#nor ride the disk horse about it

[tricksterkisses]

X

Since someone decided to tell me I was lying about one of my co-workers outing my trans status to my entire store to uphold some kind of weird complex they have about trans men being privileged, here is me discussing the incident over a year ago in November 2023:

The fact that they immediately jumped to accusing me of lying about transphobia/oppression I have faced in the real world in order to defend their transphobia against trans men is extremely gross and extremely telling.

It's also a great experience irt what it's like to try to discuss oppression online as someone who is in any way transmasc or transmale aligned, if you were oppressed or faced discrimination that your non-cis femme co-workers didn't face...No you didn't.

For further context management at my store is extremely weird about Men (except one of the femme trans people in question who happens to be a manager, who I am very close friends with), I was not told this to my face but one of my (femme) co-workers outed management in another HR scandal because management told them they avoid hiring men.

I work in a common retail location, I do not do a common retail job inside that location, but this isn't a niche location. One of my jobs, this one in question, is at one of the largest pet-store retail chains in the United States. If you've gone to a pet store, you've probably been to it.

The manager in question faced No repercussions despite the HR report I filed by the way, lol, lmao, rofl, whatever.

I think it speaks volumes that this person would rather accuse me of lying about workplace discrimination and lying about my managers preferring women in the workplace by their own admission so that they can upkeep this idea in their head that trans men don't face discrimination and aren't oppressed.

Transfemme people are oppressed and do face workplace hardships, but trans men

Don't have male privilege

Those who do pass (I'm read as Male or Female about 50/50) are actually affected by workplace discrimination when things like this happen, I don't have to 'lie' or 'exaggerate' my experiences, I'm a non-cis person in the USA, I experience plenty of discrimination without making that shit up.

If male privilege relies on stealth (like oh, I don't know, your sub-manager not creeping your background check/finding out you 'used to be a girl') then that male privilege is incidental at best and you do not have it.

Regardless, this behavior in and of itself is transphobic, I would put down money that if I were {Perisex} transfemme, and had claimed I was discriminated at work in a way that was not the same as transmasc co-workers, this person would have eaten it right up.

I've since blocked them (and my passive request to you is to leave them the fuck alone, this behavior is a symptom, they are not a disease) because quite frankly their response knocked me off my fuckin' feet and made me realize engaging with them was both pointless and ostensibly digital self harm, but I can't not talk about it because wow, truly incredible!

[kaanbaltlak]

So, there's this kind of disk horse that I see some of FB contacts sharing and TBH I think is stupid and they're just projecting their insecurities in others.

The disk horse is about seeing each other when the two (or more) people involved in the friendship live really far apart. Not as in, another country or state, no. Just... different municipalities and colonies. Like... between three or more hours apart.

And listen, maybe for some people that time to reach each other isn't that big of a deal. Maybe you have access to a car, a ride or access to cheap public transport. That's great. But sometimes, people just don't have that. They don't have a car, nor a ride nor access to cheap public transport. The «unwillingness» to see you is not necessarily about not wanting to do it, but a thought of «I'll spend this many hours and money...» because fun fact, people are poor.

Now, the solution is maybe going to a medium location, isn't it? Yeah, it absolutely can be. But again, people are still going to spend time and money getting there. And the solution to this is making the date with prior anticipation. Days or weeks, so all the people involved can solve their time and monetary issues. It's not hard to be considerate, I swear y'all. You won't lose years of life.

Is really that hard to understand that people have different lives and financial struggles than you? Is not about if I think certain plaza is «too far away from my house» as in «I actually don't want to see you», but as in «this is really far away from my house and I need to check how many time I'll spend on transport, when I'll arrive there and how many money I'll use in that transport because a bus or train won't be all I'll be taking». And sometimes... People will simply reject the invitation because they don't have the time nor the money and not the energy to do hang around. And that's also fine. It's not an «I actually hate you/Don't care about you/I'm lazy and entitled», stop projecting that onto people. Seriously. Stop.

And maybe if people say «hey I don't have the time nor the money» is the solution, yeah. But people can genuinely think this is an excuse and not a real problem. But also, people don't owe you receipts of their struggles and a «no» should be sufficient and you need to stop judging them as «bad and lazy boring people».

I want to see my friends. The problem is that I'm poor and if you just send me a message a day prior to a hang out, I'll say no. Because I don't I don't have money, because I don't have the time: because that plaza is far away from my house. But I guess sorry for being poor, huh. See paragraph 4 again. And sorry if you actually came across people who are entitled and hate you, but that's not me and that isn't also the majority.

[ingridbgalatea]

ミ✭ dog-eared.

cw; death.

the quiet is sudden.

the air rids itself of forceful screams, and red cords no longer strain and break at the sound of blood spilling through pierced flesh. the otherwise hideous creak and crumple of the beast shreds against metal, reduced to the hum of a disk scratching voice pressed against fabric as snow seeps into ingrid’s ears. calm tide that the moon draws in, and out again— she breathes; her chest weighing of iron as much as her tongue, scarlet angering the bull of her heart. no longer can she hear the distant, murderous intent of the death knell’s crow. an echo repeats itself in it’s memory, but not the bell itself; dull murmur of it’s chime growing flat with every resound. 

snow falls, marble white an unwelcome contrast to the crimson that bloodied her skin; no longer warm and soft, as much as her father might’ve wanted her suitors to see. low, lulling notes of a supposedly happy hymnal play in haunting minor, both meant for the wed and dying. dying. dying. the word begins to lose meaning the more she says it, soundlessly, meant for an audience of no one besides herself. a person with no such companionship dies alone, and that was what she was, right? dying. 

despite everything the stories say, death isn’t at all what they paint it out to be.

—when it ropes you around the waist, (callous touch to bloody wounds,) you’d think you would see your life flash before your eyes. 

she thinks she would see felix, in all his perpetual scowl; once small smile contorted into something she could never understand. his face, worn with battles he both knew how to pick but didn’t anyways. she thinks she would see sylvain, with his carefully painted smile and words that were both ultimately a little reckless and quietly caring, and maybe she wouldn’t feel the need to pick up after him so much. she thinks she would see his highness, in all his polite small talk and tall standing; and she wonders what he would think about what aeschylus had called justice.

was that it? was that what he died for? so chivalry, so honour, so knighthood, so valour, so martyrdom, so justice—

                                                                                               so what? 

                                       she doesn’t see their faces. not anymore. 

eyes press softly close (though they were already shut), the softness of a cruel winter lies on her eyelashes. her flesh, or lack thereof, is tangible as the touch of another wraps around her form. blood drips without distinction between flesh and cloth; dyes the snow as red as strawberries in the summer. everything feels numb in all of her own tragic, human fragility, and fingers thrum in her head but not against the back of the one who’d begun carrying her. a loss for words, and a loss for names… even recognising who had lifted her up in that piteous state was difficult. air travels through her, trudging through the muck of blood and mucus; disquieting smell of metal filling her lungs. she is breathing, yes, yes, but only so; where the thunder of her thoughts meet her lips there is only a drop of rain, scarlet blood. 

ingrid wants to be held a little longer, blink in dream-worthy bleariness; living in the little moments between uneager steps that mark the snow. it’s a little like riding a horse, or a pegasus returning from flight; soft footfalls uneasy against the ground, lifting and falling. gentle light filters through; warmth leaves her embrace unconscientiously, as you might pry a toy from a child. holding, holding— nothing; empty air, an unraised hand closes around itself as her body is lowered to the ground. to the ground… no, deeper than that; a grave, maybe? she can’t tell. it is certainly not a bed; nor as welcoming— the cold stings where the wind bites. 

            she lies, still.

quiet returns, though not for long (but she couldn’t be sure of that fact, for time was no longer as meaningful, nor invaluable). soon(er, or later), the faint buzz of chatter resonates, velvety words against blue lips; the voice quivers in the cold but does not drone itself out in defeat. poetry, was it? the rhythm of the voice is only nervously placed; she hopes she’d gotten at least that bit right. overwrought pauses were scarce, but not absent in his recital. she manages to catch a few words from it— how was she so sure that it was a ‘his’?— but nothing so sharp as to cut through her numbed skin. grievances, promises, memories, whatever poems would say and sing, and…...

‘rest in peace.’

                                                                                                              ...oh. 

for who was that sentiment? 

                                             f o r.. wh o?

    who was r e s tin g in p  e a ce ?

                                            ……………… w  h     o ...

                                                        am   i  

            d

                                   e 

                                                                         a  

                                                                                           d ? 

                                                      -!

—i am certainly breathing and breathing and breathing and i cannot seem to stop and not unless i’ve forgotten how to see (i have) or hear (perhaps) or think (i have not) but until i have forgotten how to breathe then that is territory i will not step. but where is the line and when do i cross it and have i crossed it already? i am certainly breathing and breathing and breathing but what if it is only in my head and only there instead? what then?

see, i’ve never considered myself immune to failure and i never will, but i am only as pained as any other human and therefore i must deal with it as just. i am not immune to failure but i am not immune to not relishing in it, if that makes any sense; but i am barely making (creating, really,) anything. every new word makes me hate the last but that is untrue with stories for i cherish them all. yet, as an artist i must learn to hate my craft. so, as a martyr, must i learn to hate my death?

-and truthfully i am not so earnestly as regretful (to die) as of the thought that there would be nothing to regret but there is and there are lots and things i will never right and things i will never write and that in itself is a despairing thought. what is martyrdom without a god and what is knighthood without a king? likewise, what is idolisation without an idol and what am i without myself? 

              ..

unwound thoughts hover over the precipice; carved deep into the ravine below, indistinct words of a priest. like water that drips between the cracks of ruined earth, it eludes her— no matter how much she would try and fail to hold it in her hands. words were fickle, and they were never as right as ingrid would have hoped them to be, but if she could remember just this— it would be enough. 

( they say faces you see in dreams are only of those you know; but she doesn’t remember this one at all. perhaps it didn’t matter as much as she wanted it to. )

 he opens his mouth— crooked smile, as though the thought seemed almost entertaining. where there is a joy of knowledge and the ability to know and have faith, reflects only voided blankness. 

then, he speaks, and ingrid wonders if it was worth listening.

    “ your fate is already written. ”

                                                                    i          k      n   o     w. 

a maskless shiver lives on her skin. did this moment dictate her fate? or was it every disappointing choice she’d made until then; with the affirmation that she would fix it before… before her death? before that, even? did she have a choice to do so at all? ink stains the page but in all her efforts to wipe it away, it only smudges; leaves otherwise permanent stains on parchment and temporarily on her skin. part of her withers, like rotting paper. she wonders, momentously, if it was her own writing all along, or if it were the goddess’s authorship— that she lived a short life and died an unsatisfying death.

                ‘ unsatisfying. ’ 

                                     goddess, it was. 

ingrid doesn’t see her life flash before her eyes, no.

 it is only an open book, and she has ruined any and all chances to read it. 

               she stops at the last page before the final chapter; finger                                     hanging over the top-right corner. 

the page flips like the snuffing toss of a pegasus’s head; discontent and mild in it’s expression— but it ends only there. 

                                                     she has it dog-eared, for reference. 

 “ ... however, the reason you are here, alive at all, is the question: can you change what you believe is written as ‘fate’?”

                                              .

                                              .

                                              .

something twists inside her.                                                                                   

                                                                          had she changed anything?

her heart screams in her chest. it pounds and tears and shrieks and rips and it beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and  beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats and beats—

                                   and then it stops. 

                                                        …

he doesn’t wait, walking away.

                                                                           ingrid doesn’t run to meet him.

                      the world turns, but she has stopped turning with it.

                                                                               …                           

   No, 

                        ( a wan, dying thought. )

                                                                   I haven’t changed anything at all.

[monsterywriting]

Monster Demon Boyfriend (Dirrath) - pt 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Word count: 2,731

Growing up, you loved riding on your family’s old gelding. Deep in the outskirts, your mother had been the only healer for nearly a dozen villages. As such, you were often dragged along as a necessary helping hand in her work riding to and fro on various calls.

Most of your childhood memories were of you and your mother swiftly riding on the well-worn paths between different settlements, your saddlebags only filled with what couldn’t be obtained at your destinations.

But you weren’t on yet another couple hour ride to a neighboring village, you were on day three of riding on a barely-trained colt in uncomfortable armor on a path that felt like it hadn’t been used in a hundred years—coincidentally the same age of your maps, which had been drawn up before the closed borders and stored in the castle archives.

The navigator had informed you just this morning that the rough terrain would add at least another few days to the twelve days of the trip if the path didn’t clear up. Just last night the convoy had been forced to set up camp early in order to clear out the remains of an old mudslide blocking the path.

To make matters worse, to your complete dismay you were entirely out of shape for the level of rigor the journey required. After only a year of staying in the castle, you were nearly dysfunction with a few days of riding without lunch. In fact, just the few hours of riding since your breakfast of porridge and dried meat at daybreak with a long ways until dinner at sundown left you feeling weak and irritable. Not to mention the soreness of your entire body from riding and chafing in places you didn’t even know could be chafed.

Not long ago you were used to riding for hours to do seemingly endless work as an assistant healer and then riding all the way home late in the night with much less to eat.

You felt very much as though you’d been transformed into one of the retired farmers who moved into the villages your mother used to treat for arthritis and other ailments that came with old age, complete with complaints of the hardships of The Olden Days when poverty forced them to walk miles in the snow for work. Uphill. Both ways.

 “Here,” a large, dried yellow disk suddenly dangled in your line of sight, snapping you out of your misery and nearly making you fall back from your saddle. You hadn’t even noticed Dirrath falling back from his position to ride beside you.

“What is it?” You asked suspiciously, eyeing the round object as though it were about to combust.

“Food,” Dirrath deadpanned, “take it or leave it, princess.”

Your trust of Dirrath hadn’t improved much over the past few days, though you appreciated that he made no effort to push to be your “right hand man” as you had spent your final night dreading.

But rather than antagonize Dirrath as you had while still in Altruria, you were now completely and utterly terrified of the possibility of being alone with a demon—muzzled with a contract or not—and definitely not about to accept anything from a literal demon.

Just as you were about to kindly tell Dirrath to fuck off back to his position, your stomach answered for you. Face burning as your hunger won out, you snatched the disk from his hand and turned it around in your hands, ignoring Dirrath’s smirk.

