#and then he turns into an angry red stretch monster with some super cool animation

[ciitrinitas]

the legacy of xam'd to me is the second op somehow being better than the killer first one and 12 centimeters.

[popculturebuffet]

Prince of Wishful Thinking (Tom Retrospective): Tough Love or The True Monster

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Prince of Wishful Thinking, what is usually my look at the life and times of Tom Lucitor but since I NEED to cover the season 3 finale as vital part of Tom’s story, we’re taking one last look at the tragic tale of Meteora Butterfly before the finale sends these two stories hurtling together. You’d THINK this would be the last detour of this already sizeable arc.. and you’d be wrong as i’ll also be covering Kelly’s World, as I feel it’s vital for both “Curse of the Blood Moon” and “A Boy and his hard to remember title”, as it provides extra context for Marco’s anguish in the former.. and provides extra evidence for why a CERTAIN MOMENT in the latter pisses me off to no end.. seriously even when as universe dies and the only people left are Frankllin Richards and Galactus, there will still be a little note reading “Fuck how they treated Kelly” written in all caps so Galactus remembers to yell it. 

So sadly that DOES mean it’s been three entries in this retrospective in a row that either haven’t feature Tom at all or in the case of the last episode only had him in short cameos. I mean we did get his love affair for pie but we also got a creepy goblin man forcing his girlfriend and best friend to kiss each other, his best friend being WAY to eager to jump to that conclusion, and neither considering using Marco’s Scissors because the writers only remember he has those half the time in Season 3... and clearly I ddn’t either as I forgot to mention that plot hole, something @jess-the-vampire​ brought up to me. Sadly I DID forget to consult on this when we talked earlier this week , and she’s not online as I write this so I won’t have her insight for this one. 

But if you want some Tom content, i’m happy to share my crossover ship for the boy with you. I’ve been shipping him with Octavia from Helluva Boss lately.  Because of course it’s Helluva Boss, i’ve not been at all subtle with my obession with it and much like Letterkenny, X-Men and Dragon Ball Z Abriged it is a love I never plan to be subtle about. 

But I just think they compliment each other well: They have contrasting atittudes, and tastes in music, but seem like they’d share hobbies. Like taxidermy.. I could see Tom buying this... demonic combination of a badger, a skunk, a deer and my nightmares Octavia is preciously holding up.

Granted I also feel tom would both animate them with their dead souls.. and then use his new woodland friends of the dammned as a chorus to sing “Can You Picture That” from the Muppet Movie, because that’s what my mind does on a regular day. I think the contrasting attitude creates great chemstiry and it made me also realize I have a thing for ships with directly contrasting home lives.  Tom has two loving decent parents who deeply love one another and at worst simply didn’t reign in his worse behavior because it was standard for demon stuff. Octavia in contrast simply has two parents, one who DOES love her and tries his best, but his best includes calling his side piece “My big dicked blitzy” right in front of her and hiring said side piece to guard them, and her mother who clearly thinks so little of her daughter’s emotional well being she hired a cowboy to shoot her daddy dead in the middle of a large crowd. The point is I think they’d be adorable and they both badly need to be happy after being emotionally fucked over by people they care about. 

But  alas my new ship will have to wait as we marginally important things to get down too.. things that will impact both this season and the next’s endgame and utterly destroy Eclipsa and Moon’s relationship for good. Sound fun? Well if so join me under the cut won’t you?

We open in the Pidgeon Kingdom.. and things aren’t exactly great.. and by that I mean Meteora stomped a hole through it and ravaged the place and Rich demands blood.. and vengance.. and possibly blood vengance. But not Tekken Blood Vengance.. he already has like 5 copies of that on dvd. Still needs it on Blu Ray though, hook him up if you got it. 

So Moon and Eclipsa are trying to smooth this over/find out which way did she go George which way did she go, and are angrily dismissed after they try Rich’s patience, not helped by Eclipsa not being familiar with the Pidgeon Kingdom because they hadn’t slaughtered everyone who used to live there yet. Look that’s what happened, Star outright mentions in the Big Book of Spells that htey suddenly sprung up where another kingdom was and no one knows what happens. There was some bird murders up in that place.. or birdur if you will. Some birds drank some human blood. This is what Alfred Hitchock tried to warn us about with his film built on horrifying actress abuse. 

