#these kids were already traumatized and it’s only going to get exponentially worse

[feelingtheaster99]

Seriously I CANNOT get over this moment. They are both so terrified and both desperate to save each other and they are only twelve years old and should not have to go through this 😭

Percy telling Annabeth “I’m okay” over and over again while he tries to not to cry WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

[dragonsareourfuture]

I Don’t Belong Here — L Lawliet/GN! Reader

Summary: What kind of a story begins with the main character dying? Well, this one. L Lawliet has lived out his days on earth and finds himself in the afterlife. The Good Place, he is told by a neighborhood architect named (Name). One who shows him around his own neighborhood and introduces him to new people. But something doesn’t add up, L notices. Does he really belong in the Good Place?

(I'd advise having knowledge on the TV show "The Good Place" if you wish to understand the majority of this clusterfuck. Although, if you wish to proceed regardless, go right ahead!)

Chapter One: L Lawliet, You Are Dead.

<>

Weclome! Everything Is Fine.

Everything is fine? Is that so?

The last thing L remembers is the ceiling. Just���the ceiling. The fans twirling on the ceiling of the headquarter building and the cross hatching of the tiles. It was peaceful. Was he sleeping? If he had been sleeping, then how did he end up here?

Now, instead of the ceiling, he stares at a wall. Big, green letters stare back at him. “Welcome! Everything Is Fine,” they say. Something inside L is prickling, like something he is forgetting struggling to find its way to his brain. He wants to ponder it, but something about the words splayed out on the wall in front of him is telling him that he doesn’t have to. Everything is fine, after all.

He only manages to tear his eyes away from the bold, sans serif font when the sound of a doorknob turning catches his attention. Huh. Has there always been a door there? If so he hadn’t noticed it, which L thinks is completely absurd as he usually takes mental notes of everything in a room before getting himself seated. But there it is, a door he missed while transfixed on the somehow calming message on the wall, now opening to reveal...a person.

You stand in the doorway, simply smiling.

Now that L’s attention has been drawn away from the mystifying message he can properly analyze his surroundings, and his new visitor. He’s in a rather simple room, nothing but a few plants dotting the perimeter and a couch in the middle, which he is currently sitting on. And he’s sitting normally. Hm. That feels…itchy. L inches a foot onto the couch in his discomfort of sitting with his bottom planted firmly on the cushions with both feet on the ground. Though he hesitates to bring both feet up and hug his knees to his chin as he normally would, because he senses that your sudden presence means he is about to be standing and following you into that mysterious room behind you. Like a doctor calling a patient into an appointment. Except in this case L has no idea what you are, and judging by your suit and comical, colorful bowtie, you are certainly not a doctor.

“L?” you ask, showing your teeth in a kind smile. “Come on in.”

And against his better judgement, he does. L was never the person to simply keep quiet and obey orders in a situation he does not understand. And there certainly is not a whole lot of understanding happening in his brain right now. He should be asking questions. He should be refusing you. He doesn’t know you, you could be leading him to his doom. All this is possible but something about the way you smile at him…like those big, green words, all he reads from you is “Everything Is Fine.”

The room that you lead him into doesn’t look all that much like a death trap, but you can never be sure. It’s a simple office, plants similar to the ones in the waiting room sit in pots in the corners and on the windowsill. The sun shines outside, seeping through the glass and illuminating the desk on the left as you walk in. On it are a few little trinkets, paperweights, and, right in the middle, a manila file folder.

You circle around the desk and settle yourself into the rollaway chair, gesturing to the sleek armchair across from you. “Why don’t you have a seat, hm?”

What is wrong with him right now? You ask him to do something and he just…does? What happened to his spine, other than it bending exponentially thanks to the way he sits?

No matter, there are more important things to think about right now. Like the fact that he might finally be getting some answers.

You open the file in front of you and skim whatever’s written, opening your mouth to say something when your eyes meet his. And then they drift down to his legs. You stare at him curiously with your mouth still agape for a few moments at how his knees are pulled up to his chin, eventually shaking your head and getting back on track.

“My name is (Name), and of course I already know yours.” you say, folding your hands in front of you. “So, how are you, L?”

How should L even answer that?

“I’m…confused, mostly. How are you?”

Your eyes light up, as if you haven’t been asked that in a while. “Oh, well I’m fine. Y’know, busy, but fine! And, yes, I’d assume you’d be confused, everyone in your situation usually is.”

“My situation? What exactly do you mean by that?” Now that L has finally asked one question he can’t seem to stop the ball from rolling “Speaking of you, who are you exactly? Actually, never mind who, but where—“

You hold up a hand. “All of your questions will be answered, I promise. There’s just one thing that you need to know before we tackle any of that.”

“And what is that?”

Your eyebrows lift slightly, elbows digging into the surface of your desk as you lean forward. You look like you’re about to tell him that he’s fired. That his dog died. That some kid took the last of the strawberry shortcake and he’s going to have to settle for carrot cake. What comes out of your mouth is much worse.

“L Lawliet, you are dead.”

…

He’s…?

Yes. Yes, he is. That’s why he doesn’t remember how he got here.

He’s dead. Huh.

L is perfectly content in not saying anything about this new little factoid, but you’re looking at him expectantly, and a little cautiously. Like you either expect him to punch you or burst into tears. L wonders if that fear is based on experience. How many other people have to told this to?

“…Am I, now? That’s a shame.”

You breathe out a sigh, which could be from relief. “Yes, it is. But, not to worry! Because you’ve ended up in the Good Place, L. You’re going to be okay.”

“So it’s called the Good Place?” L brings his thumb to his lips. “A rather simple thing to call it.”

You nod. “Pretty self-explanatory, right? We didn’t want anyone to get confused. There are just so many names for it on earth. Heaven, Valhalla, Nirvana…But it all translates to one place. Here. And you get to be a part of it.”

“That sounds…” Before he can articulate his thoughts, a dilemma from earlier brings itself to the forefront of L’s mind. “Wrong.”

“I’m sorry?”

“My memories are all wrong. Before this, all I can remember is the ceiling and nothing else. If I were to have died, surely I would remember it, yes?”

You take a gulp of air and pull the manila file closer to you. “We take it upon ourselves to erase the memories of death if they are particularly traumatizing or embarrassing. Helps the residents adapt into a peaceful afterlife better, I’m sure you understand.”

“Yes, that is perfectly sensible. Although I may ask, what is an example of a death that is not at all traumatizing?”

“Pfft, there hardly is one. You’d be surprised how many memories we have to erase.”

“On the contrary, I am hardly surprised. I’m sure there are plenty of people who cannot accept the nature of their death, let alone the fact that they have died in the first place.”

You sigh, “You’re tellin’ me. Most people come around once I tell them that they’re basically in paradise, but some won’t even listen to me once I break the news. One person tried to convince me I was the dead one! It’s just—oh, um, but that’s hardly the point.”

“Do you ever tell someone how they died if they ask?”

Your expression hardens. “I do, but I like to know that they’re certain before I tell them.”

“I am.”

Exhaling through your nose, you prop the manila folder up like a book, scanning the files inside. “Alright then. Let’s see here…ah, okay. So, unfortunately this one’s pretty traumatizing, it’s not really one of those embarrassing deaths that some people get a kick out of, so brace yourself.” You look over the top of the folder as if checking to see if he’s braced himself. His expression and stance is unwavering, large eyes merely staring back at you patiently. “You were betrayed by your colleague Yagami Light – also known as your adversary Kira – and killed by the Shinigami Rem at his request.”

Oh yeah. That.

The ceiling was not clear in view, no, there was something obstructing L’s view of it. A face, staring down at him as his heart gave out right on the floor. Brown eyes filled with such cocky maliciousness, the upward tilt of lips L only knew to spout lies. It all equated to a side of Yagami Light that L knew existed but had never seen up until his final moments. It all added up to one final conclusion -- Yagami Light was Kira all along. L had been right. But the price of knowing that for certain is that, now, there’s nothing he can do about it.

“I’m..I’m sorry. I never know what to do when I have to tell people…” you try, reaching across the table and planting a hand down in front of him. Not asking to hold his hand, not even expecting a reaction. Just showing that you’re there, and that you’re trying.

“It’s up to them now. I’ve done all that I could. I trust my successors.”

“In catching the murderer Kira, right?” you ask, to which L confirms with a polite utterance of ‘yes’. Obviously you know the answer. “I understand that is one of the many, many cases you’ve worked on during your lifetime.” you scan your eyes quickly down what appears to be a long list in your folder. Do you have every detail of his life in those files? Every case he ever took? Hell, every day in his life? You set the file down flat in front of you and look at him with something L determines is admiration. “You’ve done so much good in your lifetime, L. You’ve worked so hard over the entirety of your life to make sure you left the world a little better than you found it. Now…well, now you can rest.”

You can relax, you tell him. And it seems to simple coming out of your mouth yet somehow it still feels out of reach.

“I can…” Is all L manages to say, his preoccupation coming across as dreamy and wistful. His mind is busy running a mile a minute and his mouth just can’t keep up. L decides to test the words out on his own tongue to see if they still sound foreign, “I can rest now.”

Yeah, no, it still sounds like bullshit.

“Yes! Well, after the tour, of course.”

“Tour?”

You start to stand, straightening your colorful bowtie and circling around your desk to the door which you pull open. You don’t exit right away, though. You stand next to the exit, waiting for L to follow you. While he works on untangling himself from his current position you clarify, “A tour of the neighborhood! Where you’ll spend your afterlife.”

[scripttraumasurvivors]

Hey hey! So I heard a lot about PTSD symptoms getting worse once a victim gets out of an abusive situation - I was wondering what kind of symptoms would be repressed during the situation, if I can say that. For context - it's a kid, was being physically abusive by his father, he got arrested, now he's with his mom but she's emotionally abusive so it's not like he's quite safe. Thank you for the hard work!! Take care!

So that’s complicated!

Let’s chat about what ‘symptoms getting worse’ can mean before we dive into character conversation.

Symptoms getting worse can mean

a) ‘a person goes from short term survival state, to shock to having symptoms’

Given the ‘short term’ there, I do mean for single (or ‘short term’) traumas versus say, someone in an abusive home. People can go through natural disasters/car accidents and seem fine for a period afterward only to have symptom issues later once what has happened has ‘sunk in’ so to speak. 

b) ‘a person goes from a long term survival state in an unsafe place to being in a safe place with maladaptive coping’

This one isn’t so much about ‘getting worse’ though it can appear that way on the outside. When someone is in an abusive situation there’s things they do to try and control the damage, both consciously and unconsciously- or to try and reclaim ground- both consciously and unconsciously.

Sneaking around the house at night to get food is a coping skill for a kid who is being neglected. Their hypervigilance of whether or not other people can hear them or see them is needed for their safety.

Sneaking around the house at night to get food as an adult in a non abusive household- maladaptive. Freaking out at their partner who got up to check on them? Maladaptive. It’s the left over fear response from when someone hearing them eat was Dangerous.

c) ‘survival state to break down’

Way back when I was in college- I was a multi-trauma survivor who had just left an unhealthy situation who was the retraumatized. As someone who had a life time of trauma experience, it didn’t stop me immediately.

But the body can only exist in a survival state for so long. I went from ‘here is a small handful of symptoms that really, aren’t obvious that they’re symptoms’ to full body break down. I know from the inside and looking back at that time that to me it /felt/ like I went from 0-100 in 60 seconds but the truth is it had been a slow simmering issue that suddenly hit an exponential curve. ‘Having issues sleeping’ escalated into ‘skipping nights’ went to ‘being awake for 70 hours straight’ (and do not argue with me about that not being possible- I fully accept that micro sleeps happened- that’s half the story. I would blink and fall over on a bus, I would blink and be in a plate of food. But that’s not *really* sleeping in a healthy sense, now is it?)

