#maybe i should be a mortician

[lesbiansanemi]

Why does every single career involving writing hinge on NETWORKING AND BASICALLY BEING AN INFLUENCER AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH

[mysterious-corpse]

I want to be a surgeon. I think I’d be good at it and I have the stomach for it, and it’d be fun like a puzzle. I keep telling people I want to be a mortician though, because I have chronic migraines and also a very hard time keeping a schedule. I’d rather mess up on a dead person than a live one. But I want to be a surgeon and maybe I can do that

[nakeurnez]

[cowboycereal]

at any given moment an individual has so many different futures

[heartfullofleeches]

[Submissive Yan, Pet Play, Biting, Reader is mentioned to be shorter than Sam]

Puppy Reader employed at a local convenience store- A convenience store a street across from the funeral owned by the family of a certain mortician they've become well acquainted with in recent years. Needless to say, reader's job is far more relaxed with its dress code than the standards someone in Sammy's position should be held to.

"My ears and tail? My managers never say anything about it so I guess it's chill. I dunno what I'd do if I was in your shoes, Sam...Not that the way you dress is bad or anything!"

Darling can sense jealousy emanating off of Sammy whenever he visits for his nightly run. It's moreso directed at customers Darling allows to pet them, but Sam would be lying if he didn't think the collar they wore might fit better around his neck. Darling comes to the brilliant solution to buy Sammy his own accessories he can wear whenever he stops by their place. He's too embarrassed to do it in public, but he's comfortable enough around them- isn't he?

"This way we can both we dogs- What do you think, Sam?"

It's a sweet gesture- Sammy can see how happy Darling is to have someone share their interest, and if they're happy - Sam is too.

"You're such a good boy, Sammy- I have this leash I used sometimes to walk myself around my apartment. Maybe we can take turns with it!"

Sammy's more into it than they are- Dropping down on his hands and knees soon as they pull out their leash. They're kind enough to let Sam use their collar until they're able to purchase one for him. It was custom made for Darling so it bites into Sammy's skin whenever he puts it on, and that's just how he likes it.

Darling's never really been intimidated by Sam's height over them, but they use it to their advantage to assert their dominance over him. Playfully nipping at his fingers or neck when he bends down far enough- Climbing on top of him while he's seated and resting all their weight on him to keep him glued where he lays. It's all in good fun and they made sure Sam knew that before they started playing with him

"You give up, Sam?... S-sammy?! Did I bite you too hard?"

On the contrary.. Sammy wishes Darling was rougher with staking their claim over him. Sinking their teeth deeper into the side of his neck, till bruises ring every each of his throat for days. Being the submissive to a cute puppy like darling would fix Sam more than their innocent teasing breaks him

[strangebiology]

John Oliver just did an episode on body donation, which was very well-reported as usual.

It cites some older news including this amazing series on body brokers by Reuters. Some thoughts on anonymity being an issue:

It is shocking that there is no regulation on what it means to donate your body to "science," although, I'm not sure exactly who can say what that definition is or should be. Also, plenty of people would be happy to have their bodies used in a museum, but you CAN'T, because body donations are shuffled around and anonymized. We wouldn't have any issue with consent if we let people who WANT to be on display be on display.

When I read The Red Market, an amazing book about the trade in human body parts, it really highlighted the issues with mandated anonymity. WHY does a deceased heart, kidney, or blood donor need to be anonymous? That policy has led to horrific abuse of donors all over the world (egregious examples are given in China and India), living and dead, and the recipients have no idea because of that mandate. Mandated anonymity is a shield against regulation, public understanding, and accountability.

I wonder if people believe in anonymizing things because they think that makes the death not real. I've noticed people selling all sorts of human and animal remains with no description as to where they came from, and no one asks, and no one complains. I understand; sometimes some information is lost to time, or a business owner maybe can't take the time to verify the exact origins of things. Fine.

But take for example all these human fetuses for sale on Facebook. I'm not here to argue about that, although it's odd, and I understand both sides of the controversy regarding selling them. When I saw those posts, no one bats an eye.

Then when someone offered to sell her own aborted fetus (context: this person went in for an abortion but was told the fetus was dead anyway) people freaked out. In the same group where they're buying the fetuses of strangers. So...it's only ok to sell body parts when the person whose body it came from did not consent? That's our standard?

The same goes for animal body parts. "Hey, buy these dead rats!" Fine and dandy. "Buy these dead rats! Here is some context about their lives and/or deaths--" Disgusting! How dare you! Those were living things!

Death is disgusting and horrifying and I'm NOT saying that everyone has to think about it all the time or look at dead bodies or even understand it. What I am saying is that when we complain about transparency and enact policies that make it impossible to actually understand who these body parts are coming from, or to track them, that breeds an industry where abuse of consent is hard to avoid.

Lastly, the end of the Last Week Tonight show showed what happens when you let donors be known. It's beautiful.

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

every now and again i binge a bunch of old ask a mortician episodes and update my last will and testament/advanced directive thingy i keep in my google docs in case like, a car hits me or whatever

any thoughts on how the inks ought to be distributed? estate sale, maybe? instagram-like giveaway? guess the right amount of inks in the box and win the lot of them??

it should be something fun but nothing too elaborate to make my friends and family carry out, yknow?

[ckret2]

On chapter 30 of The Writer Uses Misleading Graphics To Trick You Into Looking At This Fic About Human Bill Being The Shack's Prisoner: Summerween part 2! Bill wheedles Mabel into helping him make a costume. Mabel wheedles Bill into spilling some of his preciously-guarded secret backstory. Ford is kind of in awe.

Also there's like 4.5 drawings in this chapter. They're all very silly drawings.

####

Bill wouldn't tell Mabel what his costume was—"I want to see who can guess it"—but all it needed was a brown bedsheet, a long red wig, cardboard (to be drawn upon), and flip-flop sandals.

The bedsheet was the easiest to acquire. Dipper's barely-worn brown sandals were just slightly too big for Bill but Mabel helped tie them on with yarn. the shack's cardboard supplies were still depleted from making Bill's triangle mask, but they could make do with paper and popsicle sticks. Mabel didn't have a red wig but she did have a blonde wig and red markers. Since Bill was, by his own reporting, terrible at drawing, Mabel offered to do the fancy artwork if Bill did the tedious task of recoloring the wig. He claimed he'd feel like a mortician putting makeup on a car wreck victim, but nevertheless accepted the deal, and they settled in around the living room table to get to work.

"So just a bunch of houses, right?" Mabel asked, starting on the first drawing.

"Ancient Greek-looking houses," Bill said. "So, marble and columns. Don't think too hard about the details—this is a 21st century American costume holiday, not a historical reenactment. You can slap columns on anything and call it 'Greek' and every human in town will buy it."

"Do ancient Greek houses have chimneys?"

"No," Bill said. "But adding one would be funny."

Mabel considered that, weighed up the value of historical accuracy against entertainment value, and decided giving one house a chimney would be funny. She gave the whole house a thick black outline in marker, and pulled out crayons in black, white, and whale blue to quickly add some light shading to the marble. 

Mabel didn't think she'd ever seen Bill focus so hard or so quietly on anything the way he did on coloring that old wig red. He was giving it more attention than he did his own hair: while his golden locks were a tangled, uncombed, soggy mass shoved dismissively over his shoulders, he was dying the cheap wig (and his fingertips) strand by plastic strand with the bright-eyed morbid fascination of a third grader studying a pack of ants as they disassembled a bird's corpse.

This was the longest she'd been around Bill without conversation—usually, you couldn't even walk into a room without him immediately chattering at you like the motion-activated animatronics at the Summerween store. It was hard to think around him. Bill didn't give you room to think.

What did Mabel think about Bill?

He was right, she was still mad about the mall. No—mad wasn't the right word—mad was his word—she was scared. She'd never really stopped being scared of him, if she was honest with herself. But everything he'd done that day, from tricking her into trapping herself to reminding her of almost dying, had just reinforced why she should fear him.

But. She thought he felt bad about it. And she didn't think she'd ever seen him feel bad about anything before.

Maybe that meant her experiment was working. Maybe he was changing. Yeah, he was still scary—but he was Bill Cipher, he had a lot of scariness to work through. He was moving in the right direction, and she wanted to encourage that.

He hadn't apologized for the mall; but, since he'd tried to make up for it at the time, and that was a sort of apologetic action, Mabel decided she could tentatively forgive him for that day—provided he continued to improve. Put him on forgiveness probation. And that meant they were on friendly speaking terms again.

Which was good, because the quiet was starting to get uncomfortable. She surveyed her art for something they could talk about.

After a couple of as-historically-accurate-as-she-could-imagine houses, Mabel had started varying up the designs by redesigning houses she could remember off the top of her head with columns and white marble. She'd made a stately marble Mystery Shack, and a columned-covered doppelgänger of the house with the terraced yard across the street at home, and then she'd decided to make a Greek-ish version of her own home. "Hey Bill. Have you ever seen my house?"

"In person? No. But it came up from time to time in you kids' dreams, so whether I've seen it depends on how accurate you think your dreams are," he said. "It has less plants and more windows in your brother's dreams than in yours."

Mildly disturbing answer, but not disturbing in the direction she'd expected. "What! You mean you haven't haunted our neighborhood or anything? I don't believe it."

"Do you think I spend all my time stalking random humans? Don't flatter yourself."

"Well, seeing it in dreams isn't good enough!" Mabel pulled over a blank paper. It was hours until trick-or-treaters showed up, they had a little time to waste. "I'll draw it!"

"Wow, really?" Bill looked up from his wig. "You're not worried about letting the big bad triangle see your house?"

"Come on! You already know where I live, right?"

Bill immediately rattled off, "1337 Fairview Drive, Piedmont, California, on the northeast side of the street where it's less hilly."

