#Cipher Agent 81

[ckret2]

Chapter 81 of human Bill Cipher not enjoying being the Mystery Shack's prisoner but being even less keen on being the government's prisoner: the feds are snooping around the shack, nobody likes this, and so a family meeting is called to discuss how to send them packing.

####

"I just kept telling him I didn't know anything," said Soos. He was slumped bonelessly on the couch, wiping his sweaty forehead with his sleeve and holding a soda in one shaky hand. "I accidentally said I don't know anything when he asked where he could get lunch in town!"

"You did good, Soos," Stan said. "That's how you handle feds—don't tell 'em anything."

Stan and Ford had called a household meeting, and now everyone was packed into the living room: Soos and the kids on the couch, Stan and Abuelita in the armchairs, Bill and Wendy at the living room table, and Ford out in the entryway so he could pace.

(Everyone was wearing deely boppers. Mabel had had a very productive day.)

Even Waddles and Gompers had been dragged to the mandatory meeting. Gompers had already eaten the pink pompoms off Waddle's deely boppers and was now trying to eat the hem of Dipper's shorts while Dipper tried to push him back from touching the sunburns on his legs.

"What are we gonna do?" Dipper asked. "Last year these guys tried to arrest Stan, and he was still using a fake name back then—so now, the agents could be after Stan or Ford."

"Dial back the pessimism. Right now, they're not after anybody," Bill said. "They're just following up on the eclipse from last week." And a tip about somebody dangerous in the shack. Bill pushed those worries aside. "They don't have any reason to come back!"

"Except the flash drive," Soos said. "Which they know is here. Inside the shack. Cuz they sensed it."

"Right. Yep. Except that," Bill said. "Hey, Dolores—howsabout you whip up one of your special 'welcome to the shack' dinners for them? I'm sure they'd enjoy it just as much as I did."

Dolores nodded thoughtfully. (The tiny sleigh bells on her deely boppers jingles.) "I could," she said. "But what would we do with the bodies?"

"We've got the perfect in-house body disposal! Chop 'em up and feed 'em to the pig."

"Nooo!" Mabel flung her arms protectively over Waddles. He oinked neutrally. "We're not feeding people to Waddles!"

"He'd probably love it!"

"Uh-uh."

"Fine, then the gnomes," Bill said.

Ford said, "Let's call murder 'Plan B.'"

Bill rolled his eye. "All right, smart guy, what's Plan A?"

Ford didn't immediately reply. He paced for another few seconds in the entryway, gathering his thoughts. "There are three ways this could end badly. We have to find a way to prevent all of them," he finally said. "One: the agents discover that there's something under the house and find the portal. Two: the agents remember there's something under the house, and realize they've been brainwashed. Three: the agents retrieve their flash drive, and that reminds them something's under the house."

Stan added, "And if any of those happens, we're both going to jail. Probably Soos too, as an accomplice. Kids might even be in trouble for escaping custody last year." Dipper and Mabel exchanged an alarmed look.

Bill looked at Wendy. "Hey, look who's off the hook." He held up a hand.

"Woo-hoo!" She high-fived him. "We'll visit the rest of you guys in jail."

Mournfully, Mabel asked, "If we get arrested, can you send me crayons?"

"I'll get you one of those boxes with a hundred crayons," Bill said. "And hide a shank in that yellowy green one you never use."

"Thanks."

But if any of those three scenarios came true, that meant government agents crawling all over Bill's portal. Best case scenario, it'd end up halfway across the country in a secret military base. There was tech left in the wreck in the basement that couldn't possibly be synthesized using Earth's current technology, and the Trilazzx Betian ship didn't have backup parts for all of them.

And that wasn't even taking that anonymous tip into account...

"I shouldn't have to go to jail," Ford grumbled. "I wasn't behind the crimes committed in my name, Stanley was."

"Hey," Stan said, "you're the one who impersonated a government agent! Besides, did you really not commit any crimes while building your dumb portal?"

Ford winced. "What's the statute of limitations on burgling radioactive waste?"

"Don't worry, Mothman," Bill called. (Ford self-consciously adjusted his deely boppers, which had paper moths taped to the ends.) "I tossed most of the incriminating evidence in the bottomless pit while you were asleep!"

"Wh— Is that where my lockpicking kit went?!"

"Haha, yeah!" Bill had bought Keyhole's loyalty for the next three hundred years with that.

Wendy waved a hand between Bill and Ford to interrupt their banter. "We can probably keep them from discovering the portal by just not giving them a reason to look behind the vending machine, right?"

"And if we keep them from getting Gompers, they won't get the flash drive," Dipper said.

Mabel said, "What if we put him on a plane to Japan! Do you wanna go to Japan, Gompers?"

Gompers looked at Mabel impassively.