I went from food being a little bit hard to people asking when was the last time I ate and me telling them ‘but I ate lunch with you?’ only to find out that had been the day prior. 

And then I broke. Pink eye. Something that looked like mono. Double ear infection. And an infection that had made it’s way to my blood that almost was found too late. You can’t survive without sleeping and eating without wrecking your immune system.

d) Symptoms changed

Symptomology is complicated. And they don’t always stay the same. Nightmares come and go out of people’s lives. Flashbacks experience different phases of intensity- or change forms all together. Dissociation can range from ‘I feel a bit odd and spacey in my body’ to straight up ‘I attended the wrong class and didn’t notice, I only know a few days later because the notes are about a different subject entirely.’

If someone who is used to say- having a bit of a rough time falling asleep, being depressed and having trouble experiencing joy, and having nightmares-

ends up going through a shifting period where maybe they start getting 2-4 hours of sleep a night tops but no nightmares, and food issues they didn’t realize were a problem end up triggered, and they can feel joy but it’s super unstable and their emotions are on 10 all the time-

that can be seen as getting worse. 

And vice versa.

It isn’t that one set of symptoms is actually worse than the other- it’s that to the person experiencing them, the set they have more coping skills for is probably going to feel more stable. Or seem more stable to their friends and family.  After all, a lot of symptoms and coping skills aren’t seen as symptomology- they’re seen as ‘just the way that person is.’

Which is all to say-

I can’t tell you what symptoms your character wouldn’t have in an abusive situaton.

Some survivors of childhood abuse don’t experience flashbacks to abuse until they’re out of the abusive situation, but others are actively dealing with flashbacks while still in the traumatic place. 

Some survivors of childhood abuse have maladaptive experiences related to the kind of abuse they experienced. Someone who had food withheld might binge, someone who wasn’t allowed to sleep as much as they needed might start sleeping all day. Someone who wasn’t allowed to show emotions in the household may struggle with managing emotions outside of it- and seem to have ‘too many’ all the time.

And other simply follow the patterns that were already being bult- continuing to starve because eating feels wrong. Struggling to sleep or viewing sleep as for the weak, refusing to feel emotions.

It isn’t as simple as ‘here are the symptoms that can exist while trauma is still occuring and here are the ones that exist later.’

But I do think you’re right to have the change reflected in your writing. Your character is going to have to shift their coping mechanisms from one abusive situation to another. There are going to be ‘misfires’ and maladaptive moments (and possibly patterns.) There are going to be complicated emotional feelings about ‘why do I still feel like this- I’m not experiencing _______’ anymore and possibly guilt or feeling like they’re making a big deal out of nothing. Or maybe the opposite- where instead it’s ‘I’d rather get hit than this.’

Both happen in real life.

So it isn’t offensive to write one over the other. You just have to decide what you’re going to portray.

Hope that helps a bit!

TS

[vivithefolle]

Not sure if you already talked about this. (I’m pretty sure you have) but someone seemed to notice that when the trio get into fights, Hermione’s always in the right. Even when she’s supposed to be wrong she always seems to be half right. That kind of bothers me. Especially since it’s evident in the whole Scabbers situation.

I have indeed, on Quora, so let’s move yet another answer of mine to Tumblr!

Hermione is seldom wrong in the Harry Potter books. Sometimes she makes mistakes but those mistakes are either completely swept under the rug or downright ignored.

It’s partly due to lazy writing and partly due to Rowling’s own growing bias in favour of her Author Avatar that was fuelled by Steve Kloves, the primary advocate of the Hermione Granger Is The Perfect Girl Ever line of thinking (an utterly ridiculous line of thinking mind you).

Lizo: Steve, Hermione is a character that you have said is one of your favorites. Has that made her easier to write?

Steve: Yeah, I mean, I like writing all three, but I've always loved writing Hermione. Because, I just, one, she's a tremendous character for a lot of reasons for a writer, which also is she can carry exposition in a wonderful way because you just assume she read it in a book. If I need to tell the audience something...

JKR: Absolutely right, I find that all the time in the book, if you need to tell your readers something just put it in her. There are only two characters that you can put it convincingly into their dialogue. One is Hermione, the other is Dumbledore. In both cases you accept, it's plausible that they have, well Dumbledore knows pretty much everything anyway, but that Hermione has read it somewhere. So, she's handy.

Now this, right here, is the exact core of the problem.

Rowling herself admits it: if she wants the readers to have information, she puts Hermione in the scene. Hermione is our primary means of exposition because, like *grits teeth* Sssssteve puts it, it’s easy to assume that she’s read about it somewhere and it makes sense.

That’s all well and good but at first, if you notice, Ron also gave us exposition about the wizarding world, mostly about its culture. He was able to recall the exact year of the Wizarding Confederation that outlawed dragon breeding in Philosopher’s Stone! He explained what were respectively a “Mudblood”, a “Squib”, and Parseltongue, Hermione doing a little exposition about the history of that last one! He was also able to identify Sirius, after being dragged into the Whomping Willow, as an Animagi!

But then Goblet of Fire happens and you can notice the first change that will exponentially grow through the books: instead of Ron, pureblood Ron, born-before-the-end-of-the-war Ron, lived-through-the-aftermath-of-the-war Ron, identifying the Dark Mark, it’s instead Hermione, muggleborn Hermione, lived-as-a-Muggle-for-most-of-her-life Hermione, has-no-idea-about-the-emotional-impact-of-the-Mark Hermione who looks terrified as the Dark Mark shoots into the sky!

And it only will get worse, by the end of the series, Hermione pretty much knows about everything the plot needs her to know, instead of having to work with things she knows but can’t always apply to the situation:

Suddenly has a deep knowledge of Magical Law (in the will of Dumbledore’s chapter, while we had Rufus Scrimgeour who could have provided it to us, or to a lesser extent, Ron could have explained how a wizarding will basically worked)

Is suddenly an expert at finding edible plants and mushrooms. Apparently books are always the goddamn answer in JKR’s world, you can literally learn anything from them

She can decipher all the Tales of Beedle the Bard (may I remind you that they were written in Runes, okay Hermione may have a few years of Ancient Runes education BUT I once tried to translate a 3k+ story I had written for fun, from French to English, which means I knew what the subtleties and intentions were, I knew which turns of phrase I had to preserve so it would make sense in the end, and it still took me two gruelling weeks to get a satisfying result!)

Has suddenly grown a sense of quick-thinking (escaping Xenophilius’ house, using the jinx to make Harry’s face weird-looking) despite it being the only remaining flaw she had at the time (remember when she turned her back on her enemy while he was still conscious just to compliment Harry, and almost died as a result, even though she had been training in the DA to learn how to fight Death Eaters?) Quick-thinking under pressure can be learned, but it takes time and a lot of work to force your brain to override its instinct - and it’s fine because we’re all human and different. But no suddenly Hermione is the Greatest Strategist Evah™ and those silly boys (who actually were the original quick-thinking ones, and one of them was established as the strategist early on) better be grateful for this literal goddess because she protects them from all harm with her superhuman brain.

Somehow knows about Quidditch stuff - she knows about a Snitch’s “memory-touch”. Why should she give all the answers? Why can’t Ron give us this particular tidbit of information?

And then when we come to something Ron actually knows, the damn narration itself goes “woah a book that Ron has read but Hermione hasn’t??? shocking!! incredible!! Ron is not dumb, somebody call the news channel”. But… is that really so surprising? We’ve never seen Hermione read wizarding fiction or even Muggle fiction. We’ve never seen Hermione with anything other than schoolbooks in her hands. Of course Ron has read books she hasn’t read since she doesn’t seem to read fiction at all!

Sorry, bit of a tangent over here.

There are only two characters that you can put it convincingly into their dialogue.

So, that’s one part of the problem: the fact that Rowling, after making Ron our insight into magical culture and Hermione our provider of knowledge, ended up saying “eh whatever I guess Hermione can tell us everything we gotta know because it’s more convenient for me”. Which is a decision that was not based on Hermione’s character, but simply lazy writing. Long story short, it probably went: “Could Ron explain this bit of trivia? Meh, better make Hermione say it cause she’ll have read it in a book. It’s convenient and I won’t need to bother myself with exploring Ron’s characterisation.”

(And thus completely forgetting that Ron could maybe ask his big brothers via owl and provide us with a good heap of extra advanced knowledge - Bill is supposed to have aced his NEWTs after all.)

The other part of the problem is quite simply that Hermione is more often than not, either painted as a victim by the narrative (which makes more people take her side, classic manipulation tactic), or made to be right anytime it’s about a plot point.

Hermione’s mistakes are never explicitly stated, corrected, or even pointed out as being unethical.

Hermione only gets one mistake expressedly pointed out as being a mistake: her misadventure in Polyjuice Potion. The rest of them? Even her crush on Lockhart can’t be counted as a mistake - people get crushes all the time, based solely on physical appearance, it’s not something awful or terrible (Except when it’s Ron who crushes on someone. Ron crushing on someone is absolutely forbidden, and he must be punished with much ridicule and humiliation if he thinks he can get away with not worshipping Hermione like the goddess she is. The nerve of him, really.).

Throughout the books Hermione eventually morphs into Rowling’s Powerful Angel of Vengeance, that punishes the people who dared to do something she disliked - Rita is silenced but at a very ethically dubious price; Marietta gets scarred for life because she was more loyal to her mother than to a bunch of people her friend insisted she hang out with; Umbridge is led to a very, very alarming fate that is never made clear but some people have ideas and they’re not all very kid-friendly; Ron first is “helped” without knowing it because Hermione can’t be bothered to have faith in his capabilities, then when he fails to dutifully reward her for “helping” him, she causes him bodily harm before actively bullying him for not mind-reading her interest in him; causes even more bodily harm to Ron because that’s how feminism works; etc.

Hermione’s mistakes are always justified through the plot itself (which is lazy writing).

Turning into a cat? Only affects her.

The Firebolt? Scabbers? Well, in the end, it was really sent by Sirius Black and Crookshanks really wasn’t the culprit. Therefore all the feelings that were hurt and all the trust lost are irrelevant because Hermione was right all along.

Trying to free the house-elves? Well, it’s the intent that counts, right? And we’re never told enough about house-elf lore to know whether they’re poor brainwashed victims or powerful Penate-like symbiotes who need to serve a wizard to survive?

Kidnapping Rita Skeeter, trapping her and blackmailing her? Rita may be one foul little beetle, but that’s going a bit far, isn’t it? Harry approves? Oh, well, I guess it’s okay then…? A main character can’t have a dubious morality, right?

Manipulating Harry into forming Dumbledore’s Army and forcing him to relive a traumatic event with the same woman she’s kidnapped and blackmail and that she knows he hates? In the end, it all works out for the best and Harry’s hurt feelings don’t matter since it’s all about the greater good.

Using the centaurs to get rid of Umbridge (which poses the highly distressing question of what did the centaurs do to her?), realizing that the centaurs aren’t nice little horsies that are going to gently obey her every orders like good Disney princess’ companions, my goodness could this be an opportunity for character growth - nevermind, here comes Grawp the Giant Ex Machina, saving her arse and protecting Hermione from all that scary possibility of introspection. Thanks, Grawp Ex Machina.

Trying to dissuade a highly stressed-out and irrational Harry from rescuing Sirius by telling him exactly what he needed not to hear, a.k.a. “you have a saving people-thing” which causes Harry to completely go bonkers and go save his godfather without thinking twice? Well she was right after all, it was a trap! Nevermind how mind-boggingly insenstive and inadept at dealing with someone else’s feelings she was being, she was right! That means it wasn’t Hermione’s mistake!… probably. (Geez, I’m sensing a pattern here…)

Endangering Cormac’s life (Confunding him WHILE HE’S ON HIS BROOM) to promote Ron’s success? Oh but that’s so romantic! (Yeaaaah, how romantic to display exactly how much faith you lack in your crush. Top it off with a broken neck and that’s a picture perfect first date!)

