#and ford did regard him as a good friend and wouldn’t have been able to do it without him

[keen-eye]

McGucket: i’ve abandoned my own professional aspirations and have been neglecting my wife and our young son to be with help you make yours come true, i’m utilizing my mechanical genius just for you, here’s a gourd and an axolotl that remind me of you, here’s a snow globe of our lab, here’s six-fingered gloves I knitted for you, i’ve stayed by your side despite being repeatedly traumatized by these terrifying monsters, i’ve put my mental and physical health in jeopardy for our project, i’ve built a memory erasing device so that I can fix my anxiety and continue helping you, *erases your memory* forget I said that, here’s a thesis paper I’ve written for you so you can publish your research and end this dangerous and isolating endeavor, i've sacrificed so much, did I mention I left my wife to be with you

Ford: *keeps truth about project a secret*, *throws gourd away*, *puts you in harms way*, *dismisses your fears*, *frustrated by your lack of commitment*, *takes you for granted*, *breaks snow globe*, *suspicious of your intentions*, *questions your loyalty*, *releases axolotl*, *prioritizes and trusts a triangle over you*, *accuses you of betrayal*, *calls you weak-willed*

(^ imagine the vine boom after each one)

[summerofpinecestcontest]

Racing Hearts

Third place

by @formal-fauxpines

Monster Falls AU. Mabel has changed from her original Mermaid form to that of a Unicorn, and Dipper has come upon a greater struggle with his feelings for her.

The sounds of nature did wonders for the nerves. Water moved along it’s natural path, the sounds cutting through a mental fog as it did the soil it moved over. Birds chirping in the distance, accompanied by the sounds of wind blowing through the trees, a symphony to ease an aching heart. Dipper nestled himself in this spot whenever he was facing some kind of trouble in his life. Then again he found he needed to come to this place more and more as of late.

As a creature that was half deer, perhaps it was in his nature to seek the comforts of such a setting. The essence of the forest and wilderness permeated his soul. Ever since he came to this small town of Gravity Falls five years ago he felt that it was more natural for him to be here. Especially since he got to spend time with his favorite person in the world, hiis sister Mabel. Although as of late, this was the same person that was making his problems stand out more. He couldn’t blame her though, especially when the problem was with him.

A few years ago, Dipper began to develop feelings for Mabel. He had always been close to her, they were twins, how could they not be? But he was especially close to her as he provided her much more help than any brother normally would. In this world full of different monsters and creatures, it wasn’t uncommon that different individuals, even related, would be born vastly different. In this case, Dipper having the characteristics of a deer, his sister was born a mermaid. Like any mermaid, she was elegant, beautiful, and enamored anyone who gazed upon her. It was unfortunate that he was one of them.

With her being a mermaid though she couldn’t get around as easily. Dipper naturally took up the mantle of being something of a personal chauffeur to her. He carried her around in a special tank that allowed her enough water to stay comfortable in, yet light enough for him to pull it. This way she didn’t miss out on anything. He didn’t mind taking her around, since he cared for her no matter what. Plus she would always thank him sincerely, and every once in a while he would receive a small kiss for his efforts. When they were younger it was a simple act, yet as they grew, more and more would it be an action that would cause his heart to flutter and his stomach to knot up. He knew he could never act upon these feelings but he appreciated the fact that he at least got that from her.

However, that stopped about a year ago when she decided she needed a change. After their long lost Great Uncle Ford returned to them that first year in Gravity Falls, he continued his research into more and more fantastical parts of the world they lived in. One of those was a spell that allowed monsters to change what kind of creature they were. Mabel knew exactly what kind of creature she wanted to be.

In their first year in Gravity Falls, Mabel had a run in with some unsavory purebred Unicorns. Intending to retrieve a bit of hair for protection against the likes of a certain dream demon, Mabel found their kind were rather difficult to handle. For a few years after the fascination Mabel had with them dwindled and was replaced with scorn. Much like her disdain for Pacifica, however, she found herself not holding her grudge for too long. Not that she was fully over what happened to her, but she still had some admiration for the elegance and beauty that they held. Moreso however, she wanted to prove that she wouldn’t fall into being like the other unicorns.

It was a simple ritual, but it took a day to complete. She needed a bit of the DNA for the creature that she wanted to transform into and the crystal that Ford found could allow them to make the change. She needed to be on her own as any other creatures may negate the transformation and result in her staying in her original form. Dipper gave her a hug before she began her metamorphosis and asked her if this was really what she wanted. She simply replied that it was.

For a full day Dipper was worried how Mabel was doing on her own. If everything was going as it needed to. If she needed anything, if she was having second thoughts, if it caused any issues down the line. He had to put on a brave face though. However, Ford could see through his guise and reassured him that she was going to be fine. He told him all about how he had seen the transformation take place before and how it was harmless to the user. For the rest of the day Ford helped put his mind at ease regailing him with all the stories he had regarding this process and all that came from it. It put Dipper’s mind at ease, yet what he couldn’t admit was how worried he was about how it would affect their relationship.

Ford must have been exposed to some kind of psychic energy as he delved into that as well.

“I imagined that you are worried about how this will affect how you two interact as well, right?”

Dipper was taken aback by this sudden expression of concern. Yet, he was right. That was a big part of his concerns. Dipper just sat there, and kept sipping at his drink. Ford continued on.

“I thought that would come up. I have seen that a few times in my studies of this phenomenon. Most of the time the creature doing the transformation is doing it for someone else. Other times when they do, they have a loved one worried about how it will change their lives together. Don’t worry about that though. I have seen you both through the years and not even something like this will drive you apart.”

Ford patted Dipper on the back comforting him. These words reassured him a little, yet Dipper was never one to completely let go of his worries. After enough time passed it was time for them to go to bed. It was a restless night for Dipper of course. He hoped to occupy his mind with books and making edits to his journal but he couldn’t help but stay up that night concerned.

The next day couldn’t have come any slower. He had breakfast with his Grunkles, and proceeded to help set up some new furnishings in the attic to accommodate Mabel’s new form. No longer would Mabel need the kiddy pool, tarps, and water tank that kept her properly hydrated on land. Dipper especially felt a ping in his heart with letting go of the cart he used to take her around town. What use would he be to her now? Would she want to even hang out as much anymore? These were the things he would have to wait and see when they happened.

With the last hour upon them, the Pines plus Soos, Wendy, Candy and Grenda prepared a small party to welcome Mabel back. Candy and Grenda talked about all the fun plans they had for when Mabel could walk around on her own. Dipper was happy that Mabel had such good friends to be by her side.

Another twinge of pain ran through him again.

What about him? He wasn’t planning anything big with her post transformation. He was her twin and supposed best friend. Where were his plans for her?

At that moment, a clawed paw rested on his shoulder. The brownish-red fur caught his eye as he turned his head up to see Wendy’s face looking down at him. For her cool demeanor, she always seemed to know what was getting at him and relaxed him. That is except for Mabel.

The time finally came. Everyone was on edge to see Mabel’s new form. As the door opened, the unmistakable sound of hooves on the wooden floors resonated throughout the room. She emerged through the doorway gracefully. Her coat shined with a silvery white that glimmered in the light. Her horn gave off a faint golden glow that shined brilliantly. Instead of wearing her usual water friendly attire, she now had on a sweater she had kept a hold of for times when she was going to be dry. It was more something she had fascination with and hoped to wear regularly. Now she could.

Everyone clamored at how beautiful she was. Candy and Grenda were very excited to see her new form and talked about how cute and beautiful she was. Wendy had cooly complimented Mabel in her usual and cool way. Grunkle Stan and Ford both were talking about how lovely she was and how the procedure went. Amongst the chatter, Dipper stood there as he gazed upon her. She was everything that was being said about her by their friends. Dipper couldn't find the words to express how he felt. Everyone had pretty much said what he could have said. However, one thing they didn’t say that he was longing to say was how beautiful she was, and that no alteration to her could change that beauty she had inside her. The beauty she had that he saw everyday and made him fall in love with her.

Dipper held back though and played the role as a “normal” supportive brother he should have been. He complimented her and gave her support. When she stumbled when walking he was the first to put a hand out to help her up and make sure she was okay. Being a quadruped as well he made sure to take the time and teach her how to walk on all fours. He spent so much time making sure she was ready to take things on her own. She was a remarkably fast learned when it came to learning how to do things physically, a big part of her being so hands on with so many activities.

Soon she was able to walk around on her own without any help at all. Dipper had never been more proud of her. She was able to go wherever she wanted now. However that did give a twinge of sadness in him as that meant that the time they were spending together was now over. Dipper's doing right by his sister ended up with him feeling alone once more as he watched her go and live her life without need of his help or assistance. Mabel was able to go anywhere she wanted to. Before if she wanted to go to the mall or anywhere Dipper would take her. Now he didn’t need to, and that left a void inside him.

Dipper tried desperately to fill that void and make himself feel whole again, but he wasn’t able to do it. Writing in his journal and finding new discoveries in the town provided a temporary distraction. However what he found was that being deep in the woods provided him the greatest peace from his thoughts. He let the sounds and essence of the woods settle his mind and permeate his soul, quelling the storm of emotions inside. The birds chirped, the wind rustled the trees, and all was right with the world.

However a distinct sound cut through the natural sounds. The sound of hooves trotting across the forest floor, stepping on twigs and debris as she made her way over to Dipper. His ears twitched as he picked up on the noise, turning his head in the direction of the sound and opening his eyes. There she was, the beautiful and majestic as always, standing before him so that he may admire her. If this was a trap then he would have been done for.

"Hey Bro-bro," Mabel said in her usually cheerful disposition.

“Hey Mabel,” he said with a smile on his face as he struggled to maintain his feelings. “What brings you out here?”

“I was looking for you silly.”

“Me? I mean, didn’t you want to hang out with Candy and Grenda today?”

“I was, but I think it's been a while since I hung out with ya. I miss you Dip-dop.”

Those words hit him hard as he had wondered if she was actually missing him this whole time. He wanted to tell her so many times before, but he didn’t want to guilt her and ruin her freedom and good time.

“It has been a bit, it feels like hasn’t it? I thought you would be tired of me after all the years of having me carry you around honestly.”

“Get tired of hanging out with my Bro-bro? Never! In fact I think it's been weird to not hang out with you for this long actually.”

Dipper wanted to go up and hug her after she made such a statement. It really had been too long. Instead, he stood up and stretched after having sat for so long.

“So what do you want to do?”

“Well… I was thinking maybe having a race.”

“A race?”

“Yeah,” Mabel said excitedly. “I think I have gotten used to these legs enough that I can give ya a run for your money.”

“Oh you want to bet?” Dipper asked Mabel with a sense of confidence. “I know this forest pretty well. You really think you can beat me?”

“Only one way to find out,” Mabel said with a more smug sense of confidence.

“Well what does the winner get?”

“We’ll work the details out later. But the first one to make it to the waterfall is the winner.”

“Wait, Mabel… but.”

“ONYOURMARKSGETSETGO!”

With the quick statement of their start Mabel was off in a fast gallop towards the falls. Dipper was quick to react however as he set off after her. He was used to Mabel pulling a few tricks in their competitions but she seemed to be intent on proving herself and winning this race. For what he couldn't say since they never established a prize, either way it should have been a fun run

Dipper ran as fast as he could to catch up with Mabel as she kept going through the woods. He had to admit how impressed he was at how agile and graceful she was running through the forest. From behind he saw how she would duck and dodge the branches and how she managed with the forest's terrain. He knew these woods well and understood how difficult it could be to navigate for some.

Luckily for him he was well versed in the forest terrain as he made it over and around logs and branches to eventually catch up with Mabel. Trying to stay focused on the path ahead, he did throw caution to the wind to check to make sure she was okay. He could see she was more than okay as the wind flowed through her hair and the sun shined off her unicorn body. Even though she was concentrating on the race, she had the widest grin on her face.

Dipper looked back ahead of him as he narrowly missed a branch that was about to hit his face. He was lucky his reflexes were so sharp from the years spent out there. He decided to stay focused and make it there as fast as he could. At first Dipper thought about throwing the race to give Mabel confidence in herself. But he knew better as seeing her now she deserved a fair race.

After fifteen minutes of running, Dipper could see the falls in sight. The sound of the roaring and rushing water in the distance graced his ears. He could smell the lake as he breathed heavily from having run so hard and so long. The terrain became less dense as it gave way to more grasses and shrubs instead of logs and trees. Giving it one last push Dipper hit the sands of the beach and the momentum took him into the water.

“YEAH!” Dipper shouted confidently as he turned around to see Mabel hit the water right after him.

“That.... was a… good one…” Mabel said between breaths.

“I’ll say,” Dipper said as he left the water to go to the shore. Mabel followed right behind.

After a moment for both of them to catch their break they both began to congratulate one another.

“Wow Mabel, you were so good out there.”

“Me? You were the one who was zipping around those woods like it was  strolling through the park.”

“Well I do spend a lot of time here. And you seem to have it really down yourself managing a race.”

“What can I say? I had a good teacher.”

Dipper blushed at the statement as she always appreciated him and what he did for her.

“Well,” he asked. “What's the prize?”

“Well… I think the winner of this race deserves a special prize.”

Mabel walked up to Dipper slowly, with a sly grin on her face and a caring and half lidded gaze. Dipper wasn’t sure if it was his heart was beating hard from the race or if it was what Mabel was doing, but it nearly stopped when Mabel got close and personal with her twin brother and laid a kiss upon his lips.

The moment her lips pressed into his, the whole world faded away. All that he could sense was Mabel kissing him gently. Her lips were warm and soft like pillows, the taste of strawberries was detected from her lip gloss, the smell of her shampoo filled his nose, and the gentle hums of pleasure she gave practically drowned out the noise of the roaring falls. Everything about her filled his world as if she was all that mattered. To Dipper though, she really was all that mattered.

When the kiss broke Mabel took a step back and looked Dipper in the eyes. She was looking for any sign that he was okay with what happened. Mabel got her answer with a kiss from him, except this time with more passion as he wrapped his arms around her. She did the same, grasping at his shoulders tightly. Their kiss lasted another minute before breaking again.

Dipper didn’t know what to say. For as brilliant of a mind he had he was never good with his emotions and how to express them outright. All he could do was hold her hand and rub his thumb across her fingers.

“What do you think of that as a prize?” Mabel asked.

“I really liked it….but, how did you know?”

“Well, it turned out that the whole seeing into other people’s hearts wasn’t a complete lie. I could sense it a little more after I changed. But you know what Bro-bro. You weren’t the only one with a weird crush.”

“Wait, what?” Dipper asked in surprise.

“What can I say? I had the best brother a mermaid could ever ask for with how you took care of me. I always thought we could be that way forever but it didn’t seem fair to you waiting on me hand and fin. So I wanted to become this, so I could let you be who you wanted to be. But after a while I realized I didn't want to be without you, and I can see now that you feel the same.”

“Mabel… I… I love you.”

It was all Dipper could think of saying.

“I love you too Dipper.”

And it was just the right words for him to say.

The two kneeled down in the sand as they rested their tired bodies after so much happened to them in such a short amount of time. They cuddled, held hands and continued to kiss for some time. It was a moment they wanted to have lasted forever and hoped would happen more often than not.

“So Dip-dop?” Mabel asked, breaking the silence. “How about another race back home? This time the winner gets to decide what to do?”

Dipper smiled as a warmth filled his heart as he gazed upon the sister that he loved so dearly.

[imnotoverlyobsessive]

Looks Like Someone Picked a Whole Bushel of Oopsie Daisies

Chapter Ten: Shades of Blue

As always, thanks to @edward-or-ford and @pacific-ship!

How can you leave me on my own? Desperate and destitute, these seconds feel like lifetimes without you.- New Years Day, My Dear

Mabel marked off February 1st in her calendar with an X in her pink gel pen with sparkles (was it really even a gel pen if there were no sparkles? Mabel’s opinion was firmly on the side of ‘no, absolutely not’).

Just two hundred and twelve days to go. She was counting the days, the hours, the seconds (okay, maybe just the days, she wasn’t that good at math) till her parents could no longer keep her from her soulmate.

Because on August 31st, 2017, Mabel and her super awesome brother-boyfriend-soulmate combo would be turning eighteen, and there was nothing their parents could do to keep them apart once they turned eighteen.

Their parents had insisted they were monitoring their texts, and that they weren’t allowed to speak under any circumstances.

Of course, Dipper had called Mabel from Grunkle Stan’s phone (turns out their parents had been total liars about that, too, and neither Grunkle Stan nor Grunkle Ford was in any way opposed to the whole soulmate situation) as soon as she got home, and they had both downloaded an untraceable messaging app where they could text, make phone calls, and send pictures.

As one might imagine, they sent a great deal of pictures.

And also videos.

They had a lot of phone sex and sexy texting time, okay? They’d only gotten to have actual in-person sex twice (twice!), so they had to compensate somehow.

In any case, there was nothing they could do about it before they turned eighteen, so they had to come up with workarounds.

Not that it could prevent the withdrawals that were likely to hit if another month or two went by without them seeing each other, of course, but it sure made the days go by easier.

Mabel wasn’t sure what her parents were planning to do once they hit the three month mark and the first of the withdrawal symptoms started. It wouldn’t be so bad at first, according to what Dipper had told her regarding the massive amount of research he’d done. Probably just more of the usual depression she’d been having since she watched him disappear behind their car, and then sleepiness, then headaches and body aches, and then things would get progressively worse until eventually, they wouldn’t be able to function at all anymore.

She didn’t know what their plans were for anything, really. She hadn’t spoken to them since they’d left Gravity Falls. She hadn’t said a word to them on the drive home; just put her headphones in and tuned out. She hadn’t said anything to them since, either. Her parents would try to get her to talk sometimes. Her mom did it more often. She had headphones on most of the time. She wasn’t even home very much.

She didn’t tell her parents when she was going to a friend’s house the way she had before. The first few times, her parents had called the parents of various friends until they found her. After awhile, though, they stopped.

She didn’t care if they were worried. They clearly weren’t worried enough about her and Dipper to let them be together, so Mabel didn’t see any reason to notify them or her comings and goings, despite their protests. Just because they wanted to cherry pick their concerns for her well being didn’t mean she had to let them.

Besides, she came home every few days, anyway. It was usually only for a night, of course. Then she’d go back out again. And yeah, that meant she was out on school nights, but her grades were good, and she always made it to class on time.

She wanted Dipper. She wanted to be in his arms again. She slept in the shirt she’d taken from him every night, and she hadn’t even washed it. It smelled more like her by that point than it did him, and not in a good way, either, but it made her feel a little better.

Plus, whenever she sent him pictures of herself wearing it (sometimes leaving enough of the buttons undone to where her cleavage was visible, other times leaving all the buttons undone), he got all possessive and sexy, and the night usually ended with them panting each other’s names into the phone as quietly as they could.

Mabel stared at the cheery pink gel pen in her hand. She wasn’t feeling particularly pink. She hadn’t felt pink in just over a month, as it happened. Which was strange, because Mabel always felt some shade of pink or purple.

But she could hardly remember what Dipper smelled like. She could hardly remember what he tasted like. What he felt like. If she couldn’t remember those things, she couldn’t make herself feel anything that wasn’t some shade of blue or other.

She hung the gel pen back up on her calendar, grabbed her overnight bag, and opened her bedroom door.

She had her headphones in and was looking at her phone, pulling up a playlist, so she didn’t notice her mother there until she spoke.

“Honey, why don’t you spend the night here? I’ll make your favorite, if you want, and we can watch a movie, and…” tears welled up in her mother’s eyes. “Please, sweetheart, I can barely remember what your voice sounds like.”

Well, Mabel thought, maybe you shouldn’t have decided to separate me from my soulmate, then.

With that in mind, Mabel shot her mother a glare severe enough to make her flinch, and pushed past her, her overnight bag bumping against the hallway wall as she did.

Her friends were waiting for her in their car outside.

Mabel loaded her bag into the trunk and ignored her mother watching her behind the curtains in the living room.

Squeezing into the only empty seat in the car, she grinned at her friends.

Kristin, Eva, and Julie had been total lifesavers. They knew about Mabel’s soulbro situation, and they were, like, super supportive.

“Your ‘rents still giving you shit?” Julie asked over her shoulder as she pulled out of the driveway.

Mabel sighed heavily, her shoulders drooping. “It’s not shit, exactly, just…” she sighed again. “They just, y’know. They won’t let me see him.”

“Yeah, that still doesn’t make any sense to me at all,” Kristin said, adjusting her black lipstick in a compact mirror. “I get that having an incesty-soulmate isn’t, like, ‘socially acceptable’ or whatever,” she did air quotes with her fingers, the motion seeming a bit off due to the tube of eyeliner she had in between her pointer and index fingers that she was using in lieu of lipstick. “But if my parents can handle me being bi, yours should be able to handle your soulmate being your brother.”