It was much larger than your palm, yellow with a darker orange center you assumed was the pit. Finally nibbling on the edge, you were pleasantly surprised by the sweet taste that flooded your mouth.

“What is it?” Your tone starkly different from when you had first asked the question, unable to contain your awe.

You were always surprised at how much food existed outside of what you grew up eating. Some things you had once only imagined—and most you hadn’t—you suddenly found in front of you once you became the 13th. It didn’t at all surprise you there were still things you had never heard of.

“Fruit,” Dirrath replied, his smirk turning into a full on shit-eating grin as he popped a small piece from a small saddlebag into his mouth.

“I know that,” you hissed in indignation, “what kind?”

“They’re called peaches,” Dirrath finally answered, watching as you savored your next bite.

You make a mental note to ask for more peaches when you return to the castle, not wanting to beg Dirrath for more but also completely hooked on the taste.

“What does a demon like you need with mortal food?” You quipped, changing the subject as you grew uncomfortable under Dirrath’s unblinking gaze.

“I do have tastebuds, you know,” Dirrath scoffed, finally looking away from you and towards the path ahead, “I still enjoy tastes.”

Before you could come up with some witty remark to shoot back at Dirrath, a loud whoop sounded from deep in the forest, echoing amongst the trees and making it impossible to tell where it came from or how far off it was.

The entire forest fell silent, including everyone in the convoy. The only sound that could be heard were the horses and the supply wagons’ wheels. You could even hear Olek order the guards around him to keep moving.

Even Dirrath kept quiet, his eyes analyzing both edges of the forest as though waiting for whoever made the sound to jump out from the underbrush, keeping you tense as well as you watched for any sign of movement in the forest.

Quiet conversations slowly resumed, but the mood remained largely subdued even after stopping for the evening, especially since a fallen tree and the horribly uneven paths meant there wasn’t nearly as much distance between the group and whoever made the noise as anyone would have liked.

“I’ve added extra guards for the night watch,” Olek informed you grimly just as you finished popping up your tent from the small box the 8th had given you as a going away present.

“Thank you, Olek,” you smiled, dismissing the captain before entering your tent.

It was fairly large, considering you were the only person staying inside of it, though you suppose that was due to you being a member of the court.

A small bed lay perfectly made on one side of the tent and a small desk and chair on the other. On the far end was an armoire constantly filled with clean clothing. In the corner behind the desk was a wooden door that should have led to the area behind your tent, but instead was a private bathroom nearly identical to your own in the castle, the part of your present you were the most grateful for.

You refrained from sitting down on either the bed or the chair, knowing you’d likely not be getting up for the rest of the night if you did. Instead, you stretched in the center of the tent, popping your various joints until you were feeling a bit less dead on your feet.

With that done, you made your way through the camp, the tension persisted as the guards went through the motions of their evening duties. However, as more people entered the center of the camp where dinner was being cooked, the sight of Olek on the undesirable duty for the night unsurprisingly lifted the dark cloud looming over everyone’s head—although you were the only one who dared laugh at the seething captain.

You sat close to the fire, eating quickly so you could sleep sooner in preparation of yet another long day ahead. You weren’t surprised that Dirrath was nowhere to be found amongst the group. A demon that didn’t absolutely need to eat wasn’t likely to find the watery beef stew very appealing.

Once you were done, you quickly retired to your tent, almost gleeful as you quickly undid your armor and nearly rushed into the bathroom.

You sunk into the hot water, soaking in the hot water for a while before finally scrubbing the dirt and grime that had accumulated over the course of the day. You even decided to use some of the oils that were bottled and lining the edges of the tub, knowing they would be refilled once you opened the tent again the next night.

By the time you left the bathroom wearing your clothes for the next day, you were feeling almost completely refreshed, collapsing in your bed and falling into the dreamless sleep that comes with complete exhaustion.

The next week passes surprisingly easy.

As luck would have it, the forgotten paths between the kingdom soon gave way to almost perfectly smooth roads around the fifth day of the journey. The convoy was surrounded on either side by endless fields of crops and grazing animals, with only a few patches of forest in between.

The navigators had even reported to you that the convoy was back on schedule to make it to the kingdom’s capital in two days as had been initially estimated.

The only caveat was that this made it harder to find a place to set up camp, as there was no way of knowing when the convoy would pass the next piece of available forest or if it would even be large enough to house all the tents and four supply wagons.

And, over time, you grew used to the taxing rides until you finally reached the point where you no longer felt as though you were constantly on the brink of starvation, nor were you as mentally or physically drained at the end of the day.

However, as though the universe had been waiting for you to let your guard down before unleashing yet another shitstorm on you.

In a particularly long stretch of forest between fields, a loud shout sounded from your right and men poured out of the woods with swords drawn.

Your horse sidestepped nervously as chaos erupted around you, the obvious enemies had waited until the convoy was nearly past before attacking, allowing them to cut off your half from those in the front—including Olek and Dirrath.

The guards that had been near you circled around you, but it was soon clear the men were targeting the supplies rather than the convoy.

“Protect the wagons!” You shouted the best you could over the cacophony of fighting, “They’re bandits!”

Dismounting, you drew your sword and began making your way to the wagons, soon loosing track of your guards, all the while muttering any and every curse you could think of against the attackers.

Some fell to the ground as painful boils erupted across their skin, other felt no immediate effects but would later regret their next meal, and still other escaped with only a few choice words regarding where they could stick their swords.

While you could fall back on magic when you needed to, you were grateful for your time with the 8th as you were able to conserve your energy as there seemed to be an endless amount of men coming at you.

While you wouldn’t call what she taught you “technique,” you were still easily able to keep the bandits relying on brute strength and not much else at bay without the aid of your guards.

As soon as you reached the first wagon, you jumped onto the front seat, keeping back any bandits that tried to climb on. From your new vantage point, you could see that, although the bandits had numbers, your guard clearly had the upper hand, their attempt to break up the convoy not working in their favor as they had hoped.

Unfortunately, you also noticed a few of your men lay injured on the ground and your guard was clearly growing tired as the fight dragged on.

Fortunately, both wagons were all entirely enclosed and the lock at the back was enchanted against any attempt to force it open, meaning the only way for the bandits to make off with any supplies was to try and take the entire thing, making it much easier for you to defend.

Your priority was the wagons above all else. Without it, the entire convoy would be stranded without any tents, food, or water. Not to mention the final wagon with the offerings of peace for the king and his court.

When you heard the creak of wood behind you, you swung your sword without thought or warning, Dirrath barely having time to duck his head down to dodge it.

“Great gods below, princess!” Dirrath shouted over the fighting behind him, pulling himself up onto the bench next to you, “Get down!”

Thinking Dirrath was trying to keep you from fighting, you almost made a biting retort until you saw him reach for the reins. As Dirrath struggled to calm the horses enough to listen to him, you were forced to keep the bandits from climbing on.

“So much for my hired mercenary,” you snarked as you smashed your foot into a particularly persistent bandits’ face.

Whatever flimsy truce that had been forged during the better pars of the journey was now officially broken.

Dirrath said nothing as he grabbed your armor strap on your side and pulled you down, sitting just in time for the wagon to lurch forward, the horses barreling through the throng that just barely parted in time to avoid being on the wrong side of their hooves at full speed.

“My priority is getting you away from danger,” muttered Dirrath as he grabbed the back of your head and forced you to lean into him just as an arrow whizzed next to your ear, getting lodged into the wood behind your head.

“Wait, we can’t go ahead, we have to stay and help,” you sat straight up once you realized Dirrath didn’t intent on stopping just outside the main fight.

“It’s too dangerous,” Dirrath snapped, “you aren’t a warrior and you have a much more important job to do here. It’s their duty to die for you not the other way around.”

Rather than reply, you elbowed Dirrath in his side as hard as you could, snatching the reins from him and bringing the wagon to a complete stop.

“Stay and guard the supplies,” you ordered, readying your sword as you prepared to throw yourself back into the fray.

It was clear your guard was clearly winning, some of the would-be bandits on the ground and most long since fled back into the forest.

“You are extremely aggravating,” Dirrath grunted as he caught up to you, pulling his axe off his back and standing in front of you.

A small smile escaped you before you pushed ahead of the demon and began cutting through the crowd, drawing the attention of the remaining bandits away from your guards to you, Dirrath staying nearby to keep you from being overrun.

Eventually, as though the bandits finally realized they were quickly becoming outnumbered as more broke away back to the forest, the last of the bandits fled from the road.

Finally having a chance to survey the damage, you weren’t surprised to find that the wagon Dirrath left had been taken. The rest, fortunately, had been kept safe as the bandits hadn’t been able to drive off with them without trampling their own on the ground.

There were a surprising few severe injuries on your side, only ten guards needed immediate help, six of which had been caught by surprise when the bandits initially attacked. One horse had a sprained fetlock, but the rest were fine and none had strayed too far from the road, glad you had the forethought to have the bridles enchanted before leaving the castle.

So, you immediately set to healing the all the wounded, hoping the adrenaline from the fight would keep you from passing out from the exertion. You were at least able to make it through all the seriously injured guards before you were too weak to continue, allowing the rest of the guard to tend to the minor cuts and scrapes from there.

As soon as you tried to stand from healing the horse, however, your vision began to swim with dark spots and you had the faint sensation of falling before fully blacking out.

[minijenn]

Universe Falls Chapter 25

Yesssss finally the last really purely fluff chapter for a while is done! And this one is... ok, I guess. There are parts of it I really like and several jokes in here that I think are pretty funny. So I hope you all enjoy it! Here we go!

Previous: http://minijenn.tumblr.com/post/154983277831/universe-falls-chapter-24

Chapter 25: Miss Mystery

7-18-5-5-20 20-8-5 20-15-21-18-9-19-20-19 3-15-21-14-20 20-8-5 6-21-14-4-19 3-1-20-3-8 20-8-5 13-15-14-19-20-5-18 1-14-4 20-8-5 2-5-20 9-19 23-15-14

“Ok, Mabel!” Steven called as he prepared to throw the frisbee. “Here it comes!”

“I’m ready!” Mabel shouted back, already running as Lion raced alongside her. The kids had devised a more interesting way of playing frisbee, one that involved having to contend with the pink beast in catching it. But even so, Mabel managed to barely best Lion this time as she jumped to catch the disk before he could. “Woo! That’s another one for Mabel! Sorry, Lion,” she smirked, giving the pink beast an affectionate scratch on the ear. “But you’re gonna have to do better than that!”

“Uh, are you guys really sure playing frisbee with a literal lion is such a good-” Before Dipper could even finish his question, Mabel haphazardly tossed the disk his way, hitting him squarely in the head and knocking him to the ground. Of course, Lion still chased after it and pounced on the already downed boy to retrieve it before trotting over to Connie with it. “Thanks for that, Lion,” Dipper deadpanned, annoyed as he picked himself up off the ground.

“Thanks, Lion,” Connie laughed, taking the frisbee. “Steven, are you ready?”

“Yeah!” the young Gem grinned as he bounced on the balls of his feet, ready to run. “Throw it, Connie!”

She did so, letting the disk soar towards Steven as Lion hurried after it once more. The only problem was that Connie happened to throw the frisbee a bit too high, to the point that it sailed right over Steven’s head and towards the Mystery Shack just as Stan happened to be walking out of it. Unfortunately, right as he stepped outside, the conman not only happened to be hit by the speeding disk, but also the pink beast that pummeled him to the ground for it.

“W-what the-?!” Stan exclaimed, alarmed as he looked up to Lion still standing over him. “Get off of me, you oversized clump of cotton candy!” The pink beast let out a sullen growl as he did what the conman had said, though Stan made sure to offer just as harsh of a growl of his own in response.

“S-sorry, Mr. Pines!” Connie called out apologetically.

“We were just playing the new game we made up: Frisbee Toss, Lion Edition!” Mabel quipped as the pink beast passed off the disk to her. “Do you wanna join us, Grunkle Stan?”

“Are you kiddin’ me, kid?” Stan asked caustically. “I don’t have time for fun and games or getting attacked by magical lions. I have a business to run and cold hard cash to make. Something that you’d never understand.”

Mabel pouted upon hearing this, quite unamused with her uncle’s condescending manner. But even so, she didn’t really have time to argue with him as Soos came around from the other side of the shack. “Mr. Pines! We got tourists at 9 o’clock!” the handyman exclaimed. “A whole busload of ‘em!”

And indeed, a large tour bus was pulling up to the shack as a small army of camera-toting tourists filed out, all of them buzzing with excitement and anticipation over the attraction they had arrived. “Hot tamales, it’s a jackpot!” Stan exclaimed with a wide grin as he peeked around the side of the shack to see the impressionable group for himself. “Soos! Make me some new attractions!”

“You got it, boss!” the handyman gave a thumbs-up as he hurried inside the shack. “Now where did I put that taxidermized chicken…?”

“As for all you kids,” Stan turned to the others. “Quit loitering around out here and get back to work!”

“But Mr. Pines, me and Connie don’t work here,” Steven pointed out with a frown.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said, kid?!” the conman exclaimed rigidly, not even caring about what the young Gem had said. “I said get back to work!”

Neither Steven nor Connie found that they were really in any position to argue with Stan, as surly and unyielding as he was. Which was why they both humbly followed the twins as they hurried into the gift shop with the conman coming not too far behind them.

“Wendy! Mark up those prices!” Stan shouted to the cashier, who was engrossed in reading a magazine instead of really doing her job. “The higher the better!” Wendy sighed but begrudgingly did so, adding a zero to the end of a two dollar price tag, upping it to twenty. “Higher!” Stan demanded. “Bleed ‘em dry!” The cashier complied, adding yet another zero to the sign and bumping the price up to a staggering $200.

“Yeesh, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper remarked upon seeing all this. “It’s like when you see tourists, all you see is wallets with legs.”

“That’s not true,” Stan protested pointedly. Yet all the same, as the conman turned to the window to observe his incoming customers, he really did envision most of them as walking, over-sized wallets, all of them ready to spend themselves dry at the Mystery Shack. In fact, as a carsick tourist stumbled out of his car, Stan even imagined he was throwing up pennies as opposed to actual vomit. However, in reality, that was far from what had really just happened. “Clean up on the front lawn!” he shouted to his nephew, seeing as how he certainly wasn’t going to do it himself. Dipper simply sighed relentingly but went to carry out the unsavory task all the same, glaring disparagingly at his uncle all the while.