The point is with some more pidgeon-led murder stabbings on the cards our heroines are trying to find her since their attempts to convince Rich not to go on an Archer Style Rampage fell on deaf ears. 

But it’s clear from the second the two are alone both have diffrent priorties: Eclipsa desperatley wants to find the daughter she lost and talk her down from what sh’es become, help her become better and hopefuly heal from the pain she’s been in. She’s lost her husband, her kingdom and centuries. She can’t loose her baby girl too.

Moon on the other hand... clearly has no intrest in helping Meteora or stopping this peacefully. Her first thought is stopping Meteora. Her living through it is not necessary. It’s also clear her racisim isn’t REMOTELY gone depsite Buff Frog and Star’s best attempts and despite learning just how deeply and horribly Mewni’s engrained racism has hurt eclipsa and destoryed Moon’s own family history. To Moon this is just a big monster to fight.. i’ll dive into this more in a bit.

For now our heroines encounter an angry mob. This time their not here for Homer Simpson, but for Meteora as her rampages have destroyd their towns, livelehoods and given some weird guy a hat. It’s the best bit of the episode and i’m embarassed I forgot it happened. 

So with them being no help our queens back out but end up finding some actual help: Eddie! You know the guy from the episode I skipped over... River’s cousin or something like that. He dosen’t have a wiki entry, I do not know why. He’s voiced by Rhys Dharby of Flight of the Conchords Fame whose since made quite the career as a voice actor. No major roles yet that i’m aware of, but a lot of delightful minor ones like this. It’s good to see him he was one of the highlights of that show and not just because he sang this..

Eddie showed up in the Bog Beast of Boggabah and I honestly forgot he was in this episode.. but again, it’s Rhys Dharby. It’s not like suddenly finding out “Aw god dammit Pauly Shore is in this”. So Eddie agrees to help as he’s been tracknig Meteora.. and we find out something troubling: Meteora is getting BIGGER. Gradually, to the point the bog from said episode Is skipped over is drained because she DRANK IT. We also get a great exchange “I’d hate to see the size of her mother” “Actually her father more than helped with that”

Awwwww.... seriously Esme Blanco is a national treasure and has some great deliveries in this one.. and some heartbreaking ones. But before we can get to that it turns out Meteora sucked the powers out of Eddies family.. who he misses..e xcept one guy> That guy can fuck right off. Seriously Eddie is also a national treasure and I wish he’d shown up in season 4. I mean he couldn’t of HURT it. For one it’s Rhys Dharby and for another that season shot itself in the face, both feet, the groin and then the face again enough that I don’t think anything could hurt it as bad as the writers already did. 

But sadly we say farwell to Eddie as he goes out how men have since the begining of time.. deciding to poke a strange creature till it murdered him. Or took his soul out in this case, speaking of which...

Yeah while I couldn’t get Jess in time for this review, she did bring this up in the past: Meteora’s ablility to pull a 

Comes right the fuck out of nowhere with no build up and no explination for it. She DID drain personalites and according to this episode youth.. but that was with a big ole machine. It MIGHT have been intended to be one of Globgor’s powers.. but that makes zero sense, as if he COULD do that, as we saw with Toffee last season when he had that power, also out of nowhere but at least it made a touch more sense given his power was draining magical energy anyway at the time, so adding souls to that isn’t a huge stretch, but as we saw that would’ve been game over for the comission, especially since we DO see him fighting them one on three next season. If he had this power, he wouldn’t be in crystal and I think they realized that, but just tried to act as if his daugther COULDN’T do that and assumed everyone would casually forget. And I get not accounting for me writing about this years later, even I wouldn’t of thought that, but not counting on fans both young and old to latch onto a continuity error? Have you met fandoms Disney, have you? It dosen’t bring the story down entirely and I get WHY ti’s there, so she can nonlethally kill people so we’re not down most of the cast for Season 4, but it feels like an easy win button and one she barely uses despite it being eye beam activated. It should be easy enough to pull, boom, soul suck, win, rinse and repeat. It’s okay to have uber powerful tequniques but they have to have a drawback. For instance the Kaioken from DBZ. It’s a really damn cool technique that gives the user a neat red aura and amplifies poewr.. but the more you amplify the more strain it puts on your body and the more likely you’ll die, and Super later creatively explained why it hadn’t been used since Super Sayian was introduced because said form would’ve sped it up so much it’d be too much for a body to take. Here whie Meteora dosen’t use it in EVERY fight, she uses it enough that it makes no sense this isn’t just her first move for every fight she gets into, mental breakdown or not. 