“Okay, so here’s the thing,” Eva cut in, turning around to address Kristin and Mabel. “I feel like, if it were me, and they were my kids, at first I’d be all freaked out, y’know? Cause like, they’re your kids, and then it turns out they’re soulmates and have to bang a whole bunch or they’ll get all eeeeuuughh, right? That’d mess anybody up, I think,” she paused for a moment before continuing. “But the thing is, though, I feel like after that initial freak out, I’d be kinda relieved, honestly.”

“Relieved? Really?” Julie was so surprised she forgot to use her turn signal when changing lanes. “Oops, my b,” she said, half to herself and half to the driver who had honked at her. Not that he could hear her, of course.

“Why relieved?” Mabel wondered.

“Well, if you’ve got a kid, right, and your kid finds their soulmate and it’s some stranger you don’t know, how do you know your kid’s soulmate isn’t gonna hurt them, or be a terrible person or something?” Eva reasoned.

“That’s a good point,” Kristin agreed, shutting her compact mirror with a snap. “Soulmates aren’t exactly exempt from domestic abuse and shit.”

Eva nodded. “Exactly, so like, if it were me, I feel like I’d be cool with it once I got used to the idea, because I’d know my kids, right, so I’d know they’d never hurt each other.”

“That makes sense,” Julie said thoughtfully.

“Mmm,” Mabel hummed. “I guess. I dunno. They’re weird about it.”

“Wait a sec,” Kristin interjected. “Didn’t you say your parents mentioned something about their parents being, like, religious fundies or something?”

Mabel nodded. “I think my grandmother on my mom’s side might be. Which would make sense, honestly, since my mom has been so militant about keeping the Dipster and me apart.”

“Okay, first of all,” Eva had a haughty air to her voice, and Mabel raised an eyebrow at her. “First of all,” she said again. “It’s ‘the Dipster and I’.”

The other three girls groaned, and Julie took a hand off the wheel to swat at her half heartedly.

“Ommigod, shut up!” Mabel giggled.

“Whatever, you love me and you know it,” Eva said with a grin.

The others grumbled but did not object.

“FYI, Mabes,” Kristin put a hand on her arm. “You should send him a selfie real quick.”

“Oh?”

“Mhm,” her friend nodded sagely. “You look hot, and it’s a damn crime he doesn’t get to see it in person, so you gotta help a brotha out!”

Mabel smiled and snapped a few dozen pictures of herself.

“Okay, which one’s best?” she asked, handing her phone to Kristin, who scrolled through and inspected each one.

“No, no, no… meh, maybe… no, no… oooo, yes, love it, this one, totes send this one! Look at how much boobage you got in there, just fuckin’ go for it, man!”

Mabel grinned and sent the picture to Dipper, along with a short little miss you <3 text.

He responded with a miss you too and then, two seconds after, fuck you’re beautiful.

She giggled and showed Kristin his response. “Mhm, mhm, told ya.”

“Okay, so, confession time,” Julie said, pulling into her parents’ driveway.

“Spill it,” Eva immediately demanded.

“So you guys know Chad, right?”

“Unfortunately,” Kristin said with a grimace. The guy in question was a bit of a fuckboi.

“No, don’t say that!” Julie whined, getting out of the car. “He’s really sweet!”

”Of course he is,” Eva deadpanned.

“He is!” Julie insisted. “Anyway, so he asked me out.”

Mabel groaned. “Jules, tell me you didn’t.”

“I might have, yeah.”

“Ugh, ew,” Kristin said.

“It’s not ew!”

“No, it’s totally ew,” Eva pointed out, and Mabel nodded her agreement.

“If it helps,” Julie was saying sheepishly as she unlocked her front door, “he’s really, really good.”

“Of course he’s really good, numbnuts,” Kristin said with an eye roll. “He’s slept with half the school.”

“So have you!” Julie said defensively.

“Oooo, gotta point there,” Mabel snickered, pointing a glittery blue nail at her friend.

“Yeah, but I’m, like, discreet about it,” Kristin pointed out. “And I’ve actually dated people seriously, too!”

“Anyway,” Julie cut in. “So the consensus is ew, then, huh?”

“Definitely ew,” Mabel agreed.

“Why are Chads always such Chads?” Kristin wondered aloud, opening the door to Julie’s bedroom.

“They really are,” Eva laughed, plopping down on the bed.

“Soooo…” Mabel trailed off. “Cards Against Humanity, anybody?”

———————————————————————Her friends always helped push the separation anxiety to the back of her mind, but with the other three girls asleep, there was nothing for Mabel to do but wallow.

Her phone lit up the dark room, illuminating the air mattress Mabel lay on.

Dipper had sent her a message.

I want you.

Mabel unplugged her phone and scrambled up as quietly as she could, crossing the hall into the guest bedroom and locking the door behind her and turning on the light, typing out a quick okay in response.

She knew from experience that as long as she was quiet, nobody would hear her.

Now? he asked.

Now.

And then he was calling her, and she was hastily stuffing her headphones in her ears and hitting the little phone icon on her screen.

“Hey,” he greeted, and she could hear the smile in his voice.

“Hey,” she said back. It was always such a relief to hear him. “I miss you.”

“We’ve been texting all day,” he laughed.

“I know, but…”

“It’s not the same,” he agreed with the words she hadn’t said.

“Yeah,” her voice was soft, and she heard him sigh on the other end of their call.

“Can I see you?” he asked after a moment.

“Y- yeah, one sec.” They’d done this more times than she could count, but somehow, she was always nervous.

She stripped out of her shorts and unbuttoned his shirt to let it reveal her breasts, pulled her panties down a bit with her thumb and smiled into the camera.

She only had to take six or seven pictures before she had one she was satisfied with. Sending it over and promptly deleting them from her phone, she waited for it to arrive.

She knew when he got it, because he said, “Fucking hell, Mabel,” with a groan, and she could almost picture him stroking himself.

She’d only seen him do that a handful of times, when they’d gotten the chance to do this on the rare occasion she was at their parents’ for the night. She could have watched it for hours.

“You’re so perfect,” he sighed in her ear, and if she closed her eyes, she could almost imagine he was there with her. He’d kiss her neck, maybe, and then squeeze her breasts and pinch her nipples. Mimicking the things he was doing to her in her mind’s eye, she trailed a hand down her body and stroked herself lightly through her panties, listening to the way his breath was quickening.

“I wanna see you, too, Dip,” she sighed into the phone.

A few seconds later, a picture came through of him holding himself, and when she saw him naked… well. She had seen him naked more times than she could count by that point, but it was always breathtaking each time.

“Are you wet for me, Mabes?” he murmured in her ear.

She nodded, pulling her drenched panties off and kicking them to the side, before remembering he couldn’t see her. “Yes.”

“Show me.”

She took another picture, this time of a part of herself she didn’t really understand why he wanted to see, but he liked it so she sent it to him anyway.

“I wish I had gotten to taste you,” he gasped. “I think about that a lot.”

“O- oh?” How embarrassing. She knew she was blushing. She could feel it.

“Are you blushing right now?” Dipper asked. “I bet you are. You’re so cute when you blush.” She giggled a little, and he went on. “Will you touch yourself for me?”

“Mhm.” She brushed her fingers over her slit, dipping one inside slightly, just for a second, and gasping as she did so.

“Pinch your nipples, too, okay? I know you like that.” He did know, didn’t he? He knew all the things she liked. He seemed to know them intuitively. To be fair, though, he’d said she knew all the things he liked, too.

Pinching her nipple and brushing a finger lightly over her clit, Mabel whimpered.

“Does that feel good?”

“Y- yes,” she gasped out.

“I wish… mmmf,” he cut himself off with a groan. “I wish this was your hand instead of mine.”

Mabel squeezed her breast roughly, rubbing a finger back and forth over her clit.

“Me too,” she whined. “God, Dip, I want… I want you inside me so bad, I-“

“I know, Mabes. I know. I’d give anything to be inside you right now.”

She rubbed herself a little faster, and her legs were going to give out, she could tell they were, so she allowed herself to collapse onto the cold of the hardwood floor.

“You okay?” Dipper asked when he heard her fall to the ground, concern evident in his voice.

“Yeah, I just had to… ah!” she gasped. “I had to sit down.”

“Oh, okay,” he murmured, and it sounded like he went back to stroking himself.

“I need you.” She’d resorted to begging. She always did that when she was getting close.

“I know,” he groaned. “I need you, too.”

“Dipper, I- please, I need…” she rubbed herself faster, and her hips lifted off the floor an inch or so.

“I know,” he said again.

“I need you.” She couldn’t stop. It felt too good. “I need it, I want you so bad, please,” she begged. “Please give it to me, please Dip, god, I can’t-“

“Are you gonna cum for me, Mabes?”

“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes, I’m gonna- fuck, I want your cum in me, yes-“ her wrist hurt, but she kept going. She was so close, so fucking close-

“Cum for me, I wanna hear you cum for me.”

“Dipper, ah, oh fuck, Dipper, I’m gonna-“ her body spasmed, and she fell limp.

A few seconds later, he followed her with a grunt.

It had felt so good, and Mabel felt so content for a split second, because she’d forgotten that Dipper wasn’t there with her.

The tears started to fall, and she began to sniffle. It usually ended that way. She couldn’t help it.

“Mabel,” he said with a sigh.

“I’m sorry,” she hiccuped.

“No, no,” he assured her. “I just… I wish I could be there with you.”

“I don’t care where we are as long as we’re together,” she cried softly.

“I know,” he sighed again. “But we’ll be together soon, okay? I’ve got an idea.”

“An idea?” What kind of idea, she wondered.

“Yeah, but it’s a surprise, so until I’ve got everything worked out, just be patient for me, okay?”

“Okay,” she sniffed.

“I love you,” he told her softly.

“I love you, too.”

After a few seconds, he said, “and on that note, I need to clean this jizz off my stomach before it drips all over my bed.”

She giggled. “Okay, I’ll talk to you later.”

“You’ll text me tomorrow, right?”

“Uh, doi, when don’t I?” She sniffed again. It was hard to force the silliness that usually felt natural when she felt so blargh.

“Good point,” he chuckled. “Night, then. Love you,” he said again.

“Love you, too.”

After they hung up, it took several minutes for Mabel’s body to stop tingling from her orgasm, and then several more minutes before she could stop the tears and go back to bed.

Being without him was tougher than she’d imagined.

[minijenn]

Random Keys/UF Crossover Ideas

Because I’m torn between both of my projects right now and I hate myself, here’s something that’ll only really appeal to the very niche audience of people who read both Universe Falls and Keys to the Kingdom. Basically its a list of somewhat spoilery (for Keys more than UF) headcanons of what it might be like if the Gravity Falls world scheduled to be in Keys was a Universe Falls world instead (in the sense that it still takes place in Gravity Falls physically but like... its set in the universe of Universe Falls (oy I’m explaining too much lemme just start rambling off the random ideas that have been popping into my head over the last several days of this hypothetical crossover of my two stupid fanfics):

For reference’s sake, on the UF end of things, this would take place somewhere around the middle of arc10ish, pretty close to Weirdmageddon as the GF world in Keys is gonna take place pretty close to Weirdmageddon too. 

For Keys, the trip to this world would still take place in the same spot the GF world does, so semi close to the end of the story, as one of the last Disney worlds of the fic (guess it wouldn’t really be a “Disney” world here but ehhhhhh) 

Guess I better give some context about what’s going on in each fic around that time; UF’s is easier to do so we’ll start with that; basically without spoiling a certain upcoming arc ender too much, during arc 10, everyone’s sorta frazzled what between all of the interdimensional travel, worries about Bill coming back and causing chaos, worries about the Diamonds possibly getting involved in stuff, shaken by the recent revelation that Rose allegedly shattered Pink Diamond and so on (basically there’s a lot going on in the leadup to UF’s ending hahaha) 

Context for Keys (again without getting too spoilery (gotta tread even more careful here) is that by this point in the story Sora is basically in nonstop Panic Mode about the whole norting thing thanks to a certain encounter with one Bald Old Fuckhead during the Aladdin world immediately before this; so Sora’s on the run from basically his entire support system cause he’s all worried about unintentionally hurting his friends (and he also just doesn’t want Riku or Kairi in particular to see what’s happening to him cause Disaster Bi). 

Cont. Context for Keys cause that last bullet point was Long: Despite all this fuckin Angst, Sora’s still out searching for the Keys on his own in the hopes of securing the final few for the guardians of light before he can be fully norted and forced into handing them over to the Organization instead 

Not to mention those freak relatively dark/light powers of his are alll outta whack cause he A. Doesn’t know how to control them At All and B. Is Emotionally Distraught so that’s only making things worse

And the entire gang is more or less out searching the worlds tryin’ to find Sora (he yeeted his Gummi Phone off a fuckin cliff or something just so nobody could get in touch with him smh what a waste of a perfectly good cell phone); among the teams that are out doing so include the one we’re gonna focus on here, Ven and Roxas  

Back to the UF end of things, I wanna talk about where each of the Mystery Kids are at this point; Steven is sorta all over the place with, again, the revelation that his mom could have been a murderer; Dipper is hella nervous about the idea of Bill getting his hands on the Rift (even moreso after RMD cause PTSD is Somethin Else kids), Mabel is in that mindset of not wanting the summer to end so they can all stay together, and Connie is basically (as usual) the only one with any brain cells as she’s trying to hold the gang together

(lowkey spoilers for the Keys GF chapters start here) So Sora arrives in Gravity Falls, suffering from all the angsts and anxieties and whatnot and just Not Having a Very Good Time Emotionally/Mentally as he starts lookin around for the Key in the woods or whatever

But lo and behold everyone’s favorite Evil Corn Chip just so happens to be spyin’ on him, and before too long Bill makes his appearance and acts all friendly to Sora, claiming that he can basically undo the whole norting thing (which he knows all about because of course he would, this is Bill Fucking Cipher we’re talking about here)

Sora’s skeptical but at the same time he’s sort of willing to do whatever he can at this point to keep his heart from being taken over by Mr. Bald Old Fuckhead and all Bill is asking for in return is for him to nab some sparkly snow globe that he claims already belongs to him but was stolen by some local family who Bill makes out to be pretty bad so hey, why not at least give it a shot? (dumb, the kid is dumb this is something we’ve established many times over by this point)

So Sora sets out to look for both the rift and the Key (while also being harangued by Xemnas who’s the Org. baddie of the GF world but errrrr i don’t have a ton of ideas about what he’s gonna do yet so we’ll just skip over that for now and focus on somethin else)

Something else being the fact that Sora happens upon a bunch of kids being attacked by a group of Nobodies, so he swoops in to save them even though the kids already look like they’re holding their own pretty well against them (two of them are out here swinging swords around, one’s really handy with that grappling hook while another one has some sort of magical shield? Its weird??? But cool imo) 

So they all team up to take the Nobodies out and following that, Sora meets and mostly hits it off with the Mystery Kids

Mabel is super hype (she kinda instantly crushes on Sora as soon as she sees him even though he’s too fuckin old for her); Steven and Sora radiate the same sort of Sweet But Sad energy so of course they’re best friends immediately 

Connie’s a lil bewildered by Sora (who the hell goes around swinging a giant key like its a sword, that’s just not practical???) but Dipper’s distrustful radar is instantly raised for a a number of reasons, but the biggest red flag he notices about Sora by far is that his eyes are yellow (btw by this point his eyes will more or less be completely yellow and his hair almost entirely white; he usually wears his hood up to try and hide that, but it got blown off during the forementioned fight) 

So the kids were out and about in the woods for mystery hunting reasons, mostly cause they were trying to cool their heads from all of the stress they’re under mentioned earlier (and cause hey, the summer’s ending soon and they gotta spend all the time they can together at this point) 

However, they quickly change gears when they learn about Sora’s quest to find some magical Key and they all eagerly decide they wanna help with that cause it sounds hella rad; Dipper would likely be the only dissenter to this plan, but he’d be lowkey about it, kinda deciding to keep a suspicious eye on Sora all the while (he doesn’t really act like he’s being possessed by Bill, but ya can never be too sure nowadays...) 

So they all set out in search of the Key (Sora decides not to tell them about Bill or the rift just yet, but even so right off the bat he’s basically decided “yes I’m adopting all four of these kids as my new little brothers and sisters and no one can stop me”)

So cut to the other end of things and we have Ven and Roxas who have basically only just met each other face to face for the first time (they’re both basically constantly doin that spiderman look alike meme); they’ve been more or less teamed up to look for Sora together tho, and they both got a massive guilt complex about the whole thing cause they used to be able to directly protect him inside his heart but now they can’t since they’re out of it so they’re determined to find him and make sure he’s OK

They also show up in Gravity Falls, arriving much closer to the Mystery Shack and the Gem Temple than Sora did; since its the closest thing nearby, the boys decide to venture over to the Mystery Shack to look first 

After some brief, confused yet fun conversation with Soos and Wendy, they bump into Stan and that initial meeting goes something like: 

Stan: Who the hell are you two supposed to be? You twins or something?

Roxas: No??? What the fuck is a twin??

Ventus, realizing that Roxas has like 0 real world experience or regard for world order at that moment right fucking there: (oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck) Ummmm YES WE ARE WE’RE TOTALLY TWINS AHAHA AREN’T WE BROTHER?

Roxas, immensely confused: What the hell is a brother??

And then Ford shows up and Roxas looks between him and Stan is just like “ooooh ok now I get what a twin is” and Ven is just like “oh my god I think Roxas managed to catch some of Sora’s stupidity after all asdkjalsdkalsd” 

Anyway after all this awkward confusion is over, Roxas and Ven bring up that they’re there looking for someone, and while neither Stan nor Ford are that invested, they do offhandedly mention maybe the Crystal Gems can help

Ironically enough, the Gems happen to burst into the shack right then and there, taking refuge from the surge of strange creatures swarming outside (Nobodies & Heartless); the Gems are rather overwhelmed by them since their weapons don’t work that great on them so they’ve come to seek Ford’s help (since he’s got all those weapons and lasers and shit he keeps stockpiled) 

In this Ven and Roxas end up meeting the Gems and both of them are just like :O (Ven’s lowkey like, “Aqua would get along great with these ladies, they’re total badasses just like her!”) and the Gems just kinda pass the boyos off like “yeah whatever there’s a fuckton of monsters outside meanwhile where are our kids?”

Stan and Ford are like *shrug* cause neither of them are very good at being Responsible when it comes to keeping an eye on these danger-prone kids and the Gems are just like *facepalm* “Morons” so they set out to find the kids and Ven and Roxas are like “well they know their way around here so why not go with them to see if we can find Sora too!” and so they all head out on a lil adventure

Then a whole bunch of stuff happens on both sides of the plot that I haven’t bothered to figure out; bunch of cute character interactions and whatever; insert possible second encounter with Xemnas in here somewhere where he basically shows up just to intimidate Sora but Sora’s like “no way jose, you touch any of these precious kiddos and you’ll Die” 

Somewhere in here, under... some circumstances, Sora and the MK make it back to the shack but like... everyone’s gone? (cause they all went out to look for them, didn’t even leave a note, fuckin rude) 

They search the house for anybody and then, on complete fuckin accident, Sora finds his way down into the basement (the portal room to be exact) and what else does he find down there but that thing Bill asked him to get (the rift)! 

