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deliciousangelfestival · 19 days ago

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Love Was Never Part Of The Plan - 1

Summary: You are a jewel thief who’s semi-retired, but you agree to take one last job. However, there’s a catch: you have to steal the jewels from an auction where your former lover is now the head of security.

Character: Security!Bucky x Thief!Female Reader

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Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4 , -

By the way, I published my book Arrogant Ex-Husband and Dad, I Can't Let You Go by Alina C. Bing on Kindle.

Thank you to everyone who has read this chapter. Leave a comment and Reblog, please. I'd love to hear your thoughts. ❤️

The souvenir store was quiet. Almost too quiet.

Wooden masks lined the walls beside racks of overpriced T-shirts that said things like I Climbed Mt. Rinjani and Bali Vibes Only. Cheap postcards curled under the humidity, their glossy finishes fading under the sun filtering through the dusty window. A lazy ceiling fan stirred the warm air like it couldn’t be bothered.

A group of tourists wandered in, wide-eyed and smiling—until they saw the price tags.

“Seventy dollars for a keychain?” one of them blurted.

They turned on their heels and scurried out, muttering in disbelief.

“Come again,” you said, not looking up from your Kindle, where a tawdry romance novel had just reached the part where the heroine was about to run off with the stable boy.

“Seriously, how is this place still operating?” one of the tourists whispered near the door. “The prices are insane.”

“Money laundering,” their friend replied under their breath. “It’s just a front.”

“Shhh. Not so loud,” the other hushed.

A smirk tugged at your lips. Not half wrong, you thought. But they had no idea just how deep that truth went.

This wasn’t just a front. It was a hideout.

Because you used to be one of the top jewelry thieves in the world. Top three, if you were being modest. Interpol had your face on a board somewhere—red-circled, underlined, probably with notes like extremely dangerous and deceptively charming. You were a ghost now, buried in fake names and burned passports, sipping instant coffee behind a counter full of overpriced junk.

You’d had it all once: the thrill, the heists, the world at your feet. But success demanded sacrifices—friends, family... love.

Especially love.

You still thought about him sometimes. The way his eyes crinkled when he laughed, the smell of his cologne, his Sunday habit of buying the same two donuts—one glazed, one chocolate sprinkles. He was too good. Too pure for the world you lived in.

The bell above the door jingled.

You didn’t look up.

Footsteps—slow, deliberate—crossed the floorboards. You could already hear the smirk in his voice before he spoke.

“So this is how you enjoy your retirement?” he asked, lacing mockery with elegance, his British accent as annoyingly smooth as ever.

“This store isn’t dog-friendly,” you replied dryly, eyes still on your Kindle.

He chuckled. The sound hadn’t changed. Infuriatingly charming. “Don’t you miss an old friend?”

He leaned in and rested his elbow on your desk, now face-to-face with you.

You sighed, closed your Kindle with a soft snap, and finally looked up. “What do you want, Edward?”

He smiled, and time did a strange thing—it slipped for a moment, like you were back in Paris, or Istanbul, or anywhere you'd danced on the edge of danger together.

“I’ll go straight to the point,” he said.

From the inside pocket of his blazer, he pulled out a velvet pouch, casually as if it were a piece of gum. He opened it and held something up to the light.

Your breath caught.

The diamond shimmered unnaturally, catching light in a way that seemed to bend it.

“Is that—” you started.

Your eyes narrowed. You tilted your head.

“Wait. That’s not real.”

Edward raised an eyebrow, impressed. “Correct. It’s a replica.”

You crossed your arms, leaning back in your chair. “So you’re into counterfeits now?”

He shook his head. “No. I just wanted to give you a preview.”

He dangled the diamond between two fingers like a baited hook.

“This,” he said, voice dropping, “will be making its first public appearance… at the upcoming auction.”

Your heart stuttered.

It couldn’t be.

The Lazarus Diamond.

A gem whispered about in underworld circles for decades. Said to be cursed, said to be priceless. No one knew where it was—some claimed it was locked in a dictator’s underground vault, others said it was sewn into the pillow of a mad queen. One rumor claimed it had been smuggled onto a spaceship, hidden in plain sight among the stars.

You’d only ever seen it in sketches, in a rare, out-of-print book hand-drawn by the original creators—diamond smiths who vanished not long after its final cut.

“I thought it was a myth,” you whispered.

Edward’s eyes gleamed. “It’s very real. And the real one will be there. In glass. Surrounded by armed guards, lasers, pressure sensors… and a few people who will kill for it.”

You stared at him, the weight of the moment settling in.

This wasn’t a sales pitch. It was a challenge.

“Why are you telling me this?” you asked carefully.

He leaned in closer, his voice low and dangerous. “Because I know you, love. You’re bored out of your mind. Selling fake tribal masks to tourists and reading romance novels in a dusty shop? That’s not you.”

His gaze sharpened. “But this? This is you. One last job.”

Your pulse quickened.

You hated that he was right.

Your hands itch. That familiar tingle in your fingertips—the one you thought you'd buried four years ago—starts to creep back like a ghost. Your heart races, hammering against your ribs like it’s trying to break out.

You stare at the diamond in Edward’s hand.

Fake or not, it calls to you.

There’s something primal about it, like the curiosity of a child wanting to prove if the Loch Ness Monster is real. That diamond is your Nessie. The kind of thing that wakes something feral in your blood. The thrill. The hunger.

You swallow hard, trying to shove it down.

No. You promised yourself. You walked away. You let go.

But the sensation won’t fade. It never does.

Edward watches you with that infuriating smirk, like a cat who’s already caught the mouse. “I can see you’re holding back,” he said, his voice low and taunting. “Let it go. Kleptomaniacs like us? We never really stop.”

You glance at him, jaw tight. “Why me, Edward? I quit. I’ve left that life behind.”

He raises both hands in mock surrender, feigning innocence. “Sure, sure. Four years is a long time. And hey—no one has to steal when they’re already robbing tourists blind with twenty-dollar keychains made in a warehouse probably worse than China’s worst factory.”

You narrow your eyes.

He leans in, tone suddenly all business. “Do you want to hear how much the job pays?”

Silence.

Then, casually, “Four million. Each.”

You blink. “Eight million dollars?”

Edward gives a single, slow nod. “Clean split. No middlemen. Just you and me. Old times.”

You hesitate.

“Where’s the auction?”

“The Valmont Gallery,” he says smoothly. “You’ve hit it before—remember the ruby job?”

Your fingers instinctively touch the red gem on your earring—small, unassuming, and worth enough to buy a small country.

“I did take that ruby necklace from under six guards' noses,” you murmur.

Edward grins. “And now you're wearing the earrings. Sentimental.”

Then, with a flourish, he produces a folded sheet of paper from seemingly nowhere—sleight of hand, smooth as silk. He always does it dramatically since he used to be a magician. “Contract,” he says, laying it on the counter. “Sign here.”

You raise an eyebrow. “So this is why you came back?”

But you’re already picking up the pen.

You sign without hesitation. That itch in your fingers? It's back in full force.

You slide the contract across the counter. “This should be easy.”

“Ah,” you say, suddenly serious. “What about the security?”

Edward’s smirk falters. Just a flicker—but you catch it.

He reaches into his coat and pulls out a thick, sealed folder. He sets it in front of you carefully, almost reverently.

“You’ve signed the contract,” he says. “Which means once you open this, you can’t kill me. That’s the deal.”

You scoff. “You always did have trust issues.”

Still, you open the folder.

And then—your stomach drops.

Your eyes widen. Your breath catches. Your fingers tighten on the edge of the folder.

The floor feels like it tilts slightly beneath you.

Edward just leans back, hands in his pockets, watching your face with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

You look up at him, fury dancing in your gaze.

“You motherfucker,” you whisper.

💎💎💎💎

The room buzzed with tension.

Rows of high-definition monitors covered the walls, each displaying different angles of the estate: the main gallery, the vault, the loading bays, even the staff lounge. The glow of the screens cast a bluish light across the room. The hum of surveillance equipment blended with the quiet clicking of keyboards and murmurs of the security team.

Technicians in uniform moved swiftly between stations, calibrating motion detectors, checking thermal sensors, and scanning for electronic interference.

“We’ve scanned every corner, sir,” one officer reported, glancing over his shoulder at the man standing in the center of the room. “No blind spots. Everything’s tight.”

The man didn’t respond right away. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gaze fixed on the central monitor where the diamond exhibit was displayed. His presence alone demanded attention—calm, composed, and quietly commanding.

“Good,” he said finally, voice low but firm.

James Barnes—Bucky to the people who dared to get close—had worked security at Valmont for six years. Before this, he’d served in the Navy—special ops. He didn’t talk much about it, but the way he moved, the way he watched—it was obvious he’d been trained for danger. And since taking over head of security, not a single breach had occurred under his watch.

He wasn’t always this rigid. Once, he’d been warmer, easier to laugh. That was before the gallery was hit four years ago. A master thief slipped past his system, stealing a priceless ruby necklace that once belonged to Queen Amélie of France.

The very same month, his girlfriend asked him to break up, because he was busy with the gallery.

He blamed himself for both.

So he poured everything into the gallery. Upgraded systems. Increased patrols. Refused any margin of error.

Now, with the Lazarus Diamond arriving in one week, the stakes were higher than ever.

“There won’t be a second chance,” Bucky muttered under his breath.

He turned to the team. “I’ll do an inspection myself.”

“Yes, sir.”

Bucky moved through the marble halls like a shadow. His shoulder-length hair—untied, slightly tousled—fell just past his jaw, framing his face with rugged intensity. He checked every security camera casing for tampering, tapped each fire alarm to test response time, and noted a minor delay in one of the motion sensor lights.

He flagged it on his tablet instantly.

The gallery was pristine. Elegant glass cases showcased centuries-old relics under precision lighting. Velvet ropes lined the perimeter. Bucky scanned for signs of vandalism, irregularities in air pressure, and electronic noise. All clear.

Occasionally, tourists approached with confused expressions, clutching maps and murmuring in foreign languages.

“This way to the Impressionist Wing.” “No, ma’am, the auction preview begins next week.” “Sir, please step behind the barrier. Thank you.”

He liked the calm of the place. It was the visitors who brought the chaos—but it was manageable. Predictable.

Until it wasn’t.

He rounded a corner, deep in his route, when—

Thud. He collided with someone. A bag hit the ground. Lipsticks, pens, a phone, a compact mirror spilled across the floor.

“Shit—sorry, ma’am,” Bucky said quickly, kneeling to help.

His fingers brushed over a lipstick tube—deep red. The same brand. The same shade he bought once in Paris.

He froze.

The voice above him broke the illusion. Soft. Familiar. Dangerous. “Thank you. That’s… important to me.”

His head snapped up.

His breath caught.

You stood there.

Hair tucked behind your ears, a polite smile on your face—but your eyes were a storm.

“Hi, Bucky.”

For a full second, he just stared at you—like a ghost had walked in from the past.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet, cautious. “Oh. Hi. You’re… here.”

You gave a nervous shrug, trying to play it cool. “Yeah. I… kinda missed home.”

Your voice trembled slightly, betraying the chaos inside you.

Bucky looked even better than you remembered. He hadn’t tied his hair back—just let it fall freely, slightly windblown. His jaw was sharper. Shoulders broader. That quiet, deadly calm about him had only deepened. He looked like someone who could command a room without raising his voice.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck you, Edward.

Your mind spun.

He knew. Edward knew. That bastard sent you here, knowing the head of security was your ex-boyfriend.

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mintmatcha · 10 months ago

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Inevitable Things : chapter eight

aizawa x reader fic

cw: aizawa x reader, cisfem reader, office AU, no quirks. Mentions of drug use

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A lot of cheap black hair dye is just concentrated blue.

The first time Touya dyed his hair black, you sat in the sink of his parent's bathroom and pointed out all the spots he missed. You were sixteen and love still tasted like his cinnamon gum. He stood in his tub, school uniform still on, collar and skin stained with ashy blue water that ran down from his scalp. Smears of it were somehow everywhere: against the tiled walls, across the front of his button down, and even down the span of the porcelain tub. The memory is drowned in blue, from the curtains to the twinkle in his eye. A metaphor sits on your tongue whenever you think about it, too obvious to hold, too painful to ignore.

“Your parents are gonna be so pissed,” you said. Your own parents thought you were studying with your friends, instead of perched in your boyfriend’s private bathroom, door closed and away from the prying eyes of his younger siblings.

“Whatever.”

He wasn’t skinny back then, before the tattoos, piercings and heroin. When he raised his arms to wash the sludge of boxed dye from his hair, the tiniest bit of pudge on his stomach stuck out from the edge of his shirt, but Touya was attractive enough -and unhinged enough- that no one ever used it against him. He was handsome in the same way his mother was beautiful: tragically, classically. A button nose, clear eyes, with almost transparently pale skin: loving him, being loved by him, made you feel like Jane Eyre.