That being said Meteora’s current mental state as she talks to her mother, having regressed to talking in only a few words and acting like a child, makes perfect sense. Henious already wasn’t in great mental shape to begin with, having a slow sustained breakdown since Marco overthrew her. and now on top of this she remembers her whole life has been a lie, starts to mutate into her natural state at a rapid and likely unehalthy pace, and then finds out on top of all of this Mewni is rightfully owed to her. Given she ended last episode blowing a guy up for rejecting her, it’s not a stretch that given even more power and no time to process anything, Metora would deteroate further. 

Esme and Jessica really knock this scene out of the park as Eclipsa presents Metora with her old doll Bobo and gently trying ot talk to her.. but you also get the fear Eclipsa feels as she tries to awkardly manuver around the fact her daughter is far more unhinged than she was prepared for, even threanting Eclipsa simply because Eclipsa wanted to be called mother instead of mommy. But despite this fear.. Eclipsa wants to help and Walter beautifuly captured metoera as a hulk like tragic figure:a being with low sanity and too much power desperate to be loved by the one person it cares about. And it makes it even more heartbreaking as Eclipsa explains what happened: bad people trapped her , a disfunctoinal society with a racist queen and even more racist subjects has taken hold in her absence... and it’s clear both want opposite things: Meteora wants what sh’es owed, her family back on the throne and Mewni back in her graps, but has lost herself so much to rage, anger and insanity she can’t see it’s not hers to take, while Eclipsa.. just wants her daughter back. She’d be happy just settling down with her and having a LIFE after hers was taken away. Eclipsa just wants a chance to be with what family she has left. It just HURTS to know that despite RIGHTFULLY hating the comission, despite having eveyr reason to take the crown from Moon by force and make the world better by force.. she dosen’t want that. She just wants some peace. It’s selfish... but it’s hard not to be when you havealmost nothing to hold onto. Eclipsa has lost her legacy, her husband and her crown... Meteora is all she has and all she wants and sh’ed of been happy if she just accepted that. If that was enough. 

But the real telling part, and the thing that ultimately makes this go as bad as it does.. is Moon’s reactions to all of this. Sh’es CONFUSED by Meteora having a toy as if that’s foreign to her a monster would, and she’s cleaerly livid , if restrianing it, at both Meteora’s deire for the crown and Eclipsa RIGHTFULLY calling out the state of how things are, and mildly at that. Despite seeing how much damage Mewni’s inherent racisim has done, how it lead to her living a lie, ruined Eclipss, Globgore and Metora’s lives, despite how DESPERTLY her daughter struggles to fight against it, despite seeing firsthand that Monsters can have famiies and lives... she can’t let it go. She can���t see monsters as people. SHe dosen’t see a flawed person who was turned into a metpohrical monster by years of brainwashing and abuse and is slowly unravling under the weight of her true self.. she just sees a threat to her kingdom. She dosen’t see her kingdom as racist, just as it should be. And she dosen’t see herself as stepping down like hse damn well should’ve the MOMENT she found out everything. Because at her heart Moon can’t accept the truth and clings to her racisim. 

And that my friends.. is what ultimately leads to Tragedy. Not Meteora’s unraveling mental state, not Eclipsa’s naitvite. What happens next is ENITRELY Moon’s fault. Whle Eclipsa was failing to get through to Metora, she was trying her best and might of gotten somewhere.. but Moon was already settling to attack.. and does so, making it look like Eclipsa set her own child up. 

A fight ensues, a suprisingly even one... but Eclipsa breaks it up and PROVES her way could’ve worked. In one of Esme’s best performances sshe tearfully tells her daughter she loves her.. that ALL she wants is time with her to make up for what she’s lost.. she dosen’t need a kingdom or her crown or her wand, all things she DESERVES... she just wants her daughter. She just wants to help her baby girl before she goes so far down this path of hatred and vengance she’s alreayd well trod upon there is no point to return to. 