Though he’s a little confused about why its there (Bill did say some awful family “stole” the rift from him, but none of the MK are awful, they a bunch of Good Kids); Sora still pockets it like a desperate dummy dumb anyway and doesn’t say a word about it to the kids because he thinks they might be too innocent and young to know anything about it anyway (he’s wrong of course because much like him these kids are Traumatized with a capital T but we’ll just ignore that for now)

Still on the search for that Key, Sora and the kids head out only to run right into Stan, Ford, and the Gems on the way out; course, Ven and Roxas are still with them and they see Sora and they’re like :D while Sora’s just like “aw fuck” and runs away from his problems like always

So he rushes off into the woods and who else would show up but that Motherfuckin Evil Corn Chip again who’s like “yo kid ya got the stuff” and Sora’s just like “brb having a panic attack rn” but then he ends up obliviously handing the rift over anyway cause again he’s incredibly desperate for any way out of his current horrible situation

Of course because I’m a sap for Drama, he happens to do so just as all four of the MK show up, having followed him into the woods and ohohohoh boy oh boy let’s just say them seeing Sora just up and giving the rift over to Bill would be a Moment (well, at least for Steven and Dipper cause they actually know what the fuckin rift is unlike Mabel and Connie who still wouldn’t at that point) 

So basically Bill is a little shit and takes the rift, but he can’t actually fuckin do anything with it cause he’s a physical object and he’s still intangible (or somethin like that idk I just don’t want Weirdmageddon to happen cause it would make things too complicated) so he’s like “fuck gotta find some stupid sap to possess so I can smash this dumb thing” and he nearly targets Sora (cause the kid was already stupid enough to help him in the first place so why not?) until Steven ends up being the one to fend him off using his shield 

Bill shrugs it off and makes off with the rift anyway (its like... hovering or something? idk I’m running out of steam) and everyone panics of course, especially Sora cause he’s just like “well shit I certainly Fucked Up didn’t i?” and the MK are both a mix of “YOU THINK?” (from Dipper and Connie mostly) and “imo not your fault Bill’s tricked just about all of us he’s an asshole” (from Steven and Mabel)

Amidst this a bunch of lil things also happen; the Stans and the Gems show up (along with Ven and Roxas), basically everyone is immensely confused (aka those who have no idea what the fucking rift is) and alarmed (those who do know what the rift is) that Bill has what he needs to more or less fuck the entire world over 

So everyone just decides to put everything aside and team up all together to track Bill down and get the rift back before he can break it (there’s a lot of heartwarming trust moments in here, mostly cause trust is like... the cornerstone theme of the GF chapters in Keys for obvious reasons) 

They eventually do find him and *insert big epic battle scene here* where everyone teams up to basically beat Bill to death or whatever (don’t ask me how they be doin that if he’s intangible, again I.... I’m tired and this post is long enough as it is) 

Yadda yadda yadda they beat him, get the rift back and effectively prevent Weirdmageddon from happening to begin with (which just does SO much wonderful fuckery for UF’s timeline moving forward but whatever, this ain’t about that) 

Oh and during that Climactic Battle Scene somewhere there’s some bit about Sora learning to better trust others/himself that leads to him getting the world’s Key? I-I I dunno its a work in progress...

Anyway after this there’s a lot of good character interactions all around, reconciliations between the UF characters and the Keys characters, particularly between Sora and the MK (again he’s adopted these kiddos and don’t you forget it)

So with the Key in hand, Sora starts to leave and Roxas and Ven almost convince him to go back with them until *insert Big Keys Spoiler here that results in the Organization getting their hands on that Key Sora just got and also results in Sora running away again cause... reasons*

And that’s the end of the chapters or whatever idk 

There’s probably more ideas I had in mind for this but I literally can’t do anymore my brain is dying 

I might possibly write this for reals someday i dunno I’m stuck in two personal hells here so I might as well combine ‘em

Yes I’m aware this post leans more heavily on Keys than UF but its set in the world of UF so fuck off 

Feel free to add on with any thoughts you might have about the idea

I’m tired

Amen 

[bittysvalentines]

WTF

From: @insertatitlehere AO3: emimix3

To: @dyinginjapanese

Tags: Social Media, Friendship, Pets, Cats

Message: Hi! I hope you'll enjoy this piece as much as I enjoyed working on it :) It was a pleasure to write this for you!

Tango

> Guys I made a mistake

Whiskey > What now

Ford >> I mean, if you noticed you made a mistake, you must have made a BIG mistake

Tango > mmh just come to my dorm room

Ford >> Is that a ghost. Did you find a ghost in your room

Whiskey > just stop with ghost hunting, it doesn’t work tango, you need to accept that

Tango > bring meat if you’ve got some in your fridge

Whiskey > What > Tony Tango Tangredi what

Ford shot a message to Whiskey when she was about to reach Tango’s dorm, and he replied to her that he would be there in two minutes – so, she waited for him at the building. Whiskey arrived, with a Tupperware in hand.

“It’s chicken tenders,” he explained. “I hope Tango won’t eat them all, because I wanted to have some for dinner.”

“If Tango don’t eat them all, I will. I had a class over lunch so I didn’t eat.”

“I’m not your personal chef, Denise,” Whiskey said, as he opened the dorm’s front door.

“I’m the one picking everyone’s room on roadies, Connor. If I were you, I’d play nice.”

“Okay, you can take two, and I don’t want to be with Tango and Hops again. My ears still haven’t recovered from last time.”

When they reached Tango’s room on the third floor, they didn’t even have the time to knock that he had slightly opened the door to usher them in.

“Tony, what the hell?” Whiskey asked.

Tango didn’t reply immediately. He just looked at his desk, and mumbled something that neither of his friends managed to understand – and that’s when Ford noticed, on the desk chair:

There was a tiny, scrappy, brownie kitty.

“Oh my God,” Ford said, a hand on her heart because she honestly needed as much to not die of cuteness overload.

“Oh my God,” Whiskey said, a hand in front of his mouth because there was no way that Tango did something that stupid, and that he was about to involve them into this.

Tango scratched his cheek, a bit uneasy.

“Okay so, I found a kitty, his name is Doubt Legs Alarm and I’d die for him.”

“Oh my God you’re so cute,” Ford gushed, going to the little squeaking kitten. “Look at him Whiskey! He’s so cute!”

The kitten didn’t seem to want to be pet, but he instead began to try to bite Ford’s fingers and scratch them. Yeah, he was kinda cute, even if he had matted, uneven fur, that he was almost certainly too thin, plus the small issue that he had, you know, no eyes.

“I’m sorry Tango,” Whiskey managed to utter, “but what the fuck did you say his name is?”

Doubt Legs Alarm was nicknamed “Doug” while the three friends were sitting in the nearest vet’s waiting room – the kitty in a big cardboard box, because that was the only thing they found to transport him.

“You know you can’t keep him, right?” Ford told Tango.

“Shhh,” he replied, putting his index in her lips. “Shh.”

“Tango. Ignoring the issue won’t solve the issue,” Whiskey sighed.

“Shh,” Tango said, now putting his index on Whiskey’s mouth.

It was soon enough their turn. They entered the vet’s consulting room and Ford carried Doug out of the box to put him on the table – the poor kitty seemed to be terrorised by the whole ordeal, and he was meowing uncontrollably. In the meantime, Tango was telling the vet what he knew about the cat.

“I saw him while taking a shortcut from a class to another,” he explained. “Behind the Murder Stop&Shop, you know?”

“The Murder Stop&Shop?”

“Yeah, not the racist one, the one where there was a murder a few years back. Anyway. He was meowing between two trashcans and he was alone and eyeless, so…”

“Well it’s good you took him. He wouldn’t have lasted long out there – his eyes injuries are fresh, they could get infected quickly…”

“Also he’s not eating. We tried to give him a chicken tender but he didn’t want to try.”

“A chicken tender.”

The vet was really helpful – gave an age to Doug, probably between two and three months (but it was hard to know because of how thin he was), something to try to soothe his eyes, a thousand of recommendations that Ford dutifully noted on her journal, and prescriptions for worm killers and vaccines.

“You plan to keep him, right?” the vet had asked. “Or do you have someone lined up to take him, a shelter?”

“No, no, I’m keeping him,” Tango replied straight away.

“Okay, then we’d need to schedule his neutering…”

He also gave them a lot of advice on what to buy to take care of him, and books to read – he walked them to the front of the clinic, and while Whiskey and Ford were thanking him, the secretary gave Tango the bill for the consultation.

Ford didn’t manage to see it, but Tango blanched and asked in a quiet tone if payment plans were an option.

She took it on herself to not yell at her friend the second they were out. She waited that they were sitting on the bench at the bus stop, waiting for their ride back to the campus.

“Tango. You can’t keep this cat.”

“I can. He needs me.”

“Tango. You live in a dorm room. You can’t have pets. Plus, it’s way too expensive. He’s sick and blind – he’s going to have medical bills way higher than this one. You need to pay for his food, his toys, his litter, for someone to take care of him when we’re on roadies.”

“But he’s so cute! He’s gonna die out there!”

“There’s shelters-”

“He’s blind! Who will want him?” Tango pleaded, holding the cardboard box close to his chest.

“I know. It’s breaking my heart, too, Tango. But we need to find a solution, quick.”

They needed to, and quick, indeed. The bus to campus stopped right in front of them. Neither moved, and the bus left. Another one would come in twenty minutes anyway. Tango was sombre and Ford looked really upset too.

“He can be our cat, the three of us. We can share the expenses; that would help a lot already. And we can leave him at the Haus,” Whiskey proposed.

Tango and Ford turned towards him, hoping he’d elaborate.

“It’s… Okay I don’t like cats much, but he’s hella cute. And Tango, you obviously care a lot about him, and Ford, I know you want the best for him. So it’s the easiest solution. I know that Bitty had refused a Haus cat when Chowder asked, but if we go in there with a sob story and a cute kitty already on our laps he won’t be able to say no. We’re spending half of our time in the Haus anyway, so we’ll be able to take care of him there. Plus, if he’s at the Haus and even if he’s our cat, we maybe can get the others to chip in with food and all – I know the team would be happy to shower him with toys and stuff. Plus, it’s in the middle of the frat row, so there must be someone in the Haus that knows someone who’d be around when we’re away for roadies.”

“And for the summer and other breaks, at least one of us three can take him,” Ford reasoned. “That, or as a few guys in the team stay on campus year-long, they’d be happy to Haus-sit him.”

“And,” Tango concluded, “if we’re the rightful owners of the Haus cat, that he can potentially come and go at our will – surely, that would give us a lot of leverage regarding getting dibs to live there next year.”  

The three Tadpoles looked at each other, and nodded – before they shook hands to seal their perfect plan.

“What about after college?” Tango asked. “If he’s our cat. Who will get him when we graduate?”

“Well Tango, either one of us gets custody, or I guess that means we’ll have to be roommates in whatever city Whiskey will get an NHL contract in,” Ford joked.

“Sounds good, haha. Whiskey, please sign with the Jersey Devils.”

“Wait, what now? I just signed for a third of a blind cat, not for two eternal roommates!”

They rehearsed the sob story on the way to the Haus. Ford let her inner theatre kid take over and she was intransigent on their acting, reminding Tango that they’d have to surrender Doug to a shelter if they couldn’t convince Bitty to keep him. It worked, because Tango was nearly in tears when he was sitting in the living-room of the Haus, the kitty on his lap and telling all the Hausmates the story of this poor eyeless kitty who just needed a roof and a lot of love, and isn’t it the best place for him to have all that (and yes, of course, we’d be the ones cleaning the litter)?

Chowder was bawling his eyes out at the story, Nursey was enamoured with Doug, and Ollie and Wicks were already budging Bitty to please say yes, Cap, you’re not that heartless are you?

After a while, Bitty sighed and reluctantly accepted. Dex was already talking about plans for a cat tree to build.

Doug grew quickly accustomed at the life in the Haus. He was still running into some walls and misplaced furniture on the regular, but he was quiky to map out the entire place, and always knew at which room’s door to meow to get pets and food (he was especially good at tricking different people into giving him two or three dinners a day). During kegsters, he was staying in Chowder’s room, but the rest of the time he liked to hang out in the living-room where there were always people – or in the kitchen, where there was always food.

Bitty loudly hated the fact and kept complaining about it, but more than once Ford caught him petting or feeding scraps the cat when he was sitting on the counter while Bitty baked. Of course, Tango and Ford did all they can to stay number one in Doug’s heart – but the cat seemed to especially enjoy the company of Whiskey. Probably because Whiskey favourite way to hang out with people and animals was to sit in the same room, without saying a word?

Doug had become the lucky charm of the team, (everyone needed to pet him before a game or a roadie, or else…) so after Ford just off-handily mentioned that maybe her, Whiskey and Tango would look for an off-campus apartment that would accept cats for the following year, an emergency Haus Meeting was summoned. Neither of them was certain of what was said in it, but the following day, the three of them got dibs, so all went according to the plan.

[Instagram video: the cat has been brought to Faber and is wearing little cat shoes to walk on the ice. He’s meowing in despair because of how slippery it is.

@samwellmenshockey Our mascot is actually playing too – hopefully, he’ll be on the starting line by next semester!

Instagram picture: Doug is wearing a tiny knitted “ZIMME 1” jersey. It’s obvious there wasn’t enough room for the rest of the name. He’s lying on Tango’s stomach who is napping on the couch.

@samwellmenshockey Doug is supporting the @FalconersPVD tonight! Obviously that means that the @FalconersPVD will send him some 12 lbs dry food bags, right @FalconersPVD?]

“I’m happy we kept this cat,” Tango said one evening, while he was watching a movie, curled under the blankets on the couch next to Ford and Whiskey – petting Doug, who was on Ford’s lap.

“He’s not half-bad, in the end,” Whiskey agreed, scratching the kitty behind his ears.

“I saw him do his business on the Lax bro’s porch this afternoon,” Tango said.

“A cat of good taste and perfect manners. We taught him well,” Ford acquiesced.

“Are you kidding?” Whiskey asked. “He’s the worst cat! I saw him watching a mouse run in the basement, and he wouldn’t even get up to run after it!”

“Yeah? And did you get up to run after the mouse Whisk?”

“Wow, you’re so lazy, Connor.”

“Will you both stop making fun of me?”

Yep, Ford thought, as Whiskey was throwing at her and Tango popcorn in the face, and Doug jumped to try to catch them. She was happy they kept this cat.

[quarterfromcanon]

1-4. For the asks

Thank you so much for sending these! <3 

Once I started to answer them, I realized there were comparatively few recent television shows appearing on the list. I seemed to keep gravitating toward older ones I remembered from years ago. I took a handful of days to mull it over in case I was forgetting something, but nothing else comes to mind. Maybe my ongoing list of Shows to Watch During Quarantine will turn up some fresh results but, for now, it looks like I’ll be taking a little trip down memory lane. :) 

This turned out to be a pretty long and rambly post, so I’ll stow it under the cut!

Top 5 TV Shows 

1. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - I can’t imagine this surprises anyone who has been following this blog for the past two years or so. It brought fellow fans into my life, got me back into writing fic, and prompted countless tags of meta. It’s the show my mind drifts to on a weekly basis (if not daily) even a full year after the finale. Just when it seemed I’d reached an age where that level of intense fandom involvement and character attachment might be fading, it proved that quite the opposite was true. I’m very thankful to the series for that, and for the people whose paths have crossed mine as a result.   

2. Schitt’s Creek - This is my #1 Feel Good show and, though I’ve been dodging spoilers for the final season until it gets uploaded to Netflix, I get the impression that it will remain in that top spot. The world feels softer and more hopeful there. It’s healing for my soul. I’m going to have a dreadfully difficult time saying goodbye, but I’m glad there are six season to revisit whenever I want. 

3. Stranger Things - The theme song alone sends such a rush of excitement through me. I love the aesthetic and the atmosphere. I sometimes have mixed feelings about the romances but the FRIENDSHIPS sure do have a direct line to my heartstrings. I think the way they’ve combined media influences into their own story is really neat. You get something that’s new and engaging, but you can also go back and enjoy the sources of inspiration with fresh appreciation. 

4. Joan of Arcadia - I can’t help it. The snark, the jackets, the early 2000s songs, the performances -- the nostalgia for this show is so strong. It’s not without its problems, but it did have some really good things to offer as well. I remember an episode that was one of my earliest introductions to the concept of a trigger, and the effect it could have on a person if exposed to one of theirs. The series dealt a lot with grief and the many forms it can take (I STILL can’t hear Fiona Apple’s cover of “Across the Universe” without getting misty-eyed). I’m also surprised, looking back, at the somewhat positive way I recall them discussing homosexuality on the several occasions that it came up in the show. Not to give too much credit since I don’t think there were recurring canonically LGBTQIA+ characters but, for a kid who spent most days around closed-minded people of a certain religious leaning, it was meaningful along my individual journey. I’d like to provide the several examples that are most vivid in my memory:

A. A girl with short hair, short nails, little to no makeup, and a bulky leather jacket is generally assumed to be a lesbian by the bullies at school. The show directly confronts the fact that “gay” should not be used an insult, that identity should not be assumed without the person telling you so, AND makes sure that the character in question never pushes back by saying harmful things about lesbians despite not actually being one herself. 

B. A boy who is questioning is able to confide in his big brother and have a fairly calm conversation about it; the awkwardness mostly comes from neither of them being accustomed to openly discussing emotions, not from the possibility of a negative response regarding the subject matter. 

C. Another character is accidentally discovered to be gay (he only appears in the one episode, if my memory serves), and some of the leads have the opportunity to share that for personal gain. However, even though he is a popular jock who is a bit of a jerk in the hallways, the show makes it clear that the right choice is still to leave the telling of that information up to him and him alone. 

Like I mentioned, it can’t be said that representation was in abundance here - for instance, I don’t believe anything other than straight or gay was presented as a possibility - but any accepting acknowledgement in a faith-centric series was something for me to hold on to in my still-deeply-closeted days. As a final Very Important personal side note, this show brought Judith Montgomery into my life (pictured below on the left), and that feels like it merits a shoutout for being what I consider a rather significant marker in my awakening. 

THE OVERWHELMING CRUSH I HAD - and still have - is one for the books. 

5. Pushing Daisies - This is another show with an aesthetic I adore. The series has such a fun, whimsical energy. The crime-solving! The clothes! The cast! There's a lot to love. It’s the kind of world I wish I could visit... well, minus the evidently rampant murder rate. 

Top 5 Overrated TV Shows

1. Once Upon A Time - *deep sigh* I tried to stick with it for so long. I think I’ve seen five out of the seven seasons in their entirety. It just felt like everything got mired down by excessive (and increasingly convoluted) subplots, often for the purpose of tossing in as many fairytale and/or Disney characters as possible. Plus, quite honestly, there was too much emphasis on romantic love. For a show whose first season involved a curse being broken by [potential spoiler, I suppose] a mother kissing her son’s forehead, I ultimately found myself up to my ears in romantic ships. It reached such a stifling extent that, if you were not particularly attached to those pairings, there wasn’t a whole lot else to entice further viewing. 

2. Under the Dome - I don’t know for certain what the general public opinion of this series was, but it felt like the commercials always featured alleged rave reviews, so I figured I could include it here. I was vaguely interested in Season 1, mainly as a fan of Rachelle Lefevre’s work. Season 2 pulled me in with the introduction of a new townsperson and I threw WAY too much of my heart into that attachment, which backfired when that character was killed. I made quite the spectacle of my heartbreak, so much so that my family doesn’t let me mention this show around them anymore. :P Season 3 was, to phrase it delicately, not a great time. The series did introduce me to a few new-to-me actors, though, so that was cool. 

3. Bates Motel - Even the incentive of learning that the two characters I liked most share a lot of screen time later in the series hasn’t been enough to call me back to this one. I don’t know if it was the pacing that put me off or what, but the prospect of finishing the remaining seasons feels so daunting. There are evidently five seasons in total and I believe I’ve only seen two of them thus far. I will probably muddle through it someday just to see how it goes, but the fact that I am so disinclined to prioritize it made this feel like a fair addition to the list. 

4. Lost - My interest in this series unfortunately waned right before fervent fandom spiked. I don’t have any specific complaints that come to mind about what I saw; I just sort of drifted and then stayed away. Teachers I liked and peers I spent time with were starting to latch on to the show and I couldn’t find even the slightest inclination to give it a second try. However, did I still dutifully read all the latest installments in my friend’s Sawyer Ford and Kate Austen fanfiction when she passed me handwritten copies at lunch? Sure. I was glad it made her happy, even if I was no longer a viewer. 

5. Hemlock Grove - I say this as someone who still mourns the fates of some characters in this show, so I wouldn’t go so far as to claim that the series stopped being able to make me feel anything. I’m just of the opinion that, in some ways, it might’ve been better off stopping at one season. That’s where the book it was based on ends, and things just didn’t feel as cohesive after that. Season 3 especially was - borrowing from my above review of Under the Dome - not a great time. That being said, there are also certain elements from the book that I could’ve done without in the Season 1 adaptation but... well... here we are. 

Top 5 Underrated TV Shows

1. Picnic at Hanging Rock - Another one that won’t surprise followers of this blog. I have rhapsodized about it quite frequently since I found it a little over a month ago. It’s a period piece mystery miniseries with LGBTQIA+ representation, gorgeous costumes, and Samara Weaving. This felt specifically designed to wedge its way into my heart, and I’m quite content with the space it now occupies.

2. Dark - I’m so intrigued by the overlapping timelines with all of the morally gray characters. It’s possible to like one of these people in the timeline where they’re young but dislike them as adults, or vice versa. It also makes me think of Rant by Chuck Palahniuk a little tiny bit with the idea that time travel, specifically tampering with your own timeline, might make you physically and behaviorally unrecognizable to yourself. And the SONG CHOICES! I have gotten some solid new music selections from this series. 

