cart.

Part One // Part Two // Part Three

I’m also on AO3 as MaryPSue!

...

"Look at us. When'd we get so old?"

Ford looked over, meeting her brother's eyes in the mirror. "You look like Dad."

"Eugh, don't say that," Stan said, with an exaggerated shudder.

There was a moment of silence, peaceful, almost companionable. Ford was just beginning to wonder if this was the time to break it when Stan said, awkwardly, holding his own gaze in the mirror as he reached up to scratch the back of his neck; "So, you're a woman now."

"Actually -" It was probably the best she was going to get, Ford decided, biting back the words that gathered at the back of her throat. "Yes." There was nothing to be ashamed of, she knew, but her borrowed turtleneck still felt suddenly too large and filled with prickly heat.

Stan nodded, still not meeting Ford's eyes. "Gotta say, I wouldn'ta seen that one coming."

"And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing! Nothing, I just -" Stan raised both hands defensively, still not looking Ford in the eye. "Knew some girls like that, back when I was living rough. Hell, I woulda died outside a bar in New Orleans in '76 if it weren't for a couple queens in evening gloves and tiaras. Just...never woulda pegged you as the type. I still gotta wrap my head around it. How'd you end up figuring that one out, anyway? I woulda thought after seventeen years living with Dad -"

"You don't need to understand, Stanley." Maybe it was unnecessarily rude, but then, her brother never had been one for subtleties, and Ford just needed him to stop before he strayed too close to the truth and the bitter memories she'd rather try to forget. "You just need to accept that this is the way things are. The way I am." So that we can all move on to more important things, Ford's brain supplied, the memory of the dollop of starry spacetime slowly undulating in a glass containment device in the basement below them rising once again to the forefront of her thoughts.

The last thing Ford expected Stan to do was give a sheepish chuckle. "You know, that's almost exactly what Mabel said?"

"What? When -"

"Night the kids got here. I mean, the parents explained a bit when they asked me to take 'em, but Mabel was the one to sit me down and give me the crash course." Stan huffed out a laugh. “Lotta things changed since the seventies.”

Ford's mind whirled, playing back all the many, many changes to her home dimension that she'd been forced to process immediately upon arrival. "Mabel? But I thought Dipper said he -"

"Yeah, yeah, Dip's the one who's transgender or whatever they're calling it now, but..." Stan fixed Ford with a look that made her feel not unlike the first time she'd stood up in front of the grant committee. "That kid's not usually as outgoing as he was with you, you know."

"Me? Why me? He doesn't know me from a - a hole in the ground."

"That's where you're wrong, poindexter. That kid's been hero-worshipping that damn journal of yours all summer." Stan's stare softened, almost imperceptibly, before it turned into a glare. "You're his hero. And so help me, if you let him down, if you hurt those kids, I'll break your stupid glasses. And your nose with 'em."

“What? You can’t honestly think I would ever -”

Stan crossed his arms over his chest, staring in the general direction of the mirror instead of turning to face Ford. “I’m just sayin’, last time I tried to help you we nearly both got sucked into that portal of yours. Just stay away from those kids. I don’t want them in danger.”

With great effort of will – and, she thought, impressive restraint – Ford managed to bite back the selection of choice words that threatened to slip from her lips. “Fine,” she snapped, instead, turning her back on her brother. “Then you’ll ensure that they stay out of my way.”

It might have been pure spite that made her turn back when she heard the shuffle of Stanley starting to move. “And Stanley? When the summer ends, so does this Mystery Shack nonsense. You give me my house back, you give me my life back -”

“Thought you didn’t want it anymore,” Stan said, coldly, and there was something wrong with his voice. It was just slightly...off, as though Ford had tried to reconstruct his tone and cadence from –

...memory...

“Stanley?” Ford asked, but her brother only went on, as though his voice was playing from a pre-recorded script.

“You’re not Stanford Pines anymore. I’m Stanford Pines! I’ve been Stanford Pines the last thirty years! And I’ve done a better job of it than you ever did. What’d you accomplish, anyway? Causin’ the end of the world?”

“Stop it,” Ford said shortly, and Stan gave a sort of half-laugh, half-snort that had no humour in it.

“Stop what? Telling the truth? You don’t belong here anymore. There’s no place for you to fill. Stanley Pines is dead, Stanford Pines is right here. And he sure as hell never had a sister.”

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. This wasn’t – wasn’t how this conversation –

For the first time, Ford looked, not at her brother’s reflection in the glass, but at his face.

Yellow eyes glowed above a massive, wicked grin that looked much too much like the smile that Stanley wore as Mr. Mystery for comfort. Ford took a step back as the imposter turned to face her, still grinning, shoulders back, posture triumphant. Gloating.

“Bill,” Ford hissed, reaching into her coat for a weapon, only to come up empty-handed.

The imposter in front of her winked one slit-pupiled eye, pointing an index finger at her. “GOT IT IN ONE, KID! GOTTA SAY, YOU SURE DO TAKE A WHILE TO CATCH ON!”

“What are you doing here? This isn’t what -” Ford glanced around, a sudden uncertainty trailing chilly fingers up the back of her neck. “Isn’t how I remember it...”

“ISN’T IT, NOW?” Bill said, his voice dripping with mocking sympathy. “WOW, CAN’T IMAGINE WHY THAT MIGHT BE!”

“You. You did this, somehow you tampered with my memory -”

“OH, SIXER, I’M FLATTERED! BUT YOU’RE GIVING ME TOO MUCH CREDIT.” Bill waved one of Stanley’s hands dismissively, before snapping his fingers. The room around Ford suddenly burst into flame, a ring of yellow fire trapping her in close with Bill and the mirror. “NOPE, THAT PESKY BARRIER OF YOURS IS STILL DOING ITS JOB! FOR NOW.”

Ford tried to ignore the way Bill’s voice dropped into a register almost too low for human hearing to detect, the way it rumbled up her legs and thrummed in her lungs. She drew in a deep breath, trying to centre herself, control her fear. “So you’re just doing what you always do. Plaguing me with your ridiculous, pointless nightmares because there’s nothing you can do to touch me.”

Bill shrugged Stan’s shoulders, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling with a mocking grin. Ford glanced up as well, and immediately wished she hadn’t. The twisted, howling faces that emerged from the woodwork would be etched on her imagination for weeks. “HEY, YOU SAY NIGHTMARE, I SAY SNEAK PREVIEW!”

“Sneak...”

Bill’s gaze snapped back onto Ford, like a laser, focused and intent on burning a hole right through her. “REMEMBER HOW I GENEROUSLY WARNED YOU I WAS HAVING SOME FRIENDS OVER?”

Ford shook her head. The memory of the nightmare that had driven her to reveal the rift to Dipper and started this whole blasted chain of events in motion jumped immediately to mind, but she couldn’t quite string it together with what was happening around her now. “You got what you wanted. The rift is open, the world is your plaything, everything we know has changed - what could you possibly be warning me about?”

Bill’s smile, if it were possible, grew even wider, stretching Stan’s face in a way that Ford knew from painful personal experience would leave his jaw aching for days afterwards. She winced in sympathy, and that was when it struck her, like a thunderbolt.

“No,” she snapped, pointing an accusatory finger at Bill. “Stanley would never, he’s - he’d see right through you! You have nothing to offer him! He’d never make a deal with you -”

“OH, IS THAT SO?” Bill let out an enormous belly laugh, and the faces on the ceiling howled in an unholy harmony. “IT’S BEEN THIRTY YEARS, SIXER! AND YOU’RE WALKING, TALKING PROOF THAT PEOPLE CHANGE.”

Ford swallowed, hard, past the lump that had appeared, unbidden, in her throat. “You keep your filthy two-dimensional hands off of my brother, or -”

“OR YOU’LL WHAT?” Bill took two steps forward, leering into Ford’s face. She tried to step back, but the ring of flames nipped at her heels, pushing her forward into Bill. “FACE IT, FORDSY, YOU’VE ALREADY LOST! THIS WORLD IS MINE NOW! I CALL THE SHOTS! AND IF I WANT YOUR BROTHER - AND, YANNO, I THINK I DO WANT YOUR BROTHER, HE SEEMS LIKE A FUN GUY! - THEN IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME!”

Both of his slit-pupiled, yellow eyes suddenly turned to little clock faces, hands frantically whirring around the hours as he pressed even closer into Ford’s personal space.

“TICK TOCK, SIXER!” Bill shouted, brightly, with far too much glee.

Ford –

...

Ford jolted awake.

For a long moment, it felt like an impossible weight was pressing down on her chest, crushing the breath out of her. She clawed at her constricting turtleneck with one hand, pressing the other to her mouth even as she tried to drag in a lungful of air, as though she could physically stuff down the cry that was climbing up her throat.

Darkness had gathered around the Shack so gradually that Ford had barely noticed the red light draining from the sky. Now, it seemed as though night had fallen all at once, a blanket of pure dark dropped over the Shack, muffling the distant shrieks and roars from the town. The living room had, she realised, fallen almost silent, the warm dark full of the sounds of soft snores and sleepy mumbles. Nearly every person Dipper had spent the afternoon enthusiastically introducing her to as ‘the author of the Journals, my great-aunt!’ had either trickled out or found bedding somewhere and hunkered down to sleep. Even Dipper's head was bobbing forward, the bottom of his shirt falling out of his slack mouth, and Mabel was curled up wrapped in the STAN SAVIOUR SQUAD banner, passed out across her pig.

Ford’s lungs finally inflated, and she gasped in a huge gulp of air. She felt nearly boneless with relief, and yet, the darkness still pressed in on her. She could still see Bill’s clock-face eyes set in Stanley’s familiar face hovering before her, the hands racing. Could still hear his jeering voice promising - no. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Bill might be clever, and devious, and capable of slipping poisoned-honey words into a willing ear like no one Ford had ever met, but still, surely Stanley would never -

Tick tock.

Ford forced herself to take one long, deep breath, to let it out slowly, listening to her heart gradually calming from its frantic pace. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. Bill was only trying to get to her again, get inside her head. If he’d really been able to get Stanley to join him, he wouldn’t be wasting time on dreams and visions. He would’ve just dragged Stan’s body back to the Shack to gloat. Stan would never fall for Bill’s lies, Stan was - was better than that, was smarter -

She must not have shouted in her sleep, if she hadn't woken the children. Either that, or they were so exhausted that they'd slept right through it.

Regardless, it was well past time they were in bed. Ford took a few more deep breaths before pushing herself to her feet, wincing at the sudden rush of blood from her head. The living room wobbled and flashed bright black and white at the corners of her vision for a moment before everything settled again.

Dipper shook awake the moment Ford put a hand on his shoulder, head snapping up and looking around like a startled deer. "I wasn't asleep!" he protested, dropping the volume of his voice when Mabel sighed and rolled over in her sleep. "I was...contemplating."