Considering the sudden flux of tourists, the Mystery Shack was having quite the booming business day, meaning that all of its employees were quite busy. Though they didn’t work there, Stan had deemed Steven and Connie as “temporary interns”, of course implying that neither of them were going to get paid for helping out. And so, the two of them were somehow roped into selling tour tickets outside, which fortunately wasn’t too difficult or tiring of a task.

“There you go,” Connie said as she handed a ticket off to another customer. “Enjoy the tour!”

“This is the best job ever, Connie,” Steven said with a bright grin. “I mean, we get to sit out here, talk to all these nice people, and be the first faces they see when they come to the Mystery Shack! What could be better than that?”

“I feel like I could think of a few things…” Connie remarked with a small laugh.

Before the conversation could continue, another family stepped up to the ticket table, including a mother carrying a small infant. “Oh, what a cute baby!” the young Gem gasped with a delighted smile upon seeing the child. “You get to go in for free, little guy.”

“Oh, well that’s very polite of you. Thank you, young man!” the mother smiled graciously. However, before her and her family could go inside, they were abruptly stopped at the door.

“Hold it!” Stan gruffly exclaimed as he stepped outside. “No one, and I mean no one gets in for free. No exceptions.”

“Not even babies?” Steven asked with a frown.

“Especially not babies,” the conman asserted before turning to the woman. “It’s the full price of admission for you and your little ankle biter, lady.”

The mother simply shrugged in acceptance with this and handed Stan the money before going on inside with the rest of the group. “As for you two,” he said to Steven and Connie. “Don’t let me catch you trying to hand out any kind of ‘discounts’ or ‘price cuts’ to any of these rubes. I’m not not-paying you two to run a charity case.”

The conman didn’t give either of them a chance to respond as he simply went back inside, slamming the door shut behind him. “Well,” Connie said to Steven with a halfhearted shrug. “We can’t say we didn’t try.”

“Ladies and gentle-tourists!” Stan began in his faux charming tone as he led a large tour group through the museum. “Looking around my Mystery Shack, you will see many wondrous roadside attractions! Be amazed at the only known photo of a horse riding another horse!” The conman pointed to said picture hanging from the nearby wall, smirking as the tourists muttered amongst themselves, interested.

“And now,” Stan continued the tour. “Be astonished at the horrible, pre-teen wolf boy!” With a dramatic flair, the conman pulled the nearby curtain aside to reveal Dipper wearing the “wolf” costume Stan had forced him into, complete with fake fur, fangs, and ears. “Oh! Look at him!” the conman continued, ignoring how clearly disgruntled his nephew was over his embarrassing position. “All that hair! His body’s changing, ah!”

“Grunkle Stan,” Dipper spoke up, spitting his fake wolf teeth out. “This is demeaning.”

“What? I don’t know ‘de meaning’ of that word!” Stan joked, eliciting a laugh from all of the tourists and a frustrated sigh from Dipper. “By the way,” he said to the tourists. “If you throw money at him, he dances.”

Of course, the impressionable tourists were more than happy to do so, forcing Dipper to jump around the stage in something of a “dance” in order to avoid the cash being thrown at him. Even so, Stan was more than happy to reap all of the extra money he was making, regardless of how he got it.

Much like the tour, the gift shop was also bustling with customers, all of them eager to spend their money on various knick-knacks and doo-dads. Mabel cheerfully presided over the checkout counter, taking a page from her grunkle about advertising products freely and loudly.

“Behold! Mystery Shack bumper stickers!” she proclaimed, catching the attention of every customer nearby. “You can stick ‘em on your bumper or over your husband’s mouth! Am I right, ladies? She knows what I’m talking about!” she grinned to the woman approaching the counter.

“Oh, you are bad!” the woman laughed, amused. “How much?”

“Hey, it’s on the house,” Mabel smiled as she gave the woman a bumper sticker. “That’s the Mabel difference! Thanks for visiting!”

“What?!” Stan’s sudden outburst startled Mabel as he suddenly stepped out from behind a cardboard cutout of himself. “What the heck do you think you’re doing!?”

“Business!” Mabel quipped brightly, pressing random buttons on the register. “Ching! Ching! Ching!”

“Listen, kid,” Stan began, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “You don’t make money by giving stuff away. You make it by upping prices and tricking idiots into giving it to you for practically nothing. Which is why you’re off register duty.”

“But-” Mabel tried to protest before she was abruptly cut off.

“No buts except yours out the door,” the conman said coldly. “Now shut your yap and get to work!”

“Grunkle Stan, whatever happened to ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, hm?” Mabel asked. “Oh wait! There they are!” At this, she pulled out her rather extensive sticker collection and retrieved two stickers saying both of those courtesy words, slapping them onto Stan’s face. “Wop wop!”

“Ugh,” Stan groaned, taking the stickers off. “‘Please’ never made me any money, kid. In fact, just saying the word gives me a burning sensation.”

It was around this point that Steven and Connie entered the gift shop, both of them looking rather famished and exhausted after their long stint of selling tickets. Yet even so, the conman hardly had any sympathy on them. “Hey, hey! What do you two think you’re doing?!”

“We just came in to get some water,” Steven explained, his voice sounding rather dry. “It’s so hot out there, Mr. Pines.”

“Customers finally stopped coming, so we decided to take a short break,” Connie added. “If that’s ok with you, sir.”

“Well, it most certainly isn’t ok with me!” Stan exclaimed crossly. “If you guys aren’t out there selling tickets, then people will think they can just waltz in here all willy-nilly without paying. Somebody has to take their money from them and that somebody is you.”

“Can we at least have a bathroom break first?” Steven asked anxiously. “I’ve been holding it in for almost two hours!”

“Didn’t you just hear a word I said?” the conman retorted caustically. “No breaks! For any of you! From now on, everyone around here better pull their weight, or I’m cutting your pay even more!”

“Mr. Pines, you’re not paying me or Steven to work here…” Connie pointed out with a frown.

“Then that should give you all the more incentive to work harder, shouldn’t it?” Stan asked, unconcerned.

No one was really sure how to argue with this faulty logic, so none of the kids really even tried. Not long after this, however, Dipper entered the gift shop, more than ready to voice his own grievance to his miserly uncle. “Grunkle Stan, why do I have to wear this wolf costume?’ he asked in exasperation, scratching at the fur attached to his legs. “I think I’m getting hookworm.”

“Ha! Yep,” Stan laughed. “Gluing dog hair to your body will do that.”

Dipper sighed at this comment, only growing even more annoyed with Stan’s cheap, unethical business practices. “Grunkle Stan, you’ve got all these dumb, fake exhibits here at the shack but meanwhile I’ve seen actual amazing things in the forest every day! What if you hunted down a real attraction instead of just lying to people for a living?”

“And you should be nicer to your employees too!” Mabel added just as vigorously.

“And give them bathroom/water breaks!” Steven exclaimed boldyl. “And maybe a nice snack break every now and then too.”

“Yeah!” Dipper and Connie agreed in unison, high fiving Steven and Mabel. Yet even so, Stan was hardly sold on any of their ultraistic ideas.

“Look, if you guys got a problem with how I run the shack, take it up with the complaints department,” the conman remarked, smirking as he held up a trash can. “Zing!”

“That’s a weird looking complaints department…” Steven noted with a frown.

“Oh, I am going to write them such a letter!” Mabel exclaimed, already starting to do so as she shielded what she was writing away from the trash can.

“Make sure to use lots of exclamation points!” Steven encouraged, looking at over her shoulder at the letter. “They’re great for adding that extra ‘oomf’!”

Of course, Dipper and Connie could only really sigh at the pair’s misplaced enthusiasm, knowing that Stan wouldn’t really listen to any of their complaints or suggestions anyway. And unfortunately, it looked like that was something that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

As the flow of customers began to slow down later that afternoon, Stan contracted all of his employees (including Steven and Connie) to carry out what he referred to as a ‘shack beautification project’. In reality though, the sum of said project was coating the shack’s sign with a heavy layer of glitter, regardless of how gaudy it made it look. Of course, the conman had no intentions of helping the others with this task as he merely supervised them from the lawn below.

“And don’t stop until you’ve covered that sign with glitter!” Stan ordered firmly. “Glittery signs attract tourists! Also large birds.” The conman’s statement was proven true as an eagle flew in from out of nowhere, divebombing towards the sign and attacking Soos in the process. Instead of helping his employee however, Stan simply laughed at his panic and misery. “Ha! That’s funny.”

As everyone begrudgingly continued working, the Gems happened to arrive, all three of them curious to see what the commotion was all about. “Yo, Stan!” Amethyst greeted casually as they came to stand alongside the conman. “What up? Are you trying to give people eye strain when they look at the shack’s sign?”

“Because if that’s the case, then you’re doing a pretty good job,” Garnet remarked dryly.

“Hey! I’ll have you know all that glitter is gonna bring in loads of paying customers!” Stan protested defensively. “And it’ll probably get people to finally stop looking at your dusty old temple and get their attention on a real tourist attraction for once!”

“Please, Stan,” Pearl rolled her eyes. “The Mystery Shack couldn’t be more fake. Anyone with eyes can see that everything in there is just a shallow, tawdry ruse.”

“I don’t know what half of that meant, but thank you,” Stan said snidely, satisfied with the aggravated glare the white Gem sent is way.

“Oh, hi, you guys!” Steven shouted down to the Gems from atop the roof. “Check me out! I’m painting!”

“Steven, be careful up there!” Pearl called fretfully before turning to the conman in a huff. “Honestly, Stan, it’s bad enough you force the twins to work so hard. How did you manage to rope Steven and Connie into doing your dirty work too?”

“What? They both volunteered to help out for the day,” Stan lied, feigning innocence.

“No, we didn’t!” Connie called from the roof.

“Pfft, well better them than us, huh?” Amethyst asked with a shrug. “This junk looks boring anyway. Though at least Steven looks like he’s kinda having fun.” The purple Gem nodded up to the young Gem, who was blithely painting a smiley face in glitter on the shack’s sign.

“So are you three just gonna stand around here all day?” Stan asked the Gems, crossing his arms. “Because if you do, there’s a fee you have to pay for that.”

“We’re going,” Garnet said, already preparing to leave.

“Fine, I suppose we are,” Pearl said with a frustrated sigh. “But you better be careful not to work Steven too hard, Stan. Or else you’ll have to answer to us.”

“Oh gee, I’m quivering in fear,” Stan remarked sarcastically as the Gems walked off. Pearl shot one final warning glare back at him, but said nothing as they left, leaving the conman to freely bark orders at his employees once more. “Alright, kids, pick up the pace! By the time I come back out here, that sign better be shining like a brand new penny! Or better yet, a quarter because they’re worth way more money!”

And with that, the conman went inside the shack, allowing the group to finally take a much needed breather now that they were no longer under his scrutiny. “Ok, is it just me, or is having Grunkle Stan as a boss seriously the worst?” Dipper asked, putting his paint roller aside.

“I know, right?” Wendy remarked, crossing her arms. “Why do we even put up with it?”

“Aw, working for Mr. Pines isn’t so bad, you guys,” Steven said, trying to see the bright side of things. “At least he finally let me have my bathroom break.”

“Only because you got down on your knees and begged for it, Steven,” Dipper pointed out dryly.

“You know, I gave Stan a suggestion to improve the shack once,” Soos said. “I had this idea where I could be like, the Mystery Shack mascot: Questiony the Question Mark. I ask people questions, do the question dance, cool stuff like that.”

“That sounds amazing!” Mabel exclaimed with a huge grin as the others all nodded their shared enthusiasm towards the handyman’s idea.

“Yeah, Soos! I’m sure everyone would love that!” Steven added brightly.

“Yeah, well… Stan said I couldn’t handle it.”

“He said what!?” Mabel exclaimed, shocked. Stan had already shown a general lack of concern for his employees and his customers over the course of today alone. But as far as Mabel was concerned, this was the final straw. And this time, she wasn’t willing to stand by and let her uncle get away with it any longer.

“And remember, folks!” Stan called after the latest tour group as they departed. “We put the ‘fun’ in ‘no refunds’!” As soon as the tourists were out of earshot, the conman retreating inside the gift shop, counting his large stack of profits and laughing all the while. “Suckers!”

“You!” Mabel shouted accusingly, revealing herself from her hiding spot behind the door and startling Stan quite a bit. “Grunkle Stan, you’ve gone too far this time! Did you seriously tell Soos not to follow his hopes and dreams because he ‘couldn’t handle it’?”

“Look, kid,” Stan began, heading into his office with Mabel following close behind. “Let me break it down for you. Around here, I’m known as Mr. Mystery for two reasons: 1. Because I give everyone who comes to this shack a taste of the unknown, for the right price of course. And 2. Because I’m the boss. And being a boss is about commanding respect. If you give people everything they ask for, they’ll walk right over you.”

“No way!” Mabel argued. “I bet you’d make way more money being nice than being a big grumpy grump to everyone all the time!”

“Ha! You think you know more about business than I do? You think you could wear this hat?” Stan asked caustically, pointing to his fez.

“Yeah!” Mabel exclaimed readily. “Cause I give people respect! And glittery stickers!” For emphasis, she pulled a star sticker out of her sweater and stamped it on her cheek, her expression remaining hard and resolved all the while.

“Please,” the conman rolled his eyes. “I’d make more money on vacation than you would running this place.”

“Then why don’t you go on vacation?”

“Hm… interesting…” Stan mused, taking this challenge to heart. “Alright, I’m a wagering man. So here’s how its gonna work. 3 days. 72 hours. You run the shack, and I’ll go on vacation. If you make more money than me, I guess it means you’re right about the way I run my business. But if you lose, you, uh…” The conman paused, glancing around until he found a blank white tee shirt nearby. Acting quickly, he took a marker and scribbled the word ‘loser’ on it in bold black letters. “You have to wear this ‘loser’ tee shirt all summer!”

“Fine,” Mabel shrugged, confident that she would win this bet. After all, how could her natural kindness and charm not make more money than Stan’s swindling and stoicism? “But if I win, I get to be boss for the rest of the summer! Plus, you gotta sing an apology song with lyrics written by me, Mabel!”

“Whoa ho!” Stan exclaimed, rather impressed by how quickly his niece had thought up such specific terms. “You got yourself a deal, missy!”

“No, you got yourself a deal!”

“Deal!” Stan exclaimed once more, slamming his hand down on his desk.

