#where the expressions and positions are Drawn instead of described

[unexpectedbrickattack]

giggling kicking my feet twirling my hair at the way you draw and write (!!!) peppino. he is so......

-babygirl, thats why its so fun and easy 😊

[specsthesecond]

°❆⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❆⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❆⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❆⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°

The sunlight tries in vain to pierce through the cloud covered sky as you make your way under the canopy of conifer trees. Winter will only last a few more weeks but for now you must trudge through the hardened snow on the forest ground.

You clutch your new book close to your chest, peeking again to see if the piece of paper you slipped between the pages hasn't somehow fallen out despite your tight grip. You look up from your graphite stained fingers to the stone cottage in the middle of an increasingly familiar meadow. Drawing in a breath, you adjust the bow and quiver slung over your shoulder and clamber through the pasture, watching smoke rise from the old chimney.

This time, you don't panic when you reach the door, you knock before the nerves can even seep in. He opens the door for you, eyebrows scrunched in confusion just like the first time. He looks ready for the weather outside, snow boots, axe in hand, he's even wearing his big fur coat. He clearly had other plans today but he still looks pleasantly surprised by your presence and gestures you inside.

You shake your head lightly at him, feet stuck to the stone veranda. He looks more worried than confused now as he looks down at the book in your hands, you try and not let all the determination you just had flutter away. Hands shaking more than you'd like, you slip the piece of paper out of the book and hand it to him unceremoniously. You can't will yourself to watch his reaction, it's weak but you can't seem to look away from the floor.

A shame really, because if you were watching, you'd see his face grow pink in real time as he reads in your terribly scrawled Orcish -

"Hunt with me?"

He has to read it ten times before he can believe it's real. He looks down at you and then back to the poorly drawn Orcish characters, mouth agape. He turns to the shelf next to the door and gently places the piece of paper there before turning to you. You fiddle with the book in your hands, biting your chapped lip. He rests his hand on your shoulder making you look him in the eye, when you do you're taken back by the look he gives you. It's an expression you can't describe, appreciative doesn't cut it but you wouldn't dare say affectionate.

He nods his head firmly.

Now you both sit amongst the brush, target birds nest only a few meters away. Your Orc friend sits quietly, leaning on a stump next to you, waiting for you to make the shot.

Little movements in the nest have you tensing up and pulling the string back. You wait patiently for the birdie to peak its head over the weaved twigs of the nest but you wait too long and before you know it the bird's wings flutter for takeoff. You panic and shoot the arrow before the bird can fly away but the arrow shoots just a bit too high, piercing the tree trunk as the bird takes flight in a rush of feathers.

An agitated sigh leaves you and you turn towards where the Orc roars out laughter. He quickly tries to muffle his laugh when he sees your pointed, deadpan expression. You point towards where your arrow is stuck in the bark of the tree and hold out your bow for him. He goes to decline the offer but you fix him with a challenging glare that says "If it's so easy then why don't you do it?" You shove the weapon in his hands and hand him an arrow as well, then take a seat on the stump.

He breathes in and positions himself on his knees, just like you were. You sit back and watch him fumble with the bow, failing to notch the arrow against the string for a while before finally aiming the thing. He makes the bow looks so small, it's like a thin stick in his hands instead of a deadly weapon. He pulls the string back and you worry for a moment that it might snap before he lets go and the arrow whizzes through the air and into the canopy of pine needles, never to be seen again.

You burst out in laughter, slapping your knee with a hand on your chest. He huffs and hands you back your bow, grabbing his axe from the stump. He aims it carefully and chucks it into the tree. It lands exactly where your arrow landed, splintering it into pieces. You're shocked to silence for a moment before letting out an impressed "Huh". He seems very proud of himself, giving you a cheeky bow, making you click your tongue and shake your head as he walks off to pull his axe from the tree.

He slumps beside you on the frosty dirt as you hastily page through your book. It's a shame you don't see how he leans his head on his hand and stares at you, not even trying to hide the admiration. When you find the word you were looking for you slap his arm hard with the book, he flinches back playfully. You point to the word "owe" in the book and look at him sternly.

He looks back with a blank stare.

You point to him accusingly, point to the Orcish word for "owe" and then point to yourself before getting an arrow out of your quill, pointing towards it and putting up two fingers.

You think he gets it, if his bashful face says anything. He rubs the back of his neck with an apologetic look. He stands up, axe in hand and nods to you with a look of determination.

Now the sun is gone as you walk alongside him, on route to your home, belly full, carrying a basket of fresh bread. You tried telling him you were only teasing, but he insisted on taking you back home and making you a meal. You were never one to turn away a meal, especially if it was his cooking. Hours went by as you sat in his living room, comparing translations in each other's books and trying, mostly in vain, to write in the others language. You didn't even notice the sun setting until you had to light a candle to see the scribbled mix of Human Common and Orcish on the white papers scattered across the table.

He offered to walk home with you and you, once again, didn't put up much of a fight. Maybe it's just the moonlight or the after-taste of his food but you can't stop stealing glances at the orc as he walks alongside you. His dark eyes reflect the warm light of the lantern so beautifully. Little flakes of snow decorate his hair, they look like stars amongst the inky black mane. You can feel his body heat more than you can feel the heat of the lantern, he's always so warm and it makes it very frustrating to be close to him. He looks over and catches you staring, you quickly avert your gaze to the snowy ground, embarrassment bubbling up again.

You come to a break in the trees and all your thoughts are slapped away. You stare fear-stricken at the massive lake in front of you. A deep chill crawls over you as it always does when you see it now, you meant to avoid it entirely, just like you've been doing since the incident but you must have been more distracted than you thought.

Frost nips at your nerves as you stare at the deceptively thin ice covering the lake and remember the cold, dark depths just beneath. Remembering how difficult it was just to breathe after being plunged into those waters, like spikes of ice piercing your lungs with every breath. You clutch your chest as your breathing quickens, ghosts of pain nudging closer.

Your sight is cut off from the lake by a dark brown furcoat. You look up at the worried face of your friend, eyebrows scrunched and frown deep. His pretty eyes are now filled with concern and it only makes the pain in your chest worse. You turn away from him, you can't look him in the eyes like this. This has happened before, when you wake up in your bed cold and crying. At least then you're alone, now you're outside, in the dark, with who is essentially your closest friend watching you break down.

If he didn't think you were weak before, he definitely does now. You let out a choked sob as your legs crumble beneath you. The orc falls with you, he lightly holds you closer, hands just brushing your shoulders. He clearly doesn't know what to do or what the boundaries are for something like this, and neither do you really.

He's right there. You can feel how damn warm he is, you just want to give in, why won't you let yourself give in? His gloved hands gently urge you to look up at him and you struggle against it but when you eventually meet his gaze, his expression punctures right through the cold panic. You expected to see pity but what you get instead is plain tender worry. He looks ready to help but he's waiting for instruction, like he'll do anything you ask him to, even in your state.

You wipe your cold, wet cheeks and push your head into his chest hard, clutching his waist under his coat in the tightest squeeze you can manage. He squeezes you back and you finally get to feel his warmth surround you again, just like that first night. His body surrounds you, like he's trying to protect you from the cold night air itself. The hug is just tight enough that it encourages you to breathe slower, you can hear and feel his heart beating in his chest and you press your face even closer to his chest to hear it better.

Eventually, your breathing and heart beat evens out with his, only letting out the occasional hiccup. Even then, he doesn't loosen his protective hold until you shift to stand up. He helps you up and you meet his gaze, his dirt coloured eyes hold something you can't place. His hand shifts up from your arm to your cheek to warm the puffy skin. You don't think when you take his hand in yours and hold it against your cheek, even through the leather of his glove you can feel his body heat.

You close your eyes and savour his touch for a minute before turning around and pulling on his arm. You hold onto his hand for the rest of the walk home, only letting go when you reach your front door. You both try and decipher the others gaze for longer than you should've until you wrap your arms around his shoulders in another embrace. He reciprocates, hands winding around your back, breathing into your shoulder. You whisper, "Be safe" into his ear and retreat from the hug, missing his warmth the second it leaves you. If he knows what it means, he doesn't show it.

You watch him leave from the front door, basket of bread in hand. When he turns to give you a little wave goodbye, you return it with a smile. You only step inside when he's out of site, lamp light disappearing amongst the trees.

°❆⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❆⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❆⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°❆⋆.ೃ࿔*:･°

<- Previous

Next ->

[astro-b-o-y-d]

Triangulum - Chapter 8 - Pin The Fist On The Triangle

 — — — — — — —

“You sure you know where we’re goin’, Dip?”

“Positive.”

A twig snapped beneath Dipper’s shoes as he hopped onto a nearby log. “Granted, we only went to the bunker, like, once last year,” he explained, shielding his eye with one hand to get a proper look at his surroundings. “But I did read Ford’s journal cover-to-cover a few dozen times, so I at least know what the tree hiding the entrance looks like.”

He flashed Stan a grin. “Plus, you know—found the journal itself near the bunker. And I’m never going to forget that day as long as I live.”

“Heh, yeah, I’ll bet,” Stan added. “Still can’t believe you managed to keep that a secret from me for over half the summer.”

The hand above Dipper’s eyes was slapped flat against his forehead. “I know, right? And I can’t believe you managed to hide all the portal stuff even longer than that! Man, if we’d just…said something to each other sooner, maybe we could’ve gotten Ford back a lot quicker!”

“Preachin’ to the choir with that one, pal—huh, hang on, now I need t’ breathe—”

With a wheeze, Stan propped himself against the nearest tree with one arm. “Can’t help Ford and Mabel out if one of us drops dead from ‘no-air-in-lungs’ disease before we get there.”

Dipper looked down at him and folded his arms in amusement. “You know if Ford was here, he’d probably correct you with the phrase ‘oxygen deprivation’.”

A grin of his own tugged at the corners of Stan’s mouth. “And if Mabel were here, she’d point out how you sound like just as much of a giant nerd as he does for knowing that.”

The two of them shared a laugh, one that petered off into a gruff sigh on Stan’s end as he shifted to a position with his back against the tree. “So, uh—that little birdie from before didn’t really explain why the two of you crafted some kinda plan to run off and help Ford. Or why you were the one to stay behind at the party instead of your sister.”

He winked playfully at him. “No offense, kid, but you ain’t the first person in the family I’d turn to when it comes to bein’ a party expert.”

“None taken, it wasn’t the original plan,” Dipper explained. “I offered to go after Ford myself, but Mabel was pretty set on being the one to go help him. Said she wanted to spend more time with Ford this year. But—”

The rest of his sentence fell with both his expression and body as he hopped back down from the log, and Stan quirked an eyebrow. “But, huh? Feel like sharin’ those thoughts you’ve probably been twistin’ yourself into knots over all day?”

“More than all day,” Dipper admitted. “Mabel’s just been acting kind of off lately. Not even lately, actually—ever since we got home last year. Every time the topic of Weirdmageddon comes up, she just gets so—okay, I know it’s the most obvious way to describe it but weird.”

A shrug. “She didn’t want to talk about it with Mom or Dad, and I didn’t really want to either. They had a lot to deal with last year, and we kinda just…agreed to keep that one to ourselves—”

“Smart call.”

“—but she also just kinda goes out of her way to avoid talking about it at all,” Dipper continued. “Even with me. Which, you know, I get it. I don’t really like thinking about it or talking about it much either. But with her, it just feels…different, you know? Like there’s something I’m missing that’s so obvious, but at the same time, it could just be me overthinking things like I always do.”

He pressed his hands to his face with a drawn-out groan. “Ugh, I kinda hope it’s that second one. I mean, Mabel and I are supposed to be a team, right? I thought after last year, we’d be able to talk to each other about anything that was bothering us. If we can’t do that…”

His words trailed off once again as he cast Stan an uncertain look. “Sorry, you probably don’t want to hear about all this,” he said “You were going on and on about how much of a Pines man I’ve become, and here I am—still getting anxious over stuff that’s probably nothing.”

He let out a weak laugh as his gaze fell to his hands, while Stan kept his own locked on Dipper for a moment of quiet consideration. One that he was quick to break before he could get too lost in it with a light nudge to the boy’s arm. “Hey, come on—you’re just worried about your sister havin’ something that worries her, and thinkin’ she can’t share that worry with you,” he pointed out. “‘Cause when you’ve got a twin, you would think that one of your worries is both of your worries. And then when it’s not, you’re left with your own batch a’ worries about their worries, and whether or not you’re worthy of knowin’ about their worries in the first place—”

He circled a hand in the air. “And now I’m talkin’ in circles and ‘worry’ doesn’t even sound like a real word anymore. Point is, it’s practically a Pines family tradition at this point to get yourself tied up into thought-knots over your twin’s safety and wellbeing.”

Dipper cracked a small smile up at him, one that fell into a knowing look almost immediately after it had formed. “Is that what’s been happening with you and Ford?”

A grunt was Stan’s response, his actual reply going unsaid for a few seconds longer than he would’ve preferred. “We’re talkin’ about you and Mabel right now, aren’t we?”

“We are,” Dipper agreed. “But you did say that ‘no one else was stepping up to help Ford out’ before we headed out here. Is that why you were spending all day on the boat? You wanted to find a way to help Ford?”

“I said we’re talkin’ about you,” Stan insisted, before pressing a hand to his own forehead and peering through a cluster of nearby trees. “So, either keep yappin’ about how worried you are over your sister or go back to pointin’ me in the direction of the bunker.”

BANG!

A loud gunshot echoed through the surrounding wood, snapping their attention towards the direction of the sound. “Huh, I think Ford might’ve just picked an option for me,” Dipper said.

“That, or some random hunter who’s late to the Shack party,” Stan added. “Either way, a gunshot usually means the opposite of anything good.” 

He pressed a hand to his chin. “Unless you fired it yourself, but even then it’s only good if you succeed in takin’ out whatever you were firin’ at in the first place. If it was dangerous enough to fire a gun at to begin with, you don’t wanna go and mess that up. Consider that some kinda life lesson or whatever.”

“Considered,” Dipper said. “But if it was Ford who fired the gun, that could mean something went wrong in the bunker. Him and Mabel might need our help!”

BANG!

Another shot being fired enveloped the area, and Dipper sped off through the underbrush in a hurry. “Wait, Dip—hold on a sec,” Stan called as he quickly followed after him. “Probably a bad idea to go running after the sound of a gun in the middle of the woods at—”

His warning was cut off as he stepped through a pair of bushes, only to immediately lose sight of Dipper between the dark trees. “ —night.”

He let out another sigh—one that finished just before a third shot was fired, and he took off running again with the faintest, stupidest hope that it really was just a random hunter with a complex for being fashionably late to parties. Those probably existed somewhere, right?

…Even in a town with as much weirdness as Gravity Falls, Stan still wasn’t sure how much of that he could actually buy.

 — — — — — —

“Stop running, Bill! You know we’re faster than you!”

Bill peered out from behind the tree he had ducked behind for protection, one hand resting against the trunk while he cupped the other around his mouth: “Question for you, Shooting Star: do you really think that asking politely is gonna make me obey?”

From where her and Ford stood a short distance away, Mabel stomped her foot with a huff. “Well, I’ll never know unless I try!” 

Ford remained silent during their banter, gun raised once again as he took aim at Bill. He had already fired several shots, all of which had been targeted at a non-lethal part of Bill’s body; legs, arms, even maybe a shoulder. 

Unfortunately for Ford, the number of bullets that landed a hit had been a big, fat, goose-egg of a zero. But now the chance to once again lodge a bullet into Bill’s skull had presented itself to him. A clear and easy shot if he moved quick enough.

Yet here he was—a hesitant finger trembling half an inch above the trigger.

He still hadn’t quite processed what had happened down in the bunker. One second Bill’s lifeless body had been sprawled out across the control panel, and the next he was barreling out the door towards the exit like he had never been shot in the first place—the only evidence to the contrary being the slowly-drying blood that still decorated the control panel.

All of which had taken place outside Mabel’s line of sight, an option that was no longer available due to the jabs and jeers from his right side.

He dared to pull his attention from Bill for a moment to watch her out of the corner of his eye. How did she feel, as she countered Bill’s retorts with her own? Had she concluded that any attempt to kill Bill had merely resulted in failure, and simply not dwelled further on that train of thought? Did she still harbor a grudge towards Ford over a mere attempt—successful or otherwise—to kill someone who so strongly resembled her brother?

“Grunkle Ford, shoot him!”

…Well, clearly the evidence presented to him suggested otherwise.

But despite Mabel’s insistence, Ford’s gun remained unfired. Even if Mabel herself truly held no negative feelings towards the ordeal, there was still plenty of other things to worry about when it came to the option of shooting Bill again.

What exactly did it mean if Bill was able to survive a gunshot to the head? Ford had originally assumed that Bill had been goading him into firing a shot as a means of escaping his vessel, but he had popped back to normal while still inside said vessel. Had a mad dash for freedom while his captor was too stunned to react properly been his real real plan all along?

His gaze returned to Bill. And what did that mean? That Bill simply couldn’t be killed at all, and he wanted Ford to be aware of that fact? Had that been his actual plan? What did it mean if—

“Grunkle Ford, he’s getting away!”

A tug on his sleeve and another outcry from Mabel finally snapped him from his thoughts entirely, just as Bill finally ducked out of sight and took off running again. Biting back a curse, he gestured for Mabel to follow as the two hurried after him—Bill’s devilish laughter trailing behind him and encircling them like snares around the necks of unsuspecting rabbits—

“ACK!”

—only to be completely cut off by a yelp of surprise and the sound of something tumbling to the ground just beyond a set of bushes. As Ford and Mabel finally drew closer and stepped through, they were greeted by the sight of Bill on his knees in the middle of a clearing—hands slapped to his forehead as if he’d collided hard with something at full speed.

And as their gazes travelled further over to the right, they were quick to realize that had been the exact scenario to unfold as someone else came stumbling out of a patch of nearby shrubbery.

“Dipper?”

Sure enough, Dipper now stood before them in the middle of the clearing—clothing a stained mess of dirt and mud and a hand pressed to his own forehead with a pained: “Ugh, did I just run into a wall?”

“Hey, you’re the one who ran into me,” Bill griped. “Seriously, Pine Tree, where’s the fire? What, did you mistake me for another redhead you never had a snowball’s chance of getting with in the first place?”

“Hey, I—”

Rather than acknowledge him, Dipper’s hand trailed all the way up to his hair and patted the top for a moment. “Aw, man, he knocked off my hat,” he muttered in annoyance before his gaze fell to his clothes. “And got dirt on my—ugh, come on, I just washed everything too! How is there this much mud out here, I’m pretty sure it hasn’t rained in a while…”

While he attempted to brush some of the dirt from his clothing, Mabel bounded quickly over to her brother’s side. “What’re you doing out here?”

“Could ask you the same thing,” he pointed out, directing an especially-perturbed scowl at one of the stains on his shirt. “Weren’t you supposed to be down in the bunker?”

“Ugh, tell that to him.”

Mabel followed up her reply with a scowl in Bill’s direction, one he reciprocated before pulling himself back to his feet. “Yeah, well, wouldn’t want to intrude on this touching family reunion, so if you don’t mind—hey, HEY!”

Before he could make a move to start running again, a strong hand grasped the back of his jacket and hoisted him up off the ground with a sharp yank—seconds before something cold and metal was pressed against his cheek.

Well, guess someone did mind after all.

Despite being quite literally caught off guard, however, Bill eyed the end of Ford’s gun with an unimpressed look. Now that he knew about Tangy’s rule of not being able to truly die until the game was over, any threats on Ford’s end were about as threatening as—

—well, honestly as threatening as they would’ve been back in his original form. What’s the worst that Ford could do now, put another bullet in his head?

Just for good measure, Bill cast a sidelong glance at his left wrist for a quick look at his speck. Most of it was hidden by his sleeve, but he could still make out the topmost—bottommost? It didn’t mattermost.—points just barely peeking out from beneath his cuff. Just enough that would be easily missed by anyone who wasn’t looking for it, but still noticeable for those who knew it was there.

He risked letting his gaze linger on it for a millisecond longer before his pupil shifted back to Ford. If he had had no way of knowing about Tangy’s little respawn trick until it mattered, then there was even less of a chance that Ford knew how it worked. Poor Fordsy’s mind had to be racing with possibilities about how he popped back to life down in the bunker—likely with no clear answers about how it happened and a million theories branching off in just as many directions. 

The corners of his mouth twitched with devious intent. Well, when the driver already had little control over the wheel, the best thing to do was to grab it with both hands and veer him so off-course that he went carreaning over the side of a cliff!

And sure, Bill might’ve no longer had access to the car dubbed Ford’s Mind, but he still had ways to tamper with the breaks. “So how’re we gonna do this, Sixer? You feel like trying to shoot me again?”

The gun clicked as Ford turned off the safety. “Stop talking.”

“Make me stop talking, then,” Bill goaded further.

From where her and Dipper stood, Mabel’s scowl lowered further for a moment before she turned to her brother with a brighter expression. “You said you lost your hat?”

“Yeah, might’ve landed in the bushes somewhere,” Dipper said, and started fumbling through the leaves. “He ran into me pretty hard—oh, wait, there it is—”

“I think I heard ‘em over here!”

As he rose to his feet with the hat clutched tightly in hand, the sound of footsteps approaching caused both children to take a few steps back—just in time for Stan to step out into the clearing. And upon seeing the group, he called behind him with a: “Yep, they’re h—”

A pause, before he looked back at them with several blinks of confusion. “Hang on a sec.”

“What’s wrong?” a voice called behind him, seconds before another person stepped out into the clearing to reveal—

“Wh—Dipper?”

Sure enough, a second Dipper now stood at Stan’s side, giving his sister a wave as he slowed to a stop. “Hey, Mabel, what’s—”

And suddenly his words were interrupted as well as he also took in the sight before him. “—happening?”

The entire group was silent, befuddled gazes shifting from one Dipper to the other. Even Bill couldn’t help but glance between them with a raised eyebrow of his own. “Well, this night’s just full of surprises, isn’t it?”

“You stay out of this!” Mabel chided him, before giving the identical boys another unsure look. “But…yeah, this is pretty weird.”

“Okay, so what’s goin’ on here?” Stan asked, pointing a finger at the Dipper next to him. “We got one—” He moved the finger to the Dipper who had originally crashed into Bill. “—two—”

And finally, to Bill himself. “Somethin’ ain’t right here. This one of your tricks, pal?”

“First of all, Goldfish, why would I tell you if it was?” Bill asked. “Second of all, what would making two Pine Trees accomplish for me personally?” 

He flashed his teeth at the rest of the group. “Heck, it’s bad enough that one of ‘em exists already! Personally I think not bringing another one into the world is just me doing the rest of you a favor!” 

He let out a cackle. “Meanwhile the faker’s just performing a microaggression against everyone else’s peace of mind! Haha!”

“Ugh, do you seriously have to lay it on that thick?” The Dipper from Stan’s side piped up in annoyance, before pressing a hand to his forehead. “Nope, no—not focusing on you right now. First we’ve gotta figure out why there’s currently two of me standing here.”

“Who cares why there’s two of me?” The other Dipper added. “I think the actual thing we need to be focusing on is which one’s the real one—”

He looked over at Ford. “Or, you know—getting rid of him, like I’m guessing you were trying to do until now? I just came out here to help you find a solution.”

“Hey, that’s why I came out here, too!” The Dipper beside Stan added, narrowing his eyebrows at the doppelganger. “And I’ve even got Grunkle Stan to back me up for that first thing! We’ve been together the entire time!”

“Darn right we have,” Stan agreed loyally, pointing a finger towards the other. “If anyone here’s some kinda fakey-fakerson, it’s that one!”

“Thank you,” the Dipper beside him said appreciatively.

“...Sure, there were a few seconds where the two of us got separated in the woods, but other than that, the kid hasn’t left my side once!”

The same Dipper cast a flat look up at him in annoyance. “Really?”

“Well, I’m not a fake!” the other Dipper insisted. “Ask Mabel, she’ll back me up! Right, Mabel?”

He cast a hopeful glance to his sister, only to be met with a lukewarm, so-so hand gesture in response. “I meaaaaan, we did just run into you a few seconds ago,” she pointed out. “I want to trust you’re the real Dipper, but you do have a weird trend of ending up with clones that look exactly like you.”

“That’s what being a clone means!” The Dipper beside her insisted. “Of course we’re going to look alike!”

“I don’t want to agree with him,” the other Dipper added. “But he does raise a good point, Mabel. It wouldn’t be a clone if it didn’t look exactly like me.”

“Alright, alright, everyone just calm down for a sec,” Stan ordered, turning his gaze to his brother. “Ford, any input on this whole Seein’ Double ordeal?”

Bill felt the tip of the gun withdraw from his cheek the slightest amount, and he once again cast a glance up at its owner. Ford had remained silent throughout the whole doppelganger reveal, and his expression was studious as he looked between the two of them.

Despite the concentration he put up for the rest of the group, Bill could feel the hand on the back of his jacket trembling just the faintest amount. A fact that once again returned the smile to his own face.

Perhaps Ford was genuinely trying to figure out the correct answer to the issue at hand. Or perhaps the sudden reveal of yet another Pine Tree was only scrambling his brain matter even further than it already was, leaving him open for further scrambling until his thoughts were completely servable with a side of mind bacon and a glass of mind orange juice.

And boy howdy, did Bill need himself a good plate of mind breakfast! The middle of the night was the best time for it, after all! 

Yeesh, first a mind car, then a mind breakfast? He was going all over the place with his metaphors. Point was, some higher power was being overly generous with all the opportunities they were granting him to mess with Ford’s head. And with the entire family—plus one—as witnesses, maybe revisiting the events of the bunker would succeed in agitating him further.

Worst case scenario, he got another bullet in his head for a few minutes. But in turn, the rest of the family got some trauma outta the ordeal and he had another opportunity to escape while they were too shocked to react.

“Sounds to me like there’s some pretty damning evidence on both Pine Trees’ sides,” he said aloud with a grin. “Perhaps a classic case of ‘shoot them both in the foot and see which one of ‘em cries harder’ is in order.”

“Absolutely not,” one Dipper replied sharply.

“Not in a million years,” the other added in agreement.

“I’m just saying, it’d probably be an effective method in finding the fake Pine Tree,” Bill pointed out, with a wink up at Ford. “Unless Ford would rather just give them both the same treatment he gave me down in the bunker instead.”

The gun was pressed against his cheek again in an instant. “Stop. Talking.”

He felt the hand on the back of his shirt tense, curling his smile further. “What, Fordsy, not up for a repeat performance now that you have an audience to see what you did?”

His grin widened as the rest of the group’s attention immediately shifted from the dopplegangers to Ford with varying levels of confusion. “Grunkle Ford, what’s he talking about?” one of the Dippers asked.

“Yes, whatever is he talking about~?” Bill asked, batting his eyelashes up at his captor. “Feel like sharing with the rest of the class? Or, I guess, showing the rest of the class? You were sooooo quick to do it when it was just the two of us down there, weren’t you?”

He continued to stare up at Ford with a smug expression, far too pleased by the malice in his own features as he pressed the trip of the gun further into his cheek. Oh, such malice might intimidate a lesser being into behaving properly—but for Bill, it only further confirmed what he’d known since the second he’d regained consciousness the day before.

Ford was terrified. Terrified and confused and desperate to keep control of the situation. And with the new information he’d learned down in the bunker, the cracks in his armor were becoming clearer and clearer—

“Who cares what happened down there?” Stan piped up. “Like we’re gonna listen to anything that’s coming outta that twisted mouth’a yours.”

“Yeah!” Mabel chimed in. “And anyway, why would we even think about shooting either of the Dippers! That’s the dumbest idea ever from the dumbiest, dum-dum ever!”