Ford couldn't help the smile that stole across her face. "Do you think you could contemplate better from the comfort of your own bed?"

"No, I can do this, I can -" Dipper stopped when Ford gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze, sighing and looking down at the carpet by his feet. "I blew it, didn't I." It didn't come out as a question.

"What do you mean, my boy?"

"I don't know, I just -" Dipper threw his hands out helplessly. "It feels like there's something more I should be doing, but I just don't know what, or how, and now you're putting me to bed like a little kid."

Ford bit down on her lower lip, unsure of what to say. She knew exactly what Dipper meant - every second they spent not finding a way to get Stanley back felt like a second wasted. There had to be something that would make Dipper feel less like he was failing, but she couldn’t even begin to imagine what that might be.

If she could, perhaps she’d be feeling a little more hopeful herself.

Finally, she let out a sigh, and lowered herself to sit on the floor beside Dipper, groaning at the stiffness in her knees. “Everyone else is already asleep, we won’t accomplish much by staying up and draining ourselves further. We’ll all need to be at our best to face Bill and whatever surprises he might throw at us tomorrow.” She did her best to swallow down the bitter, sick taste that rose in the back of her mouth at the thought of what those surprises might include.

“I know,” Dipper said dejectedly, rubbing his upper arm and staring down at the floor.

Ford looked down herself, her eyes wandering until they came to rest on the gentle rise and fall of Mabel’s chest under the banner she’d wrapped herself in.

“Why don’t you come help me get Mabel to bed,” she said, and Dipper seemed to perk up, just a little. “If you’re still not feeling like sleeping afterwards, we can reconvene here and see if we can find any flaw in the plan that we might have overlooked.”

“Okay,” Dipper conceded, and Ford noticed a small smile had stolen across his face as he watched Mabel and Waddles snoring, though there was still a little wrinkle of worry in his brow. Ford didn’t blame him - the last time they’d watched Mabel sleeping this peacefully, they hadn’t known whether she would ever wake up.

Bill. It all came back to him. Every single person in the Shack, from Fiddleford passed out with his blowtorch in hand over the giant robotic leg he was welding right on down to the plaidypus curled up with the cross-eyed gnome in the corner had lost something - if not everything - to Bill. If it weren’t for Bill, Mabel would never have been forced to see a world where everyone seemed happier without her. If it weren’t for Bill, Dipper wouldn’t have been made to doubt himself like this, wouldn’t be shouldering this burden of responsibility that should never have been his in the first place. (Not when it had been all Ford’s fault, right from the beginning, her folly and her arrogance and her pride -)

If it weren’t for Bill, Stanley would be here with them right now, probably cracking some awful joke and then laughing at his own lack of wit when no one else did. Stanley would be here, aggravating everyone as usual, putting on that showman’s smile to make the children feel better, treating the whole thing like one big joke. Stanley would be safe, and he wouldn’t be - and he would know what to say to make Dipper feel better, and -

None of this would be happening if it weren’t for Bill Cipher.

Ford’s hands clenched into fists without her input, nails digging into the heels of her hands. She tried not to listen to the traitorous little voice in the back of her mind that whispered none of this would be happening if you hadn’t let him in.

“We’re not going to defeat Bill tomorrow,” Ford said, slow, turning her gaze back to Mabel.

There was a quaver in Dipper’s voice. “We’re, uh, we’re not?”

“No.” Ford slammed one fist into the palm of her other hand. It felt like a river of lava was rising slow through her veins, the heat pulsing in time with her heartbeat. “We’re going to destroy him.”

...

Mabel woke up briefly as Ford carried her up the stairs, her enormous yawn audible even though her face was pressed against Ford’s shoulder. At twelve years old, the twins were almost too tall to comfortably carry, but Ford hadn’t wanted to wake the girl, not when she seemed to be sleeping peacefully. If Ford herself had been able to steal a fraction of that peace in the middle of Weirdmageddon, she wouldn’t have wanted it disturbed.

“Whzfl?” Mabel asked, sleepily, and Dipper piped up before Ford could say anything.

“It’s okay, Mabel, we’re just going up to bed. You fell asleep on Waddles.”

Mabel let out a sigh, her head falling back against Ford’s shoulder. “How late is it?” she asked, sounding a little more awake, though not much.

“Well, according to Bill, time is dead and meaning has no meaning, but I’d say it’s definitely past your bedtime,” Ford answered, drawing a little snort of laughter out of Mabel.

“That means you too, Dipper,” Mabel said, her voice muffled in Ford’s sweater. “I saw you gnawing your shirt.”

“Aw, Mabel,” Dipper protested, but he didn’t try to deny it.

And he didn’t try to resist when they made it up to the attic and Mabel slipped down out of Ford’s arms and pointed...well, pointedly at the bed across the attic from hers. “Bedtime, mister,” she said, and Dipper shook his head, but he was smiling.

“And that goes for you too!” Mabel added, rounding on Ford. “We’ve got an awesome giant robot house to pilot and an evil geometrical guy to fight tomorrow! You don’t wanna fall asleep in the middle of it! You’ll miss all the fun parts!”

Ford, despite herself, couldn’t help a soft laugh. “You’re right,” she said, nodding in Mabel’s direction. “I’ll leave you two to it, then. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight!” Mabel echoed, Dipper giving a sheepish wave as Ford stepped out of the attic room and pulled the door closed behind her, careful not to let it slam.

The Shack was eerily still as Ford made her way down the attic stairs. It was strange. She’d lived here, alone, for nearly a decade, and yet, after only a couple of months, it already felt wrong for the place to be so silent.

Ford paused on the second-floor landing, glancing down the hall towards her room before turning towards the stairs down to the main floor. She’d meant what she’d told Dipper. They all needed to be at their best tomorrow. Bill was cunning and vicious - he’d give no quarter, and they wouldn’t get any second chances. Ford knew she ought to try to get some sleep, to make sure that she herself was alert and sharp when their long-delayed confrontation finally came.

That, too, was strange. For years - thirty of them, to be exact - that thought had been Ford’s sole comfort. One day, she would come face-to-face with Bill Cipher for the last time. One day, she would put an end to this game of cat and mouse that they had played for so long, lay all her mistakes to rest, wipe her ledger clean. Even if it meant the end of her as well as Bill.

But now, for the first time, the thought of finally facing Bill filled Ford not with comfort, but with a sick, sinking dread.

All of her long, hard years of preparation, all of her plans, all of her strategy, it had all come to nothing in a snap of Bill’s fingers. Ford was running blind, while Bill held the upper hand - as, Ford now saw, he always had. The last time she’d prepared herself to face him, she’d been calm, confident. Certain. Now, all she could feel was jittery, buzzing with a nervous energy that bordered on frantic, a need to do something more, something better, something.

Ford knew why. Last time, she’d had a plan. Last time, she’d known what she was doing, what needed to be done. Last time, she’d known - she’d thought - she was equal to the task.

And the last time she’d prepared herself to face Bill, hers had been the only life on the line.

The silent dark of the Shack pressed in on Ford as she stared down the stairs towards the living room, like a smothering, heavy blanket. She tried not to see monsters rising out of the well of shadow at the foot of the stairs, not to hear sinister whispers in the soft snores from the living room. The unicorn-hair barrier should keep them safe, here. Unlike Stanley, who might - who must be facing unimaginable horrors even as Ford tucked the children safely into bed and settled down for the night herself.

The worst part was not knowing. Not knowing what awful things Bill might be doing to Stanley, yes, not knowing what Bill’s game was, why he might be taunting her with the threat of turning Stan against them, but worse, not knowing what to do. Mobilizing the Shack and its protective barrier had been a stroke of genius on Fiddleford's part, an ingenious solution to the problem of how to get to Bill’s pyramid, but what would they do if - when they got there? Ford still hadn’t been able to identify all the members of the prophecy wheel, and the news that Bill’s eyebats had been kidnapping people and turning them to stone meant that she could be missing vital pieces. She didn’t have enough information, didn’t know anything about the people of this town or how to go about learning enough about them to successfully place them on the wheel - if only Stanley were here, he could have sorted this out in a matter of hours, maybe only minutes, but he wasn’t and anything at all could be happening to him while Ford was busy battering her head against a problem that she had no idea how to even begin to think about solving, but which she still somehow had to solve, or else -

A vision of Stan’s face when Ford had stepped out of the portal, the shocked, disbelieving smile that had spread across it in the seconds before she’d punched him, floated to the surface of Ford’s memory. Her grip on the railing tightened, until she feared she’d give herself splinters.

No. She wouldn’t be sleeping tonight.

...

Ford was digging through the hall closet, looking for blankets or pillows or some kind of bedding (and not for illegal fireworks, or a crate of Cuban cigars that, judging from the labels, had been there since the early eighties at the latest, or a painting of a sad clown on black velvet, honestly, Stan) when she heard the front door creak open.

It felt like someone had threaded a live wire down her spine. Ford was instantly awake, alert, listening hard for the slightest sound. The cold stillness of the closet suddenly seemed deathly, every shadow heavy with menace.

Heavy footsteps made the elderly boards of the porch complain softly, and Ford could hear lowered voices, murmuring in thrumming bass tones. She couldn't make out the words, but she hardly needed to. Anyone trying to sneak into the Shack undetected, at this hour, after everyone else was already asleep, couldn't be up to anything good.

Ford tried to ignore the jackhammer beat of her heart, keep her breathing quiet, slow, steady. She took a careful step closer to the door of the closet, scanning the hall before her before reaching up to tug the string to shut off the light.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness, a moment that Ford spent watching, tense, for monsters to lunge out of the dark at her, watching afterimages swim in front of her eyes and trying not to mistake them for actual movement. The low mumble of voices from the entryway, thankfully, didn't so much as falter. They must not have noticed the light from the hall, then, to not have been concerned about its disappearance. That was good. That meant Ford still had the element of surprise on her side.

She crept forward, peering out around the closet door. Her night vision was slowly returning, enough so that she could catch a glimpse of movement in the entryway at the end of the hall. Ford sucked in a breath and ducked back behind the door, listening hard for footsteps stomping down the hall towards her hiding place.

Instead of the expected footsteps, though, Ford heard a voice that, despite the fact that she'd only known the speaker for a day, was instantly recognisable.

"And careful with Mabel! I don't want a hair on my marshmalla's head outta place!" Gideon's halfhearted attempt at a whisper turned dismissive as he added, "But if something were to...happen...to that meddlesome twin o' hers, why, well now, wouldn't that just be a shame." His tone made it very clear that he did not, in fact, think this was the case.