“Deal!” Mabel did the same just as firmly.

“Deal!” Stan shouted once more.

“Deal!” Mabel smirked, putting a heart shaped sticker on Stan’s nose in order to officially seal the deal.

True to his word, Stan began packing up his car later that afternoon, more than ready to not only take a three day long vacation but win the bet in the process. The kids all watched from the porch as he prepared to embark on his trip, as did the Gems, who had come down to check on Steven once more.

“So let me get this straight…” Pearl said to Mabel. “You made a bet with him that you’ll be able to make more money than he can, essentially beating him at his own game?��

“Yep!” Mabel exclaimed enthusiastically.

“I gotta say, that’s pretty gusty of you, Mabel,” Amethyst remarked. “Especially since Stan’s kinda the king of making money.”

“That I am,” Stan proclaimed proudly. “And maybe after three days of not making a single dime will finally show you that, kid.”

“Oh yeah?” Mabel asked challengingly. “Well, I’m gonna make plenty of dimes, Grunkle Stan! You know why? Because people actually want to work for me, right guys?” she asked the others.

“Um, sure, I guess,” Dipper shrugged.

“I don’t see why not,” Connie smiled amicably.

“You bet, Mabel!” Steven eagerly agreed.

“So, wait…” Pearl interjected. “What happens if you win the bet, Mabel?”

“If I win, I get to be in charge of the shack and Grunkle Stan has to perform an embarrassing song and dance number that I’m gonna come up with!” Mabel quipped excitedly. “I already have this super sparkly orange jumpsuit picked out for him to wear while he does it and everything!”

The Gems all exchanged a glance upon hearing this before they broke out into a round of unified laughter. “If that’s what you have in mind, count us in too,” Garnet grinned, her hands on her hips.

“Yes,” Pearl laughed, nodding in full agreement. “That certainly sounds like it’s just the sort of humbling experience Stan needs.”

“Humbling, huh?” Stan raised an eyebrow. “Well then how about we make this more interesting, seeing as how you three feel the need to stick your noses in all this?”

“Oh, I love it when things get more interesting!” Amethyst exclaimed with a daring smile. “Whatcha have in mind?”

“I was just thinking we up the ante a bit,” the conman shrugged nonchalantly. “If you all win, then I’ll do Mabel’s dumb little song-and-dance. But if I win, then not only does she have to wear the loser shirt, but you three also have to work here at the shack for me for a month. How does that sound for ya?”

“Wait, you call having to hang out down here all day instead of having to go on missions a punishment?” the purple Gem asked.

“It certainly would be a punishment, if we were going to lose the bet, which we’re not,” Pearl affirmed confidently. “Right, Garnet?”

“Eh, it’s about a fifty-fifty chance either way,” the Gem leader shrugged, her future vision showing her no advantage on either side.

“Those odds are good enough for me!” Mabel exclaimed brightly.

“Me too!” Amethyst agreed. “We’re totally in, right, P?”

“Yes, we are,” the white Gem nodded. “And I have to say, I’m already anticipating your little ‘performance’, Stan. I’m sure it’ll be a big hit!”

The conman simply rolled his eyes as Pearl laughed mockingly. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. In the end, I’ll be the one laughing when I put you three to work fixing my roof.”

“We’ll see about that,” Garnet said vaguely.

“You bet we will,” Stan retorted with a smug grin as he got into his car. “Welp, see you all in 72 hours. May the better businessman win! Which is, of course, me!” With another triumphant laugh, the conman sped off, though not before tossing his fez at Mabel as a sign of his responsibilities passing onto her. Still, the girl grinned confidently as she put it atop her head, a large jar to hold all of the money she planned on making tucked under her arm.

“Uh, Mabel?” Dipper spoke up, relatively concerned. “You do know you just made a bet with a professional conman, right?”

“Oh come on,” Mabel said with a wave of her hand. “Being a better boss than Stan will be a cinch. Profit, here we come!” Of course, as she held her profits jar up, it just so happened to slip right out of her hands and shatter on the ground.

“You broke the-”

“We’ll get a new one,” Mabel quickly cut her brother off before turning to the Gems. “So you guys are really gonna help me?”

“Of course we are, Mabel,” Pearl said with a warm smile.

“Yeah, anything to embarrass Stan!” Amethyst quipped, smirking.

“That alone is worth all the hard work,” Garnet remarked.

“Working here is gonna be so much fun with you in charge, Mabel!” Steven exclaimed excitedly. “Will we finally get snack breaks? Oh! Can Lion finally come inside the shack and play with the customers?!”

“Oh, so much more than that, Steven,” Mabel said, grinning as she headed inside. “Let’s just say I have plans for this old place… Big plans…”

“Um… should we be concerned about that?” Connie muttered to Dipper, somewhat unnerved.

“Eh,” Dipper shrugged. “I’m sure she can’t be any worse than Stan was, right?”

Mabel’s first activity as acting manager of the shack was to call for an employee meeting in order to lay down the ground rules to everyone. She had already positioned herself in Stan’s office, more than ready to receive Dipper, Steven, Connie, Soos, Wendy, and the Gems as they walked in.

“You wanted to see us, Mr. Pines?” Soos asked as they approached the desk.

With a huge smile, Mabel turned her chair around and scooted it up to the desk, revealing the business wear she had clad herself in for this special occasion. “Stan is no longer with us.”

“He’s dead?!” Soos gasped, absolutely distraught. “No! It should have been me!”

“Whoa, Soos! Stan’s not dead!” Mabel rose from her seat, concerned as the handyman crumpled to his knees. “He’s on vacation. We made a bet.”

“Oh…” Soos got up, slightly embarrassed for his outburst but relieved all the same. “Thank you for that clarification.”

“So this means, Mabel’s in charge now!” Mabel announced boldly. “Meet your new Miss Mystery!”

“Are those… shoulder pads?” Dipper asked, noting his sister’s very professional attire.

“If they are, they look really snazzy!” Steven quipped with a thumbs up.

“Thanks!” Mabel exclaimed, shaking her shoulder pads up and down. “It’s just one of the up-to-date managerial tricks I learned from this book I found propping up the kitchen table.” She held up said book for them all to see, a volume entitled Succeeding in Management, 1983.

“Seems like a good read,” Garnet said, taking the book from her and flipping through it.

“Human business practices haven’t changed too drastically over the course of a mere thirty years, right?” Pearl asked in a somewhat anxious whisper, a small part of her fearing that they wouldn’t actually win this bet.

“Why does your mug say ‘#2 boss’?” Connie asked with a frown, noting Mabel’s rather odd coffee mug.

“Because the real #1 is… you!” Mabel held up a hand mirror at the others, eliciting pleased laughter from them all. Her smile grew even wider as she realized her plan was already working; she was boosting morale, which would certainly lead her employees to be more productive, just as the book had instructed her. But even so, this was just the first step. She had several more to go if she ever hoped to beat Stan. “Walk with me,” she nodded to the group, leading the way to a nearby chalkboard. “With me as your boss, you’re all gonna notice a few changes around here. My job is to help you be your best ‘SELVES’: Satisfied, Everyday, Loving life, Very much, Everyday, Satisfied.”

“Why were everyday and satisfied in there twice?” Amethyst asked, confused.

“Because I want you all to be twice as satisfied on every everyday!” Mabel explained cheerfully. “Waddles, hold my calls!” she said to the pig, whom she had dressed up as her secretary and built a small office for. Seeing as how things were going quite well so far, Mabel led the group into the gift shop to continue their meeting.

“Alright people, rap with me,” Mabel said, pulling up a chair. “Wendy, how can I make your work space more Wendy-friendly?”

“Hm, well…” Wendy mused. “Stan never lets me hang out with friends at work.”

“Stan ain’t here, sister! Door’s open!” Mabel exclaimed with an affirming grin.

“Sweet!”

“And Soos, I believe this is yours,” Mabel pulled out an oversized foam question mark from behind the counter, handing it off to the handyman.

“Questiony the Question Mark?!” Soos asked, absolutely delighted. “I wish this was an exclamation point to show how excited I am!”

“And Steven, you said you wanted snack breaks? Well how’s this instead?” Mabel pulled the cloth off the nearby table to reveal a huge assortment of various snacks and treats of all kinds. “A whole snack buffet for you to eat from any time you’d like!”

“Wow!” the young Gem exclaimed, stars in his eyes. “Mabel, that’s amazing! It all looks so good! And are those donuts from the Big Donut I see?”

“They are!” Mabel nodded. “Only the best for my valued employees!”

“Steven’s not an employee here…” Pearl frowned, befuddled.

“You know what? You’re right, Pearl! None of you are employees here!” Mabel announced, eliciting confused looks from everyone else. “Here, you’re all family!”

The group all laughed warmly in response to this, all of them very receptive to the kind treatment Mabel was showing them. “As for you, Dipper…” she grinned, holding up her brother’s wolf costume and noticing the clear look of dread on his face upon seeing it. However, much to Dipper’s surprise, instead of ordering him to put it on, Mabel ran the faux fur through the nearby paper shredder, destroying it completely. “Die, wolf costume, die! Now, Dipper, I want you to head into woods and don’t come back until you found an amazing attraction! And Connie, since you’re into all that magicky nerd stuff too, I want you to go with him!”

Needless to say, Dipper and Connie exchanged elated grins upon hearing this assignment, both of them more than ready to undertake such an exciting task. “Finally!” Dipper exclaimed with a daring grin as he pulled out the journal. “It’s time to show Stan how a real mystery hunter does it!”

“A actual monster hunt…” Connie smiled, her eyes wide with excitement. “Just like out of a fantasy novel! This will be great!”

“Let’s go!” Dipper urged, grabbing the flail that happened to be hanging from the nearby wall and leading the way to the window. “We’re out—whoa!” Unfortunately, he had failed to account for the heavy weight of the flail, which inevitably caused him to fall out the window.

“Dipper, are you ok?!” Connie asked, concerned as she prepared to jump out the window herself.

“I’ll be fine!” Dipper answered someone weakly from outside as he tried to push the heavy flail off of him. With a shrug, Connie leapt out after him, the pair ready to embark on their impromptu monster hunt and make it back before the day was through.

“Um… maybe one of us should go with them…” Pearl frowned with worry as Dipper and Connie departed on their potentially dangerous mission.

“Oh don’t worry,” Mabel reassured blithely. “I’m sure they’ll do great! In the meantime, we’re going to prove that nice boss finishes first. In the next 72 hours, we’re gonna fill this jar with six hundred billion dollars!” To keep track of this goal, she drew a line on the jar towards the top in the hopes that she could reach it.

“Wait, do you know how money works?” Wendy asked, somewhat concerned.

“Nope!” Mabel admitted with a smile. “That’s why I’m putting Pearl in charge of finances!”

“Oh, well thank you, Mabel,” Pearl graciously accepted the jar as Mabel handed it off to her. “You won’t regret this decision. You can rest assured I’ve had plenty of experience handling money in the past.”

“Yeah!” Steven vouched for the white Gem. “Pearl’s great with cash. One time she threw a whole wad of money at a bird to get it to leave her alone!”

“And it worked,” Pearl added with a proud smirk.

Soos and Wendy exchanged something of an apprehensive glance upon hearing this, but even so, neither of them questioned their new boss’s decision. After all, working under Mabel was already proving to be much more rewarding than working under Stan ever was.

“Ok, Amethyst,” Mabel turned to the purple Gem. “Since Soos and Wendy will be busy in here and Dipper and Connie are gone, I’ll need you to give out tours in the museum. You come down here all the time, so you probably know a lot about all the different exhibits, right?”

“Know ‘em?” Amethyst grinned. “Come on. I pretty much helped Stan come up with more than half of those things! Showing them to a bunch of humans with cameras will be a piece of cake.”

“Great!” Mabel exclaimed brightly. “Thanks so much, Amethyst!”

“You got it!” the purple Gem nodded. “And you know what? I’ll even spice that lame old tour up a little for ya. By the time I’m done, people will be paying just to get back in line!”

“Awesome! Do whatever you want! Now Garnet,” Mabel addressed the Gem leader next. “I have a really special job for you.”

“I’ll do it,” Garnet replied, adjusting her shades.

“But... I didn’t even tell you what it was yet…”

“Future vision,” the Gem leader reminded her with a smile.

“Oh yeah! That’s… actually kinda what I was gonna ask you for,” Mabel said, remembering hearing about Garnet’s unique ability. “I want you to fill in as the shack’s newest premiere attraction: the Future Visionary!”

“I like it,” Garnet nodded.

“Just tell the guests what you see in their futures,” Mabel explained. “According to Grunkle Stan, people eat that stuff up when its fake, so I’m sure they’ll love it even more when its real! Oh, and you’ll need these.” Reaching behind the counter once more, she pulled out an ornate cape and matching turban, handing them to the Gem leader for her to wear.

“Are you really going to wear those, Garnet?” Pearl asked with an amused grin.

“Sure,” Garnet shrugged, also smiling.

“What about me, Mabel?” Steven asked eagerly “What do you want me to do?”

“Steven, you get one of the funnest, most important jobs of all!” Mabel exclaimed. “You get to go into town and try and bring as many customers back to the shack with you as you can.”

“You mean I get to go make new friends and tell them about how great the Mystery Shack is?” Steven smiled, completely overwhelmed with excitement. “This day just keeps getting better and better! I’m on it, Mabel! And I’m gonna take a few of these with me for the road…” He snuck a few donuts from the snack table before heading outside. “Lion! Come on! We have customers to find!”

“Good luck!” Mabel called out after him before turning back to the others. “Well, you guys, I think it’s safe to say we have a pretty tight ship running here. I’d like to see Grunkle Stan try and beat this!”

Despite Mabel’s confidence in her success, there was one thing that she could have never counted on. And that thing was the fact that Stan already knew very well what he was doing when he had struck the bet with her. He had already devised a sure fire plan to make more money than her from step one, and that plan just so happened to involve him landing a spot on his favorite game show: Cash Wheel.

However, what the conman hadn’t accounted for was such a lengthy audition line to stand between him at that spot. “Ugh! This line is taking forever!” Stan grumbled to himself, knowing he only had three days. “Time to use my old man powers… Ah! I’m having a heart attack!” the conman shouted, putting on a fairly convincing show as he clutched his chest and collapsing to the ground. “And the only known cure is to be a contestant on… Cash Wheel! Augh! Someone give me a part! I’m old!”