Momentarily caught off-guard by the interruptions, Bill cast them both a nasty look. One that only fell further when the grip on the back of his jacket relaxed again. Spoilsports. “Well, I don’t hear the rest of you coming up with any solutions.”

“You know, I might have a solution that doesn’t involve listening to him,” the Dipper beside Mabel spoke up. “In fact, that’s why I came out here in the first place. Well, sort of, I was already looking up a way to help you out with him—” A gesture towards Bill. “—but then I spotted something else in the journals that we could probably use to solve this issue, too.”

With a grin, he reached for Mabel’s hand and gave it a tug to pull her along. “So all we have to do is go back to the Shack…and—”

When the hand-pulling ceased to be effective, he looked back to see her giving him a confused stare. “Woah, woah, pop the breaks for a sec, Bro-Bro,” she said, pulling her hand away. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

“What do you mean what am I talking about?” Dipper asked. “I’m talking about the journals. You know, the ones full of all the weird and wacky creatures and magic stuff? The ones that he wrote?”

He gestured over to Ford for support, only to be met with a look of suspicion in response—all while the smile on Bill’s face returned in full force. “Well? Isn’t anyone going to answer him?”

The Dipper blinked in disbelief, the grip on his hat tightening as he looked over to where Stan and the other Dipper stood. “Come on, back me up here—”

In response, Stan moved to place a protective hand in front of his Dipper. “Think you might’ve just given us the answer we were lookin’ for, pal.”

“What are you TALKING about?” the other Dipper asked, tone rising in anger. “Is this some kind of elaborate joke, or do none of you seriously remember the journals?!”

“Oh, they remember,” Bill chimed in with a smirk as he glanced at his nails. “It’s just that they’re no longer an option for any sort of help.”

The smile twitched wider—revealing most of his teeth—as he pressed the hand to his chest. “Since yours truly set them all on fire last year~! Hahaha!”

“And when they did return to normal,” Mabel added with a suspicious glare at the other Dipper. “Grunkle Ford tossed them down into the Bottomless Pit!”

“They did what?! He did what?!”

Bill’s smile vanished in an instant as his gaze whipped back to Ford. “You did what?! Yeesh, Sixer, way to break your toys so no one else could use ‘em.”

“The point being made here,” Stan spoke up. “Is that the real Dipper would’ve known that by now.”

“And he does!” the Dipper near him chimed in. “He very much does!”

“Yeah, so give it up, you faker!”

Fists raised, Mabel took a step back towards the rest of her family as they all stared at the newly-dubbed fake Dipper with suspicious realization. The fake Dipper who was twisting the hat in his hand with a vice-like grip and blinking an unusually rapid rate.

But rather than blink the usual way, his eyelids appeared to open and close sideways, similar to some kind of reptile or insect.

In fact, a lot of the faux-Dipper’s mannerisms had grown a lot more insect-like now that he was under suspicion. His arms and legs twitched with jerky spasms, ones that grew too sporadic for him to keep hold of the hat, and it tumbled to the forest floor. 

And not even the dirt and grime that had stained it in the earlier collision could mask the familiar pine tree symbol on the front of the hat. 

A telltale sign that the group had correctly identified the imposter. 

An imposter who’s body suddenly began to morph and shift into a large bug creature—its tendrils waving about widely as it let out a violent, animalistic roar that shook the forest around the Pines. “What the heck is that?!” Stan asked, hands slapped to his ears.

“Shapeshifter.”

Ford’s gun had moved from Bill to the massive being without a second thought, as it slammed one of its front appendage to the forest ground with a menacing thud. “Well, if this isn’t a pleasant reunion,” he spat at them with clear disdain, gaze landing on the adults. “Old Six-Fingers returns after thirty years—”

A quick morph and he now resembled Ford.

“—and a second, just like him!”

Another, this time with Stanley’s appearance as the end result.

“And who could forget the kids~?”

Dipper, then Mabel—before he turned his gaze on Bill, still clutched tightly in Ford’s hand. “And the detested one with the big mouth, of course! Ooh, this one’s new.”

A final morph and the group found themselves face-to-face with a short, blonde boy. Despite every instinct telling him to kick Ford in the ribs and book it while he was distracted, Bill found himself momentarily stunned as he continued to stare as the shapeshifted being before him. 

By process of elimination, he was now staring down at the spitting image of his vessel’s appearance.

As initially speculated, the resemblances to Dipper were clear as day—with the hair color and eyes being the main differing factor. But outside of that, it was like he had jumped back about a year—poking and prodding at his new flesh-puppet’s face while he stared into the mirror of the Mystery Shack’s attic while the kid’s spirit watched on in horror.

Overall, highly unimpressive and disappointing. Just the face and body of some twelve-year-old brat.

A final morph and the shapeshifter transformed into a horrific conglomeration of all five of them, one that proceeded to launch itself at Ford for an attack. Unprepared, Ford stumbled back as he raised his gun to fire off a defensive shot to the shoulder—

—only to release his grip on Bill’s jacket in the process, sending him tumbling to the ground.

Despite his appreciation for the incomprehensible horror before him, Bill knew a distraction to take advantage of when he saw it, and that it was definitely time to book it outta there! Which is exactly what he did; scrambling to his feet and taking off like a shot into the woods. An escape attempt that went unmissed by Mabel, who had quickly moved off to the side of the fight with the rest of her family. “Bill’s getting away!”

“Not for long,” Stan said. “You kids go after ‘em, I’ll stay here and help Ford with this oversized caterpillar!”

Despite the attack, Ford managed to get a few bullets on Shifty, causing him to retreat backwards for a moment. “What—no, nobody go after Bill!” he ordered, moments before Shifty leapt at him again. “I’ve just got to—”

Seconds before Shifty could make contact, Stan’s fist collided with the side of his face and sent him crashing against the nearest tree. “Go after Bill!” he repeated to the kids. “I doubt I need to tell you not to let him get away!”

“Stanley, I just said—”

“Yeah, and I said what I said!” Stanley countered. “You’ve got the gun, and that’s gonna be needed to take this bastard down. I stay to help you here, and the kids get Bill.”

“We’re on it, Grunkle Stan,” Dipper said, with a gesture to his sister to follow. “Come on, they can handle the shapeshifter on their own!”

“Right!” Mabel agreed. “Don’t worry, Grunkle Ford, we’ll get Bill!”

Before Ford could protest further, the younger twins took off running in the same direction as Bill, leaving the adults to grapple with a furious shapeshifter. One who was quickly shifting between several different forms in an attempt to gain the upper hand.

Eventually he settled on the form of a vicious mole-creature before launching his entire body at Stan, earning himself a brass-knuckled punch to the jaw. “Come on, Ford,” Stan said, fists still clenched as he jumped back in time to avoid a swipe from the being’s claws. “I know I ain’t exactly the best at puttin' that three-sided jerk under by twice as many feet, but you can’t tell me you don’t at least trust the kids to get the job done right.”

Despite Ford’s attention being mostly fixed on unloading a round of shots into Shifty’s body, he managed to cast Stan a look of genuine confusion. “Stanley, what are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talkin’ about!” Stan protested, taking a fighting stance as Shifty decided to crawl up a nearby tree for an aerial advantage. “That’s why you didn’t want me helpin’ you out today, right? Because you think I’m gonna screw it up like I did last time—”

Stan was cut off as Shifty lunged for him in the form of some giant, wolflike creature, and the two of them disappeared into the dark underbrush of the forest.

“Stanley!”

Ford was hurrying after them without a thought; darting his gaze around for even the tiniest sign of movement against the darkened woods.

Any sign at all—any sign that Stanley was okay—

And suddenly he popped into view again, clearly in some kind of physical battle against whatever was on the other side of the tree that obscured Ford’s line of sight, until it finally ventured out into view to reveal—

—another Stanley.

Oh, no.

— — — — — — —

Despite his exhaustion from once again having to run with legs clearly not built for the task, the temptation to direct mockery at the footsteps behind him was simply too tantalizing for Bill to resist.

And if the sound of footsteps wasn’t enough, a quick look over his shoulder that confirmed Dipper was hot on his trail only set him further in his decision. “What’s wrong, Pine Tree~?” he called with delight. “Can’t run with those short little leg—ACK!”

His smack talk and removal of attention from the path ahead proved to be immediately karmatic—for it was only a second later that his foot snagged on a tree root and he was sent tumbling forward to the ground. 

And as he attempted to pull himself to his feet again, a sudden kick to the ribs—one accompanied by a yelp that trailed beyond him and onwards ahead—brought him back down in an instant, face bouncing hard off a nearby boulder.

Despite the pain quickly spreading through his ribcage and lip, Bill forced himself back to his feet just in time to see Dipper slow to a stop just a short distance ahead of him—fists raised as he took on a defensive stance. “Apparently my short legs can still run better than yours.”

At a glance, his pose and smart comeback might’ve implied a sense of control. But the slight wobbling in his legs, uneven footsteps in the dirt, and earlier yelp implied that the kick he had delivered to Bill’s side might’ve been more accidental as opposed to deliberate.

Heh, Pine Tree had absolutely tripped over him when he’d fallen and was trying to play it off like he had the upper hand in this situation. How precious.

The taste of metal brought a hand to Bill’s mouth, crimson staining his pale skin as he scrubbed away the blood. Looks like even with Birdbrain’s little respawn abilities, his body could still bleed.

Even with that kind of power, there were still weaknesses to be found.

His grin returned as he wiped his hand clean on his pant leg. No matter how tough Pine Tree tried to pretend he was now, he was still the weak, pathetic, anxiety-riddled twerp he had always been. All Bill had to do was find the right ways to make him bleed.

Another thoughtful glance down at his hand as the grin twitched with malice. Well, if it had worked on Ford—

“You think you’re soooo tough, don’tcha, Pine Tree?” he jeered. “But now you’re stuck out in the middle of the woods with me~! And you can act as tough as you want, but I know how terrified you really are of me.”

He winked at Dipper with wicked delight. “And I think we both know why, don’t we?” 

Despite his attempt to keep his stance firm, even Dipper couldn’t hide the way his shoulders tensed at that question. A motion that brightened both smile and wickedness further as Bill cupped his chin in one hand. “Nostalgic, isn’t it? Staring directly into your own face and body while someone else is at the wheel?”

Ooh, if that didn’t completely wipe the mask away from Dipper’s expression and display his fear in full force! “Y-you don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Oh, come on, kid, I think we both know I do,” Bill taunted, pressing a finger to his cheek. “What, you really thought I didn’t know what was happening here? Thought I just picked this body without knowing full well what I looked like—”

THUNK.

Bill’s mockery was swiftly cut off by something hard smacking firmly against his forehead, and he slapped a hand to the spot with an offended look. “Did you just throw something at me?!”

From where he stood, Dipper tossed another rock up and down in his hand with a proud grin. “Huh, guess even a nightmare demon’s not immune to monologuing long enough for someone to chuck a rock at his head.”

With a furious shout, Bill launched himself at Dipper to try and knock him down. An attempt that seemed to work, with Dipper collapsing to the ground beneath their combined weight and the rock he’d been juggling rolling just out of reach.

With the weight of his body keeping Dipper pinned, Bill quickly fumbled at the nearby ground for his own rock and raised it over Dipper’s head with a manic little giggle. Heh, looks like he’d get a chance to spill some blood outside of his own tonight~!

And just so Pine Tree knew his intent—“Well if I’m not immune to getting my pasty human brains splattered everywhere, then I know for a fact that you’re not immune to it either!”

He reared his arm back to give himself more force, but the attempted impact was thwarted by Dipper’s hand gripping his wrist in defense. Tightly and successfully gripping his wrist, for Dipper apparently possessed enough strength to keep Bill’s arm locked in place. 

Weird, Bill could so clearly remember Pine Tree’s body being too weak to race around a stage for more than a few minutes last year. Where the heck was all this new muscle coming from? “I mean, it’s not my go-to method for getting rid of you,” he continued, voice strained as he fought against Dipper’s grasp. “Would’ve preferred a more creative approach, like flinging you off the nearest water tower—”

“Get off of me!” Dipper protested with an attempt to wriggle himself free.

“But hey, when in Rome: bash a kid’s skull in with the nearest heavy object!”

Despite Dipper’s admittedly-successful attempts to keep him at bay, Bill fought just as hard in return to overpower him. To overpower him, to bring the rock clutched so tightly in his hand that his palm was beginning to hurt down on his stupid, pathetic face, to force him to stare directly into his own twisted reflection as it delivered painful blow after painful blow, until the light slowly but inevitably faded from his eyes for good—

“Hey, Bill!”

Before Bill had time to process another voice behind him, a ropelike object was thrown over his head and pulled taut around his throat—his focus snapping away from Dipper long enough for the other boy to knock him off and send the rock scattering out of his reach.

Luckily for Bill, his assailant released the grip on whatever they had used to try and strangle him once Dipper had tossed him aside. And he was quick to his hands and knees again, one pressed against his throat as he cast an irritated look towards whoever had thwarted his little murder attempt. Although he had a pretty good idea of who the culprit was, even before his functioning eye landed on her ridiculous popcorn sweater.

Sure enough, Mabel now stood several feet away from them, a braided rope of streamers in one hand and a fierce expression on her face. “I’ve got something I’ve wanted to say to you all day—”

“Did you seriously just try to choke me out?” Bill asked, rubbing the sore spot with a wince. “Yeesh, Shooting Star, I gotta stop underestimating your bloodlust.”

“Wh—” Mabel started, confident demeanor faltering for a second. “I mean, yes, I did, but—”

“Guess I’ve also gotta stop underestimating your creativity, too,” Bill continued. “I mean, choking a guy out with streamers? Not a bad play, I’ve gotta admit. A lot more creative than Pine Tree just throwing a rock at me.”

“Hey, I’m trying to say something here!” Mabel said, stomping her foot with an indignant pout.

“Yeah, well, I was trying to bash your brother’s head in with a rock,” Bill pointed out in return. “So I guess none of us are getting what we want, are we?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

Before Bill had time to respond, a pair of arms had wrapped themselves around his legs and yanked backwards, bringing him back down to the forest floor with a hard thud. “I think I’m getting what I want pretty easily!”

While Dipper let out a delighted laugh at his success, Mabel hurried to join them with a proud fist in the air. “Nice one, Bro-Bro!” she cheered. “Can’t believe that actually worked with him, too!”

“Haha, I know, right?!” Dipper agreed excitedly, the lower half of Bill’s legs still clutched tightly in his embrace. “Sorry to interrupt what you were trying to do there—I saw what it was, I just couldn’t resist.”

“No, no, you’re fine,” Mabel insisted. “I wasn’t entirely sure if it was the right time or not anyway, so not a huge deal.”

She scowled down at Bill. “Plus he interrupted me first, so the moment was ruined anyway!”

From the ground—face once again smushed into the messy soil—Bill was seething. At this rate, he was going to have to slot ‘being knocked to the ground and forced to consume a mouthful of dirt’ near the top of the list of the most annoying things he’d been forced to endure across the past day. Maybe right above ‘falling to the ground while tied to a chair’ and just beneath ‘people giving him headaches, under several definitions of the word’, given Dipper’s stupid little rock stunt.

As he moved to press a hand to his forehead again in bitter pain, his eye landed on the speck still barely peeking out from beneath his sleeve—the thought to ask Tangy for help bubbling to the front of his mind. 

No, he knew the answer to that before he even considered it further. Even without their little cooldown remark in mind, Bill was beginning to question just how resourceful they actually were when it came to helping him out. Sure, he’d had more than his fair share of moments where he unfortunately had to give them credit for thinking ahead, but there were just as many moments where they had conveniently forgotten to tell him something important about their little game.

As for the game itself, Bill was also beginning to question if Birdbrain’s special prize truly was worth all this trouble. Was the destruction of the town barrier really worth racing around in some fleshy little bone suit, being constantly hunted down by Ford and his stupid family? Was it really worth all the secrets on Birdbrain’s end, all the rules they conveniently forgot to tell him ahead of time?

Yeesh, at this rate he was better off finding a way to just torture the information out of Ford again. Sure, that’d be more difficult the second time around, but at least he wouldn’t be caught up in some wild goose chase. 

Yes, he’d already used that bird pun before, but it was also the most accurate one for his situation! Not only was he practically being chased from one side of the valley to another by Ford’s stupid family, but he was so busy trying to escape from his stupid captors in general that he had no idea where to start looking for any pieces of Tangy’s stupid charm—

A cawing sound overhead pulled Bill’s gaze upwards, and he narrowed his eyes at a crow that had settled in the tree above him and the kids. Great, just what he needed—another annoying bird.

His irritation earned him another caw before the crow shifted to preen itself, the shifting of its wings revealing something shiny and golden clutched in one of its talons.

Bill’s eyes widened, all previous gripes about the game momentarily forgotten as he squinted closer to try and get a better look. Could that really be the first piece of Birdbrain’s stupid puzzle? It was a longshot for sure; for all he knew, the crow had just snatched some random person’s jewelry. Completely-unrelated-to-the-other-annoying-bird’s-game jewelry.

“—should probably tie him up, huh? Think those streamers of yours will work as a rope?”

“Psh, you know they will! Remember what I told you earlier about using them to scale a tree?”

“Oh, yeah, you did do that, didn’t you? Speaking of which, actually—why didn’t you just use your grappling hook?”

“I haven’t unpacked it yet, and the streamer thing was way cooler anyway!”

Shoot, the brats were starting to wrap up their conversation. Heck with it—even if it wasn’t a part of Tangy’s charm, Bill wasn’t going to be able to find any actual pieces if he ended up restrained again. He needed to get away from them as quickly as possible.

Before Mabel could approach him with her streamers in hand, Bill reared back his left leg and kicked as hard as he could—his efforts rewarding him with a painful yelp on Dipper’s end and the grip around his legs being released. Taking quick advantage of his freedom, he scrambled back to his feet and dashed off once again.

Rather than immediately follow after him, Mabel was at Dipper’s side in an instant to examine his face. “Dipper, are you okay?”

“Fine, fine,” he insisted, pressing a hand to his sore nose. “Nothing broken, just surprised me more than anything. …Honestly, I think Waddles might’ve had more of a powerful kick than he does.”

A pause. “Not sure what that says about my kicking abilities from last year, though…”

“Let’s keep chasing after him, then,” Mabel said, gripping her streamers tight. “I’m gonna call that triangle a dumbass to his face at the right possible time if it kills me!”

Before Dipper could reply, she took off like a shot into the night—leaving her brother standing alone in the darkness. And with a sigh and shrug, he hurried after her with a: “At least stay close enough to where you can hear me, we already had to deal with one shapeshifting fake-out tonight!”

“Who’s fault is that?” she called back to him.

“...Not mine? I wasn’t even there when he got out!”

— — — — — — —

“Ford, shoot him!”

“I refuse to partake in this nerdy clone trope, just shoot both of us if you’ve really gotta do it!”

The hand around Ford’s gun trembled as he watched the two Stans before him struggle to gain the upper hand over each other. After spending several years raising a shapeshifter and watching him transform into other beings during his research, one would’ve thought that he had picked up the ability to tell Shifty apart from the original being he was imitating.

And yet, here he was. Forced once again to aim a gun at his own brother, while he struggled desperately to distinguish him from an imposter.

“After all, you are the expert in destroying those who are just trying to help you, aren’t you~?”

His grip on the gun tightened as Bill’s earlier words from the bunker flooded his thoughts. He shouldn’t have let Bill get under his skin, shouldn’t have let his temper flare up to the point where he made such an amateur mistake as not double-checking the storage room before he left. He should’ve stayed behind and make sure Shifty and the others that had been locked in the cryogenic chambers were taken care of first and foremost—

“Come on, Sixer! Just—take a page outta the triangle's book and shoot us in the foot or whatever! I can walk it off, you know that!”

“He does not know that! What he does know is that I ain’t as young as I used to be, and there’s no way I’m getting anything done with a busted-up foot!”

“Watch it, pal, I ain’t that outta shape—ack, was that cracking sound your back or mine?”

“Think it mighta been both of them, actually.”

The sound of the Stans’ protests snapped Ford out of his thoughts. “I’m not—I don’t want to shoot you, Stanley!” he insisted aloud, barrel of the gun shifting between them. “Regardless of body part!”

“Aw, come on!” one of the Stans argued. “You really think I can’t handle one measly bullet to the foot? ‘Sides, the sooner you take care of this, the sooner you can get back to chasin’ after Bill, right?”

Bill…

That’s right, Stan had been saying something about Bill before Shifty had attacked him. Something about screwing up like he had done last time?

If Shifty had no way of knowing about Dipper’s change in style or the fate of the journals, there was no way he would know what the real Stan had meant by that. And if Ford could get the real Stan to explain that further—

“What did you mean a few minutes ago?” he asked aloud. “About me thinking that you were going to screw it up like last time?”

One Stan gave him a confused glare as he succeeded in pinning the other to the ground. “Wh—seriously, Ford?! I’d rather just take the bullet in my foot!”

“Yeah, at this point I might actually prefer the bullet too,” the other added.

“I am not shooting you. Answer the question.”

A grunt as the Stan on the ground managed to swing a fist into the jaw of the other, causing him to lose focus long enough for the first Stan to slam him against the nearest tree. “Look, it’s not a big deal, okay?” the tree-pinned Stan called out with a struggle, the other’s arm pressed against his neck. “We both know the little triangle demon was supposed to burn up in my head, and that didn’t pan out like we wanted. I screwed up like I always do and now you feel like you’ve gotta handle all this Bill stuff by yourself again.”

He swung a fist into the other’s gut and it was the other Stan’s turn to stumble back while the first returned to a fighting stance. “And I don’t blame you for not wantin’ my help this time around, alright? After all the other times I’ve ruined your life in the past, I wouldn’t want my help again either.”

He barely managed to dodge as the other lunged at him. “But you can’t just keep dealin’ with him all by yourself, either! I know just how badly that little jerk messed with your head, even if you don’t ever talk to me about it! So even if I’m still the world’s biggest screwup, lemme at least help you by doin’ the one thing I’m actually good at—takin’ a hit for you!”

Both expression and posture sank, the fight momentarily forgotten. “And yeah, yeah, I know I’m not actually all that good at it. But I’m pretty sure even I can’t screw up gettin’ shot by an actual bullet—”

BANG!

Stan was knocked to the ground by a swing of the other’s fist, an inhuman howl escaping the attacker as if he’d been the one to be injured instead. And after a painful grunt from the impact, Stan quickly realized that had been the case when his eyes landed on the doppelganger’s shoulder—blood now gushing from a wound the exact size and shape of a bullet.

Stan’s gaze traveled further over to where Ford stood, landing on the faint whisps of smoke trickling out of the still-raised gun barrel. “Give it up, Shifty! You’ve been found out.”

The other Stan let out another roar of pain before his body morphed and shifted back into his usual form, blood from the wound splattering across the forest floor as he scuttled backwards from Ford. “You think you’re so tough, don’t you?” he spat at Ford, tone laced with metaphorical—and potentially literal—venom. “Think you can just come crawling back after thirty years and keep ordering me around?”

“Yeesh,” Stan said, backing up on his hands towards Ford. “Remind me who this ugly mug is again?”

“Like I said before, he’s a shapeshifter,” Ford explained, keeping his gun aimed forward. “I hatched him from an egg, back when Fiddleford and I were doing our research. When he got bigger, he started seeking out—let’s call them questionable ways to get ahold my journals so he could learn more dangerous forms to imitate. Eventually it got so bad that I was forced to seal him away in one of the cryogenic chambers.”

“You thought you sealed me away,” Shifty corrected. “I spent countless years wandering around that wretched bunker, desperately trying to claw my way to freedom. Until those brats of yours sealed me back into one of the chambers during one of their little escapades.”

His mouth curled into a snarl. “But not even they could stop me from finally escaping that wretched hole in the ground. They couldn’t stop me, you couldn’t stop me—and you are NOT taking me back!”

A swing of his fist shook a nearby tree, scattering a flock of nearby birds into flight. And with another roar of anger, Shifty’s body shrank to their size and took flight—soaring up and through the tops of the tall pine trees that made up the forest and vanishing out of sight and reach.

With a sigh both full of relief that the fight was over and full of weight at what was to come of Shifty’s escape in the future, Ford shakily turned to help his brother up from the ground. “You alright?”

Stan groaned, his joints cracking several times as Ford pulled him to his feet. “You’re askin’ the guy who took down an army of mutant crabs off the coast of Jamaica if he’s alright after dealin’ with some overgrown grub? Or—what’d I call him earlier? A caterpillar? Whatever, a giant bug’s a giant bug.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Stan’s expression fell as they stared at each other in tense silence for a moment—

—before a synchronized shout of “The kids!” hurried them off in the same direction that the younger twins had taken off after Bill.

— — — — — — —

“Stop running!”

“Once again, Shooting Star, do you really think asking politely is going to get me to do anything?”

“I’m optimistic!”

A blur of pink went sailing past his left side, the streamer unfurling as it whizzed past and tangling itself in a nearby bush. Guess she’d resorted to throwing her remaining streamers at him in an attempt to stop him from running.

Welp, at least it wasn’t a rock this time. Maybe Pine Tree had been spooked enough by his earlier stunt to not reconsider the idea. Or maybe they just couldn’t grab any while racing after him.

Either way, Bill kept running—much like he’d been doing throughout the past day. Running despite the annoying pain in his stupid, flesh legs and annoying burning in his stupid, flesh lungs, and annoying footsteps of the stupid, flesh pursuiters behind him.

He heard another caw overhead, pupil shifting upwards in time to see the crow from before soaring straight ahead, the unknown item from before still clutched firmly in its left talons. From where he stood—or ran—it was still too difficult to tell whether or not it truly was a piece of Birdbrain’s puzzle. But when the bird veered hard to the right, Bill was quick to follow regardless—letting out a small cackle at the sound of frantic skidding and leaves crunching behind him. 

Haha, sounds like the brats need to give their breaks a fresh can of oil!

A zinger he probably would’ve said out loud, if his attention wasn’t sorely fixed on the path and bird ahead. Hey, whether or not the bird was carrying one of Tangy’s charm pieces was still a win-win on Bill’s end if he caught up to it.

If it was a charm piece, he was that much closer to winning their game. His earlier thoughts about giving up on the game entirely were irrelevant—he could always change his mind again once the piece was actually in his hand.

If it turned out to just be some random piece of jewelry—well, that just meant he’d get a random piece of golden jewelry out of the ordeal! One he desperately needed as a way of accessorizing the incredibly generic suit that Birdbrain had stuck him in; seriously, what was with their sudden interest in not picking the tackiest, gaudiest outfit this side of the Multiverse?

And if it turned out to be fake gold? Well, looks like he’d get that chance to bash someone’s brains in with a rock, after all. Or rather, something in the form of the little birdie who’d put him through this chase in the first place.

Man, he was really on his head-bashing-based torments tonight. He blamed Ford’s little stunt down in the bunker—it just wasn’t fair if his brains were the only ones that got to be used as decorative wallpaper.

The bird soared onwards through the wood, towards a series of bright lights that began to poke through the gaps in the trees—ones that came with the addition of faint music and joyful chattering. Almost as if he were approaching some kind of massive gathering or—

Oh, right.

Sure enough, when Bill slowed to a stop between a pair of birch trees, he was greeted by the sight of the Mystery Shack—with hundreds of partygoers crowding the property on all sides. 

So the knuckleheads had gone through with having their party after all, huh? And not too shabby a job, by the looks of things. Pretty nice turnout, building itself covered top-to-bottom in an excessive number of decorations. Heck, Bill was almost impressed. Almost. He definitely could’ve done a better job if they’d put him in charge of things.