3. Sense8 - I still need to watch the finale. I really do. But I knew it would make me sad so I’ve avoided it for... two years now? Pretty close, I think. The concept is fascinating and the cast is so strong. Plus the cinematography! They came up with some of the coolest ways to depict the link these characters share and what it’s like when they connect over distance. The planning and careful editing it all must’ve taken... I remain in awe. 

4. Penny Dreadful - There were definitely some story/writing choices I didn’t particularly like along the way, but I did get engrossed in the creepy goodness and the performances -- Eva Green’s Vanessa Ives most of all. It left me wishing for more period piece “monster mash” stories, because having all those classic characters in one place was a blast. It also helped me understand why Helen McCrory was once slated to play Bellatrix Lestrange because she can be terrifying. Oh and Sarah Greene in her Wild West outfits? Perdita Weeks with short red hair in fencing garb, and later in all leather with boots and a long jacket? I WAS NOT PREPARED AND I HAVE STILL NOT RECOVERED. I NEVER WILL.

5. Wonderfalls - There’s some cringe-inducing handling of certain representation in the series, but I have such a weak spot for quippy outcasts who become reluctant chosen ones (Joan Girardi in Joan of Arcadia, Wynonna Earp, Jaye Tyler in this series, et cetera). I also really love the sibling dynamics here. They bicker, tease one another, help each other out of trouble, and have rare but genuine heart-to-hearts. Caroline, Lee, and Katie all did such a great job blending their characters’ adult personalities with certain childhood attributes that rise to the surface in the presence of family.  

Top 5 Movies

1. Addams Family Values - I’ve rewatched this movie at least once annually since I found it in Media Play at age 13. Usually, I’ll play it around Halloween or, at the latest, Thanksgiving. It’s mouth-along-with-every-line level ingrained in my memory. I find myself leaning forward in my seat before favorite parts because I’m still that excited to relive them. Why this movie, and why this devotion to such a degree? It’s hard to explain, even to myself. I can tell you, however, that I hold up every other portrayal of the Addams characters to the versions found in this. Everybody in the cast just feels that perfect for their part. 

2. Clue - I was already pretty fond of this movie to begin with, but then my sister got older and claimed it as a favorite of her own, so now she just supplies me with further excuses to watch it repeatedly. It’s also been a bonding piece of media with a couple of close friends and such through the years. It’s incredible to think not everyone in it was the first choice for their roles; what everybody brings to the table is so top-notch that I wouldn’t have it any other way. I also LOVE knowing that it originally went to theaters with different endings depending on which showing you attended. I gather people weren’t terribly thrilled with the stunt back then, but I kinda think some moviegoers would be into that approach these days? Then again, one hit that tried something different tends to start a fad, so maybe I’d end up regretting the suggestion after a while. :P

3. The Craft - This. Movie. Yes, Act III is a major bummer even though I know it’s coming, and I’ll always wish it ended differently. Even so. This. Movie. I tend to headcanon mostly for shows and sometimes books, but The Craft is a beloved exception. I love so much about it: the magic, the music, the clothes, the settings, the dynamics within the friend group, the performances. I had no idea when I first got the DVD at 17 that it would become such a part of my life, but I’m so glad it found its way to me. 

4. Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion - The soundtrack is a glorious ’80s and ’90s treat for my ears. The colorful costumes are perfectly suited to the main characters’ version of the world. There are so many great lines and it feels like everyone is having a lot of fun in their roles. I LOVE HEATHER MOONEY SO MUCH. She’s my awful, scathingly sarcastic, little grungy grump and she fills my heart with joy. 

5. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King - I was pretty sure at least one of the three had to appear on here. I think, if I were to tally them all up, The Return of the King features most of my favorite moments, so it wins the spot. “I can’t carry it for you, but I can carry you!”, ‘Edge of Night,’ Éowyn in battle, The Army of the Dead, ‘Into the West’... I end up crying during the end credits every time. So, yeah, ultimately, I would choose the third part of the trilogy if I could only watch one. 

Phew, that’s it! All the questions answered, all the shows and movies listed! Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read it all, and thanks again to @monaiargancoconutsoy for sending in the prompts! <3

[pjlowry]

My Top Ten Movies Of 2019

While I have been rather lazy writing here (sorry), I have still been watching a lot of movies cause I love to catch a good movie. This year I saw a lot of good movies that knocked my socks off while others were total shit. It’s been a year of ups and downs for film in 2019, but we all have some good movies to recommend should someone ask.

So without further adue, here are what I think are the best movies of 2019. If you agree/disagree with me, leave a note and let’s debate it.  If your favorite movie isn’t here that means I either didn’t see it yet, or if I did, then I wasn’t moved by it as much as you were and didn’t like it as much.

This is just my opinion, but I’m always curious to know what movies knocked your socks off this year.

So these are the movie that wowed me this year:

10. Ford vs. Ferrari

I’ve always been a sucker for a good racing movie, but that this is based on a true story made it that much more exciting cause I had no idea if we’d get a happy ending, cause life can be rather unfair sometimes. Both Damon and Bale are brilliant in this movie that was both exciting and damn entertaining. I also found the story very interesting and enlightening as I really didn’t know that much about this story or the race it’s about. Very fun movie that most movie goers would enjoy, especially if you love racing movies!

9. A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

I grew up watching Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood so I was hoping this film wouldn’t ruin my childhood, and thankfully it didn’t. The whole movie felt like a really big episode of Mr. Rogers which I thought was a unique approach to the story telling aspect of this film. Tom Hanks delivers as Fred Rogers, which just might land him another Oscar… but we’ll have to wait and see. For fans of the show who grew up with Mr. Rogers, this is a great movie that gives insight to the man who was a hero, no matter how much he tried to deny it, as it was a beautiful movie about our favorite neighbor…

8. Jojo Rabbit

This has to be the most ambitious film of 2019… because the balls it must have take to direct to movie alone makes it Oscar worthy. A tender satire about a rather dark moment in human history. It’s about a young boy in Germany during the second world war who is a part of the nazi youth group, and he spends most of the movie talking to his imaginary friend, who happens to be Adolf Hitler. The acting and writing was stirring and even heartbreaking at times. Scarlett Johannson deserves a supporting nod for her performance as the young boy’s mom, and director Taika Waititi deserves a nod just for having the balls to make a film this outrageous and making it surprising funny and great.

7. The Nightingale

I talked to a friend who watched this movie first, and asked him how it was. He wasn’t able to answer, cause he walked out of it 20 minutes into it. I was stunned, as my friend rarely walks out of movies… as we both consider it unprofessional (as reviewers), but he couldn’t handle it. I was like wow, I really have to check out this movie! After watching The Nightingale, I can see why my friend walked out. It is shocking, brutal and has some moments that had even people in my screening walking towards the door. Yet if you can get past the film’s devastating opening, the film progresses into a stirring character piece about revenge and determination to seek closure in a new world. the actors in this movie were amazing and if you can get past the first 20 mins, you might be really moved by this stunning work.

6. Ad Astra

I’m a sucker for a good Sci-Fi movie, and Ad Astra is hand down the best Sci-Fi of 2019. With the feel and pace of something like 2001, this movie had a stirring plot, amazing acting and a tight finish that made the whole journey worth while. I really liked this movie and while it won’t get any love come Oscar time, especially for Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones, it’s definitely a movie worth checking out if you like see all things Science Fiction…

5. A Rainy Day In New York

I’ve always been a huge fan of Woody Allen, and with “A Rainy Day In New York”, he delivers another masterful film full of witty dialogue, great acting and a story while predictable was fun to watch as it unraveled before us. This is in my opinion Woody’s best movie since “Midnight in Paris”, and is totally worth checking out if you’re a fan of his work. It’s great to see younger actors take Allen’s work and bring it into a new century, which made this cute little romantic comedy one of my favorites of the year.

4. The Two Popes

I’m not a very religious person, at all actually, but I still found this film about the story behind the scenes regarding Pope Benedict and Francis before and after Benedict stepped down as Pope, the first person to do so since the 1200s. I found the story very interesting and learned a great deal about both men as their conversations and stories were very fascinating and educational.  While I’m sure the truth was stretched a bit for the film to be entertaining, both Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce and amazing in their roles as the two Popes. A fun film that everyone will enjoy regardless if they’re religious or not…

3. Yesterday

I am a huge Beatles fan, so when I heard about this movie I was very, very excited to check it out. Directed by Danny Boyle, this movie is about a young, struggling musician who is hit by a bus. Yet when he wakes up, he discovers that no one remembers the Beatles. No one except him. He has a moral dilemma to deal with as he can stay silent about what he knows or use the most iconic songs of the last century to resuscitate his ailing music career.  I loved the story and how this situation was approached, and it ended rather well, and made it for me one of the best movies of this year. A celebration of great music in an alternate world that doesn’t remember the best band of all time. A must see for people who are fans of the band… such a great movie!

2. Once Upon A Time In Hollywood

Is Quentin Tarantino capable of making a bad movie? I’ve yet to be presented with any evidence that would suggest it’s possible. Once Upon a Time In Hollywood is a love letter to Hollywood and how things happen in film and television. The cast is great, the story is cheeky and fun, and the payoff at the end will blow your fucking mind. It kind of twists history just a bit like Quentin kinda did with Inglorious Basterds… but this was the ending we all wished we could’ve had to this story, but real life was sadly far crueler. A great movie if you like to look back and laugh a bit. Not Tarantino’s best movie, but still a hell of a lot of fun, with a great cast.

1. Joker

For a few months, this spot has been locked. When I watched the Joker, the film directed by Todd Phillips, I had a strong feeling that this would be topping my list at the end of the year… and my instincts were correct. The story is surprisingly simple but brilliantly acted, and the fact that there was Zero CGI in this film was a breath of fresh air as this was old school from start to friggin’ finish. Joaquin Phoenix delivers his best performance since Walk The Line, and in my opinion is a damn lock for Best Actor this year, cause he carried this film from start to finish and was astonishingly brilliant in each scene.  Some people are saying this Joker performance is almost as good if not better than Leger’s in the Dark Knight, and while I’m not sure it’s worth having a conversation about regardless of your views. Yes, he was that damn good. Hand down, this was the best movie of 2019, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this dark tale sweeps the Oscars in February…

[sirkkasnow]

08 If You’ve Gotta Fight, Fight Dirty

Ao3 link

07/17/13 Wednesday

Most of the old tools turned up in Soos’ usual closet, packed away into a not-new but well cared for hinged toolbox. The manual-crank drill and a batch of bits came easily to hand. Tracking down the hardware took a little longer. Staying in motion was automatic, his brain whirring all the while, settled by the steady incremental progress of physical labor.

There were a hundred good reasons not to get involved. He counted them off in the back of his head without much regard for keeping track as he sifted through jars of salvaged bolts and screws.

Stan padded down a few steps to the sublevel at the back, an odd space whose roof was too low and too slanted to be good for much of anything but stuffing boxes into. The great purge of last autumn had cleared out an eccentric pile of junk. Potentially useful odds and ends of machinery and materiel accumulated over decades had been rendered moot overnight. Between Soos and the brothers they’d hauled most of it out over the course of a few sweaty days. There wasn’t much left to clear from the center.

He was living the dream right now. Everything was going well and there was no reason to screw with a good situation.

The hand drill bit into wood in near silence. He routed out holes in each corner beam and mounted heavy screw eyes there, twisting until the steel squeaked. Absent, precise twitches of his fingers braided eye splices into the ends of the heaviest nylon rope he’d been able to find. Those got crossed at the corners of the room, bound and padded with strips of salvaged bubble wrap and triple thicknesses of packing tape.

Baltimore might as well be on the moon relative to the places he’d been in the last year and the places he and Ford were planning to visit next.

Stan looped S-hooks into the ropes’ eyes and set it all up, spanning from corner to corner. By the time he finished it was a bare suggestion of a boxing ring. When he leaned into the lines they stretched and shifted, the screw eyes groaning faintly in protest, but everything held to his satisfaction.

Complicating everything right as it was all going well for once should have been the very last thing on his mind. Fuck’s sake, she was just a tourist.

The background rattle of his thoughts ground to an abrupt halt. Stan sat on one of the crates he’d pushed off alongside the door and plucked off his glasses, laying a hand over aching eyes. He knew lies, he knew perfectly damned well when he was lying to himself, and that right there was a thin lie poorly told.

She hadn’t been just a tourist since she’d stuck her neck out for him the night he’d made some reckless choices regarding car repair and home décor and dragged her along for the ride. Hell, that had pretty much gone out the window the minute she started spitting bad lawyer jokes back at him. Dammit.

The thinking had tired him out more than the improvised engineering but he was, at last, worn down enough to snatch a few black and dreamless hours of sleep well after midnight.

Intensifying sunlight through the curtains kicked him out of bed again earlier than he would have liked. Stan managed to get halfway to respectable before he decided coffee pretty much had to trump everything else and dragged himself down to the kitchen. The kids were already up, empty cereal bowls ignored on the table as they bickered out their plans for the day. “Mornin’, gremlins. Anyone else up yet?”

“I think Grunkle Ford is still passed out in the lab,” Dipper volunteered. “At least no one’s gotten around to making coffee.” Stan set up the coffeemaker with fresh grounds and dumped in a potful of water.

“And Clary was here for a few minutes, then said she was heading down to Greasy’s for breakfast. Craving bacon or something.” Mabel’s chin rested in both her hands, her smile uncharacteristically sly. “How did you sleep, Grunkle Stan?”

“Just fine, sweetheart.” Stan reached way up for a mug. Both niece and nephew looked at him in disbelief. “What?”

“You like her.” Mabel was showing teeth in a wide knowing grin. Dipper tapped fingertips anxiously against each other, but nodded in agreement.

Stan leaned against the counter with a groan - god it was too early for this. “That woman’s been nothin’ but trouble, I’ve caused her nothin’ but grief, and if we’re both lucky I’ve got that junkheap of hers fixed enough that she can get the heck outta here and never look back. We both got places t’go and things t’do, kids.”

“Responsibilities,” Mabel sang, syllables stretching out, and Stan’s eyes narrowed a little. “So I guess you didn’t spend half the night running around to do something nice for her.”

“You two were supposed to be asleep.”

“I might have been working in my journal,” said Dipper. “Mabel might have been a little wired on sugar and getting stuff down in her scrapbook.”

All three of them eyed each other, Stan weighing the possible merits of turning this into a lecture on minding your own damn business and discarding the idea as way more trouble than it’d be worth. “All right,” he grumbled. “Yeah, I’m tryin’ t’do somethin’ nice since yesterday went completely sideways. If you wanna make plans for the day that get you the heck outta the house, then I might overlook your total failure t’go to bed on time.”

“Deal,” they chorused, sweeping up phones and notebooks and vacating the table in an instant.

“Library first, Mabel?”

“Yup! I’ve got a couple of confidential stops to make after that.” Mabel shooed Dipper out ahead of her, spun on her heel in the doorway and winked at him on her way out. “Have a swell day, Grunkle Stan! See you at dinnertime!”

Stan grunted in vague assent, pouring a cup of coffee and sloshing in a little milk. Yeah, that wasn’t ominous at all. He killed time collecting the twins’ breakfast debris, finished off the first cup of coffee, then headed upstairs to scrub his carcass a little closer to presentable.

He was well into the second cup of coffee half an hour later and getting restless when his phone, stuffed into a back pocket and forgotten, buzzed. Startled, he fumbled it out for a text message from Mabel - a contact, he realized after a moment’s confusion - CLARY trailed by a bunch of winged hearts and smooches. After a few false starts he stabbed enough buttons to save the thing to his tiny contacts list. It twinkled there at the top, above DIPPER and FORD and then MABEL.

Indecision made his fingers twitch. Finally he punched the number and jammed the little chunk of a phone, thick in its waterproof case, up between ear and shoulder.

After two rings he got a reply, all cool professional velvet. “C.J. Merrick.”

For a long second that didn’t compute at all. “Uh, Clary?”

A startled pause hung there before she replied, voice warming. “Why, Mr. Pines. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

That voice did things to him. He shoved the thought down. “Listen, I know you’re out but I’ve got a surprise for you back here at the Shack. Can y’wander back in when you’re done with breakfast?”

“Sure. I just got done, actually, let me settle up and I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“So you know, it’d be worth your while to get out those tennis shoes again. And maybe a t-shirt.”

She chuckled darkly, a low rumble that made his toes want to curl. “If this is another round of errands, I’m out.”

“Absolutely not, we’re stayin’ on house grounds this time.”

“Thank mercy. See you at the Shack, then.”

Stan shoved the phone back into its pocket and paced the kitchen for a minute, knowing he needed something else, trying to remember it and finally settling on a plastic pitcher full of water and all the ice he could scrounge out of the freezer. By the time he rounded up that and a couple of glasses, he’d heard the door and footsteps heading off towards her room. In another minute or two Clary stuck her head in at the doorway. His jacket was draped around her shoulders and she looked amused as hell about something. “Good morning, Stan.”

“G’mornin’, Clary. You doin’ all right? Got some sleep?”

“I did, thanks. I was pretty worn out last night. What’s up?” She shrugged out of the jacket and hung it on the back of a kitchen chair. Today’s kerchief was some kind of patterned yellow. The bike shorts, tennies and faded t-shirt she’d changed into - this one read ‘REAL MEN PLAY GAMES’, right under a crudely rendered 38-sided die - would do fine.

“You’ll see.” Stan handed off the two glasses and led the way back through the house, pitcher heavy in his hand. “How was breakfast? You look like you enjoyed it.”

“I met a man from Washington state,” she said, and he looked away because he didn’t trust himself to keep a straight face. “His name’s Mike, he has a lovely new speedboat, and you wouldn’t believe how glad he was to talk to someone who isn’t a local. His SUV is stuck at Gleeful’s while they fix a flat tire.” There was a tiny wicked smile curling a corner of her lips. “He has been having a little trouble making friends in town.”

“Damn shame, that.” Stan tugged open the storage room door with a flourish and she swanned past him only to come up short against the rope lines a couple feet inside. He eased in after and set the pitcher down on a crate, then plucked the juice glasses from her nerveless fingers to put them alongside. “So I was baskin’ in the glow of my shiny new Klouneng, thinkin’ about last week….”

“You weren’t kidding,” Clary murmured, looking over the sketched-out boxing ring.

“Well, no, of course not! Anyway, you said - uh.” Stan put an awkward hand at the back of his neck, watching her carefully. Her expression had gone flat neutral. “I know a few things about how t’stand and fight, you know? Thought I’d show you how to throw that punch.”

The silence stretched for one or two seconds too long, one of her hands absently flexing. He was beginning to think he’d really stepped in it when she bent and slipped between the ropes. “Let’s do it.”

“All right.” His chuckle was half relief as he scooped up the spare handwraps and the old gloves, ducking in to stand beside her. “Gimme the right one, let’s make sure you don’t go bustin’ a knuckle here.” Clary laid her hand into his, the other tucked behind her back. He started binding across the palm, then between the fingers, with a bit of exaggerated care he couldn’t seem to help. She watched him all the while from behind downtilted lashes. “So this’s all about protectin’ the little bones. Whole thing goes under the gloves. Not that you’re gonna do a lot of hittin’ here, but these are your livin’, so….” The end of the wrap sealed off neatly at her wrist. “Next.”

“I could probably type with a pencil clutched in my teeth if I had to.”

“Let’s make sure y’don’t have to.” The outside fingers of her left hand twitched delicately as she gave it over into his grip and he frowned down in brief confusion. There was a notch in the outer edge of the palm, a long-mended scar from some deep, sharp cut. Stan wrapped her up with the same precise care he’d given the right hand, watching the pinky and ring finger twitch again as he cut between with the wrap. “This gonna be a problem?”

“It hasn’t been. The nerves never quite came back.”

“You’ve seen the handwraps before?”

“I did take self-defense classes for a while. Never boxing.”

“I can tell. You can’t hit worth a damn. I’m just gonna step behind you,” which he did, letting the thump and creak of his steps telegraph his position.

Clary huffed a soft laugh and he felt a bit of the tension ease. “The whole principle was to let gravity and concrete do most of the work, then run like hell. Besides, you were singing a different tune the other night.”

“I was tryin’ to make you feel better about bloodyin’ my nose!”

“Liar.”

“Prove it.” Stan tapped Clary at back and hip and wrist with the bare pads of two fingertips, guiding her gently as he explained the stance. She actually had a little understanding of the basics, weight well distributed, pivoting to let force flow all the way from core to knuckles. There was some wiry strength to work with in that square-shouldered frame. A lot more leg than arm, he absently noted, his bicep brushing hers as he reached to straighten her wrist. “Elbows in, that’s it. Snap it back.”

