xirine13

[xirine13]

Even MORE Labyrinth AU

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what? oh sweetheart no, you're not weirding me out at all. you're weirding me in. keep talking, freak

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Wow. Me contributing for once instead of spectating? Rare. Anyways I love Stan and his absolutely terrible horrible no good very bad extremely glamorous outfits. I think that the baby pines twins, aged like 3 or 4, would be absolutely OBSESSED with him. Mabel especially but I dont think any toddler can resist a man covered in neon fishnet and sequins

I couldn't resist.

"Alright ya little goblins!" Stan announced, bending over to scoop up his niblings and toss them around affectionately.

Ford lingers by the front door, tying his shoes back on. They'd stayed over with Shermie and his grandkids for days now, and it was time to head back to Oregon, or at least. "Oregon". Stan couldn't stray from the Labyrinth for too long.

Still, the visits that were starting to become more than just yearly, especially with how fast the twins, Mason and Mabel, were growing, were enjoyable for everyone involved. Ford can't say he sees a huge difference between how Stan treats his actual Goblin subjects to how he treats his neice and nephew however. A little worrying.

More concerning though, was that right before the two of them left, Stan would always bestow gifts.

Ford always had to watch this bit. Last year Stan tried to give Mason a magical coin that, when flipped, altered reality.

Mason was four.

"Gather round, gather round," Stan says, releasing the twins and grinning at them both. He reaches into his sleeve, like a proper sideshow magician, and pulls out two small, wrapped boxes.

The paper they are wrapped in is covered in stars, most likely real ones, given the fact that the paper shifts every so slightly like a moving summer sky.

The twins are, of course, too young to really notice, so they tear into their packages without a care in the world.

Mason opens his box first.

Curious, Ford peaks over Stan's shoulder to look.

Grasped in his chubby hand, Mason is holding a magnifying glass. Oval shaped and with beautiful metal detailing all around the glass of it, the handle a solid brass, or perhaps even a tarnished gold.

"This," Stan says, and he adjusts it carefully in Mason's hand. "Will allow you to see things for what they are truly made out of, to help answer your many, many questions." Stan punctuates his sentence with a gentle noogie on Mason's skull.

"Like a laboratory compound microscope?" Mason asks. He's only five, so his words are hurried and just the smallest but gummy. He's inherited Stan's gap tooth, air making a small whistle through his two front teeth.

"Yeah, Gesundheit ya goober."

Ford manages to stifle his snort, and while he itches to ask all sorts of demanding questions, he's interrupted by Mabel's loud squeal of absolute delight.

"It's glitter!" She says, and she holds up a bottle, shaking it as shimmering crystals of every color sparkle inside.

"Oh it's better than just glitter, pumpkin." Stan says, and he boops her straight on the nose. "It's forever glitter."

Very quickly, Ford realizes that his brother has just handed off a weapon of mass destruction. To a preschooler. He feels the blood drain from his face.

"Forever glitter?" He echoes, and while Stan's not facing him, Ford knows the grin that slides across Stan's face. The certified, trademark grin of a Goblin King.

"Forever Glitter," He says very slow and he gently curls Mabel's fingers around the jar. "Is very special. It can stick to anything, anywhere, and it will never, ever wash off. Ever."

Mabel's eyes go wide as saucers with delight.

"And," Stan adds gleefully, "that jar will never run out. It will always fill itself up. Forever."

Stan stands back up smoothly, drawing back like a tide out to sea, and puts a hand on Ford's shoulder.

"Don't put it in anyone's eyes. Say goodbye to your grandpa for us. Love you!"

Ford barely has time to repeat the same sentiment, and hear it back from his neice and nephew before he's being pulled, tugged up and down and sideways until the warm tingling feeling of old Labyrinth magic washes over him, starting at his feet and ending at his ears.

Stan is still grinning.

Ford thinks about the ramifications, the consequences, to what Stan has just done. What he's just unleashed.

"You're a monster." He breathes, and Stan only laughs.