It gets through to Meteora, makes her stop... and Moon TAKES ADANTAGE OF THAT. She then restrains metoera with a magical rock barrier and starts palpatineing her to death. It’s a horrifying moment that ultimately shows who Moon really is.. that when given the chance to let Meteora go, let her CHANGE and grow as a person and help the kingdom.. she instead tries to kill her. When she’s no longer a threat,  hasn’t seriously hurt her in their fight, and could use her power to RESTORE the damage she’s done, fix what she’s broken and help the kingdom grow and mend the bridges racisim has torn down. But all she can see is a monster, and something to destroy.. not someONE to save. 

So Eclipsa does what Moon would do if it were star about to die and saves her daughter, desperatly trying to stop mooon.. and allowing Meteora to get a clear shot and take half of moon’s soul. While Eclipsa is able to stop her from taking the full thing, Moon is left disoreinted and half alive and leaves on insticnt to parts unknown while Meteora escapes. Eclipsa is left alone, devistated and with her daughter truly lost. And the worst is truly yet to come. 

Before we get into final thoughts i’d like to talk about how this scene impacts Moon’s betryal later. To me having rewatched this scene.. it only makes it work MORE making it clear Moon simply can’t fahtom racial equality and that she can’t fahtom that eclipsa had very good reason for doing what she did ... to me it comes off as her using Eclipsa betryaing her as a very flimsy justifcation to not validate her rule and to first retire and then try a coup. That “Well she “BETRAYED” me so i’m fine. “ But in truth... she betrayed Eclipsa first. She attacked her daughter TWICE when Eclipsa was close to getting through to her Her reasons are flimsy.. because i’ts not ABOUT eclipsa, but what eclipsa represents: equality with a race Moon dosen’t see as people. It’s about Moon’s racisim coloring everything tills h’es truly blinded and should have lost everything She didn’t because the ending is a fucking disgrace, but we might get to that at some point, the point here is for all that disgrace’s faults... it did get it right here, and Moon was always portrayed as being unable to let go of her racisim no matter what it cost her or how much her daughter despteratly tried to change her. Trust me as someone whose Dad used to argue that gay marriage meant he should be able to marry his cat, and who still argues against trans people using the bathroom of their choice, I get trying desperatley to change someone who don’t wanna. “Sigh”. 

Final Thoughts: This episode is truly excellent. The writing is top notch as is the voice acting for all involved and the climax isa true, well led up to tragedy. The animation is also on point, with the characters emotions on perfect display. This is an episode I now realize is one of the series best and worth ar ewatch if you haven’ts een it. Truly amazing stuff that gets me pumped for the finale.. and disapoints me in how the series could reach these highs for one finale.. but would sink to it’s lowest point for next seasons.  Next Time on Prince of Wishful Thinking: Star tries depseratly to find her mom, while Marco, Tom and a motely crew of misfits try to take down Meteora and Tom learns the awful truth from the photo booth and wears a zuko ponytail which weirdly looks good on him. That boy can rock anything let me tell you. 

If you enjoyed this reviews, please consider joining my patreon at patreon.com/popculturebuffet. As mentioned my 30 dollar stretch goal includes a review of the cluster fuck that is the series final arc, and the goals up to that , me making 20 and 25 dollars a month repectively, have their own nifty rewards: At 20 i’ll review Darkwing Duck once a month, the two remaning Ducktales 87 mini series I have not covered and the Danny Phantom film The Ultimate Enemy. 25 meanwhile gets you reviews of the Proud Family Movie, the theatrical recess movie and the Kim Possible almost finale movie so the drama. And 30 also gets you reviews of every episode of gravity falls season 1 at least one a month till I finish it at some point, so as you can see you get a lot of bang for your buck and these reviews will be public for everybody. Not only that but joining my patreon gets you a review a month if you pitch in 5 dollars and evne if you can’t swing THAT much just 2 bucks gets you access to my discord, a guarnateed pick in my shorts, votes for patreon exclusive reviews, and SAID patreon exclusive reviews. It’s a lot of bang for your buck is what i’m saying so please help me out so I can make a living off this and sign up today. I even JUST ADDED an exclusive and utterly insane scrooge mcduck review, The Great Wig Mystery. So throw in a buck to check that out. 

And if your intrested in Tomtavia... please hit me up. I’m really proud of it and until then... i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

[sweetcatmintea]

So I’m a Vampire now...