“Enji’s been itching to remodel this bathroom anyway. It’ll give Rei a reason to get out of bed.” His relationships with both parents were always so volatile, even before the fall. His mother bounced from overpresent and panicked, to completely absent, stuck in bed for seemingly weeks at a time. Touya said the whole cycle would never stop; it was because she hated the medications her doctor’s gave her, but also couldn’t live without them. Made the world too quiet, she said, couldn’t stand the quiet for too long.

(Later, Touya found out how much he craved that quiet, how much he loved being alone in it all. He’d pick at the medicine cabinet until his dad found out and threatened to kill him if it happened again.)

With freshly black hair, Touya shook his head like a dog and splatters of blue water sprinkled across the bathroom. Wetness makes hair darker, but you know that even dry, You giggled and it pulled out peels of laughter from him too, until you were both hunched over, giggling at nothing and everything all at once. He stepped out of the tub and inserted himself between your legs, hands coming to ghost over your face as he held you exactly how you needed. The spots where his ears were pierced were still and swollen, like unripe cherries.

“Do you like it?” His smile was freshly straight-- or maybe his braces were still on at that point. The details have been revisited so many times that you’ve begun to forget them, but you have no doubt that he smiled-- bright and sweet and juvenile in ways he’ll never touch again.

“I’ll miss the blonde,” you admitted. “But this is kinda cute too.”

He clutched you tight and you held him back, his head in your hands. “You’re so fucking mean to me.”

And you kissed him quiet. And you kissed him until the taste of cinnamon was synonymous with the taste of being alive. There was a metaphor there, something too obvious, something When he pulled away, your fingers were marked with him, dye running down your fingers and wrists, blue burying into your skin, so, deep, so vivid-

“Uh oh, did your pen explode?”

Hizashi’s voice drags you back to the present.

Your hands are stained with ink. The bottom of your pen case is spotted in blue.

“Yeah, sorry, uh-” You flounder a bit as you look around the front seat. Unlike Kaminari’s car, there’s no excess trash or tissues floating about to grab.

“I have wipes in the glovebox, babygirl.”

You carefully pop it open. Hizashi’s car is nice - all black pleather and freshly vacuumed floors, with seats that recline all the way back. You’re careful not to ruin anything as you tug a wipe free and scrub away the stains, silently working until your skin starts to wrinkle. The sun has decided to peek out for the first time in a week, much to Hizashi’s delight; he’s been humming along to the radio since your apartment, bouncing from channel to channel as he pleases. The UA Conference and Exposition starts today and, if the GPS is correct, you’ll be there early enough to get your bearings before the fun begins.

And, if the GPS is correct, you only have 15 minutes to gather yourself before Aizawa Shouta enters the car.

After the incident, Aizawa had started working from home, either for his benefit or HR’s. His absence left a void in the office that was quickly filled with intern’s chaos. Turns out, Aizawa really was keeping them all in line all this time-- as far as you can tell, almost no work has gotten done since he’s been gone. That’s the real tragedy of it all: he’s terribly good at his job and the company probably couldn’t float without him. HR would have a nightmare of a time replacing him.

Not that you want him gone.

You’re hurt, sure, but bringing HR into this mess would only open a can of worms and every little bug would link back to the fact you sent the man an unprompted nude.

Hizashi turns the radio down, leaving you two alone with the whir of the wheels against the road. “You okay? You’ve been bleh all week.”

“Yeah, I’m just--” Sad, pissed, poor, lonely, pathetic- “Nervous about this convention.”

It’s not a lie. As the week crept along, you found yourself more and more nervous for this trip, partially because of Aizawa, mostly because of everything else. You’ve never been to one of these events before-- what if you say the wrong thing, or miss a panel, or you’re not dressed well enough and you make the company look stupid? There’s so many silly little faux paus you could commit without even realizing it-

“Don’t be. It’ll be fun.” Hizashi glances over his pink prada sunglasses. As usual, he’s dressed well, donning a deep eggplant colored button down and freshly pleated black pants. “There’s a lot of things going on, sure, but there’s a bunch of things to see and swag bags to collect-”

He nudges you with his elbow until it teases a giggle out of you.

“And there’s always rich, hot doctors looking for a weekend fling.”

“I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun with them,” you say.

“You’re the one who needs to have fun with them!” Hizashi says. “You need a play thing to get your mind off of… everything.”

He grimaces at the last word and you wonder how much he knows about what's been happening in office. Probably a lot; you haven’t told him, but you know how everyone talks. You both get quiet for a bit, then Hizashi starts up again, that seasick smile still on his face.

“I actually think if you guys would stop biting each other’s heads off, you’d be best buds.” he says, “I do! He’s a really good hearted guy when he isn’t-”

“When he isn’t calling my boyfriend a junkie?” you quickly correct yourself before Hizashi can react. “Ex boyfriend.”

“He feels bad about that. Really. He just can’t bring himself to apologize correctly-- I’ll make him tell you, you’ll see.”

“Hizashi, that sounds like hell.” You sink down into the seat with a groan. You can imagine Aizawa’s stupid, uncaring face as he’s forced to apologize to you during your almost three hour-long car ride. No escape, nowhere to hide. God, it feels like some convoluted punishment that an author would come up with for shitty fanfiction.

He pulls off of the highway into a part of town you don’t recognize. It’s more suburban, with neighborhoods right near the train stations. This air isn’t as rich as Toshinori’s neighborhood, but you can taste the money.

“Can’t he drive himself today?” you complain, watching the GPS click closer and closer to arrival time.

“Can you drive yourself?”

The question flusters you. “I could, but I don't have a car.”

“Then you just have to deal with it, sorry!” Hizashi hums a couple bars of music in between words. “See? There’s something you two can bound over: being driven around by me-”

Very funny. If you guys were going to bond over anything, it’d be the fact that you- well--

Huh. Actually, you don’t know very much about the man at all. You know he likes yellow, that he works too hard, that maybe he likes cats… You certainly didn’t know he lived in a place like this.

Maybe he’s a secret serial killer. Or he kicks puppies. You don’t know!

Before you can work yourself into a tizzy, Hizashi takes a turn and you’re there. Aizawa’s house is smaller than you expected-- much smaller. It’s quaint, almost twee, and certainly not a new construct. It reminds you of old New England, this faded blue thing tucked onto the corner of a street. Nicely mowed lawn, small bushes in freshly turned soil: and you have to laugh at the thought of Aizawa doing physical labor. It’s painfully humble.

Before today, it was as if Aizawa didn’t exist outside of Prome. He existed only in those four walls and the stories Nemuri and Hizashi told you over late night drinks.

…and, of course, in your text messages.

The flux of work and real life is always strange to handle-- especially your own. You try to keep the mess from spilling together. Their densities are different: work rises to the top when home keeps sinking below it.

You think of Touya and the ink stains on your palms.

A cat lounges in the window of the top floor, black fur brown in the sunshine as it stretches long. A hand ruffles it for a moment before disappearing and Aizawa Shouta is out of the house about a minute later, bag in hand. Unlike Hizashi, he’s not dressed up-- in fact, he’s dressed worse than usual. Sweatpants and a white t-shirt: he looks like he’s about to fall asleep, not present for a crowd. He takes a second to tuck a key under the mat before trudging over.

Leaning over you, Hizashi wolf whistles out of your window, loud enough your ears ache at the sound.

“Hey, sexy!”

“Children live in this neighborhood, Mic.”

The older man throws open your door and looms down at you, no humor in his face. A beat passes before he clears his throat expectantly. His raven black hair makes you feel uneasy and you don’t want to figure out why.

“I need the front seat,” Aizawa says after a moment.

Of course he does. What a prick. Your head snaps to Hizashi, searching for backup, but he throws his hands into the air.

“Do not bring me into this.”

“But I don’t want to move.” You huff and pretend to scroll on your phone, sucking your cheeks hollow in defiance.

Aizawa’s lip twitches down.

“Are you seven?”

“You’re the one demanding a front seat,” you shoot back. “Do you get car sick? Like a toddler?”

“Are you done?”

“I am.”

“Then move.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

With a rather hefty thunk, Hizashi bounces his head against the steering wheel. “Oh my god, are you guys going to torture me like this all weekend? Because I can’t take much more of this.”

“If she would listen-” Aizawa starts.

“Just tell her!”

Tell you what? You glance up and realize he doesn’t look annoyed. No, his brow is knitted up, his expression is mild. He’s fidgeting with the hem of his suitcase, digging his nail into the seam with a little tap-tap-tap-

He’s nervous?

Your first reaction is to scoff. Who cares that he’s nervous? Not you! Why would you care about some ancient, heartless cunt’s feelings?

But then he clears his throat and steps back, admitting defeat.

“I-” Shouta clears his throat again, voice low. “Fine. I’ll sit in the back.”

Dammit. God fucking damn it. You’re already unbuckling your seatbelt before he can move.

“You can have the stupid seat.” Your attitude is gone, but you keep pretending. “But you owe me.”

Aizawa visibly relaxes, but he still sneers at you. “Whatever.”

You two shuffle around each other and you banish yourself to the rear. It’s actually not bad; the seat is bigger and comfortable. You just didn’t want him to win. This is at least a win on your terms.

“See? Hizashi sighs. “We can all be friends here! This is the ‘good vibes’ car!”

“This is not a ‘good vibes’ car. I know what you do in here,” Aizawa says as he sits.

“You mean who he does in this car,” you mumble, not expecting to be heard.

“No, I don’t.” Aizawa says. “Because he doesn’t know the people he does in this car.”

You don’t laugh, but you breathe a bit heavier through your nose. Aizawa’s shoulders shake with a hint of laughter-- his own joke clearly hitting. Hizashi huffs, clearly more amused than offended.

“Just get in already, you jerks.”

Everything’s quiet until you’re back on the highway. Now, traffic is heavier as people pour into the roads for work. The sun is higher in the sky and the air is still cool post rain, humidity currently drained from the air. You slip off your heels and tuck your legs under you. From directly behind Hizashi, you can catch a bit of his cologne-- or maybe it’s Aizawa’s? No, it has to be the blonde’s: it’s citrus, strangely sweet from a man’s scent.

“House looks good.” Hizashi turns to his passenger.

“Hm.” Aizawa doesn't settle back into the seat, but instead perches on the edge of it, gripping the little bar like a lifeline. In contrast, his voice is uncaring. “It’s fine. The girls are happy about the extra space, at least.”

Hizashi glances back at you through the rearview mirror, shit eating grin smeared across his face. “Shouta's told you about his babies, right?”

An unreasonable panic sets over you. “Human children?”

“What? No-- What?” Aizawa says, befuddled. “You thought I had children?”

“I don’t know!”

“I would have told you before we--- I have cats.”

You remember the little darling you saw earlier. So, he really does like cats. Interesting. Frankly, knowing he isn’t some animal hating freak makes you feel a little better about everything that’s happened between you. He’s just a ‘you’ hating freaking.

“Oh, I saw the black one in the window.”

“That's Sesame.” Aizawa says. “And there’s another one named Sushi.”

You snort.

“Yes, I’m a man with cats. I’m sure it’s very funny.” His voice lacks all ire when he can’t turn around and see you.

“I didn’t think you’d pick such cute names.” you shrug. “I thought it’d be more technical like, I dunno. Motherboard. Linux. Keyboard.”

“You thought I named my cat Keyboard?”

“Or something.”

He shakes his head and pinches his brow. “I don’t like computers; I just work on one.”

“Speaking of work--” Hizashi anxiously cuts in before the conversation can turn sour. Traffic has slowed to a crawl, which is nothing unexpected. He lounges back, unaffected by how others honk and weave ahead. “How’s the presentation going?”

Aizawa slumps in his shoulders and groans. “Not quite as organized as I would like, but luckily it isn’t until tomorrow.”

“You’re co-hosting in that assisted mobility panel, right? That’ll be a nice little warm up.” Hizashi says.

“Barely. That’s Tensei’s brainchild, so I won’t be speaking very much.”

“What are you presenting on?” You know the answer, of course. You’re just trying to engage politely, for Hizashi’s sake. “Our bed, right?”

“Partially.” Aizawa turns part way around, then changes his mind and faces front. The carsick thing must have been right on the money. “It’s more about patient care models and the efficacy of our upcoming monitoring systems for improving quality of life. I won't bore you with it.”

You pull at your seatbelt. You don’t really want to talk to Aizawa right now, but he’s so well informed. “I’d like to hear it.”

Besides, it’s part of your job to know these things, right? It wouldn’t be the worst thing to learn a little more about what Aizawa’s been up to this whole time. It seems like, despite all of his asshole behavior, he’s actually a pretty involved guy. An assisted mobility talk? Quality of life models? Could he actually be a good person underneath it all?

Aizawa gives you a nod, simple, but pleased. “As you know, it’s primarily to back up the paper that’s being published-”

Paper? What paper?