Defense came easy to her. Getting her out of the shell was clearly going to be the problem, so he coaxed and cajoled and got her to take swings at empty air - decent jab, he decided, but hesitant on anything stronger - until she was just bored enough with it to stop thinking so damn much, then reached for the gloves. “Not bad! So now you get to actually hit somethin’.”

Clary’s glance skittered around the mostly-empty room, then back to him, narrowing. “What, you?”

“You can try.” Stan dangled the gloves, read the doubt sketched in broad strokes across her features, and considered. “I’ve had a lot of practice at this, Clary. You just tag me real light - “ He held up a palm, and at the expectant sidelong flick of his eyes, she grudgingly jabbed him there. “Yeah, like that, easy. I can read you like a cheap paperback.“ She snorted, and he laughed, keeping it light. “Okay, okay, you’re a terrifyin’ enigma in all other ways, don’t worry ‘bout that. But you are not gonna hurt me.”

The flicker of her expressions was complex, but after a moment she released a held breath and offered her right hand. “Attagirl. Now, this won’t be so bad, I promise, you’ll learn somethin’. Just think of it as a dance.”

“With fists.”

He pulled the laces on the first glove wide and eased it over her fingers. “Sure, with fists. You watch me, I watch you. A shift in weight, a twitch in the shoulder or the eye, you can see where your partner’s goin’ an’ react. Get enough practice an’ it’s reflex, straight from the gut.” The gloves were a little too big, no shock that, and Stan took his time snugging down the laces. Clary flexed the right hand, testing the glove’s give, then offered him the left. “Not that one round of practice is gonna get you the reflexes.”

When he was done he looked her over. She’d been silent the whole while, watching with teeth set lightly into her lower lip and a line drawn between her brows. Stan enfolded her wrist in his hand, a fleeting squeeze of reassurance, and her smile flickered for a bare instant. “I’ve had some practice in taking an opponent’s measure, you know.” Clary stepped back to give him some room. “Go on, Stan. Wrap up. Let’s give this a try.”

“Right, right.” His own wraps took a minute to slap into place, fingerless sparring gloves over those since he wasn’t expecting to hit anything. Relaxing into the familiar half-coiled posture was almost comforting. “Come an’ get me.”

She was stiff as hell at first. Reluctance dragged at her limbs, and it took a good few minutes of him catching or deflecting her tentative strikes before that began to improve. The worry on her features chipped away with each swing, replaced by furrowed focus as sweat began to bead at her temples.

Dusty sunlight tracked along one edge of his improvised ring. By now it must have been close to lunchtime, the room heating up.

“I know you can put a little more force into it than that.” Stan caught another jab. “You don’t have to move quite so much. If you’re gonna run, then run, that’s the right response sometimes an’ you’re fast, but if you gotta stand up an’ fight you’ve gotta commit to it. Conserve your energy, ‘cause you’re gonna need it to hit.” He held up a hand to signal stop and left her standing there while he retrieved cold glasses of water for both of them. “Drink up.”

“Thanks.” Clary clutched the glass between both gloved hands and sucked the water down in long, relieved gulps, dumping the last couple tablespoons over the crown of her head. “I think I’ve got one more round in me before I collapse.”

“Tough bird like you, worn out so soon?”

“Mmhm. How’re you holding up, old man?” She licked her lips and grinned up at him, all brass despite the sweat and her obvious weariness.

Stan plucked the glass out of her awkward grip and dropped it off back on its crate. “Old age an’ treachery will beat youth and enthusiasm every time, kid.”

“I’m not that young.” Clary came at him warily at first, then loosened up - he almost felt it as something clicked behind those grey eyes. Damn it, she was younger and probably a little more fit and she’d finally figured out how to get her legs into it. One solid swing whiffed way too close as she poured her weight in from toes clear up to knuckles. It was an overextension and he had ways to counter that weren’t strictly fair, but she took advantage of his hesitation and followed up with a couple of well-angled jabs that forced him back a step.

They were both breathing in hard gasps at this point. She still had some juice in reserve, not much, but enough to push him back once more. When he caught her next blow it was a sharp, stinging impact, and he grinned to see her satisfaction. “All right,” he got out, catching her other fist as she lunged in to follow through. Momentum nearly smacked her into his chest; she pulled herself up short just in time. “Whoa, easy! Nice work - you could maybe get decent at this if you wanted to.”

“We done for now? Because that’s about all I’ve got.” Clary backed off a bit, which was just as well because cripes she was close, and Stan remembered to let go of her gloves.

“Yeah, we’re done before one of us keels over of heat exhaustion or somethin’.” He beckoned and she gave over the right hand, tugging with her teeth at the laces on the left glove while he worked on the other. Once those and the wraps were off they both collapsed gratefully onto the couple of crates by the door.

“Thanks for taking it easy on me.”

“Didn’t take it that easy. Your instincts aren’t bad.”

“So how’d a - “ He watched her sift through words, lips half-shaping a few options until he chuckled at her struggling to be tactful. She canted a brow at him in reproach. “How’d a showman of your caliber pick up all this expertise in fisticuffs anyway?”

Stan winced, peeling off his handwraps one by one. “You know Jersey. Town didn’t have much goin’ for it other than the boardwalk. Neither one of us fit in real well - I mean, you’ve seen Poindexter in action, an’ he’s always been like that, maybe worse, so focused on whatever that big brain can get goin’ that he loses track of the practical end of things, y’know? So it was my job to protect the both of us. Somebody had to be the tough one, and it’s what I was good at, ‘til Ford an’ I - “

He caught himself, swallowing words that’d just be too much - man, they’d both really worn themselves out, his guard was down - and when he continued it was with more caution. “When I left home I spent a fair few years on the road. I was a worse trouble magnet than you are. Knowin’ how t’fight is what got me through. I mean, it wasn’t all bad - “

Clary watched him with a sort of quiet weight, like maybe understanding, which made no damn sense. He tugged up the shoulder of his damp shirt and dabbed uselessly at his upper lip. “It wasn’t all bad, you stay tough long enough and you kinda forget how not to be - and hell, at least I was in the right place to run into you - “

Stan stiffened in his seat, blinking. “Oh,” he said. “Damn. That’s what I forgot. Towels.” He made to rise and bolt to the kitchen. That’d buy a minute to clear his head, because he really needed to shut it. “I’ll be right - “

Clary pressed something into his hand. Distracted, he stared down at it, registering yellow, then plucked at the fabric. Tawny gold, a soft and heavy weave, patterned with tumbling circus strongmen and their tiny barbells. Her kerchief.

Stan shook it out, patted down his neck, and only then ventured a glance.

Clary sat on the edge of the crate with elbows braced on her knees, hands loosely interlaced. The scar was…not so bad, as clean-cut and faded as the one in her palm, until she turned her head away and a little tension made its twisting length and angle along the left slope of her throat clear. The worst of it stutter-stepped to cut sharp and deep over the sheltered thrum of her carotid artery.

That had probably come close to killing her.

Something protective and furious sparked behind his breastbone.

He tilted his chin to indicate his focus, and saw her eye swivel to track him.

“That of a piece with the hand?”

“Yes.”

“Plate glass?”

“Yes.”

“Accident?”

“No.” Clary straightened where she sat, watching him with subtle apprehension.

“There a face I should be lookin’ to break?” he said at length.

“He’s dead. He’s been dead a long time.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time I punched a dead man.”

Her lips parted. She blinked twice, then dissolved into low shocked laughter. He smoothed the fabric of her kerchief between his fingers and felt his heart lift a little. “What, you don’t believe me?”

“Oh no. I believe you completely.” Her hand slipped into his for a quick squeeze that lingered. “You’re a treasure. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

He squeezed back lightly and found he didn’t feel like letting go just yet. “What’cha doin’ after dinner?”

“Didn’t have any plans, really.” A faint tired smile softened the line of her mouth. “Got something in mind?”

His throat was dry, her hand was still linked into his and come on he’d been done with being nervous over this kind of crap when he was like fifteen. “Movie?”

A huff of surprise caught on her teeth and she tipped back until her shoulders hit the wall. “Yes,” after a still moment. “Sure. Please.”

Stan let out a half-held breath, pressed the kerchief into her palm and closed her fingers over it. “G’wan now. That’s enough dancin’ for one day. You should go get a shower, drink as much water as you can stand, get some aspirin because you are gonna be feelin’ it by nightfall, I can tell.” He waved shooing hands at her. “I’ll handle cleanup and it’s someone else’s job to cook tonight, you got it? Go get a nap or read a book or actually make like it’s vacation. I’ve put you through the wringer enough the last couple days.”

She didn’t argue. Clary snapped out the kerchief and tied it loosely around her throat. Habit lent precision to the process - she centered the widest part over the scar, brought the ends around, offset the knot to the left without a hitch. “I can tell I’ll barely be able to move tomorrow.”

“After our fishin’ trip, I’m surprised you got outta bed.”

“Places to go. People to see.” She came to her feet with a sigh and pressed his shoulder in passing. “That nap sounds like a great idea. Thank you, Stan, that was fun and educational.”

tumblr: [00][01][02][03][04][05][06][07][08][09][10][11][12]

Ao3: [00][01][02][03][04][05][06][07][08][09][10][11][12]

Clary doesn’t say a word and doesn’t look back at you, studying her hands, vulnerable with her neck bared.

At least you got out alive!

Is there someone I can punch?

Silent support.

[092219archive]

ephraim!

@dokiquents​ @fluffy-wuffy-currybread​ @zenith-art

nice

hey welcome to the eren autobiography i’m gonna be ur host

a very common trend that i’ve had through out the years of discovering what kind of characters i like is that a lot of them are confident characters that know what they’re about. they’re aware of their strength and they’re not afraid to take challenges even if they could get hurt in the process, and ephraim fits that mold of character very well.

so we’re gonna hop right into “why does eren like ephraim so much” because i’m like 60% sure (which is not a lot bu t) someone’s had that question while looking at my blog/posts,,,

so this is the introduction of his wiki and let me tell you why i think this is so important (aside from giving a debrief of who ephraim is)-

that whole “trust me. i don’t pick fights i can’t win” is a known motto that this man forever lives by, up until his dying breath i’d assume. and the reason why this is so significant is because ephraim knows he’s strong, one of the strongest people in magvel. and because he is strong and he knows he’s strong, he will seriously fight everybody he challenges or anybody that challenges him.

even when he’s severely outmatched by the enemy, the man is not afraid to fight back against hordes and hordes of enemies because he’s that confident in his own strength. even when kyle and forde tell him, “ephraim there’s way too many enemies we shouldn’t fight,” ephraim hands them a paper that says, “i can do what i want” and then goes right in (hence “headstrong”).

and it’s stupid but it’s also kind of hot, i’ll be real.

granted, his head is kind of far up his ass right now but knowing what he wants, doing anything to get what he wants (determined) — you don’t see that often in many people and it fits his character well.

it also says that he wears the “solar brace” and i believe that it’s because, as cheesy as this sounds, he shines in what he does. when people have lost hope, he’s the one to walk in and help them regain that hope they lost. he’s the light that walks across renais when everybody is lost — a leader for his people.

and i like that little detail, whether it was on purpose or not. ephraim doesn’t believe in his abilities to be the king of renais, that he’s not worthy to take his father’s place because he’s not sure he can do what his father did.

so that bit was from the intro! now we move onto to the wiki’s more in-depth description of ephraim.

(see his ego is so fuckign HUGE)

ephraim knows about his strength and flaws but when it’s brought up, i feel that he gets more self conscious in that regard, at least after what happened. yes, he knows that he has the ability to lead his people, but after letting orson ruin renais, i think he definitely thought about working through his thirst for battle. i’m placing a lot of emphasis on his “self consciousness” but he’s not that self conscious. wary, but not insecure.

but if you take his confidence out of the picture, he’s surprisingly nice. in his c support with eirika, he pats eirika’s head (i refuse to believe that he stroked her face because it’s been confirmed as mistranslated) because she looked upset, a little nostalgic to older times and shows he deeply cares for his sister as well as others. ephraim tells eirika that he won’t leave her alone after the war ended, he offers myrrh a place to live when she says she’s going to go back to the woods, he tells l’arachel that he’ll risk his own life if it means saving someone else, doesn’t make fun of forde’s painting when forde offered to show him, he taught something to his former teacher, duessel, when duessel called himself a traitor  — i could go on. he’s a little awkward when it comes to conversing, but he has good intentions when he’s talking to his fellow friends and soldiers.

and reading his support conversations made me realize that, that he’s not just this idiot that dives into battle without a care. he feels like anybody else does, he’s had life-changing experiences — he lives for the thirst of battle, yes, but he lives to help others when they need it. had he actually gone off to become a mercenary, who knows what would’ve happened to renais? eirika wouldn’t have been able to rule renais on her own and i’m not trying to make it sound like she’s weak, but ephraim was born and raised to be a leader. eirika was raised to support ephraim when he was leading.

with tana, i feel that she was always known as childish and frail despite her training as a knight which is why ephraim didn’t want her to fight with everyone else. he doesn’t want her to fight because she’s a woman (coughs at innes), but rather because of how he understands tana.

his heroes quote and his b support with eirika reveal that even battle-thirsty ephraim are given or have reasons for why they want to fight.

“… where he encounters myrrh, who tells him not to kill selena. he is forced to however, as she refuses to move aside due to loyalty” finalizes that statement. he doesn’t want to hurt people because he hates people or anything, but that was the duty he was given the moment he stepped into this war. i believe that… given the circumstances, i think ephraim would have spared selena had she moved but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

and to hop back into talking about his kindness, i think one of the best examples of so is with his support conversation with kyle:

[prior to the a support conversation, kyle is watching out for ephraim in order to prevent ephraim from doing anything reckless and get himself severely injured]

ephraim is an idiot! people know he’s an idiot, so they try to prevent him from doing stupid things! but he’s still an idiot and goes in! people want him to stop so he doesn’t get hurt!

but even if he did act a little rebellious to kyle due to their difference in perspective, that’s ephraim’s nature. he protects the people from harm, and while he does not expect protection, people come with him to fight for the same cause he’s fighting for and to help ephraim since he’s done the same for them.

and i think overall, ephraim’s character is a lot more than many make it out to be. while he is known for jumping right into combat and that makes up a majority of his character, there’s a lot of underlying details that can be easily missed with his general characterization.

i feel that these quotes from heroes are just him reminded himself that if he lets his confidence get to his head, he’s going to lead himself or others into destruction. and that’s not what he wants; he wants to help people in his own manner. a kit if the enemies he’s fought were usually power hungry and that is most certainly not the kind of person he wants to be. he’s maturing with the after events of sacred stones, and he just gets more and more mature as time goes by.

i just want to point out that this is just regular ephraim. legendary ephraim and brave ephraim are entirely different entities i can talk a bit about too.

[syphiria]

Makai Ouji Pillar 95 (final) Translation

Sorry for the wait. Here is the finale~~~~~!!

RAW via Michelle. Thank you.

Note: Mobile line breaks seem to be broken. Please switch to a browser to see proper formatting.

1 (A splendid palace once stood here) (The fact that it used to be a paradise for demons, now no one knows anymore-) ([Makai Ouji: devils and realist] at last the finale-!!)

2 (Each and every one’s path continues to tomorrow-…) (Volumes 1-14, on sale now!!) (Makai Ouji devils and realist) (Final Pillar)

3 (Finally, the emotional finale!!!!) (Utako Ukihiro) (Author: Madoka Takadono)

4 S: You are Lucifer’s child? Were you after this ring just to challenge him? What a foolish and pitiful soul This is nothing like what you want C: Are you…… going to make me a slave?

5 S: I’m just going to make you sleep Until those wounds heal Everyone is doing that Here, there is no one who will harm you (Not even Lucifer) (Power unattainable even by that Emperor) C: Even I will be able sleep here?

6 (I found relief in those pillars many times) (By his side) (That’s why I tried to create this time So that this time, I may receive him) B: O new Emperor of ours Lead this Hell

7 C: I swear to fulfil my duty

8 A: In the end, with Lord Sitri in Heaven Dantalion in Limbo The one who gained the most from this battle seems to be His Lordship Beelzebub B: Your Majesty is still young From here on, it is likely that we will be required to assist C: With the disappearance of Samael and Baalberith The West and the East are missing Kings Thus, to make sure the land of the Gauls is governed, I myself will take over the ruins B: -As you wish J: To think that even after becoming a demon, I can’t cut ties with the United Kingdom B: Though if I may, there is something that I would like to ask Your Majesty

9 Leaving the command of roles of the Four Kings at that What do you plan to do with the positions of the Four Princes? J: With a new regime do you plan to assign a ‘substitute king’ and an ‘elector’? That being said, both you and we Anyone will eventually slumber The position of the Emperor cannot be left open C: That’s true… However, let’s end the conflicts from the last generation Both illogical and unproductive I’ve painfully experienced enough with this time’s case J: …… ?

10 C: It seems like I’ve been infected by that realist J: My Imperial Majesty C: Stop with that address J: Come on now, I’ve brought some good intel Hear me out ‘til the end C: ?

11 SFX dash B: Your Majesty!? J: Would you please let him go? Because he’s lived until now for this very moment

12 M: Sorry I’ve become a demon C: It’s fine No matter what form You will always be you

13 So please don’t go anywhere else…… M: Let’s bake pizza again, the three of us and invite many guests Because I want people besides us to know too of how kind you are

14 My Imperial Majesty [-One year later] [United Kingdom King’s College of Our Lady of Stratford beside the Avon Also known as: Stradford College] (TN/ The Japanese says Stradford rather that Stratford)

15 T: Graduate representative, the dux- Mycroft Swallow! W: (nihility) T: Congratulations to our new generation of graduates!!

16 Damn it… Damn it…! SFX stomp stomp If it wasn’t for the couple’s quarrel between those annoying old men I wouldn’t have been treated as missing by the house!! (The holiday ended while he was in Hell so he was treated as a missing person) I: (That’s what William makes of arguably the greatest event in History that is Lucifer’s destruction?) W: Curse them How dare there leave a scare in my glorious future diary… I: It’s fine, isn’t it W: What!? I: You’re going for further study at Oxford, right? Yet I can’t even graduate-! [Finally Sixth Form] W: Isn’t it good that you managed to advance to the next grade?

17 (This is supposed to be a view that I’m used to, yet I wonder why I feel as if something is missing-) M: Hey, congrats W: Mathers! M: E-a-r-l!

18 From today, my teaching career ends Since I thought that I’d go travelling with them E: Congrats! B: Happy times! W: Whoa!? What’s with you M: They wanted to thank you for saving Stradford’s forests If you hadn’t bought back the land, this place would have also become a polluted town W: …It’s nothing; I just used the money he left behind appropriately [After Uncle Barton died Arthur Christian disappeared some time from the school] [According to Mathers, the role of the Four Horsemen may have ended…]

19 But the council hasn’t yet passed a law regarding smog restriction M: This you’ll have to ask the person himself I: [After the said day that the old world was destroyed ‘They’ became scarce] [I heard that Sitri became an angel (at the same level as that Metatron to boot)] [Camio ascended the throne of Hell (he’s Lucifer’s son, so to say that was expected)] [Dantalion-] [is apparently slumbering in Limbo]

20 [Injured demons sink themselves into a slumber similar to death for hundreds of years] [That’s why no longer Can he and William meet] (Ultimately, he didn’t even go to Camio’s coronation) At this rate, will he continue and become a normal human? William M: Those notes have become quite thick I: Mr Mathers I’m considering eventually compiling it into one volume as you suggested, sir

21 M: You can stop with the sir I’m no longer a teacher here The Order of the Golden Dawn remains as a secret society for now I: Are you not doing what the Freemasons did? M: Are you interested? I: Of course! I’m thinking of eventually joining the Rosicrucian Order too!! M: If that’s the case, you can use this if you like I: Really!? M: I doubt I will use the name Mathers again You can go ahead and use it as a pen name MacGregor isn’t my real name anyway

22 Isaac, you’ll be the second-generation Mathers, so to speak Alter ipse amicus. ‘A friend is another self’ I: [After that, I never met the ‘Count of Glenstrae’ again] [Perhaps, maybe once] [The one who appeared in England during that horrific world war may have been him]

23 [Regardless, I succeeded his name And went on to record all the odd events that occurred around William] (‘The Lesser Key of Solomon’) […The truth is, saying that nothing strange happened around William after that would sort of be a lie] K: Young Master~~~!!! Thank God I made it on time- W: Kevin, you’re quite late K: I applied for leave just for today But my superior piled up work

24 [After Kevin took Dantalion to Limbo Right when he was about to fall from using up all his power] [It’s hard to believe, but apparently, he was saved by Michael] [He got his wings back and was able to return to Heaven] [Apparently, his current superior is that Sitri For better or for worse, they seem to be getting along well]

25 [The aforementioned Sitri still visits the human realm from time to time Even after becoming an angel] S: Still watching Even now…

26 Sign: Go die, Freemasons!!

27 SFX grab

28 M: I’ll find him Definitely

29

30

31 I: Graduation, huh A lot has happened but Can we no longer gather together and have tea like before~ Ah- T: By the way, I forgot to mention, William There’s actually a transfer student W: What? It’s the graduation ceremony today

32 Who on earth would transfer at a time like this- …Dan talion…? D: Congrats on graduating

33 W: …Why What happened to sleeping for a hundred years!?!? D: I’m shocked myself too To think that I’d awaken so soon W: In Limbo …… never I thought we’d never be able to meet again…… D: Because I wanted to see you

34 -plus I felt like you were calling me

35 K: SFX stab Let go of those filthy hands right now! D: What the heck Jerk who nearly died! K: And who exactly is a jerk who nearly died?! (I can chuck you back into Limbo again if you want!) W: Oi… S: I made it!!! William!! I’ve come by Pegasus Express!