Assaulting Ron with magic and causing him even more scars than he already had? But he was being cold with her first, right? And he totally should have known she was asking him out! It’s not like her invitation was even worse than his attempt to ask her out two years earlier! Plus she’s just a teenage girl expressing her emotions, anyone who tries to find fault in this is a disgusting abusive misogynist pig! Ha!

Getting all jealous that Harry is better than her at Potions, then pretending she’s not jealous by claiming that TEH BOOK IS EVIL, HARRY, and giving him the cold shoulder too? But no, she’s right, look, Harry used Sectumsempra and he almost killed Draco, nevermind that he’s very horrified about it! Hermione was right, like she always is!

Hermione Obliviating her parents, which pulls her from the “ethically dubious” zone into the “wow okay I’m pretty sure that this counts as a violation of basic human rights” zone, makes her one of those quirky wizardfolk who have the privilege to control those simple-minded Muggles because it’s for the greater good? But nooo she’s crying about it so it’s obviously very sad and angsty and it shows her devotion to the cause!

Splinching Ron while fleeing from the Ministry? Eeeh, but he’s fine, they’ve got Dittany, he’s good as new!… blood loss? Anaemia? What’s that?

Hermione was wrong about the Deathly Hallows not existing? Um, um, that doesn’t matter, LOOK DOBBY IS DEAD AND HARRY IS BACK TO LOOKING FOR THE HORCRUXES!! Therefore Hermione was right, the Hallows weren’t important for their quest, therefore the Hallows might as well not exist, HERMIONE WAS RIGHT NO REALLY I’VE GOT RECEIPTS -

The books never forget to remind Harry and Ron of their own shortcomings and moments of weakness.

Harry’s wrath and recklessness cost Sirius his life. This is the lesson he has to learn from his entitled behaviour in OotP: actions have consequences, and the greater your responsibility, the greater the cost will be.

Ron’s envy and insecurity lead him astray; they’re used to humiliate, ridicule and torture him throughout the books. They’re supposed to teach him that he’s worth something - but how is he supposed to believe that, when nobody ever tells him he’s worth anything? When nobody ever apologizes to him? When his feelings are taken for granted over and over? When his two friends seem to discard him whenever he does one thing wrong?

Hermione is never punished. Hermione is never said to be wrong, never shown to be wrong, never called out on her behaviour. From Prisoner of Azkaban to mid-Deathly Hallows, she stays exactly the same character. She doesn’t grow up. She doesn’t learn. She doesn’t change. She has virtually no character arc.

The only time, THE ONLY TIME IN SEVEN BOOKS, the only time we have something remotely resembling a call-out of Hermione’s horrible behaviour is with this sole quote in HBP:

Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge.

Note how it’s about “girls” and not Hermione in particular, which implies that any girl would do what Hermione does to Ron. Thanks for the generalization, JKR, but I like to believe I’m actually a decent sort of person that doesn’t resort to petty cruelty and exploits my friends’ insecurities whenever I’m angry with them.

Hermione NEVER has to apologize. Hermione NEVER has to learn from her mistakes because she’s always presented as a victim when she really isn’t. Hermione NEVER develops into something more - she’s emotionally stuck at fourteen years old. Even less than that when you consider that her reaction to Ron’s return in Deathly Hallows is to trash him with her fists - and she was going to get her wand!! The utter psychopathic b- wanted TO THROW BIRDS AT HIM AGAIN!!! - and this reaction is an appropriate one for a four-years old girl, but certainly not for a supposedly “mature” seventeen-years old.

(Yes, because what separates a child from an adult is the ability to reign in your emotions and not succumb to your impulses. Exactly what Ron did when he left the tent (notice that he had drawn his wand, then he left before he could start hexing Harry), he left to calm himself down. Exactly what Hermione fails to do when Ron returns (she has the impulse to strike him and immediately succumbs to it, which proves to us that The Brightest Witch Of Her Age has all the maturity of a very small child).)

All of that, on top of the awful portrayal in the movies which removes all of Ron’s characteristics to stuff them into Hermione and turns her into some impossible epitome of perfection, eventually contributed to the portrayal of Hermione as the one who is always right and knows everything.

Add to it JKR’s own ridiculous bias (“Ron was quite emotionally immature compared to the other two”, yeah right I don’t see him trying to force freedom onto unwilling creatures or making Harry fly into an irrational rage with mere words but you do you, Jo) and the sexist misconception that “girls are innately more mature than boys”, and you get yourself this apparent behemoth of righteousness that was literally the sole reason why those two silly boys survived everything, and don’t you dare criticize this angel of perfection OR ELSE.

[holden-norgorov]

A seriously angry recap of all the things I hated in the finale.

Because I had to write down all the disappointment and outrage that I have inside, otherwise it will consume me until I die. I had to give vent to everything that disgusted me in a less-detatched, more personal way than the unemotional one my objective thoughts usually are expressed with. If you want to read highly pissed-off complaints for healing purposes, this is your post. 

Implying that discovering that your mother is also your step-sister is a more validating reason to commit murder than being yourself a victim of physical and psychological abuses for years during your childhood. Offensive, short-sighted, self-erasing. By suggesting that Wolfgang killed his father and uncle out of this revelation, the writers nullified the character’s self-worth, depth and integrity.

“I’m not worth it”. “Wolfgang, you are!” It turned out he wasn’t worth it at all because things didn’t change. Nobody had any kind of conversation and the result was that Kala was portrayed as happy staying in the loveless, unhealthy marriage she was already in and that Wolfgang kept being the “lover” who wasn’t worth being chosen. Rajan became suddenly so important that an entire two-seasonal storyline of the most epic love story of all time had to be thrown out of the window just to please him? Who the fuck cared about him? He was selfish and sexist for two seasons, and a lame, uninteresting character with no personality beyond being a kiss-ass.

Capheus being a clown for all the episode irritated the fuck out of me. He had always been particularly joyful, but 1) not at this ridiculous, over-the-top level, and especially 2) not under these circumstances. This is war. They are all risking their lives and could be found and killed in any seconds. He is risking his whole political career and has left all his loved ones home alone. One of his clustermates is imprisoned in a BPO facility and likely being tortured. This is possibly the worst you could get: this episode was not meant to feature lighthearted, careless people joking around and being idiotic. His behavior is completely inappropriate and disrespectful of the situation. Someone with a brain, in those circumstances, would have slapped him in the face. What the fuck.

Nomanita getting an entire scene exclusively used to provide a last-minute backstory capable of justifying Lana’s selfish decision of taking Paris from Kalagang and giving it to them out of nowhere and with no apparent reason. I am so mad about this, it almost seems deliberate from Lana. Paris was a turning point for Kalagang, a pivotal moment that represented their first and only chance in all the show to be finally happy and together. Nomanita already had it all. Nomanita have always been the healthiest, happiest couple. They could have married literally anywhere else and it would have changed nothing in their relationship, because they had already had 24 episodes of domestic and happy moments. Why Paris of all cities? This was an intentional betrayal to Kalagang fans and storyline.

Lito’s freak-out about the carbs is beyond any fucking comment. It vividly looks like they all are on camping, or taking a funny, enjoyable trip. The writers should be ashamed of themselves for cheapening such a beautiful show and such wonderful characters with stupid moments like this and so many others (such as: Nomi’s coffee moment, Wolfgang jokingly pointing the rocket launcher on Capheus, Rajan asking Kala to teach him to use a gun as if they were not in a dangerous, life-or-death situation but just having fun, Puck with Sun’s hair and so on: there are a lot).

Sun and Mun being OOC as fuck and acting as if they were old acquaintances was just ridiculous and forced to an exponential level. This is entirely the writers’ fault and has nothing to do with time constraints, because the writing was just cheap and the characters unrecognizable. They had only met twice before this phone call (and both times by mistake). Sun here was weirdly intimate and emotively open despite having been closed and guarded of her interiority for two seasons sometimes even with her other selves. Mun was the very definition of cringe. “I think those two words might have made getting shot worth it.” Give me a fucking break. Who are these people? And don’t even get me started on the inconsistency with the line “I am not very good with words” that goes directly against the very reason why Sun was interested in him in the first place (i.e. the passionate way he talked about her to her teacher and the cautious but accurate analysis he provided of her psychology while fighting in the graveyard). Here they were odd and extremely cliché to the point of contrasting with their very essence.

Capheus greeting Rajan in that way was so wrong and insulting both to attentive viewers and to all the people in this world unable to obtain proper medications for themselves or their loved ones. It disregarded and destroyed everything about Capheus’ character and almost made me vomit. Rajan embodied all the socially powerful people directly responsible for Shiro’s improved sickness that almost caused her death in S1. Rajan’s unethical business was the very reason why Capheus had to be involved with Silas Kabaka in the first place, resulting in all his S1 storyline that almost led him to his death. Do any of you remember Capheus and Kala’s expressions when Rajan revealed this? Both of them had never been so hurt and incredulous during all the show. Capheus’ blind forgiveness of someone who was the ultimate reason of one entire season of his suffering and fighting for survival left me utterly speechless and offended. The writers turned all of this into a joke, especially considering Capheus storyline in S2: he had decided to politically represent his country, his own people, exactly because of the injustices they had to face on a daily basis because of poverty and unfair hierarchy. Welcoming Rajan, the symbol of this hierarchy that basically made his whole life a living hell, in that way was incredibly unbelievable. I was seriously shocked by this.

Kala’s behavior when Rajan arrives in Paris can be explained only in two ways: a) either she was on drugs all the time, which means she was capable of making them using her knowledge as chemist and then taking them because she was so desperate for Wolfgang that she wanted to be high, or b) she was just under a love spell. These are the only explanations to the way she behaves here; in both cases, she clearly wasn’t herself. Logic, continuity and coherence were all non-existent. The facts: Kala had made promises to Wolfgang both in 2x10 and 2x11 and the only reason why she hadn’t explained things to Rajan yet was that he had shut her off and sent her away without giving her the opportunity to do so. But her mind was crystal-clear and she was finally ready (in fact, her entire storyline had been built in order to make her brave enough to finally make this decision). But in here, she betrayed every promise she had made to Wolfgang and basically became a lying coward, erasing all the character development she had been through. She acted as a bitch. This confrontation was unavoidable at this point. She let Rajan believe that the real problem in their marriage was her nature as a sensate, which actually has never been a source of conflict at all (she didn’t want to marry Rajan even before realizing what she was). I wanted to slap her for how she acted in this whole episode. She also really felt under a love spell because for 23 episodes she had never spontaneously kissed Rajan before out of sincere will. In 1x02, Rajan kissed her and she didn’t even return the kiss (the only reason why she didn’t break it was that they were at their engagement party and it would have been highly inappropriate); in 2x01 she kissed him out of pity and guilt because she felt responsible for breaking his dick and ruining their honeymoon. And that was it. So, witnessing her starting a kiss to a man she spent two seasons being uncomfortable with (especially physically) and feeling objectified by felt really wrong and unexpected and utterly unreasonable. She seriously looked like she was on drugs, I was in disbelief.

Aunt Kirsty overtaking a whole team of BPO soldiers supposedly using her unknown superpower ninja abilities was so ridiculous and cheap that it was like the writers themselves wanted to prove us that they could do everything they wanted and ruin all the show’s credibility as they pleased. Seriously what the fuck was that. Sense8 became a cartoon for kids and we didn’t know? God.

