#the idea that he gives up the mending after doomsday

[dykecicle-irl]

Thinking about cNiki and cTommy splitting cwilbur's coat. How many times Niki tried to kill tommy. How trying to find something in their grief they became the same yet so different. How their lives began to not repeat Wilbur's death but at very least they rhyme with it. Tommy tries so hard to find someone to follow, a moment of peace in the chaos of exile. but he finds nothing but torment in the same hands that lead his brother to the grave. Niki finds only headstrong anger, and revolt. She burns down the tree during doomsday, a final end to lmanburg. Your greatest enemy is a 17 year old boy and his sin is holding a grief you thought only you and your best friend used to know. There's a woman trying to kill you and the fire in her eyes looks just like your brother. Tommy took the coat and it weighed him down. Niki took the cape, and it lead her nowhere.

[rnelodyy]

/dsmp /rp im referring to the characters not the content creators

Okay, I've seen SO many posts calling Sapnap a shit friend and calling his reaction to the Spirit-speech a betrayal and I gotta make this clear. Sapnap "leaving" Dream wasn't a sudden thing, it wasn't JUST about the Spirit speech, and I think he was COMPLETELY justified.

The friendship between Sapnap and Dream had been starting to fracture LONG before the exile conflict. Sapnap had previously been shown to be scared of going against Dream, and Dream hadn't exactly been nice to him. For instance, during the Pet Wars, Dream led Fundy and Niki to Sapnap's pets, and outright handed Mars to Tommy for blackmail purposes.

The Spirit-speech didn't suddenly make him believe that Dream meant Him Specifically when he said he didn't care about anyone. The Spirit-speech was Dream tripping on the curtain, forcing Sapnap to rethink his opinion on Dream, and coming to the realization that yeah, the guy who repeatedly fucked him over with no hesitation and without ever apologizing for it probably didn't value him as a friend. So he went to Tommy for a second opinion.

I should also add, Tommy and Sapnap were friends by this point. Tommy wasn't just some guy Sapnap vaguely knew, he was a friend that he trusted, and valued the opinion of.

The most important point however, is what Sapnap actually wanted when he asked Tommy whether or not Dream actually cared about him. Sapnap wasn't looking for Tommy's honest opinion, he wanted Tommy to confirm what he was already thinking. Tommy initially hesitated, and tried to say that Dream did care, but Sapnap cut him off, telling him to just be honest.

Sometimes, you know deep down that a friendship is toxic. Sometimes, the only thing keeping you there is this idea that you're the only one seeing it, that it's just your brain being dumb. Having someone else voice what you're already thinking can be the push you need to leave, and for Sapnap, the conversation with Tommy was that push.

Sapnap "formally" cutting Dream off happened at a moment that pretty much confirmed everything he'd already been thinking. Dream was in the middle of dethroning George for not being "neutral" enough (AKA, not wanting to sit on the sidelines while Dream "solved" all his conflicts for him), and dismissing his genuine upset by calling him a baby and saying he was just being dramatic. When Sapnap accused him of not caring, Dream blew him off with "Of course I care!" and then went right back to making decisions for George and ignoring his input.

And yeah, I think Sapnap is wrong in thinking Dream doesn't care, because I do think he cares, and I don't think Sapnap and George leaving him was something he'd planned. But here's the thing: while Dream absolutely cares about people (sometimes in really fucked up ways but whatever), he doesn't trust them. Not in the sense that he's constantly looking over his shoulder, but in the sense that he doesn't think they can handle making decisions about their own lives. He's also got no qualms about betraying or hurting his friends without apologizing or showing any remorse, and then just continuing on like nothing happened. By this point, he'd also likely started buying into the "attachments are a weakness" line of thinking (likely informing his decision to not try and mend the friendship) and was orchestrating the exile-conflict with the full intention of abusing Tommy into compliance.

Thing about friendship is that it's a two-way street. If you take and never give, people aren't gonna wanna hang out with you. And yeah, disagreements and misunderstandings can happen, but when they do, there's something that exists called talking it out. If my friend came up to me and said "i dont think you care about me", I'd go "woah what the hell made you think that?" and sit them down and talk about it to figure out what the actual problem is. It could be miscommunication, rumors they've heard about me, mental illness giving them paranoid thoughts, or maybe I had been shitty and should change my behavior.

Dream never tried this. He just said "obviously I do care", and then never showed it. After the Spirit-speech and George's dethroning came the conflict around Mexican L'Manburg, which didn't exactly improve Sapnap's opinion on Dream. Then came Doomsday, where Sapnap was still debating whether or not he wanted to side with Dream... And then Tommy came along, genuinely apologized for treating Sapnap badly in the past, gave him Mars back, and then asked for his help. Dream never even talked to Sapnap before Doomsday, so of course Sapnap chose Tommy over Dream.

And then about a week later, Sapnap walked into the vault of attachments, where Dream was about to imprison and murder two of his teenaged friends, and had an entire hallway full of everyone's most valuable items, INCLUDING Beckerson and Mars.

There's a saying that nobody goes from 0-100 instantly. If they do, you've just been underestimating how long they've been at 99. The Spirit-speech wasn't the catalyst to Sapnap leaving Dream, it was the final straw.

[pastelwitchling]

Based on this prompt an anon sent to @manescosmic. Kaylie, don’t let me do any more of these. You have to forbid it. You must.

Michael needs Alex’s help.

“If the world was ending, you’d come over, right?”

Alex raised an eyebrow at Michael’s greeting. He supposed, after all they’d been through together, and now with Doomsday looming on the horizon in the shape of a clone and a clandestine organization neither of them could understand, that this opener was warranted.

Nonetheless, Alex had questions.

“Is it the end of the world?”

“I have no idea yet,” Michael huffed, “but it’s looking that way. It’s definitely the end of my bunker.”

Alex could hear metal on metal in the distance and a weird siren sound that he couldn’t place. He pressed his phone to his cheek and shut his eyes for a second.

Then he said, “Give me ten minutes.”

It took Alex eight minutes to make it to the junkyard. He heard more muffled scraping metal and the ground trembled slightly the closer he came to Michael’s bunker. He opened the door, the airstream conveniently pushed aside, and almost at once, a wrench flew into the air and fell somewhere in the distance.

Alex, eyes wide, called down, “Guerin?!”

“I’m here!” CRASH! “Just a second!”

Alex heard Michael’s grunts and cursing. More scraping metal and more heavy glass hitting the floor and more faint siren noises, like someone was circling the rim of the largest wine glass ever.

Then another piece soared up, and Alex barely managed to avoid it. Unlike the wrench, it fell almost straight back down, right into Alex’s arms. It was a large spaceship piece, broken off.

“Good,” Michael panted, “you caught it.”

Alex shook his head, handing him the piece. “What’s going on? Why’s your bunker going all SkyNet?”

He raised his hands, helpless, and sighed. “The turquoise,” he said. “I tried to forge the stones into the glass piece –”

“To see if that would mend whatever broken internal transceiver is keeping them from signaling anyone outside the atmosphere, right,” Alex said easily. “And?”

The corner of Michael’s lips tugged up with something like awe and fondness, and Alex blushed.

“And –” Michael started to say when another glass piece tossed itself out the door and into the sky. Michael caught it with a raised hand, and threw it back inside, along with the other piece, before shutting the door. “That,” he said. “This weird frequency started going off, and it won’t stop, and everything in the bunker – steel, glass, alien stones – it’s all gone haywire. Like –”

“—like the collision of the stones and the glass created a new code with a new frequency that accesses all other codes within all objects,” Alex finished in a mutter, his eyes narrowing at the bunker door as something else beat against it. “Like a master key code to . . . everything.”

Michael sighed. “Private, you are some kind of sexy.”

Alex cleared his throat and looked away. “Okay,” he said, “so why am I here?”

Michael titled his head. “Do you know anyone else that’s better at coding than you?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Alex scoffed. “I’m trained in hacking and algorithms. This is alien tech. You’re supposed to be the genius, do I need to explain to you the difference?”

“Look,” he said, “if I could ask for Liz’s help, I would.”

“That’s a lie,” Alex said. “You’ve been looking for any excuse to get me over here in the last two weeks!”

“I want to see you,” Michael said without batting an eye. “I won’t apologize for that. But this really is an Alex-only emergency. And you’re going to do it.”

“That sure of yourself, huh?”

“Me?” he snickered. “Not even a little bit. I’m just sure of you.”

Alex faltered, and shoved whatever stammered excuse he was considering giving to the back of his mind. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What do you need?”

Michael smiled, and Alex knew he’d signed his own death warrant a long time ago.

 Five hours later found Alex and Michael in Michael’s airstream, Alex at the small desk Michael had attached to his counter, Michael sitting on the table beside their steaming cups of coffee, the handles touching.

Alex had spent the first hour going over the security footage Michael kept for research purposes, and studying the faint lines of light that seemed to stretch from the stone to the glass and vice versa, like the two were melding together before they shattered apart, sending everything else within a ten-foot radius into a frenzy.

Now Alex was studying the symbols and lines of light he’d traced earlier, cross-referencing them with every photo, line of coding, symbols, and word he had on file, trying to make sense of where the glitch started and how to fix it. Michael seemed adamant on watching him the whole time.

“I don’t really need you here for this,” Alex had tried at one point. “If you need to work the auto shop today –”

“Nope,” Michael had said cheerfully. “I’m all yours.”

The implication alone left Alex red-faced, and Michael smiled like he was proud of himself for it. Alex was determined after that to pretend the cowboy wasn’t there. That plan went about as well as the day was going, because just when Alex thought he might’ve spotted something in the current of codes, Michael leaned in and Alex got a sight down his open flannel, all the way down to his bellybutton, and to the delicious hairy skin above his belt buckle.

“You okay?” Michael asked in a tone that suggested he knew exactly what he was doing.