“But, essentially, I’m trying to convince a room of very smart people that I know what I’m talking about. Which, I do, but-”

Hizashi erupts into giggles. “You’re the worst public speaker.”

“Thank you so much. I appreciate your vote of confidence.” Aizawa’s voice drips with sarcasm.

“I assume our product is super good, right? That should make it easy.”

“Yes, it is, but it also isn’t. Once you figure out a method to collect data, anyone can do it. What turns a good advancement into a great one is what you do with the data.” The more he speaks, the more Aizawa’s back untenses and his legs stop bouncing. “And convincing other people that you know what to do with all of this raw human data is the hard part.”

He tilts his head as he continues, eyes focused forward. “This bed tracks body temperature, O2, blood pressure and pressure points, but it’s all nonsense until it’s correctly utilized. When should nurses intervene? If our model is overly sensitive, it makes nurses' jobs harder, instead of easier, and a stressed nurse negatively affects patient experience. Stress increases cortisol-”

You chime in. “And cortisol affects the cytokines, so it can delay healing.”

“How did you know that?” Hizashi asks, surprised.

“She’s smart,” Aizawa waves it off. “But if the model isn’t sensitive enough, it won’t alert nurses at the right intervals, which can also be detrimental to patient health, especially in the ICUs and coma patients that can’t advocate for themselves.”

“And you think we’ve achieved a good balance?”

“I know we have.” The sun hits the side of his face, haloing the soft bits of stubble and highlighting the silvered skin of his scar. The gray bits of his beard are almost golden in the light, and , despite everything, you find yourself smiling just a bit. He looks different in this light, you think, even if its just in your head. “But convincing everyone else is a different issue.”

“I believe you,” you say.

“That’s…” He fumbles for the first time. “Thank you.”

Oh, you try to fight how you soften. Being easily won over has always been your downfall; it would be better for you to stay furious, stay vicious, but that fire inside you darkens just a bit. It’s that same fucking ship metaphor that Touya left you with: you’re used to rocky seas, you’re used to hot and cold, drowning and rescue, rocky and unpredictable seas-

The worst thing about habits is that you can see yourself falling into them again, but you still can’t quite escape the rut you’ve carved for yourself through their repetition.

At least he thinks you’re smart. That sticks with you and buzzes in your chest.

“You must really care about this stuff,” you say.

From what you can see through his dark curls and side profile, Aizawa’s expression is less pressed than usual. “Of course I do.”

“You guys!” Hizashi throws a watery tone into his voice, all for show. “I’m gonna cry! I love when my buddies get along.”

“We aren’t.” Aizawa is quick to interrupt. “She’s just being polite. There’s no good will between us.”

Even though you don’t fully agree, you hum an affirmative. Sure, yes, there was a level of social obligation there, but to say there’s nothing positive between you is, well… Maybe it’s incorrect. Maybe it isn’t.

The rest of the ride is filled with gentle conversation- nothing noteworthy, but nothing boring either. Mostly Hizashi and Aizawa bounce off of each other with little stories and memories- things about friends they used to know, tiny complaints about people around the office, how they miss Toshinori. Aizawa even laughs a couple of times: these deep, rumbling sounds, uneven in a way that sounds like he’s almost unfamiliar with the sensation of it. The two were college friends and you can feel the familiarity in how they feed off of each other.

It’s simple, but nice, and you can see what Hizashi meant when he said you two would get along. When he’s not at work, he could be--

“I’m sorry, I feel like I neglected you the whole time.” Hizashi says. Sleep had almost taken you away at that point.“I’m not trying to leave you out.”

“It’s fine-- I like listening.” You rub the grit out of your eyes, contacts sticky and dry. “It’s like a free podcast.”

“Most podcasts are free, baby girl.”

The cityscape has changed. The buildings are taller, newer, shinier. It’s still the city, your city, but it has a different life than the outskirts. Gone is the touch of suburbia. If you were still young and fun and beautiful, you’d want to live here, feed yourself on culture and nightlife-

Hizashi meets your eye in the rearview. “You’re smearing your makeup, by the way.”

“Fuck.” You try to unsmudge your eyeliner with no success. No, you aren’t a city girl, no matter how badly you’d like to be.

“It’s alright-- we have time to go to our rooms and touch up before the con starts. We each have our own room, right?”

“Mhm,” you hum. “I figured you two wouldn’t share.”

“You and Shouta would share before I shared with anyone. I take this weekend very seriously.”

“He does,” Aizawa confirms. “This is his Olympics.”

“You sound insane right now. It would be a huge liability for us to share a room,” you say.

“I am insane-- insanely good at sex.”

“Ugh.”

“Hizashi!”

It’s just after noon when you pull into the hotel’s valet. Even though the building is wedged into a city block, it’s massive and beautifully built, a marvel in its own regard. Blue tile is pressed into neat lines across the white walls, their polished shine dazzling in the low light of the lobby. With the high ceiling, it's something closer to a Grecian vacation spot than a hotel in the middle of a landlocked city. It’s luxurious, it’s rich, it’s… almost romantic. God, no wonder Hizashi gets laid at this place.

The convention hall is attached by a skybridge, this colored glass beauty hanging in the sky above where you enter. An employee catches you staring at it all with a knowing smile. Your skin itches with the idea that you look like you don’t belong here: suburbs girl, with her smeared makeup, gawking at the city. They can probably smell that you could never afford to go here on your own dime.

Check in goes smoothly, of course. You’re organized and prepaid, so they hand you the room keys and wish you a wonderful stay. The three rooms you’re given are spread between floors. Hizashi claims the one on the first floor for ‘easy access’ and you and Aizawa are on higher levels. You’re relieved that none of you share a wall; the vibrator you have tucked into your bag is still in the wrapping and you have no idea how loud it’ll be. It’ll be equally mortifying if a stranger hears you, but at least they won’t know who you are or what you look like. It would be a secret that died between you and them.

Oh, no. Is this too nice of a place to masturbate in? Are they going to kick you out for being a nasty little horny freak? No, they would have kicked Hizashi out years ago. Unless he knows a secret that you don’t-

“Come on.” Aizawa himself snaps you out of your spiral. Hizashi has already scurried off, leaving the two of you alone in the lobby. “The elevators are this way.”

You gather your bag and walk with him, matching his stride. He’s not a very tall man, maybe even a little short, but he marches as he walks, quick and forward and sharp. You almost have to jog to keep up. It seems like he notices this and slows his pace a little, but it might be in your head.

Neither of you say anything as you wait.

And wait.

You check your phone, put it away, and then check it again. Aizawa presses the button again, muttering to himself.

What is there to say at this point? Where do you even stand?

The elevator comes, the doors close. The floors tick up. You’re both facing towards the door, saying nothing. Muzak floats in the air and it’s gentle tickle feels urging, almost more empty than silence-

“I want to apologize.” Aizawa speaks so suddenly that even he seems a bit surprised at himself. Readjusting his body, bracing his arm against the railing, Aizawa doesn’t look your way, opting to jam his hand in his pockets and watch the floor. “For it all.”

“It’s okay.” The answer is reflexive; it spills out before you can figure out exactly how you feel.

“It’s not,” he insists. “It’s just not.”

The elevator floats to a stop and the doors open. It’s your floor. There’s so much to unpack between you, so much to understand about exactly what his apology is for-

“Thank you.” You grip your bag tight as you step out. “I think.”

A thick, warm hand envelops your wrist. It’s grip is firm enough to turn you, but weak enough that you slip away as soon as you meet his face. Aizawa watches you; his deep, deep, dark eyes are locked on to yours and he tries to speak, mouth open but nothing coming out. He tries again, then again, before clearing his voice and shaking his head.

“Let’s pretend things are good between us.” Aizawa says finally, watching the floor once again-- and you have this awful feeling that what he’s saying isn’t what he really wants to say. “For Mic’s sake.”

You nod, swallowing this down, a beat too long.

“I’d like it if we were normal too.”

“Okay.” The door slides closed as Aizawa says: “For you, then.”

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secretidentie · 8 months ago

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For Halloween every year dick dresses up as one of his family members. The year he decides to just throw on a cheap nightwing costume the others plan to surprise him during family dinner.

When dick walks in he's greeted by Bruce in full disco wing costume. Bruce, who has clearly been waiting for this opportunity, does everything from unnecessary flips and catchphrases to pretending to taste heroine of the ground to stay in character. At some point in the night he changed into a different version of the disco wing costume with the longer hair. During dinner he refuses to get off the table or stop smiling the whole night.

Jason shows up a little late driving a taxi cab. Fully in character as Ric, he spends the night asking to play poker and pretending he's at a shadey bar. When dick tries to ask about red hood things he insists he has no idea what he's talking about and threatens to burn down the house. Dick finally agrees to play poker just to shut him up but that inspires Ric to go on about all the adventures he's had at an underground fighting ring.

Tim spends the majority of his night hanging upside down from a chandelier. In the original Robin short-shorts, he gives inspirational speeches and keeps asking where batman is. He goes around hugging everyone except Ric and calls himself the boy wonder. Just like disco wing he refuses to sit still but atleast gets off the table during dinner.

At this point Dick is laughing his ass off and is eager to see what Damian is going to wear. He's expecting nightwing but instead Damian comes out in his little green leotard he wore back when he was in The Flying Graysons. Dick is squeezing Damian into a hug and starts crying a bit when Damian starts performing part of his floor routine.

Dick forces everyone to take a bunch of family photos, including Alfred who is dressed as The Target. He keeps this photo hung up in his house and remembers this as "the year his family was a bunch of dicks for Halloween. "

#dick grayson #nightwing #bruce wayne #jason todd #tim drake #damien wayne #discowing #ric grayson #robin #the flying graysons #dc comics #halloween #A bit early

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gr0upie-love · 1 month ago

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✦ :: Love Languages :: ✦

Note : I tried to make this as “realistic” as possible, this is also part 1 there will be more parts :).

Axl.

Axl isn’t one for heartfelt compliments; he normally says something along the lines of “Looking good, sexy!” or “Dayum, that's a nice ass!” Therefore, his love language is normally light banter and small “gifts,” like paying for your drink at a bar.

⭐️ :: Banter :: ⭐️

Axl’s banter/teasing can often go a bit too far and come out as plain mean. Axl most likely would call you a lazy whore in an affectionate way. He would often take the piss out of you, like pointing out the fact you have mismatching socks, or when you wear something a bit more out there, Axl would ask if you’re out to be a prostitute. Sometimes he punches your shoulder or pushes you when you’re walking side by side (probably underestimates his strength and knocks you over).

💫 :: Gifts :: 💫

Axl doesn’t buy you extravagant gifts like a fur coat or a shimmery dress; he doesn’t have the money for that. What is he, Bruce Wayne? Axl buys you tiny gifts like chocolate bars and some random keychains from the airport when he’s out on tour. He’s considered buying you expensive stuff, but then he remembers he’s pretty much in debt and doesn’t feel like wasting drug money on you. However, if it’s a big event, such as an anniversary, then he’d buy you a new set of earrings or maybe a fancy bottle of wine (if you don't drink, then he’ll drink it himself).

Duff.

Duff is affectionate but doesn’t get too lovey in public since he doesn’t like people staring at him. Though Duff loves helping you out, whether it’s with your job, school (if you go to college/university), or simply helping around the house. Duff also likes teaching you stuff.

⭐️ :: Physical touch :: ⭐️

In public, Duff does little gestures like holding your pinky or lightly tugging your hair to get your attention. Duff doesn’t do anything “disgusting,” as Axl would describe it, in public. Duff won’t kiss your lips or hold onto you like you're going to escape him.

Meanwhile, in private areas like your home, Duff will cuddle you and sometimes grab your waist from behind. He tries to be stealthy about it, but due to his height, it is kind of easy to notice him (he hits his head on the doorways).

💫 :: Helping out :: 💫

Duff helps you out by cooking dinner from time to time, doing the laundry, and gardening. He doesn’t believe that women (if you’re a woman) should be doing all the housework and that it should be a shared thing.

Duff also helps out by letting you get on his shoulders when you are at an event with large crowds, such as a concert, firework show, and things like that. He also helps you reach stuff that is too high up for you (if you’re too stubborn to allow him to get it for you, he will pick you up like you are some cat and hold you there and let you get it).

🌙 :: Teaching :: 🌙

Duff adores teaching you simple things; he wants to share his knowledge with you. He will teach you how to read music (bass, drums, and guitar), how to play music (he gives you his cheap and shitty guitar to practice on because there is no way you are touching his baby), and even how to fucking inject heroin. He doesn’t know why he taught you that, but he did, and that’s that.

Duff also likes to be taught by you, even if he already knows it, but he loves seeing that excited glint in your eyes when you show him how to do something.

Izzy.