The complete lack of Wolfgang’s PTSD was absolutely unforgivable and unrealistic. We are talking about a man who spent all of his life building several walls to protect himself from the outside, trying to keep everyone at distance exactly because of the traumas he experienced since childhood that he couldn’t recover from. He has always been emotionally secretive and unavailable to everyone except Kala (and she took two seasons of serious efforts to make him finally open up and expose himself). He was tortured daily several times when he was under BPO’s captivity: he had and needed to show both physical and psychological scars in the aftermath. PTSD was a natural response that inevitably had to happen and be shown both for credibility and for a matter of character’s coherence and integrity. Wolfgang being rescued from this severely traumatizing condition and not showing the slightest consequence of it was beyond idiotic. And worse: from that moment he actually started acting more carefree and behaving in the exact opposite way than the one that should logically be expected from someone with his personality going through an experience like that. He started joking around and taking everything lightly and in a more emotionally invested way than he had ever done even before this imprisonment. It was like watching a fairy tale of stupid bullshit. What a fucking mess.

Rajan’s evident privileged treatment from the writers was so obvious and cheap that it ended up being nausea-inducing. He was literally everywhere and for no reason at all since he had no abilities. In the club, he is the only sapiens being close to the physical exchange. Why on this planet should this be safe or acceptable or even convenient since he is incapable of doing anything? Every other non-sensate was far away, even members of the Cluster such as Lito who could have been useful through sharing. Instead Rajan was on the front. Ok. And the idea that Wolfgang, a taciturn man who spent two seasons being jealous of Rajan, would spontaneously approach him and thank him for doing absolutely nothing is hilarious. Rajan didn’t save Wolfgang. Kala was the one who intervened to prevent Lila from shooting him. Rajan stepped in only to save Kala and was able to steal Lila’s gun just because she was already being attacked. And as soon as that happened, she took the gun back because Rajan obviously didn’t have a clue on what he was doing (which is acceptable, because he just wasn’t suitable for that situation: the mistake was including him there in the first place). Daniela herself had been previously shown to be comfortable in using a gun. Why not exposing her to the physical place of the exchange instead of Rajan? I seriously don’t get it. Which advantage could Rajan provide to the situation? The writers were so transparent. The same can be said with the Napoli’s scene. Rajan is the only sapiens entering the camorra building without any reason or combat skill. WHY. Not only he is untrained and incapable, but he also doesn’t even know the plan (Kala has to explain it to him while already inside and targeted by enemies!). It’s like they did everything in their power to include Rajan everywhere and let him be some kind of saver or hero that he clearly is not. The writing was insulting. Rajan mistakes a taser for a gun but then uses that same taser to save Kala’s life? How stupid do the writers think we are, exactly? Not to mention that Wolfgang being unable to treat Kala’s stomach wound was completely OOC, but then again, Kala and Wolfgang were both RAPED as characters in every way possible in this episode. Wolfgang was able to canonically treat a much worse wound when Felix was almost killed despite being in evident pain. This was all ridiculous. And what about Lila shooting Kala in the stomach? In this very episode she was able to shoot dead five people at a great distance without even trying when stealing Whispers. She was a hired gun, and here Kala was literally in front of her. Nothing in this scene makes the slightest sense, I swear.

The scene where Will asked where Sun was, as if he wasn’t able to mentally connect with her was absurd. And Nomi actually taking five minutes to visit her was just a cheap way for the Sun x Mun exchange to happen and was incoherent. “I found Sun” doesn’t make sense because they are telepathically connected and Nomi shouldn’t need to find her. Cheapness for everyone.

Kala spontaneously kissing Rajan again when she finally has the occasion to physically be with the love of her life after he was tortured and nearly killed is probably the most absurd and embarrassing moment I have ever seen in television. It’s beyond any rational comment at this point. I was about to throw something at my screen. And Wolfgang accepting this despite probably believing that Kala and Rajan had already talked things through was incoherent, unthinkable and hysterical. WHO-ARE-THESE-CHARACTERS. This moment destroyed me more than I can convey with words. It was a betrayal to two seasons of marvelous Kalagang growth and development. I could ramble about how much I hate this moment for pages, but I already wrote a post about it and it would be better for me not to stop too much on this because it literally broke my heart and enraged me more than anything else ever did. Kala and Wolfgang were entirely different characters.

Jonas and the Mother talking like walking encyclopedias contrast so heavily with the cheap writing of the episode that their scenes end up being really laughable and impossible to be taken seriously.

The song sequence was completely useless, pure fanservice garbage that stole real usable time that was very much needed since many storylines were left entirely open without justifications. The “What’s Up” moment in 1x04 became iconic because it conveyed a precise message that was the core of all the show, was a set up for everything that came after and had also the purpose to show the ability of each character to connect all together for the first time. Instead, the song sequence in this episode was obviously insert only because the first one really gained a huge success in the fandom and they simply wanted to reply it for fanservice purposes. But this was entirely pointless and the very definition of a waste of time. The characters felt very much like the actors themselves goofing around, and there were also completely avoidable coherence mistakes (Felix and Rajan on the train) that cheapened the already-compromised credibility of it all. The editing of all the episode was bad, especially in this scene.

Other time gets wasted showing characters eating pizza without a tie to the plot or anything at all. Were the writers deliberately trying to make the worst choices possible? They basically did everything wrong and handled the time horribly.

I already talked about the bullet scene, but Kala being able to visit Wolfgang while unconscious was another cheap mistake. I’m particularly angry because for 23 episodes Sense8 was able to be almost flawless in coherence, but this episode is just a giant mess. This moment is OOC and simply wrong on every aspect, and who wrote it surely must have been a stranger to the show.

The last half-hour of the Special is so weird. It’s like the writers suddenly forgot that the main characters are sensates. Will asking Kala what she wants was another ridiculous moment that was so incoherent with their scene in 2x08 that I seriously considered this to be an intentional way for the writers to let us know that they willingly fucked up with Kalagang. The main peculiarity of their interaction in 2x08 was that Will was able to read Kala’s emotions without asking and state out loud what she was afraid to admit to herself: that she loved someone else. Their interaction in 2x08 was based on clarifying that Kala was not suffering from a feeling indecision but a morality struggle, and that Will exactly knew what she wanted. Their moment in 2x12 disregards everything about it. Will acts like he doesn’t already know what she feels and asks her questions as if he couldn’t read her emotions, and Kala is supposed to show signs of romantic indecisiveness despite her troubles were never feelings-related? In 2x08 Kala couldn’t stop talking haphazardly (as she always does when concerned about something) and here she just silently shrugs? This moment is beyond laughable and goes against everything established before, and the characters are frankly unrecognizable.

It’s unbelievable the idea that two whole seasons of perfect Kalagang development led to a conclusion where Kala holds hands with Rajan and Wolfgang sits behind them as a complete stranger. It feels like a nightmare. I am homicidal about this. They really destroyed them, both as a couple and individual characters.

 Amanita clearly states in 1x07 that she is afraid of and hates fireworks because they symbolize war and are a failure. So why is she perfectly happy here when they are used during her own wedding? It wasn’t that hard not to be OOC. The writers really wanted to discredit the canon in every way, I’m incredulous.

The conclusive physical, actual orgy which includes also non-sensate characters sends a horrible message. First, it goes completely against the symbolical meaning of the previous orgies (which were meant to show the sensates’ ability to share sexual arousal every time someone in the Cluster was having actual sex; it was nothing physical or carnal but purely abstract and metaphorical). Second, it’s highly offensive to asexual people, because sex is conceived here as the highest expression of love and the only way to resolve untouched confrontations (instead of having actual conversations). Third, it provides sexual erasure to Lito (canonically gay), Nomi (canonically lesbian) and Kala (canonically demisexual). Fourth, it goes against the well-praised theme of inclusivity and diversity of the show because everyone at the end turns out to be the same (pansexual), thus erasing every single representation provided in the previous episodes. Fifth, it portrays an unfair and insulting view on how sexuality actually works. The idea of a man — whose entire storyline is built around the fact that he is completely, exclusively gay and couldn’t manage to even fake a relationship with a woman — willing to have sex out of the blue with someone of the opposite sex is gross and actually sick. Sexuality is highly intimate and personal: it’s not about open-mindedness, but about self-comfort. It’s disrespectful to think that a gay man would be okay to get laid with a woman, because he just is by nature not comfortable in that situation. I am a straight guy and I could never picture myself with another man, it would make me unhealthily uncomfortable with myself. This applies to everyone’s very own sexuality. The same can be said for Kala, who here is depicted as a promiscuous woman willing to share her body with the very same man who she couldn’t bring herself to feel comfortable with for two seasons. Kala was a very moral person described as demi-sexual and she could only be comfortable in a sexual scenario with Wolfgang because they are sensates and their level of trust and connection is unparalleled. If Wolfgang and Kala hadn’t been sensates inside each other’s heads and feelings, Kala would have never slept with him: she needed that kind of intimacy and closeness to open up sexually. The Kala who pulls Rajan down and gets almost hungry of being used as a sex object here is not the usual Kala from the first 23 episodes, it’s another character entirely who sends a conservative and sexist unacceptable message.

Wolfgang’s sudden bisexuality is not representation, nor something to be proud of: it’s just an offensive, out-of-nowhere twist created only for shock value. One of the first traits that we understand about him in the show is that in order to avoid opening up emotionally, he constantly sleeps around with women only. This is canonically confirmed in two occasions: first, in 1x04, when he and Felix talk about their teenager adventures, nothing is mentioned about them being open to relationships with other boys (and if Wolfgang had been bisexual, it would have surely been pointed out in this moment); second, in 2x01, we canonically see him picking up girls using a date-app which features women only. This highly indicates that he is not into men, because if he was, he wouldn’t hide it at all. Also, if he had really been sexually attracted to men, he would have surely fallen for Felix because of how close they are, and this didn’t happen. This is not to say that sexuality is permanent or unaffected by change. But if Wolfgang’s character arc had really been about a sexuality struggle, an appropriate path of self-discovery should have been shown and developed carefully. People just don’t wake up and decide to change sexual orientation out of the blue. These things require internal process and self-questioning. This sudden twist is a joke to people who really have to face a complex self-examination in order to understand whether their sexuality is changing or evolving.  

Wolfgang touching Rajan’s lips before kissing him is a slap on the face of Kalagang’s fans because that was THEIR intimate gesture, and theirs alone. 

Wolfgang and Rajan barely know each other. Wolfgang would NEVER perform that private gesture with anyone but Kala, and the idea that he would make love to her with her husband included is pure nuts. This was the ultimate bullshit from the writers who managed to annihilate everything about Kalagang. It’s almost as if Lana had personal reasons to sabotage them in every way possible, because the result is just too heavy-handed and transparent not to be intentional. I seriously hope that she didn’t feel the need to ruin them just because they are a straight couple, because that would make her discriminatory and petty as fuck. This moment was seriously unwatchable and unbearable. I don’t have the proper words to describe the utter disgust I really experienced.  

[mana-the-saiyan]

The Character Defence: Broly

In the few years that I have been a Dragon Ball Z fan, I’ve grown to love so much of it. But there is a trend that occurs in every fandom and in truth, every person. The constant battles and bickering about characters. Everyone is entitled to an opinion and clearly this is mine but I’ve seen some tremendous hate for him but I’m going to put forward a defence of Broly.

1) Broly is Non-Canon. For the Dragon Ball community, canon has been a shifty thing. A general consensus seems to point to one solid conclusion: If Toriyama didn’t write it, it’s non-canon. This is to help ease over fans who try to fight over this particular point and hopefully this closes that particular wound: Your love for a character is your love. It may not matter if it belongs within the cannonical storyline but no one can take away the joy you have about your favorite character(s).

I personally love the Super Saiyan 4 transformation from GT. I love the design and everything about it and I readily accept that it’s not part of canon. I accept it because in the end, it doesn’t diminish the love I have for the form itself and Broly not being in canon shouldn’t make you love him less.