Of course, the scene Stan was putting on caught the attention of everyone around him as a large, worried crowd gathered all around him. Fortunately, the show’s producer happened to be rather close by and also took notice of the rather fake drama unfolding.

“Should we escort him off the lot?” the producer’s assistant asked.

“That man is a self-centered attention hog with no regard for human decency,” the producer said with a scowl that soon turned to a grin. “Get him on TV!”

With their monster hunting mission in mind, Dipper and Connie set out on the mystery kart, equipped with really only the journal, the flail, and their own wits to aid them in their task. Still, neither of them were too perturbed or anxious. After all, they were starting to get used to dealing with the more life-threatening facets of Gravity Falls on nearly a daily basis.

“So what kind of monster are we looking for anyway?” Connie asked, peering around the darkened forest with her binoculars.

“I don’t know,” Dipper shrugged. “Any monster we can find, I guess. The journal’s full of all sorts of tips and tricks for capturing mythical creatures, so I figure that if we stick to its advice, we’re bound to turn up with something.”

“Oh good,” Connie said with relative relief. “So, what? Are we gonna build some kind of elaborate trap and hide out in the trees until we catch something?”

“Actually, I was thinking something a little more simple…” Dipper said as they arrived in a large clearing and got out of the kart. “Like… a tiger trap.”

“A tiger trap?” Connie asked incredulously. “Isn’t that basically just a hole in the ground?”

“Yeah,” Dipper admitted, grabbing a shovel from the back of the cart and handing another one to Connie. “But the journal advises that the best way to catch any kind of monster is to keep your trap as simple as possible. That way the monster won’t see it coming, which means it’ll just walk right into it!”

“Huh. I guess that makes sense,” Connie shrugged as they began to dig. It took around two hours, but in time, they eventually managed to dig a hole several feet deep and several feet wide, one that would hopefully suffice for their purposes.

“Well, this ought to help us nab at least a gnome or a troll,” Dipper concluded as him and Connie climbed out of the whole. “Maybe a werewolf, if we’re lucky.”

“Still, we should probably cover it up with leaves or something,” Connie mused, looking over the trap. “A hole this big would be kind of obvious…”

“Oh, good idea!” Dipper nodded in agreement. “Have you done this before, Connie?”

“No, have you?”

“Not really…”

“Well then this will be a learning experience for both of us,” Connie laughed. Knowing they had little time to waste, the pair worked quickly in covering up their trap with foliage. Once they were satisfied with their work, they retreated to hide just out of sight behind a large, nearby tree. After waiting a minute or two, they finally peered out from behind the tree, only to see that the trap had remained untouched.

“Maybe we should have set some bait out or something…” Dipper mused, leafing through the journal once more. “We could probably catch a moth man if we had a really bright light…”

“Dipper, what if this doesn’t end up working?” Connie asked, voicing her newfound concern.

“Oh don’t worry,” Dipper reassured. “It’s going to work.”

“Ok, but-”

“Connie, you don’t understand,” Dipper said, his tone suddenly quite tense. “This has to work. Mabel can’t lose the bet! I can’t go back to back to wearing that wolf boy costume! I just can’t!”

Connie said nothing for a moment, looking to Dipper with apt concern after this outburst. However, before she could ask if he was alright, a loud crash from nearby startled them both quite a bit.

“The trap!” they both gasped in unison, looking out from behind the trees to see that their trap had indeed worked. The upper half of a horrific monstrosity was squeezed into the hole, growling in an angry, blind panic as it tried to wriggle its way out. The monster was quite unlike anything either of the kids had ever seen before, with long, deadly fangs, a hideous, ghoulish face, and a huge, hulking body that only barely fit into the trap.

“I can’t believe it…” Connie muttered, awstuck as she adjusted the frames of her glasses. “We did it! We actually caught a monster!”

“This isn’t just an ordinary monster…” Dipper flipped through the journal, just as amazed. “This is a… a Gremloblin!”

“A… what?”

“A Gremloblin!” he repeated excitedly, showing her the journal page detailing the beast. “Apparently its’ one of the rarest monsters in Gravity Falls! The author wrote about how he nearly died fighting one!”

“O-ok…” Connie frowned, taking a nervous glance over at the outraged Gremloblin. “So how are we supposed to get it back to the shack?”

“Oh, right…” Dipper’s elation over their capture wore off as he glanced around for something they could use to get the monster out of the pit. “That’s it!” he exclaimed, running back to the golf cart and retrieving the large sack they had brought along. “I’ve seen Stan use this trick on Soos before,” he said to Connie, handing her the other edge of the sack. “We just need to be really careful. Gremloblins are pretty violent when they’re angry.”

“Yeah I could have guessed that…” Connie took in a deep, uneven breath as they both approached the still struggling Gremloblin. The monster continued to roar and thrash about, but ultimately it could do nothing as the kids threw the sack over its head. And miraculously enough, as soon as its eyes were covered, the Gremloblin stopped its squirming and instantly fell asleep.

“Yes!” the kids cheered over their success, exchanging a high five.

“Now all we have to do is tie this thing to the back of the cart and haul it back to the shack,” Dipper said with apt satisfaction as they prepared to do so. “With this Gremloblin, there’s no way Mabel can lose that bet!”

Considering the fact that she had quite a few hands to help her, Mabel found that running the shack was surprisingly easier than she had thought it would be. Since her employees were already quite satisfied with the benefits she had given them, she had relatively nothing to worry about on that front, leaving her time to focus on pleasing incoming customers. Without Stan hovering over her shoulder, Mabel found that she was free to be as kind to the tourists as she wanted, which warranted quite a few tips in addition to the regular price of admission.

“Thank you!” Mabel exclaimed warmly, collecting tips from customers at the tail end of the tour. “See you soon! Invite your friends! Tell ‘em Mabel sent you!”

As the tourists left, Mabel grinned at the money in her profits jar. She still had a good ways to go before reaching the top, but at the very least she had a decent enough start and plenty of time left. She had no way of knowing how well Stan was doing on his end of things, but she was confident that he likely wasn’t coming anywhere close to the level of success she was at.

“Mabel!” Dipper called as him and Connie returned, working together to drag a heavy sack behind them. “We captured something! This is gonna blow those tourists away!”

“And if it doesn’t, then it’ll at least probably surprise them as much as it surprised us,” Connie remarked with a grin.

Before Mabel could express her gratitude, the monster inside the bag let out a fierce roar and grabbed the closest thing to it, which just so happened to be Dipper’s arm.

“Whoa!” Mabel gasped, alarmed.

“Oh no, not again!” Dipper exclaimed, struggling against the monster’s firm grip. “Connie-”

“On it!” Connie took a nearby stick and began beating the monster with it repeatedly until it finally let go. “Whew! You know, maybe we should put this thing in a cage before it breaks out of that sack… We don’t really have a bunch of holes on hand to trap it in again.”

“Good point,” Dipper said, breathing a sigh of relief as he rubbed his arm. “Come on, big guy,” he said to the still growling monster as him and Connie continued dragging it inside.

“Marvelous work, valued employees!” Mabel called after them with a delighted smile. “Oh, who is that?” she gasped, turning towards the outhouse with a knowing grin. “Is it Questiony the Question Mark?”

Soos frowned as he peeked out from behind the outhouse. “Um… I’m starting to have second thoughts about this, Mabel. I keep forgetting my lines, and this costume is more, uh… revealing than I expected…” Hesitantly, the handyman stepped out from his hiding spot, revealing that his question mark costume really only covered a small portion of his otherwise only underwear clad body.

“Soos, don’t give up!” Mabel encouraged exuberantly. “Anything is possible when you…” she paused, flipping through her management book briefly to find the right words to say. “Imaginize it!”

“…I don’t know what that means…”

“Shh…” Mabel quieted him, putting a finger to his lips. “Shhhhhhhhh…. Believe in yourself…” She whispered, briefly placing her hands against his face before walking away backwards. “Believe!”

“B-but I…!” Soos tried to protest, though Mabel wasn’t listening as she went inside. “S-so cold…” he muttered, shivering as his costume exposed him to the elements.

“How’s my favorite Wendy?” Mabel asked blithely as she entered the shack, only to find a disastrous sight. Wendy had indeed followed along with what Mabel had said and invited several of her friends to hang out with her on the clock, however, they were doing far more than just that. Wendy, along with Lee, Nate, Thompson, Tambry, Sour Cream, Jenny, and Buck were all engage in playing a round of hacky sack with a shrunken head, effectively wrecking the shack and terrorizing its customers in the process. The game eventually got out of control as the head flew haywire, striking a nearby young boy squarely in the face, much to his mother’s alarm.

“Oh my gosh!” Mabel gasped, hurrying over to the upset mother and child. “I’m so sorry. Please, have a refund!” She reached into the profits jar, pulling out a wad of cash, only for the mother to take that and then some before angrily leaving. Resolved to be firm but fair, Mabel approached Wendy, who was casually relaxing against the counter. “Wendy, you have a lot of cleaning up to do. Please?” she asked as nicely as possible.

“Whoa, all this rule stuff is starting to make you sound like Stan,” Wendy pointed out with a critical frown.

“What?! No!” Mabel exclaimed. “I’m nothing like Stan! In fact… t-take the rest of the day off?”

“…With full pay?”

Mabel swallowed nervously, knowing that agreeing to such a proposition would cost her in the end. But even so, she definitely didn’t want to be compared to her uncle and how he ran things at the shack. “O-of course,” she tentatively nodded, adjusting her suit jacket. “Have… have a great time!”

Wendy grinned widely upon hearing this, giving Mabel a thumbs up as she headed out and took all of her friends with her. Mabel let out an allayed sigh, hoping that she had done the right thing in the end. “Mabel Pines, you are the best boss ever,” she asserted, giving herself a pat on the back, failing to notice Soos try his routine out one last time behind her.

“I’m Questiony the Question Mark!” the handyman shouted at a random tourist, who screamed in terror and sprayed him with a healthy round of pepper spray. “Aw dude, it stings so bad!”

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m Rich Richerson and welcome to CASH WHEEL!” the gameshow host announced as the fanfare played and the audience applauded. “Now let’s meet those contestants!”

“I’m Doug from Fairfield, California,” the first contestant introduced himself as his name appeared onscreen.

“I’m Donna from-”

“I’m Stan!” the conman interrupted boisterously, pushing the second contestant out of the way. “Stan Pines! Ha ha!” Stan hurried back to his place as his own name appeared onscreen. “Did we—did we already do me? Hi, I’m Stan!”

Rich laughed rather uncomfortably at this unscripted interruption, but even so, the show went on. “Okay, it’s going to be a long night, folks.” Of course, the audience laughed heartily at this before the host continued. “It’s time to solve-” Rich found himself being interrupted this time as Stan let out a loud, somewhat obnoxious delayed laugh. “…It’s, uh… time to solve that puzzle! Carla!”

“Yes, Rich?” the co-host asked at the puzzle board.

“Are there any s’es?!” Stan cut in boldly.

“Actually, its not your turn yet,” Rich pointed out. Still, two s’es appeared on the puzzle board, prompting Stan to shout out of turn once more.

“I’m ready to solve!”

“No, that game hasn’t started-”

“Is it… ‘shut your yaps?”

Somehow, the conman’s guess was right on the money as the answer appeared on the board exactly as how he had said it. “Well played…” Rich noted with a smile.

Already knowing how the game worked, Stan gave the wheel a spin, chanting excitedly all the while. “Cash shower! Cash shower! Cash shower!”

“Cash shower!” Rich announced as the wheel landed on the coveted spot.

“Yes! Don’t mind if I do,” Stan grinned as he began to undress, perceiving it to be a literal cash shower.

“Mr. Pines?” Rich asked in sudden concern. “No! You don’t need to take your clothes off!” Quickly, the host hurried to block the camera’s view of the conman before he could fully undress. “Go to commercial! Go to commercial!”

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Dipper caught the attention of two tourists meandering about the museum as him and Connie stood near the Gremloblin’s covered cage. “My name’s Honest Dipper and this is my partner, Reliable Connie.”

“And we have something to show you that is certain to be unlike anything you’ve ever seen before!” Connie added with an enthusiastic smile.

“Unlike my cheating uncle, we’ve come across something that isn’t a hoax,” Dipper said with apt confidence. “It nearly killed us getting him into that cage.”

“And he’s not exaggerating either,” Connie said. “We have scratch and bite marks to show for it!”

“Behold!” Dipper exclaimed, removing the cover from the cage. “Part gremlin, part goblin: the Gremloblin!”

The Gremloblin, now fully awake, let out a fierce roar as he thrashed about his cage, beating the sides of it in a vain attempt to escape. As he struggled, he ended up spitting up the bony remains of a human arm, which landed right in front of the pair of tourists.

“Well that’s fun,” the man remarked with a grin.

“It’s fake, honey,” the woman rolled her eyes. “You can see the strings.”

“What?!” Dipper exclaimed, appalled. “Those aren’t strings, that’s body hair!”

Still, the couple was hardly paying attention as they headed over to another longstanding fake attraction. “Oh, look at this, dear! The Six-packolope! How charming,” the woman chuckled.

“Wordplay!” the man laughed in amused agreement, snapping a photo of it.

“Seriously?” Connie scoffed in disbelief. “We nearly died trying to capture this thing and they still want the phony stuff?”

“Come on, everything else here is fake!” Dipper protested, dragging the tourists back over to the Gremlobin’s cage. “This is a real paranormal beast. And fun fact about this little guy: if you look into his eyes, you can see your worst nightmare.”

Of course, the couple did so out of sheer curiosity alone, though neither Dipper nor Connie initially noticed their eyes and expressions grow completely blank as the Gremloblin stared back at them. “If that doesn’t prove that this thing is a real monster, I don’t know what will,” Connie remarked, assured.

“Amazing, right?” Dipper asked with a grin, even though neither of them received any sort of response from the tourists. “We work for tips.”

“Um… Are they… ok?” Connie asked, her smile fading after a moment of innocuous silence.

As if turned out, the couple was anything but ok as the Gremlobin’s nightmare viewing ability actually ended up paralyzing both tourists with fear. Despite the kids’ best efforts to revive them, they eventually had to give up and call the ambulance to escort the eternally scarred couple away.

“T-thanks for visiting!” Dipper called after them with a nervous laugh.

“Well… that could have gone a lot better…” Connie said with sigh.

“Tell me about it...”