Izzy isn’t one for physical affection since it ruins his whole bad loner boy guitarist act. Izzy doesn’t care if you do drugs or drink because he’s not a hypocrite. Izzy shows his affection by allowing you to fuck around on his guitars and wear his clothes. Iz also invites you out to take a walk with him very frequently (it’s how he copes with the stress of being in such a huge band). Izzy’s love language is also just venting to you and admitting when he’s tired/stressed because he’s not going to act like everything’s fine if it’s not.

⭐️ :: His guitars :: ⭐️

Izzy doesn’t care if you mess around with his gear as long as you don’t break anything. Izzy has shown you how to restring and tune a guitar in case you accidentally ruin it. Izzy doesn’t get the shits if you break a string since you are his partner and someone important to him (unless it’s like only 1 month into the relationship). Izzy often likes to share the songs he’s made outside of the band, songs that are just for you and him.

💫 :: His clothes :: 💫

Izzy finds it amusing when you wear his clothes and often says you look like you are about to play golf. Izzy has a smart-casual wardrobe, so he doesn’t have any hoodies or anything in his closet, only button-ups and jeans. When you wear one of his hats, he gives you a small side-eye but doesn’t stop you.

Sometimes, if it’s too bright outside, Izzy puts his sunglasses on you without a word. If you ask questions, Izzy just grunts and continues to do whatever he is doing.

🌙 :: Venting :: 🌙

As your relationship progresses, Izzy starts to let his stage persona drop; you see who he actually is behind the stage lights. Izzy will often come home from a concert or rehearsal utterly stressed; he will ALWAYS look exhausted. Izzy will sit you down, make sure it’s okay for him to vent, and then pour his heart out to you (sometimes his eyes might water a bit from how shitty it has been).

Slash.

Slash is often a drunken mess, but when he isn’t, he loves to give you physical affection. Slash also likes to serenade you with his guitar.

⭐️ :: Physical affection :: ⭐️

You can’t escape Slash and his touch. When you wake up, he’s hugging you; when you are busy, he is hugging you. It gets worse when he’s drunk (which is 70% of the time); Slash will give you the fucking sloppiest kiss known to mankind when he sees you and he’s drunk.

Slash often holds your hand in public or has an arm around your waist.

(Honestly, he can get annoying sometimes.).

💫 :: Serenading you :: 💫

If you have a favourite song, he will learn that song immediately and play it for you 24/7. Slash also writes some pieces for you. Fun fact, some of his solos on stage are dedicated to you (he tries to show off). Slash loves playing his guitar and loves playing it for you. Every chance he gets, Slash will put on a nice tune for you.

Steven.

Steven is the sweetest guy you will ever meet in the band. His mama always said to treat his lady right, and he does! This man does everything—gifts, touch, complimenting you—he is the whole package!!

⭐️ :: Physical touch :: ⭐️

Steven loves cuddling you; this man’s hugs cure depression. It feels as though you are being hugged by a puppy; his hair always gets in your mouth, though, making you both laugh. Steven likes to kiss your cheek and hold your waist while you do your thing.

💫 :: Gifts :: 💫

If Steven sees you eyeing something at the store, then he’s already marching into that store to get it for you. Steven doesn’t care how much something costs; all he cares about is making you smile. Steven also likes to buy you flowers when you are having a rough day; he always looks so proud of himself when he rocks up with a messy bouquet of flowers in his hand.

🌙 :: Compliments :: 🌙

Steven’s compliments vary from cheesy to the sweetest thing ever. Steven doesn’t care if you look like a sewer rat from New York; he is already spewing out the compliments. Steven often refers to you as the most gorgeous person he has ever laid eyes on (besides himself). If you are having that seasonal depression, he will purposely mime you in order to try and make you laugh.

#guns n roses #axl gnr #axl rose #duff gnr #slash gnr #slash guns n roses #steven adler #izzy gnr #izzy stradlin #gnr x reader #headcanon #relationship #axl rose x reader #x reader #writing

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vintagegeekculture · 1 year ago

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So, a friend of mine on Discord said something interesting, and I feel like you might have thoughts on it. So. What do you think of the idea of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as being "The Shaw Brothers for kids", a sort of gateway drug for "the kung fu genre"?

Not the Shaw Brothers, but Golden Harvest. Let me explain:

I’m going to sound like a conspiracy theorist when I say this, but I believe the New Line Cinema “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (1990) movie was actually a money laundering scheme by the Chinese Mafia, specifically, the Sun Yee On Triad.

Looking into the role of organized crime in martial arts cinema is a rabbit hole that goes very, very, very deep...and comes out somewhere very shocking at the end.

You mention the Shaw Brothers, but there was another Hong Kong Producer who was the only credible rival to the Shaw Brothers (and who eventually surpassed the Shaws) in martial arts movies: Golden Harvest’s Raymond Chow….a man who started off as the Shaw Brothers’ talent division, but who eventually founded his own rival studio to the Shaws (with rumored triad financial backing), and who made Bruce Lee, Angela Mao and Jackie Chan stars. Raymond Chow is widely, and extremely credibly, believed to be a middleman for the Hong Kong Triad, the Sun Yee On, who used Golden Harvest as a front facing money laundering scheme, as claimed by Frederic Dannen in "Hong Kong Babylon," and Yiu Kong Chiu in "The Triads as Business," books I recommend if you are at all interested in the topic of organized crime in the Hong Kong film industry.

Raymond Chow was also the producer and primary funder of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. I mean, what does it mean when your movie is entirely produced and funded by a guy well known for being a triad middleman and money launderer?

And all of this happened at New Line Cinema, a borderline independent film company…one known for having dodgy financials it’s entire existence, no less, which ultimately doomed it? One of the most extraordinary things about the 1990 Ninja Turtles movie is that it was, essentially, an independent film. New Line would later become a powerhouse as a studio and created Lord of the Rings, but at the time, it was a mainly low rent operation, rather like Cannon films, known for the success of the slasher series “Nightmare on Elm Street.” So yes, I do believe "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (1990) was a money laundering scheme by the Chinese Mafia.

The triads in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan take enormous interest in financing martial arts movies for the same reason that they take a tremendous interest in financing porn movies: they’re quick, cheap, dirty, and can be used as a mechanism for laundering money, and a way to claim money from illegal sources (say, heroin) comes from a clean and legal source that can be claimed on taxes, like say, a movie studio. In addition, Hong Kong’s strict rating system, the Category III (equivalent to a far stricter R-rating) meant that very violent movies were handled in ways that were outside the law in ways similar to pornography. And according to several Senate investigations in 1991 ("Hearings on Asian Organized Crime"), the triads were actively involved in money laundering as well outside of Hong Kong, including currency trading and real estate, and the idea they could back a studio is entirely possible.

Everyone working in Hong Kong cinema has a story of dealing with the triads, who are interwoven into the city. Anita Mui's manager was was shot dead by mafiosos. Jimmy Wang Yu, the first Kung Fu star, was a suspected member of the Bamboo Union triad, and once borrowed money from one triad to pay another....and may have used his reported connections with the Triads to get Jackie Chan out of his initial contract with Golden Harvest, a favor Jackie repaid. Golden Harvest studios were actually firebombed in 1984, an event suspected to be due to Triad activity. Raymond Chow’s fellow producer and good friend who discovered Steven Chow, film producer Charles Heung, is well known to be the son of Heung Chin, who founded the Sun Yee On Triad, the largest in Hong Kong with over 25,000 members. And you don’t have to take my word for it; a US Senate Committee in 1991 on Asian Organized Crime identified Cheung as a leader of the Sun Yee On along with his brothers. Because of his association with Charles Heung and the Sun Yee On, Steven Chow, director of Kung Fu Hustle, cannot enter Canada legally.

Jackie Chan asserted Raymond Chow’s triad connections in his autobiography, and also claimed that he only hired triad members and other people who were mobbed up at Golden Harvest. One example would be producer Ng See Yuen, who produced Once Upon a Time in China for Golden Harvest, and who Jet Li refused to work with ever again after his manager was assassinated by triad gunmen (Jet Li blamed Ng See Yuen for his manager's death).

There's also Lo Wei, a Shaw Brothers director and known “Red Pole” enforcer of the Sun Yee On Triad, who came over to Golden Harvest, where he directed Bruce Lee’s Chinese Connection and Big Boss, and also directed Jackie Chan’s earliest “period” historical movies for GH. Jackie Chan, in his autobiography, stated that the reason he initially left Hong Kong to go to the United States for an American career was because Lo Wei, his director on Laughing Hyena, put a hit out on him for refusing to make Laughing Hyena 2, and Jackie had to flee the city when Lo Wei sent gunmen to his house to abduct him. When arriving in the United States, he had to avoid some men with machine guns at the airport. To this day, whenever possible, Jackie Chan goes out in public armed for fear of gangsters.

Even Jackie Chan though, never made the assertion that Raymond Chow and the Sun Yee On had Bruce Lee killed. This is important to mention because if you talk to any Chinese person, nearly all of them believe with unshakable, absolute certainty that the Chinese Mafia killed Bruce Lee, which is literally the plot of Game of Death (which, incidentally, Raymond Chow produced). Everyone around Bruce was mobbed up, because everyone in the Hong Kong film industry was mobbed up; in fact, it’s an open question how much it existed for its own sake. It’s notable Bruce Lee died at the home of Betty Lo Ting Pei, Golden Harvest actress, and his known mistress…who was married to a triad gangster. It’s also known that the first person that Betty Lo Ting Pei called when Bruce died was not medical services but Raymond Chow, something that to this day, she has not attempted to explain.

It can be hard to imagine what the motive is for Raymond Chow and the triads to kill Bruce Lee. After all, wouldn’t Bruce Lee be more useful to Raymond Chow alive than dead? I never saw the angle, here. But then, you consider that in the last few months of his life, Bruce Lee started to set the stage for his transition to behind the scenes roles like producer, and was assembling a lot of stunt talent around him (a lot of productions down the pipeline intended to have Bruce Lee in producer roles, like Circle of Iron). The rumor among the stunt players, as recounted by Sammo Hung, was that Bruce was attempting to form his own stunt and film production company (as Chiba later did successfully in Japan) and that would involve organizing and peeling off half the talent in Hong Kong….in a deeply triad controlled industry, no less. There was also a story recounted by witnesses that Bruce Lee, a temperamental and explosively violent man, physically assaulted Raymond Chow in his office with punches and kicks when he heard Chow had two sets of books in their shared production company, as Bruce was always keen to keep the triads out of his films. Ten days later, Bruce Lee was dead. And for weeks before his death, Lee told his friends "Hong Kong is getting too hot, I have to get out."

And you know something? A Ninja Turtles movie from 1990 is probably the least of it. In 2020, a few documents were declassified by the Taiwanese government that showed that the members of the Bamboo Union Triad had 19 top governmental positions in Taiwan from 1955-1984 (the era when Taiwan was in a complete state of military rule), including the National Security Bureau and all branches of the armed forces. In other words, Taiwan during the military rule era wasn't just corrupted by the triads, the triads were the government.

I never cease to be amazed at the incuriousness of the journalistic professions. Governments don't declassify documents - especially something as damning as triad involvement in government - unless they have to. So why would the Tsai Ing-Wen government reveal this now in 2020, especially when anti-corruption is the driving force of Taiwanese politics, and anti-corruption sentiment pushed the KMT out of power since the 90s? Outsiders believe that the single biggest question in Taiwanese politics is their relationship with the mainland. Kinda...the status quo is more or less a settled question. It's actually anti-corruption and anti-triad infiltration, which is why the DPP are the ruling party now.

The answer, I suspect, is that the triads are no longer working with the Taiwanese government, but with the mainland government. In the 1980s, Wong Man Fong, editor of the Xinhua paper of Hong Kong, said in several interviews he was asked by the People's Republic of China to reach out to the triads to help make a deal: no government interference in their activities, if they pledge to keep order in the city after the handover in 1997. I strongly suspect the mainland now has a similar arrangement with the Bamboo Union, Green Gang, and the Si Hai Bang they did in Hong Kong, especially since so much money is going back and forth with the release of trade to the mainland. In other words, the triads in Taiwan are active agents of the PRC.

Backdoor deals between government and the mob aren't out of the question, just ask the CIA, who used Giancana Crime Family assassins sent to kill Castro as a key plank of the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the role of the mafia in the Kennedy Assassination, or how control of opium was a key under-the-table reason for the invasion of Afghanistan.

What I suspect happened is, the Taipei government is turning on organized crime now after decades and decades of ludicrous and obvious corruption, because to the triads, the money to be made with the mainland and unification is far more lucrative. It's no coincidence that the largest pro-unification party in Taiwan is led by a triad gangster who spent time in jail for racketeering, Chang An Lo, nicknamed "the White Wolf." Like John Gotti, everyone knows he's a mobster and that's even part of the White Wolf's coolness and appeal (if you could vote for Tony "Scarface" Montana, boy, I bet a lot of guys would), but nobody can touch him. In fact, combined with how the "light world" financial institutions are intertwined along with the underworld, there's an argument to be made that the reason the PRC hasn't tried to take Taiwan is that for all intents and purposes, they already have it.