More cawing overhead reminded him of his mission, and he looked up in time to see the bird exiting the forest and circling above the crowd for a bit, before finally settling for one of the letters on the busted roof sign.

He let out a low chuckle. Looks like Bill Cipher was finally slipping back into Lady Luck’s favor tonight~! Not only would it be easy enough to climb up to the roof, but the large crowd meant shaking his pursuers would be as easy as taking candy from a baby.

“Bill!”

Speaking of which—

With a smug grin cast behind him—and fond remembrance of a time where he’d stolen a lollipop from Paci-Fire—Bill took off into the crowd just as the kids finally caught up to his hiding spot.

“He’s getting away,” Mabel said, making a motion to continue after him—

—before a hand on the back of her sweater stopped her in place. “Hold on a sec,” Dipper said. “If we just go charging after him in front of all those people, someone might catch onto what we’re doing and start freaking out. Remember what Grunkle Ford yesterday?”

“Oh, yeah,” Mabel said thoughtfully. “It’d be pretty hard to explain the whole ‘Two Dippers’ thing to people without revealing that one of them’s actually Bill.”

She tapped her chin. “I guess we could always try passing him off as our long-lost cousin or something, but eugh—” A shudder. “Even just pretending that he’s related to us makes my skin all creepy-crawly.” 

“Ditto.” 

Dipper peered out to the crowd again with silent contemplation as he searched for any sign of Bill among the partygoers. Lazy Susan was holding a conversation with a random barf fairy—a conversation that ended as stomach-churning as expected and Dipper quickly forced his attention away with a look of disgust. A group of non-barfing fairies all gathered around the punchbowl while Pacifica’s parents conversed with them—Dipper’s gaze lingering on Pacifica herself for a second too long before he tore it away with pursed lips. All the Manotaurs were still gathered around the Meat Table and still just as loudly passionate about their food of choice—

“Kids!”

The sound of someone else’s voice behind them drew both Dipper and Mabel’s attention from the party and back to the forest behind them—just in time to see both Stan and Ford emerging from the darkness. “Are you two alright?” Ford asked as they slowed to a stop.

“Are you?” Dipper asked in return. “That was a pretty quick fight…”

“Come to think of it,” Mabel added, peering closely at them. “Are you sure you two are actually you?”

“Yeah, no, we’re not doin’ that again,” Stan said, before pointing between himself and Ford. “I’m me, he’s Ford, and what’s-his-face-when-it’s-not-his-face turned into a bird and flew off after Ford shot him in the leg. If you don’t believe me, I can just rattle off all the different joint pains I’ve gotten from running around the woods all night.” 

With a wince, he gingerly tapped his left foot against the ground. “Think I might’ve regrown a couple’a old bunions in the process too if you really need hard proof—”

Mabel winced in disgust. “Eugh.”

“That’s what I thought,” Stan said, flicking a thumb at himself. “There’s not a shapeshifter alive that can truly replicate a guy like me.”

"Definitely Stan,” Dipper said.

“No doubt,” Mabel agreed, before casting a suspicious look to Ford. “Although…”

“Stan and I have been together since the fight ended, and we can discuss shapeshifter-proof codewords at a later time,” Ford said, his grip on the gun tightening as he peered out at the party. “Where’s Bill?”

“Oh yeah, that’s him alright,” Mabel said with certainty.

“We chased him all the way here, but lost him when he took off into the crowd,” Dipper explained. “Only reason we haven’t followed after him was because we didn’t want to start a panic with the whole—”

He gestured to himself, then proceeded to form a triangle with his fingers. “—thing.”

“I appreciate you kids taking my initial concerns into account,” Ford said. “With a crowd as big as this, there’s a chance he could start yelling or attracting the attention of any nearby onlookers if we found him.”

He pressed a hand to his head in exasperation. “Although, I guess that’s not all we’d have to worry about now, is it?”

His words trailed off, the rest of his explanation lingering in an uncomfortable half-silence that was only broken by the sounds of the nearby party. “So, uh—” Stan began awkwardly. “Wasn’t gonna give the little jerk the satisfaction of knowing that he actually got me curious about it, but I’m gonna guess your bunker plan didn’t go so well?”

“Yeah, I was wondering about it too,” Dipper admitted. “What happened down there? Why were you two chasing Bill through the woods, and having to deal with the shapeshifter? And what did Bill mean by ‘not up for a repeat performance now that you have an audience’—woah, hey, Grunkle Ford, are you okay?”

“I—”

It was only at that moment that Ford processed just how much of his body weight he’d sank against the trunk of the nearest tree, and just how badly his entire form was trembling on legs that were barely keeping him upright—

Nope, there they went as he finally collapsed into a kneeling position, any attention to regain his footing immediately thwarted by matching pairs of hands in his own. “Grunkle Ford, no,” Mabel scolded lightly from one side. “Don’t make yourself stand up again.”

“Yeah, you look like you’re about to pass out,” Dipper added from the other. “Have you…eaten anything today since breakfast?”

Between the younger twins, Stan knelt down with a narrowed glare. “Did you eat breakfast at all?”

“I…” Ford started. “Did you?”

“We’re not talkin’ about me, and that tells me all I need to know,” Stan said, folding his arms. “Gonna guess you probably don’t have some kinda magical refrigerator that restocks itself down in the bunker, either. Or any of those nutrition pills you used to take before you remembered actual food exists?”

“That would be…a fair guess.”

“You didn’t eat ANYTHING while you were down there?” Mabel asked worriedly, reaching into her sweater pockets. “Why didn’t you say so? I’ve got plenty of snacks left—ooh, I haven’t even finished off half the corn dogs in my corn dog pocket!”

She fished out a fully-cooked corndog and held it up with a flourish, causing Dipper to raise an eyebrow. “You have a corndog pocket in that thing?”

“I’ve even got one that doubles as a cooler for soda,” she said, patting the other side of her sweater. “I told you I was set for the day.”

“Alright, alright, forget Bill and the bunker for a sec,” Stan said. “You’re gonna get some food in your body first, Sixer.”

“Stanley—”

“No Stanleys, pal,” Stan insisted. “You’re not gonna get anywhere near catching him again if you keep on going the way you are now.”

Ford stared hard into the face that mirrored his own—just as he had done many times across the past few days. Into the face of the man he had successfully picked out of the earlier fight with his doppelganger, without having to resort to firing a bullet in him.

“Lemme at least help you by doin’ the one thing I’m actually good at—takin’ a hit for you!”

But the main concern there hadn’t actually been piercing out the real Stan, had it? The main concern had been Stan’s insistence on taking a bullet for him at all—and the reasoning behind said insistence in the first place.

Ford could feel his insides twisting with a mess of emotions—guilt, realization, potentially hunger as his focus passed lazily over the corndog in Mabel’s hands. Did Stan truly think that he’d denied his help because he thought he had failed to stop Bill the first time? Stanley—brave, heroic Stanley who had sacrificed so much more than anyone should sacrifice, thought himself a failure? 

It wasn’t as if Bill’s return had been his fault—and even if by some misfortune it had been his fault, Ford could never bring himself to truly blame Stan for that. Out of anyone in the world, Stanley had to know just how important he was—

“I screwed up like I always do and now you feel like you’ve gotta handle all this Bill stuff by yourself again.”

He…had to know that, right?

“After all the other times I’ve ruined your life in the past, I wouldn’t want my help again either.”

“After all, you are the expert in destroying those who are just trying to help you, aren’t you~?”

Bill’s taunting words from the bunker echoed through his mind as his gaze and palms found the forest floor, nails digging sharply into the topsoil. Loathed as he was to give anything Bill said the time of day, they blurred so neatly, so perfectly with Stanley’s own claims that he could feel his insides twisting further from a sensation that he knew for a fact wasn’t from hunger.

Had his own insistence to keep Stanley away for his own safety truly strengthened that negative view of himself? Further pushed him to think that the only way he could possibly be useful was to take another bullet for someone? All this time he had been trying to protect his brother, but had he simply just made things worse—

“Sixer?”

Ford lifted his head again, eyes once again meeting the features that mirrored his own to a near-perfect degree. Meeting them, before immediately falling back to the ground in a dazed lull as he tried to refocus his vision. As much as he hated to admit it—the rest of his family had a point. He truly was running on less than fumes at this point, and Bill had already escaped his clutches several times over as a result. 

Even if he somehow managed to catch him again in his current state, he no longer had his gun as a failsafe option—with or without all the surrounding partygoers—and there was always a chance that Shifty had destroyed the cryogenic tubes in the bunker before his escape to freedom.

Taking all of that into account alongside his ever growing concerns about Stanley—

“You’re right.”

Stan blinked at him in surprise. “Wh—come again?”

“You’re right,” Ford repeated, lifting his head again. “I’m not going to catch Bill if I keep on going the way I am. I need you to take charge of this situation for me.”

“Wh—” Stan started, taking a confusing look around him as if he half-expected Ford to be talking to someone else. “Okay, I know what I said before, but you’ve gotta be delirious from hunger if you’re seriously expectin’ me to take charge of this whole thing.”

“Even if I was, it’s all the more reason to pass this matter into someone else’s hands,” Ford insisted. “And I can’t think of anyone I trust more to take over for me than you.”

His gaze shifted to the younger twins, a worn smile tugging at his lips as he stared at Mabel. “Well, you and the kids, of course. After all, a braided rope is stronger than a singular rope, isn’t it?”

Mabel’s expression lit up as she dug out a roll of streamers with her free hand. “Yeah! Braids solve every problem!”

“Not that I don’t think you should take a break or anything, because I do,” Dipper said, holding up a finger.  “But, uh—are you sure you want us to take over for you, Grunkle Ford? I mean, we don’t even have a plan on how to catch Bill yet.”

“Kid’s got a point, Ford,” Stan added. “Plus I can’t promise it’ll go as smoothly as it would if you were the one leadin’ the charge.”

His expression fell. “Can’t even promise that we’ll be able to catch the little bugger.”

“It can’t turn any worse than how I’ve handled things so far,” Ford pointed out. “Under my lead, I’ve managed to lose hold of him and unleash a shapeshifting monster onto the town.”

He reached a shaky hand towards his brother’s and gave it a tight squeeze. “And…even if you do somehow manage to beat me in that regard, I will never regret turning to you for help in the first place, Stanley.”

Stan’s hand lingered in place for a moment—and Ford could almost feel it squeezing his in return—before he finally retracted it with a gruff laugh. “Hey, come on, Poindexter—what’d I tell you about gettin’ all sappy and makin’ the squirts wanna blow chunks on their first day back?”

While Dipper and Mabel exchanged looks of amusement on the side, Ford simply cast him a weak smile. “You realize that it’s now their second day back, don’t you?”

“Then that just means they’ll blow twice as many chunks!” Stan countered with a low cackle of his own. “And if they’re too busy blowin’ all those chunks, then they’re gonna be too busy to help me with Bill wrangling!”

“We’ll never be too busy for that, Grunkle Stan!” Mabel said delightedly, gripping both corndog-stick and streamer roll alike with a look of determination. “We’re gonna catch him if it’s the last thing we d—oh, uh, wait, we still need to come up with a plan on how to do that first, don't we?”

“We do,” Ford said, pulling himself into a sitting position. “And there’s no time like the present for us to start.”

“Bup, bup, bup—” Stan said with a warning snap of his fingers. “If you’re puttin’ me in charge of this mission, then I’m orderin’ you to leave us in charge of the thinking while you go ahead and get some food in your belly. Mabel, corndog.”

With a serious nod, Mabel held out the corndog towards Ford. “Let me know if you want anything else,” she said, patting the front of her sweater once again. “I’ve got this puppy loaded with just about every snack you can think of! Mom says I save our family a bundle in snacks every time we go to the movies!”

“Just the corndog’s fine for now, Mabel,” Ford assured her, before raising it slowly to his mouth for a bite—

—one that admittedly made his smile falter. “Oh, that’s…an interesting flavor.”

“Yeah, even when we’re saving a bundle, Mom still goes for the generic ones instead of name brand,” Mabel explained.

“Generic or not, you’re gonna eat it anyway,” Stan ordered.

“Never said I wasn’t,” Ford reassured him with another bite.

While the rest of his family conversed, Dipper cast another thoughtful look back out at the party guests. Specifically the Meat Table, where Mayor Tyler was cheering on its inhabitants from beneath one of Manly Dan’s massive arms—seconds before Soos strolled into view with a barrel of freshly-brewed meat.

Dipper stared at Soos for a moment, then back to Mayor Tyler, and finally down at his own hands. Hands he had used to grab Bill’s wrist earlier. Hands he had also used to yank Bill down on his face.

Hands with fingers, ones he slowly touched to his own arm, then face, before finally forming another triangle shape with his fingers—

“Hey, I…might have an idea,” he said aloud. “It’s a super risky one and would go against Ford’s original request to keep Bill’s existence under wraps as much as possible.”

A shrug. “But if we succeed, it shouldn’t incite a panic and we should still be able to recapture Bill without anyone catching onto what we’re doing.”

Stan looked to his brother. “Whaddaya say, Sixer?”

“You’re the one in charge now, Stanley,” Ford reminded him. “It’s your call. But I do have one request at least.”

"Oh, here we go," Stan said with a roll of his eyes.

"Promise me you won't do anything reckless to go and hurt yourself."

And suddenly Stan's eyes were back on Ford again, staring hard into his features as if that were the last thing he’d expected to hear. Rather than comment on it, however, he simply pointed to Dipper. "I mean, pretty sure that's up to the guy with the plan," he pointed out. "Can't go promisin' anything if I don't even know what he's got up his sleeve yet."

"He won't do have to do anything reckless," Dipper assured both of them. "And if anything, the only one who'll get hurt is Bill. Plus it’ll probably be really embarrassing for him, which I think is just an added bonus."

"Then I have no objections," Ford said. "I leave this in your capable hands, Stanley."

More staring followed, almost as if Stan expected him to go back on that claim if he waited long enough. And when Ford simply followed up his words with an encouraging nod, he finally turned to Dipper proper. “Alright, kid, lay it on me. Whatever it is, I’m in!”

“Me too! Me too!” Mabel added excitedly. “I wanna help embarrass Bill!”

“I’m happy you say that,” Dipper said, a smile forming as he looked to his hands again. “Because you two are gonna be playing the most important roles…”

— — — — — — —

Despite her earlier protests, Wendy could only hide out in the boat for so long before the call of the party outside eventually beckoned her to join.

Regardless, she did give pause on the deck to scan the crowd for any sign of the Pines family among them. Any sign of that familiar old hat she had plopped on Dipper’s head the year prior, any random bursts of glitter from Mabel, any heads of grey hair from the Stans—

Her gaze landed on the Meat Table, its inhabitants still devouring the spread before them with their usual amount of gusto and chanting. Currently said chants were aimed towards her father at the far end of the table; an overly-sized drumstick clenched tightly in his raised fist and his other arm draped around—

An annoyed scowl made itself at home on Wendy’s face as she stared at Tyler— his usual trademark of “Get ‘em! Get ‘em!” cheered with more enthusiasm than the entire group of Manotaurs combined—before she forced her attention to the rest of the partygoers. Well, at the very least, she now knew where he was, and knew which side of the party she needed to avoid—

“—yeah, no, he was acting super weird, right?”

“I don’t know if I’d say super weird, but regular weird for sure.”

The sound of voices trailing beside the boat made Wendy peer down over the side, where she was greeted by the sight of Candy and Grenda passing by with cups of punch. “Heya, squirts,” she said, folding her arms and leaning over the railing with a grin. “Enjoying the party?”

Both stopped in their path to look up at her, and Grenda’s expression brightened. “Hey, Wendy!” she greeted, waving her arm so passionately that the punch went flying out of her cup. “Where’ve you been?”

“You missed out on one intense Meat Eating Competition!” Candy added, flexing her own arms in such a way that caused her own punch to also spill out onto the ground. “Womanataur never stood a chance against us!”

“Aww, sick,” Wendy said proudly. “You finally won against her?”

“Oh no, we lost real bad,” Grenda clarified. “...We didn’t specify what kind of chance she stood against us.” 

“Thought we might’ve had a shot against Manly Dan, though,” Candy added. “What with him spending half the time going all googly-eyed over Mayor Tyler, and all.”

Despite her scowl threatening to return, Wendy ignored it in favor of giving the girls an amused wink. “Eh, don’t sweat it too much, you two will get a win one day,” she assured them. “And to answer your question from before, I’ve been up here on the boat. Needed to get away from all the weirdness for a bit.”

“Ugh, don’t I KNOW it?” Grenda agreed with a gruff sigh. “I swear, getting this much of the town together in one spot has to, like…mess with the air or something and make everything even more weird than it already is!”

She placed a hand on her hip. “At least, we’re pretty sure that’s what happened to Dipper.”

Wendy tilted her head curiously. “Dipper? What happened to him exactly?”

“Well, everything was fine when we talked to him earlier,” Candy explained. “He had that usual amount of anxiety and cryptic-ness that only Dipper Pines could provide.”

“You know the amount, you get it,” Grenda added.

“But then when he raced past us over by the punch bowl, he was laughing to himself and talking all strange,” Candy continued, touching her free hand to her head. “Also his hair was blonde, for some reason?

“And he was dressed up in a yellow-and-black tux,” Grenda pointed out with a look of confusion. “Dunno why he picked yellow, though, it’s soooo not his color. Mabel’s the twin with the right complexion for bright colors for SURE!”

“They look much better on her,” Candy agreed, before her eyes lit up. “Ooh, you know what it might’ve been? Maybe it was part of the surprise he was talking about earlier? The one with Dr. Pines and Mabel that he couldn’t say much about?”

“Augh, that would make perfect sense!” Grenda agreed, tossing her hands in the air and spilling the last of her cup’s contents out onto the grass. “That lying jerk, telling us he had no idea what they were up to when he knew all along!”

“Maybe he was respecting the element of surprise,” Candy pointed out.

Wendy’s expression stiffened with a mix of realization and annoyance. A blonde-haired Dipper in a yellow-and-black tux running past them and acting all weird?

…Yeah, so there was a high chance that something had gone wrong over at the bunker. Which probably meant that Bill was now wandering around the party somewhere and the Pines were hauling tail back to the Shack to try and recapture their escaped prisoner.

She glanced out at the crowd again. And if they weren’t here already, they were probably going to need someone to be their eyes in the meantime.

“Aw, who cares about Dipper and his secrets?” she heard Grenda say below. “Come on, Candy, let’s go refill our punch before those old-timey ghosts pull their ‘expired juice’ prank.”

“You know you can say they’re spiking the punch, right? Because they are.”

“Yeah, just still feels kinda weird that I can say that now.”

Wendy caught the girls hurrying back towards the crowd out of the corner of her eye, before she pulled out her cell phone—

—and as if right on cue, a series of text from Dipper popped up on her screen:

[Dr. Fun Times: Sending out a mass text to everyone still at the shack: Bill escaped and is somewhere on the premises.] [Dr. Fun Times: It’s a long story on how he got there, but Mabel, Stan, Ford and I are gathered at the edge of the forest near the shack.]

Another text joined the conversation, this time from Mabel:

[Unicorn Punisher: We’ve got a plan to catch him, but we’re gonna need some help getting eyes on him before we can put it into action!]

[Bossman: So you need us to keep our eyes peeled, in an ironic twist on HIS weird, all-seeing-eye thing that he has going on??] Soos added a few seconds later.

[Dr. Fun Times:  You got it, Soos.]

[Bosswoman: We’re on it, Dipper. Wendy, I see you in the group, are you able to help out?]

Melody’s question prompted Wendy to mash out a quick reply:

[Wendy: Waaaay ahead of you guys on that one. Caught wind from Candy and Grenda that they saw a blonde-haired ‘Dipper’ run past them earlier.]

[Dr. Fun Times: Ugh, GREAT.] [Dr. Fun Times: It’s bad enough he LOOKS like me, now other people are starting to think he’s ACTUALLY me?]

[Unicorn Punisher: I mean, isn’t that important for your plan?]

[Dr. Fun Times: Yeah, but I don’t have to LIKE it.]

[Bosswoman: Like Soos said, we can keep an eye on the crowd for him. Anything else you need?]

[Unicorn Puncher: Uhhh, the Shrink-and-Span! And the Manotaur’s stage!]

[Bosswoman: I can get both from storage, and have guests clear out a space for the stage.] [Bosswoman: I assume you’re going to regrow it to its usual size?] [Bosswoman: Assume with only a fraction of certainty; I’ve quickly learned to expect the unexpected with this town.]

[Unicorn Punisher: No, no, you got it right the first time!!!] [Unicorn Punisher: We’re about to give this party and Bill a surprise they’re NEVER gonna forget!!!]

[Dr. Fun Times: Thanks again for the idea, Soos, it’s really saving our butts!]

[Bossman: You’re welcome, dude!] [Bossman: What idea was that again?]

[Dr. Fun Times: You’ll see soon enough.]

[Bossman: Works for me! Soos Search And Locate Freaky Triangle Dude, go!]

[Bosswoman: I’ll get what you need and be waiting by the gift shop door.]

[Wendy: Keep an eye out for the little jerk performing identity theft, got it.]

With that, she tucked her phone back into her pocket and cast one last look out over the crowd, this time in the hopes of spotting any telltale signs of black and yellow—

—just in time to see a flash of blonde hair dart beneath the very dirty tablecloth on the Meat Table.

Narrowing her eyes, she hopped straight over the boat railing and landed with a hard thud on the ground below. Ugh, great—he had to go and pick the one table she was trying to avoid.

Eh, maybe she’d get lucky and the little creep would so get freaked out by the sound of fists slamming on the table, that he’d book it outta there before she got closer. 

— — — — — — —

The good news for Bill was that it looked like his plan to lose the kids in the crowd had worked.

The only issue with that was the size of the crowd itself.

Yeesh, Question Mark’s little girlfriend hadn’t been kidding when she said they were having a party! Felt like everyone and their six-footed, googly-eyed grandma now crowded the grounds of the Mystery Shack.

BANG! “Meat Table!” BANG! “Meat Table!” BANG! “Meat table!”

Speaking of which…

Bill cast a glare upwards at the table he was crouched beneath, one that shook with every pound of a fist from the Manotaurs crowded around it. Not the quietest hiding spot in the world, but maybe the gang of massive meat fanatics would be enough to keep the Pines family at a distance.

Still, he couldn’t hide here forever. 

He peered out from beneath the meat-stained tablecloth and looked towards the roof of the shack. The bird he’d been tailing before had settled up there, right next to a woodpecker and a couple of Eyebats. A sight that brought a frown to Bill’s face as they scanned the crowd with innocent curiosity, as opposed to their past behavior of turning any moving beings into petrified statues. Somebody must’ve found a way to placate them during his absence, or had a large supply of eyedrops on hand to keep them mellowed out. Traitors, the lot of them!

Eh, at least sneaking up to the roof would be easier without the threat of re-statue-i-fication looming over him in the process.

After a quick look around, Bill darted out from beneath the table and hurried towards the shack’s nearby storm drain—one that was conveniently within reach of the nearby metal awning. And after a quick hope that his stupid noodle arms had at least enough strength left to climb, he grasped it with both hands and began his ascent up the side of the building—

“Hey!”

—his quick ascent as he heard a voice call out behind him. He didn’t bother looking back, just kept his focus on getting to the top before whoever had spotted him could get to him first.

Sure enough, he felt a rush the air pass his foot caused by the sensation of a hand just barely missing its grasp on him as he scrambled up and onto the awning to safety. Once he knew he was properly out of harm’s way, he finally cast a glance down at his attempted assailant—mouth spreading into a wide grin at the sight of flannel and a familiar pine tree hat atop a head of red hair. “Well hey there, Red! Enjoying the party?”

“Save it, pal,” Wendy called up to him, eyes narrowed. “And get your three-sided butt back down here before I climb up there after you. Pretty sure you know I can and will do it, too.”

“Once again, it must be a night where people think asking me to do something I don’t want to do is going to make me comply,” Bill taunted, hands cutely tucked under his chin. “I’d say it’s funny how dumb you all are, but really, it’s just getting redundant now. Come on, gimme something new.”

“Oh, I’ll give you something new—”

She balled up her fists and gave her knuckles a crack, giving Bill the incentive to hop to his feet and scramble further up towards the roof. With a huff, she made a dash for the nearby porch to scramble up the railing and follow after him.

Before she could pull herself up and onto it proper, however—

“There you are, Wendy!”

Her mouth fell into an annoyed scowl as a nearby voice called to her from behind, one that lowered further as she turned around and saw Tyler approaching from the Meat Table. “Been looking all over for you!” he said delightedly. “Great party, isn’t it?”

“Super,” Wendy replied in a deadpan voice while she returned her attention back to the railing. “Can’t talk right now though, Tyler, I’ve got something to deal with. Official Mystery Shack business or whatever—”

“Oh! Well, that’s alright,” he said, cheery tone wavering the slightest amount. “Just wanted to stop and say hello—”

“Wendy!”

The sound of another voice from her right once again gave Wendy pause from her current task, although her expression did brighten at the sight of Stan and Mabel approaching them. “We~ell, if it isn’t Stan and Mabel Pines!” Tyler said with delight. “And here I was starting to think you Pineses were deliberately trying to miss your own welcome back party!”

Mabel pressed a solemn hand to the front of her sweater. “Mayor Tyler, I would never miss a party—welcome back or otherwise—of my own accord! Who do you think I am?”

“My feelings vary by event, but I got a good reason for bein’ so scarce ‘til now,” Stan added, with a look to Wendy. “In fact, that’s why Mabel and I are here. Need to talk to Wendy about the uh—the thing we’ve got planned for tonight.”

“The thing!” Wendy agreed, pointing a finger at them. “Yeah, I know the thing. In fact, I was just on my way up the roof to take care of the thing.”

While she made an obvious motion with her pupils towards the top of the roof, Tyler clapped his hands together. “Oh~hoh, the thing, you say? That thing wouldn’t happen to be the big, mysterious surprise that’s been keeping most of you Pines away from all the fun this evening, would it?”

“It sure is!” Mabel said, and held up a finger. “And while it’s not finished yet, we should have everything ready to go very soon! So go spread the mayor-ly word to everyone about gathering on the other side of the shack for the big surprise!”

“Just make sure they stay outta the way of the exhibits area,” Stan added. “That’s where we’re gonna be setting up the stage.”

“The stage?” Tyler repeated with delight. “Ooh, this really is gonna be quite the surprise, isn’t it~?”

He gave a whimsical little wave to Wendy. “Sorry for dashing so quickly, Wendy, but duty calls—”

“No need to apologize, just go,” she quickly assured him.

With that, he turned and hurried off with a spring in his step—leaving the three of them to watch him go in silence. A silence that was quickly broken by Wendy with a: “Triangle’s climbing the roof, was about to follow after him when Tyler showed up. Catch him and meet you guys over there for whatever you’re planning?”

“You got it,” Stan confirmed with a nod.

“Good luck, Wendy!” Mabel said with a thumbs up. “See you there!”

With a thumbs up of her own, she pulled herself up onto the railing and finally made a reach for the awning above. Leaving the two of them below as Mabel whipped out her phone again. “Gonna let Dipper and Grunkle Ford know that Wendy’s hot on the target's trail.”

“Of course the little jerk would try scalin’ the roof,” Stan muttered with a roll of his eyes. “Big man’s always gotta be towerin’ over everything, huh? Desperate for everyone else’s eyes to be on him…”

“Hehe, well, he’s gonna have allllll the eyes on him once we’re ready,” Mabel said, casting a cheeky grin up at him. “Isn’t he?”

Stan returned her grin with one of his own. “You know it, Pumpkin! C’mon, let’s go find Melody.”

— — — — — — —

Bill knew it was only a matter of time before Wendy made her way onto the roof after him. If he wanted that piece of Birdbrain’s puzzle, he had to move and move quickly.