"It's no good," Abuelita said. "It will take weeks to get a passport for the goat."

"Aww."

"There are plenty of ways we can keep their hands off the drive," Ford said. "We could just hide Gompers underground, for instance—there's no way their sensors can reach that far.

Oh no, not when it was clear someone had been down there tinkering with the portal. "Do that and they'll know we did something to hide it! We'll never get rid of them then."

"True," Ford sighed.

Bill said. "I'm most worried about them remembering something on their own. The agents mentioned the portal's gravitational anomalies from last summer—are they remembering something they shouldn't, or did you leave them with those memories?"

Ford hesitated, glancing uncertainly at Stan. Stan shrugged.

"Oh, right. You aren't the expert on how the memory gun operates." Bill rolled his eye toward Wendy. "You see how helpless he is without me around to feed him information?"

"Pshh, shut up. Keep me out of your weird old people academic grudge."

Dryly, Ford said, "Care to enlighten us with your superior knowledge, o god of wisdom?"

No, he really didn't. Not for Ford, anyway. He wouldn't even be grateful for it.

But, under the circumstances—knowing that the agents were after him, too... "Oh, why not," Bill said. "What did you enter in the gun? The exact wording."

Ford frowned, glancing toward the ceiling as he concentrated. "It was... I didn't know exactly how much they knew—I didn't even know which names they knew Stan under—so I tried to make it as broad as possible. I think it said something like 'Pines Household's Secrets'?"

Bill thought that over. "Okay. Okay, yeah, that works. That's perfect, actually—best answer you could have given. You never disappoint, IQ."

Ford was visibly unmoved by the flattery (which was just as well, because Bill had given it out of habit as he slid back into the role of teacher, and had immediately regretted it). "And I suppose you're going to explain why that wording is so important."

"I could," Bill said. "Do you want to know?"

Ford glowered at Bill, lips pressed together in a thin line. Bill stared back, brows arched expectantly. (Wendy looked between the two of them and snorted. Bill pushed her without breaking eye contact with Ford.)

Mabel said, "I wanna know."

"Good enough for me!" Bill hopped from his seat and crossed the living room to a spot where he could address the group more easily. "The memory gun doesn't actually destroy memories, it just severs the connections between those memories and the rest of the brain. Like snipping a squid's tentacles to free it from a squid king."

"What's a squid king?" Soos asked.

"It's like a rat king made of giant squid. It takes at least four to qualify because if their tentacles are knotted in a circle that's just a squid ring," Bill said. "So! Usually you find your own memories by their relationship to other memories. Driving by the grocery store reminds you that you need to go shopping, which reminds you that you're out of straws, which reminds you of when your doctor's eye got gouged out, which reminds you of those vampires in the library, which reminds you of that book you need to return, yadda yadda."

Stan said, "Wait, your doctor got what—?"

"He was fine, he had it coming, and I was nowhere nearby."

"And how's that get you to vampires?!"

"The tangy taste of blood left in your straw. Please hold any other questions to the end!" Bill said. "But, since the memory gun severs a memory from the ones connected to it, you can't be indirectly reminded of it—the chain's been broken. But the memory'sstill there. All it takes is a direct reminder to recall it, and then it starts reattaching to your other memories. Everyone with me so far?" He directed the question in Mabel's direction.

Mabel nodded. Ford opened his mouth to ask a question.

"Great," Bill said. "But! What gets severed is determined by whatever you programmed into the gun. So, for example, if you run into a vampire in the library, then get shot with a memory gun programmed with the word 'Vampires,' there's no more jumping from your doctor to that late book! And you won't remember your vampire encounter if you wander around the library—at most, you might get a sense of deja vu—but you will get back your memory of the whole thing if you run into another vampire!"

He nodded toward Ford. "So 'Pines household's secrets is the best phrase you could've picked. It means they forgot any Pines secrets—including Stanley's criminal record—any household secrets—including the machine in the basement—and since they only forgot the 'secrets,' they can run into anything that isn't secret without recovering their severed memories—like, say, the entire upstairs of the shack."

Slowly, Ford said, "Then that's why they remember last year's gravitational anomalies. The cause is one of our secrets, but the anomalies themselves aren't a secret—they're a matter of public record."

"Bingo," Bill said. "Well! That should be simple enough. Any questions?"

Mabel raised a hand.

Bill pointed at her. "Yes!"

"Are there vampires at the library?"

"Not anymore!"

"Aw."

Dipper asked, "Did you murder your doctor with a straw?"

"I did not and I won't be taking any more questions on the topic, it was a very traumatic experience" for the patient who went in after Bill.

Stan asked, "Why are you wearing a bedsheet for a skirt."