In other words, the triads have gone from using the Ninja Turtles to money launder to essentially setting global geopolitics.

#organized crime #triads #chinese mafia #bruce lee #teenage mutant ninja turtles

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gothamite-rambler · 3 months ago

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Batman and Nightwing dealing with knock off merch

Nightwing: Hey, I found a box of plushies that look like you and Robin. Seems to be that they were selling them. I hate to admit it, but they're kind of cute.

Nightwing sauntered over with the box and pulled out a plushie that only had a cowl resembling Batman's.

Batman (glaring at the insulting plush) "Styled" is being generous. The colors are completely off.

Nightwing: I swear you had a pink and blue—

Batman (snatching the plushie, raising his voice angry): The colors are off!

Nightwing (laughing): You're right, maybe if it were rainbow-colored, it would look like— Can’t hit me or it’d be considered child abuse!

Batman groaned and flicked Nightwing on the top of his head instead. Nightwing winced rolling his eyes, but as he looked at the cheap knock off plushie he smiled at how adorable it did look.

Batman (clearly offended): I could sue for this.

Nightwing (in a judgmental tone): Sue for bad knockoffs? Ever heard of AliExpress?

Batman (tossing the toy onto the floor): No, because I don’t shop on sites like that.

Nightwing (mocking his rich dad): Oh, right, my bad. You’re the one percent that can afford those overpriced pieces of garbage?

Batman: Yes, damn it! I also don’t like my image being exploited.

Just then, Melinda, a crook and knock off merch seller handcuffed and sitting on the floor while waiting for the police, lifted her head, offended.

Melinda: Hey! I'll have you know all my ManBat merchandise is perfectly legal. There are just slight differences that make it fine. You’re here to arrest me for drugs, not for this! Okay?

Batman and Nightwing: ManBat?

Nightwing burst into laughter and walked away before Batman could react. Batman scowled at the next cheap looking knock off and tossed it at his son's head only making the man laugh harder.

Melinda: Seriously, if you want, you can take a couple for free. I actually really like you guys. Just, you know, I have a massive heroin addiction. Such is life, am I right?

Batman (exasperated): No.

Nightwing: I have a friend who can relate. Can I have the purple ManBat toy for... a friend?

Melinda nodded, revealing a missing front tooth as she smiled. Nightwing eagerly grabbed the purple plushie and hugged it tightly like it was his elephant plushie.

Nightwing: It’s soft too!

Batman (tapping his cowl, sighing): Aggravation, frustration— give me that plush!

Nightwing (chuckling): Nope! Mine now.

Batman glared at Nightwing, who still held onto the plushie. He lunged to grab it, but Nightwing sprinted away, Batman in hot pursuit.

Batman: You're a grown man, and it doesn’t even look good!

Nightwing: Don’t care, it’s mine! You never let me buy any toys that have your face on them!

Batman: I refuse to buy products that resemble my own image! At least take the robin one instead!

Nightwing: What's the point of having that one when I already was one?

Batman: Just cause you were temporarily my replacement doesn't mean you get to keep the Batman— I mean Man-Bat! Damn it!

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maddie-grove · 1 year ago

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I have a popular post about how I don’t enjoy it when love stories act like it would undermine the central romance if one or both of the protagonists had a positive experience with an ex or former sexual partner, and I just want to say: it’s really all about the framing.

It’s totally chill if a protagonist has never been in love before, for whatever reason. Maybe they have intimacy issues, or they were literally raised by wolves in the Canadian wilderness, or they’re too busy, or they were a child oblate, or they just never clicked with anyone that way, or they were married to a grotesquely evil Renaissance nobleman. If we’re supposed to be like “awww that’s nice, they are experiencing romantic love for the first time” or “I am so happy that something nice is happening to this girl after her experiences with the horrible duke,” that’s cool.

It’s also fine, in my book, if a protagonist has never had really good sex before. Not everyone has an easy time getting into it and, to be frank, not everyone has the good luck to encounter a considerate or generous lover immediately after becoming sexually active.

Here are some examples where I do think there are problems:

The historical romance author wants to establish that the hero is not a virgin, but she doesn’t want to make him a player and she doesn’t want to give him a bad ex as a source of angst and she doesn’t want him to have been in love before. So she gives him a long-term paid mistress. But, instead of going with “Adrian enjoyed Lily’s company and thought she was pretty/clever/pleasant, but obviously it was a business relationship on both sides,” you get something like “Adrian had never felt anything for Lily. She was merely a vessel for his manly needs.” And it’s like you knew this woman for years! Yet I have warmer feelings towards the friendly lady who works at the pharmacy! What’s wrong with you?

The Regency heroine was happily married to one dude, who died tragically young. She falls in love with her late husband’s best friend, also her friend, who has been in love with her since before the husband died but he never acted on it because it would have been wrong and hurtful to his friend. They both feel a little weird/guilty about getting together, but it’s clear that they aren’t actually disrespecting the late husband’s memory and he’d probably be happy for them if he knew. This is all good and fine, until the hero and heroine are making love and the heroine muses to herself that the hero is better in bed than her late husband. This honestly wouldn’t feel so sour if it had been established at the beginning that they never clicked sexually despite loving each other, but in that moment it feels like a cheap shot at a nice dead guy. And for what? So the audience has no doubt that the hero is the best sex man in the world?

Someone writes a fanfic where Character A has a non-endgame romance with Character C, when eventually Character A will end up with Character B. The A/C romance is obviously not going to last for well-established reasons, but it’s sweet and C is presented sympathetically. Until the author abruptly makes C a bitch in a non-canonical way when it’s time for them to break up, even though that’s far from the most natural way for the breakup to happen.

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ckret2 · 1 year ago

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Chapter 31 of human Bill grudgingly enduring being the Pines' prisoner because the Henchmaniacs won't take his call: Summerween night! Everyone gets ridiculous costumes!

The Summerween Trickster's buddies are attempting to resurrect him. Robbie's making a music video. Bill's attempting to woo Ford back into friendship, to terrify Dipper with cursed knowledge, and to recover his dignity from THE most gentle chastising imaginable, and he only succeeds in 1 out of 3 of these endeavors:

It's not this one. He's just gotta process these emotions while wearing that stupid wig.

####

Soos was putting the final touches on his cosplay (the suave and mysterious Masked Guy In A Suit, love interest of the heroine from the classic anime Teenage Planetary Soldier Girls) when he heard the phone ring in the office. "Hold on, I'll get it!" He hurried downstairs, ducked under a construction paper chain Mabel had strung over the door, picked up the phone, and said, "Hello?"

A mysterious voice droned, "The sun sets a deep blood red."

"Oh, no thanks, we don't want any." Soos hung up, sighed happily, and said, "Ah, Summerween. Always brings out the weirdos."

"Hey Soos!" Mabel ducked into the doorway. "Where's the candy bowl?"

"Oh, hey Hambone. It's in my bedroom." He put on a stage whisper. "I put it in there so Bill couldn't steal it."

"Thanks Soos!" She ran upstairs.

Dipper and Bill waited downstairs, the tension thick between them (on Dipper's side, anyway; Bill—watching a black-and-white horror movie, sipping at a can of cider, and brooding over going to voicemail—didn't notice). Dipper was waiting by the door in a folding chair; but he kept glancing toward Bill in the living room. When the silence got too much to bear, he asked, "Okay, what are you dressed as?"

Bill was wearing a brown bedsheet toga (the most historically-accurate part of his costume); a cheap wig of a teased mullet that had ended up mostly red with yellow streaks, forming a plume of hair right over his head and then a long straight tail he'd draped over his shoulder; and a bunch of paper faux-Greek homes taped all around the hem of his toga, forming a ring around his calves.

"And are those my sandals?" Dipper asked.

"Take it up with Mabel, she loaned them on your behalf," Bill said. "I'm not telling my costume. You have to guess it."

"Seriously?" Dipper sighed. It had to be a god, gods towered over their mortals' temples. What god would wear brown? "I don't know—Demeter?"

"What? No. Do I seem like the Demeter type? Pathetic." Bill waved off his guess. As Mabel ran downstairs, Bill said, "Hey, Shooting Star, you haven't made your official guess yet."

Without hesitation, Mabel said, "A time-traveling hair metal singer touring the Roman Empire and trying to find a way home before his hair dye runs out."

"Wrong, but I would love to live in the world you've dreamed up." He meandered into the entryway to join Mabel as she plopped down in the second chair by the door.

Dipper screwed up his face. "Are you helping us answer the door?"

"No, you're helping me answer the door. I'm cursed, remember?" Bill leaned over Mabel's shoulder, dug into the candy bowl, and popped a lollipop in his mouth. "But you're not getting rid of me, if that's what you're asking."

Soos headed to the door, cape billowing dramatically behind him. "Hey dudes. Hey Bill." He paused in the door, studying Bill. "Hey! Is that a Bobo the Uncouth Berserker cosplay?"

Bill blinked. "Who?"

"Bobo the Uncouth Berserker! You've gotta read Bobo. He's this primitive hero descended from lost Lemuria who goes on daring adventures through the lush impenetrable jungles of Central Europe. He's got this comic that was so popular it spawned an anime, which got an American movie adaptation, which formed the basis of a second comic continuity that isn't as critically acclaimed as the original but has drawn in a lot of new fans... and..." Soos petered out. "You're not Bobo, are you."

Bill shook his head. "Thanks for playing."

"Aw." Soos's shoulders slumped. "Anyway—me and Melody are gonna be at the cosplay contest at the theater. I'll keep my phone on in case of monsters."

"We'll be fine!" Mabel said. "Go have fun!"

"You too!" With a dramatic flourish of his cape, Soos disappeared into the night.

Bill watched Soos go enviously. He could have been given a human body that looked that good in a suit and top hat, but was he? No. It wasn't fair. And Soos didn't even wear the right hat size.

Dipper glanced sideways at Bill. "Hey. Is... Lemuria real?"

"Not anymore." Bill perked up as Stan passed by, dressed like Frankenstein's monster. "Hey, Stanley! You haven't guessed yet. What am I?"

Stan surveyed him. "White columned buildings, Statue of Liberty dress, and a red clown wig. I dunno, the American government?"

Bill squawked in laughter. "That's my favorite wrong answer so far. I like you, Stanley." He fished a chocolate bar out of the bowl and held it out.

Stan grunted in disapproval, but accepted the candy. "If any of you need me, I'm gonna be up on the roof, terrifying kids." He held up a boombox and a cassette that said "Spooky Sound Effects of Halloween". "If you hear screaming children, don't worry: that means I'm winning."

"Where's your brother?" Bill asked.

"Avoiding you." Stan passed through the living room and left.

Bill's shoulders slumped; but he just dug into the candy bowl for more chocolate. Then the first trick-or-treater knocked on the door, and Dipper jumped up in relief to answer it.

The shack didn't attract quite as many trick-or-treaters as the houses closer to the center of town, but they got a steady stream of children, and more than they'd gotten the year before. Between visitors, Bill dug into their candy stock, gleefully ignoring Dipper's complaints. After the fourth or fifth visitor, Dipper and Mabel realized that Bill was covering up the amount of candy he'd pilfered by meticulously re-folding the empty wrappers and putting them back in the bowl.

"It's fair play," Bill said. He untwisted one end of a Twisty Roll tube, squeezed out the candy, blew into the wrapper to re-inflate it, and twisted the end shut again. "The kids are trick-or-treating, right? Sometimes they get treats and sometimes they get tricks."

"Come on, seriously?" Dipper said. "Even for you this is low. You're literally taking candy from babies."

"The babies are trying to take candy from us. I have no sympathy." With the precision of an origami master, Bill refolded a paper fruit chew wrapper into a box and dropped it back into the bowl.

"They're supposed to take candy from us, that's how the holiday works." Dipper looked at Mabel for support.

But she was holding up an empty 3 Fencers wrapper and squeezing it lightly between her fingers. "Wow. How did you make the wrapper puffy again? It's so convincing."

Bill shot Dipper a nasty smile, then turned to Mabel and said magnanimously, "I'll teach you everything I know." He twirled a glue stick between his fingers.

Another trick-or-treater knocked, and Dipper answered.

"Trick or treat! Please give us the worst candy you have."

Mabel blinked, leaning around Dipper to see who was outside. "Wait, what?"

Outside stood a purple-furred monster with a dozen limbs from a dozen different creatures. He gasped in surprise. "Ohhh, twin costumes! That's so cute! What are you two, haunted dolls?"

Dipper took a surprised step back. "Limby Jimmy?"

The monster was silent a moment, taken aback. He took off a bear mask he'd made out of a paper plate. "Is it that obvious?"