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Imagine if Bill came back sooner when Ford and Stan were doing the swap. Like they're not done switching clothes yet so Bill just comes back to see these two mostly naked like "wtf is going on here"

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me, covered in my blorbo’s blood after I wrote a fic about them

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A bunch of Labyrinth art and doodles!

Goblin King Stan is too good of an excuse to draw through my Pinterest board of outfits

(Psst! The angst doodle with Ford holding a young Stan is based off this ask and response!)

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i’ll never forget the time like 10 years ago when i was calling my cat inside for the night (we found her as a stray and i didn’t know outdoor cats were bad yet, so we were slowly getting her used to living indoors). i kept calling for her over and over because she already knew her name (she’s so smart) but she didn’t always respond immediately and it usually took a while. so i was just standing in the backyard calling out into the night and eventually i saw a shape moving in the darkness. and i was like !!! yay!! kitty!! i see you cmere! come over here! and i swear the shape kinda stopped in its tracks, like in confusion, like asking “are you sure you want me to do that”. but i kept coaxing it closer, and then slowly trundling out of the shadows was a very confused opossum.

and we just stared at each other for a second not moving. and then i said something like. “uh. you’re not my cat. you can… you can go.”

and it just kinda turned back around and walked off into the night. my cat showed up a few minutes later but i’ve never stopped thinking about that

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speaking of branzy having power and control in his relationship with clown, i think where people go wrong with clownzy is they dont know what that looks like, and if you take clownzy in a vacuum you aren't ever going to find the answer, because branzy never abuses the power he has in his relationship with clown.

branzy's power in this relationship is the same as it is in any other relationship: he is observant, calculating, and exploitative. perfect example: trapping rekrap. theres a reason parrot came to branzy with this challenge. despite being a friend and teammate of rek's parrot never came anywhere near as close to succeeding as branzy did. branzy is not just close friends with rek, hes someone who knows how to observe others and note down behaviors, habits, strengths, and weaknesses. you cant brute force rekrap into a generic trap, and branzy knows this, so he uses his observations to tailor traps for rek that exploit his paranoia and work with it rather than against it. his entire video about reconciling with rekrap is a showcase of branzy showing this skill off! every one of the traps he made exploited the habits rek had that kept him safe from falling into other peoples traps. it was branzy spending that whole time ith rek saying "see how easily i can hurt you? arent i such a good guy because i dont?"

to take this back to clownzy, the entire reason clown teamed up with branzy is because he needed branzy to cover his weaknesses regarding redstone. their teamup was the result of clown falling into two other people's traps. hes putting a LOT on the line by letting branzy close to him, because hes basically giving branzy the key to destroying him. branzy is close enough to clown to know exactly how to exploit his nature and his weaknesses to kill him. or worse. hes smart enough to figure out a trap that would work on him. if he really wanted to betray clown he could have at any point, and theres a good chance he could have succeeded, too. the reason clown is constantly purposefully intimidating branzy is beacuse he knows branzy has the power to destroy him now, and he has to remind branzy of why that is a very bad idea. he has to assert his control of the situation. its clown saying you could kill me, but i could kill you worse.

and furthermore its not even the intimidation that keeps branzy from betraying him–well, not in the way youd think, anyway. because branzy is not afraid of risk. he got himself down to four hearts in the cleansing assisting his team even though clown explicitly told him to hide and protect himself. hes clearly not afraid of dying! no, the reason it works is because branzys a freak thats into it. he likes it when clown threatens him. and he GOT OUT. he wasnt teamed with clown in season 4 or 5, but he still gravitated to him anyway, because he missed that dynamic. he likes it when clown threatens him! and he likes it because its proof that clown considers him enough of a threat that he needs to keep him in line. because he doesnt make those kinds of threats with other weak players. he just kills them. and that power trip is a helluva drug.