"Exactly—you creep. So who cares if you know what it looks like, too?"

A square, sky blue house with two stories and a triangular roof; a big living room window on the left, a covered door on the right, three windows on the second floor, and a chimney. Mabel had drawn her home plenty of times—but doing it for a friend (?) was different from doing it for a teacher or a librarian, and she put extra effort into the rose bushes under the living room window. She added her and Dipper's smiling faces in the upstairs windows and Waddles's face downstairs in the living room.

"Waddles sleeps in the kitchen, but he basically owns half the yard to wallow in. This is my room, and here's Dipper's—I get three windows, but Dipper has the biggest window and a bigger room, so it's fair, no matter what he says—"

"Oh, you two have separate rooms now?" Bill was leaning halfway around the table and craning his neck to see the image right side up.

"Uh, yeah? Since we were ten?"

Loftily, Bill said, "I don't know how you'd expect me to know that. You both still dream about sharing a room."

Mabel paused and tried to remember how often she dreamed about Dipper in his new room. Sometimes she woke and was still disoriented to find her bed in the middle of the room instead of against one wall with Dipper's on the other side. "Huh."

She added a few more details—the front steps, the gate, the shingles. (Bill watched nervously as she pulled out the gray crayon to color the driveway—but she didn't notice how it had been tampered with.) She talked about her home, and in turn Bill told her weird things, like that Dipper often dreamed of monsters coming out of the fridge. When she finished, she autographed her name with a star on the "i" in Pines, offered it over grandly, and said, "Here, you can keep this!"

Bill accepted it without the customary effusive gratitude with which one ought to accept a generously-gifted original artwork from a 13-year-old prodigy. "What am I gonna do with it?"

"That's your problem!"

"Fair enough!" He checked his leggings for pockets and, when he didn't find any, set the page on the table by his elbow. 

Offering accepted. As Bill resumed coloring his wig, Mabel picked up another piece of paper and got to work on the next columned house. "What does your house look like?"

Bill stopped dead, looked straight at her, and said, "My what?"

What was weird about the question? "Your house! Or whatever you lived in before you came here. You came from somewhere before you tried to invade Earth, right? You didn't just pop out of somebody's dream."

Bill laughed. "Yeah I did!"

"Bill."

"4500 years ago the construction workers of Egypt had a shared nightmare about the immense tombs they'd spent the last century building—"

"Biiiill."

"—and when they awoke they found the combined psychic energy of their terror had spawned a sleep paralysis demon more powerful than Ra! So then I ate their souls—"

"Seriously, Bill."

"I'm being so serious right now."

Mabel rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine! I get it. You're embarrassed." She shook her head and returned to coloring.

She felt the combined spiritual energy of hundreds of imaginary Egyptian construction workers beating down on her face from Bill's eye. Like a laser. "'Embarrassed'?"

"Because you don't have a house," Mabel said. "I think it's okay, you don't need to be embarrassed! I don't think you're a loser or anything. It's just kind of sad—"

Bill snatched up a blank piece of paper. "You want a house? Fine! I'll show you a house." He grabbed up an orange crayon, muttering, "It'll put your stupid overpriced shed in California to shame— Where's the ruler—?" Mabel tried not to grin.

For several minutes, he was perfectly silent. Mabel glanced over to see him coloring with three crayons at once, only for him to shove a hand in her face and snap, "No peeking."

Mabel got through two more drawings before Bill slapped down his paper over Mabel's. "There! How about that?!"

She looked at the drawing, which Bill had helpfully labeled "Party Central!" in red crayon. A great stone pyramid so dark brown it was nearly black, with bricks outlined in brilliant gold and molten orange and fiery red, and a sharp multicolored X hovering above it—

Mabel gave Bill a flat look. "This isn't your house, this is your Torture Temple."

"The what? Hey, is that really what people are calling it?! It's not the Torture Temple, it's the Fearamid!"

Despite herself, Mabel burst out laughing. "You named it the 'Fearamid'?!"

"It's a pyramid and humans fear it! It's genius. Portmanteaus make great names."

"What's a portmanteau."

"It's a word made from the unholy Frankensteinian fusion of two other words. Like getting 'electrocute' from 'electricity' and 'execute'!"

"Or 'romcom'?"

"Yeah, or that."

Mabel considered the drawing. "If you want to scare less people, you could call this your Bill-ding."

"HA! Oh, I'm saving that."

"Anyway, this isn't where you live," Mabel said. "You were there for like a week tops!"

"Yeah, before your great-uncle killed me. I'd still be living there if it weren't for you jerks." He stuck out his tongue.

"Come on, Bill. I showed you my house. Draw where you grew up or something!"

"What's wrong with the Fearamid?"

Mabel crossed her arms. "Why don't you want me to see your real house?" She raised her eyebrows at him.

Bill opened his mouth to protest, but then stopped, a thoughtful look on his face. "Eh, you know what? Why not. If you're gonna be so ridiculous about such a silly thing." He pulled over another piece of paper. "But if I don't have enough time to finish coloring this wig, you have to help me."

"Fiiine." She returned to her own drawings as Bill got back to work.

After a long silence—longer than he'd taken to draw and color the Fearamid—he said, "Okay, done. Here." And he pushed over the paper with one dismissive finger.

She eagerly accepted the drawing—and frowned. There was nothing on the page except for a straight flat black line, interrupted by three line segments of bright blue and a cluster of red and green dashes. "What is this?"

"Where I grew up," Bill said, innocently, already back to coloring the wig. Mabel could see his mischievous smirk. "As seen from the front. Just like your drawing of your house. So we're even now."

Mabel's brows furrowed as she stared at the page in confusion. "What...?"

"You do know I'm from the second dimension, right? A universe that's flat like a piece of paper. I figured Sixer would've told you all about it by now." Bill picked up the drawing and held it between his and Mabel's faces, so that, viewed from the edge, all Mabel could see of the paper was a thin flat line. "What do you think the second dimension looks like to somebody in the second dimension?"

Mabel took the paper back, looked at the underwhelming flat line representing the front of Bill's house, and said, "I hate you." 

"We had the prettiest roses in the park," Bill said, pointing at the red dashes. "Crayon really doesn't do them justice."

"Shut uppp."

Bill laughed at her; but then, to her surprise, he said, "Okay, all right, I guess a big fancy 3D creature like you can't understand the nuances of two-dimensional sight. So, here." He flipped over the page. "Top down view."

The back of the page had what looked like a floorplan. A narrow room on the left, a large L-shaped room, a tiny room nestled into the L's top right corner, and a medium room on the right. Little shapes filled the rooms��furniture of some kind?—but she didn't see anything immediately recognizable like a top-down bed or table and chairs. Green and red spirals dangled off the bottom of the floorplan.

"I'm no Edward Bishop Bishop, but it gets the idea across," Bill said.

She studied all the strange little figures in fascination, looking for anything familiar. She pointed at a few shallow bowls filled with blue sticking out of the wall between the L-shaped room and the tiny room. "Are these sinks?"

"Hey, you're pretty sharp. Sinks and the tub." 

"So the little room's the bathroom."

"Right again." Bill pointed out the rooms on the floor plan. "Master bed's on the right, kitchen and living room in the middle—and you found the bathroom—and second bed's on the left. That was my room! The one with a million books," he pointed at a wall with countless tiny multicolored lines coming off of it. "I was a big reader as a kid. I've always been an intellectual."

"Who was in the other bedroom?"

"I never really went in there, who cares." Bill made a dismissive gesture. "I think there were some desks and stuff in there too, but I didn't bother to draw them since I never used them." He picked up a yellow and a black crayon and added on to the drawing, dexterously turning the crayons in his hand to switch between colors without setting either one down. "I spent most of my time in my room." He'd drawn a little yellow triangle with an eye. He picked up a red crayon to point an arrow at the triangle and label it "Me!" "I didn't even have to leave the room to see the TV. The perks of psychic powers!"

Mabel wondered which of the weird shapes was the TV; but before she could come to a decision, she was distracted by the scale of Bill drawn in his room. Maybe he'd just drawn himself big, but he seemed cramped in that narrow space. And he'd hardly have room to turn around in the bathroom without his corner smacking something. "It looks pretty small. Is that normal on your home world?"

"Ah, I rarely spent time at home—it was just a place to sleep between speaking engagements," Bill said. "I was always on tour. Living the life of the rich and famous! Hotels, jet planes, and tour buses!"

Mabel shot him an irritated look. "You said this is where you grew up."

"This is where I grew up! I got an early start making my fortune. I was already famous by the time I was, uh..." he pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Developmentally, I think I would've been about equivalent to your age. Maybe a bit younger."

How much of all this was true? It didn't feel like a lie—and she couldn't see how he'd benefit from lying about any of it, except maybe claiming to be famous. So it probably had to be true. He'd actually made her a drawing of his house. Even after he'd complained about being so bad at art. She beamed at him. "Thanks, Bill. Your weird alien house is neat! I like the squiggly spiral flowers! Are they actually roses?"

"They were the flower that everyone mentions in poetry and that you have to bring home when your wife is mad, so, same basic function as roses," Bill said. "Fun fact, they grow in spirals so that they're pretty on the outside, but—"

####

"—but have more surface area to absorb sunlight on the inside," Mabel said, pointing at the flowers. "Alien biology! And the orange things are couches and the colorful box in front of them is his TV, and Bill says he could watch TV through the wall but he never really liked TV, he preferred live performances—maybe we should take him to a musical! And the little sideways cushions on the walls are their beds because gravity goes to the left because their house faces east—I have no idea why!—so, I guess that's their 'floor'? But if that's the 'floor,' Bill didn't explain why all his books were on the 'ceiling' without them falling off, and..." Mabel trailed off, giving Ford a concerned look. "Grunkle Ford? Are you okay?"