"Because somebody—" Bill shot Soos a dark look, "grabbed all my perfectly clean clothes for laundry day, and left me with a bedsheet and one dirty t-shirt."

Soos chuckled sheepishly. "Whoops. Sorry, dude."

Ford grudgingly raised a hand.

Bill grudgingly said, "What."

"Are squid kings real."

"Yes. As of last summer there were seven with at least fifty giant squid, but two were negotiating a merger so it might be six by now. I haven't had a chance to check!"

"Negotiating a merger? Do—do they combine voluntarily?"

"Oh, sure. In droves. It's a huge honor! The one I'm friends with says the psychic powers are totally worth the eventual zombification—they're ninety percent undead now and haven't regretted it once in five hundred years."

Ford opened his mouth, got stuck between three questions, and didn't manage to settle on one before Abuelita raised a hand.

Bill's attention switched to her. "Yes!"

With an air of patience unwarranted by Bill's actions, Abuelita asked, "Why are you standing on my TV."

Bill looked down. So he was. "This is my lecture podium."

Abuelita's eyes narrowed. Bill cheerfully ignored her. "Any questions about the memory gun?"

There was a general murmured agreement that, no, that part had been pretty clear. Stan snapped, "Now get off the TV."

As Bill hopped down and caught his balance, Wendy said, "So... as long as they don't know any of the shack's secrets and we get the flash drive out of Gompers before they're back, we're cool, right? We can just erase their files and say 'hey, sorry, the goat pooped this out, totally not our fault.' If they don't remember anything, it's not like they've got a reason to keep investigating the shack."

Bill tried to imagine how they'd react if he told them someone had anonymously reported him to the agents. What if they decided scapegoating him could protect the rest of them from the investigation? (And was he sure it wasn't someone in the room who'd reported him?) "Yep! Pretty much! That'd solve our problems!"

"Okay," Wendy said. "Great. So... we're good, right?"

The room studied each other uneasily, everyone waiting for someone else to answer. "Yes," Ford said unconvincingly. "We're good. Er—kids, we need to... discuss the details of... how to handle this. You don't need to stick around." He looked at Stan. Stan gave him a slight nod. (It made the googly eyes on his deely boppers wiggle.)

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a glance. Dipper said, "Are you sure? We could..."

"I'm sure. Maybe you should go upstairs," Ford said. "Leave Gompers here."

Mabel sat up straighter, preparing to argue, and glanced toward Bill; but when Bill shrugged rather than ready to defend her, she sighed and poked Dipper. "C'mon." ("Ow." He pushed her finger away from his sunburned arm.) They left reluctantly, Mabel escorting Waddles along with her.

Ford tilted his head toward the door. "That means you too, Miss Corduroy. Hup hup."

Wendy groaned. "Fine." She slid out of her seat and headed for the door. "Hey Goldie, let me know if anything interesting happens."

"You got it, cool girl."

Soos raised a hand. "Am I one of the kids?"

"Not today," Ford said.

"Aw."

Sensing a change in the atmosphere, Abuelita got to her feet. "I will get dinner started." She shuffled out of the room.

Bill waited until the door shut behind Wendy and he was sure the kids were upstairs; and then asked, "So are we kicking the kids out for the reason I think?"

"Afraid so. Now that the government knows the flash drive is here, they'll be back with a warrant as soon as possible. We can't waste any time." Ford knelt next to Gompers and pulled out a scalpel. "Somebody hold the goat down."

"Whoa!" Stan jumped to his feet. His deely bopper googly eyes rattled in alarm. "Were you just carrying that around?!"

Bill was abruptly reminded of one of the reasons he'd liked Ford. He squatted next to him. "All right, I can see where the drive's lodged, I can tell you where to cut—"

"Dudes!" Soos flung himself across Gompers. 'You can't cut him open! He's like part of the family! He's been eating out of the shack's garbage for years, does that mean nothing to you?!" (Gompers attempted to eat the foam lightning bolts off Soos's deely boppers.)

Bill groaned. "Come on, who cares?! It's not like he's a person anymore!"

The room stared at Bill. Stan said, "Did you say 'anymore'?"

Bill paused. "Forget I said that."

Ford sighed. "Fine, we'll try to find a solution without surgery." (But, Bill thought, he sounded a little disappointed.) "But if we're using a slower method, the agents might be back before we can retrieve the flash drive. We need a way to stop them from finding it."

"Or from finding the door behind the vending machine," Soos said. "Now that they know the drive's been here, they're gonna keep looking until they find it! What if they think it might've fallen behind the vending machine or something?"

"What we need is a distraction," Stan said. "Something that'll keep 'em from searching the shack too thoroughly."

"And ideally, something that will keep them from coming back," Ford said. "They keep returning to Gravity Falls because of the power surges and related gravity anomalies in town, correct? Obviously, the meteor shower story wasn't convincing enough. If we give them an explanation that lets them close the case completely..."