“I’m fine,” Alex said through grit teeth. But then Michael’s thigh pressed against the back of Alex’s hand, and Michael’s thumb played idly with the hairs at the nape of Alex’s neck when he put a hand on the back of his chair, and Michael’s curls were close enough to brush Alex’s brow and leave him yearning for the touch of them against his fingers.

Alex rubbed his face, exhausted. When he looked up, Michael was looking at him with a dimmed smile. “Tired?” he asked.

“No,” Alex sniffled, returning to the computer. “I’m okay.”

Michael didn’t seem to believe him, and he put a hand in Alex’s hair, his fingers raking through the strands. Alex didn’t tell him to stop or turn away. It felt too good, the touch too soothing, and after this flirty distance they’ve kept, he wanted and needed Michael’s hands on him more than he wanted to admit.

So he worked while Michael raked his hair back, and as they hit the six hour mark, Alex found the glitch. He told Michael to consider it an on-and-off switch. He would have to do the one thing he hadn’t thought of doing; trying to combine the stone and glass again.

“It won’t meld them together,” Alex said, “but it will shut off the master key.”

Michael jumped back into the bunker without hesitation, even as Alex suggested he be the one to try it. “It’s my theory.”

Michael had only smiled like Alex was the cutest thing in the world, and touched his chin. “If it doesn’t work,” he said, “I don’t want to see a hair hurt on your head.”

Michael disappeared down the ladder before he could see Alex turn red. Alex waited and waited, and soon, the crashing stopped, the siren stopped, and he heard Michael’s bark of laughter.

When he climbed up, Alex expected a cheerful whoop!, or maybe a simple thank you, but Michael’s grin was wide as he stepped out, took Alex’s face in his hands, and crashed their mouths together.

Alex was startled, even as Michael pulled back and pressed their foreheads together, still grinning. “You’re incredible,” he breathed.

Alex was transfixed only for a moment before he pulled back. “D-Don’t,” he said. “Don’t do that.”

Michael’s smile faltered, the brilliant light in his eyes darker. “Why not?” he tried coming in close again, taking Alex by the waist, but Alex stepped back. “Alex, why don’t you want me touching you?”

Alex looked up.

“You – you used to love it.”

“Is that really what you think? That I don’t want you to touch me?”

He barked a humorless laugh. “What else am I supposed to think, Alex?”

“All I’ve ever wanted was you!” Alex growled, and Michael blinked, surprised. “After everything I’ve done, don’t you dare insult me by telling me I don’t want you to touch me. The only person whose touch ever mattered was you, Guerin, and you know that, so don’t pretend you don’t.”

Michael swallowed and shook his head, his expression turning hopeful and helpless at the same time. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, afraid.

“Then why?” he asked, his words like a plea. “Why won’t you . . . why won’t you let me near you?”

Alex pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and shook his head. “I can’t – I just – I don’t want to screw it up this time, okay?”

Michael was silent a moment. Then, “Screw what up?”

“This,” he said, gesturing between them. “Us. I can’t see us lose again, Guerin, I can’t. This might be the last chance we get, and – and . . . I can’t lose you again. If I do something wrong, if I’m – if I’m not careful –”

“Stop, stop,” Michael closed the distance between them and took Alex’s face in his hands tightly. “Look at me, Private. It wasn’t your fault, okay? It – hey.” He made Alex hold his gaze, despite his doubt. “It wasn’t your fault. It was mine. It – it was mine, Alex. You were brave, okay? You were so brave, and I – I was scared. And I chased you away –”

“And I left,” Alex whispered, his eyes glassy. Michael looked like his heart was breaking. “I left, and I shouldn’t have.”

Michael brushed Alex’s cheekbone with his thumb and gave a small, sad smile. “I ran before you did. I was just louder at blaming you.”

Alex clenched his jaw and took hold of Michael’s waist, terrified he would disappear without his touch. “I don’t want to break this again,” he confessed.

Michael smiled like he couldn’t believe how Alex was missing the obvious. “Baby,” he said. “You can’t break cosmic.”

[stellocchia]

Crime boys angst? Crime boys angst. They are not giving me canon content so here we are...

It’s always from the Platonic Soulmates AU (and sort of a sequel to Bee Duo's case? Kind of. Same universe as that, but they aren’t really related). 

Quick introduction: 

The 3 type of soulmates are: Romantic, Platonic and Familial. When you have a soul bond you can feel the other person’s emotions. The stronger the bond the more clearly you can feel them. 

                                     The Once Brothers

-

Once upon a time, Tommy believed soulmates to be a wonderful thing.

He heard so many stories of people finding their fated person, someone who’d stay by their side and protect and cherish them forever. Be it romantic, platonic, or familiar a soulmate bond was supposed to be the purest form of love.

He believed in this even as everyday survival was a struggle and believed it even more when he met Wilbur. The two became like brothers in a matter of hours and no one was ever surprised to find out they were soulmates from then on.

They had so much in common, both of them sharing a desire for adventure, a rebellious soul, and a big heart. They cared for each other and for anyone else they considered family fiercely.

And maybe sometimes Tommy was a bit too hot-headed and needed Wilbur to calm him down. And maybe Wilbur sometimes let his worries get too much power over him and needed Tommy to distract him. But that’s what soulmates are for! They balanced each other nicely and were unstoppable as a duo.

Looking at his scarred wrist now Tommy has no idea where it went wrong.

Everything was fun when they started their small potion business and no conflict was truly serious.

Everything was fine when they spent their nights making battle plans, a proud look on Wilbur’s face any time Tommy showed off his ingenuity for battle strategies as his first in command. He let him down in the end, failing to predict a betrayal that should have been obvious to the young general.

Everything was sort of okay when Tommy spent his nights just outside Wilbur’s office door because his older brother didn’t want to be seen crying but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the other one alone in his moments of need.

The elections came and things changed. They were chased out of their own country, hunted down to be slaughtered, and drove deep into the woods. The two brothers were left with one life each huddling in a cave bloodied and bruised but still together.

Everything could be fixed still, of course!

Everything could have been fixed… but it wasn’t.

Wilbur slipped away more and more into his own mind, where Tommy couldn’t reach him anymore. He tried to. Time and time again he tried to reason with his brother, he tried to keep him from giving up. He invited more and more people into Pogtopia hoping that other friends and familiar faces could help him save his soulmate. Nothing worked in the end and, suddenly, Wilbur wasn’t there anymore.

Wilbur’s death was the worst pain he ever felt. Tommy saw the sword flashing in Phil’s hand and it was like his own heart was the one getting impaled instead of Wilbur’s. He didn’t even get to say goodbye.

Nothing was the same once his older brother was gone. He tried to keep going but he couldn’t remember how to live after spending so much time surviving and his other half wasn’t there anymore to balance his brashness with logic. He wasn’t there anymore to make him laugh and brighten his day. Wilbur simply wasn’t there.

But, looking back at it now, maybe things were still good back then. They must have been since everyone claimed him to be spoiled and selfish as soon as he stepped one foot out of line. He probably should have learned to deal with grief before trying to live again, might have spared him some mistakes.

He didn’t though, and he ended up getting exiled again. There weren’t any arrows threatening to tear apart his flesh this time, just a hand that wouldn’t leave his shoulder and the happy chatter of an amnesiac ghost. It was almost deceptively serene.

Tommy doesn’t like thinking about exile, but it’s not for the reasons that Captain Puffy seems to think. She says that exile didn’t make him weak, that he didn’t deserve what happened to him, and maybe he can agree with that. Maybe if he repeats it enough times he’ll even start believing it. But no, the reason why he hates thinking about it is that he betrayed Wilbur. And it was his choice, his weakness that let him believe Dream’s sweet promises, no matter what his therapist says.

He got rid of the signs of his transgression the best he could, but the knowledge that His name used to be etched into his skin will never leave him.

But he isn’t in exile anymore! He left. He left and he was free once more!

He didn’t manage to wrap his wrist up while with Techno, having barely enough materials to mend his clothing and make himself a new shoe. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to at the time. It wasn’t until Phil made a passing comment on it that it became important. The comment wasn’t even mean-spirited, just something along the lines of: “Oh, you got a new soulmate mate?” asked along with a fatherly smile. He seemed happy for him, and Tommy only wanted to scream.

Doomsday came and went in a blur. War coming easily to Tommy, even with the loss weighting on him, he felt more like himself than he did in months. He was sad to see the country he’d founded crumble in front of him, of course, but there was also a certain sense of detachment: it hadn’t been his home in a long time after all…

The final confrontation with Dream was different. It was him and Tubbo side by side against the one that marked him as his own plaything and tormented him for longer than he’d like to admit. He wasn’t expecting to survive it, but, alas, things turned out in the boys’ favour.

Why did he have to ruin that for something as ridiculous as closure? What part of his life ever made him think that he would be afforded that courtesy? Dream didn’t even let him rest, finally reunited with his brother in his own personal nightmare. Tommy must have truly been a fool for believing that he would.

And now Wilbur is back! He is back and their bond is still as strong as ever, only now instead of safety and comfort, there is possessiveness and a warped sense of caring coming through it.

Tommy knows he should leave him, Puffy said as much while blabbering on about “enmeshment” and other fancy words that he’s gonna learn out of spite alone. Something about a relationship needing “clear boundaries” and how sometimes distancing yourself from someone is the “healthier option”. She’s probably right and he knows that. He knows, but his heart stopped hurting for the first time in months. He knows, but Wilbur was the first person to notice the scar on his wrist and get angry on his behalf. He knows, but Tommy never learned to let go.

He can’t even tell if it’s him or Wilbur who’s so afraid of being alone again. Maybe both. Maybe that’s why he’ll cling to this bond just a little longer. Just until he’s sure that Wilbur won’t disappear when he’s not looking. Until they’re both safe and he’s worthy enough for his brother to be honest with him.

He knows that he should leave, and he will! He will, but not now.