As Mabel was quickly finding out, having to run the shack effectively on her own was far from smooth sailing, especially since she pretty much had to preside over the gift shop entirely on her own with Wendy gone. Multitasking was anything but easy as she found herself stretched out incredibly thin. From ringing customers out, to maintaining order with reckless patrons, to doling out refunds to unhappy guests, all of it became increasingly harder to stay on top of the more tired she got. Still, she couldn’t give up. After all, the last thing she wanted to do was prove Stan right. She could handle this. She figured that all she had to do was keep up her usual sunny disposition, and everything would turn out fine in the end.

At least, she hoped.

Finally the heavy round of customers gradually dissipated, giving Mabel a much needed moment to breath. She let out an exhausted sigh as she collapsed against the counter, barely even regarding Dipper and Connie as they came in and joined her.

“Well, we just made two people go insane,” Dipper said glumly. “How about you?”

“I’m so tired…” Mabel groaned. “I gave Wendy the day off so I had to do her job.”

“What about the Gems?” Connie asked. “Maybe you could get one of them to help you out.”

“Yeah, I guess I could…” Mabel mused. However, before she could even decide on which one to look for, a delivery man entered the gift shop, toting a very large crate with him.

“Delivery for a Miss… Pearl?” the delivery man asked, reading his clipboard.

“Oh, that’s for me!” the white Gem grinned cheerfully as she entered from the den. “You can just leave this and the other boxes right in here, thank you.”

“Uh, Pearl? What did you order?” Dipper asked curiously.

“I think the better question would be, what didn’t I order!” Pearl exclaimed with an excited grin, that only grew as she summoned her spear and used it to slit the first box open. “I went on that electronic communication hub where humans preform commerce and other various tasks… oh, what is it called again? The outerweb?”

“You mean the internet?” Connie corrected.

“Oh, yes, that’s it!” the white Gem nodded. “Anyway, while I was there I came across so many wonderful things that we can use to spruce this dirty old place up. Antique chairs, plus floor rugs, elegant lighting fixtures… I think one of these boxes even has a fountain in it…”

“Whoa, Pearl, that sounds awesome!” Mabel exclaimed, delighted. “All that cool stuff is bound to bring all kinds of new customers to the shack!”

“Wait… Pearl, where did you get all the money for this stuff?” Connie asked with a concerned frown.

“Oh, well I got it from the profits jar, of course!” Pearl remarked, still smiling. However, the kids were far from happy to hear this disastrous news as they all looked to her with dismayed disbelief. “Is… is there a problem?”

“Pearl, we need that money so we can beat Grunkle Stan in the bet!” Mabel reminded. “Ok, ok… This is fine… Just… how much money did you take?”

“Um… all of it…” the white Gem admitted, realizing her mistake. “Oh… Oops… Sorry.”

“Well, we could probably still return all this stuff and get a refund, right?” Connie suggested.

“Oh, yes! Good idea, Connie!” Pearl smiled in relief. “I’ll track that delivery man down right now and ask him to give me a refund! And if he refuses, I’ll make him give us our money back.”

“Pearl, that’s not how-” Dipper tried to advise, but the white Gem had already run out on her new mission. “Well, at least things… probably can’t get any worse, right?”

Of course, no sooner than a second after he had asked this, a large crowd of screaming tourists emerged from the museum, half of them either crying or seething with rage. The group sped past the confused kids, all of them trying to get out as quickly as possible.

“Aw, come on!” Amethyst shouted after them as she came out of the museum herself. “You all need to grow some spines, you chickens!” At this, the purple Gem shapeshifted into a chicken, bawking and laughing mockingly all the while.

“Amethyst, what happened?” Mabel asked, shocked at all of the customers they had suddenly lost.

“I’ll tell ya what happened,” Amethyst remarked, shapeshifting back into herself. “Those guys were all a bunch of scaredy cats. All I did was shapeshift into a few of the things on the tour, and suddenly they get all screamy on me. Babies.”

“What did you shapeshift into that scared them so much?” Connie asked worriedly.

“Oh just this gross old thing,” the purple Gem shrugged, seamlessly changing her shape into one of the museum’s unknown, most bizarre exhibits, a grotesque creature with several faces, arms, and legs. The kids all gasped in horror as they took a step away from Amethyst, who simply snickered mischeviously before transforming back into her regular shape. “What do you know? You guys are bunch of chickens too!”

“Amethyst, you can’t just scare our customers away like that!” Mabel chastised. “We need to be nice to them! We need to-” she paused, looking through Succeeding in Management once more. “Delightretain them!”

“Hey, you told me to do whatever I wanted. And besides, I’m not the only one to blame here,” Amethyst said defensively. “Right, G?”

“Eh,” Garnet shrugged as she entered from the museum herself, still clad in her cape and turban.

“Oh no,” Mabel frowned, knowing that the last thing she needed was more bad news. “Garnet, please, please tell me that everything is going great with the Future Visionary.”

“Mm… not exactly…” Garnet admitted.

“She kinda kept telling people the worst futures she could see for them,” Amethyst informed casually. “It was pretty funny if you ask me.”

“That’s what they asked for, so that’s what I gave them,” the Gem leader said apathetically.

“Oh, G, tell them about that one guy who asked you about proposing to his girlfriend and how you told him he was gonna screw it up and get stung by a whole hive of bees!” Amethyst chuckled. “The way he ran off crying was hilarious!”

“Garnet, people don’t wanna hear about all the bad stuff that might happen,” Mabel said as calmly as she could in this situation. “They wanna know about the good futures!”

“But the future isn’t always good,” Garnet argued. “I was just being honest with them.”

“Well, that’s good!” Mabel encouraged with a small smile. “But maybe you could try being a little more… tactful with them too? Other than that, you’re doing a super job!”

“So what are we going to do now?” Dipper asked Mabel with a concerned frown as Garnet and Amethyst returned to the museum. “All of our customers are gone!”

“Did someone say ‘customers’?!” Steven exclaimed as he burst into the gift shop with Lion.

“Oh, Steven!” Mabel sighed with overwhelming relief as she ran over to him. “Thank goodness you’re back! Did you find any new customers in town?”

“I sure did!” the young Gem proudly proclaimed, stepping aside. “Ok, you guys! Come on in!”

As it turned out, all of the “customers” Steven had managed to rustle up happened to be large, bulky, intimidating thugs, all of them clad in biker gear and tattoos and none of them looking very friendly. “Remember a few weeks ago when we were looking for the wax heads and we stopped at that biker joint downtown?” Steven said to the others as they watched the bikers rush in. “Well, I decided to round up all of the friends I made when we were there and bring them to see the Mystery Shack! Look how excited they all are!”

“We wanna see some weird stuff!” one of the bikers roared, punching the nearby wall and creating a sizable hole.

“Heh, bobble bobble,” another thug laughed, playing with a bobble head until it inevitably broke.

“Hey, are you gonna finish that?’ one biker asked his buddy for his can of soda.

“No! You can’t have it!” Without much prompting at all, the two thugs broke into a rather violent fist fight, breaking several shelves and displays in their wake.

“Aw… they’re having so much fun already!” Steven quipped with an oblivious smile. Mabel, on the other hand, was not so charmed by their unintentionally destructive behavior.

“Ah! Ok, hey, you guys!” she shouted at the thugs to get their attention. “Hi! Um…. How about you all go check out the museum, huh? There’s plenty of really cool, weird things to see in there!”

Of course, the thugs were more than taken in by this suggestion as they all rushed towards the museum, shouting amongst themselves and briefly getting stuck in the door before going on inside. “That can only end well…” Connie remarked a bit sarcastically as the four of them all stood alone in the semi-wrecked gift shop.

“I know, right?” Steven asked blithely.

“Ok…” Mabel took in a deep breath to try and steady her frazzled nerves. “So things aren’t going exactly as I hoped they would… But that’s not the end of the world, right? At least I’m not running around here yelling at everyone.”

“I dunno, Mabel…” Dipper mused with a frown. “That might actually be the reason why everything’s going so badly… Maybe what you need to do is start being a little tougher around here.”

“No way!” Mabel protested earnestly. “That’s what Stan would do! I just need to think positive, be friendly, and everything will work out fine.”

No more than a second later, however, a loud roar suddenly sounded, though that paled in comparison to the monster that suddenly crashed through the nearby wall, scaring all four of the kids. The Gremloblin stormed into the gift shop, snarling savagely with its deadly claws poised to attack the first thing it saw. Fortunately, the kids just barely managed to avoid its detection as they snuck past it and hid just out of its sight in the den.

“Whoa!” Steven gasped as he peered behind the broken wall. “What is that thing? It looks so cool!”

“It’s the monster me and Dipper caught in the forest,” Connie explained in a hushed whisper, not too keen on being caught by the violent creature.  

“You caught that huge thing by yourselves?” the young Gem asked, amazed. “You guys are so awesome!

“But I don’t understand,” Dipper shook his head, confused. “How did it break out of its locked cage?”

“Well…” Mabel began somewhat guiltily. “I might have maybe… put a key in his cage for his five minute break…”

“You gave him a break?!” Dipper asked in disbelief.

“He’s an employee too!” Mabel protested defensively. “Sort of.”

“Aw man! He’s eating all the donuts from the snack table!” Steven exclaimed, watching the monster raid all of the snacks. “We have to stop him!”

“B-but how?” Connie asked, aptly afraid. “That thing is bigger than all of us combined!”

“Well it’s not too big for us.” The kids gasped as they turned to see Garnet and Amethyst standing behind them, their weapons already summoned as they stood ready to fight the monster.

“Whoa, is that a Gremloblin?” Amethyst asked, looking to the monster. “Dude, it’s been years since we’ve fought one of those!”

“Just remember,” Garnet advised her teammate. “Don’t look into its eyes.”

“You got it, G!” Amethyst smirked, lashing her whip out as she swung into the gift shop with gusto.

“Stay here,” the Gem leader ordered the kids firmly. “And keep out of sight until we’re done.”

None of the kids argued this time, given how dangerous of a monster the Gremloblin was, as the pair of Gems engaged the beast in combat. Garnet delivered the first blow, landing a swift punch to the monster’s jaw, though it hardly fazed him. Amethyst attempted to incapacitate it by tying up its legs and knocking it over, but the Gremloblin lashed out and severed her whip with his claws before she could.

“Geez, this guy is a fighter,” Amethyst remarked, summoning a new whip. “Hey, where’s Pearl at? She’s missing out on all the action!”

“What do you mean you can’t give me a refund?!” the white Gem asked hotly as she kept the delivery man pinned to a tree.

“M-ma’am, I already told you!” the frightened man gulped nervously, glancing over at his turned over truck nearby. “I’m just the delivery guy! I don’t sell the merchandise, I just deliver it!”

“So then who do I talk to about getting our money back?” Pearl asked, raising a suspicious eyebrow.

“Uh, the companies that you bought all of that stuff from?”

“Hm,” the white Gem finally released the delivery man. “Very well then. I’ll go talk to these ‘companies’… But if you’re lying to me, then I’ll be back. I can promise you that.”

The delivery man simply nodded, still shaken from the experience as Pearl stormed off, muttering bitterly to herself all the while. “I don’t care how far I have to go or who I have to confront…” she said with determination. “I’m not about to let Mabel lose that bet and end up working for Stan for a month! I will get that refund, no matter what!”

All the kids could really do as the fight between the Gems and the Gremloblin began to drag on was spectate from the den and cheer the Gems on from the side. As strong and skilled as Garnet and Amethyst were, the Gremloblin was a formidable beast, one that they were finding was becoming quite difficult to best between just the two of them. The pair of Gems were getting more than their fair share of beatings, which certainly didn’t help things as the gift shop itself was also taking quite a bit of damage in the battle.

“Ugh, this is taking forever!” Amethyst groaned in exasperation after having hit the monster for what seemed like the hundredth time. “That’s it! I’m goin’ in for the kill!”

“Amethyst, wait!” Garnet tried to warn, already knowing what might happen. But even so, the purple Gem launched herself right at the Gremloblin, who met her attack solely by locking eyes with her. Amethyst froze in midair at this, her eyes going blank as a short gasp escaped her. A moment later, she crashed to the ground, seemingly unconscious even as Garnet hurried over to her. “Amethyst, I told you not to-”

“No!” the purple Gem suddenly shouted, slapping Garnet’s hand away from her. “Get away! Leave me alone!”

“Amethyst, it’s me,” Garnet tried to calmly rationalize, knowing well what the Gremloblin had done to her. “You’re safe.”

“Get away from me!” Amethyst hissed once more, trying in vain to shove the Gem leader away. “I don’t wanna go with you or be like them! Just GO!”

Garnet sighed, knowing that only time would be able to heal the purple Gem. And as long as they were locked in combat with the Gremloblin, time wouldn’t be a luxury they would have. “Kids, listen!” she called, standing as she picked the still struggling Amethyst up. “Amethyst is hurt and I need to take her back to the temple so she can recover!”

“But what about the monster?!” Mabel exclaimed, dismayed.

“You can handle it,” the Gem leader reassured. “I promise. We’ll be back later!”

“But Garnet, wait!” Mabel tried to race after the Gem leader as she ran out, only to be pulled back behind the wall by Connie.

“You probably don’t wanna go there, Mabel,” Connie said with a frown, nodding to the distracted Gremloblin.

“Well, I guess we have to round him up on our own now,” Dipper concluded with a sigh. ���Where’s Soos?”

“He was stressed out so I told him to take a soothing nature walk,” Mabel admitted sheepishly.

“Seriously?!” Dipper exclaimed, unable to comprehend any of his sister’s poor business choices.

“Come on, you guys,” Steven tried to encourage. “Let’s look on the bright side of all this! We… Um… uh…. Actually, I really can’t think of any bright sides this time.”

Distraught and exasperated, all four of the kids let out a shared sigh as they leaned against the wall, taking solace only in the fact that the Gremloblin didn’t know they were there. Of course, to add insult to injury, the nearby TV just so happened to confirm something that made the situation even more dire as Cash Wheel was on.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Stan Pines is poised to become our grand champion!” Rich announced to the viewing audience. “Anything to say to your fans out there?” he asked Stan.

“See you tomorrow night, Mabel,” Stan smirked smugly, looking to the camera and holding up the loser shirt.