2) Broly is too OP. This is almost a joke at Dragon Ball itself. The premise of the show follows Goku & co battling enemies far stronger than any enemy before. If they weren’t, it would get boring really quickly. But Broly seems to reserve a special kind of resentment and confusion in this regard. To the best of my knowledge, he is currently the only character confirmed to be a galaxy buster by an on screen demonstration. By comparison, the villain that would make the most sense in terms of what characters that were present for a scale would be Cell (based on the appearance of Future Trunks and Pre-Super Saiyan 2 Gohan. It most likely would be placed during the ten day wait for the Cell games if established in mainstream canon)

Now already this sounds like I’m reiterating old facts that everyone knows but I do so for a good reason. It’s been expressed multiple times throughout the series, in particular the Tournament of Power, that a Saiyan has every capability of surpassing their current limits. (Spoilers) Vegeta expresses this himself to Belmod in the ToP when Goku is going for his final battle against Jiren when he achieves Ultra Instinct again.

What should also be common knowledge is the Zenkai boost ability. A quick recap: Zenkai boost is what a Saiyan gets when placed near death and then allowed to recover. Best example is during the Frieza Saga after Goku heals in the medical pod. It allows the Saiyan’s power to rise exponentially at a near 33% rate (based on Vegeta’s power level Pre-Recoome and Post-Recoome) on average though it could vary.

A Saiyan’s ability to surpass limits coupled with a near death power boost is how Broly could have gotten so strong. After all, it’s quite clear that throughout his childhood, Paragus was less than exceptional as a father and used Broly as more of a tool than anything, most likely leading to quite a few Zenkai boosts before the events of the first movie.

Long Story Short: A rough childhood along side his Saiyan genes could easily mean Broly attained his power by simply living through numerous harships.

3) Broly is 1-Dimensional. A fairly common complaint but an important one to him. Broly was born (in movie canon) at the same time as Goku. Goku was quite the fussy kid, meaning that Broly never could really rest easily. Have you heard a baby scream without stopping? But beyond the constant screaming, it’s also the day Broly gets stabbed in the chest and when Planet Vegeta is destroyed. Broly endured a lot of trauma, more than people give him credit for. Of course he’s going to associate everything negative in his life with Goku. His earliest memories were hearing him scream, being stabbed and nearly dying in a planet wide explosion.

Remeber how I said Paragus was a particularly bad father? He also had a hand to play. Paragus would have used Broly’s exceptionally high power level to his advantage and would no doubt use him like a weapon. Broly’s only interaction prior to the movie was casually destroying and killing at his father’s behest.

Without a doubt if Broly had received a similar up bringing to Goku, he would be radically different. While he would still associate his near death to Goku, it wouldn’t consume him. It would more so just make him give Goku the cold shoulder at best and maybe hostile remarks at worst, rather than a direct murder attempt. Being treated like a weapon and being forced to fight no doubt left him with a mental state that though such acts of violence would get him praised and allow him to get attention.

Long Story Short: A bad childhood followed by worse parenting are to blame for Broly’s mental state rather than lazy writing.

4) Broly went out like a sucker. He did but upon some thought, it would make sense. Where Goku punched him at the end of the first movie was also where he was stabbed as a child. In a way, it’s an almost tragic poetic flaw; his first wound that nearly killed him would later be the wound that almost kills him again. Upon watching the battle he has with the Z-Fighters, he has no other weak points. He took a full powered Kamehameha point blank for fun but that’s because the blast hit a wide area rather than a focused point.

If you want to bring up the Special Beam Canon and it’s piercing properties, this is where I stop you. Even if Piccolo wanted to use it, he wouldn’t have the time to charge it. Most of the battle is Broly trashing the rest of the fighters with almost no effort on his part. Even if Piccolo did charge it and it was fired, it’s doubtful that he would aim for that ONE spot. Piccolo never knew about it in the first place and would most likely aim for a different area such as the upper chest ala Raditz, the heart or perhaps even the head. But we’ve also seen the attack being deflected, notably during the battle between Piccolo and Imperfect Cell. Who’s to say Broly couldn’t deflect it similarly?

5) Broly mistook Goten for Goku. (Spoilers) For those that don’t know, Broly survives the events of his first movie and arrives on earth in the second. There he is frozen (for what the movie guide describes as several years) until his is awoken by Goten crying near by. When Broly goes under, the events of the battle are entierly fresh in his mind. So much so that his is in a state of flight-or-fight because of his near death. He is awoken by the sounds of crying, crying that reminds him all too vividly of his own traumatic childhood and he simply wants it to end. The last thin he really sees is Goku’s face (before he blows up, escapes in a pod and makes his way to earth?) and since Goten is an almost exact carbon copy of him, Broly simply lashes out with animalistic insinct.

His near death and sudden awakening from his traumatic past hitting him again throws what rational thought he has out as he wants to SURVIVE. In his mind, killing Goten (Goku by extension) would end that torment for him. The last thing from his past would be laid to rest and he could relax.

That brings us back to his mental state. He’s fine when he encounters everyone else. I dare say he even smiles when he is introduced to everyone. But upon seeing Goku (Goten by extension after a few years), his thoughts of peace are shattered as the one trigger that brings back all the torment he’s endured stares him in the face. He simply seems to exhibit a very violent survival reflex.

6) Why was Broly almost killed? Less of a complaint and more of a good question. Broly was born with a power level of 10,000. King Vegeta at the time was barely above that. No doubt the king gave it consideration as to using Broly. But what would happen if one day Broly didn’t want to take orders from the king? What could he do against a warrior who’s power would ecplipse his own once he became an adult?

Had King Vegeta not ordered his death, Broly may have even grown strong enough to challenge Frieza long before Goku would have, beating the tyrant and becoming the greatest warrior ever known. Dragon Ball could be a whole lot different with that train of thought.

7) Broly one shots too many characters. This basically ties into my “Broly is too OP” argument. But lets go a bit further into detail by comparing his fight with the Z-Fighters against them vs Cell. Cell (Perfect and Super Perfect) took the likes of Future Trunks, Vegeta, Goku and Gohan to beat, easily the most powerful characters at the time. But during that fight, each fighter worked individually or as a tag team in some cases to bring down Cell.

Broly functioned in a very similar fashion for most of it. But where they diverge is how they ended. Cell was beaten by a Super Saiyan 2 Gohan after an intense beam struggle. Broly was beaten by four fighters (Gohan, Trunks, Piccolo and Vegeta) channeling their power into Goku who then beat Broly. That is the final nail in the coffin for this argument.

Gohan during the fight received no ki transfers from the other fighters and barely beat Cell during the beam struggle. Goku on the other hand took noticeable leaps in power with each ki transfer. Pre-Vegeta boost Goku almost punched directly through Broly’s ki barrier, meaning that there was very little difference remaining. After receiving Vegeta’s power, Goku was finally strong enough to push through Broly’s ki and strike him, ending the events of the first movie. The difference is simple for this comparison: Gohan worked alone as a Super Saiyan 2 and barely won while Goku received energy from four other fighters and ended the lengthy battle with one strike.

Why does this matter? Because it gives us a scale. In the main canon, Buu was the only one held to a similar power level. He tore apart planets left and right and while not explicitly seen trashing galaxies (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong here or at any point), it is heavily implied he did. Broly direclty showed us his power by trashing a galaxy in the beginning of his movie, giving us a clear indicator to his power. Compared to Cell who COULD reach similar heights but never did, it’s pretty easy to see why he can trash around other characters so easily. I won’t say he’s stronger than Buu who took a Super Saiyan 3 Goku to kill while Broly was handled by a Super Saiyan Goku with four fighters, it’s pretty easy to see how he is able to beat most other fighters.

All in all, Broly receives a bit more flak than he actually deserves. He’s a character who went through a lot of suffering very early on in his life and rather than be given the chance to move on and recover, he was used as a weapon and treated as such for most of his life. He is a powerful individual in the Dragon Ball universe that is a very serious contender on the villain roster. Had he been given a better up bringing, Dragon ball would be very different and would see him as the most powerful player on the character roster. Canon or not, Broly has made quite the impact on the fandom as a whole and certainly deserved his spotlight in the games and movies. In the end, he’s an example of what even Goku could have been if he received a Saiyan upbringing instead of his earthling one. Also, apologies if there are spelling mistakes throughout.

[she-could-only-destroy]

I need to get my story out there.

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been in a committed relationship for over 5 years. A year before that, however, I was in an abusive relationship. I want to tell my story (and show off how lucky I am to have my current boyfriend). TW; emotional abuse, attempted sexual abuse, threatened physical abuse. Also, WARNING: Strong language

As I mentioned, I have been in a committed relationship for over 5 years with the love of my life. Before this, I had a few "serious" (what I thought were serious) boyfriends, & I was with one of these boys for over 6 months. I know, not a long time, but FOREVER when you're 13 like I was. This boy emotionally and verbally abused and scarred me, and towards the end it got dangerously close to physical and sexual abuse. Like I said, I was 13 when we started dating. We were in 8th grade, and I had been crushing on him for about 2-3 years prior. When he finally asked me out, I was ecstatic, and even THAT is an understatement. Little did I know...my life was about to become hell. It started like any other middle school relationship; sitting beside each other in bus room and at lunch, calling each other every night, and texting each other a lot when we both got a cell phone. Then it turned into him texting me 24/7, even at school, to see what I was doing. If I took more than ten minutes to reply (even at school), I got accused of cheating and “being a whore”. Keep in mind, at this point we’d only kissed a few times. This was around 2 months in, & I just thought he was being over-protective because of how much he cared. We said “I love you” for the first time sometime that month, and I believed him. At barely 13, I was ECSTATIC to be “in love”, so when I would go to his house & he would demand things from me (I’ll let you imagine, but not actually having sexual intercourse), I let it happen. I let the red flags slip because he wasn’t hitting me. I wasn’t in physical pain, so it had to be healthy and normal, right? Keep in mind, this was only about 3-4 months in. This behavior went on for another month or so, and then it got worse. EXPONENTIALLY worse. When I’d go over, we would play “hide and seek” with his little brother while his parents had their attention elsewhere. The only real rule was that their room, that they had shared at the time, was off limits. So, of course... my then-boyfriend would take me & “hide” in there since his brother wouldn’t be checking. (He was only around 9 at the time, I believe, so he didn’t know any better). He would make a blanket fort on the bottom bunk (his bunk) of their bed, and we would lay there and make out for, like, ten minutes until his brother gave up and yelled for us to come out. One time during a game of hide and seek, he pulled out a condom from his sock drawer. A grape-flavored condom. At THIRTEEN fucking years old. We were both virgins, and I didn’t have any desire to change that. I didn’t even realize what it was until he asked if I was ready to have sex with him. I said “no” repeatedly, and he just kept saying “come on,” “it’ll be fun,” “you know you want to,” “just let me do it,” etc. and kissing me and trying to take my clothes off and put his hand down my pants, getting more angry and aggressive as he went. He was not letting up and I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified. At this point I yelled, “Time’s up, (brother’s name)! We’re in here! (Boyfriend’s name) cheated!” That, of course... made him even more furious with me. He angrily tossed the condom back into his drawer as his brother came in the room, and that was that. Neither of us spoke about it to each other ever again. Around month 5, he threatened to hit me for the first time. I was in Tennessee at my grandma’s on vacation. We were texting about how much we missed and loved each other, and he asked if I had been seeing another boy while I was in Tennessee. I told him “no,” but he didn’t believe me. He just kept pestering me about it until eventually, I got tired of his constant accusing and put my phone in another room and just relaxed with my family. After a few hours, I went back in and got my phone. I was flooded with a stream of “WTF are you doing?”, “I know you’re cheating right now you stupid whore,” etc. I texted him & told him I “had” to put my phone away because I got in trouble for being on it too much. He said “I don’t believe you, I know you were cheating on me.” After a while of me crying my eyes out in the back bedroom trying to convince him of the truth, he finally believed me. I remember the next text he sent me word-for-word. It’s been nearly 6 years and I can still recite it perfectly. “I swear to god if you ever cheat on me, I’ll kill the boy and get you with whatever strength I have left.” My heart sank. My fairytale had turned into a horror movie, and I was terrified. I didn’t tell anybody, and for the rest of the trip he kept telling me what he would do if I ever cheated. When I came back home to West Virginia, I made up every excuse not to see him. Freshman band camp was starting soon after I got back, so of course that was my main excuse since only band students can be there (or so I said). After discussing the overview of that summer’s events with friends (I left out the attempted rape & threatened physical violence), I knew it was time to end it. I texted him that it was over (dick move, I know). He pulled the “I swear I’ll kill myself if you do this,” “I’m crying so hard I can’t breathe,” etc. So I texted his parents to check on him & they said he was fine. I ended it then & there. I was free. Until school started, anyway. Luckily by the time classes began, I was dating a “big bad” junior. He would not even DARE talking to me because he was terrified of my new boyfriend. So...that was the end of that (you know, except the depression, anxiety, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD])... I had already been showing signs of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), but my mom was holding off on treatment for me in hopes that it would be better once I was free of the hell I was in. But...it got worse. I developed full-blown MDD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and signs of PTSD (not diagnosed so I don’t know for sure if it’s that or just a sub-set of my anxiety). From then, I had the boyfriend that scared him off, but that only lasted a few months. Then came...the big one. My first love. The only one I would ever want to be with. (Or so I thought). To make a long story short: this kid and I had been off/on for a few years, best friends since we were in diapers, and I had known I loved him for a while, but pushed it off because he wasn’t interested at the time. We dated for a few months for the last time, and then he broke it off because he “wanted to be single”...even though he started dating someone else a few days later. But we’re on good terms now, so I won’t get salty again. Then...when healing from my broken heart, I decided to message the first single, attractive boy on my Facebook IM. (Yes, it was still called Facebook IM, with the automatic pop-out boxes and everything...damn I’m old). This boy & I knew each other for a few years prior, because he was (still is) best friends with my older brother. We talked on Facebook for a few days and then exchanged phone numbers. We were in the same section in band, and we sat next to each other at community band practice. After about a month of being close, I knew I really liked this kid and there was something special. He asked me out one night at 3am & I said yes. 5 years later (as of June 10th, 2017) here we are. We’ve had an apartment together for over a year, and we’re more in love than ever, and keep falling deeper in love every day. This man has loved me through everything. Every psychotic break, every inconvenience, every suicidal moment, EVERYTHING. Somehow he hasn’t given up on me. I don’t deserve to have someone like him who loves me even half as much as he does, but GOD am I lucky. I truly believe that we are two halves of a whole, and we were destined to be soulmates. He is my other half, and I’d like to think that I am his other half as well. I could not be any more thankful for this amazing man. He is my soulmate and my saving grace, and I honestly don’t think I’d be here without him. To make this whole story short: Life was shit, but then Andrew came along. And I love him so much for that and everything he does. Side note: HUGE thanks to my amazing Criminology professor for helping me realize that my story matters, and it is valid. The abuse may not have been physical, but it left me scarred. And that’s okay that I am scarred, because I am lucky enough to be able to come forward today & tell my story from the outside. If ANYONE has anything like this that they feel they need to talk about, whether it’s advice or just venting, I AM HERE. I will always be here. YOU ARE WORTH MORE. I love you.