[101flavoursofweird]

Fic Questionnaire

Thanks for @sixtyfourk for tagging me! I’m putting the questions under a cut because it’s quite long :’)

I’ll tag @northernscruffycat, @northelypark, @edward-elbowlick, @vermontwrites, @asa-liz, @yoshi-g-teh-first, @call-me-rucy, and @aquamarineglow but if there’s anyone else who wants to do this, please go ahead!

How many works do you have on AO3?

107… but a lot of these are just reposts or prompt-inspired fics that are 10 lines long!

What's your total AO3 word count?

378242 words

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Professor Layton, PLvsAA, Layton Brothers Mystery Room, Rhythm Thief, Voltron: Legendary Defender (I only watched the first two seasons, haha…), The Ancient Magus Bride (I was in it for the cute dragon mage— not for the main romance), Steven Universe, Ace Attorney (only as a part of PLvsAA), Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, My Hero Academia

…10 fandoms altogether, but some like PLvsAA and LBMR fall under the PL category.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Aizawa Doesn’t Give Hugs - MHA- 1111 kudos - (Why can’t I update my most popular fic?)

Fireflies - Steven Universe - 221 kudos - (Again, WHY DID I NEVER UPDATE THIS?)

Reset - PL - 134 kudos - (This is the one I feel the worst about because it’s an ongoing long fic for my main fandom and I’ve had so much support from readers but I just can’t find the strength to update it…)

Worth Fighting For - PL - 86 kudos - (My incomplete Whumptober fic!)

Mending - Voltron - 85 kudos - (I think this was one of the first fics I posted on AO3 and I was really happy about the response it got! And for a fandom I’d never written for before!)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I usually respond to comments pretty quickly because I want to show my appreciation for people who take the time to comment :) If I’m ever slow to respond it’s probably just because I’m busy or I’m trying to formulate a long response. If a person leaves a longer comment, I try to make my response longer!

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

That’s probably ‘To Boldly Flee’. It’s a fic I originally posted on FF.net but it’s now part of an Aurora & Luke oneshot series called ‘Looking Foward’ on AO3. The fic stars Aurora and Luke in an AU set during Azran Legacy. It diverges from canon after Descole steals the Azran keystone in the Nest. Aurora doesn’t want to go to the Azran sanctuary and face her ‘duty’ as the Azran emissary— she also doesn’t want to get STABBED IN THE HEART— so she decides to run away with Luke.

Aurora receives even more angst in this AU than in canon. After Descole’s betrayal, she starts to doubt herself and her friends, aside from Luke.

With a bit of help from Rook and Bishop, the two of them fly to London and then to Misthallery when they hear Targent have taken over the town. During this time, Aurora has her identity crisis about being a golem and having the fate of the world resting on her shoulders. She eventually decides to help Luke save his hometown because Luke is worth the world to her.

This all culminates with Luke getting fatally(?) wounded and taken to the Golden Garden. Aurora is so distraught by this point that she almost ‘floods the whole world’ in a kind of failsafe doomsday device the Azran may have implanted in her. Luckily, Descole and Layton show up to assure her that Luke is alive— but just barely. Aurora returns to her normal self and they get Luke to hospital. Aurora waits by Luke’s bedside for him to wake up. Aurora mentions that Emmy’s fate is unknown, but they still mourn for her.

In the original FF.net ending, Luke wakes up.

In the AO3 ending, Aurora just keeps waiting for Luke. ‘She could not age, so she would wait until he awoke. Even if it took forever...’

If I ever did write more of this story, Aurora and Co would probably go to the other Azran sites (Ambrosia, the Infinite Vault of etc) to search for a cure for Luke. But at it is, the fic is left open-ended as to whether Luke ever recovers.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not really hate but there was one anon review that may have been ‘too brutal’ (their words). I can’t say it hasn’t affected the updates on that particular fic.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I wrote a couple of light smut fics back when I really shipped Layton/Emmy. I think I’d cringe if I went back to read those fics (but then again, I do that with a lot of my old writing). I can’t see myself writing smut now.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I can’t say I’ve had a fic stolen, but I was reading a fic a while ago and the wording was veeery familiar. I’m not sure why because the fic was already good up to that point? Why would they bother copying my writing? XD I can’t complain, though! We’re all technically stealing the original creator’s characters and concepts by writing fanfic.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, for my Rhythm Thief AU, Déjà Vergier! In this AU, 16-year-old Raphael gets taken in by the Vergier family. A Deviantart user called BakApple kindly translated my writing into French. With the help of Google Trabslate, I started translating their French Rhythm Thief fic— ‘July the Fourteenth’— into English, but I didn’t get around to finishing it. My translating skills are nowhere near as good as BakApple’s!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I wrote a PL fic with called ‘If You Only Had Time’ with an awesome writer called Glowbug. It’s an AU (of course) where Rachel Bronev survives and she runs away from Targent with eight-year-old Emmy. Glowbug doesn’t seem to be active online anymore, which is a shame, but I don’t mind! I’m just glad we were able to write 6 chapters.

I don’t think I’d co-write any more fics now… but more for the co-writer’s sake than mine! I’m notoriously bad at updating long fics and I struggle to write under pressure or within a time limit. There’s a reason why I don’t enter Big Bang events, as much as I’d like too :’)

Writing fics is a hobby first and foremost. If I don’t feel like writing something, I’ll leave it and come back later, hopefully with renewed inspiration.

But I’m always happy to discuss fic outlines/ideas/characters’ with other people!

What's your all time favorite ship?

Apparently the ship I’ve written the most fics for is Janice/Melina on AO3?

There seems to be more content for them recently and that makes me SO HAPPY.

Ranhengela might be a close second favourite… Sometimes I literally forget both of these ships aren’t canon.

My favourite characters tend to be those who are so selfless and would sacrifice their lives for the ones they love— e.g. Janice and Henry— even if their significant other is presumed to be dead. I want these characters to be happy but I also want them to through ANGST.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?

I don’t want to say Reset… but maybe Reset? I haven’t given up completely but I’ve lost a lot of confidence with this fic. What I wanted most out of this story was for Luke to bond with other characters aside from Layton— his parents, Arianna, Emmy, Flora etc.— and to give these characters a chance to shine. But I guess I realised I can do this without all the crazy plot twists and time travel mechanics… like in Ready Now, for example. Most of that fic is just Arianna bonding with Luke, Layton and the others, and it’s hopefully giving Flora her chance to shine too! I guess after giving Arianna her own chapter in Reset I just really wanted to write about her, haha.

What are your writing strengths?

Someone mentioned in a nice review that I often fuse canon with fanon? That’s usually just me poking fun at the series— like when Arianna’s mother asks about Flora’s age and her adoption status, Arianna and Tony just shrug at her comedically. Who knows, really? :’)

I’ll often just make two character sit in a room TALK about their feelings.

Dialogue is an easy one, but I like writing dialogue for characters and getting their voices down. (I will forever portray Dalston with his official Yorkshire accent— not the fake posh accent they gave him the the US version of Miracle Mask.)

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think it’s cool! …If it’s not used to mock another language— apart from English. Please make all the English jokes you want. I’ll probably agree with you and laugh at them.

I remember when I was re-reading Goblet of Fire and I cringed every time J. K. Rowling wrote about a character who wasn’t English.

I’ll occasionally throw French words or sayings into Rhythm Thief fics especially because that’s what they do in the game. It’s hilarious how Charlie has an English accent but then she’ll sprout a random French phrase.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Pokemon, but that short oneshot is long gone.

What's your favorite fic you've ever written?

I’m going to be boring and say Bonds Left Unbroken— an AU where Layton and Desmond both get adopted by the Laytons. I think I enjoyed the earlier chapters more, focussing on younger Desmond and Hershel, and especially their time in Stansbury. The later chapters don’t really branch out from canon that much, aside from the fact that Hershel and Desmond are on the same page during Azran Legacy.

I feel bad that I never got around to finishing the ‘bonus’ episodes, but it kind of just felt like the original series with Desmond phoned in :’) But I’m still proud of the original fic!

[thecloserkin]

book review: C.J. Hauser, Family of Origin (2019)

Genre: the most literary of fiction

Is it the main pairing: yes

Is it canon: yes

Is it explicit: kinda

Is it endgame: no

Is it shippable: if you’re into unhealthy ships

Bottom line: i hate literary fiction. ok i don’t hate fiction obviously i just hate when it tries to be too literary?? u feel me fam

Two estranged half-siblings spend a week tying up loose ends on the remote island where their father died (it is unclear if he committed suicide). The “loose ends” are that they had sex once, as teenagers, and now it’s weird. The island is populated by cultists and nut jobs who are convinced it’s the end of days and evolution is going in reverse. I have… many equivocal feelings about this book. On the one hand there are so many lines that just peel me like an orange, lines like “There was nothing more humiliating to Elsa than her own desires” or “Elsa was never surprised when someone killed himself. She was only surprised by her own animal perseverance day after day.” Plus I think this book really gets the dynamic where they’re constantly needling each other and every interaction is doused in fifteen gallons of repressed attraction. I think this is a novel that accomplished everything it set out to do with assurance and aplomb; I’m just fundamentally uninterested in what it’s trying to do. It’s about damaged people who learn to heal but the problem is the healing is much less engaging than the hurting.

Here’s the difference between speculative fiction and literary fiction: SF/F presumes zombies are literal zombies. Instead of assuming the zombies metaphorically represent something abstract, you just take them at face value ok? You spot a time machine or a vampire, you take it at face value and you add additional layers of meaning later. Which puts me in a pickle because Family of Origin is decidedly not a genre book, so what am I supposed to think about Famous Bigshot Biologist Ian, Elsa and Nolan’s dad, and his reasons for relocating to this island? There’s no cell phone service; it is quite literally removed from civilization. When I said nut jobs I mean it’s populated by secessionists, survivalists, doomsday preppers, anti-establishment types of all stripes. And they have some kooky theories about ducks. Which Ian apparently subscribed to. If this was SF/F I would just go along with it because maybe Elsa and Nolan, having arrived on the island, will finish Ian’s life’s work and find this elusive duck and prove Charles Darwin wrong haha??? But it’s fucking literary fiction which means I have to look for SYMBOLISM gahhh kill me now.