Hello hello! It’s flash fiction Friday again! (Hurray!) Guess who still hasn’t learnt to stick to a word limit: This creature! (I’m so sorry <u<;;;;) Anyways, this kinda snuck up on me and I couldn’t think of anything better than this little vampire drabble. I hope you enjoy it!  Feedback is appreciated ^u^

FFF is hosted by @flashfictionfridayofficial

Prompt: Deep End Words: 1665

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“And we’ll have fun fun fun unt- Michael, put the rock down.” I hoped my voice conveyed how done I was with his reaction. Michael stood, back to the old jeep his mum let him borrow when he mowed the lawn, arm raised, poised to bash my head in with a sizable chunk of concrete. Vanessa wondered back to him from the direction of the mostly closed shops, an eyebrow quirked above her glasses.

“I swear to god, put the rock down. I’m not here to gogurt you.” Why do I have to be friends with an idiot?

He held firmer to his makeshift weapon. “Prove it. I can see the blood lust in your eyes.”

I pressed a palm into my forehead. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. “Yeah, my eyes dilated. Y’know, that thing that happens when you are happy to see your friends. Go repeat bio. If I was gonna slurp your guts, I wouldn’t be singing the beach boys and waltzing up to you like a door knocker asking for money. Especially not after I asked you for a lift.”

Michael narrowed his eyes at me. “Unless that’s what you want us to think. I know you Jessie. You’re sneaky.”

“Oh my god, why are you so dumb? Vanessa, can you PLEase talk some sense into him.”

Vanessa knocked the rock out of his hand, pitching it across the desolate car park before he could react. She should go into a ball sport. I don’t know, baseball or something. It clattered somewhere in the distance.

“Michael, stop being weird. We both know Jessie could have pinned you before they got turned. Your noodle arms can barely open a particularly sturdy container. You’re just making them feel unwelcomed. And being a trashy friend.”

“All true.” I nodded. “Plus, it’s not like I chose to get turned. If that loser Josh hadn’t done me dirty last week, I’d be at home feeding my Tamagotchi. Has he even reported me missing yet?”

Michael mumbled a sheepish apology. “Sorry, I was just worried you’d gone off the deep end all blood lusty or something…”

I waved it off. I wasn’t really angry. It’s not like we’d exactly been in this situation before.

Vanessa shook her head, giving me a one-armed greeting hug which I, of course, returned. “He hasn’t mentioned it. I mean, you have been reported missing. That was a whole thing that happened with your parents and then us pretending like you weren’t texting us because how do you tell someone their kid is off getting the lowdown on being undead, but yeah, not reported by Josh.”

“What a soggy zit. I swear, when I get my hands on him.”

“You’re not going to kill him, are you?” Michael and Vanessa shared a worried look.

“What? No. Of course not! That’s disgusting. You think I’m gonna put my face hole anywhere near that slimy weasel and voluntarily drink two thirds of his blood?? Do you know how long that would even take?”

Michael rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding my eyes. “Well, I kinda thought you’d y’know, snap his neck or something now you have super strength…”

“Who’s gone off the deep end now?” I rolled my eyes. “I’m not some killing machine. I’ll just dob him in and let him flounder some explanation for how he shoved me at the burglar while we were closing up shop and ran away. He’s lucky it was a vampire and not some lunatic or I’d really be dead.”

Vanessa plopped down on a concrete chock block, sipping her bubble tea and settling in for a long conversation. It was wild, I could hear the jelly in the cup squishing together. Michael sat to her side, patting the ground to invite me to complete the triangle. I obliged.

Vanessa started us off. “So what’s it like? Being all vampirey now?”

“Well, I’ve got cool powers now. Not the powers of being cool, I already had that.”

It was Michael’s turn to roll his eyes at me. I elbowed him in the ribs. Gently. Breaking bones had become a real danger. He snorted a laugh, almost shooting red bull up his nose.

“I got these neato glow in the dark eyes. Don’t know if you can turn that off. They do the cat slit thing though which is interesting. I can see So much more at night. But I think I need reading glasses now? Can’t make out squat near my face in the day.”  

Shuffling around in the pockets of my oversized 90s jacket, I retrieved a packet of dried wasabi peas and munched away as I talked.

“I’m like, crazy strong. No kidding, I accidentally ripped my favourite jeans on the second day of being a vampire. Just tugged them a liiiittle too hard and bam, ruined pants.”