And move quickly was exactly what he did—roof tiles slipping down the side as he bounded across them like stones on a river, in a mad dash for the bird that waited atop the brightly-decorated sign.

As he approached, most of the gathered beings took off in a rush—the Eyebats fluttering out of place and into the air and giving Bill pause to shake his fist in their direction. “What the heck are you irised idiots doing, getting all cozy and domestic in some backwoods town?! Go turn a baby to stone or something!”

One of the Eyebats narrowed itself at him, seconds before a burst of energy erupted from its cornea towards him and giving him barely enough time to dodge. “ACK! Not me, not me!”

More tiles shifted as he dodged another attack, but luckily the Eyebat didn’t attempt a third and simply fluttered off after the others into the night. With an exhale of relief, Bill’s gaze moved back towards the bird still situated on the sign—one that had somehow remained despite the chaos around it.

Luck continued to be on his side, for the bird had been far too distracted with pecking at one of the nearby streamers to pay any attention to him. And distracted it remained until Bill grasped a hand around its throat, a strangled caw of surprise escaping the poor bird as he drew it closer with a proud flourish. “Hehe, looks like a bird in the hand really is worth more than just two in the bush!”

Despite the bird’s frantic wriggling in an attempt to free itself, Bill managed to wrestle the piece out of its talons. He did earn himself several scratches to his hand in the process, but if a straight-up bullet to the brain wasn’t enough to kill him, then potentially catching Cryptococcosis was of little concern to him.

And once the mysterious object of gold was clutched safely in his hand, he raised it to the sky to investigate further.

Now that he could get a clear look at it, there was no doubt in his mind that it was one of Birdbrain’s charm pieces. The colors of the surrounding party danced across its golden surface, giving it an otherworldly shine. And on top of that, Bill could feel a familiar, confusing warmth from within the charm piece. An odd, almost alive pulsing that spread from his fingertips to the rest of his body as he gripped it tightly in his hand.

Almost as tightly as he continued to grip the bird's neck, a shark peck from its beak to his arm finally enough pain for him to release it into the night sky.

Whatever, who needed some stupid bird when he’d gotten what he’d scaled the roof for in the first place?

“Cipher!”

Right, he still had one other problem to deal with.

After tucking the piece of the charm into his pocket, he backed up towards the edge of the sign platform just as Wendy pulled herself onto it from the other side. “I’d say I appreciate you giving me a chance to get away from the crowd,” she said. “But catching you after you keep wriggling out of everyone’s grasp is really starting to get old.”

She flashed him a condescending grin. “Come on, jerkface, it’s your turn to gimme something new.”

“Throwing my own words back at me, Red?" he asked with a smug wink. “I’m flattered, but I’ll have you know that unlike the body I resemble—I’m not so easily smitten by a redhead in flannel.”

Wendy gave him a flat look and began to crack her knuckles again. “...Yeah, alright, first of all: I’m going to break your legs. Second of all, I’m going to break your arms.”

“Ah, ah, wait—” Bill started quickly, taking another step backwards. “Don’t forget Fordsy’s little rule of not killing me!”

Hey, if Wendy wasn’t aware of what happened down in the bunker, he wasn’t about to go and spill the beans. Especially if it prevented her from kicking his ass from here to the other side of the valley. Just because it wouldn’t kill him didn’t mean he was interested in dealing with levels of pain that intense. Yet.

“Who said I was going to kill you?” It was her neck’s turn to get cracked. “I said I was gonna break your arms and legs. You can easily survive that, but you’ll probably wish you hadn’t.”

Son of a—

Bill’s foot met air as he tried taking one more step backwards and he went tumbling down the other side of the roof with a yelp, barely managing to grab onto the gutter before he could fall—

—only for the gutter to give way in seconds, sending him the rest of the way down to the waiting ground below with a hard thump.

The impact hurt, but nothing felt broken as Bill pulled himself up with a drawn-out groan and a nasty look towards—

—the dozens and dozens of people around him, all staring him down with looks of curiosity and wonder.

Sure enough, it felt like every party guest’s attention had fully locked onto him as he slowly rose himself to his feet. While he was more familiar with being the one to do the ogling, Bill was no stranger to being ogled at himself. If anything, he relished being treated like some kind of sideshow circus oddity or incomprehensible eldritch horror in his usual triangle form.

Being stared down in this small, pathetic human vessel, however? He was staring to feel like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar. The subject of everyone’s attention, but in the most unenjoyable way possible.

Which was, obviously, no fun at all and an issue he needed to rectify immediately.

Alright, Cipher, time to think fast! The majority of the townsfolk had only seen him in his glorious, triangle form—and that same majority probably had no idea about his ability to possess people. He just had to play things cool, get out of sight before the rest of the Pines caught wind of his location—

His left hand subtly shifted to his pocket where the piece of Tangy’s charm lay hidden as a smile threatened his lips. Hmm, counterpoint: he had the first piece of the charm that he needed. If he announced his return, it would potentially incite a panic big enough for him to either sneak off into the night undetected.

Either that or it angered them so much that they took a page out of Ford’s book and tore him to pieces—which would eventually result in him popping back to normal and sneaking off into the night undetected.

Either way, it guaranteed an escape. And much like his original plan back in the woods, at least one of the options came with the added bonus of leaving a few folks with some lifelong trauma! Yay!

“Haha, how’s everyone doing tonight~?” he asked, tossing his arms in the air with gusto. “Havin’ a good time at your little shindig? Little hurt that you didn’t invite me of all people~!”

He pressed a hand to his chest with a wicked grin. “Although I guess any party’s gonna pale in comparison to the one I threw for you suckers last year~!”

A wicked laugh bubbled out of him, resulting in a tidal wave of gasps from the surrounding crowd. Bill’s smile widened as he braced himself for either the sound of frantic screaming, or the sensation of being beaten to death by an angry mob. He wondered what kind of tools or weapons the townsfolk use in this specific instance; he knew the Falls population was often drawn to the usual ‘pitchfork and torch’ approach, but the surrounding party embellishments might allow them to get a bit more creative—

“Aww, isn’t that adorable? Dipper’s gone and dressed himself up in a funny little Bill Cipher costume!”

…Wait, what?

The remark from somewhere in the crowd earned a series of affectionate sounds from the rest of the partygoers, and Bill blinked several times in stunned confusion. “Who’s done what now?”

“Aww, look at his little suit!” Tyler cooed with delight. “Why, this must be the surprise that the Pines family was planning!”

“Oh, that explains the blonde hair and the yellow!” Grenda piped up, pressing a hand to her forehead. “I was wondering, and now I know!”

“Told you so,” Candy proudly.

“That’s right, everyone~!”

An arm was slung across his shoulder before Bill had time to react, knees buckling slightly from the impact as he turned to see Mabel standing beside him. “And there’s more to the surprise than just some silly outfit!” she continued with a grin. “While Dipper’s wearing this outfit, him and Grunkle Stan are going to do a recreation of Bill’s defeat—just so everyone here can get a chance to see Bill Cipher getting punched in his stupid, triangle face~!”

…Second verse, same as the first—wait, what?

Actually, no, he was saying that out loud—”Wait, what?!”

“And now it’s your turn to be right, Mabel!”

Bill was suddenly scooped up into the air by a much larger hand, and he turned his head to see Stan standing before the crowd with a familiar, scheming grin on his face. “I mean, the only one who got to see the little bastard get his lights punched out was me, right? Seems only fair that you folks get to see it too, right? …For te—twenty bucks a person, obviously.”

A beat. “Make it thirty…plus ten!”

There was a scattered murmuring of agreement amongst the crowd as Stan stared making his way through them, Bill still clutched tightly in one hand while money was placed in the other. “That’s right, keep it coming.”

As the townsfolk hooted and hollered with delight, Bill cast a glare at their surrounding faces. “Are you nerve-driven flesh mounds really that dense? There’s no way you people are stupid enough to fall for such an obvious lie!”

Despite his insults, the audience still seemed to eat it up as Stan approached the waiting stage at the edge of the property. “Aww, listen to him!” one audience member cheered, hands clasped to their cheeks. “He’s even got the attitude down to a T!”

“Normally, the thought of Bill Cipher’s return would be quite the cause for alarm,” Preston Northwest said. “But when it’s the little Pines boy in a ridiculous costume, well—that’s just downright humorous!”

"Indubitably," Priscilla added with a haughty laugh.

“He’s really keeping in-character!” one of the Manotaurs agreed loudly. “It strengthens the illusion! And strength is GOOD!”

While the rest of the herd slammed their fist on the table with hearty agreement, Bill stared in disbelief. “They’re really that stupid…”

“Don't tell me you're actually surprised by that one,” Stan muttered quietly.

Bill crossed his arms defeatedly across his chest as they headed up the stage’s steps. “No, no you’re right—that’s my fault for expecting any sort of intelligence out of them.” 

Voice still low, he raised an eyebrow at Stan. “So, which one of you Pineses came up with this whole idea? Can’t imagine Fordsy would be too keen about you flaunting me in front of the entire town.”

“Psh, shows how much you know, pal,” Stan replied. “As for who came up with the idea…why don’t you take a look in the mirror?”

Stan gestured subtly towards the curtain at the back of the stage, and Bill cast a look towards a thin crack between them to the sight of Dipper and Ford—the former casting him a smug grin complete with a lewd hand gesture.

“Aww, isn’t he just the cutest in his little tuxedo?” Lazy Susan piped up. “It almost makes me not want to see Stan punch him in the face! ...Almost~!”

“Oh, well, it’s great that you say that, Susan!” Soos said from the middle of the stage, microphone in hand. “‘Cause the entire surprise is ruined if you folks don’t wanna see the hit!”

“Come on, party people!” Mabel added excitedly. “Don’t tell me you wanna miss out on seeing Stan give Bill another black eye!”

This got a bout of enthusiastic cheers from the partygoers and Stan flashed Bill a grin. “Better grit your teeth this time, wise guy.”

“Don’t you da—ACK!”

Bill’s order felt on deaf ears as Stan’s fist collided with his face, the force of the hit sending him through the air, and hitting the hard stage a few feet away.

Naturally, the audience clapped and cheered with delight, as Stan flexed an arm with pride. “That’s right, I still got it~! Now pay up, I know for a fact some of you yahoos are tryin' to stiff me! And while I respect it, I ain’t about to let it slide!”

While the audience tossed their money at Stan with enthusiastic abandon, Bill let out a pained and irritable groan as he pulled himself up with his hands, barely having time to react before someone else grabbed him with a: “Thanks a lot, folks! Hope you enjoyed our little recreation!” and began to pull him through the stage curtain.

With a wince from the pain that was once again swelling around his eye, Bill cast a dirty look up at Ford. “You’d better hope none of those idiots noticed just how real that looked,” he warned. “Might be bad news for dear old Stanley if rumors started going around that he gives his precious great nephew black eyes for profit.”

“It would be,” Dipper piped up from Ford’s side. “If I wasn’t about to do this!”

With that, he hurried out to the other side of the curtain, and the audience roared with applause. “Haha, yeah, thanks so much, everyone! Yeah, that was…that was fun, right? We have fun here.”

“Yeah, give it up for the kid!” Stan added. “Ain’t he talented? …So talented, in fact, that praisin’ him’s gonna cost another ten!”

As the audience continued to cheer from the other side, several more folks—Soos and Mabel to be exact—ducked back behind the stage’s curtain to join Ford. “I think it worked!” Mabel said delightedly.

“That was such a good idea, dudes!” Soos added. “It’s like…we wanted to keep Bill’s return a secret, and now we’re still keepin’ it a secret because they think he’s actually Dipper!”

He made an explosion sound next to his head. “Like, boom: Mind. Blown!”

“Yeah, Dip really outdid himself with this one,” Stan added as both he and Dipper ducked behind to rejoin them. “Thanks for bitin’ the bullet on that one, kid. Probably wasn’t easy to see a guy who looks like you gettin’ socked in the face.”

“No bullets bitten whatsoever,” Dipper said proudly. “It’s not like I’m taking the hit myself.”

“Oh, well—aren’t you so clever for putting this much thought into such a mediocre party trick?” Bill asked bitterly as he dangled in Ford’s grasp. “I wouldn’t expect a call from Daniel Raine anytime soon, though, Pine Tree. Pretty sure even a kindergartener could come up with something like that.”

“You’re just mad because it worked!” Mabel said proudly.

“It probably helped that you went and ran your mouth as much as you did after falling off the roof,” Stan said, smug grin returning as he gave Bill’s arm a nudge. “Heh, still can’t resist the chance to try and be the big man in charge, eh, Cipher?”

Bill could only glare at him with a burning rage that was sure to be turning his face red, as Wendy also joined the group behind the curtain. “Melody’s getting the crowd back into regular party mode,” she explained. “So we’ve probably got at least a few minutes before someone comes poking around the other side of the stage to investigate how you did your little swap act.”

She gave a thumbs up. “By the way, that was awesome!”

“Sounds like got just as much time to get this jerk outta sight as quick as possible, then,” Stan added, and held out a hand. “I’ll go stick him in the Shack until the party’s over—gift shop side should still be cleared out enough if I run and use the woods as a cover. Unless you’re feelin’ up to the task, Sixer?”

“You know, I think I’ve dealt with enough of Bill for tonight,” Ford added. “You take care of him for now, Stanley. Soos, the rope?”

Bill could feel his face getting hotter from a mix of rage and humiliation as he was passed from one twin’s hand to the other, once again with as much ease as passing a small kitten from one hand to another. Only this time around, Bill couldn’t even find it in himself to be as smug as before while Ford retied a rope around his body, once again tightening it with just as much spite as he had possessed earlier in the day. In fact, Bill was finding it a struggle to be truly smug about anything as he was once against clutched like a sack of luggage in Stan’s fist and lead back towards the dark wood that waited just a few feet from the stage—

“Grunkle Stan, wait!”

Stan paused at the sound of Mabel’s voice behind him, and Bill was spun back around to the sight of her hurrying towards them. “I’ve been waiting to say this to Bill all day!”

She held a fist to her mouth to clear her throat—and add a dramatic pause—then pointed a finger at him. “Get pranked, dumbass!”

Behind her, the rest of the group melted into amusement—Dipper nudging her with a laugh while Wendy plapped the top of her head with a proud: “Nice one, Mabel!”

And with a laugh of his own, Stan gave her a thumbs up before turning both of them back to the forest that waited ahead. Leaving Bill to stew in that one last insult to injury as the party raged on behind him.

No doubt in his mind: he definitely would’ve thrown a better one.

[recovering-radqueers]

Helloo

Um... we found out about the "forceID" label, "Where one was or feels like they were forced into identifying as [thing]"

And one of us (currently unavailable to talk, writing this for them) felt the label really fit them in a lot of ways, but apparently its heavily associated with transID and its community and due to past experiences, they're extremely uptight about not using labels even somewhat related to transID stuff...

So, alternatives? Or, I have a feeling already existent alternatives wont really sit right for them, so coining suggestions would be nice too I guess? Or something like that

(coining as in like idk we could make our own label with a similar definition but strictly separate from the transID community)

Sorry this is ramble-y, tired lol

Hey, thanks for sending in this ask. So, myself and another mod looked for a couple days to see if there was an existing good-faith equivalent.

When it comes to feeling forced or otherwise made to identify as something, this was all we found:

Lured objectum: A type of objectum identity where one was/feels they were "lured" into being objectum. This can be for any reason, but an example might be associating an object/thing with someone/something you are already attracted to, eventually developing an objectum attraction towards the object. This can also include already being one type of objectum but being "lured" into another.

Dissoforcedmute: A subterm of dissomute(link) that can fall under dissotrauma(link). This is connected to thinking one is mute by external force and makes the person, whether it be because of delusional or IRL attachments, being an alter that voice differs from the body, psychosis, etc., feel disconnected from their external voice. This is not for "fun" or voluntary "I wanna have this", this also doesn't override the external voice the person has.

Depending on how you and this headmate feel about things, some of these other labels might fit but not all of them have that outright "I was forced" element to them and instead describe being changed by an event or something similar.

Tamenity: A term under the alterhuman umbrella describing an individual who feels that something has interacted with and/or affected their current (alter)human identity. Said identity did not fundamentally change as a result of it, but it is undeniably affected to a relevant extent. It may, for example, feel like one's identity was stained, dyed, or decorated by the interaction. Tamenous experiences can occur in this world as well as exomemories etc., and can be annotated positively or negatively.

Sedivitrauma: An offshoot term of dissomei/dissotrauma coined with blessing from the original coiner. There is no exact original term coining post, but there are reblogs of various subterms like sedivicsa, sediviisolation are archived. It exists as a way to say that delusions, psychosis, exomemories or some other feeling make the user feel like they have a trauma, and they want to distance themself from that trauma. Like dissomei, it's not intended to be treated as a fun "I want to be this" or "I want this to happen", but rather an acknowledgment of an experience and wanting to distance yourself from it.

Contraumia: Contraumia are identities which one are not and/or cannot be, but find themselves drawn to due to traumatic experiences. This is a vague term, able to refer to identities one wishes that they had, identities one heavily connects to, identities one has shared symptoms with, identities one keeps intrusively thinking they have despite not, and more. Contraumia was created as a way to express these feelings without being forced under the transid label. People with contraumia do not actually believe they “should be” these things or want to transition into them. They acknowledge the feeling is a result of their trauma but still wish to identify with it.

So, it doesn't look like right now there is a specific term umbrella for "feeling like you were forced into identifying as XYZ." One option is definitely coining some dissodic terms for it, since at least one person has made a term already that starts with "forced," and the definition of dissomei is having a disconnect between yourself and your actual situation, and it can be used because of involuntary disconnect caused by trauma, delusions, being a headmate, etc.

If you prefer to work on a new term to describe this experience, here was my idea at a definition:

An "identity" that the user feels like they were forced to identify as, and is now attached to the user whether or not they feel it fits properly or benefits them. They may feel distress about the identity, but are (currently) unable to detach from it, or feel like it will be a permanent scar/mark on their overall person.

If any of our followers know of terms that might fit these experiences please feel free to add on!

-Mod Ally🍄

[dystopicjumpsuit]

Stars Beyond Number - Chapter 6

This Last of Meeting Places

Rating: M - please head the warnings; minors DNI

Pairings: Echo x Riyo Chuchi; Gregor x OFC Cerra Kilian

Wordcount: 4.1k (I know, but trust me)

Warnings: use of alcohol as a coping mechanism; panic attack (described); blood and injury (including self-inflicted); threats of violence; medical emergency; heavy angst

Suggested Listening:

Summary: Cerra and Gregor go undercover at 79's.

A/N: This story shares continuity with Martyrs and Kings and "Do It Again," but all three fics can be read as stand-alones.

Start here | Previous chapter | Next chapter | Masterlist | Sign up for my tag list | Read on AO3

In this last of meeting places we grope together and avoid speech.

—T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

The roar of the crowd washed over Cerra as she entered 79’s. Deep, thumping music pounded in her ears, and neon lights flashed through a dizzying haze of smoke. The club was packed and dark, but she spotted Gregor in seconds, drawn to him like durasteel to a magnet. The tension eased out of her shoulders slightly; he had her back, and he would never let anything happen to her. He leaned casually against the bar, chatting with another clone, and he only acknowledged her with the barest flicker of a glance.

She threaded through the crowd, making her way slowly to the bar. Her head hurt. 79’s was one of the few places where clones were free to cut loose and have a good time, so it had naturally become Fives’s main destination during shore leaves. Cerra had loved the frenetic energy and gritty atmosphere, the electric buzz of sex and booze and spice and blasting music and bodies coming together on the dancefloor. Now it was nearly impossible for her to view the club as anything other than a punishment. 

Rex’s voice hissed in her ear. “Smile, Cerra. You’re supposed to look like you’re having a good time, not like you’re about to burn the place to the ground.”

She schooled her features into a pleasantly vacuous expression. Gregor angled toward her for Rex’s benefit, and his eyes lit with amusement at her sudden shift. She suppressed the urge to flip him the bird, and instead focused on the conversations swirling around her. Many of the clones were discussing Admiral Rampart’s sudden and shocking fall from grace and subsequent arrest. A few complained about forced retirements. In general, the mood was more somber than she would have expected from a nightclub, but plenty of clones were eager to forget their troubles, and the dancefloor thronged with the gyrating bodies of drunken troopers and civilians grinding on each other. 

She skirted around the perimeter and finally made it to the bar, realizing only as she arrived that there was a good chance that the bartenders would recognize her, if the staff hadn’t turned over in the past couple years. Her shoulders tensed as she searched covertly for familiar faces behind the bar, but for once, it seemed that luck was on her side: she didn’t recognize any of them, and none of them showed any sign that they knew her, either.

Gregor shifted to make space for her at the bar, and she slid into position behind him, brushing against him lightly for comfort. Beneath the rough wool of his uniform, he was warm and reassuringly solid, and he slipped a hand covertly behind him to give her a quick, encouraging pat. She ordered a double of Dodbri whiskey, tossing it back as soon as the bartender pushed it across the bartop to her. It was cheap and strong, and it burned like hell going down.

“Slow down, Cerra,” Rex said. She could hear the frown in his voice.

A clone squeezed in next to her, jostling obnoxiously into her personal space. Cerra’s heart lurched when she saw his face so close to her own. 

It’s not him, she told herself sternly, ignoring the way her stomach flip-flopped inside her.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he grinned. “Can I buy you a photon fizzle?”

Cerra nearly grimaced at the idea of the sugary abomination of a cocktail. It was actually the perfect drink to sell her persona if she wanted to convince everyone in the club that she was just another party animal looking for a good time.

Showtime, she thought, batting her eyelashes at him in what she hoped was an alluring manner. It had been years since she’d flirted with anyone, but once upon a time, she’d been pretty good at it.

“That’s the best offer I’ve had all night,” she said in a husky tone. “What’s your name, trooper?”

She felt Gregor stiffen behind her. The clone’s eyes darkened. Shit, maybe she was laying it on a little too thick.

“I’m Stew,” the clone said. “Want to get out of here?”

“Amateur,” Rex jeered through the comm. 

Cerra traced a finger up Stew’s chest. “Pump the brakes, soldier. I haven’t even gotten a drink yet.”

“Ease up on the bedroom voice,” Rex said. “You won’t be able to do much surveillance if you’re hooking up inside a supply closet.”

Cerra gritted her teeth. Her standards were significantly higher than a supply closet, thank you very much. And she wasn’t likely to hook up with anyone in this bar, no matter how much her mind chanted Fives, Fives, Fives when she saw their faces. Another clone stumbled closer, clapping Stew on the shoulder.

“Don’t mind Stew, ma’am. All that time shooting heavy artillery has scrambled his brains. I’m Trapper, and my brain is fully intact.”

Cerra faked a sultry laugh as Stew shoved Trapper away. “So, you’re telling me Stew has a big gun?”

Behind her, Gregor choked on his drink. Trapper looked comically disappointed, and Stew preened.

“Yes, ma’am,” Stew said. “Biggest gun in the fleet. And I always hit my target.”

The bartender slid two photon fizzles across to them. Cerra braced herself for the saccharine onslaught.

“Here’s to heavy artillery,” she said, clinking her glass against Stew’s, “and a man who knows how to handle his weapon.”

Gregor snorted. Cerra took a sip and tried not to gag on the chewy, slimy orbs in the cocktail. The sweetness made her jaw cramp. Stew chugged his drink with a delighted smile.

“Want to dance?” he asked hopefully.

“Try to get him to take you back to his booth,” Rex said. “We need to get him talking about something other than the size of his blaster.”

“I think I’d rather sit and talk with you boys,” she said, casting a simmering look at Trapper, who rallied immediately. “Do you have a table?”

Trapper nodded enthusiastically and looped an arm over Cerra’s shoulders. “Right this way, beautiful. I didn’t catch your name earlier.”

“That’s because Stew never asked before he propositioned me,” Cerra said with a touch of acerbity.

Trapper slapped Stew on the back of his head. “That’s no way to treat a lady, dickhead.”

“Ow!” Stew said, rubbing his head as he trailed behind them. “Watch your kriffing language, you degenerate.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Cerra caught a flash of the iconic crimson and white armor of the Coruscant guard. Her heart began to race, and her palms felt damp and hot.  It’s not Fox. Fox is dead. It’s someone else. Fox is gone. He can’t hurt you. He can’t hurt anyone ever again.  She worked to control her breathing, wishing that her mouth didn’t suddenly feel so dry. Stew and Trapper were still squabbling, and she made herself focus on their conversation.

“Quit complaining and order that round of shots you owe us,” Trapper said, steering Cerra toward a corner booth with a good view of the dancefloor. Two troopers were already seated inside, and they both straightened up and watched with interest as Cerra approached with their brother.

“Stak, Razor, I’d like you to meet my friend, er—” Trapper stopped, realizing that he still didn’t know Cerra’s name.

“Kallie,” she lied, forcing a smile to cover her shakiness.

“Nice to meet you, Kallie,” Razor said. “Is this idiot bothering you?”

“Not at all,” Cerra said as she slid into the booth, positioning herself so she had a clear line of sight on Gregor. The Corrie must have left the club, because there was no sign of red armor in the crowd any longer.

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing in a dump like this?” Stak asked.

“Has that line ever worked?” Razor asked his brother.

“No, but I’m an optimist,” Stak grinned.

Something about their names nagged at her memory. Had she met them before? If so, she hoped that her appearance had changed enough since she’d abruptly deserted the GAR that they wouldn’t recognize her. All four troopers were wearing their gray uniforms, so she couldn’t even identify their units from their armor paint. 

Not the 501st, she thought. Rex raised his boys better.

Trapper flopped down into the booth next to her, effectively pinning her between himself and Stak. Across the club, Gregor raised an eyebrow inquisitively. She could practically hear him ask, You good?

She sent him a covert thumbs-up under the guise of sipping her horrible cocktail. The three clones sharing the booth with her looked at her expectantly.

“At least it’s subtler than Stew,” she said with a hollow laugh. “He went straight for the kill.”

Trapper, Stak, and Razor all heckled Stew as he approached the table bearing a tray of shots. The beleaguered trooper gave her a wounded look. 

“I hear he has a huge blaster, though,” she added, taking pity on the gunner.

“It’s really more of a cannon, if I do say so myself,” Stew said with false modesty as he set the tray on the table and slid into the booth next to Razor. He passed out the shots, leaving one extra on the tray.

“Who’s the sixth shot for?” Cerra asked.

“The commander,” Razor said.

“Where is he?” she asked.

“Gone,” Stak said grimly.

Cerra’s stomach dropped. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize.”

Stupid. Should have known. Should have remembered. We always left a shot for Hardcase.

Stew gave her a reassuring smile, and then the clones raised their shots in a toast.

“To Commander Ponds,” Razor said, the others echoing him.

Cerra dropped the glass, which bounced off the table and rolled across the floor. Miraculously, it didn’t break, but it did splatter cheap rotgut all over everyone in the immediate vicinity.

“Shit! Sorry, so clumsy,” Cerra gasped, wiping herself with a napkin to cover her confusion.

Shit, shit, shit.

Across the bar, Gregor tensed, ready to spring into action if she needed him. Stak and Trapper mopped up the spilled booze while Stew retrieved the errant shot glass before somebody could step on it and break it.

“Sorry, boys,” Cerra said again, hating the way her voice trembled.

Rex’s voice hissed in her ear. “Tap the table twice if you need Gregor.”

“That’s all right,” Razor said. “Not the first time one of us couldn’t hold our liquor.”

Cerra shook her head in mock disapproval, making sure Gregor saw the motion. “That was a terrible pun, Razor.”

“It was,” he said with a twinkle. “Maybe you should… ‘pun’-ish me for it.”