He was gaping at the drawing. "Wh—? Yes. Sorry. I'm just..." He shook his head in amazement. "I never even got that slippery eel to admit he has a calendar system, and you got the blueprints to his childhood home?"

Dipper said, "Yeah, this is amazing. How did you get this out of him?"

"Oh, I didn't do anything special," Mabel said casually. "Just drew our house and then suggested he was too scared to let me see his."

Dipper grimaced. "You showed him our house?"

"Don't worry about it! He already knows where we live."

"Of course," Ford said, taking a quick note in his journal. "Exploiting his ego. He's very proud; undermine that pride and he'll feel compelled to defend his honor." Ford had started goading Bill into giving away more than he meant to the same way. He wished he'd started doing it far earlier; but he'd spent so many years foolishly assuming Bill's pride was objective and justified that he sometimes forgot what an egomaniac Bill really was.

As Mabel had spoken, Ford had filled several pages with bullet-pointed half thoughts: dodges questions about the master bed—his parents' room?; no bed or bedroom for a sibling, he seems like an only child; "speaking engagements" is probably a euphemism, what was he doing to become a child celebrity; were his books his only childhood possessions or just the only thing he valued enough to draw; did he gain his "psychic powers" while amassing the power he needed to "liberate"/destroy his dimension? "Can I borrow this drawing to make a photocopy?"

"Sure! Don't forget the line on the back," Mabel said. "And you can copy the Fearamid, too! Did you know he named it the 'Fearamid'?"

"Oh yeah, I heard him call it that," Dipper said. "I think I recorded it in Journal 3?"

"I should've read that before we threw out all of Grunkle Ford's Bill stuff," Mabel sighed. She slid over the Fearamid drawing to Ford. "Bwop! He drew it tilting all weird to the left? He wasn't kidding when he said he's bad at drawing."

Ford studied the drawing and frowned. He lay his pen on the drawing to use like a makeshift ruler. "It's not 'skewed'—he drew the front face as a perfect equilateral triangle, and then extended a side on the right to turn it into a pyramid. It's poor perspective—there's no point of view from which one side would look like a perfect equilateral triangle and you could see another side, but..." He trailed off again as he made a note to himself about what this might mean about Bill's ability to perceive the third dimension and his artistic sensibilities.

"So he draws like Picasso!" Mabel concluded. "Oh! Bill mentioned a name when he gave me his house, he said he wasn't like Edward Bishop Bishop—and I remembered it because it sounds funny. Bishop-Bishop. Maybe he's another artist Bill likes? Or somebody who makes blueprints?"

"I'm sure I've heard that name. I think he was a mathematician?" Ford frowned. "I can't recall, though." He wrote down another note: Edward Bishop Bishop – mathematician/artist? Something to look up later.

Dipper glanced back and forth between Ford and Mabel as they talked, feeling his stomach sink at how excited they were and how easily they got along. First the mysterious disappearing crystal shop in Portland, now Mabel made this huge discovery about the guy Ford had spent years trying to learn about... Dipper swallowed hard and tried to tell himself he shouldn't feel jealous after he'd gotten Ford to himself for basically the past year. "I can't believe you found out all this."

Mabel immediately looked at him. "Hey, what's that supposed to mean?"

Dipper winced. He'd realized a moment too late how he must have sounded. Quickly, he said, "I mean, it's great that you did! Finding out more information about him is great. But, like... investigating the paranormal is my thing. It's what I spent all last summer doing, and it's my dream job, and... and now, the biggest paranormal mystery in human history is in our house, and you're the one getting all the info out of him?"

"Well, yeah," Mabel said. "I'm our official Bill spy, remember? I'm the one who made friends with him."

"I know, I know." He shrugged jerkily. "I'm just... kind of disappointed that I'm not prying eons-old secrets out of an alien demon. You know?"

Ford had paused in his writing to listen to Dipper thoughtfully. "I understand. When you're exceptional at something, it can be... difficult to share the limelight," he said. "Not because you don't think anyone else deserves it. You just don't know if you'll ever get it back."

Dipper's face heated up—he didn't want Ford to think he was bad at sharing, of all things—but he mumbled, "Yeah, I guess." Ford patted his shoulder understandingly. 

"Aww," Mabel said. "Didn't you say that if we're running an experiment on being nice to Bill, you want to be in the control group?" She punched his arm. "Welcome to the control, bro!"

"Ow!" Dipper rubbed his arm and laughed weakly. "Yeah, okay, you're right. This is what I get."

Mabel said, "You should try talking to Bill! Maybe he'll tell you stuff too. He's really easy to talk to as long as you don't mind him sometimes saying creepy nightmare things."

"And as long as you're prepared for his mental tricks," Ford said.

"Yeah! Grunkle Ford's got a whole class for that," Mabel said. "He'll teach you about the BITE model! It's how cults sink their teeth into you!"

Dipper chuckled. "Sure. Maybe I will. We're gonna be at home handing out candy for a few hours, maybe I'll find an opportunity to interrogate him."

"You're not going trick-or-treating?" Ford asked.

"No," Mabel said, with an exaggerated sigh of disappointment.

Dipper elbowed her for her theatrics; they'd already agreed on what they'd do tonight. "We've got plans with friends. But we do get to wear matching costumes again."

"Creepy ghost children!"

"Ah," Ford said. "That explains your..." He gestured at them. They were wearing a suit and a dress, old-fashioned and gray, with tattered hems and dusty black dress shoes.

"Barty helped us put the outfits together," Dipper said.

"We still need to do our makeup," Mabel said. "What about you, Grunkle Ford? What are you doing for Summerween?"

"Ah." He glanced toward the ceiling ruefully, as though he could see The Enemy in the shack through the many layers of dirt above. Summerween had been one of the things he'd missed most about Gravity Falls; even during his years as a reclusive scientist in the woods, he'd usually taken off Summerween and Halloween to hand out candy to the children bold enough to visit his house.

But Bill's eagerness to participate had sucked the fun out of the day. The thought of celebrating Summerween in the same house as Bill felt too much like celebrating with him. "Nothing, I suppose. I was planning to stay down here." He gestured at his desk. "Continue my research."

"What are you working on right now?" Dipper asked.

Ford quickly said, "Nothing. Just—the same research," and was immediately hit with a pang of guilt. Remember what happened last summer when you tried to keep secrets about Bill out of embarrassment? Reluctantly, he said, "I've... split some research duties with Fiddleford. While I'm waiting to hear back from him, I'm looking into—some magical knowledge Bill revealed. To determine how much of it's true."

Dipper looked puzzled. "Revealed when?"

Mabel slammed her hands on Ford's desk. "Grunkle Ford, you can take a break from gathering intel on the enemy for one day! It's Summerween! Promise me you'll do something to celebrate before the day's over."

Ford let out a huff, but smiled. He wanted to do something. Surely he could come up with something that would let him avoid Bill? "All right, I promise. I won't invoke the Trickster's wrath tonight. Could you leave your costume makeup in the bathroom when you're finished? I'll find something to do with it."

"Perfect!" Mabel hugged him; then grabbed Dipper's hand. "C'mon, let's finish getting dressed. The trick-or-treaters will be here any minute!"

"Okay, okay." Dipper waved at Ford as Mabel dragged him to the elevator.

When they were gone, Ford turned back to the papers Mabel had given him. Bill's childhood home... Assuming he wasn't lying, at least. But an entire blueprint seemed like a complicated spur-of-the-moment fabrication even for him. If Bill was lying, it was a lie close to the truth.

It was strange to imagine Bill as a child with a bedroom full of books. Strange to imagine Bill as a child at all. What did a young triangle look like? He couldn't imagine anything different from how Bill always looked.

The floorplan did look small. Smaller even than the apartment over the pawn shop had been. Ford tried to remember what the homes he'd seen in Exwhylia had looked like...

He raised his head as something the kids had said registered. "Barty? Who's Barty?"

####

While Mabel was downstairs, Bill inspected her box of crayons.

The wrapper around the gray crayon was coming loose.

He took the glue stick they'd been using to reinforce the paper houses with popsicle sticks and carefully stuck the wrapper back on.

The house was too quiet without anyone around to talk to. He hated the quiet.

From the corner of the living room behind the table, when Bill leaned on the wall, shut his eyes, and listened closely, he could faintly hear the hidden elevator. He headed upstairs to stow the drawing of Mabel's house somewhere safe, and then went to the downstairs bathroom to finish dressing for Summerween.

####

(Y'all I worked hard on those fake crayon drawings. Anyway I know we're all collectively going insane today over the book news but if you took time out of your day to read this, I'd love to hear what y'all think!)

[miryum]

"Halloween IV"

Summary: Detective!Jason Todd x detective!Reader based on Jake and Amy’s relationship

Series Warnings: Swearing, descriptions of violence (but nothing descriptive), guns and other police stuff

Series Masterlist

“Sarge?” Y/n knocked on his desk with a look of troubled guilt on her face.

“Yeah, L/n?” 

“So, hypothetically, if, maybe,” Y/n didn’t meet Dick’s eye, hands fumbling around. 

“Spit it out, L/n,” Dick said sternly and raised a brow. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Y/n defended herself loudly. “Okay, so- how do I phrase this?- you know the saying ‘let sleeping dogs lie’? Well, what should I do if you replace the dog with a human and the sleeping with potential death…?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Dick stared at her and his hands stilled over his keyboard. 

“I think a perp might’ve died,” Y/n blurted out. 

A couple minutes later, Wayne, Dick, and Y/n stood in the viewing room of an interrogation room, staring at an old, wrinkled man who was slumped over in his chair. A cane was propped up against the table. “I picked him up for attempted robbery. He was moving so slowly that he wasn’t even out the door by the time I got there. I was worried he was gonna die in the back of my car. I tried to make the interrogation room as comfy as possible but now I think I might’ve made it too comfortable… I can’t tell if he’s breathing or not.”