Ford bit back the curse she wanted to hurl. Dipper had been right. It had been a trap. And she'd walked right into it, as Bill must have known she'd do, unable to resist playing the hero.

This was no time for self-recriminations, though. The children were in danger. Ford drew her blaster as quickly as she dared, trying not to make a sound, and stepped quietly and deliberately out into the hall.

Every step she took felt like an eternity, every one of her senses screaming as she drew closer and closer to the entryway. The voices fell silent when she was about halfway there, replaced by the creaks and thumps of someone heavy trying to move quietly over the aging floorboards. Ford held her breath, pressing herself against the wall and edging closer to the corner that would let her out into the entry and finally bring her face to face with the intruders.

The thump of heavy footsteps took on a hollow quality, rising up the stairs towards the attic. Ford squeezed the handle of her blaster tight enough to make her knuckles ache, to keep her index finger from tightening on the trigger, and dared to steal a glimpse around the corner.

The entryway was thronged with - well, Ford hadn’t been in her home dimension for quite some time, but goons were pretty much the same the multiverse over. At least they all appeared to be human, though they also all seemed to be hanging on Gideon’s every word. That couldn’t bode well. It was difficult to tell in the low light just how many there were, but Ford was sure she was badly outnumbered, and, as she’d learned from long experience, charging in now with guns blazing would only take away the one advantage she still had.

“An’ Fishbait?” Gideon called down the stairs, and Ford had to remind herself to breathe quiet, slow, steady. She hadn’t been spotted yet. She wouldn’t let her emotions get the better of her, give away her element of surprise. But - if that little cretin so much as laid a hand on either Dipper or Mabel -

Breathe. Quiet. Slow. Steady.

“Yeah, boss?” a nasal voice from the foot of the stairs echoed back, and Ford froze, holding her breath. Whoever was talking was just around the corner she’d just peered around.

“Don’t you waste too much time on the townies. Just find that unicorn-hair barrier Bill told us about an’ take out a piece, he’ll take care of the rest.”

“Yeah, boss,” the voice agreed, and there was a soft shuffling. The door creaked open, then closed again. Heavy footsteps continued up the stairs, fading as they rose towards the second floor.

Ford drew in another long, steadying breath, clicked her blaster to ‘stun’, and stepped out around the corner.

The two thugs Gideon had left standing in the foyer, one hanging around by the door, one by the staircase, both jumped at Ford’s appearance. The reedier one by the door reached for something at his hip, and Ford lined up, squeezed her eyes shut, and fired a stunning bolt directly into the man’s chest. She opened her eyes just in time to see her target slumped against the wall and the man who had been standing by the stairs staggering backwards, a hand over his eyes, clearly blinded by afterimages from the flash of the stun bolt. Ford fired off another shot in his direction, then hesitated. She wanted nothing more than to charge straight up the stairs after Gideon and his cronies, but - if she let the barrier be broken, then there would be nowhere safe left in Gravity Falls.

Ford muttered a curse that maybe seven other people in this dimension had ever heard uttered aloud, and sprinted for the door.

...

The stairs felt a million miles high. Ford took them two at a time, even though her breath was starting to come hard and her legs burned with every step. Any thought she might have had of stealth or strategy had vanished, reduced to a single, overwhelming focus. All she could think, all she could see, were the terrible possibilities unspooling through her mind. Perhaps she’d stopped the objectively greater threat, for the moment, but she couldn’t tell that to the lump in her throat or the frantic thump of her heart.

She hadn’t made it to the top of the attic stairs before every last one of her fears burst to technicolour life at the sound of Mabel’s shout.

“Let go of me, you - you - you big gorilla!”

“You won’t get away with this, Gideon!” Dipper yelled, from somewhere at the top of the attic stairs. Ford hit the landing at a dead run, crossing it in two steps.

“Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, Dipper Pines,” Gideon’s smarmy voice echoed down the stairs that Ford was climbing, smug and triumphant. “I already have! Turns out that li’l ol’ barrier y’all were so proud of sure don’t work so well on humanfolk, does it? All I have to do is give the signal, and Bill’s eyebats’ll be all over this ol’ place like flies on a cowpat. And my oh my, but unicorn hair’s such a fragile material. Don’t you agree? Why, anythin’ could just...happen...to it.”

“You monster!” Mabel gasped, her voice muffled by the attic door.

“Scream all you want, sugarplum,” Gideon giggled. “Nobody’s comin’ to help you -”

“Wrong,” Ford said, flinging the attic door wide. Her head felt curiously light, but at least her aim was steady as she stepped into the room, pointing her blaster directly at the dead centre of Gideon’s head. “Put the children down. Carefully,” she added, when the pale-eyed goon carrying Dipper under one arm and Mabel under the other looked suspiciously like he was about to drop them both unceremoniously to the floor.

“Well, well,” Gideon said, turning slowly in place to face Ford. “Seems I spoke too soon. Evenin’, Stanford.”

“Just Ford,” Ford snapped. “I said, let Dipper and Mabel go.”

Gideon tapped a fat finger against his chin, his smile growing as he pantomimed thought. “Hm, no, I’m thinkin’ not.” He held up both hands and clapped them, twice, and Dipper’s shout came just a moment too late.

“Great-aunt Ford, look out -”

The blow collided with the back of Ford's head like a thunderclap. She barely had time to wonder which of Gideon’s cronies had snuck up behind her, and how, before the world went dark.

...

A low rumble was the first thing Ford was aware of, a deep bass buzz vibrating up through her bones and rattling her teeth. Slowly, the rumble solidified into engine roar and the rattle of wheels over gravel. The floor jolted and shivered underneath her, nearly knocking the air out of her lungs more than once.

Ford opened her eyes.

The sky overhead was reddening with early dawn light. Ford had seen some truly spectacular skies in her thirty years of wandering, but none quite like this. It looked like some particularly deranged - and tasteless - set designer had slapped it together for a Grand Guignol opera. The whole thing seemed awash in blood, save for the eye-searing pus-yellow shimmer of the rift hovering above the black pyramid. The whole sky glared like a gaping wound.

It was a little difficult to see properly, however, because of the bars and the roof of the cage obscuring her vision.

“A cage?” Ford sputtered, pushing herself up off of the bouncing metal floor to grab at the bars, in the faint hope that she might find one loose, or illusory, or discover some other means of escape. She had no such luck. All she got was a clear view of the rough ground bumping away behind her. Apparently the floor was rattling because it was, in fact, the bed of a heavily-modified pickup truck. A cage! There were many things Ford could name that would be more humiliating and demeaning, but with solid metal bars between her and the outside world, none sprang to mind.

“Yeah. I tried to tell Gideon it was kind of overkill,” Dipper’s voice said, and Ford let go of the bars to spin around. Her great-nephew was sitting slumped against the bars at the back of the cage, his hat tipped down to cover his eyes. “In case you haven’t noticed, he’s...kind of a drama queen.”

So Gideon had them. Which meant that they were being delivered, gift-wrapped, to Bill Cipher.

Ford gripped the bars behind her for support, suddenly feeling as though all of her strength had bled right out of her in between breaths. For a moment, everything seemed to settle down on her, like layers of sediment, leaving her immobile, fossilised.

Ford reached down to draw her coat tighter around herself, only to discover that it wasn't there. A frantic search revealed that her weapons had been taken as well, even the small laser knife she kept strapped to her ankle. Certainly, it didn't actually leave her defenceless - she was perfectly capable of killing another being in hand-to-hand combat, if it came to it - but that didn't stop the firework-bursts of panic that slashed between her ribs and splashed against the back of her skull. Her own movements felt strange, disconnected, as though she'd been divorced from her body. As though she'd been forced out of it -

She drew in another breath, as long and deep as she dared with the thick dust and wafts of sulphur and cotton candy on the wind, feeling the roughness of the bars digging into her palms.

When she trusted her voice again, she asked, “Are you all right?”

Dipper shrugged one shoulder. He didn’t look up.

“Mabel...?” Ford asked, looking around the small enclosure, though she already knew what she’d find.

“She’s up front with him,” Dipper spat, raising his head for the first time as he jerked a thumb towards the narrow window a little ways above his head. “Gideon didn’t wanna let her out of his sight.”

Ford nodded. It felt like all she could do. She didn’t want to voice what she knew they both must be thinking.

The weight of their situation, the true depths of her failure, still threatened to fall on Ford, crushing her utterly, but just as she had so many times before, she managed to force it aside. No one else was coming to save them. There was no one to rely on but herself. She couldn’t let Dipper down. She couldn’t afford to break.

“All right,” Ford said, the gears of her mind slowly, ponderously grinding back into motion. “We need to get out of here, find some way to liberate Mabel -” A thought struck her, and she paused, before crossing the bed of the truck in two strides to peer in through its narrow back window. “Gideon mentioned something about Bill wanting us. It would only make sense that that would be where he’s delivering us. If we can take control of this vehicle, perhaps we can use it to enter Bill’s lair undetected.”

“That’s a great idea!” Dipper said, pushing back his hat as he looked up, the ghost of a smile slipping across his face. It vanished as he went on, though, along with the note of hope that had momentarily lit up his voice. “But I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here. I had a look around while you were unconscious, and this thing is locked up pretty tight. I think they welded these bars straight into the frame of the truck.”

Ford gave the back window a cautious push with the pads of her fingers. It felt as thick as it looked, solid, difficult to shatter without being able to get a good wind-up for fear of hitting the bars instead. There was no give in it to suggest that it might be, if not shattered, then popped out of its setting by a well-thrust elbow. And even if she could damage or remove the window somehow, she wouldn't be able to reach far enough across the back seat to get at the driver or Gideon in the front seat. If she only had some kind of weapon - !

“Ugh! Why can’t you just leave us alone!” Mabel’s voice rose, and Ford shifted her attention to the glowing purple thing in the backseat. She’d overlooked it before because it didn’t seem like anything that might help them escape, but now that she saw what it was, it took everything in her not to punch the glass despite knowing how little good it was likely to do.

Mabel was caged, too, locked up in an elegant, scrollwork birdcage just barely big enough for her to sit up in, a huge, triangular padlock marked with a shooting star sealing it closed. She was hugging her knees, her sweater stretched out over them. Ford couldn’t see her face, but she was certain it was a picture of misery.

Gideon spun as best he could in his carseat, pressing a hand against the lapel of his powder-blue suit with a look of put-upon patience. “Mabel, dumplin’, I’m doin’ this for us -”

“There is no us!” Mabel exploded, waving both arms through the bars of the cage so violently that it nearly slid off the backseat. “Gideon, I liked being your friend, but I don’t even want to be that anymore! This is, like, the third time you’ve tried to kill my whole entire family!”

“Fourth,” Dipper muttered, pushing himself to his feet and walking over to where Ford was standing, pulling himself up on tiptoes to peer into the cab of the truck.