Mabel asked, "Have we...?"

Dipper said, "Oh! Sorry—Mabel, this is Limby Jimmy, I ran into him last year in the Crawlspace under town when I was trying to get your face back—"

Helpfully, Bill threw in, "He's Gravity Falls' most accomplished arms dealer. And legs dealer, and tails dealer, and ears dealer..."

"Limby, this is my sister Mabel. Actually, I don't know if I ever introduced myself—"

Limby Jimmy cut in, "Ohhh, yeah, I remember you! You're Troll Boy, right?"

Dipper winced. "It's—it's Dipper, actually." He paused. "Wow. We meet a lot of weird people."

"Nice to meet you, Jimmy!" Mabel held out a hand. After a moment of thought, Jimmy elected to shake it with a tentacle and a dog's paw.

"What are you doing up here?" Dipper asked. "Is Summerween the one night of the year that Gravity Falls' monsters can walk among humans without fear?"

"Oh no, I'm terrified. I wouldn't be out here if I wasn't collecting donations," Jimmy said.

"Donations?"

Jimmy hesitated, then lowered his voice. "You've been in the Crawlspace, so, you and your sister are cool, but is the lady...?" He wiggled a hoof toward Bill.

Coolly, Bill said, "I'm actually an ancient interdimensional energy being cursed to wear a human form."

Dipper and Mabel flinched in alarm and rounded on Bill, hissing, "Bill!" "Shhh!"

Ignoring them, Bill said, "So, continue."

"Oh," Jimmy said brightly. "That's all right then, yuk yuk." He wiggled his multitude of right arms. "I don't know if you humans have heard yet, but the Summerween Trickster got eaten to death last summer! It's really sad!"

Dipper and Mabel, who had watched as he was eaten to death, stayed quiet.

"But probably happy for him?" Jimmy mused. "Since I think that's what he wanted? But it's sad for the rest of his poker group, we all miss him! So I'm out here with Doug—"

"Who?" Dipper asked, looking around the porch for a second monster.

"Oh, he's back there." Jimmy pointed toward a tree at the edge of the clearing around the Mystery Shack. The tree chittered unnervingly. "We're going around collecting donations to resurrect the Trickster! Or... re-summon him? Or however this works. We never really asked him how he came to exist, it seemed rude."

"Naturally," Bill said. "You can't just ask a freak what made him so freaky. It's a sensitive topic."

"Right! You understand," Jimmy said. "Anyway, we need a lot of crappy candy!" He looked at their bowl. "Which pieces have the kids been ignoring this year?"

Mabel had started bouncing on the balls of her dusty Victorian ghost shoes; and the moment she had a turn to speak, she squealed in excitement. "You're the Summerween Trickster's friend! That's perfect! Stay here, I'll be right back!" She shoved the candy bowl into Bill's arms and zoomed up the stairs. "I've got some stuff for him!"

Bill looked at the bowl, looked at the stairs, shoved the candy in Dipper's arms, and followed Mabel. "Hey, Shooting Star? What are you doing?"

Her voice drifted down the stairs: "Getting a donation! I'll be just a minute!"

"Hold on, you're actually helping that guy?" Bill laughed. "Why?" He climbed high enough to poke his head above the attic floor and lowered his voice so Jimmy couldn't hear. "I wasn't paying that much attention last Summerween, but I got the impression from your little costume store brawl that the Trickster was trying to kill you kids. Am I missing something?"

"I mean, yeah, he was—but he was in a really bad place back then, that doesn't mean he deserves to be dead for it. And now he knows someone out there wants to eat him, so maybe he'll be less insecure and evil." Mabel laughed, "Anyway, the Trickster isn't that bad! He didn't try to kill me half as hard as you did!"

Bill froze a couple of steps from the top of the stairs. He didn't move for a few seconds; and then wordlessly, he slunk back downstairs.

Dipper watched as Bill, face beet red, trudged into the living room. "Hey. What's Mabel...?"

"How should I know." Bill curled up on the couch, picked up the can of cider he'd been drinking earlier, shotgunned it, and glowered at the horror movie on TV.

Dipper considered Bill—all alone in the living room and not doing anything important—and considered Mabel, upstairs; and said, "Hey, Jimmy. Do you mind waiting out here until Mabel gets back."

"Sure! I don't have any plans." Jimmy rocked back on his many heels.

"Cool. Thanks." Dipper shut the door.

He sidled oh so very casually into the living room and leaned against the TV. "Guess it's just the two of us right now."

Bill's gaze didn't waver from the TV. "Terrific counting skills, Troll Boy." He popped open another cider can.

Dipper grit his teeth. Let it go. "Sooo! You're from the second dimension, huh? What's that like?" (His voice cracked embarrassingly on "that.") "Just—just curious. Making friendly conversation. Caaasual conversation." He flashed a pair of finger guns at Bill, to underscore just how casual he was. "Yyyep." Witness the junior paranormal investigator in action.

Bill turned the cold, empty eyes of a killer on Dipper. He took a long, slow sip from his cider. And he asked himself: what can I say that will make this stupid boy regret ever daring to speak to me?

Bill smiled. "Yeah. Sure. Okay," he said. "You wanna know what it's like? Have you ever read the Allegory of the Cave?"

Dipper hesitated. "By... Plato?"

"That one. You know—ignorance is like being a prisoner chained in a cave, watching shadow puppets being cast on a wall, and thinking they're reality; and having knowledge is like being outside the cave in the sunlight, seeing the real shapes that are casting the shadows—"

"I have read it, actually," Dipper said, a tad defensively. "It was for extra credit in—"

"English class, I know."

Dipper frowned; but he soldiered on. "So... living in the second dimension is like being chained in a cave, staring at the shadows on the wall, and thinking that's reality? Bleak."

Bill laughed so loudly that Dipper started. "Wow, you're so dumb! Use your brain, kid: it's the second dimension. You're not the prisoner: you're the shadow on the wall." Bill's lip curled in a sneer, "An illusion in somebody else's allegory. And the only one who can see the cave's exit... is you. That's what the second dimension is like!" He laughed again. It sounded forced.

"Oh," Dipper mumbled. He tried to wrap his head around the idea of being a living metaphor for ignorance. "Sounds... pretty bad?"

"Awful," Bill agreed. "Doesn't hold a candle to what your dimension has going on, though."

"Wh... why, what's going on in the third dimension?"

Bill gave him a malicious smile, and Dipper had the sinking feeling he'd just walked into an obvious trap. "You idiot, you still think you're in the third dimension? Really?"

Was that a trick question? What answer was Bill looking for? What could this be if not the third dimension? "Nnooo?"

"Wow. I can really see why you're a straight-A's honors student," Bill said. "You're so good at figuring out what answer the test wants and regurgitating it—even if you don't actually understand it at all." He heaved himself back to his feet; and Dipper was sure there was something threatening in the movement—something that reminded Dipper that he was talking to a dangerously unstable extinction level event precariously packed into an unsteady human body. "Although copying the year of the Louisiana Purchase off of Brandon's test in fifth grade probably didn't hurt, did it."

Dipper's stomach dropped. The secret shame buried beneath the foundation of his honors roll-worthy record. Pull that out and his entire academic career came toppling down. He'd get kicked out of the honors classes. He'd go to jail. Was cheating against the law? "H... how did—?"

"What year was the Louisiana Purchase?"

Dipper's brain immediately went blank. He was silent, trapped in the paralyzing intensity of Bill's gaze. After several terrifying seconds, he croaked, "1803?" and hoped he was right.

"Attaboy. Too bad you couldn't have learned that a little sooner, isn't it?" As he spoke, Bill had closed in on Dipper until he'd backed him into the corner behind the TV set, filling Dipper's exit route with one hand on the TV and the other on the wall. "But we were talking about dimensions, weren't we! Whaddaya like to read, kid," Bill asked too casually, "do you like cosmic horror? Do you know what real 'cosmic horror' is?"

Dipper regretted this conversation completely.

"It's having an eyeball on the inside of your body, and seeing another dimension through it. And ohoho, I think you'd be amazed at the things I can see from here—"

Dipper got the distinct impression that if he didn't get out of this conversation, he would only hear things he'd be telling his therapist about for months. "Cool! Good talk, man. Hey Mabel?" (That was an absolutely humiliating voice crack.) "How's it going?"

A pause. "I think I need help!"

"Coming!" Dipper ran behind the TV to escape Bill and gratefully bolted upstairs.

The kid had caved so fast. And Bill had only just been getting started. He smirked, sat, and turned back to the movie.

A moment later, Mabel and Dipper came back downstairs, carrying four bulging plastic grocery bags. Mabel set one by her feet, opened the door, and shoved the first bag into Jimmy's arms. "Here! You can give these to the Trickster!" She shoved over the second bag.

Jimmy stumbled back under the weight. "Whoa there! What is this?"

"Candy chalk-hearts! I completely bought out the leftovers after Valentine's Day," Mabel said. "I wanted to make sure that if we met the Trickster again, I could let him know he's loved and appreciated as the terrifying avatar of spooky holiday spirit that he is! And that I also respect that he's made out of gross candy nobody likes to eat." She picked up a chalk-heart box and waved it in Jimmy's face. "So here's a gross candy that expresses love! See, the little hearts say things like 'You smell nice' and 'I heart ur face,' but they taste like if dehydration was a flavor."

Dipper handed his bags to Jimmy. "Wait—Mabel, that's why you got all these? You've been planning to help the Trickster since February? I thought you were gonna build a chalk-heart house or something."

"Oooh, that's such a good idea. I should do that next year!" To Jimmy, she said, "I was gonna give these to him personally, but if he's still dead, I guess you can add it to his candy sacrifice pile or whatever? And make sure he gets this!" She handed Jimmy a store bought Shimmery Twinkleheart Valentine's card. It read, "I BELIEVE in our friendship! Happy Valentine's Day!" Mabel had scratched out "Valentine's" and written "Summerween".

Choked up, Jimmy said, "Oh—wow. That's the nicest thing anyone's done for us all night. I'm sure the Trickster will really appreciate it when he's not dead anymore."

Dipper was a little more vengeful. Dipper didn't want to do anything for one of the many guys that had tried to kill them last year. But, on the other hand, Mabel had just gone all in on this, and Jimmy seemed nice enough, so... Dipper sighed. Whatever, it was Summerween and this was a trick-or-treater. "Hey," he picked up the candy bowl. "There's really only one bag of good candy in here. The bottom of the bowl is filled with after-dinner mints our great uncle's been stealing from restaurants for the last six months. The Trickster would probably love that, right?"

"Aww—thanks so much, you guys! We'll have the poker group back together in no time!" Jimmy dug past the good candy and started scooping mints into his bag. "Oh—since I'm here, can I ask about our other poker buddy? Do either of you know Mr. What's-His-Face? He disappeared around the time you were visiting the Crawlspace, maybe one of you saw something? Any information would be helpful." Jimmy looked at them with weird, plus-shaped, but very hopeful eyes. "Between the Trickster's death and Whatsis disappearing, the local paranormal community's been hit hard. Especially us guys in their friend group. I'm—I'm not gonna lie," Jimmy heaved a sigh, "It's been a really hard year."

Dipper and Mabel, who were directly and personally at fault for Mr. What's-His-Face's disappearance and knew he was frozen in stasis in Ford's bunker at that very moment, exchanged a look and came to a silent agreement.

"Nope, don't know anything," Mabel said.

"Sorry, buddy," Dipper said.

Like the Summerween Trickster, Mr. What's-His-Face was a weird faceless shapeshifty monster that had tried to kill them. But they felt like that was where the similarities ended.

By the time of the Trickster's death, Mabel and Dipper had realized that his deepest inner longing was to be called good enough to eat. Mr. What's-His-Face's deepest inner longing was to steal innocent people's faces. If Mabel and Dipper helped resurrect the Trickster, he'd probably go back to ensuring everyone displayed sufficient holiday spirit, while hopefully mellowing out about eating people now that he'd been consumed once. On the other hand, if Mabel and Dipper helped free Mr. What's-His-Face, he'd probably just keep stealing faces.

And on top of all that, they could help resurrect the Trickster without admitting they knew the guy who ate him. They couldn't really lead Jimmy to Mr. What's-His-Face without admitting their great uncle was keeping him captive. And that would be a problem for the whole family.

"Oh," Jimmy said. "Okay, that's fine. Thanks for all your help. You know where to reach us if you hear anything."

Mabel shook her head. Dipper nodded. "Yeah, we'll let you know."

Jimmy hopped off the porch, shouted, "Hey Doug, can you help me carry these?" and chucked a couple of bags of chalk-hearts toward the tree line. Dipper and Mabel stared. Nothing emerged to pick the bags up.

They shut the door.

"Man," Dipper said. "We kinda devastated the paranormal poker group last summer, didn't we?"