Trapper, Stew, and Stak groaned simultaneously. Cerra relaxed a bit. Once she’d gotten over the shock of hearing Ponds’s name, she realized that she had never met Stak and Razor after all; their names had been familiar to her because Ponds had once told her about their heroic actions on Ryloth.

It had been at a family dinner—the dinner when Uncle Shoan had brought Ponds home to introduce him to the family. Cerra’s father had teased Shoan ruthlessly about undermining the chain of command. Shoan had retorted that her father would know all about it, as he’d been a colonel when he’d married Cerra’s mother, an enlisted mechanic. The night had devolved into good-natured bickering, and Ponds had jumped right in as though he’d known them all for years. Cerra had gone back to the Resolute afterwards feeling a warm glow of hope that someday Fives would receive the same welcome from her boisterous family, if she were ever brave enough to take the next step with him.

Cerra dug her nails into the skin of her thigh to bring herself back to the present. Ponds was gone, and Fives was gone, and there was no such thing as happily ever after. The best any of them could do was survive, and try to piece together whatever fragments of their shattered lives they could dig out of the rubble. 

The four clones at the table still hadn’t taken their shots, so Cerra lifted her photon fizzle and repeated their interrupted toast: “To Ponds.”

They all knocked back their shots, and Cerra chugged what remained of her drink.

“Cerra. Slow down,” Rex repeated, and maybe he had a point, because the club started to look a little wobbly. The syrupy cocktail must have been stronger than it tasted.

“Atta girl,” Trapper said approvingly, draping his arm across her shoulders.

“Best commander we ever had,” Razor said glumly. “Not like these natties.”

The other three clones made identical faces of disgust.

“Natties?” Cerra asked, feigning ignorance.

“Natural-born officers,” Trapper explained. “Not clones. No offense.”

“None taken,” Cerra said. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Treat us like cannon fodder,” Stak spat. “Most of them have never even seen combat, but they act like they’re better than us. Like we’re worthless.”

“Expendable,” Razor agreed.

“That’s horrible,” Cerra said sincerely. “After everything the clones have sacrificed, it’s unbelievable that the Empire is treating you like this.”

Stew leaned in, hunching his back to the rest of the club. “I’ve heard rumors about clones going AWOL,” he said in a low voice. The other three clones looked around nervously, watching for eavesdroppers. “Even high ranking officers.”

“How high?” Trapper asked darkly.

“At least one marshal commander,” Stew said.

Cerra stifled a gasp. In her earpiece, Rex whispered, “Cody?”

“I don’t believe it,” Stak declared. “If one of the highest-ranking clones in the army had gone AWOL, we’d have heard about it.”

“Would we?” Trapper asked. “Seems like the empire would want to keep that intel quiet if they hope to avoid mass desertions.”

“Why bother?” Razor asked. “They’re already replacing us with those useless TK troopers. What do they care if a few clones leave ahead of schedule?”

“Because they don’t want us to survive,” Stew said grimly. “If we all get wiped out on the battlefield, they won’t have to worry about us causing any problems down the road.”

Stak reeled back. “That’s—that’s—you shouldn’t be talking like that,” he said, shooting an anxious look at Cerra.

“Keep them talking,” Rex ordered.

She dropped a soothing hand onto Stak’s clenched fist, brushing her thumb over his knuckles. “I won’t tell anyone,” she said. “You should know that a lot of people are grateful for your service to the Republic.”

“Don’t you mean the Empire?” Razor asked, eyes narrowed.

Cerra shrugged. “Sure. Slip of the tongue.”

Four identical pairs of eyes peered suspiciously at her. Dank farrik. She was losing them. She took a gamble. 

“My—late husband was a clone,” she said. 

Stak sucked in a breath that was audible even over the thumping music. All four troopers gaped, visibly shocked. Marriage to a clone was very, very illegal.

“Cerra?” Rex asked uncertainly.

“We always said we were going to run away together,” she continued, ignoring her captain. “Find some nice, remote moon and start a new life. He had names picked out in case we had children.”

Her voice cracked. Damn. That wasn’t supposed to happen. She was only telling them this to get them to trust her. So why did it feel like she’d ripped open her chest and exposed the remnants of her mangled heart?

“Kriff,” Razor cursed. “What happened?”

“He died,” she said, her words coming out in a broken whisper. “Trying to save his brothers. I would never dishonor his memory by betraying any of you.”

Stak turned his hand over to hold Cerra’s. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Don’t cry.”

Cerra looked around the table at the four troopers, whose faces now held no trace of suspicion—only pity. Something warm tickled her face, and she reached up to swipe it away. She stared down at the gleam of moisture on her fingertips. Stak was right. For the first time in two years, she was crying. 

Kriff.

“Excuse me,” she said, pushing against Trapper to force her way out of the booth. “I need to use the refresher.”

He moved, but not fast enough, and in her desperation, Cerra crawled over the top of him to escape. She stumbled blindly toward the refreshers, the strobing lights of the club blurring through her tears. Inside the refresher, she braced herself against the sink and took several deep, gulping breaths. She tilted her head up and caught sight of her devastated reflection.

“Fuck!” she screamed and punched the mirror. “Fuck! Fuck!”

The glass shattered with a satisfying crunch under her repeated strikes. Dimly, she heard raised voices outside the fresher door, and Rex shouting something in her earpiece, but she couldn’t make out any of it over her own guttural sobs. She sank to her knees on the grimy floor, and all of her grief and anguish poured out of her like the blood and tears that mingled together and dripped down onto the filthy tiles. 

The door burst open, and someone cursed violently, then scooped her up and carried her back out into the flashing, pulsating club. Bodies jostled against her, but the arms that held her were strong and steady as they pushed through the crowd. Abruptly, they exited the club. The music receded, and the cool night air washed over her.

“Cerra!” Gregor said. “Cerra, come on baby, tell me you’re all right.”

She heard a strange keening sound and was mortified to realize it was coming from her.

“Echo is inbound,” Rex said, his voice clipped and harsh.

“Negative,” Gregor snapped. “There’s no time. She’s injured. Have to bring her in on the bike.”

“Copy that,” Rex said. “Echo, return to base and help me prep the med station.”

“On my way, Captain,” Echo said.

“The speeder is right here, honey,” Gregor said in a soothing tone. “I’m going to get you home. Karking damn you, Rex.” He muttered the last bit.

“Hey!” A shout came from behind them. “What the kriff do you think you’re doing? Let go of her!”

She could hear footsteps running toward them. She took a gasping breath, trying to steady herself enough to tell Gregor that she was okay, that she could walk. But instead, she lost control and began to hyperventilate, wheezing helplessly.

Gregor whirled around to face their pursuers, clutching Cerra to himself.

“Piss off,” he growled fiercely. “She’s coming with me.”

His voice had no trace of his usual good humor, and she could hear the deadly commando that lurked beneath the easygoing surface.

“You’re not taking Kallie anywhere,” one of the voices barked. “There’s four of us and one of you.”

“I like those odds,” Gregor said. “Now piss. off.”

Cerra choked, clawing at her throat. Her hand was slippery with blood.

“Kriff,” Gregor whispered, crouching down and setting Cerra gently on the plastcrete. He leaned her against himself and rubbed between her shoulders. “Breathe, sweetheart. All the way out. Come on, love, all the way out, then count with me. One, two, three, four, five. Now breathe in. One, two, three, four, five.”

“W—what’s wrong with her?” a voice asked. “She’s bleeding! What happened to her?”

Gregor ignored the questions and kept coaching Cerra’s breath until she slowed into some semblance of a normal rhythm. Her entire body trembled, and she felt sweaty and cold at the same time.

“Hey, asshole, I’m talking to you.” The voice was hard and angry and very close.

“What the fuck did you do to her?” Gregor snarled.

“What do you mean, what did we do to her?” the voice asked. “We were just talking, then she went to the fresher, and the next thing we knew, you were kidnapping her!”

“I don’t think he was kidnapping her, Stew,” a second voice said.

“Can you stand, honey?” Gregor asked gently against Cerra’s ear, apparently having decided to ignore the other clones.

Cerra nodded weakly. “I think so.”

Gregor stood and pulled Cerra gently to her feet, steadying her as she swayed. Once he was certain she was not about to pass out, he guided her onto the speeder bike.

“Easy, love. I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”

One brave soul approached and asked, “Kallie, are you all right?”

Cerra looked up and saw Stak fixing her with a worried stare.

“I’m all right, Stak, I just—” Her vision swam.

“Kark, she’s losing a lot of blood. We don’t have time for this.” Gregor mounted the speeder bike, cradling Cerra in his arms, and they were in motion before Stak could object. Gregor piloted the bike expertly through the skylane, muttering a combination of reassurances and curses in Cerra’s ear. She must have blacked out at some point, because the trip seemed much shorter than it should have, and then he was carrying her again—easing her out of her coat—laying her gently on a cot—examining her hand.

“Medkit,” a voice said, and it sounded just like him.

“Fives?” she whispered brokenly, but there was no answer.

She felt the sting of antiseptic as Gregor cleaned the wounds, and her eyes flew open at the sensation. Echo was handing Gregor medical supplies, and Rex paced in the background.

Not Fives. It’s Echo. It’s not him.

“You have glass in your hand, sweetheart,” Gregor said. “It’s going to hurt when I pull it out.”

“I’ll be fine,” she croaked.

“I’m going to count you down from three, okay? Three, two—”

A searing pain shot through her hand, and then he pressed the wound firmly with a gauze pad.

“Who taught you to kriffing count?” she gasped, her eyes watering.

“She’s got her potty mouth back,” Gregor said with a tiny laugh. “She’ll be all right.”

He pulled out a few more shards, then stitched up the worst of her injuries and applied a generous coating of bacta before wrapping her hand in bandages. Cerra kept her eyes trained on the ceiling, knowing from experience that it would be a bad idea to watch him work. Finally, he finished up and draped a blanket over her. 

“All done, love.” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead as she felt a pinch on her shoulder. She whipped her head to the side and saw him withdrawing a hypospray.

“What was that?” she demanded, and then the world went black.

Echo began to clean and sanitize the improvised med station, gathering up the blood-soaked gauze and swabbing away the trail of red droplets that had oozed from Cerra’s hand as Gregor had carried her through the shop. Gregor handed the empty hypospray to Echo for disposal, then checked Cerra’s vital signs as she succumbed to the sedative he’d administered. Once he was satisfied that she was stable, he tucked the blanket more securely around her and stood. Tension radiated from him, and Echo gave him a wide berth.

“What happened?” Rex demanded.

Gregor snapped. He shoved Rex against the wall and pinned him in place, his forearm locked against the captain’s throat. Echo dropped the biohazard containment bag and rushed to intervene.

“You know kriffing well what happened,” Gregor snarled. “You knew she wasn’t ready, and you sent her in anyway.”

“She wouldn’t have gone if she didn’t think she could handle it,” Rex gritted out.

“She will do anything you tell her to, and you know it,” Gregor said, slamming against Rex again.

Rex shoved him off. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“Banthashit,” Gregor snapped. “I could have gone in alone.”

“And what good would that have done?” Rex demanded, a challenge clear in his voice. “Did you learn anything useful?”

“As a matter of fact, I did hear something interesting about the Balmorra system. I didn’t have a chance to find out more because I was busy watching Cerra’s back,” Gregor retorted.

“Oh, and you did a great job,” Rex taunted. “Guarded her so well she damn near bled out.”

Gregor laughed—a harsh, ugly sound that seemed out of place and wrong coming from him. His fist lashed out so fast that Echo almost didn’t see it happen. Rex stumbled backward, blood pooling in his mouth.

“Kark you, Rex. Stay the fuck away from her.”

Gregor strode away to stand guard next to Cerra’s makeshift cot. Rex started to follow, but Echo laid a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Rex shot him a questioning glance, and Echo jerked his head toward the landing platform. With one last look at Cerra’s unconscious form, Rex turned and followed Echo outside.

“What is it?” Rex asked.

Echo paced back and forth, anger and confusion buzzing just below the surface. “What the kriff, Rex? She and Fives were married? You didn’t think that was important enough to tell me?”

Rex didn’t meet his eyes, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse. “I didn’t know.”

---

Next chapter

[biohazard-4ever]

Forget aeon, cleon, whatever the hell (was never interested in either of those, I think both are, rather toxic and kind of frighten me so I more so ship Ada and Claire together instead)

thoughts on Serrennedy? (Leon X Luis)

or hell, just thoughts on any Leon X other male character? Perhaps any that stick out to you in particular?

(btw noticed it was your birthday recently, happy birthday! :>)

I think anyone who follows my blog knows I’m a huge Cleon fan, so I can’t let it pass when someone describes Cleon as a "toxic ship." I can’t help but wonder: How is Cleon a toxic ship, but not Leon x Krauser or even Chris and Leon?

So, I can’t help but wonder where exactly the line between "toxic" and Self tolerance is drawn.

Leon and Claire have a really healthy friendship—a solid one, even. Every single time Leon aimed a gun at Claire, it was accidental, and the moment he realized it was her, he pulled it back from her face (RE2 and Degeneration).

The same CAN NOT be said about Ada and Chris in RE6, where they had each other at gunpoint throughout their interactions. But this is not ONLY about guns and "who aimed at who for how long", ofc. But that is not the focus right now...

And especially, shipping Claire x Ada when they’ve never even interacted—except for the one time they share a screen in Darkside Chronicles: Memories of a Lost City, where Claire expresses a strong opinion against Ada (saying Ada gives her a bad feeling, that she doesn’t trust her, and clearly showing she does not like Ada)—doesn’t convince me that this is a genuine "shipping debate." It feels more like: "I just want them together because they’re two girls."

WHICH IS NOT WRONG. Shipping is meant to be FUN. So, really, there’s no need to create extensive reasons for why you do or don’t ship something. Just saying, "I don’t ship it because it’s a cishet ship," is VALID!!!!!!!

SUPER VALID!

Because calling something "toxic" or "bad" invites a discussion that isn’t necessary. There’s no need to make it deep. You don’t need a "deep reason" not to ship something, just like you don’t need a deep reason to ship something.

In my opinion? I don’t have any strong thoughts on Leon x male ships—neither negative nor positive.

But if I had to choose, I’d say Buddy (Sasha) from RE: Damnation. I like how Leon genuinely impacted him and his life, and I really like Buddy.

Even outside of shipping, I think Sasha and Leon have an amazing bond. In my opinion, it’s the best "male bond" Leon has. So, if I absolutely had to transform any of Leon’s male relationships into a ship, I’d go with Sasha (Buddy).

(Thank you for the best wishes)

[sneakydraws]

ohhh you oughta' show me Face and/or Motion for the Teen Girls brother..

*cracks knuckles* all of them, huh? a tall order but i'm up for it! "makeup" is a separate category but i think it's relevant for face descriptions so i'll pepper it in

face: Describe your OC's face. What's their smile like? Are their orbs cerulean? What would someone notice first when looking at them?

ballerina girl - i imagine her with a wide, flat-ish face. probably low cheekbones? slightly freckled. the only makeup she wears is the "neutral" kind, concealer and foundation and blush and whatnot. maybe a gentle lipgloss. she has big beautiful dark eyes, but they're downturned a bit giving her a slightly gloomy expresion - maybe offputting in day to day life, but giving her a sublimely romantic air when performing... she doesn't smile much in public but her smile is very gentle, almost shy.

cigarette girl - she has an unhealthy, grayish complexion from not really taking care of herself, fairly pimply as well. very thin eyebrows, thin lips and face. lip fuzz. long, pointy (maybe a bit hooked?) nose. her eyes are always half-closed and she has a general air of apathy about her. i don't know that i've ever drawn her smiling lmao... the has that sloppy, day-old kind of makeup, heavy eyeshadow and dark lipstick, no foundation or anything.

witch girl - her hair is all over her eyes haha, don't know how feasible that would be irl but i think it's a fun design choice in cartoons. she's almost always smiling, to the point where it's a little unsettling. slightly bigger lower lip. double chin. one mole by her lips and another below her eye, just barely visible from under the fringe. very pale with a pinkish blush. her style is very cutesy and as far as makeup goes i could see her adding pink blush and stuff like stickers, drawn on shapes, glitter...

jock girl - very expressive, especially with her body posture/movement but also with her hands and face. puts on a slightly blase air but is passionate and easily annoyed. round face, accentuated by the short bangs. slight case of babyface, big black eyes with short lashes... you know what, she's not korean but the main girl character from squid game came to mind as someone with a similar face? though maybe it's less about the actual features and more about the vibe. anyway, she's usually got a furrowed brow, even when laughing! she's got a big, loud, slightly cackling laugh. maybe slightly crooked teeth... and not infrequently a bruise or bandaid somewhere on there.

ok motion should be a bit easier! i really like this one, i often think about how characters move

motion: How does your OC move? How does their clothing help or hinder their range of motion? Are they flexible, coordinated, clumsy?

class prez girl - VERY controlled. elegant and fluid - this is probably why her parents sent her to ballet classes in the first place, or how she convinced them to let her try. she had a sudden growth spurt in maybe her early teens and that left her with a lingering feeling of awkwardness about her height, but the ballet training was enough to get her out of her slouching habit anf give her perfect posture.

girlrot girl - slow, pleghmatic movement. if she sits down in a chair, she doesn't do anything to ease the fall and just slumps into it with all her momentum. slouches a lot, and if she's in one spot for a while she has a tendency to get lower and lower until she's sprawled on the ground.

bunny girl - very still a lot of the time! doesn't fidget much. when she does move it's with a slight bounce to her step. tends to keep her limbs close to her body, but not really in an awkward way

sk8r girl - rarely sits still. even if she's sitting in one spot for a while, she'll switch positions often. jerky and energetic movements and exaggerated poses

whew this was so fun!! i like having to write about these things instead of drawing them, it forces you to think through it and find very specific descriptors haha!

[campgender]

from “Female Fem(me)ininities: New Articulations in Queer Gender Identities and Subversion” by Melanie Maltry & Kristin Tucker

published in Femme/Butch: New Considerations of the Way We Want to Go (2002) ed. Michelle Gibson & Deborah Meem

While many read cross-gender performance as the primary means for subversion, Butler’s acuteness in describing the “sexual regulation of gender” requires a focus not merely on visual signification, but on the entire discursive situation of a given subject. And this allows for far more subversive interpretations of the femme gender.

[Quoting Butler:] “The idea that sexual practice has the power to destabilize gender emerged from my reading of Gayle Rubin’s The Traffic in Women … it sought to establish that normative sexuality fortifies normative gender. … Briefly, one is a woman, according to this framework, to the extent that one functions as one within a heterosexual frame and to call the frame into question is perhaps to lose something of one’s place in gender … I belabor this point because some queer theorists have drawn an analytic distinction between gender and sexuality, refusing causal or structural link between them. But, there is a sexual regulation of gender.” (xi)

When Butler cites a “causal and structural link” between sex, gender, and sexuality, she allows for theorizing methods of gender for the femme. Her assertion that “sexual practice has the power to destabilize gender” through the way in which gender and sexuality produce one another, locates the femme outside of the heterosexual construct. The femme, though sometimes appearing as a heterosexual woman, is really no “woman” at all. She is, instead, a body signifying queer acts from a queer space. Therefore the context for her sexuality and thus her gender expression is shifted entirely. Simple politics of visibility are insufficient in determining or establishing subversion. A shift from the politics of visibility to a focus on queer acts is fundamental in exploring a femme position of subversion in that such a shift gives specific attention to the position where the femme is discursively situated.

[nextdayrecruitau]

9 Useful Tips For An Effective Cover Letter

In an increasingly competitive job market, the significance of a polished cover letter cannot be overstated. A cover letter serves as a personal introduction to potential employers, offering a glimpse into the professional persona of a white collar contract & labour hire beyond the confines of a resume. It's an opportunity to highlight achievements, express enthusiasm for the role, and demonstrate how one's skills and experiences align with the company's goals and culture. Crafting an effective cover letter can be the distinguishing factor that sets you apart from other candidates, making it an indispensable tool in your job search toolkit.

Understanding the art of cover letter writing is more than adhering to the basic principles of grammar and punctuation; it's about conveying your story in a way that resonates with the reader. It should reflect who you are as a professional and what you bring to the table, all while maintaining a tone and structure that's both engaging and respectful of the reader's time.

Here are some essential tips that can help elevate your cover letter from good to great, ensuring it makes a lasting impression on your prospective employer.

Customise for Each Application

Avoid the temptation of using a one-size-fits-all approach. Tailor your cover letter to each role you apply for, focusing on how your background, skills, and interests align with the job description and the company's mission. Research the company to understand its industry, challenges, and culture. This personalised approach demonstrates your genuine interest in the position and can make a significant difference in how your application is received.

Start With a Strong Opening

Your opening sentence should grab the reader's attention. Instead of the standard "I am writing to apply for," try something more dynamic that reflects your enthusiasm and specific reasons for wanting the role. For example, you might start with how a recent accomplishment of yours directly relates to the job or mention your admiration for a project the company recently completed.

Highlight Relevant Experiences and Skills

Use your cover letter to elaborate on the experiences and skills that make you the ideal candidate for the position. Don't just repeat what's on your resume. Instead, tell a story or describe challenges you've overcome, highlighting how these experiences have prepared you for this role. Be specific about your achievements, using quantifiable results where possible.

Show Enthusiasm for the Role

Employers want to know you're excited about the opportunity to work with them. Express your passion for the role and the company, and explain why you're drawn to them. This is your chance to convey your commitment and how you envision contributing to their team.

Use a Professional but Authentic Tone

While it's important to maintain professionalism, your cover letter should also reflect your personality. Write in a clear, concise manner, but don't be afraid to let your enthusiasm and genuine interest in the role shine through. Avoid overly formal language that might make the letter feel impersonal.

Address Potential Concerns

If there are gaps in your resume or other potential concerns, address them briefly in your cover letter. Provide a straightforward explanation, focusing on the positive aspects, such as skills or knowledge you gained during that time.

Include a Call to Action

End your cover letter by expressing your eagerness to discuss how you can contribute to the team and thank the reader for considering your application. Include a statement about looking forward to the opportunity to further discuss your qualifications in an interview.

Proofread and Edit

Before sending your cover letter, proofread it several times to ensure there are no spelling or grammatical errors. Consider having a friend or mentor review it as well. Errors in your cover letter can give the impression of carelessness, undermining the professionalism of your application.

Format Properly

Ensure your cover letter matches the format of your resume for a cohesive application package. Use a professional font, keep the length to one page, and follow any specific formatting instructions provided by the employer.

In crafting your cover letter, remember that you're not just summarising your resume; you're providing context and framing your experiences in a way that illustrates your fit for the role. It's about making a connection with the reader and giving them a reason to want to learn more about you.

A well-written cover letter can open doors, setting the stage for a successful interview. It's your first opportunity to make a strong, positive impression on a potential employer. By following these tips, you're not just applying; you're starting a conversation about why you're the best choice for the position.

[coldresolve]

Moneymakers, pt.vi // The Fifth Criterion

Previous / AO3 / Masterlist / Next

A drainpipe by the window is clogged.

Conrad can watch as water spills in a semi-coalescent stream, can hear it splash into the puddles it must’ve formed in the grass outside. Aside from the sound of rain, and his own hoarse breaths occasionally rattling in his throat, everything is silent. Usually, rainfall makes him feel at ease; a sense of cleansing, a melancholic kind of peace. Same thing with showering. As if there’s a primordial magic in the steady flow of water that allows him to think, uninterrupted, unbothered.

Usually.

In this place, everything just feels off. Even the rain is corrupted.

Among a myriad of fresh bruises that span his upper body and thighs, watercolors spilled in clusters on a blank page, a series of tiny, red marks dot his skin, almost like freckles. They come in sets of twos, and up close, he can see that each pair is connected with a dark, hair-thin line. Periods for pause, he thinks, or bite marks from a strange animal. There beside his navel, there on the edge of his ribcage, there when he, against better judgement, twisted on the bed to look over his shoulder at the damage left across his back. He didn’t know stun guns left marks, but of course they would. Electricity is energy, it’s heat. These are burns from the prongs. Even still, he feels them under his clothes, a different kind of unease that’s triggered by the texture of the fabric, not by movement or pressure like the bruises are. Two different kinds of pain, both equally foreign. Even his hands are ruined, that’s the only way he can describe it. Just extending and retracting his fingers sends the backs of them alight.

He’s lying on his side, legs curled up as far as his agonizingly stiff body will allow, and he is listening to the weather. He could cry at the unfairness of it all, at the blurry memory made in a mold so different than anything he’s ever experienced before, something in him struggles to accept that it even happened. But when he breathes a little too deeply, it hurts. So that’s proof, isn’t it?

How do you approach something like this? Where is he supposed to start? What is he supposed to do?

There’s so many things he can’t wrap his head around, new questions he doesn’t know if he can even voice. They both act like this is the beginning of something much bigger, but already, he thinks he might be worn out. The past two days have been hell, and he’s done. The rain doesn’t bring him peace. It feels juvenile to repeat it so many times over in his head that he just wants to go home, but that’s all he finds himself doing. Home, home, home.

God, why did it have to be him?

There’s a knock at the door at some point, and Davin comes in. There’s no creak of the chair, so he doesn’t sit down. Evidently just stands there. And Conrad can sense he’s waiting for some kind of acknowledgement, but still doesn’t move. Feels a shred of pride in that, though he also knows a show of apathy is a cheap to fake when your back is turned. Conrad isn’t apathetic. He’s just dissociating.

After moments of silence, he sits up, slowly shifts on the bed to put his back against the cold wall, still careful not to look at Davin directly. Feels a shakiness to his core that isn’t just a result of his injuries, or even fear, he thinks. He can’t quite wrap his arms around his knees, so he settles for keeping his hands in his lap, duvet drawn over his legs. Between the wall and the bones of his spine, something in his neck gets pinched, but he doesn’t want to move once he has settled, instead opting to sit through the uncomfortable position, gaze fixed to a point on the wall behind Davin.

Nothing happens. Davin doesn’t speak. He just stands there, arms crossed. His hair is put up again, but Conrad still can’t see his expression in the periphery. Only knows it’s still.

So finally, Conrad bites his lip and meets his eyes.

Soon as he does, Davin offers something akin to a melancholic smile, absentmindedly tapping his arm. “You’re gonna get stir-crazy if you spend all your time in one room,” he says.

Conrad doesn’t answer. Just shifts his hand a bit, knowing it’ll make the handcuffs clink.

“Fair point,” Davin says with a low chuckle. “Tell you what. I’ll take off the cuffs, we go to the kitchen and get some food. No tricks, I promise. Just breakfast.”

When Davin steps closer, pulling a key from his pocket, the apathy in Conrad shifts from spectacle to real. He feels detached, all of a sudden, uncaring. Davin helped him down the stairs yesterday, he remembers that, he almost had to be carried. Davin made it clear his empathy was a show. Davin walked him through cleaning the blood off his face once again, and rubbed something soothing on his wrists, something that felt cool against his burning skin. Something that is long worn off by now.

“C’mon,” Davin says, gesturing for Conrad to give him his hand. “I’m not lying to you.”

Extending his arm, Conrad feels his eyes glaze over, and his gaze drift to nothing in particular. The sound of the lock clicking open is somewhat satisfying. Not because he feels free. It’s just a nice sound.

“You need a hand getting up?”

At that, Conrad grimaces and starts to move on his own. Unwrapping himself from the duvet, as cold air hits him, he finds himself once again grateful for having slept in his clothes. He can’t find it in himself to care how many days it’s been, or how dirty they are at this point. Bare feet touch down carefully on the hard floor, he pushes himself off the bed, and can’t quite repress making a small sound at the jab of pain in his thighs and back. That makes him irritated enough to clench his teeth, holding his breath as he slowly straightens up, just to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Although Davin doesn’t seem judgmental at all, not in thatway, Conrad still feels inclined to chastising himself for appearing so weak, even with the ordeal he’s been through. Most other people would handle this better, wouldn’t they?