“What do we do?” Dick slowly asked Wayne.

“Are you sure he’s dead, L/n?” Wayne asked. Y/n shrugged in response. “Go make sure,” he commanded. 

Y/n rolled her eyes and mumbled something about Dick should go do it, but she entered the interrogation room, glared at the two-way mirror, and knelt down next to the old man. “Sir?” Her voice was calming and quiet. “Sir, are you awake?” The man didn’t move. Y/n looked back at the two-way mirror, wondering what she should do next. She gently poked the man in the shoulder and repeated her question. When the man still didn’t respond, Y/n awkwardly placed her pointer and middle finger on his wrist, trying to find his pulse. She searched for a couple moments before waving to the mirror. Wayne and Dick entered and she announced, “I think he’s dead…” 

Y/n watched as two officers slowly draped a white sheet over the old man. Jason stood next to her, an arm around her shoulder. “You gonna be okay?” he asked softly. 

Y/n shrugged. “I’ve obviously seen death before but… this hits different for some reason. I mean, in my cruiser, he was telling me stories about meeting his wife after serving in World War II. He even offered me a little chocolate.” Jason hummed and rubbed her arm comfortingly. Dick came up behind them and met Jason’s eye. The two exchanged a meaningful glance. 

As the morticians announced the time of death and began their preparations, suddenly, the old man gasped and sat up, the white sheet falling to his shoulders. Everyone jumped and stared at him. “Oh,” the man looked down at the white sheet. “A blanket. How nice.” He smiled at Y/n and said, “thank you, dearie.” He then promptly snuggled back into his chair and fell asleep, letting out a loud snore.

The room was silent. “I thought you said you couldn’t find a pulse,” Dick said to Y/n after a tense moment. 

“I couldn’t!” she said, throwing her hands up. “It must be too faint!” She stalked out of the room, grumbling and complaining about how the man made her feel feelings and how she didn’t like it.

“We still have to arrest him for robbery!” Dick called after her. 

Tim stood on top of a chair and raised a metal triangle. He pinged the triangle and a soft ding rang out. The detectives of the six-six looked up as Tim said, “Attention, squad!”

“Mm, pretty dainty way to make an announcement,” Dick chuckled.

“It's a workplace. I wanted to be respectful.” Tim glared at his sergeant. “As I was saying, it's time for round four of the Halloween Heist-”

His speech was interrupted by Y/n prancing into the precinct, blasting double air horns. “What's up, six-six!?” she crowed. “Y/n L/n here to tell you that tonight is the night for the Halloween-”

“Heist,” Cass finished. “Tim already went over this.”

“What?” Y/n whirled around and saw Tim standing on his chair, frowning down at her. “Timothy middle-name Drake! What are you doing? I always announce the heist.”

“Yeah, Timmy-boy,” Steph crossed her arms. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Exercising my right to announce the heist as the defending champion,” Tim huffed.

“Defending champion,” Y/n scoffed loudly. “The only reason you won is ‘cause no one knew you were even playing. It was a pathetic act of pure cowardice. Now, then! This one's for all-”

A loud blaring interrupted Y/n, just as Y/n had interrupted Tim. Captain Wayne strode into the bullpen with a marching band at his heels playing the iconic Ride of the Valkyries.

Y/n huffed and crossed her arms. “Such a dork.”

Tim grinned. “So cool.”

“Attention, squad!” Wayne called out. “Tonight-”

“Nope.” Damian shook his head in disappointment. “The three of you should have coordinated.”

“I should be the one to introduce the heist,” Wayne protested. “Given that I am the last legitimate champion. L/n hasn't won since the first year. She's a has-been.”

“Has-been?!” Y/n cried. “I am not a has-been! If anything, you’re the has-been…. With your old hair and age. And oldness.”

Wayne rolled his eyes and ignored her. “This year's Halloween Heist is a three-way tiebreaker to determine the champion of champions. We'll be playing for this: a plaque that reads: the ultimate detective-slash-genius.” He turned to his detectives and said, “You and Drake should quit now. I'm going to stomp on your dreams.”

“It's fun to see you so passionate,” Y/n commented.

“I will slit you open from mouth to anus and wear you like suit jackets. Your useless brains will splatter to the floor like the smooth radishes they are.” Wayne stared at them, his glare cold and unwelcoming.

“Wow,” Tim muttered after a tense moment. 

Wayne continued on as if nothing had happened. “The plaque will be held in this.” He held up a plastic, pink treasure chest.

“Is that my childhood treasure chest?” Tim asked. “How the hell did you get that?”

“It most certainly is, but don't worry.” Wayne held up a hand. “I removed the old report cards, awkward school photos, and attempts at straight love notes. Honestly, Drake, anyone can see that you’re bisexual.” Wayne shook his head. 

“Are you still with Bernard?” Y/n asked, clasping her hands together hopefully. Tim nodded, his face flushed and Y/n cooed.

“The chest will be secured with this brand-new lock,” Wayne said, snapping a lock onto the treasure chest. “Todd, if you would?” Wayne handed the key to Jason who promptly threw it out the window and into the street below. “Knowing Gotham, that’ll be gone within thirty minutes. Now, then, I am locking the chest. It will be placed in the centre of the bullpen. Whoever possesses the plaque at sunup wins. Shall we pick teams?”

Dick shook his head and reclined in his chair. “I've got a ton of work. You can just leave me out this year.”

Y/n, Tim, and Wayne all burst into laughter. “Oh, Dick, Dick, Dick.” Y/n shook her head, chuckling. “How naive do you think we are? You're ‘not participating’ so you can cheat us out and steal a victory, like Timmy did last year.” 

Dick threw his hands up and turned away, mumbling about dumb heists and all the paperwork he needed to do. Y/n appointed Steph to watch over him, knowing her bestie needed to get some work done, and this was a way for her to complete her work and also participate in the heist.

“Great! It's now time to choose from the remaining players.” Y/n rubbed her hands together. “Tim, since you're last year's champion, I will graciously let you go first.”

“Cass,” Tim said immediately.

“Dope.” Cass held up a hand for a high-five

Wayne then said loudly, “I select Jason Todd.”

“What?” Y/n spluttered, her face morphing into one of shock and confusion.

Wayne chuckled dryly and hummed. “What is the matter, L/n? Were you expecting to have Detective Todd on your team? Have I… thrown a wrench into your plans?” He raised a brow. Wayne knew exactly what he had done.

“Absolutely not,” Y/n refused. “I am simply surprised, because you have such a strong connection with Damian. But I'm glad he's on my team. I had absolutely nothing planned for Jason.” A couple minutes later when Y/n and Damian stood in the copying room, Y/n burst out, “I totally planned everything for Jason. This is a nightmare!”

Damian pursed his lips dramatically and asked, “what can Jason Todd do that I cannot? I have said it before and I will say it again: that man is not good enough for you.”

“Thank you for looking out for me, Dami, but can you roller-skate super well?”

“Bitch,” Damian clicked his tongue. “I am an angel on skates. I skate like a professional. I can do anything that Todd can.”

Y/n sucked in a breath and grimaced. “Except you can’t look exactly like the body double I got for him.” She sighed and called out, “Curran, you can come out now.”

A man stepped out that looked suspiciously like Jason. He didn’t have a white streak in his hair, the angles of his face were slightly off, and it was clear to Y/n that this was not her lovely Jason, but he would have to do.

“Hi.” Curran waved to Damian awkwardly.

“Yes, this pasty white guy will be a problem.” Damian said after a moment of studying the body-double.

Cass and Tim had taken hold of the break room. Tim said, “so I believe the key to good teamwork is an equal exchange of ideas-”

“Stop.” Cass held up a hand and said, “I know you already have a plan. And I want to win, so for the next eight hours, I'm down with all your nerdy crap.” She smirked wickedly. “Come on, Tim. Show me the binder.”

Tim’s grin grew and he corrected her, “okay, but it's not a binder. It's a virtual binder, and it's encrypted on this flash drive!” He held up a small flash drive.

Cass smiled proudly. “That's my boy. Now, where's the 3D model of the precinct, huh?”

“Inside the key chain,” TIm squealed. “It's a freaking hologram!”

“I gotta admit, I’m pretty excited, Captain.” Jason crossed his arms and leaned against Wayne’s desk. “So, how are we gonna do it?”

Wayne rolled out a large whiteboard. “Here's everything you need to know.” 

“It's blank,” Jason noted obviously.

“It's a metaphor,” Wayne stated. “You get nothing. You lose. Good day, my good sir.”

Jason’s brows furrowed in confusion. “But we're teammates. You chose me.”

“Ever since you became L/n’s boy-toy, you've become too close,” Wayne explained. “I don't trust you. Love has made you weak. I only chose you to disrupt her plans. And now that you've served your purpose, you're no longer needed.”

Jason scoffed. “I feel so used. Am I just a piece of meat to you?”

“Yes,” Wayne said bluntly. “Now, put on a smile, pork chop.”

Y/n pressed her face against the copy room door, peering into the bullpen. Damian stood next to her, back to the window. “As expected, all eyes are on the chest,” she murmured. “It's go time. Now, Dami!”

Damian quickly dropped to the floor, rolling out of the way for Curran to hop up and take his spot, wearing the same hoodie Damian had been. “This is humiliating,” Damian murmured from the floor.

“Looks like nobody's onto us.” Y/n talked to herself, cheeks still pressed up against the window. “Now, Damian!” Damian slid out of the copy room through a window that led to a back hallway. He army-crawled into the bullpen and moved to the middle of the room where the chest stood. He began fiddling with the lock. Y/n knew not to ask where he had learned how to pick locks.

In the copy room, Y/n awkwardly tried to converse with Curran. “So, Curran, do you have a real job or…?” 