[that-he-may-return-blog]

Episode 1: Retail Revolution

A lone employee was setting up a display in the superstore known as All-Mart, carefully stacking package after package into an elaborately decorative showcase of Auntie Helen’s Homecooked Uncooked Pasta. Soon, summer vacation would draw to a close in Piedmont, California, and he as well as the rest of the student body would have to go back to school. He would be a senior this year, and how he longed for the joys and freedom that came with eighth grade as he delicately placed the final box of pasta on the precarious tower-

-this was when Dipper Pines’s body plowed through the display, scattering the Homecooked Uncooked Pasta across the aisles, destroying several boxes in the process and shattering any of the employee’s hope of a pay raise.

It may have been Dipper’s body, but Dipper wasn’t piloting it; no, Dipper himself was essentially a ghost at this point, and an apocalyptic demon was controlling his every action. This demon is best known as Bill Cipher.

“Get OUT-” Dipper dove for his body, but Bill ducked and sprinted down the aisle, dragging his fingers down the shelves of chips- which all promptly came to life, jumped off the shelves, and joined the mob of various formerly-inanimate monsters currently chasing him.

Bill scaled a shelf and turned to face the horde. “Hey guys, how’s it going-” Dipper made another move to regain control of his body, but before he could reach it Bill leaped across the aisle and grabbed onto a back-to-school banner hanging above it.

Dipper stared. It was going to break- it was going to break- The banner tore slightly.

Bill stuck his tongue out at Dipper. “What’re you gonna do now, Dipstick- this vessel is mine-”

The banner tore, unable to support the weight of a thirteen-year old, and Bill in Dipper’s body plummeted down to the mob of aggressive toys, potato chips, and birthday cards.

You may be wondering how Dipper Pines had ended up in this specific scenario.

Dipper had spent the summer months in Gravity Falls, Oregon, a bizarre little town that was absolutely swarming with monsters and magic. He and his twin, Mabel, had encountered a series of mysteries and trials; there was that time Dipper had accidentally raised an undead army, or when Mabel had kidnapped a boyband of clones. Their great-uncle Stan had failed to be much of a supervisor until the later weeks, but when he did step up it was obvious that he wasn’t as incompetent as he might have seemed.

Throughout the summer, Dipper had been plagued by the triangular demon Bill Cipher. He only operated within the mindscape, but that hadn’t stopped him from possessing and traumatizing Dipper; and once he had his hands on a dimensional rift, things went from bad to worse. Bill opened a portal between Gravity Falls and the Nightmare Realm, entered the real world, and began wreaking havoc. It was... weird. Hence the name: Weirdmageddon.  

Luckily, Dipper had been able to team up with his friends and family to cancel the apocalypse- and all would have been well if Grunkle Stan hadn’t had to sacrifice his memories to destroy Bill. They thought Stan was gone forever, but Mabel had kept a summer memories scrapbook that helped to start restoring his memory. It took time and effort, but eventually he had remembered almost everything. Life calmed down after the apocalypse and the status quo seemed to have returned back to normal.

That was, until the night after Dipper’s thirteenth birthday party.

The night before Dipper and Mabel would leave for Piedmont, Ford snuck up into the twins’ attic room and shook Dipper awake. Dipper, being the brave, apocalypse-hardened teenager he was, woke in a panic and nearly screamed before the six-fingered hand covered his mouth. Before he could ask questions, Dipper was pulled down the stairs; Ford’s face was nearly hidden in shadows, unreadable.

He pressed his finger to his mouth just before the living room. In the silence, Dipper could make out the obnoxiously loud, gravelly snores. Ford turned and tugged Dipper through the room; Dipper glanced over at the chair and saw Stan asleep, hunched over, mouth open, probably needing a shave and definitely needing a shower. Just like old times- so what was with all the secrecy?

Ford led Dipper down to his underground lab, flicking on a desk lamp. Dipper was momentarily blinded by the sudden light and had to squint to make out anything.

“Grunkle Ford? What is this about?”

Ford was pacing, arms folded behind his back. “Dipper,” he began, “we’ve constructed a situation that is only becoming more dire by the minute.”

Wonderfully helpful information, considering Dipper hoped he hadn’t been woken up in the middle of the night over spilled coffee. Truly, this man of many talents should have added “explaining things” to his resume, right next hoarding mysteries and speaking in cryptic messages instead of actually telling anyone anything. “...what is it?”

“I made a risky and debatably stupid decision, pulling that trigger. No action is inconsequential, and now I have to face the repercussions myself- and I would, if that were an option. However, it’s starting to look like that may not be the case.” Dipper had already put together eight crack-theories on Ford’s vague exposition (or lack thereof) when he crouched and put his hands on Dipper’s shoulders.

“Now, Dipper, I understand that you would rather not be my apprentice. That was your decision, and ultimately you chose your sister- and I’m not here to sway that. But something’s come up that gives me no choice but to ask you to do something incredibly crucial to the well-being of Gravity Falls, the planet, and most importantly, our family.”

There it was. Dipper was almost sure it was crack theory number two by now, but the thought of it made his heart sink and his palms clam up even more.

“What I’m about to tell you may be shocking. So I’m asking you to keep your head and retain integrity when I say that-”

“Bill’s alive.”

“...well, yes. That’s… a bit anticlimactic, determining the plot twist before it can be said...” Ford dropped his hand absentmindedly. “Sort of… waters it down, you know? Now if instead you had asked, ‘say what’, giving me a moment for a dramatic pause and heightening the tension-”

“He can’t have- we spent so much time working on this- I thought we planned it all out- didn’t we- didn’t we-”

“-Dipper, I know this is alarming.” Ford was looking him in the eyes. “I felt the same way when I learned this, but it’s important that we retain our senses. I’m not about to suggest we undo all our hard work- we’ve spent too much time getting him back. Unfortunately, part of Bill must have remained in his head, and in bringing Stanley’s memory back we’ve inadvertently revived him.”

Dipper’s entire body was rigid. “He’s not going to- start the apocalypse all over again- can he- is he-” He couldn’t go through that again. It had been taxing enough the first time around; just the thought of reliving that emotional, mental, and physical strain made Dipper nauseous.

“He could do that.”

And now Dipper really felt sick.

“-but,” Ford added, “only if we don’t act quickly.” He straightened up and resumed pacing. “Bill has yet to regain all his energy and strength from the depths of Stan’s mind. This means that he’s too weak to re-enter the mindscape- for now. My calculations suggest that we have less than six hours before it absorbs into him again, assuming the growth isn’t exponential. If it is, we have even less time.”

“So we have a maximum of six hours to make a life-or-death decision where the fate of time and space and the lives of everyone I know and love hangs in the balance?” Dipper asked.

“Precisely.”

“Ohh boy…” Now Dipper was pacing, too.  It was too early for this. Too late?  “So what is Stan doing about this-”

Ford glanced away. “Since his deal with Bill, Stanley’s been aware of his own mind. This gives him full lucidity whenever he is asleep- according to him, he discovered Bill poking around the place, and managed to subdue him by trapping him under an armchair and hitting him with a newspaper. Before he went back to sleep he informed me that he had made plans to force Bill to listen to a fifties soundtrack until I got rid of him.”  Ford turned his head back towards Dipper.  “A perilous task for sure.”

“And what should we do?” Dipper asked. “That’s what I wanted to discuss with you.”

On one hand, Dipper could have squealed- Ford trusted and respected him enough to get his thoughts on the fate of the universe. On the other, this was the fate of the universe, and fate-of-the-universe situations tended to be nerve-wracking. “What about- what about the zodiac?”

“That would be the only chance we have to destroy him entirely,” Ford acknowledged. He opened his mouth to continue, but Dipper cut him off.

“-so let’s just get everyone on it and- and kill him right now-! And it’ll be fine- that’s all there is to it, right?” He already had the happy ending- there wasn’t supposed to be a sequel. Bill was dead, and he was going to stay dead, damn it, no matter what the cosmic forces of the world were thinking- no more triangles, no more sock puppets, no more six-armed monstrosities or statues or magical apocalypses-

“We can’t use the zodiac.”

Dipper wheeled around and stared at him. “What.”

“In order for the zodiac to work, Bill needs to be inhabiting his own physical form- from what I’ve gathered, it’s a brand of magic that requires a very clear target to work properly. And even if we could trick him into re-entering it and still have enough time to form the circle, not everyone for it is here. Fiddleford went across the country to discuss his inventions with a branch of the U.S. Government, and even if he came home now, he wouldn’t be back within six hours. Bill would be strong enough to start the apocalypse and will have learned to kill us this time around instead of letting us conquer him.”