“Have you got fangs?” Vanessa peered closer at my mouth. It would have been better to ask that before I started eating.

“Fangs for the memories, even if they weren’t so- nah, I’m just kidding. I got them.” I bared my teeth at them, poking the lengthened canines with an index finger. “They’re sharp as anything. I’ve drunk more of my own blood than anyone else’s ‘cause I keep biting my freaking tongue. Reminds me of being little and sucking a candy cane into a shank. I’m surprised none of us got an impromptu festive tongue piercing off those things.”

“Speaking of blood… Do you need to drink it now?” They both leaned forward, anxious for my answer.

“Oi, quit it with the looks. I’m not going to freaking bite you. I’m not some mindless animal, I’m just me. Just Jessie.”

“Is there a difference there?” Michael’s ribbing was, for once, welcome.

“Hardy har. Yes, I mean, technically, I have to consume blood. But, like, the pamphlet seems to say that it’s basically a supplement more than anything so I’ve just gotta eat normal stuff and chuck back a shot or two after.”

“Okay, two things. First, human blood?”

“Again. Eww. Do you have any idea how many diseases are in human blood? There’s a reason we haven’t literally eaten the rich yet. To be fair, I’m somewhat immortal now so I won’t get sick physically, but emotionally? Imagine the toll.”

“So how do you..?”

“You know you can just go to the butchers and buy blood right? It’s like an actual cooking ingredient. It comes in blocks. It tastes like satan’s toe jam but you just gotta chuck it back real quick. Or, I’m getting a fondness for black pudding. It too tastes like feet but isn’t as bad.”

Vanessa took a thoughtful sip of her drink. “Okay. Second thing. Pamphlet?”

“Oh yeah, this thing.” I fished it out of my other pocket, passing it to them. The vampire pr committee went to great lengths to make it cute with little cartoon vampires giving advice on this time of change, talking about how your body is changing and the strange things you may feel.

“Aww that’s super cute.” Vanessa pointed to a little vampire on the cover, handing it to Michael when she was finished skimming.

“I know right. Apparently they got tired of the old program where you get bitten and have to have an awkward talk with the weirdo who kinda killed you.”

Michael handed the pamphlet back. “Speaking of, what was it like living with a vampire for a week?”

I groaned. “Oh my god, he was insufferable. At first it was like ‘I vill show you ze vorld, shining shimmering splendour va ha ha’ which was neat but then it got all ‘I’ve turned you into a monster! You will suffer for eternity! Woe is ze life of an immortal. I am so sorry va ha ha’. Which I’m like, yeah you could have at least asked my name first or waited for my hair to grow out a little instead of sticking me with this too short for the long style, too long for the short style do I’ve gotta rock for the rest of time, but all in all, it’s not the worst that could happen so chill a little maybe?”

“Aw, poor guy. He doesn’t sound that bad.” Vanessa was much less, judgey, than me. I kinda felt bad for ripping on the man.

“Okay, he’s not terrible, but the lamenting. God, the lamenting. ‘Woe is me, I have seen so many seasons I can not even remember my age.’ Why don’t you just get a calculator and subtract this year from your birth year? Then you can know that bit. ‘Oh, but ze isolation! My human friends are long dead and buried!’ That’s super sucky bro. Why don’t you make some new friends and ask if they want to be turned? Or like, go on immortalsingles.com and get a butt touch buddy? With the internet age, it’s a lot easier to connect. ‘oh but who could love a monster like me? I haven’t even seen my face in five hundred years va ha ha.’ There is a Whole genre of people online (and in line) for that. And just, update your mirrors. Get a cheap one and it won’t have silver in it and you can see your face again. I kinda think he just enjoys lamenting. If he’d get with the times, things wouldn’t be half as unpleasant for him.”

“You’re not a very empathetic listener, are you.” That’s a lot coming from the guy who was going to stone me fifteen minutes ago.

“Hey! I hooked him up to the internet and gave him my number. I didn’t just leave him.”

“Yeah yeah yeah. Whatever you say Jessie.” Michael got up, brushing his jeans off and stretching. Vanessa and I followed suit. One thing remained on my mind. Something I needed to prepare myself for.

“Okay, before we head home, I have one last, very important question.”