Which was all well and good, except they weren't just looking for power surges and gravity hiccups anymore. They thought somebody in the shack was a threat to national security. Bill had kept suspicion away from himself for the day by pretending to be a tourist, but if the eagles got serious, that wouldn't last long. If they were watching the shack, they'd realize Bill was a resident; and if they tried to investigate him at all, they'd quickly realize they couldn't find any legal records of his existence. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Theraprism's reincarnation machine hadn't given him the right skin color to get away with that in this country, especially during a witch hunt for a suspected terrorist.

And, worse—what if they did identify him?

He'd heard Agent Trigger say Soos's alien keychains resembled the "real thing." The Bureau of Covert Investigations didn't tell all its agents about all its cases—but it sounded like these two had been to Hangar 618 at least once.

So had Bill.

Over 60 years ago, a military experiment had accidentally ripped open a very small hole to the Nightmare Realm. Not big enough for Bill to squeeze his full self through (HA! Not even close), but big enough to project a hologram through—something solid enough for the soldiers who'd detected the temporary rift to see and touch. And, naturally, they'd hauled his hologram to Hangar 618—the five-sensed suckers thought the projection was his real body—where they hid all their unidentified fallen objects.

It had been fun! He'd gotten to use all his army name puns (Major Pain, General Disarray, Private Shame, etc.), he'd lived out a centuries-old dream of snorting a line of gunpowder, he'd gotten Commander I-Don't-Even-Know-'Er to sing "On Top of Spaghetti" in exchange for Bill agreeing to leave the artillery room, he'd learned a dirty joke from the nurse brought in to assist with his vivisection, he'd introduced himself to half the base...

He'd introduced himself.

Somewhere, probably in some redacted appendix to Project Blue Book, the US military had a file on Bill Cipher—and so did the eagles. They knew his name. Hell, they even had his thumbprints—obviously alien thumbprints, that he'd retained when he reincarnated. Every object in the shack he'd ever touched carried the proof that he was Bill Cipher.

If whoever had sent the Bureau a tip had mentioned his name... Well, there were a lot of Bills in America, but not a lot using the last name "Cipher." There were probably under fifty living humans who knew about the triangle in Hangar 618, but for those who did, hearing that name resurface in Gravity Falls would blow their gelatinous little minds. He was sure they would love to get their hands on him again. He bet they'd be fascinated to find out how a triangle had fit into a human skin.

Getting hauled into a secret government facility had only been fun when his true self was still in the Nightmare Realm and the part of him in captivity had been a projection made of light, dreams, and lethal doses of radiation. Plus, that had been before he really, truly knew what it was like to be a captive. Now, the thought of being hauled back to that interrogation room—with the cheap metal chairs and gray floor and gray walls and stark sharp light—made him nauseous. The idea of being questioned about himself by some arrogant buzzkill in a suit sounded too much like therapy for comfort.

And it would be so much easier for them to keep him from escaping when he was weighed down by flesh.

Nobody was protecting Bill. The Pines weren't above throwing him under the bus if they thought it might save their precious little family from arrest. There was nothing for it. If he wanted to save himself—he had to help.

"Listen," Bill said. "I have an idea. It's iffy, and it'll require you all to trust me a bit..." He paused to give them an opportunity to laugh.

Only Stan chuckled. Good enough for Bill. "But, it might be our best shot."

"Okay," Ford said warily. "What is it."

"Bear with me," Bill said. "I bet I could get the head agent off our case by flirting with him a little."

And that time they laughed at him.

Bill patiently waited. "Okay, okay, ha ha, but the guy's been leering at me the last two days. Ask Wendy, she's the one who noticed! And do you know what his love life looks like? Because I do. Woof. Dry as a bone. That man's married to his work! He's lonelier than Elvis is!"

"Wait," Ford said. "What does that mean? Where's Elvis?"

"Not important. The point is, he's a soft target, he's already into this—" he gestured disdainfully at his human body, "and he's got the loosest lips in the eagles. I make a little small talk, I compliment his mustache and pretend I think working for the government is attractive, I keep him too dazzled to notice what's right in front of his face..." Bill trailed off. "And... that's as far as I've gotten. We'll figure it out as we go! Maybe I just distract him too much to do his job, maybe I strangle him in the bathroom and sell his body parts to half a dozen inhuman vendors in the Crawlspace, I don't know! I'll improvise!"

"It's barely half a plan," Ford said.

"It's the biggest fraction of a plan we have. What do we have to lose?"

"I think he might be on to something," Stan said. "I mean, consider it. Bill's an objectively beautiful woman."

The room stared at him. Bill flipped up his eyepatch to double his stare.