As Davin leads him out, a knot forms in Conrad’s throat at the sight of the stairs in one end of the hallway. He tries not to think about it, tries not to think about anything as Davin leads him in the opposite direction towards the kitchen. There’s four doors in that hallway in total, and barring the room Conrad is being held in, only one other door is open. He peeks in as they pass, fearing he’ll see green eyes and straight white teeth grinning manically back at him, but it’s just a bathroom. Rather large, with black marble tiles and a counter to match, but still, just a bathroom.

Davin pulls up a seat by the dining table, and motions for Conrad to sit, which he slowly manages to. It’s easier to hunch over while sitting. Doesn’t look as unnatural, and his bruised body gets a chance to rest from having to move around. He fidgets with his hands under the table, watching silently as Davin rummages through the fridge and various cabinets, finding utensils and plates and breakfast items, walking to and from the table. Conrad can’t help but take it as a signal of sorts, that Davin feels comfortable enough to turn his back on him, even though he’s technically free to move around and the front door is within view. In his current state, Conrad isn’t entirely sure he could run, and even if he could, it wouldn’t be particularly fast. Opening the front door would slow him down. It’s probably locked; he can unlock it from the inside, but that would just slow him down, too. He wouldn’t make it. So is this another way to mess with him? Or is it benign?

“You drink coffee?” Davin asks, brushing his hair behind one ear to look over his shoulder.

Conrad nods, and Davin goes back to sifting through tins and packets of tea, glass containers that clink against each other. “Instant or filter?” he asks.

“Instant is fine,” Conrad mumbles, and has to immediately clear his throat. He doesn’t remember the last time he was hoarse like this.

The large windows in the kitchen make for an easy distraction, as a kettle’s gurgling joins the sound of rain to fill the awkward silence. Beyond the pine grove at the end of the backyard, way in the distance, Conrad thinks he can see the very top of other trees, skeletonized, like small cracks in the horizon. A deciduous forest, maybe. There’s no telling how far away it is, or how large it is, or what’s between here and there, but guessing is enough to occupy Conrad’s mind until Davin returns to the table, reaching across to place a mug of coffee in front of him before sitting down with his own.

Davin gestures at a jug of milk placed neatly within arm’s reach of Conrad. “There’s sugar, too, if you want.”

Conrad doesn’t reply, but he does reach for the milk. The jug is only half full, for which he’s grateful; even lifting half a gallon makes the pain in his shoulders flare up, and his hands are shaking. But he manages to pour in a splash without spilling.

Clearing his throat once more, he keeps his eyes fixed on the steam lazily rising from the mug between his hands, then decides it might be better if he actually looks at Davin, not to seem more aggressive, but to gauge his reaction. “Why do you pretend to be nice to me?” he asks.

Davin gives him a curious look, pausing to think. “Who says I’m pretending?” he says after a while.

Conrad grimaces. “You did. You said… I remember you said that.”

“I really didn’t.” Davin mutters it into his mug, takes a sip before he puts it down with a sigh. “Just because I could get away with treating you like shit doesn’t mean I’m inclined to.”

“But you won’t prevent it either.”

“Not always, no,” Davin says matter-of-factly.

Conrad doesn’t know how to respond to that, and while he’s hesitating, Davin uses his mug to gesture at the various food items he’s laid out.

“Eat something. You didn’t eat yesterday.”

Reluctantly, Conrad grabs the closest thing to him – a bag of whole grain toast – and opens it, pulling out two slices. Davin has laid out butter, as well as a wooden butter knife that never has been, and never will be, sharp enough to use as any kind of weapon. There aren’t even forks, Conrad realizes as he listlessly scans the table. Spoons, the butter knife… Maybe he could smash the plate and use a shard of it.

For what, exactly? What in the world could he do with a shard of porcelain that Davin couldn’t do eons more effectively with the knife Conrad knows he’s carrying?

The bruises on his hands look almost dark purple, and those areas hurt a lot every time he moves his fingers too quickly, or exerts too much force. But the butter hasn’t cooled down enough to be soft, yet, so he has to grit his teeth every time he dips the knife.

Eventually, after half-heartedly buttering the toast, Conrad finds himself coming to a stop, staring at the food as if from a distance. He blinks up at Davin, who’s now scrolling through his phone. “If it’s about money, there’s other ways to…”

“I’m aware,” Davin mutters absentmindedly. “Eat something, Conrad.”

“You could still… ransom me, or—”

Davin rubs the bridge of his nose, lets out a somewhat frustrated sigh as he breaks his attention from his phone. “And get what?” he asks, propping his chin up on his hand, elbow resting on the table, looking at Conrad almost earnestly. “How much do you think your dad could reasonably scrape together, hm? A hundred thousand? Less than that?” He snorts, shaking his head.

Conrad freezes halfway through scraping butter for his second piece of toast, and his hand goes lax. “Why did you say that?”

“Say what?”

“Dad. Why didn’t you just say ‘family’?”

This time, it’s Davin’s turn to grimace. “Morning fucken’ after,” he mutters, runs a hand through his hair to pull it back. “I suppose we’re past the point where it matters what you know or not,” he says, leaning forward. “Still. I’m not gonna pretend to have the patience for a hunger strike. I can talk to you about it, but I want you to eat in the meantime, alright?”

Conrad swallows, eyes the toast on his plate, and looks back to Davin. His hand is a little shaky as he picks the toast up and takes a bite. He can’t tell if his anxiety is playing tricks on his palette, or if it really does taste dull and empty, if it really is a little more chewy than what he’s used to.

Satisfied, Davin leans back. “You were reported missing last night. During the stream, ironically enough.” He absentmindedly spins the mug between his fingers, lets it trail circles on the table. “Patrick DeWitt did some interviews. I did some research.”

Letting the toast dump back onto porcelain, Conrad shakes his head. “Please don’t,” he whispers. “Don’t bring him into this. Please don’t.”

“Whether you like it or not, he’s already playing his part.”

Claws of panic start to rise in his chest. “No, no, you don’t know – you don’t know what it would do to him, if he thought, if he thought I was—…” He catches himself, takes as deep a breath as he can, feels himself fold over with pain, but he doesn’t care. Letting his forehead rest on the edge of the table, he hugs himself tight. “What do you mean by part?” he croaks, feels the sound of his voice dim under the table. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“Eat.”

Conrad’s head snaps up, about to protest when he hesitates, seeing Davin’s calm, but somewhat stern demeanor.

He’s anticipating a refusal, isn’t he?

Letting out an involuntary whining kind of sound, Conrad lets a fist hit the table a little too hard for comfort before he picks up the toast, leg bouncing under the table. He has to force himself to take several deep breaths before he finally takes a bite. There’s nothing wrong with the food, he knows that, but it still strikes him as dry and unappealing. It takes him several hard swallows before his mouth is finally clear again.

He stares at Davin, almost as a way to dare him to not concede. But Davin gives him a nod of acknowledgement, shifting to sit more comfortably, more laid back, and he talks.

“All of this,” he begins slowly, “all of what we’re doing – I don’t intend to get pocket change in return.  I’m aiming for something bigger. If I wasn’t, that hood would’ve stayed over your head last night.”

At the mention of the hood, Conrad winces and starts to pick the crust off his toast and breaking it into little pieces. “Okay…” he prompts, mostly in the hopes that Davin will lead the conversation onto something else, something that isn’t last night.

And he does. But it doesn’t make Conrad feel better.

“Red rooms are rare to see outside of organized crime,” Davin tells him. “They’re used as… well, they’re used for a lot of different purposes. Propaganda, threats, blackmail. The money earned is an added bonus, but it’s usually not the main goal. The… victims, as it were – they’re usually not good people. Robbers, drug dealers, rapists, murderers, you name it. They’re subject to violence, sure, but they’re violent people themselves. Because of that, it’s rare to have any kind of public interest in these cases. Harsh as it sounds, the general consensus is that some people are not worth the time and effort to save. Not when resources are better spent elsewhere.” Davin taps the table. “Eat.”

Conrad reluctantly stuffs a few torn-apart pieces of toast in his mouth. Chews mechanically, slowly. “I’m not trying to go on a hunger strike,” he mutters at his plate. “I just… I don’t have an appetite right now. Or yesterday.”

“Either way, I’d rather not have to ask Renee to hold you down while I shove in a nasogastric tube. Wouldn’t be fun for anyone involved.” Davin pauses. “Except for Renee, probably.”

Grimacing, Conrad starts to pick apart more bite-sized pieces. “You don’t have to… do that.”

Davin smirks. “I’d very much appreciate it if I didn’t.”

Conrad sniffs. Some pieces, he squishes between his fingers, until the air pockets in the bread have collapsed, and all he’s left with is flat strips. “What were you going to say?”

As Davin looks at him thoughtfully, one hand is still thoughtfully spinning the mug in place. “You ever heard of the news criteria?” he says.

Conrad tries to remember anything like that coming up in Lit, but after a while, he has to admit to himself that he can’t think clearly enough to remember much of anything. His head is so muddled.

He just shakes his head.

“There’s variations depending on what theory you ascribe to,” Davin tells him. “Eight, ten, thirty, it doesn’t really matter. I’d boil it down to five. Topicality, importance, sensationalism, conflict, and identification. They’re elements of a news article, basic parts you need in order to make a story palatable to a mainstream audience, and any journalist worth their salt knows that very well. They’re constantly on the lookout for it, got real keen eyes on the potential for clicks. Which also means you can use those five things to get their attention.”

There’s a pause, and as the words sink in, Conrad starts to feel dizzy. “You want media attention…?”

Davin gives him a smile, only to look back down at his hands. “I have four out of five practically handed to me,” he continues, counting them on his fingers as he goes. “Topicality? It’s happening right now. For importance, well, it’s a bit wishy-washy to say this affects a lot more people than just you, but I suppose it does. Your family, your friends, your community. A hundred and fifty people volunteered to search your hometown today, that’s a hundred and fifty families directly affected. Someone with no reason to disappear suddenly does?” His voice drops. “Oh, that’s important, alright.

“Sensationalism will come when the authorities connect the dots between your disappearance and the emergence of the streams. Plenty of conflict to go from there, too. All that leaves us wanting is identification. The fifth criterion, the pathos. Something that resonates with people. When the guy in these streams gets a name, when he’s revealed to be entirely unaffiliated, and not just a victim of cartel politics or petty personal rivalries, suddenly, heads are going to turn. You’re a pretty average guy. You lead an average life, you have family and friends, average successes, and average failures. It could’ve been anyone. That’s all it takes. That’s all I need for the story to spread.”

“Wh… why do you want media attention?”

Davin catches his gaze, dark eyes unaffected. “Marketing,” he says simply.

Conrad can feel himself spiraling a little, moving without moving, falling while not falling. His thoughts are too scrambled for him to feel any sliver of comprehension. “You said… you said, before—you said…” The sentence starts with no clear goal in mind, so of course, it trails off, leaving him to stare at Davin with tears stinging his eyes.

The corner of Davin’s mouth tugs a little. “What did I say, Conrad?”

Doesn’t take too much creativity to interpret it as some kind of challenge, but to what end, Conrad has no idea. He sets his elbows on the table and lets his hands filter through his hair, ends up with his face pressed against his arms, as if he’s trying to protect himself from blows. “Can you just please let, let my dad know I’m not dead?” he asks, voice unsteady. “Just that–he doesn’t have to know–… Just tell him, tell him I’m not dead.”

“I’m creating a narrative,” he says. “I’d rather not kill the suspense just yet.”

“S… susp…” Tears sting his eyes, but the burning knot in his throat isn’t uncontrollable yet. “That was—that was torture,” he hisses. And he wants it so bad to sound unapologetic and accusatory, but the shakiness to his voice betrays how foreign even just the word feels in his mouth. And yet – there’s burn marks on his skin, and bruises that reach far beneath it, and his shoulders still hurt.

Davin’s eyes shift to something to his right, and Conrad doesn’t miss it. Turning his head sharply, he feels himself tense up at the sight of Renee leaning casually in the frame of the hallway, hands stuffed in the pockets of a pair of sweatpants.

Silhouettes of numerous blackwork tattoos span his upper arms, some trailing over one shoulder and down onto his chest, where a jagged, white scar also crosses over one collar bone. Through a vision blurred with tears, Conrad still picks up how disheveled he looks: hair a mess, pillow marks still tracing Lichtenstein-like marks on his cheek, dark circles under his eyes.

“Breakfast with the boys, huh?” he grins lazily.

“Timing,” Davin remarks.

Renee gives a half shrug. “I was listening in for a minute, actually,” he says, pushing himself off the wall. “You have a fucken’ weird take on hospitality, man.”

As Davin chuckles, Conrad hastily wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. It’s only once Renee saunters past the dining table, bare feet patting across the floor, that Conrad relaxes a little, although his focus never leaves the newcomer.

That’s why he notices, or is at least pretty sure he notices, that there’s something off about the way Renee moves. It’s like he isn’t fully awake yet, or perhaps like he’s underwater; slow, heavy steps, languid movements. His jacket lies discarded on the counter, and as he shrugs it over his shoulders, one hand fishes a pack of cigarettes out of one pocket. He opens the pack and lifts it to his mouth, drops his hand with a cigarette held loosely between his teeth, eyes scanning the backyard. If he’s bothered by the thought of going out into the still-pouring rain, it doesn’t show on his face. Almost absentmindedly, his gaze shifts to Conrad, wandering from his face and down, lingering slightly on the bruises on his hands.

Conrad forces himself to look away, to look down at his plate. “I’d like to go back to the bed,” he hoarsely tells Davin. “If that, if that’s okay with you.”

It comes out more harshly than Conrad intended, and he hears Renee’s snicker.

Davin shoots him a look, but he’s smiling softly when he turns back to Conrad. He looks understanding, to the point where Conrad has to remind himself that that’s the last thing he is. Still, when he gets up to lead him back to the guest room, Conrad can’t help but feel grateful as he, with some effort, gets up to follow.

He hasn’t taken two steps before Renee’s voice, ever so slightly slurred, pipes up from behind him. “Trouble standing up straight, Habibi?”

And although Conrad knew a comment might be coming, it still fills him with disgust, how brazenly Renee takes pleasure in seeing the product of his work. He just wants to be alone, to be out of sight – mostly from Renee, but really, it’s from both of them. He keeps his eyes fixed to the ground, decides to aim for a hasty exit rather than a graceful one, warmth prickling in his eyes.

Davin doesn’t forget the cuffs, doesn’t even pretend it’s something he has to remind himself of. Soon as Conrad has eased himself down to sitting on the bed, Davin beckons for his hand.

And Conrad gives it to him, because resisting now would be another battle lost in advance.

Once he’s alone, what grips him isn’t dissociative misery, but the tentative first rays of resolve – something, he hopes, that’s akin to what Howard has, something that can grow into something as strong as they are. It comes as a surprise, and he tries to visualize it as something he can reach out and grasp – and hold tight.

If there’s one thing about last night he knows with absolute certainty, it’s that he can’t go through something like that again. He can’t.

Not just that - he can’t let his dad and Howard play pawns in whatever game Davin has in mind. He can’t let their worry about him become a tool for his captors to use.

Somehow, before the next stream, Conrad has to get the hell out of this house.

Previous / Masterlist / Next

[antimonarchy]

How to Create Image Descriptions

So I’ve been creating image descriptions on tumblr for about a month, and I wanted to share some helpful guides I’ve found on how to create them as well as my own tips that I’ve picked up. Video descriptions and transcripts are also necessary, but since I mostly focus on image descriptions that’s what this guide is about. This might get a bit long, so fair warning. 

What are image descriptions?

Image descriptions are a textual depiction of what is going on in an image, as shown with the image below. 

[Image ID: A picture of a person with short black hair working on a computer. They are sitting at a wooden table with a large blue pot of pink flowers in front of a grey brick wall. A guitar is propped up against the wall in the background, and there is a string of lights near the ceiling. /.End ID]

Why create image descriptions?

The primary reason for creating image descriptions is to allow people who are blind/have limited vision to experience visual content. Many people who are blind/have low vision use screenreaders, which read text out loud when it is clicked or hovered over with a mouse. A large amount of online content, such as pictures, graphics, or drawings, is visual and so possibly cannot be experienced by someone with vision problems. As a general rule of thumb, anything that can be dragged or dropped most probably requires a description. In addition, if someone has partial vision and attempts to zoom in on an image, sometimes it can become pixelated and impossible to understand. 

Some neurodivergent people might need a description to understand the tone of an image, such as the meaning of facial expressions of a person to understand what emotion the artist is trying to depict

Some people might not have high speed internet or have low computer memory, meaning that they turn off images in order to save space. This means that they as well might require descriptions of visual content

Are image descriptions the same as alt text?

no, alt text and image descriptions serve the same purpose, but they are different in how they are presented. Alt text, short for alternative text, is included in the html of an image and can be read by a screen reader. However, there are many reasons why many prefer image descriptions over alt text. 

There is a limit of 200 words in alt text on tumblr specifically (and not in other contexts, which makes this information only applicable here), which means that detailed images or graphics are unable to be described fully without possibly cutting out important information. 

People who require descriptions, but who do not use a screenreader, must right-click and search through the html of an image in order to find alt text, but with an image description they are saved that work. 

Who should create image descriptions?

Everyone who is able to should create image descriptions. A content creator is best able to communicate the message of their work through text, as they are the one who created it and thus understand its message the best. While of course it takes practice when starting out, over time image descriptions become second nature when posting visual content. Always check the notes of a tumblr post for an ID rather than reblogging without one. 

What should be included in image descriptions?

There is no simple answer to this question, there are a variety of resources and guides on how to create one, and you should not accept my advice as the ultimate authority, as I am by no means a professional, and only create descriptions in my spare time as part of the effort to make Tumblr more accessible. However, here is my information for those starting out. 

First, consider what type of visual content it is. Is it fanart of a tv show, a screenshot of a tweet, or an informational graphic meant to educate people on a particular issue? 

Then, consider what information is most important in the image. If the visual content is an image of a famous building, then in writing the description the focus should be on the building, rather than describing for instance the color of the sky, surrounding buildings, or the clothing of the people walking by, as they are not the information that is being presented. 

Perkins ELearning has an excellent list of things that should generally be included, which I will include here. In my experience, these are the most important elements to describe

The people and animals in an image

The background or setting of an image

Elements that relate to the context specifically, so if it was an image of a congested highway on a news website, the description would mention the packed cars

The colors of an image (don’t overdo it however, a simple ‘light blue’ will suffice, no need to say something like ‘a color blue that is similar to the color of a robin’s egg’ unless it is crucial to the viewer’s comprehension of an image)

Context for an image. For instance, imagine if someone had drawn a version of the Bernie Sanders ‘I am once again asking’ meme, with Eleanor Shellstrop from the Good Place saying “I am once again asking for there to be a Medium Place.” Rather than provide a description to the example such as:                                          [Image ID: A drawing of Eleanor Shellstrop saying “I am once again asking for there to be a Medium Place.” /.End ID] you would instead say                                                                                                [Image ID: A redraw of the Bernie Sanders ‘I am once again asking’ meme with Eleanor Shellstrop from The Good Place saying “I am once again asking for there to be a Medium Place. /.End ID]

If the image is of a social media post, include the username/handle of the creator as well as the reactions (likes/reblogs) if they are visible in the image, as they may be cut off by the original screenshotter. 

If it is a drawing or piece of art, always look for the artist’s signature when writing a description

How do I write an image description?

To start off, here is an example description written for a piece of art I made myself. 

[Image ID: A digital drawing of Suki from Avatar: The Last Airbender over a gold background.  She is shown from the shoulders up facing the viewer, and has a neutral expression. She is wearing metal armor over a light green tunic, and is wearing her Kyoshi Warriors facepaint and headdress. The artist’s signature ‘Astra’ is written in the lower right of the image. /.End ID]

In this description:

I made clear where the description begins and ends, so that someone with a screenreader is not confused. I usually use brackets ([ ]), write the words ‘Image ID’ (or video/gif/other) and finish with a slash, period, and the words End ID. (/.End ID)

I emphasized the type of image, in this case a digital drawing

I said the character’s name (obviously this may not be known if describing a photo or something you are not familiar with)

I described the background and the character’s clothing

I described her expression

I included the description of my signature.

This is my basic process for writing a description

I first say what the content is, such as a drawing, photo, or screenshot of a tweet.

I then use what is called Object-Action-Context for the most part, which UXDesign has a long article on https://uxdesign.cc/how-to-write-an-image-description-2f30d3bf5546. For example, [Image ID: A photo of a person standing in a crowd waving to someone out of view in front of a river. /.End ID] While obviously I would usually provide more information than that, Person = object, standing + waving to someone out of view = action, and ‘in a crowd’ = context. 

I describe the clothing that might be worn

I talk about the position that people in an image might be in, such as leaning against one another on a couch, or standing with their fingers intertwined

I talk about the expressions on their faces, if shown

I talk about their general appearance (if important to the description) such as hair color/length

As said before, I talk about the context of an image if necessary

If the background is a simple color, I usually include it in the first sentence of the description. However if it is more complicated, such as a river winding through a dense forest, I include that at the end of the description after describing the important elements. 

Typically if I am reblogging an image, I do not add on any commentary after creating an image description, as this allows others to reblog my description without my personal reaction. If I want to add on to an image, I usually reblog my description post. 

In general, it is best to remain objective when writing a description, meaning not including your opinion of the content. However especially in an informal setting, say for instance you were describing an adorable cow, I would see it as fine to say [Image ID: A small drawing of an adorable cow. /.End ID] because the emphasis is on the appearance. There isn’t a clearcut answer, and it really depends on the context. 

What are some tips for writing descriptions/common pitfalls?

If there is an element of an image like a line that represents an emotion, or a sound effect like ‘clang’ if something falls, include that in the description. For instance, [Image ID: ...beside the mug that has fallen on the floor, there are the words ‘sploosh’ indicating the sound of the water that has spilled out. /.End ID]

Put image descriptions first. Don’t hide them under readmores or any other text. If you have something with multiple images and you are the creator, place the description under each image in succession rather than all at the end. Readmores are ableist, as they require someone who has vision problems/one of the conditions described above to do more work to access the message of visual content. 

If you are mentioning the skin color and/or race of someone in an image, make sure you describe it for anyone else who might be in an image. Don’t just describe the race of someone who appears to not be white. This doesn’t mean that you have to describe race, such as if the character is one whose race is commonly known, just that if you do, make sure you do it for all characters/people in an image. 

In order to write IDs effectively, I’ve found it useful to download a screen reader. I use NVDA, which is entirely free and easy to use and can be downloaded here: https://www.nvaccess.org/download/. 

Insert + Q turns it off

While my guide has focused mostly on image descriptions, video descriptions are also necessary. However they are not my area of expertise, and differ slightly, so I would recommend anyone interested in them to check out this website https://www.washington.edu/accessibility/videos/

Transcripts, for those who are d/Deaf/Hard of Hearing, are also necessary for making content accessible, and might be required for content that also has a visual format, such as a Tiktok. I would recommend this website https://www.w3.org/WAI/media/av/transcripts/ for anyone interested in writing transcripts

What are some more resources I can check out?

Here are a series of websites that I have found while researching how to write descriptions

UX Design -  I mentioned UX Design earlier when talking about Object - Action - Context, this article is very useful and examines how to structure a description and provides very useful examples for beginners

Perkins E-Learning - This article is very useful in helping someone what to include in a description, such as clothing or background information, as well as providing some additional information on alt text if you are interested

Meloukhianet - This blog post by s. e. smith goes into detail on the elements of an image to emphasize depending on its context, using the example of a picture of their cat sunning himself. 

SOAP - This article by the Stanford Online Accessibility Program (SOAP) provides a large amount of information on the purpose of image descriptions and what content requires them

HubPages - This article by SOTD and Zera discusses the difference between sparse, lush, and overdone descriptions, which is the amount of information included, and if/when each should be used. 

I hope you found this information helpful, I encourage everyone to check out these websites, and my inbox is always open for questions!

[stillness-in-green]

No, Re-Destro Is Not Destro’s Literal Son

and

Yes, I Will Die On This Hill

I have a number of small, persistent quibbles with some of the widespread misapprehensions I see included in BNHA fanfic, quoted as fact in meta posts, even cited on the wiki. Quirk cancellation restraints, what the 20% quirklessness data point means in practice, when Kurogiri comes into existence relative to the time of the Shimura Family Massacre, things like that. My biggest one, though, is as the title suggests: the idea that Yotsubashi Rikiya is Yotsubashi Chikara’s son.

I don’t entirely know where this confusion comes from. As far as I can tell, the early scanlations didn’t get it wrong—one rendered the line in Chapter 218 about Destro having a child he didn’t know about as being children, plural, but otherwise, they were all accurate enough. It seems people just assumed that the child mentioned in 218 must be Re-Destro, who was, after all, right there on the panel. Even though the scanlations never said it, even though the official translation never said it, even though ample evidence in the manga disproves it, the idea still got around that Rikiya is Chikara’s son.

I have and will maintain that this is obviously wrong if you stop to think about it for even a moment, but unfortunately, most people don’t. The error can be found on less well-tended parts of the fandom wiki[1]; it’s in tumblr meta posts about the villains; it’s in fanfic.

And now, god help me, it is on the official anime website, too.

“Stillness-in-green, maybe you should consider that you might just be wro—”

I will face BONES and walk backwards into hell.

But if you want, you can come with me, and I’ll explain on the way. Hit the jump.

Dialogue + Narration

There are two places where the relationship between Chikara and Rikiya is explicitly addressed—the lead-in to the dinner scene in Chapter 218 and the fight between Clone!Shigaraki and RD in Chapter 232. If you include the Ultra Analysis databook, the number goes up to four: once each in Re-Destro and Destro Classic’s character blurbs.

Let’s take a look at each of those places, shall we?

The relevant Japanese text here is in the first narration box: 子ども, kodomo.

Kodomo is not gendered. It literally just means child. The key kanji is 子, ko. Like most kanji, it has a lot of potential readings, and you can add other kanji to it to modify it. Add 息 and you get musuko, son. Pronounce 子 as shi instead of ko, and you get a term that is frequently, though not exclusively, used to refer to boys. Add 女 to that reading and you get joshi, woman/girl. 子 is in a lot of words, many of them gendered! Used for kodomo as Hori does here, though, it does nothing to indicate a gender one way or the other.

Also too, it does nothing to indicate that Rikiya is the child in question; it simply states that there was such a child, somewhere in the world. Now, the natural assumption for anyone who knows how the graphic novel medium works and who understands basic literary analysis would be that the significant character we just met is, in fact, the child in question—except that everything else we learn about Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army here makes it entirely impossible.

I’ll do a full breakdown on why that is in the next section. In the meantime, here’s the next reference:

Here, we’re looking at the phrase the Viz translation renders as, “His blood runs through these veins.” The literal Japanese there is, Desutoro no matsuei chi o tsugu mono! In a literal translation, chi o tsugu mono means, “one who inherits the blood,” or, more loosely, “blood successor.” It’s matsuei—末裔—that’s the key word here.

Japanese has several words to express the concept of “descendant.” Matsuei is one word; the data book uses shison. So what’s the difference? Well, I’ll talk about shison in a moment, but I had an inkling of it just from looking at the kanji in matsuei—“end” and “descendant” respectively, leaving me with an impression of something like a final descendant or the terminus of the bloodline. Further research confirmed it: shison can refer to any lineal blood tie, but matsuei refers to a bloodline’s final inheritor, the person at the end of a long line of many, or even countless, generations. It’s the difference between being able to point to a grandparent and the kind of painstaking genealogical research that lets you[2] point to a famous royal from eight hundred years ago—matsuei is a word that very much assumes the existence of those countless generations.