They looked at me quizzically.

“Has anyone been looking after my Tamagotchi?”  

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Tag List

@snobbysnekboi, @inkovert, @kainablue, @i-rove-rock-n-roll, and @goblin-writer

[neyla9]

Cipher’s House Chapters 14-16

Ao3 Version

Why did I have to drink that!? Why did I let myself get tricked like that?... Because I wanted to prove he was wrong, that he didn’t know as well as he thought. I’m still freaked out by that; how did he know those things about me!?

 When Dipper awoke, the first thing he noticed was the hard surface he was laying on, then a cool breeze. He hesitated to open his eyes, barely willing to even hope. He sat up, carefully opening one eye and almost got blinded by the sharp sunlight. Sunlight! He hadn’t seen sunlight since he arrived at the hotel! He opened both eyes and looked around; he was definitely outside!

 It looked like he was in the mountains, on a flat road that seemed to lead around the mountain he was currently on, all the way to the top and back to the ground.

 Dipper felt like he could almost cry! He was finally out of the hotel! Sure, he had no idea where he was, how he got there, or how to get back home, but none of that mattered now. What mattered was that he was finally free and never had to see Cipher again!

 “I can’t believe it!” Dipper laughed out loud in relief, his voice creating an echo through the mountains. “I’M FINALLY FREE!!!” he screamed, followed by the echoes repeating his words. However, once those echoes died down, he heard a low growling sound. Next, he felt the ground shake under his feet, as if something big and heavy was approaching him.

 Dipper looked around the corner of the mountain and saw a huge, red creature carrying a club as big as its arm over its shoulder. It had three small, dark eyes, along with three tiny horns protruding from its head, several long, yellow teeth jutting out of its mouth, and clad in what looked like a tiger skin loincloth.

 The creature saw Dipper and roared, before it began to charge towards him at a surprising speed. Dipper’s eyes widened as the creature got closer, and he began to run as fast as he could.

 Dipper ran along the path, descending the mountain while the creature chased him, once in a while letting out a roar that shook Dipper to his core.

 The path ended up leading through a ravine to a dead end, with exception for big door, resembling the ones in the hotel, only instead of a room number, it had “Door of Destiny” written on it, and it seemed to lead nowhere; it just stood there in the middle of the ravine.

 “Sure seems like you’re in quite the pickle, kid,” a voice coming from the door said.

 “You can talk!?” Dipper exclaimed, wondering why he was still surprised by the weirdness he saw.

 “Well, yeah, but that shouldn’t really be your biggest concern right now,” the door responded.

 “Am I still in the hotel?” Dipper asked.

 “Look, kid, yeah, but the big issue here is that you disturbed Oni-san.”

 “Oni-san?” Dipper looked back and saw that the monster was still chasing him.

 “He prefers to be alone and gets super angry if he sees anyone,” the door explained. “He usually eats the people that bother him, that is if the avalanches don’t kill them first.”

 “Avalanches?” Dipper asked just as the entire ravine began to shake. The vibrations from Oni-san’s steps and the loud sound of his roars were causing an avalanche! Rocks and boulders were already falling all around him! “Can you get me out of here!?”

 “See, the thing is, I can only lead you to your destiny,” Dipper had a feeling that if the door could shrug, it would.

 “That’s good enough!” Dipper insisted.

 “Are you sure?” the door asked. “Destiny is a funny thing; it’s uncontrollable, unavoidable, and most people aren’t happy to learn what their destiny is…”

 “I don’t care! I just don’t want to die!”

 Dipper flung the door open, the door showing nothing but an empty blackness, and jumped inside, making sure to shut the door as he did.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  The door said it would lead me to my destiny… I don’t really believe in destiny, but anywhere would be better than the situation I was in… At least, that’s what I thought, but then… he showed up…

 Dipper landed on a grassy field. After taking a moment to collect himself, he looked around; the Door of Destiny was nowhere to be found, and he was currently inside a beautiful forest. The air smelled fresh and clean, the wind was mild… but there was still something odd about the place… Aside from the wind rustling through the leaves, and Dipper’s breathing of course, there were no sounds. No birds singing, no animals rummaging around, nothing.