“Well,” Curran said, still facing backwards, “I’m an up-and-coming actor, but that’s a hard industry to be in, especially in Gotham, so to pay the bills I began running some jobs for the mob.”

Y/n stared at him, and after a second muttered, “Imma pretend I didn’t hear that. And you couldn’t just get a job at a coffee shop or grocery store?”

“Nah. Too easy.” Curran shook his head. 

Y/n simply sighed and shook her head. “Nevermind. Now, Curran, the key here is that I came in before work and replaced the door handles with ones that lock from the outside. I’m pretty smart if I say so myself.” Y/n patted herself on the back. When she saw Damian open the chest, she grinned and said, “alright, Curran. The time is now. Show your face to the world!” Curran whirled around and grinned as the officers of the six-six shouted out in shock.

“What the hell?” Cass exclaimed. “Tim!” Tim ran from the table in which his virtual hologram was set up. He gasped dramatically.

“Pick your jaws up off the floor, ladies!” Y/n sashayed into the room, music playing loudly over speakers. “I am amazing! Here comes Y/n! Whoo! Welcome to the big show. I was gonna sneak the plaque out without anybody knowing, but then I thought... so much more fun to make y’all watch. Now please enjoy as I steal the plaque of destiny.” She noticed Wayne attempting to pick the lock in his office and she tuttered, “no, no, no, Cap-i-tan. That'll take at least three minutes, by which time I will’ve hidden this plaque somewhere you will never find it.” Wayne grunted and his eyes darted to the window. Y/n snickered and said, “of course, you could break the window, but you would never willingly destroy government property, would you?” Wayne squared his jaw and rammed his shoulder into his office window, shattering glass all over the precinct floor. Y/n’s eyes grew and her mouth dropped open. “Whoop! Misread that one.” She cried to Damian, “Dami, skate! Skate like the wind!”

Damian grabbed the plaque as Wayne huffed, chest heaving. Damian smirked and pushed off. He glanced behind him, which was a mistake. Damian rammed right into a wall and toppled over, clutching his nose. 

“Damian, are you okay?!” Y/n cried, rushing to his side.

“I am alright,” Damian nodded, blood running down his nostrils and an open cut split the bridge of his nose. After a tense moment, he admitted, “it hurts badly. I hope I am not humbled by this.”

Y/n grabbed some paper towels and tried to clean up Damian’s nose. “I'm so sorry, Dami,” she apologised. “It should have been Jason on those skates. He’s weirdly good at it.”

“All right, Damian, get your things,” Steph shook her head. “I’m taking you to the doctor. You probably have a broken nose and they’ll need to set it and give you a cast.”

Damian waved him off. “No, no, no, no. I shall go alone. I do not need anyone's help. Order me an Uber.”

Wayne paused and stuck his tongue in his cheek. “And I’m sure that despite our natural desire to stop everything, you'd like us to soldier on in your absence and keep the heist going?”

“Yes, that is fine,” Damian said, beginning to get up on his feet. Steph went to help him and insisted that she accompany him.

Wayne clapped his hands. “Well, you heard the man. He insists we continue. Let's mop up this blood and get back at it.”

“With all due respect, sir, I don't think that's the best idea,” Tim stared at the blood. “The blood is dry. We can just clean it up after,” he said as if it was obvious.

“Oh, yes, agreed,” Wayne hummed.

After Damian had left, the team assembled in the bullpen, the pool of blood still in the corner. Y/n exhaled heavily, “I love tonight. However, there is the small issue of me losing my partner. Now, Dick,” she turned to her sarge. “I know that you were upset that no one picked you earlier.”

“Not what happened,” Dick corrected.

“Regardless, please be my partner!” She begged him, “please, please, please, please, please, please.”

“No! Heists are dumb, and I have work to do.”

“You're dumb, and I have... heist to do,” Y/n retorted lamely. “You know what? Forget Dick.” She placed her hands on her hips and turned back to the squad. “At the time of the accident, my team had the plaque, so I’ll just grab it and give myself a four-minute head start.”

Wayne held a hand out. “Not so fast, L/n. I say we reset the plaque and start over.”

“What? But my team had it!” Y/n whined. “Jaybird, tell him,” she turned to Jason, looking for him to back her up.

Jason bit his lip and glanced at Wayne. The Captain stared down at his detective. Jason knew this was the test. “No, darling. We're resetting,” he said.

“Jason, what are you saying?” Y/n’s brows furrowed.

“It’s only fair, Y/n.” Jason shook his head, playing devil’s advocate. “The plaque goes back.”

“Yes, pork chop. Yes,” Wayne whispered dramatically. 

“Oh ho ho…” Y/n glared playfully at her boyfriend. “You’ve just set this relationship three weeks back, mister. And that includes the intimate relationship.”

Jason just chuckled and winked at her. “We’ll see about that.”

“I have eyes on Scotty, Kirk, and Bones,” Cass announced to Tim, the pair still in the break room. She was referencing Y/n, Wayne, and Jason (not in that particular order).

Tim gasped, “you used their code names. You read the plans, agenda and all!”

“Damn right, I did.” Cass grinned. “I told you, I'm all in.”

“And you didn't make fun of me for basing it all on Star Trek,” Tim gushed.

“I even did your suggested reading of the fandom wiki,” Cass bragged.

“You did?!” 

“Calm down.” Cass rolled her eyes. “You're such a Spock.”

“I am! It's true!” Tim’s voice got to a concerning octave and he bounced up on the balls of his feet.

“Todd, I was impressed with how you stood up to L/n and demanded a reset,” Wayne said as he sat in his chair.

Jason chuckled once. “I'm Team Wayne all the way.”

Wayne scrutinised him. “Well, perhaps I can use a teammate after all,” he conceded. “Do you swear I can trust you?”

“Yes. I swear.” Deep down, they all needed the approval of their Captain.

“Let's unleash hell.” Y/n stood vigilante in the copy room, holding down court. “Thanks for coming back, Curran,” she said to Curran, who sat on the copier machine. “I really needed a teammate.”

“Anytime, dude. This precinct has one of the best sweet trays in the lobby.”

“How many Gotham precincts have you been in?”

Just then, the elevator door dinged and a young teenager stepped out. “Uh, I got a pizza here for Bruce Wayne,” the teen stammered, clearly nervous about being surrounded by police officers.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” Y/n stormed out of the copy room, Curran pattering behind her. “Wayne hates pizza. He's trying to distract us!”

Wayne joined her, as did Jason and Tim. “If I were trying to distract you, I would have sent you the pizza. This is your doing, you and your mob man...”

“Curran is not in the mob! I don’t think…”

Another pizza man walked in. “I have a pizza here for Bruce Wayne.”

“What's going on?” Tim’s head whipped back and forth.

Two more delivery guys entered and they both announced, “I have a pizza here for Bruce Wayne.”

“Which one of you bozos did this?” Tim accused Y/n and Wayne.

“Us?” Y/n huffed, offended. “You know how much planning it takes to get this many pizza guys here at the same time? A binder full of planning. This has Tim written all over it.”

“Nuh-uh! If I had done this, it would say Captain Bruce Wayne. I'm not going to disrespect you, sir, even for the sake of the heist.”

“I'll guard the plaque!” Jason suddenly cried out as more pizzas entered the precinct.

“You're not leaving my sight!” Tim pointed an angry finger at him.

“Curran, can you see what's going on?” Y/n asked frantically, trying to see over the pizza boxes. “Do you have eyes on Jason and Cass?”

“I don’t know anyone's names…” Curran admitted.

“There's too much pizza!”

“I see Wayne. I see Jason. Where's Dick?”

Dick stood up and pushed through the pizzas. “I’m leaving! This is ridiculous.”

“This is madness!”

Y/n grabbed one of the delivery guys. “Who hired you?” she demanded. “Who do you work for, pizza man?”

Tim stood atop a chair, a parallel to that morning, and used one of the bullhorns Y/n had blared to announce her arrival. “Everyone with a pizza, get out of here!” he screamed.

After the pizza guys had left, it was revealed that the chest was broken and the plaque was gone. Arguments both began and died down, but eventually, everyone trooped back to their respective areas.

Tim closed the blinds in the break room and crossed his fingers. “Okay, was the operation a success?”

“You tell me.” Cass, who was wearing a red shirt and hat with bold yellow lettering on it, opened a pizza box to reveal the plaque. Tim let out a noise of excitement and Cass explained, “I blended right in with the pizza guys. Got out my bolt cutters and the lock snapped on the first try. No one saw me leave.” She sighed and admitted, “got to hand it to you... beautiful plan.”

“Beautiful execution,” Tim complimented. “It's kind of like we're our own crew of The Enterprise. God, I don't want tonight to ever end.” He knelt next to a vent in the break room and ushered Cass over. “This is where I hide my secret stash of candy.” A very serious look came over his face. “Can I trust you with this information?” Cass rolled her eyes and nodded. Tim nodded back before stowing the plaque in the vent.

“This is so frustrating.” Jason groaned, a muscle in his jaw tensing as he ranted to Wayne. “There's no way of knowing who has the plaque.”

Wayne said immediately, “Cassandra and Timothy have it.”

“What? How do you know?”

“Cain usually favours her left leg, but after ‘Zero Dark Pizza,’ she was suddenly favouring her right. Her gait was thrown off because she was carrying the plaque. And I know exactly where it's hidden: in Drake’s secret candy stash.” Jason opened his mouth to ask a question, but he recognised when his capitan was monologuing, so he just let Wayne continue. “Whenever he gets stressed out, he eats some candy. It's almost ridiculously easy to stress him out.”

“Oh, Drake, I…” Wayne trailed off. “Nevermind.”

Tim’s head shot up. “What is it? What?” He bit his lip and declared, “I got to go.”

Wayne surveyed the camera recordings from the break room. He saw Tim stuff some chocolate in his mouth. “Bing-pot.”