"What! It's just a fact!"

"Aww, Stan." Bill laced his hands together coquettishly and batted his lashes.

"Save it."

"Stanley. I had no idea you felt that way about me—"

"Can it, Cipher! " Stan curled a fist threateningly. Bill winked at him. Stan shuddered. "Eugh. Physical attraction's only gonna carry you so far, demon! Can you attract a man when you're talking to him? Because personally, I find you less appealing every time you open your mouth—and you were in the negatives the first time we met."

Bill thought about that. Bill thought about all his human cultists. Bill thought about all his human cultists whom he'd caught having scandalous dreams about endless staring eyes and cool black hands that buzzed with static and being fully exposed before the golden glory of an ever-watching false sun. Bill thought about that one time he tried to ask one of his sects to at least invite him to his own wedding and wait for him to RSVP before symbolically marrying more cult novitiates to him and they sorta nodded and said "okay" and then went and wedded him to another dozen Cipherwives anyway. "Yeah! Sure! No problem! I attract humans all the time! They can't get enough of this!"

"Okay, but can you attract a human that isn't into freaky space triangle things?"

Bill tapped his index fingers together thoughtfully. "Ummm..."

####

1981

A clubber eyed the hands of the man sitting at the bar beside him.

The man noticed the look and turned toward the clubber, grinning too wide, staring at him with yellowish slitted eyes that seemed to flash in the dim light like a cat's. "Yeah, I know." He drummed his fingers on the bar top. "Six fingers."

The clubber flinched at being caught staring. "Oh—sorry."

"Don't be! It's a built-in conversation starter!" The six-fingered yellow-eyed man laughed. "Hey! Have you ever had six fingers before?"

"Uhh," the clubber said. "Nnno?"

"Would you like to?" The man winked with both eyes, one at a time.

The clubber frowned at him in confusion, and then slowly turned away without answering.

####

"Sure," Bill cheerfully lied. "No problem!"

####

There was a knock on the attic bedroom door. Mabel opened it.

Stan and Ford stood in the doorway with a sulky Bill in between them. Stan pushed Bill into the room and said, "Teach him how to flirt."

Mabel gasped in delight.

####

(Well that took way later than I wanted it to—but it's finally out.

Head's up, I've got two zine deadlines that take priority, my workload triples at the end of the year, and I'm currently preparing the house to welcome home a new baby*, so we might skip next week's chapter. Hopefully not, though; I'd hate to start the new year that way. We'll see.

*it's a snake. the new baby is a boa constrictor.

Let me know what y'all think! I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts.)

[eodflipside]

Agency log: incident 183:11:81

At 11:23 am on the 5th of october 19□□, Agent at the time designated #1233, referred to as of the declassification of the document as 'Agent Pheonix', stole an antique enigma cipher encoder/decoder from Zoraxis defense, as certain variations of the enigma code can still not be decoded presently, this item will prove invaluable for decrypting Zoraxis communications.

Conclusion: Deny existence of the encoder/decoder, and refuse all enquiries by Zoraxis.

Agent #1233 reccomended for Operation: Friendly Skies

[cipheragent81]

[star-wars-ao3-fandom-stats]

AO3 stats for Star Wars pairings - April the 9th, 2020

Here’s the current list of SW ships with at least 100 fanworks on AO3, excluding platonic relationships (tagged as ‘Character & Character’ instead of Character/Character’) and Official-Character/OC ships.

The brackets show differences between the ranking posted one month ago and the one posted today.

Milestones reached in last month:

-Reylo reached 18,000 works... and then it reached 18,500 works;

-Hanleia reached 4,000 works;

-Obitine and Lukemara reached 700 works;

-Codywan and Poe x reader reached 500 works;

-Kalluzeb, Thranto and Mando x reader reached 400 works;

-Gingerrose reached 300 works;

-Jessix, Caradin, Owen x Beru, Poenix, Jangobi/Jangoobi, Siriwan, Blyla and Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine x Theron Shan reached 100 works.

Congratulations to the shippers!

1. Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren 18,761 and 4 works tagged only as Rey/Kylo Ren/Ben Solo - 18,765 (+1,033)

2. Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren 13,707 and 3 works tagged only as Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren/Ben Solo - 13,710 (+153)

3. Poe Dameron/Finn - 6,841 (+192)

4. Leia Organa/Han Solo - 4,049 (+112)

5. Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso - 3,924 (+38)

6. Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader - 3,466 (+157)

7. Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi - 2,638 (+11)

8. Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader - 2,621 (+90)

9. Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/You - 1,950 (+108)

10. Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 1,909 (+72)

11. Poe Dameron/Rey - 1,848 (+98)

12. Finn/Rey (Star Wars) - 1,815 (+27)

13. Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus - 1,472 (+7)