 He began to walk through the forest, searching for something, anything! But it seemed like he was truly, utterly alone in the forest…

 After wondering for what felt like hours however, he finally heard something; the sound of galloping hooves, like that of a horse. It grew closer and closer, until two horses zipped past him only to turn around and stop in front of him, and Cipher was riding one of them.

 “Oh! What an unexpected coincidence to run into you here!” Cipher smirked brightly. In one of his hands he held the reins of the horse he was riding on, while the other held a rope tied to the reins of the other horse.

 “You’re a terrible liar,” Dipper scoffed. “I know you’re the one who put me in those mountains! And you probably planned for me to end up here too!”

 “Whatever gave you that idea?” Cipher continued smirking while getting down from the horse.

 “We’re still in the hotel, aren’t we?” Dipper asked, ignoring Cipher’s attempt at feigning innocence.

 “Fancy a horse ride?” Cipher seemingly ignored Dipper as well, as he placed both hands on Dipper’s shoulders and pushed him towards the other horse; it was dark, had a crazy look in its eyes, and did not look like a horse you wanted to ride.

 “No way!” Dipper shouted trying to get away, but Cipher managed to pick him up before he could run.

 “Come on, you know what they say~” Cipher chuckled and placed Dipper on the horse. He only just registered how weirdly hard the horse felt before it galloped away in full speed, Dipper just able to hear Cipher yell: “You gotta take life by the reins!”

 Dipper squeezed his legs around the horse, held his arms around its neck, and grabbed hold onto its mane, all in an attempt to stay on. After a few minutes that felt like forever, Cipher galloped up beside him on his own horse.

 “How do you like riding on Rocking Horse?!” Cipher asked with a grin.

 “I hate it!” Dipper shouted back.

 “Well, it probably hates it too!” Cipher howled with laughter. “Isn’t it weird how you’re willing to continually hurt it by squeezing its stomach, choking its neck, and pulling its hair, all so you can avoid getting hurt yourself?”

 Dipper didn’t want to gratify Cipher with a response.

 “Oh, and be careful!” Cipher warned. “Rocking Horse is made entirely out of wood, and I’m sure you don’t want to get splinters!”

 At the mention of splinters, Dipper instinctively drew back, giving Rocking Horse the moment it needed to force Dipper of it.

 Dipper landed on the forest floor, hard. His head, upper back, and elbows were hurt the worst, but there didn’t seem to be any serious injuries; probably because he landed on the somewhat soft ground.

 “Oh, no, would you look at that,” Cipher shook his head as he walked his own horse over to where Dipper fell. Cipher got down from the horse and crouched down in front of Dipper. “But, you know what they say; Once you fall off the horse, you gotta get right back up on it~”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  My entire body feels numb… Riding that horse was a nightmare, but every time I fell off, Cipher would just put me back on it… I felt like I was about to cry when the horses finally stopped…

 The horses finally stopped running after what felt like an eternity. Dipper carefully slipped off Rocking Horse; his arms were covered in splinters and small wounds, his entire body felt as if someone had stretched his limbs and beaten his flesh. It was only once he had wandered a safe distance from Cipher and Rocking Horse that he noticed they had stopped in front of a two-story house.

 The house had pink walls, a brown-tiled roof, and white windows that revealed a kitchen and a living room on the ground floor.

 Dipper’s thoughts were distracted from the house, when he heard the sound of roaring flames. He turned around to find that Cipher had used a lighter to set Rocking Horse aflame, his own horse running away in the distance.

 “What are you doing!?” Dipper shrieked as the living, wooden horse was burnt to charcoal.

 “Why do you care?” Cipher asked, his smirk still present. “You know if you rode it again, it would still try to throw you off.”

 “That doesn’t mean I want it to get burned alive!” Dipper yelled.

 “But it’s a horse that doesn’t want to be ridden,” Cipher said as if that explained everything. “A horse that can’t be ridden serves no purpose. At least since its made out of wood, it can serve a purpose in death.”

 “I don’t know why I still try to talk some sense into you,” Dipper growled and turned away.

 “You talk sense into me?” Cipher laughed incredulously. “I think you might have gotten it the other way around.”

 Dipper paused, wondering for a moment what Cipher could mean by that, but shook his head and walked towards the only place he could go to possibly escape Cipher; the house.

 “Do you really think you should go in there?” Cipher asked with a lilt in his voice.

 “I don’t care anymore,” Dipper responded, opened the door and stepped inside.