“And now it's time to send in our cute little secret weapon. Ace.” Wayne revealed a dog bed under his desk with a small, black dog resting happily on it. “Over the past month, I've had him trained to retrieve plaques. And now, boy, it's time to make Daddy proud.”

“Time is running out,” Y/n muttered. “We gotta stop playing by the rules and start playing dirty.” She realised she was talking to herself, as Curran had needed to attend to some ‘business’. Y/n huffed and poked her head out of the copy room, signalling to Jason. “Jason! Get in here!” Jason seemed incredibly apprehensive, but slid into the room anyway. The moment he was in, Y/n shut the door behind him and interrogated, “what is Wayne up to? Does he have the plaque? Does he know who does?”

Jason sighed and replied smoothly, “I'm not telling you that, Y/n. I'm Team Wayne, and there's nothing you could say that will change that.”

Y/n squinted at him and after a moment, said, “Okay, fine, then I guess I’ll be sleeping at my apartment for the next week or two.”

Jason’s brows bent down and he stared at her. “Y/n…” he muttered. “No.”

Y/n tried to remain strong, but seeing Jason’s heartbroken expression sent knives through her soul. “Yes. I… I will postpone this relationship for an entire week!”

Jason stepped closer to her and slid his hands up her arms. “Darling. You know you don’t mean that. I know for a fact that you sleep just as horribly as I do when we’re apart. You’re not fooling anyone.”

“God, I hate that you know me so well!” Y/n fumed. “But- but I’ll do it! And… I’ll show Dick that picture of you dressed as the Easter Bunny for Halloween!”

Jason gasped dramatically and took a step back, a hand to his heart. “You wouldn’t dare.” 

Y/n grinned sharply. “Oh, I would. And you know it.”

Jason’s jaw ticked and after a tense moment, he broke. “Wayne has the plaque. It's hidden in the evidence room in a box marked ‘Cold Cases 1972.’” 

Y/n smiled and patted his cheek. “Thank you, my love.” 

Y/n held up the plaque, a box labelled ‘Cold Cases 1972’ open on the shelf next to her. “Ain't she a beaut?” she whistled appreciatively. 

“Chht, chht, chht, chht…” A voice made her jump and Y/n turned around to see Captain Wayne stalking up on her, Jason behind him, arms crossed over his chest.

“What is happening right now?” she asked, referencing the odd noises he was making.

“The last sands are running through the hourglass…” he explained ominously, “chht, chht, chht... because your time is running out, and you are never going to get the plaque.”

Jason sighed and shook his head. “Captain, stop. I can't let you embarrass yourself. I told Y/n everything. Threats were exchanged and I freaked out. I'm sorry.”

“It's alright.” Wayne brushed him off. “I knew you would betray me. That's why I fed you fake intel.” At Jason and Y/n’s confused faces, he continued, “the plaque was never in ‘Cold Cases 1972.’ As if I'd just put it in a box, unattended.” He glared at his detectives, offended they assumed so little of him.

“Uh, but you did,” Y/n rebutted.

“No, I didn't.”

“Then how do you explain this?” Y/n held up her plaque.

“I have no idea. I put the plaque in my office.” Wayne marched towards his office and, hidden in a fake-bottom drawer, laid the plaque. 

The trio convened in the bullpen where Cass and Tim strolled up to them, Tim holding an identical plaque. “What's up, turds?” Seeing the replica plaques, Cass asked, “wait, what is going on? We have the plaque.”

“Yeah, I just got it out of the vent to rub it in your faces,” Tim said.

“Something strange is afoot. Which of these is real?” Wayne demanded.

Suddenly, the lights clicked off and were replaced by glowing, neon purple lights. Tim deduced, “black lights. What the hell?”

Jason looked around and cringed away from everything. “Oh, my God. This place is disgusting.”

“This place is disgusting: Title of your sex tape,” Y/n mumbled, almost to herself. She then gasped and slapped her hands on her cheeks in revelation. “Title of our sex tape!”

“Dear God.” Wayne cringed, then a glimmer caught his eye. “Wait. Look at the plaques.”

“‘Are.’ ‘Heists.’ ‘Dumb.’” Y/n read aloud from each of the plaques. The three words, one on each plaque, were suddenly illuminated in the black light. “Are heists dumb? Of course not. That’s a stupid question,” she scoffed.

“No, Y/n, it says, ‘Heists are dumb.’” Tim rolled his eyes.

The entire team then put together the pieces and gasped, “Dick!”

The officers stormed up to the sergeant's desk and Y/n cried out, “the Oscar for best liar goes to you, good sir!”

“That's not an Oscars category,” Dick said. “What's going on?”

“Cut the bullshit, Grayson,” Wayne’s nostrils fumed. “Where's the plaque?”

“For the last time, I don't know. I've been working here the whole time.” He stood up and waved them away. “You know what? I don't need this. I’m leaving.”

“You're not going anywhere,” Cass growled, pulling out her baton.

“Damn, Cain!” Dick exclaimed. He took one look at her baton and hurried away from the group. 

“He's trying to get away!” Everyone rushed after Dick and they all herded into an interrogation room, chasing after him. 

Dick slammed into the opposite door, jiggling the handle, trying to get away. He cried out, “someone locked the door!”

Suddenly, Damian knocked on the glass (conveniently not a two-way mirror), drawing everyone's attention to him. “Hello, losers,” he greeted calmly, watching them all. “As I’m sure you’re all wondering, it is I that has the real plaque.” He held up the shining plaque in all its glory.

“Damian! Of course!” Y/n hissed. “It all makes sense, except for the parts I don't understand and the fact that I still kind of think Dick did this.”

“No, it was all me,” Damian grinned slyly. “Three weeks ago, Captain Wayne asked me to order a plaque that read, The ultimate detective-slash-genius. I did so, and I ordered three replicas. Once I had the plaques, I manipulated Captain Wayne into choosing Jason as his partner. All it took was six bottles of dish soap.”

Damian stood in front of a sink overflowing with bubbles, his hands on his hips. “See, this is what happens when Y/n tries to wash dishes by herself. She's helpless without Todd.”

Wayne stood next to him and raised a brow. “Yes. She is helpless without Todd.”

“You fell for my trap like a greedy little rat,” Damian said to Wayne, his eyes glimmering with power. “It was easy. The next phase of my plan: a skating accident.”

“But you broke your nose!” Y/n cried.

“I would do anything to win,” came Damian’s immediate response. Everyone’s eyes widened and someone let out an, “oh, damn.”

“I swapped out a dummy plaque for the real one. Then I left to go to the doctor,” Damian continued easily. “I came back, wearing the perfect disguise to make sure I was never noticed by anyone. Something drab and uninspiring…”

“This feels like it's gonna be a dig on me,” Tim grumbled.

“I wore Timothy’s clothes.”

“There it is.”

“This is your doing, you and your mob man...”

“Curran is not in the mob! I don’t think…”

As Wayne and Y/n argued, Damian stood casually in the background, wearing Tim’s jeans and a black turtleneck.

“That turtleneck is not drab!” Tim argued.

“Drake, it made me invisible,” Dami shook his head at the detective.

“And now that I had that power, every time one of you stole a plaque, I replaced it with a fake. And no one had any idea until the lights went out, revealing a secret message: Heists are dumb.”

“Then we raced in here to blame Dick, and you trapped us. But how did you know he was gonna say ‘heists are dumb?’”

Damian sighed sadly. “When you’ve worked with Grayson for as long as we have, you tend to pick up on some things. Unfortunately.” Dick’s mouth dropped open in betrayal. Damian didn’t care and he spread his arms, smirking. “Now here all of you are, locked behind the glass like a school of pathetic fish. I know you’re wondering why I did it.”

“Because you wanted to win?” Jason guessed.

“No!” Damian snapped. “I had a loftier goal in mind. Do me a favour and tell me what the plaque says? ‘The ultimate detective-slash-genius’. Detective. Can you imagine what that word sounds like to someone who's not a detective? Discriminatory.”

“You’re a fucking law student, Dami,” Y/n muttered. “You’ll have more power than us one day.”

“I've proved a point,” Damian said haughtily. “And that's why we're changing the name of the plaque forever.”

“To what?” Wayne asked.

Later, at Orin’s Bar, the team of the six-six (rejoined by Steph) cheersed Damian and applauded, “Damian al Ghul is the ultimate human-slash-genius.”

“Thank you.” Damian bowed his head, smiling softly. “Now I'd like to say a few words.” He sighed and admitted, “I love you imbeciles. Happy Halloween.”

“Happy Halloween!” The six-six precinct yelled back and Jason wrapped an arm around Y/n’s shoulders and brought her in for a hug, beaming at her.

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

Ooooo!

One of the comics showed Jason's body had rotted on its way to Gotham, which made me realize it probably wasnt just laying there all pristine-ish in the months he was dead. Which leads to several interesting questions

1: How much decay wouldve been too much for sudden resurrection? Is there a limit? Could he have come back if he had gotten cremated

2: How much did resurrection heal

3: If he'd been rotting during the months before coming back, how much blood and liquids and rot seeped into casket, did it stay there? Was he trapped in there smelling his own rot, surrounded by his own decay, as he tried desperately to claw his way out?

3 1/2: Or did the evidence of decay disappear, as if never there. I guess all this depends on how exactly he was brought back and how that worked

4: Search engines won't answer my questions on how long it takes for bugs n maggots to get into caskets. So if he was already rotting do you think any possibly got inside before burial, do morticians have anything to kill off all bugs and eggs in a decayed body or no. Seach engines still won't answer me

[sheisburiedhere]

The GraveRobber

Andrew graves x reader

Warning: cursing, sexual stuff

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

...

Jax...