Mabel plunged onwards, clearly unable to hear Dipper’s addition. “What made you think that hurting the people I care about would ever make me like you more?”

Gideon looked stunned, like Mabel had hit him across the face rather than just shouted at him. “They - they were comin’ between us -”

“The only thing ‘coming between us’ is you being a big, creepy jerk!” Mabel took a deep breath, her voice lowering in volume enough that Ford had to strain to hear her next words over the rumble of the truck’s engine and the rattle of the gravel underneath its wheel. What she lacked in volume, however, Mabel more than made up for in intensity. “And if you turn us over to Bill and stop us from rescuing Grunkle Stan - I will never stop hating you! Ever ever ever!”

“Mabel -”

“Ever!”

“Wow, go Mabel!” Dipper said, softly, and Ford looked down to see him beaming from ear to ear.

Gideon, for his part, looked almost at a loss for words. He reached carefully out towards Mabel, only for her to cross her arms over her chest and toss her head, turning away from him.

“Well...well,” Gideon started, weakly, sounding a little rattled, but growing in confidence with each word. “I’m certain we can do somethin’ about that. Bill is the master of the mind, after all.”

“What, so your response to her saying she doesn’t want anything to do with you because you’re a creepy jerk is to double down on being a creepy jerk?” Dipper spat, in apparent disbelief. “Cause, no offense, but that hasn’t exactly been a winning strategy for you so far.” He let out an enormous sigh, spinning to lean against the back wall of the truck and pressing the heels of both hands against his eyes. “Okay. We gotta do something, we gotta get Mabel out of there before -”

He cut his own sentence short. Ford looked up, peering past the bars. The floating black pyramid seemed closer, now, looming huge and menacing in the sky ahead.

For the first time, she turned her attention to their surroundings beyond the bars that held them in. Ford didn’t recognise the land they were driving through as part of the town or the surrounding forests - they seemed to have been abruptly transplanted to a red-dust desert scattered with the occasional ruins scrawled with ominous graffiti featuring Bill's single, watchful eye, the heat rising off of the barren ground stifling even from her position above it. Clouds of dust kicked up by the vehicles that flanked them made it difficult to see much, but it appeared that they were in the middle of a convoy of heavily-modified cars and trucks, covered in spikes and graffiti and a truly improbable array of weaponry. Ford thought she caught a glimpse of the water tower stalking on stilt-legs off to their left, but through the dust and the huge, multicoloured bubbles that hung heavy in the air, she couldn’t quite be sure.

The shattered, elliptical dome of a long building rose out of the dust on their right, and Dipper perked up, crossing the cage to look out between the bars at it. "Hey, that's the mall! Oh man, I didn't even recognise this part of town, Bill really did a number on -"

He stopped, mid-sentence, and nearly shoved his face in between the bars. "Did you see that?!"

Ford hurried over to Dipper's side, staring intently out at the wasteland. She didn't see anything beyond the clouds of dust, the slow roll of the giant bubbles, the single Jeep bristling, hedgehog-like, with spikes flanking them -

Ford blinked.

“Wasn’t there another vehicle -” she started, just as a slender, dark shape flew straight out of one of the enormous bubbles and landed in a crouch on top of the spiny Jeep. Ford watched in amazement as the figure grabbed the frame of the Jeep, kicked up into a handstand, spun 180 degrees, and swung down feet-first through the window, their feet colliding with the driver’s head. The Jeep swerved violently, veered right, then left, then -

“Look out!” Ford shouted, grabbing Dipper and dropping into a crouch just as the Jeep collided, heavily, with the side of the truck they were in. Long, wicked black spikes shot between the bars of the cage, one slicing through the air where, just seconds before, Dipper’s head had been. The truck shuddered at the impact, knocking Ford off her feet and onto the floor of the truckbed. She managed to pick herself back up just as the Jeep slammed into the truck again.

This time, she didn’t try to get back up.

Shouts from the cab and from the vehicles on their left told Ford that she and Dipper weren’t the only ones who’d noticed the strange figure that had hijacked the Jeep. There was a rumble and a squeal, and the truck slowed, the Jeep and the two flanking vehicles speeding past it as the driver braked, hard.

“Get us outta here!” Gideon squawked, from the front seat, his voice piercing even over the screech of tires and the shouts coming from the other vehicles. “We gotta get these three to Bill by any means necessary -”

“Way ahead of you, boss,” the driver rumbled, and the truck spun back in the direction it had come, throwing Ford and Dipper both up against the bars. The back of Ford’s head cracked against the metal, causing both to ring and stars to splash in front of her eyes for a second, the sharp smell of copper filling the back of her nose and mouth. She gingerly raised a hand to touch the back of her head, but there was thankfully no blood.

The truck shot back down the street the way it had come, thumping and rattling over the rough ground. Behind them, Ford watched, with a sinking feeling, as the two other vehicles from their little convoy - a police car with a sheriff’s star inscribed with Bill’s eye spray-painted over the legend on its side and a motorcycle with, somehow, seven wheels - boxed in the spiny Jeep. Whoever their strange assailant was, there seemed to be little doubt that Gideon’s henchmen would make short work of them.

She was just testing the bars that the Jeep had slammed up against for any sign of weakness when the truck suddenly jerked to a halt, right in the middle of the road. Dipper gasped, and then, did the last thing Ford would have expected.

He burst out laughing.

Ford straightened up, peering through the back window of the truck to look out the windshield and see what had forced them to stop. She had to blink several times, trying to make sure there wasn’t simply something in her eye. Even in an apocalyptic wildnerness of Bill’s creation, it still strained credulity to look up and see an enormous set of four wheels, taller than a man (had those come off a tractor?), and, perched on top of an equally hulking chassis like a tiara on the head of a Xenophorian thunderbeast, the body of a golf cart.

“What...?” she asked, and Dipper, beaming from ear to ear, jabbed a finger at the driver of the golf cart, a squat figure also all in black. As Ford watched, the figure unwrapped a scarf from around their face -

- and waved.

It wasn’t just any golf cart, Ford realised, belatedly. The red-and-yellow flags dangling from the roof and the huge, red question mark painted across the nose clearly marked it as the golf cart from the Mystery Shack.

“Soos?” she asked, at the same time as Gideon, from the front seat, let out a petulant whine.

“Am I supposed t’know who that is?”

“Soos!” Dipper yelled, jumping up and down and waving his arms, even though Ford doubted the handyman could see him from the angle he was looking down at the truck from. “We’re down here!”

There was no way that Soos could have heard them from all the way up in the golf cart, perched so high above the street, over the rumble and roar of engines, but still, Ford felt inexplicably warmed when he reached out and gave them a thumbs-up.

The golf cart started to roll, ponderously, forwards.

The truck lurched back into motion, screeching backwards away from the approaching golf cart, and executed a neat three-point turn before squealing away down the street. Or rather, it started to - but the street was barricaded by the cop car, flipped up onto its side to expose its undercarriage.

"Just go over it!" Gideon shouted, from the cab of the truck. "What's the use of havin' a monster truck if ya don't crush anythin' with it?!"

The driver didn’t move. A second later, Ford could see why.

The slim black figure that she’d seen take over the Jeep straightened up, balancing precariously on the upturned edge of the cop car. They planted their feet shoulder-width apart and their hands on their hips, head thrown back in obvious defiance, their whole being the physical embodiment of a challenge.

Behind them, the golf cart’s horn tooted, a sound that was honestly much more ominous than it had any right to be.

The truck’s engine growled, low and throaty, the floor under Ford’s feet thrumming like some great, caged beast eager to be set loose on some unsuspecting small herbivore. The dark figure stood still atop the cop car, unmoving. Apparently unafraid.

“Ghost Eyes!” Gideon snapped, and the truck roared to life, leaping forward.

The spiked grate on the front of the truck rammed into the cop car’s exposed undercarriage just as the figure in black jumped. They somersaulted in midair, landing with knees bent on the hood of the truck as it started to climb up and over the toppled cop car. One hand went to its waist, and pulled free a short-handled axe.

The figure in black gave the axe a quick spin in one hand before slamming it down on the windshield. The instant the axe struck against it, the windshield splintered, spiderweb cracks shooting crazily outwards from the point of impact. The driver jerked the wheel hard to the left, but the cop car underneath the truck kept it stuck in place.

Another blow, and the windshield shattered.

Gideon’s scream, Ford reflected, sounded remarkably like a stuck pig.

“Wendy!” Mabel yelled, throwing herself at the front of her cage, and the figure in black glanced up, waving through the windshield. The moment of distraction seemed to be enough, though, for the driver of the truck to reach through the windshield and punch the dark-clad figure in the side of the head. She toppled off the hood of the truck, vanishing behind the cop car.

“Go go go go go!” Gideon urged, and the driver obliged, stepping on the gas. The truck gave a furious whine, and Ford could feel the wheels spinning under her, but it didn’t move. Part of the cop car must have been wedged underneath it. "Get us outta here, before -"

A shadow fell over the back of the truck, blotting out the eerie red light, and Ford spun to see the golf cart, towering on its absurdly large wheels, bearing steadily down on them. She grabbed the bars of the cage behind her, shouting at Dipper, “Brace yourself!”

The crunch as the golf cart rammed into the back of the truck was nearly deafening. Ford could feel its reverberations through the soles of her feet, traveling up the bars she gripped. The whole truck rocked, wobbling precariously on its perch atop the upturned cop car.

“Soos! What’re you doing?!” Dipper yelled, waving his arms, as the golf cart drew back.

“Hang in there, doods,” Soos called back, over the rumble of engines and the grinding squeal of metal against metal, his rodent-like face set in an expression of grim determination as he revved the engine for another run up on the truck. “I’m gettin’ you outta there!”

Screaming from the cab behind her told Ford that Wendy had most likely gotten back up. Ford paid the sounds no attention.

“Hit it again!” she called up to Soos, who saluted and stomped on the gas. The golf cart jerked forward, bumping into the cage at the very back of the truck, and there was another screech of metal on metal as the bars visibly bowed inwards. One more blow, and one of the bars shot free with a distressing little metallic sigh.

It wasn’t the only thing dislodged by the golf cart, though. With one final, drawn-out scream of metal, the truck slid forward off of the cop car’s undercarriage, teetering for a moment before its front wheels touched ground. The truck shot forward like a bolt from a crossbow, only to lurch to a stop again a moment later, bouncing forward in fits and starts. Ford realised she’d lost track of how many times now she’d been knocked off her feet.

“Give - me - that - key!” Wendy yelled from the cab, punctuated by soft percussive sounds rather like a gloved hand hitting a sack full of water. Gideon’s shrieks sounded remarkably like Mabel’s pig when someone stepped on its tail, Ford reflected, as she helped Dipper out through the hole Soos had made in the cage and down off the bed of the truck.