“Oh come on!” Mabel groaned, knowing that she would lose the bet for sure at this rate. Of course, in the gift shop, the Gremloblin continued his mindless rampage, throwing merchandise around and knocking over shelves. However, what broke the camel’s back for Mabel was the fact that the monster had managed to find her prized sticker collection and was pilfering through it, putting random stickers on his face. “What do we do?!” she gasped, alarmed. “He’s awarding himself stickers he didn’t even earn!”

“Wait! Dipper, we used the journal to help us capture the Gremloblin,” Connie said, thinking quickly. “So maybe we can use it to get rid of it too!”

“Good idea,” Dipper nodded in agreement, taking the journal out. “Ok, uh…. Got it! When fighting a Gremloblin use water…”

On this suggestion alone, Mabel rushed out with Steven as her backup to confront the Gremloblin with a cup of water. However, instead of recoiling in pain, the monster only let out an agitated roar.

“…Only as a last resort as water will make it much, much scarier?!” Dipper finished reading as he turned the next page. “What?! Who writes sentences like that?!”

And indeed, the water did end up making the Gremloblin much more horrifying as her grew long spines on his back and seemed to double twice in size. Terrified, Steven and Mabel rushed back for cover, watching in fear as the monster destroyed the nearby clock with his fiery breath.

“So… what’s the new plan?” Steven asked apprehensively. “Just wait him out?”

“I guess that’s the only thing we really can do now,” Dipper shrugged. “I mean, he’s gotta leave eventually, right?”

“I’m the singin’ salmon spendin’ all day jammin’,” the talking fish head sang for the hundredth time as the Gremloblin pressed the button once more. “I’m the singin’ salmon spendin’ all day jammin’.”

Meanwhile, the kids all let out another unified groan as they sat against the wall, just as they had been for the past several hours. While the Gremloblin had found a rather aggravating way to entertain itself, none of them still wanted to take a chance in trying to subdue it, since they had all seen what had happened to Amethyst earlier. So all they could really do was sit by and wait for the monster to finally depart, which he apparently had no intentions of doing considering his fascination with the singing salmon.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting really tired of listening to that song,” Connie said with an irritated frown.

“I don’t get it, why doesn’t he just leave?” Mabel groaned in exasperation. However, as she looked around the wall once again, she happened to see something that made her practically freeze in shock. The Gremloblin had at last frown tired of the singing salmon and had instead focused its attention on the profits jar sitting on the counter. While there wasn’t much left in there thanks to Pearl, there was a little money from the thugs earlier. And unfortunately, the monster had decided that money was going to be its next snack. “Our profits!” Mabel gasped, thoughtlessly hurrying out from their hiding place to rescue them.

“Mabel, wait!” Dipper called, though Mabel hardly heeded him as she ran up to the monster.

“Stop!” she demanded, only for the much bigger Gremloblin to grab her in one swipe of his massive hand.

“Oh no!” Steven cried fearfully. “Mabel!”

“Don’t look into his evil eye!” Dipper warned. “You’ll see your worst nightmare!”

“I wish we had an evil eye to show him!” Mabel remarked crossly, glaring at the Gremloblin. Unfortunately though, the monster locked gazes with her, starting to give her a glimpse of her nightmares despite her struggling to look away.

“We gotta do something!” Steven exclaimed.

“Yeah, but what?” Connie asked, aptly panicked.

“Wait!” Dipper cut in. “I have an idea, but I need you guys to distract him.”

“Really?” Connie asked in dismay.

“We’re on it!” Steven gave a thumbs up, already running out into the fray. “Hey, Mr. Monster Guy! Look at me! I’m super distracting!”

“Oh boy…” Connie sighed, tentatively heading out into the open and running around to the Gremloblin’s other side. “Wait! Look at me instead! I’m more distracting!”

“No, I am!” Steven laughed, jumping up and down and waving his arms as the monster kept switching his focus between the two of them.

“No, me!” Connie argued with a small, amused smile, glad that the Gremloblin never looked at either of them long enough to ensure nightmares. Fortunately, Dipper soon came in with his plan as he ran up to the monster himself with a mirror in hand.

“Hey, monster!” he shouted brazenly. “Take a look at this!” As the Gremloblin set its sights on Dipper, he held up the mirror, allowing the monster to take in his own nightmare inducing gaze. The monster let out a horrified scream as it dropped Mabel, petrified by its deepest fears as it somehow sprouted a large pair of wings and flew off, breaking another large hole in the wall.

“Yay!” Steven cheered triumphantly. “We did it! We got him to go away!”

“And hey, at least he didn’t do too much damage,” Dipper pointed out, just as relieved. Of course, as the Gremloblin was flying off, it just so happened to ram into the totem pole outside, breaking its top off and causing to fall onto a car in the parking lot below.  

“…Yikes…” Connie remarked with a frown, not even wanting to know how much money that would cost them.

“You guys, it’s the third day!” Mabel exclaimed frantically. “We’ve only got 7 hours left to earn back our profits, or I gotta wear that loser shirt all summer!”

“And we’ll have to work in this filthy dump for a month!” Pearl practically wailed as her, Garnet, and Amethyst returned.

“Hey, you guys are back!” Steven grinned cheerfully. “Amethyst, are you feeling better?”

The purple Gem said nothing as she cast a bitter glare towards the floor, so instead Garnet answered for her. “She’s fine.”

“Hey guys!” Wendy greeted casually as her and Soos walked in. “Am I nuts or does this place look different?”

“Oh boy, am I glad to see all of you guys!” Mabel sighed in relief, overjoyed to have all of her employees back. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, but if we hurry, we can still beat Stan!”

“Uh, yeah…” Wendy frowned unenthusiastically. “I’ve got a little headache, so maybe I should like, not work today.”

“I dunno if I’m really feeling up to it either, you know?” Amethyst finally spoke up. “Especially after what happened yesterday.”

“And I never got that refund!” Pearl exclaimed, crossing her arms. “How was I supposed to know that you’re supposed to pay for purchases on the internet with a ‘credit card’? Whatever that is…”

“And I actually just met this pack of wolves, and I think they’re gonna like, raise me as one of their own,” Soos said with a shrug. “So I should really be at the den right now.”

“B-but…” Mabel tried to protest, but even so, the others were already on their way out.

“But hey,” Wendy said with a smile. “See ya on Monday.”

“Uh, BTDubs,” Soos said, pointing to the stray donuts on the floor. “Is anyone gonna eat these?”

Upon hearing all this, something inside of Mabel seemed to finally snap along with the pencil gripped tightly in her hand. She had tried her best to be agreeable and nice, and in the end it had gotten her nowhere. So now, the only thing she could do was be the exact opposite of nice. It was time for her to get mean. “Enough!” she shouted, stopping everyone in their tracks. “I have had it! I fought a monster to save this business, and this is how you all repay me?! I’m gonna get an ulcer from your lollygagging!”

“Whoa…” Amethyst muttered, stunned at this outburst.

“Lollygagging?” Wendy repeated, confused.

“Ulcer?” Soos asked with a frown. “You’re acting… different.”

“You shut your yaps!” Mabel demanded harshly. “I’ve been doing everyone’s jobs while you bums have been bleeding me dry!”

“But we-” Wendy tried to get a word in edgewise, but Mabel simply wasn’t having it.

“No buts except yours on the floor cleaning! Now quit loafing and get to work!”

“Y-yes, Mabel!” the cashier exclaimed, honestly somewhat terrified after all this.

“That’s yes, boss!” For emphasis, Mabel threw her fist down on the counter, which happened to cause Stan’s fez to fly up and land squarely on her head. As she adjusted it and glanced at her reflection in the nearby mirror, she let out a horrified gasp, realizing that she had done the one thing she had promised herself not to. She had followed in her grunkle’s sullen footsteps. “Dipper… what have I become?”

“What you had to, Mabel,” Dipper said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “What you had to.”

“Yeah, just… please don’t ever do that again, Mabel,” Steven frowned. “That… that was really scary…”

“If it’s the only way I can win this bet, then I’ll do what I gotta,” Mabel said with cold resolve. “We’ve got seven hours to turn this around. Let’s go, people!”

Back on Cash Wheel, Stan was reveling in how well he was doing. He had already surpassed every single other contestant by a mile, essentially beating the game thanks to his own luck and wit. He had already racked up a huge sum of money, enough that he was sure it would easily trump whatever Mabel had made and then some. Which was why he wasn’t really surprised when the wheel landed on Cash Flood yet again after his spin.

“Ha ha! I’m giving none of this to charity!” the conman exclaimed gleefully, more than happy to let the pile of money fall on him.

“And now you can go home a thousandaire!” Rich exclaimed with a smile. “Or you could risk everything to double your money with the bonus word!”

“Rich, I’m a simple man,” Stan said, feigning his conclusion. “So I’m gonna take my winnings, pack my bags, and… bet them all on the bonus word!”

Since assigning everyone to jobs they would have enjoyed most ended up in disaster, Mabel took an entirely new approach in reorganizing everyone to fix up the shack and regain their profits. She had already put Wendy back on register in the gift shop and had Connie managing their funds rather than Pearl. As for the Gems themselves, Mabel had reached the realization that interacting with the tourists wasn’t really their strong suit. So instead, she employed them in a task that they were much more equipped to handle.

“Time is money, you three!” Mabel shouted to the Gems through her megaphone, supervising them as they repaired the shack’s busted wall. “You got complaints? File them with the complaints department!” With a firm scowl, she held up a trash bin, letting out a tired groan as she did so. “Ugh, my back.”

“Yeesh, she’s going a kinda far with all this, don’t ya think?” Amethyst muttered to Pearl and Garnet as they hammered beams back in place.

“It’s still better than the prospect of having to work for Stan for an entire month,” the white Gem remarked, cringing. “Also, Garnet, why are you still wearing those?” she frowned at the Gem leader, who was still clad in her cape and turban.

“They make me feel… important,” Garnet replied with a shrug.

“Cut the chatter over there!” Mabel called sullenly. “We’re burning good daylight!”

“You heard her,” Garnet said to her teammates, shoving the wall into its correct position.

“Dipper!” Mabel shouted to her nearby brother as a tour bus pulled up to the shack. “We’ve got tourists at 9 o’clock!”

“But what do I show them?” Dipper asked with a frown. “Real magic just freaks people out.”

“Figure something out, knucklehead!” Mabel retorted, much like Stan would have. But even so, Dipper did as she said and came up with a new idea, one that would hopefully be much more of a success than the Gremloblin was.

“Ladies and gentle-tourists!” Dipper addressed the large crowd of customers, which also consisted of many of the bikers Steven had brought in earlier. Much like Mabel, he had decided to take a page from Stan by looking the part with a flashy suit and eyepatch, as well as throwing on the false charm that the conman was famous for. “This shack is full of wonders never before seen by human eyes! Be amazed at Bubble Boy, who’s spent his entire life living in his giant pink bubble!”

“Woo!” Steven cheered as the tourists headed over to his display. The young Gem had summoned his bubble and used it to blithely roll around on the small circular track the Gems had set up. Of course, the concept of Steven living inside of his bubble was a lie, but if Stan could profit off of telling lies on a regular basis, than why couldn’t they? “Look at me! I’ve never seen the outside world before! Ha ha!”

Of course, the tourists were all duly impressed by this “oddity” as they laughed and snapped pictures of the bubbled young Gem. Yet even so, there was still another new premiere attraction for them to see. “Behold! The horrible giant question baby!” Dipper directed the group’s attention over to Soos, who was glad in his question mark costume and little else.

“Am I a man? Am I a baby?” Soos asked the crowed, as rehearsed. “These are legitimate questions.”

The tourists were equally as awestruck by the handyman, prompting Dipper to come up with another way to “bleed ‘em dry”, as Stan would say. “Have your picture taken with either of them for a buck,” he said, though he quickly corrected himself, knowing they needed to make money much quicker than that. “Uh, ten bucks. No, a hundred bucks!”

As gullible as tourists often were, almost every single last one of them fell for it, especially the excitable thugs. In the end, all of the guests left aptly satisfied as the shack’s employees (and temporary employees) saw them off. “We put the fun in no refunds!” Dipper called after them before turning to Mabel. “So how’d we do?”

“We filled the whole jar!” Mabel proclaimed with a huge grin, holding the jar up for them all to see. The others all cheered at this great news, knowing they had all brought back victory from the jaws of certain defeat.

Or so it seemed.

“Ok, so minus the money used to replace all the furniture…” Connie tabbed up the deductions that they would have to make to their profits as everyone waited for the results on baited breath. “As well as the money we lost on all of Pearl’s ‘purchases’…”

“Again, I’m really sorry about that…” the white Gem apologized sheepishly.

“And supplies to fix the shack and that leaves us with…” Connie trailed off, using a calculator to determine the final amount, even though Mabel could already see it for herself as it sat in the bottom of the profits jar.

“One dollar…”

“Oh, come on!” Amethyst huffed in annoyance. “After all that hard work we only ended up with one dumb old dollar!?”

“What are we going to do?!” Pearl asked in alarm. “Certainly Stan made more money than that, which means we’ll have to work here in this… this hovel of filth and lies! I can’t do that, Garnet, I just can’t!”

“Calm down, Pearl,” the Gem leader reassured evenly.

“How can I!? It’s just too horrible to even think about!”

“W-well, maybe we still have a little time left,” Steven suggested hopefully. “I mean, Mr. Pines isn’t back yet-”

“I’m back!” Stan proclaimed, bursting into the gift shop with a wide grin. “Time’s up, kids!”

“Oh no!” Mabel gasped fearfully, knowing that she almost certainly lost.

“Well, that’s it,” Pearl threw her hands up, leaning against Garnet for emotional support. “We’re doomed!”

“Nice to see you learned how to dress while I was gone,” Stan remarked to Dipper, noting his suit.

“So how much did you beat us by?” Mabel asked the conman glumly, ready to accept her defeat.

“I won $300,000!” Stan exclaimed boldly, eliciting a shocked gasp from the others. “And then…”

“For a chance to double your cash or lose it all,” Rich began, introducing the final puzzle. “What is a six-letter word you use to ask for something politely? For example, ‘may I blank have that’?”

“Do I look like an idiot, folks?” Stan asked the audience with a knowing grin. “The answer is ‘gimmee’. Two e’s.”

Of course, the buzzer blared at this incredibly incorrect answer, much to the conman’s surprise. “Oh! You know, because you’ve come this far, we’re gonna give you one more chance,” Rich said sympathetically. “Let’s try again. It’s a ‘P’ word. Some might even say it’s the ‘magic word’…”

“Pabracadabra!” Stan panicked, shouting out the first thing that came to mind. “Final answer!”