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My family has no idea that I own an air horn. It beckons me, at night, when they sleep, comfortable in their beds, with no knowledge of what sounds could wake them. Sometimes I stare at it, in the dark, tracing the delicate device with which I could ruin every relationship I have in this house. It whispers to me, come, use me, it will be glorious and yet I must hold off yet another day.

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may all your favorite fanfic writers never lose their hyperfixation and love for your blorbos so they keep writing fanfics about your blorbos forever

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memeception

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What, the forest-dwelling entities with imperfect human mimicry who insinuate themselves into groups of hikers? Yeah, we had one of those. Clocked it immediately, of course. Honestly it kind of fell in that so-inept-it's-kind-of-charming range. We just played along until it'd had it's fill of marshmallows and shambled back into the treeline. We might have been violating some kind of killjoy wildlife contact best practices but what the hell, can't plan around every little thing. Why, what happened to you guys

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Get ready for some angst coming soon in the form of an animatic. Cute muppet angst served on a platter for the lovely @aroace-get-out-of-my-face soon >:)

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Hey so I just found out there’s a boycott happening tomorrow, spread this around!!!! Do not accept this blatant disrespect of privacy

[xirine13]

The comment section on this post between @curi0uscanine and I did something enough that it nudged the writers block enough for this. Enjoy

“Ford,” Stan calls. He puts his hands on his hips and stares up. “You're cheating.”

It's a moment of struggling scrabbling against stone before Ford answers. “This isn't cheating.”

“Oh yeah?” Stan drums his fingertips against the silk waistband he's wearing. “So what do you call it? Cause from down here it looks like cheating.”

“I,” Ford grunts, and he gains a foothold and inches himself further up the wall. He's gained a fair amount of ground, enough that Stan has to crane his neck a bit in a way he doesn't like. “Am making a choice. The Labyrinth is all about choices, and this is one of them.”

“You're making a choice to cheat.” Stan rolls his eyes. “Climbing over a Labyrinth wall is cheating, plain and simple. It's in every maze rulebook.”

Ford seems to gain a solid hold, because for a moment he stops to catch his breath. He peaks down over his shoulder, staring down from what is probably fifteen, maybe twenty feet up. The walls of the Labyrinth are not usually this high, but the Labyrinth has caught on to Ford's plan and keeps moving the goalposts.

Even now, as Ford looks away, the wall he's climbing on stretches upward at least another five feet.

Ford doesn't notice. “You and I both know that the Labyrinth isn't a simple maze,” at that Stan can feel the steady presence of The Labyrinth in his mind preen at that. “And furthermore,” Ford continues, “you and I both know you've never followed a rulebook a day in your life.”

Stan snorts. Fair. “How about the rules of nature? Specifically gravity. I don't see any ropes up there with you. You're gonna break your neck.”

“Oh please,” Ford scoffs, and he starts climbing again. “As if you'd ever let me fall.”

Also a true statement. But Stan can't exactly let that one slide, he has a reputation to uphold after all. “I might,” he lies, “it would teach you to not cheat, like a dirty rotten cheater.”

He can't be perfectly certain, but it sounds like his twin brother just repeated back Stan's last sentence in a high pitched annoying voice under his breath up there.

Stan crosses his arms, and, while still keeping an eye on Ford, taps his foot against the ground. Further up the wall, the footholds the Labyrinth has been providing all disappear. Ford can go up about two more feet, and then he will find he can go no further.

“Coming down is gonna be a lot harder than going up, ya know.”

“How would you know,” Ford snarks back, heaving himself up a little higher. “I bet you've never tried climbing the Labyrinth.”

“Don't put your foot there.”

Ford grabs onto one of the last ledges. “I don't appreciate the back seat driving.”

“I don't appreciate you cheating my Labyrinth.” Stan quips back. Ford still puts his foot where it shouldn't go. “And I wouldn't have to backseat drive if you could rock climb correctly.”

“Oh shut up Lee,” Ford grumbles. “I know what I'm doing.”

The timing is so perfect, with such disgusting irony, that Stan might have assumed the Labyrinth purposely made Ford slip just then, if it weren't for the spike of heart stopping alarm that burst like an explosion through the system.