14-15. Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey (+12), Luke Skywalker/Han Solo (+18) - 1,285

16. Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla - 1,145 (+24)

17. Finn/Rose Tico - 1,108 (+32)

18. Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze - 723 (+34)

19. Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker - 706 (+17)

20. Cassian Andor/Bodhi Rook - 675 (+5)

21. Armitage Hux/You - 666 (+25)

22. CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi - 596 (+102)

23. Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux - 579 (+34)

24. Poe Dameron/You - 513 (+24)

25. Clan Techie (Dredd)/Matt the Radar Technician - 466 (+2)

26. Armitage Hux/Rey - 435 (+7)

27. Padmé Amidala/Obi-Wan Kenobi - 434 (+9)

28. Jessika Pava/Rey - 430 (+5)

29. Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios - 428 (+29)

30-31. The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader 413 and 8 works tagged only as The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You (+101), Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Eli Vanto (+26) - 421

32. CT-7567 | Rex/Ahsoka Tano - 396 (+29)

33. Malavai Quinn/Sith Warrior - 379 (+2)

34. Finn/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 342 (+4)

35. Padmé Amidala/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker - 323 (+3)

36. Armitage Hux/Rose Tico - 314 (+69)

37. Armitage Hux/Phasma - 283 (+8)

38. Armitage Hux/Dopheld Mitaka - 279 (0)

39. Barriss Offee/Ahsoka Tano - 268 (+4)

40. Lando Calrissian/Han Solo - 264 (+5)

41. Phasma/Rey - 260 (0)

42. Armitage Hux/Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 259 (+2)

43. Rey/Rose Tico - 251 (+12)

44. Wedge Antilles/Luke Skywalker - 248 (+3)

45. Leia Organa/Luke Skywalker - 241 (+1)

46. Phasma/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 226 (+1)

47. Leia Organa/Luke Skywalker/Han Solo - 224 (-1)

48. Galen Erso/Orson Krennic - 215 (+3)

49. Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Maul - 213 (+6)

50-51. Obi-Wan Kenobi/CT-7567 | Rex (+6), Ezra Bridger/Sabine Wren (+7) - 212

52. Bail Organa/Breha Organa - 203 (+3)

53. Bodhi Rook/Luke Skywalker - 201 (0)

54. Anakin Skywalker/Ahsoka Tano 166 and 24 works tagged only as Ahsoka Tano/Darth Vader - 190 (+7)

55. Amilyn Holdo/Leia Organa - 188 (+5)

56. Shara Bey/Kes Dameron - 185 (+6)

57. Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython/Theron Shan - 184 (+3)

58. Obi-Wan Kenobi/You - 181 (+19)

59. Revan/Bastila Shan - 174 (+4)

60. Cassian Andor/K-2SO - 170 (+8)

61-62. CC-2224 | Cody/CT-7567 | Rex (+10), Andronikos Revel/Sith Inquisitor (+3) - 165

63. The Jedi Exile/Atton "Jaq" Rand - 163 (+5)

64. Padmé Amidala/Sabé - 161 (+4)

65-66. Rey/Luke Skywalker (+3), Galen Erso/Bodhi Rook (+1) - 157

67. Lando Calrissian/Luke Skywalker - 156 (+1)

68. Aric Jorgan/Republic Trooper - 147 (+4)

69. Obi-Wan Kenobi/Bail Organa - 134 (+1)

70. Arihnda Pryce/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo - 133 (0)

71-72. Matt The Radar Technician/You, Corso Riggs/Smuggler - 130 (+2)

73. Wedge Antilles/Tycho Celchu - 123 (+2)

74. Cassian Andor/You - 122 (+2)

75. Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV) - 121 (new on the list!)

76. Luke Skywalker/You - 118 (+3)

77. Anakin Skywalker/You 104 and 10 works tagged only as Darth Vader/Reader - 114 (+7)

78. Obi-Wan Kenobi/Asajj Ventress - 113 (+4)

79. Galen Erso/Lyra Erso - 112 (+1)

80. Kylo Ren/Rey/Ben Solo - 110 (-42)

81. Theron Shan/Sith Warrior - 109 (0)

82. Bounty Hunter/Torian Cadera - 108 (+1)

83. Carth Onasi/Revan - 107 (0)

84-86. Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi (new on the list!), CT-5597 | Jesse/CT-6116 | Kix (new on the list!), Luke Skywalker/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren (-1) - 105

87. Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine/Theron Shan - 104 (new on the list!)

88-89. Kaydel Ko Connix/Poe Dameron, Owen Lars/Beru Whitesun - 103 (new on the list!)