You remember sitting on your sweet boyfriend's lap around midnight eating pizza and playing Mario kart the night before he left. Did you do something wrong? After all you both been through together... he just up and left? Why?...

He was you best friend since childhood, you both went to the same preschool, took baths together when you had play dates, had sleepovers every other weekend, all that jazz. Jax was really kind of cute , He had light brown curly hair , with equally light brown freckles that covered his fair skin and he always wore these long sleeve shirts with sweaters over them or this dark blue space themed hoodie that you would occasionally borrow when he was at work. It smelt like fresh linen and Irish spring body wash.

Jax preferred a "traditional" relationship ,he didn't like you wearing makeup and anything tight or short because he didn't like guys gawking over you. He didn't want you to work even though you wanted to work as mortician but he didn't find that feminine and well it creeped him out. So you decided to sacrifice your dream to well compromise in your relationship , you stay home in your shared apartment, doing the cleaning , cooking, and all those household chores. It isn't like you hated these things, you are actually pretty skilled at it.

But after Jax got a new job , you both moved to this apartment and well after a month , he left. It feels like it was almost planned... like ever since you both arrived here, he grew distant and well now looking back at everything... you should have know.

He started coming home late, like really late . He started complaining about you and how you looked and why don't you try dressing more modern and feminine and you remember turning and looking at him like HUH?! And that's when you start smelling very sweet perfume on his work suit. The same work suit that you wash and iron. But you must be crazy right, he would never cheat on you anything, he always acted like a saint.

That bitch

You're gonna find him.

And make him pay.

"OH MY GOSH," you yelled hitting against your neighbour wall with your fists, "TURN OFF THAT MUSIC," you screamed but that did nothing. You groan as you slam your head against the wall as a last attempt.

You decide to clean your small apartment, it became a habit now, I mean well there isn't anything really to do other watch tv and sleep. Can't really eat, have to ration food, maybe you shouldn't have really given those two emo siblings a whole box of food. But that was out of your good heart , you want to hate everyone but you just can't. It was a good thing you did.

*Your Love Increases*

You sigh, as you go to change your clothes after showering looking at the dreary patterns on your long skirts and and ugly blouses that Jax bought for you to wear. But you remember your clothes that you wore in high school which are stuffed in black trash bag in your closet after Jax threatened you to throw away if you continued wearing them because he claimed that you were cheating by doing so. You burst the bag open and empty it on the bed and you smile as you remember how good you used to feel wearing these. You grabbed an outfit and put it on.

You look at your outfit in the mirror , twirling and grinning and you decided to put on some makeup. Damn you look hot.

*Your Confidence Increases*

You turn back to the clothes that you now realized you hated and look at them. You bunch up the clothes , and slam open the balcony door and start dumping out the clothes outside onto the street. Your heart races wildly as you see the clothes being run over by speeding car. It was almost... pleasurable. Your chest rises and falls heavily as you breathe hard , smiling madly.

As you come down from your high, your eyes meet the older of the Graves siblings- Andrew with his eyes widened, his mouth slightly opened and halfway burnt cigarette almost falling out his mouth. His eyes traces over your body lingering at certain places and then at your lips and repeats this as if he was in a trance. You blush, its been a while since someone looked you like this, you don't even think Jax ever looked you like this well since... ever.

You snapped your fingers in front his eyes as he blinks out of his trance. "H-ey, um- wow you look uh- wow," he covers his face partially, blushing trying to avoid eye contact or his eyes contacting with any part of you than can make his knees give out. Before you speak , he continues , "Damn I mean you look beautiful since the first day I saw you moving in but damn you look so good, I mean you looked hot in what I saw you in last time but-" he breathes in hard as he continues admiring you. He starts back again " This enhances your hotness," he smiles nervously also playing with his hair as his eye gets lost in yours.

You smile mischievously, without words you use your index finger to call him over to your balcony while biting the bottom of your lip. Jax never made you feel so... horny but damn you are now and you want to enjoy this badly and come on, Andrew is hot. His eyes widen as he smirks and sets up his makeshift bridge to cross over coolly , he turns to flick the cigarette off the balcony and turns back to face you .

He pushes you against the balcony door , tracing his hands on your hips, he kisses your neck , light and soft then he pecks your lips. Its almost as if he is afraid to touch you like if you're glass, or so you thought. He squeezes your hips roughly , bucking up against you private area making you groan, running his tongue against your lips asking for entry. You open your mouth as you start feeling heated, his tongue slips in, dancing with yours, fighting for dominance and winning. He drinks in your moans as you grind against him. He pulls away from the kiss reluctantly, leaning down to whisper in your ear as he grabs two handfuls of your ass, "Tell me what you want me to do Y/n, say it and I'll do it , please say it Y/n."

Face flustered as you are just mind fucked from this amount of physical interaction, you wrapped you arms around his neck , breathing heavily as your chest touches his , " Andrew I wanna-,"

"ANDREW , where the actual hell are you I need you to come rub my feet," Ashley annoying whines loudly that it can be heard from where you both were. Andrew jumps back with a scared but annoyed look as if he has touched fire but his hands is still on your hips almost as if glued almost as if he didn't want to let go.

He breathes in apologetically as he steps back, giving you a quick deep kiss holding to your face saying " I'm sorry but I really like you , but if Ashley finds out I don't know what she'll do...", "ANNDREEWWWW" she yells . He groans loudly as you give him a kiss again and he leaves to go back into his apartment.

You look longingly at the apartment and scowls

"Stupid Cock block"

[strong-with-the-sarcasm]

Revenant!Jazz thoughts Pt.2

Continuing from this post

This time, I’m thinking about Vlad and his reaction to all this. In the show he doesn’t particularly seem to care about Jazz in any way, probably because of his hyper focus on Danny and Maddie. I doubt he’s registered Jazz as a threat of any kind, much less to him.

If Danny winds up Bat-dopted, Jason or classic “Bruce stole another one” and the news catches wind of the new Wayne, Vlad would be livid. Danny is supposed to be his son afterall, doesn’t matter that it was Maddie who severely wounded her own son.

In the midst of Rogues dropping like flies, Jazz sets a trap for Vlad by baiting him with Danny. Her brother is never in danger, not with her around and certainly not with the bat family lurking nearby, but Vlad cannot help himself- he tries to kidnap Danny by overshadowing the adoptive parent. Jazz allows it to happen only until Vlad takes Danny out of the public eye, then straight up punches Vlad out of the person he’s overshadowing, sucking him up into a thermos she stole from the GIW and throwing it into an abyss.

Wouldn’t someone recognize Jazz then?

Beyond the walking dead look that came free with reanimating, Jazz walks, talks and looks completely different then she was in life. Memories shape us and without most of hers Jazz wouldn’t be quite the same anymore. Where she once walked with a relaxed gait and a calm demeanor, as a Revenant Jazz masters the murder strut, because that’s pretty much the only thought going through her head on a constant loop….Other than ‘make Danny Safe’ of course.

Who killed Jazz? (Asked by @someonebored0100 )

Originally I was thinking it would be either the Fenton parents in the GAV or the GIW, but then a delicious angst idea popped into my head….

Batman chasing down Joker led to him slamming into Jazz’s car, which resulted in her death and a new son for him to care for….

Batman says nothing when he brings in Danny, marks down Jazz’s death as a murder and does not go out as Batman again for a week.

Was Jazz autopsied?

Thee death rate in Gotham must be higher than any other city in the world, so the coroners embody (pun not intended) the phrase “overworked and underpaid”.

So no, she wasn’t autopsied, but they did make record of the punctured artery and removed the shrapnel by request of Batman for testing.

What happened after Jazz’s body disappeared from the Crematorium?

Bruce Wayne paid for the cremation personally, so it’s understandable the mortician would be Panicking at the very likely notion that someone stole a dead body paid to be cremated and sealed into an urn by Bruce Fucking Wayne.

If the mortician cremates an unclaimed body and slaps the wrong name on it, we’ll, add it to the list of morally questionable things he’s done as a mortician in a Gotham.

Thoughts about Jason’s reaction to a true Revenant?

Her veiny visage, with the broken sclera and eyes that seem to absorb light and give none back, horrifies Jason to the bone. Did he look like that when he dug himself out of his grave? Did the Pits actually do him a favor? It makes him wanna puke just thinking about how accurate his zombie jokes could have been… then makes him swear to stop telling those same jokes because clearly he’s no longer one of the walking dead if he looks better than this dead woman who looks just… horrifying.

Though once Jazz kills the Joker in the same way the clown killed Jason, he seeks out the Revenant and after doing some digging… swears to do whatever he can for her.

If this is Dad!Jason, then he’s very upset for Danny and Jazz’s tragic history.

No hardcover pairing this time?

Maybe? Doubtful, but it could happen. I don’t think it should though.

Does Jazz have a vigilante persona in this one?

Hmm, not exactly. She’s not tying to hide anything, definitely not her less than living appearance. She wears boots, a canvas jacket, jeans and gun holsters with hair that looks like a drunk toddler attacked it with dull scissors.

She doesn’t save anyone, not directly, but ending the rogues that killed so many earns her the name “Reaper” and it sticks.

What’s Danny’s reaction to all this?

We all know about the dark timeline that resulted from The Ultimate Enemy, Dan.

The Fenton parents are still hunting him down, Sam and Tucker are trying to move to Gotham, he’s been adopted by a Kevlar-clad billionaire furry who acts like a himbo with way too much ease for it to be all an act. He’s got a home that’s not an active threat to his afterlife and the food is the farthest thing from radioactive.

(Alfred Pennyworth nearly had a heart attack at the mere thought of a child eating radioactive food and that a piece of toast on his plate was a punishment.)

But… Jazz is dead.