“Wendy! Dood, we got ‘em!” Soos called, as Ford climbed down off the truck bed herself. She had to stop and cling onto the bars with all her might as the truck gave one last aborted leap forward, then ground to a stop, the engine chugging down. Ford cautiously lowered a foot to the asphalt below her, and then, when the truck didn’t drag her forwards again, hopped all the way down.

“Not yet!” Wendy shouted back, frustration clear in her voice. “Gideon’s got Mabel in an evil glowing birdcage, and he’s got the key somewhere.” Her voice dropped, and Ford assumed she was talking to the two in the front seat as she continued, “And this little creep is gonna tell me where it is. Right. Now.”

“No!” Gideon screeched, and Ford finally gave in to the temptation to circle around to the front of the truck, hoping for a better view of what was going on inside. The driver appeared to be out cold, probably felled by the blunt end of Wendy’s axe. Wendy herself had pulled off the dark hood she’d been wearing, revealing her face and her ginger hair, and was in the middle of - Ford blinked - giving Gideon a noogie. “I won this time! I won! Bill promised me -”

“Did he promise you Mabel’s heart?” Ford interjected, unable to help herself. “Because you should know that if he said that, he intends to drop the bloody organ in your hands after he removes it from her still-living body.”

Six pairs of eyes all fixed in Ford’s direction, identical perturbed expressions on each face. Ford managed, under the scrutiny, to shrug. “It’s his idea of a pun.”

She assumed the retching noise from the backseat of the truck was coming from Mabel.

Gideon struggled in Wendy’s grip, held as he was under one of her arms with her fist squashing his magnificent pompadour. “You’re a fool, Ford Pines,” he spat, pointing one finger like a brimstone-and-hellfire preacher passing judgement, though the effect was slightly spoiled by the fact that he was under four feet tall and currently being held like a small lapdog. “Bill Cipher coulda been a powerful friend to ya! But instead, you’ve made an even more powerful enemy.”

“What, you?” Dipper asked, sauntering over to Ford’s side. “Cause, uh, full offense, I saw you get taken down by a swarm of termites once.”

“Cursed termites!” Gideon wailed. “An’ I’ll unleash ‘em to plague you and your family even unto the seventh generation if you don’t tell this woman to get her hands off my hair!”

“Yeah, no such luck,” Wendy said, giving Gideon’s pompadour another vicious punch. It made a sad squeaking sound, and then slowly started to deflate, like a popped balloon. “Hand over that key!”

“No!” Gideon protested, kicking his little legs petulantly. “Mabel’s finally mine! You’re not takin’ her away from me again!”

“What? Nobody’s ‘taking’ me anywhere!” Mabel protested, from the back seat. “Ugh! As soon as I get out of this dum-dum cage, you’re in for a world of hurt, Gideon! And that’s a promise!”

“Yep,” Dipper said, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his puffy vest and giving Gideon a look that was entirely too pleased with itself. “It definitely sounds like she’s madly in love with you."

“She’ll learn to love me!” Gideon yowled, and Wendy had to let go of the remnants of his pompadour to pin him with both arms so he couldn’t wriggle free. “She’ll have an eternity of captivity to come to her senses and see we’re meant to be -”

“It won’t be eternity,” Ford interjected, over the sharp inhale from Mabel and Dipper’s almost audible fuming. “This dimension has been doomed from the moment Bill Cipher opened that rift. I give it maybe a week - less if Bill keeps warping things, dragging things through from the Nightmare Realm, and widening the rift - before it grows too unstable to sustain its own existence and collapses, taking everyone and everything inside of it with it.”

There was a moment of silence, broken only by a distant, inhuman screech.

“Bill didn’t mention that,” Gideon muttered.

“That’s because he’s a lying dirtbag who just says what he thinks you want to hear to get you to do stuff for him.” Dipper said. “Kinda like a dude on a dating website.”

“And it doesn’t matter anyway!” Mabel piped up, her voice high with righteous fury. “Because I don’t care how long you keep me stuck in a stupid cage, or a stupid dream, or a stupid fancy restaurant where they kill the lobsters in front of you, I am never ever ever gonna date you! I don’t know what part of this is so hard for you! Do I have to do an educational and inspiring musical number?”

“What do I have ta do!?” Gideon exploded right back at her, waving a fist. Wendy scowled halfway between annoyance and discomfort, trying to hold him in place. “I tried bein’ a gentleman! I courted you proper! I removed the obstacles your family placed in our path -”

“You mean you tried to steal my grunkle’s house and kill my brother!” Mabel shouted back.

Gideon ignored her, raising his own voice slightly as he ploughed onwards. “Why won’t you give me just one more chance? Mabel, I promise I’d be good ta you -”

“You put me in a cage! And not the cool kind you can dance in!”

“Just for now!” Gideon protested. “Just until ya love me!”

“I already told you, that is never happening!”

“What d’you want from me? I’ve tried everything!”

“You haven’t tried being a decent guy!” Ford had known Mabel long enough, now, to recognise the crack running through her anger, the dangerous wobble that meant she was close to tears. “You haven’t tried listening to me. I just want you to leave us alone! I just want you to leave me alone!”

The silence that followed felt like a shoe on the wrong foot, or a sixth finger squeezed into a five-fingered glove - awkward, uncomfortable, and only growing worse with time.

“Dude,” Wendy said, to Gideon, finally. “Key or no key, I am so tempted to just drop-kick you right now.”

“Mabel’s right,” Dipper said, and Ford noticed that the smug look had disappeared from his face, probably the moment Mabel’s voice had started to wobble. “Look. Gideon. You’ve tried everything you can think of to force Mabel to like you, and it’s always backfired. What’ve you got to lose by listening to her for once?”

“Wh- she wanted us to just be friends!” Gideon protested, and perhaps only Ford caught the way Dipper’s stare went hard.

“What, being Mabel’s friend is a bad thing?”

Gideon seemed to struggle for words for a moment, his face growing redder and redder. “Well...no, but -”

“I think Mabel’s a pretty good friend.” Dipper glanced up at Mabel’s cage, and smiled. “Scratch that. Mabel’s an awesome friend. You’d be lucky to have a friend like her. And if someday she decides she likes you as more than a friend?” He shrugged, with both hands still in his vest pocket. “That’s up to her, not you. If there’s one thing I’ve learned this summer, it’s that you can’t make somebody love you.”

Ford got the strangest impression that Dipper was looking a little over Gideon’s head, closer to Wendy’s face, when he said, “All you can do is try to be somebody worth loving.”

In the ensuing silence, the driver of the truck let out a soft grunt and twitched. Ford held her breath until the man stopped moving again.

“Well, my my, what a touchin’ speech,” Gideon said, but his usual sickly-sweet sarcasm seemed as deflated as his hair. His gaze turned in Mabel’s direction, and Mabel sighed heavily, rolling her eyes.

“I’m not going to start being your friend again just because you stop trying to murder my family and make me your queen or whatever. You were a major jerky-jerk-jerkface to me, and Grunkle Stan, and Dipper, and - and everybody!” She gave another deep, heavy sigh. “But, if you really do start listening to me, and treating people better, and stop being such a mean jerk...I guess maybe then I could reconsider.”

She raised a hand, one finger extended, like a judge passing down a very important sentencing, and the stars swimming in Gideon’s eyes abruptly shrank. “But! You better show me some rehabilitation first, mister!”

“So wait, am I drop-kicking this dude or what?” Wendy asked. “Cause it’s getting super weird to keep holding him like this.”

Dipper’s gaze flicked over to Gideon, as did Mabel’s. Ford could see sweat beginning to bead on Gideon’s forehead.

“I -” he started, and then hung his head, dangling limply from Wendy’s grip. His voice dropped in volume until it was nearly inaudible. “I’m in it deep with Bill. You don’t know what he’d do ta me -”

“Actually, we do,” Ford spoke up, and Gideon started, like he’d almost forgotten she was there. “Or at least, I do. I know how much this is to ask of you - I’ve been fighting Bill for the last thirty years.” She gestured ruefully at the wasteland around them, trying to tamp down the burn of the embarrassed flush that started to creep its way up her neck. “You can see how that turned out. But - it’s not too late. Help us send Bill back to his own forsaken realm, reverse the damage he’s done, and save our world.”

Gideon took another long, lingering look in Mabel’s direction.

“Also,” Ford added, folding her hands behind her back, unable to keep the echo of a smile from her face, “I have it on good authority that chicks dig heroes.”

Gideon didn’t look away from Mabel, until Mabel, visibly uncomfortable, tugged the turtleneck of her sweater up over her face.

“Y’all really think it’s not too late?” he asked, sounding, for the first time, like the child he was.

“To stop Bill? Not as long as I live and breathe,” Ford said, curling the fingers of her right hand so tightly into a fist that her nails bit painfully into the heel of her hand.

“No, I mean -” Gideon gave his head a little shake. “Well, for me. To change.”

Dipper shuffled his feet in the dirt, glancing up at Ford.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned,” Ford said, shooting her great-nephew a smile before turning back to Gideon, “it’s that it’s never too late to change.”

Gideon drew in a long, deep breath, and let it out slowly, staring at the ground.

“All right,” he said, finally, thrusting his chin defiantly forwards. “Let’s go save the world!”

“Great,” Wendy said. “Now can I put him down?”

#gravity falls #grauntie ford #trans ford #this is mary's fic tag #in this chapter: the shit and the fan go on a nice blind date #long fic post

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johnnymundano · 5 years

Text

The Theatre Bizarre (2011)

Directed by Douglas Buck, Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain, Jeremy Kasten, Tom Savini and Richard Stanley

Written by Scarlett Amaris, Douglas Buck, John Esposito, Buddy Giovinazzo, David Gregory, Karim Hussain, Emiliano Ranzani and Richard Stanley

Music by Simon Boswell, Susan DiBona and Marquis Howell of Hobo Jazz

Country: United States

Language: English

Running Time: 114 minutes

CAST

Udo Kier as Peg Poett

Virginia Newcomb as Enola Penny

Kaniehtiio Horn as The Writer (segment 'Vision Stains')

Victoria Maurette as Karina (segment 'The Mother Of Toads')

Shane Woodward as Martin (segment 'The Mother Of Toads')

André Hennicke as Axel (segment 'I Love You')

Suzan Anbeh as Mo (segment 'I Love You')

James Gill as Donnie (segment 'Wet Dreams')

Tom Savini as Dr. Maurey (segment 'Wet Dreams')

Debbie Rochon as Carla (segment 'Wet Dreams')

Lena Kleine as The Mother (segment 'The Accident')

Mélodie Simard as The Daughter (segment 'The Accident')

Lindsay Goranson as Estelle (segment 'Sweets')

Guilford Adams as Greg (segment 'Sweets')

Framing Segments

Directed by Jeremy Kasten

Written by Zach Chassler

Cast:

Udo Kier as Peg Poett

Virginia Newcomb as Enola Penny

The Theatre Bizarre is a series of six shorts largely in hock to the grand-guignol tradition of naturalistic horror (i.e. proper ketchup, matey). I know this not because of any keen interest in French theatre but because the framing sequence is called ‘Theatre Guignol’, and it is into this terribly mysterious theatre that Enola Penny (Virginia Newcomb) dreamily wanders one decisive night. Each of the following sections is introduced by the indefatigable Udo Kier playing a big puppet (literally “grand guignol”) who becomes less puppet-like as the movie wears on and (cue wobbly theremin) Enola become less human. Which might be an artistic statement about desensitisation, but is definitely an excuse to watch Udo Kier popping robot-moves, which I think we can all agree is a good thing.