C.J. Hauser knows what she’s doing. Her bio says she’s a creative writing instructor and you can see why. It sucks that “what she’s doing” only glancingly aligns with “what I want her to do,” but c’est la vie. I was immediately taken with her choice of island setting (remote islands breed intimacy!) and the familiar configuration of type-A older sister paired with a younger brother who begs for a scrap of notice or attention. From the get-go Elsa’s priority is control. Nolan’s is acceptance. This quote sums it up pretty handily:

The problem was that Nolan wanted answers, and Elsa wasn’t sure what she would do with answers if she found them.

Like, I personally identify more with Nolan than with Elsa, because there’s this sense of learned futility that I find kind of charming in him but everyone finds annoying af in me:

Nolan wished he could return to a time before anyone had any expectations for him.

Elsa, otoh. Here is Elsa thinking about her ex, a relationship she clung to well past the expiration date merely because he loved her more than she loved him back, and she wasn’t willing to give up that bargaining position:

As long as his side of their love had more ballast to it, she felt in control and like he would not leave. Everyone left Elsa, so she had to be sure.

Nolan and Elsa are certified disasters. They’re both so burnt-out, and twisted up inside with shame and guilt and impossible desires, and the island is the ideal backdrop for them to resolve their issues:

There was so much that was not allowed that the island seemed willing to permit. Things underwater. Things offshore.

That night, they made no pretenses about the sleeping bag and slept cupped like shells in their father’s bed.

Jesus Joseph and Mary this woman can write. I’ve even seen lines from this novel quoted in those tumblr compilation poetry posts.

Anyway Elsa and Nolan’s dynamic is they do not get along and they’ve never gotten along. It starts with Elsa’s resentment at being displaced by a new sibling, which was compounded by Elsa’s mom being divorced and replaced by Nolan’s mom. These kids have spent all their lives probing at each other’s weaknesses and I am reminded of a very apt line from a book that has absolutely jack shit to do with incest: “When siblings spar, the true cause is proximity.” This seems to apply to Elsa and Nolan’s situation more potently than most.

Will you just LOOK at this god-tier sparring though:

Nolan touched a drop of rain that hung by her ear, letting it spill onto his fingers. Elsa smacked his hand.

Don’t— Elsa began, but Nolan, dirty water dripping from his fingers, grabbed Elsa around the ankles and shook her, groaning, Graaghh! like some B-movie Swamp Thing from the deep, ready to pull Elsa into the pool. Elsa considered Nolan’s hands around her ankles.

It’s one part goofing off, one part competitive banter, and one part violent sexual tension . Elsa takes meticulous mental inventory of every instance of skin-to-skin contact and I’m like—girl you know it only means something if you let it? Who the hell pays that much attention every time their brother accidentally brushes shoulders with them?!

There was a knot between Elsa’s shoulders that twisted taut when she saw him.

Nolan is shiftless and aimless, doesn’t even have the balls to break up with his girlfriend, his internal monologue is a constant refrain of “Nolan wished there was some more-adult adult whose job this could be.” Child you are TWENTY-EIGHT years old and need to start owning your choices. I think this hypothesis that’s sorta floated in an early Elsa POV is pretty conclusively disproved in the course of the novel:

But people didn’t change. They just ran away from everyone who knew them too well so they could start over and do a better job of obscuring the worst parts of themselves.

Because they do change, both of them change and mend their ways and they become a family again and ok here’s where I have a problem with C.J. Hauser: Her idea is that you have to choose—Nolan is either Elsa’s brother or her lover:

And he understood then that he could have kept Elsa as a sister or slept with her. It was a choice, and what he’d just done was to have given her up.

It seems her whole motivation for seducing him was as a big fuck-you to their father. I’m not saying she was not attracted to him I’m saying her field of vision is dominated by Ian:

Everyone here is insane, Elsa said.

They have their reasons, said Nolan.

They have stories, not reasons.

What if you’re my story? What if the story of why I’m on this island is you?

What’s my story?

Your story is Dad.

Go to sleep.

Tell me a story.

Which is really sweet and I am a fiend for these callbacks that deliberately echo the older sibling interacting with the younger one as a baby, but Ian’s stature is such that he takes over everything?? We find out that he wasn’t that great of a scientist. That he wasn’t a great dad was clear from the start.

So the really interesting thing from a craft perspective is the climax of this book occurs in the middle of it instead of at the end. The only other novel I can think of that does this is Cloud Atlas but that has a very unique structure. The film The Talented Mr. Ripley also kind of does this?

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

It’s revealed that Elsa isn’t Ian’s biological child. Her mom had an affair and when Ian found out he divorced her and married Nolan’s mom. When Elsa learnt the truth, she took the radical step of sleeping with Nolan to prove a point, I guess? To wit: If she wasn’t Ian’s daughter then it wasn’t actually incest. If Ian was troubled then it must be because she was his daughter:

But you are this kid, her mother said. You’re so totally his kid that you think biology is the only way you can be his kid.

I’ll admit that the “they’re not related” reveal does in this instance actually serve a purpose, unlike in some other books (yup this is a Wasteland callout post). And it ties into the theme of biology, and the stupid elusive ducks that supposedly inhabit this godforsaken island:

”We’re no longer good at adapting to things in the natural world because it’s too hard to tell which parts are real anymore so we don’t know what to adapt to.”

So there you have it. Family of Origin is not a book that spoke to my soul but it is a devastatingly exquisite book, and it has a number of really shippable scenes even if the relationship taken as a whole is not one I was rooting for. Here’s Nolan trying to get laid at college:

He didn’t know what to do because there had only ever been Elsa that one time before and Elsa had known what to do.

And then he has a breakdown so bad that he calls Elsa??? For emotional support??? Even though she’s at least 50% of the reason he’s so broken. When Elsa shows up she says ”I drove over two goddamn hours so you could yell at me in person” lolololol every single line of dialogue is so on-point. Oh oh and Elsa biting his ribs and his neck while they’re lying half-naked in bed is another pearl of a scene.

I saved so many quotes from this book and half of them have nothing to do with incest but they’re SENSATIONAL so I’m going to end this review with an assortment of quotes:

that she was afraid to ask for small things like this because the need in them did not seem big enough to draw attention. That she was afraid her small needs would go unnoticed, and so she made plays at bigger ones instead.

Whatever inner thing guided normal people in their choices … Elsa’s was broken. Nolan had been her first wrong choice, years ago, and as much as she’d have liked to pretend she was different now, that it had been a stupid teenage mistake, there was too much other wrongness that came after. Dozens of dubious choices that all seemed to bloom outward from that first moment.

But no, there was a difference between realizing how wrongly he’d been made and the moment the wrongness actually happened.

Because it wasn’t perfect. Because she couldn’t tell the difference between unconditional and infallible.

Maybe the sooner Elsa stopped trying to hunt down some class of people who had all the answers—adults, scientists, Mars missions, Ian—the sooner she could stop the cycle of trying to win. Could look around and decide what kind of game might actually be worth playing.

[diaboloframboise]

Good Omens fanfiction: An Angel’s apology

This takes place after the bandstand argument when Aziraphale tells Crowley that they are not friends and that it's over. This moment crushed my heart and I wanted to see Aziraphale think and apologize about it. The chapter stands alone as there is a resolution at the end but a follow up is in progress. 

Thank you so much to my great beta reader @thischarmingmutant :-)

 End of the scene at the bandstand, dialogues from the TV show:

A: “Friends? We are not friends. We are an angel and a demon. We have nothing whatsoever in common. I don’t even like you.” C: “You do.” A: “Even if I did know where the antichrist was I wouldn’t tell you. We are on opposites sides.” C: “We are on our side.” A: “This is not our side, Crowley, not anymore. It’s over.” C: “Right. Well, then. Have a nice doomsday.”

*********************************

As such a lover of books, Aziraphale knew better than anyone the power of words. He knew how they could make you feel like you were about to explode with joy or cry in despair. He knew how they could make you so angry that you wished to be able to punch someone or how they could make you question everything you thought you knew. Words were powerful; he had always known as such.

However, he had never experienced until today how deep they could cut when used too rashly. How much damage they could make in a matter of seconds. The power that could seep from them when you use them to push someone away because you’re scared.  Words had always given Aziraphale many emotions: joy, anger, surprise, sadness, even disgust, but they had never failed or disappointed him. Today, for the first time in his very long existence, Aziraphale felt like his beloved words had betrayed him.

They were just two little words though. Not even a full sentence, just seven ridiculous letters. “It’s over.” How could seven letters cut so deep? Because they had. There was no doubt about it. The way Crowley had looked when Aziraphale had said those seven tiny letters was forever engraved into his brain with no possibility to erase it. For as long as he would live, he would never forget the hurt, the sadness that Crowley’s face had shown at those simple words.  He had looked so utterly wrecked that Aziraphale had to look away for a moment, unable to cope with the fact that he was the one responsible for putting that broken look on him.

Time went by after that dreadful day without any signs of Crowley, and for the first time in his very long life, Aziraphale physically felt it stretch. Time had never been a factor for him before. As an immortal being it wasn’t something he needed to worry about. Actually, it wasn’t something that even meant anything to him. He and Crowley had spent decades apart, and it had never been an issue because they knew they got all the time in the world to bump into each other again for one reason or another. Even when being apart for a long time, they always had that absolute certainty that they were a constant in each other life and that they would eventually be reunited.

This time was different. This fight was different. It wasn’t just a spat or a divergence of opinion. It was one of them deeply wounding the other and the other having no clear idea of how to act about it. The feeling was new, immensely unpleasant, deeply unsettling and immeasurably painful.