"Yeah." Mabel sucked in a breath between her teeth. "Wow. Feels... kinda bad."

Dipper offered her the candy bowl. "Drown our feelings in chocolate?"

"Please."

They grabbed a piece of candy each, tore open the wrappers—and frowned. Mabel stomped a foot. "Dang it—Bill!"

"Hm?"

"How many of these wrappers are empty?!"

Bill poked his head out of the living room and said, smugly, "Like candy from a baby!"

####

A knock, and Dipper opened the door. "Wendy! Hey! Good timing—"

"Hey." Wendy lowered her voice. "Quick question—this is super important—is Goldie here?"

"Uh—yeah, why—?"

"Yello?" Bill carefully wove his way out of the living room, already less steady on his feet than when he'd sat down. "I heard my name, who's summoning me?"

Wendy pointed over the twins at Bill and turned to shout into the dark, "Ladies and gentlemen! I present to you! Live and in person... Toga Lady!"

A half dozen teenagers immediately went bananas. Hooting and hollering and cheering and whistling: "To-ga! To-ga! To-ga!"

Bill's entire face lit up. Without missing a beat, he pushed past the baffled twins out onto the porch and spread his arms wide, basking in the cheering. "That's right, keep it coming! Worship me! I'm the greatest!"

"Yes!" Robbie pumped a fist in the air. "The legends were true!" Nate immediately added, "The prophecy! The prophecy!" Tambry snapped photos of Toga Lady's fresh look as fast as her phone could save them, muttering, "Everyone's gonna flip when they find out you're still in town."

Wendy waited, grinning, until her friends' faux hysterics had died down. "Okay—okay, after getting you hyped up, I should probably say that Toga Lady is actually Toga Guy." She glanced questioningly at Bill. "I think?"

"Eh, I'm not picky."

"Anyway this is Goldie, he was stuck in another dimension for thirty years, it's crazy, and now he's like my illegal backup cashier. He actually... doesn't usually wear togas?"

Bill laughed. "If you can't wear a bedsheet on Summerween, when can you?"

Lee said, "Thompson wore a bedsheet to homecoming."

"Hey."

Bill pointed at Thompson. "A man of impeccable fashion! I like it!" Thompson gave him a look of eternal gratitude.

"And Goldie, this is the gang! That's Thompson, he's the guy with the van; Robbie and Tambry, they're like, gender-swapped versions of each other, they even share their hair dye..."

As Wendy did introductions, Mabel whispered to Dipper, "Did you know she was gonna introduce Goldie to everyone?"

"No! This is bad, I told her not to trust him..."

Bill was responding to a question, "No, no, you've gotta guess, I'm making everyone guess!"

The teens considered the question. Robbie offered first, "Punk caveman?"

"Nope!"

Hesitantly, Thompson tried, "Nero fiddling over the burning of Rome?" He winced when Lee laughed.

"I like where your head's at, but no! I can't fiddle."

"The gremlin king from Huge Maze?" Tambry said.

Mabel piped up, "No, but the wig came from a gremlin king costume and I appreciate you for recognizing that!" Tambry nodded in cool approval.

Bill dispensed of Lee, Nate, and Wendy's guesses—Greek Christmas tree, that one guy who keeps painting burning banks, and hair metal Hades—before Robbie loudly cleared his throat to cut in. "Anyway, would love to stay and chat, but we've gotta move if we wanna be in position before sunset. Dipper, Mabel, you ready?"

"Ready to ghost it up!" Mabel said, squeezing around Bill with Dipper onto the porch.

Robbie surveyed their makeup—deathly white skin, ashen grey lips, and dark circles around their eye sockets. "Yeah, that's pretty good. Could use a little color, maybe. Like bloody tears?" He turned toward Tambry.

She said, "I think I've got some red eyeliner."

"'In position'?" Bill asked, giving Dipper and Mabel a questioning look.

Wendy said, "We're helping Robbie film this music video tonight."

"We're the creepy ghost twins!" Mabel announced proudly. "We get to sing the chorus."

Robbie said, "Yeah, the song's about childhood and growing up, but like, with ghosts? Because once you've grown up, your childhood is all dead? It's metal, but introspective. I'm calling the genre 'intrometal.'" He flipped his bangs dramatically. "It's a super deep song. Metaphorical layers."

"Oh yeah?" Bill stared Robbie down. "Sing some of it."

Robbie blinked. "Oh. Yeah, okay uh, I haven't warmed up my voice but, the hook is like—" He pantomimed playing a guitar and whisper-screamed, "'BABY DOLLS! BASKET BALLS! BASKET CASE! HUMAN RACE!' Like that."

Bill nodded slowly, face expressionless. "Ah, yeah, I see. Really deep stuff. Makes you think."

"Thanks." Robbie looked at Dipper and Mabel. "Anyway, if we're gonna get any footage in the graveyard before the jack-o'-melons start burning out, we've gotta move. Let's go, Creepy Ghost Twins."

"Wait, you're going out?" Bill asked Mabel. "Like out-out? Leaving me here? By myself? On Summerween?"

"Wh—yeah, we're only handing out candy for half the night," Mabel said. "I told you that."

"No you didn't!"

"Yes I did!"

"When?"

Mabel thought. "No I didn't," she admitted. "Sorry!"

Wendy punched Bill's arm. "Sorry to steal them. We'll be back in a couple of hours," she said. "Or you could come help—?"

"No!" Dipper and Mabel both shoved Bill back into the house before he could accept. Dipper said, "You've gotta—guard the house." Mabel added, "And hand out candy!"

"Right," Bill said flatly. "Yes. That. Ha."

"See you later!" Mabel said, and then shut the door in his face.

The last thing he heard was Wendy explaining to her friends, "He's on house arrest for, like, academic plagiarism and war crimes or something..." and then they were gone.

Bill's shoulders slumped. Well, now what? He couldn't celebrate a holiday by himself. What was the point of wearing a costume if no one sees you in it. He picked up a piece of candy, discovered it was one of his decoys, and picked up another.

Someone knocked on the door.

"Yeah, yeah," Bill sighed. He picked up the candy bowl, turned toward the door, and paused. Ah. Right. What was he supposed to do with this impenetrable portal-blocking slab of wood.

Who was left in the house? Stan on the roof, Ford in the basement, Abuelita probably already in bed... were any of them worth harassing to help him answer the door? Maybe Stan, he'd gotten all dressed up, he liked the holiday even if he didn't like Bill—

The trick-or-treater knocked more insistently.

Or. Or.

He could pick up the bowl, peer out the small window in the door, and make direct eye contact with the children outside while he ate candy.

As a piece of mid-tier chocolate melted on his tongue, he saw three trick-or-treaters' faces fall as their faith in a kind, caring universe died. He grinned at them and ate another chocolate.

Oh yeah. He grabbed the rest of his cider from the living room and set up post next to the door. This would keep him entertained the rest of the night.

####

He made seven small children cry.

####

Stan watched from his post on the roof as yet another sobbing kid ran away from the shack. "HA! Gottem! Sucker!" He affectionately patted his boombox. "Creepy ghoulish laughter, you never disappoint! Terrifying moochers since 1989!" He paused the cassette and rewound it a few seconds to replay the best part.

He heard a scraping sound above him, and looked up just in time to see Ford sliding down the roof to join him. "Oh, hey! I didn't think we'd see you again tonight."

"Mabel made me promise to celebrate Summerween a little."

"Good for her!"

Stan had already claimed the sun lounger, so Ford brushed some dust and leaves off the roof's cooler and sat. "So, what are we doing? Scaring trick-or-treaters?"

"Yep. This year I'm taking a more atmospheric approach." He gestured at his boombox, which by now was playing haunting organ music. "Nothing like screaming zombies and rattling chains from nowhere to freak out the kids."

Ford nodded. "Psychological torment. I approve."

"Not quite as good as getting to see the terror in their eyes, but." Stan shrugged. "Bill was hanging out with the kids. I didn't want to put up with him."

"Mm. There's a reason I was spending the holiday in the basement."

"Heh. Well, there's always Halloween."

They were silent for a moment, listening as the cassette moved on from organ music to werewolf howls. Stan asked, "Think we'll be rid of him by then? I know we were hoping to be done with him before the Fourth of July—but since I haven't heard anything lately, I figure you hit a roadblock."

Ford winced. "Guilty as charged." He was still relearning how to keep other people in the loop. Even Stan. "You're right. I have a weapon that can destroy him, but I can't find a fuel source without restarting the portal. I'm hoping Fiddleford will come up with a solution I haven't."

Stan nodded. Ford had told him he was getting Fiddleford involved; even as reluctant as Ford was to admit how little progress he'd made, he wasn't going to tell someone outside the family about Bill without letting Stan know. "Any breakthroughs on his end?"

####

During the credits between episodes of the retired samurai period drama (most recently, the samurai had been asked to use his sword to help cut flowers for a bouquet), Fiddleford leaned over and whispered to Ford, "So I've been a-lookin' at those blueprints you left me."

"And...?"

"And I've constructicated a power adaptor. Just jimmy out the fuel tank, swap it for the adaptor's cord, and you can power that weapon by pluggin' it into the wall! It'll just drain all the power from the town for a few seconds, that's all."

"Fiddleford, that's amazing—"

"Now, hold on. There's bad news," Fiddleford said. "Try as I might, I can't quite get it to draw enough power to activate those energy-destroying features what you'd need to disintegrate Bill. It'll work like a powerful laser, but nothin' else."

Ford sighed. "It's a starting point, I suppose."

"I'll send you home with the adaptor anyway. Never know when you'll need a big laser."

"Very true. Do you have any promising leads on other alternative fuels?"

Fiddleford shook his head. "It's the NowUSeeitNowUDontium or nothing. But I've got a hunch we could synthesize it under lab conditions. I'll letcha know in a few days."

And then the next episode started, and they dropped the conversation.

####

Ford let out a heavy sigh. "He's only had a partial success so far. But I'm hopeful he's on the right track."

"So, if he's working on this weapon, what are you doing?"

"Waiting, mostly. I don't know what else I can do."

Stan frowned. "What—that's it? You've been downstairs all day every day—if you're not figuring out how to destroy him, what are you doing?"

"Passing time somewhere I can be on call if he gets up to something—but I don't have to look at him," Ford said wryly. "And—as long as I'm waiting to hear back from Fiddleford, I've been... picking apart that list of spells Bill gave me. To see if any of them are tricks or traps."

Stan couldn't say he was surprised. That was his workaholic brother. A pamphlet of demon magic was like catnip to him. If anything, Stan was almost glad Ford had that letter to distract him. Over the past year...

Well, Ford was fine on land—when he temporarily had a mystery to solve, an adventure to pursue, an anomaly to study, a distraction to fill his time—but at sea, when his mind was unoccupied, he was listless. He had books he didn't read, field notes he didn't enter into his journal, games he didn't play. He fed himself and exercised and did chores around the ship like a robot programmed to take care of itself, and he stared out at the sea.

Last summer, Ford hadn't seemed happy but he'd seemed alive. Tired and angry, but alive. But after Weirdmageddon, a light in his eyes went out. Stan didn't know if it was the end of summer, or guilt over the memory gun, or the gap between finishing a thirty-year-long quest and discovering the next one. All Stan knew was the light hadn't come back on until the moment Bill Cipher, clad in a new body and a purple cartoon bedsheet, tried to cave Ford's skull in.

Ever since they were children, Ford had had a tendency to develop obsessions. It was somehow simultaneously both what made him most interesting and what made him boring. Depended on the obsession. But these all-consuming interests had always tended to last a few months, at most a year; and he'd never seemed to be without one, much less for nine months. Stan had no idea what carrying a single obsession for three decades might have done to Ford's mind.

Stan was glad something had woken Ford back up, and he worried that losing that focal point again might leave Ford permanently adrift. But another part of him worried that, this time, Ford wouldn't let the object of his obsession go. He tended to collect things related to his obsessions.

But then, he usually tended to like his obsessions. He hadn't seemed bothered to burn the contents of his creepy Bill shrine last summer. Ford wouldn't do anything stupid, Stan told himself. Ford hated Bill. "So? Were any of the spells traps?"

"Not... so far, no." Ford sounded irritated by this.

Stan shrugged. "Makes sense. He's trying to butter us up. If that idiot thinks being nice to us for a week or two is gonna make up for the years of grief he's given us—"

A loud rattle-clattering below made them both start. Stan sat bolt upright. "What the—?"

Ford inched to the edge of the dormer roof, knelt down, and leaned over the edge just far enough to see the window.

Bill's face was pressed to the glass, eye rolled up toward the roofline. He grinned in surprised delight and shouted through the glass, "HEY, STANFORD! What are you doing up here?! I thought you were downstairs!"

"Ugh." Ford turned to grimace at Stan. "Speak of the devil."

Bill pounded on the glass again. "Hey, Sixer! SIXER! Open the window!"

"Why?"