The buzzer rang once more, finalizing that the conman had lost it all. “I’m sorry, Stan,” Rich apologized. “But the word is-”

“Please?” Mabel finished with a charming smile, relief filling her as she realized that Stan had come home empty handed.

“Apparently that word can make you money,” Stan rolled his eyes.

“Oh my gosh, that is hilarious!” Amethyst laughed hard, to the point that she was practically rolling on the floor. “I wish I had been there to see it!”

“Pfft, it wasn’t that funny,” the conman remarked crossly.

“So wait,” Dipper interjected. “If you lost everything, then that means… Mabel, you won!”

The others all cheered excitedly at this revelation, all except for Stan who let out a disgruntled sigh. “Oh thank goodness!” Pearl exclaimed, fully allayed. “We don’t have to work in this penny pilfering attraction!”

“Aw man, I still thought it would have been fun,” Amethyst crossed her arms petulantly.

“And who could have guessed that we’d win with only a dollar?” Connie laughed, holding said dollar up.

“Hooray for dollars!” Steven cheered jubilantly as everyone else joined in.

“Wait, what did we win again?” Soos asked after the bout of levity had passed.

“Well, according to our bet, I guess Mabel’s the new boss?” Stan shrugged grouchily.

Of course, everyone was quick to protest this idea, especially Mabel herself, considering how disastrous everything had turned out to be under her control. Stan frowned in confusion at all this, but allowed his niece to explain herself nonetheless.

“Grunkle Stan, I had no idea how hard it was being the boss,” Mabel said earnestly. “This place was cuckoo bananas until I started barking orders at people like you. So… I guess I’m sorry for doubting you…” With a small smile, she handed the conman’s fez back to him, which he gladly took and put back on.

“Yeah, well, I gotta admit,” Stan smirked as he bent down and wrapped his arms around his nibblings. “It’s kinda nice to be back, you know?” The tender moment passed all too quickly as the conman stood, pushing the twins away. “Okay, okay, enough is enough, get off of me! And Soos, Wendy, get back to work! And you three,” he said to the Gems. “Get outta my shack! Ahem, please,” he added, cringing as he said the word. “Ugh! Still hurts just sayin’ that.”

“Now, hold on just a minute, Stan,” Pearl said with a smug smile. “I do recall there being a certain… condition you had to meet if you lost the bet…”

“Oh yeah,” Dipper added, also grinning. “Mabel, didn’t your agreement say something about Stan having to do some kind of apology dance?”

“N-no, it didn’t!” Stan protested.

“Actually, yeah…” Mabel nodded in agreement. “I think I have it in my notes here.”

“No! That never happened!”

“I can’t wait to see your dance, Mr. Pines!” Steven exclaimed cheerfully. “I bet it’ll be great!”

“Oh, yeah, this is gonna be priceless!” Amethyst quipped with a teasing smirk.

“I’ll get the camera!” Wendy laughed, already leaving to get it.

“Alright,” Stan sighed in defeat. “Let me just-” The conman never finished his statement as he instead took off running to avoid having to carry out this embarrassing performance. But even so, Mabel wasn’t about to let him get off the hook so easily.

“Grunkle Stan!”

Fortunately, the Gems helped Mabel out by tracking Stan down and dragging him back to the shack against his will. Even though he complained about it the entire time, the conman begrudgingly put on the gaudy, flashy orange jumpsuit Mabel had picked out for him. And after enough prodding, Stan found himself standing before the camera as Mabel prepared to film him while everyone else watched on in amusement.

“Uh, look,” the conman began, cringing as he looked down at his outfit. “I’m not gonna-”

“Do it!” Mabel shouted fiercely, breaking apart Stan’s resistance as he unenthusiastically began to sing the song she had written for him.

“I’m Stan and I was wrong, I’m singing the Stan Wrong Song,” the conman sang dryly, bouncing up and down in a very minimal dance. “I shouldn’t have taken that chance, now here’s my remorseful dance.”

“Do the kicks!” Mabel ordered from her directors chair. “Jazzier!” she shouted as Stan put forth as minimal effort as possible in his performance.

“Now this is what I call a reward,” Pearl chuckled as her and the Gems watched from behind the scenes.

“Agreed,” Garnet nodded with a smirk.

“Woo! Go Stan!” Amethyst cheered mockingly. “Shake it!”

The conman grumbled in protest to himself as he continued dancing, only for his fez to fall off his head, only to be swiped up by Gompers. “Hey! Gimme that!” Stan shouted, fighting the goat for his hat. “Ow! My back!”

“What do you think?” Mabel asked Waddles, who sat next to her in the assistant director’s chair next to her. The pig simply oinked in response, but it was enough for Mabel. “Good point. Take thirty!”

Next: 

[overbyjama0-blog]

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[olwog]

So Peeps, we learn about the beauty of the Esk Valley Railway Line, Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem, “From a Railway Carriage” and the value of friends on a day out.

I get a text from George, “Dave’s had an operation on his eye and not feeling top form so we’re having a day in Whitby”

The plan is to drive to Great Ayton and catch the train that shuttles the Esk Valley line between Middlesbrough and Whitby. I’ve wanted to do this for some considerable time but never got around to it so how could I refuse?

I arrive in good time for the 10:54 train that’ll get us into Whitby at just before Noon which means we’ll be stampeding to Trenchers for fish and chips before the clock strikes the quarter hour.

This what the Sunday Times had to say:

“Away from the packed commuter routes and main intercities, the backwaters of our national rail network harbour some of the most beautiful rides in the world.  Leaving Teesside, the train chugs out across the North York Moors … along the leafy valley through Danby, Egton and Lealholm – surely the prettiest village in Yorkshire – to Whitby’s bracing sea air, fine Georgiana and looming Gothic church. This is England’s green and pleasant land, writ large over 36miles … it will make you sigh” ***

The train is running a little late but nor enough to complain and there are quite a few people on the little platform. They’re all in good spirit and joking with each other. Bri gets the life story of one of them complete with numerous anecdotes, there’s a lot laughing and they’ve only just met, no computer gloom here.

There’s a little bit of grey cloud and after the last few days of full on heat, it’s both disappointing to lose the sun and blue skies but it’s also something of a relief to have lost the energy-sapping humidity.

As the doors open the guard invites us on board with a smile and we make our way to the front coach that will become the back coach on leaving Battersby Junction which is about ten minutes away.

Here’s a good tip if you don’t want to travel backwards for the majority of the trip, choose a rear facing seat for this first sector as the train will enter Battersby Junction with what is now the front. At Battersby the driver will walk the length of the train along the platform and assume control from what was the back but is now the new front and here’s the bonus, you’re now travelling forward without changing seats.

This is the prettiest of dales and as we resume our trip there are gaps in lines that produce the rhythm of our childhood as the bogies hit the gaps ‘de de – de de’ slight pause ‘de de – de de’ it reminds me of a poem taught to us by the headmaster Mr. Oliver at the Applegarth School of my infant and junior years.

From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson

***

Faster than fairies, faster than witches Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches And charging along like troops in a battle All through the hedges, the horses and cattle

***

We’re picking up speed and the rhythm increases as I think of Mr Oliver and his insistence that whilst this poem had rhyme, it didn’t have to if it had rhythm and this had both.

The fields are defined with hedges and streams on both sides of the train and are verdant.  The sky is beginning to show the odd patch of blue as the blanket of grey melts with the strength of the summer sun. There are brown sheep in a field, not jurist one or two in a flock but a whole field of them, I make a mental note to try to find out if this a recognised breed (your help would be appreciated if you’re aware of them).

I’m beginning to match the poem to what I’m witnessing as the train approaches Danby:

***

All of the sights of the hill and the plain Fly as thick as driving rain And ever again, in the wink of an eye Painted stations whistle by

***

Danby doesn’t whistle by though as the driver gently brings us to a standstill and more passengers embark. The carriages are quite full but there are still seats so everyone is comfortable and clearly eager to appreciate the fabulous countryside on both sides of the track.

We’\re off again and passing old saddleback bridges built with stone and very definitely unaffordable if we were to build them today but beautiful in their antiquity and set against glorious fast running streams with oak, mountain ash and  the odd willow binding their banks with their roots.

Lealholme is beautiful on side with well kept buildings newly painted and beautiful; on the other side where the platform is equally beautiful because it is overgrown with meadow plants and the odd bramble cane. There’s Glaisdale then there’s Egton, I’m instantly reminded that my dad worked here for a while with he North Riding County Council and I’m thinking that this delightfully kept station with its buildings and platform would be what he saw sixty or seventy years ago and I’m tearful with nostalgia but happy that his day might have been sunny and carefree like mine today with good friends and equally tranquil and beautiful.

There’s a lady steps off the train with a small child and I envy them where they live. A rambler gazes across the dale at where she’s going to walk and it reminds me of some of our great walks one of which was around the Gothland/Gromont (Heartbeat) area.

***

Here’s a child who clambers and scrambles All by himself gathering brambles Here is a tramp who stands and gazes And there is the green for stringing the daisies

***

Off we go again and it gets better, the line runs in bursts parallel to the stream that gives its name to the dale. The River Esk meanders, cascades and sometimes gently strolls along the dale as the track takes a similarly meandering approach but without any ups or downs, or if there are they’re very gentle. It offers us some wonderful glimpses of wooden plank type bridges built possibly as temporary structures to facilitate access to fields and barns across the stream, who knows? But they do their job together with the water-splash routes parallel to them presumably do their bit for the animals.

***

Here is a cart runaway in the road Lumping along with man and load; And here is a mill, and there is a river: Each a glimpse and gone forever!

***

We stop at Glaisdale and another group of ramblers disembark, just three this time and I’m wondering where they’re going to, it would have been fascinating to have had a conversation with them but too late, I’ve learned for next time.

If you travel this route look out for the iron bridges and the saddlebacks, they’er a delight and illustrate an earlier time. Then look out for the fabulous arched disused railway now referred to as the cinder track as you enter Whitby. It’s as fascinating at the bottom of the columns as it is at the top, at the risk of an enigma I’ll leave it there.

And now we’re in Whitby, where’s Trenchers?

We arrive at Trenchers and join a bit of a queue. There are tables available but are reserved. After some 20 minutes we’re invited to move into the restaurant but not to a seat. We’re still in good spirit although I must say that seeing two large tables free and us still standing was slightly irritating. After another ten minutes we’re invited to take a seat at one of the tables that has been free since we queued at the door and we take them with a mixture of irritation and gratitude. We’re left for another 15 minutes before we’re asked for our order and the arrival of the food a good ten minutes after that. At sixteen and a half quid for fish, chips, beans, slice of bread and pot of tea I expect service rather better than this, it’s an hour since we arrived at the door.

However, the food quality is good, the facilities exceptional and the staff always friendly although on this occasion the service was poor. We’re not letting this hamper our day though and there’s lots of talk to fill the gaps. One anecdote which I’ll not go into in detail involved one of our part-time members and revoked permission to attend due to the venue that we’re currently within.

Moving on – there’s a group of four settling into the booth adjacent and we recognise two of them, it’s Granny and Granddad (to be) Graydon. Greetings are traded at some considerable volume and congratulations expressed for the forthcoming addition to the dynasty. It’s a wonderful coincidence and a delight to see them following the 9 day Cleveland Way recently experienced with Lou.

We’re off again and this time towards the harbour when without warning one of us suggests a 20 minute cruise to the Whitby Buoy and back. We have an 84% positive which leaves one who’s a little uncomfortable. I know what seasickness feels like so suggest that we do the cruise and he goes to the Whitby Porn Shop (I’m not too sure if there is one but I thought it might take his mind of our sailing experience if he had something for which he could search). He obviously sees through my subterfuge and agrees to join us. Now you might say, “twenty minutes, that’s nothing”, in fact there are many women who may agree; however, I do appreciate that with the threat of seasickness, it is quite a significant gesture to make the effort to come with us and in a fit of generosity I offer to buy him an ice cream.

The first 5 minutes is wonderfully smooth but then it would be, it’s in the harbour, the next ten minutes is a bit up and down but he sustains the ordeal with fortitude and before we know it we’re back in the harbour with a disk full of photographs and a full complement of chums with no sickness – result!

We disembark and walk towards the breakwaters with the intention of buying an ice-cream as reward for the bravery related to the cruise and Pete accurately finds the place that might be where he bought one once before. i go for the lemon sorbet but the majority have the Mr. Whippey one that’s served with beautiful swirls like an elaborate dog turd into sugary cone. We manage to avoid sharing them with the seagulls who’re circling like vultures above.

At the breakwater, there are numerous tractors lined up with varying objectives. One is Liverpool to Whitby and back for the Air Ambulance Charity but the one that I really fancy and will be running it past the Pilgrim is Liverpool to Benidorm and back on Massey Ferguson 185. I told the owner that I used to work on them and he allowed me onto it for photographs by our resident professional who duly complied.

It’s a delight to see so many people on the beach in the sunshine although the North Sea has never attracted me for swimming apart from when I was diving but then I’d be wearing a full dry suit with a woolly bear next to my skin. OK so I’m spineless but I’m also comfortable and not suffered from exposure.

It’s short walk but a good one and we return with the added pleasure of seeing the bridge open and a few boats pass through. Back at the station, we go to the platform early to try to beat the school kids to the seats on the return train – and we did!

This day out is an absolute delight. £5.70 return with a Senior Railcard and a bit more if you’re younger or without one. It’s also doable if you’re disabled.

Enjoy the snaps…G..x

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  Acknowledgements: Sunday Times for the extract on the Esk Valley Line and Robert Louis Stevenson for his poem  “From a Railway Carriage”

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Robert Lois Stevenson’s From a Railway Carriage in full:-

Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches; And charging along like troops in a battle, All through the meadows the horses and cattle: All of the sights of the hill and the plain Fly as thick as driving rain; And ever again, in the wink of an eye, Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles, All by himself and gathering brambles; Here is a tramp who stands and gazes; And there is the green for stringing the daisies! Here is a cart run away in the road Lumping along with man and load; And here is a mill and there is a river: Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

Esk Valley Railway Line and Whitby So Peeps, we learn about the beauty of the Esk Valley Railway Line, Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem, “From a Railway Carriage” and the value of friends on a day out.