Aziraphale had never fully noticed how much he had relied on Crowley all these past centuries, especially since they were both living in London. How he had come to lean on him, even. How Crowley had became so completely intertwined in his daily life to talk, to laugh, to drink, to eat or simply to spend time with someone he cared about.

Because he cared about Crowley; there was no denying that. Aziraphale was pretty good at turning a blind eye to things he didn’t want to see, but he couldn’t deny anymore the way he was feeling. There was no mistaking the aching he felt with each passing day without seeing Crowley. There was no other way to explain the way his heart jumped into his chest every time the bookshop’s door opened in hope it would be Crowley. And there was no other explanation for the utter distress he felt every time it wasn’t him crossing the threshold. Like with words, for the first time in his life, Aziraphale was feeling like time was betraying him. Because there was not much left of it before the end of the world, and the person he cared the most about was not a part of his life anymore.  

Well, it wouldn’t do, Aziraphale decided after spending a whole afternoon watching at his phone hoping it would ring. It wouldn’t do at all. There were some times to be conveniently unaware of your own feelings, and there were some times to confront them. 6000 years of denial and the world ending very soon sounded like a good time to start taking action.

*******************************

To say that Crowley seemed happy to see him would be a bit of a stretch of the truth. He obviously knew who it was before opening the door but his face nonetheless did something very complicated when he saw Aziraphale before settling on a very carefully controlled expression. “What do you want?” he asked a bit curtly. “I’m very sorry to stop by unannounced. I know it’s rather rude, but I need to speak with you.”  Aziraphale’s voice was nowhere near as steady as he would have liked, and he cleared his throat. “Would you be so kind as to let me come in?” Crowley hesitated briefly but eventually stepped aside to let him in before leading the way to the living room. Aziraphale had been there a few times before, but he pretended to examine his surroundings with great attention to gain composure. He awkwardly asked Crowley about his plants to which Crowley rolled his eyes without answering. “Why are you here?” he asked instead. “Any news on the front of the end of the world?” Aziraphale shook his head. “No.” “Then what?” prompted Crowley a bit impatiently. Aziraphale swallowed and had to resist the urge to fidget with his fingers. He had known it wouldn’t be easy, but he hadn’t anticipated it would be so utterly terrifying. “I’ve never had...” he started feebly, then stopped right away. “I don’t know…” he tried again before trailing off. “I can’t think…” Aziraphale closed his mouth and sighed in frustration at his own jabber. He focused hard on his jumbling thoughts and decided to start with something simple. “I’m sorry I said we weren’t friends. It is obviously not true, and I apologize,” he began hesitantly. It didn’t stir any reaction from Crowley so Aziraphale bravely continued. “Surely by now you know how I feel about you,” he said tentatively. That prompted a bitter laugh. “How would I? The only thing you have ever said about it was that we’re not friends. “ Aziraphale flinched at the clipped tone as much as at the jab, but he took on the blame without a word. “Of course we are friends,” he said softly. “You are not just my friend, Crowley, you are my best friend. Actually you are my only friend. I was very wrong to say what I said.  I didn’t know it would hurt you so much. I didn’t mean to.” “You didn’t know? I had just asked you to run away with me! What did you think?” Crowley looked very angry now and Aziraphale couldn’t blame him. “Do you think I would have asked just anyone to run away with me?” Crowley asked sharply. “Do you think I would want anyone to run away with me? I asked you because you are my best friend in the world, and I can’t even imagine you not being in my life.” Crowley’s voice trailed off and he deflated all of a sudden, looking so open and vulnerable it made Aziraphale feel sick. Crowley turned his back to Aziraphale, obviously at war with himself to keep his emotions in check. He eventually faced him again, his face raw but his voice steady. “I need you, angel,” he whispered.

Aziraphale’s heart exploded into his chest. He had never heard such a palpable pain in Crowley’s voice. It was agonizing. He cleared his throat a few times, struggling to find the words that would convey everything he felt in that moment. It took a couple of false starts and his voice was a bit wobbly when he found it.

“I had no idea you felt that way. I’m so sorry, my dear. I never meant to hurt you.” Aziraphale’s voice broke a bit on the last words and he took a shaky breath to pull himself together. “I need you too, Crowley. I do,” Aziraphale exhaled on a soft sigh. “I want you in my life, and I’m sorry it took me so long to admit it.”

Crowley was so stiff it must have hurt every one of his bones. His jaw was squared so tightly it would probably have broken on a genuine human body. Aziraphale could see that Crowley had no idea what to do with what he was saying. He was probably attempting to keep protecting himself. Aziraphale had hurt him once and he knew that Crowley needed to be absolutely sure that Aziraphale wouldn’t do it again before giving in to his feelings.

Aziraphale came closer to Crowley, slowly, very slowly, so very careful not to startle him. He touched his sunglasses with a questioning look, and when Crowley didn’t react, he softly took them off and miracled them somewhere else. Crowley’s eyes looked haunted, their yellow shade enhanced by the deep dark circles under them.

“I need you,” Aziraphale said again. He was under the impression he could never say it enough to mend what he had wounded. “You are not just my best friend, Crowley, you are so much more.”

Aziraphale closed his fingers around Crowley’s wrist very loosely, barely touching him. Crowley went even stiffer but didn’t move, keeping his gaze straight above Aziraphale’s head.  Aziraphale made a step further, just enough to invade Crowley’s space and to be able to settle his chin on the crook of his neck.

“You are everything I need and everything I want,” he breathed against his neck.” I miss you so much. Please.”

Aziraphale wasn’t even sure what he was saying please for. This little word, murmured against Crowley’s skin had so many meanings at this instant. Please forgive me. Please tell me it’s not too late. Please talk to me. Please take me in your arms. Aziraphale hoped with all his might that it would be enough to convey all the feelings he was too overwhelmed to express differently.

Everything was completely still for a very long while, the only sound in the room the labored breathing of this two entities that didn’t even need to breathe. Finally, finally, after what felt like an eternity, Crowley turned his hand in Aziraphale’s feathered grip on his wrist and intertwined their fingers.

The broken sigh of relief Aziraphale exhaled on the crook on his neck was heart wrenching. Crowley slowly raised his other arm and wrapped it around Aziraphale’s frame, bringing him closer. Aziraphale mirrored him in a heartbeat, pushing himself against Crowley.

“I’m sorry I hurt you,” he whispered. “So sorry. Please forgive me, my dear.”

Crowley let go of Aziraphale’s hand with an infinite softness and wrapped his other arm around him. Aziraphale mirrored him again, molding himself against Crowley.

“I forgive you, angel.”

------------------------------------------

Thank you so much for reading, I really hope you enjoyed. Please let me know, feedback always makes my day and fuels my motivation :-)  

[fate-hates-faraday]

So uh I remembered my vague ideas for a GF AU still existed and dug up the coversation I had with @honeygemtrashbag

Though, currently, pondering the idea of Deceit, instead of being a brother to Patton, would be the Shapeshifter (albeit with a far different and less evil moral compass).

(Transcript below Read More)

Levi Dinn10/03/2019

Me: .....at last, I've calmed down my brain enough and got some focus. I really want to get back to the PMMM AU - I think I've got some plans to refine the timeline, as well as a stable of witches to help fill out those timelines-

Rewrite of Gravity Falls 'Not What He Seems' Starring 'Grampa Patton', his grandkids 'Roman and Remus', his handyman 'Virgil', and cashier 'Logan', a folding chair in hand: BITCH YOU THOUGHT-

BigNutzMcgee10/03/2019

[image of a woman looking surprised as she’s holding a glass and a straw]

Levi Dinn10/03/2019

You watch Gravity Falls? Remind me? Because this was a fucking turning point in the series

BigNutzMcgee10/03/2019

I do!! And you’re right

Levi Dinn10/03/2019

So Grampa Patton's been taking care of the twins since his son Thomas sent them up (he kinda realized he's gay, missus didn't react well, it's just to give the two a break while they settle things). Remus found the journal, but he and Roman share it pretty evenly and don't show their grandpa right away because he's swell and all but also a bit of a worrywart and somehow oblivious to all of the dangers of Gravity Falls? (until, you know. He reveals he isn't). Working for Grampa Patton is Logan, nearly ready to graduate high school, and Virgil, first year at community college (the twins are a bit older than 12, though their crushes still aren't reciprocated/acted on.....sue me, Prinxiety and Intrulogical still cute).

And so of course one day Roman, Remus, and Patton are all hanging out and having fun when Patton gets arrested. You know why. Logan upon seeing the police presence actually goes to the station to try to meet up with Patton (guy's silly, but Logan won't argue that he's done so much for him) but keeps getting blocked by the feds. Patton's one call, instead of to a lawyer, is to Virgil to ask him to get the twins and keep them safe (And good thing because Remus' plan was to upset a tractor trailer driver to run the agent's car off the road -coughMabel-)

BigNutzMcgee10/03/2019

:0

Levi Dinn10/03/2019

By the time Virgil, Roman, and Remus all get back to the shack, well, Thomas usually does a weekly call, and he's panicking because it's been a few hours and no one's picked up. Roman and Remus try to fill him in, in their own way, and Thomas is disbelieving. It's Patton, his dad's not a criminal. Sure, he does some strange things, but a criminal? Nah. Thomas promises to call back in an hour while he tries to find out what's up. The twins, of course, plan to do so as well.

And when they find the security footage (holy crap, Patton can SWEAR?!), the multiple fake IDs, questionable bank records, none of them know what to make of it. Weirdest yet are the floorplans, indicating a level below ground level, but the door should be in the gift shop - but they've never seen a door there, right? Thomas calls back, asks Virgil to take the twins to somewhere safe. While trying to get info, he stumbled across an obituary - some guy who got into a car crash, left way too much blood and his wallet behind. ID said Patton Sanders. Thomas has NO IDEA who he sent his kids to, but he needs them safe, dammit.