It’s true that they hadn’t had the best relationship for the last few years, especially after his accident, but Jazz had become his rock. Sam and Tucker were his best friends, but they had no real idea what it was like to grow up a Fenton. Sure they had some context clues (was the giant portal entrance with the on-button inside not a giant warning sign?), but Jazz had kept him alive even as a kid herself.

She worked herself to the bone to make sure he had food to eat, some hours to sleep at night, and a shoulder for him to put some of the burden on her as Phantom. In the end, she hurt their parents to get him out of the lab and away from them.

She had died trying to get him to safety.

He’d seen her car, the wreck, the blood, the still radioactive substance he called his blood… he sat in the driver’s seat and cried for his sister- he wanted Jazz to tease him and call him ‘little brother’ again.

Sure, he had Cass now and several brothers, but nothing could ever replace Jazz.

It’s the thought that Jazz would be upset with him that keeps Danny from turning by his grief into a ghostly wail, to wreck everything and everyone.

Then he meets the Reaper. And he knows.

“Little Brother.”

/////////////////////////

What about the ending for Jazz you talked about?

That’s gonna be in another post, this one was getting long enough as is.

[ssspork]

Spoilers for jjk!

Blood and gore!

.

.

.

.

,

.

.

.

.below is a bit of a short thinggie about Shoko I think?? Idk it’s probably ooc, but it’s kinda hard to be ooc for her bc she doesn’t have much (sadly) Also I’m just realizing this but the way I wrote her, she’s sounding a little suicidal/ like like idealistic she’s like “I shoulda been the one to die” but in like a “I expected myself to die” way yn? Idk

How ironic she is? How much of a contronym she is.

And how expected she is as well.

She, her, Shoko, Shoko Ieri. Friend of Gojo, Satoru Gojo. Friend of Geto, Suguru Geto. One would expect her to be the first to die, not particularly strong, a smoker, despite being a doctor. She’s not a god like Gogo, or particularly strong, like Geto. She can use reversed cursed technique. But there’s a reason she doesn’t go on missions. Still, she’s a valuable asset. One would expect her to be the first to go. To gain a leverage on her much stronger counterparts. Or to take a doctor, to make it easier to kill her allies.

And yet, she’s the only one left.

Gojo and Geto, always intertwined, revolving around each other, twin stars, if you will. And she was always on the outside. Gojo, Geto, and Shoko. Always separated by one word. Hardly anything, most would miss it. But still there. Always a “and”.

Maybe that was why Gojo was dead, and she wasn’t.

She found she wasn’t as sad as she thought she would be when he died. She was sad, yes, she can’t deny that, and won’t. But she’s mourned over his death more times than he’s lived. It comes with being a mortician she supposes. When you’re surrounded by death, you expect it.

But sometimes, the dead look more alive than the living. Small hitched breaths the only indicator a patient is alive. Hardly there if you don’t look.

She remembers the first time she saw a corpse move. A frog, jumping out of her hands when she was little. It’s body long dead. She thinks about that sometimes.

Case and point, sometimes the dead are more alive than those living. At least their bodies can grow flowers and turn to dirt.

Sometimes it’s easier to not mourn the dead when it’s not your own face dead on the table.

Well not her face, Nobaras face. Or what is left of it.

But still, she can’t ignore how similar they are. Or once were, she’s changed a lot since she was sixteen.. fifteen? Still, it’s like looking into a alternate reality. Of what could have been, what was expected. She doesn’t want to say what should have been.

Hell Nobara looks more alive than she does, then she did. She still has some makeup on, a bit of eyeshadow, with small bits of glitter on it, blush, lashes.. she doesn’t know much about makeup. But her face looks so much more alive than her neck, a sickly pale. Shoko has deep eye bags, and it’s obvious she’s a smoker. Or she was a smoker. Well she is now.. again.

To get to the point, it’s.. upsetting. She honestly expected herself to die earlier. To die.. maybe before she even reached adulthood. Gojo could handle himself, Geto could handle himself.. She was a pretty good sorcerer. But when your ally is Gojo, it doesn’t really matter. Maybe that’s one reason why she didn’t care so much about smoking, even if she could just heal herself. She wasn’t going to make it to sixty anyways.

But here she is, alive. And there Nobara is. Dead. And she feels like she’s looking at her own corpse. A corpse still alive, with eyes that still have some shine. Some hope. And her eyes are dead.

Maybe she did die at fifteen.

Maybe she died, and lived.

And maybe Nobara lived, and died.

[imthepunchlord]

I'm actually really excited to see Marinette, Juleka, and Rose on a hero team together, and we will hopefully interact more as civilians since, for a long time, I felt that going off more realistic friendships, those 3 would have been an interesting trio. Marinette does have common interests with both of them. Marinette and Juleka both have an interest in fashion that goes hand in hand. Marinette wants to design and make clothes, and Juleka wants to be a model (though apparently, in season 5, she says she wants to become a mortician when she grows up, which was probably just said cause she's goth, but maybe she could do both). Marinette and Rose actually seem to have a lot of common interests, like pink, cute things, and stuffed animals, and both are pretty artsy (Rose is in the art club, and in Darkblade, she is said to enjoy scrapbooking). Plus, the show implies Rose and Juleka have known each other and been friends for a long time (with Rose being the only one to know about Juleka's photo curse in Reflectka), so it wouldn't surprise me that Marinette could have befriended one and the other was brought in later.

What's kinda funny is that I've talked about this before with my Discord buddies. As a lot of friends that become and stay friends is usually through shared interests. Not to say it's always so but that's the usual.

And a friendship between Juleka, Marinette, and Rose does make sense as, yeah, they share interest. Also Rose's interest in perfumes overlaps with fashion.

Alya and Marinette, I actually couldn't think of much they had in common. Most of what they talk about is Adrien and plans to confess, and occasionally hero stuff. From what I see of her concept art, Alya did seem to have some interest in fashion (not as much as Marinette and maybe early Chloe?). Shame that was removed as that really could've solidified their friendship.

Additionally, there are other friendships I'm surprised I don't see.

Nino's interested in film and Mylene has an interest in acting, shouldn't they be close buddies? Adrien also has a knack for it so that could be another trio. The movie also had Nino as a skateboarder, so that could open up him being friends with Alix too.

Nathaniel likes comic book heroes like Alya, that's something that could've connected them. Could've been funny to see Alya pestering Nathaniel to draw their herosonas.

Video game wise, Max should be friends with Adrien and Marinette.

Speaking of Adrien, he does basketball and fencing. Shouldn't we see who's on those teams? Also does he know and worked with other teen models? He can't be the only one in Paris. And given he's rich and friends with the mayor's daughter, shouldn’t he be apart of an elitist group? Know others in Paris than just Chloe? Especially as it is canon that the rich parents want their kids to know other rich kids.

[thelonelyshore-if]

My mc didn’t smoke before but I think he might start smoking now after everything that happened. Also 50/50 that my mc may throw a punch at Ravi one of these days. He’s got 50 tough and Ravi has been getting on his nerves a bit

Your MC is so valid for that. Makes me think that maybe I should implement coping mechanisms; could be a fun flavor thing to add...

And Ravi would certainly deserve it. One of the things I'm most excited to see after this update is what everyone ends up thinking about our local mortician.

[redsea8me]

I just wanna say that your Side Effects AU has me going FERAL it's sitting rent free in my head and has claimed squatter's rights!!

I'm curious if you have any ideas you have surrounding Hyde and Ratchet, and maybe even Team Prime?

Sorry if I'm a bit over the top, pls take these flowers 💐💐💐

Oh my god thank you sm!! It makes me so happy to hear that (will gladly accept those flowers) you’re most certainly not over the top I love answering questions about my au

okay, so w/ Hyde and Ratchet, Hyde is very focused on not being him that it influences his interests too, like Ratchet hates rock music so he loves it type beat (I’ve had it in my head for awhile now that if Hyde was his own separate person since the beginning and they were like normal brothers, he would have been a mortician with a rockstar side gig) and yknow, it definitely sucks at first bc he’s not doing it for himself until he realizes that all Ratchet does everyday is stand at that stupid computer all day so he has more time than most to figure out what he actually likes (still does enjoy rock music tho) he’s very subtly trying to get Ratchet away from it more and more

Hyde and Ratchet have never agreed on what music should be playing and they rarely come to a consensus

Hyde has taken (partial) control over their body far more than Team Prime realizes, mainly when Ratchet is SUPER tired Hyde can easily influence their body so they can get some rest (and it’s totally not because he cares or anything, of course not) and rarely during a mission or something, Ratchet will let Hyde have a bit more control bc he can push their body a bit more

Okay!! Team Prime before this gets too long 😭 but Optimus makes Hyde kind of nervous, he’s not as good at reading Optimus as he’d like to be. His friendship with Ratchet was a large source of fear in the beginning, now it’s just sort of scary authority figure

He wants to rough house with Bulkhead so bad it’s not even funny, he adores sparring and that little bit he got when Ratchet first tested the sythn en was so fun!! (He honestly just wants to be friends with him and Miko so bad)

Arcee he likes bothering, they sass and tease each other a lot I imagine. She took the longest to warm up to him I think

Bumblebee and him have like, me and my estranged cousin vibes (bc let’s not forget, Hyde isn’t really that old at all) when they get past the awkward phase I think they’d be quick friends (Hyde is this close to giving him some sort of piercing)

oh on that topic his snake bites I always draw him with are magnets bc Ratchet doesn’t want piercings like those (never lets him have any fun 😔)

A big point of contention for Hyde when he’s finally integrated with the Autobots is people treating him like he’s fragile bc of Ratchet, like he can understand not wanting him to get injured bc whatever injured he gets will transfer over to their only medic, he gets it. But at the same time he wants so badly to be taken more seriously, or let on missions more bc he can’t stand being stuck in this base (the cabin fever goes crazy)

anyways um, thank you for listening to me rant a bit 😭 hope it’s everything you wanted 🙏