“Are you kidding- why now-” Were all the forces of the world stacked against the Pines family? Maybe there really was a cosmic power out there that was messing with his life for the sole purpose of watching the drama. “What else could we possibly-”

Ford diverted his gaze, rubbing the back of his neck. “I had one plan,” he said. “It’s hazardous, and may be even more difficult than I initially thought. Nevertheless, it may be our best option.”

Exactly the kind of encouraging statement Dipper needed to hear. “What was it?”

“I’d need you to make a deal with him.”

It was about this moment that Dipper lost his ability to speak. He would have accepted any number of odd solutions - it was his Great Uncle Ford, after all. But he of all people should have known the dangers of making a deal with a literal demon, the way the cold fire singed your nails, the way reality doubled over on itself and his voice came from all angles, the nauseating, unsettling feeling of those fingers latched onto your palm- Dipper couldn’t believe that this was Ford’s most viable option- unless it wasn’t Ford’s option, unless it wasn’t even Ford-

“Dipper, listen to me, I can explain this.”

“Take off your glasses-”

“Dipper-”

“-I said take off your glasses!”

Silence. Ford complied. His hand dropped and he crouched in front of Dipper again, gently handing him a flashlight, keeping his eyes open while the beam hit him in the face. Dipper became aware after a few moments that with every breath he was shaking. The flashlight beam was shuddering up and down Ford’s face, illuminating his eyes- the sclera still white, if bloodshot, the irises intact, the pupils round. A dull pounding was echoing in Dipper’s ears. He lowered the flashlight and looked away, half expecting Ford to reach out and put a hand on his shoulder, relieved when he didn’t.

Ford put his glasses back on, watching Dipper. Dipper slowly flicked the flashlight off. They sat in silence for a few moments, alone in the near-darkness. Dipper felt the thudding in his chest subside. Quietly, he set the flashlight back on the shelf.

Ford breathed. “...I know that it’s not ideal. You’ve dealt with him enough for a lifetime, and it’s… harsh of me to expect you to make this decision so suddenly, or even at all. Unfortunately, this is the best solution I’ve been able to draw up on such a short notice.”

“...why,” Dipper asked. “Why is this the best chance we have.”

“...we can’t kill Cipher, at least not yet,” Ford said, slowly. “If he remains in Stanley’s mind for too much longer, or even in a close enough proximity for an extended period of time, he’ll regain all of his energy, re-enter the mindscape, find his body and incite a second Weirdmageddon.”

Dipper stared at the floor. “And… me making this deal…”

“Would prevent him from doing this. Believe me, Dipper, I have no intention to jeopardize your safety through this. I’ve drafted a contract that states he can cause no harm to you or anyone else, directly or indirectly, mentally or physically, that keeps him from reentering his body, that allows you to create modifications to it at any time.”

“...what exactly would you want me to do?”

Ford hesitated. “...I suppose that the best way to put it is that I would want you to hold onto him.”

“...hold… onto him.”

“Yes. Keep him away from Stanley and Gravity Falls so that he can’t cause any more harm. You’d come back for the summer, of course… and at that point everyone should be back in time to use the zodiac. Now, this isn’t our only option- I don’t want to force you into anything. You certainly have every right to make the decision you want, and the last thing I’d want to do is coerce you into a situation that-”

“-what are the other options?” This was something Dipper needed to know, although he had a sinking feeling that he already did.

There was a long pause.

“...great-uncle Ford?”

“I think it’s best if you don’t worry about those.”

“...it’s deleting Stan’s memory,” Dipper said, “and not letting it come back.”

Another pause.  Ford nodded.

“...can I see that contract?”

He passed it to him without a word.

Dipper slid closer to the dim desk light and read the fine print. It was funny; after a summer of reading Ford’s handwriting, suddenly it looked like a different language. Journal entries had only described mythical beasts catalogued long before Dipper was even born. This… this affected his life directly. Seeing his name written in Ford’s clear, artistic writing sent a strange chill up his spine.

He only found one discrepancy in the contract.

“Here it says Bill will be allowed to enter my body and take over.” Dipper had been a puppet once, and it wasn’t an experience he had particularly enjoyed.

“I knew you would ask about that, but… bear with me,” Ford said. “Bill’s already been killed. He’s already powerless. Once we go in there, he’ll realize that we don’t plan on using the zodiac- he’ll know that by killing him we’ll destroy Stanley’s memory again, and he knows that the longer he waits the more powerful he gets. Without some form of incentive, something he gets out of it, he would never agree to the deal. After all, he has nothing to lose and everything to gain in the form of revenge if we try anything else.”

“If I let Bill control me, then he’s only going to try and kill me and my friends-” Dipper started, but then he stopped as the words on the contract brought themselves back to his mind.

“Ah, you see now, don’t you,” Ford said with more confidence, “The contract specifically says he can’t hurt any living, half-living, quarter-living, or undead being. Along with… everything in-between. For good measure.” Ford pointed at the rules in the contract.

Dipper stared at the words, weighing his options. He could put up with Bill for a school year… or it would be his fault that Stan wouldn’t remember anything for the rest of his life. A wave of guilt washed over Dipper, even as he thought about the soul-sucking process that was deal-making; he didn’t have the right to just let Stan die, not after everything he did for them…

“...regardless, Dipper, it’s all your choice.” Ford was saying as he sank back into a chair. “It would be temporary.  By the time you returned next year we could easily vanquish him with the zodiac.  However, I understand if you’d rather not.  Trust me, I know from personal experience...”  he glanced at the exit to the study. Dipper’s head was clearing. He couldn’t let Stan be erased again, that was a given, not after all the work Ford had put in to bring his brother back. Dipper couldn’t bear to be the reason they were torn apart. His thoughts told him to rethink, to plan, that he still had a few more hours before the deadline. But while his brain was on one track his mouth said something different.

“-I’ll do it.”

Ford turned his head and looked much more alert than he did just a moment ago. Dipper hadn’t realized, but the life had been drained out of him; upon hearing the news, it seemed to be flooding back. “You’re sure about this?”

Dipper took a deep breath. His mouth wouldn’t work for a second, and he felt his tongue going dry. “...yes.”

“Excellent, then all we have to do is enter Stanley’s mind and convince Bill to make the deal.”

“Wait, what-” was all Dipper could manage before he was taken out of the study.

Dipper would have loved to say that he marched into Stan’s mind, threw the chair off of Bill, and forced him into signing the contract immediately while theatrical music played in the background and his great-uncles applauded.

In reality, Dipper and Ford stumbled into Stan’s mind to the classic tunes of Jerry Lee Lewis just in time to see Stan hit Bill in the eye with a rolled-up newspaper.

“If you hit me one more time with that cylinder of tree pulp I will personally dismantle your ribcage and use it to play croquet-”

Bill was cut off with another slap to the eye. His voice wasn’t even echoing, or maybe the blaring music was just interfering with Dipper’s ability to hear correctly. Just as Ford had described, Bill was pinned under Stan’s armchair, completely lacking the distorting, glowing aura he normally had. Stan himself was seated in the chair and didn’t look much more hygienic than he currently did in reality, but he at least seemed to be enjoying himself by abusing a triangle who could no longer fight back.

“Stanley,” Dipper heard Ford say, but his voice was drowned out by the music, “STANLEY-”

Stan glanced over and the music stopped abruptly. “And you call me evil,” Bill muttered darkly as Stan pointed an accusatory finger at his brother.

“Why is he here.”

Dipper realized with a start that Stan was talking about him. “I knew you didn’t like me, but geez…”

“I told you not to drag anyone else into this, Ford.” Stan got up from the chair, making it a point to step on Bill. “I told you, whatever had to be done could be done with just you and me, and you didn’t have to make this anyone else’s business- let alone the kids’-”

“-Stanley, I’m not sure you fully understand the severity of the-”

“-I do,” Stan said shortly, “and I know damn well that Dipper doesn’t deserve to be roped into whatever mess you’re planning this time-”

“-I don’t want this any more than you do,” Ford started.

Stan cut him off, “-so why the hell-”

Ford grabbed his arm and pulled him aside, beginning to explain the scenario in a low voice. Dipper glanced around the room. The first time he had seen inside Stan’s head, it had been a massive shack that had fallen into disrepair, placed in the middle of a grayed-out forest; the shack had resembled the Mystery Shack as much as it could while also existing as a dimly lit labyrinth of secrets and memories. Now, however, there was only the living room. There weren’t any winding corridors, and as far as Dipper could tell there was only the one door. The place was fully lit and out the window and all Dipper could see was a white expanse of nothingness. He wondered when the change had taken place, or if it was a result of burning his memories. If it was the latter, then Stan still had far from all his memories- after two weeks of effort, Dipper didn’t want that to be the case.

“...still don’t like it,” Stan was muttering. “I’d almost rather-”

“I wouldn’t.”

“It’s not your choice-”

“-no, but it’s his, and he already made it.”

“You’re not listening to this idiot, are you?” Stan asked Dipper, jerking a thumb at Ford.

Dipper blinked. “Well I-”

“Because he’s trying his best,” Stan continued, “and we’re all going to have to do that to make this work out.”

As bewildered as Dipper was, Ford seemed to be even more so. “Stanley-”

“-and tell your sister,” Stan added. “I’m sick of everyone keeping secrets like this- it only gets us into a bigger mess.” He sat back down, the chair buckling slightly under his weight. If a two dimensional entity could become flattened, Bill did so.

Something touched Dipper’s shoulder and he jumped before he realized that it was just Ford’s hand. “This is something you’re certain about.” It was a little late to ask that when they were already standing in front of the demon himself, but Dipper nodded. He felt Ford press the contract into his hands.

“Hey so while we’re all gathered around for this whimsical family meeting does anyone mind explaining who’s going to die first?” Bill got hit with the newspaper again but didn’t seem deterred. “Because I’ve got a feeling that it’s going to be one of you- what about Starface over there, eh Sixer? He looks fragile-”

“Nobody is going to die,” Ford said, “except for you, if it comes to it.”

“Oh I’m absolutely terrified, I promise.”

Maybe it was Dipper’s imagination, but Bill didn’t exactly look “terrified”. If anything he looked mildly irritated. Probably because he wasn’t out ruining lives like he normally was.

Bill was digging his eye out of its socket. “So what do you want from me? To leave and never return? Run run as fast as I can? Three wishes?” He threw it across the room- Dipper ducked and it stuck to the wall behind him. Dipper whipped around, startled, in time to see a triangular outline solidify around the eye and Bill peel himself off of the wall.

“That can’t be good,” Stan pointed out.

“It just means he’s regaining more energy,” Ford said, quietly. “We still have time before he’s able to cause any real damage.”

“Oh look at this! You figured something out!” Bill circled the group, growing larger by the second. “I’m so proud of you-” An arm that resembled a rod more than anything stretched out and messed up Ford’s hair. “I’m sure you’ll also figure out immortality in no time flat at this rate!” The room was growing darker, dropping them into a void.

Ford glared up; Dipper was currently hiding behind his leg. “We didn’t come here to be taunted,” he said, “and I’m warning you, if you fail to listen, I won’t hesitate to-”

“-to what? Tell me, brainiac, you won’t hesitate to do what?” The entire space seemed to warp and twist until Bill’s eye was bent over all three of them, staring down in a beam of light. “The most you could do right now is kill your brother all over again! I’m only getting stronger by the minute, Fordsie, you know that, he knows that, we all know that- and any trick you try I’ve seen before a million times! I’m the curse of dimensions and the scourge of the multiverse, your tiny thirty years of interdimensional travel couldn’t possibly measure up to what I’m capable of! And all I have to do is intimidate you and stall for the next five hours and then I’ll be back and ready to kill you more than ever before- starting with your precious little nephew over here-” Bill’s finger jutted into Dipper’s neck, lifting his chin- Dipper seized up, this was too much, how could he have ever thought this was a good idea? Bill was immensely powerful and had about as much empathy and compassion as a pit of tar-

-suddenly Bill’s form compressed back down into a miniscule size. The void of space folded back up and gave way to the shack’s living room, just as it had been a few moments before. Bill was currently stuck behind the glass of a family picture hanging from the wall. “What the- hey- heyheyheyhey-”

“My house, my rules,” Stan grumbled. “Nobody gives any dramatic speeches until this is taken care of.”