Virgil rounds up Roman, but Remus is poking around the gift shop trying to find the door. It's Roman who figures out it's behind the vending machine, Virgil who gets it open. Indeed, there are stairs going down, an elevator - and at the bottom, a machine room. Two journals laying out, copies from the third journal nearby. Roman had been carrying around the journal this week, they notice the diagram split between books, and of course - the warnings in invisible ink: "The device if fully operational could tear the universe apart!"

Back to station - Logan's arguing with an agent to little avail, despite the fact the agents could've gotten arrested weeks ago if he hadn't filled them in on proper procedures regarding wiretapping and spying in Gravity Falls. Patton stalls the agents until a good gravitational anomaly, escapes, grabs Logan as he passes, then of course sends the distraction taxi cab. Logan is confused as heck because Patton is silly and weird, but right now he's super-focused and almost harsh as he tells Logan they can't be late. For what? The source of the fluctuations. Logan keeps pressing, but Patton's being weirdly evasive.

And so, just as Virgil, Roman, and Remus are about to deactivate the portal, Patton returns, Logan in tow, Please don't shut it off. Roman calls him out about the obituary, Virgil throws the fake IDs at him, Logan is even more suspicious now, and so of course now in the last minute is a good time for a gravitational anomaly. Yes taking beats from the episode, so sue me, it's hard to improve on perfection.

After a fair bit of struggle, where Patton holds up surprisingly well getting past Logan and Virgil but is ultimately knocked off-course by Roman, Remus is the only one who's in range to shut off the machine. He wants to trust Grampa Patton but... he's probably not Grampa Patton. He lied about the monsters in Gravity Falls, he lied about who he is and how he knows them, he lied about owning the place, he lied about why he wanted the journal - there are just so many lies, and what it comes down to is that this thing is a doomsday device. And despite all his morbid jokes, Remus doesn't want to die.

Patton's pleading - he can explain afterwards, promise, it's a long story but- there won't be an afterwards! - There WILL be, he swears. He wouldn't try this unless he was sure he wasn't going to lose any more family, just, he pleads through tears, just let it go. Remus hesitates. Grampa Patton's a liar. Grampa Patton's never cried. Grampa Patton could be lying right now. Grampa Patton....He lets go.

World goes white. The basement is wrecked (Roman kept safe by Virgil, Grampa Patton just barely catching Remus before gravity kicked back in) and a figure emerges from the portal. Who's that? The builder of the house, of course. The author of the journals, naturally. A man who vanished over 30 years ago. Patton Sanders, the twin brother of one ostracized Ernest Sanders.

So yes, here Patton and Deceit are also brothers. Because fuckin' fight me why not?

BigNutzMcgee10/03/2019

needs more

Levi Dinn10/03/2019

There's sadly not enough to fill out a total AU. But I will say this:

BigNutzMcgee10/03/2019

:c

Levi Dinn10/03/2019

Bill Cipher goes unchanged because no one ruins everything he touches quite like Bill does. Just, yeah, Sanders sides a little small to match the cast of Gravity Falls, but they'd work excellently for this episode......and certainly wouldn't claim exclusive ownership

BigNutzMcgee10/03/2019

:0!!!!!

Levi Dinn11/25/2019

[Not related personal stuff]

Speaking of, in the GF AU, Bill instead of manipulating Roman and Remus with deals just befriends Remus to slowly get his trust so Remus willingly offers Bill himself the rift. Doesn't hurt that Bill thinks Remus' ideas are fun and great while most everyone else... doesn't.

So Sock Opera would be more rooted in jealousy between Roman and Remus - Remus' ideas getting shot down, Roman getting praised - with subplot about Bill "mending" bridges with Remus for invading his grandpa's mind and sorry about that, can we start over? Personally I think your idea about the a nuclear bomb dropping near the characters' home and fallout creating hideous mutations is really cool, Mace-y's Day Parade! Bill doesn't even have to hijack anyone to persuade Remus to give him the rift, just promise him that with it, he cam make sure Roman won't leave him behind

Levi Dinn11/25/2019

I also stan the theory that, much like how Virgil represents and suffers from anxiety, Remus represents and suffers from intrusive thoughts

BigNutzMcgee11/25/2019

Yeeessss

Levi Dinn11/25/2019

So while everyone in the GF AU at least somewhat likes Roman? Virgil is incredibly disgusted by him, Logan seems dismissive (doesn't hurt our duke's crush though; and while he may come across coldly, still finds him harmless), Patton's severely unnerved (since admittedly I mean, Bill likes his ideas, enough said). Only Roman and Dee vocally support and defend Remus

BigNutzMcgee11/25/2019

^yeyeyeye

Levi Dinn11/25/2019

Patton at least has the courtesy to feel awful when he realizes his fear helps push Remus right into Bill's arms

[gazzhowie]

My Top 25 Movies of 2020.

It is indeed time… or at least, as is tradition, it is indeed now overdue for me to dust off the cobwebs from my Tumblr account and post my Top 25 movies of the year. This time for 2020. That funny old year, huh? Where - if some are to be stupidly believed - “no films got released because of the pandemic”.

I thought I was done with this after 12 years and concluding with my Top 25 of the decade effort and yet here I am. Back rather egotistically because 2 people told me how much they look forward to reading this. Go figure! Years 2008 through to present are available in the archive. Frequent visitors know that I’ll throw out a few special mentions to all the films that I wish I could’ve included but couldn’t make them fit yet believe they deserve a shout out regardless and then I get stuck in to what I think are the 25 best films of the year.

As always, films listed are based on their UK release date whether that’s in the cinema or on DVD, VOD etc. Anyway, without further ado, here’s the ‘also-rans’ and ‘near-misses’ separated per genre that very nearly made the final list:

Setting my stall out straight away, Steve McQueen’s Small Axe was very much TV to me and won’t get ranked within my film listing. I loved two of the efforts a great deal (Education and Mangrove), liked two but found them lacking (Red, White & Blue and Alex Wheatle) and did not get what everyone else seems to from the other (Lover’s Rock).

In terms of documentaries this year, I thought Frank Marshall did a fabulous job with The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart; a comprehensive study of the personal complexities and professional excellence of an incredibly underappreciated band. I found On The Record to be a difficult but inspiring watch and its background ‘politics’ exposed the hypocrisy of Ava DuVernay and Oprah Winfrey in a manner we’re not talking loud enough about. Hitsville: The Making of Motown was an extensive, lovely historical tribute to an era and a style of music, full of great tunes and equally great talking head anecdotes. And finally Belushi managed to find fresh angles and previously untold stories about one of the most mythologised comedy stars of all time, simply by pulling the man to the forefront ahead of his talents.

For dramas, I enjoyed Trial of the Chicago 7 a great deal and am an absolute sucker for the work of Aaron Sorkin but bad casting (Eddie Redmayne) and stunt casting (Sacha Baron Cohen) hurt this film. I’m a sucker for a disaster movie and Pål Øie made an incredibly entertaining one with the Norwegian high-melodrama, The Tunnel. Edward Norton’s long-gestating Motherless Brooklyn was a solid, old-fashioned PI yarn with some great casting to back it up. It’s the most alive Bruce Willis has been in years and it served to remind you that Alec Baldwin can be quite the terrific actor when he’s not being an utter joke of a human. I liked The Vast of Night a great deal when in the throes of watching it but liked it less in the aftermath. Cut Throat City was the underrated dramatic gem of the year in a lot of ways and showed that RZA has a great deal of skill as a legit filmmaker, when not being caught up in the ‘gimmicks’. O.G finally landed here via Sky Atlantic of all places, rather than any sort of VOD release, and it was an enthralling drama that served to remind us all how brilliant Jeffrey Wright can be when not overacting to the point of cringe or being stuck with really terrible writing (hello, TV’s Westworld!).

With the blockbuster season at the cinema all but dead from the outset, the joys of the action genre were to be found in the little b-movies tucked away on streaming platforms and VOD. Quick notable exceptions were The Outpost which was a reminder that Rod Lurie can deliver a hell of an action sequence, blighted by truly awful film-damaging casting and Extraction which was a well-directed derivative piece of hokum. Donnie Yen delivered an earnest, entertaining end to one of the surprise action franchises of the last decade with IP Man 4 that not even Scott Adkins could fuck up. Hack director Deon Taylor accidentally delivered Black and Blue; a pretty good ode to the ‘man on the run’ non-stop action thrillers of the 80s and 90s – with Naomi Harris killing it in the lead role. Netflix tucked away two of the greatest b-movie actioners of 2020 with The Decline (a ‘Doomsday Preppers’ training camp goes horribly wrong) and Earth & Blood (a sawmill owner uses his place of work as a battleground to take on the cartel). And, finally, the Ma Dong-seok (aka Don Lee) Taken rip-off Unstoppable arrived to streaming and turned out to be vastly superior to all of the films it was a knock-off of.

It was a great year for horror, especially if you were open to the sort of scares you were after. Sea Fever didn’t stick the landing but delivered an ace sense of foreboding and tension building for the most part. Harpoon was a sneakily nasty, surprisingly engrossing, violent little film. VFW was a lot of fun but nowhere near as good as its concept and cast suggested it was going to be. It’s also been subsequently marred by the stories coming out of its production and the revelations about Fred Williamson. I thought Come To Daddy was an absolute gift of a horror comedy that kept swerving whenever you thought you had a handle on where it was going. And Elijah Wood continues to show himself to be an American national treasure. After Midnight was an intriguing relationship drama with a horror bent and You Should Have Left, the Stir of Echoes reunion we’ve all long sought, would work as an off-kilter double-bill with it. Kevin Bacon is brilliant in it. Vampires Vs The Bronx is a totally disposable but immensely fun ode to The Lost Boys and The Monster Squad that’ll serve you well on a lazy Saturday night. Black Water: Abyss was a really good little creature feature with a ridiculous ending that infuriates. And Train To Busan: Pennisular was a pretty shit Train to Busan sequel but an immensely entertaining post-apocalyptic zombie action movie.