Ford slips.

The rock is too slippery, or the foothold was too unstable, or maybe Ford simply leaned back too far, but it all comes down to one terrifying moment where his twin falls, dropping like a stone down, down, down.

Stan lurches forward, arms outstretched.

He certainly can't catch Ford, there's no way, not with how fast he's falling, but he can at least negate how hard Ford hits the ground, maybe protect his neck and head and back and everything important and fuck. This is going to hurt.

Ford crashes into Stan's chest, into his extended arms, and then Stan crumples backward, the impact onto the cobblestone of the path is going to be so painful-

Water.

In a dizzying twist, the Labyrinth slingshots them both to another part, so instead of cold hard stone, Stan's back crashes into water, cool and deep enough that there is no further impact, and there's dark and light and-

Oh.

Oh hot Belgian waffles.

The smell.

Stan gags, fumbles and retches and tries to breathe but he can't because of the smell, the rotten fishy tide pools of the Bay of Eternal Stench, it makes his eyes water, it makes his throat close up and spasm at the same time, and Stan is in it and he's pinned there and he can't even move because Ford's big fat butt is pinning him directly into the worst smell in existence.

Ford's not doing much better, but he does roll away into the shallow, disgusting smelling water to further retch and gag and try to stumble upright. Stan can't see, refusing to open his eyes so close to the smell, but if he had to guess he'd say that Ford has to be utterly disoriented, off balance even with his glasses.

“Stanley?” Ford coughs out, gags and inhales, gags again. “Stan?”

There's some splashing as Ford leaves him to his fate, trying desperately to get to shore and away from the smell. Ford's still calling though.

“Stanley? Stan? Stanley?!”

His brother actually sounds a little desperate, and Stan scrapes himself together (unfortunately leaving his dignity in the muck behind him) as he sits up, coughing.

The Labyrinth dumped them both in water that is relatively shallow, but enough to stop the fall from breaking all their bones at once. Thoughtful, if extremely smelly.

“Here,” Stan gasps out. He manages to get to his knees, but Ford reaches him before he can go any further and drags him up and to shore. Stan has no complaints, the four smelling water is in his eyes.

“You okay?” They both ask at the same time, with perfectly equal levels of concern.

Stan snorts. “Im fine. You?’

Ford takes his glasses off and wipes them on his soaking sweater vest. It doesn't do them any good. “Im alright. I knew you would catch me.”

Stan sends his brother the worst glare he can manage while wringing putrid water out of his silk outfit. Its not very effective.

“This is your fault.”

“My fault?” Ford has the gall to sound offended. “I didn't teleport us to the Bay of Eternal Stench!”

“Neither did I!” Stan snaps back, but he quickly adds “though I do appreciate not having a broken spine.”

The Labyrinth rumbles beneath their feet.

“Besides,” Stan continues. “This wouldn't have happened if you weren't trying to cheat.”

“I wouldn't have been climbing if you hadn't teleported me to the Labyrinth.”

“I wouldn't have teleported you if you hadn't eaten the last of the cereal!”

“Well I wouldn't have eaten the last of it, if you had bothered to go to the store!”

“Well-” Stan scrambles for another comeback. Finding none, he goes for the tried and true classic. “Well none of this would have happened if you hadn't wished me away to the Labyrinth!”

Ford opens his mouth for another rebuttal, and then closes it, pouting like an overgrown toddler.

“You're never going to let me live that down, are you?”

Stan grins. “I've forgiven you for that ages ago, I'm allowed to use it to win arguments.”

“Fine. Consider the argument over. Can we please go back to the castle now?”

Stan picks at his sopping, stinky sleeve. “Yeah. But I get first dibs on the shower.”

“You're an asshole. Also, its castle, don't you have more than one shower?”

“That's King Asshole to you.”

“I will dunk you in this water again Stan, so help me.”

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saying "rip x you wouldve loved y" while the character is clearly still alive is always so funny to me