Awkward silence filled the room for a few moments as Bill pounded against the glass and rocked the picture from side to side. “...that’s… a thing someone can do?” Dipper asked Ford, incredulous.

“...apparently,” Ford responded. He sounded just as surprised as Dipper felt.

In the chair, Stan started to snore. Dipper would never know anybody else who could sleep in a lucid dream.

Bill rocked the picture a few more times before giving up. Instead, he made a point to grow as many extra arms as necessary to give everyone in the photo bunny ears. “So what did you want, IQ,” he asked, cheerful as ever.

“...we had a deal to offer you.”

That got Bill’s attention, but not necessarily in a positive way. “You can explain it, but I don’t think you’re going to get anywhere on this track.” He folded his arms and slid in front of Dipper’s face on the picture. “I’d pretty much rather die at this point. It’s not that bad. Hey, you should try it-”

Dipper felt himself get nudged forward suddenly. He swallowed- “Bill, we- I- have a contract for you.” He raised the paper. Bill did not cower or stare in awe. No dramatic chords played in the background. Stan continued snoring as Jerry Lee Lewis started playing again.

“-it’s going to get you out of Stan’s mind,” he continued, “and Gravity Falls- for- a while. You’re… going to…” he glanced at Ford for confirmation. His tongue felt like lead in his mouth. Ford looked concerned- like maybe he was having second thoughts, or doubts. As if Dipper couldn’t really be trusted to handle this, as if he wasn’t capable of handling it. That was how much faith Ford had had in him; he respected him enough to take care of situations too dangerous for anyone else- this was something that he could do for Ford if he couldn’t be his apprentice. Dipper steadied himself as Wild One began playing in the background. “-you’re going to share my body with me for nine months.”

Bill choked, then burst out laughing. “I’m sure, I’m very sure-” a flattened arm reached out from the photograph and took the contract from him, pulling it up to the frame. Bill’s eye glowed purple like a blacklight, scanning it over. “Because we all trust each other here just so much, don’t we-”

“This isn’t a trick,” Ford said. “This isn’t a game, it isn’t just for fun.”

“So what then, you lost a bet?”

“This is a serious offer.”

Bill stopped talking for once in his trillion years of life. Dipper couldn’t tell if he was thinking over the options of the deal or deciding whether they would look better as mattresses or mounted heads.

A pen materialized in Bill’s free hand. “Well I see no possible consequences of this,” he announced. It slid across the page leaving an unreadable signature in bright blue ink. “Don’t tell me you’re having doubts, Pinetree.” He offered the pen.

“-not at all,” Dipper said, with a lot more confidence than he felt. He took the pen, being very careful not to touch Bill’s fingers, and signed the other spot on the contract as illegibly as he could; the last thing he wanted was for Bill to know his actual name. As soon as he finished, the contract rolled itself up, caught on fire, and vanished into thin air.

“And now that that’s taken care of,” Bill continued, “why don’t we seal the deal once and for all-” His hand was right in front of Dipper’s face. Dipper stared, nearly immobile. He couldn’t touch that thing- that death trap- there was no way he was locking fingers with a demon twice in his life, or ever again. He was going to actually be sick. Uneasy, Dipper forced all his apprehension aside and slowly lifted his hand, taking Bill’s and shaking it. His hand lit itself on fire and Bill laughed- a sharp, piercing, echoing laugh that rattled around the inside of Dipper’s head, sending a disorienting cacophony through his ears, blocking out anything anyone else might have been saying at the time. The room spun and collapsed in on itself, and Dipper couldn’t tell if it was the work of Bill regaining power or only his mind getting nauseous- he was dimly aware of Ford telling him something, whether he was proud or worried Dipper couldn’t quite remember, and Stan holding onto him, and after that his memory blurred together until he woke up the next morning.

Apparently, the one part of the contract that neither Dipper nor Ford had considered was the lack of restrictions on Bill’s ability to perform magic.

There were multiple reasons for this; for one, he wouldn’t be in his own body. All the spells Ford knew required an immense amount of energy, or candles and a circle or something, and there was no way Bill would be able to use that- and in fact, Ford had specifically denied him the opportunity to use hex circles.

Unfortunately, nobody but Bill had realized that he might be able to use his godlike powers while inhabiting Dipper’s body.

This had left Dipper in the uncomfortable scenario in which he was watching his possessed body plummet towards an angry mob of animate supermarket items that, (and this was only Dipper’s best guess) wanted him very, very dead.

Bill crashed into a shelf with all the grace of a senile elephant. The back-to-school banner fluttered down into the horde of formerly-inanimate objects as Bill clung to the shelves of pasta supplies; before Dipper’s eyes, the mob tore the banner to shreds, leaving nothing but vaguely multicolored debris across the aisle.

“You summoned a mob that’s going to get me killed-”

“Oh relax,” Bill said, throwing a jar of marinara at a teddy bear. “They’re just playing-”

The teddy bear that was “just playing” picked up one of the glass shards the jar had made and threw it with uncanny accuracy towards Dipper’s body’s eyes.

Bill ducked out of the way, laughing. “Oops- haha- just a lot of fun and games, aren’t we guys?! Just the tightest-knit group of pals if ever there was one-”

Dipper darted back into his body, forcing Bill out and into the mindscape- immediately, he was hit with a wave of weariness, his eyes starting to droop shut. Shaking, he hooked his fingers around the edge of the shelf and pulled himself up onto it, only to drop back down when another shard of glass made its way to his face. “You need to get rid of them-” he said, quietly, “now-” He felt his fingers slip from pure exhaustion. What had Bill been doing to his body that made him this tired- “You’re such a buzzkill,” Bill rolled his eye. “They’re not gonna cause any harm.”

“That one is literally throwing glass at my eyes-”

Dipper heard the shelf crack underneath him- he stared down at the floor but he was too tired to fully process what was going on until he had already fallen into the pile of murderous stuffed toys and jewelry. “I’m going to die,” he mumbled through a bloody lip as the sentient objects tossed him back and forth. “I’m going to die in an All-Mart because silly me, I thought that magic didn’t work like that-”

The next thing Dipper knew, Bill had overtaken his body again and was personally petting every box of crackers and coat hanger in the vicinity.

“They’re not gonna kill you,” he was saying. “They just despise your tiny, miserable, insignificant, and frankly ugly human form-”

“-thanks-”

“-and honestly I don’t blame them,” Bill continued. For all his claims of the mob intending no harm, they were slowly piling up on him and covering him from all sides, probably trying to find a more effective way to kill him than just throwing marinara shards at his face. “Your body may be hideous, but they know it’s still me. Look, this even says my name on it,” he said, reaching over to a magic eight-ball. Dipper, uncomfortable but still curious, slipped behind him to see. Floating inside was a little white triangle that read:

Cipher.

“They love me too much to kill my only vessel,” Bill said. “See, watch- Would you ever kill me?” He shook the eight-ball, rattling the message around and submerging the little triangle. Dipper and Bill both watched in somewhat awkward silence as the liquid stabilized and the next message floated up to the surface.

Outcome likely.

“...it’s gotta be making a mistake,” Bill explained. “There’s no way they’d ever actually-” He raised the ball closer to himself and stared into the opening, enunciating every word. “Do- you- want- to- kill- me?” He shook the eight-ball again. This time, a different triangle rose to the top of the liquid;

It is certain.

“Well that’s a little rude,” Bill said, as the swarm started to take him down.

Dipper had no choice- he dived back towards his body, slamming into it and knocking Bill back into the mindscape, taking over- and of course he was just as exhausted as he was before. The last thing he wanted written on his tombstone was “died to savage pack of children’s toys”, though, and that gave him the motivation he needed to rip the assorted items off of himself and take off at a sprint down the aisle, skidding around the corner.

The world was blurring around him; his legs were going numb and so was the rest of him. “What did you- even do-” he gasped, ducking into the clothing section and backing into a rack of clearance coats.

“No wonder these are clearance- look at the colors- hideous-” Bill clearly had his priorities in order.

Dipper retreated into the center of the clothes rack, pulling the coats tight so that- hopefully- nobody could see in. Now he just had to stay in his own body until he came up with a way to fix this, and then he could go back home and everything would be fine. As long as he and nobody else died, this would all be fine. Dying was seeming like a less and less likely option, though; Dipper could feel the fatigue catching up to him. He couldn’t focus on anything, he was light-headed- what he really wanted to do was take a nap, just lie down somewhere, anywhere, and sleep, he was so drained… just a few minutes, just to regain a little energy...

“Oh did you want me to fix this-?” Bill asked suddenly, turning to face him.

“No-”

It was too late; Dipper was already being thrown back into the mindscape. On the plus side, he was immediately fully awake. On the downside, Bill was not. He stood up and staggered a bit, gripping onto the rack to steady himself. “Let’s get this over with- I really donwanna die-” He was slurring his words. Clearly, whatever toll Dipper had felt didn’t apply just to him; it applied to everyone who was in his body.

“You’re only going to make it worse at this point-”

“I think I know- what I’m doing- kid-” Dipper watched as his body slowly toppled over and faceplanted onto the tiled All-Mart floor. That was another thing he had learned from his previous experience with Bill- there was a certain point when his body was so broken that it couldn’t host a demon. Bill was forced out of it, back into the mindscape, across from Dipper.

The two looked at each other for a minute. They were both the same distance away from Dipper’s body. They both thought they knew what they were doing. Actually, truth be told, Dipper didn’t have any idea what he was doing; he just trusted himself a whole lot more than he would ever have trusted Bill. Presumably Bill wanted to cause as much havoc as possible before dying.

Whatever the case, they both made a move to enter Dipper’s body at the exact same time. They collided just as they reached it.

Dipper had had fever dreams before, but nothing like this.

A massive coniferous forest stretched across the land, blue covering every inch of sky above it. About three feet in front of Dipper, though, the trees abruptly stopped to give way to a blackened, twisted nebula, devouring the sky and eating its way across the landscape. It almost looked like a hole in the fabric of reality, revealing a cosmic power beyond Dipper's comprehension- or at least it would have, if this hole in reality had managed to stick to a theme. Stars and comets and constellations glimmered from within it, but Dipper noticed some things that didn't quite fit. Pianos, crystal balls, theater chairs, icicles, a bowling ball, pyramids, shattered flowerpots, trumpets, cloaks, a severed unicorn horn, eight-balls, books, tap shoes- the strangest assortment of objects Dipper had ever seen, all of which had no business being in space.

As Dipper watched, the nebula ate away at the forest, sucking up a tree and destroying it- Dipper staggered backwards, his ears ringing. Another tree vanished and he felt a stabbing pain in his head- what was going on-? He forced himself to look up and scan the area, his vision shaky, trying to focus in on any point- there. A small yellow dot, hovering in front of the cloud- yellow. Yellow.

Dipper forced himself to run towards it- walls were appearing out of nowhere, forcing themselves up out of the ground, destroying anything in their path- he scrambled up a tree and shouted with more courage than he ever thought he would- “BILL-”

The next thing he knew he was being knocked out of the tree, falling- slamming into the grass just in time to see another wall erect itself, between the swirling pattern of galaxies and mismatched objects and the windswept pines- pines? Pine trees- he was surrounded by-

Dipper woke up on the cold, tiled floor of All-Mart. Mabel was crouching over him, shaking him, asking him if he was awake- the aisle was empty. Dipper numbly replied that he was fine, but in reality he had a pounding headache and a lot of questions for a certain triangle.