Onwards is worth mentioning for the fun and moving animated ride it initially presents as but, like too much Pixar nowadays, it does not hold up to repeat viewing.

Comedy-wise, I thoroughly enjoyed Bill & Ted Face The Music but thought its gag-rate was far too hit and miss for it to take a place on the top spot. Buffaloed was a kind of “M’eh” blue-collar Wolf of Wall Street with yet another fantastic ‘How the fuck isn’t she a huge star already’ turn from Zoey Deutch. Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made was a quirky out-of-leftfield oddity that me and my eldest son enjoyed a great deal. Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga was not the travesty you would’ve thought it’d be, mainly because of Rachel McAdams, but if Will Ferrell had just leaned a little harder towards his more absurdist style of humour (the killer fairy shit for example?) this could have been so much more. Finally, the second Borat film had some utterly majestic moments of cringe-comedy that make it worthy of a mention but the mechanics of joke-execution and faked set-pieces were far more on show this time around.

And now, if you’re still hanging in there that is, here is my actual Top 25 films of 2020…

25. Skyfire

I don't know whether it's because I’ve been starved of my usual 'Summer Silly Season' this year but I absolutely fucking LOVED this. It's the stupidest, most ridiculous, relentlessly bonkers "Jurassic Park - but with volcanos" fare you could ask for. I have no idea what the fuck Jason Isaac is doing in this but I’m so glad he is because it just adds to the glorious WTF-ery of it all. It's 30 minutes of mechanical lay-up followed by 60 minutes of non-stop, audacious carnage. It's been a long time since me and my wife have had this much fun watching something.

24. Bad Education

Dropped exclusively to Sky Cinema here, this is a great little film that has a shocking true story at its centre. Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney are absolutely terrific. Both of them are the sort of talents who've been in bad movies but never ever given a bad performance regardless.

Here both Jackman and Janney are having a ball with the material and they elevate a very good film into something that demands to be seen.

23. Blood Quantum

This was definitely one of the first-class b-movie horrors of the year for me. It does wonders on screen with very little AND it gives a shot in the arm to the zombie subgenre. It leads you into thinking you're getting yet another zombie-breakout film before expertly wrongfooting you into growing into something else. It's a Native American NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD meets MAD MAX!

22. Bad Boys For Life

This was a first-rate blast, it really was. From the inexplicable reusing of the 'Simpson/Bruckheimer' production card to the reworking of Mark Mancina's original theme, it draws you straight back to that 1990s blockbuster vibe. It's not just very funny and stacked with some pretty decent action sequences but, rather bizarrely, it actually has something interesting to say about ageing and masculinity... because nowadays Joe Carnahan is killing it when it comes to introspective recalibrations on what it means to be a man. If you were to spoil this movie for someone and reveal what the "twist" is it would sound like the stupidest, hokiest shit ever. And yet inexplicably they make it work. And furthermore, Martin Lawrence goes from the tag-along in this franchise to the platinum level MVP here. The entire final third is held up higher by his insanely good line delivery ("Would you fuck a witch without a condom?") and it's most likely how he plays shit as to why that stupid, hokey plot twist works as well as it does.

Over the course of three separate decades each BAD BOYS entry has, in itself, served to be a somewhat accidentally perfect reflection of the very cinematic decade it landed in: The first is possibly one of the last to truly and wholeheartedly successfully land that perfect marriage between the 'MTV era' and the blockbusters; bringing about the boom of the "music video director as filmmaker" that the 1990s became well known for. The second was a pitch perfect reflection of the gratuitous, often empty-headed, completely excessive pop culture period we were birthing in the 2000s. And the third lands now, right in the very time period where masculinity is being put under a spotlight and men are being asked to be more self-reflective about themselves and their conduct.

With that said, the fourth will obviously therefore land sometime in 2029 and deal with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence wandering a pandemic-ravaged Miami wasteland.

21. Wolfwalkers

This is one of the most lovely, visually wondrous, sumptuous animated films you'll experience this year. Or in quite some time, actually. It’s not just a great adventure film but it’s also a really effective ‘message’ movie that manages to teach about tolerance and friendship along with the perils of fear-mongering, without ever being overly preachy.

20. An American Pickle

This was one of the surprises of the year for me; I THOUGHT I was getting a quirky Seth Rogen fish-out-of-water comedy and instead I got that... with a massive dollop of heart, humour and interesting things to say about legacy and 'cancel culture'. I liked it a lot. It's also further evidence of how intriguing a talent Seth Rogen is becoming; jumping between broad commercial fare and original off-kilter stuff like this, producing and developing fascinating projects for film and TV and working to pass the ladder back down to others too.

19. Get Duked

I say this with only a modicum of bias as I know someone who worked a little bit on this film but this was genuinely brilliant - the absolute laugh-out-loud delight we all need right now. At the time I watched this I don’t think I’d smiled in nearly a fortnight but this broke through with me. Its wrap-up is a little too silly for its own good but that aside, this thing is absolutely stuffed with some TRULY great gags! This is one of the best comedies of the year for me.

18. Host

I had been giving this the big ol' swerve because it sounded like unoriginal, overhyped pish frankly and... fuck it, if that hype isn't absolutely deserved: It's a lean, effective, scary incredibly enjoyable ride. Made all the more fascinating by the fact it was made remotely on a shoestring with the director apparently never being in the same room as his cast at any one time due to Covid restrictions.

NB: I could not find a GIF to represent Rob Savage’s Host sufficiently so here’s Jack Black doing a backyard pandemic dance instead... 

17. Sweetheart

What a crackin, lean, little horror thriller it is. It gets straight underway from its fade-up and never overcooks itself or leans hard on lazy exposition, silly character actions or bad deus ex machinas. Remember when Jonathan Mostow made BREAKDOWN and it felt like such a shot in the arm for the man-against-the-odds/standard thriller? This is like that - but for survival dramas and creature features! It commits fully to its high concept, helped along by a truly excellent performance by Kiersey Clemons and some really well-delivered set-pieces (that first flare scene is very well done!). If you watched Tom Hanks in CASTAWAY and thought to yourself "This film is great but what it really needs is a monster!" then this is definitely the film for you. And if you believe the rumours, it’s allegedly a sneaky Creature From The Black Lagoon redo for Blumhouse’s expanding ‘Monster Universe’ too.

16. Soul

I really connected with this. I like Inside Out a great deal but I’ve never understood why it's spoken of as a flawless masterpiece when it's overlong, tonally all over the place and has clunky as fuck casting. In the same breath, I don't understand why the reviews for this are so disparate. I thought it was a wonderful way to spend 100+ minutes. It was visually inventive, funny and inspiring. It doesn't quite seed its VERY deep otherworld-building foundations and Graham Norton doesn't really work in his role but overall I thought it was a delight. And, unlike Onwards, it really does lend itself to repeat visits.

15. Tenet

I had real trepidation about seeing this what with the reviews being all over the place but... well... Is it complete, barely comprehensible bunkum of the highest order? Yes. Could the film have benefited from Nolan letting his brother Jonathan have a pass at the script? Hell yes! Is it most definitely not the majestic masterpiece of masterpieces it thinks it is? Yup. Yet in spite of ALL that I had an absolute blast with it, I really did. If you give it a seconds thought it crumbles completely as the utter egotistical piffle it really is. But where it excels is in looking so gorgeous, being so kinetic and massive with its action and casting with actors who sell the shit out of a hokey script that you're so consumed with the spectacle you don't smell the bullshit until its over. Washington Jr has come out of nowhere these last few years to make me a big fan of his work - and Robert Pattinson has went from being an actor I couldn't fucking abide to being someone I now really rate and who I came away from watching this thinking "Yeah, that's your goddamn perfect James Bond right there!"

14. Da 5 Bloods

It works infinitely better as a 'men on a mission' action adventure shot through the off-kilter lens of a Spike Lee "joint" then it does as a searing commentary about race, war, etc. And that's probably why Spike's choice to include real war atrocity photos and documentary footage alongside the narrative doesn't land as successfully as he probably intended it to. But as an overall film, it's a genuinely great watch. Delroy Lindo has always been one of the greatest working actor. Here he perhaps delivers his ultimate masterclass. Regardless of whether awards season moves online or not, you cannot have any SERIOUS dialogue during it that doesn't have his performance heading the conversation. Ignore the dickheads online putting this in the same bubble as TROPIC THUNDER or DIE HARD (??). This is a wink and a nod to TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE and APOCALYPSE NOW, through and through. It's big, bombastic, broad and unafraid to swing out in every direction. It's not flawless but that doesn't mean it's not fuckin ~great~!

13. His House

This very much stands as both one of the most impressive debuts and modern horror movies I’ve seen in quite some time. It's an effective, lean, interesting film that buries under your skin and takes up residency there. Go into it knowing as little as you possibly can and then let it scare the shit out of you and, in its reveals, kick the shit back into you.

12. Tread

I really, REALLY liked this. It's my favourite documentary film of this year - made by that fella who did the bonkers-bad killer dog in the warehouse movie with Adrian Brody, no less! It's an absolutely fascinating true story I knew nothing about, brilliantly intermingling talking heads, archival news footage, dramatic reconstruction and audio recordings. It'll really drop your jaw - it's most definitely one of those 'needs to be seen to be believed' type deals because if you described this to someone as having happened they'd never believe you!

11. Bacarau

No plot description really does this film justice and the less you know going in the better an experience you’ll have. It’s an odd, deeply violent, unsettling, darkly funny, bizarro confection of The Most Dangerous Game meets Assault on Precinct 13 and… well… even that doesn’t really do the film any justice whatsoever. It’s a critique of dire political circumstance mixed with political satire mixed with the tropes of the Western, the siege movie and both horror and comedy. It’s very much its own thing. And that’s what makes it so wonderous.