36 C: Hey, William W: Camio too!?!? Is it alright for the Emperor of Hell and the Representative of Heaven to be casually hanging around… (Second-generation Gabriel) (Second-generation Lucifer) S: You’re going to be in a dorm in Oxford too anyway, right? In that case, I’ll occupy the common room again C: Maybe I’ll be a student again W: You guys…

37 There’s no more Substitute King selection Neither is there Solomon’s ring S: This has nothing to do with contracts W: Wha D: I like you so I want to be by your side That’s all W: L L Like…… What are you sayin……

38 S: Choose me any time you feel lonely, William Heaven’s quite a nice place (the annoying obsessed-psycho is no longer here) D: Shut-up angel The one whom William will choose is me! C: Don’t pay attention to those two, William I would love for you to come to my wedding ceremony with Maria (Maria’s bridal state is so beautiful you could die) W: My graduation ceremony My glorious day of departure!! D: You’re at fault W: What did you say S: That’s right We’ve known each other for so long, yet we still haven’t heard that crucial thing

39 D: William Who is it that you like? W: W who…

40 All: -Choose me, William!

41 SFX snap K: Get away from the Young Master’s side!! I: An angel, a demon, and a nephilim It really is rare for a human to be proposed to by everything in this world As expected of you, William W: Listen up I’m telling you this one important thing that you guys seem to have forgotten despite our long acquaintance… Open up your ears and listen carefully!

42 In this glorious life of mine Neither angels Nor demons Nor magic is needed -I am a realist!

43 All: I know!! (Thank you for being a reader for this long time!! Utako Yukihiro’s new series starts next issue!! Please look forward to it!!)

That’s it! As always, please point out any mistakes if you spot any. Thanks for sticking around for so long~~ And for those who still want more, don’t worry, I am still working on the translation for Isaac’s Fortune-Telling Diary; I will probably translate that extra booklet regarding Heaven too.

[mdwatchestv]

Westworld 2x10: Looks Like We Made It

Well, we did it. We survived the onslaught of mystery, gun violence, and general confusion that is Westworld. This finale episode was sort of emblematic of the season as a whole in terms of what worked and didn't work, and generally the best and worst elements of the show. I will of course be talking about all the big twists and turns, but a finale is also great opportunity to reflect on a show as a whole and take a look at the big picture. The whole park if you will. While Westworld is a show about a lot of things, robots, personhood, technology, Dolores' wigs, it is mostly a show that is about its own mystery. It is a show that wants you to try and solve it, taunts you with seemingly meaningless complex clues, defies you to anticipate its twists and turns. Westworld asks its audience to pull apart details, to search for meaning, to try and outsmart the endgame. This can be a double edged sword, as a constant drive to solve the puzzle guarantees the viewer's rapt attention, but it also means every bit of the show is pored over, and pulled apart. Plot that doesn't quite line up, or wonky storytelling devices that may have slid under the radar in another show, are made glaring. Put another way, if you are encourage your audience to pick at the fabric of your story, they are going to find holes.  However, if you have a pack of vultures tearing apart your narrative and you're STILL able to conjure up a genuine surprise, then that is something special indeed. This last episode encapsulated both the pitfalls and payoffs of the mystery box show, and why the show in general suffers by often not being able to stand up to scrutiny.

Instead of recapping all 90 minutes of this episode, which I tried to do, realized I had written 3k words of nonsense regarding timelines, and decided no one really wanted to read that, I have instead decided to just get to the good stuff and talk about the twists, everything I was right about, all the things that didn't make sense, and all the questions we still need to  answered. There were two MAJOR twists in this episode, and they could not be more opposite in success and execution. Let's talk first about the one that worked - the Tessa Thompson is secretly Dolores twist. It is revealed in a climactic scene that Tessa Thompson, is not actually herself, but instead a host with Dolores' personality.  Not only is Tessa really Dolores in that scene, but she has been Dolores in EVERY "present" day scene (aka every scene that took place post-Bernard waking up on the beach) for the ENTIRE season. This twist worked so well because while it was truly unexpected, it also made sense. Not only that, it was in plain site the whole time, right on screen. This is perhaps the first and only time I have been inspired to rewatch Westworld in order to look for clues in Tessa Thompson's performance (and they are there!) It was neat, surprising, and sensical, the ultimate trifecta of television twistery. This was by far the best twist in the season, and dare I say the series. It was quite simply elegant, a word I don't think I have ever used to describe the behemoth of Westworld. But also of course more questions were raised. At the end of the episode we see Dolores, restored to her form, and Tessa Thompson together (in what I am hopeful is a direct sequel to San Junipero), but if Dolores is back in her own body, who is in Tessa's? Dolores left Westworld with a purse full of host balls (lol), so who else was in the bag? Who is Tessa now??

But let's talk about that other big twist, that after the credits twist (what is this a Marvel movie?) that Man in Black twist. Ugh, is the only real feeling I have about it, followed by "why are you telling us this". The episode opened with the Man in Black as we left him in the previous episode, digging into his arm in search of a port to prove his hostdom. Dolores rides up on him in this grotesque scene (he uh, made pretty good progress in the gouging department) and recruits him to journey with her to the Forge. During this interaction she also slips the flattened bullet from Teddy's head into his gun, which eventually causes it to backfire when he inevitably turns on Dolores. This was confusing to me as, while dramatically impressive, there was no way for her to know at what time he would fire that bullet. The two of them did quite a bit of firing at the Delos security cornering Bernard, who is to say he wouldn't have gotten to the bullet at that point. Anyway, after blowing his hand off Dolores leaves the MiB on the surface while she and Bernard continue into the Forge. After Bernard kills Dolores we cut between the MiB riding an elevator into the Forge, and Bernard escaping. Visually, it seems as if the two will intersect, but when the elevator comes for Bernard the MiB is nowhere to be seen. In fact we don't see the MiB again until the end of the episode at the guest evacuation point where he is lying in a tent, wounded but still alive. Seemed like sort of an anti-climactic arc for him for the finale UNTIL the credits rolled and we rejoined the MiB in his elevator journey. This time we see him arriving at the Forge and seeing a clearly very hosty-version of Katja Herbers. He declares "I knew it!" and she escorts him to the round studio room we saw Peter Mullan in early this season. She begins interviewing him the same way that the MiB himself interviewed Peter Mullan's character, thus revealing that the MiB is....what? A host? A human/host hybrid? And Katja Herbers really was a host this whole time? It was clear they wanted to end the episode with a "HOLY SHIT" moment, but instead of screaming "WHAT!" my first thought was "WHY?" In a finale that had packed so much information, why add this in? Why negate the MiB's humanity even further? Honestly the most interesting thing about his character at this point was his waning humanity, and if that's gone too, what's the point? But after many days of thinking about it, here is what makes the most sense re: what's going on here. Earlier in this episode we saw inside of The Forge, where Peter Mullan's "code" was repeatedly tested in an attempt to emulate the original. This process was overseen by a copy of Ben Barnes, Peter Mullan's son, whose abandonment was the pivotal moment of Peter Mullan's life. I think what is happening with the Man in Black is a similar situation, where the Forge program is running different "versions" of the MiB in preparation for creating a host/human hybrid. It would make sense then this process would be overseen by the code version of his daughter, whose murder at the MiB's hands could easily be considered a similar pivotal life moment. But then what does this mean for the series, is everything we've seen so far a simulation run by the machine? And then what exactly was the point of Ford's game for the MiB? To lead him here? To distract him? And then why? Unlike the Tessa Thompson twist, this twist was complicated, unwieldy and seems detrimental to the emotional impact of the story. If you have a different take on what happened here, by all means please let me know.

As this season ends, our heroes have become separated into three locations. We have the hosts that were uploaded into Host Heaven and sent out to a random satellite. Most notably these hosts include Akecheta, Teddy and Maeve's daughter. It's not clear what adventures are left for them to have up on their satellite, but's also unlikely that James Marsden is off the show. However now that Dolores has access to a host-making machine, she could always whip up a new Teddy with a different personality...  Speaking of, we also now have a contingency of hosts in the "real" world including Dolores, Bernard, whoever lives in Tessa, and whoever was in Dolores' ball bag. Dolores' goal is to destroy humankind, but as you all know by now I am STILL waiting for answers re: where Westworld is and what being in the "real" world actually means. I will never let this go, it drives me crazy. Finally we also have host characters still in the park, although it looks like many of our friends were destroyed by zombie death Clementine, in one of the final scenes we see technicians Felix and Sylvester being tasked with salvaging any hosts they can. At this they meaningfully turn and look at the pile of bodies containing Maeve, Armistice, and Rodrigo Santoro. Salvageable indeed. And while dead is never really dead on a show like Westworld, it does seem like Shannon Woodward and Simon Quarterman finally met their makers. Of course there is always a chance for host resurrection now that we know every human in the parks data was coded, but of all the death, theirs seemed the most permanent. There is also the last moment revelation that Luke Hemsworth has been a host all the time, tasked by Ford to protect the hosts of the park. He did spend an awful lot of time this season trying to make sure that Bernard stayed safe. He is also able to immediately recognize that Tessa is really Dolores, something the audience wasn't able to do all season, and then just lets her loose to supposedly destroy humanity. That's cold Luke.

Finally let's talk about the predictions I was right about and the burning questions for next season. In the first episode I predicted that Dolores was responsible for the deaths of the Westworld hosts, including Teddy, and I was KIND OF RIGHT. While the flood didn't cause the host’s deaths, rather their corpses were simply swept up in it, Dolores DID cause the flood and she did WANT to delete all the hosts. Also it is arguable she drove Teddy to suicide by messing up his programming. So I am going to claim this. I also believe that the park's location is a matter of consequence, and if never addressed is a huge plot hole. Yes, this is the hill I will die on. This episode also left a lot of questions, we know the fate of the Westworld hosts (dead or uploaded to Host Heaven), but what happened to all the hosts in the other parks? Did the other six parks also have a Valley Beyond situation? Are there clean-up crews hard at work there as well? While Westworld is clearly the crowning jewel of the parks, there are still a lot of other hosts out there, and perhaps even surviving guests, that simply haven't been accounted for. We have also now seen three parks, will we get to see the other four next season? I am still firmly of the belief that the "real" world that Dolores is in, is really just "CityWorld". Again, yes, this is the hill. Another question is, if Luke Hemsworth is a host, why wasn't he infected by Clementine's virus? Why didn't Maeve immediately incapacitate Clementine, or Matrix stop all the hosts? She did at the very end, but it seems like a missed opportunity for her to admin-power-battle Clem.

Overall this finale episode, like the season in general, had high highs and low lows. This season was able to tell some of the most powerful and emotionally affecting stories of the series, with the highlights being Maeve's journey into Shogun World and the near-standalone tale of Akecheta's lost love. These stories delivered fleshed out characters with relatable motivations and high stakes, they also had a clear beginning, middle and end. And in a show which just seems to be falling on and on down the plot expansion rabbit-hole, stories with complete arcs stand out. The Tessa/Dolores twist worked so well because it also marked the clear ending of another character's emotional journey. Bernard struggles with his faith in human nature, and his role in helping the hosts all season. With his decision to bring Dolores back to life and let her murder whoever she wants, he has clearly made a firm decision on where he stands, bringing his season-long arc to a conclusive end. However this season, and episode, was also plagued with the murkiness and purposeful obfuscation that has become an unfortunate hallmark of the series. Often emotional connection is lost as the show brings in seemingly endless technological developments (the Cradle, the Forge, human/hosts, park wide activation codes, system access, guest profiles, mind-reading hats), that often feel more like a distraction than authentic world-building. Both seasons of the show also have relied heavily on multiple timelines, and while this season was upfront about its time hopping, it was a bit straining to try and keep the two separated as a viewer. Don't get me wrong, I love shows that aren't afraid to challenge their audience, but keeping the dozens of storylines straight in addition to time and space, sometimes makes watching the show feel more like work than entertainment. Ultimately this season did do a lot right, and was able to make up for some of the failings of the initial run. My hope for season 3 is a more focussed story that is able to deliver twist quality over quantity. I hope instead the writers take different kinds of risks in the storytelling: investigating new worlds, spending time with unexpected characters, and creating complex emotional bonds. My fear is that going into a "larger" world will cause the smaller stories to get lost. After all, who cares what's going on back at the park when Dolores is leading a massacre of mankind. Of course if she even IS in a larger world at all.....

Writing about Westworld was exhausting. I miss The Magicians.

XO MD

[fordanoia]

Gotham Falls [1/??]

My crossover fic between Gravity Falls and Batman: The Animated Series. 

||  Fic Tag  ||  On AO3 / Fanfic  || 

Fic Summary: At the end of his rope Ford calls Stan for help. After seeing the mysterious mess he's in Stan offers Ford to come back with him to Gotham. Inside the city the pair have to deal with whatever Bill is planning as well as criminal escapades. 

Ch 1: A Simple Call      ||    Words: 2,824     ||       CW: mild swearing

A call is faster than a postcard, and he can't waste what time he has. Ford calls his brother Stanley to come to Gravity Falls.

| |

He had gotten the number from Ma, of course. Not that he ever asked for any of the addresses she sent. Regardless, she always sent a letter or a postcard, something with his new address and whatever small update she deemed innocent enough to give him. Sometimes, all he got was a note, no address, no number. 'Your brother is in Las Vegas, how fun!’

She usually only sent letters though when there was something new about Stanley. Well, either regarding Stanley or for whatever other reason. He’d never figured that out, honestly. A slight bitter note in his head told him that Stanley would have realized, he was always good with that sort of stuff. He pushed the thought down before it could go too far though. Even when he had time he didn't like to dwell on Stanley, but lately it also seemed like a bad idea in general. Today he had a special reason not to get caught up in his thoughts. He needed to actually contact his twin today.

He got the latest postcard not long after the incident. If the whole situation weren’t so serious he would have called the timing funny, but no. It wasn’t funny. It was striking in a way that made your mind feel suddenly clear and focused, like a polished mirror or glass, if only for a moment. There was an address and phone number on the postcard this time. Ma had rejoiced at him being closer to home than before, though there was no mention of actually going to visit him. Reading the post card left a bitter note in his mouth, but any postcard with a mention of Stanley did that. Even still, it was a welcome distraction. More than just that though. Although sour, it was a distinct possibility opening up; it was something removed from Him.

Ford stood over the messy desk with the phone set atop of a rare cleared off spot, his hands planted on either side of it.

Call Stanley, that’s what he had to do.

Or that’s what he was trying to decide if he had to do. It was the best course of action, really. He’d hidden his other journals in Gravity Falls, so if he could get the final one far away from here then it really would be safe, wouldn’t it? Hell, Stan was even back in New Jersey again, back on the other side of the country. The other side of the world would have been better, but this was enough to make him actually feel like it would be safe. It would finally be safe. All he had to do was call Stan and give him the book, then maybe he'd be able to focus on a solution or better yet be left alone entirely. That second option wasn't likely, but oh how he wished it would happen. Maybe Bill would realize how futile it was trying to coerce him and give up. Maybe he wouldn’t, that didn’t matter right now though. Once he took care of his research, all he would have to worry about was the information inside his own mind. This would at least take care of the portal specific issue. He still had other issues to deal with, but on the bright side, the possibility of immediate global destruction wouldn’t be one of them just so long as he did this.

Well, this and destroy the portal, but he was just waiting to ensure the journals were safe before he did that. On the list of things to do, he assured himself. Hiding away the journals was simply more important and had to be taken care of first.

He knew he was going to call Stan for some time now. In truth he’d known the moment he had gotten the most recent postcard from Ma weeks ago. A crystal clear moment struck him when he saw the small paragraph and phone number. An instant realization that Stan was the only one. The only one removed from this. The only one he could possibly begin to…

Ford shifted his hands on the phone, holding onto the handle. He almost wished he had tried calling when he’d gotten the postcard. After all, he’d already known by that point, but what were last resources for after all? It had been such a singular outstanding moment though, he only had had a few like it, and at that only one he let himself think about. The moment Fiddleford sat up, blue light shining a short shadow to his left, and without turning around he warned him in a cryptic message. ‘The beast with just one eye.’ An obvious warning as to who. Not just that either, but the underlying intentions.

If only he had paid heed to Fiddleford's warning and his own realization in that moment. Although, if he had just paid heed to Fiddleford’s previous concerns or the explicit warnings about the summoning then he wouldn’t be in this situation now.

Both of those times, everything clicked together. Ford understood perfectly, everything suddenly in focus. Although there was a key difference between them. Seeing Stan’s number was similar to swiping off the dirt from a mirror to see a clear reflection. Fiddleford’s words had felt like cracked glass, something inherently cold and just one treacherous tap of a finger away from turning it into jagged pieces shattering out of the frame.

Yet he still brushed over the moments. Read through the paragraph at a forced calm pace. Told his old friend to get a hold of himself. He continued over them as if he hadn’t noticed them. Then within minutes he’d reasoned excuses to try to put them out of his mind. He didn’t need them, after all, so everything was fine.

They weren’t the only epiphanies he had had, but they were the ones he had smoothed over in his own mind as irrelevant or faulty the instant he had them. Believing in the rare couple he had beforehand had not left him better off though, he thought to himself. His memory dredging them up in faded still frames.

Holding onto that blue pamphlet for the first time, the one that advertised for West Coast Tech with enticing gold trim. The different studies and resources he could already see just skimming the page and the principal's words filtering across the desk.

A clean glass lit up and shining.

He wanted to go there.

Constant New Jersey Sun shining down on the beach. The boat with its mismatching wood and moth-eaten sail haphazardly lying over the side of it. The mast strung up as they wound a thick braid of rope around it together. Catching a sight blazed into his memory as they had worked around the mast in a tight circle.

The horizon of the ocean, the boat, him. Everything. Everything except for all the sand between them and the shore. The distance to the lapping waves seemed nonexistent, as if they were already out there.

A gem like lens reflecting light over everything and an image in every facet.

He was meant to go sailing with Stanley.

What a stupid-

Focus. He had to focus.

Ford let the thought slide away, not dwelling on either old memory threatening to drag him out of the present. He was going to call Stan and ask him, very simply, to come. He picked up the phone holding it to his ear and went still. The flat monotonous tone made his head buzz and scrambled his thoughts.

He sighed and set the phone piece back down onto the desk to where he couldn’t hear it, rubbing at his eyes and blinking them open again. He couldn’t even deny he was tired by this point, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he was sick too. His body felt like lead and there was so much else, but every symptom could easily be from the various conditions.

He took a breath and carefully dialed the number, putting the phone piece back up to his ear and listening to the ringing. A simple request, it was easy. The conversation wouldn’t even have to last for longer than thirty seconds. Soon enough, he heard his brother’s voice for the first time in years, crackling slightly through the line.

“Yeah, Boss?”

“...What? ” He made a face, holding onto the phone with both hands.

“Oh,” Stan’s voice paused on the other side of the line, “who is this?”

He stayed quiet for a moment, listening to the other line. It was definitely Stanley, and he could pick up on the indistinct sounds coming out of the phone as well. Wind in the receiver and rustling material. He was about to speak up when there was a quiet high pitched noise.

“Just a sec.” Stanley told him, and all the sounds were quieted, muffled up against his shirt or something, but even still he could vaguely hear Stan’s voice though he couldn’t tell any words nor the tone. He didn't sound particularly emotional one way or another though. All the background noises came back as before and his voice came out of the receiver again. “Okay, now who is it again?”

Ford swallowed before answering. “Stanley?”

There was a long pause before he got a disbelieving response. “Ford? Is- that’s not you is it?”

“Yes. I-” He couldn’t help trying to think of some explanation or excuse to ease into the conversation, ‘just calling to check up on you,’ ‘ma gave me your number,’ ‘it’s been a long time but i needed to call you.’ He decided against it. Simple. A simple conversation, no need to mention unnecessary details, this needed to be straightforward.