90. CC-5052 | Bly/Aayla Secura - 102 (new on the list!)

91-92. Gilad Pellaeon/Thrawn | Mitth’raw’nuruodo (0), Obi-Wan Kenobi/Siri Tachi (new on the list!) - 101

93. Jyn Erso/Orson Krennic - 100 (0)

[i-dedicate-this-kill-to-the-fans]

Double Agent: D Agency’s Final Exam (answer)

Sorry it took a while ^^; but here’s the answer key to the code game in the zine!

1) Converting the morse code into plain text, you’ll get a long string of numbers:  59 49 2 520 23 8 7 169 8 311 81 191 520 21 313 145

2) The keyword needed for the Vignere cipher is “sardine”, which is the highlighted answer in the crossword (courtesy of JK). Decoding “lhzv xyef ow bwhvk” using this gives you the title “This Plan of Yours”, one of the stories kindly written by screamingsongbird16.

3) Using the numbers, you need to count the number of words and take the first letter of the word. For example, the 2nd word in the story is “awoke”, so it’ll be the letter “A”. If you count all the words correctly, you’ll get:  PNAVOBEEBJNYVTUG, which at first looks like gibberish.

4) In the story, it was mentioned that the message Hatano was carrying was hidden in a ceasar cipher, rotated an unlucky number of rotations; this is the code ROT13, which is really just a ceasar cipher rotated 13 places (i.e. an unlucky number). Applying it to the string of letters, you’ll get: CANIBORROWALIGHT = CAN I BORROW A LIGHT

5) But that’s not the end, because I mentioned that what you may have discovered may not be what I’m looking for; the countersign to this is at the end of Robinson, when Kaminaga is getting to the getaway car. So, the answer is “My shoes are black” ^^ Congratulations to the winner ^^

I hope everyone had fun trying the game out, I hope it wasn’t too hard >< Until next time!

[star-wars-ao3-fandom-stats]

AO3 stats for Star Wars pairings - June the 6th, 2020

Here’s the current list of SW ships with at least 100 fanworks on AO3, excluding platonic relationships (tagged as ‘Character & Character’ instead of Character/Character’) and Official-Character/OC ships.

The brackets show differences between the ranking posted two months ago and the one posted today.

Milestones reached since then:

-Reylo reached 19,000 works... and then it reached 19,500... and then it became the first SW ship that reached 20,000;

-Finnpoe/Stormpilot reached 7,000;

-Anidala reached 3,500;

-Ben/Kylo x reader and Darkpilot reached 2,000;

-Obitine reached 800;

-Hux x reader reached 700;

-Codywan reached 600... and then it reached 700;

-Gingerpilot reached 600;

-Kalluzeb and Mando x reader reached 500;

-Rexsoka reached 400... and then it reached 500;

-Gingerrose reached 400;

-Phux reached 300;

-Obi-Wan x reader and Anisoka/Vadersoka reached 200;

-Sobiwan, Mandomera, Dinpaz/Pazdin, Kytaka, Palpakin and Vector Hyllus x Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine reached 100 and got to this list.

Congratulations to all shippers!

1. Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren 20,408 and 6 works tagged only as Rey/Kylo Ren/Ben Solo - 20,414 (+1,649)

2. Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren 13,923 and 3 works tagged only as Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren/Ben Solo - 13,926 (+216)

3. Poe Dameron/Finn - 7,130 (+289)

4. Leia Organa/Han Solo - 4,219 (+170)

5. Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso - 3,968 (+44)

6. Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader - 3,950 (+484)

7. Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader - 2,850 (+229)

8. Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi - 2,718 (+80)

9. Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/You - 2,179 (+229)

10. Poe Dameron/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 2,021 (+112)

11. Poe Dameron/Rey -1,978 (+130)

12. Finn/Rey (Star Wars) - 1,862 (+47)

13. Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus - 1,484 (+12)

14. Luke Skywalker/Han Solo - 1,327 (+42)

15. Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey - 1,313 (+28)

16. Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla - 1,224 (+79)

17. Finn/Rose Tico - 1,169 (+61)

18. Obi-Wan Kenobi/Satine Kryze - 828 (+105)

19. CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi - 796 (+200)

20. Mara Jade/Luke Skywalker - 733 (+27)

21. Armitage Hux/You - 721 (+55)

22. Cassian Andor/Bodhi Rook - 679 (+4)

23. Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux - 625 (+44)

24. Poe Dameron/You - 579 (+66)

25. Alexsandr Kallus/Garazeb "Zeb" Orrelios - 557 (+129)

26. The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader 542 and 11 works tagged only as The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You - 553 (+132)

27. CT-7567 | Rex/Ahsoka Tano - 506 (+110)

28. Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Eli Vanto - 469 (+48)