The Mother of Toads

Directed by Richard Stanley

Written by Richard Stanley, Scarlett Amaris and Emiliano Ranzani

Cast:

Catriona MacColl as Mere Antoinette

Shane Woodward as Martin

Victoria Maurette as Karina

Lisa Belle as The Naked Witch (as Lisa Crawford)

Amelie Salomon as The Monster

The Mother of Toads is apparently based on a Clark Ashton Smith story of the same name which I haven’t read, with a bit of HP Lovecraft chucked in. It features a pair of unpleasant young Americans holidaying in France, and I’m not dissing Americans there, this pair really are unlikable; Karina moans that everything is in French in France (quelle surprise!), while Martin is so anaesthetised by his own acumen he can barely push his smug words past the thicket of his trendy beard. They come unstuck when bargain hunting in a French market where a handsome older lady with a mesmerising accent saucily offers Martin a peek at her Necronomicon. Bundling Karina off to a spa Martin spends the day with the accommodating and increasingly ardent crone, drinking suspicious brews and fingering her dusty leaves. Things end badly. This was an agreeably silly creature feature with plenty of the old ugh! quotient, an endearing lack of logic and a pervading sense of encroaching doom. The humour leavening proceedings is clearly no accident; there’s an excellent joke when Martin attempts to extricate himself from a post-coital bed without waking his sleeping and somewhat slimy partner. Probably rings a few bells in the audience that bit. It’s just enjoyably daft, tongue-in-cheek stuff and a welcome reminder that Richard (Hardware (1990), Dust Devil (1992)) Stanley is still rocking his smart-trash groove.

I Love You

Directed by Buddy Giovinazzo

Written by Buddy Giovinazzo

Cast:

André Hennicke as Axel

Suzan Anbeh as Mo

I Love You is a pretty tough watch and unusually it’s not because of the climactic gore. Axel wakes up in his bathroom disorientated and bloody; turns out he’s an insecure, self-destructive mess who has driven his lady Mo away. Mo returns to sever all ties and leave for good. What follows is an emotionally harrowing battle between two damaged people where words are weapons and the hurt is internal. As blood spattered as the despairing denouement may be the real horror is the extended verbal flensing Mo delivers to Martin, in which she destroys not only his present but also his past. And is she telling the truth? Or is it a desperate attempt to extricate herself from his unquenchable neediness? Like a fox gnawing its paw off to escape the trap? Sometimes uncertainty can be another level of horror. Buddy Giovinazzo delivers a classily acted, tautly suspenseful two-hander which leaves an emotional stain which persists for days.

Wet Dreams

Directed by Tom Savini

Written by John Esposito

Cast:

Debbie Rochon as Carla

Tom Savini as Dr. Maurey

James Gill as Donnie

Jodii Christianson as Maxine

Wet Dreams is directed by Tom Savini, who is legendary in horror for his SFX work and slightly less legendary for his acting, so there’s no excuse for doing an Elvis double take at the fact he’s given himself a role and that his segment is luridly gory. He’s no slouch at directing either, which is nice. The esteemed Mr. Savini plays a psychiatrist, the kind who drinks on the job and talks about raping his mum (i.e. a movie psychiatrist), treating Donnie, a preening jackass who likes smacking his wife, Carla, about and cheating on her. See, Donnie’s having recurring nightmares wherein his sexy dream fun times climax with him being tortured and castrated by his long-suffering wife, in a series of gruesomely humorous and visually explicit ways. Gentlemen viewers may never again think of a fry-up without skittishly crossing their legs. Serves Donnie right you might think, but by the end of the dream-within-a-dream misdirection and its gruesomely pre-code EC Comics twist finale you might think again. Ugh. I mean….ugh. I...Jesus. What could have just been a gratuitous mess of general dismemberment is deftly directed by the savant Savini, resulting in an amoral immorality tale. And need it be said that his skills in the SFX dept remain second to none? No, it need not. So pretend I didn’t say it.

The Accident

Directed by Douglas Buck

Written by Douglas Buck

Cast:

Lena Kleine as Mother

Mélodie Simard as Daughter

Jean-Paul Rivière as Old Biker

Bruno Décary as Young Biker

The Accident provides a brief respite from the onslaught of sensationalistic gore, a pit stop if you will. Even if you won’t, it definitely centres around a cute child asking her blasé mother questions about mortality, said questions raised in the tiny, inquiring mind after the witnessing of an accident earlier in the day involving a deer and a cocky motorcyclist. It’s a very restrained piece, very accomplished, and softer in tone than anything before or after it. There’s a touch of grue when the deer is finished off, but mostly the horror here is the complete horseshit parents come out with to calm their offspring with regards to the ultimately absurd nature of life and death, a subject which everyone spends a lot of time avoiding thinking about on a day to day basis and about which they would rather not be cross-examined about by a child at bedtime. As upsetting as the sight of the deer’s tongue lolling out of its bug eyed head was (very), it wasn’t as upsetting as realising all the lies you have to fill your kid with just so they can function in what we’ve all decided to call reality. Compared to all that, lying about Santa Claus is a minor misdemeanour.

Vision Stains

Directed by Karim Hussain

Written by Karim Hussain

Cast:

Kaniehtiio Horn as The Writer

Cynthia Wu-Maheux as Junkie Girl

Imogen Haworth as Pregnant Woman

Rachelle Glait as Older Homeless Woman

Alex Ivanovici as Junkie Man

I have a thing about eye trauma. Not a sexual thing, a “flinch and wave your hands about like you’re warding off invisible birds” thing. It’s a running joke in the Mundano family unit; if there’s some serious eye trauma afoot in the viewing choice, all eyes fall on the father figure as he tenses for impact. Those similarly (dis)inclined should be warned that there is a seriously impressive amount of eye trauma in Vision Stains. It’s built in as the whole episode rests on the Horror Movie Science concept of people’s past lives flashing before their eyes at the point of death. So if you extract their eye juice as they die and inject it into your own eye you will get to live the edited highlights of another life. Obviously. That sounds about as appealing as it sounds scientifically feasible, but our serial killer heroine is well into it. She basically harvests the lives of the homeless to make up for her personal shortfall in dreams. Judging by the massive pile of notebooks in which she has written the details of all the lives she has nicked, its worked out quite well for her. But people, even dreamless serial killers who prey on the homeless, are never satisfied, so she decides to take the next step and find out what happens before people have a life to flash in front of their eyes. The results are mixed. Ultimately you can’t help thinking it would have been a lot quicker and far easier on the homeless population if she’d just read Tbomas Ligotti’s The Conspiracy Against the Human race. It’s all very silly but the po-faced approach suggests it is straining for some grandiose meaning; it fails. But it does feature a fantastic amount of eye trauma. Each to their own.

Sweets

Directed by David Gregory

Written by David Gregory

Cast:

Lindsay Goranson as Estelle

Guilford Adams as Greg

Lynn Lowry as Mikela Da Vinci

Jessica Remmers as Antonia

With Sweets, things close on a hilariously disgusting note. A deadpan Estelle and a semi-hysterical Greg talk about their dying relationship in the most banal clichés imaginable as they sit in what was once an apartment, but is now a kind of edible sty plastered with smushed up confectionery. As trite nonsense falls from her lips Estelle slowly sucks a melting ice cream into her deadpan face. Greg flailing to rescue the dead relationship counters with the expected whiny responses, while spasmodically picking filthy sweets off the floor and ingesting them with all the automotive panache of the true addict. Their stale interactions are punctuated by a series of flashbacks which parody cinema’s rote scenes of romance, with the pair swilling sweet shit like swilling sweet shit is going out of fashion. Luckily for Greg, Estelle hasn’t quite finished with him, unluckily for Greg he’s about to find out what that means. Sweets is pretty funny in its lip-smacking attack on love and addiction (and love as addiction), and is delightfully cartoonish in style; Estelle is often colour coordinated from hair to shoes with whatever sickly delicacy she is proffering. Of course all the comedy and caricature serve only to distract you while Sweets prepares a delightful gut punch of horror, before the management politely ask you to leave.

TL;DR: The Theatre Bizarre: it’s worth a watch, but not if you’re squeamish.

#The Theatre Bizarre #Movies #Horror #Anthology #2011 #The 2010s #Douglas Buck #Buddy Giovinazzo #David Gregory #Karim Hussain #Jeremy Kasten #Tom Savini #Richard Stanley #Udo Kier #Catriona Maccol #United States

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narkinafive · 5 years

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essay update! was going to write more, but i have to drive to new hampshire! and i want to leave before traffic gets REALLY BAD! we are clocking in at about 3k now, which is.... somehow HALF of the total word count already (30pp double spaced, roughly 7.5k words) (HOW INT HE FUCK IS IT OVER HALF.... THERE IS STILL SO MUCH I NEED TO WRITE????? )

also, see my earlier complaints about describing music. i am BEGGING you guys, legit begging, if you have any critiques or suggestions on how to describe it better... PLS send it my way!!!!! 🙌🙌🙌

Few franchises can match the breadth of Star Wars, and fewer still can claim to be as iconic. Not only have the characters, dialogues, settings, and aesthetics been directly referenced and lovingly parodied across all genres, so too has John Williams’ music. Yet Williams’ music is perhaps most referenced, riffed on, and remixed within the franchise itself; it is difficult to find a piece of Star Wars media which does not contain any number of Williams’ leitmotifs, such as the bombastic “Main Title” fanfare, the sweeping majesty of the Force theme, or the foreboding, villainous “Imperial March.” Within the many, many Star Wars related properties, composers for the franchise’s “lower tier” [properties], i.e. any property outside of the nine-film “Skywalker Saga,” are presented with a difficult challenge: how does one emulate and reference Williams’ original, titanic score, keeping a coherent sonic aesthetic, without copying him directly, and allowing space for the composer’s own musical language?