“You need to come to Gravity Falls, it is of the utmost importance.” He told him.

There was an initial scoff in reply. “Uhh, I’m sorry, what?”

“You need to meet me in Oregon.” He said evenly.

“Meet-Why? What’s going on?”

“I can’t explain over the phone.” Ford shook his head as he held onto the phone.

“You can’t explain,” Stan deadpanned, a second later there was a sigh.

He felt himself getting agitated, this was suppose to be simple. “It is not safe.”

“... Are you in trouble?” And there was just a tinge of- concern, disbelief, Ford couldn’t pick whatever it was out of Stan’s voice. Frankly, he didn’t care what it was. He just wanted to convince Stan to come out to meet him.

“You don’t understand who could be listening, Stanley.”

He scoffed. “Look, this line is secure, nobody’s listening to us through the wires.”

“You don’t know that. It might not even be you,” Ford muttered. Stupid, this idea had been utterly stupid.

“Okay, right. You’re the one that called. If one of us might not be us then it’s you.” Stan countered bluntly. “In fact, I’m having kind of a hard time believing this isn’t a bad joke.”

“No,” he replied harshly, “I’m being serious, Stanley. Your voice could just be a manipulation of waves to sound like you, and I don’t care how ‘secure’ this line is someone could still be listening.  Just talking aloud in of itself could be enough.”

“Okay, okay, come on. If it wasn’t me, then who else would it even be?”

Ford didn’t answer at first, definitively not willing to bring up Him. “... Any multitude of people.”

“If you don’t think it’d be me then why did you call? Hell, why are you calling me now of all times, anyways?!” Stan let the question snap out, the implied sentence unspoken in the air, but perfectly well known. You didn’t call for ten years.

“This is the only way I could reach you. It’s the only thing I have right now.” Ford admitted sullenly.

“Ford-” The sound of a door opening cut Stan off, and there was some aggressive voices and footsteps all of which were quickly muffled after a short, “Hold on.” Ford strained his ears to listen. There was struggling and the sound of shoes scuffling loudly on a smooth stone ground. He couldn’t understand anything, but judging by Stan’s tone it wasn’t anything outright concerning or dangerous. He continued to listen, but ultimately the mostly unconcerned tone of other voices settled his conscience. It’d have been preferable for nobody to be around at all, but better than- A sudden loud noise almost made Ford drop the phone, barely catching onto the slick surface and clutching it so it wouldn’t slip out of his grasp. He carefully re-positioned his hands to get a better grip to bring the phone back up to his ear.

“-rd, ya still there?” There were footsteps, clearly walking away from everyone else as the background voices were getting more distant and harder to even detect much less understand.

“Yes.” He answered quickly.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

Ford couldn’t risk it, and even if he could he didn’t want to. “... How far away are you from Oregon?” He asked.

“Doesn’t matter.” Stan said dismissively. “I’m coming on over. Whatever’s going on over there, I don’t like it.” A beat as a door closed and it was nearly silent aside from Stan’s voice. “I know you can’t really hear yourself, but trust me you don’t sound good and the whole vague not telling me anything isn’t that comforting either.”

Ford let out a quiet sigh of relief when he heard Stan’s reply. “I really can’t risk telling anything to you like this.” He insisted even still.

“Yeah, see, that? That’s like B horror movie cryptic, okay.” Stan pointed out.

“I can tell you when you get here.”

“So, you know in movies where someone gets warned about like some serial killer or whatever and get promised answers later? Then they show up or try to call again or something and oops whoever it was is dead and that first person still doesn’t know jackshit. You know, one of those really annoying parts where you just wanna scream at the characters because they could have just summed it up in two sentences and saved a whole lot of trouble?”

“Stanley.”

“Look, okay, all I’m saying here is that if you’re not going to tell me what’s going on now then at least stay SAFE. I’m scared I’m going to end up at your place and it’s going to be a crime scene.” He sighed. “Where are you at anyways?”

“Gravity Falls, Oregon. Gopher road, it’s the house in the woods.”

“You live out away in some cabin in the woods?”  Stan said in disbelief, “You’ve gotta be frickin’ kidding me.”

“Stanley-” Ford started, putting a hand over his eyes.

He cut him off appeasingly. “Right, right, right. Look okay, I’ll be there as fast as I can. It’s gonna take me a while, but just do me a favor and actually be alive when I get there.” He paused briefly, “stay safe from… whatever, just stay safe.”

“I- I’ll be here. You have to be careful, though, Stanley. Trust no one.”

Stan let out a slow breath. “Alright, got it,” he said, “I’ll be there soon.” The line died as Stanley hung up.

Ford slowly set the phone back down onto its holder, letting out a shaky breath. Even though he was relieved that didn’t shake off his doubts. It could very easily not have been Stan at all and even if it was there was still no guarantee he’d hold to what he had said. It wouldn’t have been the first time he had lied, he thought to himself bitterly.

Stanley had actively agreed to come though, and that meant there was at least a possibility of it actually happening. And if he did show then really how much could go wrong from there?

Have him leave with the final journal, simple and easy.

All Stan would have to do was take the book and get out of Gravity Falls, preferably the state itself. It'd be best if he went across the country again or to the other side of the world, but Ford would feel safe enough as long as it was two states away. Although, since he was coming from New Jersey there was a very good chance that’s where he would go back to.

Regardless, it was safest to assume Stanley wouldn’t show up. The more time he wasted waiting for him the more time something could happen. If he could just get the last journal out of Gravity Falls and Bill’s major realm of influence then nobody would be able to activate the portal again. He was sure of it. Hide the research and deal away with the portal; it’d be fine.

The only real problem left was getting the journal out of Gravity Falls… and even after all the planning and time spent hiding the other two he had still only thought of one option. Stanley.

[tenorsauruswes]

“Trust your intuition.”

Most of us have downloaded some type of star-chat app or follow a social media account that provides monthly (sometimes weekly) guidance based on our astrological sign. There is certainly nothing new about humans wanting a deeper connection to the greater power that we believe guides us (or in some cases, designs for us) as we travel around our sun.

I’m a Leo with my rising in Virgo and my moon in Aries. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t a clue what this means on a deep level except that I like attention and overthink things…a lot.

So often the advice I receive from virtual horoscope sites is the simple statement to “trust my intuition.” I have to say, nothing scares me more than trusting my intuition when my intuition often behaves like Peter Parker’s Spidey sense – a constant bell that things around me aren’t quite what they seem.

And yet, it is my intuition I must thank for the story I’m about to tell.

Without going into every minute detail, the summation of the end of my summer was this: after carrying around for a decade the weight of having a college professor and mentor proposition me for sex while I was still his student, I finally came forward with my story. If you’re looking for more specific information, I encourage you to read the Boston Globe article here. What people don’t know is how that story almost didn’t come out.

In September 2019, I was a local opera singer working for multiple companies in Boston as both as regular chorister and a soloist for smaller companies. I cantored for Catholic churches and had a steady 9-to-5 – what I lovingly refer to as my “muggle job.” It was in the midst of the high holidays at a temple in Needham, MA when I discovered an article on schmopera.com by editor and co-creator Jenna Simeonov that chronicled the story of a fairly-well-known American bass’ experience of sexual abuse by a guest director while the bass was a student.

I was astounded at two things: the first being that someone whose expanding career I followed on social media had a #MeToo story to tell, and second was the bravery of this man and the writer of the article in boldly exposing the truth of that moment in his life. For years I’d carried around my burden and while I did share my story with friends and colleagues throughout the ten years after my own experience of sexual misconduct by a college professor, my assumption was that I would continue to live in a world where the man who violated my trust saw no penalty for his actions. Keep in mind, this man who was my private voice teacher in Florida now worked as the President and CEO of a large arts organization in Boston. I’d been contracted multiple times throughout my years in Boston in productions where either the show either performed or rehearsed in the space that this man now controlled. My fear with telling my story wasn’t simply that I wouldn’t be believed, but that by exposing the truth, all these years later, I would become a pariah in the Boston arts community and never work on the same level again.

After a day or two of considering my options I was left with one feeling: my intuition. And it told me to write my story and share it with Jenna. I assumed one of two things would happen: 1) she would read my article and decide that my story wasn’t on the same level of behavior as other stories she’d received (I recognize how fortunate I am that my story doesn’t involve physical confrontation or violence) or 2) she would never respond.

I was completely wrong. In just over a week Schmopera published my account and people were sharing it on social media. That’s when I knew my story wasn’t finished being written.

Next is the part you don’t know.

After much debate with myself I contacted the Boston Globe. My fear was that the same actions he’d taken toward myself and others at the small school in Florida continued in his tenure in Boston – and now he was the highest-ranking person in the organization. I knew how helpless I’d felt in those moments after I received his initial anonymous email, writing, “I know I am your fantasy.” I could only imagine what the possibilities could be in Boston with him surrounded by more impressionable young men. My mind told me to count myself lucky that I’d been edified by friends and colleagues after the Schmopera article went live and not push my luck. My intuition told me to keep pushing forward.

That is when I sent the article to the Globe. And you can guess what happened next: no response. So I penned a lengthier explanation, again sharing the article to the Globe’s email hotline, and, again, no response. I figured I’d gotten too “big for my britches” as my parents would say. They were this goliath of a newspaper so they got to decide what made news and what didn’t.

It wasn’t until a discussion I’d had with a colleague who shared a Boston Globe news article regarding the same person, but this article wasn’t about inappropriate behavior. It detailed a new, controversial program he was promoting that caused uproar among people concerned that many artists would be displaced once it was implemented. While not related, it was a lead to putting my story in front of the eyes of someone already reporting on both the person and the organization.

My brain pleaded with me to slow down and not get myself deeply involved in what could potentially be a very painful, not to mention reputation-destroying, path. But my gut told me to keep going. So, I did.

I emailed the reporter Brian, and, for the first time, I felt heard. I suspect many of you won’t be surprised to read about the amount of back-and-forth there was between myself and the reporter. He was so patient and encouraging every step of the way. Yet, even with my completely open (and perhaps often naïve) cooperation to publish the entire story using mine and my offender’s name so publicly, it took multiple phone calls with Brian and another staff member at the Globe before I was able to sit down for the interview. Every step along the way I thought of people like Christine Blasey Ford and every other survivor of sexual assault we’ve heard from since the #MeToo movement began. Not that I would ever compare their experiences with my own, but I appreciate so much more now their courage. Every step Brian and I took toward publicly sharing my story I asked myself three questions:

“What are the facts?”

“Why am I doing this now?”

“What result am I searching for?”

Looking back, I think of those questions as my armor. They were what would protect me from a libel lawsuit and/or community backlash. After all, someone doesn’t become the head of such a high-ranking organization without convincing a few people you’re the best person for the job. And part of that is convincing people you are the good guy.

So, the question I ask now is, “What kept me going?” At any point I recognized that I could take my foot off the gas…or even turn the car around. No one was forcing me to expose the awful truth of what happened ten years prior. I often thought about a sign my mother had in her Sunday school room when I was a child that read, “I do not have to attend every argument I am invited into.”

Now, anyone who knows me knows this is not my talent…avoiding unnecessary arguments. If you want proof, check out my Facebook profile feed from approximately 2015-2016 (i.e. the previous contentious presidential election cycle). But while this was a moment I could walk away from, I had to ask myself if I should walk away. After all, he was more powerful, had a bigger profile, and was cunning enough to weasel his way out of retribution once before (read the Boston Globe article to understand how many times he’d showed this behavior prior to my incident).

Maybe it was the stars telling me to trust my intuition. Maybe it was the profound sense of right and wrong my parents raised me to believe in. Whatever it was, I am thankful every day for the patience and care Brian took with me to ensure that we got it right. And for my fiancé and every friend and colleague who was with me as I traversed the frightening path to coming out with my story.

Why am I sharing this experience now? Because my intuition is telling me to.

Part two of this story involves you. What story are you afraid to tell? What truth are you afraid to live? If there is any result I hope comes from these articles it is this: that one more person isn’t afraid to live in their truth.

In the Bible, John 17 reads, “Sanctify them through your truth…” The sheer number of people who reached out in person or online to express their appreciation to me would astound you. People I would have never considered would be victim to inappropriate behavior told me, some in detail, of their own experiences and trauma. Others thanked me, not alluding to any shared experience except in their eyes.

You don’t have to be ready to risk it all or to shout the truth from the highest mountaintop. But you can. And you will be believed. And you will be supported.

The most important thing: believe your horoscope and listen to your intuition.

[thebbfanaticsforum]

Welcome Everyone to The Point! The Point is where I, the BB Fanatic, will get down to The Point with either your favorite former & current Big Brother houseguests or your favorite former & current Sequester players about many various topics including there own season(s), if they watched the most recent season(s) & their thoughts on it as well as & especially what they are doing now in their life. It is now time to get down to The Point with one of your soon to be favorite Sequester Players, and someone who I personally am not only rooting on like I said in my interview w/ Deana Bauer, but picking as the winner of Sequester season 3, the one and only Kimberley Ford!

The BB Fanatic - First off Kimberley, Thank you for agreeing to do this interview with me. You honestly are my pick to win this upcoming season which starts November 3rd at 8 pm est. Now unlike other interviews you may do this one will focus on you as a person & player. First off, how did you hear about Sequester? What made you interested in Sequester itself & what was your strategy going in after you found in you were cast?

Kimberley Ford - Thank you so much for reaching out! I enjoy interacting with fans online! Thank you so much for choosing me as your pick to win and I hope I do you proud.

I began hearing about sequester a couple years ago during the online games. I applied to be on an online season and was selected but unfortunately timing didn’t work out with family obligations.  So I have been very interested in participating in one of the live seasons and applied for season 3! Audrey has been phenomenal as a producer and is nothing short of amazing!

What made me interested in sequester was the competitiveness, the fast pace and the sheer luck factor of some of the competitions! I thrive when I am challenged in situations which makes sense as I am an operating room nurse and love the adrenaline rush of not knowing what is coming at you during a trauma!

My strategy going into the house is to deflect the threat off of me. I am a very social and outgoing woman so I knew making connections wouldn’t be hard. I want to hide the fact that I am a former freestyle amateur wrestler and involved in pro wrestling currently because I don’t want people to assume I am a physical threat. I also am extremely good at puzzles and have a great intuition and ability to read people so I also want to deflect that skill from me. I also am a former Mrs Calgary and Mrs Alberta so I want to have someone attractive on my side as well. Therefore my plan is to get a big strong man, a nerd, and a beautiful person in an alliance with me so I can deflect the threat off of me and know that those people will also connect with different populations in the house so we can divide and conquer!

The BB Fanatic - We can't talk about what happened yet cause it won't premiere until November 3rd at 8 pm est but what we can do is ask more about you & you are many things. A Sequester player of course, as well as a Registered Nurse, an abstract painter, & my favorite thing on your resume, professional wrestler! You have watched wrestling since you were 7 or 8 years old. Was there anything or anyone from your childhood that made you in awe & want to be like that particular wrestler when you got into the business?

Kimberley Ford - Absolutely! I am EXTREMELY passionate about wrestling. It is in my blood. My parents always had wrestling on in our home and we watched stampede wrestling, WCW, and WWF almost every week. When a family friends son wanted to go watch my dad took us both. I remember a cage match between Bret and Owen hart and a ladder match between Razor Ramon and Shawn Michaels. I fell. In. Love. With. Wrestling. I knew at that point I wanted to do that for the rest of my life. My parents didn’t want me to waste my life and knew I had potential to graduate university so I wanted to please them and completed my bachelor of nursing degree and started working in the field. But the passion for wrestling never stopped. I got married and had my son and life’s priorities changed. Now that my son is older I am able to pursue my wrestling career knowing that I have my education to fall back on. I know I may never make it to the WWE but at least I am following my childhood dreams and not many people have the drive to do that.  Long story short, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels were huge inspirations for me. Shawn’s charisma and Bret’s skill.

The BB Fanatic - Reason I brought that up so soon is I wanted to tie your wrestling background into your Sequester game. Do you think your wrestling background is something going into Sequester that helped you. Sequester has battles, and lets face it, if its a physical battle they are in trouble, & as smart as you are, if its a mental battle, they are in trouble. So did your physical strength help your confidence in preparing for Sequester Season 3?

Kimberley Ford - My physical strength is obviously and attribute that will help me in physical competitions. I want to keep that a secret so if people challenge me to a battle match they will be shocked and devastated in my strength. Also it will be great to build my resume for jury with the physicality. I have always been a very confident woman and I think competing in wrestling teaches you to have faith in yourself. Competing in pageants definitely helped build more confidence and stage presence and being a pro wrestler you have to be extremely confident going out to that ring and performing as you have to trust your opponent and they have to trust you.

The BB Fanatic - This question is always set aside for something special. Something fun. I want to head back to the topic of you being an abstract painter. I am a huge fan of art. I think the creativity it takes and just what a person can come up with due to their mind, their heart & their soul is beautiful! What started your love for painting. Did you always want to focus on abstract painting or was there another form of painting that you tried before hand?

Kimberley Ford - I have been drawing since I was very little. When I was 4 years old and in kindergarten my teachers just fostered that talent. I have a painting of a pumpkin from that year which my mother hung on the window as a Halloween decoration. My mom was offered money to put it in an art gallery. I’m self taught and it comes naturally to me. I am actually a very good portrait artist in pencil, I have only started abstract painting seriously since 2005. I love creating and the pride that comes from displaying what the mind can do. My son has inherited a lot of my artistic ability and I can’t wait to see what he accomplishes in life!

The BB Fanatic - Now before we close out this interview I want to give you the floor to talk about anything you want in regards to Sequester or your job, your career in wrestling or anything you stand behind & are a advocate of? Whatever you would like to talk about you can say right here right now, the floor is yours & once again Thank you Kimberley!

Kimberley Ford - Thank you so much again for reaching out, what I would love to close with are the causes I am very passionate about: infertility awareness and special needs funding.

I was a part of a charitable foundation called Generations of Hope which provides funding for families that would otherwise be unable to afford treatment to have children. I believe that your socio-economic status should not determine if you are fit to parent. I unfortunately had medical issues that prevented me from conceiving naturally and I have no issues talking about it because I think awareness of pregnancy loss and infertility is the first step to realizing there is a problem and a need for funding. So if you would like to donate you can see what the foundation is about at www.gensofhope.com

In 2017 we raised $120,000 which means many families were able to have children and that means the world to me as my son is a miracle and going to do incredible things in this world.

My son has special needs and has faced many challenges in schooling in his young life. He was expelled for being different, bullied, and emotionally traumatized by his initial experiences. Having him assessed and diagnosed appropriately and advocating for him and his education has been a full time job for the last 3 years. Finally he has been integrated into a regular classroom this year and excelling but only due to teachers, educational aides, behavioural therapists, and a principal who has been down the same path as us to show us what is possible and where and how to advocate. Thank god for teachers and educators who truly love what they do and see the potential in children. Please support your local school system!!

We are all in for a crazy ride this season on sequester and the fans are going to LOVE THIS SEASON!!!

[omfgtrump]

It’s The Base, Stupid

I would be remiss if I forget to give a shout out to the valiant and heroic actions of our military during the War of 1812 for defending our airports. America thanks you from the bottom of its heart.

The Don, during his made for TV July 4th special called “Look at Me I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy,” praised our soldiers that “manned the air, rammed the ramparts, took over airports, it did everything it had to do.” His staff had begged him to keep the remark out of the speech, but ultimately they caved when he conceded that he wouldn’t say: “You know, I knew George Washington, and he was one tough cookie like me.”

Now that we have soared to unimagined heights with our planes, it’s time to talk about less lofty things, which brings me to the word “base”. I suppose it could be an airport base, but that plane has come and gone.

For starters here’s The Don waxing poetically about his base:

“I have a base that’s a phenomenal — it’s just a phenomenal base,” Trump said in a recent interview with Time magazine. “It’s a very loyal base, and I’m loyal to them also.” When asked if he should reach beyond his supporters, he answered simply, “I think my base is so strong, I’m not sure that I have to do that.” Which word(s) do you relate to most when it comes to describing his base:

1.Phenomenal

2. Loyal

3. So strong

Tough choice, but I personally go for “so strong.” I just love a strong bass in my music. And if you are wondering if I am mixing up base with bass, shame on you for caring about the meaning of words. I just love a strong bottom.

And so does The Don. To misquote Michelle Obama: “When they go low, The Don goes lower.” So the question is how low can you go Don? How base can you get? Where is the nadir?

The Don’s campaign and administration has been a “Who’s Who” in the world of the rich, the basest, and the abusers. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as the person at the top, creates the culture, and in The Don’s world, misogyny rules.