29. Clan Techie (Dredd)/Matt the Radar Technician - 468 (+2)

30. Padmé Amidala/Obi-Wan Kenobi - 455 (+21)

31. Armitage Hux/Rose Tico - 454 (+140)

32. Armitage Hux/Rey - 443 (+8)

33. Jessika Pava/Rey - 431 (+1)

34. Malavai Quinn/Sith Warrior - 388 (+9)

35. Finn/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 349 (+7)

36. Padmé Amidala/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker - 345 (+22)

37. Armitage Hux/Phasma - 301 (+18)

38. Armitage Hux/Dopheld Mitaka - 290 (+11)

39. Barriss Offee/Ahsoka Tano - 289 (+21)

40. Armitage Hux/Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 271 (+12)

41. Lando Calrissian/Han Solo - 265 (+1)

42. Rey/Rose Tico - 263 (+12)

43. Phasma/Rey - 261 (+1)

44. Wedge Antilles/Luke Skywalker - 257 (+9)

45. Leia Organa/Luke Skywalker - 248 (+7)

46. Obi-Wan Kenobi/Darth Maul - 233 (+20)

47. Phasma/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 232 (+6)

48. Obi-Wan Kenobi/CT-7567 | Rex - 231 (+19)

49. Leia Organa/Luke Skywalker/Han Solo - 226 (+2)

50. Obi-Wan Kenobi/You - 222 (+41)

51. Anakin Skywalker/Ahsoka Tano 196 and 24 works tagged only as Ahsoka Tano/Darth Vader - 220 (+30)

52-53. Ezra Bridger/Sabine Wren (+7), Galen Erso/Orson Krennic (+4) - 219

54. Bail Organa/Breha Organa - 218 (+15)

55. Bodhi Rook/Luke Skywalker - 204 (+3)

56. Shara Bey/Kes Dameron - 193 (+8)

57. Amilyn Holdo/Leia Organa - 190 (+2)

58. Jedi Knight | Hero of Tython/Theron Shan - 189 (+5)

59. CC-2224 | Cody/CT-7567 | Rex - 184 (+19)

60. Revan/Bastila Shan - 183 (+9)

61. Cassian Andor/K-2SO - 181 (+11)

62. Padmé Amidala/Sabé - 168 (+7)

63. Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV) - 167 (+46)

64. The Jedi Exile/Atton "Jaq" Rand - 166 (+3)

65. Andronikos Revel/Sith Inquisitor - 163 (-2)

66. Lando Calrissian/Luke Skywalker - 162 (+6)

67. Anakin Skywalker/You 146 and 14 works tagged only as Darth Vader/Reader - 160 (+46)

68. Carth Onasi/Revan - 159 (+52)

69. Rey/Luke Skywalker - 158 (+1)

70. Galen Erso/Bodhi Rook - 157 (0)

71. Aric Jorgan/Republic Trooper - 155 (+8)

72. Arihnda Pryce/Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo - 142 (+9)

73. Matt The Radar Technician/You - 138 (+8)

74. Obi-Wan Kenobi/Bail Organa - 137 (+3)

75. CT-5597 | Jesse/CT-6116 | Kix - 136 (+31)

76. Wedge Antilles/Tycho Celchu - 135 (+12)

77. Corso Riggs/Smuggler - 133 (+3)

78. CC-5052 | Bly/Aayla Secura - 131 (+29)

79-80. Jango Fett/Obi-Wan Kenobi (+24), Obi-Wan Kenobi/Sabé (new on the list!) - 129

81. Cassian Andor/You - 126 (+4)

82. Luke Skywalker/You - 124 (+6)

83. The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Omera (Star Wars) - 119 (new on the list!)

84. Theron Shan/Sith Warrior - 117 (+8)

85. Kylo Ren/Rey/Ben Solo - 116 (+6)

86. Obi-Wan Kenobi/Asajj Ventress - 115 (+2)

87-88. Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine/Theron Shan (+9), Galen Erso/Lyra Erso (+1) - 113

89-90. Obi-Wan Kenobi/Siri Tachi (+10), Bounty Hunter/Torian Cadera (+3) - 111

91. Luke Skywalker/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren - 109 (+4)

92. Owen Lars/Beru Whitesun - 108 (+5)

93. Kaydel Ko Connix/Poe Dameron - 106 (+3)

94-95. The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Paz Vizla, Dopheld Mitaka/Kylo Ren - 105 (new on the list!)

96. Sheev Palpatine/Anakin Skywalker 90 and 7 works tagged only as Darth Sidious/Darth Vader and 6 works tagged only as Sheev Palpatine/Darth Vader - 103 (new on the list!)

97. Gilad Pellaeon/Thrawn | Mitth’raw’nuruodo - 101 (0)

98-99. Vector Hyllus/Imperial Agent | Cipher Nine (new on the list!), Jyn Erso/Orson Krennic (0) - 100