[Williams score vs typical scifi musical conventions recap]

“Traditionally, music for the sci-fi genre would use a language inspired by twentieth-century musical modernism-atonalism, twelve-tone technique, aleatoric music, and so forth-or would use electronic instruments, timbres, or even musique concrete to provide the musical equivalent of futuristic or hyper technological worlds… Stanley Kubrick in [2001: A Space Odyssey] chose to combine images of deep space and unseen worlds with a compilation of repertoire orchestral pieces--after having rudely rejected Alex North’s original score. The selection spanned from classic pieces like Richard Strauss’ Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also sprach Zarathustra, op. 30, 1896) and Johann Strauss Jr.’s The Blue Danube (An der schonen blauen Donau, op. 314, 1866) to contemporary art music like Gyorgy Ligeti’s Lux Aeterna (1966), Atmospheres (1961), Requiem (1963-65), and Adventures (1962)... Yet Kubrick’s choice was also the consequence of a lack of trust in film composers. ‘However good our best film composers may be, they are not a Beethoven, a Mozart or a Brhams. Why use music which is less good when there is such a multitude of great orchestral music from the past and from our own time?’ Lucas rejected the modernist and electronic options and chose Kubrick’s approach. He wrote the script while listening to the late romantic symphony repertoire…”

[cont’d]

The larger Star Wars chronology can be broken into three general eras: the Original Trilogy era (OT), which focuses on the time represented by the films A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, and Rogue One, the Sequel Trilogy era (ST), which is comprised of the films The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker, as well as the TV series Star Wars: Resistance, and the Prequel Trilogy era (PT), as represented by the films The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and Solo, as well as the TV series The Clone Wars. Of these properties, Williams has obviously scored the lion’s share of the films; Rogue One’s soundtrack was composed by Michael Giacchino, Resistance by Michael Tavera, Solo by John Powell, and The Clone Wars by Kevin Kiner. Kiner’s other work for Star Wars was the score of another TV series, Star Wars Rebels. Rebels occupies an interesting place within the greater Star Wars chronology, qualifying as a prequel due to taking place before the events of A New Hope, yet both aesthetically and narratively more aligned with the OT, rather than the PT. Though Rebels is nominally a prequel, Kiner’s musical language sets it firmly within the OT era, with frequent sonic callbacks to Williams’ score, with each aesthetic connection serving not only to link the viewer to the OT era, but also, through its absences and deviations, highlight the narrative differences between Rebels and the original films. This is particularly exemplified in the parallels and contrasts between the heroes of Rebels and the OT, Ezra Bridger, and Luke Skywalker.

From the outset, several parallels can be drawn between Ezra Bridger and Luke Skywalker: both are orphans from provincial areas of the galaxy, both are accidentally caught up in insurrectionist rebel activity against the Empire, and both discover that they can wield the powers of the Force. They are even roughly the same age, born within days of each other. Contrasts do abound, however. Ezra receives several years of Jedi training from a former Jedi, while Luke receives very little; Ezra is actively involved with the Rebel Alliance from the very beginning, while Luke has to be drawn into it due to personal tragedy; Ezra’s primary motif is connected to the twin moons of his home planet of Lothal - this, in contrast to the famous scene of Luke Skywalker gazing into the twin sunset of his planet of Tatooine; and so on. [more parallels]

[quick discussion of the leitmotif]

Set five years before the events of A New Hope, the backdrop of Rebels depicts the formal declaration of the Galactic Alliance, the establishment of the famous rebel base on the planet of Yavin IV, and numerous references to the secret construction of the Death Star, alongside several integral character cameos, including Lando Calrissian, Princess Leia, and Obi-wan Kenobi, while the main thrust of the story centers on the crew of the Ghost, an early rebel cell, and the journey of its newest crew member, Ezra Bridger. Described by Dave Filoni, Executive Producer and creator of Rebels, as a con artist, and Taylor Gray, the character’s actor, as a [street smart thief], Ezra happens upon the crew of the Ghost as they commit a minor act of terrorism against the Galactic Empire, stealing several crates of supplies. Rather than pick a side in the conflict, Ezra elects to steal a crate of the same supplies for himself, outrunning the comedically incompetent Imperial police force, and dodging the members of the Ghost crew as they try to get the supplies back, until Ezra is forced to seek refuge on the Ghost to escape the marginally more competent TIE figher pilots. After helping the crew in distributing the supplies - namely, food - to a nearby refugee camp, Ezra is convinced by the Ghost’s pilot and leader, Hera Syndulla, to assist in a rescue mission. Despite his initial capture and subsequent escape from Imperial custody, Ezra chooses to see the rescue mission through to the end, and witnesses the Ghost’s second-in-command, Kanan Jarrus, wield a lightsaber, revealing himself as a survivor of the presumed-extinct and quasi-legendary Jedi Order. Recognizing that Ezra has the same gift as him, Kanan offers to train him to wield the Force in order to continue fighting against the Empire, dispelling any notion that the Jedi are gone with a triumphant declaration, “Not all of us.”

Initially, Ezra joins the Rebellion not because it is the right thing to do, but because it is convenient to him at the time; the Ghost functions as a roof over his head, its crew members as a new set of parents and siblings, and its missions as a source of food and income, along with the added bonus of learning how to use an incredibly powerful, specialized weapon, despite the target it paints on his back. Filoni himself states [need src] that Ezra decides to join the Ghost not only to learn how to use a lightsaber, but because he is in need of a family, having lost his own parents at the age of seven, when they were arrested for their underground, anti-establishment radio broadcasts. Part of Ezra’s journey over the course of Rebels is re-learning how to think beyond himself, and sacrificing himself for the greater good, not just the good of his family and friends--but, as one would expect, at the very beginning of his story, he is far more selfish than selfless. It is more than halfway into the first season before Ezra begins to truly comprehend the Jedi lessons Kanan has attempted to teach him, beyond lifting rocks with his mind, as he finally admits and begins to face his fears while in the middle of a vision quest (presided over by the disembodied voice of Master Yoda).

Over the course of the series, Ezra has frequent, deep brushes with the “Dark Side” of the Force, becoming more inclined to fight, hurt, or even kill in the name of pragmatism and gaining victories for the Rebel Alliance.

Luke’s introduction to the Rebel Alliance is equally accidental, though arguably far more heroic. When his uncle and adoptive father Owen purchases a pair of droids for the farm, Luke discovers a secret message hidden within one of them: Princess Leia’s plea to a mysterious Obi-wan Kenobi for aid. Luke’s first instinct is to help her, seeking out the reclusive loner Ben Kenobi for more information. [more]

These parallels are further underscored by their respective musical motifs. Consider Luke’s theme, the “Main Title” fanfare. In the words of Williams himself, from the liner notes of the original 1977 LP release:

When I thought of a theme for Luke and his adventures, I composed a melody that reflected the brassy, bold, masculine, and noble qualities I saw in the character. When the theme is played softly, I tended towards a softer brass sound. But I used fanfarish horns for the more heraldic passages. This theme, in particular, brings out the full glow of the glorious brass section of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Comprised primarily of perfect intervals, the theme begins with an ascending fifth, an opening salvo so famous that music students everywhere, yours truly included, use it to identify perfect fifths in other contexts. As Lucas notes, the principal instrumentation is in the brass section, immediately conferring an old-world heroic air to Luke. [SWO hero’s journey quote]. [insert sheet music here, recap] As a theme, it is punchy, energetic, deliberately and intrinsically tied up in the “Rebel Fanfare,” and generally underscores moments of onscreen heroism and valiant derring-do. Its first non-diegetic appearance, that is, its first appearance outside of the main titles, is a little different; the melody still a solo, but in the horns rather than the trumpets, the underlying harmonization is lighter, less brash. Instead of an alternating [rest - quarter - rest - quarter - triplet - triplet] pattern, the rhythm is much simpler, with chord bursts on the second and fourth beats. [insert sheet music] Simpler, full of youthful energy, it is an aural demonstration of Luke at the beginning of his journey. He is not yet the hero of the Rebellion, nor the famed last of the Jedi; he is simply Luke, whose primary goal at this moment in the narrative is to leave his home, at any possible cost. [example] [example] [example]

By contrast, while Ezra’s theme is also played by the horns, they are muted, thinner, ringing out more softly over shimmering, sustained strings. [insert sheet music here, recap] Ezra’s theme mostly serves to underscore the character’s moments of emotional reflection, rather than his superhuman action, which is usually accompanied by the “Force” theme, the “Rebel Fanfare,” or the Ghost’s musical motif.

The first iteration of Ezra’s theme plays as he observes the crew of the Ghost handing food supplies from afar. His whole worldview has clearly been shaken; rather than abscond with the supplies stolen from Imperials--supplies that, Ezra’s presence notwithstanding, were difficult to steal--the crew of the Ghost chooses to give most of them away (though a crate of weapons is sold to a shady businessman for income). Ezra’s first instinct had been to sell them himself, to any number of the black market dealers with which he has become familiar growing up. Of the many confusing aspects of this situation, one thing which must be puzzling him is why the crew had even offered him refuge on their ship. Surely if they were like any other thief or smuggler, they would have left him behind to be killed by the TIE Fighter pilot, either as a punishment for stealing the crates in the first place, or simply to get him out of the way. (Later, he will be even more shocked that they turn around to rescue him from an Imperial Star Destroyer, one of the Empire’s largest and most heavily guarded space vessels, despite having accidentally left him behind earlier in their haste to escape.) Now, however, this emotional confusion, coupled with a handy tug from the Force, compels him to sneak aboard the Ghost and snoop, where he stumbles on Kanan’s lightsaber and holocron, a treasure trove of Jedi information that only Jedi can open, which he promptly steals.