So not only does Rikiya’s line there not imply that he’s Chikara’s son, but his specific word choice also tells us that he cannot be Chikara’s son. That’s, uh. Pretty conclusive, I would say.

Lastly, though, there’s also the data book. This is, perhaps, the actual closest you’re going to get to a manga equivalent of those character blurbs on the anime website, at least until such time as Hori deigns to give the MLA types character profile pages. (I live ever in hope.)

There are two relevant bits of text, one in Re-Destro’s entry, and the other in Destro Classic’s. The first describes how Re-Destro organizes the MLA as Desutoro no chi o tsugu mono: the same phrase he uses for himself in the manga, minus the matsuei. @codenamesazanka (the one who told me about the databook references among other citations, bless) rendered it as “Destro’s blood successor”; I have also seen it given as “the successor of Destro’s bloodline.” Note again, the lack of reference to a father/son bond.

Chikara’s entry uses that other descendant word I mentioned before, 子孫, shison. Notice that the term uses that ko kanji from kodomo before? As it does in joshi, 子 here reads shi. The other kanji, 孫, means grandchild. Thus, literally, grandchild-child—or, in the vernacular, simply descendant.

And then we have the anime website.

So, for comparison’s sake, the anime website uses 息子—the same combination of kanji that I said earlier gives you musuko, son. Heck, it even uses 父, chichi, for Destro—father. It’s as explicit as it’s possible to be, and I just don’t know why or how the anime website could fuck that up so bad when absolutely nothing in the manga describes the two Yotsubashis that way, and, indeed, one specific word choice actually rules out the possibility.

So, that’s all the manga says directly. It’s not the only evidence there is, though. In fact, the next piece makes it even more clear how colossally and impossibly wrong a father/son connection for Destro and his modern successor is.

Timeline

The long and short of this section is, “Since Harima Oji was Sako Atsuhiro’s great-great-grandfather, there is no possible way that Destro—who pre-dated Harima—can be Re-Destro’s father.” If you read that sentence and nodded your complete understanding and agreement, feel free to skip ahead to the last section. If you’d like the full explanation it takes to reach that sentence’s conclusion, though, read on.

So, aside from the word matsuei, the timeline is the most telling piece of evidence to my eye. I address it secondly rather than firstly because it’s less direct than the explicit narration; it relies on drawing conclusions based on things we’ve been told elsewhere rather than on the immediately relevant text. Oh, Mr. Compress’s relationship to Harima is explicit enough, but on what am I basing my claim that Destro predates him?

Regarding that, there’s no explicit year relative to My Hero Academia’s current events given for when Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army were active; the same is true for Harima Oji’s escapades. However, we are given some broad-strokes information, relative not to current events, but rather to the history of heroism as a legal institution in Japan.

We know that there was a widespread, lengthy period of chaos following the rise of quirks—called meta-abilities in those early years. At some point, however, people began to search for a way for meta-humans to live in peace with non-metas. The compromise that was reached was the foundation of professional heroism in Japan—while the use of meta-abilities would be legal in private settings, it was only by becoming licensed by the state as “heroes” that people could use their quirks in public.[3]

The legislation curtailing the use of meta-abilities—and the appropriation of a dead woman’s language to popularize a law establishing exactly the opposite of what she used that language to call for—is what catalyzed the rise of the original MLA. Thus, we can position Destro as being alive and active around the same time that heroism as a legal institution was being formed. Since we further know that he committed suicide in prison, we can assume that his child was conceived at some point prior to his capture. Ergo, Destro’s child, were they alive today, would be as old as Japanese professional heroism itself.

Next, consider Harima Oji, the Peerless Thief, a criminal who targeted the riches of “sham heroes.” We’re specifically told that he was active in the days in which the current system was settling into place—e.g. he only became active once the Hero System was established enough to have produced corrupt heroes. We’re told he preached reformation—he wasn’t just some pre-existing criminal who saw a shiny new target in heroes; he had specific grievances which he wanted addressed by the system, and which the system was not addressing.

The earliest Harima could possibly be active, then, is concurrent with Destro—Harima fighting against the corrupt people who had found their way into the new heroic institution, and Destro fighting against using the institution of heroism to oppress non-heroes. What I think is more likely, though, is that Harima came after Destro—Harima needed to have had time to realize what kinds of fakes had been drawn to this shiny new career path, maybe even to spend some time trying to change things the legal way.

I don’t suspect they were separated by very long—I would imagine Destro was easily within Harima’s living memory, and might well have influenced why he chose the path of protest that he did—but I do think they were separate.

Moving forward, then, Mr. Compress is four generations distant from his famous ancestor. Thus, even if you assume that Harima is of the same generation as Chikara, that’s what you’re looking at for Chikara’s child: someone who, were they alive today, would be old enough to be the great-grandparent of a thirty-two-year-old man.

Re-Destro’s probably a few years older than Mr. C, sure,[4] but that man doesn’t have Ujiko’s slow-aging quirk. Unless you want to start pulling theories about cryogenic stasis the story for some reason never saw fit to mention out of thin air, Re-Destro is in no way old enough to fit the bill.

This is backed up by one other piece of the timeline as well, and one more place we can look at language:

The small child at the center of the image is Rikiya, so young that he’s in schoolboy shorts for a meeting otherwise so formal that he’s been made to wear a tie. He’s, what, six to nine here, tops? And the adults speaking to him say that they’ve been in hiding for generations—代々, daidai, the kanji for generation followed by a kanji that just means, “See that kanji written right before me? Yeah, just read that one again.”

The original MLA was active for only a handful of years, and, per Chapter 218, they didn’t dissolve until Destro was captured. Thus, we can assume they have been in hiding since then, but not before then. With that in mind, this is another line that renders a father/son relationship impossible.

Remember, Chikara already had a child in the world circa his capture. If Rikiya were Chikara’s son, then Destro’s capture and his army’s subsequent dissolution could not have happened any farther back than nine months plus however old Rikiya was in this exact moment of his youth. Rikiya, who we see here as a child of less than ten.

Ten years in hiding doesn’t make one generation; it damn sure doesn’t make multiple ones.

Now, you could make theories about cryogenic statis that would explain this ludicrous discrepancy, sure. You could also theorize about e.g. artificial insemination,[5] or time stop quirks, or any number of other possibilities in the vast panoply the HeroAca world offers. The point is, though, that you don’t need to. There was, in the manga, no discrepancy that needed to be explained. It is only fanon misinterpretation and a glaring disinterest in the series’ villains from official sources that have presented this issue.

I’m praying that it’s all just a misunderstanding on the part of whoever maintains the website, and that the anime itself will render the relevant bits of dialogue correctly. Given the extreme cuts and alterations that My Villain Academia has been subjected to thus far, though, I’m sure you can appreciate my being concerned.

…So that’s the meat of it. The idea that Rikiya is Chikara’s son is wrong simply on the basis of what’s said in the text, and it’s doubly wrong on the basis of the timeline. There is, though, one other thing I think points towards Re-Destro being exactly the descendant he says he is, not a son playing down the connection out of humility or something. This one is a lot more headcanon-y, though, so I saved it for last.

MLA Social Dynamics

It’s quite simple. We have, in the MLA, a group of people that venerates Destro’s bloodline to an obviously unhealthy degree, putting up portraits of him wherever they can get away with it, tagging his successor with a “Re-” as if to invoke reincarnation or miraculous return, entirely willing to throw their lives away for what they think was his cause, and others’ lives if those others say anything too scathing about the words Destro wrote, quite as if they treat Destro’s memoir as some sort of holy writ.

They venerate Destro that much, and you’re trying to tell me that they wouldn’t just call a spade a spade and acknowledge RD as the son of their great leader? Come on.

Since long before I turned up the matsuei factoid in researching this piece, since long before Mr. Compress gave us such a helpful generational comparison, I’ve held the opinion that, given a group that holds their leaders in such high esteem, with such particular regard for bloodline, the only reason Rikiya does just call himself a descendant, rather than citing the specific term for what he is, is that the specific term is distant enough that it actually does sound more impressive to just say “descendant,” rather than something like, “great-great-great-grandson.” That kind of thing just begs the question, “What took you guys so long?” or, “You and how many other people, buddy?”

Mr. Compress may have the panache to carry off a line like that, but Rikiya’s a different story. If he had something so amazing up his sleeve as, “I am the son of the great Destro,” I have to think he’d just say it proudly, not fall back on the impressionistic vaguery of something like chi o tsugu mono. Even if I had no other evidence to work with, I’d think the same—all the evidence you need is right there in the character writing of who Rikiya and the MLA are and how they talk about the man whose dreams Re-Destro was raised to carry.

A closing note: I will allow that Rikiya is being overdramatic when he uses matsuei and its connotation of countless generations. There are a few other things we can use to trace the history of heroism—Ujiko’s age, and the 18-years-or-less periods that One For All was held by its pre-All Might bearers—and running those numbers leads me to believe that it is, in fact, entirely possible to count the number of generations between Rikiya and Chikara, and the number, while higher than one, is probably not all that high. Certainly matsuei is being more dramatic about it than is entirely warranted, hence the poetic flourish of the official translation’s, “His blood runs through these veins!” The theatricality only makes me fonder of him, however.

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

FOOTNOTES

[1] It was changed and reverted on Re-Destro’s page at least twice before it finally stuck in January of this year. Chikara’s page took until July to be corrected, and it’s still wrong on various other subpages.

[2] Or your kids, if you have those. Only the last generation in the bloodline is the matsuei, but that’s a moving goalpost as long as the bloodline is still propagating.

[3] This summary of events combines what we know from both My Hero Academia proper and the Vigilantes spin-off, which I recommend to anyone who’s at all interested in finer-grained worldbuilding on Hero Society Japan than the main series makes time for.

[4] I personally headcanon him as 42.

[5] To which point I would refer back to the word kodomo, and note that that word choice indicates that Destro had a child in the world. Not a sperm sample kept in a freezer somewhere, waiting for the right would-be mother: an actual child. Some quick research on my part says that the farthest that term stretches is in using it to refer to yet-unborn children, fetuses still in the womb. Seeing as Japan doesn’t even allow inmates conjugal visits in real life, much less in a setting where villains are so dehumanized that Tartarus is an acceptable punishment for them, the line about Destro “having a child out in the world” takes us right back to a date of conception no later than Destro’s final night of freedom.

[curlsofsagesmoke]

TMNT (2012) characters as dysfunctional family roles

here I go again analyzing a kids show that ended four years ago. anyway, I saw a tiktok by user doinbigthink where they gave a quick overview of the six kinds of dysfunctional family roles, and I immediately thought of tmnt bc it’s my current hyperfixation. so I spent almost an hour doing research and writing up this analysis, as one does.

as a preface: dysfunction in a family can be caused by anything from someone struggling with addiction to a parent being abusive or unavailable/neglectful to someone having narcissistic personality disorder (npd) etc. etc. Usually there is one person who is the root cause of this (very deep seated) dysfunction and the others in the family (often the kids) fall into these roles in order to cope.

Leo: The Hero

The Hero is often the oldest child. They cope with the dysfunction in the family by being high achievers or perfectionists, and they need a sense of control in order to feel safe within the family. They are seen as very well-adjusted, balanced, and high-functional and are often used as an example of how well the family as a whole is doing. They may allow this misconception to continue (whether consciously or unconsciously) in order to hide the family’s problems. They may be parentified as children (that is, forced to take on a parental role for their younger siblings) and usually feel a lot of pressure to solve the family’s issues. With Leo in particular, you see these two behaviors in the way he approaches leading his brothers as well as the way he obsessed over bringing Karai into the family for Splinter’s sake after discovering her true identity. As an adult, the Hero is often drawn toward romantic partners who are emotionally unavailable (again, see Leo’s crush on Karai) and tend to throw themselves into their work (Leo’s obsession with ninjutsu)

Leo: The Golden Child

The Golden Child is not a dysfunctional family role but instead describes a relationship that develops between a parent/guardian with npd and one of the children in the family. In these cases, the parent tends to favor the Golden Child because the Golden Child exhibits all the traits the parent loves in themselves. In Splinter and Leo’s case, these characteristics are their devotion to ninjutsu, their general temperaments, and their more spiritual/mystic natures. There are MANY examples of this favoritism in TMNT canon; for example, Splinter teaching Leo his reiki technique (the healing hands) in “the deadly venom” because everyone things Leo is the most capable of learning such an advanced technique (in the episode, Donnie says that he doesn’t think anyone else on the team could’ve done what Leo did, i.e. using the healing hands on himself and saving the others from karai). The parent has a volatile relationship with the Golden Child and often their love is conditional (that is, the parent will favor the Golden Child as long as the Golden Child continues to act like the parent). Because of this, the Golden Child often has trouble establishing an independent identity (see: Raph calling Leo “Splinter Jr.”, though I can’t remember if this happens in 2012 or just in the 2003 version). The Golden Child may also participate in the narcissistic parent’s abuse against the other children in order to protect themself (this is less explicit in canon, but I think that Leo’s leadership style fits this bill)

Raph: The Scapegoat

The Scapegoat is often the second child. As the name suggests, they are often blamed for things that go wrong in the family regardless of whether it was actually their fault or not. Scapegoats are often very aware of their position in the family and as a result they may feel rejected, isolated, and unlovable. I think a good example of Raph feeling like this is the fact that, early in the show, he only openly expresses his emotions to Spike. Scapegoats learn that negative attention is better than no attention (especially from a parent/guardian) and they often engage in high risk behaviors such as sex, drugs, etc. (in Raph’s case, his reckless fighting style and the way he seeks out fights, and this also explains his temper and overall angry demeanor). Because of this, they tend to get into a lot of trouble and are often singled out as the child who needs individual help (aka therapy) even though the root problems lie with the family as a unit. In cases where the parent has npd the Scapegoat is often pitted against the Golden Child. This is called splitting and it is another way to distract from the family’s deeper issues. I feel like I don’t need to explain the way that Leo and Raph are pitted against each other.

Donnie: The Lost Child

The Lost Child, as the name implies, often fades into the background. Usually this is on purpose in an effort to keep themself safe, as they might be scared to draw attention to themself or rock the boat, especially in an abusive household. They may often feel ignored or neglected and are often described as loners who have difficulty developing social skills or self-esteem. Like the Hero, the Lost Child is often used as an example of the family’s stability and success because they aren’t causing trouble. They tend to struggle when forming friendships/romantic relationships, and they are usually praised for not needing a lot of attention/being independent. Because of this, they feel safer when they’re by themselves. Although Donnie does cause trouble sometimes (see: all the times he’s blown some shit up in the lab, the Mutagen man thing, etc.), he’s not seen as the troublemaker. Raph (and Mikey, to a certain extent) definitely takes that title. Donnie is often alone in his lab---working, admittedly, but he still tends to isolate himself, and he is often seen as the most socially awkward of the brothers (see: his relationship with April). There’s also this very interesting exchange from the episode “Enemy of My Enemy” when they’re in the Shellraiser and Leo is about to take the stealth bike to help Karai:

Raph: Hey, the stealth bike’s my thing. Leo: Now your thing is sucking it up. Donnie: Hey! That’s my thing!

Mikey: The Mascot

The Mascot is often the youngest child. They use humor and goofiness to diffuse tension and distract the family from their issues, though when this works, they feel increased pressure to continue to step in when things become tense or volatile. The Mascot acts from a place of anxiety and trauma, and they may have bouts of depression. They also tend to feel as though they cannot express their negative emotions (because they often see themselves as responsible for their family’s happiness). They tend to bend over backwards for people with little regard for their own safety/comfort, and they are drawn to intense and dysfunctional relationships (whether romantic or platonic) where they will be called upon to diffuse tension. This can be seen in the way Mikey approached his friendships with both Bradford (pre-mutation) and Leatherhead. Mikey is also very rarely shown as being sad, angry, or depressed the way that the other three are, and it’s only in times of extreme emotional distress (like the season two finale) where he drops his humor. Even in the midst of tough battles or tough situations, Mikey tends to insert himself into the middle of the tension and is almost constantly cracking jokes or trying to keep things lighthearted. When he does show more negative emotions, it’s in (mostly) one of two ways. One, giving comfort or seeking comfort, usually from Raph (again see the season two finale, where he hugs Raph to calm him down after Splinter “dies” and seeks comfort from Raph in the Party Wagon as they’re driving away from the city). Two, acting combative with Donnie.

Note: Mikey and Donnie acting combative

This second one in particular is really interesting to me because both Donnie and Mikey exhibit a level of comfort/feeling safe with each other that they don’t display with the other two. Mikey only ever gets physical with Donnie (their little slap fight in “Turtle Temper” or attacking him at the end of “The Creeping Doom”), while Donnie only ever purposefully antagonizes Mikey to get a reaction (slapping him in “Turtle Temper”, which prompts the slap fight, or teasingly insulting him at the end of “The Creeping Doom”, which prompts Mikey to attack him). Mikey likes to get under Raph’s skin, but he never retaliates when Raph gets physical with him. Donnie does occasionally argue with Raph and Leo, but usually backs down after Raph threatens him with violence (see “New Girl in Town”), and with Leo it never escalates past a verbal fight (see the season two finale, “the fourfold trap”). Actually, it seems that in Mikey’s and Donnie’s relationship, they take on the roles that you usually see in Raph’s and Mikey’s relationship. Mikey antagonizes Raph and Raph retaliates; similarly, Donnie antagonizes Mikey and Mikey retaliates, but neither of them would act this way toward their other two brothers.

Splinter: The Root of the Dysfunction

I’ve made a lot of allusions by now to Splinter having npd, or at least some narcissistic tendencies. There are many times where he shows favoritism toward Leo or acts in a very stubborn or even self-absorbed manner. In the season one finale, for example, he refuses to help the turtles fight and only leaves the lair after april is kidnapped by the shredder. In “the pulverizer returns”, he makes the turtles switch weapons (for literally no good reason), they almost die in a fight and switch back, and as punishment, he takes their weapons away entirely; this isn’t addressed in the episode, but i do believe that if they’d had their weapons, they could’ve prevented timothy from being mutated in this episode. (Admittedly there are times when he apologizes, admits he’s wrong, and changes his mind, which is why I hesitate to say he exhibits fully narcissistic behaviors). There’s also the physical aspect of their relationship. He’s teaching the turtles ninjutsu, so you can expect a very physical relationship in the form of training, but there are times when he causes the turtles pain for the sake of pain as punishment (e.g. randori, which we see a few times, or when he goes for their pressure points, or when he trips mikey in the episode “monkey brains”, or when he stabs raph with his cane in the episode “turtle temper”, and these are just the examples i can think of off the top of my head). There has been discourse in the fandom about whether these characters (splinter and raph in particular) are abusive, and i don’t want to get into that. However, i think it’s undeniable that splinter raised his kids with the intent to turn them into child soldiers, and also i fully believe that this (plus his parenting style) is the root of the dysfunction in the hamato family.

[everythingthemoontouches]

💙Hi there! , First of all i want to tell you that i love your blog! And i love how your posts are so accurate!💙 If its okay with you could you please do me a favor by describing how others see me,my appearance or more specifically the vibe I radiate to others! It would mean alot to me if you you do that💙I'm a cancer sun,leo rising,Lilith sextile asc, Pluto trine asc, Uranus opposition asc, Moon opposition asc, mars sextile venus, mars opposition neptune, asteroid lilith conjunct mc and jupiter in the 1st house!💙

Hola!

Thank you that's really kind of you 💛💕

You know that quote that says Cinderella never asked for a prince. All she wanted was a night out and a dress. You kind of exude a similar vibe but with respect to leadership positions. 'I never asked to be Queen/King, but the people have spoken' kind of an energy. You would be equally happy to be by yourself, learning about the subconscious mind, higher realms and other esoteric science.

For more on Jupiter in LEO I'd recommend watching Astrofinesse.

For jupiter in the first there's KRS.

🌻As a Leo rising you come across as someone outgoing, with a playful energy but you're also somehow someone people would expect to see in a position of authority. You're drawn to people who stimulate you intellectually and love to exchange ideas.

😬If you have an Aquarius saturn you could be having some challenges in your relationships since December 2020 as saturn transits your 7th house. I'd suggest practicing discernment in this area as well as signing contracts with people until it passes( early 2023) ..

😇12th house sun could take on other people's energy. I feel like you need some time away, by yourself, preferably at the beach / pool/ shower to declutter, clear your head and replenish your sense of Self. You could be highly intuitive. If this resonates, I'd urge you to look up empath drain and how to protect yourself from energy vampires.

Ruler of the ascendant in the 12th :

spirituality could be a huge part of your life. For some people this could show a father (figure) who was convicted or worked in a prison / asylum. They could also have a really remote job. Since the sun is also your own personal identity, you could profit off these themes. Working in a mental health facility, overseas, in esoteric crafts.

🌛With your moon in the 7th house, you probably attract a lot of older women, (queen of swords) nurturing energies . Your mom could have a major influence on any business partnerships that you enter.

In relationships you could have a here today gone tomorrow kind of a presence. This is because as the moon waxes and wanes so does your attraction / attachment to specific people?

♒Aquarius moon : it could be really hard for you to express your feelings. So Instead of asking for a hug there could be a tendency to say something like ' ew imagine asking for one?' you leave a place better than you found it. If you watch hindi movies, 3 Idiots could be a movie you really resonate with. ( I pretty much spent the day looking up the lead actor, who has major aquarius placements and his films have always been disruptive with a really nice social message that left people talking for years after they were released. I tell you this because he shares 2 of your big 3 - aquarius and cancer.)

Going off on this tangent you could be a well respected teacher / writer / entertainer. Jupiter in LEO could help with this.

I do feel like you need a certain amount of inventiveness in your relationships. The people you're with are people who introduce you to new hobbies / ideas / technologies. You need to feel like you guys learn something new or create something that matters together. This is enhanced by uranus in the 7th house. You could come across really cold because you always give people the naked honest truth when asked. You do this from a place of love. I'm reminded of the Queen of Swords card in the rider Waite tarot. Not everyone has the maturity to take it. Or maybe they've just had a bad day. It is what it is. Perhaps try to not be so incisive if this is something you struggle with.

In the same vein, if I asked you to write down how you were feeling how long would it take for you to identify the right emotion. How honest are you with yourself?

Moon and Uranus being in the same house could show that stagnation could really hurt your mental health / happiness / satisfaction levels.

With a saturn ruled moon I feel like I need to remind you to not be so hard on yourself. Like. The world won't crumble to dust if you allow yourself to take care of you once in a while.there's only so much you can do.

All those coffee mugs will catch up. There's no such thing as extra hours in the day. A lack of sleep manifests as early signs of aging. No hate for the elderly but arthritis is not a fun ailment to have. Do you wanna be 60 with 80 year old nervous system problems? I rest my case.

Uranus and moon aspect your ascendant so you could have a slightly plump look?

Jupiter in the first house people usually have prominent thighs. I had a friend with this placement and when we were growing up she used to complain of chafed thighs a lot?

Mars sextile venus you could be your own type? The way you act and the way you want your future partners to express love could be quite similar which is good for healthy relationships.

There could be a tendency to spend impulsively.

With Mars sextiling venus you could be someone who earns more the more active their lifestyle is? Like, you may need to be an agile learner to keep money flowing in .

Jupiter in LEO in a woman's chart usually shows they'd have a financially well off spouse so money may not be a huge concern. He could be a sailor or earn via exports/ navy. It's hard to say without knowing where your Saturn is.

The image you project to the world could be a lot more outgoing than how you actually feel. You're more private than people think.

With a fire rising, water sun and air moon you could either be a really balanced person or just have a number of clashing ideas on who to be, what to do and achieve.

Descendant : The people that hate on you could attack your need to stand out /try to dim your time in the spotlight. Think aquarius themes of standing out to improve community clashing with Leo's need to stand out solely because it helps their ego. Like your confidence could trigger the part if them that felt judged negatively for expressing their individuality.

Do you feel like you thrive in chaos? I'm guessing you're atleast in your late 20s if not older, so you might have gotten better at dealing with people acting unexpectedly. Your mom could have been unpredictable. Really intelligent, but forgets to eat ..

🥤🦀As a cancer sun, you could be the friend your friends come to for advice. There could be a tendency to be a little too selfless. I think your aqua moon really serves as a shield to those who try to take advantage of your caring nature. Have you considered a career in psychic medium ship? Or any spiritual art/ past life regression / you get the drift..

Is there a family craft or hobby that you could monetize? Jupiter in LEO could signify ancestral gains.

Lilith and Pluto aspects to ascendant can make you come across really sexy / a bit unapproachable because people feel like you have some kind of power that places you above them?

Due to this, people with Pluto / Lilith aspects can feel some kind of hurt around people clearing up the path around them if that makes sense.

Jupiter opposite moon : there could be a clash between you want to do VS what you feel you should be doing.

Jupiter in the first house : you could have been born rich? Or people just perceive you that way. They also see you as someone wordly wise and lucky in general. You could know a lot about a wide variety of things. Specially on topics related to appearance, personal development, image consciousness etc. Since the ruler of the first is in the 12th I feel like some of your wisdom comes from a divine source. Like you're tapping into some kind of a collective reservoir of knowledge. In starseed terminology we would refer to this as downloads.

Jupiter rules the 8th house and 5th house.

So love, romance, games, early education may have been a bit of a breeze for you.

Jupiter is usually a bit of a celibate spiritual person. So, while it may make you really wise with respect to things like the occult / tarot / other 8th house themes, I'm not sure how it would impact your sex life with a spouse. Sex could be either a deeply spiritual experience for you or take on more neptunian traits. Addiction / alcoholism / drug use the works. Jupiter expands the themes of the house it rules so a word of caution there.

Travelling could bring you luck. Or even love.

Did I hear Mars opposite Neptune?

This could be a literal battlefield. You could feel like you need to work for love.if Neptune is unconditional love and Mars is your drive, then you could literally match to get to taht elusive unconditional sense of belonging /love / acceptance. But what are you marching towards really? A mirage? With this aspect I'd really be on the guard against addiction of any kind. Neptune is enticing, alluring, mocking Mars for its need to conquer. It could lend a really nice swagger to your walk. A runway model could benefit from thus placement. At uts best this aspect imbues you with creativity, inspiration, otherworldly imagination and the energy required to turn your abstract ideas of art into something tangible.

Here's a source for more on this placement. Sometimes I find that the comments really help me make sense of my own placements

Toodles

Before I sign off, I just have to say this :please try to restrict asks to 2-3 placements. You can send in multiple asks if you'd like, but answering them all in one ask can get a bit cluttered and I'd hate to miss out on something 😊

Hope this helped 💕as always, I'd really appreciate your feedback on this take on how these placements affect you.

[todourouki]

Good Girls, Bad Guys | Dabi

a one shot

SUMMARY: The one where no one can understand why you’re so interested in Dabi, but you just can’t seem to help yourself. Maybe it was how soft he was when no one else was around, or how gentle his touch was against your skin, or maybe even how clumsy he is on purpose just to see you— whatever it was, you couldn’t get enough of the scarred man.

PAIRING: Villain!Dabi & Sweetheart!Reader

WORD COUNT: 5.7k

WARNINGS: Explicit Language, Dabi purposely acts careless during missions so u can tend to his wounds because he’s an attention whore, Smut [18+]

Dabi was a complete mess.

He was a mess made of old silver staples, burnt purple skin adorning his lean and tall build, the same routined outfit that never seemed to alternate, unruly raven hair always managing to stay as distressed as the day before, and silky yet lewd words that slipped off his sinning lips as if it were his maiden tongue.