... and it’s sort of both wondrous AND weird that when searching for Bacarau related GIFs, this was the Brazilian offering I was given! I apologise.

10. Alone

I found this came out of nowhere to be one of my favourite films of the year; a crazily efficient, brutal B-movie without an inch of fat on it that works its propulsive and well-structured screenplay hard to make you feel like you're seeing a new variant on the "stalked woman in peril" film. John Hyams - son of Peter and the man who reconfigured the UNIVERSAL SOLDIER franchise to superb effect - has made one hell of an effective movie that beautifully captures the vastness of the Pacific Northwest: this is one part DUEL, one part FIRST BLOOD, all parts odes to everything from THE GREY, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and the last third of THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. It's very easy to make films like this. But it's clearly hard to make them as great as Hyams has done here, otherwise everyone would be doing it. Maybe coz what those films don't have is lead performances as strong and brilliant as Jules Willcox and Marc Menchaca give here.

9. American Murder: The Family Next Door

This is an incredibly powerful true crime documentary on a horrific tragedy, in which Jenny Popplewell tightly and clinically weaves through police interviews, news coverage and Shanann Watts' phone, laptop and social media to weave a moving and ultimately devastating portrait of her and her children's death at the hands of one of the worst forms of evil I’ve ever been exposed to. This still haunts me to this day.

8. Greyhound

I was really impressed with this. A crisp, lean, tension-drenched watch with yet another rock solid Tom Hanks performance centring it. It strips back all the tropes of these war pictures - the character backstories about post-war hopes and dreams, the cutaways to the families back home, the subplots involving the villains - and keeps a propulsive commitment to just this situation, this boat and the people on it; who only talk to one another about the job they're doing. As a result, it's completely involving and committed with action set-pieces that are clean, tense and entertaining as hell. Genuinely had a great time watching this and highly recommend it.

7. #Alive

Whilst the TRAIN TO BUSAN sequel earned rightfully shakey reviews, think of this as an unofficial prequel / 'side-sequel'. It is a tight, disciplined thrill-ride that throws up some interesting spins on old zombie set-pieces (climbing zombie vs. toy drone, for example). It may well deflate as it heads to its denouement but all before it was strong and entertaining enough for it to stand as one of his favourite horrors from this year.

6. The Invisible Man

This started good... then got very good... then got quite frankly flat-out tremendous and then entered a final third flipping anyone the 'bird' who thought that the trailers gave too much away. There is some truly tremendous, inventive and not at all 'cheap' jump scares. In fact, the whole second act is nothing else BUT terrifically effective scare after scare. All bolstered by a REALLY committed lead performance by Elizabeth Moss. Between this and UPGRADE, Leigh Whannell has not only become seriously one to watch but he's possibly just outed himself as John Carpenter's one-true heir.

5. Lynn + Lucy

I was left completely broken by this - what a truly fantastic piece of British cinema; a dark, uncompromising morality play for the modern age with a truly jaw-dropping performance by Nicola Burley. And, Jesus Christ, what an unbelievable find Roxanne Scrimshaw is?? THIS is her acting debut? Holy SHITBALLS! It's harrowing stuff that'll really make you think.

4. Parasite

This really is absolutely ~everything~ people are claiming it to be and more too! It's an exquisite piece of work, in love with the art of spinning out a story, narrative layers, sociological parables and effortlessly terrific direction. It builds and builds in an utterly enthralling manner and then... the pressure valve pops, taking you down a whole other audacious avenue that'll have you giggling at the insanity but still completely hooked.

3. Uncut Gems

It’s alright been memed and GIF’d to death but that doesn’t change the fact that it really is an astounding film - it's completely exhausting and quite honestly one of the most anxiety-inducing films I’ve seen in a long, long time. Even on multiple go-arounds, I found myself screaming at the screen, begging Adam Sandler's character to just fucking STOP for five seconds and... and... it's inescapable as to the direction down in which it heads but it goes there at such a propulsive rate, it is actually scary. An absolutely astounding film - it's like a John Cassavetes film shot with the adrenaline drawn from a Michael Bay action movie... and believe every bit of the buzz: Adam Sandler is jaw-droppingly fucking excellent in this!

2. Wolf of Snow Hollow

I thought this was a complete delight. Once again Jim Cummings has taken a film 'type' you THINK you know and infused it with his own very specific sense of humour to give us something that's very much delightfully off-kilter. What's more, as a sophomore directing effort, Cummings deserves all the plaudits for the massive advancement: There's action scenes and scary set-pieces that are really first rate and are way more accomplished than what you'd expect from someone only on their second movie and have never worked in the horror genre before. Cummings is REALLY funny in the lead role too but it's Robert Forster's final performance that'll break your heart. He was a hard miss anyway but this very much drives home what a great guy we've lost.

1.     The Way Back

Gavin O'Connor has hit the trifecta with this, Miracle and Warrior on making a masterful sports drama and using it as a platform to 'say something' and draw a career best from a talented but under-appreciated actor (first Kurt Russell, then Nick Nolte and now Ben Affleck).

Affleck is astounding here. Fallible, real and pained. He's truly brilliant. There’s a realism to every movement he makes and every breath he exhales that only someone who has struggled with addiction will recognise. And around him is a deconstruction of the sporting underdog movie as we know it - it's only by the end that we truly realise that this has always been about the connections made through the game rather than the game itself.

Like with Warrior, you can go back and watch this umpteen times and find different strokes in the human and unspoken moments. If ever there was a secretly feel-good film for 2020 it is this – the movie that tells us that it doesn’t matter how hard or how far we fall, we are defined only by the moments in which we rise again.

And that’s that. See you all next year. Maybe ;) 

[allieinarden]

Hi, just wanted to know your thoughts on Mabel and the Rift? Hope your having a great day/night and hopefully im not bothering you to much with this.

You’re not bothering me at all with this! Because: the Rift, as a storyteller that’s one of my absolute favorite examples of the way the supernatural conflict in Gravity Falls is the conflict of reality writ large. Via Alex Hirsch:

The concept behind [Weirdmageddon] has to do with finding an external way to visualize what our characters are feeling. … Dipper and Mabel both find themselves confronted with having to take seriously and think about what happens next. What happens after their summer? And broader than that, what happens in their future. … So when you find yourself at the precipice of a new stage in life, whether it’s a graduation or the end of a relationship or a job, it can feel like the end of the world. And Gravity Falls is all about taking our characters’ feelings and exploring them in a big, visual way through the use of magic and mystery. So this idea that those tensions would erupt in an apocalyptic scenario is something that’s been the plan from Day 1.

If you go and look up the word “rift” in the dictionary you’ll find two primary definitions. One is literal: a break, a split, a fissure in something solid. The other is metaphorical: it refers to a break in a relationship or to a divergence of interests that could lead to such a break. Toward the end of season 2 of Gravity Falls, two significant events cap two back-to-back episodes: 

1) Mabel and Dipper find out about Stan’s troubled relationship with his brother, which at one time seemed as solid as their own. Mabel draws the parallel and realizes that any relationship can fail—even the security she feels with her own beloved twin is no longer a guarantee. She tries to make Dipper promise that she and him will never be “stupid,” but his answer doesn’t reassure her. 

2) Ford shows Dipper a small yet potentially deadly “rift” in the fabric of the universe—a side effect of the portal—which he has temporarily housed in a snowglobe-like containment unit until he can find a more permanent means of patching it up. He warns Dipper not to tell anyone about the rift, not even his sister. 

The real-world conflict and its supernatural manifestation are so tightly intertwined here that the reality/fantasy parallel which has upheld the story up to this point almost ceases to be a parallel. It becomes a conflation. Mabel fears that a rift will come between her and Dipper and a rift indeed comes between them; the held secret of a potential doomsday scenario, a breach in the trust which was established in the very first episode as the secret to their success. In something of a throwback to that pilot (in which Dipper pursues arcane knowledge and Mabel pursues boys, until the normal and the paranormal collide and call for their combined powers), Mabel is associated with the real-world conflict, while Dipper, thrust by Ford into the supernatural elite, is alone in his awareness of a literal apocalypse. It’s a neat parallel to the divide between their grouchy predecessors: Stan was, and is, blind to the danger of the portal because he sees only the reality of his estrangement from his brother, while Ford misses the importance of the sibling relationship because he’s so intent on preventing the end of the world. In both situations, each twin faces an apocalypse, and each twin sees his (or her) apocalypse and not the other one. The solution lies in treating the disasters as one—because they are one.

Bill requires a rift.

He needed the initial division between the Stan twins to get his foot in the door. When dealing with Mabel and Dipper, his method is to turn them against each other: “Besides, what’s your sister done for you, lately? How many times have you sacrificed for her, huh? And when has she ever returned the favor?”

And again, “Hmm, you didn’t seem to have a problem taking it for your own play, ditching him when he needed you. So come to your senses. Give me the book or your play is ruined. … I mean, who would sacrifice everything they’ve worked for just for their dumb sibling?”

When he manages to get onto the physical plane, it’s notable that the first thing Bill does is trap Mabel in the prison bubble, not only isolating her but separating her from her brother. Wendy calls it right when she tells Dipper that the only solution is to find his sister: “When you two work together, there’s like nothing you two can’t accomplish. You just need to make up and team up and save the universe.” She equates the decision to mend their rift with the decision to cut the apocalypse off at its source, and when he finally comes face-to-face with Mabel again, Dipper voices this connection even more succinctly: “Let’s beat Bill and grow up together.”

But as it turns out, Mabel and Dipper’s reunion is in itself not enough. It’s a beginning that leads to a more significant consequence: the closing of the far older division between the Stans, accomplished in a final teaming-up, an all-consuming act of trust, which sears Bill to the last atom of his substance and dissolves him before our eyes. 

So that’s the deal with Mabel and the Rift.