Ezra was born on “Empire Day,” the day that the Clone Wars were ended and the Galactic Empire was declared by Palpatine, formerly Senator, then Chancellor, and now Emperor. (It was that same day that the Emperor launched his assault on the Jedi Order, wiping nearly all of them out in one overwhelming blow. It has been theorized that this mass slaughter resonated throughout the Force, causing unborn Force sensitive children to panic and induce early labor in the mother. Incidentally, Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa were born two days later.) For Ezra, Empire Day comes with its own baggage--this day is also the anniversary of his parents’ arrest for treason, which left him homeless and alone. This Empire Day, however, Ezra is not alone, but instead has joined up with a rebel cell determined to cause some mayhem and headaches for the Imperial occupiers. With Imperials distracted by preparations for a local parade, and their search for a particular Imperial data-worker named Tseebo, Ezra and the rebels happily ruin the parade, and, while hiding in the abandoned apartment which used to be Ezra’s childhood home, discover Tseebo already there. Tseebo was, by Ezra’s admission, a friend of his parents, though Ezra himself wants nothing to do with Tseebo now, who “went to work for the Empire, after they took my parents away.” (While it is left intentionally vague, there is a distinct possibility that Tseebo had a hand in his parents’ arrest and imprisonment.) In the years since, Tseebo has allowed himself to be implanted with cybernetic enhancements in order to increase his productivity, before downloading several caches of Imperial secrets, and attempting to flee. With all of the information in his head, Tseebo is little more than catatonic, able to walk and spout random information, but not truly understanding what is going on around him--until some turbulence aboard the Ghost appears to knock him back into consciousness. Seeing and recognizing Ezra, and perhaps knowing that he has a limited amount of time, Tseebo frantically tries to tell Ezra that he knows what happened to his parents, who he had presumed to be dead all this time. Sadly, Tseebo cannot remain lucid for very long, and Ezra must go and help draw the pursuing Imperials off of their tail, in order to get Tseebo to Hera’s rebel operative, the mysterious Fulcrum. Ezra will not discover the true fate of his parents for some time; at this point, however, he claims it is merely a moot point, telling crewmate Sabine, “I've been on my own since I was seven, okay? If I'd let myself believe my folks were alive, if I let myself believe they'd come back and save me, I'd never have learned how to survive.” The arrest of his parents was clearly a traumatic event for Ezra, one he, truthfully, hasn’t processed until the events of this episode. Part of a Jedi’s training is learning to deal with one’s emotions in a healthy manner; Ezra, who refused to believe the possibility that his parents were alive, finds himself blocked, unable to tap into or use the Force beyond small bursts of instinctual panic, until he tearfully admits his fears to Kanan. Open to the Force, in battle with the Imperials, Ezra demonstrates the beginnings of his remarkable skill in connecting, particularly with animals and other creatures, until, backed into a corner, he uses the Dark Side in order to summon a monster. With the Imperials beaten back, and Tseebo safely in the hands of the rebels, Sabine finds Ezra ruminating over the days’ events in one of the ship’s turrets. The events of this episode have, of course, shifted the world on its axis, upping the stakes and changing the characters’ views of each other permanently. Sabine, who had previously treated Ezra as something of a stranger, finds a kindred spirit in him as someone who has had their family torn apart by the Empire. For his belated birthday present, she gives him a data-disc which she had picked up while hiding in his childhood home; on it, amidst all the other data corruption, is an old family photo of his. Too grateful for words, Ezra barely even notices her leave, his attention fixed on the image, as the camera exits the ship, zooming away as the Ghost heads off towards parts unknown, and his musical motif resounding in a full, stately, horn chorus.

[emotional moment example]

This is not to say that Kiner never chooses to use Ezra’s theme in a heroic context. Most notably, in the series finale, Ezra’s theme plays triumphantly over his great sacrifice, as Ezra summons enormous, semi-legendary whale creatures called the Purrgil, to destroy the Imperial blockade over Lothal, and spirit away the remaining ships to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, with both Thrawn and Ezra still on board.

In the latter half of 2019, several new Star Wars properties are set to launch, including the video game Jedi: Fallen Order, the seventh season of the revived Star Wars: The Clone Wars animated show, and, of course, the ninth and final film in the so-called “Skywalker Saga,” Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Each of the listed properties’ accompanying trailers, with music scored by Gordy Haab, Stephen Barton, and BLAKUS, composers for the video game Star Wars: Battlefront II, Kiner, and Williams, respectively, have one shocking thing in common: the “Main Fanfare” theme is nowhere to be found. In the trailer for Jedi: Fallen Order, which is set in between the events of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, Haab’s score is much more reminiscent of Alan Silvestre’s Marvel’s Avengers than anything else. Though there are two instances of Williams’ themes in the score, they are both short and incomplete; we hear a somber and foreboding four notes of “The Imperial March” as the protagonist gazes anxiously at his broken weapon, and we hear just the beginnings of the Force theme as the title of the game is revealed, though the theme is reharmonized in order to blend more seamlessly with what will doubtless become the main character’s leitmotif. Similarly, in the trailer for The Rise of Skywalker, Williams chooses to only incorporate one of his themes, “Princess Leia’s Theme,” partially as an homage to the late Carrie Fisher, and partially due to Leia Organa’s rumored key role in the film itself. For The Clone Wars season seven trailer, Kiner does not use any of Williams’ original score; instead, the trailer begins with the theme he created for the breakout character of the show, Ahsoka Tano, before moving into entirely new material.

Though the so-called “Skywalker Saga” is ending, Disney has planned nearly another decade’s worth of Star Wars content in the form of spin-off films, television series, games, books, comics - any and every medium imaginable, and there are currently no signs that production is slowing down. Perhaps it is inevitable, then, that all traces of Luke Skywalker, both visual, narrative, and musical, are disappearing from the greater Star Wars landscape as the universe continues to expand and include new protagonists and stories. Die-hard fans will of course decry this as an attack on a precious childhood memory, as they did for any piece of Star Wars media released after 1998. [Kiner demonstrates it’s possible to have the best of both worlds]

#essay tag #somehow i ended up deciding to use this for my phd app #this AND survey of sci fi aesthetics in russian music #tf is wrong with me??? stubbornness and spitefulness mostly

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shenzhenblog · 5 years

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Saying no. Is this your secret weapon at work?

In 1956, William White wrote a book called “The Organization Man”. It was a portrait of America that became a manifesto for the need to overturn the prevailing, conformist bureaucracy. White argued that individualism was systematically stifled in US organizations, creating a culture of complacency, flattery, fear and faceless collectivism. This was 60 years ago: but has anything changed? Are we getting better, or worse?

Six years after the publication of White’s book, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted an experiment that would send shockwaves far beyond the academic world. He wanted to explore a question: if a person with authority asked an ordinary individual to give an electric shock to another person, what would that individual do?

When normal people dole out electric shocks

The experiment used volunteers to play the role of “teachers”, supervised by “researchers” in white coats, who were asked to give “students” electric shocks of increasing intensity if they gave the wrong answers to test questions. Although the electric shocks were fictitious, and the “students” were actors knowingly playing a part, the “teachers” were not aware of this.

Whenever the “teachers” showed qualms about administering these shocks, the “researchers” would push them on, with scripted phrases: “Go on, please”, “The experiment requires that you continue,” “It is important that you carry on ” “You have no choice: you must go on.” In 65% of cases, the “teachers” continued with shocks that would have posed a real danger to the “students”. At the end of the experiment, 84% of “teachers” reported that they were happy to have have participated in the experiment. Milgram paused and asked: How is it that people considered normal could become so sadistic, so quickly? According to the Yale study, the factors behind obedience vary, but in general the majority of people tend to obey in the presence of pressure exerted by a person or by a group with authority or even perceived authority. Blind Obedience to authority quickly becomes scary.

Are you a “phrog”?

In 1977, Jerry B. Harvey, professor of Management at George Washington University, picked up the same idea with an amazingly fun and powerful article that should be compulsory reading. Titling his essay “Organizations as Phrog farms,” Harvey uses what appears to be a spelling mistake to coin a term for a dehumanising process: the transformation of individuals into unthinking phrogs, quick to conform and to display blind obedience to authority.

“Phrog is spelled with a ph because phrogs don’t like to be known as frogs, and they try to hide their phroginess from themselves and others by transparent means. In short, once one has been transformed into a phrog, one likes to attempt to hide that fact. For one who has been a person, it’s a great come-down to be a phrog.”

For example, in many organizations it is much more important to follow the chain of command than to use your common sense and act in a mature and sensible fashion. In any organization, it’s considered a deadly sin to talk directly to the head of your boss, without the latter knowing about it. This is part of a culture of deference and flattery which is damaging. I can’t resist quoting Harvey’s tongue-in-cheek anecdote:

“There is a myth on the part of phrogs that kissing another phrog turns that phrog into a prince. I think it should be noted that, in general, kissing a phrog only produces skin irritations. For those who decide to kiss anyway, I think they should also realize that, in all that fog, it is very difficult to determine which way a phrog is facing.”

He goes on to warn against the ruthless culture of seeking to ensnare your rivals at work:

“Phrogs frequently try to set traps for one another. Phrog traps have a peculiar quality because they catch only the phrogs who set them. Stated differently, if you have to set a phrog trap, there is no need to do so. You are already in it.”

The link between flattery and power

More recently, in his book “Power: why some people have it and some don’t,” Jeffrey Pfeffer examines the strong correlation between adulation and power. CEOs have a strong preference for putting loyalists in senior positions, regardless of their credential or past achievements. Have you noticed something similar in your organization?

For a healthy, successful working culture, people need to be able to make their own decisions and challenge assumptions. We need to move far beyond simply conforming to authority.

As its most serious, the stock excuse of obeying orders imposed from above crops up in everything from the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals to modern-day corruption cases. Whatever the context, whenever humanly possible, we must refuse to abdicate our moral judgement or critical faculties.

As the holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl put it in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning:

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Note : This article was originally published on https://www.weforum.org

Paolo Gallo

Over the last 30 years, Paolo Gallo has been Chief Human Resources Officer at the World Economic Forum in Geneva; Chief Learning Officer at The World Bank in Washington DC; and Director of Human Resources at the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development in London.

Saying no. Is this your secret weapon at work? was originally published on Shenzhen Blog

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martens-movie-reviews · 7 years

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Released: July 22, 2011 Running Time: 2 hours 4 minutes

“It is 1941 and the world is in the throes of war. Steve Rogers wants to do his part and join America’s armed forces, but the military rejects him because of his small stature. Finally, Steve gets his chance when he is accepted into an experimental program that turns him into a supersoldier called Captain America. Joining forces with Bucky Barnes and Peggy Carter, Captain America leads the fight against the Nazi-backed HYDRA organization.”

In honour of the latest movie from the Marvel Cinematic Universe being released on November 3, 2017, I decided that I wanted to review all of the previous MCU films, and it was also a wonderful excuse to rewatch all the movies again. My girlfriend and I wanted to watch it with a group of friends, however there was no time that we could all agree on, and to space it all out didn’t work, so we watched the MCU movies during the month of September and October so that we would be ‘all caught up’ for Thor Ragnarok.

Marvel Cinematic Universe – Source – Marvel

You can find all of the reviews for the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the link here. At that link, you can also find the dates that the other reviews for the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be posted. My plan is to release one every single day, and because I’ve already reviewed Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 here, and Spider – Man: Homecoming here, they will not be included in the two weeks leading up to Thor Ragnarok.

As such, I will now move onto the actual review of the film, and I hope you enjoy!

Captain America: The First Avenger Trailer – Source: Paramount Pictures & Marvel Studios

Cast and Crew

This film was directed by Joe Johnston,

written by Stephen McFeely & Christopher Markus,