The only difference with his usual mess of an appearance today as he stood with arms crossed against his chest would be the large rip peaking through his black coat. Your eyes widened, rushing him into your living room and shutting the door behind him.

Your apartment was one that Dabi never seemed to get tired of. He had only really been in the living room, yet the cozy space always brought an odd sense of familiarity into his soul he couldn’t quite pinpoint.

He wasn’t sure if it was the plush and soft couches, pillows thrown against each cushion making it look just as soft and comfortable as they really were, or maybe it was the picture frames hanging around every wall with a candle on an invisible shelf not too far from the glass.

Either way, the steps he took in his plain black socks on to the carpet under the couches and coffee table brought him into a weird headspace one could only describe as happiness. It really did scare the shit out of him.

With a simple few set of steps, he swung his body down onto the cushions he always found himself sinking into at weird hours of the night like today. The only difference from the current night to others would be that it was an earlier hour, currently being only two in the morning as soft rain pattered against the windows adorning your cozy living area.

“Dabi..” Your soft words whispered into the silence of the room, hands gently hovering over the large cut in concern as you watched him throw you a rather forced smirk.

“Nothing worse than what I already got. Just patch me up like new, princess.” His words didn’t get the usual blush from your cheeks he always searched for after his usual flirtatious remarks filled the room.

All he was gifted with would be a look of sadness covering your usually content face. Without a word, you stood up and walked away towards what he assumed was your bathroom. All the man could do was furrow his eyebrows, the confused face remaining when you walked back into the couch and knelt down on the floor next to him.

“What’s wrong with you?” He bluntly asked, a once drawn eyebrow raising as you brushed the sleeve of his t-shirt off and eyed the dried up cut.

You continued to remain silent, only sighing as the alcohol pad in your hand made its way over to the open skin. Before the stinging sensation could reach his skin though, the opposing hand gripped onto your wrist and tugged it further away and just enough to make your eyes finally meet his.

The silence surrounded the room, Dabi staring at you in order to get you to speak. You were conflicted, of course you loved patching the man up almost every night and hearing about his wild adventures in words that made your eyes twinkle with excitement. Yet you were becoming exhausted of seeing him with a brand new scar eventually worse from the one than before.

“I just..” Your soft voice began, Dabi’s posture becoming subtly more relaxed the minute his favorite sound filled the room. “I get tired of seeing you get hurt all the time, you know?”

Your words made him smirk, the same infamous one he couldn’t seem to keep off his burnt lips. In one swift movement, he released your arm and pushed it back towards the large gapping wound that made your stomach turn.

“You worrying about me?” He questioned, the hand that once gripped your wrist now resting against your cheek as he stared at you mockingly.

It was hard to not get flustered around Dabi. He had such a way with words and always knew just how to get your ears to turn a hue of red you didn’t even know they were capable of becoming. You felt the heat flush to your cheeks and hoped the flattery you felt wasn’t too visible. Your face turned back to the large cut on his arm, ignoring his remark all together.

The minute the liquid reached his arm, a soft hiss you were used to slipped off his lips. You only weakened the grip on the cut, your bottom lip being tugged between your teeth in concentration.

“I have to get rid of the bacteria before I use my healing quirk— I’m sorry.” Your apology rang on deaf ears, and Dabi chose to ignore it in order to save your heart from thinking you hurt him.

He only nodded and placed his hand away from your cheek to behind his head in order to give his eye level some more precision on your face. You had a concentrated knit between your eyebrows, and he almost got worried you were forgetting to blink. This was an expression he was much too used to, yet every time he saw it gave him the same feelings he could never explain.

The silence in the room pained you both, the level of words usually slipping out of either of your lips being brought to an awkward zero. It was really uncomfortable, and you couldn’t deal with it anymore as you tossed the now bloodied up tissue somewhere on the ground.

Your hands replaced the tissue, a light reflecting across his arm and making a hiss leave his lips once again. You knew that the feeling of your healing quirk made him feel uncomfortable and he never really grew used to it yet. It shocked you though, because you’d think after being in this exact predicament probably over 100 times, he’d grown used to the prickling feeling.

“Where was this one from?” Your voice was still soft, trying to ease his mind off the pain in a way you knew was best for him.

Dabi loved the way you cared for him. The first time he met you was at the League of Villains hideout in a trashy old building he really hated. You walked in through that warp guy’s portal and the minute he saw you was the minute he believed in angels. It was like time stopped, and he really wasn’t a fan of finding people so attractive yet there you were.

You were announced to be the healer for the league. Shigaraki found you abandoned in some building destroyed in a fire you couldn’t remember, and finding refugee in the odd man was your only option to survival at that point. With that, you were granted as the only person with a full-blown apartment in the building in order to be available for their every need, and were granted immunity from being on actual missions.

That was good enough for you, though. You weren’t a violent person, and knowing most of their targets were children didn’t sit right with you. Despise that, you didn’t have the heart to quit and instead decided to spend the remainder of your days with the dysfunctional League. You had never felt genuinely needed the way the League needed you, and in some weird Stockholm syndrome way, you couldn’t shake the comfort you got from knowing they had to have you around to genuinely survive.

“If I tell you, you’d only worry more.” He smiled over at you, a rare sight blessing your wondering eyes and making you blush once more.

Dabi wasn’t a liar— that’s something that was well known amongst everyone in the league and even amongst you. So when he thought about what happened today, why he was sitting on your couch, and how he planned on hiding the truth from you, he had to mentally lecture himself for stretching the truth.

The real reason Dabi was getting patched up underneath your touch was because he chose to be.

He would never tell you, but the large and deathly gash on his arm was at first only a slight cut where a staple had fallen out. He chose to ignore it in the beginning and decided to check in with you about it after the weekend passed. Yet the minute he realized that meant he’d have to go several days without feeling your touch and hearing your voice made him change his mind completely.

With that, a tissue was wrapped into a ball and sitting in his lips and Dabi ended up watching himself remove a few staples from his arm and tug at the skin in a way that made him shiver. I literally tore myself open to see her, who the fuck does that?

Your hand had finished doing its job. Dabi could tell by the way the prickling ended, and he found his body getting pushed upwards and being replaced by the comfort of your chest against his back.

You positioned the both of you to where his body was leaning against your legs and chest in a way to make his arm in perfect reach for you. The stapler in your hand warned Dabi of what was to come, and he simply sat back against the comfort of your body heat with closed eyes.

“People that worry are people that care.” You whispered, the sound of the stapler pressing into his arm being the only other sound. Dabi’s face remained stoic as he drank in your words and let a loopy grin cover his bored expression.

“Are you saying that you care about me?” Dabi continued to tease, bright blue eyes now opening and staring into yours with flames threatening to shoot through his pupils.

You scoffed, finishing the last staple and replacing the metal object down with a bottle he recognized as the ointment you always forced him to wear after using his quirk. The cool of the cream made him sigh in content. The contrast of his burning skin to a cold burn-relieving cream brought pleasure into his body.

“I care about all of you— that’s why I do th-” “No, Y/N.” He interrupted, making you clam your mouth shut and listen to his words nervously. “I asked if you cared about me.”

You finished lathering the ointment on his skin, gently propping his body up against the backrest of the couch. He only slightly grimaced and tossed the bad arm on a side that didn’t interfere with his position. Your legs were now crossed underneath you.

“Of course I care about you, Dabi.” Your voice made a groan threaten to fall off his lips. There was nothing Dabi loved more than your voice, especially when you said his name. Whenever you spoke, he knew every one and everything didn’t matter if it wasn’t you and your vocal cords.

Dabi rolled his head to the side to make you face him. Even with a bad arm, he was able to now pick it up and peel his jacket off his body lazily.

“How much do you care about me?” The smirk playing weakly on his lips made you shiver, and just watching his expression brought butterflies to your stomach.

“A lot, that’s why I’m always ready to patch you up..” You mumbled, nervously looking down at your fingers and playing with the ring on your right index finger.

It wasn’t that you were shy— but the way Dabi’s eyes always followed yours brought a certain attraction you couldn’t stuff away. It was almost scary how much he made you squirm, even under something as simple as a gaze.

Sure, Dabi flirted with everyone. It didn’t take a genius to see that he flirted with you in a different way, though. His eyes always lingered longer on your frame when you entered the room, he spoke more words to you than he’s probably ever said in his life, and he always kept his endearing pet-names for you and only you.

“You wanna know something, doll?” He asked lowly, his face staring into yours intensely as you finally lifted your eyes to meet his and nodded your head.

Regardless of his appearance, regardless of his attitude, and regardless of the fact it’s Dabi, you knew that you were a goner from the start. You had a ridiculously annoying crush on him, and we’re pretty sure he could coerce you into doing just about anything. He probably knew that, too.

“I think I care about you more than anyone else here.” His words stitched onto your skin, the quietness seeming as if he feared anyone else would hear his words.

“You’re too good and innocent for this world.” He continued, a patchy hand stretching its way over towards your face and slowly rubbing at your cheeks.

You stood quiet, fearing that he’d stop his words all together and you wouldn’t be able to here the sincere tone he rarely spoke in. The only sound in the room one was able to hear was the pattering of water running down the window and your lit candles cracking amongst themselves. Your head leaned into his hand and let the warmth of his palm silk you in.

“That’s a problem though, baby.” Baby.. Your eyes widened at the new name, eyebrows furrowing and glancing over at him with a tilted head.

“What problem is there about that, Dabi?”

He chuckled, gliding his hand from your cheek to the back of your head as he grabbed a fistful of hair as soft as possible. He tugged your head closer towards his daringly. You breath began to shallow and you felt it, the excitement that always came with Dabi whenever he was around.

“You might be a bit too good for me.” He spoke as if he was trying not to scare you away. The timidness of words only brought you closer to him, finally feeling your chest collide with his arm as you were pressed against his side with your face dangerously close to his.

His blue eyes refused to leave yours, and the intensity of the situation made you nearly melt inside. It’s been a while since anyone ever said something like that to you, let alone a guy. A feeling jumpstarted your butterflies, and you ran your tongue against your bottom lip to hide the now dry sensation of your lips.

“I’m not too good for you, please don’t say that Dabi.” The way his name rolled off your tongue made him groan and grip your hair a little tighter.

You’d be lying if it didn’t feel good.

Your face was close enough to feel the heat run off his cheeks, and you knew that you wanted nothing more than to just collide your lips with his. The sexual tension he oozed was something you couldn’t handle, no matter how hard you clenched your thighs.

“You sure about that, princess?” You heard the dare in his voice and felt nothing but exhilaration run through your veins as if you were speeding down a highway on the opposite side of the road.

You weren’t sure when his hands reached your shorts-covered bottom, but you soon found yourself mumbling in surprise when your body was tossed (with literally one arm) across his figure in a straddling position. Your chest arched into his by the pressure he had on your ass, and a gulp slipped through your lips in embarrassment.

You refused to back down, though.

“I’m really sure, Dabi.”

You knew the effect you had on him when you mentioned his name, and he knew by the way he smirked up at you. His other arm was still limp on his side, but that didn’t stop his dominant and good arm from groping every inch of your lower half. You were trying your hardest to cover a moan, yet the minute he gripped a piece of your thigh close enough between the other, you couldn’t help but slam your lips against his.

Dabi tasted like what you would expect him to taste like. The saliva that trailed from his throat down yours had the taste of metal and mint chewing gum. The taste became something you grew familiar to within seconds of smacking your lips against his, and by the way his body gripped you closer to his, you could tell he enjoyed your taste just as well.

Dabi’s mind went empty at the way your tongue moved against his. He couldn’t believe that his pretty little girl could kiss him like this, letting out secret moans into his lips in a way that made sinning sound like a good idea. He also couldn’t believe how fast he got hard, the bulge pressing against his jeans in a way he just couldn’t work with.

You felt it, and your body began to nervously rock back and forth in a way to secretly relieve yourself. Before you started to press your body down harder, Dabi’s free hand slipped up to your hair again and pulled your head back with a tinge of softness. He was out of breath and flustered, and you were sure you looked just as distraught as him.

“Listen,” he panted, his hand letting go slightly of the grip and groaning at the way your lips swelled up in a coat of his own saliva, “if you start something, I won’t able to not finish it. I also won’t go slow.”

The words activated a switch in your head, eyes widening as you stood up from his lap. Before he could question your actions or even grow a bit disappointed at the idea of you not wanting to continue, his eyes nearly jolted out of his skull. Before him stood you, clad in a pair of plain white panties and your shorts thrown on the ground from where you had dropped them. If Dabi wasn’t already obsessed before, he knew he was nothing but smitten now.

You stood quiet and he followed suit as you took your place back into his lap. Without glancing at him, you fiddled with his belt and loosened the grip around his hips.

Dabi really wanted to stop you. He really fucking did. Yet watching you focus on nothing but trying to take his clothes off made him unable to move and speak. It was like he was brainwashed, and he nearly died the minute you sat up to push his pants down.

“I-I-Y/—” “Shh.”

Your fingers covered his mouth as you continued to stare down at his pants in focus. You knew he was trying to stop you, but you wanted to continue. You knew you wanted him to know that you were just as fond of him as he made it seem he was for you.

After struggling to shimmy his pants off his lanky legs with one arm since you were still trying to shut up him, you watched his body lie limp across your couch in nothing but a shirt and black briefs.

It was like heaven in front of your eyes.

You licked your lips, shyly taking a seat on top of him and removing your hand. Your fingers made their way over to his chest. You wanted to take his shirt off and feel the skin to skin contact, but you knew how Dabi was about that stuff. He’d never say it, but you knew he was insecure of the uneven portions of skin there.

He tilted your head up with a finger and brought your wide eyes to his. “What do you want to do, doll? It’s whatever you want.”

The words brought goosebumps up your spine. The way he said it just made you weak, each word slipping off his lips like the air you needed to breathe and you soon found yourself whimpering at the sentence you knew he set up for this exact reaction. You could tell by how smugly he watched you writhe under his words.

You thought about your next sentence carefully. His arm was injured, and you weren’t sure if he was as into this as you were. Sure, making out and dry-humping was cool for a while— but would he be okay with jumping straight into sex? Sure, most people go through an extensive amount of foreplay in order to get the mood going, but you didn’t really want to. His arm was hurt, and all you wanted to do was watch him squirm under you as you made him feel good.

“I want to ride you.” The sudden confidence of your voice made him stammer, eyes watching you as they twitched in excitement. He had never realized how much he’d wanted those words to slip off your pretty lips but he was beyond estatic to hear them he meant for him and only him.

He didn’t respond, only pressing you into his lips with the hand gripping your hair and taking your mouth by surprise. Your tongues moved in sync, and you could feel yourself only growing wetter and wetter from just the way he pounded his lips into yours.

Before you could stop yourself, you moved your fingers to the waistband of his briefs and pushed them back just enough to hear something heavy smack against his stomach. Yes, something heavy.

He gripped your hair again and this time with much more intensity, broke your lips apart and pushed your head away from his. From the quick glance you gave him, you could see his nearly throbbing dick rest against his lean stomach in a way that nearly teased you. His lips were wet and his eyes were clouded with desire.

“I want to watch your face when you sit down on my dick, Y/N.”

The assertiveness made you nod your head obediently. Instantly following his commands, you rested your body onto your knees and pushed your panties to the side. A soft hand gripped his dick, and the way he sucked his breath in at the contact made you smile smugly.

He didn’t realize though, since his eyes were now trained on your dripping heat inch closer towards his dick. He counted in his head, preparing himself to sink into the place he wanted to get into the most.

5. Your hands slowly swirled up and down his dick, pumping gently enough to prepare his body to take you up yet to also evoke a moan from his lips. And Dabi doesn’t moan.

4. Your eyes never left his the minute you had a good enough grip on him, and just that alone made some precum slip through his tip.

3. He thought you looked so pretty getting ready to sit down on his cock. ‘Imagine when she’s actually riding me, fuck.’

2. To prep yourself up a bit more, you lathered you’re wetness with a swipe of your thumb against his tip, the sensation making him suck in an incoherent curse.

1. This was your moment. Usually Dabi wanted to take control, and usually in his fantasies about you, it was you getting drilled into your own bed in a way that had you forgetting how to scream. This was different though. Dabi wanted to see what you were going to do.

Before he could even continue his thoughts, the feeling of a soft, extremely wet, and tight hole covered his penis agonizingly slow. With squinted eyes in pleasure, he watched as your face moved from that smug smile to a look of focus and surprise. Within just the first few inches, you already felt as if your insides were more full than possible.

Growing impatient yourself was something you knew would be a bad idea, but you couldn’t help it. So with that, you let go of all strain in your knees and in your hands and let your body drop fully into his embrace. Just like that, you imagined he was probably in your damn gut at this point.

“You’re so big.” You gasped, the vulgar words coming out of your lips making Dabi groan even more than he already was at the sudden contact.

You took a few more minutes to take him in as your vagina just refused to take all of him in. For a skinny guy like him, the weight he carried down there definitely made up for it and you weren’t complaining.

Before you knew it, you felt the need to continue. With that, you dragged your hands up to Dabi’s face and gripped the sides in yours. His lips met your lips, and you began to grind your body against his in order to control your pace for the time being.

You had to rip your lips off his as your slowly found yourself bouncing against him. The movements were so sudden, Dabi didn’t expect it and found his eyes slamming shut in pleasure as his free-hand gripped your ass cheek roughly.

“Fuck Y/N.” He moaned, making you feel only more determined than before.

His praises (which really only consisted of moans, groans, and the word fuck) egged you on, and before you knew it, you were bouncing your body up and down with such speed and intensity, Dabi couldn’t even say a word.

You were fucking him so good, he couldn’t even speak.

Dabi wasn’t sure if it was the way you slipped your body all the way up to his tip only to slam back down, or if it was the quick and loud moans that left your lips so richly, or if it was the trail of wetness coming down from your lower heaven pooling into his light pubic hairs. Whatever it was though, was causing him to see stars.

As thunder cracked in the background, all you could focus on was the sounds of your thighs and body slapping into Dabi’s in a perfect motion.

“D-Dabi—” you moaned loudly, the words falling off your lips quicker than you could handle, “I-You-You feel so— so fucking good.”

The word good dragged out longer than you liked, your screams being reduced to whimpers due to not wanting anyone else to hear you. Dabi watched you, groans coming out of his lips matching yours in a way that made you grow in intensity.

Your hips moved harder and faster, finally finding your own G-Spot and beginning to see stars in your trail of sight.

“You look- look so fucking pretty— taking my cock like this— baby.” The name only made you yelp, whimpering as your eyebrows furrowed and began to thrash your ass tight vagina in a quick notion of in, out, grind, out, grind, in, and over and over again.

There were many things you did to impress Dabi. Honestly, the way you breathe was something Dabi wanted to praise you with in itself. This, however, was beyond him.

Watching you throw yourself against his dick, eyes crossing and drool slipping across your still swollen lips, ass that he was gripping onto as if it would leave forever clapping against his skin, whimpers and cries coming out of your throat was something that Dabi now believed he wanted to be the only thing he ever saw again.

“Just like that doll, I want to see you cum-see you cum all over me.” He managed to get out, face scrunching as he felt his tip slam into a certain part of your pussy that damn near sent vibrations down his long length. He had never felt pussy this good before, and maybe it was just because he was attracted to you, but whatever it was— was driving him absolutely insane.

You felt your stomach tighten, a trail of curses coming out of both you and Dabi’s mouths in synch. You continued to bounce against him. Somehow, the position you were in where you were now on your feet only allowed you to ride him harder and faster than before. Dabi nearly passed the fuck out.

You, on the other hand, were definitely already gone. Watching his face scrunch up, staples clattering as his hair began to stick to his forehead and his lips rip your name and curses like they were the only words he knew— you couldn’t handle it. With that, the pressure in your stomach grew.

“Do-don’t worry about me baby—” he could feel your hole beginning to tighten up more and more, the sensation feeling as if you were milking his cock from the inside and dragging his cum up involuntarily.

“B-but I wanna cum with you.” You whined out, head thrown back in nothing but pure ecstasy.

He could see your tits bounce harshly against your shirt, yet for some reason, he couldn’t bring it upon himself to burn the stupid material off. For a flashing moment in time, he thought about how your eyes trailed against his covered chest.

“I know b-baby.” You said, snapping him from his stare at your chest and up to your now clearly red face. “I-I ke-kept it on so that we-we both have our shirts on.”

That itself, nearly brought Dabi over the fucking edge. The simple fact that you were so fucking considerate, enough to do some little shit like that drove him insane.

Without blinking, the limp hand once thrown on the couch was now gripping onto your body. You couldn’t say anything though, because his other hand gripped the couch and brought him to an angle to where he began to obliterate you.

With nothing but a gasp being able to come out of your locked jaw, your eyes rolled back at the way his drilled in and out of you in a nearly barbaric manner. His arm gripped around your waist in order to bring himself to more pleasure, and you found yourself bouncing up and down in order to counter him and bring more force into the slams.

“Holy fucking shit.” He yelled, his jaw tightening as he began to whimper.

You were fucking him back, your hands tugging at his raven hair roughly and your lips drooling at the sensation in a way that made you seem to be out of your headspace. Just like that, your stomach tightened up and warned you that you had about a second to let him know you were going to literally cream yourself.

You heard his staples more than usual, yet ignored the small noises in order to focus on the grip pressed against your body.

“Dabi I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum, I’m gonna cum.” You repeated, your voice hoarse and whined out from the way he fucked your brain into overdrive.

All that could be heard were your pleas of pleasure, Dabi’s hips slamming into your hips that slammed into his, the wet sounds of your pussy continuously being filled up to the brim by Dabi, and the couch beginning to squeak at the roughness.

Without catching a breath, Dabi’s hand roughly scratched its way up to your hair and tugged you to face him.

“Cum now.”

The order made your eyes roll back. You weren’t sure just how close you were, but just him commanding you to do it made you finally fall over the edge. The feeling of his dick shooting into you made you topple over onto his chest, cries leaving your lips as you orgasmed harder than you probably ever have before.

The sight you once had disappeared as you saw nothing but stars and darkness. The air once resting in your lungs cleared out, and nothing was able to leave your throat other than Dabi’s name over and over again as if it were your religion.

Dabi followed suit, finally resting underneath you and gasping for air from the orgasm he just came down from. His cock stood in you, still warm and twitching from the stimulation still being given from your tightness.

Nobody said anything, voices too tired, bodies too sticky and stuck together, and minds too empty to even be able to form a sentence. Your legs had given up on you, finally wrapped behind Dabi’s back as you clung onto him for your dear life.

“Baby.” Dabi called out softly, his raspy voice making you snap out of your fucked out trance. You looked at him, eyes barely being able to hold themselves open as your body wobbled against his.

“Let me clean you up, okay?” He softly asked, his hand gently pushing some hair still stuck to your cheeks behind your ears. You bit your lip and defiantly shook your head.

“Can we clean up tomorrow?” You asked shyly, hands rubbing up and down his chest as your voice pleaded for him to listen. “I just want to sleep with you for the rest of the night.”

The minute you looked at him with those wishful eyes and small pout, he found it really fucking hard to say no. He wasn’t really planning on staying, but now he wasn’t sure if he was ready to even think about leaving.

Agreeing with your plea to stay, he twisted his body enough to where he was finally lying down on the couch from one end to the other. He dragged your body with him, adjusting you to where your legs were tangled up and your head taking comfort on his shirt-clad chest.

With the way he just fucked your lights out, and the way he softly spoke to you and rubbed your back, you found it even harder to keep your eyes open. It was no surprise when Dabi somehow managed to turn the singular lamp on that was on the table next to him off only to find you slightly snoring on his chest.

So many times, he warned himself that when the day he got to go inside of your wet, sweet heaven came, he’d stay up and take advantage of being able to look at your fucked out expression some more.

But due to how good you rode his dick, how good you kissed him, and how good you felt weaves into his body, he couldn’t help but close his eyes and fall into the same slumber as you with his hands tightly wrapped around your frame and a small smile playing at his lips.

—

cue the song overdue by travis scott because this took me like a week to write for some reason 🥴 writers block aint no mf JOKE! Anyways, i hope you guys enjoyed! I did get an anon ask somewhat similar to it though so that kinda got me to finish. So anon, whoever you were that sent that one Dabi anon in about reader being a healer and such, thanks for saving the day 😔👍🏾 anyways YEA please don’t let this flop idk why y’all don’t like Dabi </3 smh no substance! Also this is hella unedited and guess what? Idc. If you see a typo though, please lmk.

don’t forget to like, reblog, comment, and follow me if u a real one

[morefandomscenarios]

Lost

Zoro does not get lost.

He doesn't understand why people keep telling him that he has no sense of direction. North, South, East, West. Up, down, right, left. Four directions to choose from. Eight if you're being obstinately picky. But still - it's so simple. Just pick a direction and go with your gut.

So no, he's not bad with directions. He doesn't get lost in places - he's not a kid. More often than not, if he looks lost, he's just... scoping for directions. That's right. As long as he reaches the right destination in the end, who cares how many detours he takes?

"Well, not if you were supposed to reach there at a certain time."

Zoro stops in the middle of his rant, a bashful look washing over his annoyed scowl.

"..... That was....... My bad...."

The previously skeptical look in your eyes morph into amusement.

"I was just teasing you!" You laughed for good measure and added lightheartedly, "It's fine, Zoro. I shouldn't have suggested we meet up at the town... We could've just started the date at the ship instead of the restaurant. Besides, that was a few days ago!"

The green haired swordsman scratches his cheek and leans back against the ship's railings.

"Anyway, yeah, I get what you're saying. I suppose since you completed your errand and returned to the ship before we actually departed, Nami didn't have to charge you extra... But you know how she is."

He sighs, "My tab keeps getting bigger."

You giggle, "You and me both."

Zoro isn't really mad at the navigator. You know that. He knows that. Both of you fully understand that even though Nami will sometimes threaten you with your ever-growing, kind-of-forced loans, she wouldn't actually extort you. Yes, she can get a little... obsessed, when it comes to money, but she treasures everyone in the crew just as much.

Truthfully, your boyfriend just wants to see you make those adorable expressions, and he doesn't have other topics of conversation to think of at the moment.

"Oh, that's right!" With a sparkle in your eyes and a fluid motion, you heave yourself up to the railing to sit upon it, your back facing the sea, as you prepare to animatedly describe the events that happened while he was out doing errands.

Zoro shifts the very second you change positions. He moves in front of you, one of his arms placing itself against the railing right beside your hip and the other circling behind you to plant onto your back firmly; a silent gesture of protectiveness that you've gotten used to by now.

He's silent as you ramble off about your day, the only inclinations that he's actually listening being the soft grunts or soft chuckles reserved for your ears only. You don't know it, but between your string of words, he's also exploring your eyes, watching the slight changes and the way they sparkle under the starry sky.

Times like these make him regret not having two functional eyes. He wonders if he would be able to see your eyes even clearer then; perhaps finding the hidden ways they change according to your emotions.

The way your eyes light up as you gush about your dreams and the things you care about. The tranquility in them as you hum while doing an activity you adore, as you sink into an invisible bubble where not even him can reach you, completely lost in your own little world. The fondness he sees in your eyes when you watch over the crew members doing their own thing across Sunny's deck, the ends of your lips tugging upwards when the more rambunctious bunch did something stupid again.

They're so expressive, so vivid and yet so complicated. Even if he has a detailed map drawn by the most skilled navigator to ever sail the Grand Line, he didn't think he would be able to traverse its maze.

But maybe he doesn't want to - maybe he secretly wants to explore it forever, without actually finding the way out.

Zoro does not get lost.

But maybe, just maybe, even though he'll never admit it outloud...

Maybe he wouldn't mind getting lost in your eyes.