Besides the infamous Access Hollywood Tape, where he reveled that his fame imbued him with the power to ‘”grab their pussies,” there is the reality of at least 23 women accusing him of sexual impropriety. And just three weeks ago, E. Jean Carroll, a well-known writer, accused Trump of what amounted to a violent rape in the mid-1990s. (Two friends of hers confirmed that she’d told them about it at the time.) In response, Trump essentially said “she’s not my type” — and claimed that he’d never met her. That was a provable lie; there’s a photograph of them together.

And let’s not forget ex-wife, Ivana Trump, who claimed The Don once raped her.

Now we have the Jeffrey Epstein, Robert Acosta debacle. But before we get to that sordid abomination, let’s do a little ‘Who’s Who’ of the awful that have been involved with The Don since he ran for president.

Let’s begin with the physically abusive:

Rob Porter, who The Don and then Chief of Staff John Kelly defended, despite photos from Porter’s ex-wife, sporting bruises all over her. Here’s Kelly after the allegations were made known to him: “Rob Porter is a man of true integrity and honor, and I can’t say enough good things about him,”

Steve Bannon was charged in 1996 with domestic violence and battery and dissuading a witness over an alleged incident regarding his ex-wife.

How about Andy Pudzer, one time choice for Secretary of Labor who ultimately withdrew his nomination. Pudzer’s, wife, Lisa Firstein, appeared on an episode of Oprah called “High-Class Battered Women,” which aired in March of 1990. Firstein appeared incognito and showed up in a wig and glasses and was identified only by the made-up name of Ann.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan resigned over domestic violence allegations, And then there is touching father-son story about how Shanahan defended and protected his son who brutally beat his mother with a baseball bat; he left her lying in a pool of blood and ripped out the phone cord for good measure so she couldn’t call for help.

Shanahan’s response was to this horrific act was: She had “harassed [William] for nearly three hours before the incident.” I don’t know about you, but if your parent is bugging you can always just leave. How crazy would that be? But Shanahan thought the baseball bat was fair game!

A Trump administration speechwriter, David Sorensen, resigned after his ex-wife reported that he’d put out a cigarette on her and ran over her foot with a car. Rumor has it that Sorenson said “she’s lucky I didn’t run over her foot with my truck.”

Now let’s move on to the misogynists/sexual abusers/predators in the Who’s Who?

Let’s go back to Andy Pudzer the CEO of Hardees and Carl Jr.’s, a fast food chain. Pudzer drew attention because of the ads he ran to promote his burgers.

“We believe in putting hot models in our commercials, because ugly ones don’t sell burgers,” said in a 2011 press release, according to Fortune. “We target hungry guys, and we get young kids that want to be young hungry guys.” As late as 2015, Puzder said: “I like our ads. I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it’s very American.”

Remember Roy Moore, the man who lost the Alabama Senate race to Democrat Doug Jones? The man accused of pedophilia? The Don supported his candidacy whole-heartedly.

Even the morally bankrupt Republican lawmakers drew the line at pedophilia, but the Don said this: “I have NOTHING against Roy Moore, and unlike many other Republican leaders, wanted him to win.” In other words, the fact that he preyed on teenage girls was a nothing burger. Why should we be surprised, as The Don in the 2013 Miss Teen Universe said this: “You know they’re standing there with no clothes. Is everybody OK? And you see these incredible looking women. And so I sort of get away with things like that.”

And remember the Brett Kavanaugh hearing. The Don mocked Christine Blasey-Ford’s testimony regarding Kavanaugh raping her in high school: “I don’t know. I don’t know,” the President continued. “What neighborhood was it in? I don’t know. Where’s the house? I don’t know. Upstairs, downstairs — where was it? I don’t know — but I had one beer. That’s the only thing I remember.”

So why should we be surprised that to this date, The Don has not said one word denouncing Jeffrey Epstein’s monstrous activities of sex trafficking and rape of underage girls?

The Don once said this about his one-time hang-out buddy:

“It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side… “

There is a lot to say about the Epstein case and much more will be revealed as the days go by, but I will be brief. Epstein, received a sweetheart deal back in 2008 from none other than Alex Acosta,* The Don’s Secretary of Labor, who was then a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. How was it possible for that deal to happen? All I can say is that when all is exposed there will be a whole lot of collateral damage as there was a whole lot of cover-up and shenanigans going on.

For example, remarkably, after Epstein served his time, he had to register as a sex offender. Inexplicably, the Manhattan district attorney’s office, under Democrat Cyrus Vance Jr., asked a judge to downgrade Epstein’s sex offender status from Level 3, the most serious, to Level 1, the least. The judge, stunned, refused. “I am a little overwhelmed because I have never seen a prosecutor’s office do anything like this,” she said.

Epstein’s response to this seemingly magical shift in his status said: it’s the “difference between a murderer and stealing a bagel: predator-offender.” When I read this I almost puked and don’t know if I will ever be able to look at a bagel the same way.

To add insult to injury, at the very time the Epstein case has been bubbling over (he has been indicted by the Southern District of New York for his actions), The Don’s company was about to hold a golf tournament where strippers would be caddies before it was called off. Exotic dancers would wear pink mini-skirts and sexy white polo shirts. However, if you bought the V.I.P package you could go back to the strip club and maybe if you were lucky, get some nudity and who knows what else.

Don’t you just love the base?

  *Acosta recently resigned as Secretary of Labor but The don had nothing but great things to say about.

from WordPress https://ift.tt/2jH0xuJ via IFTTT

[thisisarealtagwhy]

Day 1: Character

Hi all! So, instead of posting in order here is number one, proceeding number 2... 

Anyways, the prompt was characters so i aim to please! There are obv spoilers for p much everything so please dont spoil for yourself. 

Monkey D. Luffy was a mystery inside an enigma. He was unusually idiotic but smart at the same time, in his own way.

He had little regard for the system of so called ‘justice’ or the world, for that matter.

He could lift his middle fingers up and say fuck you but he wouldn’t. No, he would become the king instead.

King of the Pirates and give the world the biggest fuck you he could.

Wherever he went he made friends; it was as natural as breathing, he was just…

There’s just something about Luffy.

Was it his charisma?

Was it the way he would kick anyone’s asses if they screwed with his nakama?

Or was it something written into their DNA, tying them with the free boy.

Makino watched over Luffy first for Garp but then she took a more parental role, allowing him into the bar as much as he wanted, the patrons simply adored him. But Makino saw the sadness in his eyes as he was clearly more lonely than the boy would let on.

Shanks was a pretty chilled guy so when the squirt had demanded he tell them stories of being a pirate he had indulged him. Who’d have thought that he would end up like this? He thinks, watching the blood, the carnage and more importantly, the fire-cracker that was Roger’s son.

Garp loved his grandson despite the fact that his good for nothing son had just given the babe to him without a backward glance. So he watches as he grows and finds himself more attached, he loves Luffy, he loves him more like a son than a grandchild.

Ace loved Luffy more than he loved himself despite the hatred he had for the rest of the world. It is why he couldn’t bear the thought of a world without his light so he moves and watches as his light flickers and floats away, the only regret heavy on his soul is that he will not see his baby brother become Pirate King.

Sabo loved him because he lit up the world and made Ace believe in himself. Years later and their pledge of brotherhood has not diminished. Sabo cries and sobs because ACEACEACEACE. But then he remembers someone else who believe he is alone, beingalonehurtsmorethandeath, and he pulls himself together.

Coby loves Luffy like a brother, it was only because of him that he had the courage to stand up to Alvida and say no. He becomes a marine for Luffy-san and when he sees him at Marineford… despite knowing that Ace is his brother, this is the path they have both chose. Later he tries to stop Akainu and meets the Yonkou himself, it is a befitting finish, he thinks.

Zoro joined him because of a promise and because he saw Luffy. And because of a promised dream, he will become the world’s greatest swordsman. He will make Luffy the King of the Pirates. He now follows the boy, no, man, because of all of the shit they’ve been through together.

Nami joined because of a mutual agreement but now she follows for she was encased within the charisma of the boy. She loves Luffy like a brother and cherishes his love whenever she sees him. He came for her even after everything.

Buggy wants to say he hates the bastard, well, he does. Partially. In Orange Town it was only fair that the bastard beat him, besides, it led to much greater things. Impel Down is hell and he unwittingly drags himself into a whole new mess following the rubber-bastard. And then Marine-ford… he hates it, the momentary grief he feels for the late Portgas D. Ace, son of Portgas D. Rouge and Gol D. Roger. So he helps the bastard out a bit whilst fighting World, it’s for a selfish reason but nonetheless he feels satisfaction as flames lick up the rubber man’s arm.

Gaiman watches the self-proclaimed mugiwara no Luffy hide the truth from him and he sobs, sobs that he wasted so much time here for those chests and now it was wasted. But he still loves the animals he is surrounded by. So, in two years time he will read the paper and jump in relief at the sight of the ‘Straw hats are back!’ emblazoned on the front page.

Usopp joined for adventure, he knows now that he never, ever wants to lead their band of merry misfits and he will cry and thank the man who saved him several times over.

Mihawk is impressed by the straw hat wearing boy, the one-armed, red-haired fool didn’t give away his treasure so freely. And then he recalls the rage in the boy’s face as he slashed the young swordsman. Then, at Marineford, fate smiles down on upon the boy and he escapes with his life.

Sanji joined for the ladies, well, that’s a lie and he knows it. He joined for his dream, but didn’t the rest of the fools in their tiny crew join for that as well? He remembers the hopelessness of being stuck on that island as his captain grieved and promises that he will never feel that way again.

Gin creates a new fleet, but, he knows that if Monkey D. Luffy, senchou of the mugiwara no ichimi, ever calls, he will join him.

Hachin watches in barely disguised confusion as he, and all of the other fishmen are defeated. Arlong had always taught him that humans were evil and weak. But then he will remember another before Arlong and cry for the man who is the hero of their country. He will try and defend the Sunny for a crew that is waiting for her.

Smoker ponders over the mystery of Monkey D. Luffy, son of the revolutionary Dragon, more than he probably should. He remembers the town of the beginning and end. But, more vividly the War of the Best replays in his mind and (he will never, ever admit this to anyone ever) felt his heart cry for the boy. But he is a Vice-Admiral and cannot ever endorse pirates so he will defeat Mugiwara no Luffy.

Dragon is proud of his son. He’s only met him once but Dragon watches from outside sources and the papers of what his son is doing to change the world. He might be doing it unintentionally but it is amusing to think about Sengoku’s reaction to his son. He will change the world.

Crocus knows that the crazy son of a bitch can do it, he has Roger’s smile, and the same air of confidence around him. Crocus cries and cries when he sees the news about Soul King, he shows an eager Laboon and the two cry in joy at the thought of one of their friends still being alive (was he really alive though?).

Vivi thinks that the Straw Hats are stupid, at first. She thinks they’re so dumb to be led into a trap like this, but she eats her own words as she watches a boy defeat Crocodile and save her Kingdom. She does not progress with him but watches through newspapers and den den mushi’s. (Her heart breaks at the battle of Marineford but she laughs when she finally figures out the meaning of the tattoo).

Tony Tony Chopper joins because, he isn’t a monster. He’s loves Luffy, his captain. He might be a naïve blue-nosed reindeer but he is Luffy’s doctor first and foremost. And if he has to be a monster to protect his nakama, then he will be a monster.

Crocodile is a shichibukai, he didn’t become one by slacking around. So he hates mugiwara no Luffy in the beginning, for such an awful good luck with Logia akuma no mi and watches as his plans fall to dust. He lost when he was a rookie, why should the overconfident bastard be any different? Although, he saves Portgas D. Ace, why? He doesn’t even know that answer… to piss of the Marines? Probable. Why did he save Monkey D. Luffy? He thinks it’s because the bastard will hurt more if he’s still alive after witnessing that.

Bentham never had many friends, ever. Not even when he was a part of Baroque Works, it was just how it was. No-one liked being friends with a queer. But after the fall of Baroque Works he protects the straw hat wearing boy because he is his friend. He feels like such a coward within Impel Down but… he knows he will have died to save Luffy’s brother.

Mr 3. Is unsure of the prowess of this boy, the powerhouse that took down his boss. He’s surprised when he runs into him again in Impel Down and even more surpised

Nico Robin is used to a life on the run. She joins the boy because he is stronger than a shichibukai, she will be able to use him to her advantage. But after so much, she can’t just let them die. And then… they come and she cries because her life has meaning. So, within their training she cries because her captain is alone.

Bellamy is a proud member of the Donquixote Pirates, he likes that, just mess shit up and you’re guaranteed a spot in Doflamingo’s crew. But the straw hat fool kicks his ass, just like that. And suddenly he is killing his friends, a cause of the flamingo and he cries, because he is given a second chance but is it really worth it? And then he wishes for the rubber fool to kill him, kill me. And he is proven wrong.

Blackbeard likes the kid, he’s got good fire within him, chasing his dream like that. But when he learns that the crazy kiddo is Ace’s lil bro he thinks well damn, one way to kill two birds with one stone. Later, after Marineford, he knows that he’ll have to kill the bastard, finish him off. It’ll be fun to watch him write in agony. He wanted to make him burn with his own brother’s akuma no mi but that idea is shot out as the bastard from the Revolutionaries beats him to the punch.

Montblanc Cricket is a crazy fool chasing a stupid dream. But that boy… he is just as dumb. But even so, when he hears the golden bell ring, he cries because thank you Mugiwara no Luffy.

Wiper thinks that the Straw Hat boy is a fool, and a weak one at that. But he is proven wrong as Enel falls and for the first time in a century, they are all at peace. He waves the straw hats away and knows that they will take the world by storm.

Aokiji is a fool, he knows this, but he does not care. He allows Nico Robin to live, he did, after all, let her escape all those years ago, it’s only fair if he lets the grandson of Garp live if he is willing to put his life on the line.

Franky joined because of his dream, they’re a crew of dreamers. And as his body becomes more metal than human he still loves their crew, he will become stronger so that his captain does not have to carry the burden of grief like that ever again.

Brook joined because he could. Well, that’s why he did in the first place, later on, it’s because the boy has bought his respect, as has the rest of them, so he sets sail and watches in horror as his crew is sent away because it is just like before. And when the tattoo comes through he starts a new career (temporarily of course).

Camie likes the pirates, generally, she doesn’t like pirates because pirates mean more abductions but one has to give someone the benefit of the doubt. And then she herself is kidnapped and then she’s on display and men and Tenryuubito and then Luffy. After the War of the Best she is sad for him but then when she sees him two years later she knows that he is okay.

Shakki has met many people over the years, both as a pirate and as a bar-tender on the Sabaody Archipelago. Monkey D. Luffy exceeds her expectations but at the same time fulfils him, she’s glad to see the straw hats come back together after two years of training.

Rayleigh is reminded of his own captain as he looks in the eyes of the straw hat bearing boy. A charisma of daring and challenge within him. It’s only proven as the brat single-handedly punches a Tenryuubito without any remorse. Afterwards, he’s glad when Kuma knocks him away because it means that they will not face utter annihilation. And then, he offers to train the boy because he has the potential but it is untapped. So he tries to help the boy heal and train.

Trafalgar D. Water Law isn’t sure what to think about Monkey D. Luffy when he sees the boy for the first time, he knows that the boy is a D, obviously. But he fights alongside Kidd and mugiwara-ya, decidedly impressed by the skill of the boy. Then the serious rage as he punches the Tenryuubito. And then he sees him broken and wonders if he will gain the courage to go on. When Law meets up with him later on, in Punk Hazard, he is amazed by the stupidness of the boy, but at the same time he is not surprised and he’s glad that he found a partner to take down Doflamingo down with.

Eustass Kidd dislikes the straw hat shit, because he knows that he’s going to be a pain in the ass to defeat when it comes to One Piece. And when the straw hats resurface two years later he laughs because, finally, someone worth defeating.

Jewelry Bonney thinks that the kid is certainly interesting, and then Marineford happens and she wonders whywhywhy, and that Blackbeard will pay. Her thoughts stray to the fool who didn’t surface until a couple of weeks after the war and rings the bell, signalling a new age. She likes it.

Kuma is first and foremost a revolutionary, he was secondly a shichibukai. This does not affect his day-to-day life and he fights against the injustices in the world alongside a man with a tribal tattoo. He watches as his leader looks to the East Blue every single time. He likes the Luffy boy, he knows that they’re not strong enough to face the New World yet so he flings them away and makes a promise for a boy in a straw hat.

Marguerite has never seen a man before in her life, but Luffy is the exception to this rule. And after he is brought back from the War she hasn’t seen a man so… broken.

Boa Hancock hates men, hates them as much, maybe more than Tenryuubito. But then Monkey D. Luffy comes crashing down into her life. He is a man, but… maybe. He can change her… And then… Then her Luffy is in such agony because his brother, his light, is dead. She knows how it would be to lose her sisters… For that to happen to her Luffy… But thankfully he seems to get over the pain of loss during the two years he trains.

Ivankov is an okama, he is also a revolutionary. But he simply adores straw hat boy, not just because of the strength of his spirit but also because he is Dragon-boy’s son. It is a depressing thought to know that the boy’s brother is dead but he knows that the boy will be fine, he has Rayleigh and Jinbe to stress over him.

Jinbe joined the man because he was asked, simple as that, Luffy is a man worthy of being followed by him and it is long past due that he flexed his wings as a pirate he is proud to be. So he reminds Luffy of what he has to live for and relishes in their meetings two years later, first at Fishman Island and then at Whole Cake Island.

Whitebeard is impressed by the cheeky brat, having the gall to challenge him and defend him from the Crocodile brat. So, he knows that there is a strong possibility that Monkey is the D Roger has been waiting for. And when a sacrifice is made of blood and fire he will enact his revenge and hope that his crew will protect the straw hat brat.

Marco decides that seeing as it was Ace’s final wish to protect his baby brother so he swoops down, deciding that Monkey D. Luffy will survive this, even if it means death. And then when his aid is requested long after the revenge war that they lost. He gives it, because Monkey D. Luffy asked, and he is the only link he can think of for Ace…

The Marines think that Monkey D. Luffy is suicidal for his actions at Marineford, any sane person would run away, tail between legs at the thought of fighting the Navy’s best. Although, he survives, so what does that say about their thoughts?

Fukaboshi thanks mugiwara no Luffy a lot, he is happy that the boy broke the law about the exchange of blood and defeated Hody of the New Fishman Pirates. He mended fishman island even if he didn’t think it. And the fact that the boy was going to contest for their territory with a yonkou… he owed a lot to the mugiwara no ichimi…

Shirahoshi has never left the tower she lives in for almost as long as she could remember. It is a condition of her living, but Luffy-san… he comes in and breaks her fragile world into little pieces and she is grateful for it, so very grateful. It is her dream to see Luffy become King of the Pirates now…

Doflamingo is a heavenly demon, he fell from the heavens to this ungodly realm. But he will rule this domain eventually. He hates the straw hat fool, ruining all of his plans and getting the stupid boy his revenge. His plan is in shambles but he laughs because he knows he will be released, he knows far too much.

Rebecca thinks that Lucy has a very good chance of winning, he is obviously very strong and agile. She is worried about winning the mera mera no mi, then she discovers just who Lucy is and resigns herself to her fate. And then her kingdom is free and she lives as free as anyone else, all because of the Straw Hat Pirates.

The Tontatta tribe is very secluded, has always been this way since the very beginning (after their release at least). But even so, they willingly commit to the Straw Hat Fleet, even if their commander did not agree, if the Straw Hats are ever in trouble they will come in all their forces.

Bartolomeo finally meets his idol and can’t help the tears swimming in his eyes, even so, he promises that he will win the mera mera no mi for Luffy-senpai! And then when he is officially a part of the Fleet he smiles for he may be needed by Luffy one day.

The Straw Hat Fleet is comprised of over 5000 members in total, none of them are officially bound to their leader for he did not want to oversee such an amount of people. Instead, they pledge themselves to him and promise to come if they are ever in trouble.

Admiral Fujitora, for the first time in many years, wishes that he had not slashed his own eyes, he wants to see Monkey D. Luffy’s face. See his smile, what kind of man must he be for an entire kingdom to protect him?

Carrot thinks that Luffy is funny, he smiles a lot and laughs a lot. He’s also super strong, strong enough to avoid the two elders on Zou! She was very excited to go on an adventure with the Straw Hat Pirates to save Sanji-san!

Reiju’s first thought is thank god Sanji ended up with such a crew. They’re so nice and she can’t help and hope that he had a semi-normal childhood after he left. She wishes it for Sanji, he was so nice and she couldn’t do much about Ichiji, Niji and Yonji otherwise they would hurt her.