"I wanna talk!"

"No."

"Come ooon, the kids ditched me and I'm bored! There's no one in the house to talk to! The old lady's asleep and Stanley's on the roof, so—" He abruptly fell silent, squinting with deep suspicion at Ford-who-should-be-in-the-basement kneeling on the-roof-where-Stan-should-be, and said, "Wait. Are you Stanley right now? Show me your hand."

Ford did not. "Go away, Bill." He left the edge of the roof for his cooler seat.

"Get back here!" The pounding redoubled. "I don't care which Stan you are! If you don't wanna talk, I can always go wake up Dolores!"

Ford looked at Stan. "Mrs. Ramirez's name is Dolores?" He had gotten used to everyone calling her Abuelita.

Stan stomped on the roof, "Shaddup!"

Bill did not shaddup. "Come ooon!"

Stan sighed in defeat and heaved himself to his feet. "If he keeps that racket up he's gonna break that window, never mind that hex you put on him." When they'd taken out the original Bill-shaped window, Stan had replaced it with the cheapest window he could find. He didn't think it was very durable. "How much trouble can he get in with one open window twenty feet above the ground and both of us watching him?"

Ford Frowned.

"Don't gimme that look. Do you want to pay for a broken window?" Stan flipped through his keys for his key-shaped emergency lock pick, leaned over the edge of the roof, and wedged the pick into the window frame. The latch popped open. Lucky this window was so cheap, that wouldn't have worked on one with deluxe features like "airtight weatherstripping" or "a properly-fitting frame." Stan swung open the window. "Okay, you have our attention. Now what's the fastest way we can get rid of you?"

Bill clumsily climbed out to sit on the windowsill with his legs in the shack, and leaned back so he could see up onto the roof. "Hiya Fo—" He lost his balance, flailed, and yelped as he toppled backwards.

Stan and Ford lunged forward to seize an arm each. Stan snapped, "What are you doing, you maniac?!"

Bill stared up at them both in wide-eyed amazement. "You do like me."

Stan made a noise of disgust, let go, and wiped his hands on his pants like Bill had cooties.

Ford said, "We like you trapped in that body and not free to cause the apocalypse."

"I heard 'we like you'!"

"Shut up." Ford managed to haul Bill back upright. (Touching Bill felt wrong—all soft flesh and skin and the suggestion of bones underneath. Even when looking right at Bill's human body, Ford still expected him to feel like heavy shadows and heatless flames.) From this close, Bill reeked of cider. "Just how much have you had to drink?"

"Not so much I won't remember whatever you say in the morning, so be nice to me!" Bill laughed. He leaned back, this time hanging by one hand off the window frame to precariously maintain his balance, and grinned up at Ford. "So! The least fun person in the house has finally emerged from his lair? And you didn't even come into the house to join in the Summerween festivities! 'All work and no play'..."

Ford had to crouch at the edge of the roof, hovering nearby in case Bill lost his balance again. "I wanted to participate in Summerween, actually. It just so happens that the last person I'd ever spend a holiday with is in the house."

"Listen, Stanford. I know you're holing up in your study for days on end just to hurt me. But let's be honest, you're hurting yourself more! When's the last time you saw the sunlight! Look at how pale you're getting, you look like a vampire."

Stiffly, Ford said, "It's costume makeup. That's my vampire costume." Stan laughed.

"It what." Bill flipped up his eyepatch and squinted blearily at Ford's face.

Wordlessly, Ford bared his teeth to show off his plastic vampire teeth.

"Oh." Somewhat deflated, Bill said, "Nice work, it's convincing."

"Thanks," Ford said grudgingly. Giving in to his curiosity, he gestured toward Bill's (somewhat disheveled) reddish-yellow wig. "What are you."

"Oh!" Bill perked back up. "You've got to see the whole thing. Hold on—" He turned around in the window, ignoring how Ford half reached for him in case he needed steadying, until he got his legs outside to dangle on the roof. "What do you think!"

Ford looked over the brown toga flared out like a cone, the eruption of red hair, the small paper city below, and said, "Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii? Very clever."

Bill's face lit up. "Finally! You're the first person all day to get it!" He smoothed out the skirt proudly, his jerky gestures just a bit more exaggerated than usual. "Do you know how long I've wanted to go to a costume party as Vesuvius? But nobody off Earth would get it! And now that I'm finally here, I can't go to parties and I'm shaped more like a mandrake than a volcano." He flung up his hands, wobbled, and caught himself before Ford had to intervene. "But at least you got it. I knew I could count on you, IQ."

He sounded so sincerely grateful. Ford regretted calling the costume clever. It was, but Bill didn't need the ego boost.

"Oh! By the by—I didn't think you'd emerge before the day was over, so I saved this." Bill fished around in his toga until he retrieved a mini pack of jelly beans. "Here!"

Ford eyed the pack. "Why is it open?"

"Because you only like the weird-shaped jelly beans, so I ate all the normal beans and saved the weird ones in one bag."

"I don't want this. You touched every one of the beans, that would be disgusting even if they weren't coming from you," Ford said. "Anyway, this is a patently transparent attempt to buy your way into my good favor—"

"It sure is, Ford, and if you don't accept it I'll get to be annoying about your ingratitude for weeks! Is that what you want? You know I'll do it. Everyone will be on my side—"

Ford sighed, but snatched the bag from Bill's hand. "Fine. Now drop it."

"That's more like it!" Bill favored Ford with an approving smile. "Anyway, it's just about the only candy left in the house, I ate everything else—hey, have you ever been cross faded on cider and a sugar rush?"

Ford was still trying to decide whether he wanted to engage in this one-sided conversation enough to ask Bill what "cross faded" meant when Bill moved on without him: "It's—not that interesting, actually. 6 out of 10. Anyway, all that's left in the bowl is mints and wrappers. And Mabel even managed to give most of the mints away—hey, she's so nice, did you know she's helping to resurrect the Summerween Trickster?"

She was doing what? "No. Why?"

"She's so nice."

"You just said that."

"What is she so nice for. What's she getting out of it," Bill asked, more to the universe at large than to Ford. "If more humans were half as nice to freaks as she is, your rotten planet wouldn't need people like you and me to save it."

Ford didn't even know where to begin with that. He looked to Stan for help.

Stan was sitting straddling his lounger, elbow on one knee and chin in his hand, watching this exchange like he was watching a weird bug on the wall try to navigate around a picture frame. At Ford's glance, he rolled his eyes and pantomimed sipping from a drink.

He could say that again. Ford cleared his throat. "Bill, maybe you should..."

"Hey," Bill said. "Great talk, we really should catch up more sometime. And pull your weight next time, I always have to do all the talking. But right now, I'm..." He gestured vaguely off to the side. "I'm gonna lie down and try not to throw up. Ciao!" He swayed as he tried to get back in the window, tumbled backward into the shack, and thudded heavily on the floor. "Ow."

Ford gingerly shut the window.

Stan turned up the boombox. "Chatty drunk, isn't he."

"He's chatty sober, too." But in front of the kids? Neither of them saw Bill as a role model, but they still didn't need to be exposed to that kind of behavior. Especially when the responsible adults were outside or asleep... "Did we really leave Bill alone in the house with the kids?"

"W—I—" Stan shrugged defensively. "They were all right! They can take him! They're doing karate or whatever! You didn't see how Mabel flipped him at the mall! It was like David wrestling Goliath."

"David and Goliath didn't wrestle."

"You know what I mean."

Ford supposed he didn't think Bill was any threat to the children. At least, not right now, and not physically. He felt like he'd know if Bill was about to try anything.

He looked at his open bag of gross felt-up jelly beans. Speaking of trying to butter them up... Ford wound up and chucked the bag as hard as he could.

He stared into the dark after it.

A small part of him was beginning to wonder whether this wasn't all just an attempt to get Ford's guard down. The gifts, sure, that was as clear-cut a case of bribery as you could get. Nothing ambiguous there.

But the endless chatter... Back when Ford had called Bill his Muse, this was exactly how he'd wanted Bill to talk to him. Not in the flighty half-distracted way of a friendly businessman catching up on a work project's progress before hurrying on to the next meeting; but just talking for talking's sake, talking for the company.

Getting what he once had longed for made his skin crawl. And he couldn't even tell if Bill was acting.

The boombox let out a ghastly banshee shriek. Ford and Stan both jumped, then laughed awkwardly.

Ford sat on the cooler again. "Is it just me, or... did Bill completely ignore you as soon as he realized I was up here."

"Well. I wasn't gonna mention it. I didn't wanna sound jealous of the attention. But yeah—he's been doing that since he got here. If you're in the room, he tunes everyone else out."

"I thought it was in my head." And he hadn't wanted to sound like he wanted to imagine Bill was favoring him.

"And you do the same thing around him," Stan said, and laughed at Ford's flinch of alarm. "It's—it's fine, I get it. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, right? You've got some kind of superhero-supervillain nemesis thing."

Ford got the distinct impression that Stan was offering him a convenient excuse for the tunnel vision. He took it. "I suppose that's true." The way his jaw clenched and his shoulders tensed around Bill certainly felt like a "nemesis" reaction.

But if Stan thought Ford was a bit too preoccupied by Bill... well, maybe he was right. Once Ford had gotten over his initial wave of fear, of despair, of outrage at the injustice, at finding Bill was still alive—there was a part of him that was almost relieved. A part of him that had been on guard against nothing for the past year, twisting around looking for an absent threat. Now that it knew where the threat was, that part of him could finally settle down and watch Bill with steady, certain eyes. Having nothing to worry about made him more anxious than having one thing to always worry about.

(Maybe Shermie's kid had been on to something when he suggested Ford might benefit from therapy.)

Knowing Bill was back didn't put the old starlight and awe back in that hole Bill had left in Ford's chest. But dread could fill a hole all the same.

Ford tried to push Bill out of his mind and the conversation. "You think I'm like a superhero?"

"You run around fighting monsters with a space laser. What else would you be?"

"Huh." Well. That made his night.

"Just as long as you don't pull that 'hero spares the villain to show how good he is' shtick."

"Never." Ford laughed ruefully. "I think I left 'good' behind a few felonies back." He'd probably left "good" behind the night he accepted the portal blueprints.

"Couple stragglers," Stan said, nodding out into the dark. It took Ford a moment to spot the costumed kids and remember it was Summerween. "I recognize those costumes, I scared them off an hour ago. What are they doing back?"

Ford squinted at them. "Are those toilet paper rolls?"

"Wh—Hey! What are you little runts— Hey!" Stan leaped to his feet, shaking his fist at the kids below. "Get away from my car! Stop that! I'll have you know that's a classic— No, not the eggs!"

Ford slid out his freeze ray, turned down the power, and offered it to Stan. "Here. At this power and distance, it'll feel like getting pelted with invisible snowballs."

Stan snatched up the weapon. "Eat this, twerps!"

The Summerween night air was filled with the screams of terrified children and the evil laughter of an old man.

####

Wow. It sure sounded like everybody was having fun. Outside. Without him.

Bill was nauseous.

He stared at the spinning ceiling, flat on his back, one leg on a cushion and the rest of him on the floor.

Bill was nauseous and alone. The loneliness tore at his throat. Even Mabel had ditched him. Of course she did—he'd tried to kill her. He'd barely even remembered he'd tried to kill her until she brought it up. Had he tried to kill her? No, surely not—he liked the kid, he'd always liked her—he'd been faking to force Ford's hand, he never would have gone through with it. He would've teleported her into another room and pretended he'd disintegrated her. She didn't know he hadn't meant it. She was just mad he'd scared her. She couldn't take a joke.

But, Ford talked to him. Ford even liked his costume. It wasn't much, but it would get Bill through the night.

When he saw Kryptos again—when, not if—he was slicing him into a jigsaw puzzle for not taking Bill's call. The nerve of that guy, hanging up on a human without even waiting a few words to see if they had anything interesting to say.

(What if it hadn't been an accident, he wondered? What if Kryptos had realized it was Bill and still hung up?)

(No. Of course it was an accident.)

He shut his eyes. He was probably too drunk to dream tonight. Well, he could try again tomorrow. His little lucid dreaming guide was currently teaching him to influence the next night's dream by focusing on a topic before sleep. Maybe tomorrow he could dream about the Nightmare Realm.

He missed home.

####

(Congratulations to the approximately 50% of respondents who correctly figured out Bill's costume when I posted the art on Halloween, you're officially smarter than everybody in Gravity Falls except Ford. This is one of those chapters with a whole lot going on so if you enjoyed, I'd love to hear your comments!!)

#(tbh that's the best Mabel & Dipper I've ever drawn)#bill cipher #human bill cipher #mabel pines #dipper pines #(for both the art & fic)#grunkle ford #grunkle stan #(for just the fic)#gravity falls #gravity falls fanart #gravity falls fic #my writing #my art #fanart #bill goldilocks cipher

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